Leading Japanese insecticide maker plans to expand sales in China and Southeast Asia

Abstract: Leading Japanese insecticide manufacturer Earth Corp. plans to expand sales in China and Southeast Asia via a subsidiary in Malaysia, as the risk of dengue fever and malaria in the region drives up demand for repellents. The company has set up a wholly owned unit in Kuala Lumpur to market insecticides and air fresheners domestically and for export, according to a statement last week. It plans to start operations by October. The company already has production and sales bases in Thailand and Vietnam that will supply its products to the new subsidiary, Earth Home Products (Malaysia). It also has three sales units in China. “We picked Malaysia because its middle-income earners have high disposable income in the region,” Sohei Yamamoto, assistant manager of Earth’s corporate planning department, said Friday. “In a broader sense, Indonesia and the Philippines are also targets, but we want to focus on one market at a time.” Yamamoto declined to reveal sales target figures for Malaysia. The Malaysian unit is capitalized at 5.5 million Malaysian ringgit (¥145 million). Demand for bug repellent is high in Southeast Asia, where insect-borne tropical diseases are common, while middle-income consumers in China are a target market for Earth’s cockroach traps. Earth aims to increase overseas sales by 13.4 percent from the last fiscal year to ¥11.3 billion in fiscal 2019 ending in December, and to ¥15 billion in fiscal 2020. “We believe we can reach the break-even point when we clear ¥15 billion in overseas sales,” Yamamoto said. “Beyond 2020, we would like to see overseas sales grow to a range of 20 billion to 30 billion in five years.” The company has lowered its overall sales target for fiscal 2020 to ¥190 billion from an initial ¥200 billion after seeing fiscal 2018 come in weaker than projected, at ¥181.1 billion. Last summer’s severe heat wave kept many people indoors, hurting sales of outdoor goods like bug repellent. Earth set a “conservative” overall sales target of ¥186.5 billion for the current fiscal year, Yamamoto said, but the company left its overseas sales target unchanged. “The U.S.-China trade dispute is not having a direct impact on our sales,” Yamamoto said. “We may be affected if consumption slows in China or China’s economic growth slows down sharply, but we haven’t seen any signs of that.” U.S. and Chinese negotiators have yet to reach an agreement, prompting Washington to double its tariffs on Friday on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.

china
disease
dengue fever
insects
earth corp .


Days after announcing tripling of profits, SoftBank market value slides $9 billion as Uber IPO flops

Abstract: Last Thursday, as his company booked a $3.8 billion gain from its stake in Uber Technologies Inc., Masayoshi Son told SoftBank Group Corp. investors that their time had finally come. Instead, they’re still waiting. The day after Son’s earnings presentation, SoftBank slid 5.4 percent and fell again Monday, dropping as much as 4.9 percent. Uber’s initial public offering was a flop, with shares sliding on the first day of trading, at the same time the U.S. and China escalated tensions over their trade dispute. SoftBank has lost about $9 billion in market value despite reporting last week that profit more than tripled thanks to the valuation gain from its stake in the U.S. ride-hailing giant. Son has been remaking SoftBank Group from primarily a telecommunications operator into a technology investment firm, and his $100 billion Vision Fund has begun to show promise as a major contributor to earnings. SoftBank’s stock had rallied almost 60 percent this year ahead of the earnings. But the slide in the past two trading days shows SoftBank will also now be vulnerable to the bad news from Son’s investment portfolio, as well as the good. Uber opened at $42, or 6.7 percent below its $45 IPO price. Shortly after, it slid to $41.06. While the company briefly reclaimed almost all its losses by early afternoon, the comeback proved short-lived. Before Uber’s debut, out of a total of 60 companies, only four IPOs of a billion dollars or more had a decline of at least 5 percent since the start of the decade. Only seven ended the first day of trading in the red. For now, the story is set to be one of volatility as traders dump equities and other riskier assets. The weekend’s back-and-forth between Trump and China suggested U.S. Treasuries and currencies such as the yen and Swiss franc will be seeing a lot of action. “Uber debut didn’t quite live up to the expectations, and that’s why some investors are selling,” said Tomoaki Kawasaki, an analyst at Iwai Cosmo Securities Co. “It’s too early to tell how sensitive SoftBank will be to Uber’s price moves going forward. But even if they fall some, that doesn’t have a direct impact on Vision Fund profits.” The Vision Fund and SoftBank’s own Delta Fund contributed ¥1.26 trillion ($11.5 billion) to profit in the fiscal year ended March 31, or slightly more than half of the total. Investments in 29 companies showed an increase in fair value, while 12 reported a decline. In addition to Uber, SoftBank also booked a ¥203.4 billion valuation gain from its stake in Guardant Health Inc., which went public in October, and a ¥154.2 billion gain on India’s Oyo. It also recorded a ¥222.6 billion loss due to the share price decline in Nvidia Corp. In a related development, the Vision Fund is injecting $800 million into U.K. finance group Greensill, according to a person familiar with the matter. The investment values Greensill, which provides alternative supply chain funding to companies, at $3.5 billion, the person said. That’s more than double the level of almost a year ago, when the firm received $250 million from General Atlantic LLC. Greensill declined to comment, while SoftBank couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Greensill estimates the largely untapped market for working capital finance at $55 trillion. The money from Vision Fund will help it accelerate its expansion and develop new technologies to make more capital accessible to its clients, the person said. It will also speed up its recent entry into Brazil as it advances plans to enter other markets, including China and India. Greensill, co-founded in 2011 by ex-Morgan Stanley banker Lex Greensill, is taking on traditional banks, which typically offer working capital finance to a limited number of large clients. Since 2015, the company has delivered annual growth of more than 100 percent.

stocks
softbank
investments
ipos
uber
vision fund


Over 50 migrants force entry into Spain's Melilla enclave

Abstract: MADRID - Fifty-two African migrants forced their way into Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla from Morocco Sunday by climbing over a towering border fence, Spanish authorities said. About 100 migrants tried to storm the barbed wire fence at dawn but Spanish and Moroccan security force prevented “around half” from entering Melilla, Spain interior ministry in Melilla said in a statement. One migrant was taken to a medical centre to treat cuts he suffered scaling the fence while four Spanish police officers sustained bruises, it added. Police arrested one of the migrants for assaulting an officer. Video images published by local newspaper El Faro de Ceuta showed sweaters and jackets stuck to the razor wire that tops the border fence, left behind by the migrants. The 52 who managed to enter Melilla were taken to a temporary migrant accommodation centre where they were given new clothes. It was the biggest assault on the border between Melilla and Morocco since October 2018, when some 300 migrants stormed the fence. About 200 migrants manged to get into Melilla that time and one died of a suspected heart attack in the attempt. Spain’s two North African enclaves, Melilla and Ceuta, have the European Union’s only land borders with Africa. They are often used as entry points into Europe for African migrants, who either climb over their border fences or try to swim along the coast.

europe
eu
spain
north africa
migrants
morocco
ceuta
melilla


Gunmen kill six in second recent attack on church in Burkina Faso

Abstract: OUAGADOUGOU - Gunmen killed six people, including a priest, outside a Catholic church in Burkina Faso on Sunday, the government said, the second attack on Christians in two weeks in a nation increasingly overrun by jihadis. Congregants were leaving church around 9 a.m. in the town of Dablo in Centre-Nord province when about 20 men encircled them and shot six dead, according to a government statement and local sources. The attackers then burned the church, looted a pharmacy and some others stores, and left, Dablo Mayor Ousmane Zongo said. The government statement only mentioned the burning of a shop and two vehicles. “These terrorist groups are now attacking religion with the macabre aim of dividing us,” it said. Burkina Faso has been beset by a rise in attacks in 2019 as groups with links to Islamic State and al-Qaida based in neighboring Mali seek to fuel local tensions and extend their influence over the porous borders of the Sahel, the arid scrubland south of the Sahara. The government declared a state of emergency in several northern provinces bordering Mali in December because of deadly Islamist attacks. But violence has only worsened since. Two French soldiers were killed last week during an operation to rescue four people taken hostage in Burkina Faso, France said. Over 100,000 people in the country have been displaced by unrest this year, the United Nations has said. Roughly 55 percent to 60 percent of Burkina Faso’s population is Muslim, with up to a quarter Christian. The two groups generally live in peace and frequently intermarry. But, in late April, unidentified gunmen killed a pastor and five congregants at a Protestant church, also in the north, suggesting the violence was taking a religious turn.

violence
terrorism
islamic state
burkina faso


Cyprus police under fire for failing to solve serial killings of immigrant women and girls

