DAP: The breaking news in Cambodia: “Poll shows Japanese hold more positive view on Japan-S. Korea relations” plus 9 more

SEOUL, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Japanese view their country's relations with South Korea 1.5 times more favorably than the South Koreans do with Japan, an opposition lawmaker said Thursday, citing a recent survey.

The survey on historical views of South Koreans and the Japanese, showed 71.4 percent of the Japanese respondents positively assessed Tokyo's ties with Seoul, while 46.8 percent of South Koreans shared the same view, opposition Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Choon-jin said during an annual parliamentary audit.

South Korea's younger generation held particularly negative views about Seoul-Tokyo relations, with 61.5 percent of the respondents in their 20's said the current ties between the Asian neighbors are at a low ebb.

Kim attributed the trend to high accessibility to information in South Korea, saying the youth in their 20's here have a higher level of awareness of historically sensitive issues such as territorial disputes between the two countries.

Japan's 1910-45 colonial occupation of South Korea has given rise to an array of diplomatic disputes between the two countries, including territorial disputes and compensation issues for South Koreans forced into labor and sexual service.

DAMASCUS, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Armed men on Thursday ambushed a law-enforcement unit in al-Jiza area in Syria's southern province of Daraa, killing five and injuring another 17 of its members, the official SANA news agency reported.

The attack was carried out on the al-Jiza-Tiba highway, SANA said, adding that the gunmen prevented ambulances from transporting the wounded to hospitals.

A day earlier, security authorities arrested members of an armed terrorist group at a farm in Daraa, seizing a large quantity of explosives and remote-control bombs.

Quoting a military expert, SANA said the seized weaponry and explosives were manufactured in a very professional way.

Investigations showed that the armed group was intending to plant the explosives in crowded civilian areas to kill the biggest possible number of people.

Two alleged members of the group, Taiyser al-Bermawi and Qaher al-Misri, told SANA that the group was planning to "plant the explosives on the road leading to the Cornish, which is usually used by securities vehicles."

Syria has been wracked by six months of unrest which it blames on foreign conspiracy and armed thugs. A recent UN statement put the number of civilians killed during the past six months in Syria at 2,600.

Local newspaper al-Watan reported Thursday that gunmen have attacked a number of schools in the central province of Homs, smashing its contents and opening fire indiscriminately to prevent students from going to schools.

It said 27 wanted were arrested at Bab Amro quarter in Homs and a large quantity of weapons was seized from them.

OSAKA, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- A helicopter made an emergency landing in Kagawa Prefecture in southwestern Japan Thursday, but the three men onboard escaped without injury before the helicopter was destroyed by fire, local press reported.

The helicopter, operated by Shikoku Air Service Co. made the emergency landing on a baseball field in Higashikagawa, Kagawa Prefecture, at around 10:20 a.m. local time, the report said , adding that the pilot and two other men escaped before the aircraft burned down.

The helicopter, chartered by Shikoku Electric Power Co. to check for typhoon damage to power cables, left Takamatsu airport around 9:25 a.m. It was scheduled to return to the airport around 11:25 a.m. according to the report.

HANOI, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Vietnamese Ministry of Justice (MOJ) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) held Thursday the 4th legal policy dialogue forum under the theme, reported Vietnam News Agency.

The seminar, with a theme of"Gender integration in making and implementing laws: Role of the justice sector in solving gender inequality and protecting women's rights", was co-chaired by MOJ deputy minister Nguyen Thuy Hien and UNDP Country Director to Vietnam Setsuko Yamazaki, said the report.

Addressing at the conference, Hien said that with the gradually improved legal framework, Vietnam has obtained remarkable achievements in promoting gender equality and protecting women's rights. However, there still remain shortcomings and inadequacies.

To attain true equality between men and women in all walks of life, gender integration in making and implementing the laws is considered an effective strategy. The seminar would contribute to researches on theoretical and practical issues to apply gender integration in making and implementing the laws in the present stage in Vietnam, said Hien.

The forum would clarify the role of the justice sector in solving gender inequality and protecting women's rights. Gender equality attracts attention from almost countries across the world and it is defined as one of eight globally millennial goals, said Eamonn Murphy, UN acting resident coordinator in Vietnam.

