This site uses cookies.
Some of these cookies are essential to the operation of the site,
while others help to improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used.
For more information, please see the ProZ.com privacy policy.
VIA AILooking for an interpreter?
Remoto by ProZ.com connects you with an identity-verified interpreter by video or phone in about 60 seconds — 300+ languages, on demand or booked ahead.
Try Remoto »
Working languages:
English to Chinese
Client-vendor relationship recorded successfully!
Ratna Wijaya has been added to your list of hired vendors.
Ratna Wijaya
English to Chinese Translator
Indonesia
Local time: 23:37 WIB (GMT+7)
Native in: Indonesian (Variant: Standard-Indonesia)
This person has a SecurePRO™ card. Because this person is not a ProZ.com Plus subscriber, to view his or her SecurePRO™ card you must be a ProZ.com Business member or Plus subscriber.
Affiliations
This person is not affiliated with any business or Blue Board record at ProZ.com.
Services
Translation
Expertise
Specializes in:
Economics
Finance (general)
Energy / Power Generation
Engineering: Industrial
Media / Multimedia
Computers (general)
Manufacturing
Medical: Cardiology
Medical: Pharmaceuticals
Medical (general)
Also works in:
Electronics / Elect Eng
Environment & Ecology
Livestock / Animal Husbandry
Management
Accounting
Human Resources
Tourism & Travel
More
Less
Volunteer / Pro-bono work
Open to considering volunteer work for registered non-profit organizations
Rates
General rate: 0.13 USD per word
Payment methods accepted
PayPal
Portfolio
Sample translations submitted: 98
English to Chinese: 4 steps we must take to fix the world's broken food system
Source text - English 4 steps we must take to fix the world's broken food system
Food systems are essential to economic activity because they provide the energy that we need to live and work. However, macroeconomists have long ignored them in the belief that the global agri-food industry, now highly mechanized, subsidized and concentrated, offers all we could wish for when it comes to food.
2020 will be a year of reckoning for the world's food systems. In just months, Covid-19 shut down half the globe. Images of panic buying, empty grocery shelves and miles-long queues at food banks have suddenly reminded us how important food systems are in our lives and how imbalanced they have become.
Pandemic-induced runs on food, however, do not merely reflect human behavior during emergencies. They are evidence that the global food supply chain -- highly centralized and operating on a just-in-time supply basis -- is prone to falter in the face of shocks.
In many countries, for example, it became impossible to harvest or package food as workers were blocked at borders or fell sick. Elsewhere, stocks piled up and avalanches of food went to waste because restaurants and bars were closed. In developing countries, the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program expect that a "hunger pandemic" and a doubling of people starving may soon eclipse the coronavirus, unless action is taken.
Unhealthy state
Cracks in the global food system's facade have long been apparent. According to the latest State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, about 820 million people went to bed hungry and a third of all people lacked essential nutrients in 2018. At the same time, 600 million people were categorized as obese and 2 billion overweight because of imbalanced diets, which were also associated with obesity, diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular diseases that compromise immune health. Today, immuno-depressed and malnourished people worldwide are suffering disproportionally the lethal consequences of Covid-19.
In all these cases, the human toll comes with huge economic costs, including lost incomes and soaring public debt.
The limitations of the food system go beyond failing to feed the world well. Food produced through the overuse of chemicals and in monoculture cropping systems, along with intensive animal farming on land and at sea degrades natural resources faster than they can reproduce and causes a quarter of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions, with livestock responsible for about a half of that.
According to scientific research, including by the Food and Agriculture Organization, industrial animal farming operations that rear large numbers of animals in confined spaces breed lethal viruses, like the 2009 swine flu, and spread antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" because of the overuse of antibiotics to promote their growth and prevent infections.
At the same time, our uncontrolled disturbance of pristine habitats to farm and hunt has allowed deadly pathogens like SARS, HIV and Ebola to jump species, infecting ours.
Economic reset
The rebuilding of economies after the Covid-19 crisis offers a unique opportunity to transform the global food system and make it resilient to future shocks, ensuring environmentally sustainable and healthy nutrition for all. To make this happen, United Nations agencies like the Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Environment Program, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Food Program, collectively, suggest four broad shifts in the food system:
Resilient food supply chains. Efficient and effective food supply chains are essential to lowering the risks of food insecurity, malnutrition and food price fluctuations, and can simultaneously create jobs. Rural transformation to empower small producers and retailers and mainstream them in the food systems economy can help build resilient food supply chains.
Healthy diets. Curbing the overconsumption of animal and highly-processed food in wealthier countries and improving access to good nutrition in poorer ones can improve well-being and land use efficiency, make healthy food more affordable globally, and slash carbon emissions.
Retargeting agricultural subsidies toward healthy foods, taxing unhealthy foods and aligning procurement practices, education programs and health care systems toward better diets can go a long way in achieving this. In turn, this can reduce health care costs globally, reduce inequality and help us weather the next pandemic with healthier individuals.
Regenerative farming. A shift toward sustainable and regenerative land and ocean farming connected to strong local and regional food systems can heal our soils, air and water, boosting economic resilience and local jobs. It can be attained by promoting sustainable farming, facilitating market access and leveling the financial and regulatory playing field for smaller, sustainable farmers relative to large intensive farmers.
Conservation. Breeding fewer animals to accommodate a shift toward more plant-based diets in wealthier countries is key to saving pristine ecosystems. Conservation efforts in line with recent proposals by the UN Environment Assembly for a global framework to protect the Earth's plant and wildlife, together with bold measures to eradicate the trade of wild animals, are central to restoring biodiversity, boost carbon sequestration and lower the risk of future pandemics.
Food systems are at the crossroads of human, animal, economic and environmental health. Ignoring this exposes the world economy to ever-larger health and financial shocks as climate changes and global population grows. By prioritizing food system reforms in our "build forward" agendas, we can instead make concrete inroads toward the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement. Because as Winston Churchill once famously said: "Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have."
English to Chinese: Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai arrested under new national security law
Source text - English Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai arrested under new national security law
Hong Kong (CNN Business) Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, known for his support of the city's pro-democracy movement and criticism of China, has been arrested on suspicion of "colluding" with foreign forces, according to local police.
The offense was created by a new national security law imposed on the city by Beijing last month. Lai's business partner Mark Simon said the tycoon was arrested early Monday.
Seven men in all, aged between 39 and 72, were arrested, according to a police statement, on charges including collusion with foreign forces to endanger national security, and conspiracy to commit fraud. The statement did not name any individual, but a spokesman told CNN that Lai was among them and that he had been arrested on suspicion of collusion.
The "police investigation is still underway, and we cannot rule out the possibility that more people will be arrested," it added. According to public broadcaster RTHK, those arrested include several top executives at Apple Daily — potentially a major blow to the newspaper's operations in the city.
Later Monday morning, a livestream uploaded to Facebook by Apple Daily showed police searching the company's newsroom. A police spokesperson confirmed to CNN that the agency had a search warrant to enter Apple Daily's office.
Under the new security law, which was imposed on the city by Beijing last month, the offense of colluding with foreign powers carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Lai has strong ties to Washington and has lobbied for the United States to take a harder line on China. What he has done to contravene the law since it passed is unclear.
This isn't Lai's first clash with Hong Kong authorities. He was arrested and faced charges earlier this year in connection with a protest march in August 2019. In June, Lai was charged with inciting people to take part in an unauthorized assembly over an annual candlelight vigil in remembrance of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. The vigil was banned by police this year.
Lai's latest arrest, though, is among the first since the security law was imposed on July 1. The law criminalized subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. Late last month, four members of a student-led pro-independence group were arrested for alleged secessionist offenses on social media. Ten people were also arrested during a protest on July 1.
The Hong Kong government has defended the law as necessary to protect national security. It has been denounced by human rights groups, the European Union, and the United States as overly broad and restrictive of the city's civil liberties.
On Friday, the US Consulate General in Hong Kong and Macao said in a statement that "we have repeatedly raised our grave concerns about the effect this ill-defined, vaguely worded, and far-reaching law would have on Hong Kong."
Lai's arrest also comes as tensions between the United State and China over the national security law continue to escalate. Washington imposed sanctions Friday against Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam and 10 other Chinese and Hong Kong officials for undermining the city's autonomy.
On Monday, Hong Kong Journalists Association chairperson Chris Yeung said that "a month or two ago, nobody could think that in Hong Kong, media organizations could be searched like this." "We never thought that this could happen in Hong Kong," he added. "This is very sad."
Newspaper mogul
A former clothing magnate, Lai founded Hong Kong's Apple Daily newspaper in 1995 -- two years before Hong Kong was handed over from British to Chinese control. Modeled visually on USA Today, the paper caused a minor revolution in the city's media landscape, sparking a price war and drastically changing how rivals operated as they struggled to keep up with Lai's flashy tabloid sensibilities.
While focusing on celebrity gossip and other tabloid fare, since the handover the paper has emerged as one of the fiercest critics of the local government and Beijing. It has openly supported the pro-democracy movement and anti-government protests, printing flyers and posters in its pages that people can cut out and take to marches.
This drove the 71-year-old Lai to a place of prominence within the opposition movement, and made him a figure of loathing for pro-Beijing politicians and media in the city.
Though his media influence has arguably waned in recent years, along with that of the traditional pro-democracy parties, his profile has if anything grown, courtesy of a campaign by Chinese state media to paint him as one of a "gang of four" behind anti-government protests which broke out last year.
Lai's closeness to right-wing politicians in the United States — he met with Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then National Security Adviser John Bolton in July last year — has been used by Chinese state media to paint the entire protest movement, along with Apple Daily and similar media, as US-controlled.
The People's Daily — the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party — claimed at the time that Lai was part of a quartet of "secretive middlemen and modern traitors," as Beijing tried to blame the unrest in Hong Kong on foreign forces.
Translation - Chinese 香港親民主媒體大亨Jimmy Lai 根據新的國家安全法被捕
報紙大亨
Lai 曾是服裝業巨頭，於1995年創立香港的《蘋果日報》，距香港從英國控制權移交給中國控制權兩年之前。該論文以《今日美國》為形象，在紐約市的媒體格局中引發了一場小革命，引發了價格戰，並徹底改變了競爭對手的經營方式，因為他們努力跟上Lai的浮華小報敏感性。
自從交接以來，這篇論文一直側重於名人八卦和其他小報票價，已成為當地政府和北京最猛烈的批評家之一。它公開支持親民主運動和反政府抗議活動，在其頁面上印刷傳單和海報，人們可以削減並進行遊行。
這將71歲的Lai帶到了反對派運動中的一個突出位置，使他成為該市親北京政客和媒體的憎惡人物。
儘管近年來他的媒體影響力以及傳統的親民主派政黨的影響力可以說已經減弱了，他的個人資料是否有增長的跡象，這要歸功於中國官方媒體的運動將他描繪成去年爆發的反政府抗議活動的“四人幫”之一。
Lai在美國與右翼政客關係親密-去年七月他會見了副總統邁克·彭斯，國務卿邁克·龐培和國家安全顧問約翰·博爾頓-中國官方媒體一直使用Lai來描繪整個抗議活動，以及蘋果日報和類似媒體，由美國控制。
中國共產黨的官方喉舌《人民日報》聲稱，Lai是四方“秘密中間商和現代叛徒”的一員，當時北京試圖將香港動盪歸咎於外國勢力。
English to Chinese: Is coffee healthy?
Source text - English Is coffee healthy?
(CNN) Yes, go ahead and grab that cup of joe, or two, or more. Doing so may improve your health and help you live longer, suggests new research. In an observational study involving close to 20,000 individuals, people who consumed at least four cups of coffee daily had a 64% lower risk of early death compared to those never or rarely consumed coffee.
The reduction in risk was more significant once people reached the age of 45, suggesting that it may be even more beneficial to consume coffee as we get older. These findings echo the recent results of another large observational study, which found that coffee drinkers appear to live longer, regardless of whether they consume regular or decaf coffee.
Coffee has also been shown to reduce the risk of many diseases, including type 2 diabetes, liver disease, colorectal cancer, Alzheimer's and skin cancer, too. "Coffee is loaded with antioxidants," said Joe DeRupo, a spokesman for the National Coffee Association. "Many are naturally occurring antioxidants found in the coffee bean, while others are created during the roasting process. It's these compounds that science links with positive effects in reducing the risk of several diseases."
Some of the compounds commonly found in coffee "have been related to better insulin sensitivity, liver function and reduced chronic inflammation," said V. Wendy Setiawan, an associate professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, and the lead author of one of the recent studies on coffee consumption and longevity.
While coffee consumption may appear to be healthful for many, others should proceed with caution. Pregnant women, for example, should cautiously limit their intake of caffeinated coffee.
"Current evidence suggests that consuming moderate amounts of caffeine up to 200 mg per day, the amount in a 12-ounce cup of coffee, is not associated with increased risks for miscarriage or preterm birth," said Dr. Joseph Wax, chair of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' Committee on Obstetric Practice. "However, data are contradictory regarding these pregnancy outcomes when women consume more than 200 mg per day of caffeine." Additionally, "there is insufficient evidence to draw any conclusion regarding the effects of caffeine on fetal growth."
If you have any heart conditions, you should also limit your coffee and caffeine consumption. "Caffeine is an aggravator and accelerator of one's heart rate," said Dr. Vince Bufalino, a spokesman for the American Heart Association and senior vice president and senior medical director of Cardiology-AMG, Advocate Health Care, in Naperville, Illinois. "Those with atrial fibrillation (commonly known as irregular heartbeat) or hypertension should limit their caffeine intake. One to two cups daily is probably fine, but if you are sensitive, you should restrict all caffeine."
Keep in mind that decaffeinated coffee still contains caffeine. An 8-ounce cup of brewed coffee can contain anywhere from 75 to 165 milligrams of caffeine, whereas decaffeinated coffee contains an average of 2 to 7 milligrams per cup, depending on which study you read. "Decaf is not 'no-caf' -- so if you are drinking three cups of decaf per day, then I would restrict that," Bufalino said of people with heart conditions.
As for coffee's effects on bone health, caffeine in coffee can lead to calcium loss, but it is probably not worth worrying about. "Caffeine does increase urinary calcium loss, but it is balanced by increased calcium absorption so there seems to be no adverse effects on the calcium economy," said Connie Weaver, distinguished professor of nutrition science at Purdue University, who recently led a review of the research on calcium and bone health.
Optimizing your daily grind: Before you take your next sips of coffee, heed these tips:
Add low-fat milk and skip the cream. Cream contributes about 50 calories and 3 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon. Low-fat milk has fewer calories and will help to offset calcium losses (a tablespoon has only 6 calories, but 19 milligrams of calcium).
1. Avoid sugar in your coffee. A teaspoon of sugar contains 16 calories. It may not sound like much, but if you add two teaspoons to your brew and drink a few cups per day, the calories add up.
2. Choose filtered coffee if you have high cholesterol. Unfiltered coffee, like the kind made from a French press, retains compounds known as cafestol and kahweol, which may contribute to increased cholesterol levels in some people.
3. If you have trouble falling asleep, it's best to avoid coffee and all sources of caffeine in the evening or close to bedtime.
Lisa Drayer is a nutritionist, an author and a CNN health and nutrition contributor. She was a spokesperson for Starbucks in 2009.
English to Chinese: Where's the beef? Vegetarian butcher eyes meat association membership
Source text - English Where's the beef? Vegetarian butcher eyes meat association membership
For a decade, Jaap Korteweg has been selling meat products. Mince, brats, burgers, bacon, kebabs, the whole shebang. Now, the Dutchman is looking to join not one, but two fraternities of butchers. But here's the snag: he refuses to kill livestock.
Korteweg is not your typical flesher. He doesn't carve up cows, turn pigs into pork chops, or dress poultry. In fact, no animals are harmed in the making of his case-ready meat.
He's one – arguably the first one – of a small but hard to overlook breed of specialty butchers selling meat made from plants, crafted to imitate the texture and taste of the slaughtered stuff. The Herbivorous Butcher, The Abbot's Butcher, The Very Good Butchers, you got the idea. Korteweg is De Vegetarische Slager, or "The Vegetarian Butcher," and he wants a seat at the table with his traditional counterparts. In meat-loving Germany, of all places.
The farmer-turned-entrepreneur has penned letters to the Federal Association of the German Meat Industry (BVDF) and the German Butchers' Association (DFV), a representative of craft butchers, seeking membership. The message was coupled with an application video posted last week on YouTube, which doubled as a manifesto for a meat revolution that sacrifices neither animals nor taste.
"My dream is to become the world's biggest butcher," Kortweg declares in the clip, before making his way into the kitchen, a cleaver in one hand and a bunch of carrots held from their green tops in the other. "If you love the taste of meat as much as I do, tell your friends about the vegetarian butcher who wants to join the German meat associations," he continued.
For a vegetarian business, this was an unusual move, if not totally unexpected given how fast the alt-protein space is taking meat mimickers from bland to banging. Meat impersonators, concocted especially to win over carnivore connoisseurs, are getting ever too close to the real thing.
Veggie patties now bleed, chickenless tenders have a chew to them, and mock pork fillings are fooling unsuspected dumpling lovers. Even steaks, long seen as the holy grail of fake meat because their fibrous texture is hard to replicate, will soon be coming to a printer near you.
Like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, purveyors of plant-based meat have made not only the impossible possible but the extraordinary ordinary as well. Today, their convincing concoctions are everywhere: supermarket meat aisles, fast-food menus, stock trading monitors, and probably your plate. Customers, more open to swapping beef with beans and chicken with chickpeas if their taste buds won't tell the difference, have come to expect the unexpected. Still, Korteweg's announcement caught people off guard.
"The superpower of cheeky humor," said one Tweeter. "Brilliant communication and marketing company? Check!" wrote another. But Korteweg wasn't mincing words. "Our request is a serious one," affirms Amadea Boneschansker, Unilever's brand manager for The Vegetarian Butcher. Unilever acquired the small business in late 2018.
Germany seemed like a rational choice for the Dutch enterprise, which has operations there. Germans are all about all things wurst, and butcher shops have long roots in the country. It also happens that palates are changing. More Germans are eating meat less frequently (only 26 percent consume it every day, according to a survey by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture) and taking well to tofu and fleshier types of meat simulacrums.
"We call ourselves butchers. We offer a broad range of quality meats that you would find at your traditional butcher shop – the only difference is our vegetarian ingredients," Boneschansker told CGTN. "Like other butchers who process meat and refine it with craft and knowledge of the right ingredients, it makes sense to us to join these butchers associations."
But just because it quacks like a duck, it's not necessarily a duck. "A butcher is a person who works with meat (and) meat cannot consist of plants," Dr. Reinhard von Stoutz, from the German Butchers' Association, told CGTN. This means it's a no for The Vegetarian Butcher's request to be part of their guild.
"Our members produce meat products and sell them in their own shops. Companies that produce other products, such as cheese or bread or vegan products, have different interests and therefore have their own associations," he added.
Another entry barrier that Von Stoutz pointed to is the size of the company. "Our members have an average of 12 employees. [Unilever] with 161,000 employees doesn't have the structure of a craftsman."
CGTN contacted the Federal Association of the German Meat Industry, but they would not comment on "current membership applications."
The linguistic hang-up on who is as a butcher and what they should be chopping and slicing is hardly surprising. It's an extension of the years-long turf war over designations traditionally associated with the livestock industry, which makers of the botanical grub have borrowed. Milk, cheese, burger, sausage, the list is anything but modest.
One camp says pea masquerading as pork shouldn't be equated to real flesh because it confuses consumers. In the other corner, opponents contend that provenance doesn't matter if their stuff delivers the exact same sensory experience as chomping on chorizo or nibbling on a nugget from dead animals.
It's a fight for survival, between newcomers relying on recognizable terminology to seek public acceptance of their newfangled offerings and veterans who fear they might be losing ground in a changing food landscape.
Korteweg is not shy about his mission of taking on the traditional livestock industry, but he's not exactly sharpening his knives for a duel also. If anything, The Vegetarian Butcher says cooperation is on the table.
"We want to become a partner (with the meat industry) and collaboratively work to redesign the future of meat," Unilever's Boneschansker said. "A better future for us would be if we can find a constructive way of working and share our passion for [meat] while releasing animals out of the food chain."
The brand's in luck; the German Butchers' Association isn't closing the door on joint action either. If The Vegetarian Butcher "can help us reach our goals, we would be very pleased," Von Stoutz revealed. "We want to offer our customers high-quality meat products," he added – that's meat from animals, not animal feed, to be precise.
該品牌很幸運； 德國屠夫協會也沒有採取聯合行動關門。 Von Stoutz 透露，如果素食屠夫“可以幫助我們實現目標，我們將感到非常高興”。他補充說：“我們希望為客戶提供高質量的肉類產品-”確切地說，這是動物而非動物飼料中的肉。
English to Chinese: How France is persuading its citizens to get vaccinated
Source text - English How France is persuading its citizens to get vaccinated
(CNN) In February this year, a holiday in paradise turned into a nightmare for one French family. Soon after their arrival in Costa Rica, their unvaccinated five-year-old son developed measles, the country's first case since 2014. The parents, also unvaccinated, tested positive for the virus too. They were believed to have brought it from France.
Measles is more contagious than Ebola, tuberculosis or flu, it has no specific treatment, and it can be picked up from the air or from surfaces for as long as two hours after an infected person has come and gone. Because it's so infectious, health experts see it as an early warning sign that there's a problem with vaccination coverage.
"Measles is like a canary in the mine," says Heidi Larson, director of the Vaccine Confidence Project and a professor of anthropology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
To protect a population from measles, she says, at least 95% of people need to be vaccinated -- a higher threshold than for most other infections. This means that if vaccination rates start falling, "it's going to be the first to show its ugly head".
When last measured in 2017, Costa Rica had a vaccination rate of 96% for the disease -- a clear sign that its people shouldn't have been at risk from each other. That same year, France's measles coverage stood at only 90%.
This isn't surprising in light of the widespread concern about childhood vaccines in France. One in three French people think vaccines are unsafe -- the world's highest rate -- and nearly one in five believe they aren't effective -- second only to Liberia.
This is according to new data from the Wellcome Global Monitor, a worldwide poll of more than 140,000 people in 144 countries.
Global trend
France may be on the extreme end, but it's part of a global trend that has many health experts worried. Across the European Union, people are delaying or even refusing vaccines, contributing to a rise in disease outbreaks.
Between 2010 and 2017, over half a million French infants didn't receive a first dose of the measles vaccine. And last year, France was among the ten countries with the highest year-on-year increases in measles, with confirmed cases jumping from just over 500 in 2017 to nearly 3,000 in 2018.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), reluctance or refusal to vaccinate is now one of the top ten major threats to global health. Even people in high-income countries, with good healthcare systems, are dying from easily preventable diseases. More than 70 people died of measles across Europe in 2018 -- three of them in France.
"It's a tragedy for Europe that a child or an adult has died because of a preventable disease," says Patrick O'Connor, a team lead in WHO Europe's Vaccine-Preventable Diseases and Immunization program. "We owe it to them to protect them."
A critical mass of unvaccinated people produces a wildfire effect, O'Connor adds. "Next year it could be diphtheria, or a variety of things."
In France, vaccine coverage rates exceed levels of trust -- people still vaccinate their children, even if they are skeptical. But the spike in measles shows that, for some diseases, coverage still desperately needs to improve.
Medical scares
Like many French parents, Priscille, a young mother who lives in Paris, says she is unsure about vaccinating her child. The 25-year-old doubts the effectiveness of injections, and is worried about damaging her baby's immune system. "It's all about money for the pharmaceutical companies," she says.
This lack of trust in vaccines, despite overwhelming evidence that they are safe and effective, can be traced at least in part to the French government's mishandling of a series of medical scares.
A blood transfusion scandal rocked the country in the 1990s. In the previous decade, thousands of people had been given blood contaminated with HIV -- most of them before the link between blood, HIV and AIDS was fully understood. Many of those who received contaminated blood died. Global headlines screamed "Transfusion of Death" and "Blood Scandal Ministers Walk Free" as the world's media tracked it for nearly a decade.
On the heels of this scandal came reports from medical professionals who claimed to have developed multiple sclerosis after receiving the hepatitis B vaccine. Although there was no evidence of a link, the government suspended its school vaccination program and promised to investigate in a bid to calm public outcry. "But suspending it also raised suspicions," says Larson.
Then in 2009, France ordered 94 million doses of H1N1 vaccine at a cost of almost 1 billion euros. By the time the bulk of the vaccines had been delivered, it was realised that the pandemic was less dangerous than initially thought. At the end of the vaccination campaign in January 2010, the government was trying to cancel or sell off its surplus supplies. The process led to an "absolute, total breakdown of trust," Larson says.
"The public was angry at the WHO for what they thought was overinflation of the risk, angry at the government for having bought so much vaccine."
The percentage of people who were favorable towards vaccinations fell from 91% in 2000 to 61% in 2010, according to national health agency Santé publique France. By 2016 it had recovered somewhat, but only to 75%.
Social media fuels scare stories
More recently, and as in many other countries, social media has enabled scare stories and misinformation about vaccines to spread fast. The Facebook group Info Vaccins France, for example, has a series of testimonies from parents saying their children either died or became seriously ill following routine inoculations.
Part of the problem is that if just one person in several million has an adverse reaction to a vaccine, their story will spread and inflate on social media with no wider context.
Henri Joyeux, a former surgeon and an honorary professor of oncology at the University of Montpellier, has been a leading campaigner against injections containing aluminum. It's used in some vaccines to boost the immune response and make a vaccine more effective and long-lasting.
Joyeux, who was nearly disbarred from the medical profession for his views against vaccination, launched a campaign against Infanrix hexa -- the six-in-one children's vaccine -- in 2016.
Vaccinations against some diseases -- like polio, diphtheria and tetanus -- are important, he says. But his complaint against Infanrix hexa is that it contains aluminium and formaldehyde, "dangerous substances for humans and especially infants". Infanrix hexa, he says, also contains "the hepatitis B vaccine suspected of being linked to multiple sclerosis".
The scientific consensus -- across the European Medicines Agency, the Vaccine Knowledge Project, the UK NHS and others -- is that Infanrix hexa is safe. "There's a lot of pretty negative, discouraging and sometimes quite frightening material about immunization on websites," says Larson.
In response, French health bodies have put out information on social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. They have funded YouTube videos like 'Nine bullshits on vaccines', which has had over 350,000 views in 18 months, and sometimes they engage directly in online chats.
"It is very important that communication around vaccination continues and is always present vis-à-vis fake news," says Sylvie Quelet, director of health promotion and prevention at Santé publique France. "The battle is not won."
Making vaccines mandatory for attending school
Véronique Dufour is the deputy chief physician of the Paris maternal and infant protection center. She says her job has become much easier since the government increased the number of mandatory vaccines in January 2018.
Previously, the three vaccines that were mandatory -- diphtheria, tetanus and polio -- had good immunisation rates of 95% or higher.
But eight other vaccines, including measles, meningococcal C and hepatitis B, had only been recommended -- and coverage was lower. Now, unless they have a medical exemption, children need to have had all 11 of these vaccines to attend a state-run school. "People are asking fewer questions. Very, very few are not vaccinated," Dufour says.
Early signs are that confidence in vaccines is rising since the law change. A small study of parents with young children carried out in February this year found that 91% think vaccination is important for their children's health, and 87% think it is important for protection of the wider population. Both figures show a 5% increase since a similar study was carried out in June 2018.
Vaccination rates have also increased. The percentage of babies receiving the first dose of meningococcal C vaccine rose from 39 % in 2017 to 76 % in 2018. In the same period, vaccination rates for hepatitis B, human papillomavirus (HPV) and measles also modestly increased.
Mandatory vaccination is one of the most successful ways of increasing immunization rates, according to the WHO. Indeed, France is not the only EU member to mandate large numbers of childhood vaccines. Others include Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.
But the WHO warns that this approach can also provoke vaccine hesitancy -- "not necessarily because of safety or other concerns, but due to resistance to the notion of forced vaccination".
"Taking away freedom of choice can easily appear authoritarian," says Jeremy Ward at the VITROME laboratory. In France's highly politicized environment, he says, this could prompt a minority who were previously hesitant to become rampantly anti-vaccine.
There might also be an increase in the number of children being given medical exemptions, Ward adds, which are supposed to apply if a child is allergic to eggs or if their immune system is too fragile. "There are doctors in France -- as in all other countries -- who provide fake medical exemptions."
Parents like Priscille plan to keep their children away from public nurseries and to send them to alternative schools that are outside the state education system. "I'm lucky because I don't work, so I don't have to put them in the crèche, so I have the choice over vaccines," she says.
Cautious optimism
Laws are relatively quick to change. Attitudes and behavior may take longer. Sitting in a café near Notre-Dame cathedral, the day after it was devastated by fire, pediatrician Sydney Sebban says doctors have to take the time to build trust with parents.
He starts to do this when they bring their babies in for the first time at 15 days old, and he asks them about vaccinations, alongside feeding and sleeping. It's a matter of listening to their questions, taking time and giving them quality information, he says.
"I say to them there is no product which has zero risk. It doesn't exist. People must think about side-effects of ibuprofen or antibiotics." He encourages the parents to talk to their parents and grandparents about illnesses that have been forgotten since widespread immunization began.
"The most devastating consequence of vaccine hesitancy, or inadequate vaccine uptake, would be a resurgence of fatal or life-changing vaccine-preventable diseases which are currently well-controlled, or are targeted for elimination," says the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control's chief scientist, Mike Catchpole.
All in all, most experts say the public need to be reminded that vaccines protect lives from killer diseases that few people in Western countries have any experience of. "Vaccines are one of the best public health interventions that we have, and they work. We just have to make sure people understand that," says
Among officials, doctors and academics, there is a cautious optimism that France will continue to see a rise in immunization rates. "France can bring down the levels of skepticism with some extraordinary efforts," says Larson. "But I think it's never going to fully go away."
English to Chinese: Major milestone: Coal consumption falls behind renewable energy in the United States
Source text - English Major milestone: Coal consumption falls behind renewable energy in the United States
New York (CNN Business) The last time the United States consumed more renewable energy than coal was in the 19th century, when hydropower was just getting started and wood burning was a major fuel source.
Now, it's happening again, as the nation consumed more energy last year from renewable sources like solar and wind than from coal. This is the first time that has happened since before 1885.
The milestone, announced Thursday by the US Energy Information Administration, demonstrates the dramatic shift away from coal despite President Donald Trump's promises to prop up the industry.
America's coal consumption collapsed by another 15% last year to its weakest level since 1964, the EIA said. The sixth-straight year of declines for coal occurred even as Trump has slashed environmental regulations and installed a former coal lobbyist to lead the EPA.
Renewable energy, by contrast, continues to boom as costs fall and climate change concerns rise. Consumption of renewable energy in the United States hit a record high last year, the fourth-straight years of growth, the EIA said.
"We are moving away from coal steadily, consistently and quickly," said Dennis Wamsted, research analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. "The Trump administration has been completely unable to turn around the market transition to cleaner and cheaper renewable energy."
Coal has played a dominant role in America's energy grid going back to the 1880s. It was supplanted by natural gas, a cleaner-burning fossil fuel, in 2016, a transition caused by the abundance of cheap natural gas from the shale oil and gas revolution and tougher environmental regulations.
Now, coal faces steep competition from renewables like wind, solar, hydro and geothermal. Wind has been growing especially fast and last year power generation from wind surpassed hydro for the first time ever and is now the most popular form of renewable power generation in the United States.
It's important to note that the EIA stats announced Thursday measure only consumption, not power generation. From that perspective, coal still leads renewables, at least for now.
The first time the United States generated more electricity from renewables than coal occurred in April 2019, and it's likely to happen on annual basis for the first time in 2020, despite the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
"People want renewables. Corporations are asking for it," Wamstead said. "They are being pushed by consumers."
Power companies are rapidly shutting down coal-fired power plants in favor of natural gas and renewable energy under pressure from the public and shareholders. Xcel Energy (XEL) and Duke Energy (DUK), power companies that long relied on coal, have pledged to go carbon-free in the coming decades.
Just this week, the latest pledge came from Southern Company (SO), which gets 27% of its power from coal and 47% from natural gas, announced at its annual shareholder meeting a new target to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The utility previously promised to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030 -- a goal it now expects to hit as early as 2025.
Having promised to dump coal, power companies are facing pressure from shareholders and activists to abandon fossil fuels entirely by transitioning away from natural gas. Long seen as a bridge fuel, there are growing concerns about methane emissions and leakage caused by using natural gas. "That's going to be the next battle," said Wamsted.
Translation - Chinese 主要里程碑：美國的煤炭消耗量落後於可再生能源
紐約（CNN商業版）上一次美國消耗的可再生能源比煤炭多於19世紀，當時水電才剛剛起步，木材燃燒是主要的燃料來源。
現在，這種情況又發生了，因為該國去年從太陽能和風能等可再生能源中消耗的能源比從煤炭中消耗的能源更多。這是自1885年之前以來的第一次。
美國能源信息管理局（US Energy Information Administration）週四宣布的這一里程碑表明，儘管唐納德·特朗普（Donald Trump）總統承諾支撐該行業，但煤炭行業已發生了巨大轉變。
EIA表示，去年美國的煤炭消耗量再下降了15％，降至1964年以來的最低水平。即使特朗普削減了環境法規並任命了一位前煤炭遊說者來領導美國環保署，煤炭卻連續第六年下降。
相比之下，隨著成本下降和對氣候變化的關注增加，可再生能源將繼續蓬勃發展。美國能源情報署稱，去年美國可再生能源的消耗量創歷史新高，已連續第四年增長。
能源經濟與金融分析研究所的研究分析師 丹尼斯·瓦姆斯特德（Dennis Wamsted）說：“我們正在穩定，持續，迅速地擺脫煤炭。” “特朗普政府完全無法扭轉市場向更清潔，更便宜的可再生能源的過渡。”
English to Chinese: Pandemic throws a lifeline to China's electric vehicles makers
Source text - English Pandemic throws a lifeline to China's electric vehicles makers
Editor's note: COVID-19: Economic Analysis is a series of articles comprising experts' views on developing micro and macroeconomic situations around the globe amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This article's author Thomas Zhang is the head of greater China analysis of Uzabase, a Tokyo-based business intelligence firm.
China has become the world's biggest electric car market in the past decade. Government support –particularly in the form of subsidies to carmakers (including to foreign brands that have established a joint venture with a Chinese company)– played a crucial role. In the past few years, however, the Chinese government has been winding down such subsidies gradually. In June 2019, a quite drastic measure was announced that subsidies would be nearly halved and altogether scrapped for electric vehicles with ranges below 250 kilometers per charge.
The main purpose of the cut, many say, was to force the industry to upgrade and weed out underperforming firms that rely heavily on the subsidies for survival. Such firms have relatively lower technologies, and their products hardly appeal to customers (except for the price). Industry giants are expected to rise amid the cuts. Customers, while anticipating a price increase once the subsidies were gone, could also expect cars that are much easier to operate, with more advanced technologies that enable vehicles to run further distance with less power consumed.
All sounds good, and all seemed to be on track, until the coronavirus pandemic stroke. As the economy went into lockdown, car sales in China collapsed. Official data show that China's passenger car sales tumbled 79 percent in February and 43 percent in March. Electric cars have not been spared.
Sales of the so-called "New Energy Vehicle" (NEV) in the first quarter of 2020 dropped to 114,000 units, a fall of 56.4 percent compared to a year ago. Take BYD, one of China's leading NEV manufacturers, as an example. It sold 11,763 electric cars in March. That is 329 percent more than in February, but still down 60 percent on a year-on-year basis.
Now that the coronavirus outbreak has been largely brought under control in China. Economic activities have resumed. Carmaking, a key industry on China's map of manufacturing, is once again under the spotlight. How quickly it recovers affects not only the overall economic growth in China but also has an impact on the government's original plan on supporting and nurturing the development of China's electric vehicles. The pandemic has markedly weakened the balance sheet of carmakers. Consumers are likely to tighten their belts in the next year or so too. Without additional support, China's NEV makers face a very hard time ahead. Some may not even survive.
The government took a U-turn and came to the rescue. In April, China announced that it would extend the subsidies offered to NEVs till the end of 2022, with a slower phased-out pace. In principle, the subsidies on NEVs will be cut by 10 percent this year, by 20 percent in 2021 and by 30 percent in 2022.
The subsidies were originally due to expire by the end of 2020. The big cut in June last year had an immediate impact on NEV sales, which totaled 1.2 million units for the whole of 2019, a fall of 4 percent year-on-year. But a large chunk of the fall happened in the second half of 2019, right after the subsidies were slashed. Authorities, therefore, were crystal clear how significant a role the subsidies played in supporting NEVs. The dire consequence of the pandemic, therefore, is likely to be the reason why the decision was made to delay the expiry of the subsidies.
Tesla in China – One Against All
One "minor" issue here: the subsidies only apply to NEVs costing no more than RMB 300,000. And this brings Tesla into the industry's attention. After the subsidies policy was announced, the American electric carmaker initially, contrary to intuition, raised the price of its China-made cars by increasing the starting price for the Standard Range Model 3 sedans to RMB 303,550, up from RMB 299,050. As a result, it was not qualified for subsidies.
This odd situation only lasted for a week. Just before the country went into the 5-day May Day holiday, Tesla announced that it was cutting the price of the Model 3 sedans by 10 percent in order to qualify for subsidies. A Model 3 now would sell for a base price of RMB 291,800 before the subsidy is taken into account. With the subsidy, the cost is reduced to RMB 271,550.
Exactly what happened behind the rise and fall of the price is scarcely known to the outside world. What one can be sure of is Tesla's commitment to the China market. Just last month, Tesla moved its China operation entity into the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, a move that is likely to make it eligible for more preferential policies that may further propel its China business.
In March, Tesla sold 10,160 vehicles in China, a record high since it started to deliver Shanghai-made cars at the end of 2019, and became the most popular electric car brand with Chinese consumers. However, it is not without domestic competitors. Apart from the veteran player BYD, a number of Chinese local NEV start-ups have been catching up with every effort.
Guangzhou Xiaopeng Automotive Technology, more widely known as Xpeng, recently launched its first battery-electric sedan: Model P7. Priced at RMB 229,900, the basic variant also qualifies for subsidies but claims to have a longer range than Tesla's Model 3. Some industry observers view it as a direct challenge to Tesla from a Chinese domestic rival. The subsidies, extended because of the pandemic, suddenly gave Xpeng a new stimulus.
Other major players are not sitting with idle hands either. NIO, once a star company in China's electric vehicle field and seen as China's answer to Tesla, secured 7 billion yuan investment from several state-owned entities from Anhui Province in April. In return, it has agreed to base its China entity in Hefei – the capital city of Anhui – and pledges to support the region's development as an EV production base in China. Leaving aside the politics behind the door, this arrangement does give NIO a lifeline and ensure that it is able to continue to produce electric vehicles in this hard time. In fact, it said in early April that deliveries rose to 3,838 vehicles in the first quarter, an increase of 11.7 percent.
An unexpected boost? There are indeed some elements of truth in it. The initial plan was, of course, to take the government's support away so as to single out badly performing firms and let them fail under the force of the market. But the unexpected coronavirus pandemic changed the equation. The existence of the entire industry became under threat and was likely to go under without support from the state. In the end, the state did take action, and many electric vehicle makers were offered a lifeline to carry on, at least through this pandemic crisis.
Make no mistake, this should not be sounded like the horn of victory. Rather, this might be the last dose of survival pills from the state. The subsidies will not stay there forever. They create a window for NEV makers to improve technologies further, streamline operations, strengthen resilience, and build better products to attract more customers. Those who succeed in doing so are more likely not only to survive but also to go on to win market shares globally.
It is true China's electric vehicles market is the largest in the world. It is also true that even a market as large as China's does not need too many NEV makers. Perhaps this is the real test facing all players.
這裡有一個“小”問題：補貼僅適用於價格不超過30萬人民幣的新能源汽車。這使特斯拉引起了業界的關注。宣布補貼政策後，這家美國電動汽車製造商最初違反直覺，通過將Standard Range Model 3轎車的起價從299,050人民幣上調至303,550人民幣，提高了中國產汽車的價格。結果，它沒有資格獲得補貼。
English to Chinese: Tucker Carlson's top writer resigns after secretly posting racist and sexist remarks in online forum
Source text - English Tucker Carlson's top writer resigns after secretly posting racist and sexist remarks in online forum
New York (CNN Business) Editor's note: This article quotes racist, homophobic and sexist language, much of which has not been censored.
The top writer for Fox News host Tucker Carlson has for years been using a pseudonym to post bigoted remarks on an online forum that is a hotbed for racist, sexist, and other offensive content, CNN Business learned this week.
Just this week, the writer, Blake Neff, responded to a thread started by another user in 2018 with the subject line, "Would u let a JET BLACK congo n****er do lasik eye surgery on u for 50% off?" Neff wrote, "I wouldn't get LASIK from an Asian for free, so no." (The subject line was not censored on the forum.) On June 5, Neff wrote, "Black doods staying inside playing Call of Duty is probably one of the biggest factors keeping crime down.
" On June 24, Neff commented, "Honestly given how tired black people always claim to be, maybe the real crisis is their lack of sleep." On June 26, Neff wrote that the only people who care about changing the name of the NFL's Washington Redskins are "white libs and their university-'educated' pets."
And over the course of five years, Neff has maintained a lengthy thread in which he has derided a woman and posted information about her dating life that has invited other users to mock her and invade her privacy. There has at times also been overlap between some material he posted or saw on the forum and Carlson's show.
CNN Business contacted Neff for comment Thursday night. After he or someone acting on his behalf passed that email to Fox News spokespeople, a network spokesperson on Friday morning told CNN Business that Neff had resigned. A Fox News spokesperson said on Friday that Carlson could not be reached for comment. Neff did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In a memo sent to employees Saturday afternoon, after this story was first published, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott and President Jay Wallace condemned "horrific racist, misogynistic and homophobic behavior."
"Neff's abhorrent conduct on this forum was never divulged to the show or the network until Friday, at which point we swiftly accepted his resignation," Scott and Wallace wrote. "Make no mistake, actions such as his cannot and will not be tolerated at any time in any part of our work force." Scott and Wallace said that Carlson would address the matter on his Monday show.
Neff worked at Fox News for nearly four years and was Carlson's top writer. Previously, he was a reporter at The Daily Caller, a conservative news outlet that Carlson co-founded. In a recent article in the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, Neff said, "Anything [Carlson is] reading off the teleprompter, the first draft was written by me." He also acknowledged the show's influence, telling the magazine, "We're very aware that we do have that power to sway the conversation, so we try to use it responsibly."
When asked in a 2018 appearance on Fox's "The Five" about the writing process for his show, Carlson said he spends hours working on scripts, but referred to Neff by name, saying he was a "wonderful writer" and acknowledging his assistance. And Carlson credited Neff in the acknowledgments of his book, "Ship of Fools," for providing research. In the acknowledgments, Carlson said that Neff and two others who helped with the book "work on and greatly improve our nightly show on Fox."
During the years that Neff wrote for him at Fox, Carlson has hosted one of the most influential shows on cable news. In the last quarter, Carlson had not only the highest-rated program in cable news, but the highest-rated show in the history of cable news. Carlson also counts President Trump among his most loyal viewers. On multiple occasions, the President has tweeted out videos of Carlson's program. Which is to say, the scripts that Neff likely helped write and shape were being shared by the President of the United States.
While working at Fox News, and while a reporter at The Daily Caller, Neff was a frequent poster on AutoAdmit. Also known as XOXOhth, it is a relatively unmoderated message board like 4chan aimed at lawyers and law school students in which racism and sexism run rampant. The board's vulgar content was previously the subject of much criticism, and two Yale students sued anonymous posters on the site in 2007 alleging they had defamed them and made threatening remarks. The Hartford Courant reported in 2009 that the lawsuit was quietly settled after some of the posters were identified.
Neff, who posts on the board under the username CharlesXII, is widely revered on the forum, with many posters knowing the person behind the account works on Carlson's show. He has spent years posting about history, offering his political opinions, and detailing aspects of his personal life.
After learning of Neff's posts on the board through an email from an anonymous tipster, CNN Business was able to positively identify CharlesXII as Neff by reviewing messages he has posted throughout the years on the forum and matching them up with publicly available information about him.
Among the details which make clear that CharlesXII and Neff are the same person: CharlesXII indicated on the board that he had gone to Dartmouth; Neff is an alumnus. CharlesXII said he had been working for nearly four years in his current journalism job in Washington DC; Neff has been working for Carlson at Fox in Washington since February 2017, according to his LinkedIn profile, which appears to have been removed after his resignation from Fox News. CharlesXII said on the board that he got his start in journalism after he turned down law school and instead took a fellowship; Neff told the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine that he took a fellowship with the Collegiate Network.
CharlesXII also wrote a parody version of the song "We Didn't Start The Fire" and posted about it on the board, including a screen shot of an email he received from Carlson praising a lyric in the song. Neff sang the parody song at a Daily Caller Christmas party a few years ago, according to a person familiar with the event.The Daily Caller declined to comment.
And in a 2017 Washington Post Date Lab article featuring Neff, he dropped a number of Easter eggs for the board, including referencing an "alcohol is poison" meme that he has repeatedly posted about and carrying a book on Catherine the Great to a date.
His username on the forum, CharlesXII, is a reference to Charles XII of Sweden, a king known for his military victories and who abstained from sex and alcohol. Neff, a history buff interested in wars and military battles, has repeatedly disclosed on the forum that he rarely drinks and The Post story said he rarely dates.
Even more clearly identifying, however, were photos that CharlesXII posted to the forum in 2018 to the forum after visiting a museum in Egypt. In three of the photos, a reflection of Neff is visible snapping the pictures in the artifacts' glass enclosures.
While at Fox News, Carlson has been accused by critics of making racist and inflammatory comments on air. His show has long appealed to extremists who agree with his hardline views on immigration, his emphasis on the preservation of Western culture, and his commentary on topics of race.
Carlson has at several points in his Fox News career found himself in hot water when commenting on such topics. In August 2019, for instance, Carlson became engulfed in controversy when he said the very real problem of white supremacy in America was a "hoax." Most recently, Carlson saw more advertisers — including Disney and T-Mobile — flee his program in June after he said the Black Lives Matter movement was "not about black lives" and warned viewers to "remember that when they come for you." (A Fox News spokesperson later said Carlson was referring to Democratic leaders, not Black Lives Matter protesters, when he made the comments.)
Carlson himself has in the past pushed back against allegations of racism. He told The Atlantic in December 2019 that such accusations are "so far from the truth" that it has "no effect at all other than to evoke in me contempt for the people saying it" because he thinks "it's that dishonest."
Bigotry and vitriol
In 2015, Neff started a thread on AutoAdmit mocking a woman, with whom he was friends on Facebook and whom he described as an "Azn megashrew," sharing posts she had written about her dating life. He has continued to post to the thread and mock the woman, whom CNN Business is not identifying, as recently as late last month. In his first post in 2015 starting the years-long thread, he explained that "through circumstances" he couldn't "quite recall," he became Facebook friends with the woman and thought her posts about dating were amusing.
"So, I thought I'd post them," Neff wrote. "I won't put up a pic but it's probably relevant to say that she's a slightly overweight Azn woman who is in her mid-30s and definitely looks it."
Through the years, the thread has generated nearly 1,000 comments — many of which used vulgar racist, sexist, and dehumanizing language to mock the woman. Neff also said he did not want other posters to harass her, but did not stop them from identifying her and posting links to her account. He also posted some photos from her account that did not show her face and continued posting about her dating life for years after the other posters had identified her.
Reached for comment, the woman told CNN Business, "When I was recently made aware of Blake's posts about me on racist websites, I was overcome with disappointment which eventually mixed with bewilderment that he spent years dedicated to creating a false narrative based on my satirical writing about my life.
The nature of online media is that your identity, while nominally under your control, is vulnerable to being misused. Any public figure can attest to this problem."
In March 2020, Neff started another lengthy thread mocking a separate woman with whom he was connected on social media. The woman had posted about freezing her eggs, and Neff apparently found that worth deriding in the AutoAdmit forum. He began posting about her in March of this year, in a thread he titled "Disaster: WuFlu outbreak endangers aging shrew's quest to freeze eggs." Neff posted to the thread, which racked up dozens of comments as users ridicule the woman, as recently as June 28.
On the forum, Neff has also expressed bigoted views. In 2014, he joked about "foodie faggots." And in the same year, he started a thread titled, "Urban business idea: He Didn't Do Muffin!" He joked one item could be, "Sandra Bland's Sugar-free Shortbreads!" In August 2019, a user started a thread titled, "We should just buy Canada and kick the Canadians out." Neff commented, "Okay but what do we do with the millions of Chinese people."
More recently, in February 2020, Neff called Mormonism "an inherently cucky religion." On June 5, a user on the forum commented in a thread, "Didn't Michael Brown rob a store and attack a police officer? And wasn't [George Floyd] a piece of shit with a long criminal record? Jfc libs." Another person commented, "It doesn't matter to these people." Neff then replied, "It does. The violent criminals are even MORE heroic." On June 16, a user started a separate thread about a video showing a Black man assaulting an elderly white woman in New York. Neff commented on the thread, "And to think, if this guy got killed in some freak incident while being arrested, we'd have to endure at least three funerals in his honor."
On the Fourth of July, Neff started a thread in which he jokingly "rated" members of the community using images from a 1990s video game from the makers of "Oregon Trail" that was pulled from the market due to its racist depictions of slaves. In the game, users play as slaves trying to break free and escape north. Neff assigned users on the forum images from the game, many of which depicted Black slaves using racist stereotypes. For instance, Neff assigned one user an image of a slave catcher, to which the user replied "[thank you] massa Charles for dis."
On May 27, Neff wrote that Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib — known collectively as "The Squad" — want to "MAKE YOUR COUNTRY A DUMPING GROUND FOR PEOPLE FROM THIRD WORLD SHITHOLES." Responding to a thread on June 27 about whether "whites fear what's going to happen to them in 10-20 yrs," Neff wrote that he has "no plans to stay" in the country "that long." In December 2019, he said that "once Democrats have the majorities to go full F**K WHITEY, things are going to get really wacky really quickly." He argued at the time that there is a "large minority of whites who are fully supportive of a F**k Whitey agenda" and that "there's a suicidal impulse to Western peoples that honestly feels almost biological in origin."
When not making his own bigoted comments, Neff has shown a willingness to respond to others who were, without expressing any hesitation, much less disgust, about what they've said. For instance, in 2016 he replied to a thread with the title, "Mary Poppins getting raped by a pack of wild ni***rs at the park; kids watching." That same year, he commented on a thread titled, "DIKES get wrong CUM at CUMBANK. N****R pops out."
Just last month, Neff replied to a comment on the thread that said, "And the n**s are always honor students or some bullshit." (The language on both posts was not censored on the forum.)
Last month, Neff mocked a user who said they were leaving the board over concerns about the rampant racism on it. In a now-deleted comment, the user implored others to "consider the current environment," writing, "The country is undergoing a great awakening to racist injustices throughout society. Maybe you should take this opportunity to consider whether continuing to post here is morally defensible at all, even if you aren't posting deranged shit? I don't think it is defensible, which is why I am leaving."
On June 16, Neff responded by quoting the user's words and adding, "LMAO if you think this shit will save you when the mob comes for you. Good riddance." The language notably echoed Carlson's comment, eight days before, when he had said "remember that when they come for you."
In February 2018, a user on AutoAdmit posted, "At some point in the future, all ur xo posts (w/IRL name) will be public record." One person commented, "I stand by every poast." Neff upvoted that comment.
Easter eggs
When he had just started working at Fox News, Neff was apparently less cautious and more willing to risk exposing his identity for a chance to show off to his fellow posters. One night in February 2017 -- which, according to his LinkedIn, would have been Neff's second month with Carlson at Fox News — Carlson tripped over his words as he introduced a guest. The phrase Carlson was trying to say was, even for the host's florid style, a little out of place: "Sweet treats of scholarship."
Within minutes, Neff was posting to AutoAdmit about Carlson's use of the phrase, which other posters gleefully noted was a reference to something said on the forum.
Neff's caution since then may have resulted in fewer Easter eggs being slipped into Carlson's scripts. But there has still been at least some overlap between the forum and the show, including in recent weeks.
Sometimes, material Neff encountered on the forum found its way on to Carlson's show. For instance, on June 25, Neff responded to a post that quoted a news story about coronavirus-related interest in Montana real estate. He wrote on the forum, "Interest in real estate in Bozeman, Missoula, and the Flathead Valley has been on the rise for years." That night, in his monologue, Carlson said, "You're starting to consider maybe moving to Bozeman, and why wouldn't you?"
In some cases, language Neff used on the forum ended up on the show. The night of June 15, in commenting on a football coach who was the subject of controversy over a sweatshirt he'd worn, Neff wrote on the forum, "[I]t is your f***ing right as an American to wear whatever T-shirt you want, and hold whatever political views you want. Christ." The next night on his show, Carlson said, "And they can wear whatever shirts they want. You thought that was true. You thought that was your right as an American."
Other times, Neff may have used knowledge he had gained in his job at Fox News to post to the board. On the afternoon of July 1, Neff started a thread titled, "Two GOP senators propose replacing Columbus Day w/Juneteenth." In the thread, he wrote, "Coming out this afternoon if it isn't out already." That afternoon, it was public; that night, the proposal was discussed on Carlson's show.
-- Additional reporting by CNN's Sergio Hernandez.
Translation - Chinese 塔克·卡爾森（Tucker Carlson）的頂級作家在網上論壇上秘密發表了種族主義和性別歧視言論後辭職
English to Chinese: How Covid-19 will change air travel as we know it
Source text - English How Covid-19 will change air travel as we know it
In 2001, air travel was dealt a massive blow by the 11 September attacks, and the effects lasted years. But this was a ripple compared to what Covid-19 will do.
In the heart of Australian outback lies Alice Springs. The town – colloquially known as Alice – is the site of indigenous human presence dating back nearly 30,000 years. More recently, however, a new (and admittedly very different) type of settler has descended upon Alice. Since April, four Airbus A380s have made their way to the small town. The 500-plus-tonne behemoths belong to Singapore Airlines which, like many other carriers, has grounded almost its entire fleet.
The reason is Covid-19. The spread of the novel coronavirus has caused passenger demand to collapse, forcing airlines to park, rather than fly, their planes. Alice offers conditions ideal to do just that. The local airport has a runway long enough to land commercial airplanes and the climate is dry, which means aircraft parts corrode far slower than in the sweltering heat and humidity of South East Asia.
Slumps in travel demand aren’t new. Following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, passenger enthusiasm towards flying also waned amid security fears. This forced airlines – then, like now – to cancel flights and puts planes into storage. The industry did recover. Passenger numbers for 2002 were 1.63 billion, only slightly lower than the 1.66 billion who flew in 2001. But passenger numbers don’t tell the whole story.
