In bid to tackle teacher overtime, Japan government calls on boards to help schools secure support staff

Abstract: The education ministry has said it will step up efforts to encourage public schools to adopt reforms intended to tackle excessive overtime work by teachers, calling on local education boards to establish pools of support staff capable of leading extracurricular activities on behalf of teachers and seeking parents’ backing for such staff. The initiative is among a set of measures recommended by a special committee of the Central Council for Education, an advisory panel to the education minister, on Jan. 25. These were put forward after a fiscal 2016 survey by the ministry found that roughly 30 percent and 60 percent of teachers at public elementary and junior high schools, respectively, worked more overtime than the so-called karōshi (death from overwork) risk threshold of 80 hours per month. The fiscal 2016 survey also found that 81.8 percent and 89 percent of teachers at public elementary and junior high schools, respectively, worked more than 45 hours of overtime per month. Major reasons for excessive overtime included academic assessments of pupils at elementary schools and mandatory responsibilities for overseeing students’ extracurricular activities at junior high schools, according to the survey. In December last year, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry proposed that overtime work for teachers at public schools be capped, in principle, at 45 hours per month and 360 hours per year. Even in unusual circumstances, such as when confronting bullying problems, overtime should be curbed to less than 100 hours per month, the ministry said. Each municipality will be asked by the ministry to set overtime reduction targets in line with the guidelines by the end of fiscal 2020. Recommendations by the advisory panel included an “integrated support system for school affairs” that involves the use of information technology for the management of academic grades and communication among teachers at elementary schools, as well as the assignment of support staff to oversee extracurricular activities on behalf of teachers at junior high schools. According to the committee, the system could reduce teachers’ work by some 120 hours per year at elementary schools and, through the introduction of such support staff, by 160 hours at junior high schools. The government has worked out a five-year plan to spend ¥180.5 billion per year through fiscal 2022 to promote the adoption of the integrated support system at public schools, and the ministry has set aside funds in its fiscal 2019 draft budget to double the number of support staff for extracurricular activities to 9,000 from the previous year. But to meet the proposed cap, most schools will have to make drastic changes to their work methods. Among elementary schools, to date only 50.6 percent have introduced the integrated support system, and there are differences between municipalities in terms of the introduction rate.

teachers education schools overwork mext


Japan seeks multilateralization of INF treaty, Kono says, after U.S. decides to withdraw from pact

Abstract: Foreign Minister Taro Kono said Tuesday a multilateral arms control treaty will be needed after the United States’ decision to withdraw from a Cold War-era pact with Russia. Kono acknowledged, however, that the outlook for such an accord is “extremely uncertain” as China, which already has a large stockpile of ballistic and cruise missiles, is opposed to the idea of joining a framework to limit medium-range missiles. “Japan will actively call on countries that possess or are developing such missiles to support the multilateralization (of the treaty),” Kono told reporters, referring to the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The United States said Saturday it had notified Russia of its intention to pull out of the INF treaty, accusing Moscow of violating the ban on the possession and development of land-based missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow had suspended its treaty obligations and would start developing a new hypersonic intermediate-range missile. Russia denies violation of the INF and accuses the U.S. of breaching the accord through its installation of Aegis defense systems in Eastern Europe. “China already possesses missiles (of the range covered in the pact) and we believe the multilateralization of the treaty is necessary for disarmament not only in Asia but also in the world,” Kono said. U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed hope that the United States can negotiate a broader accord that would involve other nuclear powers such as China. The INF treaty was symbolic of the Cold War era, when Europe was under threat from the former Soviet Union’s ground-launched missiles. The United States said it will withdraw from the pact in six months unless Russia returns to full and verifiable compliance.


Bucking Imperial tradition, Prince Hisahito to enter Ochanomizu University Junior High School

Abstract: Prince Hisahito, 12, is set to advance to Ochanomizu University Junior High School in April, the Imperial Household Agency has announced. The prince, the third child of Prince Akishino and Princess Kiko, entered Ochanomizu University Kindergarten in April 2010 and moved on to Ochanomizu University Elementary School in April 2013. Prince Hisahito, Emperor Akihito’s grandson and soon-to-be second in line to the Chrysanthemum Throne following the abdication of the Emperor this year, will be the first Imperial family member since the end of the war to attend a junior high school other than Gakushuin Junior High School, a private school traditionally attended by royals. Prince Hisahito, now a sixth-grader at his elementary school, had consulted with his parents on the possibility of attending a different junior high school, but eventually opted to advance to the school affiliated with the national university, a senior official of the agency said Monday. He took an entrance exam for Ochanomizu University Junior High School on Sunday with other applicants from the elementary school. The results of the exam were announced on Monday, and the prince had passed the test. “I want Prince Hisahito to have a rich junior high school life by sharing various experiences with his classmates,” Tomiyo Kagami, the principal of Ochanomizu University Junior High School, said at a news conference Monday.

ochanomizu university junior high school


Japan's health ministry draws on 'City Hunter' manga nostalgia to promote rubella vaccine to men

Abstract: The government is promoting free vaccinations against rubella for men age 39 to 56, using characters from a manga series thought to resonate with that generation. The number of reported rubella cases in 2018 surged to the second-highest level since 2008, when the current survey method began. Many of the patients were men in their 30s to 50s who had not received vaccinations as children. The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry this month released a poster featuring the main character from the action manga “City Hunter,” Ryo Saeba, and his partner Kaori Makimura. “We need you to take action to eradicate rubella,” the poster reads. The campaign combines a test for rubella antibodies with a free vaccination for men born between April 2, 1962, and April 1, 1979. The service will be available through the end of March 2022. Due to the vaccination policy when they were children, men in the targeted age range did not have the opportunity to get a rubella shot through the regular public vaccination program. “We thought it important to offer them better access, not just provide the service for free,” Kuniaki Miyake, director of the health ministry’s Infectious Diseases Control Division, said after an awareness event in Tokyo on Monday. “The key in this policy is to allow them to get checked on top of their regular workplace medical examinations,” Miyake said. As a first step, local governments will distribute coupons in fiscal 2019 to men born between April 2, 1972, and April 1, 1979. Those who are eligible for the program but do not receive the coupons during that year can ask their municipal government to issue them. Rubella is a contagious viral infection that mainly causes a red rash, fever and swollen lymph nodes, though 15 to 30 percent of infected people experience no clear symptoms. Inflammation of the brain is among the rare complications of the disease. The government aims to reduce the infections to zero by fiscal 2020, and the drive is particularly important in preventing infections during pregnancy. More than half of fetuses are affected by the disease when infection occurs in the first month of pregnancy, and this can involve impairments to the ears, eyes and heart, according to experts at Monday’s event. At the event, obstetrics and gynecology specialist Mika Okuda said “no one is irrelevant,” adding that adult men are the most vulnerable and there may be pregnant women around them. In 2018, there were 2,917 reported cases of rubella, according to the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, and 64.3 percent were men in their 30s to 50s. This year, the number of cases is increasing at the same pace as in 2013, when the largest total was recorded. As many men in the target age group would have read “City Hunter” in their youth, the ministry believes the tie-in with the manga by artist Tsukasa Hojo will encourage more of them to get checked and vaccinated.

manga
rubella
vaccinations
diseases
city hunter
mhlw


Japan cancels MSDF port call in South Korea amid chilly ties

Abstract: The Defense Ministry said Tuesday it decided to cancel a port call by a helicopter carrier in South Korea this spring as relations between the two countries have been strained over alleged provocative acts by each of their militaries. Several Maritime Self-Defense Force ships including the Izumo carrier had been slated to call at Busan on their way to nearby waters where a multilateral exercise is to be held from April to May, around the time when defense ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and its regional partners meet in the South Korean port city. The Japanese ships will take part in the joint drill as planned, according to the ministry. Tokyo is seeking to improve relations with Seoul, but this time judged it is “the most appropriate” not to have the ships arrive in South Korea, the ministry’s press secretary, Hajime Aoyagi, said at a news conference. As for future interactions with the South Korean military, he said the ministry will determine that “on a case-by-case basis.” The two countries have been at odds over whether a South Korean navy destroyer locked its fire-control radar on the MSDF’s patrol aircraft in the Sea of Japan in December. The Japanese ministry concluded last month that South Korea’s denial is baseless and that it cannot continue bilateral defense talks on the incident. South Korea, meanwhile, has claimed Japanese patrol planes repeatedly flew at a dangerously low altitude over South Korean warships in international waters in December and January. Japan has denied the allegation. Last week, the South Korean Defense Ministry said it would postpone an official visit to Japan by the commander of the South Korean navy’s First Fleet that was originally scheduled for this month. The situation added to increased bilateral tensions following recent rulings by South Korea’s top court that ordered Japanese firms to compensate for wartime forced labor.

msdf
defense ministry
izumo
south korea-japan relations


Feud between major U.S. allies Japan and South Korea deepens as Trump sits it out