Deputy Chairwoman of the Vietnamese National Assembly's Committee on Social Affairs, Nguyen Thuy Anh, recommended the government to review and summarize the implementation of gender integration in the laws approved by the government, as well as to boost cooperation between MOJ and Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs.

To effectively prevent family violence and ensure the violators to be punished properly, related offices and social organizations, and the victims themselves have to pay due attention to the issue, and never blame women for their lack of knowledge about the laws. Otherwise, measures to support the women and protect them should be implemented, said Daria Hagemann, an expert for the UN office on drugs and crime-sponsored project "Strengthening law enforcement and justice sectors to prevent and respond to domestic violence in Vietnam" (UNODC - VNM/T28).

The seminar would help the UN in making plans to work with Vietnam on gender equality in the next five years, said Murphy.

KABUL, Sept. 22 (Xinhua)-- Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday described the late Burhanudin Rabbani as the "Martyr of Peace" and hailed his efforts in bringing about peace and national reconciliation in the militancy-hit country.

"A terrorist disguised to be messenger of peace from Taliban side targeted chairmen of Peace Council professor Rabbani and martyred him. He sacrificed his life for peace in the country and so, the late professor Rabbani is 'Martyr of Peace' in Afghanistan, " President Karzai told at a press conference after returning home from New York.

A man pretended to be a Taliban messenger entered the house of the chairman of the government-backed peace body, the High Peace Council and a former Afghan President Burhanudin in Kabul Tuesday evening and blew himself up leaving himself and Rabbani dead on the spot.

Four more people sustained injuries, according to officials.

President Karzai who was in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly had canceled his visit and returned home.

Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops have claimed of responsibility.

The burial ceremony of late Rabbani is scheduled to be held amid tight security in Kabul on Friday.

As sign of respect and paying homage to the services of late Rabbani, Afghan government has announced three-day national mourning from Thursday and the national flag would remain half- mast for three days.

MANILA, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Philippine stock market wiped out all the gains it made this year following an aggressive selling among investors, whose fears of a weak U.S. economy were affirmed by U.S. Federal Reserve's decision to proceed with its portfolio shuffling program.

The bellwether Philippine stock exchange index dived by 2.57 percent or 108.19 points to 4,096.10, while the broader all-share index retreated by 2.02 percent or 60.26 points to 2,916.54.

Trading volume reached 15.58 billion shares worth 4.95 billion pesos (113.87 million U.S. dollars) with 144 stocks tumbling, 28 advancing, and 24 unchanged.

All six counters closed in the negative, led by the financial sector which retreated by 3.06 percent.

Brokerage DBP-Daiwa Securities, Inc. said the bearish mode continued after the U.S. Federal Reserve made it clear that it thinks a full U.S. economic recovery is years away during their Federal Open Market Committee meeting last night.

"The message (had) a negative impact not only in the local market, but also in the domestic economy given that the U.S. is the second biggest trading partner of the Philippines next to Japan," the brokerage said.

On Wednesday, the Federal Open Market Committee announced that they will proceed with "Operation Twist" wherein they will replace short term debt in the central bank's portfolio with longer-term Treasury bonds to cut borrowing costs.

Following the report, major bourses across the globe tumbled. The Dow Jones industrial average index dumped 2.49 percent or 283. 82 points to 11,124.84. Asian equities were also trading in the negative as of Thursday afternoon.

Developments in Greece and in the U.S. have been severely battering the local stock market, which is just a hundred points away from its 2010 closing.

On Thursday, none of the stocks in the basket of 30-company index eluded the bloodbath. Stock prices of heavyweight Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., Alliance Global Group, Inc., Ayala Land, Inc., and Manila Electric Co. all chopped off their value.

SEOUL, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- South Korea and the United States launched the latest round of talks Thursday in Seoul over deterring potential provocations by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the South Korean defense ministry said.

During the 29th Security Policy Initiative (SPI) talks, the two sides are expected to discuss ways to jointly deter potential provocations by the DPRK and other security issues including the relocation of some 28,500 U.S. forces stationed in South Korea, according to the ministry.