Abstract: NICOSIA - Seven foreign women and girls murdered, some dumped in a toxic lake — the “first serial killings” in Cyprus have provoked horror and sparked accusations of police racism. Since mid-April, the Mediterranean island’s press has slammed official failings over the murders, which 35-year-old army officer Nicos Metaxas has allegedly confessed to carrying out. Andreas Kapardis, a criminologist and emeritus professor at the University of Cyprus, said the killings are the first such case since the island won its independence in 1960. “For Cypriots, discovering a serial murderer in their own society is . . . unique,” he said. The victims were four Filipinas, including a mother and her 6-year-old daughter, a Romanian woman and her 8-year-old daughter, and a woman reported to be Nepalese. All the women had been reported missing, but police failed to follow up the cases, allowing the alleged killer to carry on for nearly three years. “The more the investigation advanced, the more it became clear that the police botched the searches because these were immigrant women,” said Maria Mappouridou, who has organized protests over authorities’ handling of the cases. The killings “hit many of our weak spots — our relationship with women, immigrants and the lack of care of the police,” she said. The discovery of five bodies in just a few weeks has shaken the popular holiday island’s normally stable political landscape. The justice minister has been forced to resign and President Nicos Anastasiades has fired the police chief. The head of state criticized the police for “apparent negligence and dereliction of duty” and acknowledged that better initial investigations could have prevented some of the killings. The Cyprus Mail has reported that police fobbed off pleas to investigate individual disappearances by claiming the women had left the island via the north — a breakaway Turkish-backed republic that remains unrecognized by the international community. “If the police had done their job . . . five lives could have been spared,” the paper said in a recent editorial. “Perhaps the police’s utter disregard . . . reflects the attitude of our society.” For Lissa Jataas, founder of Obreras Empowered, an NGO that promotes the rights of housemaids, the murders were a “wake-up call.” “Now we need to talk — to make government and immigrants sit at the same table” to discuss sexual and physical violence, she said. In late April, as police trawled the toxic waters of a man-made lake near Nicosia, Mappouridou took to social media to call for a protest outside the presidential palace. Hundreds of people, both Cypriots and foreigners, gathered at the site in the capital on consecutive Fridays. Among them was Nicoletta Georgiou, an event organizer who voiced anger that authorities had failed to protect the women. “You have to remember migrants are part of our society,” the 26-year-old said. “I don’t know a family here who doesn’t have a nanny, a cleaner.” But, she said, “the victims were doubly invisible — female and foreign.” Mappouridou has been digging back into unresolved disappearances on the island, and has found 35 dating back to 1990. Most were foreign women, several adolescents. She is now campaigning to “ensure that the police do their job properly” and investigate the cases. But criminologist Kapardis cautioned that the police are often faced with “disappearances of foreigners that are very difficult to resolve.” The killer chose “immigrant women, isolated and vulnerable,” he said. If he had targeted “a Cypriot woman, her family and friends would have rallied to find her . . . and the police investigation would have been easy.” With 864,000 residents, Cyprus has a reputation as an oasis of peace in a troubled region. The sunny tourist hot spot attracted nearly 4 million visitors last year. Yet it has one of the highest murder rates in the European Union, according to the most recent figures from Eurostat. After the killings, “Cypriots seem to have discovered that immigrant women are not safe here,” said one Ethiopian domestic worker, who asked not to be named. “But we knew it from the beginning,” she said.


Mexican union leader shot dead in troubled oil refining city of Salamanca

Abstract: MEXICO CITY - Unidentified gunmen shot dead a trade union leader in Mexico’s central city of Salamanca, authorities said on Sunday, the latest outbreak of violence in an area plagued by a murderous struggle between gangs over fuel theft. Gilberto Munoz, a former federal lawmaker and the leader of the national chemical and petrochemical union, died after being shot on Saturday, the government of Salamanca’s home state of Guanajuato said in a statement. Salamanca is home to one of Mexico’s six oil refineries, and the facility has been under the protection of the army since the start of the year after President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador launched a crackdown on fuel theft across the country. The motive for the attack on Munoz was unclear. A spokeswoman for Guanajuato’s government said investigations were ongoing and that no further details could be revealed for now. The fight for control of access to pipelines has turned the once relatively peaceful state of Guanajuato, a center of the carmaking industry, into one of the most violent. Between 2007 and last year, the annual murder tally in Guanajuato leapt more than ten-fold to over 2,600. Taking office in December, Lopez Obrador pledged to reduce the violence in Mexico. So far, murders are still rising. A total of 969 murder investigations were opened in Guanajuato in the first four months of his administration, a jump of 50 percent from the same period a year earlier, according to figures published by the interior ministry.

murder
oil
mexico
salamanca
andres manuel lopez obrador
guanajuato


Trump may provoke U.S. lawmakers to impeach him, says key Democrat

Abstract: WASHINGTON - Democrats are reluctant to impeach U.S. President Donald Trump, but he may provoke such a move by continuing to obstruct efforts by Congress to oversee his administration, a senior Democratic lawmaker said on Sunday. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, told ABC’s “This Week” that impeachment by the Democratic-run House would be politically divisive and unlikely to succeed in the Republican-run Senate. “But he (Trump) may get us there,” Schiff said. “He certainly seems to be trying and maybe this is his perverse way of dividing us more … he thinks that’s to his political advantage, but it’s certainly not to the country’s advantage.” Trump’s stonewalling of congressional probes of his administration does add weight to impeachment, Schiff told ABC. “But you know, part of our reluctance is we are already a bitterly divided country and an impeachment process will divide us further.” Democrats have confronted the Republican president and his administration for refusing to cooperate with at least six separate congressional investigations of Trump, his turbulent presidency, his family and his business interests. A Democratic-led House committee on Wednesday approved a measure to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt for refusing to hand over an unredacted copy of the Mueller report on Russian election interference even as Trump invoked the legal principle of executive privilege to block its disclosure. Democrats are divided over how far to take their investigations with some calling for impeachment proceedings and others backing continued investigations. Republicans have accused Democrats of grandstanding for liberal voters. Some of Trump’s allies believe any impeachment effort could prove unpopular and help him as he seeks re-election in 2020. But even the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr. Schiff reiterated his suggestion Sunday that Congress could levy fines of $25,000 a day on administration officials who refuse to cooperate with demands for witness appearances and documents in congressional investigations. “Look, I think if you fine someone $25,000 a day to their person until they comply, it gets their attention. …I don’t know how many are going to want to take that risk for Donald Trump,” Schiff said.

u.s .
congress
impeachment
donald trump
donald trump jr .
adam schiff


Chelsea Manning refusing to testify at grand jury probing WikiLeaks

Abstract: WASHINGTON - Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning says she’ll refuse to testify on Thursday before a second grand jury investigating WikiLeaks. But if a judge finds her in contempt of court again, she could wind up back in jail. Manning spent seven years in prison for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks. She walked free in May 2017 after President Barack Obama commuted her 35-year sentence. Recently, she spent two months in jail for refusing to answer one grand jury’s questions about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Now, a second grand jury has subpoenaed her. She told CNN’s “Reliable Sources” on Sunday that she has nothing more to offer than what she’s already provided in her own case.

u.s .
barack obama
censorship
privacy
wikileaks
chelsea manning


More 'heartbeat' abortion bans advancing in U.S. Deep South and Midwest

Abstract: NEW YORK - If a new Mississippi law survives a court challenge, it will be nearly impossible for most pregnant women to get an abortion there. Or, potentially, in neighboring Louisiana. Or Alabama. Or Georgia. The Louisiana legislature is halfway toward passing a law — like the ones enacted in Mississippi and Georgia — that will ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, about six weeks into a pregnancy and before many women know they’re pregnant. Alabama is on the cusp of approving an even more restrictive bill. State governments are on course to virtually eliminate abortion access in large chunks of the Deep South and Midwest. Ohio and Kentucky have also passed heartbeat laws; Missouri’s Republican-controlled legislature is considering one. Their hope is that a more conservative U.S. Supreme Court will approve, spelling the end of the constitutional right to abortion. “For pro-life folks, these are huge victories,” said Sue Liebel, state director for the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion advocacy group. “And I think they’re indicative of the momentum and excitement and the hope that’s happening with changes in the Supreme Court and having such a pro-life president.” For abortion rights supporters, meanwhile, the trend is ominous. Said Diane Derzis, owner of Mississippi’s sole abortion clinic, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization: “I think it’s certainly more dire than it ever has been. They smell blood and that’s why they’re doing this.” Already, Mississippi mandates a 24-hour wait between an in-person consultation. That means women must make at least two trips to her clinic, often traveling long distances. Other states have passed similar, incremental laws restricting abortion in recent years, and aside from Mississippi, five states have just one clinic — Kentucky, Missouri, North and South Dakota, and West Virginia. But the latest efforts to bar the procedure represent the largest assault on abortion rights in decades. Lawmakers sponsoring the bans have made it clear their goal is to spark court challenges in hopes of ultimately overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. Those challenges have begun. Derzis’ attorneys are scheduled to go before a judge on May 21, seeking to prevent Mississippi’s heartbeat law from taking effect July 1. A judge in Kentucky blocked enforcement of that state’s heartbeat ban after the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of the clinic in Louisville. Similar legal action is expected before bans can take effect in Ohio and Georgia, where Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the latest heartbeat bill into law Tuesday. Kemp said he welcomed the fight, vowing: “We will not back down.” Georgia’s ban doesn’t take effect until Jan. 1. But the impact was immediate. An abortion clinic operated by The Women’s Centers in Atlanta began receiving anxious calls from patients soon after Kemp signed the law. Many callers had plans to travel from outside the state for abortions. Georgia’s heartbeat ban would have a wider impact because the state has 17 abortion clinics — more than the combined total in the other four Southern states that have passed or are considering bans. “On a typical day we will see people from North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina — all over the region,” said Dr. Lisa Haddad, the Atlanta clinic’s medical director. “And my thought is we’re not going to see those people coming here because they assume it’s already illegal in Georgia.” Dr. Ernest Marshall, co-founder of Kentucky’s last remaining abortion clinic in Louisville, said in an email that banning abortions before most women know they’re pregnant would “have a disproportionate impact on poor women and communities of color throughout the South.” Advocates for abortion rights expect judges to halt enforcement of any new bans while lawsuits work their way through the courts. That could take years. “These laws are blatantly unconstitutional,” said Elisabeth Smith, chief counsel for state policy and advocacy for the Center for Reproductive Rights, which also has filed suit over Mississippi’s ban. “But if they were allowed to go into force, they would have devastating consequences for the residents of all of these states.” If heartbeat bans are upheld, many women who are poor and have limited means to travel would have few options other than to try to terminate their own pregnancies, Haddad said, possibly using abortion drugs purchased online. Others would have to drive or fly across multiple states, said Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. “People would go to Florida, people would continue to go to Memphis,” Nash said. “How many states do you have to cross before you can access abortion services? It exacerbates all the issues we’ve already seen around taking time off from work and having the money to travel.” Proposed heartbeat bans failed to pass this year in several Republican-led states, including Texas. There, GOP lawmakers lost ground to Democrats in the 2018 elections, and some abortion foes were wary after courts struck down prior abortion restrictions in the state. Such efforts also fell short in Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia. Alabama lawmakers postponed until next week a vote on a proposal that would make performing nearly all abortions a felony. The measure has passed the state House, and the Senate suspended debate Thursday amid a heated dispute over whether exemptions for rape and incest should be stripped from the bill. “You can’t put a price on unborn life,” Eric Johnston, president of the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition, said Wednesday, as a legislative committee heard testimony on the state’s proposed ban. “What you have to do is protect the people that live in this state and that includes unborn children.” But Jenna King-Shepherd told Alabama lawmakers she believed the abortion she had at age 17 allowed her to finish college. She said her father, a part-time Baptist preacher furious about her pregnancy, drove her to the abortion clinic because he trusted her to make the right choice. “I’m not asking you to support access to abortion,” King-Shepherd said. “I’m only asking you to let women, their families, their physicians and their God make this decision on how they want to start their families in private and trust them to do that.”

