The strong export data — up 10.1 percent over last year — comes after earlier figures showed the world’s third-largest economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter, as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration works to stoke growth with a plan dubbed “Abenomics”.

The yen’s sharp drop since late last year makes Japanese exporters more competitive overseas and inflates the value of their repatriated overseas earnings.

“It is not just the weaker yen increasing the value of exports, the amount of exports is increasing as well,” Junko Nishioka, chief economist at RBS Securities Japan, told Dow Jones Newswires.

“This shows Japanese companies are increasingly in better shape… Their profitability is also rising these days, meaning they are becoming more resilient to potential external shocks,” she added.

However Hideki Matsumura, senior economist at The Japan Research Institute, warned that returning to a trade surplus could be some way off.

“In order for us to see a surplus, we need to see a significant increase in export quantity, as well as a resurgence in overseas economies,” Matsumura said.

In April, new leadership at the Bank of Japan — handpicked by Abe — vowed to hit a two-percent inflation target within two years, jack up asset purchases including government bonds, and double the money supply.

The ambitious target, a key part of Abe’s bid to stoke the deflation-plagued economy, is aimed at reversing years of falling prices that have crimped private spending and business investment.

Last week, the BoJ said the economy was “picking up” as it held off ramping up April’s huge stimulus scheme, part of a wider plan that includes big government spending and structural reforms to the lumbering economy.

On Wednesday, finance ministry data showed that Japan’s trade deficit expanded 9.5 percent from a year earlier to 993.9 billion yen ($10.4 billion), the longest running string of monthly deficits in three decades.

But May’s deficit was smaller than expected as the market had forecast a shortfall of around 1.2 trillion yen.

Exports rose 10.1 percent to 5.76 trillion yen, growing for the third straight month on higher shipments to the United States and China.

But exports to recession-hit Europe remained weak, falling 4.9 percent.

Imports meanwhile also climbed 10.0 percent, an increase for the seventh consecutive month, as costs of fuel and other items jumped due to a weaker yen.

Japan’s fuel imports have soared as most of its nuclear reactors remain off-line since the huge earthquake and tsunami in 2011 sparked the world’s worst atomic accident in a generation. –AFP

Authorities called in military helicopters to try to rescue residents and pilgrims cut off by rising rivers and landslides triggered by more than three days of rain in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, officials said.

“We are unable to confirm the number of deaths since most of the communication lines have broken down across the state,” the state minister for disaster and relief said.

“But at least 60 people are feared dead and nearly 50,000 are stranded,” Yashpal Arya told AFP.

Among those killed were four members of the same family, who died when their home was hit by a landslide as they slept, in Kasta village near the state capital of Dehradun, local officials said.

Television footage showed bridges, houses and multi-storied buildings crashing down and being washed away by the swirling waters. A swollen river is seen engulfing a giant statue of Lord Shiva in the tourist hub of Rishikesh.

Rising water levels in some towns have also swept up cars, earthmoving equipment and even a parked helicopter, as a result of the surprise rains which have lashed the state since Saturday.

Roads in many areas have been destroyed, leaving hundreds of pilgrims stranded on their way to visit shrines in remote areas. Authorities have cancelled pilgrimage trips, fearing further rains and landslides in the state, often referred to as the “Land of the Gods” because of its many Hindu temples and other sites.

Fresh rains in some districts were hampering rescue efforts, with teams from the national disaster management authority camping in the popular pilgrimage town of Haridwar awaiting air lift to the worst-affected districts, officials said.

The state government was also readying food parcels and drinking water to be dropped by helicopters to remote villages.

“The situation is very grim. The meteorological office has predicted that the rain will continue for another three days at least,” government official Amit Chandola was quoted by television stations as saying. — AFP

The leaders of the Group of Eight most industrialised nations are still working out the exact wording of the communique that they will issue at the end of the two-day summit in Northern Ireland, officials from two Western nations told AFP.

The statement is likely to focus on less contentious issues such as the need to push for a peace conference in Geneva and on humanitarian aid, one official said on condition of anonymity.

Syria was discussed for a second time yesterday during a session on counter-terrorism, following a lengthy discussion during the leaders’ dinner on Monday, another source said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron had drawn up a list of five areas that he thought there could be agreement on with Putin at the dinner.

An official said there were “very frank” discussions at the dinner, especially on the issue of chemical weapons.

The United States, Britain and France say President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have used nerve gas but the regime’s ally Russia says there is no evidence to support their claims.

However there was agreement on the need for a transitional authority that would include all communities in Syria,
which is increasingly divided along sectarian lines after more than two years of conflict.
— AFP

The Unicorn Logger, a Panama-flagged freighter, ran aground at a protected marine sanctuary off the tiny island of Sambawan on Friday, coastguard spokesman Armand Balilo said.

“The crew are detained aboard their vessel as the damage to the reef is assessed,” he told AFP.

The ship was carrying logs from Malaysia to Japan when it hit the reef, Balilo added.

A central Philippines coastguard spokesman, Ensign Jamaal Aceron, told AFP the ship will be towed for repairs to a shipyard in the central port of Cebu once the extent of the damage on the vessel is determined.

It was the latest in a series of maritime incidents at protected Philippine reefs this year.

A US Navy minesweeper ran aground at Tubbataha Reef, a World Heritage-listed marine sanctuary in the southern Philippines in January, leading to fines for reef damage and the dismantling of the ship.

A Chinese fishing vessel also ran aground at Tubbataha in April, causing even more damage. The crew were arrested and charged for damaging the reef as well as for carrying endangered mammals. — AFP

“It is necessary to avoid tightening the sanctions pressure against Tehran and start thinking about ways for a possible weakening (of sanctions) in a way that is tangible for Iran,” Lavrov said in an interview with Kuwaiti news agency KUNA

His remarks came following the victory of moderate Hassan Rowhani in Iran’s presidential election, which raised cautious hopes about a continuation of the progress seen in talks between world powers and Iran in Almaty, Kazakhstan earlier this year.

“For the first time in many years, hopeful signs have appeared in this process,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov said he believed that Iran was now ready to agree to suspend efforts to enrich uranium to 20 per cent, which could prove to be a crucial moment after years of stalemate in the talks.

“This could be a breakthrough agreement and to a large extent remove the acuteness of the existing problems,” said Lavrov, saying concessions by Iran needed to be met with similar steps by world powers.

Iran has been slapped with successive rounds of UN Security Council sanctions and also unilateral measures by the United States and the European Union.

The sanctions initially only targeted the nuclear and defence industries but have now started to hurt the wider economy, causing concern among ordinary Iranians and even the leadership. — AFP

The video, which has been viewed nearly 200,000 times on YouTube, has prompted fevered debate in the Buddhist-dominated kingdom over monks’ adherence to austere principles which include living without possessions, beyond a handful of robes.

According to one of the monks, who has since been ‘reprimanded’, the jet was chartered by a devotee to fly them home to northeast Si Sa Ket from Bangkok after performing duties in November, said Nopparat Benjawattantnun, director of the National Office of Buddhism.

“His behaviour — wearing sunglasses and carrying a Louis Vuitton handbag — amounts to an ostentatious display that will provoke criticism from laymen,” Nopparat said.

Virood Chaipanna, director of Si Sa Ket’s Office of Buddhism, named the monk as Luang Pu Nenkham Chattigo, 34, from Wat Pa Khantitham.

“Yesterday I went to the temple but he was not there. They said he is in France,” Virood said.

Buddhism is Thailand’s state religion and around 95 per cent of the population is believed to follow it — the highest percentage in the world.

