Business groups fear cost could damage tourism sector still recovering from effects of pandemic
Indonesia is considering imposing a tax for tourists after a series of incidents in which badly behaved foreigners have violated laws or customs, according to local media.
The tourism and creative economy minister, Sandiaga Uno, told reporters this week that the possibility of a tourism tax was “currently being studied”.
Continue reading...Founded by two translators – one American, one British – the Salt initiative will provide mentorships, funding and a south Asia-focused literary translation school
A new project to help bring the “extraordinarily rich” literature of south Asia to English-speaking countries will launch this summer, it has been announced.
The cross-continental South Asian Literature in Translation (Salt) project has been set up by the University of Chicago, in partnership with the American Literary Translators Association, English PEN, Words Without Borders and the British Council. The multi-year project will try to “strengthen each part of the publishing chain across the English-speaking world”, the University of Chicago has said.
Continue reading...Sixteenth tropical cyclone to affect the Philippines this season caused deadly floods and landslides
Tropical Storm Nalgae swept through the Philippines on Saturday with sustained winds of 60mph.
Heavy rain caused the most damage, with significant flooding and landslides. Dozens of people have died and 170,000 sought shelter in evacuation centres.
Continue reading...Ten people confirmed dead with three missing; Typhoon Nanmadol forces millions to flee homes in Japan
European countries around the Adriatic Sea were experiencing extreme flooding towards the end of last week.
The Italian region of Marche was particularly badly affected after a thunderstorm on Thursday afternoon strengthened into the night. Some areas faced more than 400mm of rain, with much of the deluge falling in a couple of hours.
Continue reading...Strongest tropical storm of the year also forecast to hit China’s mainland this weekend after winds reach 160mph
Destruction is imminent across southern Japan and South Korea as super typhoon Hinnamnor barrels northwards through the East China Sea this weekend.
The typhoon is so far the strongest tropical storm of the 2022 hurricane season and developed gradually this week out in the Pacific, edging towards the Philippines and Taiwan. By Thursday, maximum sustained winds had reached 160mph, leading to classification as a category 5 tropical cyclone, or a super typhoon.
Continue reading...Warnings of floods and mudslides on Honshu island south-west of Tokyo as storm heads towards the capital
Tropical storm Meari unleashed heavy rains on Japan’s main Honshu island as it headed northward towards the capital, Tokyo, according to Japanese weather officials.
The national meteorological agency said Meari made landfall in Shizuoka prefecture south-west of Tokyo on Saturday afternoon, bringing sudden heavy rains and blasting winds to a widespread area and prompting warnings about mudslides and flooding.
Continue reading...The once-banned drug is now on sale at market stalls, beach clubs and even hotel receptions. But the laws in this ‘pot paradise’ are blurry
A distinctive sweet smell wafts through Fisherman’s Village night market on the Thai island of Koh Samui, drifting up between the sticky mango rice stalls and bucket cocktail vans. The Samui Grower cannabis stall is doing swift business tonight. A table is laid with glass jars, each displaying a different flowering green bud, with labels saying things like ‘‘Road Dawg’ hybrid THC25% 850TBH/gram”.
Elsewhere on the island, at Chi beach club, tourists lie on couches puffing ready-rolled joints and munching pizzas topped with green cannabis leaves. On Instagram, the Green Shop Samui offers a marijuana menu of fantastically named buds: Truffle Cream, Banana Kush and Sour Diesel, alongside hemp cookies and cannabis herbal soap.
Continue reading...Further heavy rainfall forecast after deadly lightning strikes and flooding last week
The monsoon season in India and Pakistan is well under way, with further heavy rain events expected in parts of south-west India over the next week or so. The states of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala in particular could experience rainfall totals above 200mm widely over the next couple of days.
Towards the weekend, this risk could transfer further north and east across India, with 200mm potentially affecting central states. This follows a week when dozens were killed by lightning strikes in India, while hundreds died in severe flooding in neighbouring Pakistan.
Continue reading...Temperatures of over 40C cause red alert in the city and test records as heatwave ravages parts of Europe
China’s most populous city, Shanghai, has issued its highest alert for extreme heat for the third time this summer as sweltering temperatures repeatedly tested records this week.
The commercial and industrial hub of 25 million people declared a red alert on Thursday, warning of expected temperatures of at least 40C (104F) in the next 24 hours. Temperatures soared as high as 40.6 C in the afternoon but fell short of Wednesday’s 40.9 C, which matched a 2017 record.
Continue reading...Rising water levels on the Imjin River caused by suspected release prompts holidaymakers and residents to leave
North Korea appears to have released water from a dam near its border with South Korea, prompting vacationers in the neighbouring country to evacuate over rising water levels on the Imjin River.
The water level at a bridge across the river in the South’s border county of Yeoncheon surpassed 1 metre on Monday afternoon, requiring visitors on the riverbank to evacuate.
Continue reading...Trapped warm air and high pressure result in country recording temperature of 40C for first time in the month of June
There were scorching conditions across Japan over the weekend, with the 40C threshold breached for the first time in the month of June. A temperature of 40.2°C was recorded on Saturday in Isesaki, Gunma Prefecture, north-east of Tokyo,which beat the previous June record of 39.8°C set in 2011. Several heatstroke alerts were in place across the region with people rushed to hospital for heat-related illnesses, with many older and young people succumbing to heat exhaustion.
High pressure to the east of Japan over the Pacific induced a south to south-westerly airflow that brought warm air up from the equatorial region, which fuelled the high temperatures. High pressure over a number of days contributed to creating a “heat dome”, trapping the warmer air and helping temperatures rise day on day.
