TMCnet News
Kyodo news summary -4-(Japan Economic Newswire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) ---------- Ex-PM Kan urges Australia to stop exporting uranium SYDNEY - Former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has urged Australia to help wean the world off uranium instead of trying to increase its already considerable exports of the radioactive element, local media reported Saturday, amid a weeklong visit here by the avowed opponent of nuclear energy. "I hope that Australia can be exporting not uranium...but electricity created through renewable sources," Kan, who was Japan's prime minister during the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, was quoted as saying by the Australia Broadcasting Corp. ---------- Death toll from mudslides in Hiroshima rises to 46 HIROSHIMA - The death toll from the deadly landslides in the city of Hiroshima rose to 46 on Saturday, with 41 still missing, as rescuers continued to remove mud and pick through rubble and debris in search of any survivors three days after torrential rain triggered the mountainside disaster. Volunteers from other parts of the country joined the rescue efforts undertaken by police officers, firefighters and Self-Defense Forces personnel, trying to remove mud and debris hampering the operations in the northern part of the city. ---------- Defense Ministry eyes record-high budget request of over 5 tril. yen TOKYO - The Defense Ministry plans to request a record-high 5.05 trillion yen budget for fiscal 2015 from next April which focuses on measures to bolster their defense of remote islands, government officials said Saturday. The budget request to be announced next Friday, including U.S. military realignment costs, marks an increase of 3.5 percent from the budget earmarked for the current fiscal year and comes at a time when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is eyeing a security policy overhaul. ---------- Tokyo police eye new organization to crack down on cybercrime TOKYO - The Metropolitan Police Department is set to establish a new research organization to address the growth in cybercrime, police sources said Saturday. The planned institution, modeled after the U.S. public-private alliance to identify and neutralize cybercrime threats, will be launched as early as in October with around 20 staff members and receive technical advice from a contracted information security company, they said. ---------- Philippines to withdraw hundreds of peacekeepers from Liberia, Syria MANILA - The Philippines will pull out more than 400 Filipino peacekeepers from Liberia and Syria, a defense spokesman said Saturday, citing the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa and the volatile security environment in the Middle East. "In light of the rising health risk posed by the outbreak of Ebola virus in Africa, the Filipino troops deployed to the U.N. Mission in Liberia will be repatriated as soon as possible," National Defense Department spokesman Peter Paul Galvez said. (c) 2014 Kyodo News |