Public warned of rising fraud - Oman Daily Observer
Public warned of rising fraud - Oman Daily Observer
Public warned of rising fraud - Oman Daily Observer
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013<br />
ASIA<br />
7<br />
China, Australian PM<br />
agree to annual talks<br />
BEIJING — Chinese Premier Li Keqiang<br />
and Australian Prime Minister<br />
Julia Gillard yesterday agreed<br />
to hold annual prime ministerial<br />
meetings, as Chinese money drives<br />
Australia's huge resource boom.<br />
Li and Gillard held talks at the<br />
ornate Great Hall <strong>of</strong> the People in<br />
Beijing, where the visiting leader<br />
was greeted with full military honours<br />
including cannon ired from<br />
nearby Tiananmen Square.<br />
Australia's economy has beneited<br />
from Chinese demand for resources<br />
including iron ore, and China<br />
is now its largest trading partner<br />
with two-way business in goods<br />
and services worth Aus$128 billion<br />
($134 billion).<br />
"Our two sides have decided<br />
that the prime ministers will have<br />
regular annual meetings either in a<br />
bilateral format or on multilateral<br />
occasions," Li said, adding that yesterday's<br />
talks could be "regarded as<br />
the annual meeting mechanism".<br />
Gillard congratulated Li on his<br />
selection last month as premier.<br />
"I am illed with optimism about<br />
the way we will be able to work together<br />
to take the relationship between<br />
our two countries forward,"<br />
she said.<br />
Australia, which has a longstanding<br />
military alliance with the<br />
United States, also engages in defence<br />
co-operation with China, with<br />
which it has conducted live-ire naval<br />
exercises.<br />
On Sunday, Gillard met President<br />
Xi Jinping at an annual conference<br />
<strong>of</strong> political and economic leaders on<br />
the southern island <strong>of</strong> Hainan.<br />
Cultural exchanges are also<br />
growing. China provides the greatest<br />
number <strong>of</strong> overseas students<br />
to Australia with 150,000 enrolments<br />
in 2012, and the second largest<br />
source <strong>of</strong> overseas visitors —<br />
626,000 last year.<br />
USS Freedom arrives in Manila yesterday to join the Philippine and US military exercise dubbed Balikatan (Shoulder-to-Shoulder). — AFP<br />
Chinese boat runs aground on Tubbataha<br />
MANILA — A Chinese ishing boat has run aground<br />
on a World Heritage-listed coral reef in the Philippines,<br />
roughly 1,600 kilometres from China's nearest<br />
major landmass, authorities said yesterday.<br />
The vessel, with 12 crew members, was found<br />
stranded in the shallows <strong>of</strong> Tubbataha Reef in the<br />
Sulu Sea just before midnight on Monday, coast<br />
guard spokesman Lieutenant Commander Arman<br />
Balilo said.<br />
"This is a small ishing boat, but we are wondering<br />
how they strayed into Tubbataha. Apart from<br />
illegal entry, we are investigating them for possible<br />
poaching as well," Balilo said.<br />
Balilo said the boat was to be pulled <strong>of</strong>f the reef<br />
yesterday and then towed to the nearby island<br />
province <strong>of</strong> Palawan, where the ishermen would<br />
be detained and questioned by authorities.<br />
Balilo said Chinese ishermen frequently<br />
strayed into Philippine waters, but this was the<br />
irst time in recent years that they had been detected<br />
as far south as Tubbataha.<br />
The grounding <strong>of</strong> the vessel comes as the Philippines<br />
and China are locked in a bitter dispute<br />
over competing territorial claims to the South China<br />
Sea.<br />
China claims nearly all <strong>of</strong> the sea, even waters<br />
approaching the coasts <strong>of</strong> the Philippines, Vietnam<br />
and other countries in Southeast Asia.<br />
The Philippines accused China <strong>of</strong> occupying<br />
a shoal, which is home to a rich ishing ground,<br />
near its main island <strong>of</strong> Luzon last year. The Philippines<br />
has asked a United Nations panel to rule<br />
that China's claims are invalid.<br />
However Tubbataha reef is in the Sulu Sea,<br />
which is further southeast and not claimed by<br />
China. The Sulu and South China seas are separated<br />
by Palawan, one <strong>of</strong> the Philippines' biggest<br />
islands.<br />
The reef is about 1,600 kilometres southeast<br />
<strong>of</strong> Hainan island, China's nearest major landmass.<br />
Balilo said he did not want to speculate how<br />
the Chinese ishermen reached Tubbataha.<br />
But one navy <strong>of</strong>icial said the ishermen likely<br />
sailed through the South China Sea and then a<br />
