Japan executes 7 in 1995 Tokyo Sarin gas attack

Agencies
July 6, 2018

Tokyo, Jul 6: The leader of the Japanese doomsday cult that carried out a deadly 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway was executed today along with six of his followers, decades after the shocking crime.

Shoko Asahara, the charismatic virtually-blind leader of the Aum Shinrikyo sect, has been on death row for more than a decade over the attack, which shocked the world and prompted a massive crackdown on the cult.

"Seven Aum members were executed, they include Shoko Asahara," a justice ministry official told AFP.

The hangings are the first executions in connection with the nerve agent attack, which killed 13 people and injured thousands more. A further six cult members remain on death row.

Some of those affected by the attack welcomed news of the executions.

"When I heard the news, I reacted calmly... But I did feel the world had become slightly brighter," said Atsushi Sakahara, a film director who was injured in the sarin attack at Tokyo's Roppongi station.

"I've been in pain for years," he told news agency.

"It will be impossible to ever forget the incident, but the execution brings a kind of closure."

The attack during the capital's notoriously crowded rush hour paralysed the Japanese capital, turning it into a virtual warzone.

Injured people began staggering out of the underground struggling for breath, with watering eyes as the attack unfolded.

Others keeled over, foaming at the mouth, with blood streaming from their noses.

The sarin had been released in liquid form on five subway carriages at different points throughout the network.

The first sign of it was a smell similar to paint thinner, but soon commuters began cough uncontrollably, recalled Sakae Ito, who was on the crowded Hibiya line that day.

"Liquid was spread on the floor in the middle of the carriage, people were convulsing in their seats. One man was leaning against a pole, his shirt open, bodily fluids leaking out."

Police were first alerted just after 8 am and panic soon set in, with subway workers screaming at people to evacuate and passengers convulsing on carriage floors.

The Japanese Self-Defense Force was called in and descended into the depths in hazmat suits and gas masks to assist the injured and deal with the poison.

Though concerns about the Aum had already been raised, the attack prompted a massive crackdown on the cult's headquarters and the arrest of Asahara and other group members.

He was sentenced to death after a lengthy prosecution during which he regularly delivered rambling and incoherent monologues in English and Japanese.

The hangings today are the largest simultaneous execution in Japan since 1911, when 11 people were hanged for plotting to assassinate the emperor. Born Chizuo Matsumoto in 1955 on the southwestern island of Kyushu, Asahara changed his name in the 1980s, when the Aum cult was being developed.

Virtually blind, he was seen as a charismatic speaker who cloaked himself in mysticism to draw recruits including doctors and scientists to the doomsday cult he developed in the 1980s.

The Aum cult, now renamed Aleph, officially disowned Asahara in 2000, but it has never been banned and experts say the former guru retained a strong influence.

Despite the horror that persists over the Aum's subway attack and other crimes, some experts had warned against the execution of Asahara and his acolytes.

They fear his death may trigger the naming of a new cult leader, possibly his second son.

And the execution of Asahara's followers risks elevating them to "martyrs" in the eyes of remaining cult adherents, warned Taro Takimoto, a lawyer for relatives of cultists, in an interview with AFP earlier this year.

"We should have them talk until they die a natural death so that they help prevent a recurrence," he said.

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News Network
May 13,2020

Islamabad, May 13 : The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Pakistan rose to 34,370 on Wednesday after new infections were confirmed in the country.

As per province-wise breakup of the total tally cited by Radio Pakistan, so far 13,225 cases have been registered in Punjab, 12,610 in Sindh, 5,021 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 2,158 in Balochistan, 759 in Islamabad, 475 in Gilgit Baltistan and 88 in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

As many as 2,255 cases positive were confirmed, while 31 deaths reported during the last 24 hours.

At least 737 patients have died so far while 8,812 stand recovered, the media reported further.

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News Network
April 8,2020

Washington, Apr 8: President Donald Trump has threatened to put a "very powerful" hold on US' funding to the World Health Organization, accusing the UN agency of being "very China centric" and criticising it for having "missed the call" in its response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump slammed the global health agency for its early guidance aimed at countering the international spread of the coronavirus.

