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jp0001720
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/10
|
Islamic State fighter wants to return to Italy, warns of 'sleeper cells'
|
QAMISHLI, SYRIA - An Islamic State fighter detained in Syria urged Italy on Saturday to let him come home to start a new life, saying he had abandoned the self-styled jihadi “caliphate” after growing disillusioned with its rulers. Mounsef al-Mkhayar, a 22-year-old of Moroccan descent who grew up in Italy, spoke to Reuters in his first interview since surrendering to the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) two months ago. He has been in prison since emerging from Baghouz, a tiny village in eastern Syria where the SDF is poised to wipe out the last vestige of Islamic State rule — which once spanned a third of Iraq and Syria. Mkhayar gave an account of growing chaos among jihadi fighters on the brink of defeat, and of disputes in the ranks as top commanders fled Syria. But he said Islamic State was also planning for the next phase, smuggling out hundreds of men to set up sleeper cells across Iraq and eastern Syria: “They said ‘We must get revenge.’ ” Mkhayar is one of thousands from all over the world who were drawn to the promise of an ultraradical Sunni Islamist utopia overriding national borders. Kurdish security officials identified him as Italian and he said he holds Italian citizenship. “I wish to return to Italy to my family and friends … for them to accept and help me to live a new life,” said Mkhayar, who walks on crutches after shelling injured his leg. “I just want to get out of this movie, I’m tired.” However, Mkhayar was sentenced to eight years in jail by a Milan court in 2017 for spreading Islamic State propaganda and trying to recruit Italians to its cause, Italian media say. As a result, he is likely to have to serve this sentence if he does return to Italy. Reuters interviewed him at a security office in northern Syria in the presence of an SDF official. As it nears victory, the SDF has struggled with the dilemma of holding fighters who traveled from abroad to join Islamic State along with women and children. Before the final assault on Baghouz, the Kurdish-led SDF said it had around 800 foreign militants in jails and 2,000 of their wives and children in camps. Since then, the numbers have ballooned. The SDF wants them sent back to where they came from. But foreign governments generally do not want to receive citizens who may be hard to legally prosecute, and who pledged allegiance to a caliphate that left behind of a trail of butchery. Once an atheist with an affinity for rap music and a dream of moving to America, Mkhayar joined Islamic State at 18. He said he had spent most of his life in Milan with an aunt he calls his mother, before being placed in a home for troubled youths overseen by an Italian priest. He spent a month in prison on drugs charges. Then he began immersing himself in Islamic State videos on YouTube and speaking to recruiters on Facebook. It took him only a month to decide to move to Syria with a friend four years ago. His friend was later killed on the battlefield. After military and religious training, Mkhayar fought on various fronts. As Islamic State lost its Syrian headquarters at Raqqa, he left for Mayadin on the Euphrates river in Iraq, then moved further east across the desert, towards the Iraqi border. Amid a string of military defeats in eastern Syria, Islamic State leaders were in disarray, killing off rival clerics and commanders known as emirs, Mkhayar said. He said he had tried to quit the fighting but had been imprisoned, and then dispatched back to the frontlines as attacks intensified. He wound up in Baghouz, where he said the jihadis were split between wanting to give up or fight to the death. Mkhayar said his wife, a Syrian Kurdish woman from Kobani whom he had married three years ago, helped convince him to leave. “‘That’s it,’ we said, ‘we’re getting out’. I saw my little daughter turning weak. I was scared my children would die.” Mkhayar said he could not sleep thinking about his wife and two daughters in a camp for displaced people in another part of northeast Syria. His wife is due to give birth in a month. He said he still believed in the idea of a caliphate for Muslims, but accused Islamic State rulers of governing their land like “a mafia,” seeking only to make money and violating their own rules with impunity. Commanders had stolen money and fled to Turkey, Iraq or Western Europe while ordering people to stay and defend Islam, he said. “This is my belief and I won’t change it, but here in Islamic State, in reality this doesn’t exist … There is no justice,” he said. “Honestly, I came here too fast … When I arrived, I found another story.”
|
conflict;terrorism;italy;syria;islamic state
|
jp0001721
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/10
|
No survivors on crashed Ethiopian Airlines flight: state TV
|
ADDIS ABABA - An Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed shortly after takeoff from Ethiopia’s capital Sunday morning, killing all 157 people thought to be on board, the airline and state broadcaster said. It was not immediately clear what caused the crash of the Boeing 737-8 MAX plane, which was new and had been delivered to the airline in November, records show. The state-owned Ethiopian Airlines, widely considered the best-managed airline in Africa, calls itself Africa’s largest carrier and has ambitions of becoming the gateway to the continent. Its statement said 149 passengers and eight crew members were thought to be on the plane that crashed six minutes after departing Addis Ababa on its way to Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. The crash occurred around Bishoftu, or Debre Zeit, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Addis Ababa, at 8:44 a.m. The plane showed unstable vertical speed after takeoff, air traffic monitor Flightradar 24 said in a Twitter post. Visibility appeared to be clear. State broadcaster EBC reported all passengers were dead and that the passengers included 33 nationalities. An Ethiopian Airlines spokesman said 32 Kenyans and 17 Ethiopians were among the victims. Grieving family members gathered at Bole Airport. A statement by the Ethiopian prime minister’s office offered its “deepest condolences” to families. Kenya’s transport minister, James Macharia, told reporters that authorities had not yet received the passenger manifest. He said an emergency response had been set up for family and friends. “My prayers go to all the families and associates of those on board,” Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta said, as many Kenyans braced for the worst. In October, another Boeing 737-8 MAX plunged into the Java Sea just minutes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, killing all 189 people onboard the Lion Air flight. The cockpit data recorder showed that the jet’s airspeed indicator had malfunctioned on its last four flights, though Lion Air initially claimed that problems with the aircraft had been fixed. The last deadly crash of an Ethiopian Airlines passenger plane was in 2010, when the plane crashed minutes after takeoff from Beirut killing all 90 people on board. Sunday’s crash comes as the country’s reformist prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, has vowed to open up the airline and other sectors to foreign investment in a major transformation of the state-centered economy. Ethiopian Airlines has been expanding assertively, recently opening a route to Moscow and in January inaugurating a new passenger terminal in Addis Ababa to triple capacity. Speaking at the inauguration, the prime minister challenged the airline to build a new “Airport City” terminal in Bishoftu — where Sunday’s crash occurred.
|
crash;ethiopian airlines
|
jp0001722
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/10
|
Turnout in French 'yellow vest' protests falls to lowest yet
|
PARIS - Turnout at “yellow vest” protests across France, a backlash against high living costs that has lasted nearly four months, fell on Saturday to its lowest level yet. People wearing the neon high-visibility vests that have come to symbolize the movement were joined in Paris by others donning pink tops, as child-care workers turned out against a reform of their unemployment subsidies. Demonstrators on the Champs-Elysees avenue were pushed back at one point by water cannon, and sporadic clashes with police erupted in other cities including Lyon, Bordeaux and Toulouse, though the protests largely passed off peacefully. Some protesters staged a “flash mob” at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport, waving French flags and dancing in one of the terminals, television footage on BFM TV showed. Some 28,600 people turned out overall, according to the interior ministry, with 3,000 of those in Paris — down from 39,300 across France the previous Saturday, and a far cry from the nearly 300,000 who blocked roads and marched in cities in mid-November. Some campaigners are calling for a bigger show of force next weekend, when a series of town hall-style debates launched by President Emmanuel Macron to try to quell anger is due to end. What started out last November as an outcry against Macron’s plan to hike fuel taxes — part of his bid to push a cleaner energy model — has morphed into a broader, leaderless movement decrying the government as out of touch with the hardships faced by some households and low-income workers. Macron dropped the fuel tax increase and budgeted an extra €10 billion ($11 billion) to help the poorest workers. Since riots in December, recent demonstrations have been largely peaceful. On Saturday in Paris, 19 people had been arrested by 6:35 p.m., police said. In an Ifop poll taken on March 7 and 8 for the online news site Atlantico, 54 percent expressed sympathy with the “yellow vests” — up from 50 percent in mid-February, but down from a peak of 72 percent. Macron’s popularity has also improved in recent weeks. An Ipsos poll released on March 6 gave him an approval rating of 28 percent, up 8 points since December.
|
france;taxes;protests;paris;emmanuel macron;yellow vest
|
jp0001723
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/10
|
U.N. chief proposes cutting Congo peacekeeping force
|
UNITED NATIONS - U.N. chief Antonio Guterres has proposed shrinking the large peacekeeping force in Congo. After presidential elections in December that ended Joseph Kabila’s rule and improved security, the 16,000-strong mission known as MONUSCO now can be reconfigured, U.N. officials have said. Guterres suggested a reduction of about 2,000 people, in a report to the Security Council obtained by AFP Saturday. The United Nations has been present in the DRC for about two decades. MONUSCO is one of its biggest, most expensive missions. Its annual budget is about $1.11 billion. “I propose to reduce the current strength of MONUSCO uniformed personnel by 1,600 military personnel, 35 individual police officers and one formed police unit,” the U.N. chief argued in his report. “I also propose a 30 percent reduction in the number of military observers.” “However, should the Security Council deem it necessary to maintain MONUSCO at its current troops and police levels, it would be imperative that the commensurate resources be made available to enable the Mission to fulfill its mandated tasks,” Guterres stressed. Discussions on drawing down MONUSCO come as the United States, the number one financial contributor to U.N. peacekeeping, is seeking to reduce its share of the U.N. budget for peace operations. US national security advisor John Bolton in December said the United States will seek to wind down long-running U.N. peacekeeping missions that do not bring long-term peace.
|
u.n .;congo;peacekeeping
|
jp0001724
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/10
|
Malaysia deports six Egyptians despite concerns over torture, rights abuses
|
KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia has deported six Egyptians and a Tunisian suspected of being linked to Islamist militant groups abroad, despite protests from human rights groups. The suspects include five people who allegedly confessed to being part of Egypt’s banned Muslim Brotherhood, Inspector-General of Police Mohamad Fuzi Harun said in a statement Sunday. Rights groups say that members of the group face possible torture and persecution in Egypt, which brands them as terrorists. The Tunisian and one of the Egyptians deported were members of Ansar al-Sharia al-Tunisia, which is listed as a terrorist group by the United Nations, Mohamad Fuzi said. The two, both in their early 20s, had previously been detained for attempting to enter another country illegally in 2016. They allegedly used fake passports to enter Malaysia with the intention of traveling to and launching an attack in a third country, police said. “Members of this terror group are suspected of being involved in plans to carry out large-scale attacks in other countries,” Mohamad Fuzi said. The other five Egyptians confessed to being members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and are accused of providing shelter, transport and employment for the two linked to Ansar al-Sharia. “As the presence of these foreigners constitute a security risk, all suspects have been deported to their native country and … recommendations have been made to blacklist them from entering Malaysia for life,” Mohamad Fuzi said, adding that two Malaysians were detained in the counterterror operation. Amnesty International Malaysia said the Egyptians deported were now at risk of enforced disappearance, torture, prolonged detention and unfair trials. “We urge the Malaysian government to respect the principle of nonrefoulement and ensure that those at risk of persecution or risk of irreparable harm in another country, including torture, are not deported,” said the group’s executive director Shamini Darshni Kaliemuthu. Malaysia has arrested hundreds of people in the past few years for suspected links to militant groups, after gunmen allied with the Islamic State carried out a series of attacks in Jakarta, the capital of neighboring Indonesia, in January 2016. A grenade attack on a bar on the outskirts of the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, in June 2016 wounded eight people. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, the first such strike on Malaysian soil.
|
malaysia;religion;terrorism;egypt;rights;torture;islamic state
|
jp0001725
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"science-health-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/10
|
China to grow crops for wild elephants to spare farmers
|
BEIJING - China plans to grow crops specifically for wild elephants to graze on in an effort to spare the livelihoods of local farmers. The southwestern province of Yunnan will set up the special farm in a habitat area in Menghai county where 18 of the animals frequently raid the crops of farmers from villages in the area. The 51-hectare (126-acre) farm located in a habitat protection area will grow corn, sugarcane, bamboo and bananas. The official Xinhua News Agency on Sunday quoted an unidentified official with the local forestry bureau as saying protecting local residents was key to Asian elephant conservation Wild Asian elephants are a protected species in China, and conservation efforts have allowed their numbers in the country to rise to about 300.
|
china;nature;animals;elephants
|
jp0001726
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/10
|
North Koreans head to polls to approve new parliament lineup
|
PYONGYANG - North Koreans went to the polls Sunday for an election in which there could be only one winner. Leader Kim Jong Un’s ruling Workers’ Party has an iron grip on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as the isolated, nuclear-armed country is officially known. But every five years it holds an election for the rubber-stamp legislature, the Supreme People’s Assembly. And in keeping with one of Pyongyang’s most enduring slogans — “single-minded unity” — there is only one approved name on each of the red ballot papers. With portraits of the leader’s father, Kim Jong Il, and grandfather Kim Il Sung looking down on every ballot box, voters lined up to drop their slips inside. There is a pencil in the paneled voting booths for anyone who might wish to register dissent by crossing out a candidate’s name. But no one does. Turnout last time was 99.97 percent, according to the official KCNA news agency — only those who were abroad or “working in oceans” did not take part. And the vote was 100 percent in favor of the named candidates, a result unmatched anywhere else in the world. “Our society is one in which the people are gathered around the respected Supreme Leader with a single mind,” election official Ko Kyong Hak said as voters lined up at the 3.26 Pyongyang Cable Factory. Participation in the election was a citizen’s obligation, he said, “and there are no people who reject a candidate.” An editorial in the Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the ruling party, reinforced the message. Voters “should cast approval ballots with their loyalty to the party and the leader, absolute support to the DPRK government and the will to share their destiny with socialism to the last,” it said. With a total absence of electoral competition, analysts say the election is held largely as a political rite to enable the authorities to claim a mandate from the people. It was the result of “established institutional inertia and a need to legitimize the government by simulating democratic procedure,” said Andrei Lankov of Korea Risk Group. Soviet-style communist states had a long tradition of holding general elections, he said, even if the ruling party ignored its own rules about holding regular congresses — something the North skipped for more than 30 years. “North Korea is just emulating all other communist states,” he said. “The early communists sincerely believed that they were producing a democracy the world had never seen. So they needed elections and it became a very important part of self-legitimization.” The last significant government of a major country to dispense with elections altogether was Nazi Germany, he pointed out. The North is divided into constituencies for the vote. There were 686 in the last election in 2014, when Kim stood upon Mount Paektu, a dormant volcano on the border with China that is revered as the spiritual birthplace of the Korean people. He received 100 percent turnout, with 100 percent in favor, according to KCNA. Some of the seats are allocated to two minor parties: the Korean Social Democratic Party and the Chondoist Chongdu Party, which has its roots in a 20th-century Korean religious movement. They are both in a formal alliance with the ruling party. Analysts and diplomats say they exist largely on paper. Even so, participation in the poll, like other obligatory rituals in the North, does reinforce loyalty to the government and social unity, Lankov said, “because humans love symbolism.” It is a marked contrast to the vibrant multiparty democracy on the other side of the demilitarized zone dividing the peninsula, where President Park Geun-hye was ousted in 2017 after mass street protests over a corruption scandal. For North Koreans who defect, the South’s electoral system was “definitely novel,” said Sokeel Park, of campaign group Liberty in North Korea. “The idea that you get to cast your vote and either be on the winning side or the losing side and you don’t know what that’s going to be until the results come in — that’s a big thing.” Sunday’s voting took place in something of a carnival atmosphere in Pyongyang, with children parading in the streets to encourage voters to attend. Bands played at polling stations, where voters lined up in numerical order according to voter lists displayed for days beforehand. After casting their ballots, women danced in flowing traditional dresses. Architecture student Kuk Dae Kwon, 18, said he was excited to be taking part for the first time: “At this election we consolidate the single-minded unity around the supreme leader and also demonstrate the advantages of our socialism to the world.”
|
north korea;kim jong un;elections
|
jp0001727
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/10
|
India returns key envoy to Pakistan amid easing tensions
|
NEW DELHI - India said Saturday that it was returning a key diplomat to Pakistan’s capital amid an easing of tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors, but also demanded that its archrival take concrete steps against terrorists operating from its territory. India’s high commissioner to Pakistan was set to return to Islamabad, Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar said in a statement. Pakistan had announced earlier in the week that its high commissioner to India was returning to New Delhi. On Sunday, however, India said Pakistani forces had violated a cease-fire agreement along the Line of Control in Kashmir, and again accused its neighbor of failing to take credible action against terrorist groups. There was shelling with mortars and the firing of small arms by Pakistan in the early hours of Sunday, and India “retaliated befittingly,” according to an Indian defense official. The Indian Army separately said it had brought down a drone on Saturday in Ganganagar in the state of Rajasthan, a city near its border with Pakistan. The diplomatic moves came after the two countries recalled their diplomats for consultations as tensions flared after a Feb. 14 suicide attack on a convoy of Indian paramilitary soldiers in Pulwama in the Indian-held portion Kashmir that killed 40 soldiers. India blamed the attack on a Pakistan-based militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and launched a retaliatory airstrike inside Pakistan. Asked whether it was right to say that the worst was over and de-escalation has taken place between the two neighbors, Kumar said at a media briefing that India’s airstrike on a terrorist training camp inside Pakistan on Feb. 26 was “necessitated by the lack of action by Pakistan on the perpetrators of Pulwama attack.” Kumar said that a reported Pakistani crackdown earlier in the week on seminaries, mosques and hospitals belonging to outlawed groups and the arrests of dozens of people was not enough, and that Pakistan should take concrete steps “against terrorists and terror infrastructure” on its territory. He said a recent United Nations statement also called for “perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of terrorism to be held accountable and brought to justice.” Kumar accused Pakistan of failing to take any credible action against Jaish-e-Mohammad and other terrorist organizations, which he said continued to operate with impunity from Pakistan. “The widespread presence of terrorist camps in Pakistan is public knowledge within and outside Pakistan,” he said. Pakistan says it has arrested 44 people, including the brother of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar who was apparently named in a dossier given to Islamabad by New Delhi. It also says it shut a number of facilities and froze assets of several outlawed organizations. Pakistan’s information minister, Fawad Chaudhry, said Saturday that his country was acting against the banned militant outfits and would not allow anyone to “use Pakistani land for terrorism against any country.” He also said Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan had asked India to send evidence it has against any individuals. “India hasn’t shared yet any actionable information and proof against anybody,” Chaudhry said. He also said Khan has invited India to take part in a joint investigation and negotiations, but that there had been no response from the Indian side. New Delhi’s retaliatory strike in the northwest Pakistani town of Balakot last month sent tensions spiraling. India said its air force hit a terrorist training camp and killed “a very large number” of militants. Pakistan said the strike only damaged three trees in a forest. Islamabad responded by shooting down two Indian warplanes and capturing a pilot, who was later returned to India as a peace gesture. India said it lost only one aircraft. Since then, the two sides have exercised restraint amid calls from the international community to avoid war.
|
india;kashmir;pakistan;terrorism;military
|
jp0001728
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/10
|
Pakistan — the other great home of the bagpipes
|
SIALKOT, PAKISTAN - Umer Farooq’s grandfather and father made bagpipes. Now he is the third generation to take up the tradition in Pakistan, which is thousands of kilometers from Scotland yet sells thousands of bagpipes each year. The fresh smell of wood floats through the Mid East factory in Sialkot, on the eastern side of Punjab province, where Farooq is one of the managers. Workers are busy standing or sitting on the ground. Covered in sawdust, they carve the wood and polish it. Rosewood or ebony serve as the blowstick, into which players exhale. The drones — long pipes with a lower tone — follow a similar process. They are then attached to a bag, and often covered with tartan, a colored plaid fabric typical of Scotland. “In my family, all the boys know how to make a bagpipe, step by step,” said Farooq. “When we were 7 or 8, we would go to the factory. It was like a school, but the teachers were our dads and uncles.” Honing such a craft is not easy. South Asia has had for centuries its pungi , a wind instrument used for snake charming, and shehnai , a traditional oboe. The bagpipe arrived in the mid-19th century when British colonialists brought it to subcontinental India, of which Pakistan was a part before independence in 1947. “Anywhere the British Army went, they took pipers with them,” said Decker Forrest, a Gaelic music teacher at the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland. Locals seized on the tradition, which remains popular, with dozens of bagpipe bands available for weddings and religious festivals. “People love the bagpipe,” said Yaser Sain, the leader of a Sialkot trio who play at least two performances each day. Proudly he shows pictures on his mobile phone of the band in colorful costumes. Forrest said Pakistani bands put the emphasis on how they look, rather than musical technique, “which is less important to them.” At the world bagpipe championship, which is held every year in Glasgow, they are “the most beautifully dressed,” he said. The kilt, however, is not de rigueur among the Pakistanis. The Pakistani military, born out of the colonial British Indian Army, also still has a soft spot for the instrument. In 2014 it established a camel-mounted bagpipe band attached to a unit of desert rangers. The camels, draped in scarlet and gold as their musicians sway above them, are particularly appreciated during parades. But Pakistan’s main affiliation with bagpipes is its mass production of them, though the quality of the instruments it makes can vary. Some 2,600 are exported from the Mid East factory each year, mainly to the United States. The M.H. Geoffrey & Co. workshop, also in Sialkot, claims to manufacture a further 500 annually. Its owner, Zafar Iqbal Geoffrey, estimates that when contributions from dozens of small- and medium-size businesses in the city are counted, Sialkot can produce a total of 10,000 bagpipes a year. That is more than any country other than the United Kingdom. “Bagpipes are our roaming ambassadors. This is good not only for the economy, but for the image-building of Pakistan,” said Waqas Akram Awan, vice president of the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce. The city’s exports for 2017 — a 15-year record of $4 million for thousands of instruments — underscores his comment. “Our instruments are the same as the European ones, but they are much cheaper. We make music more accessible,” said Umar Farooq’s uncle Muhammad Aftab. Cheap labor means Pakistani bagpipes are priced less expensively than ones made in Scotland, with Mid East’s going for around £300 ($390) in Britain, compared to £900 ($1,170) for instruments made in Scotland. But Pakistani bagpipes have a reputation. “The quality of sound is not the same,” said Paul Gardner, manager of a London music store. “They are for beginners who are working on a really low budget,” he explained. “It might get somebody started, but that person will quickly look to upgrade.”
|
music;pakistan;history;tradition
|
jp0001729
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/10
|
Nine policemen killed in attack in Myanmar's violence-plagued Rakhine state
|
YANGON - Nine policemen have been killed in a militant attack in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, police said Sunday, as tensions ratchet up in a state riven by ethnic and religious conflict. A bloody military crackdown in 2017 forced some 740,000 Rohingya Muslims over the border into Bangladesh in violence U.N. investigators have said warrants the prosecution of top generals for genocide and crimes against humanity. But the armed forces are now waging a war against a militant group claiming to represent the state’s ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, a population that also stands accused of aiding soldiers in their expulsion of the Rohingya. The Arakan Army (AA) has in recent months mounted several attacks on security forces and officials in its struggle for more autonomy and rights for Rakhine people. The attack late Saturday took place in Yoetayoke village, just an hour north of Rakhine state’s capital, Sittwe. Images showed bodies lying on the ground, covered in blankets with a pool of blood soaking into the dust on the grounds of the ramshackle police station. “Nine police were killed, one was injured and another one is missing,” a senior police officer said, not wanting to be named. A leaked police report said weapons were also taken from the police post. No group has yet claimed responsibility and the AA could not immediately be reached for comment. A local administrator confirmed investigations are underway. Northern Rakhine state is inaccessible outside of carefully government-chaperoned trips and information is difficult to verify independently. But swaths of the state’s north are once again engulfed in conflict. The military has brought in thousands of reinforcements and is bombarding AA positions with heavy artillery. Several thousand people have been forced from their homes by the violence. Yet there is widespread support for the AA’s cause across much of Rakhine, one of the poorest states in the country, where many feel they have suffered decades of discrimination by the state. Some 100 local administrators submitted their resignation en masse this month calling for the release of four colleagues reportedly arrested for having links with the AA. The verdict in a treason trial against a popular Rakhine politician is also expected in the coming days and could prove to be a further flash point. Aye Maung stands accused of treason after allegedly inciting Rakhine people in a speech last year to take arms and rise up against the country’s ethnic-Bamar (Burmese) majority. The AA has expanded its ranks since its formation in 2009 and is now believed to have several thousand recruits. The group ramped up operations at the end of last year, but it was a deadly attack on four police posts on Independence Day early January that focused the country’s attention and triggered the military’s swift retaliation. Thirteen police officers were killed in the brazen attack and in an unprecedented move the civilian government instructed the military to crack down on the insurgents. This came just a couple of weeks after the military declared a unilateral cease-fire against ethnic armed groups on the other side of Myanmar, allowing the army to concentrate its efforts in Rakhine. Myanmar’s restive borderlands have been plagued by conflict since independence from British colonial rule 70 years ago. Violence in strife-torn Rakhine was glossed over by Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi at a recent investment forum where she touted the state’s “untapped” economic potential and blamed the international community for focusing “narrowly” on its problems.
|
conflict;religion;violence;myanmar;ethnicity;police
|
jp0001730
|
[
"national",
"politics-diplomacy"
] |
2019/03/10
|
Abe support rate falls; 69% want Okinawa vote on base issue respected
|
The public support rate for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet has fallen slightly to 43.3 percent, with many calling for respecting a recent local referendum that rejected a plan to relocate a U.S. air base within Okinawa Prefecture, a Kyodo News survey showed Sunday. In the nationwide telephone poll conducted Saturday and Sunday, a large majority of respondents also indicated their disappointment at the country’s tepid economic recovery and the government’s response to a labor data scandal. The Cabinet approval rate fell 2.3 percentage points from the previous survey in early February, while the disapproval rate was almost unchanged at 40.9 percent. On the Okinawa prefectural referendum in February regarding the relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, 68.7 percent of respondents said the central government should respect the outcome while 19.4 percent said there is no need to do so. Supporters of the government’s policy to push ahead with the current Futenma relocation plan came to 37.2 percent, down 2.2 points from the previous survey. But opponents also fell to 48.9 percent while those who did not take either side or did not answer the question rose 4.9 points to 13.9 percent. In the nonbinding poll, more than 70 percent of voters in the island prefecture rejected the relocation plan, which originated in an agreement reached between the Japanese and U.S. governments in 1996. But the Abe government has continued to proceed with the work to build a replacement facility for the Futenma base. The telephone survey also showed that 84.5 percent do not actually feel that the Japanese economy is recovering, even though Abe is counting on the success of his Abenomics policy mix to maintain public support for his Liberal Democratic Party ahead of the House of Councilors election in the summer. Adding to concerns over the economic situation, the government earlier in the month downgraded its assessment of a key indicator of economic trends, which suggested that Japan may have already entered a recessionary phase rather than marking its longest growth streak since the end of World War II, as previously believed. A total of 54.4 percent opposed Abe’s decision to raise the consumption tax rate to 10 percent from the current 8 percent in October, up 3.4 points from the previous survey. Supporters of the tax hike stood at 39.9 percent, down 5.1 points. The scandal on faulty labor ministry jobs data also appears to be casting a shadow over the support rate for the Abe government. A total of 70.7 percent said they are not satisfied with the outcome of the latest government probe into the issue, which denied there was a systematic cover-up. About 13 percent responded otherwise. The scandal involving sampling irregularities led to the underpayment of work-related benefits to more than 20 million people and cast doubt over the accuracy of government statistics. Regarding the Upper House election, 32.3 percent said they would vote for the LDP in the proportional representation section, down 3.8 points from the previous survey, and 10.0 percent said they would vote for the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, down 0.3 points. As for support rates by party, the LDP remained the most popular with 38.3 percent, followed by the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan at 10.5 percent. Abe’s long-standing ambition to amend the postwar Constitution for the first time was opposed by 51.4 percent, while 33.9 percent were in favor. The survey covered 740 randomly selected households with eligible voters as well as 1,218 mobile phone numbers, obtaining responses from 516 and 513 people, respectively.
|
shinzo abe;okinawa;futenma;u.s. base;polls
|
jp0001731
|
[
"national",
"politics-diplomacy"
] |
2019/03/10
|
Actor Takuro Tatsumi asked again by LDP to run in Osaka gubernatorial election
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Actor Takuro Tatsumi has been asked again by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to run in next month’s Osaka gubernatorial election, sources familiar with the situation said Sunday. A senior member of the party headed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with the 60-year-old Osaka native, who has appeared in dramas and entertainment shows, in Tokyo on Friday and formally made the request, according to the sources. Tatsumi is expected to decide within days whether to enter the race, which will take place at the same time as the nationwide round of local elections on April 7. On Friday, Osaka Gov. Ichiro Matsui and Osaka Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura tendered their resignations in a rare and risky bid to seek re-election to each other’s positions in order to give fresh momentum to their long-held ambition to reshape the city into a metropolitan government system akin to Tokyo’s. Matsui and Yoshimura are the head and policy chief, respectively, of local political group Osaka Ishin no Kai. By seeking re-election on the same day as the nationwide local elections, they hope to give a boost to their group, which does not hold a majority in either the Osaka prefectural or city assemblies. Under Japanese election law, if the two leaders sought re-election in their current positions, fresh elections would have to be held when their original four-year terms expire later this year. Matsui and Yoshimura were both first elected in November 2015 on a platform to resurrect the metropolis plan originally drafted by former Osaka Gov. and Mayor Toru Hashimoto, who sought to save taxpayer money by reducing functional overlaps between the prefectural and municipal governments. Ahead of the 2015 double mayor and governor election, the LDP asked Tatsumi to be its candidate, but he declined. After graduating from Kyoto University, Tatsumi made his national debut in the NHK drama “Romance” in 1984. He is also known as a food and wine connoisseur.
