Aerial footage broadcast on Japanese TV showed the wreckage of the crashed helicopter surrounded by trees in Gunma prefecture, northwest of Tokyo, and officers in navy uniforms examining the site.

“Eight people were found near the site, but we don’t know their condition,” a defence ministry official told AFP.

The Bell 412 helicopter left its base earlier Friday on a two-hour flight to observe climbing routes between Gunma and Nagano prefectures from the air, according to public broadcaster NHK.

But the helicopter did not return by its scheduled arrival time and lost contact with air traffic control, said Hiroshi Yoshida, a local official.

Passengers included disaster management officials and firefighters, he added.

The defence ministry official confirmed that the crashed helicopter in Gunma was the one that went missing.

Helicopter accidents are not rare in Japan.

In February, two pilots were killed in a military helicopter crash in southern Japan. It went down seven minutes after takeoff, slamming into and setting on fire a house that was completely destroyed in the accident.

And last year, nine people aboard a helicopter were killed after it crashed during a mountain rescue drill.

The education ministry has asked all 81 private and public medical schools to check their admission procedures for possible discrimination against female applicants.

Authorities said they would also check the gender ratio of successful applicants for the past six months, confirming it was the first ever such nationwide investigation.

“If their answers are judged as not reasonable, we will ask additional questions or visit them directly,” a ministry official said, adding that the results of the probe would be published as early as next month.

The probe came after a Tokyo medical school admitted it routinely altered entrance test scores for female applicants to keep women out, in a scandal that has sparked outrage in Japan.

The alterations reportedly stretched back as far as 2006 and apparently aimed to keep the ratio of women in the school at 30 percent or lower.

“The case was extremely regrettable,” Education Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters, urging medical schools to co-operate with the probe.

The scandal was uncovered by investigators looking into claims the university padded the scores of an education ministry bureaucrat’s son to help him gain admission.

According to local media, other instances had been discovered where individual entrance test scores were revised upwards, suggesting potential favouritism.

The scores for female applicants, however, were lowered across the board.

Sources told local media the discrimination was the result of a view that women would not be reliable doctors after graduation as they often quit to marry and start a family.

“No matter what the situation is, women should never be discriminated against unfairly,” Jiji Press cited Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa as saying.

Japan’s notoriously long work hours and a male-dominated business culture force many women out of the workplace when they start families.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made “womenomics” — or boosting women’s participation in the workplace and promoting women to senior positions — a priority, but the pace of progress has been slow.

“Myanmar is not party to the Rome Statute and the Court has no jurisdiction on Myanmar whatsoever,” said Myanmar’s Ministry of the Office of the State Counsellor in a statement.

The ICC, Myanmar said, has the jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

It came up with the observations as the ICC wanted to know Myanmar’s opinion on whether The Hague-based court has jurisdiction to run the case.

Myanmar came with its decision at a time when a high-level delegation led by Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali is on a four-day visit to Myanmar to discuss progress on Rohingya repatriation with Myanmar leadership.

The Bangladesh delegation comprising members of joint working group formed earlier for repatriation of Rohingyas living in Bangladesh will see what steps Myanmar has taken so far for creating conducive environment for safe return of Rohingyas.

Minister Ali is likely to go to Northern Rakhine apart from holding meetings with the Myanmar leaders, another official told UNB.

After Bangladesh, the ICC now wanted to know Myanmar’s opinion on the matter.

The pre-trial Chamber of the ICC invited the competent authorities of Myanmar to submit written observations, either publicly or confidentially, on three specific matters by July 27, a senior official told UNB.

The three specific areas are the possibility of the Court’s exercise of territorial jurisdiction over the alleged deportation of members of the Rohingya people from Myanmar into Bangladesh; the circumstances surrounding the crossing of the border by members of the Rohingya people from Myanmar into Bangladesh; and any other matter in connection with the Prosecutor’s Request that, in the opinion of the competent authorities of Myanmar, would assist the Chamber in its determination of this request.

But Myanmar has declined to engage with the ICC by way of a formal reply showing some reasons.

Myanmar said the request by the prosecutor may be interpreted as an indirect attempt to acquire jurisdiction over Myanmar which is not a State Party to the Rome Statute.

“Myanmar, as a non-State Party, is under no obligation to enter into litigation with the prosecutor at the ICC or even to accept note verbales emanating from their registry,” reads the statement.

It said Myanmar is concerned with the lack of “fairness and transparency” of the ICC proceedings.

