RISING RISK: With no communication between nations flying jets closely over the South China Sea, one mistake by a pilot could quickly escalate a situation, an expert said
The China Coast Guard (CCG) maintained near-daily patrols at key features across the disputed South China Sea last year, ramping up its presence as tensions over the waterway with Southeast Asian neighbors remain high, new tracking data shows. Patrols in the waters surrounding the Vanguard Bank off Vietnam, an area known for its oil and gas reserves and the site of repeated standoffs between Chinese and Vietnamese vessels, more than doubled to 310 days last year, the Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative said. The number of days Chinese ships patrolled near Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗) in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), which Taiwan also claims and where the Philippines maintains a garrison, increased to 279 from 232, while those at Luconia Shoals, near important Malaysian oil and gas operations, rose to 316 from 279, the analysis showed. The patrols show that Beijing’s determination to assert control over its claim to more than 80 percent of the South China Sea, the analysis of ship identification data says, and raises the risk of a mishap at sea that regional officials worry could lead to a larger conflict. “With CCG vessels operating in Malaysian, Philippine and Vietnamese waters every day of the year, it all but guarantees tensions remain high and run-ins with those neighbors a regular occurrence,” said Greg Poling, head of the Southeast Asia program at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies. The report said that its count of Chinese incursions are probably incomplete, because not all ships employ the transceivers used to track their whereabouts, and some try to obscure their identities with false data. Poling said the Chinese patrols are becoming a fact of life in the region. “The patrol locations have been extremely consistent in recent years, creating a predictable status quo that the Southeast Asian parties can manage, albeit with
Even before his onions are fully grown, Philippine farmer Luis Angeles races to harvest the crop and cash in on eye-watering prices for a vegetable that has become a luxury item in the country. Onion prices have soared in the past few months, reaching as high as 800 pesos (US$14.67) per kilogram in Manila supermarkets, making them more expensive than chicken or pork. Some restaurants have stripped the staple ingredient from dishes, while many families already grappling with the highest inflation in 14 years have stopped eating them. To meet demand and push retail prices back below 200 pesos, the government has approved the importation of 21,000 tonnes of onions and faces calls to crack down on traders suspected of hoarding. However, prices remain stubbornly high and onion farmers like Angeles have been harvesting earlier than usual to reap the windfall. “What is happening is historic,” Angeles, 37, said, as his workers pulled undersized red and white bulbs out of the soil near the northern town of Bongabon, the country’s self-proclaimed “onion capital.” “This is the first time that prices have reached this level,” he said. When he began harvesting last month, Angeles received as much as 250 pesos per kilogram for his crop. By the time his onions reached Manila supermarket shelves, the price had more than doubled, exceeding the daily minimum wage. “I told my family: ‘Let’s just smell the onion instead of eating it,’” Candy Roasa, 56, said as she walked through a market in the capital where she has seen vendors selling bulbs the size of a small child’s fist for as much as 80 pesos each. As onion memes spread on social media, the humble vegetable has become a symbol of wealth in the poverty-afflicted country. At least one bride used pricey bulbs instead of flowers for her wedding bouquet. Philippine Airlines crew members on a recent
Chinese police have prevented a woman from returning to her home in Florida in an effort to compel her husband to return to China, she wrote in a letter he made public. The case appears to be the latest example of Chinese authorities placing an “exit ban” on a person’s relatives to pressure them to return. In an appeal to authorities, Xie Fang (謝芳), 51, wrote that the police have told her that she is “innocent,” but that she cannot leave until her husband, a former bookseller who left China after his store was shut down for political reasons, gives himself up. She was barred from boarding a plane in Shanghai in August last year, her husband, Yu Miao (于淼), said, and has not been able to leave China since. Exit bans, which critics have likened to hostage-taking, have affected both Chinese citizens and foreigners. The US government includes exit bans as a risk in its travel advisory for people going to China. Yu declined to provide contact information for his wife, citing concerns about her safety. He