IN BRIEF (Page 4)

United States

National ban likely for flavored e-cigarettes

US President Donald Trump's administration announced on Wednesday that it would soon ban flavored e-cigarette products to stem a rising tide of youth users, following a spike in vaping-linked deaths. The move could later be extended to an outright prohibition on vaping products if adolescents migrate to tobacco flavors, viewed as more legitimate products that help smokers quit their habit. Addressing reporters at the White House, the president said that both he and first lady Melania Trump, as parents of a teenage son, were worried about an outbreak of severe lung disease that has killed six people and sickened hundreds. "We are both reading it," he said. "A lot of people are reading, people are dying of vaping," he added, vowing to act.

Japan

New minister wants to scrap nuclear power

Japan's newly appointed environment minister has said he wants to "scrap" nuclear power plants, warning of the need to avoid a repeat of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. The comments from Shinjiro Koizumi, a rising political star and son of former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, are his first on the controversial issue since he was appointed in a Cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday. Speaking late on Wednesday night, he appeared to echo his father's post-Fukushima anti-nuclear stance. "I would like to think about how we can scrap it, not how to retain it," he told reporters when asked about the government's plans for nuclear power. "We'll be finished if we let (a nuclear accident) occur twice in one country. We never know when we'll have an earthquake," he added, without specifying further.

Iran

US talks 'meaningless' unless sanctions lifted

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in a phone call on Wednesday that talks with the United States would be "meaningless "unless it lifts sanctions. The White House on Tuesday said US President Donald Trump was willing to meet Rouhani without preconditions while maintaining its campaign of "maximum pressure" on Iran. Rouhani has had a series of phone conversations in recent weeks with Macron. The French leader has been spearheading European efforts to salvage a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers. The landmark accord has been at risk of falling apart since Trump withdrew Washington from it in May last year and reimposed sanctions on Iran.

Indonesia

Fire haze shuts many schools in Sumatra

Authorities shut most schools in parts of Indonesia's Sumatra Island to protect children from a thick, noxious haze as deliberately set fires burned through peatland forests, officials said on Wednesday. Indonesia's Disaster Mitigation Agency said more than 3,600 fires have been detected on Sumatra and Borneo islands by weather satellites. The result has been very poor air quality in six provinces with a combined population of more than 23 million. Nearly every year, Indonesian forest fires spread health-damaging haze across the country and into the air over neighboring Malaysia and Singapore. Authorities have deployed more than 9,000 people to fight the fires, which have razed more than 162,000 hectares of land in the provinces of Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan and South Kalimantan.

Agencies

(China Daily Global 09/13/2019 page4)