IN BRIEF (Page 11)

Australia

Lack of sleep costs $50b annually

Sleep deprivation is costing the economy more than $50 billion annually, a report said on Tuesday. The report found that 39.8 percent of Australians were not getting enough sleep. Almost 400 Australians die each year as a result of driving or operating heavy machinery while fatigued. Dorothy Bruck, chair of the Sleep Health Foundation, said 7.4 million Australians suffered from a lack of sleep. Sleep deprivation can be a contributing factor in heart disease, stroke, diabetes and depression.

India

Bank employees plan one-day strike

More than a million bank employees will go on a one-day nationwide strike on Aug 22. The All India Bank Employees Association, which represents nine bank unions, has called the strike to protest against privatization and merger of public sector banks, its general secretary C.H. Venkatachalam said in a statement on Monday.

Couple sacked for faking climb

Indian police have sacked a police couple for faking a climb of Mount Qomolangma last year. Dinesh Rathod and his wife Tarkeshwari Rathod claimed to be the first Indian couple to have climbed the world's highest mountain. Indian police started to question the couple's claims and started a probe after Nepal imposed a 10-year mountaineering ban on them following a Nepalese government investigation that proved that photographs purporting to show the pair at the summit were fake.

South Korea

Japan's renewed claim denounced

Seoul on Tuesday denounced Japan's renewed territorial claim to its easternmost islets of Dokdo, called Takeshima in Japan, which was laid in the Japanese annual defense white paper. Japan published its 2017 defense white paper earlier in the day, in which it claimed Takeshima is part of its territory. It marked the 13th consecutive year that Japan laid sovereignty claim in its white paper to the rocky outcroppings lying halfway between the two countries.

South Africa

Zuma at risk in secret ballot

President Jacob Zuma's time in office could come to a sudden end on Tuesday following the speaker of parliament's surprise decision to allow anonymous voting in a motion of no confidence. The 75-year old president, whose administration has been beset by corruption allegations, said in June that a secret ballot would be unfair.

United States

Author fired over diversity memo

Internet giant Google has fired the male engineer at the center of an uproar in Silicon Valley over the past week after he authored an internal memo asserting there are biological causes behind gender inequality in the tech industry. James Damore, the engineer who wrote the memo, confirmed his dismissal, saying on Monday that he had been fired for "perpetuating gender stereotypes". Google said it could not talk about individual employee cases.

(China Daily 08/09/2017 page11)