Page 2 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
ASIA / PACIFIC
January 19, 2015
20-year-old athletes mark 2,020 days to Tokyo Olympics
TOKYO (AP) — For those into quirky milestones, on January 12 — the day
that there was only 2,020 days until the 2020 Tokyo Olympics — a group of
enthusiastic spectators and 20-year-old athletes gathered to form a giant ‘2020’
at a plaza in front of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee headquarters. Among
those attending the ceremony were 20-year-old swimmer Kosuke Hagino, who
won a bronze medal at the London Olympics and will be a gold medal hopeful five
years from now. The event coincided with Coming of Age Day, a national holiday
in Japan when the country celebrates young people who turned 20 years old in
the past year and have reached the age of majority. Other Japanese athletes who
celebrated Coming of Age Day were Olympic gold medal figure skater Yuzuru
Hanyu and baseball standout Shohei Otani.
Guards shoot three suspected poachers at rhino reserve
GAUHATI, India (AP) — Officials say wildlife rangers in remote northeastern
India shot three suspected poachers dead in a gunbattle at a famed rhino
reserve. National Park director M.K. Yadava said the rangers received a tip
about the poaching attempt and spotted four armed poachers before dawn. A
shootout then erupted with three of the poachers killed and one escaping. It was
the second case of violence within two weeks in the 166-square-mile park, after
another three poachers were killed by rangers. India’s army has been helping
rangers by providing intelligence on gangs of illegal hunters that make regular
forays into the park, known for having the world’s largest number — at 2,329 —
of endangered one-horned rhinoceros. Poachers have already killed four rhinos
this year, after killing 27 last year.
Chinese travellers open emergency exits in protest
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese police say two passengers were jailed for opening
aircraft emergency exit doors as the plane was taxiing to protest a lengthy flight
delay. The latest in a growing number of air rage cases involving Chinese
passengers happened in the early morning in the southwestern city of Chengdu,
after the China Eastern flight was delayed by a snow storm. Angry passengers
complained about a lack of ventilation and a man surnamed Zhou opened two
emergency exits to prevent the plane from taking off, forcing it to return to the
gate. Kunming police said Zhou and a tour guide named Li were placed under
15-day “administrative detention” for opening the doors and incitement with
false information.
Cambodian prince returning as royalist party chief
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Prince Norodom Ranariddh, a former
prime minister of Cambodia who was ousted in a coup and later kicked out of the
political party he helped found, is seeking a comeback. The 71-year-old said in a
letter seen by The Associated Press that he accepted an invitation from the
royalist Funcinpec party to reassume its presidency. It had kicked him out in
2006. Ranariddh, a son of the late King Norodom Sihanouk, led the party to
victory in U.N.-sponsored elections in 1993, but had to accept Hun Sen, head of
the rival Cambodia People’s Party, as co-prime minister. Hun Sen staged a coup
against his partner in 1997. Ranariddh’s restoration is seen as a backroom
maneuver by Hun Sen to split the opposition in the 2018 general election.
Bootleg liquor kills at least 38 in India, 160 hospitalized
LUCKNOW, India (AP) — A bad batch of bootleg liquor killed at least 38
people and sent 160 others to hospitals in the north Indian state of Uttar
Pradesh, according to officials. Many of the victims had gathered to watch a
cricket match in a village about 20 miles southwest of the state capital,
Lucknow, government official Anil Garg said. Within two days, 28 people had
died, including 11 in a nearby village, police officer Mukul Goel said. Doctors in
Lucknow said some of those hospitalized were in serious condition and were
breathing with respirators, and some had lost their eyesight. Police arrested the
shop owner who sold the pouches of homemade alcohol for about 30 cents each. A
raid of the shop uncovered large containers of chemicals, which were sent to a
laboratory for testing, district official R.K. Pandey said. “The symptoms gave a
clear indication that these patients were served methyl alcohol,” which despite
being toxic is sometimes mixed with ethyl alcohol to make a brew cheaper, said
Dr. Kausar Usman, head of the trauma center at Lucknow’s King George’s
Medical College. Deaths from drinking illegally brewed alcohol are common in
India because the poor cannot afford licensed liquor. The state’s highest elected
official, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, suspended six police officers suspected of
taking bribes to ignore complaints about the shop and its alcohol, and
announced that a “drive will be launched against those involved in the illicit
liquor trade.’’