Figures last year from the National Office of Buddhism showed Thailand had more than 61,000 monks.

Their behaviour frequently falls under the spotlight with media reports uncovering cases of clergy taking drugs, drinking, gambling and visiting prostitutes.

“To be in the monkhood one should be isolated and content with what one has,” said Pra Khru Vinaithorn Teerawit, of the Buddhism Protection Center of Thailand, adding complaints are most commonly made against newly ordained monks.

Referring to the video, he said the public reaction should depend on whether the monks chose to travel by private jet or if it was organised by followers.

“If monks chose to travel by jet then it’s not suitable,” he said.

The video can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playeríembedded v=sANFgwoJeicask-apv/apj/dr — AFP

The owner, who kept the animals in a public housing apartment, could be jailed for two years and fined up to Sg 500,000 (US$297,000), the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) said in a statement.

The 32 animals included a Sunda slow loris, a nocturnal tree-dwelling primate; a common marmoset, a small monkey with a long tail; and three ball pythons, which are popular in the pet trade because of their docile nature.

There were also three black-tailed prairie dogs, several types of tortoise, five ornate horned frogs, an iguana, a gecko and a degu, a small rodent endemic to central Chile.

“The seizure, which includes highly endangered and threatened species like the slow loris, marmoset, Indian star tortoise and ball python, is AVA’s largest inland seizure of wildlife since 2002,” the agency said in a statement.

“A man is currently assisting AVA in the investigations.” Residents in public housing, where most Singaporeans live, are only allowed to keep approved pets such as non-endangered birds, aquarium fish and one small dog per household.

The animals, which were rescued earlier this month, are now in the care of a company running the Singapore Zoo, said the AVA, which raided the flat after a tipoff. — AFP

Singapore’s Pollutant Standards Index stood at 115 as offices opened — still above the ‘unhealthy’ threshold of 100 but down from the peak reached late Monday when the entire island was shrouded by a smoky haze.

Most commuters walked in bright sunshine yesterday without covering their faces despite the lingering smell of burnt wood in the business district.

The Ministry of Manpower has urged employers to issue protective masks to staff with heart and respiratory problems, and those working outdoors. The elderly and children have also been told to reduce strenuous outdoor activity.

The pollutant index soared to a peak of 155 late Monday, the highest since Southeast Asia’s prolonged haze crisis in 1997-1998, but eased off overnight.

On Monday, Singapore urged Indonesia to take ‘urgent measures’ to tackle its forest fires as smoke blown from Sumatra island choked the densely populated city-state as well as parts of Malaysia.

But the Indonesian forestry ministry said firefighters were already tackling the blazes and water-dropping aircraft would be deployed if local governors made a request.

A ministry official, Hadi Daryanto, also attempted to shift some of the blame onto Malaysia and Singapore, saying their palm oil companies that had invested in Indonesia were also responsible.

“The slash-and-burn technique being used is the cheapest land-clearing method and it is not only used by local farmers, but also employees of palm oil investors including Singaporean and Malaysian companies,” he said.

“We hope the governments of Malaysia and Singapore will tell their investors to adopt proper measures so we can solve this problem together.” But Vivian Balakrishnan, Singapore’s minister for environment and water resources, kept up the pressure on Indonesia.

In remarks carried yesterday by Singapore media, he said ‘commercial interests in Indonesia have been allowed to override environmental concerns.’ He repeated an offer of help from Singapore, which has a modern military and civil defence system including firefighters. — AFP

Protesters hurling Molotov cocktails clashed with police firing tear gas and water cannons late Monday, as lawmakers approved measures paving the way for a reduction in crippling fuel subsidies in Southeast Asia’s top economy.

As police braced for hundreds to converge on parliament for a second day of protests against the expected 30 percent increase in fuel prices, ministers said the government would not back down.

“The fuel price will go up,” Finance Minister Chatib Basri insisted, saying it was just a matter of finalising the details before an announcement, which is expected in the coming days.

“The hike is very important because of global economic uncertainty,” he added, referring to a sell-off on emerging markets this month that has sent Jakarta stocks and the rupiah plummeting.

Vice President Boediono urged citizens to “stay calm” and not hoard fuel, as reports emerged that people were starting to stockpile subsidised petrol before the price rockets.

Police in West Java and Lampung provinces seized thousands of litres of fuel allegedly bought in anticipation of a price hike and detained several people, while state energy firm Pertamina said sales had increased three to four percent in recent days.

The price of fuel is expected to increase on average 33 per cent, with petrol jumping from from 4,500 rupiah (US$0.46) a litre to 6,500 rupiah, and diesel from 4,500 rupiah to 5,500.

Following a marathon parliamentary session on Monday, lawmakers agreed on a revised budget that included a package of measures to compensate the millions of poor people likely to be hit hardest.

Poor households will receive 15 a month each for the next four months to offset the impact of the fuel hike, which is expected to cause the cost of everyday goods to go up as they will be more expensive to transport.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had insisted on the measures before any fuel hike, which will come at a sensitive time as parties gear up for elections in 2014.

Eight thousand people demonstrated across Jakarta during the debate, with thousands outside the national parliament hurling Molotov cocktails, fireworks and bottles at police in riot gear, who fought back with tear gas and water cannons.

Eighty-eight protesters were detained at the Jakarta protest but police said they would be released yesterday. One protester received a minor injury, according to police.

At least 14 other people were injured in protests across the country.

Yudhoyono has been seeking to lower the huge subsidies for some time and last year came close. — AFP

Police in eastern Jiangsu province arrested Gu Yimin, an odd-job worker, on Friday on ‘suspicion of inciting subversion of state power’, marking the first time the charge has been used since President Xi Jinping took office in March.

Gu had been held in a detention centre in Changshu city in Jiangsu since early June, his wife said. The centre could not be reached for comment.

Inciting subversion is a charge that in the past was commonly levelled against critics of one-party rule.

The charge against Gu is the most significant of a series of police actions over the past three months against people who have demanded freedom of assembly.

Between late March and May, authorities detained 15 anti-corruption activists involved in demonstrations calling for government officials to publicly disclose their assets, according to Maya Wang, a researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Gu, 37, applied in late May for permission to demonstrate on June 4, the 24th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, his wife, Xu Yan, told Reuters. Chinese authorities rejected Gu’s application.

Gu had also forwarded several photographs commemorating the movement on his microblog, including one that said: “By the expiry date of 2013, remove the Chinese Communists; on June 4, the city was slaughtered”.

“He possibly wanted to restore a bit of history, to let more people know about June 4,” Xu said by telephone. “I think this charge is a little heavy. If as a mere ordinary person, he could subvert state power, then this country’s state power is too easily subverted.”

Public discussion of the crackdown is still taboo in China, where on June 3 and June 4, 1989, its leaders ordered troops to open fire on demonstrators and sent in tanks to crush a student-led campaign movement, killing hundreds.

The Communist Party has banned references to the crackdown in state media, the Internet and books, meaning most young Chinese are ignorant of the events.

State security officers told Xu that his crime was tied to “distributing photographs and writing a statement related to June 4”, she said. On yesterday, police took away the family’s router, saying they needed to investigate the crime.

Xi’s ascendancy in a once-in-a-decade generational leadership transition last November had given many Chinese hope for political reform, mainly due to his folksy style and the legacy of his father, Xi Zhongxun, a former reformist vice-premier.

But many human rights activists say they see an emerging pattern that suggests Xi is not as tolerant of dissent as some had hoped for.