did arrange for an Associated Press journalist to join a call between them in which she confirmed that she wrote the letter, but declined to comment further. The Shanghai Public Security Bureau did not immediately respond to faxed questions on Monday and a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman said she was not aware of the case. Chinese prosecutors have previously described the practice of using exit bans on family members to pressure wanted people to return. Prosecutors, in notes about the case of a former Chinese businessman who was accused of stealing US$6 million and had moved to Canada, wrote that they set up a special task force to “vigorously squeeze his survival” and placed exit bans on his son, daughter-in-law and ex-wife as part of a campaign to
China’s wave of COVID-19 is “coming to an end,” health officials said yesterday, adding that there had been no sign of a new surge from the Lunar New Year holiday, despite a big increase in travel compared with last year. Government figures released yesterday showed a big rise in tourism and hospitality activity compared with the same time last year. Factory activity has also rebounded for the first time in four months, an early sign of economic return after the country reported its slowest growth in about half a century during strict COVID-19 controls. After abruptly lifting its “zero COVID” restrictions in early December, China was swamped by a wave of COVID-19 cases. Available data on admissions to hospitals and fever clinics released in the past few weeks showed an apparent peak in infections early last month. There were concerns that the mass travel of hundreds of millions of people over the Lunar New Year holiday could further spread infections. However, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday said “there has not been an obvious rebound in COVID cases.” “In this time, no new variant has been discovered, and the country’s current wave is coming to an end,” it said. Chinese Ministry of Transport data showed that travel in the first 22 days of this year’s holiday was 75.8 percent higher than last year’s, although it was still only about half that of 2019’s before the pandemic. Officials had predicted that travel would increase by 99.5 percent year-on-year over the whole 40 days, and reach 70.3 percent of pre-pandemic levels, analysis firm Trivium said. Other economic figures were mixed, as China grapples with the lingering economic effects of “zero COVID.” The most positive results were in the tourism and hospitality sectors, which reached almost 81 percent of pre-pandemic levels. Domestic tourism trips increased to 88.6 percent of
NO WAY BACK: Stanford University’s Noah Diffenbaugh said the world is on the brink of the 1.5°C warming mark in ‘any realistic emissions reduction scenario’
The world is likely to breach the internationally agreed-upon climate change threshold in about a decade and keep heating to break through a next warming limit about mid-century even with big pollution cuts, artificial intelligence (AI) predicts in a new study that is more pessimistic than previous modeling. The study in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reignites a debate on whether it is still possible to limit global warming to 1.5°C, as called for in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, to minimize the most damaging effects of climate change. The world has already warmed 1.1°C or 1.2°C since preindustrial times, or the mid-19th century, scientists say. Two climate scientists using machine learning calculated that Earth would surpass the 1.5°C mark between 2033 and 2035. Their results fit with other, more conventional methods of predicting when Earth would break the mark, though with a bit more precision. “There will come a time when we call the 1.5°C target for maximum warming dead, beyond the shadow of a doubt,” Brown University Environment Institute director Kim Cobb, who was not part of the study, said in an e-mail interview. “And this paper may be the beginning of the end of the 1.5°C target.” Stanford University’s Noah Diffenbaugh, a study coauthor, said the world is on the brink of the 1.5°C mark in “any realistic emissions reduction scenario.” Avoiding a 2°C rise could depend on nations meeting zero-emissions goals by the middle of this century, he said. The AI-based study found it unlikely that temperature increase could be held below 2°C, even with tough emissions cuts, and that is where the AI really differs with scientists who had been forecasting using computer models that are based on past observations, Diffenbaugh said. In a high-pollution scenario, the AI calculated the world would hit the 2°C mark in about 2050. Lower
