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About The Asian reporter. (Portland, Or.) 1991-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 18, 2017)
Page 2 n THE ASIAN REPORTER ASIA / PACIFIC September 18, 2017 China looks at ending sales of gasoline cars BEIJING (AP) — China is joining France and Britain in announcing plans to end sales of gasoline and diesel cars. China’s industry ministry is developing a timetable to end production and sale of traditional fuel cars and will promote development of electric technology, state media cited a cabinet official as saying. The reports gave no possible target date, but Beijing is stepping up pressure on automakers to accelerate development of electrics. China is the biggest auto market by number of vehicles sold, giving any policy changes outsize importance for the global industry. France and Britain announced in July they will stop sales of gasoline and diesel automobiles by 2040 as part of efforts to reduce pollution and carbon emissions that contribute to global warming. Communist leaders also want to curb China’s growing appetite for imported oil and see electric cars as a promising industry in which their country can take an early lead. China passed the United States last year as the biggest electric car market. Sales of electrics and gasoline-electric hybrids rose 50 percent over 2015 to 336,000 vehicles, or 40 percent of global demand. U.S. sales totalled 159,620. Indian journalist shot, killed by unknown assailants BANGALORE, India (AP) — An Indian journalist was fatally shot by unidentified attackers in the southern Indian city of Bangalore, police said. The assailants pumped bullets into Gauri Lankesh as she left her car after reaching her home in Bangalore, the Karnataka state capital. The attackers fled the scene. Top police officer R.K. Dutta said it was too early to say who killed her. He said he had met Lankesh recently, but she did not mention any threat to her life. She edited a local magazine, Lankesh Patrike, and was found responsible in a defamation case by a lawmaker of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party for her writing about Hindu nationalists in 2016. In 2015, an Indian scholar, Malleshappa M. Kalburgi, was killed in a similar way, also in Bangalore. He had received death threats from angry right-wing Hindu groups after he criticized idol worship and superstitious beliefs by Hindus. He was the third critic of religious superstition to be killed in the country in three years. India has long held secularism to be a keystone of its constitution — and a necessity for keeping the peace among its cacophony of cultures defined by caste, clan, tribe, or religion, including Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, and Buddhism. Plane lands safely after engine flame seen at takeoff TOKYO (AP) — A Japan Airlines (JAL) plane bound for New York returned safely to a Tokyo airport after the pilot reported a bird strike to an engine during takeoff. Television footage showed a red flame flickering from the left engine as the plane ascended from the runway. JAL said the Boeing 777 carrying 233 passengers and 15 crewmembers requested an emergency landing minutes after takeoff from Haneda International Airport. The plane returned to the airport about an hour after takeoff and no injuries were reported. JAL is inspecting the engine. Haneda had the worst record for bird strikes in Japan last year at 182 cases, followed by Osaka with 73 cases and Narita’s 57, though not all of them affected flight operations, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism. Vietnam seizes more than a ton of smuggled ivory HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Authorities have seized more than a ton of smuggled ivory at a Vietnamese port where some six tons were seized last year. Customs official Le Dinh Loi in Ho Chi Minh City said the ivory seized in Cat Lai port had been packed with sawdust and layers of plaster and asphalt to hide it. He said the container held 2,983 pounds of ivory smuggled from Africa that was transiting through Vietnam to its destination in neighboring Cambodia. Vietnam bans hunting of its own dwindling elephant population but is one of the world’s major transit points and consumers of ivory and rhino horn, where ivory is often used as jewelry and home decoration. PILES OF PLASTIC. Garbage at Versova Beach on the coast of the Arabian Sea is seen in Mumbai, India. The approximately 1.5-mile stretch of the beach was littered with plastic water bottles, discarded plastic bags and containers, empty packets of chips, plastic wrappers, and more. According to government estimates, each one of India’s 1.3 billion citizens generates roughly seven ounces to 1.3 pounds of waste each day. