U.S. patience with Pakistan wearing thin

Abstract: WASHINGTON - As conflict between India and Pakistan escalates to near all-out war, the United States has been thrust into a familiar position of hoping to defuse tensions — but is making no secret it faults Islamabad. U.S. policymakers have grown exasperated with Pakistan for not doing more against Islamist extremists and envision a broad, long-term alliance with an emerging India — a stark flip from the Cold War when Washington sided with Pakistan. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in a statement after calls with his two counterparts, urged restraint from both sides as India and Pakistan shot down each other’s warplanes. But in language that would be carefully parsed, Pompeo described the initial strikes by India as “counterterrorism actions” and urged Pakistan to take “meaningful action against terrorist groups operating on its soil.” India was responding to a Feb. 14 suicide attack in divided Kashmir that killed 40 of its troops. For the first time since 1971, India hit Pakistan in territory beyond Kashmir, the Himalayan region that has triggered two of the rivals’ three full-fledged wars. Asad Majeed Khan, Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, criticized the statement for not reprimanding India — where Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Hindu nationalist base is staunchly anti-Pakistan, faces imminent elections. The statement “is construed and understood as an endorsement of the Indian position and that is what emboldened them even more,” Khan said. President Donald Trump has shown no sympathy for Pakistan, last year cutting $300 million in military aid that had been flowing over logistical assistance to U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Trump — who has championed the U.S. right to act as it pleases — said last week that Pakistan had been “taking very strong advantage of the United States” and voiced understanding that India was planning “something very strong.” Trump said Thursday after the nuclear summit with North Korea in Hanoi that the U.S. was working to defuse the conflict. “They’ve been going at it, and we’ve been involved in trying to have them stop, and we have some reasonably decent news, I think, hopefully, that will be coming to an end,” he told a news conference. Richard Olson, who served as U.S. ambassador to Islamabad from 2012 to 2015, said there was a growing sense among policymakers that militants coming out of Pakistan were “really a fundamental problem.” “Defining the issue in terms of counterterrorism indicates something of a harder line than had been adopted, at least publicly, in the past,” said Olson, now a senior advisor at the U.S. Institute of Peace. But Pompeo placed calls while heading to the summit with North Korea in Hanoi, his statement coming nearly 24 hours after the Indian strikes. And while U.S. military officials maintain strong ties with Pakistani and Indian counterparts, the Trump administration has no confirmed defense secretary, ambassador in Islamabad or assistant secretary of state for South Asia — all positions key in a crisis. Khan, the Pakistani ambassador, nonetheless said there was “no other country better placed than the United States” to play a role owing to its relationships. Pakistan has increasingly relied on China for diplomatic and economic support, but Beijing holds little sway over India. The United States, France and Britain are asking the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on the leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed, the Pakistan-based group that claimed responsibility for the Kashmir attack, although China blocked two earlier attempts. Pakistan banned Jaish-e-Mohammed after a 2001 attack on the Indian parliament triggered an earlier standoff, but the group still operates openly under different names. Pakistan points out that the culprit behind the latest bombing was a local Kashmiri and says it is happy to hold dialogue with India. “Everybody is tired of hearing, essentially, excuses,” said Alyssa Ayres, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia, adding that Pakistan also offered talks rather than action after the bloody 2008 siege of Mumbai. Ayres, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said he United States could take tougher action including revoking Pakistan’s status as a major non-NATO ally or holding up a bailout from the International Monetary Fund, where the cash-strapped country is again seeking help. “I can’t say if Pakistan will respond in the right way. But I do think that we haven’t tried all of the leverage we could,” she said. President Bill Clinton raised the prospect of blocking IMF support to Pakistan when he negotiated an end to the 1999 Kargil crisis, with Pakistan-backed forces withdrawing from incursions in Kashmir. Pakistan also has leverage — Afghanistan, where it is facilitating the Taliban’s negotiations as Trump seeks to end nearly 18 years of war. But Olson, the former ambassador, doubted the United States would switch tack over Afghanistan. “Preventing an escalation of a conflict between nuclear-weapons states will take priority over just about anything else — and it should,” he said.

pakistan
india
kashmir
military
u.s .
nuclear weapons
_analysis


Focus on North Korea's nuclear arsenal obscures threat posed by chemical and biological weapons

Abstract: As U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held their summit in Vietnam, the narrow focus on nuclear weapons obscured a major danger: Kim holds the whip in a three-ring circus of weapons of mass destruction. The other two rings, adjacent and in many ways more frightening, feature chemical weapons and — above all — biological threats. The North Koreans are suspected by U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies of holding substantial amounts of a variety of biological agents including smallpox, botulism, typhoid and anthrax. In 2015, the North Korean media showed Kim touring a biological plant. A former Pentagon official in charge of countering such programs told reporters that North Korean bio-weapons were “advanced, underestimated and highly lethal.” I remember that, as the U.S. military prepared for the Gulf War in the early 1990s, most of us in uniform took a series of a dozen shots we were informed might reduce the effect of anthrax should Iraqi President Saddam Hussein launch a biological weapons attack. These weapons have some advantages over nuclear weapons in terms of spreading terror: They can easily be smuggled across borders, and their use can be very hard to attribute, unlike a nuclear weapon with an obvious origin. The final ring of the WMD circus — chemical weapons — is equally disturbing. In 2017, two North Korean agents allegedly killed Kim’s half-brother at a Malaysian airport using the nerve agent VX. The North Korean military routinely uses simulated chemical weapons in drills and exercises, and could easily incorporate nerve agents into artillery barrages of Seoul from just over the border. South Korean intelligence agencies say the North may have as much as 5,000 tons of chemical agents, possibly including ricin, mustard gas, hydrogen cyanide and the nerve agent tabun. North Korea is one of just three nations that have refused to sign the international Chemical Weapons Convention. Would Kim dare such an attack? There might be some strategic sense. He knows that deploying a nuclear weapon would be signing his own death warrant. But he might be able to create a far more ambiguous situation in which he could consider using some biological or chemical element. And while U.S. and South Korean forces are trained to operate after such an attack, the civilians on the peninsula are essentially undefended — including the families of 28,000 U.S. servicemen stationed there. In preparing for this threat, Washington has considerable work to do. It should start by increasing intelligence collection specifically regarding chemical and biological threats, working in concert with the South Korean allies. At home, there needs to be more research and development of technological counters to known agents. This will require a far higher level of interagency cooperation between the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. American troops need more exercises that simulate operating in the lethal environment of a chemical or biological attack. Above all, the U.S. must bring greater global attention to the threat. This means international pressure on North Korea to sign global agreements banning such weapons; making those weapons part of the agenda alongside nukes in summit negotiations; and pressuring Russia and China to persuade Kim to rid himself of any stockpiles before sanctions can be fully lifted. The chances of Kim quickly surrendering his entire nuclear arsenal are roughly the same as that of Mexico paying for Trump’s beautiful wall. Still, pursuing a diplomatic conclusion — not Trump’s loose talk of “fire and fury” — to the standoff on the Korean Peninsula is the path forward. But the U.S. shouldn’t forget to put other weapons of mass destruction on the table as well.

north korea
biological weapons
kim jong un
nuclear weapons
chemical weapons
military
south korea
north korea nuclear crisis
kim-trump summit


Despite convenience of QR code donations, most worshippers still prefer to offer cash at temples and shrines

Abstract: UTSUNOMIYA, TOCHIGI PREF. - As Japanese businesses slowly move toward adopting cashless payments, some temples and shrines are beginning to follow suit for donations. Yet worshippers are divided by the move by religious institutions, with some still shunning the method, saying they feel it will bring them worse luck. Kaigen Temple in Fukuchiyama, Kyoto Prefecture, last year started to use the smartphone service PayPay to receive offerings. The temple later received a lot of attention after it introduced what it called a “cloud visit” in the busy year-end period. Many Japanese visit temples and shrines at the beginning of the year and throw coins into an offertory box as they give thanks for guidance in the previous year and wish for good luck in the year ahead. The so-called cloud visit enables people to pay a virtual visit to the temple and make monetary offerings through QR codes sent from its top priest via Twitter. “Many people were amused (by the new system) and offered money online,” said Mitsuhiro Shibahara, 39, chief priest of the temple. Such payments amounted to about 10 times more than the cash put into the offertory box, he said. Byodo Temple in Tokushima Prefecture — one of the famed spots on the 88-temple Shikoku Pilgrimage — also introduced a mobile payment service late last year. Several years ago, Atago Shrine in Tokyo’s Minato Ward began accepting offerings via Rakuten Inc.’s Edy during the New Year’s season. But many visitors still feel uncomfortable offering e-money, according to Nikko Futarasan Shrine, a World Heritage site in Tochigi Prefecture. It started accepting offerings through PayPay in early February, but most worshippers still headed for its offertory box, saying the act of throwing coins into it has a special meaning for them. Even Kaigen Temple now receives few e-money offerings: “The upsurge was temporary,” Shibahara said. “Currently, people are talking about its novelty rather than its convenience,” said Yuki Fukumoto, a chief researcher at the NLI Research Institute. “If cashless payments become more common, then e-money offerings will be chosen as the more natural option someday.”


