CHINA
Scores of dead pigs in river
Authorities have found 157 dead pigs in a river, Xinhua news agency said yesterday, a year after 16,000 carcasses were discovered in Shanghai’s main waterway. The dead porkers were recovered from the Gan River in Jiangxi Province, which supplies drinking water to the provincial capital, Nanchang, and is a tributary of the Yangtze River, one of the nation’s main waterways, Xinhua said. Tests showed that the tap water remains “safe for drinking,” it said, citing Nanchang authorities. Ear tags indicated the animals came from Zhangshu, state broadcaster CCTV said, citing Jiangxi’s agriculture department.
NEPAL
Protesters torch bus
Students protesting against fuel price rises yesterday set a parked bus on fire and vandalized other vehicles during a strike in Kathmandu, leading police to make more than 60 arrests. The city-wide strike, called by student unions to protest at an increase in the price of gasoline, diesel, kerosene and aviation fuel last week, saw schools and colleges shut and most government vehicles stay off the roads. About 2,000 police patrolled the streets, detaining protesters as they tried to enforce the strike by stopping vehicles. The government has refused to roll back increases of up to 7.6 percent in the fuel prices, announced to offset the rising cost of oil imports.
VIETNAM
Blogger jailed for dissent
The government yesterday jailed a prominent blogger for 15 months on a charge of anti-state activity. Pham Viet Dao, 61, a Communist Party member and a former official at the Ministry of Culture, was charged with “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe on the interests of the state” after a half-day trial in Hanoi. His blog attracted thousands of hits between February 2012 and May last year. Dao, who appeared calm in court, apologized for “having posted some incorrect information,” but added that he did not think his posts had “badly influenced society.”
CHINA
Smog insurance on offer
Local companies have offered up a fresh idea to help pollution-weary travelers while cashing in on public concerns over dirty air at the same time — smog insurance. The country’s top online travel agency, Ctrip.com, and leading insurer Ping An have “started to sell haze travel insurance,” the state-run China Daily reported. In exchange for premiums of 10 yuan to 15 yuan (US$1.60 to US$2.40), Ctrip and Ping An have promised to cough up as much as 50 yuan a day to travelers subjected to hazardous skies. Terms and conditions apply — for example, the tourist must have booked a tour through Ctrip lasting three to seven days. The insurance so far only covers six major cities.
CHINA
Puppy sells for US$1.9m
A Tibetan mastiff puppy has been sold for almost US$2 million, Qianjiang Evening News reported yesterday. A property developer paid 12 million yuan (US$1.9 million) for the one-year-old golden-haired mastiff at a “luxury pet” fair on Tuesday in Zhejiang Province, the paper said. “They have lion’s blood and are top-of-the-range mastiff studs,” the dog’s breeder was quoted as telling the paper. “Pure Tibetan mastiffs are very rare, just like our nationally treasured pandas, so the prices are so high.” However, an industry insider told the paper that the high prices may be the result of agreements among breeders to boost their dogs’ worth.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion