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jp0004075
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Renault looks to reassure partner Nissan over Fiat tie-up plans
|
Renault SA officials Wednesday sought to reassure the firm’s alliance partner Nissan Motor Co. over a possible tie-up between the French automaker and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, which could upend the auto industry. Renault and Nissan representatives met outside Tokyo on Wednesday along with officials from the third partner in their alliance, Mitsubishi Motors Corp. The alliance has been rocked by the arrest of its former chief, Carlos Ghosn, who faces four charges of financial misconduct and has been pushed out of all his executive roles. And the partnership was shaken further this week by news that Renault is studying “with interest” a 50-50 merger proposal with Fiat Chrysler (FCA), a prospect that took Nissan by surprise. In a brief statement, the alliance said their operating board meeting on Wednesday included “open and transparent discussion on FCA’s recent proposal to Groupe Renault.” “The meeting also discussed and positively concluded several current operational alliance matters,” the statement added, after the meeting at Nissan’s headquarters in Yokohama. Arriving in Japan on Tuesday, Renault chairman Jean-Dominique Senard offered an optimistic assessment. “I think that all the recent events are very good for the alliance, and I will make sure that Nissan and Mitsubishi will take great advantage of the news,” he said. But Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa has received news of the proposed tie-up more cautiously. “From the standpoint of Nissan’s interests, we need to look a little closer to see what sort of contractual relationship the deal would create,” the Nikkei business daily quoted him as saying. Renault has for years tied its strategy to its partnership with automaker Nissan, but Ghosn’s arrest and Nissan’s resistance to a closer partnership appears to have prompted rethinking at the French firm. The merger with Fiat Chrysler is backed by the French government, which owns a 15 percent stake in Renault, and Italy’s deputy premier also enthusiastically endorsed the deal. Renault holds a 43 percent stake in Nissan, which in turn owns 15 percent of its French partner and would not be able to block it from proceeding with a Fiat Chrysler merger.
|
france;italy;scandals;nissan;carmakers;mitsubishi motors;renault;carlos ghosn;mergers;fiat chrysler automobiles
|
jp0004076
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Huawei's trouble with U.S. ban could impact Japan's smartphone market and suppliers
|
As the world watches to see if Huawei Technologies Co. survives the ongoing turmoil stemming from the U.S.-China trade war, wider implications are likely to hit Japan if the Chinese telecom giant continues to be blacklisted by Washington. The move by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to put the firm on the so-called Entity List, effectively barring it from doing business with American firms without government approval, could severely harm Huawei’s ability to manufacture and market its products, including smartphones. Consequently, the Japanese smartphone market is likely to see a change in the balance of power with the looming troubles facing Huawei, which had boosted its presence in the country in recent years, industry observers said. Japanese makers of electronic components that supply their products to Huawei may also take a hit from the potential loss of business with the world’s No. 2 smartphone-maker. “If this situation continues, it will severely hit Huawei’s smartphone unit sales,” said Hideaki Yokota, an executive analyst at MM Research Institute, a Tokyo-based mobile-industry research firm. “Unlike Apple’s (iPhones), Huawei’s smartphones are Android-based, so they can be replaced with many other Android devices, such as Samsung’s and Sony’s phones.” According to MM Research Institute, Huawei was ranked fifth in terms of overall smartphone shipments in Japan last year with a 6.4 percent market share. Huawei had the lion’s share of the market last year for SIM-free smartphones that are not sold by major carriers, with 43.8 percent, according to BCN Inc., another Tokyo-based marketing research firm. Huawei has increased its share in Japan because its high-end smartphones are cheaper than comparable models from its rivals, Yokota said. The fate of Huawei smartphones has been further muddied on worries that Google LLC might decide to stop providing support for the Chinese firm’s handsets. The U.S. Department of Commerce has given Huawei a 90-day extension in an apparent aim to support existing users. Yet Google’s compliance with Washington’s demands have raised the possibility that owners of Huawei phones may be cut off from updates for the Android operating system, as well as the use of its widely used apps such as YouTube and Gmail from late August. Based on such concerns, Japan’s KDDI Corp. and SoftBank Corp. have postponed sales of Huawei’s latest P30 series smartphone, which was scheduled to hit store shelves this month. Some mobile virtual network operators, or MVNOs, who rent network bandwidth from megacarriers and offer cheaper data plans than their larger rivals, also suspended sales. Aeon Mobile, however, plans to still market the new Huawei phones. “I think there are probably some consumers who are choosing to stay away from Huawei smartphones out of concern that they won’t be able to receive Android updates,” said Yokota. Other analysts say the situation may work in the favor of some Japanese smartphone makers such as Sony Corp. and Sharp Corp., allowing them to grow their shares in the domestic market. Moreover, Arm Holdings PLC, a U.K.-based chip design firm owned by SoftBank Group , also apparently halted business with Huawei following the Trump administration’s move. “Arm is complying with the latest restrictions set forth by the U.S. government and is having ongoing conversations with the appropriate U.S. government agencies to ensure we remain compliant,” an Arm spokesperson said in an email. Huawei uses Arm’s architecture licenses to produce cutting-edge chips for its smartphones, so the business suspension is a heavy blow to the manufacturing of the handsets, said Yokota. Gartner Inc., a U.S.-based research firm, says Huawei had a 15.7 percent share of smartphones sales in the first quarter of this year, the world’s second-biggest trailing only South Korea’s Samsung at 19.2 percent. The Chinese firm’s procurement from Japanese makers has been surging in recent years. Huawei has estimated that the figure for this year will be $8 billion, more than double the $3.3 billion it procured in 2016. If Huawei’s smartphone production capability is severely crippled, “there will be impacts on Japanese parts makers,” said Yasuo Imanaka, chief analyst at Rakuten Securities, adding that it is still difficult to estimate the level of damage. He also said that in the event Huawei loses its smartphone share, other rivals will step in, so Japanese suppliers would have opportunities with them. It is possible that other Chinese smartphone vendors, such as Oppo and Vivo, would increase their market share. But, still, Huawei would be a more profitable partner for Japanese firms because, unlike those firms, it procures quality electronic components from Japanese suppliers. Some companies that are believed to be high-volume suppliers include Murata Manufacturing Co. and TDK Corp. Estimates by Mizuho Securities show that Murata Manufacturing’s 5 percent of sales come from Huawei and TDK’s is about 10 percent. A spokesperson at Kyoto-based Murata Manufacturing, which has the world’s top share in the market for multilayer ceramic capacitors used for smartphones, said the firm has been evaluating the possible implications of the recent events. Media reports also said companies that have either shunned Huawei completely or restricted buying from the company since the move include U.S. chipmaker Intel Corp. and Osaka Prefecture-based Panasonic Corp. Another concern for Japanese companies linked to the U.S.-China trade war is industry speculation that China might retaliate by shutting out Apple Inc. from the world’s second-largest economy. “Japanese electronic components providers remain cautious over the move,” said Imanaka. “They have started to think that that is a possible scenario.”
|
smartphones;google;apple;android;huawei;murata manufacturing;trade war
|
jp0004077
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Suzuki chairman to receive no pay for one year
|
Suzuki Motor Corp. Chairman Osamu Suzuki will not receive executive remuneration for a one-year period starting in July as part of disciplinary measures following revelations of improper vehicle inspections, the automaker said Tuesday. President Toshihiro Suzuki will receive a 50 percent pay cut for six months. The chairman and president will decline their annual bonuses for fiscal 2018. Chairman Suzuki himself declined to receive pay, the company said. He earned ¥220 million in fiscal 2017, including ¥93 million as a bonus. “We will make all-out efforts to ensure legal compliance,” he said in a statement. The company’s irregularities include inspections by unqualified workers. The company will dismiss Hiroaki Matsuura, director and managing officer in charge of vehicle inspections. He will resign as managing officer Friday and leave the board June 27 after the company’s annual shareholder meeting. The automaker punished other managers involved in the improper inspections, but declined to elaborate. As preventive steps, the company will establish an inspection reform committee headed by the executive vice president on Saturday, aiming to revise rules such as qualifications for inspectors.
|
carmakers;suzuki;ceo;pay;chairman;recalls
|
jp0004078
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Biggest series of tornadoes in years carve through U.S. Midwest and beyond
|
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI - A vicious storm tore through the Kansas City area, spawning tornadoes that downed trees and power lines, damaged homes and injured at least a dozen people in the latest barrage of severe weather that saw tornado warnings as far east as New York City. Parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey also were under tornado warnings hours after a swarm of tightly packed twisters swept through Indiana and Ohio overnight, smashing homes, blowing out windows and ending the school year early for some students because of damage to buildings. One person was killed and at least 130 were injured. The storms in Kansas City on Tuesday were the 12th straight day that at least eight tornadoes were reported to the National Weather Service. After several quiet years, the past couple of weeks have seen an explosion of tornado activity with no end to the pattern in sight. A large and dangerous tornado touched down on the western edge of Kansas City, Kansas, late Tuesday, the National Weather Service office reported. At least a dozen people were admitted to the hospital in Lawrence, 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and home to the University of Kansas, hospital spokesman Janice Early said. Damage also was reported in the towns of Bonner Springs, Linwood and Pleasant Grove in Kansas. But the Kansas City metropolitan area of about 2.1 million people appeared to have been spared the direct hit that was feared earlier in the evening when the weather service announced a tornado emergency. Mark Duffin, 48, learned from his wife and a television report that the large tornado was headed toward his home in Linwood, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) west of Kansas City. The next thing he knew, the walls of his house were coming down. Duffin told the Kansas City Star that he grabbed a mattress, followed his 13-year-old to the basement and protected the two of them with the mattress as the home crashed down around them. “I’m just glad I found my two dogs alive,” he said. “Wife’s alive, family’s alive, I’m alive. So, that’s it.” The severe weather wasn’t limited to the Midwest. Tornadoes were confirmed in eastern Pennsylvania and the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for parts of New York City and northern New Jersey. The winds peeled away roofs — leaving homes looking like giant dollhouses — knocked houses off their foundations, toppled trees, brought down power lines and churned up so much debris that it was visible on radar. Highway crews had to use snowplows to clear an Ohio interstate. Some of the heaviest damage was reported just outside Dayton, Ohio. “I just got down on all fours and covered my head with my hands,” said Francis Dutmers, who with his wife headed for the basement of their home in Vandalia, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) outside Dayton, when the storm hit with a “very loud roar” Monday night. The winds blew out windows around his house, filled rooms with debris and took down most of his trees. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine declared a state of emergency in three hard-hit counties, allowing the state to suspend normal purchasing procedures and quickly provide supplies like water and generators. Monday marked the record-tying 11th straight day with at least eight tornadoes in the U.S., said Patrick Marsh, a Storm Prediction Center meteorologist. The last such stretch was in 1980. The weather service website showed at least 27 reports of tornadoes on Tuesday, most in Kansas and Missouri but also in Pennsylvania and Illinois. Outbreaks of 50 or more tornadoes are not uncommon, having happened 63 times in U.S. history, with three instances of more than 100 twisters, Marsh said. But Monday’s swarm was unusual because it happened over a particularly wide geographic area and came amid an especially active stretch, he said. As for why it’s happening, Marsh said high pressure over the Southeast and an unusually cold trough over the Rockies are forcing warm, moist air into the central U.S., triggering repeated severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. And neither system is showing signs of moving, he said. Scientists say climate change is responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme weather such as storms, droughts, floods and fires, but without extensive study they cannot directly link a single weather event to the changing climate.
|
weather;disasters;indiana;ohio;tornadoes;kansas
|
jp0004079
|
[
"world",
"social-issues-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Illinois may expand abortion rights as other states restrict them
|
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS - The Illinois House voted to bolster the right to abortion on Tuesday as Democratic-led states respond to restrictions placed by some Republican-led states that conservatives hope will lead the U.S. Supreme Court to review the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that guaranteed the right to abortion. The Illinois House voted 64-50 on Rep. Kelly Cassidy’s Reproductive Health Act, which would rescind prohibitions on some late-term abortions and 45-year-old restraints such as criminal penalties for doctors performing abortions, all measures whose enforcement has been prohibited by court orders. Outnumbered Republicans denounced the plan, contending it so loosens definitions of fetal viability and doctors’ responsibility in determining the medical need for an abortion that it broadly expands late-term terminations that are not medically necessary. The vote shows how red and blue states are diverging on the issue, with blue states such as Illinois moving toward expanding abortion rights while red states ban abortion as early as 6 weeks of pregnancy. The high court signaled in an Indiana ruling Tuesday more openness to state restrictions. At least six states have adopted steep restrictions or bans on abortion — neighboring Missouri just last Friday outlawed abortions past the eight week of pregnancy. “These attacks have increased dramatically. They’re focused and strategic and aimed at undermining our right to bodily autonomy and self-determination,” Cassidy said. The legislation heads to the Senate, which Democrats control. Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in a statement that he looks forward to signing it into law. “With reproductive health care under attack across the country, we must do everything in our power to protect women’s rights in Illinois,” Pritzker said. “Today was a major step forward for every woman in this state.” Cassidy, whose first pregnancy two decades ago ended with a medically necessary abortion which she said saved her life and her ability to have her three sons, repeatedly said the intent is to “codify current practice.” That proved dissatisfactory to Rep. Avery Bourne of Raymond, the Republicans’ point person on the issue and an expectant mother in the 34th week of her pregnancy. Abortion is currently allowed to the point that the fetus is viable outside the womb. Cassidy said her measure doesn’t change that. But Bourne noted that the bill makes exceptions for a physician’s determination that viability could be sustained only with an “extraordinary” post-birth procedure or because of factors “relevant to the patient’s health and well-being,” including “familial health,” a definition for which Bourne sought futilely. The bill does not appear to include a definition. “This bill means that for a woman at my stage in pregnancy, where the baby responds to his dad’s voice as he reads him books at night, … the baby is perfectly healthy, but if that woman says, ‘Based on my familial health, this is medically necessary,’ that is allowed,” Bourne said. “We are talking about the most expansive bill we have ever seen in this state and one of the most expansive across the country.” Cassidy pointed out that the legislation’s discussion of the mother’s health after fetal viability comes from Doe v. Bolton, a Supreme Court ruling overturning Georgia’s abortion law and issued on the same day as Roe. “All of the factors are there, based on Supreme Court language, to allow a physician to make a decision within the accepted standard of clinical practice,” Cassidy said. Illinois joins Democratic-led states such as Nevada, New York and Vermont with efforts to reinforce abortion rights in advance of the potential abandonment of Roe. An effort to loosen restrictions on late-term abortions in Virginia died last winter after the bill’s sponsor acknowledged in a video it would allow abortions up to the moment of birth and Republicans interpreted the governor’s comments on the subject as sanctioning infanticide. But with President Donald Trump’s hostility toward Roe and his like-minded appointments to federal courts, “We can no longer rely on bad law protected by federal injunctions,” Cassidy said. There are plenty of testing grounds. Alabama’s law signed this month makes providing an abortion a felony in most cases. Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Georgia also have approved bans on abortions once a heartbeat in the fetus is detected, usually as early as six weeks. “If you think this bill goes too far, who do you want to send to prison?” asked Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch, a Hillside Democrat. “The new Georgia law would criminalize women who even traveled outside the state to seek an abortion. Is that really what we want here in Illinois?” Ralph Rivera, legislative chairman for Illinois Right to Life Action, said in a statement that opponents to the plan are in the majority, as evidenced by “the incredible grassroots efforts” against it — including a Capitol-jamming rally of up to 4,000 anti-abortion protesters in March. “No words can express the disappointment and heartache pro-life Illinoisans, like myself, are feeling,” Rivera said.
|
u.s .;pregnancy;family planning;rights;abortion;women;illinois
|
jp0004080
|
[
"world",
"social-issues-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Child advocacy group says kids in 173 countries are better off now, with Singapore on top
|
UNITED NATIONS - A children’s advocacy group says youngsters in all but three of the 176 countries it evaluated have a better chance of growing up healthy, educated and protected from harmful practices like child labor and child marriage than at any time in the past two decades. Save the Children said in a report released Tuesday saying that U.N. statistics show at least 280 million children are better off today. But it said a quarter of the world’s children are still denied the right to a safe and healthy childhood, with youngsters fleeing or caught in conflict the most disadvantaged. Singapore tops the rankings as the country that best protects and provides for its children, followed by Sweden, Finland, Norway, Slovenia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, South Korea and Belgium. At the bottom were Central African Republic, Niger despite recent progress, Chad, Mali and South Sudan. The Global Childhood Report 2019 said the most dramatic progress since 2000 was among some of the world’s poorest countries. Sierra Leone made the biggest improvements, followed by Rwanda, Ethiopia and Niger. The United States ranks 36th in the 2019 report, tied with China. It ranks just above Bahrain, Belarus and Kuwait and ahead of Bosnia and Russia, tied at 38. Carolyn Miles, president and CEO of Save the Children, said the report looked at eight indicators of a good childhood including child survival, education, child labor and early marriage and compared the year 2000 with 2018. “There has been remarkable progress if you look across the world,” she said at a recent briefing on the report’s finding. “It’s an amazing statistic” that the indicators overall got better in 173 of 176 countries. Compared with 2000, Miles said there was a 49 percent drop in deaths of children under age 5, a 40 percent drop in child labor, a 33 percent drop in chronic malnutrition and stunting, and a 25 percent drop in child marriage. She said only one of the indicators rose — the number of children living in conflict or affected by violence — and it increased “very significantly.” There was an 80 percent rise in children living in or fleeing conflict zones in the 2000-2018 period, Miles said, “and today’s conflicts last much, much longer.” According to the report, an estimated 420 million children are living in conflict zones, more than double the number in 1995, and nearly 31 million children today have been forcibly displaced from their homes. Launched ahead of International Children’s Day on June 1, the report said that in 2000, an estimated 970 million children were robbed of their childhood by events such as exclusion from education, malnutrition, sickness, violent death, child marriage and early pregnancy. That number today has been reduced to 690 million, it said, meaning at least 280 million children are better off today than they would have been in 2000. The report said this means that today there are 4.4 million fewer child deaths every year, 49 million fewer stunted children, 130 million more children in school, 94 million fewer children working, 11 million fewer child marriages and 3 million fewer teen births.
|
china;conflict;u.s .;children;singapore;health;u.n .;poverty;save the children
|
jp0004081
|
[
"world",
"social-issues-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Daily hell for squatters in poorest areas of Caracas
|
CARACAS - Erick Hurtado wants to escape the abandoned Caracas building that has been his home for eight years, but despite his daily nightmare, he prefers to wait there for the abode promised to him by Venezuela’s embattled government. That’s the dream shared by 120 people living in Jehovah Gire — the name the residents have given the unfinished building that was initially supposed to house the justice ministry in Petare, one of the capital’s poorest neighborhoods. Most of those living in the building have been victims either of natural catastrophes or Venezuela’s crippling economic crisis. “I’ve had enough of living here … if I had somewhere to go, I’d leave this hole,” Hurtado, a 42-year-old moto-taxi driver, told AFP at the building, which offers a view over Petare’s immense slums. There’s been no water in the building for the last four months. The residents improvised by digging a hole in the asphalt road outside to create a makeshift tub where they could wash themselves and their clothes. A plastic bucket serves as a toilet, there’s electricity only on the ground floor and illness is widespread. “There are epidemics, mosquitoes, cockroaches, rats,” complained Roni Aranguren, a 42-year-old builder who came to live here with his wife and four children after losing his job and his home. He has a simple dream: “A worthy house.” Some 80 children live in Jehovah Gire, but only around 50 go to school and even then they’re often absent due to a lack of transport and food, said Stephanie Marcelot from the Rayiluz NGO, which is helping the residents. Many children suffer from bloated stomachs, a sign of chronic malnutrition, while cases of dengue fever, scabies and bronchitis are not uncommon. Over the years, people have forgotten why the building was abandoned. Some say the civil servants refused to work in a neighborhood considered dangerous, says Rayiluz’s Katiuska Camargo. There is hope — some former residents have managed to obtain apartments thanks to a government program that has provided 2.6 million homes since 2011, but the opposition claims that figure is inflated. According to Roberto Orta, president of the Caracas real estate board, 155 mostly private buildings were occupied by squatters between 2003 and 2007, with 241 more expropriated “without compensation” between 2006 and 2008 during the late socialist leader Hugo Chavez’s presidency. The most infamous illegal occupation was of the Tower of David, a skyscraper that housed 1,150 families between 2007 and 2014 but has since been abandoned. That building was so notorious as a haven for squatters and gangs it was depicted in the U.S. TV series “Homeland.” But the Jehovah Gire residents say they don’t want to be viewed as squatters and have formed a cooperative to be recognized as victims. And they hope to soon be transferred to a housing complex in the Caracas suburbs.
|
venezuela;poverty;caracas;jehovah gire
|
jp0004082
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Swiss court blocks Italy's bid for possible da Vinci portrait
|
ZURICH - Switzerland’s highest court has rejected Italy’s request for the return of an oil painting attributed by some to Leonardo Da Vinci, ruling no Swiss laws were broken when the work was brought over the border. Titled “Portrait of Isabella d’Este” and dated to the 16th century, the painting became the subject of an international tug-of-war after an Italian woman, Emidia Cecchini, sought to sell it in 2013. Police were alerted to its existence when an Italian lawyer surfaced with a mandate to sell it for no less than €95 million ($106 million). Art experts have yet to agree on whether it really is by the Renaissance master. An Italian investigation into possible tax crimes and insurance fraud uncovered evidence that led police in 2015 to the painting in a vault in the Swiss town of Lugano, a lakeside banking center in the Italian-speaking south where many Italians have crossed the border to deposit assets. Cecchini, who Swiss court documents said was convicted in Italy with two others for their role in exporting the picture, has always maintained the painting had been in Switzerland for a century, taken there by her relatives who at one time lived in the country, Swiss and Italian media have reported. The Swiss verdict clears the way for the work’s return to Cecchini, from Pesaro. Cecchini’s attorney did not respond to email and telephone requests for comment on Wednesday. Italy’s Justice Ministry declined to comment. Italy demanded its seizure on grounds it had been trafficked out of the country illegally to Switzerland. In a decision published on Wednesday, the Swiss Federal Tribunal declined Italy’s request for the painting’s return, ruling its export to Switzerland was not liable to prosecution. “Subject to any other international agreements, no state is required to apply foreign public law within its borders,” the Federal Tribunal said in a statement. Under Swiss law regulating international cultural property transfers, people may face prosecution for illegally transporting objects of unique value if they are listed in a Swiss federal registry or, in this case, in a corresponding Italian inventory. For this painting, however, that was not the case, the Swiss court wrote. The portrait, a 24-inch by 18-inch oil-on-canvas of a noblewoman, resembles a charcoal study by da Vinci that hangs in Paris’s Louvre museum. There is discussion among art experts about whether it is really a da Vinci. Carlo Pedretti, a da Vinci expert and professor at the University of California Los Angeles before he died last year, told media in 2015 its origins merited more study but could not confirm whether da Vinci was involved in painting it.
|
italy;art;switzerland;leonardo da vinci;portrait of isabella d'este
|
jp0004083
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
France has unverified 'indication' of chemical attack in Syria
|
PARIS - France’s top diplomat said Tuesday that the country had an “indication” that a chemical attack had been carried out in Syria’s Idlib province this month, an attack alleged by Washington last week. “We have an indication that chemical weapons were used in the Idlib region, but for now it has not been verified,” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told a parliamentary commission. “We’re being cautious because we consider that chemical weapons use has to be proven and be lethal, in which case we can react,” he said. President Emmanuel Macron has made use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government a “red line” that would trigger a military reprisal against the regime of President Bashar Assad. The United States has also threatened reprisals if the suspected Idlib attack is proven. Russia and Turkey reached an agreement last September that nominally protects Idlib amid fears for the safety of some 3 million people in the northwestern area of Syria. But Syria’s former al-Qaida affiliate, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has seized a large part of the province and adjoining areas, triggering a regime offensive that includes strikes by Syrian and Russian airplanes. International inspectors say that Assad’s forces have carried out a series of chemical attacks in the course of the brutal civil war, which has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since 2011. A sarin gas attack in April 2017 in the town of Khan Sheikhun killed 83 people, according to the United Nations, leading U.S. President Donald Trump to order a strike by 59 cruise missiles on a Syrian air base. And France joined Britain and the U.S. in launching missile strikes on three suspected chemical weapons sites in Syria in April 2018 after a suspected chemical attack in Douma.
|
france;syria;chemical weapons;bashar assad;idlib
|
jp0004084
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
SpaceX satellite swarm poses new headache for astronomers
|
WASHINGTON - It looked like a scene from a sci-fi blockbuster: An astronomer in the Netherlands captured footage of a train of brightly lit SpaceX satellites ascending through the night sky last week, stunning space enthusiasts across the globe. But the sight has also provoked an outcry among astronomers who say the constellation, which so far consists of 60 broadband-beaming satellites but could one day grow to as many as 12,000, may threaten our view of the cosmos and deal a blow to scientific discovery. The launch was tracked around the world and it soon became clear that the satellites were visible to the naked eye: a new headache for researchers who already have to find workarounds to deal with objects cluttering their images of deep space. “People were making extrapolations that if many of the satellites in these new mega-constellations had that kind of steady brightness, then in 20 years or less, for a good part the night anywhere in the world, the human eye would see more satellites than stars,” said Bill Keel, an astronomer at the University of Alabama. The satellites’ brightness has since diminished as their orientation has stabilized and they have continued their ascent to their final orbit at an altitude of 550 kilometers (340 miles). But that has not entirely allayed the concerns of scientists, who are worried about what happens next. Elon Musk’s SpaceX is just one of a several companies looking to enter the fledgling space internet sector. To put that into context, there are currently 2,100 active satellites orbiting our planet, according to the Satellite Industry Association. If another 12,000 are added by SpaceX alone, “it will be hundreds above the horizon at any given time,” said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, adding that the problem would be exacerbated at certain times of the year and certain points in the night. “So, it’ll certainly be dramatic in the night sky if you’re far away from the city and you have a nice, dark area; and it’ll definitely cause problems for some kinds of professional astronomical observation.” The mercurial Musk responded to the debate on Twitter with contradictory messages, pledging to look into ways to reduce the satellites’ reflectivity but also saying they would have “zero percent impact on advancements in astronomy” and that telescopes should be moved into space anyway. He also argued the work of giving “billions of economically disadvantaged people” high-speed internet access through his network “is the greater good.” Keel said he was happy that Musk had offered to look at ways to reduce the reflectivity of future satellites, but questioned why the issue had not been addressed before. If optical astronomers are concerned, then their radio astronomy colleagues, who rely on the electromagnetic waves emitted by celestial objects to examine phenomena such as the first image of the black hole discovered last month, are “in near despair,” he added. Satellite operators are notorious for not doing enough to shield their “side emissions,” which can interfere with the observation bands that radio astronomers are looking out for. “There’s every reason to join our radio astronomy colleagues in calling for a ‘before’ response,” said Keel. “It’s not just safeguarding our professional interests but, as far as possible, protecting the night sky for humanity.” A Dutch website set up to record UFO sightings was flooded early Saturday with reports after the Starlink “train of stars” was spotted crossing the Netherlands’ skies, sparking fears of an alien invasion. The site, www.ufomeldpunt.nl , got more than 150 sighting reports, with astonished spotters describing a “bizarre train of stars or lights moving across the skies at constant speed.” “There’s a long line of lights. Faster than a plane. Huh?” one spotter reported, while another called it a “star caravan” and one saying “I have it on film.” One spotter simply texted: “WTF?” “I didn’t know what to make of it,” an unnamed witness later told the NOS public broadcaster. “Is it Russia attacking the US? Are they UFOs? Seriously, I didn’t know,” the witness said. One Dutchman who remained unfazed was satellite spotter Marco Langbroek, who knew what the mysterious lights were — and had his camera on hand. “I cheered them on, the moment they appeared,” he told the NOS.
|
space;astronomy;satellites;spacex
|
jp0004085
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Accusations fly as Venezuelan kids with cancer die awaiting marrow transplants
|
CARACAS - The deaths of several cancer-stricken Venezuelan children who were awaiting bone marrow transplants have ignited a bitter dispute between the government and opponents over who is to blame. Several dozen people protested this week outside the J. M. de los Rios pediatric hospital after the reported deaths there of four children on a transplant waiting list. Many said President Nicolas Maduro’s government is responsible for deteriorating medical care in a country that has suffered a humanitarian crisis for years. But government human rights official Larry Devoe says U.S. sanctions blocked funds that Venezuela could have used to send the children to Italy for bone marrow transplants. Venezuelan activists say at least two dozen other children need similar transplants.