The 9/11 attacks also forced airlines to trim costs through furloughs, layoffs, and most notably, consolidation. Prior to the attacks, the US airline market – the world’s most lucrative – was largely controlled by eight carriers. Today, its four. Following the attacks, airlines also became more cautious and shelved plans for aggressive expansion. This led to fewer flights overall and for passengers, less space as planes got fuller.
Whether Covid-19 has a similar impact on the industry and how passengers fare in the aftermath will depend on a few things.
The collapse in air travel demand has been driven largely by public policy. As Covid-19 spread, governments worldwide chose – in the interests of preserving public health – to ban entry to non-residents. Some countries like India, Malaysia and South Africa stopped issuing visitor visas. Others like the Australia, New Zealand and the United States suspended visa-free travel reciprocity. The move not only ended the plans of millions of travellers but also forced airlines to stop serving once-lucrative markets. Flying empty planes around makes little fiscal sense. Consequently, getting planes back in the air will require an easing of government entry restrictions.
There are some signs this is happening. The South African government recently announced efforts to reopen the country’s tourism sector. With one exception. The move only applies to domestic travellers; international tourists will have to wait a bit longer. Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane, South Africa’s minister for tourism, says: “The decision to open the country’s external borders will be based on an 'assessment of scientific evidence… guided by (the government’s) responsibility to protect the lives of South Africans'.”
Kubayi-Ngubane’s words reflect the delicate balance governments must strike between delivering for citizens the economic benefits of tourism while protecting those citizens against the public health risks of Covid-19.
But there might be a way around these travel restrictions: “travel bubbles”. Colloquially known as “coronavirus corridors” or “air bridges”, the underlying idea is simple. Rather than banning visitors outright (or relegating them to quarantine), some countries agree to open their borders to one other while – in principle – keeping their borders to all other countries closed. Signatory countries would typically be ones where the coronavirus threat has been contained. This minimises transmission risk for travelers within the bubble while preventing the importation of new cases from outside.
The UK government recently moved to do just that. Starting 10 July, passengers from over 50 countries will be allowed to enter England, sans quarantine. In announcing the move, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “Instead of quarantining arrivals from the whole world, we will only quarantine arrivals from those countries where the virus is sadly not under control.” But the effectiveness of travel bubbles depends in part on the goodwill of citizens.
The success of the UK’s travel bubble with France requires that visitors to the UK do not travel to a high-risk country (say the United States, for example) and then in short order, fly to England via France. How authorities prevent this from happening remains unclear. The situation is particularly precarious if there are no border controls between countries inside the bubble, as is with the case with EU member states.
Another workaround involves having rapid testing infrastructure in place. The move would allow authorities to screen passengers for the virus and if needed, quarantine these individuals. Researchers at Stanford University recently launched a study to examine the concept’s viability. The work – which is being conducted in collaboration with the Taiwanese government – will test passengers for signs of the virus on flights across the Pacific. According to the study’s authors, “the goal of the experiment is to figure out the earliest time we can release people if they get tested”. That matters to countries who see air travel as key to jumpstarting the economy.
But when it comes to testing, accuracy is everything. Imagine sitting near someone who tested negative for the virus but was actually infected (and infectious) during the entire flight. The idea is not entirely far-fetched. Studies suggest that one in three infected people can receive so-called “false negatives”. According to Maureen Ferran, a professor in biology at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, false negatives can occur when nasal swabs – used to collect samples of the virus – aren’t inserted deep enough into the nose or don’t collect enough of the virus sample. She says false negatives are also possible “if a person is tested too early or too late during their infection and there isn’t a lot of virus in their cells”.
A vaccine for Covid-19 would provide relief. Vaccines strengthen the body’s natural defences, lowering the risk of infection and transmission. This curbs the need for entry restrictions, travel bubbles or virus tests altogether. But finding a vaccine isn’t easy. Antidotes to some life-threatening illnesses like HIV and malaria have remained elusive despite decades of research.
When vaccines have been found, the process has been painstakingly long. The vaccine used to treat measles took nearly a decade to develop and hit the market 50 years after US healthcare providers starting monitoring the disease. Even if a vaccine for Covid-19 is found, it must be mass produced and distributed worldwide, which will take even more time. For travelers, this means the pre-Covid-19 flying experience isn’t likely to return anytime soon. So what can passengers expect in the meantime?
Pre-Covid-19 flyers – particularly those sitting in the premium cabin – were treated to all kinds of perks; amenity kits, noise-cancelling headphones and pyjamas. Some airlines went even further, offering passengers gourmet meals prepared by professional chefs onboard. Those days are over. Instead, flyers can expect pared down service with few if any luxuries. Airlines are axing inflight-magazines, pillows and in some cases, even meals.
Singapore Airlines – a carrier long admired for its customer service – suspended serving a trolley meal service for flights within Asia. Passengers will instead be given a snack bag with water and refreshments during boarding.
The reason isn’t so much cost (though airlines, already hemorrhaging cash, are keen to make savings). Rather, service-cutting is about limiting so-called “touchpoints”: opportunities for Covid-19 to spread via close physical proximity between flyers and crew. Serving passengers in cramped spaces requires considerable person-to-person interaction. Airlines want to limit those interactions to stop the virus from spreading.
Some carriers are taking virus containment efforts one step further by requiring flyers to wear masks and face shields on board. One such airline is Qatar Airways. The airline’s chief, Akbar Al Baker says these measures are needed to “ensure the continued health and wellbeing of […] passengers and cabin crew”.
Conventional wisdom suggests that when passenger demand drops, fares follow. So with passenger numbers at record lows (as of April, Heathrow passenger numbers were down 97%), the quest for cheap tickets should be much easier. But that’s not the whole story. Fares are also influenced by the number of seats in the global market. With the world’s passenger planes largely grounded (one estimate suggests nearly 30% of the world’s 26,000 commercial jets are stuck on airport tarmacs worldwide), there are far fewer seats to go around. This gives airlines rather than passengers the upper hand when it comes to setting fares.
Fare hikes in the short run aren’t likely, according to Severin Borenstein. Borenstein – a professor at the University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business – thinks that fares are more “likely to remain quite moderate, because fuel costs are low and the airlines are flying more capacity than demand can support”. However, he points out that the absence of a Covid-19 vaccine could cause fares to eventually rise albeit, “over multiple years”.
Fare hikes are also likely if some airlines go bankrupt. Bankruptcy reduces the number of competitors in a market, which invariably drives up price. The prospect of a major airline going out of business is something aeroplane manufacturer Boeing recently warned about. Similar sentiments have been expressed by Emirates’ chief Tim Clark.
And running an airline is pricy. Even small jets, like the single-aisle Boeing 737, can cost upwards of £80m ($102m) apiece. Add to that fuel, insurance and taxes and you’re talking about serious money. With annual expenses running into the billions, airlines need cash to survive – lots of it. Moving cargo around is one way to make money. Another involves partnering with banks to sell airline-branded credit cards. Yet, the best way to generate cash remains filling passenger cabins.
Maximising the so-called load factor is particularly important for budget airlines who – despite incurring similar costs as their full-service competitors – offer substantially lower fares. A one-way ticket on Irish budget giant Ryanair averages just €37 (£33.50/$42); you’d be hard pressed to find fares that low on many of Ryanair’s competitors.
Budget carriers offset lower fares by squeezing more passengers into their cabins. Ryanair packs 189 flyers onto its jets, 10% more than flag-carriers who fly the same airplane. Yet while high-density seating may save flyers cash, the concept is antithetical to social distancing. And that’s a problem. When it comes to fighting Covid-19, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls social distancing, “one of the best tools we have to avoid being exposed to this virus and slowing its spread locally and across the country and world”.
This sentiment is shared by some lawmakers, who now mandate that airlines fill no more than two-thirds of the passenger cabin. Borenstein says limiting passenger capacity could disrupt the model of budget carriers, “because they rely on higher density on the aircraft and because those airlines tend to have weaker capitalisation, and therefore be more exposed to demand drops in their finances”. No wonder low-fare carriers have panned the move.
Airbus chief executive, Guillaume Faury, has called the Covid-19 pandemic, “the gravest crisis the aerospace industry has ever known”. Similar sentiments have been expressed by the International Air Transport Association. The trade group – which represents nearly 300 airlines – says the industry is “only at the very beginning of a long and difficult recovery” and there remains “tremendous uncertainty about what impact a resurgence of new Covid-19 cases in key markets could have”.
Put simply, the industry will recover, but when that happens air travel is likely to look very unfamiliar.
* Ashley Nunes is a research fellow at Harvard Law School. His work explores how innovation affects markets.
English to Chinese: The South Pole has been warming at three times the global average over the past 30 years, study says
Source text - English The South Pole has been warming at three times the global average over the past 30 years, study says
(CNN) The South Pole has been warming at more than three times the global average over the past 30 years, a new study has found. That could have huge implications for the melting of Antarctic ice sheets, marine life in the region and the rising of global sea levels.
The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Monday, sheds new light on the most remote region on Earth. While scientists have known for years that the outer regions of Antarctica is warming, they previously thought the South Pole, being located deep in its interior, was isolated from rising global temperatures.
"This highlights that global warming is global and it's making its way to these remote places," said Kyle Clem, postdoctoral research fellow in Climate Science at the University of Wellington, and lead author of the study.
Clem and his team analyzed weather station data at the South Pole, as well as climate models to examine the warming in the Antarctic interior. They found that between 1989 and 2018, the South Pole had warmed by about 1.8 degrees Celsius over the past 30 years at a rate of +0.6 °C per decade -- three times the global average.
The scientists said the main cause of the warming was increasing sea surface temperatures thousands of miles away in the tropics. Over the past 30 years, warming in the western tropical Pacific Ocean -- a region near the equator north of Australia and Papua New Guinea -- meant there was an increase in warm air being carried to the South Pole.
"It is wild. It is the most remote place on the planet. The significance is how extreme temperatures swing and shift over the Antarctic interior, and the mechanisms that drive them are linked 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) north of the continent on the tropical Pacific," Clem said.
Melting sea ice, Antarctic heat waves
Hotter temperatures have been recorded at other parts of Antarctica in recent years and the warming has serious global consequences, especially for the millions of people living on the world's coasts who are vulnerable to sea level rise.
Antarctica's ice sheet contains enough water to raise global sea levels by nearly 200 feet, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
In March, climate scientists recorded the first heat wave at a research base in East Antarctica and in February, the hottest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica --18.3 degrees Celsius (65 degrees Fahrenheit) -- was measured at Argentina's Esperanza research station.
Ice loss in the region has also been accelerating at an alarming rate over the past few decades. In the past 22 years, one giant glacier in East Antarctica has retreated almost three miles.
While the South Pole remains below freezing and is likely to stay that way, Clem said that the warming trend seen at the Pole is linked to what we're seeing on the coast and the Antarctic Peninsula. The warming "starts from the coast and works its way inland," Clem said.
"As you move closer to the coast, where the warming is coming in, you'll start to see more impacts. As you reach that point near the freezing point you start to get melting. Or you melt the sea ice and you start to warm the ocean in the Weddell Sea and that affects life in that area," he said.
Is the climate crisis to blame?
Initially, the scientists found the South Pole was actually cooling by more than a degree during the 1970s and 1980s, while global temperatures were rising. The team said the cool period was down to natural climate patterns that occur in 20- to 30-year cycles.
Then the trend flipped rapidly "and all of a sudden we have nearly 2 degrees of warming at the turn of the century," Clem said. The jump from 1 degree of cooling to 2 degrees of warming signified a 3-degree rise.
Meanwhile, global temperatures have risen about 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels and the aim is to keep global median temperatures to within 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) to stave off the worst impacts of the climate crisis.
Clem said the extreme fluctuation at the South Pole suggests that natural variability was "masking" the effects from human-induced climate change.
The team found that the warming was caused by natural variations in sea surface temperatures over multiple decades. But these natural climate drivers "acted in tandem" with, or were reinforced by, global emissions of greenhouse gases.
"We have natural processes that are always going to be taking place amidst global warming and human's influence on the climate system," Clem said. "When the two work together it is quite remarkable."
The science behind the warming
As well as human interference from greenhouse gas emissions, researchers said there were several natural processes working behind the scenes to warm the South Pole.
A climate phenomenon called the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO), which governs ocean temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, flipped from a positive phase to a negative one at the turn of the 21st century. That warmed the western tropical Pacific, and caused more intense cyclones and storms.
At the same time, a wind system called the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) moved south, bringing that extra warmth from the tropics to Antarctica. The change in the SAM is down to the Antarctic ozone hole and increases in greenhouse gases, according to Clem. Experts aren't sure what causes the change in the IPO, but haven't ruled out human activity. All that has made the South Pole one of the most rapidly warming places on the planet.
Upper bounds of natural variability
Because temperature records of the South Pole only go back to 1957, the scientists couldn't draw a definite conclusion that the warming was driven by human activity. So they used models that simulate the climate of the Earth with greenhouse gas concentrations representative of pre-industrial times -- so without human influence.
In the simulations, the team calculated all possible 30-year trends that could occur at the South Pole in those models. They found that the observed 1.8 C of warming was higher than 99.9% of all possible 30-year trends that occur without human influence.
The authors said that while this meant the warming "lies within the upper bounds of the simulated range of natural variability" the nature of the trend was "remarkable."
"Almost anywhere else on Earth, if you had 1.8C of warming over 30 years this would be off the charts," Clem said. But the result was not 100%. So there is a chance that warming at the South Pole could have occurred through natural processes only, according to Clem -- but it's a tiny one.
English to Chinese: A cash cliff spells trouble for U.S. unemployed, and everyone else
Source text - English A cash cliff spells trouble for U.S. unemployed, and everyone else
(Reuters) - Judith Ramirez is bracing for July. That’s when the hotel housekeeper and her electrician husband - who have both been out of work for three months - expect their combined unemployment benefits to drop by more than half, and their deferred $1,500 monthly mortgage payment on their Honolulu home to come due.
It’s a cash cliff millions of Americans face this summer as the emergency benefits — which lifted U.S. consumer incomes by a record 10.8% in April — expire. The loss of that safety net looms in the weeks ahead, well before a sustained recovery is likely to take hold from the sudden and deep recession brought on by the novel coronavirus. Personal income dropped 4.2% in May, data Friday showed.
The $600 supplement Congress added to weekly unemployment benefits is due to expire July 31. Without new support, recipients face a substantial loss of income - particularly devastating for those like the Ramirez family who worked in hard-hit sectors like hospitality where new jobs are scarce.
During high unemployment and a still-raging pandemic, the end of enhanced jobless benefits could drag on consumer spending, set off a wave of missed rent and mortgage payments and translate to a slower recovery, economists said.
That’s a great concern for Rachel Finchum, 55, who lost her job at a Nashville-based T-shirt printing company after 18 years. She has sought forbearance on her mortgage but is worried about what will happen when the government programs run out.
“I’m very scared to think I may not be able to make my bills,” Finchum said. “With my future so uncertain, I have a house payment and bills based on 18 years of what I was making.”
BENEFITS LIFTED SPENDING
As the novel coronavirus pandemic exploded in March and local authorities shut down large parts of the U.S. economy, the Trump administration and Congress softened the blow by moving quickly to roll out a patchwork of emergency aid.
The centerpiece: stimulus checks for most households and more generous unemployment benefits for tens of millions of newly jobless Americans.
The combined cash aid provided $3 in support for every $1 in lost income in April, Oxford Economics’ Gregory Daco estimated. And until it expires on July 31, the extra $600 weekly unemployment payment on average makes up for income lost due to unemployment and reduced hours, he said.
Indeed about two-thirds people eligible for unemployment benefits can collect more in benefits than they earned while working, researchers from the University of Chicago found.
For low-wage workers like Ramirez, the help was particularly critical. Households across the board slashed spending as coronavirus-related restrictions began in March.
But after the government began issuing stimulus checks, lower-income households resumed spending much faster than higher income households, with much of the cash going to basics like utilities and groceries, said Michael Stepner of Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights.
Outlays by low-income households are now only about 3% below pre-crisis levels, versus minus 13% for high-income households.
When the extra benefits run out, jobless benefits will revert to their typical pre-pandemic levels, low by design to encourage people to look hard for work. In 15 states, the maximum unemployment benefit would replace less than half of the median earnings for a worker with a high school diploma, according to Kathryn Anne Edwards, a labor economist for the RAND Corporation.
That may pressure some people short on cash to risk their health to take a low-paying job at a restaurant or delivery company, which may expose them to the virus, said Julia Coronado, president of MacroPolicy Perspectives and a former Federal Reserve economist. “That’s a very terrible choice for our policymakers to be telling people they need to make,” she said.
And with unemployment expected to stay high and businesses in some sectors unable to open, many won’t be able to find even those jobs, she said. The drop-off in support is also a problem for the economy as a whole, reducing GDP by 2.5% in the second half of 2020, estimated Jason Furman, a Harvard professor who ran the Council of Economic Advisors under President Barack Obama.
Congress may consider at least a partial extension of the benefits, but the uncertainty is making some families cautious about their spending, said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics.
“Lower-income households are worried that the pandemic will re-intensify and disrupt their incomes further,” said Zandi. “They are also unsure of how much - if any - more help is coming from Washington D.C.”
Ramirez, 40, spent a month chasing down her unemployment benefits after she stopped working in late March. When the payments finally started arriving, Ramirez banked them to build a cushion.
Knowing that the benefits are going to be reduced dramatically and unsure of when they’ll get back to work, Ramirez and her husband are living frugally. To save money on groceries, they wake up at 5 a.m. about once a week to get in line at a nearby food bank.
Ramirez will likely have reduced hours if she gets her job back in August, her manager told her. The hotel that employed her husband is still shut down. “We need to have a backup,” said Ramirez, whose daughters are ages 1 and 5. “I have children to feed.”
For Finchum in Nashville, there is no prospect of a return to her old job. Her employers were nearing retirement so decided to close the business down when the pandemic struck. “The stimulus package has been a life saver,” she said.
Additional reporting by Anna Irrera in New York; Editing by Dan Burns and Cynthia Osterman
對於納什維爾的芬奇姆（Finchum），沒有重返她以前的工作的希望。她的雇主即將退休，因此在大流行撞擊時決定關閉公司。她說：“刺激計劃挽救了生命。”
Anna Irrera在紐約的其他報導； Dan Burns和Cynthia Osterman編輯
English to Chinese: How does seafood catering industry get through the dark moments?
Source text - English How does seafood catering industry get through the dark moments?
Chinese health officials reported last Thursday that a sample of frozen chicken wings imported from Brazil to Shenzhen, a city in southern China, tested positive for the coronavirus.
According to incomplete statistics from public reports, this is the ninth time that China has found new coronavirus on frozen seafood packaging since July.
A report released by the China Cuisine Association last month on the resumption of work in the catering industry in the first half showed that the operation of most catering companies has recovered to 70 percent to 80 percent of the pre-epidemic level, with the decline continuing to decrease, and showing a gradual recovery trend.
However, with the ups and downs of the seafood market due to the epidemic, merchants in the seafood industry chain feel like riding a roller coaster.
Bill Li is the owner of a seafood barbecue restaurant in Beijing, which offers seafood barbecue takeaway through Chinese major food delivery platforms, Ele.me, and Meituan-Dianping.
"We mainly operate crayfish, mantis shrimp, clams, and striped snails barbecue. The crayfish are directly supplied from the producing area, Jiangsu Province, and the mantis shrimp are provided from the Bohai Sea, such as Shandong Province, while the striped snails are mainly imported from Vietnam," Li told CGTN.
"Now we mainly sell crayfish and have stopped selling seafood like mantis shrimp and striped snails," Li said, noting that crayfish is a freshwater product with high yield and stable supply.
"The supply and price of mantis shrimp are unstable this year, affected by various factors such as the epidemic, typhoon, as well as transportation costs. Also, the import of striped snails has been strictly regulated by domestic customs since January," he added.
According to industry sources, most seafood upstream suppliers sell in a single category, with small profits but quick turnover, and the volume of goods is always calculated in tons. However, international freight and sales are unstable due to the epidemic, which leads to a huge loss.
On June 13, the novel coronavirus was detected on a chopping board used by a seller of imported salmon at the Xinfadi market, the largest wholesale market with fruit, vegetable and meat supplies in Beijing, leading to the shutdown of the market and other major seafood markets in the capital city. As a precaution, many supermarkets and restaurants in China decided to take salmon off their shelves.
Unlike other types of restaurants, many Japanese cuisine stores have experienced the disappointment of closing their doors again or an empty shop with no customers due to the new coronavirus found on frozen seafood products after enjoying the joy of gradually reopening a business in May.
Hou Lei, the head of a Japanese cuisine store in Beijing, said that raw foods such as sashimi always account for about 40 percent of his daily sales before. "Raw foods such as salmon and sweet shrimp were taken off the shelves, and all related stocks were destroyed due to the Xinfadi incident," said Hou, noting that now their major food ingredients are beef, chicken and pork, with only processed food sold.
China's top three salmon import sources are Chile, Norway, and the Faroe Islands, which together hold a 70-percent share.
According to statistics from the Norwegian Fisheries Agency (NSC), in the 29th week of 2020, Norway exported about 68 tons of chilled salmon to China, declining 45 percent from the previous week and 81 percent from a year earlier.
In addition, imported seafood entering customs at present must undergo sampling investigation and testing. Only the seafood passing the nucleic acid tests for COVID-19 can be released, with the process taking as little as 30 hours, or as long as a week. However, for seafood wholesalers, time is profit.
Fresh seafood cannot withstand the consumption of time, and its price drops a little every day. If converted to frozen products, the price will fall by at least 50 percent.
Success belongs to the persevering
According to Li, the business actually declined along with the overall downturn in the catering industry and further weakened in June.
"But because we provide only takeaways food rather than outdoor dining, we don't face the heavy pressure from operating costs of stores, so the impact of us is relatively small," he said with a slightly relaxed tone.
Meanwhile, Li said that the government has established WeChat groups with businesses in the catering industry very early, requiring them to report on the store's sanitary situation and the body temperature of the clerk every day and invite a third party to the store for sanitary testing.
"The adverse impact of the epidemic is indeed great, but we must find ways to overcome it," said Li. "Now we are trying to sell diversified, for instance, increasing some non-seafood products. The other is to do a good job of sanitation and disinfection and make it open and transparent to consumers."
In times of crisis, the quality and reputation of the store are particularly important, he added.
Nick Zhu, who has been engaged in seafood for 20 years in Hangzhou, lamented that he can't help but feel a little sad when hearing that some business partners closed stores and returned home. "The seafood business is already part of my life, and as long as I persist, it will get fine," he told Zheshang magazine, a local business magazine.
As coronavirus outbreak ebbs, the Xinfadi market reopened to the public last Saturday but only as a wholesale operation, with all sellers and buyers required to complete real-name authentication before entering the market.
Carrefour, one of Beijing's major supermarket chains that stopped selling salmon in June, has relisted salmon and crab, which can be seen on the food delivery platform.
English to Chinese: Things you need to know about China's floods
Source text - English Things you need to know about China's floods
Since early June, severe flooding has hit large areas of the Chinese provinces of Hunan, Anhui, Hubei and Jiangxi. According to the Ministry of Water Resources, 443 rivers nationwide have flooded, affecting more than 37 million people.
But this isn't the first time China has experienced this kind of flooding on a large scale. Throughout its history, floods have always been a large recurring natural disaster. The flooding is influenced by factors such as climate, topography and population distribution. Here are some facts about China's floods:
Climate
China has five climates, and most of the eastern and southern parts fall under subtropical and tropical monsoon climates, which make the summer hot and wet. Though heat and high precipitation can help the crops to grow, heavy and frequent rainfall occurring from May to September also increases the possibility of flooding.
This year, the precipitation in eastern and southern areas has risen substantially compared to previous years. In the Yangtze River Basin, the average rainfall has been the highest in the past 60 years, hence frequent severe flooding this summer.
Landform
China's landform is made up of plateaus, plains, basins, foothills and mountains, higher in the west and lower in the east like a three-step ladder. The highest step is in the west, while the lowest step, formed by broad plains and low hills, is in the east of China.
According to a report released by China Meteorological Administration in 2012, about 738,000 square meters of land, covering most parts of the southern and eastern parts of China, is lower than the flood stages of the rivers that flow across the plains in the east.
The flood stage of a river is determined as an established gage height for a given location above which a rise in water surface levels begins to create a hazard to lives, property, or commerce. A location below the flood stage means that if the heavy rainfall during the rainy season causes the water level of rivers to reach the threshold, these areas will be surely impacted.
Population distribution
If you connect Heihe City in north China's Heilongjiang Province and Tengchong City in southwest China's Yunnan Province on a map, you will get what is called the Hu Line. It is named after Hu Huanyong, a Chinese demographer who discovered this invisible but important line that divides China into two parts. Almost 94 percent of the country's population is to the east of the line, with only about one-third of the nation's land.
China has thousands of years of agricultural history. Ancient Chinese people were dependent on farming and so had to live alongside rivers or near lakes where the rich soil provide a good harvest. Therefore, the areas where big rivers flow have more settlers than other areas historically. As a majority of China's lakes and river basins, such as the Yangtze River basin and the Poyang Lake, were distributed to the east of the Hu Line, the population distribution trend in ancient China was formed.
The population distribution after China stepped into the industrial and information era remains. Cities with populations of over 10 million people, including Shanghai, Chongqing and Guangzhou, are all located to the east of the Hu Line. Home to many millions of people and plenty of resources, floods in these areas can cause massive losses.
To summarize, flooding has impacted China for thousands of years. Perhaps it is not possible to eliminate all the floods in China now, but Chinese people will still do their best to fight against natural disasters under the circumstances while respecting Mother Nature.
(Cover image via VCG)
(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at [email protected].)
English to Chinese: Legislative changes, eco-tourism could curb illegal wildlife trade in Laos
Source text - English Legislative changes, eco-tourism could curb illegal wildlife trade in Laos
A survey on wildlife market in Laos has revealed its local communities' massive dependence on the product for food and livelihood, threatening the survival of many species in the country.
Nearly 90 percent of the households confirmed using wildlife, and the majority of the population was found to be harvesting wildlife for income. Locals also prefer to trap wild animals for self-consumption as they are more affordable. Prices of domesticated meat in the country are more than three times as high as those of wildlife products, said a peer-reviewed study published in Nature Conservation.
Researchers investigated both markets and households in Khammouane Province in central Laos, which has three major forest areas, Phou Hin Poun, Nakai Nam Theun, and Hin Nam No NP, making it a crucial hotspot for illegal wildlife trade. The province is also connected to major trade routes with Vietnam and Thailand.
They measured the extent of illegal trade in the province by focusing on wild-caught vertebrates: mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. More than 84 percent of respondents felt that the demand for the product remained the same over time despite the declining availability of wild meats due to increasing prices.
With a majority of Laotians living in rural areas, their income largely depends on wildlife, researchers said. "Since wildlife products are used as one of the major food sources, numerous species of terrestrial vertebrates are currently being offered at local markets," they added.
A finding based on the 176 studies released in 2016 had found hunting a major threat to biodiversity in Southeast Asia. Across the tropics, the study said, bird population plummeted by an average of 58 percent compared to areas with no hunting and mammals declined by an average of 83 percent.
The markets at Namdik and Ban Kok turned out to be very active trade hubs for wildlife as well, regardless of the vertebrate group," said Dr. Thomas Ziegler from the University of Cologne who led the survey group.
"The loss of certain species may cause a cascade of unforeseeable effects in the ecosystems. Therefore, the biodiversity of tropical Southeast Asian countries like Lao PDR must be protected," Ziegler added.
In order to protect the wild animals in the region, researchers suggest a two-pronged strategy of making legislative changes and boosting eco-tourism. "Stricter and reinforced legislation is needed in the fields related to wildlife trade and consumption," said the researchers.
Such practices not only cause biodiversity loss but also pose a significant threat of wildlife-associated emergence of zoonotic parasites and pathogens like COVID-19 to humans, they added.
Alternate livelihood opportunities like eco-tourism, according to researchers, would help in reducing local communities' dependence on wildlife trade. "Eco-tourism presents a great opportunity to combine conservation efforts and an alternative source of income, suggested Ziegler.
"Former hunters with excellent knowledge of the forest and wildlife habitats can serve as professional wildlife tour guides or their involvement in the Village Forest Protection Group could help to protect natural resources in Laos," Ziegler added.
(Cover: A local market in Laos selling locally manufactured cages and equipment to trap wild animals. /T. Ziegler, K. Kasper)
Source text - English Logical progression
David Prosser explains why and how to make considered and circumstantially-appropriate investment choices.
For professional investors such as pension funds, an idea known as “liability-driven investment” has been fashionable for some years now. It’s essentially a complicated way of expressing a very simple idea – that the investments you hold should reflect the reason you make them. So, for example, a retirement fund with large numbers of pensioners who must be paid pensions might choose to hold investments that will generate the income required to service these payments.
It’s really just common sense – if you’re investing for a particular reason, it’s logical to choose the assets you hold on the basis of whether they’re appropriate for this need. All of us should at least be applying the underlying principles of this approach to our own financial planning.
Focus on your goals
What that means in practice is that you need to choose savings and investments on the basis of the goals you hope to achieve – rather than, as is too often the case, on the basis of which market is expected to be hot over the next few months, or which fund manager seems best placed to post stellar returns.
That’s not to say there’s no room for investment decisions based on your views about markets, fund managers and other factors likely to have an impact on performance; but these should be secondary considerations.
Think of it in this way: your financial needs, the duration of your investments and your attitude to risk will provide you with a basic framework for your portfolio – how much you should hold in equities, say, versus fixed income securities or other types of asset. You can then start to fill in the framework by making choices about how you achieve this asset allocation.
In fact, while we all get hung up on whether one particular fund is doing better than another, the final choice of portfolio holdings is much less important than getting the asset allocation right. Academic research suggests that as much as 50 per cent of the performance of your portfolio will depend on asset allocation, a much more significant factor than individual security selection or market timing.
The right fund for the occasion
Moreover, what you’re looking for is performance that delivers your particular financial needs. If you require, say, a consistent income over the next five years in order to help meet school fees, there’s not much point in investing in a fund that pays no income and generates hugely volatile returns – even if that fund turns a huge profit in 10 years’ time.
Similarly, if you’re 35 now and putting money into funds that you plan to use to generate a retirement income in 30 years’ time, it’s seems daft to worry about, say, a six-month run of negative returns.
Successful investment, in other words, is not an absolute discipline – when you choose savings and investment products, you’re not looking for the largest possible profit, counter-intuitive though this might seem, but the perfect return profile for your individual needs. Just like the professional investors, you need assets that are well-matched to your liabilities.
Over time, of course, your needs may change, or you may find that your initial choices aren’t delivering what you hoped for. Keep your investments under review on that basis.
Theory into practice
How, then, to save and invest according to these ideas in practice. Well, the investment companies sector has much to offer, with a range of different funds offering very different profiles. The industry has a good story to tell on income, because investment companies are allowed to keep some dividends back in good years to pay out in leaner times. Its growth record is impressive too, outperforming, on average, comparable open-ended funds over longer periods.
English to Chinese: Xi Jinping calls Yangtze River Delta 'strategic' as China's economic recovery faces external challenge
Source text - English Xi Jinping calls Yangtze River Delta 'strategic' as China's economic recovery faces external challenge
Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for efforts to promote economic integration and high-quality growth of the Yangtze River Delta as China pushes ahead with reviving its economy from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks on Thursday (August 20) in a meeting in Hefei City in east China's Anhui Province, during his inspection of relief work in the flood-stricken province, according to a news release on Saturday.
He highlighted the "strategic importance" of the Yangtze River Delta – a region that covers Shanghai and the three neighboring provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui – in China's economic growth and social development under the current conditions.
Xi learnt the latest development of the delta region from chiefs of the four provincial-level regions – Li Qiang, the Party secretary of Shanghai, Lou Qinjian, the Party secretary of Jiangsu, Che Jun, the Party secretary of Zhejiang, and Li Jinbin, the Party secretary of Anhui – who gave advice and suggestions to the future development plan.
Xi hailed the delta region as a "driving force" in the economic recovery of the country affected by the coronavirus, and asked them to put more efforts to deepen integrated development while promoting high-quality growth.
Strategic importance
China rolled out a blueprint for the Yangtze River Delta in December 2019 as a further push by the central government to drive growth through regional blocs following the Greater Bay Area plan for southern China.
The Yangtze development plan covers one of the country's most dynamic regions, which together make up the most densely populated region in China with at least 220 million people.
According to the latest available official data, the total GDP of the Yangtze River Delta region surpassed 21 trillion yuan (about three trillion U.S. dollars), accounting for about 23 percent of China's total GDP.
Rebound amid global pandemic
China's economy grew 3.2 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, according to official data, recovering from a record contraction as the government stepped up stimulus to combat the shock from the coronavirus crisis. China became the first major economy to return to growth since the pandemic swept the world.
Faced with the severe and complex circumstances of a shrinking global economy, Xi put the focus on China's domestic market. In the current external environment of shrinking global markets, we must give full play to the advantages of the domestic super-large-scale market, and add impetus to the country's economic development, Xi stressed.
Referring to the Yangtze River Delta region, Xi said local governments must give full play to advantages such as highly qualified human resources, high-tech sector, manufacture industry and relatively complete industrial chain and supply chain as well as large market.
While stressing on China's domestic market, Xi pledged to further open up and reiterated the country's commitment to globalization. Faced with the anti-globalization tide, Xi said China will firmly uphold and defend globalization and promote the idea of building a community of shared future for mankind.
The Yangtze River Delta is the forefront of China's reform and opening-up and local governments must create a world-class business environment that is open, service-oriented, innovative, and efficient to facilitate trade and foreign investment, Xi said, adding that the delta region can "bridge" the Chinese and international markets.
(Cover: Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, chairs a symposium on advancing integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta in Hefei City, east China's Anhui Province, August 20, 2020. /Xinhua)
Translation - Chinese 習近平稱長江三角洲為“戰略”，因為中國經濟復甦面臨外部挑戰
English to Chinese: The ‘Batman Effect’: How having an alter ego empowers you
Source text - English The ‘Batman Effect’: How having an alter ego empowers you
Thinking of yourself as a separate entity can reduce anxiety, while also kicking up some major benefits for your confidence and determination.
How do the world’s top stars muster the poise and determination to stand on stage, despite the nerves and anxiety of having a bad performance? For both Beyoncé and Adele, the secret has been the creation of an alter ego.
Beyoncé’s was the assertive and empowered ‘Sasha Fierce’, who allowed her to perform with extra self-confidence and sensuality. “Usually when I hear the chords, when I put on my stilettos, like the moment right before when you’re nervous… then Sasha Fierce appears, and my posture and the way I speak and everything is different,” she told Oprah Winfrey in 2008. It was a strategy that she continued to use until 2010, when she felt she had matured enough to avoid the psychological crutch.
Inspired by an emotional meeting with Beyoncé herself, Adele followed suit, telling Rolling Stone magazine in 2011 about her creation of ‘Sasha Carter’. The persona was a combination of Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce persona and the (real) country music star June Carter. Adele said the strategy helped her give her best to every performance during her breakout year.
Although the embodiment of a fictional persona may seem like a gimmick for pop stars, new research suggests there may be some real psychological benefits to the strategy. Adopting an alter ego is an extreme form of ‘self-distancing’, which involves taking a step back from our immediate feelings to allow us to view a situation more dispassionately.
“Self-distancing gives us a little bit of extra space to think rationally about the situation,” says Rachel White, assistant professor of psychology at Hamilton College in New York State. It allows us to rein in undesirable feelings like anxiety, increases our perseverance on challenging tasks, and boosts our self-control.
Shifting perspective
Ethan Kross, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, has led much of this research over the past decade, showing that even small shifts in perspective can help people to gain control of their emotions.
In one study, participants were asked to think about a challenging event in the future, such as an important exam, in one of two different ways. The group in the “immersed” condition were told to picture it from the inside, as if they were in the middle of the situation, whereas those in the “distanced” condition were asked to picture it from afar – as if they were a fly on the wall.
The differences were striking, with those taking the distanced viewpoint feeling much less anxious about the event, compared to the immersed group. The self-distancing also encouraged greater feelings of self-efficacy – the sense that they could pro-actively cope with the situation and achieve their goal.
In other experiments, participants were asked to give a small public talk. Beforehand, they were advised to think through their emotions about the challenge using the third person (“David feels…”) as if they were a separate entity, rather than the more immersive first person (“I feel”). Like the distanced visualisation, this advice was designed to encourage the person to see the situation from an outside perspective.
Once again, the creation of the psychological distance helped the participants to master their anxiety, reducing both their subjective ratings of the emotion and objective measures, such as the changes in heart rate and blood pressure that usually accompany threatening events. And those feelings of greater confidence were reflected in the quality of the presentation itself, according to the judgement of independent observers asked to rate their performance.
The eye on the prize
Self-distancing seems to enable people to reap these positive effects by leading them to focus on the bigger picture – it’s possible to see events as part of a broader plan rather than getting bogged down in immediate feelings.
And this has led some researchers to wonder whether it could also improve elements of self-control like determination, by making sure that we keep focused on our goals even in the face of distraction.
Along these lines, one experiment asked whether people were better able to focus on difficult word puzzles if they had been asked to practice self-distancing before the test. In this case, they were asked to give advice to themselves in the second-person – “You will concentrate on each question” – as if they were talking to a friend, rather than themselves.
Besides improving overall performance, the effects could also be seen in questionnaires measuring their attitudes to the task, which revealed a stronger intention to improve their performance.
By boosting their sense of self control, self-distancing can also improve people’s health behaviour. It can increase people’s intentions to exercise, for instance, and helps them to resist the temptation of junk food. This is no mean feat. “Few self-control strategies to date have successfully improved eating outcomes,” says Celina Furman, a social psychology researcher at the University of Minnesota.
Working with Kross, Furman recently asked participants to practice self-distancing as they were faced with the choice of various kinds of food – fruit compared to candy, for example.
When participants had practiced self-distancing (asking “What does David want?”, for example, rather than “What do I want?) they were more likely to choose the healthier option.
Although further studies will be needed to test the long-term benefits of the approach, Furman thinks that it could be incorporated into a variety of different weight-loss schemes. “The ease of distanced self-talk does offer exciting potential applications,” she says. It could be incorporated into mobile apps, for instance, with notifications that prompt you to think in the third person as you plan your meals.
The ‘Batman Effect’
The possibility that self-distancing could increase willpower is particularly exciting for child psychologists, given that self-discipline is thought to be as important for academic performance as IQ.
A few years ago, assistant psychology professor White took a group of six-year-olds and set them a test of concentration on a computer, in which a series of images flashed and they had to press the space bar whenever they saw a picture of cheese.
The task was designed to be rather boring, but the children were told that it was “a very important activity” and that they would be a “good helper” if they worked on the task for as long as possible – increasing their motivation to persevere. As a potential distraction, the researchers also left them with an iPad, with a much more fun game designed to lure them away.
Beforehand, the children were told that it could sometimes be helpful to think about their feelings, if the task got too boring. Some were told to think “Am I working hard?” while others were encouraged to think in the third-person (“Is Hannah working hard?”).
A third group were given the option to change persona entirely by inhabiting the role of their favourite fictional hero, such as Batman or Dora the Explorer. They were even given props to dress up, and when they got bored, they were told to consider their behaviour as if they were the actual character, asking, for instance, “Is Batman working hard?”
The researchers had suspected that the alter ego would be a more extreme form of self-distancing, and the results showed exactly that. While the children thinking in the third person spent about 10% more time on the task that those thinking in the first person, it was the children inhabiting their alter egos who stuck it out for the longest of all. Overall, they spent 13%more time on the task than those thinking in the third person (and 23% more than those thinking about their behaviour in the first person).
White has also found that adopting an alter ego can also help children to concentrate on a complex card game, in which they had to follow complex rules that kept on changing. Once again, “the Batman effect” seemed to have increased their resolve and concentration, improving their “executive function”.
While these were laboratory experiments, White hopes that this small exercise might ease many situations that require self-control. The test of perseverance, after all, was already very close to the kind of decisions that children might face when doing their homework with the potential temptation of the TV or cell phone. She thinks it may also be useful to avoid feeling dispirited during new challenges.
“Pretending to be someone who's more competent, and getting that distance from the situation, could help them to overcome the frustration they're feeling when they're learning something new.”
What would Beyoncé do?
Given these findings and the benefits of self-distancing more generally, White suspects that we could all boost our emotional regulation, self-control and general poise by choosing to embody another persona à la Sasha Fierce.
After all, certain religious initiatives already encourage this kind of thinking, she says. “When I was growing up in the ‘90s, there were all these bracelets that said, ‘WWJD’ – What would Jesus do?” she says. “So, I think it’s a pretty intuitive concept to a lot of people.”
If you want to try it yourself, White suggests picking a different person for different types of goals – maybe a wise member of your family for a personal dilemma, or a work mentor for a professional problem. “When I was a postdoc, we had a little saying in our lab that if you're an undergrad, pretend to be a grad student. If you are a grad student, pretend to be a postdoc, and if you're a postdoc, pretend to be the leader of the lab – just to get you to that next level,” she says.
Whatever persona we choose, the practice should create some psychological space away from potentially distracting feelings, while also reminding us of the behaviours we want to emulate. Whether we’re placing ourselves in the shoes of a friend, a religious figure, or Beyoncé herself, a little imagination might put us all a little closer to the person we wish to become.
David Robson is the author of The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things (WW Norton/Hodder & Stoughton), which examines the cutting-edge psychology of irrational thinking and the best ways to make wiser decisions.
English to Chinese: China unveils policies to boost chipmakers as tensions with U.S. rise. Analysts say they may not help
Source text - English China unveils policies to boost chipmakers as tensions with U.S. rise. Analysts say they may not help
KEY POINTS
• China has unveiled a slew of policies to help boost its domestic semiconductor industry as tensions with the U.S. continue to rise.
• A large part of the incentives from China’s State Council focus on tax relief.
• Analysts have cast doubt over whether the policies will have a major impact in helping China’s chip industry.
China has unveiled a slew of policies to help boost its domestic semiconductor industry as tensions with the U.S. continue to rise, but analysts have cast doubt over whether they will have a major impact.
A large part of the incentives from China’s State Council focus on tax relief. For example, a manufacturer that has been in operation for more than 15 years and that makes so called 28 nanometer or more advanced chips, will be exempt from corporate income tax for up to 10 years. For chip manufacturers, the preferential treatment period starts from the first profit-making year.
But it’s not just the actual manufacturing side of the industry getting tax relief. Other players working in areas from chip design and software, areas where the U.S. and Europe have been traditionally very strong, also received tax incentives.
Beijing’s new policies also focus on funding and encourages firms to list on China’s technology-focused stock exchanges such as the Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Board, often dubbed the STAR Market.
Under the so-called “Made in China 2025” industrial plan, the country aims to produce 40% of the semiconductors it uses by 2020 and 70% by 2025. It’s unclear what that figure is at currently. But it’s a key focus for the government and one that has been ramped up in the past 18 months as tensions between China and the U.S. have escalated.
“I think this new cold technology war is exactly why China is scaling the technology curve and aggressively developing the mainland technology for threat of being cut off and cut adrift by aggressive U.S. policies,” Neil Campling, head of technology, media and telecoms research at Mirabaud Securities, told CNBC by email.
Semiconductor boost?
Analysts have cast doubt that the latest announcement could give a meaningful boost to the semiconductor industry in the world’s second-largest economy. “The State Council’s announcement focuses mainly on tax breaks, which are unlikely to supercharge China’s semiconductor development,” Dan Wang, technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, a Beijing-based research firm, told CNBC. “However it signals that the central government has strong political backing for the sector.”
Stimulus for the chip industry in China is not new. In 2014, Beijing set up a multibillion dollar national fund to invest in chipmakers and last year created another one. But China still remains far behind the U.S. and other countries like Taiwan and South Korea.
“Beijing has been pouring money into portions of the semiconductor industry since the 2014 establishment of the National IC (integrated circuit) Investment Fund, with so far only incremental success. That is because the sector is highly globalized, competitive, and market driven, and companies need more than cash to compete,” Paul Triolo, head of the geo-technology practice at Eurasia Group, told CNBC.
“The preferential treatment outline in the new policies will help in some areas, but in the short-term will have only marginal impact of the ability of Chinese semiconductor firms to move up the value chain and become more competitive globally.”
Sanctions
The United States’ latest sanctions on Huawei has exposed China’s reliance on external chipmakers. Washington’s latest rule requires foreign manufacturers using U.S. chipmaking equipment to get a license before being able to sell semiconductors to Huawei.
Huawei relies on Taiwan’s TSMC to manufacture so-called 7-nanometer chips for its smartphones. TSMC will be affected by the latest U.S. sanctions. These are some of the most advanced semiconductors and there is no Chinese player that can produce them at the scale Huawei needs.
Even China’s largest chipmaker SMIC, which carried out a 46.28 billion yuan ($6.64 billion) share sale in Shanghai last month, will not be able to meet Huawei’s demands.
The semiconductor supply chain is quite complex. While Huawei for example designs its own chips, it needs TSMC to actually make them. And the manufacturing process is made up of various very complex pieces of equipment made by very few players.
For example, Dutch firm ASML makes a machine that uses so-called extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and is required to make the most advanced chips such as those manufactured by TSMC and Samsung. But earlier this year, Reuters reported that the U.S. pressured the Netherlands government to stop the sale of an ASML machine to SMIC. That shipment has not made it to China.
An ASML spokesperson told CNBC that the company is waiting for an export license from the Dutch government in order to ship its machinery to China.
“The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ASML are in talks about the export license. No further details will be provided,” the spokeserson said, adding that the company has “never confirmed the name of the customer and will not do so.”
Such actions could hold China back from catching up with the U.S. for now. “Here access to cutting edge tools that remain under the control of the US government because they contain US-origin IP (intellectual property) will be the limiting factor for China,” Triolo said. “No amount of government investment can overcome restrictions on tools like extreme ultraviolet lithography, for example, which is currently being denied for China’s leading foundry SMIC.”
Translation - Chinese 隨著與美國的緊張局勢加劇，中國公佈了促進芯片製造商的政策。 分析師稱他們可能無濟於事
English to Chinese: They're executives and moms who are also recovering alcoholics. How they're getting through the pandemic
Source text - English They're executives and moms who are also recovering alcoholics. How they're getting through the pandemic
It's easy to joke that the acute stresses of 2020 are enough to drive anyone to drink. But that would be a dangerous option for Shannon Urban. In addition to being an executive and a divorced mother of a 9-year-old daughter, she is also a recovering alcoholic.
The frustrations of home schooling her daughter while keeping up with her job as an associate dean in marketing at the University of Pennsylvania, and dealing with the pandemic have been stressful enough. But trying to do it all while staying sober has been a herculean task.
"Third grade math is too much for me. That was my crying this week," said Urban, who recently moved in with her fiancé. Urban says her addiction stemmed from low self-esteem and a desire to mute the pain of always feeling like she was "a piece of trash."
Her drinking intensified in her late 20s when she became a mother, had a mortgage and took on more senior roles at a prior corporate job. "As more responsibilities creeped up in my life, my problem got bigger and bigger," she said.
Now that she's working from home full-time, Urban said recovery is harder because she has more time alone with her self-defeating thoughts as she tries to juggle all her roles in a new way.
"My brain says 'You're stupid and you can't do this,'" Urban said. "You need something to take the anxiety away. ... I don't have drinking as an outlet. I'm alone much more with those destructive thoughts than I normally am. I have to figure out how to work through them in a healthy way and during a pandemic."
Colleen Kearney, 44, is also an executive who is a recovering alcoholic. She is separated from her husband, and their 13-year-old daughter lives with her. She works as senior counsel for BrandEd Holdings, which provides academic programs for well-known companies. In March and April, she describes working at a breakneck pace from home as the leader of the company's Covid-19 task force, which had to make difficult personnel decisions and manage the transition to online learning for her clients' education courses.
She said she hadn't worked that hard since she was a "baby lawyer." Unlike earlier in her career, however, she did it sober. She attributes her drinking in part to family history. But her addiction ticked up about six years ago, she said, when she was unhappy at a former job and realized that her marriage wasn't going to work out.
In 2016, her then-boss mandated that she go to an intensive outpatient rehab program. She did, and stayed sober for a year. But then she thought, "If I can stay sober for a year, I don't have a drinking problem." She started drinking again in late 2017. "I did it privately because everyone knew I'd stopped and had had trouble at work," Kearney said.
Her daughter figured out that she was drinking again and she decided to go to rehab for a month. But that experience didn't take either. "I thought the 28 days would work their magic," said Kearney, who didn't attend recovery meetings afterward.
In October 2018, she chose to go to an in-patient program at Caron Treatment Centers, then did a year-long outpatient program and agreed to twice-daily breathalyzer tests. "I didn't want my family to feel they had to supervise me," she said.
Today, she is grateful for the experience because, among other things, it has made her much more present for her daughter. As for the stress of home schooling while working, she feels lucky there too, because her child is older now and doesn't require much hands-on attention during her full days of online classes.
"This would have been much more difficult if she were younger or left with many unstructured hours of her day," Kearney said.
Managing an addiction during a pandemic
The value of staying connected to others and creating structure is relevant for everyone right now, but especially those with addictions who don't want to relapse.
While addiction doesn't care about job titles, it does care about increased stress and major changes, both of which can trigger relapse, said Dr. Marvin Seppala, the chief medical officer of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. "And the stress we're under -- especially for executives -- is off the charts," Seppala said.
Those in management positions face additional stressors as they contend with decisions regarding layoffs and furloughs, and how to protect their business and workforce during twin economic and health crises for which there is no playbook.
Physically going to work often provides a structure and distraction from the temptation to drink or use during the day. Working from home does not.
Among many in recovery, "there's a loneliness for routine and what helped them function," said Dr. Petra Pilgrim, acting director of Steward House at Silver Hill Hospital, which offers residential treatment for executives and professionals with addiction, mood and anxiety disorders.
It's critical to frequently touch base with individuals in your life who help you stay on track, Seppala said. Schedule calls with them at the same time every day, he recommends. "This is essential not only to your work, but to your whole life."
Urban said she makes a concerted effort to stay connected to others, especially those whom she met when she went to rehab at Caron a few years ago. She tries to attend both virtual recovery meetings and outdoor, socially distanced ones three to four times a week.
"The pandemic is putting us back in isolation. Recovery brings you out of the shadows," Urban said.
As for Kearney, she said after working all hours in the spring, she has figured out how to better structure her time so that work doesn't eat up her days and nights quite so much. A big upside to working from home, she said, is that it lets her set aside more time for her workouts, which are essential to her mental health in her recovery. And it's allowed her to join at least three virtual support meetings a week.
One way she says her recovery has made her a better leader, especially during the pandemic, is the empathy she has developed for others during her years of therapy, retreats and rehab both at Caron and with a group called SHE Recovers.
"People aren't just names on a spreadsheet," Kearney said. "They're real people And everybody has a story. Everybody brings something to the table."
English to Chinese: She's on the frontline of a rape epidemic. The pandemic has made her work more dangerous
Source text - English She's on the frontline of a rape epidemic. The pandemic has made her work more dangerous
Editors Note: CNN is committed to covering gender inequality wherever it occurs in the world. This story is part of As Equals, an ongoing series.
Lagos, Nigeria -- At the start of each day, Dr. Anita Kemi DaSilva-Ibru and her team put on gloves, facemasks and other personal protective equipment to see their patients.
They're not treating people for Covid-19, but they are on the frontline of the pandemic, working at the Women at Risk International Foundation (WARIF), a rape crisis center in Lagos, Nigeria. Wearing protective gear is the new reality for crisis center workers, like DaSilva-Ibru.
"We change these kits each time we see a survivor as we are mindful of the risk of transmission of the virus between the survivor and us and the cross-contamination between a survivor and the next," she told CNN.
US-trained gynecologist DaSilva-Ibru has spent most of her career treating hundreds of sexual violence victims but it was the growing scale of the crisis in Nigeria that prompted her to set up WARIF in 2016.
The clinic in Yaba, a suburb of Lagos, provides medical treatment, legal assistance therapy and space for rape victims and survivors of sexual abuse to get back on their feet. One in four Nigerian girls has been the victim of sexual violence, according to UN estimates but DaSilva-Ibru says the numbers are higher as many cases go unreported due to the stigma attached.
In recent weeks, two high profile cases of gender-based violence have brought Nigerian women out onto the streets demanding change.
Uwaila Vera Omozuwa, a 22-year-old microbiology student, was found half-naked in a pool of blood in a local church where she had gone to study after the Covid-19 lockdown left universities across the country shut.
Her family said her attackers raped her and the student died while being treated at the hospital. A few days later, another student, Barakat Bello, was allegedly raped and killed during a robbery at her home, according to human rights group Amnesty International.
"Rape is an epidemic in this country," DaSilva-Ibru told CNN. She says her work with survivors of sexual violence has become more critical during the outbreak, with restrictions to curb the virus from spreading fueling a surge in calls.
It's a story echoed in other parts of the region, as authorities grapple with a growing number of Covid-19 cases and the impact restrictions are having on women.
DaSilva-Ibru said she initially closed the center after authorities locked down the city in March, she had to reconsider the decision as the organization became inundated with SOS messages from sexual violence victims and their guardians.
Staff operating the 24-hour helpline at the center also reported a 64% increase in calls during this period, according to DaSilva-Ibru.
"Our phones were ringing. Women were calling and desperately asking how we can help them, these were women in fear of their lives, as many have now been forced into quarantine with their abusers, in an already volatile environment," DaSilva-Ibru told CNN.
For the center to re-open, DaSilva-Ibru said she had to source PPE, face masks and other protective gear personally and when that was not enough, the center launched an online appeal for funds from donors to buy the equipment at no cost to survivors, she said.
"We carry out forensic examinations on survivors and our frontline health workers who triage and examine patients are in close proximity to the survivors. As much as we need to carry out our duties, we also need to ensure our workers are adequately protected," DaSilva-Ibru told CNN.
The challenges Ibru faces to keep the center open, doesn't compare to what sexual violence victims have experienced as a result of this pandemic, she said. DaSilva-Ibru recalls a woman who told staff at the center that her male friend had raped her in her home during the lockdown.
"The first day we re-opened, we attended to women who had walked many miles in spite of the mandatory lockdown to get to the center. These are women who had been terrorized in their homes," she added.
"She (a survivor) had repeatedly been calling (the center) to find out how she could get help. She feared she might have contracted HIV and wanted to be tested," Ibru said. Speaking to CNN, the woman, who didn't want to use her name to protect her identity, said a co-worker raped her after he came to her apartment unannounced in April.
The young banker said she had previously rebuffed his attempts to visit, but on that Sunday afternoon in April, he showed up at her doorstep.
