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jp0002043
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Job-hunting begins for Japan's spring 2020 graduates amid labor crunch
|
Companies started Friday to offer employment seminars for third-year university students due to graduate in spring 2020, marking the opening of the last job-hunting season under the rules set by Japan’s biggest business lobby. The job market continues to be favorable to students as the country deals with a severe labor shortage. Keidanren (the Japan Business Federation) sets guidelines for the corporate hiring of students and March 1 is designated as the day on which companies can begin giving students briefings about job opportunities. But more companies, such as non-Keidanren members, have begun to ignore the guidelines and make moves earlier in recent years with a goal of securing young talent. Keidanren has decided to abolish the guidelines starting with students graduating in 2021. A two-day joint corporate seminar hosted by Recruit Career Co. began at the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba Prefecture on Friday. Some 1,000 companies and around 24,000 students are expected to take part, according to Recruit Career. Although Keidanren asks companies to refrain from conducting interviews until June, a survey by job information provider Mynavi Corp. shows 35.2 percent of companies said they would start job interviews with students this month, up 5.8 points from a year before. The proportion is higher than for any other month. Last year, many companies held such interviews in April. “Companies are increasingly front-loading the employee selection process on the back of labor shortages,” explained Takuya Kurita, head of Mynavi’s research and marketing division. The government will instead oversee the rules, as some colleges are concerned their students wouldn’t be able to focus on studying otherwise.
|
jobs;keidanren;universities;makuhari messe
|
jp0002045
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/01
|
New York probing Facebook on gathering of intimate data from apps: source
|
NEW YORK - New York regulators are probing Facebook’s gathering of intimate consumer data such as menstrual cycles and body weight through smartphone applications, a person familiar with the matter said Thursday. Facebook, meanwhile, confirmed it had received a letter from New York state’s Department of Financial Services seeking information about the sharing of data. The regulator, best known for cracking down on large banks, demanded that Facebook provide the names of all the companies that have sent the social media company data about users of their applications over the past three years, according to the source. Other requests were sent to application developers for information on their contracts with Facebook. A Wall Street Journal report on Feb. 22 found that intimate data could be shared with Facebook from at least 11 popular apps using a tool designed to help target ads, even if users were not Facebook members. Information collected by apps included personal details regarding body weight, pregnancy status, ovulation and home shopping, according to the Journal. Facebook said it was reviewing the request. “It’s common for developers to share information with a wide range of platforms for advertising and analytics,” a Facebook spokesperson said. “We require the other app developers to be clear with their users about the information they are sharing with us, and we prohibit app developers from sending us sensitive data. We also take steps to detect and remove data that should not be shared with us.” The New York probe comes amid a broadening debate over online privacy. Interest and industry groups testified this week at hearings on Capitol Hill on options to strengthen protection following a number of high-profile scandals involving Facebook and other tech giants.
|
privacy;apps;facebook;ads;user data
|
jp0002046
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/01
|
January jobless rate edges up as more Japanese women quit jobs to look for better opportunities
|
The unemployment rate edged up 0.1 percentage point from the previous month to 2.5 percent in January, reflecting a rising number of women quitting their jobs for better positions amid the tightest labor market in decades, government data showed Friday. The jobless rate marked the first rise in two months, though it stayed around its lowest level in 26 years, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. The job availability ratio stood at 1.63, staying flat from December, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said. The ratio means there were 163 openings for every 100 job seekers. “The unemployment rate for January rose but there is no change in the trend of steadily improving labor conditions,” an internal affairs ministry official told reporters. A total of 750,000 people voluntarily left jobs during the reporting month, up 10,000 from December. The number of those who newly started to seek jobs rose by 60,000 to 440,000, while 390,000 people were laid off, up 20,000. Unemployment among men was steady at 2.5 percent while among women it rose 0.3 percentage point to 2.5 percent. The total number of people without jobs, seasonally unadjusted, grew 70,000 in January from a year earlier to 1.66 million for the first rise since April 2010. But the internal affairs ministry attributed the increase to a sharp drop in job-seekers in the previous year due to heavy snow and a cold snap, and maintained that the improvement in the labor market remains unchanged. The uptick in the jobless rate shows that companies are actively hiring and more workers are moving to seek better labor conditions, economists said. “It does not mean that the labor market is getting worse,” said Takuji Aida, chief economist at Societe Generale Securities. “If the job-seekers go on and land jobs smoothly, the number of employed will increase and the unemployment rate will fall gradually.” The percentage of the working-age population between 15 and 64 years old with jobs was 76.8 percent, rising 0.9 point from the previous year. The share of men with jobs in that age bracket was 83.7 percent, while that of women was 69.7 percent. Figures for the 20-69 age group, which the ministry released for the first time in January to better reflect labor market conditions, showed the ratio of employed was 77.7 percent, up 1.1 point from the previous year. To address the country’s graying population, the Diet passed a bill in December, pushed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, to attract foreign workers from April into its labor-hungry sectors, including construction, farming and nursing care. It marked a major policy shift for the country, which had effectively granted working visas only to doctors, lawyers and others with professional knowledge and high-level skills. Under the new visa system, the government estimates Japan will accept up to around 345,000 foreign workers over the next five years.
|
women;jobs;economic indicators;internal affairs ministry
|
jp0002047
|
[
"business",
"financial-markets"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Nikkei rallies to 21,602 amid weaker yen and upbeat U.S. data
|
Stocks staged a rebound Friday on the Tokyo Stock Exchange as the yen weakened against the dollar following the release of positive U.S. economic data Thursday. The 225-issue Nikkei average rose 217.53 points, or 1.02 percent, to close at 21,602.69. On Thursday, the key market gauge fell 171.35 points. The Topix index of all first-section issues gained 8.06 points, or 0.50 percent, to end at 1,615.72. It lost 12.76 points the previous day. Investors bought back shares as the dollar hit fresh two-month highs far above ¥111.50 following the release of stronger-than-expected U.S. gross domestic product data for October-December and the Chicago purchasing managers index for February, brokers said. The office of the U.S. Trade Representative on Thursday meanwhile announced it would suspend an additional tariff hike scheduled for Chinese imports until further notice, helping to improve sentiment in the Tokyo market, the brokers said. A rise in U.S. Dow Jones industrial average futures in off-hours trading was also positive for Japanese stocks, according to the brokers. The Tokyo market showed resilience after falling “too much” the previous day, said Mitsuo Shimizu, chief strategist at Aizawa Securities Co. An inflow of fresh money at the start of a new month may have supported the rebound, Shimizu added. The closely watched U.S.-North Korean summit, which ended without an agreement Thursday, was a big event politically but its stock market impact in Tokyo was limited, brokers said. Rising issues outnumbered falling ones 1,180 to 859 in the TSE’s first section, while 91 issues were unchanged. Volume decreased to 1.148 billion shares from 1.301 billion shares Thursday. Export-oriented issues fared well thanks to the weaker yen. Semiconductor-related Tokyo Electron added 1.55 percent, industrial robot producer Fanuc 1.93 percent and Yaskawa Electric 2.69 percent. Travel agency H.I.S. gained 2.82 percent after announcing on Thursday strong earnings and a stock listing plan for theme park unit Huis Ten Bosch Co. Among other winners were clothing retailer Fast Retailing and tech conglomerate SoftBank Group. In the meantime, shipping firms were downbeat. Mitsui O.S.K. Lines fell 2.22 percent, Kawasaki Kisen 2.86 percent and Nippon Yusen 1.20 percent. Department store operator J. Front Retailing lost ground due to a downward revision to consolidated earnings forecasts for the year to February. Also on the minus side were mobile phone carrier KDDI and steel-maker Kobe Steel. In index futures trading on the Osaka Exchange, the key March contract on the Nikkei average added 230 points to end at 21,620.
|
stocks;nikkei;tokyo stock exchange;topix
|
jp0002048
|
[
"business",
"financial-markets"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Dollar hits 10-week high around ¥111.90 in Tokyo
|
The dollar soared to 10-week highs around ¥111.90 in late Tokyo trading Friday, as market sentiment turned “risk on.” After scaling the highs, the dollar stood at ¥111.81-81 at 5 p.m., up from ¥110.75-76 at the same time Thursday. The euro was at $1.1371-1371, down from $1.1381-1381, and at ¥127.15-16, up from ¥126.05-06. In foreign trading Thursday, the dollar took a sharp upturn following the release of strong U.S. economic data, including better-than-expected a gross domestic product for October-December last year. The dollar added gains in Tokyo on Friday, sailing past ¥111.70 by around noon on a Tokyo stock rally, dollar buying by Japanese importers and brisk Chinese economic data, traders said. In late trading, higher Chinese stock prices helped lift the U.S. currency to around ¥111.90, according to the traders. “The dollar’s bullish momentum increased when the currency broke through a key technical line of ¥111.30,” a Japanese bank official said. “The risk-on sentiment is strong on the back of the brisk performance of the benchmark Nikkei stock average,” an official of a major bank said. But an official of a foreign exchange margin trading service firm said, “The dollar will need bigger buying incentives to go above ¥112.”
|
forex;currencies
|
jp0002049
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Subaru announces global recall of 2.3 million vehicles, its biggest yet, over faulty brake lights
|
Subaru Corp. is recalling around 2.3 million vehicles worldwide over a brake light problem, the automaker’s biggest-ever recall, as it grapples with a series of quality-related issues following rapid expansion. Japan’s sixth-largest automaker said Friday that it was recalling around 300,000 of its popular Impreza and Forester models in its home market and 2 million of the same models in the U.S. and other countries to fix a fault with the brake light switch, which can lead to ignition problems. Vehicles affected were produced from 2008 through 2017, and the recall is the automaker’s biggest in terms of affected units, excluding the ongoing Takata air bag recall. Since late 2017, Subaru has been reeling from a host of problems ranging from faulty components to inspection do-overs, coupled with weakening sales in the United States. This has forced the automaker to slash its full-year profit outlook to its weakest in six years. Quality-related issues have cast a pall on the automaker that enjoyed years of rapid growth in the United States, where it won over affluent and liberal-minded consumers with advertisements featuring slogans championing love and inclusion. Such branding boosted the image of Subaru, prompting it to ramp up production in the United States, which accounts for around 60 percent of its global sales volume. But in January, Subaru halted production at its sole car factory in Japan for nearly two weeks, holding up roughly 60 percent of its global output after it found a defect in a power steering component. Late last year, it announced a global recall of its signature boxer engines over an issue with its valve springs, while it has launched a series of domestic recalls for re-inspections after it admitted to cheating on testing processes.
|
carmakers;subaru;recalls
|
jp0002050
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/03/01
|
J.C. Penney to close more stores after weak holiday season
|
NEW YORK - American department store operator J.C. Penney Co. is closing more stores following a weak holiday sales season. Net income tumbled nearly 70 percent, and a key measure for health dropped 4 percent in the fourth-quarter, the most crucial period of the year for retailers who bank on strong holiday sales. The company said that it would turn the lights out at 18 department stores, including three that were announced last month. It will also close nine home and furniture stores. It will take charges of $15 million in relation to those closings during the first half of this year. The firm did top expectations for the fourth quarter results and under new CEO Jill Soltau, the department store chain did rid itself of unprofitable inventory and said it will have positive free cash flow this year. Shares jumped more than 23 percent Thursday. Soltau, who came on board in October, faces numerous challenges in avoiding the fate of Sears or other retailers that have filed for bankruptcy protection, or vanished. Under Soltau, the firm jettisoned major appliances, which accounted for 2.7 percent of J.C. Penney’s sales last year, but dragged on the company’s operating profit. It’s focusing instead on women’s clothing, and goods for the home like towels or bedsheets, which carry higher profit margins. Furniture is still available, but only online. That reverses the course followed by predecessor Marvin Ellison, who three years ago began selling major appliances again in an attempt to capitalize on problems at Sears. In a conference call Thursday, Soltau said she has spent time with customers, suppliers and workers and she said she’s convinced that the company can establish a path of “sustainable profit growth.” Changes will be swift, methodical and based on what customers want and expect from J.C. Penney, Soltau said. “This is not business-as-usual,” she said during a conference call Thursday. “Our current reality is clear.” Department stores like J.C. Penney are trying to reinvent themselves in an era when Americans are buying more online, or turning to discounters like T.J. Maxx for clothing. Bringing back shoppers has proven exceedingly difficult, even for iconic brands. Momentum appears to be slowing at Macy’s, which released fourth-quarter results this week. It reported weaker profit and total sales, as well as meager growth in sales at established stores, a key measure for a retailer’s health. Nordstrom posts earnings late Thursday and Kohl’s reports next week. Among the four stores, only Kohl’s has seen its stock move higher over the past 12 months, but just barely. Shares of Sears and J.C. Penney are down more than 60 percent in the past year. And the path back to prosperity appears especially tenuous for J.C. Penney. It is trying to claw its way back after a disastrous reinvention plan in 2012 by its former CEO, Ron Johnson, who dramatically cut back on promotions and brought in new brands to attract young shoppers. Sales at J.C. Penney went into a freefall, it suffered massive losses and once-loyal customers moved on. That situation has stabilized, but establishing an identity in a retail landscape that has undergone seismic changes continues to elude the firm. “The central problem for (J.C. Penney) is that it no longer gives shoppers reasons to visit stores and to make purchases,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail. “In other words, it has lost sight of why it exists. This is evident across both stores and online where a hodgepodge of products are thrown together in a seemingly random fashion.” The company reduced inventory by 13 percent last year and that will continue throughout 2019. Soltau said more uncluttered stores will allow people to find what they want more easily. New executive hires were also announced Thursday, including chief merchant, the person who decides what goes on store shelves. Saunders lauded Soltau’s leadership so far, saying J.C. Penney’s travails predate her. But he said time is limited. J.C. Penney posted net income of $75 million, or 24 cents per share, for the quarter. That compares with $242 million, or 77 cents per share, a year ago. Revenue including credit income, fell more than 8 percent, to $3.78 billion, but that was also better than expected. Even though profit and sales fell, investors were elated that it wasn’t worse. Shares jumped 30 percent, but that brought the price to just $1.59 each. Before the economic crisis hit a decade ago, shares cost about $70.
|
profits;shares;j.c. penney;jill soltau
|
jp0002051
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Japan sees first fall in corporate profits in over two years due to weak China demand and high material costs
|
Corporate profits in Japan were down for the first time in 2½ years in the fourth quarter of 2018 amid falling demand from China and rising costs, government data showed Friday. Pretax profits fell 7.0 percent in the October-December period from a year earlier to total ¥19.48 trillion. The first decline since the second quarter of 2016 indicated that growth in the world’s third-largest economy may be gearing down. Oil refiners, automakers and manufacturers of telecommunications equipment were among the poorest performers as exports to China slowed and labor and raw materials costs climbed, according to the Finance Ministry. Still, companies continued to step up capital expenditure in order to boost capacity and productivity. Investment by all nonfinancial sectors for purposes such as building factories and adding equipment increased 5.7 percent from a year earlier to ¥12.05 trillion, up for the ninth straight quarter. Business investment has been a key driver of the economy, which is thought to be experiencing its longest expansionary phase since the end of World War II. It has been especially important as private consumption remains rather weak amid tepid wage gains. Compared with the previous quarter, capital expenditure, seasonally adjusted and not including spending on software, rose 3.3 percent. The Cabinet Office is scheduled to release revised gross domestic product data for the fourth quarter of 2018 on March 8, taking into account the latest investment figures. Preliminary GDP data showed the economy grew an annualized real 1.4 percent in the October-December period, recovering modestly from a 2.6 percent contraction in the preceding quarter when the country was hit by a string of natural disasters. The Finance Ministry surveyed 31,826 companies capitalized at ¥10 million or more, of which 23,025, or 72.3 percent, responded.
|
economy;finance ministry;economic indicators;financial results
|
jp0002052
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Neolithic humans loved their dogs to death, burial sites near Barcelona reveal
|
PARIS - Neolithic communities clustered near present-day Barcelona some 6,000 years ago were really keen on dogs, in this life and the next. Archaeological evidence from at least four sites shows prehistoric humans and their four-legged friends living in close quarters, working together and sharing a common diet of mostly grains and veggies. “These animals were fully integrated into the Neolithic communities,” said lead author Silvia Albizuri, a researcher at the University of Barcelona. The special status accorded to canines even extended to the grave, Albizuri and her team reported recently in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. In more than two dozen circular burial plots, the partial or complete remains of pooches were carefully laid out next to individual men, women and children. The dogs chosen to spend eternity with their masters paid a stiff price for the privilege, the study concluded: They were sacrificed at the time of burial. The animals ranged in age between 1 and 6 years, with a quarter estimated at 12 to 18 months old. “The selection of puppies and 1-year-old animals suggests the intention to sacrifice,” said Albizuri. The Pit Grave people, in other words, loved their dogs to death. The preference for young dogs may also have stemmed from a reluctance to lose older ones already trained up in their guarding or herding duties. A lack of cut marks on the dog bones also suggests their flesh was not cut away and consumed before burial. Canines and humans laid to rest side by side have been found at other Middle Neolithic sites in northern Italy and southern France, but the Bobila Madurell tomb — just north of Barcelona — has more dogs than any other, the study said. The remains of all but nine of the 26 dogs examined were excavated there. Dogs were first used by humans for hunting and probably transport, scientists speculate. As humans settled and began to practice agriculture some 10,000 years ago, canines became sentinels against upright invaders and wild animals, especially their evolutionary cousins, wolves. They also learned to herd other domesticated creatures, such as sheep, goats or cattle. “Dogs played an important role in the economy of Neolithic populations, taking care of herds and settlements,” the researchers noted. The midsize dogs described in the study — standing up to half a meter tall, and weighing about 15 kg — resemble “shepherd dogs of the current Pyrenees,” the mountain chain separating France and Spain, Albizuri said. Bones from livestock found at the Spanish burial sites were scattered in a haphazard manner, further proof that Neolithic canines carefully laid to rest were in a class of their own. The fifth millennium B.C. in southern Europe was dotted with a few large settlements, along with small villages or hamlets in plains or on hilltops. Archaeologists have also unearthed the remains of simple farms, temporary shelters, and silos used to store grain.
|
history;archaeology;pets;dogs
|
jp0002053
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Russia orders firms to free captive orca, Belugas held in Far East 'whale prison'
|
MOSCOW - Russian authorities have ordered the release of nearly 100 whales held captive in cages in Russia’s Far East in a case that has drawn the ire of President Vladimir Putin, the public and international film stars, TASS news agency said on Thursday. Images of the whales, kept in cramped enclosures in a bay near the Sea of Japan port town of Nakhodka, first appeared last year, triggering a wave of criticism. The Kremlin has said the 11 orcas and 87 beluga whales were held in cruel conditions and were intended for sale to aquariums and Chinese buyers. But the problem of how to release the whales without harming them has caused delays and the animals remain in the enclosures, which Russian media have nicknamed a “whale prison. Russia’s federal security service, the FSB, brought charges against four companies on Monday for breaking fishing laws, TASS reported. “Expertise showed that the animals were kept in unsatisfactory conditions, and must be released into their natural habitat,” it cited the FSB as saying. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week that Putin had personally stepped in to handle the matter. “We are doing everything we can,” Ecology Minister Dmitry Kobylkin was cited by TASS news agency as saying on Thursday. “No one objects to releasing the orcas, but the most important thing is to release them properly,” he said, listing cold weather as one of the obstacles to freeing the whales without causing them any harm. A petition to release the whales, shared by actor Leonardo DiCaprio on social media, has gathered more than 900,000 signatures online. Actress Pamela Anderson posted an open letter to Putin on her website. “News about the ‘whale jail’ near Nakhodka, the icy conditions, and the suffering of the orca and beluga whales is causing international concern,” the actress wrote. Further complicating matters is the fact that Russia has no direct ban on the catching of such animals, Kremlin spokesman Peskov said last week. They can be caught, in specific circumstances, for scientific and educational purposes.
|
vladimir putin;russia;whales;sea of japan
|
jp0002054
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Canada to contribute to NASA mission to put Gateway orbiter around moon
|
OTTAWA - Canada will join NASA’s space mission to put an orbiter around the moon in a few years, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Thursday. “Canada is going to the moon,” Trudeau told a press conference that included a live video link from the International Space Station with Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques. NASA plans to build a small space station, dubbed Gateway, in the moon’s orbit by 2026. It will serve as a way-station for trips to and from the lunar surface, but will not be permanently crewed like the International Space Station (ISS), currently in Earth’s orbit. According to the Canadian Space Agency, Gateway will provide living space for astronauts, a docking station for visiting spacecraft and research laboratories. Canada will develop and contribute an autonomous robotic system — Canadarm3 — that will be used to repair and maintain the station. The original 15-meter remote-controlled mechanical Canadarm, also known as the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System, was used on the Space Shuttle for 30 years, deploying, capturing and repairing satellites, positioning astronauts, maintaining equipment and moving cargo. Its successor is used on the ISS. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement that the organization is “thrilled that Canada is the first international partner for the Gateway lunar outpost.” “Our new collaboration on Gateway will enable our broader international partnership to get to the moon and eventually to Mars,” he said. Trudeau also announced 2.05 billion Canadian dollars ($1.55 billion) over 24 years for Canada’s space program, which will help support a push to develop new “artificial intelligence-based technologies” for space. Due to communications lags between Earth and remote outposts, it will be increasingly necessary to automate many robotic functions on space stations and vehicles. The last person to walk on the moon was Eugene Cernan in December 1972, during the Apollo 17 mission. Before humans set foot on the lunar surface again, NASA aims to land an unmanned vehicle on the moon by 2024. So far, only Russia, the United States and China have made the 384,000-kilometer (239,000-mile) journey and landed spacecraft on the moon. Last week, Israel launched a spacecraft that aims to join them.
|
u.s .;nasa;space;canada;moon;justin trudeau;gateway
|
jp0002055
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/03/01
|
SpaceX looks to send dummy to ISS this weekend in test for resuming manned U.S. flights
|
WASHINGTON - SpaceX will try to send a dummy to the International Space Station this weekend in a key test for resuming manned U.S. space flights, perhaps this year if all goes well. Since the shuttle Atlantis returned to Earth on July 21, 2011, no American astronaut has blasted off from U.S. soil for a tour in space. NASA pays Russia to get its people up to the orbiting research facility at a cost of $82 million a head, round trip. In 2014, the U.S. space agency awarded contracts to SpaceX and Boeing for them to take over this task. But the program has suffered delays as safety requirements are much more stringent for manned flights than for unmanned missions to deploy satellites. No one in America wants to relive the tragedies of the U.S. space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, which disintegrated in midair in 1986 and 2003. Three years behind schedule, a Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to blast off Saturday from Cape Canaveral at 2:49 a.m. (0749 GMT) with a Crew Dragon capsule in its nose, It will for a rendezvous one day later with the ISS. The capsule is scheduled to return to Earth on March 8. If all goes well, two astronauts will be aboard the next time such a seven-seat capsule is launched. That is supposed to happen in July but delays are possible. “These things always take longer than you think,” said Lori Garver, who was the number two official at NASA when the contracts were awarded to SpaceX and Boeing under then-President Barack Obama. Back then this decision was controversial, with lawmakers complaining about changing the way America sends people into space and the loss of contracts and jobs for big, veteran aerospace companies based in their states. “We have very few heroes left, and astronauts are our heroes. And losing our grip at NASA and allowing companies to take the lead on transporting them was a challenge for some. It still is,” said Garver. SpaceX is no rookie when it comes to trips to and from the space station. The company founded by Elon Musk and based in Los Angeles has carried out 15 resupply missions to the orbiter since 2012. One of its ISS-bound rockets exploded in 2015. The second, crewed version of the Dragon rocket has been adapted from the cargo model, which has proved to be reliable. Saturday’s mission is still a “big deal,” said SpaceX Vice President Hans Koenigsmann. “This is an absolutely critical first step that we do as we move towards returning the crewed launch capability back here to the U.S.,” said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator with NASA Human Exploration and Operations. It has taken years to get within reach of that goal. “I don’t think very many people thought that the length of time between the termination of Shuttle and a new vehicle was going to be as long as it has been,” said Roger Launius, former chief historian of NASA. The cooling of U.S. relations with Russia has increased pressure for the U.S. to be able to send people to space on its own. NASA has always relied on the aerospace industry for its manned space programs. Launius recalls that back in the days of the Apollo moon missions “almost everybody in that room were contractors, not NASA employees.” What is new now is that NASA no longer covers all development costs and does not own the spacecraft that will be used to send people into space. Rather, it buys a service for a set price: the 2014 contracts call for $4.2 billion for Boeing and $2.6 billion for SpaceX, with six missions and a test flight. That is a fraction of the $4 billion per year it would have cost to keep the original shuttle program alive, said Garver. An unmanned Boeing test flight is scheduled for April. Michael Neufeld, head curator in the Space History Department of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, stressed the significance of NASA opting to go with two companies that are competitors. “One of the lessons of the shuttle is, don’t bet on one vehicle,” he said. “If there’s an accident at least you’re not totally stuck.”
|
iss;nasa;russia;spacex;cape canaveral;falcon 9
|
jp0002056
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/03/01
|
'100 alarms a day': Europe's satellites flying blind as space junk threat spreads
|
BERLIN - Europe needs its own technology to guard against a growing threat to its satellites from space junk ranging from dead satellites to tiny particles, according to a top adviser to the European Space Agency (ESA). With the world increasingly reliant on orbital infrastructure to maintain communications links and steer new generations of autonomous vehicles, scientists warn that the danger posed by debris in orbit has grown exponentially. “We are getting around 100 alarms a day about approaching particles,” said Thomas Reiter, an adviser to the European Space Agency (ESA). “Every two weeks, a satellite has to dodge something.” Europe has invested billions in its Galileo global positioning satellites, partly to ensure it is not dependent on U.S. systems, but it still relies on the U.S. military to track the hardest-to-spot threats in space. “Europe needs to be able to analyze what is happening in orbit itself,” said Reiter, a German former astronaut, adding that billions must be spent on a radar system to achieve this. “We are not (currently) in a position to get a picture of what is happening up there.” For now, the threat from thousands of dead satellites that continue to circle the planet is manageable, since they are relatively large and easy to track. Far more dangerous are an estimated 900,000 particles of over 1 cm in size, and the 130 million that are over 1 mm, the ESA says. Almost impossible to spot, a particle moving at high speeds can cause severe damage to satellites costing hundreds of millions of euros or even destroy them, disrupting communications for millions of users. Reiter said more needs to be done to clear space debris as well. This includes guiding defunct satellites into orbits that will see them fall into Earth’s atmosphere and burn up — a project that would cost some €200 million over three years, he said. Such efforts would require Europe to work with international partners. Of the 114 satellite launches in 2018, only eight were European, compared to 39 Chinese, 34 U.S., and 20 Russian, according to the ESA.
|
china;u.s .;nasa;russia;gps;satellites;space junk;esa;thomas reiter
|
jp0002057
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Conservationists release 155 giant tortoises on Galapagos island
|
QUITO - Conservationists have released 155 giant tortoises on an island in the Galapagos to help replace a similar species that died out 150 years ago, officials aid Thursday. The young tortoises, of the breed Chelonoidis hoodensis, were set free on Santa Fe island, the Galapagos National Park service announced. The tortoises, each aged around 10-12 years old, were raised at the Fausto Llerena breeding center and are part of a program to repopulate the island at the center of the Pacific archipelago. Also known as the Espanola Giant Tortoise, the newly freed reptiles are a similar species to the Chelonoidis spp., which are today extinct. They originally come from Espanola Island, also known as Hood Island, in the far southeast of the Galapagos chain. “The tortoises that have been released carry a microchip under their skin with a permanent number attached to make it easier to track them,” said Jorge Carrion, the head of the Galapagos National Park. The newly released tortoises join 394 others which were set free on the 9.5 square mile (24.7 square kilometer) island. The program, run by the national park service and the NGO Galapagos Conservancy, is due to run until 2026. The giant tortoises are “engineers of the ecosystem” because they help spread vegetation in their natural habitat, said Carrion. The first of the creatures was released on to the island in 2015, said Washington Tapia, in charge of Galapagos Conservancy’s giant turtle project. The animals are “between 10 and 12 years old and should start to reproduce in the next five to seven years,” he said. Located some 600 miles off the coast of South America, the islands belong to Ecuador and are classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The islands are best known for their unique flora and fauna, which inspired naturalist Charles Darwin to write his landmark 1859 study on evolution, “The Origin of Species.” Giant tortoises are believed to have arrived on the remote volcanic island chain about three to 4 million years ago, borne by ocean currents. With no natural predators, they spread across the islands and split into different species. However, in the 19th century their population was devastated by sailors who used them as storable fresh meat on long ocean voyages, and by invasive rats, cats and ants which ate their eggs. Last week, conservationists announced they had discovered a giant tortoise from a species thought to have become extinct more than a century ago.
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nature;animals;endangered;galapagos;tortoises
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jp0002058
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/01
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As Joe Biden weighs 2020 bid, Democrats ask: 'Does he meet the moment?'
