HONG KONG: A county in eastern China is offering couples a "reward" of 1,000 yuan (US$137) if the bride is aged 25 or younger, the latest measure to incentivise young people to get married amid rising concern over a declining birth rate.
The notice, which was published on Changshan county's official WeChat account last week, said the reward was to promote "age-appropriate marriage and childbearing" for first marriages. It also included a series of childcare, fertility and education subsidies for couples who have children.
Concerned about China's first population drop in six decades and its rapidly ageing population, authorities are urgently trying an array of measures to lift the birth rate including financial incentives and improved childcare facilities.
China's legal age limit for marriage is 22 for males and 20 for females, but the number of couples getting married has been falling. That has driven down birth rates due to official policies which make it harder for single women to have children.
Marriage rates hit a record low in 2022 at 6.8 million, the lowest since 1986, according to government data released in June. There were 800,000 fewer marriages last year than in 2021.
The mother of embattled Spanish football federation (RFEF) president Luis Rubiales has locked herself in a church and said she is on hunger strike in protest at her son's treatment, Rubiales' cousin confirmed on Monday.
Ángeles Béjar shut herself inside the church of the Divine Shepherdess in Rubiales' hometown of Motril, Andalusia, on Monday, EFE reported.
She said her protest would continue until the "inhuman, bloodthirsty witch hunt which my son is being subjected to" came to an end.
Rubiales was handed a provisional 90-day suspension from all football-related activities by FIFA on Friday -- while Spain's Supreme Sports Council is also seeking to have him removed from office -- over his behaviour after Spain's Women's World Cup final win, including his unsolicited kiss on Spain player Jenni Hermoso.
Rubiales has refused to resign over the issue, insisting that the kiss was consensual -- a claim denied by the player -- and threatening legal action against Hermoso and her union, Futpro.
Spain prosecutors said they have opened a preliminary sexual abuse investigation into the incident.
Béjar told EFE her protest would continue "indefinitely, day and night" until Rubiales was vindicated.
She added: "There is no sexual abuse since there is consent on both sides, as the images prove. ... My son is incapable of hurting anyone."
The news agency reported that she had locked herself inside the church in Motril -- a town with a population of around 60,000, in the province of Granada -- with her sister, after its priest had left.
Rubiales' cousin, Vanessa Ruiz Béjar, confirmed to Teledeporte that his mother was on hunger strike, saying: "This is very hard. To say that there is a harassment is not fair.
"That his mom, who is a person of great faith, has taken refuge in God and is on a hunger strike and does not want to leave the church. That his family is suffering very much on his behalf. It is not fair what is happening.
"He has been judged ahead of time and he should be left in peace. We want Jenni to tell the truth. Why has she changed her story three times? Our family has been harassed. This woman should tell the truth. Jenni, you should tell the truth. We want Jenni to tell the truth.
"The way they are treating with him, the aggression, the feminists, the television, it seems to me shameful. All the people who are taking advantage of the situation, it is shameful."
A friendly football match dubbed the "Friends of Rubiales" that was supposed to take place in Motril and feature the RFEF president was canceled on Saturday, with the local town hall citing fears over public order.
Rubiales' conduct and subsequent refusal to accept responsibility for his actions have drawn widespread condemnation -- both within Spain and internationally from football clubs, players and politicians.
Spain's Labour Minister Yolanda Díaz said on Monday that male chauvinism was "systemic" in the country and had been shown in its worst form.
Díaz, who is also deputy prime minister and head of the far-left Sumar coalition, called for social attitudes to change more generally in Spain and for victims of sexual harassment and violence to be better protected.
On Monday, the RFEF asked UEFA to suspend it from international competitions because of government interference over demands to remove Rubiales.
Football governing bodies have long-standing rules barring national governments from interfering with the running of the domestic federations. However, UEFA will not comply with the Spanish federation's request for a sanction, a person familiar with the issue told The Associated Press on Monday.
The move was widely seen as an attempt to silence some of Rubiales' critics, including government ministers who have asked for his removal, as such a suspension would ban Spanish teams from competitions like the Champions League and could sway public opinion in favor of letting him keep his job.
TOKYO: Japan said on Monday (Aug 28) it was extremely regrettable that there were many instances of harassing phone calls from China regarding the release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific.
Japan started the water discharge on Thursday in a key step toward decommissioning the Fukushima plant, which suffered triple meltdowns after being hit by a tsunami in 2011 following a powerful earthquake. China strongly opposes the move.
"A lot of harassment phone calls believed to be originating from China are occurring in Japan ... These developments are extremely regrettable and we are concerned," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, the chief government spokesman, told a regular news conference.
Such calls prompted vice foreign minister Masataka Okano to summon the Chinese ambassador, Japan's foreign ministry said.
In a statement, the ministry said the calls were also occurring at Japanese facilities in China and urged the government to take appropriate action promptly and ensure the safety of Japanese citizens.
China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Fukushima city hall started receiving calls with country code 86, which is for China, on Thursday, and the number of such calls exceeded 200 the following day, flooding phone lines and disrupting city employees' ordinary work, a city official said.
On the same day, elementary and junior high schools in the city, 60km north-west of the crippled plant, received 65 similar calls, he said.
When a person who understands Chinese took one of those calls, the caller made a comment to the effect that, "Why are you releasing tainted water into the Pacific Ocean, which is a sea for everyone," the official said.
Other municipalities, hotels and restaurants have also been getting such calls since the day the water release began, domestic media said.
