BEIJING: China condemned yesterday plans by a Japanese city to ask the UN world heritage organisation to register letters by World War Two kamikaze suicide pilots alongside documents that include the diaries of Anne Frank and the Magna Carta.
The southern Japanese city of Minami Kyushu had last week asked UNESCO to register the wills and farewell letters of the pilots who had carried out attacks on allied ships to highlight the importance of world peace.
The city hosted an airfield from which hundreds of pilots launched suicide missions in 1945, the final year of the war.
China’s Foreign Ministry, however, said kamikaze pilots deserved no such recognition.
“The design behind the so-called application for the kamikaze pilots is very clear, which is to try and beautify the Japanese militarist history of invasion,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing.
“This intention is diametrically opposed to UNESCO’s objective of maintaining world peace, and must be strongly condemned and resolutely opposed by the international community,” Hua added.
Mountaineer falls to death
KUALA LUMPUR: A 22-year-old German tourist died yesterday after falling from the peak of Mount Kinabalu on Malaysia’s Borneo island, police said.
District police officer Rahman Kassim said Victoria Paulsen fell some 30 metres down a rocky surface from the peak of Kinabalu, one of Southeast Asia’s highest mountains and a major tourist attraction in the eastern state of Sabah.
Paulsen had climbed the peak to see the sunrise with other tourists including a guide and at least one male friend, Rahman said. Her body has been sent to a mortuary.
The guide said Paulsen had climbed over a rope into a cordoned-off area when she slipped, Rahman said but added that the police were still investigating the incident.
Kinabalu Park officers could not immediately be reached for further comment. Every year tens of thousands of locals and foreigners climb the mountain, which rises 4,095 metres high above Sabah’s thick rainforests. Fatal accidents are rare.
Six injured in Bangkok blast
Bangkok: A bomb exploded in Thailand’s capital Bangkok yesterday, injuring six cleaners of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, two of whom were seriously wounded.
Chinese news agency (Xinhua) quoted local media as reporting that the explosion occurred near the Phan Fa bridge on Ratchadamnoen Avenue at around 11.30am, according to Bangkok Post.
It remains unknown what kind of bomb was used. It was reported a group of anti-government protesters earlier had been encamped at the site of the blast.
Agencies
