NBC Director-General Chea Serey said the yuan-riel exchange rate mechanism was officially launched earlier this month, allowing banks in Guangxi to quote and exchange the two national currencies directly.

“Before, this [could only] be done in Cambodia. Now it can be done in China too,” she said, adding that currently the valuation of the two currencies was done by benchmarking them against the US dollar.

“As the volume of trade settlement in local currencies increases, we will be able to determine a direct quotation without going through the US dollar,” she said.

While the system is so far limited to trade relations between Cambodia and Guangxi, she added that using local currencies for trade settlements reduces exchange risk, which could encourage more trade.

“This will reduce currency risk. The Chinese won’t have to exchange US dollar back to [yuan] and Cambodians won’t have to exchange US dollar into riel,” she said.

“Currency risk is one of the major risks for the import and export business. If this can be reduced then it would be good for businesses.”

Charles Vann, president of the Association of Banks in Cambodia, said that although a yuan-riel exchange rate has long been available in Cambodia, the launch of a direct exchange mechanism will encourage the use of riel for large business transactions.

“There are many business and investment deals with China so it is always good to provide an easier way to conduct business,” he said.

Down the years, from Rudyard Kipling to Dylan, from the founder of the Red Cross to Barack Obama and Albert Einstein, a total of 911 men, women and organisations have won a Nobel Prize.

The awards were created by the inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel, in his 1895 will and handed out for the first time in 1901.

They were to honour “those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind” in the fields of literature, peace, medicine, physics and chemistry.

The economics prize, the only award not included in Nobel’s will, is funded by the Swedish central bank, which created the prize at its 300-year anniversary in 1968. It was first awarded in 1969.

The 2017 season opens on Monday with the announcement of the medicine prize, followed by the physics award on Tuesday and the chemistry prize on Wednesday.

The peace prize will be announced on October 6. The date for the literature prize is revealed only a few days in advance but traditionally falls on a Thursday, so October 5 and 12 are seen as possible dates.

– Anti-nuke efforts? –

The peace prize, the only Nobel awarded in Oslo, usually elicits the most interest — and the most heated debates.

Last year, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won for his efforts to bring peace to his country, ravaged by more than a half-century of conflict. This year, 318 people and organisations have been nominated.

Speculation has focused on the nuclear issue, as tensions have mounted between Washington and Pyongyang after North Korea’s sixth nuclear test as well as uncertainty over the Iran deal, which US President Donald Trump has threatened to tear up.

Two key orchestrators of that accord, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, are seen as strong contenders by the head of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (Prio), Henrik Urdal.

“With North Korea also at stake, it’s very important to support initiatives that guard against the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons,” he said.

The names of the candidates are kept secret for at least 50 years, but those eligible to nominate candidates — including former laureates, lawmakers and government ministers around the world, and some university professors — are allowed to disclose their choices.

Those believed to be on the list include Syria’s White Helmets rescue service, Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege, jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi and Edward Snowden, who revealed the scope of America’s NSA electronic surveillance programme.

Like one of his predecessors George W. Bush, US President Donald Trump, who has exchanged threats with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un in recent weeks, has been nominated by an unidentified American who wants him honoured for “his peace through strength ideology”.

– Opposite of Dylan? –

For the literature prize, the Swedish Academy also keeps mum about its list of nominees, leaving observers and literary critics to speculate wildly.

Many of the same names reappear year after year in the guessing game: Don DeLillo of the US, Margaret Atwood of Canada, Syrian-born poet Adonis, Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami and Kenyan writer Ngugi Wa Thiong’o to name a few.

Israel’s Amos Oz and David Grossmann, Italy’s Claudio Magris, Albania’s Ismail Kadare and France’s Michel Houellebecq are also frequently mentioned.

But Stockholm’s literary circles agree on one thing: the Academy will in all likelihood make a consensual, conservative choice, after last year’s pick of US popular music legend and songwriter Bob Dylan both stunned and divided the world.

“What happened last year was really unusual. This year I think it’ll be a male novelist or essayist with roots in Europe. I think it’s going to be the exact opposite of Bob Dylan,” predicted Bjorn Wiman, the cultural editor of Sweden’s main daily Dagens Nyheter.

He thinks Antonio Lobo Antunes of Portugal and Albania’s Kadare have a good chance. “Everyone will think ‘Of course they deserve the prize’, and there’ll be no objection.”

This year, each Nobel comes with a nine million kronor ($1.1-million, 940,500-euro) prize sum, to be shared if several laureates are honoured in the same discipline.

