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Washington: US President George W. Bush and
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe were set for their first summit
on Friday, with North Korea and Tokyo’s expanding global role
expected high on the agenda.
Bush welcomed Abe Thursday at the
White House, where baseball and golf came up in their conversation
at dinner. They were due Friday to get down to business at the
presidential retreat in nearby Maryland.
The two, accompanied by their
wives and a handful of close aides, held dinner in “a family-like
atmosphere” on the eve of their official summit at the Camp David
presidential retreat, a Japanese government official said.
“They discussed the performance
of Japanese Major League baseball players, led by Matsuzaka,” the
official said, referring to pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka of the Boston
Red Sox.
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan: Four
people were killed and three wounded early Friday when rockets fired
by suspected militants hit a house in a Pakistani tribal area
bordering Afghanistan, officials said.
The incident happened at Saidgi
village in the North Waziristan tribal district, around four
kilometers (2.5 miles) from the frontier, a security official told
AFP.
“Four people were killed and
three others were injured when a rocket hit an outhouse for guests
belonging to a tribesman called Habib Khan about 3:30 a.m.,” the
official said on condition of anonymity.
Another four rockets caused
damage to dozens of mud houses in the same village and destroyed an
electricity transformer and severed power cables, he said.
NEW DELHI: Several Indian
lawyers have voiced outrage over a warrant issued for the arrest for
Hollywood star Richard Gere after he kissed Bollywood actress Shilpa
Shetty at an AIDS awareness event, reports said Friday.
“Magistrates should not behave
like the Taliban moral police. The order is unsustainable and makes
us looks ridiculous,” former Indian attorney general Soli Sorabjee
told The Times of India.
The warrant for Gere and summons
of Shetty were issued in the Rajasthan state capital of Jaipur on
Thursday following a public interest plea filed last week by a local
lawyer Poonam Chand Bhandari, who accused the pair of obscenity.
The magistrate had found the
incident in violation of section 294 of the penal code which states
that, “Whosoever to the annoyance of others does any obscene act
in any public place shall be punished with imprisonment of three
months or with a fine or both.”
Tokyo: Japan on Friday
hanged three inmates in its first executions this year amid a
growing push to punish crime in one of the world’s safest
countries.
The justice ministry confirmed
the executions but declined to disclose details including their
names, in line with standard procedure in Japan.
News reports said the executed
men were all convicted murderers.
Japan is the only major
industrialized nation other than the United States to practice the
death penalty.
Japan last carried out executions
in December, hanging four inmates on Christmas Day. Those were the
first executions after a 15-month gap due to a previous justice
minister’s opposition to the death penalty.
MOSCOW: Estonia’s
actions in moving a Soviet war monument from central Tallinn to an
undisclosed location overnight were “blasphemous” and
“inhuman,” the Russian foreign ministry said Friday.
In the Estonian capital overnight
one person died and at least 43 were injured in a looting rampage
and clashes with police after a protest near the spot where the
statue of a Soviet Red Army soldier had stood.
“Once again we can characterize
the actions of official Tallinn as blasphemous and inhuman,
especially considering that the monument was taken down ahead of
Victory Day” on May 9, Interfax quoted Russian foreign ministry
spokesman Mikhail Kamynin as saying.
MOGADISHU: Ethiopia forces
on Friday tightened the noose around the calm Somali capital a day
after taking control of insurgent strongholds after some of the
heaviest fighting in the city’s history, residents said.
With neither shelling nor gunfire
for the first time in nine days, the forces patrolled northern and
southern Mogadishu as residents solemnly collected rotting bodies
that were abandoned in the streets.
Troops on foot and aboard trucks
patrolled mortar-blasted neighborhoods, where they moved from
house-to-house to crack down on suspected insurgents who melted away
into civilian area, an AFP correspondent reported.
SEOUL: South Korea’s
Defense Minister Kim Jang Soo on Friday criticized the top US
military commander in the country for “inappropriate” remarks
about sharing the cost of American forces.
In a US Senate hearing earlier
this week, General B.B. Bell said the future of work to relocate US
military bases could depend on whether South Korea is willing to pay
a larger share.
“Without more equitable allied
SMA [Special Measures Agreement] funding, we may be forced to
recommend a range of fiscal measures to the US government, including
a review of base relocation and consolidation plans,” Bell said.
Kim expressed regret at the
comments.
BEIJING: Five Americans
detained for staging an illegal demonstration at Mount Everest base
camp are still to be expelled from China, the foreign ministry said
Friday.
A statement issued by the
ministry said that the Americans “will be expelled,”
contradicting earlier comments by a ministry official who said they
had already been kicked out of the country.
The Americans on Wednesday
unfurled banners demanding a “free Tibet” and protested against
plans to take the Olympic torch to the top of the mountain ahead of
the 2008 Beijing Games, according to US-based Students for a Free
Tibet.
--AFP
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