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usafphantom2 · 1 year ago

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China announces fourth aircraft carrier. Will it be the first nuclear propulsion?

China will soon inform if the newest aircraft carrier will be powered by nuclear energy

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 03/07/2024 - 08:34in Military

The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLAN) Navy officially announced that it will build the country's fourth aircraft carrier, Type 004, stating that doubts about whether it will be powered by nuclear or conventional energy will be addressed soon.

Yuan Huazhi, the political commissioner of the PLA Navy, released this information during Two Sessions, the simultaneous annual meeting of the National People's Assembly (APN) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CCPPC) that took place in Beijing, while addressing issues about the aircraft carrier propulsion system and its strategic role.

In response to questions from the Hong Kong Commercial Gazette, Yuan Huazhi, also a deputy of the National People's Assembly (APN), remained silent about whether the fourth aircraft carrier would be powered by nuclear energy. He said: "We will tell you soon," suggesting that a formal announcement on the subject is imminent.

Yuan emphasized that there are no technological bottlenecks in the development of China's aircraft carriers, stating that progress is proceeding smoothly. He clarified that the expansion of China's aircraft carrier fleet is not intended to compete with the United States, but to safeguard national sovereignty, territorial integrity and rights.

When asked about the ability to fight U.S. aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific, Yuan said: "Trust us, we can. We don't just deal with aircraft carriers. We also deal with [potential threats] comprehensively."

Type 003 and Type 004 aircraft carriers in scale.

Analysts were cited by the Global Times debating the energy source of the new aircraft carrier. Some expect it to be powered by nuclear energy, citing the advantages of unlimited range. However, others argued in favor of a conventional propulsion aircraft carrier, similar to the third Fujian aircraft carrier, citing cost efficiency and faster generation of combat capability.

On Twitter last year, Henri Kenhmann speculated that the new concept of Jiangnan aircraft carrier could be powered by nuclear energy, something that has long been considered of interest to PLAN. Nuclear propulsion gives ships an effectively unlimited range, although they still need to be refueled for other reasons. Nuclear power also has benefits when it comes to generating the electricity that modern warships need to properly power advanced weapons, sensors, mission systems and more.

— East Pendulum (@HenriKenhmann) April 7, 2023

Currently, the PLA Navy operates two conventional propulsion aircraft carriers, the Liaoning and the Shandong. The third aircraft carrier, Fujian, is currently undergoing mooring tests and is expected to carry out tests at sea later this year.

Fujian starting his tests.

Observers reported that the deployment of aircraft carriers in China is aligned with the general standard, where a third of the time is spent on maintenance, one third on training and only one third on deployment. “Having three aircraft carriers means that the PLA Navy can only have one aircraft carrier at its disposal at any given time,” noted one expert. With the addition of a fourth aircraft carrier, China intends to improve its strategic capabilities.

Tags: Military AviationChinaPLAN - People's Liberation Army Navy / People's Liberation Army Navyaircraft carrier

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Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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thesecrettimes · 2 years ago

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Bitmain to Reveal Groundbreaking Antminer S21 at 2023 World Digital Mining Summit

Antminer S21: Bitmain’s Next-Gen Bitcoin Miner to Debut at Hong Kong’s WDMS 2023 The impending launch of this new mining rig has been detailed in a report by Weixin, which highlights that the device will be revealed at the 2023 WDMS in Hong Kong from September 22 to 23, 2023. The Antminer S21, whose existence was also confirmed by local Chinese crypto reporter Colin “Wu Blockchain,” is poised to take center stage. “Bitmain announced that it will hold the Summit in Hong Kong from September 22 to 23, 2023 and release the latest Antminer S21 bitcoin mining machine,” proclaimed the reporter on the social media platform X. “It claims that the energy efficiency ratio is lower than 20 J/T for the first time.” While the Weixin report refrains from disclosing the exact ratio, it underscores that the machine will shepherd “the global mining industry into the 1X J/T era with unparalleled computing power and performance.” Additionally, Bitmain announced at the conference that it will introduce a customer point system for S21 buyers, offering them discounts on the machines. The report, however, also remains silent on the specific terahash output of the new machine or whether the S21 will constitute a series of miners. Back in May, Bitmain’s rival Microbt took the wraps off a hydro-cooling Whatsminer machine, designated the M53S++, boasting up to 320 terahash per second (TH/s) and an efficiency ratio of 22 J/T. In comparison, Bitmain’s top-performing miners, the Antminer S19 Pro Hydro and the Antminer S19 XP Hydro, achieve 184 TH/s and 257 TH/s, respectively. The XP bitcoin mining machine crafted by Bitmain narrowly approaches the 20 J/T mark, registering at 20.8 J/T. What do you think about the upcoming Antminer set to be revealed at the 2023 WDMS Share your thoughts and opinions about this subject in the comments section below. Read the full article

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bountyofbeads · 6 years ago

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Did Xi Jinping Bungle the Hong Kong Crisis? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/world/asia/china-hong-kong-xi-jinping.html

Is Xi Mishandling Hong Kong Crisis? Hints of Unease in China’s Leadership

Beijing’s halting response to the protests in Hong Kong has raised questions about President Xi Jinping’s imperious style and authoritarian policies.

By Steven Lee Myers, Chris Buckley and Keith Brasher | Published Sept. 7, 2019 Updated 10:21 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted September 7, 2019 12:07 PM ET |

BEIJING — China’s leader, Xi Jinping, warned a gathering of senior Communist Party officials in January that the country faced a raft of urgent economic and political risks, and told them to be on guard especially for “indolence, incompetence and becoming divorced from the public.”

Now, after months of political tumult in Hong Kong, the warning seems prescient. Only it is Mr. Xi himself and his government facing criticism that they are mishandling China’s biggest political crisis in years, one that he did not mention in his catalog of looming risks at the start of the year.

And although few in Beijing would dare blame Mr. Xi openly for the government’s handling of the turmoil, there is quiet grumbling that his imperious style and authoritarian concentration of power contributed to the government’s misreading of the scope of discontent in Hong Kong, which is only growing.

On Friday and Saturday the protests and clashes with the police continued in Hong Kong, even after the region’s embattled chief executive, Carrie Lam, made a major concession days earlier by withdrawing a bill that would have allowed the extradition of criminal suspects to the mainland, legislation that first incited the protests three months ago.

The Communist Party’s leadership — and very likely Mr. Xi himself — has been surprised by or oblivious to the depth of the animosity, which has driven hundreds of thousands into the streets of Hong Kong for the past three months. While it was the extradition bill that set off the protests, they are now sustained by broader grievances against the Chinese government and its efforts to impose greater control over the semiautonomous territory.

Beijing has been slow to adapt to events, allowing Mrs. Lam to suspend the bill in June, for example, but refusing at the time to let her withdraw it completely. It was a partial concession that reflected the party’s hard-line instincts under Mr. Xi and fueled even larger protests.

As public anger in Hong Kong has climbed, the Chinese government’s response has grown bombastic and now seems at times erratic.

In July, at a meeting that has not been publicly disclosed, Mr. Xi met with other senior officials to discuss the protests. The range of options discussed is unclear, but the leaders agreed that the central government should not intervene forcefully, at least for now, several people familiar with the issue said in interviews in Hong Kong and Beijing.

At that meeting, the officials concluded that the Hong Kong authorities and the local police could eventually restore order on their own, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

There are hints of divisions in the Chinese leadership and stirrings of discontent about Mr. Xi’s policies.

Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political science professor at Hong Kong Baptist University and an expert on Chinese politics, said it appeared that there was debate during the annual informal leaders’ retreat in Beidaihe, a seaside resort not far from Beijing.

Some party leaders called for concessions, while others urged action to bring Hong Kong more directly under the mainland’s control, he said. Mr. Cabestan said he believed that “the Chinese leadership is divided on Hong Kong and how to solve the crisis.”

Wu Qiang, a political analyst in Beijing, said Mr. Xi’s government had in effect adopted a strategy to procrastinate in the absence of any better ideas for resolving the crisis. “It is not willing to intervene directly or to propose a solution,” he said. ��The idea is to wait things out until there is a change.”

The upshot is that instead of defusing or containing the crisis, Mr. Xi’s government has helped to widen the political chasm between the central government and many of the seven million residents in a city that is an important hub of international trade and finance, critics say.

Another sign of the disarray within the government was the reaction to Mrs. Lam’s withdrawal of the bill. On Tuesday, officials in Beijing declared there could be no concessions to the protesters’ demands. A day later, when Mrs. Lam pulled the bill back, she claimed to have Beijing’s blessing to do so. The same officials were silent.

On Friday, China’s premier, Li Keqiang, said during a news conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who was visiting China, that the government supported Hong Kong in “halting the violence and disorder in accordance with the law.”

