TOKYO: Japan faces serious threats to its security from China and North Korea, the defence ministry said in its first annual report since hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office. The report criticised China’s actions in waters near East China Sea islets claimed by Beijing and Tokyo. But China’s Foreign Ministry said Japan was exaggerating the threat to “artificially create regional tension and confrontation.” The row over the islets flared up last September after Japan nationalised the isles, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.
Officials visit Kaesong
SEOUL: A group of South Korean officials and workers visited a joint industrial complex yesterday, just days after the two Koreas agreed to fresh talks on reviving the shuttered site. About two dozen visitors went to the Kaesong industrial complex, a rare symbol of inter-Korea cooperation and a crucial source of hard currency for the North, to restart power supplies, Seoul’s Unification Ministry said. The trip follows months of friction and threats of war by Pyongyang after its February nuclear test attracted tougher UN sanctions, further squeezing its struggling economy.
Sri Lanka reconciliation call
COLOMBO: India urged Sri Lanka yesterday to honour international pledges and share political power with ethnic Tamils after Colombo signalled it will dilute an Indian-brokered devolution plan. India’s National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon ended a two-day trip to Colombo, urging an “early political settlement and national reconciliation”, the Indian High Commission said.
Red Cross scam alleged
BEIJING: The Chinese Red Cross demands money from hospitals to help arrange organ donations, media reported yesterday. The fee charged by the state-run body varied by location and went to pay donors’ medical costs, a Red Cross Society of China official told the Beijing News. It cited a hospital employee in the southern city of Guangzhou as saying the average donation for an organ was 100,000 yuan($16,000). Agencies