Earlier, Bangladesh opted for ‘confidential’ mode of submission to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Rohingya issue which it thinks as a testimony of its ‘keenness to seek bilateral solution’ to this problem.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, globally known as ‘Mother of Humanity’ for her courageous move and generous support to the victims of ethnic cleansing from Rakhine state of Myanmar, was left with no option but to act as per tenets of its history and spirit of humanity,” a Foreign Ministry source told UNB.

Bangladesh concurred with both the territorial jurisdiction as well as the claim of forcible deportation of Rohingyas as Bangladesh believes in ‘establishing accountability for the atrocities’ committed against the Rohingya people from Myanmar.

As a State Party to the ICC, Bangladesh is obliged to follow the court’s requests and suggestions.

International pressure on Myanmar is mounting afresh as it remained ‘very slow’ in creating conditions for the safe return of Rohingyas from Bangladesh.

Earlier, Bangladesh, being one of the State Parties to the Rome Statute, responded to the request of the ICC regarding the Rohingya situation, particularly about the territorial jurisdiction of the ICC as Bangladesh is seeking a “sustainable solution” to the crisis.

A diplomat in Dhaka said in 1993 when the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was established, few believed that suspects like Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leaders, would ever have to account for themselves.

Analysing the current situation, another diplomat said, “Time is quite right for history to repeat itself.”

Bangladesh submitted written observations confidentially on three specific matters.

The woman, referred to as “Carmen,” and her daughter were part of a group of immigrants who had fled “extreme sexual and gang violence” in Central America, according to the ACLU. Specifically, it said Carmen had suffered “two decades of horrific sexual abuse by her husband and death threats from a violent gang.”

The rights group and the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies filed a lawsuit on the group’s behalf Tuesday to challenge the deportation, which prompted a hearing held Thursday.

The ACLU said the judge blocked the deportation while the case was pending. But, “while in court, we found out that the government had deported a client and her young child just hours before, putting their lives at risk,” the group said in a series of tweets.

“This directly contradicts the government’s commitment to the court that NO ONE would be removed until tomorrow at the earliest.”

The organization added that the judge ordered the government to “turn the plane around” or face potential contempt proceedings, “starting with the attorney general.”

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, quoted by the Washington Post, branded the situation “outrageous.”

“That someone seeking justice in U.S. court is spirited away while her attorneys are arguing for justice for her?” he said.

“I’m not happy about this at all.”

A Department of Homeland Security official told NBC that the flight to El Salvador was unable to turn around, but Carmen and her daughter did not leave the plane and will be brought back to the US.

The pair had sought asylum in the US in June 2018, but were denied because although officials believed their accounts, they did not think they had a “credible fear of persecution.”

The decision came after Attorney General Sessions implemented a new policy stating that allegations of domestic or gang violence are no longer sufficient to warrant asylum protection.

President Donald Trump ordered the creation of Space Force in June, arguing the Pentagon needs it to tackle vulnerabilities in space and assert US dominance in orbit.

Its creation however is not a done deal, as it needs to be approved by Congress, and the concept has met with some skepticism from lawmakers and defense officials wary of the cost and added bureaucracy.

But Pence was unequivocal in presenting the administration’s wish for it to become a reality — preferably by 2020, the end of Trump’s term in office.

“The time has come to write the next great chapter in the history of our armed forces, to prepare for the next battlefield where America’s best and bravest will be called to deter and defeat a new generation of threats to our people, to our nation,” Pence told an audience at the Pentagon.

“The time has come to establish the United States Space Force,” he said, repeating Trump’s call for Congress to invest an additional $8 billion in US space security systems over the next five years.

Shortly after Pence’s speech, Trump tweeted: “Space Force all the way!”

Countering Russia and China

The creation of a US Space Force reflects the drastically changed reality of space’s role in national security.

When president John F. Kennedy explained in 1962 why America was sending men to the Moon, he famously said, “There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet.”

But 56 years later, space plays a vital role in just about every aspect of modern warfare, with many military technologies reliant on a network of orbiting sensors and satellites.

Pence said an independent Space Force was essential to counter Russia and China, which are “aggressively” working toward anti-satellite capabilities.

“China and Russia have been conducting highly sophisticated on-orbit activities that could enable them to maneuver their satellites into close proximity of ours, posing unprecedented new dangers to our space systems,” he said.

Currently, the Air Force oversees most space capabilities and there is some push back from officials who worry the Space Force’s mission would be duplicative and create turf wars.

The US military presently consists of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.

Given the stakes surrounding building a new military branch, the issue is likely to be a political football.

