Category: Politics

{Defence minister prays at Yasukuni, a flashpoint for criticism from countries which suffered under Japanese colonialism.}

Japan’s defence minister has prayed at a controversial war shrine in the capital, Tokyo, drawing condemnation from China and South Korea.

Tomomi Inada’s visit on Thursday was her first since taking the key defence portfolio in August, though she has frequently gone in the past.

She argued that offering respect to the war dead should be universally accepted, echoing the argument repeated by Japanese politicians who frequently visit Yasukuni.

“By taking a future-oriented stance, I offered my prayers to build peace for Japan and the world,” she said.

Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from Beijing, said: “Inada must have known just how contentious this visit was, but remains unapologetic.”

Inada is a close confidante of Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, who said on a golf course that he had “no comment” on her action.

{{Angry reactions}}

South Korea summoned a senior official from the Japanese embassy in Seoul to protest.

“Our government cannot but deplore” the visit, Cho June-hyuck, South Korea’s foreign ministry spokesperson, said in a statement, while in separate comments the defence ministry expressed “grave concern and regret”.

Hua Chunying, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, said in Beijing that Inada’s visit was “deeply ironic after the so-called Pearl Harbor reconciliation tour”.

On Tuesday Abe and US President Barack Obama honoured the victims of Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, which killed 2,403 Americans and led to the US entering World War II.

Inada also attended the US ceremony.

“It will only make the people of the world more on guard against Japan’s actions and intentions,” Hua said, adding that “China is firmly opposed” to the visit.

Yasukuni shrine honours millions of mostly Japanese war dead, but is contentious for also enshrining senior military and political figures convicted of war crimes by an international tribunal.

The indigenous Shinto religious shrine has for decades been a flashpoint for criticism from countries such as South Korea and China, which suffered under Japan’s colonialism and military aggression in the first half of the 20th century.

{Sevil Shhaideh, a politician of Turkish origin, could have been EU nation’s first female and Muslim prime minister.}

Romania’s president has rejected the left-wing Social Democrats’ candidate for prime minister, Sevil Shhaideh, who would have been the EU nation’s first female and Muslim prime minister.

Klaus Iohannis has not elaborated on his reason for rejecting the candidacy of Shhaideh, a 52-year-old politician of Turkish origin who comes from Romania’s 65,000-strong Muslim community.

“I have properly analysed the arguments for and against and I have decided not to accept this proposal,” Klaus Iohannis said in a televised statement on Tuesday.

“I call on the PSD coalition to make another proposal.”

The PSD, which has yet to comment on the issue, had put forward Shhaideh after its sweeping election victory on December 11 when it won 45 percent of the vote.

The PSD, along with its junior coalition partner and longtime ally ALDE, control 250 of the combined 465 seats in the two-house assembly – enough majority for their leader to be elected as the prime minister.

Liviu Dragnea, leader of the PSD, had withdrawn his bid to become prime minister because he is serving a two-year suspended sentence for electoral fraud.

Shhaideh’s political experience is limited; she served as development minister for six months before the previous PSD-led government resigned in late 2015.

This and her personal closeness to Dragnea – he was a witness at her 2011 wedding to a Syrian businessman – have spurred opposition accusations that she would merely be a puppet.

{{Election promises}}

Rise Project, a member of the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project of investigative journalists, said this month that Shhaideh’s husband had posted messages on his Facebook account in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The PSD, which promised higher wages and pensions during the election campaign, had hoped Dragnea would stand for prime minister but Iohannis made clear he would refuse any candidate with a criminal record.

The PSD’s election triumph came barely a year since anger over a deadly nightclub fire that killed 64 people forced it and Victor Ponta, the prime minister, from office.

{Cristina Fernandez accused of corruption and slapped with $630m asset freeze linked to government contracts.}

Cristina Fernandez Kirchner, the former Argentine president, has been charged in a corruption case and slapped with a $630m asset freeze over public tenders awarded to a businessman friend during her administration.