"He's a friend, not a stranger, so I opened the door for him. I was still asking him what was so urgent that made him leave his home. He said he wanted to check up on me and I told him he could have done that over the phone," she told CNN.
But a few minutes into his visit, the conversation became uncomfortable between them. "He kept coming towards me, and when I told him to stop, he put his hand over my mouth and pinned me on the floor," she said.
She says he apologized after raping her and hurriedly left her house. The survivor told CNN she did not make a police complaint because she was worried about the stigma and strain that the rape might have on her parents.
A friend she confided in told her to reach out to the Lagos Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team who put survivors in touch with treatment centers for help. After several calls to the centers on their website, she was referred to WARIF.
When she went to the clinic, she says staff ran some tests and placed her on Post Exposure Prophylaxis, a HIV prevention treatment for possible exposure. "Sometimes I get really angry, and sometimes I feel numb," she said, reflecting on the assault.
She says she was sick every night for 28 days because of the drugs. "...even though the doctor prepared me for the side effect, it has not been easy," she told CNN. Gender-based violence is a problem in many countries, but the coronavirus pandemic has worsened the situation.
The UN says the raft of measures deployed by governments to fight the pandemic have led to economic hardship, stress, and fear -- conditions that lead to violence against women and girls. Equality Now Regional Coordinator in Africa Judy Gitau told CNN that the wave of unemployment and school closures has put victims in a precarious situation.
She recalls a similar situation in Sierra Leone during the 2014 Ebola outbreak when teenage pregnancies spiked in the country . The government enforced strict stay-at-home orders that closed businesses and schools across the West African nation to curb the spread of the virus, she said.
The restrictions made schoolgirls vulnerable to abuse as some were assaulted in their homes by relatives, and at the same time, a majority of girls from low-income families were coerced to exchange sex for money for food, Gitau said.
"Many of them wound up pregnant but the evidence became available when people were plugging back to life as they knew it as a normal society," she said. Gitau says authorities must know that perpetrators often take advantage of the strict measures to abuse victims without arousing much suspicion.
As state resources are being re-focused to tackle the spread of coronavirus, law enforcement agencies should also respond quickly to reports of abuse and create shelters for victims in need of immediate rescue, she said.
But placing women in shelters, especially in countries battling an outbreak, comes with the additional burden of proof, according to DaSilva-Ibru who said shelters in Lagos city are asking survivors to take coronavirus tests before they can be admitted to prevent infection in their facilities.
Authorities in Lagos designated gender-based violence services essential in May as it eased lockdown into curfews to allow service providers to get to work more smoothly, DaSilva-Ibru said.
The police force says it has now deployed more officers to its stations across the country to respond to the "increasing challenges of sexual assaults and domestic/gender-based violence linked with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic." And last week, governors across the country resolved to declare a state of emergency on rape, according to the Nigerian Governor's Forum (NGF).
It's the first time federal and state authorities are coming out with a united voice to condemn gender violence, DaSilva-Ibru said and it validates the outcry of women in the country and the scale of the problem in Nigeria, she added.
"Violence against women and girls is one of the most pervasive forms of a human rights violation and should be recognized by all countries," DaSilva-Ibru said. "In Nigeria, it has become a national crisis that needs urgent attention. I am pleased that this has been recognized."
English to Chinese: A power plant carved out of a mountain in the Scottish Highlands gets £1 million upgrade
Source text - English A power plant carved out of a mountain in the Scottish Highlands gets £1 million upgrade
KEY POINTS
• Drax Group’s Cruachan Power Station, also known as the “Hollow Mountain,” has a capacity of 440 megawatts.
• As renewable energy capacity expands, storage systems will become more and more important.
A hydroelectric pumped storage facility housed in a hollowed-out Scottish mountain is to benefit from a £1 million ($1.32 million) upgrade to improve its efficiency. Drax Group’s Cruachan Power Station, also known as the “Hollow Mountain,” has a capacity of 440 megawatts and is able to provide power to over 90,000 homes.
Its turbine hall, which is home to four generators, is based one kilometer within Ben Cruachan, a 1,126 meter mountain in the Scottish Highlands. The site was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1965, with its final two turbines coming online in 1966 and 1967.
In an announcement Monday, Drax explained that the site’s programmable logic controller computer system would be replaced, with a company called ITI carrying out the works over a period of three years.
“The existing control systems have served the power station well, but due to evolving technology have become obsolete and inefficient to support,” ITI said in its own announcement, which was also issued on Monday.
ITI explained it would “undertake the design, documentation, implementation, test, installation and commissioning of the upgraded control systems for all four units aimed at providing a robust and resilient solution that will support the station for years to come.”
According to Drax, the Cruachan station uses reversible turbines to take water from Loch Awe, a 41 kilometer long freshwater loch, or lake. In order “to store excess power from the grid”, the turbines pump this water to an upper reservoir on the side of the mountain.
“The stored water is then released back through the turbines to generate power quickly and reliably when demand increases,” the business adds. The site can produce power in under a minute when required.
Its ability to store excess energy was especially useful earlier in the year, Drax said, when coronavirus lockdown measures led to a drop in electricity demand. This drop in demand took place during a period of high wind power generation in Scotland, which created a surplus.
As renewable energy capacity expands, storage systems will become increasingly important. This is because while sources of energy such as the sun and wind are renewable, they do not promise a constant stream of power.
“Cruachan plays a critical role in supporting renewable energy in Scotland and stabilising the electricity grid,” Ian Kinnaird, head of hydro at Drax Group, said in a statement.
“As the country continues to decarbonise, the station’s flexibility has never been more important” Kinnaird added. “This upgrade will ensure the Hollow Mountain can deliver the fast, flexible power that hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses rely on for many decades to come.”
Source text - English Logical progression
David Prosser explains why and how to make considered and circumstantially-appropriate investment choices.
For professional investors such as pension funds, an idea known as “liability-driven investment” has been fashionable for some years now. It’s essentially a complicated way of expressing a very simple idea – that the investments you hold should reflect the reason you make them. So, for example, a retirement fund with large numbers of pensioners who must be paid pensions might choose to hold investments that will generate the income required to service these payments.
It’s really just common sense – if you’re investing for a particular reason, it’s logical to choose the assets you hold on the basis of whether they’re appropriate for this need. All of us should at least be applying the underlying principles of this approach to our own financial planning.
Focus on your goals
What that means in practice is that you need to choose savings and investments on the basis of the goals you hope to achieve – rather than, as is too often the case, on the basis of which market is expected to be hot over the next few months, or which fund manager seems best placed to post stellar returns.
That’s not to say there’s no room for investment decisions based on your views about markets, fund managers and other factors likely to have an impact on performance; but these should be secondary considerations.
Think of it in this way: your financial needs, the duration of your investments and your attitude to risk will provide you with a basic framework for your portfolio – how much you should hold in equities, say, versus fixed income securities or other types of asset. You can then start to fill in the framework by making choices about how you achieve this asset allocation.
In fact, while we all get hung up on whether one particular fund is doing better than another, the final choice of portfolio holdings is much less important than getting the asset allocation right. Academic research suggests that as much as 50 per cent of the performance of your portfolio will depend on asset allocation, a much more significant factor than individual security selection or market timing.
The right fund for the occasion
Moreover, what you’re looking for is performance that delivers your particular financial needs. If you require, say, a consistent income over the next five years in order to help meet school fees, there’s not much point in investing in a fund that pays no income and generates hugely volatile returns – even if that fund turns a huge profit in 10 years’ time.
Similarly, if you’re 35 now and putting money into funds that you plan to use to generate a retirement income in 30 years’ time, it’s seems daft to worry about, say, a six-month run of negative returns.
Successful investment, in other words, is not an absolute discipline – when you choose savings and investment products, you’re not looking for the largest possible profit, counter-intuitive though this might seem, but the perfect return profile for your individual needs. Just like the professional investors, you need assets that are well-matched to your liabilities.
Over time, of course, your needs may change, or you may find that your initial choices aren’t delivering what you hoped for. Keep your investments under review on that basis.
Theory into practice
How, then, to save and invest according to these ideas in practice. Well, the investment companies sector has much to offer, with a range of different funds offering very different profiles. The industry has a good story to tell on income, because investment companies are allowed to keep some dividends back in good years to pay out in leaner times. Its growth record is impressive too, outperforming, on average, comparable open-ended funds over longer periods.
English to Chinese: 'Mix of science and politics' leading to people's uncertainty about Covid-19 vaccine, NIH director says
Source text - English 'Mix of science and politics' leading to people's uncertainty about Covid-19 vaccine, NIH director says
(CNN) The hesitancy of many people to get a Covid-19 vaccine when it becomes available is an issue that needs to be urgently addressed, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins said Wednesday.
"Those who are vaccine hesitant have had their hesitancy enhanced by a variety of things that are happening right now, particularly the unfortunate mix of science and politics," Collins said at an event hosted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
A recent poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that more than half of respondents -- 54% -- said they would not get the vaccine if it was available for free before the November 3 presidential election. Along party lines, 60% of Republicans and 56% of independents said they would not. Half of Democrats said they would.
"I don't want to have us, a year from now, having a conversation about how we have in our hands the solution to the worst pandemic of more than 100 years, but we haven't been able to actually convince people to take charge of it," Collins said.
People need to understand that if not enough people get vaccinated, a vaccine won't help reduce the spread of the virus, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease official, told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
"It's a combination of how effective a vaccine is and how many people use it," he said. "If you have a vaccine that is highly effective and not enough people get vaccinated, you're not going to realize the full, important effect of having a vaccine."
The less protective a vaccine is, the more people need to get it to provide population-wide immunity, Fauci said. President Donald Trump has said a vaccine could be available before the election November 3, and on Wednesday he said a vaccine could be released by mid-October.
Fauci said he still thinks it will be the final months of the year before a vaccine is proven to be safe and effective. ''I would still put my money on November/December," Fauci said during a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute panel on global pandemics.
The CDC head gave a timeline. The President disputed it
The timeline for a Covid vaccine became a major headline Wednesday, when Trump challenged assertions by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Robert Redfield said earlier that a "very limited supply" of a vaccine might be ready in November or December, but it would have to be prioritized for first responders and those at greatest risk for death.
"If you're asking me when is it going to be generally available to the American public, so we can begin to take advantage of vaccine to get back to our regular life, I think we're probably looking at third, late second quarter, third quarter 2021," Redfield told a Senate appropriations subcommittee.
On top of that, "in order to have enough of us immunized so we have immunity, I think it's going to take us six to nine months," he said.
In the meantime, "These face masks are the most important, powerful public health tool we have," Redfield said, holding up a blue face mask, adding that masks may offer more protection than a vaccine. Trump said Redfield was "confused" in his testimony. "I think he made a mistake when he said that. It's just incorrect information," Trump said about Redfield's vaccine timeline.
The President also said Redfield's comments to Congress about masks possibly being more effective than a vaccine were incorrect and that Redfield may have misunderstood the question. "Maybe he misunderstood it," Trump said, later adding, "As far as the masks are concerned, I hope that the vaccine is going to be a lot more beneficial than the masks."
A CDC spokesman said in a statement that Redfield was answering a question he thought was in regard to the time period in which all Americans would have completed their Covid vaccination, and his estimate was by the second or third quarter of 2021. "He was not referring to the time period when Covid-19 vaccine doses would be made available to all Americans," the spokesman said.
In a later statement, Redfield said that he believes in the "importance of vaccines and the importance in particular of a Covid-19 vaccine."
Distrust is hindering surveillance of Covid-19 spread
Distrust in government agencies is hindering surveillance of Covid-19 spread, said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
"It is very challenging in many areas today, where we're seeing people who do not want to participate in any kind of follow up with regard to surveillance, because of their distrust of government and the public health system," he said during an American Public Health Association webinar.
Surveillance helps public health officials by collecting information on infected people, such as where they were exposed and who they've been in contact with, and the course of their illness.
Fauci said the variability in how the coronavirus affects people has helped fuel misunderstandings about who can spread the virus and when. At least 40% of patients have no symptoms, while some stay ill for months on end, Fauci said.
"One of the things we're dealing with in this country is a real lack of understanding of the importance of everybody trying to prevent getting infected rather than inadvertently... propagating the outbreak..." Fauci said during a virtual panel sponsored by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.
Of all the viral diseases and emerging infections that he's encountered throughout his career, Fauci said he has "never seen anything with a range" like this virus.
"It's just completely unique to see that degree of variability of a single microbe, which means there are things that are determining that, that we still at this point don't understand," he said.
7 coronavirus deaths are linked to 1 wedding
A wedding in Maine is linked to 176 Covid-19 cases and the deaths of seven people who didn't attend the celebration -- showing just how easily and quickly coronavirus can spread at social gatherings, public health experts say.
For months, doctors have stressed the importance of wearing masks, social distancing, and avoiding large gatherings.
But outbreaks have stemmed from Memorial Day events, Fourth of July celebrations and a massive motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. The wedding in Millinocket on August 7 had about 65 guests, a violation of the state's 50-person limit for indoor events, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The event is linked to outbreaks that have unfolded at a nursing home and a jail, both more than 100 miles away from the wedding venue, among people who had only secondary or tertiary contact with an attendee.
Residents at Maplecrest Rehabilitation and Living Center accounted for 39 cases tied to the wedding and six of the seven deaths thus far, Maine CDC Director Dr. Nirav D. Shah said. "The virus favors gatherings," Shah added. "It does not distinguish between happy events like a wedding celebration, or sad farewells, like a funeral."
Despite such somber warnings, about 1,500 people descended on a New Jersey boardwalk house featured in MTV's "Jersey Shore" on Monday night, ending in eight arrests, Seaside Heights police said.
The event was organized by a group of YouTube pranksters, according to Seaside Heights Police Detective Steve Korman, and officials say they are now worried about how they will track possible infections among more than a thousand people.
Universities try to get ahead of outbreaks
Outbreaks keep cropping up at colleges and universities, prompting some to go to virtual learning again. More than 50,000 coronavirus cases have been reported at colleges and universities in all 50 states. Citing a significant rise in cases among students, the University of Colorado Boulder announced a 14-day quarantine period for students living within the city.
The University of Arizona is taking a similar approach, urging students to shelter in place until the end of the month after a large number of positive cases. The university reported 261 positive cases on Monday, according to the school's coronavirus dashboard.
At the University of Missouri, two students were expelled and three were suspended for violating rules that require students who test positive to isolate and comply with social distancing.
"These students willfully put others at risk, and that is never acceptable. We will not let the actions of a few take away the opportunity for in-person learning that more than 8,000 faculty and staff have worked so hard to accomplish for the more than 30,000 MU students," the university said in a statement Tuesday.
Translation - Chinese 美國國立衛生研究院主任說，“科學與政治的融合”導致人們對Covid-19疫苗的不確定性
English to Chinese: Yes, you can have Covid-19 and the flu at the same time. Here's what that could do to your body
Source text - English Yes, you can have Covid-19 and the flu at the same time. Here's what that could do to your body
(CNN) As doctors worry about a coronavirus-and-flu "twin-demic" that could overwhelm the health care system, Americans must contend with another possibility: fighting both viruses at the same time.
"You can certainly get both the flu and Covid-19 at the same time, which could be catastrophic to your immune system," said Dr. Adrian Burrowes, a family medicine physician in Florida. In fact, getting infected with one can make you more vulnerable to getting sick with the other, epidemiologist Dr. Seema Yasmin said.
"Once you get infected with the flu and some other respiratory viruses, it weakens your body," said Yasmin, director of the Stanford Health Communication Initiative. "Your defenses go down, and it makes you vulnerable to getting a second infection on top of that."
On their own, both Covid-19 and the flu can attack the lungs, potentially causing pneumonia, fluid in the lungs or respiratory failure, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Each illness can also cause sepsis, cardiac injury and inflammation of the heart, brain or muscle tissues.
Having both illness simultaneously "would increase the risk of longer-term effects of any of those organ systems," said Dr. Michael Matthay, a professor of medicine and a critical care specialist at the University of California, San Francisco.
But it's too early to know exactly how much worse that double whammy could be, compared to having each virus on its own.
That's because Covid-19 didn't spread across the US until near the end of the last flu season, Matthay said. So there's not a lot of data yet on people who get both illnesses at the same time.
But Matthay suspects the potential for pneumonia would be greater if the body is infected with both the flu and coronavirus. "The two (viruses) together definitely could be more injurious to the lungs and cause more respiratory failure," he said.
Respiratory failure doesn't necessarily mean your lungs stop working. It means the lungs can't get enough oxygen into the blood.
"Acute respiratory failure can be a life-threatening emergency," the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute says. "Respiratory failure may cause damage to your lungs and other organs, so it is important to get treated quickly."
How can I tell if I have Covid-19 or the flu (or both)?
"Symptoms of influenza and Covid-19 are pretty similar, so it's difficult to distinguish the two," said Dr. Leonard Mermel, medical director for the Department of Epidemiology and Infection Control at Rhode Island Hospital.
Both the flu and Covid-19 can give you a fever, cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, sore throat, body aches and a runny or stuffy nose, the CDC said. "Some people may have vomiting and diarrhea, though this is more common in children than adults," the CDC said. But unlike the flu, Covid-19 can cause a loss of taste or smell.
And about half of coronavirus transmissions happen between people who don't show any symptoms. (Many of those people are pre-symptomatic and are more contagious before they start showing symptoms.)
So the best way to know if you have the novel coronavirus or the flu (or both) is to get tested. The CDC has created a test that will check for both viruses, to be used at CDC-supported public health labs. The agency said it is continuing to manufacture and distribute these tests.
How can I avoid this flu-Covid-19 double whammy?
Wear a mask and keep physical distancing. Health officials have stressed the importance of masks and physical distancing if Americans want to control Covid-19 -- and get the economy back on track.
With the imminent flu season, such precautions can "doubly protect us from both of those viruses," Yasmin said. In the Southern Hemisphere, which is just ending its winter months and flu season, several countries have reported astonishingly low flu numbers as people wear masks and social distance.
In Australia, for example, the number of lab-confirmed flu cases plummeted from 61,000 in August 2019 to 107 cases this August.
But in the US, some people are getting lax about mask wearing and social distancing. And that's a big problem, said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
She said there could be a "perfect storm of accelerated Covid-19 activity, as people gather more -- inside, in particular -- as they become continually fatigued with the mask wearing, the social distancing and the hand hygiene, and as they are exposed to seasonal influenza."
Get a flu vaccine. This may sound obvious. Yet about half of all Americans don't get vaccinated against the flu, including most children who die from the flu.
Even if you get a flu shot and still catch the flu later, the symptoms are usually less severe than if you got no flu vaccine at all. And since no Covid-19 vaccine is publicly available yet, the flu shot is the only way you can help inoculate yourself against having both viruses at the same time.
Pediatricians say it's important for children 6 months and older to get the flu vaccine, ideally before the end of October. "Timely influenza vaccination is particularly important" this flu season, the American Academy of Pediatrics wrote this week.
Getting a flu shot can also help many more people than just yourself, said immunologist Dr. Susan Bailey, president of the American Medical Association.
"Since hospitals and doctors' offices are going to be very busy caring for Covid-19 patients, a flu vaccine can help decrease burdens on the health care system and make sure that those who need medical care are able to get it," Bailey said.
About 140,000 to 810,000 Americans get hospitalized with the flu each year, according to the CDC. And the number of Covid-19 hospitalizations are expected to surge more than 150% between now and December 1, according to the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
"Every year, many patients get severe influenza with respiratory failure," Matthay said. Among patients who get severe pneumonia from the flu, "the vast majority of those patients have not had their flu vaccine that year."
CNN's Amanda Watts, Jen Rose Smith, John Bonifield, Jacqueline Howard and Elizabeth Cohen contributed to this report.
Translation - Chinese 是的，您可以同時感染Covid-19和流感。 這就是可能對您的身體造成的傷害
English to Chinese: Beirut rescuers search site for possible survivor 30 days after explosion
Source text - English Beirut rescuers search site for possible survivor 30 days after explosion
Beirut, Lebanon (CNN) Rescue teams in Beirut continue to hunt through rubble on Friday after signs of life were detected 30 days after a massive explosion destroyed much of the city's downtown coastal area.
A pulse signal is still being detected in the ruins in the Mar Mikhael area of the Lebanese capital. Rescuers traced what they believed to be a heartbeat signal to locations under the debris, but no survivors were found, members of the Lebanese civil defense told CNN. "We did not find anybody at the location where the machine detected," said one volunteer with the civil defense Qasem Khater.
However, another volunteer Mansour Al Asmat, said rescuers had detected a heartbeat signal at another location under the rubble. "The more obstacles we remove, the more the signal of the machine gives a closer sign [of] the exact area," he said.
Civil defense volunteers remain in place, but warned that the search operation needed to come to an end. Asmat said rescuers remained 100% certain there was a body underneath the rubble but that the person might "not necessarily" be alive.
"The dog is smelling a body for sure," he told CNN on Friday. "We're depending on the machine and the dog." Asmat added that there was a slight chance that the machine could be detecting something else, such as a watch, instead of a heartbeat.
"Maybe there is nothing but as long as the trained dog is marking a human body and the machine is giving us a heartbeat we will continue searching," he said. "Combining these two results, means there is something."
Search teams swarmed to the site, a neighborhood near the epicenter of last month's blast, on Thursday after rescue teams detected movement deep within debris. Rescuers worked under floodlights in humid summer conditions to remove portions of a wall with a crane as a crowd stood by, anxious for updates.
On Friday morning local time, thermal imaging showed body heat in the rubble, while rescuers also detected eight breaths per minute amid the debris, Eddy Bitar co-founder of Live Love Beirut, an NGO helping with rescue efforts, told CNN. Yesterday the teams heard 18 breaths per minute.
Rescuers asked a crowd of about 200 onlookers to be silent so their equipment could better detect any breath or heartbeats of a possible survivor. Members of the crowd switched off their phones as they awaited news.
The search was sparked by a rescue dog that passed the destroyed building with a Chilean rescue team on Thursday and indicated signs of life, said Eddy Bitar, a local non-governmental organization worker.
Thermal imaging later showed two bodies -- one small body curled up next to a larger body. A listening device also registered a respiratory cycle of 18 per minute, Bitar said. "There's a small chance that the person is still alive," Bitar said.
Rescue teams dug tunnels through thick concrete debris to reach the site of the potential survivor. Francisco Lermanda, a worker with Chilean search and rescue NGO Topos Chile, was cautious about the prospect of finding someone alive after so many days beneath the rubble. But he didn't rule it out. One person survived 28 days under rubble in Haiti, he added.
Tension at the site
Thursday's search was temporarily suspended over concerns that a wall could collapse and endanger the lives of the rescue team, Beirut fire brigade officer Lieutenant Michel El-Mur said. After the search was suspended on Thursday night, local time, a protest of around 100 people erupted outside the site.
"That breath is our last breath. It's our last hope. You should all be ashamed," yelled protester Melissa Atallah. One woman was heard saying: "We have been here for a month, can't you stay up for one night?"
Scores poured into the site of the rescue effort after the Chilean team had left, demanding the immediate resumption of the operation. One woman said she ordered a crane, while other protesters climbed up the wreckage offering to search for the body themselves.
Tension continued to grow until soldiers told the protesters that the team and its equipment would be returning to the site imminently.
Multiple people CNN spoke to said a strong, putrid smell emanated from the destroyed building in the aftermath of the blast. One woman said she repeatedly alerted authorities about it and urged them to search the site.
"Two weeks ago we were protesting here and we smelled what felt like 'old blood'," said Reine Abbas. "If they had checked back then, then the body would probably be alive today." "But this is Lebanon."
Enormous blast
The explosion tore through Beirut's port on August 4, killing 190 people, injuring more than 6,000, and leaving more than 300,000 displaced from their homes.
It was linked to nearly 3,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate which had been stored at Beirut's port for six years. Ammonium nitrate is a highly volatile material used in agricultural fertilizers and explosives.
After the explosion, Lebanon's Prime Minister Hassan Diab said it was "unacceptable" that the shipment of ammonium nitrate had been stored in a warehouse on Beirut's port for six years. But documents suggest that multiple government agencies in Lebanon were informed about the presence of the ammonium nitrate -- including the Ministry of Justice.
The explosion sparked fury in Lebanon, where the government has been plagued by accusations of corruption and gross mismanagement, and plunged the country even further into economic turmoil.
Following the blasts, Beirut was rocked by violent protests for days, with demonstrators calling for "revenge" against the ruling class of politicians widely held responsible. Protesters occupied several government ministries and threw stones and shards of glass at security forces. Police fired hundreds of rounds of tear gas as well rubber bullets and, in some cases, live fire.
Less than a week after the blast, Lebanon's government stepped down, with Diab calling the blast a "disaster beyond measure." He berated Lebanon's ruling political elite for fostering what he called "an apparatus of corruption bigger than the state." Lebanese President Michel Aoun has said it would be "impossible" for him to resign because it would lead to a power vacuum.
At the end of last month, Lebanon's leaders designated the country's ambassador to Germany, Mustapha Adib, as the new premier. "There is no time for talk, promises and wishes. It is a time for action," Adib said in a short acceptance speech.
English to Chinese: Impossible Foods forces Nestlé to stop selling 'Incredible Burgers' in Europe
Source text - English Impossible Foods forces Nestlé to stop selling 'Incredible Burgers' in Europe
London (CNN Business) Nestlé will stop marketing its plant-based burgers as "incredible" in Europe after a Dutch court found that using the word infringes on an Impossible Foods trademark. The District Court in The Hague last week handed down an injunction in favor of the US startup, which is preparing to launch its Impossible Burger in Europe, court papers show.
According to a preliminary ruling, Nestlé infringed upon the Impossible Burger trademark, which was registered in the European Union last year, by calling its product the Incredible Burger. The court said the words "impossible" and "incredible" sound and appear similar, and the overlap could confuse customers.
Nestlé (NSRGF) has been given four weeks to withdraw its "Incredible" products from retailers or face €25,000 ($27,700) a day in fines for each of its 10 subsidiary companies involved in the case.
"We are disappointed by this provisional ruling as it is our belief that anyone should be able to use descriptive terms such as 'incredible' that explain the qualities of a product," Nestlé said in a statement. "We will of course abide by this decision, but in parallel, we will file an appeal," it added.
Nestlé said it was preparing to launch a new burger recipe using the "Sensational" descriptor. It will apply that name to all products that previously used the word "Incredible" in Europe, including its imitation meat patty, which becomes the "Sensational Burger." The company uses Awesome Burger branding in the United States.
Growing consumption of plant-based proteins has pulled established food producers like Nestlé into the battle for market share, while enabling newcomers like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat (BYND) to expand rapidly. Impossible Foods secured about $500 million in fresh funding in March, in a sign that investors are betting the trend is here to stay. Meat shortages in the United States linked to disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic have driven consumption of meat substitutes even higher.
Nestlé approached Impossible Foods in the summer of 2018 to negotiate a possible licensing agreement regarding the Impossible Burger, according to the ruling, which cited legal submissions made by Impossible Foods.
The global food giant announced the launch of the Incredible Burger while these negotiations were still ongoing, raising the suspicion that it is trying to "frustrate the successful launch" of the Impossible Burger in Europe, the court found.
Nestlé, which had previously sought to declare the Impossible Burger trademark invalid, launched its Incredible Burger in Europe in April 2019 under its Garden Gourmet brand. That was followed by the September launch of the Awesome Burger in the United States. According to the judgment, Impossible Foods wrote to Nestlé USA in January 2019 warning that the Incredible Burger infringes on the American Impossible Burger trademark.
Impossible Foods is waiting for European food safety regulators to approve the genetically modified ingredients contained in its burger, according to the judgment. The Impossible Burger contains soy leghemoglobin (heme), a genetically modified yeast, which makes it taste like meat.
The US startup filed similar injunctions against Nestlé in regional German courts last year, but withdrew them after the courts told them they would not be granted.
Impossible Foods said in a statement that it applauds efforts to develop plant-based products but doesn't want consumers to be confused. "We're grateful that the court recognized the importance of our trademarks and supported our efforts to protect our brand against incursion from a powerful multinational giant," said chief legal officer Dana Wagner.
English to Chinese: Weed is not good for your heart, studies say
Source text - English Weed is not good for your heart, studies say
(CNN) You may love smoking weed, but it does not love your heart, according to the American Heart Association's new scientific statement on marijuana.
"The American Heart Association recommends that people not smoke or vape any substance, including cannabis products, because of the potential harm to the heart, lungs and blood vessels," said Dr. Rose Marie Robertson, the deputy chief science and medical officer for the American Heart Association, in a statement.
The new scientific statement, published Wednesday in the AHA journal Circulation, examined existing research on the connection between cannabis and the heart.
The statement found using weed has "the potential to interfere with prescribed medications" as well as "trigger cardiovascular conditions or events, such as heart attacks and strokes," said clinical pharmacologist Robert Page II, who chaired the medical writing group for the statement.
Anyone planning to use marijuana should discuss possible risks with their health professional first, said Page, who is a professor in the department of clinical pharmacy and physical medicine/rehabilitation at the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in Aurora, Colorado.
"If people choose to use cannabis for its medicinal or recreational effects, the oral and topical forms, for which doses can be measured, may reduce some of the potential harms," Page said in a statement.
"It is also vitally important that people only use legal cannabis products because there are no controls on the quality or the contents of cannabis products sold on the street," he added.
Heart complications
Some of the studies analyzed by the medical group found heart rhythm abnormalities, such as tachycardia and atrial fibrillation, could occur within the hour after weed containing THC is smoked. THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, is the psychoactive substance within marijuana that creates a "high."
Tetrahydrocannabinol can also cause a faster heart rate, increase the heart's need for oxygen, disrupt the walls of arteries and contribute to higher blood pressure while prone, according to other studies.
"Cannabis smoke contains components similar to tobacco smoke," Page said, and studies show tobacco-like increases in carbon monoxide and tar in a weed smoker's blood after smoking marijuana, regardless of the THC content.
Chest pain, heart attacks, heart rhythm disturbances and other serious heart conditions are associated with both tobacco and marijuana carbon monoxide intoxication, the statement said.For anyone with existing heart disease, risks go up. Smoking weed has triggered heart attacks, a higher risk of strokes and heart failure in people with underlying heart disease, studies show.
In comparison, CBD, or cannabidiol, one of the other 80 chemicals in cannabis, does not give the "high" typically associated with THC. Nor does it appear to cause harm to the heart.
In fact, studies reviewed by the medical group showed possible links to lower blood pressure, reduced heart rate and less inflammation, which is an underlying culprit of the narrowing of the arteries that can lead to heart disease and strokes.
However, despite the hundreds of products currently being sold over the counter and online, there is only one CBD-derived product approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, the group wrote.
'Urgent' need for in-depth research
There is one caveat to all these research findings: Existing studies on marijuana and the heart are "short-term, observational and retrospective studies, which identify trends but do not prove cause and effect," Page said.
There is an "urgent" need for "carefully designed, prospective short- and long-term studies regarding cannabis use and cardiovascular safety," Page added.
But that's tough to do in today's climate, because marijuana is classified as a Schedule I controlled substance by the US Drug Enforcement Agency. That limits research dramatically, and the DEA should remove those restrictions so that scientists can better study marijuana's effects, the group advised.
In addition, the medical group recommended cannabis to be part of the US Food and Drug Administration's tobacco control and prevention efforts, which may mean that there would be age restrictions on who can purchase weed, retailer regulations and even excise taxes.
The American Heart Association is looking over the scientific statement and will be releasing new policy updates in coming weeks, according to Michelle Kirkwood, an AHA spokesperson. "The public needs fact-based, valid scientific information about cannabis's effect on the heart and blood vessels," Page said.
"Research funding at federal and state levels must be increased to match the expansion of cannabis use -- to clarify the potential therapeutic properties and to help us better understand the cardiovascular and public health implications of frequent cannabis use."
English to Chinese: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste
Source text - English California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste
OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - California regulators sued Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO.O) on Tuesday, accusing it of discriminating against an Indian-American employee and allowing him to be harassed by two managers because he was from a lower Indian caste than them.
U.S. employment law does not specifically bar caste-based discrimination, but California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing contends in the lawsuit that the Hindu faith’s lingering caste system is based on protected classes such as religion.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Jose, does not name the alleged victim. It states he has been a principal engineer at Cisco’s San Jose headquarters since October 2015 and that he was born at the bottom of caste hierarchy as a Dalit, once called “untouchables.”
Like other large Silicon Valley employers, Cisco’s workforce includes thousands of Indian immigrants, most of whom were born Brahmins or other high castes. Former Cisco engineering managers Sundar Iyer and Ramana Kompella also are defendants in the lawsuit, which accuses them of harassment for internally enforcing the caste hierarchy.
Cisco spokeswoman Robyn Blum said the network gear maker followed its process to investigate employee concerns in this case and would “vigorously defend itself” against the lawsuit.
“Cisco is committed to an inclusive workplace for all,” she said. “We were fully in compliance with all laws as well as our own policies.”
Iyer and Kompella did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It was not immediately known if the two have retained attorneys. The civil rights group Equality Labs in a 2018 report cited in the lawsuit found that 67% of Dalits surveyed felt treated unfairly at their U.S. workplaces.
At Cisco, the unnamed employee reported Iyer to human resources in November 2016 for outing him as a Dalit to colleagues. Iyer allegedly retaliated, but Cisco determined caste discrimination was not illegal and issues continued through 2018, the lawsuit states.
Cisco reassigned and isolated the employee, rejected a raise and opportunities that would have led to one and denied two promotions, according to the lawsuit. Hindus traditionally grouped people into four major castes based on ancestry, and Dalits in India still struggle with access to education and jobs 65 years after India banned caste-based discrimination.
English to Chinese: How Covid-19 May Transform Urban Life
Source text - English How Covid-19 May Transform Urban Life
Knowledge-intensive industries have long been centered in cities and surrounding metropolitan areas, where they’ve had the most access to a college educated, high skill workforce. But from Milan to New York, high density, globally connected urban areas have been ground zero for the spread of Covid-19. Are cities now at risk of losing the superstar status they’ve enjoyed over the past several decades?
This is not the first time we’ve asked this question in the recent past. In the mid-late 1990s, some predicted that the internet would lead to the decline of cities, because it would enable people to work and shop from home, be in touch with their friends over e-mail, and get access to news and entertainment online.
But instead of declining, megacities have continued to generate the greatest levels of innovation and good jobs, and thus attract a disproportionate share of the world’s talent.
Why have urban areas fared so well, especially over the past few decades?
About 25 years ago, physicist Geoffrey West, distinguished professor and past president of the Santa Fe Institute, got interested in whether some of the techniques from the world of physics could be applied to the study of complex biological and social systems. In particular, he wondered if we could apply empirical, quantifiable and predictive scientific methods to help us better understand cities and other highly complex social organizations.
Dr. West and his collaborators analyzed an extensive body of data about cities around the world to explore the scaling relations between population and a wide range of infrastructure and socioeconomic measures. They discovered that the measurable infrastructure of cities--the lengths of roadways and electrical lines, energy consumption, the number of gas stations--scale sublinearly, with a scaling factor of .85.
That means that cities enjoy a 15% benefit in economies of scale. If the population of a city doubles, its infrastructure needs to only increase by a factor of 1.85. This 15% benefit was true for cities of any size across the world as well as for any measurable infrastructure.
The results also scale with population, but instead of following a sublinear .85 scaling factor, socioeconomic attributes scale exponentially, with a superlinear factor of 1.15. That means that if you double the population of a city, there will be a roughly 15% increase in productivity, wages, entertainment and educational institutions, and so on.
The exponential scaling of these positive socioeconomic measures makes cities even more attractive to talented people which in turn reinforces their appeal, leading to network effects and the rise of superstars cities.
“However, some bad and ugly come with it,” said Dr. West. “And the bad and ugly are things like a systematic increase in crime and various diseases, like AIDS, flu and so on.” These serious negative problems scale at the same 15% as the cities’ attractive qualities. Which brings us to Covid-19.
“The Covid-19 pandemic creates such uncertainty because it strikes at the heart of our urban world,” wrote Harvard economist Edward Glaeser in a recent article, Cities and Pandemics Have a Long History. Mr. Glaeser’s article recounts some of this long history:
• in 430 BC the plague of Athens killed tens of thousands including its prominent leader Pericles, contributing to Athens’ defeat in the Peloponnesian War and its eclipse as the center of the ancient Mediterranean civilization;
•
• in 541 AD the plague of Justinian struck Constantinople, killing a fifth of its population and ending emperor Justinian’s attempt to rebuild the glory of Roman empire;
•
• in 1347 the flea-borne Black Death slaughtered 100-200 million people in Europe, the Near East and North Africa, with cities being particularly vulnerable to the spread of the disease; and
•
• in 1918 the Spanish flu infected around 500 million people, - about a third of the world’s population at the time, - and killed an estimated 50 million around the world.
•
Let me briefly summarize a few of their key points.
Urban studies professor and author Richard Florida is optimistic: “Some aspects of our cities and metropolitan areas will be reshaped… a desire for safer, more private surroundings may pull some toward the suburbs and rural areas ...But other forces will push people back toward the great urban centers… Great cities will survive the coronavirus.”
Mr. Glaeser warns of potential economic consequences. “If pandemics become the new normal, then tens of millions of urban service jobs will disappear. The only chance to prevent this labor market Armageddon is to invest billions of dollars intelligently in anti-pandemic health care infrastructure.”
Georgetown professor Rebecca Katz wonders if the decline of cities some predicted in the 1990s will finally come to pass given our significantly more advanced digital infrastructures. “Yet we also fully expect that municipal leaders will excel at disease preparedness and response,” she said. “We will develop best practices for protecting population health in cities, which will help keep urban environments attractive.”
Finally, former NYC deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff makes a strong argument for taking this opportunity to build better cities. “When people do return to cities - as they always have in the past - we must leverage new policies and technologies to make urban life more affordable and sustainable for more people.”
Irving Wladawsky-Berger worked at IBM from 1970 to 2007, and has been a strategic adviser to Citigroup, HBO and Mastercard and a visiting professor at Imperial College. He's been affiliated with MIT since 2005, and is a regular contributor to CIO Journal.
Translation - Chinese COVID-19 如何改變城市生活
長期以來，知識密集型產業一直集中在城市和周邊都會區，在這些地區，他們最容易獲得受過大學教育的高技能勞動力。但是，從米蘭到紐約，高密度，全球相連的城市區域對Covid-19的傳播幾乎為零。現在的城市是否有失去過去幾十年來享有的超級巨星地位的風險？
大約25年前，物理學家（Geoffrey West），聖達菲 研究所（Santa Fe Institute）的傑出教授和前任校長對是否可以將物理學世界中的某些技術用於研究複雜的生物和社會系統感興趣。他特別想知道我們是否可以採用經驗，可量化和可預測的科學方法來幫助我們更好地了解城市和其他高度複雜的社會組織。
English to Chinese: What and Who will define beauty in the year of 2050 ?
Source text - English What and Who will define beauty in the year of 2050 ?
The definition of beauty changes all the time. And sometimes, as society develops, it goes in cycles, like the changing of the four seasons. Not so long ago, Chinese people saw fashion as something that came from the West. Afraid to make "mistakes," they looked to Europe and America to see which standards had been set. As a result, fashion in China looked pale and blurry.
But now, the Internet, technology and social media have rendered the world flat. Fashion can be accessed from anywhere, with styles from around the world cohabiting and influencing one another. Go to a high-end Beijing department store, for instance, and you'll see shoppers holding Hermes bags and wearing Chanel tops with Uggs -- all while holding a string of Buddhist prayer beads in their hands. Fusion is the future of fashion.
As a visual artist who grew up in this "new" China, I witnessed my generation's material dreams become a reality. I look to my background for inspiration. But I also believe that repetition is a disease -- and I don't want my work to reinforce stereotypes. Images of dragons and phoenixes are powerful, but when people use them again and again, they lose the power to be fresh or exciting. I want to capture the real contemporary China, not to please people with cliches.
The country my generation now inhabits is no longer isolated from outside information and ideas. I use technology in my photography, and I believe this is the future of visual art. If technology can help artists present things in new and better ways, why shouldn't we embrace it? There is no need for artists to live in the past. After all, we live in a world where artificial intelligence is so advanced that it can create art free from human input.
AI is a new species created by humankind. We give it language and the ability to do certain things -- just as we do our own children. But, like a child, when AI has matured enough, it will develop its own language and its own abilities.
We may bestow AI with creativity, but that doesn't mean it can't be creative in its own right. Artificial thinking and decision-making is rooted in the power and experience of countless human minds, so it's only logical that this will result in better, bigger and more advanced brains than our own.
It has already created wonderful examples of painting and music. Yet, some critics question whether anything created this way can ever be considered real art. This is because most people have a limited understanding of AI.
They see it as unfathomably complex, or the stuff of science fiction. But applying AI to visual art need not be high-tech. Even the simplest of photo processing apps owe their existence to the development of AI, and its applications will only widen in the near future.
。
This relationship between technology and aesthetics is like that of science and philosophy -- in an ideal world, the two walk side by side. Achieving such a balance requires artists to master both, combining art and skill in the process.
Visual language is that which doesn't need translation. We are born unable to talk, but we can immediately see blue skies, red flowers and human emotion. What we see can make us feel pleased or worried, fearful or safe. For this reason, I believe that in a globalized world, the future should be -- and will be -- more visual.
Having said that, I can't predict what the future of visual art will look like. None of us can. The world changes too fast, and the possibilities of the future will far exceed anything we attempt to envision today. But I can talk about my hopes.
I hope people become better at communicating with their hearts. I hope we focus more on content, not format. I hope that we can all learn from the traditional Chinese values that keep life and nature in harmony. We need to find balance in diversity, like a symphony.
Translation - Chinese 到2050年，美麗將由什麼和誰來定義？
美麗的定義一直在變化。有時，隨著社會的發展，它會像四個季節的變化一樣週期性地運轉。
不久前，中國人將時尚視為來自西方的東西。 他們害怕犯下“錯誤”，因此向歐洲和美國看，確定了哪些標準已經設定。結果，中國的時尚顯得蒼白而模糊。
但是現在，互聯網，技術和社交媒體使世界變得平坦。可以從任何地方訪問時尚，世界各地的風格同居並相互影響。例如，去北京一家高檔百貨公司，您會看到購物者拿著Hermes的手提袋，穿著帶Uggs的Chanel上衣-手裡都拿著一串佛教念珠。融合是時尚的未來。
作為在這個“新”中國成長的視覺藝術家，我目睹了這一代人的物質夢想成真。我從我的背景中尋找靈感。但是我也相信重複是一種疾病-而且我不希望自己的工作加強刻板印象。龍和鳳凰的圖像很強大，但是當人們一次又一次地使用它們時，它們就會失去新鮮感或刺激性的力量。我想捕捉真正的當代中國，而不是取悅那些陳詞濫調的人。
English to Chinese: U.S. politicians, please listen to COVID-19 professionals
Source text - English U.S. politicians, please listen to COVID-19 professionals
Dr. Rick Bright, who was ousted last month as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, has filed a whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. In the 86-page document, he lists numerous examples of the government's mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic and claims that he was removed from post illegally. "I was pressured to let politics and cronyism drive decisions over the opinions of the best scientists we have in government," said the infectious disease expert.
According to CNN, Bright issued a series of warnings to senior health officials at an internal meeting in January, cautioning against problems including a serious shortage of medical protective materials, such as face masks. His concerns were met with "indifference which then developed into hostility" by leaders at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). "It became increasingly clear [...] that HHS leadership was doing nothing to prepare for the imminent mask shortage," he said.
The slow response to the pandemic by U.S. decision makers was highlighted in an article carried by The Washington Post. It said that it took 70 days from that initial notification for President Trump to finally realize that coronavirus was not a distant threat or a harmless flu strain well under control. He downplayed the coronavirus 34 times and said that it would "miraculously" go away 13 times. It was not until the outbreak inside the country triggered massive stock market slumps that the U.S. leadership decided to implement stronger measures.
What happened in the States during the early days of the pandemic is reflected in an old Chinese saying, which says it's easy to defeat the demon in the mountain but hard to beat the demon in one's heart. Politicians' obsession with personal political gains led to the lack of respect and protection of people's lives and well-being. Tens of thousands have fallen victim to U.S. political vanity.
Bright also noted in his complaint that he was removed because "his efforts to prioritize science and safety over political expediency and to expose practices that posed a substantial risk to public health and safety, especially as it applied to chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, rankled those in the Administration who wished to continue to push this false narrative."
What he endured was partly the result of anti-intellectualism and populism that has been spreading across the country. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top medical expert on the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S., has also faced such challenge. He has been criticized by top decision makers and right-wing politicians because of his insistence on scientific prevention and control approaches. Dr. Fauci was even blocked by the White House last week from testifying at a House hearing on the government's pandemic response. He has even faced death threats.
Furthermore, Bright exposed months of turmoil inside one of the key HHS divisions charged with responding to the coronavirus pandemic. This comes as no surprise as decision makers were busy with verbal fights. The governors of New York, New Jersey and other states complained to the media that the lack of coordinated action by the federal government had caused tremendous chaos in various places and had left them scrambling for pandemic prevention resources.
According to Business Insider, the White House's shadow coronavirus task force used a spreadsheet called 'VIP Update' to procure personal protective equipment from inexperienced Trump allies over legitimate vendors. It is why the CNN article said that Dr. Bright's allegations "raised serious questions about political bias creeping into the government's response to the pandemic."
The pandemic should not be used for personal political gains. Politicians in Washington must focus on scientific prevention itself so the nation can emerge from under the dark cloud of the virus at the earliest opportunity.
Washington Post《華盛頓郵報》發表的一篇文章強調了美國決策者對這一大流行病反應遲鈍。它說，從最初發出通知以來，特朗普總統花了70天的時間才終於意識到，冠狀病毒並不是一個可以控制的遙遠威脅或無害的流感毒株. 他對冠狀病毒輕描淡寫了34次，並說它將“奇蹟般地”消失13次。直到美國國內爆發疫情引發大規模股市暴跌，美國領導層才決定採取更強有力的措施。
English to Chinese: Planning meetings and events in Japan
Source text - English Planning meetings and events in Japan
For business event and meeting organisers, Japan is an alluring destination that offers world-class venues, outstanding hospitality and unique cultural experiences that effortlessly blend traditional and contemporary.
Beyond the major business destinations of Tokyo and Osaka, Japan has a wide variety of destinations brimming with character and charm to ensure that your next business meeting or event is a success.
Travel beyond Tokyo
Hamish Keith is the CEO of EXO Travel, which is based in Bangkok and has offices in 25 locations around the world. For 2020, EXO has already scheduled 20 groups, ranging from 18 to 200-plus participants, booked on (mostly) incentive tours to Japan. Yet even with large groups, Keith says it’s possible to create intimate, bespoke experiences in Japan.
“We’ve done sumo training visits in Tokyo – and sumo training stables are small venues – where we took 20 to 30 people at a time, working with four stables, and were able to accommodate 180 people in a single morning,” he says. “In Kyoto, we took 90 people for a tea ceremony and then taiko drum experience, before hosting a dinner with geiko (the Kyoto term for geisha) and maiko (apprentice geiko).”
“Getting around Japan with a large group is smooth too. The transportation network is excellent. We’ve been able to book out entire carriages on the bullet train – riding that is an experience many people love in itself.”
While Tokyo and Kyoto are Japan’s most recognisable destinations, “we are seeing more people wanting to try other destinations – like Kanazawa,” Keith says. “Kanazawa is a great destination for an incentive tour; you have a lot of the cultural experiences you find in Kyoto – the temple visits, tea ceremonies and garden walks.”
As well as ample opportunities for post- or pre-convention activities, Kanazawa, which is only two-and-a-half hours by bullet train from Tokyo, also has unique venues able to host various events – such as the Gojikken Nagaya and Kahokumon halls in Kanazawa Castle Park, once parts of the former castle which were reconstructed using traditional techniques.
There’s also the traditional Kenroku-en garden and the sleekly designed 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art. As for accommodation, in addition to an array of elegant local brands, Hyatt is about to open two new hotels with 250 stylish guestrooms and 90 apartment suites, conveniently located next to Kanazawa Station.
The year for events
When putting together a business meeting or event it can be daunting to think of something impressive and unusual enough to excite a large group of people. But as far as unique cultural experience goes, Japan has it all. Where else can you attend a traditional tea ceremony in the afternoon and then have dinner served by robots?
For a taste of Japan’s excellent sporting history, how about a curling lesson at Karuizawa Ice Park, the curling venue of the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics? This unique team-building exercise can accommodate up to 100 people at a time and is instructed by Olympic curling champions or international level players – a special experience that won’t be forgotten.
And curling is having a moment in Japan – the sport has exploded in popularity here since the Japanese team unexpectedly won a bronze in women’s curling at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in 2018.
Or for a team-building exercise rooted in problem-solving, it doesn’t get purer than crewing a sailing ship for a day. In the Japanese port town of Yokohama, under the direction of an instructor, teams can partake in a one (for up to 64 people) or two day program (for up to 34) with the option to spend the night aboard, and even adding in a treasure hunt using charts and maps to solve riddles.
And for a venue to remember, you can hold a private reception in one of the carriages on the Chiba Urban Monorail in Chiba City, which holds the Guinness World Record as the longest suspended monorail in the world, at more than 15km. You can rent the space for one or two hours and bring your own music, food and drink.
As far as business meetings or events go in Japan, the world really is your oyster. As Mark Taylor, client relationship director EMEA of BI Worldwide, says: “Japan has the most mesmerising effect on guests. Culturally unique, it is like nowhere else, and without a doubt everybody comes back with unique memories.”
To ensure all visitors – whether they’re tourists or a business meeting/event attendee – leave with amazing memories, Japan National Tourism Organisation has launched Your 2020, a yearlong special campaign featuring deals, events and one-of-a-kind experiences across the country.
Service like nowhere else
Japan prides itself on high levels of hospitality, and rightly so. While in the past you may have heard about things getting ‘lost in translation’, Japan’s meetings and events professionals can provide finely honed multilingual services to a multicultural audience. They can also adapt to meetings and events planners’ needs.
Taylor can attest to that. He has planned three varying Japan trips: a conference for a financial services company for three back-to-back 350-people groups, a factory visit for a car manufacturer based in Tokyo for their top dealers and a invitation-only trip for another automotive client to attend the Rugby World Cup.
“Suppliers in Japan now have a greater understanding of the requirements from overseas visitors,” Taylor says. “It’s easy for them to understand our needs, explain what is and what is not possible and get us the best possible experience.”
Shokunin spirit
Japan, perhaps more than any other country, prizes its historical craftsmanship and artisans, known as shokunin. What better way to create a memorable experience than to allow your guests to experience some traditional culture?
In Takaoka City, Toyama prefecture, up to 40 guests at a time can experience the traditional craft of metal casting and decorating lacquerware. The Takaoka Regional Industrial Centre runs a class where you can make original metal crafts by casting with tin or copper, or applying Makie or Raden to small pieces of lacquer, providing your guests with a lovely souvenir to remember their trip.
Meanwhile, the tropical island of Okinawa – with its crystal waters and coral reefs – offers the chance to learn to play traditional Okinawan instruments in a couple of hours, then for teams perform as a band on stage. Even musical rookies can learn to play instruments including the Sanshin, Sanita, Paranku and Shimadaiko.
‘Bands’ divide into teams, practice with a professional musician and then perform in a talent-show style competition. Best of all, part of the participation fee is donated to the restoration of Okinawa’s Shuri Castle, a UNESCO World Heritage Site which was severely damaged by fire last year.
For Suz Baker, the director of New Zealand-based business event organiser Eventionz, the variety of artisanal traditions Japan can offer is a huge draw, especially seeing as some crafts have been honed to perfection over many years. Baker has organised close to 10 incentive trips in Japan, each time starting in Tokyo and then heading off to other parts of Japan – Kyoto, Hiroshima, Nagoya, Kanazawa, and Hakone included.
“In Nagoya, we had an excellent guide give us a samurai experience; we visited Nagoya Castle, learnt about samurai armour and sword-making, and then were taught how to use throwing stars,” Baker says. “In Gifu, we went into the countryside to see the thatched village of Shirakawago.”
Experiences such as these may provide tangible benefits to corporate teams, such as stronger communication, strengthening relationships and boosting creativity and innovation. “A true incentive trip is to say thank you and elicit feelings of goodwill toward the company, as well as help retain staff. Japan is a unique destination that certainly does that.”
Japan provides a one-of-a-kind experience for meetings, events and incentive trips, from learning about traditional and age-old crafts, to the fascinating culture and ease of business, where participants and attendees will be sure to benefit.
English to Chinese: The Red Bull heir, a crashed car and the scandal that angered Thailand
Source text - English The Red Bull heir, a crashed car and the scandal that angered Thailand
Before dawn on September 3, 2012, a roaring black Ferrari struck a police motorcycle in downtown Bangkok, knocking the officer to the ground and dragging his body down the darkened street before speeding away.
According to police, a trail of oil leaking from the sports car led investigators to the luxury home of one of Thailand's wealthiest families, the co-owners of the Red Bull energy drink empire.
The man driving the Ferrari, police say, was Vorayuth "Boss" Yoovidhya, the heir to a family fortune that Forbes estimates to be worth $20.2 billion.
Vorayuth was subsequently charged with five criminal counts, including speeding, hit-and-run, and reckless driving causing death, but the case stalled for years as the billionaire scion repeatedly missed or postponed prosecutors' summonses. Authorities believe he left Thailand in 2017.
For years, the family of the police officer killed in the crash, Sgt. Major Wichien Klanprasert, were left in limbo.
Then on July 23, Colonel Sampan Luangsajjakul of the Royal Thai Police confirmed that the Office of Attorney General (OAG) had decided to drop all charges against Vorayuth, who police have confirmed was aged 30 at the time of the accident, not 27 as they previously said.
The decision to drop the charges thrust the case back into the spotlight — and angered Thais who have long felt that the country's legal system unfairly favors the rich.
Some called for a boycott of Red Bull products. Others said the decision not to prosecute Vorayuth was the latest and most blatant confirmation of a perceived culture of impunity of the elite in Thailand. "The public sentiment is that there are different standards when it comes to the rich and the poor," said Ekachai Chainuvati, a law lecturer at Siam University in Bangkok.
Since then, public pressure has mounted, prompting multiple inquiries by the OAG, police, the lower House of Parliament and Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha, who vowed to "ensure justice in Thai society without dividing it along social class lines."
From there, the story has veered wildly — from the death of a key witness to the OAG's decision to instruct police to investigate Vorayuth for two potential charges that could lead to his indictment.
Through it all, the young heir and his immediate family have maintained their silence. But at a time of reignited protests for political change, many people are demanding more accountability for the actions of the rich and powerful at the very top of Thai society.
