WASHINGTON (AP) — China is expanding its outposts in the South China Sea to include stationing for ships and potential airfields as part of its “aggressive” effort to exert sovereignty, the U.S. intelligence chief said Thursday. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was speaking at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on worldwide threats. His comments underscore U.S. concern over land reclamation activities that could fuel tensions between China and its neighbors over disputed islands and reefs.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A gunman shot and killed three people Friday before he was found dead at a home in a city near the capital Seoul in the second such incident in two days, police officials said. Shooting incidents are rare in South Korea, which tightly controls gun possession, and the two deadly shootings this week will likely trigger a debate on whether the country should tighten its control on hunting weapons that can be legally owned.
TOKYO (AP) — Diplomatically speaking, they may be the most important words Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe utters this year. So much so that he convened a panel of experts this week to advise him on what to say to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II on Aug. 15.
BEIJING (AP) — China imposed a one-year ban on ivory imports that took immediate effect Thursday amid criticism that its citizens’ huge appetite for ivory has fueled poaching that threatens the existence of African elephants. The State Administration of Forestry declared the ban in a public notice posted on its official site, in which it said the administration would not handle any import request.
TOKYO (AP) — Britain’s Prince William had afternoon tea on his first visit to Japan on Thursday, but it was green and served by a master in the Japanese ceremonial art in a traditional tea house. William began his four-day stay with the tea ceremony, an almost sacred dance-like ritual, at Hama Rikyu Gardens in Tokyo. Tea is made from a bitter powder, hand-stirred into a foam with a tiny whisk of wood, preferably gulped down in about three takes.
SINGAPORE (AP) — Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s 91-year-old founding father, remains on life support in intensive care being treated for severe pneumonia, the government said Thursday. A statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said Lee is sedated and on mechanical ventilation. His doctors have restarted him on antibiotics, and are continuing to monitor him closely, it said.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The number of people killed in a massive avalanche in a mountain-bound valley in northeastern Afghanistan rose on Thursday to 165 as lack of equipment and the sheer depth of snow that buried entire homes and families hampered rescue efforts. “We’re facing a real crisis because of the depth of the snow,” said Mohammad Aslam Syas, deputy chief of the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority.
BANGKOK (AP) — They were a middle-class family in Pakistan, living in a comfortable three-bedroom apartment with a modern kitchen and a PlayStation for the three kids. Fluent in English, the father ran his own moving company while the mother taught art. A death threat signed by a Muslim extremist group — with three bullets attached — compelled the Christian family to leave it all behind 18 months ago. Now they live in a barren room in Bangkok, where the children share a double bed and the parents sleep on the floor. They cook on a propane burner on a tiny balcony. A picture of Jesus — the source of their solace and their troubles — hangs on the inside of the door.
BANGKOK (AP) — A committee appointed by Thailand’s military rulers is laying the groundwork for a new method of choosing the country’s leaders and lawmakers — and it involves giving voters less power to choose. Thailand’s new 200-member Senate will be not elected directly by voters and the prime minister will no longer have to be an elected lawmaker, according to the committee that is drafting a new constitution.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean court on Thursday abolished a 62-year-old law that criminalized extramarital affairs, and the stock price of a prominent condom maker immediately shot up 15 percent. The Constitutional Court’s ruling that the law suppressed personal freedoms could affect many of the more than 5,400 people who have been charged with adultery since 2008, when the court earlier upheld the legislation, according to court law.
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — French President Francois Hollande said Thursday that a landmark climate deal may not be reached in Paris in December if wealthy countries don’t commit adequate funds to help poor nations fight global warming. “There will be no agreement concluded in Paris if the countries, the poorest countries, are not convinced that there will be a fund … which would be made available to them,” Hollande said in Manila after he and Philippine President Benigno Aquino III launched an international appeal to back efforts to seal a climate change accord.
BALI, Indonesia (AP) — A bellboy at an Indonesian hotel testified Thursday that an American man charged with murdering his girlfriend’s mother and stuffing the body into a suitcase refused any help in taking a bag to a taxi outside the hotel. Tommy Schaefer, 21, and Heather Mack, 19, are charged with premeditated murder in the death of Sheila von Wiese-Mack, whose badly beaten body was found in a suitcase in a taxi at the St. Regis hotel on the resort island of Bali last August.
NEW DELHI (AP) — A court on Thursday barred the former chairman of the U.N. climate panel from leaving India, where he faces charges of sexually harassing a woman at his New Delhi energy institute. The court also said R.K. Pachauri could not be arrested until after March 27, while he undergoes hospital treatment for hypertension. But it prohibited him from entering or contacting anyone at the research and lobbying organization he heads, called The Energy Resources Institute.
ULAN BATOR, Mongolia (AP) — Mongolia’s president on Thursday pardoned an American mining executive and two Filipinos sentenced to prison for tax evasion, in a case that raised questions about the Asian nation’s reputation as an investment destination. A statement from Elbegdorj Tsakhia’s office said Justin Kapla, Hillarion Cajucom Jr. and Cristobal David would have the rest of their sentences of five to six years commuted.
