UNITED KINGDOM
Bollywood seen liberalizing
Actress Vaani Kapoor said Bollywood has become more liberal about intimacy on screen ahead of the release of her new film Befikre (Carefree), a contemporary romantic comedy with passionate kissing scenes. The movie, set in Paris and co-starring Ranveer Singh, also references sex and drinking, subjects normally absent from the traditional, conservative song-and-dance romances for which Bollywood is famed. “There’s a change in society,” Kapoor said during a promotional event in London on Monday for the film. “I feel they are evolving and with them you obviously see the cinema evolving and the people who are making it evolving and people accepting it and being more liberal and lenient towards it,” she said. Befikre, which has been approved by India’s Central Board of Film Certification, is to be released in cinemas worldwide on Dec. 9.
AUSTRALIA
Police seize 500kg of MDMA
A police operation has seized more than 500kg of the drug MDMA in Sydney worth A$60 million (US$44.34 million) and arrested two Chinese, officials said yesterday. The men, aged 38 and 34, appeared in a Sydney court on Monday on drug importation charges, a police statement said. They were denied bail and face potential life prison sentences if convicted. The drug arrived in Sydney last month in a shipment of aluminum rollers. Australian Border Force officers examined the consignment and detected a crystalline substance concealed within the rollers. Police made a controlled delivery of the rollers to a Sydney warehouse last week and the men were arrested on Sunday.
CHINA
Double entendre and fries
Authorities are investigating a Shanghai-based fried chicken chain for possible “violations of social order” over its sexually suggestive name — “Call a Chick” — and menu items, the Shanghai Daily reported yesterday. “Chick,” or “chicken,” is slang for prostitute in Chinese. The newspaper said the restaurant offered menu items that included “virgin chick” (spring chicken) and “chick’s sex partner” (beverages), among others. It also ran a suggestive promotion slogan titled “Satisfying all your expectations over chicks.” The newspaper said Call a Chick first came under fire in the western province of Sichuan when a woman complained to the media after her eight-year-old son kept asking her its meaning. The Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau said it had launched an investigation, the newspaper said. “The content involved could violate social order,” it quoted Li Hua (李華), deputy director of the advertisement department of the bureau, as saying. Laws ban advertisements that undermine public order or violate ethical standards. Offenders can face fines of up to 1 million yuan (US$145,127) and have their business license revoked, the Shanghai Daily said.
CHINA
Insulting executive fired
A top executive at German automaker Daimler has lost his job after being accused of yelling insults about local people and using pepper spray in a dispute over a parking spot. The company’s Chinese truck and bus division chief executive officer Rainer Gaertner was accused of starting an argument in an upscale Beijing neighborhood last week. A post that circulated on social media alleged that Gaertner said all Chinese were “bastards,” then used pepper spray to push back onlookers confronting him.
As the sun sets on another scorching Yangon day, the hot and bothered descend on the Myanmar city’s parks, the coolest place to spend an evening during yet another power blackout. A wave of exceptionally hot weather has blasted Southeast Asia this week, sending the mercury to 45°C and prompting thousands of schools to suspend in-person classes. Even before the chaos and conflict unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup, Myanmar’s creaky and outdated electricity grid struggled to keep fans whirling and air conditioners humming during the hot season. Now, infrastructure attacks and dwindling offshore gas reserves mean those who cannot afford expensive diesel
Does Argentine President Javier Milei communicate with a ghost dog whose death he refuses to accept? Forced to respond to questions about his mental health, the president’s office has lashed out at “disrespectful” speculation. Twice this week, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni was asked about Milei’s English Mastiff, Conan, said to have died seven years ago. Milei, 53, had Conan cloned, and today is believed to own four copies he refers to as “four-legged children.” Or is it five? In an interview with CNN this month, Milei referred to his five dogs, whose faces and names he had engraved on the presidential baton. Conan,
French singer Kendji Girac, who was seriously injured by a gunshot this week, wanted to “fake” his suicide to scare his partner who was threatening to leave him, prosecutors said on Thursday. The 27-year-old former winner of France’s version of The Voice was found wounded after police were called to a traveler camp in Biscarrosse on France’s southwestern coast. Girac told first responders he had accidentally shot himself while tinkering with a Colt .45 automatic pistol he had bought at a junk shop, a source said. On Thursday, regional prosecutor Olivier Janson said, citing the singer, that he wanted to “fake” his suicide
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other