Barrier-free tourism gaining traction in aging Japan

Abstract: Universal tourism, or tourism accessible to all people regardless of age, nationality, disability and other factors that may discourage leisurely travel, is starting to gain wider recognition in graying Japan. SPI (Japan) Inc. arranges universal tours conducted by so-called travel helpers, or people who have nursing-care skills and a basic knowledge of travel-related services. Kozue Miyazawa, 61, one of the company’s travel helpers, assisted an 84-year-old person named Sato on a trip to Katsushika Shibamata Tora-san Museum in Tokyo’s Katsushika Ward in September last year. Sato, who has dementia and lives in a nursing home in Tokyo, began to use SPI’s service three or four times a month about a year ago. Sato’s son pays for the service. After the visit to the museum, Sato, who was in a wheelchair pushed by Miyazawa, went to the banks of the Arakawa River to see the dry riverbed at dusk before eating sashimi and unajū (grilled eel on rice) at a restaurant near Shibamata Station. Miyazawa helped Sato, who uses a gastrostomy tube, eat the dinner. SPI has coordinators who make thorough advance surveys and arrangements for tours, while travel helpers are trained to cope with unexpected incidents during their work. The number of tours has gradually increased since the Tokyo-based company launched the service in 1995, totaling some 450 in 2018, it said. Assisted tours have increased at a slow pace in Japan because people in need of assistance often think that they should not go out “causing someone trouble,” said Kyoichi Shinozuka, SPI’s chief executive officer. But “we are happy to see them fresh and sparkling” when they get back from the tours, Shinozuka said. The number of people aged 65 or older in Japan is expected to reach 37.16 million in 2030 and peak at 39.35 million in 2042, according to the National Institute of Population and Social Research. The group is forecast to account for 33.3 percent of the nation’s population in 2036. A law aimed at eliminating discrimination against people with disabilities took effect in 2016. Against the backdrop of aging demographics, demand for universal tourism is expected to increase. In 2017, the government announced the Universal Design 2020 Action Plan to promote the creation of barrier-free train stations and other facilities. Last year the Japan Tourism Agency prepared a manual for “barrier-free mindset” education to help workers at hotels and other tourism facilities eliminate discrimination and prejudice against people with disabilities and the elderly, and to be friendlier to them. Stressing the importance of a barrier-free mentality, Hiroyuki Murata, a specially appointed professor at the Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer of Tohoku University, said, “Japan is moving forward in terms of hardware but lagging in awareness and consciousness.” To foster such a mindset, grassroots efforts are necessary, said Hozumi Tanaka of ANA Sales Co., which is promoting universal tourism.

barrier-free
universal tourism
disability
elderaly


Japan plans event to showcase cultural appeal for Olympics visitors

Abstract: With the eyes of the world set to be on the country when it hosts the Olympics and Paralympics in 2020, the government is spearheading a plan to launch Japan Exposition — a plethora of exhibits and public performances throughout the nation showcasing Japanese culture. The government is hoping it will persuade tourists to travel throughout the country, and that foreign interest in Japan will continue even after the Tokyo Games. Preparations for the exposition will be formally launched Sunday, a year before its planned opening, with a ceremony at the National Theatre in Tokyo. Total costs for the event have yet to be determined, but the government has set aside around ¥3.5 billion for relevant expenses under the initial budget plan for fiscal 2019. The Japan Exposition is part of the government’s plan to promote Japanese culture overseas. It was held in France in 2018 and is also set to be launched in the United States and Southeast Asia in 2019. The government has set up a council headed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to promote the event. The project will be overseen by the Cultural Affairs Agency. Exhibits featuring national treasures and important cultural assets are planned in cities including Tokyo and Kyoto. There will be performances by individuals designated by the country as “living national treasures” in the traditional arts of kabuki, noh and kyogen. The exhibition will showcase manga and anime that are popular overseas, Japanese cuisine, and performing folk art from areas devastated by the massive Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011. National monuments currently undergoing renovations will also be accessible, enabling visitors to see the craftsmen’s skills. The government will also promote national parks in an effort to foster tourists’ curiosity about rural areas of the country.

japan exposition
shinzo abe
2020 tokyo olympics
cultural events


Transplants of organs from brain dead donors still rare two decades after law went into effect in Japan

Abstract: Some 20 years after the first organ destined for transplant was taken from a person declared brain dead in the country, the number of such donations remains small in Japan. Cases of brain dead patients certified for organ donations have totaled 584 since the first operation under the organ transplant law was carried out on Feb. 28, 1999, two years after the legislation came into force, according to the Japan Organ Transplant Network. But the number of people waiting for organ transplants totaled 13,530 at the end of January. As a result of the backlog, potential recipients, their family members and others are calling for improved efforts to be made to increase the number of donors. “A system is needed to allow people to donate their organs if they wish,” said Michikata Okubo, who heads a nonprofit organization promoting medical transplants. Japan’s first heart transplant was conducted at a hospital in Sapporo in 1968. But the procedure came under criticism due to the manner in which the donating individual was determined to be brain dead, a controversy that slowed the nation’s progress in the transplant field. In the first case of its kind in 1999, a woman in her 40s at a hospital in Kochi was declared brain dead under the new law. Her organs, including the heart and liver, were used for transplants. Despite the ground-breaking procedure, the annual number of organ donors ranged between just three and 13 until the law was revised in 2010, which eased the rules governing the practice. The revised law enabled transplants with the approval of family members even if the wishes of those declared brain dead were unclear. Donations by people under 15 years old were also made possible. The number of donors has since increased, with 32 in 2010 and 76 in 2017, before falling to 68 last year. An opinion poll by the Cabinet Office in 2017 showed the proportion of people who wanted to donate their organs if they died was at 41.9 percent, against 21.6 percent of respondents who said no to the procedure.


Foreign lodgers in Japan hit record 88.59 million in 2018: JTA

Abstract: The estimated number of foreign guests at hotels and other types of accommodations in the country hit a record 88.59 million in 2018, the Japan Tourism Agency said Thursday. The figure surpassed 80 million for the first time as the government steps up efforts to draw foreign visitors for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The pace of increase, however, slowed to 11.2 percent from 14.8 percent the previous year, according to the data. By country and region, China accounted for the largest number of overnight guests at 20.94 million, or 26.5 percent of the total, followed by Taiwan at 11.47 million, or 14.5 percent, and South Korea at 11.26 million, or 14.2 percent. Hong Kong was fourth at 5.94 million and the United States fifth at 5.33 million. Visitors from the top five countries and regions accounted for 70 percent of those who stayed at least one night at Japanese accommodations, the data showed.


Okinawa base referendum could deal nationwide electoral blow to Abe

Abstract: The outcome of a referendum in Okinawa showing that a vast majority of residents oppose the bilateral Futenma air base relocation plan may deal a blow to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government at elections across the country this year. More than 70 percent of voters in the prefecture voted no Sunday to the plan to proceed with landfill work to build the replacement facility for U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma off the Henoko district in Nago. The move would shift all base-related military activities being undertaken in Ginowan, a crowded residential area, to Nago instead. Naoto Nonaka, a professor of comparative politics at Gakushuin University in Tokyo, said the referendum comes at a time when Abe’s administration is in “a serious situation.” Nonaka believes Abe’s government has reached a dead end because of unsuccessful internal and diplomatic policy ventures. Abe, who will become Japan’s longest-serving prime minister in November, is struggling to define his political legacy, including progress on the nation’s first-ever amendment to the pacifist Constitution and his Abenomics policy package for boosting the economy. On diplomacy, he has been focusing his political resources on negotiations to settle the territorial dispute with Russia and sign a postwar peace treaty. But the prospects for success remain murky as President Vladimir Putin refuses to budge. Nonaka pointed out that Abe may be focused primarily on the survival of his administration. On Monday, after Okinawa’s referendum, which was legally nonbinding, Abe said he “sincerely” accepts the anti-U.S. base sentiment shown by the vote and vowed to continue “all-out efforts to alleviate the base-hosting burden” on the people of Okinawa. But Tokyo will proceed with the contentious relocation plan anyway, with Abe saying it “cannot be postponed any further.” The government has underlined the importance of the Japan-U.S. alliance, as compared to the will of Okinawa, and argued the relocation plan is “the only solution” to remove the dangers posed by the Futenma base without undermining the deterrence provided by the bilateral framework. “The local people worked hard in the referendum to urge (the central government) to pause and give thought to the issue again,” Nonaka said, adding that they are demanding a more sufficient explanation. If the Abe administration continues to ignore the will of the Okinawan people as demonstrated by the referendum and advance construction, his Liberal Democratic Party is likely to face an uphill battle in the Lower House by-election to fill Okinawa’s No. 3 constituency on April 21 to replace Denny Tamaki, who resigned as a lawmaker to run for governor last September. That tendency could spread beyond Okinawa and emerge in the quadrennial unified local elections in April and the triennial Upper House election in summer. One source in the government remains bullish about the situation. “Although (the outcome) may stir some sympathies for Okinawa, it will not affect the Cabinet’s approval ratings nationwide,” the source said. But some members of the LDP are concerned their hard-line stance could have a negative impact on the elections, with a middle-ranking lawmaker saying, “I wonder if (the government) could show a more considerate attitude toward Okinawa, at least a little more.” Etsushi Tanifuji, a political science professor at Waseda University, said the referendum was symbolic of the Abe administration’s tendency to bulldoze its policies through without sufficient explanation and consultation. As examples of Abe’s high-handed style, the professor cited controversial laws allowing more foreign workers into Japan and authorizing the opening of casino resorts, both enacted in the Diet last year by the ruling coalition with Komeito. “The referendum could be a turning point for voters across the country to realize again Abe’s politics, hurting the reputation of his administration,” Tanifuji said. The move may reinforce speculation that Abe will dissolve the House of Representatives for a simultaneous double election with the House of Councilors poll, even though the four-year term of the more powerful Lower House lasts until October 2021. If the LDP loses its advantage in the Upper House, Abe will miss his chance to amend the supreme law, one of his long-cherished political goals. Pro-amendment forces now control two-thirds majorities in both houses of the Diet, satisfying the requirement to initiate the process needed for amendment. The proposal must eventually be approved by a simple majority in a national referendum. Since the number of pro-amendment lawmakers remains slightly above the threshold in the 242-seat Upper House, the LDP needs to maintain as many seats as possible. In a high-stakes gambit, Abe may call a Lower House election to catch opposition parties unprepared, Japanese political watchers say. Toru Yoshida, a professor of political science at Hokkaido University, said the referendum could set the stage for opposition parties opposed to the relocation plan to work together in the upcoming polls. But he also noted that it is imperative for the opposition parties to present their counterproposals for the relocation plan instead of merely just opposing it, if they want to win the trust of the voters.