China arrests dozens for selling pork from diseased pigs
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese police have arrested more than 110 people on
suspicion of selling pork from diseased pigs in the country’s latest food safety
scandal. The Public Security said in a statement that more than 1,000 tons of
contaminated pork and 48 tons of cooking oil produced from the meat had been
seized in the operation that began last year across 11 provinces. The ministry
said the suspects belonged to 11 different syndicates who purchased pigs that
had died of disease from farmers at cut-rate prices then processed them into
bacon, ham, and oil. It said the producers sourced the pigs by bribing govern-
ment livestock insurance agents, several of whom were also sent for prosecution.
A series of scandals in China have deeply undermined public trust in food safety.
PAPAL VISIT. Pope Francis waves to the faithful as he arrives at Rizal Park to celebrate mass in Manila, the Philip-
pines, on January 18, 2015. Millions filled Manila’s main park and surrounding areas for his final mass in the Philippines,
braving a steady rain to hear the pontiff’s message of hope and consolation for the Southeast Asian country’s most down-
trodden and destitute. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)
Pope Francis leaves Manila after
drawing record crowd of 6 million
By Nicole Winfield and Teresa Cerojano
The Associated Press
ANILA, The Philippines — Pope
Francis flew out of the Catholic
bastion in Asia after a weeklong trip
that included a visit to Sri Lanka and drew
what Filipino officials says was a record crowd
of 6 million faithful in a Manila park where he
celebrated mass.
President Benigno Aquino III, church
leaders, and 400 street children yelling “Pope
Francis we love you,” saw him off at a Manila
air base, where the pontiff, carrying a black
travel bag, boarded a Philippine Airlines plane
for a flight to Rome. Standing at the top of the
stairs, the pope waved to the crowd, slightly
bowed his head, then walked into the plane.
Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos lined
Manila’s streets, with police keeping a close
watch, to have their final glimpse of Francis,
who smiled and waved aboard an open-sided,
white popemobile.
“He’s my No. 1 world leader,” said Rita
Fernandez, a 63-year-old mother of four, who
stood on a street near the Apostolic
Nunciature in Manila where Francis stayed
during his four-day visit.
“He rides on a bus. He flew to Tacloban to
visit the typhoon survivors despite the storm
and he stops to talk to the poor. He’s a living
saint,” said Fernandez, who held a cellphone
with a camera and wore a yellow shirt showing
a smiling Francis.
A crowd estimated at a record 6 million
people by officials poured into Manila’s rain-
soaked streets and its biggest park as Pope
Francis ended his Asian pilgrimage with an
appeal for Filipinos to protect their young from
sin and vice so they can become missionaries of
M
Retirement
the faith.
The crowd estimate, which could not be
independently verified, included people who
attended the pope’s final mass in Rizal Park
and surrounding areas, and lined his
motorcade route, said the chairman of the
Metropolitan Manila Development Authority,
Francis Tolentino.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico
Lombardi, said the Vatican had received the
figure officially from local authorities and that
it was a record, surpassing the 5 million who
turned out for St. John Paul II’s final mass in
the same park in 1995.
Francis dedicated the final homily of his
Asia trip to children, given that the mass fell
on an important feast day honoring the infant
Jesus. His focus was a reflection of the
importance that the Vatican places on Asia as
the future of the church since it’s one of the few
places where Catholic numbers are growing —
and on the Philippines as the largest Catholic
nation in the region.
“We need to see each child as a gift to be
welcomed, cherished, and protected,” Francis
said. “And we need to care for our young
people, not allowing them to be robbed of hope
and condemned to a life on the streets.”
Francis made a triumphant entry into Rizal
Park, riding on a popemobile based on the
design of a jeepney, the modified U.S. Army
World War II jeep that is a common means of
public transport in the Philippines. He wore
the same cheap, plastic yellow rain poncho
handed out to the masses during his visit to the
typhoon-hit eastern city of Tacloban a day
earlier.
The crowd — a sea of humanity in colorful
Continued on page 15
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4075.9
6.2077
1.9861
7.7511
61.871
12590
27073
117.51
8126.9
3.5587
98.776
100.77
2.5806
44.675
65.306
3.754
1.3271
1077.2
131.39
31.548
32.542
21340