The White House is to end a pair of COVID-19 emergency declarations on May 11, spelling the elimination of the controversial Title 42 restrictions and expulsion measures at the US-Mexico border. The COVID-19 national emergency and public health emergency are to be extended to that date and then lifted, the administration said on Monday in a statement of policy on bills related to the measures. It is a milestone in a COVID-19 response that dominated much of the early weeks of US President Joe Biden’s administration. The White House released the statement of administration policy in response to a pair of measures proposed by Republicans in the US House of Representatives that would terminate the emergencies. It would also mean the end of Title 42, a border policy that expanded expulsion powers based on the emergency declaration. The measure is to end on May 11 when the emergency underpinning it expires, an administration official said in a written statement. The US pandemic response has gradually shifted to the background, even as uptake of the latest booster shot remains modest. About 500 people are dying each day from COVID-19, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show. Title 42 was invoked by the administration of then-US president Donald Trump in 2020 as a means to slow the spread of COVID-19, but then became a flashpoint. Many Republicans supported the public health powers as a de facto border measure, whereas immigration groups had pushed for it to be lifted. Title 42 has been used more than 2 million times to expel migrants since the spring of 2020, US government data shows. The US Supreme Court in December last year ruled that it must remain in effect until justices hear arguments on whether to lift it. The end of Title 42 is expected to coincide with an increase in
‘DISTURBING’: Nearly half of 16 to 21-year-olds assumed that girls either ‘expect’ or ‘enjoy’ sex which involves physical aggression, such as airway restriction
One in 10 children have watched pornography by the time they are nine years old, according to “disturbing” new research by the children’s commissioner for England. The report found that one-quarter of pupils in their final year of primary school had already been exposed. It also showed much of the material being consumed by children and young people featured violence. Four out of five (79 percent) of those surveyed had seen pornography involving violence by the age of 18, while one in three young people have actively sought out depictions of sexual violence such as physical aggression, coercion and degradation. The report, by Dame Rachel de Souza, also points to the harmful effects of exposure to violent pornography. Nearly half of the 16 to 21-year-olds who took part in the survey assumed girls either “expect” or “enjoy” sex which involves physical aggression, such as airway restriction. De Souza said she was “deeply concerned” by the findings, particularly the normalization of sexual violence online, and the role it plays in shaping children’s understanding of sex and relationships. “Throughout my career as school-leader I have witnessed the harmful impact of pornography on young people. I will never forget the girl who told me about her first kiss with her boyfriend, aged 12, who strangled her. He had seen it in pornography and thought it normal,” she wrote in the foreword to the report. “We urgently need to do more to protect children from the harms of online pornography. It should not be the case that young children are stumbling across violent and misogynistic pornography on social media sites. I truly believe we will look back in 20 years and be horrified by the content to which children were being exposed.” The commissioner said it was “crucial” not to miss the opportunity offered by the online safety bill, which
A fishing community in southern Brazil has an unusual ally — wild dolphins. Accounts of people and dolphins working together to hunt fish go back millennia, from the time of the Roman Empire near what is now southern France to 19th-century Queensland, Australia, but while historians and storytellers have recounted the human point of view, it has been impossible to confirm how the dolphins have benefited — or if they have been taken advantage of — before sonar and underwater microphones could track them underwater. In the seaside city of Laguna scientists have, for the first time, used drones, underwater sound recordings and other tools to document how local people and dolphins coordinate actions and benefit from each other’s labor. The most successful humans and dolphins are skilled at reading each other’s body language. The research was published on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The Laguna residents work with wild bottlenose dolphins to catch schools of migratory silver fish called mullet. It is a locally famous alliance that has been recorded in newspaper records going back 150 years. “This study clearly shows that both dolphins and humans are paying attention to each other’s behavior, and that dolphins provide a cue to when the nets should be cast,” said Stephanie King, a biologist who studies dolphin communication at the University of Bristol in England and was not involved in the research. “This is really incredible cooperative behavior.” “By working with the dolphins,” the people catch more fish, “and the dolphins are more successful in foraging, too,” she said. Dolphins and humans are both highly intelligent and long-lived social animals, but when it comes to fishing, they have different abilities. “The water is really murky here, so the people can’t see the schools of fish, but the dolphins use sounds to find them, by
