TOKYO – Japanese avocado lovers are feeling the pinch. Prices for the guacamole fruit are hitting record levels due to reduced harvests in Mexico and other major producers. Swelling demand in China and the US is also at play.

The retail price for an avocado in Japan has risen from the 100- to 150-yen (S$1.24-S$1.86) range in March to the 150- to 200-yen range today. And the price is still rising.

Wholesalers say they’ve never seen avocado prices reach such heights.

Demand for the green smoothie mainstay has surged in Japan the past few years. In 2016, Japan imported 74,000 tons of the fruit, up 2.5 times from a decade earlier.

Demand has risen in other countries, too. In the US, consumption has doubled to more than a million tons in the past 10 years, according to data from the US Department of Agriculture.

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KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysian police have arrested two Turks, including the head of an international school, suspected of activities threatening national security, police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said.

The men, school head Turgay Karaman and businessman Ihsan Aslan, were arrested on Tuesday under a section of the penal code related to “terrorist acts”, he said in a Tweet.

No further details of their alleged activities in Muslim-majority Malaysia were immediately available.

The police confirmation came after Karaman was seen on CCTV recordings circulated on social media being forced into an unmarked car by five unknown men at a carpark in a suburb of Kuala Lumpur.

A police report was filed on Karaman’s disappearance by a friend on Tuesday night.

Aslan was also reported missing by his wife on Tuesday night after she failed to hear from him for more than a day.

Karaman’s lawyer, Rosli Dahlan, told Reuters that the disappearances bore similarities to a case in October when two Turks were reported missing and later discovered to have been deported to Turkey.

He denied speculation that the men were supporters of U.S-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is being blamed by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan for orchestrating a failed coup last year.

Gulen denies any involvement in the failed coup in which more than 230 people were killed. “They are academics.

They have not been charged for any Gulen activities,” Rosli said.

Turkey has applied pressure to other countries that are home to institutions backed by Gulen, whose Hizmet movement runs about 2,000 educational establishments around the world.

Human Rights Watch on Wednesday said the two men should not be forcibly sent to Turkey, and called for an urgent investigation.

“There is little doubt that if they are returned to Turkey, they will face torture in detention, and if charged with crimes there, be subjected to a trial that will fall far short of fair trial standards,”

SEOUL – North Korea on Wednesday confirmed the arrest of a US professor for trying to “overturn” the regime, as tensions spike between the isolated nuclear-armed nation and Washington.

Kim Sang-Duk, or Tony Kim, became the third American held in the North when he was detained at the capital’s airport on April 22 as he tried to leave the country, after teaching for several weeks at an elite university.

In the North’s first confirmation of the professor’s detention, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said he had been held for “committing criminal acts of hostility aimed to overturn the DPRK”, using an abbreviation for the country’s official name.

It added that Kim was “under detention by a relevant law enforcement body which is conducting detailed investigation into his crimes”.

The confirmation of Kim’s detention comes as Pyongyang issues increasingly belligerent rhetoric in a tense stand off with the administration of new US President Donald Trump over its rogue weapons programme.

Kim had been teaching accounting at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), which said last month that the professor had been held.

The school – founded by evangelical Christians from overseas and opened in 2010 – is known to have a number of American faculty members and pupils are generally children from the country’s elite.

In a statement in late April the university said the arrest was “not connected in any way with the work of PUST”.

It added that the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang – which handles issues involving US citizens as Washington has no diplomatic ties with the North – was “actively involved” in talks.

Kim is a former professor at Yanbian University of Science and Technology in China, close to the Korean border. Its website lists his speciality as accounting.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency has given Kim’s age as 55 and said he had been involved in relief activities for children in rural parts of North Korea. It cited a source familiar with the matter who described Kim as a “religiously devoted man”.

Two other US citizens – college student Otto Warmbier and Korean-American pastor Kim Dong-Chul – are currently being held in the North after being sentenced to long prison terms.

