Deal to Move Okinawa Base Wins Approval
By HIROKO TABUCHI and THOM SHANKER
Published: December 27, 2013
TOKYO — A long-simmering dispute between the United States and Japan over the fate of a Marine base on Okinawa seemed to have been resolved on Friday when the governor of Okinawa gave his approval to move the base to a remote area.
The agreement would bolster efforts by the Pentagon to rebalance American military forces across the Asia-Pacific region and by the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to raise his country’s strategic posture and check the growing military influence of China.
An official document approving a landfill on which much of the base would be built was stamped by the governor of Okinawa, Hirokazu Nakaima, and sent to the local branch of the Ministry of Defense, Kanako Shimada, a prefectural official, said on Friday.
Protests in Ukraine at beating of journalist and opposition activist
Tetyana Chernovil, known for investigations into government corruption, pulled from car and beaten by several men
Anna Nemtsova
Yesterday morning, the streets of Kiev were plastered with images of a young woman’s bruised and swollen face. The almost unrecognisable photograph was of Tetyana Chernovil, a journalist known for her investigations into government corruption, who was in intensive care yesterday preparing for a series of operations to repair her face, shattered in a beating by unknown assailants.
Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the interior ministry headquarters, accusing authorities of ordering police officers to carry out the attack.
“It is a shame to beat women on the head,” the crowd chanted. “Zakharchenko is an executioner. He should resign,” others cried, referring to the interior minister, Vitaly Zakharchenko – reviled by the opposition activists who for the past month have led hundreds thousands of Ukrainians in protest against the Russian-allied government.
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood driven underground
After a bomb blast at a police station in Mansura , the government in Cairo has listed the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Observers worry it will radicalize militant members of the group.
Former President Mohamed Morsi is in prison. His head of government Haschim Kandil was recently arrested: practically the entire leadership of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is behind bars. They are accused of playing a role in the deaths of protesters, high treason and terrorism. Some of their trials are already under way, others are being prepared. Since September, the Brotherhood is de facto banned through a court decision.
Now, the transitional government backed by the military has taken things further than even former dictator Hosni Mubarak ever did. The Brotherhood has been declared a terrorist organization. This decision, said Günter Meyer of the Center for Arabic Studies in Mainz, was in line with all the other measures aimed at eliminating the Brotherhood as a political factor.
Holiday rush at Mexico City's hangover prison
December 27, 2013 - 5:47PM
On the way home from a pre-Christmas fiesta, Mauricio Rodriguez, after "two tequilas", felt clear-headed and focused, "not dizzy or anything."
So when the IT help desk employee failed one of Mexico City's feared alcoholimetro - those pervasive holiday breath-test checkpoints - he knew he would be saying goodbye for a while. No ticket. No warning. "Come get my wife," he told his father by phone before being whisked off in a squad car. "They're taking me away."
Rich or poor. Legislator or bricklayer. Foreign or domestic. Anyone in Mexico's capital city who exceeds the legal .08 alcohol limit must take a strange little journey to a squat brick building next to a playground on the west side of town where they can sit - and sit, and sit - and think about what they've done. Part prison, part time-out for adults, the official name is the Centre for Administrative Sanctions and Social Integration. But everybody knows it as "El Torito."
Disability in India: The struggles of infrastructure, prejudice and karma
December 27, 2013 -- Updated 0510 GMT
According to the United Nations, around one billion people live with disabilities globally -- they are the world's largest minority.
Of this number, as many as 40-80 million live in India, though the underdeveloped infrastructure across much of this vast country makes it difficult for them to get around.
But it's not just the land that can be harsh and unwelcoming; prejudice and the karmic belief that disabled people are at fault for their incapacity can affect their ability to lead a normal life.
Devender Pal Singh, 39, lost his leg during the Kargil War between India and Pakistan in 1999 when a bomb exploded just meters away from him, piercing his body with shrapnel.
Syrian government to allow food into rebel town in exchange for cease-fire, activists say
By , E-mail the writer
BEIRUT — A besieged town in the suburbs of Syria’s capital has agreed to a truce with President Bashar al-Assad’s government in exchange for badly needed food aid, Syrian activists said Thursday.
Government forces have laid siege to rebel-held Moadamiya for more than a year, depriving its residents of electricity, food and medicine amid heavy shelling and leaving some to die of starvation.
Other residents have subsisted on olives and scavenged leaves for months. This week’s agreement to raise the government flag over the town came after winter storms ravaged the few remaining plants that locals have depended on for sustenance, activists said.
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