In China, a rock was thrown at a Japanese school in the coastal city of Qingdao on Thursday, according to the Consulate-General of Japan in the city.
"We have been speaking to the city police constantly since this incident took place regarding security concerns," the Consulate-General told Reuters on Monday.
Fukushima plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) has been filtering the contaminated water to remove isotopes, leaving only tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that is hard to separate.
Tepco dilutes the water until tritium levels fall below regulatory limits before pumping it into the sea.
China, however, said the Japanese government had not proved that the water discharged would be safe and issued a blanket ban on all aquatic products from Japan hours after Tokyo went ahead with the release.
FUKUSHIMA – Japan wants to win the world’s trust that it is doing the right thing – neither wilfully poisoning the Pacific Ocean nor trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes regarding the safety of its seafood with its treated nuclear wastewater release.
On Sunday, The Straits Times was among the first media outlets – domestic and foreign – to visit the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant since the discharge began three days earlier, in a process that will end with its full decommissioning only in 2051.
As at 5pm on Sunday (4pm Singapore time), 76 hours after the gates were opened, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) had released 1,420 tonnes of water that had been treated to remove radioactive materials except tritium.
Tepco has even successfully used the water, cleansed by a process known as the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), to breed healthy flounder, abalone and seaweed.
Yet, the blowback has been swift since the discharge began. China imposed a blanket ban on all Japanese seafood, while Hong Kong and Macau stiffened restrictions in what Japanese newspaper editorials have lambasted as “economic coercion”.
These regions are a minority, among only nine to have retained import restrictions since the March 11, 2011 disaster. But they hit Japan where it hurts: China accounted for 22.5 per cent and Hong Kong, 19.5 per cent, of seafood imports in 2022, the annual Fisheries White Paper said.
To counter these narratives, United States Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, who is due to visit Fukushima this week, said he would “eat local fish” – just as the late prime minister Shinzo Abe made Fukushima rice a daily staple to prove a point.
Amid the brouhaha, water was being discharged as planned at Tepco’s Fukushima Daiichi plant – a drab coastal compound of six nuclear reactors – on Sunday, with the audible sounds of seawater gushing in through large pipes to be used for dilution. Much has changed since this reporter’s last visit in 2018, with more than 1,000 giant water tanks now dotting the site.
In total, 1.34 million tonnes of wastewater has accumulated, and the pressing lack of space has been a major obstacle to dismantling the plant. Just 380 of the 1,000 cherry blossoms trees that turn the facility pink in spring remain, the rest axed over contamination and the need to make space for tanks.
In the clearest sign that decontamination was progressing, protective gowns were no longer necessary over clothing, though masks and gloves were mandatory. The radiation dose during the six-hour media visit, as per the reading on my dosimeter, was less than that one would have received during a dental X-ray, according to Japan’s National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology.
Yet Japan and Tepco, despite sound scientific evidence in their favour as endorsed by the neutral International Atomic Energy Agency, are struggling to shape the narrative, dampen the water-cooler talk and stamp out fake news.
MOSCOW – Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Sunday the results of genetic tests confirmed the identities of the 10 people who died in a plane crash last Wednesday, and that they included Wagner mercenary group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Russia’s aviation agency previously published the names of all 10 people on board the private jet that crashed in the Tver region north-west of Moscow. They included Mr Prigozhin and Mr Dmitry Utkin, his right-hand man who helped found the Wagner group.
“As part of the investigation of the plane crash in the Tver region, molecular-genetic examinations have been completed,” the investigative committee said in a statement on its site on the Telegram messaging app.
“According to their results, the identities of all 10 victims were established, they correspond to the list stated in the flight list,” the committee added.
Western politicians and commentators have suggested, without presenting evidence, that the plane appeared to have been downed on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as revenge for Mr Prigozhin’s aborted mutiny two months ago.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said such suggestions were an “absolute lie”.
Mr Prigozhin had sent a column of mercenaries towards Moscow in an attempt to oust the leadership of the Defence Ministry.
Mr Putin described that mutiny as a treacherous “stab in the back”, but later met with Mr Prigozhin at the Kremlin.
He sent his condolences last Thursday to the families of those the aviation agency said died in the crash.
Asked whether Mr Putin might attend Mr Prigozhin’s funeral, Mr Peskov said it was too early to say and also noted the President’s “busy schedule”.
Wagner fighters played a prominent role in the fighting in eastern Ukraine, especially in the months-long siege of the city of Bakhmut, despite Mr Prigozhin’s frequent, profanity-laced attacks on Russia’s military high command over their conduct of the war that culminated in the failed mutiny.
The Wagner fighters have now left Ukraine, and some have relocated to neighbouring Belarus under the terms of a deal that ended their mutiny.
Some are expected to be absorbed into Russia’s armed forces, but many will be angry over the sudden demise of the group’s founder, who inspired a high degree of loyalty among his men.
Mr Putin paid a mixed tribute to Mr Prigozhin on Thursday, describing him as a “talented businessman” but also as a flawed character who “made serious mistakes in life”.
However, his comments did little to stem rising questions and anger over Mr Prigozhin’s death, with makeshift memorials to the mercenary leader springing up across Russian cities.
“He was killed,” said one man outside a makeshift memorial in Moscow.
“He was killed by his enemies. We won’t say who. The investigation will reveal. But we hope that revenge will catch up with those who committed this crime,” he added. REUTERS, AFP