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WASHINGTON - Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said this week he was “very close” to deciding whether to make a 2020 White House bid and will run only if he thinks he can win the Democratic Party’s nomination. He is not alone in questioning if he is the man for the moment. The clamor for Biden to join the pack seeking to challenge Republican President Donald Trump has quieted as the Democratic field has grown more crowded and diverse, according to interviews with more than two dozen strategists, activists, party organizers and voters. Opinion polls show Biden, a former U.S. senator from Delaware who served two terms as former President Barack Obama’s vice president, remains popular. But the Democratic Party may no longer need him in order to be competitive against Trump. “I love Joe Biden. He’s a great guy and a great politician,” said Jerry Shriner, a Democratic National Committee member from Idaho. “I wish he were the president right now. But I’m not sure I wish he is president in 2021.” Democrats are in the early stages of an internal debate about how best to challenge Trump in next year’s presidential election, weighing factors like electability, ideology and identity. The strength of the field — expected to include at least six sitting U.S. senators, plus several current or former governors, U.S. House of Representatives members and a former Cabinet secretary — is a factor in Biden’s calculations, those close to him say. He will be more likely to remain on the sidelines if he feels a strong candidate capable of beating Trump is emerging. But a source close to Biden said: “If I had to guess, he’s probably going to do it.” Biden associates have held discussions with potential staffers and supporters who could serve political strategy, grassroots organizing and digital campaign roles, according to two sources. One source said those conversations were necessary to quickly ramp up a formal campaign operation should Biden decide to run. Some party activists say, however, that Biden has not reached out to broad donor networks to gauge the level of monetary support he could expect. Biden, who mounted failed presidential campaigns in 1998 and 2008, said at an event in Delaware on Tuesday that he did not want a third bid to be “a fool’s errand.” “What I don’t want to do is take people’s time, effort and commitment without there being a clear shot I could be the nominee,” he said. “I think I can.” Biden chose not to run in 2016 when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was widely considered the heavy favorite for the Democratic nomination. Some political analysts have since speculated he could have won industrial battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that proved crucial to Trump’s surprise victory. Biden’s high name recognition among Democratic voters means he likely can afford to wait longer than lesser-known candidates to enter the 2020 race. But even that comes with a risk. “The longer he waits, the more people are going to start to want to follow some of the new and younger voices they’re hearing,” said Bret Niles, the Democratic Party chairman in Linn County, Iowa. Biden’s age, ideology and record already are drawing scrutiny. If elected, he would be 78 when he was sworn in. “Joe Biden is too old,” said Mary Donough, 60, a Democrat from Des Moines, Iowa, who plans to participate in her state’s crucial nominating caucus next year and wants a younger candidate to challenge Trump. “There is just more energy there,” she said. Biden’s backers will argue his age represents experience, said a former aide who asked to speak on background in order to explain internal talking points. “Voters look at Donald Trump and they look at what we’re missing, which is someone who understands the institution, someone who is an adult, someone who is seasoned, someone who respects the institutions,” the former aide said. If Biden does run, the chair of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, said on Thursday that Trump and the Republican Party would attack his work as vice president under Obama. “Go ahead and run,” McDaniel told the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Maryland. “Run on your record of stagnant wages, of jobs leaving this country, of manufacturing jobs fleeing United States of America, of bad trade deals, of bad foreign policy. The Democratic Party undoubtedly has moved left since the last time Biden appeared alone on a ballot in 2008, when he was re-elected to the Senate by Delaware voters for his seventh term. “Times have changed,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “Does he meet the moment?” Green, whose group supports the candidacy of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, lumps Biden in with white, male, moderate Democrats who have faltered in recent elections, like Phil Bredesen, who lost his U.S. Senate race in Tennessee last year. Biden also will have to answer for his record. He chaired the 1991 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and was criticized for not doing enough to protect Anita Hill, who accused Thomas of sexual harassment. Biden has since apologized and said he should have done more to shield Hill from attacks by Republicans. Unions remain unhappy about the free-trade deals advocated by the Obama administration, and liberal progressive groups point to the bailout of Wall Street banks during the financial crisis that provided no help to distressed homeowners. Sharon Holle, who has been working to organize for Biden in Iowa ahead of his decision, argued his experience would appeal to Democrats nervous about the country’s direction under Trump. “People are scared,” Holle said. “We’re in a crisis right now. We need somebody we can trust.”
|
joe biden;democrats;donald trump;2020 presidential election
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jp0002059
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/01
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Trump ordered chief of staff to give Jared Kushner top-secret security clearance: NYT
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WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump ordered his chief of staff in May to grant his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner a top-secret security clearance, the New York Times reported on Thursday. It said senior administration officials were troubled by the decision, which prompted then White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to write an internal memo about how he had been ordered to give Kushner the top-secret clearance. The White House counsel at the time, Donald McGahn, also wrote an internal memo outlining concerns raised about Kushner and how McGahn had recommended against the decision, it said. The Times said the memos contradicted a statement made by Trump in an interview with the newspaper in January that he had no role in Kushner’s receiving his clearance. Asked about the report, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said: “We don’t comment on security clearances.” Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Kushner’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in an email that White House and security clearance officials last year asserted that Kushner’s clearance was “handled in the regular process with no pressure from anyone.” “New stories, if accurate, do not change what was affirmed at the time,” Mirijanian said.
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donald trump;jared kushner;john kelly;security clearance;nyt
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jp0002060
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Cohen finishes week of testimony behind closed doors after calling Trump a racist, liar and cheat
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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump’s former lawyer has completed three days of testimony on Capitol Hill — and is coming back for another day next week — after publicly branding his former boss a racist and a con man who lied about business dealings in Russia and directed him to conceal extramarital relationships. Cohen was interviewed behind closed doors Thursday by the House Intelligence Committee for more than eight hours, the last of his three appearances before Congress this week. He said as he left that he would be returning to Capitol Hill on March 6 for another round of questioning with the same panel. House Intelligence Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff called the closed-door session with Cohen productive and said lawmakers were able to “drill down in great detail” on issues they are investigating. Schiff said the committee will also hear from Felix Sater, a Russia-born executive who worked with Cohen on an ultimately unsuccessful deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, in an open hearing March 14. Cohen, who pleaded guilty last year to lying to Congress about the Moscow real estate project and reports to prison soon for a three-year sentence, gave harsh testimony about Trump on Wednesday. He said Trump knew in advance that damaging emails about Democrat Hillary Clinton would be released during the 2016 campaign — a claim the president has denied — and accused Trump of lying during the 2016 campaign about the Moscow deal. Cohen also said Trump directed him to arrange a hush money payment to a porn actress who said she had sex with the president a decade earlier. He said the president arranged to reimburse Cohen, and Cohen brought to the hearing a check that he said was proof of the transaction. Two of Trump’s most vocal defenders, GOP Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mark Meadows of North Carolina, sent a referral to the Justice Department alleging Cohen lied in his testimony. Their letter to Attorney General William Barr details several Cohen statements they said were false, including claims that he “never defrauded any bank” and did not want a job in Trump’s White House. They pointed to Cohen’s guilty plea for making false statements to a banking institution and to court filings that say Cohen told friends he wanted a White House job. Cohen’s testimony unfolded as Trump was in Vietnam meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump said he tried to watch as much of Cohen’s marathon hearing as he could. Trump called the hearing “fake” and said it was a “terrible thing” for Democrats to hold it during his summit. He seized on Cohen’s concession that he had no direct evidence that Trump or his aides colluded with Russia to get him elected, the primary question of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Trump said he was a “little impressed” that Cohen had said that to the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Cohen, shaking off incessant criticism from Republicans, was the first Trump insider to pull back the curtain on a version of the inner workings of Trump’s political and business operations. He likened the president to a “mobster” who demanded blind loyalty from underlings and expected them to lie on his behalf. “My loyalty to Mr. Trump has cost me everything: my family’s happiness, friendships, my law license, my company, my livelihood, my honor, my reputation and soon my freedom,” Cohen said. “I will not sit back, say nothing and allow him to do the same to the country.” In testimony that cut to the heart of federal investigations encircling the White House, Cohen said he arranged the hush money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels at Trump’s behest and agreed to lie about it to the public and the first lady. And he said he was left with the unmistakable impression Trump wanted him to lie to Congress about a Moscow real estate project, though the president never directly told him so. Cohen said prosecutors in New York were investigating conversations Trump or his advisers had with him after his office and hotel room were raided by the FBI last April. Cohen said he could not discuss that conversation, the last contact he said he has had with the president or anyone acting on his behalf, because it remains under investigation. The appearance marked the latest step in Cohen’s evolution from legal fixer for the president — he once boasted he’d “take a bullet” for Trump — to a foe who has implicated him in federal campaign finance violations. As Republicans blasted him as a convicted liar, a mostly unrattled Cohen tried to blunt the attacks by repeatedly acknowledging his own failings. He called himself a “fool,” warned lawmakers of the perils of blind loyalty to a leader undeserving of it and pronounced himself ashamed of what he had done to protect Trump. Cohen described himself as cooperative with multiple investigations in hopes of reducing his time behind bars. He is seen as a vital witness for federal prosecutors because of his proximity to the president during key episodes under investigation and their decade-long professional relationship.
|
congress;donald trump;2016 u.s. presidential election;russia probe;michael cohen
|
jp0002062
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Trump declares all Islamic State territory retaken, contradicting allied commander
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JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, ALASKA - President Donald Trump told American troops on Thursday that U.S.-backed forces in Syria have retaken 100 percent of the territory once held by Islamic State militants, contradicting the commander of the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces, who said it would take another week. “We just took over, you know, you kept hearing it was 90 percent, 92 percent, the caliphate in Syria. Now it’s 100 percent we just took over, 100 percent caliphate,” Trump told troops at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson during a refueling stop in Alaska. Earlier on Thursday, the commander of Syrian Democratic Forces, Mazloum Kobani, said in a video released to the news media that the SDF would be able to announce “the complete victory over Daesh (Islamic State) in a week.” Trump made his comments while talking to U.S. troops in Alaska about the progress his administration has made in Afghanistan and the Middle East over the past two years. He stopped in Alaska on his way back from talks in Vietnam with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The U.S. president has been anxious to declare that Islamic State has been driven out of all its territory since announcing in December that he would withdraw American forces from Syria, claiming they had succeeded in their mission to defeat the militant group. While the United States has withdrawn some troops, Trump responded to criticism of his move by deciding to leave some 400 U.S. troops in the country over the longer run: 200 to remain in the northeast as part of a multinational force and 200 to remain at an outpost in the southeast to counter Iranian influence. The U.S. president said on Feb. 6 he expected a formal announcement the following week that coalition forces had recaptured all territory previously held by Islamic State in Syria. That announcement has yet to be made.
|
conflict;terrorism;syria;alaska;caliphate;islamic state;donald trump;syrian democratic forces;mazloum kobani
|
jp0002063
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Richard Nixon's brother Edward, a staunch defender of his legacy, dies at 88
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LOS ANGELES - Edward Nixon, the youngest brother of former President Richard Nixon who staunchly defended his sibling’s White House legacy, died Wednesday. He was 88. The Richard Nixon Foundation announced that Nixon died at a nursing facility in Bothell, Washington, a Seattle suburb. A geologist and Navy veteran, Nixon worked on his brother’s 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns and served as co-chairman of the Nixon re-election committee in 1972. In a statement released by the foundation, Richard Nixon’s daughters, Tricia Nixon Cox and Julie Nixon Eisenhower, called their uncle “our family’s rock” since the former president died in 1994. They also called him a “source of strength.” Richard Nixon was 17 years old and getting ready to start college when his youngest brother was born on May 3, 1930, in Whittier, California. Edward Calvert Nixon was the fifth son of Frank and Hannah Nixon and had been the last surviving brother of the former president. Because of their age difference, Edward Nixon described his older brother as a mentor and assistant father, the foundation said. In 1994, Edward Nixon told reporters the former president was frequently misrepresented, with the focus on the Watergate scandal that drove him from office. He said in his extensive travels around the globe he was always asked by residents in other countries, “What’s the matter with the people in the United States? Why did they put him out of office?” “What really irks … his friends are the repeated references to the things that didn’t go well in his life and to the ‘enigma of the man,’ ” Nixon said at the time. “He’s just a brother to me.” Edward Nixon was an original board member of the private Richard Nixon Foundation, which founded and operated the presidential library until the National Archives took control in 2007. A $500,000 makeover followed, which scholars said provided a more balanced and accurate account of the Watergate story. But the new exhibit caused friction with the foundation, which filed extensive objections. Then-library director Tim Naftali, who described the original display as inaccurate, told the Los Angeles Times in 2011 that he had a tense encounter with Edward Nixon and other foundation members in 2010, who berated him about the revised exhibit and considered it unfair. Edward Nixon is survived by his daughters Amelie “Amy” Peiffer and Elizabeth “Beth” Matheny. His wife died in 2014.
|
obituary;richard nixon;watergate;edward nixon
|
jp0002064
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Al-Shabab and Somali soldiers battle in Mogadishu
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MOGADISHU - A gunbattle raged in Mogadishu on Friday between Somali soldiers and al-Shabab fighters, holed up in a building next to a hotel they had hit with a suicide car bomb the previous evening. Heavy gunfire resounded across the Somali capital through the night and as dawn broke, police said the death toll, put at 13 so far, was rising following the blast at the Hotel Maka Al-Mukarama, located on a street lined with hotels, shops and restaurants. “The security forces rescued dozens of civilians in the hotel and nearby buildings. The militants are still inside and exchange of fire still continues. So far we confirmed 13 people died and scores were injured,” Maj. Mohamed Hussein, a police officer, told Reuters on Friday. “The death toll may rise. It was very difficult for the security forces to enter the building last night because it is dark and electricity was cut by the blast. Now it is daybreak, and we hope the operation will be concluded in the following hours,” he said. Al-Shbaab’s military spokesman said they still controlled the hotel. “The government tried three times to enter the building but we repulsed them. We still control the hotel,” said Abdiasis Abu Musab. The street where the blast occurred was closed on Friday. Reuters witnesses saw frantic residents in the city searching for missing relatives through the night, making countless phone calls to find out if anyone had seen their family members. “I have been running to and fro from blast scene to hospitals since yesterday evening in search of my husband and brother, who were selling a shop at the place where the blast took place. I have just seen them in the hospital; they are in critical condition. My husband lost his stomach and my brother suffered severe wounds to both arms,” said Halima Omar, a mother of three. Somalia has been convulsed by lawlessness and violence since 1991. Al-Shabab is fighting to dislodge a Western-backed government protected by African Union-mandated peacekeepers.
|
conflict;terrorism;somalia;al-qaida;al-shabab;mogadishu
|
jp0002065
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Where are bodies of militants India claims it bombed, Pakistani village asks
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JABA, PAKISTAN - The only confirmed victim of India’s airstrike against Pakistan is still unsure why he was shaken awake in the early hours of Tuesday by an explosion that rocked his mud-brick house and left him with a cut above his right eye. “They say they wanted to hit some terrorists. What terrorists can you see here?” said 62-year-old Nooran Shah, a resident of the village of Jaba, near the northeastern town of Balakot in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. “We are here. Are we terrorists?” India says Tuesday’s raid destroyed a major training camp of Jaish-e-Mohammad, a militant group that claimed responsibility for a Feb. 14 attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir that killed 40 members of a paramilitary police unit. Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said the strike killed “a very large number of Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of jihadis who were being trained for fidayeen action were eliminated.” “Fidayeen” is a term used to describe Islamist militants on suicide missions. Another senior government official told reporters that about 300 militants had been killed. On Thursday, though, a senior defense official appeared to backtrack on the claims. Asked about how much damage the warplanes had caused, Air Vice Marshal R.G.K. Kapoor said it was “premature” to provide details about casualties. But he said the Indian armed forces had “fairly credible evidence” of the damage inflicted on the camp by the airstrikes. India’s previous death toll estimates have been rubbished by Pakistan, which says the operation was a failure that saw Indian jets bomb a largely empty hillside without hurting anyone. It isn’t clear whether the discrepancy in claims will become a factor as Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a second term in India’s general election, which must be held by May. There has been little sign as yet of the opposition pushing the government and the armed forces for more evidence of the mission’s results. On the wooded slopes above Jaba, villagers pointed to four bomb craters and some splintered pine trees, but could see little other impact from the series of explosions that blasted them awake at around 3 a.m. “It shook everything,” said Abdur Rasheed, who drives a pickup van around the area. He said there weren’t any human casualties: “No one died. Only some pine trees died; they were cut down. A crow also died.” Jaba is set in a thickly wooded area of hills and streams that opens the way to the scenic Kaghan valley, a popular holiday destination for Pakistani tourists. It is a little over 60 km (37 miles) from Abbottabad, the garrison town where Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Special Forces in 2011. Locals say 400 to 500 people live locally, scattered across hills in mudbrick homes. Reuters spoke to about 15 people, none of whom knew of any casualties apart from Nooran Shah. “I haven’t seen any dead bodies, only a local who was hurt by something or hit by some window, he was hurt,” said Abdur Rasheed, echoing numerous others. In Basic Health Unit, Jaba, the nearest hospital, Mohammad Saddique, an official who was on duty on the night of the attack, also dismissed claims of major casualties. “It is just a lie. It is rubbish,” he said. “We didn’t receive even a single injured person. Only one person got slightly hurt and he was treated there. Even he wasn’t brought here.” In Balakot, a town largely rebuilt after an earthquake in 2005, Zia Ul Haq, senior medical officer in Tehsil Headquarters Hospital said no casualties had been brought in on Tuesday. People in the area said Jaish-e-Mohammad did have a presence, running not an active training camp but a madrassa, or religious school, about a kilometer from where the bombs fell. “It is Taleem ul Quran madrassa. The kids from the village study there. There is no training,” said Nooran Shah. A sign that had been up earlier in the week identifying the madrassa’s affiliation to Jaish-e-Mohammad had been removed by Thursday, and soldiers prevented reporters from gaining access. But it was possible to see the structure from the back. It appeared intact, like the trees surrounding it, with no sign of any damage of the kind seen near the bomb craters. Western diplomats in Islamabad also said they did not believe the Indian air force hit a militant camp. “There was no militant training camp there. It hasn’t been there for a few years — they moved it. It’s common knowledge amongst our intelligence,” said one of them.
|
conflict;india;pakistan;airstrikes;jaba;nerendra modi
|
jp0002066
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Pyongyang disputes Trump claim Kim sought end to all sanctions, warns leader may have 'lost the will' for deal
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SEOUL - North Korea struck a pessimistic tone after the collapse of a two-day summit between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump, hardening its stance with a warning by a top diplomat that Kim may have “lost the will” to reach an agreement on curtailing his country’s nuclear program. During a rare news conference by North Korean officials, Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho disputed Trump’s claim that Kim had demanded a complete removal of all economic sanctions, insisting that his nation had “offered a realistic proposal” to begin the process of denuclearization. North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui told reporters the “U.S. not accepting our proposal is missing an opportunity that comes once in a thousand years.” Still, Kim has limited options as international sanctions choke North Korea’s faltering economy, and securing some measure of economic support from China would likely be crucial for the regime. The North Korean leader in January made a similar threat to shift toward a “new path” if Trump didn’t lift sanctions and then proceeded to meet the U.S. president. Trump ended the summit early and said Kim “wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn’t do that.” In exchange, Trump said the North Korean leader had offered to dismantle its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon. Ri, however, said North Korea had only asked for relief from sanctions enacted in 2016 and 2017. He said that would mean removing sanctions imposed by five of 11 U.N. resolutions against the country. The North Korean offer included shuttering both plutonium and uranium facilities at Yongbyon under the observation of U.S. experts, Choe said. Yongbyon is a sprawling complex with dozens of buildings and reactors, including plutonium reprocessing and uranium enrichment facilities and research centers. It is a crown jewel of the North’s nuclear capabilities. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, speaking to reporters during a refueling stop in Alaska on Trump’s return, confirmed that the president had been briefed on the North Korean news conference. “We want to make sure we have a good deal, not just a deal,” she said. The U.S. presented Kim with evidence of additional secret nuclear sites, surprising the North Koreans, according to Trump. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said that even without Yongbyon, the country would still possess missiles, warheads and other elements of a nuclear program that were unacceptable to the U.S. Ri told reporters that “first stage” steps such as those Pyongyang proposed are “inevitable” for the process of complete denuclearization. He added that North Korea’s stance “will never be changed” and that “it could be difficult to meet again.” “Chairman Kim got the feeling that he didn’t understand the way Americans calculate,” Choe added. “I have a feeling that Chairman Kim may have lost the will” to negotiate with Trump. The North Korean officials’ hastily arranged news conference was a rare departure for the regime, which usually avoids directly engaging with Western media and communicates through formal statements. They assembled reporters on Friday just after midnight local time. Ri spoke and then Choe, the number two in the ministry, stayed behind afterward for a question and answer session. The summit ended abruptly before a scheduled “working lunch” at Hanoi’s iconic Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel. Reporters were ushered out of a dining room prepared for the two leaders and their aides, and the White House announced there had been a schedule change. Soon after, the two leaders separately departed the hotel and Trump left the country ahead of schedule. Trump received bipartisan praise from U.S. congressional leaders for walking out of the summit. “President Trump did the right thing by walking away and not cutting a poor deal for the sake of a photo op,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said on the Senate floor. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky commended the president. “Kim Jong Un now has a long train ride home, and he’ll have time to reflect on the future that is still within North Korea’s grasp,” he said. The summit’s collapse sent global stocks sliding as the future of U.S.-North Korea nuclear talks remained uncertain. While Trump said the meeting ended amicably with a handshake, he hasn’t committed to another summit with Kim.
|
u.s .;north korea;kim jong un;sanctions;yongbyon;denuclearization;hanoi;donald trump;ri yong ho
|
jp0002067
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/01
|
India bans Kashmiri Islamist party for five years amid conflict with Pakistan
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SRINAGAR, INDIA - India banned a Kashmir-based Islamist political party called Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) for five years on Thursday, accusing it of supporting militancy in the disputed region that is at the heart of an escalating conflict with rival Pakistan. A police officer said Indian authorities arrested about 300 JeI leaders and activists in recent days in a crackdown on militancy in the state after a suicide bomber killed 40 paramilitary police on Feb. 14 in Indian-controlled Kashmir. The attack was claimed by a Pakistan-based militant group, leading to strikes and counter strikes by the air forces of the two nuclear-armed countries. Created in 1942, JeI participated in Indian elections for more than two decades before becoming engaged with separatist politics following the onset of militancy in Kashmir in 1989. It is the third ban to be imposed on the organization, which wants Kashmir to be independent from India. India’s Ministry of Home Affairs said JeI supports claims for secession of a part of India, and that if its activities were not curbed, it could cause trouble for the country. The government declared JeI an “unlawful association.” “If the unlawful activities of JeI are not curbed and controlled immediately, it is likely to escalate its subversive activities including attempt to carve out an Islamic State out of the territory of Union of India by destabilizing the government established by law,” a ministry statement said. JeI did not respond to calls by Reuters seeking comment.
|
india;kashmir;pakistan;jamaat-e-islami
|
jp0002068
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/01
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The India-Pakistan crisis in Kashmir: What we know, what we don't and what might happen next
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NEW DELHI - A string of violent escalations have pushed India and Pakistan to the brink of conflict, sparking global alarm and calls for restraint between the nuclear-armed neighbors. Here is an explanation of the events so far, and the possible next steps: What triggered the crisis? On Feb. 14, 40 paramilitary fighters were killed in a suicide bomb attack in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir, igniting outrage. It was the deadliest militant attack there in three decades, and was claimed by Pakistan-based group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). Kashmir has been a major flash point since the end of British rule in the subcontinent in 1947. A cease-fire line divides it between India and Pakistan, but both claim the Himalayan region in its entirety. Kashmir has seen hostilities during three India-Pakistan wars, as well as a limited conflict in 1999. India has 500,000 troops stationed in the region to counter an armed insurgency by separatists seeking either independence or a merger with Pakistan. How did India react? Prime Minister Narendra Modi threatened a “jaw-breaking” response after the bombing. New Delhi demanded action from Islamabad, which it accuses of using militant groups as proxies to fuel unrest in Kashmir and carry out terror attacks in India. On Feb. 26, Indian warplanes crossed the Kashmir cease-fire line into Pakistani airspace, dropping bombs on what New Delhi described as a large JeM camp where militants were preparing to stage more attacks in India. Islamabad confirmed the incursion and the dropping of payloads in undisputed Pakistani territory, a few kilometers outside the part of Kashmir it controls. But it said New Delhi’s claim of killing scores of militants was “self-serving, reckless and fictitious.” What was Pakistan’s response? An infuriated Islamabad vowed retaliation after the raid, India’s first use of air power on Pakistani soil since the two fought a war in 1971 — when neither had nuclear weapons. On Feb. 27, Pakistani jets flew across the Kashmir cease-fire line in what Islamabad described as a show of strength, hitting open spaces after locking on to military targets. But there was a dramatic escalation when the Pakistani planes were chased by Indian fighters. In the ensuing fight, both sides claimed to have shot down each other’s warplanes. Pakistan said it downed two Indian jets, and detained one of their pilots. New Delhi confirmed the loss of one of its planes, and said a Pakistani jet was shot down — which Islamabad denied. India has demanded the “immediate and safe return” of the pilot. As tensions reached a level not seen in years, Pakistan closed its airspace completely. What happens next? The crisis has sparked alarm across the world, with major powers urging the two nuclear-armed rivals to act with restraint. Both sides have sought to play down the threat of war — Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj have said they do not want to escalate further. A lot rests on how India reacts to the Pakistani retaliation and the capture of its pilot, analysts said. “If India were to … retaliate again, that could really take things to another level,” Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center told Bloomberg TV. But the fact that Pakistan has one of its pilots “may limit its options and may make it a bit more cautious.” And given limited communication between the two, “there is increased scope for misunderstanding and miscalculation,” wrote Rahul Roy-Chaudhury of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. While there is international pressure to avoid a plunge into full-blown war, there may be pressure within India to not let Pakistan have the last word. “India is led by a government that’s very conservative, and has been very tough on Pakistan. There’s an election coming up in a few weeks in India. … I find it hard to believe that India would be ready to de-escalate,” Kugelman said. “I don’t know if we’ve seen the last of these fireworks on the sub-continent, unfortunately.”
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conflict;india;kashmir;pakistan;history;terrorism;jaish-e-mohammad
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jp0002069
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/01
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As Trump returns empty-handed from summit with Kim, some in Washington breathe sigh of relief
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WASHINGTON - Among some U.S. officials, congressional aides, analysts and others who track North Korea, there was a sigh of relief Thursday as President Donald Trump headed home from Vietnam empty-handed from his talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump said he walked away from a deal because of Kim’s demands to lift all U.S.-led sanctions on North Korea in return for the denuclearization of its Yongbyon atomic complex but not others that the United States knows about. In contrast, North Korea’s foreign minister said Pyongyang offered to dismantle Yongbyon in return for a partial lifting of sanctions as a step toward better relations between the nations, technically still at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty. Before the summit, there were hints Washington was open to declaring an end to the war, some sanctions relief, and opening of liaison offices, a first step toward diplomatic ties, if the North reined in its nuclear program. The fear of many in the U.S. national security establishment was that Trump would give up too much in return for too little and they were pleased that did not happen. There was still concern in Washington, however, about what the summit’s collapse will mean for future nuclear diplomacy with North Korea. Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said the summit’s failure had eased fears that Trump, anxious to claim a foreign policy success, might have made an agreement that dispelled the North Korean nuclear-armed missile threat to the continental United States, but not the threat of its shorter-range missiles to U.S. regional allies, such as Japan. “The general feeling was that all President Trump wants is a scalp to hang on the wall, like he did with calling the Singapore nothing-burger a great victory,” said Armitage, referring to Trump’s first summit with Kim last June. That produced a vague statement of Kim’s pledge to work toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula but little progress followed. Trump’s defenders have long said he had no intention of giving ground to Kim at their second meeting in Hanoi this week without major North Korean concessions. They said Trump planned to use the rapport he claims with Kim and negotiating skills honed as a real estate developer to secure the best possible deal despite skepticism from critics who question whether he is up to speed on the main issues. Mark Dubowitz, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, rejected criticism that Trump came up empty, tweeting: “Actually walking away from a bad proposed deal is exactly what we’d expect from a competent deal-maker.” It had appeared Trump was moving toward offering Pyongyang concessions on a peace deal, sanctions and liaison offices in return for “promises to make promises to move toward (nuclear) disablement and dismantlement,” a congressional aide said on condition of anonymity. “There is a certain sigh of relief in that respect.” Analysts estimate North Korea may have a nuclear arsenal of 20 to 60 weapons which, if mated with intercontinental ballistic missiles it has developed, could threaten the U.S. mainland. The collapse of the summit leaves Kim in possession of that arsenal, though Trump said the North Korean leader agreed to maintain his moratorium on nuclear and ballistic missile tests. The United States has long resisted offering the North a formal end to the war regarding this as a concession that should not be made until Pyongyang abandons its nuclear arms. U.S. intelligence officials have said there is no sign North Korea will ever give up its entire arsenal of nuclear weapons, which Kim’s ruling family sees as vital to its survival. An end to the war could also have spurred demands from North Korea for the United States to withdraw some of its 28,500 troops from South Korea, where they serve as a trip wire to deter a North Korean invasion. Trump, who has questioned the value of keeping the troops there, made clear before the summit that removing them was off the table, another source of relief for those who believe their withdrawal could embolden the North and endanger the South. One of the ironies that experts pointed out was that in failure, Trump may actually have had a success. It may also have been a victory for hawkish White House national security adviser John Bolton, who has pressed for Washington to maintain its “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign intact while demanding Pyongyang’s full denuclearization. Even Adam Schiff, the Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee and is one of Trump’s main critics in Congress, offered qualified praise. “President Trump’s decision to walk away from the summit with North Korea without an agreement was preferable to making a bad deal,” he said.
