India

Bill Gates launches immunization program

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates visited India’s software hub Thursday to talk business and immunize children, winding up a tour during which he pledged $500 million.

Gates met with Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and health officials in Andhra Pradesh state to review progress made by a child immunization program funded by his foundation.

The Microsoft chief visited a health clinic in rural Mehbubnagar, 30 miles south of Hyderabad, the state capital, where he launched the second phase of the program that seeks to help more than 1 million Indian children each year.

The campaign intends to introduce the hepatitis B vaccine as part of routine immunization in the state.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed $12.5 million for the five-year program.

Japan

Alleged deserter seeks wife’s return

An alleged U.S. Army deserter, whose Japanese wife was abducted decades ago to North Korea by communist spies, pleaded Thursday for Tokyo to end her visit with long-lost Japanese relatives and send her “home” to North Korea.

The appeal came in a rare interview with Charles Robert Jenkins, who married abductee Hitomi Soga in North Korea in 1980. It was published in the weekly Japanese news magazine Shukan Kinyobi.

Soga is among five of the only known survivors of 13 Japanese that North Korea admits kidnapping in the 1970s and early ’80s to use as language teachers.

The five returned to their homeland Oct. 15. But what was expected to be a two-week visit with relatives has turned into a tug-of-war between Japan and North Korea ” with Soga and the others in the middle.

Argentina

Argentina defaults on World Bank loans

Argentina defaulted Thursday on its World Bank loans, with officials saying the move was an attempt to break the deadlock in an 11-month effort to reach agreement with the International Monetary Fund over a bailout for this troubled South American country.

Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna announced the Argentine government would not make an $805 million payment to the World Bank due Thursday.

Instead, the government made only a token payment of $79 million to cover interest due, not enough to avoid a default as defined by international lenders.

In Washington, the World Bank announced that under its rules it could not consider any new loans for Argentina and that further disbursements under existing loans would be cut off in four weeks unless Argentina made good on its obligations.