The New York Times Co has settled a claim by leaders of Singapore’s government that they were smeared by an op-ed piece in the International Herald Tribune, publishing an apology in the Herald Tribune on Wednesday and paying about US$114,000 to the leaders.
Last month, the Herald Tribune, wholly owned by the Times Co, published a column by Philip Bowring that referred to “dynastic politics” and listed the leaders of many countries, including Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and his father, Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀), a former prime minister.
The case stems from a similar one in 1994, when Bowring, a former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, wrote a column in the Herald Tribune that also referred to “dynastic politics” in East Asian countries, including Singapore.
In that case, three of the country’s leaders threatened legal action: The elder Lee, who was prime minister from 1959 to 1990; his son, who was a deputy prime minister at the time; and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), the prime minister at the time.
The Herald Tribune, then co-owned by the Times Co and the Washington Post Co, published an apology saying that it had implied that the younger Lee owed his job to nepotism, and the paper and Bowring promised not to do so again.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
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