title: Jko Fintech to drop plan for fixed-return Tuofu Bao

content_text:
Jko Fintech Co (街口金融科技) is scrapping a plan to offer a fixed return for users of its new Tuofu Bao service, as the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) would not budge on the regulations, company chairman Kevin Hu (胡亦嘉) told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday.

The company still aims to provide a better investment return than offered by a bank’s term deposit, but customers would not be guaranteed a fixed or minimum return, as originally planned, neither would controversial marketing be used to launch the Tuofu Bao service, Hu said.

Tuofu Bao allows users to use the electronic payment service JkoPay to buy a fund managed by Jko Asset Management Co (街口投信).

“We will inform customers that we are confident that the fund will perform well, but we will not make any promises,” Hu said.

As a result, the company would cancel its previous plan to put NT$200 million in a trust account to guarantee the return, he said.

The company is in talks with the regulator over whether it could charge a lower fund administrative fee to attract consumers, Hu said.

Jko Fintech aims to charge a fee of less than 0.1 percent, compared with the average market rate of 1.8 percent, to save customers money and encourage them to use the fund, it said.

Meanwhile, Jkopay Co Ltd (街口支付) yesterday announced that it would partner with several Japanese banks and payment service providers — including Shinsei Bank Ltd’s payment unit Aplus Co, SB Payment Service Corp, Rakuten Bank Ltd and InComm Japan — to introduce its service in Japan.

The Japanese partners would integrate Jkopay with their retail partners, Hu said.

JkoPay users would not need to pay the 1.5 percent fee that banks typically charge credit card users for overseas purchases when shopping in Japan, as the firm would absorb the cost, he said.

Users would also enjoy a better exchange rate than at local banks, which would help the service become competitive, he added.

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title: Childbirths fell again in 2019: MOI

content_text:
Childbirths fell again in 2019: MOI

ACTION CALL:The quality and availability of childcare institutions and private babysitters remains a concern, an Awakening Foundation official said
Just 177,767 children were born in Taiwan last year, a record low for the decade, with the exception of 2010, when 166,886 were born, Ministry of the Interior statistics showed.

However, an annual decrease in the number of births has been slowing in recent years, likely due to the childcare subsidies introduced by the government, or the belief that children born in a Year of the Pig, which last year was, would be blessed with better luck, Awakening Foundation director of policy Chyn Yu-rung (覃玉蓉) said on Sunday.

Like 2010, 2022 will be a Year of the Tiger in the 12-year cycle of animals on the Chinese zodiac.

Doctors said that the birthrate could hit a new low that year, as many women usually try to avoid giving birth during tiger years for superstitious reasons.

Taiwanese often try to time their children according to the zodiac years, and believers of folk religions think that children born in the Year of the Tiger would have a more rugged and bumpy path in life, which is why 2010 saw so few births for the decade, Taiwan Association of Obstetrics and Gynecology secretary-general Huang Min-chao (黃閔照) said.

The government should adopt early preventive measures, such as having celebrities who were born in a Year of the Tiger share their experiences as a way of helping eradicate stereotypes, he said.

However, the number of childbirths this year could hit a new low, because the number of women of childbearing age — from 15 to 49 years old — is also decreasing, Huang said.

The government should make more efforts to create family-friendly workplaces, because many Taiwanese postpone parenthood for financial reasons or due to workplace discrimination against pregnant women, he said.

However, women who wait until the age 37 or 38, when their financial situation is better, might encounter age-related infertility issues, Huang said.

Even though childcare subsidies help ease the financial burden on parents, many parents are still concerned about the number and quality of childcare institutions and private babysitters, Chyn said.

The government should also increase its efforts to oversee such caregiving services, she added.

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content_text:
Volcanic ash not affecting Taiwan for now

TURBULENT:People traveling to areas near Taal Volcano should remain on alert and heed the warnings from Philippine authorities, the Central Weather Bureau said
Volcanic ash spewing from Taal Volcano in the Philippines is not likely to affect Taiwan’s air quality for now, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday.

Smoke and ash spewing from the volcano had reached an altitude of more than 10km on Monday, the bureau said, citing an infrared satellite cloud chart.

The ejected substance is expected to rapidly move northeast in the medium-to-high troposphere, it said.

From Monday to today, the volcanic ash would mainly spread to the Pacific region east of 125 degrees longitude, it said.

As the volcano is about 1,250km from Taiwan proper, the eruption and volcanic ash would not have any direct effect on the nation, the bureau said.

“However, people traveling to areas near Taal Volcano should be on alert and aware of information announced by the Philippine government. The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines has suggested that civil flights avoid the airspace around the volcano, as the ash and gravel ejected by the volcano could damage aircraft,” it said.

Weather Forecast Center Deputy Director Chen I-liang (陳怡良) said that whether the ash would reach Taiwan depends on subsequent volcanic activity and atmospheric conditions.

Taal Volcano entered a turbulent stage at 1pm on Sunday, the bureau said.

The material being ejected from the volcano’s main crater has changed from steam to lava, it said.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology has recorded multiple earthquakes triggered by the volcano, which it said is an indication of a continuous upward magma migration under the volcano and further eruptions.

The institute has a five-tier volcano alert system. It was at level 4 yesterday, meaning that magmatic processes or effusive eruption are under way, which could progress into highly hazardous eruption.

It also means that the danger zone could be extended up to 9km from the main crater.

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title: Human transmission not ruled out in Wuhan virus

content_text:
Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Guo Hung-wei gives an update on the pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan, China, at a news conference at the Centers for Disease Control in Taipei yesterday.Photo: Lin Hui-chin, Taipei Times
Thai authorities on Monday confirmed that a visitor from Wuhan, China, has been infected with a new coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the possibility of human-to-human transmission cannot yet be ruled out.

Chinese health officials in the middle of last month reported a pneumonia outbreak linked to Huanan Seafood City market in Wuhan. The WHO on Monday named the virus novel coronavirus 2019 (2019-nCoV).

The visitor is a 61-year-old woman, who was found to have a fever upon her arrival in Thailand on Wednesday last week and quarantined, CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said, adding that test results on Sunday showed that she was infected with 2019-nCoV.

Her respiratory symptoms and fever have since improved, and she is likely to be discharged from hospital in a few days, he said.

Sixteen airline passengers who had come into direct contact with the woman showed negative results when screened for 2019-nCoV, he added.

The woman had not visited the seafood market, which Wuhan officials closed on Jan. 1, but she had been to other markets, so the possibility of human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out, Chuang said, adding that she also might have been infected by animals.

As of Sunday, Wuhan authorities had reported 41 confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV infection, six of whom were in a critical condition, and one death, he said, adding that there is no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.

CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) on Monday said that the WHO did not name the virus after Wuhan or China, as previous practices of naming diseases after places, such as the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, were protested by the affected countries.

Seasonal flu, pneumonia and respiratory disease cases usually peak in the winter, the CDC said, urging people who plan to visit Wuhan or nearby areas to wash their hands frequently with soap, wear a surgical mask when visiting livestock markets or crowded public spaces, and avoid direct contact with wild animals.

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people: 蔡英文 馬英九

content_text:
‘Whole world’ could learn from Taiwan’s transparent vote-counting: US academic

Taiwan’s public vote-counting system is one of the most powerful and unique aspects of its democracy, a US academic said after observing the presidential and legislative elections on Saturday.

“It’s completely transparent, low-tech, open and inspires confidence,” Kharis Templeman, a researcher at Stanford University and program manager of the Taiwan Democracy and Security Project, said in a telephone interview. “I believe that the whole world can learn something from Taiwan’s elections.”

Taiwan’s vote-counting process, in which poll workers hold up each ballot and call out the name of the candidate selected, is open to the public.

“Everyone is allowed to watch, record, supervise and even call out any mistakes,” Templeman said, adding that those involved are “using their lives to protect democracy.”

Although Saturday’s elections were not his first time observing Taiwan’s vote-counting process, he said that it was still incredibly moving.

“It strikes me every time I’ve come here to observe the elections just how good the Taiwanese election [system] is,” Templeman said.

Another impressive part of the process, and one that contributes to the legitimacy of the results, is the high level of efficiency, Templeman said, adding that the final results are usually known four to five hours after the polls close.

Regarding the campaign, he said that misinformation, false news and rumors in the media had increased compared with previous elections.

“But Taiwan has demonstrated that democracy can survive misinformation,” Templeman said.

Going forward, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who won a second term, would now have more flexibility to develop her policies, as she no longer has to worry about re-election, he said.

As for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which suffered crushing defeats in the presidential and legislative elections, Templeman said that the party needs new leadership and the input of young people.

Tsai won re-election with a record 8.17 million votes, or 57.13 percent of the total.

It was the highest vote total ever recorded for any candidate in a presidential election in Taiwan, breaking the previous high of 7.66 million votes received by former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the KMT in the 2008 election.

Separately, analysts commenting on the electoral results said that the relationship between Taiwan and the US is expected to continue to strengthen.

Taiwan Think Tank executive committee member Lai Yi-chung (賴怡忠) said that Taiwan could be described as one of the US’ best partners in Asia, adding that Saturday’s elections were essential to defending freedom and democracy in the Indo-Pacific region.

