“His Royal Highness Prince Henrik died Tuesday, February 13 at 23:18 at Fredensborg Castle”, a royal residence about 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Copenhagen, surrounded by his wife and their two sons, the palace statement said.

The palace had warned Tuesday that the prince, who had been in hospital since January 28 for a lung infection, had returned home “to spend his last days”.

Born Henri Marie Jean Andre de Laborde de Monpezat on June 11, 1934 in Talence, near Bordeaux, the count married Margrethe, heir to the Danish throne, in June 1967.

Margrethe was crowned in January 1972 and Henrik made no secret of his disappointment that his royal title was never changed to king, which did little to endear him to the Danish people.

He was diagnosed with dementia in September 2017.

The prince retired from public service in 2016, and the following year he revealed that he did not want to be buried next to his wife because he was never made her equal.

Royal couples are traditionally buried together in Roskilde Cathedral, west of Copenhagen.

The palace statement did not say where the prince would be buried.

The refugees are sheltering in makeshift camps in Bangladesh despite an agreement reached between Myanmar and Bangladesh allowing for their return to their homes in Rakhine state.

“Let me be clear: conditions are not yet conducive to the voluntary repatriation of Rohingya refugees,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told a Security Council meeting, speaking by videoconference from Geneva.

“The causes of their flight have not been addressed, and we have yet to see substantive progress on addressing the exclusion and denial of rights that has deepened over the last decades, rooted in their lack of citizenship.”

Myanmar regards the Rohingya as immigrants from Bangladesh and denies them citizenship, even though they have been there for generations.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley urged the council to ensure Myanmar’s military is held accountable for its campaign against the Rohingya, following accounts of killings, burning of villages, rape and mass graves.

“This council must hold the military accountable for their actions and pressure Aung San Suu Kyi to acknowledge these horrific acts are taking place in her country. No more excuses,” Haley said.

The United Nations has accused Myanmar of carrying out an ethnic cleansing campaign by forcing the Muslim Rohingyas into exile.

China, a supporter of Myanmar’s former ruling junta, called for patience and noted that “stability and order” had been restored to Rakhine state.

The Rohingya crisis “cannot be solved overnight,” said Chinese Ambassador Ma Zhaoxu.

Measures should be adopted by Myanmar “to address the root cause of poverty through development” in Rakhine, he said, sidestepping appeals for citizenship rights for the Rohingya.

‘Too scared to return’

The meeting came nearly three months after the council adopted a statement demanding that Myanmar rein in its security forces and allow the Rohingya to voluntarily return.

The UN refugee chief said that while the exodus had significantly decreased, the flow “still continues,” with some 1,500 refugees arriving in Bangladesh this month.

Haley said the refugees should not return to Myanmar until they feel confident that “they will not fall victim to the same horrors that drove them from their homes in the first place.”

“Right now, these refugees don’t have this confidence,” she said. “Many are too scared to return to their country.”

Haley’s concerns were echoed by France, Britain and Sweden, among other countries, but Myanmar’s ambassador said his government was ready to move ahead with plans to take back refugees.

Myanmar has made “great strides” in restoring stability and has given Bangladesh a list of “508 Hindus and 750 Muslims” to be among the first returnees, said Ambassador Hau Do Suan.

– Moonsoon puts 100,000 refugees at risk –

The UN refugee chief also raised alarm over the monsoon rainy season starting next month, warning that 100,000 refugees were living in flood-prone areas and must be urgently relocated.

International support to Bangladesh’s government must be stepped up “to avert a catastrophe,” he warned.

The council is demanding that aid workers be allowed to reach those displaced inside Rakhine state and wants UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to quickly appoint a special envoy to Myanmar.

 The KitKat store in the glitzy shopping area of Ginza in Tokyo is a riot of wall-to-wall pink, as marketing departments go into overdrive to promote the “fourth” type of chocolate, after milk, dark and white.

And the salespeople have chosen their moment wisely: Valentine’s Day is massive business in Japan — with tradition dictating that the women give presents to the men.

“I love pink. I love chocolate. So this is just great for me,” said 24-year-old Natsuko Takeuchi, searching for a sweet treat at the Ginza store.

“Knowing that this chocolate is created purely naturally, without any additional flavour or colour. I think it’s really good,” added Takeuchi, who operates a food trolley on Japan’s iconic bullet trains.

For more than 80 years, when white chocolate was invented, the world has had to be content with just three varieties.

Then in September, Swiss group Barry Callebaut unveiled its new “ruby” type — the fruit of more than 10 years of research — and five months later, bars appeared on shelves in both Japan and South Korea.

