World IN BRIEF France urged to protect Chinese BEIJING―China Tuesday urged France to protect the safety and rights of its citizens after police in Paris killed a Chinese national, sparking a violent protest. French police arrested 35 people after a demonstration late Monday by the capital’s Asian community over the killing turned violent. China calls on Paris to “guarantee the safety and legal rights and interests of Chinese citizens in France and to treat the reaction of Chinese people to this incident in a rational way,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular press briefing, adding that the government had filed an official complaint over the events. After learning of the incident, China “immediately ordered its embassy in France to activate an emergency response mechanism [and] made representations with the French side, asking them to get to the bottom of the incident,” she said. “Meanwhile, we hope that our citizens... in France can express their wishes and demands in a lawful and reasonable way.” Paris police said around 150 “members of the Asian community” gathered late Monday outside a police station in the northeast of the capital. Three officers were slightly injured in the running clashes and one police vehicle was damaged by an incendiary device. AFP
Millions unsure of their next meal CAIRO―The devastating conflicts gripping the Middle East and North Africa have left 30 million people unsure of their next meal, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization said. “Food security and nutrition levels in the Near East and North Africa have sharply deteriorated over the last five years,” the agency said in a report released Monday. “The prevalence of severe food insecurity in the adult population... was close to 9.5 percent in 2014-2015, representing approximately 30 million people,” it said. “Countries such as Iraq, Sudan, Syria and Yemen have rates that are among the highest in the world, reflecting the devastating impacts of the ongoing conflicts on their food security and nutrition situation.” FAO Assistant Director General and Regional Representative Abdessalam Ould Ahmed said that conflict was hampering efforts to cope with the severe water shortages affecting agriculture in many countries in the region. “A peaceful and stable environment is an absolute precondition for farmers to respond to the challenges of water scarcity and climate change,” he said. Yemen, which is the Arab world’s poorest nation and has seriously depleted its underground water sources, has seen food security deteriorate dramatically since its civil war escalated two years ago with the intervention of a Saudi-led coalition. AFP
Human breast milk exports banned PHNOM PENH―Cambodia officially banned selling and exporting locally-pumped human breast milk on Tuesday, after reports exposed how women were turning to the controversial trade to boost meager icomes in one of Southeast Asia’s poorest countries. The order comes after Cambodia temporarily halted breast milk exports by the Utah-based Ambrosia Labs, which claims to be the first firm to source the product from overseas and distribute it in the United States. The milk was pumped by poor Cambodian women in the capital Phnom Penh and then shipped to the US, where it was pasteurized and sold for $20 per 5 oz (147 ml) pack. The company’s customers are American mothers who want to supplement their babies’ diets or cannot produce enough milk of their own. On Tuesday, Cambodia’s cabinet ordered the health ministry to “take actions to immediately prevent the purchasing and exporting of breast milk from mothers from Cambodia,” according to a letter seen by AFP. AFP
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2017
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Cyclone slams into Australia A
YR, Australia―A “monster” cyclone smashed into northeast Australia Tuesday, cutting power, damaging buildings and uprooting trees, with coastal towns in lockdown as residents battled lashing rain and howling winds.
‘GIVE ME SOME, PLEASE.’ A goat begs for food as people have a meal and beer at the Beichelstein-Alpe outdoor restaurant near Seeg, southern Germany, on March 27, 2017. AFP
Play tries to understand Donald Trump AMERICAN theater-goers got a small taste Monday of a new play by Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek that tries to understand President Donald Trump and what he says about today’s society. Jelinek, an Austrian, won the world’s top literature prize in 2004 and is known for writing the novel “The Piano Teacher,” which became a movie of the same name in 2001. Entitled “On the Royal Road: The Burgher King,” her new play tries to make sense of Trump’s election as president of the United States. Excerpts were read on Monday night at the Martin E. Segal Theatre at City University of New York. As with other works by Elfriede, the play is dense, written in language in which each word or sentence seem to be key pieces in the task of solving a puzzle. “When I first read the text, it felt like abstract painting,” said actress Masha Dakic, who did the solo reading on
Monday. The play’s main character is Miss Piggy, she of the Muppets. But in this case, she is blind, her eyes streaming blood, as she wonders aloud about Trump. Trump has destroyed the past and hijacked the future so as to make everything all about the present—the world of the tweets of which he’s so fond, Jelinek has said. Director Stefan Dzeparoski said he staged the play in short segments that “behave almost like news bursts, like breaking news,” he told AFP. “Everything has this punching rhythm so you can never have a moment to think. There is no time to think,” he added. Gitta Honegger, who translated the play from German into English, said the election of Trump was a gut punch, something hard to digest and likened it to the rise to power of the Nazis. She said just that like intellectuals in that period, she watches those of today