Ever-improving relations between the two nations over the past four years were the result of the US openly supporting governments that uphold democracy and freedom, not because of any favoritism, he said.

“There is good mutual trust between the US and the Tsai administration, which strengthens US-Taiwan cooperation,” Lai said.

“We should be able to see further development between the US and Taiwan,” he said, forecasting that military and other exchanges and cooperation would continue to deepen over the next four years.

Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that Tsai’s policies and positions are quite stable and have not demonstrated any drastic changes, which is very important in the governance of regional security.

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title: Indonesia rights body slams LGBT raids

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Indonesia’s human rights body yesterday slammed a crackdown on the LGBT community in a city that was once home to a man described as Britain’s “most prolific rapist.”

Depok Mayor Mohammad Idris has ordered raids to uncover members of the LGBT community in the city south of Jakarta, prompting fears of a growing homophobic backlash across the country.

He asked residents to report any signs of LGBT activity, which he characterized as “deviant behavior.”

He also called on several agencies to improve efforts to prevent the “spread of LGBT” to “strengthen families and protect the children,” and instructed police to carry out raids to uncover “LGBT behavior.”

His comments follow the conviction of Reynhard Sinaga, 36, a graduate student from Indonesia, who was found to have abused at least 195 men in England, luring them to his apartment in Manchester, before drugging and attacking them.

Sinaga was sentenced to life in prison earlier this month.

It is not clear what the purpose of the proposed raids would be, since homosexuality, while taboo, is not illegal in Indonesia — except in the conservative, Shariah-ruled province of Aceh.

The Indonesian National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) hit out at the mayor’s plans as contravening domestic and international rights laws.

“Komnas HAM are also concerned about the obligation of state institutions to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of all citizens, including sexual and gender identity minority groups,” it said in a statement.

After Sinaga’s sentencing, Indonesian LGBT activists pointed to a series of homophobic media reports and statements on social media.

The Islamic writer and self-described anti-liberal activist Akmal Sjafril wrote on Twitter: “Rape is not new, and has been done by humans for a long time ... but the rape record is now broken by homosexuals, even though this group is very small in number compared to normal.”

Lini Zurlia, a queer rights activist based in Jakarta, said the LGBT community was devastated.

“Since the case went public, I have personally been harassed online by people saying that Sinaga is ‘part of my circle’ and that I would defend him,” Zurlia said.

“[The media] focus on Sinaga’s sexual orientation rather than the rape case itself. It’s also affecting individuals in our community, because some of them are getting emotionally attacked from their family, as if being gay is to ‘be like Sinaga,’” Zurlia said.

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content_text:
Powertech net profit hits historic high

REBOUND IN DEMAND:About 70 percent of laptops and desktop computers are equipped with SSD storage, up from 50 percent in October last year, the firm said
Memorychip packager and tester Powertech Technology Inc (力成科技) yesterday said that net profit last quarter reached an all-time high, largely due to a recovery in demand for NAND flash memory chips.

Powertech’s net profit last quarter increased 30.3 percent quarter-on-quarter to NT$2.08 billion (US$69.47 million) from NT$1.6 billion in the third quarter of last year, while earnings per share rose to NT$2.68 from NT$2.06, the company said.

On an annual basis, net profit surged 53.1 percent from NT$1.36 billion in 2018, or earnings per share of NT$1.75, the firm said.

“Fourth-quarter revenue grew at a quarterly pace of 9.1 percent to NT$19.31 billion, which was unexpected and better than our estimate of 5 percent growth,” Powertech president Hung Chia-yu told investors in Hsinchu.

The company started installing new manufacturing equipment since the third quarter last year to cope with rebounding demand last quarter, which was rarely seen before, Hung said.

“The outlook for the first quarter is quite good. Revenue will grow significantly — the highest of any first quarter — extending the strong growth momentum from the fourth quarter of last year,” Hung said.

Over the past few years, first-quarter revenue fell at a quarterly pace of 8 to 12 percent, given seasonal corrections, Hung said, adding that this quarter would be an exception, with revenue falling by only a low-single-digit percentage.

Similar to last quarter, growth would be driven by testing and packaging services for NAND flash memory chips and system-in-package (SiP) modules, he said.

Increasing market penetration of new solid-state disk (SSD) storage for computers, flagship smartphones and servers has fueled demand for NAND flash memory chips, he said.

About 70 percent of laptops and desktop computers are equipped with SSD storage, instead of hard disks, up from 50 percent in October last year, the company said.

Revenue last quarter from testing and packaging services for NAND flash memory chips increased 14.5 percent quarter-on-quarter, while SiP modules increased 20.9 percent, the company said.

The NAND flash memory business contributed 41 percent of revenue, while the SiP module business contributed 10 percent — both larger shares than a year earlier, it added.

Demand from PC DRAM clients this quarter is expected to be stable, as chip demand and prices have been improving, Hung said.

Powertech said that it has an optimistic outlook on the year, primarily because the commercial launch of 5G networks should fuel demand for portable devices such as laptops, mobile phones, wearable devices and 5G-enabled base stations.

The company said that it plans to spend about NT$10 billion on new facilities and equipment, down slightly from last year’s NT$11 billion.

Net profit last year shrank 6.3 percent to NT$5.84 billion from NT$6.23 billion in 2018, as US-China trade tensions added to already sluggish demand for PCs, smartphones and excess inventory, while earnings per share last year fell to NT$7.52 from NT$8.02 in 2018, company data showed.

Gross margin last year fell to 19.1 percent from 20.3 percent in 2018, while revenue fell 2.2 percent to NT$66.53 billion from NT$68.04 billion in 2018, beating the company’s expectation of an 8 percent year-on-year decline, the data showed.

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title: Powertech net profit hits historic high


content_text:
People clear their roofs of volcanic ash in Laurel in the Philippines’ Batangas Province yesterday.Photo: AP
A volcano near the Philippine capital spewed lava into the sky and trembled constantly yesterday, possibly portending a bigger and more dangerous eruption, as tens of thousands of people fled villages darkened and blanketed by heavy ash.

Government work was suspended and schools were closed in a number of towns and cities, including Manila, because of the health risks from the ash. Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed, affecting tens of thousands of passengers.

The continuous restiveness of the Taal Volcano and several new fissures cracking the ground nearby likely means magma is rising and might result in further eruptive activity, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said.

The volcano was spurting fountains of red-hot lava 800m into the sky, and the massive column of ash and volcanic debris at times lit up with streaks of lightning.

The alert level has been 4 since the eruption began on Sunday, indicating a hazardous eruption is possible in hours to days. Level 5, the highest, means such an eruption is under way.

About 50 volcanic earthquakes were detected over eight hours yesterday, the institute said.

It also warned heavy and prolonged ash fall was possible in nearby villages.

“The speed in the rise of magma is important [in determining] when the volcano will have a strong eruption, and if it will slow down and freeze,” institute Director Renato Solidum said. “As of now, we don’t see activities slowing down and the earthquakes still continue.”

The picturesque volcano in the middle of a lake in Batangas province south of Manila rumbled to life on Sunday in a powerful explosion that blasted a 15km column of ash, steam and rock into the sky.

Clouds of volcanic ash blowing over Manila, 65km to the north, closed Ninoy Aquino International Airport on Sunday and part of Monday until the ash fall eased.

The disaster-response agency counted more than 40,000 evacuees in Batangas and Cavite provinces who took shelter in nearly 200 evacuation centers.

Officials expected the number to swell.

Solidum warned residents not to return to high-risk villages based on perceptions that the eruption was easing.

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title: Philippine volcano trembles, spews lava 800m high


title: YouBike launching trial run for new system in Taipei

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YouBike is to launch a three-month test run for its upgraded system in Taipei’s Gongguan (公館) today, before the city considers replacing all YouBike bicycles with the new models, the Taipei Department of Transportation said yesterday.

A total of 1,808 new YouBike stands are to be installed at 102 stations in the area during the trial run to accommodate 500 new bikes as part of the department’s “YouBike 2.0” project, it said, adding that the new service would start operations at 10am.

Scooter or bike riders should not park their vehicles near the new stations to avoid receiving a ticket, the department said.

The new service would feature smart control panels on the bikes instead of on the stands, meaning that users can proceed with the rental process directly by swiping an EasyCard or scanning a QR code with their smartphones, it said.

The relocation of the control panels means that the stands would take up less space, which is necessary to build a more comprehensive network, it added.

The new system would also be more eco-friendly, as the service interface would use built-in solar energy panels on the bicycles instead of being powered by underground wires through the stands, the department said.

The new bikes, which would be colored white and yellow, would also carry a GPS chip and use an automatic locking system instead of traditional locks, it said.

The new system would not be compatible with the current one, transport officials said, acknowledging that this might cause confusion and inconvenience for some users.

The Taipei City Government is to install the new stands alongside existing ones to give users two options, they said.

Gongguan area, near National Taiwan University, was chosen for the trial run because it is the most popular YouBike hotspot in the nation, the department said.

The city would study user behavior during the test run when drafting its plan to expand the system citywide, it said.

