Japan to bolster patrols near disputed isles

TOKYO (AFP) – Japan will beef up airborne patrols of disputed islands in the East China Sea, an official said Friday, in response to increased Chinese activity in the area.

New crew members will operate two extra jets that will be deployed in the next 12 months to strengthen patrols around the Senkaku Islands, according to a spokesman from the Japan Coast Guard.

''We'll boost our aviation crew by bringing in 60 more members,'' the

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Chile’s Roman Catholic Church called on Thursday for a “drastic solution” that could include resignations, a day after Pope Francis acknowledged “grave mistakes” in handling a sexual abuse crisis and summoned its leaders to Rome.

At a meeting of Church leadership on Chile’s central coast, Santiago Silva, the president of the Episcopal Conference, said change was inevitable.

“It’s possible that the pope will ask some (bishops) to leave their diocese... there must be a drastic solution, strong and decisive, that is for spokesman told AFP.

Japan will deploy two Falcon 2000LXS jets this fiscal year and one more plane next year to allow a ''24hour patrol system'' to monitor the disputed islands, known in China as the Diaoyus.

The move comes after Japan spotted a Chinese nuclear-powered submarine in disputed waters early this year.

The uninhabited islets are at the center of a festering row between Tokyo and Beijing, which is also involved certain,” Silva told local radio station Cooperativa.

In an extraordinary step, Pope Francis said in a letter on Wednesday that he had made mistakes in his assessment of the crisis. In January, he had dismissed as “slander” accusations that Chilean bishop Juan Barros had covered up sexual abuse of minors by his mentor Father Fernando Karadima.

Barros told Chilean media at the meeting of Church leadership that “the pope always seeks the best for everyone.” Barros was appointed bishop of Osorno, in southern Chile, by Pope Francis in 2015. in a widening dispute with several Southeast Asian countries over islands in the South China Sea.

The Japanese government has long complained about China's routine dispatch of coast guard ships to waters surrounding the islands.

Relations between Japan and China deteriorated in 2012 when Tokyo ''nationalized'' some of the islets.

Since then, the two top Asian economies have taken gradual steps to mend fences but relations remain tense.

Osorno parishioners said on Wednesday that specific measures, including the resignation of Barros, were needed to restore confidence in the Church.

The pope’s letter followed a visit to Chile by one of the Vatican’s most experienced sexual abuse investigators, Archbishop Charles Scicluna.

Scicluna’s 2,300-page report prompted Francis to summon Chile’s bishops to Rome for a meeting. He did not say when it would take place.

“We will meet with the pope and we will propose to him a plan of renovation for the Church,” Silva said on Thursday.