TMCnet News
Kyodo news summary -5-+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TOKYO, April 13_(Kyodo) _ ---------- China to send envoy to Iran, Russia over nuke standoff BEIJING - China will send Assistant Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai to Iran and Russia as a special envoy to discuss the dispute over Iran's nuclear ambitions, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Thursday. Cui will visit the two countries from April 14 to 18, ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said at a press conference. ---------- 3 ex-Kyoto University students plead guilty to gang rape KYOTO - Three former students at Kyoto University pleaded guilty on Thursday to gang raping a female student after getting her and two other female students drunk at an apartment in Kyoto last December. In their first hearing at the Kyoto District Court, Ryo Ikeguchi, 23, Junpei Shirai, 22, and Masahiro Kido, 22, former American football teammates, pleaded guilty to the charge of gang raping the woman. Ikeguchi is also charged with raping another at the time. ---------- Ruling coalition approves education law revision bill TOKYO - The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the New Komeito party, approved on Thursday a revision bill for the Fundamental Law of Education, paving the way for the first amendment of the education law since it was enacted in 1947. The approval at a meeting of secretaries general and policy chiefs of the ruling coalition came a day after the two parties agreed to compromise on wording used to define the notion of patriotism in the education law. ---------- Japan, U.S. hold realignment talks again with focus on Marines' move TOKYO - Japan and the United States began senior working-level talks Thursday in Tokyo on the realignment of the U.S. military presence in Japan in a bid to bridge their differences over Japan's share of the cost of relocating 8,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam. The relocation cost burden is a major sticking point that has kept the two countries from wrapping up several rounds of negotiations to meet their March 31 deadline to draw up an implementation plan for their realignment agreement reached last October. ---------- N. Korea 'to boost deterrence' while nuclear talks deadlocked TOKYO - Visiting North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan said Thursday that North Korea is prepared to boost deterrence measures while the six-party talks on its nuclear programs are deadlocked due to U.S. financial sanctions on a North Korea-linked bank. "It is not a bad thing (for the resumption of the talks) to be delayed. During this period, we (North Korea) can build up our deterrence," Kim said at a 30-minute news conference at a Tokyo hotel, alluding to North Korea's intention of building more nuclear weapons. |