Some liken it to heaven. Some liken it to a sack full of spoiled onions and jock straps.
But durian, love it or loathe it, is supposed to smell.
Native to Southeast Asia, the durian's shell resembles an extraterrestrial porcupine. When cut open, it exudes an aroma so powerful that taxis, malls and hotels post signs forbidding durian-toting customers.
Apparently, this freak durian was long in the making. Here's a very thorough New York Times article from 2007 profiling the (mad?) scientist who cultivated the scentless durian. He intended to produce a variety that would entice Westerners repulsed by the strong smell.
Subtract the smell (which can be very enticing to the acclimated durian eater) and what's left?
An odorless durian isn't worth much more than an odorless clove of garlic.
I suspect that any Westerner curious enough to acquire durian is apt to want the real thing, smell and all.
Murhali Barda, member of Indonesian vigilante group Islamic Defenders Front, has vowed via Facebook to attend and thwart a pending Lady Gaga concert in Jakarta. This photo, posted from his Facebook account, depicts a masked man holding tickets to the event. He was charged with inciting 2010 attacks on a Christian church that left one pastor stabbed and another badly bludgeoned. (Facebook)
By now, Islamic hardliners' threats to Lady Gaga's pending June 3 concert in Muslim-majority Indonesia are well documented.
As the concert nears, the rhetoric alleging Gaga's satanic influence on Indonesian youth has grown more outrageous.
Helping lead the crusade is Murhali Barda, a particularly attention-hungry member of the vigilante group Islamic Defenders Front.
Murhali, according to the Jakarta Globe, has led his followers to purchase 150 tickets to Lady Gaga's concert with the intent to shut down the performance. (He explains via Facebook that, naturally, they won't actually watch the show. They'll just disrupt it.)
He warns that Gaga is a "voodoo doll," driven by an unseen mastermind, and that righteous Muslims must "first destroy the doll" to attack the powers that influence the pop diva. These threats were accompanied by a photo of a masked man -- Murhali himself? -- displaying a newly purchased ticket to her show.
He's also posted this collage of Gaga squeezed between two glowing Satan heads.
Given Murhali's history, it's difficult to dismiss this as just another Facebook rant.
Last year, Murhali was sentenced for inciting attacks on a Christian church that left one pastor stabbed and another bludgeoned. He did not appear remorseful in court. Back in 2010, Global Post ran video of the attack -- which includes footage of Murhali -- along with a piece on the Islamic Defenders Front.
A tangle of electrical wires on a neighborhood pylon in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on January 2012. (Chris Jackson/AFP/Getty Images)
Somewhere in Ho Chi Minh City, a team of paranormal investigators is attempting to verify that an 11-year-old girl can set objects alight with her aura.
The Vietnamese Research Center for Potential Human Abilities -- yes, that apparently exists -- is shadowing the girl to ascertain the nature of her abilities, acccording to VietnamNet. A flurry of news reports contend that the girl has caused walls, appliances and bundles of clothing to spontaneously burst into flames.
She doesn't have to touch the objects or even harness her mental concentration, according to the reports. The objects just light up in her presence.
The girl remains anonymous. Outlets such as Tuoi Tre News and Thanh Nien have published photos of charred fans, walls and clothing.
The girl has undergone a battery of tests. The director of a local university says she has an odd streak in her brain that typically occurs in philosophers or priests.
The police, according to Tuoi Tre, have an alternate explanation: bad wiring. Anyone who has seen the tangled nests of power lines strung above Ho Chi Minh City's streets will be sympathetic to their theory.
If the cops are wrong -- and this anonymous girl truly possesses comic book-worthy powers -- she should really consider opening a YouTube account.
According to Reuters, General Electric and Caterpillar have set up shop in Myanmar. Ford is exploring options as well. Others are sure to follow.
The White House is hedging somewhat by "suspending" instead of "lifting" sanctions outright. Ostensibly, if Myanmar's reform movement suddenly skidded off the tracks, the US could revert its stance. But once these corporations expand their foothold in Myanmar (formerly Burma), it will be difficult to stop them from continuing to tend to their investments.
According to a slew of established American media outlets -- including USA Today, L.A. Weekly and Daily Kos-- boxing megastar and Philippine congressman Manny Pacquiao believes gay people should be executed.
