Tokyo—The leaders of Japan and China called for
a new era in relations at a summit Wednesday,
pledging to hold annual meetings, resolve an
angry dispute over maritime gas deposits and not
allow their bitter history to divide them. The
carefully choreographed summit between Japanese
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Chinese
President Hu Jintao — the first visit by a
Chinese president to Tokyo in a decade — was
aimed at bolstering ties between the Asian
giants.
Colombo— Sri Lanka’s tense east votes in local
elections on Saturday in what is seen as a key
test of the government’s strategy to go all-out
for a military victory against Tamil Tiger
rebels. Nearly one million people are eligible
to elect 35 officials in the multi-ethnic
districts of Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara—areas
that included sizeable rebel pockets prior to a
major offensive in July last year.
Yangon, Myanmar —U.N. officials on Wednesday
declared the Myanmar delta worst hit by a
devastating cyclone a “major disaster,” with
corpses floating through flooded waters and
enormous logistical challenges hampering
humanitarian aid efforts. International
aid began trickling into the Southeast Asian
country, but much of the Irrawaddy delta, where
most of the cyclone’s 22,000 victims perished,
remains cut off from the world.
Nairobi — Kenya has won financial control of a
luxury Nairobi estate belonging to Rwanda’s most
wanted war crimes suspect Felicien Kabuga,
increasing the pressure on the elusive fugitive.
Justice Muga Apondi ordered that the rent from
the estate be deposited with the registrar at
the Nairobi court instead of being wired to a
Belgian bank account in the name of Kabuga’s
wife Mukazitoni Josephine.
THE various data provided in the US State
Department’s annual terrorism report for 2007
point toward some interesting, if not puzzling
conclusions. The much publicized document, made
available on April 30 through the State
Department’s website, makes no secret of the
fact that Al-Qaeda is back, strong as ever. It
also suggests that violence worldwide is nowhere
near subsiding, despite President Bush’s
repeated assurances regarding the success of his
“war on terror”.