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osaka;elections;ichiro matsui;hirofumi yoshimura;takuro tatsumi
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jp0001733
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/10
|
Waste not, want not: Temporary housing units for 3/11 finding new roles across Japan
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FUKUSHIMA - The makeshift homes built for evacuees after the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami are being reused in many ways to make more effective use of raw materials and slow the ballooning disposal fees. “I guess it would cost around ¥10 billion to tear down all the temporary housing,” an official from the Fukushima Prefectural Government said. The temporary housing, leased from companies, must be returned to the owners, though homes acquired by municipal and prefectural governments can be reused. The Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate prefectural governments, among others, have begun providing municipalities with materials salvaged from such units free upon request. Fukushima and the city of Tono, Iwate Prefecture, have turned some of their temporary units into permanent public housing for those still displaced. Gagyu Sankei-kai, a social welfare corporation in Miyagi Prefecture that supports jobs for people with disabilities, received an assembly hall set up at a temporary housing complex in the town of Yamamoto. Based in Kakuda, Gagyu Sankei-kai plans to use the hall mainly as a meeting place for employees at perilla oil-processing and bread plants expected to open in October. In Yamamoto, it ran a pizza restaurant that was washed away by tsunami. Gagyu Sankei-kai head Toshinori Yunomura, 71, said he hopes to keep memories of calamity alive by reusing the hall. In western Japan, which was hit by deadly storms and flooding last July, the municipal government of Soja, Okayama Prefecture, asked Fukushima for temporary wooden homes it set up to house evacuees. The used structures thus found new life as 48 housing units and as facilities for gatherings and other functions. “We felt deep appreciation,” a Soja official said. “(The buildings) were well received by their residents because the wooden features are splendid.” Fukushima has since given materials for some 200 units to other governments, companies or entities at no cost. From fiscal 2017, Fukushima started using such materials to prepare facilities for people relocating from urban and other areas to promote permanent settlement, providing three municipalities with enough material to construct 29 buildings.
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fukushima;disasters;iwate;miyagi;3.11
|
jp0001734
|
[
"national",
"crime-legal"
] |
2019/03/10
|
Japanese lawmaker in Kisarazu Municipal Assembly stabbed to death
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CHIBA - A member of the Kisarazu Municipal Assembly in Chiba Prefecture has been stabbed to death, and investigators said Sunday they are interrogating a man believed to be a relative on suspicion of murder. Police identified the victim as Norihisa Ishikawa, 71. They said his wife found her bloodied husband lying face down in the hallway with multiple wounds outside their 12th floor condominium at around 8:50 p.m. on Saturday. He was confirmed dead about an hour later. Ishikawa’s wife had gone out at around 7:30 p.m. that day after dinner. Upon her return is when she found her husband, according to the police. The couple did not live with anyone else in the unit. The man being interrogated was found in possession of a knife in Tokyo, according to the investigators. Ishikawa, who joined the then Construction Ministry after graduating from the University of Tokyo in 1970, was serving his first term in the city assembly. He was planning to run in the nationwide local elections in April.
|
murder;chiba;kisarazu municipal assembly;norihisa ishikawa
|
jp0001735
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/10
|
Ishinomaki whale-tooth artisan who lost shop on 3/11 sees chance to preserve tradition
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SENDAI - In a once-booming whaling community in the northeast, an artisan has managed to keep alive a whale-tooth crafting tradition after his store was destroyed by the mega-quake and tsunami in 2011. Carver Masayuki Chijimatsu, 65, now sells seals and accessories made from the teeth of sperm whales at a temporary shop in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. Given Japan’s controversial decision to resume commercial whaling in July for the first time in about 30 years, he hopes the renewed attention will breathe life into his community. One seal can be made from the central part of each tooth, a chunk about 20 cm long and 10 cm in diameter, Chijimatsu said. A seal and holding case cost at least ¥54,000 ($480). “It may be more valuable than elephant ivory,” he said. “Because the prices are set rather high, few people actually buy.” Whale meat was a valuable protein source amid the starvation after the war, leading the whaling industry to flourish. But Japan stopped after the International Whaling Commission adopted a moratorium in 1982. Chijimatsu’s grandfather, who started the family’s store in 1928 after moving to Miyagi from southwest Japan, settled in Ishinomaki’s Ayukawa district on the tip of the Oshika Peninsula in search of materials for his craft. In the ’50s and ’60s, Ayukawa was bustling with whale-related businesses, whaling crews and butchers. But when Japan halted commercial whaling in 1988, Chijimatsu’s father thought the business would be in danger and bought teeth in bulk. Three other whale-tooth shops in the area closed and only Chijimatsu’s survived. When the deadly quake and tsunami hit on March 11, 2011, Chijimatsu was in the center of Ishinomaki, an hour’s drive from Ayukawa. He tried to drive home but the black, debris-filled waves chased him to higher ground. He spent the night atop a hill and left his car behind to walk home the next day. As the roads were flooded and strewn with debris, the journey took five hours. Although his family was safe, his shop on the peninsula was gone. “I thought it was impossible to continue my business,” he recalled. But later, while clearing rubble from the site where his store had stood, Chijimatsu found a white stick buried in the mud. He had located his stock of whale teeth. He cleaned most of them but left some covered in mud. “When I see the mud, it reminds me that I survived,” he said. Despite the official halt in whaling in the ’80s, Japan resumed hunting in 1987 in areas including the Antarctic Ocean for what it claimed were research purposes — a practice criticized internationally and by the IWC as a cover for commercial whaling. Japan quit the IWC in December, saying it intended to hunt whales in adjacent waters and in its exclusive economic zone. A company in Ayukawa is expected to take part. Chijimatsu does not think the resumption of commercial whaling will make it easier for him to secure materials for his craft as the whales to be targeted are too small. Though he has decided not to have his son take over his business, he remains determined to forge on for a while longer. “As whaling will restart, I want to take this opportunity to have younger generations learn about the Japanese traditional (whaling) culture,” he said.
|
whaling;disasters;miyagi;3.11;masayuki chijimatsu
|
jp0001736
|
[
"reference"
] |
2019/03/10
|
The week ahead for March 11 to March 17
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Monday Eighth anniversary of Great East Japan Earthquake and nuclear crisis at Fukushima No. 1 power plant. The quake-tsunami disaster left more than 15,000 dead and recovery efforts continue. More than 50,000 people still live as evacuees nationwide. Memorial ceremony for victims of Great East Japan Earthquake to be held at Tokyo’s National Theatre. Tuesday Emperor Akihito to visit the Imperial Palace Sanctuaries to declare the date of his abdication, kicking off a series of succession rituals through 2020. The sanctuaries include a shrine dedicated to the sun goddess Amaterasu, from whom the Imperial family is said to be descended. Wednesday Major automakers to respond to labor union demands in annual wage negotiations. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been calling on companies to raise wages to spur private consumption and beat chronic deflation. Cabinet Office to release machinery orders data for January. Tachikawa Summary Court to hand down ruling in trial over Kobe Steel’s decades-long fabrication of product quality data. Thursday Bank of Japan to hold policy meeting through March 15. Board members are expected to maintain current monetary easing but may downgrade their assessment of economic conditions amid recent weakness in exports and industrial production. Friday Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda to hold news conference. Tokyo District Court to hand down ruling in trial of bankrupt bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox’s former CEO Mark Karpeles, accused of embezzlement in 2013. Prosecutors have sought a 10-year jail term for the French-born defendant, who has pleaded not guilty. Iwakuni branch of Yamaguchi District Court to issue judgment over a request for provisional injunction to halt the operation of the only active reactor at Shikoku Electric Power’s Ikata nuclear power plant in Ehime Prefecture. Saturday East Japan Railway to start a new system that allows female train drivers and conductors who are raising children to choose more flexible working hours. The move is intended to reduce the number of female workers who quit jobs to prioritize family. Opponents of plan to transfer a key U.S. air base within Okinawa to hold rally in the prefectural capital of Naha. Sunday Akashi mayoral election to be held. Fusaho Izumi, 55, is seeking re-election after resigning in February to take responsibility for verbally abusing a city official.
|
weekly events;the week ahead;schedule
|
jp0001737
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/19
|
U.N. patent data show Asia innovation surge, with Huawei top-filing firm
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GENEVA - More than half of all international patent applications filed last year came from Asia, a further sign of innovation shifting “from west to east,” the United Nations said Tuesday. In the latest annual breakdown of patent filings released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the United States remained the leading individual country for applications in 2018. But on a regional basis, Asia’s surge continued. “Asia is now the majority filer of international patent applications via WIPO, which is an important milestone for that economically dynamic region and underscores the historical geographical shift of innovative activity from west to east,” the agency’s director general, Francis Gurry, said in a statement. WIPO’s complex system of registering international patents involves multiple categories. In the main category — the Patent Cooperation Treaty — the U.S. led the way with 56,142 applications, followed China (53,345) and Japan (49,702). Germany and South Korea came in a distant fourth and fifth, with fewer than 20,000 applications each. India registered the largest innovation jump of any country last year. Patent applications jumped more than 27 percent — from 1,583 in 2017 up to 2,013. Chinese telecommunications behemoth Huawei also set new record for the number of patent applications filed a single corporation in one year, with 5,405.
|
china;u.s .;u.n .;patents;huawei
|
jp0001738
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Probe of FAA's oversight of Boeing 737 Max began before second crash
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WASHINGTON/SEATTLE - U.S. federal authorities began exploring a criminal investigation of how Boeing Co.’s 737 Max was certified to fly passengers before the latest crash in Ethiopia involving the new jet, according to sources familiar with the probe. The investigation was prompted by information obtained after a Lion Air 737 Max 8 crashed shortly after takeoff from Jakarta on Oct. 29, said one source, who wasn’t authorized to speak about the investigation and asked not to be named. The investigation has taken on new urgency after the March 10 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max 8 near Addis Ababa that killed 157 people. It is being conducted in part by the U.S. Transportation Department’s Inspector General’s office, which conducts both audits and criminal investigations in conjunction with the Justice Department. The Justice Department is now in the process of gathering information about the development of the 737 Max, including through a grand jury subpoena, according to a person familiar with the matter who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about it. The Justice Department’s Criminal Division, which is overseeing the effort, declined to comment. The grand jury’s involvement was earlier reported by The Wall Street Journal. Separately, a Seattle Times investigation published Sunday found that U.S. regulators delegated much of the plane’s safety assessment to Boeing and that the company in turn delivered an analysis with crucial flaws. Both Boeing and the Transportation Department declined to comment about the investigation. Ethiopia’s transport minister said Sunday that flight-data recorders showed “clear similarities” between the crashes of that plane and Lion Air Flight 610 last October. A possible criminal investigation during an aircraft accident investigation is highly unusual. While airline accidents have at times raised criminal issues, such as after the 1996 crash of a ValuJet plane in the Florida Everglades, such cases are the exception. U.S. Federal Aviation Administration employees warned seven years ago that Boeing had too much sway over safety approvals of new aircraft, prompting an investigation by Transportation Department auditors who confirmed the agency hadn’t done enough to “hold Boeing accountable.” The 2012 investigation also found that discord over Boeing’s treatment had created a “negative work environment” among FAA employees who approve new and modified aircraft designs, with many of them saying they had faced retaliation for speaking up. Their concerns pre-dated the 737 Max development. In recent years, the FAA has shifted more authority over the approval of new aircraft to the manufacturer itself, even allowing Boeing to choose many of the personnel who oversee tests and vouch for safety. Just in the past few months, Congress expanded the outsourcing arrangement even further. “It raises for me the question of whether the agency is properly funded, properly staffed and whether there has been enough independent oversight,” said Jim Hall, who was chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board from 1994 to 2001 and is now an aviation safety consultant. At least a portion of the flight-control software suspected in the 737 Max crashes was certified by one or more Boeing employees who worked in the outsourcing arrangement, according to one person familiar with the work who wasn’t authorized to speak about the matter. While people like Hall have raised concerns about the potential for a conflict of interest, the FAA has been designating authority for certification work and other tasks to employees of companies it regulates for decades and executives at the agency believe it is necessary to keep up with the demands of industry. The agency doesn’t have the budget to do every test, and “the use of designees is absolutely necessary,” said Steve Wallace, the former head of accident investigations at the FAA. “For the most part, it works extremely well. There is a very high degree of integrity in the system.” In a statement Sunday, the FAA said its “aircraft certification processes are well established and have consistently produced safe aircraft designs,” adding that the “737 Max certification program followed the FAA’s standard certification process.” Separately, Canadian transport authorities are re-examining the certification given to the 737 Max, Reuters reported, citing Transport Minister Marc Garneau. Canada had earlier accepted FAA certification of the plane in March 2017 under a deal where both countries accept each other’s approvals. The Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed minutes after it took off from Addis Ababa. The accident prompted most of the world to ground Boeing’s 737 Max 8 aircraft on safety concerns, coming on the heels of the October crash off the coast of Indonesia that killed 189 people. Much of the attention focused on a flight-control system that can automatically push a plane into a catastrophic nose dive if it malfunctions and pilots don’t react properly. In one of the most detailed descriptions yet of the relationship between Boeing and the FAA during the 737 Max’s certification, the Seattle Times quoted unnamed engineers who said the company had understated the power of the flight-control software in a System Safety Analysis submitted to the FAA. The newspaper said the analysis also failed to account for how the system could reset itself each time a pilot responded — in essence, gradually ratcheting the horizontal stabilizer into a dive position. Boeing told the newspaper in a statement that the FAA had reviewed the company’s data and concluded the aircraft “met all certification and regulatory requirements.” The company, which is based in Chicago but designs and builds commercial jets in the Seattle area, said there are “some significant mischaracterizations” in the engineers’ comments. Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg said the company will soon release a software update for the plane and related pilot training to address concerns that emerged after the Lion Air tragedy.
|
faa;ethiopian airlines;u.s. transportation department;aircraft accidents;lion air;boeing 737 max
|
jp0001739
|
[
"business",
"economy-business"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Some at Bank of Japan reportedly see price goal out of reach through 2021
|
Amid intense debate over the Abe government’s inflation target, some officials at the Bank of Japan think the 2 percent goal will probably remain out of reach for the next three years, according to sources familiar with the matter. The pessimistic view comes as the BOJ prepares for a quarterly outlook report next month that will provide its first estimates for prices and economic growth in the fiscal year that begins in April 2021. The central bank hasn’t started discussions on actual numerical forecasts for the report, which will be released at the end of a two-day policy meeting on April 25, according to the sources. They were speaking in recent weeks, in the lead up to the March 14-15 policy gathering, amid signs that inflation will weaken this year. Six years of aggressive monetary policy under Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda has helped Japan out of deflation but also hurt banks and bond markets. Kuroda on Friday kept stimulus unchanged and reaffirmed his commitment to the price target. Finance Minister Taro Aso earlier in the day suggested things could go wrong if Japan focuses slavishly on 2 percent. The officials who see the target as unlikely to be met for the next three years judge inflation momentum to be insufficient, according to the sources. Aso, who signed off on the 2013 joint statement with the BOJ that committed the bank to 2 percent target, said last week that many factors have changed since then. He said “only newspapers and the BOJ” are still adamant about the goal. Inflation figures for February are due Friday, with the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg for the core consumer price index, which exclude fresh food, to remain at 0.8 percent. The BOJ’s most recent outlook report in January projected core inflation to average 0.9 percent in the fiscal year starting this April and 1.4 percent the following year.
|
boj;inflation;haruhiko kuroda
|
jp0001740
|
[
"business",
"economy-business"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Japan's regional land prices rise first time in 27 years on tourist boom
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The average price of all types of land in regional areas rose last year for the first time since 1992 as the growing influx of foreign tourists rejuvenated real estate investment, the government said Tuesday. In regions outside the three major metropolitan areas of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya, the average price for land across all categories, including commercial, residential and industrial, grew 0.4 percent from a year earlier as of Jan. 1, the annual government survey showed. The rise was aided by redevelopment projects and investment in such cities as Sapporo, Sendai, Hiroshima and Fukuoka. However, land prices in depopulated areas continued to fall, underlining the polarization of regional land prices in Japan, according to the survey. As of Jan. 1, the average regional land price was unchanged from a year earlier, according to the nationwide survey by the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry covering some 26,000 locations. Regional residential land prices edged up 0.2 percent from a year earlier, marking the first rise in 27 years, while commercial land prices went up 1.0 percent for the second straight year of increase. But prices dropped at 48 percent of regionalsurvey spots and remained flat in 19 percent of them as growth was mostly limited to tourist sites and areas with improved access due to redevelopment. Among the major regional cities, Fukuoka observed the largest increase in commercial land prices at 12.3 percent, followed by Sendai at 10.7 percent, Sapporo at 8.8 percent and Hiroshima at 5.8 percent. Residential land prices rose 4.4 percent on average in the four cities. Overall, the national average price for commercial land increased 2.8 percent and that of residential land crept up 0.6 percent. The three largest metropolitan areas also saw an average growth of 5.1 percent in commercial land prices and 1.0 percent in residential land prices, propped up by increased demand for condominiums and business offices driven by low interest rates. “Unlike during the bubble economy years, when numerous land transactions were aimed at resale, the rising land prices this time are backed by (real) economic activities,” a ministry official said. By prefecture, Okinawa led in both commercial and residential land price gains, registering an increase of 10.3 percent and 8.5 percent, respectively. Niigata Prefecture saw the largest fall in commercial land prices at 1.4 percent, while Akita and Wakayama prefectures logged the biggest drop in residential land prices at 1.3 percent. By site, the town of Kutchan in Hokkaido, a popular ski area among foreign visitors, led the nation in both commercial and residential land price jumps, surging 58.8 percent and 50.0 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, areas in western Japan devastated by heavy rains and flooding last summer saw major declines in their land prices, including residential areas in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, and commercial zones in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture The main shop of Yamano Music Co. in Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district logged the highest land price among the surveyed locations across the country at ¥57.20 million per square meter.
|
inflation;foreign tourists;land prices
|
jp0001741
|
[
"business",
"tech"
] |
2019/03/19
|
China hits out at 'abnormal, immoral' attacks on Huawei
|
BRUSSELS - China’s foreign minister lashed out at what he called “abnormal, immoral” attacks on Huawei Technologies Co. amid growing concern, led by the U.S., that the telecom giant poses a security risk to the West. Wang Yi demanded a “fair and just competition environment” for Chinese firms as he met Monday with EU foreign ministers and officials in Brussels. His call comes as Washington steps up pressure on allies, particularly in Europe, to shut Huawei out of tenders for fast fifth-generation, or 5G, telecom networks because of the firm’s ties to the Chinese government. “China hopes all countries will create a fair and just competition environment for companies of all countries,” Wang told reporters before joining a meeting of EU foreign ministers. “What we oppose is groundless accusations out of political purposes and attempts to bring down a foreign company. We think such practices are abnormal, immoral and have no support from other countries.” Huawei strenuously denies allegations its equipment could be used for espionage and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang insisted Friday that Beijing would “never” ask its firms to spy on other nations. A law recently enacted by Beijing obliging Chinese companies to aid the government on national security has added to concerns about Huawei just as European countries begin planning 5G infrastructure. The U.S. has said the company poses a “threat” to Europe and last week NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance took these concerns seriously. Several Western countries have followed the U.S. lead in barring Huawei from bidding for 5G tenders, but Wang urged Europe not to be swayed by U.S. pressure. “We hope and we believe European countries and other countries will have independence in making their own choice and their own judgment,” he said. Wang also hit back at a new EU policy document published last week outlining a shift to more assertive relations with Beijing. The 10-point plan calls for more balanced ties, warning that China is a “rival” to the bloc as well as its biggest trading partner. In response Wang insisted China and the EU are “comprehensive strategic partners” and laid out his own 10-point plan for greater cooperation. His comments found an echo in EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini, who stressed common ground between the two sides and insisted that last week’s policy document was primarily aimed at informing internal debate in Brussels. Mogherini’s comments contrasted with the tougher rhetoric of European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen at the launch last week of the new EU plan — pointing to divisions over the China strategy at the very highest level in Brussels. Katainen insisted on the need for Europe to “more assertively” push for reciprocity in trade relations and defend its values. The EU is concerned about China’s failure to open its markets to foreign competitors and the distorting influence of subsidies for state-run enterprises. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius warned that in the face of a China that is becoming “really ambitious, expansionist,” the EU has to set rules and stick to them.
|
u.s .;nato;eu;espionage;huawei;5g;jens stoltenberg
|
jp0001742
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Alitalia faces uncertain future as easyJet quits rescue talks
|
LONDON - The future of Alitalia was plunged further into uncertainty on Monday after British budget airline easyJet pulled out of talks to rescue the Italian carrier two weeks before a deadline to save it. EasyJet said it had decided to withdraw from the process after discussions with Italy’s state-controlled railway Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane and U.S. airline Delta Air Lines. Alitalia was put under special administration in 2017 after workers rejected the latest in a long line of rescue plans, leaving the government once again seeking a buyer to save the airline. Ferrovie is racing against the clock to meet deadline of the end of the month set by the Italian government to present a rescue plan for Alitalia, and had been in talks with easyJet and Delta over a possible deal. But the parties had not seen see eye to eye on the structure of a deal. Without an industrial partner fully on board, a source said last week that Alitalia could soon find itself in trouble since neither Ferrovie nor the state have the skills to run the carrier. Delta said it was still in talks with Ferrovie. “Discussions remain ongoing as Alitalia is a long-standing partner of Delta,” the U.S. airline said in a statement. Alitalia and Ferrovie could not immediately be reached for a comment. EasyJet, whose shares were unaffected by Monday’s announcement, had said several times it was interested in Alitalia’s short-haul operations and positions at primary airports. A source familiar with the talks said easyJet still believed it could be a good partner for Alitalia, but that a deal was not feasible with the current approach. “EasyJet pulled out because it wanted to control (Alitalia’s) Milan hub and use it for point-to-point flights. This could not be done,” another source with knowledge of the matter said. EasyJet said it remained committed to Italy, as a key market for the company. “We continue to invest in the three bases in Milan, Naples, (and) Venice,” it said in a statement.
|
delta air lines;easyjet;alitalia;ferrovie
|
jp0001743
|
[
"business",
"financial-markets"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Stocks end slightly lower on profit-taking
|
Stocks recouped most of its initial losses but failed to end higher Tuesday, pressured by selling to lock in gains after a two-session rally. The Nikkei 225 average finished at 21,566.85, down 17.65 points, or 0.08 percent. On Monday, the key market gauge rose 133.65 points. The Topix, which covers all first-section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, closed 3.45 points, or 0.21 percent, lower at 1,610.23 after climbing 11.05 points Monday. Profit-taking hit the market right after the opening bell, forcing the Nikkei to give up over 150 points. Although the key market gauge cut its early losses and popped into positive territory around midmorning thanks to buying on a dip, it came under renewed selling pressure from profit-takers, brokers said. In the afternoon, the Nikkei gradually pared losses but failed to return to the sunny side. The Topix showed resilience but remained in negative territory throughout the day. Investors refrained from taking positions either way as “they found no trading incentives,” said Ryuta Otsuka, strategist at the investment information department of Toyo Securities Co. A wait-and-see mood prevailed before the U.S. Federal Reserve’s two-day Federal Open Market Committee meeting started later Tuesday, brokers said. Hiroaki Kuramochi, chief market analyst at Saxo Bank Securities Ltd., pointed out that market players were specifically waiting to see the Fed’s quarterly policy interest rate projections, to be announced after the meeting. He also noted that the market was underpinned by buying to secure rights to receive dividends for fiscal 2018, which ends March 31. Falling issues far outnumbered rising ones 1,464 to 597 in the first section, while 74 issues were unchanged. Volume inched up to 1.104 billion shares from 1.033 billion Monday. Zozo tumbled 11.31 percent after JP Morgan Securities Japan Co. lowered its investment rating and stock target price for the operator of online fashion mall Zozotown. Chipmaking equipment manufacturer Tokyo Electron, cosmetics producer Shiseido and automaker Suzuki were among other major losers. By contrast, financials, including mega-bank groups Mitsubishi UFJ, Sumitomo Mitsui and Mizuho, and insurers Dai-ichi Life and Tokio Marine, were upbeat after their U.S. peers fared well Monday. Also hunted were air-conditioner manufacturer Daikin, drugmaker Astellas and Daiwa House Industry.
|
stocks;nikkei;tokyo stock exchange;topix
|
jp0001744
|
[
"business",
"financial-markets"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Dollar falls below ¥111.30 in Tokyo trading
|
The dollar slipped through ¥111.30 in Tokyo trading Tuesday, hurt by lower Japanese share prices. At 5 p.m., the dollar stood at ¥111.26-27, down from ¥111.48-48 at the same time Monday. The euro was at $1.1346-1346, down from $1.1349-1349, and at ¥126.25-26, down from ¥126.51-52. Hit by selling induced by the Nikkei 225 stock average’s sluggish moves, the dollar dropped below ¥111.20 toward noon, although the U.S. currency was temporarily supported by buying by Japanese importers earlier. In the afternoon, the greenback pared part of the morning losses but came under renewed selling pressure when it rose to around ¥111.30, traders said. The dollar moved on a weak note in tandem with Japanese and Chinese stocks, as players turned to focus on safer assets amid rekindled worries about Britain’s possible exit from the European Union without any sort of deal, an official of a foreign exchange margin trading service firm said. A currency broker said falls in U.S. long-term interest rates have been weighing on the dollar. Investors retreated to the sidelines to wait for U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s remarks and the Fed’s quarterly policy interest rate projections, both to be made after the end of a two-day Federal Open Market Committee meeting starting later Tuesday, the broker added.
|
forex;currencies
|
jp0001745
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Lyft gets the jump on Uber, opens up its IPO road show with plan to offer 30 million shares
|
NEW YORK - Lyft has officially kicked off the road show for its initial public offering, saying it plans to put more than 30 million shares up for sale with an anticipated price of between $62 and $68 each. That would raise more than $2 billion for the San Francisco ride-hailing company, pegging its market value at $20 billion to $25 billion even though it hasn’t been able to turn a profit yet. It’s the first time that Lyft has revealed how much money it hopes to raise in the IPO, and how much it believes it’s worth. Those financial targets, revealed Monday, could still change as Lyft’s investment bankers gauge demand for the company’s stock leading up to the IPO pricing, which is expected to happen next week. Lyft and Uber have raced to be first with an IPO, and Lyft’s rival is expected to offer shares in the coming weeks. Uber is hoping its larger ride-hailing service will justify a market value as high as $120 billion after its IPO is completed later this spring, according to The Wall Street Journal. Lyft released financial details about the company for the first time this month, reporting $2.2 billion in revenue last year, more than double its $1.1 billion in revenue in 2017, but also $911 million in losses. Lyft has lost nearly $3 billion since 2012 but has brought in more than $5 billion in venture capital. The company’s executives warned that the company could struggle to turn a profit despite a rapidly growing market share. The company’s share of the U.S. ride-hailing market was 39 percent last December, up from 22 percent in December 2016, according to its filing. The $2.2 billion in revenue for 2018 was about double what it brought in the previous year. Bookings, which represent Lyft’s fares after subtracting taxes, tolls and tips, have been rising dramatically — a trend that the company intends to highlight to potential investors. Lyft’s bookings surpassed $8 billion last year, 76 percent more than in 2017 and more than four times the number from 2016. Lyft’s recent market-share gains came as Uber was dogged by reports that drivers accosted passengers and that the company tolerated rampant sexual harassment internally. Those problems ultimately led co-founder Travis Kalanick to resign. Uber has been working to repair its image under CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Lyft said it would offer 30.77 million shares of its common stock to the public and give underwriters the option to buy up to 4.6 million more shares.
