CHINA
New fires in Tianjin
Emergency workers raced to put out four new fires that had broken out close to the site where two massive explosions in a warehouse storing dangerous chemicals killed 114 people last week, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. Xinhua said one of the “ignition points” came from within an automobile distribution area near the blast site and the other three were within the central blast area.
AUSTRALIA
Qantas deal approved
The country’s competition watchdog yesterday reversed a draft decision against a joint venture between Qantas and China Eastern, giving the carriers the green light to coordinate pricing and scheduling. The Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in March said the original proposal between the airlines would harm competition. However, the regulator yesterday said that China Eastern had since agreed to increase the frequencies of its services between the country and China and introduce a new route if the deal was allowed. Qantas and China Eastern will also expand the destinations covered by their existing codeshare agreement as they seek to establish a gateway through China Eastern’s Shanghai hub for connecting services between the countries.
TURKEY
Troops kill 771 PKK: media
Troops have killed 771 militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey over the past four weeks, the state news agency Anatolia said yesterday. The agency, whose figures could not be confirmed independently, said among those killed were 430 rebels who died in air raids on PKK camps in Iraq. Another 260 were killed in ground operations in the southeast, Anatolia said, quoting what it said were sources in military intelligence. The offensive was launched after 33 pro-Kurdish activists were killed on July 20 in a suicide bombing on the Syrian border blamed on Islamic State (IS) militants. The attack prompted a violent reaction against police and troops from Kurdish militants, who accuse Ankara’s Islamic-rooted government of complicity with IS. On July 24, Ankara launched its first air strikes against IS in Syria and then also began attacking targets of the PKK in northern Iraq, in a dual “war on terror.” Dozens of air strikes have been carried out, but only three have officially been targeted at IS. The PKK has been blamed for attacks that have killed about 50 Turkish soldiers.
CHINA
Foreigners learn kung fu
In the countryside outside the birthplace of the sage Confucius (孔子), 35 students — the vast majority of them foreigners — battle the elements, as well as exhaustion at a remote kung fu training academy. The students in Qufu, from as far afield as Brazil, Ukraine, Spain and France, vary in age from six — a young boy who accompanied his mother on a summer holiday — to 50. It is a disciplined, regimented regime, with activities beginning at 6am every day and featuring several hours of practice. This includes runs up and down thousands of steps through the steep hills of a neighboring national park, interspersed with meals. The students are divided into three groups based on their ability, with each group assigned a kung fu master who blows a whistle at the start of every activity. They line up to pay their respects to him each time. The learners can choose how long to stay, from those taking short breaks to one Dutch man who has been training for a year to become a kung fu master and open his own academy in the Netherlands.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
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