27 people drown at weekend, bringing summer total to 62

Japan Policy & Politics, August 9, 1999

TOKYO, Aug. 2 Kyodo

Twenty-seven people drowned, four others went missing and 17 were injured in 77 water-related accidents across Japan, the National Police Agency said Monday. A total of 140 such accidents occurred between July 26 and Sunday, up 34 from the corresponding period last year, the agency said. The death toll in the accidents in the period is 62, up 15 from last year, and five are missing, up four. The number of injured is 26, up two from the same period last year. It is expected to be some 240 km south-southeast of the prefectural capital Naha at around 9 a.m. Sunday and within 300 km from a point some 80 km north-northwest of Kumejima Island, about 90 km west of Naha, at 9 a.m. Monday, the agency said. caught fire Saturday morning while making its way through Masbate province from the central Philippine city of Cebu carrying 210 passengers, including three infants, and 28 crew members. -- About 200 Hong Kong practitioners of Falun Gong staged the meditation group's largest ever demonstration in the territory on Sunday morning. The followers urged Chinese leaders to stop persecuting their leader, Li Hongzhi, and fellow members in China, and to immediately release practitioners arrested during the latest crackdown on the sect. -- Indonesian President B.J. Habibie has invited the leaders of the political parties that contested the June 7 general election to discussions on the forthcoming presidential election, a leading newspaper said Sunday. The Kompas quoted Justice Minister Muladi as saying Habibie wants Megawati Sukarnoputri, leader of the nationalist-secular Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle (PDI-Perjuangan), to attend the meeting on Tuesday. -- A peace group in Nagasaki began the 13th annual "Peace Week in Nagasaki" campaign Sunday, planning meetings on peace and social issues such as environmental problems. For this year's nine-day campaign, the organizers are calling for "a way back to peace." -- Japan's most famous twin sisters, "Kin-san" and "Gin-san," celebrated their 107th birthday Sunday with a tree-planting ceremony in Sapporo. Kin Narita and Gin Kanie, who live in Nagoya, attended the ceremony at a park in Sapporo's Higashi Ward with Kin-san holding a gold-colored shovel and Gin-san a silver-colored one. -- Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) leader Naoto Kan indicated Sunday he plans to run in the party leadership race in the fall, on a policy of reorganizing the DPJ so that it can take over the reins of government. "I hope to continue if the drastic party reform plan I am presenting is accepted. That in itself would be tantamount to choosing the party leader," Kan said on a television program. -- The U.S. state of New York has instituted a law prohibiting bars and restaurants from providing free alcohol or all-you-can-drink offers to lure customers, a U.S. daily reported Saturday. The law, signed Friday by New York Gov. George Pataki, will also make it illegal for bartenders to offer customers "drinks on the house" or alcohol at rock-bottom prices once it takes effect in 120 days, the Daily News said. -- Australian human rights commissioner Chris Sidoti arrived in Yangon on Sunday for talks with Myanmar officials on the establishment of an independent human rights commission in the country, diplomatic sources said. Sidoti's four-day visit follows talks at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting in Singapore last week between Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung and Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who proposed the establishment of an independent human rights commission in Myanmar. -- A 31-year-old Japanese woman teaching Japanese in the Russian port city of Vladivostok has been missing since late July along with her live-in Russian boyfriend, according to a report reaching the Japanese Consulate General in the Russian Far East. Police authorities said Rika Moritake, originally from Kasukabe, Saitama Prefecture, and her boyfriend may have been involved in an accident.