Malaysian paper apologizes over police nude video story
January 6, 2006A local Chinese-language newspaper on Friday apologized for a story about a naked woman that stirred up a diplomatic storm with China. In the front page of the China Press, the daily expressed its ''deepest apology'' for wrongly identifying the woman in a video secretly shot at a police station as being a Chinese national.
Baseball: Dragons outfielder Fukudome joins Japan WBC squad
January 6, 2006The Japanese baseball commissioner's office said Friday it has approved Chunichi Dragons outfielder Kosuke Fukudome to join the nation's squad for the World Baseball Classic. The 30-man roster is set, with Fukudome filling the spot of New York Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui, who decided not to take it last week. In 2005, Fukudome batted .328 with 28 homers and a career-high 103 RBIs.
China selects pandas to give Taiwan
January 6, 2006A selection has been made of two pandas that China wants to give to breakaway Taiwan, Chinese officials said Friday. The panda couple, namely No. 19 (male) and No. 16 (female), were selected from among 23 candidates raised in the Wolong China Giant Panda Research Center in southwestern Sichuan Province, Cao Qingyao, spokesman of the State Forestry Administration, told a press conference, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Tanigaki to visit U.S. from Sunday, to meet Snow, Greenspan
January 6, 2006Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki said Friday he will visit the United States from Sunday to Jan. 14 for talks with U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow, U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan and other U.S. policymakers about the world economy and bilateral economic relations. Tanigaki said he is arranging a meeting with Ben Bernanke, chairman of U.S. President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers who is expected to succeed Greenspan in February, along with U.S. business leaders during the seven-day trip to New York and Washington.
Female agent was among abductors, says repatriated abductee Soga
January 6, 2006One of the five repatriated abductees has told Japanese police that a female North Korean agent was among a group of kidnappers who forcibly took her to North Korea in 1978, police sources said Friday. Hitomi Soga, 46, who was repatriated to her homeland in October 2002 together with four other victims of abduction by North Korea, made the testimony to police investigators, the sources said. Soga is known as wife of former U.S. Army deserter Charles Jenkins, 65, who came to Japan via Indonesia in 2004 with their two daughters for a reunion with Soga in Japan.
Japan to pursue new idea for Security Council reform, Abe says
January 6, 2006Japan did not join Brazil, Germany and India in resubmitting a resolution to expand the U.N. Security Council on Thursday in New York because it is pursuing a better idea in cooperation with the United States, its top government spokesman said Friday. Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said at a news conference that the resolution would unlikely garner support from two-thirds of U.N. members required for its adoption.
Man snatches newborn baby from Sendai hospital
January 6, 2006A man snatched a newborn baby from a hospital in Sendai after breaking into a room where the infant was in bed with his mother early Friday morning, police said. The man, falsely claiming a fire had started at the Hikarigaoka Spellman Hospital in the northeastern Japan city, took 11-day-old Shu Yamada away at around 3:40 a.m., the police said.