Abstract: Donald Trump’s desire to put “America First” has fostered new disputes between the United States and its allies. In Asia, old rivalries are also roaring back. Ties between Japan and South Korea — two of Washington’s closest security partners — have arguably turned their most hostile in more than half a century over a series of diplomatic disputes. Now, there are signs that the feud, fueled by disagreements over Japan’s colonization of the Korean Peninsula decades ago, is beginning to damage their economic and military relations. During previous nationalistic flare-ups, U.S. administrations normally intervened to make sure such grudges did not spin out of control. Not any more. “There’s no leadership from above in the U.S. administration to act in the way we have in the past,” said Daniel Sneider, a lecturer in international policy at Stanford University and author of books on Northeast Asian relations. “At moments like this, it’s been the role of the U.S. to sometimes quietly step in and help to restore communication and sometimes to find solutions.” The episode in Northeast Asia illustrates how Trump’s skepticism of traditional U.S. alliances and preoccupation with a rolling series of political crises in Washington may be quietly reshaping the postwar geopolitical landscape. The U.S. State Department didn’t respond to requests for comment last Thursday and Friday. A second summit planned for later this month between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has brought more U.S. attention to the region, with U.S. special envoy Stephen Biegun planning to meet his North Korean counterpart this week. While ties between Japan and South Korea run deep — each is the other’s third-largest trading partner — they’re laden with centuries of grievances, especially Tokyo’s 1910-1945 colonization of the peninsula. Disputes over whether Japan has sufficiently atoned for its actions returned to the fore after Moon Jae-in won the South Korean presidency in 2017 and pushed back against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to put the war disputes to rest. In recent weeks, Japan has reacted angrily to South Korean court efforts to seize assets from companies found to have used forced Korean labor during the colonial era, saying the move violates the 1965 treaty that established bilateral diplomatic relations. They’ve also sparred over the issue of “comfort women” who provided sex, including those who did so against their will, for Japanese troops before and during World War II, and with Moon vowing after the death of a leading comfort woman campaigner last week to do everything in his power to “correct the history.” Perhaps most consequential to the U.S. is the deteriorating ties between the Japanese and South Korean militaries — something that could undermine American efforts to counter a rising China. The defense hierarchies in both countries have accused the other of endangering their personnel after Japan said a South Korean naval vessel used a weapons-targeting radar on a Maritime Self-Defense Force plane in December. After Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya highlighted the radar incident during a visit to the base where the plane was stationed, his South Korean counterpart, Jeong Kyeong-doo, ordered the navy to “deal sternly” with any other low-flying planes. Kyodo News and other media have reported that defense exchanges are being postponed, increasing the potential for misunderstanding during unplanned encounters. With nationalist sentiments running high, neither Abe nor Moon have much domestic incentive to settle. A poll by the Nikkei financial newspaper published Jan. 28 found that 62 percent of Japanese respondents supported a tougher stance against South Korea over the radar incident. That compared with 24 percent who said the Abe government should watch developments cautiously. “We cannot see where the bottom is,” said Lim Eunjung, an assistant professor at the College of International Relations at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto Prefecture. Although Tokyo and Seoul have managed to keep their feuding from turning violent over the years, economic risks are growing, including possible Japanese countermeasures against South Korean companies. The number of South Koreans visiting Japan fell 5.5 percent year on year in November to 588,000, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization, even as the overall number of inbound tourists rose 3.1 percent. In the past, the U.S. has used its leverage as chief security guarantor to keep the rivalry in check, helping to broker their 1965 treaty despite domestic opposition on both sides. Barack Obama’s administration played a key role in getting Tokyo and Seoul to sign a comfort women pact in 2015 and a military intelligence-sharing agreement in 2016 — high-water marks for the relationship. Trump, however, has shown little interest in the alliance since abandoning his military pressure campaign against North Korea last year, focusing instead on U.S. trade deficits and military expenditures with both countries. The U.S. leader skipped a pair of Asian summits in November to focus on the midterm elections and didn’t hold a trilateral meeting with Abe and Moon at the subsequent Group of 20 gathering in Argentina. Some signs of possible diplomatic efforts by lower-level U.S. officials have emerged in recent days. Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris visited the Defense Ministry in Seoul early last week, while other U.S. officials, in calls with their Japanese counterparts, have emphasized the importance of the three countries working together on North Korea. But even on key issues the two countries appear to have little common ground. While South Korea settled its trade negotiations with the U.S. and wants to encourage Trump’s rapprochement with Kim, Japan has yet to start trade talks with the U.S. and favors a more cautious approach with Pyongyang. “Political leaders on both sides must realize that the damage from deteriorating Japan-South Korea ties fundamentally undermines the U.S. alliance system in East Asia,” said Yuki Tatsumi, co-director of the East Asia Program at the Stimson Center in Washington.

security
diplomacy
south korea-japan relations
donald trump


North Korea's Red Cross offers rare thanks to Japan for aiding boats in distress

Abstract: SEOUL - The central committee of North Korea’s Red Cross Society has expressed gratitude to Japanese authorities for aiding distressed seamen, the Korean Central News Agency has reported. North Korea’s state-run news agency said Monday that the organization thanked Japan for providing humanitarian assistance numerous times in the past several years to North Korean people on boats in distress so that they can return home safely. It is rare for a North Korean group to extend its gratitude to Japanese authorities. Sources familiar with the North Korean situation said that the details behind the announcement, including the cases to which the organization is referring in the report, are unclear.

north korea
red cross
kcna
north korea-japan relations


Japan's government declines to pick sides between Venezuela's Maduro and Guaido

Abstract: The government refrained Tuesday from indicating whether it would join other nations in endorsing opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate president. “Japan strongly hopes that movement toward recovering democracy in the country goes smoothly and continues to monitor the positions of various nations,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference. Many European Union nations and Latin American countries, in addition to the United States, have expressed their support for Guaido, who is the president of the National Assembly. Russia and China have long backed embattled President Nicolas Maduro. “It is regrettable that the Venezuelan government held an inauguration ceremony for its president without fulfilling its accountability (to the people),” the top Japanese government spokesman also said, in an apparent reference to the swearing in of Maduro for his second term last month after an election in May last year. Major opposition forces in Venezuela boycotted the presidential race amid allegations of irregularities. On Monday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did not clearly state a position on the issue, merely saying that his country wishes for a democratic, peaceful and stable resolution. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who met the press along with Abe after their talks in Tokyo that day, said Guaido is the rightful person to take part in talks with Berlin and other European nations.

yoshihide suga
venezuela
nicolas maduro
juan guaido


Abe asked China's Xi to visit Japan twice in 2019, for Osaka G20 and state visit in fall, sources say

Abstract: BEIJING/TOKYO - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit Japan twice this year as Tokyo seeks a further improvement in relations with Beijing through a series of top-level meetings, diplomatic sources said Monday. During his visit to China last October, Abe sounded out Xi on the possibility of visiting Japan in June for the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, and then in the fall as a state guest, according to the sources with knowledge of ties between the two countries. If Xi does visit Japan twice this year, it will be the first time a Chinese president has done so since Hu Jintao, Xi’s immediate predecessor, did in 2008. Sino-Japanese relations have been improving amid U.S.-China trade friction. Abe, who became the first Japanese leader in nearly seven years to make an official visit to China last year, has expressed a desire to lift bilateral ties to “a new level.” According to the sources, Abe made the request to Xi during dinner at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing in October. Xi was quoted by the sources as saying that he would consider it in a forward-looking manner. Tokyo and Beijing are expected to step up arrangements for Xi to visit Japan twice, even though the Chinese side remains cautious. Following the first visit by Xi for the G20 summit slated for June 28 and 29, Tokyo is believed to be exploring another visit in September, before an Enthronement Ceremony the following month attended by foreign guests to celebrate Crown Prince Naruhito’s accession. As Emperor Akihito is set to step down on April 30, Xi may meet the new Emperor before other foreign leaders if he visits Japan as a state guest. The two countries have differing perceptions of wartime history and remain at odds over the Japan-administered, China-claimed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. In the face of China’s assertiveness in the East and South China seas, Japan has sought to keep Asia’s rising power in check under Abe, who began his second stint as prime minister in 2012. Since Xi entered his second five-year term in 2017, however, Abe has shifted his focus to seeking more cooperation with China in the belief that improving Tokyo’s ties with Beijing is necessary as a stabilizer for a region faced with many challenges, including North Korea’s denuclearization.

shinzo abe
china-japan relations
diplomacy
xi jinping


Gas industry donations of ¥39 million call Japan government panel's neutrality into question

Abstract: Three members of the government’s advisory panel on city gas market deregulation repeatedly received donations from a gas industry organization, documents obtained by Kyodo News showed Monday. While the recipients, who are all public university professors, say the Japan Gas Association’s donations, which totaled ¥39 million since 2010, did not influence the outcome of the panel meetings, the government did not know about the money given to them as research funding. Panel member Hirotaka Yamauchi, a professor at the Hitotsubashi University Business School, heads the advisory panel. According to the documents — obtained through a freedom of information request to his university — Yamauchi accepted a total of ¥14 million before and after joining the panel. “My understanding is that we are not required to disclose such donations,” Yamauchi said. There are no regulations banning such donations to government panel members, but concerns have repeatedly been raised about the neutrality of advisory panels, including one on telecommunication service charges. Kyodo News has recently learned that several members of the panel discussing a review of mobile phone charges had received donations from major telecommunication carriers. Some experts say that such donations from private companies and organizations are important sources of research funding, as the government has been cutting research grants to public universities. One member of a government panel said that levels of corporate donations are seen by some as a key indicator of how well a researcher’s achievements are recognized. Takao Kashiwagi, a professor emeritus at Tokyo Institute of Technology, and Tsutomu Oyama, a professor at Yokohama National University, also received donations from the gas industry group, which counts companies such as Tokyo Gas Co. and Osaka Gas Co. among its members. Kashiwagi said the funding did not influence views he expressed at the meetings of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry panel. Oyama could not be reached for comment. A Japan Gas Association official said the donations were part of “wide-ranging activities to financially support studies contributing to the gas industry’s development.” The municipal gas market was fully liberalized in 2017 to enable consumers to choose from a wider range of suppliers. But the government’s committee promoting regulatory reforms in various areas has criticized the city gas liberalization, saying it did little to spur greater competition among suppliers or bring benefits to consumers. “It is better to have academic experts discuss regulations, and donation itself should not be criticized,” said Kazuo Ishikawa, a former industry ministry official who heads an independent think tank, the Institute for Industrial Growth and Social Security Policy. “But key members of panels will not escape criticism about their neutrality if they receive donations from industry organizations.”


