Month: December 2022

Former NBA star Jeremy Lin, who plays for a Chinese team, was fined 10,000 yuan ($1,400) for “inappropriate remarks” on social media about quarantine facilities ahead of a game, China’s professional league announced Friday, as the government tries to stop protests against anti-virus controls that are among the world’s most stringent.
Also Friday, more cities eased restrictions, allowing shopping malls, supermarkets and other businesses to reopen following protests last weekend in Shanghai and other areas in which some crowds called for President Xi Jinping to resign. Urumqi in the northwest, site of a deadly fire that triggered the protests, announced supermarkets and other businesses were reopening.
Lin, who plays for the Loong Lions Basketball Club, made “inappropriate remarks about quarantine hotel-related facilities” where the team stayed Wednesday ahead of a game, the China Basketball Association announced. It said that “caused adverse effects on the league and the competition area.”
The ruling Communist Party is trying to crush criticism of the human cost and disruption of its “zero-COVID” strategy, which has confined millions of people to their homes. Protesters have been detained and photos and videos of events deleted from Chinese social media. Police fanned out across Shanghai, Beijing and other cities to try to prevent additional protests.
The CBA gave no details of Lin’s comments and there was no sign of them on his account on the popular Sina Weibo platform.
The Shanghai news outlet The Paper reported Lin posted a video complaining about hotel workout facilities in the city of Zhuji, south of Shanghai in Zhejiang province, ahead of games next week.
“Can you believe this is a weight room?” Lin was quoted as saying. “What kind of garbage is this?” The Paper said the video was deleted after “the situation was clarified” that the hotel was only for a brief stay required by regulations.
A representative of Vision China Entertainment, which says on its website it represents Lin, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Phone calls to Loong Lions Basketball Club headquarters in the southern city of Guangzhou weren’t answered.
Lin, born in California to parents from Taiwan, was the first NBA player of Chinese or Taiwanese descent.
He played for California’s Golden State Warriors in 2010 before joining the New York Knicks in the 2011-12 season. He became the first Asian American to win an NBA championship with the Toronto Raptors in 2019. He played for the Beijing Ducks in 2019 before joining the Loong Lions.
On Friday, there were no signs of more protests.
The government reported 34,980 infections found in the past 24 hours, including 30,702 with no symptoms.
China’s case numbers are low, but “zero-COVID” aims to isolate every infected person. That has led local officials to suspend access to neighborhoods and close schools, shops and offices. Manufacturers including the biggest iPhone factory in central China use “closed-loop” management, which requires employees to live at their workplace without outside contact.
Demonstrations erupted Nov. 25 after a fire in an Urumqi apartment building killed at least 10 people.
That set off angry questions online about whether firefighters or victims trying to escape were blocked by locked doors or other anti-virus controls. Authorities denied that, but the deaths became a focus of public frustration.
Xi’s government has promised to reduce the cost and disruption of controls but says it will stick with “zero-COVID.” Health experts and economists expect it so stay in place at least until mid-2023 and possibly into 2024 while millions of older people are vaccinated in preparation for lifting controls that keep most visitors out of China.
Urumqi will “further increase efforts to resume production and commerce” by reopening hotels, restaurants, large supermarkets and ski resorts, the official newspaper Guangming Daily reported on its website, citing Sui Rong, a member of the Municipal Committee.
Elsewhere, the northern city of Hohhot in the Inner Mongolia region restarted bus service and allowed restaurants and small businesses to reopen, according to state media. Jinzhou in the northeast lifted curbs on movement and allowed businesses to reopen.
On Thursday, the metropolis of Guangzhou in the south, the biggest hotspot in the latest infection spike, allowed supermarkets and restaurants to reopen.
Other major cities including Shijiazhuang in the north and Chengdu in the southwest restarted bus and subway service and allowed businesses to reopen.