“There were such hopes before Xi’s new leadership that he would be the man who would take China forward on key issues including human rights, but these recent arrests of rights activists send a worrying signal that he might not have the appetite for real change at all,” said Wang of Human Rights Watch. — Reuters

By combining gravity and topography data collected by satellites, the scientists from Curtin University in Western Australia were able to use computer modelling to at first identify two basins on the far side of the Moon. They later developed a high-resolution image to find a total of 280 ‘candidate basins’ which they suspect are craters.

“There are many more (craters) that have been mapped from optical observations or from just the shape of the topography,” researcher Will Featherstone told AFP.

“So there’s many, many craters that were already known, we’ve just been able to apply this technique to enhance the ones that aren’t so easy to see.

“What we have been able to use is the topography and the gravity together to get a stronger indication that there is something there that needs further investigation.”

Featherstone said the researchers looked at the lunar surface on both the near and far sides of the Moon, the dark side being more challenging because satellites cannot be tracked from Earth when they are on that side.

To get around this, the researchers used data gathered from a mission which used multiple satellites which were tracking each other as they circled the Moon.

“So whe n the satellite orbiting the Moon went behind the far side and they couldn’t be seen from Earth, they could be seen by other satellites,” he said.

Featherstone said of the 280 possible craters, the researchers had classified 66 of them as distinctly visible according to both gravity and topography.

“Scientists can, instead of looking at every square inch of the Moon looking for basins, they can target these areas,” he said.

“It just helps investigations of the Moon and the history of the Moon and the solar system,” he added. The team has also done some work on the gravity of Mars and Featherstone said other data sets were also available for Venus and other planets.

He said scientists were optimistic about further discoveries from applying their techniques to new gravity data from NASA’s GRAIL mission, which ended in late 2012 when the two satellites – named Ebb and Flow – were deliberately crashed on the Moon. — AFP

East Japan Railway (JR East) said it wanted to find a couple who would like to tie the knot aboard the usually heaving Yamanote Line, in the company of up to 120 friends and family.

“We expect applications from couples who are somewhat attached to the Yamanote line, including those who live nearby,” said JR East spokesman Yoichi Suzuki. “But they need not necessarily be rail fans.”

Guests will have exclusive use of the 11-car train, which normally carries around 1,000 tightly-packed commuters.

The train will take an hour to travel the around the 35-kilometre Yamanote line, stopping at all 29 stations but not opening its doors.

The nature of the journey will pose one possible challenge — there is no toilet aboard.

“The guests will be warned well in advance. I think this is all the same for ordinary weddings,” said Suzuki.

The event has officially been planned to mark the 50th year that Yamanote line trains have been painted yellow-green. — AFP

Researchers want to introduce a human stem cell into an animal embryo, to create a so-called ‘chimeric embryo’, which they can implant into an animal’s womb.

The hope is that this stem cell will grow into a fully-functioning human organ — a kidney or a liver, for example — as the animal matures.

This would mean when the creature is fully grown, the organ could be harvested from the animal and used for transplanting into a person in need.

“Experts will study what possibilities this kind of research will generate,” especially with regard to ethics and human dignity, a government official told AFP.

The panel of government-appointed scientists, law professors and journalists will meet later Tuesday.

Its recommendation will be sent next month to a government committee which is expected to begin drafting guidelines shaping the boundaries of Japan’s cutting-edge embryonic research.

Unlike in the United States, there is little public opposition to the research, with domestic media coverage overwhelmingly positive, reflecting relatively high levels of scientific literacy among the population at large.

Japan currently allows scientists to grow chimeric embryos for up to two weeks in test-tubes, but prohibits them from putting those embryos into an animal’s womb, the official said.

In the proposed experiment, researchers, led by Hiromitsu Nakauchi of Tokyo University, want to implant a chimeric embryo made from a fertilised pig egg and a human “induced Pluripotent Stem cell” (iPS) into a pig’s womb, he said.

Stem cells are infant cells that can develop into any part of the body.

Until the discovery of iPS cells several years ago, the only way to obtain stem cells was to harvest them from human embryos.

This is controversial because it requires the destruction of the embryo, a process to which religious conservatives, among others, object.

Pioneering work done in 2006 by Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto University, a Nobel Laureate in medicine last year, succeeded in generating stem cells from skin tissue.

Like embryonic stem cells, iPS cells are also capable of developing into any cell in the body, but crucially their source material is readily available.

“We’ll see if the experiment goes well, but if we succeed in producing a human organ, the rest of the work toward practical use would be done within five years,” Nakauchi told AFP. — AFP

The marches, organised mostly through snowballing social media campaigns, blocked streets and halted traffic in more than a half-dozen cities, including Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Brasilia, where demonstrators climbed onto the roof of Brazil’s Congress building and then stormed it.

Monday’s demonstrations were the latest in a flurry of protests in the past two weeks that have added to growing unease over Brazil’s sluggish economy, high inflation and a spurt in violent crime.

While most of the protests unfolded as a festive display of dissent, some demonstrators in Rio threw rocks at police, set fire to a parked car and vandalised the state assembly building.

Vandals also destroyed property in the southern city of Porto Alegre.

Around the country, protesters waved Brazilian flags, dancing and chanting slogans such as ‘The people have awakened’ and ‘Pardon the inconvenience, Brazil is changing.’

The epicentre of Monday’s march shifted from Sao Paulo, where some 65,000 people took to the streets late in the afternoon, to Rio. There, as protesters gathered throughout the evening, crowds ballooned to 100,000 people, local police said.

At least 20,000 more gathered in Belo Horizonte.

The demonstrations are the first time that Brazilians, since a recent decade of steady economic growth, are collectively questioning the status quo.

The protests have gathered pace as Brazil is hosting the Confederation’s Cup, a dry run for next year’s World Cup soccer championship.

The government hopes these events, along with the 2016 Summer Olympics, will showcase Brazil as an emerging power on the global stage.

Brazil also is gearing up to welcome more than 2 million visitors in July as Pope Francis makes his first foreign trip
for a gathering of Catholic youth in Rio.

Contrasting the billions in taxpayer money spent on new stadiums with the shoddy state of Brazil’s public services, protesters are using the Confederation’s Cup as a counterpoint to amplify their concerns. — Reuters

The 29-year-old former contractor for the National Security Agency dismissed allegations he was a traitor or a Chinese agent, and insisted he had exposed a dangerous US global surveillance network that threatens the privacy of millions.

US President Barack Obama’s administration has protested that the programs exposed by Snowden’s leaks were vital to protecting US citizens from terrorism, but the revelations have triggered an embarrassing global debate.

Snowden, who fled last month from his job at an NSA base in Hawaii to Hong Kong carrying with him a cache of secret documents, is unrepentant, and he vowed to expose more details about how US agents spy on private emails.

“More detail on how direct NSA’s accesses are is coming,” he said, in an online interview hosted by The Guardian newspaper, repeating his allegation that US federal agents have access to private users’ Web traffic.

The government has opened a criminal probe into Snowden’s acts and partially confirmed his allegations by defending the programs to access Internet data and phone records, saying that they have thwarted dozens of terror attacks.

The degree to which US agencies have direct access to private communications stored on servers operated by private Internet giants has proved to be one of the more controversial aspects of the revelations.

Firms like Google and Facebook say they provide information only when presented with a court order, and deny that they have effectively given the NSA “back door” access directly to their data banks.

But Snowden repeated his claim that almost any intelligence analyst with access to the NSA signals intelligence database could target almost anyone’s emails or phone metadata and that warrants are rarely audited.

“They can enter and get results for anything they want,” he said.

