TOKYO (Reuters) -- European Council President Charles Michel has urged the block’s national leaders to push forward with talks on using $300 billion-worth of confiscated Russian central bank assets for the reconstruction of Ukraine, the Financial Times reported on Monday. Michael said he wanted to explore the idea of managing the Russian central bank’s frozen assets to generate profits, which could then be earmarked for reconstruction efforts, the newspaper reported. It is a question of justice and fairness and it must be done in line with legal principles, the FT quoted Michael as saying in an interview. The European Union had blocked 300 billion euros ($326.73 billion) of the Russian central bank’s reserves in November to punish Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine.

 

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TOKYO (Reuters) -- Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pledged on Monday to take urgent steps to tackle the country’s declining birth rate, saying it was “now or never” for the world’s oldest society. “Our nation is on the cusp of whether it can maintain its societal functions,” Kishida said in a policy speech at the opening of this year’s parliamentary session. “It is now or never when it comes to policies regarding births and child-rearing - it is an issue that simply cannot wait any longer,” he added. Kishida said he would submit plans to double the budget on child-related policies by June, and that a new government agency to tackle the issue would be set up in April. Japan saw a record low number of births in 2021, the latest data available, prompting the biggest-ever natural decline in the population.

 

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PARIS (AFP) -- Two police officers have been held for questioning in the French capital Paris after shooting dead a man they said was threatening them, a source familiar with the case told AFP Monday. The as-yet unidentified man allegedly first threatened a dog with a pistol just after 8:00 pm (1900 GMT) Sunday near the busy Place de la Republique square in central Paris, another source said. He then allegedly pointed the weapon at the officers when they approached him and they opened fire in response, hitting him four times. A police source said the man “doesn’t appear to have addressed any particular words to the police but was indeed threatening”. Paris prosecutors said they had opened two separate investigations. One will target the dead man for attempted murder of a public official and another will probe the police officers for violence resulting in unintentional death. Calls have been growing in France for checks on police use of deadly force, after 13 people who allegedly refused to obey officers’ orders were killed last year.

 

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MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Russia’s foreign intelligence service (SVR) accused Ukraine on Monday of storing Western-supplied arms at nuclear power stations across the country. In a statement, the SVR said U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers, air defense systems and artillery ammunition had been delivered to the Rivne nuclear power station in the northwest of Ukraine. Ukraine’s many nuclear power stations have been the focus of attention since the start of the conflict. Russian forces seized the defunct Chornobyl nuclear power plant less than 48 hours after troops invaded, and also captured the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant - the largest in Europe – early in the war. Both Kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of shelling Zaporizhzhia and Ukraine says Russia is using the site as a de facto weapons depot. The United Nations nuclear watchdog has expressed grave concerns over attacks near the plant, warning of the risk of a nuclear disaster.

 

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GENEVA (AFP) -- Efforts to eliminate industrially-produced fat have a long way to go with five billion people exposed to toxic fat added to many food products, the UN health agency said Monday. The World Health Organization called in 2018 for harmful trans fatty acids to be wiped out by 2023. They are thought to be responsible for around 500,000 premature deaths from coronary heart disease each year. Although 43 countries with combined populations of 2.8 billion people have now implemented best-practice policies, most of the world remains unprotected, it said. WHO acknowledged in an annual progress report that the goal was still out of sight. Industrially-produced trans fat is often used in packaged foods, baked goods, cooking oils and spreads “Trans fat has no known benefit, and huge health risks that incur huge costs for health systems,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

 

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YAOUNDÉ (AFP) -- A popular Cameroon radio journalist who had been missing following what a media rights group called an abduction has been found dead, his employer and police said. Martinez Zogo was managing director of Yaounde-based private radio station Amplitude FM and the star host of a popular daily program, Embouteillage (Gridlock). On the air, the 51-year-old regularly tackled cases of corruption, not hesitating to question important personalities by name. He had been missing since Tuesday. A large crowd gathered as Zogo’s body was taken to the morgue of Yaounde central hospital for an autopsy, a member of the victim’s family told AFP on condition of anonymity. Social media has been awash with posts following his disappearance with Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemning “the brutal abduction of a journalist”.