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content_text:
France to send 220 troops to Africa

BATTLE WITH MILITANTS:At a meeting with the G5 in France, Macron said he was worried the US military might withdraw from the area, which would be ‘really bad news’
French President Emmanuel Macron attends a press conference during the G5 Sahel summit in Pau, France, on Monday.Photo: AFP
France and five West African states on Monday agreed to combine their military forces under one command structure to fight a growing Islamist militancy in the Sahel region, with Paris committing an extra 220 troops.

French President Emmanuel Macron had called the leaders of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, known as the G5, to the southwestern French town of Pau to discuss the battle against insurgents in the Sahel, an arid region just below the Sahara desert.

With growing anti-French sentiment in the five countries over Paris’ handling of an insurgency by Islamist militants that has seen hundreds of their soldiers killed in the past few weeks, Macron had warned that he could withdraw French troops without a clear political commitment from them.

France, the former colonial power, has 4,500 troops in Mali and the wider Sahel, but security has been progressively worsening. Macron said the situation had now been clarified.

Militants linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State have strengthened their foothold, making large swathes of territory ungovernable and stoking ethnic violence, especially in Mali and Burkina Faso.

“Today, more than ever, the fact is that the results, despite the effort, are below the expectations of the population,” Burkinabe President Roch Marc Kabore told a joint news conference. “It’s for this reason that we have decided to review the deployment and redefine the pillars for our future action.”

The new structure, named Coalition for the Sahel, brings the G5 states, French forces and any future troops under a single command.

It aims to enable joint operations, greater intelligence-sharing and quicker response time in particular for French forces in the border areas linking Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, where the insurgency is at its worst.

Criticised in France for allowing French troops to get bogged down and facing growing hostility in West Africa for failing to restore stability, Macron has become increasingly frustrated, but the French leader appeared satisfied with Monday’s results.

Another 220 French troops are to be sent to give fresh momentum to the fight, with more European special forces expected to join in the coming months, he said.

“The priority is Islamic State in the Grand Sahara... It is our priority, because it is the most dangerous,” Macron said. “We have no choice, we need results.”

French troops were hailed as heroes in 2013 when their intervention helped prevent an Islamist militant push to the Malian capital, Bamako, but their standing has slipped as the security situation deteriorated.

At least 89 local soldiers were killed in a suspected jihadist attack on an army base in Niger this weekend, four security sources said.

Pau, the location of the summit, is home to a helicopter regiment which saw several of its French soldiers killed in a helicopter collision in Mali in November last year.

Macron said he was also worried of a possible withdrawal by the US military in the area.

It provides intelligence, logistical and drone support for France’s forces. There have been mixed signals from Washington that it could pull out.

“If the Americans were to decide to leave Africa it would be really bad news for us,” Macron said. “I hope to be able to convince [US President Donald] Trump that the fight against terrorism also plays out in this region.”

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title: France to send 220 troops to Africa


title: World Business Quick Take

content_text:
HONG KONG

Relief measures promised

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) yesterday pledged HK$10 billion (US$1.3 billion) in new relief measures to prop up the economy, as it grapples with months of pro-democracy protests that have hurt business confidence in the territory. The proposed new spending brings the global financial hub’s total stimulus to HK$35 billion since this summer, when protests escalated and have since taken a heavy economic toll, especially in the tourism and retail sectors.

MEXICO

Chinese loans cover refinery

Chinese banks are providing US$600 million in financing for the construction of a new oil refinery at the Dos Bocas Port in the southeastern state of Tabasco, Chinese Ambassador to Mexico Ambassador Zhu Qingqiao (祝青橋) told reporters on Monday. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (中國工商銀行) and the Bank of China (中國銀行) are participating in financing for the refinery, one of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s flagship infrastructure projects, Zhu said. It was unclear what kind of financing the banks would provide for the project.

RETAIL

SML Group seeks buyer

SML Group Ltd, a closely held garment label maker for fashion brands and retailers globally, is exploring a sale of the business that could fetch about US$500 million, people familiar with the matter said. Hong Kong-based SML is working with Citigroup Inc to seek a buyer for the business, the people said. The company makes woven and printed labels, price tickets, hangtags, and zippers and buttons, its Web site said.

TELECOMS

Vodacom in talks with Cell C

Vodacom Group Ltd is in talks with Cell C Pty Ltd about taking on the smaller rival’s contract-paying mobile phone subscribers, a move that would strengthen its position as South Africa’s telecom market leader, people familiar with the matter said. The unit of the UK-based Vodafone Group PLC would gain about 1 million high-paying subscribers from the deal, the people said. The carrier could also cut jobs and close some stores after slimming down operations, they said.

UNITED KINGDOM

Flight tax cut to help Flybe

The government could cut air passenger taxes on all domestic flights to help rescue struggling regional airline Flybe, the BBC reported yesterday. British Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid is to meet later with representatives from the Department for Transport and Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to discuss the tax and a possible deferring of Flybe’s bill, the corporation said. A possible deal could allow Flybe to defer a payment of more than ￡100 million (US$129.72 million) for three years, Sky News said.

STOCK MARKETS

Yum China eyes HK listing

Yum China Holdings Inc (百勝中國控股) is working with China International Capital Corp (中國國際金融) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc on preparations of its proposed second listing in Hong Kong, people familiar with the matter said. The operator of Pizza Hut and KFC restaurants in China is working with the banks on the share sale, which could take place as soon as this year, the people said. Yum China is considering a listing in Hong Kong that could raise as much as US$2 billion, International Financing Review reported last week, citing unidentified people.

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content_text:
Scientists paint Australia fires as red alert on climate change

With the sky outside a menacing red, Nerilie Abram’s family is staying inside, with the windows shut and curtains drawn at their home in Canberra, Australia’s smoke-choked capital.

On their return from recent holiday travels, “the kids didn’t want us to open the curtains because outside it looked scary,” the professor and climate scientist at the Australian National University said.

Family friends who struggle with asthma have left town, she said, and most residents who do venture outside wear disposable masks — although the city, which had the world’s worst air quality for several days last week, is running out of those.

“We’re been really caught off-guard by these fires,” said Abram, who works with the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes.

“Scientifically, it’s not surprising. We totally expected that as the climate warmed, fires in Australia would get worse. But the scale of this disaster is something I couldn’t have imagined, and it’s the same for a lot of people in Australia,” she said.

Large swathes of the country are battling wildfires that have killed at least 27 people and torched more than 10 million hectares in the wake of the southern-hemisphere nation’s hottest and driest year on record.

The ferocious, fast-moving blazes have consumed more than 2,000 homes, blanketed major cities from Sydney to Melbourne in thick smoke, killed an estimated billion animals and pushed exhausted firefighters to their limits.

While summer bushfires are nothing new in Australia, scientists say these are different.

Their scale and ferocity raise questions about how nature will recover — and the fires are now affecting a much higher percentage of Australia’s population, the scientists say.

In the well-populated southeast, nearly a third of people are estimated to have been directly affected by this season’s fire and smoke.

In a nation of just 25 million, “most people know someone who’s been affected,” said Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, a climate scientist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

That might have political implications in a country that less than a year ago elected a conservative coalition government with close ties to the powerful coal industry and a record of dismissing action on climate change as too costly.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been verbally abused while visiting fire-hit areas after returning from an ill-timed Hawaii holiday, with angry residents saying his government has done too little to respond and prevent damage.

“People are deeply affected,” said Joe Fontaine, a lecturer in environmental science at Murdoch University in Perth, noting “a deep sense of loss and anxiety in society.”

However, it was “a little too early” to tell if the bushfire crisis was shifting views on climate change, he added.

Australia’s brutal fire season stems from a confluence of threats, scientists say.

Climate change is generally causing a long-term trend toward hotter and drier conditions, while Abram said that shifts in clouds and winds are gradually driving winter rain toward Antarctica.

This season, unusual cold in the eastern Indian Ocean has cut off moisture moving to Australia.

All that adds up to an extremely dangerous fire season — but it might not be the “new normal” some have dubbed it, Abram said.

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content_text:
Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals, right, celebrates after scoring against the Carolina Hurricanes in their NHL game in Washington on Monday.Photo: AP
By now, it almost seems like no big deal when Alex Ovechkin reaches another milestone.

Ovechkin on Monday scored two first-period goals and moved into 11th place on the NHL’s career list, leading the Washington Capitals to a 2-0 win over the Carolina Hurricanes.

The 34-year-old passed Teemu Selanne and closed within four goals of Mario Lemieux (690) for 10th place.

“I thought tonight was his best game in a while,” Washington coach Todd Reirden said. “He knew tonight was an important game for us, so I thought you saw him go to a different level. To me that’s Alex Ovechkin. For our team, knew we needed something extra from our team tonight and I thought he had a standout game.”

Ovechkin was happier with another milestone — the first career shutout for rookie goalie Ilya Samsonov, who stopped 23 shots.

“Sammy did a great job today and kept us in the game with some big saves,” Ovechkin said.

Samsonov improved to 13-2-1. He has won eight straight games and has not lost since Nov. 15 last year, and while Samsonov has played brilliantly, veteran Braden Holtby still plays twice as often as the rookie.

“I think we have the best two goalies in the league right now and I think we can see when they feel comfortable, when they feel good, we feel the same,” Ovechkin said.

The victory broke the Capitals’ two-game skid and the Hurricanes’ three-game winning streak. Carolina posted shutouts in their previous two games.

