CHINA
Game console ban lifted
Authorities are lifting their ban on sales of video game consoles to promote the industry and a new manufacturing zone in Shanghai. Consoles produced in the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone are to automatically be approved for sale in the rest of the country, according to a Ministry of Culture notice dated Friday. The announcement eases a sales ban imposed in 2000 due to concern children would waste time playing video games. Communist leaders are promoting entertainment and technology development as part of a marathon effort to shift the world’s second-largest economy to more sustainable growth supported by domestic consumption and cleaner industries. Content of games are to be subject to government censorship, it said.
UNITED STATES
Strong quake hits Alaska
A magnitude 6.9 earthquake rattled remote islands in the US state of Alaska on Sunday, seismologists said, but there was no tsunami warning. The underwater quake hit off the Fox Islands, by the Aleutian Trench, more than 1,500km west of Anchorage, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The quake had a depth of 11km and struck at 5:49pm, the USGS said.
CHINA
Trapped miners rescued
Six men were rescued from a flooded coal mine yesterday, having survived a week underground after at least four of their co-workers were killed, state media said. Another five workers were still trapped at the colliery at Hegang in Heilongjiang Province. It flooded on July 20, trapping 15 miners, with investigators blaming the accident on a downpour, Xinhua news agency reported.
MEXICO
GM pot greenhouses found
Federal authorities say they arrested 22 Colombians and three Mexicans using greenhouses to grow genetically modified and cloned marijuana. A Sunday statement issued by the federal police says the operation in the northern state of Jalisco consisted of three greenhouses each of 2,000m2. Officers found a total of 7,000 “mother plants” of marijuana that had been genetically modified and cloned. The statement says the Colombians said they had been contacted by e-mails offering them jobs in Mexico and they ended up at the site in the municipality of Tlajomulco de Zunia. They were paid in US dollars.
UNITED STATES
Houston’s daughter dies
Bobbi Kristina Brown, the only daughter of pop legend Whitney Houston and singer Bobby Brown, has died at age 22, media reported on Sunday. “She is finally at peace in the arms of God,” the Houston family said in statement cited by Entertainment Tonight and other US media outlets. “We want to again thank everyone for their tremendous amount of love and support during these last few months.” Brown was found face down and unresponsive in her bathtub in her Atlanta, Georgia, home on Jan. 31. She was revived by emergency crews, but lost significant brain function. She died at a hospice in Duluth, Georgia. Brown’s accident — which a source told Entertainment Tonight was linked to an apparent drug overdose — drew eerie parallels with the death of her mother, who was found face down in a bathtub in a Los Angeles hotel on Feb. 11, 2012, on the eve of the Grammy Awards. A final coroner’s report said Houston may have overdosed on drugs and alcohol before drowning, and that drug-related heart damage played a part in her death.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was