Birth of a Palestinian City Is Punctuated by Struggles

By ISABEL KERSHNER

Published: August 10, 2013

RAWABI, West Bank – Two students came up with Rawabi, the Arabic word for hills, in a competition to name this new Palestinian city, the first to have been planned from the ground up. The developers rejected suggestions – like Arafat City and Jihad City – that evoked a more chaotic past.

“The new generation is building this city,” said Bashar Masri, 52, the Palestinian businessman who has headed this ambitious project and says he will be moving into a duplex penthouse in the town center once it is completed.

“Every Palestinian has a duty to participate in nation building,” he told reporters on a tour of the site last week.

SIC TRANSIT

A woman was injured at Shin-Koiwa station when a suicidal man jumped in front of an approaching Narita Express train and was hurtled back onto the platform.

Hundreds of commuters-your correspondent included-were forced to evacuate their trains and walk down the tracks after the Toyoko line went FUBAR late last month during a violent rainstorm.

Officials in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, donated 64 bicycles to the people of Malawi, where, it is said, “locals often carry the sick on their backs to hospitals.”

The head of spacecraft development at JAXA says the Kounotori unmanned resupply vessel could help pave the way for “a Japanese crewed space flight.”

Western embassies shut amid security alert

US and many European countries close embassies mostly in Middle East after worldwide alert by US and Interpol.

Last Modified: 04 Aug 2013 05:30

The United States has temporarily closed 21 embassies and consulates in mostly Muslim countries, and several European states have shut embassies in Yemen over fears al-Qaeda was planning to launch attacks.

The US closed its faciilites on Sunday, after saying it had information that al-Qaeda and its allies may increase efforts to attack Western interests this month.

The closures came as Interpol issued a global security alert after hundreds of militants were set free in prison breaks linked to the al-Qaeda terror network, and suicide bombers killed nine near the Indian consulate in the Afghan city of Jalalabad.

NEWS FROM THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

A research team led by a professor at Keio University has found mice can tell the difference between paintings by Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian.

In response to wild deer causing damage to local plant species in the Oze marshlands, Fukushima officials say they’ll start “shooting the animals with high-pressure water guns.”

Japanese scientists have determined a class of insecticides aka neonicotinoids may be responsible for colony-collapse disorder, which is threatening the global honeybee population.

Police in western Tokyo arrested a man who ran a health clinic despite having no medical license. None of the man’s 8,000 “patients” reported any ill effects from the treatment.

‘Homosexual propaganda’ law signals latest Russian crackdown

By Albina Kovalyova, Producer, NBC News

 A new law banning “homosexual propaganda” in Russia is raising concerns about the state of human rights in a country already notorious for silencing dissent.

The legislation is vague but its intent is clear: It is now “illegal to spread information about non-traditional sexual behavior” to minors (under 18), and there are hefty fines for those who disobey. Foreigners are also subject to fines and can be deported.

Anti-homosexual crackdowns are nothing new in Russia: In 1933 the Soviet regime imposed a law banning sexual relations between men – punishable by a five-year prison term. Although it was lifted after the fall of the Soviet Union, homophobia still runs deep.

THE HIT LIST

Sayonara Keikoku (“The Ravine of Goodbye”), the latest effort from director Tatsushi Omori, won a jury prize at the Moscow International Film Festival. The movie depicts the romantic relationship that develops between a rapist and his victim.

Researchers at the Sydney-based Institute for Economics and Peace say “territorial disputes” are the main reason that Japan fell from fifth to sixth in their annual Global Peace Index. (Iceland topped the list and Syria came in last.)

It was reported that an elderly couple living in Kodaira, western Tokyo, has climbed Mt Fuji for 14 straight years.

Officials at the Meteorological Agency say they will, for the first time ever, allow private companies to issue tsunami forecasts. The agency retains the sole right to issue advisories and warnings, though.

Japan election: Abe set to win key upper house vote

21 July 2013 Last updated at 06:47 GMT

The BBC

Voters in Japan are casting ballots in upper house elections expected to deliver a win for PM Shinzo Abe.

Half of the 242 seats in the chamber are being contested.

Polls show Mr Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its allies could secure a majority, meaning a ruling party would control both houses of parliament for the first time in six years.

The deadlock in parliament has been seen as a key factor in Japan’s recent “revolving door” of prime ministers.

Polling stations opened at 07:00 (22:00 GMT Saturday) and will close at 20:00 (11:00 GMT).

Citing an inability to communicate with members of the international community, a government panel recommended that Japanese officials “use more English.”

Authorities at the education ministry are set to introduce a program “in which non-native Japanese speaking students can learn the Japanese language during regular class hours.”

Speaking at a symposium in San Diego, former Prime Minister Naoto Kan said that “the Fukushima disaster changed [my] view of nuclear power.”

After receiving complaints from the public, officials at the environment ministry withdrew their recommendation that female office workers use “antiperspirants, scented laundry softeners, cold sprays and wet tissues” to keep cool during summer.

Syrian business owners who fled to Egypt give up on going back

Many Syrian industrialists and factory owners have relocated their businesses to Egypt, part of the economic and brain drain Syria’s civil war is causing.

By Raja Abdulrahim

REHAB, Egypt – As fighting in the Syrian city of Aleppo intensified last fall, Khalid Sabbagh decided it was time to move his business abroad.

He and his family had already fled months earlier to the safety of this palm-tree-lined Cairo suburb. But as Aleppo, once Syria’s commercial hub, descended further into the warfare that has ravaged much of his nation, Sabbagh finally decided to move his upholstery factory to Egypt and start anew.

Since antigovernment activists began their struggle to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2011, more than 1.6 million Syrians have fled the fighting, many to neighboring countries where they wait to return to their homes.

SCHOOL DAZE

A 10-year-old boy fell onto the tracks at Yotsuya station while walking down the platform hunched over his cellphone. The kid was unhurt, but the mishap delayed about 23,000 commuters.

An expert panel appointed by the education ministry has compiled guidelines for high-school coaches advising them against “hitting and kicking” their students, as well as inducing “physical and emotional stress.”

Meanwhile, just 26 percent of junior high school teachers say they feel confident in their ability to “stop bullying if asked for help by students.”

A poll by Osaka Prefecture University has found that just 40 percent of school social workers have proper certification.