Continue reading...Focus now on retrieving bodies, says mayor, after strongest storm to hit archipelago this year devastates communities
The death toll from landslides and floods in the Philippines rose to 123 on Wednesday with scores missing and feared dead, officials said, as rescuers dug up more bodies with bare hands and backhoes in crushed villages.
Most of the deaths from tropical storm Megi – the strongest to hit the archipelago this year – were in the central province of Leyte, where a series of landslides devastated communities.
Continue reading...Death toll rises as storms continue to rip through communities, destroying homes and livelihoods
As heavy rains and floods dominate headlines around the world, displaced people and those living in conflict zones are among the worst affected.
Wind and heavy rain from monsoons and typhoons has bombarded much of Asia. There have also been downpours and flash floods in parts of Latin America and Africa.
Continue reading...They may be vine-smothered ruins today, but the lost cities of the ancient tropics still have a lot to teach us about how to live alongside nature
Visions of “lost cities” in the jungle have consumed western imaginations since Europeans first visited the tropics of Asia, Africa and the Americas. From the Lost City of Z to El Dorado, a thirst for finding ancient civilisations and their treasures in perilous tropical forest settings has driven innumerable ill-fated expeditions. This obsession has seeped into western societies’ popular ideas of tropical forest cities, with overgrown ruins acting as the backdrop for fear, discovery and life-threatening challenges in countless films, novels and video games.
Throughout these depictions runs the idea that all ancient cities and states in tropical forests were doomed to fail. That the most resilient occupants of tropical forests are small villages of poison dart-blowing hunter-gatherers. And that vicious vines and towering trees – or, in the case of The Jungle Book, a boisterous army of monkeys – will inevitably claw any significant human achievement back into the suffocating green whence it came. This idea has been boosted by books and films that focus on the collapse of particularly enigmatic societies such as the Classic Maya. The decaying stone walls, the empty grand structures and the deserted streets of these tropical urban leftovers act as a tragic warning that our own way of life is not as secure as we would like to assume.
Continue reading...Jessica Elgot and John Crace look at why the latest coronavirus travel restrictions might not work the way the government expects. Plus, Helen Davidson and Jon Henley on how the world sees the UK’s Covid response
In response to the myriad of new Covid-19 variants entering the UK, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced in the Commons on Tuesday that travellers arriving from coronavirus hotspots who refuse to adhere to the new restrictions could face £10,000 fines and jail sentences of up to 10 years. The move might seem extreme, but given how long we have known about variants cropping up since the new year, many are asking, is it too little too late?
The housing minister, Robert Jenrick, has announced billions of pounds in extra support to address the cladding crisis exposed after the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017. Will it be enough to help hundreds of thousands of people feel safe again in their own homes?
Continue reading...Monisha Rajesh had a complex relationship with her parents’ homeland, until she saw all of Indian life played out on the country’s railway
Six-people deep, and growing by the second, the crowd tensed. A single knuckle pressed into my back and betel-nut breath filled my nostrils as a steady beat rose above the din. Against the peach pink of Mumbai’s evening skies, the commuter service curled into view, passengers hanging from the sides like moving livery. Braking with a wail and grind of metal, the train slowed into the station and I braced against the surge of bodies from behind. Like relay runners, they began to move before the train had stopped, reaching over my head at the same time as a torrent of polyester shirts and satchels thundered down from the open doorways.
A slice of papaya in one hand my bag gripped with the other, I battled through elbows, meaty shoulders and thick plaits slicked with coconut oil. In the crush the papaya was knocked to the ground and my sandal came off, but I made it on board and fell sideways into a seat as the train jerked away from the platform. Wiping someone else’s sweat from my arm, I watched fellow travellers scrabble for handholds, adjust saris and pull out phones before relaxing into the ride with a mix of relief and pride. I’d survived my first experience on the infamous Mumbai “locals”.
Continue reading...Typhoon Vamco has killed at least seven people and unleashed some of the worst flooding in years in the Philippines’ capital, Manila
Continue reading...In 1988 Abramović and Ulay trekked from opposite ends of the wall to meet in the middle, but this act of love and performance art was doomed from the start
From the moment in 1976 that Serbian and German performance artists Marina Abramović and Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen, who died last month aged 76) clapped eyes on each other they were inseparable. Ulay found Abramović witchy and otherworldly; she found him wild and exciting. Even their initial encounter was propitious: they met in Amsterdam on their shared birthday of 30 November.
The pair began to perform together, describing themselves as a “two-headed body”. For years they lived a nomadic lifestyle, travelling across Europe in a corrugated iron van and performing in villages and towns. Their artistic collaborations matched their personalities: they focused on performances that put them in precarious and physically demanding situations, to see how they and their audience would respond. In one, called Relation in Time, they remained tied together by their hair for 17 hours. They explored conflict, taking their ideas to extremes: running full pelt into each other, naked, and slapping each other’s faces until they could take no more.
Continue reading...New service launches ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, with trains making the 108-mile trip from the capital to ski slopes in only 45 minutes
A new driverless bullet train connecting the Chinese cities of Beijing and Zhangjiakou is capable of reaching a top speed of up to 217mph (350km/h), making it the world’s fastest autonomous train in operation.
The new service, launched in the build-up to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic games, will reduce travel time between the capital and Zhangjiakou, which will stage most of the skiing events, from three hours to less than one. Some trains will complete the 108-mile routein 45 minutes. The original Beijing-Zhangjiakou line opened in 1909, when the same journey took around eight hours.
Continue reading...We should pause to remember just how extraordinary this year has been, and reflect on what it might mean for our future
2019 may go down in history as Year Zero of the climate apocalypse. The tsunami of extreme events has been so relentless that each is quickly forgotten in favour of its successor.
So before the year ends we should pause, remember just how extraordinary it was, and reflect on what this might mean for our future.
Continue reading...