BEIJING – Foshan, a city in China’s Guangdong province, said it will extend the monthly cleaning periods for live poultry markets for the next three months to help control the spread of virulent bird flu, with authorities warning the situation is “grim”.

The move for the first three months of the year came as authorities in the city of more than 8 million people warned in a statement that all neighbouring cities have reported human infections of the H7N9 strain of the virus.

State media Xinhua said it had registered its second case.

Foshan usually shuts markets for one day each month for cleaning and sterilization in the first three months of each year when birds and people are most susceptible to the flu, but this year that will increase to three days, the Foshan Health and Family Planning Bureau said in a statement on its website.

The monthly shutdowns, covering all live poultry markets in the city, will be effective from the 16th to the 18th for the first three months of the year.

Guangzhou, the capital of the southern province, announced a similar move earlier this week.

The province of Guangdong registered 14 cases of human infection in December out of a total of 106 across the country, according to government releases. China has culled over 175,000 birds following five outbreaks among poultry.

While markets and farmers typically ramp up sterilisation and cleaning regimes during the winter, the issue has raised concerns this year as nearby countries South Korea and Japan battle particularly severe outbreaks.

Three cities in eastern China’s Jiangsu province suspended live poultry trading after neighbouring provinces reported human bird flu cases. Local governments in Fujian and Anhui provinces have also restricted poultry trade.

TOKYO – A religious ceremony in Japan where carp are plied with alcohol before being returned to a river has left animal rights activists feeling green around the gills.

The rural festival, held every January in snow-swept Toyama prefecture, central Japan, sees revellers pouring rice wine into a fish’s mouth in a “Carp Releasing Exorcism” said to purge people of evil spirits.

But the bizarre Shinto ritual has become entangled in controversy after featuring on national television earlier this week, with images of the flapping carp triggering an online backlash from upset viewers, many accusing organisers of animal cruelty.

Many of those who tweeted or posted to online chatrooms called for an end to the “abusive practice” and accused organisers of “intoxicating wildlife.” During the ceremony, said to date back to the early 19th century, men and women hoping for a karmic boost are blessed by a priest.

The men then each hold a carp – a sacred fish in Japan – while a woman pours the purifying alcohol into the creature’s mouth before it is released back into the water.

But after Japan’s Asahi TV aired coverage of the event, a Twitter storm suggested many viewers disapproved of putting the fish’s health in peril.

“It just seems like abuse,” wrote one, while another called it “harassment” of the fish.

Organisers acknowledged to the news site J-Cast that they had received several complaints from the public.

The ceremony’s defenders insisted it was part of Japan’s cultural heritage, with one online comment complaining: “People are too uptight these days.” TV Asahi’s Morning Show interviewed a fish expert who claimed that alcohol does not harm the animal as the toxic liquid escapes through the gills.

The outcry is the latest in what looks like a fledgling movement to protect the rights of fish in Japan.

Last November a skating rink in Kyushu closed after a flood of criticism when thousands of fish died, frozen in the ice.

SINGAPORE – Asian pirates are focusing more of their attacks on larger merchant ships near the Philippines, hoping for bigger ransom payments from kidnapping their crew, the head of a regional anti-piracy body said on Friday.

The region’s pirates have changed tactics since October, to target some of the biggest ships travelling through the Sulu and Celebes Seas, and paying less attention to small tugs and fishing boats.

The growing problem has prompted Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines to step up air and sea patrols in the waters, through which about $40 billion worth of cargo passes each year. “Big ships belong to bigger owners, so maybe they think bigger owners can pay more money as a ransom,” said Masafumi Kuroki, executive director of the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP).

The group, which has 20 member states, helps co-ordinate information about maritime piracy incidents.

Maritime experts recommend that vessels in the area adopt measures similar to those taken against pirates off Somalia and the Indian Ocean, including evasive action such as zig-zagging, speeding up and shining powerful lights on the attackers. “Our advice is that the area should be avoided if at all possible,” said Gerry Northwood, chief operating officer at armed guard company, Maritime Asset Security and Training (MAST).

Some 48 crew have been abducted in 16 attacks in the Sulu-Celebes Seas since March, of which 15 remain captive, according to ReCAAP.

In November, four large merchant vessels, including the 179,191-deadweight-tonne (DWT) capesize iron ore carrier Kumiai Shagang, were chased by armed pirates in speed boats during separate attempted attacks in the Sulu and Celebes Seas.