Mr. Xi, who is 66 and in his seventh year of his now unlimited tenure as the country’s paramount leader, has cast himself as an essential commander for a challenging time. He has been lionized in the state news media as no other Chinese leader has been since Mao.

This has made political solutions to the Hong Kong situation harder to find, because even senior officials are reluctant to make the case for compromise or concessions for fear of contradicting or angering Mr. Xi, according to numerous officials and analysts in Hong Kong and Beijing.

“Beijing has overreached, overestimating its capacity to control events and underestimating the complexity of Hong Kong,” said Brian Fong Chi-hang, an associate professor at the Academy of Hong Kong Studies at the Education University of Hong Kong.

The tumult in Hong Kong could pose a risk to Mr. Xi, especially if it exacerbates discontent and discord within the Chinese leadership over other issues.

“I think the danger is not that his standing will collapse, but that there is a whole series of slowly unfolding trends that will gradually corrode his position,” said Richard McGregor, a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney and author of “Xi Jinping: The Backlash.”

“Hong Kong is one, as the protests look set to carry on despite the concessions,” Mr. McGregor said. “The trade war is adding to the pain,” he added, referring to the current standoff with the United States.

Mr. Xi returned on Tuesday to the same venue as his speech in January — the Communist Party’s Central Party School — and reprised the warnings he raised in January without suggesting they were in fact worsening.

“Faced with the grim conditions and tasks of struggle looming down on us, we must be tough-boned, daring to go on the attack and daring to battle for victory,” he said.

While he warned of “a whole range” of internal and external threats — economic, military and environmental — he mentioned Hong Kong only once, and then only in passing.

“By painting a dark picture of hostile foreign forces or even unrelenting internal challenges the Communist Party faces in retaining power, it helps justify his continuing strong hand,” said Christopher K. Johnson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Some analysts see a parallel between Mr. Xi’s handling of Hong Kong and the trade war with the United States, which, like the economy more broadly, seems to be the greatest worry for his government at the moment.

In Hong Kong, Mr. Xi’s government unwaveringly supported the extradition bill. And it stuck by that position, refusing to allow Mrs. Lam to withdraw it formally, even as the protesters’ demands grew broader. Her pledge to withdraw it now has been dismissed as too little, too late.

In the trade talks, China also balked at accepting President Trump’s initial demands for concessions. When the two sides came close to an agreement in the spring, outlined in a 150-page document, Mr. Xi appeared to balk, scuttling the process.

Now Mr. Xi faces an even bigger trade war, with much higher tariffs and greater tensions. The government appears to be hewing to a strategy of waiting out Mr. Trump, possibly through his 2020 re-election campaign, even as the dispute has become a drag on the economy.

It remains unclear how Mr. Xi’s government conveyed its approval for Mrs. Lam’s decision — or whether it did. Mrs. Lam’s sudden shift evolved in a matter of days after last weekend’s clashes between protesters and the police, several officials said.

Mrs. Lam said the decision to withdraw the extradition bill was hers, but she also asserted that she had Beijing’s full support for doing so, suggesting more coordination than either side has publicly acknowledged.

The silence from officials and in the state news media about Mrs. Lam’s concession suggested that if Mr. Xi’s government did approve of the sudden shift, it wanted to stifle public discussion of it in the mainland.

Mrs. Lam herself described the tightrope she must walk during recent remarks to a group of business leaders that were leaked and published by Reuters.

“The political room for the chief executive who, unfortunately, has to serve two masters by constitution, that is, the central people’s government and the people of Hong Kong, that political room for maneuvering is very, very, very limited,” she said.

She also offered a candid assessment of Beijing’s views, even if one she did not intend to make public. She said Beijing had no plan to send in the People’s Liberation Army to restore order because “they’re just quite scared now.”

“Because they know that the price would be too huge to pay,” she went on. “Maybe they don’t care about Hong Kong, but they care about ‘one country, two systems.’ They care about the country’s international profile. It has taken China a long time to build up to that sort of international profile.”

Hong Kong’s unique status, with its own laws and freedoms, has long created a political dilemma for China’s leaders, especially for Mr. Xi, who has made China’s rising economic and political might a central pillar of his public appeals.

China’s recovery of sovereignty over the former British colony is a matter of national pride that reversed a century and a half of colonial humiliation. But the mainland maintains what amounts to an international border with Hong Kong.

The government’s deepest fear now appears to be that the demands for greater political accountability and even universal suffrage heard on the streets in Hong Kong could spread like a contagion through the mainland. So far, there have been few signs of that.

As the crisis has grown, the government has sent thousands of troops from the People’s Armed Police to Shenzhen, the mainland city adjacent to Hong Kong, but the exercise was hastily organized and used an outdated plan drawn up after the protests in 2014, according to one official in Hong Kong.

Beijing also stepped up its propaganda, launching an information — and disinformation — campaign against the protesters and opposition leaders in Hong Kong.

Mr. Xi continues to barely mention Hong Kong. He has said nothing about the protests, even in his passing reference on Tuesday. He has not visited since 2017, when he marked the 20th anniversary of the handover from Britain.

After the traditional August holiday break, Mr. Xi’s public calendar of events has since betrayed no hint of political upheaval or threats to his standing. The media’s portrayal of him, already verging on hagiography, has become even more fawning. State television and the party’s newspapers now refer to him as “the People’s Leader,” an honorific once bestowed only on Mao.

“The People’s Leader loves the people,” The People’s Daily wrote after Mr. Xi toured Gansu, a province in western China.

Mr. Xi’s calculation might be simply to remain patient, as he has been in the case of Mr. Trump’s erratic shifts in the trade war. In his remarks on Tuesday, Mr. Xi also gave a possible hint of the government’s pragmatism.

“On matters of principle, not an inch will be yielded,” he said, “but on matters of tactics there can be flexibility.”

Javier C. Hernández contributed reporting. Claire Fu and Amber Wang contributed research.

#democracy #china news #china #bejing #xi jinping #world news #worldpolitics #u.s. news #uknews #hong kong protests #hongkong #hong kong

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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China anal swab test: Why is China using anal swabs for tourists? In late January, visitors to China were surprised to find they were being tested for COVID-19 via an anal swab. The method has proven to be controversial, with Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Katsunobu Kato, telling a news conference that the tests caused “great psychological pain” to Japanese visitors to China. Even US diplomats have been subjected to the uncomfortable experience, calling it an “undignified” method of trying to stop the spread of Covid. Why is China using anal swabs? The Chinese Center for Disease said the method of using anal swabs for coronavirus is “science-based”. Authorities said it is being used to completely crackdown on the spread of Covid, especially if it is being imported from foreign lands. The test sees a sterile cotton bud inserted up to five centimetres into the rectum, before being rotated out, slowly. According to Li Tongzeng, deputy director responsible for infectious disease at Beijing You’an Hospital, traces of coronavirus can linger longer in the anus or excrement. The scientist said it is more effective than rapid tests or standard nasal and throat tests as the virus can be “silent” in throats and noses for up to five days post-infection, according to Chinese state media outlet Global Times. Li added that taking anal swabs can increase testing accuracy, as opposed to rapid tests which have been known to be hit and miss. This particularly applies to school children, according to a report from the Chinese University of Hong Kong published in late 2020. READ MORE: Gran, 79, took own life after lockdown became ‘unbearable’ Yang told Global Times: “There have been cases concerning the coronavirus testing positive in a patient’s excrement, but no evidence has suggested it had been transmitted through one’s digestive system.” Following the global outcry, China has eased slightly on its views on testing foreign tourists via the anal passage. South Koreans visiting China will now be able to submit stool samples directly. Choi Young-Sam, a spokesman of the South Korean foreign ministry, said this would counter “Chinese authorities taking them directly”. However, the practice is not unique to China. Reuters reported that Galicia, in northwest Spain, had been taking anal swabs from hospitalised patients. if(typeof utag_data.ads.fb_pixel!=="undefined"&&utag_data.ads.fb_pixel==!0)!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function()n.callMethod?n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments);if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)(window,document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js');fbq('init','568781449942811');fbq('track','PageView') Source link Orbem News #anal #China #swab #Swabs #Test #tourists

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Saturday, December 12, 2020

TIME’s 2020 Person of the Year: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (Today) President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have been named TIME’s Person of the Year for 2020. Biden, the Democrat who defeated incumbent President Donald Trump in the 2020 election to become just the 11th candidate in U.S. history to defeat a president seeking reelection, was part of a historic ticket with Harris, who will become the nation’s first female vice president and first one of color. Though Biden joins a long list of U.S. leaders who’ve been named Person of the Year (all but three presidents have been selected since the magazine’s creation of the title in 1927), Harris is the first vice presidential pick in the magazine’s history to be included.

