Japan and North Korea discuss fate of abductees
Published 9:00 pm Saturday, September 25, 2004
BEIJING – Japanese and North Korean envoys began a new round of talks Saturday on a dispute over Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea decades ago. The working-level talks are the second round of meetings on the abductees. There was no report of progress toward settling the dispute or satisfying Tokyo’s demand for more information on 10 missing Japanese. North Korean envoy Song Il Ho began presenting a report on a promised investigation into the fate of 10 missing Japanese, but gave no indication it was still holding any who were alive, the Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri said. North Korea has admitted kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens.
Italy: Airline plans to split in two
Alitalia signed a deal with eight of nine unions Friday to split the money-losing Italian airline in two – part of the company’s plan to stave off bankruptcy. The deal foresees the creation of AZ-Fly, a company that will bring together Alitalia’s flight operations, and AZ-Service, which will comprise the ground services business, the company said. It was a breakthrough for management, as the unions initially had strongly opposed the plan to split the company.
Egypt: Official targets prayer calls
The government said Saturday it wants to unify the calls to prayer that blare separately from thousands of mosque loudspeakers in the capital of Cairo, but the idea was criticized by radicals as un-Islamic. “We need one live voice prayer call from Cairo’s 4,000 mosques through a wireless network,” the minister of religious endowment said. Prayer calls are blared through loudspeakers of mosques five times a day. Mosques in the same neighborhood sometimes call Muslims to prayer two to three minutes apart, causing confusion among worshippers.
Saudi Arabia: Frenchman slain
A French national was shot and killed in Jiddah early today, the Interior Ministry said. The man was shot at 1 a.m. in the Red Sea port city. The attack was the latest in a rash of violence directed toward foreigners. Some attacks have been carried out by militants bent on driving foreigners out of the country to hurt the economy, but the motive behind today’s shooting wasn’t immediately known. The Saudi economy, particularly the oil sector, depends on foreign workers.
France: Gadhafi son in scuffle
A son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was at the center of a commotion in Paris before dawn Saturday after police stopped him for speeding and his bodyguards attacked the officers, police said. Police stopped Hannibal Gadhafi, 28, after he raced through a red light on the Champs-Elysees at about 2 a.m. Saturday, driving a Porsche. Two of the bodyguards were detained but released later Saturday after a delegation from the Libyan Embassy showed up at the police station and apologized. Gadhafi, who has diplomatic immunity, was not detained.