Petr Mrazek made 28 saves for the Hurricanes, but coach Rod Brind’Amour did not feel with a two-goal deficit Carolina were going to be able to challenge Washington.

“It was 2-0, but it didn’t feel like we were going to have very much push,” Brind’Amour said. “It felt like we were a little gassed. It might be that time of year where it’s starting to catch up to you. That’s how it felt.”

The first goal was the 685th for Ovechkin, moving him past Selanne. It came at 11 minutes, 58 seconds of the first period.

Ovechkin’s second goal at 17:01 was his 28th of the season.

“Everything just seems normal with him sometimes, just because he is passing someone and he is always climbing some leaderboard or what have you,” Capitals defenseman John Carlson said. “Maybe you get dull to it a little bit, but certainly some special names that are close and when you look back at it, I think it will be a lot more meaningful for him as well, but it doesn’t take anything away from him, and what he has done and accomplished.”

Washington led after one period for the first time in the past 14 games, but in the second period were outshot 10-5. The Capitals committed three penalties in the period and killed off each one.

“Samsonov was outstanding when he was tested,” Reirden said. “The confidence he’s playing with certainly allows your penalty kill to be a little bit more aggressive, because you know if you have a breakdown that he’s going to be rock-solid back there.”

The Capitals had a chance to increase their lead when they had a two-man advantage for 45 seconds in the third period, but they could not score.

It was the first shutout of the season for Washington.

Elsewhere, the Blues sank the Ducks 4-1, the Rangers routed the Islanders 6-2, the Canadiens extinguished the Flames 2-0 and the Flyers edged the Bruins 6-5 in a shoot-out.

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title: Alex Ovechkin reaches another milestone


content_text:
Soldiers walk past debris and burned-out containers at Ain al-Asad Air Base in Iraq’s al-Anbar Governorate on Monday.Photo: Reuters
Troops at an Iraqi air base that bore the brunt of Iran’s first direct missile attack against US forces said that they were shocked by its intensity and grateful to emerge unscathed.

The scale of the damage at Ain al-Asad Air Base showed Iran’s destructive capability at a time when US officials have said they are still concerned that Iran-backed groups across the region could wage attacks on the US.

“It’s miraculous no one was hurt,” Lieutenant Colonel Staci Coleman, the US Air Force officer who runs the airfield, told reporters on Monday at the vast facility deep in the western Anbar desert in Iraq, where 1,500 US troops are deployed.

“Who thinks they’re going to have ballistic missiles launched at them ... and suffer no casualties?” Coleman said.

The attack on Wednesday last week came hours after US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said that the US should expect retaliation for killing Iranian major general Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Iraq the previous week.

The killing raised fears of a new Middle East war, but the US, Iraq and other countries with troops at the base said that no one was hurt.

US military leaders have said that was due to commanders on the ground, not Tehran’s goodwill.

At one site, a cruise missile left a large crater and incinerated living quarters made from shipping containers. Heavy concrete blast walls were knocked over and the shipping containers were smashed and charred along with their contents, including bicycles, chairs and other furniture.

Several soldiers said that one of their number had come very close to being blown up inside a shelter behind the blast walls.

Almost a dozen missiles hit the air base, where US forces carried out “scatter plans” to move soldiers and equipment to a range of fortified areas apart from one another.

The US did not have Patriot missile defenses at the base, putting the onus on local commanders to protect their troops.

“We’d got notification there could be an attack a few hours prior, so had moved equipment,” Staff Sergeant Tommie Caldwell said.

Coleman said that by 10pm that day, all the staff she manages were ready to take cover.

“People took this very seriously,” she said.

Three-and-a-half hours later, the missiles started arriving.

Several soldiers said that the bombardment lasted two hours.

Staff Sergeant Armando Martinez, who had been out in the open to watch for casualties, said that he could not believe how easily one missile leveled the concrete blast walls.

“When a rocket strikes, that’s one thing; but a ballistic missile, it’s like terror,” he said. “You see a white light like a shooting star and then a few seconds later it lands and explodes. The other day, after the attack, one colleague saw an actual shooting star and panicked.”

One missile landed on the tarmac of a parking and servicing area for UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters helping to ferry equipment in the fight against Islamic State group insurgents.

The helicopters had been moved, but the missile destroyed two light hangars and badly damaged portable buildings nearby.

“We must have been in the bunkers for more than five hours, maybe seven or eight,” US Air Force Master Sergeant Kenneth Goodwin said.

“They knew what they were aiming at by targeting the airfield and parking area,” he added.

It was the latest strike against an air base that has figured prominently in high-ranking US officials’ visits to Iraq.

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title: US troops express relief after no one hurt in air attack


content_text:
Be warned. If the rise of the robots comes to pass, the apocalypse might be a more squelchy affair than science fiction writers have prepared us for.

Researchers in the US have created the first living machines by assembling cells from African clawed frogs into tiny robots that move around under their own steam.

One of the most successful creations has two stumpy legs that propel it along on its “chest.” Another has a hole in the middle that researchers turned into a pouch so that it could shimmy around with miniature payloads.

“These are entirely new lifeforms. They have never before existed on Earth,” said Michael Levin, the director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. “They are living, programmable organisms.”

Roboticists tend to favor metal and plastic for their strength and durability, but Levin and his colleagues see benefits in making robots from biological tissues. When damaged, living robots can heal their wounds, and once their task is done they fall apart, just as natural organisms decay when they die.

Their unique features mean that future versions of the robots might be deployed to clean up microplastic pollution in the oceans, locate and digest toxic materials, deliver drugs in the body or remove plaque from artery walls, the scientists say.

“It’s impossible to know what the applications will be for any new technology, so we can really only guess,” said Joshua Bongard, a senior researcher on the team at the University of Vermont.

The robots, which are less than 1mm long, are designed by an “evolutionary algorithm” that runs on a supercomputer. The program starts by generating random 3D configurations of 500 to 1,000 skin and heart cells.

Each design is then tested in a virtual environment, to see, for example, how far it moves when the heart cells are set beating.

The best performers are used to spawn more designs, which are then put through their paces.

As heart cells spontaneously contract and relax, they behave like miniature engines that drive the robots along until their energy reserves run out. The cells have enough fuel inside them for the robots to survive for a week to 10 days before keeling over.

The scientists waited for the computer to churn out 100 generations before picking a handful of designs to build in the lab. They used tweezers and cauterizing tools to sculpt early-stage skin and heart cells scraped from the embryos of African clawed frogs, Xenopus laevis.

The source of the cells led the scientists to call their creations “xenobots.”

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers describe how they set the robots loose in dishes of water to keep the frog cells alive. Some crept along in straight lines, while others looped around in circles or teamed up with others as they moved around.

“These are very small, but ultimately the plan is to make them to scale,” Levin said.

Sam Kriegman, a doctoral student on the team at the University of Vermont, said that the work did raise ethical issues, particularly given that future variants could have nervous systems and be selected for cognitive capability, making them more active participants in the world.

“What’s important to me is that this is public, so we can have a discussion as a society and policymakers can decide what is the best course of action,” Kriegman said.

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title: Scientists use stem cells from frogs to build living robots


content_text:
A: So you didn’t need to prepare a special program for your company’s year-end banquet?

B: Nope. It was on Friday last week. I went there with an empty mind and stomach and just ate my fill.

A: Did you win any interesting prizes?

B: Strangely, I kept narrowly missing out, but then I finally won a bonus prize.

A: 所以你不用為公司尾牙準備特別節目嗎？

B: 不用啊，我們尾牙是上週五，我就腦袋空空、肚子空空的去，然後大吃一頓。

A: 那你有抽到什麼有趣的獎品嗎？

B: 說也奇怪，獎品都跟我擦身而過，沒想到最後卻抽到獎金。

English 英文:

Chinese 中文:

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title: EVERYDAY ENGLISH


content_text:
CHINA

Sinkhole swallows bus

An enormous sinkhole swallowed a bus and pedestrians in the country’s northwest, sparking an explosion, killing six people and leaving four more missing, state media said yesterday. Footage showed people at a bus stop running from the collapsing road as the vehicle — jutting into the air — sank into the ground. Several people disappeared into the sinkhole as it spread, including what appeared to be a child. The incident also triggered an explosion inside the hole, video showed. The incident occurred at about 5:30pm on Monday in Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province, China Central Television said. A search-and-rescue operation involving more than 1,000 people and 30 vehicles was under way, the official Xinhua news agency said. An investigation into the cause has been opened. Video footage published by China Global Television Network showed a person being pulled from the hole by rescue workers.

THAILAND

Wuhan virus confirmed

A Chinese visitor to the country has been confirmed to be infected with a new strain of coronavirus that has been linked to a pneumonia outbreak in central China, health officials said on Monday. The WHO said local officials have reported that a traveler from Wuhan, China, has been hospitalized outside of Bangkok with the virus. Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said it appears to be the first confirmed case of the virus found outside China, the Bangkok Post newspaper and other local media reported. He identified the infected tourist as a 61-year-old woman whose symptoms were detected on arrival at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport on Wednesday last week. Her coronavirus was confirmed on Sunday by a laboratory test, Anutin said.

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title: World News Quick Take


content_text:
Barca fire Valverde, appoint ex-Betis boss Quique Setien

Spanish champions Barcelona on Monday announced that they had sacked their coach Ernesto Valverde and appointed Quique Setien as his replacement.