okinawa
elections
relocation
shinzo abe
ldp
u.s. military


Ex-Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker tenders resignation from Diet amid rape allegations

Abstract: A former member of the Liberal Democratic Party on Wednesday tendered his resignation to the Diet over allegations that he raped a woman he was dating in December. Tsuyoshi Tabata, a 46-year-old three-term member in the House of Representatives who had formerly worked at the Bank of Japan, resigned from the LDP last week, but criticism has been growing from both the ruling and opposition parties over the allegation. The woman has filed a criminal complaint against Tabata in Aichi Prefecture, alleging he sexually assaulted her at her home while she was sleeping, investigative sources said. Tabata is also suspected of illegally taking naked photos of the woman with his mobile phone, according to the sources. The weekly magazine Bunshun has announced on its website that it will soon report another allegation of his alleged sexual misconduct. Some third-time lawmakers who were first elected in 2012 when the LDP returned to power have posed a headache for the ruling party by being embroiled in scandals or committing political blunders. Among them is Kensuke Miyazaki, who had vowed to become the first lawmaker in Japan to take paternity leave. He quit the Lower House in 2016 after admitting to having an affair with a woman while his wife, a fellow LDP parliamentarian, was about to give birth.


Cases of money laundering linked to cryptocurrency in Japan up tenfold in 2018

Abstract: Over 7,000 cases of suspected money laundering linked to cryptocurrencies were reported to police in 2018, the National Police Agency said Thursday. The figure jumped more than tenfold from the 669 cases reported in a shorter period between April and December in 2017, when it became mandatory for cryptocurrency exchange operators to report transactions suspected to be linked to the movement of illegally obtained cash. Cryptocurrency can be transferred quickly and largely anonymously, with police saying that in some cases virtual currency was used to pay for illegal drugs or child pornography. Among the 7,096 suspicious transactions, some users with different names and birth dates shared the same ID photo, while others appeared to log into their accounts from overseas even though their listed addresses were in Japan. Including all financial transactions, 417,465 cases of suspected money laundering or other abuse were reported to the police in 2018, up 17,422 from a year earlier. Most of them involved banks and other financial institutions, which made 346,014 reports in total, followed by credit card companies, with 15,114 cases reported. After analyzing the reports, the NPA provided information on 8,259 cases to investigating authorities, up 1,096 from a year earlier. As a result, police handled 1,124 cases, mainly involving fraud. To counter the rising number of suspicious transactions, the NPA plans to train specialists in data analysis as well as test artificial intelligence technology that will be able to detect illegal trades after being taught to recognize patterns related to drug deals and money laundering transactions. Japan has seen large digital currency heists in recent years amid a rise in the number of people purchasing the various currencies. In 2014, ¥48 billion ($433 million) worth of bitcoin was stolen from the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox. In January last year about ¥58 billion worth of the digital currency NEM was taken from customers’ accounts at Tokyo-based bourse operator Coincheck Inc. In June, the Financial Services Agency, which regulates cryptocurrencies in Japan, ordered six virtual currency exchange operators to improve internal controls, including taking measures against money laundering.


Two doctors arrested in Tokyo on suspicion of raping woman after giving her drug-laced drink

Abstract: Police on Wednesday arrested two doctors in their 20s on suspicion they raped a woman after giving her a drug-laced alcoholic drink during a party in Tokyo in January. The police detected traces of a sleep-inducing drug in the woman’s body and suspect the men obtained it by exploiting their position as doctors. Masataka Kaneko, a 28-year-old physician at Showa University Hospital in Tokyo, has denied the allegations, telling the police, “I had sex (with the woman) based on mutual consent.” Hisaaki Obayashi, a 26-year-old trainee doctor at an affiliated hospital, denied lacing the woman’s drink with any drug. According to the police, the two men were arrested on suspicion of causing the woman, also in her 20s, to lose consciousness after spiking her drink at a karaoke bar near Meguro Station in Tokyo’s Shinagawa Ward and taking her to Kaneko’s home between around 11 p.m. on Jan. 18 and 5:30 a.m. the next day. Footage from a security camera installed at Kaneko’s condominium showed the two suspects carrying the woman, who was unable to walk on her own, according to the police, who handed the case to prosecutors Thursday. The three and another woman in her 20s had been at a drinking party from around 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 18. The woman notified the police of the alleged assault shortly after it took place, according to the police. Police are also investigating a complaint made by the other woman.

doctors
showa university hospital
sex crimes


Japanese police took action against 40 human traffickers in Japan in 2018; cases decline by 10 from previous year

Abstract: Police took action against 40 people for human trafficking offenses including forced prostitution last year, up by 10 from a year earlier, official data showed Thursday. The 40 suspects included those involved with crime syndicates and in the adult entertainment business. The number of human trafficking cases reported in the National Police Agency data declined by 10 from the previous year to 36. The number of human trafficking victims identified in the cases, mostly young Japanese women, as well as victims from other Asian countries, stood at 25, down 17 from a year earlier amid a crackdown by the government on sexual exploitation, including the coercion of women into performing in pornographic videos. Of the victims, 18 were Japanese nationals, while four were Filipinos and three were Thai. The youngest victim was a 9-year-old girl, whose mother was arrested for alleged crimes related to a video she produced featuring an image of her naked daughter. In a separate case, a company executive was arrested on suspicion of introducing a 19-year-old aspiring fashion model to a production company that forced her to appear in a pornographic video. An NPA official warned potential victims to be wary of being tricked into becoming involved in prostitution, the sex industry, or forced labor, saying some fell victim through social media. Japan’s legal definition of human trafficking is derived from the United Nations, which states that trafficking involves “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion” for the purpose of exploitation.

human trafficking
prostitution
npa
sex industry


Half of Japan's regional banks to back Mizuho Bank's new cashless payment system

Abstract: About half of around 100 regional banks in Japan will introduce a new cashless payment system developed by Mizuho Financial Group Inc. starting in late March, sources close to the matter said Saturday. Mizuho Bank will launch the J-Coin service on March 1, with the regional banks following suit from March 25, they said. The plan to join the Tokyo-based mega-bank’s J-Coin initiative comes at a time the government is pushing to expand the use of cashless payments ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Japan’s aim is to double digital payments so they account for 40 percent of all financial transactions by 2025. J-Coin transactions will be processed through a smartphone app using either a “Quick Response” two-dimensional barcode, a telephone number or the Line messaging app’s personal number for identification. Unlike prepaid smart cards, which are currently more popular in Japan, the J-Coin service allows transactions between individuals and does not require retailers to install dedicated readers. Since Mizuho plans to join hands with major providers of cashless payment services mainly in Asia, such as China’s Alipay, J-Coin could be an attractive alternative for rapidly increasing foreign visitors as cash continues to be the most frequently used form of payment by consumers in the country. The new service will initially be offered to individuals holding accounts at regional banks, such as Chiba Bank and Nishi-Nippon City Bank, according to the sources. Appliance retailers such as Bic Camera Inc. and Yamada Denki Co. will start adopting the J-Coin system in April, with other firms like East Japan Railway Co., convenience store chain FamilyMart Co. and restaurant operator Royal Holdings Co. considering joining as well. The Mizuho group hopes to increase the number of companies adopting the service by requiring them to pay lower fees than credit card services. Hoping to accelerate the use of cashless payments and help cushion the expected impact of the upcoming tax hike this year, the government will give consumers using cashless methods rebates of 2 percent on purchases made at convenience stores, or 5 percent at other small or midsize stores, for nine months after the consumption tax is raised from 8 percent to 10 percent in October.

banks
cashless payment
j-coin
tourism
mizuho financial group inc .


U.S. President Trump receives update on China trade talks

Abstract: PALM BEACH, FLORIDA - U.S. President Donald Trump received an update on trade talks with China on Saturday at his Florida retreat after discussions in Beijing saw progress ahead of a March 1 deadline for reaching a deal. Trump, at his Mar-a-Lago club, was briefed in person by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and trade expert Peter Navarro, said White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, economic adviser Larry Kudlow and other aides joined by phone. The White House offered no additional details. Both the United States and China reported progress in five days of negotiations in Beijing this week but the White House said much work remains to be done to force changes in Chinese trade behavior. Shortly after the meeting with his trade team, Trump said on Twitter the talks in Beijing were “very productive.” At a White House news conference on Friday, he said the talks with China were “very complicated” and that he might extend the March 1 deadline and keep tariffs on Chinese goods from rising. U.S. duties on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports are set to rise from 10 percent to 25 percent if no deal is reached by March 1 to address U.S. demands that China curb forced technology transfers and better enforce intellectual property rights. China’s vice premier and chief trade negotiator, Liu He, and Lighthizer are to lead the next round of talks this coming week in Washington.