“Phone number, email, user ID, cell phone handset ID (IMEI) and so on. It’s all the same. The restrictions against this are policy-based, not technically-based, and can change at any time,” he said.

Snowden alleged that Americans’ communications were collected and consulted on a “daily basis,” with analysts having access to all details associated with a targeted email address, such as IP addresses, raw data, content, headers and attachments.

“They excuse this as ‘incidental’ collection, but at the end of the day, someone at NSA still has the content of your communications,” he added. — AFP

The 98-year-old, under house arrest since last year, is listed by the Simon Wiesenthal Center as its most-wanted alleged Nazi war criminal.

The Nazi-hunting organisation says that Csatari was a senior Hungarian police officer in charge of the Kosice ghetto, in what is now Slovakia.

It says that in this role, he helped organise the deportation to Ukraine and the Nazi death camp Auschwitz of some 15,700 Jews between 1941 and 1944.

He was sentenced to death in absentia in 1948 by a court in what was then Czechoslovakia.

Csatari, whose full name is Laszlo Csizsik-Csatari, sometimes spelt Csizsik-Csatary, was arrested on July 18, 2012 in Budapest on the basis of information provided by the Wiesenthal Center.

Csatary had fled to Canada after World War II but apparently lived undisturbed in Hungary for about 15 years before his arrest.

At a court hearing last July he denied all the accusations.

“S ince we are talking here about an extraordinary case, the court has 90 days to begin trial proceedings,” a spokesman for the public prosecutors office told AFP yesterday. — AFP

Montreal Mayor Michael Applebaum was picked up by police at his home in the early morning hours and taken in for questioning, only months after casting himself as the man to lead the city out of a myriad of scandals.

Immediately after the news broke, Montreal City Council called for the nomination of a new mayor to replace Applebaum within 30 days.

Otherwise, the province could take over management of the second-largest francophone city in the world, after Paris, until the next scheduled elections in November.

Two former city councilors, including one with ties to Canada’s ruling Conservatives, were also arrested in the police sweep.

They face a total of 23 federal charges, including fraud, collusion, breach of trust and corruption. Details of the accusations were not immediately available.

Applebaum is accused of having received illicit commissions in two real estate development deals in the neighborhood he represented on the Montreal City Council between 2006 and 2011, authorities told a news conference.

“These were bribes that influenced a decision, approvals or permit distribution,” one of the investigators said.

The trio’s arrest comes amid a corruption probe that has gripped the city for more than a year and led former mayor Gerald Tremblay to resign in November, as well as the arrest in a sweep last month of nearby Laval’s longtime mayor for alleged fraud and gangsterism.

Authorities said that former Montreal city councilor Saulie Zajdel was arrested with Applebaum. Zajdel was a failed Conservative candidate in the last federal election and thereafter briefly worked in Heritage Minister James Moore’s office.

The third arrested politician, Jean-Yves Bisson, is a former borough manager in Cote-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grace, where Applebaum served as mayor for a decade.

Officials said they expected more arrests in the coming days.

Applebaum, Zajdel and Bisson were to be released later in the day and are scheduled to appear in court to answer to the charges in October, police said. — AFP

The preliminary hearing, focused on rules over monitoring interactions between attorneys and their clients, marked the first time the five had been in court since February.

The co-defendants sat calmly with none of the outbursts that marked previous sessions. Self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wore a camouflage jacket and white turban, with his thick beard died a reddish orange.

Journalists and relatives of the victims heard the court room exchanges, with a 40-second delay, in an adjoining gallery and at the Fort Meade base in Maryland, which received a feed.

Two former New York policemen who were injured in the attacks also attended the hearing.

The preliminary hearings, set to last through Friday, come amid a widespread hunger strike that has lasted more than four months by nearly two thirds of the 166 terror suspects still held at Guantanamo.

A total of 104 detainees are now refusing food, with 44 of them being force-fed through a nasal tube into the esophagus, according to prison spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Samuel House.

It is unclear whether the accused plotters are participating in the strike, and they did not appear thinner at the hearing.

Defence lawyer Commander Walter Ruiz earlier said his client Mustafa al-Hawsawi had at one point refused food in solidarity with his fellow prisoners.

Defence attorneys questioned retired vice admiral Bruce MacDonald, who previously oversaw the special military tribunals, about rules he approved allowing prison officials to listen in on client-attorney meetings.

MacDonald, speaking via teleconference from the northwestern US state of Washington, said he had asked to record and tap all telephone conversations between the five men and their lawyers.

All declarations by the five men, considered “high-value” detainees who face the death penalty” are considered classified because they were held at secret CIA sites before being transferred to Guantanamo.

Mohammed was subjected to 183 sessions of waterboarding, or simulated drowning, at the black sites. “Waterboarding is torture,” MacDonald said when asked about the so-called enhanced interrogation technique. — AFP

Bennett’s comments are entirely in line with those that he espoused during January’s election campaign but his reiteration of them as minister comes as Washington steps up efforts to revive the troubled peace process.

“The idea that a Palestinian state will be founded within the Land of Israel has reached a dead end,” said Bennett, using the biblical term for a greater Israel encompassing the occupied West Bank.

“Never, in the history of Israel, have so many people put so much energy into something so pointless,” he said during a meeting of Jewish settlement leaders, in remarks carried by public radio.

“The most important thing for the Land of Israel is to build, and build, and build,” said Bennett, who heads the hardline nationalist Jewish Home party.

He added that central to the problem was the reluctance of Israel’s leadership to simply insist that the West Bank belongs to “the people of Israel”.

“There was never a Palestinian state here, and we were never occupiers, this is our home,” said Bennett.

Bennett, who is a past chairman of the settlement leaders’ council he was addressing, has consistently opposed the two-state solution backed by key Israeli ally Washington and the rest of the international community.

He says he opted to join Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition — whose platform includes a declared aspiration to reach an agreement leading to a Palestinian state — because he believed the goal was not realistic.

Bennett’s remarks come after Deputy Defence Minister Danny Danon, a member of Netanyahu’s rightwing Likud party, denied in an interview earlier this month that the government was serious about reaching a peace agreement that would lead to a two-state solution.

And last week, deputy minister Ofir Akunis told public radio the Palestinians “were not ready for a state”.

Following Danon’s interview, Netanyahu last Sunday reiterated his commitment to a Palestinian state, saying he and US Secretary of State John Kerry will “try to make progress to find the opening for negotiations with the Palestinians, with the goal of reaching an agreement”. — AFP

Speaking at an event in honour of President Shimon Peres’ 90th birthday later this year, Clinton said: “I’m with Shimon on this, I don’t think that in all these years a credible alternative to the creation of a Palestinian state has been presented.”

The two-state solution is the only one “that will preserve the essential character of the state of Israel as a Jewish but democratic state where minorities can vote,” Clinton said in the speech at the Peres Academic Centre in Rehovot, near Tel Aviv.

“No matter how manysettlers you put out there the Palestinians will have more babies,” said Clinton.

As the then US president, he presided over the signing of the 1993 Oslo peace accords by Israel’s Yitzak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The 1994 Nobel Peace Prize was then awarded jointly to Peres, Rabin and Arafat.

“You’re a microcosm of the challenges facing the whole world,” Clinton told his listeners, who included several Israeli ministers and lawmakers.

“Your neighbours are still your neighbours … One way or another you’re gonna share the future with them.” — AFP

Hajjaj Saadi, who was handed five death sentences, complained shortly before his execution that had not been given any assistance from the Egyptian government, a witness said.