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade) Nauseating trash heaps in India spark citizen cleanup drives By Manish Mehta and Vaishnavee Sharma The Associated Press UMBAI, India — Lawyer Afroz Shah moved to Mumbai with a dream of looking out at the wild, blue Arabian Sea. What he saw instead was nauseating — waves churning with plastic shopping bags and empty chip packets, beaches covered so thick with soda bottles and snack wrappers that he could no longer see the sand. The coast off India’s financial capital, like so many other places across the South Asian nation, has become choked by garbage tossed without much thought by the millions of people who live there. “I could have gone to the court. I could have complained” to municipal authorities, said Shah, age 34. Instead, he decided to take action with his own two hands. He and a neighbor near Mumbai’s Versova Beach pulled on gloves and face masks and began picking rubbish out of the sand. Gradually, they were joined by other volun- teers and sometimes tourists. Over 98 week- ends, they gathered more than 11 million pounds of trash. “This littering is done by us,” Shah says of his fellow Indian citizens. “I should pick it up.” One environmental activist calls India’s garbage problem a “ticking time bomb” that will ultimately bury the nation’s cities and towns unless its 1.3 billion people stop littering at will. The country is “drowning in trash,” says Chitra Mukherjee of the New Delhi-based Chintan Environmental Re- search and Action Group. Each day, every Indian generates about M Asian Currency Exchange Rates Cambodian PM Hun Sen says he’ll rule 10 more years PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has vowed to continue leading his impoverished Southeast Asian nation for another 10 years. He made the statement days after the arrest of his leading opponent. Speaking to some 10,000 garment factory workers in the outskirts of Phnom Penh, the capital, Hun Sen said he has decided to run for another two terms. After that, he said he’d think about leaving office. In power for 32 years, Hun Sen is already the world’s longest-serving prime minister and among its longest- serving leaders. In 2007, he said he wanted to retire at age 90, but backtracked on the claim in 2015. After the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party mounted a strong challenge in 2013, Hun Sen and his Cambodian People’s Party have sought to stifle dissent and weaken challengers ahead of elections in July 2018. His party has often been accused in the past of using violence or threats against opponents, but in recent years has stalked its foes mostly in the courts. Legal threats forced opposition leader Sam Rainsy to resign this year; he now lives in exile. Cambodian authorities arrested his successor, Kem Sokha. He was formally charged with treason for allegedly conspiring with the United States to topple the government and could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted. The move sharply escalates political tensions and raises questions about whether upcoming elections can be free or fair. The opposition party says the treason allegation is false and politically motivated. Hun Sen urged the factory workers at the event to vote for him next year, promising he would give them better jobs and healthcare. seven ounces to 1.3 pounds of garbage, the government estimates. The vast majority of that ends up tossed into the country’s forests, parks, streets and sidewalks, rivers, or surrounding oceans. “The citizen has to realize that ‘this is my waste, nobody is going to take care of it but me,’” says Mukherjee. In 2014, the government tried to raise awareness with a campaign called “Swacch Bharath Abhiyan,” or “Clean India Mission.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi even hammed it up for media photographers by posing with a broom. But three years later, little has changed. People still carry their household trash in plastic bags to the edge of the water and toss it out to sea, watching as it bobs away. The slow progress means Shah and others continue leading small citizens’ movements to help. But not every effort has been successful. A group called New Delhi Rising says it’s been unable to find enough volunteers to handle the 15,500 tons of waste generated every day in the Indian capital. New Delhi’s three landfills are already overflowing, says the group’s founder, Nakul, who like many in India goes by only one name. Even the swankiest neighborhoods often have garbage tucked into the corners between buildings or beneath park benches. Some Delhi students volunteer regularly to help pick it up, but most of New Delhi Rising’s engagement has come from social media “likes” and follows. Nakul hopes more residents will come out to help. “It only takes two hours; it doesn’t take money,” he said. Units per U.S. dollar as of 9/15 Tu Phan Call for: Refinances Purchases Offering: FHA/VA/Conventional Mortgages NMLS # 2289 MLO # 7916 12817 S.E. 93rd Avenue Clackamas, OR 97015 (503) 780-6872 <tu.phan@fairwaymc.com> <www.LoansNow.com> 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 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 81.341 4080.7 6.5526 2.0229 7.8188 64.082 13240 33425 110.83 8325.4 4.1895 102.59 105.13 3.2025 51.245 57.533 3.7504 1.3452 1131.8 152.9 30.052 33.103 22559