u.s .
abortion
ohio
georgia
donald trump
roe v wade


In Lebanon, vintage film posters offer insights into Western cliches of the Arab world

Abstract: BEIRUT - A pale woman rides through the desert, flanked by armed men on camels, a palace shimmering in the distance. This is Lebanon — or so someone thought in the 1950s. At a Beirut cultural center, Lebanese film buff Abboudi Abu Jawdeh is exhibiting vintage film posters from his collection that show off a lost art, but also offer insight into decades of Western cliches of the Arab world. On a guided tour, the collector gestures toward the desert scene, which is an Italian poster for the 1956 French movie, “The Lebanese Mission.” “This is from the artist’s imagination,” the 61-year-old says, standing beside the image featuring the camel riders and a palace resembling India’s Taj Mahal. “He knew Lebanon was in the east, so he did this,” he says, despite the country having ski slopes and sand only on its Mediterranean beaches. Abu Jawdeh moves along to another poster for the same film, this time featuring an oil well. “I hope we will have some,” he says, as his country only this year started exploration for the hydrocarbon off its coast. A glance at the film’s synopsis reveals more inconsistencies. A Frenchman falls for the daughter of a Lebanese nobleman while in Lebanon hunting for uranium, a metal not mined in the country. Abu Jawdeh first began collecting posters in his teens, starting with films starring American actors Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood. Visiting old cinemas in Lebanon and across the region, he unearthed a world of images — for more foreign films, but also thousands of prints advertising films from the Arab world. Some of his finds in this rare collection date back to 1930s Egypt or Lebanon in the late 1950s. Today he owns some 20,000 posters, stacked up to the ceiling at his publishing house, their bright colors shielded from the sunlight. Different versions of the same poster are especially revealing — indicating which country required a change in a film title or a bra to be painted over a naked back to avoid offense. But as he collected, Abu Jawdeh also started noticing a trend in some of the Western posters for films set in the Middle East. They “resembled the paintings that orientalists painted of the region in the 18th and 19th centuries,” he says. Dozens of these images are on show until May 25 at the Dar El-Nimer cultural center in Beirut. Titled “Thief of Baghdad,” after a much-remade fantasy film from 1924, the show is replete with turbaned men, flying carpets, snake charmers and belly dancers. There is Elvis Presley starring in a film called “Harum Scarum,” and a British-Egyptian comedy reportedly inspired by late Egyptian King Farouk’s unrequited passions for a belly dancer. With captions summarizing often outlandish screenplays, the posters show a fantastical world far removed from the modern Middle East, but also gross misrepresentation. “Come to savage seething Arabia on a terror search for forbidden treasures of the ages,” reads the tag line for the 1957 action film “Forbidden Desert.” Late Lebanese-American academic Jack Shaheen analyzed portrayals of Arabs in Hollywood films. He watched more than 900 movies spanning a century to the early 2000s, and found only 5 percent showed Arab roles as “normal, human characters.” Instead, a whole people was systematically dehumanized or vilified. Often, all Arabs were Muslims, and all Muslims were Arabs, wrote the researcher of Christian descent. Female characters were largely belly dancers or enchantresses, silent “bundles of black” or “terrorists.” Abu Jawdeh says that he and others may not have always rejected such depictions. “We too liked seeing a belly dancer,” he says. But the public now will likely see the posters differently, he adds, welcoming a fresh-eyed re-evaluation of how the West has viewed the Arab world. “They need to see them to re-examine these human relations,” he urged. Round the corner, Rabbah Faqih, a masters student in archive management, looks at a poster featuring a skimpily dressed actress. “I’m all for a good expressive poster to draw people in, but I’m against commodifying women like this,” she says. “We’re not all belly dancers in Lebanon,” says the 30-year-old, dressed in a long black robe, her hair covered.

film
middle east
islam
lebanon
ethnicity
north africa


Saudi oil tankers hit by 'sabotage attacks' as Gulf tensions soar

Abstract: FUJAIRAH, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - Saudi Arabia said Monday two of its oil tankers were damaged in mysterious “sabotage attacks” in the Gulf as tensions soared in a region already shaken by a standoff between the United States and Iran. It came as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo scrapped a planned visit to Moscow to head to Brussels instead for talks with European officials on Iran. Tehran called for an investigation into the “alarming” attacks and warned of “adventurism” by foreign players to disrupt maritime security. Britain warned of the danger of conflict erupting “by accident” in the Gulf. The U.S. has already strengthened its military presence in the region, including deploying a number of strategic B-52 bombers in response to alleged Iranian threats. Saudi Arabia, the Islamic republic’s regional arch-rival, condemned “the acts of sabotage which targeted commercial and civilian vessels near the territorial waters of the United Arab Emirates,” a foreign ministry source said. “This criminal act constitutes a serious threat to the security and safety of maritime navigation and adversely impacts regional and international peace and security,” the source added. The UAE said on Sunday that four commercial vessels of various nationalities had been targeted by acts of sabotage off the emirate of Fujairah. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said the two tankers suffered “significant damage” but there were no casualties or any oil spill. Neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE gave details on the nature of the attacks. Fujairah port is the only Emirati terminal located on the Arabian Sea coast, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, through which most Gulf oil exports pass. Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the strait in case of a military confrontation with the United States. One of the two tankers that was attacked was on its way to be loaded with crude oil from a Saudi terminal for customers in the United States, Falih said. The UAE did not accuse anyone of responsibility but warned that “carrying out acts of sabotage on commercial and civilian vessels and threatening the safety and lives of those on board is a serious development.” No one was hurt and Abu Dhabi called on world powers to help keep maritime traffic safe. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi expressed concern over the incident and its possible consequences. “The incidents in the Sea of Oman are alarming and regrettable,” Mousavi said in a statement. He “warned against plots by ill-wishers to disrupt regional security” and “called for the vigilance of regional states in the face of any adventurism by foreign elements,” it added. Almost all the oil exports of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Iran itself, at least 15 million barrels per day, are shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. The Saudi minister denounced the attack on the vessels, saying it “aims to undermine the freedom of maritime navigation and the security of oil supplies to consumers all over the world.” The UAE had earlier categorically denied reports on social media of massive explosions in oil tankers off the coast of Fujairah, whose port on Monday was calm with no signs of damage. The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) — which includes Saudi Arabia and the UAE — as well as the Arab League condemned Sunday’s incident. “This is a dangerous escalation representing evil intentions by those that planned and executed this operation,” GCC secretary general Abdullatif al-Zayani said in a statement. Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the “criminal acts were a dangerous violation of the freedom and safety of trade.” British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt called for “a period of calm.” “We are very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident with an escalation that is unintended on either side but ends with some kind of conflict,” he said as he arrived for a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels. Last year, Saudi Arabia temporarily suspended oil shipments through the Bab al-Mandab strait — a vital shipping route between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa — after two of its ships were attacked by Iran-backed Yemeni rebels. The Pentagon said Friday that it was deploying an amphibious assault ship and a Patriot missile battery to the Middle East to bolster an aircraft carrier force sent to counter alleged Iranian threats. The increasing tensions come after Tehran said Wednesday it had stopped respecting limits on its nuclear activities agreed under a 2015 deal with major powers. Iran said it was responding to the sweeping unilateral sanctions that Washington has reimposed since it quit the agreement one year ago. Pompeo revised his travel plans to include a visit to Brussels on Monday to hold talks with French, British and German officials on “pressing matters” including Iran, a State Department official said.

