AUSTRALIA
Boeing P-8A delivered
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has taken delivery of the Royal Australian Air Force’s first Boeing P-8A surveillance and anti-submarine aircraft. Turnbull said the airplane that landed at Canberra air force base yesterday would take a frontline role in preventing asylum seekers from reaching the Australian coast by boat. The air force is to receive 12 of the modified Boeing 737 jets by March 2020 for A$5 billion (US$3.77 billion). The airplane is to take over the coastal surveillance role that the Lockheed P-3 Orion has carried out since 1968. Australia expects a new wave of asylum seekers to come from Indonesia by boat after a weekend announcement that the US had agreed to resettle up to 1,600 of the nation’s refugees.
INDIA
Swaraj receiving treatment
Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj yesterday said that she is being treated for kidney failure and undergoing tests for a possible transplant. Swaraj, one of the country’s best-known female politicians and a veteran leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, said on Twitter that she was undergoing dialysis at a private hospital in New Delhi. “I am in AIIMS [All India Institute of Medical Sciences] because of kidney failure. Presently, I am on dialysis,” the 64-year-old said from her verified Twitter account, which has more than 6.5 million followers. “I am undergoing tests for kidney transplant. Lord Krishna will bless.” The Press Trust of India news agency said Swaraj, who suffers from chronic diabetes, had been admitted to AIIMS on Monday last week.
NEW ZEALAND
Drone makes pizza delivery
The world’s first pizza drone delivery was yesterday claimed by the local division of fast-food giant Domino’s, as it looks to grab a slice of a potentially hot future market. Domino’s said it used a drone to deliver two pizzas to a customer at Whangaparaoa, just north of Auckland. Domino’s Pizza Enterprises CEO Don Meij said drones were set to become an essential part of pizza deliveries. “They can avoid traffic congestion and traffic lights, and safely reduce the delivery time and distance by traveling directly to customers’ homes,” he said. “This is the future. Today’s successful delivery was an important proof of this concept.” He said tests would continue at Whangaparaoa this week, with a view to expanding the delivery area next year.
VIETNAM
William arrives for meeting
Britain’s Prince William has arrived on his first visit to the nation, where he is to take part in an international conference on illegal wildlife trade in the fight to protect elephants, rhinoceroses and other endangered species from extinction. The Duke of Cambridge, who is president of United for Wildlife, was yesterday to meet Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Vice President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh before attending the two-day conference starting today in Hanoi. “He knows the people of Vietnam will share his concern that we have less than 25 years to save some of our most iconic species from extinction. He believes Vietnam has a real opportunity to be leaders in wildlife conservation,” the prince’s office said in a statement on Tuesday. On Saturday, authorities destroyed 2,253kg of seized elephant ivory and rhinoceros horns, sending a message that the government wants illegal wildlife trafficking stopped. The Hanoi conference on illegal wildlife trade is to bring together leaders and senior officials from more than 40 countries, as well as experts from international wildlife conservation groups.
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RELATIONS: Cultural spats, such as China’s claims over the origins of kimchi, have soured public opinion in South Korea against Beijing over the past few years Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday met South Korean counterpart Lee Jae-myung, after taking center stage at an Asian summit in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s departure. The talks on the sidelines of the APEC gathering came the final day of Xi’s first trip to South Korea in more than a decade, and a day after his meeting with the Canadian prime minister that was a reset of the nations’ damaged ties. Trump had flown to South Korea for the summit, but promptly jetted home on Thursday after sealing a trade war pause with Xi, with the two
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