New commander of U.S. forces in Japan says rapid response is key for alliance

Abstract: The United States and Japan need to maintain a strong security alliance to quickly respond to any threat in the Asia-Pacific region, the new commander of U.S. Forces Japan said Tuesday. “Because of the clear threats to peace and security in this region, we must maintain the highest levels of readiness to respond at a moment’s notice to any threat, any crisis or any humanitarian disaster,” Lt. Gen. Kevin Schneider said at a ceremony held at Yokota Air Base in the suburbs of Tokyo. Schneider succeeded Lt. Gen. Jerry Martinez, who during his tenure faced challenges such as North Korea’s nuclear and missile development, as well as China’s maritime assertiveness. Schneider manages about 54,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan and coordinates with the country’s Self-Defense Forces. The two countries are expected to deepen their security cooperation under Tokyo’s new 10-year defense policy guidelines. The new commander called the U.S.-Japan alliance “the cornerstone of stability and security in the Indo-Pacific,” adding that “it will continue to serve that role in the future.” Schneider also said Japan is “a special place” as he looked back on his childhood in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, where his father was stationed, and his young days at Misawa Air Base in the country’s northeastern prefecture of Aomori, which “shaped” his career and “opened doors” for him as a fighter pilot positioned there. Before assuming command, Schneider served as the chief of staff of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. He is a command pilot, with more than 3,800 flight hours and 530 combat hours flown during operations such as Enduring Freedom, the U.S.-led counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Among the more than 500 attendees at the ceremony was Adm. Philip Davidson, the head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, who worked closely with Schneider as his immediate superior over the past nine months. He praised his former subordinate’s leadership skills and “incredible ability” to solve problems.

u.s. military
u.s. bases
u.s.-japan relations
yokota air base
kevin schneider


Japan to allow online medication consultations with pharmacists from 2020

Abstract: Pharmacists will likely be allowed to hold online consultations with patients about their medication from April 2020, reflecting the rising demand for in-home medical care among the country’s rapidly graying population, officials said Tuesday. The central government already allows doctors to conduct online consultations, and the health ministry is aiming to legally extend the capacity to pharmacists. The ministry is set to submit a bill to the ongoing Diet session to revise a law that currently requires face-to-face consultation between patients and pharmacists, to prevent patients from suffering serious side effects from their medication. The revised law will also permit patients to have their medication delivered, but initially only a limited group will be able to take advantage of the service, according to the officials. Prior to confirming the plan to roll the service out across the country, the government allowed people in specially designated zones in Aichi, Hyogo and Fukuoka prefectures to have consultations online. It was made available to residents of remote islands and depopulated areas in those prefectures from last summer. The zones were created in June last year and public health insurance began covering drugs obtained through online consultations from July. As of November, six people had used the service, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. Online health consultations have been widely available in Japan since 2015, following the launch of the service for residents on remote islands or in rural areas in 1997. The ministry is designing the new online drug consultation system based discussions with experts and data collected in the special zones. Experts point to the benefits of telemedicine, saying it can lessen the risk of infection during hospital visits by the elderly and other patients while cutting down on costs.

medicine internet aging depopulation pharmacies


Deputy PM Taro Aso apologizes after blaming childless for rising social security costs and graying population

Abstract: Taro Aso has found himself in hot water again — this time for apparently blaming childless couples for not having babies. Aso quickly — and reluctantly — apologized Tuesday, two days after saying childless people are to blame for the country’s rising social security costs and its aging and declining population. “If it made some people feel uncomfortable, I apologize,” Aso, 78, said after drawing complaints over the comments he made Sunday before voters at a seminar in his home electoral district of Fukuoka Prefecture. During his speech, the outspoken finance minister and deputy prime minister pointed out that the longevity of Japanese people has increased by about 30 years compared with the 1940s when he was born. Then he touched on Japan’s snowballing social security costs and said, “We have so many nuts out there blaming elderly people” for causing the present situation. “That’s wrong.” He continued, “The problem is with those who didn’t give birth.” On Monday, Aso told reporters he would retract the remark “if it caused misunderstanding.” He didn’t elaborate on what it was that he had intended to say. During a news conference, also Monday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga emphasized that the government is doing its utmost to address issues regarding the nation’s graying society coupled with low birthrates. Aso made a similar remark in 2014, and was eventually forced to admit that his comment had been improper.

taro aso
women
aging
discrimination
depopulation
social welfare
gaffes


Mother held over death of 10-year-old girl in Chiba admits depriving her of food at father's request

Abstract: CHIBA - The mother of a 10-year-old girl who died last month at their home in Chiba Prefecture has told police that she sometimes gave the girl no food, at her husband’s insistence, in the days before her daughter’s death, investigative sources said Tuesday. Nagisa Kurihara, 31, was sent to prosecutors that day. She was arrested a day earlier for allegedly failing to stop the assault of her daughter Mia. Mia was found dead on Jan. 24 inside the bathroom of their home, in the city of Noda, with multiple bruises on her body. Nagisa’s husband Yuichiro, 41, was arrested the next day on suspicion of assault, but an autopsy has failed to determine the cause of Mia’s death. While Mia was not underweight to an extreme degree, the autopsy revealed there was almost no food inside her stomach, indicating that she had not been fed sufficiently, according to the sources. Prior to her arrest, the mother told investigators that, despite her pleas not to do so, her husband sometimes woke Mia up in the middle of the night and made her stand for long periods. Yuichiro has told investigators he began making Mia stand from 10 a.m. on Jan. 24, and that he does not consider his action wrong because he was just “disciplining” her. He is suspected of assaulting Mia between 10 a.m. to 11:10 p.m. the same day, including dousing her repeatedly with cold water. Investigators have been informed that the mother herself may have been a victim of Yuichiro’s domestic violence. Mia reported to her school in Noda in 2017 that she was being “bullied” by her father, who used “violence” against her, according to local authorities. A note made by her classroom teacher after speaking with Mia said the mother had been subjected to violence when they were living in Okinawa Prefecture, before the family moved to Chiba. Following the report, Mia was taken into protective custody for seven weeks at a child welfare center. But after that period, no visits to her home to check on her safety were made by officials from either the center or the school.

child abuse
chiba
yuichiro kurihara
mia kurihara
nagisa kurihara


Japan shoe sniffer admits sexual kicks drove him to steal 70 pairs of used footwear

Abstract: SAITAMA - A man on trial for the theft of a large number of shoes has admitted he committed the crimes because he gets his sexual kicks from sniffing people’s used footwear, police said Tuesday. Makoto Endo, 40, is suspected of stealing 70 pairs of shoes worth about ¥300,000 in Saitama and Tochigi prefectures between June 2017 and August last year, according to the police. He is being tried for some of the thefts. “I did it to get sexual pleasure by sniffing the smell of well-worn shoes, regardless of their owners being men or women,” Endo was quoted as telling police. The police arrested Endo in September last year because they suspected him of involvement in a spate of shoe thefts. While searching his house in Tochigi they found a large number of shoes in boxes.


Journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka ordered to surrender passport in Tokyo on way to report on Yemen humanitarian crisis

Abstract: On his way to board a flight to Doha at Haneda airport in Tokyo this past Saturday night, Kosuke Tsuneoka’s passage was abruptly halted. What derailed his plan was something he has since said he had not expected at all: his home country. The freelance journalist’s final destination was Yemen, a country experts have described as facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. At immigration control, an officer told Tsuneoka that his passport had been invalidated and that he was ordered by the government to relinquish it — in effect banning him from leaving the country. When he refused to surrender his passport, the Foreign Ministry, which handles passport issuance, informed him that it may consider reporting him to the police, he said. “I was shocked,” Tsuneoka said in an interview with The Japan Times on Tuesday. The departure was his second attempt to enter Yemen for the reporting trip, during which he was set to cover relief efforts by aid groups and which he had been planning for three years. When he’d tried to travel on Jan. 14, he’d been denied entry at an airport in Oman and deported. The Passport Act states that the Japanese government may order its citizens to surrender their passports if they seek to enter a country from which they are banned. Tsuneoka said the government ordered him to forgo his passport because of his entry denial in Oman, even though his route would have passed through a different country this time. “I protested this action as illegal,” said Tsuneoka. A Foreign Ministry official declined to comment on the incident. Tsuneoka, who routinely covers the Middle East, has undergone a series of ordeals during his reporting. In 2010, he was kidnapped and held hostage by a militant group for five months. He was also detained by the Kurdish authorities in Iraq after being suspected of associating with the Islamic State in 2016. “There is a possibility that he could be arrested if he does not return his passport,” said Makoto Matsumiya, an immigration attorney based in Kobe. The incident highlights ongoing disagreements between reporters who seek to cover war zones and the government, which observers say wishes for all citizens to avoid travel that presents the risk of them being dragged into a potentially hostile situation — with serious implications for the government. On its travel warning scale, the Foreign Ministry classifies Yemen at level four — the most hazardous rating — which indicates that all Japanese citizens are urged to evacuate immediately and “avoid all travel regardless of purposes.” Foreign Minister Taro Kono indicated to reporters Tuesday evening that Tsuneoka could file a petition or a lawsuit if he is dissatisfied with the decision. “I think he would take those measure if he deems it necessary,” Kono said, adding that he has “respect” for journalists reporting in dangerous areas. Jumpei Yasuda, who was held as a hostage by militants in Syria for more than three years before being released last October, has faced a severe backlash from critics, who blame him for putting himself in danger. The Passport Act also states that the government is authorized to confiscate a passport if deemed necessary to protect the holder’s life and property. The law stipulates that if someone fails to surrender a passport by a specified time, they may be sentenced to up to five years in prison, have to pay a maximum fine of ¥3 million or both. In February 2015, the Foreign Ministry ordered a Japanese freelance photographer to surrender his passport after it concluded that the photographer was highly likely to be in danger during his planned trip to Syria. The order came after the beheading of two Japanese citizens, including freelance journalist Kenji Goto, in Syria. The photographer filed a lawsuit, claiming the restriction infringed his constitutional rights of freedom of travel and freedom of the press. The Supreme Court dismissed the case last March. In that case, Matsumiya explained, the photographer surrendered his passport and received a new one with restrictions banning him from visiting certain countries. A civil war in Yemen that broke out in 2015 has pushed the country into turmoil, to the extent that in November the United Nations reported 14 million people were at risk of “imminent” and extensive famine. Tsuneoka said he felt compelled to go to Yemen because he was alarmed by how little attention it gets from Japanese media. “Japan is an advanced country and a member of the (Group of Seven),” he said, but the media picks up next to no news on Syria or Yemen. “I feel strongly how important it is to report on these developments through my experience as a journalist,” he added.

