US warns Beijing on South China Sea islands
The US will not accept China's militarisation of man-made islands in the South China Sea, Defence Secretary James Mattis has warned.
Speaking at a security conference in Singapore, he said such moves undermined regional stability.
China's territorial claims in the resource-rich South China Sea are contested by several nations.
At the same time, Gen Mattis praised Beijing's efforts to restrain North Korea's missile and nuclear activity.
His comments came shortly after the UN Security Council expanded targeted sanctions against North Korea in response to a series of missile tests conducted this year.
The council voted unanimously to back the sanctions after weeks of negotiations between the US and China.
Muslim children forced to drop 'religious' names in western China
Children under 16 told ‘overly religious’ names such as Saddam, Hajj and Jihad must be changed amid pro-Communist rallies across Xinjiang region
Muslim children in China’s far western Xinjiang region are being forced to change their “religious” names and adults are being coerced into attending rallies showing devotion to the officially atheist Communist party.
During Ramadan, the authorities in Xinjiang have ordered all children under 16 to change names where police have determined they are “overly religious”. As many as 15 names have been banned, including Islam, Quran, Mecca, Jihad, Imam, Saddam, Hajj, Medina and Arafat, according to Radio Free Asia.
In April authorities banned certain names for newborns that were deemed to have religious connotations, but the new order expands forced name changes to anyone under 16, the age at which Chinese citizens are issued a national identity card.Wonder Woman and a dangerous precedent for censorship in Lebanon
Freedom of expression activists worry that banning the latest DC Extended Universe film because of the presence of Israeli lead Gal Gadot could set a trend across Lebanese arts and culture
While the original ancient souk was flattened in the civil war, remnants of medieval walls and the bullet-ridden facades of French influenced mansions remain, jostling with soulless modern buildings.
Between Starbucks, Virgin Megastores and Cinema City, there’s little to distinguish this part of town from any other city in the word – but on a hazy golden evening the plaza outside is a good place for families and teenagers to kill time before it’s dark enough to break their fast.
UN Security Council blacklists North Korea for missile tests
The U.N. Security Council on Friday expanded sanctions against North Korea after its repeated missile tests, adopting the first such resolution agreed by the United States and China since President Donald Trump took office.
The Trump administration has been pressing China aggressively to rein in its reclusive neighbor, warning that all options are on the table if Pyongyang persists with its nuclear
and missile development.
and missile development.
The United States has struggled to slow North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, which have become a security priority given Pyongyang's vow to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.
Adding names to the U.N. blacklist - a global travel ban and asset freeze - was the minimum sanctions measures the Security Council could have taken and comes after five weeks of negotiations between Washington and Beijing.
Children as young as two rescued from Philippine cybersex abuse dens
A mother has been arrested in the Philippines after she allegedly spent five years sending sexually explicit images of her two daughters to an Australian paedophile in the country's booming cybersex industry.
The youngest daughter was only 10 when Stephen James Sheriff, 46, of Cairns, started sending money to her mother in Mandaue City on the Philippine island of Cebu.
Nine months after Sheriff was arrested by the Queensland Police's ARGOS Child Abuse and Sexual Crime Group, Philippine police burst into the mother's house on May 27 and allegedly caught her live-streaming her now 15-year-old daughter performing sex acts for another paedophile.Tokyo Olympics doubles in price from initial estimate
Olympic committees notoriously enter lower bids that do not include all costs, leaving a higher-than-expected bill with taxpayers.
Taxpayers beware: The cost of hosting an Olympics is likely to be far more than advertised.
The price tag on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics has ballooned to nearly twice the initial estimate, even after a major cost-cutting effort.
A major reason is that cities exclude large amounts of associated costs when they submit a bid to host the Olympics.
"Those numbers in the bidding file are almost fiction," said Shinichi Ueyama, a Japanese public policy expert who led a Tokyo government investigation into the Olympics' cost.
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