US budget deficit up 25.1% in first 2 months of budget year (AP) The U.S. government’s deficit in the first two months of the budget year ran 25.1% higher than the same period a year ago as spending to deal with the COVID pandemic soared while tax revenues fell. The Treasury Department reported Thursday that with two months gone in the budget year, the deficit totaled $429.3 billion, up from $343.3 billion in last year’s October-November period. The government’s deficit for the budget year that ended Sept. 30 was a record-shattering $3.1 trillion, fueled by the trillion-dollar-plus spending measures Congress passed in the spring to combat the economic downturn triggered by the pandemic. The recession, which has seen millions of people lose their jobs, has meant a drop in tax revenues. Congress is debating another relief package that could total nearly $1 trillion, which would add to this year’s red ink.

Across US and Europe, pandemic’s grip on economies tightens (AP) The worsening of the viral pandemic across the United States and Europe is threatening their economies and intensifying pressure on governments and central banks on both continents to intervene aggressively. In a worrisome sign of the harm the virus is inflicting in the U.S, the government said Thursday that the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits jumped last week to 853,000—the most since September. The surge in jobless claims made clear that many companies are still shedding workers as states reimpose business shutdowns and consumers avoid shopping, traveling or dining out. The coronavirus “is having an impact on consumers, it is having a big impact on the labor force, it is having an impact on businesses,” said Gus Faucher, an economist at PNC Financial. “There are reasons to be concerned.”

Boris Johnson Once Mocked the Eurocrats of Brussels. They Haven’t Forgotten. (NYT) Three decades ago, an enterprising young foreign correspondent named Boris Johnson reported that the European Commission planned to blow up Berlaymont, its hulking, asbestos-riddled headquarters in Brussels. “Sappers will lay explosive charges at key points,” he wrote in The Daily Telegraph. On Wednesday, Mr. Johnson, now Britain’s prime minister, walked into Berlaymont, still very much standing after a costly renovation, for dinner with the commission’s current president, Ursula von der Leyen. To say the moment was rich in symbolism doesn’t begin to capture the dense layer-cake of metaphors: a journalist-turned-politician, who made his name by ridiculing and deriding the European Union—often bending the truth in the process—returning to the scene of his youthful journalistic escapades, in search of a trade agreement with the European bureaucrats he once mocked. Ms. von der Leyen served Mr. Johnson [dinner], but she sent him on his way without a breakthrough in the trade talks and served notice that the European Union was not likely to bend. He seemed to get the message: On Thursday he said there was a “strong possibility” that Britain would leave the European Union without a trade deal. “What goes around comes around, doesn’t it?” said Sonia Purnell, who worked with Mr. Johnson in The Telegraph’s Brussels bureau in the 1990s and later wrote a critical biography of him.

Doors open but nearly empty, French cathedrals count cost of epidemic (Reuters) France’s Chartres cathedral, a vast 13th century building with 18 staff on the payroll, is a costly place to run, and the one million a year who normally come to see its famous blue stained-glass windows are an essential part of balancing the books. This year, however, the COVID-19 epidemic has slowed that flood of visitors to a trickle, throwing the UNESCO world heritage site into a financial crisis. The Catholic church nationally has lost 90 million euros ($109 million) in revenue this year, the Conference of French Bishops (CEF) estimates. It has furloughed hundreds of staff and may have to close or sell some places of worship next year, CEF’s finance head Ambroise Laurent told Reuters.

An Unwelcome Silent Night: Germany Without Christmas Markets (NYT) Across the country, city and town squares stand empty of the usual huts, sounds, scents and lights, as the coronavirus has forced the country to skip its beloved annual Christmas markets. There are no groups of friends gripping mugs of steaming red wine spiced with cinnamon and cloves crowding Rothenburg’s medieval market square, or beneath Cologne’s towering cathedral. No brass bands play carols before Berlin’s Charlottenburg Palace. No stars shine from the eaves of Seiffen’s wooden huts. Germans have gathered at outdoor markets in the weeks before Christmas since the 14th century, when vendors first built their stands in city centers to sell their wares to people coming from church services. “They were always meeting places,” Margot Kässmann, 63, a former bishop of the Lutheran Church in Germany said of the Christmas markets, also called Advent markets. “Today, Christmas markets remain very social places where friends and family gather,” she said. “But even people who are alone will go there on their own to take in the smells, the lights and the music, which have something comforting about them.”

U.S. to Sanction Turkey over Russian Air Defense System (Foreign Policy) The Trump administration is set to sanction Turkey over its purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system. The move was threatened for months but now appears imminent. The measures are to be imposed under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which includes a provision that allows for sanctions on entities that do business with Russian defense companies. The United States fears that Russia will gain access to the F-35 fighter jet’s stealth technology if paired with the Russian system. As recent U.S.-brokered peace deals between Israel and Arab nations have made clear, weapons purchases are a sure way to curry favor with the Trump administration. The United States announced a $23 billion weapons sale to the United Arab Emirates following its normalization deal with Israel, and just yesterday it was reported that the U.S. was negotiating a sale of advanced drones to Morocco—the same day U.S. President Donald Trump announced the North African country had signed a normalization deal with Israel. By buying from Russia, Turkey diluted the favor it had gained in purchasing 100 F-35 fighter jets—ultimately having its pilots kicked off the program as a result. The move comes as Western nations adopt a more aggressive posture against Turkey.

Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai charged under security law (AP) Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been charged under the city’s national security law, amid a widening crackdown on dissent, according to local media reports. Lai, who founded the Apple Daily tabloid, was charged on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces and endangering national security, local broadcaster TVB reported Friday. He is the most high-profile person out of more than two dozen charged under the law since it was implemented in June. He could face a maximum punishment of life imprisonment. His newspaper, Apple Daily, criticized the law on its front page on July 1, calling it the “final nail in the coffin” of the territory’s autonomy. Lai has advocated for other countries to take a harsher stance on China, and last year he traveled to the U.S. to meet with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss the proposed extradition bill. He was also arrested in February and April on charges of taking part in unauthorized protests. He also faces charges of joining an unauthorized vigil marking the anniversary of the June 4, 1989, crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

Aid groups say staffers killed in Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict (AP) International aid groups said Friday that at least four staff members have been killed in the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, while Ethiopia and a frustrated United Nations aired differing views on a growing humanitarian crisis as food and other supplies run out for millions of people. The Tigray region remains largely sealed off from the outside world as worried humanitarian organizations warn of growing hunger, attacks on refugees and dwindling medicine and other supplies more than a month after fighting erupted between Ethiopia’s government and the now-fugitive Tigray one after a months-long struggle over power. “We have hundreds of colleagues on the ground and urgently call on all parties to the conflict to protect all civilians in Tigray,” U.N. humanitarian spokesman Saviano Abreu tweeted after the deaths were announced. Ethiopia’s government has made clear it intends to manage the process of delivering aid to Tigray, and it has rejected “interference” as fighting is reported to be continuing despite its declaration of victory.

The coronavirus is ravaging the world. But life looks almost normal in much of Africa. (Washington Post) The top headline last week on a popular Kenyan news website could barely contain its sarcasm: “America, with 270K deaths, 13M infections, warns citizens not to travel to Kenya over high risk of COVID-19.” To many here, American fears of catching the coronavirus in Africa seem particularly ludicrous. Almost every one of the continent’s 54 countries, while home to some of the least developed health-care systems in the world, have registered fewer deaths from the virus in the last nine months than the United States now suffers per day. While testing has been comparatively limited, the continent appears to have bucked the doomsday predictions of global health experts. The telltale signs of severe outbreaks seen elsewhere—crowded hospitals and a spike in deaths—have emerged in only a handful of African countries. Surveys done by the World Health Organization have found negligible excess mortality rates in most African countries, reducing suspicion that many covid-19 deaths are going uncounted. Almost 60 percent of people in sub-Saharan Africa are younger than 25, and only 3 percent are over the age of 65, the age group in which illness and death from the coronavirus are most common.

Scientific research at its best (Iowa State University, Science Daily) The foods we eat may have a direct impact on our cognitive acuity in our later years, according to new research. The study is the first of its kind to connect specific foods with cognitive decline. The findings show cheese protected against age-related cognitive problems and red wine was related to improvements in cognitive function.

