JIAXING, CHINA – A Chinese factory is hatching giant inflatable chickens resembling Donald Trump to usher in the Year of the Rooster.

The five-metre (16-foot) fowls sport the distinctive golden mane of the US president-elect and mimic his signature hand gestures with their tiny wings.

Cartoon figures of animals from the Chinese zodiac are ubiquitous around Chinese New Year at the end of this month.

The balloon factory is selling its presidential birds for as much as 14,400 yuan ($2,080) on Chinese shopping site Taobao for a 10-metre version.

“I saw his image on the news and he has a lot of personality, and since Year of the Rooster is coming up I mixed these two elements together to make a Chinese chicken,” factory owner Wei Qing told AFP.

“It is so funny, so we designed it and tried to sell it and it turned out to be popular.”

The cartoon balloon appeared to be based on a sculpture designed by US artist Casey Latiolais, which was unveiled at a shopping mall last month in Taiyuan, capital of the northern province of Shanxi.

Wei said he was not aware that the American designer had created the original, but added that “there are some differences in the facial expression. And that one is glass. Ours is inflatable.”

Trump has captured the Chinese imagination and riled its authorities, threatening to get tough on trade practices he says are unfair after taking office on January 20.

He also angered China by taking a phone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, breaking with decades of US diplomatic practice.

JAKARTA – Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo reproached his military chief in a meeting last week amid concerns the commander was “out of control” after he unilaterally suspended defence co-operation with Australia, two sources briefed on the meeting said.

Widodo’s intervention highlights alarm about General Gatot Nurmantyo, who promotes the notion that Indonesia is besieged by”proxy wars”, in which foreign states seek to undermine the nation by manipulating non-state actors.

Analysts and some of Widodo’s aides are also concerned that Nurmantyo is laying the groundwork for an expansion of the military’s role in civilian affairs in the world’s third-largest democracy and may have political ambitions himself.

Widodo, the first president from outside the military and political establishment, needed to move quickly to demonstrate his authority as the country’s commander-in-chief, one senior government official said. “With Gatot, the feeling is like he’s a little out of control,” he said.

Nurmantyo declared a rupture in military ties after an Indonesian officer found “offensive” teaching material while on a language training course in Australia late last year.

The material suggested that Indonesia’s Papua province should be independent and mocked the nation’s state ideology, Pancasila, according to Nurmantyo.

CAUGHT OFF GUARD

One of the officials told Reuters Widodo and others in the government were caught off guard when local media reported Nurmantyo’s announcement of the suspension in military ties with Australia.

While the general was not formally reprimanded, the official said, Widodo served him a warning during a meeting at a presidential palace in Bogor, outside Jakarta.

The meeting was confirmed by another senior government aide, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

Nurmantyo declined requests to be interviewed and a military spokesman declined to comment on the meeting.

The senior government official said: “We suspect that Gatot is exploiting this incident for his own political agenda, his own political ambition.”

“He has been making many public appearances and speeches lately,” he said. “Frankly, we think many of them about proxy wars and the threat to Indonesia are absolutely ridiculous.”

In one speech, Nurmantyo predicted that a food shortage in China could trigger a flood of boat-borne refugees.

He told listeners he would slaughter 10 cows and dump them into the sea to attract sharks that would devour the Chinese.

One of the officials who disclosed Widodo’s meeting with Nurmantyo said the military chief’s job was safe, downplaying speculation that the general would be relieved of his duties.

“For now, we are confident that he will not betray the president or the civilian government,” he said.

FOREIGN INFILTRATION

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported last week that Nurmantyo told an audience in Indonesia recently he believed the Australian military was attempting to recruit Indonesian soldiers sent to the country for training.

Australian Defence Minister Marise Payne rejected the allegation.

The comments were just one example of the conspiracy theories Nurmantyo peddles as part of his ‘proxy war’ narrative.

In a booklet released in 2015, he wrote that foreign powers were seeking to infiltrate Indonesia’s media, education system, Islamic organisations, corporations and political parties to weaken the nation, and seize control of its security apparatus and strategic industries.

Foreign powers are also trying to weaken Indonesia’s youth by trafficking drugs and inculcating a permissive culture, he wrote.

According to Al Araf, director of the human rights advocacy group Imparsial, Nurmantyo’s objectives are twofold: to promote his own political ambitions and to garner support for an expanded role for the military.

As the proxy war narrative identifies foreign powers behind a host of Indonesia’s challenges, from terrorism and drugs to even homosexuality, the implicit solution is that only the military that can solve them, said Araf.

“These are all problems due to proxy war so the military must become involved in all these problems,” he added.

The military has a history of deep involvement in civilian affairs dating back to independence from the Dutch in 1945.

It once enjoyed power over civil and political affairs to promote nationalism and development, but this was largely jettisoned after strongman Suharto fell from power in 1998.