Some Republican lawmakers expressed support for the project, but many Democrats derided the idea as a money pit that would jeopardize other priorities.

“Maybe, just maybe, we should make sure our people are not dying because they lack health insurance before we start spending billions to militarize outer space,” Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted.

Democratic Senator Brian Schatz said Space Force “won’t happen.”

No Republican is willing to tell Trump it’s a “dumb idea,” added the lawmaker from Hawaii. “It’s dangerous to have a leader who cannot be talked out of crazy ideas.”

US Space Command

Pence outlined a series of steps the Pentagon will undertake before Space Force comes online.

Key among these is the creation of US Space Command, a new organizational body that would draw in members of existing military branches.

America’s vast military divides the globe into various commands, such as Central Command in the Middle East or Indo-Pacific Command in Asia, and a new Space Command would be on equal footing with these.

It would require a new headquarters and major organizational changes.

The Pentagon sent a report to Congress Tuesday detailing steps towards meeting Trump’s order.

The document outlines how America’s military is at risk in space due to adversaries pursuing “counter-space” capabilities to neutralize America’s satellites during a conflict, such as by jamming or hacking them.

“It is imperative that the United States adapts its policies, doctrine, and capabilities to protect our interests,” the document states.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said this week that Pence is Trump’s “point man” for Space Force, and Pentagon officials are working closely with his office.

But just last year, Mattis voiced skepticism concerning the need to create a separate Space Force.

In a letter to a congressman, he said he did “not wish to add a separate service that would likely present a narrower and even parochial approach to space operations,” adding it would create extra bureaucracy and cost.

On Tuesday, however, Mattis expressed full support for creating a new US Space Command.

“We need to address space as a developing, war-fighting domain and a combatant command is certainly one thing that we can establish,” he said.

The president’s re-election team trumpeted the proposal, asking supporters to help select Space Force’s new official logo — to go on merchandise sold by his campaign.

“I just want to say I’m really sorry. And that … that’s it,” Billy Ray Irick said in his final words before prison officials in Nashville, Tennessee started the process. He was pronounced dead at 7:48 pm, officials said at a press conference.

Irick was the first inmate to be executed in Tennessee since 2009.

The US Supreme Court had earlier denied a stay of execution for the convict, rejecting concerns about the inmate potentially feeling sensations equivalent to being “burned alive.”

The high court’s decision was countered with a blistering dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who questioned whether Billy Ray Irick’s planned execution would be too painful and whether allowing it to proceed required accepting “barbarism.”

The 59-year-old was convicted in 1986 of raping and killing seven-year-old Paula Dyer. His lawyers have argued Irick has a history of severe mental illness.

In an appeal to the Supreme Court, Irick’s lawyers challenged Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol, which included the use of the sedative midazolam. Other states have also used the drug for executions with mixed results.

Sotomayor, citing lower court testimony about the potential risks of midazolam executions, dissented.

Medical experts warned the drug may not be strong enough to keep a prisoner unconscious once he starts to feel pain.

If Irick were to awaken, a paralytic used as the second drug in Tennessee’s lethal injection would prevent him from alerting officials that he can feel pain, Sotomayor noted.

“Medical experts explained in painstaking detail how the three-drug cocktail Tennessee plans to inject into Irick’s veins will cause him to experience sensations of drowning, suffocating, and being burned alive from the inside out,” Sotomayor wrote.

“If the law permits this execution to go forward in spite of the horrific final minutes that Irick may well experience, then we have stopped being a civilized nation and accepted barbarism.”

Three out of 14 executions in the US this year have employed midazolam, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

But the drug has been the subject of multiple legal challenges.

Ohio halted executions in 2014 after the botched execution of Dennis McGuire using midazolam. The prisoner appeared to suffer for several minutes before dying.

A federal appeals court in 2017 granted Ohio permission to resume executions, after officials increased the dose of the drug by a factor of 50.

Meanwhile, the state of Nevada last month postponed an execution after midazolam-manufacturer Alvogen successfully sued to stop its product from being used in executions.

The park, which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has welcomed a growing number of tourists both from Indonesia and overseas. However, the influx had caused several environmental problems impacting the natural landscape of the park, the Environment and Forestry Ministry’s director general for natural resources and ecosystems, Wiratno, said, adding that the fire was one of them.

Piles of garbage left behind by tourists also caused damage to the national park, he added.

Ministry data show that 10,250 people, 95 percent of them being foreigners, visit the Komodo National Park monthly. That number stands in stark contrast to the 130 people assigned to manage and monitor the park.

