US, JAPAN AGREE TO STRENGTHEN SECURITY TIES AMID CHINA WORRIES

The United States and Japan have unveiled plans to strengthen security cooperation in the face of shared worries about China.

In a joint statement issued on Wednesday in Washington, DC after talks between the US and Japanese foreign and defence ministers, the two countries said China presented an “unprecedented” threat to international order and pledged to position their alliance to “prevail in a new era of strategic competition”.

“China’s foreign policy seeks to reshape the international order to its benefit and to employ China’s growing political, economic, military, and technological power to that end,” said the statement from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and their Japanese counterparts, Yoshimasa Hayashi and Yasukazu Hamada.

The four men agreed to adjust the American troop presence on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa in part to enhance anti-ship capabilities that would be needed in the event of a Chinese incursion into Taiwan or other hostile acts in the South or East China seas.

They also added a formal mention of outer space in the longstanding US-Japan security treaty, making clear that “attacks to, from and within space” could trigger the mutual defence provisions of the treaty. That had previously been outside the scope of the agreement.

The changes in the US deployment on Okinawa will transform the 12th Marine Regiment into a smaller, more rapidly mobile unit – the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment, which will be designed to be better equipped to fight any adversary and defend the US and its allies in the region.

Wednesday’s discussions will be followed by a meeting on Friday between US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida where they will underscore the importance of the relationship.

PAKISTAN DENIES IT WAS SOURCE OF URANIUM CARGO SEIZED IN UK

Islamabad : Pakistan rejected on Thursday UK media reports that a uranium package seized at London’s Heathrow airport on December 29 during routine scanning originated from Pakistan, saying the reports were “not factual”.

On Wednesday, British police revealed that a small quantity of uranium was detected in a package that arrived at Heathrow last month. Later, a report by The Sun claimed that the package originated in Pakistan before arriving aboard an Oman Air passenger jet fromMuscat. Pakistani officials insisted that London had not contacted Islamabad regarding the investigation into the matter. They suspected foul play behind insinuations that the shipment had been booked from Karachi. “We have seen the media reports. We are confident that the reports are not factual,” Pakistan foreign office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said. She added that no information to this effect had been shared with them officially by the UK authorities. Officials in Islamabad fear Pakistan is being deliberately drawn into this issue to malign it.

SRI LANKA SC: INACTION BY EX-PREZ, 4 OTHERS LED TO EASTER BLASTS

Colombo : Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that inaction by the country’s former president and four others led to Easter Sunday bomb attacks in 2019 that killed nearly 270 people and ordered them to pay compensation for violating the basic rights of the victims and their families. A sevenjudge bench of the top court ordered former President Maithripala Sirisena to pay 100 million rupees ($273,300) from his personal funds. It also ordered the police chief, two top intelligence officials and the secretary to the ministry of defence at the time to pay a total of 210 million rupees ($574,000).

Two local Muslim groups that had pledged allegiance to the IS terror group were accused of carrying out six nearbsimultaneous suicide bomb attacks targeting worshipers at Easter services at three churches and tourists eating breakfast at three top hotels. A breakdown in communication caused by a rift between Sirisena and the then PM was blamed for the failure of authorities to act on near-specific foreign intelligence received prior to the attacks, which also wounded 500 people.

The court said Sirisena, who was also defence minister and commander in chief of the armed forces, had not called regular meetings of the national security council and had omitted key personnel from the meetings he held. “All this is a stark reality thatstrikes this court as a serious omission on the part of the then president,” the court said.

BIDEN ON THE DEFENSIVE OVER CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Thursday “a small number” of classified documents had been found at his private residence, prompting calls for a congressional investigation into the alleged mishandling of official papers.

The potentially embarrassing discovery for Mr. Biden came as authorities investigate a far bigger scandal involving his predecessor Donald Trump.

The documents dating to the Obama-Biden administration were found at Mr. Biden’s residence in Wilmington, Delaware, after other similar papers were found at a Washington think tank where Mr. Biden used to have an office.

Former President Trump hoarded huge numbers of documents at his Florida residence after leaving the White House in 2021, with the FBI carting away some 11,000 papers after serving a search warrant in August. Mr. Trump could face obstruction of justice charges.

But the discovery of papers at Mr. Biden’s house is politically tricky for a President who touts his high ethical standards.

“We’re cooperating fully (and) completely with the Justice Department’s review. As part of that process, my lawyers reviewed other places where documents from my time as Vice-President were stored, and they finished the review last night.

