JAKARTA — Palm oil has become part of people's everyday lives, as an ingredient in food products, such as ice cream and potato chips, as well as in cosmetics and toiletries.

Fires that have ravaged large swathes of Indonesian forests and peat lands and choked much of Southeast Asia in acrid smog for three months have called attention to the role of the palm oil industry in environmental destruction.

The blazes and resulting haze have killed at least 24 people and made more than half a million ill with respiratory infections. Indonesia's disaster management personnel have called the disaster "a crime against humanity of extraordinary proportions."  

"Demand for palm oil, both national and overseas, is a big driver of forest conversion," said Erik Meijaard, a conservation scientist at the Borneo Futures Initiative, which seeks to preserve the island's natural environment. 

"And a lot of fires are lit for the purpose of developing oil palm plantations," he said.

Meijaard, who described the forest fires as "the biggest man-made environmental disaster of the 21st century" in an opinion piece in the Jakarta Globe, said much of the blame lies with the government for initially playing down the crisis. 

"They are burying their heads in the sand, probably because at least some believe that the fire and haze impacts are an acceptable cost of development," Meijaard told dpa.

"This is where they are wrong," he said. "The Indonesian economy and people are losing out because of burning."

Indonesia is the world's largest producer of palm oil, with output at 33 million metric tons in 2014, according to the Agriculture Ministry.

Exports of palm oil have grown from 15.65 million tons in 2008 to 24.37 million tons in 2014, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.

The country exports palm oil mainly to China, but also to the Netherlands and Germany. 

Environmental activists say palm oil companies and farmers have resorted to burning as a cheap way to clear land with no legal consequences despite the practice being generally illegal. 

Major pulpwood and palm oil plantations have also been accused by activists of building roads and draining peat swamps by installing networks of canals, thereby increasing the risk of fire because of the lowering of the water table.

Greenpeace said this year's Indonesian fires have occurred in land owned by nearly 2,000 pulpwood, palm oil and coal mining companies.

Peatland drainage is especially disastrous, as peat fires emit huge quantities of carbon dioxide and also methane, resulting in up to many times more damage to the global climate than regular fires, scientists said. 

Emissions from this year's fires have reached 1.62 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, making Indonesia the fourth-largest greenhouse gas emitter, surpassing Russia, according to the World's Resources Institute.

"While the country may finally be getting some relief as heavy rainfall interrupts months of record-breaking fires and toxic smog in South Sumatra and Kalimantan, the damage to human health, the economy and the global climate has already been done," the institute said in an article on its website.

Guido van der Werf, a researcher at VU University Amsterdam, told the Washington Post that emissions from the fires over a three-week period in October were already higher than the total annual CO2 emissions of Germany.

Sutopo Nugroho, spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency, said this year's fires cover more than 2 million hectares of forests and peatland, equivalent to the size of 1.9 million football pitches.

The government has estimated that the cost to the economy could be as high as 31 billion US dollars. 

"Peat degradation is the main source of Indonesia's carbon emissions through fire," said Herry Purnomo, a scientist at the Center for Forestry Research (CIFOR).  

An absence of transparent spatial maps, corruption and ineffective local governments are to blame for a lack of legal action against those who deliberately start fires, Purnomo said. 

"Many cases of burning committed by large- and medium-scale companies were not acted upon because these firms have major political and economic influences either locally or nationally," said Purnomo.  

Purnomo said his research indicated that forest fires spiked during local election seasons, possibly because incumbent leaders were courting business people to finance their re-election bids.

"There's a strong network of patronage between local power-holders and businesses and this has frustrated efforts by the central government to enforce the law," he said.

Story: DPA

YANGON — More than 50,000 people joined an opposition rally led by Aung San Suu Kyi on Sunday in Myanmar, one week before the first openly contested poll in decades.

"I want to tell you again to vote for us if you want to see real changes in the country," she told supporters at the rally in eastern Yangon.

"I have no fear at all to face or fight anyone as long as you support me."

The November 8 election will be the first time since 1990 that Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party has contested elections.

While Suu Kyi is constitutionally barred from holding the office of the presidency, observers say that her presence has rallied numerous supporters.

On Sunday, roads leading to the rally ground were full of vehicles blasting campaign music and slogans.

Thousands more walked to the parade ground on foot creating a sea of red shirts, the colour of the NLD party. Many of the shirts were emblazoned with the campaign slogan "Vote NLD for Real Change."

"I want to see her lead our country, as I believe she is the best leader for the country," 16-year-old student Sandar Tun said.

The NLD's main rival, the army-backed Union and Solidarity Party, has said that it is confident, openly declaring that it expected to win a majority of seats.

Suu Kyi's party won the last openly contested poll in 1990, taking 392 of 492 seats. However the army disqualified the results and placed Suu Kyi under house arrest.

On Sunday in New York, UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon expressed "deep concern at the continuous resort to hate speech, the incitement of communal animosities and the abuse of religion for political purposes resorted to by extreme elements among the majority community in Myanmar."

On Thursday, Yanghee Lee, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, warned that the country might face "instability and tensions," if the government fails to ensure that the November 8 elections are accepted as legitimate and credible.

In her latest yearly report, Lee found that many Muslim candidates had been barred from running for office based on questions about their citizenship and hundreds of thousands of minorities, including the Muslim Rohingya, might not be able to exercise their right to vote.

On Sunday, Ban specifically deplored "vulgar remarks recently directed, not for the first time" against Lee and said he had written to President U Thein Sein expressing "full confidence in and support for the important work being done by Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee."