Yogi, Paddington and Winnie the Pooh, move over. There is a new bear in town. Or on Mars, anyway. The beaming face of a cute-looking teddy bear appears to have been carved into the surface of our nearest planetary neighbor, waiting for a passing satellite to discover it and when the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter passed over last month, carrying aboard the most powerful camera ever to venture into the Solar System, that is exactly what happened. Scientists operating the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), which has been circling Mars since 2006, crunched the data that made it back to Earth and have now published a picture of the face. “There’s a hill with a V-shaped collapse structure [the nose], two craters [the eyes] and a circular fracture pattern [the head],” said scientists at the University of Arizona, which operates HiRISE. Each one of the features in the 2,000m-wide face has a possible explanation that hints at just how active the surface of the planet is. “The circular fracture pattern might be due to the settling of a deposit over a buried impact crater,” the scientists said. “Maybe the nose is a volcanic or mud vent and the deposit could be lava or mud flows?” HiRISE, one of six instruments aboard the orbiter, snaps super-detailed pictures of the Red Planet helping to map the surface for possible future missions, either by humans or robots. Over the past 10 years the team has managed to capture images of avalanches as they happened, and discovered dark flows that could be some kind of liquid. They have also found dust devils twirling across the Martian surface, as well as a feature that some people thought looked a lot like the Star Trek Starfleet logo. One thing they have not found, though, is the little green men who were once popularly believed to
The late pop singer Michael Jackson is to be portrayed by his 26-year-old nephew, Jaafar Jackson, in the biographical movie Michael, Lionsgate studio said on Monday. Michael is to explore “the complicated man who became the King of Pop,” Lionsgate said in a statement. The film will include “all aspects of his life and his most noteworthy performances that set him on the path to becoming an icon in the musical world,” the statement said. Production is to start this year and the film is being directed by Antoine Fuqua and produced by Graham King, who both said that Jaafar Jackson had a natural ability to emulate his uncle and bring him to life. “It was clear that he is the only person to take on this role,” King said, adding that he “cannot wait for the world to see him on the big screen as Michael Jackson.” Lionsgate did not directly address one of the most controversial aspects of Michael Jackson’s story — his trial on child sex abuse charges in 2005 and additional allegations against the singer featured in the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland. Jackson in 2005 was acquitted by a California jury in the sex abuse case involving a 13-year-old boy. The 2019 documentary followed the accounts of Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who claimed they were befriended by Michael Jackson and were abused by him from ages 7 and 10 respectively, in the early 1990s. A California appeals court in 2020 ruled that the two men could pursue their claims through a lawsuit. The Jackson family denied those accusations and the Michael Jackson estate won its appeal that year. Michael Jackson was a child star with his family’s pop group the Jackson 5 and went on to a solo career that made him one of the most famous people on the planet before his death
RESPIRATORY DISEASES: A North Korean ministry notice says that the ‘special anti-epidemic period’ imposed in Pyongyang has been lifted, the Russian embassy said
The Russian embassy in North Korea yesterday said that Pyongyang has eased stringent epidemic controls in the capital that were placed during the past five days to slow the spread of respiratory illnesses. North Korea has not officially acknowledged a lockdown in Pyongyang or a re-emergence of COVID-19 after leader Kim Jong-un declared a widely disputed victory over the virus in August last year, but the Russian embassy’s Facebook posts have provided rare glimpses into the secretive country’s infectious disease controls. The embassy yesterday posted a notice issued by the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs informing foreign diplomats that the “special anti-epidemic period” imposed in Pyongyang since Wednesday was lifted as of yesterday. Last week, the