The laureates receive their prizes at formal banquets held in Stockholm and Oslo on December 10.

No injuries were reported after the panel was discovered inside the factory near Narita Airport in the suburbs of the Japanese capital, a spokesman for All Nippon Airways told AFP.

“After consulting with a panel manufacturer, we identified that the panel was one that fell from our plane,” a Boeing 767 flying from the southeastern Chinese city of Amoi, said the spokesman, Hiroyuki Miyagawa.

The panel was used as a cover for the emergency slide and ANA said a faulty bottle containing nitrogen gas was to blame.

The nitrogen is used to blow the panel off the plane, allowing the slide to deploy in an emergency but the bottle leaked, the spokesman said, adding it had since been replaced and apologising.

Last weekend, a panel fell from a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Boeing 777 shortly after take-off from a Japanese airport, smashing the window of a car being driven below.

Mount Agung, 75 kilometres (47 miles) from the resort hub of Kuta, has been shaking since August and threatening to erupt for the first time since 1963 — a potential blow to the country’s lucrative tourism industry.

Officials at an evacuation centre in Klungkung district said 122,490 people had left their homes, taking refuge at nearly 500 makeshift shelters or moving in with relatives.

Around 62,000 people lived in the danger zone before the evacuations, according to Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency, but residents just outside the area have also left their homes out of fear.

Despite the significant increase in estimated evacuees, the government said it was prepared.

“In general the evacuation is going well, the logistics supply is sufficient for the evacuees’ needs,” Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the agency spokesman, said Thursday.

Tourists take pictures of a prayer as Mount Agung volcano is seen in the background at Amed beach in Karangasem, on the island of Bali on September 27, 2017. // AFP PHOTO

This week Indonesia’s national disaster agency has sent face masks, mattresses, blankets and tents for evacuees, who have also been provided with food.

Five mobile sirens have been installed in the danger zone to warn residents in the event of an eruption.

Around 10,000 animals have also been evacuated from the flanks of the volcano.

Officials estimate there are at least 30,000 cows within a 12-kilometre radius of the mountain’s summit, and efforts to relocate them are ongoing.

“We’ve set a target to evacuate 20,000 more cows from the affected areas,” Nugroho said.

The animals are extremely valuable to the evacuees — mostly farmers — some of whom have refused to leave the danger zone, the spokesman said.

The Indonesian Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation said Mount Agung was highly active on Thursday, recording 125 volcanic earthquakes between 12am (1700 GMT) and 6am.

“If we look at the magnitude, it continues to increase, yesterday we also felt several quakes with the magnitude of three on the Richter scale,” said Kasbani, head volcanologist at the centre who goes by one name.

– Highest alert level –

Elsewhere, the threat of a separate volcanic eruption on the Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu prompted authorities on Thursday to order the compulsory evacuation of the entire island of Ambae, home to 11,000 people.

Vanuatu’s National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) said it was the first time in living memory that an island’s whole population had been moved because of volcanic activity.

The Manaro Voui volcano, which last erupted in 2005, sent up a plume of steam and ash over the weekend, prompting authorities to declare a state of emergency.

Balinese Hindus villagers after a prayer for Mount Agung at a temple in Pemuteran village in Karangasem, Bali, Indonesia, 27 September 2017. // EPA-EFE PHOTO

In Indonesia, officials have announced the highest possible alert level and warned people to stay at least nine kilometres away from the crater.

The airport in Bali’s capital Denpasar, through which millions of foreign tourists pass every year, has not been affected, but several countries including Australia and Singapore have issued a travel advisory.

Mount Agung last erupted in 1963, killing nearly 1,600 people.

Its director-general Mustafar Ali said that a total of 143 people were screened during the raid on Wednesday.

In a statement Thursday, Mustafar said the raid, codenamed Ops Gegar, was carried out by 35 officers from the Intelligence, Special Operations and Analysis Division.

He added that a total of 54 Thai women and four Thai transvestites, eight women from Laos and two women from Indonesia were arrested.

Mustafar added that the department also detained eight Thai men, three men from Myanmar and a Bangladeshi man.

He said all 80 foreigners detained are believed to be working either as guest relations officers (GRO), dancers, singers, musicians or waiters in the entertainment outlet.

Mustafar said that intelligence gathered and monitoring by the Quick Response Team found that there were immoral activities as well as prostitution in the premises.

He added that there were catwalk performances on the stage including “flower garland” activities.

“The payment for a flower garland is RM20, a crown is RM100 while a robe is RM668. Customers would give these items to the women they choose as ‘tips’.