yemen
foreign ministry
passports
kosuke tsuneoka


Malaysia still in talks with china over $20 billion rail project: report

Abstract: KUALA LUMPUR - Talks for a $20 billion Malaysian rail project are still ongoing, with the Southeast Asian nation expecting to make a decision “as soon as possible,” the Star newspaper reported, citing Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Mahathir said the status of the East Coast Railway Link is being negotiated with China, and that he couldn’t disclose further information until the outcome of the discussions, the newspaper said. He would also reject China’s offer to halve the cost of the project, the Star reported, citing a hypothetical answer from the prime minister. The report caps a week of seemingly mixed messages on the fate of the rail project. Malaysia’s Economic Affairs Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali said a week ago the country will terminate the project as it was beyond the government’s financial capability. That was followed by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng’s comment that an announcement would be issued on the instructions of Mahathir. Mahathir said Tuesday that the government’s reason for canceling the rail was a lack of funds. China Communications Construction Co., the contractor, took earlier steps to rationalize its workforce following the Malaysian Finance Ministry’s instruction last year to suspend all contracts related to Malaysia Rail Link Sdn. It also had offered to cut construction costs for the 688-kilometer (428-mile) project by as much as half, Reuters reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.

malaysia
china
rail
investments
mahathir mohamad


Japan to require casino resorts to have some of the largest hotels in the country

Abstract: The government has announced standards it hopes to set for casino resorts — to be built by the mid-2020s — requiring them to have hotels and conference rooms that would be among the biggest in the country. The requirements, including hotels with more than 100,000 square meters for guest rooms, would necessitate huge investments from local governments and facility operators, and were revealed by the government Friday. Japan is attempting to compete with regional rivals including Macau, Singapore and South Korea with the planned casinos. Using an average-sized Japanese guest room of 50 square meters, such a hotel would necessitate 2,000 rooms, far exceeding the number of rooms at many of the largest hotels in the country. Other requirements include: an exhibition hall with at least 120,000 square meters or a conference room that can hold more than 6,000 people, or a hybrid design that would have both a 60,000-square-meter convention room and a conference room that holds 3,000 people. The largest exhibition floor space in Japan is at Tokyo Big Sight, with 95,000 square meters, and the largest conference halls, which are in Tokyo and Yokohama, hold around 5,000 people. Floor space for casinos is set at below 3 percent of the total resort space. Advertising for casinos outside the integrated resort will be limited to airports with international flights and terminals at ports. Cabinet approval of the requirements could come at the end of next month, after the closure of the public comment period that runs until March 4. A recent Kyodo News survey, covering all 47 prefectures and 20 major cities that are eligible to host the newly legalized resorts, found that only three areas plan to apply for the government’s screening. Think tanks estimate a casino resort could cost over $10 billion to build but would have a significant economic impact if successful. But whether Japan will succeed in attracting wealthy foreign nationals, as the government expects, is unclear. Some projections have shown Japanese would account for between 70 and 80 percent of casino visitors.


London woman guilty of mutilating daughter in landmark female genital mutilation trial

Abstract: LONDON - A London mother has been found guilty of subjecting her 3-year-old daughter to female genital mutilation in Britain’s first conviction for the practice, more than 30 years after it was outlawed. The Ugandan mother of two, who cannot be named for legal reasons, could face up to 14 years in prison. Justice Philippa Whipple adjourned sentencing Friday until March 8. Police and anti-FGM campaigners said the conviction sent a strong message that FGM is child abuse and will be prosecuted. Police launched an investigation after the girl’s parents rushed her to a hospital on Aug. 28, 2017, following severe bleeding and doctors found three cuts to her genitalia. In the following months the mother performed dozens of witchcraft spells — two involving cows’ tongues with nails embedded in them — to try to silence investigators and the director of public prosecutions. The girl’s Ghanaian father, who was also on trial, was acquitted of female genital mutilation and of failing to protect his daughter from the risk of FGM. During the trial, the 37-year-old mother told London’s Central Criminal Court that her daughter had hurt herself falling from a kitchen work-top at their east London flat. But the girl told police she had been held down and cut by a “witch.” Her older brother later wrote a letter to police saying his mother had cut her. The obstetrician who treated the girl told the jury her injuries were like cases of botched FGM he had seen in his native Sudan. The court heard the mother turned to witchcraft to try to halt police investigations following her arrest. Aside from the cows’ tongues, police found 40 limes in a freezer at her home containing the names of people involved in the case with messages such “I freeze your mouth” and “I freeze you out of my life.” An expert on FGM said the practice is not connected to witchcraft. However, the jury heard that the mother had sought help from a “prophet” to “cleanse” her daughter, via an online contact in Nigeria. Police and prosecutors in Britain have faced mounting pressure to secure a conviction for FGM, which was outlawed in 1985. Two previous trials ended in acquittals. An estimated 137,000 women and girls in England and Wales have undergone FGM, which affects diaspora communities from many countries including Somalia, Sierra Leone, Eritrea, Sudan, Nigeria and Egypt. The internationally condemned practice typically involves the partial or total removal of the external genitalia. Campaigners say the ritual — often justified for cultural or religious reasons — is underpinned by the desire to control female sexuality.

courts
u.k .
child abuse
uganda
ghana
tradition
superstition


U.N. says more than 10% of Niger's population needs aid due to violence, food shortages

Abstract: NIAMEY - Just over 10 percent of Niger’s population need humanitarian aid because jihadi violence that forced people to flee their homes has exacerbated the country’s food crisis, the U.N. said Saturday. “For 2019, the analysis of humanitarian needs reveals that 2.3 million people, or 10.4 percent of the population of Niger, need humanitarian aid,” said a statement from the U.N.’s Niamey office. Drought and flooding last year hit cereal production in Niger, causing the food shortages, say experts. Prime Minister Brigi Rafini launched an appeal for $383 million to help 1.6 million “extremely vulnerable” people, state television reported. Adding to that, deteriorating security in those regions had forced local people to flee, which means more aid is needed, a U.N. official said. Many of those in need live in the western regions of Tahoua and Tillaberi, near Mali, the site of regular jihadi attacks, said the U.N. Others live in the southeast region of Diffa, where the Nigerian jihadi group Boko Haram has committed atrocities. Diffa is sheltering more than 300,000 people who have fled Boko Haram’s violence, including thousands supported by local people, who themselves are already poor. The Tahoua and Tillaberi regions are hosting some 52,000 people who have fled jihadi violence since January last year and since 2012 has been home to more than 57,000 Malian refugees. Last December the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR denounced the violence in those regions, where armed groups murdered or abducted civilians, burned down schools and pillaged homes, businesses and cattle. Security was so poor there that it also interfered with distributing aid, the UNHCR added.


Briton jailed for sex with corpse in funeral home

Abstract: LONDON - A burglar who had sex with a corpse in an English funeral home he broke into was jailed Friday for six years. A judge in the industrial city of Birmingham said Kasim Khuram’s crime “offended all human sensibility.” The man was found to have been both drunk and high on artificial cannabis and PCP at the time. The 23-year-old pleaded guilty during at an earlier hearing. The judge said Khuram disturbed the three bodies and nine coffins during the break-in. “You set about disturbing all nine of these bodies — exactly what you did, and why, only you know,” Judge Melbourne Inman said during the sentencing. Defense lawyer Joseph Keating said Khuram was “deeply sorry” for what he had done and that his actions were “out of character.”


