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.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
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