Story: DPA

CAIRO — Russian officials and experts flew to Egypt's Sinai on Sunday, a day after a Russian passenger airliner crashed in the largely desert peninsula killing all 224 people on board.

Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov and Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov along with a team of investigators boarded a plane from a military airport in eastern Cairo to the site of the crash, sources at Cairo airport said.

A Russian rescue team boarded another plane heading to Sinai to join the search for bodies of the victims, they added.

Some 163 bodies have been transported to a major mortuary and several hospitals in Cairo, the government said on Sunday.

A massive search operation is underway for the remaining victims at the crash site in a remote desert interior of Sinai, the government added.

Egyptian authorities said the tragedy was probably caused by a technical fault, ruling out the possibility that it was a result of a terrorist act in the turbulent peninsula.

In recent months, the Egyptian army has stepped up a campaign against militant insurgents in Sinai, which borders the Palestinian Gaza Strip and Israel.

A Sinai affiliate of the Islamic State extremist militia claimed to have downed the Airbus A321, which crashed shortly after departing from the Sinai resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh heading to the Russian city of St Petersburg.

But experts expressed doubts as to the claim, saying that shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile systems, which the group apparently used to shoot down an Egyptian military helicopter last year, could not have reached the Russian plane's reported cruising height of 31,000 feet prior to its plunge.

The Dubai-based carrier, Emirates, said on Sunday it was suspending its flights over Sinai, becoming the world's third airlines to take the move.

An Emirates official told dpa that the halt was temporary until the cause of the Russian airliner is determined.

On Saturday, Lufthansa of Germany and Air France announced redirecting their flights to avoid the airspace over Sinai for safety reasons.

TV footage of the ill-fated Russian plane showed a badly damaged tail still carrying the logo of the Metrojet carrier, and wreckage scattered over the crash site.

By Ben Blanchard and Andrea Shalal
Reuters

WASHINGTON — China's naval commander told his U.S. counterpart that a minor incident could spark war in the South China Sea if the United States did not stop its "provocative acts" in the disputed waterway, the Chinese navy said on Friday.

Admiral Wu Shengli made the comments to U.S. chief of naval operations Admiral John Richardson during a video teleconference on Thursday, according to a Chinese naval statement.

The two officers held talks after a U.S. warship sailed within 12 nautical miles of one of Beijing's man-made islands in the contested Spratly archipelago on Tuesday.

China has rebuked Washington over the patrol, the most significant U.S. challenge yet to territorial limits China effectively claims around its seven artificial islands in one of the world's busiest sea lanes.

Angry China Shadows US Warship Defying Beijing in South China Sea

"If the United States continues with these kinds of dangerous, provocative acts, there could well be a seriously pressing situation between frontline forces from both sides on the sea and in the air, or even a minor incident that sparks war," the statement paraphrased Wu as saying.

"(I) hope the U.S. side cherishes the good situation between the Chinese and U.S. navies that has not come easily and avoids these kinds of incidents from happening again," Wu said.

Speaking earlier, a U.S. official said the naval chiefs agreed to maintain dialogue and follow protocols to avoid clashes.

Scheduled port visits by U.S. and Chinese ships and planned visits to China by senior U.S. Navy officers remained on track, the official said.

"None of that is in jeopardy. Nothing has been canceled," said the official.

Unplanned Encounters

Both officers agreed on the need to stick to protocols established under the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea, or CUES.

"They agreed that it's very important that both sides continue to use the protocols under the CUES agreement when they're operating close to keep the chances for misunderstanding and any kind of provocation from occurring," the U.S. official said.

Indeed, Wu said he believed the Chinese and U.S. navies had plenty of scope for cooperation and should both "play a positive role in maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea."

A U.S. Navy spokesman stressed Washington's position that U.S. freedom of navigation operations were meant to "protect the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea and airspace guaranteed to all nations under international law."

Chinese warships followed the USS Lassen, a guided-missile destroyer, as it moved through the Spratlys on Tuesday. The U.S. Navy is operating in a maritime domain bristling with Chinese ships.

While the U.S. Navy is expected to keep its technological edge in Asia for decades, China's potential trump card is sheer weight of numbers, with dozens of naval and coastguard vessels routinely deployed in the South China Sea, security experts say.

China has overlapping claims with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei in the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year.

Next week, Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Vietnam and Singapore, while Chinese Defence Minister Chang Wanquan will attend a meeting of Southeast Asian defense ministers in Malaysia that U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter is also due to attend.

Court Setback

Separately, China suffered a legal setback on Thursday when an arbitration court in the Netherlands ruled it had jurisdiction to hear some territorial claims the Philippines has filed against Beijing over the South China Sea.

The court said additional hearings would be held to decide the merits of the Philippines' arguments. China has not participated in the proceedings and does not recognize the court's authority in the case.

Manila filed the case in 2013 to seek a ruling on its right to exploit the South China Sea waters in its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone as allowed under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

China, facing international legal scrutiny for the first time over its assertiveness in the South China Sea, would neither participate in nor accept the case at the arbitration court, Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin said on Friday.

Liu told reporters the case would not affect China's sovereign claims in the seas.

The Philippine government welcomed the court decision.

Solicitor General Florin Hilbay, Manila chief's lawyer in the case, said the ruling represented a "significant step forward in the Philippines' quest for a peaceful, impartial resolution of the disputes between the parties and the clarification of their rights under [the U.N. convention]."