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Asia and Australia Edition

Myanmar, China, Harvard: Your Tuesday Briefing

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

Good morning. President Trump offers an alternative theory on Khashoggi, Kenyans worry about racism at Chinese companies, a new royal baby is on the way. Here’s what you need to know:

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Credit...Tom Brenner for The New York Times

An alternative narrative on Khashoggi.

President Trump, after speaking with the king of Saudi Arabia, offered a new take on what happened to Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi: “Rogue killers” might be behind his disappearance.

Turkish officials have said he was killed by Saudi agents. But the president’s words opened a window for Saudi Arabia to stand by its denials.

(Neither Turkey nor Saudi Arabia have shared evidence so far. Here’s what else we don’t know yet. And here’s a portrait of Mr. Khashoggi’s career.)

Mr. Trump is sending Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to meet with King Salman. And, as of now, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is still planning to attend an investor conference in Riyadh this month — despite many heavyweights pulling out. Japan’s SoftBank, however, might find it difficult to distance itself from the Saudi government.

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Credit...Andrew Renneisen for The New York Times

“We don’t want them to treat us like we are not human.”

Workers at Chinese companies in Kenya describe segregated bathrooms, physical abuse from managers and harsh punishments. They say their bosses call them monkeys.

As Chinese companies invest in the former British colony, concerns are rising about colonial-era labor practices and racist attitudes toward the local population. Above, an employee at a Chinese motorcycle company who filmed his boss’s racist rant.

The episodes, amplified by social media, are creating a national conversation at a time when the government seeks closer ties with China.

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Credit...Tomas Munita for The New York Times

Weaponizing Facebook.

For about half a decade, Myanmar’s military exploited Facebook’s vast reach to unleash a toxic propaganda campaign, stirring up hatred against Rohingya Muslims, said former military officials, researchers and civilian officials.

Hundreds of military personnel were involved, creating sham accounts and celebrity pages then flooding them with incendiary posts, the sources told us.

Facebook confirmed the reports, saying it found “clear and deliberate attempts to covertly spread propaganda that were directly linked to the Myanmar military.” It took down the accounts in August.

But by then the damage was done: more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims, pictured above, had fled the country in what U.N. officials called “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

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Credit...Kayana Szymczak for The New York Times

• Asian-American students take Harvard to court.

Today, the trial examining Harvard’s admissions practices kicked off in Boston, in a case that could impact the future of affirmative action in the U.S.

The lawsuit, brought by a group of Asian-American students who were rejected from the university, alleges Harvard discriminates against Asian-American applicants in favor of other races by holding them to higher standards and using nonacademic gauges to create diversity in incoming classes. Above, Asian-American protesters.

Harvard denies it discriminates against any race, saying its “holistic” admissions system sees race as just one determining factor.

Under the surface, the case, which looks like it could head to the Supreme Court, is really about whether the American dream of upward mobility should be colorblind to race or conscious of it. We break down the details.

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Credit...Philippe Wojazer/Reuters

• In India, Visa, Mastercard and American Express will now be breaking the law every time someone swipes a card. They’re defying new legislation requiring them to store payment data solely on computers in the country, saying they need more time.

• China’s anti-corruption campaign swept up another target: Lai Xiaomin, a former Communist Party secretary and former chairman of one of China’s most powerful lenders. He’s accused of taking bribes and trading influence for sex.

• Super-long-haul travel is making a comeback. Here’s what some airlines are doing to make the journeys a little more bearable.

• Canada tomorrow will become the second country to legalize marijuana. Our reporter who covered legalization in California has a few words of advice: Prepare for a wild ride.

• U.S. stocks were mixed. Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

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Credit...Jeon Heon-Kyun/EPA, via Shutterstock

• A South Korean court exonerated Lee Soo-keun, a defector from North Korea who was accused of being a spy and wrongfully executed in 1969. The ruling is part of an effort to review abuses that occurred when the country was a military dictatorship. [The New York Times]

• Another royal baby: Five months after their widely celebrated wedding, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced they are expecting a child next spring. The new baby will be seventh in line to the throne, but won’t be called prince or princess under current rules. [The New York Times]

• A Chinese social media star has been detained for “insulting” China’s national anthem during a goofy live-stream video, police said. [CNN]

• A Syrian border crossing with Jordan reopened on Monday, three years after it was shut down because of the civil war. It’s a sign of President Assad’s reestablished control over much of the country. [The New York Times]

• Bad news for beer drinkers: Droughts and warming from climate change are expected to hurt barley crops — and could lead to shortages of the beloved beverage, a new study found. [The New York Times]

• Shanghai’s Hongqiao International airport installed the country’s first automated facial recognition system for check-in and security, promising to cut the process to about 12 seconds. [The South China Morning Post]

• Gay conversion therapy hasn’t gone away in Australia, and is slowly starting to enter the mainstream, according to a new report. [ABC]

Tips for a more fulfilling life.

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Credit...Minh Uong/The New York Times

• Lost faith in Facebook? Here’s how to delete Facebook and Instagram forever.

• Recipe of the day: comforting beef barley soup.

• You might be overwashing your face.

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Credit...Collier Schorr

• Solange, above, tasted fame at 16 and quickly stepped way. But she has returned on her own terms as a seasoned multidisciplinary artist — a singer, songwriter, dancer and choreographer — creating a new model for the modern pop star.

• Gucci was starting to lose some of its relevance — until Alessandro Michele became creative director in 2015, reimagining the old rules around gender, sexual identity, race and nationality. “Beauty doesn’t have limits,” he told The Times.

• GEDmatch was a free genealogy site useful for constructing elaborate family trees. Now, over a few months, it has helped crack 15 murder and sexual assault cases — and no one is more surprised than the men who created it.

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Credit...Carlos Osorio/Associated Press

The N.B.A. season opens tonight with a matchup between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Boston Celtics, a storied rivalry.

But it’s far from the league’s fiercest beef. That honor could belong to Robin Lopez and ... mascots.

Lopez, a 7-foot center for the Chicago Bulls, has playfully quarreled with the furry cheerleaders for years. The confrontations tend to follow a pattern: The home team’s mascot will insult Lopez or bait him into making a fool of himself. He then retaliates, often by pushing the mascot to the ground or beating it with its own props.

It’s all in good fun. Lopez avoids earnest talk about the joke, though he told Live Wire Radio in 2014 that he liked to goof off before games to ease his nerves. In interviews, he’s more likely to work up a back story.

“I feel like my earliest encounters with mascots, they were never too receptive of me,” Lopez told Bleacher Report in 2015. “I was a taller child. I always looked a little older than I was. I don’t think I ever got proper attention from those mascots.”

The Bulls start their season on Thursday in Philadelphia, where Franklin the dog has frequently trolled Lopez.

Daniel Victor wrote today’s Back Story.

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