Japan’s PM aiming to calm China-Taiwan tensions on US visit
TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Sunday said Taiwan’s peace and stability is key to the region and that Japan will cooperate with the United States to calm rising tensions between China and Taiwan.
Suga is set to meet with President Joe Biden in Washington late next week, the U.S. leader’s first in-person summit since taking office in January. Tokyo considers its U.S. alliance to be the cornerstone of its diplomatic and security policies, and is eager to develop close relations with the new U.S. administration.
Taiwan is expected to be on the agenda as the leaders seek ways to deal with China’s growing security threat in the region. Chinese warplanes are increasingly entering Taiwanese airspace, and China has protested an agreement to bolster cooperation between the U.S. and Taiwanese coast guards that followed Washington’s new sales of arms equipment to Taipei.
“It is important for Japan and the United States to cooperate and use deterrence to create an environment where Taiwan and China can find a peaceful solution,” Suga said on a television talk show Sunday.
China claims Taiwan as its own territory, to be brought under Beijing’s control by force if necessary, and it has worked to internationally isolate the island.
Japan considers China’s growing activity to be a security threat and opposes Beijing’s claim to the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, called Diaoyu in China, in the East China Sea and its increased activity in the disputed area. China also claims ownership over virtually the entire South China Sea and has built military installations on reefs and atolls by covering them with sand and concrete.
China has denied it is expansionist and has said it is only defending its territorial rights.
Soldiers suspended: Soldiers at Fort Sill in Oklahoma have been suspended from duty pending the outcome of an investigation into a female soldier’s allegations that she was sexually assaulted, the Army post’s commanding general said.
Late last month, the soldier who was training at the post “reported that she was the victim of sexual assault involving Fort Sill cadre members,” Maj. Gen. Ken Kamper said in a statement Thursday.
The woman made a formal complaint March 27, but it is unclear when the alleged assault took place. Kamper also didn’t say how many people are alleged to have been involved, only referring to them as members of a cadre. He said they were “suspended from their normal duties, removed from any trainee environment and are all presumed innocent pending a full and thorough investigation.”
Kamper said the assault was “immediately reported to law enforcement” and is being investigated by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command.
The pervasiveness of sexual harassments and assault in the military became an issue of heightened national concern last year after the killing of Spc. Vanessa Guillen at an Army post in Texas.
Army investigators said Guillen, who was 20, was bludgeoned to death at Fort Hood by a fellow soldier who later killed himself. Guillen’s family has said she was sexually harassed by that soldier, but the Army has said there is no evidence of that.
France terror arrests: Police in southern France have arrested four women and a girl as part of an anti-terrorist investigation into a suspected attack plot targeting the city of Montpellier.
A police official confirmed the overnight arrests in the city of Beziers, and said Sunday that the DGSI domestic intelligence service and national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office are handling the investigation.
Investigators centered on an 18-year-old woman living in a housing project in Beziers who is suspected of plotting an attack targeting nearby Montpellier, according to Mayor Robert Menard. The 18-year-old’s mother and three sisters were also arrested, including one who is a minor, he said.
The 18-year-old had “boasted” to neighbors about watching Islamic State videos, Menard told The Associated Press, though he said he didn’t know whether she or her family had been on authorities’ radar for radicalism.
Facebook data found: Details from more than 500 million Facebook users have been found available on a website for hackers.
The information appears to be several years old, but it is another example of the vast amount of information collected by Facebook and other social media sites, and the limits to how secure that information is.
The availability of the data set was first reported by Business Insider. According to that publication, it has information from 106 countries including phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdates, and email addresses.
Facebook has been grappling with data security issues for years. In December 2019, a Ukrainian security researcher reported finding a database with the names, phone numbers and unique user IDs of more than 267 million Facebook users — nearly all U.S.-based — on the open internet. It is unclear if the current data dump is related to this database.
Indonesia flooding: Landslides and flash floods from torrential rains in eastern Indonesia killed at least 41 people and displaced thousands, a disaster relief agency said Sunday. Dozens were still missing.
Mud tumbled down onto dozens of house in Lamenele village from the surrounding hills shortly after midnight on Flores Island in East Nusa Tenggara province. Rescuers recovered 35 bodies and five injured, said Lenny Ola, who heads the local disaster agency.
Flash flooding killed at least six people elsewhere, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. Relief efforts were
hampered by power cuts and blocked roads as well as the remoteness of the area, said the agency’s spokesperson, Raditya Jati.
India ambush: At least 23 Indian security forces were killed in an ambush by Maoist militants in the central state of Chattisgarh, officials said Sunday, reviving concerns around a decades-old insurgency that appeared to have been largely contained in recent years.
A large force of Indian security personnel had been carrying out a clearance operation in a densely forested area on the edges of the Bijapur district when they were ambushed by the insurgents Saturday in a firefight that lasted four hours.
Avinash Mishra, deputy superintendent of police in Bijapur, said an additional 31 security personnel were wounded in the attack. He said the militants, often referred to as Naxalites, also suffered heavy casualties.