Page 2 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
ASIA / PACIFIC
January 16, 2017
China begins to ease its 2,000-year-old monopoly on salt
BEIJING (AP) — China has started an overhaul of its salt industry, easing a
monopoly that has existed in some form for more than 2,000 years and predates
the Great Wall. New regulations went into effect at the start of the year. Under a
plan published by China’s State Council last year, government regulators will
allow private companies to enter the salt market. Existing wholesalers will be
allowed to operate outside their previously designated areas, run marketing
campaigns, and introduce “modern ways of distribution.” Government planners
will retain supervision over retail pricing to “prevent abnormal fluctuations,”
but prices will otherwise be set by the market, according to the State Council.
Dynasties dating back more than 2,000 years have tightly controlled how salt is
manufactured and sold. Under Communist Party rule, government planners
and salt manufacturers have worked hand in hand to set production targets and
prices, with a special police force sniffing out and shutting down private produc-
ers. In 2013, state media reported Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group’s
online marketplace, Taobao, cracked down on unauthorized salt vendors. Store
managers and observers of the market told state media they are hopeful salt
prices will soon fall and that new salt products will arrive on shelves.
Top China leader says Catholics must act ‘independently’
BEIJING (AP) — One of China’s top leaders has told Chinese Catholics they
need to operate “independently” of outside forces and promote socialism and
patriotism through religion. Yu Zhengsheng’s speech came at the end of a
meeting of China’s official Catholic Church that was closely watched by the Holy
See. Yu is one of seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s
top decision-making body. State media reported that Yu called on Catholic
churches to adhere to “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” China and the
Vatican have long clashed over whether the party-controlled Chinese church
could appoint bishops and administer churches outside the authority of the Holy
See. Beijing severed relations with the Holy See in 1951, though Pope Francis
has signalled his openness to new dialogue with China.
Pilot fired in Indonesia after alleged attempt to fly drunk
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — An Indonesian budget airline has fired a pilot
suspected of trying to fly a plane while drunk. Citilink president director Albert
Burhan also announced he and the production director would resign over the
impropriety. Citilink is a subsidiary of national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia.
Pilot Tekad Purna was preparing to fly an Airbus A320 from Surabaya to the
capital, Jakarta, when passengers became suspicious of the slurred words and
unclear announcements from the cockpit. Some of them left the plane and asked
for a replacement of the pilot they believed to be either drunk or under the
influence of drugs. A number of passengers reportedly cancelled their flights.
FDA orders Sanofi to remove dengue vaccine ads
MANILA, The Philippines (AP) — The Philippine Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) says it ordered pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Pasteur Inc.
to stop airing television and radio advertisements for its dengue vaccine, which
is in violation of a ban promoting prescription or ethical drugs in mass media.
The FDA said in a statement that it issued a summons directing the drugmaker
to take down the ads for Dengvaxia. It also wrote to television and radio stations,
asking them not to air the ads. Sanofi said in a statement that the ads have been
taken down. The company said the order was in connection with a disease
awareness campaign that it conducted. The vaccine against dengue, a tropical
mosquito-borne illness, became available in 2016 and was rolled out in
Philippine public schools in April 2016. The generic drug law in the Philippines
prohibits the promotion in mass media of pharmaceutical products that can only
be dispensed with a doctor’s order.
S. Korea to create unit to remove North’s leadership in war
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea plans to form a special military
unit tasked with removing North Korea’s leadership in the event of war as Seoul
looks for options to counter its rival’s nuclear weapons and missiles, according to
an official. The brigade will aim to remove the North’s wartime command and
paralyze its function if war breaks out, said an official from Seoul’s Defense
Ministry, who refused to be named, citing office rules. The unit was originally
planned to be ready by 2019. The official refused to say whether the unit will
train to execute pre-emptive strikes. The plan was included in defense minister
Han Min Koo’s policy briefing to Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who became
government caretaker upon President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment over a
corruption scandal. North Korea conducted two nuclear tests and a slew of
rocket test firings last year in attempts to expand its nuclear weapons and
missile program.