Saadi strongly denied in court that he had committed any of the crimes, which shocked the Kuwaiti public, and insisted his confessions were extracted under duress.

Arrested in July 2007 as he prepared to board a flight to Luxor in Egypt, he became known as “the Hawalli monster” for the district near Kuwait City where the crimes took place.

The authorities said Saadi had confessed to raping 17 boys and girls after luring them onto rooftops in Hawalli, an area mainly inhabited by foreigners 12 kilometres south of the capital.

Another Egyptian man was executed at the same time after he was found guilty of killing an Asian couple by setting their home ablaze and attempting to murder another couple from Egypt the same way, said the prosecution.

Ahmad Abdulsalam al-Baili poured an inflammable material in the apartment of the Asian pair and set it on fire in April 2008, causing their deaths, it said in a statement.

Later he tried to kill an Egyptian couple the same way. They survived despite suffering injuries.

The hangings were the second set of executions in Kuwait since it reintroduced the death penalty following a six-year moratorium.

In April, the authorities in the oil-rich Gulf state executed a Saudi, a Pakistani and a stateless Arab who were convicted of murder. — AFP

Erdem Gunduz said he wanted to take a stand against police stopping demonstrations near the square, Dogan news agency reported.

He stood silently, facing the Ataturk Cultural Centre which was draped in Turkish flags and a portrait of Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, from 6pm on Monday.

By 2am, when the police moved in, about 300 people had joined him. Ten people, who refused to be moved on by police, were detained.

Gunduz, swiftly dubbed “standing man” on social media in Turkey, inspired similar protests elsewhere in Istanbul as well as in the capital Ankara and the city of Izmir on the Aegean coast.

The silent protests were in stark contrast to demonstrations at the weekend, which saw some of the fiercest clashes so far when police fired teargas and water cannon to clear thousands from Taksim Square.

What began in May as a protest by environmentalists upset over plans to build on a park adjoining Taksim has grown into a movement against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, presenting the greatest public challenge to his 10-year leadership. — Reuters

Officers raided the homes of around 90 members of the Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP), a small leftist group that has been active in Istanbul’s Gezi Park protest at the centre of the nationwide protest movement, the Istanbul bar association said.

Police also searched the offices of the Atilim daily and the Etkin news agency, local media outlets linked to the ESP group, the NTV and CNN-Turk television stations reported.

NTV said 30 people were arrested in the capital Ankara and another 13 in the northwestern city of Eskisehir in a police swoop targeting 21 provinces overall.

Under Turkish law, the detainees may be questioned for four days before they are taken to court to be freed or charged.

Turkey has taken a tough stance against the tens of thousands of demonstrators who have been protesting since May 31 against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted government, seen as increasingly authoritarian.

Police have used tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets to quell the demos, leaving thousands injured and four dead.

Tensions soared on Saturday when police stormed the flashpoint Gezi Park to evict protesters, sparking a weekend of heavy clashes.

Demonstrators have since struggled to regroup and the protests appeared to have lost some of their momentum with only sporadic clashes reported. — AFP

A tourist takes pictures in front of the Marina Bay Sands hotel as it is blanketed by haze, in Singapore, on June 17, 2013. Smog from forest fires in Indonesia stayed at unhealthy levels in Singapore on Tuesday as the two neighbours blamed each other for the seasonal problem. –AFP

A view from Mount Faber shows haze covering Singapore, on June 17, 2013. Smog from forest fires in Indonesia stayed at unhealthy levels in Singapore on Tuesday as the two neighbours blamed each other for the seasonal problem. –AFP

Smog from forest fires in Indonesia stayed at unhealthy levels in Singapore on Tuesday as the two neighbours blamed each other for the seasonal problem.

Singapore’s Pollutant Standards Index stood at 115 as offices opened — still above the “unhealthy” threshold of 100 but down from the peak reached late Monday when the entire island was shrouded by a smoky haze.

Most commuters walked in bright sunshine on Tuesday without covering their faces despite the lingering smell of burnt wood in the business district.

The Ministry of Manpower has urged employers to issue protective masks to staff with heart and respiratory problems, and those working outdoors. The elderly and children have also been told to reduce strenuous outdoor activity.

The pollutant index soared to a peak of 155 late Monday, the highest since Southeast Asia’s prolonged haze crisis in 1997-1998, but eased off overnight.

On Monday, Singapore urged Indonesia to take “urgent measures” to tackle its forest fires as smoke blown from Sumatra island choked the densely populated city-state as well as parts of Malaysia.

But the Indonesian forestry ministry said firefighters were already tackling the blazes and water-dropping aircraft would be deployed if local governors made a request.

A ministry official, Hadi Daryanto, also attempted to shift some of the blame onto Malaysia and Singapore, saying their palm oil companies that had invested in Indonesia were also responsible.

“The slash-and-burn technique being used is the cheapest land-clearing method and it is not only used by local farmers, but also employees of palm oil investors including Singaporean and Malaysian companies,” he said.

“We hope the governments of Malaysia and Singapore will tell their investors to adopt proper measures so we can solve this problem together.”

But Vivian Balakrishnan, Singapore’s minister for environment and water resources, kept up the pressure on Indonesia.

In remarks carried Tuesday by Singapore media, he said “commercial interests in Indonesia have been allowed to override environmental concerns.”

He repeated an offer of help from Singapore, which has a modern military and civil defence system including firefighters.

The Singapore military came to Indonesia’s aid after Aceh province was devastated by a tsunami in 2004.

Quoting Eduardo del Rosario, executive director of NDRRMC, China’s Xinhua news agency said low lying towns in the provinces of Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani, North Cotabato, Maguindanao and Davao del Norte were flooded due to continuous heavy downpour caused by Tropical Depression Emong.

NDRRMC broke down the number of people affected to 335 people in Davao del Norte; 36,370 in Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani and North Cotabato; and 61,947 in Maguindanao.

“So far there were no reported deaths,” he said.

In the township of Braulio Dujali, Davao del Norte, the water level is high after a dam was destroyed.

The NDRRMC said its operations centre is on red alert status and has been continuously monitoring and disseminating weather advisories.

Earlier, the United States weather forecasters reported Tropical Depression Emong might become a strong tropical cyclone within the next 24 hours, citing the weather disturbance is likely to gain more strength as it tracks northward in the east coast of the Philippines. — BERNAMA

NEW YORK: Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng accused Beijing of waging an ‘unrelenting’ campaign against academic freedom Sunday and alleged that this had led New York University to end his studies.

The blind self-taught lawyer, one of the most emblematic Chinese rights campaigners, spoke out after adamant denials from the university which said it never planned to enroll him beyond one year and was ‘saddened’ by his charges.

Chen, whose dramatic escape from house arrest for the safety of the US embassy triggered a brief crisis between the two nations, said the private Manhattan university discussed his departure soon after he arrived in May 2012.

“As early as last August and September, the Chinese Communists had already begun to apply great, unrelenting pressure on New York University, so much so that after we had been in the United States just three to four months, NYU was already starting to discuss our departure with us,” said Chen, who confirmed he would leave this month.

“The work of the Chinese Communists within academic circles in the United States is far greater than what people imagine, and some scholars have no option but to hold themselves back,” he said in a statement Sunday.

“Academic independence and academic freedom in the United States are being greatly threatened by a totalitarian regime,” he said.

Chen, who has been outspoken on Beijing’s human rights record since his arrival in the United States, vowed to “do everything I can” on behalf of fellow Chinese “who still are not free and who are now being oppressed.”

“China’s Communist rulers hope to use these means to disturb our normal life, and even want to make me so busy trying to earn a living that I don’t have time for human rights advocacy, but this is not going to happen,” he said.