narrow strait at the southern tip <strong>of</strong> Palawan.<br />
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang<br />
gesture during a meeting in Beijing yesterday. — AFP<br />
Mekong study predicts crop shifts<br />
Helicopter Dynamic Pegassus perform an air show during a parade <strong>of</strong> the 67th anniversary<br />
commemoration <strong>of</strong> the Indonesian Air Force at an airbase in Jakarta yesterday. — AFP<br />
Bird lu outbreak spurs food fears<br />
SHANGHAI — China's bird<br />
lu outbreak is "devastating"<br />
poultry sales, an industry<br />
group said yesterday, as the<br />
H7N9 virus which has killed<br />
seven people triggered a<br />
new food safety scare.<br />
Since China announced<br />
over a week ago that H7N9<br />
avian inluenza had been<br />
found in humans for the<br />
irst time, the number <strong>of</strong><br />
people infected has risen to<br />
24, almost half in the eastern<br />
city <strong>of</strong> Shanghai.<br />
Chinese authorities say<br />
they do not know how the<br />
virus is spreading, though<br />
it is believed the infection<br />
is passing from birds to humans.<br />
The World Health Organization<br />
(WHO) has said<br />
there is no evidence H7N9<br />
is passing from person to<br />
person — a development<br />
that has the potential to<br />
trigger a pandemic.<br />
Authorities have advised<br />
the public to avoid live birds<br />
but <strong>of</strong>fered reassurances<br />
that poultry and eggs that<br />
are still on sale are safe to<br />
eat if cooked properly.<br />
However, state media<br />
said that poultry sales have<br />
plunged in some areas <strong>of</strong><br />
China, even regions that<br />
have so far recorded no human<br />
infections.<br />
"It's really a devastating<br />
blow to the market for<br />
broilers," said Qiu Baoqin,<br />
vice secretary general <strong>of</strong><br />
China's National Poultry<br />
Industry Association. Broilers<br />
are young chickens sold<br />
ready for cooking.<br />
BANGKOK — A climate-change study<br />
on the Lower Mekong Basin says<br />
Laos' and Vietnam's central highlands<br />
can anticipate declines in production<br />
<strong>of</strong> robusta c<strong>of</strong>fee and forecasts the<br />
cash crop will become more suitable<br />
for north-east Thailand.<br />
"For robusta c<strong>of</strong>fee, we found<br />
overall the central highlands will<br />
have reduced suitability," said Jeremy<br />
Carew-Reid, the main author <strong>of</strong> Climate<br />
Change and Impact Study for<br />
the Lower Mekong Basin.<br />
"But other areas will open up, such<br />
as north-east Thailand, northern<br />
Thailand and parts <strong>of</strong> Laos with high<br />
elevation," Carew-Reid said.<br />
The study, sponsored by the US<br />
Agency for International Development<br />
(USAID), attempts to assess<br />
how climate change over the next 25-<br />
30 years will impact livestock, isheries<br />
and important crops including<br />
rice, maize, c<strong>of</strong>fee, rubber and soya.<br />
Based on statistical downscaling <strong>of</strong><br />
existing global circulation models, the<br />
study produced new climate models<br />
for the region — comp<strong>rising</strong> 187<br />
provinces in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand<br />
and Vietnam — through which<br />
the Mekong River lows.<br />
The scientists identiied eight<br />
"hotspot" provinces that are expected<br />
to experience the most extreme variations<br />
in temperature, rainfall and<br />
loods, which could therefore experience<br />
the most drastic changes in food<br />
production.<br />
The hotspots include Chiang Rai<br />
and Sakon Nakhon provinces in Thailand,<br />
Khammouan and Champasak<br />
in Laos, Stung Treng, Mondulkiri and<br />
Kampong Thom in Cambodia and<br />
Kien Giang and Gia Lai in Vietnam.<br />
"We found that for rain-fed rice,<br />
for example, out <strong>of</strong> the eight hotspot<br />
provinces, seven will experience signiicant<br />
decreases in yields," Carew-<br />
Reid said.<br />
The Lower Mekong Basin is notoriously<br />
prone to weather extremes and<br />
high climate variability already.<br />
"The Mekong region is globally<br />
quite unique," said Tarek Ketelsen,<br />
the environmental systems engineer<br />
who did the climate change model for<br />
the study.<br />
"The Mekong Basin has two monsoon<br />
regimes; you've got snow melt<br />
and glacial buildup in the Tibetan-<br />
China part <strong>of</strong> the Mekong, and storms<br />
coming out <strong>of</strong> the Paciic in the lower<br />
part," Ketelsen said.<br />
The study anticapates a 4-degree<br />
increase in average temperature for<br />