|
u.s .;health;venezuela;cancer;nicolas maduro
|
jp0004086
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
80 countries ready to step up action on climate, U.N. envoy says
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UNITED NATIONS - About 80 countries have signaled that they are willing to scale up their commitment to cut carbon emissions under the Paris agreement to combat climate change, the U.N. climate envoy said Tuesday. Under the landmark deal, countries agreed to announce by 2020 new efforts to strengthen their national plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a bid to limit global temperature rise. U.N. climate envoy Luis Alfonso de Alba told journalists that “80 is the number of countries (from) which we have already received a signal that they are willing” to enhance their plans. “But it doesn’t mean that they are willing to do that to the scale we need,” he added. The United Nations is pushing for stronger action on climate change in the face of new scientific data showing that current efforts fall well short of the goal of containing global warming. “We need to step up ambition quite radically. We are not talking about a small incremental approach, but rather a quite drastic increase,” said De Alba. A total of 197 parties have signed the Paris agreement, of which 186 have ratified it. The United States under Donald Trump decided to pull out of the deal, but the withdrawal will only become effective in 2020. De Alba was in Washington last week to meet with U.S. officials ahead of a major U.N. climate summit in New York in September that some hope will be a turning point. The climate envoy said he held “very positive” meetings with U.S. administration officials, who encouraged the United Nations to push other countries to do more even if the United States is pulling back. “They agree that a lot more needs to be done,” said De Alba of his meetings in Washington. “They are waiting for those countries to do it.” The United States is the world’s biggest polluter after China. At the U.N. summit, about 20-30 countries will be chosen to be in the spotlight for their ambitious plans. The U.N. is pressing governments to commit to a 45 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade and to become carbon-neutral by 2050.
|
u.s .;u.n .;climate change;donald trump;luis alfonso de alba
|
jp0004087
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Most new Ebola cases in Congo were not known contacts, aid group says
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GENEVA - The World Health Organization emphasized progress in the fight against Ebola in eastern Congo even as Doctors Without Borders warned Tuesday that efforts to trace new cases to previous ones are largely failing. WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan told reporters in Geneva that disease surveillance has improved even as the number of attacks against health workers rose three-fold over the last five months. Five health workers have died since the outbreak began in August. “We’ve also managed to improve surveillance performance in terms of the proportion of cases coming off contact lists,” he said. Disease transmission has “decreased significantly” over the last couple of weeks in the epicenters of Butembo and Katwa though challenges remain there, he added. Doctors Without Borders, which pulled out of Ebola treatment centers in Butembo and Katwa earlier this year because of the violence, said contact tracing is still too low. “As few as 32 percent of the new confirmed cases were linked back to known contacts,” the group said in a statement. “This means that the listing of contacts and surveillance are not effective. Contact tracing is essential to control the evolution of the outbreak.” More than 1,200 people have now died in the second-deadliest Ebola outbreak in history. Virus containment efforts are particularly challenging because the highly volatile security situation makes it too dangerous for surveillance teams to access some areas. The real number of Ebola cases is “likely to be even higher” because of the difficulties in tracing cases, Doctors Without Borders said. The disease is spread mainly through contact with the bodily fluids of Ebola patients and victims. In an effort to contain the virus, health workers monitor those who are known to have come into contact with an Ebola patient for a period of 21 days. If new cases haven’t previously been identified as possible contacts by outbreak responders that suggests authorities have little idea where the virus is spreading. The violence also has kept workers from being able to vaccinate people in some communities.
|
conflict;violence;disease;who;congo;doctors without borders;ebola
|
jp0004088
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Trump EPA overruled career staff on smog at Wisconsin county seeking to host key plant, emails show
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WASHINGTON - Politically appointed U.S. environmental officials last year overruled concerns of career scientists about air pollution in a Wisconsin county where U.S. President Donald Trump has pushed for a factory to be built by Foxconn Technology Co., newly released internal emails show. Trump has been a supporter of the Taiwanese technology giant Foxconn building a flat screen factory in Racine County, Wisconsin, a project the company said could create up to 13,000 jobs. He announced the project at a ceremony in 2017 and has claimed it is proof of his ability to revive U.S. manufacturing. Former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, helped secure about $4 billion in tax breaks for the project. But Racine County has suffered some of the state’s worst cases of smog, also known as ozone, pollution that causes premature deaths from lung and heart complications. The emails obtained by the Sierra Club and Clean Wisconsin under a freedom of information request show Trump administration officials, including then-administrator Scott Pruitt, overruled career EPA scientists to exempt Racine County from a list of counties that break smog standards. That has freed Foxconn from having to make millions of dollars in pollution control devices, if the project is eventually built. The Racine County case is the latest example of the administration overlooking concerns flagged by agency scientists over other issues such as climate change or hazardous chemicals. “My background is in air pollution health effects and more specifically on acute exposures, so for me personally this is hard to digest and support,” Lars Perlmutt, an EPA scientist, wrote to colleagues in an April email last year about pressure to make the exemption, one of the emails shows. Jenny Liljegren, a scientist in the air and radiation division in EPA’s Midwest region, said she was “in disbelief” about the pressure from officials to make the exemptions. “I do not see a sound technical basis for the areas we are being directed to finalize in Wisconsin.” In an exchange of emails with Liljegren, another EPA scientist, Eric Svingen, complained that Wisconsin “cherry picked” air quality data over wider areas of the state to suggest that emissions that form smog were not ultimately doing so within the Wisconsin borders. “These emails show is that the political leadership appeared to be injecting itself in this process in a way that’s contrary to having fact-based decisions,” said Janet McCabe, head of air quality at the EPA under former President Barack Obama. Foxconn did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In April the company, an Apple Inc. supplier, said it was committed to its contract to build the flat screen plant and research facilities in Wisconsin. EPA spokesman Michael Abboud referred questions about the emails to a brief the agency filed May 10 in the case. The brief said that EPA considers a wide range of information in deciding which areas are in compliance with air pollution rules and that “each designation is intensely fact-driven.” The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Illinois, which neighbors Wisconsin and could see greater levels of pollution, sued the EPA last year over the exemption in Racine County and the agency is also under pressure from lawsuits from environmental groups. In the May 10 brief, the EPA asked a federal appeals court to take another look at the smog exemption decisions under Pruitt, but until the court makes any ruling companies do not have to purchase the pollution equipment.
|
pollution;u.s .;epa;wisconsin;foxconn;donald trump;racine county
|
jp0004089
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Bald eaglet back in air after two weeks in Louisiana wildlife hospital
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METAIRIE, LOUISIANA - A bald eagle hatched this spring in a New Orleans suburb was released Tuesday in the same neighborhood after two weeks in Louisiana State University’s Wildlife Hospital. Dozens of neighbors who have watched over the eagle family cheered as the mottled brown bird hopped out of the cage in which it had traveled from Baton Rouge and launched itself into the air in Metairie, Louisiana. “I have a 1-year-old. It’s been a lot of fun seeing her point up and say, ‘Bird!’ ” said Christie Penot, whose home is across from the yard where the eagles built their nest. The nest was built a year ago, but this year is the first that eggs have hatched, she said. The eaglet sat for a while on the roof of a house in the shadow of its nest, fending off a pair of mockingbirds, which were dive-bombing it. Then it flew off. It was heading toward a tree where its parents and sibling had been seen earlier Tuesday morning, said photographer and coastal consultant P.J. Hahn, who has been following the birds since they began work on the nest during the winter. The eaglet had been taken to the LSU veterinary school’s Wildlife Hospital on May 11. It had been found May 10, walking in a nearby street and barely able to fly. Bald eagles’ first flights often leave the bird stranded on the ground, but their parents generally keep feeding them until they fly again, according to the Journey North citizen science center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum. However, this bird and its sibling had begun flying in late April. Veterinarians didn’t find any broken or injured bones, so they think the bird had a muscle injury, veterinary school spokeswoman Ginger Guttner said in a news release Friday. The birds are clumsy when learning to fly, Hahn said Friday. “They fly into a tree and hit it hard. … I’m sure it probably bruised its shoulder.” About 40 people, mostly area residents and a few media representatives, were present as the LSU van and its police escort drove up and pulled into a driveway across the street from the nest. Jefferson Parish sheriff’s deputies had blocked off the street and cleared a wide pathway through the small crowd. People cheered when the bird flew and landed. Claudia Bowman wiped away tears and hugged Christine Pauley-Lataxes, who was cheering and screaming. Someone began chanting “L-S-U! L-S-U!” Hahn gave the veterinary school a 60-by-40-inch (1.5-by-1-meter) photograph of one of the adults feeding a still fuzzy nestling to thank the veterinarians and their students for volunteer work at the hospital, which is part of LSU’s veterinary school.
|
u.s .;animals;birds;louisiana;bald eagles
|
jp0004090
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Poaching of African elephants has slowed but they still face extinction, researchers say
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PARIS - The illegal slaughter of African elephants to feed Asia’s demand for ivory has decreased by more than half in eight years, but the mammals are still threatened with extinction, researchers warned Tuesday. In 2011, poachers killed some 40,000 elephants — about 10 percent of the continent’s population, according to figures from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), based in Geneva. Last year the kill rate was about 4 percent, or 15,000 animals, according to new research published in Nature Communications. “We are seeing a downturn in poaching, but it is still above what we think is sustainable,” said co-author Colin Beale, a conservation biologist at the University of York. At current trends, the African elephant is in danger of being “virtually wiped out,” surviving only in small, heavily protected pockets, he said. A century ago up to 12 million of the world’s heaviest land animal roamed the continent. Today they number about 500,000 if forest elephants — a subspecies — are included. Despite a 1990 ban on international trade in ivory, demand in Southeast Asia and especially China has overwhelmed the capacity of local and global authorities to curb the carnage. “Currently, poaching is worst in West and Central Africa,” said Beale. “I worry most for the future of forest elephants.” Smaller and more solitary than their cousins on the savannah, forest elephants in the Congo Basin are estimated to have declined by 65 percent over the last 15 years alone. The countries where poachers have been brought most to heel are Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Botswana’s elephant population has increased nearly tenfold since 1970, according to co-author Julian Blanc, a researcher in the Wildlife Management Unit of the U.N. Environment Programme in Nairobi. “Due to good management, the country was largely unaffected by poaching in the 1980s, as well as the current episode that began in the mid-2000s,” he said. But the researchers emphasized that law enforcement alone cannot solve the problem. “We need to reduce the demand in Asia and improve the livelihoods of people who are living with elephants in Africa,” said Beale. To better understand the complex link between ivory and poaching, the researchers looked at data from a CITES program that records the sighting of elephant carcasses by park rangers across 53 protected sites in Africa. Changes in the level of illegal killing tracked closely to fluctuating prices in Asia for ivory. The prevalence of poaching also matched key indicators of corruption and poverty, which varied sharply across regions. Ultimately, however, the biggest threat to Loxodonta africana may not be human greed but our ever-expanding footprint. “Habitat destruction and fragmentation caused by humans may be the more serious threat to elephant survival in the long term,” said Blanc. West Africa — which today has, by far, the smallest elephant population — is also the region in which the most habitat has been lost to agriculture and urbanization, he pointed out. It is unclear whether a 2017 ban on the sale of ivory in China has dampened demand or simply shifted the once-legal trade underground, the researchers said. “We have no good evidence yet that the ban and associated demand reduction campaigns are working,” said Beale. “So I have concerns that the current decline may be temporary.” An investigation by the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC found that even though legally licensed stores it had visited in 2017 no longer sold ivory the following year, the total amount of illegal ivory pieces found had actually increased. L. africana is listed as “vulnerable” on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of endangered species.
|
nature;animals;endangered;elephants
|
jp0004091
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Yazidis sue Germany for failing to repatriate IS fighters for trial
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FRANKFURT, GERMANY - A Yazidi women’s association said Wednesday it has sued two German ministers for failing to repatriate German citizens who had fought for the Islamic State group in Syria to stand trial at home. The autonomous administration in north and east Syria has offered to hand over some 61 German prisoners suspected of having fought for IS, the Germany-based Federation of the Yezidi Women’s Council said in court documents seen by AFP. Berlin’s “failure to accept the offer and to make possible the urgently necessary prosecution constitutes the crime of obstruction of punishment,” they allege. Germany has repeatedly said it wants to bring its citizens home from Syria stand trial, but has highlighted many obstacles. “Legal cooperation is impossible since there are no state structures” in the relevant parts of Syria, a justice ministry spokesman told AFP. “We haven’t received the criminal complaint, so we can’t comment.” He added there were 22 outstanding arrest warrants against German fighters held in Syria. Germany has recently retrieved a suspect from Kurdish-controlled territory in Iraq. The young man was suspected of the rape and murder of a teenager in the west German city Wiesbaden. He fled to northern Iraq last year, but was quickly brought back by federal police after talks with the autonomous administration in Erbil. The operation was controversial as Germany has no extradition treaty with Iraq. In Syria, hundreds of foreign IS fighters are being held by the Syrian Democratic Forces, made up of Arabic and Kurdish groups. The Yazidi are a Kurdish-speaking minority in Iraq who fled in their thousands as IS advanced into the country from Syria in 2014. At the jihadis’ hands, thousands of women and teenagers were subjected to kidnapping, rape and other inhumane treatment such as being held as slaves, the U.N. has said.
|
war;terrorism;rights;germany;refugees;iraq;islamic state;yazidis
|
jp0004092
|
[
"world",
"crime-legal-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Trump suit to block Deutsche Bank subpoenas put on hold amid appeal
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NEW YORK - The federal district judge who last week denied Donald Trump’s request to block subpoenas to Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial Corp. for financial records put the case on hold while the president appeals his ruling. U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos on Monday signed off on part of an agreement that delays enforcement of the subpoenas while Trump and the U.S. House of Representatives seek an expedited hearing at the federal appeals court in Manhattan. Trump, his three eldest children and his businesses sued to stop the banks from turning over the records, claiming the subpoenas are part of an improper campaign by House Democrats to delve into the president’s finances for political purposes. Ramos refused, saying that since the president, his family and his business were unlikely to show that the congressional subpoenas are improper, he wouldn’t intervene to stop them. The judge denied Trump’s initial request for a delay, but the House agreed not to enforce the subpoenas during the appeal, and Ramos signed off on a part of that agreement Sunday. The appeals court hasn’t yet said whether it will grant the request for a sped-up schedule, which calls for briefs to be filed by July 18. In a similar case, a judge in Washington last week refused to block a subpoena for records from Trump’s accountants at Mazars USA LLP. The president is also appealing that ruling. Both sides in the Washington case have also agreed to delay enforcement of the subpoenas and asked for an expedited appeal. The case is Trump v. Deutsche Bank AG, 19-cv-03826, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
|
u.s .;deutsche bank;donald trump;trump organization;capital one;mazars
|
jp0004094
|
[
"world",
"crime-legal-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Michael Avenatti pleads not guilty to defrauding Stormy Daniels
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NEW YORK - The pugilistic and embattled attorney Michael Avenatti pleaded not guilty Tuesday to defrauding his most famous client, porn star Stormy Daniels, and seized the spotlight to toss a barb at President Donald Trump. Avenatti barely spoke during his three appearances before federal judges in New York, except to answer a few procedural questions. Twice, though, he vented to journalists his disgust with the prosecutions and his disdain for the president. Avenatti rose to fame representing Daniels in her battle to be released from a nondisclosure deal she had signed regarding an alleged affair with the president. Daniels has said she had sex with Trump in 2006, when he was married; Trump denies the affair. In his role as Daniels’ lawyer and since, Avenatti has repeatedly criticized the president in television appearances and the two have exchanged barbs on social media. Trump has called Avenatti a “lowlife” and alleged that he has made false accusations. Walking to a courthouse elevator between appearances Tuesday, Avenatti looked without a smile at reporters as he quipped: “Anybody know when the president and Don Jr. are going to be arraigned?” Then, speaking before a collection of microphones set up outside a courthouse, he predicted his eventual acquittal and again made clear he believes his prosecutions are politically motivated. “I am now facing the fight of my life against the ultimate Goliath, the Trump administration,” he said. “I look forward to a jury verdict in each of these cases. I am confident that when a jury of my peers passes judgment on my conduct, that justice will be done, and I will be fully exonerated.” His long day began at 6:54 a.m., when he surrendered to be booked formally on wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges announced in an indictment last week stemming from his representation of Daniels. Bail was set at $300,000 at an initial court appearance. Avenatti, 48, agreed to have no contact with Daniels while the case is pending. In his second appearance of the day, one of Avenatti’s lawyers told Judge Deborah A. Batts, who would preside over a trial, that he thought the case should be combined with charges Avenatti faces in California. A prosecutor disagreed. The judge left the issue for future consideration. In a final court appearance, Judge Paul G. Gardephe asked Avenatti how he would plead to four separate charges of trying to extort millions of dollars from Nike Inc., the sportswear company. “100 percent not guilty,” Avenatti responded repeatedly. Avenatti is scheduled to return to court in both cases on June 18. Avenatti was indicted last week on charges that he cheated Daniels out of $300,000 she was owed for her book, “Full Disclosure,” which was published in October. According to the indictment, Avenatti emailed a letter, purportedly from Daniels, to her literary agent with instructions that payments from her $800,000 book deal be deposited into an account he controlled. Prosecutors say Daniels never authorized the letter and was unaware of it. Avenatti then used the money to pay business and personal expenses, including the costs of hotels, airfare, dry cleaning and his Ferrari, the indictment said. The charges related to Daniels are the third criminal case brought against Avenatti. In late March, charges against Avenatti were announced the same day in New York and Los Angeles. In New York, he was charged with trying to extort up to $25 million from Nike by threatening to expose claims that the company paid the families of high school basketball players to get them to attend Nike-sponsored colleges. In Los Angeles, he was charged with stealing millions of dollars from clients, including much of the $4 million owed to a paralyzed man, along with dodging taxes, defrauding banks and lying during bankruptcy proceedings. When the charges were enhanced last month, federal authorities seized a private jet Avenatti co-owned. If convicted, Avenatti faces a potentially long prison sentence because the charges carry maximums stretching to hundreds of years.
|
u.s .;new york;fraud;nike;donald trump;stormy daniels;michael avenatti
|
jp0004095
|
[
"world",
"crime-legal-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Supreme Court upholds Indiana abortion law on fetal remains but balks on key restrictions
|
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld an Indiana law that requires abortion providers to dispose of aborted fetuses in the same way as human remains, a sign that the conservative court is more open to abortion restrictions. But the justices rejected the state’s appeal of a lower court ruling blocking a separate provision that would prevent a woman in Indiana from having an abortion based on gender, race or disability. The high court, with two liberal justices dissenting, thus found a way perhaps to signal a greater receptivity to state restrictions in the area of abortion without yet welcoming a more direct challenge to abortion rights. The court split 7-2 in allowing Indiana to enforce the requirement that clinics either bury or cremate fetal remains, reversing a ruling by a federal appeals court that had blocked it. The justices said in an unsigned opinion that the case does not involve limits on abortion rights. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. Ginsburg said in a short solo opinion that she believes that the issue does implicate a woman’s right to have an abortion “without undue interference from the state.” The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago had blocked both provisions of a law signed by Vice President Mike Pence in 2016 when he was Indiana’s governor. The Supreme Court’s action Tuesday keeps it out of an election-year review of the Indiana law amid a flurry of new state laws that go the very heart of abortion rights. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey this month signed a law that would ban virtually all abortions, even in cases of incest and rape, and subject doctors who perform them to criminal prosecution. That law has yet to take effect and is being challenged in court. Other states have passed laws that would outlaw abortion once a fetal heartbeat has been detected, typically around six weeks of gestation. Still, the high court is expected to hear at least one abortion-related case in its term that begins in October and ends in June 2020. In February, the justices blocked a Louisiana law that regulates abortion clinics, pending a full review. The Indiana measure that would have prevented a woman from having an abortion for reasons related to race, gender or disability gets closer to the core abortion rights. While the justices declined to hear the state’s appeal of that blocked provision Tuesday, they indicated that their decision “expresses no view on the merits.” Justice Clarence Thomas, who supports overturning the Roe v. Wade decision that first declared abortion rights, wrote a 20-page opinion in which he said the Indiana provision promotes “a state’s compelling interest in preventing abortion from becoming a tool of modern-day eugenics.” No other justice joined the opinion. Thomas and Ginsburg also engaged in a brief battle of dueling footnotes in which Thomas said Ginsburg’s dissent “makes little sense.” Ginsburg wrote that Thomas’ footnote “displays more heat than light,” including Thomas’ calling a woman who has an abortion a mother. “A woman who exercises her constitutionally protected right to terminate a pregnancy is a not a ‘mother,’ ” she wrote. One other noteworthy aspect of the court’s action Tuesday was the silence of liberal Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, who vote regularly to uphold abortion rights. By not joining their liberal colleagues in dissent, Breyer and Kagan helped Roberts in his desire to avoid, where possible, controversial outcomes that split the five conservatives and four liberals. The two also may have preserved their ability to negotiate with, if not influence, Roberts in other cases. The court upheld the fetal remains provision under the least stringent standard of review courts employ. The legislation only needed to be rationally related to the state’s interest in the proper disposal of the remains, the court said. Indiana met that burden, it said. The court said it is leaving open court challenges to similar laws under a higher legal standard.
|
u.s .;abortion;indiana;u.s. supreme court;clarence thomas
|
jp0004096
|
[
"world",
"crime-legal-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Brazil authorities transfer prison inmates after rioting kills 55
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MANAUS, BRAZIL - Brazilian security officials said Tuesday nine inmates blamed for killing sprees in several prisons will be transferred to stricter federal facilities, after two days of unrest left 55 prisoners dead and authorities rushing to prevent the violence from spreading. Fighting between inmates began around noon on Sunday in a prison complex in Manaus, the capital of the northern Amazonas state. The state prison secretary said the deaths were the result of infighting in one of the prison’s criminal groups. “The dead individuals are members of this group, involved with drug trafficking,” he said in a statement, without specifying which fraction. In the Manaus complex, an emergency security protocol was activated and within 45 minutes the situation was under control, local authorities said. Still, 15 inmates were killed, either asphyxiated or murdered with hand-crafted arms such as sharpened toothbrushes. The following day, more fights erupted in three other facilities, all in the same city of Manaus, leaving another 40 inmates dead and pushing federal authorities to send a special taskforce to avoid a scenario similar to that of January 2017, when weeks of gruesome prison killings left over 120 victims. The nine inmates who will be transferred to federal facilities on Tuesday are believed to have ordered the killings, authorities said. As a precautionary measure, another 200 prisoners have also been moved to different cells. While police forces were intervening to separate inmates considered at-risk, two detainees were shot as they tried to take prison staff hostage. “As the troop advanced, they (inmates) were killing people choking them inside their cells,” said Col. Vinicius Almeida, who leads the state prison office. In the meantime, family members of inmates gathered outside the prisons, waiting for information on their loved ones. Some outside the Puraquequara Prison Unit (UPP) on Tuesday told The Associated Press they had heard people screaming and calling for help from within the facility Monday night. “I’m going to stand here until they give me some news,” said Ediane Costa Soares, 38, whose 19-year-old son, Anderson Soares de Souza, is an inmate at UPP. Her son does not appear on the list of victims, but Costa Soares wants reassurance about her son’s well-being after the riots. “They have not told us anything.” The Anisio Jobim Prison Complex, where 15 inmates died Sunday, was the scene of gruesome infighting two years ago that left 56 prisoners dead. Many of those victims had their heads cut off or their hearts and intestines ripped out. Drug-trafficking and other criminal gangs run much of their day-to-day business from Brazil’s prisons, where they often have wide sway. The 2017 slayings were largely gang-related, prompting authorities to increase efforts to separate factions and frequently transfer prisoners.
|
drugs;brazil;prisons;manaus
|
jp0004097
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Rights body slams France's 'inhumane treatment' of the children of jihadis
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PARIS - France must stop the “inhumane treatment” of children of jihadis stranded in Syria who are not being allowed to come to the country, its rights ombudsman said Wednesday, warning that Paris was flouting its U.N. obligations. The statement by France’s Human Rights Defender Jacques Toubon came as controversy intensifies over the reluctance of French authorities to take in the children of French citizens affiliated with Islamic State (IS) jihadis in Syria and Iraq. “The French state needs to adopt effective measures allowing the halt to the inhumane and degrading treatment of children and their mothers and put an end to the violations of the rights of the child,” Toubon said. He alleged violations of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which France is a signatory. The human rights defender leads an independent state institution set up in 2011 and enshrined in the constitution to defend people whose rights have been violated. Toubon had been asked to give an opinion on the issue by the lawyers of several families with French citizens held in Syria and Iraq. According to the French foreign ministry, some 450 French citizens linked to IS are either detained by Kurdish forces in northern Syria or being held in refugee camps. But France is reluctant to bring back foreign fighters or their families after suffering a wave of deadly jihadi attacks that have killed more than 250 people since 2015. It has said it would consider requests for their return, but only on a case-by-case basis. Since March it has repatriated five orphans and a three-year-old girl whose mother was sentenced to life in prison in Iraq. In April, France’s State Council, which rules on the constitutionality of policies and laws, rejected several requests to intervene, saying it was a French diplomatic matter outside the council’s jurisdiction. “Finally a national authority has condemned France and urged it to respect its international and European obligations,” said lawyer Marie Dose, who represents several of the affected families, after Toubon’s statement. Lawyers William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth, who represented families who sought the opinion, welcomed the recognition “of the extreme seriousness of the violation of fundamental rights.” “We expect that the French authorities will organize the repatriation (of the children) as soon as possible,” they said in a statement. The grandparents of two children stranded with their French jihadi mother at a camp in Kurdish-held Syria filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights earlier this month over France’s refusal to allow them home.
