N KOREAN GROUP Demands US Be Turned to 'Ashes and Darkness'
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International FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2017 World’s oldest panda dies aged 37 in China SHANGHAI: The world’s oldest captive giant panda has died at age 37 — more than 100 years in human years - her handlers in China said yesterday as they gave “Basi” an emotional send-off befitting a minor celebrity. Basi outlived most of her peers by nearly two decades-Pandas in the wild have an average lifespan of about 20 years, but those in captivity generally live longer. She was something of a beloved star in China and her birth- days were often celebrated with gusto. State television reported live yesterday from the zoo where Basi lived in southeastern China, which held a memorial in her honor. “With a heavy heart, we solemnly announce today that the original model of ‘Panpan’, the mascot for the first Asian Games (in China, 1990), and an angel of friendship both at home and abroad, giant panda star Basi died at 8:50am on September 13, 2017 at the age of 37,” the Straits Giant Panda Research and Exchange Center in Fuzhou said. Basi had lived at the facility since being rescued from the wild after she fell into a river in southwestern China at the age of four or five, it said. She was named after the valley where she was found. Basi spent some time abroad when she was loaned to the San Diego Zoo for six months in 1987. Giant pandas have a notoriously low reproductive rate, a key contributor-along with habitat loss-to their status as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of threatened species. The black and white bear, which symbol- izes wildlife protection efforts worldwide, was previously classi- FUZHOU: This file picture taken on January 18, 2017 shows giant panda ‘Basi’ sniffing a birthday cake prepared by her fied as endangered. — AFP keepers at Fuzhou Panda World in Fuzhou, east China’s Fujian province. — AFP N Korean group demands US be turned to ‘ashes and darkness’ Tokyo is ‘dancing to the tune of the US’ SEOUL: A North Korean organization demand- Pacific Peace Committee (KAPPC) denounced Korea has a long history of issuing dramatic range missile over Hokkaido triggered alarm ed yesterday that the United States be “beaten the “heinous sanctions resolution” and said threats against the US and its allies but not bells, sparking emergency sirens and mass to death” like a “rabid dog” for spearheading there were mounting calls for strong retalia- carrying them out. According to the South’s text alerts in northern Japan. “The four fresh UN sanctions on Pyongyang over its lat- tion against the US and its allies. “The army unification ministry, the KAPPC acts as “a win- islands of the archipelago should be sunken est nuclear test, adding ally Japan should be and people of the DPRK are unanimously dow for improving relations with countries like into the sea by the nuclear bomb of Juche,” “sunken into the sea”. The UN Security Council demanding that the Yankees, chief culprit in the US and Japan... while campaigning to KAPPC warned, referring to the North’s unanimously imposed an eighth set of sanc- cooking up the ‘sanctions resolution’, be beat- change North Korea’s closed and negative national philosophy of “Juche” or self- tions on the North Monday, banning it from en to death as a stick is fit for a rabid dog,” he image”. But the KAPPC statement accused reliance. North Korea says it needs nuclear trading in textiles and restricting its oil imports, said in a statement carried by the official KCNA Tokyo of “dancing to the tune of the US” and weapons to protect itself from “hostile” US a week after Pyongyang tested what it said was news agency. warned of a “telling blow” against Japan, not- forces. Experts believe Pyongyang’s weapons a hydrogen bomb small enough to fit onto a “Now is the time to annihilate the US impe- ing the missile test that overflew the Asian program has made rapid progress under missile, raising tensions on the peninsula. rialist aggressors. Let’s reduce the US main- island nation last month. leader Kim Jong-Un, with previous sanctions A spokesman for the North’s Korea Asia- land into ashes and darkness,” it said. North The North’s launch of an intermediate having done little to deter it. — AFP Record rain Toshiba: Japan’s faded titan as typhoon batters southern selling the family silver Japanese islands TOKYO: At a train station used by hundreds Wednesday, Toshiba said it had signed a ing array of items from tiny electronic chips of workers at struggling Japanese electronics memorandum of understanding with the to nuclear reactors, with everything from tel- TOKYO: A strong typhoon lashed islands in giant Toshiba, an advert is apparently trying Bain consortium but this did not prevent evisions, computers and highway toll gates in southern Japan yesterday, packing gusts of up to to poach staff worried by their employer’s them still talking to others. Selling the prof- between. 252 kilometers an hour and leaving thousands precarious financial position. “Do you work itable chip division is seen as key to Toshiba’s But Toshiba is not the only once-mighty without power as it headed towards the mainland. for ‘that’ electronics company? If so, come survival, as one of Japan’s best-known firms Japanese conglomerate to feel the pain from Authorities warned of landslides and high waves and work for us!” screamed the ad for Toyota. battles to recover from multi-billion-dollar ferocious foreign competition. Household as Typhoon Talim battered the southern The mere fact Toshiba staff are apparently losses at its US nuclear operations. It could names Panasonic and NEC have been forced Okinawan island chain, dumping the most rain being urged to jump ship by rivals under- also face the humiliating prospect of being into major restructuring, and Sharp was seen over a 24-hour period in 50 years on the city scores the difficulties suffered by the former delisted from Japan’s stock exchange if the acquired by Foxconn. Toshiba’s problems of Miyako. According to Okinawa Electric Power, industrial titan. Strapped for cash, the firm is sale does not raise the sufficient funds. stem in large part from what Yasuyuki Onishi, more than 18,000 homes were without power in soon expected to be forced to sell off part of a specialist in the sector, described as its Miyako, a city of around 54,000 people some 1,840 the family silver-its key memory chip busi- Fall from grace “reckless” purchase of US nuclear unit kilometers (1,143 miles) southwest of Tokyo. ness, which accounts for around a quarter of The move to sell represents something of Westinghouse, which racked up billions of Japan’s Meteorological Agency said the its total annual revenue. a fall from grace for Toshiba, which can trace dollars in losses before being placed in bank- typhoon was expected to approach the Kyushu Toshiba has been stuck in tortuous negoti- its history back as far as 1875 when the com- ruptcy protection. island by early Sunday. Local media said it was ations over selling the segment, which could pany set up a telegraph factory in the now This is the “main cause of the crisis that poised to cross Japan’s mainland-which raise as much as $20 billion. Three parties swanky area of Ginza in Tokyo. In the 1930s, the group is suffering”, Onishi told AFP. Those includes Tokyo-on Monday. Big storms regularly have been vying for the prize: a US-South the firm manufactured the first Japanese vac- huge losses came to light as the group was strike Japan, with 22 people killed when Korean consortium led by investment fund uum cleaner, the first fridge and the first still recovering from revelations that top Typhoon Lionrock pounded the country last Bain Capital, Toshiba’s US chip factory partner washing machine, which still works today- company executives had pressured under- September. Last month, Typhoon Noru killed Western Digital and Taiwan’s Hon Hai albeit with an almighty racket. It has been lings to cover up weak results for years after two and injured 51. — AFP Precision, better known as Foxconn. On involved in the manufacture of an astonish- the 2008 global financial meltdown. — AFP.