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congress;north korea;kim jong un;nuclear weapons;north korea nuclear crisis;donald trump;kim-trump summit
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jp0002070
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Pakistan set to release downed Indian pilot and reopen airspace amid Kashmir tensions
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NEW, DELHI/ISLAMABAD - Pakistan prepared to release a captured Indian pilot on Friday as the nuclear powers scaled back their confrontation, and said it would reopen its airspace to commercial flights. World powers have urged restraint from the two nations as tensions escalated following a suicide car bombing that killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Feb. 14. The United States has been actively mediating, to avert any risk of the two countries sliding toward their fourth war since independence from British colonial rule in 1947. The disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir has been at the root of two of those conflicts. Both governments claimed they downed enemy jets on Wednesday, with Pakistan capturing an Indian pilot whose MiG fighter jet crashed in enemy territory after dogfight with a Pakistani JF-17. Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority said airspace closed this week amid the tensions would re-open for commercial flights from 4 p.m. on Friday. The pilot, who India named on Thursday as Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, has become the human face of the most recent conflict between the two nations. Having attempted to evade capture, he is being portrayed as a hero in India. Abhinandan was expected be returned at the Wagah border crossing between the two countries, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said. “As a gesture of peace and to de-escalate matters, the Indian pilot who is under arrest with us will be released today in the afternoon at the Wagah border,” he told lawmakers. Firing along the contested border dividing Kashmir eased on Friday. But diplomatic relations between the two countries remain strained. Qureshi said he would not attend a meeting of foreign ministers from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Abu Dhabi this weekend because his Indian counterpart had been invited to the event. Qureshi has said the Saudi foreign minister is set to visit Islamabad with a message from Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who visited both Pakistan and India last month. Abhinandan’s plane came down on Wednesday after a dogfight with a Pakistani jet, two eyewitnesses told Reuters. The pilot shouted pro-India slogans and, after realizing he was in enemy territory, attempted to flee, firing his pistol in the air to deter Pakistani villagers who were chasing him, the eyewitnesses said. “During that half-a-kilometer run, he fired some more gunshots in the air as well, to frighten the guys but to no avail,” said Muhammad Razzaq Chaudhry, 58, one of the eyewitnesses. “Then he jumped into a small stream. Then, he realized that he could not escape, he took out some documents and maps from his uniform and tried to swallow some, tear apart and immerse the rest.” Abdul Majeed, 40, said he was one of a number of villagers who had beaten and thrown stones at the pilot. “While in the stream he once again pointed his revolver at us and fearing that he may shoot directly at us, I threw a stone at him,” he said. “Some of us did thrash him … because he had given us a tough time. But later we handed him over to the army personnel.” The conflict comes at a critical time for India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who faces a general election that must be held by May. Modi is expected to benefit from the nationalist pride unleashed by his government’s announcement on Tuesday that Indian warplanes had destroyed a major training camp of Jaish-e-Mohammad, the militant group that claimed responsibility for the Feb. 14 attack. But there were growing calls from opposition parties for more information about just how successful the mission was. India’s Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale had said the strike killed “a very large number” member of the group, and another senior government official told reporters that about 300 militants had been killed, but New Delhi had still to provide evidence to support that assessment. Pakistan says the Indian planes missed whatever they were aiming at, and that no one died in the attack outside Balakot, a small town in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. On Thursday, Mamata Banerjee, one of the main leaders of an Indian opposition coalition attempting to unseat Modi, requested more information about the attack. “We have the right to know how many people died in the airstrike and who were they,” she said. “We want to know the actual incident as we have not received any details.” Amit Shah, the president of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and one of its most influential figures, sought to dispel any doubt. “People should decide if they trust India’s armed forces or not,” he said at an event on Friday. “Those who are doubting are helping Pakistan.”
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india;kashmir;pakistan;military;nuclear weapons
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jp0002071
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Lack of progress at Trump-Kim summit will have mixed impact on China, South Korea and Japan
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HANOI - The fruitless U.S.-North Korea summit will have a mixed impact on China, South Korea and Japan, each of which has different strategic interests at stake. The two-day summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un failed to yield any written agreement, sparking concern that denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will not be realized in the near future. Foreign affairs experts say that China is not altogether displeased in the outcome, since it is keen to continue playing a pivotal role in East Asia, and that South Korea is disappointed because it will likely face difficulties in deepening economic cooperation with the North amid tight international sanctions on its neighbor. Japan remains threatened by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles without being able to find an opening for breaking the deadlock in bilateral relations, they added. In early 2018, Kim suddenly started pledging to attain “complete” denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and putting more emphasis on revitalizing the economy than on bolstering the armed forces. Dogged by the sanctions that have dragged down its economy, North Korea has made diplomatic overtures to China, South Korea and the United States while discontinuing missile and nuclear tests. Since making his first foreign trip as leader to Beijing last March, Kim has held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping four times and thrice with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, in addition to his two summits with Trump. Kim’s overtures have been accepted by the leaders, allowing Pyongyang to successfully mend its ties with all three countries. Nevertheless, this time Trump rejected North Korea’s proposals as inadequate, saying it “wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety” without offering “enough” denuclearization measures in return. Analysts say that China — North Korea’s major economic and political ally — is inwardly happy to hear that the Hanoi summit failed to achieve a breakthrough, as maintaining influence over its neighbor is in its security interests. China and the United States have been engaged in a trade war and are divided over security issues like Taiwan and the South China Sea. “As long as U.S.-North Korea talks are stalled, China would try to use North Korea as a bargaining chip to extract concessions from the United States,” a source familiar with Beijing’s thinking said. Trump told a news conference following his summit with Kim, “China has been very helpful. President Xi is a great leader. He’s a highly respected leader all over the world, and especially in Asia. And he’s helped us.” Many diplomats in Beijing expect Kim to visit China soon to meet with Xi. As this year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Beijing and Pyongyang, speculation is also rife that Xi will visit North Korea as early as next month. As for the two Koreas, their economic cooperation — including a jointly run industrial park at the North’s border city of Kaesong and tours by South Koreans to its Mount Kumgang resort — has been suspended so far in consideration of the United States. Trump’s commitment not to “give up all of the sanctions,” aimed at preventing North Korea from pursing its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, will deprive the South of an opportunity to resume the joint economic activities, which also include a project to connect railways and roads across the inter-Korean border. As the Trump-Kim summit did not solve key issues that lie between the United States and North Korea, inter-Korean ties “cannot but have limits,” said Kim Joon-hyung, a professor of international politics at Handong University in Pohang, South Korea. Under the current circumstances, Kim’s possible visit to Seoul “will not come soon,” although the two Koreas are very eager to strengthen their relations further, a diplomatic source said. Japan has a different set of worries. As denuclearization talks have failed to deliver a substantial outcome, North Korea will continue to have a nuclear arsenal that includes ballistic missiles capable of reaching Japan. Among other East Asian countries, Japan has lagged behind in improving ties with North Korea. Their relations are stuck in a stalemate over the long-standing issue of past abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korean agents, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe having stated that tackling the matter is his “life’s work.” Abe insists the abduction issue be resolved before bilateral relations can be normalized. But Malcolm Cook, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said, “Japan risks being isolated from the four-way discussions and developments between the United States, North Korea, South Korea and China.” “Prime Minister Abe’s primary focus on the abductee issue contributes to this risk to Japan,” he added. Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University Japan, said, “Abe prefers regime change not allowing Kim to engage in nuclear blackmail.” Japan’s relations with South Korea have also been deteriorating over matters related to its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, while those with China have been improving.
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china;nuclear weapons;south korea;north korea nuclear crisis;north korea-japan relations;kim-trump summit
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jp0002072
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"social-issues-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/01
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Saudi sisters appeal for safe haven as Hong Kong clock ticks down
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HONG KONG - Two Saudi sisters marooned in Hong Kong after fleeing their family appealed to authorities not to deport them while they seek sanctuary in a third country as the clock ticked down Thursday on their permission to stay. The siblings are the latest example of Saudi women escaping the ultra-conservative kingdom only to find themselves stranded in foreign cities and making public appeals for their safety. The young women, aged 20 and 18, said they made a break from an abusive family during a holiday in Sri Lanka last September, with the intention of heading for Australia. But they only made it as far as Hong Kong. The two women — who use the aliases Reem and Rawan — said they were intercepted by Saudi consular officials at Hong Kong’s airport and had their air tickets canceled. Fearful they might be abducted, they entered Hong Kong as visitors where they say they have had to change locations 13 times to stay hidden. Their passports were later revoked. Michael Vidler, a lawyer for the pair, said city immigration authorities had previously indicated the pair would be “tolerated” until Thursday. As that deadline loomed they issued a fresh appeal on Thursday asking authorities to allow them to remain as “tolerated overstayers” while they seek “emergency rescue visas to a third country. “We are in fear every day we are in Hong Kong,” the two sisters said in a statement posted late Thursday on the Facebook page of their lawyer’ firm. “We want to leave to a third country place of safety as soon as possible. We hope that this will happen soon and that the Hong Kong government will continue to allow us to stay here until then,” they added. Immigration authorities in Hong Kong have so far refused to comment on the case. The city itself has a poor record on refugees, only granting sanctuary to less than 1 percent of claimants. The two women told AFP last week that chronic physical abuse by male family members prompted them to flee. They said they had also renounced Islam, a crime technically punishable by death in Saudi Arabia. Their testimony cannot be independently verified and Saudi authorities have yet to comment on their allegations. But many Saudi women who flee overseas have described to media and rights groups of persuasive and coercive tactics used by Saudi officials and family members to pursue those who escape. In the statement on Facebook, Vidler said he was “hopeful” Hong Kong would extend his clients’ stay and that their asylum request in a third country would be granted soon. The Hong Kong sister’s case emerged a month after 18-year-old Saudi Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun drew global attention with her dramatic escape from an allegedly abusive family, eventually gaining refugee status in Canada.
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hong kong;australia;saudi arabia;deportation;asylum;reem;rawan
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jp0002073
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/01
|
After summit collapse, North Korea's Kim vows to meet Trump again
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SEOUL/HANOI - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to meet again with President Donald Trump to continue nuclear negotiations after a two-day summit between the leaders collapsed Thursday amid discord over sanctions and conflicting accounts of Pyongyang’s demands. Kim’s pledge was released Friday through North Korea’s state-run news agency KCNA in a report that presented a more optimistic outlook than the regime’s top diplomats gave in a rare news conference hours earlier. Kim expressed appreciation for Trump’s “active efforts toward results” and called the summit talks “productive.” North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho previously disputed Trump’s claim that Kim had demanded a complete removal of economic sanctions — which the U.S. president said led him to break off talks. Another top regime diplomat signaled a hardening stance, telling reporters Kim may have “lost the will” to make a deal on his country’s nuclear program. North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui told reporters the “U.S. not accepting our proposal is missing an opportunity that comes once in a thousand years.” The KCNA report, however, called the efforts to reduce tensions of “great significance.” Kim has limited options as international sanctions choke North Korea’s faltering economy, and securing some measure of economic support from China would likely be crucial for the regime. The North Korean leader in January made a similar threat to shift toward a “new path” if Trump didn’t lift sanctions and then proceeded to meet the U.S. president. Trump ended the summit early and said Kim “wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn’t do that.” In exchange, Trump said the North Korean leader had offered to dismantle its main nuclear facility at Nyongbyon. Ri, however, said North Korea had only asked for relief from sanctions enacted in 2016 and 2017. He said that would mean removing sanctions imposed by five of 11 U.N. resolutions against the country. The North Korean offer included shuttering both plutonium and uranium facilities at Nyongbyon under the observation of U.S. experts, Choe said. Nyongbyon is a sprawling complex with dozens of buildings and reactors including plutonium reprocessing and uranium enrichment facilities and research centers. It is a crown jewel of the North’s nuclear capabilities. The U.S. presented Kim with evidence of additional secret nuclear sites, surprising the North Koreans, according to Trump. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said that even without Nyongbyon, the country would still possess missiles, warheads and other elements of a nuclear program that were unacceptable to the U.S. Several analysts said North Korea’s demands for partial sanctions relief included all of the key sanctions and would have left the Trump administration little leverage to address other hidden enrichment facilities. “This is basically asking sanctions relaxation on everything. There is not even a value to consider,” the North’s offer, said Shin Beomchul of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul. The United Nations sanctions resolutions imposed since 2016 include limits on North’s crude oil import, a ban on North’s exports of key items such as seafood and minerals as well as a cap on North Korean laborers working overseas. Ri told reporters that “first stage” steps such as those Pyongyang proposed are “inevitable” for the process of complete denuclearization. He added that North Korea’s stance “will never be changed” and that “it could be difficult to meet again.” “Chairman Kim got the feeling that he didn’t understand the way Americans calculate,” Choe added. “I have a feeling that Chairman Kim may have lost the will” to negotiate with Trump. The North Korean officials’ hastily arranged news conference was a rare departure for the regime, which usually avoids directly engaging with Western media and communicates through formal statements. They assembled reporters on Friday just after midnight local time. Ri spoke and then Choe, the number two in the ministry, stayed behind afterward for a question and answer session. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, speaking to reporters during a refueling stop in Alaska on Trump’s return, confirmed that the president had been briefed on the North Korean news conference. “We want to make sure we have a good deal, not just a deal,” she said. The summit ended abruptly before a scheduled “working lunch” at Hanoi’s iconic Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel. Reporters were ushered out of a dining room prepared for the two leaders and their aides, and the White House announced there had been a schedule change. Soon after, the two leaders separately departed the hotel and Trump left the country ahead of schedule. Trump received bipartisan praise from U.S. congressional leaders for walking out of the summit. “President Trump did the right thing by walking away and not cutting a poor deal for the sake of a photo op,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said on the Senate floor. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky commended the president. “Kim Jong Un now has a long train ride home, and he’ll have time to reflect on the future that is still within North Korea’s grasp,” he said. The summit’s collapse sent global stocks sliding as the future of U.S.-North Korea nuclear talks remained uncertain. While Trump said the meeting ended amicably with a handshake, he hasn’t committed to another summit with Kim.
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north korea;kim jong un;nuclear weapons;north korea nuclear crisis;donald trump;kim-trump summit
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jp0002074
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/01
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Burden falls back on diplomats after Trump and Kim fail to reach deal on North Korea nuclear arms
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HANOI - The failure of U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to secure even a limited deal at their second nuclear summit means any breakthrough now depends on working-level talks that have made little progress since last year. The sudden collapse of talks Thursday highlighted just how large the gulf between the two countries remains, experts said. It also underscored that whatever chemistry Trump and Kim might have, it was not enough to overcome differences that the rushed pre-summit negotiations left unresolved. In the run-up to the summit in Hanoi, Trump downplayed expectations that North Korea would give up its entire nuclear weapons arsenal any time soon. But officials had signaled a limited deal could lead to a declaration ending the state of hostilities that have existed since the 1950-1953 Korean War, the closing of North Korea’s main nuclear facility at Nyongbyon, or opening liaison offices. The two leaders began their summit by expressing optimism and the White House announced they would sign a joint declaration, widely expected to at least reaffirm the general goals agreed to when Trump and Kim met for the first time in Singapore last year. The ceremony, as well as a working lunch, was abruptly canceled. “Not only did the Hanoi summit fail to produce meaningful results, but Trump and his team have clearly squandered the seven months since Singapore to make progress on even modest steps toward the lofty Singapore summit goals,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association. Trump said no deal was reached because Kim wanted all sanctions lifted in exchange for partial denuclearization. That stance should have been a massive warning flag to the American delegation ahead of the summit, Kimball said. Typically, major summits between world leaders are held only once officials have finalized all the details, something they were unable to do this time. “When you are dealing with a country that is of the nature of North Korea, it is often the case that only the most senior leaders have the capacity to make those important decisions,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters on his airplane after departing Hanoi. Optimists clung to Trump’s insistence that the two sides remain committed to talking as a sign there won’t be an immediate return to the threats and tension of the past. Critics, meanwhile, said the summit proved Trump’s diplomacy was based on pageantry that has done little beyond reducing political pressure on one of the world’s most repressive countries. Most analysts agreed, however, that the second summit ending with no or little progress makes it harder for Trump to argue for his reliance on the self-described “special relationship” with Kim. “It does rather undermine the top-down approach, at least for the time being,” said Christopher Green, senior adviser to the International Crisis Group. “Trump isn’t going to be able to spend scarce political capital on another failed summit, so the next steps will have to come from the working level.” After last year’s Singapore summit, lower-level U.S. negotiators sometimes struggled to meet with their North Korean counterparts, and the recent flurry of talks only began after the summit appeared imminent. “The lack of working-level talks in the lead up to the Hanoi Summit undermined the chances of reaching a successful deal,” U.S. Democratic Sen. Ed Markey said on Twitter on Thursday, calling on both sides to “immediately continue their engagement.” Daniel Russel, vice president of Asia Society Policy Institute and former foreign affairs aide to President Barack Obama, said given that “the hard diplomatic work of narrowing differences and exploring options had simply not been done,” it was unsurprising that the two leaders could not close the deal. “At this point it will be no easy matter to persuade North Korea to move quickly, to deal with U.S. negotiators rather than with Trump directly, or to accept that its entire nuclear and missile program must be on the table.” Many critics had feared that driven by a desire to claim a victory, Trump might make too many concessions so analysts said Trump’s decision to walk away from the deal as he described it was the right one and expressed hope that working-level talks could make more progress. “By walking away from the table, Trump is effectively signaling to North Korea that they will have to deal more with (U.S. special envoy for North Korea) Steve Biegun, who faced difficulties in meeting with his counterparts in the months after he was appointed last August,” said Korea Economic Institute Director Kyle Ferrier. Despite disagreements over the details, both sides appeared willing to keep talking, he said. “What is needed now are small steps to keep the diplomatic momentum going.”
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north korea;kim jong un;nuclear weapons;north korea nuclear crisis;donald trump;kim-trump summit
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jp0002075
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/01
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After seizure by Russia and payment of fine, crew of Japanese crab fishing boat released
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VLADIVOSTOK, RUSSIA - All 10 crew members of a Japanese crab fishing boat detained by Russian authorities in late January were released Friday and are returning home, according to the consulate-general of Japan in Vladivostok. The captain of the Nishino Maru No. 68 from Shimane Prefecture has been fined for fishing illegally in Russia’s exclusive economic zone. The captain admitted to fishing in the waters without necessary documentation. Russian authorities claimed the illegal fishing caused at least 39 million rubles (¥66 million) in economic damage, and filed a complaint with a court calling for an administrative measure. The boat’s operator paid 39 million rubles for the crew’s release.
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russia;fishing;shimane;vladivostok
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jp0002076
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Safety of 2,936 children flagged in June still unknown as of November, welfare ministry says
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The number of children who had not been confirmed safe as of the end of November totaled 2,936, the welfare ministry said in a report Thursday. Some 15,270 children who haven’t received early medical checkups or enrolled in childcare facilities or schools were identified as those whose safety was not confirmed as of June 1 last year. Of them, 2,936 children had still not been confirmed safe by municipal officials by the end of November. The survey was conducted in response to the death of an abused 5-year-old girl in Tokyo last year. Of the children, 2,480, or 84.5 percent of the total, are preschoolers, followed by elementary school students at 263, or 9.0 percent, junior high school students at 147, or 5.0 percent, and children who graduated from junior high school at 46, or 1.6 percent. By prefecture, Tokyo had the most children whose safety was unknown, with 921, followed by Chiba, with 238. Of the children whose safety was confirmed, 143 were found to have been abused and 10 were placed in temporary protective custody by child consultation centers.
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children;abuse;child abuse;surveys;mhlw
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jp0002077
|
[
"national",
"politics-diplomacy"
] |
2019/03/01
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Moon vows to work with Japan as South Korea marks 100th anniversary of uprising against colonial rule
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SEOUL - In a speech Friday marking the 100th anniversary of the launch of a popular uprising against Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule, South Korean President Moon Jae-in pledged to strengthen cooperation with Japan to ensure peace on the Korean Peninsula. Moon’s remarks, at the annual commemoration of the March First Independence Movement, follow a fraying of South Korea-Japan ties over historical grievances, including the issue of “comfort women.” The term comfort women is a euphemism used to refer to women who provided sex, including those who did so against their will, for Japanese troops before and during World War II. “Cooperation with Japan will also be strengthened for the sake of peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Moon said in his speech at a government ceremony in central Seoul. “We cannot change the past but can transform the future. When Korea and Japan firmly join hands while reflecting on history, the era of peace will approach our side with large strides. When the pain of victims is substantively healed through concerted efforts, Korea and Japan will become genuine friends with heart-to-heart understanding,” he added. The absence of direct criticism of Japan in Moon’s speech suggested he was reluctant to further aggravate tensions in the bilateral relationship. With regard to pro-Japanese collaborators during the colonial era, the president said erasing their vestiges was a “long-overdue undertaking.” But he also said Koreans neither intend to “instigate divisiveness by re-opening old wounds now nor create issues for diplomatic conflicts with a neighboring country.” Also during the speech, Moon indicated his readiness to continue serving as a mediator between the United States and North Korea, one day after talks between the leaders of the two countries, held in Hanoi, essentially collapsed without any agreements. The two-day summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam through Thursday made “meaningful progress,” Moon said, claiming that the two leaders had conversed at length and built more trust. “Importantly, they even discussed the issue of installing liaison offices, an important step toward the normalization of bilateral ties,” the president said. In the event progress is made in North Korea’s denuclearization, he said, the two Koreas will set up a joint economic committee to “produce economic achievements that benefit both South and North Korea.” Moon also expressed hope that progress in inter-Korean ties will lead to normalizing the North’s relations with the United States and Japan, which he said would then lead to a new order of peace and security in Northeast Asia. On March 1, 1919, prominent Koreans opposing Japan’s colonial rule issued a declaration of independence, sparking mass demonstrations across the peninsula. South Korea has designated the anniversary a national holiday. Patriotic sentiment has recently been rising among the South Korean public, due partly to 2019 being a centenary year for several historical events. Among such events, on April 11, the country will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Shanghai. In line with the centennial events, Moon’s government has decided to pardon about 4,300 people. Various events have also been planned to remember high-profile Koreans, such as Kim Koo, an independence movement leader, and Ahn Jung-geun, a national hero in South Korea who assassinated Hirobumi Ito, Japan’s first prime minister and first resident-general of Korea, in 1909.
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u.s .;north korea;south korea-japan relations;moon jae-in
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jp0002078
|
[
"national",
"politics-diplomacy"
] |
2019/03/01
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Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki requests three-way talks with Tokyo and U.S. after Futenma 'no' vote
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Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki called Friday for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to launch trilateral talks involving Washington aimed at reviewing the relocation plan for U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, after a referendum confirmed strong opposition against it across the prefecture. Abe did not directly respond to the request, made during a meeting with the governor in Tokyo, but said he intends to continue their talks, Tamaki told reporters after their discussions. The request comes after a prefecture-wide nonbinding referendum held Sunday showed that more than 70 percent of voters rejected the more than 20-year-old plan to move U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from a crowded residential area of Ginowan to a less populated coastal zone in Henoko. The plan originated in an agreement reached by the Japanese and U.S. governments in 1996. Tamaki visited Abe to formally report the outcome of the referendum, which asked whether Okinawa residents agreed with the landfill work being undertaken in Henoko as part of the base construction work. The referendum ordinance requires the governor to report the outcome to the prime minister and U.S. President Donald Trump when any of three options — yes, no or neither — are approved by a quarter of eligible voters. “It is extremely significant that the will of people (in Okinawa) urging (the government) to give up the transfer to Henoko was clearly shown for the first time” through the referendum, Tamaki said at the outset of his meeting with Abe. He requested that the prime minister “immediately” stop the construction work. Central government has said it has no plan to stop the work, stating before the referendum that it would proceed with the project regardless of the outcome of the vote. Tokyo maintains the plan is the “only solution” for removing the dangers posed by the Futenma base without undermining the deterrence provided by the Japan-U.S. security alliance. “While taking the outcome seriously, we would like to produce results step by step to reduce the burden” on Okinawa, which hosts the bulk of U.S. military bases in Japan, Abe is reported to have said during the meeting. The governor, who was elected last September on a platform of blocking the relocation plan, also paid a visit to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo so that the outcome would be reported to Trump. Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Young told Tamaki he will convey the result to U.S. Ambassador to Japan William Hagerty, according to the governor. In the referendum, 71.7 percent of voters said they were opposed to the plan and some 19 percent said they favored it, with 8.7 percent saying neither. Many Okinawa residents have long hoped the Futenma base would 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 insist the replacement facility will destroy the marine ecosystem off the Henoko coast, which is home to an endangered species of dugong.
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okinawa;u.s .;u.s. bases;futenma;nago;henoko;referendums;u.s.-japan relations;denny tamaki
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jp0002080
|
[
"national",
"politics-diplomacy"
] |
2019/03/01
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77% of Japanese town and village assembly members are elderly, and only 10% are female
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Of the 10,956 town and village assembly members in Japan, 8,442, or 77.1 percent, were aged 60 or over as of July 1 last year, a survey showed Thursday. The survey by the national association of town and village assembly chairs covered 927 such assemblies nationwide. The average age of all town and village assembly members stood at 64.2, up 0.7 from a year before, according to the survey. The youngest was Daisuke Nakao, 26, at the assembly of the town of Oizumi, Gunma Prefecture, while the oldest was Haruo Hanai, 91, at the assembly of the village of Yahiko, Niigata Prefecture. Female assembly members numbered 1,100 — only 10.0 percent of the total, although the proportion had inched up by 0.1 percentage point. The survey also found that 305 assemblies had no female members. Monthly pay for town and village assembly members averaged ¥214,533. Assembly members of the island village of Mikurajima, part of Tokyo, received the lowest salary, at ¥100,000 per month, excluding those of the town of Yamatsuri, Fukushima Prefecture, who are paid per working day.
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aging society;lawmakers;assemblies
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jp0002081
|
[
"national",
"politics-diplomacy"
] |
2019/03/01
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Abductees' kin disappointed with lack of progress at Trump-Kim summit
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Relatives of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korean agents expressed disappointment Thursday with the apparent lack of progress on the decades-old issue during a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un. Following a telephone conversation with Trump when he was briefed on the leaders’ Hanoi summit Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters that the U.S. president had raised the issue with Kim, but the matter did not come up at a post-summit news conference. The abductions, which were carried out during the 1970s and 1980s, remain one of Japan’s biggest grievances against North Korea and have been a major hurdle to establishing formal diplomatic ties. In phone talks with Abe last week Trump had promised to raise the issue in Hanoi, as he did in the two leaders’ first summit in Singapore last year. “I was hoping for something new, but I knew it would be difficult because denuclearization was the main issue,” said Fumiyo Saito, whose younger brother, Kaoru Matsuki, went missing in 1980 while studying in Spain. “Is all of our work in vain? We are growing old and we can’t wait forever,” the 73-year-old said. Japan officially lists 17 people as abductees, five of whom were repatriated in 2002, and suspects the North’s involvement in many more disappearances. The North maintains that eight of the 17 have died and the remaining four never entered the country. Sakie Yokota, the mother of Megumi Yokota, who disappeared on the way home from school in 1977 at the age of 13, said she has fought long and hard for her daughter’s return. “All we can do now is pray,” she said. Yokota, 83, said she supports Trump’s decision to maintain sanctions on North Korea until Kim agrees to further denuclearization steps. Shigeo Iizuka, head of a group representing abductees’ families, said he hopes the Japanese government will continue to work toward the return of their loved ones. “Prime Minister Abe knows how we feel. I hope he takes every opportunity, no matter how small, to resolve the issue,” said the 80-year-old, whose sister, Yaeko Taguchi, went missing in 1978 when she was 22. “We will never give up,” he said. Abe has expressed a desire to hold his own summit with Kim, but no plans have materialized and communications between Japan and North Korea have been limited to behind-the-scenes meetings between their aides. “We can’t sit around waiting for the denuclearization issue to be resolved. Japan needs to conduct its own negotiations,” said Akihiro Arimoto, whose daughter, Keiko, was kidnapped in 1983 when she was 23. Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University Japan, is skeptical about how serious Trump is about helping Abe resolve the abduction issue. Trump’s comments about American university student Otto Warmbier at a press conference are “bad news for the abductee families,” Kingston said, as it shows “how he wants a deal far more than accountability.” Warmbier had been detained in North Korea for more than 17 months and died after being returned home in a coma. “He (Kim) felt very badly. He knew the case very well, but he knew it later,” Trump said, adding, “He tells me that he didn’t know about it, and I will take him at his word.”
|
shinzo abe;north korea;kim jong un;abductions;megumi yokota;north korea-japan relations;sakie yokota;fumiyo saito
|
jp0002082
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Narita to become first airport in Japan to use facial recognition for boarding instead of document checks
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NARITA, CHIBA PREF. - The operator of Narita International Airport near Tokyo said Thursday it will introduce in spring 2020 a facial recognition technology-based system that enables passengers to board planes, after check-in, without showing their passports or boarding passes. Narita will be the first airport in the nation to adopt a system that does not require passengers to pause for identification when boarding, according to Narita International Airport Corp. The operator hopes that the system will improve convenience for passengers ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics and Paralympics. Passengers will first have photos taken of their faces at self check-in kiosks where they enter passport and boarding pass information. High-performance cameras set up at the baggage drop-off counters, safety inspection areas and boarding gates will track the passengers and check their identity against the registered photos as they make their way through the boarding process. While passports and boarding tickets will not be manually checked at such locations, passengers will still have to go through existing procedures at immigration control. Final details of the boarding process when using facial recognition are yet to be confirmed, and it was not clear whether travelers would be able to choose to board using conventional, non-biometric screening. After working out any initial flaws, the airport operator plans to introduce the system first for flights operated by All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines, and then for other airlines in stages.
|
tech;tourism;airports;personal information;narita international airport;2020 tokyo olympics;facial recognition
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jp0002083
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Hibakusha disheartened after Trump-Kim summit ends without progress on North Korea nuclear arms
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HIROSHIMA/NAGASAKI - Hibakusha in Japan voiced disappointment Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, meeting in Hanoi, failed to agree on denuclearizing North Korea. The two leaders’ failure to reach an agreement means that North Korea’s “nuclear issue will be pushed back,” said Toshiyuki Mimaki, 76, acting chairman of a hibakusha group in Hiroshima Prefecture. Kunihiko Sakuma, 74, head of another hibakusha group in Hiroshima, said that he was “disappointed to see little progress being made on denuclearization and a declaration ending the Korean War.” Sakuma, however, said that he “felt like both the United States and North Korea were thinking that nuclear weapons must be abolished.” “I would like the two sides to meet halfway and hold discussions so they will be able to move forward,” he said. Koichi Kawano, 79, head of a hibakusha group in Nagasaki Prefecture, said he “would have liked it if they had worked out their differences and reached some kind of agreement toward denuclearization, even if it wasn’t 100 percent.” The outcome of the summit is “regrettable,” Kawano said. “While North Korea might not abandon its nuclear weapons easily, Washington and Pyongyang should continue talks to realize a complete denuclearization as soon as possible,” he added. The city of Hiroshima was devastated by a U.S. atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, in the closing days of World War II. The city of Nagasaki suffered the same fate three days later.
|
u.s .;north korea;nagasaki;hiroshima;kim jong un;nuclear weapons;hibakusha;donald trump;kim-trump summit
|
jp0002084
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Tokyo 2020 volunteers: Golden opportunity or brazen exploitation by Olympics awash with cash?
