Harbin hotel keeping threatened species in pen overlooked by bedrooms angers animal welfare groups
A Chinese hotel built around a central polar bear enclosure for the non-stop viewing pleasure of its guests has opened to immediate condemnation from conservationists.
At Harbin Polar Land in north-east China, the hotel bedrooms’ windows face onto the bears’ pen, with visitors told the animals are their “neighbours 24 hours a day”.
Continue reading...Aya Al-Umari desperately misses her brother Hussein, who was killed in the 2019 massacre, with 50 others
A few months after the Christchurch mosque attacks, Aya Al-Umari went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and from there to Abu Dhabi, where she and her brother Hussein grew up.
The trip was a major step towards accepting her brother’s death, she says. “I wanted to go down the memory lane of our childhood.”
Continue reading...New species of wētā, a giant flightless cricket, is seen as ‘reflecting traits’ of Jacinda Ardern
New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has received what may be her greatest accolade yet: a large insect named in her honour.
A new species of wētā – a giant flightless cricket that is endemic to New Zealand – has been named Hemiandrus jacinda for being Labour-party red in colour and “long-limbed”.
Continue reading...Editorial in state-run Global Times said Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor would likely stand trial in coming weeks
Two Canadian men detained in China are likely to stand trial in the coming weeks, according to a state-backed newspaper, dimming hopes that a diplomatic deal could secure their release.
Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have been held without bail for more than 820 days, since they were detained soon after the Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested on a US warrant in Vancouver.
Continue reading...UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab accuses Beijing of hollowing out the space for democratic debate
China’s rubber stamping parliamentary body has unanimously – bar one abstention and to sustained and loud applause – approved new laws ensuring that only people it deems “patriots” can govern Hong Kong, in a move critics say signals the end of the city’s remaining autonomy.
The final meeting of the National People’s Congress (NPC) at the annual “two sessions” political gathering also approved new domestic amendments and budgets, and the 14th five-year-plan, intended to strengthen and expand China’s domestic technology industry and market, and reach new GDP and population targets amid economic uncertainty and declining birth rates.
Continue reading...Huge waves swept across swathes of the north-east coast after one of the strongest quakes ever recorded, triggering a nuclear meltdown
Japan has observed a moment’s silence to mark the 10th anniversary of an earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people and triggered a nuclear meltdown in Fukushima.
At 2:46 pm, the moment Japan’s north-east coast was struck by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake on 11 March 2011, people attending private and public service across the affected region bowed and fell silent, some clasping their hands in prayer.
Continue reading...Developers built windfarms with a total capacity of almost 100GW in 2020, a rise of nearly 60% on previous year
China built more new windfarm capacity in 2020 than the whole world combined in the year before, leading to an annual record for windfarm installations despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
A study has revealed that China led the world’s biggest ever increase in wind power capacity as developers built almost 100GW worth of windfarms last year – enough to power almost three times the number of homes in the UK and a rise of nearly 60% on the previous year.
Continue reading...One buyer says he bought statue of former US president on Taobao as reminder not to be ‘too Trump’
Donald Trump is not known for his calm and peaceful demeanour, but that hasn’t stopped one entrepreneurial furniture-maker in China from casting a statue of the former US president in a pose more readily associated with the Buddha.
The Trump Buddha statue, listed on the Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao, is priced at 999 Chinese yuan (£110 GBP/$150 USD) for the small version, which measures 1.6 metres tall. A larger version, listed as 4.6 metres tall, is available for 3,999 yuan (£440/$610).
Continue reading...Asia Pacific commander Philip Davidson says Beijing wants to take Washington’s world leadership role by 2050
China could invade Taiwan within the next six years as Beijing accelerates its moves to supplant American military power in Asia, a top US commander has warned.
Democratic and self-ruled Taiwan lives under constant threat of invasion by China, whose leaders view the island as part of their territory and which they have vowed to one day take back.
Continue reading...Russian space agency Roscomos and Chinese counterpart CNSA to develop research facilities on surface of moon or in its orbit
Russia and China have unveiled plans for a joint lunar space station, with the Russian space agency Roscomos saying it has signed an agreement with China’s National Space Administration (CNSA) to develop a “complex of experimental research facilities created on the surface and/or in the orbit of the moon”.
The CNSA, for its part, said the project was “open to all interested countries and international partners” in what experts said would be China’s biggest international space cooperation project to date.
Continue reading...Biak island residents say SpaceX launchpad would devastate island’s ecology and displace people from their homes
Papuans whose island has been offered up as a potential launch site for Elon Musk’s SpaceX project have told the billionaire Tesla chief his company is not welcome on their land, and its presence would devastate their island’s ecosystem and drive people from their homes.
