Chinese minister may visit Japan soon

TOKYO • Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi may visit Japan as early as October, a government source said yesterday, after the leaders of the two countries agreed to pursue high-level contacts to promote regional and international stability.

Mr Wang would hold talks with his Japanese counterpart Toshimitsu Motegi and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga during the trip, the source said.

The visit would come after Mr Suga and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to have more high-level contacts.

Mr Suga and Mr Wang would likely agree to strengthen economic ties between the nations, said the source who declined to be named as the information is not public.

REUTERS

N. Korea searching for body of S. Korean

SEOUL • North Korea yesterday said it is searching for the body of a South Korean official killed by its troops, but warned that South Korean naval operations in the area threatened to raise tensions.

North Korean state news agency KCNA called the killing an "awful case that should not have happened" but accused South Korean naval operations near the area of crossing into North Korean waters.

REUTERS

US man died from too much licorice

NEW YORK • A healthy US man died from consuming too much black licorice, according to doctors who treated him and published their findings in The New England Journal of Medicine last week.

The unidentified 54-year-old from Massachusetts, who had no history of heart problems, walked his dog regularly and worked a physically demanding job as a construction worker, collapsed suddenly in January last year.

He had consumed one to two large bags of black licorice a day for three weeks. That habit caused his potassium levels to drop precipitously, prompting a cardiac arrest, according to the study.

NYTIMES