A life of luxury
Better known by his nickname "Boss," Vorayuth grew up in one of Thailand's most prominent families. His grandfather, the late Chaleo Yoovidhya, created the Red Bull energy drink — a fizzy mix of vitamins, sugar, and caffeine — and built it into a global empire.
Born to impoverished Chinese immigrants in northern Thailand, the self-made billionaire started his career selling pharmaceutical supplies. In 1956, he founded his own company, TC Pharmaceutical, which developed over-the-counter drugs for headaches and fever. Chaleo soon became convinced a bigger market was out there for energy drinks. He invented Krating Daeng, a sweet, caffeine-powered beverage that first became popular with day laborers and truck drivers.
In 1984, Chaleo teamed up with Austrian entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz and later launched Red Bull, a carbonated version of Krating Daeng that would become a hit among athletes, partygoers, college students and late-night workers worldwide.
After Chaleo's death in 2012, his son Chalerm Yoovidhya took over the business, according to Forbes. Chalerm and his family currently rank second on the site's list of 50 richest Thais, behind the agribusiness behemoth of the Chearavanont brothers.
The Yoovidhya family owns about half of the Red Bull global business, which sold 7.5 billion cans of the drink across 171 countries in 2019. The family's empire includes real estate interests, restaurants, a winery and Thailand's only official importer of Ferrari cars.
The parent company of the Thai Red Bull brand, TCP Group, has tried to distance itself from the controversy around the alleged hit and run. In a statement, it said Vorayuth had "never assumed any role in the management and daily operations of TCP Group, was never a shareholder, nor has he held any executive position within TCP Group."
Like his father and grandfather, Vorayuth kept a low profile and was little known among ordinary Thais prior to the 2012 accident. When police officers followed the path of leaked oil to the Yoovidhya mansion, an unnamed man on the premises initially claimed that he was driving the Ferrari at the time of the crash, police said at the time.
He was later fined $200 for giving false statements. Vorayuth was taken to a police station for questioning, where he allegedly admitted driving the car and hitting the motorcycle, but claimed he was suddenly cut off by the bike, police said at the time. He was released on bail on a bond of 500,000 baht, about $16,000.
In the ensuing years, Vorayuth did not appear in court for several summonses from public prosecutors, with his attorney claiming he was sick or on business trips abroad. The prosecutor finally issued an arrest warrant against him in April 2017 — almost five years after the incident. But it was too late — Vorayuth had already left Thailand, police said.
Interpol issued an international wanted notice against him, but it no longer appears on the site. Vorayuth's whereabouts are officially unknown. CNN has attempted to contact Vorayuth and his immediate family through their lawyer but has not received a response.
Thickening plot
For a long time, the case against Vorayuth seemed to be on hold. By September 2017, the statute of limitations had expired on four of the charges — including speeding and hit-and-run. Police had until 2027 to prosecute the most serious charge — reckless driving causing death.
That is, until the OAG dropped the case, as CNN reported on July 23. Net Narksook, the public prosecutor in charge of the case, did not offer any reason for the decision, but a letter issued by the OAG informing police of the decision suggests it was based on "new evidence" that claimed Vorayuth was not speeding at the time of the fatal crash.
According to the letter dated June 12, Vorayuth was originally accused by police of traveling at an estimated speed of 177 kilometers per hour (110 miles per hour) — well above the 80 kph (50 mph) speed limit.
However, the letter said the police expert who initially assessed the Ferrari's speed changed his estimate in 2016 from 177 kph to 79 kph — just below the speed limit. It did not explain how he reached the lower number.
Two "additional witnesses" told prosecutors in December 2019 that the Ferrari was only moving around 50 to 60 kph (31 to 37 mph) at the time of the crash, according to the document.
One of the witnesses, Jaruchart Mardthong, claimed that he was driving a pickup truck behind the police officer, and saw his motorcycle suddenly cut in front of Vorayuth's Ferrari right before the crash, the letter said.
Jaruchart first gave a statement to police a few weeks after the crash, but was asked to give an additional statement last December, according to the OAG and police. He was expected to be called again to give evidence as multiple investigators examine why the charges were dropped. However, in the early hours of July 30, Jaruchart, too, was killed in a motorcycle crash.
Death of a witness
The sudden death of a key witness at the height of the controversy reignited public uproar.
CCTV footage seen by CNN showed a man police identified as Jaruchart riding his motorcycle on an empty road in the northern city of Chiang Mai, before colliding with another motorcycle traveling in the same direction.
Lt. Gen. Prachuab Wongsuk, commissioner of the Provincial Police Region 5, said the two men had met that night while drinking at a bar, and Jaruchart agreed to follow his new acquaintance to another venue.
Police say their inquiries suggest Jaruchart lost control of his motorcycle and clipped the wheel of the other rider, who survived the crash. Prachuab said the collision appeared to be an accident, but police hadn't ruled out a possible "murder motivation." "We are investigating suspects surrounding Jaruchart," he said.
To some observers, the timing was curious — Jaruchart's death came one day after Prime Minister Prayut announced that he had set up a committee to investigate the dropping of Vorayuth's case.
Others have raised another point of suspicion — Jaruchart's cellphone had gone missing after the crash. Jaruchart had been working for the owner of local football club. Lt. Gen. Prachuab told CNN that another of the club's employees had told police that he took Jaruchart's cellphone after the crash and deleted all the photos.
He said he wanted to remove any evidence of his association with Jaruchart because he was going to run in a local election and didn't want to be associated with the Red Bull scandal, Prachuab said.
As speculation swirled around the cause of the incident, Prayut ordered a halt to Jaruchart's cremation scheduled for August 2 and Chiang Mai police seized his body for a second autopsy.
The second autopsy showed Jaruchart had suffered a fractured skull, a ruptured spleen, a broken rib bone, and bleeding in his brain and stomach — injuries consistent with a traffic accident, authorities said. Results of the first autopsy have not been released.
Then on Tuesday, August 4, another twist. The OAG's committee cited more "new evidence" — expert opinion from Sathon Vijarnwannaluk, a physics lecturer at Chulalongkorn University who estimated that the Ferrari was traveling at 177 kph, matching the initial conclusion drawn by the police expert.
The committee said it had heard interviews Vijarnwannaluk gave to several Thai media outlets the previous week, in which he claimed to have been a part of the original team tasked by police to examine the crash. He said his team used CCTV footage to calculate the speed of the Ferrari, and had concluded that it was traveling at 177 kph.
The OAG committee claimed that Vijarnwannaluk's assessment was not included in the police case file, and thus the public prosecutor was unaware of his estimate when he decided to drop the charges. The committee said the public prosecutor didn't see the 177 kph estimate anywhere in the police report.
An OAG spokesman said Vijarnwannaluk's expert opinion led the committee to recommend that the OAG order police to reopen the investigation into the speed of Vorayuth's Ferrari at the time of the crash for the possible charge of reckless driving causing death, said Prayut Bejraguna, deputy spokesman for the OAG.
The committee also suggested police investigate an additional drug allegation against Vorayuth, as it said blood tests conducted following the accident showed traces of the drug, Prayut said.
On Monday, the OAG announced that it was acting on both recommendations and gave police investigators 10 days to file their report. "The main message we are sending today is that the OAG has revived the case, given breath back to it, so it can... bring 'Boss' back to the justice system," said Prayut, from the OAG.
A family scandal
The scandal has not only angered Thai society, it's driven a wedge through a family that has long remained silent on the issue.
In a rare statement last month, some members of Vorayuth's extended family apologized "for the news of our family member that has caused anger, hatred, and dissatisfaction that is increasingly voiced in society."
"We have to issue this letter to express our regret over this incident and to confirm our respect for a justice system which should provide justice to all without discrimination," the statement said.
The family of the police officer killed in the 2012 crash, have expressed surprise at the latest turn of events. In an interview with "Hone-Krasae," a popular Thai television talk show, his sister-in-law Nattanun Klanprasert said she was shocked to hear that new evidence had emerged.
She said police had previously told her there were no eye-witnesses to the crash. "Now, Sr. Sgt. Wichien became the one who committed recklessness instead and caused the accident. He became wrong?" she said, her voice raised. The charges against Vorayuth have not been reinstated — yet — but he is still a wanted man.
Vicha Mahakun, head of the independent probing committee set up by Prime Minister Prayut, said Wednesday the arrest warrant against Vorayuth is still in place, after a court asked police to withdraw their previous request to revoke it.
Police have until August 20 to interview witnesses and compile a report for the OAG — only then could a case that has intrigued and angered the Thai public for years take another step towards a possible conclusion in court.
Kocha Olarn reported from Bangkok, Thailand. Nectar Gan wrote and reported from Hong Kong.
English to Chinese: China makes CPR part of school curriculum
Source text - English China makes CPR part of school curriculum
China's Ministry of Education has asked all public schools to teach students first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) as part of children's health education to address the public's lack of knowledge and competence to step in during a first aid emergency, according to a joint statement by the Ministry of Education and Red Cross Society of China on Monday.
There are as many as 550,000 sudden cardiac deaths in China every year, meaning one person dies per minute due to cardiac arrest, according to the National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases (NCCD). About 60 percent of these deaths occur outside hospitals and the survival rate of a patient who received the CPR outside hospital is less than 4.5 percent in China, compared with about 47.5 percent in developed countries.
"The first reason for the gap is the lack of basic knowledge of CPR," Ao Hushan, chief physician of Fuwai Hospital of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences told CCTV, adding many don't know how or where to learn it.
He said that cases of cardiac arrest have been increasing in the country year on year and factors like fast-paced living, overworking, high pressure and an aging population have contributed to this.
In November 2019, 35-year-old Taiwan model-actor Godfrey Gao died after he suddenly collapsed while filming a reality show. He was rushed to the hospital and declared dead from sudden cardiac arrest after nearly three hours of rescue. His death sparked a heated discussion.
Sudden cardiac death is described as death caused by an abrupt loss of heart function. CPR and AED are the first and most effective method to treat cardiac arrest, according to medical experts. Most patients will begin to develop irreversible brain damage within four to six minutes after cardiac arrest, and then biological death within a few minutes. Therefore, correctly doing CPR for the patient within four to six minutes is extremely vital for life-saving.
However, besides medical staff, the public in China is severely lacking in knowledge of first aid compared with developed countries and the number of people who have received first aid training stands at a mere one percent. In the city of Beijing, the rate is slightly higher at four percent.
In 1966, the American Heart Association advocated the popularization of CPR among the public. It stipulated that police officers, drivers, firefighters, teachers and students of colleges and secondary schools must receive CPR training and on-site rescue. A 2017 survey showed that 65 percent of Americans had received CPR training.
In European countries, Switzerland requires all citizen to be trained in first aid, including CPR. And in Germany, every citizen must be trained before getting their driver's license, which means some 80 percent of the country has received first aid training. Forty percent of people in France are also first aid trained, according to a 2018 report released by the NCCD.
Evidence shows that survival rates from cardiac arrest are up to three times higher in countries that teach CPR in schools. According to The British Red Cross "up to 59 percent of deaths by injury could be prevented in the UK if first aid was given prior to the arrival of medical services."
"A CPR session can be completed in anything from 45 minutes to two hours depending on what's included. Basic first aid sessions can be completed in short sessions from as little as 30 minutes, which don't cost too much time to students, but will make a huge difference in saving lives," Guo Malong, a doctor in Henan Orthopaedic Hospital told Xinhua.
English to Chinese: Huawei fights to protect UK business as pressure for 5G ban mounts
Source text - English Huawei fights to protect UK business as pressure for 5G ban mounts
London (CNN Business) Huawei launched a major public relations campaign in the United Kingdom on Monday in a bid to persuade British politicians and the public that it can be trusted to help build the country's 5G network.
The Chinese telecom giant said it plans to take out a series of full page advertisements in most of the UK's national newspapers and online for the next three to four weeks in a campaign it's calling "The Commitment."
It comes as the United Kingdom undertakes a new security review of the company, just four months after Prime Minister Boris Johnson shrugged off US objections and granted Huawei a limited role in building out the next generation of super-fast interconnected wireless networks.
Johnson had announced a 35% cap on Huawei's involvement in Britain's 5G network, but he's under pressure from some lawmakers within his own party to ban the Chinese telecommunications company altogether.
The Huawei ad takes the form of an open letter, addressed to the British people, highlighting that the company has been operating in the country for 20 years, but that "some now question our role in helping Britain lead the way in 5G." "We're also playing our part in creating jobs, training the engineers of tomorrow, investing in new technology and supporting universities," the letter says.
With the letter, the company is making "its position very clear, in a very public way, at a critical time for the UK," a Huawei spokesperson told CNN Business.
"It also allows people to read and take our message at face value, at a time when the debate around Huawei has become littered with unsubstantiated allegations, which are delivered as facts," the spokesperson added.
The US Commerce Department said last month it was moving to restrict Huawei's ability to manufacture and obtain semiconductor chips using American-made software and technology. The new UK review is looking into any impact the US restrictions could have on UK networks, a government spokesperson told CNN Business.
The Commerce Department move is the Trump administration's latest effort to crack down on the Chinese 5G supplier and smartphone maker, which has come under intense scrutiny from US national security officials. The Trump administration had been pressing the United Kingdom for a total ban on Huawei products, alleging that Beijing could use them for spying. Washington had warned that US-UK intelligence sharing could be put at risk.
US Republican Senator Tom Cotton said last week that military cooperation could also be adversely affected if Britain goes ahead with its plan to allow Huawei to build part of the country's 5G network.
And asked whether the issue could affect negotiations on a US-UK trade deal, Cotton told BBC radio: "That's possible because 5G technology is so vital — not just to our security, but also our prosperity."
Under Chinese law, Chinese companies can be ordered to act under the direction of Beijing. Huawei has consistently denied that it would help the Chinese government to spy, and says it is "100% owned by employees."
— Rob North and Eoin McSweeney contributed to this report.
Translation - Chinese 隨著5G禁令的壓力越來越大，華為正在鬥爭為保護英國業務
倫敦（CNN商業）華為周一在英國發起了一項重大的公共關係運動，以說服英國政客和公眾相信它可以幫助建立英國的5G網絡。
這家中國電信巨頭表示，計劃在接下來的三到四個星期內的運動，在英國大部分國家報紙和網絡上發布一系列全頁廣告，這被稱為“承諾”。
在英國總理（Boris Johnson）擺脫了美國的反對並給予華為有限的作用以建立下一代超快速互連無線網絡僅僅四個月後，英國就對該公司進行了新的安全審查。
Johnson 曾宣布將華為參與英國5G網絡的上限設定為35％，但他受到黨內一些立法者的壓力，要求完全禁止這家中國電信公司。
華為的廣告以公開信的形式發給英國人民，強調了該公司已經在英國運營了20年，但是“現在有人質疑我們在幫助英國引領5G方面的作用”。信中說：“我們還在創造就業機會，培訓明天的工程師，投資新技術和支持大學方面發揮著作用。” 華為發言人告訴CNN Business表示，這封信將使公司“在英國的關鍵時刻，以非常公開的方式非常清楚地表明其立場。”
當被問及該問題是否會影響美英貿易協定的談判時，Cotton 告訴BBC 電台：“這可能是因為5G技術是如此重要-不僅對我們的安全，而且對我們的繁榮也至關重要。”
根據中國法律，可以命令中國公司在北京的指導下採取行動。華為始終否認將幫助中國政府進行間諜活動，並表示“ 100％由員工所有”。
— Rob North和Eoin McSweeney為本報告做出了貢獻。
English to Chinese: Dozens of Amazon's own products have been reported as dangerous -- melting, exploding or even bursting into flames. Many are still on the market
Source text - English Dozens of Amazon's own products have been reported as dangerous -- melting, exploding or even bursting into flames. Many are still on the market
(CNN) When firefighters arrived at Austin Parra's home on January 12, 2017, they could see smoke and the charred remnants of an office chair outside.
Parra, then 20, had been transported to the hospital. His mother explained to firefighters that her son's chair caught on fire while he was sleeping, and he was burned as he carried the flaming chair outside.
Anthony Dignoti, the Wethersfield, Connecticut, fire marshal in charge of investigating the incident, could see that the door and door frame were damaged by the fire as well. He noticed bowls strewn about, which he wrote in his official report had been filled with water in an attempt to extinguish the fire.
But most interesting to Dignoti was a white USB cord. Part of the cord was hanging off the chair and still intact, but the other side was stuck to the seat and had melted into a bare wire, he said in his report and an interview with CNN.
Dignoti ultimately concluded that the fire originated with the cord Parra was using to charge his cellphone. His report stated the cord experienced a short circuit, and while it was unclear why this happened, "the heat produced by the cord ignited the upholstery for the office chair." The cord had been branded with the name of the world's largest online retailer: Amazon.
It was sold by one of Amazon's popular private label lines, AmazonBasics, which offers budget-friendly products including consumer electronics, household appliances, home goods and office accessories.
Launched in 2009, AmazonBasics has grown to offer more than 5,000 products, according to the retailer. Its mission: identifying everyday items that Amazon can create at a similar or higher quality and lower price point when compared to existing name brands -- a strategy also employed by companies such as Costco and Target.
A growing number of AmazonBasics products, which the company promotes heavily on its site, have become bestsellers since the line's inception, and many have ratings above four stars, according to Marketplace Pulse research. In recent months, the online retailer's sales have been soaring as millions of Americans have been staying at home -- and in many cases working remotely -- during the ongoing pandemic.
But consumers have raised serious safety concerns about AmazonBasics items in complaints to government regulators and in reviews posted on Amazon's own website. Since 2016, at least 1,500 reviews, covering more than 70 items, have described products exploding, catching on fire, smoking, melting, causing electrical malfunctions or otherwise posing risks, according to an analysis of AmazonBasics electronics and appliances listed on its website.
The reviews identified represent a small fraction of the overall purchases of the products, and fires caused by consumer electronics are not unique to Amazon branded items. User error can also be a factor, as can faulty or aging wiring within a home or a defective device being used in conjunction with the product.
But when well-made and used properly by consumers, electronics like those sold under the AmazonBasics name should rarely pose dangers, said electrical engineers interviewed by CNN.
Within the more than 1,500 reviews, many consumers explicitly called out items as potentially dangerous -- using terms such as "hazard" or "fire" or saying the product should be recalled. Around 30 items with three or more reviews like this remain for sale on Amazon.com today. At least 11 other products that fit this criteria were no longer for sale at the time of publication. Some became unavailable after CNN began its reporting, and at least four product pages were removed from the retailer's site entirely -- leaving behind dead URLs known by employees as "dog pages." Amazon confirmed that at least eight of these products had been under investigation, but said the company determined they all met its safety standards.
Customers have written in their reviews and said in interviews that they trusted that AmazonBasics purchases would be safe and well made since they were branded with Amazon's name and frequently touted as "Amazon's Choice." But even as complaints have mounted, the company has provided little or no information to consumers or the public about how it is handling allegations that some of its merchandise is unsafe.
Amazon shoppers have recounted frightening malfunctions and close calls in vivid detail: A surge protector turned into a "blowtorch," one father recalled -- saying that flames shot out of the device, which was near his baby's nursery. Phone chargers were said to have burned peoples' hands and legs, and exploding batteries allegedly sprayed chemicals in someone's face. A USB cord burst into flames in a parked car while a toddler was inside, according to one parent.
A charger in another car was reported as starting an electrical fire on the freeway, allegedly burning the driver and a jacket. Paper shredders turned on by themselves, according to multiple consumers, and one reportedly blew up in a "fireball," burning someone's arm and singeing the hair off. And a microwave suddenly caught on fire when an 8-year-old went to heat up her macaroni and cheese cup as she had done "a zillion times," a mother claimed, saying she had to take the appliance outside and spray it with a hose.
Each of these purchases were "verified," meaning Amazon confirmed that the customer who wrote the review actually purchased the product on the site and didn't receive a "deep discount," according to its website. Several were accompanied by photos of the burned items.
While the best way to determine why something malfunctioned is to physically test it and take it apart, many customers said they immediately threw out the defective devices or sent them back to Amazon at the company's request.
CNN obtained two damaged AmazonBasics products from customers: a microwave that a customer said caught fire and a USB cord a user said overheated and melted. These were tested by researchers at the failure analysis lab at the University of Maryland's Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) at CNN's request.
The USB cord was too burned for researchers to determine what had gone wrong. The microwave testing found that the design of the panel covering the heating device inside the microwave could result in the machine catching on fire, and determined that the way the panel was secured could allow debris such as food or grease to collect behind it and possibly ignite. As soon as the researchers turned it on, the microwave began sparking and smoking, causing it to react as if its user put foil or other metal inside. The testing was cut short when the lab was closed due to Covid-19.
"There's a risk in using this machine for sure, and it's a safety risk because this clearly heated up to the extent a fire could occur," said engineering professor Michael Pecht, who is the founder of CALCE and has previously assisted in government safety investigations. "This is more than a reliability problem, this is a potential safety problem."
Amazon did not comment on whether any improvements had been made to the microwave, but said it is confident the microwave is safe to use and that it continues to "meet or exceed" all of the applicable certification requirements.
The retailer said "safety is a top priority" at the company and that it takes a number of steps to ensure all AmazonBasics products are safe and high quality, such as selecting experienced manufacturers, monitoring customer feedback and testing items to ensure they pass safety and compliance standards both before and after they are available. It also said AmazonBasics offers thousands of products which combined have more than 1 million reviews, and that concerns are thoroughly investigated and that the company acts accordingly.
"The outcome of the investigation varies on a case by case basis and may include removing the product from the store, adjusting the design of the product, notifying customers to stop using the product, or other appropriate action," a company spokesperson said in a statement. "We want customers to shop with confidence and if ever a customer has a concern, they can contact customer service and we will investigate."
Amazon said there are a number of reasons an item may no longer be available, but that customers will be notified if a critical safety issue is identified. When asked how frequently the company has done this, Amazon said it had notified customers about an AmazonBasics product less than five times. It did not specify whether it did this for any of the items reviewed by CNN.
'It's a red flag'
Amazon has already been under intense scrutiny for allowing third party sellers with allegedly dangerous offerings to do business on the site, and multiple court rulings have found that the retailer can be held liable for defective items sold in its third party marketplace.
CNN's analysis focused on products sold with Amazon's own name on them -- a growing part of the retailer's business. The reviews come from people living all over the United States and span five years, but they often call attention to the very same problems:
The same panel within a microwave catching fire, USB cords melting or burning despite no visible wear and tear or overuse, and paint on outdoor patio heaters lighting on fire. Consumers alleged items malfunctioned the first time they plugged them in. Others said electronics were not in use when they began malfunctioning.
In general, one or two reports of problems could be more easily chalked up to user error or other external factors, multiple electrical engineers said. But as the number of reports about the same kinds of failures increases about the same item, so does the likelihood that there is a defect in the design or manufacturing.
"That would certainly lead to more suspicion that the product is at fault," said Mark Horenstein, a professor at Boston University's College of Engineering. "It's a red flag."
Amazon said customer reviews are only one indication of a potential issue, saying it looks at a number of other factors such as sales history, returns and customer service contacts when assessing potential problems. "Using customer reviews alone to conclude a product is unsafe or imply there's a widespread issue is misleading," the company said in a statement.
Former Amazon employees said that even a few reviews mentioning words like "fire" and "hazard" should automatically prompt the retailer to take action. Amazon said reviews are monitored and can trigger safety investigations, but it declined to provide details about the specific threshold needed for this to happen. The company said products may be temporarily removed during such inquiries and that in order to keep selling something, it must be confirmed to be safe. It also said that if an investigation uncovers a "potential, non-isolated safety issue," it takes appropriate measures to notify the government and "safely recall the product."
Businesses are required by law to immediately report "potentially hazardous" items to the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) so the agency can determine whether an official recall is necessary. Companies can also initiate voluntary recalls in cooperation with the CPSC.
Concerns similar to those detailed in Amazon reviews have been relayed to the CPSC in at least 10 reports that specifically mention an AmazonBasics product. The complaints cover at least eight different items and date back to 2012.
In the United States, Amazon publicly recalled two AmazonBasics items in 2018 and 2019, after the company received 53 reports in the US about power banks overheating and 25 about versions of a space heater overheating, burning or sparking. It said it proactively notified the CPSC of the results of the company's own investigation and its intent to recall the items.
Beyond these two official recalls, the company has never publicly acknowledged that AmazonBasics products have any safety issues.
The CPSC said it was prohibited by law from discussing any item that had not been recalled and that in general, the agency determines if a recall is necessary based on a number of factors, including "the nature of the defect, the level of hazard associated with the issue, and the pattern of similar problems (seen)."
Customers reported being shocked or burned in at least 100 reviews on Amazon's website. Parra from the Connecticut apartment fire said in a lawsuit that he suffered second-degree burns and injuries to his throat from smoke inhalation. Dignoti's report shows Parra spent around a day in the hospital. Parra sued Amazon in 2019, and the case settled. He and his attorney did not respond to interview requests.
CNN used the information provided by the fire department to determine that the type of cord Parra purchased had been removed from Amazon's website. While it is unclear when the cord was pulled, a version of the page captured by the Wayback Machine, an internet archive, shows the product had an average rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars. It shows the cord was still available for purchase until at least June 2017, and that there were warnings from other customers at least a year before Parra's January 2017 fire.
"End of the cable melted and started smoking. Glad we caught it before a fire," one verified purchaser wrote in June 2016.
"DO NOT BUY! FIRE HAZARD!" another customer with a verified purchase of the cord wrote in May 2016, attaching 10 photos of the melted and warped cord -- saying it ruined an expensive iPhone and that he considered himself lucky that a fire hadn't ignited. "These should be taken off the market immediately!!!"
While fires caused by USB cords are uncommon, they are possible, according to electrical engineers who said a range of factors could be at play in situations like this -- from problems with whatever device the cord is plugged into to defects within the cord itself.
An industry non-profit, the USB Implementers Forum Inc, said it does not believe user error is a significant cause of overheating USB cables. A cable that is substandard, whether because of a design or manufacturing defect, can be dangerous and lead to electric shock, overheating, sparks or fire, it said. The group has certified a number of AmazonBasics cables as meeting their standards, though it focuses on the functionality of the cables and making sure their specifications are in compliance -- emphasizing that it is "not a replacement for industry best practices or any applicable local, state or government statutes, rules or regulations pertaining to safety."
The group also said it conducted an internal review of several cables CNN brought to its attention and found them to be compliant. It does not certify proprietary lightning USB cords used for Apple devices, however, such as Parra's cord. Apple said it allows manufacturers to use its lightning connectors in their products if those items are tested and confirmed to meet high quality standards, and that the company expects manufacturers to meet any applicable safety standards.
Amazon meanwhile said it investigated the safety claims about the kind of cord used by Parra and determined it met the company's standards. "If we determine that a product is unsafe, we remove it from our stores and take all necessary actions, which may include contacting regulators and customers," it said, specifically in response to questions about the cord used by Parra, which was removed from the site.
The retailer did introduce a new version of the product, however, saying it made updates to improve the customer experience.
Losing trust
Matt Citro purchased his AmazonBasics surge protector to protect his family from a fire. Instead, he said that in January 2018, the surge protector itself caught fire. A single phone charger was plugged into the device, but was not being used at the time.
Sitting on the couch as his 9-month-old son slept in his nursery nearby, Citro said he noticed flames coming out of the surge protector -- turning it into what resembled a "blowtorch." He told CNN that he quickly pulled the flaming device from the wall. He wasn't injured but said he was left with more than $1,000 of damage after the surge protector burned a hole in the wall outlet and seared part of his wall.
He had never experienced any electrical issues in his home before this, he said, and was convinced the AmazonBasics surge protector was to blame.
"DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!!!...If I wasn't home my entire house would have burnt down from this cheap product," Citro wrote in a review. "I'm extremely disappointed in Amazon. We put a lot of faith in their products and to have (one) almost burn down my home does not make me trust them. This product has amazons name on it!"
Citro said he immediately contacted Amazon and told the company what happened. At first, he said he was offered a replacement or a refund. Not satisfied, he continued to call customer service.
He said he finally got through to someone who connected him with an insurance company, and he was ultimately paid $1,469, according to a settlement document reviewed by CNN in which Amazon denies any liability.
Amazon continued to sell the surge protector for nearly two years after Citro posted his review, during which time more reviews about similar situations and other concerns piled up. More than 40 customers reported that the product was a fire hazard, had caused damage to their home or belongings or described other dangers.
These reviews represented around 1.7% of the roughly 2,600 US reviews posted about the $10.99 device as of late last year, before Amazon removed it from the site. Several included claims of flames and fires like Citro's. As a comparison, a similar product made by a major consumer electronics company and also sold on Amazon's site had six reviews about possible safety concerns earlier this year, representing .07% of its more than 8,000 reviews. And none of the six mentioned actual fires. Amazon said its own analysis, which added global reviews about the AmazonBasics surge protector, found 1.1% involved claims of overheating, fire and other dangers.
One former AmazonBasics product manager, who asked to remain anonymous because she still works in the industry, said she was surprised to hear that such a high percentage of reviews raised safety issues about an AmazonBasics item. "Once you get 40, oh my gosh, no, that would not be acceptable in any shape, way or form," she said of the reviews found by CNN, adding that a ratio of around .05% would have been seen as more acceptable when she worked there.
But she defended her former employer, saying this was just one product and that during her time with the company, she believed the retailer was even more vigilant than competitors in trying to react to safety concerns.
Weeks after CNN began reporting on the surge protector -- reaching out to customers and employees and ordering the same item as part of the investigation -- Amazon pulled it from its site in December despite its high average rating of 4.4 stars as of a month earlier. The company did not appear to provide any notification to customers, including to the reporters who purchased it. And it did not post any message on its site about why it was taken down.
Amazon declined to comment on individual customers, and would not say why the page was removed or whether Citro's surge protector was tested. It did say an updated version of the product had been released, but when asked for the link to the updated version, the company said "this product is currently unavailable."
Citro, who said he still shops at Amazon frequently, said he sent his burned surge protector back for testing as the company requested, but never heard anything about what its investigation found.
"I do wish this particular product was tested more thoroughly," he said. "A lot was on the line with my son's bedroom in the next room." Just like Parra's phone cord, this specific kind of surge protector has not been officially recalled.
Behind the scenes
Three former Amazon employees said the vast majority of AmazonBasics electronics are made in Asia. The company's list of suppliers used for its various private label lines -- including AmazonBasics -- shows that only around 10% are in the United States and nearly half are located in China.
The retailer typically brings AmazonBasics items to market in two ways, explained the former product manager. It either goes straight to manufacturers that are able to meet its standards and works closely with them to create items for the AmazonBasics line. Or Amazon finds an existing product and works with a third-party company, which may use an outside manufacturer of its own, to brand the item with the AmazonBasics name.
She said both methods have been implemented for electronics, but that in this second scenario, Amazon typically has less insight into the manufacturing process and is less involved in quality and safety testing. Amazon disputed this, saying it verifies that products meet the same safety standards regardless of the business model. The company also said it most frequently works directly with manufacturers.
Another former employee who was involved with AmazonBasics in its earlier years and asked to remain anonymous because of a confidentiality agreement, said employees on the AmazonBasics team would randomly order items to inspect and stay on top of reviews to make sure red flags were being caught. "We didn't have a lot of problems in my time but were much smaller than they are now so it was easy to keep things under control," the former employee said.
Former Amazon manager Rachel Greer, who left the company in 2015, said that when she worked in compliance at the company, she believed AmazonBasics products were closely monitored from conception to the years following their launch, saying there was extensive testing done. She said safety issues were rare, but when they occurred, they were caught quickly and addressed as soon as possible. "If someone complained on a review, we took it very seriously," she said.
This required staying on top of manufacturers and making sure corners weren't cut, she and the AmazonBasics product manager both said. In the case of USB cords, for example, Greer described how she made sure there was frequent testing of the cords to ensure that manufacturers hadn't begun to swap in thinner wiring which could be more likely to cause cords to overheat.
"When you're in charge of compliance for something that has the Amazon brand on it, I didn't think it should be something we're messing around with," Greer said. "When you're outsourcing production there's a lot of things that can go wrong."
When she left Amazon, she said she was growing concerned that a drive to increase sales would overshadow a focus on safety as the number of AmazonBasics offerings continued to rise. Prior to her departure, she would increasingly disagree with product managers, who she said pushed to get items into the pipeline faster and more cheaply. Performance evaluations reviewed by reporters backed up the idea that Greer had clashed with colleagues but also described her as "an evangelist for product safety," saying "she is passionate about keeping customers safe."
Greer now works as a consultant to third-party sellers, and said she wasn't surprised to hear that customers were complaining of alleged dangers. She said that when she worked for Amazon, she was never aware of anything close to the number or level of seriousness of the reviews identified by CNN, and questioned whether testing was still as rigorous as it had been in the past.
"If this had happened on a seller product, the second complaint of fire it would have been taken down," she said, while scanning through some of the more than 150 reviews about serious problems with a voice-activated AmazonBasics microwave — the same product tested by CALCE.
Greer said that if she was still at the company and had seen so many reports of fire about a single item, she likely would have reported the microwave to the CPSC and worked with the business teams to enact a voluntary recall by the company.
Since the microwave's release in the fall of 2018, its product page has been flooded with reports from consumers about problems including flames, smoke and sparks. These kinds of reviews made up roughly 5% of the AmazonBasics microwave's more than 3,000 reviews as of February, when CNN's final analysis was conducted. Another roughly 1,000 reviews have been posted since then, with fires being reported as recently as September. A microwave that has been reviewed less frequently but is the same size and wattage had only 10 reviews describing similar safety issues -- amounting to around .7% of its roughly 1,350 reviews on Amazon.
While the retailer did not provide unit sales, Amazon said that as the best-selling microwave on the site, it may have a higher number of sales and reviews, which could result in more mentioning possible concerns.
The company disputed Greer's comments, saying safety testing had not become any less rigorous and that it was not aware of any manufacturers using thinner cables "than they were directed to use." It said safety testing is handled by reputable third-party labs with global facilities, including in China and that her statements about the microwave were speculative since she was not part of the team that worked on this item and was not involved in the testing of the device.
Amazon also said it proactively sends safety-related customer reports to the CPSC and noted the agency has not issued any consumer warnings about the AmazonBasics microwave.
Still for sale
Amazon declined to provide details about why certain products were investigated and removed from its site, while others with repeated complaints about the same hazards are still available to purchase today.
New mom Leeona Smail posted her review about an AmazonBasics battery charger late last year. When CNN reached her, she recounted how she and her husband were forced to evacuate their home in the middle of the night when they detected the unmistakable smell of something burning. They gathered their dogs, cats and 4-month-old baby by their front porch, called 911 and waited for help to arrive.
It wasn't until after the firefighters left that the Smails said they found what they believed awas the culprit: an AmazonBasics battery charger. They had used the device for several years to charge batteries. But this time, Smail said, after unplugging it from the wall and placing it in a box on their coffee table, it began to melt and smoke. When the fire chief returned the next day to check on them, she said, he was amazed to see the source of the smell.
A Vandergrift, Pennsylvania fire chief confirmed that his team was dispatched to investigate "a smoke odor and light haze" at the Smail home. He said they ultimately learned that a battery charger "overheated and melted," and said it was unclear whether it would have caused the house to catch fire if it hadn't been found.
Smail posted a photo of the burned device along with her review before throwing it away. Amazon eventually gave her a refund -- though she said she only received a partial one because the warranty window had passed.
At least 21 other reviews about the same battery charger, which had around 2,000 total reviews at the time of CNN's analysis, also said the device had overheated, melted or burned. Three described the same situation that Smail reported: the charger had not even been plugged in and had no batteries in it at the time. The item was still for sale on Amazon at the time of publication.
The company said an investigation confirmed the product was safe, and that there were no broader design or safety concerns. But when asked whether it tested any of the actual chargers customers had flagged, and if so, what those tests had found, Amazon said it did not have "information to share."
English to Chinese: These smart shopping carts will let you skip the grocery store line
Source text - English These smart shopping carts will let you skip the grocery store line
Washington, DC (CNN) Tired of standing in line? Wait a bit longer, and you may never have to again. Everyone from Amazon (AMZN) to Silicon Valley startups are trying to eliminate lines in retail stores.
Amazon has opened 24 of its Amazon Go stores, which use cameras and artificial intelligence to see what you've taken off shelves and charge you as you walk out.
Some startups such as San Francisco-based Grabango are closely mimicking Amazon's approach of using AI-powered cameras mounted in ceilings to identify what you've removed from a shelf and then charge you for those items.
But others are trying an entirely different route to skipping the checkout: smart shopping carts. These companies have added cameras and sensors to the carts, and are using AI to tell what you've placed in them. A built-in scale weighs items, in case you have to pay by the pound for an item. Customers pay by entering a credit card, or by using Apple Pay or Google Pay.
When a customer exits the store, a green light on the shopping cart indicates that their order is complete, and they're charged. If something goes wrong, the light turns red, and a store employee is summoned.
The startups behind the smart carts, including Caper and Veeve, say it's much easier to add technology to the shopping cart than to an entire store. Amazon's Go stores rely on hundreds of cameras in the ceiling. The shelves also include sensors to tell when an item is removed. So far, Amazon has focused on small format stores of about 2,000 square feet or less.
Ahmed Beshry, co-founder of Caper, believes the technology to run Go is too expensive to use in a large-format grocery store.
Amazon reportedly considered expanding to thousands of the Go stores. But it's only opened a couple dozen so far, possibly adding credence to the point that they're expensive to operate. Two of the stores are currently closed for renovations.
Amazon declined to comment for this story. Neither Caper AI nor Veeve have said how much their smart shopping carts will cost, making it difficult to compare the different formats. Shariq Siddiqui, CEO of Veeve, said he's finding increased interest from retailers given Amazon's steady expansion of Go since opening the first store in Seattle in 2018.
"We're always happy when Amazon is doing something," Siddiqui said. "They force retailers to get out of their old school thinking."
Veeve is testing several of its shopping carts in an unnamed Seattle retailer. It's announcing a larger deployment in early 2019, and Siddiqui says the company is in talks with two of the country's 10 largest retailers.
Siddiqui said the shopping carts will eventually offer customers real-time coupons. When a customer puts, say, peanut butter in their cart, they may be offered a 10% discount on jelly.
But there are still kinks to work out in the technology. Caper, which has small pilots in Canada and New York City, is currently having customers scan items on a barcode scanner built into the cart, before placing them in it. The process helps to teach the AI system to identify the store's items.
Anytime a business uses artificial intelligence and cameras, it raises questions about customer privacy and the impact on jobs. Beshry notes that the cameras in his shopping cart point down into the cart, so only a customer's hand and part of their arm will be captured on camera.
Siddiqui said he envisioned grocery store cashiers shifting to roles where they freely float around stores and answer customers' questions, a format similar to the Apple Store.
English to Chinese: Two fugitive opium dealers, a media mogul and an alleged smoking gun video: the story of a Hong Kong newspaper feud
Source text - English Two fugitive opium dealers, a media mogul and an alleged smoking gun video: the story of a Hong Kong newspaper feud
In the late 1960s, two notorious opium traffickers from mainland China founded a newspaper in Hong Kong. Filling a gap in the market, the Oriental Daily News, with its racy pictures, celebrity scoops and crime yarns, quickly established itself as the city's best-read tabloid — until the Apple Daily blazed onto newstands in 1995.
As Jimmy Lai's pro-democracy paper ate into the Oriental Daily News' readership, a deep, personal vendetta took root between the latter publication's founders, by then fugitives in Taiwan, and the newcomer.
Since at least 2013, the Oriental Daily News has funded an eight-person team of reporters to pursue Lai day and night, even photographing him taking medicine in a clinic, a court heard last month; in 2014, the Oriental Daily News published an obituary claiming a man with Lai's name died from AIDS and the paper has published hundreds of articles on Lai's personal life and politics, frequently branding him a "national traitor" for his anti-Beijing stance.
After decades of dispute, the two rivals this summer finally had their day in court, as Lai faced a charge of intimidating an Oriental Daily News reporter.
On June 4, 2017, on a night when thousands of cellphones glowed in Victoria Park at an annual vigil for the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, Lai was filmed shouting at a reporter from the Oriental Daily News, who had been tailing and recording him for about three hours.
In footage shown to the court, Lai points his finger at the reporter, swears at him in Cantonese, and says: "I will definitely find someone to mess with you." The reporter, whose identity is protected by an anonymity order, said Lai was threatening him physically, and that he suffered psychologically from the episode. Prosecutors said Lai was at a public event where reporters had the right to photograph him.
Lai pleaded not guilty to the charge of criminal intimidation, which carries a maximum sentence of two years, and on Thursday was acquitted. "I am not worried at all, because this is a minor case and the charge felt forced," he said, before the trial began.
In recent years, Lai has made bigger enemies than the Oriental Daily News, as he vigorously opposes Beijing's influence on Hong Kong. The septuagenarian is facing a slew of criminal charges, including several under Hong Kong's sweeping new national security law, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Any jail sentence threatens Lai's ability to run Apple Daily at a time when it is under unparalleled pressure: on August 10, the newsroom was stormed by 200 police officers, as Lai was arrested under the city's national security law on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security, conspiracy to defraud and intention to incite succession, cases which have yet to come to trial.
"It would be difficult for Apply Daily to survive if Lai was jailed," said Willy Lam, a professor in history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a former journalist, adding that survival strategies were likely being put in place at the newspaper for that scenario.
"Lai is not the editor, but he is the person providing the money for the paper and the symbol of defiance. He is a symbol of freedom of the media, in both Hong Kong and the Western world."
An opium fugitive
In 1977, the Hong Kong Police issued arrest warrants for two brothers they alleged had smuggled 700 tonnes of heroin into Hong Kong between 1968 and 1974 from Asia's Golden Triangle.
But before officers had the opportunity to arrest Ma Sik-yu, widely known as White Powder Ma, he escaped to the neighboring island of Taiwan, which has no extradition treaty with Hong Kong. His younger brother Ma Sik-chun wasn't so fast: he was arrested but managed to slip out of the city the next year by boat while on bail.
The pair lived the rest of their lives as fugitives in self-governing Taiwan, managing their media empire from afar. In January 1969, the Mas founded the Oriental Daily News. In their absence, the paper was run by Ma Ching-kwan, the younger brother's son. Under his steerage, the newspaper became an important tool to lobby for the fugitives' return.
"After that, the entire mission of that newspaper group was one thing: get them (the brothers) back to Hong Kong," says Mark Simon, a senior executive of Next Digital, which publishes the Apple Daily — his view was echoed by others who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity.
In 1994, the English-language Eastern Express newspaper was founded by the Oriental Press Group, which publishes the Oriental Daily News, to connect with Hong Kong's English-speaking elites who ruled the then-British colony, and ultimately decided the fugitives' fate. It also added a more august title to the family stable, lending them more respectability, but the publication quickly folded due to poor advertising revenue and readership.
In 1996, a lawyer asked the government what would happen were Ma to return to Hong Kong. Drug-trafficking charges in Hong Kong, however, do not expire.
In 1998, the year after Hong Kong transitioned from British to mainland Chinese rule, the Oriental Daily News revealed Ma Ching-kwan had donated $1.7 million to Britain's then ruling Conservative Party in 1994 for "certain commitments," which it said had not been fulfilled. The governor of Hong Kong from 1992 until 1997 was a Conservative Party politician.
Publishing a photograph of Ma Ching-kwan with British Prime Minister John Major, and a menu from a dinner at 10 Downing Street he had attended on September 27, 1994 — three months after the donation had been made — the newspaper demanded a refund.
''We will categorically say that the Conservative Party did not or would not accept donations conditional on favors,'' an unnamed spokesman for the Conservative Party was quoted as saying in 1998 in British newspaper, The Independent.
After White Powder Ma died in 1998, his younger brother was alone in Taiwan. Some, however, doubted Ma Ching-kwan ever really wanted his father back on home soil.
"If his father came back, he would no longer be the king of the paper," said a long-time observer of the Oriental Daily News, who requested anonymity. "As it was, he had to send the front pages of the paper every day to Taiwan for approval before they hit the presses." In 2015, Ma Sik-chun died aged 77 in Taipei. He was still a wanted man in Hong Kong.
An apple a day
At around the same time the Ma brothers came to Hong Kong, another man destined to be a newspaper baron surreptitiously crossed over the border from mainland China searching for a safer life.
After making his first pot of gold with the fast-fashion clothing giant Giordano, in the mid-1990s Jimmy Lai founded Next Digital, through which he began publishing the scandalizing, pro-democracy and anti-Beijing tabloid Apple Daily. His aim was to be a critical voice of Beijing in a media landscape increasingly wary of offending the mainland after the end of British rule.
Apple Daily launched with a 100 million Hong Kong dollar ($12.9 million) promotional campaign and sparked a citywide price war on newstands, with Lai virtually giving away the title at two Hong Kong dollars (25 cents), the price vendors charged to sell it.
Before 1995, the Oriental Daily News was considered the clear market leader, although exact readership figures are hard to verify due to a lack of independent audits. Court documents from 1998 say the newspaper had a 53% share of the "vibrant newspaper market."
"Jimmy busted open their distribution network," says Simon, who is Lai's long-time, right-hand man, explaining that Apple Daily negotiated its way onto newsstands that were typically reluctant to sell competitors of the Oriental Daily News.
Apple Daily began to dent the Oriental Daily News' readership. "Jimmy didn't realize that this would prove to be such an enormous affront to this paranoid bunch of people who were busy, on the one hand, trying to clear up their name, and on the other hand, make sure that they were still the most dominant publication in the market," said a long-time observer of the Oriental Daily News.
As the media landscape migrated towards digital in the 21st century, Apple Daily was an early adopter, pioneering a hugely successful video animation news format, and launching a website distinct from its newspaper, while the Oriental Daily News continued to upload PDFs of its print product to the web. The latter newspaper's political position was not as well-defined as Apple Daily's, with other publications in the city occupying a more strident, and consistent, pro-Beijing stand.
And as Lai's feud with the Oriental Daily News intensified, Apple Daily fanned the flames, running stories that kept pressure on the Hong Kong government to not let the surviving Ma brother return from Taiwan.
Harassment
During Lai's court hearings last month, it emerged that since at least 2013, Oriental Daily News has paid a team of reporters to follow Lai. The reporter whom the Apple Daily founder clashed with in June 2017 admitted in court to regularly trailing Lai leaving his house and work, taking photographs and video of those he interacted with, while always keeping a decent distance and never provoking him, he claimed.
"Why would you have a whole team of people being paid salaries for years on it and to follow around somebody you don't like?" said the close observer of the Oriental Daily News empire. "It must have cost them an absolute fortune."
But it wasn't the first time the Oriental Daily News had assigned reporters to tail people it didn't like.
In 1996, the Oriental Daily News sued Next Media for publishing on its front page a picture it had taken of pop star Faye Wong picking up her luggage at Beijing Airport while pregnant, without her consent. Oriental Daily News won a small sum for the copyright violation, but was made to pay for its appeal by a judge, who separately ruled against the paper in a case in which it was charged with publishing a series of indecent photographs of naked women.
After the rulings, a team of Oriental Daily News reporters started to follow the judge around the clock, and an article in the newspaper warned him not "to take any false steps." Photographs and articles in the Oriental Daily News detailed the judge's movements to and from court, and made a series of racial slurs against him.
In its Kung Fu Tea column, the newspaper wrote: "Oriental does not care if you are yellow-skinned or white or a pig or a dog. In our self-defence, we are determined to wipe you all out! Here, Kung Fu Tea warns the pigs and dogs: don't you bother me again. Otherwise, when I counterattack in self-defence, you will regret it exceedingly, you will regret it! I repeat: you will regret it very much!"
Multiple people CNN approached for interviews for this article declined to speak on the record out of concern for their personal safety. CNN reached out to the Oriental Daily News for comment on why it had a team tracking Lai for years, and the concerns of interviewees of this article, but did not get a response.
Criminal intimidation
For two years, Hong Kong authorities did not pursue the case against Lai, despite regular articles appearing in the Oriental Daily News urging the Secretary of Justice to prosecute him. The newspaper said it sent 17 letters to the Department of Justice about the case.
Then in February this year, Lai was charged with criminal intimidation on the recommendation of Justice Teresa Cheng, who has been sanctioned in August by the United States for undermining Hong Kong's freedoms. Arthur Lee, barrister and professional consultant at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said generally when there is a long delay in charges being filed it can be due to a need to find more evidence, or difference in opinion as to whether to prosecute.
In a statement provided to CNN in response to a question on the initial delay in prosecuting the case, a spokesman for the Department of Justice said that it was "not appropriate for the Department of Justice to comment on the matter."
"I consider it somewhat farcical that this even came to trial," said Simon. "They harassed a guy to try to get a response and they got a response — but they didn't get a guy trying to criminally intimidate anybody."
In the judge's verdict on Thursday, she said she could not "believe the reporter is an honest and reliable witness" and was not convinced he was "genuinely scared." The court heard the reporter was seen smiling after the exchange with Lai.
There are still more opportunities for Lai to go to jail this year. In February and April, Lai was charged with unlawful assembly for joining protests that were banned by the government in August and October last year. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. And Lai remains the most high-profile figure to be arrested under the national security law.
So far, the publicity around Lai's arrests has given the Apple Daily a boost. Supporters last month rallied to buy Next Media stock, take out adverts in the paper and snap it up on news stands, causing it to sell out across the city and sell more than half a million copies in one day. Simon says digital subscriptions for Apple Daily, which launched an English-language version this year, are up by about 15% to 720,000, since the law came in.
That support is welcomed. Next Media reported a loss of 415 million Hong Kong dollars ($54 million) for the 12 months to March — a near 20% increase in year-on-year losses.
On its website, the Oriental Daily News says it had 3,486,550 readers in 2017, the most recent figures it has published, which are not independently verified but would put it far ahead of Apple Daily's readership. Clement So, from Chinese University of Hong Kong, however, recently published research conducted last summer into local media readership in 2019, which gave Apple Daily a 21% share of the print market and 25.7% of the online space, compared to 20.9% and 11.1% for Oriental Daily News, respectively.
But if Lai was to be jailed, for any of the offenses he currently faces, the Oriental Daily News could find itself with a clear lead on the newsstands. Lam, the history professor and former journalist, says that in the current climate of growing media self-censorship, there is increasing worry that the Hong Kong and mainland governments will make life "more difficult for the newspaper — or even close it down."
"Apple Daily is one of the very few media outlets which is there to criticize the Hong Kong and Beijing governments," Lam said. Losing it would "be a loss for the Hong Kong community and a defeat for freedom of the media." Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has said that the national security law won't affect freedom of speech.
After his earlier arrest under the national security law, Lai appeared in an Apple Daily livestream with an emotional message: "I have lived in Hong Kong for more than 60 years, but I have never felt so touched and happy before," he said.
"I don't feel miserable about being handcuffed, neither do I feel humiliated, not at all ... I am doing all these because this place has treated me too well and this is what I should." The battle on the newspaper stands lives to see another day.
Translation - Chinese 兩名逃犯的鴉片交易商，一名媒體大亨和一條涉嫌吸煙槍的錄像帶：香港一家報紙發生仇恨的故事
English to Chinese: When does a good attitude become toxic positivity?
Source text - English When does a good attitude become toxic positivity?
(CNN) Between sleepless nights, diapers and feeding times, having small children at home could leave Priscilla Goins feeling exhausted. She loved her kids, but it was a lot. "I would sometimes say 'I just want a minute to myself,'" Goins, of Knoxville, Tennessee, said. "People would be like: 'Oh, you'll miss it when they're older.'" And that made her so mad.
It's not that she disagreed. But in those moments, Goins wasn't looking for a reality check. Instead, she wanted acknowledgement that the exhaustion she was going through was legitimate. Her friends' responses sometimes left her feeling bad for wanting that alone time. "I still want that minute to myself," she recalled feeling. "But now I think that's wrong."
A focus on upbeat thinking, while shunting challenging and difficult experiences to the side, is what some experts call "toxic positivity." Goins came across the term recently and was curious if others had similar encounters. She tweeted out a simple question in late August: "Y'all ever encountered toxic positivity?"
With observations about parenting, writing and daily life, Goins' tweets generally garner a handful of favorites. This one got more than 201,000. For many people, it seemed, her question struck a raw nerve.
Maybe it's the pandemic that has come to define 2020, ushering in lockdowns, job losses and some serious mental health issues. People around the world are struggling right now, which experts say is a natural, healthy response to these extraordinary times. And the last thing someone in crisis wants to hear is that it's all for the best.
What's wrong with being positive all the time?
It's not that being cheerful is a bad thing. A positive attitude can be a gift to those around you, said Jamie Long, a clinical psychologist in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but it shouldn't take the place of listening thoughtfully to others' experiences.
"When you are choosing to look at situations from one perspective — in this case a positive perspective — you are very likely to dismiss or minimize an authentic experience," Long explained. That's toxic positivity, which is what Goins received when she was looking for a bit of commiseration about the challenges of parenting young children.
Even if you're trying to cheer up someone, diminishing someone's difficult experiences can leave them feeling they should hide negative feelings in the future. "We have that disconnection between who we really are, and the mask that we're putting on for the world," Long said. "In that gap, there's shame."
Instead of trying to find a positive spin, Long suggested using accepting, validating language, offering examples in a blog post on toxic positivity that she co-authored with therapist Samara Quintero.
"It's natural for us to want to be helpful, and to want to be encouraging," Long said. Sometimes, though, it's worth setting aside that first impulse to fix things. "What we need is validation. However, often what we get is perspective. And that's not always really helpful."
As examples of "positive" responses that might quash a friend's ability to share their feelings, Long and Quintero listed: "Look for the silver lining"; "everything happens for a reason"; and "it could be worse."
Instead, they suggested phrases that communicate a willingness to listen, and to share life's difficult moments with the people you care about. Think: "This is really hard, I'm thinking of you," or "I'm here for you, good or bad."
"Sometimes we just need to say 'Yeah, me too,' or 'That makes total sense,'" Long said. "It's allowing someone to express something that's authentic, even if it's uncomfortable or even if it's hard to hear."
Turning toxic positivity on yourself
But toxic positivity doesn't just show up in how we treat others. Many people put intense pressure on themselves to ignore difficult emotions, too. That can cause us psychological and physical harm, Long said.
Suppressing emotional responses, whether positive or negative, triggers a sympathetic response in the cardiovascular system, found one study. In another study, participants who accepted their own emotional responses to stimuli had lower heart rates; they also recovered from the experience more quickly.
Life is full of challenging things, from daily stresses to profound, lasting grief. Trying to push away those feelings doesn't make them disappear. "When you keep that sadness, or shame, or guilt or anger in the body, what happens is it doesn't go anywhere," Long said.
Since ignoring difficult thoughts doesn't work, Long said it's best to just let ourselves experience the bumps in the road. In the end, it can make it easier to move on to other feelings.