But there are several reasons why journalists should reconsider echoing that this Nike-endorsed athlete wants all gays dead.
Here's the best one: the "National Conservative Examiner" doesn't exist.
The interview was posted to Examiner.com, a repository for "self-motivated, independent contributors" to post musings on cat care, cookie recipes, politics and other fare.
The "freelance writer" who scored the interview with Pacquiao, among the world's top celebrities, is listed as Granville Ambong, an "accredited deadline/lead writer for Maharlikan Times and the famous Philboxing.com." The latter is up and running. The former, like the "National Conservative Examiner," does not appear to exist.
It gets worse.
Pacquiao's explicit death-to-gays quote is bogus.
According to USA Today, Pacquiao recites a Leviticus passage declaring that gays "must be put to death." But even the post's author claims Pacquiao never personally recited this quote in a follow-up column. Yes, it's quoted in the article. But Ambong was quoting the Bible, not Pacquiao.
Pacquiao, like many Filipinos, claims devoutly Catholic beliefs. His conservative politics appear to fall somewhere to the right of Rick Santorum's; he proclaimed last year that condoms are sinful.
Given that Pacquiao is an elected Philippine official, as well as a lieutenant colonel in the US-allied Philippine Army, his convictions merit more scrutiny than most wayward statements spilling out of athletes' mouths.
Also deserving of scrutiny? Overeager journalists and online echo chambers.
Only a handful of media outlets have come to his defense, including Salon, which noted the mob-like mentality about what Pacquiao didn't say has reached epic proportions. The site said, "Before you could say gross perversion of the facts, Change.org was running a petition asking Nike to drop 'homophobic boxer Manny Pacquiao,' declaring, 'In an interview published Tuesday, March 15th with the conservative Examiner newspaper, the world-famous boxer and Los Angeles resident quoted Leviticus…' And except for the fact that Pacquiao didn’t quote Leviticus, Examiner.com is not a conservative newspaper, and the interview didn’t run on Tuesday, sure."
In a statement Pacquiao attempted to defend his reputation. He said, “I didn’t say that, that’s a lie… I didn’t know that quote from Leviticus because I haven’t read the Book of Leviticus yet. I’m not against gay people… I have a relative who is also gay. We can’t help it if they were born that way. What I’m critical off are actions that violate the word of God. I only gave out my opinion that same sex marriage is against the law of God.”
Following the incorrect news of Pacquiao's views, Twitter lit up with responses, even calling for Nike to pull their endorsement of Pacquiao.
U.S. Senator John McCain receives flowers from an unidentified HIV-infected child during a visit to a private HIV/AIDS care center run by members of the National League for Democracy political party in Yangon, Myanmar. (Soe Than Win/AFP/Getty Images)
Last month, influential Democratic Sen. Jim Webb proposed "moving forward on trade" with Myanmar, a reforming quasi-democracy currently sealed off from American investors by a thicket of sanctions.
Now we've got a longtime Myanmar observer from across the aisle, Republican Sen. John McCain, suggesting Uncle Sam should pull out the weedwhacker.
In a speech at Washignton D.C.'s Center for Strategic and International Studies, he advocated suspending -- not permanently removing -- almost all American sancitons against Myanmar. (The U.S. government still calls the country by its colonial name: Burma.)
McCain suggested only two major caveats: no weapons and no investing in military-backed firms.
That both a Democrat and a Republican with plenty of political juice agree on wiping out sanctions is highly significant. The White House can only eliminate so many sanctions against Myanmar by decree. (And there are plenty of them.)
It's up to Congress to eliminate the rest.
Said McCain in his Center for Strategic and International Studies speech:
"The right kind of investment would strengthen Burma’s private sector, benefit its citizens and ultimately loosen the military’s control over the economy and the civilian government. The wrong investment would do the opposite, entrenching a new oligarchy and setting back Burma’s development for decades."
There's a reason so many hostesses flying with Asian airlines appear cast by a modeling agency.
Many Asian carriers are unabashed in insisting on youth and beauty as a stewardess job requirement. One Thai carrier that heavily markets its stewardesses' sex appeal, Nok Air, retires its hostesses at 29.
Such requirements would almost certainly attract lawsuits in the U.S.