Virginia governor apologizes for racist imagery in yearbook, but says he will serve rest of term

Abstract: RICHMOND, VIRGINIA - Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam apologized on Friday for a racist photo in which he appeared more than 30 years ago, but said he did not intend to heed calls to resign from both Republicans and prominent fellow Democrats, including several presidential hopefuls. The yearbook images were first published Friday by the conservative news outlet Big League Politics. The Virginian-Pilot later obtained a copy from Eastern Virginia Medical School, which Northam attended. The photo shows two people looking at the camera — one in blackface wearing a hat, bow tie and plaid pants; the other in a full Ku Klux Klan robe. A reporter saw the yearbook page and confirmed its authenticity at the medical school. In his first apology, issued in a written statement Friday night, Northam called the costume he wore “clearly racist and offensive,” but he didn’t say which one he had worn. He later issued a video statement saying he was “deeply sorry” but still committed to serving the “remainder of my term.” “I accept responsibility for my past actions and I am ready to do the hard work of regaining your trust,” Northam said. Northam’s political viability hinges on whether he can maintain support among the state’s black pastors, officials and state lawmakers, many of whom have long personal relationships with the governor since he first ran for state Senate in 2007. The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus issued a statement late Friday saying “we feel complete betrayal” and are “still processing” the pictures. “What has been revealed is disgusting, reprehensible and offensive,” the statement said. Others said there was no question he should step down. Among them: Democratic presidential hopefuls Julian Castro, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand; newly elected Democratic U.S. Reps. Elaine Luria and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia; the NAACP and Planned Parenthood. State Sen. Louise Lucas of Portsmouth, a close ally of Northam and longtime African-American lawmaker, described a hastily called conference call with black leaders around the state as “intense,” her voice breaking, but did not elaborate. Northam spent years actively courting the black community in the lead up to his 2017 gubernatorial run, building relationships that helped him win both the primary and the general election. He’s a member of a predominantly black church on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, where he grew up. “It’s a matter of relationships and trust. That’s not something that you build overnight,” Northam said during a 2017 campaign stop while describing his relationship with the black community. Northam, a folksy pediatric neurologist who is personal friends with many GOP lawmakers, has recently come under fire from Republicans who have accused him of backing infanticide after he said he supported a bill loosening restrictions on late-term abortions. Last week, Florida’s secretary of state resigned after photos from a 2005 Halloween party showed him in blackface while dressed as a Hurricane Katrina victim.

u.s .
elections
scandals
ethnicity
discrimination


'Love ain't easy': Cory Booker brings upbeat vibe to 2020 fight

Abstract: WASHINGTON - Cory Booker leapt into the 2020 presidential race on Friday with a call for Americans to unite in a time of bitter polarization while some of his Democratic rivals are taking a more combative stance as they vie to take on President Donald Trump. Booker’s entry into the Democratic primary was steeped in history and symbolism, befitting his status as the second black candidate in a historically diverse field. Invoking the legacy of the national movements for civil rights and for women’s suffrage, the New Jersey senator urged a return to a “common sense of purpose” and cast his appeal to the nation’s better angels as an uplifting alternative to Trump. The 49-year-old Booker told reporters outside his home in Newark that “love ain’t easy,” adding: “The people I admire are the people that lead by calling out the best of who we are and not the worst. So, I’m running for president because I believe in us. I believe in these values.” Whether Democrats are in the mood to embrace Booker’s optimistic persona after two years of fuming about Trump’s presidency remains to be seen. With Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren running as a champion for the middle class in a fight against powerful interests, and California Sen. Kamala Harris running on taking on Trump directly, Booker’s fate may hinge on a bet that the electorate will respond again to the soaring oratory that helped Barack Obama break through in 2008. Known for his easy way with voters during an age of selfies and social media, Booker, the former mayor of Newark, announced his bid with a video that showcased his personal ties to the “low-income, inner city community” he says he led to a comeback. Booker won a special Senate election in 2013 and then a full Senate term in 2014. Veteran GOP strategist Doug Heye lauded Booker’s video for a “fresh perspective” and suggested that the senator could fill a key niche in the 2020 primary. “There will be plenty of time for Democrats to ‘take on Trump’ in the coming months,” Heye said. “No doubt that is what a sizable part of the Democratic base wants, but if the campaign is all about who is the true anti-Trump, Democrats could miss connecting with voters who want to see a Washington that works.” Booker hustled to make those connections on Friday, calling in to three radio shows popular with black and Hispanic listeners and appearing on “The View,” a staple for female audiences, with his mother in the audience. Asked how a committed vegan could win fans at the meat-and-butter-centric Iowa state fair, Booker said he enjoys “lots of deep-fried stuff” and underscored his family ties to that pivotal early-voting state: His grandmother was born there. Booker is cultivating key powerbrokers Iowa, as well as early voting New Hampshire and South Carolina. He plans to visit all three states before March. Before he hit the road, the White House took its own hit at his candidacy. Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to the president, told CBS News that Booker “often sounds like a Hallmark card and not necessarily a person who is there to tell you everything he’s accomplished.” Booker will be able to run for a second full Senate term in 2020 while running for president, thanks to a law that New Jersey’s governor signed in November. Booker joined a field getting more crowded and diverse by the week. As many as five more Democratic senators could soon mount their own primary bids, creating a competition for voters’ attention. Several of Booker’s rivals for the nomination bring higher name recognition to a race that could still include former Vice President Joe Biden. He could face further difficulty winning the hearts of the progressive Democratic base due to his past financial ties to banking and pharmaceutical interests. Booker said he would stop taking contributions from pharmaceutical companies in 2017, the year that he partnered with potential rival Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont on a bill that would allow importation of prescription drugs from Canada. Asked on Friday about Harris’ suggestion that the private health insurance industry be eliminated in the transition to single-payer health care, which both she and Booker support, Booker said that he envisions the continued existence of private providers. Still, Booker is underscoring his progressive identity by joining many other prominent Democratic White House contenders by forswearing all donations from corporate political action committees and federal lobbyists to his campaign, which is dubbed Cory 2020. A prominent Booker supporter, San Francisco attorney Steve Phillips, says he is working on millions of dollars in committed donations to a so-called super PAC that would boost the senator’s candidacy, but Booker’s campaign is openly against super PACs playing any role in the presidential race. And he was resolute on Friday in elevating his message that “the only way we can make change is when people come together.” “We’ve got to be a country that gets back to sharing a common sense of purpose about what we’re for and who we’re for,” Booker said during a satellite radio interview.

elections
cory booker
2020 u.s. presidential election


Lebanon's Hezbollah uses Syrian war gains to increase political clout

Abstract: BEIRUT - Hezbollah’s bigger role in Lebanon’s new unity government points to a growing appetite to shape state affairs and builds on unprecedented military clout the group is wielding after helping turn the tide in Syria’s war. Hezbollah’s expanding power in Lebanon reflects a deepening of Iranian influence in an arc of territory from Tehran through Baghdad and Damascus that its foes Saudi Arabia and Israel have struggled to counter. Deemed a terrorist organization by the United States, Iran-backed Hezbollah has assumed control of three ministries in the government led by the Western-backed Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the largest number of portfolios it has ever held. The new government was formed on Thursday, ending nine months of wrangling. The most significant portfolio under Hezbollah control is the Health Ministry, the first time Hezbollah has controlled a ministry with a big budget, though the Shiite doctor it picked for the job is not a party member. More broadly, Hezbollah and its political allies from across Lebanon’s sectarian spectrum have emerged with more than half of the Cabinet’s 30 seats, reflecting a May parliamentary election that the group declared a victory. Salem Zahran, an analyst with links to Hezbollah leaders, said the government would go down in its history as the “first big shift and the first step along a long road” toward more influence in government. “This transformation is because Hezbollah has accumulated an excess of power after it has nearly finished with the military battles in Syria,” he said. “I believe that Hezbollah will build up even more involvement in the Lebanese state.” Hezbollah, founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982, is by far the most powerful group in Lebanon. Its clout in the region has grown since it joined the war in Syria in support of President Bashar Assad. Lebanese government posts are parceled out according to a complicated sectarian system, capping how many any one group can hold. The post of prime minister is reserved for a Sunni Muslim, a job Hariri has now held three times because of his status as Lebanon’s leading Sunni. But Hariri’s Sunni dominance was shaken by the May election in which he lost more than one-third of his seats in parliament, many of them to Hezbollah-allied Sunnis. Hezbollah managed to secure a Cabinet seat for one of its Sunni allies. This is a big gain for Hezbollah and its allies, who have long sought to erode the Sunni dominance built by the Hariri family after Lebanon’s civil war, with the backing of Riyadh. As Hezbollah’s clout has grown, Saudi Arabia has turned its focus away from Lebanon to other parts of the region, weakening Hezbollah’s opponents, who had benefited from its backing. Hariri’s ally, the staunchly anti-Hezbollah Christian Lebanese Forces (LF) party, was forced to cede significant ground during nine months of political wrangling over government portfolios, though it gained seats in parliament. Hezbollah’s biggest Christian ally, President Michel Aoun and his Free Patriotic Movement, made fewer concessions. The most significant was giving the ground needed for Hezbollah’s Sunni ally to join the Cabinet — a point of friction between the allies. But Aoun, who backs Hezbollah’s possession of weapons, still controls one-third of the Cabinet. Nabil Boumonsef, a Hezbollah critic and An-Nahar newspaper columnist, said Hezbollah’s role is “growing very clearly” and noted that Hariri allies failed to secure all their demands. “This strategic imbalance confirms that Hezbollah’s influence in this government is stronger than in the previous one for sure. This absolutely cannot be denied,” he said. This poses questions for the United States, whose Lebanon policy twins military aid to the Lebanese Army and support for Hariri with growing pressure on Hezbollah through sanctions. The U.S. State Department said in a statement it was concerned that Hezbollah would continue to occupy ministerial positions and was allowed to name the health minister. “We call on the new government to ensure the resources and services of these ministries do not provide support to Hezbollah. … We look to all parties in the new government to uphold Lebanon’s policy of disassociation from regional conflicts and its international obligations,” it said. The United States has imposed new sanctions on Hezbollah as part of its strategy to counter Iran. The front-page headline of the pro-Hezbollah newspaper al-Akhbar said Hezbollah needs “a government amid the storm.” “Hezbollah benefits today from the government led by Hariri specifically … because Hariri, with his Western and Gulf facade could be a safety net or helper, keeping options open, when it comes to escalating American sanctions,” al-Akhbar wrote in its main story on the government. A senior Western diplomat said Hezbollah’s opponents would keep a close eye on how Hezbollah manages the Health Ministry. “The other parties will closely monitor the funds Hezbollah has in the ministry and will cry foul when something is happening, because they know the Americans are looking in the same direction.” The new health minister, Jamil Jabak, has said his priorities include improving government hospitals and bringing down drug prices.


