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TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is
expected to face a stinging rebuke in elections Sunday as voters
show more concern about scandals and the economy than his
conservative agenda. A defeat could lead to calls for the premier to
step down and bring a divided parliament, ushering in a new period
of political instability in the world’s second-largest economy.
Voters will choose half the lawmakers of the upper house in the
first nationwide test for 52-year-old Abe, who took office last
September as Japan’s first leader born after World War II.
WASHINGTON: US sanctions
on military-ruled Myanmar have failed and the next American
administration may change tactics to bring about reforms in the
Southeast Asian state, according to the head of a top US business
lobby group in the region. “We can’t escape the conclusion that
our policies have simply not moved Myanmar in the right direction
nor do they have any reasonable prospect of doing so,” said
Matthew Daley, president of the US-Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (Asean) Business Council. “I don’t think that the
government in Hanoi, the government in Vientiane, the government in
Phnom Penh are going to take or permit Asean to take drastic action
against Burma [Myanmar].”
ISLAMABAD: Angry Muslims
chased a government-appointed religious leader from Pakistan’s Red
Mosque after it reopened for Friday prayers just over two weeks
after a deadly army raid on Islamic militants. Hundreds of former
students from the Islamabad mosque chanted slogans against President
Pervez Musharraf and also pushed journalists out of the building,
which has been repainted a peach color, police said. More than 100
people died during a weeklong siege and eventual storming of the
complex by government troops, where pro-Taliban militants and others
with alleged links to al-Qaeda were holed up.
JAKARTA: Ten Indonesians
from a remote village on the densely populated island of Java have
died from a mysterious illness in the past week, health officials
and workers said Friday. Some 21 others have suffered severe
symptoms including nausea, stomach pains, dizziness and diarrhea,
they said. Two women aged 40 and 65 were the latest victims and died
on Friday, said Yuliani, from a hospital treating the patients who
are from Central Java’s Kanigoro village in Ngablak district. A
team of experts from Indonesia’s health ministry and
Yogyakarta’s Gadjah Mada university were at the hospital
investigating the case. AFP
WELLINGTON: Prime Minister
Helen Clark said she accepted the resignation of Environment
Minister David Benson-Pope because his explanation of his role in
the affair had been misleading. “I regret that this has happened,
because Mr. Benson-Pope has been a capable and hard working
minister. Issues this week, however, leave no alternative.”
Benson-Pope, who also held the social development and employment
portfolio, said he had resigned as a minister with regret. He had
been under fire from opposition legislators over his role in the
sacking of Environment Ministry communications manager Madeleine
Setchell just three days after she started work.
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia:
Russian border guards detained 28 North Korean fishermen overnight
for illegal squid fishing off Russia’s far east coast, a border
official said Friday. The North Koreans and their four fishing boats
were detained along with 340 kilograms of squid in the Russian part
of the Sea of Japan, said Natalya Rondoleva, spokeswoman for the
border service in the Primorsky region. The fishermen will be sent
back home once their identities have been verified, she said.
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