Tokyo registers 280 islands as national assets
TOKYO: Japan will clarify the ownership of 280 remote islands in its territorial waters and register them as national assets, a move that could rile China and South Korea, which are engaged in territorial disputes with Tokyo. Japan’s move to survey the islands and claim those with no apparent owners was announced this week and continues a plan first begun five years ago, the country’s Oceanic Policy and Territorial Issues secretariat said.
Bangla court jails editor
DHAKA: A Bangladesh court yesterday jailed a newspaper editor for seven years for trying to travel to Israel more than a decade ago to speak about a rise in Islamic militancy. Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, 48, who edits the Weekly Blitz newspaper, was found guilty of harming the country’s interests through his articles, said prosecutor Shah Alam Talukder. The verdict came amid criticism of the government’s muzzling of dissenting voices, and a general election dismissed by critics as a farce.
30,420 officials punished
Beijing: A total of 30,420 officials have been punished for violating the “eight-point” anti-bureaucracy rules rolled out in late 2012, the Communist Party of China’s anti-corruption agency has revealed. They were found to have been involved in 24,521 cases as of the end of December, according to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Chinese News Agency (Xinhua) reported. The rules were introduced on December 4, 2012 to ban officials’ extravagance, bureaucracy and formalism.
US envoy visits Lanka war site
COLOMBO: A top US official investigating war crimes has visited a former Sri Lankan battleground where hundreds of families were killed in army shelling, the US embassy said yesterday. The US Ambassador for Global Criminal Justice, Stephen Rapp, spent two days in the northern province troops defeated the Tamil Tiger rebels in May 2009, said the embassy. Agencies
