CHINA
Toad reports disappear
Reports about a giant inflatable toad have been deleted from the Internet after social-media users compared the puffed-up animal to former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民). The 22m-high toad appeared in a Beijing park last weekend, but met with mockery from social-media users who compared its appearance to that of Jiang. The Web site of Xinhua news agency and popular Web portal Sina had deleted their reports on the toad by yesterday. A spokesman for Yuyuantan Park in Beijing said there were no immediate plans to remove the toad.
CHINA
Flights face delays
Flights to and from Shanghai International Airport and 11 other airports in the east are facing major delays until the middle of next month due to military exercises, according to an official microblog. The posting by Beijing’s public securities bureau did not give any details about the “large scale” military exercises. It said flights would be affected from Sunday to Aug. 15.
CHINA
Crackdown on Internet porn
Authorities have tightened already rigorous Internet controls by cracking down on online pornography and what state media called “rumormongers” and “slanderous content.” Xinhua reported yesterday that the country would target pornography on smartphones and punish pornographic app creators. Xinhua said the government would also increase punishments for spreading rumors online. As part of the new campaign, the government has shut down Web sites and punished nearly 40 people it called rumormongers. According to Xinhua, the government issued a statement saying it aims to protect Chinese Internet users’ rights in their life, work and studies.
ENGLAND
Queen’s horse fails test
A horse owned by Queen Elizabeth II that won one of the nation’s most prestigious races has failed a drugs test, Buckingham Palace announced on Tuesday. Estimate, which won the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot last year and came second in this year’s edition, has tested positive for morphine, a banned substance. A statement issued by the queen’s racing adviser said initial indications were the positive test had resulted from the “consumption of a contaminated feed product.” Morphine is banned by the British Horseracing Authority because it can be used to numb pain. Estimate made sporting history for the queen last year when she became the first reigning monarch to own a Gold Cup-winning horse.
RUSSIA
Navy expansion announced
The nation yesterday announced that it had begun expanding and modernizing its Black Sea fleet based in Crimea with new ships and submarines, just months after annexing the peninsula from Ukraine. “Today, we have started forming a powerful Black Sea fleet with an absolutely different level of air service, coastal missile and artillery troops and marines,” Black Sea fleet commander Alexander Vitko said in a message to servicemen. “We are preparing bases and crews to serve on new ships and submarines.” Vitko said the modernization of the fleet “lays the foundation for the future of the fleet, both in the short term and looking far ahead.” President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the national security council on Tuesday that Russia will bolster its defenses to counter the creeping influence of NATO close to its borders.
UNITED STATES
Vietnam deal approved
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has approved an agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation between the US and Vietnam. The agreement, approved on Tuesday by the committee, would allow US firms into Vietnam’s expanding market for nuclear power. The US and Vietnamese governments reached the agreement in October last year, and it was approved by President Barack Obama in February. It now has to be endorsed by the full Senate. The prospects for passage remain uncertain.
CANADA
Hungarian slavers extradited
Ottawa announced on Tuesday the extradition of 20 Hungarians convicted in what authorities described as the largest human trafficking case in the nation’s history, for forcing eastern European refugee claimants into slavery. Minister of Public Safety Steven Blaney made the announcement in Hamilton, Ontario, where the criminal ring operated. The last of the 20 was expelled in May. Ferenc Domotor pleaded guilty in 2012 to running the gang, which lured men from his native Hungary and coerced them into forced labor at his stucco companies in Hamilton. Domotor and his extended Roma family reportedly forced at least 19 people to claim refugee status when they arrived in Canada from the town of Papa, Hungary, work without pay sometimes as much as 17 hours per day and sleep on mattresses in a locked basement of his house. The people were fed only one meal a day and alarms on the windows and doors kept them from escaping. The scheme was uncovered when police were tipped off by a contractor who was approached by one of the people held captive. Domotor was not among those extradited as he is still serving the remainder of a nine-year prison sentence.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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