MANILA: China put to death a Filipina drug-trafficker yesterday, the Philippines’ Foreign Ministry said, after Beijing ignored Manila’s request to spare her life.
The woman was put to death two days after briefly seeing her family on Monday, foreign department spokesman Raul Hernandez said. She was arrested in 2011.
The woman was arrested along with her male cousin for heroin-smuggling in 2011 and both were later sentenced to death. But the cousin won a two-year reprieve, according to the Philippine government.
The woman was the fifth convicted drug smuggler from the Philippines to be executed by China since March 2011, when two women and a man were put to death for the crime.
Two N-reactors stay online
TOKYO: Japan’s nuclear watchdog yesterday said the only two reactors currently working in the country can stay online for now, even without meeting strict new safety standards intended to prevent a repeat of the Fukushima disaster.
The decision came days before the new rules come into force, an event expected to prompt multiple requests from power companies for the green light to get their atomic plants operating.
The Nuclear Regulatory Authority concluded that Units 3 and 4 at the Oi nuclear plant in western Japan are “not in the condition that would pose immediate safety concerns” even without being inspected under the new safety rules. Fukushima operator TEPCO said Tuesday it would ask the NRA for permission to restart reactors at the world’s largest atomic power station at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa in Niigata prefecture, north of Tokyo.
Business-friendly Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said his government will allow power companies to re-start reactors if they pass the safety tests. Industry has been agitating for restarts, fearing power shortages if they stay offline. AFP
