The Wall Street Journal reports, "China's shares ended higher Wednesday, with sharp gains in the last half-hour of trading, a day after officials stepped up efforts to calm markets. The Shanghai Composite gained 3.4%, ending at 3789.16, after flitting between gains and losses earlier. The smaller Shenzhen Composite rose 4.1% to 2198.81. The gains-which ranged across sectors-follow three days of selling that knocked 11% from China's main stock index. Shanghai remains down more than a quarter from its June high. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index ended up 0.5% while a gauge of Chinese companies listed in the city rose 0.9%."
The Financial Times writes "more than 100 Chinese naval ships and dozens of aircraft fired live ammunition over the contested South China Sea this week in military manoeuvres that are likely to raise the political temperature in the region. The demonstration of firepower, broadcast on national television, appeared calculated to reassert Beijing's claim to hegemony in the area, where a number of neighbouring countries have also staked claims. High quality global journalism requires investment. It also raised criticism from observers in the region who equated it with sabre-rattling. 'An exercise on this scale in the South China Sea seems a needlessly excessive show of force,' said Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at the Australian National University."
Bloomberg reports, "The hackers who stole data on tens of millions of U.S. insurance holders and government employees in recent months breached another big target at around the same time -- United Airlines. United, the world's second-largest airline, detected an incursion into its computer systems in May or early June, said several people familiar with the probe. According to three of these people, investigators working with the carrier have linked the attack to a group of China-backed hackers they say are behind several other large heists -- including the theft of security-clearance records from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and medical data from health insurer Anthem Inc. The previously unreported United breach raises the possibility that the hackers now have data on the movements of millions of Americans, adding airlines to a growing list of strategic U.S. industries and institutions that have been compromised. Among the cache of data stolen from United are manifests -- which include information on flights' passengers, origins and destinations -- according to one person familiar with the carrier's investigation."