In recent years, including under Widodo’s government, soldiers have been creeping back into non-military matters.

In the agriculture sector, where about 40 per cent of the labour force is employed, the military is now responsible for distributing fertiliser and ensuring production targets are met.

Military personnel help with harvests and build rural infrastructure.

ISLAMIC GROUPS

Some critics say Nuyrmantyo has cultivated links with hardline Muslims at a time of mass protests led by conservative Islamic groups.

Last July, he addressed the Wahdah Islamiyah organisation, a prime mover behind huge rallies in Jakarta in November and December that alarmed Widodo’s administration.

The rallies were organised to protest allegedly blasphemous comments by Basuki “Ahok” Purnama, Jakarta’s ethnic Chinese and Christian governor who is a close ally of Widodo.

Habib Rizieq Shihab, the firebrand leader of the Islamic Defenders Front and the public figure most closely identified with the anti-Ahok rallies, has frequently praised Nurmantyo and the Indonesian military, while lambasting the police force.

Rizieq, like the military chief, warns of a looming influx of millions of Chinese nationals.

The notion of an “invasion” of illegal Chinese workers has also been at the heart of a recent surge in false anti-China stories shared on social media in Indonesia.

It has so concerned President Widodo that he has called on the government to launch a “massive campaign” online to counter fake news.

BANGKOK – Thai officials convicted in corruption cases involving more than 1 billion baht ($28 million) could face the death penalty under a proposal approved on Monday by the military-appointed National Reform Steering Committee.

Analysts say such a stern punishment for all forms of graft was a further way for the ruling junta to control its opponents, including allies of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup.

Of the 162 steering committee members present on Monday, 155 voted in favour of the measure.

Read Also: Yingluck to sell rice in person for second time

It also stipulates that officials who are found guilty of corruption worth less than 1 billion baht could face up to five years in prison.

“The meeting agrees with this measure,” a member of the committee said in a televised session.

“We will take recommendations from legislators before forwarding them.”

The measure must now be submitted to Cabinet, parliament and then to Thailand’s constitution committee for deliberation before it is adopted.

Legislators say the process could take some time.

The junta took power in a 2014 coup after months of protests that led to the ouster of civilian prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin’s younger sister.

Since then, it has sought to burnish its graft-busting reputation by cracking down on shady patronage networks.

However, it has been reluctant to touch the monarchy, military and religion, Thailand’s most powerful institutions.

Read Also: Yingluck may be unable to pay 35 billion Baht in civil liability

The junta has instead focused on silencing its opponents, including supporters of Yingluck and her brother, by imposing restrictions on public gatherings and by jailing several opposition members.

Thaksin and his allies have commanded the ballot boxes since 2001, helping to elect a series of populist governments that chafed against institutions aligned with the royalist elite, including the military and Bangkok-based middle classes.

Yingluck is on trial on corruption charges stemming from a rice subsidy scheme that critics say incurred billions of dollars in losses.

She denies wrongdoing but faces up to a decade in jail if found guilty.

The new measure would not be likely to affect her.

Read Also: Former Thai PM Yingluck can appeal $1.39 billion fine over rice scheme: Govt

“There should be no impact on Yingluck. This is more a measure to pre-empt future graft and is intended as a warning shot more than anything,” Kan Yuenyong, from the Siam Intelligence Unit think tank, told Reuters.

“It is also another measure to help keep Thaksin’s faction in check,” he said.

Previous legislation provided capital punishment for officials convicted of bribery, although no official has ever been executed for the crime.

MANILA – Masses of Catholic devotees in the Philippine capital braved sizzling weather and terrorist fears on Monday in a frenzied bid to touch a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ that is believed to have miraculous powers.

The annual parade, which police said attracted more than one million people, is one of the world’s biggest displays of Catholic devotion and showcases the Philippines’ status as the Church’s bastion in Asia.

Many Filipinos believe touching or getting close to the life-sized statue, which was brought to the Philippines in the early 1600s when the nation was a Spanish colony, can lead to the healing of otherwise incurable ailments and other good fortune.

“If you seek a favour it will be granted as long as you pray hard,” Lolit Gonzales, 45, told AFP as she sat on the sidewalk after taking her turn pulling on a thick length of rope that moved the statue’s carriage forward.

The Manila manicurist attributed the healing two years ago of a painful right knee, which her doctor had told her required surgery and medicines that she could not afford, to taking part in the procession at that time.

Gonzales said she had returned on Monday to ensure her knee ailment did not recur, since she had no health insurance and was the only breadwinner in her family.

The pilgrims walked Manila’s concrete streets as the temperature climbed above 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) without footwear as a sign of penance and to imitate a barefoot Jesus carrying the cross before he was crucified.