u.s .
iran
uae
shipping
sabotage
fujairah
hurmuz strait


Joe Biden seen pulling away in South Carolina with 46%

Abstract: WASHINGTON - Just weeks after announcing his presidential run, former Vice President Joe Biden led the Democratic pack in the key South Carolina race, attracting support from 46 percent of likely party primary voters in a state poll released Sunday. Biden had more than triple the support of his nearest rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who attracted 15 percent of those surveyed, according to Charleston’s Post and Courier newspaper, which conducted the poll with Change Research. Almost 90 percent of respondents said Biden has the best shot to unseat President Donald Trump, the newspaper reported, highlighting an emphasis on beating Trump that has vaulted Biden to the front of his party’s field of more than 20 presidential candidates. Trump has particularly attacked Biden on Twitter and in his public comments. The state’s Democratic primary could play an increased role in winnowing the party’s large 2020 field because there may not be a clear front-runner after the Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada nominating contests that precede South Carolina’s race in February. The large proportion of black voters in the Palmetto State’s Democratic electorate also make it a important test of a candidate’s appeal to a key bloc for the party. Biden led among black voters in the poll, the Post and Courier said. During his first campaign appearance in the state earlier in May, he emphasized threats to voting rights and his relationship with President Barack Obama as he attempted to court black voters. Biden, who announced his candidacy April 25, was seen in the poll as the “toughest and most likable candidate with the highest name recognition and the largest favorability,” the newspaper said. It also noted his record for moderation in a state where Democrats lean conservative. After Biden and Sanders, who represents a more progressive wing of the party and was the choice of voters under age 34 in the poll, California Sen. Kamala Harris had support from 10 percent. South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren tied at 8 percent. The poll, which was conducted from May 6-9, got online responses from 595 of the state’s likely Democratic primary voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

u.s .
joe biden
democrats
south carolina
bernie sanders
donald trump
2020 u.s. presidential election


In bid to rally support for Amazon, Brazil's indigenous chief Raoni ventures to Europe

Abstract: RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil’s legendary indigenous chief, Raoni, headed to Paris on Sunday for the start of a three-week tour across Europe where he will meet heads of state, celebrities and the pope to highlight growing threats to the Amazon. The elderly Kayapo chief, internationally recognizable through his traditional lip plate and feather headdress, will seek to raise €1 million ($1.1 million) to better protect the Amazon’s Xingu reserve — home to many of Brazil’s tribal peoples — from loggers, farmers and fire. Raoni Metuktire, famous for his work campaigning in defense of Brazil’s rain forest alongside personalities like pop star Sting, will be accompanied by three indigenous leaders from the Xingu. They will hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and Environment Minister Francois de Rugy before traveling to Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Monaco and Italy, where they will meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican, according to the Paris-based Association Foret Vierge, or Virgin Forest Association, of which Raoni is honorary president. Raoni’s trip comes as the Amazon faces increasing threats from mining and farming lobbies who have found a champion in far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, a climate change skeptic. Funds raised will be used to replace or reset hundreds of signs and markers on the boundary of the vast Xingu as well as pay for drones and satellite imaging to monitor the region, and create firebreaks, Foret Vierge said in a statement. Some Xingu communities also need urgent investment in health, education and know-how in extracting and selling renewable forest products. “Thus Indians will be able to live in dignity in the Reserve while protecting it and their ancestral cultures, instead of going into urban or rural areas where they cannot find their place,” the statement said. There are hundreds of demarcated territories in Brazil, established in the 1980s for the exclusive use of their indigenous inhabitants, and access by outsiders is strictly regulated. But Bolsonaro’s anti-environment rhetoric before and after winning last October’s elections has alarmed indigenous communities and green groups. Bolsonaro has said he wants to “integrate into society” Brazil’s estimated 800,000 indigenous people who have long battled to protect their traditional way of life, away from towns and cities. “The Indian cannot continue to be trapped within a demarcated area as if he were a zoo animal,” the former army captain once said. A number of recent reports have sounded the alarm over rampant destruction of the Amazon and threats to indigenous inhabitants. An indigenous alliance warned last month that native peoples in the Amazon are facing an “apocalypse.” They warned in particular of Bolsonaro’s pledges to allow more farming and logging in the Amazon, and to ease safeguards and grant more licenses for Brazil’s huge mining industry, and build more dams.

brazil
indigenous people
jair bolsonaro
amazon rain forest
raoni metuktire


Strong M6.1 earthquake hits Panama but no initial reports of casualties

Abstract: WASHINGTON - A 6.1 magnitude earthquake hit Panama on Sunday near the border with Costa Rica, the U.S. Geological Survey said, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. The quake struck at a depth of 37 km (23 miles) in the far west of the country and the closest town was Santa Cruz, about 5 km away, it said. There was no tsunami alert issued from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, and USGS said there was a low likelihood of casualties and damage. In November 2017 a 6.5-magnitude quake on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica left buildings swaying in the capital San Jose and contributed to the deaths of two people who had heart attacks. Farther north, two months earlier in September 2017 a 7.1-magnitude earthquake killed more than 300 people in Mexico.


Rebel fire kills five civilians in Syria regime-held town, state media says

Abstract: DAMASCUS - Rebel rocket fire killed four children and a woman Sunday in a regime-held town outside the embattled jihadi bastion of Idlib in northwest Syria, state news agency SANA said. The bombardment by “terrorist groups” on the Christian-majority town of Suqaylabiyah in Hama province also wounded six other children, SANA said, using its term for rebels and jihadis. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rockets had been fired from the nearby Idlib region, which is controlled by former al-Qaida affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. The Britain-based war monitor said it was unclear whether HTS or other insurgent groups were behind the attack. That region of some 3 million people is supposed to be protected from a massive regime assault by a September buffer zone deal signed by government ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey. But Damascus and its allies have upped their deadly bombardment of the edges of the jihadi bastion in recent weeks, killing dozens and causing tens of thousands to flee, according to the Observatory. They have also taken several towns this week from the jihadis near Suqaylabiyah. U.N.-linked aid groups have suspended activities in parts of the Idlib region, as the increased violence since late April has jeopardized the safety of humanitarian workers. The uptick in air strikes and shelling also displaced 180,000 people between 29 April and 9 May, according to the U.N. The civil war in Syria has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since it started with the brutal repression of anti-government protests in 2011.

terrorism
syria
al-qaida
bashar assad
sana
idlib
hama
hayat tahrir al-sham


White House adviser says Trump and Xi likely to hold talks at Osaka G20 meeting in June

Abstract: WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, are likely to meet during a Group of 20 summit in Osaka at the end of June and discuss trade, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Sunday. “Let me repeat again the strong possibility that the two presidents will meet in Japan at G20,” Kudlow told Fox News Sunday, adding that for now, there are no other fresh rounds of talks scheduled between Beijing and Washington. The United States escalated a tariff war with China on Friday by hiking levies on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods after Trump said Beijing “broke the deal” by reneging on earlier commitments made during months of negotiations. Over the past couple of weeks, China had backtracked from some its commitments, Kudlow said. The sticking point right now is to ensure Beijing puts the changes it promised into law, he added. The latest round of talks Friday ended without success and Trump ordered his trade chief to begin the process of imposing tariffs on all remaining imports from China. Kudlow said Washington is seeking strong enforcement provisions on a number of issues, such as forced technology transfer and intellectual property. “We have to have a very strong agreement to correct, to right these wrongs before we will be satisfied,” he said.

china
u.s .
osaka
trade
g20
xi jinping
tariffs
donald trump
trade war


Israel says site found for Golan 'Trump' settlement

Abstract: JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that a site for a promised new settlement to be named after U.S. President Donald Trump had been chosen and formal approval was underway. “I promised that we would establish a community named after President Trump,” Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting. “I would like to inform you that we have already selected a site in the Golan Heights where this new community will be established, and we have started the process,” he said in Hebrew. Netanyahu pledged such a move last month, in appreciation of Trump’s recognition of Israel’s claim of sovereignty over part of the strategic plateau. Trump broke with longstanding international consensus on March 25 when he recognized Israel’s claim of sovereignty over the part of the Golan it seized from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War. In December 2017, he said Washington would recognize the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, sparking outrage among the Palestinians who claim Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem as the capital of their own future state. The U.S. Embassy was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and inaugurated on May 14, 2018. Netanyahu said he would submit the new settlement plan for cabinet approval when a new government takes office in the wake of last month’s snap general election. Netanyahu has been conducting low-key meetings with heads of the parties expected to join his coalition. He has until the end of May to put together an alliance.

u.s .
israel
syria
benjamin netanyahu
golan heights
donald trump


Cannes makes a killing with the film festival

Abstract: The Cannes film festival is not just about killings made on big-money movie deals sealed over champagne in hotel suites and on luxury yachts. It’s a gold mine too for many locals in the French Riviera town. “For my boss the festival is the goose that lays golden eggs,” said a hotel receptionist called Herve. The proof, he declared, is that a room in his two-star hotel goes “from €40 ($45) a night to €260” as soon as the red carpet is rolled out. It is not the only establishment to rake it in when the population of the town almost triples for the festival. A few minutes away, the price of a room in a rival three-star hotel rockets five times from €71 a night to €350 — without breakfast. “The six rooms that we put aside for the very last minute will be filled very rapidly” at the very top price, said the receptionist at the hotel, which is officially fully booked. Even if the four days in March when MIPIM, the world’s leading property congress, is held in Cannes are more profitable day-for-day for the conference town, the film festival fortnight with its 40,000 accredited movers and shakers is on an entirely different scale. For hotels close to the giant Palais des Festivals, where the red carpet premieres are held, the festival accounts for nearly a sixth of their annual turnover, said the Cannes hoteliers union, UMIH. The festival was worth €197 million to the town in 2017, according to official municipal figures. Even so, hoteliers insist there is still room for improvement. “Everything fills up for the first week of the festival, but the second is more difficult,” said Christine Welter of UMIH. “For several years now people are not staying as long as they did,” she added. She also warned that “the cards are also being reshuffled” by the possible defection of people working with Netflix, whose films are barred from competing in the festival because it refuses to release them in French cinemas. “When suddenly demand falls the market has to adjust,” Welter cautioned, pointing the finger of blame partly at what she regards as the unfair competition of people letting out their homes and apartments. Just as many homes in Cannes are being rented out now as hotel rooms — “6,000 of each,” she revealed. It has become something of a racket, Welter complained, with some people renting out several flats. Airbnb alone claims between 2,500 and 4,000 arrivals a night, peaking with 4,600 this Friday — nearly 10 times the number of Cannes homes it was handling on the Friday before the festival. With that amount of fast money to be made, “some locals don’t think twice about going and sleeping in a campsite along the coast so they can rent their places out for a fortune,” quipped Herve, the hotel receptionist. For the resort’s restaurants — some of whom hike their prices — the festival is also a boon. “May is the biggest month in the year for us: the place is jammed. We can do 5,000 covers in 11 days,” said Pascal Hamard, who runs an Italian restaurant. However, he has noticed a drop-off in recent years, which he blames on people trying to cash in. “You feel some of the clientele have become ultra suspicious and are worried about being ripped off,” the restaurateur added, with taxis and hotels hiking up their rates. “Now people coming to Cannes for the festival are more careful — we can feel that they have been warned by their bosses — and budgets are that much tighter,” Hamard said.


