Malaysia’s ‘orangutan diplomacy’ plan slammed as ‘obscene’

By Heather Chen, CNN

 4 minute read 

Published 12:05 AM EDT, Sun May 12, 2024

Two baby orangutans play with each other at the wildlife department in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Monday, October 19. The animals were seized in July after traffickers were attempting to sell them.

Two baby orangutans play with each other at the wildlife department in Kuala Lumpur. They were seized in July after traffickers were attempting to sell them. OLIVIA HARRIS/Reuters/LandovCNN — 

China has “panda diplomacy,” Australia parades koalas at global summits – and now Malaysia plans to join the Asia-Pacific trend for adorable ambassadors, by gifting orangutans to countries that buy its palm oil.

But the idea has come under heavy criticism from conservationists, who note that palm oil is one of the biggest factors behind the great apes’ dwindling numbers – with one leading conservation professor calling the plan “obscene.”

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UN General Assembly presses Security Council to give ‘favourable consideration’ to full Palestinian membership

Results of the General Assembly's vote on the resolution on the status of the Observer State of Palestine.

UN Photo/Manuel Elías

Results of the General Assembly’s vote on the resolution on the status of the Observer State of Palestine.

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Peace and Security

The UN General Assembly convened again in New York on Friday for an emergency special session on the Gaza crisis and overwhelmingly passed a resolution which upgrades Palestine’s rights at the world body as an Observer State, without offering full membership. It urged the Security Council to give “favourable consideration” to Palestine’s request.

What does the resolution mean?

Here’s a quick recap of what this means: by adopting this resolution the General Assembly will upgrade the rights of the State of Palestine within the world body, but not the right to vote or put forward its candidature to such organs as the Security Council or the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

Granting Palestinian membership requires a recommendation from the Security Council. At the same time, the Assembly determines that the State of Palestine is qualified for such status and recommends that the Security Council “reconsider the matter favourably”.

None of the upgrades in status will take effect until the new session of the Assembly opens on 10 September.

Here are some of the changes in status that Palestine will have a right to later this year:

  1. To be seated among Member States in alphabetical order
  2. Make statements on behalf of a group
  3. Submit proposals and amendments and introduce them
  4. Co-sponsor proposals and amendments, including on behalf of a group
  5. Propose items to be included in the provisional agenda of the regular or special sessions and the right to request the inclusion of supplementary or additional items in the agenda of regular or special sessions
  6. The right of members of the delegation of the State of Palestine to be elected as officers in the plenary and the Main Committees of the General Assembly
  7. Full and effective participation in UN conferences and international conferences and meetings convened under the auspices of the General Assembly or, as appropriate, of other UN organs

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Security Council Press Statement on Mass Graves in Gaza

Press release

Security Council
SC/15692
10 May 2024

Security Council Press Statement on Mass Graves in Gaza

The following Security Council press statement was issued today by Council President Pedro Comissário Afonso (Mozambique):

The members of the Security Council expressed their deep concern over reports of the discovery of mass graves, in and around the Nasser and Al Shifa medical facilities in Gaza, where several hundred bodies, including women, children and older persons, were buried.

The members of the Security Council underlined the need for accountability for violations of international law and called for investigators to be allowed the unimpeded access to all locations of mass graves in Gaza to conduct immediate, independent, thorough, comprehensive, transparent and impartial investigations to establish the circumstances behind the graves.

The members of the Security Council reiterated their demand that all parties scrupulously comply with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law, in particular regarding the protection of civilians and civilian objects.

The members of the Security Council reaffirmed the importance of allowing families to know the fate and whereabouts of their missing relatives, consistent with international humanitarian law.

The members of the Security Council emphasized the imperative of all parties to immediately and fully implement resolutions 2728 (2024), 2720 (2023) and 2712 (2023).

Press Release

A hidden war

Two fighters in fatigues sitting in the back of a truck.
In southern Karenni, Myanmar. Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

NYTBy Hannah Beech I’m a roving Asia correspondent based in Bangkok.

A people take to arms and fight for democracy. A military terrorizes civilians with airstrikes and land mines. Tens of thousands are killed. Millions are displaced.

Yet it is all happening almost completely out of view.

Recently, I spent a week on the front lines of a forgotten war in the Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar. Since a military junta overthrew a civilian administration there three years ago, a head-spinning array of pro-democracy forces and ethnic militias have united to fight the generals. The resistance includes poets, doctors and lawyers who traded life in the cities for jungle warfare. It also includes veteran combatants who have known no occupation but soldier.