Leading the discussions are South Korean deputy defense minister Lim Kwan-bin and U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, Michael Schiffer.

The defense ministry said the two allies will assess the level of threat posed by Pyongyang's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and discuss staging joint anti-WMD drills in the second Extended Deterrence Policy Committee meeting on the sidelines of the SPI talks.

They will also review progress in the scheduled 2015 transfer of wartime operational control from Washington to Seoul in a spate committee meeting, according to the defense ministry.

NEW DELHI, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) --  Indian army and rescuers Thursday continued to look for survivors and wounded in the worst- hit areas of northern Sikkim, while landslides kept hampering rescue and relief efforts, according to local media report.

Five villages in northern Sikkim were completely devastated, and no survivors were seen there so far, said TV reports quoting army sources who surveyed the villages from the air.

Indian Minister P. Chidambaram Thursday announced in Sikkim 500 million rupees (10 million U.S. dollars) central assistance for the Himalayan state, as a primary part of aid from New Delhi.

Local authorities in Sikkim estimated the loss from quake at hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars as hundreds of houses have collapsed and thousands became homeless.

Chidambaram made the announcement during a meeting with Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling at the Raj Bhavan in capital Gangtok.

The home minister arrived in Gangtok Thursday morning and met the injured at the Manipal Central Referral Hospital in the capital city. More than 300 people have been injured in the quake.

The official death toll in Sikkim has gone up to 78 with more bodies being recovered from rubble in north Sikkim, while few succumbed to their injuries in hospitals, the Indo-Asian News Service quoted local officials as saying.

At least 18 others were reportedly killed in West Bengal and Bihar, two states also hit by the quake.

Heavy rains triggered fresh landslides in several places leading to the main lifeline National Highway 31-A blocked again Thursday.

KABUL, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Afghan police, backed by NATO-led forces, eliminated 11 insurgents in the country's Zabul province, some 340 km south of the capital city Kabul, Interior Ministry said in a statement here on Thursday.

"Afghan National Police (ANP) during a joint military operation with Coalition forces killed 11 insurgents including their commander named Mullah Nabi in Nawbahar district of Zabul province Wednesday night," said the statement.

Nine other armed insurgents were injured and two were captured by ANP during the operation, it said.

"During the raid ANP also discovered and seized two Rocket Propelled-Grenades (RP-Gs) along with 30 rounds, two heavy machine guns, five guns and 30 rounds of motor," said the statement.

In another development, Afghan and NATO security forces completed a two-day cleanup operation against militants in country ' s eastern Kunar province, provincial governor Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi told Xinhua.

"A cleanup operation launched by Afghan police, army and coalition forces against Taliban on Tuesday morning in Chapa Dara and neighboring Manogai district was concluded on Wednesday night, "Wahidi told Xinhua.

He added a total of 23 armed insurgents were killed and seven others were captured by forces during the operation.

The Taliban stepped up their attacks on Afghan and about 140, 000 NATO-led troops stationed in the country since a spring rebel offensive was launched in May this year in the insurgency-hit country.

Afghan officials often use the word "insurgents" for referring to Taliban, however, the insurgent group has yet to make comments.

JAKARTA, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian capital market watchdog (BAPEPAM/LK) on Thursday expressed its expectation that the Financial Service Authority (OJK) could be formed by 2012, saying that it needs more fund to materialize the goal.

Nurhaida, chairwoman of BAPEPAM/LK, told reporters that her organization has submitted additional fund to the House of Representative in a parliamentary session.   "We have submitted additional fund of 254 billion rupiah (about 27.6 million U.S. dollars) so that total we will have 304 billion rupiah (about 33 million dollars) for the purpose. The OJK should be prepared from now on and the system could be built in 2012," said Nurhaida.

She added that in 2011, her organization has allocated 50 billion rupiah (about 5.4 million dollars).   "But, as the OJK bill has not yet enacted, the fund couldn't be used. However, we need (much bigger) additional fund as we want to prepare things related to the OJK such as information technology system and others," she said, adding that the bill enactment is expected to be done as soon as possible.