The decision to remove Valverde was confirmed following a board meeting at the Camp Nou that lasted more than four hours.

Barca are top of La Liga, but have won only one of their past five matches. Valverde is the first coach the club has sacked mid-season since Louis van Gaal in 2003.

“FC Barcelona and Ernesto Valverde have reached an agreement to terminate the contract that united both parties,” a club statement said.

Setien was to be presented at a news conference at the Camp Nou yesterday.

“Barcelona and Quique Setien have reached an agreement for the latter to become first-team coach until 30 June 2022,” the statement said.

“Setien is one of the most experienced coaches in Spanish football. Throughout his career he has been a proponent of possession-based, attacking football that has been attractive to the fans,” it said.

His first game in charge is at home to Granada on Sunday.

Barcelona play SSC Napoli in the round-of-16 of the UEFA Champions League next month and Real Madrid in the league at the start of March.

Setien has made no secret of his admiration for the stylistic traditions of Barcelona, with the 61-year-old also renowned for favoring an exciting, offensive mode of play.

A former Atletico Madrid and Real Racing Club de Santander player, he was circled as a potential Barca coach during a particularly successful period in charge of Real Betis Balompie.

Setien led Betis to a sixth-place finish in 2017-2018 and qualification for the UEFA Europa League, but, despite overseeing a thrilling 4-3 victory at the Camp Nou early the following season, results tailed off.

Betis finished 10th, and the club and coach parted ways in the summer last year.

Previously, he also helped UD Las Palmas avoid relegation from La Liga in 2015-2016.

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content_text:
Soleimani target of new deterrence strategy: Pompeo

MAKING AN EXAMPLE:The US secretary of state signaled that the US was working to re-establish ‘real deterrence’ against any hostile actor, including Russia and China
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at a Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace event in Stanford, California, on Monday.Photo: Bloomberg
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday said that Qassem Soleimani was killed as part of a broader strategy to deter challenges by US foes that also applies to China and Russia, further diluting the assertion that the top Iranian general was targeted because he was plotting imminent attacks on US targets.

In a speech at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace, Pompeo made no mention of the threat of imminent attacks planned by Soleimani.

It only was in response to a question that he repeated his earlier assertion that pre-empting such plots was the reason for the Jan. 3 US drone strike on Iran’s second-most powerful official.

His speech, “The Restoration of Deterrence: The Iranian Example,” focused on what he called a strategy to establish “real deterrence” against Iran following earlier US Republican and Democratic policies that encouraged Tehran’s “malign activity.”

Democratic and some Republican lawmakers have challenged the White House over the self-defense rationale supported by undisclosed intelligence over imminent attacks.

US President Donald Trump has said that the potential targets included four US embassies.

On Sunday, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said that he had seen no intelligence forewarning of imminent attacks on embassies.

Trump on Monday added new fuel to the controversy by saying that “it really doesn’t matter” whether Soleimani posed an imminent threat.

Pompeo said there was “a bigger strategy” behind the killing of Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, Iran’s elite foreign espionage and paramilitary force.

“President Trump and those of us in his national security team are re-establishing deterrence — real deterrence — against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said.

“Your adversary must understand not only that you have the capacity to impose cost, but that you’re in fact willing to do so,” Pompeo said, adding that a 2015 Iranian nuclear deal from which Trump withdrew in 2018 had emboldened Tehran.

“America now enjoys the greatest position of strength regarding Iran we’ve ever been in,” he said, pointing to the damage done to the Iranian economy by US sanctions that Trump reimposed following his withdrawal from the nuclear deal.

“The importance of deterrence isn’t confined to Iran,” Pompeo said. “In all cases, we must deter foes to defend freedom. That’s the whole point of President Trump’s work to make our military the strongest it’s ever been.”

He cited the resumption of lethal military aid to Ukraine for defense against Russia-backed separatists, Trump’s withdrawal from an arms control accord with Moscow and tests of a new US intermediate-range cruise missile.

Pompeo also pointed to increased US naval exercises in the South China Sea in response to China’s militarization of disputed islands and Trump’s imposition of tariffs on Chinese imports as aspects of the administration’s deterrence strategy.

“We’re restoring credibility to deterrence,” Pompeo said.

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title: SPORTS BRIEFS

content_text:
CYCLING

Hamilton suffers dire injury

Australian Chris Hamilton is to miss the Tour Down Under after suffering an injury in a training crash — rupturing one of his testicles. The 24-year-old Team Sunweb rider posted the eye-watering injury bulletin on Instagram. “Fellas it’s just as painful as you think it is,” Hamilton wrote. “I had a small crash in training. I wish I could say I was doing something gnarly, but no, just on a bike path. Nothing broken but since someone is going to ask what I did anyway, I ruptured a testicle.” In a sport where broken collarbones, wrists and ribs are par for the course, it is a rare injury and the unfortunate Hamilton did not know how long the recovery would be. “It’s a bit unknown, but at this stage all I can say is the surgery to do some repairs went well and I’ll find out more in a follow up next week,” he wrote. “I am pretty devastated to be sidelined for the Aussie summer, but who knows, maybe a change will be for the best! See you all out on the road soon.”

BADMINTON

Momota injured in accident

World No. 1 Kento Momota could be out for two months after being injured in a traffic accident that killed his driver just hours after he won the Malaysia Masters on Sunday. The 25-year-old Japanese suffered cuts and bruising in the accident near Kuala Lumpur, but is aiming to return at the All England Championships on March 11, Japanese Badminton Association secretary-general Kinji Zeniya said yesterday. Momota, who won a record 11 titles last year, had “extraordinary enthusiasm towards the Olympics” this year in Tokyo, Zeniya said, but urged the gold-medal hope to take time to recuperate fully. “I hope he will do his best without pushing and rushing himself too hard, and without being impatient,” he said. Momota has been in hospital since the crash with a slow-moving truck as his party were driving to the airport. The driver was killed at the scene, while Momota received cuts to his face and bruising all over his body, Zeniya said, denying previous reports that he had broken his nose and chin. An assistant coach, physiotherapist and association official were also injured. The accident came after Momota began the season in style with victory over Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen in the Malaysia Masters final on Sunday.

CRICKET

Spectator banned for abuse

New Zealand Cricket (NZC) has banned a spectator from attending international and domestic matches for two years after he admitted racially abusing England paceman Jofra Archer. NZC filed a complaint with the police after failing to “conclusively identify” a spectator who had racially abused the England bowler on the final day of the first Test at the Bay Oval in November last year. “As a result of their inquiries, police have spoken to a 28-year-old Auckland man who subsequently admitted responsibility for the abuse,” NZC said in a statement. “He was issued with a verbal warning for using insulting language. NZC have since ... written to him, advising of his ban from all international and domestic fixtures in New Zealand until 2022.” If the man attends a fixture, he would be removed from the venue and could face further legal action. “We’d again like to extend our apologies to Jofra and the England team management for such an unsavory incident and reiterate once more that this type of behavior is completely unacceptable,” NZC spokesperson Anthony Crummy said.

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content_text:
Taiwanese have spoken

For most of my life, I have been quite pro-China, helped by the fact that I spent the bulk of my investment career as a China analyst in some form or fashion.

However, my stance turned 180 degrees this past year as I lived in Taiwan, a democratic country under constant threat and intimidation from China — except it has gotten much worse under “Emperor Xi.”

China has been turned into an insufferable totalitarian state under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and its rise is no longer peaceful. In the past year, the world has witnessed how it incarcerated over 1 million innocent members of an ethnic minority in “re-education camps,” bullied foreign governments/firms/sports groups who “offended” it, stepped up the closing of churches and jailing of pastors, and unilaterally voided the Joint Declaration with Britain over Hong Kong.

What the Chinese government practices goes well beyond domestic censorship. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seems to think it has a monopoly on the truth, not only in China, but the whole world.

Anyone who dares to criticize China’s unruly behavior is either accused of being racist, or called a traitor if they’re an overseas Chinese. Anyone who goes against their narrative on any number of issues will be cut off from access to their market or made to vanish.

China’s citizenry has become openly hostile toward the US and democracy itself. Slowly, the world is waking up to the reality that doing business with China entails a heavy long-term cost in myriad ways.

In a similar fashion, it is now warning Taiwan to accept the “one country, two systems” model that has failed so miserably in Hong Kong, or else “we will take you by force,” and that “time is running out.”

The world cannot stand by and let that happen, not only for Taiwan’s sake, as China bullies most of its neighbors over disputed territories and has a grand design on global domination through Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative, which entraps struggling nations with massive debt for environmentally unsustainable projects that they build, then take control of when the host country is unable to repay loans.

In Greece, Chinese state-owned COSCO has a 51 percent ownership of Athens’ Piraeus port, much to the chagrin and dismay of many Greeks.

The people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait might be ethnically Chinese, but they are very different. Taiwanese love their freedom, democracy and independence. In its 70 years as a separate political entity, the People’s Republic of China has never ruled Taiwan for a minute.

Taiwan deserves the right to self-determination, international recognition and the support of world leaders like US President Donald Trump.

