China and Germany said yesterday they were in agreement that the international force in Sudan had to be expanded in order to resolve the conflict in the African country peacefully.
German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung informed reporters of the joint position following talks in Beijing with his Chinese counterpart Liang Guanglie (梁光烈).
Washington has been pressing Beijing to use its ties with the regime in Khartoum to help end the refugee crisis in the war-torn western region of Darfur.
China responded to the pressure yesterday by saying its influence in Sudan was being overestimated.
Meanwhile, Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Koumura was in China yesterday to discuss plans to jointly develop East China Sea gas fields amid rapidly warming relations between the two Asian economic giants, an official said.
Koumura and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) also planned to discuss issues relating to North Korea, including Pyongyang’s pledge to reinvestigate the abduction of Japanese nationals as part of its spy program, Japanese foreign ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama told reporters.
“We would appreciate any efforts on the part of the Chinese government to put pressure on the DPRK [North Korea] to come forward on this issue,” he said.
Japan has long had tense relations with North Korea due to the regime’s abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies in Japanese language and culture.
Tokyo has made it clear to China and its partners in the six-party nuclear North Korea talks that it would withhold energy aid for Pyongyang until the kidnapping issue was addressed, Kodama said.
North Korea admitted in 2002 to kidnapping 13 Japanese. It returned five victims and their families, while saying the eight others were dead.
But Japan says that North Korea is hiding survivors and has abducted more people than it acknowledges.
Koumura would also attend a Japan Olympic Committee reception in Beijing, Japan’s foreign ministry said.
In other news from Beijing, Chinese police have detained at least 17 foreigners in a crackdown on illegal ticket sales outside Olympic venues, state media said yesterday.
The foreign nationals of unidentified countries were among 110 people arrested in a sweep of ticket touts near the Olympic Green and the Wukesong basketball stadium on Friday, the semi-official China News Service quoted officials as saying.
An earlier report by Xinhua news agency quoted Beijing police spokesman Shi Weiping as saying a Dutch citizen was caught trying to sell 24 tickets for more than 10 times their face value near the Water Cube aquatics’ center on Friday.
A Chinese woman was also arrested for offering two gymnastics tickets with a face value of 150 yuan for 1,000 yuan each, Shi said.
Police official Wang Wenjie told the China Daily newspaper that about 340 tickets were confiscated in Friday’s operation.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
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