Not only that, Long said accepting our feelings can make room for a more nuanced experience of the world, where we frequently contend with positive and negative feelings at the same time. "Look out for the either-or mindset," she said. "If you're falling into the myth that there's a right way to feel in every situation, then you're really limiting yourself."
As an example, she described the complicated experiences that many have had during the pandemic, encountering a blend of grief, anger, gratitude and hope. Sometimes, those feelings come all at once. "We can be really sad this is happening," she said, "and be positive and hopeful for the future at the same time. It doesn't have to be all or nothing."
What if feeling bad is sometimes good?
That focus on nuance is at the heart of some recent research in the field of positive psychology, looking into the potential upsides of feeling down.
Since the late 1990s, practitioners of positive psychology have studied the keys to how humans thrive, learning from our joys and pleasures rather than depression or other mental illness. But while many think of sadness or anger as unpleasant experiences to be endured, positive psychologist Tim Lomas asserts that they, too, may be a key part of flourishing.
"Emotion is a kind of information about our world," said Lomas, a lecturer at the University of East London. "It can be telling you something important, or something that can protect you in some way."
Sadness could be an expression of care, whether you are longing for an absent loved one or feeling the grief that comes with loss, wrote Lomas in his 2018 paper, The Quiet Virtues of Sadness. In other cases, Lomas wrote, sadness signals a warning: a buzzing alarm telling you to check in with yourself.
It's not just sadness. Lomas authored a paper on the value of anger, as well, and one about the creative potential of boredom. "(A feeling) can be negatively valanced, but in the long run it can be useful to well-being," he said.
It's all about balance
Still, the positive benefits of negative emotions may be best experienced in relatively small doses. Lomas underscored that appreciating the value of difficult feelings is all about finding balance. "Any negative emotion can go too far, become maladaptive or turn into a clinical or psychiatric issue," he said.
Long, the Fort Lauderdale psychologist, agreed. "There is an abundance of research that really touts the benefits of positivity, and we're not denying that," she said. "When you do so to an extreme, when you dismiss authenticity, that's where problems arise."
When Priscilla Goins' tweet about toxic positivity went viral, she heard from hundreds of people who had encountered toxic positivity — and many others who worried she was unfairly criticizing cheerful types.
For her though, the lesson of toxic positivity is not about the right, or the wrong, way to feel. Rather, it's all about learning to listen to yourself and others. "I don't ever want to not be empathetic to another person," she said. "But I think happy people are great."
Jen Rose Smith is a writer based in Vermont. Find her work at jenrosesmith.com, or follow her on Twitter @jenrosesmithvt.
English to Chinese: Hurricanes, fires, floods and locusts: Science says climate change is here but the RNC refuses to believe
Source text - English Hurricanes, fires, floods and locusts: Science says climate change is here but the RNC refuses to believe
(CNN) The words "Biblical proportion" come to mind, but even the Plagues of Egypt didn't come all at once.
In 2020, we have giant swarms of locusts from East Africa to India, 500-year floods in Europe, fears of a dam collapse in China and Typhoon Bavi hitting the Korean Peninsula. In the US alone there is the record-smashing hurricane in the South, a million-acre "gigafire" in the West and over 40% of Iowa corn and soybeans flattened by 140 mph winds.
Complicating the mounting task of saving lives and livelihoods in this ongoing climate crisis: a new disease, released from a natural world out of balance. Two tiny foes -- coronavirus and heat-trapping gas -- joining forces to make pandemic patients in Lake Charles, Louisiana, worry about blown roofs and falling trees. They are forcing California firefighters to socially-distance on 72-hour shifts after more than 10,000 dry lightning strikes started 500 fires.
"Threat multiplier" is the adjective the US military first applied to climate change in 1990, when predictions of death, desperation and tension were mostly for distant corners of a warming world.
But now, here at home, the threats seem to multiply by the hour. As an example of the Sophie's Choices that come from such confluence of unnatural disaster, President Trump hopes to divert $40+ billion from FEMA's Emergency Response Fund to a fresh round of unemployment relief for the tens of millions driven out of work by Covid-19. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom furloughed nonviolent convicts in a desperate attempt to slow prison outbreaks and as a result, lost vital firefighting manpower.
"For so long in studying climate change, we're studying the future," says Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. "And now the future is here. So, if we live here in Texas, we're seeing stronger and bigger and slower hurricanes with a lot more rainfall. If we live in the west, we're seeing that natural wildfires are burning greater and greater area. If we live in the Midwest, warmer temperatures are supersizing our rainstorms."
Juicing these changes, she says, are the very Gulf oil platforms, refineries and petrochemical plants punished by Hurricane Laura ... and Harvey, Michael, Rita, Ike, Katrina et al. Almost every other developed nation in the world understands the basic physics that the more they pump and burn, the more unpredictable life on Earth will become. But watching the Republican National Convention, if you didn't know, you'd never know.
Vice President Mike Pence offered warnings and good wishes for those in the path of Hurricane Laura on Wednesday night and on Thursday, President Donald Trump started his speech mentioning the people who had come through "the wrath" of the storm. He said it was "fierce, one of the strongest to make landfall in 150 years," then added that the casualties and damage were far less than thought possible just a day earlier. Night after night, speaker after speaker made no mention of the scientific consensus that burning fossil fuel is making your parents' hurricanes, floods and wildfires much, much worse.
While the Democrats drilled down and got specific on their promises should they get a chance to govern, most mentions of the environment by the Republicans came in celebration of regulation rollbacks and harsh rejections of Joe Biden's plan to spend $2 trillion on clean energy projects and reenter the Paris Climate Accord.
"The Democratic Party of Joe Biden is pushing this so-called 'Green New Deal,'" said Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst in a pre-taped speech. She mocked efforts by Democrats to legislate the climate crisis after referencing the August 10 derecho that ripped apart ten million acres of her state. "If given power, they would essentially ban animal agriculture and eliminate gas powered cars. It would destroy agriculture industry not just here in Iowa but across the country."
This is untrue. The 14-page Green New Deal resolution calls for "working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible," but there is no call for a ban on cows or gasoline cars.
"How much does the 2018 Camp Fire cost, just to fight? Just to put out the flames?" I asked Gov. Newsom after ferocious winds made the Camp Fire the most destructive wildfire in state history. "It is jaw-dropping -- the numbers -- and they continue to escalate," Newsom replied. "Just the debris removal is in multi, not billion, multi-billion-dollar expense."
The second and third biggest fires in state history are now burning at the same time and the windy season hasn't even begun. "Folks think, well, we can't afford to address climate change," Newsom says. "My gosh. The naiveté of that. Because the most expensive option is doing nothing."
"How did climate change become so politically polarized?" Hayhoe asks. "It's not the science, it's the solutions. We've been told that the only solutions to climate change are negative or punitive. They involve destroying the economy, throwing people out of work and letting the United Nations rule the world."
Blurred by this message, she says Americans miss how much progress is happening between disasters. "They don't know that 70% of new electricity being installed around the world now is clean energy. They're unaware that solar energy plus storage is actually cheaper than natural gas in California.
Or that Texas has more installed wind energy than any other state in the country. Or that Texas has the first carbon neutral airport in DFW, and Ft. Hood, the biggest army base in the US is supplied entirely by wind and solar energy. The reality is that the solutions are already here."
But if Hayhoe sees the solutions, others see the pain along the way. "It's gonna get worse before we get better," says Lt. General Russel Honoré. "We have to find solutions to pollution that will drive the future economy."
Known as the "Ragin' Cajun," Honoré took over following a disastrous state and federal response to Hurricane Katrina. The storm and its aftermath killed at least 1,833 people, almost 15 years ago to the day.
"Right after Katrina we had Rita. A reporter asked me, 'We just had two hurricanes. Do you think that has anything to do with global warming?' And I was stunned. I gave her some smart answer, but it haunted me for days," he says.
At the time, the Department of Defense was keen to the threat of sea level rise to bases around the country, but the question suddenly made the science personal, as Honoré saw his own beloved bayou communities drown after lack of official planning and imagination.
Fifteen years later, Honoré spends most hours thinking about fixes for the Gulf and the nation he served.
"We can start fixing our infrastructure. Let's adjust the damage done, create jobs that reduce the impact on the air and the water and the land. I think we've got to have adult conversation, regardless of what political class," he said.
Taking action is critical for people like Hayhoe."There is no right answer in how to fix climate change," she says. "There is no silver bullet either. Just a lot of silver buckshot.
"But we are all responsible to our families, to our loved ones, to our children, to the poor and the marginalized and the vulnerable right here where we live, as well as around the world to take our heads out of the sand to recognize that climate is changing. Humans are responsible. The impacts are serious. And we can act now. No matter who we are and how we vote."
Translation - Chinese 颶風，大火，洪水和蝗蟲：科學說氣候變化就在這裡，但RNC拒絕相信
English to Chinese: Could unlocking the mystery of the mealworm's gut help solve our plastic crisis?
Source text - English Could unlocking the mystery of the mealworm's gut help solve our plastic crisis?
(CNN) Can't stomach the plastic pollution that washes up on beaches, kills sea life and makes its way into the food chain? Well mealworms can – literally.
Growing to more than 2cm long, mealworms are the larval stage of the mealworm beetle. Scientists have known for some time now about their ability to eat certain plastics, and researchers are now learning more about what's going on inside mealworms and replicating the process outside them.
It takes around 3,000 to 4,000 mealworms about a week to eat one Styrofoam coffee cup, and it's the bacteria living in their guts that break down the plastic, says Anja Malawi Brandon, a PhD candidate at Stanford University researching the subject.
When mealworms eat polystyrene -- the material used in Styrofoam, and often found in packaging -- they excrete half of it as carbon dioxide, and some as partially degraded particles, raising concerns they could add to the growing problem of microplastics -- tiny pieces of plastic that can end up in the food chain. But harnessing their biology could present new opportunities for how we deal with waste plastic.
Brandon, a plastics and bioplastics sustainability expert, was part of a team that last year published research showing that mealworms could eat polystyrene, as well as polyethylene -- one of the most widely used plastics in the world, found in everything from shopping bags to detergent bottles.
It also showed that when eating polystyrene, the mealworms excreted a flame retardant that is sometimes added to the plastic. That meant the toxic chemical didn't accumulate inside the mealworms, so it wouldn't be passed up the food chain if they were used as a protein-rich food for livestock like chickens and pigs.
Further research has now isolated the plastic-eating bacteria found in the mealworms' guts and grown them outside of the mealworm.
"Interestingly, the bacteria we identified are not crazy new, unheard of bacteria -- they're bacteria that have been associated with the breakdown of other environmental pollutants before," Brandon tells CNN.
"It shows that in the right environment these already-known bacteria are capable of plastic degradation," she continues. "This potentially means that other bacteria that are known to fortuitously break down other chemicals could break down plastics under the right conditions."
Brandon says degrading plastic with bacteria outside the mealworm is currently slower than the rate a mealworm is capable of, but under the right conditions, the degradation is "more rapid than other bacterial systems to date." She cannot share some details -- including the names of the bacteria -- as the research has not yet been published.
A natural recycling solution?
Plastic pollution is one of the most pressing environmental issues. A recent report from The Pew Charitable Trusts projected the volume of plastic entering the ocean could nearly triple to 29 million metric tons per year by 2040 -- the equivalent of 50 kilograms for every meter of the planet's coastline.
It also said there was "no single solution," but that "an ambitious recycling strategy" could slash 31-45% of plastic pollution.
Brandon says that for mealworms to be a viable recycling solution there would need to be a system to collect and treat the partly digested plastic they excrete. Using the bacteria in bioreactor vats instead could be easier to control and would leave no plastic residue. There's even the potential to use bacteria to break down plastics into monomers, the building blocks for other plastics.
Ramani Narayan, distinguished professor in chemical engineering and materials science at Michigan State University, says the science behind the Stanford research is "great," but cautions against extrapolating it into a solution for treating waste plastic.
"(Using mealworms is) not going to be a solution until you can say how you can integrate it into existing waste management infrastructures -- and that's where I see the big disconnect," he says, pointing out that dealing with all our plastic waste would require a vast number of mealworms.
Proven industrial processes to recycle polystyrene and polyethylene already exist, he says, adding that opportunities lie not in technology but in the collection and recovery of these plastics.
As for biological solutions, Narayan advocates designing plastics that can be composted by microbes alongside other biodegradable solids in existing waste management environments. "You don't want to change the [waste management] ecosystem; you want to harness the ecosystem to help you manage the waste," he says.
For now, Brandon's tests with the bacteria continue. "We're still a little way off from doing it at scale," she says, "but with our new research ... we have developed a system that will enable us to move to this future a lot faster. Hopefully this will be a viable technology."
English to Chinese: SoftBank is selling British chipmaker ARM to Nvidia for $40 billion
Source text - English SoftBank is selling British chipmaker ARM to Nvidia for $40 billion
Hong Kong (CNN Business) Nvidia is buying British chipmaker ARM from SoftBank for as much as $40 billion — a total that would make it the largest semiconductor deal ever. The agreement, announced Sunday, will be financed through a mix of cash and stock, the companies said in a joint statement.
The move would allow Nvidia (NVDA) — which mainly makes graphics processors for computer games and self-driving cars — to become an industry leader across more connected devices, including smartphones, PCs, robotics and 5G, CEO Jensen Huang wrote in a letter to employees Sunday.
ARM designs chips used by Apple (AAPL) and other major smartphone makers. The firm is based in Cambridge and is known as one of Britain's most successful tech companies. Nvidia said Sunday that it plans to keep Arm's headquarters in Cambridge, as well as expand its campus with a new research facility.
"ARM's business model is brilliant. We will maintain its open-licensing model and customer neutrality, serving customers in any industry, across the world, and further expand ARM's [intellectual property] licensing portfolio," Huang wrote.
The deal is likely to come under significant scrutiny in the United Kingdom, where some politicians are concerned about preserving jobs at ARM. Nvidia's rivals — which purchase chip designs from ARM — are also likely to object. The prime minister's official spokesperson said Monday that the UK government will not hesitate to investigate any takeover that could have a major impact on the country.
Another asset sale for SoftBank
The deal comes four years after SoftBank bought ARM for $32 billion, marking the largest foreign takeover by a Japanese firm at the time.
SoftBank has been working to divest assets in recent months as the conglomerate looks to raise cash in response to the coronavirus pandemic. In March, it announced a plan to sell $41 billion worth of assets, and last month it doubled down with a partial sale of its stake in its Japanese mobile carrier affiliate.
SoftBank shares in Tokyo were up nearly 9% Monday following the news. The Financial Times also reported Monday that SoftBank is reconsidering a plan to privatize the company. SoftBank declined to comment on the report.
"The combination is likely to lift SoftBank's share price in Tokyo," wrote Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst for Asia Pacific at Oanda, in a note to clients. If the ARM deal goes through, it will be the semiconductor industry's biggest-ever deal, topping Avago's acquisition of Broadcom in 2015, according to Dealogic.
Under the agreement, Nvidia will pay about $12 billion in cash and $21.5 billion in stock. SoftBank will receive a stake of less than 10% in Nvidia, and the Japanese company will also be eligible for a payout of up to $5 billion if ARM meets "specific financial performance targets," according to SoftBank. The company did not disclose the targets.
The deal is expected to close within 18 months. It will first have to pass regulatory approvals from the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United States and China.
— Luke McGee and Charles Riley contributed to this report.
English to Chinese: Whistleblower alleges high rate of hysterectomies and medical neglect at ICE facility
Source text - English Whistleblower alleges high rate of hysterectomies and medical neglect at ICE facility
Washington (CNN) A whistleblower who previously worked at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Georgia detailed a high rate of hysterectomies and alleged medical neglect in a complaint filed to the Department of Homeland Security inspector general Monday.
Dawn Wooten, a licensed practical nurse employed by the center who's represented by the Government Accountability Project and Project South, stated in a complaint that while some women may have required a hysterectomy, "everybody's uterus cannot be that bad."
The Government Accountability Project provides representation for whistleblowers and Project South is a social justice organization. The complaint is also signed by several immigrant advocacy organizations: Georgia Detention Watch, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights and South Georgia Immigrant Support Network.
The complaint, which also included a series of concerns about the facility's handling of the coronavirus, immediately received responses from Democratic lawmakers.
"The allegations put forth in this whistleblower complaint point to an alarming pattern of unsafe conditions and a lack of oversight at privately-run ICE facilities," said Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, in a statement, adding that allegations of hysterectomies being performed on women without consent is "incredibly disturbing."
Thompson's committee is investigating on the conditions at ICE contractor facilities. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, urged the DHS inspector general to investigate Wooten's allegations.
"Everybody he sees has a hysterectomy—just about everybody. He's even taken out the wrong ovary on a young lady [detained immigrant woman]. She was supposed to get her left ovary removed because it had a cyst on the left ovary; he took out the right one. She was upset. She had to go back to take out the left and she wound up with a total hysterectomy," Wooten explains in the complaint.
"She still wanted children—so she has to go back home now and tell her husband that she can't bear kids... she said she was not all the way out under anesthesia and heard him [doctor] tell the nurse that he took the wrong ovary," she continued.
The complaint doesn't disclose the name of the gynecologist or the number of women allegedly coerced into receiving the procedure, nor when it occurred. ICE said it doesn't comment on matters presented to the inspector general.
"ICE takes all allegations seriously and defers to the (Office of the Inspector General) regarding any potential investigation and/or results. That said, in general, anonymous, unproven allegations, made without any fact-checkable specifics, should be treated with the appropriate skepticism they deserve," the agency said.
Since 2018, only two individuals at Irwin County Detention Center have been referred to certified, credentialed medical professionals at gynecological and obstetrical health care facilities for hysterectomies, according to Dr. Ada Rivera, medical director of the ICE Health Service Corps, citing agency data. "Based on their evaluations, these specialists recommended hysterectomies. These recommendations were reviewed by the facility clinical authority and approved," Rivera said in a statement.
Irwin County Detention Center, the facility at the center of the complaint, is required to follow medical standards put in place by ICE in 2011. The standards state that "female detainees shall receive routine, age appropriate gynecological and obstetrical health care, consistent with recognized community guidelines for women's health services."
According to those standards, health care services must be provided by personnel who are "licensed, certified, credentialed and/or registered in compliance with applicable state and federal requirements."
Health care providers are chosen by the facility from among the local community providers willing to accept ICE detainees as patients, an ICE official said, adding that in some cases, the facility provider or clinical director may have community contacts they routinely work with.
LaSalle Corrections, which operates the facility, did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment.
Wooten didn't elaborate on the hysterectomy allegations during a news conference in Georgia on Tuesday. Priyanka Bhatt, a staff attorney at Project South, said, however, that over the years "our coalition has heard from several women who have either had a hysterectomy done or have talked to other immigrants who have had a hysterectomy done."
A detained immigrant told Project South that she had spoken to five different women at Irwin County Detention Center between October and December 2019 who had a hysterectomy.
"When I met all these women who had had surgeries, I thought this was like an experimental concentration camp. It was like they're experimenting with our bodies," said the immigrant, whose name was not disclosed by the organization.
Leeann Culbreath, co-founder and co-chair of South Georgia Immigrant Support Network, a humanitarian organization, recalled conversations with a handful of detained women over recent years who shared concerns about gynecological care.
"With alarming frequency we hear about women who've received gynecological procedures," Culbreath said. "Sometimes they were not given an opportunity to give consent for that."
The anecdotes in the whistleblower complaint confirmed Culbreath's concerns. "That affirmed my worst fears about what might be happening here," she told CNN.
Wooten describes speaking with detained women who didn't fully understand why they had the medical procedure. "These immigrant women, I don't think they really, totally, all the way understand this is what's going to happen depending on who explains it to them," Wooten said.
The complaint also alleges the facility didn't take necessary precautions to avoid the spread of Covid-19, which ultimately motivated Wooten to come forward.
"I began to ask questions about why would the detainees not be tested -- symptomatic or non-symptomatic," Wooten said. "But what broke the back and the last straw was looking in and living it for yourself. Coming to work and being told that even though you're being tested, you can report when CDC guidelines says stay home and a doctor's note says stay home."
The allegations raised by Wooten are similar to those surfacing around the country from immigrants held at ICE facilities, according to court documents, lawyers and other whistleblowers. They include treating Covid-19 symptoms with over-the-counter cold medication, lack of social distancing and transfers of detainees despite heightened risk of spreading the virus.
Wooten, according to the complaint, had "pleaded with ICDC Warden David Paulk in March when the facility had its first Covid-19 case to stop all transfers of individuals in and out the facility, but the Warden did not listen."
According to ICE statistics, there have been 43 total confirmed Covid-19 cases at the Irwin County Detention Center. There have been more than 5,799 cases overall nationwide at ICE detention centers.
English to Chinese: Two Gulf nations recognized Israel at the White House. Here's what's in it for all sides
Source text - English Two Gulf nations recognized Israel at the White House. Here's what's in it for all sides
Jerusalem (CNN) President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday joined the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain at the White House to mark historic normalization agreements between Israel and the two Arab countries.
Trump hailed the occasion, claiming the signing of the Abraham Accords will "change the course of history," and marks "the dawn of a new Middle East."
"Together these agreements will serve as the foundation for a comprehensive peace across the entire region, something which nobody thought was possible, certainly not in this day and age," Trump said. "These agreements prove that the nations of the region are breaking free from failed approaches of the past. Today's signing sets history on a new course and there will be other countries very very soon that will follow these great leaders." Netanyahu described the day as a "pivot of history, a new dawn of peace."
The last time such a ceremony took place in Washington was in 1994, when President Bill Clinton looked on as Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordanian King Hussein signed a declaration that paved the way for a peace deal months later.
For Trump, the timing was crucial. Less than two months before an election in which he trails in the polls, normalization agreements between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain are major foreign policy achievements, even if the region was gradually moving towards these relationships regardless of who occupied the White House.
How did we get here?
For years, Israel has had covert relations with many of the Sunni Gulf states, driven in recent years by a mutual de facto alliance against Iran. Even so, the relations pre-date the Iran nuclear deal by more than a decade in some cases, as Gulf states looked to take advantage of Israel's high-tech scene and Israel looked to secure its place in a turbulent Middle East.
Chief among these behind-the-scenes relations was the United Arab Emirates, with numerous public examples of the growing ties between the two states becoming more common. In late-2015, Israel opened a diplomatic-level mission to the International Renewable Energy Agency in Abu Dhabi. In 2018, then-culture minister Miri Regev made a state visit to the Grand Mosque on the heels of an Israeli gold medal at a judo tournament in the Emirates. Israel was also invited to Expo 2020 Dubai, a world expo that has since been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
Like the UAE, Bahrain also had covert ties with Israel stretching back years. In addition, Bahrain has a small but sustained Jewish community, with one of its members serving as the country's ambassador to the United States from 2008-2013. The small Gulf kingdom also hosted the unveiling of the economic portion of the White House's plan for Middle East peace, signaling a willingness to engage with the US -- and subsequently Israel -- on the issue, even at a time when no progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appears possible.
Crucially the UAE and Bahrain are also close allies of the US, with each country hosting a significant US military presence. The US Air Force has deployed F-35 fighter jets to an air base in Abu Dhabi, while the Navy's Fifth Fleet and Central Command are based in Bahrain. That military presence has drawn the leaders of the UAE and Bahrain closer to the US, and because of the anti-Iran alliance, closer to Israel.
What do Israel, the UAE and Bahrain get from this?
A prominent American rabbi who acts as a personal adviser to Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa once told me that for the Gulf Arab states, the road to Washington runs through Jerusalem. In other words, if these states wanted to grow closer to President Trump and the White House, building relations with Israeli leaders was a surefire way to achieve that goal.
The UAE made clear that one of the benefits it sees from the normalization agreement with Israel is that it should be easier to acquire F-35s from the United States, a view also shared by Trump's senior adviser Jared Kushner. That would give the Emiratis the latest fighter jet in the US inventory and a significant edge over any other military in the region, with the exception of Israel.
The UAE also ensured a suspension of Israel's intended annexation of parts of the West Bank, and made it clear this was one of its conditions for normalizing relations. Though it's unclear how long the suspension lasts, for the UAE, this kept alive the possibility of a two-state solution, which it says is the only possible end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Speaking at the White House Tuesday, the Emirati foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed thanked Israel for "halting" the planned annexation of Palestinian territories, saying it "reinforces our shared will to achieve a better future for generations to come."
Less clear is what specific goals Bahrain intends to achieve from the normalization agreement. For both the UAE and Bahrain, the agreements also open up the possibility of purchasing Israeli high-tech, including military technology such as the Iron Dome missile defense system, as well as cooperation on economics, health, tourism and more.
Politically, it is also a win-win situation for the UAE and Bahrain. Either Trump wins a second term in November and they have already scored points with his administration, or a Biden administration takes over and they are on strong footing having secured normalization agreements with Israel.
As for Israel, Netanyahu gets to tout a major foreign policy achievement, one that only two other Israeli leaders have been able to achieve. Menachem Begin signed a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979. Yitzhak Rabin signed a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994. Netanyahu will sign normalization agreements with two countries in one day.
Crucially, the White House ceremony helps distract from Netanyahu's domestic issues: a tattered economy dealing with 18% unemployment, a coronavirus crisis that has forced Israel into a second general lockdown, and his own trial on corruption charges. He has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence.
What was Trump's role and why is this happening at the White House?
The Trump administration saw an opportunity in a shifting Middle East and took advantage of it. Unable to make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Trump and his advisors shifted focus to the rest of the region. Long gone are the days when the conflict defined the news cycle in the Middle East. Now the biggest regional battle is between Iran on one side the and Gulf Sunni states on the other. It is in this conflict where Trump saw an opening to push Israel closer to the Arab states.
For decades, Washington has been the key broker of peace in the Middle East and the crucial moderator in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. It was President Jimmy Carter who stood between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, and Bill Clinton between Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein. Now it will be Trump standing between Netanyahu and the foreign ministers of the UAE and Bahrain.
But now the White House vision of the region hardly includes the Palestinians. Trump has invited the Palestinians to the negotiating table, but only under a vision of the Middle East heavily skewed towards Israel and against the Palestinians. If they don't want to engage, the White House seems more than happy to leave them behind.
Why is it happening now?
To be clear, these agreements looked inevitable, whether they happened now or in a few years. Trump and Netanyahu pushed for them to happen now. Beset by problems domestically -- and with Trump trailing in the polls less than two months before an election -- there was a shared will for an all-out push to make something major happen. In recent weeks, Kushner and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited the region, trying to build on the momentum of the agreement between Israel and the UAE.
Those efforts aren't over yet. The Gulf nation of Oman commended the agreement between Israel and Bahrain, signaling that they may be next in line to normalize relations with Israel. And Saudi Arabia? And while a similar deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia would represent a monumental shift in the region, it seems unlikely in the short-term.
Why do the Palestinians feel sold out?
In a word, the Palestinians feel betrayed. The 2002 Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative called for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before Arab states normalized relations with Israel. The UAE and Bahrain have flipped the narrative, moving towards normalization with no progress on the conflict. Palestinians accused the UAE and Bahrain of betraying Jerusalem, the al-Aqsa mosque, and the Palestinian cause.
And because this was pushed by the White House, it is another entry on the growing list of grievances Palestinian leaders have against Trump. The Palestinians cut off contact with the White House after the Trump administration moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem and took other pro-Israel steps.
But the list of options available to the Palestinians is shrinking. The Palestinians have the support of Iran, Turkey, and a few others, but its traditional Arab partners are moving closer to Israel. In a sign of that movement, the Arab League failed to pass a resolution backed by the Palestinians that would have condemned the UAE-Israel agreement.
CNN's Jason Hoffman, Andrew Carey, Nada Al Taher and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.
English to Chinese: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dead at 87
Source text - English Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dead at 87
(CNN) Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday due to complications of metastatic pancreas cancer, the court announced. She was 87.
Ginsburg was appointed in 1993 by President Bill Clinton and in recent years served as the most senior member of the court's liberal wing, consistently delivering progressive votes on the most divisive social issues of the day, including abortion rights, same-sex marriage, voting rights, immigration, health care and affirmative action.
Her death -- less than seven weeks before Election Day -- opens up a political fight over the future of the court. Addressing the liberal justice's death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday evening, "President Trump's nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate."
But Ginsburg told her granddaughter she wanted her replacement to be appointed by the next president, NPR reported. "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed," she dictated to granddaughter Clara Spera days before her death.
"She led an amazing life. What else can you say?" President Donald Trump said Friday evening upon hearing about her death. "She was an amazing woman whether you agree or not she was an amazing woman who led an amazing life."
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden praised Ginsburg as a "giant in the legal profession" and a "beloved figure," saying in brief on-camera remarks Friday evening that people "should focus on the loss of the justice and her enduring legacy."
"But there is no doubt, let me be clear that the voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice for the Senate to consider," he added, saying that was the position of Republicans who refused to vote on then-President Barack Obama's nominee in 2016.
Obama, in a statement mourning Ginsburg, also called for Senate Republicans to uphold the standard they set in 2016 when they blocked his nominee.
"Over a long career on both sides of the bench -- as a relentless litigator and an incisive jurist -- Justice Ginsburg helped us see that discrimination on the basis of sex isn't about an abstract ideal of equality; that it doesn't only harm women; that it has real consequences for all of us. It's about who we are -- and who we can be," Obama said in a statement.
He added, "Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought to the end, through her cancer, with unwavering faith in our democracy and its ideals. That's how we remember her. But she also left instructions for how she wanted her legacy to be honored. Four and a half years ago, when Republicans refused to hold a hearing or an up-or-down vote on Merrick Garland, they invented the principle that the Senate shouldn't fill an open seat on the Supreme Court before a new president was sworn in.
A basic principle of the law -- and of everyday fairness -- is that we apply rules with consistency, and not based on what's convenient or advantageous in the moment."
Ginsburg developed a rock star status and was dubbed the "Notorious R.B.G." In speaking events across the country before liberal audiences, she was greeted with standing ovations as she spoke about her view of the law, her famed exercise routine and her often fiery dissents.
"Our Nation has lost a jurist of historic stature," said Chief Justice John Roberts. "We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her -- a tireless and resolute champion of justice."
Ginsburg, who died on the eve of the Jewish new year, was surrounded by her family at her home in Washington, DC, the court said. A private interment service will be held at Arlington National Cemetery.
Ginsburg had suffered from five bouts of cancer, most recently a recurrence in early 2020 when a biopsy revealed lesions on her liver. She had said that chemotherapy was yielding "positive results" and that she was able to maintain an active daily routine.
"I have often said I would remain a member of the Court as long as I can do the job full steam," she said in a statement in July 2020. "I remain fully able to do that."
She told an audience in 2019 that she liked to keep busy even when she was fighting cancer. "I found each time that when I'm active, I'm much better than if I'm just lying about and feeling sorry for myself," she said in New York at the Yale Club at an event hosted by Moment Magazine. Ginsburg told another audience that she thought she would serve until she was 90 years old.
Tiny in stature, she could write opinions that roared disapproval when she thought the majority had gone astray.
Before the election of President Donald Trump, Ginsburg told CNN that he "is a faker" and noted that he had "gotten away with not turning over his tax returns." She later said she regretted making the comments and Trump suggested she should recuse herself in cases concerning him. She never did.
In 2011, by contrast, President Barack Obama singled out Ginsburg at a White House ceremony. "She's one of my favorites," he said, "I've got a soft spot for Justice Ginsburg."
The vacancy gives Trump the opportunity to further solidify the conservative majority on the court and fill the seat of a woman who broke through the glass ceiling at a time when few women attended law school with a different justice who could steer the court to the right on social issues.
Ginsburg was well-known for the work she did before taking the bench, when she served as an advocate for the American Civil Liberties Union and became the architect of a legal strategy to bring cases to the courts that would ensure that the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection applied to gender.
"I had the good fortune to be alive and a lawyer in the late 1960s when, for the first time in the history of the United States, it became possible to urge before courts, successfully, that society would benefit enormously if women were regarded as persons equal in stature to men,'" she said in a commencement speech in 2002.
Once she took the bench, Ginsburg had the reputation of a "judge's judge" for the clarity of her opinions that gave straightforward guidance to the lower courts.
At the Supreme Court, she was perhaps best known for the opinion she wrote in United States v. Virginia, a decision that held that the all-male admissions policy at the state funded Virginia Military Institute was unconstitutional for its ban on women applicants. "The constitutional violation in this case is the categorical exclusion of women from an extraordinary educational opportunity afforded men," she wrote in 1996.
Ginsburg faced discrimination herself when she graduated from law school in 1959 and could not find a clerkship.
No one was more surprised than Ginsburg of the status she gained with young women in her late 70s and early 80s. She was amused by the swag that appeared praising her work, including a "You Can't have the Truth, Without Ruth" T-shirt as well as coffee mugs and bobbleheads. Some young women went as far as getting tattoos bearing her likeness. A Tumblr dubbed her the "Notorious R.B.G." in reference to a rap star known as "Notorious B.I.G." The name stuck. One artist set Ginsburg's dissent in a religious liberty case to music.
"It makes absolute sense that Justice Ginsburg has become an idol for younger generations," Justice Elena Kagan said at an event at the New York Bar Association in 2014. "Her impact on America and American law has been extraordinary."
"As a litigator and then as a judge, she changed the face of American anti-discrimination law," Kagan said. "She can take credit for making the law of this country work for women and in doing so she made possible my own career."
Ginsburg, even after her fifth diagnosis of cancer, was working on a book with one of her former clerks, Amanda Tyler. It was based on her life on gender equality.
Dissents and strategy
Part of Ginsburg's renown came from her fierce dissents in key cases, often involving civil rights or equal protection.
In 2007, the court heard a case concerning Lilly Ledbetter, who had worked as a supervisor at a Goodyear Tire plant in Alabama. Near the end of her career, Ledbetter discovered a pay disparity between her salary and the salaries of male co-workers. She filed a claim arguing she had received a discriminatorily low salary because of her sex, in violation of federal law. A majority of the court found against Ledbetter, ruling she had filed her complaints too late. Ginsburg wasn't impressed with that reasoning.
"The court's insistence on immediate contest overlooks common characteristics of pay discrimination," Ginsburg wrote, urging Congress to take up the issue, which it did in 2009.
In 2015, it was Ginsburg who led the liberal block of the court as it voted in favor of same-sex marriage with the critical fifth vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy wrote the opinion and it was joined by the liberals, who chose not to write separately. Ginsburg was likely behind that strategy and she said later that had she written the majority she might have put more emphasis on equal protection.
After the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens, Ginsburg was the most senior of her liberal colleagues and she had the power to assign opinions when the chief justice was on the other side. She assigned herself an angry dissent when the court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013.
"The sad irony of today's decision lies in its utter failure to grasp why the VRA has proven effective," she wrote. She compared racial discrimination to a "vile infection" and said early attempts to protect against it were like "battling the Hydra."
She also penned a partial dissent in a 2012 case concerning Obama's health care law, disagreeing with the conservative justices that the individual mandate was not a valid exercise of Congress' power under the Commerce Clause. She called the reasoning "crabbed" but was satisfied that Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the fifth vote to uphold the law under the taxing power.
Ginsburg puzzled some liberals with her criticisms of the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion -- a case that was decided well before she took the bench. Although she said she felt like the result was right, she thought the Supreme Court should have limited itself to the Texas statute at hand instead of issuing a sweeping decision that created a target for opponents to abortion rights.
She was in dissent in 2007 when the majority upheld a federal ban on a procedure called "partial birth abortion." She called the decision "alarming" and said that it "tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists."
She voted with the majority, however, in 2016 when the court struck down a Texas abortion law that critics called one of the strictest nationwide.
In July, Ginsburg filed another fierce dissent when the conservative majority allowed the Trump administration to expand exemptions for employers who have religious or moral objections to complying with the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate.
"Today, for the first time, the Court casts totally aside countervailing rights and interests in its zeal to secure religious rights to the nth degree," Ginsburg wrote, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. She observed that the administration had said the new rules would cause thousands of women -- "between 70,500 and 126,400 women of childbearing age," she wrote -- to lose coverage.
Friendship with Scalia
Despite their ideological differences, her best friend on the bench was the late Justice Antonin Scalia. After the conservative's sudden death in February 2016, Ginsburg said he left her a "treasure trove" of memories.
She was a life-long opera fan who appeared onstage in 2016 at the Kennedy Center for a non-speaking role in the Washington National Opera's "The Daughter of the Regiment."
At speaking events she often lamented that while she dreamed of being a great opera diva, she had been born with the limited range of a sparrow. Her relationship with Scalia inspired Derrick Wang to compose a comic opera he titled "Scalia/Ginsburg" that was based on opinions penned by the two justices.
The actress Kate McKinnon also portrayed Ginsburg -- wearing black robes and a trademark jabot -- in a recurring "Saturday Night Live" skit responding to the news of the day.
Ginsburg suffered two bouts of cancer in 1999 and 2009 and received a stent implant in her heart but never missed a day of oral arguments. She was married to Martin Ginsburg, a noted tax attorney, for more than 50 years until his death in 2010 and they had two children.
"I would just like people to think of me as a judge who did the best she could with whatever limited talent I had," Ginsburg said at an event at the University of California Hastings College of Law in 2011, "to keep our country true to what makes it a great nation and to make things a little better than they might have been if I hadn't been there."
This story has been updated. Sarah Mucha and Arlette Saenz contributed to this report.
English to Chinese: Future design : what ‘ living ‘ clothes can do to absorb carbon emissions
Source text - English Future design : what ‘ living ‘ clothes can do to absorb carbon emissions
Canadian-Iranian designer Roya Aghighi wants you to imagine that your shirt is alive. Far from dreaming up a horror movie script, Aghighi hopes we can develop a more intimate relationship with fashion -- by treating clothes as living beings that need our help to survive.
"You're not going to throw your clothes in the corner of your closet or into the washing machine," she said over the phone from Vancouver. "It's immediately going to shift the way you think about your clothing."
Aghighi's thought experiment isn't as far-fetched as it might seem. Working with a group of scientists at the University of British Columbia (UBC), she has invented a living, biodegradable fabric named Biogarmentry. Made from algae, the biofabricated textile photosynthesizes, which purifies the air around it.
UBC claims it's the first living and photosynthesizing textile, and has fashioned the material into a sheer, cloak-like garment. While prototypes like these are still in the early stages of research and design, and far from mass production, they challenge the fashion industry to reimagine ways it can reduce its colossal carbon footprint through alternative fabrics.
Fashion fail
Fashion is one of the world's most polluting industries. It's responsible for more carbon emissions than international flights and shipping combined, amounting to 10% of all greenhouse gasses emitted globally, according to figures from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
US consumers are buying more garments than ever, wearing each item fewer times and sending almost 70% of the clothes and footwear produced each year to landfill, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Changing our relationship with clothing, from one of neglectful fast-fashion consumption to an empathetic connection, is one of Aghighi's main drivers.
While her innovative garment is now only at the proof-of-concept stage, buyers may one day be instructed to stretch the fabric out in front of a window before putting it on. With sunlight and a spray of water, its single-cell chlamydomonas reinhardtii algae come to life.
Aghighi predicts consumption habits will take a long time to change. "It is going to be a slow shift," she said. "But I hope that it's gonna be a long-lasting one."
Carbon-negative fashion
The crops traditionally used to make clothing, from cotton to hemp, absorb carbon as they grow. So, too, do a growing number of manufactured materials derived from plants, like Rayon, which is made from wood pulp that is chemically converted into purified cellulose.
But end-to-end, most natural materials are still carbon emitters, says New York-based designer Charlotte McCurdy, a fellow at Rhode Island School of Design. Take a single T-shirt made of cotton, the world's most commonly used natural fiber, as an example.
The estimated footprint of a cotton shirt over its lifetime is 15 kilograms (33 pounds) of carbon dioxide, with most of that emitted during the energy-intensive production and dyeing processes.
In recent years, environmental startups have proposed a number of alternative natural fibers, from beechwood made into cashmere-like beachwear to cactus leather. Many of these have the potential to sequester carbon but none have been shown to achieve net-zero emissions over the lifecycle of a garment, especially when washing and drying clothes significantly add to their overall footprint. Instead, so-called "carbon-negative" brands resort to carbon offsetting -- planting trees -- to bring their net emissions down.
In her research, McCurdy has, like Aghighi, looked to possibilities of algae, and its ability to trap carbon. She has created a carbon-negative raincoat made from a plastic-like material made of marine algae and other biodegradable components.
Like cotton or hemp, algae sequesters carbon as it grows, photosynthesizing to capture carbon dioxide from the air. Microalgae can capture ten times as much sunlight as terrestrial plants, and it grows fast -- with some species able to double their biomass within a few hours. It can be converted into powder, before being spun into a fiber.
"The point is not to make a plastic out of algae," McCurdy said at a talk organized by New York City's New Museum. "The point is to sequester carbon, and it matters how we do that and how those systems scale."
The message
Sustainably scaling up algae-based fabric production will be essential if these garments are to become the basis for carbon-negative fashion.
Algal biotechnology is a big business. Beyond the world of fashion, it's seen as an alternative for polyurethane plastics -- the world's most common plastic, which is used in everything from bags to outdoor furniture -- as well as in fabrics.
Stephen Mayfield, a biological sciences professor at UC San Diego who has made a biodegradable flip flop, says algae-based materials are, currently, where electric vehicle technologies were a decade ago.
"It was clear they were the future of transportation and it was just a matter of time. Algae is poised in the same way," he said. "The technology is now ready for prime time."
Biotech start-ups from the US to China are racing to scale up these fabrics, from concepts to mass-production processes that can compete with cotton or synthetic materials on price. McCurdy sees this as a promising route forward and wants to show that algae-based clothing can be not only environmentally sound but aesthetically daring and futuristic.
The raincoat produced by McCurdy's "After Ancient Sunlight" project was featured in "Nature," the Cooper Hewitt museum's 2019 Design Triennial, last year. She was interested by the fact that sunlight is responsible for both the photosynthetic energy produced by algae and the fossil fuel energy, like oil or coal, that traces its origins to prehistoric plants and algae.
"Part of what this project is speaking to, is that we used to be in a society that fulfilled all of its needs through the energy of the sun," she said. "And then we got dependent on this stored, ancient super-energy-dense sunlight." (The majority of plastics are made from fossil fuels, or stores of carbon created by "ancient sunlight," as the Cooper Hewitt's exhibition noted.)
"And we can get back to building our society from sunlight. So there's some sort of poetic tension between rain and sunlight."
In the lab, Aghighi's fabric develops different patterns -- organic shapes, spots and bands -- as the algae grow, the designer said. When the resulting garments are commercially available, she imagines people tending to their own organic cloak, spraying their organism as they commute to work and encouraging their algae to purify the air and grow distinctive, individual motifs. "I'm not saying that your clothes should be your pets," she said. "I mean, to be honest, secretly, I do say that."
從美國到中國的生物技術初創企業都在競相擴大這些面料的規模，從概念到大規模生產過程都可以在價格上與棉花或合成材料競爭。McCurdy認為這是一個有前途的前進之路，並希望表明藻類服裝不僅對環境有益，而且在美學上大膽且具有未來感。
去年，Cooper Hewitt 博物館的《 2019設計三年展》在《自然》中展示了McCurdy的“ After Ancient Sunlight”項目生產的雨衣。她對以下事實感興趣：陽光既負責藻類產生的光合作用能量，又負責化石燃料能源（例如石油或煤炭），而化石燃料能源的起源可追溯到史前植物和藻類。
English to Chinese: Xi Jinping wants China's private companies to fight alongside the Communist Party
Source text - English Xi Jinping wants China's private companies to fight alongside the Communist Party
Hong Kong (CNN Business) President Xi Jinping has sent a message to China's private businesses: You can make money, but only if you follow my rules.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party this month published an unusually frank set of guidelines that call on its members to "educate private businesspeople to weaponize their minds with [Xi's] socialism ideology."
The private sector needs "politically sensible people," the directive said, who will "firmly listen to the party and follow the party."
The message comes as the world's second-largest economy continues its fragile recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and tussles with the United States over trade and the future of technology. Bringing China's independent-minded private businesses to heel could help speed that recovery, while extending the control of the most powerful leader the country has seen in decades at a time of mounting challenges at home and abroad.
The message was remarkable for its candor and zeal. In the past, Beijing had taken a more tactful approach when it wants to exercise control over companies beyond the state sector — like in 2018 when Xi offered the private sector tax breaks, financial assistance, and a personal vow of support to quell any fears that it was falling out of political favor.
And while it's not yet clear what practical effect the latest directive will have on private enterprise in China, one of Xi's catchphrases has been "the party exercises overall leadership over all endeavors across the country." The directive indicates that the Chinese leader wants to take more overt measures to spell out the importance of the Communist Party's philosophies. That could mean requiring private companies to take public stances on major political or foreign affairs, such as any territorial disputes that China is involved in.
The 'United Front'
The private sector is a vital part of China's economy. More than 30 million private businesses contribute over 60% of the country's GDP. The taxes they pay account for more than half of government revenue, and they employ more than 80% of China's workers.
The document explicitly called for the private sector to become part of the "United Front," a coalition of individuals and organizations tasked with carrying out the party's agenda and creating alliances among those with similar philosophies. The network's origins can be traced back nearly a century, and it was once credited by Chairman Mao Zedong as a "magic weapon" that helped the Communist Party triumph over its enemies.
China has not publicly released documents emphasizing the importance of aligning the private sector with the United Front since the late 1970s, when the country embarked on a decades-long path toward economic reform meant to stabilize the country after the Cultural Revolution.
But in some ways, this kind of messaging isn't entirely surprising, according to Steve Tsang, director of SOAS China Institute in London. While China's economy has managed to avert recession this year, the coronavirus pandemic has still wiped out much of its growth.
Chinese politicians have in the past expressed concern that prolonged economic instability could lead to social unrest. And given the financial turmoil the country's private sector has experienced in recent years, the government might be hesitant to afford those companies a lot of free reign at a precarious time.
China is also faces rising hostility from Western powers, noted Willy Lam, an adjunct professor at the Centre for China Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong. The feud between Washington and Beijing has hurt the fortunes of many Chinese businesses, from TikTok owner ByteDance to tech firm Huawei.
"Xi wants the whole nation to act as one because the country is going though unprecedented challenges," Lam said. "Under the growing sense of crisis, Xi wants everybody in China to unite under the leadership of the party and speak the same voice."
Private sector on the defense
As extraordinary as last week's directive was, there have been signs for years that private enterprise in China is on the defense.
Following a stock market meltdown in 2015 and 2016 — which experts at the time attributed to slowing economic growth and risky trading practices encouraged by cheerleaders in a bullish state media — an unprecedented amount of money began leaving China through private business.
Xi's government blamed the turmoil partly on high-flying financial tycoons, and since then Beijing has tightened the rules that govern the sector. Regulators have curbed excessive corporate borrowing and made it harder for money to leave China.
As that campaign was taking off around 2017, Xi was also openly talking about the importance of the Communist Party as the heart of "everything in China," Tsang pointed out. "The economy is therefore not an exception," he added. "This generally implies that Xi's economic policy focuses on advancing the state-owned sector at the expense of the private sector."
Even more concerning, a handful of major companies had begun taking on a hefty amount of financial risk, raising fears of instability.
For example, in 2018 Chinese regulators seized control of Anbang Insurance, a major conglomerate that made big overseas deals and which once owned the Waldorf Astoria and Strategic Hotels & Resorts. Founder and chairman Wu Xiaohui was eventually sentenced to 18 years in prison for fraudulent fundraising and embezzlement, and the firm announced last week that it will apply for liquidation.
Earlier this year, the massive conglomerate HNA Group also fell under government management. The company had spent $40 billion on investments in Hilton (HLT), Deutsche Bank (DB) and other overseas assets in recent years, eventually finding itself so deep in debt that its finances became overstretched.
Even some of China's most successful private companies have been subject to government action. Last year, for example, officials in the city of Hangzhou were sent into some of the country's biggest private companies, including Alibaba (BABA)and Geely (GELYF), as "government affairs representatives."
That move may have been a message from the government to private companies: "Move closer [to us] and listen," Ronald Wan, chief executive for Partners Capital International in Hong Kong, told CNN Business at the time. The private sector is also struggling financially.
Revenue growth at the top 500 private companies in China as measured by sales slowed by about 10% on average last year, according to a survey released earlier this month by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, a chamber of commerce led by the Communist Party. The organization describes itself as a "bridge" linking the party and the government with private business groups.
Profit growth at those companies fell by an average of nearly 6%, while the size of their workforce slumped by roughly 1% compared to 2018.
Those problems aren't explained simply by government intervention. China's economic slowdown predated the pandemic, and was exacerbated by fallout from the unprecedented closures that were implemented to stem the spread of the virus. The US-China trade war also dealt a blow to businesses.
A secondary role
It's not that Beijing no longer cares about having a robust private sector. After all, such businesses are critical to the health of the economy.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang admitted in July that the combination of problems has left private businesses in the "most difficult times." He urged the government and any state-owned businesses to help in the recovery by repaying any loans owed to private companies.
"In reality, Xi is not anti-private sector per se," said Tsang, of the SOAS China Institute. "While he clearly puts the state sector ahead, he is willing to support private enterprises provided the enterprises concerned adhere closely to the party's leadership."
"But for private enterprises that do not adhere closely to the party's direction, they can expect to face pressure from the authorities," he added.
There are some consequences for such a strategy, though. Western authorities have been historically mistrustful of how closely some private companies are tied to Beijing — a concern that is only growing as tensions between the United States and China escalate.
The short form video app TikTok, for example, has ignited a political firestorm in the United States because US authorities are wary about its ties to Beijing. But Lam, the professor, said those concerns might not matter much to Xi.
The Chinese leader has already made it clear that he wants his country to shed its reliance on the West for the critical technologies of the future, particularly as geopolitical tensions rise. For Xi and the Communist Party, the state sector is key to making that happen. "Xi is a super hawk," Lam said. "He doesn't care much about the West, because his priority is about tightening the control of China and maintaining the party's domestic rule."
English to Chinese: Internal AstraZeneca safety report sheds light on neurological condition suffered by vaccine trial participant
Source text - English Internal AstraZeneca safety report sheds light on neurological condition suffered by vaccine trial participant
(CNN) CNN has obtained an internal safety report by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca that sheds light on the neurological condition suffered by one of the participants in its coronavirus vaccine clinical trial.
The report details how the study volunteer, a previously healthy 37-year-old woman, "experienced confirmed transverse myelitis" after receiving her second dose of the vaccine, and was hospitalized on September 5.
Four days later, AstraZeneca dismissed media reports about the participant having a confirmed case of the rare neurological condition, in which the spinal cord becomes inflamed.
The document, which is labeled an "initial report," describes how the study participant had trouble walking, weakness and pain in her arms, and other symptoms. The internal safety report is dated September 10, and on September 11 it was sent out to doctors who are running the study's clinical trial sites.
Last week, AstraZeneca announced the study volunteer's "unexplained illness," and said it was voluntarily pausing the trial worldwide. On Saturday, the trial in the UK resumed. The trial has not resumed in the US.
As the world closely watches the development process of a number of vaccines, hoping for an end to a deadly pandemic, some scientists say AstraZeneca's communications about the patient's condition have not been fully transparent.
A company spokesperson says, as the trial sponsor, they "cannot disclose medical information." In a press release last week, the pharmaceutical giant stated that "we are committed to the safety of our participants and the highest standards of conduct in our trials."
'Just a matter of time' before trial resumes in the US
Fourteen days after receiving her second dose of the vaccine, the woman, who lives in the UK, "experienced confirmed transverse myelitis," with symptoms including trouble walking and pain and weakness, the safety report said. Researchers were sufficiently concerned that they filed a SUSAR, or Suspected or Unexpected Serious Adverse Reaction report.
This is the report CNN obtained. After the patient's condition was reviewed by safety experts, the trial resumed in the UK and Brazil. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN Tuesday that it is "just a matter of time" before the trial resumes in the United States.
He added that he considered the participant's illness a "one-off" at this point, and that "it would be unusual to completely stop a trial on the basis of one single adverse event."
He said doctors leading the trial sites in the US will be told to look out for similar symptoms. "You have to be extra special careful and watch out to see if it happens again, and then if it does, it becomes an entirely different situation," he said.
The "case narrative" contained in AstraZeneca's report says the patient had the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine in early June and was fine. She received her second dose in late August. On September 2, while running, the study participant "had a trip (not fall) with a jolt." The report notes that she did not have any obvious injury to her cervical spine.
The next day, the report says, she had symptoms including difficulty walking, pain and weakness in her arms, pain and reduced sensation in her torso, a headache and reduced ability to use her hands. The woman was hospitalized on September 5.
The AstraZeneca report mentions twice that the woman was diagnosed with "confirmed" transverse myelitis. It also says that a neurologist who consulted on her case "suggested the symptoms were consistent with the diagnosis of transverse myelitis."
The report was sent to physicians who are leading study sites for the AstraZeneca vaccine. The cover sheet on the report, sent by a contractor hired by AstraZeneca, described her illness as "confirmed" transverse myelitis. The contractor requested that doctors, if required, submit the report to their Institutional Review Board or local ethics committee.
The report notes that the woman saw a neurologist, who stated the patient reported no past history of neurological symptoms or significant illnesses. At another point in the narrative, it said there was "limited information concerning the subject's relevant medical history."
No other similar cases had been diagnosed among other study volunteers, according to the report. The neurologist noted that the study volunteer started to feel better.
"The resolution of her symptoms is quite rapid considering her illness started only four days ago," according to the report. "Her symptoms were improving. Her strength and dexterity in her hands was getting better."
On September 8, The New York Times quoted a source saying a trial volunteer had transverse myelitis, and the next day, Stat News reported that the company's CEO, Pascal Soriot, told investors in a conference call that the trial was stopped because a woman volunteering in the trial had symptoms consistent with transverse myelitis.
Later that day, AstraZeneca addressed media reports. "Reports claiming to be based on comments made earlier today by our CEO stating that we have confirmed that a participant in our clinical trial suffered from transverse myelitis are incorrect. He stated that there is no final diagnosis and that there will not be one until more tests are carried out. Those tests will be delivered to an independent safety committee that will review the event and establish a final diagnosis," a spokesperson for the pharmaceutical giant said in a statement emailed to CNN on September 9.
The woman was enrolled in the UK arm of the trial, which is run by the University of Oxford. When asked about her situation, AstraZeneca pointed CNN to a participant information sheet, updated on September 11, on Oxford's website.
That sheet refers to volunteers in the trial who "developed unexplained neurological symptoms including changed sensation or limb weakness."
The document goes on to say that "after independent review, these illnesses were either considered unlikely to be associated with the vaccine or there was insufficient evidence to say for certain that the illnesses were or were not related to the vaccine."
The sheet adds that "close monitoring of the affected individuals and other participants will be continued."