embassy said that North Korean health authorities required diplomatic missions to keep their employees indoors, and to measure their temperatures four times a day and report the results to a hospital in Pyongyang. It said the North Korean measures were in response to an increase in “flu and other respiratory diseases,” but it did not mention the spread of COVID-19 or restrictions imposed on regular citizens. Shortly before that post, NK News, a North Korea-focused news Web site, cited a North Korean government notice to report that health officials had imposed a five-day lockdown in Pyongyang in an effort to stem the spread of respiratory illnesses. Getting a read of North Korea’s virus situation is difficult as the country has been tightly shut since early 2020, with officials imposing strict border controls, banning tourists and aid workers, and jetting out diplomats while scrambling to shield its poor healthcare system. North Korea’s admission of a COVID-19 outbreak in May last year came after spending years rejecting outside offers of vaccines and other help while steadfastly claiming that its superior socialist system was protecting its population from an “evil” virus that
Australia is preparing for the arrival of thousands of Chinese students, Australian Minister for Education Jason Clare said yesterday, days after the Chinese Ministry of Education told students enrolled overseas that online learning would no longer be recognized. Australia’s education sector, which generated A$39 billion (US$27.7 billion) in export earnings before the COVID-19 pandemic, has strong ties to China, with about 150,000 Chinese enrolled in Australian universities. Tens of thousands remain offshore after COVID-19 restrictions and strained diplomatic relations led many to return home. However, with three weeks to go before Australian universities start, the Chinese ministry’s Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange on Saturday said that it would no longer recognize overseas degrees obtained via online learning and urged students to return to overseas campuses as soon as possible. “At present, the borders of major destinations for international study have reopened, and foreign [overseas] colleges and universities have fully resumed offline teaching,” it said in a statement. China last month dropped nearly all of its COVID-19 curbs, leading to a surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths, as Beijing shifted focus to salvage a faltering economy. The normalizing of educational ties comes weeks after Chinese officials relaxed import bans on Australian coal, as both countries work to improve diplomatic relations after more than two years of Chinese trade sanctions that have frozen trade in barley, coal and wine, and other goods and services. Clare yesterday welcomed the move and said he would work with his counterpart in the Australian Department of Home Affairs to help universities resolve any short-term logistical issues. Phil Honeywood, chief executive officer at International Education Association of Australia, an advocacy body for international education in the nation, said there were currently about 40,000 Chinese students still offshore. “We anticipate a lot of Chinese students will be scrambling as we speak to get on flights
South Korea yesterday scrapped a mask mandate for most indoor public places in a major step to loosen COVID-19 rules, but many residents opted to keep wearing coverings due to lingering concerns over infections. The lifting of the face-covering rules in the majority of indoor locations is the nation’s latest step in easing COVID-19 rules as new cases show signs of a slowdown. People are still required to wear masks in public transport settings and in medical facilities. Most restaurant owners and visitors in Seoul’s bustling Gwanghwamun District, where government and corporate buildings are located, welcomed the new policy. However, many South Koreans also said they would still wear masks with the pandemic not fully over. “I’d thought it was kind of meaningless we had to put the masks on just to enter and leave a restaurant, so it’s nice that has changed now,” said Yoon Seok-jun, a 30-year-old office worker at Gwanghwamun. Kim Jae-jin, 28, also said he was glad he could now work out at a gym without wearing a mask. Still, he said he would continue putting on the coverings in most public facilities. “It would be much more comfortable to run on treadmill, but I am still concerned about a new respiratory disease after COVID,” said Kim, an office worker. South Korean health authorities have warned that the easing of mask rules could result in a temporary surge in new cases, urging people to stay vigilant when in high-risk areas, especially for those more vulnerable to infections. “COVID-19 isn’t over yet and it looks like masks do protect me from getting cold and other diseases, so I think I’ll wear them for the time being,” said Jeong Hye-won, a 28-year-old Seoul office worker.