Vietnam culls 1.2 million pigs as African swine fever spreads nationwide

Abstract: HANOI - Vietnam has culled more than 1.2 million farmed pigs infected with African swine fever, the government said Monday, as the virus continues to spread rapidly in the Southeast Asian country. Pork accounts for three-quarters of total meat consumption in Vietnam, a country of 95 million people where most of its 30 million farm-raised pigs are consumed domestically. The virus was first detected in Vietnam in February and has spread to 29 provinces, including Dong Nai, which supplies around 40 percent of the pork consumed in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s southern economic hub. “The risk of the virus spreading further is very high and the evolution of the outbreak is complicated,” the government said in a statement. It said many provinces had failed to detect outbreaks and cull infected pigs properly due to a lack of funds and the space needed for burying the dead pigs. The disease, which is harmless to humans but incurable in pigs, has also spread quickly across neighboring China. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in March advised Vietnam to declare the swine fever outbreak as a national emergency.


In midterm vote, Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte set to gain allies and shut out critics

Abstract: MANILA - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte says he hasn’t lost an election in his three-decade political career. He’s hoping his candidates for the midterm vote on Monday will continue that winning streak as voters assess his three years in office. Even with slowing economic growth and controversial policies including a deadly drug war, the firebrand leader is poised for a majority win in both houses of Congress. Over 18,000 government positions are up for grabs in the midterm elections, including half of the 24-seat Senate and about 300 posts in the House. Polls opened at 6 a.m. local time, with Duterte scheduled to vote in his hometown in Davao City. Tensions were high across the country hours before the election. Late-night explosions were reported in the southern island in Mindanao, where no one was hurt. There were also early reports of glitches in vote machines. Philippine Police Chief General Oscar Albayalde said the police had received a “massive” number of vote buying complaints, CNN Philippines reported. About 230 suspects have been arrested. So far, election-related incidents have dropped 60 percent from 2016 national elections, Albayalde said. As of early Monday, 20 have been killed while 24 were injured. That compares with 106 violent incidents for the same period in 2016. Opinion polls predict Duterte and his allies will dominate the race over a divided opposition. This could speed up policy implementation, including tax reform and his plan to move the country to a federal system of government. But it could also have negative implications for Philippine democracy by removing one of the last checks on Duterte’s power. A big win will help Duterte push his policy priorities in the last three years of his term when leaders typically lose support, said Marthe Hinojales, senior Asia analyst at Verisk Maplecroft. “In the case of a sweeping Duterte-ally win in the Senate, two reforms that we expect to gain ground in legislature are the next phase of reforms — the bill lowering corporate taxes and federalism proposals — which can bring about regulatory uncertainty.” The opposition has remained “disorganized” and “fragmented” since the 2016 presidential elections, said Bridget Welsh, an associate professor at the John Cabot University in Italy. Duterte’s critics from the Liberal Party and leftist groups fielded different Senate bets and campaigned separately. “They are making this election about Duterte and that only reinforces Duterte,” said Welsh, who specializes in Southeast Asian politics. It’s likely Duterte’s opponents will be almost completely shut out in the Senate race, said University of the Philippines political science professor Aries Arugay. “This reflects his ability to control an electoral contest,” Arugay said. “You still have a very formidable incumbent administration.” Pulse Asia’s latest pre-election survey shows only one opposition candidate for the Senate — incumbent Senator Bam Aquino, a cousin of the former president — has a shot at winning. The last time a lone opposition candidate won a midterm Senate seat was in 1967, under the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Duterte has attacked opposition candidates in his campaign speeches — from calling them gay to making fun of their teeth. Despite criticisms against his drug war that has killed thousands and his government’s pursuit of critics including journalist Maria Ressa, Duterte remains widely popular. Latest poll shows his satisfaction rating is back to a record high. Amid reports in local media of vote buying for as low as 20 pesos ($0.40), Duterte told supporters on Friday it’s okay to accept money so they could pay for their transport home after voting. Buying and selling votes is prohibited under Philippine election law. “Those who will be elected in Congress will be the administration’s partners, so it’s better if the winners are the ones endorsed by the President,” Duterte’s spokesman Salvador Panelo said at a briefing before the vote. A majority win for Duterte’s allies in the Senate and House contests may have bigger implications for Philippine democracy, said Lee Morgenbesser, a Southeast Asia expert from Griffith University in Australia. Incumbent senators have investigated Duterte’s drug war, and also blocked controversial measures including his federalism push and his plan to reinstate death penalty. “Since Duterte has seized control of the lower house through pork-barrel politics, stacked the high court with loyalists and launched assaults on media outlets, the Senate is the last real roadblock to him further eroding democracy in the Philippines,” Morgenbesser said. Beyond the midterms, the opposition can capitalize on issues where it can garner public support — particularly Duterte’s closeness with China — if it wants a fighting chance in the 2022 presidential elections, Arugay said. “The territorial dispute with China is an issue that can evolve into Duterte’s waterloo, mainly if he will be painted as favoring foreigners over Filipinos,” Arugay said.

drugs
philippines
elections
rodrigo duterte


Vietnam intensifying crackdown on online dissent, Amnesty report says

Abstract: HANOI - Vietnam has stepped up its imprisonment of political activists, Amnesty International said in a report Monday, intensifying a crackdown that has seen the number of prisoners of conscience increase by almost a third since last year. Nearly 10 percent of the 128 prisoners held in the Southeast Asian country for expressing dissenting views were jailed for posting anti-state comments on social media platforms such as Facebook, the report said. Amnesty defines prisoners of conscience as people who have not used or advocated violence but have been imprisoned because of their identity or beliefs. “In the past year, the Vietnamese authorities have made a clear effort to clamp down on social media,” Nguyen Truong Son, Amnesty’s Vietnam campaigner, said. “They have realized that Facebook was one of the last safe spaces where people could peacefully speak their mind, spread news, hold debates — everything the authorities are afraid of,” Son said. Despite presiding over sweeping reforms and an increasingly market-oriented economy, the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam tolerates little criticism. The Amnesty report called on United States representatives to raise the issue during a human rights meeting with their Vietnamese counterparts later this week. The crackdown follows the introduction of a cybersecurity law, which came into effect this January and requires companies to set up local offices and store data in the country. Global technology firms and rights groups have pushed back against the law, and some company officials have privately expressed concerns that the legislation could make it easier for authorities to seize customer data and expose their Vietnamese employees to arrest. Vietnam in January accused Facebook, which is widely used in the country and serves as the main platform for dissent, of violating the law by allowing users to post anti-government comments. “We’ve seen a surge in people jailed in relation to Facebook activity, something the new cybersecurity law will only aggravate,” said Son. A Facebook spokeswoman declined to comment on the report, and Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Following the jailing of human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai in April last year, a ministry spokeswoman said there was no such thing as a prisoner of conscience in Vietnam. A court in southern Vietnam on Friday sentenced two Vietnamese women to five and six years in prison, respectively, for downloading and disseminating anti-state content they found on Facebook, state media reported.

vietnam
censorship
rights
social media
amnesty international


Indigenous Australians to challenge government at U.N. over climate change as human rights violation

Abstract: SYDNEY - Indigenous residents of low-lying islands off northern Australia will submit a landmark complaint with the United Nations on Monday accusing the government of violating their human rights by failing to tackle climate change. The Torres Strait Islanders will tell the U.N. Human Rights Committee in Geneva that rising seas caused by global warming are threatening their homelands and culture, lawyers representing the group said. The lawyers, from the non-profit ClientEarth, said the case was the first of its kind to be lodged with the U.N. equating government inaction on climate change to a human rights violation. In their complaint, the islanders will ask the U.N. to find that international human rights law requires Australia to reduce its emissions to at least 65 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The country should become carbon neutral by 2050, phasing out its use and export of coal completely, they say. The complaint also demands the government allocate 20 million Australian dollars ($14 million) for emergency infrastructure like sea walls to protect Torres Strait communities. “Advancing seas are already threatening homes, as well as damaging burial grounds and sacred cultural sites,” the claimants said in a statement. “Many Islanders are worried that their islands could quite literally disappear in their lifetimes without urgent action.” Kabay Tamu of Warraber island said that his community had a “right to practice our culture in our traditional homeland.” “Our culture starts here on the land. It is how we are connected with the land and the sea. You wash away the land and it is like a piece of us you are taking away,” he said in a statement. The complaint is being lodged just days before Australian elections in which Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative government trails in opinion polls. Climate change has been a key campaign issue, with Morrison’s government accused of dragging its feet on emission reduction efforts while backing the expansion of coal mining. John Knox, a law professor at Wake Forest University in the U.S. and a former U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights, called the Torres Islanders claim “potentially groundbreaking.” Late last year the U.N. committee determined that a states’ duty to safeguard human rights also meant protection against environmental harm, including climate change, Knox wrote on Twitter. “This case gives the Human Rights Committee its first chance to give specific application” to that determination “by assessing and explaining what Australia should do to protect the human rights of the Torres Strait islanders,” he said. While the U.N. committee’s rulings are non-binding, “its decision may increase pressure on Australia to do the right thing,” he said.