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Unpaid Olympic volunteers do almost everything: guide athletes around, greet dignitaries and translate for lost fans. International Olympic Committee officials acknowledge the games couldn’t be held without them; invariably smiling, helpful and praised by presidents, prime ministers and monarchs. The billion-dollar Olympics are awash with cash. But volunteers work for free. That’s the case next year at the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, where about 80,000 volunteers will be needed. Just over 200,000 have applied, with orientation and interviews for residents starting last month. Most don’t seem to mind, thrilled about a once-in-a-lifetime chance and largely unaware that their unpaid labor enriches Olympic sponsors, powerful TV networks, and the Switzerland-based IOC. “To me, it’s very clearly economic exploitation,” said Joel Maxcy, the president of the International Association of Sports Economists and a professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Maxcy described a situation in which volunteers assemble the product but “someone else is collecting nearly all of the money derived from those labor efforts.” Volunteers are lured by the powerful Olympic brand, the glamor of being behind the scenes, a sense of altruism and, for younger volunteers, a hope the work might lead to connections and a full-time job. “I’m willing to work for free if I can get a chance to see and talk to Olympians from all over the world in person,” said Yutaro Tokunaga, who attended a recent Tokyo orientation for volunteers. The 26-year-old said his employer is giving him five days of paid leave during the games. Another aspiring volunteer, Masanobu Ishii, said he wanted to convey the spirit of omotenashi , Japan’s brand of hospitality. Volunteers also get involved out of civic duty or patriotism — and the chance to brag to friends. Many older volunteers often don’t need the money. California-based labor economist Andy Schwarz suggested some volunteers would even pay to play. “It’s easy to imagine the Olympics charging for the right to help if the honor were high enough,” Schwarz said. Olympic volunteers typically pay their own lodging and transportation to the host city. They get meals on the days they work, some training and uniforms to treasure. In Tokyo, they will get up to ¥1,000 daily to get to work on the city’s vast transit system. Tokyo organizers also provide some insurance. Almost two-thirds of the applicants for the Tokyo Olympics are Japanese, and almost two-thirds are women. A study done for the IOC on volunteers at the 2000 Sydney Olympics said their value was at least $60 million for 40,000 volunteers. Now, 20 years later, Tokyo organizers will use twice that many. Separately, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government will enlist the help of another 30,000 unpaid volunteers. Proponents argue volunteers embody the spirit of the games, harkening to a time almost 50 years ago when Olympic athletes were unpaid amateurs. The IOC champions their use despite some complaints on social media in Tokyo that volunteers are similar to “forced labor.” IOC member John Coates, who heads the inspection team for Tokyo, strongly defended the use of unpaid help. “They don’t have to apply if they don’t want to,” the Australian said. “The economics of it necessitates having to have volunteers. They get trained, they get their uniforms. They are part of something very exciting. … I don’t think there’s a case for paying volunteers.” Almost everyone else working at the Olympics gets paid, many handsomely. Tokyo is spending at least $20 billion (¥2.23 trillion) to organize the Olympics, and organizers have raised $3 billion (¥335 billion) in local sponsorships — twice as much as any previous Olympics. IOC members like Coates receive per diems of between $450 to $900 when they are on Olympic business, and other generous perks like flights and top hotels. IOC President Thomas Bach doesn’t receive a salary but receives an allowance of about $250,000 per year as a “volunteer” president. The IOC typically operates with a $1 billion cash reserve, and had total revenue in the 2013-2016 Olympic cycle of $5.7 billion. It says it returns 90 percent of its revenue to sports federations and national Olympic committees. American network NBC is paying $7.75 billion for the rights to broadcast six Olympics beginning in 2022, an extension on a $4.38 billion contract. Tracey Dickson, who studies volunteerism at Canberra University, said many factors go beyond “the pure economics.” She listed social cohesion and volunteer camaraderie, which she termed “the fellowship of the suffering.” “I can understand the economic argument,” she said. “But if they were being paid it would be (a) real job with real expectations and there’d be a totally different vibe.” “If they are just employees well, they’re just another employee. There’s so much value in that feel-good factor,” she said. The 2016 Rio Olympics had problems finding volunteers. And when the games began, organizers said about 30 percent on any given day failed to show up for work, which organizers said was anticipated. Brazil also lacked a volunteer culture, and entrenched poverty meant that mostly the white and wealthy signed up. Using volunteers also means those with free time are putting it toward the Olympics, rather than other charitable endeavors. Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland who has also served as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, cautioned about using volunteers in mega-sports events if they undercut the market for people who need work. Robinson is now serving with the Switzerland-based Centre for Sports and Human Rights, which was launched last year. “Volunteers can play a role,” Robinson said. “But not if it displaces the potential for people having jobs where the entities can well afford to give people the opportunity to have gainful employment rather than work as volunteers.” David Berri, a sports economist at Southern Utah University, suggested that organizers and Olympic officials should also work for free, or for smaller salaries. “If the volunteers were paid, there would be less money for everyone else,” he said. “The Olympics have learned people will work for free, so they take advantage of this. If they (Olympic officials) really thought this was all OK, they should obviously volunteer to work for free.”
|
volunteers;2020 tokyo olympics;2020 tokyo paralympics
|
jp0002085
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/01
|
SDF draws fire for recruitment poster featuring female anime characters in skimpy costumes
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A Self-Defense Forces recruitment office in Shiga Prefecture has caused a stir by releasing a poster that features female anime characters wearing super-short skirts, which expose what appear to be underwear. Some people have described the image as a form of sexual harassment. The recruitment poster was created by the SDF’s Shiga Provincial Cooperation Office in Otsu and features three female characters from “Strike Witches,” an aerial combat anime series. Two of the three characters appear to be wearing blue underwear under their costumes. Following its release last autumn, the image has been used on the office’s website, Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as at some SDF regional offices across the prefecture, according to the office. In a telephone interview Friday with The Japan Times, a spokesperson for the office rejected the claim that the image constituted sexual harassment, saying: “We only used the existing anime work of Kadokawa Corp.” Asked why the office decided to use characters from “Strike Witches,” the spokesperson said, “We thought that the content appeals to young people. We didn’t really insist on using female characters.” One person who posted online at the Yahoo! Japan News website suggested they thought “images of SDF personnel working hard in disaster reconstruction are cooler,” while another wrote that “they should have used an image featuring a uniform that’s befitting of SDF members.” The Kyoto Shimbun reported the matter in an article Thursday, and quoted an official from the office as saying that what the characters are wearing under the costumes are “meant to be trousers and not underwear, and thus we believe it is appropriate.” The Self-Defense Forces are facing an increasingly severe personnel shortage amid a shrinking pool of young applicants and a robust economy. Last October, to secure more personnel, the Defense Ministry raised the age ceiling for applicants to 32 from 26.
|
shiga;self defense forces;recruitment;poster;strike witches
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jp0002086
|
[
"national",
"crime-legal"
] |
2019/03/01
|
Ex-Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems executives convicted of bribes after company struck Japan's first plea bargain
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A Tokyo court found two former executives of Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems guilty of bribing a senior Thai official over a power plant project after the company struck a plea bargain — the nation’s first. The Tokyo District Court on Friday gave suspended sentences of 18 months and 16 months to Fuyuhiko Nishikida, 63, and Yoshiki Tsuji, 57, respectively. The sentences were suspended for three years. As evidence, the court adopted a plea bargain signed by prosecutors and Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Ltd. that shields the company from indictment in exchange for cooperation with the investigation and trial. According to the ruling, the pair conspired with the project’s manager, Satoshi Uchida, 64, and paid 11 million baht(about ¥39 million) in February 2015 to a Thai official with the Ministry of Transport to receive favorable treatment when unloading cargo. Thai authorities had told them the company failed to meet the conditions for cargo discharge. The two men admitted to the accusations and their lawyers requested leniency, saying the executives were compelled to meet the demand from the Thai public servant and did not receive any personal gains from the bribe. In handing down the ruling, Judge Tatsuya Tosuke said the two men, who were responsible for transporting equipment, decided to pay the bribe after checking with Uchida. “The amount was large and it was an organized crime, involving many sections such as a sales department,” the judge said. The lawyers have argued it was “not fair” that the three men were the only ones prosecuted. Uchida is also standing trial in a separate case. Mitsubishi Hitachi Power System became aware of the matter in March 2015 after being alerted by a whistleblower. It reported the issue to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office after an internal probe. The Yokohama-based firm entered into a plea bargain agreement last June, shortly after the system was introduced.
|
thailand;bribery;plea bargaining;mitsubishi hitachi power systems ltd .
|
jp0002087
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Airlines stall in tackling climate change but ANA, United and Delta rated best at managing risks in study
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OSLO - Airlines are doing too little in the fight against global warming, a study funded by investors with $13 trillion in assets under management said on Tuesday. The fast-growing sector accounts for 2 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions and should do more to manage risks of climate change, the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI) said in a review of 20 of the world’s biggest listed airlines. It rated Delta, Lufthansa, United Airlines and ANA Holdings as the best performers at managing the business risks and opportunities of climate change. But all could do more. “Investors have a clear message to the aviation sector: When it comes to carbon performance they must be in it for the long haul,” said Faith Ward, co-chair of the TPI on behalf of the British Environment Agency Pension Fund. “Investors do care … it’s about encouraging disclosure so we can make informed decisions,” she told Reuters. TPI, which seeks to assess the performance of businesses in cutting carbon, groups 40 investors with $13 trillion under management, including BNP Paribas and Legal & General Investment Management. Its research is by the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute. More fuel-efficient planes, wider use of biofuels and ensuring that planes fly at full capacity would help to limit emissions. TPI separately said easyJet and Alaska Air now had the most efficient fleets among the top 20 listed airlines, judged by their emissions per passenger kilometer flown. At the other end of that scale, ANA, Japan Airlines, Korean Air and Singapore Airlines have the highest emissions intensities, it said. Asked about the data, a Japan Airlines official said: “We are aiming to release our CSR (corporate social responsibility) measures toward 2030 in the next fiscal year.” ANA, Korean and Singapore did not immediately reply to a Reuters’ request for comment. Lead author professor Simon Dietz of the Grantham Research Institute said some airlines had adopted broad industry goals to cap net carbon emissions at 2020 levels, or to halve net emissions by 2050 from 2005 levels. But that focus on net emissions often meant airlines could buy permits to emit carbon dioxide, rather than make cuts themselves. “The issue is that we don’t know how much they are going to reduce their own flight emissions compared to buying offsets,” he told Reuters. Dietz also said there were other effects of aviation apart from carbon dioxide that need more research. Contrails, for instance, may can cause high-level clouds that trap heat. Under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, almost 200 governments agreed to cut emissions to help avert more floods, droughts and rising sea levels. They promised to “enhance public and private sector participation” in cutting emissions.
|
airlines;ana;jal;climate change;delta;united;japan airlines;transition pathway initiative
|
jp0002088
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/06
|
U.N. Myanmar expert wants tighter checks by Facebook and investors to ensure they back human rights
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GENEVA - Facebook, Twitter and foreign investors need to do more to ensure they support human rights in Myanmar, the U.N. Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee said in a report published on Tuesday. Myanmar has been trying to woo investors and divert attention from the 730,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled the country since 2017, an exodus that a U.N. inquiry blamed on a military campaign with “genocidal intent.” Facebook said this month that it had banned four groups fighting Myanmar’s military after it was criticized for not doing enough to block content fueling the conflict. But Lee’s report said she was concerned that the army and allied armed groups had not been banned. “Contrary to achieving the stated aim of decreasing tensions, this selective banning may contribute to feelings of inequality by ethnic minorities,” Lee said in the report, which she will present to the U.N. Human Rights Council on March 11. “Public institutions linked to the military, its supporters, extremist religious groups, and members of the government continue to proliferate hate speech and misinformation on Facebook,” she wrote. Myanmar denies allegations of mass killings and rape, and says its offensive was a legitimate response to an insurgent threat and that it is welcoming the refugees back. The report also examined the role of military-run conglomerates in Myanmar’s mining industry. Fresh sanctions should be considered on two military-run conglomerates, the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (UMEHL) and Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC), it said. They provided “off-budget financing” to the army and were involved in natural-resource extraction, where Lee said she was continuing to receive reports of human rights abuses.
|
myanmar;rights;u.n .;twitter;facebook;investments;rohingya;yanghee lee
|
jp0002089
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Rolls-Royce savors blowout demand for Cullinan SUV starting at $325,000
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GENEVA - Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is having a hard time meeting demand for its Cullinan sport utility vehicle, as the high-end British automaker’s biggest-ever model has proved popular with its ultra-rich clientele. Production of the SUV, which starts at $325,000 before customization — and almost all Rolls-Royce customers go for bespoke additions — is booked solid until the fourth quarter of 2019, Chief Executive Officer Torsten Mueller-Oetvoes said. “It’s exceeding our expectations,” Mueller-Oetvoes said Tuesday in an interview at the Geneva International Motor Show. “We have customers that aren’t patient and want their car tomorrow, so we’re doing the occasional Saturday shift to meet demand.” Rolls-Royce, owned by Munich-based premium-auto maker BMW AG, aimed the Cullinan squarely at the SUV-loving American market when it was launched in September. The model is also finding a lot of fans in Russia and Canada, two markets that weren’t as big for the U.K. company before, Mueller-Oetvoes said. “The all-wheel drive is attractive for those markets,” he said.
|
carmakers;suv;rolls royce;torsten mueller-oetvoes;geneva auto show;cullinan
|
jp0002090
|
[
"business",
"economy-business"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Bank of Japan board member, a vocal advocate for monetary easing, calls for more stimulus if economy sinks
|
KOFU, YAMANASHI PREF. - Bank of Japan board member Yutaka Harada said on Wednesday the central bank must ramp up stimulus without delay if risks to the economy threaten achievement of its inflation target. Harada, a vocal advocate of aggressive monetary easing, said the nation’s economy was facing growing risks, including from slowing demand in China, simmering trade tensions, volatile stock price moves and weak private consumption. Subdued inflation could heighten views among the public that prices won’t rise much and delay the realization of the BOJ’s 2 percent inflation target, he added. “If the economy deteriorates to the extent that achieving the inflation target in the long term becomes difficult, it’s necessary to strengthen monetary easing without delay,” Harada said in a speech to business leaders in Kofu. A scheduled sales tax hike in October could also hurt the economy and push down prices by weakening demand, he said. The BOJ faces a dilemma. Years of heavy money printing have dried up market liquidity and hurt commercial banks’ profits, stoking concern over the rising risks of prolonged easing. And yet, subdued inflation has left the BOJ well behind its U.S. and European counterparts in dialing back its crisis-mode policies, leaving it with little ammunition to battle any abrupt yen spike that could derail an export-driven economic recovery. Faced with the need to address the rising cost of easing, the BOJ decided last July to allow long-term bond yields to move more flexibly around its zero percent target. To reassure markets that monetary policy will remain loose, it also adopted a new forward guidance pledging to keep rates at very low levels for an “extended period of time.” Harada said he dissented to the July decision on the view the BOJ should commit to keeping rates low “unless prices show stronger movements than currently anticipated,” rather than to the vague time frame. “It’s my view that the conduct of monetary policy should be data-dependent, not calendar-based,” he said, adding that doing so would make the BOJ’s forward guidance more powerful. The BOJ’s nine-member board is split between those like Harada, who sees room to ramp up stimulus, and those who fret about the dangers of protracted easing policy. Harada dismissed calls from financial institutions that the BOJ should raise rates to ease the strain on their profits, saying that withdrawing stimulus now would backfire by hurting the economy and dampening corporate fund demand. “Past episodes of premature monetary tightening worsened the economy, drove down prices and output, and led to declines in interest rates in the longer-term,” Harada said. “Premature tightening was thus part of the reason behind the current difficulties the financial industry faces.” Under a policy dubbed yield curve control, the BOJ aims to guide short-term rates at minus 0.1 percent and the 10-year government bond yield around zero percent.
|
boj;inflation;economy;monetary policy;yutaka harada
|
jp0002091
|
[
"business",
"economy-business"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Japan stresses weak link between strength of yen and exports ahead of U.S. trade talks
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The U.S. says it wants a currency clause in any trade agreement with Japan, but as the two sides prepare to sit down, Japanese officials say there is no need to talk about currencies. Masatsugu Asakawa, the nation’s currency chief, has indicated opposition to a currency clause, saying recently that the link between the yen’s exchange rate and Japanese exports has been “severed.” With U.S. President Donald Trump often focused on exchange rates, Washington got a currency clause in its revamped trade deal with Canada and Mexico and is said to be seeking one from China now. From the American point of view, Japan is next. How the U.S-Japan talks play out on currencies could determine how much freedom the Bank of Japan has during the next economic downturn. A currency clause could tie the BOJ’s hands, preventing it from taking action that might weaken the yen, even indirectly. Asakawa’s statement is part of a strategy to argue that the BOJ’s monetary easing is not aimed at increasing exports, said Bloomberg Economics’ Yuki Masujima. Private economists in Japan and the central bank also say the correlation between the yen’s exchange rate and the nation’s exports has weakened significantly since the global financial crisis. Japan hasn’t directly intervened in currency markets in years. But under Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda, BOJ stimulus helped dramatically weaken the yen, so it won’t be easy to convince the U.S. that currencies don’t matter so much anymore. No date has been set for U.S.-Japan talks to begin. Economy minister Toshimitsu Motegi said last week that he wanted them to start as soon as possible. His counterpart, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, recently said he feels “real urgency” to start the talks and that he will likely visit Japan this month. The yen-exports breakdown partly reflects Japanese offshoring. In the fiscal year ending March 2017, 24 percent of all goods produced by domestic manufacturers were made overseas, according to the trade ministry. Still, a weaker yen during Kuroda’s tenure has helped drive Japanese corporate profits to record levels. Overseas earnings buy a lot more yen once back home. The resulting cash piles improve competitiveness, giving companies a buffer during downturns and more capacity to raise productivity through research and development. Though rarely stated by the BOJ, a weaker yen is also key to its efforts to return the economy to sustainable growth, partly by supporting inflation. The U.S. is almost certain to stick to its demand for a currency clause, maybe even one that specifically restricts BOJ policy, said Tsuyoshi Ueno, senior economist at NLI Research Institute’s economic research department. Trump called Japan a currency manipulator during his election campaign and his administration is “unlikely to listen to reason,” Ueno said.
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yen;trade;currency;exports;u.s.-japan relations
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jp0002092
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/06
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Japan's moon shot: Toyota and JAXA space agency plan to send rover on lunar mission
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TOKYO - Toyota is teaming up with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency on a planned mission to the moon, with the auto giant expected to develop a lunar rover, officials and local media said Wednesday. It will be the car manufacturer’s first full-fledged entry into space exploration, after the company jointly developed a small robot sent to the International Space Station. “We are planning to cooperate with Toyota in an exploration mission to the moon,” said a spokesman with JAXA. Details will be announced by JAXA and Toyota on Tuesday next week when the space agency hosts a symposium in Tokyo, the spokesman said. Toyota also confirmed plans to announce a joint project with JAXA “on mobility and a space probe” but declined to comment further. Jiji Press said the car giant is expected to jointly develop a “mobility method” to be used on the lunar surface for the mission. The planned mission is part of renewed global interest in the moon and the announcement comes 50 years after American astronauts first walked on the lunar surface. NASA aims to land an unmanned vehicle on the moon by 2024. So far, only Russia, the United States and China have made the 384,000-kilometre (239,000-mile) journey and landed spacecraft on the moon. Last month, Israel launched a spacecraft that aims to join them. In 2017, Japan revealed plans to put an astronaut on the moon around 2030.
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space;jaxa;toyota;carmakers;moon
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jp0002093
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/06
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Carlos Ghosn ditches sharp suits for workman's disguise as onetime auto titan emerges from Tokyo jail
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The cameras had been massed outside a Tokyo detention center for hours waiting for the shot, but when ex-Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn finally emerged, he was in disguise and almost unrecognizable. The first hint that something was afoot came when a cart was wheeled out of the detention center, with stacks of blankets piled up high. Photographers began snapping and cameras zoomed in as the blankets were piled into a black van parked at the door by police and people in civilian clothes. Were these Ghosn’s things — and where was he? And then suddenly police officers started to file out of the building, all wearing standard issue dark caps as well as the medical face masks commonly seen in Japan during cold and flu season. The phalanx of officers seemed to suggest that Ghosn would soon be emerging behind. But who was that? A short man wearing a light blue cap unlike the others. His work jacket was a similar dark hue to those of the officers, except for some bright orange reflective stripes. Could that be Ghosn? A cacophony of camera shutters clicked as the man calmly strode the few steps from the detention center doors, but most of his face was covered with a medical mask. He turned slightly, and his eyes were visible behind a pair of dark-rimmed glasses. Only a glimpse, but enough to confirm that the fallen auto titan was now out of detention. He could hardly have looked different from the man who flew around the world on private jets and once threw a lavish party at France’s Versailles Palace. Stripped of his sharp suits, with his trademark bushy eyebrows obscured by his cap and glasses, and a mask covering most of his face, the disguise was almost good enough for him to slip past. Almost. Ghosn said nothing audible as he walked out, his hands empty. He did not acknowledge the media massed at the perimeter of the center’s grounds as he walked toward a silver van that appeared intended to complete the disguise, replete with a workman’s ladder strapped to the top. The man who once headed Nissan, Mitsubishi Motors and Renault climbed into the minivan — Suzuki brand. A camera zoomed in on him inside, showing his head tipped slightly into his hand, as though he were trying to hide his face. There was no sign of his wife and daughter who were earlier seen entering the detention centre. Several police officers on motorbikes followed behind in an escort as the van pulled away from the center, its destination unclear. The release sparked a furor in the Japanese media and on Twitter, where the sight of a man once hailed as a national hero dressed in a workman’s disguise inspired mirth and confusion. “Mr. Ghosn clad in work clothes is enjoying a ride in a minivan,” joked one Twitter user in Japanese. “Ghosn’s disguise, couldn’t it be a bit better?” asked another.
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scandals;nissan;carlos ghosn
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jp0002094
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Company behind Florida migrant children camp drops IPO plans
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MIAMI - The corporation behind a Florida detention camp for migrant children abandoned its plans to go public Tuesday as controversy grows around policies that lock up children crossing the Mexico border. The chairman of Caliburn International Corp., Thomas J. Campbell, sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission saying it no longer wishes to conduct a public offering. The Virginia-based company said in a press release the reason was “variability in the equity markets,” adding that business continues to grow. Previous filings cited risks of “negative publicity” as something that could affect share price. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which takes custody of children who cross the U.S.-Mexico border, announced in December that the facility was expanding from 1,350 to 2,350 beds. Officials said the Homestead detention center in a Miami suburb is one of the largest and the only one run by a for-profit company. The agency offered a press tour last month of the growing facility showing a large room where 144 teenagers slept in bunks. Portable toilets were housed in adjacent tents. The children walked in groups of 10 to 15 in single file, led by a uniformed employee. Caliburn had also previously said it expected to increase its operations in housing children who are taken into custody at the U.S.-Mexico border. It attributed a growth in revenue to new contracts at Homestead and three smaller facilities in Texas. The Obama administration opened Homestead as a temporary shelter for up to 800 migrant teens for 10 months in 2016. Comprehensive Health Services is the company that has been running the facility since then. But it was bought by a Washington private equity company called DC Capital Partners last March before the Trump administration announced a policy that led to more than 2,700 children being separated from their families and placed in shelters. John Kelly sat on the board of DC Capital Partners right before joining the Trump administration, first as Homeland Security secretary and then chief of staff. He also was a member of boards of other companies that are part of the private equity firm’s portfolio. The private equity company formed Caliburn in August by grouping Comprehensive Health Services and three other companies. Caliburn reported total revenue of $785 million in 2017. That does not include two large contracts totaling more than $250 million that the federal government has awarded Comprehensive Health Services since 2018. Federal lawmakers, who toured the center last month, said they were concerned that a for-profit company was chosen to receive more children than any other facility and that some teenagers were being held there for months. The average length of stay at Homestead has gone up since last summer from 25 days last June to 67 days as of December. “While I’m pleased that Caliburn abandoned its plans to go public now, they are still profiting off of the Trump Administration’s inhumane immigration policies,” Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Florida Democrat whose district includes Homestead, said in a statement. “Migrant children are still being locked up in Homestead, and I haven’t received a clear answer why they remain there longer than at a government shelter.” Lawmakers and immigrant rights advocates pressed for the closure of another detention camp in Tornillo, Texas, which shut down in January. On Tuesday, activists who staged a demonstration outside the Homestead detention center condemned the government, saying it is helping a company grow a business out of detaining children. “As children await their freedom, the company is making a lot of money. It is supposed to be a temporary shelter, but this is being run as a business,” said Maria Bilbao, of the organization United We Dream.
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immigration;florida;ipos;donald trump;john kelly;homestead;caliburn international;dc capital partners
|
jp0002095
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Ousted Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn released from jail after 108 days of detention, facing uncertain future
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Ousted Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn was released on bail Wednesday afternoon in Tokyo, ending 108 days of detention that has elicited a global outcry over his treatment and the loss of his posts at three of the most well-known global automakers. The Tokyo District Court on Wednesday confirmed his ¥1 billion bail payment via bank transfer after it rejected a last-ditch effort by prosecutors to reverse the court’s decision on Tuesday to grant his release. But even if he ultimately walks free, restoring his reputation, particularly after a trial that could stretch on for months or even years, will be another matter and the alliance — Nissan, Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and Renault SA — is unlikely to take him back, with Renault’s CEO reportedly saying he won’t be reappointed to the automaker’s board. The court OK’d Ghosn’s bail after previously turning down similar applications in January. Ghosn restructured his legal team in mid-February, appointing attorneys including Junichiro Hironaka, who is known for winning not-guilty verdicts in some of the most high-profile cases in the country, earning him the nickname “Razor” for his shrewdness. It was not immediately clear how Ghosn will spend his days after leaving jail. He is prohibited from contacting Nissan officials linked to his case as part of the deal for his release, including his close aide Greg Kelly, who was also arrested on Nov. 19 and had already been released on bail. Experts credited the legal strategies crafted under Hironaka’s team with securing his conditional freedom. Hironaka said his team clarified specific measures that would be taken to significantly curb the risk of Ghosn tampering with or destroying evidence while out on bail. Other measures agreed to include the restriction of access to computers and phones, as well as a ban on overseas travel. Surveillance cameras will also be set up at his Tokyo residence. Ghosn appeared to be surprised over the conditions, Hironaka said Tuesday evening. “He looked displeased,” he said, adding that his client, though, was happy with the decision itself. The bail agreement does allow Ghosn to travel inside the country but not for more than three days at a time. And if he wants to use a computer, he needs to do so at a lawyer’s office between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Hironaka reportedly said. The French-Brazilian auto executive’s prolonged detention has been the subject of criticism particularly from overseas. Under Japan’s legal system, which critics say is skewed in favor of prosecutors, lawyers aren’t allowed to be present during interrogations. And suspects can also be held for months before having to appear before a court, especially when they do not admit guilt. Hironaka reportedly said that if Ghosn was granted bail by the court, he could attend a Nissan board meeting since he hasn’t been dismissed as a director. He was, though, removed as chairman shortly after his arrest. The companies that have ousted Ghosn have distanced themselves from him. Hiroto Saikawa, Nissan’s CEO, downplayed the significance of his release on bail, telling reporters Wednesday morning it will not affect the company’s operation. “I am not in the position to say whether he is guilty or not guilty,” Saikawa said. Ghosn, who was arrested on Nov. 19 at Haneda airport in Tokyo, is accused of falsifying his remuneration for years. The Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office special investigation team later re-arrested him, alleging that Ghosn engaged in aggravated breach of trust for the alleged transfer of private investment losses to Nissan during the global financial crisis of 2008. Ghosn has denied all of the allegations, which were brought as a result of an internal investigation by Nissan. “I am innocent and totally committed to vigorously defending myself in a fair trial against these meritless and unsubstantiated accusations,” he said in a statement.
|
scandals;nissan;carlos ghosn
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jp0002096
|
[
"business",
"financial-markets"
] |
2019/03/06
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Tokyo stocks extend losses in thin trading
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Stocks lost further ground on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Wednesday, hit by selling to lock in profits in thin trading amid investors sitting on the fences to watch developments related to the ongoing U.S.-China trade negotiations. The 225-issue Nikkei average lost 129.47 points, or 0.60 percent, to end at 21,596.81. On Tuesday, the key market gauge sagged 95.76 points. The TOPIX index of all first-section issues closed down 3.98 points, or 0.25 percent, at 1,615.25, after dropping 8.36 points the previous day. Both Nikkei and TOPIX remained in negative territory throughout the session, pressured by persistent profit-taking while the yen’s weakening against the dollar and Wall Street advance were pausing, brokers said. But active trading was held in check, due to the absence of fresh market-moving factors, they added. New York’s subdued mood “spilled over into Tokyo,” said Hiroaki Kuramochi, chief market analyst at Saxo Bank Securities Ltd. The New York market ended lower for the second straight session Tuesday after choppy trading despite several strong U.S. economic data and earnings results, with buying sentiment dampened to a certain extent by reported remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that President Donald Trump would reject any trade deal with China that is not perfect. Investors refrained from active trading in Tokyo also in view of the growing possibility of Beijing not making concessions easily in talks over intellectual properties, Kuramochi said. He also suggested that selling to unwind cross-shareholdings could have contributed to the day’s drop. Falling issues outnumbered rising ones 1,291 to 737 in the TSE’s first section, while 105 issues were unchanged. Volume decreased to 1,016 million shares from Tuesday’s 1,106 million shares. Oils were lower, with Showa Shell losing 2.41 percent, Idemitsu 1.83 percent and Cosmo Energy 1.52 percent. Ono Pharmaceutical fell 2 percent after JP Morgan Securities Japan Co. revised down its investment rating and stock target price for the company. Among other major losers were clothing store chain Fast Retailing and semiconductor-linked Sumco. Meanwhile, defense-related issues shot up on a South Korean news report about a possible North Koran move to revive part of its missile program. Ishikawa Seisakusho jumped 6.02 percent and Howa Machinery 5.38 percent. Internet service firm CyberAgent gained 5.96 percent thanks to buybacks. In index futures trading on the Osaka Exchange, the key March contract on the Nikkei average fell 160 points to end at 21,590.