Covid-19 Is Creating a New Kind of Financial Midlife Crisis (Bloomberg) The Covid-19 pandemic has created such a shock to people’s lives, it’s prompted a financial reckoning akin to a midlife crisis. In the public imagination, these lead to men buying sports cars and having affairs, but often their effects are more common and muted. Brought on by health scares, behavioral shifts or job losses, people start to question their life choices and ponder the realization that no one’s immortal. And while the phenomenon became associated with people between 35 and 50 years old, psychologists say it isn’t tied to an age, but simply a jolt similar to what the pandemic has brought. Covid-19 has disrupted professional trajectories, forcing people to focus on other areas of life—perhaps for the first time in years, said David H. Rosmarin, PhD, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and founder of the Center for Anxiety, in Manhattan. “Having more time for sleep, friends, family and just thinking can be wonderful if one has an identity outside of their career,” he said. “But it can be hell on earth if they don’t.” The conditions created by the pandemic are putting people to the test. Joblessness is one factor. This has come along with intense despair. Americans’ view of their mental health declined significantly in 2020, with 23% describing themselves as having fair or poor mental health, up from 17% last year, according to a Gallup poll released this week. And about 30% of American adults now have symptoms meeting criteria for an anxiety disorder, compared to 19.1% pre-pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control says. It’s hard to stay positive when your life’s work is upended. Just ask Stacy Small, 51. The Maui resident’s profitable high-end travel business had allowed her to buy her dream beach house and drive a Porsche Cayenne. On March 20, she was forced to cancel a year’s worth of bookings, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in income. Around the same time, three close friends were diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, while others battled Covid. And then she had a near-fatal car accident on April 21. “Covid killed the travel business I spent 15 years building,” she said. “The car accident could have killed me. It truly was a wake-up call to make a lot of huge changes.”

#headlines #news

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argumate · 5 years ago

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yeah, I’m not here to defend China, one country committing war crimes and torturing prisoners doesn’t justify another country committing genocide, that isn’t how justice works.

but if you’re trying to convince Chinese people that democracy is a superior system, which I believe it is, it certainly doesn’t help to have democracies running around committing war crimes and torturing prisoners!

imagine if Chelsea Manning was imprisoned for seven years for releasing evidence of Chinese war crimes, she’d be an American national hero.

the Hong Kong cops are acting in defense of tyranny and yet somehow still manage to be more professional and restrained in doing so than American cops who are apparently upholding rule of law and yet can murder people and steal shit with impunity; people see this! people know this! so when you tell them that they should be more like the US they demur and go well I don’t want to be shot by a cop for no reason, and it’s tough to argue with that.

we have to recognise Chinese government crimes, but not at the cost of ignoring US government crimes, or French government crimes, or Australian government crimes (turns out Australian troops have been executing civilians in Afghanistan, one more thing that the PLA hasn’t been doing).

painting the Chinese government as uniquely flawed isn’t just inaccurate, it’s also unhelpful, as it plays into narrative of America talking up the crimes of others as a partisan ploy to distract from its own misdeeds.

Xi Jinping was roasted for staying silent on the coronavirus for two weeks, but compare that with the utter clowning of Boris Johnson or Trump or Bolsonaro and naturally you might start to wonder exactly what benefit democracy has conferred on these countries.

if China is that bad and you still can’t outperform it, that’s appalling!

while coronavirus plays into anti-China ideas worldwide, it’s also difficult to explain what’s so great about democracy when you’re being absolutely ravaged by a virus that China and Vietnam have already handled.

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silent123456 · 1 year ago

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Silent Conference In Hong Kong

A silent conference in Hong Kong is an innovative and unique event where participants use wireless headphones to listen to the speakers or presenters, eliminating the need for traditional loudspeakers. This technology allows for multiple presentations or discussions to occur simultaneously in the same space, without sound interference. It's gaining popularity in Hong Kong due to its ability to adapt to various event types, from corporate seminars and workshops to outdoor festivals. Attendees can switch between different audio channels to choose the content they want to engage with, making it a flexible and interactive experience. Silent conferences in Hong Kong are not only a modern solution to noise pollution but also a testament to the city's embrace of cutting-edge event technologies.

#Silent Conference System In Hong Kong #silent conference system rental

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bigyack-com · 5 years ago

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China Condemns U.S. Over Hong Kong. That Won’t Stop Trade Talks.

SHANGHAI — China vented on Thursday after President Trump signed new human rights legislation covering the protest-wracked city of Hong Kong. It denounced the new law as illegal interference in its own affairs. It summoned the American ambassador for the second time in a week. It vowed retaliation.The threats sounded severe. They also sounded empty.Behind the harsh rhetoric, China has few options for striking back at the United States in a meaningful way. And it has bigger priorities — namely, ending the increasingly punishing trade war between the two countries. Though both sides are talking about their willingness to reach a deal, they have yet to sign even an interim pact that would head off potentially damaging new tariffs less than three weeks from now.On Thursday, Beijing’s main agency on trade remained quiet on the legislation even as other officials railed against it, suggesting that the government remained open to a trade deal and would let the volatile issue of Hong Kong simmer, at least for now.“Beijing will make a lot of noises but they can’t afford to do much,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London, a research center. “The trade deal is so important to the Chinese that they won’t let anything upset it.”On the face of it, President Trump’s signature on two bills looks like a direct brushback against Beijing’s rule over Hong Kong. The former British colony operates under its own laws but has come increasingly under the sway of Beijing, one reason behind the increasingly violent protests that have troubled the Chinese territory for five months. The first bill authorizes the American government to impose sanctions on Chinese or Hong Kong officials responsible for human rights abuses there. The second bill bans the sale of American-made tear gas, rubber bullets or other crowd-control equipment to the Hong Kong authorities.China’s reaction was immediate but unspecific. It summoned Terry Branstad, the American ambassador to China, to complain about the Hong Kong legislation, after doing the same thing just three days ago. Hu Xijin, the well-connected editor of the nationalistic Global Times tabloid, said China could retaliate by banning the legislation’s drafters from China and Hong Kong, a move that would be symbolic at best.At a daily news conference in Beijing on Thursday, Geng Shuang, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, said Beijing may take unspecified countermeasures. “This so-called act will only make the broad Chinese people, including their compatriots in Hong Kong, more aware of the sinister intentions and hegemonic nature of the U.S.,” he said, adding that “the plot of the U.S. side is doomed to failure.”Still, asked about trade, Mr. Geng said only that the United States should not implement the law “so as to not affect China-U.S. relations.” And at its weekly news conference on Thursday, China’s Commerce Ministry — the arm of the Chinese government directly involved in trade talks — did not mention the American legislation. The Trump administration has sent its own signals that it does not want the Hong Kong legislation to derail trade talks. Mr. Trump signed the bills in private, outside the presence of lawmakers, photographers and television crews. He also said, without offering specifics, that some of the provisions might infringe on the constitutional prerogatives of the presidency to oversee foreign policy, suggesting he may not implement them. While the Chinese government sees the unrest in Hong Kong as a test of its strength and authority, it has reasons to put the economy first. The trade war has contributed to an economic slowdown that has sent growth to its most sluggish pace in nearly three decades. Economic indicators in recent weeks suggest the slowdown has continued, if not worsened. The Communist Party governs with undisputed power in China based on a promise of a better life, so a slowdown could present a direct challenge to its rule. At the same time, China has come to realize in recent weeks that it needs massive imports of meat to offset an epidemic that has killed half or more of the country’s pigs. The United States is the world’s second-largest producer of pork after China, the second-largest soybean producer for animal feed after Brazil and the largest beef producer.China and the United States are far from ending their trade war. But both sides are trying to reach a stopgap pact, called the Phase 1 trade agreement. Reaching a deal could forestall another round of American tariffs set to go into effect on Dec. 15 on even more Chinese imports, including consumer goods like smartphones and laptops.Chinese negotiators “feel that they’re getting enough out of the trade talks not to let other issues, like North Korea and other questions, get in the way,” said James Green, who was the top trade official at the United States Embassy in Beijing until last year and is now a senior associate at McLarty Associates, a Washington consulting firm.China has let similar affronts pass without meaningful retaliation in recent months as it tries to seek a deal. For example, Chinese officials continued to negotiate after the Canadian authorities at the behest of Washington last year arrested a top executive of Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant. Negotiations continued also after the United States put more than two dozen Chinese companies and organizations on a blacklist over human rights concerns. Beijing could take a similar approach to Hong Kong, where its problems would be difficult to solve quickly in any case. Large-scale protests began in Hong Kong in June over a bill that would have allowed the extradition of Hong Kong residents and visitors to the opaque and often harsh judicial system in mainland China. While that Hong Kong government bill was finally withdrawn this autumn, protesters have broadened their goals to include the introduction of universal suffrage and a general amnesty for several thousand demonstrators who have been arrested at protests.The unrest led to a major setback for Beijing on Sunday, when Hong Kong residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of antigovernment candidates in elections for neighborhood councils. The results signaled broad discontent with the territory’s Beijing-aligned leaders and undermined a Communist Party narrative that a silent majority in Hong Kong opposed the protests but dared not speak out. Despite the setback, Beijing may now have the freedom to play the long game with Hong Kong. Tensions have eased and street violence has subsided considerably since the vote. Sunday’s elections were held with minimal disruptions. Even before the vote, Hong Kong’s stock market had begun to climb again, even though the territory’s economy has fallen into a recession for the first time in a decade. On Tuesday, Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, raised billions of dollars through a share sale in Hong Kong, suggesting that the city remains a crucial financial center for Chinese companies. That could give Beijing room to see what its opponents do next. In particular, the winners of Sunday’s vote will now have to show that they can meet the needs of their constituents. The more than 250 pro-democracy candidates who won local office for the first time last Sunday will have to deal with countless tiny community management issues, from the location of bus stops to complaints over air-conditioners that drip too much. Most of the city’s new district councilors, many of them in their 20s, campaigned on democracy issues instead of less glamorous community service.“I just hope the radicals in the democratic camp haven’t bitten off more than they can chew,” said Leung Chun-ying, a former chief executive of Hong Kong who is now a top adviser to Beijing’s leadership.Hong Kong’s core issues are unlikely to be solved anytime soon. They could extend past the American elections next year, when Chinese negotiators may face a new American president. While Beijing may wait for now, the challenges presented by the American legislation are not likely to be forgotten. Mr. Trump’s signing of the bill could intensify fears within the Communist Party that its influence is waning in the territory and provoke additional efforts to tighten control.Mr. Xi’s government said last month that it would roll out new steps to “safeguard national security” in Hong Kong, though it has not offered specifics.The more the United States tries to “play the Hong Kong card,” said Tian Feilong, executive director of a research institute on Hong Kong policy in Beijing, “the deeper China’s anxiety over Hong Kong’s national security gets.”“The central government will even more urgently consider its methods and systems to control Hong Kong,” Mr. Tian said.Keith Bradsher reported from Shanghai, Javier C. Hernández from Beijing and Alexandra Stevenson from Hong Kong. Albee Zhang, Elsie Chen and Claire Fu contributed research from Beijing. Source link Read the full article

