Page 2 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
ASIA / PACIFIC
December 19, 2016
Watchdog urges P.I. to remove barriers to condom access
MANILA, The Philippines (AP) — A human-rights watchdog says the
Philippines has one of the fastest growing epidemics of HIV in the Asia Pacific
which may worsen unless the government changes its approach and removes
barriers to condom use by men who have sex with men. Human Rights Watch
said in a recent report that HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men
has increased tenfold in the last five years, but the government has failed to
adequately target prevention measures within that population. It says HIV
prevention education in Philippine schools is woefully inadequate, commercial
marketing of condoms is nonexistent, and barriers to condom access and HIV
testing — particularly for those below age 18 who are required by law to have
parental consent — have contributed to the worsening epidemic.
FIFA urges greater vigilance to prevent abuse in soccer
SINGAPORE (AP) — Soccer must be more vigilant in protecting young
players as allegations of sexual abuse mount across the British game, according
to Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) president Gianni
Infantino. Police in London have become the latest force to open an investigation
into allegations of “non-recent” abuse at clubs, which were not named. More
than 20 forces are looking into potential crimes by coaches from the 1970s after
about 500 people approached police. FIFA has braced for reports of abuse beyond
British soccer. “In football, we need to look into that with more care and
attention to prevent any child abuse in the future,” Infantino said after a
meeting of soccer associations in Singapore. “Those who have been guilty of
abusing children need to be punished very seriously. They have to be out of
football — that is without question — but also on the criminal side they need to
be punished.”
Medtronic fined $17 million for anti-monopoly charges
BEIJING (AP) — Medical device maker Medtronic has been fined $17 million
by Chinese anti-monopoly regulators in the latest effort by Beijing to force down
what it sees as unreasonably high prices. Regulators concluded Medtronic,
which supplies cardiovascular-, restorative-, and diabetes-related medical
devices, suppressed competition by enforcing minimum prices its distributors
were required to charge, the government has said. Foreign automakers, milk
suppliers, and other companies have faced similar penalties. Setting minimum
prices is a common tactic in other markets, but lawyers say Beijing appears to
see them as a barrier to competition. “Competition in China’s high-value
consumables and implantable medical equipment market is inadequate,” said a
statement by the cabinet’s planning agency. It said preventing market forces
from setting prices “increases the burden on patients and damages the interests
of consumers.” Business groups welcomed the passage of China’s first anti-
monopoly law in 2008 as a step toward clarifying operating conditions. Since
then, they have said it is enforced more actively against foreign companies than
against their Chinese rivals. There have been few court rulings to clarify the
application of the 2008 law. That has fed uncertainty about how it will apply to
global companies that are eager to expand in the world’s second-largest
economy.
New spy agency chief appointed in military reshuffle
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s military has announced a major reshuffle in
its senior posts, including appointing a new chief for the country’s top spy
agency. A statement said Lt. Gen. Naveed Mukhtar will replace Lt. Gen. Rizwan
Akhtar as the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief. ISI has often been criticized
of cultivating ties with militant groups and interfering in domestic politics. The
appointment came days after Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa was named the new
army chief. His predecessor, Gen. Raheel Sharif, retired on November 29. The
reshuffle involves a total of 11 new appointments, including that of spymaster
and Lt. Gen. Bilal Akbar, who is taking over as chief of the army general staff.
Pakistan’s powerful army has ruled the country for most of its history since
independence from Britain in 1947.
Japan, Chinese clash over “jamming shells”
TOKYO (AP) — Japan has protested to China about what it says are
groundless accusations that Japanese fighter jets had fired “jamming shells” as
six Chinese military planes flew over waters between Japan’s southern
Okinawa and Miyako islands. “It is extremely regrettable that the Chinese
military is making announcements that are clearly factually wrong,” chief
cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters. “It also hurts the effort to
improve our relations, so we lodged a strong protest.” Japan scrambled fighters
as Chinese planes flew over the Miyako Strait. Taiwan’s defense ministry said
four Chinese planes also flew over the nearby Bashi Channel between Taiwan
and the Philippines. The waterways and airspace are two of the connections
between the contested South and East China seas and the Pacific Ocean. China
said two Japanese fighters launched “jamming shells” that endangered the
safety of Chinese aircraft and crew. Such decoy flares are typically used by a
pilot to draw away an incoming missile. Suga denied the Japan did anything
that posed a danger to the Chinese. Japan regularly scrambles jets to track
Chinese military planes entering the area. Separately, three Chinese ships
patrolled waters around disputed islands in the East China Sea. The
uninhabited Senkaku islands are controlled by Japan but also claimed by
China, which calls them the Diaoyu. The Chinese exercises came shortly after
the Taiwanese president spoke to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in a call
strongly denounced by China, which considers Taiwan to be a Chinese territory.