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france;terrorism;rights;islamic state
|
jp0004099
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/05/29
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Disaster aid bill again blocked in House by GOP conservative
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WASHINGTON - A second conservative Republican in as many House sessions blocked a long-overdue $19 billion disaster aid bill Tuesday that’s a top priority for some of President Donald Trump’s most loyal allies on Capitol Hill. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said that if Democratic leaders like Speaker Nancy Pelosi thought the measure was so important, they should have kept the House in session in Washington late last week to slate an up-or-down roll call vote. “If the speaker of this House thought that this was must-pass legislation the speaker … should have called a vote on this bill before sending every member of Congress on recess for 10 days,” Massie said as he blocked the measure. “You can’t have bills passed in Congress with nobody voting on them,” Massie said. “That is the definition of the swamp, and that’s what people resent about this place.” Massie’s move earned swift rebukes from top Democrats. Sanford Bishop of Georgia said his agricultural district was but one part of the country suffering from hurricane damage and that aid won’t arrive until well after the start of planting season. “Many will not be able to plant this year,” Bishop said. Hurricane Michael struck Georgia in the middle of last fall’s harvest season. Another conservative, Texas freshman GOP Rep. Chip Roy, had blocked an earlier attempt Friday to pass the measure under fast-track rules, but Democrats tried again Tuesday. Bishop flew to Washington from Georgia to request the House pass the popular measure under fast-track procedures that permitted any individual lawmakers to block the bill. Eventual passage of the bill, supported by Trump and top leaders in Congress, is a forgone conclusion. Trying again on Tuesday was a political freebee for Democrats, who went on the attack right after the vote. “I cannot understand why any member would object to giving relief to so many millions of our citizens who have been badly damaged by natural disasters,” said No. 2 House Democratic leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland. Hoyer said the bill “will be passed overwhelmingly” when the House returns. One concern of many House Republicans was a move by House Democrats last week to dump overboard Trump’s request for $4.5 billion to address the crisis of Central American refugees at the southern border. Trump is a supporter of the measure, which swept through the Senate on Thursday in a rush to exit Washington for Memorial Day. Many Republicans, including southerners facing re-election, are frustrated that the bill has taken so long. After being denied his border money in a fight with House Democrats such as Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, Trump still embraced the bill, which directs much of its aid to political strongholds of his such as the Florida Panhandle and rural Georgia and North Carolina. Passing legislation without any objection from anyone is often trickier to do in the House than the Senate, however. “I just think a unanimous consent, voice vote, on the way out the door — there’s always, out of 535 (members of Congress) there’s always a few who think maybe that’s not appropriate,” said Sen. Ken Cramer, R-N.D, a conservative who presided over a moments-long pro forma session of the Senate on Tuesday. Cramer, who moved over to the Senate this year after spending three terms in the House GOP majority, also pointed out that the final disaster bill “actually took out some of the things that the House conservatives wanted” such as billions of dollars to care for the influx of migrants seeking asylum after crossing the southern border. There are also newer additions to the measure to help Midwestern areas suffering from springtime floods, along with large chunks of money to rebuild military bases such as Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida that were damaged by a string of disasters dating to last fall’s hurricane season. The measure ordinarily would have passed months ago but Trump injected himself into the debate, demanding that funding sought by Puerto Rico’s elected officials, Republicans and Democrats both, be kept out. Democrats held firm in demanding that Puerto Rico, a territory whose 3 million people are U.S. citizens, be helped by the measure. Their confidence was clear from the outset and GOP resolve on Puerto Rico, never particularly strong to begin with, steadily faded as the impasse dragged on. The bill now contains more money for Puerto Rico, about $1.4 billion, than Democrats originally asked for. Roy said last week that lawmakers ought to go on record either way on the legislation, which is among the few significant bills to make it through the system despite the intense partisanship dominating Washington.
|
u.s .;congress;aid;republicans;disasters;democrats;donald trump;thomas massie
|
jp0004100
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Trump insult 'beneath the dignity of the office,' says Joe Biden aide
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NEW YORK - A senior aide to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden says President Donald Trump’s attacks against Biden on foreign soil “are beneath the dignity of the office.” While in Japan on Monday, the Republican president said he agreed with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s assessment that Biden “is a low-IQ individual.” Biden’s campaign said it waited until Tuesday to respond out of respect for Memorial Day. Deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield lashed out at Trump in a statement. She said: “To be on foreign soil, on Memorial Day, and to side repeatedly with a murderous dictator against a fellow American and former Vice President speaks for itself.” Bedingfield called Trump’s comments “part of a pattern of embracing autocrats at the expense of our institutions.”
|
u.s .;north korea;kim jong un;joe biden;memorial day;donald trump
|
jp0004101
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Fake social media accounts spread pro-Iran messages during U.S. midterms, cybersecurity firm says
|
WASHINGTON - A network of fake social media accounts impersonated political candidates and journalists to spread messages in support of Iran and against U.S. President Donald Trump around the 2018 congressional elections, cybersecurity firm FireEye Inc. said on Tuesday. The findings show how unidentified, possibly government-backed, groups could manipulate social media platforms to promote stories and other content that can influence the opinions of American voters, the researchers said. This particular operation was largely focused on promoting “anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli, and pro-Palestinian themes,” according to the report by FireEye. The campaign was organized through a series of fake personas that created various social media accounts, including on Twitter and Facebook. Most of these accounts were created last year and have since been taken down, the report said. Spokespeople for Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. confirmed FireEye’s finding that the fake accounts were created on their platforms. Twitter said in a statement that it had “removed this network of 2,800 inauthentic accounts originating in Iran at the beginning of May,” adding that its investigation was ongoing. Facebook said it had removed 51 Facebook accounts, 36 pages, seven groups and three Instagram accounts connected to the influence operation. Instagram is owned by Facebook. The activity on Facebook was less expansive than that on Twitter and it appeared to be more narrowly focused, said Facebook head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher. The inauthentic Facebook accounts instead often privately messaged high profile figures, including journalists, policymakers and Iranian dissidents, to promote certain issues. Facebook also concluded the activity had originated in Iran. Facebook content was posted in English or Arabic. Topics of discussion included public figures, U.S. secessionist movements, Islam, Saudi Arabian influence in the Middle East and politics in the United States and Britain. About 21,000 accounts followed one or more of the Facebook pages, while about 1,900 accounts joined one or more of the groups and around 2,600 people followed one or more of the Instagram accounts, according to Gleicher. FireEye said that some accounts in the social media campaign claimed to be activists, correspondents or “free journalists” in descriptions of the users. Accounts expressed support for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — the deal aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. They also opposed the Trump administration’s designation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, according to the cybersecurity firm. The network’s Twitter accounts posed as Republican political candidates running in the 2018 U.S. congressional midterms, appropriating photos and plagiarizing tweets from legitimate accounts, FireEye said. Early this year, Facebook said it took down hundreds of “inauthentic” accounts from Iran that were part of a vast manipulation campaign operating in more than 20 countries. The pages were part of a campaign to promote Iranian interests in various countries by creating fake identities as residents of those nations, Gleicher said at the time. The operators “typically represented themselves as locals, often using fake accounts, and posted news stories on current events,” including “commentary that repurposed Iranian state media’s reporting on topics like Israel-Palestine relations and the conflicts in Syria and Yemen,” according to Facebook. Facebook has invested heavily in artificial intelligence and staff in an effort to stamp out efforts by state actors and others to manipulate the social network using fraudulent accounts. Late last year, Facebook took down accounts linked to an Iranian effort to influence U.S. and British politics with messages about charged topics such as immigration and race relations. The social network began looking into these kinds of activities after revelations of Russian influence campaigns during the 2016 U.S. election aimed at sowing discord. Lee Foster, a researcher with FireEye, said he found some of the fake personas — often masquerading as American journalists — had successfully convinced several U.S. news outlets to publish letters to the editor, guest columns and blog posts. These writings displayed both progressive and conservative views, the report said, covering topics including the Trump administration’s designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization. “We’re assessing with low confidence that this network was organized to support Iranian political interests,” said Foster. “However, we’re not at the point where we can say who was doing it or where it’s coming from. The investigation is ongoing.” Before the 2018 midterm elections, the nameless group created Twitter accounts that also impersonated both Republican and Democratic congressional candidates. It is unclear if the fake accounts had any effect on their campaigns. The imposter Twitter accounts often plagiarized messages from the politicians’ legitimate accounts, but also mixed in posts voicing support for policies believed to be favorable to Tehran. Affected politicians included Jineea Butler, a Republican candidate for New York’s 13th District, and Marla Livengood, a Republican candidate for California’s 9th District. Both Livengood and Butler lost in the election. Livengood’s campaign called the situation “clearly an attempt by bad actors” to hurt her campaign and noted that Livengood was “a strident opponent of nuclear weapons in Iran.” Butler could not be immediately reached for comment.
|
u.s .;internet;iran;fraud;social media;twitter;facebook;donald trump;2018 u.s. midterm elections
|
jp0004102
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
U.S. Navy reviewing service members' Trump-linked 'Make Aircrews Great Again' patches worn during Japan visit
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WASHINGTON - The U.S. Navy says it is reviewing whether service members violated Defense Department policy or regulations by wearing a uniform patch with the words “Make Aircrew Great Again” during U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to their ship in Japan. The phrase emblazoned on the patch, along with a likeness of Trump, is a play on his campaign slogan. The military has uniform dress codes and regulations against partisan political acts while in uniform. In a brief statement Tuesday, the navy said only that the matter was under review by navy leadership to ensure that the wearing of the patches did not violate policy or regulations. Trump visited the USS Wasp assault ship on Tuesday before returning to the U.S. from four days in Japan
|
military;scandals;donald trump
|
jp0004103
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Young Sudanese workers strike for 'civil rule'
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KHARTOUM - The chants grew louder as the army pickup passed. “Power to the civilians,” the dozens of young Sudanese bankers cried outside their closed Khartoum branch, heeding a protest group’s calls for a general strike. In unison, the young men and women called on the head of Sudan’s new military council Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan to “cede power. Burhan took Sudan’s helm in April when the army overthrew long-time leader Omar al-Bashir after months of countrywide protests against his iron-fisted rule. “They make us promises but we haven’t received anything, so we chose to up the revolutionary pressure,” said 27-year-old banker Sara Ossman, wearing a light-blue veil to match her glasses. Flanked by colleagues on either side, she bounces her attention between the voice-straining protest chants and her smart-phone screen, updating a full-array of social media accounts. “Military power represses freedom of opinion, expression … all freedoms,” said Ossman, who grew up under Bashir’s regime. “It’s been 30 years that the country has lived like this.” With the backing of Islamists, Bashir ruled the country for three decades. But almost two months after his ouster, his generals still remain despite pressure from protesters who have been camped outside the army headquarters in Khartoum calling for civilian rule. Leaders of the nationwide uprising called for a general strike Tuesday and Wednesday after talks stalled with the military over a transfer of power to a civilian-led body. “As young people in particular, we want to flourish, to build a new Sudan,” said Moussa al-Haj. The slender 26-year-old also works at a bank, but says it has “no cash. Resentment has mounted in Sudan for years over an economic crisis marked by sky-high inflation and foreign currency shortages. Government austerity measures provoked the first string of protests in December when it tripled the price of bread. Those demonstrations quickly spiraled into a country-wide protest movement, drawing in broad swathes of society including doctors, lawyers and dentists. But not everyone has joined in. Throughout the capital on Tuesday, many storefronts drew their iron-shutters just halfway closed. At one tour operator, two young employees peer out of their semi-closed shop as a group of striking protesters outside chants for change. They said they too were on strike but were ordered not to protest or speak to the press. At the head of the group, Asmaa Mohamed films the scene with her phone. “I went to the office before coming here. I refuse to work today and tomorrow,” said the 28-year-old, wearing a long red dress. “We don’t want a government of thieves who exploit the country,” she said, her eyes glued to the screen. Buses and cars beep as they cruise by the group carrying women and men flashing the V-for-victory sign out of the windows. “We had a very tough dictatorship. We don’t want to relive this experience,” said 29-year-old Abir Abdallah. “Freedom, justice … all that will only happen with a civilian government. The military doesn’t want it.” A different group of youths was stationed outside Khartoum’s central bank, but they weren’t chanting. The soldiers were in place to prevent pro-strike demonstrations. At the same time, employees from the national electricity company arrived on the scene to protest the strike. “If we stop work, the country will be wiped out,” said 45-year-old Ezzedine Ali, who told AFP he backs a military-led political transition before pealing off to join in on the rally. “No to the strike, no to civil disobedience,” they shouted.
|
military;protests;sudan;omar al-bashir
|
jp0004104
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
EU leaders agree to pick new 'Mr. or Ms. Europe' next month
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BRUSSELS - European Union leaders engaged in a first skirmish Tuesday over who should become the next chief of the European Commission, giving themselves a short deadline to agree on the bloc’s top jobs and a target of assigning half of them to women. Chancellor Angela Merkel was upset with French President Emmanuel Macron’s public dismissal of Berlin’s preferred candidate, a center-right German lawmaker Manfred Weber, as the 28 national EU leaders bargained behind closed doors over the bloc’s new leadership for the next five years. “The key for me is for the people at the most sensitive positions to share our project and be the most charismatic, creative and competent possible,” Macron told reporters as the summit ended in Brussels. “It is important for me to have gender balance, that we name two men and two women,” he added. A bloc-wide election last week returned a European Parliament with a splintered center and gains by pro-EU liberals and Greens as well as euroskeptic nationalists and the far-right, making agreeing a common agenda harder. Held once every five years, the European Union election means new people will take over key EU institutions, including the powerful executive Commission. Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel described the race as searching for the next “Mr. or Ms. Europe.” Stripped of their longtime combined parliamentary majority, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) and the center-left Socialists & Democrats (S&D) would no longer able to decide on the next Commission head alone in the new EU assembly. They are looking for support from the liberal ALDE and the Greens, since the four groups together would command enough seats to approve or reject any nomination by the 28 heads. The national government leaders agreed to finalize their nominations at their next gathering due on June 20-21, in time for the new EU chamber’s first sitting due on July 2. “We agreed that it is essential for us to show we are capable of action and so we want by the June summit … to have … our proposal for the position of Commission president,” Merkel told a news conference. Merkel said Macron needed to be realistic and take into account the fact that the EPP, which has nominated Weber for the Commission, would remain the biggest group in the new chamber. Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker steps down on Oct. 31 as the head of the Commission, which acts as the EU’s competition watchdog, monitors member states’ budgets and proposes policies from climate change to tech regulation. Other big roles up for grabs later this year include the head of the European Parliament and the European Central Bank (ECB), the bloc’s foreign policy chief and the head of the European Council who represents national government leaders. Both France and Germany have ambitions to have one of their own run the ECB after the current president, Italian Mario Draghi, leaves at the end of October. Neither is likely to secure both the bank and the Commission, officials say. The EU would risk an institutional logjam if talks drag on, leaving it unable to make pivotal policy decisions at a time when it faces a more assertive Russia, China’s growing economic might and an unpredictable U.S. president. Macron pushed against Weber, listing EU competition commissioner, Denmark’s Margrethe Vestager, the bloc’s Brexit negotiator, center-right Frenchman Michel Barnier, and Dutch Social Democrat Frans Timmermans as appropriate candidates. Spain and Sweden backed Timmermans, while Ireland and Croatia spoke for Weber. Luxembourg and Slovenia supported Vestager, one of few women in the running. “Gender balance means at least two women,” said the summit chairman, Donald Tusk, who will now negotiate between capitals to come up with a list of names for approval by the 28 leaders. Eastern capitals demanded geographical balance in awarding the prominent Brussels roles. Poland and Hungary would strongly oppose Timmermans as he led the EU’s rule of law probes against them in his current Commission vice president role. Unanimity is not required though it is hard to see a candidate succeeding against the will of more than just a handful of leaders, as that would risk damaging their future cooperation and stalling the EU’s decision-making. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, also mooted as a possible contender in the obscure recruitment process, said Tuesday’s meeting was about “content rather than people,” with focus on policy priorities, including climate change and migration. Merkel and Macron are due to hold more talks in the German town of Aachen on Thursday but one country already bound to see its EU representation diminished is Italy. Rome now holds three of the bloc’s top five jobs but its euroskeptic swing and debt problems have left it isolated in the EU, with Spain seeking to claim the space.
|
europe;eu;elections;brexit
|
jp0004105
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Ex-Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Seaga, who shaped island's early independence, dies at 89
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NEW YORK - Edward Seaga, a former Jamaican prime minister who shaped the island’s post-independence politics and cultural life, died Tuesday at 89. Seaga’s death was announced on Twitter by Prime Minister Andrew Holness. Seaga, Jamaica’s prime minister from 1980 until 1989, was the only remaining member of the generation of leaders who drafted the constitution when the Caribbean island gained independence from Britain in 1962. His political career began in the late 1950s and he won a parliamentary seat in 1962. He was West Kingston’s representative for 40 consecutive years and held a parliamentary seat longer than anyone in Jamaica’s history. Born May 28, 1930, in Massachusetts to Lebanese-Jamaican parents, Seaga renounced his U.S. citizenship at a young age to show his loyalty to Jamaica. He studied anthropology at Harvard University and published several papers on Afro-Jamaican folklore and Obeah, a religion combining Christian and African rituals. Prior to entering politics, Seaga was a major record producer who operated the West Indies Record Ltd. distribution company and played a role in introducing ska to the world. At 29, he was appointed to Jamaica’s upper legislative house by Labor Party founder and Jamaica’s first prime minister, Alexander Bustamante. As opposition leader in the 1970s, Seaga railed against the socialist agenda of then-Prime Minister Michael Manley, saying it crippled the island’s fragile economy. When Seaga’s Labor Party ousted the incumbent Manley and the People’s National Party’s “democratic socialist” administration in 1980, Seaga described the landslide victory as a “declaration against communism in Jamaica.” As Jamaica’s leader, Seaga instituted a pro-American, free-market economy, ushering in what many consider the island’s most prosperous era. He was U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s closest Caribbean ally and was able to boost a struggling economy that was hit hard by soaring inflation and widespread joblessness. But national debt soared. The run-up to the 1980 elections that vaulted him to power was extraordinarily bloody. Clashes between rival partisans killed nearly 800 people. For some older Jamaicans, Seaga is forever linked with the state-sponsored political violence of the 1970s, when Jamaica’s two major political factions used gun-toting gangsters to sway voters. In the 1960s, Seaga gained fame for bulldozing an infamous slum and building Tivoli Gardens, the island’s first public housing project, which he filled with supporters of the Labor Party. The politicized complex became a hotbed of what Jamaica calls “garrison politics,” where vote-rich slums become permanent power bases for one party. “Mr. Seaga can be blamed for starting garrison politics but not for the genesis of political violence,” said Christopher Charles, a senior lecturer in political psychology at Jamaica’s University of the West Indies. Following a deadly 1978 military ambush of gang members allied to Seaga’s Labor Party, Jamaica’s leading reggae musicians took the stage at a Kingston concert to support peace. The concert’s highlight was a moment that has become immortalized in Jamaican consciousness: Reggae icon Bob Marley made Seaga and Manley clasp hands over his head and promise an end to the violence. It didn’t work; things only got bloodier. In 1989, Seaga’s party lost the general election to Manley after he transformed into a centrist. But Seaga remained Labor’s leader for many years afterward and he built national institutions such as the annual festival celebrations, the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission and the HEART National Training Agency, among other institutions. Holness, the current prime minister from the Labor Party, is a Seaga protege. First elected to Parliament in 1997 at the age of 25, he was a special assistant to Seaga, who was chief of the Labor Party until Bruce Golding took over in 2005. When he resigned from the party, he became a senior research fellow at the University of the West Indies. Seaga was married from 1965 to 1996 to the former Marie Constantine, who had been Miss Jamaica 1964. They had three children together — Anabella, Andrew and Christopher — before divorcing. He remarried in 1997 to Carla Vendryes, 30 years younger. The couple had a daughter, Gabrielle, in 2002, when he was 72.
|
u.s .;u.k .;obituary;caribbean;jamaica;michael manley;alexander bustamante;edward seaga
|
jp0004106
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Civilian toll mounts as Syria regime pounds jihadi bastion
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BEIRUT - Another wave of regime airstrikes on Tuesday struck a jihadi bastion in northwest Syria where more than 40 civilians have been killed in several days of heavy bombardment, a war monitor said. Six children were among 12 people killed on Tuesday in government fire on several towns in Idlib province and neighboring Aleppo countryside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. A hospital in the Idlib town of Kafranbel was hit by artillery shells, said David Swanson, a spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian office. “The facility is reportedly out of service due to severe structural damage,” he told AFP. The hospital’s administrative director Majed al-Akraa confirmed the attack. “The hospital is completely out of service,” he said. “It was a strong attack. The generators and even my car caught fire,” he told AFP. It follows two days of intensified regime bombardment on the region that killed a total of 31 civilians on Sunday and Monday, according to the Britain-based Observatory. Rescue volunteers and civilians were seen pulling dust-covered victims from the rubble of destroyed buildings in the wake of those strikes. Idlib and parts of the neighboring provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia are under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadi group led by Syria’s former al-Qaida affiliate. The region is supposed to be protected from a massive government offensive by a September buffer zone deal, but the jihadi bastion has come under increasing bombardment by the regime and its ally Russia since late April. The Observatory says over 260 civilians have been killed in the spike in violence since then. More than 200,000 civilians have already been displaced by the upsurge of violence, according to the United Nations. The U.N. has warned an all-out offensive on the region would lead to a humanitarian catastrophe for its nearly 3 million residents. At least 20 health facilities have been hit by the escalation — 19 of which remain out of service, the U.N. has said.
|
conflict;syria;al-qaida;bashar assad;latakia;idlib;hama
|
jp0004107
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Satellite images show crops on fire in Syria rebel enclave after regime airstrikes
|
BEIRUT - New satellite photos obtained on Tuesday show significant damage to Syrian villages and surrounding farmland as a result of a government offensive on the last rebel stronghold in the country. The images, provided to The Associated Press by the Colorado-based Maxar Technologies, show fires in olive groves and orchards during harvest season around Kfar Nabudah and nearby Habeet, two villages on the edge of Idlib province where the latest fighting has focused. The fires were apparently sparked by intense bombing in the area. Fighting has raged in Idlib and surrounding areas since April 30 when Syrian troops began pushing into the enclave from the south while unleashing a wave of intense bombing over the overcrowded area. For President Bashar Assad, Idlib stands in the way of final victory against armed government opposition after eight years of civil war. The satellite photos, which show the area over the past week, show destroyed buildings and a mosque in Kfar Nabudah, which appears surrounded by farm fields, some still burning. Most of the damaged fields appeared north of Kfar Nabudah. In Habeet, farms are pocked by craters, while others appear set on fire. Kfar Nabudah fell under government control on Sunday. Activists, experts and Maxar say the crop burning is part of a “scorched earth” campaign that adds to the hardship of 3 million people in the rebel stronghold. The U.N. said fires, triggered by bombings, destroyed staple crops such as wheat and barley, compounding the already fragile humanitarian conditions in the area. On Tuesday, the Idlib health directorate said government rockets hit a hospital in the town of Kfar Nubul, causing extensive damage to the facility and to its generators and cars parked outside. The directorate said the hospital is currently not functioning. In videos shot by the Syrian Civil Defense, known as White Helmets, fire fighters battle a raging fire in one of the hospital generators as a thick plume of smoke rises above. This brings the total number of regional health facilities directly hit in the offensive to 21, including at least five that the U.N. had identified as medical centers. Amnesty International has said that attacks on health facilities in opposition-held areas in Syria are part of a well-established pattern by government forces and their allies. The White Helmets also reported that at least seven people were killed in sporadic bombings around the stronghold on Tuesday. Rescuers continued to search for two inhabitants of a building that was bombed a day earlier in Ariha village, struggling to remove the pulverized rubble from the narrow streets. At least 11 were killed in the bombing. The U.N says the violence has exacted a heavy toll on civilians, displacing more than 200,000 and targeting health facilities and schools. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said nearly 1.3 million residents of the enclave had already been displaced by violence in other parts of Syria. “The potential longer-term impact on the civilian population may be compounded as the violence is occurring during the harvest season,” it said. “As the hot summer weather sets in, more fires can occur, further disrupting normal food production cycles and potentially reducing food security for months to come.”
|
u.s .;syria;bashar assad;idlib;maxar technologies
|
jp0004108
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Papua New Guinea leader Peter O'Neill resigns, throwing international gas deal into doubt
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PORT MORESBY - Papua New Guinea’s veteran prime minister formally resigned on Wednesday, easing a political crisis but calling a multibillion-dollar French and U.S.-backed gas deal into doubt. Facing a vote of no confidence he looked sure to lose, Peter O’Neill told parliament that he had tendered his letter of resignation to the country’s governor general. O’Neill had led the rugged and ethnically diverse nation for eight years but had been criticized for endemic corruption and chronic underdevelopment. Powerful regional politicians had balked at his recent $13 billion deal with Total and ExxonMobil to extract, pipe and ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) overseas. Finance minister James Marape was the first senior cabinet official to resign in protest, saying the money would not go to ordinary Papua New Guineans, local firms or the regions. A similar deal in the last decade has failed to bring wealth to a country where around 70 percent of people do not have access to reliable electricity. O’Neill had earlier promised to resign, but failed to do so and took court action in a bid to cling to power. That prompted angry scenes in parliament Tuesday, including physical confrontations between O’Niell’s supporters and opponents trying to oust him and the speaker of parliament. But on Wednesday O’Neill jumped: “I want to inform this honorable house that at 9:45 a.m. this morning I delivered to … the governor-general of Papua New Guinea my letter of resignation so that we can deal with this matter once and for all.” In a valedictory speech, O’Neill touted his achievements in office, including hosting the 2018 APEC summit, a vast undertaking for a developing country with limited central government capacity. “We have always been known for the wrong reasons,” O’Neill said. A parliamentary vote on a new prime minister is expected to take place in the coming days. Experts said that his departure could see an end to big-ticket infrastructure projects that many believe have benefited only Port Moresby and the country’s connected elite. “O’Neill’s departure has the potential for a wholesale shift in the policy direction taken by PNG’s government,” said Jonathan Ritchie of Melbourne’s Deakin University. “But the suspicion of at least some informed Papua New Guinean observers is that it will result only in the rearranging of the deck chairs,” he wrote ahead of O’Neill’s departure. “A reshuffling of the cards that will lead to another privileged insider, another member of PNG’s political class, taking over the PM’s role from the mostly unlamented O’Neill.”
|
gas;lng;papua new guinea;total;exxonmobil;peter o'neill
|
jp0004110
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Australian navy pilots struck by lasers in South China Sea, witness says
|
BEIJING - Australia’s military has confirmed that navy pilots were targeted with lasers during flights in the hotly contested South China Sea, with informal Chinese militia vessels believed to be behind the attacks. Beijing has become more assertive in the area, stoking tensions with rival claimants in Southeast Asia as well as Canberra and Washington — traditionally the dominant naval and air power in the Asia-Pacific region. The Australian Defence Force said “assets operating across the region have observed an increase in the use of hand-held lasers by some vessels.” In this specific incident, helicopter pilots flying from the HMAS Canberra were marked with lasers as they took part in the months-long Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2019 exercise. “With regards to the incident mentioned … the Royal Australian Navy pilots involved were examined as a precautionary measure and cleared of any injury by medical staff.” La Trobe Asia Director Euan Graham was one of several academics invited on the HMAS Canberra as it moved from Vietnam to Singapore. He reported that the vessel was shadowed by a Chinese warship and “helicopter pilots had lasers pointed at them from passing fishing vessels.” China has been accused of operating a maritime militia that includes fishing trawlers that carry out reconnaissance, intelligence and other missions in the South China Sea. The “gray zone” operations are used to challenge or one-up rival powers, while offering deniability and reducing the risk of military conflict. “The reason for vessels using the lasers is unknown but it may be to draw attention to their presence in congested waterways,” the Australian military said. China claims sovereignty over virtually all the resource-rich South China Sea, despite rival claims from its Southeast Asian neighbors. The Australian Navy has conducted joint exercises in the South China Sea with other nations, including the United States — which China has sought to deter. Beijing last year rejected U.S. allegations that Chinese nationals shone military-grade lasers at American pilots in Djibouti, where China operates a naval base. Two U.S. pilots suffered minor eye injuries from those lasers, according to the Pentagon.
|
china;australia;disputed islands;south china sea
|
jp0004111
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"crime-legal-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/05/29
|
'Entire' North Korean WMD program violates U.N. security council resolutions, U.S. says
|
WASHINGTON - North Korea’s “entire” weapons of mass destruction program violates U.N. Security Council resolutions, the U.S. State Department spokeswoman said on Tuesday, when asked about recent missile launches by Pyongyang. “I think the entire North Korean WMD program, it’s in conflict with the U.N. Security Council resolutions. But what the U.S. is focused on here … is in trying to negotiate a peaceful end to the North Korean WMD program,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus told reporters. Ortagus had been asked to make clear the State Department’s position after President Donald Trump appeared to contradict his national security adviser, John Bolton, over whether North Korean launches this month had violated U.N. resolutions. Bolton said on Saturday there was “no doubt” that the launches had violated U.N. resolutions as they had included short-range ballistic missiles.
|
u.s .;north korea;kim jong un;u.n .;nuclear weapons;north korea nuclear crisis
|
jp0004112
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"crime-legal-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Australian gets 10-year sentence for monthlong rape and kidnap ordeal of British backpacker
|
SYDNEY - An Australian man who kidnapped and repeatedly raped a British backpacker during a monthlong ordeal in the country’s Outback has been jailed for 10 years. Marcus Allyn Keith Martin, 25, had pleaded guilty in the District Court of Cairns, in the far north of Queensland state, to charges of rape and deprivation of liberty against the 22-year-old woman from Liverpool, England. Prosecutors told the court the pair met in Cairns in January 2017 and had begun a relationship. When the relationship soured, Martin subjected the woman to weeks of physical abuse while forcing her to drive him far south and then into the west of the state. Police intercepted the pair after the woman drove off from a gas station in the town of Mitchell, 380 miles (600 kilometers) west of Brisbane, without paying for fuel. They found Martin hiding in the back of their 4×4 vehicle. The gas station’s manager, Beverley Page, told reporters at the time that the woman was bruised and battered and was crying and shaking as she explained that she couldn’t pay for fuel because her ex-boyfriend had her wallet. The Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported that prosecutor Nathan Crane told the court Martin had tried to isolate the woman on their road trip, including by cutting up her British passport. “She feared she would be murdered,” Crane said. “She tried to get the attention of other road users as they would drive along and also other service station customers, to no avail.” The court heard the woman suffered injuries including facial fractures, bruising, abrasions to her neck and cuts to her body, as well as psychological harm. A defense lawyer for Martin had told the court his client had been taking drugs at the time, which made him “paranoid and psychotic.” In sentencing on Tuesday, Judge Dean Morzone said Martin would be required to serve at least 80 percent of his 10-year sentence.
|
australia;abduction;sex crimes
|
jp0004113
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"crime-legal-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Warrant issued for Myanmar's 'Buddhist Bin Laden' firebrand monk Wirathu
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YANGON - Myanmar police issued an arrest warrant Tuesday evening for an ultra-nationalist monk known as the “Buddhist Bin Laden” for his vitriol against Islam and particularly the Rohingya Muslim community. Wirathu has long been the face of the country’s Buddhist nationalist movement, notorious for espousing hate against the Rohingya minority. A warrant was “filed and applied directly at western district court against him (Wirathu) under article 124(a),” police spokesman Myo Thu Soe told AFP late on Tuesday. He said he was unable to give specific details about the reasons behind the warrant. The law prohibits anyone who “attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the Government” and carries a maximum jail sentence of three years. Wirathu’s monastery is in Mandalay but his whereabouts Tuesday or when he might be detained were unknown. In 2013 the hard-liner appeared on the cover of Time magazine as “The Face of Buddhist Terror. He has called for boycotts of Muslim-owned businesses and restrictions of marriages between Buddhists and Muslims. A council of senior monks stopped him temporarily from speaking in public but the firebrand abbot has spoken at a string of pro-military rallies since the ban ended in March last year. Facebook kicked him off the platform in January 2018 after a string of incendiary posts targeting the Rohingya. Rights groups say these helped whip up animosity toward the community, laying the foundations for a military crackdown in 2017 that forced about 740,000 to flee over the border to Bangladesh. Like many in Myanmar, Wirathu pejoratively refers to the minority as “Bengali,” implying the group are illegal immigrants. Refugees’ testimonies of mass killings, rapes and arson spurred U.N. investigators to call for the prosecution of top generals for “genocide” and the International Criminal Court (ICC) is conducting a preliminary probe. “The day when the ICC comes here … is the day that Wirathu holds a gun,” he said in a speech to a rally of hardline nationalists in October last year. A firebrand Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka, Galagodaatte Gnanasara, has maintained close ties with Wirathu. Gnanasara was freed from prison in Sri Lanka last week following a presidential pardon.