Federal Judge Julian Ercolini approved charges on Tuesday of illicit association and fraudulent administration against Fernandez and two of her erstwhile aides: Julio de Vido, ex-planning minister, and Jose Lopez, former public works secretary.

Also named was businessman Lazaro Baez, whose Austral Construcciones company allegedly benefited from irregular contracts.

The ruling published by official Center of Judicial Information said the defendants are accused of associating to illegally take public fund meant for public works between May 2003 and December 2015, largely in the southern province of Santa Cruz.

The judge said 52 contracts worth about $2.9bn were assigned to Baez’s companies at prices that averaged 15 percent above the original budget.

Fernandez’s late husband Nestor Kirchner was president from 2003 until 2007.

Fernandez made no immediate comment on the charge, but she has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and invited an audit of public works contracts during her administration.

Gregorio Dalbon, Fernandez’s attorney, said on his Twitter account that he was not worried about the indictment and said he would appeal.

Illicit association carries a possible 10 year prison sentence, while fraudulent administration can lead to six years behind bars.

Since leaving office in December 2015, Fernandez has alleged that she is the victim of persecution by her conservative successor, Mauricio Macri.

In May, a judge indicted Fernandez on charges of manipulating currency exchange futures markets, allegedly causing economic damage to the government.

{Russia, China and Pakistan meet in Moscow to discuss “growing ISIL threat” in Afghanistan – the third in a series.}

Government officials in Kabul have reacted with dismay to a trilateral meeting in Moscow involving Pakistan, China and Russia to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

The gathering in the Russian capital – the third in a series of consultations between Russia, China and Pakistan that have so far excluded Afghanistan – is likely to deepen worries that the government in Kabul is being sidelined in negotiations over the country’s future.

Ahmad Shekib Mostaghni, Afghanistan’s foreign affairs ministry spokesperson, said the government was not optimistic about the outcome of Tuesday’s meeting.

“Even if such talks are organised with a good will, it cannot yield any substantial results because no one from the Afghan side is there to brief the participants about the latest ground realities,” Mostaghni said.

He said meetings without the presence of Afghan government officials will not represent a real picture of the situation.

For their part, the representatives from Russia, China and Pakistan at the Moscow meeting said the influence of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group was growing in Afghanistan and that the security situation there was deteriorating.

They also agreed to invite the Afghan government to such talks in the future, the Russian foreign ministry said.

“[The three countries] expressed particular concern about the rising activity in the country of extremist groups including the Afghan branch of IS,” Maria Zakharova, the ministry spokesperson, said referring to ISIL, also known as ISIS.

She said the three countries agreed on a “flexible approach to remove certain figures from sanctions lists as part of efforts to foster a peaceful dialogue between Kabul and the Taliban movement”.

Responding to the developments, Fawzia Koofi, an Afghan parliament member, said Pakistan should convince the Taliban to come to the negotiating table “so that we have only one enemy to fight, which is the ISIL”.

“What we are concerned about is that there is a legitimate elected government that could represent Afghanistan in international and regional talks,” she told Al Jazeera from Kabul.

“And we know that without Afghanistan’s inclusion, any process will prove unsuccessful.

“At this stage we have multiple enemies in Afghanistan, therefore our vulnerabilities are growing and as a result we cannot defeat our enemies in the country.”

{{US not invited }}

Along with Afghanistan, the US, which still has nearly 10,000 troops in Afghanistan more than 15 years after the Taliban was toppled, was not invited to the Moscow talks.

Officials in Kabul and Washington have said that Russia is deepening its ties with the Taliban, but Russia has rejected the claims.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani last month asked the UN to add the Taliban’s new leader to its sanctions list, further slowing a faltering peace process.

A number of Afghan provincial capitals have come under pressure from the Taliban this year, while Afghan forces have been suffering high casualty rates, with more than 5,500 killed in the first eight months of 2016.

An offshoot of ISIL has claimed responsibility for several attacks in the last year.