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u.s .;stocks;ipo;uber;lyft
|
jp0001746
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Nissan to introduce new models in Arab world, sets sights on No. 1 in Middle East
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CAIRO - Nissan Motor Co. is planning on introducing new models in the Arab world and increasing capacity at its local factories as part of a bid to secure the largest market share in the Middle East. The carmaker plans to increase its market share to more than 20 percent by 2022 in the Gulf and in Egypt, from 16 percent and 15 percent, respectively, Peyman Kargar, chairman of Nissan in Africa, the Middle East and India, said in an interview. The company is currently No. 3 in Egypt and second in the Gulf. “We want to double our industrial footprint in the Middle East, Africa and India by 2022,” said Peyman, adding that Nissan is looking to boost its production facilities in the region to more than six. It presently has three factories in Egypt, India and South Africa, and wants to add one in Pakistan and another in Algeria. Others would come later, he said. Egypt, with a population of around 100 million, is considered a strategic market for Nissan, according to Peyman. The automaker has invested $200 million in the country since it began operating there in 2005, he said. More investments are planned in the company’s fiscal year starting in April, and Nissan wants to bring its Egypt plant to full capacity of 28,000 vehicles per year, compared with the current level of 22,000. While the company’s Egypt outlook is optimistic, Peyman said the government’s decision to exempt imported cars from the European Union from customs duties is a challenge in the short and medium term. Yokohama-based Nissan had “very positive” discussions with the Egyptian government regarding this issue, he said. “We asked them to support the local industry to be able to compete, to not put us in a less competitive situation,” Peyman said. Among the proposals made was exempting imported parts from customs duties. “I’m pretty sure they will take some decisions soon,” said Peyman, referring to the government.
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egypt;nissan;carmakers
|
jp0001747
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/19
|
IS says displacements from Syria's Baghouz will not weaken the group
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CAIRO/BAGHOUZ, SYRIA - An Islamic State spokesman said Monday the displacement of “the weak and poor” from Syria’s Baghouz would not weaken the group. “Do you think the displacement of the weak and poor out of Baghouz will weaken the Islamic State? No,” Abi al-Hassan al-Muhajer said in a recording distributed by Al Furqan, a media organization linked to the group. Islamic State’s defeat at Baghouz would end its control of inhabited land in the third of Syria and Iraq that it captured in 2014. However, the group will remain a threat, regional and Western officials say. The comments come as U.S.-backed forces continued to battle holdout jihadis after a night of shelling and heavy airstrikes the same day. Even as it fought IS, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) also came under threat from Damascus, which has sworn to retake the third of the country the SDF controls. The SDF has been closing in on IS fighters holed up in a small sliver of territory in the eastern village of Baghouz since January. A cluster of rudimentary tents and vehicles is all that remains of the once-sprawling “caliphate” declared across large swaths of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014. Tens of thousands of men, women and children have poured out of the small farming village in recent weeks, slowing down an SDF offensive aimed at crushing the last vestige of the jihadi proto-state. Backed by airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition, the SDF pummelled the IS pocket with shelling on Sunday night, pushing deeper into the jihadi encampment. Ground battles and artillery attacks continued as of Monday as the Kurdish-led force worked to consolidate its most recent gains, SDF spokesman Adnan Afrin said. “Clashes are ongoing between the SDF and IS” as the Kurdish-led forces secured positions it had seized inside the camp, he said. On a hilltop overlooking the bombed-out bastion earlier, an AFP correspondent heard the sound of gunfire and heavy shelling ring out. Men, believed to be jihadis, could be seen shuffling inside the redoubt, beneath a plume of smoke that obscured most of the encampment. Crouching behind rocks, SDF fighters opened fire at IS fighters that appeared near the banks of the Euphrates River. “The SDF ground offensive has been very effective,” coalition spokesman Sean Ryan said. The SDF said on Sunday night that its forces had captured positions inside the camp. Syria’s minority Kurds have largely stayed out of Syria’s eight-year civil war, instead carving out a de-facto autonomous region in the northeast of the country. The Kurdish-led SDF now controls some 30 percent of the nation’s territory, including areas from which it has expelled IS. Syrian Defense Minister Ali Abdullah Ayoub on Monday said his government would recapture territory controlled by the SDF in the same way it “liberated” other parts of the country. “The only card that remains in the hands of the Americans and their allies is the SDF,” he said. “The Syrian government will deal with this issue in one of two ways: a reconciliation agreement or liberating the territory they control by force,” he said. A shock announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump of a troop pullout sent the Kurds scrambling to mend ties with Damascus to protect them from a feared Turkish offensive, but ongoing talks have yet to yield any results. Eight years into a conflict that has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces are in control of almost two-thirds of the country. But the northeastern swathe held by the SDF, as well as the jihadi-held northwestern region of Idlib, remain beyond its control. It remains unclear exactly how many people remain inside the last IS pocket, but SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel on Sunday said those leaving the area put the number at up to 5,000 people. More than 66,000 people, mostly civilians, have quit the last IS redoubt since Jan. 9, according to the SDF. They include 37,000 civilians, 5,000 jihadists and around 24,000 of their relatives. An additional 520 IS fighters have been captured in SDF operations. The huge numbers have flummoxed Kurdish forces, who are struggling to accommodate jihadis in Kurdish-run detention centers further north. The exodus of civilians and relatives of fighters has also sparked a humanitarian crisis in Kurdish-run camps for the displaced. The biggest of them is now struggling to host 70,000 people, including at least 25,000 school-aged children, according to the International Rescue Committee. More than 123 people have died on the way or shortly after arriving at the main camp of Al-Hol, the aid group said. While the SDF taking Baghouz would mark the end of the IS “caliphate,”the jihadis still retain a presence in eastern Syria’s vast Badia desert and have sleeper cells in Idlib.
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conflict;terrorism;syria;islamic state;u.s. airstrikes;syrian democratic forces;baghouz
|
jp0001748
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Letter points to 'terror' in Dutch tram attack
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UTRECHT, NETHERLANDS - Dutch authorities said Tuesday they were “seriously” investigating a terrorist motive for the Utrecht tram attack because of evidence including a letter found in the suspected gunman’s getaway car. Police were questioning Turkish-born main suspect Gokmen Tanis, 37, and two other men over Monday’s rampage in which three people were killed and seven injured, three seriously. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte had earlier said they “cannot exclude” other motives including a family dispute, but police and prosecutors said on Tuesday that the probe was leaning towards terrorism. “So far, a terrorist motive is seriously being taken into account. This is based on a letter found in the getaway car among other things and the nature of the facts,” police and prosecutors said in a joint statement. “Our investigation has established no link between the main suspect and the victims.” The three people who died in the shooting were a 19-year-old woman from Vianen, south of Utrecht, and two men aged 28 and 49 from Utrecht itself, the statement said. Armed police captured Tanis after an eight-hour manhunt that virtually shut down the Netherlands’ fourth-largest city and triggered a nationwide increase in security at airports and key sites. Police said they had found a red Renault Clio that the suspect had used as a getaway car after the attack. They had also found a firearm after his arrest, they added. Tanis and two other men aged 23 and 27 are still being interrogated, police said. A stream of mourners laid flowers on Tuesday at the site of the attack near the 24 Oktoberplein square. “One of the victims was my friend’s girlfriend. So coming here today was the least I could do,” said Marco van Rooijen. “I am here to pay homage to the victims and to support their families,” added local resident Yvette Koetjeloozekoot. Flags were flying half-mast on many buildings around the Netherlands. Public transport was running again after forensic police finished their investigations at the scene and removed the tram on which the shooting erupted. Rutte was chairing a cabinet meeting on the attack, which has raised security fears a day before provincial elections in the Netherlands. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country’s intelligence agency was “looking into” the attack. “Some say it is a family matter, some say it is a terror attack … Our intelligence agency is looking into the matter,” Erdogan told Ulke TV late Monday. Dutch media have reported that the suspect had a long rap sheet and was only released from jail two weeks ago on a number of charges. Broadcaster NOS reported that some of his relatives had links to fundamentalist Islamic groups, but also that he was known for unstable behavior after divorcing his wife two years ago. A woman involved in a rape case against Tanis told the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper: “He is completely mad and uses drugs. I have previously warned the police against him. He’s not a terrorist but a psychopath.” People in the Kanaleneiland area where he lived described Tanis as a “small-time criminal and dealer,” a “loser with a drug problem” and as being “confused and lost.” “We want nothing to do with him. He has the IQ of a shrimp,” one resident told the Volkskrant newspaper, asking not to be named. Police and witnesses said gunfire broke out on the tram on Monday morning, sending people fleeing and triggering a huge police response. Mosques and schools were closed across Utrecht following the bloodshed, before heavily armed officers surrounded a building and arrested Tanis. Support for the Netherlands poured in from around the world including the United States, the EU and Russia. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: “America stands with you. We will continue to do all we can to help you in this terrible time of tragedy.”
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terrorism;netherlands;utrecht
|
jp0001749
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Russia sends 'squadrons' of nuclear-capable bombers to Crimea in response to U.S. missile shield in Romania
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Russia has sent “squadrons” of nuclear-capable Tu-22M3 strategic bombers to Crimea in response to the deployment of U.S. Navy Aegis Ashore missile defense installations in Romania, according to a report in Russian state-run media. “The deployment of American missile defense systems in Romania came as a major challenge, in response to which the Russian Defense Ministry made the decision to deploy long-range missile-carrying bombers Tupolev Tu-22M23 at the Gvardeyskoye air base,” Viktor Bondarev, the head of the Russian Federation Council’s Committee for Defense and Security, was quoted by Russia’s TASS news agency as saying Monday. “This move has drastically changed the balance of forces in the region,” Bondarev said of the missile defense shield. While the bombers are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, it is unclear if those weapons would come with the bombers when they are sent to Crimea. Washington views the missile shield, which U.S. and NATO officials switched on in May 2016, as vital to defending itself and Europe from so-called rogue states — especially Iran — a claim Moscow has disputed. Rather, the Kremlin has said, the move is actually aimed at blunting Russia’s own nuclear arsenal. U.S. officials have said that despite Washington’s plans to continue to develop the capabilities of its system, the shield would not be used against any future Russian missile threat. That, however, could change after the U.S. departed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which Russia formally suspended its participation in on March 4. In a statement released Monday, NATO condemned “Russia’s ongoing and wide-ranging military build-up in Crimea,” and said it was “concerned by Russia’s efforts and stated plans for further military build-up in the Black Sea region.” On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin marked the fifth anniversary of Moscow’s widely condemned annexation of Crimea from Ukraine with a visit to the Black Sea peninsula.
|
u.s .;russia;nato;weapons;nuclear weapons;crimea;aegis ashore
|
jp0001750
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Flooding of key U.S. Air Force base flies in face of Trump climate change stance, experts say
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WASHINGTON - Flooding at a U.S. Air Force base in Nebraska that damaged buildings and forced the removal of a plane integral to the nation’s nuclear attack response highlight the risks climate change poses to national security, experts said on Monday. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly questioned whether humans cause climate change and has been angered by assessments from his military and intelligence agencies that say the phenomenon poses national security risks. Last week’s “bomb cyclone” storm flooded about 60 structures including 30 buildings at the Offutt Air Force Base, said Ryan Hansen, a spokesman for the 55th Wing, a unit providing reconnaissance, intelligence and combat support to U.S. leaders. Eight planes in the 55th Wing had to leave the base, Hansen said, and workers might not be able to assess damage to hangers and maintenance buildings until the end of the week. One of the planes was a Boeing-made E4-B plane, one of four the Air Force has that are meant to serve as an aerial command center in case of national emergency or destruction of ground bases, such as in a nuclear attack. Two E4-B’s were also damaged by a tornado at Offutt in 2017, CNN reported at the time. Francesco Femia, the co-founder of the Center for Climate and Security, said the flooding shows that the White House needs to let the military do its job in assessing the climate threat. “This is an example of a vital threat to our national security from a climate-related disaster, and more of this kind of thing is likely in the future,” Femia said. While flooding from storm surges linked to climate change that could damage sensitive electronics and mechanical equipment have long threatened U.S. Naval bases like Norfolk, Virginia, Offutt is a reminder that climate change also poses risks to bases far from sea. Offutt is also home to Strategic Command, which oversees the country’s nuclear arsenal. The Strategic Command headquarters, set on a hill, was not affected by the floods, and neither was its new building, expected to open in the spring. “Given the president’s denial of climate change … I don’t know if ironic is the word to capture how strange it would be for the results of climate change to adversely impact the president’s ability to control U.S. nuclear weapons in a crisis,” said Stephen Young, the Washington representative of the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, which advocates for investment to protect bases from climate change threats. The White House has considered forming a panel to assess the science used in government climate risk reports that could be headed by a retired physics professor who believes greenhouse gas emissions are good for the planet. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. While climate change can’t be blamed for a single storm, the vast majority of scientists say emissions from fossil fuels and the burning of forests are trapping heat in the atmosphere and making storms and floods more intense.
|
u.s .;military;climate change;donald trump
|
jp0001751
|
[
"world",
"crime-legal-world"
] |
2019/03/19
|
U.S. top court weighs whether GOP-drawn Virginia electoral maps diluted black vote
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WASHINGTON - U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday wrestled for the second time over whether Republican legislators in Virginia drew electoral districts in the state in a way that unlawfully diluted the clout of black voters. The high court heard arguments in an appeal by the Republican-led state House of Delegates in defense of 11 state House districts that a lower court ruled last year violated the rights of black voters to equal protection under the law under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. The case involves gerrymandering, a practice involving the manipulation of electoral district boundaries to marginalize a certain set of voters and increase the influence of others. While the Supreme Court for decades has invalidated electoral maps due to racial gerrymandering, the justices have not yet made a definitive ruling on whether drawing legislative districts for purely partisan advantage violates the Constitution. The court will hear two major cases on that issue next week, one from North Carolina and the other from Maryland. One way the court could resolve the Virginia racial gerrymandering dispute is to say that the House of Delegates, which sought to appeal the ruling, did not have legal standing to do so. The state’s Democratic attorney general, Mark Herring, has argued that the House cannot pursue the case independently and that only he could decide whether or not there would be an appeal. Some of the nine justices appeared sympathetic to Herring’s argument, although it is unclear if there is a majority in favor of that outcome. Conservative Justice Samuel Alito suggested that the court could send the case to the Virginia Supreme Court to decide who can represent the state. “I would be very uncomfortable trying to decide whether, as a matter of Virginia law, anybody other than the attorney general can ever represent the Commonwealth,” Alito said, referring to Virginia. Morgan Ratner, a lawyer for President Donald Trump’s administration, argued that the House of Delegates does not have standing to appeal. But Ratner said that the House of Delegates is correct that the lower court used the wrong standard to assess the districts. Democrats have accused Republicans in Virginia and other states of crafting such legislative maps in a way that crams black and other minority voters, who tend to favor Democratic candidates, into certain districts in order to reduce their overall sway in the state. The voters who brought the lawsuit accused Republicans of packing black voters into certain districts to diminish their voting power and make surrounding districts more white and more likely to support Republicans. Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh expressed sympathy for the Republicans who drew the maps, noting that if they assigned fewer black voters to each district “they would get hammered from the other side, saying you are discriminating against African American voters because you’re not giving the voters a sufficient opportunity to elect the candidate of their choice.” When the litigation first reached the high court, the justices in 2017 threw out an earlier lower court ruling that had found the 11 districts, as well as one other district, to be lawful. The justices said the lower court had not sufficiently analyzed the consideration of race by the Republican legislators in the process of drawing Virginia’s electoral map. At issue was the state legislative map drawn by Republicans after the 2010 national census. Since then, Democrats have made gains in Virginia in both state and federal elections. The current governor and attorney general are both Democrats. Race can be considered in redrawing boundaries of voting districts only in certain instances, such as when states are seeking to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act. That law protects minority voters and was enacted to address a history of racial discrimination in voting, especially in southern states. A ruling is due by the end of June.
|
rights;elections;republicans;ethnicity;donald trump;gerrymandering
|
jp0001752
|
[
"world",
"crime-legal-world"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Half of Americans see Trump as victim of witch hunt but most want Mueller report made public: poll
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WASHINGTON - Half of Americans believe President Donald Trump is the victim of a political “witch hunt,” nearly two years after the launch of the Russia meddling investigation, a new poll showed Monday. Voters are also broadly opposed, 62 percent to 28 percent, to an impeachment effort against the president in the House of Representatives, the USA Today/Suffolk University poll showed. But they overwhelmingly want special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report on whether Trump obstructed justice and whether his campaign colluded with Russians made public. Mueller has already issued some three dozen indictments, including charging six former aides and associates of the president and is believed to be winding up his investigation. He has given no indication so far what he will conclude. Trump, who has stepped up his campaign to convince the public that Mueller’s team is biased and the investigation politicized, tweeted “Wow!” in reaction to the poll. “50% of Americans AGREE that Robert Mueller’s investigation is a Witch Hunt,” he wrote. “Very few think it is legit! We will soon find out?” Democrats in the House of Representatives say they will impeach Trump if there is evidence of wrongdoing in Mueller’s report. But support in Congress for impeaching and trying Trump could be influenced by the level of voter support. Mueller has obtained guilty pleas and convictions against five of the six Trump aides charged so far, including Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The investigators are still interviewing witnesses, signaling that they could still be preparing charges against others. But Mueller’s conclusions about Trump’s role, if any, are unknown. Since Mueller was appointed in May 2017, Trump and the White House have pushed hard to discredit the investigation, and Trump has reportedly demanded several times that it be shut down. He also is pushing to prevent any release of Mueller’s report. “The Special Counsel should never have been appointed and there should be no Mueller Report. This was an illegal & conflicted investigation in search of a crime,” Trump tweeted on Friday. But the new poll said support for releasing the report is very high: 62 percent consider its release “very important” while another 21 percent judge it “somewhat important.”
|
robert mueller;impeachment;donald trump;russia probe;michael cohen;usa today/suffolk university poll
|
jp0001753
|
[
"world",
"crime-legal-world"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Dutch police capture Turkish man suspected of killing three in tram shooting
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UTRECHT, NETHERLANDS - Dutch police arrested a Turkish man suspected of shooting dead three people and wounding five on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht on Monday. Utrecht police announced the suspect, 37-year-old Gokmen Tanis, had been taken into custody. The city was put into lock-down after the shooting, shortly after the morning rush hour, which authorities initially said was an apparent terrorist attack. Police conducted raids in several locations. But hours after the shooting, the gunman’s motive remained unclear. A prosecutor said it could be for “family reasons” and Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency, quoting relatives of the gunman, said he had fired at a relative on the tram and had then shot at others who tried to help her. Helicopters hovered over the usually quiet medieval town. Authorities had raised the terrorism threat in Utrecht province to its highest level, schools were told to shut their doors and paramilitary police increased security at airports, other vital infrastructure and at mosques. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte convened crisis talks immediately after the incident, which came three days after a lone gunman killed 50 people in mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. “Our country has today been shocked by an attack in Utrecht. … A terrorist motive cannot be excluded,” Rutte said. “The first reports have led to disbelief and disgust. Innocent people have been struck by violence. … We are now doing everything we can to find the perpetrator or perpetrators as soon as possible. That is now our complete focus.” The mayor of Utrecht, Jan van Zanen, said three people had been killed and nine wounded, three of them seriously. The number of injured was later lowered to five. Dutch police issued an image of Tanis and warned the public not to approach him. The suspect had had previous run-ins with police, the prosecutor said. Local broadcaster RTV Utrecht said earlier the suspect was known to police for both minor and major crimes, including a shooting in 2013. The shooting took place in Kanaleneiland, a quiet residential district on the outskirts of Utrecht with a large immigrant population. “It’s frightening that something like this can happen so close to home,” said Omar Rahhou, who said his parents lived on a street cordoned off by police. “These things normally happen far away but this brings it very close, awful.” Witness Daan Molenaar, who said he had been sitting at the front of the tram when the shooting started, told national broadcaster NOS he did not believe it was a terrorist attack. “The first thing I thought was, this is some kind of revenge or something, or somebody who’s really mad and grabbed a pistol,” he said. The streets of Utrecht were emptier than usual and mosques in the city kept their doors closed on Monday. Police screened off the site where at least one body lay covered near the tram. Dutch television showed counterterrorism units surrounding a house in Utrecht and sniffer dogs being put to work. Utrecht, the Netherlands’ fourth largest city with a population of around 340,000, is known for its picturesque canals and large student population. Gun killings are rare in Utrecht, as elsewhere in the Netherlands.
|
guns;terrorism;netherlands;turkey;utrecht;gokmen tanis;tram shooting
|
jp0001754
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Venezuela opposition takes control of diplomatic properties in U.S.
|
WASHINGTON - Representatives of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido have taken control of three of the country’s diplomatic properties in the United States, Guaido’s U.S. envoy said on Monday, as the opposition presses its bid to oust socialist President Nicolas Maduro. The envoy, Carlos Vecchio, said the opposition had gained control of two buildings belonging to Venezuela’s defense ministry in Washington and one consular building in New York. He added that the group expects to take control of Venezuela’s embassy in Washington “in the days to come.” The moves come after Guaido, the president of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency in January, arguing that Maduro’s May 2018 re-election was illegitimate. He has been recognized as Venezuela’s rightful leader by most Western countries, including the United States. “We are taking these steps in order to preserve the assets of the Venezuelans here in this country,” Vecchio said from one of the buildings, the office of Venezuela’s military attache to Washington, after removing a portrait of Maduro from the wall and replacing it with one of Guaido. Maduro, who has branded Guaido a U.S. puppet seeking to oust him in a coup, broke off relations with Washington after it recognized Guaido, calling diplomatic and consular staff back to Caracas. Of 55 staff members, 12 decided to remain in the United States and support Guaido, Vecchio said on Monday. He added that his staff would work out of the attache building, which is located in the upscale Kalorama neighborhood and has an assessed value of $2.2 million, according to Washington property records. Venezuela’s information ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the opposition’s move to take possession of the properties. Vecchio spoke alongside Col. Jose Luis Silva, Venezuela’s military attache to Washington who recognized Guaido on Jan. 27. Few other high-ranking members of the military have heeded Guaido’s call to break with Maduro, who retains the support of the armed forces and control of state functions. On Monday, two sources familiar with the matter said an army general has defected and fled to Colombia. Vecchio said he was confident that Venezuela, which is undergoing an economic and humanitarian crisis, was in “an irreversible process of change” but that “it won’t come easily.” The United States withdrew all its remaining diplomatic personnel in Venezuela last week.
|
u.s .;venezuela;nicolas maduro;embassies;juan guaido
|
jp0001755
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/19
|
'The clock is ticking': EU's patience 'sorely tested' as signs point to Brexit delay
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BRUSSELS - European Union governments are exasperated by British dithering over quitting the bloc but have little appetite for pushing it out on schedule next week without a divorce deal, senior figures said on Tuesday. EU ministers in Brussels to prepare a summit with British Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday voiced frustration after the speaker of Parliament threw up a new obstacle for her plan to get her Brexit deal ratified before the March 29 deadline. “Our patience as the European Union is being sorely tested at the moment,” Germany’s Europe minister, Michael Roth, told reporters. “Dear friends in London, please deliver. The clock is ticking.” But Roth also echoed comments in Berlin by Chancellor Angela Merkel, the EU’s pre-eminent leader, who said she would “fight to the last minute” until midnight on March 29 to ensure an orderly exit for the EU’s second-ranked economy. Roth said Germany’s main aim was to avoid a no-deal Brexit, which would disrupt business across the continent. However, after two defeats for the withdrawal agreement that May negotiated with the EU, and her difficulty in trying to get it through Parliament on a third vote even before the speaker ruled that it must be substantially changed, it is not clear how May can avert this without asking fellow leaders for more time. Leaders expect to discuss such an extension at the two-day summit starting on Thursday afternoon. But if May has yet to make a concrete proposal on her next move, then the summit can do little more than outline possible steps — such as a readiness to give her a couple of months, or maybe longer. “If there is no move from London, the leaders can also decide to wait,” said Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders. “It really depends on what May will say at the summit.” Diplomats said member states were still discussing options for extension — possibly only for two to three months, if May persuades them she can clinch a deal at home, or for much longer if May accepts that radical reworking is needed. But these would come with conditions and might not be agreed on until next week. Merkel said there was “far too much in flux” to forecast the outcome of the summit, but her foreign minister, Heiko Maas, told reporters in Finland: “If more time is needed, it’s always better to do another round than a no-deal Brexit.” EU diplomats say it is highly probable that leaders will unanimously support some sort of extension rather than see Britain lurch out of the bloc in 10 days’ time — even though some governments are starting to argue for ending the uncertainty and trusting arrangements already put in place to mitigate the effects of a sudden, immediate exit. Aides to French President Emmanuel Macron, a powerful voice on the Council alongside Merkel, say the onus is on Britain to say what it would do with more time. “This uncertainty is unacceptable,” his EU affairs minister Nathalie Loiseau said in Brussels on Tuesday. “Grant an extension? What for? Time is not a solution, it’s a method — if there’s an objective and a strategy. And it has to come from London.”
|
eu;u.k .;brexit;theresa may
|
jp0001756
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Turkey's Erdogan calls on New Zealand to restore death penalty over Christchurch shooting
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ANKARA - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday called on New Zealand to restore the death penalty for the gunman who killed 50 people at two Christchurch mosques, warning that Turkey would make the attacker pay for his act if New Zealand did not. Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday after a lone gunman opened fire at the two mosques during Friday prayers. “You heinously killed 50 of our siblings. You will pay for this. If New Zealand doesn’t make you, we know how to make you pay one way or another,” Erdogan told an election rally of thousands in northern Turkey. He did not elaborate. He said Turkey was wrong to have abolished the death penalty 15 years ago, and added that New Zealand should make legal arrangements so that the Christchurch gunman could face capital punishment. “If the New Zealand parliament doesn’t make this decision I will continue to argue this with them constantly. The necessary action needs to be taken,” he said. Erdogan is seeking to drum up support for his Islamist-rooted AK Party in March 31 local elections. At weekend election rallies he showed video footage of the shootings which the gunman had broadcast on Facebook, as well as extracts from a “manifesto” posted by the attacker and later taken down. That earned a rebuke from New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters, who said he told Turkey’s foreign minister and vice president that showing the video could endanger New Zealanders abroad. Despite Peters’ intervention, an extract from the manifesto was flashed up on a screen at Erdogan’s rally again on Tuesday, as well as brief footage of the gunman entering one of the mosques and shooting as he approached the door. Erdogan has said the gunman issued threats against Turkey and the president himself, and wanted to drive Turks from Turkey’s northwestern, European region. Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, with its Muslim majority is split between an Asian part east of the Bosphorus, and a European half to the west. Erdogan’s AK Party, which has dominated Turkish politics for more than 16 years, is battling for votes as the economy tips into recession after years of strong growth. Erdogan has cast the local elections as a “matter of survival” in the face of threats including Kurdish militants, Islamophobia and incidents such as the New Zealand shootings. A senior Turkish security source said Tarrant entered Turkey twice in 2016 — for a week in March and for more than a month in September. Turkish authorities have begun investigating everything from hotel records to camera footage to try to ascertain the reason for his visits, the source said.
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terrorism;new zealand;turkey;recep tayyip erdogan;mass shootings;chirstchurch
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jp0001757
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Trump gripes he is being blamed for inspiring alleged white supremacist's New Zealand mosque massacre
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WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump waded Monday into the controversy over his response to the massacre of 50 people in two New Zealand mosques, complaining that he was being blamed for the tragedy. “The Fake News Media is working overtime to blame me for the horrible attack in New Zealand,” Trump told his more than 59 million followers on Twitter. “They will have to work very hard to prove that one,” he tweeted. “So Ridiculous!” Trump appeared to be referring to criticism of his response to the attack, which was allegedly carried out by a 28-year-old white supremacist claiming to be resisting genocide against white people. In a lengthy written rant, the alleged killer referred to Trump as “a symbol of renewed white identity.” Trump did on several occasions tweet and speak to condemn the “horrible” attack and offer any U.S. assistance to New Zealand’s authorities. However, he courted controversy Friday when he played down the wider implications of the gunman’s ideology, saying that violent white nationalism is not a growing problem. “It’s a small group of people,” he said. Trump’s homeland security chief, Kirstjen Nielsen, gave a distinctly different emphasis Monday in a speech where she said that “domestic terrorists,” like the New Zealand killer, increasingly resemble the better known threat from Islamist groups. “The primary terrorist threat to the United States continues to be from Islamist militants and those they inspire, but we should not and cannot and must not ignore the real and serious danger posed by domestic terrorists,” she said. “They are using the same do-it-yourself, mass murder tactics as we saw with the horrible assault last week in New Zealand against Muslim worshipers,” she said. Trump’s dismissal of a broader security threat led to a flurry of criticism from Democrats and other critics over the weekend. They pointed to his frequent labeling of illegal immigrants as invaders, his high-profile restrictions on immigration from several Muslim-majority countries, and a lukewarm condemnation of a neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. “Time and time again, this president has embraced and emboldened white supremacists — and instead of condemning racist terrorists, he covers for them. This isn’t normal or acceptable,” tweeted Kirsten Gillibrand, who formally entered the Democratic race for the White House Sunday. Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney went on television Sunday to push back, saying “the president is not a white supremacist. I’m not sure how many times we have to say that. “To simply ask the question every time something like this happens overseas, or even domestically, to say, ‘Oh, my goodness, it must somehow be the president’s fault,’ speaks to a politicization of everything that I think is undermining sort of the institutions that we have in the country today,” he said on Fox television.