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the-movieblog-fan-blog · 8 years ago

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The Dark Knight

Ranking number one on Rotten Tomatoes, WatchMojo, Cinema Blend, and IMDb, “The Dark Knight” is without a doubt the greatest superhero film of all time. Following Bruce Wayne and his endeavor to end the corruption and violence undertaken by the mobs, which have undoubtedly infested Gotham as a whole, the film interestingly enough serves as more than just an action-packed crime drama. Instead, Christopher Nolan took somewhat of an unorthodox turn and subjected the film to explore modern politics, philosophy and psychology. Ultimately resulting from the multitude of different themes, the film’s overall structure and plot was genuinely enhanced, thus giving the film a unique edge and general superiority over all other superhero films.

After cracking down on the mid to low level street criminals and establishing himself within the city as an outlaw vigilante, Batman is brought to the attention of the mob bosses during one of their conferences. Shortly after having one of their banks raided by the police, news is brought to them at the conference that the police are planning to raid and cease the five banks holding the mob’s fortunes. Fortunately for them, “Lau”, the CEO of “Lau Security Investments Holdings”, had managed to extract their money from the banks and move all of their funds to one secure location in Hong Kong. Soon after explaining their money is out of Gotham’s jurisdiction and China’s inability to extradite him, Lau and the conference are interrupted by the dry laughter of Heath Ledger’s notorious, “Joker”. Following his claims of Batman’s non-existing jurisdiction and their money’s endangerment, Joker proposes to kill Batman for 50% (of their total $136M), which therefore commences the violent and corrupt feud carrying out into the film.

Before the movie even starts, the introduction of the entertainment companies and their logos’ (Warner Bros Inc., Legendary Motions, etc.) are tinted in a dark blue and black and are accompanied with the same colored back-drop. A gloomy, somewhat mysterious soundtrack plays over the logos. Given the genre of the film, this introduction did an incredible job in instilling the dark, fearful and dangerous mood that the film portrays, without even having the first scene shown. As the introduction fades, the first scene is revealed to be a long-shot of what appears to be a modern corporate building located somewhere in downtown Gotham. As the camera zooms in, the now medium-shot shows a gunshot shattering one of the windows from the building, and two of Joker’s accomplices zip lining to the rooftop of a bank. Right off the bat the audience is exposed to the preparation of a bank heist, but more importantly the professionalism these thugs carry with themselves. They clearly appear to be well-funded, with all the right tools and gadgets necessary in order to carry out a rather large heist, seen as through their ability to disable the silent alarm, breach the vault, etc. I found this to be incredibly significant in understanding the sheer power Joker has over law enforcement and the mobs themselves, and effectively introduces him as the frightening, dominant antagonist he is. Furthermore, I found there to be even greater significance in their mannerism, seen as how some of the thugs are instructed by Joker to murder their partner after they’ve done their part in order to reduce the amount they have to share. Much to their surprise they all end up dead, leaving all the money to Joker. This first segment allows the audience to get a feel of the magnitude behind the criminal-behavior and cognitive deception Joker portrays. Joker is a master at manipulation, and the segment effectively introduces the creative potential behind Joker’s upcoming plans. Nolan did absolutely an incredible job in introducing the antagonist, which to me is very important, especially at the beginning of the film. In this case, introducing the audience to the antagonist at the very beginning effectively set the tone and mood for the rest of the film. Furthermore, being an avid action movie fan, I personally prefer to have the film start off with an action sequence. To me, any movie starting off with a good action sequence (like a bank robbery) automatically wins my heart over a film without one. Combine the introduction of an outstanding antagonist (Heath Ledger) with a bank robbery (action sequence) and I’ve got myself a five star movie (at least for the beginning).

Heath Ledger’s roll in playing Joker had an incredibly strong impact on the success of the film, and played a huge part in making it the masterpiece it is today. I firmly believe that without Heath Ledger, the film wouldn’t carry the same punch it did. Heath’s acting was absolutely world-class, and the amount of creativity and detail he put behind his character really brought out the crime-induced atmosphere the film portrayed. Heath’s acting was somewhat unorthodox for a villain in a blockbuster superhero movie. The stereotypical bad guy in any superhero movie is generally someone who is very aggressive and angry, and carries a rather fiery disposition. However, Heath Ledger instead took a fairly unconventional approach to his character, which ultimately resulted in not only his stardom as an actor, but also in the stardom and success of the film. Joker’s character is portrayed to be very whimsical, which is incredibly unusual for a villain. He has a sense of humor (hence his name) and enjoys a good laugh even when amidst an environment that might hinder his laughter, like falling off of a high-rise building. Furthermore, he’s oddly polite and expresses chivalry and mannerism towards women (his chivalry towards Rachel at the fundraiser). He never uses profanity, and is generally well spoken and intelligent. Interlace his unusually well rounded characteristics with pure evil and anarchy and you now have what is called “Joker”. Heath Ledger’s acting effectively induced the theme of psychology (the mental characteristics or attitude of a person) in the film. I found Heath’s implementation of an irregular personality in Joker to be beyond brilliant. For me, it set the bar for any antagonist, in any film, 10 steps higher. I found it to be the perfect kind of madman. A madman a lot scarier than just the average testosterone fueled maniac. His unusual, gentlemen-like character made him ten times more feared (at least in my opinion). No matter how hard I try, I can’t find anything at all to negatively critique about Heath’s acting and Joker’s character.

In my opinion, the most beautiful thing about Ledger’s acting was Joker’s character development and the profound values behind him. Most people who’ve seen the movie claim that Joker is a delusional psychopath, and to be fair, they’re not wrong for thinking that. To the naked eye, most people only see him for a crazy bad guy and nothing else. However, the closer I critiqued and examined his character development, the clearer it became to me that Joker wasn’t a psychopath at all. For someone to qualify as a psychopath they need to be able to feel no emotion whatsoever, according to the checklist criteria. In this case, Heath Ledger’s Joker feels emotion as seen through his anger and weird sense of humor, accompanied by his infrequent sadness when one of his diabolical plans is sabotaged. The general labeling of psychopaths aside from being emotionless are people that are cognitively underdeveloped and irrational thinkers. This is not the case with Joker. Accompanied by his intelligence, Joker abides by an incredibly interesting and rational philosophy originally adopted by Thomas Hobbes in the 1600’s. Hobbes’s philosophy generally revolved around the principle of existentialism and anarchy. The idea that governments (or in Joker’s words: the schemers) had been established in order to keep civilians in line by fear of legal punishment, and that without enforced rules humanity would return to being barbaric animals that would blow up ferries full of innocent people in order to stay alive. Joker upholds this philosophy and implements it in the film, with one of his signature quotes, “When the chips are down, these civilized people…they’ll eat each other.” I found the philosophy to be rational and incredibly compelling, which ultimately contributed to the profound theme of philosophy in the film. I was in such awe that a superhero movie could incorporate such a profound and sophisticated theme within the film. Most action movies usually incorporate the theme of something simple like vengeance. Nolan however, as per usual, decided to take things above and beyond, and incorporate something unorthodox to the genre like philosophy as the theme. Not only is it just philosophy, it is (to me) an amazingly compelling philosophy dating back to over 400 years ago, and one that implicated in the societal system and used in present day.

