ASIA
Insect threatens crops
Farming in several nations is under threat from a type of crop-damaging insect that has munched its way from the Americas, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said yesterday, as global experts commence a three-day meeting to discuss ways to limit the damage. Fall armyworms are native to the Americas, but they have been moving eastward since 2016, sweeping across Africa, where they caused US$1 billion to US$3 billion in damage, before arriving in Asia. The flying insects arrived in India in July last year and have since spread to Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and China’s Yunnan Province, the FAO said. They feed mostly on maize, for which China is the world’s second-largest producer, and can feed on several species of crops, including rice and sugarcane. An FAO meeting is taking place in Bangkok until tomorrow, with officials and experts discussing ways to limit armyworm infestations. The FAO said it is working with local authorities and training farmers to manage the pests by crushing egg masses and using biopesticides.
CHINA
Trade talks to resume
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin are to return to Beijing next week, as the US and China inch toward resolving their trade dispute, a senior US official said on Tuesday. The renewed diplomacy is a sign of progress after several weeks in which momentum toward a resolution appeared to have slowed. Vice Premier Liu He (劉鶴) is to return to Washington the following week, the Wall Street Journal reported, adding that officials said talks were in their final stages.
CHINA
Cloned dogs to save time
Scientists in Yunnan Province have cloned what they called the “Sherlock Holmes of police dogs” in a program they hope would help cut training times and costs for police dogs, state media reported yesterday. The dog, named Kunxun (昆勳), was cloned from a police sniffer dog by the Beijing-based Sinogene Biotechnology Co and the Yunnan Agricultural University, with support from the Ministry of Public Security, the Global Times reported. Sinogene is hoping to make it possible to achieve “volume production” of cloned police dogs to significantly reduce training times, deputy general manager Zhao Jianping (趙建平) said. Kunxun, now three months old, is to undergo extensive training in drug detection, crowd control and searching for evidence, and would become a full-fledged police dog at about 10 months old, the China Daily said. Training usually takes about five years and costs as much as 500,000 yuan (US$74,622), with no guarantee of success, the paper said, citing an animal expert at the university.
BOSNIA
Karadzic faces final ruling
UN appeals judges yesterday were to hand down a final verdict in the case of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, a key figure in the Balkan wars who is serving a 40-year prison sentence for genocide. Karadzic, 73, was convicted in 2016 for the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. He was also found guilty of leading a campaign of ethnic cleansing that drove Croats and Muslims out of Serb-claimed areas of Bosnia. Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence and a second genocide conviction for his alleged role in a policy of targeting non-Serbs in the early years of the war, while Karadzic is appealing against his conviction and wants a retrial.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was