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twitter;donald trump;white supremacist;fake news;mick mulvaney;kirstjen nielsen;new zealand mosque massacre
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jp0001759
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Trump tweet paints possible 2020 rival Joe Biden as 'low I.Q.'
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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump on Monday gave possible 2020 presidential election rival Joe Biden a taste of what to expect if he does jump in the race, with a tweeted insult about his intelligence. Biden, who was vice president under Barack Obama and is seen as potentially the most heavyweight Democrat, remains on the sidelines. However, on Saturday he appeared to confirm his candidacy before correcting himself in midsentence, as if having made a slip of the tongue. Trump, who delights in inventing mocking nicknames and poking fun at opponents, pounced. “Joe Biden got tongue tied over the weekend when he was unable to properly deliver a very simple line about his decision to run for President,” Trump tweeted. “Get used to it, another low I.Q. individual!” Biden’s surprise slip — or, as some speculated, crafty hint — came during a speech in his home state of Delaware. “I’m told I get criticized by the new left. I have the most progressive record of anybody running for the United…,” he said, immediately correcting himself — “anybody who would run.”
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twitter;joe biden;donald trump;2020 u.s. presidential election
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jp0001760
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Germany likely to renege on pledge to Trump to boost military spending
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BERLIN - Berlin could renege on its pledge to raise military spending, in the latest gesture of defiance by German Chancellor Angela Merkel toward U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump has repeatedly blasted NATO leaders for not meeting a target of spending 2 percent of economic output on defense. If confirmed at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, the move by Berlin would be the latest step in the gradual estrangement between the U.S. and one of its top European allies. While the budget foresees an increase in military spending in 2020, it does not provide a plan for how to reach the 2 percent target. The German government’s budget plan for 2020 calls for a 1.7 percent hike in spending to €362.6 billion and relies on ministries cutting costs to avoid incurring new debt given forecasts for slower economic growth, Finance Ministry sources said Monday. The plan assumes that Europe’s largest economy will grow by 1.0 percent in 2019, down from an initially projected 1.8 percent, the sources said. The Economy Ministry last week said the economy had a subdued start to 2019 and probably grew moderately in the first quarter, its outlook dampened by trade conflicts and sluggish demand for industrial products among other factors. To balance the budget, government ministries will have to identify combined spending cuts of €625 million each year, with program delays and other measures to contribute additional savings, the sources said. They said military spending would rise by €2.1 billion over a previous plan for 2020, boosting the share of defense spending to 1.37 percent of gross domestic product from 1.25 percent in 2018 and 1.3 percent this year. “That the German government would even be considering reducing its already unacceptable commitments to military readiness is a worrisome signal to Germany’s 28 NATO allies,” said U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell. The military budget is slated to rise to €45.1 billion in 2020 from planned spending of €43.2 billion this year, a separate government source said. However, the share of military spending would drop back to 1.25 percent in 2023, with any further spending increases to be negotiated year by year, the sources said. “We’re taking it one step at a time,” said one of the sources. That leaves Germany well below the 2 percent target set by NATO members for 2024, and below the 1.5 percent share that Germany has pledged to meet by that date.
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u.s .;nato;military;angela merkel;germany;budgets;donald trump
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jp0001761
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/19
|
White House aide Kellyanne Conway defends Trump as husband challenges U.S. president's mental state
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WASHINGTON - There are marital spats and then there’s the row — unfolding before millions of people — between a top Trump adviser and her husband over the president’s mental health. Kellyanne Conway has made a name for herself as one of Donald Trump’s toughest, sharpest defenders. But she’s never faced a challenge quite like having to rebut her own husband, prominent lawyer George Conway, who has taken to Twitter and The Washington Post to claim that her boss is unwell. His latest tweet posted the symptoms — which he says Trump matches — for “Anti-social and Narcissistic Personality Disorder.” His condition is getting worse. — George Conway (@gtconway3d) March 17, 2019 “*All* Americans should be thinking seriously *now* about Trump’s mental condition and psychological state, including and especially the media, Congress-and the Vice President and Cabinet,” he wrote earlier. So Kellyanne Conway, a regular on the television news shows, found herself in front of the cameras again Monday. “No, I don’t share those concerns,” she said. “I have four kids and I was getting them out of the house this morning before I got here so I can talk to the president about substance, so I may not be up to speed on all of them,” she said.
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twitter;donald trump;kellyanne conway;george conway
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jp0001762
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/19
|
'Full horror' of cyclone in southeast Africa yet to emerge: Red Cross
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MAPUTO/HARARE - Cyclone winds and floods that swept across southeastern Africa affected more than 2.6 million people and could rank as one of the worst weather-related disaster recorded in the southern hemisphere, U.N. officials said on Tuesday. Rescue crews are still struggling to reach victims five days after Cyclone Idai raced in at speeds of up to 170 kph (105 mph) from the Indian Ocean into Mozambique, then its inland neighbors Zimbabwe and Malawi. Aid groups said many survivors were trapped in remote areas, surrounded by wrecked roads, flattened buildings and submerged villages. “There’s a sense from people on the ground that the world still really hasn’t caught on to how severe this disaster is,” Matthew Cochrane, spokesman for International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told a U.N. briefing in Geneva. “The full horror, the full impact is only going to emerge over coming days,” he added. The official death count in Mozambique stands at 84 — but its President Filipe Nyusi said on Monday he had flown over some of the worst-hit zones, seen bodies floating in rivers and now estimated more than 1,000 people may have died there. The cyclone hit land near Mozambique’s port of Beira on Thursday and moved inland throughout the weekend, leaving heavy rains in its wake on Tuesday. Studies of satellite images suggested 1.7 million people were in the path of the cyclone in Mozambique and another 920,000 affected in Malawi, Herve Verhoosel, senior spokesman at the U.N World Food Programme said. It gave no figures for Zimbabwe. Several rivers had broken their banks, or were about to, leaving a huge area covered by the waters, and only accessible by air and water, Lola Castro, WFP regional director for Southern Africa, told the U.N. briefing by phone from Johannesburg. Heavy rains preceded the cyclone, compounding the problems, said Clare Nullis of the U.N. World Meteorological Organization. “It the worst fears are realized … then we can say that it is one of the worst weather-related disasters, tropical-cyclone-related disasters in the southern hemisphere.” Droughts are classed as climate-related not weather-related. In Beira, a low-lying coastal city of 500,000 people, Nullis said the water had nowhere to drain. “This is not going to go away quickly,” she said. Beira is also home to Mozambique’s second largest port, which serves as a gateway to landlocked countries in the region. The control room of a pipeline that runs from Beira to Zimbabwe and supplies the majority of that country’s fuel had been damaged, Zimbabwe’s Energy Minister Jorum Gumbo told the state-owned Herald newspaper on Tuesday. “We, however, have enough stocks in the country and I am told the repairs at Beira may take a week,” he was quoted as saying.
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africa;storms;disasters;mozambique;zimbabwe
|
jp0001763
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/19
|
India deployed nuclear subs and carrier group amid soaring tensions with Pakistan
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NEW DELHI - India’s Navy has confirmed it sent nuclear submarines, an aircraft carrier battle group and dozens of other naval vessels to the North Arabian sea after a suicide bombing in February led to a tense military stand-off with Pakistan. India was conducting large-scale military exercises off its coast when a paramilitary convoy was attacked in the disputed state of Kashmir on Feb. 14, prompting the navy to ‘swiftly’ shift its ships to an operational deployment, the force said in a statement Sunday. The deployment consisted of nuclear submarines, a carrier group centered around INS Vikramaditya and ‘scores of other ships, submarines and aircraft,’ it said. The statement, which also announced an event attended by India’s navy chief, contained the most details so far about India’s military mobilization following the terrorist attack. Roughly 60 navy ships, 12 coast guard vessels and 60 aircraft were engaged in the TROPEX war games exercise, the navy’s biggest, when they were ‘swiftly transited from exercise to operational deployment,’ the navy said. The attack in Kashmir prompted India to launch retaliatory airstrikes against what New Delhi said was a training camp in Pakistan belonging to Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistan-based group that claimed the bombing that killed 40 paramilitary troops. In a separate sortie, Islamabad sent fighter jets to hit targets in India and shot down an Indian Air Force plane, which crashed inside the Pakistan-administered part of Kashmir. An Indian pilot was captured, but was later returned. India was following standard operating procedures and did not do anything out of the ordinary by mobilizing its ships, said Abhijit Singh, a former Indian naval officer and senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation think tank in New Delhi. “It’s being made out that India’s navy was right on Pakistan’s doorstep, but it wasn’t like that — this wasn’t an escalation from India’s side,” Singh said, adding that ships participating in naval exercises often carry only the bare minimum of supplies and ordnance. “They would have suspended the exercises to get the ships back in harbor and get them ready for any possible engagement.” India had previously said its armed forces shifted into a state of heightened readiness after Prime Minister Narendra Modi blamed Pakistan for the attack. At the time, Indian officials denied Islamabad’s statement that it had detected and chased away an Indian submarine from territorial waters. An Indian foreign ministry spokesman and a Pakistan navy spokesman were not immediately able to comment.
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india;kashmir;pakistan;military;nuclear weapons
|
jp0001764
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"science-health-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/19
|
South Korean light and laser system warns 'smartphone zombies' of traffic
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ILSAN, SOUTH KOREA - A city in South Korea, which has the world’s highest smartphone penetration rate, has installed flickering lights and laser beams at a road crossing to warn “smartphone zombies” to look up and drivers to slow down, in the hope of preventing accidents. The designers of the system were prompted by growing worry that more pedestrians glued to their phones will become casualties in a country that already has some of the highest road fatality and injury rates among developed countries. State-run Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) believes its system of flickering lights at zebra crossings can warn both pedestrians and drivers. In addition to red, yellow and blue LED lights on the pavement, “smombies” — smartphone zombies — will be warned by laser beam projected from power poles and an alert sent to the phones by an app that they are about to step into traffic. “Increasing number of smombie accidents have occurred in pedestrian crossings, so these zombie lights are essential to prevent these pedestrian accidents,” said KICT senior researcher Kim Jong-hoon. The multidimensional warning system is operated by radar sensors and thermal cameras and comes with a price tag of 15 million won ($13,250) per crossing. Drivers are alerted by the flashing lights, which have shown to be effective 83.4 percent of the time in the institute’s tests involving about 1,000 vehicles. In 2017, more than 1,600 pedestrians were killed in auto related accidents, which is about 40 percent of total traffic fatalities, according to data from the Traffic Accident Analysis System. South Korea has the world’s highest smartphone penetration rate, according to Pew Research Center, with about 94 percent of adults owning the devices in 2017, compared with 77 percent in the United States and 59 percent in Japan. For now, the smombie warning system is installed only in Ilsan, a suburban city about 30 km northwest of the capital, Seoul, but is expected to go nationwide, according to the institute. Kim Dan-hee, a 23-year-old resident of Ilsan, welcomed the system, saying she was often too engrossed in her phone to remember to look at traffic. “This flickering light makes me feel safe as it makes me look around again, and I hope that we can have more of these in town,” she said.
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accidents;smartphones;south korea
|
jp0001765
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Taiwan independence backer to challenge President Tsai Ing-wen for ruling party nomination
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TAIPEI - A former premier and vocal proponent of independence for Taiwan will challenge his former boss, President Tsai Ing-wen, for the ruling party’s nomination, ensuring the island’s tense relationship with China will be a central focus of the presidential campaign. Former Premier Lai Ching-te said in a text message Monday that he would vie for the Democratic Progressive Party’s backing in the election slated for next year. Lai — a former mayor of the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan who once described himself as an “independence worker” — resigned in January, weeks after the party suffered a resounding loss in local elections. “Taiwan is facing a more precarious situation in the face of China’s threats,” Lai said Monday, after submitting his nomination application at DPP headquarters in Taipei. “Taiwan doesn’t want to be a second Hong Kong or Tibet. The elections in 2020 are critical to Taiwan’s future.” Tsai, who is almost three years into her first term, has said she plans to seek re-election despite receiving support of less than 30 percent in most recent polls. Although Tsai stepped down as the DPP leader after losing several counties and cities to the more China-friendly Kuomintang opposition in November, she had so far faced no obvious challengers from within the party. Tsai spokesman Xavier Chang said via text message that Lai’s candidacy doesn’t change the president’s plans to run. Tsai said in a Facebook post Monday that she planned to submit her formal application to run before the end of the week. The DPP is scheduled to announce its candidate April 17. Lai’s candidacy could make the issue of legal independence for the democratically run island a central campaign theme, just as an increasingly assertive Chinese President Xi Jinping pushes Taiwan for talks on eventual unification. Xi suggested earlier this year that mainland China and Taiwan enter into “in-depth democratic consultations” and work toward unification, the clearest signal yet that he wants to settle the 70-year dispute. Beijing has said any moves by Taiwan to formalize its status as a sovereign state separate from mainland China would be grounds for invasion. The two split during the Chinese civil war in 1949. While the DPP officially supports Taiwan’s independence, Tsai has so far avoided outright moves that might risk provoking the Communist Party in Beijing, saying that she wants to maintain the status quo. That has frustrated some within her party who support a more decisive break from the mainland. Lai has pointed to the risk of the DPP losing not just the presidency but also its hard-won majority in the Legislature as a motivating factor behind his decision to run. Taiwan is expected to hold legislative elections on the same day as the presidential vote. “We need to impress voters so that the DPP can win both the presidential and legislative elections in 2020,” he told supporters at a temple in Tainan on Tuesday. Lai is likely to see strong support in southern Taiwan, a traditional DPP stronghold. After Tsai appointed Lai premier in August 2017, he described himself as a “Taiwan independence worker” and said the island was already a sovereign independent country, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency. The opposition Kuomintang, which has run Taiwan’s government for all but 11 years since 1949 including decades under martial law, may have a crowded nomination contest. Former New Taipei Mayor Eric Chu and ex-parliamentary Speaker Wang Jin-pyng, who both support closer China ties, have already announced their candidacy and Kuomintang Chairman Wu Den-yih may also run. An October poll by Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council found that some 23 percent of Taiwanese people support formal independence either immediately or at some later date, while 19 percent support unification. Most of the rest are in favor of maintaining the status quo.
|
china;taiwan;elections;tsai ing-wen
|
jp0001766
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Top adviser to South Korean president suggests Seoul's patience with North may be wearing thin
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SEOUL - North Korea should take “actual action” toward giving up its nuclear weapons to break the deadlock in talks with Washington, a top security adviser to the South’s president said, suggesting Seoul’s patience with Pyongyang may be wearing thin. President Moon Jae-in was instrumental in brokering the negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington, seizing on the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea to catalize a rapid diplomatic rapprochement after a year of missile tests, threats and tensions. But the first summit between the North’s leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump in Singapore in June produced only a vague commitment to “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” Their second meeting in Hanoi last month broke up without agreement, or even a joint statement, as the two failed to come to a deal over sanctions relief and denuclearization. Since then, Pyongyang has said it is considering suspending the talks and images have emerged of rebuilding works at the Sohae rocket launch facilities. That triggered international alarm that North Korea might be preparing a long-range missile or space launch, which could put the whole negotiations process at risk — Pyongyang has not carried one out for more than a year and Trump has repeatedly said its continued moratorium is crucial. A launch of any kind by the North would be a “disaster,” said Moon’s special adviser on national security Moon Chung-in. The “outcome will be catastrophic,” he said. In Hanoi, U.S. officials said, Trump urged Kim to “go all in” and that “the weapons themselves need to be on the table.” In return, they were “prepared to go all in as well.” But it was not clear exactly which facilities at the Yongbyon nuclear complex the North was willing to give up, while they wanted “basically all the sanctions except for armaments” lifted, the officials said. For its part the North’s foreign minister said it only wanted some of the measures eased, and that its proposal to close “all the nuclear production facilities” at Yongbyon was its best and final offer. Moon’s goal, his adviser said, was a “nuclear weapons-free, peaceful and prosperous Korean Peninsula” — and he would not accept a peaceful accommodation with a nuclear-armed North. The South Korean president has long pushed engagement with Pyongyang to bring it to the negotiating table, but his security adviser backed U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s assessment that “talk is cheap,” saying that the North had given “words and commitment, but no actions.” Kim had told the South Korean leader that he had dismantled 30 percent of the Sohae rocket site, including “about 20 percent of the launchpad — but he hasn’t shown us,” Moon Chung-in said. “That still needs some kind of observation or inspection.” Similarly, Pyongyang claimed to have demolished “two-thirds” of its nuclear testing ground at Punggye-ri, but that too “needs verification,” he said. “North Korea should take further moves to really dismantle all of them,” he stressed. “It is now the North Korean turn to show actual action to make (the) U.S. move.” Openness was crucial, he added. There are many competing estimates of the North’s nuclear arsenal, and Moon places the most faith in figures of 30-35 weapons from U.S. expert Siegfried Hecker, who has been to Yongbyon. “But still we never know,” he added. “That is why we need the process of declaration and inspection. It’s like a blind man touching (an) elephant.” A retired professor of politics, Moon Chung-in has been involved with policy toward the North for decades and was one of the architects of the “Sunshine Policy” of engagement with Pyongyang under President Kim Dae-jung. He stressed that he speaks for himself and not the president — as an adviser, he is outside the formal policymaking process — but his comments may suggest the South will press the North harder to narrow the gap with Washington on nuclear talks. The breakdown in Hanoi meant a mooted trip by Kim to Seoul was off the table for now, Moon said, but added it was vital the two Korean leaders met again for more talks. The South is pushing an “all for all” agreement, as demanded by the US, combined with Pyongyang’s insistence on a step-by-step process to get there, described by Moon Chung-in as “incremental implementation with an acceptable road map.” That would require compromise from both sides. Moon has met Kim twice and says the North Korean leader has a “mastery of issues.” “He’s young, much more willing to talk” than his father and predecessor, Kim Jong Il, “kind of entertaining.” Kim understands that “complete denuclearization” includes his existing stock of weapons, and the missiles that can reach the U.S. mainland and other targets, he said. The North Korean leader was — like any negotiator — looking to minimize risk while maximizing benefits, Moon said, and “hedging” because “regime survival is at stake.” But he must have been “very shocked” when Trump walked out of the Hanoi meeting, Moon said. “I think that was a very important learning process for him.”
|
u.s .;north korea;kim jong un;nuclear weapons;south korea;north korea nuclear crisis;donald trump;moon jae-in;kim-trump summit
|
jp0001767
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/19
|
In interview, Dalai Lama contemplates Chinese gambit after his death
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DHARAMSHALA, INDIA - The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, said Monday it was possible that once he dies his incarnation could be found in India, where he has lived in exile for 60 years, and warned that any other successor named by China would not be respected. Sat in an office next to a temple ringed by green hills and snow-capped mountains, the 14th Dalai Lama spoke a day after Tibetans in the northern Indian town of Dharamshala marked the anniversary of his escape from the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, disguised as a soldier. He fled to India in early 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, and has since worked to draw global support for linguistic and cultural autonomy in his remote and mountainous homeland. China, which took control of Tibet in 1950, brands the 83-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate a dangerous separatist. Pondering what might happen after his death, the Dalai Lama anticipated some attempt by Beijing to foist a successor on Tibetan Buddhists. “China considers Dalai Lama’s reincarnation as something very important. They have more concern about the next Dalai Lama than me,” said the Dalai Lama, swathed in his traditional red robes and yellow scarf. “In future, in case you see two Dalai Lamas come, one from here, in free country, one chosen by Chinese, then nobody will trust, nobody will respect (the one chosen by China). So that’s an additional problem for the Chinese! It’s possible, it can happen,” he added, laughing. China has said its leaders have the right to approve the Dalai Lama’s successor, as a legacy inherited from China’s emperors. But many Tibetans — whose tradition holds that the soul of a senior Buddhist monk is reincarnated in the body of a child on his death — suspect any Chinese role as a ploy to exert influence on the community. Born in 1935, the current Dalai Lama was identified as the reincarnation of his predecessor when he was 2 years old. Speaking in Beijing at a daily news briefing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the 14th Dalai Lama himself was chosen by following centuries-old religious rituals and history, which were “respected and protected” in rules and ordinances regulating religion. “Therefore reincarnations, including that of the Dalai Lama, should observe the country’s laws and regulations and follow the rituals and history of religion,” Geng said. Many of China’s more than 6 million Tibetans still venerate the Dalai Lama despite government prohibitions on displays of his picture or any public display of devotion. The Dalai Lama said contact between Tibetans living in their homeland and in exile was increasing, but that no formal meetings have happened between Chinese and his officials since 2010. Informally, however, some retired Chinese officials and businessman with connections to Beijing do visit him from time to time, he added. He said the role of the Dalai Lama after his death, including whether to keep it, could be discussed during a meeting of Tibetan Buddhists in India later this year. He, however, added that though there was no reincarnation of Buddha, his teachings have remained. “If the majority of (Tibetan people) really want to keep this institution, then this institution will remain,” he said. “Then comes the question of the reincarnation of the 15th Dalai Lama.” If there is one, he would still have “no political responsibility,” said the Dalai Lama, who gave up his political duties in 2001, developing a democratic system for the up to 100,000 Tibetans living in India. During the interview, the Dalai Lama spoke passionately about his love for cosmology, neurobiology, quantum physics and psychology. If he was ever allowed to visit his homeland, he said he’d like to speak about those subjects in a Chinese university. But he wasn’t expecting to go while China remained under communist rule. “China — great nation, ancient nation — but it’s political system is totalitarian system, no freedom. So therefore I prefer to remain here, in this country.” The Dalai Lama was born to a family of farmers in Taktser, a village on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, in China’s Qinghai province. During a recent visit to Taktser, police armed with automatic weapons blocked the road. Police and more than a dozen plain-clothed officials said the village was not open to nonlocals. “Our strength, our power is based on truth. Chinese power based on gun,” the Dalai Lama said. “So for short term, gun is much more decisive, but long term truth is more powerful.”
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china;religion;rights;dalai lama
|
jp0001769
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"crime-legal-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Grieving New Zealand turns to gun laws as it looks for lessons from Christchurch mosque massacre
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WELLINGTON - After days of intense grieving for New Zealand’s worst-ever mass shooting, attention began to turn to how the country’s gun laws need to change and what warning signs might have been missed ahead of a gunman’s attack on two mosques that killed 50 people. Bodies of the victims of Friday’s attacks in Christchurch were being washed and prepared for burial in a Muslim ritual process, with teams of volunteers flown in from overseas to assist with the heavy workload. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said her Cabinet had made in-principle decisions on changes to gun laws that she would announce next Monday, saying now was the time to act on tightening access to firearms. Simon Bridges, leader of the opposition National Party, said he wanted to get details of the changes to see if there could be bipartisan support in Parliament. The National Party draws support from rural areas, where gun ownership is higher than in urban areas. “We know that change is required. I’m willing to look at anything that is going to enhance our safety — that’s our position,” Bridges told TVNZ. In addition to the 50 killed, dozens were wounded at the two mosques in the South Island city during Friday prayers. Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist who was living in Dunedin, on New Zealand’s South Island, was charged with murder on Saturday. Tarrant was remanded without a plea and is due back in court on April 5, where police said he was likely to face more charges. Andrew Little, the minister who oversees New Zealand’s intelligence agencies, said monitoring of online activity had been stepped up in the wake of the Christchurch attacks. “There are people who have been online making statements who have been interviewed by the police; that will continue. There is a level of intervention, there is a heightened level of monitoring,” Little said on TVNZ on Monday night. Ardern said there would be an inquiry into what government agencies “knew, or could or should have known” about the alleged gunman and whether the attack could be prevented. “We have to know whether there have been failings, whether there have been gaps,” Little said on TVNZ. “We have to leave no stone unturned to not only deal with the perpetrator and ensure the criminal justice system gets to deal with him, but to understand how this could have happened in this country.” More than 250 New Zealand police ranks are working on the inquiry in the attacks, with staff from the U.S. FBI and Australia’s Federal Police working with local investigators. In the wake of the deadly attack, other incidents were drawing scrutiny. A gun club in the northern town of Kaitaia burned down early on Tuesday morning, and police were treating the blaze as suspicious. A bomb hoax that closed Dunedin Airport on Sunday night and caused some flights to be diverted was under investigation, police said. A black laptop bag was thought to have been bought onto the airfield by someone climbing over fences around the Dunedin airport. Police found a note written by the person who left the “hoax device,” which was dealt with by defense force experts. “The insensitive nature of this act in light of recent events cannot be overstated,” police said in a statement.
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guns;muslims;white supremacism;jacinda ardern;brenton tarrant;new zealand mosque massacre
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jp0001770
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"crime-legal-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Myanmar military court plan to probe army's alleged Rohingya atrocities hit as 'delusional'
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YANGON - Myanmar’s army said on Monday it had set up a military court to investigate its conduct during a crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority in 2017 that forced more than 730,000 to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. The court comprising a major-general and two colonels will investigate events in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August 2017, the military said in a statement posted on the website of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the army commander-in-chief. “The information is released that the investigation court was formed with the following persons to further scrutinize and confirm the respective incidents,” the military said. The court will respond to allegations made by the United Nations and rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accusing security forces of mass killings, rape and arson. Myanmar forces launched their offensive in Rakhine State in response to a series of attacks by Rohingya insurgents on security posts near the Bangladesh border. A U.N. fact-finding mission last year said the military campaign was orchestrated with “genocidal intent” and recommended charging Min Aung Hlaing and five other generals with the “gravest crimes under international law. Myanmar has denied the accusations of murder, rape and other abuses by its forces though Min Aung Hlaing said last month “a number of security men may have been involved. A previous military investigation, in 2017, exonerated the security forces of any crimes. The new court is “another bad faith maneuver” to fend off international pressure, said Nicholas Bequelin, Southeast Asia and Pacific director of Amnesty International. “The military stands accused of the gravest crimes under international law and has shown no sign of reform,” he said. “The idea that the Tatmadaw could investigate itself and ensure justice and accountability is both dangerous and delusional,” Bequelin added, referring to the army. The military information unit did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Myanmar is facing growing international calls for accountability over the Rakhine campaign. The International Criminal Court has opened a preliminary examination into the violence, while a commission of inquiry formed by Myanmar and including Filipino diplomat Rosario Manalo and Kenzo Oshima, Japan’s former ambassador to the U.N., is due to publish its findings this year. The creation of the military court was based on assessments and suggestions from the military-appointed judge advocate-general, as well the allegations contained in human rights reports, according to the army statement.
|
myanmar;u.n .;icc;genocide;rohingya;atrocities;rakhine
|
jp0001771
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"crime-legal-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/19
|
New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern vows never to speak killer's name
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CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND - New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern vowed Tuesday never to utter the name of the twin-mosque gunman as she opened a somber session of Parliament with an evocative “ as salaam alaikum” message of peace to Muslims. “He will face the full force of the law in New Zealand,” Ardern promised grieving New Zealanders, while promising that she would deprive the man who slaughtered 50 people in Christchurch of the publicity he craved. “He sought many things from his act of terror, but one was notoriety,” she told assembled lawmakers of the 28-year-old Australian accused of the slaughter. “That is why you will never hear me mention his name. He is a terrorist. He is a criminal. He is an extremist. But he will, when I speak, be nameless.” “I implore you: Speak the names of those who were lost rather than the name of the man who took them.” Dressed in black, the 38-year-old leader opened her remarks in Parliament with a symbolic greeting uttered across the Islamic world. “ Wa alaikum salaam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh ” she said, meaning: “May the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be with you too.” She closed her address by noting that “on Friday, it will be a week since the attack, members of the Muslim community will gather for worship on that day. Let us acknowledge their grief as they do.” Her comments came as dozens of relatives of the deceased began arriving from around the world ahead of expected funerals which have already been delayed far beyond the 24 hours after death usually observed under Islamic custom. The slow process of identification and forensic documentation has so far made burials impossible, adding to families’ grief. Javed Dadabhai, who traveled from Auckland to help bury his cousin, said families and volunteers were told: “It is going to be a very slow process, a very thorough process.” “Some families have been invited to have a look at their family members … the ones that are easiest to recognize, but we are talking about three or four.” “The majority of people still have not had the opportunity to see their family members,” he said. In the wake of the mass shooting, Ardern has promised to reform New Zealand gun laws that allowed the gunman to legally purchase the weapons he used in the attack on two Christchurch mosques, including semi-automatic rifles. New Zealanders have already begun answering government appeals to hand in their weapons, including John Hart, a farmer in the North Island district of Masterton. Hart said it was an easy decision for him to hand in his semi-automatic and tweeted that “on the farm they are a useful tool in some circumstances, but my convenience doesn’t outweigh the risk of misuse. We don’t need these in our country.” The tweet drew a barrage of derogatory messages to his Facebook account — most apparently from the U.S., where the pro-gun lobby is powerful and vociferous. Hart deleted the messages but posted online a New Zealand greeting: “A warm kia ora to all my new American Facebook friends.” “I’m not familiar with your local customs, but I assume ‘Cuck’ is a traditional greeting,” he said of the insult, short for “cuckold” frequently used by far-right pundits. Police said they did not have data available on the number of weapons handed in since Friday. But they issued a statement saying that “due to heightened security and the current environment, we would ask that people please call us first before attempting to surrender a firearm.” Ardern has said that details of the government’s proposed law changes on gun ownership will be announced by next week, but she indicated that gun buybacks and a ban on some semi-automatic rifles were under consideration. “As the Cabinet, we were absolutely unified and very clear: the terror attack in Christchurch on Friday was the worst act of terrorism on our shores, it was in fact one of the worst globally in recent times, it has exposed a range of weaknesses in New Zealand’s gun laws,” she said.
