Indonesia readies warships for haze evacuation
Indonesia has put warships on standby to evacuate people affected by acrid haze from forest fires which has killed at least 10 and caused respiratory illnesses in half a million, officials said Saturday.
For nearly two months, thousands of fires caused by slash-andburn farming in Indonesia have choked vast expanses of Southeast Asia, forcing schools to close and scores of flights and some interna- tional events to be cancelled.
Indonesian disaster mitigation agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the fires had killed 10 people, some fighting the blazes while others died of respiratory illnesses or medical conditions exacerbated by the pollution.
“The impact of the forest fires has caused 10 people in Sumatra and Kalimantan to die, directly and indirectly,” Nugroho said.
The figure did not include MALDIVES ARRESTS VICE PRESIDENT OVER PLOT TO ASSASSINATE PRESIDENT
Maldivian authorities on Saturday arrested the nation’s Vice President Ahmed Adeeb over a plot to assassinate President Abdulla Yameen, who escaped death after his boat was hit by a bomb, the home minister said. “VP Adheeb under arrest and held in Dhoonidhoo Detention [prison island],” Umar Naseer said on Twitter, using a different spelling of the vice president’s name. “Charges: high treason.” Yameen had appointed his deputy Adeeb, 33, three months ago after impeaching his original running mate Mohamed Jameel, also on charges of treason.
CHINA’S XI LEAVES UK WITH EU CALL, MAN CITY TRIP
Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded his visit to Britain on Friday (Saturday in Manila) with a call for Britain to remain in the European Union and a trip to see the English Premier League leaders Manchester City. After three days of banquets, processions and trade talks, Xi posed for a “selfie” picture with Sergio Aguero, City’s Argentinian star striker, and British Prime Minister David Cameron at the seven hikers killed in a wildfire on Java last week.
The agency estimated at least half a million people have suffered from respiratory illness since the fires started in July and 43 million people have been affected by the widespread fires and haze in the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan.
Nugroho said the figure was likely just the tip of the iceberg because many people did not go to health facilities for treatment.
The government has decided to send ships to haze affected provinces to evacuate victims, especially children and women, if necessary, with two warships deployed to Kalimantan on Friday.
“For now the ships will be standing by. We will begin evacuation when there is an instruction from the government,” navy spokesman Muhammad Zainuddin told Agence France-Presse. football club. The four-day trip focused on strengthening relations between London and Beijing, particularly trade ties, and Cameron’s office announced deals worth almost £40 billion ($61.6 billion, 54.4 billion euros). During his official talks with Cameron on Thursday, the Chinese foreign ministry reported Xi as saying he hoped Britain would remain in the European Union—a hot-button political topic for the British leader.
S. KOREANS CROSS INTO NORTH FOR SECOND FAMILY REUNION
Some 250 mostly elderly South Koreans crossed into North Korea on Saturday for a second round of emotional meetings with relatives they have either never met or last saw more than six decades ago. The cross-border trip came two days after hundreds of other families from both sides wrapped up a three-day reunion on Thursday in the North Korean resort of Mount Kumgang. The second group of families bringing gift packages, including clothes, watches, medicine, food and—in most cases—around $1,500 in cash are to meet relatives from Saturday to Monday. The family reunion was only the second in the past five years—the result of an agreement the two Koreas reached in August to ease tensions that had pushed them to the brink of armed conflict. But interaction was tightly controlled—limited to six, two-hour sessions, including meetings in a communal hall and private one-on-one time without TV cameras.