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help combat drug smuggling, human trafficking and illegal immigration.
• The military isn't releasing details of the mission, including its length and the number of soldiers taking part. The Guard cites security concerns.
• It is the second time the South Dakota Guard has helped out on the border, but the first time that it's using its own helicopter.
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Beijing's anti-graft campaign targets mooncakes
KELVIN CHAN, AP Business Writer
• HONG KONG (AP) -- Mooncakes -- the hockey-puck-sized pastries Chinese give each other every year for the mid-autumn festival -- were always more about tradition than delicacy: Some people don't even like them. But in recent years, as corruption eroded confidence in government, the unscrupulous made the dense, calorific cakes even sweeter.
• Luxurious boxes of mooncakes can contain far more than the traditional filling of lotus seed or red bean paste and a salted egg yolk symbolizing the moon. Some have rare ingredients such as abalone, shark fins or bird's nest. Gift sets can even include items such as gold coins, top-notch wines, mobile phones and diamond rings.
• Now, in an effort to combat bribery and extravagant spending, China's Communist Party leadership has singled out the tradition in its austerity drive. It has banned the use of public money to buy the pastries and associated gifts, dampening demand just as the market hits its usual peak ahead of the Sept. 19 festival.
• "Decadent styles have polluted our festival culture in recent years with the sending of increasingly extravagant gifts such as mooncakes and hairy crabs, drifting further away from our frugal virtues," Vice Premier Wang Qishan, head of the party's internal watchdog panel, said last week, according to state media.
• Mooncakes -- or, more often, mooncake coupons redeemable at stores -- have been so common as gifts from offices and state-owned companies to employees that a secondhand market has emerged for the vouchers among scalpers in Chinese cities such as Shanghai. But such commerce has dwindled under President Xi Jinping's austerity drive.
• "Business is not as good as last year. It's dropped about 60 percent, mainly due to fewer official receptions," said Zhang, a trader who gave only his surname as he hustled for business in a subterranean walkway near a busy Shanghai shopping street.
• Xi's effort already has crimped income at posh restaurants after new party rules were brought in at the start of the year curbing spending on food and drink. It's part (Continued on page 27)
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