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guns;immigration;australia;new zealand;christchurch;mass shootings;jacinda arden;brenton tarrant
|
jp0001773
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Tokyo residents mourn victims of New Zealand mosque shootings
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About two dozen Muslim residents of Japan huddled together Tuesday afternoon outside the New Zealand Embassy in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward at a vigil for the victims of last week’s mosque shootings in Christchurch. Participants from countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iraq and Indonesia gathered at a Shibuya park to condemn violence and offer prayers, chanting “terror has no religion.” Holding banners with slogans condemning terrorism, they marched in groups to leave floral tributes. At least 50 people were killed and several dozens more were wounded in an attack on two mosques full of worshipers during midday Friday prayers. Samiul Islam, 26, who just got a job in Osaka after receiving a master’s degree in tourism and hospitality management from a Japanese university, came to protest terrorism. “It’s not a protest against any country. It’s against terrorism,” he told The Japan Times after offering a prayer. Pakistani Naim Ul Ghani Arain, a car dealer from Saitama Prefecture who has lived in Japan for 37 years, organized the vigil. He praised New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s decision to change gun laws. “It’s important to limit access to weapons,” he said. He also called for severe punishment in terrorism cases to prevent massacres like the one in Christchurch from reoccurring. He also called for the end of anti-Muslim bigotry and white supremacy around the world. “No religion allows for such acts of terror,” he stressed. He said the group gathered to show the world that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism and expressed his discontent with the media’s hesitation to label massacres caused by non-Muslims as terrorism. The suspect in the attack is 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant, who opened fire at worshippers while livestreaming the massacre via Facebook. Before the shooting, Tarrant posted links to a 74-page anti-immigrant manifesto on Twitter and a right-wing online forum. Tarrant was charged with murder on Saturday and is likely to face additional charges. Ardern, whose office received the manifesto several minutes before the country’s deadliest mass shooting, slammed the attack as an act of terrorism. She said she would change the country’s gun laws and ban all semi-automatic weapons.
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guns;violence;immigration;australia;new zealand;christchurch;mass shootings;brenton tarrant
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jp0001774
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/19
|
All aboard the Sakai Muscle Line? Osaka Metro axes foreign language website after botched translation
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Punctual trains. Rat-free platforms. A high standard of cleanliness. The Japanese commuter railway system is known for efficient, sanitary and high quality service. But creating an accurately translated website offering train information may not have been a top priority for Osaka Metro Co. The operator of Osaka’s municipal subway system took down a website offering multilingual information on Monday after a botched translation went viral and was mocked on social media. The website included errors such as listing the “Sakai Muscle Line” for the Sakaisuji Line (the kanji character for “ suji ” refers to muscles) and “car near Eyes 3” for car No. 3 (“ ryome ” — a word for trains cars — consists of kanji characters meaning “both” and “eye”). A section promoting a new TV commercial also used mangled English: “Osaka Metro TV uploaded footage of city is the new born. Please visit the can’t usually see pretty CM filming behind the scenes!” The operator said the odd English was a result of literal translation generated by an automated translation program. Screenshots of the website shared on social media revealed that other station names were butchered: “Before the Zoo” for Dobutsuen-mae, “Powerhouse Town” for Daikokucho and “Prince Bridge Now City” for Taishibashi-Imaichi. An Osaka Metro spokesperson said users notified the operator of the mistakes on Saturday. The company had used a Microsoft automated translation program since Sept. 1 last year for its English, Chinese, Korean and Thai websites. The spokesperson said that in the past someone reached out about a translation error on the company’s Chinese website but that there were no efforts to make a fix to the overall system. It remains unclear when the website — which now displays a message saying it is down “due to maintenance” — will go back online, the spokesperson said. Osaka will host the G20 summit in June and the World Expo in 2025.
|
translation;osaka metro
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jp0001775
|
[
"national",
"politics-diplomacy"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Japan's Cabinet OKs amendment that bans corporal punishment after spate of tragic cases
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The Cabinet approved an amendment Tuesday banning parents from inflicting corporal punishment upon their own children, an effort intended to curb child abuse at home in light of recent high-profile cases where children were fatally mistreated in the name of discipline. If passed by the ongoing regular Diet session, the amendment would take effect in April next year. The ban on physical punishment would not only apply to parents but also to foster parents and welfare workers. The government is also eyeing a revision to the parental right to discipline guaranteed by the Civil Code within two years, amid long-standing criticism that the statute has been interpreted by some parents as giving a green light to corporal punishment that borders on abuse. Experts by and large hail the ban as a step forward in a country where physical punishment against children at home has long been tolerated as a means of discipline. But at the same time, they say the ban, which comes with no penalties, is a largely symbolic move. While it helps steer parents away from such violence, it would fall short of eradicating child abuse cases across the board, they say. The ban is the main pillar of a package of amendments, greenlighted by the government on Tuesday, to the child abuse prevention law and related legislation, including imposing a five-year plan on the central government to finance efforts to boost the number of child welfare institutions in major cities. Amendments also include obligating school and welfare center officials to keep their knowledge of child abuse confidential, following a nationwide outcry over the information mishandling that is seen to have played a part in the death of 10-year-old Mia Kurihara in the city of Noda, Chiba Prefecture, in January. In that case, city education board officials were roundly criticized for succumbing to pressure from her father, Yuichiro, to give him a copy of a school questionnaire where Mia, who was assured her answers would remain private, detailed the abuse that it is alleged was inflicted by him. Experts say the ban on corporal punishment by parents and other guardians will help spread the idea that exerting physical force on children can no longer be justified as a form of discipline. “It will definitely encourage relatives, friends and school teachers to step in and chide parents for physically punishing their kids, under the logic that what those parents are doing is now officially illegal,” Saori Nambu, an associate professor at Nippon Sport Science University who is an expert on corporal punishment and child abuse issues, said. But a ban without a penalty clause won’t provide enough deterrence to stop the most persistent abusers from harming children, Masao Maruyama, a professor of criminal law studies and child abuse at Nanzan University, points out. The amendment “has no effect on parents capable of some of the most extreme child abuse instances we’ve seen in recent months. It is instead meant to dissuade more typical parents with no such proclivity from ever crossing the line,” Maruyama said, adding abusive parents can face imprisonment or a fine under existing laws for offenses such as assault, parental abandonment and murder. The amendment approved Tuesday doesn’t spell out what parental conduct will be recognized as corporal punishment, with the government reportedly planning to put together a guideline setting out more details. Nambu from Nippon Sport Science University, for one, says outlawing parents from physically restraining children who are about to put their lives in jeopardy — such as toppling a child on a tricycle in a desperate bid to stop them from wheeling toward a street — would be unreasonable. The likeliest scenario, she said, is for the government to settle for the adoption of “case-by-case” judgments that leave room for the justification of physical force under critical circumstances. In Japan, where “causing trouble for others” is considered a taboo, corporal punishment has long been portrayed as a defensible measure to “thoroughly discipline” children, Nambu says. A 2017 survey by the international nongovernmental organization Save the Children, for example, showed nearly 60 percent of Japanese adults maintain a tolerant attitude toward physical punishment, although the majority of those who responded so also said they only condone it when “there is no other option.” While school officials are already forbidden from physically punishing pupils per the school education law, the ban on such punishment at home is likely to elicit much stronger resistance from the public, Nambu said. “Not all kids are innocent — some of them are really difficult and dead set against following adult instructions. … Unlike teachers, who merely oversee the kids temporarily, parents are in a position to bear ultimate responsibility for their discipline and often have no one to seek help from,” Nambu said. “Now, they are essentially being deprived of the last-ditch resort that is physical punishment and still asked to discipline kids properly. I could certainly understand if some parents are upset.” The key, then, is for the government to establish more infrastructure designed to reduce the burden on parents, such as stepping up child-rearing consultation systems for them, she said. The days when physical punishment was justified as a necessary evil are gone, the associate professor said. “Times have changed and the human rights of children are very much cherished today. In an age like this, children who suffer from violence when no other kids around them do will only grow less confident in themselves and possibly be more rebellious toward parents who inflict such harm. It’s a vicious cycle.”
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child abuse;law revision;physical punishment
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jp0001776
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Auschwitz museum rebuts Holocaust denial tweet by Japanese celebrity doctor Katsuya Takasu
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BERLIN - The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland recently responded to a high-profile Japanese plastic surgeon’s 3-year-old Twitter post denying the Holocaust by issuing a tweet in Japanese describing it as a “historic fact.” Katsuya Takasu, a well-known media personality in Japan, posted the tweet Oct. 18, 2015. “I think Nanjing and Auschwitz are fabricated,” he wrote, apparently referring to the Holocaust along with the 1937 Nanking Massacre, in which China claims the Imperial Japanese Army slaughtered more than 300,000 people. Japanese historians have put the death toll from tens of thousands to 200,000. The official Twitter account of the museum replied to Takasu’s tweet on Friday, saying in Japanese: “Auschwitz is a historic fact that continues to warn the hearts of people around the world. The remains of the concentration and extermination camp created by Nazi Germany represent the greatest tragedy in human history.” アウシュビッツは世界中の人々の心に絶えず忠告する史実です。 ナチス・ドイツによって造られたその強制・絶滅収容所の史跡は、 人類史上最大の悲劇を象徴しています。 https://t.co/a5BRf0PbjE — Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) March 15, 2019 The museum’s Twitter account regularly tweets in multiple languages but rarely in Japanese. Takasu reacted with a fresh post Sunday, saying he “mistrusts a post on an old topic being brought up.” The Auschwitz concentration camp was established in 1940 in the suburbs of Oswiecim, a Polish city annexed by Nazi Germany. Over 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were systematically killed at the camp before it was liberated by Soviet troops in January 1945. It is a designated UNESCO World Heritage site.
|
nanjing;twitter;holocaust;auschwitz;katsuya takasu
|
jp0001777
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Japan to invite guests from 195 nations for events marking enthronement of new Emperor
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The government said Tuesday it will send invitations to 195 nations for events in the fall to mark Crown Prince Naruhito’s enthronement, following Emperor Akihito’s abdication next month. The abdication ceremony, set to begin at 5 p.m. on April 30, is expected to be attended by about 300 guests, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Cabinet members. Abe will offer words of gratitude before the 85-year-old Emperor speaks to the representatives of the people, the government said. All 195 nations are recognized by Japan as states. A banquet to be hosted by Abe and his wife Akie on Oct. 23 for the new Emperor will stage Japanese cultural performances, which will be overseen by kyogen actor Mansai Nomura, a supervisor of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics opening and closing ceremonies, the government added. Nomura, 52, is a leading performer of the traditional style of comic drama. The previous banquet, held in November 1990 to celebrate the current Emperor’s enthronement, also featured kabuki and noh performances. “We will make thorough preparations so that we can observe our country’s historic turning point without any difficulties,” Abe said at a government meeting on Tuesday. Regarding the appointment of Nomura as general adviser for the banquet, a senior government official said the actor is “the most suitable person from the standpoint of entertaining foreign guests with Japanese traditional culture.” The event is expected to draw around 900 guests from home and abroad. The Emperor expressed his desire to step down in a rare video message in August 2016, citing concerns that he might not be able to fulfill official duties due to his advanced age. In June 2017, Japan enacted one-off legislation enabling him to abdicate, which will make him the first monarch to do so in the nation in around 200 years, and be succeeded by his 59-year-old elder son. On the morning of May 1, the new Emperor will inherit traditional Imperial regalia, such as the Sacred Sword and Curved Jewels, as proof of ascension to the throne, in the Kenji to Shokei no Gi ceremony. Later in the day, he will meet the representatives of the public for the first time in the Sokui go Choken no Gi rite. Male guests at both rituals are supposed to wear tailcoats, but in the Taiirei Seiden no Gi farewell ceremony to mark the Emperor’s abdication, set for April 30, the dress code for them will be morning coats, while female guests will be asked to wear long dresses, the government said. Attendees can also wear formal kimono, it added.
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royalty;emperor akihito;abdication;mansai nomura;2020 tokyo olympics;emperor naruhito
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jp0001778
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[
"national"
] |
2019/03/19
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Leopalace21 probe finds ex-president issued directive to use unsuitable wall materials
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Rental apartment operator Leopalace21 Corp. said Monday that its founder and former president issued the directive to change materials used in the walls of its apartments before they were built, contributing to defective construction work nationwide that later meant over 14,000 residents had to temporarily move out. With no division to monitor overall construction operations, the company failed to detect the order by the former president, Yusuke Miyama, to change materials from those initially planned in the designs, the interim report of its investigation said. Leopalace21 launched a probe into possible defects in its nearly 40,000 apartments nationwide after 38 defects were found last May in apartments built between 1996 and 2009. The company said last month it had found more than 1,300 apartments built with external walls not meeting fire-protection requirements or interior walls using substandard materials for sound insulation. Ceilings at some of the affected apartments used inadequate or inappropriate fire-resistant materials. The company said at that time a total of 14,443 residents would need to move out of their homes in Tokyo and 32 prefectures in order to repair the defects. “We take it seriously and are prioritizing progress in the investigation and remedial measures,” Executive Officer Shigeru Ashida said at a news conference. The rental apartment operator will continue its investigation to determine whether the direction by the former president to use substandard materials was intentional. Ashida said he did not know whether the former president was involved in any wrongdoing and that he will await the final report of the investigation. Miyama, who established the company in 1973, resigned in 2006 to take responsibility for misusing company funds for private purposes. According to the probe, the company had been seeking ways to build apartments more quickly in order to increase the number of residents and used those materials to shorten the construction periods. “It is likely that adequate checks on quality and legality were not conducted at any point in the process,” at the design, construction or final checking stages, the report read. The product development division, which was operating directly under the former president, was believed to have a “background of making light of laws and quality,” the report said. Leopalace21 did not have a division exclusively in charge of legal matters when it was planning to build the affected apartments. It also had no specific rules on how to check legal issues, according to the report. The probe committee plans to compile a final report by the end of May and will outline measures that the company should take in order to prevent similar incidents in the future.
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scandals;defects;leopalace;leopalace21
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jp0001779
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[
"national"
] |
2019/03/19
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With April dispatch to Egypt, Japan eyes first overseas SDF mission not under U.N. command
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Japan will send two Self-Defense Force members to a multinational peacekeeping force in Egypt in mid-April, their first dispatch to an overseas mission that is not under the command of the United Nations, the government said Tuesday. The government is accelerating its preparation for Cabinet approval in late March for the dispatch of the SDF members to the command of the Multinational Force and Observers on the Sinai Peninsula. If the dispatch through November is realized, it will mark the first application of new security legislation that has expanded the scope of the SDF’s international activities. The multinational mission, initiated by the United States, has been supervising the implementation of the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel following the Arab-Israeli War. The new security law that came into effect in 2016 allows SDF participation in overseas peacekeeping operations even if they are not under the control of the United Nations. The government sent Defense Ministry officials to assess the situation on the Sinai Peninsula earlier this month and they apparently judged that the dispatch will not run counter to five legal requirements governing participation in U.N. peacekeeping operations. The so-called five principles will be applied when Japan sends SDF members abroad for peacekeeping operations, whether or not the mission is under U.N. control. The requirements include the existence of a cease-fire agreement among warring parties.
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military;egypt;u.n .;self defense forces
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jp0001780
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/19
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GSDF chief Koji Yamazaki to become Japan's top uniformed officer
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The Cabinet approved a plan Tuesday to make the chief of staff of the Ground Self-Defense Force, Koji Yamazaki, the top uniformed officer of the country’s armed forces on April 1. The 58-year-old will replace Adm. Katsutoshi Kawano, the longest-serving chief of the Self-Defense Forces’ Joint Staff. Yamazaki joined the GSDF in 1983 after graduating from the National Defense Academy. He previously served posts including the chief of the Northern Army. Kawano, 64, became the fifth chief of staff at the SDF Joint Staff in October 2014. He commanded the SDF’s responses to North Korea’s missile launches. As a trusted hand of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his aides, Kawano extended his retirement three times, having already become the longest-serving chief of the SDF’s Joint Staff.
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ground self-defense force;katsutoshi kawano;koji yamazaki
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jp0001781
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[
"national"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Japanese government panel proposes making ancient tomb's mural paintings a national treasure
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A government panel on Monday recommended the mural paintings of the ancient Kitora tomb in western Japan be recognized as a national treasure in a bid to enhance their preservation following more than a decade of restoration work. The recommendation by the advisory council for the education minister comes only five months after the richly colored paintings in the tomb, which was built sometime between the late seventh century to the early eighth century, were designated an important cultural asset. The unusually quick move to raise the status of the paintings apparently underscores the government’s sense of urgency. The mural paintings, which include those of four deities in Chinese mythology that each represent a cardinal direction, were removed from the walls of the tomb in the village of Asuka, Nara Prefecture, in 2004 so repair work could be carried out to combat mold that had developed. After repairs were finished in 2016, the murals, which were discovered in 1983, have since been preserved and exhibited on a limited basis to the public in a museum adjacent to the tomb. The Kitora paintings, which also include a star chart on the ceiling that is said to be the oldest in East Asia, offer a rare glimpse into ancient art. The only other example of a colored mural in an old Japanese tomb is at the Takamatsuzuka tomb in Asuka. On Monday, the council also proposed to designate as national treasures a set of six statues from a Nara temple said to be inspired by Chinese art, as well as a group of five statues from a temple in Kyoto that are emblematic of the early days of sculptures associated with esoteric Buddhist teachings. The recommendations will bring the total number of national treasures in Japan to 893.
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archaeology;national treasure;paintings;kitora tomb
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jp0001782
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki requests month of talks with Abe in bid to halt U.S. base transfer
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Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki on Tuesday called on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to engage in a one-month dialogue in his latest bid to halt the ongoing construction work to build a replacement facility for a key U.S. air base within the prefecture. Tamaki made the request after winning renewed backing from locals in his fight to stop the relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma through a recent prefectural referendum. He also told Abe that the Okinawa Prefectural Government will withdraw an appeal filed with the top court over a lawsuit seeking suspension of the work. “I want to create an environment for dialogue, rather than continuing legal battles,” the governor told reporters after a meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Tokyo. According to Tamaki, Abe did not clearly indicate whether he will agree to launch talks on the issue as requested and only said that the central government is moving ahead with the relocation work based on “various talks and confirmations.” Tamaki was meeting Abe for the second time since March 1, when he reported the outcome of the prefectural referendum in February that showed over 70 percent of voters were opposed to the plan to transfer the Futenma base from the crowded city of Ginowan to the less populated coastal area of Henoko. The plebiscite was nonbinding on the central government, which has maintained the current relocation plan is the “only solution” to eliminate the dangers posed by the Futenma base without undermining the deterrence provided by the Japan-U.S. security alliance. The government has also continued to pour massive amounts of soil and sand into the Henoko coastal area for the purpose of land reclamation since December. The prefectural government has sought to stop the construction work by taking the issue to courts, but the attempts have not been successful. In December, the Naha branch of the Fukuoka High Court upheld a lower court ruling, dismissing an appeal by the Okinawa Prefectural Government to suspend the relocation on the grounds that the central government is destroying reefs on the seabed without permission. Although the prefectural government appealed the high court ruling in the same month, Tamaki said Tuesday he has ordered prefectural government officials to withdraw the appeal. Tamaki, meanwhile, said he has not yet decided whether to file a fresh lawsuit aimed at nullifying the prefectural government’s approval for the landfill work given in 2013. The local government retracted its permission in August last year, but the move has been overridden by the central government. Many Okinawa residents have long hoped the Futenma base will be moved out of the prefecture, as they are frustrated with noise, crimes and accidents linked to the U.S. military presence. Opponents of the relocation plan have also said the replacement facility will destroy the marine ecosystem off the Henoko coast — home to an endangered species of dugong.
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okinawa;u.s .;military;futenma;henoko;referendum;denny tamaki
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jp0001783
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/19
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Schools reopen, but student numbers fail to rebound in disaster-hit Fukushima municipalities
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FUKUSHIMA - Eight years after the March 2011 disasters, elementary and junior high schools have reopened in 10 Fukushima Prefecture municipalities after the lifting of nuclear evacuation advisories. Student numbers have not rebounded. According to statistics released last May, the number of students stood at only about 10 percent of the level before 3/11. During the protracted evacuations, many families rebuilt their lives in new locations, leading to the sharp fall in students in Fukushima. As a result, local governments are facing difficulties keeping schools operating. In the Yamakiya district in the town of Kawamata, the evacuation advisory was lifted in March 2017, six years after the reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. Elementary and junior high schools reopened in the town in April 2018, but five students in the sixth grade are the only elementary school children. With no newcomers joining this spring, the elementary school plans to suspend operations in April. About 40 percent of the residents have returned to the district, but three-quarters of them are aged 60 or older. “Child-rearing families have shifted their living bases to the locations where they took shelter, after their children made friends at school and they built new homes,” an official of the town’s board of education said. A man in his 60s who is a member of a neighborhood community association in the district is disappointed by the steep decrease in the number of children. “The disappearance of children’s voices is like the lights going out,” the man, who did not want his name published, said. Before the March 2011 disasters, Sanbiki Shishimai, a traditional local event in which elementary school children perform dances for the health of local people, was held every year. The event resumed in 2017, but the organizers plan to enlist the help of children from outside the district this year. Although the event is not in the original form, “we want to continue our tradition one way or another,” the man said. In the village of Iitate, the number of elementary and junior high school students has fallen to 79. The local government currently pays all education-related expenses, including for education materials and school lunches. The village operates 12 school buses, including some for students commuting from neighboring municipalities, at an annual cost of about ¥65 million. Schools in the village devote a lot of time to education aimed at nurturing children’s affection for their hometown. “If they grow up in this village, they will hopefully make some form of contributions (to the village) in the future,” an official of the village board of education said. The central government is working to improve small-class education in depopulated areas through the use of information and communications technology. In February, four elementary schools in the Fukushima village of Katsurao and the towns of Tomioka and Namie conducted a joint ethics class by linking up in a teleconference system. Via screens, students exchanged opinions on the theme of having a big heart. “It gives valuable experience to students, as they usually have few opportunities to hear a range of views,” said Dai Nagaki, a 31-year-old teacher at a school in Katsurao.
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fukushima no . 1;children;education;disasters;schools;students
|
jp0001784
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/19
|
Japan's government adopts bill to prevent padding of disabled employment figures
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Lawmakers at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday adopted a bill intended to prevent government ministries, agencies and other public organizations from overstating the employment of disabled people. Under the bill, which amends the law on promoting the employment of people with disabilities and will now move to the Diet, public organizations will be required to preserve documents used to determine whether a job candidate is recognized as having disabilities. Also, the labor ministry will be granted review and advisory powers to check whether such agencies are employing disabled people according to the rules. The bill also includes further measures to promote the employment of people with disabilities. The government will set up a benefits system for private-sector companies that employ disabled people working between 10 and 20 hours a week. Through the system, the government hopes to encourage firms to employ people with mental disabilities who struggle to work long hours. It will also create a system to accredit smaller businesses that are proactive about employing disabled people. Public institutions will be obliged to draw up and announce plans on employing disabled people. The bill calls on them to make efforts to improve their work environment by appointing officials to oversee such matters, as well as counselors. In addition to the measures approved at the Cabinet meeting, the government has decided to introduce penalties for central government ministries and agencies, such as reducing their personnel budgets, if they fail to meet the legally required employment rate for people with disabilities. That plan was decided at a meeting of related ministers, held before the Cabinet meeting. “The government must work as one to handle the matter properly,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at the meeting. Last year, central government ministries and agencies were found to have overstated the number of employees with disabilities by a total of 3,700 as of June 2017. A number of missteps by ministries and agencies were revealed, such as concluding that a person was disabled from the results of medical examinations without checking disability certificates or other necessary documents.
|
jobs;scandals;disability
|
jp0001785
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/26
|
METI tells convenience store operators to come up with plans to cope with Japan's labor crunch
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Operators of Japan’s major convenience store chains need to formulate plans to address the severe labor shortage that is creating growing discontent among their struggling franchisees, the industry minister said Tuesday. Hiroshige Seko, minister of economy, trade and industry, said he will meet in early April with the heads of the four dominant convenience store chains. One of them, Seven-Eleven Japan Co., saw a franchise owner recently make news by going against the company’s 24-hour operating policy when he cut business hours at his store. Franchise owners of the other three — FamilyMart Co., Lawson Inc. and Ministop Co. — have also experienced issues in recent months caused by the country’s tight labor market. The lack of workers is proving to be a huge challenge to convenience stores, which have become important cogs in Japan’s social infrastructure due to the wide range of products and services they provide at all times of the day and night. According to a ministry survey released Tuesday, 61 percent of convenience store owners say labor is in short supply, up 39 percentage points from the previous survey in fiscal 2014. The survey also found that some 39 percent are not satisfied with business conditions under their franchise agreement, up 22 points, due to such reasons as their stores’ lower than expected profitability and the long work hours required to run them. “It is problematic, thinking in terms of the sustainability of convenience stores that have become infrastructure for people’s lives,” Seko said. The survey was conducted online from December to March and targeted around 11,300 franchise owners across eight convenience store chains, according to the ministry. In February, a Seven-Eleven store owner in Higashiosaka, Osaka Prefecture, began closing his store overnight due to a lack of staff. Seven-Eleven, however, reprimanded the owner for violating his contract. Seven-Eleven has said it does not intend in principle to change the 24 hours per day, seven days per week policy it established in 1975, but it did begin a trial of shorter operating hours at some outlets to gauge the impact on sales and consumer traffic. FamilyMart has also tested reduced hours. The impact of the labor shortage is not limited to convenience stores, which have been increasingly turning to foreign part-time workers to fill shifts. Japanese companies across the board have been struggling to secure labor amid the graying of the population and the country’s modest economic growth. Restaurant chain operators have been moving toward shorter hours, including Royal Holdings Co., which ended around-the-clock operation at all its outlets in January 2017. The job availability ratio stood at 1.63 in January, meaning there were 163 openings for every 100 job seekers, according to the most recent government data.