So, congratulations to President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) for her firm stance against China and being re-elected. I never thought I would be one of her supporters, but a lot can change in a year’s time.

York Lin

Thessaloniki, Greece

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people: 習近平 蔡英文

title: [ LETTER ]


content_text:
Iranian journalists quit over state ‘lies’

SHOT DOWN:Iran’s judiciary yesterday said that arrests had been made over the Ukrainian jetliner incident, but did not say how many people had been detained
At least two Iranian presenters working for the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) have announced they have quit their jobs, with a third saying she quit some time ago after having told lies on behalf of the state for 13 years.

Gelare Jabbari apologized in an Instagram post, writing: “It was very hard for me to believe that our people have been killed. Forgive me that I got to know this late, and forgive me for the 13 years I told you lies.”

Zahra Khatami quit her role at IRIB, saying: “Thank you for accepting me as anchor until today. I will never get back to TV. Forgive me.”

Her fellow anchor, Saba Rad, said: “Thank you for your support in all years of my career. I announce that after 21 years working in radio and TV, I cannot continue my work in the media. I cannot.”

The journalists’ statements were made amid an upswell of anger and protests by Iranians in recent days over the downing of a Ukrainian jetliner on Wednesday last week.

Iran acknowledged only on Saturday — in the face of mounting evidence — that members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) air defense force had shot down the plane by mistake. All 176 people on board were killed.

The crisis is leading even some of the news agencies most closely associated with the regime to start reporting on the street protests, or a least to start addressing the allegations about a potential state cover-up.

The Tehran-based Association of Iranian Journalists said in a statement that the country was witnessing “a funeral for public trust” that was damaging the already shaky reputation of Iran’s official media.

Speaking candidly on BBC Radio Today, Ghanbar Naderi, a commentator on Iran’s state-run Press TV, said: “There is little trust in the government and people want more freedom. The lies they said about the shooting down of the aeroplane [have] lost public trust. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps know it very well.”

“Millions and millions took [to] the streets following the assassination of Qasem Soleimani. It was a rare moment of unity but the IRGC blew it,” he said. “As a journalist you need to be able to sleep at night. I will never ever distance myself from the truth.

“This a great nation. It has made many mistakes that are unacceptable. If the IRGC shot down a civilian airplane, I have no choice but to condemn it,” he added.

“The publication of false information has had a severe impact on public confidence and public opinion, and more than ever shook the media’s shaky position. The situation has become so complex,” the Association of Iranian Journalists said. “We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves; and Islamic Republic of Iran state television employees acknowledge that their credibility has been lost. Unaware that the credibility of this media and most of the domestic media had long since vanished.”

“It should be noted, however, that other media outlets objected to the situation, but the Islamic Republic of Iran’s state television favored it. This incident showed that people cannot trust official data and journalists should try to fill this gap as much as possible,” it said.

ARRESTS

Meanwhile, Iran’s judiciary yesterday said that arrests have been made over the downing of the jetliner.

Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili was quoted by Iranian state media as saying that “extensive investigations have taken place and some individuals are arrested.”

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content_text:
Ocean temperatures hit record high

RISING RISK:One expert said that the rapidly increasing heat content in the upper layers of the world’s oceans would have a dramatic effect on their rich ecosystems
The heat in the world’s oceans last year reached a new record level, showing “irrefutable and accelerating” heating of the planet.

The world’s oceans are the clearest measure of the climate emergency, because they absorb more than 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases emitted from burning fossil fuels, forest destruction and other human activities.

A new analysis found that the past five years were the top-five warmest years recorded in the ocean and the past 10 years were also the top 10 years on record.

The amount of heat being added to the oceans is equivalent to every person on the planet running 100 microwave ovens all day and all night.

Hotter oceans lead to more severe storms and disrupt the water cycle, meaning more floods, droughts and wildfires, as well as an inexorable rise in sea level.

Higher temperatures are also harming life in the seas, with the number of marine heat waves increasing sharply.

The most common measure of global heating is the average surface air temperature, as this is where people live.

However, natural climate phenomena, such as El Nino events, mean that this can vary significantly from year to year.

“The oceans are really what tells you how fast the Earth is warming,” said John Abraham, a professor at Minnesota’s University of St Thomas and one of the team behind the new analysis. “Using the oceans, we see a continued, uninterrupted and accelerating warming rate of planet Earth. This is dire news.”

“We found that 2019 was not only the warmest year on record, it displayed the largest single-year increase of the entire decade, a sobering reminder that human-caused heating of our planet continues unabated,” said Michael Mann, a Pennsylvania State University professor and another team member.

The analysis, published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, used ocean data from every available source.

Most data was from 3,800 free-drifting Argo floats dispersed across the oceans, but also from torpedo-like bathythermographs dropped from ships in the past.

The results showed heat increasing at an accelerating rate as greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere. The rate from 1987 to last year was four-and-a-half times faster than that from 1955 to 1986.

The vast majority of oceans regions are showing an increase in thermal energy.

This energy drives bigger storms and more extreme weather, Abraham said.

“When the world and the oceans heat up, it changes the way rain falls and evaporates. There’s a general rule of thumb that drier areas are going to become drier and wetter areas are going to become wetter, and rainfall will happen in bigger downbursts,” he said.

Hotter oceans also expand and melt ice, causing sea levels to rise. The past 10 years also saw the highest sea level measured in records dating back to 1900.

Scientists expect about 1m of sea level rise by the end of the century, enough to displace 150 million people worldwide.

Dan Smale of the Marine Biological Association of the UK, who was not part of the analysis team, said that the methods used are state of the art and the data is the best available.

“For me, the take-home message is that the heat content of the upper layers of the global ocean, particularly to 300m depth, is rapidly increasing, and will continue to increase as the oceans suck up more heat from the atmosphere,” Smale said.

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title: Ocean temperatures hit record high


title: US sends home 21 Saudis after ‘terrorism’

content_text:
The US is to send home 21 Saudi Arabian military trainees after an investigation into a “jihadist” killing of three US sailors last month, the US Department of Justice announced on Monday.

The Dec. 6 shooting attack by Royal Saudi Air Force Second Lieutenant Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida was an “act of terrorism,” US Attorney General Bill Barr said.

“The evidence shows that the shooter was motivated by jihadist ideology,” he told reporters.

There was no evidence that Alshamrani had colluded with others, although Barr said that FBI investigators had been unable to unlock his two smartphones to determine whom he had contacted.

“We have asked Apple for their help in unlocking the shooter’s iPhones. So far Apple has not given us any substantive assistance,” Barr said.

The attorney general said that 21 of Alshamrani’s colleagues were being expelled from the base’s flight school after the probe found many of them had extremist material and child pornography.

While the material did not rise to the level of criminal prosecution, Barr said that Riyadh had “determined that this material demonstrated conduct unbecoming an officer in the Saudi Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, and the 21 cadets have been disenrolled from their training curriculum.”

They were to return to Saudi Arabia later on Monday, Barr said.

The Saudi Arabian government had vowed to review each case under its code of military justice and criminal code, he said.

“Further, the kingdom has assured us that, if we later decide to charge any of those being sent back to Saudi Arabia in connection with this counterterrorism investigation, it will return them for trial,” Barr said.

Alshamrani gunned down three US sailors and wounded eight other people in a classroom block, in what Barr described as a premeditated assault, before police shot him dead.

He had posted a message on social media on Sept. 11 last year saying that “the countdown has begun,” in addition to several other anti-US, anti-Israel and extremist messages, the investigation found.

The shooting threatened a decades-old military training program crucial to the US-Saudi Arabian relationship, which involves billions of dollars in military sales to the kingdom.

There are about 850 Saudi Arabians among the 5,000 foreign military personnel undergoing training in the US. Many, such as the Saudi Arabians in Pensacola, are trained in flying and maintenance of US-made military aircraft their countries are purchasing.

“These military partnerships are critically important to our country,” Barr said.

However, Senator Rick Scott called for the suspension of the Saudi Arabian program for further review by the US Department of Defense (DOD).

“This was an act of terrorism. Given the FBI’s confirmation that a number of Saudi nationals engaged in troubling conduct, it’s clear we need a hard reset,” Scott said on Twitter. “I’m calling on the Saudi gov’t to recall all Saudi nationals training in the US until DOD can conduct a full review.”

FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich said that Alshamrani undertook the attack with a legally bought semi-automatic pistol.

Normally, nonresidents are not permitted to buy firearms in the US, but Alshamrani exploited an exception that allows foreigners to buy guns for “hunting,” he said.

Bowditch said that Alshamrani had 180 rounds of ammunition and multiple magazines, including a high-capacity magazine, which some US states have sought to ban or tightly control in the wake of mass shootings.

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content_text:
Sleeping orangutan dies after falling from tree at Hsinchu Zoo

新竹動物園「人瑞」紅毛猩猩從樹上摔落 傷重送醫不治

Female orangutan Baby is pictured at Hsinchu Zoo in an undated photograph.
新竹市立動物園母紅毛猩猩「貝比」，拍攝日期不詳。Photo courtesy of Hsinchu Zoo
照片： 新竹市府提供

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Hsinchu Zoo recently reopened to the public at the end of last year following a major refurbishment. The newly remodeled zoo, which features more spacious animal enclosures and improved visitor flow, has been attracting large numbers of visitors on a daily basis. Within the zoo’s tropical rainforest zone, the exercise area for an orangutan, named Baby, is now several times larger than before, initially making the red-haired primate a star attraction after the zoo reopened its doors.

