Japan, China hold high level economic dialogue after 8 years Tokyo, April 16 (IANS): Top diplomats from Japan and China began the first round of a high level economic dialogue on Monday for the first time in eight years, with an aim to strengthen bilateral relations. Prior to the dialogue, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi here on Sunday and reiterated their commitment to improve ties and to work toward the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, reports Efe news. They also agreed to first mutual visits by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping, since both leaders assumed offices in 2012. The thaw in relations between the world’s second and third largest economies - which have been strained over the sovereignty of the disputed South China Sea islands - comes at a time when both are apprehensive of the fallouts of the consequences of the trade protectionism policy of the US. China is also expected to seek Japan’s backing for its “One Belt, One Road” initiative, as well as a possible Japanese mediation in the trade war between Beijing and Washington. Ousted S.Korean President won’t appeal for prison term Seoul, April 16 (IANS): Ousted South Korean president Park Geun-hye on Monday decided not to appeal the 24-year jail term handed to her for her involvement in a corruption scandal which had led to her impeachment in January 2017. Park presented her appeal waiver to the Seoul Central District Court that had handed her the sentence on April 6, although the appeal trial will still go ahead as the prosecution had filed an appeal citing dissatisfaction over the ruling on the very same day, reports Efe news. Apart from the prison sentence, the court had also imposed a fine of 18 billion won ($16.8 million), after Park was found guilty of 16 of the 18 charges, including corruption, bribery and abuse of power. Park had stopped appearing before the court since October 2017, citing ill-health. She was also not present on the day when the sentence was pronounced, and had denounced the trial as biased. Park’s verdict came after her friend and main accused in the corruption scandal, Choi Soon-sil was sentenced to 20 years in prison in February this year and ordered to pay a multi-million-dollar fine. Pakistan opens first school for transgenders Lahore, April 16 (IANS): Pakistan’s first school for the transgender community was launched here with its first classes slated to begin from Monday, a media report said. The school, ‘The Gender Guardian’, was inaugurated on Sunday by the NGO Exploring Future Foundation (EFF), which has attempted its first project, Dawn News reported. “We will be providing skill-based training and curriculum to the transgender community that has enrolled with us,” said Moizzah Tariq, EFF Managing Director. “Most of them have shown interest in sectors of the fashion industry including learning about cosmetics, fashion designing, embroidery, and stitching while some have also shown interest in graphic designing and culinary skills. Having gained information from them first we designed our courses for them,” added Tariq. Asif Shahzad, the owner of the school, said there are 30 people enrolled in the school. “I was moved after seeing the bomb blast in Indonesia in 2016 at a transgender school. It was the only such school in any Islamic country in the world. After that we decided to provide them education and bring them to the mainstream,” he said. The plan is to provide a diploma course so that the students will be able to either work or set up their own businesses, and the NGO will facilitate them with both procedures. There is no age limit for those who want to get enrolled in the school. Pakistan’s total population of transgender people reported in the sixth Population and Housing Census in 2017 was 10,418, reports Dawn news. Punjab province has 64.4 per cent of the country’s transgender population with 6,709 people registered in the category. Suu Kyi to visit Vietnam Nay Pyi Taw, April 16 (IANS): Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi will pay an official visit to Vietnam this week, an official statement said on Monday. Suu Kyi last visited Vietnam in November 2017 when she attended the Asia-Pacific Ecomomic Cooperation (APEC) summit, reports Xinhua news agency. Myanmar established diplomatic relations with Vietnam in 1975. Last August, a Comprehensive Cooperative Partnership was established between the two countries during a state visit by Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, to Myanmar. Meanwhile, bilateral trade between the two countries hit $592 million, with $103 million export values while its import value took $489 million as of January in current 2017-2018 fiscal year, according to the Commerce Ministry. Myanmar’s trade with Vietnam totalled to over $494 million in the last 2016-2017 fiscal year. US recalls more than 200 million eggs over salmonella fears Washington, April 16 (Reuters): Nearly 207 million eggs from a farm in North Carolina are being recalled from nine U.S. states after 22 people fell ill, the federal Food and Drug Administration has said. It is the largest recall of eggs in the United States since 2010, the Food Safety News website reported. The eggs may have been contaminated with salmonella braenderup, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people and others with weakened immune systems, the FDA said on Friday in a statement. The eggs were recalled by producer Rose Acre Farms of Seymour, Indiana “through an abundance of caution,” the FDA’s statement said. The eggs were distributed from a farm in Hyde County, North Carolina, which, Food Safety News said, produces 2.3 million eggs per day from 3 million laying hens. The eggs reached consumers in Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New Jersey, Virginia, Colorado, South Carolina, and West Virginia. WhatsApp image helps cops catch drug dealer in Britain London, April 16 (IANS): In what could begin a new era for forensic science, the police in Britain have arrested a drug dealer based on fingerprints they found on a WhatsApp image sent by the criminal to his clients. The photograph showed part of the dealer’s hand “and there was potentially a fingerprint,” the BBC reported late on Sunday. The scientific support unit scanned the image into its system but could not find a match because the photograph contained just parts of the middle and bottom of a finger visible while records only keep the top part. However, other evidence was enough for the police to guess who was behind the drugs operation. “While the scale and quality of the photograph proved a challenge, the small bits were enough to prove he was the dealer,” Dave Thomas from South Wales Police’s scientific support unit was quoted as saying. Police arrested a man on a tip-off that said drugs were being sold in Wales. While checking his phone, they found an image of the drug dealer named Elliott Morris holding ecstasy tablets in his palm. “There was the photograph of the hand holding pills that seemed like it was sent to potential customers saying ‘these are my wares, I’m selling these’,” Thomas said. “It has now opened the floodgates and when there is part of a hand on a photograph, officers are sending them in,” he added. According to the police officer, the dealers are using the technology not to get caught and the police need to keep up with advancements.
