Burma’s pro-democracy opposition says it is “extremely unacceptable” for the ruling military junta to go ahead with Saturday’s constitutional referendum after a cyclone killed at least 22,500 people in the country.

 

The National League for Democracy said that the regime has yet to provide meaningful assistance to hundreds of thousands of storm victims. More than 41,000 people remain missing after Cyclone Nagris flattened Burma’s central region at the weekend.

 

China President Hu Jintao arrived in Japan this week for the first visit by a Chinese head of state in 10 years, as Asia’s two largest economies try to mend fences after decades of friction.

 

Just three years after relations hit rock bottom, Hu has said his trip would herald a “warm spring” with Japan, which has become a top commercial partner despite the lingering resentments of many Chinese for its past aggression.

 

 

The world’s biggest rice importer failed to attract a viable bid during a rice auction this week, plunging Asia’s rice market into further uncertainty.

 

Looking to import 675,000 metric tonnes of the staple during the current world food crisis, the Philippine National Food Authority recieved only one bid, from a Vietnamese company that could not provide a bank guarantee to complete the deal.

 

TAIPEI, Taiwan
Taiwan’s vice premier and its foreign minister resigned this week to shoulder responsibility for the island’s worst diplomatic scandal involving the alleged embezzlement of $30-million. Vice Premier Chiou I-jen said he was standing down while the investigation took place, saying he hoped it would prove his innocence.

 

Separately, Foreign Minister James Huang also tendered his resignation. The government cash was earmarked for Papua New Guinea in a bid to secure its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan over rival China, but authorities allege it was pocketed by businessmen instead.

 

Thunderous applause and cheers greeted the Olympic torch as it began the first leg of its marathon relay through mainland China after a protest-marred overseas journey.

 

Some of the thousands who turned out climbed up trees to get a better view of the torch, which has been paraded through the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau to an overwhelmingly enthusiastic welcome.

 

BEIJING, China
Doctors in China are struggling to contain the spread of an intestinal virus that has infected more than 3,300 children, killing 21 of them so far.The latest death occurred in the city of Fuyang in Anhui province, the epicentre of the epidemic with 2,946 children infected there.The number of children in infected with enterovirus 71, known as EV71, is rising by 500 every three days, according to health officials.

 

OYADAO, Cambodia
Locals are questioning whether a mysterious woman who sits for hours at a time, silently staring at the floor or at the villagers thronging to see her, is in fact a daughter who disappeared 19 years ago only to remerged from the thick jungles of northeastern Cambodia, or a stranger who is mentally ill. A local family is adamant she is Rochom P’ngieng, who they say vanished as a child while guarding water buffalo only to reappear last week. 

 

The first debate in Malaysia’s new parliament descended into noisy name-calling this week as a newly emboldened opposition took on Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s governing coalition, which suffered its worst ever election results last month.

 

“Monkey” and “Bigfoot” were just two of the epithets used in a rowdy session during which lawmakers shouted and gesticulated in heated exchanges across the floor of the chamber captured on state television.

 

SIEM REAP, Cambodia
A tourist has been remanded in custody after he rented a motorcycle for two days and twice tried to sell it for a plane ticket home to India. Dhu Tai Parsad, 31, had rented the bike for $2 an hour and first tried to sell it for $750 and then $600. Under Cambodian law, Parsad can be detained for six months pre-trial and faces up to five years in prison.