|
jobs;meti;convenience stores;lawson;familymart;ministop
|
jp0001786
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/26
|
'Safety on the cheap': Standard-bearers of the sky FAA and Boeing face intense scrutiny after crashes
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NEW YORK - The relationship between Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration, which has set the global standard in aviation safety for decades, will come under unprecedented scrutiny this week after two deadly airline crashes. Both accidents involved a Boeing jet green-lighted by the U.S. regulator, which relied heavily on safety assessments made by Boeing employees. In a startling break from the past, other nations and airlines grounded the Boeing 737 Max en masse after the second fatal crash this month while the same model of plane continued to carry tens of thousands of passengers a day in the United States. This week, Congress joins the investigation into Boeing and the FAA. On Wednesday, the Senate aviation subcommittee will examine how the FAA oversees safety in the commercial aviation industry. The acting FAA chief is scheduled to testify. So is the Transportation Department’s inspector general, who is conducting a separate probe of the FAA’s decision to approve the Boeing 737 Max aircraft, the type of plane that crashed in Indonesia in October, and then in Ethiopia two weeks ago. The U.S. House plans to hold its own hearings and The Associated Press has reported that the Justice Department is also investigating. At the very least, it looks like Boeing and the FAA are going to be under more intense scrutiny for some time. Here are some questions that lawmakers are almost certain to ask: Can FAA effectively regulate Boeing? For decades, the FAA has relied heavily on safety certifications performed by employees of aircraft manufacturers, whose work is overseen by the FAA. The FAA defends this delegation of work, saying it improves safety by involving more skilled professionals into the review of what companies do. Agency officials stress that the last fatal crash of a U.S. airliner took place a decade ago. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., called the FAA arrangement with manufacturers “safety on the cheap,” and said he wants to know more about the role that Boeing employees played in the FAA’s decision to certify the Max. Should FAA’s budget be increased? The agency concedes that it doesn’t have resources to keep pace with growth in the aviation industry. Outside experts say the FAA is overmatched — it can’t pay enough to attract and keep people with the technical expertise to regulate such a complex industry. “It’s a money thing, and they don’t have the money to do all the kinds of oversight,” said Todd Curtis, a former Boeing Co. safety engineer and creator of airsafe.com , a website that focuses on airline safety. What did the FAA know about the flight system? With the Max, Boeing created an automated flight-control system that has never been used before; it can direct the nose of the plane down if sensor readings indicate the plane may be about to stall, or lose aerodynamic lift from the wings. The interaction between pilots and that automated system is now at the center of the investigation into both crashes. According to published reports, high-ranking FAA officials were unaware of a Boeing’s stall-protection system called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS. Lawmakers are likely to ask who within FAA knew about the software and whether they failed to grasp its significance. Why did the FAA act in grounding the plane? Flight safety regulators worldwide have followed the lead of the FAA for decades, but not this time. China, whose airlines have more Max jets than any other country, grounded the plane one day after the crash in Ethiopia. Others including the European Union and Canada followed quickly, citing a need for caution. That left the U.S. standing alone in allowing passengers to keep flying on the Max. President Donald Trump announced the grounding of the Boeing plane on the afternoon of March 13, three days after the crash in Ethiopia. The FAA said the planes were being parked because of “newly refined satellite data” and evidence collected at the crash site. Satellite information showed the planes that crashed had similar flight paths — erratic rates of alternately climbing and descending almost immediately after takeoff. Acting FAA Administrator Daniel Elwell said the agency grounded the plane as soon as it had data to support the decision. Lawmakers will want to know whether the FAA’s delay exposed tens of thousands of passengers to unnecessary risk. Is pilot training good enough, especially at foreign airlines? New airline pilots can fly sooner overseas than their American counterparts. After a 2009 crash that killed 50 people near Buffalo, New York, Congress raised the minimum experience for starting airline pilots from 250 flight hours, to 1,500 hours in many cases, and 1,000 hours for graduates of an accredited aviation school. U.S. airlines once got most of their pilots from the military. Brent Bowen, a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, said most now get a college degree and flight training from an aviation school, then work another couple years as a flight instructor before joining an airline. Other countries follow training standards updated in 2006 by the United Nations’ aviation organization, which require far less flying time and emphasize simulator training and being part of a flight crew. “Most of the world’s airlines are using training academies where they can hire people off the street without any higher education, give them 250 hours of flight training in small aircraft, and in as little as 12 to 14 months they put them in the (co-pilot’s) seat of a full-size airliner,” Bowen said.
|
u.s .;congress;airlines;boeing;faa;ethiopian airlines;lion air;air accidents;mcas
|
jp0001787
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Netflix and Roku shares surge ahead of Apple's video-streaming event
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NEW YORK - Roku Inc. and Netflix Inc. rose ahead of a highly anticipated event Monday afternoon where Apple Inc. is expected to unveil a video-streaming service. Analysts have speculated that Roku, a platform for streaming services, could be a beneficiary from Apple’s entry into the space. Meanwhile, Raymond James kept its strong buy rating on Netflix, saying media reports about Apple’s service suggest it “does not appear that different than others, and thus is unlikely to change the competitive landscape.” Netflix rose 0.8 percent at 11:46 a.m. in New York, while Roku jumped as much as 5.2 percent. Apple pared declines after earlier falling as much as 2 percent. BTIG wrote earlier that Apple’s event could “trigger a sell-off in the stock,” as there is little that Apple could say “that will satisfy media skeptics.” Despite that, it raised its price target to $220 from $189 and suggested the company has “a pretty good start” entering the highly competitive streaming space, given the amount of cash it has on hand, along with the huge user base of iPhone users.
|
apple;stocks;streaming;netflix;roku
|
jp0001788
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Advertising for Japan's casinos to be limited to international arrival areas at travel hubs
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The government decided Tuesday it will allow casino advertisements to be displayed only in international arrival areas of air and sea terminals that are used by visitors from abroad. The rule is part of an enforcement order for the law enacted last year that legalized integrated resorts featuring casinos as the government aims to attract more international visitors and stimulate regional economies. Casino ads will be banned in all other areas outside the vicinity of each integrated resort. The restriction reflects the government’s aim to reduce Japanese citizens’ exposure to such ads in an effort to ward off gambling addiction. Rules set under the enforcement order, which was approved at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, will take effect one after another starting Monday. The standards adopted at the meeting for casino resorts due to be built by the mid-2020s also require operators to host hotels far larger than those that currently exist in the country, along with conference rooms and exhibition halls. With hotels required to secure more than 100,000 square meters for guest rooms, local governments aiming to bring such resorts to their municipalities will need to cooperate with business operators capable of making such massive investments. Japan will aim for casino resorts of “unprecedentedly large scale and high quality,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a government meeting on the issue prior to the Cabinet approval. The requirement for hotels was based on the size of overseas casino resorts built over the past decade. With the average-sized Japanese guest room requiring 50 square meters, such a hotel would necessitate 2,000 rooms, exceeding the average of 1,500 at three major luxury Tokyo hotels. As for the sizes of conference rooms and exhibition sites, operators will need to fulfill one of three combined numerical criteria, which include a convention center that accommodates 3,000 people with a 60,000-square-meter exhibition space. Tokyo Big Sight currently has the country’s largest exhibition floor space of 95,000 square meters, while the nation’s largest conference halls, the Tokyo International Forum in Tokyo and the Pacifico Yokohama ,hold around 5,000 people. The maximum floor space for casinos should be 3 percent of the integrated resort’s total space, according to the regulations. A recent Kyodo News survey, covering all of Japan’s 47 prefectures and 20 major cities that are eligible to host the newly legalized resorts, found that only three areas — the prefectures of Osaka, Wakayama and Nagasaki — plan to apply for the government’s screening of host sites. With the adoption of the enforcement order, local governments wanting to host casino resorts and businesses eager to operate such facilities are expected to speed up related preparations. The central government will set up a committee for supervising casinos. The tourism minister will lay out a basic policy for resort development, possibly this summer. After that, local governments will select resort operators and work with them to jointly devise and submit development plans.
|
tourism;gambling;casinos
|
jp0001790
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Japan Post Bank to double savings cap to ¥26 million starting Monday
|
Japan Post Bank will raise the cap on its yūcho postal savings Monday to ¥26 million per customer, up from ¥13 million. The cap will be set at ¥13 million each for ordinary and time savings accounts, for a total of ¥26 million. It will be the first increase in the cap since it was raised by ¥3 million in April 2016. The increase will allow customers to deposit a larger sum of money, including retirement pay, while helping reduce the bank’s burdens, such as informing clients whose savings exceed the cap. Private sector rivals have complained that the higher cap will put pressure on them as the measure is expected to lead to an outflow of deposits to the government-backed bank. The higher cap could deal a blow to collaborative moves between Japan Post Bank and regional banks, including the mutual use of ATMs and joint sales of investment funds aimed at revitalizing rural areas. A government panel called late last year for the higher savings cap as part of its proposals regarding the privatization of postal services.
|
banks;japan post;japan post bank
|
jp0001791
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Canadians question ratification of North American trade deal with Trump tariffs still intact, Ottawa official says
|
OTTAWA - Many Canadians question why Ottawa should ratify a new North American free trade deal given Washington’s refusal to lift U.S. tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum from its northern neighbor, a top Canadian official said on Monday. Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland made her remarks to reporters in Washington after meeting U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to insist on the removal of the sanctions, which the U.S. administration announced last May, citing national security reasons. Canada is the single largest supplier of both aluminum and steel to the United States. Freeland said it made no sense to retain the tariffs, given that the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement had been formally signed last November. “I have heard from a lot of Canadians that they would be really troubled by Canada moving forward with ratification while the tariffs are still in place,” she said in televised remarks. Freeland did not answer directly when asked whether she had made any progress in trying to persuade Lighthizer to lift the tariffs. Washington worries that countries could try to ship supplies through Canada and pretend the metals had been produced in Canadian facilities. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump on March 1 about the matter but well-placed sources said there was little sign of progress.
|
u.s .;trade;mexico;canada;tariffs;aluminum;nafta;donald trump;crystia freeland
|
jp0001792
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/26
|
France to seal billions-worth in deals with China but will push back against 'Belt and Road' project
|
PARIS - France and China planned to sign trade deals worth billions of euros on Monday during a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping but Paris will also take the opportunity to push back against Beijing’s “Belt and Road” infrastructure initiative. President Emmanuel Macron wants to forge a united European front to confront Chinese advances in trade and technology. Xi’s visit also provided a stage for protesters seeking more European action over the alleged mistreatment of minorities in China. After he and Xi meet later on Monday, the two will hold further talks on Tuesday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the European Union executive. Xi arrived in France after visiting Italy, the first Western power to endorse China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative as Rome tries to revive its struggling economy. The Belt and Road Initiative plan, championed by Xi, aims to link China by sea and land with Southeast and Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa, through an infrastructure network on the lines of the old Silk Road. France says Silk Road cooperation must work in both directions. “An awakening was necessary,” Macron said in Brussels on Friday. “For many years we had an uncoordinated approach and China took advantage of our divisions.” An official in Macron’s office said significant progress was expected in terms of opening up the Chinese market for some farm goods, especially poultry. French officials have also voiced hope that a multi-billion dollar deal for China to buy dozens of Airbus planes could be finalized. In a column in the French daily Le Figaro published on Sunday, Xi made clear he wanted Paris to cooperate in the Belt and Road project, calling for more trade and investment in sectors ranging from nuclear energy to aeronautics and farming. “French investors are welcome to share development opportunities in China. I also hope that Chinese companies can do better in France and make a greater contribution to its economic and social development,” he wrote. French officials describe China as a both a challenge and partner, saying France must remain especially vigilant over any Chinese attempts to appropriate foreign technology for its own purposes. The EU is already weighing a more defensive strategy on China, spurred by Beijing’s slowness in opening up its economy, Chinese takeovers in critical sectors, and a feeling in European capitals that Beijing has not stood up for free trade. As part of efforts to further that approach, Macron will play host Merkel and Juncker on Tuesday to meet with Xi to move away from a purely bilateral approach to ties. “Macron is not happy to see China win so many prizes in Rome, so he has invented a bizarre European format by inviting Merkel and Juncker as a counterbalance to show that he is the driving force behind European integration,” said one Paris-based Asian diplomat. Rights organizations also urged Macron not to skirt the subject of human rights in China, especially Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region. Several hundred demonstrators converged in central Paris on Monday with slogans protesting against the alleged mistreatment of China’s Muslim Uighurs and in defense of Tibet, 60 years after that region’s failed uprising against Chinese rule. “Foreign officials have often justified not challenging Chinese leaders on human rights out of ostensible concern that they might ‘lose face,’ ” Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “But President Macron should keep in mind that the faces that matter are those of the countless people wrongly imprisoned, tortured and persecuted by President Xi and his government.”
|
china;france;trade;eu;angela merkel;xi jinping;jean-claude juncker;emmanuel macron;belt and road
|
jp0001793
|
[
"business",
"financial-markets"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Japanese stocks bounce back on short-covering and buying before stocks go ex-dividend
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The Nikkei 225 average rebounded Tuesday from five-week lows to close sharply higher as cyclical stocks rose on short-covering, following a sell-off the previous day driven by fears of a sharp global economic slowdown. With the end of the business year looming this Sunday for the majority of listed Japanese companies, the market was also underpinned by investor purchases of stocks before they went ex-dividend later in the day. The Nikkei ended 2.15 percent higher at 21,428.39 after recording its biggest drop since late December on Monday. Analysts said risk aversion eased somewhat after a slide in Wall Street paused overnight, but concerns about a U.S. recession lingered. On Monday, benchmark 10-year Treasury yields fell to their lowest levels since December 2017, while the yield curve between three-month bills and 10-year notes inverted further as investors continued to assess last week’s dovish pivot by the U.S. Federal Reserve. An inverted yield curve is widely seen as a signal of a recession. “In the short-term, an inversion of U.S. yields will likely keep worrying investors,” said Hikaru Sato, a senior technical analyst at Daiwa Securities. “But in the longer term, investors are concerned about Japan-specific problems such as the yen’s level, which has been trading at a higher level against the dollar than last year.” He said that with Japanese companies ending their fiscal year in March, concerns about annual earnings results and forecasts for the next fiscal year will likely keep investors on edge. Exporters rebounded, with Panasonic Corp. rising 4.1 percent, Yaskawa Electric rising 2.4 percent and Advantest Corp. jumping 1.9 percent. Analysts said index futures were in demand by index and mutual funds before stocks went ex-dividend. Renesas Electronics advanced 2.9 percent after the company said it would buy back up to ¥10 billion of its own shares. The broader Topix benchmark gauge rallied 2.57 percent to 1,617.94, with all of its 33 subsectors trading in positive territory. Every industry category in the main section gained ground, led by land transportation, pharmaceutical and construction issues. Shares staged a solid rebound after the Nikkei fell Monday by 650 points to 20,977.11, its lowest close since Feb. 15 and the steepest daily fall since Dec. 25, on rekindled concern over a global economic slowdown. “After a round of selling, investors broadly bought on dips,” said Maki Sawada, vice president of the investment research and investor services department at Nomura Securities Co. Stocks advanced further in the afternoon, with the market also supported by buying to secure dividends for the second half of fiscal 2018. Tuesday was the last trading day to gain rights to dividends from companies with a business year ending this month. The market was also boosted by purchases of stock futures, with traders projecting reinvestment by some institutional investors who have secured the rights and anticipate dividend proceeds, said Yutaka Miura, senior technical analyst at Mizuho Securities Co. On the first section, advancing issues outnumbered decliners 2,001 to 116, with 23 ending the day unchanged. Land transportation, retail and food issues were bought as many investors sought to receive dividends or free tickets. Railway operator Keio climbed ¥300, or 4.3 percent, to ¥7,230, retailer Aeon rose ¥85.50, or 3.8 percent, to ¥2,333.50 and Takeda Pharmaceutical gained ¥111, or 2.4 percent, rising to ¥4,710. Some domestic demand-driven issues were also higher as investors refrained from buying export-related issues amid concern about the global economic outlook, brokers said. Daiwa House Industry advanced ¥148, or 4.3 percent, to ¥3,592 and construction firm Kajima was up ¥67, or 4.2 percent, at ¥1,668. Nintendo surged ¥1,450, or 4.8 percent, to ¥31,900 following a Wall Street Journal report that the company plans to launch two new versions of its Switch gaming console as early as the summer. Trading volume on the main section rose to 1.741 billion shares from Monday’s 1.328 billion.
|
stocks;nikkei
|
jp0001794
|
[
"business",
"financial-markets"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Dollar firms to around ¥110.20 in Tokyo trading
|
The dollar firmed modestly Tuesday to trade around ¥110.20 in Tokyo, supported by a stock market rally. At 5 p.m., the dollar stood at ¥110.19-19, up from ¥110.06-06 at the same time Monday. The euro was at $1.1312-1312, up from $1.1307-1307, and at ¥124.65-65, up from ¥124.45-45. After moving around ¥110.00, the dollar topped ¥110.20 in midmorning trading in line with a sharp rebound by the Nikkei 225 stock average. But the greenback lost steam when it approached the ¥110.30 threshold. Selling of dollars for yen for settlement purposes ahead of the fiscal 2018 end on Sunday pushed the U.S. currency down, close to ¥110, around noon, traders said. In the afternoon, the dollar moved narrowly between ¥110 and ¥110.20 amid a lack of trading incentives, market sources said. Investors increasingly retreated to the sidelines to wait for the announcements of U.S. economic data, including the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index for March, a currency broker said. An official at a Japanese bank said the dollar repeated minor ups and downs on buying on higher stocks and selling on lower U.S. long-term interest rates. Safe-haven buying of the yen vis-a-vis the dollar came to a halt as excessive global slowdown fears receded after the release of a strong German economic index, an official at a foreign exchange margin trading service firm noted.
|
forex;currencies
|
jp0001795
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Apple lays out plans for its news app and credit card
|
CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA - Apple laid out the details of its news subscription service, Apple News Plus, and a new credit card at an event Monday. It’s also expected to launch a video service that could compete with Netflix, Amazon and cable TV itself. The news service costs $10 a month and includes roughly 300 magazines and a handful of major newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times. Missing from the announcement were other major newspaper publishers, who have reportedly been wary of Apple’s terms. Apple says advertisers won’t track readers inside the app. That distinguishes it from Facebook and Google, the other major online news hubs. The company also said it is launching a MasterCard credit card called Apple Card. It will integrate Apple Maps to show users where they spend money, but at the same time, Apple says it won’t know where you spend or where. It won’t have any late fees or annual fees and will offer 2 percent cash back. Other cards also offer cash-back rewards. Apple made the announcements at its Cupertino, California, headquarters during an event studded with Hollywood celebrities. The iPhone has long been Apple’s marquee product and main moneymaker, but sales are starting to decline. The company is pushing digital subscriptions as it searches for new growth. Netflix, of course, turned “binge watching” into a worldwide phenomenon several years ago. Apple’s new video service is expected to have original TV shows and movies that reportedly cost it more than $1 billion — far less than Netflix and HBO spend every year. Making must-have TV shows and movies that are watchable on any device has turned Netflix into a force in both Silicon Valley and Hollywood. But Apple had remained focused on making devices: iPhones, iPads, computers and its Apple TV streaming box for TVs. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs began toying with the idea of building a powerful TV business, but he couldn’t pull it off before his death in 2011. It has taken his successor, CEO Tim Cook, nearly eight years to draw up the script that the company will now try to execute. “Apple is very late to this game,” Paul Verna, an analyst at eMarketer, said. “Netflix has become the gold standard in how to create and distribute content, using all the data they have about their viewers.” Netflix’s prowess has attracted 139 million subscribers worldwide. But Apple will have several other deep-pocketed competitors fighting for consumers’ dollars. Amazon has also become a formidable force in video streaming. Walt Disney Co. is launching its own service this year, armed with an imposing library that became more formidable with its purchase of 21st Century Fox’s films and TV series. AT&T is debuting another streaming service built around HBO. Apple has plenty of money to spend, though, with about $245 billion in cash and marketable securities. It must prove itself attractive to Hollywood even without a track record for supporting high-quality programming and then ensuring it gets widely seen. As part of its efforts to make quick connections, Apple hired two longtime Sony television executives, Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, in 2017. They have reportedly signed up stars such as Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg and Jennifer Aniston.
|
apple;iphones;video games;newspapers;magazines
|
jp0001796
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/03/26
|
SMBC Nikko to offer customers AI-based advice on Japanese stocks
|
SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. said it will launch a service Friday to advise individual customers on investment in Japanese stocks utilizing artificial intelligence. The unit of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. hopes to gain a wide range of customers, including novice investors, through the online service designed to propose an optimum asset management method. SMBC Nikko will operate the service jointly with Japanese AI technology developer Heroz Inc. The AI-based service will show stock prices expected a month ahead of all firms listed on Japanese stock exchanges for more than one year, based on their earnings data and daily stock price movements. It will propose the best portfolios for customers according to how much loss they can accept. SMBC Nikko will offer the service free of charge to all customers who open accounts at the brokerage firm. “We want a lot of people to use the service,” an SMBC Nikko official said, noting that the system is easy to understand for novice investors.
|
stocks;banks;smbc;smbc nikko;ai
|
jp0001797
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Nintendo shares climb after report of two new Switch models in works for avid and casual gamers
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Nintendo Co. shares had their best day in almost eight months after The Wall Street Journal reported the company plans to introduce two new models of its Switch console as early as this summer. One of the models will have enhanced features to cater to avid gamers, while the other version is expected to be a cheaper alternative for casual players, the Journal reported, citing unidentified Nintendo parts suppliers and software developers. Nintendo shares ended up 4.8 percent on Tuesday in Tokyo after climbing as much as 6.8 percent earlier, the most on an intraday basis since Aug. 1. In January, Nintendo cut its forecast for Switch shipments to 17 million units in the fiscal year through March, down from an earlier projection of 20 million. The Kyoto-based company needs hit games that appeal to more consumers beyond its most loyal customers. In an interview conducted before Christmas and was published in January, the Sankei Shimbun cited President Shuntaro Furukawa as saying the company is not considering a price cut or a new model. “If the article is accurate, this would support our forecast of virtually flat” year-on-year Switch sales next fiscal year, Masahiro Ono and Yui Yasumoto, analysts at Morgan Stanley MUFG, wrote in a research note after the story. “The appearance of a lower-price model could also drive demand for a wider range of software.” The new models may be launched at the E3 2019 video game expo in Los Angeles in June, with a wider release possible months later, the Journal said, citing one person familiar with the plans. Unit sales will range between 17 million and 18 million units this fiscal year and 15 to 17 million the following year, the Morgan Stanley MUFG analysts forecast.
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nintendo;video games;wsj;switch
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jp0001798
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[
"business"
] |
2019/03/26
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Bayer announces nearly $800 million settlement to resolve Xarelto litigation
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BERLIN - German drugs giant Bayer said Monday it and its U.S. partner, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, had agreed in principle to jointly pay nearly $800 million to settle a legal dispute over anticoagulant Xarelto. The cost would be shared equally by both companies to resolve almost all of the “approximately 25,000 Xarelto claims in the United States,” Leverkusen-based Bayer said in a statement. Both companies reserved the right to withdraw from the $775 million (€685 million) settlement if an insufficient number of plaintiffs accept it, Bayer said. “More than five years after the Xarelto litigation began, and with Bayer and Janssen Pharmaceuticals prevailing in all six cases that went to trial, the companies have reached an agreement in principle to settle in the amount of 775 million US dollars,” Bayer said in a statement. While plaintiffs have claimed side effects, the German company has insisted that its medication has been successfully prescribed to 45 million people around the world. “Bayer continues to believe these claims are without merit and there is no admission of liability under the agreement,” it said. “However, this favourable settlement allows the company to avoid the distraction and significant cost of continued litigation.” Bayer and Janssen, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, jointly developed the oral anticoagulant drug, and Janssen markets it in the United States. The deal comes as Bayer faces far bigger legal troubles following its takeover of agrochemicals giant Monsanto, whose glyphosate weedkillers Roundup and Ranger Pro have been linked by litigants to cancer.
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u.s .;johnson & johnson;bayer;janssen pharmaceuticals;xarelto
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jp0001799
|
[
"world",
"social-issues-world"
] |
2019/03/26
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Migrants seeking to reach Europe face widespread sexual torture, especially in Libya, says study
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PARIS - Migrants trying to reach Europe face routine rape and sexual torture throughout their journey, and especially in Libya, with men facing abuse nearly as routinely as women. That’s according to a study released Monday by the Women’s Refugee Commission that is based on dozens of interviews with aid workers and migrants. Along the journey, smugglers torture migrants and film it to extract ransom payments from their families, and to thin the number of people in their unofficial prisons, according to the witness accounts. They report systematic sex abuse in official detention as well. Monday’s report comes as Europe has blocked rescues at sea. The EU-funded Libyan coast guard now intercepts migrant boats and brings them back to detention centers where, migrants say, the abuse resumes.
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immigration;eu;women;libya;refugees;sex crimes;women 's refugee commission
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jp0001800
|
[
"world",
"social-issues-world"
] |
2019/03/26
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U.N. weighs assisting Bangladesh in relocating 100,000 reluctant Rohingya to remote isle
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DHAKA - The United Nations said Monday it was examining how to assist Bangladesh in relocating thousands of Rohingya refugees to a remote island despite warnings it could trigger fresh humanitarian upheaval. Dhaka says shifting 100,000 refugees to a muddy silt islet in the Bay of Bengal will take pressure off overcrowded camps along its southern border, where almost a million Rohingya Muslims live in cramped tent cities. But the move to Bhashan Char — which is an hour away by boat from the mainland — is unpopular with many refugees and experts have raised concerns about the island’s capacity to withstand the monsoon that tears along Bangladesh’s coastline every year. Bangladesh, which has built shelters and flood walls on the island, says it will begin relocating refugees there on a voluntary basis from April. The U.N. resident coordinator’s office in Bangladesh said Monday it would “engage constructively” with the government to ensure any refugees moved there could live “in safe and sustainable living conditions. “We are also examining the potential operational implications of setting up a humanitarian response on Bhasan Char, including the requirements, time frames and costs involved in providing services,” the statement said, stressing that any relocation be on a voluntary basis. The island only emerged from the water in 2006 and lies in a coastal area prone to flooding, cyclones and other extreme weather that has killed hundreds of thousands in past decades. A U.N. special rights rapporteur in January warned rushing refugees to the island could spark a “new crisis. But Dhaka says the island is ready, pointing to a newly-constructed three-metre (nine-feet) embankment they say will keep out tidal surges in the event of a cyclone. Some U.N. officials have visited the island but access has not been granted to the media. Bangladesh has spent some $280 million transforming the muddy strip but previous deadlines for shifting the Rohingya from camp sites in Cox’s Bazar have passed unmet. The camps there host nearly a million refugees who have fled persecution in neighboring Myanmar in waves going back decades. The largest exodus was in August 2017, when the first of about 740,000 Rohingya escaped violence in Myanmar described by UN investigators as bearing the hallmarks of genocide. The fetid camps quickly swelled into the largest refugee settlement on earth, with huge levels of humanitarian aid needed to care for their inhabitants. The U.N. refugee agency said Monday nearly $1 billion was needed for the Rohingya in Bangladesh but only a tiny fraction had been raised so far. Khaled Khalifa, a regional UNHCR representative, told reporters in Dhaka “every penny short” of the $920 million needed this year would impact lives on the ground.
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myanmar;u.n .;refugees;bangladesh;genocide;rohingya;cyclones
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jp0001801
|
[
"world",
"crime-legal-world"
] |
2019/03/26
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Cleared by Robert Mueller, Trump still faces slew of other probes
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NEW YORK - The Mueller investigation is over, but President Donald Trump now faces a slew of other investigations by federal prosecutors in New York and Democrats in Congress that could create more deep troubles for his administration. The biggest threat comes from federal prosecutors in New York, who have already prized a guilty plea on multiple charges from Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and who could be a dangerous witness against the president in other cases. Investigators in the notoriously aggressive SDNY office — Southern District of New York — and its sister bureau in Brooklyn, are believed to be looking at a whole manner of possible wrongdoing by Trump, his family, and his Trump Organization real estate group. Those range from Trump’s election-eve hush payments for alleged former mistresses, financial improprieties surrounding the celebrations of his inauguration, and possibly illegal funneling of foreign money to the Trump campaign and inauguration. The New York state attorney general has opened inquiries into violations by the Trump family charity, real estate dealings, and taxes. Most of those probes are taking place in secret, but the state attorney general has already sued Trump, members of his family and the Trump Foundation alleging it was used as a virtual slush fund for family needs in “a pattern of persistent illegal conduct.” In all of those, Cohen, who has been sentenced to three years in prison, is potentially a dangerous witness as a longtime insider who has turned against his former boss. One particularly explosive case is the SDNY probe into the payoffs Cohen illegally arranged to buy the silence of at least two women, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, who claimed credibly to have had affairs with Trump before he ran for president. Those were part of “catch-and-kill” arrangements with tabloid newspaper National Enquirer, which Cohen has testified had for years financial arrangements to protect Trump from any damaging personal news. Cohen testified that the payment he made to Daniels, which was ruled an illegal use of campaign funds, was ordered and reimbursed by Trump himself — a possible criminal act. A third woman, Summer Zervos, a one-time contestant on Trump’s reality television show “The Apprentice,” has sued him for defamation after he said she lied in claiming that he groped and forcibly kissed her. Trump’s lawyers have failed to get the case thrown out, opening the door to the possibility that the president could be forced to confront his accuser in court as a witness. In his February testimony in Congress, Cohen raised issues of financial malfeasance by Trump and the Trump Organization in banking and real estate deals. He said Trump falsified data in financial disclosures to banks and insurance companies, providing more meat for federal investigators. For that and the probe into the Trump Foundation, eyes are now on the figure who likely knows more secrets about Trump than anyone else: Allen Weisselberg, the accountant who has served the Trump Organization for four decades. Meanwhile in the U.S .capital Trump is fighting a lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of Maryland and Washington alleging that Trump’s continued ownership of a hotel in Washington frequented by lobbyists, company executives and foreign governments violates the Constitution’s “emoluments” ban on the president profiting from his office. Evidence has shown that Trump has reaped significant financial gains from the Trump International Hotel just a few blocks from the White House, and from his properties in New York, based on the patronage of those seeking favor with the president. It’s not clear how far the emoluments case will go: the Justice Department is fighting to have it quashed as baseless. And in Congress, Democrats have stepped up pressure with several investigations of the president. The main one, by the House Intelligence Committee, parallels the Mueller probe’s focus on Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign had a role in that. And the House Judiciary Committee is examining allegations of obstruction of justice against Trump, after Mueller declined to conclude anything from his evidence on this subject. “We’re going to move forward with our investigation into obstruction of justice, abuses of power, corruption, to defend the rule of law, which is our job,” committee chairman Jerry Nadler said.
