JAPAN
Ghosn accomplices face jail
Prosecutors are seeking jail sentences of nearly three years for an American father-son duo who admitted to helping former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn jump bail and flee Japan, they said yesterday. The prosecutors told a Tokyo court they are seeking a sentence of two years, 10 months for former special forces operative Michael Taylor, and two years, six months for his son, Peter. “Michael Taylor ... played a leading role. His responsibility is extremely grave,” one of the prosecutors said, calling Ghosn’s “unprecedented” December 2019 escape a “sophisticated and bold crime.” The Taylors have been in custody since their arrest in May last year in the US for helping smuggle Ghosn onto a private jet in an audio equipment case, so he could fly to Lebanon, which has no extradition agreement with Japan. Ghosn had led Nissan for nearly two decades, but was arrested in 2018 on allegations of financial crimes, which he denies.
AUSTRALIA
Nation to cut arrivals by half
Australia yesterday announced a dramatic cut in the number of people who would be allowed to enter the country, as it struggles to contain COVID-19 cluster infections that plunged major cities into lockdown. With almost half of the nation’s population under stay-at-home orders, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that quotas for overseas arrivals would be cut by about 50 percent to help prevent further outbreaks. Under the “zero COVID” strategy, just 6,000 people are allowed to enter Australia on overseas commercial flights each week, and arrivals must undergo mandatory two weeks hotel quarantine. That quota would be cut to about 3,000 by the middle of this month, Morrison said, although the government would step up its private repatriation flights. Morrison announced the decision amid growing anger over repeated snap lockdowns, the leakiness of hotel quarantine facilities and what critics have dubbed a vaccine “stroll out.”
UNITED KINGDOM
MP elected in key vote
The sister of murdered lawmaker Jo Cox yesterday was narrowly elected to her old seat in parliament in a by-election seen as a make-or-break for Keir Starmer, the embattled leader of the opposition Labour Party. The by-election was closely watched as the seat of Batley and Spen lies in Labour’s traditional northern English heartlands, a region where Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party have increasingly been making inroads. Labour candidate Kim Leadbeater managed to see off her Conservative rival Ryan Stephenson by a slim margin of 323 votes, winning 35.27 percent of the vote overall. “I’m absolutely delighted that the people of Batley and Spen have rejected division and they’ve voted for hope,” Leadbeater said after the results were announced. The seat was previously held by her sister, Cox, who was murdered by a far-right extremist during the febrile Brexit referendum campaign in 2016.
UNITED STATES
Federal executions halted
The Department of Justice is halting federal executions after a historic use of capital punishment by the administration of former president Donald Trump, which carried out 13 executions in six months. Attorney General Merrick Garland made the announcement on Thursday night, saying he was imposing a moratorium on federal executions, while the department conducts a review of its policies and procedures. He gave no timetable.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
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