Japanese firms buying back shares at a record pace

Abstract: Publicly traded firms’ purchases of their own shares are expected to hit a record in fiscal 2018, which ends next month, as they are increasingly focusing on the interests of shareholders. Planned share buybacks for fiscal 2018 as of Sunday came to ¥6.7 trillion, about 50 percent more than the previous year’s total, according to I-N Information Systems Ltd. The total is about ¥260 billion more than the previous record set in fiscal 2015, the financial data firm said. Such buybacks boost returns on equity, a measure closely watched by investors, and improve the per share value of stocks by reducing the number of outstanding shares. The efforts to increase returns to shareholders also come as the government is stepping up its campaign to have firms strengthen governance. SoftBank Group Corp. announced plans Feb. 6 to buy back ¥600 billion worth of its own shares. The measure comes as the company’s shares are heavily undervalued, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son said. On Feb. 8, Sony Corp. announced plans to acquire ¥100 billion worth of its shares. Both SoftBank Group and Sony shares have since risen sharply. “Companies have more resources to spend on share buybacks after cutting back on capital expenditures, worried about the uncertain outlook for the global economy amid a U.S.-China trade fight,” Daiwa Securities Co. equity strategist Kazuhiro Takahashi said. “Share buybacks are expected to spread further as companies are stepping up efforts to increase returns to shareholders,” Takahashi said.

shareholders
stocks
investments
softbank group . sony


Nissan governance committee to propose limits on chairman post

Abstract: Nissan Motor Co.’s third-party governance committee will propose reducing the power of the chairman post following the dismissal of Carlos Ghosn, who exercised strong influence over the alliance with Renault SA, sources said Sunday. The committee was set up after the arrest of Ghosn, who is awaiting trial for alleged financial misconduct, as the current leadership of the Japanese automaker believes that the concentration of power could lead to its abuse. Ghosn served as chairman overseeing the alliance with Renault and Mitsubishi Motors Corp., the third partner in the world’s second-largest auto alliance group, and chaired Nissan’s board. The committee comprising a lawyer, a former business lobby chief and Nissan’s outside directors, will also propose a breakup of the chairman’s role of alliance coordination and Nissan’s management, recommending an outside director chair the board, the sources said. The committee is expected to finalize a report on its recommendations by the end of March for review at a board meeting in April. Nissan is reviewing its organizational structure and selecting key personnel for approval at the regular shareholders meeting in June. Nissan has said it intends to appoint its new chairman based on proposals by the governance committee. Renault, backed by the French government, is seeking to have its chairman Dominique Senard double as Nissan chairman as had been the case with Ghosn. Renault holds a 43.4 percent stake in Nissan with voting rights but the Japanese firm holds only a 15 percent stake in the French company without voting rights. Senard is expected to be appointed to Nissan’s board at an extraordinary shareholders meeting in April. Renault is against Nissan’s attempts to reduce its hold on the alliance, while Nissan is aiming to have a greater say in the alliance.

nissan
carlos ghosn
renault
mitsubishi
mitsubishi motors
dominique senard
carmakers


Nuclear fears haunt leaders with U.S.-Russian arms pact's demise

Abstract: MUNICH - U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of a landmark arms control treaty with Russia is turning the worst fears of a dangerous weapons race into reality. The U.S. and its allies are laying the groundwork to deploy new intermediate-range missiles in Europe for the first time since they were banned in a 1987 treaty, a move that would prompt a tit-for-tat Russian response. With a second nuclear pact likely to expire in two years, the risks of confrontation are growing. Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s top civilian, cited recent Russian deployments and evoked a Cold War-style threat of nuclear destruction at a global conference of security and defense officials this weekend in Munich, the baroque German metropolis that’s one of Europe’s richest cities. “These missiles are mobile, easy to hide and nuclear-capable,” Stoltenberg said. “They can reach European cities, like Munich, with little warning.” As U.S. officials accused Russia of provoking the crisis by violating the accord, German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced a sense of alarm that’s spreading in Europe as the two big powers trade blame. “We’re stuck with the consequences,” she said Saturday. At the same time, “blind rearmament can’t be the answer.” The looming standoff puts Washington and Moscow on a path back to the era of the 1950s and 1960s when the two superpowers were rapidly building up their strategic forces. It risks destroying decades of arms control efforts under which the rivals accepted limits on their arsenals in the wake of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, which took them to the brink of a nuclear clash. “Are we getting closer to the 60s when we had an uncontrolled Cold War?” said Finnish President Sauli Niinisto. “Are we heading to a situation where we must see that it’s the end of diplomacy?” Poland, which already hosts U.S. missile-defense systems that have angered Russia, is seen as a potential site to host the American weapons, along with the ex-Soviet Baltic countries and other neighbors. Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said any missile deployment in his country would be decided “collectively by allies.” If U.S. missiles were stationed right on Russia’s borders, that would be “provocative” and increase the risk of pre-emptive Russian action, warned Steven Pifer, a former State Department official who’s a fellow at Stanford University. The U.S. has defended its move to pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, accusing Russia of breaking the pact by deploying several battalions of SSC-8 intermediate-range missiles. The weapon is believed by Western military experts to have a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles), which Russia denies. INF banned any land-based missiles from Europe with a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometers, whether nuclear or conventional. While the U.S. says it won’t deploy new land-based nuclear weapons in Europe, it’s developing intermediate-range conventional missiles for ground deployment. “We are now talking next steps,” U.S. Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson said. “We’re talking about conventional systems.” The concerns about the potential for an armed build-up in Europe are amplified by the fact that New START, the last such arms control agreement still in place, looks set to expire in 2021. Under New START, which followed from the 1991 START treaty and was signed in 2010, the Russian and U.S. arsenals are restricted to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads on no more than 700 deployed strategic missiles and bombers. Each side can inspect the other’s arsenals 18 times a year. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in Munich that Russia is ready to hold talks on extending New START for another five years, while complaining that the Trump administration is unwilling to have any “meaningful consultations” on the issue. His deputy in charge of arms control, Sergei Ryabkov, warned that the collapse of the treaty “would be another extraordinary shock for the arms control system.” “The most frightening thing is when in the absence of information, the two sides will have to go back to the logic of seeking a military advantage,” said Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the foreign affairs committee of the upper house of Russian parliament. “It means we’ll have to spend vast resources and confront the risk for each other and the entire world of a direct armed clash.” The INF treaty was a response to a regional arms race that began with the Soviet deployment of SS-20 missiles in the European theater in 1977. The U.S. responded by deploying Pershing II missiles with a similar range. At one point, almost 3,000 intermediate-range nuclear weapons were stationed in Europe and it took a decade to end the standoff. With the Iron Curtain gone, the difference is that now the missiles would be deployed in Eastern Europe or in former Soviet republics, closer to key Russian political, military and industrial facilities. The U.S. has proposed replacing the INF with a broader treaty bringing in other military powers, including China. That’s considered unlikely: of China’s 501 land-based missile launchers, 431 would be covered by the INF treaty, so agreeing to a ban on intermediate-range weapons would require destroying 80 percent of this arsenal, according to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. Losing the pact without any replacement would make it impossible for either side to know whether newly deployed missiles are nuclear or conventional, said Francois Heisbourg, a former French diplomat and Defense Ministry adviser. “It means that military planners have to assume the worst, and that is very destabilizing.”

russia
donald trump
weapons
nato
military
inf
nuclear weapons
china
u.s .


Potential privacy lapse found in 2010 U.S. census that could affect over 100 million people

Abstract: WASHINGTON - An internal team at the Census Bureau found that basic personal information collected from more than 100 million Americans during the 2010 head count could be reconstructed from obscured data, but with lots of mistakes, a top agency official disclosed Saturday. The age, gender, location, race and ethnicity for 138 million people were potentially vulnerable. So far, however, only internal hacking teams have discovered such details at possible risk, and no outside groups are known to have grabbed data intended to remain private for 72 years, chief scientist John Abowd told a scientific conference. The Census Bureau is now scrapping its old data shielding technique for a state-of-the-art method that Abowd claimed is far better than Google’s or Apple’s. Some former agency chiefs fear the potential privacy problem will add to the worries that people will avoid answering or lie on the once-every-10-year survey because of the Trump administration’s attempt to add a much-debated citizenship question. The Supreme Court on Friday announced that it would rule on that proposed question, which has been criticized for being political and not properly tested in the field. The census count is hugely important, helping with the allocation of seats in the House of Representatives and distribution of billions of dollars in federal money. The 8 billion pieces of statistics in census data are supposed to jumbled in a way so what is released publicly for research cannot identify individuals for more than seven decades. In 2010, the Census Bureau did this by swapping similar household information from one city to another, according to Duke University statistics professor Jerome Reiter. In the internal tests, Abowd said, officials were able to match of 45 percent of the people who answered the 2010 census with information from public and commercial data sets such as Facebook. But errors in this technique meant that only data for 52 million people would be completely correct — little more than 1-in-6 of the U.S. population. He said the 2010 census used the best possible privacy protection available, but hackers since then have become more skilled in reconstructing data. To counter their growing abilities, the agency has completely changed the system for 2020 and will offer the “gold standard” of privacy regardless of the fate of the citizenship question, Abowd said. People “want to know that statistical tables aren’t going to come back and haunt them,” Abowd said at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting. “I promise the American people they will have the privacy that they deserve.” Georgetown University provost Robert Groves, who headed the 2010 census, said the count had the proper privacy and that every census improves. He lauded the new steps. Former agency chief Kenneth Prewitt, a professor of policy at Columbia University, said the basic information such as age and ethnicity, even if publicly revealed, isn’t as big a deal as other data breaches. “There is a widespread privacy anxiety out there that is very much related to Facebook and Google and so forth,” Prewitt said. “I’m much more worried about the fact that my iPhone follows me around every day.” In a statement, Apple’s Fred Sainz took issue with such privacy concerns: “The iPhone doesn’t follow you around all day long — Apple has no idea where you are nor do we care. And Apple does not sell information to companies.” He noted, however, that consumers can choose apps that know their location. Abowd said “the 2020 census will be the safest and best protected ever. And this is not as easy as it sounds.” The new system involves complex mathematical algorithms that inject “noise” into the data, making it harder to get accurate information and providing “a very strong guarantee” of privacy, said Duke University computer sciences professor Ashwin Machanavajjhala. This increases privacy while lowering the accuracy for researchers who use the statistics. Think of it as one set of knobs being dialed up while a second is dialed down at the same time. The decision on the official privacy/accuracy setting for 2020 hasn’t been set. Abowd said policy officials, not engineers or scientists, will make that call. The Census Bureau tried this system in a 2018 survey using an ultra-strict privacy setting that, while not directly comparable to Google or Apple, is hundreds if not thousands of times more secure for privacy than what’s now being used on data from searches using Google Chrome or Apple’s iPhone, Duke’s Reiter said. Prewitt suggested the public might not understand the extra efforts under way for the 2020 count but would be spooked by the disclosure about the privacy vulnerability, making people more reluctant to comply with the next census. If the administration succeeds in adding the citizenship question, “there will be a huge evasion of it (the census) and some selective misuse of it,” Prewitt said. Whether some avoid the survey because of it or lie, neither is a good outcome, making the data less usable, Prewitt said. Groves said technical experts have serious problems with the citizenship question because it hasn’t been tested in the field, as all census questions usually are. He compared it to putting a new drug on the market before the necessary testing. “Very subtle wording and positional changes in a thing like the Census can have enormous impact way beyond what we as humans can predict,” Groves said


