JAPAN
PM wants to meet Kim
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi yesterday said she has requested to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to resolve the long-standing issue of Japanese nationals abducted by Pyongyang decades ago. After years of denial, North Korea in 2002 admitted that its agents had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and ’80s, who were used to train Pyongyang’s spies in Japanese language and customs. Tokyo believes North Korea abducted at least 17 Japanese, while others say many more might have been taken to Pyongyang. “In order to build a new, fruitful relation between Japan and North Korea, I am resolved to meet face-to-face with Chairman Kim Jong-un,” Takaichi told an awareness event on the issue in Tokyo. Pyongyang has not yet publicly responded to Takaichi’s request. “I will use any means necessary for this issue with the lives of the victims and our national sovereignty at stake,” she said.
HONG KONG
Activist fails to avert trial
The High Court yesterday rejected an application by pro-democracy activist Chow Hang-tung (鄒幸彤) to terminate a subversion trial involving herself and a group that once organized commemorations of the Tiananmen crackdown. Chow, 40, the former vice chair of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, and two other former leaders, Lee Cheuk-yan (李卓人) and Albert Ho (何俊仁), face up to life imprisonment for “inciting subversion of state power,” under a China-imposed National Security Law. She and others were accused of inciting others “to organize, plan, commit, or participate in acts by unlawful means with a view to subverting state power” between July 1, 2020, and Sept. 8, 2021. Chow, who represented herself, said she could not understand what those unlawful means were. Prosecutor Ned Lai (黎嘉誼) said “unlawful means” referred to any means aimed at ending the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership that would violate China’s constitution. Chow argued ending the CCP’s leadership could a goal or a result, but not a means. She also argued that the prosecution’s accusations were vague and insubstantial, that amounted to a “catch-all” crime that made a fair trial difficult. The three judges rejected Chow’s application and will give their reasons one day before the trial starts on Jan. 22.
SOUTH KOREA
Xi jokes about phone gift
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Saturday joked about spying on South Korean President Lee Jae-myung as he gifted him a pair of smartphones, telling him to “check if there is a backdoor” in a rare jest from the Chinese leader that made headlines in Seoul. The lighthearted exchange took place in Gyeongju, when Xi and Lee presented gifts to each other on the sidelines of an APEC summit. Xi presented two Xiaomi smartphones fitted with Korean-made displays to Lee, who quipped: “Is the communication line secure?” drawing laughter from Xi. Pointing at the devices, Xi replied: “You should check if there is a backdoor,” prompting laughter and applause from Lee.
UNITED STATES
Escaped monkey killed
One of the monkeys that escaped last week after a truck overturned on a Mississippi roadway was shot and killed early on Sunday by a homeowner who said she feared for the safety of her children. Jessica Bond Ferguson said she was alerted by her 16-year-old son who said he thought he had seen a monkey running in the yard outside their home near Heidelberg. She got out bed, grabbed her firearm and her cellphone and stepped outside where she saw the monkey about 18m away. Bond said she and other residents had been warned about the diseases that the escaped monkeys carried so she fired her gun. “I did what any other mother would do to protect her children,” said Bond, who has five children ranging aged 4 to 16. The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks took possession of the monkey, the sheriff’s office said.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
SECRETIVE SECT: Tetsuya Yamagami was said to have held a grudge against the Unification Church for bankrupting his family after his mother donated about ￥100m The gunman accused of killing former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe yesterday pleaded guilty, three years after the assassination in broad daylight shocked the world. The slaying forced a reckoning in a nation with little experience of gun violence, and ignited scrutiny of alleged ties between prominent conservative lawmakers and a secretive sect, the Unification Church. “Everything is true,” Tetsuya Yamagami said at a court in the western city of Nara, admitting to murdering the nation’s longest-serving leader in July 2022. The 45-year-old was led into the room by four security officials. When the judge asked him to state his name, Yamagami, who
DEADLY PREDATORS: In New South Wales, smart drumlines — anchored buoys with baited hooks — send an alert when a shark bites, allowing the sharks to be tagged High above Sydney’s beaches, drones seek one of the world’s deadliest predators, scanning for the flick of a tail, the swish of a fin or a shadow slipping through the swell. Australia’s oceans are teeming with sharks, with great whites topping the list of species that might fatally chomp a human. Undeterred, Australians flock to the sea in huge numbers — with a survey last year showing that nearly two-thirds of the population made a total of 650 million coastal visits in a single year. Many beach lovers accept the risks. When a shark killed surfer Mercury Psillakis off a northern Sydney beach last
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
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