“Customers who bought robes would be allowed the take the women out of the premises with them,” he said

Mustafar added that four locals, including a woman, were detained, and are believed to be working as supervisors or pimps.

He added that based on initial questioning, the department found that the GROs had entered Malaysia using 30-day social visit passes.

Mustafar said that those detained will be held at the Bukit Jalil Immigration Detention Depot.

Major clashes between the army and the Muslim insurgents erupted last month, triggering a dire refugee crisis with nearly half a million Rohingya fleeing across the border to Bangladesh.

An information war has followed, as Myanmar’s government pushes back against UN accusations that the army is waging a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against the stateless Rohingya, who have faced persecution in the mainly Buddhist country for decades.

On Wednesday the army flew journalists to an area where the mass graves of 45 Hindu villagers, including many women and children, were discovered earlier this week.

The military has accused Rohingya militants of carrying on the massacre on August 25, the same day the group staged deadly raids on police posts that sparked the military backlash.

In its first official statement on the allegations, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) “categorically” denied that its members “perpetrated murder, sexual violence, or forcible recruitment” in the area on 25 August.

They called on the army to stop “victim-blaming,” according to the statement, which was posted on the ARSA’s Twitter account.

It used an apparent local name — “Fakirabazar” — for the Kha Maung Seik village tract where the mass graves were found, in the statement posted on Twitter Wednesday.

The decomposing skeletal bodies remained laid out in rows on a grassy field outside the village of Ye Baw Kyaw as distraught relatives wailed, according to AFP journalists at the scene.

Security officers are still searching for 48 missing Hindus who relatives fear are dead.

The army has tried to control the narrative over the crisis, restricting press access to the conflict zone while it posts regular updates that blame Rohingya militants for the bloodshed.

Government and military reports have also sought to highlight the suffering of other ethnic groups, such as Rakhine Buddhists and Hindus, swept up in the communal unrest.

– “We begged for our lives” –

===============================

Hindus who fled the area have told AFP that masked men stormed into their community that day and hacked victims to death with machetes before dumping them into freshly-dug pits.

Ni Maul, a Hindu leader who has helped authorities with the search, told media on the army-led press trip that they found the burial sites using testimony from eight Hindu women who were spared and brought to Bangladesh after they agreed to convert to Islam.

“They kept the beautiful eight women alive to marry,” he said.

Four Hindu women displaced in Bangladesh told AFP they were among the eight who escaped the massacre in the same area of Kha Maung Seik, with eight children in tow.

“We begged for our lives, asking they spare the women,” 22-year-old Bina Sheel told AFP at a small village for Hindu refugees in the Bangladeshi border district of Cox’s Bazar.

“They asked if we would marry them. We said yes, to save our lives.”

All four women said they were taken to Rohingya Muslim camps inside Bangladesh by the attackers. Sheel said her captor urged her to convert to Islam before she was brought to the Hindu village by a local leader.

The latest violence has intensified long-running religious hatreds and been complicated by a swirl of rival narratives from different ethnic groups.

The focal point of the unrest, Rakhine’s Maungdaw district, was once home to several religious communities, with the Rohingya a majority.

But more than half of the Muslim population has now abandoned their homes, with scores of villages burnt to the ground, while up to 30,000 Buddhists and Hindus have also fled.

Rights groups accuse troops of using arson to force the Rohingya out and block their return, a charge the army denies.

On Wednesday a Myanmar minister, Win Myat Aye, was quoted in state media as saying the government would manage all fire-damaged land in Rakhine, a development likely to raise concern about the Rohingya refugees’ ability to return.//AFP

Suddenly split from her family, Hasina joined the most vulnerable of the estimated 250,000 or more children among the Rohingya in Bangladesh who have fled burning villages in Myanmar.

All have lost homes and endured a long and difficult journey. Many have seen parents and family members killed in the ethnic strife that has riven Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

Newly arrived families have had to find space in makeshift settlements far from aid distribution points, so the dirt tracks teem with small children carrying heavy bags of rice, pitchers of water and tarpaulins.

Hasina is one of the luckier ones. She was found by Nazir Ahmed, a Rohingya who came to Bangladesh as a baby in the early 1990s and has been trying to reunite families divided in the chaos of the camps.

From the small stand he runs on the side of a muddy road running through Kutupalong camp, the 26-year-old community volunteer broadcasts details of the missing on a loudhailer through the day.

He has not been able to reunite Hasina with her family, but she is being well looked after by his mother in the family’s small mud shelter nearby.

