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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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