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stocks;nikkei;tokyo stock exchange;topix
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jp0002097
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/03/06
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Mizuho's surprise $6.1 billion charge exemplifies risks for Japan banks seeking returns abroad
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Mizuho Financial Group Inc. announced another round of losses Wednesday on its foreign-bond holdings as part of a surprise writedown that will severely curtail full-year profit, as Japanese banks’ quest to secure yield by investing overseas continues to create turbulence. Mizuho slashed its net income forecast by 86 percent after booking ¥680 billion ($6.1 billion) of charges tied to business restructuring and securities losses. CEO Tatsufumi Sakai said he will forfeit his performance-related pay to take responsibility for the writedown. The charge underscores the challenges faced by banks in Japan as rock-bottom interest rates at home prompt them to look abroad for returns. It also reflects Mizuho’s plans announced in November 2017 to eliminate branches and jobs over a decade, in a bid to counter headwinds including financial technology disruption and tepid credit demand from a shrinking population. “Bank shares were struggling in any case because negative rates were hurting their performance,” said Shinichi Tamura, a Tokyo-based strategist at Matsui Securities Co. “Now this massive impairment loss means Mizuho may be avoided even more, especially by foreign investors.” Mizuho now expects a net income of ¥80 billion for the year ending March, down from ¥570 billion previously. The charge includes ¥500 billion of writedowns on fixed assets tied to factors including software at its retail business and plans to close branches, as well as ¥180 billion of losses relating to the restructuring of securities, such as past investments in foreign bonds. The bank has cut the “negative carry” on its foreign bonds and rebuilt the portfolio to enable stable earnings, said Sakai, 59, at a news briefing in Tokyo. Overseas bonds accounted for about ¥150 billion of the charge, he said, without elaborating. Negative carry refers to returns that fail to exceed the cost of financing the purchase of an asset. “Valuation losses on foreign bonds reflect the risk that Japanese banks take in investing overseas,” said Tetsuya Yamamoto, a senior credit analyst at Moody’s Investors Service in Tokyo. Mizuho had the biggest valuation loss on its foreign bonds of the nation’s three so-called megabanks in the year ended March 2018, when Treasury yields were climbing. The bank also plans to improve how it values derivatives, including by more precisely reflecting counterparty risk, it said in a statement. Sakai said the charge was the result of a review that took place since he took on the role of CEO in April last year. He replaced Yasuhiro Sato, under whose watch the bank unveiled plans to cut about 100 outlets and 19,000 jobs over eight to 10 years. Mizuho will announce its next business plan in May, which will resolve a “mismatch” that has arisen over many years in how the bank allocates management resources, it said in the statement. Priorities include digitalization of its retail business, and working more closely with companies seeking to do business in rapidly growing Asian economies.
|
banks;bonds;mizuho financial group
|
jp0002098
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Singapore's Grab raises $1.5 billion from SoftBank fund
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SINGAPORE/TOKYO - Leading Southeast Asian ride-hailing provider Grab raised about $1.5 billion from SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund, bankrolling its effort to expand into new services across the region. The funding brings the amount of money the company has collected from investors in the past year to about $4.5 billion, it said. SoftBank is already a major backer of the Singapore-based startup, and the latest investment will boost its stake. Grab founder Anthony Tan is battling Go-Jek for leadership in the Southeast Asian market after vanquishing Uber Technologies Inc. in the region last year. He plans to spend a significant portion of the latest proceeds in Indonesia, the home turf of Grab’s rival. Go-Jek has presented the thorniest challenge, with the Jakarta-based startup marching into Grab’s home market of Singapore as well as Vietnam and Thailand. Go-Jek, led by Tan’s Harvard Business School classmate Nadiem Makarim, is also raising additional capital to compete for customers and drivers. Southeast Asia’s two most valuable startups are aiming to expand swiftly in everything from mobile payments to food delivery. Go-Jek raised over $1 billion in its ongoing funding round from a clutch of internet giants including Google, JD.com Inc. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., it was reported last month. Both companies are using the proceeds to shore up their positions in Indonesia and expand around the region, while merging payments with ride-sharing and food delivery to create so-called super apps. “It is an incredibly dynamic market where the consumer class is rapidly digitizing. And within this digitization, we see tremendous opportunities to continue growing our super-app platform,” Grab President Ming Maa said in an interview. Southeast Asia’s best-funded technology startups are raking in billions of dollars of investments. The region’s internet firms raised $9.1 billion from venture capitalists, private equity firms and corporate investors in the first half of last year, headed for an all-time record, a report from Google and Temasek Holdings Pte. shows. The industry raised $9.4 billion in all of 2017, according to the November research. The region’s ride-hailing market is expected to reach $28 billion by 2025 from an estimated $7.7 billion last year, the report shows, underscoring the ambition of Go-Jek and Grab to become Southeast Asia’s super apps. On Wednesday, Maa said his startup had no plans for an initial public offering at this point but was monitoring the impending debuts of Uber and Lyft Inc.
|
singapore;softbank;ride-sharing;grab
|
jp0002099
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/03/06
|
In fresh blow to U.K. auto industry as Brexit looms, Nissan may cut up to 400 jobs at Sunderland plant
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LONDON - Nissan Motor Co. is considering reducing production at its Sunderland plant in Britain in a move that may claim up to 400 jobs, Sky News reported Tuesday. The Yokohama-based automaker’s move, if realized, is expected to deal an additional blow to the British auto industry amid increasing concerns about a possible no-deal exit of the U.K. from the European Union. Nissan is planning to reduce the number of the plant’s production line shifts to make the Qashqai sport utility vehicle and Leaf electric vehicle from three to two, according to Sky News. The British media organization quoted a Nissan spokesman as saying that the reported plans were “rumor or speculation.” The Sunderland plant, which has some 6,700 employees, is Nissan’s main production base in Europe and Britain’s biggest auto plant. Last month, Nissan withdrew part of its production plans at the plant to shift some output to Japan. German automaker BMW AG has warned that it would move production of its Mini compact car out of Britain in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Toyota Motor Corp. Executive Vice President Didier Leroy has said that a disorderly Brexit would make it difficult for the company to expand the number of vehicle models made at its plant in Burnaston, England, according to the Financial Times’ online edition Tuesday. Honda Motor Co. plans to end its auto production in Britain in 2021.
|
u.k .;nissan;carmakers;sunderland;brexit;sky news
|
jp0002100
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Japanese road builders to face record ¥60 billion fine for forming cartel to fix asphalt prices
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The nation’s antitrust watchdog will impose fines totaling nearly ¥60 billion ($536 million) on Maeda Road Construction Co. and seven other major road paving material companies for forming a cartel to raise the price of asphalt, sources said Wednesday. The Fair Trade Commission has started informing the companies, also including Kajima Road Co. and Toa Road Corp., of its decision, according to the sources. If finalized, the fine will be the largest by combined value to have been applied by the watchdog for violations of Japan’s antimonopoly law. Within that total Maeda Construction is expected to face a fine of nearly ¥20 billion, also the largest for one company. The companies, all headquartered in Tokyo, are suspected of forming the price-fixing cartel several years ago. Market prices for asphalt are used as a reference when the central and local governments set bidding prices for constructing roads. An illegal cartel on the price of asphalt could have inflated the cost of public spending on roads, resulting in the waste of taxpayers’ money. The other companies expected to be penalized are Nippon Road Co., Obayashi Road Corp., Taisei Rotec Corp., Seikitokyukogyo Co. and Gaeart Co. As the material has a market size of hundreds of billions of yen and those major companies have repeatedly fixed prices across Japan, the commission applied a rule under the antitrust law to increase the fine by 50 percent, the sources said. The watchdog raided Kajima Road in September 2016 on suspicion that it had set up a cartel in relation to the asphalt supplied in and around the city of Kobe. Further investigations were made in February 2017 when the violation was suspected to have extended nationally. Previously, the largest fine imposed was ¥27 billion in March 2007 for a bid-rigging case over the construction of a garbage incinerator.
|
fair trade commission;maeda road construction co .;kajima road co .;toa road corp .
|
jp0002101
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Toyota joins rival carmakers BMW and Honda in sounding Brexit alarm bell
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GENEVA - Toyota Motor Corp. has added its voice to warnings about potential Brexit fallout as the deadline for an agreement on the U.K.’s exit from the European Union looms less than four weeks away. Possible disruption to trade between the U.K. and the EU is Toyota’s “biggest concern,” the company’s Europe chief, Johan van Zyl, said in an interview at the Geneva Motor Show on Tuesday. BMW AG, which moved forward a planned four-week production stop to coincide with the U.K. leaving the EU, would consider moving some Mini brand production from its plant near Oxford, England, it said in a statement, reiterating previous comments about contingency planning. The company is also stockpiling parts, CEO Harald Krueger told reporters on the sidelines of the event. “We’re working with several scenarios,” Krueger said. “If Brexit is delayed, we’re going to plan flexibly, delay some plans, but we’ve also stocked up our parts in case of a disruption in our supply chain.” The German company has between two days and a week’s worth of supply, depending on the part, he said. A no-deal Brexit is a danger and would force Mini to weigh moving production out of the U.K., board member Peter Schwarzenbauer told Sky News earlier. “We at least have to consider it,” he said. “We cannot absorb 10 percent costs on top of it.” The latest warnings from the global car industry come after Honda Motor Co. said it would shutter its U.K. plant and Ford Motor Co. warned of catastrophic consequences in a no-deal split from the EU, although that extreme scenario appears to be off the table for now. U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May has promised Parliament that it will be able to vote to extend the exit deadline until the end of June should a deal not be reached, and EU officials signaled they would be open to an extension. Meanwhile, two of May’s ministers traveled to Brussels on Tuesday to seek concessions to help win Parliament’s backing for her divorce deal. In the run-up to Brexit, carmakers with U.K. operations have been trying to limit the pain. Nissan Motor Co. reversed an earlier plan to build the X-Trail sport utility vehicle in northern England, while BMW, which makes the iconic Mini and Rolls-Royce cars in the U.K., said it could move manufacturing elsewhere if tariffs and border checks disrupt business. “We can’t prepare any more than we have” for Brexit, BMW’s purchasing chief, Andreas Wendt, said in an interview in Geneva on Tuesday, adding that the German company is committed to the U.K. market long term. BMW buys about €700 million ($793 million) worth of parts in the U.K, compared with components worth €2 billion that it imports into the country, Wendt said.
|
u.k .;toyota;honda;carmakers;bmw;geneva motor show;brexit
|
jp0002102
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Crew recording on Amazon cargo jet that crashed in Texas reflects 'loss of control'
|
WASHINGTON - Recorded conversations by pilots on a cargo jet carrying packages for Amazon.com Inc. that crashed last month near Houston reveal they began losing control of the aircraft about 18 seconds before it slammed into a shallow bay, investigators said Tuesday. The communications captured on the cockpit sound recorder were “consistent with a loss of control of the aircraft,” according to a press release issued by the National Transportation Safety Board. The NTSB recovered the crash-proof cockpit recorder and another black box storing flight data in recent days and brought them to its lab in Washington for analysis. The press release, offering a first glimpse of what happened on the Boeing Co. 767-300 as it was preparing to land at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport Feb. 23, still doesn’t explain its mysterious, abrupt dive. The second recorder contained detailed data from the accident flight as well as 16 previous ones, but none of its contents was revealed in the NTSB statement. Atlas Air Flight 3591 dove roughly 6,000 feet (1,829 meters) and plunged into a shallow bay as it was descending and preparing to move around a line of storms ahead. The impact shattered the plane and killed all three aboard: two Atlas pilots and one from a regional airline who was catching a ride. There was no emergency radio call from the cockpit. Atlas was one of three cargo carriers flying a fleet of 50 aircraft for Amazon, according to a press release from the online retailer in December. Atlas is owned by Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings Inc. A video recorded from a jail about a mile from the crash showed the plane’s final five seconds before it smashed into the water, NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said in a briefing Feb. 24. The plane was in “a steep descent, steep nose-down attitude” and there was no evidence the pilots tried to “turn or pull up at the last moments,” Sumwalt said. A separate video from a nearby school showed the plane apparently diving until it disappeared in a cloud bank, according to the Houston Chronicle. The cockpit recorder is about two hours long, but the audio quality is “poor,” the NTSB said. “There are times during the recording when the content of crew discussion is difficult to determine,” the press release said. “At other times the content can be determined using advanced audio filtering.” The NTSB is convening a group of experts to evaluate the recorder’s contents and to produce a transcript, the agency said in its release. “It will be a time-consuming process to complete the transcript,” the agency said. The plane was at an altitude of about 6,200 feet at the time pilots first discussed the unspecified control issue, according to a flight plot provided by tracker FlightRadar24. Around that time, it climbed slightly for a few seconds, then began to drop, according to the website. It went from 5,850 to 1,325 feet, the last position captured by the website, in about nine seconds, which is many times faster than a normal descent rate. Pilots were talking to air-traffic controllers and were being guided to the airport, the NTSB said. The normal route to the airport was being altered so they could fly around thunderstorms, according to a recording released by the website LiveATC.net . The plane’s data recorder captured about 350 parameters, which typically include information on the health of the engines and other aircraft systems, details of the route and speed, and indications of levers and switches activated in the cockpit. Investigators are in the process of validating the data and plan to release more information in a few days. The 767 family of jetliners, which were introduced in 1982, has a solid safety record. There had been only two fatal crashes on the plane through 2017, according to Boeing’s annual aircraft safety summary.
|
u.s .;texas;amazon.com;houston;air accidents;atlas air
|
jp0002103
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Ohio teen vaccine rebel testifies before U.S. Congress on behalf of preventive medicine
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WASHINGTON - Ethan Lindenberger spent his first 18 years unvaccinated — defenseless against tetanus, polio, measles. But in December, defying his mother, he went and got inoculated, a rebellion that earned him an invitation to Congress. “I grew up understanding my mother believed vaccines are dangerous, as she would speak openly about her views both online and in person,” the high schooler said Tuesday in testimony before a Senate hearing on contagious disease outbreaks. But Lindenberger, still 18, said he did his own research, became convinced that information in defense of vaccines “outweighed the concerns heavily” of the so-called anti-vax movement, and started receiving the shots he had missed as a child. In recent weeks he has become a hero of believers in modern medicine in the United States, where experts and elected officials still struggle to convince some that their refusal to get themselves or their children vaccinated is fueling several recent outbreaks of measles. Similar dangerous outbreaks have occurred in Brazil, France and Ukraine. Many vaccines are theoretically mandatory for students to attend school in the United States. But 47 out of 50 states allow exemptions either on religious, moral, or personal grounds, including Lindenberger’s state of Ohio. “It was a slow progression to start to see evidence” of the effectiveness and safety of vaccines, he said, adding that he grew intrigued by so many people who “disagreed with my mom” and sought to dismiss her claims online. But he sought out information from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, public health organizations and scientific journals. When he showed his mother the articles explaining, for example, that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine did not cause autism, he said she replied: “That’s what they want you to think.” Lindenberger’s defiance of parental guidance earned him the attention of thousands, including members of the U.S. media and Congress. He was soon invited to appear before a panel of senators, several of whom praised his persistence in seeking out the truth. Lindenberger said one of the main challenges now is to counter the online anti-vaccination sites that peddle conspiracy theories. “The sources which spread misinformation should be the primary concern of the American people,” he said.
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u.s .;congress;vaccinations;measles;ethan lindenberger
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jp0002104
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/03/06
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Climate change forcing Arctic seals and whales to shift feeding habits
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Seals and whales in the Arctic are shifting their feeding patterns as climate change alters their habitats, and the way they do so may determine whether they survive, a new study has found. Researchers harnessed data sets spanning two decades to examine how two species of Arctic wildlife — white whales and ringed seals — are adapting to their changing homes. Both species traditionally hunt for food in areas with sea ice and particularly at so-called tidal glacier fronts, where glaciers meet the ocean. But with climate change melting sea ice and prompting glaciers to retreat, researchers in Norway decided to look at whether and how animals in the affected areas are adapting. “The Arctic is the bellwether of climate change,” the researchers wrote. “With the rapid pace of change rendering genetic adaptation unfeasible,” they reasoned that behavioral and dietary changes “will likely be the first observable responses within ecosystems.” They compared data sets produced by trackers attached to seals and whales over two sets of time periods. For the seals, they compared tracker data from 28 individuals between 1996 and 2003 and then 2010 to 2016; for the whales they looked at data from 18 animals between 1995 and 2001 and 16 animals from 2013 to 2016. The data showed that two decades ago, both species spent around half their time foraging at glacier fronts and eating a diet dominated by polar cod. But ringed seals now spend “significantly higher proportions of time near tidal glacier fronts”; the white whales had the opposite response and have moved elsewhere to look for food. “Tidal glacier fronts appear to be serving as Arctic ‘refugia’ for RS (ringed seals), explaining why this species has increased the amount of time spent near glaciers,” said the study, published Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Biology Letters. White whales now “have larger home ranges and spent less time near glacier fronts and more time in the centre of fjords.” The researchers, from the Norwegian Polar Institute and the University of Tromso, speculated that whales have shifted their diet, taking advantage of the fact that climate change is allowing new fish species to move farther north as waters warm. Seals, in contrast, stuck with their old diet but appeared to spend more time searching for the food at the glacier fronts. White whales “tend to be dietary generalists, in contrast with RS (ringed seals) that are more commonly individual specialists,” the study says. The “flexible” response apparently shown by the whales “improves their chances of adapting to warming conditions,” the researchers added. By contrast, the apparent doubling down by the ringed seals on their traditional hunting grounds despite the shifting climate “reflects limited adaptability and resilience.” And that could be bad news for the seals in a changing world, the study warns. “Species and subpopulations that are not able to make such changes are almost certain to decline, perhaps to extinction where refugial areas become too limiting for species survival,” it said.
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climate;oceans;whales;animals;climate change;seals
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jp0002105
|
[
"world",
"crime-legal-world"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Trump pushes back: White House snubs Democrats' demands on security clearance information
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WASHINGTON - The White House is pushing back against a demand by House Democrats for information on security clearances for top officials, including the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in an early sign of how the Trump administration plans to resist a slew of probes. “The committee has failed to point to any authority establishing a legitimate legislative purpose for the committee’s unprecedented and extraordinarily intrusive demands,” White House Counsel Pat Cipollone wrote to Rep. Elijah Cummings, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. He called for “negotiations in good faith” rather than “legally unsupportable ultimatums.” The letter was released Tuesday but dated Monday, the same day the House Judiciary Committee demanded documents from 81 individuals, agencies and entities, including the White House, the Trump Organization and Donald Trump Jr. While Trump stormed on Twitter on Tuesday that “the Dem heads of the Committees have gone stone cold CRAZY” in their demands on “innocent people,” Cipollone’s response hinted at the legal stance the White House will take as Democrats who now control the House gear up multiple investigations and threaten subpoenas if they don’t get the documents they’re seeking. Cipollone has been building a team of lawyers in anticipation of the congressional demands. Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, responded to Cipollone that the security clearance system is broken and that the White House’s challenge to the committee’s authority lacks “just plain common-sense.” Cummings opened the investigation into White House security clearances shortly after taking over as chairman of the committee. Kushner and more than 30 other Trump aides lost access to top-secret intelligence in February 2018 because they had been working with “interim” clearances and their background investigations had never been completed. The New York Times reported last week that Trump ordered that Kushner be granted his clearance over the objections of then-White House Counsel Don McGahn. Cipollone said the committee’s demands included examining “the entire investigative files of numerous individuals whom the president has chosen as his senior advisers.”
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u.s .;democrats;donald trump;jared kushner;elijah cummings;pat cipollone
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jp0002106
|
[
"world",
"crime-legal-world"
] |
2019/03/06
|
House intel panel hires veteran prosecutor who went after Russia mob to lead Trump probe
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WASHINGTON - The U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee said on Tuesday it has hired a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan with experience investigating Russian mobsters and white-collar crime to lead its probe into the Trump administration. The hiring of Daniel Goldman is the latest move by the House’s new Democratic majority to add legal firepower to an expanding list of investigations into the affairs of Republican President Donald Trump and his associates. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, recently announced that he had retained Barry Berke, a prominent criminal trial lawyer, and Norman Eisen, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, to work on his expansive probe into Trump and other issues. Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that Goldman joined the panel in February as senior adviser and director of investigations. Schiff also named a new budget director and three other people for various roles. The committee’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign has taken on new life since the Democrats took control of the House in November elections. The panel is set to hear testimony from Michael Cohen, the president’s onetime “fixer,” for a second time on Wednesday since he turned on his former boss. Goldman was an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York for a decade through 2017, serving as the lead prosecutor in the conviction of Las Vegas sports gambler William “Billy” Walters for insider trading. But likely more relevant to the committee’s probe is Goldman’s tenure as deputy of the Southern District’s Organized Crime Unit, where he oversaw a major Russian mob case against more than 30 individuals for money laundering and racketeering. Goldman has also worked as a legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, commenting on special counsel Robert Mueller’s 22-month-old investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russia. NBC did not return a request for comment. Goldman attended last summer’s trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and was at the December sentencing of Cohen, who is due to start a three-year sentence in May for violating campaign finance laws and other crimes. In other recent hires by the Democrats, the House Financial Services Committee enlisted the help of Bob Roach, a longtime investigator of complex financial and money laundering issues for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Russia has denied meddling in the 2016 election. Trump has said there was no collusion between his campaign and Moscow, and has called the Mueller probe a “witch hunt.”
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u.s .;congress;organized crime;russia;donald trump;adam schiff;russia probe;jerrold nadler;daniel goldman
|
jp0002107
|
[
"world",
"crime-legal-world"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Trump goes on tweet rant, hitting 'stone cold CRAZY' opponents as pressure mounts
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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump branded Democratic opponents “crazy” and guilty of overreach Tuesday in a fevered response to a huge new Democratic-led probe of his alleged crimes. In a searing burst of early morning tweets, the president said the House Judiciary Committee investigation launched Monday was “the greatest overreach in the history of our Country.” “The real crime is what the Dems are doing, and have done!” he said. Another tweet labeled Democratic leaders “stone cold CRAZY.” “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!” said another. Trump’s exclamation mark- and capital letter-laden outbursts indicated rising temperature in a White House under assault from multiple directions. Democrats, who took control of the House of Representatives last November, suspect Trump of a slew of potentially impeachable offenses, including obstruction of justice and abuse of office. The powerful judiciary committee is demanding information from 81 Trump-connected individuals and entities, including his sons. The new front opened just as Trump braces for the results of an independent probe into his dealings with Russia by special prosecutor Robert Mueller. Rumors that Mueller is close to ending his two-year investigation have set Washington on edge. Debate over whether the prosecutor’s findings should be made immediately public is already underway, with Democrats warning that attempts at a cover-up by the White House could lead them to subpoena Mueller to testify. Trump’s response to the pressure has been consistent with his longtime playbook: to insult accusers, admit no weakness, and rely on backing from his ultra-loyal political base. Polls show that the president’s support among Republican voters remains strong, even if Democratic voters are just as convinced in opposition. However, cracks in Republican support at the top echelons of the party have appeared. When the Democratic majority in the House voted to overturn Trump’s controversial use of emergency powers to force funding for U.S.-Mexico border wall construction, that was expected. However, this week four Republican senators broke ranks to join their Democratic opponents in the upper house, meaning the motion can pass there too. Trump will likely be able to brush aside that rebuke by using the first veto of his presidency. However, the fact that he has lost the guaranteed backing of his party in the Senate could point to trouble ahead. In Trump’s combative vision of politics, the looming probes are not all bad news. Already the White House is framing the Democratic onslaught as symptomatic of leftist radicalism supposedly threatening the country. Trump has made the specter of far-left socialism a growing part of his 2020 re-election campaign, even claiming that Democrats want to replicate the violent chaos underway in Venezuela. “Democrats are harassing the president to distract from their radical agenda of making America a socialist country, killing babies after they’re born, and pushing a ‘green new deal’ that would destroy jobs and bankrupt America,” Trump spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said late Monday. Trump’s other main angle of attack has been to dismiss the validity of the Mueller probe, which he has repeatedly dubbed a “witch hunt” and “phony” in hopes of reducing its credibility. But in an indication that the president’s rhetorical bombshells risk misfiring, former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb went public Tuesday with a surprising defense of Mueller, calling him an “American hero.” “I don’t feel the investigation is a witch hunt,” Cobb told ABC News podcast “The Investigation.”
|
u.s .;congress;twitter;robert mueller;democrats;donald trump;russia probe
|
jp0002108
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Three 'improvised explosive devices' found in London, near Heathrow, Waterloo Station and city airport
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LONDON - British counterterrorism officers are investigating three “small improvised explosive devices” believed capable of starting small fires that were found in separate locations in London on Tuesday. The suspicious packages containing padded envelopes were found at an office block next to Heathrow Airport, the post room at Waterloo Station and at offices near London City Airport in the east of the capital, according to Scotland Yard. “The packages — all A4-sized white postal bags containing yellow Jiffy bags — have been assessed by specialist officers to be small improvised explosive devices,” London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement. The item sent to the Compass Centre, close to Heathrow’s north runway, was opened by staff resulting in “part of the package burning,” although there were no injuries and flights were not affected, according to police. “These devices, at this early stage of the investigation, appear capable of igniting an initially small fire when opened,” it added, noting they were treating the incidents as “a linked series. Officers were called to Compass Centre at 9:55 local time (0955GMT), and two hours later the alarm was raised at Waterloo Station in central London. “The package was not opened. Specialist officers attended and made the device safe,” police said of the parcel found at the rail hub. It was not evacuated and train services were not impacted. At 12.10, another suspicious package was reported at the offices of City Aviation House, at the Royal Docks in the east of the capital close to London City Airport. The package was also not opened and flights continued to operate as normal. “The Met Police has issued advice to transport hubs across London to be vigilant for and report suspicious packages to police,” the force added.
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terrorism;heathrow;london;waterloo station;london city airport
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jp0002109
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Queen marks 50th anniversary of investiture of son Charles as Prince of Wales
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LONDON - Britain’s Queen Elizabeth held a reception at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday to mark the 50th anniversary of the investiture of her oldest son, Charles, as Prince of Wales. Senior royals including Charles’s own sons, William and Harry, and their wives, Kate and Meghan, attended the party, which the palace said paid tribute to the prince’s 50 years of service to Wales. Charles was created Prince of Wales, the title traditionally held by the heir to the British throne, in July 1958 when he was 9. He was formally invested with the title at a televised ceremony at Caernarfon Castle in July 1969. The regalia that Charles wore for the occasion, along with the coronet, sword and other regalia used in the ceremony, were on display at the reception. Joining the royals were figures from the prince’s Welsh charities while there were musical performances by students from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and a speech by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. Charles, 70, has waited longer than any of his predecessors to become monarch and would be the oldest-ever king at the start of his reign when he succeeds his 92-year-old mother, who herself holds the record for the longest reign in British history.
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u.k .;royalty;prince charles;queen elizabeth
|
jp0002110
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/06
|
In Brussels, May's top lawyer struggles to secure last-minute movement on Brexit deal
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BRUSSELS - Talks between U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s top government lawyer and European Union negotiators, intended to win concessions from the bloc on Brexit, ended with no agreement in Brussels on Tuesday. May has sent Attorney General Geoffrey Cox to seek changes to her deal in a last-ditch bid to get it through Parliament and smooth the U.K.’s departure from the European Union. The talks between Cox, U.K. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay and EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier ended with no agreement after more than three hours. Sources from both sides said negotiations among lower-ranking officials would continue on Wednesday. An EU official said Tuesday’s talks did not go well. The U.K. is due to leave the EU in 24 days, but Parliament’s rejection of May’s deal in January has put in doubt how, when or possibly even if the country’s biggest foreign and trade policy shift in more than 40 years will take place. May has charged Cox and Barclay with securing changes to the so-called Irish backstop, an insurance policy to prevent a “hard border” between the U.K. province of Northern Ireland and EU-member Ireland if a future trading relationship falls short. Time is of the essence. Some businesses are increasingly concerned over the risk of a disorderly Brexit, which BMW said on Tuesday could mean it would move some production of engines and its Mini model out of the U.K. Earlier, foreign minister Jeremy Hunt said the government still wanted “to leave at the end of this month and it depends how quickly we can get a deal through.” “Our ask of the EU is an important ask… but it is one ask and it’s a simple one. We need substantive changes that will allow the attorney general to change his advice to the government that says that, at the moment, theoretically, we could be trapped in the backstop indefinitely.” May has struggled to convince the EU that she can get the deal through a deeply divided Parliament in London, where lawmakers are increasingly flexing their muscles to try to influence the U.K.’s departure from the bloc. She has offered lawmakers the chance to seek to prevent a no-deal departure and to delay Brexit if Parliament rejects the deal in a vote she has promised to hold by March 12. Both U.K. and EU officials have said any delay would probably be just for a few months. May’s Chief Whip Julian Smith, who is charged with trying to rustle up enough support for her plan in Parliament, told her top ministers Tuesday that the vote next week will be tight, according to three people who spoke on condition of anonymity. He predicted that in the votes that follow a no-deal Brexit was likely to be taken off the table, and that the government would be instructed to seek an extension to talks. He also said he expected lawmakers to put down further amendments that would pass and put the U.K. on course to staying in the customs union. May has no majority in Parliament, and so needs as many lawmakers in her Conservative Party as possible to back her deal. As some are implacably opposed, either because they don’t want Brexit or they think she’s staying too close to the EU, she also needs votes from the opposition Labour Party. Ministers, meanwhile, are hoping Cox can convince euroskeptic lawmakers he has done enough to remove the threat of the U.K. ending up in the EU’s customs union indefinitely — something Brexit supporters say would make a mockery of the 2016 vote to leave the bloc. The U.K. government had been looking at either an end date on the provision or some way for London to be able to stop the arrangement unilaterally, but have in recent days been less specific about what the changes would amount to. Both options have long been rejected by the EU, which cites its commitment to the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland. Asked after a meeting of senior ministers whether May had set out specific details of what Cox was seeking, her spokesman said: “No … you can expect them (Cox and Barclay) to be having detailed discussions around the legally binding changes we’re seeking to the backstop, but it wasn’t discussed at cabinet.” U.K. and EU officials said the change could come in an addendum to May’s agreement — something the government hopes will be enough to change minds in Parliament, where deep divisions over Brexit have become increasingly entrenched. “How we get there is something we’re prepared to be flexible about,” Hunt said. “But the crucial thing that we are looking for is to see whether Geoffrey Cox is going to be able to change his advice to the government.”
|
eu;u.k .;brexit;theresa may
|
jp0002111
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Nearly quarter of national lawmakers worldwide were women in 2018, but up just 1% over 2017
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GENEVA - Nearly a quarter of all lawmakers serving in national parliaments worldwide are women, after more progress toward gender parity was made in 2018, the International Parliamentary Union said Tuesday. The IPU, which was founded in 1889 and is one of the world’s oldest international organizations, has for decades tracked the number of women elected to national legislative bodies. In 1995, just 11.3 percent of the world’s parliamentarians were female, a figure that rose 18.3 percent in 2008 and hit 24.3 percent last year, according to data in the latest IPU report. The increase in 2018 compared to 2017 figures was, however, just a modest 1 percent. The IPU, a grouping of 178 legislative chambers that seeks to improve representative democracy worldwide, urged nations to redouble efforts towards gender parity by using tactics including carefully designed quotas. The “30 percent rule” that set out the minimum allowable level of female representation in a given parliament proved to be an effective first step when introduced in parts of Latin America last century and those quotas are now being revised upwards, the IPU said. Political parties insisting on parity in terms of the candidates they field has also proven successful, the organization said. The latest IPU report incorporated data from 50 countries that held elections last year. The report highlighted “historic” results from November elections in the United States. “Both the lower (23.5 per cent) and upper houses (25 per cent) included more women than ever before,” the IPU said in a statement. The Americas and Europe continued to lead the way in female representation in parliament, with the Middle East and North Africa lagging at the bottom among regions.