Deadly Brazilian dam burst likely due to liquefaction, like previous disaster

Abstract: BELO HORIZONTE, BRAZIL - The collapse of a Brazilian dam controlled by miner Vale a week ago likely happened because parts of the structure, made of sand and dried mud, dissolved into liquid, a state regulator said in an interview, similar to what caused another deadly mining disaster less than four years ago. With 115 people confirmed dead and another 248 missing, according to information from the rescue team on Friday evening, the tailings dam collapse in the town of Brumadinho could be Brazil’s deadliest mine disaster. The burst tailings dam at the Corrego do Feijao mine on Jan. 25 has ignited intense public anger against Vale, which was co-owner of Samarco, the previous dam that collapsed. Around 2,000 people gathered in Belo Horizonte, capital of the mining-intensive state of Minas Gerais which was home to both disasters, to protest against Vale, with some saying its top executives should be jailed. “I lost three of my students,” said Aparecida Moreira, a teacher at a local law school. “They are dead, and we don’t know where their bodies are.” There were also demands for a congressional investigation. An internal study showed the miner knew as recently as last year that some of the areas swamped with toxic mud were at risk if the dam burst, according to a report by Folha de S.Paulo newspaper. Vale described the document as a routine disaster preparation plan required by regulators. The disaster poses a headache for the new government of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, whose new business-friendly administration must juggle public anger over the tragedy and its own desire to ease mining and environmental regulations to kick-start growth. Hildebrando Neto, Minas Gerais’ deputy minister for environmental regulations, told Reuters late on Thursday that all evidence suggests that the burst was caused by liquefaction, whereby a solid material such as sand loses strength and stiffness and behaves more like a liquid. Dams holding mining waste, known as tailings, sometimes collapse for this reason. Major Brazilian TV outlets obtained dramatic security camera video showing the outer wall of the dam collapsing and an avalanche of mud crushing trees, houses and cars in its path. Closeups replayed throughout the day showed cars and people scrambling unsuccessfully to escape the dark red torrent. Neto said liquefaction caused the 2015 collapse of the Samarco dam, which led to the deaths of 19 people. The internal study reported by the Folha newspaper was dated April 18, 2018, and outlined the likely impact of a collapse at the dam. It found that the mine restaurant, where many Vale workers were likely to have died, would be hit by toxic mud. The study envisaged that sirens would alert workers if the dam burst. The company has said the mud flow destroyed the sirens before they could sound the alarm. Vale said in a statement that the plan was “built on the basis of technical studies of hypothetical scenarios in the event of a breach” although it did not directly reference Folha’s story. Officials with the Mines and Energy Ministry and the National Mining Agency (ANM) told reporters on Friday that the cause of the rupture was still unclear. “If we had known (what the problem was), maybe this tragedy would have never happened,” the ministry’s mining secretary, Alexandre Vidigal, said. “We are in the investigation phase and we cannot say whether the (inspection) model was adequate or not.”


U.S. suspends INF nuclear arms treaty, citing threats from Russia and China

Abstract: WASHINGTON - The Trump administration is pulling the plug on a decades-old nuclear arms treaty with Russia, lifting what it sees as unreasonable constraints on competing with a resurgent Russia and a more assertive China. The move, announced Friday, sets the stage for delicate talks with U.S. allies over potential new American missile deployments. In explaining his decision, which he had foreshadowed months ago, U.S. President Donald Trump accused Moscow of violating the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with “impunity” by deploying banned missiles. Moscow denies it is in violation and has accused Washington of resisting its efforts to resolve the dispute. Democrats in Congress and some arms-control advocates criticized Trump’s decision as opening the door to an arms race. “The U.S. threat to terminate the treaty will not bring Russia back into compliance and could unleash a dangerous and costly new missile competition between the United States and Russia in Europe and beyond,” the private Arms Control Association said. It argued that Washington has not exhausted options for drawing Russia back into compliance. Trump said in a statement that the U.S. will “move forward” with developing its own military response options to Russia’s banned deployment of cruise missiles that could target Western Europe. “We cannot be the only country in the world unilaterally bound by this treaty, or any other,” Trump said. Other officials said the treaty could still be saved if Russia reverses course and returns to compliance, but the window of opportunity will close in six months, when the American withdrawal takes effect. The Trump decision reflects his administration’s view that the arms treaty was an unacceptable obstacle to more forcefully confronting not only Russia but also China. China’s military has grown mightily since the treaty was signed, and the pact has prevented the U.S. from deploying weapons to counter some of those being developed in Beijing. “China has 1,600 of these weapons, so the U.S. isn’t starting an arms race it is responding to a shifting military balance that makes war more likely, not less,” Eric Sayers, who served as a consultant to former Pacific Command chief Adm. Harry Harris and is now with the Center for a New American Security, wrote Saturday on Twitter. He was referring to China’s arsenal of missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 km (310 to 3,420 miles). Analysts say many of these weapons put U.S. military bases in Japan within striking distance. Leaving the INF pact risks aggravating relations with European allies, who share the administration’s view that Russia is violating the treaty but have not endorsed a U.S. withdrawal. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking to reporters after Trump’s statement, said Russia was to be notified on Saturday that the U.S. is withdrawing from the treaty. In the meantime, starting Saturday, the U.S. will suspend its obligations under the treaty. Pompeo said that if, in the coming six months, Russia accepts U.S. demands that it verifiably destroy the cruise missiles that Washington claims are a violation, then the treaty can be saved. If it does not, “the treaty terminates,” he said. Administration officials have dismissed concerns that the treaty’s demise could trigger a race to develop and deploy more intermediate-range missiles. U.S. officials have emphasized their fear that China is gaining a significant military advantage in Asia by deploying large numbers of missiles with ranges beyond the treaty’s limit. Whether the U.S. will now respond by deploying INF-noncompliant missiles in Asia is unclear. Tokyo has opposed the U.S. withdrawal from the treaty, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe calling such a move “undesirable.” As for a possible deployment to Japan, it is unclear if such a deployment would be politically viable. Okinawa, which hosts the bulk of the U.S. military presence in Japan, has long been home to a fierce anti-base movement. Any decision to send the weapons there would likely face intense opposition. It would also put Sino-Japanese ties in danger as Abe continues his outreach to Beijing amid fraying U.S.-China ties. It also seems unlikely Beijing would agree to any negotiated limits on its weaponry. On Friday, Russia accused the U.S. of unilaterally seeking to neuter the treaty. “I ‘congratulate’ the whole world; the United States has taken another step toward its destruction today,” said Konstantin Kosachev, head of the foreign affairs committee in Russia’s upper house of parliament. The INF was the first arms control measure to ban an entire class of weapons: ground-launched cruise missiles with a range between 500 and 5,500 km. At the time, in the late stages of the Cold War, the U.S. and its allies were mainly concerned by the perceived threat of Russian medium-range nuclear missiles that were targeted at Europe. The U.S. deployed similar missiles in response, in the 1980s, leading to negotiations that produced the INF treaty. U.S. officials say they have little reason to think Moscow will change its stance in the next six months. “We have raised Russia’s noncompliance with Russian officials — including at the highest levels of government — more than 30 times,” Pompeo said. “We have provided Russia an ample window of time to mend its way. Tomorrow that time runs out.” Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, said in an interview Friday that Russia can still save the treaty by returning to compliance before the U.S. withdrawal takes effect. “But at the same time, we have started to assess the consequences, look into options,” Stoltenberg said. “We need to make sure that we respond as an alliance.” Trump said his administration will move forward with developing military response options. But senior officials said they don’t expect any immediate testing or deployment of weapons that are banned under the treaty. The current Pentagon budget includes $48 million for research on potential military responses to the alleged Russian violations, but U.S. officials said the options do not include a nuclear missile. The officials said the U.S. is not in position to flight-test, let alone deploy, INF-noncompliant missiles as a counter to Russia any time soon. One said allies will be consulted before any decisions are made on responding to Russian missiles. Leaving the treaty would allow the Trump administration to counter the Chinese, but it is unclear how it would do that. U.S. security concerns are complicated by what U.S. intelligence officials call efforts by China and Russia to expand their global influence.

china
u.s .
russia
nuclear weapons
donald trump


Second Trump-Kim summit planned for Danang, Vietnam: report

Abstract: WASHINGTON - A planned second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in late February will take place in Danang, Vietnam, CNN reported Friday. The plan is being finalized, it said, citing a senior Trump administration official and a source familiar with the issue. Speaking to reporters Thursday, Trump said he will announce the date and location of his second meeting with Kim early next week, possibly in his State of the Union address scheduled for Tuesday. Vietnam has been floated as the most likely venue for the event. Trump visited Danang in November 2017 for a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. As Trump works out the details of the Kim summit, he’s thinking about adding a possible meeting with China’s president to his itinerary. The White House hasn’t released details on when Trump might meet Xi Jinping as the leaders try to settle a trade war between the economic powers, but Trump told reporters he’s considering trying to see Xi when he’s in Asia later this month for the expected North Korea talks. In the first-ever U.S.-North Korea summit last June in Singapore, Kim pledged to work toward “complete” denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula while Trump committed to providing security guarantees to Pyongyang.

