Afghanistan aid: Donors pledge $16bn at Tokyo meeting

　Donors at a conference on Afghanistan have pledged to give it $16bn (£10.3bn) in civilian aid over four years, in an attempt to safeguard its future after foreign forces leave in 2014.

The BBC   8 July 2012

The biggest donors, the US, Japan, Germany and the UK, led the way at the Tokyo meeting in offering funds.

The pledge came as Afghanistan agreed to new conditions to deal with endemic corruption.

There are fears Afghanistan may relapse into chaos after the Nato pullout.

The Afghan economy relies heavily on international development and military assistance. The World Bank says aid makes up more than 95% of Afghanistan’s GDP.

Meanwhile in Afghanistan itself two roadside bombs killed 14 civilians and injured another three in the southern Kandahar province, regional police chief Gen Abdul Raziq said.

YEAH, GOOD LUCK WITH THAT

Officials in the depopulated town of Takatori in Nara are trying to boost tourism by offering visitors the chance to see “hina dolls in machiya traditional wooden houses.”

Meanwhile, a village in the Oki Islands is offering couples ¥250,000 for the privilege of hosting their wedding ceremony. The town will kick in an extra ¥50,000 if the newlyweds also hold a magodaki (“holding a grandchild”) ceremony.

The Pakistani government says that if an expedition from the Fukushima chapter of the Japanese Alpine Club succeeds in climbing four unscaled peaks in the Karakorum range, it will give the club naming rights to the mountains.

The Metropolitan Police Department has vowed to combat a type of video-game piracy that uses emulator servers to mimic official gaming websites.

1st nuclear reactor to go online since Japan disaster meets with protests despite power crunch

　  

By Associated Press, Updated: Sunday, July 1, 3:42 PM

Dozens of protesters shouted and danced at the gate of a nuclear power plant set to restart Sunday, the first to go back online since all of Japan’s reactors were shut down for safety checks following the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Ohi nuclear plant’s reactor No. 3 is returning to operation despite a deep divide in public opinion. Last month, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda ordered the restarts of reactors No. 3 and nearby No. 4, saying people’s living standards can’t be maintained without nuclear energy. Many citizens are against a return to nuclear power because of safety fears after Fukushima.

THE ANNALS OF SCIENCE

   Pass the Bloody Marys: Researchers at two of Japan’s top beverage companies say drinking tomato juice while getting drunk will allow you to sober up faster.

   In possibly related news, a research team that included scientists from the Kazusa DNA Research Institute in Chiba has, for the first time, fully decoded the genome of a tomato.

   The Meteorological Agency unveiled a supercomputer that can perform 847 trillion calculations per second—30 times faster than its previous machine. Even so, officials suspect it will be obsolete in about five years.

   A professor at Kansai Medical University has developed a treatment for bedsores that involves using the patient’s own blood platelets.

 Egypt awaits presidential election results

　  Egyptians are awaiting the delayed results of the presidential run-off election held last weekend.

The BBC’s Jon Leyne in Cairo

The results are due in the coming hours, after the election commission heard appeals by the two candidates.

Mohammed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood and former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq have both claimed victory and vowed to form unity governments.

Thousands of their supporters spent the night in the centre of Cairo amid increasing political polarisation.

Correspondents say the atmosphere has been peaceful, but tense.

Many people are still apprehensive about the intentions of the ruling generals, who gave themselves sweeping new powers last week after the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that the Islamist-dominated parliament should be dissolved.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS

     Tamae Watanabe, a 73-year-old who broke her back in 2005, became the oldest woman to scale Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain. (Or, for fans of Monty Python, “The mountain with the biggest tits in the world.”)

   For the first time since stats were kept in 1988, the number of cellphone subscriptions in Japan is greater than the population of the country at 128,205,000, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has revealed.

   Many teachers at Japanese junior high schools are reportedly shakin’ all over since the education ministry made dance compulsory, with hip hop among the options. “Some of the teachers faced with the prospect of busting their moves in front of classes full of skeptical 12- to 14-year-olds are getting nervous,” said a report on The Asahi Shimbun website.

   Masaru Shishido, a 43-year-old actor who formerly played a superhero in the Super Sentai series on TV, opened a bar called Crystal Sky in Tachikawa where he has his waitresses dress like characters from the show and he “insists they call him Taicho (captain of the squad).”

Greeks go to the polls in vote that threatens to shake world economy

　  

By msnbc.com staff and news services

As polls opened on Sunday in a Greek vote, the outcome of which could decide whether the heavily indebted country remains in the euro zone, the World Bank warned that the election of an anti-austerity government could spark a global economic crisis.

“Europe may be able to muddle through but the risk is rising. There could be a Lehmans moment if things are not properly handled,” the outgoing head of the World Bank Robert Zoellick told Britain’s Observer newspaper.

POLITICS UNUSUAL

   Officials in a small town in northern New Jersey were visited-twice-by delegations of Japanese diplomats urging them to remove a public monument commemorating “women who were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers during World War II.”

   Private railways and bus companies in Japan are beginning to grumble about the decades-long tradition of providing free rides to members of the Diet. They say it’s getting increasingly difficult “to secure understanding from [ordinary] users.”

   US President Barack Obama is said to have presented a birthday cake to Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda at last month’s G8 summit in Maryland. Noda turned 55 during the weekend of the meeting.

   Back in Japan, the PM held talks with the leaders of three Pacific island states. Micronesia’s president offered Noda “two palm ropes as a token of friendship.”

Assad’s response to Syria unrest leaves his own sect divided

　 Some Alawites want him to crush opposition; others say he’s risking their future

 By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

After Jaber Abboud, a baker from Baniyas, Syria, first lashed out publicly at President Bashar al-Assad for failing to promote real change, his neighbors ignored it.

But Mr. Abboud and most of his community are Alawites, the same religious sect as the president. When the popular uprising broke out, many believed that if the Assad family fell, they were doomed. They closed ranks and turned on Mr. Abboud, boycotting his pastry shop and ultimately forcing him to leave town.

“The neighborhood is split – half are dejected and subservient, the rest are beasts,” he said in a telephone interview from nearby Latakia. “It is depressing to go there, it’s like a town full of ghosts, divided, security everywhere.”

In Occupied Tibetan Monastery, a Reason for Fiery Deaths

　

By EDWARD WONG

One young Tibetan monk walked down a street kicking Chinese military vehicles, then left a suicide note condemning an official ban on a religious ceremony. Another smiled often, and preferred to talk about Buddhism rather than politics. A third man, a former monk, liked herding animals with nomads.

All had worn the crimson robes of Kirti Monastery, a venerable institution of learning ringed by mountains on the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau. All set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule. Two died.

At least 38 Tibetans have set fire to themselves since 2009, and 29 have died, according to the International Campaign for Tibet, an advocacy group in Washington.