Japan’s JTB teams with U.S. to Sell Trips around Moon
TOKYO –– Japan’s biggest travel agency, Japan Travel Bureau, will now offer visits to outer space.
JTB will soon be making Japanese bookings for visits to the International Space Station and flights around the moon for Space Adventures, a U.S.-based company that first pioneered commercial space travel by sending “tourists” into space atop Russian rockets.
JTB’s new itineraries include a trip around the moon costing $100 million, and a stop at the International Space Station for $20 million. The company is also selling a brief flight into space that will allow visitors to experience weightless for $100,000.
Space Adventures also announced plans to fly people around the moon, saying it could embark on the first mission by 2008.
China, Russia kick off first-ever Joint Military Exercises
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia –– Russia and China launched unprecedented joint military exercises involving air, sea and land forces with both countries emphasizing that the war games weren’t meant to intimidate anyone.
“Our exercises don’t threaten any country,” Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the head of the Russian armed forces general staff, told a news conference at Russia’s Pacific Fleet command alongside Gen. Liang Guanglie, chief of the general staff of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
The generals said the eight days of exercises were a result of the warming ties between the countries, with Liang calling them “a great historic event in our relations.”
Experts say the maneuvers are more of a sales pitch to the Chinese of Russian-made arms –– including the country’s long-range strategic bombers, which can carry nuclear weapons.
More Philippine Maids seek Shelter from Abuse
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates –– Indonesia has recently banned unskilled women from working in the Persian Gulf as housemaids. Now the Philippines is considering doing the same.
Filipina women have been flooding into fast-growing Dubai to work as maids for as little as $160 a month.
Experts estimate nearly 2 million Filipinos live and work in Gulf nations.
But abuse of maids and other low-paid migrant workers is increasing in wealthy Gulf countries such as Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Last year, Human Rights Watch found that Asian workers in Saudi Arabia faced systematic abuse, with some in conditions close to slavery.
“It’s in the culture here,” said Fatima Saudi Caminan, a social worker at the Philippine Consulate. “They see domestic workers as the lowest rung of society.”
Univ. of Shanghai Offers China’s 1st Gay Studies Course
SHANGHAI, China –– The prestigious Fudan University is offering China’s first class on homosexuality and gay culture, and several hundred students have applied for the 100 openings.
“We will pay more attention on how to have a proper view about homosexuals,” says Professor Gao Yanning. “We will give students an equitable judgment on homosexuals and help eliminate students’ discrimination.”