International
Japan Quake Death Toll Rises To 94 With 222 Missing

Hampered by bad weather and damaged roads, Japanese rescuers searched Friday for 222 people still missing four days after a devastating earthquake as the death toll approached 100.
Two elderly women were pulled from the rubble on Thursday, but hopes of finding other survivors after the 7.5 magnitude quake on New Year’s Day were fading with rain, snow and falling temperatures forecast in the coming days.
Thousands of rescuers from all over Japan have been battling aftershocks and roads littered with gaping holes and blocked by frequent landslides in the central Ishikawa region to reach hundreds of people in stranded communities.
On Thursday afternoon, 72 hours after the quake, the two older women were miraculously pulled alive from the remains of their homes in Wajima, one of them thanks to a sniffer dog.
The port city of Wajima on the Noto Peninsula was one of the worst hit, with a pungent smell of soot still in the air and faint columns of smoke visible from a huge fire that destroyed hundreds of structures on the first day.
“I was relaxing on New Year’s Day when the quake happened. My relatives were all there and we were having fun,” Hiroyuki Hamatani, 53, told AFP amid the burnt-out cars, wrecked buildings and fallen telegraph poles.
“The house itself is standing but it’s far from livable now… I don’t have the space in my mind to think about the future,” he told AFP.
Grief

Authorities said on Friday afternoon that 222 people were unaccounted for, down from an earlier count of 242, including 121 in Wajima and 82 in Suzu.
The death toll was raised to 94 from 92, with 464 people injured. The dead included a junior high school boy visiting his family, reports said.
Around 30,000 households were without electricity in the Ishikawa region, and 89,800 homes there and in two neighbouring regions had no water.
Hundreds of people were in government shelters.
“We are doing our best to conduct rescue operations at the isolated villages… However, the reality is that the isolation has not been resolved to the extent that we would like,” regional governor Hiroshi Hase said Friday.
In the town of Anamizu, Sang and his four fellow Vietnamese compatriots have no heating or water in their damaged house. The toilet was full of bricks.
“We were cooking when it happened. We all dashed out of the house,” the 32-year-old told AFP.
“We had no internet connection on the day of the earthquake, but it resumed yesterday. We were able to contact family in Vietnam,” he said.
“What we need now is something to eat and drink.”
The Suzu area was also devastated, with fishing boats sunk or lifted like toys onto the shore by tsunami waves that also reportedly swept one person away.
Noriaki Yachi, 79, fought back tears after his wife was pulled from the rubble there and confirmed dead, the Asahi Shimbun daily reported.
“My life with her was a happy one,” Yachi said.
Japan experiences hundreds of earthquakes every year and most cause no damage, with strict building codes in place for more than four decades.
Earthquakes have hit the Noto region with intensifying strength and frequency over the past five years.
The country is haunted by a massive 9.0 magnitude undersea quake in 2011, which triggered a tsunami that left around 18,500 people dead or missing.
It also swamped the Fukushima atomic plant, causing one of the worst nuclear disasters in history.
AFP
Crime
Chinese national apprehended in Anambra for involvement in illegal mining.

A 45-year-old Chinese national, Mr. Mu Hua Qiang, has been arrested in Aguleri, Anambra State, for alleged involvement in illegal mining. He was apprehended by operatives of the Operation Clean and Healthy Anambra (OCHA) Brigade during a surveillance operation and handed over to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), Awka.
Police spokesperson Tochukwu Ikenga confirmed the arrest, stating that the suspect’s statement was taken and he is in custody pending further investigation. Authorities say illegal mining remains a serious concern in Anambra due to its environmental and security risks.
International
Education: Denmark permitting use of AI for English exams from 2026
We are launching pilot schemes to try to find the right balance,” Education Minister Mattias Tesfaye said in a statement, emphasising the need to encourage digital learning while upholding teaching standards.