Source: Voice of America

Britain’s Prince William capped a three-day visit to Boston by meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday, ahead of announcing his Earthshot Prize environmental award winners at a gala event.
The Prince of Wales shook hands with Biden and spoke quietly in the winter cold near the water outside of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library and Museum. He also met Caroline Kennedy, the late president’s daughter, and told her that the stories of the Earthshot Prize winners were an inspiration.
William once again paid homage to President Kennedy, “the man who inspired our mission,” and said the “game-changing” solutions were being offered to protect the planet.
Kennedy’s legacy loomed large during the visit by William and his wife, Kate. William named his environmental award the Earthshot Prize, drawing inspiration from Kennedy’s moonshot speech that mobilized the nation in 1962 by declaring astronauts would set foot on the moon before decade’s end.
William became heir apparent less than three months ago with his grandmother’s death, but he was already crowned Britain’s chief environmentalist.
During his visit to Boston, William drew praise for his drawing attention to pollution and climate change and the need to scale up solutions to address them. Those efforts were culminating Friday evening, when the five winners of the royal couple’s Earthshot Prize for environmental innovators were to be announced.
“I just appreciate that they are using platform and publicity to bring attention to meaningful climate work,” said Joe Christo, who is managing director of Stone Living Lab, which researches nature-based approaches to climate adaptation, and was among those who met the royal couple at Boston Harbor on Thursday.
“I do know his dad is a big environmentalist,” he said. “He seems to be doing a great job continuing that legacy.”
The Earthshot Prize offers 1 million pounds ($1.2 million) in prize money to each of the winners of five separate categories: nature protection, clean air, ocean revival, waste elimination, and climate change. The winners and all 15 finalists also receive help in expanding their projects to meet global demand.
The winners were to be announced at Boston’s MGM Music Hall as part of a glitzy show headlined by Billie Eilish, Annie Lennox, Ellie Goulding, and Chloe x Halle. The show will also feature videos narrated by naturalist David Attenborough and actor Cate Blanchett.
William is following in the footsteps of his environmentally minded grandfather Prince Philip — the late husband of Queen Elizabeth II — and more recently his father and Elizabeth’s successor, King Charles III.
In his capacity as prince, Charles was for decades one of Britain’s most prominent environmental voices, blasting the ills of pollution. Last year, he stood before world leaders at a U.N. climate conference in Scotland and suggested the threats posed by climate change and biodiversity loss were no different than those posed by the coronavirus pandemic.
But now that he is king, Charles is expected to be more careful with his words and must stay out of politics and government policy, in accordance with the traditions of Britain’s constitutional monarchy. This year, he did not attend the U.N. climate conference in Egypt.
The caution presents an opportunity for William to step into that role as the royal family’s environmental advocate and speak more forcefully about the issues once associated with his father.
There is no better example than the Earthshot Prize.
“It’s a huge deal to Prince William,” Joe Little, the managing editor of Majesty Magazine. “He knows he can attract attention from the most important people. That really is the core of the Boston trip.”
After attending a welcome event Wednesday at City Hall and then a Boston Celtics game, the royal couple spent much of Thursday hearing about the threats of climate change and solutions in the works.
They got a firsthand look at some innovations at a green technology startup incubator called Greentown Labs, in Somerville. Among them were solar-powered autonomous boats and low-carbon cement.
“Climate change is a global problem, so it’s so important to have global leaders talking about the importance of taking action,” said Lara Cottingham, vice president of strategy policy and climate impact for Greentown Labs.
William and Kate also chatted with Katherine Dafforn, co-founder of Living Seawalls, an Australian company that designs environmentally friendly ocean infrastructure. “For all of us, time is ticking,” William said.
The couple’s first trip to the U.S. since 2014 is part of the royal family’s efforts to change its international image. After Elizabeth’s death, Charles has made clear that his will be a slimmed-down monarchy, with less pomp and ceremony than its predecessors. William and Kate arrived in Boston on a commercial British Airways flight.

Source: Voice of America

Prayer. Bombs. Walls. Over the decades, people have tried all of them to stanch the flow of lava from Hawaii’s volcanoes as it lumbered toward roads, homes and infrastructure.
Now Mauna Loa — the world’s largest active volcano — is erupting again, and lava is slowly approaching a major thoroughfare connecting the Big Island’s east and west sides. And once more, people are asking if anything can be done to stop or divert the flow.
“It comes up every time there’s an eruption and there’s lava heading towards habited areas or highways,” said Scott Rowland, a geologist at the University of Hawaii. “Some people say, ‘Build a wall’ or ‘Board up,’ and other people say, ‘No, don’t!”
Humans have rarely had much success stopping lava and, despite the world’s technological advances, doing so is still difficult and dependent on the force of the flow and the terrain. But many in Hawaii also question the wisdom of interfering with nature and Pele, the Hawaiian deity of volcanoes and fire.
Prayers to Pele
Attempts to divert lava have a long history in Hawaii.
In 1881, the governor of Hawaii Island declared a day of prayer to stop lava from Mauna Loa as it headed for Hilo. The lava kept coming.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Princess Regent Lili’uokalani and her department heads went to Hilo and considered ways to save the town. They developed plans to build barriers to divert the flow and place dynamite along a lava tube to drain the molten rock supply.
Princess Ruth Ke’elikōlani approached the flow, offered brandy and red scarves and chanted, asking Pele to stop the flow and go home. The flow stopped before the barriers were built.
More than 50 years later, Thomas A. Jaggar, the founder of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, asked U.S. Army Air Services to send planes to bomb a Mauna Loa vent to disrupt lava channels.
Lt. Col. George S. Patton, who later became famous as a general in Europe during World War II, directed planes to drop 20 272-kilogram demolition bombs, according to a National Park Service account of the campaign. The bombs each had 161 kilograms of TNT. The planes also dropped 20 smaller bombs that only had black powder charge.
Jagger said the bombing helped to “hasten the end of the flow,” but Howard Stearns, a U.S. Geological Survey geologist onboard the last bombing run, was doubtful. In his 1983 autobiography, he wrote: “I am sure it was a coincidence.”
According to the park service, geologists today also are doubtful the bombing stopped the lava flow, which didn’t end with the bombing. Instead, the flows waned over the next few days and didn’t change paths.
Local advises to go with the flow
Rowland said authorities could use a bulldozer to pile a big berm of broken rock in front of Daniel K. Inouye Highway. If the terrain is flat, then lava would pile up behind the wall. But the lava may flow over it, like it did when something similar was attempted in Kapoho town in 1960.
Rapidly moving lava flows, like those from Kilauea volcano in 2018, would be more difficult to stop, he said.
“It would have been really hard to build the walls fast enough for them. And they were heading towards groups of homes. And so you would perhaps be sacrificing some homes for others, which would just be a legal mess,” he said.
He said he believes most people in Hawaii wouldn’t want to build a wall to protect the highway because it would “mess with Pele.”
If lava crosses the highway, Rowland said officials could rebuild that section of the road like they did in 2018 when different routes were covered. There are no current plans to try to divert the flow, a county official said.
Thinking you should physically divert lava is a Western idea rooted in the notion that humans have to control everything, said Kealoha Pisciotta, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner. She said people need to adjust to the lava, not the other way around.

Source: Voice of America