JAPAN
Nuclear site sought
Tokyo is investigating the use of a remote, deserted Pacific island as a site for burying nuclear waste, officials said on Tuesday as the nation pivots back toward “maximum use of nuclear power” in a safe manner 15 years after the Fukushima Da-ichi disaster. The government wants to conduct a preliminary survey on Minamitorishima, the nation’s easternmost island in the Pacific, to see if it is fit to host a facility. State-owned Minamitorishima, uninhabited by civilians and off-limits to tourists, has “some unexplored landmass capable of hosting a facility,” Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Ryosei Akazawa told reporters. The triangle-shaped island surrounded by coral atoll also has some “scientifically favorable traits,” Akazawa said. A request was later submitted to a Tokyo municipality that administers the island to inspect its land conditions and volcanic activity through geological documents — the first stage of a three-part survey to select the ultimate disposal site.
Photo: Reuters
UNITED STATES
Yakuza member sentenced
A member of Japan’s yakuza crime group was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a New York court on Tuesday after being convicted of trafficking nuclear material, as well as drugs and weapons. Takeshi Ebisawa, 61, has been jailed since April 2022 on the drug and weapons charges, along with his Thai codefendant, Somphop Singhasiri, following years of investigations by the Drug Enforcement Administration. In February 2024, he was also accused of trying to sell military-grade nuclear material, along with narcotics including heroin and methamphetamine, to buy weapons, including surface-to-air missiles for armed groups in Myanmar. He pleaded guilty to six charges in January last year.
UNITED STATES
Attack suspects sought
Police on Tuesday were searching for two suspects believed to have been involved in an attack near Manhattan’s Penn Station when a 37-year-old man was set on fire as he slept. New York City Police said three men approached the sleeping man at about 8:40pm on Monday and lit his clothing on fire before fleeing into the Amtrak train station. Emergency personnel extinguished the flames and took the man to hospital in a stable condition, police said.
SOUTH AFRICA
Mosiuoa Lekota dies
Anti-apartheid activist Mosiuoa Lekota, who broke away from the African National Congress (ANC) to found a new political party, died in the early hours of yesterday, his party said in a statement. He was 77. Lekota died after a period of illness and had stepped back from active politics. He was a close ally of former president Thabo Mbeki and served as minister of defense from 1999 to 2008. Lekota, nicknamed “Terror” for his fearsome skills on the soccer pitch as a young man, quit in protest at Mbeki’s ousting and was voted off the ANC’s National Executive Committee after repeated criticism of Mbeki’s successor, former president Jacob Zuma. He cofounded the Congress of the People (COPE) party in 2008. COPE won about 7 percent of the vote in the first national election it contested, in 2009, but its vote share has been below 1 percent at every national election since then. Lekota worked as a student activist during the 1970s. He served jail time on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela before he became president.
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
An earthquake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.7 off northern Japan on Monday prompted a short-lived tsunami alert and the advisory of a higher risk of a possible mega-quake for coastal areas there. The Cabinet Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency said there was a 1% chance for a mega-quake, compared to a 0.1% chance during normal times, in the next week or so following the powerful quake near the Chishima and Japan trenches. Officials said the advisory was not a quake prediction but urged residents in 182 towns along the northeastern coasts to raise their preparedness while continuing their daily lives. Prime
HAZARDOUS CONDITION: The typhoon’s sheer size, with winds extending 443km from its center, slowed down the ability of responders to help communities, an official said The US Coast Guard was searching for six people after losing contact with their disabled boat off the coast of Guam following Typhoon Sinlaku. The crew of the 44m dry cargo vessel, the US-registered Mariana, on Wednesday notified the coast guard that the boat had lost its starboard engine and needed assistance, Petty Officer 3rd Class Avery Tibbets said yesterday. The coast guard set up a one-hour communication schedule with the vessel, but lost contact on Thursday. A Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules aircraft was launched to search for the six people on board, but it had to return to Guam because of
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