Indonesia is planning a hi-tech monitoring network to protect peatland at the centre of last year’s raging fires that cloaked Southeast Asia in toxic haze, a senior official said.

The fires sent smog billowing across the region in September and October, disrupting the daily lives of tens of millions and fuelling anger at Indonesia for its failure to tackle the crisis.

The blazes and resulting haze, caused by illegal slash-and-burn land clearance, are an annual occurrence. But the fires in 2015 were the worst for years as an El Nino weather phenomenon created tinder-dry conditions.

The hardest-hit areas were peatland on Sumatra island and the Indonesian part of Borneo, which become highly flammable after being cleared of vegetation and drained to make way for palm oil and pulpwood plantations.

Jakarta in January set up an agency to oversee the restoration of 2.6 million hectares (6.4 million acres) – roughly the size of Rwanda – of peat in the next five years to try to prevent future fires.

It is part of a broader push to stop a repeat of the devastating blazes. President Joko Widodo has introduced other measures to protect peatland and banned the use of new land for palm oil operations.

Restoration of peat involves damming enormous canals built to drain the peat, replanting vegetation and replacing lost water.

Monitoring devices will be installed in the peat to ensure restoration is being properly carried out, said Peatland Restoration Agency head Nazir Foead.

“We are going to install monitoring tools, sensors, that will send us the data real time through the Internet so companies are fully aware that their restoration action is being monitored,” he told AFP in an interview on Tuesday.

Roughly half the peat earmarked for restoration is on companies’ concession land and they are responsible for carrying out the improvement work, with guidance from the agency.

The agency will restore peat on government- and community-owned land.

The monitoring stations will include an underground sensor and rain gauge to check if peat is retaining water after rainfall, allowing authorities to work out whether drainage canals have been properly closed off.

The sensors will send regular updates to a control centre near Jakarta which is linked to government departments, Foead said. A test monitoring device was installed on Sumatra last month and the agency hopes eventually to have hundreds across the country.

Foead conceded that only “very small steps” had been taken so far in restoring peat, but was optimistic the body would be able to fulfil its task. He said he did not believe 2016 would see a repeat of last year’s fires as authorities were better prepared.

ASUNCION – Taiwan’s government will continue to look for ways to maintain dialogue with China, President Tsai Ing-wen said on Tuesday, after Beijing said it had halted a regular communication mechanism with Taipei.

China, which regards the self-ruled island as a wayward province, is deeply suspicious of Tsai, who took office last month, since Beijing suspects she will push for formal independence.

Tsai, who heads the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, says she wants to maintain the status quo and is committed to ensuring peace.

But China has insisted she recognise a pact called the “1992 consensus” between its Communists and Taiwan’s then-ruling Nationalists, by which both agreed there is only one China, with each having its own interpretation of what that means.

On Saturday, China said because Taiwan’s new government would not recognise that principle, it had stopped the regular communication mechanism between the two sides.

“No matter what party is in government in Taiwan, we always have a single, common objective: to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Tsai told reporters during a visit to Paraguay, Taiwan’s sole diplomatic ally in South America.

“We will continue the dialogue with mainland China, as even though, probably at this moment official negotiation channels have been temporarily interrupted, there still exist other options for communication and dialogue,” she said, speaking through an interpreter.

On Wednesday, Taiwan Premier Lin Chuan said the government’s approach was for positive interactions with China to continue, based on existing foundations.

“There must be willingness on both sides to move forward on the relationship,” Lin told reporters about the suspension issue at a function in southern Taiwan.

But in Beijing, a spokesman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office signalled there would be no compromise, saying the “1992 consensus” had been the basis for improved relations since 2008, when the China-friendly Ma Ying-jeou became president and signed a series of landmark trade and tourism deals with China.

“People cannot help but ask – why does Taiwan want to change the peaceful development of relations across the Taiwan Strait that has been in place since 2008? What is the aim?” An Fengshan asked at a regular news briefing.

Tsai is on her first trip overseas as president, visiting diplomatic allies Panama and Paraguay, with transit stops in the United States each way.

Defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan after a civil war with the Communists in 1949, which has never formally ended. China has also never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.

SHANGHAI – A Chinese appeal court has ruled against US sportswear firm New Balance for trademark infringements and ordered it to pay 5 million yuan (S$1.02 million) in compensation to a Chinese company, an amount far lower than previously ruled.

The court in Guangdong upheld an earlier ruling against the US sports shoe maker’s use of a Chinese language trademark, the official Xinhua news agency reported late on Thursday, but reduced the damages from a previously ruled 98 million yuan.

China has seen a recent spate of disputes over trademarks and intellectual property, with iPhone maker Apple, entertainment firm Walt Disney and carmaker Jaguar Land Rover all being drawn into court cases.

New Balance spokeswoman Amy Dow said the firm was “disappointed” by the ruling and was considering taking the appeal process further.

“This ruling is particularly concerning as it is contrary to the rest of the developed world’s understanding of Intellectual Property,” Dow said in emailed comments on Friday, adding the ruling could set a “poor precedent”.

New BailunLP vs New Balance. (Photo: Internet)

According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), Mr Zhou Lelun had acquired the “Bailun” trademark in 2004, and then applied to register “Xin Bailun” (New Bailun) that same year. He gained approval in 2008.

New Balance authorised a new affiliated company, “Xinbailun” to use its English trademarks in China in 2007 and later used “Xinbailun” as its Chinese names on its online stores in China.

Mr Zhou took New Balance to court in 2013.

The Chinese court has dismissed the US company’s argument, saying that “Xinbailun” was neither the translation nor transliteration of “New Balance”.

