Tokyo, 19 February, /AJMEDIA/
North Korea says it held “surprise” ICBM drill amid military threats
BEIJING – North Korea said Sunday it conducted the previous day a “surprise” drill of the Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile on a lofted trajectory amid military threats from the United States and South Korea, according to state-run media.
The missile firing Saturday afternoon from Pyongyang International Airport proved the “sure reliability of our powerful physical nuclear deterrent,” the official Korean Central News Agency said.
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Top U.S., China diplomats meet, but at odds over balloon incident
MUNICH – The top diplomats of the United States and China met Saturday, in the first face-to-face between high-ranking officials of the two countries since a suspected Chinese spy balloon was shot down by a U.S. fighter jet two weeks ago.
But U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Wang Yi, the Chinese Communist Party’s top foreign policy official, remained at odds over the incident when they met for about an hour on the sidelines of an international security conference in Munich, according to information provided by the two countries.
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Japan conveys concerns to China amid tensions over spy balloons
MUNICH – Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said Saturday he conveyed his concern to China’s foreign policy chief Wang Yi that a flying object from any country entering Japan’s airspace without permission would constitute an intrusion, amid diplomatic tensions over suspected Chinese spy balloons.
Hayashi also told reporters after a 50-minute meeting with Wang in the southern German city of Munich that the two countries agreed to hold a security dialogue involving senior foreign affairs and defense officials next week, the first since February 2019.
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G-7 foreign ministers vow to support Ukraine ahead of war’s 1st anniv.
MUNICH – The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven industrialized nations on Saturday reaffirmed their commitment to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said, ahead of marking one year since Russia invaded its neighbor.
During a meeting in Munich, southern Germany, the top diplomats also called for other countries to stop backing Russia and pledged to beef up their economic sanctions against Moscow, the ministry said in a release.
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2 in 3 Japanese remain interested in South Korea-held Takeshima islets
TOKYO – Roughly two in three Japanese remain interested in the territorial dispute over a pair of South Korea-controlled, Japan-claimed islets in the Sea of Japan, little changed from 2019, a recent government survey showed.
The remote islets, called Takeshima in Japanese and Dokdo in Korean, drew interest from 63.6 percent in the survey conducted between November and December of last year, compared with 63.7 percent in the previous survey conducted between September and October of 2019.
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FOCUS: Robberies across Japan expose social media’s role in enabling crime
TOKYO – Since late January, Japan has been gripped by a spate of robberies and the subsequent revelations that social media appears to have made it possible for a disparate group of individuals organized from overseas to carry them out.
From the first signs that the same actors could be pulling the strings behind the robberies across the country to the news that the alleged ringleaders were operating from a Philippines detention center, the crimes have shined a spotlight on a recent insidious trend called “yami baito” — literally “dark part-time work.”
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Japan recommends nurseries stop take-home practice for used diapers
TOKYO – Japan’s health ministry has recommended to nurseries across the country they dispose of used diapers on-site, after mounting calls from parents who argue the practice of bringing dirty diapers home is burdensome.
The ministry said ending the procedure would also help relieve nursery teachers at work, as they would no longer have to package and sort children’s used diapers for parents to take home, according to a notice conveyed to local governments last month.
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Speed skating: Japan’s Murakami ends World Cup season with men’s 500 win
TOMASZOW MAZOWIECKI, Poland – Japan’s Yuma Murakami won the men’s 500 meters at the final speed skating World Cup round in Poland on Saturday, wrapping up the season in second place overall.
Having opened the World Cup competition with a victory in Norway’s Stavanger, Murakami finished as he started at Arena Lodowa in Tomaszow Mazowiecki.