Thousands of Venezuela volunteers begin preparing U.S. aid entry amid blockade

Abstract: CARACAS - Thousands of volunteers in Venezuela will begin mobilizing on Sunday to bring American aid into their crisis-hit country despite a blockade by President Nicolas Maduro, who claims the assistance could be cover for a U.S. invasion. Once-wealthy Venezuela is gripped by a power struggle between socialist leader Maduro and Juan Guaido, the head of the National Assembly who proclaimed himself interim president last month and now has the backing of more than 50 countries. But even as the political battle pitting Guaido against Maduro continued to deepen, Caracas confirmed talks had taken place with an envoy for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration. The oil-rich country’s economic meltdown under Maduro has left millions in poverty facing shortages of medicine and food, with hyperinflation making purchases impossible. U.S. aid that has been piling up in the Colombian border town of Cucuta has become the frontline of the confrontation between Guaido and Maduro. “Venezuela is preparing for the humanitarian avalanche,” Guaido told about 4,000 supporters clad in white T-shirts and green scarves who gathered Saturday to sign up as volunteers. The throng included doctors, nurses and students. Six hundred thousand people have registered to help bring aid in through border points, Guaido told the Caracas rally, asking the volunteers to meet in town councils on Sunday to get instructions about the process. Without revealing details that could jeopardize the operation, Guaido said volunteer brigades will travel in a bus caravan to entry points for the aid which he wants to come in next Saturday. Coromoto Crespo, 58, said he volunteered because of the urgent need for supplies. “To find medicines requires a miracle. I need tablets for high blood pressure, and what I find, I can’t pay for,” Crespo said. “One of my relatives died because of a lack of antibiotics.” Guaido has targeted Feb. 23 for entry of the aid, more of which arrived for the stockpile on Saturday. Three U.S. military cargo planes delivered several dozen more tons of food assistance to Cucuta. Another U.S. aircraft is due in the Caribbean island of Curacao from Miami on Tuesday, and a collection center for Brazilian aid will open Monday on the border, Guaido’s team said. The U.S. shipment Saturday was accompanied by a delegation led by Mark Green, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development. U.S. assistance has been blocked by containers which Maduro loyalists placed on a border bridge to prevent access. On another front, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza confirmed having held two meetings with special U.S. envoy Elliott Abrams. Arreaza, who traveled to New York on Feb. 13, said he held the talks with Abrams at the request of the State Department. He declined to comment on the substance of their discussions. Guaido repeated his call on Venezuela’s military — whose support for Maduro has been crucial — to let the aid pass. “You have, in your hands, the possibility of fighting alongside the people who are suffering the same shortages you are,” Guaido said in a tweet addressed to soldiers. A State Department spokeswoman, Julie Chung, issued a similar plea during a news conference in Cucuta, urging the military to stand aside at a time when Venezuelans are “dying of hunger.” Maduro asserts that aid could be used as a way for the United States to invade. He called for reinforced border security and dismissed the arriving “crumbs” as “rotten and contaminated food.” On Friday Maduro instructed his army to prepare a “special deployment plan” for the 2,200-kilometer (1,370-mile) border with Colombia. He said he would examine “what new forces” might be needed to keep the frontier “inviolable.” Maduro has assailed the U.S. aid as a “show” but Arreaza said he would be willing to meet with “the devil” if it helped ensure Venezuelan sovereignty. About 2.3 million Venezuelans have fled the country since 2015 as the crisis intensified, according to the United Nations. Guaido accuses Maduro of being a “usurper” over his controversial re-election last year in polls widely branded as fraudulent. Maduro, the hand-picked successor to socialist firebrand Hugo Chavez, blames Venezuela’s woes on U.S. sanctions, more of which were added on Friday. He said 6 million families had benefited from subsidized food boxes and he claimed to have bought 933 tons of medicines and medical supplies from China, Cuba and Russia, his main international allies. “We paid for it with our own money because we’re beggars to no one,” Maduro said.

venezuela
nicolas maduro
juan guaido
u.s .
elections


French driver of cash van who zoomed off with €3 million is charged

Abstract: PARIS - The driver of a French cash delivery van who made off with about €3 million ($3.2 million) was charged and remanded in custody on Saturday, prosecutors said. Adrien Derbez, 27, disappeared at the wheel of his armored car Monday morning, leaving two colleagues stranded outside a Western Union office in the northern Paris suburb of Aubervilliers. The Loomis company armored van was found soon afterward a few blocks away with its doors wide open but without the bags of cash. Derbez was arrested on Tuesday in the city of Amiens, some 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Paris, after jumping through a window as police busted into a flat where he was hiding. Le Parisien newspaper reported Thursday police found cash in a car in which an unidentified man and woman had fled the area. But after carefully counting it they realized about half the estimated €3.1 million was still missing. “More than half” the money has still not been recovered, police told AFP. A suspected accomplice, a 29-year-old woman, was also charged and held in custody on Saturday, the prosecutors’ office in Bobigny said.


Trump tells Europe to take back jihadis U.S. captured in Syria

Abstract: WASHINGTON - European nations must take back hundreds of Islamic State group fighters captured in Syria, President Donald Trump said late Saturday, after a delay in announcing what he said would be the end of the “caliphate.” Trump shocked allies in December by declaring the pullout of roughly 2,000 U.S. troops who had been assisting local forces in Syria against IS, whose sole remaining territory is half a square kilometer (one-fifth of a square mile) in eastern Syria. The pending U.S. pullout set off a countdown for governments whose citizens, having joined IS, were captured by the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). “The United States is asking Britain, France, Germany and other European allies to take back over 800 ISIS fighters that we captured in Syria and put them on trial,” Trump said in a tweet, using another acronym for IS. “The Caliphate is ready to fall. The alternative is not a good one in that we will be forced to release them. The U.S. does not want to watch as these ISIS fighters permeate Europe, which is where they are expected to go.” Once the U.S.-led coalition declares it has taken all IS territories, the White House is expected to withdraw American troops. When that happens, the risk is high that “foreign terrorist fighters” will escape SDF control, posing a new threat. For about two weeks, the Trump administration has been pushing its allies to take their citizens home, and the U.S. said it was ready to help in the repatriation, but time has been running out. Several countries, including France, that have chosen to leave the jihadis in SDF detention now confront a diplomatic, legal, political and logistical puzzle. “We do so much, and spend so much — Time for others to step up and do the job that they are so capable of doing. We are pulling back after 100% Caliphate victory!” Trump said in his late-Saturday tweets. On Friday he said announcements on the fall of the caliphate would be made “over the next 24 hours,” but that deadline came and went. • Deep transatlantic rift- An SDF commander said his U.S.-backed forces slowed their advance to protect civilians. The jihadis declared a “caliphate” in large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, but have since lost all but a tiny patch of territory near the Iraqi border. Trump’s Syria pullout has highlighted the deep trans-Atlantic rift that emerged under his presidency, and the differing views of the two sides were on display Saturday at a security conference in Munich. A French government source criticized the Trump administration’s approach as “we’re leaving, you’re staying” and added: “They’re trying to manage the consequences of a hasty decision and making us carry the responsibility.”

syria
islamic state
donald trump
terrorism
eu


Warnings of foreign interference in European polls emerge at launch of trans-Atlantic election watchdog

Abstract: MUNICH - A former NATO chief and an ex-U.S. vice president on Saturday launched a campaign to prevent Russia and other foreign powers from interfering in European parliamentary elections and other upcoming votes. When 350 million Europeans are asked to vote in May, “malign powers will want to have their say too” in the then 27 EU member states, warned Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former NATO secretary-general and Danish prime minister. “Based on previous experience, it is highly likely that foreign powers will target many of these elections, either by breaking into electoral systems, covertly supporting candidates or in getting toxic news in traditional and online media,” he said. Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden warned of the attempt, “particularly coming from Russian but also other actors, to undermine confidence of people in each of our countries in the democratic process.” He pointed to the threat of “cyber attacks, dark money influence operations and disinformation,” speaking at the joint launch of a body called the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity. The initiative set up an online registry where political parties and candidates are asked to sign a pledge to “not aid and abet those who seek to undermine democracy.” They would commit not to use materials that were “falsified, fabricated, doxed or stolen for disinformation or propaganda purposes.” The term doxing refers to the publishing of someone’s stolen private data. They would also promise not to disseminate doctored “deep fake” audio and video recordings, and to make transparent the use of automated or so-called bot networks to disseminate online messages. The initiative described itself as a transatlantic, bipartisan group of political, tech, business and media leaders who seek to prevent “the next wave of foreign election interference.” “Foreign election interference is not only a serious threat to our democratic institutions, I believe it’s a threat to our national security,” said Biden. He was speaking on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, where the foreign intelligence chiefs of Germany, France and Britain also met. After their talks the head of French spy service DGSE, Bernard Emie, in a statement also warned that “the European continent is facing growing threats of meddling and external aggression.” “It’s coming from state- and nonstate actors,” he said, warning of cyberattacks and “attempts to destabilize the electoral process.”