RADIOACTIVE: Authorities said vibrations from the truck transporting the gauge could have caused the screws to come loose, allowing the capsule to come apart
Rio Tinto Ltd yesterday apologized for the loss of a tiny radioactive capsule that has sparked a radiation alert across parts of the vast state of Western Australia. The radioactive capsule, believed to have fallen from a truck, was part of a gauge used to measure the density of iron ore feed that had been entrusted to a specialist contractor to transport. The loss might have occurred up to two weeks ago. Authorities are grappling with the daunting task of searching along the truck’s 1,400km journey from north of Newman — a small town in the remote Kimberley region — to a storage facility in the northeast suburbs of Perth — a distance longer than the length of Great Britain. The task, while akin to finding the proverbial needle in a haystack, is “not impossible” as searchers are equipped with radiation detectors, said Andrew Stuchbery, who runs the department of Nuclear Physics and Accelerator Applications at the Australian National University. “That’s like if you dangled a magnet over a haystack, it’s going to give you more of a chance,” he said. “If the source just happened to be lying in the middle of the road you might get lucky... It’s quite radioactive so if you get close to it, it will stick out,” he said. The gauge was picked up from Rio’s Gudai-Darri mine site on Jan. 12. When it was unpacked for inspection on Wednesday last week, the gauge was found broken apart, with one of four mounting bolts missing and screws from the gauge also gone. Authorities suspect vibrations from the truck caused the screws and the bolt to come loose, and the radioactive capsule from the gauge fell out of the package and then out of a gap in the truck. “We are taking this incident very seriously. We recognize this is clearly very concerning
REGIONAL SECURITY: Fiji has loosened ties with Beijing, instead forging closer relationships with countries such as Kiribati in the Pacific region
Kiribati could rejoin the Pacific Islands Forum, returning to the strategic bloc of nations as it grapples with China’s push for regional influence, Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said yesterday. Kiribati, a central Pacific country of about 120,000 people, quit the forum in July last year after it was snubbed in a vote to lead the secretariat. Rabuka has been trying to bring Kiribati back into the bloc, and earlier this month used his first official overseas visit to meet with Kiribati President Taneti Maamau. Rabuka said he had since received a letter from Maamau that indicated “they were willing to rejoin the Pacific Islands Forum.” “What we did a few weeks ago had to be done. That was the way to do things in the Pacific,” he said. Regional powers Australia and New Zealand — who are members of the Pacific Islands Forum — have stressed the bloc’s importance in deciding the security strategy of the region. The US and allies such as Australia have been scrambling to limit China’s expanding footprint in the Pacific. China signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands in April last year, sparking fears that it could eventually seek to establish a military base in the Melanesian Archipelago. Beijing tried to push through a wide-ranging security pact involving 10 other Pacific nations, but was swiftly rebuffed. Fiji, one of the forum’s most influential members, had grown particularly close to China under former Fijian prime minister Frank Bainimarama, who was defeated in a turbulent general election last month. Since taking office, Rabuka has signaled his desire to loosen his country’s reliance on Beijing, instead favoring stronger ties with Pacific neighbors. “We have the same concerns, particularly economic concerns, our physical concerns related to climate change and security concerns,” Rabuka said. “We are too small to be looking after ourselves, even if we combine our defense forces,
Two men are presumed dead after their bodies were recovered following an avalanche in Japan, police said yesterday, a day after an off-piste accident in the central region of Nagano. Japanese authorities declined to identify the pair, but US ski magazine Mountain Gazette reported that one of the dead was US professional skier Kyle Smaine. Two men who were traveling with Smaine wrote on Instagram that he had been killed in the avalanche. Search teams found two men “in cardio-respiratory arrest” yesterday, Japanese police officer Tomohiro Kushibiki said, using a term commonly employed in Japan before a death can be confirmed by a doctor. The missing two had been outside the patrolled areas of a ski resort in Otari village along with several other skiers and snowboarders when the incident took place on Sunday. The others were able to return down the mountain, but two foreign nationals were still missing by Sunday night. Kushibiki said he could not confirm the identities of the two men found yesterday, or their nationalities. However, Mountain Gazette said Smaine, 31, had been killed in an avalanche in Nagano on Sunday. The magazine said he was with another professional skier, Adam U, and the publication’s senior photographer Grant Gunderson. “Yesterday was my absolute worst nightmare scenario,” Gunderson wrote in an Instagram post yesterday. He said an avalanche had been triggered by a skier, and Smaine “was thrown 50 meters by the air blast and buried and killed.” Last week, a cold snap blanketed much of Japan in heavy snow, including Nagano, which draws many overseas tourists during ski season. An avalanche warning and snow warning are currently in place for the area. Fans were quick to leave tributes to Smaine on a video he posted on Instagram on Sunday showing him skiing off-piste. “This is what brings me back to Japan each winter. Unbelievable snow quality, non-stop storms, and