“If people find kids who are lost and crying on the roadside, they bring them here. Then I make the announcements,” Ahmed told AFP at his stall as a steady stream of refugees arrived seeking his help to track down missing relatives.

“If parents come to find them, I hand them over.”

– Exploitation fears –

======================

Ahmed says the influx of nearly half a million Rohingya has led to a huge increase in families becoming separated in the chaotic and overcrowded camps.

He started his volunteer effort a few days into the crisis that began August 25, and has since received funds from the UN refugee agency for a loudhailer.

Aid distribution is becoming more organised, but remains disorderly in places. Women and children have been injured in stampedes for supplies.

“People came with so many children and this is a new place for them. They don’t know the roads,” said Ahmed’s mother Nasima Khatun, who took Hasina in 20 days ago.

“I have my own children and I feel the pain of these children’s parents.”

Ahmed said the Rohingya had already foiled two separate attempts by Bangladeshis to abduct young children. In both cases, the perpetrators were beaten up and ordered to leave the camp.

According to Bangladeshi police there have seen several attempts to abduct minors, and mobile courts have been set up to provide swift punishment around the camps.

Save the Children and UNICEF have expressed concerns about the risk of exploitation in a country where child marriage is rife.

Save the Children chief Helle Thorning-Schmidt said hundreds of children had arrived alone, having become separated from their families in the chaos of escape or because their relatives were killed.

That puts them at increased risk of exploitation, abuse and trafficking, she added.

Bangladesh Red Crescent volunteers are also working to reunite families in the camps, and has so far brought around two dozen back together.

Team leader Jafor Imam said it was a long and difficult process in the huge camps, where hundreds of thousands have settled since August 25.

For Ahmed, the community volunteer, it is an effort worth making.

“The parents gave birth and worked hard to raise their children. After that, they protected them from massacres and they managed to get here,” he said.

“I cannot bear to think that after all that, families could be divided.”

Zuckerberg rejected the notion, countering that Facebook is working to ensure “free and fair elections” with an online platform that does not favor one side over another.

Zuckerberg’s post at Facebook came after Trump accused the social network of bias in a morning tweet that read:

“Facebook was always anti-Trump.The Networks were always anti-Trump hence,Fake News, @nytimes(apologized) & @WaPo were anti-Trump. Collusion?”

Early morning Twitter tizzies have become a hallmark of Trump’s presidency.

“Trump says Facebook is against him. Liberals say we helped Trump,” Zuckerberg said in his post.

“Both sides are upset about ideas and content they don’t like. That’s what running a platform for all ideas looks like.”

Facebook last week said that Russia-linked ads on the social network aimed at inflaming tensions around last year’s US presidential election will be given to Congress.

The ads sought to sow discord among Americans on hot-button social issues.

News of the decision came with word that Facebook is cracking down on efforts to use the leading social network to meddle with elections in the US or elsewhere.

“After the election, I made a comment that I thought the idea misinformation on Facebook changed the outcome of the election was a crazy idea,” Zuckerberg said.

“Calling that crazy was dismissive and I regret it. This is too important an issue to be dismissive.”

He held firm that Facebook biggest role in the election was as a platform for candidates and citizens to communicated directly with one another regarding issues.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has asked top tech companies Google, Facebook and Twitter to testify about Russian interference in US politics, a Senate aide confirmed Wednesday.

The three internet and online social media giants are expected to appear on November 1 in an open hearing on the rising evidence that they were covertly manipulated in a campaign to help Donald Trump win the presidency.

A core question in the congressional investigation is the extent to which online social networks were manipulated by Russian interests to covertly influence the US election, according to Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat and the ranking member of the House permanent select committee on intelligence.

Russia has denied meddling with the US election.

“We will do our part to defend against nation states attempting to spread misinformation and subvert elections,” Zuckerberg said.

The United Nations has been demanding access since its humanitarian organizations were forced to pull out of Rakhine when Myanmar’s military launched operations against Rohingya rebels in late August, causing hundreds of thousands to flee into neighboring Bangladesh.

“There will be a trip organized by the government, probably tomorrow, to Rakhine,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

“We hope above all that it is a first step toward much freer and wider access to the area,” he said at his daily news briefing.

He said the chiefs of UN agencies would take part in the trip.

The UN has drawn up a contingency plan to feed up to 700,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, and warned that those who fled will not be returning home soon.

“All the UN agencies together have now set a plan for a new influx of 700,000. We can cover if the new influx reaches 700,000,” the World Food Program’s deputy chief in Bangladesh, Dipayan Bhattacharyya, said on Wednesday.