The pink colour is obtained naturally, without using additives or artificial colouring, explained Akiko Hara, a manager for Barry Callebaut in Japan.

The colour comes from ruby cocoa “that can be found in normal plantations,” Hara told AFP.

The firm’s R&D department keeps the recipe a closely guarded secret, locked away in a safe.

The result is a chocolate that tastes both creamy and fruity, with a subtle hint of raspberry.

– ‘Obligation choc’ –

If Japan is the testing ground for the new variety of chocolate, it was well chosen.

The Japanese chocolate market is worth nearly five billion dollars per year, according to figures from research group Euromonitor.

This places Japan still way behind the United States ($18.9 billion) but still at the top of the Asian league table.

Japanese consumers also crave a huge variety of products, as can be seen from the enormous range of KitKat flavours — from wasabi to green tea to sake.

So consumers have a huge choice in what chocolates to buy: “Honmei-choco” for lovers, “giri-choco” for male bosses and colleagues and “tomo-choco” for close friends.

In a sign of how seriously Valentine’s Day is taken, Belgian chocolate firm Godiva created a storm when it called on people to forgo the chocs for colleagues (known as “obligation chocolate”) to focus on loved ones.

Convenience stores on every corner are packed with potential presents and master chocolatiers also go to town for the occasion, creating ornate shapes such as pink high-heeled shoes made of chocolate.

The result: huge sales. This year, love-struck Japanese are expected to shell out 130 billion yen (one billion dollars) on Valentine’s Day chocolates, according to Kinenbi Culture Laboratory, a research group on Japanese festivals.

The tradition of women giving chocolate to men stems from a promotional campaign at the end of the 1950s.

“Males reciprocate the favour a month later on a holiday called ‘White Day’, where female significant others receive a gift in return for their Valentine’s Day present,” said Megumi Matsunaga, an analyst at Euromonitor.

Frederic Madelaine, a French pastry chef who runs several shops in Tokyo, said Valentine’s Day was the be-all and end-all for the industry.

“A Japanese woman will hand out on average between eight and 10 presents. Then the man has to return the favour — and triple or quadruple the value of the gift,” he told AFP.

“You have to try things out, be innovative, stand out from the crowd,” he said.

This year is no exception and among his offerings at this year’s annual chocolate fair in Tokyo were a Camembert-shaped chocolate and “dalmatian eclairs” to celebrate the year of the dog.//AFP

Chinese travellers were asked to pay a minimum spend of £1,000 (S$1,831) to receive a 20 per cent discount voucher for subsequent purchases, while other shoppers needed to spend only £250 to receive the same offer, reported BBC News.

The promotion is run by Heathrow Airport’s commercial partner World Duty Free.

The unfair policy sparked outrage on social media after a Chinese student who worked at the store posted about it on China’s widely-used microblog platform Weibo on Sunday. The post has been viewed over 10 million times.

The part-time sales assistant at Terminal 2 said that he tried to get the voucher for a Chinese woman who had around £300 worth of Chanel products in her shopping basket, but the cashier told him she needed to spend £1,000 because she was Chinese.

The store manager, according to news website Sixth Tone, later told him that the offer was indeed a “little bit unfair”.

“I’ve been in England for seven years. This is the first time that I’ve felt injustice and racism so deeply,” wrote the student, who also referred to store management as “white-skinned pigs”.

Other travellers responded with their experiences, some vowing not to shop at the airport again.

@Julialovekshwrote on Twitter: “Will never shop in the duty free store at Heathrow any more. Chinese customers deserve to be treated with respect!! What a hideous and discriminating event to happen in 2018!! Disgusting.”

@QianyunZhu_zqy tweeted: “Shame on you World Duty Free! When celebrating Chinese New Year with promotion info in Twitter, please remember Chinese customers are still waiting for your official explanation and apology for the racial discrimination. What a racist and two-faced company.”

“Imagine if this was another race, this incident would have already been a huge talking point,” read one comment which received 2,000 likes.

“Chinese people are not respected outside of the country,” added another user, while one asked, “Where do Chinese people go to get respect?”

On Monday, World Duty Free – one of hundreds of independent stores at Heathrow – issued a statement on Weibo, saying that it had investigated and rectified the issue.

The company, which is headquartered in Bern, Switzerland, did not respond to requests from the China Daily newspaper for an explanation.

Heathrow Airport also apologised on Weibo and Twitter, saying that the retailer now “offers the same benefits for travellers to all destinations.”