It's unclear why the Oxford patient safety sheet refers to "unexplained neurological symptoms" and does not mention transverse myelitis. It does not say whether the volunteer's diagnosis was later changed.
When asked about this participant, a University of Oxford spokesperson wrote in an email to CNN that "we cannot disclose medical information about the illness for reasons of patient confidentiality."
In a press release, a university spokesperson said, "we are committed to the safety of our participants and the highest standards of conduct in our studies and will continue to monitor safety closely."
Oxford said in a statement that an "independent review process has concluded and following the recommendations of both the independent safety review committee and the UK regulator, the [Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency], the trials will recommence in the UK."
In an email to CNN, an AstraZeneca spokesperson said, "the Company will continue to work with health authorities across the world, including the FDA in the US, and be guided as to when other clinical trials can resume."
Last week, AstraZeneca's Soriot said: "At AstraZeneca we put science, safety and the interests of society at the heart of our work. This temporary pause is living proof that we follow those principles while a single event at one of our trial sites is assessed by a committee of independent experts. We will be guided by this committee as to when the trials could restart, so that we can continue our work at the earliest opportunity to provide this vaccine broadly, equitably and at no profit during this pandemic."
Moncef Slaoui, chief adviser to Operation Warp Speed, the US government's effort to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, said Tuesday: "Upon reviewing the U.K. event, the U.S. trial will resume when the independent Data and Safety Monitoring Board overseeing the trial and the U.S. FDA determine that it is safe to proceed."
Scientists question vaccine trial transparency
With tens of thousands of participants, it's inevitable that during the course of a trial, some participants will fall ill with anything from a cold to cancer to heart attacks. It's not always clear whether an illness is connected to a vaccine.
How AstraZeneca communicated about this patient's condition, and the condition of another who experienced symptoms during the trial, has caused some scientists to worry that the pharmaceutical company is not being fully transparent about the course of its coronavirus vaccine trial.
On Monday, Kaiser Health News reported that an official from the National Institutes of Health expressed worry about the AstraZeneca vaccine process.
AstraZeneca "need[s] to be more forthcoming with a potential complication of a vaccine which will eventually be given to millions of people," said Dr. Avindra Nath, intramural clinical director and a leader of viral research at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, an NIH division "We would like to see how we can help, but the lack of information makes it difficult to do so.
"The highest levels of NIH are very concerned," Nath told KHN. "Everyone's hopes are on a vaccine, and if you have a major complication the whole thing could get derailed."
In a tweet last week, Dr. Eric Topol asked pharmaceutical companies running coronavirus vaccine clinical trials to be more open about their work. "The [Covid-19] vaccine companies haven't been transparent; the stakes are big," wrote Topol, executive vice president of Scripps Research in California.
Transparency and public trust are key to ending the pandemic and getting back to normal. If people don't trust the vaccine, they might decide not to take it. "People won't get a vaccine if they don't trust the science," said Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccinologist at Baylor College of Medicine and a CNN medical analyst.
Polls indicate there's already a great deal of mistrust, including a CNN poll last month showing 40% of Americans won't get a coronavirus vaccine when it comes out, even if it's free and easy to get.
Hotez said AstraZeneca has shown a lack of transparency on several issues. "It's really unfortunate what they're doing," said Hotez, who is also developing a vaccine against Covid-19. "There needs to be transparency. This is just not acceptable." Hotez's vaccine is not yet in human trials and has not received funding from Operation Warp Speed.
Questions still unanswered
Several factors have made some scientists question AstraZeneca's transparency. This current pause isn't the first one for the AstraZeneca trial. Last week, while addressing the current pause, the company revealed there was a "brief pause" in July, when another study participant became ill.
The company said that first participant was found to have had an "undiagnosed case of multiple sclerosis," which was deemed to be unrelated to the vaccine. It did not explain how that conclusion was reached or why it waited more than a month to mention it publicly.
When asked why the UK arm of the trial was allowed to continue despite the woman's recent illness, company spokespeople pointed CNN to the University of Oxford participant information sheet, which states independent reviewers recommended that vaccinations should continue.
In the UK, clinical trials are regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. "We have now reviewed the data provided by the researchers and, after seeking independent expert advice from the Commission for Human Medicines (CHM), we agreed with the recommendation of the Data and Safety Monitoring Board that vaccination can restart," according to a statement sent to CNN by Siu Ping Lam, director of licensing for the agency.
Hotez said Operation Warp Speed, which is giving AstraZeneca $1.2 billion to test and manufacture its coronavirus vaccine, should be communicating more with the public about safety issues, such as the two participants' illnesses. Covid-19 vaccines are a matter of "national security," Hotez said.
"These are very sensitive issues, and Operation Warp Speed is ceding or delegating critically important communications that are vital to the national security interests of the nation," Hotez said.
In response, Operation Warp Speed's Slaoui told CNN on Tuesday that "questions regarding details and data on trial participants and trial pauses must be referred to the trial regulatory sponsors coordinating this process."
Hotez added that incomplete communication about the trials, including participants who become ill, could have a dire effect not just on the AstraZeneca vaccine, but also on other coronavirus vaccines that have received federal funding. "If they botch the communications on this, Americans will refuse to accept their vaccine, and this will have a spillover effect on the other Operation Warp Speed vaccines," he said.
Translation - Chinese 阿斯利康內部安全報告闡明了疫苗試驗參與者遭受的神經系統疾病
English to Chinese: Abu Dhabi: The adventure paradise I can't wait to explore again
Source text - English Abu Dhabi: The adventure paradise I can't wait to explore again
(CNN) — It's Friday morning. My friends and I are out cruising on my speed boat. We skim across the water, flat like ice, through the waterways that weave around nearly 200 islands.
One minute, the city skyline can be seen hugging the horizon, the next, we're surrounded by mangroves. The stresses of the working week are blown away and we're reconnecting with nature.
Before the world came to a standstill, this was the typical start to a weekend in my home city, Abu Dhabi, when I wasn't on the road, reporting from across the Middle East and Europe.The global pandemic has shattered our sense of normalcy and put many activities and escapes on hold, but it has also forced us to rethink our relationship with our immediate surroundings.
For me, it's offered a deeper appreciation of all the things I enjoy about Abu Dhabi. It's a place that continues to surprise with new adventures and experiences. It's also a place of natural beauty with a landscape that provides both exciting physical challenges and sensory wonders.
As we slowly emerge from lockdowns and travel restrictions, I'm already yearning to immerse myself once again in Abu Dhabi's delights -- the captivating greenery, the boundless desert sands, the jagged mountains, the glassy seas and its panoply of cultural treasures.
And while we wait, my mind continues to explore my favorite places -- locations and venues that not only make Abu Dhabi eternally alluring for us residents, but which we also look forward to sharing with future visitors to the emirate.
Island Life
If you're passingly familiar with the city Abu Dhabi, it's easy to forget that it's built on an island. You'd recognize the main island with its soaring high rises, its glamorous hotels, and the world-famous Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. But there's also loads of fun and adventure to be found on the many smaller islands dotted around.
Our usual destination on those Friday speedboat excursions is Zaya Nurai Island. The private resort is our tropical oasis away from the urban sprawl. It's like the Maldives of Arabia. Neat villas sit along the tiny island's sculpted curves. Instagram-perfect powder beaches dissolve into endless turquoise seas. Sunsets bring uninterrupted views of fiery pink and purple skies.
The island is a perfect spot for a lazy day of relaxing by the shoreline, chilling by the pool and enjoying mouth-watering Arabic seafood mezze whipped up by Chef Marc and his team. The fatteh shrimp and grilled hamour are flavors I can't wait to sample again.
Scaling new heights
Other times we head over to Yas Island. Arguably the best-known of Abu Dhabi's islands, it's home to the more frenetic attractions like the Formula One-hosting Yas Marina Circuit, the splashy fun of Yas Waterworld aquatic park and the newly opened Warner Bros Abu Dhabi indoor theme park.
These all offer great days out, but there's a new adventure on Yas that's calling to me right now -- Clymb. In contrast to its many opportunities for relaxation, Abu Dhabi is also emerging as a place where the pursuit of exercise and adrenaline sports is increasingly possible. I've certainly never been as fit as I have since moving here.
Clymb is a new indoor climbing center that houses the world's tallest indoor climbing wall and, if that wasn't extreme enough, the world's tallest skydiving chamber.
I have yet to muster enough courage to tackle the Summyt -- at 43 meters, this angular monster is only just under the height of the Statue of Liberty -- but thankfully there are four other less intimidating walls I've been able to practice on.
Some people treat Summyt as a mere workout. Avid climber Mohammed Al Zaabi, who runs Yas Island real estate developers Miral when he's not scaling the heights, says Clymb was inspired by "the mountains of the UAE." To explore those real-life inspirations you have to leave Yas and other islands behind and head inland.
Jebel Hafeet: The apex of Abu Dhabi
Sometimes the journey is the destination. That's the case with Jebel Hafeet, Abu Dhabi's highest peak. To get there you have to take the Jebel Hafeet Mountain Road, one of my favorite drives in the emirate. It takes you all the way up the mountain, 1,220 meters above sea level, through a zigzag of hairpin bends and turns.
Along the way are lookout points where on clear days you can stop and see the unique Arabian landscape mapped out beneath you -- all the way to the sea and the horizon beyond. At sunset, the shadows stretch out for miles before the melting sun and then the lights of the towns and homesteads below begin to shimmer on the cooling plains.
For the really fit, the Jebel Hafeet's smooth road provides a great cycle route. Its challenging 7%-average gradient is a magnet for riders who like a challenge. The grueling uphill battle tests stamina and endurance and has quickly become a favorite feature of the six-stage UAE Tour, part of cycling's global circuit of elite road-racing events.
Beneath the mountain, the baked terrain of its foothills conceals historical treasures. The recently opened Jebel Hafeet Desert Park is one of the UAE's first UNESCO World Heritage sites with remains from the Neolithic period and 5,000-year-old Bronze Age tombs. It's a pretty good location to spend the night glamping in a Bedouin-style tent and stargazing into the desert night.
Past, present and future
Just a short drive away is another UNESCO World Heritage site and one of my favorite locations in the whole of the country. So much so that I shot parts of my last promo here for "Connect the World with Becky Anderson."
The Al Ain Oasis is a lush forest of lofty palm trees that reaches into the heart of Abu Dhabi's historic second city, a green escape from the modern world. The UAE's founding father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, once said: "He who does not know his past cannot make the best of his present and future, for it is from the past that we learn."
To me that quote best summarizes how I see Al Ain Oasis. Walk among the towering palms, and you are immediately transported back in time. Its unique falaj irrigation system -- a maze of channels through which streams of gurgling water can be directed to where they're needed the most -- and neatly organized farms tell the story of a people who succeeded in taming the harsh desert through hard work and ingenuity.
In its cool shade, you understand where this place came from, how it has gotten to where it is, and why it is determined to succeed in the future. The oasis was nearly lost to the encroaching city a few years back, but that desire to preserve heritage has instead seen it flourish into the magical place it is today.
I love history, and thankfully Abu Dhabi is rich with it. High on my list of places to dive back into when it's possible is the newly renovated Qasr Al Hosn, an ancient fortification back in the capital.
The city's oldest stone building has foundations dating back to the 18th century and was once home to the ruling family and the seat of government.
Brilliantly restored, the structure's dazzling white buildings now tell the complete story of Abu Dhabi. It reveals how a tiny fishing and pearling settlement grew into a global cosmopolitan powerhouse.
Surrounded by skyscrapers on a wide open plaza, it feels like the true heart of this ever-evolving destination. And an added bonus, there are a handful of chic cafes close by to enjoy a well-deserved break, preferably a cup of qahwa -- the Arabian coffee that's another unmissable flavor of Abu Dhabi.
A universal message
Another relative newcomer to the city that's quickly become an old friend is the Louvre Abu Dhabi.
It's hard, if not impossible, to get enough of this place. Inspired by the Al Ain Oasis, the building itself is an architectural marvel. You can easily get lost in the beauty of its dome or the mesmerizing way its exhibitions seem to effortlessly float on water.
There are, of course, world-beating displays of art inside the museum, but I'm just as intrigued by Louvre Abu Dhabi's universal message. Instead of categorizing art and history in neat historical or regional blocs, Louvre Abu Dhabi asks us to see the common connection of humanity and how we are driven by the same passions and ideals.
That's a powerful reminder at a time of a global pandemic which has once again proved how similar we all are despite all our differences.
And that is the essence of Abu Dhabi to me. Beyond all the amazing destinations and unique experiences lies a commitment to tolerance and diversity that makes the city stand out. It's a melting pot of people and cultures that pushes visitors and residents to expand their horizons and to embrace the diversity that comes with being a truly global hub.
Sooner or later this pandemic will be over and we will slowly return to exploring our world. I hope those explorations include Abu Dhabi, a city I'm proud to call home.
English to Chinese: How the hot dog became an American icon
Source text - English How the hot dog became an American icon
(CNN) — No matter how you like your wiener prepared, grilled or boiled, with mustard, ketchup or chili, we can all agree on one thing, and that's that hot dogs have become part of a certain American cultural narrative.
And this year, more than ever, hot dogs are red hot; in March, the data firm IRI reported that sales were up by as much as 127%, and that was well before grilling season started.
Billions of hot dogs
"Americans eat an estimated 7 billion hot dogs between Memorial Day and Labor Day," Eric Mittenthal, president of the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, said.
But while hot dogs may feel "all-American," they're inherently something else. Also known as the frankfurter, this specific style of cased sausage was originally thought to be from the town of Frankfurt-am-Main in Germany, but hot dog historians argue that sausage culture, native to Eastern Europe and, particularly, Germany, has no specific town of origin.
The traditional German hot dog, when it arrived in the United States, was a blend of both pork and beef; the all-beef hot dog, as we now know it, takes its roots from Jewish-American butchers, who, due to Kosher restrictions, chose not to use pork in their meat blends.
"When Germans came, you have to look at where they came from," said Dr. Bruce Kraig, professor emeritus at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Kraig is a hot dog historian and the author of several books, including 'Hot Dog: A Global History' and 'A Rich and Fertile Land: A History of Food in America.'
"A good number of the early [Germans] came from the Palatines," which is a general area surrounding the actual city of Frankfurt, explains Kraig. Frankfurt, Kraig said, refers to the region of origin, though the actual food does not necessarily come from Frankfurt itself.
Brought over by German immigrants in the mid-1800s, hot dogs began their path into the American zeitgeist in New York City hot dog carts, where they were a natural fit for the sandwich-loving harried New Yorker, who already preferred to eat on the go. "They appear with the first German immigrants in the late 1840s," Kraig said.
"Germans have sausage culture, so they eat sausage from butcher shops. They eat them at home. They eat them in the street at fairs and festivals, and at beer gardens, so when Germans got to America, they set up beer gardens right away."
Classic street eats
Americans, he said, became enamored with the German idea of sausage eating on the street. "You have lots of evidence of sausage being sold by vendors, probably in the 1840s, but certainly by the 1860s. Wherever there are Germans, there are sausages sold in the streets."
That plural is important, actually. Germany is not known for a single sausage, after all, but for its abundance of them, from the veal- and poultry-based weisswurst to the pork-based bratwurst to the jerky-like landjäger.
German sausages are so plentiful that it's remarkable that Americans inherited only one in the common dietary canon.
In 1867, an entrepreneurial baker from Brooklyn by the name of Charles Feltman began selling hot dogs from a converted pie cart on Coney Island. "Coney Island started becoming a spot that people would go for recreation, but there wasn't really anything there at the time," said Michael Quinn, co-owner of hot dog brand Feltman's of Coney Island, which he and his brother, Joe Quinn, purchased in 2015.
Birth of the bun
Charles Feltman developed a hand-sliced, elongated bun that set the precedent for the modern hot dog bun. When popularity surged — Michael Quinn, himself a Coney Island historian, said that, in that first summer, the cart sold about 4,000 hot dogs — Feltman set his sights higher, entering into a restaurant and hotel partnership and opening a sprawling resort in Coney Island in 1873."Eventually, it became billed as the largest restaurant in the world," Michael Quinn said.
Numerous historic sources, including the Coney Island History Project, have acknowledged that, by the 1920s, Feltman's Ocean Pavilion restaurant was serving roughly five million customers per year, and selling somewhere around 40,000 hot dogs a day. Suddenly, hot dogs were on the national stage, and Coney Island was became the accessible epicenter of summer fun for anyone and everyone in and around New York.
Coney Island
That stage had already started to expand when, in 1875, Charles Feltman convinced president of the Prospect Park Railroad Andrew Culver to run the subway line down to Coney Island, offering public transportation to thousands of New Yorkers who had never before had access to the far reaches of Brooklyn.
The conflation of the subway line with Feltman's massive resort made Coney Island important — and hot dogs were in the center of this major cultural moment.
Although Feltman's empire diminished over time, and Coney Island became known less for its ritzy resort caché and more for its boardwalk kitsch, Feltman had already unknowingly contributed the greatest icon to American hot dog culture, when he hired a bun-slicer who would go on to become among the United States' most famous hot dog vendors.
"They didn't have machines back then, so one of the bun-slicers that the Feltman family hired was Nathan Handwerker," Michael Quinn said. "He worked as Feltman's as a bun-slicer!"
That same Nathan Handwerker would open his own competing brand, Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs, in 1916, and that brand would become synonymous with Coney Island hot dogs.
In some ways, Nathan's hot dogs now define the Fourth of July, which is when the famous Nathan's Hot Dog-Eating Contest takes place each summer. Hot dogs helped to frame the fame of Coney Island. "They were such an incredible sensation that Charles Feltman ultimately built a nearly 100-year empire on them," said Feltman's of Coney Island co-owner Joe Quinn.
How do you take it?
New York, of course, was not the only place where hot dogs took root in the late 19th century. "Hot dogs were spread around the country as immigrants spread to different regions," said Eric Mittenthal. "The Chicago-style hot dog took hold during the Depression, when stands would offer a variety of toppings that people would pile onto the hot dog, though Chicago is not alone in offering distinctive dogs."
While toppings differentiate dogs from place to place, one constant is affordability. A hot dog is a food of access. It is delicious, filling and cheap, no matter where you might find yourself, what city you happen to find yourself in, and that makes it appealing to anyone, irrespective of physical location. (Even vegetarians and vegans can enjoy hot dogs now — albeit of the meat-free likes of Beyond Meats and other brands on the market.)
German immigrants spread their love for sausages to other cities through the United States: Detroit, Milwaukee, and, later, Los Angeles.
Where Germans went, hot dogs followed. New Yorkers, of course, will argue that the specificity of the hot dog — a food that's well suited to eating while moving — works particularly well in their city, which is why the association is one that resounds, over a century later. "The advantage of having a hot sausage on an elongated bun — it's a very New York thing," Michael Quinn said. "New Yorkers like to walk and eat."
As for the name, hot dogs were first coined "red hots" — a term that's still used in both Maine and Detroit — sometime around the late 1800s, because of the heat of the grill that was used to cook them. But the dog part was really just cheekiness. "Hot dog is a joke word," Kraig said.
The earliest he has been able to trace the word is to 1892, to a newspaper clipping hailing from Patterson, New Jersey. "The identification of sausages with dogs is considerably earlier," he conceded.
According to Kraig, a popular song in the 1800s, written by Septimus Winner, begged the question: 'Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?', allegedly a reference to a dog gone missing in sausage meat. Thankfully, in the age of transparency, we know that the hot dogs we eat today — 7 billion this summer, if not more — are all hot, no dog.
That's a bit of a relief, for those looking to celebrate National Hot Dog Month in July. Break out the mustard.
English to Chinese: Australia’s forgotten other ‘Great Reef’
Source text - English Australia’s forgotten other ‘Great Reef’
The Great Southern Reef might not be as well-known as the Great Barrier Reef, but Australia’s "other" reef is brimming with biodiversity – and has battles of its own.
“Imagine flying through an old-growth forest,” said Mick Baron, owner of Eaglehawk Dive Centre in south-eastern Tasmania, when I asked the scuba-diving veteran what it was like to swim among the majestic giant kelp forests that once fringed Australia’s island state.
“Whether you’re cruising along the bottom looking up as the sun glints through the canopy or hanging out just below the surface peering down the trunks of these giant trees, so to speak, it was pretty special,” said Baron, wistfully. “There was marine life to see, too, but the star attraction was the kelp.”
Listed as an endangered ecological community by the Australian government in 2012, Tasmania’s giant kelp forests are more than 95% gone, with a spike in ocean temperatures triggered by the 2015-16 El Niño event speeding up a gradual die-off that had been occurring over several decades.
“In the space of about three months those big beds of forests had gone,” said Baron. “And I mean gone. There wasn’t a skerrick left. And they haven’t come back.”
Australia’s forgotten reef
Tasmania’s giant kelp forests formed part of what’s known as the Great Southern Reef, a vast system of temperate rocky reefs stretching some 8,000km from Kalbarri in Western Australia, down and around Australia’s rugged southern coast and Tasmania and up into northern New South Wales.
Despite 70% of Australia’s population living within 50km of the Great Southern Reef, most people have never heard of it. To be fair, this unique marine environment didn’t even have a name until 2016, when a team of scientists led by University of Western Australia (UWA) marine biologists Scott Bennett and Thomas Wernberg argued that this was part of its identity problem.
Dominated by kelp forests that sustain life in this biodiversity hotspot, the Great Southern Reef is home to hundreds of species not found anywhere else on Earth (including all three known seadragon species, seahorse-like creatures that look just as mystical as they sound), with an estimated 10,000 additional species yet to be identified. The reef also props up fishing and tourism industries worth approximately $10bn to the Australian economy, with its lucrative southern rock lobster and abalone industries alone worth four times the value of commercial fishing activities on the Great Barrier Reef.
But while most scientists agree the Great Southern Reef is in better general health than its northern counterpart, climate change is an increasing threat. While rising ocean temperatures have led to devastating coral bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef, it’s kelp that suffers when ocean temperatures increase further south. And just as marine scientists are trying to save the Great Barrier Reef with technologies ranging from “coral IVF” to the development of a heat-resistant micro-algae, scientists around the Great Southern Reef are also trialling methods to protect its foundation species.
Super kelp to the rescue?
In Hobart, a joint research project between the University of Tasmania’s Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) and the Climate Foundation is currently studying the possibility of restoring Tasmania’s giant kelp forests, whose demise is attributed to the increased influence of the East Australian Current (EAC), which is bringing warmer, nutrient-poor water down to Tasmania – and unwanted hitchhikers with it.
“Not only is kelp particularly sensitive to water temperature changes, but also to tropical marine species that feed on algae, and kelp is a type of algae,” explained IMAS postdoctoral research fellow and co-project lead Dr Cayne Layton.
In Tasmania, the long-spined sea urchin has wreaked havoc on giant kelp, turning lush underwater forests into what Layton describes as “veritable deserts”. But there’s hope, with IMAS scientists developing a “super kelp” that could help to save the species – or at least buy it a few more decades, if the urchins can be kept at bay.
“We’ve taken samples from remaining patches of giant kelp and tested them in a variety of water temperatures,” explained Layton. “We breed the ones that do best in high temperatures, which we call ‘super kelp’, then plant those out.”
Following signs of success from planting methods trialled in late 2019, scientists are currently preparing to plant out the project’s second culture of super kelp.
“It’s baby steps, but I’m hopeful that we’ll get these patches going and they’ll be self-sustaining,” said Layton. “The real tipping point will be if they can self-expand.”
Citizen science is also playing a role in the project, with IMAS scientists urging the public to record sightings of giant kelp, which form a buoyant canopy, via the free Kelp Tracker app launched late last year. Despite a reduction in app use during coronavirus shutdowns, Layton said logged sightings have already helped scientists to identify remnant colonies they weren’t aware of.
Northern exposure
It’s not just the Great Southern Reef’s giant kelp forests that are in danger, however, with common (also known as golden) kelp forests also making a retreat down the coastlines of Western Australia and New South Wales. This phenomenon is being closely monitored by marine scientist and UWA PhD candidate Sahira Bell, whose field work is largely focused in Kalbarri, 570km north of Perth.
“Many temperate marine species are already living at their thermal maximums around Kalbarri, so when we get climatic changes, we tend to see them here first,” Bell explained. Triggered by a 2011 marine heatwave, the biggest change saw common kelp forests retract 100km south from Kalbarri within a matter of weeks. Similarly to Tasmania’s giant kelp forests, they haven’t returned.
“The aquatic landscape in Kalbarri is now what we call turf – an algae similar to grass on land,” said Bell. “There’s still some fish and coral, but it is essentially a collapse in habitat.”
Australia’s south-east coast is less prone to heatwaves, Bell said, yet its common kelp forests are also in retreat, with herbivorous fish partial to the kelp forests in the Coffs Harbour area on New South Wales’ north coast.
Unsurprisingly, the Great Southern Reef’s kelp decline has not been good for business, either for marine tourism operators like Baron forced to adjust their offerings, or for commercial and Indigenous fisheries dependent on healthy marine stocks. Last year, the Tasmanian government committed A$5.1m to tackle its urchin threat, but it’s spare change in comparison to conservation funding directed to the Great Barrier Reef, let alone the A$233million pledged to boost post-coronavirus tourism in Australia’s national parks.
“No-one is questioning the value or the purpose of forests on land, but kelp forests have the same function – they just happen to be a bit wetter,” Layton said. “But for most people they’re out of sight, out of mind.”
Driving awareness
According to marine scientists, the key to protecting the Great Southern Reef and its kelp forests is creating awareness of its very existence. Among its most successful ambassadors, Bell campaigned for the reef to be recognised as a Hope Spot by international marine non-profit Mission Blue, headed by renowned US marine biologist Dr Sylvia Earle, last December.
“Hope Spots are regions of the ocean that are critical to ocean health but are underacknowledged and under-protected, and that’s exactly what the Great Southern Reef is,” said Bell, who was thrilled by the public reaction to the Hope Spot listing. “Even Australians have been saying: ‘The Great Southern Reef is amazing, I never knew it was there’,” she said.
Over in Victoria, marine scientist and director of Deakin University’s Bachelor of Marine Science course Dr Prue Francis is working to create awareness among younger generations in the form of a children’s book that is due to be published in 2021.
“Being a marine scientist and a mum, I’d look for the ocean books in the bookstore to read to my kids, and I was noticing that that a lot of books were based on tropical environments, with almost nothing on the Great Southern Reef,” Francis explained.
Teaming up with a writer and an illustrator from Deakin, Francis’ book, provisionally titled Professor Seaweed and the Great Southern Reef, is designed to help children identify marine curiosities they may find on beaches bordering the Great Southern Reef with the help of characters like Professor Seaweed, a marine scientist, and a mother with a penchant for beachcombing.
“Many species that live on the Great Southern Reef are endemic, so if we were to look at images of seaweed or shark eggs in children’s books from the US or the UK, we can’t relate to those images,” Francis said. The book offers a hint as to why even so few Australian are aware of what lies beyond their local beach.
“The Great Southern Reef hasn’t shifted towards the tourism sector quite like the Great Barrier Reef has, and that’s mostly due to the water being so cold,” Francis explained.
There’s also a misconception, say scientists, that cool water marine habitats aren’t as colourful or as interesting as their tropical counterparts.
“Many people think coral only grows in the tropics, but we get beautiful cold-water corals on the Great Southern Reef,” Bell countered. “The sponge gardens are also incredible – they can even be more colourful than a tropical coral reef.”
And while there are myriad ways to experience the Great Southern Reef, from snorkelling amid swarms of frisky giant cuttlefish off the beaches of South Australia to scuba diving alongside playful New Zealand fur seals in Tasmania, you don’t even need to get wet to appreciate it, with several permanent webcams near Melbourne offering an online window into this mysterious marine ecosystem.
In Port Philip Bay, the Nature Conservancy Australia’s Reef Cam beams live footage from cameras fixed above and below the water, where you might spot an Australian fur seal corkscrewing through the kelp. You can also virtually peep into a little penguin burrow on Phillip Island to see if any of the world’s smallest penguins are nesting.
A Great Southern Reef feature documentary is also on the way, thanks to Australian marine biologist–turned filmmaker Stefan Andrews, whose aquatic filming credits include BBC Earth’s Blue Planet II and the Netflix hit Chasing Coral.
“We’re on a mission to raise awareness of how pristine, valuable and important these reefs are, and help to embed the concept of the Great Southern Reef in Aussie culture,” Andrews said.
Francis 說：“生活在大南礁上的許多物種都是特有種，因此，如果我們要看美國或英國兒童書籍中的海藻或鯊魚卵的圖像，就無法與這些圖像聯繫起來。” 這本書暗示了為什麼很少有澳大利亞人知道他們當地海灘以外的地方。
Francis解釋說：“大南礁沒有像大堡礁那樣向旅遊業轉移，這主要是因為水太冷了。”
科學家們說，還有一個誤解，認為涼爽的海洋棲息地並不像熱帶棲息地那樣豐富多彩或有趣。
Bell 反駁說：“許多人認為珊瑚只在熱帶地區生長，但我們在大南部礁石上得到美麗的冷水珊瑚。” “海綿花園也令人難以置信–它們甚至比熱帶珊瑚礁還豐富多彩。”
在菲利普港灣，澳大利亞自然保護協會的礁石攝像頭通過固定在水面以上和水下的攝像機拍攝實時鏡頭，您可能會在這裡發現澳大利亞海狗以螺旋運動的方式穿過海帶。您還可以在菲利普島上虛擬地窺探一個小企鵝洞穴，看看是否有世界上最小的企鵝築巢。
得益於澳大利亞海洋生物學家轉投的電影製片人 斯特凡·安德魯斯（Stefan Andrews）的支持，一部南大礁特色紀錄片也即將上映, Stefan Andrews其水上攝影作品包括BBC Earth的《藍色星球II》和Netflix熱門電影《追逐珊瑚》。
Andrews說：“我們的使命是提高人們對這些礁石原始，珍貴和重要的認識，並幫助將南大礁的概念嵌入澳大利亞文化中。”
English to Chinese: What's behind the China-Taiwan divide?
Source text - English What's behind the China-Taiwan divide?
The Chinese Government sees Taiwan as a breakaway province that will eventually be part of the country again.
While some Taiwanese think this might happen in the future, others now feel that they already effectively have a separate nation whether or not independence is ever officially declared.
The dispute with China has left relations frayed with a constant threat of a violent flare up that could drag the US into the fray.
What is the history and source of this tension?
The first known settlers in Taiwan are Austronesian tribal people thought to have come from modern day southern China.
The island first appears in Chinese records in AD239, when China sent an expeditionary force to explore - a fact Beijing uses to back its territorial claim. After a brief spell as a Dutch colony (1624-1661) Taiwan was administered by China's Qing dynasty from 1683 to 1895.
Starting at the beginning of the 17th Century, significant numbers of migrants started arriving from China, often fleeing turmoil or hardship. Most were Hoklo Chinese from Fujian (Fukien) province or Hakka Chinese, largely from Guangdong. The descendants of these two migrations now make up by far the largest population group.
In 1895, following Japan's victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing government had to cede Taiwan to Japan. After World War Two, the Republic of China - one of the victors - began ruling Taiwan with the consent of its allies the US and UK, after Japan surrendered and relinquished control of territory it had taken from China.
However in the next few years, a civil war broke out in China and the leader at the time Chiang Kai-shek's troops were beaten back by the Communist armies under Mao Zedong.
Chiang and the remnants of his Kuomintang (KMT) government fled to Taiwan in 1949. This group, referred to as Mainland Chinese and then making up 1.5m people, dominated Taiwan's politics for many years, even though they only account for 14% of the population.
Having inherited an effective dictatorship, facing resistance from local people resentful of authoritarian rule, and under pressure from a growing democracy movement, Chiang's son, Chiang Ching-kuo, began allowing a process of democratisation, which eventually led to the 2000 election of the island's first non-KMT president, Chen Shui-bian.
Where are things at now?
After decades of hostile intentions and angry rhetoric, relations between China and Taiwan started improving in the 1980s. China put forward a formula, known as "one country, two systems", under which Taiwan would be given significant autonomy if it accepted Chinese reunification.
This system was established in Hong Kong to be used as something of a showcase to entice Taiwanese people back to the mainland but over the last year it has come under massive pressure with many analysts already questioning whether it still exists in the city.
In Taiwan, the offer was rejected, but the government in Taipei did relax rules on visits to and investment in China. It also, in 1991, proclaimed the war with the People's Republic of China on the mainland over.
There were also limited talks between the two sides' unofficial representatives, though Beijing's insistence that Taiwan's Republic of China (ROC) government is illegitimate prevented government-to-government contact.
Beijing became alarmed in 2000, when Taiwan elected as president Chen Shui-bian, who had openly backed "independence".
Mr Chen was re-elected in 2004, prompting China to pass a so-called anti-secession law in 2005, stating China's right to use "non-peaceful means" against Taiwan if it tried to "secede" from China.
In 2008, Ma Ying-jeou was elected president. He sought to improve relations with China, mainly through economic agreements.
In elections in January 2016, Tsai Ing-wen defeated Kuomintang party candidate Eric Chu. She leads the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which leans towards eventual official independence from China.
After Donald Trump won the 2016 US election, she spoke to the president-elect in a phone call, in what was a break with US policy set in 1979 when formal relations were cut.
Throughout 2018, China stepped up pressure on international companies forcing them to list Taiwan as a part of China on their websites and threatening to block them for doing business in China if they failed to comply.
In 2020, Ms Tsai won a second term, drawing criticism from Beijing. By that time, Hong Kong had seen months of unrest with protesters demonstrating against the mainland's increasing influence - a trend that had many in Taiwan worried Beijing would next set its eyes on Taiwan.
Later that year, China's implementation of a national security law in Hong Kong was seen by many as a yet another sign that Beijing was becoming significantly more assertive in the region.
In the meantime, the US has been intensifying its outreach to Taiwan, reassuring Taipei of its continued support. In September, Washington sent its highest-ranking politician to hold meetings on the island for decades,
Beijing strongly criticised the meeting, warning "not to send any wrong signals to 'Taiwan independence' elements to avoid severe damage to China-US relations". During the controversial visit, China conducted a live-fire military exercise in the waterway that separates the island from the mainland.
So what is Taiwan?
There is disagreement and confusion about what Taiwan is, and even what it should be called.
China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province which it has vowed to retake, by force if necessary. But Taiwan's leaders say it is clearly much more than a province, arguing that it is a sovereign state.
It has its own constitution, democratically-elected leaders, and about 300,000 active troops in its armed forces.
Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China (ROC) government, which fled the mainland to Taiwan in 1949, at first claimed to represent the whole of China, which it intended to re-occupy. It held China's seat on the United Nations Security Council and was recognised by many Western nations as the only Chinese government.
But in 1971, the UN switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing and the ROC government was forced out. Since then the number of countries that recognise the ROC government diplomatically has fallen drastically to about 15.
Given the huge divide between these two positions, most other countries seem happy to accept the current ambiguity, whereby Taiwan has virtually all of the characteristics of an independent state, even if its legal status remains unclear.
How much of an issue is independence in Taiwan?
While political progress has been slow, links between the two peoples and economies have grown sharply. Taiwanese companies have invested about $60bn (£40bn) in China, and up to one million Taiwanese now live there, many running Taiwanese factories.
Some Taiwanese worry their economy is now dependent on China. Others point out that closer business ties makes Chinese military action less likely, because of the cost to China's own economy.
A controversial trade agreement sparked the "Sunflower Movement" in 2014 where students and activists occupied Taiwan's parliament protesting against what they call China's growing influence over Taiwan.
Officially, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) still favours eventual formal independence for Taiwan, while the KMT favours eventual re-unification. Opinion polls show only a small minority of Taiwanese support pursuing one or the other at the moment, with most preferring to stick with the current middle ground.
Yet more and more people say they feel Taiwanese rather than Chinese. Support for the DPP increased at the January 2016 election. This was partly because of dissatisfaction with the KMT's handling of economic matters, from the wealth gap to high housing prices, and partly because of worries that Mr Ma's administration was making Taiwan too dependent on Beijing.
What role does the US play?
The US is by far Taiwan's most important friend and ally. The relationship, forged during World War Two and the Cold War, underwent its sternest test in 1979, when President Jimmy Carter ended US diplomatic recognition of Taiwan in order to concentrate on burgeoning ties with China.
The US Congress, responding to the move, passed the Taiwan Relations Act, which promises to supply Taiwan with defensive weapons, and stressed that any attack by China would be considered of "grave concern" to the US.
Since then, US policy has been described as one of "strategic ambiguity", seeking to balance China's emergence as a regional power with US admiration for Taiwan's economic success and democratisation.
The pivotal role of the US was most clearly shown in 1996, when China conducted provocative missile tests to try and influence Taiwan's first direct presidential election. In response, US President Bill Clinton ordered the biggest display of US military power in Asia since the Vietnam War, sending ships to the Taiwan Strait, and a clear message to Beijing.
Translation - Chinese 中國台灣分歧的背後是什麼？
中國政府將台灣視為一個脫離的省，最終將再次成為中國的一部分。儘管有些台灣人認為將來可能會發生這種情況，但現在其他人則認為，無論是否正式宣布獨立，他們已經有效地擁有了一個獨立的國家。
與中國的爭端使兩國關係遭受持續不斷的暴力爆發威脅，可能會將美國拖入困境。
這種緊張關係的歷史和根源是什麼？
台灣最早的定居者是南島部落人被認為來自現代中國南地區。
當中國派出一支遠征軍來探索時，該島於公元239年首次出現在中國記錄中，這是北京用來支持其領土主張的事實。在短暫統治為荷蘭殖民地（1624-1661）之後，台灣於1683年至1895年由中國清朝管理。
English to Chinese: In Guatemala, the Maya world untouched for centuries
Source text - English In Guatemala, the Maya world untouched for centuries
Archaeologists have suspected there was more to Tikal, El Zotz and Holmul. But it wasn’t until recently that proof came – in the form of Lidar, a type of remote sensing technology.
There is no path through the jungle. Every step requires navigation: winding around a tree; stepping over a root; ducking under a branch. In front of me, a man swings a machete, trying to cut an easier path.
“Don’t touch anything,” my guide, José María Anavisca, warns me. You can’t be sure what snake or spider or other creature might be on a branch or tree. Despite my caution, I soon feel a sensation on my back, somewhere between being pricked and electrified, and wriggle in shock. “An ant,” Anavisca says knowingly. I hope he’s right. Whatever it is, it’s dropped under my collar and taken a bite.
It’s 32C and 100% humidity, typical for Tikal, Guatemala, in June. Where we’re going looks exactly like where we came from, a tangle of green, glossy leaves spiked with elegant trunks. We stop several times, turn, retrace our steps. “Are we lost?” I ask finally, wiping sweat from my forehead.
“No, no,” Anavisca says. He grins, quipping: “The Lost World” – one of Tikal’s best-known ceremonial complexes – “is that way.” I’m not sure how he can tell.
Tikal
Once the greatest city in the Maya world, today Tikal is Guatemala’s most famous archaeological site. But even on the well-trodden, signposted tourist route, it’s impossible to forget you’re in the rainforest. Birdsong fills the air, spider monkeys loop across the treetops, and at dusk, the area around the Lost World is taken over by coatimundis – long-tailed, raccoon-like mammals that nose through the ground for insects.
Today we’ve gone off the beaten track completely. Anavisca wants to show me something few tourists see, and which far fewer would recognise: a Maya pyramid, unexcavated and overgrown with jungle.
I wouldn’t know that we’ve arrived if Anavisca didn’t tell me. The jungle looks no different than it did before. But under our feet, a slope suddenly tilts steeply upward. Anavisca points to the map he has brought. Sure enough, we appear to be standing on a distinct pyramid. “It’s still in its natural state. It hasn’t been excavated. It hasn’t been investigated,” he says.
Anavisca and his colleagues, who work in archaeology and conservation at Tikal, have long suspected that this hill is a pyramid. But it wasn’t until recently that proof came in the form of Lidar – a type of remote sensing technology currently transforming archaeology. It was Lidar data that went into the map Anavisca is now holding.
By stripping away the jungle canopy and revealing the topography beneath, including long-forgotten sites and monuments, Lidar has been especially helpful in jungles like this one. The Maya Biosphere Reserve covers 21,602 sq km – nearly one-fifth of Guatemala – of forest, wetlands, rivers, lakes and savannas. It is the largest protected rainforest north of the Amazon. It also was once the heart of the Maya civilisation, whose city-states ruled Central America from about 750BC until the Spanish conquest of the 1600s. But the jungle makes structures particularly difficult to find, or identify.
“The Lidar makes it so that, as archaeologists, we don't have to spend all of our time just figuring out what's there – and instead, we can really focus in and excavate and address questions that we want to,” says Thomas Garrison, a Maya archaeologist at the University of Texas at Austin.
“So much of our time is spent mapping and just trying to find places. And what Lidar has shown us is that we weren't very good at it.
Lidar works by beaming lasers at a site – whether up close, from a hand-held scanner; or at a distance, such as from an aeroplane. By measuring how much time it takes for the laser to return to its point of origin, it can create extraordinarily detailed maps and 3D representations.
Using Lidar, in 2016 the Foundation for Maya Cultural and Natural Heritage (Pacunam) launched the largest archaeological survey ever undertaken of the Maya lowlands. In the first phase, whose results were published in 2018, they mapped 2,100km of the Maya Biosphere Reserve. Their hope in the further phases – the second one of which took place in summer 2019, while I was there – is to triple the coverage area. That would make the project the largest Lidar survey not only in Central America, but in the world.
Researchers are still combing through the 2019 data. But the results from the first phase have already shifted how archaeologists see the Maya civilisation. “There are three to four times as many structures in the landscape as we had thought,” says Garrison, who is also one of the researchers for the Pacunam Lidar Initiative. The 60,000 structures that were revealed included temples, pyramids and causeways.
But the majority of the structures were platforms for houses, a crucial piece of information for population estimates. Previously, experts had projected that, at the peak of the Mayan Classical period from about 250-900AD, about one to two million people lived in the cities and towns of the central lowlands. Now, experts believe the area supported up to 11 million inhabitants.
That larger population was supported by an even more sophisticated infrastructure than experts had previously understood. The Maya connected their cities with raised highways; and they made the land usable, and sustainable, with complex irrigation and terracing systems.
“The Lidar shows, without any doubt, that we totally underestimated their engineering capabilities in terms of landscape modifications – to make the land more sustainable, to irrigate and bring water to places they could cultivate, to stop erosion,” says Francisco Estrada-Belli, a Tulane University archaeologist and one of the co-directors of the Pacunam Lidar Initiative.
That has turned one common belief on its head. An enduring mystery of the Maya has been why their civilisation declined. For years, a popular theory has held that it was due to environmental collapse, thanks to the Maya deforesting and degrading the surrounding landscape.
“All the things that we blamed them for – they destroyed the soils or had to put in terraces – it's quite the opposite,” Estrada-Belli says. “They built the terraces to increase the productivity of the soil, obviously stopping the erosion. And they irrigated areas that were flat, but they didn't have enough water. They drained the wetlands so they could cultivate them, and it was the most productive land ever. “And they did that on a massive scale.”
El Zotz
The ancient Maya city-state of El Zotz, now an archaeological site where Garrison is director, is 23km from the nearest town. It feels further. The drive takes 2.5 hours; the last hour is on a muddy track through the jungle. Our beaten-up pickup truck, which is also bringing supplies to the archaeologists’ camp, gets stuck at one point going up a small slope. The wheels whir. We go nowhere. The driver tries again. The tyres spin in the mud.
Two of the guys in the truck jump out, cut some palm fronds down with a machete and lay them on the track to make it less slippery. After a couple of tries, we make it. Despite the scenarios spinning through my head – what if we get stuck here?, there isn’t any mobile phone reception. When would the archaeologists at the camp, who know to expect us today, send a search party for us? How much water do we have? What if the storm that’s been looming on the horizon finally breaks? – no one seems concerned.
Later, I learn from Estrada-Belli, who is also the project director of the equally remote Maya site of Holmul that it could have been worse. In his first season at Holmul, in 2000, he took a wrong turn driving in the jungle and got stuck. “The engine basically seized on us. We had to put all of our drinking water in it. We were out of car, out of drinking water, in the middle of nowhere. That was the first day.”
Although they made it back to the site, it soon began to rain. And rain. The 40 people staying at the camp were stuck. The roads were too flooded to drive. To get home, the team had to get out of the jungle on 20 horses. “I had all these people – some of them were my students – and we were stuck out here with no medical help, no way to communicate,” Estrada-Belli says. “I was a little worried.”
Adventures still happen. Over the years, the research teams at sites like El Zotz and Holmul have built more and more of an infrastructure. At El Zotz, one hut doubles as a research lab, plastic tarp thrown over any findings when they’re not being handled to protect them from the humidity. Another thatched-roof hut houses the kitchen, where meals are cooked over an open fire. The team filters their own drinking water.
Everyone sleeps in tents. I’m woken each morning at 05:00 by the roar of howler monkeys, who sound like dinosaurs straight out of a Jurassic Park film. When I dress, I have to remind myself to shake out my shoes for scorpions, seven species of which make their home in the reserve.
If it takes effort to drink water or cook or dress at a Maya site like El Zotz, it takes even more to do research. If you want to examine or map an unexplored area, there are no roads or tracks, no detailed maps. At the camp, there is no internet connection; for mobile phone reception, you have to hike 500m to a hilltop. The only resources for making sense of your findings are the other team members and any research you’ve brought with you.
“If you want to erase the exterior world, it's easy – you can be here for a month without not knowing what's going on,” says archaeologist Edwin Román, who has helped lead investigations at El Zotz for the last 10 years and is director of the South of Tikal archaeological project.
Now, at El Zotz, Garrison and I pull up to what looks like another tree-covered hill. I’ve spent enough time with archaeologists here now to know it’s a pyramid. I duck through the tunnels behind Garrison, turn a corner, and gasp. Nothing quite prepares you for seeing a Maya carving looming out of the dark.
In this case, it’s the monumental mask of a Mayan god, looming higher than I am tall and dating to the 5th Century AD. Garrison’s team thinks it marks the platform for the crowning of new kings. “At Maya sites, when new kings would come into power, there’d be a big ceremony and ritual – like the crowning of a king in England,” Garrison says. “This is the god that would preside over that ritual.”
Later, I follow Román to the nearby site he is investigating. Called “El Diablo” (the devil), it requires a steep hike up to the top. The temple here was built on top of the 4th-Century tomb of the first king of El Zotz – something Román discovered in 2010. “When we found it, the chamber was completely sealed. When we opened it, there was, like, a cold breeze – like the smell of putrefaction,” he says. “The entire tomb was there.” Along with the remains of the king, they found the bones of six sacrificed children.
I follow Román through a tunnel into the pyramid, up a wooden ladder, through another tunnel. We wind up just above where the remains were found. Another work of Maya art spreads before me: a series of monumental carvings that spiral across the stone, punctuated with massive masks that depict the gods of the Sun. The faces are striking. The eyes gaze with intense swirls; the noses are large and lumpy.
One is the god of the rising Sun, his eyes still with remnants of black paint. Another, painted red, represents the sunset. By associating the king with the Sun, says Román, the Maya were associating him with eternity. While it may not be eternity, there is still something poetic about viewing that depiction, still in all its glory, 1,600 years later.
These masks were found the old-fashioned way: with manual mapping, surveying, identifying and digging.
But Lidar has helped archaeologists put the pieces together. Román and the other researchers knew, from glyphs and from the monumental sites they had found, that the king buried at El Diablo was powerful. “But we didn’t know the extent of his power,” Román says. Lidar revealed the workings of the whole city-state: its massive fortifications, its farms, its water systems.
“The Lidar is now helping us to see everything this king made to protect, him, his family and his legacy,” Román says. “Lidar has helped us to understand the entire landscape, everything that they built, so we can have more of a sense of it.”
That understanding also complements the stories the Maya have handed down to us. One aspect that makes the Maya unique is their writing. “They’re the only civilisation in the New World with fully developed writing system, so we actually get their voice to complement the archaeology. It's not just us interpreting it,” says Garrison.
“These different kings would go to war with one other – it was a sort of Game of Thrones style combat. Marriages, alliances, all these sorts of things. We know that from the texts – and now the Lidar has revealed this landscape where this drama unfolds. So, we get to see all of the places that would have been involved in ways that we couldn’t before,” he says.
In some cases, the Lidar findings also have corrected the data that archaeologists spent years collecting. “The Lidar showed long causeways between sites 7km long. We drove across them, we walked across them, we had no idea,” Estrada-Belli admits. “I mapped a section of a causeway thinking it was a 100m-long wall – and had no idea that it continued for 7km as a causeway, not a wall.”
Even more extraordinary is the time it saves. It can take an archaeological team a year to map an area 1km square. In contrast, it took just 10 days for the planes involved in the Pacunam Lidar Initiative to collect enough data to map a 2,100km area.
“It’s very humbling because you’ve been mapping, and you think you know what you’re doing – and it’s so much better than anyone, than any of us, can do,” Estrada-Belli says. “It can do what we do in 20 years, in two days. The same work, and it’s better. It’s more detailed, and more accurate.”
Holmul
On my first day at Holmul, a Maya city-state that was most active from 800BC to 900AD, Estrada-Belli drives me out to the site. The track here is in even worse shape than the one at El Zotz. Which means I’m surprised to see, a few minutes from the camp, that we have company. A truck lies flipped over beneath the trees, bright orange and impossible to miss. Also impossible to miss: the bullet holes that have pierced it.
“The one in the front is from a rifle,” Estrada-Belli says, a little nonchalantly. “Apparently there was a shootout among looters, and they left that behind.”
We walk to a clearing. It looks like a scene from Indiana Jones. Wooden stairs climb up a steep hill overgrown with jungle. An age-blackened stone wall with a portal is set into the hilltop. I follow Estrada-Belli inside, through tunnels pitch-black except for our flashlights. When we pause at the top of a wooden ladder, he flips a switch, turning on a solar-powered light.
A colourful frieze unrolls below me, 8m in one direction and, around the corner, 5m in the other. It was carved around 595AD to honour a king who had just died; he was buried in a tomb beneath. Glyphs run along the bottom, telling you exactly who this was for and why. On the corner, a king stands in sculpture. Estrada-Belli found his remains in a tomb below.
The frieze was part of a funerary shrine which may have been used for 50 or 100 years before it was buried by 8m or so of rubble. That has preserved not only the carvings, but – even more unusually – the paint. The background is bright red, made from haematite. In the sunshine, it would have sparkled. Other details are painted in green, yellow, blue. One king wears a headdress with green feathers from the quetzal bird. The guardian of the night sky has blue under his eyes, as if he’s tired.
The frieze is almost immaculate, except for one thing: the king’s face has been broken. “It’s been damaged on purpose by the ancient Maya,” Estrada-Belli says. “The Maya believed everything had a soul, including images of people and things. So, when they were burying something, they would let the soul out by killing the image – just like you kill a person.”
It’s extraordinarily lucky that it isn’t more damaged than that. Looters got here before Estrada-Belli did. “They missed the structure with the frieze by 20cm,” he says. He points to the tunnel. Just one rock lies between it and the top of the corner statue. “You can imagine what they would have done. They would have thought, ‘There’s definitely something cool behind this carving’, and they would have just blasted through it.”
Antiquities trafficking was tied to the drug trade. “They would clear the forests around the archaeological sites, plant the marijuana, loot the sites while the marijuana was growing – and then collect two harvests,” Estrada-Belli quips.
Looting is less of a problem today than it once was. Still, protecting the sites remains difficult. Even before the coronavirus crisis, there were about 180 park rangers and military personnel throughout the reserve. That meant one guardian per 120sqkm of jungle – an area larger than Manhattan, or Paris. The remoteness of the sites makes them even more vulnerable.
This is one other way the Lidar may be able to help: by providing an extensive inventory of what the jungle actually has. The resolution is so high that you can even see the cuts made by past looters.
“In the Lidar data, we've seen scores of new sites that we didn't know about,” Garrison said. “But, you know, to say we've discovered them is a little bit inaccurate – because clearly someone's already been there.”
The “underworld”
I have one last site to see in the Maya Biosphere Reserve. Another of Holmul’s royal funerary temples, this one dates to 150AD. When it was found, it was the oldest Maya temple still standing.
Estrada-Belli and I walk around it: it’s been carved to make it look like an incense burner, which would have been a sight to see when it was filled with smoke. His team can be sure about its use because there’s an inscription on it saying so. “It's very rare for archaeologists to find the exact answer to the question ‘What is the function of this building?’,” Estrada-Belli says with a chuckle. “God bless them, they didn't want to leave any doubt about what they were building these structures for.”
In 1909, a team of Harvard archaeologists excavated the site and found 22 skeletons. But they didn’t find everything. After a few seasons at Holmul, the expedition director, Raymond Merwin, became too sick to continue. He had contracted a mysterious illness in the jungle, the result of a bite from a particular parasite-carrying insect. (“Are these still around?” I ask nervously. “Yes. It’s called the assassin bug,” Estrada-Belli says). His notes were left incomplete; excavations ended.
Until Estrada-Belli and his team came here a century later. When they did, they made an extraordinary find. Beneath the 150AD temple, they found an even older one, built all the way back in 350BC. No one has ever found an older temple in the Maya world.
We walk around to the side to enter it. By this point, I’ve crawled through tunnels, climbed up ladders, wedged myself around narrow corners and lowered myself through holes. This is the first time I’ve seen a door. Estrada-Belli puts in a key, turns it. The door creaks ominously as it opens. “Welcome to the underworld,” he says with a grin.
Down a set of stone stairs, a frieze opens up before us. It would have been the front exterior of the old temple. It measures about 3m by 2.5m. It doesn’t have the colours of the last frieze; it’s a little less elaborate than the masks from El Zotz. But it takes my breath away.
The frieze depicts the massive head of an Earth monster, its mouth open and teeth bared. Inside the mouth is an old man: the god of the ancestors. He has heavy-lidded eyes, whiskers, a tooth on either side of his mouth. Wrinkles are drawn as lines along his cheeks and nose. He looks, somehow, peaceful.
“The first impression was that he’s been devoured by the Earth and he’s dead. But actually, if you look closer – there’s a hand over there, and another hand over there – he’s emerging from the place of the dead,” Estrada-Belli says. “It’s about death, but it’s really about life.” The god of the ancestors is pulling himself from the place of the dead, head-first, like a baby coming out of the womb.
On the side of the man’s face are two tiny handprints: a child’s. It seems there was a ritual where a child’s hands were placed on the old ancestor, a sign of the new and the old. And next to the old man is a skull and crossbones, the oldest depiction of a skull and crossbones in the world.
Even today, the Maya in Guatemala worship a god of the ancestors. They depict him in the same way: the wrinkles, the whiskers, the two teeth. And, like those 2,500 years ago, they believe children are ancestors who return to the world.