|
myanmar;islam;u.n .;buddhism;genocide;rohingya;wirathu
|
jp0004114
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Lost lives in Kawasaki rampage: A good-natured schoolgirl and a Burmese-language specialist
|
KAWASAKI - Hanako Kuribayashi was known as being a thoughtful and good-natured girl, while Satoshi Oyama was recognized as a specialist in the Burmese language and a highly qualified Foreign Ministry official, before they were killed in Tuesday’s mass stabbing in Kawasaki. The two fell victim when a man wielding knives stabbed 17 students and two parents waiting with them for their school bus in the city near Tokyo. The suspect, identified by police as 51-year-old Kawasaki resident Ryuichi Iwasaki, died at a hospital as a result of a self-inflicted stab wound to his neck. Hanako, 11, was a sixth-grader at Caritas Elementary School, a private Catholic school. At a news conference, Satoru Shitori, vice principal of the school, said Hanako had approached a family who had come to visit Caritas in hopes of transferring last week to tell them about the appeal of the school. “You can study foreign languages here. Join the school,” she had told them, according to Shitori. “She came to see me even during the breaks,” the vice principal said. “This is a memory I’ll cherish.” Hanako was also known around her neighborhood for her cheerful personality. Next-door neighbor Takashi Kimura, 72, often saw her walking her dog with her mother. “She was an active child who spoke clearly. She was out shopping with her mother the last time I saw her. I can’t believe things like this happen,” he said. Principal Teiko Naito said Hanako was “full of smiles and always said ‘good morning.’ ” “I can’t believe this,” Naito said. Hanako’s father met with reporters outside their home Tuesday afternoon. “Please spare us today,” he said. “We’ll respond in the future, but I can’t leave my wife alone today.” Oyama, who worked for the Foreign Ministry and was the father of one unharmed student, was well-known as a specialist in Burmese — even outside the ministry — and had a promising future ahead of him, likely as a diplomat to Myanmar. According to the Foreign Ministry’s website, Oyama joined the ministry in 2004 and was sent in 2007 to the Japanese Embassy in Myanmar, where he often worked as an interpreter. “He was a Burmese specialist and an extremely brilliant young official. This is very deplorable,” Foreign Minister Taro Kono told a media gathering. “He had worked for the embassy in Myanmar and was someone who led Japan’s diplomacy with Myanmar,” he added. The 39-year-old was married and often seen playing with his child near their home. Former Ambassador to Myanmar Tateshi Higuchi was shaken when he heard news of Oyama’s death. Highly qualified, warm-hearted, humble and genuine were among the words he used to describe him. “He was young, but any manner of praise would apply to him,” the former ambassador said. “I’m incredibly shocked.” Oyama had helped Higuchi in 2014 prior to Higuchi’s move to Myanmar, and had acted as an interpreter when meetings were held by dignitaries from both Japan and Myanmar, including de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, during the four years Higuchi was ambassador. “I’ll remember how extremely supportive he was,” Higuchi said. “I can picture his friendly smile.” Oyama and his wife were graduates of the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. She was also knowledgeable in Burmese and the like-minded couple got along well, the former ambassador said. Ma Myintmyintthan, the manager of a Burmese restaurant in Tokyo that Oyama and his family had been visiting since two years ago, visited the site of the attack Wednesday to offer prayers. “He was always singing Burmese songs joyously. I saw the news on the incident and couldn’t believe it was Oyama (who was killed),” the manager said.
|
murder;children;kawasaki;foreign ministry;kanagawa;stabbings;ryuichi iwasaki;kawasaki attack
|
jp0004115
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Japan bolsters fight against workplace harassment, but laws lack punitive measures
|
The Diet revised various pieces of legislation Wednesday in an effort to bolster measures against workplace harassment, obligating companies to combat increasingly prevalent reports of bullying and abuse of power. Under revisions to five laws, aspects of workplace harassment were specifically defined and made impermissible for the first time. But none of the legislation prescribes punitive measures that can be taken against violators. Even so, the new regulations set a significant first legislative step in a country where various forms of workplace harassment had been left untouched for years. They prohibit any kind of mistreatment of workers who make allegations against people in more senior positions, or discrimination of workers who allege they have been victims of sexual harassment. Pregnant women or women who have returned to work after being on maternity leave are now similarly protected. The revisions also require, for the first time, businesses to take preventive measures against bosses who abuse their power in the workplace, defining the offenses as “excessive words and behavior by people who take advantage of their superior positions, harming the working environment.” The government will set guidelines on measures to be taken by companies, such as putting in place consultation programs, and give specific examples of types of power abuses. The government received feedback from companies saying it is difficult to draw a line between harassment and stern but fair management. Large companies will be obliged to introduce the preventive steps, possibly by next April. Small and midsize companies are requested to tackle the issue under the revised legislation on a voluntary basis from next spring, but its implementation will be mandatory within two years. As for sexual harassment, firms whose employees target someone in a different workplace are asked to cooperate with the victims’ firm during investigations into the matter. The government will also consider drawing up guidelines to counter harassment by customers or clients, as well as the sexual harassment of job-seeking students. The number of cases of bullying and abuse of power in workplaces reported to labor bureaus reached around 72,000 in fiscal 2017, hitting a record high for the sixth consecutive year. “Although some behavior had to some extent been considered excessive but permissible as a form of instruction, the new legislation will likely help curb extreme abuses of power,” said Masaomi Kaneko, head of the Workplace Harassment Research Institute. Meanwhile, Shino Naito, vice senior researcher at the Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training, said it is “regrettable” that the legislation fails to impose punitive measures. Japan “lags behind the global standard, as the International Labor Organization is set to adopt a treaty to ban harassment in the near future,” she said. As for power harassment, the revisions are basically in line with arguments by the business community that it is hard to draw a line between cases in which bosses “give instructions and guidance” and cases of harassment. As harassment may have serious implications for victims, potentially driving them to suffer mental health issues or to engage in self-harm, Japan should introduce punitive measures as quickly as possible, Naito said. Revisions to the laws, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Law, also aim to empower working women, obliging small and midsize companies with 101 to 300 workers to set numerical goals for the promotion of women in senior positions. Such a requirement has already been imposed on larger companies.
|
harassment;women;bullying;jobs;sexual harassment;discrimination;maternity harassment;power harassment
|
jp0004116
|
[
"national",
"social-issues"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Japanese police step up cyberpatrols to counter growing amount of online info urging suicide
|
Police are stepping up cyberpatrols in cooperation with companies and nonprofit organizations to crack down on the increasing amount of information online that encourages people to kill themselves. In 2017, the dismembered bodies of one man and eight women, aged between 15 and 26, were found in an apartment in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture. A 27-year-old man, who was arrested and later confessed to the killings, used multiple Twitter accounts to contact people who had expressed suicidal wishes, offering to help them die. The case prompted the National Police Agency to commission private monitoring companies in January 2018 to conduct cyberpatrols, telling them to report to the Internet Hotline Center when they discover worrisome phrases, such as “Let’s die together.” The IHC, when necessary, asks internet service providers and site operators to delete such information. The IHC received 1,329 such reports in the first six months of 2018 and asked for the deletion of information in 1,255 of them, of which 842 were erased within 14 days of the requests. In emergency cases where suicidal attempts are determined to be imminent, monitoring companies directly report to prefectural police departments. In cooperation with internet service providers, the police then find the people expressing such thoughts and try to prevent them from taking their own lives. Of the 204 people who declared their intentions to die by suicide in 2017, 74 were saved after police either persuaded them not to do so or asked their families to keep watch on them, according to a government report. Jiro Ito, a 34-year-old chief representative of OVA, a Tokyo-based nonprofit organization established to prevent suicide, is promoting a system that creates pop-up notices leading to a consultation website if people search the internet using phrases such as “I want to die” or “how to commit suicide.” On the website, clinical psychotherapists and other experts listen to visitors and help them get treatment at hospitals or receive advice from local governments. When necessary, OVA staff write reports on problems on behalf of those people or accompany them to hospitals or local governments. In fiscal 2018, 283 people received advice from OVA on a continuing basis. One of them was a woman in her 20s who shut herself off from society after failing to find a job. She made an internet search with the words “I want to die.” As she showed signs of depression, OVA helped her find a psychosomatic medicine hospital and begin receiving treatment there. She eventually recovered and landed a full-time job, according to the group. “As people who seek means of suicide on the internet are considered highly likely to attempt it, the elimination of suicide-inducing information is not enough,” said Hajime Sueki, associate professor of clinical psychology at Wako University, who serves as adviser to OVA. “It is important to create environments that enable people with suicidal wishes to readily gain information on how and where they can get support,” Sueki said.
|
suicide;internet;police
|
jp0004117
|
[
"national",
"science-health"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Blood test can predict dementia, but Japanese developers urge caution: There's still no cure
|
Nobel Prize winner Koichi Tanaka says the predictive blood test for Alzheimer’s disease he and colleagues spent almost a decade developing is a double-edged sword. Without medications to stave off the memory-robbing condition, identifying those at risk will do nothing to ease the dementia burden and may fuel anxiety. But if used to identify the best patients to enroll in drug studies, the minimally invasive exam could speed the development of therapies for the 152 million people predicted to develop the illness by 2050. “We must be cautious on how the test is used because there’s no curative treatment,” Tanaka said in an interview at Kyoto-based Shimadzu Corp., where he’s worked for 36 years. The 59-year-old engineer, who shared the Nobel for chemistry in 2002, said he hopes the test he helped pioneer will one day be administered routinely, but right now it belongs in the hands of drug developers and research laboratories. More than a century after the telltale signs of Alzheimer’s were first seen under a microscope, and billions of dollars in research spending by Roche Holding AG, Eli Lilly & Co., Eisai Co. and other companies, there’s still no drug to slow down the disease. In the absence of medical breakthroughs, the worldwide cost of dementia is projected to double to $2 trillion by 2030. While scientists debate the cause of Alzheimer’s, most agree that no treatment is likely to work on patients with significant cognitive impairment. That’s because their brains have been irreversibly damaged by clumps of misfolded and abnormal proteins that jam nerve cells. Nature study “There are many reasons why drugmakers have failed to develop a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, but it’s too late to start treatment when patients already show symptoms,” Tanaka said. In a study published in Nature in January last year, Tanaka and colleagues showed it was possible to use a novel biomarker discovered by his lab to accurately quantify minute traces of amyloid-beta from a teaspoonful of blood, and gauge the progression of Alzheimer’s — allowing identification of people likely to develop dementia over the coming decades. Previously, the brain changes that occur long before Alzheimer’s symptoms appear could only be reliably assessed by MRI and positron-emission tomography, or PET scans, and from measuring amyloid and another errant protein called tau in spinal cord fluid — methods that are expensive and, in the case of a spinal tap, invasive. “Our finding overturned the common belief that it wouldn’t be possible to estimate amyloid accumulation in the brain from blood,” Tanaka said. “We’re now being chased by others, and the competition is intensifying.” Major firms on board About a dozen companies and research groups from around the world, including Roche, Spain’s Araclon Biotech SL, and Lexington, Massachusetts-based Quanterix Corp., are pursuing blood-based diagnostic tools for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. “These blood tests are very important to that aim of trying to get these groups identified and ready to go into trials, and make them faster and less expensive,” said Christopher Rowe, a neurologist who heads molecular imaging research at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne. “That, in turn, is the greatest hope for having a significant impact on the epidemic.” The global Alzheimer’s disease diagnostics and therapeutics market is predicted to reach $11.1 billion in 2024 from $7.5 billion last year, ResearchAndMarkets.com said in March. The greatest benefit from screening blood tests for Alzheimer’s will come once treatments are available to prevent dementia symptoms, said Randall Bateman, the Charles F. and Joanne Knight distinguished professor of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Bateman and colleagues presented in 2017 a new method for measuring plasma amyloid levels using a similar approach to Tanaka’s group. ‘Exceptional accuracy’ “You really get exceptional accuracy,” said Bateman, whose lab studies the causes, diagnosis and treatments of Alzheimer’s disease. “I could see that easily becoming a clinical standard.” Both the Shimadzu and Washington University groups use an analytical technique called mass spectrometry that can search for a particular compound based on its specific molecular weight and charge. The method was found to be 90 percent accurate when it was checked against brain scans, Tanaka and colleagues said in their Nature paper. Tanaka likens the approach to fishing with bait that only a specific fish will take. It enabled him to more precisely quantify amyloid in blood than an older, antibody-based method, he said. New digital technology has bolstered the antibody-based test, with Quanterix using it to detect the errant proteins associated with the start of Alzheimer’s disease, as well as neurofilament light chain — a marker of neurological injury that can be elevated by conditions including concussion, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis. “There’s an incredible opportunity to transform brain health by understanding your neuro baseline,” said Kevin Hrusovsky, Quanterix’s chief executive officer. ‘Game-changing’ Several drugmakers are trying to get tests for neurofilament light chain validated clinically as a complementary diagnostic tool because they will enable patients’ responses to medications to be monitored in real time, providing an early signal of efficacy, Hrusovsky said. “There’s a lot of evidence that this is going to be game-changing,” he said. Roche is evaluating the use of Elecsys, which tests cerebrospinal fluid for signs of Alzheimer’s, in blood plasma, the Swiss company said in an emailed response to questions. The global demand for tests that can provide an early and accurate Alzheimer’s diagnosis, as well as predict the disease trajectory is “enormous, with 50 million people already affected today and many more people going undiagnosed,” according to Roche. “It’s a market that has room for many different technologies and players, from digital biomarkers to imaging and protein biomarkers.” Shimadzu finished analyzing amyloid levels in blood-serum samples from 2,000 patients in Japan in March, Tanaka said. The company is preparing to conduct a similar analysis in the U.S. this year before extending it to Europe and China. “One thing we are looking into is running prospective cohort studies targeting people who have started to build up amyloid in the brain and see whether anything — food, exercise — can intervene to slow the progression of the disease,” the Nobel laureate said. “There are many things to be done.”
|
drugs;kyoto;disease;aging;elderly;dementia;koichi tanaka;shimadzu
|
jp0004118
|
[
"national",
"science-health"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Genetic tests for identifying cancer treatments to be covered by Japan's public health insurance
|
The health ministry decided on Wednesday that genetic tests to help cancer patients identify the best drugs and therapies for their treatment will be covered by the public health insurance system. Insurance coverage for genomic testing starting Saturday will be applied to patients who have not responded to conventional cancer treatment. Patients will only have to pay 10 to 30 percent of the fees, which would otherwise cost several hundred thousand yen. The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry approved in December the marketing of cancer genome profiling systems that detect gene mutations in cancer patients by analyzing their tumor tissue. Two systems — one developed by the National Cancer Center and health instrument-maker Sysmex Corp., and another sold by Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. — are capable of profiling over 100 types of cancer-related genes in a single test, according to the entities. Without insurance coverage, the fee for testing the use of either product would be ¥560,000 ($5,100). The financial burden on patients can be further reduced if they obtain medical benefits offered to individuals who have exceeded the cap for monthly medical expenses. Patients eligible for insurance coverage are those suffering from solid cancers, which exclude cancers of the blood, and have not responded to surgery and anti-cancer drug treatment, as well as pediatric cancer patients and patients with rare cancers. It is expected that up to 26,000 people will use genomic profiling annually, with yearly sales of the products totaling around ¥15 billion. Patients can provide tumor tissue specimens for testing at 11 hospitals playing a key role in cancer genomic medicine and 156 other hospitals across the country. Experts will assess drugs that will be effective in the treatment of patients and the findings will be conveyed to each patient through the doctors in charge. The health ministry will also ask the hospitals to submit the anonymized results of the genomic profiling to a national cancer research center, after obtaining patients’ consent. The accumulated information is expected to be utilized for the development of new treatments.
|
medicine;cancer;national health care
|
jp0004119
|
[
"national",
"politics-diplomacy"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Japan to propose Abe-Kim summit to North Korean officials next week
|
The Japanese government plans to reach out to North Korean officials next week in Mongolia to propose a summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the North’s leader Kim Jong Un, government sources said Wednesday. Abe has said he is willing to meet Kim “without conditions,” softening his previous stance. He had said it would be a prerequisite for a summit that North Korea moves closer to returning Japanese nationals abducted by its agents in the 1970s and 1980s. U.S. President Donald Trump, who has met Kim twice for negotiations over the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, said during a visit to Tokyo this week that he supports an Abe-Kim summit. According to the sources, Japanese officials hope to speak with North Korean diplomats on the sidelines of a Northeast Asian security conference to be held June 5 and 6 in Ulaanbaatar. The conference will be a rare opportunity for Japanese and North Korean officials to speak as the countries do not have formal diplomatic ties. Japan is expected to send a senior official from the Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau to the conference, while North Korea may send a vice foreign minister, the sources said.
|
shinzo abe;kim jong un;abductions;north korea-japan relations
|
jp0004120
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Philippine island preserves history of Japanese WWII soldier Hiroo Onoda, who hid in jungles for decades
|
LUBANG ISLAND, PHILIPPINES - The memories of Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda remain alive on the Philippine island of Lubang, southwest of Manila, 45 years after his surrender. Onoda, an Imperial Japanese Army intelligence officer deployed to the island from December 1944 to lead guerrilla warfare at the height of World War II, did not surrender until March 10, 1974, over 28 years after the war ended, because he had not received orders from his superiors to stop. The native of Wakayama Prefecture died in January 2014 in Tokyo at the age of 91. “Onoda is a historical person. I think he’s the only person who hid for so long and then survived,” said 17-year-old Nico Felix, a high school student on the island that is part of Occidental Mindoro Province. Felix said he knows Onoda’s story because the local community and his school occasionally talk about “the Japanese soldier during WWII who hid in the mountains here.” Many are also aware because of the public opening of the Onoda Trail and Caves tourist site in 2011. The mountain attraction offers visitors a glimpse of Onoda’s life in the forest. Carolyn Villas, 51, a social studies teacher, said that for over two decades now, she makes it a point to bring up the case of Onoda when discussing the war with her students. “Of course, the students need to know that this happened to us, that we are part of the Philippine history, that Onoda was known in history because he was the longest to be in hiding (and) that’s why he was called a Japanese straggler,” Villas said. By making them aware that their own home island played a significant part in history, the younger generation of Lubang residents will be “more curious and interested about our own local history,” she added. Felix said he and other students “should learn about Onoda because that is part of our own history, and it helps to know about the damages of World War II so they won’t be repeated.” Bryan James, 18, another high school student, said that largely because of Onoda, “Lubang is already known to others” and the island’s tourism potential has grown. The Japanese soldier also showed how it is “to live on your own, and survive out of just natural and organic resources,” added fellow student Aaron James, 17. Edwin Trajico, 54, the chief tour guide at Onoda Trail and Caves, similarly said, “One legacy that Onoda left out of his hiding in this mountain is the lesson that people can actually live in a natural environment or in the forest, where food is readily available and even medicine.” “Because of him, we are now also able to preserve this forest, this mountain,” he added. Older folks, on the other hand, who were alive while Onoda was hiding in the mountains, have other narratives and sentiments to share. Adiodato de Lara, 76, said Onoda and his fellow straggler, Kinshichi Kozuka, burned rice plantations tended to by his father, and killed or stole cows, which Onoda admitted to in his book. De Lara also accused Kozuka of killing his father on April 25, 1972, adding that he and other Japanese soldiers “caused so much disturbance here” and that the people should be apologized to and compensated for that. Kozuka was Onoda’s last companion in the mountains of Lubang from May 1954 until October 1972 when he was shot dead by local authorities. Another soldier surrendered in September 1949 and one was shot dead in May 1954. Felito Voluntad, 68, was a high school student joining a local patrol team searching for the Japanese soldiers sometime in 1969 when he was sniped on his back, either by Kozuka or Onoda. The minor injury, which was treated promptly by a local doctor, left a scar that remains visible today. Voluntad said others were not as lucky as him. “There were some they killed by shooting. My uncle was also shot and injured in the stomach. “I was angry at them. … I was happy when (Onoda) surrendered because there was nothing for people to fear about anymore in the mountains,” he said. While he agrees that Onoda and his party should have apologized to and compensated the local people, Voluntad said he understands “where Onoda is coming from because he really thought the war was still ongoing at the time.” Jacobo Balbuena, 76, a retired airman of the Philippine Air Force who was stationed on the island, can still vividly recall how the Japanese and local authorities conducted the search for Onoda and convinced him to surrender. Balbuena said he joined the search patrol immediately after Norio Suzuki, a Japanese civilian who established contact with Onoda in February 1974, eventually leading to his surrender a month later, showed a photo of the Japanese soldier taken in the jungle. Onoda finally yielded after his commanding officer, Maj. Yoshimi Taniguchi, flew to the island and personally relieved him of duty. “We were surprised when we actually saw Onoda in person because he was only around 5 feet tall, and not a very big person,” Balbuena recounted. Balbuena said he was part of the 14 “honor guards” who Onoda passed through upon his surrender at Gozar Air Station. “He walked straight. He was snappy. He looked like a very smart soldier. He looked very strong.” Villas, the social studies teacher, said that despite the negative aspects of Onoda’s stay on the island, “still, we have to appreciate it. Anyway, those are all over now.” “His importance is that, in hiding here, despite the not-too-many very good memories at the time, the place is now preserved. (The Onoda Trail and Caves) is even rightfully named after him now,” she said. “The people of Lubang are very kind. Despite the bad things that happened, he was still given some kind of a tribute.”
|
wwii;history;philippines;military;imperial japanese army;hiroo onoda
|
jp0004121
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Winner of spelling bee in Japan moves to next round of U.S. contest
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NATIONAL HARBOR, MARYLAND - Less than three months after winning the 2019 Japan Times Bee, Ariya Narayanasamy spelled himself into the next round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Tuesday. The 12-year-old from Tokyo correctly spelled “bandicoot” and will compete in round three on Wednesday. Hosted in National Harbor just outside of Washington, the contest is the premier U.S. spelling competition. The event drew hundreds of spellers from all 50 states and seven other countries. Narayanasamy earned his ticket to compete this week by out-spelling 39 other students at a spelling bee contest organized by The Japan Times in March. Then a student at the India International School campus in Tokyo, he was locked in a dead heat with the other remaining finalist before correctly spelling “forbearance” to win the entire competition. His victory in Tokyo made for a close finish. But — as Narayanasamy acknowledged Monday night before the start of the on-stage oral competition — he anticipated a significant increase in the difficulty of the words he would be asked to spell in the Scripps Bee. Narayanasamy approached the microphone on stage late Tuesday morning before the largest crowd he has ever spelled in front of. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, the U.S. contest’s moderator Jacques Bailly asked him to spell “bandicoot.” To help deconstruct a word with which they may be unfamiliar, competitors are permitted to ask for the pronunciation, language of origin and definition of the word they are asked to spell. The moderator can also provide a sample sentence that correctly uses the word. These are the only tools available to spellers on stage. But Narayanasamy did not need any of them. “Once Dr. Bailly said the word, I knew I knew the word,” Narayanasamy said. “I said to myself: ‘OK, I can spell this word.’ So, I just had to take my time and get every single letter right.” To force himself to slow down, Narayanasamy asked the moderator to read the definition of “bandicoot” and its language of origin. While Bailly described the Telugu word, meaning “certain … insectivorous and herbivorous marsupial mammals found in Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea,” Narayanasamy was busy neatly arranging nine letters in his head, then out loud: “B-a-n-d-i-c-o-o-t. Bandicoot.” A second moderator waited just a beat before announcing Narayanasamy’s spelling of the word was correct. The audience broke into applause, as they did for every speller on Tuesday. Of the record 562 competitors who spelled on stage Tuesday, 518 advanced with Narayanasamy to the third round. Competitors who both spell correctly in round three and who scored high enough on a paper exam taken Monday will participate in the finals on Thursday. Narayanasamy will prepare for the next phase of competition the same way he always has: a little bit of studying, a little bit of meditation and a little bit of YouTube, to take the edge off. Only one international competitor, from South Korea, was eliminated on Tuesday. On Tuesday, competitors were asked to spell words from a set list of 600. Spellers had the opportunity to study the list ahead of time. The list included words from languages around the world, including those of Japanese origin like “koto,” “daikon” and “tamari.” Starting with round three, there will be no pre-culled list for competitors to study. Instead, words will be pulled from the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary, of which there are hundreds of thousands to choose from. As a victorious Narayanasamy returned to his seat, the corners of his mouth curling into a small smile, the next competitor took the stage and Bailly read the next word: “forbearance.”
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language;spelling bee;contests;japan times bee
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jp0004122
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/05/29
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Japan enacts bill to allow use of smartphones under some circumstances in self-driving cars
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The Diet passed into law Tuesday a bill allowing drivers to use their smartphones while their cars are traveling autonomously under certain circumstances and if they are able to shift to manual driving immediately during an emergency. The bill to amend the road traffic law, which includes rules on so-called Level 3 self-driving of vehicles under certain circumstances, passed the House of Representatives. The amended law will come into effect by May next year. In Level 3 situations, automated driving is permitted under conditions that have to do with the type of road, the vehicle speed and other factors. A Level 3 situation includes a traffic jam on an expressway. Drivers will need to switch to manual driving if the conditions are not met. Under the current road traffic law, people are banned from talking on their mobile phones and looking for long periods of time at navigation systems, televisions or other devices. The amended law will allow such actions if drivers are able to change over from automated to manual driving immediately. While the revised law will allow reading and eating, it will prohibit people from drinking alcohol, as there is a possibility that they will have to drive their vehicles manually. The amended law will also require people to equip their vehicles with a device that will record the operating situation of cars and save the data, in order to detect a system malfunction at an early stage and identify the cause of any accidents. Police will be able to ask drivers to disclose such information if their car is found to have a defect.
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smartphones;diet;self-driving
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jp0004123
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Diet approves simultaneous streaming for Japan's public broadcaster NHK
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The Diet on Wednesday authorized public broadcaster NHK to start simultaneous online streaming of its television programs amid the increasing popularity of computer- and handset-based services. NHK, formally called Japan Broadcasting Corp., plans to launch the new service by next March in order to broadcast the Tokyo Olympics torch relay, which is scheduled to start that month. To date, NHK has streamed disaster reports and some live sports coverage but the revised broadcasting law approved by the House of Councilors will help expand streaming video services via devices including smartphones. People who possess a TV set are required to pay for an NHK subscription, but the revised law does not require any additional fee. The law obliges the Tokyo-based broadcaster to disclose the costs of online distribution, amid criticism that its business expansion could have a negative impact on private broadcasters. The communications minister will give NHK a warning if the broadcaster does not follow the requirements, according to the revised law. The law also strengthens NHK’s corporate governance by stipulating measures that give the audit committee the authority to investigate executives. This comes after a series of scandals that hit the broadcaster, including two separate cases involving the embezzlement of subscription fees by employees. During discussions on the bill, NHK was urged to improve its management operations. The broadcaster has already decided to cut the subscription fee starting in October 2020. “In the era of converging broadcasting and communication services, we will work to play the role of a trusted core component of social infrastructure that viewers can rely on,” NHK said. The bill cleared the House of Representatives on May 16.
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television;internet;nhk;online streaming
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jp0004124
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[
"national",
"crime-legal"
] |
2019/05/29
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Parents of Osaka nightclub worker who died from chugging alcohol granted workers' benefits
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OSAKA - The parents of a man in the nighttime entertainment industry who died after chugging alcoholic drinks at work in 2012 were granted workers’ benefits Wednesday in the first such court ruling in Japan. Yuya Tanaka, who worked at a host club, died at age 21 after suffering from acute alcohol poisoning at the establishment where young male staff typically attend to female customers. His parents were previously refused compensation based on workplace injury claims. But the Osaka District Court overrode the decision made by labor inspectors, ruling that “drinking alcohol was part of the job.” It was exceedingly difficult for Tanaka to refuse demands from his older coworkers to drink alcohol at the club, presiding Judge Hiroyuki Naito said in handing down the ruling. His death represents a “realized hazard related to working at a host club,” as drinking is used to increase sales, the judge said. Tanaka started working at the club in Osaka in April 2012. He chugged shōchū and tequila to liven up the atmosphere among customers during the early hours of Aug. 1 that year. He subsequently passed out drunk. He was later found frothing at the mouth by a coworker and sent to a hospital, where he died from acute alcohol poisoning. Tanaka’s parents applied for workers’ compensation in June 2013 at a local labor bureau, but their request was denied in November that year. However, the club was ordered by the court to pay the parents ¥73 million ($668,000) in February this year after they filed a claim for damages against its operator. Two former managers were also referred to prosecutors in 2016 on suspicion of causing death by negligence in the conduct of business, but both cases were later dismissed. The parents are currently considering filing a complaint with the Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution.