australia
u.n .
climate change
environment
indigenous people
torres strait islanders


All safe as Myanmar jetliner lands after nose gear fails to deploy

Abstract: YANGON - A Myanmar pilot saved the day after his aircraft’s landing gear failed, safely putting the jet on the runway with no front wheels on Sunday, an official said. The nail-biting touchdown — in which no one was hurt — was the second instance of a malfunctioning flight in less than a week within the country. Myanmar Airlines flight UB-103 — an Embraer-190 model — touched the ground at around 9:00 a.m. in Mandalay (0230 GMT), a city popular among foreign tourists. The plane carried 82 passengers and a crew of seven. An unverified video circulated on social media showed a graceful landing before the plane’s nose dipped gradually to the runway, and the craft slowly ground to a halt. Ye Htut Aung, deputy director general of Myanmar’s Civil Aviation Department, told AFP the pilot tried repeatedly to deploy the front landing gear — first through its computer system, then manually. “They tried hard twice by flying around twice and asked to check whether the nose wheel dropped or not,” Ye Htut Aung said, calling it a “technical fault. “So they had to land with the back wheels … The pilot could land it skillfully,” he said. “There were no casualties.” Ye Htut Aung said engineers sent by Myanmar National Airlines would examine the aircraft, adding that all jets get a daily flight check. For its part, Embraer said in a statement that it was “offering its full cooperation to the aviation authorities in order to aid in the investigation. Passenger Soe Moe told AFP: “Smoke came out a little when we landed. … All passengers are okay.” Sunday’s incident came just four days after a Biman Bangladesh Airlines plane skidded off a runway while landing at Yangon airport in a storm, injuring 11 passengers. Myanmar’s monsoon season has caused problems for commercial and military flights in the past. A military plane crashed into the Andaman Sea in 2017, killing all 122 people on board in one of the deadliest aviation accidents in the country’s history. Authorities blamed bad weather. And in 2015, an Air Bagan passenger plane veered off the runway amid bad weather and heavy rain. A passenger and a person on the ground were killed.

airlines
aviation
yangon
embraer
air accidents
myanmar airlines


Sri Lanka blocks social media platforms after attacks on mosques and Muslim-owned shops

Abstract: COLOMBO - Sri Lanka is temporarily blocking some social media networks and messaging apps, including Facebook and WhatsApp, it said Monday following attacks on mosques and Muslim-owned businesses in the worst unrest since Easter bombings by Islamist militants. Several dozen people threw stones at mosques and Muslim-owned stores, and a man was beaten in the Christian-majority town of Chilaw on the west coast on Sunday in a dispute that started on Facebook, sources said. Authorities said they arrested the author of a Facebook post, identified as 38-year-old Abdul Hameed Mohamed Hasmar, whose online comment “1 day u will cry” people said was interpreted as threatening violence. Later on Sunday and early on Monday authorities arrested a group of men in the nearby Kurunegala district for allegedly attacking Muslim-owned businesses, a police source said. Military spokesman Sumith Atapattu said people in the mostly Buddhist district then demanded the arrested men’s release. “To control the situation, a police curfew was imposed during the night,” Atapattu said. Several mosques and Muslim homes were damaged in the attack in the district, the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka said, but the precise extent of damage and the number of arrests was not immediately clear. The flare-up is the worst violence in the three weeks since Sri Lankan Islamist bombers blew themselves up in four hotels and three churches, killing more than 250 people. Since then, Muslim groups say they have received dozens of complaints about people being harassed. Other communities say they fear the government, which failed to act on successive warnings about looming Islamist attacks, has not caught all potential militants. Sri Lanka has used temporary bans on social media in a bid to deter misinformation and rumors. “Social media blocked again as a temporary measure to maintain peace in the country,” Nalaka Kaluwewa, director general of the government information department, said on Monday. On Twitter, Sri Lanka’s leading mobile phone operator Dialog said it had also received instructions to block the apps Viber, IMO, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube until further notice. A violent clash between Muslims and Christians erupted a week ago in Negombo, killing more than 100 people during Easter prayers, after a traffic dispute. The government also imposed a ban on social media after that clash.

violence
terrorism
sri lanka
social media
facebook
sri lanka attacks


Vietnam seizes half ton of ketamine in crackdown on synthetic drugs

Abstract: HANOI - Vietnamese police have seized half a ton of ketamine worth $21 million in Ho Chi Minh City, a key transit hub that has seen record busts of synthetic drugs in recent weeks as narcotics gangs use its ports and air links to shuttle drugs across the region. Three Taiwanese citizens and one Chinese man were arrested in the weekend bust at a warehouse in the southern city, according to state-run Thanh Nien newspaper on Monday. More than 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of ketamine was found stashed in industrial-grade machinery, in an operation carried out after months of surveillance. The ketamine was brought in overland to Vietnam and was destined for Taiwan, Thanh Nien reported. State media said the cartel leader had received overland shipments from China, but the police would not confirm where the ketamine originated. “The luxury drug is five times more expensive than other synthetics and is often consumed by the rich,” Maj. Gen. Pham Van Cac was quoted as saying. The bust follows several other massive hauls in recent weeks of drugs believed to have been shuttled into the country from neighboring Laos. Police seized more than one ton of highly addictive crystal meth — or “ice” — and around one ton of ketamine in Ho Chi Minh City last month, arresting two Taiwanese and one Vietnamese man in the sting. Earlier in the month a separate bust of 1.5 tons of meth was discovered in central Nghe An province. From meth cooks to traffickers, Taiwanese have long been active in Southeast Asia’s narco trade, shifting drugs — many from the lawless Golden Triangle region straddling Myanmar, Laos and Thailand — across the region and beyond. Vietnamese police have said Ho Chi Minh City is increasingly becoming a hub for drug gangs as transport infrastructure has improved in recent years. Synthetic drug use is on the rise in Vietnam, especially among hard-partying youth increasingly turning to meth, ecstasy and ketamine. Seven people died at a music festival in Hanoi last year of suspected overdoses, which sent shock waves through the conservative communist capital. The one-party state has some of the toughest drug laws in the world. Anyone caught with more than 600 grams (21 ounces) of heroin or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine can face the death penalty. Six people are currently on trial in Ho Chi Minh City for producing 120 kilograms of ecstasy pills, and last week prosecutors requested they be sentenced to death.


South Korean students flock to Japan as birthrate sinks and unemployment climbs

Abstract: More and more highly educated young people from South Korea, which like Japan has a rapidly graying population and needs more foreign labor for its economy, are coming to Japan because it’s difficult to find work at home. Amid high youth unemployment driven by hiring cutbacks at industrial conglomerates, South Korea has become a new source of foreign workers for Japan. In mid-April, some 40 South Korean job seekers signed up for interviews at a job fair in Nagoya’s Nakamura Ward where 17 Japanese firms in the high-tech, manufacturing and retail industries were looking for prospects. “I’m attracted to Japan’s recruitment culture,” said a 24-year-old senior at a private university in Seoul. Speaking fluent Japanese, he said he learned the language himself and attended a Japanese job fair in Seoul when he was a sophomore. While South Korean companies tend to focus on qualifications and language proficiency, he felt Japanese companies seemed to hire job seekers based on their potential and personality. The student also said he was attracted to the corporate training system in Japan. To increase his prospects, he holds regular Japanese study sessions with other students hoping to work in Japan to improve his language skills. “I want to work in a Japanese tech company and develop my skills,” he said. The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), which organized the event, started supporting students looking to work abroad in 2014 as part of the government’s policy for coping with rising joblessness among youth. The agency helped 2,653 Koreans obtain jobs in a five-year period until 2018, and 817 — roughly 30 percent — were hired in Japan. That’s the highest ratio among all countries and is continuing to climb, the agency said. Although diplomatic relations between the two nations are chilly, many attendants at the Nagoya fair said Japan is popular because of its pop culture, particularly movies and anime, and its geographical proximity. According to Statistics Korea, the national statistics office, the unemployment rate last year for people aged between 15 and 29 was 9.5 percent, compared with 3.8 percent overall and 3.6 percent for Japanese 15 to 24. Most South Koreans in difficulty are university graduates. In South Korea, many graduates aspire to land jobs in big companies, given the large wage gap between the industrial conglomerates known as chaebol , and small firms. However, many major firms are scaling back on new hires and shifting to outsourcing or nonregular workers to strengthen their global competitiveness. At the same time, South Korea’s fertility rate — the average number of children a woman is estimated to give birth to in her lifetime — has dropped to a historic low. Last year, it dipped to 0.98 for the first time on record, according to Statistics Korea. That’s lower than the 1.43 Japan logged in 2017. The low birthrate is leading to severe labor shortages in such sectors as manufacturing and agriculture, prompting the country to welcome more foreign workers. “The root cause of the problem lies in employment mismatch,” said Yuichi Takayasu, a professor at Daito Bunka University and an expert on South Korea’s economy. “The policies of President Moon Jae-in’s administration to create jobs have not proven successful, and the rising unemployment rate is showing no signs of stopping.” In the meantime, more Japanese companies aiming to do business abroad are eager to hire South Korean students. “They have gone through fierce competition since their childhood to enter schools and they have high language skills in general,” said an official in charge of recruitment at a staffing agency in Nagoya. KOTRA notes South Korean students have high skills not only in Japanese, but also in English. Among those who hope to work in Japan and take the widely used Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), over half score 805 or more, which is high, the agency said. Some companies point out that South Korean students also fit in with Japan’s corporate culture. “They have experienced military service and are disciplined,” said an official at a manufacturer in Aichi Prefecture. “They are good to work with, because they respect their superiors and are diligent.”