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robert mueller;donald trump;trump organization;russia probe;michael cohen;stormy daniels;karen mcdougal;summer zervos;sdny
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jp0001803
|
[
"world",
"crime-legal-world"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Democrats demand full Robert Mueller report; Trump says that's OK with him
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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump said Monday the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s full report “wouldn’t bother me at all” as congressional Democrats clamored for the Justice Department to release the entire document and not just the summary from Attorney General William Barr. Trump’s remarks came as Democrats prepared to huddle behind closed doors Monday evening to plot strategy for their own investigations of obstruction of justice and Russian election interference, among other matters related to the president, following the release of Barr’s summary, Barr’s four-page document said Mueller did not find that Trump’s campaign “conspired or coordinated” with the Russian government to influence the 2016 presidential election — knocking down arguments from Democrats who have claimed there was evidence of such collusion. But Mueller reached no conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice, according to Barr’s summary, instead setting out “evidence on both sides” of the question and stating that “while this report does not conclude the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” Absent a recommendation from Mueller, Barr stepped in and decided there wasn’t sufficient evidence to establish that the president obstructed justice. While Democrats have said Barr’s letter should not be considered the final word on what Mueller found, Trump still claimed total vindication. He said on Monday that “we can never let this happen to another president again.” As he has many times before, he suggested the investigation was tainted from the beginning and said it was a “terrible thing.” He even accused those responsible for launching it of “treasonous things against our country” and said they “certainly will be looked into.” Trump has spent months railing against former Justice Department officials, including former FBI Director James Comey, accusing them of an illegal witch hunt for the purpose of delegitimizing his presidency. He has also falsely claimed that the investigation was based on memos compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, and even blamed former Sen. John McCain, who died last year, for passing the memos to the FBI. But the investigation began months before the FBI ever saw the dossier — and the FBI already had a copy by the time McCain turned it in. Trump, asked on Monday if he’d be OK with the release of the full report, responded: “Up to the attorney general, but it wouldn’t bother me at all.” Republicans followed Trump’s lead, with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham promising to “unpack the other side of the story” of the Russia investigation. Graham, who spent the weekend with Trump in Florida, said his committee will investigate the actions of the Justice Department in the Russia investigation, including the FBI’s use of the Steele dossier. Graham’s comments echoed Trump’s own complaints Sunday in which he compared the probe to a failed coup and said those behind it should be held responsible. But Graham wouldn’t go quite as far, saying he believed that the Mueller investigation was legitimate and had to happen in order to answer questions about Russian interference in the 2016 election. The South Carolina Republican also had a warning for Trump using his pardon power to help those who were ensnared by Mueller’s investigation. “If President Trump pardoned anybody in his orbit, it would not play well,” Graham said. Among those whom Mueller charged during the course of his investigation were the president’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Five Trump aides pleaded guilty and a sixth, longtime confidant Roger Stone, is awaiting trial on charges that he lied to Congress and engaged in witness tampering. Monday morning, White House aides and allies blanketed television news broadcasts to trumpet Barr’s letter and claim that Trump had been the victim in a probe that never should have started. Democrats said they were still waiting for the full report, in addition to the underlying evidence that Mueller used. “The fact that special counsel Mueller’s report does not exonerate the president on a charge as serious as obstruction of justice demonstrates how urgent it is that the full report and underlying documentation be made public without any further delay,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement Sunday evening. “Given Mr. Barr’s public record of bias against the Special Counsel’s inquiry, he is not a neutral observer and is not in a position to make objective determinations about the report.” Given the report, Democrats seemed more likely to focus on their ongoing investigations, calls for transparency and frustrations with Barr, rather than engaging with the talk of impeachment that has been amplified on Pelosi’s left flank. As the release of Mueller’s report loomed, Pelosi recently tried to scuttle that talk by saying she’s not for impeachment, for now. In a joint statement, Nadler, House intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., seemed to concede that collusion had not been found, saying they have confidence in Mueller, “notwithstanding the very public evidence of Trump campaign contact with and willingness to receive support from Russian agents.” Still, they said, “it will be vital for the country and the Congress to evaluate the full body of evidence collected by the special counsel, including all information gathered of a counterintelligence nature.” Ahead of their Monday meetings, Democrats discussed strategy in a flurry of calls over the weekend. Pelosi and Schumer talked repeatedly, including several calls Sunday from her home in San Francisco. As soon as Barr’s letter arrived, Pelosi quickly convened a call Sunday with Cummings, Schiff and Nadler to go over its main points. They were on the same page with their response, according to a person familiar with the call. Nadler later held a conference call with Democratic members on the Judiciary panel and reiterated calls for transparency. People familiar with the calls requested anonymity to discuss them freely. Republicans unified to call for Congress to move on. “This case is closed,” said House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy in a statement.
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u.s .;lindsey graham;robert mueller;democrats;nancy pelosi;donald trump;russia probe;william barr
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jp0001805
|
[
"world",
"crime-legal-world"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Pig's head found at site of planned mosque in southwest France
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BORDEAUX, FRANCE - Workers building a mosque in southwestern France found a pig’s head and animal blood at the entrance to the site on Monday, the latest in a series of attacks on Muslim places of worship over the past decade. Construction of the mosque in the small town of Bergerac — known for its fine Bordeaux wines and for its association with literary figure Cyrano de Bergerac — has been contested since it was first proposed in 2017 and finally approved in October 2018, despite widespread local opposition. “The perpetrators smeared the walls with animal blood and placed a severed pig’s head” on the front gate of the construction area, the deputy public prosecutor of Bergerac, Charles Charollois, told AFP. The vandalism took place overnight and wasn’t discovered until workers arrived in the morning. “This building project is controversial,” Charollois said. “There have been administrative and legal appeals to stop it, so there are many leads for us to follow.” Bergerac’s police commissioner, Frederic Perissat, “strongly denounced and condemned these acts that damage our freedom of conscience and expression and are contrary to the principles of separation of church and state,” and called for “mutual respect” in the community. Over the past few days, posters declaring “Bergerac is the city of Perigord, not Islam!” — referring to the former name of the Dordogne region — had been pasted around the town, according to its mayor Daniel Garrigue. “I can’t say that they’re connected, but I note that they’re in the same spirit,” Garrigue said. In France, desecrating a religious facility is a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison. The attack on the site in Bergerac comes less than two weeks after a gunman killed 50 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, and injured another 50, during a shooting spree at two mosques. Following the massacre, French President Emmanuel Macron ordered police to increase security at all places of worship. France is home to Europe’s biggest Muslim and Jewish communities alike, and both faiths have been recurring targets of hate crimes in recent years. Attacks on mosques and Islamic sites have been a yearly occurrence since 2007, when 148 Muslim headstones in a national military cemetery near Arras were smeared with anti-Islamic slurs and a pig’s head was placed among them. Dozens of French mosques were also assaulted following the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January 2015, with some targeted with firebombs, grenades or gunfire. Similar hate crimes have targeted Jewish sites. In February, vandals spray-painted swastikas on around 80 graves in a Jewish cemetery in Quatzenheim, near the German border. The mosque in Bergerac is not the first to raise hackles among local residents. Plans for a huge mosque in Marseille, home to a large North African community, were scrapped in 2017 after eight years of legal battles.
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france;jews;muslims;hate crimes;bergerac;christchurch mosque shootings
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jp0001806
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Heavy-weapons fire rocks Yemen's Hodeida as U.N. pushes to get warring sides to pull out
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ADEN - Yemen’s warring parties exchanged heavy weapons fire overnight in Hodeida, residents and military sources said, as the United Nations scrambled to salvage a cease-fire deal in the Yemeni port city that is a lifeline for millions at risk of starvation. The clashes were the heaviest since the ceasefire went into effect on Dec. 18, residents said, and came as the United Nations announced a deal setting out details of a mutual military withdrawal envisaged by the Stockholm truce accord. Iran-aligned Houthi forces traded artillery, mortar and rocket salvos with troops of a Western-backed, Saudi-led coalition late on Sunday and early on Monday, with explosions heard across the Red Sea city, residents said. “The Houthis tried a surprise assault on our troops but we stopped them,” a military source from the internationally-recognised government said. The Houthis’ Al Masirah TV accused government forces of shelling their positions without provocation. The fighting affected Hodeida’s usual flash-points — the “July 7” district, 4 km (2.5 miles) away from the port, and southern outskirts where thousands of United Arab Emirates-backed troops are massed. Saudi Arabia has come under increased scrutiny over the Yemen war and its activities in the region since the murder in October of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. The kingdom signed an agreement with the United Nations on Monday to protect children from violence in Yemen, more than a year after the U.N. blacklisted the coalition for killing and injuring hundreds of children there and attacking dozens of schools and hospitals. The Houthis and the Saudi-backed government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi agreed at U.N.-sponsored talks in December to a truce and troop withdrawal from Hodeida, the entry point for the bulk of Yemen’s humanitarian aid and commercial imports. The cease-fire has broadly held although sporadic clashes continued as the United Nations struggled to implement a troop withdrawal, a confidence-building measure meant to clear the way for a broader peace settlement after four years of war. However, the U.N. observer team chief, Danish Gen. Michael Anker Lollesgaard, was expected to convene both sides this week to formally launch newly agreed steps towards disengagement, according to sources involved in the discussions. Houthi forces had agreed to withdraw 5 km (3 miles) from the Hodeida district ports of Saleef, used for grain, and Ras Isa, an oil terminal, as a first step, three sources said. The Houthi withdrawal and the pullback by coalition forces 1 km away from both the “Kilo 7” area and from Saleh city district would take place simultaneously as a second step, they said. The government forces’ retreat would free up access to Red Sea Mills, which holds some 50,000 tons of World Food Program grain, enough to feed 3.7 million people. Under the deal, humanitarian corridors would also be reopened. The second phase of the pullout would see both sides withdraw troops 18 km (11 miles) from the city, and heavy weaponry 30 km (18 miles) away. Tens of thousands of people have died in the war pitting the Houthis against the coalition, which intervened in Yemen in 2015 to restore Hadi’s government after it was ousted from the inland capital Sanaa. The war has displaced over 2 million people and driven the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country to the verge of famine. The World Health Organization said on Monday it had recorded 108,889 suspected cases of cholera and 190 associated deaths with the disease since the start of 2019 in several provinces. Around a third of the cases were children under five, it said. Yemen’s conflict is widely seen in the region as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Houthis, who control Sanaa and most population centers, deny being puppets of Tehran and say they are waging a revolution against corruption.
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conflict;yemen;saudi arabia;u.n .;hunger;houthis;hodeida;jamal khashoggi
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jp0001807
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Now what? Brexit scenarios and the paths ahead
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LONDON - With MPs set to vote on finding a way forward on Brexit, various outcomes are possible. The U.K. is left with four general directions: back a deal, go for no deal, a long delay or stopping Brexit. Those options could entail various courses of action, including Prime Minister Theresa May’s resignation and a general election. Leave with deal on May 22 British MPs have twice rejected by overwhelming margins a draft divorce agreement struck between London and Brussels in November last year. A new vote on the agreement, which allows for a long transition period and time for trade ties to be negotiated, will only be brought forward if it has sufficient support to pass. If MPs overcome numerous objections from “Brexiteers” and “Remainers” and approve the deal, Britain will leave the European Union on May 22. No-deal Brexit April 12 or later If the deal is not passed, and no other course of action can be agreed upon, the default option would be that Britain leaves without a deal. According to a European official that hard deadline would be midnight Brussels time on April 12 but French President Emmanuel Macron said this was not “necessarily” the case and a later date for no-deal Brexit could be agreed on. May has not ruled out the possibility of a no-deal, though MPs have voted against ever leaving without a deal. New plan, long Brexit delay MPs are set to hold “indicative votes” this week on a range of alternative Brexit options that could rip up the withdrawal agreement and remove some of May’s red lines, such as ending freedom of movement. If a course of action can be agreed upon, Britain could ask EU leaders for another, much longer delay by April 12. That would mean it would have to hold European Parliament elections at the end of May. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has advised EU leaders that this longer extension should be at least until the end of 2019 and possibly much longer to allow for a proper change in Brexit strategy. The longer delay would allow time for a change in prime minister if May quits. It would also open up other options such as holding a general election or, perhaps, a second referendum. Britain’s Electoral Commission has budgeted for European elections and could hold them at short notice but May has said it would be “unacceptable.” “I don’t believe it’s right to be in a situation of holding European parliamentary elections three years on from people having voted to leave the EU,” she said. Stop Brexit This is by far the least likely option but is still a possibility. An estimated 1 million people flooded London on Saturday calling for a second referendum on EU membership. An online petition asking the government to end the Brexit process has garnered more than 5.5 million signatures since last Wednesday. The European Court of Justice has ruled that Britain could unilaterally revoke its Article 50 notification — the formal procedure for leaving the EU. New PM, elections? Within these four general pathways, there is the possibility that May might resign or a general election could be triggered. May resigns The price of getting rebel Conservatives to support May’s deal could be her stepping down as prime minister. She is opposed to canceling Brexit, a longer extension, or a Brexit solution that runs contrary to the Conservative manifesto. She has also said she does not intend to lead the Conservatives into the next general election. That is slated for 2022 but could happen within weeks. Several contenders have been mooted to replace May, among them David Lidington, Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid and Dominic Raab. General election If Parliament comes up with an option that the government finds impossible to deliver or runs against the Conservative manifesto, a general election could be the only option left. A general election could come through the government losing a confidence vote in Parliament, or by the government seizing the initiative and calling a snap poll. It would reset Parliament and a clear outcome with a government majority could result in a much stronger administration. However, for both major parties, finding a clear Brexit manifesto that all their MPs can commit to could prove a challenge.
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eu;u.k .;brexit;theresa may
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jp0001809
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/26
|
U.K. lawmakers vote to take wheel of sinking Brexit ship — but just for one day
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LONDON - In a highly unusual bid to find a way through the Brexit impasse after Prime Minister Theresa May’s EU divorce deal was rejected again, U.K. lawmakers wrested control of the parliamentary agenda Monday from the government — for just one day. Lawmakers will now vote Wednesday on a range of Brexit options, giving parliament a chance to indicate whether it can agree on a deal with closer ties to Brussels and then try to push the government in that direction. Nearly three years after the 2016 EU membership referendum, and four days before Britain was supposed to leave the bloc, it remains unclear how, when or even if Brexit will take place, with both parliament and the nation still bitterly divided. The vote underlined the extent to which May has lost authority over her own lawmakers and ministers, though she said the government would not be bound by the results of the so-called indicative votes. “The government will continue to call for realism — any options considered must be deliverable in negotiations with the EU,” said a spokesman for the Department for Exiting the European Union. Brexit minister Stephen Barclay had said Sunday that if parliament took control of the Brexit process, a snap election — which the main opposition Labour party would be likely to back — could be the result. May too has made clear that she would not implement any proposal that ran counter to her election manifesto, which promised a clean break with the EU. Third vote on May’s deal? But while lawmakers may struggle to turn Wednesday’s indicative votes into law, any kind of a consensus reached would pile pressure on a prime minister who has accused parliament of having no more viable solution than her own deal. Monday’s vote was put forward by Oliver Letwin, a lawmaker in May’s Conservative Party. The prime minister had earlier admitted that the deal she had agreed with the EU after two years of talks still did not have enough support to pass. May has not ruled out bringing back her deal for a third time this week. Thursday would be the most likely day. The Sun newspaper reported that she had suggested Sunday that she could resign if that would persuade enough doubters in her party to back her deal. Some of her lawmakers have already publicly urged her to go. Parliament backed Letwin’s proposal more clearly than had been expected, by 329 votes to 302, helped by three junior ministers who resigned in order to defy the government line. “The amendment … upends the balance between our democratic institutions and sets a dangerous, unpredictable precedent for the future,” the Brexit department spokesman said. Sterling rose slightly after the votes but the gains were muted, with traders little wiser about the U.K.’s future relations with the European Union. “No government could give a blank cheque to commit to an outcome without knowing what it is,” May said before the vote. “So I cannot commit the government to delivering the outcome of any votes held by this house.” Snap election? Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn raised the prospect of putting any proposal supported by lawmakers back to the people. “This House must also consider whether any deal should be put to the people for a confirmatory vote,” he told parliament after the votes. Last week, the EU agreed to delay the U.K.’s original March 29 departure date because of the deadlock. Now, it will leave the EU on May 22 if the prime minister’s deal is approved this week. If not, it will only have until April 12 to determine its plans. European Council President Donald Tusk said last week that all Brexit options were still open for the U.K. until April 12, including a deal, a departure with no deal, a long extension or even revoking Article 50 and remaining in the EU. May’s deal was defeated in parliament by 149 votes on March 12 and by 230 votes on Jan. 15. To get her deal passed, May must win over at least 75 MPs who voted against her on March 12 — dozens of rebels in her Conservative Party, some opposition Labour Party MPs and the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which props up her minority government but has rejected her deal so far. Earlier, May’s divided Cabinet of senior ministers had met to discuss a way forward. Some reports said ministers had “war-gamed” a national election. “I think we’re going to end up with a general election before the end of this year, probably in the summer,” Conservative lawmaker Andrew Bridgen, who supports Brexit, told Sky News.
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eu;u.k .;u.k. parliament;brexit;theresa may
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jp0001810
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/26
|
U.S. Congress faces long road ahead in fight over special counsel's report
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WASHINGTON - Lawmakers seeking special counsel Robert Mueller’s report are likely to face a protracted legal battle that will turn on U.S. President Donald Trump’s right to keep communications with his advisers private, legal and political experts said. On Sunday, U.S. Attorney General William Barr sent a summary to lawmakers saying the Mueller investigation found Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign did not conspire with Russia. But the probe left unresolved the question of whether Trump engaged in obstruction of justice, setting out “evidence on both sides of the question.” Barr concluded there was insufficient evidence to bring an obstruction case against Trump, prompting Democratic lawmakers to call for the release of the full report and the underlying evidence Mueller relied on. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat, said on CNN on Sunday he would “try to negotiate” with the Justice Department to obtain the full report, but that the committee would issue subpoenas and litigate if needed. Other Democrats, including candidates vying for the 2020 presidential nomination, have called for release of the full report. The Justice Department has not said whether it will release Mueller’s full report, but Barr has said he will be as transparent as possible. Ross Garber, a lawyer in Washington focusing on political investigations, said Congress would have a difficult time persuading judges to release materials marked as classified or privileged by the executive branch, and that even a successful challenge could take years. “Congress faces substantial legal and procedural hurdles in any effort to get these materials,” Garber said. Barr is required by law to keep secret information obtained from grand jury proceedings. This would not apply to information obtained from Trump advisers and other witnesses who agreed to sit down voluntarily with Mueller. Barr could also keep parts of the report under wraps by invoking a Justice Department policy against disparaging individuals who have not been charged with crimes. The most contentious fight will likely be over any materials the White House tries to shield from public view by claiming executive privilege, a legal doctrine generally used to keep conversations between the president and advisers private. The doctrine is rooted in the idea that the president should be able to receive candid advice on policy matters. If Barr withholds information based on executive privilege or Justice Department policy, Democrats could bring a lawsuit seeking to force disclosure. But it could be months before the Democrat-led House is even in a position to sue, legal experts said. Lawmakers would first need to make a formal demand for the report by invoking their subpoena power. If Barr refused to release it, Democrats would then vote to hold him in contempt of Congress, experts said. Congress would then sue to enforce its contempt finding. Legal experts said that, while executive privilege has been recognized by the Supreme Court, it must be narrowly asserted and balanced against Congress’ need for information to fulfill its duty of oversight over the executive branch. Garber said an executive privilege claim would be particularly strong if it were invoked to keep private the nature of Trump’s private conversations with close advisers, like former White House lawyer Don McGahn, who sat for interviews with Mueller’s team. Those sorts of communications are exactly what the privilege is intended to keep private, Garber said. But Mitchel Sollenberger, a professor of political science at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, said courts would be sympathetic to arguments by lawmakers that they need more information about the Mueller investigation to do their job. In 2012, Republican lawmakers sued Democratic President Barack Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, to obtain documents over a federal law enforcement operation targeting gun traffickers, codenamed Fast and Furious. The litigation dragged on for six years before ending in a settlement that called for the production of documents after Obama and Holder had already left office. John Marston, a former federal prosecutor in Washington now at law firm Foley Hoag, said it would be in the best interests of both Democratic lawmakers and the public to compromise with Barr and avoid a protracted court fight. “I’m sure there are many ways to structure access to a significant amount of this information,” Marston said. “Negotiating and finding a common agreement on access to the materials would help us all move past this.”
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congress;robert mueller;donald trump;russia probe
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jp0001811
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/26
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Madrid 'firmly rejects' Mexican president's demand for apology over Spanish conquest
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MADRID - The 500-year-old wounds of the Spanish conquest have been ripped open afresh with Mexico’s president urging Spain and the Vatican to apologize for their “abuses” — a request Madrid said it “firmly rejects.” Spain’s centuries of dominance in the New World, backed by the Catholic Church, leapt from the history books to the headlines when Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called Monday on Spanish King Felipe VI and Pope Francis to apologize for the conquest and the rights violations committed in its aftermath. “I have sent a letter to the king of Spain and another to the pope, calling for a full account of the abuses and urging them to apologize to the indigenous peoples (of Mexico) for the violations of what we now call their human rights,” Lopez Obrador said. He made the remarks in a video, filmed at the Mayan ruins of the indigenous city of Comalcalco and posted on Facebook and Twitter. “There were massacres and oppression. The so-called conquest was waged with the sword and the cross. They built their churches on top of the (indigenous) temples,” added the anti-establishment leftist. “The time has come to reconcile. But let us ask forgiveness first.” Spain’s rejection was immediate and blunt. “The government of Spain deeply regrets that the letter the Mexican president sent to his majesty the king, whose contents we firmly reject, has been made public,” a statement said. “The arrival, 500 years ago, of Spaniards to present Mexican territory cannot be judged in the light of contemporary considerations,” it said. “Our two brother nations have always known how to read our shared past without anger and with a constructive perspective.” The demand for an apology comes as Spain gears up for a snap general election on April 28 in which conservative parties are trying to portray socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez as a weak defender of the nation’s interests because of his attempts at dialogue with Catalan separatists. The leader of center-right party Ciudadanos, Albert Rivera, said Tuesday the Mexican president’s letter “is an intolerable offense to the Spanish people.” Esteban Gonzalez Pons, a lawmaker in the European Parliament with the conservative Popular Party, said Lopez Obrador should “stop fighting” dead Spanish conquistadors and instead fight Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro “who continues to kill.” Mexico has stayed neutral in Venezuela’s crisis and unlike Spain it has not recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president. Arturo Perez-Reverte, one of Spain’s most popular contemporary writers, also weighed in, saying if the Mexican president “really believes what he says he is a fool.” “If he doesn’t believe it, he as no shame,” he added. But far-left party Podemos said the Mexican president was “right” to demand an apology. After making his remarks, Lopez Obrador visited the city of Centla, the scene of the first battle between Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes and the indigenous peoples of the land now known as Mexico, on March 14, 1519. With the help of horses, swords, guns and smallpox — all unknown in the New World at the time — Cortes led an army of fewer than 1,000 men to defeat the Aztec empire, the start of 300 years of Spanish rule over Mexico. The abuses continued until independence in 1821, and beyond, Lopez Obrador said. “Thousands of people were murdered during this period. One culture and civilization imposed itself on another,” he said later in a speech. Mexico has a complicated relationship with its colonial past. Its history, culture, food and the Mexican people themselves are the product of mestizaje , the mixing of the Old and New Worlds. According to a government study, 98 percent of Mexicans have some combination of indigenous, European and African ancestry. But although that mixture made modern Mexico — and gave the world chocolate, tacos de carnitas and Day of the Dead — it is also a past tainted by violence, rape and oppression. Lopez Obrador, 65, took office in December after a landslide election win that represented a firm break with Mexico’s traditional political parties. A folksy populist, he pulls no punches in going after elites and has sought to cast himself as a champion of indigenous peoples.
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mexico;spain;colonialism;andres manuel lopez obrador;spanish conquest
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jp0001812
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[
"world"
] |
2019/03/26
|
U.S. media takes heat following conclusion of Robert Mueller's probe into Trump and Russia
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NEW YORK - Holding a copy of The New York Times to the camera Monday, a giddy Steve Doocy of Fox News Channel said the headline about special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings in the Russia investigation “probably killed whoever had to type this.” Motivated by the typical soul-searching that can accompany the climax of a major story, or simple revenge, the performance of news professionals quickly became an issue following Mueller’s conclusion that he could find no evidence of a conspiracy by President Donald Trump and his campaign team to work with the Russians to influence the 2016 election. At issue: Did some news organizations spend too much time or leap to premature conclusions about Trump’s potential involvement? “It is the worst journalistic debacle of my lifetime and I’ve been in this business about 50 years,” said Fox analyst and former Washington bureau chief Brit Hume. “I’ve never seen anything quite this bad last this long.” The National Review criticized CNN and MSNBC for routinely taking stories about the investigation from the Times and Washington Post and blowing them up into major stories. The Review said it would be nice if some people involved in the coverage admitted they were wrong, but isn’t expecting it. Trump retweeted a “Fox & Friends” segment on Monday titled “Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump.” Even some liberals, like journalist Glenn Greenwald, offered criticism. Money earned by MSNBC hosts “won’t erase the role they played in going on the air every day and manipulating people’s fears and disseminating a false conspiracy theory that rewarded them greatly.” Reporter Matt Taibbi, who also suggested several reporters and commentators connected too many dots that didn’t add up, wrote that nothing Trump is accused of going forward will be believed by a large segment of the population. “Imagine how tone-deaf you’d have to be not to realize it makes you look bad, when news does not match audience expectations,” he wrote. Representatives for CNN and MSNBC declined comment Monday on their coverage. Defenders cautioned against lumping a diverse media ecosystem all together. If there’s a multimillion dollar investigation into whether a president colluded with a foreign power to influence a national election, is that a story that journalists are supposed to ignore? Americans would have been far worse off if reporters had not dug into connections between Russians and Trump’s associates, including his sons, wrote Margaret Sullivan, media columnist for the Washington Post. The reporting has not been invalidated by Mueller’s findings, she wrote. Sullivan is worried that a backlash will cause some news organizations to take the edge off their coverage of the president. They shouldn’t back down, but at the same time should also spend more time on subjects like health care and the economy that Americans care about, she wrote. It makes no sense to expect the media to not have been aggressive, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, communications professor and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. “They were covering a process, and the process was providing regular news, including indictments,” she said. The issue was also clearly on the president’s mind, given how many times he tweeted “no collusion” and sent his lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, on media interviews to talk about. Each reporter and news organization should take the time to examine coverage, said Tom Bettag, a longtime “Nightline” executive producer and now a professor of journalism at the University of Maryland. At the same time, he doesn’t think the press needs to apologize and any individual mistakes couldn’t compare to a systemwide failure in the run-up to the Iraq War. For the most part, reporters did not know what Mueller was going to come up with and that was reflected in the coverage, Bettag said. Jamieson, author of “Cyber Wars: How Russian Trolls and Hackers Helped Elect a President,” faults the media for failing to pay enough attention to what Russia actually did in 2016 and pushing politicians to make sure it doesn’t happen again. “I don’t know what the press is going to do when it is confronted with hacking again,” she said.
|
u.s .;journalism;robert mueller;fox news;donald trump;russia probe
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jp0001813
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Boeing readies 737 Max software fix as families wait for Ethiopia crash report
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SEATTLE/KIGALI - Boeing Co. will provide airlines that have bought the 737 MAX with free software upgrades, the U.S. manufacturer said on Monday, as Ethiopian Airlines told Reuters it expected a preliminary crash report this week or next. Any fixes to the MAX software, the focus of investigations in two deadly crashes that have prompted worldwide groundings of the aircraft, must still get approval from governments around the world. The U.S. Transportation Department said Monday it is forming an outside panel to review the Federal Aviation Administration’s aircraft certification program amid growing concerns after two fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes since October. The causes of separate Lion Air and Ethiopian Airline crashes are also still unknown, though Ethiopian Airlines Chief Executive Officer Tewolde Gebremariam said he trusts Boeing. “Despite the tragedy, Boeing and Ethiopian Airlines will continue to be linked well into the future,” Tewolde said on Monday. “Ethiopian Airlines believes in Boeing. They have been a partner of ours for many years.” Meanwhile, Boeing has begun briefing airlines on software and training updates for the MAX, with more than 200 global airline pilots, technical experts and regulators due in Renton, Washington, where the plane is built this week. The sessions follow a briefing with carriers including three U.S. airlines on Saturday, part of Boeing’s effort “to communicate with all current, and many future, MAX customers and operators,” a Boeing spokeswoman said. Tewolde told Reuters the leading African airline may or may not attend the briefing. Lion Air Managing Director Daniel Putut said his airline would send two people on Wednesday, a pilot and an engineer. The crash of an Indonesian Lion Air flight last October killed 189 people and first brought the safety of the 737 MAX into focus. The 737 MAX is Boeing’s best-selling plane, with orders worth more than $500 billion at list prices. Boeing’s shares closed 2.3 percent higher at $370.46 on hopes that a fix is nearing completion, but have lost about 12 percent and $29 billion in market value since the March 10 crash. In another blow to Boeing, France announced on Monday that Airbus had agreed to sell 300 aircraft to China Aviation Supplies Holding Company, including 290 A320 planes and 10 A350, in a deal worth about is €30 billion ($34 billion). Upgrading an individual 737 MAX with Boeing’s new software only takes about an hour per plane, though the overall process could stretch on far longer as it is rolled out across the global fleet due to stringent testing and documentation requirements by engineers and regulators, according to a senior FAA official with knowledge of the process. “Clearly there is pressure to get the airplanes ungrounded but there is tremendous pressure to make sure it was done right,” the FAA official said. “The last thing in the world you want is to have the thing hurried and then find problems with it.” Ethiopian and French investigators have pointed to “clear similarities” between the two crashes, putting pressure on Boeing and U.S. regulators to come up with an adequate fix. No direct link has been proven between the crashes but attention has focused on whether pilots had the correct information about the “angle of attack” at which the wing slices through the air. Qatar Airways, one of the largest Middle East carriers, threw its support behind Boeing on Monday. The airline will, however, delay the April delivery of another MAX jet until the cause of the crash is known, said Qatar Chief Executive Akbar al-Baker. “I am sure that the aircraft will get back into the skies soon and that Boeing will get to the bottom of what happened and if there is something technical wrong that they will find a fix for it,” he said. Garuda Indonesia was invited to the briefing but requested a webinar instead, only to be rebuffed, Chief Executive Ari Askhara told Reuters on Monday. Last week, Indonesia’s national carrier said it planned to cancel its order for 49 737 MAX jets, citing a loss of passenger trust. Garuda, which has only one 737 MAX, had been reconsidering its order before the Ethiopian crash. Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA, another MAX operator, suspended on Monday two routes between the United States and Brazil that it said it can only service with the longer-range MAX 8, but is not currently revising its MAX orders.