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Dozens of deaths reveal risks of injecting sedatives into people restrained by police

In this combination of images from body-camera videos, medics prepare to inject sedatives to Ivan Gutzalenko in Richmond, Calif., in 2021; Hunter Barr in Colorado Springs, Colo., in 2020, and Wesley Garrett-Henry in San Diego, Calif., in 2020. An investigation led by The Associated Press published in 2024, has found the practice of giving sedatives to people detained by police spread quietly over the last 15 years, built on questionable science and backed by police-aligned experts. (Richmond Police Department, Colorado Springs Police Department, San Diego Police Department via AP)
In this combination of images from body-camera videos, medics prepare to inject sedatives to Ivan Gutzalenko in Richmond, Calif., in 2021; Hunter Barr in Colorado Springs, Colo., in 2020, and Wesley Garrett-Henry in San Diego, Calif., in 2020. (Richmond Police Department, Colorado Springs Police Department, San Diego Police Department via AP)

BY RYAN J. FOLEYCARLA K. JOHNSON AND SHELBY LUM Updated 6:14 PM GMT+7, April 26, 2024, AP

Demetrio Jackson was desperate for medical help when the paramedics arrived.

The 43-year-old was surrounded by police who arrested him after responding to a trespassing call in a Wisconsin parking lot. Officers had shocked him with a Taser and pinned him as he pleaded that he couldn’t breathe. Now he sat on the ground with hands cuffed behind his back and took in oxygen through a mask.

Then, officers moved Jackson to his side so a medic could inject him with a potent knockout drug.

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Biden administration finalizes new rules for power plants in one of its most significant climate actions to-date

Ella Nilsen
Jen Christensen

 

By Ella Nilsen and Jen Christensen, CNN

 6 minute read 

Updated 9:29 AM EDT, Thu April 25, 2024

Steam rises from the Miller coal Power Plant in Adamsville, Alabama on April 11, 2021.

Steam rises from the Miller coal-fired power plant in Adamsville, Alabama, in 2021. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty ImagesCNN — 

The Biden administration on Thursday finalized a highly anticipated suite of rules to cut hazardous, planet-warming pollution generated by power plants in one of its most significant environment and climate actions to-date.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s new rules will compel coal and new natural gas power plants to either cut or capture 90% of their climate pollution by 2032. The rules are expected to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions from the sector by 75% compared to its peak in 2005. Tiếp tục đọc “Biden administration finalizes new rules for power plants in one of its most significant climate actions to-date”

2003 – Tran Quang Co: A Memoir

The memoir of Trần Quang Cơ (1927-2015), former member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), brings to light the intense diplomacy among great powers and regional players over the continued conflicts in Indochina after the unification of Vietnam as well as the bitter disagreements within the Vietnamese leadership over the country’s political priorities during the period of 1975-1993.

Cơ put together his memories and thoughts on “many sensitive developments” in Vietnamese foreign relations that he believed had been “intentionally or unintentionally” forgotten (rơi rụng) in the state-endorsed history “to ‘smooth over’ (tròn trĩnh) the historical record.”  Completed in Vietnamese in 2001 (updated in 2003) and informally circulated on the internet, Merle Pribbenow’s English-translation makes this valuable historical source available to wider audiences.

Read and download>>

Don’t blame Dubai’s freak rain on cloud seeding – the storm was far too big to be human-made

Published: April 19, 2024 5.21pm BST, The Conversation

Author

  1. Richard WashingtonProfessor of Climate Science, University of Oxford

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Richard Washington receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council to study climate processes.

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Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under Creative Commons licence.

Some years ago, I found myself making my way up the narrow stairs of a Learjet on a sultry runway in a deserted airport near the South Africa-Mozambique border. The humidity was there to taste – the air thick with it.

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Trợ lý Phạm Thái Hà bị bắt, ông Vương Đình Huệ có ‘chịu trách nhiệm người đứng đầu’?

Chụp lại hình ảnh,Ông Phạm Thái Hà, Phó Chủ nhiệm Văn phòng Quốc hội kiêm Trợ lý Chủ tịch Quốc hội, bị khởi tố, bắt tạm giam với cáo buộc liên quan đến vụ án tại Tập đoàn Thuận An

BBC – 23-4-2023 13:34

Ông Phạm Thái Hà, Phó Chủ nhiệm Văn phòng Quốc hội, Trợ lý của Chủ tịch Quốc hội Vương Đình Huệ, vừa bị bắt với cáo buộc liên quan đến vụ án Tập đoàn Thuận An. Một câu hỏi được đặt ra trong vụ này: Trách nhiệm của người đứng đầu được quy định như thế nào?

