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TOKYO, Japan (AFP) – Japan’s government introduced a bill Friday to recognize the country’s ethnic Ainu minority as an “indigenous” people for the first time, after decades of discrimination against the group. The Ainu people — many of whom live in northern Hokkaido — have long suffered the effects of a policy of forced assimilation, and while discrimination has receded gradually, income and education gaps with the rest of Japan persist. “It is important to […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo underlined the need for different foreign policy approaches to Iran and North Korea in comments published Thursday, describing Tehran as more “destabilizing” than Pyongyang. “We’ve made very clear that these situations are very different. We take each of them where we find them,” he told US television station CBS in excerpts of a transcript released by the State Department. Washington set 12 tough conditions […]
by Parvaiz BUKHARI Agence France Presse SRINAGAR, India (AFP) — At least 37 Indian paramilitary soldiers were killed on Thursday in Indian-administered Kashmir in one the deadliest attacks on government forces there, police said. The suicide bombing outside Srinagar claimed by an Islamist group is likely to ratchet up tensions between nuclear-armed arch rivals India and Pakistan, with New Delhi long accusing Islamabad of supporting militants. “The sacrifices of our brave security personnel shall not […]
HONG KONG, China (AFP) — Hong Kong’s port, which once vied with rival Singapore for global dominance, has slipped out of the world’s top five busiest shipping container terminals for the first time, new data has revealed. The bustling southern Chinese financial hub owes its very existence to its ideal location as a port, a cornerstone of the remarkable growth of a city’s whose name means “Fragrant Harbour”. It has been among the world’s […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — A robot arm has successfully picked up pebble-sized pieces of radioactive fuel at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant in a complex operation seen as key to clean-up efforts after the 2011 meltdown, officials said Thursday. Operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) on Wednesday sent down a remote-controlled probe to the melted fuel at the bottom of the plant’s reactor 2, one of three that melted down after a massive earthquake and tsunami […]
by Paul HANDLEY Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The US Justice Department charged a former Air Force intelligence official Wednesday with spying for Iran, saying she exposed a fellow US agent and helped the Revolutionary Guard target her former colleagues for cyber attacks. US officials said Monica Witt, 39, who worked a decade in Air Force counterintelligence, had an “ideological” turn against her country and defected in 2013, turning over information on […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) – A Japanese cultivator of bonsai trees appealed on Tuesday for the thieves who made off with his expensive potted plants to take good care of them. Seiji Iimura, a fifth-generation bonsai cultivator who runs a garden in Kawaguchi, north of Tokyo, told AFP the seven tiny trees stolen from his garden were his “family treasure”. “It’s something I would never sell even if I got 10 million yen ($90,000),” he said. […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to meet with top US officials in Beijing this week, a report said Wednesday, as the world’s two biggest economies rush to patch up their trade differences before a looming deadline. Xi will meet on Friday with officials including US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who are in the capital for crunch talks towards a trade deal, the South China Morning Post […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Samsung Electronics has reached a settlement in a class-action lawsuit over 2.8 million “exploding” washing machines recalled in the US, the South Korean company said Tuesday. The faulty appliances were recalled in 2016 after reports that the top “can unexpectedly detach from the washing machine chassis during use, posing a risk of injury from impact”, according to The US Consumer Product Safety Commission. The lawsuit claimed some of the washers […]
by Sylvie Lanteaume Agence France-Presse BAGHDAD, Iraq (AFP) — Acting Pentagon chief Patrick Shanahan arrived in Baghdad on an unannounced visit Tuesday for talks on the sensitive issue of a continued troop presence following withdrawal from neighboring Syria. Shanahan is keen to reassure Iraqi leaders after President Donald Trump angered many by saying he wanted to keep troops at the Al-Asad airbase, northwest of Baghdad, to keep an eye on Iran. The acting defence secretary, […]
by Abhaya Srivastava Agence France Presse NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — At least 17 people died when a fire ripped through a budget hotel in Delhi on Tuesday, with victims including a woman and a child who reportedly jumped from a window to escape the blaze. Images showed thick smoke and flames billowing out of the top floor of the Hotel Arpit Palace in a congested part of the Indian capital. Guests at the […]
NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — At least nine people were killed and three others injured when a fire engulfed a hotel in New Delhi on Tuesday, a senior official said. The blaze broke out before dawn at Hotel Arpit Palace in a congested part of central Delhi. “Nine people are dead including a woman and a child. Three people are injured,” G.C. Misra, the director of Delhi Fire Services, told AFP. © Agence France-Presse