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osaka;courts;drinking;host clubs
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jp0004125
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[
"national",
"crime-legal"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Kawasaki stabbing spree lasted less than 20 seconds; man behind mass attack said to have had short fuse
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YOKOHAMA/KAWASAKI - A mass stabbing around a school bus stop in Kawasaki that claimed the lives of two occurred over a period of less than 20 seconds, investigators said Wednesday. Seventeen students of Caritas Elementary School, a private Catholic school in the city near Tokyo, and two parents were attacked Tuesday, most while waiting for the school bus. Police searched the suspect’s home in Kawasaki on Wednesday looking for clues about the attack, in which a schoolgirl and the father of an unharmed pupil were killed. Wielding knives in both hands, Ryuichi Iwasaki, 51, allegedly carried out the attack before taking his own life from a self-inflicted stab wound to the neck, police said. The entire incident happened over a distance of 50 meters along a street. Both knives were 30 centimeters long, and investigators found two more knives in a backpack believed to have belonged to the assailant. The police have confirmed through security camera footage that Iwasaki took a train from Yomiurilandmae Station on the Odakyu Line, the train station nearest his home, and arrived at Noborito Station near the attack site. He is believed to have then walked to a convenience store, where he left his backpack before starting his rampage, carrying knives in each hand, according to the police. The cameras installed around the area captured Iwasaki moving rapidly among his victims as he carried out the attack, they said. Investigators said they believe the suspect began the attack by slashing 39-year-old parent and Foreign Ministry official Satoshi Oyama multiple times before continuing his spree. Oyama was found lying on his back on the street near the convenience store and was later confirmed dead at a hospital. Iwasaki then seriously wounded the 45-year-old mother of a Caritas student and attacked Hanako Kuribayashi, an 11-year-old sixth-grader from Tama, western Tokyo, who later died, and other children who were forming a line to get on a school bus, according to the police. The incident occurred at around 7:40 a.m. Tuesday on a street in Kawasaki’s Tama Ward near Noborito Station. Amid intermittent rain, a number of people offered prayers near the site around the same hour as the attack the previous day, while many flowers, snacks and beverages were left as offerings for the victims. Hiroko Moriya, a 22-year-old graduate school student, left a bottle of fruit juice, saying she always takes the same train as Caritas students. “The victimized children may have been the ones I took trains with. I can’t think of it as someone else’s business,” she said as she cried. Iwasaki lived in a house in Kawasaki’s Asao Ward with an elderly couple believed to be his relatives. Neighbors of Iwasaki said they had very few dealings with him although one thought he was short-tempered. Forty minutes before the incident, which ended when he stabbed himself in the neck, Iwasaki said good morning to a female neighbor, a rare and unusual occurrence, she said. He then went in the direction of nearby Yomiurilandmae Station. The two had a troubling interaction, according to the neighbor, when Iwasaki rang her doorbell early one morning last summer to complain that a branch from her garden that had grown over the sidewalk had hit him in the eye. Iwasaki is said to have attended local elementary and junior high schools, though few people knew much about him, with one man saying his mother recently mentioned she had seen him for the first time in a long time. “I can’t believe he would cause such a horrible incident,” said another female neighbor, who added that she had seen him walking a few days ago looking down and carrying some shopping bags. A newspaper deliveryman said he had initially believed that the only people living at Iwasaki’s home were an elderly couple, but recalled seeing a large amount of youth magazines lined up outside the house three or four months ago on a paper recycling day.
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murder;children;kawasaki;kanagawa;stabbings;ryuichi iwasaki;kawasaki attack
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jp0004126
|
[
"national",
"crime-legal"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Father arrested in Japan for using shock collar to discipline children
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A 45-year-old man was arrested Wednesday for the alleged use of a shock collar to discipline his three children, police said, the latest in a series of child abuse cases that have prompted legislators to seek a ban on corporal punishment. Takahiro Goto in the city of Kitakyushu told police he used a shock collar on his two daughters, aged 17 and 13, and 12-year-old son “when they didn’t follow the rules,” police said. Police officials said the suspect ordered his children to place a shock collar, used to train pets, on their bodies and controlled it remotely. The boy suffered a minor burn on his arm and there were no visible injuries on the girls, a police official said. The case surfaced after the elder daughter told her vocational school teacher in February that she has been abused by her father via a shock collar, according to police. The school then reported the statement to a child consultation center and the center took the children under its protection. A series of high-profile child abuse cases in recent years has shaken Japan, including the death last year of a 5-year-old girl, Yua Funato, whose father allegedly beat and starved her in the name of discipline. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at the time her death was “soul crushing” and he promised steps to prevent more deaths. Legislators in the Lower House on Tuesday unanimously approved a plan to ban corporal punishment of children by their parents, paving the way for passage of a revised law during the current session. More than 50 countries — mostly in Europe — have laws prohibiting corporal punishment of children in the home, which some researchers say is an ineffective form of discipline. Japan would be the third country in Asia to institute such a ban after Mongolia in 2016 and Nepal two years later.
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children;abuse;kitakyushu
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jp0004127
|
[
"national",
"crime-legal"
] |
2019/05/29
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Japanese education ministry official arrested over drug possession
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A career bureaucrat in the education ministry was arrested Tuesday for allegedly possessing a stimulant drug and marijuana, drug regulatory authorities said. Mitsuhiro Fukuzawa, 44, assistant director to the counselor for the elementary and secondary education bureau of the ministry, has admitted to possessing a stimulant drug for personal use, in violation of the stimulant drug control law, according to the health ministry’s narcotics control unit. Syringes were confiscated after the unit raided his home and office at the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry. Earlier this year, a bureaucrat of the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry was arrested for allegedly attempting to smuggle a stimulant drug from the United States. A senior education ministry official said the case could again damage the reputation of the ministry, which was rattled by a corruption scandal last year, with two senior officials being arrested on graft charges involving Tokyo Medical University.
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drugs;stimulants;mext
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jp0004128
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/05/29
|
Following Kawasaki attack, attention turns to survivors' mental trauma
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Even before a knife-wielding man attacked a group of elementary school students in Kawasaki on Tuesday, Japan had already seen news of children dragged into dreadful circumstances this year. Earlier this month, a vehicle plowed into a group of toddlers on a sidewalk in Shiga Prefecture, killing two 2-year-olds and injuring 13 people. In April, an 87-year-old driver rammed into pedestrians in the Ikebukuro district of Tokyo, fatally striking a 3-year-old girl and her mother and injuring nine. Although Tuesday’s attack, which left an 11-year-old girl and a 39-year-old father dead, differed in that it was a mass stabbing, all could be described as distressing events. And children are more at risk of suffering severe mental trauma, said Dr. Toshiko Kamo, a Tokyo-based psychiatrist. “There are statistics and studies that have been done that show that the younger a child encounters a traumatic occurrence, the longer symptoms related to post-traumatic stress disorder tend to stay,” Kamo said. Victims of the Tuesday attack were mostly students at Caritas Elementary School, a nearby private Catholic school, waiting for a school bus to arrive. The government has recommended schools employ school buses for safety. The grisly incident stunned the world, as Japan is known for having one of the lowest violent crime rates among developed countries. Japan also has strict gun control laws that some say prevent mass killings from happening in the first place. But according to 2013 statistics by the Justice Ministry, children under 9 years old comprise the largest group of victims of indiscriminate attacks by age group. The research examined random attacks whose suspects were convicted between March 2000 and March 2010. Of the 126 victims, 32 were children age below 9, or 25.4 percent. Fifteen were boys and 17 were girls. Since a man stabbed eight students to death at an elementary school in Osaka in June 2001, schools nationwide have tightened up security. Tami Yanagita, an associate professor of clinical psychology at Taisho University in Tokyo, said following the 2001 Osaka attack, professionals have become more ready to respond to tragedies. “I believe (Caritas Elementary School) is taking appropriate measures regarding care,” Yanagita said, emphasizing how the school was in touch with Kawasaki’s mental health team and Kanagawa Prefecture’s emergency response team within the same day. At this point, the victims of the Kawasaki attack are likely going through acute stress, which usually lasts up to a week depending on individuals, Kamo said. The symptoms — appearing 80 percent of the time — include nightmares, sudden flashbacks to the episode and memory loss. Counselors usually perform an assessment shortly after a tragic event instead of diving straight into treatment, Kamo said. If such symptoms last for more than a month, Kamo said doctors would diagnose PTSD. In some cases, the effects of PTSD persist for years, the psychiatrist added. “If a child is scared to go to school, it is effective if a guardian accompanies the child to and from the school,” Kamo said. The children and family members affected by Tuesday’s attack are in a great state of shock, Yanagita said, so it is important for local residents to step up to support them in regaining normalcy. She advised people to not be inquisitive about the case, to avoid engaging in rumors and to reach out to help with daily tasks. “(The children) experienced an extraordinary event,” Yanagita said. “What is ordinary for those children are their lives at home and school. Thus, I think it is important for the local community to help them feel at ease and function well in those places.” For households with a child, Yanagita suggests parents avoid exposure to graphic images and explain what happened.
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murder;children;kawasaki;ptsd;mental health;kanagawa;stabbings;ryuichi iwasaki;kawasaki attack
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jp0004129
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/05/16
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Okinawa's Orion Breweries debuts first chūhai lineup with regional fruit twist
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Orion Breweries Ltd. launched its first lineup of canned chūhai — a drink typically made of shōchū or vodka mixed with a nonalcholic beverage — on Tuesday, seeking to win over young drinkers who are increasingly drawn to the beverages and away from beer. Three kinds of chūhai products containing vodka and locally grown shiikuwāsā (flat lemon) fruit juice debuted under the brand Watta. “ Wattā ” means “we” in the local dialect. “By adding local fruit and spices, we aim to make it a brand that conveys the appeal of ingredients produced in the prefecture,” Orion Breweries executive Masakazu Miyazato told reporters on May 8. According to the maker of Orion beer, the products have different alcohol content and flavors, and also use shiikuwāsā supplied by the prefecture’s agricultural cooperative, JA Okinawa. There are three varieties under the Watta brand. The 4-percent low alcohol version has a refreshing aroma and sweetness derived from a blend of unripe and ripe shiikuwāsā. The 9-percent alcohol version targeting middle-aged consumers and those who prefer stronger beverages comes in two kinds — one is sugar- and purine-free, while the other features an extract of local shiikuwāsā. Orion Breweries commissioned Okinawa Bottlers to manufacture the drinks, and some manufacturing will be done outside the prefecture. In the future, Miyazato said, the company wants to make the products at its own factory. The drinks will be available at mass retailers and farmers markets within the prefecture. After the beverages are distributed in Okinawa, the brewer will expand its sales to other places in Japan. It plans to release a second and third chūhai range this fiscal year, which will end next March. The aim is to sell 325 kiloliters of Watta chūhai this fiscal year. Miyazato said his company began considering entry into the chūhai market four to five years ago as “people, mainly the young, are increasingly staying away from beer and their preferences for alcoholic beverages have become more diverse.” Around the time the company began exploring the move, sales of canned chūhai, cocktails, highballs and other so-called ready-to-drink beverages clearly started climbing in the prefecture, according to Ken Nakachi, who heads Okinawa’s association of liquor retailers. Orion Breweries believes that chūhai, which is cheap and has many different variations, will further increase its share of the alcoholic beverage market as domestic beer sales continue to fall. Brewers’ shipments of beer and beer-like beverages hit a record low for the 14th straight year in 2018. Meanwhile, RTD beverages are highly popular among young consumers. The implementation of a revised liquor tax law, which unifies tax rates for different beer categories in mid-2026, will make the cheapest, no-malt “third-category” beer more expensive. This could further accelerate consumers’ shift to canned chūhai, so Orion Breweries hopes to retain customers by creating a new line of drinks. Still, an Orion Breweries employee noted that beer will remain “the center of its branding strategy.” Acknowledging that a continued focus on beer and beer-like beverages would undermine its edge in a competitive market, the employee said, “By introducing chūhai, we want to cater to young drinkers who don’t like beer.” While Orion Breweries is a latecomer to the chūhai market, it intends to set itself apart from other major producers with its lineup of unique products. It plans to get inspiration from a whole range of Okinawan food, including snacks and seasonings, for product development. “While ingredients for making beer are restricted, chūhai can express flavors freely. We want to jointly develop products with other businesses in the prefecture and expand our market share,” the employee said.
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okinawa;drinking;orion;chuhai
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jp0004130
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Trump weighs six-month window for Japan and EU to agree cuts in auto imports into U.S. before tariffs
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WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump will give Japan and the EU 180 days to agree to a deal that would “limit or restrict” imports into the U.S. of automobiles and their parts in return for delaying new auto tariffs, according to a draft executive order seen by Bloomberg. According to the order, which people familiar with the matter say Trump is expected to sign this week, the administration has determined that imports of cars into the U.S. present a threat to national security because they have hurt domestic producers and their ability to invest in new technologies. General Motors Co., Volkswagen AG, Toyota Motor Corp. and others have warned of the damaging impacts of imposing tariffs of up to 25 percent on imported cars and parts. Shares of BMW AG surged as much as 5 percent Wednesday, while Toyota and Honda Motor Co. ended slightly lower in Tokyo in line with the broader market. Korean automakers including Kia Motors Corp. advanced on news the proclamation will exempt South Korea from any future tariffs because it renegotiated the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement last year. A report by the Commerce Department had found that America’s innovation capacity “is now at serious risk as imports continue to displace American-owned production.” Trump was facing a May 18 deadline to make a decision on auto tariffs. “The lag in R&D expenditures by American-owned firms is weakening innovation and, accordingly, threatening to impair our national security,” according to the draft executive order. Spokespeople for U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump will refrain from imposing tariffs for up to six months as trade negotiations with the EU and Japan are underway. In February, the Commerce Department submitted its Section 232 national security report to the White House. The agency was investigating whether imports harmed U.S. national security by weakening American automakers’ ability to invest in future technologies. The Commerce Department’s specific recommendations have not been revealed. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga noted Thursday that when Japan and the U.S. agreed last year to open bilateral trade talks, the U.S. pledged not to impose auto tariffs while talks were underway. “At the Japan-U.S. summit last September, Prime Minister (Shinzo) Abe confirmed directly with President Trump that while trade talks are going on no actions will be taken against the spirit of the joint statement, and additional tariffs will not be imposed under Section 232 on cars or car parts,” Suga said. As talks proceed, the U.S. appears poised to add pressure on Japan. So far the U.S. position on autos has been unclear, but it is easy now to envision that the U.S. will demand Japan agree to limit auto shipments to the U.S. the same way that Mexico and Canada did, said Junichi Sugawara, senior research officer at Mizuho Research Institute. “Plus, Japan now has the 180-day limit, so it’s not a good development for Japan,” Sugawara said. Japanese and European officials have made clear a quota arrangement like the one that Mexico and Canada agreed to in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which replaced NAFTA, is a red line for them. The U.S. is in talks with both trading partners, but autos are not currently part of discussions with the EU. The U.S. imported $191.7 billion in passenger vehicles and light trucks in 2018, with more than $90 billion of those imports coming from Canada and Mexico, which are duty-free under USMCA. Passenger cars are now subject to a 2.5 percent U.S. tariff but Trump has threatened to raise that to 25 percent, arguing that the EU and other countries have higher barriers to U.S. auto exports. American allies Mexico, Canada, Japan and Germany are the leading sources of imported cars and trucks.
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trade;eu;carmakers;tariffs;donald trump;trade war
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jp0004131
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Japan's Watami restaurant operator to set up Singapore unit to source Southeast Asian workers
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SINGAPORE - Major Japanese restaurant chain operator Watami Co. will establish a joint venture in Singapore to train and send Southeast Asian workers to Japan in response to Tokyo’s drive to accept more foreign workers. Watami said Wednesday the joint venture with IT Global Corp., a Japanese human resources provider under the wing of ITbook Holdings Co., will be established this month, with a plan to initially dispatch Cambodian workers. The equally owned joint venture, tentatively named Global Dream Street, will be capitalized at $1 million (¥109.55 million) and provide language education, practical job training and follow-through service, Watami said in a statement. “We are in tie-up talks with a Japanese-language school in Cambodia. We also have a plan to form a staffing entity,” a Watami spokesman said. The joint venture plans to mainly train workers for the restaurant sector, he said. Watami and IT Global said they will also establish another joint venture in Tokyo, tentatively named W&I Dream Model, in June to offer Japanese-language training for foreign workers and staffing services for Japanese companies in various sectors. On April 1, Japan launched a new visa system to bring in more foreign workers to the country, which is struggling with an acute labor shortage due to a rapidly graying population.
|
southeast asia;restaurants;singapore;izakaya;expats;foreign workers;watami
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jp0004132
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/05/16
|
China blocks all language editions of Wikipedia ahead of Tiananmen crackdown anniversary
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BEIJING - Beijing has broadened its block of online encyclopedia Wikipedia to include all language editions, an internet censorship research group reported just weeks ahead of China’s most politically explosive anniversary. According to a report by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), China started blocking all language editions of Wikipedia last month. Previously, most editions of Wikipedia — besides the Chinese language version, which was reportedly blocked in 2015 — were available, OONI said in their report. AFP could not open any of Wikipedia’s versions in China on Wednesday. “At the end of the day, the content that really matters is Chinese-language content,” said Charlie Smith, the pseudonym of one of the co-founders of Greatfire.org , which tracks online censorship in China. “Blocking access to all language versions of Wikipedia for internet users in China is just symbolic,” he told AFP. “It symbolizes the fear that the Chinese authorities have of the truth.” Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia, said it had not received any notices explaining the latest block. According to the organization, Wikipedia has been blocked intermittently in China since 2004. “With the expansion of this block, millions of readers and volunteer editors, writers, academics, and researchers within China cannot access this resource or share their knowledge and achievements with the world,” Samantha Lien, communications manager at Wikimedia Foundation, told AFP over email. “When one country, region, or culture cannot join the global conversation on Wikipedia, the entire world is poorer,” she said. China’s online censorship apparatus — dubbed the “Great Firewall” — blocks a large number of foreign sites in the country, such as Google, Facebook and The New York Times. Topics that are deemed too “sensitive” are also scrubbed, such as the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen pro-democracy protesters that will mark its 30th anniversary on June 4. The expanded block of Wikipedia comes as Chinese authorities under Chinese President Xi Jinping ramp up online controls and crack down on Great Firewall circumvention tools, such as virtual private network (VPN) software. In November, China’s cyberspace authority said it had “cleaned up” 9,800 accounts on Chinese social media platforms like messaging app WeChat and the Twitter-like Weibo that it accused of spreading “politically harmful” information and rumours. Chinese Twitter users have also told AFP that they have experienced intimidation from local authorities — and even detention — for their tweets. The latest move to block all versions of Wikipedia could be linked to online translation tools, which make it easy for Chinese users to read anything on Wikipedia, Smith said. Images can also be considered taboo, he said. “A picture is worth a thousand words, and there is no dearth of Tiananmen-related imagery on the Wikipedia website,” Smith added.
|
china;censorship;xi jinping;facebook;tiananmen square;great firewall;new york times;wikipedia
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jp0004133
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/05/16
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Government to urge firms in Japan to hire employees until age 70 amid labor crunch
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The government on Wednesday urged companies to extend employees’ retirement until the age of 70 as part of measures to address a severe labor shortage due to Japan’s rapidly graying population. The government will urge companies to make efforts to secure employment for workers up to the age of 70 through a host of options such as continued employment after reaching retirement age, support in finding new jobs at other firms, financial assistance for freelance contracts and entrepreneurship support. Many companies set a retirement age of 60, but employees can work until 65 if they desire and employers are legally obliged to continue hiring them. “It is necessary to provide a variety of options to make use of the expertise of elderly workers,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at a gathering to discuss future growth policies. “I want healthy, willing elderly people to use their experience and wisdom in society.” The plans were presented at a meeting of the Council on Investment for the Future, headed by Abe. The government plans to submit a bill to the Diet next year to revise related laws for stable employment for elderly people, the prime minister said. The government will not make the string of measures mandatory under the revised law, but will consider making it so in the future, sources said. Ensuring an adequate workforce is also important for securing funds to meet the rising social security costs of an aging society. One in every three people in Japan is expected to be 65 or older in 2025, government data shows. The government has already introduced a series of steps to make up for the labor shortfall, such as bringing in more foreign workers and promoting women’s participation in the labor market. Still, Japan is expected to face a shortage of 6.44 million workers in 2030, according to an estimate by Chuo University and Persol Research and Consulting. Among the 66.64 million workers aged 15 or older last year, 8.62 million, or 13 percent, were 65 or older, the government said. While increasing employment opportunities for elderly people, the government is not considering raising the starting age for receiving pensions, the sources said.
|
shinzo abe;retirement;jobs;elderly
|
jp0004134
|
[
"business",
"tech"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Trump declares emergency barring U.S. firms from business with foreign telecoms deemed security risks
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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump declared a national emergency Wednesday barring U.S. companies from using foreign telecoms equipment deemed a security risk — a move that appeared aimed at Chinese giant Huawei. The order signed by Trump prohibits purchase or use of equipment from companies that pose “an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons.” Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai applauded Trump’s executive order, saying it will safeguard the U.S. communications supply chain. “Given the threats presented by certain foreign companies’ equipment and services, this is a significant step toward securing America’s networks,” he said. A senior White House official insisted that no particular country or company was targeted in the “company- and country-agnostic” declaration. However, the measure — announced just as a U.S.-China trade war deepens — is widely seen as prompted by already deep concerns over an alleged spying threat from Huawei. U.S. officials have been trying to persuade allies not to allow China a role in building next-generation 5G mobile networks, warning that doing so would result in restrictions on sharing of information with the United States. U.S. government agencies are already banned from buying equipment from Huawei, a rapidly expanding leader in the 5G technology. China’s government is furious. “For some time, the United States has abused its national power to deliberately discredit and suppress by any means specific Chinese enterprises, which is neither honorable nor fair,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said. “We urge the U.S. side to stop the unreasonable suppression of Chinese enterprises on the pretext of national security and to provide a fair and non-discriminatory environment,” the spokesman said. Earlier, David Wang, executive director of Huawei’s board, shrugged off news of the upcoming emergency declaration. “Our business in the U.S. is not very big. We are a company with global operations, so if there is this or that change in any country, the impact on our global business is very little,” he said. The U.S. portrayal of Huawei as a national security danger dovetails with Washington’s wider complaint that Chinese companies are unfairly protected by the state, making fair trade impossible. On an even broader scale, the United States and some European allies fear that Chinese economic expansion, particularly in the “Belt and Road” global infrastructure program, is part of a bid for geopolitical dominance. Amid those worries, Huawei is portrayed as an especially potent Trojan horse that could leverage its ultra-rapid telecoms technology into a Chinese government spy network reaching deep into American society and business fields. “Chinese telecom companies like Huawei effectively serve as an intelligence-gathering arm of the Chinese Communist Party,” Sen. Tom Cotton, from Trump’s Republican Party, said after Trump’s emergency declaration. “The administration is right to restrict the use of their products.” Early this year, the Justice Department unsealed criminal charges against Huawei, a top company executive and several subsidiaries, alleging the company stole trade secrets, misled banks about its business and violated U.S. sanctions. The sweeping indictments accuse the company of using extreme efforts to steal trade secrets from American businesses — including trying to take a piece of a robot from a T-Mobile lab. The executive charged is Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Canada in December. The U.S. is seeking to have her extradited. Still, so far, the U.S. campaign to lobby other countries to turn their backs on Huawei has had mixed results. Even the British government, one of Washington’s closest allies, is mired in debate over whether to follow the U.S. lead or allow Huawei’s proven expertise in developing the 5G capacities. On Tuesday, Liang Hua, the chairman of the company, visited London to insist that Huawei will “commit ourselves, to commit our equipment to meeting the no-spy, no back-door standards.”
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china;u.s .;eu;espionage;huawei;fcc;donald trump;ajit pai;zte
|
jp0004135
|
[
"business",
"tech"
] |
2019/05/16
|
How can AI help? Japan's teamLab and Sony feature at London show on how tech can aid humans
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LONDON - An ambitious London exhibition aims to prove that the fields in which artificial intelligence can help humans are countless: managing the health of the planet, fighting discrimination or boosting innovation in the arts. Under the title “AI: More than Human,” the immense Barbican Centre brings together more than 200 installations, exhibits and projects by artists, scientists and researchers from all over the world. From Thursday until August, visitors will be able to take a journey from the long-held dream of creating artificial life to the reality of today’s most cutting-edge projects. An immersive space by Japanese collective teamLab forms one of the most intriguing exhibits, with art and science combining to let the visitor leave their mark on an evolving digital wall projection. There are also robots of all shapes and sizes, from Sony Corp.’s small dog Aibo — whose first version from 1999 has now evolved into an AI model — to a large mechanical arm that prepares and serves cocktails. Other exhibits explore the complex systems that keep big cities ticking and push forward research into medical conditions from cancer to blindness. The current limits of AI are looked into, including racial bias in some facial recognition software. Properly designed AI can help prevent harm, said Francesca Rossi, head of ethics at IBM Research. “If the machine can understand this concept of bias, then it can alert us if it sees that there is bias in our decision making,” she said. Although the idea of decoding the human brain and imitating its functions was born in the mid-1950s, AI only exploded in 2010 thanks to very fast state-of-the-art processors that allow the analysis of huge amounts of data. The machines have since come on leaps and bounds. A woman receives a cocktail from a robot bartender at the Barbican Centre in London on Wednesday. | AP IBM’s Deep Blue beat Russian chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997 while AlphaGo — developed by Google LLC’s DeepMind team — in 2016 beat Lee Sedol, world champion in the 3,000-year-old Chinese board game known as Go. Both are present in the exhibition, helping to outline how AI can help solve problems of enormous complexity, such as climate change. “The thing that we dream about would be, what if a machine could say: ‘Here is a clever way of changing how we run our economy that fixes climate,'” explained Swedish philosopher Anders Sandberg, senior research fellow at Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute. But for that, “we need to find a good way of putting human values into machines so they will act without accidentally harming you,” he added, joking that AI could conclude the best solution was to eradicate human beings. Despite its ambitious scope, the exhibition is only one part of a larger project called “Life Rewired,” which explores the impact of technology on society. The center recently held a concert of baroque music composed by AI after analyzing works by Johann Sebastian Bach. “We gave the machine-learning algorithm all of Bach’s keyboard works,” explained the project’s architect Marcus du Sautoy. “That’s a lot of music, but often machine-learning needs millions of data points to learn from,” added the Oxford mathematician. He hopes to demonstrate that, rather than competing with humans, artificial intelligence can help humans “to think outside of our narrow creative window.” “Humans get very stuck in ways of thinking; we often end up behaving like machines,” he said.
|
u.k .;sony;robots;ibm;teamlab;ai;aibo;london
|
jp0004136
|
[
"business",
"tech"
] |
2019/05/16
|
World leaders and tech execs pledge to curb online violence
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PARIS - Facebook, Google, Twitter and other tech companies joined a dozen countries in a global pledge Wednesday to step up efforts to keep internet platforms from being used to spread hate, organize extremist groups and broadcast attacks. World leaders, led by French President Emmanuel Macron, and tech executives gathered in Paris to compile a set of guidelines dubbed the “Christchurch Call,” named after the New Zealand city where 51 people were killed in a March attack on mosques. Much of the attack was broadcast live on Facebook, drawing public outrage and fueling debate on how to better regulate social media. Facebook said before the meeting that it was tightening rules for livestream users. The White House later said it is not endorsing the pledge, citing respect for “freedom of expression and freedom of the press.” In a statement, it said it will “continue to be proactive in our efforts to counter terrorist content online” while also protecting free speech. In the agreement, which is not legally binding, the tech companies committed to measures to prevent the spread of terrorist or violent extremist content. That may include cooperating on developing technology or expanding the use of shared digital signatures. They also promised to take measures to reduce the risk that such content is livestreamed, including flagging it up for real-time review. And they pledged to study how algorithms sometimes promote extremist content. That would help find ways to intervene more quickly and redirect users to “credible positive alternatives or counter-narratives.” Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter issued a joint supporting statement, outlining in further detail actions they would take individually or together to combat abuse of technology to spread extremist content. They include making it easier for users to flag up inappropriate content, using enhanced vetting for livestreaming and publishing transparency reports on material that’s removed. The Christchurch Call “is a global response to a tragedy that occurred on the shores of my country but was ultimately felt around the world,” said New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern, who has played a leading role pushing for globally coordinated efforts to eliminate online extremism. “Fundamentally it ultimately commits us all to build a more humane internet, which cannot be misused by terrorists for their hateful purposes,” she said at a news conference with Macron. The French and New Zealand governments drafted the agreement — a road map that aims to prevent similar abuses of the internet while insisting that any actions must preserve “the principles of a free, open and secure internet, without compromising human rights and fundamental freedoms.” The call was adopted by U.S. tech companies that also included Amazon, Microsoft and YouTube, along with France’s Qwant and DailyMotion, and the Wikimedia Foundation. Countries backing France and New Zealand were Britain, Canada, Ireland, Jordan, Norway, Senegal, Indonesia and the European Union’s executive body. Several other countries not present at the meeting added their endorsement. The meeting in Paris comes at a pivotal moment for tech companies, which critics accuse of being too powerful and resistant to regulation. Some have called for giants like Facebook to be broken up. Europe is leading a global push for more regulation of how the companies handle user data and copyrighted material. The tech companies are offering their own ideas in a bid to shape the policy response. Unlike previous official attempts to regulate the internet, “the Christchurch Call is different in that it associates all actors of the internet,” including the tech companies themselves, Macron said. He said he hopes to get broader support for the agreement in coming months, with technical questions to be discussed by June. The Christchurch Call was drafted as 80 CEOs and executives from technology companies gathered in Paris for a “Tech for Good” conference meant to address how they can use their global influence for public good — for example by promoting gender equality, diversity in hiring and greater access to technology for lower income users. Ardern and Macron have insisted that the Christchurch guidelines must involve joint efforts between governments and tech giants. France has been hit by repeated Islamic extremist attacks by groups who recruited and shared violent images on social networks. Free speech advocates and some in the tech industry bristle at new restrictions and argue that violent extremism is a societal problem that the tech world can’t solve. Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, a member of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that while “a higher level of responsibility is demanded from all of the platforms,” it is necessary to find a way to not censor legitimate discussion. “It’s a hard line to draw sometimes,” he said.
