JAPAN
UN recognizes ‘washoku’
The UN cultural organization has added traditional Japanese food to its cultural heritage list, making it only the second national cuisine to receive the prized designation. A UNESCO committee announced the decision on Wednesday at a meeting in Azerbaijan. Previously only French cooking had been distinguished as a national culinary tradition. UNESCO has also recognized specific dishes from Mexico and Turkey, and added the Mediterranean diet — the tradition of sharing food and eating together — at this week’s meeting. Known as washoku, the traditional cooking embraces seasonal ingredients, a unique taste and a style of eating steeped in centuries of tradition. The government hopes that UNESCO recognition will both send a global message and boost efforts to save washoku at home.
CHINA
Tibetan sets self alight
A father of two set himself on fire in protest at Beijing’s rule in Tibetan regions, triggering clashes and a security crackdown, a US broadcaster and an overseas pressure group said yesterday. Radio Free Asia (RFA) said Konchok Tseten, 30, torched himself in Aba Prefecture, Sichuan Province. He was severely burned, and local Tibetans clashed with police as they tried to stop them from taking him away, sources told RFA. London-based campaign group the International Campaign for Tibet named the man as Kunchok Tseten, and said his wife and some relatives were believed to have been taken into custody.
UNITED KINGDOM
PM nets pig semen deal
Local farmers will begin exporting pig semen to breeders in China next year, officials said on Wednesday, as they try to cash in on the Asian superpower’s growing consumption of meat. The deal, involving fresh or frozen sperm from four artificial insemination centers in England and Northern Ireland, was agreed during Prime Minister David Cameron’s three-day trade visit to China this week. Cameron’s office said the deal could be worth ￡45 million (US$74 million), although the farming ministry said the figure also included live pig exports. Environment Secretary Owen Paterson also used the trip to lay the groundwork for a deal to export trotters from pig farmers. “Pig trotters at home will often go to waste, but in China they are a real delicacy,” he said in a statement.
UNITED STATES
No iPhone for Obama
The troubled mobile phone maker BlackBerry still has at least one very loyal customer: President Barack Obama. At a meeting with youth on Wednesday to promote his healthcare law, Obama said he is not allowed to have Apple’s iPhone for “security reasons,” but he still uses an iPad. Apple was one of several tech companies that may have allowed the National Security Agency direct access to servers containing customer data, according to revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The companies deny the allegation.
UNITED STATES
‘Newsweek’ to resume print
Nearly a year after Newsweek published what it called its final print edition, the magazine said it would begin producing a weekly print edition as early as next month. Newsweek editor in chief Jim Impoco told the New York Times on Tuesday that the new magazine would be “a premium product, a boutique product” — with a higher price than its predecessor. He said the publication plans to rely more on subscribers instead of advertisers to support production costs.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
TIGHTENING: Zhu Hengpeng, who worked for an influential think tank, has reportedly not been seen in public since making disparaging remarks on WeChat A leading Chinese economist at a government think tank has reportedly disappeared after being disciplined for criticizing Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in a private chat group. Zhu Hengpeng (朱恆鵬), 55, is believed to have made disparaging remarks about China’s economy, and potentially about the Chinese leader specifically, in a private WeChat group. Zhu was subsequently detained in April and put under investigation, the Wall Street Journal reported. Zhu worked for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) for more than 20 years, most recently as the Institute of Economics deputy director and director of the Public Policy Research Center. He
CHINESE ICBM: The missile landed near the EEZ of French Polynesia, much to the surprise and concern of the president, who sent a letter of protest to Beijing Fijian President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere called for “respect for our region” and a stop to missile tests in the Pacific Ocean, after China launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). In a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday, Katonivere recalled the Pacific Ocean’s history as a nuclear weapons testing ground, and noted Wednesday’s rare launch by China of an ICBM. “There was a unilateral test firing of a ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean. We urge respect for our region and call for cessation of such action,” he said. The ICBM, carrying a dummy warhead, was launched by the
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
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