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From The Asian Reporter, V22, #02 (January 16, 2012), page 2.

BEIJING (AP) — A camera at a Chinese nature reserve has spied a wild panda eating meat. Pandas spend most of their days eating bamboo. Staff at the Wanglong Nature Reserve in southwest Sichuan province set up the camera after noticing dead animals with chew marks. It was not known if the panda had killed the animals. The Pingwu County forestry bureau says the panda appears to be healthy and strong. Conservation group WWF says only about one percent of a panda’s diet is meat or plants that aren’t bamboo.

MANILA, The Philippines (AP) — The Philippines is highlighting the ebullient nature of Filipinos in a campaign to draw more visitors to Asia’s tourism laggard. The country says: "It’s more fun in the Philippines." Tourism secretary Ramon Jimenez says: "What differentiates the Philippines from other offerings is the Filipino." The campaign introduced through social media and other outlets aims to draw 4.2 million tourists this year and 10 million by 2016, up from only 3.7 million last year. The Philippines boasts of beautiful beaches and diving, English-speaking people, and cheap shopping, but it lacks infrastructure. Visitors are also deterred by communist and Muslim insurgencies and bombings and kidnappings by al-Qaida-linked extremists in the south. A recent U.S. travel warning cites the risk of terrorist activity.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia is now allowing only females to work in women’s lingerie stores. The 2006 law banning men from working in female apparel and cosmetic stores was put into effect partly due to hardliners in the religious establishment who oppose the whole idea of women working in places where men and women congregate together, such as malls. The labor ministry says more than 28,000 women have already applied for the sales jobs. Saudi Arabia’s most senior cleric, Sheik Abdul-Aziz Al Sheikh, spoke out against the decision in a recent sermon, saying it contradicts Islamic law. He argued that wrongdoing may occur when a woman stands face to face with a man and sells without embarrassment. The country follows an ultraconservative interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — State-controlled media has reported that a Vietnamese journalist who exposed police corruption has been arrested on suspicion of giving a bribe that he then wrote about in his newspaper. The Thanh Nien newspaper said Hoang Khuong was taken into custody in early January. It said Khuong, a reporter for the Tuoi Tre newspaper, posed as a relative of a man whose motorbike had been confiscated for street racing and bribed a police officer $710 to have it returned. Tuoi Tre quoted Khuong as saying he made an error in his attempt to gather evidence for a series of stories about police corruption. He did not say in his article that he provided the bribe. The series triggered public anger about corruption.

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Police have arrested the head teacher at a college in southern Bangladesh after a book considered blasphemous by some Muslims was found in the school’s library, according to an official. Police officer Abdul Malek said S.M. Yunus Ali was arrested for possessing the novel Lajja, or Shame, written by exiled writer Taslima Nasrin. Malek said Ali, head teacher at the K.C. Technical and Business Management College, could face up to three years in jail if he is found guilty of authorizing the book’s inclusion in the library. The Prothom Alo newspaper said Ali denied having the book and said he was the victim of a conspiracy. Police corruption and misuse of police investigations by politicians are widespread in Bangladesh. The novel was banned a year after its publication in 1993 and Nasrin was forced to flee Bangladesh to escape death threats from radical Muslims who considered it blasphemous for advocating secularism. She has been living in India and Europe since.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia’s ailing former king Norodom Sihanouk has changed his mind and asked that he be cremated after he dies. The 89-year-old Sihanouk revised an earlier request for a burial, saying he would now prefer to be cremated. The message was posted on his website. He asked that his ashes be put in an urn, preferably made of gold, and placed in a stupa at the Royal Palace. Former aide Sisowath Thomico said Sihanouk wanted to follow the Cambodian and Buddhist tradition of cremation. Sihanouk has suffered from colon cancer, diabetes, and hypertension. He was a dominant figure in Cambodian politics for six decades, but abdicated in 2004, citing poor health, and was succeeded by a son, Norodom Sihamoni.

MANILA, The Philippines (AP) — Philippine officials say they have seized large shipments of turtle scutes and meat and scales of endangered anteaters in a sign that illegal trade is booming. Alex Marcaida, an environment official, said 58 pounds of Philippine pangolin, or anteater, about to be smuggled to Manila as goat meat was confiscated at the Puerto Princesa city airport in the Philippines. He said 209 pounds of pangolin scales and 200 pounds of scutes from endangered hawksbill and green turtles were seized at the same airport. That shipment, which had a market value of nearly $23,000, was declared as dried fish. Pangolin is a Chinese delicacy. Its scales are used in Chinese traditional medicine.

BEIJING (AP) — A bureau in charge of monitoring China’s frequently smog-choked capital will release more detailed reports, according to state media, following a public outcry over the hazards of fine particle pollution. Beijing’s decision to publish the data appeared aimed at appeasing anger by residents over the pollution and a lack of government transparency. Frustration over the issue has been fuelled by a Twitter feed set up by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing that reports air quality as measured by a monitor on the embassy roof and publishes it online every hour. Those readings include levels of fine particulate matter, or PM2.5 — a type of pollution that Beijing authorities also measure but keep secret from the public. China’s environmental ministry has said it will factor PM2.5 into national air quality standards, but not until 2016. The official Xinhua News Agency said Beijing’s environmental protection bureau will post hourly online readings for PM2.5 before the Lunar New Year, which begins January 23. The city already has six monitoring stations measuring PM2.5 and will add more before the end of the year, Xinhua said. Beijing is frequently cloaked in yellow haze. Buildings a couple of blocks away are barely visible. Still, Beijing’s official air quality index records the pollution as "light" — a reading at odds with what many people experience. Sometimes seen as soot or smoke, PM2.5 is tiny particulate matter — less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter or approximately 1/30th the average width of a human hair — that can result from the burning of fuels in vehicles, power plants, and agriculture. Breathing such fine particles causes respiratory problems and can lead to death.

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