|
violence;google;eu;facebook;amazon.com;hate crimes;christchurch mosque attack;jacinta ardern;christchurch call;livestreeaming
|
jp0004137
|
[
"business",
"financial-markets"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Tokyo stocks turn lower on refueled trade war concerns
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Stocks turned lower on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Thursday, weighed down by rekindled concerns over an escalation of the U.S.-China trade conflict. The 225-issue Nikkei stock average finished down 125.58 points, or 0.59 percent, at 21,062.98. On Wednesday, it rose 121.33 points. The Topix index of all first-section issues fell 6.60 points, or 0.43 percent, to end at 1,537.55, after a 9.17-point jump the previous day. The market opened lower as a sense of caution spread after U.S. President Donald Trump signed on Wednesday an executive order forbidding U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by foreign companies deemed national security threats. The order apparently targets Chinese information technology giant Huawei Technologies Co., brokers said. But stocks displayed some resilience around the midmorning as investors moved to hunt bargains. In the afternoon, the market struggled for direction. “Stocks resisted falling further amid growing expectations for Trump to delay his auto tariff decision and for U.S.-China ministerial-level trade talks to be resumed,” said Hiroaki Kuramochi, chief market analyst at Saxo Bank Securities Ltd. Media reports said Wednesday that Trump is considering putting off his decision on whether to slap fresh tariffs on cars and parts from the European Union and Japan by up to six months. The delay is expected to be announced Saturday, the current deadline for the decision. Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told a Senate subcommittee meeting that he would visit Beijing in the near future to restart the ministerial-level trade talks. The market was also supported by the Shanghai market’s continued rise, an official of a bank-affiliated securities firm said. But investors refrained from active buying due to a dearth of powerful incentives, a market source said. Falling issues outnumbered rising ones 1,227 to 845 in the TSE’s first section, while 68 issues were unchanged. Volume decreased to 1.46 billion shares from the previous day’s 1.52 billion shares. Mega-bank group Mitsubishi UFJ sagged 3.59 percent because its net profit forecast for the year through March 2020 and no announcement of a share buyback plan disappointed investors, brokers said. Dentsu suffered a 8.49 percent loss, after the advertising giant released dismal January-March earnings figures. Other losers included cosmetics maker Shiseido and Sumitomo Chemical. On the other hand, KDDI rose 2.25 percent after the mobile phone carrier said it will buy back shares. Among other winners were restaurant chain Skylark and realtor Sumitomo Realty & Development. In index futures trading on the Osaka Exchange, the key June contract on the Nikkei average went down 110 points to end at 21,050.
|
trade;stocks;nikkei;tse;topix
|
jp0004138
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Forecast of a cooler summer in Asia may add to expected LNG glut
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Don’t count on a summer heat wave to rescue Asia’s liquefied natural gas prices. Weather forecasts signal lackluster demand in the largest importing region, raising prospects a global glut will deepen. Temperatures across North Asia this summer will be cooler than a year ago, according to seven meteorologists surveyed by Bloomberg. This suggests the record heat in Japan and South Korea, which triggered a buying frenzy and catapulted prices to their highest since 2014, is unlikely to be repeated. LNG prices in Asia have slumped about 40 percent so far this year as the three biggest consumers — Japan, China and South Korea — have slowed spot buying after a mild winter and amid brimming stockpiles. Meanwhile, new projects from Australia to the U.S. have left the market amply supplied. “A cooler summer would mean that additional demand isn’t there, creating even more potential excess supply,” said Fauziah Marzuki, an analyst at BloombergNEF based in Singapore. While forecasters were split on whether temperatures in North Asia would be above or below historical averages, the overall expectations are that they will be milder and less volatile than last summer, which saw a price spike in June. A cooler-than-normal summer could also push spot prices in Asia down to parity or even a discount to Europe, reversing their typical premium, according to Robert Sims, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie Ltd. “We expect the real recovery will need to wait until winter this year,” Sims said by email. Japan and South Korea recorded their hottest days ever last year. Temperatures peaked at 41.1 degrees Celsius (106 degrees Fahrenheit) in Kumagaya, a city north of Tokyo, and 40.7 degrees Celsius in the northeastern South Korea town of Hongcheon. Meanwhile, the escalating trade war between the U.S. and China could be a wildcard for prices in Asia. Beijing said Monday it will boost tariffs on American LNG imports to 25 percent from June 1, which could lead to Chinese players seeking to swap or sell cargoes. “The continuation of El Niño conditions for a second straight year would support a cooler summer than what was observed in 2018,” said Todd Crawford, chief meteorologist at The Weather Company. “We expect another relatively active typhoon season, and the associated clouds/rain may limit the overall magnitude of heat.”
|
china;energy;weather;south korea;lng
|
jp0004139
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/05/16
|
JR East shinkansen ALFA-X prototype hits 320 kph in test run in northeastern Japan
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MORIOKA, IWATE PREF. - A prototype of Japan’s new shinkansen conducted a trial early Thursday, reaching 320 kilometers per hour, the maximum speed for existing shinkansen models. The prototype, dubbed ALFA-X, is designed to travel at 360 kph when it is put into service by the spring of 2031, according to the operator East Japan Railway Co. Thursday’s test run by JR East was the first shown to the media since the trials began last Friday. The company will continue the tests every week through March 2022 to collect data, and it is hoped speeds of 400 kph will be reached. Thursday’s test started around 1 a.m. after the company closed JR Morioka Station on the Tohoku Shinkansen line in northeastern Japan. The 10-car train was completed this month, costing around ¥10 billion ($91 million). It features two long nose-shaped heads, measuring about 16 meters for the No. 1 car and 22 meters for the No. 10 car. JR East will study pressure and sound differences between the two noses when the train enters tunnels. Existing trains, such as the E-5 series Hayabusa shinkansen, have noses measuring about 15 meters. The company will also test the train’s emergency brakes, anti-derailment functions in the event of an earthquake and new equipment to avoid vehicle vibrations. JR East is planning to introduce the train once Tokyo and Sapporo are linked by bullet train after the Hokkaido Shinkansen line, currently operating between Shin-Aomori and Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto stations, is extended to Sapporo. “Tests are going well so far. We will keep working to ensure that the next-generation shinkansen has appropriate safety and environment performances,” said Kazunori Koyama, a division chief of JR East’s Morioka branch.
|
tohoku;rail;shinkansen;iwate;jr east;bullet trains;morioka
|
jp0004140
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Daiwa targets younger investors with new online brokerage unit
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Daiwa Securities Group Inc., Japan’s second-biggest brokerage, unveiled plans to start a unit focused on mobile services as early as next year to win younger clients. Daiwa and larger rival Nomura Holdings Inc. face pressure to appeal to new investors as older clients pull money to spend on their retirement. The firms have traditionally focused on a face-to-face approach, which is costly to maintain at a time when retail business profitability is weakening. The fully owned unit, named Connect, will target young generations in addition to people who are starting to build wealth, Tokyo-based Daiwa said in a statement Wednesday. It plans to allow clients to trade stocks in small lots and at the lowest fee in the industry, according to the release. “We want to offer competitive services at competitive fee levels,” Chief Executive Officer Seiji Nakata said in an interview. The group’s main securities arm has digital services of its own, but its share in Japan’s online retail market has been small. Until now, Daiwa had been hesitant to create a separate, low-fee online brokerage within the group because it was concerned that it would “cannibalize” its existing digital business, Nakata said. The firm now believes that customers who use mobile services won’t necessarily be the same as those who tap the existing online platform, he said.
|
internet;stocks;brokerages;daiwa
|
jp0004141
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Nissan to keep Hiroto Saikawa as CEO and name Renault chief Thierry Bollore to board, say sources
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Nissan Motor Co. plans to keep Hiroto Saikawa as its CEO and newly appoint Thierry Bollore, CEO of its alliance partner Renault SA, to its board, pending shareholder approval in June, sources said Thursday. In a management revamp following the arrest of former Chairman Carlos Ghosn for alleged financial misconduct last November, Nissan plans an 11-member board with six of them outside directors, in line with proposals made in March by its committee set up to enhance corporate governance. Among the members, Renault, the Japanese automaker’s top shareholder, will be represented by Bollore and Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard, who joined Nissan’s board in April, the sources said. From Nissan, three officials, including Saikawa and Chief Operating Officer Yasuhiro Yamauchi, will join the board. Sadayuki Sakakibara, a co-chairman of the governance committee and former chief of Keidanren, the powerful business lobby also known as the Japan Business Federation, had been floated as a candidate to serve as chairman of the board but the idea has now been shelved, the sources said. Nissan, which decided on the candidates at its extraordinary board meeting on Wednesday, is set to launch the new board after securing approval from shareholders at its regular annual meeting in June. Nissan said on Tuesday its group net profit hit a nine-year low in the year through March and forecast it would nearly halve in fiscal 2019, just as differences with Renault over how to shape the future of their alliance following the ouster of Ghosn adds to its woes. Nissan has been struggling in the U.S. market in recent years, with Saikawa acknowledging that the automaker was overstretching to meet targets, such as by relying on incentives. Since the arrest of Ghosn in mid-November, Nissan has faced the task of stabilizing its alliance with Renault and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. in the absence of the once-feted auto tycoon, who built and led an auto group that was the world’s second largest last year in terms of vehicle sales. However, Saikawa indicated talks on a merger between Nissan and Renault could become a source of tension. Saikawa disclosed that Senard is in favor of business integration with Nissan. But Saikawa said it is not necessary and “risks damaging Nissan’s power to create value.”
|
scandals;carmakers;renault;carlos ghosn;hiroto saikawa;thierry bollore
|
jp0004142
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Japan's mega-banks see challenging year ahead as profit drivers wane
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Japan’s biggest banks have warned investors of a tough year ahead. The nation’s three mega-banks have been relying on the healthy status of borrowers and sales of so-called cross-shareholdings for earnings as rock-bottom interest rates crimp lending profitability. Results on Wednesday showed they are losing those benefits at a time when the economy is weakening, trade tensions are escalating and the Bank of Japan’s extraordinary monetary easing looks set to stay. “The business environment is very uncertain and tougher than last year,” Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. President Jun Ohta said at a news briefing in Tokyo on Wednesday, dismissing the notion that his bank’s profit target is conservative. Sumitomo Mitsui, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. and Mizuho Financial Group Inc. all posted net income projections that missed analysts’ estimates, as rising bad-loan costs and diminishing gains from sales of stock holdings put a dampener on earnings prospects in the year ending March 2020. While both Mizuho and MUFG are expecting profit to increase this year, to ¥470 billion ($4.3 billion) and ¥900 billion respectively, that’s only after they booked large writedowns that hurt results in the previous period. Sumitomo Mitsui sees net income slipping about 4 percent to ¥700 billion. “Signs of an economic slowdown have been emerging in Japan and overseas,” Mizuho Chief Executive Officer Tatsufumi Sakai told reporters. The bank is seeking to cut a further 30 branches in the next five years, on top of 100 reductions previously targeted. Sakai said Mizuho’s profit target reflects a likely decline in gains from stock selling and an uptick in credit costs that were “very low” last year. The banks have been paring their stakes in corporate clients in response to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to urge firms to improve governance. A stock market rally since Abe took office in 2012 has helped them book gains from the sales. Sumitomo Mitsui, the only one of the three bank stocks to rise this year, said it plans to buy back as much as ¥100 billion of shares. Its shares slipped 0.2 percent at 9:23 a.m. in Tokyo after climbing as much as 0.7 percent. MUFG slid 2.7 percent and Mizuho lost 1.1 percent. The lenders trade at half the book value of their assets or less, and Bloomberg Intelligence sees little chance of improvement. The banks are replenishing loan provisions that they had drawn down and booked as profits in recent years amid a dearth of corporate bankruptcies. But Sumitomo Mitsui’s Ohta and MUFG CEO Kanetsugu Mike were quick to say that the increase in bad-loan expenses doesn’t mean they expect a wave of defaults. “We don’t have room for more provision clawbacks,” Ohta said. “Given the uncertain environment, we expect a normalization of credit costs.”
|
stocks;banks;smbc;mufg;mizuho;financial results
|
jp0004143
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Mizuho says it will close 130 domestic bank branches over next five years
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Mizuho Financial Group Inc. on Wednesday announced a new business plan featuring stepped-up structural reform measures. The plan calls for reducing the number of domestic branches by 130, instead of the previously set goal of 100, through integration or scrapping. The company had 500 domestic branches in fiscal 2017. Mizuho also aims to post ¥900 billion in consolidated real net business profit in fiscal 2023, the final year of the plan. “We aim to shift to next-generation financial operations by pushing reforms of our business and finance structures, and our corporate foundations,” Mizuho President Tatsufumi Sakai said at a news conference the same day. The plan spans a period of five years, compared with the three years for past business plans by the major banking group. Mizuho intends to accelerate reforms in the first three years and reap the results in the final two. Mizuho maintained its target of cutting the number of employees by 19,000 by fiscal 2026. But Sakai stressed that the bank will try to achieve the goal as early as possible.
|
jobs;banks;mizuho
|
jp0004144
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Line Pay ¥30 billion campaign will allow users to send free ¥1,000 to all their friends
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The messaging app giant Line Corp. said Thursday it will launch a ¥30 billion reward campaign next week to increase usage of its Line Pay service as the cashless war heats up among tech firms in Japan. The company is rolling out what it claims is Line’s largest reward campaign, which runs between May 20 to 29. During the period, users can give a free ¥1,000 to their Line friends in the messaging app without incurring any costs. A condition is that they must be Line Pay users and have their identification confirmed through designated processes. They can only send the ¥1,000 “Line Pay bonus” to the same user once but can effectively send it to as many friends as they want, the company said. Additionally, a user can only receive a bonus one time. Line Pay is a digital payment service provided on Line’s messaging app platform, which allows users to pay with a QR code or bar code at stores. They can also send digital money to other users through Line. With this campaign, Line aims to get more users to become active Line Pay users. “The payment aspect has been a focus of cashless, and many providers have been running various programs. We are competing in that field, too,” said Jun Masuda, chief strategy and marketing officer at Line. “At the same time, we are always thinking about how we can take advantage of Line (in the cashless movement): We believe it’s people’s connections within Line, and it can be well applied to money transfer.” Line has about 80 million active users in Japan, of which about 32 million are registered Line Pay users, according to the firm. Due to the government push to spread cashless payment, an increasing number of digital payment services have emerged recently. To attract consumers, they have been investing billions of yen. PayPay Corp., a smartphone payment provider under SoftBank Corp. and Yahoo Japan Corp., has launched ¥10 billion campaigns in which shoppers receive 20 percent rebates when they shop with PayPay. Masuda said ¥30 billion is an “appropriate” amount of investment to promote the service given that the public is in a celebratory mood with the new Reiwa Era. The campaign, which effectively awards ¥1,000 each to 30 million people, is available only to Line users in Japan. It will end once the reward amount reaches ¥30 billion even if it comes in the middle of the campaign period.
|
softbank;social media;apps;line;cashless;line pay
|
jp0004145
|
[
"business",
"corporate-business"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Suruga Bank says fraudulent housing loans could top ¥1 trillion
|
Suruga Bank said Wednesday it has extended over ¥1 trillion ($9.1 billion) in confirmed and suspected fraudulent housing loans. In an attempt to restore trust among investors and clients following revelations last year of a spate of financing scandals, the regional lender also said it will form a business tie-up with Tokyo-based Shinsei Bank in the field of personal loans, among other services. The bank based in Shizuoka Prefecture asked an outside lawyer in October to conduct full-fledged investigations into its loans provided for the purchase of investment real estate after it admitted to falsifying documents to smooth the process of examining customers’ repayment abilities. About 38,000 properties, including “share houses,” where bathrooms, kitchens and other facilities are used in common by tenants, were subject to the probe. The lawyer’s team concluded that about 60 percent of the combined balance of the loans, worth ¥1.8 trillion, is suspected to be fraudulent. “I sincerely apologize that so many cases of wrongdoing have been found,” Suruga Bank President Michio Arikuni said at a news conference in the city of Numazu. In addition to Shinsei Bank, the regional bank has decided to form a business alliance with electronics retailer Nojima Corp., seeking to jointly carry out credit card services. Suruga Bank is expected to consider capital alliances with the two partners, aiming to overhaul its business model that has heavily relied on loans for real estate investment. Arikuni said Suruga Bank is open to building business partnerships with other companies. In the business year ended in March, the bank said Wednesday it incurred a group net loss of ¥97.15 billion, the first annual red ink in 17 years, compared with the previous year’s profit of ¥6.99 billion. For the current fiscal year, the bank expects to post a net profit of ¥10.5 billion.
|
scandals;banks;financial results;shinsei bank;suruga bank;nojima
|
jp0004146
|
[
"world",
"social-issues-world"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Nationwide student strike begins in Brazil over education budget cuts
|
RIO DE JANEIRO - Students and teachers from hundreds of universities and colleges across Brazil began a nationwide demonstration on Wednesday in “defense of education” following a raft of budget cuts announced by President Jair Bolsonaro’s government. Classes were suspended in numerous establishments as demonstrations took place in 17 of Brazil’s 27 states, local media said, with particularly large ones in major cities like Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia and Belo Horizonte. The biggest demonstrations are planned for the end of the day, though. In the capital Brasilia, federal troops were deployed in front of the ministry of education in case of trouble. The protest movement was sparked by Education Minister Abraham Weintraub recently slashing federal university subsidies by 30 percent. Several chief education officers claimed the budget cuts would compromise the ability of federal universities to function, and threatened to paralyze them. Then the sudden suspension of the payment of masters and doctorate scholarships in the sciences and human sciences last week threw oil on the fire. “Secondary school pupils, university students, researchers, teachers and other education employees will take to the streets in every state” to protest against the budget cuts, the National Student Union (UNE) had announced on Tuesday. Despite the cuts affecting only federal institutions, the protest movement has been joined by many private universities such as Rio’s Pontifical University, which voted last week to join the nationwide demonstration.
|
brazil;teachers;education;students;jair bolsonaro
|
jp0004147
|
[
"world",
"social-issues-world"
] |
2019/05/16
|
German biscuit heiress apologizes for claim that Nazi forced laborers were treated 'well'
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BERLIN - An heiress of the Bahlsen biscuit empire in Germany has apologized for claiming her company treated forced laborers “well” during World War II, and said she should learn more about her firm’s history. Verena Bahlsen, who owns a quarter of the company, said she “deeply regrets” comments she made about people forced into working at the biscuit factory during the war under Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime. “It was a mistake to amplify this debate with thoughtless responses. I apologize for that,” she said in a statement on the Bahlsen family’s website. “Nothing could be further from my mind than to downplay national socialism or its consequences.” The 25-year-old had dived headlong into controversy first with her unashamed claim of being a capitalist who “wants to make money and buy yachts with my dividends. As critics reminded her on Twitter that her company profited from forced laborers during Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime, she hit back, telling newspaper Bild that “we paid forced laborers as much as Germans and treated them well. Her comments drew a furious outcry from politicians and historians alike. The Nazi Forced Labour Documentation Centre, based in Berlin, said her case illustrated a lack of understanding about the plight of those made to work against their will by Hitler’s regime. On social media, there were calls to boycott Bahlsen’s products, while others had urged the wealthy heiress to do a year of civic service to gain a better understanding of social realities. “I also recognize that I need to learn more about the history of the company whose name I carry,” added a contrite Bahlsen in her statement. “As the next generation, we have the responsibility for our history. “I expressly apologize to all whose feelings I hurt.” Founded by Verena Bahlsen’s great grandfather at the end of the 19th century, the biscuit company employed around 200 forced laborers, mostly women, between 1943 and 1945. Claims were made against Bahlsen by victims after the war, but they were rejected because of the statute of limitations.
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wwii;germany;adolf hitler;nazis;wartime labor;verena bahlsen
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jp0004148
|
[
"world",
"social-issues-world"
] |
2019/05/16
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Critics decry long-distance video counseling for migrant teens in U.S. custody
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HOMESTEAD, FLORIDA - The U.S. government is providing long-distance video counseling to teens housed at the country’s largest child migrant detention center as officials struggle to accommodate increasing numbers of minors illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Some mental health experts and human rights advocates say that’s the wrong way to help refugees coping with trauma after a perilous journey and while being held away from their families. A private company contracted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to run the center in Homestead is piloting the program and has hired clinical counselors and case managers in Texas, about 1,600 miles (2,575 km) away. Counselors are often the first to hear reports of rapes or beatings that children suffered either in their home countries or at the hands of gangs as they journeyed north from impoverished villages in Guatemala’s western highlands, Honduras or El Salvador. Some teenage girls have arrived at the facility pregnant. “Migrant children already find it extremely hard to communicate their feelings and trust professionals,” said Martha Vallejo, a clinical social worker in Miami who has counseled minors after their release from migrant detention centers. “How can they feel at ease talking to someone behind a screen?” Case managers are also using video conferencing to talk with children and their relatives before the minors are released from custody. One of Homestead’s residents, a 17-year-old Guatemalan boy who learned shortly after arriving in the U.S. that he had tuberculosis, told Amnesty International researcher Brian Griffey that is how he communicated with his case manager. Elena Reyes, director of Florida State University’s Center for Child Stress & Health, acknowledged that long-distance counseling is increasingly being used in remote locations where there aren’t enough providers. But she said it was hard to imagine that there isn’t a larger pool of bilingual applicants who could provide in-person counseling at the Homestead facility, located about 30 miles (48 km) south of Miami. Comprehensive Health Services, the government contractor, said it was enlisting counselors and case managers in Texas to work remotely with the clients because they have not gotten enough applicants from the Miami area. The contractor holds frequent job fairs, said Health and Human Services’ spokesman Mark Weber. The head of a local nonprofit organization, which is part of a national network of child trauma professionals, said the company had not contacted them. Claudia Kitchens, Kristi House’s director, said the group already sends specialists to two smaller child migrant shelters in the area. It has an office 3 miles (5 km) away from the facility. Providing services through teleconferencing is not completely new: The federal government previously had used it to conduct court hearings for migrant teens. Telehealth counseling has also been expanded to treat active-duty soldiers or veterans dealing with depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. But the Homestead facility is the only one of 168 child migrant facilities nationwide using it for counseling. Homestead has the country’s largest child migrant facility in the nation, with 2,200 minors, and officials say capacity may grow to 3,200. A 1997 court agreement setting conditions for the detention of minors generally bars the government from keeping them for more than 20 days. But some children have told lawyers and congressional delegations they have been held there for months. Over the past year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has jailed more than 100 of those teenagers who turned 18 while being held at the center. The government recently awarded Comprehensive Health Services $341 million to expand the Florida center in a no-bid contract. The company was bought last year by Washington, D.C.-based private equity firm DC Capital Partners, which consolidated four companies to form the conglomerate Caliburn International. The conglomerate recently added former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to its board of directors. Democratic U.S. representatives from Florida have asked a government watchdog agency to investigate the contract. House members have said children at the facility are kept in “prison-like” conditions. They are allowed 10-minute phone calls to family members twice a week. Some of the minors have said they are unhappy about being prohibited from hugging or touching one another, lawyers who met with them told The Associated Press. Employing a remote method of counseling is yet another affront, migrant advocates said. “A lot of the children we spoke to had not even seen a cellphone,” said J.J. Mulligan, an attorney with the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of California, Davis, who has visited the facility. “Asking them to share the most intimate traumas with a stranger over a computer screen seems completely tone-deaf and incapable of offering the mental health they desperately need.” Democratic Florida U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch said he was concerned that the government already had increased the number of children each counselor treats: now 20 instead of the previous 12. “The question is whether you can use technology to meet the ratios,” Deutch said. “The most important thing is, are these kids taken care of the way they need to be?”
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u.s .;immigration;teens;abuse;sex crimes;florida;democrats;john kelly;homestead
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jp0004149
|
[
"world",
"social-issues-world"
] |
2019/05/16
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Sudanese forces clear protesters with gunfire; transition talks suspended indefinitely
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KHARTOUM - At least nine people were wounded on Wednesday when Sudanese forces used live ammunition to clear demonstrators from central Khartoum, a protest group said, and talks aimed at establishing a body to lead Sudan to democracy have been suspended indefinitely. A spokesman for the Sudanese Professionals’ Association (SPA), which spearheaded months of protests that led to the military’s removal of President Omar al-Bashir last month, said: “We hold the military council responsible for attacking civilians. “They are using the same methods as the previous regime in dealing with rebels,” SPA spokesman Amjad Farid told Reuters. There was no immediate comment from the military on Wednesday’s violence or an SPA statement that nine people were wounded. The Transitional Military Council (TMC), which took over after overthrowing and jailing al-Bashir, has said it would not tolerate the continued closure of main Khartoum roads and bridges by protesters but promised not to use force to disperse the sit-ins. The TMC has accused demonstrators of expanding a protest site set up last month outside the Defense Ministry to other parts of the capital, disrupting movement. Early on Wednesday the military announced a committee to investigate the targeting of protesters after at least four people were killed in violence in Khartoum on Monday. Weeks of street protests that precipitated the end of al-Bashir’s 30-year rule on April 11 have continued as the opposition demands that the military hand over power to civilians. A Reuters witness and Sudanese witnesses said that troops in military vehicles using the logo of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fired extensively as they tried to clear demonstrators on al-Mek Nimir Avenue in central Khartoum, near the Foreign Ministry. “People were walking towards the barricades and they (security forces) were firing shots at them,” a 20-year-old demonstrator, who asked not to be named, said, showing a handful of empty bullet casings and referring to road blocks set up by protesters. The violence took place hours before the TMC was due to meet representatives of the umbrella opposition group Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces (DFCF) to try to hammer out a final deal for the transitional period. But a senior DFCF leader said the TMC has indefinitely suspended the talks. “No date has been set for the talks to resume,” the source told Reuters. The two sides, which have held talks for several weeks, announced early on Wednesday they had agreed on the composition of a legislative council and the duration of the transition. Some demonstrators expressed caution over the prospects for an agreement that would satisfy their demands for a handover of power to civilians, and for security forces to be held to account for the deaths of demonstrators. “We are still sticking to our plan,” said Altaj Blah, a protester in central Khartoum. “The barriers are there and they are not moving until our demands are met,” he said. In the agreement announced early on Wednesday the two sides said the transition would last three years — a compromise between the military council’s proposal of two years and the opposition DFCF’s preference for four. The TMC said the DFCF would have two-thirds of the seats on a transitional legislative council while parties outside the alliance would take the rest. Elections would be held at the end of the three-year transition. On Monday after security forces tried to clear some protest sites, at least four people, including three protesters and a military police officer, were killed in an outburst of violence. They were the first deaths linked to the protests for several weeks. DFCF members blamed security and paramilitary forces, while also voicing suspicions that groups linked to al-Bashir might be fomenting unrest to undermine the chances of a political accord.
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military;sudan;omar al-bashir;khartoum
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jp0004150
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/05/16
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FAA chief faces harsh questioning over Boeing 737 Max airliner fiasco
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WASHINGTON - The nation’s top aviation regulator assured Congress on Wednesday that the Boeing 737 Max, grounded after two deadly accidents, will only return to flying when a government analysis shows that it is safe. The Federal Aviation Administration is under scrutiny for how it relied on Boeing to certify the Max and then didn’t ground the plane until after the second crash, in March. Acting FAA chief Daniel Elwell told the House aviation subcommittee that his agency “welcomes scrutiny that helps make us better.” Elwell listed several reviews of the FAA’s handling of the matter, adding, however, that only the FAA would decide when the Max is safe enough to allow back in the air. “In the U.S., the 737 Max will return to service only when the FAA’s analysis of the facts and technical data indicate that it is safe to do so,” Elwell said. House Aviation subcommittee Chairman Rick Larsen said he expects answers about the FAA’s certification of the Max, the role of Boeing employees in assessing key features on the plane, and FAA’s role in developing pilot training for the plane. “The FAA has a credibility problem,” he said. Larsen added a note of economic urgency to the grounding of the Max, Boeing’s best-selling plane and one that is built in his home state of Washington. He said Congress must help make the public feel safe about flying because “if they don’t fly, airlines don’t need to buy airplanes,” and “then there will be no jobs” in aircraft manufacturing. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., criticized Boeing for pilot manuals that didn’t mention a new automated flight-control system implicated in both accidents, and for a design that pitched the plane’s nose down based on readings from a single sensor that could fail. The two plane crashes, in Ethiopia in March and in Indonesia last October, killed 346 people. DeFazio, who heads the full Transportation Committee, also said Boeing hasn’t yet provided documents that he and Larsen requested, saying he hoped the company would provide them voluntarily and soon. “Boeing has yet to provide a single document,” he said. “We’ve got to get to the bottom of this.” Boeing is already the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Boeing customers Southwest Airlines and American Airlines and their pilot unions have received subpoenas related to that investigation; United Airlines, which also flew the Max until it was grounded in March, declined comment, although its pilot union confirmed that it too has received a subpoena. The Transportation Department’s inspector general and a Senate committee are looking into the FAA’s relationship with Boeing, and the House subcommittee is likely to follow a similar path. The hearing before the House panel is expected to cover the FAA’s review of a flight-control system on the Max that was not present on earlier versions of the 737. In both accidents, the automated flight system pushed the nose of the plane down and pilots were unable to regain control. The Dallas Morning News reported that American Airlines pilots pressed Boeing in November — shortly after the first Max crash — on potentially grounding the planes and pushed for a quick software fix from the plane maker. “We don’t want to do a crappy job of fixing things, and we also don’t want to fix the wrong things,” a Boeing employee responded, according to a recording reviewed by the newspaper. Elwell was scheduled to be joined at the House hearing by Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. No Boeing representative was scheduled to testify. Across Capitol Hill, a Senate committee was scheduled to hear from President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the agency on a permanent basis. The nominee, Stephen Dickson, is a former military and airline pilot and Delta Air Lines executive. In testimony prepared for the confirmation hearing, Dickson said safety would be his top priority if he is confirmed, and that making sure the FAA keeps its standing as the world’s top safety agency would be a major part of that. U.S. aviation has an enviable safety record over the past decade, Dickson said, but the industry is only as good as the last takeoff or landing. The FAA has not had a permanent director since January 2018.