Image credit: Shutterstock
The Danish education ministry announced on Friday students in some high schools in Denmark will be allowed to use artificial intelligence to write English language exams from next year.
The move comes as education authorities around the world debate whether AI is a useful learning tool for those entering an increasingly digital economy, or a slippery slope to producing dumbed-down graduates.
The Danish government said the permitted use of AI in the English curriculum from 2026 would be experimental, and apply only to the oral component of the English exam for the high school diploma.
In that test, once a student is handed their topic, they would have one hour to prepare, during which they would be “permitted to use all available tools, including generative AI”, the ministry said.
The students would then have to give their oral presentation in person in front of an examiner.
“We are launching pilot schemes to try to find the right balance,” Education Minister Mattias Tesfaye said in a statement, emphasising the need to encourage digital learning while upholding teaching standards.
“With students growing up in both analogue and digital worlds, we need to ready them in the best way possible for the reality they will encounter after their schooling.
”When it comes to the written part of the English test, the ministry said students would have to do part of it handwritten to ensure no reliance on computers.
International
Trump pledges to maintain federal forces in Washington amid mounting criticism.

President Donald Trump on Thursday visited police and troops he has deployed in the US capital in what he calls a crackdown on crime, saying they were going to “stay here for a while.”
Trump ordered hundreds of members of the Guard, a reserve force, to deploy in Washington last week vowing to “take our capital back,” despite protests by some residents and statistics showing violent offenses falling.
“We’re going to make it safe, and we’re going to then go on to other places, but we’re going to stay here for a while. We want to make this absolutely perfect,” he said outside a US Park Police facility in Washington.
The 79-year-old Republican was surrounded by law enforcement from various local and federal agencies as well as National Guard troops.
Earlier Thursday he suggested he would go on patrol with police and the military, but instead he made a short speech and gave out pizzas and hamburgers.
“Everybody feels safe,” Trump said, adding that he plans to get the capital “fixed up physically.”
“One of the things we’re going to be redoing is your parks. I’m very good at grass, because I have a lot of golf courses all over the place. I know more about grass than any human being,” he added.
Trump wrote on social media early Friday that “there were no murders this week for the first time in memory” in Washington.
He said Mayor Muriel Bowser “must immediately stop giving false and highly inaccurate crime figures, or bad things will happen, including a complete and total Federal takeover of the City!”
Bowser has said that violent crime in the capital has been its lowest level in three decades.
Trump’s visit came a day after his vice president, JD Vance, was greeted by boos and shouts of “Free DC” — referring to Washington’s formal name, the District of Columbia — on his own meet-and-greet with troops.
Vance dismissed the hecklers as “a bunch of crazy protesters.”
The DC National Guard has mobilized 800 troops, while Republican states Ohio, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia are sending a total of around 1,200.
They have been spotted in tourist areas such as the National Mall and its monuments, the Nationals Park baseball stadium and others.
The overwhelmingly Democratic US capital faces allegations from Republican politicians that it is overrun by crime, plagued by homelessness and financially mismanaged.
But data from Washington police showed significant drops in violent crime between 2023 and 2024, though that was coming off the back of a post-pandemic surge.
Some residents have welcomed the crackdown, pointing to crime in their areas — but others have complained the show of force is unnecessary, or has not been seen in parts of Washington where violence is concentrated.
– Sandwich guy –
Several incidents involving the surge of law enforcement have gone viral as residents voice their discontent, including the arrest of one man who was caught on camera throwing a sandwich at an agent.
Banksy-style posters honoring the so-called “sandwich guy” have popped up around the city.
The National Guard troops have provided “critical support such as crowd management, presence patrols and perimeter control in support of law enforcement,” according to social media statements.
In addition to sending troops into the streets, Trump has also sought to take full control of the Washington police department, attempting at one point to sideline its leadership.
The deployment of troops in Washington comes after Trump dispatched the National Guard and Marines to quell unrest in Los Angeles, California, that was sparked by immigration enforcement raids
AFP
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