When a koala dies, a new occupant won’t move into its home range (a group of several trees that they regularly visit) for about a year — the time it takes for scratches on the trees and scent markings to disappear. Then, as long as they are not disturbed, koalas keep their home ranges throughout their lives — up to 18 years.
Often called koala bears because of their cuddly teddy-bear appearance, they are in fact marsupials — and can be aggressive. They breed once a year (koalas usually only produce a single cub, or joey, though occasionally give birth to twins), and once a cub is born — 2cm long, blind and hairless after a gestation period of 35 days — it relies on its sense of smell and touch to crawl into its mother’s pouch, where it stays for the next six months, feeding on milk. After it emerges, the cub will remain with its mother until it is one year old, riding on her back or clinging to her belly.
The adult koala’s days are filled with sleeping and eating. They survive on a diet of predominantly eucalyptus leaves and bark — to most animals, eucalyptus leaves are incredibly poisonous, but the koala’s digestive system has evolved to manage the toxins. It is often said that eucalyptus makes koalas “stoned” — probably because they sleep for up to 18 hours a day, wedged between branches of eucalyptus trees — but this isn’t true: Their high-fiber, low-nutrition diet means they have to sleep to conserve energy.
They also don’t tend to drink, getting almost all the water they need from leaves. Indeed, the name koala is thought to come from a name in one Aboriginal language meaning “doesn’t drink.”
On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States. The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized
In an article published by the Harvard Kennedy School, renowned historian of modern China Rana Mitter used a structured question-and-answer format to deepen the understanding of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Mitter highlights the differences between the repressive and authoritarian People’s Republic of China and the vibrant democracy that exists in Taiwan, saying that Taiwan and China “have had an interconnected relationship that has been both close and contentious at times.” However, his description of the history — before and after 1945 — contains significant flaws. First, he writes that “Taiwan was always broadly regarded by the imperial dynasties of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will stop at nothing to weaken Taiwan’s sovereignty, going as far as to create complete falsehoods. That the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never ruled Taiwan is an objective fact. To refute this, Beijing has tried to assert “jurisdiction” over Taiwan, pointing to its military exercises around the nation as “proof.” That is an outright lie: If the PRC had jurisdiction over Taiwan, it could simply have issued decrees. Instead, it needs to perform a show of force around the nation to demonstrate its fantasy. Its actions prove the exact opposite of its assertions. A
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
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