Chinese tourists are increasingly seen as big spenders across the world. Chinese travellers accounted for a quarter of Heathrow’s duty-free sales in 2015, though they made up only one per cent of passengers that year, according to travel website Mafengwo’s global travel shopping report.

During the October Golden Week travel period in 2017, Chinese tourists spent £29 million in shopping districts across the UK. The number of Chinese visitors to the UK increased by 33 per cent in 2017. They collectively spent £667 million, according to UK tourism authority VisitBritain.

World attention has recently focused on the desperate plight of the some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims forced over the border into Bangladesh in western Myanmar by a violent military campaign.

But this is just one of some two dozen conflicts festering around the country’s restive fringes, where ethnic minorities have been locked in decades-long battles with the state for more autonomy.

State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi announced that securing peace was her top priority when her civilian administration took office in 2016, ending five decades of military domination.

But there has been little to show for the effort, with swathes of the borderlands still embroiled in often drug-fuelled unrest that has displaced tens of thousands of people.

On Tuesday the government can claim a symbolic victory after the New Mon State Party (NMSP) and Lahu Democratic Union (LDU) ink the National Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) in Naypyidaw, joining eight other militias who had signed onto the pact before Suu Kyi took office.

The two groups have not actively clashed with the army for some time but were part of a bloc of powerful rebel armies that resisted signing the NCA under the former military-backed government.

“We believe in Daw Aung San Suu Kyi but we’ll have to see what happens on the road ahead because the government and the military are not very united,” LDU chairman Kya Khun Sar told AFP ahead of the signing.

– Powerful military –

Myanmar’s powerful army has stepped down from junta rule but still controls the key home affairs, borders and defence ministries as well as a quarter of parliamentary seats.

This effectively gives it carte blanche to conduct whatever military operations it wants around the country.

Many are therefore skeptical of success for Suu Kyi’s “21st Century Panglong” peace talks, named after the agreement signed by her independence hero father that promised autonomy to major ethnic groups ahead of the country’s independence from Britain in 1948.

“Regardless of the theatre and pageantry of the NCA signing for the Mon and Lahu, the peace process is broken and only the state counselor’s office seems unaware of this reality,” political analyst David Mathieson told AFP, saying that the military has been the “main actor derailing the peace process”.

Mai Win Htoo, a Taaung National Party MP, said peace negotiations have yet bear fruit in his community in restive northern Shan state.

“Since it started, there has been more fighting in my area. People have had to run away. They lose their jobs, their homes. It has brought war on our area.”

Myanmar’s diverse patchwork of ethnic groups make up around a third of the population, but the government and military have long been dominated by the majority Bamar ethnicity, to which Suu Kyi belongs.

She has been much maligned internationally for a perceived failure to speak up on behalf of the Rohingya but her stance has proved popular domestically.//AFP

Tropical Storm Sanba slammed the east coast of the main southern island of Mindanao Tuesday with gusts of 75 kilometres (47 miles) an hour.

The heavy rain triggered landslides that hit mountain villages outside the mining town of Carrascal — 760 kilometres south of the capital Manila — killing four people, municipal police chief James Alendogao told AFP.

“These areas are currently inaccessible and we do not know the extent of the damage,” he added.

The state weather service said the storm was expected to move swiftly northwest over the next 24 hours, bringing moderate to heavy rain across the central Philippines.

The archipelago nation is struck by 20 storms or typhoons each year on average, some of them deadly. Sanba is already the second major system to hit this year, and the first to cause casualties.

Tropical Storm Tembin killed 240 people in the Mindanao region in December last year.

The country’s deadliest on record is Super Typhoon Haiyan, which left more than 7,350 people dead or missing across the central Philippines in November 2013.

Myanmar’s media, both local and foreign, are under heavy assault as security measures used to suppress the press under military rule are reactivated under Suu Kyi’s quasi-democratic regime, several journalists who cover the country told the CPJ, according to the report published on its website.

“The move marks a dramatic reversal in recent press freedom gains and augurs ill for the country’s delicate transition from military to elected rule,” CPJ wrote in the report.

Authorities are increasingly abusing various draconian colonial and military era laws to repress reporting on a widening range of topics, wrote CPJ.

Many journalists and activists had hoped the laws would be amended or scrapped when Suu Kyi came to power with a strong electoral mandate to push democratic change through liberal reforms.

