Latest News Clips 2012.09.20

1.   China Irks Japan With Patrol-Ship Incursion

The Wall Street Journal      September 14, 2012

Associated Press

A Chinese surveillance ship, front, and a Japan Coast Guard vessel near the disputed islands Friday morning.

Tensions between Japan and China escalated Friday when an unusually large group of Chinese patrol ships entered Japanese territorial waters for a few hours near disputed islands in the East China Sea, as Beijing tried to assert its sovereignty.

The provocative action came days after Tokyo announced plans to purchase three of the contested islands it controls from a Japanese private owner to keep them out of the hands of nationalist Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, who had intended to use the territory to further inflame the situation.

A Chinese surveillance ship, front, and a Japan Coast Guard vessel near the disputed islands Friday morning.

While Tokyo's move was intended to calm Beijing, it instead drew an angry response from Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, prompting Beijing to say it planned to send marine surveillance vessels toward the islands.

China's foreign ministry said the ships entered the waters Friday to conduct maritime surveillance and that Beijing was carrying out a mission of "law enforcement over its maritime rights." Japan's coast guard said the ships had all left the area after seven hours, without incident.

2.      Anti-American Protests Flare Beyond the Mideast

The New York Times    September 14, 2012

Anti-American rage that began this week over a video insult to Islam spread to nearly 20 countries across the Middle East and beyond on Friday, with violent and sometimes deadly protests that convulsed the birthplaces of the Arab Spring revolutions, breached two more United States Embassies and targeted diplomatic properties of Germany and Britain.

The broadening of the protests appeared to reflect a pent-up resentment of Western powers in general, and defied pleas for restraint from world leaders, including the new Islamist president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, whose country was the instigator of the demonstrations that erupted three days earlier on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The anger stretched from North Africa to South Asia and Indonesia and in some cases was surprisingly destructive. In Tunis, an American-run school that was untouched during the revolution nearly two years ago was completely ransacked. In eastern Afghanistan, protesters burned an effigy of President Obama, who had made an outreach to Muslims a thematic pillar of his first year in office.

The State Department confirmed that protesters had penetrated the perimeters of the American Embassies in the Tunisian and Sudanese capitals, and said that 65 embassies or consulates around the world had issued emergency messages about threats of violence, and that those facilities in Islamic countries were curtailing diplomatic activity. The Pentagon said it sent Marines to protect embassies in Yemen and Sudan.

The wave of unrest not only increased concern in the West but raised new questions about political instability in Egypt, Tunisia and other Middle East countries where newfound freedoms, once suppressed by autocratic leaders, have given way to an absence of authority. The protests also seemed to highlight the unintended consequences of America’s support of movements to overthrow those autocrats, which have empowered Islamist groups that remain implacably hostile to the West.

3.      Kate and William take legal action against Closer over topless photos

Duke and Duchess of Cambridge seek injunction to force all copies of magazine to be pulled, and launch criminal action

guardian.co.uk,  17 September 2012

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visit Tuvanipupu Island on their tour of the Far East. The couple are seeking an injunction and punitive fines at a criminal court hearing in Paris. Photograph: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are to launch a criminal action in France over topless pictures taken of Kate taken while they were on holiday.

The move comes as they also seek an injunction to force Closer magazine, which published the photographs of the duchess, to withdraw all copies from sale and remove them from its website.

They will ask a judge to make the gagging order under threat of punitive fines at a civil hearing on Monday afternoon at the tribunal de grande instance in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris.

Lawyers for the couple, who will not be at the hearing, will demand that Closer stop "all publication" of the images and that the magazine is removed from kiosks and newsagents. The couple will ask for a fine of €100,000 (£81,000) to be imposed for failure to comply with pulling the magazine and the same amount for failure to remove the pictures from "any electronic and especially digital means of communication". A further €100,000 fine is being demanded for the distribution of the photographs to other publications.

If the magazine drags its feet, the royal couple will seek a punitive fine of €10,000 to be imposed for every day it fails to comply with the order.

In a separate case, they were launching a criminal action, said St James's Palace, over the "taking of photographs of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge whilst on holiday and the publication of these photos in breach of their privacy".

Closer  :八卦雜誌《Closer》
toless picture:上空照
injunction:禁止令
criminal :刑事上的
punitive fines : 懲罰性的罰款
withdraw : 取回
gag : 禁止言論
巴黎大事法院(tribunal de grande instance) 
kiosk:報攤
impose:徵(稅); 加(負擔等)於
comply :遵守,順從
breach: 違反,破壞 (n,vt)