ASIA / PACIFIC
September 2, 2019
Nepal protesters urge end to
plan to chop trees for airport
KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) —
Around 100 people protested in
Nepal’s capital to voice their
opposition to plans to cut down
millions of trees to build an
international airport in the southern
part of the country.
The protesters picketed the offices
of the Civil Aviation Authority of
Nepal and the Department of Forest
in Kathmandu, calling for an
immediate stop to the plans to build
the airport in Nijgadh, about 50 miles
south of the capital.
It’s estimated that 2.4 million trees
would have to be cut down to build the
airport, which is expected to cost $3.5
billion.
The protesters allege that the
planned airport would be an environ-
mental disaster because it would
destroy forests that are the habitat
for wild animals in the area.
“We are demanding the govern-
ment immediately stop the plans to
cut down the trees and destroy the
environment of the region to build
this airport,” said Sunil Yadav, a
protester who travelled from his
home in southern Nepal for the
demonstration.
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PROTECTING FORESTS. Nepalese activists shout slogans during a protest outside the Civil
Aviation Authority of Nepal, in Kathmandu. A small group of protesters demonstrated in Nepal’s cap-
ital against plans to cut down millions of trees for an international airport in the southern part of the
country. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)
Yadav said an international their villages.
Nepal has only one international
airport was necessary in the area, but
that a new location needs to be chosen airport, located in Kathmandu.
where there are no forests or wild During bad weather in winter and the
rainy season, international flights to
animals.
The planned project would also Nepal are sometimes diverted to
force some 500 families to move from other countries.
Women, late-in-life new authors expand Japanese literature
By Alex Barreira
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The Associated Press
OKYO — The works receiving one of Japan’s most
coveted literary awards, the Naoki Prize, have
something new in common: For the first time in 85
years, all six of the nominated authors are women.
Japan is home to what many consider the world’s first
novel, The Tale of Genji, written in the 11th century by
noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu. Its modern fiction has
been defined mostly by long-established male writers
such as past Nobel laureates Kenzaburo Oe and Yasunari
Kawabata. And for decades it has been dominated by
Haruki Murakami, whose surreal blend of magical
realism and pop culture has made him an international
bestseller.
But Japanese literature is beginning to look different as
new voices, including young writers, women, and the
elderly, receive domestic and international recognition.
Two women, Natsuko Imamura and Masumi Oshima,
are being presented with the Akutagawa and Naoki
prizes. Since 1935, the Akutagawa and Naoki have recog-
nized serious and popular fiction, respectively, and pro-
vided their winners with a commemorative watch and 1
million yen (a little under $10,000). Even more valuable is
the prestige its winners receive from media attention and,
increasingly, a clear path to wider audiences through
translation.
Consider, for instance, the 2016 rise of Convenience
Store Woman. Writer Sayaka Murata’s novel inspired by
her own jobs has sold more than 600,000 copies in Japan
since it won the Akutagawa Prize that year. Murata, then
36, and still working part-time at a convenience store,
shared the stage with actress Naomi Watanabe, known as
“the Japanese Beyoncé,” as one of Vogue Japan’s “Women
of the Year.” Two years later, the English translation of
Murata’s novel was an editor’s best-of-the-year choice by
the New Yorker, the magazine that helped catapult
Murakami to stardom.
“International markets grow when talent emerges,”
Reduce, Reuse,
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T
NEW VOICES. Natsuko Imamura, right, and Masumi Oshima pose
with their books after Imamura and Oshima were awarded the Akutagawa
and Naoki prizes at a Tokyo hotel. Since 1935, the Akutagawa and Naoki
awards have recognized serious and popular fiction, respectively. (Kyodo
News via AP)
said John Freeman, who published work from Murata and
Murakami as editor of the anthology Freeman’s. “In the
past two-and-a-half decades, there’s been an explosion of
good writing coming from Japan. ... That wave is cresting
now with writers just barely 40 years old.”
Publishers in the United States and Britain are seeing a
growing audience for novels in translation, experts say.
Translations of half a dozen prize-winning works by
female authors from Japan were published last year in the
United States, with Yoko Tawada’s The Emissary taking a
2018 National Book Award for translated work.
“The number of new voices that have been made
available to Anglophone readers over the last few years
has been encouraging,” said David Karashima, a
professor at Waseda University who has translated
Akutagawa-winning fiction.
Karashima said there are still not as many women
published in Japan as men, but this may be changing, in
part because there are more women on selection
committees for literary prizes. He added that translated
Japanese fiction is itself going through a “mini-boom.”
“Outside of Japan, over the last five years or so, there
Continued on page 8
Urgency for vaccine grows as virus ravages China’s pigs
BEIJING (AP) — Scientists are working to develop a
vaccine to help protect the world’s pork supply from a
deadly virus that’s ravaging pig herds in Asia.
Farmers have long contained the spread of African
swine fever by quarantining and killing infected animals,
but the disease’s appearance in more countries is
intensifying the search for another solution.
The virus hadn’t been considered a priority for
researchers until it turned up last year in China, home to
half the world’s pigs. Since then, it spread to Vietnam and
Taiwan, killing millions of pigs along the way.
In the U.S., government scientists are studying a
possible vaccine that’s made by deleting select genes in
the virus. Though African swine fever does not sicken
people, it is a highly contagious illness that is deadly to
pigs.
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In memory
of Arnold
Little brother
Protective son
Loving fiancé
Playful uncle
Outgoing cousin
Loyal friend
VIRAL OUTBREAK. Pigs eat feed at a pig farm in Panggezhuang
village in northern China’s Hebei province, in this May 8, 2019 file photo.
As a deadly virus ravages pig herds across Asia, scientists are accelerat-
ing efforts to develop a vaccine to help guard the world’s pork supply.
(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
You are missed
and always
remembered.
December 24, 1972 -
September 11, 2001