‘Return will take time’

UN refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi said that for those who have fled to Bangladesh, “return will take time, if it happens, if the violence stops.”

Myanmar’s military, under fire for imposing a news blackout on the campaign around the city of Maungdaw in the country’s west, on Wednesday organized a press tour in the Hindu village of Ye Baw Kyaw.

Mass graves containing 45 Hindu villagers were discovered in the area earlier this week, and the military has accused Rohingya militants of carrying out the massacre.

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) “categorically” denied that its members “perpetrated murder, sexual violence, or forcible recruitment” in the area.

The decomposing skeletal bodies remained laid out in rows on a grassy field outside Ye Baw Kyaw as distraught relatives wailed, according to AFP journalists at the scene.

Hindus who fled the area have told AFP that masked men stormed into their community and hacked victims to death with machetes before dumping them into freshly-dug pits.

Myanmar’s army has tried to control the narrative over the crisis, restricting press access to the conflict zone while it posts regular updates that blame Rohingya militants for the bloodshed.

Government and military reports have also sought to highlight the suffering of other ethnic groups, such as Rakhine Buddhists and Hindus, swept up in the communal unrest.

Ethnic cleansing accusations

The latest violence has intensified long-running religious hatreds and been complicated by a swirl of rival narratives from different ethnic groups.

Thursday’s visit for the UN representatives will come on the same day that the UN Security Council meets on the situation in Myanmar.

On September 13, the council demanded “immediate steps” to end the Myanmar violence and expressed concern about “excessive force” being used by the military.

The council also called on the Myanmar government to abide by its commitment to facilitate humanitarian aid in Rakhine, but until now that request has not been met.

Secretary General Antonio Guterres will address the UN Security Council during its open door session. As a former UN high commissioner on refugees, Guterres knows Rakhine and the context of the current crisis intimately.

With accusations of “ethnic cleansing” being leveled at the UN General Assembly, Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi said last week she was “ready” to organize the return of the Rohingyas.

The Rohingyas, the world’s largest stateless group, are treated as foreigners in Myanmar, whose population is 90 percent Buddhist.

A recent study conducted by UK-based firm, Zipjet has revealed the world’s most and least stressful cities of 2017, based on factors including air pollution, traffic levels, gender equality, unemployment, mental health, financial status of citizens including debt levels and even the amount of sun that a city gets.

Of the 150 cities ranked, the study projects most Asian cities as stressful places to live in. With global ranking of 144, Dhaka is the seventh most stressed city in the world and one of the most stressed cities in Asia. Dhaka is considered a stressful city for being densely populated and having worst traffic congestion. City’s mental and physical health is also ranked poorly.

Scoring poorly on various factors like light pollution, debt per capita and social security Karachi is ranked at 143.  With poor score across the spectrum, the India’s national capital, New Delhi has also landed a sweet spot in the most stressed cities in the World.  The other Indian cities are Mumbai and Bangalore with global ranking of 138 and 130 respectively.

The rapid urbanisation in Manila has led to fewer green spaces in the city which has reduced the air quality as well.  The city ranks badly in mental health also since suicide rate in Manila is high.  The study also takes into consideration the public transport woes of the city which contribute to the stress of the commuters.

While many call Seoul a happy city, the study states otherwise.

With the income gap being worst in Asia-pacific the physical health of the city is a determining factor in making it one of the stressful cities in Asia. Kuala Lumpur is ranked at 110 with Ho Chi Minh at 106.

Sydney, Australia (No. 8) is the least stressed city in Asia. It is followed by Singapore with a global ranking of 42. With a thriving economy and one of the world’s finest public transport systems, the habitants of the city are happy to live in it. Residents of Taipei, Osaka, Bandar Seri Begawan are most satisfied with their cities.

Tokyo  ranked at 72 has scored well on public transport, traffic situation in the city and perception of social security . Hong Kong has scored well on perception of security among the people living there and the physical health of the city.  Shanghai has very low debt per capita which makes the city financially secure and the citizenry less stressed.

Phnom Penh has the lowest official unemployment rates and therefore performs well on the index. Beijing, globally ranked at 100, has a low unemployment rate as well as debt per capita. Perception of security amongst the citizens contributes to the city being less stressful compared to other Asian cities. However fewer green spaces, public transport woes and population density dragged the ranking of the city down.

Kathmandu with longer sunshine hours and stable perception of security has earned the city a place amongst the least stressful cities in Asia. However rising unemployment, poverty and air pollution contributes to its low ranking.  Bangkok remains a happy place despite traffic jams and air pollution.