Theo các quy định của Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam, ông Phạm Thái Hà bị cáo buộc sai phạm, ông Vương Đình Huệ ít nhất phải chịu trách nhiệm của người đứng đầu.Điều này đã được quy định cụ thể.

Chính quy định này đã khiến hàng loạt quan chức cấp cao trong Đảng, bao gồm cả ủy viên Bộ Chính trị, bị kỷ luật theo nhiều hình thức khác nhau, đa phần là bị miễn nhiệm, “cho thôi chức”.

Trường hợp gần đây nhất là cựu Chủ tịch nước Võ Văn ThưởngÔng Thưởng đã “được cho thôi chức” chủ tịch nước khi phải chịu trách nhiệm người đứng đầu.

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China sees foreign threats ‘everywhere’ as powerful spy agency takes center stage


An actor playing a spy shows off his multiple identity cards in a propaganda video released by China’s Ministry of State Security to warn the public about foreign spies. Ministry of State Security

Nectar Gan

By Nectar Gan, CNN Published 8:38 PM EDT, Sun April 21, 2024

TĐH: China sees ghost everywhere and this sickly fear will pull China down to the abyss. You can’t live with fear for so long

Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world.Hong KongCNN — 

In a slick video marking the National Security Education Day, China’s top spy agency has a stern message for Chinese people: foreign spies are everywhere.

As ominous music plays, a broad-faced, beady-eyed man disguises himself as a street fashion photographer, a lab technician, a businessman and a food delivery driver – he even sets up an online honey trap – to glean sensitive state secrets in various places and industries.

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270 million people are living on sinking land in China’s major cities, new study finds

Rachel Ramirez

By Rachel Ramirez, CNN

Published 2:00 PM EDT, Thu April 18, 2024

[TĐH: Vietnam has the same problems as those of China]

Shanghai is one of the coastal cities significantly exposed to both land subsidence and projected sea level rise. Roughly a quarter of the country’s coasts will be lower than sea level, according to new research.

Shanghai is one of the coastal cities significantly exposed to both land subsidence and projected sea level rise. Roughly a quarter of the country’s coasts will be lower than sea level, according to new research. AFP/Getty ImagesCNN — 

Land is sinking underneath millions of peoples’ feet in China’s major cities due to human activities, putting the country’s coastal areas more at risk of flooding and rising sea levels, new research shows.

Nearly half of China’s urban areas comprising 29% of the country’s population are sinking faster than 3 millimeters (about 0.12 inches) per year, according to the study published Thursday in the journal Science. That’s 270 million people living on sinking land.

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An uneasy Arab-Israeli alliance

April 18, 2024
By David Leonhardt, New York Times
People on a city street. In the background is a billboard showing missiles.
In Tehran.  Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

The anti-Iran coalition

To understand the current confrontation between Iran and Israel, it helps to think about three recent phases of Middle East geopolitics.

Phase 1: Before Oct. 7 of last year, Iran was arguably the most isolated power in the region. The Biden administration was growing closer to Saudi Arabia, Iran’s biggest rival for power. Israel, Iran’s longtime enemy, had signed a diplomatic deal during the Trump administration with Bahrain, Morocco and the U.A.E. Iran, for its part, was financing a network of extremist groups such as Hamas and the Houthis.

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Demographics in Vietnam – statistics & facts

statista.com

VietnamVietnam is the 16th most populous country in the world and is among the countries with the highest population density. The population is, however, not evenly distributed across the country. The Red River Delta and the Mekong River Delta have the largest concentrations of inhabitants, historically due to the favorable conditions for important economic activities such as agriculture and fisheries. After the Doi Moi economic reform in the 1980s, heavy urbanization further reinforced these areas as the most populated urban centers in Vietnam.Show more

Published by Statista Research Department, Mar 15, 2024

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KEY INSIGHTS

Population of Vietnam100.3m

Total population in Vietnam from 2012 to 2023 (in millions)

Life expectancy in Vietnam73.7 years

Life expectancy at birth in Vietnam from 2019 to 2023 (in years)

Adult literacy rate in Vietnam96.1%

Total literacy rate of adults aged 15 and above in Vietnam from 2011 to 2022

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Israel is quiet on next steps against Iran — and on which partners helped shoot down missiles

Both sides try to claim victory after Iranian aerial attack on Israel, AP explains Videos

BY TIA GOLDENBERG AND JOSEF FEDERMANUpdated 7:20 AM GMT+7, April 15, 2024Share

Follow AP’s live updates on Iran’s attack against Israel.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli leaders on Sunday credited an international military coalition with helping thwart a direct Iranian attack involving hundreds of drones and missiles, calling the coordinated response a starting point for a “strategic alliance” of regional opposition to Tehran.

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