Friezes like this one have been captured with hand-held Lidar scanners that create detailed, 3D models, allowing archaeologists to inspect them in new ways. And the Pacunam Lidar Initiative has meant that sites like Holmul – and El Zotz, and Tikal, and the dozens of other abandoned cities strewn across the Maya lowlands – are being understood in new ways, including how their rulers and citizens interacted, traded and warred.
Centuries after the deaths of kings, dynasties and whole civilisations, Lidar is breathing new life into their stories – and, hopefully, extending their memory for millennia to come.
English to Chinese: Hathras case: Dalit women are among the most oppressed in the world
Source text - English Hathras case: Dalit women are among the most oppressed in the world
"We are victims of violence because we are poor, lower caste and women, so looked down upon by all," a Dalit woman told researcher Jayshree Mangubhai some years ago. "There is no one to help or speak for us. We face more sexual violence because we don't have any power," she said.
Last week, it was reported that a 19-year-old Dalit woman (the Dalits were once called "Untouchables") wwas allegedly gang raped and assaulted by a group of upper caste men in Uttar Pradesh state again. The news shone the spotlight again on the rampant sexual violence faced by India's 80 million Dalit women, who like their male counterparts languish at the bottom of India's unbending and harsh caste hierarchy.
These women, who comprise about 16% of India's female population, face a "triple burden" of gender bias, caste discrimination and economic deprivation. "The Dalit female belongs to the most oppressed group in the world," said Dr Suraj Yengde, author of Caste Matters. "She is a victim of the cultures, structures and institutions of oppression, both externally and internally. This manifests in perpetual violence against Dalit women."
The aftermath of the recent rape and murder of a woman in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, allegedly by upper caste men, played out the way it usually does when a Dalit woman is attacked: police are slow to register a complaint; investigators respond slowly; officials raise doubts there was a rape; there are insinuations it had nothing to do with caste; and authorities appear, perhaps, to be complicit in siding with the upper caste perpetrators of violence. Even some of the media, from newsrooms dominated by upper caste journalists, question why sexual violence should be linked to caste.
In other words, the state and parts of society in India conspire to downplay or erase the links between sexual violence and the hierarchies of caste.
After the alleged rape in Hathras last week, the government of Uttar Pradesh, which is ruled by an upper caste politician belonging to the ruling BJP party, hastily cremated the victim in the middle of the night and briefly barred the media and opposition politicians from visiting the victim's village and family, prompting suspicions of a cover up. In an unprecedented move, the government hired a private public relations agency to push its narrative that this was not an incident of rape.
Dalit women across swathes of rural India have been victims of sexual violence for as long as anyone can remember. In these regions, much of the land, resources and social power remain with the upper and middle castes. Despite a 1989 law to prevent atrocities against the community, there was no let-up in violence against Dalit women. They continue to be stalked, abused, molested, raped and murdered with impunity.
Ten Dalit women were raped every day in India last year, according to official figures. The northern state of Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of cases of violence against women as well as the highest number of cases of sexual assault against girls. Three states - Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan - report more than half of the cases of atrocities against the Dalits.
In a 2014 study of 500 Dalit women in four states across India on the forms of violence they had faced, 54% had been physically assaulted; 46% had been sexually harassed; 43% had faced domestic violence; 23% had been raped; and 62% had been verbally abused.
And Dalit women bear the brunt of violence of all castes, including their own. The Centre for Dalit Rights group examined 100 incidents of sexual violence against Dalit women and girls across 16 districts in India between 2004 and 2013. It found that 46% of the victims were aged below 18 and 85% were less than 30 years old. The perpetrators of the violence came from 36 different castes, including Dalit.
One of the reasons why the Dalits - especially women - bear the brunt of the violence is because they have begun to speak up.
The turning point in the history of violence against Dalit women in India was in 2006, when four members of a Dalit family - a woman, her 17-year-old daughter, and two sons - were brutally murdered by upper caste men after a protracted conflict over land. The incident in a remote village called Khairlanji in Maharashtra state began with the two women going to the police to file a complaint over a land dispute with upper castes in the village.
"This gruesome incident stirred the conscience of Dalits and highlighted their social suffering and discrimination," said historian Uma Chakravarti.
The upper castes have been rattled by increasing assertion by Dalits and have been striking back. In the Hathras case last week, reports suggest the family of the victim had a two-decade long dispute with an upper caste family.
Around the country, social transformations are sending Dalit girls to school and pushing Dalit women and feminist groups to make their voices heard. "Like never before, a solid Dalit women leadership is articulating its own grievances and leading the struggle without anyone else's intervention," said Dr Yengde.
Dalit women are fighting back. And the backlash appears to be more brutal than ever. "Earlier the violence was invisible and unreported," said Manjula Pradeep, a leading Dalit rights activist. "Now we have visibility. Now we are stronger and more assertive. Much of the violence now is to remind us of our boundaries," she said.
Translation - Chinese 哈特拉斯案：達利特婦女是世界上受壓迫最嚴重的婦女之一
“我們是暴力的受害者，因為我們是窮人，種姓較低的婦女，所以被所有人都看不起,” 幾年前，一名達利特婦女告訴研究員Jayshree Mangubhai。“沒有人可以幫助我們或為我們講話。我們面臨更多的性暴力，因為我們沒有任何權力，”她說。
English to Chinese: North Korea: What we know about the 'massive' new missile on parade
Source text - English North Korea: What we know about the 'massive' new missile on parade
North Korea has unveiled a new ballistic missile whose "colossal" size has surprised even seasoned analysts of the country's arsenal. Defence expert Melissa Hanham explains what the missile is and why it is a threat to the US and the world.
To mark the 75th anniversary of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, the country threw an unparalleled military parade at the stroke of midnight.
The heavily choreographed event featured all the pomp and circumstance the world has come to expect from North Korea's mass human performances. It also contained a surprisingly emotional speech from Chairman Kim Jong-un, who at times wept as he spoke about the country's struggles.
Last, but certainly not least, it revealed North Korea's largest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) to date. Here are three things we know about the missile.
Kim's promised 'strategic weapon'
On 1 January 2020, Mr Kim gave his annual New Year's address wherein he announced that North Korea was "developing the state-of-the-art weapons system possessed only by advanced countries".
He specifically referred to a "strategic" - meaning nuclear - weapons system under development.
Mr Kim pointedly tied the weapon to the US, stating "in the future, the more the US stalls for time and hesitates in the settlement of DPRK-US relations, the more helpless it will find itself before the might of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which is growing stronger beyond prediction, and the deeper it will fall into an impasse".
This new ICBM is Mr Kim's promised strategic weapon. It absolutely targets the US, and is delivered as a fait accompli in the face of failed negotiations with the Trump administration.
A new threat to US missile defence systems
North Korea already has two tested ICBMs. The Hwasong-14 was tested twice in 2017 and with a range of 10,000km (6,213 miles) can reach nearly all of western Europe and about half of the US mainland carrying a single nuclear warhead.
The Hwasong-15, also tested in 2017, has a range of 13,000km, meaning it can deliver a single nuclear warhead anywhere in the US mainland. The new ICBM, which has yet to be tested, is also a two-stage liquid-fuelled missile, but with a greater length and diameter than the Hwasong-15.
Until the engines are revealed or a test is carried out, it is unlikely we will know its exact range. However, the design makes North Korea's intentions very clear: they do not need to increase the range of their missiles anymore.
Instead, they are focusing on trying to launch multiple nuclear warheads on a single missile. This would be yet another blow to the already struggling US missile defence systems, because for each incoming warhead, multiple interceptors need to be launched.
States with advanced nuclear weapons have multiple independent re-entry vehicles - or MIRVs - and now North Korea is seeking to do the same.
An urgent cause for concern
There are several design questions remaining around the ICBM itself, which makes it uncertain when it will be tested or deployed. However, the truck underneath the missile is of immediate concern.
One of the major constraints of North Korea's ability to engage in nuclear warfare is the number of launchers they have. After all, you can only launch as many missiles as you have launchers for.
The US estimates that North Korea can launch 12 ICBMs at most. This calculation is based on the hypothesis that each of the six known launchers launch one ICBM and they scramble to quickly launch a second missile before the US retaliates.
In 2010, North Korea illicitly imported six WS51200 heavy-duty trucks from China and modified them with hydraulics to turn them into transporter erector launchers (TELs). These TELs are what North Korea has used to parade, transport and erect their ICBMs.
The trucks are so precious that they drive them away from the missile before launch, because they would be so difficult to replace if there was a missile failure. This parade represents the first time we have seen more than six trucks in action. These new trucks were modified heavily.
It is therefore clear that North Korea is still able to get components for heavy-duty launchers despite sanctions and export controls. It is also clear that they have built up their manufacturing sector to indigenously modify - and now potentially produce - their own missile launchers.
North Korea's new ICBM, produced in a year of great struggle, is a message to the world not to underestimate the state, its leader, or the technological ability of its people.
Melissa Hanham, an expert on weapons of mass destruction and open source data, is the deputy director of Open Nuclear Network (ONN), a programme of One Earth Future Foundation
Translation - Chinese 北朝鮮：我們對閱兵式上的“大規模”新型導彈了解多少
北朝鮮推出了一種新型彈道導彈，其“巨大”尺寸甚至令該國武器庫的經驗豐富分析家感到驚訝。國防專家 梅利莎·漢納姆（Melissa Hanham）解釋了什麼是導彈以及為什麼它對美國和世界構成威脅。
English to Chinese: In Taiwan, a quest to reach Sun Moon Lake
Source text - English In Taiwan, a quest to reach Sun Moon Lake
Taiwan’s most gruelling cycling challenge heads from the depths of the dizzying marble Taroko Gorge to the KOM summit, ending at a green- and blue-hued lake surrounded by leafy hills.
Taiwan is a striking natural paradise of forest and parkland. Dotted with hot springs and lakes, the country is almost divided in two by its rugged Central Mountain Range, which culminates at the legendary King Of Mountain (KOM) summit, Taiwan’s highest at 3,275m. Crowning Taroko National Park, one of six national parks in the country, KOM is also the centrepiece of Taiwan’s most popular annual cycling race.
Not one to take on a gruelling one-day cycling challenge with more than 100km of elevation myself – I chose instead to cycle to the national park, and mirror the competitor’s route from the comfort of a car: riding down into the depths of the national park’s dizzying marble Taroko Gorge, up to the KOM summit and back down the other side, ending at the idyllically named Sun Moon Lake, the largest body of water in Taiwan.
From bustling Taipei, I first cycled 22km north to Keelung City, where the Northeast and Yilan Coast National Scenic Area road runs for about 200km south to the Taroko Gorge. Thick grey skies hung above as powerful waves crashed onto the coastline’s jagged cliffs; on the other side of the road, green hills towered above, peppered with small cemeteries of colourful shrines.
About 40km south from Keelung in the beachside town of Fulong, an off-road bike trail took us through glorious leafy countryside to the entrance of the 2km-long Caoling Tunnel. Reopened in 2008 as a cycling path, the former railway was used between 1924 and 1945, during the time that Japan occupied the island nation. Before, Taiwan was governed by China, which regained control in 1945 and has regarded Taiwan as a Chinese autonomous territory ever since.
The longest railway of its time, Caoling is one of the many reminders of the country’s past. Humid and dark, we heard the old Taiwanese folk song Diudiudang playing in hidden speakers as we passed through; on the other side of the tunnel, a bike trail linked back to the main coastal road.
The entrance to Taroko National Park is located about 200km south of Fulong, between the counties of Yilan and Hualien. Established in 1986, the 227,000-acre park is dotted with prehistoric sites and aboriginal villages. But the top draw is the soul-stirring, 19km-long Taroko Gorge. Suspension bridges – some more rickety than others – reach across gorge’s dramatic depths, leading to numerous hiking trails, including the 5km Shakadang (Mysterious Valley) path.
Partially lined with delicate white flowering Tung trees, the trail leads to deep pools of clear water. Picturesque shrines hide behind low-hanging clouds in the mountains. The Changchun (Eternal Spring) Shrine, one of the most accessible from the roadside, features two narrow waterfalls that run into the gorge like trails of white lace .
Standing on the edge of the gorge, close to the red Cimu Bridge, I was held in the grip of an unsettling sensation vacillating between flight and vertigo. Surrounded by the elements – the rain pounding down on the craggy peaks, the river rushing through the milky marble canyon below – it was easy to see why the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name of Formosa (beautiful) when they discovered the East China Sea island in 1544.
Continuing up to the KOM summit, the road became a network of pitch-black one-way tunnels, called the Nine Turns of the Coiled Dragon. The peak offered views of the valleys and mountaintops, circled with halos of fog.
The drive down the other side of the mountain, through the Cingjing countryside, can unsettle even the most stable of stomachs due to its hairpin bends. But the rewards once you reach the township of Puli, about 50km south, are incredible. Serene and very still, the mirror-like, green- and blue-hued Sun Moon Lake is surrounded by leafy hills and scenic parkland.
Sun Moon Lake is best seen early in the morning for its crisp colours and fragrant jasmine-scented dew – and to watch the local rowing teams practice. Finish your trip off by biking the 12km route around the lake – it’s one of the most charming cycling routes in the country .
Practicalities
Sun Moon Lake’s verdant banks and Taipei’s bright neon lights might be worlds apart, but they are only an hour’s high-speed train away from each other, so even travellers who are not keen on cycling can get around without too much difficulty.
For cyclists, a number of companies, such as Giant, organise biking tours throughout Taiwan, running from nine-day island tours to slower-paced scenic itineraries. Make sure to ask for a guide who speaks your language .
台灣是森林和綠地的引人注目的自然天堂。到處都是溫泉和湖泊，該國幾乎被崎嶇的中央山脈一分為二，而中央山脈則是傳說中的山頂之王（KOM）峰頂之巔，台灣最高峰的山頂達到3,275米。加冕台灣六大國家公園之一的太魯閣國家公園（Taroko National Park），山頂之王（KOM) 也是台灣最受歡迎的年度自行車比賽的核心。
English to Chinese: The female physician who popularised the Pap smear
Source text - English The daughter of a former slave, Helen Octavia Dickens empowered teen mothers and pioneered the popularity of the Pap smear, helping to save hundreds of lives.
In 1951, a 31-year-old mother-of-five walked into Maryland’s Johns Hopkins Hospital for what she called “a knot on my womb”. The knot, it turned out, was a virulent cancer that had started in her cervix. She would soon die in agony of the disease, then the number one killer of American women.
The woman was Henrietta Lacks, who would one day become known for her unintended contribution to medical science. After her death, scientists would take her cancer cells and reproduce them into perpetuity without her family’s knowledge, using them to investigate diseases from Aids to polio.
If Lacks had been given a Pap smear, she may have survived. Developed a decade earlier, the simple screening tool – named after its creator, Greek gynaecologist George “Pap” Papanicolaou – was the newest and most promising technology in early cancer detection. It rose to become the gold standard in cancer screening, and would be instrumental in slashing cervical cancer rates by 70% over the next half century.
But its benefits were not applied equally. In the 1950s United States, the face of cancer prevention campaigns was a well-to-do white woman; reproductive cancer in black women was all but invisible. (Even when the magazine Collierstold the story of Lacks, whom they called “Mrs L”, they pointedly left out her race.) Far fewer black women got the test, either because their doctor never offered it or because they didn’t know to ask.
Yet at the same time that Lacks’ tumour was growing, a gynaecologist named Helen Octavia Dickens was driving around Philadelphia in an American Cancer Society van, giving black women free Pap smears. She parked her van at local churches, and invited women to come inside for what she described as “a painless, simple, five-minute procedure”. Many times she found cancer and was able to operate, turning those patients into lifelong devotees.
Many times Dickens found cancer and was able to operate in time to save the patient. Those women became her lifelong devotees.
Getting them to enter the van, however, was no small feat. Besides the silence surrounding cervical cancer, Dickens had to overcome a deep and well-founded distrust of the US medical system. Black women, she knew, had good reasons to be wary of getting a pelvic exam from a (usually) white male doctor. These fears went back to James Marion Sims, the Southern doctor dubbed the “father of modern gynaecology,” who purchased enslaved black women suffering from fistulas to experiment on in the days before anaesthesia.
Dickens worked to allay black women’s fears of medical experimentation and forced sterilisation by emphasising the benefits of the test in preventing cancer, then called “the dread disease”. “If every woman in Philadelphia had a Pap test once a year, no woman need die of uterine cancer,” she told the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin in 1968.
She saw her anti-cancer work as a form of racial progress that would strengthen the black community and counter the inadequate healthcare they were receiving in Jim Crow America. Historian Meg Vigil-Fowler, who wrote her thesis on early black women doctors in America, sees Dickens and other black women physicians of her era as “medical missionaries”.
“As dedicated as they were to becoming physicians, a dedication to the health of the black community in general was the paramount thing in their lives,” Vigil-Fowler says. “And becoming a physician stemmed from that.”
In pursuing that goal, Dickens tried not to spotlight the tremendous challenges she herself had faced as a black woman in medicine. “She didn’t want it to be a thing,” says her daughter, Helen Jayne Brown, a doctor in Philadelphia. “She just thought she had to move forward and not let it bother her or get to her.”
But her very existence in a field dominated by white men – a field that was forged on the bodies of enslaved black women – made its own quiet statement.
‘I didn’t see why I couldn’t do it’
Dickens was born on 21 February 1909 in Dayton, Ohio. Her father, Charles Warren Dickens, had been an enslaved child and water boy during the Civil War. He was nine when the war ended, newly freed but with few prospects. He taught himself to read by asking people on the street the meanings of words, and took his name from the well-known English novelist, whom he once met in person. But the racism of the era confined him to life as a janitor.
Her mother, Daisy Jane Dickens, worked as a domestic servant.Though her father insisted that his wife be a homemaker when they married, he encouraged his daughter to become a nurse. Dickens, meanwhile, had other ideas. “I got it into my head that if I were going to be a nurse, I might as well be a doctor,” she said in a 1988 oral history interview with the Black Women Physicians Project.
Dickens had never met a woman doctor, black or white. Nevertheless, “it was what I wanted to do and I didn’t see why I couldn’t do it”, she would say. Though her father died of a dental infection when she was eight, her mother kept his dream of education alive.
The path to medicine would not be easy. But by going to night school and summer school, Dickens managed to graduate high school at 17 and gain entrance into Crane Junior College, a tuition-free city college in Chicago where she took premedical courses. To meet the Illinois residency requirement, she moved in with her aunt and worked occasionally at the local A&P Grocery to get by.
In interviews, she recalled her strategy for ignoring the racism she encountered in the classroom. In every lecture, she immediately sat in the front row. “If other students wanted a good seat they had to sit beside me,” she said. “If they didn’t, it was not my concern because I could clearly see the professor and the blackboard as I was right up there. This way I didn’t have to look at them or the gestures made that were directed against me or toward me.”
But although she studiously avoided prejudice, prejudice found her. It was in applying to medical school, she recalled, that she first felt the burden of being both black and a woman. That’s when she learned that many schools did not accept female students, while others didn’t accept black students. She would later say that “the Negro woman had a double handicap – her race and her sex”.
It was a particularly bad time to be a black woman entering medicine. In the segregation era after the Civil War, women’s colleges and black colleges, despite their shoestring budgets, were crucial to training these doctors. But by 1900, the tide was turning against them. Medicine was consolidating its power as a field based in scientific research, dominated by white men. By 1920, the year women won the vote, most of the women’s colleges and all but two of the black colleges had shuttered.
The black schools that remained would enact quotas for women – which is likely why Dickens didn’t get into her first two choices, Howard University in Washington, DC and Meharry Medical School in Tennessee. Meanwhile, many women’s schools “distinctly did not want coloured students… the difficulties which they threw in the way of coloured girls are almost inconceivable”, wrote civil rights pioneer WEB Du Bois in his 1933 article “Can a Coloured Woman be a Physician?”
Caught in the double bind of racism and sexism, the numbers of black female medical students dwindled. In 1920, Vigil-Fowler identified just 20 black women medical school graduates, compared to 47 in 1900. (The true numbers may have been slightly higher, given that medical school records did not always list students by race.) The number of black women doctors actually practicing in the country at that time, according to historian Darlene Clark Hine, was 65.
Dickens ultimately attended the University of Illinois Medical School with a state scholarship, which paid her tuition fees of $165 per semester (around $2,500 today). There, she encountered racism not just from students but from her teachers. After one professor made a racial slur, Dickens and the other black students walked out of class and never returned.
In 1934, she graduated as the only black woman in her class of 175 students. In her class photo, white men in jacket and ties surround her on all sides. Chin high and hair neatly coiffed, she looks directly into the camera, as if daring anyone to question her right to be there.
Vanessa Northington Gamble, a historian of US medicine at George Washington University, remembers how she too was made to feel that she didn’t belong as a black woman in medical school. Gamble, who attended the University of Pennsylvania’s Medical School in the 1970s, was one of Dickens’s mentees.
When she shared her experience with her mentor, Dickens told her that she had survived similar treatment. “From where I came from to where I am now, I knew I had to be better than they,” Dickens told her. “She had a certain pride,” says Gamble.
The care of women
Medical degree in hand, Dickens now faced an even steeper hurdle.
Starting in the 1910s, state laws began requiring doctors not only to graduate but to complete a clinical internship at a recognised hospital. At the time, few hospitals accepted black or female residents. Of those that did, black hospitals tended to fill their positions with black men, while women’s hospitals preferred white women, writes historian Ruth J Abram. Black women were left to compete over the few spots that remained.
Isabella Vandervall, a 1915 medical school graduate, was one aspiring doctor caught in this bind. “For many years the coloured woman physician has practiced and prospered,” she wrote in 1917. But with the internship requirement, “a huge stumbling block, one which seems almost insurmountable, has suddenly been placed in the path of the colored woman physician”. Vandervall finally secured an internship at a New York hospital – until they realised she was black, and sent her home.
Dickens too hit this stumbling block. She was eventually accepted for a residency at Provident Hospital, one of the first black-owned hospitals. A small, 200-bed affair, Provident served mainly black residents of the impoverished South Side of Chicago.
Whereas male residents lived in the intern quarters within the hospital, female residents had to share the nurses’ quarters one block down the street. This meant they often had to run over at night to deliver babies. Still, “if you wanted the job, you just took it as it is”, Dickens would recall. “This was true for black women and white women.”
After two years treating tuberculosis and delivering babies, Dickens was “very anxious to go into the community,” she recalled. That chance came in the form of a notice on a bulletin board. A Philadelphia doctor named Virginia Alexander was looking for a female resident who had “social vision” and could “fit into my project for community health”.
Alexander, a black Quaker, had seen that there were no places in her city dedicated to poor mothers. She began treating patients out of her home, a three-story row house, eventually expanding it into a three-bed hospital called the Aspiranto Health Home. Alexander not only delivered babies but instructed new mothers on proper child care, gave them birth control, and provided a safe place for family to visit. She described her project as “socialised” medicine.
“She always considered it an antidote to the racism that was current in Philadelphia’s hospitals at the time, so that people would be treated with dignity and respect,” says Gamble, who is writing a biography of Alexander.
Dickens packed her bags and came to work with Alexander. Once again, her patients were poor and largely black. Once, she arrived at the home of a woman in labour to find that there was no electricity, and had to move the bed to the window to conduct the delivery by streetlight. Meanwhile, Alexander “had no idea of money at all”, Dickens recalled; sometimes she would treat a whole family and charge them $3 (around $50 today).
After one year, Alexander left Aspiranto to become the first black student at Yale’s School of Public Health. Now, at 27 years old, Dickens became head doctor of the birthing centre – as well as assuming care of Alexander’s father, who lived on the building’s third floor.
Over her seven years directing Aspiranto, Dickens became a well-known fixture in the community, speaking at churches and working at well-baby clinics.
The experience gave her a stark window into the unmet needs of black women. In 1935, Alexander had published a report finding that twice as many black babies in Philadelphia died as white babies, and six times as many black residents died of tuberculosis as white residents – sharp disparities she attributed to inadequate housing, health care, and employment.
In 1943, dedicated to what she called “the care of women”, Dickens too returned to school to get a masters in science in obstetrics and gynaecology.
Her training coincided with the birth of a new technology that would help define the second half of her career: the Pap smear.
Cancer crusader
By the end of World War Two, doctors were searching for a weapon to end a different kind of struggle: the war on cancer. Enter the Pap smear. In this simple test, a doctor brushed off cells from the cervix, placed them on a glass slide, and examined them under the microscope for swollen or fragmented nuclei, which suggested cancer or potential cancer. The Pap smear held the tantalising promise that science could stamp out cancer before it even technically existed.
At the same time, doctors continued to debate whether black and white people suffered from cancer at the same rates, historian Keith Wailoo writes in How Cancer Crossed the Color Line. Cancer was still largely considered a “disease of civilisation” – a disease of white people. This racial bias meant that, by the time cervical cancer was detected in black women, it was usually too late.
Dickens saw the Pap smear as an opportunity to change this lopsided narrative and prevent thousands of needless black deaths. She framed her aim in terms of racial progress. “It is necessary that expectant mothers have early and adequate pre-natal care in order that we may build a race physically strong and free from disease,” she told the Philadelphia Tribune in 1946.
Her cancer crusade overlapped with a slew of accomplishments and accolades in her professional life. That same year,after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, she became the first certified black female gynaecologist in Philadelphia. In 1948, she was appointed the first female head of the obstetrics and gynaecology department at Philadelphia’s Mercy Douglass Hospital. In 1950, she became the first black female fellow of the American College of Surgeons.
In the meantime, she had met and married another resident, Purvis S Henderson. Out of necessity they began a commuter’s marriage: Henderson returned to his surgical practice in Savannah, Georgia while Dickens completed yet another residency at Harlem Hospital in New York. After reuniting in Philadelphia, the pair raised two children, one of whom would ultimately follow in her mother’s footsteps.
Dickens’s first order of business at Mercy Douglass was to establish a dedicated center for cancer prevention. She hired a cytologist (a specialist who analyses cells under the microscope) a black woman named Willa Mae Flowers who had trained with Papanicolaou, to read the smears – a feat requiring “meticulous scrutiny”, according to Dr Pap himself. Then she began collecting data on how often black women got cervical cancer, using her findings to combat national misconceptions about cancer rates and win funding from the National Institutes of Health.
Dickens was instrumental in spreading the Pap smear to doctors’ offices across Pennsylvania. By 1965, she had had trained more than 200 black physicians how to perform and interpret the test. She also empowered women to take matters into their own hands. Her signature contribution was forming a bridge between civil rights organisations, women’s clubs, and the medical community, writes Ameenah Shakir, an assistant professor of history at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, in an article on Dickens and medical citizenship.
Many women chafed at the idea of getting a pelvic exam, either from fears of the doctor or from embarrassment. Cervical cancer in particular held a whiff of promiscuity: when Lacks was initially diagnosed, doctors pointed her to the venereal disease clinic, thinking her cancer was likely caused by syphilis. Dickens herself often said that cervical cancer was rare among nuns and frequent among prostitutes.
In women-only groups, Dickens overcame these concerns by keeping her language vague, using terms like “cancer of women”, Shakir writes. Dickens suggested that each family appoint a female ambassador to ensure that all women relatives had their Pap smear. A board member for the American Cancer Society, she lobbied the group to create pamphlets featuring black women and suggested that their films show black women getting Pap smears and going on to have children, to counter fears of sterilisation.
Her techniques worked. In 1965, she drew a crowd of 250 women to St Charles Borromeo Hall Parish in South Philadelphia to receive Pap smears. By 1975, reported cervical cancer deaths in black women were 16 out of 100,000 – a third of what they had been in the 1930s.
Still, that number was twice the rate it was for white women.
This disparity persists today. Black and Hispanic women still get cervical cancer more than other group, “possibly because of decreased access to Pap testing or follow-up treatment”, according to the Centers for Disease Control. When they do get it, black women are at least 1.5 times likely to die of the disease.
The quiet activist
In her medical training, Dickens also witnessed another phenomenon that was devastating women, both black and white: laws criminalising abortion. At Harlem Hospital, she worked in a septic abortion ward for women who had gotten – or given themselves – botched abortions. The experience pained her deeply.
“I just felt that these women deserved to be taken care of, just like anybody who comes in with anything,” she would recall. “And I certainly (didn’t) want to see those complications again.”
In the 1960s, it was still illegal in many states to provide the contraceptive pill to unmarried women. But in 1967, after joining the faculty of Penn’s Medical School, Dickens opened a teen obstetric clinic, teaching teenagers how contraception worked and urging many to get on it. By 1970, 40 out of 50 teenage girls she counseled and tracked had started using contraceptives.
Dickens surrounded young mothers-to-be with a cohort of their peers and supported them with a social worker, a family planning counselor, a nurse, and a “male outreach worker” who encouraged fathers and new husbands to participate. She provided classes on childrearing and gave mothers-to-be tours of the hospital birthing ward to allay their fears about the birthing process. There were theatre productions, dance classes, and visits from a beautician.
Most importantly, at a time when many schools forbade pregnant students from attending class, she encouraged these girls to stay in school or to return after giving birth. “She believed that these young women had futures, and her having this clinic was a way of telling them that,” says Gamble, who shadowed Dickens in her work with teenaged mothers when she was in medical school.
As always, Dickens did this work quietly. Her strategy fits into the way that many women physicians in that era practiced reproductive health as activism, says Jacqueline Antonovich, a historian of medicine and gender at Pennsylvania’s Muhlenberg College. “Women just sort of did the work but weren’t really loud about it,” she says. “The best way to be political was to do just do the work.”
Brown, Dickens’s daughter, has another theory for why Dickens was able to fly under the radar. “No one was really paying attention to black women and their lifestyles and their concerns,” she says. “And so because her practice was largely African-American, she could teach and do and say whatever she wanted to. And what she wanted to do was educate women.”
In many of Dickens’s medical pursuits, she had been honoured as the first. Now, she would see to it that she wasn’t the last. In 1969 she became Penn’s associate dean for minority affairs, recruiting more promising black and minority students to become doctors. Within five years she had increased enrollment from three to 64 minority students.
One of her recruits in the 1980s, Horace DeLisser, recalls when Dickens invited all of the incoming black students – at that point just five or six – into her home before the start of classes. He remembers “her stature, and this coming together of a group of students who would be our own little community”. DeLisser, a pulmonary doctor, now occupies Dickens’s former position as the school’s associate dean for diversity and inclusion.
Another Penn graduate, Florencia Greer Polite, says that when she and the other medical students first met Dickens in the 1990s, “we knew we were in the midst of OB royalty”.But it was only after Polite returned as the current head of the Teen Clinic, now named the Helen O Dickens Center for Women’s Health, that she learned the extent of Dickens’s trailblazing career.
“She created doors where doors were not there,” says Polite. “There was no doubt she was a revolutionary.”
Dickens herself would have eschewed such terms. But Gamble, too, says she looked to Dickens throughout her career as an example of a “quiet activist”.
“I’m not sure whether she considered herself that, but it’s definitely what came across to those of us that she mentored,” she says. “She might not have been on the picket lines, but she always worked to advance the health of black women.”
--
Translation - Chinese 普及子宮頸抹片檢查的女醫師
海倫·奧克塔維亞·狄更斯（Helen Octavia Dickens）是前奴隸的女兒，為青少年母親們賦權，並率先普及了子宮頸抹片檢查，從而挽救了數百人的生命。
她的技術奏效。1965年，她吸引了一群250名婦女到南費城的St Charles Borromeo Hall Parish接受子宮頸抹片檢查。到1975年，據報導，黑人女性死於宮頸癌的人數為100,000人中的16人，是1930年代的三分之一。儘管如此，這個數字還是白人女性的兩倍。
這種差距今天仍然存在。根據疾病控制中心的數據，黑人和西班牙裔婦女患宮頸癌的比例仍高於其他人群，“可能是因為接受子宮頸抹片檢查或後續治療的機會減少”。當他們做到這一點時，黑人婦女死於該疾病的可能性至少為1.5倍。
安靜的行動主義者
在她的醫學培訓中，Dickens 還目睹了另一種毀滅黑人和白人婦女的現象：將墮胎定為犯罪的法律。在哈林醫院，她在化膿性流產病房里為流產或拙劣墮胎的婦女工作。 這次經歷使她深感痛苦。
她回憶說：“我只是覺得這些女人應該得到照顧，就像任何進來的人一樣。” “而且我當然（不想）再次看到那些並發症。”
在1960年代，在許多州向未婚婦女提供避孕藥仍然是非法的。但是在1967年，Dickens加入賓州醫學院（Penn’s Medical School）教職後，開設了一家青少年產科診所，向青少年傳授避孕藥具的工作原理，並敦促許多人繼續使用避孕藥具。到1970年，她所建議和追踪的50名少女中有40名開始使用避孕藥具。
賓夕法尼亞大學的另一位畢業生Florencia Greer Polite說，當她和其他醫學生在1990年代首次與Dickens見面時，“我們知道自己處在OB版稅之中”。 但是直到Polite返回現任青少年診所（現名為海倫·奧·狄更斯/ Helen O Dickens 女性健康中心）的負責人之後，她才了解Dickens開創性的職業生涯的程度。“她在沒有門的地方創造了門，”Polite說。“毫無疑問，她是一名革命者。”
English to Chinese: IMF upgrades 2020 economic forecast but warns of a slower 2021
Source text - English The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is forecasting a somewhat less severe recession than it predicted in June. The change in the outlook applies to both the global economy and the UK.
But the IMF says in its World Economic Outlook that the global economy is still in deep recession and the risk of a worse outcome than in its new forecast is "sizable". For Britain, the IMF now predicts the economy will decline by 9.8% this year. The June forecast was 10.2%.
However, the rebound expected next year is also more moderate. In the case of the UK, that downgrade is similar to the upgrade for this year.
The contraction the IMF predicts for 2020 in Britain would be the second deepest fall among the G7 group of largest rich economies. Only Italy is predicted to do worse. Beyond the G20 India is likely to also likely to experience a deeper decline this year than the UK. So is Spain. Tourism-dependent economies are in a "particularly difficult spot", the report notes.
Government response
For 2021, the British forecast is only a partial recovery of 5.9%, which would leave the economy still smaller than last year.
The predicted global economic contraction is also more moderate than the IMF envisaged four months ago, at 4.4%. That is followed by rebound of 5.2% next year, which is less than the previous prediction. Next year's world downgrade is less than this year's upgrade.
The slightly less-bleak assessment reflects downturns in several large developed economies in the April-to-June quarter of the year that were not as severe as the IMF expected. The return to growth in China, where the pandemic arrived first and was held back first, was stronger than expected.
The outcome would have been weaker, the IMF says, had it not been for the sizable response from governments and central banks that maintained household incomes, protected cash flow for firms and supported lending.
The big departure from the pattern of upgrades is India and some developing economies in South-East Asia. India experienced a particularly sharp decline in economic activity in the second quarter of this year.
'Major setback'
The IMF warns that the global recovery is not assured while the pandemic continues to spread. Research the agency published last week suggested that the downturn was only partly attributable to lockdown restrictions on activity imposed by governments.
Much of it reflected voluntary social distancing by people reluctant to do things that expose them to increased risk of infection. The implication of that is that a complete recovery needs more decisive progress in tackling the virus, such as a vaccine.
The report says that most economies will suffer lasting damage. There is likely to be what it calls "a major setback to living standards relative to what was expected before the pandemic". The IMF warns that extreme poverty is likely to rise for the first time in more than twenty years.
Inequality is also likely to increase, the report says. The crisis has particularly affected women, people with precarious employment, and those with relatively lower educational attainment.
Translation - Chinese 國際貨幣基金組織升級2020年經濟預測，但警告2021年放緩
國際貨幣基金組織（IMF）預測，經濟衰退的程度將低於6月份的預測。前景的變化適用於全球經濟和英國。
English to Chinese: The surprising origin of fried chicken
Source text - English The surprising origin of fried chicken
Fried chicken is as emblematic of the US South as collard greens and sweet potato pie. But it may be more Scottish than Southern.
“In a way that somebody else converts to Judaism or becomes a Hare Krishna, I belong to the church of fried chicken.” When Top Chef co-host and cookbook author Padma Lakshmi uttered those words, she spoke a divine truth: people all around the world are “getting religion” with fried chicken, and the devoted flock grows every day.
In Japan, millions of families celebrate Christmas each year by ordering American-style fried chicken in what has become a national tradition. In China, where chickens were once considered sacred and able to predict the future because they announced daybreak, the most popular fast food chain by far is now KFC. In the US, African Americans often refer to fried chicken as a “Gospel bird” because of its connection to Sunday church culture, and three of the five fastest-growing restaurant chains in recent years were chicken joints.
In fact, Americans have even given fried chicken its own “national day” on 6 July, and in a lighthearted recent survey by a San Francisco PR firm, 16% of respondents said that they would marry fried chicken if they could.
Until World War Two, fried chicken in the US was considered a food for special occasions. It later transitioned to something that people ate for breakfast or dinner a couple of times a week, and these days, it’s become so widely available that people eat it whenever the mood strikes. In fact, according to the US’ National Chicken Council, the average American ate 28lb of chicken in 1960. Now, Americans down 99lb of chicken each year – far more than beef (57lb) or pork (53lb).
I, too, am a holy altar acolyte of the bird. In my book Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time, I wrote about the history of traditional African American cuisine rooted in the Southern US and dedicated an entire chapter to fried chicken. For the sake of in-depth “research” on the subject, I ate at 150 restaurants located in 35 cities and 15 states across the country. And to put Southern fried chicken in the proper culinary and cultural context, I studied cookbooks from cuisines around the world, looking at all the different ways that it’s made. What I found was quite surprising.
Perhaps the world loves fried chicken because there are so many different ways to marinate, season, coat and fry it. Your standard Southern US version is either coated in flour or batter and then fried to a crisp in oil. If you marinate the chicken first in citrus juices and spices, you’ve got Guatemalan fried chicken. Bathe it in soy sauce, ginger and garlic; dredge it in potato starch and pack it in a bento box and you’ve got Japanese Tatsuta-age. Leave the bones in, fry it twice and then coat it in a thick, sweetened gochujang (chilli paste) for Korean fried chicken. Change the gochujang to an intensely spicy cayenne pepper paste, and you’ve got Nashville hot chicken. The list goes on and on.
Despite the fact that many cultures around the world make distinct varieties of fried chicken, the US South's version is unquestionably the most iconic. But why? What gives people in the Southern US the gumption to claim fried chicken as their birthright, or their “state religion” as Damon Lee Fowler wrote in his 1998 book, Fried Chicken: The World’s Best Recipes from Memphis to Milan, from Buffalo to Bangkok. The simple answer is that fried chicken’s early history is something of a mystery and US Southerners were its loudest and best cheerleaders, helping to spread it across the US, and later, the world.
From the 17th to 19th Centuries, conventional wisdom designated the American South as fried chicken’s native habitat. Southerners made it a centrepiece of their regional cuisine and boasted that only African Americans, mostly enslaved, could make “authentic” fried chicken. Some culinary experts linked such expertise to West Africa where, for several centuries prior to European contact, local populations ate chicken and deep fried their food. However, West Africans didn't make fried chicken the same way many Southerners traditionally did.
It was more like a fricassee, where chicken was lightly fried and then braised for a much longer time in a seasoned sauce – similar to Senegalese chicken yassa. Since West African culinary traditions remain a mystery to so many, some saw the building blocks for fried chicken and leapt to the wrong conclusion.
The US’ first widely accepted printed recipe for fried chicken appeared in 1824 in the first regional American cookbook, The Virginia House-Wife, authored by Mary Randolph, a white woman from a slaveholding family and a distant relative of Thomas Jefferson.
“Cut them up as for the fricassée, dredge them well with flour, sprinkle them with salt, put them into a good quantity of boiling lard and fry them a light brown,” she wrote. Of course, the dish’s history starts much earlier, but this recipe set the fried chicken standard for generations of Southern cooks.
For centuries, fried chicken’s pure Southern heritage remained unchallenged until food writer John F Mariani wrote the following in The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, first published in 1983: “Almost every country has its own version [of fried chicken], from Vietnam’s Ga Xao to Italy’s pollo fritto and Austria’s Weiner Backhendl.” But, he continued, “the Scottish, who enjoyed frying their chickens rather than boiling or baking them as the English did, may have brought the method with them when they settled the [American] South.”
Wait a minute. A quintessential “American” food might actually be Scottish? Mariani raised an intriguing possibility, but unfortunately, he didn't offer any proof for his musings. Still, there are some clues to support a Scottish origin theory.
Though Randolph’s recipe helped popularise fried chicken for Southern white cooks, an even older recipe appearing in a 1747 British cookbook, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, may have pioneered it – only it’s not actually called “fried chicken”. Simply titled “to marinate chickens”, the technique is all too familiar to today’s Southern US cooks.
“Cut two chickens into quarters, lay them in vinegar, for three or four hours, with pepper, salt, a bay leaf, and a few cloves, make a very thick batter, first with half a pint of wine and flour, then the yolks of two eggs, a little melted butter, some grated nutmeg and chopped parsley; beat very well together, dip your fowls in the batter, and fry them in a good deal of hog’s lard, which must first boil before you put your chickens in.”
Though authored by an English woman, Hannah Glasse, and published in Dublin, the cookbook incorporated a broad range of traditional British recipes. What’s more, in an essay on 18th-Century Scottish cuisine, Stana Nenadic, professor of social and cultural history at the University of Edinburgh, points out that in 1773, biographer James Boswell wrote a diary entry explicitly describing a fried chicken dinner that an elderly tacksman served him at Coire-chat-achan on the Isle of Skye. Mariani's theory then, is that as hundreds of thousands of Scottish and Scots-Irish settlers emigrated to the Southern US colonies during the 1700s, they brought their tradition of frying chickens in fat with them.
A likely scenario is that, at some point between the 17th and 19th centuries, enslaved African Americans began cooking fried chicken based on the recipes provided by Scottish slaveholders. In time, African American cooks embraced it as part of their own culinary tradition. With years of honed experience, as well as an adeptness at seasoning and frying, African American cooks caused fried chicken to lose its Scottish identity and it became as quintessentially “Southern” as black-eyed peas, cornbread, collard greens, macaroni and cheese and sweet potato pie.
Before the US Civil War (1861-1865), fried chicken was fully immersed in Southern social life for both African Americans and whites, but preparing it was a very labour-intensive process. Someone had to kill a chicken, then pluck, clean, cut, season, flour and cook it. This made it something only eaten on special occasions – typically from spring until autumn – and it was often served at Fourth of July celebrations and Sunday dinners after a church service. Typically, young chickens, around a year old, were preferred for frying. Older chickens were for stewing because the meat was considered less tender. Other than barbecue or a fish fry, few foods were as effective as fried chicken in bringing people together and building community.
Enslaved African Americans also valued chickens in the Southern plantation economy. Many slaveholders allowed enslaved people to raise chickens and sell or barter eggs. Chickens acquired divine significance in West Africa where the animals were used in a number of religious rituals, and enslaved Africans transplanted those spiritual practices to the Americas.
In the Southern US, American Americans made fried chicken their go-to dish for a communal meal after church, or when the church pastor went to a congregant’s home for dinner. As the honoured guest, the pastor was served first and got the best pieces of the bird (usually the breast), which were also called “preacher’s parts” until the 1950s. With fried chicken so imbued with religious connotation, it’s no surprise that its “Gospel Bird” or “Sunday Cluck” nicknames endure in African American culture.
During the 19th Century, the dish became a route to economic empowerment for many African Americans. In her groundbreaking work, Building Houses out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food & Power, University of Maryland associate professor Dr Psyche Williams-Forson reveals how the 900-person town of Gordonsville, Virginia, became known as the “Fried Chicken Capital of the World” in the second half of the 1800s.
Gordonsville was a major stop on two Civil War-era railroad lines, but back then, the trains didn’t have dining cars. “When weary train passengers arrived [in Gordonsville], these black women rushed to offer a combination of foods that included fried chicken,” writes Williams-Forson. Because fried chicken travelled well before refrigeration, white passengers would frequently buy the food from African American cooks through open train windows.
Entrepreneurial vendors proliferated in the South and in other parts of the country, and fried chicken singlehandedly helped many African Americans move out of the region and build their own homes – hence, the title of Williams-Forson’s book.
Predictably, however, it was a white entrepreneur who caused fried chicken to really take flight in the US. In the 1950s, “Colonel” Harland Sanders adopted traditional techniques perfected by African Americans in the US South and began franchising his Antebellum-themed Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant after figuring out how to mass produce fried chicken by greatly shortening its cooking time.
As a legitimate fast food, Southern-style fried chicken began spreading its wings globally in the 1970s, and KFC’s influence was huge. Wherever the franchise landed, it often gave people in other countries their first taste of Southern-style fried chicken.
But interestingly, just as Scottish immigrants may have introduced their fat-fried tradition to the US centuries ago, different methods to fry the birds from around the world have flapped back to the US in recent decades, as new generations of entrepreneurial immigrants have arrived.
Two of the best examples are Pollo Campero’s adobo-spiced Central American fried chicken, headquartered in Dallas, Texas; and South Korean franchise Bonchon’s twice-fried, garlic-soy or hot pepper-seasoned birds – whose founder, Jinduk Seh, now lives in New York. More recently, a proliferation of high-end US restaurants serving everything from bite-sized Japanese karaage fried chicken thighs to Palestinian fried fowl seasoned with za'atar (a Middle Eastern spice blend featuring sesame seeds, a variety of dried herbs and salt) have popped up across the US.
Every food tells a story, and as people around the world continue to look for that perfect bite of fried chicken, chefs, food writers, and restauranteurs have a tremendous opportunity to inform them about its origin. Yet, being a cheerleader for Scottish fried chicken is harder these days because Harland Sanders’ influence looms so large.
“In terms of modern Scottish food, fried chicken is KFC to us,” said Rachel McCormack, a Scottish panellist for BBC 4’s The Kitchen Cabinet. “It’s not something any good restaurant would do here, as it would baffle people.”
But all is not lost. According to Nicola Miller, an award-winning food writer based in England, nodding to deep-fried Mars bar and other local delicacies, “the Scots need little encouragement to crumb, batter and fry, and they are therefore uniquely placed for a reclamation.”
Perhaps with more Scottish cheerleaders, and fewer Kentucky Colonels, fried chicken can finally come home to roost.
English to Chinese: Extreme poverty set for first rise since 1998, World Bank warns
Source text - English Extreme poverty set for first rise since 1998, World Bank warns
Extreme poverty is set to rise this year for the first time in more than two decades, with coronavirus expected to push up to 115 million people into that category, the World Bank has said.
The pandemic is compounding the forces of conflict and climate change, which were already slowing poverty reduction, the bank said. By 2021, this could rise to as many as 150 million, it added.
Extreme poverty is defined as living on less than $1.90 (£1.50) a day. The projected increase would be the first since 1998, when the Asian financial crisis shook the global economy. Before the pandemic struck, the extreme poverty rate was expected to drop to 7.9% in 2020.
But now it is likely to affect between 9.1% and 9.4% of the world's population this year, according to the bank's biennial Poverty and Shared Prosperity Report.
At the other end of the scale, billionaires have seen their fortunes hit record highs during the pandemic, with top executives from technology and industry earning the most.
The world's richest saw their wealth climb 27.5% to $10.2tn (£7.9tn) from April to July this year, according to a report from Swiss bank UBS.
'Serious setback'
Since 2013, the World Bank has been working towards the target of having no more than 3% of the world's population living on just $1.90 a day by 2030.
However, it now says that goal will be beyond reach without "swift, significant and substantial policy action".
The World Bank report found that many of the new poor would be in countries that already have high poverty rates, with 82% of the total expected in what are classed as middle-income countries.
The bank said progress in reducing global poverty was already slowing even before the Covid-19 crisis. Between 2015 and 2017, 52 million people rose out of poverty, but the rate of reduction over that period was less than half a percentage point a year.
This was less rapid than in the years between 1990 and 2015, when global poverty had dropped at the rate of about one percentage point a year. "The pandemic and global recession may cause over 1.4% of the world's population to fall into extreme poverty," said World Bank Group president David Malpass.
He said that to reverse this "serious setback", countries would need to prepare for a different economy post-Covid, by allowing capital, labour, skills and innovation to move into new businesses and sectors.
However, he pledged that World Bank support would be available to developing countries "as they work toward a sustainable and inclusive recovery". The Washington-based lender is offering grants and low-interest loans worth $160bn to help more than 100 poorer countries tackle the crisis.
Translation - Chinese 世界銀行警告說，自1998年以來赤貧現象將首次上升
世界銀行表示，今年極端貧困現象將在二十多年中首次上升，其中冠狀病毒可能將多達1.15億人推入這一類別。
世界銀行表示，大流行病加劇了衝突和氣候變化的強迫，而這些強迫已經在放慢貧困的緩解。它補充說，到2021年，這人數可能會上升到1.5億人。
極端貧困的定義是每天生活費不足1.90美元（1.50英鎊）。預期的增長將是自1998年亞洲金融危機動搖全球經濟以來的首次增長。在大流行爆發之前，預計極端貧困率將在2020年降至7.9％。
但是，根據該銀行的《兩年一度的貧困與共享繁榮報告》，如今，今年極端貧困率很可能會影響全球9.1％至9.4％的人口。
English to Chinese: Thai protests: Tens of thousands gather again in mass defiance of government
Source text - English Thai protests: Tens of thousands gather again in mass defiance of government
Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters gathered again in the Thai capital Bangkok on Thursday in mass defiance of the government which had issued a decree banning demonstrations.
The protesters cheered and chanted peacefully, eventually dispersing several hours after a new 6pm curfew. They called for the release of at least 20 activists arrested on Thursday in a sweeping crackdown by police.
Many made a three-finger salute - a symbol of the protest movement. After peacefully leaving the site of the demonstration at Bangkok's Ratchaprasong Intersection, the protesters vowed to return on Friday at 17:00 local time (10:00 GMT).
This week saw the first protests of this movement take place while King Maha Vajiralongkorn was in the country - significantly raising the stakes. The king, who now spends most of his time abroad, has returned from Germany for several weeks.
In the early hours of Thursday morning, the government had attempted to curtail the student-led protest movement by issuing an emergency decree banning gatherings of more than four people and arresting about 20 activists - taking the total number of arrests this week to about 40.
Several key protest leaders were among those arrested, including human rights lawyer Anon Nampa, student activist Parit Chiwarak - widely known by his nickname "Penguin" - and Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul.
In a widely watched livestream video, officers were seen reading out charges to Ms Panusaya in a hotel room. Another video showed police putting her into a car as she and her supporters chanted slogans.
The protest movement they have helped lead began by calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha - a former army chief who seized power in a 2014 coup and was appointed premier after controversial elections last year - and has expanded since to call for curbs on the powers of the king.
The calls for royal reforms are particularly sensitive in Thailand, where criticism of the monarchy is punishable by long prison sentences.
'We are fighting till our deaths'
The months of protests leading up to the emergency decree issued on Thursday represent the biggest challenge in years to Thailand's establishment, which is dominated by the military and royal palace. On Wednesday, protesters jeered and held up the three-finger salute as a motorcade passed carrying the queen through Bangkok.
The proximity of the demonstration to the royal convoy was cited by the government in a televised address as one of the reasons for the emergency decree. But the protesters ignored the new rules on Thursday afternoon to once again gather in their thousands.
"Like dogs cornered, we are fighting till our deaths," Panupong "Mike Rayong" Jadnok, one the high-profile protest leaders who remains free, told the crowd. "We won't fall back. We won't run away. We won't go anywhere."
Police appealed to the crowd to disperse, eventually setting a 18:00 curfew. "The people who came know that there is a ban against public gathering of five or more," said police spokesman Kissana Phathanacharoen. "We will take things step by step."
Few in Thailand will have been surprised to hear of the arrest of the main protest leaders and tougher restrictions on freedom of assembly and expression. Some may even have been relieved that it did not end in bloodshed, as so often before in political crises here.
When Anon Nampa, a deceptively mild-looking lawyer, first called for an honest discussion about the monarchy, on 3 August, you could almost hear the collective intake of breath across the country at his boldness. When Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul read out 10 demands for royal reform and accountability from a university stage a week later, Thailand braced itself for a backlash. In a country where every constitution requires the king to "be held in a position of revered worship", this was akin to blasphemy.
The backlash did not come. A government struggling under the weight of multiple challenges, from the dire economic outlook to a series of scandals, seemed reluctant to risk provoking further public anger.
But the persistence of large-scale rallies, where protesters ridiculed the royal institution, could not be tolerated for long, especially now that the king had returned to Thailand for an extended stay.
With their leaders locked up outside Bangkok and any public gatherings banned, the movement will find it hard to keep going. The authorities may also go after those they believe have been funding the protests.
But what has been said about the monarchy cannot be unsaid. A taboo has been broken. People of all ages, from all parts of the country, aside from die-hard royalists, now agree with the student leaders, that the monarchy is fair game in any overhaul of Thailand's institutions. It is only a matter of time before we see similar protests again.
How did the protest movement begin?
Thailand has a long history of political unrest and protest but a new wave began in February after a popular opposition political party was ordered to dissolve.
The order followed elections in March last year - the first since the military seized power in 2014 and the first chance to vote for many young people and first-time voters. The elections were seen as an opportunity for change after years of military rule.
With the all-important support of the military, Prayuth Chan-ocha was re-installed as prime minister. The pro-democracy Future Forward Party (FFP), with its charismatic leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, garnered the third-largest share of seats and was particularly popular with young, first-time voters.
But in February a court ruled the FFP had received a loan from Thanathorn which was deemed a donation - making it illegal - and the party was forced to disband, prompting thousands of young Thais to join street protests.
The protests were halted by Covid-19 restrictions, which banned gatherings, but they began again in June when a prominent pro-democracy activist went missing.
Wanchalearm Satsaksit, who had been living in Cambodia in exile since 2014, was reportedly grabbed off the street and bundled off into a vehicle. Protesters accused the Thai state of orchestrating his kidnapping - a charge police and government officials have denied.
In recent months, the protesters have challenged the king's decision to declare Crown wealth as his personal property, which made him by far the wealthiest person in Thailand. It had until now been notionally held in trust for the benefit of the people.
There have also been questions over the king's decision to take personal command of all military units based in Bangkok - a concentration of military power in royal hands unprecedented in modern Thailand.
Translation - Chinese 泰國抗議活動：成千上萬的抗議者再次聚集在對政府的大反抗中
成千上萬的親民主的抗議者於週四再次聚集在泰國首都曼谷，這是對政府的大反抗，該政府發布了一項禁止示威的法令。
English to Chinese: Macron calls Paris beheading 'Islamist terrorist attack'
Source text - English Macron calls Paris beheading 'Islamist terrorist attack'
French President Emmanuel Macron has called the beheading of a teacher in a north-western suburb of Paris an "Islamist terrorist attack".
