AUSTRALIA
Furor over cabbage switch
Fried chicken chain KFC yesterday said that high lettuce prices have forced it to switch to a cabbage mix in burgers and other products, prompting customers to complain the result is less than “finger lickin’ good.” The local price of lettuce has soared by as much as 300 percent, forcing the fast-food chain to tweak the Colonel’s recipe in some stores. “We’re currently experiencing a lettuce shortage. So, we’re using a lettuce and cabbage blend on all products containing lettuce until further notice,” the company said. The company blamed widespread flooding for the problem. The company told customers: “If that’s not your bag, simply click ‘customise’ on your chosen product and remove lettuce from the recipe :)” The change was certainly not the “bag” of some social media users. “The fact that you are replacing lettuce with cabbage makes me rethink my whole meal at KFC. There’s 4 or 5 other things I would eat before cabbage. Its such a weird choice,” one disgruntled customer wrote on Twitter. “Feels like a sign of the apocalypse,” wrote another.
SOUTH AFRICA
Gupta brothers arrested
Two wealthy India-born brothers who were allegedly at the center of a massive web of state corruption in South Africa have been arrested in Dubai, Pretoria announced on Monday. The arrests came as a probe was concluded into massive plundering of state institutions during former president Jacob Zuma’s era. The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development “confirms that it has received information from law enforcement authorities in the United Arab Emirates that fugitives of justice, namely, Rajesh and Atul Gupta, have been arrested,” it said in a statement. The brothers have been accused of paying bribes in exchange for massive and lucrative state contracts, and influence over ministerial appointments.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Minister killed in office
The minister of the environment and natural resources — the son of a former president — was shot to death in his office by a close friend on Monday, the office of the president said in a statement. Authorities said Orlando Jorge Mera was shot by Fausto Miguel de Jesus Cruz de la Mota, who was later arrested at a church after telling a priest he committed a crime and handing him a gun. Officials gave no motive for the shooting. As shots rang out late on Monday morning, people on the street yelled and took cover as those fleeing the building climbed over a tall fence after first throwing over purses, backpacks and even a pair of shoes because the building’s main gates were locked. Authorities said that in a telephone conversation with Cruz while he was at the church, he promised to turn himself in if they guaranteed he would not be killed.
UNITED STATES
‘Top Gun’ lawsuit filed
The family of the author whose article inspired the 1986 Tom Cruise movie Top Gun on Monday sued Paramount Pictures for copyright infringement over this year’s blockbuster sequel Top Gun: Maverick. According to a complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court, Paramount Global failed to reacquire the rights to Ehud Yonay’s 1983 article “Top Guns” from the family before releasing the “derivative” sequel. The lawsuit by Shosh Yonay and Yuval Yonay, who live in Israel and are respectively Ehud’s widow and son, seeks unspecified damages, including profits from Top Gun: Maverick, and to block distribution of the movie or further sequels.
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
‘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
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
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