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women;international parliamentary union
|
jp0002112
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/06
|
French jihadist Jean-Michel Clain killed in Syria: wife
|
NEAR BAGHOUZ, SYRIA - Prominent French jihadi Jean-Michel Clain was killed last month, his wife told AFP Tuesday after fleeing the last redoubt of the Islamic State group in eastern Syria. Clain’s wife, Dorothee Maquere, said he was killed in mortar shelling after being wounded in the coalition drone strike that killed his brother, Fabien, who was France’s most wanted jihadi. Fully veiled in black and surrounded by her five children, including a 2-week-old baby she was cradling under a red blanket, Maquere said her husband was killed less than two weeks ago. “The drone killed my brother-in-law and then the mortar killed my husband,” she said at a screening area run by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which is spearheading the battle against the last pocket of IS territory. Maquere and her children were among the last civilians to leave Baghouz, the farming village on the banks of the Euphrates where die-hard IS members are making a bloody last stand. Fabien Clain, 41, gained notoriety after voicing an audio recording claiming responsibility for the November 2015 attacks in Paris, when IS jihadis slaughtered 129 people in coordinated attacks. The U.S.-led anti-IS military coalition, of which France is also a member, confirmed Fabien Clain’s death last month. His younger brother Jean-Michel, 38, was wounded in the same Feb. 20 coalition strike on Baghouz, Maquere said, adding that he died in a mortar attack later. While Fabien was seen as a senior propagandist among the foreign ranks of IS fighters, his younger brother was mostly known as a singer of the “nasheed” chants heard on some of the videos released by the jihadi organization. Jean-Michel’s widow gave this description of the two brothers’ role in IS, possibly the most brutal organization in modern jihad: “He was a singer … and my brother-in-law, he wrote the lyrics.” Maquere seemed confused and bitter in her new surroundings at the SDF screening center, where suspected IS members, many of them wounded, were being interrogated. The latest evacuees received basic care, water and blankets. The widow was seen sitting on a rug with four of her children, a pack of freshly distributed diapers next to her. She said she did not regret moving from southwestern France with her family four years ago to the proto-state Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed in 2014. Maquere described the makeshift camp where the last people left in the IS held portion of Baghouz have been hunkered down. “Everything happens outdoors, there are no houses anymore, everybody lives outside, which is not surprising because we were being bombarded day and night,” she said. When asked if she would describe the “caliphate” — which was once the size of Britain and administered millions of people — as a failure, she said: “You could say that.” Maquere said she wanted nothing from France and did not wish to return there but wanted to remain in Syria. “I want to continue to live here with my children, to rebuild myself,” she said. “I want to be left alone after everything I’ve been through … some place where I can live, where I won’t be bothered, where I can live my life,” she said. Maquere said she wanted to be allowed to practice her religion freely. “This is what every Muslim wants, nothing more.” She also said she thought Hayat Boumedienne, another prominent French jihadi whose fate remained unclear, was also killed recently in the Baghouz pocket. Boumedienne, 30, was believed to be very active in IS and is also known as the widow of Amedy Coulibaly, who was killed four years ago after carrying out deadly attacks in France. Coulibaly took hostages at a Jewish supermarket on the edge of Paris on Jan. 8, 2015, four of whom were killed before elite forces stormed the shop and gunned him down. The Malian-born jihadi claimed his attack, which came a day after two brothers killed 12 people at the offices of satirical publication Charlie Hebdo, in the name of IS. His wife had traveled to Syria a few days earlier.
|
france;terrorism;syria;islamic state;baghouz;fabien clain;jean-michel clain
|
jp0002113
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Traffickers used Russia's World Cup to enslave us, say Nigerian women
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MOSCOW - Blessing Obuson thought Russia’s soccer World Cup would be an opportunity to find a job and flew into Moscow from Nigeria last June on a fan ID. Instead, she found herself forced to work as a prostitute. Fan IDs allowed visa-free entry to World Cup supporters with match tickets, but did not confer the right to work. Despite that, Obuson, 19, said she had hoped to work as a shop assistant to provide for her 2-year-old daughter and younger siblings back in Nigeria’s Edo state. Instead, she said she was locked in a flat on the outskirts of Moscow and forced into sex work along with 11 other Nigerian women who were supervised by a madam, also from Nigeria. “I cried really hard. But what choice did I have?” Obuson told Reuters after being freed by anti-slavery activists. She said her madam had confiscated her passport and told her she’d only get it back once she’d worked off a fictional debt of $50,000. Obuson told her story to a rare English-speaking client who got anti-slavery activists involved. Two Nigerians were later arrested and charged with human trafficking after striking a deal to sell Obuson for 2 million roubles (around $30,000) to a police officer posing as a client, according to her lawyer, statements from prosecutors, and evidence presented at court hearings in the case attended by Reuters journalists. The case is still under investigation. Obuson’s case is not isolated. Reuters met eight Nigerian women aged between 16 and 22 brought into Russia on fan IDs and forced into sex work. All said they had endured violence. “They don’t give you food for days, they slap you, they beat you, they spit in your face … It’s like a cage,” said one 21-year old woman, who declined to be named. In September, a Nigerian woman was killed by a man who refused to pay for sex, police said. The Nigerian embassy later identified her as 22-year old Alifat Momoh who had come to Russia from Nigeria with a fan ID. Russian police say 1,863 Nigerians who entered the country with fan IDs had not left by Jan. 1, the date when the IDs expired. Kenny Kehindo, who works with several Moscow NGOs to help sex trafficking victims, estimates that more than 2,000 Nigerian women were brought in on fan IDs. Neither Russian police nor the Nigerian embassy in Moscow replied to requests for a comment. A Nigerian foreign ministry spokesman also did not respond to text messages and phone calls requesting a comment. “Many are still in slavery,” said Kehindo, who said he had helped around 40 women return to Nigeria. “Fan ID is a very good thing, but in the hands of the human traffickers it’s just an instrument,” he said, calling for more cooperation between the authorities and anti-trafficking NGOs during major sporting events, including the 2022 Qatar World where a fan ID system is also being considered. Anti-slavery group Alternativa said its helpline had fielded calls from Nigerian women held in St Petersburg and other World Cup host cities. While a prosecution has been launched in Obuson’s case, police have been unable to act against suspected traffickers in other cases due to a lack of evidence. “A lot of girls are still out there,” said Obuson.
|
russia;rights;soccer;world cup;nigeria;sex crimes;human trafficking;2018 world cup
|
jp0002114
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Satellite images show madrassa buildings still standing at scene of Indian bombing in Pakistan
|
NEW DELHI/SINGAPORE - High-resolution satellite images reviewed by Reuters show that a religious school run by Jaish-e-Mohammad in northeastern Pakistan appears to be still standing days after India claimed its warplanes had hit the Islamist group’s training camp on the site and killed a large number of militants. The images produced by Planet Labs Inc., a San Francisco-based private satellite operator, show at least six buildings on the madrassa site on March 4, six days after the airstrike. Until now, no high-resolution satellite images were publicly available. But the images from Planet Labs, which show details as small as 72 cm (28 inches), offer a clearer look at the structures the Indian government said it attacked. The image is virtually unchanged from an April 2018 satellite photo of the facility. There are no discernible holes in the roofs of buildings, no signs of scorching, blown-out walls, displaced trees around the madrasa or other signs of an aerial attack. The images cast further doubt on statements made over the last eight days by the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the raids, early on Feb. 26, had hit all the intended targets at the madrassa site near Jaba village and the town of Balakot in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. India’s foreign and defense ministries did not reply to emailed questions sent in the past few days seeking comment on what is shown in the satellite images and whether they undermine its official statements on the airstrikes. Missed the target? Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Project at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, who has 15 years’ experience in analyzing satellite images of weapons sites and systems, confirmed that the high-resolution satellite picture showed the structures in question. “The high-resolution images don’t show any evidence of bomb damage,” he said. Lewis viewed three other high-resolution Planet Labs pictures of the site taken within hours of the image provided to Reuters. The Indian government has not publicly disclosed what weapons were used in the strike. Government sources said last week that 12 Mirage 2000 jets carrying 1,000 kg (2,200 lbs) bombs carried out the attack. On Tuesday, a defense official said the aircraft used the 2,000-lb Israeli-made SPICE 2000 glide bomb in the strike. A warhead of that size is meant to destroy hardened targets such as concrete shelters. Lewis and Dave Schmerler, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation studies who also analyzes satellite images, said weapons that large would have caused obvious damage to the structures visible in the picture. “If the strike had been successful, given the information we have about what kind of munitions were used, I would expect to see signs that the buildings had been damaged,” Lewis added. “I just don’t see that here.” Pakistan has disputed India’s account, saying the operation was a failure that saw Indian jets, under pressure from Pakistani planes, drop their bombs on a largely empty hillside. “There has been no damage to any infrastructure or human life as a result of Indian incursion,” Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor, the director general of the Pakistan military’s press wing, said in a statement to Reuters. “This has been vindicated by both domestic and international media after visiting the site.” Bomb craters In two visits to the Balakot area in Pakistan by Reuters reporters last Tuesday and Thursday, and extensive interviews with people in the surrounding area, there was no evidence found of a destroyed camp or of anyone being killed. Villagers said there had been a series of huge explosions but the bombs appeared to have landed among trees. On the wooded slopes above Jaba, they pointed to four craters and some splintered pine trees, but noted little other impact from the blasts that jolted them awake about 3 a.m. on Feb. 26. “It shook everything,” said Abdur Rasheed, a van driver who works in the area. He said there weren’t any human casualties: “No one died. Only some pine trees died, they were cut down. A crow also died.” Mohammad Saddique from Jaba Basic Health Unit and Zia Ul Haq, senior medical officer at Tehsil Headquarters Hospital in Balakot said they had seen no casualties. Political fire India must hold a general election by May, and pollsters say Modi and his Hindu nationalist party stand to benefit from his aggressive response to a suicide bomb attack that killed 40 Indian paramilitary police in the disputed Kashmir region on Feb. 14. India’s Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said on the day of the strike that “a very large number of Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists, trainers, senior commanders, and groups of jihadis who were being trained for Fidayeen action were eliminated” in the attack. Fidayeen is a term used to describe Islamist militants on suicide missions. Another senior government official told reporters on the same day that about 300 militants had been killed. On Sunday the president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Amit Shah, put the number killed at more than 250. The Indian government has not produced evidence that a camp was destroyed or that any militants were killed in the raid. That has prompted some opposition politicians to push for more details. “We want to know how many people actually died,” said Mamata Banerjee, the firebrand chief minister of West Bengal state, in a video published by her All India Trinamool Congress party in a tweet on Feb. 28. “Where did the bombs fall? Did they actually fall in the right place?” Banerjee, who is seen as a potential prime ministerial candidate, said that she stood behind the Indian Armed Forces, but that they should be given a chance to speak the truth. “We don’t want a war for political reasons, to win an election,” she said. Modi has accused the opposition Congress party, and other opponents such as Banerjee, of helping India’s enemies by demanding evidence of the attacks. “At a time when our army is engaged in crushing terrorism, inside the country and outside, there are some people within the country who are trying to break their morale, which is cheering our enemy,” Modi said at an election rally on Sunday.
|
conflict;india;kashmir;pakistan;narendra modi;_asia
|
jp0002115
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Natural disasters and poor farming practices lead to North Korea's worst yield in more than a decade
|
SEOUL - North Korea recorded its worst harvest for more than a decade last year, the United Nations said Wednesday, as natural disasters combined with its lack of arable land and inefficient agriculture hit production. The isolated North, which is under several sets of sanctions over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, has long struggled to feed itself and suffers chronic food shortages. But last year’s harvest was just 4.95 million tons, the United Nations said in its Needs and Priorities assessment for 2019, down by 500,000 tons. It was “the lowest production in more than a decade,” Tapan Mishra, the U.N.’s resident coordinator in the North, said in a statement. “This has resulted in a significant food gap.” As a result 10.9 million people in the North needed humanitarian assistance — 600,000 more than last year — with a potential for increased malnutrition and illness. That is equivalent to 43 percent of the population. But while the number of people needing help rose, the U.N. has had to cut its target for people to help — from 6 million to 3.8 million — as it seeks to prioritize those most in need. Funding has fallen far short of what the U.N. says it needs. Only 24 percent of last year’s appeal was met, with Mishra describing it as “one of the lowest funded humanitarian plans in the world.” Several agencies had been forced to scale back their programs and some faced closing projects, he said, appealing to donors to “not let political considerations get in the way of addressing humanitarian need.” “The human cost of our inability to respond is unmeasurable,” he said, adding that sanctions had created unintended delays and challenges to humanitarian programs, even though they are exempt under U.N. Security Council resolutions. The impoverished North has been frequently condemned by the international community for decades of prioritizing the military and its nuclear weapons program over adequately providing for its people — an imbalance some critics say the U.N.’s aid program encourages. Ahead of his Hanoi summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last week, U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly dangled the prospect of the North becoming an economic powerhouse if it gave up its arsenal, but the two were unable to reach a deal. The Center for Strategic and International Studies said — based on its analysis of satellite imagery — activity is “evident” at a North Korean long-range rocket test site, suggesting Pyongyang may be pursuing its “rapid rebuilding” after the failed summit. The country industrialized rapidly following the end of the Korean War and for a time was wealthier than the South. Funding from Moscow papered over the effects of chronic economic mismanagement, but that came to an end with the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was followed by a crippling famine. That episode — known as the Arduous March, when hundreds of thousands of people died — is in the past but North Korea does not have access to the latest agricultural technology or fertilizers and its yields are well below global averages. It is also a rugged, largely mountainous, country with only around 20 percent of its land area suitable for cultivation. It was hit by a heat wave in July and August last year, followed by heavy rains and flash floods from Typhoon Soulik. As a result, the U.N. said, rice and wheat crops were down 12 to 14 percent. The figure is significantly larger than in the South, where rice production was down only 2.6 percent last year, according to Seoul’s statistics, even though it experiences similar weather and climate. The North’s soybean output slumped 39 percent and production of potatoes — promoted by leader Kim as a way to increase supplies — was down 34 percent, the U.N. said. Last month Pyongyang told the U.N. that it was facing a shortfall of 1.4 million tons of food this year. Mishra insisted that humanitarian agencies were able to monitor their programs “rigorously” to make sure that help reached the most vulnerable people, adding: “We simply cannot leave them behind.”
|
north korea;u.n .;poverty;hunger;kim-trump summit
|
jp0002116
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/06
|
India dominates list of world's most polluted cities
|
NEW DELHI - India dominated a list of the world’s most polluted cities in 2018, taking 22 of the top 30 spots, according to a Greenpeace report. Air pollution is estimated to contribute to 7 million premature deaths every year and is considered by the United Nations to be the single biggest environmental health risk. While Delhi was again named the capital with the dirtiest air, in tenth place, neighboring business city Gurugram, which in 2016 changed its name from Gurgaon, took the not-so-coveted top spot. Cities in China, Pakistan and Bangladesh were also placed in the top 30. The 2018 World Air Quality Report, compiled by Greenpeace and IQAir AirVisual, used air pollution data from tens of thousands of public and private monitoring stations across the world to rank over 3,000 cities from dirtiest down to cleanest. At a country level, weighted by population, Bangladesh emerged as the most polluted country on average, closely followed by Pakistan and India, with Afghanistan and Mongolia also within the top 10. “In addition to human lives lost, there’s an estimated global cost of $225 billion in lost labor, and trillions in medical costs,” said Yeb Sano, executive director of Greenpeace South East Asia. “This has enormous impacts, on our health and on our wallets.” The report looked at measurements of fine particles known as PM2.5, which can penetrate into the airways to cause respiratory problems. Of the over 3,000 cities included in the list, 64 percent exceeded the World Health Organization’s annual exposure guideline for PM2.5. Average concentrations of the pollutant in Chinese cities fell by 12 percent from 2017 to 2018. Beijing now ranks as the 122nd most polluted city in the world. “In recent times, East Asia has demonstrated a strong correlation between rapid economic development and increased air pollution,” the report found. It added that as the need to reduce air pollution has become more pressing in countries like China, “extensive monitoring networks and air pollution reduction policies have been put into place.” The report also highlighted a lack of public information on air quality, particularly in Africa and South America. Real-time information is a “cornerstone in generating public awareness and driving action to combat air pollution in the long-term,” it added.
|
india;united nations;air pollution;greenpeace;delhi;environmentalism;2018 world air quality report
|
jp0002117
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/06
|
U.S. sends B-52s for missions over disputed South and East China seas and around Japan
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A U.S. B-52 bomber was sent near disputed islands in the South China Sea and another circumnavigated Japan, conducting joint military exercises with the Air Self-Defense Force, the U.S. Pacific Air Forces said Wednesday. Monday’s mission in the contested South China Sea was the first reported flight in the area by a B-52 since November. The Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) said that the two B-52s had taken off from Andersen Air Force Base on the U.S. island territory of Guam, and participated in “routine training missions.” “One bomber conducted training in the vicinity of the South China Sea before returning to Guam, while the other conducted training in the vicinity of Japan in coordination with the U.S. Navy and alongside our Japanese air force counterparts before returning to Guam,” the PACAF said in a statement. Aircraft Spots, a Twitter account tracking movements of military aircraft, showed one B-52 as having flown near Scarborough Shoal, a disputed uninhabited reef that Beijing calls Huangyan Island. The shoal, which is also claimed by Taipei and Manila and sits just 230 km (140 miles) from the Philippine coast, has long been a subject of speculation amid Beijing’s massive land-reclamation projects in the South China Sea. Some experts believe China may seek to fortify the shoal as part of a bid to cement control of the strategic waterway. The B-52 aircraft involved in the mission were part of the U.S. Air Force’s “continuous bomber presence” based in Guam. Since 2004, the U.S. has rotated B-1, B-52 and B-2 long-range bombers out of Guam to conduct training missions in Asia. Akin to the U.S. Navy’s so-called freedom of navigation operations, in which it has sailed warships near disputed islands claimed by China in the South China Sea, the air force missions are intended to assert that the area is international airspace as well. Beijing has built up a series of military outposts in the South China Sea, which includes vital sea lanes through which about $3 trillion in global trade passes each year. Washington and Beijing have frequently jousted over the militarization of the South China Sea, where China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines all have competing claims. The U.S. does not maintain any claims there, but says the operations are conducted globally with the aim of promoting freedom of navigation. China effectively seized Scarborough Shoal — a prime fishing spot — from the Philippines in 2012 after a tense standoff. In the wake of this, and a 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration that invalidated China’s claim of sovereignty over much of the South China Sea, the coral outcrop has become synonymous with the regional power struggle in the waterway. In January last year, the U.S. sent a guided-missile destroyer to within 12 nautical miles (22 km) of the shoal, stoking anger from China. U.S. Indo-Pacific commander Adm. Philip Davidson said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee last month that China also continues to intimidate Filipino fishermen in the area of Scarborough Shoal. “Chinese Coast Guard vessels now fall under the command of the Central Military Commission and regularly harass and intimidate fishing vessels from our treaty ally, the Philippines, operating near Scarborough reef, as well as the fishing fleets of other regional nations,” Davidson said. A separate posting by the Aircraft Spots Twitter account showed that the exercise took one of the bombers over the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan, with the aircraft flying around Japan. The U.S. Air Force sent two B-52s over the East China Sea in January for “routine training” near Okinawa Prefecture. The U.S. and Japanese forces regularly conduct exercises in the East China Sea — home to the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands — and Beijing, which also claims the islets and calls them the Diaoyu, often dispatches government ships and aircraft to the area surrounding them. In November 2013, China declared an air defense identification zone, in which aircraft are supposed to identify themselves to Chinese authorities, in the East China Sea. The United States and Japan have refused to recognize the ADIZ, and many observers have viewed it as an attempt by China to bolster its claims over disputed territories, like the uninhabited Senkakus. Beijing said in 2017 that Washington should respect the ADIZ after Chinese officials warned a U.S. bomber that it was illegally flying inside the East China Sea zone. The Pentagon rejected the Chinese call and said it would continue its flight operations in the region. The United States is obligated to defend aggression against territories under Japanese administration under Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, and top U.S. officials have said this extends to the Senkakus. Training missions such as Monday’s have appeared to gain more publicity amid protracted military and trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.
|
china;east china sea;u.s .;military;senkakus;disputed islands;south china sea
|
jp0002118
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/06
|
India's Kerala to give workers a siesta to help beat the heat
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MUMBAI - Workers in India’s Kerala state are now getting a three-hour afternoon siesta as part of a series of benefits aimed at combating soaring temperatures and improving labor conditions, government officials said on Wednesday. Kerala, which suffered its worst floods in a century last year, is bracing itself for more extreme weather conditions in 2019 and the state’s disaster management authority last week issued sunstroke warnings for the next three months. “There is extreme heat in Kerala. So we are making arrangements for workers and have announced a three-hour break from noon until 3 p.m.,” said Sreedharan Tulasidharan, a labor commissioner with the Kerala government. There are an estimated 3 million migrant workers in Kerala, which offers daily wages that are up to three times higher than in other Indian states, labor rights campaigners say. Most work in the construction, agriculture, mining and fishing industries. “We call them our guests. Migrant workers’ output is very high. Their productivity contributes to our GDP. We are nurturing and treating them well,” Tulasidharan told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. Climate experts have warned that the world can expect higher temperatures and more frequent heat waves, with the poorest communities likely to be worst-affected as the impacts of climate change kick-in. The World Health Organization says heat-stress, linked to climate change, is likely to cause 38,000 extra deaths a year worldwide between 2030 and 2050. Home to 60 percent of the world’s population, Asia-Pacific is the planet’s most disaster-prone region, according to the Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2017. India, with approximately 1.3 billion people, is the second most populous country in the world and also among the most disaster-prone. Heat waves in India caused over 2,400 deaths in 2015, according to government data. Officials of the Kerala’s disaster management authority said cases of heat stroke and sunburn were already being reported and they had asked various government departments to take precautionary measures. “Summer in Kerala was never harsh,” said Sekhar L. Kuriakose, a senior official with the Kerala State Disaster Management Authority, which issued the sunstroke warning last week. “This year we saw temperatures rise by 3 degrees in 14 days during February. That is not normal,” said Kuriakose. Kerala announced health and pension benefits for migrant workers in November. Last week, the state inaugurated hostels for migrant workers in Palakkad town and now plans to expand the scheme. With high levels of literacy and an aging population, Kerala leans heavily on migrant workers, said Benoy Peter, executive director at Kerala’s Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development, a non-profit.
|
india;disasters;climate change;heat;kerala;labor relations
|
jp0002119
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/06
|
South Korea sees signs North is restoring part of missile launch site it tore down: Yonhap
|
WASHINGTON - South Korean intelligence agencies have detected signs that North Korea is restoring part of the Dongchang-ri missile launch site it tore down, Yonhap News Agency reported on Tuesday. Specifically, Yonhap said the closed-off country, under pressure for years to discontinue its nuclear program, is putting back a roof and a door on the facility. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service also said during a briefing for the National Assembly’s intelligence committee that “the U.S. information is the same as ours,” according to Yonhap. A second summit on denuclearization between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last week broke down over differences on how far North Korea was willing to limit its nuclear program and the degree of U.S. willingness to ease sanctions on the country. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday he was hopeful the United States would send a delegation to North Korea in the coming weeks. South Korean President Moon Jae-in called for officials to try to find a way to restart talks between the North and the United States. The breakdown of the summit was a blow for Moon, who had hoped eased U.S. sanctions would help lead to a restart of inter-Korean projects, including a factory park, key to his vision for a pan-peninsula economic community.
|
u.s .;north korea;kim jong un;nuclear weapons;missiles;south korea;donald trump;moon jae-in;dongchang-ri
|
jp0002121
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Pakistan Navy says it stopped Indian sub from entering its waters
|
KARACHI, PAKISTAN - Pakistan has stopped an Indian submarine from entering its waters, the navy said Tuesday, as tensions continue to run high between the nuclear-armed foes. The development came days after a rare aerial dogfight between India and Pakistan over the disputed territory of Kashmir ignited fears of an all-out conflict, with world powers rushing to urge restraint. “The Pakistan Navy stopped an Indian submarine from entering our territorial waters,” a naval spokesman said. He added “the Indian submarine was not targeted, in line with the government’s policy of maintaining peace. It was the first such incident since 2016, when Pakistan said it had “pushed” an Indian submarine away from its waters. The navy later said the submarine was detected on Monday within Pakistan’s maritime zone, or 200 nautical mile (370 km) exclusive economic zone, but did not give further details on the location. It also released what it said was video of the submarine, with the grainy black and white footage showing only what appeared to be a periscope above water. The timestamp at the beginning of the video clip read 8:35 p.m. on Monday. India said its navy remained “deployed as necessary. “Over the past several days we have witnessed Pakistan indulging in false propoganda,” an Indian Navy spokesman tweeted Tuesday. An Indian government source also dismissed the video, telling AFP: “Why would a submarine in Pakistani waters have its periscope up?” Tensions between the arch-rivals have escalated significantly over recent days, after a suicide bombing in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 40 Indian paramilitaries. A militant group based in Pakistan claimed responsibility for the Feb. 14 blast, and 12 days later Indian jets bombed what New Delhi called a terrorist training camp deep inside Pakistan. Pakistan has denied any damage or casualties, and independent reporting has shown the strikes hit a heavily forested area with little infrastructure nearby. Residents have said just one person was injured. The next day Pakistani aircraft entered Indian airspace and the two nations’ jets engaged in aerial dogfights, with at least one Indian aircraft shot down and its pilot captured by Pakistan. The pilot was handed back to India last Friday in what Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan called a “peace gesture. Both sides also claimed a second plane had been shot down, but they have disputed whose plane it was and what happened to the pilot. Pakistani and Indian soldiers have continued to fire over the Line of Control — the de-facto border dividing Kashmir — in the days since, killing several civilians on both sides. Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British colonial rule in 1947. Both claim the Himalayan territory in full and have fought two wars over it.
|
conflict;india;kashmir;pakistan;submarines
|
jp0002122
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/06
|
This year's extended Golden Week holiday in Japan is a headache for many working parents
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The Golden Week holiday period, extended to 10 days this year due to events surrounding the Imperial succession, has left working parents who are unable to take the entire time off in limbo, as most nurseries and kindergartens will be closed. Many people working in medical and nursing care services, tourism and other industries will have to work right through the break, which will begin Saturday, April 27, and run through Monday, May 6. Some municipalities are scrambling to assess the feasibility of making extra provisions. “It looks like I’ll have to work since it will be a busy period,” said a 36-year-old female employee of an accounting office in Sendai. Her husband also expects he will have to work through the holiday, while the nursery school that their 4-year-old daughter attends plans to close for the entire period. “Small companies can’t afford to close for 10 straight days. The government should have been more considerate of working people who leave their children with others when it decided to create the extended holiday,” the woman said. “The feeling is it made light of the situation as if to say, ‘Someone will do something.'” The Diet passed a bill in December to designate May 1, when Crown Prince Naruhito, 58, accedes the Imperial Throne, a one-off national holiday. With April 29 and May 3 to 6 already assigned as national holidays in 2019, April 30 and May 2 then became holidays because the law stipulates that any weekday sandwiched by national holidays itself becomes a holiday. Complaints about this year’s Golden Week have been growing online. Some say they are unable to leave children with their grandparents because they also work or live too far away. Some child care centers and kindergartens open on Saturdays but close on Sundays and holidays. Although some local governments will, if booked in advance, take in children at designated child care centers that are opened specifically for holidays, the number of available staff is limited. The committees in both houses of the Diet that deliberated on the bill creating the 10-day holiday adopted an additional resolution urging the government to “take all possible measures to avoid any trouble in the life of the people,” including child care services. But an official in charge at the Cabinet Office said, “It’s difficult for the government to introduce unified countermeasures.” As municipal governments are responsible for overseeing authorized child care centers, the official said, local governments should devise their own solutions. But an official with the Kumamoto Municipal Government said, “Nothing really has been decided by us. It would help if the government laid out a course of action.” Some other local authorities, including Tokyo’s Toshima Ward, are considering the expansion of temporary services. While more than 5,000 children are routinely looked after at day care centers in Toshima Ward, only 40 are accepted during the holiday. “We are studying if we can open more facilities as an exception” during the 10-day holiday, a Toshima official said. A key question is whether enough child care workers can be procured. A social welfare corporation operating authorized child care centers nationwide is set to accept children, if requested, during the period. “We have to manage somehow,” said a company official. Mika Ikemoto, a senior researcher at the Japan Research Institute, said the central government should “proactively” adopt countermeasures in cooperation with local governments “without leaving the matter to parents and care facilities.”
|
children;holidays;golden week;parenthood
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jp0002124
|
[
"national",
"science-health"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Japan's health ministry approves world's first trials for using iPS cells to treat corneal disease
|
The health ministry conditionally approved Tuesday the world’s first clinical study to treat patients with corneal disease by using induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. The study, to be conducted by a team of researchers from Osaka University, will be the sixth time the government has authorized clinical studies using iPS cells. The team will transplant 0.05-mm-thick layers of corneal tissue produced from iPS cells into four adult patient s who suffer from a disease that causes corneal haze and decreased vision. The patients will each receive a transplant of some 3 million to 4 million corneal cells, which is almost the same amount of corneal cells that are in the eyes of healthy people. The transplanted cells are expected to keep making more corneal cells, and so contribute to the recovery of sight. The first transplant operation will be conducted as early as June, according to the team. The disease, called corneal epithelial stem cell deficiency, is caused by losing cells in the eye that produce the cornea due to illness or injury. Safe and effective medical treatments have yet to be established for the condition. A total of 1,600 patients are waiting for corneal donations in Japan, according to an estimate by the ministry. The treatment being developed by the team at Osaka University may become a new option for such patients. Conventional corneal transplant operations are prone to rejection because immune cells get implanted along with the rest of the cornea. The sheets of corneal cells to be used in the study do not contain immune cells, so the team believes that they are unlikely to trigger rejection reactions. A ministry committee has said it will require the team to provide more detailed documents explaining the clinical study to the patients before it can proceed. If the study is successful, the team will aim to start clinical trials and to secure state approval for the manufacture and sale of regenerative medical products using the technology within five or six years. Induced pluripotent stem cells, which can grow into any type of body tissue, were identified by Kyoto University’s Shinya Yamanaka, who won the 2012 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his work. The world’s first clinical study using iPS cells was conducted in 2014 by the government-backed Riken institute, transplanting retina cells into a woman with age-related macular degeneration. The other four studies have tackled Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, platelet transfusions and damage to spinal cords.
