The Wall Street Journal reports, "China's growth remained at 7% in the second quarter, a level economists had thought would be hard to reach amid broad signs that Beijing's policies to jump-start the world's second-largest economy hadn't yet taken hold. Economists had expected that a large jump in brokerage fees fromstock-market turmoil in the final weeks of June would give a bump to growth, but most had expected growth below 7%. That it still hit that level-which is also the government's growth target for the full year-could renew a debate about the reliability of Chinese statistics. National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Sheng Laiyun said in a news conference after the release that improvements in the economy had been 'hard won."
"A group of foreign tourists, including a veteran anti-apartheid activist from South Africa, have been held in a northern Chinese jail since last Friday after the police accused them of watching "terrorist propaganda videos" in their hotel, according to family members and consular officials. The nine detainees - five South Africans, three Britons and an Indian - were among a group of 20 tourists stopped at the airport in Ordos, a city in the Inner Mongolia region, as they prepared to board a plane for Xi'an, home of China's famed terra cotta warriors, according to consular officials and relatives. The tourists, many of them affluent Muslims of South Asian descent, had been on a 47-day customized tour of China. On Wednesday, six members of the group were allowed to board a flight for Britain, according to a spokeswoman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. Chinese officials initially said five of the South Africans would be able to leave on Wednesday, but they later postponed their departure until Thursday without explanation, according to relatives," writes The New York Times.
CNN writes, "Google says it has altered its map of a disputed reef in the South China Sea, removing its Chinese name in favor of what it says is its internationally recognized moniker. Google changed the name to Scarborough Shoal after objections from people living in the Philippines. A petition posted on Change.orgsaid Google Maps had identified the territory as part of China's Zhongsha Islands. The shoal, which Filipinos call Panatag, is part of a number of islands and reefs in the area being claimed by several countries, including the Philippines. 'We made the fix in line with our long-standing global policy on depicting disputed regions in a way that does not endorse or affirm the position taken by any side,' a Google spokesperson said."