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u.s .;congress;boeing;faa;aviation;737 max;air accidents
|
jp0004151
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Stopping soil erosion is a matter of urgency, otherwise starvation will follow, scientists warn
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ROME - The world’s food production is in jeopardy because the fertile layer of soil that people depend on to plant crops is being eroded by human activities, scientists said Wednesday. Climate change is likely to make it worse even as demand from a growing population is soaring, they said. Soil erosion happens naturally, but intensive agriculture, deforestation, mining and urban sprawl accelerate it and can reduce crop yields by up to 50 percent, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. The FAO also said the equivalent of a soccer field of soil is eroded every five seconds, and the planet is on a path that could lead to the degradation of more than 90 percent of all the Earth’s soils by 2050. “We’re approaching a critical point at which we need to start acting on soil erosion or we are not going to be able to feed ourselves in the future,” said Lindsay Stringer, professor at England’s University of Leeds, on the sidelines of a three-day conference on soil erosion co-organized by the FAO. Erosion degrades soil, making it less able to withstand stresses such as changes in rainfall and longer droughts, said Richard Cruse, professor at Iowa State University. A repeat of weather conditions like those experienced in 2012, including drought and famine in the Horn of Africa and hurricanes in the United States, “could really cut our food supply in a way that we haven’t experienced,” he said. Yet policymakers are too caught up in day-to-day issues to focus on soil erosion, he added. “They have to deal with poverty, health, roads, things that are of immediate effect. Soil erosion is long-term. It’s like sands through an hourglass. We know what’s happening, but we’ll worry about it tomorrow.” It is not hopeless, said Stringer, whose research in Kenya found that using manure as fertilizer or growing more than one crop on the same plot of land are simple and inexpensive actions that improve both soil quality and crop yield. However, other proven methods to reduce erosion, such as building terraces and engaging in agroforestry — planting trees on cropland — can be too expensive for farmers, she said. Ownership of land is key here, Cruse said. “In my conversation with farmers, they tell me: ‘If I own my own land and I’m farming, conservation is an investment. If I have to use these practices on rented land, it’s a cost.’ “ Governments can give incentives to farmers through subsidies and other means, because good soil benefits the wider society, while things would worsen if nothing is done, said Jean Poesen from Belgium’s KU Leuven university. “Ninety-five percent of our foods come from soil. Can you imagine how the food section of a supermarket would look like if we had no soils? There would be nothing on the shelves,” he said. “Once the soil is gone . . . people end up with hard, bare rock, and nothing grows. Then you have to migrate or start a fight with your neighbors and conquer.”
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food;agriculture;u.n .;forests;climate change;environment
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jp0004152
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Nebraska farmer trapped in machine cuts off own leg with pocket knife to save his life
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WASHINGTON - A U.S. farmer in his 60s whose leg was horrifically sucked into a corn hopper sawed off the limb with a pocket knife to save his life. Kurt Kaser, 63, a life-long farmer in the central state of Nebraska, said he was working alone last month when he got out of his truck and mistakenly stepped into “that little hole” of the hopper. “It just sucked my leg in and I was trying to pull it out, and it kept pulling,” he told the local ABC affiliate in Omaha, KETV. “I about gave up once and just said the heck with it … and then I felt it jerk me again. I thought, well, I was going in,” Kaser added. He realized that his only option was to “cut it off” using the small knife in his pocket. “So I just started sawing on it,” he said, matter-of-factly. After performing the grisly life-saving task, Kaser crawled to his house to phone for help, reports said. The first to arrive was his son, Adam, who happens to be a member of the local rescue squad, the Omaha World-Herald reported early Wednesday. After a week in the hospital and two more in rehabilitation, Kaser was back home last Friday, optimistic that he will be walking normally again, the newspaper said. “I was in a hurry and didn’t pay attention,” he said, hoping his story can serve as a warning to other farmers. Local media showed images of Kaser in a wheelchair, his bandaged left leg amputated below the knee. The incident — shared widely on social media — prompted comparisons by moviegoers with Danny Boyle’s 2010 film “127 Hours,” in which James Franco plays real-life adventurer Aron Ralston, who amputated his own arm after being trapped in a canyon for five days. “Reminiscent of Aron Ralston. What a horrifying ordeal to have to go through,” tweeted Ron Terrell, a morning news anchor for Oklahoma-based Fox 23. “Between 127 Hours and this story, I am going to start carrying a hacksaw,” one Twitter user observed. Over on Facebook, Mike Walker, owner of Missouri-based Black Sky Radio, thought the drama was more reminiscent of horror film “Saw,” an even more grisly take on self-amputation. “I think I would have attempted to break every bit of whatever had me gorilla style before I went all ‘Saw’ on my parts,” he posted.
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u.s .;nebraska
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jp0004153
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/05/16
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Scientists launch push to beat cancer's ability to adapt against treatments
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LONDON - Cancer scientists in Britain are launching what they call the world’s first “Darwinian” drug development program in a bid to get ahead of cancer’s ability to become resistant to even the newest treatments and recur in many patients. While not abandoning the search for an ultimate cure, the “anti-evolution” project will re-focus on turning cancer into a disease controllable with drugs for many years. This would be a little like HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, the scientists told reporters at a briefing. “Cancer’s ability to adapt, evolve and become drug-resistant is the cause of the vast majority of deaths from the disease and the biggest challenge we face in overcoming it,” said Paul Workman, chief executive of Britain’s Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) — a charity and research institute which will lead the new Centre for Cancer Drug Discovery. The center, funded with £75 million ($96.5 million) from the ICR, will “seek to meet the challenge of cancer evolution head on,” Workman said, by blocking its process of evolution. Teams at the new center will initially focus on two possible paths to doing this. The first, known as “evolutionary herding,” involves selecting an initial specific treatment that forces cancer cells to adapt in a way that makes them highly susceptible to a second drug, or pushes them into an evolutionary dead end. The second will explore a possible new class of drugs to target cancer’s ability to evolve and become resistant to treatment. These potential drugs would be designed to block the action of molecules called APOBEC proteins, found in the body’s immune system. Researchers hope a new class of APOBEC inhibitors could be developed and given alongside targeted cancer treatments to try and keep cancer at bay for much longer. Combination therapies using multiple current or new treatments will also be explored, Workman said. Olivia Rossanese, a specialist in cancer drug discovery who will head the new center’s biology team, said the idea was to build a global hub of expertise in anti-evolution therapies so scientists could “stop playing catch-up” with cancer. “This Darwinian approach to drug discovery gives us the best chance yet of defeating cancer,” she said, “because we will be able to predict what cancer is going to do next and get one step ahead.”
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drugs;evolution;disease;cancer
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jp0004154
|
[
"world",
"science-health-world"
] |
2019/05/16
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Modern humans split from Neanderthals far earlier than thought, study suggests
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WASHINGTON - Scientists seeking to unlock the mysteries of human evolution have in recent years relied on increasingly sophisticated DNA techniques that provide “molecular clocks” to date the remains of our ancient ancestors. But a new analysis that instead examines fossil teeth provides an alternative approach — and one that yields a significantly earlier date for the hotly debated divergence between anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals, our nearest relatives. The study, by Aida Gomez-Robles from University College London, proposes that the two species’ last common ancestor may have lived 800,000 years ago. The new timeline is between 200,000 to 400,000 years earlier than current estimates. If correct, it would rule out Homo heidelbergensis, another extinct species, as the last common ancestor between Homo sapiens and the Neanderthals, as some scientists presently posit. According to Gomez-Robles, whose paper was published in Science Advances on Wednesday, recent research on hominin teeth has shown that although size varied greatly across human species, the shape of teeth was more homogeneous and evolved at stable rates across the board. She examined the molars and pre-molars of around 30 fossils thought to be early Neanderthals from the Sima de los Huesos cave site in Spain as well as of seven other extinct hominin species in order to determine how much they changed over time. A 2014 study using luminescence techniques and paleomagnetism was said to have reliably dated the cave site, in the Atapuerca Mountains, to 430,000 years ago, hinting that sapiens and Neanderthals had already gone their separate ways before this time. Using computer modeling, she found that early sapiens and Neanderthals would have had to have diverged 800,000 years ago for the Sima teeth to have had time to achieve their particular features, barring strong environmental factors that caused the species to evolve faster. “The major implication is Homo heidelbergensis cannot be the last common ancestor between modern humans and Neanderthals,” she said. The findings may not put an end to the long-standing debate, not least because of its variance with some of the DNA-based dating, which also relies on assumptions about how quickly genetics change over time. Gomez-Robles said that while no method is perfect, studying anatomical variation “gives us a more accurate picture” partly because it is still not possible to extract DNA from most ancient fossils. Moreover, differing timelines could point to growing body of evidence that there are no clean splits between species. “When we are talking about the divergence between Neanderthals and modern humans, or between any two species, that is not something that happens at one specific moment of time,” she said. “And something that we know today as well is that, you know, there was a hybridization between Neanderthals and modern humans” she continued. “So this is also adding noise to all these studies.” Gomez-Robles’ work was praised by Mirjana Roksandic, a biological anthropologist at the University of Winnipeg who recently co-authored a paper that described H. heidelbergensis as non-Neanderthal. “She is pinpointing a time when Neanderthals must have moved their own way, and that is a very, very significant result,” said Roksandic. “Teeth are born fossils, they carry so much information. They’re just absolutely brilliant that way,” she added. The new methodology was also described as “useful” by Harvard anthropologist Bridget Alex, who nevertheless added that it raises the tension between genetic change against physical and physiological changes in evolution, which may not occur at the same rate. But the study was criticized by Susan Cachel, a professor in human evolution at Rutgers University, who asked, “If the ancestors of anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals do not come from the taxon Homo heidelbergensis, then where do they come from? Some unknown, shadowy ancestor?” Cachel added that “there is an astonishing amount of dental variation in living humans,” which she said undercut one of the key assumptions used by Gomez-Robles’ statistical model, pointing to the example of how some Native Americans have a distosagittal ridge, known as the “Uto-Aztecan premolar.” This trait “is globally very rare and geographically restricted, must have appeared within the last 15-20,000 years — since the divergence between Native Americans and their ancestral population,” she said. “I therefore question the idea that rates of dental evolution are invariably slow.”
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evolution;history;archaeology;paleontology;neanderthals
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jp0004155
|
[
"world",
"crime-legal-world"
] |
2019/05/16
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Congress has no right to 'do-over' of Russia probe, says White House counsel
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WASHINGTON - Congress has no right to conduct a “do-over” of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, the White House said in a letter blasting House Democrats’ “sweeping” requests for documents as an effort to harass political opponents. The May 15 letter from White House counsel Pat Cipollone to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler says the committee’s main probe of President Donald Trump’s presidency serves no legitimate legislative purpose. It was drafted in response to a March 4 request for documents from Nadler, who is running a congressional investigation into allegations of obstruction of justice, public corruption and other abuses of power. “The White House will not participate in the committee’s ‘investigation’ that brushes aside the conclusions of the Department of Justice after a two-year-long effort in favor of political theater pre-ordained to reach a preconceived and false result,” said the 12-page letter from Cipollone. Cipollone’s letter was the latest instance of the Trump administration’s efforts to impede some 20 congressional investigations into his turbulent presidency, his family and his personal business interests. In an intensifying constitutional clash with political risks for both sides headed into the November 2020 elections, Nadler blasted back, rejecting the White House position as “preposterous.” Nadler, who heads the committee that would handle any impeachment proceedings against Trump, told CNN: “This is the White House claiming that the president is king … No president, no person in the United States is above the law.” In his letter, Cipollone asked House Judiciary to narrow its “sweeping” request and provide a legislative purpose for it, adding that many documents would be entitled to be withheld under the legal doctrine of executive privilege. The documents requested relate to everything from the contents of Trump’s meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin to his communications with former White House counsel Donald McGahn, the firings of former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn and former FBI Director James Comey, and possible pardons for Trump associates who pleaded guilty to crimes stemming from the probe. Democrats also want a full, unredacted Mueller report, six years of Trump’s individual and business tax returns, and explanations for some of the administration’s key policy decisions on health care and separating migrant families. They have issued subpoenas and Nadler’s committee has voted to recommend a contempt of Congress charge against Attorney General William Barr for refusing to give lawmakers the unredacted Mueller report and underlying evidence. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday that he expects a House tax committee subpoena for Trump’s tax returns to end in a court fight, suggesting he will not provide the documents by a Friday deadline. A House Intelligence Committee deadline for its subpoena seeking the unredacted Mueller report and related material arrived on Wednesday and was expected to pass unmet, a congressional source said. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump has sued to block a congressional subpoena for financial records from his accounting firm, while the White House has directed McGahn not to cooperate with a Judiciary Committee subpoena for records. Democrats are now considering contempt resolutions against other top administration officials and plan to vote on them, possibly all at once, and perhaps in June. “We don’t want to do it just individually,” said No. 2 House Democrat Steny Hoyer. The administration “cannot be allowed to simply say to the Congress ‘we’re not going to answer your questions, we’re not going to give you documentation,’ ” he added. Twenty House Democrats, including Nadler, are expected to participate in a public reading of the 448-page redacted Mueller report, beginning at noon (1700 GMT) on Thursday until sometime early on Friday, according to the Washington Post. The Mueller report described numerous links between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and various Russians. But it found insufficient evidence to establish that the campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Moscow. It also described numerous attempts by Trump to impede Mueller’s probe, but stopped short of declaring that the president committed a crime.
|
u.s .;congress;robert mueller;donald trump;steve mnuchin;russia probe;jerrold nadler;pat cipollone
|
jp0004156
|
[
"world"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Climate change, pollution, epidemics, quakes: Growing threats put human survival in doubt, U.N. warns
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GENEVA - Increasingly complex, growing and related risks, from global warming to pollution and epidemics, threaten human survival if left to escalate, the United Nations warned on Wednesday. A biennial assessment report on how the world is dealing with disasters said the past could no longer be relied on as a guide to the future, with new risks emerging “in a way that we have not anticipated.” It identified a range of major threats to human life and property, including air pollution, diseases, earthquakes, drought and climate change. There is also growing potential for one type of disaster to produce or exacerbate another, as when heavy rains trigger mudslides after wildfires, warned the report, launched at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva. “If we continue living in this way, engaging with each other and the planet in the way we do, then our very survival is in doubt,” said Mami Mizutori, special representative of the U.N. secretary-general for disaster risk reduction. Extreme weather events have doubled over the last 20 years, causing economic losses that are making it “an uphill battle” to maintain development gains in low and middle-income countries, she added in a statement. Meanwhile, the gap between how well rich and poor cope with wild weather and other threats is widening due to poorly planned urbanization, environmental degradation and population growth. That “complex cocktail of risk” is destroying homes and displacing people, or pushing them to migrate in search of a better life, Mizutori said. A report to be published by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre on Thursday shows that about 265 million people have been uprooted by disasters since the center began collecting data in 2008, more than three times as many as those forced from their homes by conflicts and violence. Mizutori told the disaster conference Wednesday that science carried out on climate change and the decline of ecosystems made it clear the world needed to change rapidly to stay safe. “But crisis need not defeat us — it is an opportunity to transform,” she added. Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, said it was possible to plan for complex situations, such as a heat wave leading to power cuts for people who need to use air conditioning to avoid falling sick. “We are seeing more surprises — but not all surprises need to be surprises,” he said. Kamal Kishore of India’s National Disaster Management Authority said the evacuation of 1.2 million people in the path of Cyclone Fani this month showed a global target to substantially lower deaths in disasters by 2030 could be met. India had drastically cut mortality from powerful storms in the past two decades, he told journalists, but the coastal state of Odisha still suffered crippling damage from Fani to its power grid, roads, telecommunications and aviation services, he noted. “Is that a sustainable situation?” he asked. He said more robust infrastructure was needed and building more resilient systems would be the next step for his country. The Global Assessment Report 2019 showed governments have started to produce data and advance towards the seven global targets set in the 2015 Sendai Framework, which aims to alleviate disaster risk and impacts. Those targets focus on reducing mortality, numbers of people affected and economic losses from disasters by 2030 — but progress, while encouraging, is insufficient, Mizutori said. Ricardo Mena of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) said that of 197 U.N. member states, 116 have so far reported information to a database to monitor the targets. Mizutori said a little less than half of all states had put in place a national strategy for disaster risk reduction — another Sendai target, intended to be met by the end of 2020. She called for stepped-up efforts to craft such plans. The assessment report warned that failure to act more urgently to manage intertwined risks could slow or even reverse progress towards U.N. sustainable development goals, which include eradicating poverty and hunger. To prevent that happening, more investment is needed to avert disasters and protect vulnerable people from their worst effects, said Mizutori. The UNDRR report said development aid used for things such as early warning systems, building stronger schools and hospitals, and helping farmers grow hardier crops in drought-prone areas was “miniscule” compared with funding for disaster response. About $5.2 billion was spent on reducing disaster risk between 2005 and 2017, representing just 3.8 percent of total humanitarian spending — or less than $4 for every $100 spent, the report noted. The Climate Centre’s van Aalst called for more investment in forecasting systems to work out which people in a country or community would likely be hardest-hit by a weather disaster — and in ways to ensure they get warnings and help ahead of time. “It’s not something we don’t know how to tackle — it’s just putting our minds to it and doing it,” he said.
|
pollution;u.n .;disease;disasters;climate change
|
jp0004157
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Joe Biden expands lead for 2020 U.S. presidential nomination despite lack of millennial support
|
NEW YORK - Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has expanded his lead over a wide field of candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination by 5 percentage points since he entered the race in late April, according to a monthly Reuters/Ipsos poll. The poll released on Wednesday found 29 percent of Democrats and independents said they would vote for Biden in the state nominating contests that begin next year. That is up from 24 percent who said so in a poll that ran in late April, days before Biden announced his bid. Biden led the field among all major demographic groups except millennials (ages 18-37), who favored U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont over Biden 18 percent to 16 percent. Biden, 76, remains in the strongest position for the top of the ticket despite questions about his age and centrist positions. He also has faced criticism over his unwanted touching of women and his treatment of law professor Anita Hill three decades ago during Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearing. The monthly survey showed 29 percent of women who identify as Democrats and independents said they backed Biden, up 4 points from last month. And among registered Democrats, those who supported other candidates still listed Biden as a top alternative if their choice dropped out of the race, according to the poll. “That means that there is not a significant anti-Biden block of voters split between the other candidates,” said Chris Jackson, a polling expert at Ipsos. “At this moment, Joe Biden is a clear front-runner in the Democratic primary,” Jackson added. The Democratic nominee will likely face Republican President Donald Trump in the November 2020 election. Besides Biden, 13 percent of Democrats and independents said they would vote for Sanders. None of the other candidates received more than 6 percent support in the poll. With more than a month until the candidates square off in the first televised debates and 18 months before the 2020 presidential election, the American public appears to be selecting candidates they know best. Less than 20 percent of Democrats said they were familiar with many of the candidates, including U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Wayne Messam, mayor of Miramar, Florida. In comparison, more than 84 percent said they were familiar with Biden and Sanders. However, Biden probably is not leading on name recognition alone, said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “It’s not valuable if people know you but don’t like you,” Kondik said. “We saw that for (former Florida Gov.) Jeb Bush in 2015. He had good name ID — everyone knew his family name — but he wasn’t polling as well as Biden is now because Republicans didn’t like him.” The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English throughout the United States from May 10-14. It gathered responses from 1,132 Democrats and independents and has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 3 percentage points. Respondents were asked to pick from 23 potential Democratic nominees, including New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is expected to announce his plans this week. The poll did not include 89-year-old Mike Gravel, a former U.S. senator from Alaska, who is running.
|
u.s .;joe biden;democrats;surveys;bernie sanders;donald trump;2020 u.s. presidential election
|
jp0004158
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Trump to pitch plan to make U.S. immigration more merit-based and border ports tighter
|
WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday will outline an immigration plan aimed at hardening border ports of entry and making the legal migration system based more on a proficiency in English and employment, senior administration officials said. Trump’s immigration proposal, the product largely of senior advisers Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller and economic aide Kevin Hassett, is an effort to provide a framework for Republicans to rally around. While its chances of approval by Congress seem distant, the plan will give Republicans an outline they can say they favor as Trump and lawmakers look toward the November 2020 presidential and congressional elections, where immigration will likely be a key issue. The Trump plan would keep legal immigration steady at 1.1 million people per year, but would prioritize high-skilled people with jobs and fewer family members, the officials told reporters at a White House briefing. It would harden the border by building more of Trump’s coveted southern border wall and improve inspections of goods and people at ports of entry to fight drug smuggling. It would propose an increase in fees collected at the border to pay for border security infrastructure. “Our goal in the short term is to make sure that we are laying out what the president’s policy is in terms of what he’s looking for from immigration reform, and we would like to see if we could get the Republican Party to come together on these two pillars, which we think is a very, very logical, very mainstream point of view,” said one official. The Trump plan would give a preference to immigrants proficient in English and with degrees or training and job offers, the officials said. It does not address some of the hot-button issues in the immigration debate, such as what to do about the surge of people crossing the southern border from Mexico. Nor does it deal with the “Dreamer” children of illegal immigrants or immigrants in the country under Temporary Protected Status, both of whom are priorities of Democratic lawmakers. Instead, Kushner and others looked at the legal migration systems of Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand for clues on how to shift U.S. policy more toward attracting skilled workers and less on uniting extended families. After studying the systems of the other countries, they found that 12 percent of migration to the United States was based on employment and skill, compared with 63 percent for Canada, 57 percent for New Zealand, 68 percent for Australia and 52 percent for Japan. Trump will propose ending the diversity lottery system, which offers applicants from countries with low immigration rates the chance to move to America, and would allow 57 percent of green cards, which grant permanent legal residency, to be based on employment.
|
u.s .;mexico;immigrants;u.s.-mexico border;donald trump;steve miller;jared kushner
|
jp0004159
|
[
"world",
"politics-diplomacy-world"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Rebels hope to kill off May's Brexit deal in 'last-chance' vote
|
LONDON - Brexit-supporting rebels in British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party said on Wednesday they would vote down her European Union divorce deal when she brings it back to Parliament next month. Britain had been due to leave the EU on March 29 but Parliament has three times rejected the withdrawal agreement May struck with Brussels. The United Kingdom is now scheduled to leave, with or without a deal to smooth the exit, by Oct. 31. Defeat in the vote would likely spell the end of May’s divorce deal and probably her prime ministership. May will bring a Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB), which implements the departure terms, to parliament for a vote in the week beginning June 3, Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay said, just as U.S. President Donald Trump begins a divisive state visit to Britain. “I have talked to colleagues, some of whom voted for it last time, and they think it is dead and they will vote against it this time,” Peter Bone, a Conservative lawmaker and Brexit supporter, told Talk Radio. “It seems absurd to bring it back. It is the same thing again, again and again.” May, who became prime minister in the chaos that followed the 2016 referendum in which Britons voted 52 percent to 48 percent to leave the EU, is under pressure from some of her own lawmakers to set a date for her departure. As well as the Brexit deadlock, the Conservative Party suffered major losses in local elections this month and is trailing in opinion polls ahead of the May 23 European Parliament elections. Asked if she would resign if the bill was defeated, May told reporters she was sure members of Parliament (MPs) would remember to respect the referendum result. “When MPs come to look at that (bill), they will recognize that we have a duty in parliament to deliver on the result of the referendum and deliver Brexit,” she said. Lawmakers from the upper house of parliament had earlier asked Barclay if this was “the last chance saloon” for May’s divorce deal. “If the House of Commons does not approve the WAB, then the Barnier deal is dead in that form,” Barclay told them, referring to the EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. Barclay said that would leave Parliament with the choice of revoking the decision to leave the EU or exiting without a deal, the default position if no divorce agreement can be reached. “If the House (of Commons) has not passed the Withdrawal Agreement Bill then there are growing voices in Europe, not least the French, who want to move on to other issues,” he said. Nearly three years after the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU, politicians still disagree about when, how or even if the divorce will take place. Brexit supporters fear May’s deal will keep the United Kingdom trapped within the EU’s orbit for years and that it could ultimately pull the British province of Northern Ireland toward the bloc. Before her deal was defeated the last time, by 344 votes to 286 on March 29, May had promised to resign if it was passed. It was voted down first in January and again in mid-March. A sticking point has been the Irish backstop, an insurance policy aimed at avoiding post-Brexit controls on the border between Northern Ireland and EU-member Ireland. “If the prime minister brings the withdrawal bill to the Commons for a vote, the question will be ‘what has changed’?” asked Nigel Dodds, parliamentary leader of the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which props up May’s minority government. “Unless she can demonstrate something new that addresses the problem of the backstop then it is highly likely her deal will go down to defeat once again,” Dodds said. A majority of members of the European Research Group, a large Brexit-supporting faction in the Conservative Party, will vote against May’s deal, said Owen Paterson, a former minister. As positions harden in Parliament, with many wanting to either leave the EU without a deal or to stop Brexit altogether, May has turned to the opposition Labour Party, led by veteran socialist Jeremy Corbyn, to negotiate a way out of the impasse. But after more than four weeks of talks, the two party leaders appear no closer to agreeing a common position, with Labour saying May had not shifted her position and warning a future Conservative leader could rip up any deal they struck. “We have serious concerns about negotiating with a government that is in the process of disintegration and what has been said about what might happen if a new Tory (Conservative) leadership is in charge,” a Labour spokesman said. However, the spokesman said while the party could not back May’s deal as it stood, he did not rule out abstaining in the vote, which might allow it to muster enough support to pass.
|
eu;u.k .;brexit;theresa may
|
jp0004160
|
[
"asia-pacific",
"science-health-asia-pacific"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Chinese probe reveals secrets of moon's dark side
|
PARIS - Scientists on Wednesday said they could be a step closer to solving the riddle behind the moon’s formation, unveiling the most detailed survey yet of the far side of Earth’s satellite. In January, the Chinese spacecraft Chang’e-4 — named after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology — became the first-ever craft to touch down on the far side of the lunar surface. Similar to other bodies in our solar system, the moon is believed to have gone through a phase during its formation when it was partially or entirely composed of molten rock. As it cooled, so the hypothesis goes, denser minerals sank to the bottom of the magma-ocean, while lighter materials gathered near the surface to form its mantle. The team landed its probe in the Von Karmen Crater in the Aitken Basin at the moon’s south pole — home to one of the largest impact craters known in the solar system. They detected materials such as olivine and low-calcium pyroxene that are rare elsewhere on the surface. Authors of the study, which was published in the journal Nature, suggest that these materials were ejected from the moon’s upper mantle when it was struck by a meteor. “Our results support the lunar magma ocean theory, and demonstrate that the magma ocean hypothesis can be used to describe the early evolution history of the moon,” Chunlai Li, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told AFP. Unlike the near side of the moon that always faces the Earth and offers many flat areas to touch down on, the far side is mountainous and rugged. The United States, Russia and China have all landed probes on the near side of the moon, though neither NASA’s Apollo missions nor the Soviet Union’s Luna probes have ever returned samples of the lunar mantle. Writing in a linked comment piece, Patrick Pinet, from France’s l’Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie, said Li’s findings were “thrilling. The results “might also affect our understanding of the formation and evolution of planetary interiors,” Pinet wrote, saying that more research on the far side of the moon was “of the utmost importance.”
