Asia News

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JAPAN:
In women’s soccer last Sunday, Japan and the U.S. tied in their match in the Kirin Cup in Sendai, Japan. Japan is the team that defeated the U.S. team in the final of the Women’s World Cup last year. Yukari Kinga’s goal in the 32nd minute put Japan ahead, but Alex Morgan tied the score in the 73rd minute.
A Japanese government panel assessing potential dangers from future natural disasters has predicted that a wall of water twice as high as the tsunami that struck Japan last year would hit the town of Kuroshio if a severe earthquake strikes off its shore. It is located in the Kochi prefecture on the island of Shikoku. Kuroshio has measures in place for 8 meters while the estimates are the waves could reach 34 meters.
The panel’s report goes on to say that 23 cities, towns and villages in 6 prefectures are at risk of a tsunami over 20 meters. The new report adds 80 towns and prefectures to the list of places in danger of a tsunami of 10 or more meters. The previous report in 2003 only counted 10 towns and 2 prefectures in such danger.

MYANMAR:
Myanmar continues to show progress in its moves toward greater personal freedoms. The elections last weekend resulted in a victory for popular opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. She will hold a seat in the new parliament and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party claims 43 of the available 44 seats in the election, but official returns remain to be announced.
Although the NLD will only hold up to 43 of 664 seats in the lower house, the presence of Suu Kyi and her party members in the political process should help pave the way for further progress. Suu Kyi declared that “This is not our triumph, this is a triumph of the people,” upon arriving at her party’s headquarters in Yangon on Monday.

KOREA:

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is expected to be named secretary general of the Workers’ Party at a special conference called for next week. The conference was announced on Monday and it will take place just before the 100th anniversary of the birth of his grandfather, Kim II Sung. It is apparent that Kim is following closely in the footsteps of his father Kim Jong II in consolidating his power in the closed and secretive country. The move will also come just before the April 12-16 launch of a long range satellite that has their neighbors in Asia very concerned. He will henceforth be his country’s supreme leader of party, state and military.
Sadly in the U.S. a 43 year old South Korean native turned U.S. citizen lined up and executed 7 people at Oikos University in Oakland, California where he had been expelled in January for behavioral problems. One L. Goh took a secretary hostage then entered a classroom on Monday and lined the victims up to be shot.
Oikos has fewer than 100 students mostly from Korea, but also from Nigeria, the Philippines, Nepal and other countries. He is reported to have been made fun of for his poor English speaking skills and appears to have planned the attack for several weeks.

THAILAND:
In Thailand, 2 southern provinces suffered through a series of car bombings in last weekend.
They occurred in Songkhla and Yala provinces and killed at least 13 people and injured over 500. The 1st 2 happened with stolen trucks in Yala province. A short time later a car bomb went off in a hotel’s underground parking garage in Songkhla province.
Insurgent groups in the heavily Muslim southern provinces feel that the government of the majority Buddhist country has not fairly represented their interests.