Chinese President Xi Jinping discusses Russian army withdrawal from Ukraine with President Zelensky
Zelenskiy also said Xi had expressed “words of support” for the extension of a deal to export Ukrainian grain from its Black Sea ports. Moscow has said the pact will not be renewed beyond May 18 unless the West removes obstacles to Russian grain and fertiliser exports.
War in Yemen winds down with complete absence of US role as China parades influence
The war in Yemen looks like it’s coming to an end. US media reported on Thursday that a ceasefire extending through 2023 had been agreed to, but those reports also included Houthi denials. On Friday, Al Mayadeen, a generally pro-Houthi Lebanese news outlet, reported optimism from the Houthi side that...
Germ warfare: No animal host of Covid has been pinpointed, China now suspected to have lab engineered coronavirus
A lab leak in Wuhan is still thought to be the most likely origin of Covid because an animal host has not been found after two years of searching, top scientists believe. Dr Alina Chan, a specialist in gene therapy and cell engineering at MIT and Harvard, said there was...
While China plans to stop financing new coal plants overseas, its domestic consumption has tripled
China’s pledge to stop financing new coal plants abroad, announced by President Xi Jinping at the United Nations summit last week, has raised hopes that the world could soon wean itself off the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. But although this is a positive step from the world’s biggest emitter of...
Covid: Rapid spread of Delta variant compels China’s Wuhan region to test all 12 million residents
China’s Wuhan city will test its 12 million residents for the coronavirus after confirming its first domestic cases of the highly transmissible Delta variant. Wuhan, where the virus first emerged in late 2019, had reported no local coronavirus cases since mid-May last year but on Monday authorities confirmed three cases...
China launches world’s largest carbon market, but questions linger over defiant emitters
China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has launched its first national emissions-trading scheme. Such carbon-pricing mechanisms exist in around 45 countries already, but China’s scheme, which began trading last week, is the world’s biggest. It has been plagued by delays, and researchers argue it might not be ambitious...
China: Farming having become more mechanised, ecotourism inspires people to live in villages
Terry Townshend, a wildlife conservationist and biodiversity adviser to Beijing’s government, has since 2017 been training yak herders in Qinghai in the kinds of skills that ecologists hope could be a model for sustainable development. In 2016, he met the official responsible for Zaduo, a county in Qinghai Province where...
Ordinary Chinese drive ecotourism, central government provides incentives to create jobs
Terry Townshend, a wildlife conservationist and biodiversity adviser to Beijing’s government, has since 2017 been training yak herders in Qinghai in the kinds of skills that ecologists hope could be a model for sustainable development since 2017. In 2016, he met the official responsible for Zaduo, a county in Qinghai...
China ‘imports’ ecotourism projects to cushion local yak herders against loss of land to new national parks
China plans to announce the first parks to be included in its new protected-areas system later this year. It is aiming to replace the current fragmented network of poorly managed protected areas with a national-park model similar to that in other nations. Since the idea was mooted in 2013, the...
From 30m to zero: WHO declares China malaria free, cites artemisinin drug as key
The World Health Organization (WHO) today is certifying China as free of malaria, after a decades-long effort drove an estimated annual toll of 30 million cases in the 1940s, including 300,000 deaths, to zero in 2017. Along the way, China developed new surveillance techniques, medicines and technologies to break the...