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boeing;airbus;ethiopian airlines;737 max;lion air;air accidents
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jp0001814
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Pentagon calls missile defense system's intercept of ICBM-class target a 'success'
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In a move that could have ramifications for defending the United States from North Korean nuclear weapons, the U.S. said Monday that it had successfully conducted a “salvo” intercept of an intercontinental ballistic missile-class target — the first test of its kind. The U.S. Missile Defense Agency said that two ground-based interceptors (GBI) in California were used in the test, which struck the mock target over the Pacific. It said one destroyed the target’s re-entry vehicle, while the other “then looked at the resulting debris and remaining objects, and, not finding any other re-entry vehicles, selected the next ‘most lethal object’ it could identify, and struck that.” The target was launched from a test site in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, some 6,400 km (4,000 miles) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where the interceptors were launched, the MDA said. MDA Director Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves hailed the test, calling it a “critical milestone.” “This was the first GBI salvo intercept of a complex, threat-representative ICBM target,” Greaves said in a statement. “The system worked exactly as it was designed to do, and the results of this test provide evidence of the practicable use of the salvo doctrine within missile defense.” The idea of employing a salvo intercept is meant to boost the chances of striking an incoming missile. In an actual combat scenario, such a missile could deploy decoys and other measures designed to help the re-entry vehicle that holds the warhead avoid being destroyed by the interceptor. Although Greaves said that the test demonstrated that the U.S. has “a capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat,” some observers have voiced skepticism, saying the military remains far away from creating a defense that can protect against an unexpected incoming launch of multiple missiles or a launch that includes decoys and multiple re-entry vehicles. In 2017, North Korea flight-tested two models of ICBMs, which are defined by the U.S. government as any ballistic missile with a range capability in excess of 5,500 km. Experts believe at least one of those North Korean designs are capable of hitting most, if not all, of the continental United States. Since the test of its last ICBM, the Hwasong-15, in November 2017, Pyongyang has held to a self-imposed moratorium on flight-testing any longer-range missiles. But after U.S. President Donald Trump’s second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jon Un in Hanoi ended in deadlock, it remains uncertain how long this testing halt will continue. Trump in January unveiled a bolstered U.S. missile defense strategy that labeled Pyongyang an ongoing and “extraordinary threat” despite his earlier claim that the threat posed by the North had been eliminated after his first summit with Kim in Singapore last June.
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u.s .;north korea;military;weapons;nuclear weapons;missiles;north korea nuclear crisis
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jp0001815
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/26
|
In Thai poll mess, allies of tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra race coup-prone generals to secure majority
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BANGKOK - Thailand’s first election since the 2014 coup was always going to be messy. But it’s turning out to be even more chaotic than many observers expected, setting the stage for renewed tumult after five years of military rule. Election authorities have faced calls to resign for repeatedly delaying the full results and failing to account for mounting irregularities, including one candidate whose vote totals dropped 80 percent at one point during the count. After the Election Commission finally released some seat totals, it issued a correction about an hour later. It plans to release the vote count on Friday. Based on the limited information available, allies of exiled tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra were set to win the most seats, followed by the military-backed Palang Pracharath party. Now both of them are racing to win over allies to form a majority in the 500-member lower house of parliament. An Asian election monitor said Tuesday that the run-up to the vote was “heavily tilted” to benefit the military-backed party and criticized a messy ballot-counting process that created mistrust. The Bangkok-based Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) stopped short of declaring outright fraud in the election. “The environment at large is heavily tilted to benefit the military junta,” Amael Vier, an official of the civil society group that seeks to promote democratic elections, told a news briefing. “A lot of people still express distrust towards the electoral process.” Asked if the election had been free and fair, another ANFREL official declined to comment directly, however. “So many things have to be considered together,” said its mission head, Rohana Nishanta Hettiarachchie. “It is unfair to conclude that the whole process was free and fair or not.” Thailand’s Election Commission was not immediately available for comment. It has previously declined to comment on accusations of cheating. The deck was already stacked in favor of the military, which appoints a 250-strong Senate that can also pick a prime minister — likely to be current junta chief Prayuth Chan-ocha. In theory that means he only needs 126 seats to take power. But Prayuth has a problem as well. If he takes power without a lower-house majority, Thaksin’s allies could hold a no-confidence vote and boot him out. Then comes another election, or possibly yet another coup — a now routine event that constantly weighs on Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy. “If the military can come to terms with the fact that despite all of their efforts they still can’t win, or if there’s a clear resistance, maybe they would stop,” said David Streckfuss, a scholar of Southeast Asian politics and honorary fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But I don’t have much hope for that.” For the military, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. After Prayuth in 2014 deposed a government led by Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin’s sister, the ruling junta wrote a new constitution that was designed to finally break the former premier’s lock on Thailand’s electorate. The army even emulated Thaksin’s populism, which had endeared him over the years to poorer Thais — particularly in the north and northeast — who still laud his policies of cheap health care and guaranteed crop prices. The military’s party proposed lower taxes, a minimum wage increase of more than 30 percent, and price support for rubber, rice, and sugar cane. In the end they still fell short of winning a democratic mandate, although that doesn’t mean they’ll lose power. The junta has a range of tools to ensure it gets its way, including the backstop of an appointed Senate. Thaksin ripped the election as “rigged” in a scathing op-ed published in the New York Times. Reeling off a litany of election irregularities, Thaksin warned that the junta may try to buy off smaller parties or disband pro-democracy political parties. “Whether or not the junta’s leaders now allow the pro-democracy parties to form a government, they will find a way to stay in charge,” Thaksin said. “They have no shame, and they want to be in power no matter what.” Thaksin has reason to be skeptical. He or his allies have won the most seats in every Thai election over the past two decades, only to see the military or courts oust them. He hasn’t stepped foot in Thailand since he was convicted for corruption in a case brought after the 2006 coup that ousted him. He denies all wrongdoing. The courts have disbanded three parties linked to him over the years, most recently earlier this month when Thai Raksa Chart was banned for nominating Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya as its prime ministerial candidate. The judges acted soon after King Maha Vajiralongkorn opposed the move, disrupting Thaksin’s election strategy. Now another party called Future Forward, which opposes military rule and did surprisingly well on Sunday, faces legal challenges after its leader was accused of breaking a draconian computer-crimes law for online commentary critical of the junta. In the short term it’s unlikely Thailand will see large street protests ahead of the king’s coronation ceremony, which is scheduled for early May. It’s one of the most significant events on the calendar in Thailand, where royals are officially treated as semi-divine. But after the Election Commission officially certifies results by May 9, anything is possible. A decade ago, demonstrators disrupted a regional summit after a pro-Thaksin party was disbanded — something the military would hope to avoid as it hosts world leaders this year, potentially including U.S. President Donald Trump. “I don’t think the coalition will last more than two years,” said Punchada Sirivunnabood, an associate professor at Mahidol University, who writes frequently about Thai politics. “It’s the same dividing lines taking a new form.”
|
thailand;elections;thaksin shinawatra;prayuth chan-ocha
|
jp0001816
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Senior North Korean diplomat arrives in Beijing as top U.S. denuclearization official visits Chinese capital
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BEIJING - A North Korean top diplomat arrived in Beijing from Pyongyang on Tuesday morning, Kyodo News confirmed, with state-run media saying he is scheduled to visit Laos. Upon arrival at a VIP section of Beijing’s international airport, Ri Su Yong, a vice chairman of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, climbed into a car provided by the Chinese Communist Party while concealing his face. The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported later in the day that Ri left Pyongyang on Tuesday to visit Laos, but did not mention details of his itinerary. The Southeast Asian nation is a one-party-rule state similar to North Korea. North Korean Ambassador to Russia Kim Hyun Joon, who temporarily returned home, also arrived in Beijing on Tuesday. In Pyongyang, he may have made arrangements for leader Kim Jong Un’s rumored first official visit to Russia, diplomatic sources said. Kim Hyun Joon, who is expected to return to Moscow sometime soon, did not answer reporters’ questions as he arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport. North Korea has continued diplomatic activities even after Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump fell short of a deal at their Feb. 27-28 summit in Hanoi over the scope of North Korea’s denuclearization and sanctions relief. To convince the international community to relax economic sanctions against North Korea, Pyongyang has recently become eager to conduct multilateral diplomacy instead of focusing on bilateral talks with the United States, foreign affairs experts say. As North Korea’s economy has been hit hard by the economic sanctions designed to thwart the country’s nuclear and ballistic missile ambitions, Pyongyang has called for the easing of them, saying it has already taken concrete steps toward denuclearization. Trump, however, said after the Hanoi summit that North Korea pledged to “totally” dismantle its main Yongbyon nuclear complex, but the lifting of the sanctions would require Pyongyang to scrap other nuclear facilities and programs, including undeclared ones. Meanwhile, Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative for North Korea, was also in Beijing to talk with China about how to deal with issues related to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Before the second summit between Washington and Pyongyang in the Vietnamese capital, Biegun held working-level talks with his North Korean counterpart Kim Hyok Chol, an interlocutor leading negotiations with the United States. It was not clear whether the visits by the U.S. and North Korean officials were related.
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china;u.s .;north korea;kim jong un;nuclear weapons;north korea nuclear crisis;donald trump;kim-trump summit;stephen biegun
|
jp0001817
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Citing 'Eastern values,' Indonesia theme park covers up bare-breasted mermaids
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JAKARTA - A pair of bare-breasted mermaid statues have been given the family values treatment at an Indonesian amusement park where officials slipped golden tube tops over their chests. While the nude statues have been on display for years at Jakarta’s Ancol Dreamland, a recent policy aimed at respecting “Eastern values” has seen the mermaids get an official cover-up. The statues were initially just covered with gold fabric, but they’ve now also been moved to a more secluded area after visitors kept pulling the coverings down, park sources said. Ancol Dreamland spokeswoman Rika Lestari insisted no outside agitators were behind the cover-up. “There was no pressure from any group,” she said. “Ancol is trying to become an amusement park and vacation spot for families.” That didn’t stop the park’s move from being widely mocked. “Thanks Ancol. Now, no one will commit adultery of the eyes from looking at the mermaids’ breasts,” comedian Soleh Solihun wrote on Twitter. Earlier, Lestari told the Indonesian newspaper Kompas: “We’re Eastern people, we have Eastern culture, so what was inappropriate we made it more appropriate. “It’s just a matter of perception, because what we’ve done was the best for us. It’s a good thing, so why not.” Indonesia is the world’s biggest Muslim majority country and relatively conservative social values are prevalent.
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censorship;indonesia;sexuality;statues
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jp0001818
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"crime-legal-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/26
|
China's former top internet regulator sentenced to 14 years in prison
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BEIJING - China’s former top internet regulator was sentenced to 14 years in prison for corruption, completing the downfall of a once-high-flying official who mingled with executives from Apple and Facebook. Lu Wei was found guilty of taking bribes on Tuesday by the Ningbo People’s Intermediate Court in the eastern province of Zhejiang, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. He was found to have accepted some 32 million yuan ($4.6 million) from companies and individuals seeking help with regulatory issues and promoting their businesses online, the report said. Lu was convicted after a one-day trial in October. He told the court that he would obey the sentence and not appeal, Xinhua said. The former Beijing propaganda official was named as China’s first national internet regulator in 2014 after the country established the Cyberspace Administration of China to manage a market that now has more than 800 million users. Lu spearheaded Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “Clear Cyberspace” campaign, purging “unhealthy” online content, reining in news portals and muzzling opinion leaders. While serving as chief internet censor at home, Lu sought to portray himself as a forward-looking official on the world stage, shaking hands with Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook. Lu challenged critics of Chinese efforts to block foreign websites, offering a standard response still used by local authorities: “China welcomes any law-abiding foreign companies.” Under his watch, the cyberspace administration introduced a series of regulations on instant-messaging applications targeting Tecent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat, constraining user profiles, managing online comments and establishing procedures for summoning technology companies for official inquiries. The charges against Lu spanned his career across several government bodies, including Xinhua, the Beijing Municipal Government and the Communist Party’s propaganda department, according to prosecutors. He was officially put under investigation in November 2017, becoming the first senior official to fall after Xi secured a second term as party chief.
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china;corruption;lu wei
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jp0001819
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"crime-legal-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/26
|
South Korea professor forced students to write daughter's thesis, government report finds
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SEOUL - A Seoul university professor forced students to write her daughter’s thesis to gain entry to an elite dental school, a government report revealed Tuesday, the latest scandal to hit South Korea’s hypercompetitive education system. The professor, who teaches at Seoul’s Sungkyunkwan University, made her graduate students conduct a three-month experiment — and even asked them to fabricate the results — before the daughter published the findings in an academic journal under her own name. The daughter then included the thesis in an application to Seoul National University’s dental school — the top institution of its kind in the country — and earned admission last year. South Korea is notorious for its hypercompetitive education system and academic performance is seen as pivotal in defining adult lives, holding the key to the best jobs, social status and even marriage prospects. Many parents feel pressured to send their children to the nation’s top schools and frequently make headlines for cheating the system — including the case of a high-school teacher arrested last year on charges of stealing exam papers for his daughters. Top politicians, including current education minister Yoo Eun-hae, have apologized in the past for ethical lapses related to their children’s education. Yoo last year admitted falsifying her home address to enrol her daughter in a prestigious elementary school in central Seoul. In the latest case, the education ministry said it had asked prosecutors to investigate if any laws were broken. “The Education Ministry plans to ask her university to expel the professor,” an official said. The investigation discovered the professor had one of her students do 54 hours of volunteer work — converting a book into braille — in her daughter’s name, for which she was paid 500,000 won (around $440). The daughter also won a number of academic awards for posters and research reports that were actually completed by her mother’s students, it said. It has been widely reported that the country’s graduate students are frequently subject to abuse and exploitation — including working long hours in the lab and running errands such as laundry for their professors.
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south korea;scandals;schools
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jp0001821
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Japan and Nepal sign government-to-government labor pact
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KATHMANDU - Nepal has signed a memorandum of cooperation to send to Japan “specified skilled” workers for the first time. The broad framework agreement, signed in Kathmandu on Monday by Japanese Ambassador Masamichi Saigo and a Nepalese government representative, opens the door to Nepalese blue-collar workers getting jobs in Japan based on the government-to-government recruitment model. The agreement takes effect April 1. “The actual flow of workers from Nepal to Japan will take time because different bilateral mechanisms need to be set up to ensure that only those who meet employment criteria reach Japan,” said Narayan Regmi, spokesman at Nepal’s Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security. The ministry will set up a body that will facilitate the recruitment process, he added. The Japanese government decided in December to recruit 345,000 foreign workers in five years from nine countries, including Nepal, to address the rapidly depleting and aging workforce. Nepal proposed to Japan setting up a government-to-government recruitment mechanism to prevent recruitment agencies in Nepal from duping workers. A similar mechanism set up with South Korea to send Nepali workers under the Employment Permit System has been successful in protecting workers. Scores of cases in which workers were fleeced by recruitment agencies in Nepal or exploited by employers in job destinations such as Qatar and Malaysia are reported every year. Tens of thousands of Nepalese head to other countries for work every year. An estimated 4 million work abroad. Over two decades of political turmoil that started in 1996 when former rebel Maoists started a 10-year-long armed insurgency dried up investment and jobs in Nepal.
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visas;labor shortage;nepal-japan relations;foreign workforce
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jp0001822
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Tokyo pension office head replaced over hate speech tweets, some targeting South Koreans
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The head of a Tokyo pension office who repeatedly tweeted discriminatory remarks against individuals including South Koreans was replaced Monday. The governmental Japan Pension Service and sources said that in the now deleted tweets Yukihisa Kasai called South Koreans “cowardly people with vassal-like spirits” and said, “Korean residents should be purged from Japan and new entries refused.” Kasai, who headed the Japan Pension Service branch office in Setagaya Ward, also described Japanese opposition lawmakers as “a group of extortionists who get money for just being there.” Kasai admitted to writing the messages after he was pinned him down as the originator of the tweets, according to the Japan Pension Service, which effectively dismissed him by transferring him to its human resource division, administered by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. Less than a week earlier, a director of the ministry was dismissed after allegedly assaulting an airport worker in Seoul and telling the worker he hates South Koreans. The director, who was on a personal trip, was under the influence of alcohol and temporarily detained March 19, South Korean police said.
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south korea;social media;twitter;racism;hate speech;pensions;zainichi;mhlw;yukihisa kasai
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jp0001823
|
[
"national",
"science-health"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Marrow donor volunteers in Japan hit monthly high after swimmer Rikako Ikee's leukemia announcement
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The number of individuals registering as bone marrow donors reached a monthly record of 11,662 in February after teenage swimming star Rikako Ikee announced she has leukemia, according to the Japan Marrow Donor Program. New registrations exceeded 10,000 in a single month for the first time. The monthly average ranges from around 2,000 to 4,000, the organization said Monday. A total of 503,883 individuals are currently registered with the donor bank, the majority of whom are in their 40s, according to the group. As the age limit for donors is set at 55, the donor bank will work to increase younger donors at blood donation centers this year. Treating leukemia requires the patient’s bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cell to match the donor’s. If there is no match within the family, the patient looks to a third party. “Currently only about 60 percent of patients are matched with someone. We’d like as many people as possible to register as donors, especially those who are younger,” a spokesperson for the group said. The 18-year-old Ikee shot to fame at last summer’s Asian Games in Jakarta, where she was named the first female MVP after becoming the first swimmer to win six gold medals, all in record times. She announced her diagnosis last month, sending shock waves throughout Japan and eliciting words of support.
|
medicine;disease;cancer;leukemia;rikako ikee
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jp0001824
|
[
"national",
"politics-diplomacy"
] |
2019/03/26
|
No change in Japan's opposition to Israel's annexation of Golan Heights, says Suga
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Japan does not recognize the annexation of the Golan Heights by Israel and there is no change in this position, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Tuesday. Suga made the remark at a news conference after U.S. President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Monday officially recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, located in southwestern Syria. “We will keep a close eye on the future course of the matter, with interest,” Suga said. Japan’s government is preparing to dispatch Ground Self-Defense Force troops to the command of the Multinational Force and Observers, which oversees a cease-fire in the Egypt-Israel border zone in the Sinai Peninsula. Suga said the U.S. move has no particular effect on the plan. Also Tuesday, Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya said the purpose of dispatching GSDF personnel to the MFO is to monitor the cease-fire between Israel and Egypt and to maintain security in the region. “There will be no direct impact” from the U.S. decision, Iwaya added.
|
israel;yoshihide suga;syria;self defense forces;gsdf;golan heights;donald trump
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jp0001825
|
[
"national",
"politics-diplomacy"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Lawyers seize Nachi-Fujikoshi assets in South Korea over wartime labor case
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SEOUL - A team of lawyers representing Korean plaintiffs in an ongoing wartime labor case against Japanese machinery manufacturer Nachi-Fujikoshi Corp. said Tuesday that based on a court decision they have seized assets in South Korea owned by the company. The assets were the company’s stake in an affiliated company in South Korea, which the lawyers say would cover possible compensation for 23 plaintiffs in the case. The value of the stake is estimated at 765 million won (¥74.3 million). The case is still pending a ruling by the Supreme Court after the plaintiffs, all former members of the so-called Korean Women’s Volunteer Labor Corps, won at district- and appeals-court levels. South Korean courts have also approved the seizure of assets held by two other Japanese companies over wartime labor cases, steel-maker Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. and manufacturer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. But those seizures were approved to proceed after the South Korean Supreme Court ruled against the two companies last year and ordered them to compensate Korean plaintiffs for forced labor during World War II. On March 15, Ulsan District Court decided to freeze Nachi-Fujikoshi’s stake in Daesung-Nachi Hydraulics Co. based on a lawyers’ request, according to a statement. The lawyers also said they have seized additional assets held by Nippon Steel in South Korea that are worth 568 million won to compensate plaintiffs in the case involving that company. In January, a district court in Daegu approved seizure procedures for a stake worth 405 million won owned by Nippon Steel in a joint venture with South Korean steel-maker POSCO. The lawyers said, however, that they would seek to hold negotiations with the Japanese companies before actually selling the seized assets. The plaintiffs in the Nachi-Fujikoshi case claim they were brought to Japan from the Korean Peninsula — then under Japanese colonial rule — under false pretenses and forced to work at the firm’s munitions factory in Toyama without adequate food. Tuesday’s announcement came the day after a group of lawyers supporting plaintiffs in cases against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said South Korea’s intellectual property office had obtained the company’s rights to two trademarks and six patents, based on a court decision. The rulings and subsequent legal steps against Japanese companies have further strained bilateral ties that have been marred by bitter memories of Japan’s colonization of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945. The Japanese firms entangled in wartime labor cases in South Korea have refused to engage in talks with plaintiffs’ lawyers over compensation. The Japanese government maintains that the issue of claims stemming from the nation’s decadeslong colonial rule has already been settled as part of a 1965 treaty that established diplomatic ties between Tokyo and Seoul.
|
wwii;forced labor;wartime labor;south korea-japan relations;nachi-fujikoshi
|
jp0001826
|
[
"national",
"politics-diplomacy"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Caroline Kennedy stresses importance of prefecture to visiting Okinawa students
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NEW YORK - Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy on Monday called on visiting students from Okinawa Prefecture to come to the United States again and learn more about the country. During her meeting in New York with about 20 high school and university students from Okinawa, Kennedy stressed the importance of the prefecture to the future of the bilateral alliance. “The future of the U.S.-Japan alliance, which is the strongest and the most important in the world right now today, really depends on Okinawa,” she said. The students are visiting the United States under an exchange program organized by Japan’s Foreign Ministry to help them increase the understanding of bilateral relations. “We are here to think about the future of Okinawa and to share real Okinawa,” said Yurino Tamaki, 21, of the University of the Ryukyus. Kennedy looked delighted as she received bingata cloth produced using Okinawa’s traditional dyeing technique. The former ambassador to Japan said that she made the craft when she visited Okinawa. The students also toured the White House and the State Department in Washington. In New York, they met with Koro Bessho, Japan’s ambassador to the United Nations.
|
okinawa;u.s. military;u.s. bases;caroline kennedy
|
jp0001827
|
[
"national",
"politics-diplomacy"
] |
2019/03/26
|
GSDF launches new bases in Kagoshima and Okinawa for defense of Japan's southwestern islands
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The Ground Self-Defense Force launched new camps on Amami Oshima island in Kagoshima Prefecture and Miyako Island in Okinawa Prefecture on Tuesday, as part of its moves to enhance the defense of southwestern islands in the country. The camps will take charge of first response in the case of an emergency and serve as key footholds for related operations. The GSDF continues to revamp its organization in response to military threats from China, although the Defense Ministry has officially denied that is the purpose. “Our defense policy is not developed with a military threat from a particular country in mind,” Defense Ministry spokesman Hajime Aoyagi said during a news briefing Tuesday. “That being said, the southwestern islands span a large area of 1,200 kilometers and there is a lack of a Self-Defense Forces presence except for the main island of Okinawa and Yonaguni Island” located close to Taiwan, he added. The new GSDF camps will be “very important” in “filling in the lack” of SDF personnel in the area, as well as ramping up first response efficiency should an emergency, such as a natural disaster happen, he added. A total of about 560 troops, drawn from a security unit and surface-to-air and surface-to-ship missile units, are to be stationed at the Amami Oshima camp. At the Miyako camp, 380 security unit personnel will be deployed by the end of this month. Surface-to-air and surface-to-ship missile unit personnel will be deployed there in fiscal 2019 from April or later, bringing the total number of GSDF troops at the camp to between 700 and 800. For the defense of the southwestern islands, the GSDF set up a coastal security unit on Yonaguni Island in Okinawa in 2016. Last year, an amphibious unit was launched in Nagasaki Prefecture for the protection of remote islands. Work to build a camp on Ishigaki Island in Okinawa was recently started. On Tuesday, the GSDF also carried out an organizational revision to reinforce its rapid deployment unit. In addition, to step up cyberdefense, a unit was set up at the Western Army in Kumamoto Prefecture.
|
okinawa;self defense forces;kagoshima;gsdf;amami oshima;miyako island
|
jp0001828
|
[
"national",
"politics-diplomacy"
] |
2019/03/26
|
Suga to whittle down Japan era name candidates on April 1, with Cabinet's final decision later in day
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The government plans to narrow down a list of candidates for the new era name on April 1, the same day it will pick and announce the next era name, government sources said Monday. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga will pick around three new era name candidates from the some 20 to 30 proposals to be submitted by scholars commissioned by the government, the sources said. Soon after hearing opinions from a panel of experts and the heads and deputy heads of both chambers of the Diet, the government will make its final selection at a Cabinet meeting, the sources said. The government will follow procedures used to select the current era name of Heisei in 1989 when deciding on a name for the next era. On March 14, the government officially commissioned a few specialists in Japanese and Chinese literature and Japanese and Asian history to make proposals for the new era name. The scholars are expected to propose two to five names each, along with their meanings and detailed information on their sources. Suga will pick the candidate names after hearing opinions from Yusuke Yokobatake, director-general of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau. He is set to make the selection just before a Cabinet decision on the name of the next era, apparently in order to reduce the risk of information leaks, sources familiar with the situation said. The government has no plans to disclose the creator of the new era name for the time being. Suga told a news conference Monday that the commissioned scholars do not want their names disclosed. If their names were announced, speculation would grow over who made which proposals, a situation that does not seem appropriate, Suga said. Japan’s first era name is believed to be Taika, used between 645 and 650. The new era name will be the 248th. After the new name is decided at a Cabinet meeting on April 1, it will be implemented on May 1 in line with the enthronement of Crown Prince Naruhito following the abdication of his father, Emperor Akihito, on April 30.
|
history;yoshihide suga;nihongo;imperial family;abdication;gengo;nengo
|
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