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International News

By Gillian Wong

****

By Annie Huang

****

From The Asian Reporter, V20, #5 (February 2, 2010), page 2.

TOKYO (AP) — Mongolian sumo grand champion Asashoryu is in trouble again over reports he was involved in a drunken incident in which he hit an acquaintance. A weekly tabloid magazine reported that Asashoryu was intoxicated after leaving an establishment in Tokyo’s Nishiazabu entertainment district last month. Two police cars were dispatched after about 20 onlookers gathered to witness the alleged altercation in which Asashoryu punched one of his managers, according to Friday magazine. No police report was filed. Japan Sumo Association chairman Musashigawa said he intended to issue a formal warning to Asashoryu. Asashoryu won the 15-day New Year Grand Sumo Tournament following the incident. The 29-year-old Mongolian has often been criticized for not living up to the standards of a sumo grand champion in a sport closely associated with Japanese traditional culture. In 2007, he became the first grand champion ever suspended when it was revealed he participated in a football game in Mongolia despite citing injury to skip tournaments. In 2003, he pulled an opponent’s top knot during a bout, resulting in an immediate disqualification.

BEIJING (AP) — Authorities in Beijing have unveiled a plan to make the Chinese capital more bicycle-friendly in the hopes of reducing the city’s choking pollution and alleviating congestion. For decades, China was known as the "bicycle kingdom," but that moniker has become outdated as more and more Chinese buy cars amid the country’s economic boom. Last year, China overtook the United States as the world’s biggest auto market, with total vehicle sales of about 13.6 million. Beijing has 17 million people and four million cars, a figure that continues to grow and strain the city’s already overloaded road system. Meanwhile, 19.7 percent of Beijing residents ride bicycles and authorities hope to raise that to 23 percent by 2015, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The city plans to restore bicycle lanes that were cut to make room for cars and busses and build more bicycle parking lots, particularly next to bus and subway stations, the report said, citing Liu Xiaoming, director of the Municipal Communications Commission. In addition to the moves aimed at encouraging bicycling, the government will also implement new restrictions on car drivers, Xinhua cited Liu as saying, without giving specifics. Currently, car owners in Beijing are banned from driving one day a week, with the day depending on the last number of the car’s license plate.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam convicted four democracy activists of subversion last month and sentenced them to up to 16 years in prison for trying to overthrow the communist government. The most well known of the defendants, human-rights attorney Le Cong Dinh, received a relatively light five-year sentence after admitting he had broken the law by trying to promote a multiparty democracy. Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, an internet entrepreneur, received a 16-year sentence, the stiffest handed down by the judges at the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court, after a one-day trial. Thuc testified that he had broken no laws and had only sought ways to rid Vietnam of corruption and improve its political system. Dinh, Thuc, and a third defendant could have been sentenced to death.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea has warned it will consider any preemptive strike by South Korea as a declaration of war. The North’s military also said it will take prompt and decisive military action against any South Korean attempt to violate the North’s dignity and sovereignty and would blow up major targets in the South. The warning carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency is the latest salvo in a war of words, waged even as the rival nations show signs of stepping up cooperation after months of tension over the North’s nuclear program. It came in response to the South Korean defense minister recently saying that the South should launch a preemptive strike on North Korea if there is a clear indication the country is preparing a nuclear attack.

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Cooperation among the countries of the Mekong River region is putting pressure on human traffickers, a top Myanmar official said. The Myanma Ahlin daily reported that home minister Maj. Gen. Maung Oo told a regional meeting that the area is no longer a "safe haven" for traffickers due to effective measures taken by its six countries. He spoke at the seventh Senior Officials Meeting for the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking in Bagan in central Myanmar. But the top U.N. official in Myanmar, Bishow Parajuli, warned at the meeting that people in Myanmar continue to be trafficked for the purpose of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation, and the country is also a transit point for trafficking Bangladeshis to Malaysia and Chinese to Thailand. A press release from the U.N. office in Myanmar said there are no reliable estimates on the number of people trafficked annually from Myanmar, although 155 trafficking cases involving 302 victims were investigated in 2009, with 429 perpetrators convicted, up from 134 cases in 2008. The three-day meeting was attended by 135 participants from the six Mekong countries: Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.

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