The statue is called the Black Nazarene because of its charred colour, believed to have occurred when it survived a fire aboard a ship when being brought to the Philippines from Mexico.

Replica crosses and other religious icons and images followed the cross carriage six abreast, borne on the back of trucks, atop pedicabs and manually drawn carriages in an extremely slow procession that was expected to last into the night.

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Photo Gallery

Masses of Catholic devotees in a frenzied bid to touch Black Nazarene

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Reuters

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One small truck carried nuns in white robes sprinkling holy water on the sweaty pilgrims and reciting the Holy Rosary prayer in Spanish.

Such extreme forms of worship are a hallmark of the Philippines which is 80 per cent Roman Catholic, a legacy of four centuries of Spanish colonialism that ended in 1898.

President Rodrigo Duterte often gives conflicting signals about his religious convictions and criticises the Church’s leaders, but he offered encouragement on Monday to those involved in the procession.

“Prayers are likely answered because we do not give up or get tired from asking God for the fulfilment of our heart’s desires,” Duterte said.

“Such is the phenomenal expression of faith of the millions of devotees in the form of gratitude, petition, and sacrifice shown in the image of the Black Nazarene every feast day on the 9th of January every year.”

This year’s event was held under the threat of Islamic militant attacks, with authorities reporting more than 5,700 police had been deployed to provide security.

National police chief Ronald dela Rosa had said repeatedly in recent days that extremists who have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group may try to stage an attack.

The Philippines has a Muslim minority that is mainly based in the south of the country and has long resented the Catholic domination of their ancestral homelands.

A separatist rebellion in the south has claimed more than 120,000 lives since the 1970s.

The major rebel organisations are now involved in peace talks with the government and no longer waging armed conflict.

But small hardline groups still carry out attacks, particularly against Catholics.

The most recent was a bomb blast at a crowded market in Duterte’s hometown of Davao in September last year that killed 15 people.

Tokyo – Draped in dazzling kimonos, thousands of expensively made-up young Japanese women marked their entry into adulthood on Monday – with many planning a night on the booze to celebrate.

Formal “Coming of Age” ceremonies, which began as a rite of ancient samurai families, were held nationwide for Japan’s 20-year-olds, reminding them of their responsibilities after becoming old enough to legally drink and smoke.

As they fidgeted with mobile phones and stifled yawns during the speeches, the contrast in financial outlay between the sexes was obvious, with most males opting for the kind of plain business suit they will wear as future “salarymen”.

“I’m happy I can finally drink alcohol and go clubbing,” college student Rumiko Matsumoto told AFP while getting a $100 manicure in Tokyo’s trendy Shibuya district ahead of the ceremony.

“When my nails are dry, I have to get my eyelash extensions done, do my hair and get fitted for my kimono.

“I’m very nervous,” she added. “It’s a special day, the first step towards being an adult.

“My parents told me I have to take responsibility for my own actions now. But first I want to celebrate by going drinking.”

As more than four thousand gathered at Tokyo’s Toshima-en amusement park on Monday, the fog of hairspray used to fix exquisitely coiffured perms hung in the cold air as young women queued for a rollercoaster ride.

Some women make appointments a year in advance to have their hair and make-up done and beauty salons often stay open all night to meet the rush for styling.

Many pay over $10,000 for their glittery kimonos, with beauty treatments such as elaborate nail decorations often costing hundreds of dollars more.

“I did think ‘yikes, I’m an adult’ when I turned 20,” said sales assistant Reiko Nakamura as a beautician fussed over her synthetic lashes.

“I have to think about my future so it’s a little scary,” she added, admiring her dagger-sharp Hello Kitty nails. “For now I just want to enjoy a night out drinking with friends I haven’t seen since primary school.”

Celebrated on the second Monday of the year from snow-swept northern Japan to the subtropical south, Coming of Age Day includes those who turned 20 over the previous year or will do so before March 31 this year.

The age a young person entered adulthood was set at 20 for both genders in 1876.

Crowds of kimono-clad ladies and suited young men offered prayers at Tokyo’s Meiji Shrine over the holiday weekend, while thousands more flocked to Tokyo Disneyland and posed for photos with Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

In Japan’s disaster-hit northwest, however, ceremonies were tinged with sadness as young people remembered classmates who perished in the 2011 tsunami.

There were an estimated 1.21 million new adults as of January 1 – a decrease of some 50,000 from last year and half the 1970 peak of 2.46 million, according to government figures, mirroring the country’s shrinking population.

Japan’s annual birth rate recently dipped below one million for the first time in over 100 years, reflecting its rapidly ageing society.

But a population crisis was the last thing on Riki Hayashi’s mind after a ceremony in Tokyo.

“The speeches went on for ages,” he said. “We will all be getting drunk tonight.”