who were “not thinking that it’s even possible that somebody with a brain like this and behavior like this and emptiness like this can be a president.” Honegger, pressed to say what the play is about, said: “How can you get a hold on Trump?” “You can’t get a hold on stupidity,” Jelinek says in a yet unpublished interview in the US magazine Theater, in which a shortened version of the text of the play will be published. Jelinek did not come to New York for the reading on Monday. She suffers from acute anxiety and does not go out, spending her time at home in Vienna, said Honegger. Honegger said that when she learned Jelinek was writing something about Trump, whom Honeger focused on closely as soon as he was elected, she proposed to the writer translating it into English and performing it in America. The actual premiere is scheduled for October in Hamburg, Germany. AFP
Great Barrier Reef islands popular with foreign tourists were battered by the category four storm that hit the coast of Queensland state with destructive wind gusts of up to 270 kph near its broad core. There were fears the storm’s arrival would coincide with early morning high tides and cause severe flooding, but it slowed before crossing the coastline between the towns of Bowen and Airlie Beach in the early afternoon. The effects of the storm, which was downgraded to a still powerful category three as it moved over land, were felt across a huge swathe of coast that would span the distance between London and Berlin, although not all areas were badly hit. “It felt like we were underneath a freight train for most of the night, strong bass rumbles as the... wind rattled past and made the buildings shake,” Cameron Berkman, who is holidaying on Hayman Island, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Queensland politician Mark Ryan said it was also chaotic at Airlie Beach, the mainland holiday gateway to the Whitsunday islands. “Trees down in Airlie Beach and reports of windows shattering and some roofs starting to cave in,” he tweeted. Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said there was “certainly structural damage”, and at least one person had been badly injured by a collapsing wall. “I think the public and the community of Queensland need to understand that we are going to get lots of reports of damage and sadly I think we will also receive more reports of injuries, if not deaths,” he said. The Bureau of Meteorology, which forecast up to 50 centimetres (20 inches) of rain, urged people to stay calm and not be complacent as the eye of the storm passes. “Do not venture outside if you find yourself in the eye of the cyclone—very destructive winds from a different direction could resume at any time,” it said. “People in the path of the very dangerous cyclone should stay calm and remain in a secure shelter.” Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who called the storm a “monster” that would last for hours, said at least 30,000 homes were without power with communications down in many areas. Conditions have prevented emergency services getting a better picture of damage and they may not be able to do so until first light Wednesday, with the federal government on standby to provide assistance in the aftermath, including with navy helicopters and planes. Residents, who sandbagged and boarded up homes, had been told to prepare for the worst weather to pummel the state since Cyclone Yasi in 2011, which ripped houses from their foundations and devastated crops. Yasi, which struck less populated areas, caused damage estimated at Aus$1.4 billion. Debbie has officially been declared a catastrophe by the Insurance Council of Australia, allowing them to prioritize claims from the disaster. Some 3,500 people were evacuated between the towns of Home Hill and Proserpine, around 100 kilometers south of Townsville, a tourist hot spot and access point to the Great Barrier Reef. AFP
‘Beauty and the Beast’ dazzles for second week LOS ANGELES―Disney’s blockbuster “Beauty and the Beast” dazzled the North American box office for a second straight week, raking in $90.4 million over the weekend, according to industry data released on Monday. The film’s cumulative North American take of $319 million is the best ever for a March release, according to industry experts, helping propel domestic box offices for March past $1 billion, the most ever for the month. The movie, starring Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame as Belle and Dan Stevens from the “Downton Abbey” series as the Beast, has shown drawing power usually more typical of a superhero blockbuster than of PG-rated family fare. But the latest superhero film, Lionsgate’s rebooted “Power Rangers,” had a strong opening weekend with $40.3 million in sales, coming in second in North America and defying critics, who had called it a needless addition to a market saturated by comic book characters. In an excoriating review in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, critic Robbie Collin said the movie’s climax appeared to have been “shot by the Hunchback of Notre Dame and edited by a monkey wearing oven gloves.” Lionsgate may wish to keep
that monkey on staff; the film is already well on its way to recovering the $105 million cost of the film. “Rangers” features Dacre Montgomery, RJ Cyler, Naomi Scott, Becky G and Ludi Lin as high schoolers who use their superpowers to battle the nefarious Rita Repulsa, played by Elizabeth Banks. Coming in third in weekend revenues was Warner Brothers’ “Kong: Skull Island,” with a $14.7 million take in its third week. The film, starring Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman and Brie Larson, tells the story of a group of explorers on a mysterious island that proves to be the frightening domain of the mighty ape. In fourth spot was the Sony film “Life,” with an openingweekend take of $12.5 million. The movie, which has received mostly positive reviews, features Ryan Reynolds, Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson as astronauts on the International Space Station facing a menacing otherworldly life form. In fifth was “Logan,” earning $10.3 million in its fourth week out. The Fox production stars Hugh Jackman—in what is said to be his last appearance as the Wolverine character—helping a young girl, played by Dafne Keen, who has claws of her own. AFP
OPENING NIGHT. Actress Rita Moreno attends the ‘Latin History For Morons’ opening night celebration at The Public Theater on March 27, 2017, in New York City. AFP