New York University said it was ‘very discouraged’ by Chen’s statement and insisted it was “extraordinarily generous” in providing housing, food, health care, English lessons, connections to a publisher and other support to the activist and his family.

“We are puzzled and saddened to see these false claims directed at us. We will, nonetheless, continue to work with the Chens to help them with their transition,” he said in a statement.

Beckman said that the university was always clear that the fellowship would last for only one year and that Chen has ‘two extremely attractive offers’ for his next step.

“We began talking with the Chens about the coming transition in their living arrangements months ago, not because of some fictional ‘pressure’ from China, but so that they could use the months to make their transition a smooth one. It is disappointing to us that that period was not used more wisely,” he said.

Chen, who is blind since childhood, angered authorities in eastern Shandong province by exposing abuses in the one-child-only policy. He was sentenced to four years in prison and later put under house arrest, where he said he and his wife were beaten for speaking out.

He came to New York University largely due to the influence of one of its professors, Jerome Cohen, who is a leading authority on Chinese law and human rights.

Cohen has also denied pressure from China, saying last week that no political refugee – ‘even Albert Einstein’ – has ever been treated better by a US academic institution.

Chen said he was ‘very grateful’ to New York University and Cohen but questioned why he never received a requested meeting with the university president, John Sexton, who has prioritised expansion abroad including China. — AFP

Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying expressed ‘strong condemnation’ over the attack on the oenology students early Saturday in the wine-producing Bordeaux region.

France’s interior ministry had earlier described the violence – which left one student severely injured after a bottle was thrown at her – as an act of xenophobia.

“So far, the injured student has been properly treated,” Hua said at a regular briefing.

“At the same time China launched representation to France, asking it to properly handle the case, bring the perpetrators to justice and take effective measures to protect Chinese citizens’ safety and rights in France.”

Three youths have been charged and detained over the attack, officials in France said yesterday. — AFP

Tom Stilwell, 20, from the English town of Brighton, was in a stable condition after his plunge in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Police said Stilwell found he was locked out of his 14th floor apartment over the weekend and woke a neighbour on the 15th floor, telling her he wanted to clamber down from her balcony onto his own.

The neighbour allowed him into her apartment, intending to point out to him how foolhardy his plan was. Instead, she said he immediately tried to lower himself from the balcony and slipped as she tried to grab hold of him.

St John Ambulance medical director Tony Smith said the man’s fall was broken by an adjacent roof, although he still dropped 13 storeys. — AFP

The Post-Courier newspaper said the 18-year-old chopped her father’s head clean off after he repeatedly raped her last Tuesday night in their village in the poverty-stricken Pacific nation’s Western Highlands.

The report cited a pastor as saying the father, in his mid-40s, had three other children and raped his daughter when they were alone in the house after the mother and the other siblings visited relatives.

Pastor Lucas Kumi said the man went to his daughter’s room in the night and raped her repeatedly.

“The father wanted to rape his daughter again in the morning inside the house and that was when the young girl picked up the bush knife and chopped her father’s head off,” he said.

Community leaders are now refusing to hand the girl over to police, vowing to protect her.

“The people and leaders in our area went and saw the headless body of the father after the girl reported the incident to the leaders and the people and told her story of why she had killed her father,” said Kumi.

“The daughter did what she did because of the trauma and the evil actions of her father so that is why we have all agreed that she remains in the community.”

Violent crime, as well as witchcraft, is rife in Papua New Guinea with the government last month voting to revive the death penalty in a bid to deter offenders after a series of high-profile grisly incidents.

Brutality against women, including domestic violence and rape, is also endemic in the country. Over the weekend, the Post-Courier reported that child prostitution is on the rise, particularly in the capital Port Moresby where many new nightclubs have sprung up. — AFP

Skyscrapers including the famous Marina Bay Sands casino towers were shrouded in haze and the acrid smell of burnt wood pervaded the central business district.

The Pollutant Standards Index soared to 105 at mid-afternoon, past the ‘unhealthy’ threshold of 100, according to the National Environment Agency (NEA) website.

People with heart and lung disease, those over 65 and children are advised to “reduce prolonged or heavy outdoor exertion” even in moderate conditions, defined as a reading of 51-100.

Business and air transport have so far not been affected. Singapore schools are on holiday. Singapore is one of the world’s most densely populated countries. Most of its 5.3 million people live in high-rise apartment blocks.

Southeast Asia’s haze problem hit its worst level in 1997-1998, causing widespread health problems and costing the regional economy billions of dollars as a result of business and air transport disruptions. — AFP

Obama told an audience of mostly young people in Belfast that the United States would always stand by them, as a new generation tries to forge a new identity from the province’s bitter past.

“You are the first generation in this land to inherit more than just hardened attitudes, and the bitter prejudices of the past. You are an inheritor of a just and harder peace,” Obama said, after flying into Northern Ireland for the G8 summit.

“Whenever your peace is attacked, you will have to choose whether to respond with the same bravery you’ve summoned so far. You will have to choose whether to keep going,” Obama said.

“You should know that so long as you are moving forward, America will always stand by you as you do. We will keep working closely with leaders in Stormont, and Dublin, and Westminster to support your political progress.”

Although the president has previously visited England and the Republic of Ireland, he was making his first trip to Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.

“All of you … possess something the generation before yours did not: an example to follow,” Obama said.

“When those who took a chance on peace got started, they didn’t have a successful model to emulate. They didn’t know if it would work. But they took a chance. So far, it has succeeded.

“The first steps are the hardest and require the most courage. The rest, now, are up to you.”

The president said that through the dark years of violence, the violence had been seen as “intractable” and added that the subsequent peace deal had inspired those trapped in sectarian conflicts around the world.

“Hope is contagious. They are watching to see what you do next.”

Before the speech, at the Waterfront Hall, in Belfast, Obama met Northern Ireland’s First Minister Peter Robinson and his deputy Martin McGuinness.

A 1998 peace agreement brought an end to three decades of sectarian violence between Protestants and Catholics known as the Troubles, in Northern Ireland, a process the United States supported.

But sporadic bomb threats and murders by dissident republicans continue, despite a wave of economic development and reconciliation efforts.

The president, marvelling at the changes in Northern Ireland, after decades of riots, bombings and killings, said a few years ago, it was unimaginable that the province could have hosted an event as complex and requiring such a heavy security presence as the summit of the Group of Eight industrial nations at a golf resort at Lough Erne, a short ride away from Belfast in Obama’s Marine One helicopter.

On a lighter note, the golf-mad Obama told the audience that he was sorry he could not get in a few rounds of golf on some of Northern Ireland’s famous links during his visit.

But he recalled that he met native son Rory McIlroy last year, who offered to help him get his weekend golfer’s swing ‘sorted.’ — AFP

Summing up state agencies’ findings on the death of electronics engineer Shane Todd in June 2012, they said ‘it is clear from the medical forensic evidence that the medical cause of Shane’s death was asphyxia due to hanging.’

The coroner’s verdict, which cannot be appealed, is scheduled to be handed down on July 8. Public hearings on the case were held from May 13-27.

Todd’s family stormed out of the hearings on May 21, saying they had ‘lost faith’ in the proceedings and describing it as one-sided. They later said they may have the body exhumed in California for further tests.

The Singapore government lawyers cited suicide notes left by Todd on his laptop computer, a psychiatrist’s testimony that he suffered from depression, and a browsing history showing he accessed suicide websites before his death.

