TMCnet News
Kyodo news summary -4-+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TOKYO, April 22_(Kyodo) _ ---------- Japan agrees to withdraw maritime survey plan near disputed islets SEOUL - Japan agreed Saturday to withdraw its plan to conduct a maritime survey near a group of disputed islets in the Sea of Japan, a Japanese official said. South Korea, in turn, agreed to cancel plans to name seafloor topography near the islets at an international conference scheduled for June in Germany, the official said. ---------- S. Korea cancels plan to name seafloor features near disputed islets SEOUL - South Korea agreed Saturday to cancel its plans to name seafloor topography near some disputed islets at an international conference scheduled for June in Germany, a Japanese official said. Japan has said it will refrain from conducting a maritime survey near the islets if Seoul cancels the plan. ---------- Curfew set in Kathmandu, anti-king protests resume in Nepal KATHMANDU - Nepalese authorities imposed an eight-hour daytime curfew in Nepal's capital Kathmandu and its outskirts Saturday as protests directed at King Gyanendra resumed despite the monarch's declaration overnight that he was returning executive power to political parties. But the opposition rejected the king's offer because it fails to meet the full demands of the political parties agitating for immediate return to democratic rule in the Himalayan kingdom. ---------- Japan, China agree to seek peaceful solution to gas exploration row BOAO, China - Japanese trade minister Toshihiro Nikai and Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong agreed Saturday to seek a peaceful resolution to a dispute over gas exploration rights in the East China Sea, Japanese officials said. Nikai and Zeng engaged in no full-fledged discussions on Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to Tokyo's war-related Yasukuni Shrine. Zeng said Chinese President Hu Jintao clarified China's position in a meeting in late March with former Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and other key Japanese figures in Beijing, according to the officials. ---------- 15-yr-old boy in Gifu held for allegedly killing girlfriend GIFU, Japan - Police arrested a 15-year-old boy late Friday on suspicion of murdering his 13-year-old girlfriend in a vacant pachinko parlor building in Nakatsugawa, Gifu Prefecture, police officials said Saturday. The first-year high school student, whose name is withheld because he is a minor, is suspected of strangling Nao Shimizu, a second-year student at a junior high school, after beating her in the head at around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, they said. |