I found modern corruption to be one of the largest and greatest themes in the film. It is something that is usually implemented in some mild way, shape or form in most action movies. There’s usually a bad guy in the good guy bunch, sabotaging the good guy’s endeavors. In this particular film, modern corruption is portrayed by effectively emulating seemingly identical events that have taken place in real life, and implementing them into a superhero movie. The outcome is the horrific madness that takes place throughout the film, and therefore evidently proves to the audience that modern corruption comes with serious consequences in the film. A perfect example would be the CIA’s Extraordinary Rendition program of extraditing citizens from foreign countries and placing them in Guantanamo Bay with little to no legal representation (in order to protect the country from terrorism). This example is then emulated when Batman travels to Hong Kong to forcefully extradite Lau and bring him back to Gotham in order to have him interrogated and prosecuted. I felt this was an incredible application of real world material, and gave the movie the touch of realism it provided to the atmosphere and tone. In my personal opinion, I really appreciated the portrayal of Batman’s forceful extradition and the positive light it shed on the Extraordinary Rendition program. Many have accused the program to be unlawful and wrong, thus resulting in its categorization of being “corrupt” (even though I personally don’t believe it to be). In Batman’s own “Rendition program” Nolan portrays his actions and therefore the actions of the CIA to be in good faith and nobility, which I appreciated. The aforementioned consequences of modern corruption in the film are evident when Joker blows up the MCU and escapes with Lau. Overall, I found that the implication of this theme was essential in not only providing to the crime ridden undertone the film had, but also in providing the audience with a touch of real world material and the realistic aspect the film had (especially for a fiction film).

The elements of a narrative were outstandingly implemented throughout the film. After all, what’s a superhero movie without special effects? Christopher Nolan did an outstanding job implementing plenty of narrative elements, including camera movement, film music, sound effects, special effects, movement, physical relations, and real colors. Each of these techniques played a specific role in bringing out Nolan’s masterpiece that is “The Dark Knight”. Film music creatively and effectively used in the film brought out the feared, violent, and crime ridden environment that Gotham is. An example I preferred the most is the soundtrack played right at the beginning of the ferry scene. As the camera pans out from the passengers boarding the ferry, a very haunting soundtrack plays, allowing the audience to assume the beginning of another attack. I thought the soundtrack effectively set a very scary atmosphere during the scene, accompanied by the light flickering and sound effect of the engine stopping as the new camera shot filmed the overcrowded ferry. Sound effects and special effects are a given in any superhero movie. Without them, the movie is pretty much destined to be terrible. An amazing example of Nolan’s creative use of special effects is when he uses special effects to create an illusion in which Lau and the $68M are being burned, in order to convey the theme of Joker’s anarchical philosophy. After capturing Lau, Joker sets him on top of his incredibly large sum money. After torching the money and Lau, and killing off Chechen mob boss, Joker goes on to state, “It’s not about money…it’s about sending a message.” I believe that camera movement was also essential in inducing the action in the film. Having a stationary camera in the action sequences wouldn’t have provided the audience with the excitement and adrenaline that camera movement provides. Camera movement was superbly implemented during the car chase scene, where Harvey Dent is being transported in the armed convoy. During the attack, camera movement effectively captures the high-speed pursuit. Lastly, I felt that camera movement was fantastically implemented throughout some of the scenes in the film to really bring out the emotion of the character during the given times. An example I personally enjoyed was the landscape shot of Bruce Wayne in his penthouse. He was seated at his lounge, overlooking the city, as Alfred was serving him breakfast. The scene was a gloomy blue and grey. This perfectly set the tone for sadness in the scene, due to the death of Rachel. The colors effectively portrayed Bruce’s emotions of sadness and remorse.

Overall, “The Dark Knight” is still and will always be my favorite superhero movie. The only thing I can critique about the film in a negative manner is Nolan’s decision to leave Joker’s scars a mystery. After ambushing Gambol (the mob boss who put the $1M bounty on Joker’s head) Joker sticks the knife in Gambol’s mouth and begins to tell him the story about his scars. He claims his alcoholic father went off one night and stuck the knife in his mouth, and asked him the infamous, “Why so serious?” Later in the film, when he held the blade in Rachel’s mouth, he tells a completely different story. He said he got the scars from himself in order to provide comfort and sympathy to his wife. She got her face carved by loan sharks as a result of Joker’s gambling addiction. Finally, at the very end of the film he begins to mention to Batman how he got the scars, but the story is never revealed. I personally found this mystery to be really annoying. It bugs me so much to know how he really got the scars. What bugs me even more is why Nolan left the story of his scars a mystery in the first place.

Rating: 6/5

This film is the gold standard of superhero movies. It is ranked the number one superhero movie of all time according to almost any credible movie review source or critic you can find. The movie served as an action movie, a crime drama and a superhero movie all in one. On top of that, Nolan casted outstanding actors including Bale, Ledger, Caine and Oldman. The film carried profound themes that explored psychology, modern corruption and philosophy. In conjunction with effective narrative elements and film techniques, the film sealed the deal in being the greatest superhero movie of all time. Given the aforementioned qualities of the film, I give the film a rating of 6/5 and furthermore highly recommend this film to everyone.

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englishchinesetranslations · 4 years ago

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In any future war between Britain and China, the winner could be decided in a matter of hours — and Britain is unlikely to be the victor. For years now, Chinese businesses have been quietly positioned at the heart of British infrastructure. Were a conflict to erupt, their employees could, willingly or otherwise, be mobilised by Beijing. In fact, they would be legally compelled to.

What could this mean in practice? To put it simply, if he were so inclined, President Xi Jinping could, at the flick of a button, turn off the lights at 10 Downing Street — not to mention freeze Britain’s financial system and paralyse its hospitals.

Perhaps that’s why there has been such a concerted effort by British politicians in recent weeks to address their country’s dependence on trade with Beijing. These efforts are certainly well-intentioned, but as someone who has spent years charting China’s silent campaign of global interference and subversion, I fear they could be too late. In my recent book, Hidden Hand, my co-author Mareike Ohlberg and I detailed the threat the Chinese Communist Party poses to Western democracy. Here, for the first time, a small but disproportionately concerning new aspect of that can be revealed: how China is slowly taking over Britain’s nuclear power and electricity systems.

On the face of it, you could be forgiven for wondering why Chinese investment is so troubling. Why should we care that its businesses are investing in Britain, when those from other countries — including a number of unpleasant ones — do the same? The answer is straightforward. China is different because its businesses can be, and are, used as an extension of the ruling Chinese Communist Party. Referred to as a “party-corporate conglomerate”, there is a deep intermingling of China’s business elite with the “red aristocracy” — that is, the Communist Party families that rule the nation. Even President Xi, who pledged to crack down on corruption following the CCP’s 18th National Congress in 2012, has family members with secret offshore bank accounts and hundreds of millions in assets squirrelled away.

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The shrewd tycoon has kept Beijing at arm’s length. But he has also been willing to get into bed with the China International Trust Investment Corporation (CITIC), the huge state-owned conglomerate known for its links with China’s military and intelligence services. One Western intelligence expert wrote that CITIC was “swarming with secret agents”. True or not, by operating as CITIC’s “long-term ally” and sponsor, Li Ka-shing facilitated the CCP’s venture into global capitalism: CITIC now owns a vast property portfolio across Western capitals, including a high-end residential development in Mayfair.

Since then, Li Ka-shing has passed control of the CK Group to his son Victor Li, who has further embedded the CCP within the company. In 2018 he was appointed an executive member of the the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, sometimes referred to as China’s upper house. A vital element of the CCP’s overseas influence operations, the Conference describes itself as “an organisation of the patriotic United Front of the Chinese people”.

But it is in Britain where Victor has reaped the most success. In addition to its monopoly on the supply of gas to the north of England and across Wales and southwest England, his CK Group also enjoys a monopoly on the supply of electricity to London through a company called UK Power Networks, the old London Electricity Board. It also controls electricity distribution in the south and south-east England.

Such a startling fact bears repeating: CK Group, with its close ties to the Chinese Communist Party, is responsible for supplying electricity to everything that makes London function — its road transport system, its rail network, its office buildings, ATMs and even the Bank of England. Imagine if CK Group were to be weaponised: all of these and more could suddenly grind to a halt. It’s a terrifying prospect, one that could have been plucked straight from a Hollywood playbook. All it would take is a phone call from Beijing, a flick of a button and much of Britain could descend into darkness.

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itsfinancethings · 5 years ago

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After more than a decade, Martin suddenly quit writing his column. He said goodbye to his readers, editors and colleagues. But he did not name the fear that prompted him to abandon his commentaries—at least not until he left Hong Kong.

“The day [the national security law] passed I just couldn’t write anything. I stared at the screen for hours,” he messaged TIME from onboard his flight out of the semi-autonomous enclave. “I hate self-censorship, so I’d rather call this an end.”