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ips;transplants;osaka university;corneas
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jp0002125
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/06
|
JR East introduces system to send security camera images directly to police in emergencies
|
East Japan Railway Co., or JR East, said Tuesday it will introduce a system that can send images directly and automatically to police from its video surveillance cameras at stations in the event of an emergency, as Tokyo strengthens anti-terrorism measures in advance of the 2020 Summer Games. In the run-up to the games, JR East said it will also increase the number of security cameras at stations in the capital and surrounding areas and set up a special department that will be tasked with monitoring images from them around the clock. By July next year, when the Olympics open, a total of about 22,000 security cameras will be in place near ticket gates and on platforms at around 1,200 stations as part of efforts to ensure public safety, the company said. Concerns about attacks on public transportation infrastructure have grown due to incidents aboard bullet trains in recent years. In 2015, a man’s self-immolation onboard a shinkansen resulted in the death of the man as well as another passenger, and injured 26. Last year a man with a knife killed one passenger and hurt two others. JR East has decided to newly equip 8,300 local train cars operating in the greater Tokyo area and 200 shinkansen carriages with security cameras. It also plans to install security cameras in all train cars manufactured from this point forward. Luggage inspections for train passengers are common in some countries but are not conducted in Japan. There has been strong opposition among railway companies due to the inconvenience to passengers and the difficulty of finding space for such checks in stations. On Monday the transport ministry began an experiment at Kasumigaseki Station, operated by Tokyo Metro Co. in a district of the capital where government offices are located, using a body scanner at two of the ticket gates to monitor objects under clothing. The experiment, which is running for seven hours per day, including peak hours, through Thursday, is aimed at helping the ministry identify potential problems as it considers the feasibility of such a system. Around 150,000 passengers per day use Kasumigaseki Station, which was one of the targets of the nerve gas attack by the Aum Shinrikyo cult in 1995.
|
jr east;tokyo 2020 olympics;security camera
|
jp0002126
|
[
"national",
"politics-diplomacy"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Japan, U.S. and South Korea to hold high-level talks on North Korea nuclear issue
|
A senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official will visit Washington from Wednesday for high-level talks with U.S. and South Korean counterparts on North Korea’s denuclearization, the ministry has said. The trilateral talks will involve discussion on a possible response to last week’s second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam, which ended without tangible progress toward the North’s denuclearization. During his visit through Friday, Kenji Kanasugi, director general of the ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, plans to coordinate denuclearization efforts with Stephen Biegun, U.S. special representative for North Korea, and Lee Do-hoon, South Korea’s special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, according to the ministry. Kanasugi is expected to be briefed by Biegun on the outcome of the U.S.-North Korea summit in Hanoi, and will stress Japan’s position that sanctions must be maintained against North Korea until Pyongyang denuclearizes in a complete and verifiable way. At the summit, the United States and North Korea remained apart over the denuclearization steps that would lead to an easing in existing economic sanctions on Pyongyang. In addition to North Korea’s denuclearization, resolving the issue of Pyongyang’s abductions of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s is also a top priority for Tokyo.
|
u.s .;north korea;nuclear weapons;south korea;north korea nuclear crisis;u.s.-japan relations;south korea-japan relations;kim-trump summit
|
jp0002127
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Tokyo Skytree celebrates 60th anniversary of iconic fashion doll Barbie's debut
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An event marking the 60th year since the debut of iconic fashion doll Barbie kicked off at Tokyo Skytree on Wednesday, showcasing the doll’s history and diversity. The event, named Barbie Loves Tokyo Skytree Runway, will run through May 6. At the tower’s Tembo Galleria, a series of colorful dioramas — featuring props such as a birthday cake and a closet — are set up for visitors to take photos. The wall of the Galleria’s Floor 445 corridor is adorned with images of Barbie in different professional uniforms dating back to 1959. The Floor 450 corridor exhibits an array of Barbie dolls with a variety of hair and eye colors, body shapes and clothes. A limited edition 60th anniversary Barbie is also shown. A pop-up store has opened in the corridor, selling Barbie products that also feature Tokyo Skytree, like a box of chocolates, plastic folders and hand towels. Skytree Cafe at Tembo Deck Floor 340 is serving four kinds of Barbie-themed menus. A strawberry milk beverage costs ¥850. Actress and talk show host Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, seen as the pioneer for women in Japan’s media, was invited to the event on Wednesday as a guest. Asked for her message to women, she said, “The most important thing in life is to stay healthy.” “And… to stay confident in yourself,” she added. A one-of-a-kind doll based on the image of Kuroyanagi is among the exhibits. According to the U.S. toy-maker Mattel Inc.’s unit in Japan, Mattel International, Barbie debuted on March 9, 1959, wearing a black and white striped swimsuit. Sales in Japan began three years later. The 30-centimeter-tall doll has since mirrored societal changes toward women, representing more diverse demographics. Barbie has appeared in a variety of skin tones, professions and body shapes. She has had more than 200 careers, ranging from astronaut, journalist, engineer and entrepreneur to president of a country, according to the company. There were scientist and athlete versions of Barbie even before the U.S. banned discrimination in education and other activities on the basis of sex in 1972. In 1980, the first black and Hispanic Barbies hit the market. In 2016, Mattel released the doll in three body shapes — curvy, tall, and petite — to better reflect the world girls see around them. Miho Kobayashi, Mattel International’s branding manager, said the curvy version sells the most. Kobayashi said the company believes “variation” is the key to the dolls’ popularity. “This version shows better the differences in body shape than the other two,” she said. Each year, 53 million Barbie dolls are sold. They are available in more than 150 countries.
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barbie;women;fashion;dolls;tokyo skytree;toys;anniversaries;mattel
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jp0002128
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[
"national"
] |
2019/03/06
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Japan ranks at bottom of G20, and in lowest quarter globally, for percentage of female MPs
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OSAKA - Japan ranked 165th out of 193 countries for its percentage of female politicians holding seats in lower or single parliamentary chambers, a report by the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union shows. The updated data for 2018, released just ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, showed that only 47 of Japan’s 463 lawmakers, or 10.2 percent, were women, as of Jan. 1, 2019. That’s the lowest percentage among the Group of 20 nations and a seven place drop from the previous year, when the nation was also the lowest in the G20 for its percentage of female lower-house lawmakers. The report also noted that only 50 of 241 upper-chamber lawmakers, or 20.7 percent, were women. The IPU’s updated report comes as Japan prepares for local elections next month, an Upper House election in late July and the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Osaka in late June. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said women’s participation in society is one of the issues that will be on the summit’s agenda. Human rights activists involved in gender issues expressed disappointment with the results. “It’s a real shame that Japan’s ranking is the lowest among the G20 countries,” said Atsuko Miwa, director of the Osaka-based Asia-Pacific Human Rights Information Center and co-chair of this year’s Civil 20, the group of civil society organizations that provides recommendations to G20 members. “I think that a major reason is that while more than 100 countries have introduced gender quotas (to raise the percentage of female lawmakers), Japan has not. Doing so would be one positive action to address the imbalance,” she said. “Women account for 51 percent of the Japanese population, and it’s crucial that the voices of women and their issues be reflected in politics in order to address various problems of modern society. “More women in politics will have a positive effect on solving Japan’s demographic problems, realizing work-life balance and showing the importance of society being involved in taking care of people,” she added. While only 10 percent of Lower House members are female, the situation was more varied at the local level. Data from the Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office showed that, as of 2017, women made up 17.2 percent of large municipal assemblies, and 14.4 percent of smaller city assemblies. But they only made up 10.1 percent of prefectural assemblies and 9.9 percent of town and village assemblies.
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women;diet;discrimination;surveys
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jp0002129
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[
"national",
"crime-legal"
] |
2019/03/06
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Four Niigata teens arrested over assault on high schooler captured in video that went viral in Japan
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NIIGATA - Four teenage boys were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of assaulting a high school student boy last month, police said, after a video showing the boy being hit and kicked went viral on social media. The four boys, all 16 years old and living in the city of Niigata, allegedly injured the 16-year-old student’s head and waist in mid-February, the police said. The student reported the incident to police on Feb. 19. The video showed more than four people kicking the victim or hitting him with a stick, but the police have concluded that the four boys arrested played major roles in the assault. Two of the four and the injured student attend the same high school in the city, while the other two left school last year, according to the school. The video was filmed on a beach near the school on the evening of Feb. 15. The school came to know of the video last month after receiving a report from a member of the public.
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niigata;bullying;social media;schools;high schools;video;niigata seiryo high school
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jp0002130
|
[
"national",
"crime-legal"
] |
2019/03/06
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Kagoike couple at heart of Japan PM Abe's Moritomo Gakuen cronyism scandal plead not guilty
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OSAKA - The former head of a school operator and his wife, who are at the heart of a cronyism scandal linked to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of fraud related to public subsidies for their schools, claiming their arrests were politically motivated. Yasunori Kagoike, the 66-year-old former chief of Moritomo Gakuen, and his 62-year-old wife Junko have been charged with defrauding the central government of roughly ¥56 million ($500,000) in subsidies between March 2016 and February 2017, by alleged padding of construction costs for an elementary school in Osaka Prefecture on land purchased from the government. The two were also indicted for allegedly reporting an incorrect number of teachers at their preschool, to unlawfully receive a total of around ¥120 million in subsidies from the prefecture and the city of Osaka between fiscal 2011 and fiscal 2016. “I will not tolerate a politically motivated investigation (or) politically motivated arrests,” Kagoike said during the couple’s first hearing at the Osaka District Court. They were arrested in July 2017 after it was revealed that Moritomo Gakuen had purchased the land in Toyonaka the previous year for ¥134 million despite it being valued at ¥956 million. The heavily discounted sale sparked favoritism allegations against Abe, as his wife Akie had been named honorary principal of the elementary school. She stepped down from the post in the wake of the scandal. Kagoike claimed he had received special treatment in the land deal with the Finance Ministry as he was an acquaintance of the prime minister and his wife. Meanwhile, government officials have insisted that the discount was given to cover the cost of removing underground waste at the site. Kagoike and his wife were detained for some 10 months before being released on bail last May. The ministry has punished 20 officials, including Nobuhisa Sagawa, former head of the National Tax Agency, over falsifying and destroying documents related to the land deal. But prosecutors have not indicted any officials over the matter. Abe has told the Diet that neither he nor his wife was involved in the land sale, and that he would resign if evidence to the contrary is found.
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shinzo abe;osaka;courts;corruption;fraud;scandals;toyonaka;moritomo gakuen;yasunori kagoike
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jp0002131
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[
"national",
"crime-legal"
] |
2019/03/06
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Mother and boyfriend held for leaving girl, 3, at Yokohama home with severe burns while they played pachinko
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YOKOHAMA - The Kanagawa Prefectural Police on Tuesday arrested a woman, 22, and a man, 21, who lives with her, on suspicion of leaving her three-year-old daughter severely burned at her home in Yokohama. The unemployed woman, Kaho Hashimoto, and the man, Satoshi Tanaka, who works as a driver, have both admitted to charges of neglecting their duty of care for the girl, according to investigative sources. They are suspected of leaving the girl at home around noon Monday with severe burns on her back. Hashimoto and Tanaka went out to play pachinko. The girl’s injuries will take three months to heal, according to the sources. Hashimoto told the police that she “mistakenly splashed very hot water on the girl when showering.” On Monday evening, Hashimoto’s five-year-old son asked a man in his 50s living in the neighborhood for help, saying, “Mom is gone.” Police officers who arrived at Hashimoto’s house found the girl semiconscious in bedclothes in a room, with the burned area of her body covered with plastic wrap. The suspects were questioned by police after returning home shortly past 8 p.m. on the day.
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children;yokohama;child abuse
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jp0002132
|
[
"national",
"crime-legal"
] |
2019/03/06
|
Ex-editor of comic magazine hit with 11-year prison term for killing wife
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The former deputy editor of a popular Kodansha Ltd. comic magazine was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years in prison for killing his wife in 2016. The Tokyo District Court ruled that Pak Jong Hyon, 43, strangled his wife to death in a bedroom of their Tokyo home. Pak had claimed she took her own life. In handing down the ruling, presiding Judge Minoru Morishita said Pak’s act was “malicious.” But his motive for killing her remains unclear. After the sentence was read out, Pak shouted, “I didn’t do it,” and the judge told him to sit down. Prosecutors had sought a 15-year prison term, claiming Pak clearly intended to kill her. According to the ruling, the former deputy editor of the publisher’s Morning magazine strangled his wife Kanako, 38, on Aug. 9, 2016. “We take the ruling seriously. As the employee suggested he will appeal, we will continue to handle the matter cautiously while” keeping an eye on future developments, Kodansha said in a statement.
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murder;kodansha ltd .
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jp0002134
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/03/24
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Fix to 737 Max anti-stall software is ready: industry sources
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NEW YORK - A fix to the anti-stall system suspected in the crash of a Boeing 737 Max 8 jet that killed 189 people in Indonesia is ready, industry sources said Saturday, as the company tries to avoid a lengthy grounding of its planes. Boeing was due to present the patch to officials and pilots of U.S. airlines — American, Southwest and United — in Renton, Washington state, where the plane is assembled, other sources said. “Boeing has already finalized the necessary corrective measures for the Max,” an aviation sector source said on condition of anonymity. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will receive the patch “early next week,” a government source added. Asked how long the certification process could take after the patch is in the hands of the authorities, this source said that nothing has been decided yet. The FAA declined to comment. The Lion Air crash in Indonesia last October and another accident this month involving an Ethiopian Airlines jet, which killed 346 people between them, have raised major concerns about the safety certification of the 737 Max 8 model. The Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10 led to the global grounding of 737 Max planes. Although it will take months to determine the exact cause of both crashes, investigators in the Lion case have honed in on the MCAS automated anti-stalling system designed to point the nose of the plane downward if it is in danger of stalling, or losing lift. American Airlines and Southwest pilots were set to test simulators with the updates on Saturday, according to the sources. Boeing neither confirmed nor denied the information. The FAA had given until April for Boeing to make the necessary changes to the critical anti-stall system, and on March 15 two anonymous industry sources said the upgrade would be ready in about 10 days. A spokesman for United Airlines, whose fleet includes 14 of the 737 Max 9 planes, confirmed the company’s attendance at the training session. Southwest and its SWAPA pilots union “have subject matter experts from our Technical Pilot Team and Training Teams headed to Boeing to review documentation and training associated with the modification to the B737 speed trim system,” a spokeswoman said. The company is one of the biggest 737 Max 8 customers, owning 34 of the planes. “We’ve been working diligently and in close cooperation with the FAA on the software update. We are taking a comprehensive and careful approach to design, develop and test the software that will ultimately lead to certification,” a Boeing spokeswoman said. “There will be training provided by Boeing.” In addition to the software modification, the industry sources said Boeing has also finalized updates to its flight and pilots’ training manuals, as the FAA asked. “We have been engaging with all 737 Max operators and we are continuing to schedule meetings to share information about our plans for supporting the 737 Max fleet,” the Boeing spokeswoman said, declining to confirm the timeline for the changes. In another modification, the 737 Max will be outfitted with a warning light for malfunctions in the anti-stall system, an industry source told AFP on Thursday, standardizing a feature previously sold as an optional extra. Neither the Lion Air aircraft nor the Ethiopian Airlines jet had the feature, the industry source said. US and Ethiopian authorities have said this month’s crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302 near Addis Ababa bore “similarities” to last year’s Lion Air crash. Since the Ethiopian crash, pressure has intensified on Boeing and the image of the company — which also makes combat aircraft and space equipment — has been eroded. Share value of the firm, which says it is the world’s largest aerospace manufacturer, has dropped 12 percent since the accident, wiping out $28 billion in market capitalization Boeing and the FAA are under investigation by the Transportation Department over how the rollout of the jet was handled, including the anti-stall system. The acting FAA head is among transport officials who are to testify on Wednesday before a congressional subcommittee. Questioning is likely to focus on tight links between Boeing and the regulators, who maintain offices in the airplane factories and delegated a large part of the certification process for the 737 Max and its anti-stall system to employees of Boeing, sources said. News reports say that the Department of Justice has also opened a criminal investigation into the 737 Max’s development. Ralph Nader, the veteran U.S. consumer protection advocate who lost a relative in the Ethiopia crash, called Friday for an organization to defend passengers’ rights.
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boeing;ethiopian airlines;lion air;air accidents
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jp0002135
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/03/24
|
Apple's iPhone struggles unravel ambitions of Japan Display
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When Japan Display Inc. broke ground on a new factory in central Japan in 2015, the future looked bright for one of the world’s top vendors of liquid crystal display (LCD) panels. The plant would strengthen the company’s position as the primary screen supplier for Apple Inc. as sales of the iPhone 6 soared. And the U.S. smartphone juggernaut said it would front most of the $1.5 billion in costs, with Japan Display paying it back with a percentage of screen sales, according to two company sources. Four years later, Apple’s shifting fortunes have brought Japan Display to its knees and threaten to end Japan’s long run as a leader in display technology. A slowdown in iPhone sales, combined with a proliferation of new iPhone models — many of which use newer organic light-emitting displays (OLED) — have left Japan Display’s new factory running at half capacity. But it still owes Apple a majority of the construction cost, one of the company sources said. He declined to give the exact amount. Desperate for capital, Japan Display is looking to an investor group, led by China Silkroad Investment Capital, for a bailout, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. The deal would give the Chinese group a near-majority stake in exchange for an investment of $500 million to $700 million, the sources said. The group plans to build an OLED panel plant in China using Japan Display’s technology, according to those two sources. The company’s woes show how weak iPhone sales and a broader slowdown in the smartphone business are causing pain across the Asian electronics supply chain. “In retrospect, the new plant was unnecessary,” one of the sources with direct knowledge of the bailout talks said. “But the decision wasn’t wrong back then. Japan Display started to pick up steam thanks to Apple at the time, and Apple wanted the new plant.” Japan Display wasn’t alone in betting on robust growth in iPhone sales, which looked especially attractive because of Apple’s now-abandoned strategy of offering few variations in each product cycle. “We were all thrilled to see lifetime sales of a single iPhone model reaching 100 million units,” a source at another Apple parts supplier said. “Supplying components for just one model in massive volume is extremely cost-efficient,” he said. “At the same time, we exposed ourselves to huge volatility risks.” Japan Display has built relationships with other smartphone vendors, including Chinese powerhouses Huawei, Xiaomi, and OPPO. But it is losing their orders too as sales growth softens and the Chinese players switch to domestic panel makers such as BOE Technology and Tianma Microelectronics, which have sharply improved the quality of their screens. Japan Display supplied almost a third of Huawei’s smartphone screens in 2015, but its share had plunged to 4 percent by the third quarter last year as the Chinese company turned to BOE and Tianma, according to researcher IHS Markit. Sources at Japan Display and other Apple suppliers interviewed for the story declined to be identified as they are not authorized to talk to the media. Suppliers rarely speak about business with Apple on the record because of strict nondisclosure agreements. Japan Display was formed in 2012 in a government-backed merger of the ailing display units of Sony Corp. Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. It boasts strength in so-called thin-film transistor technology (TFT), crucial for making high-resolution images on both LCD and OLED panels. In addition to its Apple business, which accounted for more than half the company’s revenue over the last four years, it’s a top supplier of dashboard panels for major automotive component companies such as Continental . But Japan Display has struggled to navigate the fast-changing display business. Its new LCD factory was still under construction when Apple informed Japan Display in autumn 2015 that it planned to move quickly away from LCD to the newer OLED technology, two former company officials said. It was too costly by then to abandon the half-completed plant, one of them said. Japan Display’s management at the time, led by former Sanyo Electric executive Mitsuru Honma, promised to start mass-production of OLED panels by 2018. In the meantime, the management shut down older, unprofitable LCD lines to shift resources to OLED, but its main investor, a state-backed fund, blocked plans for drastic job cuts for fear of public backlash, one of the former officials said. Unexpectedly weak sales of the iPhone 6s created a cash crunch in 2016, and Honma resigned early the next year after the company took a $640 million bailout from the state-backed fund. The new chief executive, Nobuhiro Higashiiriki, declared a full-on shift to OLED. But the company was already behind rivals, notably Samsung Electronics, and still needed more cash for OLED investment. Disappointing sales of the iPhone XR, the only LCD model in Apple’s 2018 lineup, were yet another blow. “The company now looks exhausted, with many engineers leaving,” one former employee said. Some board members have expressed concerns about technology transfer that may follow the proposed Chinese investment, sources familiar with the talks said. But the government investment fund has run out of patience. “We don’t have any other option,” one of the company sources said, adding that the government has been quiet about the bailout plan. “They could argue that display technologies are not something Japan must keep and protect, when Chinese panel makers are ramping up more display plants.”
|
apple;iphones;lcd;japan display
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jp0002136
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/03/24
|
In hunt for reinvention, Apple seen ready to launch streaming TV, news and other services
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SAN FRANCISCO - Apple looks to begin a fresh reinvention on Monday as it rolls out Hollywood stars for its new streaming television service, part of a broad shift in direction for the California technology giant. Having seen a pullback in the once-sizzling smartphone market, Apple will seek to diversify by getting deeper into the television business. It may also launch a subscription news service. The iPhone maker, which has officially been mum on its plans, was expected to bring in Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and “Star Wars” director J.J. Abrams for a launch event at its Silicon Valley headquarters. “It seems fairly obvious they are launching a new video service,” said Techsponential technology market analyst Avi Greengart. Big questions to be answered include how compelling content will be, how much the service will cost, and what makes it unique in an increasingly crowded streaming TV market, according to the analyst. “If the content is compelling enough, people will subscribe,” Greengart said. “This is not new, but it is hard to do well.” The event comes with Apple under pressure to diversify its revenues amid sluggish growth in smartphones, which have delivered the bulk of Apple’s profits for the past decade. While iPhone sales remain enviable, growth has stalled. But the money Apple rakes in from selling services or digital content has climbed. The Cupertino-based company recently stopped disclosing iPhone sales numbers with quarterly earnings releases and has taken to stressing the money-making potential of services, apps, music, movies and more to the millions of people using its devices. The new service will be “a pivotal step for Cupertino in further driving its services flywheel and entering the ‘streaming content arms race,’ which is clearly starting to take form,” said Daniel Ives of Wedbush Securities in a research note. Ives said he believes Apple’s services business will be “worth roughly $400 billion on a standalone basis.” In streaming, Apple is taking on not just Netflix and Amazon but some of the biggest names in the media-entertainment world. Walt Disney Co. has announced its new streaming service will launch this year, as will another from WarnerMedia, the newly acquired media-entertainment division of AT&T. The new entrants, with more expected, could launch a formidable challenge to Netflix, which has some 140 million paid subscribers in 190 markets, and to other services such as Amazon and Hulu. These rivals are coming into a segment that has been transformed by the spectacular growth of Netflix and a growing movement by consumers to on-demand TV delivered over internet platforms. Subscriptions to online video services globally climbed 27 percent last year to 613 million, eclipsing cable TV subscriptions for the first time, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. Apple is also widely believed to be set to launch a subscription news service described as a “Netflix for news” with partners in the media world. A New York Times report said the Wall Street Journal would be part of an Apple service likely to cost $10 a month, but that many other news organizations, including the prestigious New York daily and the Washington Post, were balking due to Apple’s demand for 50 percent of the revenue. According to Bloomberg News, the website Vox would also be part of the Apple News effort. The move comes amid deepening woes for the news sector, which is facing a difficult transition to a digital world where few people want to pay for information and advertising is problematic. Along with investing some of its considerable war chest in original shows, Apple could try to spice up its streaming service by adding benefits, such as access to its music library or storage capacity at iCloud. Amazon uses that kind of tactic, making its video service available as part of Prime subscriptions that include free shipping on purchases from the e-commerce colossus and loyalty program discounts at its Whole Foods grocery shops. For its video service, Apple may be investing as much as $2 billion a year in original content, according to BTIG Research analyst Richard Greenfield, but that will be less than Netflix and some others. The big questions remaining are whether Apple will offer its content free for owners of its devices, and how it will work with third-party television services, according to Greenfield. Laura Martin, an analyst with the research firm Needham & Co., said Apple’s prospects are strong as it shifts from being a “product” company to an “ecosystem.” Martin said in a research note that Apple can count on 900 million people with at least one Apple device to feed this ecosystem of services, which includes Apple Pay, music and other digital content. “Apple’s business model is essentially a subscription business model,” Martin said. “Apple’s access to more than 900 million unique users globally, most of them among the wealthiest individuals in the world, plus its culture of creating hardware and services with proven commercial appeal makes it well-positioned.”
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television;apple;iphone;streaming;netflix
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jp0002137
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/24
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Several of Theresa May's ministers plotting to oust her from top job: newspaper
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LONDON - Prime Minister Theresa May’s top ministers are moving to oust her within days, The Sunday Times reported, as her Brexit strategy lay in tatters just weeks before the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union. If May is toppled, Brexit will be thrust into doubt. It is unclear how, when and even if the United Kingdom will leave the EU. May, who voted to stay in the EU and won the top job in the chaos following the 2016 referendum, had vowed to deliver Brexit but she undermined her leadership with a botched snap election in 2017 which cost her party its parliamentary majority. The Brexit divorce deal she struck with the EU in November has been overwhelmingly rejected twice by British lawmakers. The Sunday Times cited 11 unidentified senior ministers and said they had agreed that the prime minister should stand down, warning that she has become a toxic and erratic figure whose judgment has “gone haywire.” “The end is nigh. She will be gone in 10 days,” the Sunday Times quoted an unidentified minister as saying. “Her judgment has started to go haywire. You can’t be a member of the Cabinet who just puts your head in the sand,” the newspaper cited a second unidentified minister as saying. The Sunday Times reported that May’s de facto deputy, David Lidington, is one contender to be interim prime minister but others are pushing for Environment Secretary Michael Gove or Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt. The newspaper said Cabinet ministers will confront May on Monday. If she refuses to go, ministers would threaten to resign. The Mail on Sunday reported that Gove is the consensus candidate among Cabinet ministers who believe Lidington is too pro-EU. But euroskeptic lawmakers also expressed skepticism about the Leave-backing Gove. “I’m advised (Michael Gove) would also go for Customs Union plus single market with Labour votes,” Steve Baker of the euroskeptic European Research Group (ERG) said. “Problems with that… Next.” The Sunday Telegraph reported that former Education Minister Nicky Morgan, who voted to remain, is popular among several prominent pro-Leave lawmakers as a “unity candidate” to succeed May. May’s office declined to comment on the reports. Earlier a Downing Street source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that a Times report Saturday that there were discussions in May’s office about her departure was incorrect. Betting odds indicate there is now a 20 percent chance that May will be out of her job by the end of this month, Ladbrokes said Saturday. Brexit had been due to happen on March 29 before May secured a delay in talks last Thursday with the European Union. Now a May 22 departure date will apply if Parliament rallies behind the British prime minister this week and she is able to pass her deal. If she fails to do so, Britain will have until April 12 to offer a new plan or decide to leave the European Union without a treaty.
