World Briefing | Asia: Indonesia: Haze Forces Closing Of Airports

The authorities closed several airports shrouded in smoke from annual land-clearing fires, threatening chaos for millions preparing to travel for the end of the holy month of Ramadan. More than 14 million people are expected to travel by air, road and sea during an annual exodus home from the big cities to rural villages for the end of the fasting month on Sunday. The army, firefighting airplanes and cloud-seeding have so far failed to extinguish fires that have raged for more than two months, shrouding much of western Indonesia and Malaysia and Singapore with smoke. The haze has become an annual scourge as farmers and illegal loggers on Sumatra and Borneo set hundreds of fires to clear land.