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.
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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