Martin, who asked that his real name not be used because he needs to return in the future, is hardly the only one to fall silent rather than risk tangling with the draconian new restrictions.

In the three and a half weeks since the enactment of the law at the end of June, a sense of fear and uncertainty has taken hold in Hong Kong, where anything seen to provoke hatred against the Chinese government is now punishable with up to life in prison. Some people have redacted their social media posts and erased messaging app histories. Journalists have scrubbed their names from digital archives. Books are being purged from libraries. Shops have dismantled walls of Post-it Notes bearing pro-democracy messages, while activists have resorted to codes to express protest chants suddenly outlawed.

The first arrests came just hours after the law was implemented. On July 1, the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China from Britain, hundreds of protesters were rounded up for unauthorized assembly amid the coronavirus pandemic. Ten, including a 15-year-old girl and a 23-year-old motorcyclist who drove into police, were accused of breaching the new law, mostly by carrying separatist stickers and pro-independence flags.

In at least one respect, the regulations are already proving successful: the sometimes violent demonstrations that flared across the freewheeling Asian financial capital over the past year have largely evaporated. The unrest, which seized university campuses, paralyzed public transportation and brought police and petrol bombs into residential neighborhoods, wrought millions of dollars in damages and plunged Hong Kong into a recession. It also challenged Beijing’s bottom line as the movement morphed into an open challenge of the Chinese Communist Party’s authority, with demonstrators sporting American flags, beseeching foreign governments to intervene and increasingly chanting, “independence, the only way out.” Their fight brought this previously stable financial capital directly into the crux of imploding U.S.-China relations.

To Beijing, the legislation is necessary to secure its sovereignty over the territory. “People in Hong Kong can still criticize the Communist Party of China after the handover,” Zhang Xiaoming, deputy director of the Chinese government’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, reportedly said at a press conference earlier this month. “However, you cannot turn these into actions.”

Read more: Hong Kong Is Caught in the Middle of the Great U.S.-China Power Struggle

Some hope the crackdown will only be temporary as Beijing restores stability. But others fear the far-reaching new law marks the arrival of authoritarian control in a city that has long cherished its freedoms and independent judiciary.

“Overnight, Hong Kong has gone from rule of law to rule by fear,” says Lee Cheuk-yan, a veteran activist and former legislator.

Lee chairs the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, which established the world’s only museum dedicated to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest movement in Beijing. Afraid the museum, and its advocacy of an end to one-party rule in China, may fall foul of the new law, the alliance is rushing to raise $200,000 to digitize its archives.

While Lee and his colleagues discussed moving the artifacts abroad, including video footage and items donated by mothers of students killed in the bloody military crackdown, doing so seemed like handing victory to the Chinese government and its attempt to erase the event from collective memory. But keeping the operation running is now a game of dramatically higher stakes.

“Our worry is that the law is so vague about everything and so broadly defined that we don’t know how they will categorize our organization,” Lee says. “Will they strike at us?”

That sense of foreboding hangs over many organizations as they speculate what might make them a target.

Chan Long Hei—Bloomberg/Getty Images Police officers stand guard outside the Office for Safeguarding National Security in Hong Kong, set up at the Metropark Hotel, in Hong Kong on July 8, 2020.

‘We should all be making plans’

Drafted in secret, the law only became public as it took effect shortly before midnight on June 30. By morning, boats bearing giant red and yellow banners sailed across Victoria Harbor heralding the new legal regime.

Though the new measure specifically bans subversion, sedition, terrorism and collusion, several lawyers who are experts in Chinese law told TIME the phrasing of these crimes can be interpreted so expansively as to apply to almost any activity or speech. On the mainland, similar charges are routinely wielded to crush even moderate dissent.

“It’s so much worse than anyone expected. It can encompass all the acts we have been doing in the protests over the last year,” says Lee, who is facing multiple charges of unlawful assembly stemming from before the law’s enactment.

The Hong Kong government insists the new law will only affect a small minority of people, and that the city’s free speech is not under threat. But officials also say that the law encompasses popular protest slogans, including “Liberate Hong Kong” and “Hong Kong Independence,” that are now deemed to be inciting others to commit secession or subverting state power.

It remains unclear how far the law’s 66 provisions—which touch on education, media, non-governmental organizations, universities, the internet, social organizations, international organizations, elections and more—will extend.

“Each day the government announces something new about this law,” says Fung Wai-wah, president of the pro-democracy Professional Teachers’ Union. “The red line is still moving.” Stoking concern for academic freedom, schools have been told to review course materials, books and libraries to ensure nothing is in violation. “This censorship is as irrational as it is ambiguous,” Fung adds.

For the first time, Chinese security agents will operate openly in Hong Kong, while the most serious offenders may be extradited for trial in the Communist Party-controlled courts on the mainland. Simon Young, associate dean of the University of Hong Kong’s law school, suspects that if such extradition powers are used “It may well be that we don’t know until after the person has entered the mainland jurisdiction. It’s certainly something that keeps us guessing and in fear.”

The city’s top official, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, denies there is “a wide spread of fears [sic]” among Hongkongers, even as a Chinese government official warned the law is intended to act like “a sharp sword hanging high” over the heads of potential offenders.

“This is not just a new law, it’s really a new order in Hong Kong,” says Fred Rocafort, a former diplomat and legal expert on China at law firm Harris Bricken. He expects “relatively constant applications of the law for even relatively minor acts” as this state of affairs is established.

Read more: ‘Hong Kong Is Freer Than You Think’

Some see a deliberate deterrent effect in the law’s ambiguity.

“The whole purpose is to incept people’s minds so they have to ask the question of whether everything they do is maybe a violation,” says Peter Yam, a film producer currently working on an independent documentary about the Hong Kong protests.

While the subject matter could be considered incendiary in the current political climate, Yam says he and the crew have discussed the law and don’t want to focus on it. “If our films are put under review and censored then there’s nothing we can do,” he says.

Since the law was enacted, Yam has received a stream of messages from friends and colleagues debating whether it’s time to leave the city for good.

“I want to stay until the last moment,” he says. “At the same time, we should all be making plans.”

While Australia, Taiwan and the U.K. are all offering avenues for fleeing Hongkongers, many of the 7.4 million residents of one of the world’s most starkly unequal cities cannot afford an exit strategy. Those who stay will have to navigate what it means to lose some of the liberties that distinguished their home from the mainland.

In 1997, the former British colony was grafted back onto China under a political formula known as “one country, two systems,” designed to preserve its separate legal and political systems within an authoritarian state. The conceit meant Hong Kong was the only place in China where calls for political reform could be full-throated, and the color and vulgarity of anti-government invectives were limited only by imagination. Here, publishers hawking banned books and practitioners of the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement could promote literature inaccessible just over the border. Unfettered by censorship, the hard-bitten local press documented any perceived interference by Beijing.

Lam, the city’s leader, said she could guarantee the press would not be targeted by the new law only if all reporters also gave “a 100% guarantee that they will not commit any offenses under this piece of national legislation.”

Rachel Cartland, a former civil servant and long-time guest presenter for Hong Kong’s public broadcaster RTHK, found the government’s statements less than reassuring. She announced she was stepping down from a radio program over the new law, just days after its enactment.

“I put aside this thought of, well, ‘How likely are they to come after me?’ and just looked at it dispassionately,” she says. “People are really going to have to think through: how is this going to affect me?”

‘The cost of politics will be much higher’

The government is expected to “strengthen the management” of foreign nongovernmental organizations and news agencies, according to the law, a condition that has prompted deep concern and expedited corporate relocation plans. On July 14, the New York Times announced it was shifting its Hong Kong-based digital news operation to South Korea, citing visa problems and the city’s “new era under tightened Chinese rule.”

The police force has also been given sweeping new powers to regulate online content and intercept communications. Companies may be compelled to remove content deemed a threat to national security and to handover private user data. In response, tech giants like Facebook and Google announced a pause on data requests from Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, primary elections held by pro-democracy parties mid-July could be considered a violation of the national security law by way of “subverting state power.” (The government alleges that the primaries were potentially subversive because the stated aim of many candidates, if elected, will be to veto the government’s budget and legislation, even though such deadlocking is permitted under the city’s mini-constitution.) Organizers claim that more than 600,000 cast ballots in the two-day vote, with results favoring young democrats who tend to be more confrontational toward the Chinese government. It’s unclear if these candidates, many of whom protested the new law, will face disqualification or other repercussions.

Read more: ‘One Country, Two Systems Is Still the Best Model for Hong Kong But It Badly Needs Reform‘

“The cost of politics will be much higher than before,” says Tanya Chan, a lawmaker and convenor of the pro-democracy camp. Her book was one of several removed from circulation at the public libraries pending a review. The targeting of her travelogue was “puzzling,” she says, though she expects that “sooner or later” this law “will affect almost every aspect of our normal life.”