A Japanese former soldier who was sexually assaulted by her colleagues said yesterday she is suing the government and the perpetrators over the “superficial” apologies and mistreatment she received. Last year, Rina Gonoi went public about the assaults she was subjected to, after an investigation was dropped on the grounds of insufficient evidence. The military subsequently acknowledged the assaults and harassment that occurred in 2021, but only after public pressure by Gonoi, including a petition signed by more than 100,000 people demanding an investigation. Last month, five Japanese soldiers were dismissed over the case, but Gonoi said the apologies she has received were “superficial” and lawyers for the assailants continued to trivialize the incidents in discussions over a settlement. “I didn’t want to choose the option of fighting, but I have not received a message that reassures me they really regret” what they did, she told reporters. “Given the differences over the issue between their side and me, I think it’s necessary to open things up [to the public through the lawsuit], which I think will help prevent a repeat,” she added. Gonoi is seeking a total of ￥7.5 million (US$57,923) — ￥5.5 million from her attackers for mental distress, and ￥2 million from the government for failing to prevent the assaults and properly investigate them. Her case is being reinvestigated by prosecutors who are weighing possible criminal charges after she lodged a complaint about the failure to indict the men involved, her lawyers said yesterday. The army acknowledged that its probe found that Gonoi routinely faced sexual harassment and assault at her unit and during training sessions. While Japan ranks high on education and healthcare for women, its male-dominated society has long lagged behind industrial peers in placing women in boardrooms and in high public office. Just 4 percent of rape victims report the crime to police, government data
TELEPHONE CALL: Former British prime minister Boris Johnson had warned that there would be tough sanctions if Russia invaded Ukraine and increased support for NATO
Former British prime minister Boris Johnson said that Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed he could have sent a missile to hit Britain “within a minute,” in a call just before the invasion of Ukraine. Johnson’s comments came in a three-part documentary for the BBC looking at the conflict in Ukraine and the lead-up to Russia’s invasion in February last year. It had been in a conversation about hypothetical support for NATO on Russia’s borders if Putin decided to invade, as Johnson tried to talk Putin down. He told the makers of Putin vs the West that he did not regard Putin’s comments as a threat. He went on to become one of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s biggest supporters and has visited Kyiv since resigning as prime minister. “He sort of threatened me at one point and said: ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you, but with a missile, it would only take a minute,’ or something like that,” Johnson said. “I think from the very relaxed tone that he was taking, the sort of air of detachment that he seemed to have, he was just playing along with my attempts to get him to negotiate.” Johnson had warned that there would be tougher sanctions if Russia invaded and that support for NATO would increase — even if Ukraine was not close to becoming a member. “He said: ‘Boris, you say that Ukraine is not going to join NATO anytime soon? What is anytime soon?’ and I said: ‘Well it’s not going to join NATO for the foreseeable future. You know that perfectly well,’” Johnson said of the telephone call with Putin. British Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace also spoke in the documentary about a visit to Moscow in February last year in an unsuccessful attempt to negotiate and see off war. He met Russian Minister of
Russian missile strikes killed three people in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson while fighting raged in the eastern Donetsk region where Russia again shelled the key town of Vuhledar, officials said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine was facing a difficult situation in Donetsk and needed faster weapons supplies and new types of weaponry, just days after allies agreed to provide Kyiv with heavy battle tanks. “The situation is very tough. Bakhmut, Vuhledar and other sectors in Donetsk region — there are constant Russian attacks,” Zelenskiy said in a video address late on Sunday. “Russia wants the war to drag on and exhaust our forces. So we have to make time our weapon. We have to speed up events, speed up supplies and open up new weapons options for Ukraine.” Three people were killed and six injured on Sunday by Russian strikes on Kherson that damaged a hospital and a school, the regional administration said. Russian troops had occupied Kherson shortly after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February last year and held the city until Ukrainian forces recaptured it in November. Since its liberation, the city has regularly been shelled from Russian positions across the Dnipro River. Later on Sunday a missile struck an apartment building in the northeastern town of Kharkiv, killing an elderly woman, Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Synehubov said. A Reuters picture from the scene showed fire engulfing part of a residential building in the nation’s second-most populous city. Russia on Saturday accused the Ukrainian military of deliberately striking a hospital in a Russian-held area of eastern Ukraine, killing 14 people. There was no response to the allegations from Kyiv. Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement late on Sunday that Russian forces had shelled Bakhmut, the focus of Moscow’s offensive in the eastern Donetsk region, as well as Vuhledar to the southwest where
RSS