Abu Sayyaf militants have claimed responsibility for many of the attacks in the area. Land-based operations by the Philippine military against the group have led militants to focus more on soft targets at sea, Kuroki said.

Despite this rise in abductions, the number of overall pirate attacks in Asia dropped to its lowest level since ReCAAP was launched in 2006 to 86 incidents in 2016, down from 203 in 2015, partly due to better co-ordination by littoral states and adoption of anti-piracy measures by shippers.

BEIJING – One of China’s highest profile former pastors, Gu Yuese, has been formally arrested for the second time on suspicion of embezzling funds, people close to his family said on Friday.

Police sent an arrest warrant to Gu’s family on Jan. 7, saying he was being detained on suspicion of misappropriating funds, according to China Aid, a Texas-based Christian nonprofit that advocates for freedom of religion in China.

Director of China Aid Bob Fu said the arrest would make Gu the highest-ranked religious official to be removed from office since the Cultural Revolution in the mid-1960s, when many Chinese religious figures were persecuted. “This will send a chilling signal to any free thinkers in the Chinese church,” Fu told Reuters.

China’s Communist Party says it protects freedom of religion, but keeps a tight rein on religious activities and allows only officially recognised religious institutions.

Fu said an electronic copy of the arrest warrant had been shared with his organisation by Gu’s family.

Reuters could not verify the contents of the warrant, and could not immediately reach Gu’s family for comment.

The detention centre named in the notice declined to comment when contacted by Reuters by telephone.

A member of Gu’s former congregation, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed the arrest and said he had been turned away from Gu’s house when he attempted to visit in mid-December.

An investigation of Gu on suspicion of the same charges was announced by government-backed Hangzhou Christian Council in January last year.

Contacted by Reuters about Gu’s arrest on Friday, the council said it was unaware of the situation.

The Zhejiang Provincial Christian Council stripped Gu of his position as committee head last February, over his arrest in relation to the investigation, which broke council regulations, state media said at the time.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has unleashed a sweeping campaign against graft since coming to power four years ago.

Gu had previously served as pastor of a congregation of about 10,000 people at Chongyi Church in the coastal city of Hangzhou, in the eastern province of Zhejiang.

Zhejiang is home to a large number of Chinese Christians. Previous campaigns there by authorities to dismantle crosses on top of churches have incensed worshippers.

Authorities have said crosses were removed for infringing regulations against illegal structures. Rights groups say the demolitions restrict religious freedom.

After the original investigation, members of Chongyi Church’s congregation told Reuters that Gu had written a notice criticising the demolitions.

It is unclear whether that investigation or Gu’s reported arrest are related to the note, however.

HO CHI MINH CITY – John Kerry began his swansong tour as US Secretary of State in Vietnam on Friday, defending Washington’s ‘pivot’ to Asia in the face of President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to dump a key regional trade deal.

Vietnam has been at the centre of President Barack Obama’s Asia embrace, marked by the lifting of a wartime-era arms embargo, major growth in trade and the signing of the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact.

Yet years of effort to secure support for the trade deal, the cornerstone of Obama’s Asia strategy, have unraveled spectacularly with Trump vowing to scrap the pact on his first day in office.

The TPP aimed to unite Washington’s east Asian allies in trade, creating a counterbalance to a rising China and rewarding political and economic reform.

All that is now in question with Trump blaming unfettered global trade for the loss of American jobs.

But Kerry sought to reassure his Vietnamese hosts that Washington was not set to turn its back on trade or its Asian allies.

“Now, it’s no secret that the future of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in itself is uncertain,” he said, admitting that globalisation has proved “unsettling” for American voters.

“So I cannot predict what the new American administration is absolutely going do with respect to trade, but I can tell you that the reasons for the TPP haven’t changed.” Speaking in Vietnam’s buzzing commercial centre Ho Chi Minh City, Kerry insisted that free trade creates jobs and that “protectionist trade policies won’t work”.

He also urged the communist nation to stay the course with economic reforms and embed environmental and labour protections chiselled out during the complex TPP negotiations.

Vietnam War-era naval officer Kerry’s visit, his fourth to the communist country as America’s top diplomat, is both political and deeply personal.

He won a Silver Star for his service during the Vietnam War after beaching his patrol boat and storming ashore to shoot dead a Viet Cong ambusher in Ca Mau province in 1969.