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u.k .;brexit;theresa may
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jp0002138
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/24
|
U.S. pro-Israel lobby AIPAC sees partisan cracks as Democratic presidential candidates stay away
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WASHINGTON - Powerful has long been the word used to describe the U.S.’s pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, which for decades has helped assure nearly universal support in Washington for the Jewish state. But as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee meets for its annual conference starting Sunday, it is seeing rare partisan cracks, with none of the Democratic presidential candidates confirmed to attend. The shift comes under the cloud of politics in Israel, whose right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is flying to Washington for AIPAC weeks before he faces elections. President Donald Trump, who will warmly welcome Netanyahu, seized on the Democrats’ non-attendance, telling reporters Friday, “They are totally anti-Israel. Frankly, I think they’re anti-Jewish.” Democratic candidates have cited scheduling or given no reason, although an aide to Senator Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, said the socialist was concerned that AIPAC was giving a platform to “leaders who have expressed bigotry and oppose a two-state solution.” Trump has rallied in full force behind Netanyahu, backing his hard line on Iran and taking once taboo steps such as recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and, just Thursday, accepting Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which the Jewish state captured from Syria in 1967. But American Jews lean left and only 24 percent approved of Trump’s job performance in a recent survey by the Pew Research Center. “AIPAC is in a difficult position because it is supposed to be the voice of the pro-Israel community, but in reality the Jewish community as a whole is opposed to the government of Israel as well as the government of the United States,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal Jewish advocacy group J Street. AIPAC has hardly lost the Democrats. While candidates will stay away, its top brass in Congress will speak at AIPAC including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. And AIPAC’s legislative goals face little serious pushback. Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. aid, receiving more than $3 billion in military financing in the 2018 fiscal year. “I think it’s an established fact that on Capitol Hill there is overwhelming, bipartisan support and that support is just as deep in the Democratic Party as in the Republican Party,” said Jason Isaacson, who heads the Washington office of the American Jewish Committee. “I think it’s not surprising that people in their visceral, passionate resistance to the U.S. president associate him with the prime minister of Israel and from that draw the conclusion that to oppose the president you must oppose people who share common strategic concerns,” he said. Some analysts say Trump’s staunch support for Netanyahu has more to do with evangelical Christians, a loyal constituency, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo highlighting his religious beliefs when he visited Jerusalem on Thursday. A recent Gallup poll found that 76 percent of U.S. Republicans sympathized more with Israel than the Palestinians, compared with 43 percent of Democrats. Dina Badie, chair of the international studies program at Centre College in Kentucky, said that AIPAC was at a “crossroads” after decades of bipartisan outreach. “AIPAC is not changing. AIPAC has remained largely consistent in terms of its approach to lobbying, its legislative agenda and the type of priorities it has. What has changed are the political circumstances and the environment in which it’s operating,” she said. She added that Netanyahu has alienated left-leaning Americans, including Jewish Americans, with his rightward turn, while the United States has become increasingly polarized. “AIPAC has always had a hard-line approach that has been compatible with the way Netanyahu is dealing with the Palestinians, but because Netanyahu is seen as toxic in progressive circles, the fact that AIPAC is somehow aligned with Netanyahu’s approach is becoming less palatable to Democrats,” she said. She said AIPAC, while not seeking to be partisan, could see itself enjoying less influence when Democrats are in power if this year’s conference turns out not to be an aberration. Among newly elected Democrats, Rep. Ilhan Omar, who is Muslim, provoked outrage even among much of her party when last month she suggested that supporters of Israel show “allegiance to a foreign country.” She apologized for the comment, widely seen as anti-Semitic, but Republicans have kept citing it as evidence of creeping bigotry. Ben-Ami, the head of J Street, said the focus on Omar was misplaced. The gunman who shot dead 11 people last year at a Pittsburgh synagogue had been enraged by Jewish support for refugees. “The true threatening form of anti-Semitism is coming not from the left but the right. It’s not just here, it’s all around the world, and it’s from the autocrats and ethno-nationalists that not only Trump but Netanyahu are embracing,” he said.
|
u.s .;israel;benjamin netanyahu;republicans;democrats;aipac
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jp0002139
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/24
|
Spain's Socialist party in the lead, poll finds, but short of majority
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MADRID - Spain’s Socialists led in a poll published in the daily El Pais on Sunday, but fell short of a majority with its main ally ahead of a general election next month. The Socialists would win 27.1 percent of the vote, or 122 seats in the 350-seat parliament. Together with far-left ally Podemos they would have 162 seats in parliament. That is exactly the same number that a coalition of three right-wing parties — People’s Party (PP), Ciudadanos and far-right Vox — would have, according to the poll conducted between March 14-19. Both blocs would be short of the 176 seats needed to secure an outright parliamentary majority. Socialist Pedro Sanchez could clinch a majority to get re-elected as prime minister if he gets the support of the array of parties that backed him last June when he won a vote of confidence against PP’s government at the time. Sanchez then received the backing of Podemos and small regional parties. But two Catalan pro-independence parties that voted for him in 2018 did not support his budget proposal last February, prompting him to call for a snap election. The Socialists would be the most voted party in the April 28 election, with 27.1 percent of votes, followed by PP with 19.3 percent but losing 61 seats from the last election in 2016, while Ciudadanos would get 17.7 percent of votes and gain 23 seats in parliament, according to the poll. Podemos would receive 12.3 percent of votes and lose 31 seats, while Vox would get 10.2 percent, equivalent to 31 seats, being the first time in nearly four decades that far-right lawmakers would be elected to Spain’s parliament. A poll of polls published by El Pais on March 13 gave the Socialists 27.3 percent of the vote, PP 20 percent, while support for Vox rose sharply to 12.1 percent. Sunday’s poll was conducted by 40db with 1,500 respondents and had a margin of error of 2.58 percentage points.
|
election;politics;spain;catalan;pedro sanchez
|
jp0002140
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/03/24
|
Calling claim 'blood libel,' Netanyahu denies profiting from submarine contract
|
JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied profiting from a state contract to buy submarines from a German conglomerate, calling claims from a political rival “blood libel” in a rare broadcast interview on Channel 12. In question were shares Netanyahu held in a company that later became affiliated with the conglomerate, a holding he sold at great return on investment. Netanyahu insisted he reported holding the shares, then selling them, and paid the appropriate tax on the gain. “There is no connection between my investment and the submarines,” he said. “I sold my shares 1.5 years before the first submarines was sold.” “The lie is that I made a profit from the submarines; that is blood libel.” “Blood libel” is a loaded term, as it historically refers to false accusations that Jews in the Middle Ages ritually sacrificed Christian children on the holiday of Passover. Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s top rival in April 9 elections, sought to pin Netanyahu’s investments more directly to the sale of the submarines. He said Netanyahu received 16 million shekels ($4.4 million) and called for a national commission of inquiry. Israel sealed the order for more than $2 billion in submarines and corvette warships from ThyssenKrupp AG beginning in 2015 under a deal that has raised concerns about possible bribery at the highest levels of Israel’s security apparatus. Former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who is running on the opposition Blue & White’s ticket, opposed the order at the time, saying the submarine purchases were unnecessary. Police have already concluded there is enough evidence to charge at least six people in the case, including the prime minister’s personal legal adviser and his former chief of staff. Netanyahu has given testimony in the probe, but hasn’t been named as a target. Attorney General Avihai Mandelblit has, however, recommended charges against the prime minister in three other corruption cases, pending a hearing. In the latest poll published Friday by the Jerusalem Post, Gantz’s Blue and White party was forecast to win 30 seats out of 120 in April’s elections, while Netanyahu’s Likud would garner only 27. Even so, Netanyahu would still have an easier time forming a coalition government; the survey showed he could easily put together a 65-seat majority, to Gantz’s 55, because there are more parties likely to align with Netanyahu. The prime minister appeared on television to defend himself as he was preparing to leave for the U.S., where he’s scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump.
|
israel;benjamin netanyahu;elections;scandals;benny gantz
|
jp0002141
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/24
|
Norway tugs begin towing stricken liner after hundreds of passengers are airlifted to safety
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OSLO - A cruise liner that ran into trouble in rough seas off Norway was being towed to port on Sunday after hundreds of passengers had been helicoptered to safety. The Viking Sky lost power and started drifting mid-afternoon Saturday in perilous waters about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) off More og Romsdal, prompting the captain to send out a distress call. Rather than run the risk of leaving people on board, local officials launched an airlift in very difficult conditions. “We would rather have the passengers on land rather than on board the ship,” police chief Tor Andre Franck said. By Sunday, the crew had managed to restart three of its four engines and two tugs arrived. Authorities said 460 of the 1,373 people on board had been taken off by five helicopters before the airlift was halted to allow the towing to start. Police said 17 people had been taken to hospital. One person in their 90s and two 70-year-olds suffered serious fractures. “The evacuation has been put on pause for now,” a spokesman for southern Norway’s rescue center said. “The captain will weigh up the situation” before deciding if the airlift resumes, he added. The vessel was heading for the port of Molde, which was about 60 kilometers (45 miles) away. It is about 500 kilometers northwest of Oslo, officials said. Dramatic footage of the passengers’ ordeal showed furniture and plants sliding round the lurching vessel as parts of the ceiling came down. Dozens of passengers wearing life jackets were seated, waiting to get off the vessel. “I have never seen anything so frightening,” said Janet Jacob, who was rescued. “I started to pray. I prayed for the safety of everyone on board,” she told the NRK television channel. “The helicopter trip was terrifying. The winds were like a tornado,” she added. “We were sitting down for breakfast when things started to shake. . . . It was just chaos,” said another passenger, American John Curry, as quoted in Norwegian by media. Passenger Rodney Horgen said he had been reminded of the Titanic. “The best word, I guess, is surreal,” he said. “Sea water 6-7 feet (about two meters) high just came rushing in, hit the tables, chairs, broken glass and 20-30 people just . . . went right in front of me. “I was standing, my wife was sitting in front of me and all of a sudden, she was gone. And I thought this was the end” But it all ended well for Ryan Flynn. “Here’s my 83-year-old dad being airlifted from the #vikingsky,” he said. “We are all off the ship safely!” The Viking Sky sent out a distress signal due to “engine problems in bad weather,” the rescue center tweeted earlier. The ship was sailing south from Tromso to Stavanger when engine trouble struck in an area that has claimed many vessels. “It is dangerous to encounter engine problems in these waters, which hide numerous reefs,” said Tor Andre Franck, the head of police operations. A reception center was set up in a gym on shore to accommodate the evacuees, many of whom are elderly and from the U.S. and Britain. “For the moment everything appears to be going well,” said Einar Knutsen, a spokesman at the center. The area where the ship got into problems, known as Hustadvika, is notoriously difficult to navigate. The shallow, 10 nautical mile section of coastline is dotted with small islands and reefs. “Hustadvika is one of the most notorious maritime areas that we have,” Odd Roar Lange, a journalist specializing in tourism, told NRK. In their time, the Vikings hesitated to venture into the Hustadvika, preferring instead to transport their boats by land from one fjord to another. Operated by the Norwegian firm Viking Ocean Cruises, the Viking Sky was launched in 2017 with a capacity of 930 passengers plus crew. In addition to U.S. and British nationals, there were also passengers from 14 other countries on board, Fjeld said.
|
norway;rescue;cruise ship
|
jp0002142
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/24
|
During Europe visit, China's Xi Jinping seeks France's participation in 'Belt and Road' project
|
PARIS/ROME/MILAN - As he prepares to begin a three-day trip to France, Chinese President Xi Jinping said he is hoping to get France’s cooperation “in the framework of the ‘Belt and Road’ initiative.” In a letter published in the Le Figaro newspaper, Xi called for more trade and investment between the two countries. He listed nuclear energy, aeronautics, space and agriculture as industries with potential for deeper ties. “French investors are welcome to share the opportunities of development in China,” Xi wrote. “I equally hope that Chinese companies can better succeed in France.” Italy on Saturday became the first Group of Seven country to sign a “Belt and Road” memorandum, agreeing to cooperate in the Chinese-led initiative to build trade-promoting infrastructure across the planet. France, for its part, doesn’t plan to sign any such memorandum but it is seeking Chinese investment. President Emmanuel Macron on Friday said the European Union needs to approach relations with China together and not as individual countries. Xi is set to arrive in France on Sunday following an official visit to Italy. He’ll dine with Macron near Nice, in the south of France, before holding more formal bilateral talks in Paris on Monday where they are expected to sign a series of investment contracts. The two leaders will be joined Tuesday morning by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. French officials said Merkel and Juncker were invited to bring a “European” element to the visit. “Europe has woken up about China,” Macron said when he arrived to attend a summit in Brussels on Thursday. “Since the beginning of my mandate, I’ve called for a defense of European sovereignty.” Italy’s signing of the accord has sparked worries in the U.S. and European Union over the Asian power’s push for economic domination. The memorandum of understanding between the two sides was formally approved at the Renaissance-era Villa Madama in Rome on Saturday. Chinese and Italian companies signed 10 agreements potentially worth as much as €20 billion ($23 billion), Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio said. “Today is a day in which Made in Italy, Italy, Italian companies win,” Di Maio told reporters after the signings. The memorandum of understanding that he helped formulate as economic development minister is designed to produce even closer business ties in years to come. Xi and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte sat in front of Chinese, Italian and European Union flags for the ceremony in a frescoed hall. Italy and China must “set up more efficacious relations and improve relations which are already very good,” Conte told Xi earlier at the start of a bilateral meeting, according to a live TV feed of opening remarks. The business accords involve firms including energy giant Eni, gas pipeline operator Snam SpA, engineering company Ansaldo Energia SpA, and bank Intesa Sanpaolo. They also include an agreement between the ports of Trieste and Genova and the China Communications Construction Co. Government representatives and officials from the two countries signed 19 other accords ranging from countering tax evasion to encouraging startups and boosting citrus fruit exports from Italy to China. Xi’s visit comes at a time when Washington is losing its fight to persuade allies to lock Huawei Technologies Co. out of planned 5G telecommunications networks. The U.S. is concerned the Italians’ willingness to go along with the Chinese infrastructure project is another sign of its allies softening on Beijing, a U.S. official said.
|
china;france;italy;eu;germany;xi jinping;emmanuel macron;belt and road
|
jp0002143
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/24
|
Jair Bolsonaro says Brazil owes world nothing on environment
|
SANTIAGO - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Saturday said his country “does not owe the world anything” when it comes to the environment. The far-right leader, who is critical of the Paris climate change accord, was speaking in Chile following Friday’s launch of the Forum for the Progress of South America (PROSUR), a conservative-minded group of South American leaders. He said he had thanked his counterpart President Sebastian Pinera for agreeing to host in December 2019 the 25th U.N. Conference on Climate Change (COP25), originally planned in Brazil. Brazil has declined to host the event, citing impossible objectives. “We can’t do a deal in which some off the goals are unattainable,” he said. “Brazil does not owe the world anything when it comes to environmental protection.” Seven right-wing South American presidents — including Bolsonaro and Colombia’s Ivan Duque — gathered in Santiago to launch the new regional PROSUR. Pinera and Duque were behind the idea of creating a new bloc to replace UNASUR, a largely defunct organization created in 2008 by late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and his leftist Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
|
brazil;climate change;environment;jair bolsonaro
|
jp0002144
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/24
|
As violence escalates, attack by ethnic militia on central Mali villages leaves 115 dead
|
ABIDJAN, COTE D'IVOIRE - An attack by members of an ethnic militia on three villages in central Mali claimed 115 lives, the latest clash in an increasingly violent conflict that is fueled by Islamist extremism. Another 46 were injured in the attack on ethnic Fulani villages on Saturday morning near Bankass in the Mopti region, Boubacar Diallo, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said by phone. It came a week after militants linked to al-Qaida killed 23 Malian soldiers in an assault on an army base in the village of Dioura, also in the Mopti region. “It’s a massacre, they attacked the village killing over 100 people and injuring dozens,” said Bara Sankare, a Fulani leader in Mopti. The village of Ogossagou, the main focus of the attack, was burned down and its chief killed, said Bankass Mayor Moulaye Guindo. Those responsible for the latest attack are believed to be Dozo, or local hunters, said Diallo. Government ministers were scheduled to visit Bankass on Sunday. Communal conflict in Mali and other West African nations is being stoked by a toxic combination of climate change, population growth and state neglect and exploited by Islamist insurgencies, which have drawn the intervention of French and United Nations troops. While attacks between farmers and herders, who are predominantly Fulani, date back generations, the scale of recent violence is unprecedented, and is spreading to neighboring Burkina Faso. Mali has been engulfed in conflict since a loose alliance of ethnic Tuareg separatists and Islamist fighters with ties to Algeria and Libya seized large swaths of the north in 2012. A French military intervention succeeded in pushing back the insurgents a year later, but al-Qaida-linked militants are now encroaching on the more densely populated central region and increasing tension between local communities. A delegation of the United Nation’s Security Council arrived in Mali on Friday for talks with authorities about progress on a peace process.
|
mali;violence;al-qaida;mass murder
|
jp0002145
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/03/24
|
Helicopters sent to rescue over 1,000 passengers, crew from stricken cruise ship off west Norwegian coast
|
HELSINKI - Rescue workers off Norway’s western coast on Saturday rushed to evacuate 1,300 passengers and crew from a disabled cruise ship by helicopter, winching them one-by-one to safety as heaving waves tossed the ship from side to side and high winds battered the operation. The Viking Sky issued a mayday call as bad weather hit and engine problems caused it to start drifting toward the rocky shore, the Norwegian newspaper VG reported. Police in the western county of Moere og Romsdal said the crew, fearing the ship would run aground, managed to anchor in Hustadvika Bay, between the Norwegian cities of Alesund and Trondheim, so the evacuations could take place. Rescue teams with five helicopters and boats were sent to evacuate the cruise ship under extremely difficult circumstances, including gusts up to 38 knots (43 mph) and waves over 8 meters (26 feet). The area is known for its rough, frigid waters. The majority of the cruise ship passengers were reportedly British and American tourists. About 180 have been evacuated so far, according to rescue officials. Per Fjeld of the Joint Rescue Center Southern Norway said there is no danger to the remaining passengers and the airlift can accommodate all of them. He said the rescue will speed up when there is better light and the weather improves. Video and photos from people on the ship showed it heaving, with chairs and other furniture dangerously rolling from side to side. Passengers were suited up in orange life vests but the waves broke some ship windows and cold water flowed over the feet of some passengers. “I was afraid. I’ve never experienced anything so scary,” Janet Jacob, among the first group of passengers evacuated to the nearby town of Molde, told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK. She said her helicopter ride to safety came amid strong winds “like a tornado,” prompting her to pray “for the safety of all aboard.” American passenger John Curry told NRK that he was having lunch as the cruise ship started to shake. “It was just chaos. The helicopter ride from the ship to shore I would rather not think about. It wasn’t nice,” Curry told the broadcaster. NRK said one 90-year-old-man and his 70-year-old spouse on the ship were severely injured but did not say how that happened. Later, reports emerged that a cargo ship with nine crew members was in trouble nearby, and the local Norwegian rescue service diverted two of the five helicopters working on the cruise ship to that rescue. Fjeld said rescuers were prioritizing the nine crew members aboard the Hagland Captain cargo ship, but later said they had all been rescued after jumping into the ocean and the helicopters had returned to help the Viking Sky. It was later reported that three of the Viking Sky’s four engines had been restarted and that there was a possibility of the ship moving under its own power, but an official from the rescue center would not say whether there was any intention of sailing to shore. Norwegian authorities said late Saturday that the evacuation of the Viking Sky would proceed through the night and into Sunday. The Viking Sky was on a 12-day trip that began March 14 in the western Norwegian city of Bergen, according to the cruisemapper.com website. The ship was visiting the Norwegian towns and cities of Narvik, Alta, Tromso, Bodo and Stavanger before its scheduled arrival Tuesday in the British port of Tilbury, on the River Thames. The Viking Sky, a vessel with gross tonnage of 47,800, was delivered in 2017 to operator Viking Ocean Cruises.
|
norway;marine accidents;viking sky
|
jp0002146
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/24
|
Polls open in first Thai general election since 2014 coup
|
BANGKOK - Thais filled schoolyards, temples and government offices to vote Sunday in the first election since a 2014 coup, with a high turnout expected among a public who received a cryptic last-minute warning from the Thai king to support “good” leaders to prevent “chaos.” All television stations repeated the rare statement by King Maha Vajiralongkorn moments before polls opened across the politically turbulent country. Sunday’s election pits a royalist junta and its allies against the election-winning machine of billionaire ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra and an unpredictable wave of millions of first-time voters. The kingdom remains bitterly divided despite the ruling junta’s pledge to rescue it from a decade-long treadmill of political instability, protests and coups. Politicians across the spectrum fear a stalemate has been booked-in by new election rules, written by the junta, which limit the chances of any single party emerging with a comfortable parliamentary majority. Voters determined to be the first to cast their ballots after years of democratic denial arrived at polling stations across the capital early Sunday. “People want to vote,” said businesswoman Apiyada Svarachorn at a Bangkok polling station, adding the public remains “split into two sides.” “We don’t have the right to decide for ourselves for five years now,” said Wasa Anupamnt a 28-year-old doctor. “I’m very excited about this election.” An unscheduled palace statement — which dropped late Saturday and was repeated minutes before the polls opened — added further intrigue to an election that has repeatedly threatened to tip into chaos before a single vote was cast. The statement reiterated comments by late king Bhumibol Adulyadej from 1969 calling for people to “support good people to govern the society and control the bad people” to prevent them from “creating chaos.” Vajiralongkorn, urged the public to “remember and be aware” of the remarks of his father, who died in 2016. While there were no further clues as to who those “good people” might be, the phrase — “ khon dee ” in Thai — is habitually attached to royalist, establishment politicians. The chief of the army — an institution which has carried out 12 coups in under 90 years and trails its partnership with the monarchy — called the palace statement a “good thing.” Thailand is a constitutional monarchy and the palace is nominally above the political fray, but the palace holds unassailable powers and is shielded from criticism by a harsh royal defamation law. The king’s intervention before the election is his second in less than two months. Another royal command torpedoed the candidacy of his elder sister Princess Ubolratana for prime minister of a party linked to Thaksin, a divisive ex-premier toppled by a 2006 coup. The king called the move to bring his sister into politics “highly inappropriate,” as the monarchy is ostensibly above the political fray. The party was later dissolved by a court. Thaksin has lived in self-exile since 2008, but he looms large over Sunday’s election. His affiliated parties have won every Thai election since 2001, drawing on huge loyalty from rural and urban poor. On Friday Ubolratana was guest of honor at the glitzy Hong Kong wedding of Thaksin’s daughter — with photos of the tycoon and the princess hugging and smiling going viral. The junta-party, which is proposing army chief turned premier Prayuth Chan-ocha for civilian prime minister after the polls, is under intense pressure to avoid humiliation on Sunday in what is effectively a referendum on its popularity. Prayuth toppled the civilian government of Thaksin’s younger sister Yingluck in 2014, the twelfth coup in under a century. The army and its allies in the Bangkok elite loathe the Shinawatras, accusing the clan of poisoning Thai politics and society with money, nepotism and graft. The Shinawatras say they have simply recognized the economic and democratic aspirations of the majority of Thais. This time the ruling junta has written new election rules aimed at curbing the number of seats big parties — specifically the Shinawatras’ main election vehicle Pheu Thai — can win. Pheu Thai is expected to again sweep up the north and northeastern heartlands as it seeks to head an anti-junta coalition. A 250-member junta-appointed senate and a new proportional system were meant to have maneuvered Prayuth and the junta party — Phalang Pracharat — into pole position. With senate votes in hand, the party needs just 126 lower house seats to secure a parliamentary majority. It can cross that line comfortably with alliances with smaller parties. Pheu Thai, however, needs 376 lower house seats to command an overall majority — near impossible without complex tie-ups across pro-democracy factions. “A deadlock is very likely,” said political scientist Napisa Waitoolkiat of Naresuan University. Seven million millennials are eligible to vote for the first time — many enamoured by telegenic billionaire Thanathorn Joonruangrit, a political newcomer whose anti-junta position and strong social media messaging has won his Future Forward fans.
|
thailand;elections;thaksin shinawatra;prayuth chan-ocha;maha vajiralongkorn
|
jp0002147
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/24
|
Polls close in Thailand's first general election since 2014 coup
|
BANGKOK - After polls closed in Thailand’s first general election since a 2014 coup, Thais began the nail-biting wait late Sunday to see whether the ruling junta will return to power as a civilian government, or if pro-democracy parties can triumph against the odds. The Election Commission estimated 80 percent of voters had turned out at schoolyards, temples and government offices across the nation, their enthusiasm fired by years of denied democracy. Sunday’s crunch vote was foreshadowed by a cryptic last-minute warning from King Maha Vajiralongkorn to support “good” leaders to prevent “chaos.” Thailand is a constitutional monarchy and the palace is nominally above politics. But the institution retains unassailable powers and is insulated from criticism by a harsh royal defamation law. The election pits a royalist junta and allies against the election-winning machine of billionaire former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and an unpredictable wave of millions of first-time voters. The kingdom remains bitterly divided despite the junta’s pledge to rescue it from a decade-long treadmill of protests and coups. Politicians across the spectrum fear a stalemate under election rules, written by the junta, which limit the chances of any single party emerging with a comfortable parliamentary majority. There are 51 million eligible voters and more than 7 million first-timers aged 18-25. Preliminary results were expected within a few hours of the polls closing at 5 p.m. local time. “I want to see Thailand become more democratic and inequality eased from society,” said insurance company employee Pattrapong Waschiyapong at a Bangkok polling station. Fears of the potential for foul play ricocheted across social media in a reflection of the lingering mistrust between rival political camps, in a country which last held a general election in 2011. “Thai people come to vote because they want change,” said Somkid, 64, giving only one name, as she waited outside the headquarters of the Pheu Thai party. “If there is any vote rigging there will be protests.” The day was framed by the palace statement, which added further intrigue to an election that has repeatedly threatened to tip into chaos before a single ballot was cast. It reiterated comments by late King Bhumibol Adulyadej from 1969 calling for people to “support good people to govern the society and control the bad people” to prevent them “creating chaos.” The king urged the public to “remember and be aware” of the remarks of his father, who died in 2016. While there were no further clues as to who those “good people” might be, the phrase — “khon dee” in Thai — is habitually attached to royalist, establishment politicians. Another royal command in February torpedoed the candidacy of the king’s elder sister, Princess Ubolratana, for prime minister of a party linked to Thaksin, a divisive leader toppled by a 2006 coup. Thaksin has lived in self-exile since 2008, but he loomed large over Sunday’s election. His affiliated parties have won every Thai election since 2001, drawing on loyalty from rural and urban poor. On Friday Ubolratana was guest of honor at the glitzy Hong Kong wedding of Thaksin’s daughter — with photos of the tycoon and the princess hugging and smiling going viral. In Bangkok Sudarat Keyuraphan, the prime ministerial candidate for the largest Thaksin-linked party Pheu Thai, said she had witnessed “euphoria” at the ballot box. The junta party, which is proposing army-chief-turned-prime minister Prayut Chan-ocha for civilian leader after the polls, is under intense pressure to avoid humiliation in what is effectively a referendum on its popularity. Prayut toppled the civilian government of Thaksin’s younger sister, Yingluck, in 2014. The army and its allies in the Bangkok elite loathe the Shinawatras, accusing the clan of toxifying Thai politics and society with money, nepotism and graft. The Shinawatras say they have simply recognized the economic and democratic aspirations of Thailand’s majority. This time the junta has written new election rules aimed at curbing the number of seats big parties — specifically Pheu Thai — can win. Pheu Thai is expected to again sweep the north and northeastern heartlands as it seeks to head an anti-junta coalition. But a 250-member junta-appointed senate and a new proportional system were meant to have maneuvered the junta party — Phalang Pracharat — into pole position. With senate votes in hand, it needs just 126 Lower House seats to secure a parliamentary majority. It can cross that line comfortably in alliance with smaller parties. Pheu Thai, however, needs 376 Lower House seats to command an overall majority — near impossible without complex tie-ups across prodemocracy factions. “A deadlock is very likely,” political scientist Napisa Waitoolkiat of Naresuan University said. Many younger voters tired of the old political lines have pledged to support telegenic 40-year-old billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit. The political newcomer’s Future Forward party has won fans with strong social media messaging and its strident anti-junta stance. Others including Thailand’s oldest party the Democrats could play a key role.
|
election;thailand;politics;thaksin shinawatra;maha vajiralongkorn;chan-ocha
|
jp0002148
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/03/24
|
U.S. official denounces 'choreographed' visits for European diplomats to China's Xinjiang region
|
BEIJING - “Highly choreographed” tours to Xinjiang organized by the Chinese government are misleading and propagate false narratives about the troubled region, a U.S. official said, after China announced plans to invite European envoys to visit. China has been stepping up a push to counter growing criticism in the West and among rights groups about a controversial de-radicalization program in heavily Muslim Xinjiang, which borders Central Asia. Critics say China is operating internment camps for Uighurs and other Muslim peoples who live in Xinjiang, though the government calls them vocational training centers and says it has a genuine need to prevent extremist thinking and violence. China’s Foreign Ministry said late last week it will invite Beijing-based European diplomats to visit soon. Diplomatic sources said the so-far informal invitation had been extended specifically to ambassadors and is planned for this week. A U.S. government official, when asked if Terry Branstad, the U.S. ambassador to China, had been invited to visit Xinjiang, said there were no meetings or visits to announce. “Highly choreographed and chaperoned government-led tours in Xinjiang have propagated false narratives and obfuscated the realities of China’s ongoing human rights abuses in the region,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. A visit this month would be the first by a large group of Western diplomats to the region since international concern about Xinjiang’s security clampdown began intensifying last year. Hundreds have died in unrest in Xinjiang in recent years. Several groups of diplomats from other countries have already been brought to Xinjiang on tightly scripted trips since late December to visit the facilities. There have been two visits by groups including European diplomats to Xinjiang this year. One was a small group of EU diplomats, and the other by a group of diplomats from a broader mix of countries, including missions from Greece, Hungary and North African and Southeast Asian states. A Reuters journalist visited on a government-organized trip in January. The U.S. official described what was happening in Xinjiang as “a highly repressive campaign,” and said claims that the facilities were “humane job-training centers” or “boarding schools” were not credible. “We will continue to call on China to end these counterproductive policies, free all those who have been arbitrarily detained, and cease efforts to coerce members of its Muslim minority groups residing abroad to return to China to face an uncertain fate.” China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. China has rejected all foreign criticism of its policies in Xinjiang, and says it invites foreigners to visit to help them better understand the region. Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department said China’s treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang marks the worst human rights abuses “since the 1930s.” The issue of Xinjiang adds another irritant to already strained ties between Washington and Beijing, who are trying to end a bitter trade war and have several other areas of disagreement, including the disputed South China Sea and U.S. support for Chinese-claimed Taiwan. Late last year, more than a dozen ambassadors from Western countries, including France, Britain, Germany and the EU’s top envoy in Beijing, wrote to the government to seek a meeting with Xinjiang’s top official, Communist Party chief Chen Quanguo, to discuss their concerns about the rights situation. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has weighed sanctions against senior Chinese officials in Xinjiang, including Chen. Two diplomatic sources said Saturday that government officials have said a meeting with Chen was not being offered to the European ambassadors, and that the trip is not to discuss human rights but to talk about China-Europe cooperation on President Xi Jinping’s signature “Belt and Road” project. It remains unclear whether the envoys will accept the invitation, though the two sources said it is unlikely. Officials at the European Union’s embassy in Beijing have declined to comment on the invitation. Xi is currently in Europe on a state visit to Italy, Monaco and France, and Premier Li Keqiang is scheduled to visit Brussels next month for a China-EU summit. EU leaders said Friday the bloc must recognize that China is as much a competitor as a partner.
|
china;u.s .;rights;xinjiang
|
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