MYANMAR
Opium output declines
Opium production fell for the first time in nearly a decade this year, the UN said yesterday. The drop was due to lower crop yields, though, as the total area under cultivation was roughly the same as last year. Myanmar is the world’s second-leading opium producer after Afghanistan, and production has risen steadily since 2006 as growing demand has pushed prices up. In its latest annual survey, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said farmers in the country produced 670 tonnes of opium this year, 200 tonnes less than last year. The total area under opium poppy cultivation was steady at 57,600 hectares.
NEW ZEALAND
Hundreds sick on cruise
Health authorities yesterday said that 200 passengers on a cruise ship have been sickened by an outbreak of norovirus. The passengers were among more than 1,500 aboard the Dawn Princess, which was due to leave for Australia yesterday as it completes a 13-day voyage. Alistair Humphrey, the medical officer of health for Canterbury, said health officials conducted tests which confirmed the illness is norovirus. He said the outbreak now appears to be waning.
JAPAN
Aso faults childless people
Minister of Finance Taro Aso has turned his well-worn gaffe gun on “people who don’t give birth.” Aso said pensioners were not to blame for the spiraling social welfare costs of a rapidly aging society. “There are many people who are creating the image that [the increasing number of] elderly people is bad, but more problematic is people who don’t give birth,” Aso said in a speech in Sapporo, media reported yesterday. The comments came as Aso was stumping ahead of a general election on Sunday.
THAILAND
Suspects plead not guilty
Two Burmese workers have pleaded not guilty to charges, including murder, over the killing of two British tourists, their lawyer said yesterday. The bodies of David Miller, 24, and Hannah Witheridge, 23, were found on a beach on Koh Tao on Sept. 15. Police arrested Zaw Lin and Win Phyo, both 21, in October, saying DNA taken from the pair matched samples found on the victims. The suspects said they were beaten and threatened by police, allegations that the police deny.
ZIMBABWE
Lessing’s books donated
The bulk of Nobel Prize laureate Doris Lessing’s book collection was handed over to the Harare City Library, which will catalogue the more than 3,000 volumes. Lessing, who died last year, spent her early years in the country — then called Southern Rhodesia — and later established the Africa Community Publishing and Development Trust to start libraries around the nation. The trust now runs almost 200 village libraries.
SRI LANKA
Candidates register for poll
President Mahinda Rajapaksa and former health minister Maithripala Sirisena were among 19 people who yesterday handed in nominations to the Elections Commission to run in the Jan. 8 presidential election. Rajapaksa called the election two years early to seek an unprecedented third term. “I will win, I know the people are with me, it’s very clear,” Rajapaksa told reporters outside the elections office. Sirisena, who is backed by the main opposition United National Party, has become the president’s main challenger.
ITALY
Riots mar Scala opening
The glamorous season opener at Milan’s Scala opera house on Sunday was marred by clashes between riot police and protesters that left two policemen wounded. About 300 demonstrators, using banners reading “Fight the power” and “We resist!” as shields, threw flares and Molotov cocktails at baton-wielding police in front of La Scala. Milan’s prefect, Francesco Paolo Tronca, slammed the “unacceptable violent protests against police” and the “hijacking of cultural events.”
UNITED STATES
FurFest disrupted by gas
Chlorine gas sickened several people and forced the evacuation of thousands of guests from a suburban Chicago hotel early on Sunday, including many dressed in cartoonish animal costumes for the annual Midwest FurFest who were ushered across the street to a convention center hosting a dog show. Nineteen people who became nauseous or dizzy were treated at nearby hospitals, and at least 18 were released shortly thereafter. Within hours, emergency workers decontaminated the Hyatt Regency O’Hare and allowed people back inside. The source of the gas was apparently chlorine powder left in a ninth-floor stairwell at the hotel. Investigators believe the gas was created intentionally.
UNITED STATES
Cambridges arrive in NYC
Britain’s Prince William and his wife, Catherine, have arrived in New York City on their first official visit. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s motorcade pulled up outside the Carlyle Hotel on Sunday night to a throng of media and shrieking admirers. William was scheduled to meet with President Barack Obama at the White House yesterday while in Washington to attend a World Bank conference and speak about combating illegal trade in wildlife parks.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not