Kerry ultimately came to see the war as a mistake and after his return from combat campaigned for peace. Later, as a senator then as secretary, he worked to normalise ties.

In Hanoi on Friday morning, Kerry met acting foreign minister Bui Thanh Son and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

“There have been a lot of steps forward but there are still some challenges as you know,” he said, after a reporter asked him about Vietnam’s patchy rights record.

The communist country routinely jails dissidents and government critics.

On Saturday, Kerry will head to the Bay Hap river in Ca Mau on Saturday to revisit the site of his 1969 ambush and discuss how to protect the region’s delicate ecosystem from climate change.

The relationship between the two countries has transformed since the painful and bloody war era.

The United States is Vietnam’s top export market and trade between the pair has tripled in recent years, along with a major boost in US investments in the manufacturing hub.

“Kerry’s visit underscores the importance of Vietnam in the US-Asia policy,” Netherlands-based Vietnam analyst Jonathan London told AFP.

Simmering tensions with Beijing over its military build-up on islands in the South China Sea were also on the agenda.

Vietnam is seeking US backing in the face of increasingly aggressive actions by China in the strategic waterway.

Washington has remained neutral in disputes with China in the South China Sea, insisting that freedom of navigation must be respected in the oil-rich shipping route.

But Trump’s nominee to replace Kerry, former oilman Rex Tillerson, this week called for sending a “clear signal” to China to stop building on disputed islands.

Seoul – Samsung heir Lee Jae-Yong returned home Friday after marathon questioning by South Korean prosecutors as a suspect in a massive corruption scandal involving impeached President Park Geun-Hye.

Read also: Samsung heir becomes suspect in S Korea political scandal

Prosecutors said they will now decide over the weekend whether to seek a warrant and formally arrest Lee on charges of bribery and abuse of power.

Lee was named a criminal suspect Wednesday in a widening probe into an influence-peddling scandal engulfing Park and her close friend Choi Soon-Sil.

Vice chairman of Samsung Electronics and the son of Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-Hee, he was quizzed for 22 hours over allegations of bribery.

Looking exhausted, he did not respond to questions from journalists waiting outside the special prosecutor’s office as he left.

“The questioning took a long time because there were many things to check with him and because there were discrepancies” between what investigators believed had happened and Lee’s statement, said prosecutor’s office spokesman Lee Kyu-Chul.

If the court issues an arrest warrant Saturday or Sunday, Lee will be the first South Korean business tycoon to be arrested in the widening probe into the scandal. Three other Samsung executives may also be arrested, according to the spokesman.

More than a dozen people have already been arrested in the case, including Choi and her niece, a former culture minister, an ex-health minister, a former top presidential aide for economic affairs, and a college professor.

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Choi accused of interfering in state affairs using relationship with President

Source:

AFP

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In South Korea it is not unusual for suspects and witnesses to agree to a lengthy questioning session in order to avoid being repeatedly summoned by investigators.

Many suspects and witnesses in the scandal have been subjected to similar marathon questioning sessions.

They included executives from business groups such as Hyundai, SK, LG and Lotte which are being investigated for their alleged involvement in the scandal.

Choi is accused of using her ties to the president to coerce top firms into “donating” tens of millions of dollars to two non-profit foundations which Choi then used as her personal ATMs.

Samsung was the biggest contributor to the foundations.

It is also accused of separately giving millions of euros to Choi to bankroll the training of South Korean equestrian athletes in Germany, including Choi’s daughter.

Prosecutors have for months questioned Lee and other senior Samsung officials to determine whether Samsung bribed Park and Choi in order to win state approval for a controversial merger which it sought in 2015.

The merger of two Samsung group units – Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T – was seen as a crucial step towards ensuring a smooth third-generation power transfer to Lee Jae-Yong.

It was criticised by many, who said it wilfully undervalued Samsung C&T’s stocks. But the National Pension Service (NPS) – a major Samsung shareholder – voted in favour of the deal and it eventually went through.

The former health minister was arrested last month for allegedly pressuring NPS officials to vote in favour of the Samsung deal.

Samsung has denied allegations that it was seeking to win government favours.

South Korea’s business conglomerates known as chaebol spearheaded the country’s drive to prosperity from the ashes of the Korean War, but their founding families have been criticised for running their global businesses like personal fiefdoms.