eu
elections
russia
anders fogh rasmussen
joe biden
hacking


Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman heads for Pakistan amid India tensions

Abstract: ISLAMABAD - Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is due to arrive in Pakistan on Sunday at the start of his tour of South Asia and China, but the visit risks being overshadowed by escalating tensions between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan. The trip comes days after a suicide bomber killed 44 Indian paramilitary police in the disputed Kashmir region. New Delhi has accused Pakistan of having a hand in the bombing and vowed to punish Islamabad, which denies involvement. Prince Mohammed had also planned to visit Indonesia and Malaysia during the tour, but those trips have been postponed, according to Malaysian and Indonesian officials. No reasons for the postponements or alternative tour dates were given. The tour is seen as a attempt by the crown prince to rebuild his reputation after the murder of Saudi critic and journalist Jamal Khashoggi, analysts say. Many in the West blamed Prince Mohammed for the killing, which triggered the kingdom’s biggest political crisis for a generation. He has denied being involved. Cash-strapped and in need of friends, Pakistan is welcoming the crown prince with open arms for a visit during which he is expected to sign investment agreements worth more than $10 billion. Saudi Arabia has in recent months helped keep Pakistan’s economy afloat by propping up its rapidly dwindling foreign exchange reserves with a $6 billion loan, giving Islamabad breathing room as it negotiates a bailout with the International Monetary Fund. Analysts say the crown prince’s trip is being treated by Islamabad as the biggest state visit since Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2015, soon after Beijing announced plans to invest tens of billions of dollars on infrastructure in Pakistan as part of China’s global “Belt and Road” initiative. The visit marks a deepening in ties between allies whose relationship has in the past centred on oil-rich Saudi Arabia backing Pakistan’s economy during difficult periods, and in return Pakistan’s powerful army lending support to Saudi Arabia and its royal family. As the guardians of most holy sites in the birthplace of Islam, the Saudi royal family carries vast religious clout in Pakistan, a staunchly conservative and mainly-Muslim nation of 208 million people. “What is happening in this relationship is a renewal of Pakistan’s commitment to help protect the royal family and the order as it exists in Saudi Arabia,” said Mosharraf Zaidi, Senior Fellow at Tabadlab, a Pakistani think tank focused on global and local public policy. “On the flip side, there is reassurance that Saudi Arabia will not only continue to serve as a strategic friend who will help shore up Pakistan’s finances when needed, but it’s also going to become a participant in the wider investment in Pakistan.” Pakistan is shutting down its airspace and has stepped up security in Islamabad for the crown prince, who is set to become the first guest to stay at the Prime Minister’s House. Pakistan’s new populist premier, Imran Khan, has refused to use the residence in a bid to save taxpayers’ money. Pakistani hopes for further investment opportunities from Saudi Arabia were dealt a blow on Saturday when the government announced the Pak-Saudi Business Conference had been “postponed.” Pakistani officials have already flagged up that Saudi Arabia will announce eight investment agreements, including a $10 billion refinery and petrochemicals complex in the coastal city of Gwadar, where China is building a port. But the crown prince’s arrival comes amid a vow by India to isolate Pakistan internationally following the deadliest attack in Kashmir in decades. New Delhi is demanding Islamabad act against the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militant group, which it says has the backing of the Pakistani state, over the bombing. Islamabad denies playing a role and has called for an investigation. In Islamabad, the crown prince is expected to meet Khan and Pakistan’s army chief, Qamar Javed Bajwa. He was also set to meet representatives of the Afghan Taliban militant group to discuss peace negotiations to end the 17-year civil war in Afghanistan, Pakistani government and militant sources said. But that is now in doubt after the Taliban’s planned meeting with Khan, also set for Sunday, was called off at the last minute, Taliban sources said. One senior Taliban figure who had arrived in Islamabad for the talks said the group has been told the meeting with Prince Mohammed may be “cancelled or readjusted.”

mohammed bin salman
pakistan
india
saudi arabia
jamal khashoggi
imran khan
conflict


Will Catalan crisis make Spain 'ungovernable'?

Abstract: BARCELONA, SPAIN - The secession crisis festering in Spain’s northeastern corner of Catalonia has spread to the political heart of the European Union nation. Twice in less than a year, separatist lawmakers from Catalonia have played the role of king slayer, with their votes in the national Parliament in Madrid proving the decisive push to topple consecutive governments. Catalan separatists momentarily aligned with their political nemeses this past week by joining Spain’s right-wing parties to kill the Socialist government’s spending bill, after talks between the government and the separatists collapsed over the possibility of a referendum on secession. The failure to pass a national spending bill led Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Friday to call an early election for April 28. This latest blow to Spain’s political stability came eight months after the separatist Catalan lawmakers backed the Socialists in a no-confidence vote to oust the conservative government of the Popular Party. “We made Pedro Sanchez prime minister as a result of the no-confidence vote for the exact same reasons that we have had to maintain our position (against) his budget bill,” said Eduard Pujol, a leading member in Catalonia’s regional legislature. “You cannot govern Spain without listening to Catalonia.” Separatist forces showed their strength on Saturday, when tens of thousands rallied in Barcelona to demand a verdict of not guilty for 12 of their leaders who are on trial in Spain’s Supreme Court for their roles in a failed secession attempt in 2017. Barcelona’s police calculated that 200,000 people joined the march. The front line of marchers held a long banner saying in Catalan, “Self-determination is not a crime.” While they claim that Catalonia has a right to self-determination, Spain’s government says any vote on independence would require Parliament to amend the Constitution. Polls point to a fragmented political spectrum that will leave a future Spanish government in need of cobbling together partners for a coalition government. That means Catalonia’s separatists could still hold leverage, especially if Sanchez’s Socialists need their votes to stay in power. “Spain will be ungovernable as long as it doesn’t confront the Catalan problem,” said Catalonia’s regional government spokeswoman, Elsa Artadi. But forcing a new election is risky. Spain’s conservative and far-right parties — the Popular Party, the center-right Citizens party and the far-right Vox party — will all focus their campaigns on taking a hard line against the separatists. The anti-Catalonia formula worked for the right-wing parties in a regional election in December, when they managed to end the Socialists’ 36 years in power in Spain’s south. Currently a little less than 50 percent of the voters in Catalonia support parties whose goal is independence. But few doubt that a crackdown from Madrid would push more Catalans into the separatist camp. The decision to withdraw their backing from Sanchez was divisive within the separatist bloc. Joan Tarda, a national Parliament member and moderate separatist, lamented that Sanchez had called an election instead of trying to maintain talks with the separatists. Sanchez “has decided to take a gamble with a situation that can become even more difficult than it already is,” Tarda said. “If things go our way, what will the scenario be? We will be right back where we were last week with the need to negotiate.” The first opinion poll published since the elections were called indicates the Socialists will fall well short of a majority, winning 115 to 117 seats in the 350-seat legislature. The Popular Party would get 75 to 77 seats, the GESOP poll showed. With such an outcome, one of the two main parties would need the support of smaller parties to secure a majority that would then elect a prime minister. To come back as prime minister, Sanchez may seek the support of the same allies who backed him last June, according to the poll. The Socialists could reach the 176 seats needed in Parliament to hold a majority if they had the support of anti-austerity Podemos and Catalan parties, according to the poll’s highest figures given for each party. Sanchez could also seek the backing of other smaller parties to form a broader majority. Vox looks set to enter Parliament with 43 to 46 seats, according to the poll — the first time in 37 years that an extreme-right party would be present in the Spanish assembly. The Citizens party would win 44 to 47 seats, in a tight race with Vox to be the third-largest party.

spain
catalonia
pedro sanchez
elections
ethnicity
referndums


Bernie Sanders records presidential campaign video as Joe Biden closer to deciding own White House bid

Abstract: WASHINGTON/MUNICH - U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has recorded a video announcing a 2020 run for president, Politico reported Saturday, an indication that he plans to enter the already crowded field of candidates. But it still remains unclear when or if the video will be released, according to Politico, which previously reported that the senator from Vermont’s team has been conducting interviews to fill top staff positions. The news came the same day as former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who is also a Democrat, said he had not yet decided whether to run for president in 2020 but would do so “in the near term.” Sanders, a 77-year-old independent who caucuses with Democrats, made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 2016, losing out to Hillary Clinton, who was in turn defeated by Donald Trump. Like Trump, Sanders was an outsider when the 2016 presidential primaries began, but came close to pulling off an upset over Clinton. He garnered passionate support among young liberals with his calls for universal health care, a $15 minimum wage and free public university education. Sanders served in the House until 2006 when he was elected to the U.S. Senate. He was re-elected in 2012 and 2018. While Sanders remains popular among many Democrats, some in the party have questioned whether their champion this time around should be a septuagenarian white man. The 76-year-old Biden would also find himself at the centre of a debate among Democrats about whether their party would best be led in the November 2020 vote by a political newcomer or a seasoned veteran. Still, Biden, who served two terms as vice president after decades in the U.S. Senate, would have the advantage of name recognition should he enter the race. “I haven’t reached a decision,” Biden told reporters at the annual Munich Security Conference. “I’m in the process of doing that, and I will in the near term let everyone know what that decision is.” “I think there is a sufficient amount of time to do that. And I think that we have a tendency particularly in the States to start the whole election process much too early,” he added. “We should be focusing now on what needs to be done to alter some of the policies that are being promoted by the president.”

bernie sanders
joe biden
donald trump
elections
u.s .