china
u.s .
north korea
trade
kim jong un
nuclear weapons
xi jinping
north korea nuclear crisis
donald trump
kim-trump summit


Weak U.S.-North Korea deal may bolster Seoul's need for its own nukes: opposition leader

Abstract: SEOUL - The leader of South Korea’s main opposition party has warned that calls for acquiring nuclear weapons could grow in Seoul if U.S. talks with North Korea fall short of the regime’s complete denuclearization. Liberty Korea legislative leader Na Kyung-Won said in an interview in Seoul that a “small deal” with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un risk bolstering demands for the U.S. to redeploy its own nuclear weapons to the peninsula. She said she planned to convey her party’s desire for the dismantlement and inspection of Pyongyang’s weapons program during an expected visit to Washington ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s planned summit with Kim. “If the United States accepts North Korea as the de facto nuclear state through a small deal, acquiring nuclear weapons is the only viable path for us, some people argue,” said Na, 55. “With a small deal, demand for deploying strategic nuclear weapons will increase.” Na’s remarks illustrate concern among South Korean conservatives as President Moon Jae-in, a progressive, pushes ties between the rivals to unprecedented levels. The opposition, which is trying to rebuild after former President Park Geun-hye’s 2017 removal and subsequent corruption conviction, has long taken a more skeptical view of Kim’s intentions. “Nowhere do we see in the last year’s process the denuclearization of North Korea,” Na said. “We only see denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula on the North’s terms.” Na spoke before U.S. special envoy Stephen Biegun said that North Korea had committed to dismantling its all its uranium- and plutonium-enrichment facilities, a sign that Trump is seeking clearer disarmament steps from the upcoming Kim summit. Kim has made no pledges to let North Korea’s arsenal be inspected or dismantled since agreeing to “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” in his first meeting with Trump in June. Biegun was expected to arrive Sunday in South Korea for more talks, including meetings with his North Korean counterpart, the State Department said. Na, a former judge and four-term lawmaker, became the conservative party’s first female floor leader in December. She led the National Assembly’s foreign policy committee from 2015 to 2016, when Park signed a controversial deal accepting Japanese compensation for “comfort women” in exchange for an apology that many South Koreans believe fell short. “Comfort women” were victims of the Japanese military brothel system before and during World War II. “The comfort women deal led to the first official apology, which was meaningful in the history of diplomacy,” she said about the deal. But she said the government was “too hasty in seeking an agreement” and didn’t sufficiently reflect the desires of the victims. The conservative bloc’s approval rate recovered to 21 percent earlier in the week, according to Gallup Korea, exceeding the 20 percent level for the first time since Park’s impeachment. Support for Moon’s Democratic Party was 39 percent, the second week in a row it was below the 40 percent mark. Na said the opposition party would put forward a corporate tax cut as a central agenda item during the assembly’s session this month. Both sides of South Korea’s political divide are united in concern over U.S. demands that the country pay as much as 50 percent more for U.S. military protection. The dispute caused their cost-sharing deal to lapse on Dec. 31 and if it is not renewed soon, South Korean civilian personnel could face furloughs as soon as April. Na warned that the United States’ position in Asia could be weakened if such disagreements are left unchecked. Any cost-sharing deal must be ratified by the National Assembly and the U.S. Congress. “If this problem goes on the wrong track, it could cause anti-U.S. sentiment,” Na said. “The South Korean public believes that there is an excessive demand to increase the payment from the U.S. government.” U.S. intelligence agency chiefs told Congress earlier in the week that North Korea is unlikely to dismantle its nuclear arsenal and also that the Iran nuclear deal is working — both contrary to what Trump has claimed. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and other officials presented an update to the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday on their annual assessment of global threats. In a public report and the testimony, they warned of an increasingly diverse range of security dangers around the globe, from North Korea’s nuclear weapons to Chinese cyberespionage to Russian campaigns to undermine Western democracies. At the hearing, Coats said intelligence information does not support the idea that Kim will eliminate his nuclear weapons. Trump later insisted on Twitter that the U.S. relationship with North Korea “is the best it has ever been.” He pointed to the North’s halt in nuclear and missile tests, the return of some U.S. service members’ remains and the release of detained Americans as signs of progress. On Friday, Trump said the United States was withdrawing from a 1987 nuclear arms control treaty with Russia in response to alleged violations by Moscow. U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said in October that the pact is outdated because it does not cover China, Iran and North Korea, all of which have been beefing up their missile capabilities. The North’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs have led to strict U.N. sanctions on trade with it. A California cosmetics firm, E.L.F., became the most recent violator on Friday, when the U.S. Treasury Department announced that the company had agreed to pay a nearly $1 million fine for importing fake eyelashes containing materials from the North. Between 2012 and 2017, the company imported “156 shipments of false eyelash kits from two suppliers located in the People’s Republic of China that contained materials sourced by these suppliers” from North Korea, the Treasury said in a statement. “E.L.F.’s compliance program and its supplier audits failed to discover that approximately 80 percent of the false eyelash kits supplied by two of E.L.F.’s China-based suppliers contained materials” from the North. The company faced more than $40 million in penalties but the Treasury took into account mitigating circumstances including the small amount involved and the fact that E.L.F. reported the violation of sanctions.

u.s .
north korea
kim jong un
nuclear weapons
elections
south korea
north korea nuclear crisis
donald trump
moon jae-in
kim-trump summit


Grim outlook for Australian right points to another change in leadership

Abstract: SYDNEY - While much of the West embraces the populist right, Australians are balking at their government’s climate-skeptic tough-on-migrants message, with polls pointing to a change in government in this May’s election. As things stand, folksy Prime Minister Scott Morrison risks being turfed out after less than a year on the job — a short stay even in the self-styled coup capital of the democratic world. Current polls show his conservative Liberal Party heading for its worst electoral defeat since 1983 and Australia getting a seventh change of prime minister in 10 years. “The polling has really been consistently showing that the Labor Party are ahead by a significant margin,” said Glenn Kefford, a campaign expert at Macquarie University. “The sentiment out there is that the Labor party are headed for victory, it’s just a question of what the size of that victory will be.” Facing an uncertain future, three of Morrison’s cabinet ministers have called it quits before the campaign gets into full swing. All three cited personal reasons for their departure, a common occurrence in the dog days of a two-term government. But the prospect of a contentious campaign followed by long periods languishing on the opposition benches undoubtedly made their decision easier. Minister for Women Kelly O’Dwyer publicly described her motives for retiring as “complex,” but privately she is said to have complained that the coalition was seen as a bunch of “homophobic, anti-women, climate-change deniers.” Liberal ministers sticking it out are increasingly facing difficult contests against a resurgent Labor and independent women furious at the government’s “blokeish” attitudes. One commentator has dubbed it the revolt of the SPECS — socially progressive but economically conservative liberals. This week Health Minister Greg Hunt became the latest member of the cabinet to see his political future thrown into doubt. His former party colleague-turned-independent MP Julia Banks announced she would challenge him in the election, citing “unfinished business” with the party and railing against the pro-coal government’s failure to tackle climate change. The Liberal response oscillated between furious denunciations of unspeakable treachery and an insistence she cannot possibly win. Rather than propelling him along, some analysts believe the rise of the populist right may have sown the seeds for Morrison’s downfall. His short tenure has seen some clouds gathering in Australia’s long-glittering G20 economy, stirred by Trump’s trade fight with China and jitters over Brexit. Morrison has also been plagued by a debilitating battle between traditional small government liberals and Trump-emboldened supporters of a more hard-line view of liberal politics. The wounds from their successful ouster last August of centrist former party leader and prime minister Malcolm Turnbull have festered. “It was a catastrophic blunder,” said political pundit William Bowe, who runs a popular blog called The Poll Bludger, pointing to public disdain for the continued musical chairs in Canberra. The party’s hard right “got a rush of blood to the head and I think Brexit and Donald Trump fed into it,” said Bowe. “Trump and Brexit have shown that populist right-wing programs work if they are pursued aggressively and sold by an aggressive spokesperson.” They sought to get rid of “this ‘milquetoast plutocrat’ Malcolm Turnbull and put in a tough political fighter, a bomb-thrower.” The polls and a recent shock by-election win for an independent woman in a Sydney seat that the party held for decades seemed to show the Liberals badly misjudged the public mood. But Morrison, a devout Christian, shows few signs of easing off, continuing to play to the base and presenting himself as a “fair dinkum” Aussie who you can have a beer with at a barbecue. “There is a lot of rehashing of old debates and old culture wars,” said Kefford. “They want to try to get the base energized.” It is an unusual and perhaps fateful strategy in a country where compulsory voting makes turnout — the normal aim of appeals to the base — almost irrelevant. In some sections of the Liberal Party the postmortem has already begun. But Trump and Brexit have shown that conventional wisdom can be wrong. “The political environment is challenging for the government,” admitted former Liberal foreign minister Julie Bishop at a speech in Hong Kong. But she cautioned: “It is likely to become a much closer contest than many anticipate. My strong advice is do not write us off. That would be a mistake. Big mistake.”


