IN BRIEF (Page 11)

China

Tokyo urged to mend ties

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei responded to a question on Thursday regarding the visit to Japan by Hu Deping, a former official of the Communist Party of China, urging Japan to show its sincerity and take solid action to put China-Japan ties back on track. Media reports said Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida met Hu, former deputy head of the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, in Tokyo on Tuesday and expressed Japan's willingness to improve relations with China.

Car

First EU troops arrive in nation

The first European Union troops arrived in the Central African Republic, hours before the expected vote on a key UN resolution on Thursday to authorize the deployment of peacekeepers. Police said fresh sectarian violence killed at least 30 people. An initial contingent of 55 EU troops made their first patrols in the capital, Bangui, on Wednesday.

France

Imported drugs labeled as tea

French customs have confiscated millions of counterfeit drugs imported from China in what they described as the biggest seizure of its kind within the European Union. A total of 2.4 million doses of drugs for ailments including diarrhea, headaches and erectile dysfunction were seized in boxes labeled as containing Chinese tea, officials said.

Guinea

Health workers to hunt for Ebola

Health workers will fan out in Guinea's capital, Conakry, to try to identify people who may have been exposed to the deadly Ebola virus, the World Health Organization said on Thursday. Tracing people in a city of around 2 million who may have had physical contact with infected people is harder than in the epicenter of the outbreak, the WHO said.

Greece

Bomb explodes outside bank

Suspected domestic terrorists detonated a car bomb outside a Bank of Greece building in the heart of Athens on Thursday, causing damage but no injuries in a brazen attack hours before a landmark bond issue by the financially struggling country. No group claimed responsibility for the explosion, which shattered windows in the central bank branch and buildings up to 200 meters away.

Cambodia

PM expects deal with opposition

Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Thursday he expects a deal this weekend to end a political stalemate that has seen the opposition boycott Parliament. A pact may be signed on Friday to implement political reforms, so that the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party would take parliamentary seats it won in last July's general election.

Xinhua-AP-Reuters-AFP

(China Daily 04/11/2014 page11)