Germans claim record for gathering of Smurfs

Abstract: LAUCHRINGEN, GERMANY - A group of German friends claimed a world record Saturday for the highest number of Smurfs gathered in one place. Fans of the blue elf-like creatures, created in a Belgian comic strip in 1950s, managed to gather 2,762 people dressed and painted blue in the regulation Smurf attire — curly hats and all. The gathering took place at the town of Lauchringen, near the German border with Switzerland, the organizers reported on Facebook. Their record came three years after their first attempt failed to beat the record held by Welsh students who managed to unite 2,510 regulation Smurfs in Swansea back in 2009. The German’s first effort failed to raise the bar, with a mere 2,149 turning up. The rules of the game are strict: the only people counted as the genuine article are those with al bare skin painted blue and the rest of the body clothed in Smurf attire. The group of friends made their second, victorious attempt Saturday with the backing of the mayor of Lauchringen, they said. The Smurfs, small, impish creatures who live in a village, were created by the Belgian cartoonist Pierre Culliford, known as Peyo. They became so popular that the stories eventually spilled over into cartoons and even live-action films. The characters have been merchandised across the world.


China surveillance firm tracking millions in Xinjiang, researcher says

Abstract: BEIJING - A Chinese surveillance firm is tracking the movements of more than 2.5 million people in the far-western Xinjiang region, according to a data leak flagged by a Dutch internet expert. An online database containing names, ID card numbers, birth dates and location data was left unprotected for months by Shenzhen-based facial-recognition technology company SenseNets Technology Ltd., according to Victor Gevers, co-founder of non-profit organisation GDI.Founda tion, who first noted the vulnerability in a series of social media posts last week. Exposed data also showed about 6.7 million location data points linked to the people which were gathered within 24 hours, tagged with descriptions such as “mosque,” “hotel,” “internet cafe” and other places where surveillance cameras were likely to be found. “It was fully open and anyone without authentication had full administrative rights. You could go in the database and create, read, update and delete anything,” said Gevers. China has faced an outcry from activists, scholars, foreign governments and U.N. rights experts over what they call mass detentions and strict surveillance of the mostly Muslim Uighur minority and other Muslim groups who call Xinjiang home. According to its website, SenseNets works with China’s police across several cities. Its Shenzhen-listed parent company NetPosa Technologies Ltd. has offices in a majority of Chinese provinces and regions, including Xinjiang. SenseNets and NetPosa, as well as the Xinjiang regional government, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday. The Chinese government has ramped up personal surveillance in Xinjiang over recent years, including the construction of an extensive video surveillance system and smartphone monitoring technology. Gevers said the foundation directly alerted SenseNets to the vulnerability, in line with GDI.Founda tion protocol. He said SenseNets did not respond, but that it has since taken steps to secure the database.

china surveillance xinjiang rights uighurs


Some rural Hong Kong men with special land rights call for end to colonial system

Abstract: HONG KONG - Sitting in the spacious courtyard of an 18th-century ancestral hall belonging to his clan, William Liu defiantly rejects a lucrative birthright that his special status as one of Hong Kong’s male indigenous villagers affords him. Liu hails from the rural northern part of Hong Kong known as the New Territories, which were leased by Britain from China in 1898. Under a colonial-era policy that remains in place, any male who can trace his lineage back to that period has the right to build a three-story house on his land without paying a land fee. In a city with the world’s least affordable property market, that exclusively male right is a major windfall. But it is being challenged in the courts as both discriminatory to women and unfair to millions of Hong Kongers unable to get on the property ladder. Liu is a villager who agrees with the court case against the building rights. “It’s an unfair policy and I will not use it,” the 22-year-old said. Liu, a democracy activist, is opposed both to the discriminatory nature of the policy and the way the city’s connected housing developers have still been able to use it to build properties. “The small house policy has turned into something that is just being abused by a small handful of people working with developers to make money,” he explained. Liber Research Community, a local land concern group, estimates that at least 1 out of 4 indigenous houses in the New Territories have been built illegally, with commercial developers making secret deals with villagers to use their land rights. Authorities largely turn a blind eye to the practice. The “ ding rights” — named after the Cantonese word for male offspring — were enacted in 1972 by the British as an interim measure to improve living standards for farmers. It continued after the 1997 handover to China. With the crammed city facing an acute housing shortage, the New Territories’ vast land banks are being eyed for their development potential, and calls are mounting for the government to overhaul the policy. Ding rights have been vociferously defended by the powerful Heung Yee Kuk, an advisory body that has dominated rural affairs for decades and delivers reliably pro-Beijing votes in the complex system that elects Hong Kong’s leader. In a bid to alleviate its acute housing shortage, Hong Kong’s government has proposed spending $63 billion on building artificial islands that could accommodate a new city around a fifth the size of Manhattan. The proposal has sparked protests over both the enormous cost and the potential environmental damage. Chan Kim-ching, the founder of the Liber research group, said the government should overhaul how land is allocated in the New Territories and make it more accessible to everyone. “That could improve the environment, cancel out some of the unequal situation and solve our housing demand at the same time,” he said. A government spokesperson and Heung Yee Kuk chair Kenneth Lau both declined to comment on the policy, citing the ongoing legal challenge. Indigenous villagers, who along with ding rights also enjoy other special benefits including some exclusive burial rights, are often seen as an unfairly privileged group. But they argue the policy does not mean they are guaranteed a house immediately, even if they own their land. Indigenous local Selena Yung says she experienced discrimination as a woman in the villages, but she supports the house policy, noting it benefited her two sons — whose applications were approved after waiting for more than a decade. She said, “It’s already so hard for them to have their applications approved, never mind girls. They should solve this problem first.” Stanley Ho, an indigenous activist who grew up in a tiny village of just a few dozen people located deep in a country park, watched as fields around his village were replaced by houses, and as decades-old trees were cut down to make way for illegal roads in recent years to facilitate construction. He called on the government to work with the Heung Yee Kuk, environmental groups and rural representatives to decide on a way to end the “unfair policy” while still improving the living environment for villagers. “Our generation has to speak out, and we have to control our own space,” he said, adding: “If we don’t manage it then the developers will take over.”

hong kong
men
housing
cities
discrimination
history
tradition


India hosts first world championships of 'yoga on a pole'

Abstract: MUMBAI - Wearing only underpants, Pavel Kalina twisted his body up a wooden pole before performing a handstand at the top in the first world championships of an ancient Indian sport. The 55-year-old Czech practices Mallakhamb, a gymnastics-like discipline that originated in western India in the 12th century and is often described as “yoga on a pole.” “I do it because I’m a crazy man,” Kalina said, struggling to catch his breath after two minutes performing poses on the pillar, covered in castor oil to prevent friction burns. “To be honest it is like torture, but I have to do it because I need to spend my energy,” added the former gymnast, who took up Mallakhamb 10 years ago. Kalina was among some 100 competitors from 15 countries taking part in the Mallakhamb World Championships in Mumbai over the weekend. The sport, first mentioned in Indian texts in 1135, is popular in western Maharashtra state — of which Mumbai is the capital — but is little known outside India. “‘Malla’ means wrestler and ‘khamb’ means pole,” explained Uday Deshpande, the organizer of the event and India’s most renowned Mallakhamb practitioner. “The pole is 8½ feet (2.6 meters) in height. It is smooth, well polished and tapered at the top. Different acrobatic exercises and yogic postures are performed on it.” It “is there in the absence of your partner, and you are wrestling against it.” On day one of the event men, mostly in swimming trunks, and women, mostly in leotards, wowed a crowd of several hundred with gravity-defying moves in Mumbai’s Shivaji Park. Onlookers clapped and cheered as a competitor from Spain stretched out on his front like Superman on the top of the pole, which had a circumference of just 35 centimeters (14 inches). A participant from England gave a Usain Bolt-like salute from the summit. Kalina sat in a meditative position with the palms of his hands facing skyward. Faezeh Jalali, wearing a headscarf, represented Iran in the rope category, in which participants performed stunts up and down a rope that hung 15 feet in the air. “You feel a real achievement and you build strength and flexibility. It’s amazing what the human body can do,” said Jalali, 39. Competitors from France, Germany, Malaysia and Vietnam also took part. Deshpande, 65, said Mallakhamb helps people mentally as well. “When you perform yoga on the ground you get lots of benefits — meditation, breathing, concentration. When you perform yoga at 8 feet high you get the same benefits but you also develop your confidence, your courage.” Deshpande organized the championships to promote Mallakhamb globally and dreams that one day it will appear at the Asian Games and then even the Olympics. “We want to spread this traditional Indian culture abroad,” he said.


