November 30, Thursday, 2023

1. The body of a crewmember of a US military Osprey transport aircraft that crashed off the southern Japanese coast has been handed over the US side. Japan’s defense ministry says the Osprey requested an emergency landing at an airport on the island of Yakushima at around 2:35 p.m. on Wednesday, local time. The aircraft disappeared from Japan’s Self-Defense Forces’ radar screens near the island about five minutes later.
2. Delegates from more than 190 countries and regions are gathering in the United Arab Emirates for the UN climate change conference that opens on Thursday. COP 28 is scheduled to continue through December12. The conference in Dubai will provide the first opportunity for the delegates to assess the collective progress in the world’s response to the climate crisis. The assessment known as the “global stocktake” takes place every five years to find what each country or region needs to do to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. 3. Former senior Japanese diplomat Tanaka Hitoshi, who had known Kissinger for decades, spoke to NHK on Thursday about their relationship. Tanka is known to have led secret negotiations with North Korea in the early 2000s, which led to a historic bilateral summit and the return of five abducted Japanese nationals. “He mentioned that he and I had a common interest in preserving secrecy…”