Musk was offered use of part of the small island of Biak in Papua by Indonesian president Joko Widodo in December.
Continue reading...Largest such study finds domestic violence experienced by one-in-four teenage girls with worst levels faced by women in their 30s
One in four women and girls around the world have been physically or sexually assaulted by a husband or male partner, according to the largest study yet of the prevalence of violence against women.
The report, conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UN partners, found that domestic violence started young, with a quarter of 15- to 19-year-old girls and young women estimated to have been abused at least once in their lives. The highest rates were found to be among 30- to 39-year-olds.
Continue reading...A wide range of issues affecting women, from abortion rights to femicide, were highlighted at rallies and events for International Women’s Day on 8 March
Continue reading...Thinktank publishes first non-governmental legal examination of China’s actions in Xinjiang
The Chinese government has breached every single article of the UN genocide convention in its treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang, and bears responsibility for committing genocide, according to a landmark legal report.
The 25,000-word report, published by a non-partisan US-based thinktank, is one of the first independent, non-government legal examination of China’s treatment of Uighurs under the 1948 genocide convention.
Continue reading...Concerns over carbon emissions and food crises are fuelling a move away from meat consumption as a symbol of wealth
The window of a KFC in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou hosts the image of a familiar mound of golden nuggets. But this overflowing bucket sporting Colonel Sanders’ smiling face is slightly different. The bucket is green and the nuggets within it are completely meat free.
Over the last couple of years, after many years of rising meat consumption by China’s expanding middle classes for whom eating pork every day was a luxurious sign of new financial comforts, the green shoots of a vegan meat revolution have begun to sprout. Although China still consumes 28% of the world’s meat, including half of all pork, and boasts a meat market valued at $86bn (£62bn), plant-based meat substitutes are slowing carving out a place for themselves among a new generation of consumers increasingly alarmed by food crises such as coronavirus and African swine fever.
Continue reading...There’s a touch of Hollywood in this dramatised account of the 50 workers who stayed at Fukushima Daiichi in an attempt to avert catastrophe
Dangerously high concentrations of politeness are observed in this dramatisation of the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Not only do most of the heroic “50” left behind to avert nuclear catastrophe constantly apologise for underperforming in acts of barely believable self-sacrifice, at one point a manager begs forgiveness for refusing to allow two employees to re-enter the radioactive zone after a failed first attempt. To the feckless western mind more likely to view Homer Simpson as the standard-issue nuclear power-plant employee, it’s a relief when – just for a second – a few Fukushima workers contemplate running away.
It is possible director Setsurō Wakamatsu has taken the Hollywood route in portraying the staff as so infallibly courageous – though Fukushima 50 is adapted from journalist Ryusho Kadota’s book, which investigated the response to the earthquake and tsunami in more than 90 interviews. Possibly to avoid lawsuits from Tokyo Electric Power Company executives portrayed here as selfish and shamefully caught on a back foot, everyone in the film is fictionalised – except for prime minister Naoto Kan, though he is never referred to by name, and plant manager Masao Yoshida. Yoshida crucially defies orders and allows the reactors to be cooled with seawater – which prevented meltdown and the possible devastation of Japan’s entire eastern seaboard. The reactors also must be “vented” for pressure manually by workers agonisingly selected for the task. Played by Ken Watanabe as a man having the ultimate bad day at work, the simmering Yoshida looks in need of a similar intervention.
Continue reading...The disembodied head of the sacoglossan sea slug feasts on algae while its old body decomposes, and a new one grows
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, then it’s unlikely that you are a sacoglossan sea slug (apologies to Rudyard Kipling).
Scientists in Japan have discovered that this species of sea slug can decapitate itself and then regrow an entirely new body, complete with a beating heart and other vital organs.
Continue reading...Foreign minister Wang Yi calls for cooperation and signals that Beijing will stand firm against criticism
China’s top diplomat has called on the US to drop the sanctions and restrictions introduced by Donald Trump and warned against international “hegemony and bullying” and interference in what Beijing considers internal affairs, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and the South China Sea.
On day three of China’s annual National People’s Congress (NPC), the country’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, signalled that Beijing intended to hold firm against growing international criticism of its perceived expansionist and hostile activity and domestic human rights abuses.
Continue reading...Officials say no new local cases on Sunday, though masks still required on public transport
Auckland has come out of a weeklong lockdown imposed after a community cluster of the more contagious UK coronavirus variant.
There were no new local Covid-19 cases recorded on Sunday, health officials said, allowing for the restrictions to ease. If no community cases are confirmed during the rest of Sunday it would make a full seven days since the last community case.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Colombia to the Sahara
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