“More than 10,000 visitors every month is very much. We will limit it to 5,000 per month, probably,” Wiratno said, adding that he would issue a directorate general decree regulating the matter by the end of this year, after conducting some studies.

Once the new regulation is in effect next year, people planning to visit the park will need to register online, with signups limited by a daily quota.

A fire, allegedly caused by a cigarette tossed by a visitor, burned 10 hectares of the savanna vegetation of Gili Lawa Darat on Aug. 1. The West Manggarai Police has questioned 11 people over the blaze.

LAOS HAS to wake up from its dream to be the major power supplier of the region, say critics.

The recent tragedy at the Xe-Pien Xe-Namnoy hydropower dam has clearly demonstrated that the benefits from selling electricity are small compared to the loss of human life and suffering of Lao citizens, along with the irreversible damage to the environment, said experts and environmentalists.

They were speaking at a public panel discussion yesterday at the Christian Student Centre in Bangkok.

The experts, who discussed foreign investments in hydropower dam projects in Laos, on the whole agreed that Laos’ ambition to be the “Battery of Asia” had done more harm than good for the country. The real beneficiaries of this policy are the foreign investors and hydropower companies, while Lao residents, who suffer the most adverse impacts from the dams, barely get any benefit, they said.

Instead of continuing the unfair trade with the foreign energy industrialists, a participant suggested the Lao government set aside their costly hydropower ambitions, and seek sustainable economic strategies based on the country’s strengths and identities.

Niwat Roykaew, a prominent environmentalist and local sage from Chiang Rai’s Chaing Khong district, said the claims of hydropower dam developers that the local people and the country would get many benefits from building dams, have been contradicted by evidence from the sites of the facilities operating in Laos.

“The dam developers always say that their project will provide free renewable energy from water, while the dam’s reservoirs would support local agriculture and aquaculture and be the water management tool for prevention of flood and drought,” Niwat said.

“These are all myths, as even after many were built on the upstream of Mekong River, there were still floods in the downstream areas. Moreover, they have never admitted that generation of electricity from hydropower dams actually has many hidden environmental and social costs.”

He said construction of dams greatly change the river’s environment, causing gradual environmental degradation, accumulated damage to the river ecosystem, eventually leading to an ecological catastrophe in the river.

Way of life affected

The death of the river’s ecosystem will also heavily affect the way of life and traditional culture of the local communities along the riverbank that rely on the resources from a healthy ecosystem, he said.

“The only reason dam developers insist on maintaining this hydropower development strategy is because they are the ones who get the most benefit from the policy. The over-investment in hydropower in Laos has served only the objective of making the already rich investors become richer,” Niwat said.

Premrudee Daoruang, coordinator of Laos Dam Investment Monitor, said the disaster at Xe-Pien Xe-Namnoy hydropower dam has provided the clearest example yet on the danger of hydropower dams in Laos. This tragedy was not caused by a natural disaster, but by human errors, she said.

“The dam is poorly built in an effort to minimise the construction costs as much as possible. The dam developers also did not warn the people downstream, even though they had noticed the signs of damage to the dam structure,” Premrudee said.

“Moreover, the flash floods triggered by the dam’s collapse has also affected a large area across the border in Cambodia, emphasising the truth that Mekong River system is an international river, so there should be a transboundary impact assessment study for every large construction project in the river.”

The organisation, Save the Mekong, issued a statement at the panel to the investors and loan providers of the Xe-Pien Xe-Namnoy hydropower dam project. The coalition of non-governmental organisations, community-based groups, and concerned citizens within Mekong region demanded that the companies take responsibility for the disaster, as it was their investment project, and fully remedy the impact on every victim of the dam’s failure.

Supalak Ganjanakhundee, editor at The Nation, pointed to the problems that Laos faced from hydropower investment projects, the current electricity generation situation in the region, and the issue of accuracy in power-demand predictions. Those issues make it unrealistic and financially unreasonable for Laos to pursue its goal to invest in hydropower projects to meet the power demand of neighbours, said Supalak.

However, Supalak said, the Laos government had shown an understanding of the problems with its Battery of Asia plan when it announced recently a review of the hydropower strategy.

He suggested that the Lao government consider an alternate plan to drive the country’s economy and fight poverty. Laos is a small country, he said, but rich with a diverse and distinctive cultural heritage of many ethnic minorities. The natural attractions and picturesque scenery of Laos are also famous. Considering these advantages, Laos could be easily developed into a globally renowned eco-tourism destination, Supalak offered.