“The conspicuous absence of any evidence to support the next-of-kin’s homicide theory must be viewed in juxtaposition with the overwhelming evidence pointing inexorably towards suicide,” said a summary read in court by senior state counsel Tai Wei Shyong.

He concluded by saying that the ‘homicide case theory is entirely misplaced and unfounded, and that Shane’s death was a suicide.’

In statements to the inquest, Todd’s parents said he feared he was being made to compromise US national security in a secret project involving a Chinese telecom firm accused of international espionage and a state-linked Singapore institute that employed their son.

The two firms they implicated — the Institute of Microelectronics and China’s Huawei Technologies — said they only held preliminary talks on a potential project with commercial applications, but did not proceed.

A US congressional committee last year labelled Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese telecom firm, as potential security threats that should be excluded from US government contracts and barred from acquiring US firms.

During the hearings, the Todd family’s star witness, US pathologist Edward Adelstein, recanted an earlier theory that Todd was garroted with a cord in his own apartment.

He presented a new theory: Todd was killed by assassins who used a stun gun before choking his neck and then hanging him to make it look like a suicide.

But Adelstein presented no evidence and two other US pathologists testified in support of Singapore police findings that Todd hanged himself from his bathroom door. Witnesses also testified that Todd showed signs of heavy stress in the days before his body was discovered by his girlfriend. — AFP

Congress was to swear in four new cabinet ministers, as it readies for a tough battle to try to win a third term in office amid a slew of graft scandals, policy malaise and the slowest economic growth in a decade.

The reshuffle comes a day after Congress unveiled its campaign committee, with members picked from a diverse range of areas throughout the country.

“It is a significant rejig as it marks a transition within the party ahead of the polls,” author and political analyst Rasheed Kidwai said of the reshuffle due later yesterday.

The move comes as the Reserve Bank of India left its key lending rate unchanged, dealing a blow to the government and underscoring the challenges it faces as it tries to boost investment and kickstart the economy.

The Reserve Bank of India held rates steady, saying the local currency’s sharp decline could adversely impact already high inflation.

The government has been dogged by a string of corruption scandals which has derailed efforts to push through promised pro-market reforms, curtail inflation and revive the economy.

But the left-leaning Congress has been bolstered by turmoil within the opposition coalition after the pullout of a key partner over the elevation of right-wing hardliner Narendra Modi to head its campaign for the elections due by next May.

The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused its partner, the Janata Dal (United) party, of betrayal over the pullout after a 17-year alliance as the bitterness of the turmoil played out Monday in the Indian media.

“We will take revenge of this insult in the Lok Sabha (Lower House) elections next year,” Sushil Kumar Modi, a senior BJP official, was quoted as saying by the Times of India newspaper.

The head of Janata Dal, Nitish Kumar, hit back, telling reporters that Modi’s elevation was unacceptable for his party and would prove disastrous at the polls.

“They wish (us) long life but give medicines to kill,” Kumar said, referring to Modi.

Modi, who is the chief minister of Gujarat state, is likely to be tapped as the candidate for the prime minister’s post should the party win elections.

Modi has painted himself as a pro-business reformist who can revive the fortunes of the world’s largest democracy. But he remains a hugely divisive figure nationally after being accused of doing little to stop religious riots in his state in 2002 in which some 2,000 people — mainly Muslims — were killed. — AFP

Poengky Indiarti, the executive director of the rights watchdog Imparsial, urged Timur to review the decree to restore justice and religious freedom.

“The opportunity to become a member of the police force should be equal, including for Muslim women who wear the hijab. It’s discrimination if only female members of the corps in Aceh are allowed to wear the garb,” Poengky was quoted as saying by the English daily, The Jakarta Post, Monday.

A decision by the then National Police chief Gen Da’i Bachtiar in 2005 required all members of the corps to wear only the official uniform and prohibited women personnel from wearing the hijab. Violating the ban subjected the personnel to dismissal.

However, female personnel of the police force in Aceh are excluded from the regulation because Aceh’s 2001 Syariah-inspired bylaws oblige all women to cover their hair.

Muslim scholar Azyumardi Azra said the police would be upholding Indonesia’s motto of ‘Bhinneka Tunggal Ika’ (Unity in Diversity) by lifting the ban the on hijab.

Amidhan Shaberah of the Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI) said the hijab ban showed that the police were a “repressive institution” and the MUI was expected to deliberate the issue in an internal meeting soon.

The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) and the Indonesian Police Watch (IPW) also rejected the ban.

“In Indonesia, many institutions have allowed their employees to wear the hijab. I urge policewomen to look for support from the House of Representatives’ Commission III on Legal Affairs and the Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry for the abolition of the ban,” IPW chairman Neta S. Pane said.

Indonesian Police spokesman Senior Commissioner Agus Rianto said the protests would not influence the police to change their policy and they would continue to comply with the decree until it was amended. — Bernama

The warning came in a 20-minute telephone call between Park and US President Barack Obama the day after North Korea proposed opening direct de-nuclearisation talks with the United States.

The offer was widely seen as an effort to drive a wedge between the United States and its South Korean ally after planned North-South talks were cancelled last week in a row over protocol.

“Talks for the sake of talks will only help North Korea earn more time to advance its nuclear weapons,” a presidential Blue House spokesman quoted Park as telling Obama.

The White House meanwhile issued a statement saying the two presidents ‘agreed to continue close communication and coordination on actions to pursue the de-nuclearisation of North Korea’.

Washington had already responded warily to Pyongyang’s proposal, saying North Korea would have to show proof of its willingness to abandon its nuclear programme before a dialogue could begin.

The South’s Unification Ministry, which deals with inter-Korean relations, made it clear that Seoul and Washington were firmly on the same page.

“I’d like to explain our stance by repeating the comments from the White House…that the window of dialogue is open but that the North should take concrete steps first,” said ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-Seok.

During their 20-minute call, Obama briefed Park on his recent summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, when both leaders agreed to work together on the de-nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

Park and Xi are due to hold their own summit in Beijing on June 27.

North Korea has embarked on something of a diplomatic offensive of its own after months of heightened military tensions on the Korean peninsula, during which it had threatened nuclear strikes against the South and the US.

In May, it received a top-level aide to Japan’s prime minister, and leader Kim Jong-Un sent his personal envoy to Beijing for talks with the Chinese leadership.

Then it proposed high-level talks with South Korea which were called off at the last minute after the two sides argued over the rank of their respective chief delegates.

Sunday’s proposal for direct talks with Washington insisted there could be no ‘pre-conditions’ – an optimistic requirement given the US insistence that the North first demonstrate its sincerity about de-nuclearisation.

South Korean media dismissed Pyongyang’s talks offer as a worn-out strategy to divide Seoul and Washington, with an editorial in the JoongAng Daily calling it ‘North Korea’s indecent proposal’.

Last week, Glyn Davies, the US pointman on North Korea, repeated calls for the North to take steps to end its nuclear programme and said the recent surge in tensions on the Korean peninsula had reinforced US hesitancy to engage again.

The last senior-level talks between North Korea and the United States in February 2012 resulted in a deal for supplies of US food aid in exchange for a moratorium on missile and nuclear tests.

The agreement collapsed almost immediately when the North unsuccessfully launched a long-range rocket the following month. — AFP

The problem of air pollution has stoked popular discontent across the country, with levels of particulate matter in Beijing measured at 40 times above World Health Organisation limits this year.

The measures announced by the State Council, including holding local officials responsible for air quality, and reducing emissions from key polluting industries by 30 per cent within five years, amount to a “milestone in the country’s anti-pollution campaign,” Deutsche Bank said in a report.