America's laws on hiring biases towards female, attractive employes were actually shaped by claims against airlines: a 1974 suit against now-defunct Pan American Airlines and a 1981 suit against Southwest Airlines. Both were filed by men disgruntled with the airlines' overwhelming preference for good-looking women.
So it's interesting to see that Singapore Airlines, which first iconized the Asian flying beauty with its "Singapore Girl" campaign decades ago, is finally relenting to pressure from older hostesses.
According to the Asia News Network, the airline, responding to a lawsuit, will extend its maximum employment time so that senior stewardesses could potentially still fly until their early 50s.
There's more. Reports the Asia News Network: "Now ... as long as the crew keep themselves fit and presentable, and have a good work attitude, they should be able to stay on."
Mature stewardesses? OK.
Grumpy, overweight stewardesses? Still a firing offense.
Filipino protesters holding placards shout anti-China slogans during rally in front of the Chinese consulate in the financial district of Manila on May 11, 2012. (TED ALJIBE/AFP/Getty Images)
As Chinese and Philippine vessels refuse to budge from a disputed speck of land in the South China Sea, jingosim in both countries is growing more absurd by the day.
Here we have a Chinese television "journalist" standing atop a remote outcropping of the island, where he has planted a Chinese flag. Protesters in Hong Kong are burning the flags of the Philippines and its major ally, the US. The state-run China Daily writes that the country is being "pressed into a corner where there is no other option left but the use of arms."
The Chinese government has also warned its citizens that they may be harmed if they step outside in the Philippines, according to Channel News Asia.
Meanwhile, at protests in the Philippines, the flag of the People's Republic of China is being set alight on the streets, according to the Philippine Star. A demonstation leader in Manila tells the BBC that China is acting like an "arrogant overlord."
And to top it all off, Filipino women have gathered before the Chinese embassy in Manila to defiantly mime along to the disco hit "Kung Fu Fighting."
Dozens of outlets are reporting that a top-of-the-line Russian jet, filled with embassy delegates and prospective buyers, has crashed into the side of an Indonesian volcano.
The Associated Press reports that all 47 passengers, most of them Indonesian, are likely dead.
But what was the $35 million jet, a Sukhoi Superjet 100, doing in Indonesia in the first place?
Despite its reputation for poverty and corruption, Indonesia is the place to be for airplane manufacturing giants looking to cut deals in an emerging market.
That's exactly what representatives of Sukhoi, Russia's premier aeronautics entity, were attempting to do before the crash. The jet, according to AFP, was touring the region on a promotional tour to interest new buyers.
Both demographics and geography make Indonesia fertile ground for such deals. Its enormous population, the world's fourth largest, is giving rise to a growing middle class. Those who can afford to move about in the sprawling archipelago must buy plane tickets. There's just no other efficient way to get from island to island. The country relies on air travel to function.
A staggering statistic published by the Jakarta Globe illuminates just how fast the market is growing: the chief airport in the capital, Jakarta, saw the number of passengers shoot from 12 million to 50 million last year.
This crash is an enormous setback for Sukhoi. But it's unlikely to put a dent in Indonesia's hunger for new aircraft.
Indonesian activists protest American pop diva Lady Gaga's upcoming concert in Jakarta on April 29, 2012. The country's Islamic religious figures have denounced her coming June 3 concert as an abomination. (OSCAR SIAGIAN/AFP/Getty Images)
Indonesia has only four weeks to brace for a satanic invasion that could forever blacken the nation's morality.
That's right. Lady Gaga will perform in the sprawling capital, Jakarta, on June 3.
The Islamic Defenders Front, a vigilante group GlobalPost profiled in late 2010, vows to disperse all 60,000 concertgoers with a righteous posse of six men, the Jakarta Post reports.
According to local outlet Kompas, the front believes Gaga is "bringing the faith of Satan to our country."
It gets better. The anti-Gaga crusade has also dispatched children to warn the city away from the pop diva's corrupting influence.
As you can see in the photo to the left, a little grl is urging Gaga to sub out her Jakarta stop for an even hotter locale: hell.
And according to this tyke in fuschia bunny ears, Lady Gaga is a "zionist agent" and an "evil queen."
Comprehending one of the world's most dynamic regions each day, from politics, to business to culture. On Southeast Asia is a reported blog from Bangkok, written by GlobalPost senior correspondent for Southeast Asia Patrick Winn.
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