See also:

• China says Disney to get special trademark protection
• Michael Jordan loses China trademark suit: Report
• Apple settles iPad trademark case with $76m

20 funny Chinese copycat brands

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Bonuan Gueset, a seaside community of over 23,000, is Dagupan City’s most populous village but ranked third in the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) list of villages in Pangasinan province, northern Philippines with the biggest number of drug pushers and users.

So when incoming President Rodrigo Duterte warned anew that drug addicts would be dealt with severely during his administration, about 500 illegal drug abusers and peddlers came out in Bonuan Gueset and promised authorities that they would stop “at their own free will.”

The scene has been played out in cities and towns in many other provinces and in Metro Manila since Duterte won the presidency last month on a campaign platform of punitive action against drug trafficking and addiction, criminality and government corruption.

On Sunday in Cebu City, Duterte said drug addicts were better off dead if they could no longer be rehabilitated because they would eventually commit crimes to sustain their addiction.

In Quezon City, outgoing Philippine National Police Director General Ricardo Marquez corrected public perceptions that the antinarcotics police operations started to intensify only after Duterte’s poll victory.

From January to mid-June, “we already accounted for more than 18,000 illegal drug personalities and confiscated more than 680,000 grams of ‘shabu’ (methamphetamine hydrochloride),” Marquez said in a speech on Monday during retirement honours for him at the PNP headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City.

President Benigno Aquino III, who appointed Marquez to his post last year, attended the ceremony.

Marquez also said 183 fatalities were tallied in “encounters between police officers and clandestine (drug) laboratory workers, drug pushers and users.”

Ricardo Mejia, chair of Bonuan Gueset, said the drug users and pushers who turned themselves in signed promissory notes which, he pointed out, could incriminate them in a criminal complaint.

He said he would not give authorities the notes which were “just for the purpose of cross-checking in the future when law enforcers furnish me a list again.”

Anti-crime blitz sweeps Philippines as Duterte comes into power

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AFP, Reuters

Mejia said signing the documents would not remove them from the list of illegal drug users and pushers because the village council would keep them under surveillance to make sure they kept their promises.

“Night and day, (drug users and dealers) come to see me. This (Monday) morning, three people came to sign the promissory notes. Even those who were hardheaded have softened after seeing drug-related killings on television,” he said.

“At first, they were afraid to come out in the open because they assumed I would send them to jail. But I told them that as long as they promised to stop, I would give them a chance,” he said.

In his meetings with village residents, Mejia admitted that he had used drugs but was given a chance to reform.”I tell them: ‘I am not ashamed to admit to you that I once committed a mistake, but I have changed since then. I’m telling you this because I believe everyone is capable of changing for the better,'” he said.

He said it would have been easy for him to just report everyone to the authorities and claim a 50,000 pesos (S$1,436) reward because the police and the PDEA regularly gave him a copy of a list of drug abusers and peddlers.

“But I tell them, ‘I didn’t send anyone to jail. But if you get jailed, it’s your fault. If you get killed because you fought those who are arresting you, it’s your fault,'” he said.

Mejia said that among those on the list were his son, brother, nephew and a grandson. “I told them-because they are my family-that if they don’t stop, I would not want them killed by those who are killing drug suspects. So, they have changed,” he said.

Anticipating a promise of a changed life and free rehabilitation, some 300 suspected drug users who were on the watch list of the Eastern Police District (EPD) in Metro Manila have given up over the past two days as lawmen mounted Oplan Sagip Bukas, Oplan Kapa and Oplan Tokhang.

The watch list contains 710 names, Senior Supt. Ariel Arcinas, EPD spokesperson and chief of directorial staff, told the Inquirer. It included 200 from Pasig City, 100 from Mandaluyong City, 23 from Marikina City, and nine from San Juan City.”They are treated as victims here, not as suspects, who can change,” Arcinas said.

Aida Concepcion, acting head of the Pasig Antidrug Abuse Council, said the city government would try to shoulder the rehabilitation of the suspected users. Admission fee for an eight-month programme costs around 4,500 pesos, she said.

Those who surrendered were told to attend spiritual, livelihood, medical and physical health seminars.

Senior Supt. Jose Hidalgo, Pasig police chief, said that if they would not change after undergoing rehabilitation for three months, they would be held liable.

“It is hard to change without intervention. When we heard we will be under the amnesty programme, we thought it was the chance for us to change,” said 61-year-old John (not his real name), a company driver who was into drugs for 20 years.

As the Marikina police under Senior Supt. Vincent Calanoga launched Oplan Tokhang (Operation Knock and Warn), 24 suspected drug users showed up at the police station on Monday and signed sworn statements “regarding their involvement in illegal drugs.” They vowed not to get involved again in any illegal drug activities.

The police took their fingerprints and mug shots.

In Digos City, Davao del Sur province, at least 130 drug pushers and users surrendered to officials of Barangay (village) Tres de Mayo on Monday afternoon. They feared for their lives, said the village chief, Oscar Bucol.

Glen, 17, admitted that he started using drugs a year ago. Mar and his wife Perlas confessed that they had no jobs and were forced to sell drugs. Another pusher named Boyet disclosed that his source was an Army soldier.

Supt. Dario Gunabe, provincial police chief, said charges would not be filed against those who gave up, but they would be placed under surveillance.

They will be given livelihood assistance by the local government, while some will be endorsed for admission to a rehabilitation centre, Digos Mayor Joseph Peñas said.

In Zamboanga City, more than 40 people, 23 of them pushers, surrendered to the police station in Barangay Ayala over the weekend and five more in the villages of Tetuan and Sinunuc.”Three of the 23 are classified as among the top 10 most wanted in Ayala,” said Chief Insp. Helen Galvez, spokesperson of the city police.

Supt. Luisito Magnaye, the city police chief, said among those who surrendered in Tetuan were sons of barangay officials and tanod (watchmen).