However, at approximately 2pm on Friday last week, a member of the public posted a message on Professional Technology Temple (PTT), the nation’s largest online bulletin board system, announcing that the orangutan had fallen from a tree, setting the bulletin board alight.

According to the zoo, a visitor saw the orangutan fall from a tree and immediately informed a member of staff who rushed to administer first aid. However, due to the orangutan’s age, and because she was sleeping when she fell to the ground, the zoo’s veterinarians were unable to save the animal and soon after announced Baby had passed away.

The zoo’s director, Yang Chia-min, says that veterinarians took steps to maintain the orangutan’s body temperature, and also gave it oxygen, however after half an hour in the emergency room, medical staff were forced to terminate treatment. Baby’s body has been sent to National Chung Hsing University Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital for dissection and for a postmortem to be carried out.

Yang says that Baby was over 30 years old and came to the zoo in 2002 after she was abandoned by her owner. Having been a resident of the zoo for 18 years, and due to her advancing years, Baby had been suffering from various age-related symptoms, including loss of appetite. However, Yang says that after zoo keepers incorporated vitamin supplements and high energy foods into Baby’s diet, the animal returned to good health. Yangs says that Baby likely sustained serious injuries after the fall and was unable to recover.

Yang adds that the zoo was originally home to another orangutan: a male called Hsiung-ta, but who is currently housed at Taipei Zoo as part of a breeding program. Baby did not go with her mate and continued to reside at Hsinchu Zoo.

(Translated by Edward Jones, Taipei Times)

新竹市立動物園去年底重新開園，吸引大批遊客前往，每天都有很多遊客到動物園，不僅動物活動空間變寬敞，遊客行走動線也變好，其中位在熱帶雨林區的紅毛猩猩「貝比」，不僅活動空間比過去大好幾倍，也成為吸引遊客觀賞的動物。

不過，上週五下午約兩點左右，有網友在PTT PO出動物園內的紅毛猩猩「貝比」突然從樹上摔下來消息，引起騷動。

市立動物園表示，是遊客發現紅毛猩猩從樹上摔下來，緊急通報動物園相關人員前去搶救，但因紅毛猩猩年事已高，且是在睡夢中從樹上摔下來，經搶救仍宣告不治。

動物園長楊家民表示，動物園獸醫除先為紅毛猩猩進行保溫保暖措施，也給予氧氣罩，希望能搶救成功，但經半小時搶救仍宣告不治，目前已將紅毛猩猩送往中興大學獸醫中心進行解剖，以釐清死因。

楊家民說，紅毛猩猩「貝比」年紀已超過三十多歲，是二零零二年時因民眾棄養被送到市立動物園飼養，在動物園內已有十八年，屬於年長的動物，之前也曾有食欲不振等情況，但由保育員補充維他命等能量，身體狀況還好，此次可能因為從樹上摔下來，才會傷重不治。

楊家民表示，原本動物園內有兩隻紅毛猩猩，一隻公的叫熊大，目前送到台北市立動物園進行復育繁殖計畫，而母猩猩「貝比」則留在竹市動物園內。

(自由時報記者洪美秀)

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references: 網友 PTT

taiwan-subdivisions: 新竹 成功 新竹市


title: Steve McQueen slams BAFTA homogeneity

content_text:
Steve McQueen slams BAFTA homogeneity

Award-winning director says British film awards risks becoming obsolete if it fails to recognize diversity
British director Steve McQueen poses with the award for best film for 12 Years A Slave at the BAFTA awards on Feb. 16, 2014.Photo: AFP
Steve McQueen has said the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) risks becoming irrelevant, redundant and of no interest or importance unless it undergoes reform to avoid a repeat of this year’s nominations where there was a lack of diversity in many of the principal categories, including all the main acting awards.

The director, who has won two BAFTAs — one for his debut feature film Hunger in 2009 and another for best film in 2014 for 12 Years a Slave — said that the British film awards could become obsolete if it fails to recognize diverse talent.

“After a while you get a bit fed up with it,” he said. “Because if the BAFTAs are not supporting British talent, if you’re not supporting the people who are making headway in the industry, then I don’t understand what you are there for.”

“Unless the BAFTAs wants to be like the Grammys, which is of no interest to anyone, and has no credibility at all, then they should continue on this path,” he added, referring to the criticism of the Grammys for consistently snubbing black talent. “If not then they have to change. Fact.”

McQueen said there was a vast amount of British talent that could have been nominated this year including Marianne Jean-Baptiste for In Fabric, Joanna Hogg for The Souvenir, Cynthia Erivo for Harriet, and Daniel Kaluuya for his performance in Queen & Slim. “But not even just British talent, it’s talent in general,” he said, using the example of Lupita Nyongo’o not being nominated for Jordan Peele’s Us. “It’s crazy.”

In response to the backlash on Monday last week after the nominations were announced, Marc Samuelson, chair of BAFTA’s film committee, called the lack of diversity infuriating and said the awards could not make the industry do something about it. His comments echoed BAFTA’s deputy chairman, Krishnendu Majumdar, who said the lack of female nominees in the best director category was an “industry-wide problem.”

McQueen said the argument that the lack of nominations could be explained as mostly an “industry problem” was nonsensical. “When these films are being made to critical acclaim, they’re not even being recognized — that’s nonsense.”

The director’s comments follow a week of criticism for BAFTA, which announced on Thursday last week that it would undergo a review of its voting system after another year when its main acting awards will all be competed for by white talent. In 2018, a report revealed that 94 percent of all BAFTA film award nominees had been white.

The criticism also came before the Oscars nominations on Monday, which has its own long history of diversity issues. In 2015, the Oscars — along with all the leading film and music awards — were heavily criticized for a lack of diversity among nominees, only 12 months after a “breakthrough” year when 12 Years a Slave won best picture. In 2016 — after another year of all-white nominees in the acting award, which led to a threatened boycott by Spike Lee, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Will Smith — the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced it would review its membership process. The Academy eventually pledged to double female and minority members by this year.

Todd Phillips’s superhero film, Joker, led the BAFTAs field this year with 11 nominations, with many films featuring ethnic minority and female talent missing out, including The Souvenir and Greta Gerwig’s Little Women — neither of whom featured in the all-male best director category.

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title: Second look at debate over artifacts

content_text:
Su Hung-dah (蘇宏達), a political science professor at National Taiwan University (NTU), in November 2018 posted a video on Facebook in which he criticized policies proposed by Chen Chi-nan (陳其南) when Chen was National Palace Museum director.

Su called Chen’s proposals a “cultural revolution” that would “eradicate” the museum.

The NTU Students’ Association criticized the video, saying: “This action is not just a case of irrational discussion. By broadcasting the video, Su supplied the public with simplistic, one-sided information that caused people to misunderstand the situation.”

This criticism hits the mark.

In recent years, the trend of people with ulterior motives recklessly distorting government officials’ statements and policies has reached disastrous proportions.

Although such distortion has become commonplace, Su is not just an average person — he is Jean Monnet Chair professor at the university, European Union Centre in Taiwan director-general and president of the European Community Studies Association Taiwan — so this matter must be taken seriously from an educational point of view.

Su raised three specific points in the video: that artifacts can easily be damaged when moved, that Chen planned to rename the museum the Museum of East Asia and that the Democratic Progressive Party wants to “desinicize” everything.

To be fair, museums must at times move artifacts because of repair work or redecorating, or to lend to other institutions. Careful assessment is needed in such cases and artifacts must only be transported by professionals, but saying that it is impermissible to move any of the National Palace Museum’s artifacts because they are too precious is going too far.

As to Su’s other points, given how long the name “National Palace Museum” has been in use, it is time to review its legitimacy. It is also worth discussing whether the artifacts should continue to be exhibited in a context centered on Chinese culture.

According to Chen, a transition at the museum means that visitors can simultaneously appreciate Chinese culture as they encounter Taiwan’s best historical artifacts, art and handicrafts. They can also, through exhibitions at the reorganized museum and its branches, get to know the diverse East Asian civilization that Taiwanese society holds in high regard.

Opinions may vary as to whether this is the best strategy for “recontextualizing” the museum’s artifacts, but it was unfair for Su to portray Chen’s ideas as “eradicating” the museum.

The museum’s artifacts are as precious as those of France’s Louvre Museum, but they have a very different history and are exhibited in a different context.

When the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government fled to Taiwan, it transferred a large quantity of precious artifacts that had belonged in the Qing Dynasty’s imperial palace — the Forbidden City — in Beijing. Having moved these treasures to Taipei, the KMT government built a palatial building to house them.

If the principle that cultural property should be returned to its country of origin is upheld, then just as treasures from the Louvre Palace are exhibited in the Louvre Museum, the National Palace Museum’s artifacts should be exhibited in their original home: the Forbidden City.

This question would come to the fore if the Chinese government wanted to repatriate the National Palace Museum’s artifacts, but, as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regards Taiwan as a part of China, it does not mind that the “Taiwan area” has provided an alternative in which to house the “motherland’s” artifacts.

