Iran says British embassy stoked protests
Relations between Iran and Britain are coming under further strain as the Iranian government accused the British embassy in Tehran of stoking post-election protests.
Iran's Fars news agency said on Sunday that security authorities detained 8 locally hired Iranian staff of the British embassy in relation to the rallies organized by opposition supporters.
Iran's Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi accused the British embassy of sending local staff to stir up the protests and collect information. He said Iranian security authorities had several embassy employees in custody and had released some.
Earlier British Foreign Secretary David Miliband demanded the release of the embassy staff.
But Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Miliband should accept reality and stop useless actions.
Meanwhile pro-reform protests calling for a re-run of the presidential election have been subsiding due to a crackdown on protesters. On Sunday security forces used tear gas to break up a crowd of several thousand opposition supporters that had gathered in Tehran for a memorial for a famous Muslim cleric.
North Korea's economy grew 3.7 percent in 2008
North Korea's economy in 2008 is likely to have grown for the first time in 3 years, according to South Korea's central bank.
In an estimate released on Sunday, the Bank of Korea says North Korea's gross domestic product grew by 3.7 percent last year. This is the first time the North has posted positive growth since 2005, when a gain of 3.8 was projected.
The bank attributes the growth to a bumper harvest and international aid. There was an 8.2 percent increase in the production of rice and other agricultural products, helped by favorable weather. North Korea also received heavy oil and other energy assistance from countries in the 6-party talks in return for disabling its nuclear facilities.
The bank predicts the positive growth will be temporary as it does not see an increase in capital spending. It also sees long-term recovery as difficult amid mounting international pressure on North Korea over its nuclear and long-range missile tests.
The estimate also revealed the economic disparity between the two Koreas. North Korea's annual per capita income stood at about 900 dollars, which is about 5 percent of the amount in the South.
Quake-hit reactor to resume commercial operation
A Japanese government committee says it has found no problems in a nuclear power reactor in Niigata Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast.
The reactor has been undergoing a test-run after it was severely damaged in an earthquake 2 years ago.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency committee has concluded that the Number 7 reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant is safe to resume commercial operation.
The reactor is the only one at the site that has been restarted for a test-run after the entire facility was shut down due to damages by the quake in July 2007.
It will be able to resume commercial operation once it clears final inspections by the central and prefectural governments.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant is one of the largest producers of nuclear energy in the world.
To meet the demand during the facility's shutdown, Tokyo Electric Power Company has spent about 12 billion dollars to reactivate its thermal power plants and to procure electricity from other power companies.
However, the operation of the thermal power plants has resulted in an additional 30 million tons of carbon dioxide being emitted in a year. This is blamed for a rise in Japan's entire greenhouse gas emissions by more than 2 percent.
Ishikawa pref to restrict children's cellphone use
A local assembly in Japan has approved the first ordinance in the country restricting children's use of mobile phones.
The prefectural assembly of Ishikawa approved the revised ordinance on Monday.
It requires that parents prevent children in elementary and junior high school from using mobile phones except for security purposes.
The assembly passed an additional revision to the ordinance restricting children's access to potentially harmful websites. It stipulates that parents of children under aged 18 ensure there is filtering software on their children's mobile phones. But offenders will not punished.
The Ishikawa prefectural government says the revised ordinance will go into effect on January first, 2010.
It says the assembly has introduced the restrictions in response to increasing incidents of bullying on mobile phone websites, and crimes involving children using their phones to access harmful sites.
Police raise reward in murder of British woman
Japanese police have raised by 10-fold the reward money for information leading to the arrest of a suspect
in the murder of a British woman near Tokyo.
English teacher Lindsay Ann Hawker, who was 22 at the time, was found dead in March 2007 at the suspect's apartment veranda in Ichikawa City.
The 30-year-old suspect, Tatsuya Ichihashi, is wanted by police on suspicion of abandoning the victim's body.
The reward has been raised from up to about10,000 to up to about 100,000 dollars and is effective from Monday through June 2010.
Police have made 30,000 new posters with photographs of the suspect and posted them at police and railway stations across the country.
On Monday, police officers also handed out flyers at three railway stations near the site of the scene of the incident calling for public cooperation. One of the officers said the police are determined to capture the suspect.
最終更新：2009年06月29日 23:53