|
china;nasa;space;nature;meteors;moon;chunlai li
|
jp0004161
|
[
"asia-pacific"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Philippines withdraws top diplomats from Canada in dispute over exported waste
|
MANILA - The Philippines is withdrawing top diplomats from Canada after Ottawa missed a deadline to take back 69 shipping containers full of trash, the latest move in a long-running row stoked by threats from Manila’s outspoken president. Last month, President Rodrigo Duterte threatened Canada with war and said he would personally escort the waste containers by sea back to Canada. “We shall maintain a diminished diplomatic presence in Canada until its garbage is ship-bound there,” Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin said on Twitter on Thursday after the May 15 deadline expired. Locsin also took issue with Philippine diplomats for not doing enough to ensure Canada took back the trash, accusing them of acting in defiance of their president to preserve friendly relations. Canada’s foreign ministry was not immediately available for comment after office hours. Its embassy in Manila referred Reuters’ queries to its foreign ministry. The volatile 74-year-old Duterte, known for his grandstanding and often hollow threats towards Western powers, has also said he would dump the trash in front of Canada’s embassy in Manila. Canada says the waste, exported to Manila between 2013 and 2014, was a commercial transaction not backed by its government. It has since offered to take it back and the two countries were in the process of arranging the transfer. The Philippines has made several diplomatic protests to Canada in the wake of a 2016 court ruling that the garbage be returned. The consignments were labelled as containing plastics to be recycled in the Philippines, but were filled with diapers, newspapers and water bottles instead.
|
philippines;canada;recycling;waste
|
jp0004162
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Princess Kako plans visit to Austria and Hungary for her first official overseas trip
|
Princess Kako, the youngest daughter of Crown Prince Akishino and Crown Princess Kiko, is planning to visit Austria and Hungary in September in her first official overseas trip, the Imperial Household Agency said Thursday. The 24-year-old princess is expected to attend memorial events and also make courtesy visits to the presidents of the two countries as Japan marks this year the 150th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties with them, the agency said. The princess, a niece of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako, graduated this spring from the International Christian University in Tokyo where she majored in psychology. She also studied at Leeds University in Britain for nine months from September 2017. Her parents visited Austria and Hungary in 2009.
|
hungary;royalty;austria;imperial family;princess kako;emperor naruhito;empress masako
|
jp0004163
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/05/16
|
'Nothing has changed': Ex-Ryukyu official reflects on effort to reduce Okinawa's U.S. base burden
|
NAHA, OKINAWA PREF. - A former official of the now-defunct Ryukyu government is disappointed that U.S. bases remain concentrated in Okinawa Prefecture despite a proposal made before its 1972 reversion to Japanese control. The prefecture on Wednesday marked the 47th anniversary of its return to Japanese administration from U.S. rule, which took place nearly three decades after Japan’s defeat in World War II. “Nothing has changed,” said Kamenosuke Taira, 82, who was involved in making a proposal calling for the reduction of U.S. bases while he was a Ryukyu government official. While the rest of Japan recovered its sovereignty in 1952 upon the effectuation of the San Francisco peace treaty with victorious powers, Okinawa was under U.S. control until the reversion. Over the subsequent two decades, campaigns demanding Okinawa’s return to Japan intensified as crime and accidents involving U.S. service members occurred one after another. Ahead of Okinawa’s return to Japan on May 15, 1972, as agreed on at a 1969 meeting between Prime Minister Eisaku Sato and U.S. President Richard Nixon, the Ryukyu government made the proposal over the bilateral Okinawa reversion agreement. “We strongly hope Okinawa will be returned as peaceful islands without a military base,” the proposal said, calling for an unconditional and full return to Japan. Nevertheless, the Sato-Nixon agreement said that U.S. bases in Okinawa would remain. “We thought there would be no hope for Okinawa’s future if the reversion was made as agreed,” Taira said. On Nov. 17, 1971, Chobyo Yara, chief executive of the Ryukyu government, went to Tokyo to submit the proposal to the Diet. But the reversion accord was railroaded through a special committee of the House of Representatives that day. Voices of protest rang around the venue for a ceremony marking the reversion, held six months later in Naha, the prefectural capital. Looking back at the ceremony he attended, Taira said: “Tears welled up as I saw a crowd of protesters in rain gear. I recall it each time I go by the venue.” During the two decades leading up to the reversion, U.S. Marines were transferred to Okinawa from such areas as Gifu and Yamanashi prefectures. Okinawa continues to host a majority of the U.S. bases in Japan. “We wanted to live under a Constitution that guarantees human rights,” Taira said.
|
okinawa;u.s .;history;u.s. bases;occupation;ryukyu kingdom;kamenosuke taira
|
jp0004164
|
[
"national",
"politics-diplomacy"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Japanese government seeks public comment on plan to bring foreign trainees into hotel sector
|
The government on Thursday started soliciting public comments over its plan to allow foreign nationals who come to Japan under the government-sponsored Technical Intern Training Program to work directly for hotels for up to five years, officials said. Those workers could eventually apply for a new visa under a system for blue-collar foreign workers, allowing them to stay for an extended period of time. Currently, foreign workers who have what is called a Type 2 trainee visa can apply for the new long-term working visa without passing any examination. However, the hotel industry is not covered by the transition system, which prompted the industry to call for a revision of the system. The new blue-collar visa system was launched in April for 14 industries, including the hotel industry, to bring in more foreign workers as part of efforts to ease the nation’s acute labor shortage. Comments can be submitted until June 14 via a government website .
|
immigration;jobs;hotels;foreign trainees;foreign workers
|
jp0004165
|
[
"national",
"politics-diplomacy"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Concerned about escalating Iran-U.S. tensions, Japan offers to work with Tehran as minister visits
|
Japan on Thursday expressed concern about a tense standoff between Iran and the United States over an international nuclear deal and offered to work with Tehran to defuse tension in the Middle East. “We are concerned that the situation in the Middle East is getting extremely tense,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at the outset of their meeting in Tokyo. Zarif traveled to Japan, a key U.S. ally that has maintained amicable ties with the Middle Eastern nation, at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is ramping up pressure on Iran through tighter sanctions and an apparent show of force by leaving the 2015 nuclear accord. During a separate meeting with Foreign Minister Taro Kono, the Iranian foreign minister called the “escalation” of the situation by the United States “unacceptable” and said Tehran has exercised “maximum restraint” despite the development. Tehran last week reacted to Washington’s moves by announcing the suspension of some commitments under the deal, which was designed to curb Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Zarif told Kono that Iran remains committed to the deal and sought international support to maintain the accord, but added “(We) will certainly defend ourselves and respond to any threat against our national security.” Kono also expressed his concern to Zarif about the situation and promised to “spare no efforts to ease tensions and try to resolve outstanding issues.” The two agreed on the importance of maintaining the nuclear deal, with Kono saying, “It is essential to maintain this scheme, not only for our bilateral relations but also for the international nonproliferation regime and peace and stability in the Middle East.” According to the Foreign Ministry, Abe also expressed hope that Iran will keep its commitments under the deal. On May 8, Iran announced it plans to keep more enriched uranium than allowed under the nuclear deal initially sealed with the United States, France, the U.K, Germany, Russia and China. Tehran has set a 60-day deadline to negotiate new terms. Tension has also grown with Washington sending an aircraft carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf. For energy-scarce Japan, Iran has been a source of oil imports, but this month the United States ended waivers granted to Japan and other buyers in a bid to choke off Tehran’s oil revenue.
|
u.s .;nuclear weapons;iran;sanctions;iran nuclear deal;iran-japan relations;taro kono;mohammad javad zarif
|
jp0004166
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Osaka's Tobita Shinchi red light district to be closed for G20 summit to 'avoid causing disruption'
|
OSAKA - A major red light district in Osaka will be closed during the Group of 20 summit in late June, the first such occurrence in 30 years, a local restaurant association said Thursday. All 159 members of the Tobita Shinchi association will not operate during the June 28 and 29 gathering as the association seeks to “avoid causing disruption in the area,” one of its officials said. The association also determined that workers at member businesses would have problems commuting as large-scale traffic restrictions will be in place during the two-day gathering of world leaders. “We hope people will say they are glad they held the meeting in Japan,” said the official. The last time the district in Nishinari Ward was closed was during the funeral for Emperor Showa on Feb. 24, 1989, according to the association. Tobita Shinchi, formerly known as one of the largest quarters of licensed brothels in Japan, houses many such businesses that advertise themselves as being Japanese-style restaurants.
|
osaka;sex;g20;prostitution;tobita shinchi
|
jp0004167
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/05/16
|
'Culture of fear': Report alleges low pay and overwork for laborers at Tokyo Olympics sites
|
A report released by a global union federation Wednesday demanded better conditions for laborers working on the construction of Tokyo Games facilities after several “alarming” cases of suspected labor violations were uncovered. The report from Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI), titled “The Dark Side of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics,” is based on interviews with construction workers and documents how low pay, overwork and poor access to grievance mechanisms are creating a “culture of fear” among crews working on Olympic projects. BWI, headquartered in Geneva, is seeking an end to “dangerous patterns of overwork,” citing the example of construction workers at the National Stadium and Olympic Village who reported being required to work up to 26 and 28 consecutive days, respectively. “The Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics was Japan’s opportunity to address some of the long-running gaps within the construction industry in Japan, however, these problems have just got worse,” BWI General Secretary Ambet Yuson said. “Wages remain low, dangerous overwork is common, and workers have limited access to recourse to address their issues,” Yuson said. According to the report, the nation’s construction sector is facing an “acute labor shortage,” with 4.3 positions vacant for every worker. At the same time, an increase in construction activity has been driven by the hosting of the 2019 Rugby World Cup and 2020 Games, as well as ongoing reconstruction efforts in prefectures hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. Among the findings, one case at the National Stadium was highlighted for being particularly grievous. The report cited the rejection of a complaint about a worker’s injury because it had been brought by a union and not the injured party. The alleged rejection “constitutes a serious violation of the right to be represented, a core component of the right to freedom of association,” the federation said in the report. The BWI sent a delegation to Tokyo last September to meet with key decision-makers and investigate the “conditions faced by workers in the construction of Tokyo 2020 Olympic facilities.” Their findings were further substantiated by interviews conducted in February by BWI and its Japanese affiliate, the National Federation of Construction Workers’ Unions, with workers involved in the construction of the National Stadium and Olympic Village. The report was sent Tuesday to the organizing committee of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the Japan Sports Council — groups responsible for the construction of Olympic facilities. The 2020 organizing committee said Tuesday evening the report is “under review.” Through their “Global Sports Campaign for Decent Work and Beyond,” the BWI has been examining large-scale international sporting events for over 10 years to “improve working conditions and ensure safety and health for workers building all projects related to mega-sporting events.”
|
labor laws;abuse;construction;overwork;national stadium;2020 tokyo olympics;bwi
|
jp0004169
|
[
"national",
"crime-legal"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Chiba woman pleads guilty to complicity in husband's fatal abuse of 10-year-old daughter
|
CHIBA - A woman pleaded guilty Thursday to complicity in her husband’s assaults on their 10-year-old daughter, who died in January, as her trial began in a case that has attracted national attention. Nagisa Kurihara, 32, is suspected of failing to stop her husband, Yuichiro Kurihara, 41, from assaulting their daughter Mia and following his instructions not to feed her from around Jan. 22. Mia was found dead inside the bathroom of their home in Noda, Chiba Prefecture, two days later. During the first court hearing at the Chiba District Court, prosecutors said the father had resumed his assaults and was injuring Mia by around July 2018, after her protective custody at a child welfare center ended the previous year. The mother did not report the assaults to police even though she sometimes intervened, the prosecutors said. As the father has not given any details or reasons for the alleged attacks, prosecutors are relying on the mother’s accounts to shed light on what went on inside their home. Nagisa Kurihara said during police investigations that she was also assaulted by her husband when she tried to stop his abuse of Mia and came to feel it was no use trying to stop him. Yuichiro Kurihara has been indicted over assaulting his wife around Jan. 1 in addition to allegations of abuse of their daughter that caused her death, including by depriving her of sleep and nutrition, among other related charges. His trial date has yet to be decided. Investigations into the case have uncovered how a child welfare center, her school and other local authorities failed to respond promptly to the girl’s repeated calls for help, and a member of the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said it demonstrated a crucial lack of responsibility by the adults involved. In November 2017, Mia wrote in a questionnaire from her school in Noda that she was being “bullied” by her father, and was subsequently taken into protective custody at the child welfare center for seven weeks. But because she started expressing a desire to go home, the center concluded the abuse was not serious and ended her protection in late December that year. Mia then stayed with relatives for a time but returned to her parents’ home upon approval by the welfare center in February 2018. After her protective custody ended, no visits were paid to her home by officials of either the center or the school to verify her safety. It was also found that a local education board handed Yuichiro Kurihara a copy of Mia’s questionnaire, and that she was released from protective custody despite his suspected sexual abuse of her.
|
children;abuse;child abuse;chiba;yuichiro kurihara;mia kurihara;noda;nagisa kurihara
|
jp0004170
|
[
"national",
"crime-legal"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Chiba nursery teacher injured while protecting kids after car driven by 65-year-old plows into park
|
CHIBA - A 30-year-old teacher at a nursery school was seriously injured while protecting a group of children from a car that crashed into a park in Chiba Prefecture on Wednesday. Wednesday’s accident occurred at around 10:25 a.m. as five 2-year-olds were playing in a sandbox along with two nursery teachers at the park in Ichihara, according to local police. After the car broke through the perimeter fence and plowed into the park, the teacher helped some of the children escape danger by pushing them out of the car’s path. She was then hit by the car, and suffered a broken right leg. None of the toddlers were injured in the incident. Police arrested the driver, Takashi Sensui, 65, on the spot. He claimed that he was trying to pay the parking fee at an exit of a coin-operated lot across the street from the park when the car suddenly started moving forward. He said he had his foot on the brake pedal, police sources said. “We were really shocked because we always take the children to the park,” said an official of a firm that runs the nursery school. “We are extremely relieved that the children are alright.”
|
children;elderly;chiba;traffic accidents;ichihara
|
jp0004171
|
[
"national",
"crime-legal"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Man who told police of his plan to stab Prince Hisahito to take psychiatric test, sources say
|
A 56-year-old man arrested on suspicion of placing knives on Prince Hisahito’s desk in Tokyo last month will undergo a psychiatric examination to see whether he is mentally competent to take responsibility for his actions, sources close to the matter said Thursday. A court has granted Tokyo prosecutors’ request to keep Kaoru Hasegawa detained for the examination after he was apprehended April 29 for allegedly trespassing on the grounds of Ochanomizu University Junior High School three days earlier. Investigators say Hasegawa has admitted to placing the knives on the desk and has criticized the imperial system, telling them he intended to stab the 12-year-old. The young prince was not inside the classroom when the two fruit knives attached to an aluminum bar were found placed across his desk and the one next to it on April 26. The blades were painted pink, but no written message was left at the scene. Security cameras captured images of a man, believed to be Hasegawa, walking past the main gate of the university on the same morning and leaving less than an hour later. Police said the man claimed to be a plumber when he entered the junior high school. The incident occurred as Japan was preparing to celebrate the historic imperial succession, with Emperor Akihito abdicating April 30 and his son, Emperor Naruhito, ascending the throne a day later. The ascension promoted Prince Hisahito to second in line to the throne after his father Crown Prince Akishino, 53, the younger brother of the 59-year-old emperor.
|
tokyo;prince hisahito;imperial family;ochanomizu;ochanomizu university junior high school;kaoru hasegawa
|
jp0004172
|
[
"national",
"crime-legal"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Japan Supreme Court chief says lay judge system well received but tweaks needed to spur interest
|
The Supreme Court said Wednesday that, while the country’s lay judge system has been well received by the public since it was introduced 10 years ago, improvements are needed in order to get citizens more interested in the administration of justice and ease burdens placed on citizen judges. Surveys conducted annually over the 10-year period on citizen judges showed that over 95 percent of them think participating in trial processes has been a good experience, according to the court. “The system has been accepted positively by the public,” Chief Justice Naoto Otani said during a news conference. “The operation of the system is still in the developing stage, and improvements need to be considered,” he added. Some 91,000 people had served as citizen judges through March this year, overseeing around 12,000 cases, according to the court’s review report. The percentage of people chosen as candidates — but who later declined to serve — has gradually increased since the start of the system in 2009, the report said. Last year, 67.0 percent of candidates declined to serve as citizen judges for various reasons, including their work situation, an increase from 53.1 percent in 2009. The percentage of selected citizens who refused to attend a screening session has also increased, the top court said. While the Supreme Court said the rate of people who asked to be exempted from the duty, averaging 62.5 percent during the 10 years, is not high enough to affect the operation of the lay judge system, the level of public interest in it is declining and longer trials are likely making more people reluctant to accept the task. Under 2004 judicial reform legislation that was enacted with a goal of reflecting the mentality of ordinary people, citizens aged 20 or older chosen at random from the local electorate became eligible to act as lay judges in May 2009. Candidates can refuse to be subjects of the assignment procedure in advance if the court recognizes they have a valid reason. Six lay judges, selected through a lottery, plus three professional judges, are on the bench for some district court trials of heinous crimes such as murder, robbery, arson and rape. They decide by a majority vote whether a defendant is guilty or not, and hand down a sentence following guilty verdicts. The number of cases overturned by high courts initially declined after the system was introduced, but the rate for cases involving lay judges has climbed from 6.6 percent for the first three years to an average of 10.9 percent in the following years, according to the report. In recent years, rulings in trials without lay judges have been overturned at a lower rate than those involving lay judges. In general, crimes of a sexual nature tended to be punished more severely under the lay judge system, according to the report. The report also showed that the length of lay judge trials has been getting longer. The average period from the first hearing until the day of the ruling stood at 10.8 days in 2018, compared with 3.7 days in 2009. Similarly, the average period of pretrial conference procedures, during which a prosecutor, an attorney and a judge narrow down issues, grew from 2.8 months to 8.2 months. One veteran judge commented that lay judges “tend to impose more severe sentences in high-profile cases, but they often give sympathetic rulings” in other types of cases. The judge also attributed the longer trials to “an increase in the number of complicated cases compared to the time when the system was new.” Cases handled by lay judges previously tended to be those in which defendants had made confessions, according to the judge.
|
courts;lay judges;supreme court;naoto otani
|
jp0004173
|
[
"national",
"crime-legal"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Japanese courts to use web meetings to connect judges and lawyers in suit preparations
|
District courts in Tokyo and seven other cities will begin using web meetings in February 2020 to connect judges and lawyers online to help make necessary preparations for lawsuits easier, according to judicial sources. The new system is designed to allow those involved in civil lawsuits to share materials and confirm the claims of both plaintiffs and defendants online, thereby improving convenience and speeding up proceedings of such suits, sources at the Supreme Court said Thursday. The plan will first be launched at the district courts in Tokyo, Osaka, Sapporo, Sendai, Nagoya, Hiroshima, Fukuoka and Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture, as well as the Intellectual Property High Court in Tokyo, the sources said. Web meetings will be rolled out to district courts in five more cities — Yokohama, Kobe, Saitama, Chiba and Kyoto — in May 2020 and to other regional courts in stages at a later date. Currently, the sharing of information and other proceedings in cases involving plaintiffs and defendants living far away from each other are conducted over the phone if needed. The new plan is expected to smooth out the procedures by allowing judges and lawyers for both sides to share lawsuit materials online and hold talks face-to-face via video calls. Courts will also consider using the plan in cases other than long-distance litigation, including allowing lawyers to access the service from not only their offices but also the legal departments of client companies involved in lawsuits, the sources said. The use of web meetings was proposed by a government panel of experts in March 2018 as a way to reduce lawyers’ burden of having to show up at court for lawsuit preparation.
|
courts;tech
|
jp0004174
|
[
"national"
] |
2019/05/16
|
Robots from 'Gundam' series to greet 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic athletes from space
|
Organizers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games announced plans Wednesday to launch robots from the “Mobile Suit Gundam” anime series into space aboard a satellite that will broadcast messages of support to athletes. In the project, conducted in collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the University of Tokyo, two 10-centimeter models depicting Gundam and Char’s Zaku robots from the animation series will be sent into orbit on a 30-cm long, 10-cm wide microsatellite. The “G Satellite,” with an electronic bulletin board for displaying messages, will be sent to the International Space Station aboard a supply ship next March and later launched from the ISS. After the satellite enters the Earth’s orbit, it will deploy the robots and the bulletin board. The organizers of the project will then share images taken with an onboard camera, including congratulatory messages in multiple languages, with athletes through social media and other outlets. At an event announcing the project in Tokyo, JAXA astronaut Norishige Kanai, who returned from the ISS last June, drew parallels between the space program and the Olympics. “Like the Olympics, people are excited by space exploration regardless of their country or place of origin,” said Kanai, who added that he is also a fan of the “Gundam” series.
|
space;olympics;jaxa;anime;gundam;2020 tokyo olympics
|
jp0004175
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/05/28
|
Ball in U.S. court to start trade talks, top EU commissioner says
|
BRUSSELS - EU-U.S. talks that could prevent the United States imposing punitive car tariffs have made some progress, but Washington must decide if it wants to negotiate with Brussels on a broad removal of import duties, the EU trade chief said on Monday. EU countries last month cleared the start of formal trade talks with the United States on two fronts: cutting tariffs on industrial goods, and making it easier for companies to show their products meet the standards of the EU or U.S. market. EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said the two sides had made progress on the latter, conformity assessment, as well as discussing potential for regulatory cooperation, which could avoid the need to test on both sides of the Atlantic. “The aim is not to change our respective systems,” she told a news conference after a meeting of EU trade ministers. “Here, we are making some progress. However, Malmstrom recognized that the two sides had conflicting mandates over tariff reduction, with the United States wanting to include farm products and the European Union united in opposing this. “The ball is now in the U.S. court to start these negotiations,” Malmstrom said. EU trade ministers also discussed on Monday another area of tension with the United States, namely Washington’s blocking of appointments to the World Trade Organization’s appellate body that rules in disputes between WTO members. That body is set to be paralyzed at the end of the year when two of its three remaining members step down. Three are required to hear any case. EU countries agreed the Commission should reach out to other WTO members to find an interim solution that retains the binding character of the appellate body’s decisions and the WTO’s two-tier system of adjudication. One possible avenue is to use article 25 of the WTO’s existing Dispute Settlement Understanding, which allows the settlement of disputes via arbitration, but Malmstrom stressed this was not satisfactory in the long term. “By end of the year we will need to make sure, and other countries feel the same, that there is something to guarantee our interests. There are provisions in article 25, but it would be interim, it would be temporary,” she said.
|
u.s .;eu;wto;tariffs;cecilia malmstrom;trade war
|
jp0004176
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/05/28
|
Huawei reviewing FedEx relationship after packages from Japan meant for China were 'diverted' to U.S.
|
HONG KONG - Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei is reviewing its relationship with FedEx Corp after it claimed the U.S. package delivery company, without detailed explanation, diverted two parcels destined for Huawei addresses in Asia to the United States and attempted to reroute two others. Huawei told Reuters on Friday that FedEx diverted two packages sent from Japan and addressed to Huawei in China to the United States, and attempted to divert two more packages sent from Vietnam to Huawei offices elsewhere in Asia, all without authorization, providing images of FedEx tracking records. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the records. Shown the images of the tracking records, FedEx declined to make any comment, saying company policy prevented it from disclosing customer information. Huawei said the four packages only contained documents and “no technology,” which Reuters was unable to independently confirm. Huawei declined to elaborate on why it thought the packages were diverted. Reuters was given no evidence the incident was related to the U.S. government’s move to place Huawei and its affiliates on a trade blacklist in mid-May, effectively banning U.S. firms from doing business with them on security grounds. “The recent experiences where important commercial documents sent via FedEx were not delivered to their destination, and instead were either diverted to, or were requested to be diverted to, FedEx in the United States, undermines our confidence,” Joe Kelly, a spokesman for Huawei, told Reuters. “We will now have to review our logistics and document delivery support requirements as a direct result of these incidents,” the spokesman said. Huawei acknowledged to Reuters that one package originating in Vietnam was received by Friday, and the other was on its way, according to FedEx tracking records provided by Huawei. FedEx spokeswoman Maury Donahue told Reuters the packages were “misrouted in error” and that FedEx was not requested to divert them by any other party. “This is an isolated issue limited to a very small number of packages,” said FedEx, referring to the four parcels affected. “We are aware of all shipments at issue and are working directly with our customers to return the packages to their possession.” The U.S. Department of Commerce did not reply to a request for comment on whether the incident might be related to its move on May 16 to add Huawei to the so-called “Entity List,” preventing it buying certain items from U.S. companies without U.S. government approval. The United States believes Huawei, the world’s largest telecom network gear maker leading the way in creating the next generation of wireless networks known as 5G, is a potential espionage threat because of its close ties with the Chinese government. Huawei has repeatedly denied it is controlled by the Chinese government, military or intelligence services. The issue has become a flash point in an escalating trade battle between the world’s two biggest economies. The two packages sent on May 19 and May 20 from Tokyo, intended for Huawei in China, ended up in Memphis, Tennessee, the headquarters of the U.S. company, by May 23, according to images of FedEx tracking records shown to Reuters by Huawei. The two packages originating from Hanoi on May 17, destined for Huawei’s Hong Kong and Singapore offices, were held up after arriving in local FedEx stations in Hong Kong and Singapore on May 21 for “delivery exception,” according to other images Huawei showed Reuters. According to FedEx’s website, the status “exception” means an unexpected event is preventing delivery of a package, for example a customs delay, a holiday, or no one being available to accept delivery. FedEx declined to give details on what the exception was in this case. According to Huawei, a FedEx customer service representative in Vietnam replied to their inquiry on May 22 when two expected packages did not arrive on time, saying: “Please be informed that FDX SG received notification from FDX US to hold and return the package to US. Hence, the shipment is not deliver to consignee and now being hold at FDX station and under process to RTS it (return to sender),” the representative wrote in broken English, according to an email Huawei showed to Reuters. Huawei told Reuters that both Vietnam packages were sent by its shipping agent, a contractor to Huawei whom it did not identify, and contained urgent documents. It said the shipping agent refused permission for FedEx to send the packages to the United States and instructed they be returned, Huawei told Reuters. Reuters could not confirm that. Huawei told Reuters it only learned that the Japan-originated packages, which were sent by suppliers that it did not identify, had been diverted to the United States after checking FedEx’s tracking record. The company said it has lodged a formal complaint with China’s postal regulator, which it said is investigating the incident. China’s State Postal Bureau did not return a request for comment.
|
china;u.s .;espionage;huawei;fedex;5g
|
jp0004177
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/05/28
|
Canada takes a first step toward ratifying trade deal with U.S. and Mexico
|
OTTAWA - Canada took a first step toward ratifying a new North American trade agreement on Monday just three days ahead of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s trip to Ottawa to discuss passage of the treaty. Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland presented what is known as a “ways and means motion” to the House of Commons, which opens the way for the formal presentation of a bill. The deal known as the USMCA, which would replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, has yet to be approved by legislatures of the three participating countries — Canada, Mexico and the United States. The United States struck deals on May 17 to lift tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada and Mexico, removing a major obstacle to legislative approval. Pence is due to meet Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa on Thursday. The United States is Canada’s top trading partner, taking in 75 percent of its goods exports. Reaching a new trade deal had been a priority for Trudeau’s Liberal government, and a national election is five months away. Freeland said she had spoken over the weekend with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and less than two weeks ago with Mexico’s government about their ratification process. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican, negotiated the deal but some U.S. Democratic lawmakers demand stronger enforcement provisions for USMCA’s new labor and environmental standards. John Manley, a former Canadian Liberal foreign minister, said on Friday that Canada should pass the new treaty this summer. “To fail to pass it is going to be a signal to the U.S. Congress that it is still open for renegotiations,” Manley told Reuters. Some U.S. lawmakers have said passing the treaty would become more difficult after the congressional summer recess due to budget battles and increased campaigning ahead of the November 2020 presidential election.
|
u.s .;trade;mexico;canada;nafta;donald trump;mike pence;justin trudeau;chrystia freeland;usmca
|
jp0004178
|
[
"business"
] |
2019/05/28
|
Ontario plans to sue opioid makers in bid to recoup health care costs
|
TORONTO - Canada’s most populous province of Ontario on Monday announced plans to sue opioid makers to recover health care costs related to the deadly addiction epidemic. Ontario’s attorney general, Caroline Mulroney, said the province will join a lawsuit launched last year by British Columbia against more than 40 opioid manufacturers and wholesalers. “The opioid crisis has cost the people of Ontario enormously, both in terms of lives lost and its impact on health care’s front lines,” Mulroney said. She unveiled legislation to set up the legal action “to battle the ongoing opioid crisis and hold manufacturers and wholesalers accountable for their roles in it.” More than 10,000 Canadians have died of opioid-related overdoses since 2016, according to government figures. Combatting the crisis is estimated to have cost Ottawa nearly 400 million Canadian dollars ($300 million). Historically, opioid overdose deaths — mainly from the powerful painkiller fentanyl — were concentrated among drug addicts. But many victims became addicted to prescribed painkillers before turning to street drugs and others were experimenting with recreational drugs for the first time. Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario have been the hardest hit provinces but the epidemic has affected every part of the country. The British Columbia suit named opioid manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors as defendants _ including Purdue, whose popular OxyContin drug has been blamed for triggering the crisis. “These opioid manufacturers and wholesalers failed to warn doctors and the public of the dangers of opioids and marketed them as safer and less addictive than other medications when they were not,” Ontario alleged in a statement. Mulroney said Ontario intends to invest any award from the suit in mental health and addiction services. Neither British Columbia nor Ontario have yet said how much they would be seeking in damages.
|
medicine;drugs;canada;addiction;heath care
|
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