Fire at Japanese senior welfare residence kills 11 TOKYO, February 1 (Reuters): Eleven people were killed in a fire at a low-rent residence in northern Japan that mainly housed elderly people on welfare, police said on Thursday. Five people were rescued. The cause of Wednesday night’s fire in the city of Sapporo, on the island of Hokkaido, was still being investigated and victims were still being identified, police said. Public broadcaster NHK coverage of the fire showed flames engulfing the three-storey building surrounded by piles of snow. Aerial footage from Thursday morning showed the blackened, smokey remains of the building. Three of the survivors were being treated at hospital but their condition was not life-threatening, police said. The facility was run by a Sapporo organisation that helps people on welfare by providing food and assistance finding jobs, NHK said. Renters paid 36,000 yen ($330) a month, it said. Japan is a rapidly ageing society. Over 35 million Japanese people were 65 or older last year, or 27.8 percent of the total population, up from 21.5 percent a decade ago, government data showed. In March 2010, seven people at a Sapporo nursing home for elderly people with dementia were killed in a fire. Last month, 37 people died in fire at a hospital without sprinkler system in South Korea injuring more than 150 people. Myanmar killings have hallmarks of genocide: UN official Seoul, February 1 (IANS): The UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar on Thursday repeated allegations that the killings of Rohingyas by the Myanmar Army bear “the hallmarks of a genocide”. At a press briefing in Seoul where she is based, Yanghee Lee described her visit to the refugee camps in Bangladesh and other areas in the region to discuss the crisis, Efe news reported. At least 688,000 Rohingyas have fled Rakhine state to neighbouring Bangladesh since the Myanmar military launched an offensive in response to rebel attacks on government outposts on August 25 last year. Lee said that Myanmar’s actions were “amounting to crimes against humanity.” “These are part of the hallmarks of a genocide,” she said. The Myanmar Army has been accused of committing human rights abuses by NGOs and refugees, while the UN said there were signs of “ethnic cleansing”. Thailand bans smoking, littering at popular tourist beaches BANGKOK, February 1 (Reuters): Thailand banned smoking and littering at 24 beachside locations that are popular with tourists over environmental concerns on Thursday, the ministry of natural resources and environment said. The Southeast Asian country has been a tourist magnet for decades, from its backpacker heyday in the early 1990s to its current popularity with tourists from mainland China. It expects to welcome a record 37.55 million tourists in 2018. Environmental rights groups have urged successive governments to protect Thailand’s palm-fringed beaches, which are frequently voted among the world’s most beautiful, from unregulated development and littering, among other things. A law that came into force on Thursday is aimed at tackling this problem, said Bannaruk Sermthong, a director at the Office of Marine and Coastal Resources Management. “Starting today, smoking and cigarette-butt littering are prohibited on beach areas,” Bannaruk told Reuters. “Anyone who wants to smoke must do so in designated smoking areas, not on the beaches.” The law protects 24 beaches in 15 provinces located along the Andaman coast and the Gulf of Thailand. Anyone who violates the law will be taken to a criminal court and could face up to one year in jail, or a fine of up to 100,000 baht ($3,190), or both. Thailand has 357 beaches nationwide. Indonesia’s conservative Aceh orders headscarves for Muslim flight attendants Banda Aceh, February 1 (Reuters): Authorities in the Indonesian province of Aceh have ordered Muslim flight attendants to wear headscarves when flying into the ultra-conservative Islamic region, officials confirmed on Wednesday. Aceh is the only province in the predominantly Muslim country to implement Islamic law. Muslims elsewhere practice a moderate form of the religion, leaving women free to choose whether to cover their heads. The regional government, allowed greater autonomy under a 2001 peace deal with the central government, sent a letter to national carrier Garuda Indonesia and budget carriers, such as Malaysia’s AirAsia and Firefly. “All female stewardesses must wear a ‘jilbab’ (headscarf) Muslim fashion in accordance with the rules of sharia,” the authorities said in the letter. The international airport in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, services dozens of domestic flights every week, and international routes to neighbouring Malaysia and Saudi Arabia. Non-Muslim flights attendants were not required to wear headscarves, but Muslim staff would be asked to wear them on flights in and out of Aceh, said Mawardi Ali, chief of the Aceh Besar region where the airport is located. Garuda Indonesia and its budget arm, Citilink, “support the suggestions” and will comply, said airline spokesman Ikhsan Rosan. AirAsia said in statement it was committed to ensuring that it met the rule and that for the time being all its flights to and from Aceh would be operated by male cabin crew. Firefly in Malaysia declined to comment, citing “the sensitivity of the matter”.