Special anti-polio drive held in southwestern Pakistan
QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A Pakistani health official says a special five-day
anti-polio drive was held in the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province
after traces of the polio virus were found in the sewer system. Syed Faisal
Ahmed, the coordinator for the Emergency Operation Centre in Quetta, said
some 400,000 children under age five were immunized against the deadly virus.
He said the decision to launch the special drive was made after environmental
samples in Quetta confirmed the presence of the virus. Ahmed said 1,345 teams
covered 39 local councils of the city amid tight security. Multiple anti-polio
drives enabled Pakistan to announce last year that the virus had largely been
eliminated.
SEEKING SAFETY. Internally displaced girls at Jeyang village camp, near the Chinese border, join karate training to
learn self-defense in Kachin state, Myanmar, also known as Burma. Forced from their homes and in some cases torn from
their families, young girls and women at the refugee camp in Kachin state are studying karate to help protect themselves
from a known threat: the country’s own military. (AP Photo/Esther Htusan)
Uprooted by war, fearing troops,
Myanmar girls learn karate
By Esther Htusan
The Associated Press
E YANG, Myanmar — Every afternoon,
dozens of teenage girls at the school for
displaced children line up on the
grounds, dressed in white uniforms with belts
of various colors: yellow, blue, white. They kick
high and jump with glee before settling into
their exercises, shouting in Japanese as they
punch into the air.
The reason many of these girls are in this
class is sobering: They want protection from
their own country’s military.
Mostly between 13 and 16 years old, they
have lost their homes, and in some cases their
families, to the long-running civil war in
Kachin state, Myanmar, also known as Burma
— a war in which soldiers have been
repeatedly accused of raping girls and women,
but rarely prosecuted. This karate class offers
some small sense of power to the vulnerable.
“For all the girls, we teach them how to
protect themselves when someone tries to
sexually assault them and how to fight back,”
instructor Hkun Naw said. “Basically teaching
the girls to make themselves safe.
“We wanted to make sure all the internally
displaced children have the right to do
something that gives them joy, and to be
confident.”
More than 100,000 people in Kachin state, in
the country’s north, have been forced from
their homes by fighting between government
troops and ethnic Kachin rebels who have
sought greater autonomy for decades. A
17-year-long ceasefire ended in 2011.
Je Yang is among the most crowded camps,
with more than 8,000 people, including
16-year-old Hkawn Ra. She fled fighting in her
village of Man Dung while she was at school
five years ago, when she was 11. She has not
seen her parents since.
J
She once dreamed of becoming a nurse, but
no longer. “Because of the political situation
and civil war, I cannot become who I want to
be, and I am not angry about it anymore,” she
said.
Hkawn Ra is, however, learning karate,
after hearing about rapes and sexual violence
against women in the region. A community-
based organization operating under the
Kachin Independence Organization has held
karate classes in Kachin-controlled areas
since the year the ceasefire ended, seeking to
teach girls and boys self-defense and
self-confidence.
“They (the military) rape women and that’s
why I was interested, and decided to learn
karate to protect myself at least,” Hkawn Ra
said.
Women’s organizations say the military has
long been using rape as a weapon of war. The
Women’s League of Burma says it has
documented more than 100 cases of rape and
sexual violence against ethnic women by the
military army since 2010. The government
and the military have remained largely silent
on the issue.
This fall, Muslim Rohingya and rights
groups said soldiers and police have
repeatedly raped members of the ethnic
minority in northwestern Rakhine state.
Authorities have been conducting sweeps of
the region since October, when nine border
guards were killed by unknown attackers. The
government blocked foreign media from the
area, but Rohingya who fled to nearby
Bangladesh report rapes and murders by
security forces, and satellite images back up
their claims of village-burning. At a recent
press conference, military spokesman Soe
Naing Oo denied that soldiers in Rakhine were
committing any human-rights violations or
Continued on page 3
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78.899
4066.2
6.9005
2.078
7.7549
68.156
13338
32362
114.49
8129.2
4.463
109.13
104.81
3.1746
49.695
59.578
3.7507
1.4283
1179.1
150.06
31.57
35.434
22647