CHINA
Industries to ‘open up’: VP
Vice President Han Zheng (韓正) on Friday pledged to provide more opportunities for foreign companies in the country as the government tries to restore confidence in the world’s second-largest economy. Han told an American Chamber of Commerce in China banquet in Beijing that the government would continue to open up more industries to foreign investment and create a market-oriented and law-based international business environment. “China’s development achievements have been made through opening up,” he said. “We will unwaveringly adhere to a high level of opening-up to the outside world.”
ANTARCTICA
Ice levels hit record lows
Sea ice levels have registered historic lows for three consecutive years. “We [scientists] are very worried ... because we don’t see how we can solve it ourselves,” Spanish planetary geologist Miguel Angel de Pablo said on Livingston Island. “The more alerts we send out ... to make society aware of what is happening, it seems we are not listened to, that we are [perceived as] alarmist,” he said. The US National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that minimum Antarctic sea ice extent came in at under 200 million hectares for a third consecutive February — the height of the southern summer thaw season. Minimum sea ice cover for all three years were the lowest since records began 46 years ago. White ice reflects more of the sun’s rays than darker ocean water, and its loss accentuates global warming while exposing the on-land freshwater ice sheet, which could cause a catastrophic sea level rise if it melts.
SPAIN
Cat survives apartment fire
Firefighters in Valencia could hardly believe their eyes on Friday when they found a live cat huddled within the charred remains of an apartment block ravaged by a huge fire eight days ago. Named Coco, the feline was reunited with tearful owner Andrea Rubio, who had given up all hope that her beloved pet had survived the blaze, which claimed the lives of 10 people and dozens of pets. “My poor little thing,” Rubio, 32, said as she embraced Coco in a video released by local police. Rubio’s partner, Javier Fernandez, said that Coco’s rescuers stumbled across him on the 13th floor, two stories above their apartment in the part of the building that suffered little damage. Coco appeared to have taken refuge inside a fire hydrant niche.
UNITED STATES
Iris Apfel dies aged 102
Iris Apfel, centenarian style icon from the New York borough of Queens immediately recognizable by her oversized owlish glasses, has died at age 102, according to her Instagram account. The self-described “geriatric starlet,” best known as a textile designer and fashion celebrity, reached peak fame only in her 80s and 90s. A flamboyant interior designer, she was a fixture on front rows of Paris fashion shows for more than half a century. Her cropped white hair, massive glasses, bright lipstick, large-bead necklaces and bangles earned her kooky distinction among New York’s glitterati. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art staged the first major retrospective of her wardrobe in 2005, with Apfel admitting she was as likely to pick up interesting jewelry in a Harlem junk shop as in Tiffany’s. The key to enjoying life, she said, was to never stop working. “I haven’t,” she once told guests at a reception in her honor at the American embassy in Paris. “Try new things. Don’t let age and numbers frighten you. You have to find your own bliss, be as individual as you can, and don’t go with the herd.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in
REGIONAL TENSIONS: China boosted spending on its military for the 29th straight year, raising it by 6% to US$296bn, while Taiwan spent US$16.6bn, an 11% increase Global military expenditure recorded its steepest increase in over a decade last year, reaching an all-time high of US$2.4 trillion as wars and rising tensions fueled spending across the world, researchers said yesterday. Military spending rose across the globe with particularly large increases in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, according to a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). “Total military spending is at an all-time high ... and for the first time since 2009, we saw spending increase across all five geographical regions,” SIPRI senior researcher Nan Tian said. Military spending rose by 6.8 percent last year, the