The committee also highlighted experiences of journalists working from the country, many of whom had to escape.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Htusan flees Myanmar after threats

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Esther Htusan is no longer safe to report from her home country, Myanmar. The Associated Press reporter fled the country late last year after being threatened for her critical reporting on various topics that authorities deem sensitive, from the ethnic Rohingya refugee exodus, the military’s controversial counterinsurgency operations in Rakhine State, to State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s handling of the crisis.

Htusan came under heavy official fire in November after the government perceived she misrepresented a Suu Kyi speech that addressed issues of illegal immigration, terrorism, and global stability. Amid a furor, a prominent Suu Kyi supporter made a death threat against Htusan on his personal Facebook page, which had over 300,000 followers at the time, Associated Press reporters, who are familiar with the case but who requested anonymity, told CPJ.

Before that, an unidentified man followed her home one evening, shouting her name from the darkness in front of her apartment in downtown Yangon. Htusan left Myanmar for Thailand in December due to fears for her security. In recent days, the journalists with whom CPJ spoke said, men who they believe to be plainclothes police visited her apartment building in Yangon and queried neighbors about her whereabouts.

“She’s not going back [to Myanmar] any time soon,” one of the reporters said.

Kim’s younger sister Kim Yo Jong — one of his closest confidantes — was part of the nuclear-armed North’s diplomatic delegation to the Games that made worldwide headlines.

She delivered his invitation for the South’s President Moon Jae-in to come to a summit in Pyongyang — which he did not immediately accept, saying the “right conditions” were needed.

The North is subject to multiple sets of UN Security Council sanctions over its banned nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, and conducted dozens of weapons tests last year.

But the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang have triggered extraordinary scenes, with Moon and Kim cheering a unified Korean women’s ice hockey team together — along with the North’s ceremonial head of state Kim Yong Nam — and attending a concert by Pyongyang’s artistes.

Even so analysts warn that the positive mood could evaporate quickly after the Games, when the US and South are due to hold major joint military exercises that always infuriate the North.

Kim Jong Un met the delegation on Monday after it returned to Pyongyang, the official KCNA news agency reported.

It indirectly cited Kim as saying it was important to enhance “the warm climate of reconciliation and dialogue” created by the Winter Olympics — which for months the North refused to say whether it would attend.

He gave instructions for “practical measures” to do so, it added, without giving details.

The South’s appreciation of the North’s presence and the welcome it gave its representatives were “impressive”, he said, thanking Seoul for its “sincere efforts”.

Close scrutiny

The KCNA report is the first official reaction from Kim — the third generation of the dynasty to rule the isolated and impoverished North — since his sister’s charm offensive in the South.

Kim Yo Jong’s visit made her the first member of the family to set foot in the country since the end of the Korean War.

Every detail of her trip was scrutinised, from the clothes she wore and her facial expressions to the bag she was carrying and even her handwriting.

But it left South Koreans divided, with some hoping it might usher in a real opportunity for reconciliation while others angrily burned the North Korean flag and criticised Moon for being too soft on Pyongyang.

How deep the rapprochement runs, how far it will go and how long it will last once the Games are over remain very open to question, analysts say.

Pyongyang’s Olympic diplomacy has also highlighted differences between Seoul and its key protector the United States over how to handle the reclusive regime and its nuclear weapons programme.

Washington insists that Pyongyang must take concrete steps towards denuclearisation before any talks can begin, while Moon — whose parents escaped from the North in a US evacuation during the war — has long argued for closer involvement to bring it to the negotiating table.

China claims nearly all of the resource-rich waterway and has been turning reefs and islets into islands and installing military facilities such as runways and equipment on them.

British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said HMS Sutherland, an anti-submarine frigate, would arrive in Australia later this week.

“She’ll be sailing through the South China Sea (on the way home) and making it clear our navy has a right to do that,” he told The Australian newspaper after a two-day visit to Sydney and Canberra.

He would not say whether the frigate would sail within 12 nautical miles of a disputed territory or artificial island built by the Chinese, as US ships have done.

But he said: “We absolutely support the US approach on this, we very much support what the US has been doing.”

In January, Beijing said it had dispatched a warship to drive away a US missile destroyer which had “violated” its sovereignty by sailing close to a shoal in the sea.

Williamson said it was important that US allies such as Britain and Australia “assert our values” in the South China Sea, which is believed to hold vast oil and gas deposits and through which US$5.0 trillion in trade passes annually.

“World dynamics are shifting so greatly. The US can only concentrate on so many things at once,” he said.

“The US is looking for other countries to do more. This is a great opportunity for the UK and Australia to do more, to exercise leadership.”