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title: Being able to achieve one’s dreams

content_text:
“No one makes their own way, not really. Least of all a woman. You’ll need to marry well,” says wealthy Aunt March in the latest film adaptation of Little Women to a niece who aspires to greater self-fulfillment.

The movie is director Greta Gerwig’s — born in 1983 — take on women growing up in the US about the time of the Civil War, from a 21st-century perspective.

The story follows four sisters in the days when women did not publish anything under their own name, guided by a mother doing her best, unsure of whether they would be able to succeed as an author or a painter or whether they will eventually be forced to abandon their dreams and instead find a rich husband.

Will marriage be the end of their personal development?

The dialogue between a publisher and an aspiring novelist is shown as a tug-of-war between the contemporary social expectations and feminist ideology.

As the election campaigns entered their final phase over the past month, we have seen male chauvinist elitism rear its ugly head, with attacks on unmarried women as well as those who are married and pregnant, something that we had hoped we had moved beyond in this egalitarian society.

When New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, born in 1980, gave birth while in office, she took just six months of maternity leave before going back to work, and even took her baby to a UN General Assembly meeting.

She also won worldwide acclaim for her handling of a terrorist attack in her country.

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, raised by her mother and her mother’s female partner after her parents’ divorce, was — until last week — the youngest world leader, and a new mother herself.

Life throws up all kinds of challenges and choices, and understanding how to forge our own way through is what makes us progressive global citizens in the 21st century.

We need to be able to build a world in which we can all fulfill our aspirations for who we want to be. Even the women among us.

Agnes Lee is a writer.

Translated by Paul Cooper

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title: Bernie Sanders said woman cannot win presidency: Warren

content_text:
US Senator Elizabeth Warren said that fellow Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Bernie Sanders told her when they met privately in 2018 that he did not think a woman could win the White House.

Sanders has denied that, but Warren said in a statement on Monday that during their two-hour meeting two years ago to discuss this year’s US presidential election, “among the topics that came up was what would happen if Democrats nominated a female candidate. I thought a woman could win; he disagreed.”

The dispute marked an extraordinary turning point in a Democratic primary that, with few exceptions, has been characterized by genial differences over domestic issues such as healthcare.

The feud brewing between Warren and Sanders will likely change the tone of the campaign going into yesterday’s debate and came less than three weeks before the Iowa caucuses launch the Democratic contest.

It also marks a jarring split between the two long-time progressive allies, potentially giving an opening for a more moderate rival, such as former US vice president Joe Biden, to attempt unifying the party.

Warren said in the statement that she and Sanders “have far more in common than our differences on punditry.”

“I’m in this race to talk about what’s broken in this country and how to fix it — and that’s what I’m going to continue to do,” she said. “I know Bernie is in the race for the same reason. We have been friends and allies in this fight for a long time, and I have no doubt we will continue to work together to defeat [US President] Donald Trump and put our government on the side of the people.”

CNN first reported Sanders’ comment earlier on Monday, based on the accounts of anonymous people with knowledge of the meeting. That drew a swift and strong denial from Sanders, who said: “It is ludicrous to believe that at the same meeting where Elizabeth Warren told me she was going to run for president, I would tell her that a woman couldn’t win.”

Sanders aides then accused Warren’s campaign of leaking what they said was an inaccurate description of what was said during the meeting. That helped prompt Warren’s statement hours later.

Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to Sanders, then seemed to try and defuse the situation, refusing to refute Warren’s version and instead saying on CNN on Monday night that “those conversations can sometimes get misconstrued.”

Still, the controversy is likely to revive anxiety among Democrats about whether — nearly four years after former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton lost her White House bid — voters are willing to support another woman running for president.

Such questions have dogged Warren and other female candidates throughout the campaign for this year’s election.

Stephanie Taylor and Adam Green, cofounders of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which has at times praised both Warren and Sanders, on Monday said in a statement that they “believe that a back-and-forth about this private meeting is counterproductive for progressives.”

“In this pivotal moment of the campaign, progressives must work together to defeat Donald Trump,” they said.

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content_text:
On Dec. 19 last year, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Minister Liu Jieyi (劉結一) was interviewed by the People’s Daily. Despite failure in addressing ongoing demonstrations in Hong Kong, Liu remained arrogant and made the muddleheaded statement that Taiwanese welcomed being ruled by Beijing and that China has the ability to force Taiwan into compliance.

The first duty of every Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member is to protect the central leadership’s decisions, and Liu’s statement did not stray from that duty in its disregard of pressing realities and its stereotypical argument: Taiwan is a part of China because I say that it is.

On Sunday last week, the Taipei Times published an opinion piece by US Representative Ted Yoho, who used historic fact to refute Liu’s somniloquy: Then-US president Richard Nixon and US secretary of state Henry Kissinger created a cloud of confusion over the status of Taiwan, a state of affairs that culminated during the term of former US president Jimmy Carter.

Their policy was built on the assumptions that China is a huge market, that the CCP must not be angered and that only if China agrees to accept the rules of the international order could the Cold War deadlock be resolved. These are the reasons the US neglected Taiwan for many years, creating further confusion over Taiwan’s status.

To a certain degree, Yoho’s article showed that the US’ past assumptions were not necessarily wrong and worked well, at least from 1979 to 1999, when international companies made a lot of money in China.

However, the fatal flaw of this strategy was that it did not consider the CCP’s innate hatred and ability to hide it, nor did it set up any early-warning alerts or safety valves. Those in charge were either trying to protect their own private interests or were very naive.

China rose on the back of US financial aid, but is now trying to bully governments and civil society in other countries in various destructive ways. US academic circles have been too slow to respond and some people are even falling back on outdated arguments to protect Beijing. Although somewhat late, US expert on China Michael Pillsbury’s book The Hundred-Year Marathon and the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace’s report China’s Influence & American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance alone could be seen as warnings.

US President Donald Trump’s administration and US politicians, regardless of party affiliation, understand that China is the greatest threat to US national security and civilizational values worldwide, and they are taking countermeasures.

However, the situation the world is confronted with is that the US is creating a strategy for a new era based on the premise that the CCP is not China and pinning its hopes on Chinese forcing the CCP to change its ways, while Beijing is conflating China with the CCP and using nationalism, high-tech surveillance, confiscation of property, restrictions on freedoms and increased state involvement in the private sector to consolidate its grip.

It is necessary to ask if Beijing’s systems destruction and habitual hate-based behavior is part of the CCP’s innate character — of course it is — or if it is a special characteristic of Chinese culture resulting from the Cultural Revolution and the ability to implement a technologically based dictatorship.

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title: How will the world deal with the CCP?


content_text:
China’s informal, confrontational Twitter diplomacy

Chinese diplomacy has found a new voice on Twitter — and it is not entirely diplomatic.

The communist government has recently embraced the social media platform — despite blocking it within China — deploying its foreign ministry and a growing army of diplomats to tout or defend its policies to a global audience.

One diplomat posts artistic selfies in Nepal, China’s envoy in South Africa quotes Western poetry alongside pictures of sunsets and wildlife, while Chinese Ambassador to Britain Liu Xiaoming (劉曉明) has used the site to issue strident defenses of beleaguered Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

They are among more than a dozen Chinese ambassadors and consuls-general around the world who have opened Twitter accounts in the past few months, often adopting a style far removed from traditions of diplomatic reserve.

Now the Chinese government itself has joined the fray, with the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs writing its first tweet last month, peppering posts with sarcastic “LOLs,” exclamation marks and hashtags to extol Beijing’s world view or lambaste critics.

“Some people would rather buy lies than authoritative information. Absurd & alerting!” read a ministry tweet about self-confessed Chinese spy William Wang Liqiang (王立強), who sought asylum in Australia late last year.

The informal and sometimes confrontational tone is a far cry from the usually sedate official statements the government is known for — and the approach has led to occasional public gaffes.

Senior ministry official Zhao Lijian (趙立建) last year had an online spat with former US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, who called him “a racist disgrace” after he tweeted claims of racial discrimination in Washington.

The social media push came as China is under increasing international pressure over its mass detention of Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region and pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, while a trade dispute with the US rages on.

Chinese officials and media have long struggled to convincingly spread their message to a global audience, University of Leeds media and communications lecturer Yuan Zeng (曾苑) said.

There is a “pressing demand for a more efficient way to let out China’s voice,” Yuan told reporters.

The ministry’s Twitter presence has drawn comparisons to prolific tweeter US President Donald Trump, who uses the platform to attack his opponents and aggressively praise his own policies.

Beijing sees “how popular Trump is on social media, and how often Western media quote his tweets,” said Tang Wenfang (唐文方), a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. “So in that sense it’s the Trump effect.”

Chinese officials previously kept a low profile on social media, leaving the talking to state-run media outlets.

However, the country’s growing political and economic clout has emboldened diplomats to speak with an increasingly assertive and nationalistic voice both on the Internet and offline, said Ardi Bouwers, a media specialist at consulting firm China Circle.

That behavior also allows them to prove their loyalty to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), who himself “uses patriotic language, talking about self-reliance, the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation [and] crushing attempts to divide China,” Bouwers said.

The ministry said in a statement that it has opened accounts on Twitter “in order to better communicate with other countries and better explain China’s situation and policies.”

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