Some groups have preemptively disbanded. Demosisto, the youth political party founded by prominent activist Joshua Wong, ceased to be on the same day the law was enacted, while other upstart political organizations relocated overseas.

Nathan Law, a co-founder of Demosisto—and frequently vilified in Chinese state media as a conspirator of foreign governments over his lobbying for U.S. sanctions on Hong Kong—went into self-imposed exile in London a day after he testified online to a congressional hearing.

“It has created a chilling effect,” says Law, “and destroyed the Hong Kong that we used to know.”

But for some, exasperated by the violence and disruption of last year’s protests, the law brings welcome tranquility back to Hong Kong’s streets.

Ronny Ng, a 52-year-old IT professional, says he was tired of not being able to go out or get to work as protest after protest transformed his neighborhood into a battlefield. “If you’re not against the government or against China, the new law won’t be a problem,” he says while on a cigarette break outside his office. Those who are, he admits, “should probably leave if they can’t adapt.”

Chan Long Hei—Bloomberg/Getty Images Blank sticky notes are displayed inside a restaurant in Hong Kong on July 8, 2020.

Among businesses in the financial center, reactions have been mixed. After the details were revealed, a survey by the American Chamber of Commerce showed the majority of U.S. companies operating out of the hub were increasingly concerned, especially about the law’s ambiguity. Yet an exodus seems unlikely, with 51% of respondents also expecting it would have either no effect or even a positive effect on their operations, given the suspension of protests.

Still, resistance hasn’t been fully extinguished. Demonstrators have already found cheeky ways to circumvent the law, like using numbers, acronyms and homonyms instead of the words in the outlawed protest chant. The Post-it Note walls have returned, although they no longer carry any messages. Blank paper has become the latest marker of defiance. So too have the opening lines of China’s national anthem: “Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves!”

Ahead of the new law’s implementation, some journalists and academics had predicted the “death” of Hong Kong. But Yam, the film producer, insists this not the end of his beloved city.

“I’ve never seen Hong Kong so vibrant in a way,” he says while on a lunch break during one of the last days of filming. “It turns out we really want freedom.”

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biofunmy · 5 years ago

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Early results in Hong Kong district council elections show pro-democracy parties sweeping establishment aside

Pro-democracy parties had comfortably surpassed the number of seats they won in 2015 and were on course for their strongest showing ever in district council elections. They also appear to have secured all 117 seats afforded to them on the 1,200-member election committee that votes for Hong Kong’s leader — a system designed to give an upper hand in the process to pro-Beijing groups and business interests.

The pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), the largest party in the district councils, had won just 26 races and lost 156. The pro-democracy Democratic Party, in contrast, had won 54 and lost only two.

The turnout — 2.94 million, or more than 71 percent of the 4.13 million eligible voters — was more than double the 1.4 million who voted in local elections in 2015. Voter registration was also a record high, driven in part by 390,000 first-time voters.

“Hong Kongers regard the election as a referendum and have clearly spoken that they are unhappy with how Hong Kong and Beijing have dealt with the ongoing protests in the last six months,” said Kelvin Lam, who won the South Horizons West seat, according to the South China Morning Post.

Lam was drafted to contest the seat for the pro-democracy camp after prominent activist Joshua Wong was barred from standing.

In 2015, pro-Beijing parties won just over 54 percent of the vote and 298 of the 452 seats to take control of all 18 district councils. They tend to be better funded and organized than pro-democracy groups, with solid links with the business elite and political establishment that allow them to argue that they are in the best position to get things done for their constituents.

Pro-democracy groups won 40 percent of the vote and 126 seats in 2015. Independents took the remainder.

But this time around, elections that have typically been fought on issues such as traffic, trash collection and the nuisance of pests such as wild boars became a referendum on the most fundamental issue in the territory: Whether one stands with the movement fighting for democratic freedoms, or with the pro-Beijing establishment that has had a grip on the former colony since Britain handed it back to China in 1997.

The protests were sparked in June by a proposal to allow criminal suspects to be extradited to China. The government eventually withdrew the proposal, but not before demonstrators added more demands: Full democracy, retracting the official description of the protests as riots, amnesty for arrested protesters and an inquiry into alleged police brutality.

“The voice of the public is loud and clear: Five demands, not one less,” said Roy Kwong Chun-Yu, who won in the Pek Long constituency. If Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam “doesn’t listen to our voice,” he said, “she must still not be awake.”

Even in pro-Beijing strongholds such as North Point, fresh-faced candidates running on an explicitly pro-democracy platform unseated longtime incumbents. Among them was 23-year-old Karrine Fu, who beat 45-year-old Hung Lin-Cham, the DAB incumbent who had won the past three elections.

DAB threw its weight behind the unpopular extradition bill. Its vice chairman, Holden Chow, lost his seat to a 25-year-old pro-democracy activist in one of several upsets for the party.

Lo Kin-Hei, vice chairman of the Democratic Party, called the result a “clear win” for the pro-democracy camp. “Really wonder what Carrie Lam & [Chinese President] Xi Jinping thought when they see the record-breaking turnout & result today,” he tweeted.

Voters waited in hours-long lines that snaked around city blocks, an unusual experience for Hong Kong residents. Almost every neighborhood in the city has seen violent unrest at some point over the six-month long protest movement, with police firing tear gas and rubber bullets and protesters countering with molotov cocktails and projectiles.

“Everyone just asks what side you are on, pro-democracy, or pro-establishment,” said Sabrina Koo, a pro-democracy candidate. “Only after that do they ask us what our plans are for the community and about local issues.”

Voters, relishing the opportunity to express their democratic rights, were unperturbed by the lines. Gloria Lai, 40, took her two children to a polling station close to a major protest flash point in Wan Chai: A road that in the past months has seen tear gas, water cannons and massive fires. They waited an hour to vote.

“I want my children to always remember that it is their right to vote, it is their right to voice out their opinion, and this is something to be treasured,” she said. “We don’t have the right to vote for our chief executive, but we have this.”

The contest for district council is the only fully democratic election in Hong Kong. The city’s leader is not directly elected. Only half of the Legislative Council, the lawmaking body, is chosen by the people.

Another voter in Wan Chai, which is currently represented by pro-Beijing politicians, said he flew back to Hong Kong from Britain, where he has lived for the past decade, to cast his ballot. The 39-year-old man, who asked to be identified only by his last name, Chan, said he has never seen such lines in an election, including in Britain.

“This is the best way to express our views, it is the right way,” he said. “We don’t want violence on the streets, but if we don’t have a way to express our political views in any other way, that will happen.”

Francis Lee, who researches public opinion and the media at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the high turnout, while “expected because of the heated political and social atmosphere” of recent months, was still impressive for Hong Kong.

“A combination of police tactics and the [subway and rail network’s] tendency to close numerous stations during protest events has made it extremely difficult to hold any large-scale peaceful protests,” he said. “Many moderate supporters of the movement were frustrated by the lack of opportunities to express themselves,” he said, and see the election as a way to reenter the fold.

The well-funded establishment camp was hoping for support from a “silent majority” that has grown uncomfortable with protest violence in Hong Kong.

Some voters expressed a desire for a return of peace to the city streets, and said they were voting for experienced candidates.

“Nothing is more important than bettering the lives of ordinary people,” said a 74-year old pro-Beijing supporter who gave his last name as Chow. “The responsibility of our youth is to study hard, not to make society a mess.”

Others said the protest movement had changed their views. Two voters in Sai Wan Ho, where a young protester was shot at close range this month, said they were deeply influenced by what they had seen.

“I couldn’t sleep well last night, I’ve been anticipating this election for so long,” said a 52-year-old man who gave his last name as Wong. “I really hope these elections can change the situation and change the political development of Hong Kong.”

The election was overwhelmingly peaceful and orderly, making a rare weekend without violence or police action in Hong Kong. Riot officers in green fatigues, some wearing masks, were seen at some polling stations, but the atmosphere was generally calm.

Otherwise, it felt like a typical weekend in the city before the protests began in June: Families out shopping and eating and people running errands. The weeks leading up to the vote saw the biggest escalation in violence since the protests began more than five months ago, with hundreds of demonstrators arrested after police seized a university campus that had become a fortified base for the movement.

Two protesters still holed up in the Polytechnic University held a news conference urging people to vote.

Hundreds of candidates chose to run in response to the events of the past months. These include Cathy Yau, a police officer who left the force over concerns that they were abusing their authority and is now running on a pro-democracy platform; Jimmy Sham, a leader of the Civil Human Rights Front, the group behind the largest peaceful rallies in the movement, and Tommy Cheung, who decided to contest elections in Yuen Long after mobs attacked protesters at a subway station there.

Sham appeared at his constituency in Sha Tin, walking with the help of cane, a reminder of the political violence against candidates ahead of the vote. Sham was attacked in October by a group of men wielding hammers.

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