"We're going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO. We're going to put a very powerful hold on it and we're going to see. It's a great thing if it works. But when they call every shot wrong, that's no good," Trump told reporters at his daily White House news conference on Tuesday.

The Geneva-headquartered World Health Organization (WHO), receives vast amounts of money from the United States.

"We pay for a majority or the biggest portion of their money. They actually criticized and disagreed with my travel ban at the time I did it. They were wrong. They've been wrong about a lot of things. They had a lot of information early and they didn't want to - they're very - they seem to be very China centric," Trump said.

The president said his administration was going to look into the US funding to the WHO.

"We give a majority of the money that they get, and it's much more than the USD 58 million. USD 58 million is a small portion of what they've got over the years. Sometimes they get much more than that. Sometimes it's for programs that they're doing, and-it's much bigger numbers. If the programmes are good, that's great as far as we're concerned," he said.

"But we want to look into it, WHO, because they called it wrong. They (WHO) called it wrong. They missed the call. They could've called it months earlier. They would have known and they should have known and they probably did know. So, we'll be looking into that very carefully, and we're going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO," Trump said.

Meanwhile, Senator Jim Risch, chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for an independent investigation into the WHO's handling of the COVID-19 response.

"The WHO has failed not only the American people, it has failed the world with its flagrant mishandling of the response to COVID-19," said Risch.

WHO Director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus' apparent unwillingness to hold the Chinese Communist Party to even the minimum standard of global health and transparency hindered the world's ability to blunt the spread of this pandemic, he said.

"It is completely unacceptable that the world's global health organization has become a political puppet of the Chinese government," he alleged, adding that "an independent investigation into the WHO's handling of the COVID-19 response is imperative."

The United States is the largest contributor to the WHO.

"Our valuable tax payer dollars should go towards investments to prevent the spread of disease, not to aid and abet cover-ups that cost lives and isolate portions of the world's population on political grounds, as has been the case with Taiwan," Senator Risch said.

A bipartisan group of nearly two dozen lawmakers announced Tuesday to introduce a resolution to defund the WHO until Ghebreyesus resigns and an international commission investigates the organisation's role in covering up the Chinese Communist Party's failed COVID-19 response.

"The WHO helped the Chinese Communist Party hide the threat of COVID-19 from the world and now more than 10,000 Americans are dead, a number that is expected to rise dramatically in the coming weeks," Congressman Guy Reschenthaler alleged.

"The United States is the largest contributor to WHO. It is not right that Americans' hard-earned tax dollars are being used to propagate China's lies and hide information that could have saved lives. This bill will hold the WHO accountable for their negligence and deceit," he asserted.

The United States' intelligence community has reported that the Chinese government hid the threat of COVID-19 and, as a result, made it difficult for the rest of the world to respond early, appropriately and aggressively, said Congressman Fred Keller.

"For reasons beyond understanding, the WHO acted as a silent partner in this effort instead of protecting the lives of millions across the world, including hundreds of thousands of American citizens. Our hard-earned tax dollars should not go to a global organization more concerned with not offending the Chinese government than providing accurate information and protecting innocent lives," Keller said.

Senator Marco Rubio accused the Chinese Communist Party of using WHO "to mislead the world."

"The organisation's leadership is either complicit or dangerously incompetent. I will work with the Trump Administration to ensure that WHO is independent and has not been compromised by the CCP before we continue our current funding, he added.

According to Johns Hopkins University, there are over 1.43 million confirmed coronavirus cases across the world and over 82,000 people have died due to the disease. The US has nearly 400,000 infections, the highest in the world.

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News Network
May 9,2020

London, May 9: Air India's first evacuation flight from London will be taking off for Mumbai today.

The screening of passengers is underway.

"Air India's first evacuation flight from London taking off for Mumbai today at 1200. Flight is 100% booked! Shubh Yatra. Please stay in touch. GoI working to send more evacuation flights!" High Commission of India, London said in a tweet.

On Monday, India announced had that it will begin phased repatriation of its citizens stranded abroad from May 7.

The government said that Air India will operate 64 flights in the first week from May 7 to May 13 to bring back around 15,000 Indian nationals.

On day three of the 'Vande Bharat Mission', flights carrying Indians from the Gulf countries, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh and Malaysia will arrive in India.

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