nagoya
employment
south korea
recruitment
students


Japan health ministry issues alert about libido-enhancing and slimming products on foreign websites

Abstract: Most of the so-called supplements for sexual enhancement or slimming sold on overseas websites for Japanese consumers contain medical substances that may damage the user’s health, according to tests performed in a recent study by the health ministry. The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said that although no actual damage to buyers’ health has been reported so far, it is warning of possible risks from such products the quality and safety of which have not been confirmed by Japanese authorities or, probably, those of the countries where they are produced. The ministry has been requesting that the operators of the websites delete listings for various items from their product inventories, while calling on people who have already bought them to stop taking them immediately. It detected pharmaceutical ingredients in 78 out of 102 libido-enhancing products. Among them was a product that contained 96 milligrams of tadalafil, a drug often used in medications for the treatment of erectile dysfunction, at more than four times the maximum limit of 20 milligrams set for domestically approved products. Using the product could cause severe health problems, according to the ministry. Twelve items out of 49 products publicized as supplements for slimmers were found to contain substances including sibutramine, a substance that is not authorized for use in Japan that can bring about adverse reactions such as elevated blood pressure and headaches, the ministry said. To carry out the study, the ministry actually bought the 151 supplement products online in 2017 and analyzed them at the National Institute of Health Sciences. The ministry also purchased 25 foreign-made medicines. During an analysis of them, it discovered that for one medication, sold and packaged as Cialis, the label listed only tadalafil as an ingredient but the pills in the package also contained a different drug — sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra — as well. The ministry has conducted this kind of study annually since fiscal 2011.


U.S. removes Japan from blacklist of countries not complying with Hague Convention on child abduction, but 'remains highly concerned'

Abstract: WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of State has removed Japan from its list of countries said to be showing a pattern of noncompliance with the so-called Hague Convention on cross-border parental child abduction. In an annual report released last week, the department noted Japan’s legislative efforts to better enforce the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which Japan joined in 2014. But the department “remains highly concerned about both the lack of effective mechanisms for the enforcement of Convention orders and the sizable number of pre-Convention abduction cases,” the report said. “Japan’s Justice Ministry has acknowledged the urgency of returning abducted children safely and promptly and has initiated an effort to revise Japanese laws to improve execution of ordered returns of abducted children,” the report added. Last year, Japan was listed as a noncompliant country for the first time since joining the convention. On Friday, Japan’s House of Councilors passed into law a bill to revise the civil execution law in order to clarify enforcement rules for handovers of children between divorced parents. Before the revision, the civil implementation law had no clear stipulation regarding child custody handovers. Court officials had to rely on a clause related to asset seizures to enforce court orders — a tactic that was criticized for treating children as property. The legislation originally required a parent living with a child to be present when the child was handed over to the other parent. With the revision, however, the law allows custody transfers to take place in the presence of just one parent, rather than both. The revision removes this requirement to prevent parents without custody rights from thwarting child handovers by pretending they are not at home. In consideration of the children’s feelings, the revision requires in principle that parents with custody rights be present during handovers. The amended law urges courts and enforcement officials to make sure handovers do not adversely affect children’s mental or physical well-being. The new rules will take effect within one year of promulgation. U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, criticized the removal of Japan from the list. In a statement Friday, Smith said, “It cannot be denied that the Japanese government has done little to help reunite those American children who have been separated from their left-behind parents.”

children
hague convention
kidnapping
rights
u.s.-japan relations


China's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, to visit Japan starting Thursday

Abstract: BEIJING - China’s top diplomat will start a three-day visit to Japan on Thursday that will include a meeting with national security adviser Shotaro Yachi, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Monday. Yang Jiechi is likely to work out details of President Xi Jinping’s planned visit to Japan for this year’s summit of the Group of 20 major economies in Osaka on June 28 and 29, sources said last week. Yang, a member of the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, is likely to meet with Yachi, a close Abe aide, on Thursday and with Abe the next day, according to the sources. A visit to Japan by Xi would be his first since he came to power in 2013 and the first by a Chinese head of state since Hu Jintao in November 2010. Tokyo is making efforts to invite Xi to visit Japan again, as a state guest, after the G20 summit. Yachi and Yang are also expected to discuss future exchanges of visits by the two countries’ top leaders. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to visit China as early as this year for a trilateral summit with the Chinese and South Korean leaders. Japan and China have been mired in a territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. The group of uninhabited islets, which are called Diaoyu in Chinese, are controlled by Japan but claimed by China. But ties have been improving recently, with the 40th anniversary last year of the signing and entering into force of the bilateral Treaty of Peace and Friendship serving as an incentive to forge better relations.

china
shinzo abe
osaka
g20
xi jinping
yang jiechi
summits


Turtle-shell divination conducted at Imperial Palace in Tokyo ahead of key succession rite

Abstract: An imperial divination rite using turtle shells was held Monday to prepare for the most important ceremony to be performed by Emperor Naruhito upon his enthronement. In the Saiden Tentei no Gi ritual at the Imperial Palace, diviners observed the cracks that appeared when turtle shells were heated in order to select two prefectures — Tochigi and Kyoto — that will supply crops for the upcoming Daijosai offering ceremony in mid-November. The Daijosai is performed by a new emperor only once during his reign. The emperor will offer newly harvested rice to his imperial ancestors and the deities of heaven and earth, while also eating the rice himself, as well as praying for peace and abundant harvests for the country and its people. “We are very surprised, but it is an honor that Tochigi rice has been chosen,” an official from the prefecture said. The Imperial Household Agency said it had prepared the carapaces of three green sea turtles from the Ogasawara island chain in the Pacific, about 1,000 kilometers south of Tokyo, to create eight pieces for the divination rite — held for the first time in 29 years. While the international trade of green turtles is banned under the Washington Convention, shells of the animals captured with special permission from the Ogasawara island chain were used in the ceremony, according to the agency. The shells were shaped to measure 24 centimeters in length and 15 cm in width, with a thickness of 1 millimeter. Japanese bird cherry is customarily used as firewood in the rite. Other details of the ceremony, including how the cracks are assessed, are kept a secret. The imperial household is said to have used turtle-shell divination, originally from China, more often in the past, for purposes such as deciding the dates of other imperial rites. But currently it is only used to designate the two prefectures that will provide rice for the Daijosai ceremony, according to the agency. With the artisans who worked on preparing the turtle shells in the wake of the previous era change having either passed away or retired, the role went to Tokyo-based shell craftsman Takao Morita. “I had to learn through trial and error as it was my first time (making them),” the 68-year-old said. Morita received a request from the agency around March last year, after Emperor Emeritus Akihito, then emperor, indicated his desire to step down in a rare televised video message citing concern he might not be able to fulfill his official duties due to his advanced age. Emperor Emeritus Akihito, 85, became the first Japanese monarch to abdicate in 202 years, giving way for his elder son Emperor Naruhito to succeed the Chrysanthemum Throne on May 1 this year. Morita said he usually handles the shells of hawksbill turtles, which are about 40 cm in size, to manufacture glasses frames and decorative items. But the carapaces delivered to him from the agency were 1 meter long. It was also his first time processing the bones underneath the shells, rather than the surface of the shells to which he is accustomed. “It differed from my usual work, but I thought I could do it,” Morita said. With the agency not giving any specific instructions, he looked through old documents to research the shells. He crafted the bones into elongated pentagons and carefully shaved the pieces with a machine, creating a number of prototypes. With Morita having to work on the special order at the same time as his usual business, he only fully began processing the shells from this year. He managed to deliver the final pieces to the agency in April amid a growing celebratory mood for the era change, but said he did not feel nervous undertaking the task. “I worked carefully with each individual piece,” the craftsman said. “Although it was the same day-to-day operation, I felt a weight left my shoulders after they were delivered.” The previous Saiden Tentei no Gi was held in 1990 after Emperor Emeritus Akihito was enthroned the year before. Akita and Oita prefectures were selected on that occasion. Imperial rites are generally funded by the imperial family themselves. But the expenses linked to the turtle shells as well as payments for the rice to be harvested are covered by taxpayers as court expenses because they are part of a series of imperial succession events. Some have questioned the significance of the fortune-telling tradition. “No one in this modern day believes that it can really determine (the prefectures),” wrote the late Shinobu Kobayashi, who served as a chamberlain for Emperor Hirohito, in his diary. Emperor Hirohito is known posthumously as Emperor Showa. But Kobayashi also wrote that carrying out the traditional rite has a meaning in itself.

royalty
rice
imperial family
abdication
turtles
daijosai
reiwa
emperor naruhito
saiden tentei no gi


