IN BRIEF (Page 12)

Japan

Seoul proposal over forced labor rejected

Japan on Thursday flatly rejected as "unacceptable" a South Korean proposal to set up a joint fund to compensate wartime forced laborers, a bitter dispute that has bogged down bilateral ties. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the proposed fund would not solve the issue and "we will continue to urge South Korea to agree to arbitration". Relations between the two neighbors have been increasingly strained by a series of rulings from South Korean courts ordering some Japanese firms that used wartime forced labor to compensate victims, which have long been rejected by Japan.

Egypt

11 safe after hot air balloon incident

Egyptian officials said 11 tourists are safe after their hot air balloon drifted away, forcing them to land in the country's southern desert. The officials said the tourists - five Indians, four Chinese, a British and an Egyptian - were ballooning over ancient Egyptian temples in the southern province of Luxor when strong winds took them off course and westward into the desert. Their pilot managed to regain control of the balloon and they eventually landed safely. A search airplane located the balloon and cars were dispatched to drive the tourists back to Luxor on Thursday.

France

Van Gogh's suicide gun sold for $145,000

The gun Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh is believed to have used to commit suicide in France in 1890 sold for $145,700 at auction in Paris on Wednesday. An anonymous phone bidder took home the Lefaucheux revolver, its casing heavily rusted and the inlay of the curved handle missing, for more than double the highest estimate put on it by experts. "It is a very emblematic piece," said auctioneer Gregoire Veyres. "The fact that it's a gun, it's an object of death."

AFP - Reuters - AP

(China Daily 06/21/2019 page12)