the region by 2050, compared with<br />
the global average <strong>of</strong> 2 degrees, in<br />
the most optimal <strong>of</strong> forecasts by the<br />
United Nations' Intergovernmental<br />
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).<br />
"If you look at the IPCC reports<br />
this area is a black hole," Carew-Reid<br />
said. "All the parameters are more<br />
extreme in this region - temperature,<br />
rainfall and looding." These<br />
extremes will be even more extreme<br />
in the eight designated hotspot provinces,<br />
especially rainfall.<br />
"We're forecasting 20-per-cent<br />
increases in rainfall in the southern<br />
hotspots," Carew-Reid said.<br />
More rain may be bad for areas<br />
that are already experiencing a lot <strong>of</strong><br />
precipitation, such as central Cambodia,<br />
but it might be good for places<br />
such as north-east Thailand (called<br />
Isaan), which is now dependent on<br />
rainfed agriculture.<br />
"In the future when there is more<br />
rainfall in the region, Isaan is looking<br />
to be doing better than elsewhere,"<br />
predicted Ketelsen.<br />
Not everyone is so sure.<br />
"Increasing rainfall doesn't necessarily<br />
mean better," said Suppakorn<br />
Chitwanon, a senior researcher at<br />
the South-east Asian centre <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Global Change SysTem for Analysis,<br />
Research and Training (START) in<br />
Bangkok.<br />
"You have to see if the rain comes<br />
at the right time, and whether it is<br />
distributed evenly," he said.<br />
Scientists are generally cautious<br />
about jumping to conclusions about<br />
the speciic impact <strong>of</strong> global warming<br />
30 years from now.<br />
This raises questions about the<br />
next step <strong>of</strong> the USAID-backed<br />
project, which will involve taking the<br />
study's conclusions to village communities<br />
in the hotspot provinces to<br />
help them plan for the future.<br />
"If you talk to farmers about what<br />
is going to happen in 30 years, they<br />
will say, come back then and talk to<br />
my son," Suppakorn said. — dpa<br />
IAEA to inspect<br />
Fukushima<br />
Three Filipinos face death<br />
VIENNA — The UN atomic<br />
agency announced yesterday<br />
a visit to Japan's crippled<br />
Fukushima nuclear<br />
plant to review efforts to<br />
plan and implement its<br />
decommissioning, two<br />
years after a major disaster<br />
there.<br />
The April 15-22 trip<br />
by the 12-member team<br />
<strong>of</strong> International Atomic<br />
Energy (IAEA) nuclear<br />
experts and international<br />
specialists is at the request<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Japanese<br />
government, a statement<br />
said. — AFP<br />
JAKARTA — Three Philippine<br />
men could face the<br />
death penalty in Indonesia<br />
after being caught trying<br />
to smuggle methamphetamine<br />
with a street<br />
value <strong>of</strong> $2.1 million into<br />
the country, an <strong>of</strong>icial<br />
said yesterday.<br />
The trio were arrested<br />
last week with the 15.3-<br />
kilogram drugs haul after<br />
arriving from Hong Kong<br />
at the main airport serving<br />
the capital Jakarta,<br />
customs <strong>of</strong>icial Okto<br />
Irianto told reporters.<br />
"They hid the crystal<br />
methamphetamine in 15<br />
boxes <strong>of</strong> milk powder.<br />
Each brought ive boxes in<br />
their suitcase," he said.<br />
The trio, whose names<br />
were not released, allegedly<br />
carried the drugs —<br />
which the <strong>of</strong>icial said had<br />
a street value <strong>of</strong> $2.1 million<br />
— with them in their<br />
hand luggage.<br />
The men, one aged in<br />
his 40s, one in his 50s,<br />
and the third 61, admitted<br />
having previously smuggled<br />
drugs into other<br />
countries, according to<br />
Irianto.<br />
"They are pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
couriers and this<br />
was their irst attempt to<br />
smuggle drugs into Indonesia,"<br />
Irianto said. Police<br />
are quizzing them to ind<br />
out more details about the<br />
drug-smuggling gang they<br />
worked with.<br />
They could face the<br />
death penalty if found<br />
guilty under Indonesia's<br />
tough drugs laws, Irianto<br />
said.<br />
Foreigners are frequently<br />
arrested for attempting<br />
to smuggle drugs<br />
into Indonesia, including<br />
many on Bali who are held<br />
in the resort island's notorious<br />
Kerobokan prison.<br />
Thai bomb squad members inspect the site <strong>of</strong> a roadside bomb attack on a patroling police<br />
pick-up truck in southern province <strong>of</strong> Narathiwat yesterday. — AFP