Fukushima town works to revive herb vital to its frozen rice cake delicacy

Abstract: A breeze rustles through leaves of oyamabokuchi plants on a farm in Katsurao, a village in Fukushima Prefecture. The herb, an edible variety of thistle, is normally found in the mountains. It is ground up and mixed with rice to produce a local delicacy called shimimochi , or frozen rice cakes. The plant once grew in abundance in nearby forests, but harvests have been limited since the Fukushima nuclear crisis in March 2011. Fearing the chewy delicacy, passed down through generations, might disappear along with the herb, the village began working with Koriyama Women’s College on a project to develop new cultivation methods for oyamabokuchi, which is also known by its botanical name Synurus pungens. Mitsuko Shinkai, 70, a member of a women’s farming group called Ofukuro Foods, which translates roughly as “Mom’s Foods,” had been making and selling frozen mochi for two decades before the nuclear disaster. “Things are slowly getting better,” she said, running her hand across the leaves of one of the plants. The research began in fiscal 2017 after Shinkai and others came together to share their knowledge of the herb to come up with new ways to grow and cultivate it. It is normally grown from seeds that germinate naturally. But by manipulating the temperature and humidity of a growing facility at the college, they succeeded in producing seedlings. Previously, it was believed that shaded, sloped land was needed to rear the plants, but research has shown that neither factor necessarily affects growth. On the other hand, it’s become clear that the plant isn’t particularly resilient to weeds. Last year, twice as many roots were planted compared with the previous year, and most were successfully harvested. Still, the amount is much less than what used to be harvested in the mountainous areas before the disaster. The members of the project plan to make manuals detailing ways to better grow and cultivate the plants and distribute them to residents. In winter, blocks of shimimochi used to be hung from the eaves of homes like a curtain. After school, children would soak pieces in water and eat them as snacks. At gatherings, they were paired with tea. But after the nuclear evacuation order was lifted in June 2016 and Ofukuro Foods got back in business, frozen mochi shipments only recovered to about half of pre-disaster levels, according to the village. Researchers at the college found that frozen mochi is actually healthy. With the help of restaurant menus created by students, oyamabokuchi can be cultivated on a larger scale and help revive the village. “I’m proud that something from Katsurao is being appreciated,” Shinkai said. “I hope frozen mochi grows popular and the village becomes healthy again.”

fukushima oyamabokuchi shimimochi radiation agriculture 3.11


Abe nominated Trump for Nobel Peace Prize at request of U.S., report says

Abstract: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe nominated U.S. President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize last autumn after receiving a request from the U.S. government to do so, the Asahi newspaper reported Sunday. The report follows Trump’s claim Friday that Abe had nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize for opening talks and easing tensions with North Korea. The Japanese leader had given him “the most beautiful copy” of a five-page nomination letter, Trump said at a White House news conference. The U.S. government had sounded Abe out over the Noble Peace Prize nomination after Trump’s summit in June last year with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the first meeting between a North Korean leader and a sitting U.S. president, the Asahi said, citing an unnamed Japanese government source. A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo said the ministry was aware of Trump’s remarks, but “would refrain from commenting on the interaction between the two leaders.” The White House had no immediate comment. The Nobel Foundation’s website says a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize may be submitted by any person who meets the nomination criteria, which includes current heads of states. Under the foundation’s rules, names and other information about unsuccessful nominations cannot be disclosed for 50 years.

nobel peace prize
shinzo abe
donald trump
north korea
awards
nuclear weapons
u.s.-japan relations


Russia refuses to rush Japan peace treaty in blow to Abe

Abstract: MUNICH - Russia has no time frame for agreeing on a postwar peace treaty with Japan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday, after he and his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono made scant progress in talks. The comments are a blow for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is believed to be setting his sights on reaching a broad treaty agreement in June when Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to visit Japan for the Group of 20 summit. “The Russian side has no time frame. We explained to the Japanese side calmly” that nothing could be scheduled, Lavrov told reporters after talks in Munich on the sidelines of an annual security conference. Deep divisions remain over a decades-old territorial dispute. Lavrov reiterated that Japan should recognize the acquisition by Moscow of four islands off the coast of Hokkaido as the outcome of World War II, while Tokyo maintains the islands were illegally seized by the Soviet Union following Japan’s 1945 surrender. Kono told reporters after the meeting that treaty talks cannot be concluded “overnight” and that both countries need to continue negotiations “patiently.” “We had very deep discussions to find a solution that is acceptable to both sides,” he said without elaborating. “We’ve been going forward, though not quickly.” The two ministers agreed to another round of talks in Japan. Senior Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Takeo Mori and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov will meet soon to discuss the schedule. The Munich meeting was a follow-up to a summit between Abe and Putin in Moscow, in January, when the leaders discussed the issue of the islands on the basis of a 1956 joint declaration, but made little headway. Abe and Putin agreed in November to accelerate treaty talks based on the joint declaration, which mentions the transfer of the smaller two of the four islands — Shikotan and the Habomai islet group — from Moscow to Tokyo once a peace pact is concluded. Putin is sticking to demands that Tokyo first acknowledge Moscow’s sovereignty over the islands. The fate of the remaining two islands is the biggest sticking point, with Tokyo unwilling to give up its claims, a Japanese official said. Putin’s offer “is the best deal that could be on the table, but there doesn’t seem to be much hope left now,” said Andrei Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council, a research group set up by the Kremlin. The likelihood of an immediate breakthrough seems slim. Not only do the countries have differing interpretations of the joint declaration, but opposition lawmakers in Japan have taken issue with Abe’s perceived shift in policy to seek the return of two, rather than all four, of the islands. Both Abe and Kono have refrained from disclosing details of the ongoing negotiations. Moscow, for its part, is also seen as reluctant to return the territories given the presence of U.S. military forces in Japan. The latest talks between Kono and Lavrov were held after the United States announced in early February its withdrawal from a Cold War-era nuclear arms control treaty. Lavrov said this month there is a “certain link” between the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Kuril Islands chain, of which the four disputed islands form a part, according to Russia’s Tass news agency. He also took issue with Japan’s planned installment of U.S. land-based Aegis Ashore missile defense systems, Tass reported. Japan is not part of the 1987 treaty that bans the development and possession of land-based missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. The dispute over the islands, called the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils in Russia, has prevented the conclusion of a peace treaty to formally end World War II hostilities.

sergey lavrov
taro kono
territorial dispute
russia-japan relations


Kono disputes Seoul's claim the dispute over calls for an apology by the Emperor was not discussed during talks

Abstract: MUNICH - Foreign Minister Taro Kono on Saturday denied a South Korean Foreign Ministry account that he did not protest during a recent bilateral meeting the comments made by South Korea’s National Assembly speaker calling for an apology from the Emperor to resolve the “comfort women” dispute. An official at the South Korean Foreign Ministry said Saturday, the day after the meeting between Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and Kono, that the Japanese minister did not mention the recent comments by its National Assembly Speaker, Moon Hee-sang, seeking an apology from Emperor Akihito, which has angered many people in Japan. But Kono said he conveyed Japan’s protest over the speaker’s comments during the meeting held in Munich on the sidelines of an annual security conference. “I (asked South Korea) to take an appropriate response to the matter,” Kono told reporters. “As we have repeatedly demanded a retraction and apology, I believe (South Korea) understands what we want to say.” Speaking to reporters in Munich on Friday, Kang said that there were no such discussions in her meeting with Kono. Asked about whether a protest was made by a senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official who attended the meeting, Kang said such a thing did not happen. After the meeting, the Japanese officials explained that Kono reiterated Tokyo’s demand for an apology from South Korea over Moon’s remarks and their withdrawal and that Kang made no response. Kono on Saturday told reporters in Munich he told Kang that Moon’s remarks came as a surprise and were regrettable. In an interview with a U.S. news agency reported last week, Moon said it is desirable for Emperor Akihito to apologize to former comfort women, a euphemism used to refer to women who provided sex, including those who did so against their will, for Japanese troops before and during World War II. The two sides also remain apart over wartime labor issues. At their meeting on Friday, Kono again sought talks with Seoul over a series of South Korean Supreme Court rulings ordering Japanese companies, including Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp., to pay compensation to South Korean plaintiffs who said they were requisitioned to work in Japan during World War II. The Korean Peninsula was under Japan’s colonial rule at the time. Tokyo maintains that the issue of compensation was settled “completely and finally” under a bilateral agreement to settle property claims signed alongside the 1965 Japan-South Korea basic relations treaty that established diplomatic ties. The relationship between the two countries has also deteriorated due to an alleged incident in December last year in which a South Korean Navy warship locked its fire-control radar on a Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force plane patrolling over the Sea of Japan. The two countries’ failure to find ways to solve the host of issues plaguing their relations through the talks between the foreign ministers has highlighted the seriousness of the situation, pundits said. Still, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said after the bilateral meeting that the two ministers affirmed their intentions to continue talks.

taro kono
comfort women
emperor akihito
south korea-japan relations


Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga to announce Japan's new era name on April 1

Abstract: Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga is set to announce Japan’s new era name on April 1, government officials said Saturday. The government believes the new era name should be made public by its chief spokesman, the chief Cabinet secretary, sources said. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has approved a plan for Suga to announce the new era name, according to government sources. When the country’s era name was last changed in January 1989, Keizo Obuchi, then chief Cabinet secretary, announced the new name, Heisei, at a news conference. Suga will announce the new era name immediately after the Cabinet adopts a related ordinance. The ordinance will be adopted after separate discussions by experts, Cabinet ministers and the heads and vice heads of both chambers of the Diet. Details, including time schedules, have yet to be decided. The new era name will be reported to Emperor Akihito and Crown Prince Naruhito just before it is announced to the public. The government will not seek opinions from the Emperor or the Crown Prince in order to avoid violating Article 4 of the Constitution, which bans the Emperor’s involvement in politics. The new era name will start on May 1, when Crown Prince Naruhito ascends to the throne following Emperor Akihito’s abdication, set for April 30.

yoshihide suga
emperor akihito
abdication
imperial family
emperor naruhito


VIP cabins used by the Imperial family and prime ministers on a decommissioned ASDF aircraft to go on display

Abstract: The Air Self-Defense Force plans to put on display VIP cabins used by the Emperor and high officials from two government aircraft set to be decommissioned in March, one of which will be made available for public viewing at no extra cost, officials have said. The aircraft are used for overseas trips by prime ministers or Imperial family members as well as for humanitarian support efforts. The aircraft’s VIP rooms have never been shown to the public. “They have historical value,” an official said. “I want them to be viewed by as many people as possible.” The VIP rooms will be removed from the planes and one of them will be offered for free, possibly to municipalities and schools. The ASDF began soliciting applicants in January. It has already received several inquiries, including from municipalities with museums. The other VIP room will go on display at the ASDF’s Hamamatsu base in Shizuoka Prefecture. The bodies of the planes will be sold through an auction set for next month. The planes were commissioned in 1993 and have since flown to 100 countries. New aircraft will go into service as of April.

imperial family
aviation
self defense forces