But the bank cautioned that efforts to improve air quality ‘could last for 18 years, before Chinese cities’ average PM2.5 falls to 30’.

PM2.5 is a measure of tiny particulate matter which causes smog and breathing problems.

Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, one of China’s best-known environmental advocacy groups, said the measures announced late Friday were ‘a response to public concerns’, but cautioned that ‘it will be a huge challenge to put the measures into action’.

“The main reason (for pollution) is that the local governments protect polluting industries for the sake of GDP,” he said.

While China has long pledged to improve its environment, local officials are incentivised to rank economic growth above pollution reduction.

The new measures, which include a pledge to give local leaders targets for improving air quality, could provide them with ‘new motivation’ to reduce pollution, Ma said, adding: ‘its not clear how important the environmental goals are in the overall system’. Ma praised a new requirement that heavy polluters such as power plants must release detailed environmental information to the general public.

“This will change the dynamic,” Ma said.

“It’s a big step forward for corporate disclosure, which has always lagged behind in China.”

“I think that these measures are great, but the challenge is giving the government the motivation to enforce them,” he said.

“The pressure needs to come from the public, because the power of the public is large, and they can push forward air pollution control in China.”

The China Daily, one of the country’s state-run newspapers which have grown increasingly outspoken on the issue of air pollution, said today in an editorial that if local governments obeyed the new measures, ‘the day would not be too far away when we would be able to enjoy clean air’.

Air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths and 25 million healthy years of life lost in China in 2010, the US-based Health Effects Institute reported in March, basing its figures on a global survey published in British medical journal The Lancet.

China’s pollution problems are blamed on rapid urbanisation and decades of dramatic economic development. — AFP

Diplomats in Tokyo say China appears to be ramping up its spending on its missions while Japanese diplomats are being forced to scrimp, the ministry said.

Allowances for embassy bashes have dropped 40 per cent over the last decade, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told a parliamentary committee earlier this month.

Foreign guests invited to mark occasions such as the Emperor’s birthday have noted the second-rate sake and substandard snacks, Kishida said.

One diplomat reportedly complained the Middle East mission where he worked had been unable to afford to serve the popular shrimp tempura, and this had turned off invitees.

In contrast, Chinese missions appear to be hosting ever-more lavish receptions.

One senior Japanese ministry official lamented ‘the gap in momentum’ between the two countries, which are locked in a tense territorial dispute, Jiji reported.

Another diplomat told AFP that a Japanese embassy in a western African country ‘is located in a multi-tenant building, and when you go down from your floor, shoe-shiners approach you’.

“There is no private electric generator inside the building so blackouts happen frequently,” he said.

“In contrast, China has nice premises… and when I was there a few years ago it was constructing a brand new building,” he added.

An official from the governing Liberal Democratic Party told AFP party food was sometimes paltry.

“There are some cases where the contents of meals are so poor that holding a reception just has no meaning,” he told AFP.

However, a senior official at a government agency handling economic affairs dismissed the complaints. — AFP

“I think it is completely groundless,” said foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying when asked at a regular news briefing if Snowden spied for China.

They were the first concrete comments from Beijing on Snowden. Last week, Hua said that she had “no information to offer” on the 29-year-old.

Former US vice president Dick Cheney said Sunday on US television that he was “deeply suspicious” about Snowden given that he had gone to China.

Snowden is currently in Hong Kong, a former British colony that is now a special administrative region of China and that maintains a high level of autonomy, including its own legal system.

“That’s not a place where you ordinarily want to go if you’re interested in freedom, and liberty and so forth,” Cheney said in an appearance on “Fox News Sunday”.

“So, it raises questions whether or not he had that kind of connection before he did this.”

Hua also called on Washington to explain its surveillance programme to the global community.

“We believe that the US side should pay attention to the concerns and demands of the international community and the public over this issue and give the international community a necessary explanation,” she said.

Meanwhile, a state-backed Chinese newspaper yesterday said extraditing former spy Edward Snowden to the United States would be a ‘betrayal’ of his trust and a ‘face-losing outcome’ for Beijing.

The comments are among the strongest to be put forward by domestic media against extraditing Snowden, a former National Security Agency subcontractor who is hiding in Hong Kong.

The US has launched a criminal investigation into Snowden after he exposed a massive Internet surveillance operation — including claims of hacking directed at China — amid tensions between Washington and Beijing over online espionage.

Yesterday’s Global Times editorial went into detail about the “face-losing outcome” for China if he was returned.

“Unlike a common criminal, Snowden did not hurt anybody. His ‘crime’ was that he blew the whistle on the US government’s violation of civil rights,” it said.

“Extraditing Snowden back to the US would not only be a betrayal of Snowden’s trust, but a disappointment for expectations around the world.

“The image of Hong Kong would be forever tarnished.”

The editorial also said that “Snowden believes in the democracy and freedom of Hong Kong,” adding: “China’s growing power is attracting people to seek asylum in China”.

China’s official army newspaper Sunday branded the surveillance programme exposed by Snowden as ‘frightening’.

The former spy has vowed to fight any attempt by the US to extradite him from Hong Kong, which retained a separate legal system when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997. — AFP

The money people lost was up nine per cent on the previous year with a big jump in online shopping scams, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said in a new report.

The biggest fraud was people being asked to pay to access a share in a sum of money they are told they are owed, with gullible Australians handing over more than Aus 30 million.

This was followed by Aus 23.3 million being sent to someone they think they are in an online relationship with, but is in fact a con.

Online shopping fraud, using increasingly sophisticated fake logos, emails or websites, raked in more than Aus 4.0 million.

“Reports of financial losses to the ACCC are just the tip of the iceberg as victims of scams are often too embarrassed to report their experience,” ACCC deputy chair Delia Rickard said.

“Scammers continue to find sophisticated methods to deliver scams, taking advantage of new technologies and communication methods to try and slip under your radar.

“Nowadays it can take just the click of a button to fall victim to a scam, so it is more important than ever that we practice safe techniques when communicating with others — whether online, on the phone, at one’s business or even at home.”

The report said most consumers who reported being duped lost between Aus 100 and Aus 499 in what the agency described as “high volume” scams targeting many people. The majority of scams were delivered over the phone, with voice and text messaging also popular with fraudsters. — AFP

Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and several other top Internet and technology companies have come under heightened scrutiny since word leaked of a vast, covert Internet surveillance program US authorities insist targets only foreign terror suspects and has helped thwart attacks.

In a statement on its web site, Apple said in the period between December 1, 2012 and May 31, 2013, US law enforcement had requested customer information up to 5,000 times, related to between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices.

Most commonly, these requests were related to criminal investigations, searches for missing children or patients with Alzheimer’s disease, or hoping to prevent a suicide, Apple said.

But the iPhone maker said it works vigorously to protect the privacy of its users and only provides information by court order.

“Regardless of the circumstances, our legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities,” it said, noting that sometimes the requests were denied altogether.

Apple also specified certain types of communications are protected, such as FaceTime and iMessage conversations, which are “protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them.”

“Apple cannot decrypt that data,” the statement said.

“Similarly, we do not store data related to customers’ location, Map searches or Siri requests in any identifiable form.”

Facebook said Friday it had received between 9,000 and 10,000 requests for user data affecting 18,000 to 19,000 accounts during the second half of last year, while Microsoft said it had received 6,000 to 7,000 requests affecting 31,000 to 32,000 accounts during the same period.

Both firms said they were prohibited by law from listing a separate tally for security-related requests or secret court orders concerning terror probes. — AFP