INDIA
Modi to meet Kishida
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to strengthen the countries’ partnership in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond in view of China’s growing footprint, an official said on Thursday. Today’s meeting would provide an opportunity to exchange views on regional and global issues of mutual interest, Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Arindam Bagchi said. Kishida would be in India over the weekend, he said. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the relationship with China are expected to figure prominently in their discussions. Japan has announced comprehensive financial sanctions to isolate Russia, including export controls on semiconductors, but India has refrained from taking sides in the conflict and abstained from voting against Russia at the UN or criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin.
JAPAN
Energy transition to speed up
Tokyo is to accelerate its efforts to develop offshore wind power projects, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Koichi Hagiuda said yesterday. Officials in the resource-poor country are concerned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing surge in oil prices could hit economic growth, although they say there has been no immediate major disruption to energy supply. Hagiuda told reporters that the government would revamp the public tender process for picking wind farm operators, taking into account not only the prices bid, but also how early systems can be installed.
AUSTRALIA
Great Barrier Reef bleaching
The Great Barrier Reef has been hit by bleaching due to heat stress, the agency that manages the reef said yesterday, ahead of a visit by UN officials reviewing whether the reef should be listed as being “in danger.” Australia last year dodged an “in danger” listing for the UNESCO World Heritage site, after heavy lobbying by Canberra led the UN agency to postpone a decision to this year. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said in a weekly update that most of the marine park had been hit by “significant heat stress” over the summer, with water temperatures in some areas as much as 4°C above average. “Bleaching has been detected across the marine park — it is widespread, but variable, across multiple regions, ranging in impact from minor to severe,” the agency said. Aerial surveys showed whole colonies of coral had been bleached white in several locations, and in some sections there were reports of corals dying, it said. “Corals across the marine park remain vulnerable to the ongoing elevated temperatures,” the authority said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Diana aide to get BBC payout
The BBC on Thursday said it would make a substantial payout to a former private secretary of the late princess Diana over the broadcaster’s much criticized 1995 interview with the royal. A report in May last year concluded that BBC journalist Martin Bashir had used deceit to obtain the interview, which caused a sensation when Diana admitted to an affair and shared details of her marriage to Prince Charles. In a statement, the BBC said it had now reached a settlement with Patrick Jephson, who worked for Diana until shortly before her death in a vehicle crash in Paris in 1997. “The BBC accepts and acknowledges that serious harm was caused to commander Jephson as a result of the circumstances in which the 1995 interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, was obtained,” the statement said.
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
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
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
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