The pastor was sentenced last year to 10 years of hard labour for spying. Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years in 2016 for stealing a propaganda material and for “crimes against the state”.

North Korea has arrested and jailed several US citizens in the past decade, often releasing them only after high-profile visits by current or former US officials or former US presidents.

Pyongyang, which has conducted a string of nuclear tests and missile launches, warned Monday that it was prepared to carry out another atomic test “at any time and at any location” set by its leadership unless Washington scraps its hostile policies.

Trump has suggested military action could be on the table in the past but on Monday seemed to soften his message, saying he would be “honoured” to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un under the right conditions.

Remember what we are taught about never judging a book by its cover?

An elderly man in Thailand recently reinforced that value when he went around several motorcycle dealerships while dressed in a dirty oversized T-shirt, worn-out plain pants and slippers.

Because of his attire, salespeople mostly ignored him and barely threw him a second glance, probably assuming that he would never be able to afford anything in their stores.

The man went from one shop to another, until he arrived at one that treated him with warmth and hospitality.

According to Sanook, the man made up his mind within ten minutes and said, “I’ll have that one!”

Even more amazing was when he then took out 600,000 baht (around S$24,000) in cash and paid for the Harley-Davidson motorcycle right on the spot.

The man has been identified as Lung Decha, an honest and diligient mechanic who has partially retired from work. He does not smoke, drink or gamble.

Instead, after working hard for his whole life, he decided to use his savings to get his dream bike.

The previous salespeople who rejected him must be feeling the ache now.

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TAIPEI, Taiwan — Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker Lin Chun-hsien said on Tuesday that he holds “solid evidence” to “destroy the reputation” of a teacher who he claims raped a young writer several years ago.

Lin accused a cram school teacher on Tuesday of raping the late Lin Yi-han, a talented writer and daughter of eminent doctor Lin Ping-huang. She died in an apparent suicide last week at 26 years old.

Her parents issued a statement the day after the suicide, claiming that their daughter died not just because of the major depressive order she had struggled with since she was 16 years old, but also because she never recovered from the grooming and rape eight to nine years ago.

The statement pointed to one of the cram school teachers who taught her before she took the high school entrance exam.

Users of social media went wild seeking out the teacher. Authorities meanwhile promised to “get to the bottom” of the situation, warning netizens that accusing any individual of rape and sharing, posting or reposting unconfirmed accusations could get them into legal trouble.

Despite this, DPP Legislator Lin revealed the name of a cram school teacher he accused of having committed the rape.

The teacher founded a company – unrelated to teaching – in 2004, with NT$5 million (S$232,000) capital and 10 staff, Lin said, but has been contracted by the government 273 times, earning NT$310 million in the past decade.

“It’s incredible how a small company like this can beat large corporations to secure government contracts,” Lin said.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Education, the National Taxation Bureau of Taipei, and the Agency Against Corruption have all been invited to a press conference today, where Lin vows to destroy the teacher’s reputation once and for all.

Problematic teachers found at cram schools

Meanwhile, Kaohsiung City Councilor Hsiao Yung-ta of the DPP also revealed the name of the teacher, stating that if he is proven wrong, he will “quit politics forever.”

In a message to the teacher, Hsiao said that he may never face charges for the incident, but he should at least fulfil his social responsibilities and quit the education industry.

The Kaoshiung social bureau, said that Hsiao’s comments were legal, as, according to the Sexual Assault Prevention Act, it is only illegal to reveal the names of crime victims.

The current Criminal Code sets the age of consent at 16 years old. Law enforcement likely have no grounds to prosecute cases where the victim is unable to present evidence of being forced upon.

The local education bureau have promised to investigate the teacher.

Southern office director of the Humanistic Education Foundation Chang Ping said that there are 40 to 50 teachers involved in inappropriate sexual relationships with students that are subsequently fired from mainstream educational institutions every year. They are then likely to join the cram school industry.

Chang urged frequent and thorough inspections on the background checks currently in place for cram school teachers.