NUTRITIONAL CHALLENGES. Kundhavi Kadiresan, the assistant director general of the U.N. Food and Agricul-
ture Organization, addresses a conference in Bangkok, Thailand. Asia has halved hunger rates in the past quarter century,
but because of westernized lifestyles, obesity is skyrocketing and people aren’t receiving enough vitamins and minerals,
according to a new U.N. report. (AP Photo/Dake Kang)
U.N. says dairy a potential ally
in Asian nutrition challenges
By Dake Kang
The Associated Press
ANGKOK — Even as Asia makes clear
strides in taming hunger and famine,
the rapidly modernizing continent
needs to focus more on diversifying its diet or
risk failing to quell malnutrition, with milk
having the potential to help, the U.N. Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a
recent report.
“We still have nearly half a billion hungry
people in this region,” said Kundhavi
Kadiresan, FAO’s assistant director general.
“This report is an eye-opener.”
With greater political stability and modern
farming techniques, undernourishment rates
halved in Asia from 24.3 percent to 12.3
percent in the past 25 years, satisfying one of
the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals,
the report said.
As people move from the countryside to big
cities by the millions, diets are changing from
ones dominated by rice to more westernized
versions incorporating more fruits, vegetables,
and meats. Calories from starches declined by
50 per person a day while ones from fruits,
vegetables, and meat increased by more than
300 per person per day, the report said.
But despite this improvement, the changing
diets aren’t all good news. Like citizens in the
west, people in Asia are exercising less and
chowing down on heavily processed foods filled
with sugar and fat instead of traditional ones
like chickpeas. This means many still aren’t
getting enough nutrients like zinc, iron, or
vitamin A. Obesity levels are skyrocketing,
rising more than four percent per year, the
report said.
So as dire hunger becomes less common,
B
balanced and diverse diets are becoming a
more pressing issue. Agriculture experts
acknowledge they have been obsessed with
rice, wheat, and maize in the fight against
hunger, at the cost of overlooking whether
expanding diets are also nutritious.
“It has filled the belly, but it is creating a lot
of problems,” said Kadambot Siddique, a pro-
fessor at the University of Western Australia.
“We must make this distinction between
hunger and malnutrition,” said Biraj Patnaik,
a food policy adviser to India’s government. He
said India is in the process of eliminating
hunger, but has only reduced undernutrition
by one percent in the past decade.
With persistent hunger in South Asia, only
two out of 19 developing Asian countries are on
track to reach the U.N.’s Sustainable Develop-
ment goal of zero hunger by 2030, and seven by
2040, the study said.
However, changing tastes in food means
Asians are drinking more milk, a cheap and
nutritious way of diversifying diets. Dairy
products are traditionally largely absent in
Asian diets but now fly off the shelves from
Bangkok to Beijing, with production almost
tripling from about 110 million tons in 1990 to
nearly 300 million tons in 2013. Some
countries are providing cartons in classrooms,
like Thailand’s National Milk Program.
But experts say governments should avoid
repeating the mistake of taking “shortcuts”
that emphasize investment in big agribusiness
over small farmers. Small producers produce
nearly 80 percent of the milk in Asia, so
booming milk sales benefit everyone, not just
the rich, in contrast to farmland, where major
landowners often win big on crop subsidies.
Continued on page 3
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Asian Currency
Exchange Rates
Units per U.S. dollar as of 12/16
Bangladesh Taka· ·
Cambodian Riel · ·
China Renminbi · ·
Fijian Dollar · · · ·
Hong Kong Dollar ·
Indian Rupee · · · ·
Indonesian Rupiah ·
Iranian Rial · · · ·
Japanese Yen · · ·
Laos New Kip · · ·
Malaysian Ringgit ·
Nepal Rupee · · · ·
Pakistani Rupee · ·
Papua N.G. Kina · ·
Philippine Peso· · ·
Russian Ruble · · ·
Saudi Riyal· · · · ·
Singapore Dollar · ·
South Korean Won ·
Sri Lankan Rupee ·
Taiwan Dollar · · ·
Thai Baht · · · · ·
Vietnam Dong · · ·
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79.28
4035.0
6.9615
2.1171
7.7645
67.771
13395
32300
117.93
8167.8
4.478
108.41
104.86
3.1742
49.935
62.065
3.7509
1.4454
1186.7
149.3
31.953
35.853
22607