U.N. panel in Kyoto agrees new guidelines to more accurately measure greenhouse gas emissions

Abstract: A U.N. panel on climate change announced Monday in Kyoto that it has agreed on updated guidelines to more accurately measure countries’ greenhouse gas emissions, including ways to calculate emissions resulting from hydrogen production. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change adopted a new methodology report following a five-day general assembly meeting that ended Sunday in the Japanese city, ahead of the full commencement of the Paris Agreement next year. The report, which updates a previous one compiled in 2006, shows ways to calculate emissions from the production of hydrogen used in fuel cells and other products as well as those resulting from coal mining and natural gas drilling. It also enables countries to estimate more precisely the emissions associated with landfill disposal and drainage treatment. The guidelines will be introduced once they are approved at a climate change conference later this year. The meeting was the second time Japan has hosted a gathering of the IPCC general assembly. The Paris climate agreement, which went into force in 2016 as a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, aims to keep an increase in average world temperatures to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels to limit the occurrence of droughts, floods, melting glaciers, rising sea levels and other adverse effects of global warming. Countries submit their own plans for nationally determined climate actions under the agreement, and have an obligation to implement those plans.

kyoto
u.n .
emissions
climate change
ipcc


Tepco tests halting water injection into crippled reactor at Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant

Abstract: FUKUSHIMA - The operator of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant conducted a test Monday temporarily halting the water being injected into one of the reactors that suffered a core meltdown in the wake of the 2011 accident. Through the test, which was the first of its kind, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. plans to obtain data on how the temperature inside the No. 2 reactor could rise in the event of an emergency, and use that information to update its planned response. More than eight years since the start of what has become one of the world’s worst nuclear crises, Tepco continues to pour water into the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors in order to keep the melted fuel debris inside them cool. At 10:40 a.m. Monday, Tepco completely halted the water injection into the No. 2 unit, which usually receives around 3 tons of coolant per hour. The temperature at the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel, a container that is supposed to hold the fuel, stood at about 24.5 degrees Celsius. Tepco expected the reading to rise by up to 4 C following the seven-hour test. Hit by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami on March 11, 2011, the Fukushima nuclear complex lost nearly all its power sources and, consequently, the ability to cool the reactors and spent fuel pools at the Nos. 1 to 4 units. The condition of the reactors is now kept relatively stable through recovery efforts, but a massive amount of contaminated water has accumulated at the plant as a result.

fukushima no . 1
radiation
tepco
nuclear energy


Classes resume at Prince Hisahito's school following knife incident

Abstract: Classes at Prince Hisahito’s junior high school in Tokyo resumed Monday, with the 12-year-old prince attending as usual, following an incident late last month during which an intruder left knives on his desk. Ochanomizu University Junior High School suspended classes last week in the wake of the April 26 knife incident, which occurred just before the start of the extended 10-day holiday from April 27 to celebrate the enthronement of the prince’s uncle, then Crown Prince Naruhito, as the new emperor. The prince did not appear to be nervous about going back to school, according to an Imperial Household Agency official. Two knives attached to a stick with duct tape were found on the prince’s desk at the school. Police later arrested Kaoru Hasegawa for allegedly trespassing on the school’s grounds masquerading as a contractor. The school held a parents’ meeting after the incident and apologized for not taking enough security precautions, pledging to strengthen measures to ensure the safety of students, according to people who attended the meeting. Hasegawa is said to have told investigators he is against the imperial system and intended to stab the prince. The imperial succession on May 1 promoted Prince Hisahito to second in line to the Chrysanthemum Throne.


Narita airport saw record number of travelers during Golden Week

Abstract: CHIBA - A record number of people passed through Narita airport near Tokyo during the Golden Week holiday period despite a drop in overseas visitors, the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau said Monday. The number of travelers leaving from Narita airport peaked on April 28 at around 63,000, while those coming back on May 5 reached about 62,000. Both figures were record highs for departures and arrivals since the airport’s opening in 1978. According to the data, the number of Japanese nationals traveling in and out of the airport during the period from April 26 to May 6 reached about 617,000, a 36.7 percent jump from Golden Week a year earlier, while overseas visitors through Narita fell 6.5 percent to about 472,000. A total of over 1 million traveled in and out of the hub, marking an overall 13.9 percent rise. Golden Week this year was extended to 10 days to celebrate the enthronement of Emperor Naruhito. U.S. destinations including Hawaii and Guam proved to be the most popular destination for travelers through Narita during the holiday with approximately 97,000 visiting the country. The next most popular destination was China, with 69,000 flying there, and South Korea, visited by 62,000.


YouTube pranksters made their bed, now they have to lie in it after prosecutors' referral

Abstract: Police referred a group of pranksters to prosecutors on Monday over a stunt in which they placed a bed with a YouTuber on top in the middle of Tokyo’s famed Shibuya scramble crossing as pedestrians used it to cross the intersection. The six men and one woman in their 20s and 30s have admitted to being involved, saying they “wanted to create a fun video that would attract viewers,” police said. In the video, four men rush to place the bed and YouTuber in the middle of the busy crossing just as the lights turn green for pedestrians at around 4:30 p.m. on March 27. A mass of people then stop to take pictures and videos of the YouTuber, a Tokyoite, who pretends to sleep. The men then lift up the bed with the YouTuber still on top and hurry to safety before the light turns red. The video, which was uploaded to the site in late March, was taken by a man and a woman in their 30s at the YouTuber’s request, authorities said. The police were first alerted to the video by viewers who considered the prank to be dangerous. Japan has seen a spate of incidents involving YouTubers causing trouble as they increasingly take more risks in attempts to gain more followers.

tokyo internet shibuya youtube humor police


Four found dead in submerged car off port in Kagoshima Prefecture

Abstract: KAGOSHIMA - Four people were confirmed dead Monday after their bodies were discovered in a submerged car off a port in Kagoshima Prefecture, police said. Two of the victims, a man and a woman, were adults while the other two were believed to be minors, authorities said. The police are working to confirm their identities, they said. The car was found by a fisherman in waters roughly 5 meters deep at around 5:35 a.m. near a port in the city of Akune, on Kagoshima’s southwestern coast, according to the local fisheries cooperative. A number of fishing-related businesses and restaurants operate near the site.


The week ahead for May 14 to May 19

Abstract: Tuesday Finance Ministry to release preliminary balance of payments statistics for March and fiscal 2018. Cabinet Office to release monthly “economy watchers” survey for April. Nissan Motor Co. to release earnings report for fiscal 2018. Still reeling from the arrest of former Chairman Carlos Ghosn for alleged financial misconduct, the automaker likely saw sales and profits decline from the previous year on falling demand in the key U.S. market. It will also release earnings projections for fiscal 2019. Wednesday 47th anniversary of Okinawa’s reversion to Japanese sovereignty from U.S. occupation. While the prefecture has become one of Japan’s most popular tourist destinations, it continues to host the bulk of the U.S. military presence in the country — a source of resentment for many residents. Government to conduct nationwide test of J-Alert, its emergency warning system. Thursday Campaigning to begin for Aomori gubernatorial election. Chiba District Court to open trial of woman charged in abuse-linked death of 10-year-old daughter. Prosecutors believe Nagisa Kurihara allowed her husband to deprive Mia Kurihara of food and sleep for two days and repeatedly doused the girl with cold water before she died at their home in January. The date for her husband’s trial has not yet been set. Bank of Japan to release preliminary corporate goods price index for April. Friday No major events. Saturday 58th NHK Cup International Gymnastics Tournament to be held through Sunday in Tokyo. Kakeru Tanigawa and Mai Murakami are among the favorites going into the competition, which doubles as a qualifier for the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in October. Sunday No major events.


Trump says U.S. farmers will get $15 billion in aid amid China trade war

Abstract: WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump said on Monday that his administration was planning to provide about $15 billion in aid to help U.S. farmers whose products may be targeted with tariffs by China amid a deepening trade war. “We’re going to take the highest year, the biggest purchase that China has ever made with our farmers, which is about $15 billion, and do something reciprocal to our farmers so our farmers can do well,” Trump told reporters at the White House. He did not provide any more details on what kind of an aid package it would be. American farmers, a key constituency of Trump, have been among the hardest hit in the trade war. Soybeans are the most valuable U.S. farm export, and shipments to China dropped to a 16-year low in 2018, while soybean futures prices last week fell this week to 11-year lows. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said on Friday that Trump had asked him to create a plan to help American farmers cope with the heavy impact of the U.S.-China trade war on agriculture. A new aid program would be the second round of assistance for farmers, after the Department of Agriculture’s $12 billion plan last year to compensate for lower prices for farm goods and lost sales stemming from trade disputes with China and other nations. “Out of the billions of dollars that we’re taking (in in tariffs on Chinese imports), a small portion of that will be going to our farmers, because China will be retaliating, probably to a certain extent, against our farmers,” Trump said. On Monday, China said it would impose higher tariffs on a range of U.S. goods, including frozen vegetables and liquefied natural gas, striking back in its trade war with Washington after Trump warned it not to. Last year Beijing imposed tariffs on imports of U.S. agricultural goods, including soybeans, grain sorghum and pork as retribution for U.S. levies. Soybean exports to China have plummeted over 90 percent and sales of U.S. soybeans elsewhere failed to make up for the loss. While farmers have largely remained supportive of Trump, many have called for an imminent end to the trade dispute, which propelled farm debt to the highest levels in decades and worsened credit conditions for the rural economy.

china
u.s .
agriculture
trade
tariffs
donald trump
soybeans
trade war