U.S. intelligence community elevates China rivalry to war of ideologies

Abstract: WASHINGTON - In a move that could harden Washington’s posture toward Beijing for years, the U.S. intelligence community has characterized relations with China as a global ideological showdown that will not be doused by trade deals or commercial theft crackdowns. U.S. spy chiefs abruptly shifted their view of the superpower rivalry earlier in the week to something much deeper than a contest over markets, technology and geopolitics. The annual Worldwide Threat Assessment released by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats instead said China, in an echo of the decades-long Cold War, is seeking to propagate “authoritarian capitalism” to counter Western liberal democracy. “Chinese leaders will increasingly seek to assert China’s model of authoritarian capitalism as an alternative — and implicitly superior — development path abroad, exacerbating great-power competition that could threaten international support for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law,” it said. It added the “coming ideological battle” will be marked by “a period of increased Chinese foreign policy activism and a Chinese worldview that links China’s domestic vision to its international vision,” including the idea that market-oriented authoritarian regimes are superior. China policy analysts said the assessment marks an important modification of U.S. thinking — and reflects President Xi Jinping’s ideological transformation of Chinese foreign policy. They also say it goes far beyond the views of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has treated relations with China as more transactional. “This is more than just economics,” said James McGregor, chairman of China business consultancy APCO Worldwide. “Now that China is so successful, there is an ideological battle for which system works best,” he said. “There are a lot of poor and developing countries which have looked at what China has accomplished with awe and admiration, and they are wondering if that system will work for them.” Aaron Friedberg, Princeton University professor and China expert, said the shift is significant but not surprising after Xi last year severed the country’s decades-old anchor to a non-ideological foreign policy. “For a long time Chinese officials went out of their way to say that they didn’t see themselves as presenting an alternative model,” he said. “Now it is an ideological competition because the Chinese see it that way.” But Xi differs from Mao Zedong, the iconic leader who sought to advance his version of Marxism-Leninism throughout the developing world in the 1950s and 1960s, Friedberg said. Xi’s government is, he explained, “doing things that have the effect of weakening democratic institutions in places where they are not perhaps deeply rooted,” such as Central Europe and Africa. “In Africa and elsewhere their preferred partners are often authoritarian rulers, reducing the chances that those countries will have liberal political systems,” he said. According to Tarun Chhabra of the Brookings Institution, the U.S. intelligence community now believes China is deliberately attacking fundamental U.S. values on the world stage. “Our values are inherently threatening to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by virtue of our fundamental commitment to free speech,” said Chhabra. “A commitment to the idea that the state doesn’t have a monopoly on the truth is ‘ideological’ and profoundly dangerous for the CCP,” he said. He cited two developments driving the decision to brand it an ideological battle. First is the interment of nearly a million Muslim Uighurs in western China in an effort to “stamp out” their identity, he said. That “really lays bare a fundamental clash between those who believe in upholding the individual dignity of all people, and those who justify virtually anything in the name of internal security.” Second, Chhabra said, was Beijing’s combining massive digital surveillance with a social credit apparatus, which could one day give the CCP social control “to a degree that Mao himself probably never dreamed about.” U.S.-China relations have deteriorated steadily over the past five years of Xi’s determined projection of China’s influence around the globe. Friedberg said the new stance by U.S. spy chiefs is a message to Trump, who unlike previous presidents speaks little of liberal democratic values, and avoids seeing the Washington-Beijing relationship as a fundamental fight between models of governance. “I think that this statement by the director of national intelligence is drawing attention to something which the administration for various reasons has chosen to downplay. It’s their interpretation of reality, that differs somewhat from the people at the top of the administration.” “He seems to be oddly sympathetic to illiberal regimes,” Friedberg said of Trump.

china
u.s .
xi jinping
ideology
donald trump


Hong Kong top court denies male status to three transgender men

Abstract: HONG KONG - Hong Kong’s High Court refused to allow three transgender men to be recognized as males on their official identity cards because they have not undergone full sex-change operations. The ruling Friday was seen as a blow to the fledgling LGBT movement in the semiautonomous Chinese city, which is preparing to host the 2022 Gay Games. The three, identified as Henry Tse, Q and R, were born female but are undergoing hormone therapy. A full sex change would require the removal of female sexual organs, making them sterile. Outside the court, Tse unfurled a banner that read, “Forced sterilisation is cruel and inhumane. Recognise our rights NOW!” In his ruling, Judge Thomas Au wrote that “the change of gender entry stated in the ID card does not only concern the private right of the transgender person but also the wider public interest.” Like many Asian societies, Hong Kong has become more open about gender issues, although the legal system is sometimes slow to follow. Amnesty International called the judgment “a missed opportunity to address the discrimination transgender people in Hong Kong face.” “No one should be forced to undergo gender affirming surgery in order to have their gender legally recognized,” Man-kei Tam, director of Amnesty International Hong Kong, said in a statement. Friday’s decision follows a ruling a week earlier by Japan’s Supreme Court upholding a law that effectively requires transgender people to be sterilized before they can have their gender changed on official documents. That ruling was widely denounced by human rights and LGBT activists and may spark further legal action. Japan is one of many countries with a sterilization requirement. In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights said 22 of the countries under its jurisdiction still required sterilization as part of a legal gender change, and it ordered them to end the practice. Maria Sjodin, deputy executive director of OutRight Action International, which monitors LGBT rights issues worldwide, said she was unsure if all 22 of those countries have fully implemented the court’s order. In Hong Kong, the judgment seemed at odds with a 2013 ruling that allowed a transgender woman known as “W” to have her gender changed to female on her identity card. “W” had successfully sued in the city’s highest legal body, the Court of Final Appeal, for her right to marry her boyfriend. Following that case, the city’s Equal Opportunities Commission recommended that the government drop the requirement for complete sex reassignment. The government in 2017 held a public consultation on whether the commission’s recommendations should adopted but has yet to release the findings.


Bishop from China's 'underground' Roman Catholic Church gains official recognition: state media

Abstract: BEIJING - Amid a thaw in relations between Beijing and the Holy See, a bishop from China’s “underground” Roman Catholic church is slated to step up as the official state-backed clergyman for a diocese in central China, state-run media reported. China’s estimated 10 million Catholics are legally supposed to attend only churches governed by a state-controlled body with clergy appointed by the Communist Party. But many worship in so-called unregistered “underground churches” led by bishops loyal to the Vatican. An agreement struck in September on the appointment of bishops has paved the way for a rapprochement between Beijing and the Vatican after diplomatic ties were cut off in 1951. It also gives both sides a say in appointing Catholic bishops in China. Jin Lugang was inaugurated as coadjutor bishop for the Nanyang diocese in central China, the Global Times reported Friday, and will assist 98-year-old diocesan bishop Zhu Baoyu until his retirement. “I think it is a good thing,” said Anthony Lam, a Chinese Catholic church expert at Hong Kong’s Holy Spirit Study Centre, noting that there are about 40 vacancies that need to be filled in dioceses across China. Though the Holy See has appointed at least 20 clergymen to fill these spots, the Chinese government has not yet approved them, he said. “They are too nervous,” he said, referring to the local governments who are now tasked with vetting the appointees. “To some extent, it’s their recommendation to the central government that these people are reliable, you can trust him, he will not do anything harmful to the government.” That is why some government officials are adopting a cautious attitude and holding some cases for long periods of time, he explained. China’s Catholic community urgently needs bishops that are “politically reliable,” with nearly half of dioceses without bishops, said the Global Times in its report. Jin’s official ordination follows a clampdown on religious worship in China, where churches were destroyed in some regions and several church-run kindergartens closed last year. Authorities have also cracked down on Bible sales. Last month, dozens of members of a prominent unofficial Protestant church went missing in southwest China after authorities raided their homes, churchgoers said. Police have detained the church pastor, who faces allegations of “inciting state subversion,” according to the Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. Local authorities have also apprehended other church members under suspicion of “picking quarrels,” as well as “illegal operations” for selling Bibles and religious books, the church said.

china
religion
vatican
roman catholic church


Part of Australia's Queensland hit by once-in-a-century floods with more rain on the way

Abstract: MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - Once-in-a-century flooding in part of the eastern Australian state of Queensland looks set to worsen as the nation’s weather bureau on Saturday warned of more heavy rain in the area. Some residents have already been evacuated after days of monsoon rains lashed the region around the coastal city of Townsville, in the north of the state, a spokesman for the Bureau of Meteorology said. Adam Blazak, a forecaster with the bureau, did not say how many people had been evacuated, but added that some areas had reached “major” flood levels. “Normally a monsoonal burst might last a few days, but this one’s been going on over a week now and is set to continue for a few more days as well,” he said. Between 150 mm and 200 mm of rain is expected across Townsville on Saturday- equal to about a month’s average rainfall. Local authorities issued a number of flood warnings on Saturday morning and told residents to avoid using roads and consider moving to higher ground if conditions worsen. North Queensland has significant zinc reserves as well as major deposits of silver, lead, copper and iron ore, with Townsville being a major processing center for the region’s base metals. In stark contrast, wildfires in the southern island state of Tasmania have burnt through more than 187,000 hectares of land, fire officials said. The Tasmanian Fire Service said in a statement on Friday that nearly 600 personnel were working to contain the fires, some of which have been burning for weeks and have destroyed homes. The statement added that while the last few days have seen favorable conditions for battling the blazes, expected hot and dry weather on Sunday could see bushfires escalate again. “A number of fires are still volatile and dangerous and fire behavior can change with little warning,” Jeff Harper, the state’s Fire Controller, said on Friday. Australia endured its hottest month on record in January, with sweltering conditions expected to persist through April. That scorching weather triggered power outages in some areas and sent electricity prices soaring.