Asia News 6-01-12

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JAPAN:
There were more reminders this week of the sad continuing aftereffects of the Japanese Fukushima nuclear disaster. Tens of thousands of people living in the worst affected areas of the nuclear contamination were evacuated and have not been allowed to move back. One 62 year old man was allowed a brief visit with his wife last Sunday. She later reported him missing and a rescue team found him dead. He had hung himself in a storage space at his former shop. Evacuees are increasingly frustrated and have been given no idea if they will ever be able to return to their homes.

Another reminder of the aftereffects has reached our shores. First there was the debris from the tsunami washing up on west coast shores and now blue fin tuna caught off our shores are showing measurable radiation levels. Levels of radioactive cesium are 10 times higher than previous levels of such caught tuna. Scientists however say that levels are well within the safe limits for human consumption and they point out that such migrating fish have the metabolism to eliminate the radiation over time.

INDIA:

This week India’s Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh met with Myanmar President Thein Sein on a visit to his country and the two announced a plant to complete a “trilateral highway” by 2016. The aim of the new highway is to create a new economic zone that runs from Calcutta to Myanmar and Thailand and eventually all the way to Cambodia and on to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. It would allow easy access for commerce and Tourism throughout the 4 countries. If completed it would link the world’s 2nd fastest growing market, India, with the new Asian Tiger economies of Southeast Asia.
Such schemes have previously been blocked by sanctions against Myanmar’s oppressive regime. Now with expanding personal freedoms in Myanmar and democratic reforms, such obstacles have been removed. The highway would open oil and gas opportunities for India off the coast of Myanmar and it bypasses China, the world’s fastest growing market and chief competitor to India.

MYANMAR:
On Tuesday Aung San Suu Kyi landed in Bangkok for a 6 day visit. It was her first trip outside Myanmar in over 20 years. She was there to speak at the World Economic Forum on East Asia. The famous opposition leader’s trip is just the latest revelation in the continuing freedoms being witnessed in the new Myanmar. She will also give a speech to migrant workers from Myanmar in Thailand and visit a refugee camp near the Thai-Myanmar border. She is one of 34 newly elected members of the Myanmar Parliament from her National League for Democracy party.
In June she is slated to visit Britain where she received her forma education and then on to Norway where she will deliver her acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize that she was awarded in 1991.

NORTH KOREA:

This week North Korean state media reported that the month of May is looking to be the driest May since 1962. The country is facing its worst drought in half a century. They went on to say that the drought is expected to continue into the 1st half of June.
The lack of rain is delaying the planting of corn and has damaged the potato, wheat and barley crops, important food crops for the underdeveloped North. According to the World Food Program over 6 million North Koreans do not have enough to eat. A U.S. plan to send more food to North Korea was part of a February agreement that would also have the North suspend its nuclear program. It was scuttled when the North attempted to launch an intercontinental rocket that most of the West felt was a thinly veiled attempt to test its ballistic missile technology.