China in December defended its construction on disputed islands, which are also claimed by Southeast Asian neighbours, as “normal” after a US think tank released new satellite images showing the deployment of radar and other equipment.

In a separate interview with broadcaster ABC, Williamson warned of the need for vigilance to “any form of malign intent” from China, as it seeks to become a global superpower.

“Australia and Britain see China as a country of great opportunities, but we shouldn’t be blind to the ambition that China has and we’ve got to defend our national security interests,” he said.

“We’ve got to ensure that any form of malign intent is countered and we see increasing challenges — it’s not just from China, it’s from Russia, it’s from Iran — and we’ve got to be constantly making sure that our security measures, our critical national infrastructure is protected.”

Australia has been ratcheting up the rhetoric against China in recent months, with ties tested in December when parliament singled out Beijing as a focus of concern when it proposed laws on foreign interference.

This Chinese New Year marks an Earth Dog Year, making it an exciting event for those born under the sign of the Dog (1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994 or 2006). As Chinese astrology experts will tell you, this is a year people born in those years will get to celebrate and enjoy, and also one that will usher in excellent opportunities both in one’s professional and personal life.

As for everyone else, read on to understand what the Year of the Earth Dog has in store for you. Take it with a grain of salt.

Nostalgic about the past

Let’s start with the not-so-good news. Chinese astrology and feng shui experts seem to agree that the forecast for the Year of the Earth Dog appears a little depressing.

“The year 2018 brings with it the Earth Dog, reminiscent of things of old. People will crave things that have passed,” said Hong Xiang Yi, a renowned feng shui expert in Jakarta.

Hong Xiang Yi, a renowned feng shui expert in Jakarta (Courtesy of Hong Xiang Yi/File)

Put into a local perspective, Hong’s predictions turn even gloomier.

“You’ll see old patterns recurring in Indonesian politics. Candidates running on old programs or those similar to the ones we have seen in the past will have a bigger chance of winning. Old policies will resurface. You’ll see practically nothing new. In terms of business, 2018 isn’t brimming with optimism either. The most vibrant growth will happen to either those at the lowest end of the prism or at the very top. The middle class will somehow be rather stuck,” said Hong, who’s published several books about feng shui.

Other astrology experts concur. “There will be a lot of problems that arise from the human mind and soul among those who are not ready to face the changes throughout this new year. Expect to see massive changes in all sectors, from politics to entertainment and business,” said Fajar Alfarizi, a prominent feng shui consultant in Jakarta.

Fajar Alfarizi, a prominent feng shui consultant in Jakarta (Courtesy of Fajar Alfarizi/File)

As feng shui professionals do, Hong and Fajar both feel it’s their job to inform people of possible misfortunes, with the idea of helping people hope for the best but plan for the worst.

“Natural disasters, such as landslides, earthquakes, building collapses, diseases and other things will take people by surprise. Therefore, we must always take extra precautions whenever we’re on high ground. We should also maintain our stamina,” said Hong.

Fajar added, “The earth element compels us to pay more respect to mother nature and to be aware of others’ feelings. Misspoken words will lead to many problems this year.”

All the doom and gloom aside, it’s not to say that 2018 can’t be a fantastic year. Along with urging people to be cautious with their finances, feng shui experts have also spoken of the possibility of positive news in family and relationships in general.

Fajar offers some good tips to ward off the spirits of bad fortune.

“The first thing is to be creative and always find ways to improve your ability. Second, work hard. Third, develop an affable yet original personality,” he said.

The lucky ones 

Some people are set to rake in good fortune this new year.

For people born under the sign of the Rabbit (1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999 or 2011), the year of the Earth Dog will lead to action, growth and progress, according to fengshuiweb.co.uk.

Those born in the Year of the Rat (1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996 or 2008) too have some powerful lucky stars this year, and with the right advice and guidance, all difficult energy can be turned into power and drive, feng shui expert Sarah McAllister of the London-based consultancy, The Feng Shui Agency, told The Daily Mail.

Horse year people (1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002) will also benefit from this year, if they know how to work efficiently without getting drained or overly tired, according to McAllister.

Time to be “cautiously hopeful”

For everyone else who may be feeling anxious at the moment, Hong has some good advice. By being aware of potential problems, one can take action to avoid what could take place and turn bad into good.

“Staying where you are will be the safest thing to do in 2018. It is highly recommended to be conservative and cautious. Take your time when making decisions. Wait for the right moment before taking any action,” he said.

There may be some truth to that. This Earth Dog Year, gives us a moment of “paws” for making important life decisions.