“The Department of Justice was immediately notified... So we’re going see all this unfold,” he added, declining to take shouted questions from the press.

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy demanded that “Congress has to investigate this,” pointing to the Justice Department’s investigation of Mr. Trump.

FBI JOINS GLOBAL FIGHT OVER CHINA POLICE OUTPOSTS

The nondescript, office building in New York’s China town lists many mundane businesses on its lobby directory, including an an accounting firm. A remarkable enterprise, on the third floor, is unlisted: a Chinese outpost suspected of conducting police operations without jurisdiction or diplomatic approval — one of over 100 such outfits around the world that are unnerving diplomats and intelligence agents.

FBI agents searched the building last fall as part of a probe being conducted with the US attorney’s office, as per people with knowledge of the inquiry. The search represents an escalation in a global dispute over China’s efforts to police its diaspora far beyond its borders. Irish, Canadian and Dutch officials have called for China to shut down police operations in their countries. The FBI raid is the first known example of authorities seizing materials from one of the outposts. The Chinese embassy in Washington on Wednesday played down the role of the offices, saying they are staffed by volunteers who help Chinese nationals perform routine tasks like renewing their driver’s licences back home.

Some reports describe the Chinese outposts “collecting intelligence” and solving crimes abroad without collaborating with local officials.

Western officials see the offices as part ofBeijing’s larger drive to keep tabs on Chinese nationals abroad, including dissidents. The most notorious such effort is known as Operation Fox Hunt, in which Chinese officials hunt down fugitives abroad and pressure them to return home.

At least four Chinese localities — Fuzhou, Qingtian, Nantong and Wenzhou — have set up dozens of police outposts, according to public statements published in China. They identify sites in Japan, Italy, France, Britain, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic and other nations.

JOKOWI ACKNOWLEDGES INDONESIA'S PAST HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has acknowledged "gross human rights violations" in his country's history and vowed to prevent any repeat.

Hi cited 12 "regrettable" events, including an anti-communist purge at the height of the Cold War.

By some estimates, the massacres killed about 500,000 people.

Mr Widodo is the second Indonesian president to publicly admit the 1960s bloodshed, after the late Abdurrahman Wahid's public apology in 2000.

The violence was unleashed after communists were accused of killing six generals in an attempted coup amid a struggle for power between the Communists, the military and Islamist groups.

"With a clear mind and an earnest heart, I as (Indonesia's) head of state acknowledge that gross human rights violations did happen in many occurrences," Mr Widodo said on Wednesday at a news conference outside the presidential palace in Jakarta.

"And I strongly regret that those violations occurred," added the president, more commonly known as Jokowi.

The events he cited took place between 1965 and 2003 and included the abduction of democratic activists during protests against former leader Suharto's iron-fisted presidency in the late 1990s.

The government was looking to restore the rights of victims "fairly and wisely without negating judicial resolution", he said, but did not specify how this would be done.

WON’T APOLOGISE FOR COLONISATION, FRENCH PRESIDENT TELLS ALGERIA

President Emmanuel Macron has said he will not “ask forgiveness” from Algeria for French colonisation but hopes to continue working towards reconciliation with his counterpart Abdelmajid Tebboune. “It’s not up to me to ask forgiveness, that’s not what this is about, that word would break all of our ties,” he said in an interview.

IS CLAIMS KABUL ATTACK; CHINA SAYS NONE IN TEAM HURT

Kabul : The IS claimed responsibility on Thursday for a deadly bombing that killed at least five people near the foreign ministry in Kabul the previousday. The bombing was the second major attack in Kabul in 2023. The extremist group said that a “martyrdom-seeker” detonated his explosive vest amidst a gathering of ministry employees and guards as they left through the ministry’s maingate. There was no response from Taliban about the IS claim. China on Thursday said that none of its citizens were killed or injured in the attack, following reports that a visiting delegation was due atthe ministry.

HARRY TELL-ALL BOOK SELLS RECORD 1. 4M COPIES ON DAY ONE

Prince Harry’s autobiography “Spare”, which released on Tuesday, sold 1. 4 million English-language copies on its first day in the UK, the US and Canada, smashing Penguin Random House’s sales record, the publisher said on Thursday. The figures come as the first opinion poll since the memoir’s publication showed Harry’s popularity in the UK continuing to nosedive. The sales outstrip Penguin Random House’s previous first-day non-fiction record for Barack Obama’s “A Promised Land”. That sold 887,000 copies in the US alone on its first day in 2020.