The victim is said to have shown controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to his pupils. The attacker was shot dead by police. Mr Macron said the as yet unnamed teacher was murdered because he "taught freedom of expression". "They won't win... We will act," the president said from the scene.
The attack occurred at about 17:00 local time (15:00 GMT) near a school. Anti-terror prosecutors are investigating. The knife-wielding attacker was shot as officers tried to arrest him in the aftermath of the attack. Police have not released any personal details about him.
A trial is currently under way in Paris over a 2015 Islamist assault on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which was targeted for publishing the cartoons. Three weeks ago, a man attacked and wounded two people outside the magazine's former offices.
What do we know about what happened?
A man wielding a large knife attacked the teacher in a street in an area called Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, cutting off his head. A police source said that witnesses had heard the attacker shout "Allahu Akbar", or "God is Greatest", the Reuters news agency reported.
The attacker then ran off, but local police alerted by the public were quickly at the scene. The officers confronted the man in the nearby district of Éragny. When they shouted at him to give himself up, he is said to have threatened them. The officers shot him and he died a short time later.
The scene is now sealed off, as the investigation continues.
Four people, including a minor, have been arrested, a judicial source told AFP early on Saturday. Those arrested were related to the attacker, the source said. In a tweet (in French), police urged members of the public to avoid the area. French broadcaster BFMTV reported that the suspected attacker was an 18-year-old man who was born in Moscow.
Who was the victim?
According to Le Monde newspaper, the victim, a teacher of history and geography, had been talking in class about freedom of expression in connection with the Muhammad cartoons, which caused uproar among some Muslims when Charlie Hebdo published them.
The teacher had reportedly advised Muslim students to leave the room if they thought they might be offended. Earlier this month, some Muslim parents complained to the school about the teacher's decision to use one or more of the cartoons as part of a discussion about the Charlie Hebdo trial, French media report.
"According to my son, he was super nice, super friendly, super kind," a parent from the school, Nordine Chaouadi, told the AFP news agency. Reacting to Friday's attack, Charlie Hebdo tweeted: "Intolerance just reached a new threshold and seems to stop at nothing to impose terror in our country."
If this motive for the killing is substantiated, it will be deeply shocking to the French, says the BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris. They will see it as not just a brutal attack, he says, but a brutal attack on a teacher for carrying out his duty to explain. France has seen a wave of Islamist violence since the 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead, including famous cartoonists.
How is France reacting?
The murder bore the hallmarks of "an Islamist terrorist attack," Mr Macron told reporters at the scene of the attack. "One of our fellow citizens was assassinated today because he was teaching, he was teaching pupils about freedom of expression," he said.
In the National Assembly, France's parliament, deputies stood up to honour the teacher killed on Friday and condemn the "atrocious terror attack". Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, travelling to Morocco, is returning urgently to Paris.
Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer tweeted that the killing of a teacher was an attack on the French Republic. He said his thoughts were with the victim and his family, and unity and firmness were the only responses to "Islamist terrorism".
Translation - Chinese 馬克龍稱巴黎斬首“伊斯蘭恐怖襲擊”
法國總統馬克龍（Emmanuel Macron）將巴黎西北郊區的一名教師斬首稱為“伊斯蘭恐怖襲擊”。
English to Chinese: Sacred Valley of the Incas -- see Machu Picchu and so much more in Peru
Source text - English Sacred Valley of the Incas -- see Machu Picchu and so much more in Peru
(CNN) — It's not hard to see why the Incas called it the Sacred Valley. The 70-mile narrow strip of land, in the Peruvian Andes, that runs roughly from the old imperial capital of Cusco to the enigmatic citadel of Machu Picchu remains a place of eerie natural beauty.
Against a backdrop of snow-capped peaks, the fertile river valley winds below steep forests and ancient agricultural terraces while the mountain light at dusk gives the landscape an otherworldly glow.
Many locals still speak Quechua -- the language of the Incas. They also grow corn, raise alpacas and weave brightly colored textiles much as their ancestors did before the violent arrival of the Spaniards five centuries ago.
Then there are the area's various other breathtaking Inca ruins that might be internationally renowned in their own right were they not overshadowed by the tourism juggernaut of Machu Picchu.
For those making the once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to the citadel, the Sacred Valley makes a perfect base.
Although the Sacred Valley has a well-developed tourism industry, with lodging and activities for every budget under the sun, it receives far less traffic than the destinations that top and tail it, Cusco and Machu Picchu.
There are endless opportunities to explore its natural landscapes as well as the living and ancient cultures. You can do so by road or, preferably, on foot, mountain bike or horseback. The Valley's smaller towns and villages also have a laid-back pace that make them ideal for decompressing, whether it is getting massages, doing yoga or simply chilling in a hammock.
Throw in Peru's acclaimed cuisine, and it's hard to go wrong. The area is already home to restaurants overseen by some of the country's top chefs and will soon be the site of a new project from Virgilio Martínez, whose Lima eatery Central, consistently ranks as Latin America's best.
There's one other key benefit of basing yourself in the Valley: altitude. Cusco is, on average, around 11,000 feet above sea level. The Valley mainly varies between 7,000 feet and 9,000 feet.
That might not sound like a huge difference but it comes right in the altitude sickness "sweet spot," with symptoms such as nausea, fatigue and headaches usually hitting you in Cusco but not the Sacred Valley.
Pisac
Famous for its pre-Colombian agricultural terracing, this colonial village is a great overnight stop to escape the crowds in the city of Cusco, just a 40-minute drive away, with a small but enticing selection of hip restaurants and hotels.
Most come here for the famous Sunday market in the town plaza, a great place to buy knitted alpaca wool clothing, ceramics and finely wrought silver. The village almost bursts at the seams as foreigners and local street vendors crowd the narrow cobbled streets.
Yet just a fraction of visitors ever make to Pisac's greatest claim to fame: the hilltop Inca fortress towering over the village. The fortress includes stone water channels and what archeologists believe was an Inca bathhouse. The summit is a small triangular plateau featuring dazzling views and a kind of Inca altar made from solid granite called an intihuatana or "hitching post of the sun."
A road actually leads up the rear side of the fortress, allowing visitors to arrive by car, taxi or bus and then explore the site. However, as with most things Inca, the best way to appreciate Pisac, at least for those feeling energetic and unafraid of heights, is by donning walking shoes and ascending by foot from the village square below.
The walk up the original narrow stone staircases is steep and typically takes a couple of hours. The mountain sun can also beat down. But the views of the village below, the terracing and the valley beyond make it thoroughly worthwhile.
Chinchero
Known locally as the "birthplace of the rainbow," Chinchero is another picturesque colonial village renowned above all for its intricate traditional textiles.
Unusually, the village center is private and requires visitors to pay. It's money well spent to go shopping in the various women's weaving collectives, where locals, in traditional Andean dress, using natural dyes to create stunning alpaca wool creations including shawls, blankets and tablecloths.
The colors can be as subtle or vivid as the women choose and cover the entire rainbow, with at least five types of green, depending on the leaves used, or bright crimson created by crushing dried cochineal bugs with a pestle and mortar.
Moray and the Inca Salt Mines
A pre-Colombian agricultural laboratory, Moray is one of the least visited but most fascinating Inca sites in the Sacred Valley.
This amphitheater penetrating deep into a hilltop is made of a series of descending concentric rings. Each level, experts believe, simulated a different altitude, allowing the Incas to experiment with different crops for their vast empire.
That tradition of trialing natural ingredients is also what has inspired Martínez, the chef. It's here, in the tiny village of Moray, that he plans to open a new culinary complex, covering all aspects of the gastronomic experience from field to plate, with his team testing new crops on the center's own land, perhaps in 2017.
The backstory to Moray is that the Incas possessed a highly tuned ecological sensibility. The Pachamama is arguably the most revered deity in the Andean cosmos and can be translated to English equally as Mother Earth or Mother Nature.
Moray remains the greatest embodiment of that understanding of the Pachamama's delicate equilibrium, and how it provides for humans. Near Moray, you can also visit the original Inca salt "mines" still in use today.
These are in fact a series of cascading, shallow pools built to trap water from a briny hot spring and then evaporate it. The walk down past the salt mines, back to the valley floor, is highly scenic and takes about an hour. Pink Andean gourmet table salt also makes an unusual souvenir to take home.
Ollantaytambo
This village is where most travelers from Cusco to Machu Picchu jump off the bus and on to the train. Its grid of cobbled streets is also the finest surviving example of Inca urban planning while the village was the scene of a rare and short-lived Inca victory over the Spaniards.
It was here, in 1536, that a force of Conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro's rebellious younger brother was showered with arrows and eventually routed after the Incas used their irrigation system to flood the valley floor, bogging down the horse-riding Spaniards.
The narrow streets can jam up with buses during the morning and afternoon rush hours to and from Machu Picchu but the village is pretty quiet for the rest of the time. It's also home to two stunning Inca ruins, including another terraced fort.
The huge walls are impressive but so too, albeit in a more subtle way, is the large Inca "shrine" carved into the rock on the lower far right of the site as it blends ethereally with the stone's natural features.
Ollaytaytambo is also the setting for some great walks and bike-rides, including the four-mile hike to the Inca quarries, as well as El Albergue (Estación de Tren, Av Ferrocarril 1, Ollantaytambo; +51 84 204014), thought to be the Valley's oldest functioning hotel.
Opened in 1925 and abutting the train station, El Albergue remains an atmospheric place to stay, with its simple, traditional rooms and leafy grounds. It also has a restaurant for non-guests and runs a high-end distillery for cañazo, a kind of Andean rum that has been produced continuously in the Valley since the 16th century.
The hotel's organic farm, with a view of the fort, also serves pachamanca, a pre-Colombian classic of Andean gastronomy, involving slow-cooking various types of meat with potatoes, yams, broad beans and local herbs by burying them with stones heated in a fire. El Albergue's version has lamb, chicken and alpaca, and, like most pachamanca, must be ordered the day before.
Machu Picchu
Revered as one of the world's great archeological sites, this hauntingly beautiful Inca citadel fully lives up to the hype.
Perched vertiginously on a spur between two sugarloaf mountains draped in emerald cloud forest, Machu Picchu's splendor is rooted in the harmony with its jaw-dropping natural setting.
The quality of the stonework also has to be seen up close to be believed.
Huge granite rocks with irregular natural edges and multiple corners lock together so snugly -- without mortar -- that not so much as a cigarette paper will fit between them.
Many, including Hiram Bingham, the American adventurer who rediscovered Machu Picchu in 1911, once believed it was a fortress. Today, the expert consensus is that it was a seasonal residence for the Inca rulers. But no one really knows.
Some 12 acres with two separate walks up the peaks at each end, the site is large enough to merit a full day. If you choose to overnight in the small town below, you can also line up to get in when the gates open at 5 a.m. to watch the sun rise over the citadel.
Machu Picchu is made up of roughly 200 stone structures, whose granite walls remain in good shape although the thatched roofs are long gone.
These include a ceremonial bathhouse, temples, granaries and aqueducts. One, known as the Hut of the Caretaker of the Funerary Rock, is thought to have been used for embalming dead aristocrats.
Many visitors hire a guide, but simply getting lost amid the buildings is also a great option, and an pressure-free way to visit the main sights.
These include a sun temple, the intihuatana, the sacred plaza and the "prison group," a labyrinth of narrow corridors and cells whose highlight is the temple of the condor, where a carved head of the avian scavenger is set against natural features in the rock that resemble its enormous wings.
Once you are done exploring these, you can -- if you've bought the appropriate ticket ahead of time -- take a vigorous hike up either of the two peaks, Huayna Picchu and Mount Machu Picchu. It takes around two hours to do Huayna Picchu while Mount Machu Picchu typically takes twice as long.
The former in particular requires a head for height and shoes with a good grip. A glimpse at German film director Werner Herzog's "Aguirre, the Wrath of God," will give you an idea of why.
This tale of Spanish conquistadors descending into the Amazon in search of El Dorado, the fabled city of gold, opens with an unforgettable scene of the expedition, decked out in heavy armor, on the steep stone steps of Huayna Picchu.
It's from these two peaks that the two classic shots of Machu Picchu are typically taken. Regardless of whether you're out to get that once-in-a-lifetime selfie, they're the only places you can get a full panorama of the citadel and thus an integral part of the experience.
Plan ahead
There's no getting around the fact that the citadel is a tourist magnet. There are now daily limits on visitors to the site, as well as some of the associated walks, including the Inca Trail, Huayna Picchu and Mount Machu Picchu.
Reserving before travel is therefore crucial, including for the Inca Trail and one of the various Machu Picchu entrance options, depending on the walk you want to take, to prevent you schlepping all the way to the Inca heartland only to discover that daily quotas have already been filled.
Also, Machu Picchu is, of course, most crowded around June and August, so you might consider visiting during the low season.
It can get rainy then, particularly from January through March. But, if you don't mind a spot of mud, Machu Picchu and the other Inca sites can be even more hauntingly beautiful in the wet, shrouded in mist.
Simeon Tegel is a British journalist based in Lima, Peru, and covering all of Latin America. His reporting has been widely published, including in The Independent, the Washington Post, USA Today and, in Spanish, El Pais.
English to Chinese: 13 essential Vietnam experiences
Source text - English 13 essential Vietnam experiences
(CNN) — When it comes to variety, Vietnam is in a league of its own. A trip to the capital, Hanoi, will be wildly different than modern Ho Chi Minh City, just as the lantern-lit streets of Hoi An vary dramatically from the nearby citadels of Hue.
Then there are the tea plantations, coffee farms, stunning bays, caves and coastlines -- all promising distinct adventures.
Lest we forget the food. Vietnam is home to some of the freshest and most delicious cuisine on Earth -- one steamy bowl of pho devoured on a plastic stool, and you'll understand. From can't-miss essentials to adventurous side trips, we've shortlisted a few of the most memorable experiences in Vietnam:
Light a lantern in Hoi An
As one of the most beautiful destinations in Asia, Hoi An promises no shortage of photogenic scenes. But none is more mesmerizing than the Full Moon Lantern Festival.
At this monthly festival, the city shuts off its electric lights to let thousands of rainbow-hued lanterns glow against an inky black sky -- both throughout the little lanes of Old Town as well as on the Thu Bon River.
Held to honor the full moon, the festival takes place along Old Town's waterfront promenade, where music, games and entertainment energize the atmosphere.
Alternatively, travelers can hire a sampan boat to glide along the water for a quieter experience. Either way, it's easy to take part: You'll simply need to purchase a paper lantern and candle for a couple of dollars -- depending on your bargaining skills -- light the candle, set it inside, then send it down stream accompanied by wishes for happiness and luck.
Search for the best pho in Hanoi
A taste of pho is a must on every journey, whether it's your first time or your 50th. Hanoi is located in northern Vietnam, which is thought to be the birthplace of the de facto national dish, so it makes sense to start your search for the best bowls in the capital.
Wedged between grand colonial French buildings in the labyrinthine Old Quarter, the best pho shops are often the most unassuming, filled with modest furniture, if any at all, and epic cauldrons of bubbling broth. We'll give you a couple hints: Hanoi institutions like Pho Gia Truyen (49 Bat Dan, Old Quarter) or Pho Thin (13 Lo Duc, Ngo Thi Nham) should satisfy your pho cravings.
Trace history in Ho Chi Minh City
An estimated 2 million Vietnamese civilians died in the Vietnam War (called the American War in Vietnam), which was fought across nearly two decades from 1954 to 1975. No matter where you're from, it's important to familiarize yourself with the country's recent history to better understand, and appreciate, modern Vietnam.
We'd recommend spending a few hours at Hoi Chi Minh City's museums and monuments to commemorate lives lost in the war and better understand the conflict.
The War Remnants Museum, opened in 1975, traces several wars through graphic photographs and military equipment -- including a collection of helicopters, tanks and fighter jets -- as well as reproductions of prison conditions, accounts of chemical warfare and a French guillotine.
Ride the Reunification Express
It might not be the fastest way to get around, but the Reunification Express (officially known as the North-South Railway) is certainly the most scenic. This 1,072-mile rail line chugs from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, passing countless landscapes and landmarks along the 35-hour journey.
There are several different cabin options on the train, including sleeper cabins for those making the full journey. More commonly, travelers will take the opportunity to hop on and off the train across several days to explore the country's beautiful natural scenery and historic towns.
A few of the highlights include Van Long Nature Reserve in Ninh Binh, where magnificent rice paddies and limestone scenery await, the ancient imperial city of Hue, and the beach town of Nha Trang on the central coastline.
Take an aerial tour of Halong Bay
Halong Bay is considered one of the most breathtaking destinations in Vietnam, and it's easy to see why.
The jade-toned bay is home to thousands of limestone islands, mysterious caves and wildlife. Most travelers tour this natural wonder aboard a cruise, but now there's another way to explore: by helicopter.
Launched earlier this year, Halong Heli Tours showcases the unique seascape from on high. Travelers can choose from eight- to 40-minute sightseeing tours that soar over the bay's many islands, beaches and fishing villages.
While you're in the region, we'd also recommend a detour to Bai Tu Long or Lan Ha bays -- Halong Bay's lesser-known neighbors -- where you can kayak, swim and trek in near total seclusion.
Beach hop in Phu Quoc
If clear water and powder-soft sand sounds right up your alley, Vietnam's "Pearl Island" is for you. Located in the Gulf of Thailand off the southwest coast, Phu Quoc promises dozens of beaches in all sizes and shades.
Among them, Sao Beach is often praised as one of the best in Vietnam thanks to its clear water, palm trees and sugar-white sand.
Ong Lang beach, on the west coast, tends to be quieter and more rustic -- the kind of place where you're more likely to share the water with a wandering cow or local fishing boat than other travelers.
Come sunset, snag a spot on Long Beach to enjoy the island's famously fiery sunset alongside chilled beers and live music.
Cruise down the Mekong
The Mekong, which is the 12th longest river in the world, has been the lifeblood of Southeast Asia for millennia. Still today, it's flanked by fishing villages and rice paddies, lush islands, food markets and ancient imperial cities.
Ideal for those who prefer to travel at a slower pace, a Mekong River cruise provides easier access to less-visited rural communities and hard-to-reach natural attractions. Beginning in Hoi Chi Minh City, we'd recommend a five- to 18-day cruise through the southern corner of Vietnam, up through Phnom Penh and Siem Reap in Cambodian and on to Luang Prabang, Laos, if time allows.
Explore the world's largest cave
It's not every day you have a chance to explore the world's largest cave. We'd highly recommended putting up an out-of-office message and succumbing to the full experience of Son Doong: a four-day expedition led by adventure tour company Oxalis.
As the world's largest cave, Son Doong is over three miles long and 650 feet tall -- spacious enough to fit a 40-story skyscraper, according to Oxalis. Given its size, the stunning cave offers countless natural treasures from 262-foot-tall stalagmites to subterranean rivers, unique species, enormous rock walls and even its own jungle -- all of which travelers will experience during their trek.
Take a motorbike ride through the majestic north
In Vietnam, motorbikes rule the road. And though it might make it challenging to cross the street in Hanoi, the country's affinity for scooters has given way to countless opportunities for adventures on two wheels. Companies such as Flamingo Travel, Cuong's Motorbike Adventures and FlipSide offer a variety of cycling itineraries, including both guided tours as well as bike rentals so you can hit the road alone.
Many avid riders agree that Vietnam's Ha Giang Loop in the far north, near the border with China, is among the most satisfying routes. On a four- or five-day trip, you'll cruise by everything from imposing mountain ranges to local villages, deep canyons and scenic back roads.
Soak up tea culture in Sapa
If you're up north, we'd recommend stopping for a few nights in Sapa. In this former French-colonial hill station, it's easy to fall in love with the temperate highland climate, misty green tea terraces, waterfalls and hiking trails -- including the two-day hike up Mount Fansipan.
The region's lush hillsides play host to hundreds of tea farms that produce green, black, oolong and cinnamon teas, among others. To really get to know the region's unique culture, we'd recommend trying a homestay in one of the mountain villages, though luxury hotels are now also on the travel menu.
Go crazy for coffee in Dalat
As the second largest coffee producer in the world -- right behind Brazil -- Vietnam also dedicates some of its highland territory to coffee plantations. A few days in Dalat, a mountain town northeast of Ho Chi Minh City, will show you just how prolific the country's coffee industry really is.
There are several plantations peppered throughout these highlands, including Son Pacamara, Trai Ham Da Lat Weasel Coffee and Cau Dat Plantation -- all of which offer guided tours. You'll learn how farmers cultivate coffee berries and roast them to perfection, then taste the coffee for yourself.
Whether sweetened with condensed milk or served through a filtered brew, earthy and aromatic Vietnamese coffee is known to satisfy even the most ardent of coffee connoisseurs.
Make vermicelli noodles in Cu Da village
From springy vermicelli to clear rice noodles, egg noodles, glass noodles and fettuccine-like banh pho, noodles are a staple in Vietnamese cuisine. And nowhere are noodles more ubiquitous than in Cu Da Village.
A noodle lover's paradise, this ancient village south of Hanoi produces incredible volumes of white and yellow vermicelli to keep up with demand. It's quite the sight: As you wander around the French colonial-era buildings, racks and racks of spaghetti-thin noodles can be seen drying in the sun.
To showcase the traditional techniques, several noodle tours include hands-on cooking classes where you can learn top tips from a local family.
Cycle around Hue's ancient ruins
Having served as the former imperial capital during the Nguyen Dynasty (1802--1945), Hue is one of the best places in Vietnam to admire ancient architecture.
The highlight for most is the UNESCO-listed Complex of Hue Monuments -- a walled fortress on the banks of the Perfume River that encloses ancient temples, royal tombs and countless pagodas.
Given the complex's massive size -- stretching across 778 acres (315 hectares) -- one of the most pleasant ways to explore is on a bicycle.
Starting in the misty morning hours, travelers can pedal along the peaceful canals, break for coffee and soak up the grandeur of the inner citadel, outer walls and many altars before the crowds roll in.
在這些高地上遍布著幾個種植園，包括Son Pacamara，Trai Ham Da Lat Weasel咖啡和Cau Dat種植園-所有這些種植園均提供帶導遊的遊覽。您將學習農民如何種植咖啡豆並將其烘焙至完美，然後親自品嚐咖啡。無論是用煉乳加糖還是經過過濾的沖泡咖啡，土質芳香的越南咖啡都可以滿足最熱情的咖啡鑑賞家的要求。
在古達村做粉絲麵條
從彈性粉絲到清米粉，雞蛋麵，玻璃麵和類似意大利寬麵條的banh pho，麵條是越南菜的主食。在古達 (Cu Da) 村，麵條無處不在。
English to Chinese: In spite of strict cannabis laws, Hong Kong's first CBD cafe is open for business
Source text - English In spite of strict cannabis laws, Hong Kong's first CBD cafe is open for business
Hong Kong (CNN) — On a rare pedestrian-only corner of Hong Kong's Sheung Wan area, hidden deep within a heavily gentrified maze of sleek micro roasters and dusty Chinese antique shops, there's a stylish, unassuming shop with a few tables out on its terrace.
Is it a boutique? Is it a bar? Does it even sell anything? It's hard to tell on the surface, but with its vanilla-chic aesthetic of unfinished wood floors, blank white walls and a few nondescript plants, it's hardly the place you go to whisper "weed, please."
And yet, according to the owner, that happens now and then at Found, Hong Kong's very first CBD cafe. Inside is a full range of CBD -- short for cannabidiol -- products for sale.
The vials of CBD oils are recommended for personal use, and a drop under the tongue promises to alleviate sleeplessness. Mini boxes of powders allow buyers to add CBD to foods, sprinkling some into oils and butters will infuse dishes with cannabinoids.
There are also CBD products for pets to help with joint inflammation and other conditions. A cozy seating area in front of Found's beverage counter offers customers a space to relax with a beer or coffee, both tinged with just enough CBD to take the edge off of the drinks. Currently in its soft-opening phase, the owner hopes to fully open next month with a facelift and full cafe menu.
How is this legal?
In a city where cannabinoids are still very much associated with intoxicating recreational -- and highly illegal -- usage, there's a vacuum in the popular imagination for the many therapeutic benefits of these naturally occurring compounds that are being embraced elsewhere in the world.
Despite this, a boom in the sale of non-medicinal CBD products is quietly emerging in Asia -- Hong Kong included -- led by progressive minds in the food and beverage, and wellness industries.
"We are trying to create a new conversation here, moving away from stoner culture," says Fiachra Mullen, co-owner of Altum International, a cannabinoids supplier for businesses and consumers in the Asia Pacific that owns and operates Found.
CBD is an extract from cannabis plants and has a psychoactive, but non-intoxicating effect. Translation: it will give you all the calm and relaxing effects of marijuana, without the addictive high. It is now widely available in the United States and Europe in face creams and smoothies, sought out by the health-conscious as a cure-all that lowers pain, anxiety and inflammation.
Apart from CBD, there is a range of other compounds available in cannabis plants, some illegal and some not depending where you are. In Hong Kong, the CBD extract is technically legal, but its sister compound THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), responsible for the "high," is strictly illegal. In the United States and Europe, CBD products can carry up to 0.3% -- a trace amount -- of THC, but even that is not acceptable in Hong Kong.
Any CBD product sold here must have entirely undetectable amounts of THC. Sounds easy enough to get around -- just use a pure form of CBD. But most manufacturers produce the extract with a trace amount of THC and other compounds from industrial hemp. This broad spectrum mix of compounds is known for having a higher efficacy than any of the single compounds just on their own.
"The 'entourage effect' refers to CBD being more potent when accompanied by other cannabinoids," says Mullen. "Nature evolved over millions of years and presents you with this beautiful profile (of compounds) and then you say, well we'll take CBD only. You can't expect the isolate to have the same results as the full spectrum."
While CBD on its own may have major benefits for those suffering from anxiety and sleeplessness, users say, without the touch of THC, it is less effective as a painkiller, only dulling the pain and not fully taking it away. But such are Hong Kong's regulations.
Mullen has worked closely with manufacturers in the US and Europe for the past two years to ensure his CBD extracts are pure enough to fit local restrictions.
Altum created a line of pure CBD oils and powders under the retail brand Felix & Co, controlling the quality of the extracts to ensure everything is legitimate. Demand for the products has been strong, with items often selling out.
"Most people are seeking help with sleep, we also have parents with children with epilepsy or cerebral palsy here who are using our products," says Mullen. CBD is FDA-approved in the treatment of two severe forms of childhood epilepsy.
"Much of it is driven by the year that Hong Kong has had with the protests and the pandemic. A lot of the customers take it first thing in the morning with their coffee before they leave the house, it helps with mindfulness and makes them a bit more resilient to whatever happens that day."
Educating the public
Still confused about just what this CBD stuff is? The Found staff are helpful and non-judgmental about any questions visitors might have. Mullen himself is often there to extol the virtues of CBD in person.
The message of CBD is certainly spreading in Hong Kong, embraced by both the healthy (there's a CBD yoga lounge at popular studio Yoga Bam Bam) and the hedonistic (craft brewer Young Master Ales offers a range of CBD beers). Still, Mullen is hardly satisfied.
"There's a large part of the population that I'm not reaching," says Mullen. While Hong Kong has a deeply ingrained culture of taking herbal remedies for health conditions and general wellness, there is mostly a stigma against anything related to cannabinoids.
Cannabis is part of ancient traditional therapies around Asia, from Thailand to India to China, but over the years, criminalization of the plants has led the public to shun its usage in any form. "My dream profile customer is a 65-year-old Hong Kong woman," confesses Mullen. "If I can have her and her husband walk in and learn about, or even just hear the word 'cannabis,' and not run a mile, then it's mission accomplished."
Found, Unit A, G/F, 8 Tai On Terrace, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong; +44 5288 2281
English to Chinese: These countries have more than one capital
Source text - English These countries have more than one capital
(CNN) — The wars, revolutions and fallen empires that transformed the world map in the 20th century have a surprising beneficiary: capital cities.
Only around 40 nations had capital cities in 1900, writes professor David Gordon in an introduction to the book, "Planning Twentieth Century Capital Cities." By 2000, that number would grow to more than 200, as new countries emerged out of the collapse of the British and French empires, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.
Most countries chose a single city as their capital. "This is a place where politicians get together to pass laws, where the central administrative apparatus of the country are generally located," says Gordon, a professor of urban planning at Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario. "There are very much synergies in locating these all together."
But some countries simply decided that when it comes to capital cities, more is more. From the shores of Benin to the Kingdom of eSwatini, there are nations across the globe with two or more capital cities.
Their reasons vary. When countries are formed from distinct regions, as in the case of the United States or South Africa, Gordon notes that regional competition for power can be a factor. "None of them wants their rival to get the advantage of being the seat of government," says Gordon. "There's very complex politics involved with this sort of thing."
The United States resolved that conflict by founding Washington, D.C., on a relatively undeveloped stretch of the Potomac River. In contrast, South Africa opted for distributing the national government between the cities of Cape Town, Pretoria and Bloemfontein.
Sometimes, choosing a capital is easier said than done.
In 1973, Tanzania declared that a new capital would be established in Dodoma, hundreds of miles inland from the colonial-era capital of Dar es Salaam. "Empires had central administrative places for each colony, which were typically on the coast, so they had good access by sea back to the imperial capital," says Gordon. "A trend in decolonizing countries is to move the capital into the center of the country to make it more accessible to all citizens."
But the cultural pull of historic capitals can be hard to overcome. Dar es Salaam still hosts many government functions, and it wasn't until 2019 that the Tanzanian president moved his office to the "new" capital of Dodoma.
Tanzania isn't the only country where leaders dithered over where to put the capital. "Canada took years and years to decide on Ottawa," says Gordon. "The capital used to move every two years, because the Federation could not agree on where the capital should go."
As travelers wait out the coronavirus pandemic, armchair traveling and hopefully planning their next adventures, consider which capital of these countries to visit in future -- either or perhaps both? Politics aside, Gordon sees an upside to his own country's complicated geographical past, and to a world map whose nations maintain more than one capital city: "It's great for Trivial Pursuit."
Benin: Porto-Novo and Cotonou
The energetic port city of Cotonou welcomes travelers to Benin with colorful hustle and swinging rhythms, and it comes as no surprise that the country's biggest city is also the seat of government.
The official capital, though, is an hour away in Porto-Novo. Here, the blare of big-city life gives way to tree-lined streets and historic architecture. A division of powers between the two cities has been in place since before Benin achieved full independence from France in 1960.
Bolivia: La Paz and Sucre
Wrapped in the snowy peaks of the Andes Mountains, La Paz is a show-stopper of a capital city.
Cable cars drift above a tangle of downtown streets, and an independent populace fills historic squares during frequent protests. But while La Paz is the administrative capital of Bolivia, the constitutional capital is hundreds of miles away in the city of Sucre.
In the early days of colonial rule, silver from the mines surrounding Sucre turned the mountain city into an Andean powerhouse. A burgeoning tin industry helped make upstart La Paz a fierce rival for economic and political power, and it remains the seat of Bolivian government to this day.
Chile: Santiago and Valparaíso
As members of Chile's national administrative and judicial bodies watch snow fall in the mountains around Santiago, the national legislature can enjoy a colorful Pacific Ocean sunset from the city of Valparaíso.
The two spectacular cities are just 72 miles away from each other by road, but they're a world apart. In Santiago, the official capital, high-rise buildings glimmer a cool gray-blue against a backdrop of rocky summits. In the national legislature's seat of Valparaíso, the UNESCO-listed historic center is a tumbledown gem with a rainbow palette and bohemian flair.
Côte D'Ivoire: Yamoussoukro and Abidjan
Holding onto the presidency for more than three decades comes with some perks. President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who ruled Côte D'Ivoire from 1960 to 1993, took advantage of his time in office by making his boyhood home of Yamoussoukro the country's second capital in 1983.
Compared with the original capital city of Abidjan, however, Yamoussoukro remains sleepy. Abidjan is the de facto seat of government, where sleek artwork at Galerie Cécile Fakhoury meets modernist architecture and colorful markets.
Czech Republic: Prague and Brno
Gothic spires and Baroque rooflines line the Vltava River in Prague, a charismatic city that's a showpiece of Czech culture and history. Among the most impressive sites is Prague Castle, part of the city's UNESCO-listed historic center. Founded in the 9th century, the sprawling castle remains the official office of the President of the Czech Republic.
But the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic is in the country's less-known second capital, the energetic Moravian city of Brno. Here, students fill stylish cafes, and adventurous visitors can go underground into an maze-like ossuary that holds tens of thousands of human skeletons.
Kingdom of eSwatini: Mbabane and Lobamba
Formerly known as Swaziland, this landlocked country packs a dramatically varied landscape into less than 7,000 square miles of territory. In the mountainous west, escarpments break free of green hills that plunge to hot, dry grasslands just above sea level.
Perched in the heart of the Dlangeni Hills, Mbabane is the administrative capital. If you're hoping to catch a glimpse of the absolute monarch of eSwatini, King Mswati III, you should head to Lobamba, the royal capital.
That's where the royal family resides in the Ludzidzini Royal Residence, one of several royal residences across the country. eSwatini's annual arts and music festival is just one stop on the African festival circuit.
Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya
A jumble of minarets, futuristic towers and street markets, Kuala Lumpur is a maximalist immersion in Malaysian life and culture. Rooftop bars buzz through the night here, and rush hour brings traffic at a standstill.
It's the national capital, too, the seat of the legislature and the official home of Malaysia's monarch. But even governments need a break from big-city life. In 1995, the government began constructing Putrajaya, a quieter metropolis that wraps around a massive artificial lake.
What the new capital lacks in heritage it makes up for in space. With plenty of room to grow, oversized landmarks have blossomed in Putrajaya, including the bubblegum-pink Putra Mosque, which has become a sightseeing touchstone.
Montenegro: Podgorica and Cetinje
Grand mansions and museums testify to Cetinije's years as a seat of power in Montenegro, and the President's official residence is still in the city's Empire-style Blue Palace.Now designated the Old Royal Capital, Cetinije lost prominence to the larger city of Podgorica -- then called Titograd -- after the Second World War.
Now, laid-back Podgorica is where the official government is located. Known as Birziminum in Roman times, the city morphed into Slavic Ribnica and Socialist Titograd before becoming Podgorica in 1992 as Yugoslavia crumbled.
Netherlands: Amsterdam and The Hague
With historic canals, ultrahip locals and a reputation as one of Europe's hottest party spots, Amsterdam has plenty of name recognition. But even though the Netherlands' constitution designates the city as the country's capital, the real work of governing takes place in The Hague.
The Netherlands' main governing bodies, including the states general, executive branch and supreme court, have been located in this dignified city for centuries.
To see the city's inner workings, join a guided tour of Het Binnenhof, a historic complex of buildings clustered around the Gothic Knight's Hall, where the King of the Netherlands still comes for his yearly speech from the throne.
South Africa: Pretoria:,Cape Town and Bloemfontein
This is the only country to have three capital cities, a unique arrangement designed to share power across regions. With a spectacular location between the shoreline and Table Mountain, Cape Town was the capital of Britain's Cape Colony and remains the legislative capital of South Africa.
By dividing the remaining branches of government between Pretoria and Bloemfontein, the emerging Republic of South Africa helped distribute power across the new country. Each one has its charms: Pretoria is known for the exuberant jacaranda blooms that appear each September, while Bloemfontein exudes laid-back hospitality.
Sri Lanka: Colombo and Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte
Colombo sprawls maze-like along the Sri Lankan coast, reeling past bright bazaars, colonial-era landmarks and golden-sand beaches. It's a city with gutsy magnetism, a figurehead that's the starting point for most travelers exploring the island country.
The national and executive bodies of government are in Colombo, too, but the official capital is in nearby Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, often called Kotte. There, the modern Sri Lankan Parliament Building is located on an artificial island in the middle of the manmade Diyawanna Lake.
Tanzania: Dar es Salaam and Dodoma
Sometimes moving out takes years. In 1973, the Tanzanian government announced it was moving from the coastal capital of Dar es Salaam, and identified Dodoma as the perfect central location for a new capital.
Despite a suite of grand buildings and wide streets in Dodoma, however, many key government functions remain in Dar es Salaam. Maybe it's just too hard to walk away from Dar es Salaam's cultural diversity and Indian Ocean breezes; there's even a gorgeous marine reserve just off the coast here.
But after nearly half a century of a move-in-progress, Tanzania's government might finally make the jump to Dodoma. In October 2019, President John Magufuli moved his office there.
English to Chinese: Rome in a day -- see Italy's capital in 24 hours
Source text - English Rome in a day -- see Italy's capital in 24 hours
(CNN) — It's taken more than 2,700 years to build the city of Rome as it is now, so is it possible to see it in less than 24 hours? Yes ... but you'll need a foot massage at the end of one crazy, jam-packed day.
From its ancient monuments to Renaissance masterpieces, traditional cuisine and buzzing piazza life, here's what makes up the beautiful chaos that is Rome.
7:30 a.m. Caffeine kick-start
Romans kick off their days with a cappuccino and a fresh cornetto (around €4, $5). For a top-notch breakfast, try Cristalli di Zucchero (via di Val Tellina, 114; +39 06 5823 0323) in Monteverde.
It's a superb bar-pasticceria that has been awarded the highest accolade by Gambero Rosso and simply has to be done if you're serious about our plans for Rome. There are smaller branches across the city.
8:30 a.m. St Peter's Basilica
You'll have more time to admire Michaelangelo's famed dome and the Pietà, his marble sculpture of Mary holding the body of Christ. When he's in Rome, the Pope speaks on Sunday at midday at one of the windows in the building to the right of the Basilica. In July and August he resides outside Rome at Castel Gandolfo.
10 a.m. Vatican Museums
At which point, it's a quick march around the walls of Vatican City to the entrance of the Vatican Museums. Savvy visitors book ahead online to avoid the queues. Highlights of this vast collection of artistic and historic wealth include Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel, the Raphael rooms and the ancient Greek sculpture of Laocoön and His Sons dating from the first century BC.
12 p.m. Ice-cream pit stop
If you get yourself out of the Vatican Museums by midday, there's time for a well-earned pit stop at Old Bridge (viale dei Bastioni di Michelangelo), a tiny gelateria opposite the Vatican walls. It sells some of the most delicious ice-cream in Rome. Options: If the Vatican Museums really aren't your thing, a modern alternative is the MAXXI (via Guido Reni, 4A; +39 06 3996 7350).
This is Zaha Hadid's award-winning modern-art space -- take bus 32 from via Ottaviano and get off at Ponte della Musica; tram 19 will also take you close to the MAXXI. Afterward, get a No. 2 tram back to Piazza del Popolo and from there walk up via del Corso, where you can pick up the trail at the Pantheon.
1 p.m. Three Squares
From the Vatican Museums, walk back toward St Peter's Basilica and up via della Conciliazione for a photo opportunity by Castel Sant Angel (Lungotevere Castello, 50; +39 06 6896 003). And don't miss the mausoleum of Emperor Hadrian, now a museum and art gallery.
Walk over the pedestrian Ponte Sant Angelo and along via dei Banchi Nuovi and then via del Governo Vecchio. This will bring you into the area of three of Rome's most atmospheric public squares: Piazza Navona, Campo de' Fiori and the Pantheon, all are within a five-minute walk of each other.
Here, you can peruse Gian Lorenzo Bernini's dramatic Fountain of the Four Rivers (top marks if you can name them: the Danube, the Ganges, Rio de la Plata and the Nile) and Borromini's Baroque church of Sant'Agnese in Agone in Piazza Navona.
2 p.m. Lunch
Campo de' Fiori has a market most mornings and is a good place for lunch -- Forno Campo de' Fiori does delicious pizza to go. Lunch can be rounded off with a coffee near the Pantheon.
Caffe Sant Eustachio -- Piazza Sant'Eustachio, 82; +39 06 6880 2048; is a tourist trap but it fights a close battle for the title of "best coffee in Rome" with Tazza d'Oro, on the other side of the Pantheon -- Via degli Orfani, 84; +39 06 6789 792.
A peek inside the Pantheon (piazza della Rotonda) is a must, if only to wonder why Hadrian never had that hole in the roof covered up. Short answer: it's part of the architectural ingenuity that means this concrete Roman dome is still standing after almost 2,000 years.
If you find yourself with 15 minutes to spare, pop into the church of San Luigi dei Francesi (via S. Giovanna d'Arco, 5; +39 06 688 271), around the corner from Caffe Sant Eustachio. The church is home to three of Caravaggio's Biblical paintings. Both sites are free to enter.
3:30 p.m. Palazzo Doria Pamphilj
For an idea of how one of Renaissance Rome's premier dynasties lived, Palazzo Doria Pamphilj gives a delightful and not-too-long tour of grand ballrooms and galleries housing works by Jan Brueghel, Titian, Raphael, Caravaggio and Garofalo.
The most important piece in the collection is Velazquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X Pamphilj. Options: Palazzo Altemps (Piazza Sant'Apollinare 46; +39 06 3996 7700; $8 (€7); open Monday-Sunday 9 a.m.-7:45 p.m., closed Saturday) is a good alternative to Palazzo Doria Pamphilj.
It's a gem of Renaissance architecture near Piazza Navona, housing impressive Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures.
The Capitoline Museums (Piazza del Campidoglio) are also a good choice. Highlights include the iconic Colossus of Constantine, as well as famous bronzes, including Marcus Aurelius on horseback, the Boy with Thorn and the emblem of Rome: a bronze she-wolf suckling the abandoned twins Romulus and Remus.
If you can't face any more museums, you're within striking distance of two of Rome's most overrated and overcrowded tourist sites: the Trevi Fountain (Piazza di Trevi) and the so-called Spanish steps (Trinità dei Monti, Piazza di Spagna).
See them if you must, avoid if you can, or come back later when everyone else is in bed. The designer boutiques of via dei Condotti also provide some retail relief. Look out for a good variety of stores around Campo de' Fiori, via di Campo Marzio or via del Governo Vecchio for a more affordable and diverse shopping experience.
5 p.m. The Colosseum
After dodging the traffic in piazza Venezia (check out the mammoth wedding-cake-like Vittorio Emanuele II monument), you can make your way down via dei Fori Imperiali and see the Roman Forum on your right and, in front of you, the Colosseum.
It's been standing there since 80AD and, although it's not in the best of health it has so far managed to survive the creep of urban development and the near-constant rattle of taxis, buses and scooters that flow past on their daily business.
A single ticket gets you into the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill, a great viewpoint from which to admire Circus Maximus, the Capitoline Hill and Rome's many church domes and bell towers in the late afternoon sun.
Options: Happy to get a passing glimpse of the Colosseum? There are other activities that could fill the hours until it's aperitivo time. Visit the city on a Segway (hire them at Rome by Segway) or rent pedal cars and bikes in Villa Borghese, Rome's city-center park.
8 p.m. Pizza or pasta?
You've seen the major sites of modern and ancient Rome: the last decision of the day is where to eat. For great pizzas near the Colosseum, try Li Rioni (via SS. Quattro, 24; +39 6 7045 0605) or Alle Carrette (via Madonna dei Monte, 95; +39 06 679 2770).
The ivy-draped buildings and cobbled streets of Monti (around via dei Serpenti and Viminale) come alive at sundown with cosmopolitan Romans and an international crowd clunking ice in their glasses.
To feel right at home, try asking for an Aperol-spritz, Campari-spritz or prosecco before dinner. L'Asino d'Oro (Via del Boschetto, 73; +39 06 4891 3832) is a good choice for a quiet meal. Rome's most-famed nightlife quarter is Trastevere, which also offers divine pizzas (Ai Marmi is good, get there early -- viale Trastevere, 53; +39 06 580 0919) and plenty of decent trattorias.
Alternatively, for excellent Roman pasta dishes try Felice (via Mastro Giorgio, 29; +39 06 5746 800) or Da Bucatino (via della Robbia, 84/86; +39 06 5746 886). We also recommend Tanto pe' Magna (Via Giustino de Jacobis, 9; +39 06 5160 7422) in Garbatella. Book in advance for this popular spot.
11 p.m. After hours
If you've an ounce of energy left, a good choice is to head to INIT. (Via della Stazione Tuscolana 133) and enjoy a few drinks while listening to live indie music. Other good nightspots include Micca Club (via Pietro Micca, 7a-Porta Maggiore; +39 06 8744 0079). If you've made it this far, we make that around 18 hours of soaking up this fantastic city -- time to sleep. You've earned it.
Translation - Chinese 一日羅馬-24小時遊覽意大利首都
CNN—像現在這樣建造羅馬市已經花費了2700多年，那麼有可能在不到24小時的時間內遊覽到整個羅馬嗎？是的……但是在瘋狂的，擁擠的一天結束時，您需要足部按摩。
從古老的紀念碑到文藝復興時期的傑作，傳統美食和嗡嗡的廣場生活，這就是構成羅馬美麗混亂的原因。
上午7:30咖啡因啟動
羅馬人用一杯卡布奇諾咖啡和新鮮的短號葡萄酒開始新的一天（約4歐元，5美元）。想要享用一流的早餐，請嘗試在蒙特沃德（Monteverde）的Cristalli di Zucchero（通過di Val Tellina，114; +39 06 5823 0323）。
這是紮哈·哈迪德（Zaha Hadid）屢獲殊榮的現代藝術空間-從奧塔維亞諾Ottaviano乘坐32號公交車在Ponte della Musica下車； 19號有軌電車還將帶您接近MAXXI。之後，乘坐2號電車回到人民廣場(Piazza del Popolo)，然後從那裡經過del Corso，這裡你可以接小徑走在萬神殿（Pantheon）。
下午1:00 三個廣場
從梵蒂岡博物館出發，朝聖彼得大教堂走去，然後沿著della Conciliazione向上走，由Castel Sant Angel拍照機會（Lungotevere Castello，50; +39 06 6896 003）。也不要錯過哈德良皇帝的陵墓，後者現在是博物館和美術館。
穿過行人橋蓬聖安傑洛(Ponte Sant Angelo)並經過dei Banchi Nuovi，然後經過del Governo Vecchio。這將帶您進入羅馬三個最大氣的公共廣場：納沃納廣場（Piazza Navona），坎波德菲奧里（Campo de'Fiori）和萬神殿（Pantheon），兩者之間的步行距離都不超過5分鐘。
如有必要，請參觀它們，如果可以的話，請避免它們，或在其他人都躺在床上後再回來。Via dei Condotti的精品店設計師也提供一些零售優惠。在坎波菲奧里附近，通過di Campo Marzio或del Governo Vecchio尋找各種各樣的有利商店，以獲得更實惠和多樣化的購物體驗。
下午5:00 羅馬競技場
避開威尼斯廣場的交通（檢查一下像龐然大物的婚禮蛋糕一樣的維托里奧·埃馬努埃萊二世紀念碑）後，您可以通過dei Fori Imperiali向下走，在右邊看到羅馬廣場，在您面前就是羅馬競技場 。
它自公元80年以來就一直屹立在那裡，儘管它並不是處於最佳狀態，但到目前為止，它已經過倖免於城市發展的蠕動以及出租車，公共汽車和踏板車的嘎嘎聲在日常業務中近乎不斷的流過。
晚上11:00 遊覽之後
如果您還剩下一盎司的能量，一個不錯的選擇是前往INIT。（通過 della Stazione Tuscolana 133），邊聽現場獨立音樂邊喝幾杯。其他好晚安景點包括麥加俱樂部（Micca Club）（通過Pietro Micca，7a-Porta Maggiore; +39 06 8744 0079）。如果您已經做到了這一點，我們將使您沉浸在這個夢幻般的城市中大約18個小時-現在該睡覺了。這是你已應得的。
English to Chinese: Why arrogance is dangerously contagious
Source text - English Why arrogance is dangerously contagious
Overconfidence can delude us into dangerous thought or actions – and that same arrogance can also spread to others like wildfire, too.
In the late 1980s, the aptly named psychologist James Reason wanted to understand the flawed thinking behind road accidents. He took to the streets and supermarket car parks around
Manchester, UK, and asked a total of 520 drivers to estimate the number of times they’d committed certain offences. Did they regularly fail to check their rear-view mirror, for instance? Or had they entered the wrong lane when approaching a junction? Beside the list of errors and violations, the participants were also asked to estimate how their driving ability compared to others’ – whether it was better or worse than average.
Given the sheer amount of time many people spend behind the wheel, you’d hope that most of the drivers would have at least some awareness of their own abilities. Yet Reason found that this couldn’t have been further from the truth. Of the 520 drivers, just five considered that they were worse than average – fewer than 1%. The rest – even the truly abysmal drivers who were constantly making errors – considered themselves to be at least as good as the next person, and many thought they were a lot better. It was, essentially, a mass delusion that rendered them completely blind to their own failings.
Three decades later, psychologists have documented similarly deluded levels of confidence for many different traits and abilities. We tend to think we are more intelligent, creative, athletic, dependable, considerate, honest and friendly than most people (a phenomenon that is often known as the “better-than-average effect”). “The evidence is extremely – even unusually – strong,” says Ethan Zell, an associate professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, who recently conducted a meta-analysis of the studies so far.
The strength of the effect has made it a classroom favourite, he says. “It basically never fails. If you give people a questionnaire where they rate themselves relative to the average, almost everyone in the class thinks they're above average at almost everything.”
The consequences may be serious. As Professor Reason had implied, overconfidence of our own skills on the road may lead to risky driving and serious accidents. In medicine, it can lead to fatal diagnostic error; in law, it can lead to false accusations and miscarriages of justice. And in business, managerial arrogance puts companies at a greater chance of both committing fraud and declaring bankruptcy.
It’s little wonder, then, that overconfidence is often known as the “mother of all biases”; the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Daniel Kahneman famously remarked that if he had a magic wand that could change one thing about human psychology, he would eliminate our superiority complex.
Now, fascinating new research by Joey Cheng, an assistant professor of psychology at York University, shows that overconfidence can be contagious. “If you have been exposed to an overconfident person, then you become more likely to overestimate your own relative standing,” she says. It’s a tendency that could cause dangerously deluded thinking to spread through a team.
Confidence cascades
Cheng says that she had been inspired by the anecdotal reports of behaviour on Wall Street, where arrogance appears to be rife. “When you go to other sectors like education, you often don't hear teachers being described in the same way”. These differences led her to wonder whether certain groups of people might actually encourage the development an inflated ego in others.
Some previous research had hinted at this possibility, showing that bankers’ overconfidence tends to grow with their time spent in the profession – which would make sense, if they were “catching” the behaviour from their colleagues – but Cheng wanted to put the idea to the test in the laboratory.
Her first experiment had two stages. Individually, the participants were asked to look at photos of people’s faces and attempt to guess various personalities based on their expressions – a task that some people are able to do with reasonable accuracy. To gauge their confidence, the participants were asked to rate their perceptions of their abilities, compared to the rest of the group.
The participants then had to do the same task in pairs, after which they were again asked to rate their own abilities, allowing her to see whether the arrogance of one person would rub off on another. Sure enough, she found that humbler participants were much more likely to increase their own ratings once they had been placed with an overconfident partner. “It was quite remarkable,” Cheng says.
The results of the second experiment were even more striking. Once again, they had to work on a simple perceptual task, which involved guessing someone’s weight from their photo. This time, however, the participants did not work in real pairs, but were presented with some example responses of another participant. In reality, the responses were fake, allowing Cheng to create the person of someone who was clearly self-deluded. They might see someone in the bottom 10% – far below average – who claimed to be among the top quarter, for instance.
Participants might have seen the other’s overt overconfidence here as a warning sign; instead, they simply mimicked the behaviour. Being exposed to someone who was outrageously overconfident inflated a person’s own perceived ranking by around 17%. It was the exact opposite of the participants who had been shown the profile of a more realistic participant – they tended to underestimate their rank by around 11%.
In further experiments, Cheng confirmed that the illusion of superiority, caught from one peer, can then be transmitted to another person – a “cascade” that could lead it permeate through a group from a single source. She also documented a “spill-over effect”, so that once you catch overconfidence in one domain, you may become more arrogant in another. To make matters worse, the consequences can last long after the interaction – just a few minutes of exposure to an arrogant person skewed the participants’ own judgements days later.
Zell is impressed with the findings. “I think the research is very interesting and well-conducted, and helps us understand the origins of overconfidence and why it is larger in some groups than others,” he says. He suspects it arises from the creation of social norms. “Seeing others exhibit overconfident behaviour could make it seem more culturally valued or appropriate.”
Mysterious mechanisms
Cheng’s results fit with many other studies of conformity, including our memories of a shared event, our perceptions of beauty and our political opinions. “Just by being exposed to someone, you are more likely to acquire their ways of behaving and their ways of thinking,” she says.
It’s easy to imagine how that could occur in a workplace, she adds. “Let's say you are a financial banker. You are pretty calibrated when you first entered the business, but as you get more engrossed in that environment, you see that some people tend to make boastful statements, and they have this amazingly confident appearance in how they talk and how they communicate non verbally. And you, in turn, could become a bit of a clone of that person.”
In her paper, Cheng cites the energy company Enron as a potential example of the ways this dynamic could soon become rife in organisation. The corporation was once the seventh largest company in the US, but it declared bankruptcy in 2001 after reports of widespread fraud and corruption. Enron’s “culture of arrogance” is now infamous, with one former employee stating that “There’s no question that Enron people arrogantly thought they were smarter than everybody else.”
“Our findings suggest that some of that [overconfidence] might have been due to this social contagion effect,” Cheng says. “And that could have led many individuals to have adopted the questionable practices that contributed to its downfall.”
Given these results, Cheng suggests that organisations rethink the kinds of behaviours they reward in their current employees. “Leaders and managers need to be very mindful of the effects of certain individuals on others, because their overconfidence could really spread widely.” These findings might also inform hiring decisions. Besides being more realistic themselves, humbler team members could also temper the overconfidence of the whole team. “They could help ground the group back in reality.”
On a personal level, you might at least pay a little more attention to your own attitudes – including your perception of your own driving. Whenever you unfoundedly brag about your skills, you may be sending ripples of overconfidence throughout your social network, subtly sustaining the mass delusion that James Reason had helped document all those years ago.
David Robson is a science writer and author of The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes, which examines the psychology of irrationality and the best ways to make wiser decisions. He is @d_a_robson on Twitter.
English to Chinese: Nigeria's independence: Six images from six decades
Source text - English Nigeria's independence: Six images from six decades
As Nigeria prepares to celebrate its independence anniversary, the BBC's Nduka Orjinmo selects six images, one from each decade, that represent watershed moments in the country's 60 years of self-rule.
1960s - The making of an African giant
After decades of British colonial rule, Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa took on the reins of power and led independent Nigeria's new coalition government. The celebrations lasted for weeks in some parts of the country and for those present at the Race Course (now Tafawa Balewa Square) in Obalende, Lagos, on 1 October 1960, it was an unforgettable experience.
"Just before the stroke of midnight, they switched off the lights and lowered the British Union Jack," Ben Iruemiobe, then a bright-eyed 16-year-old student who witnessed the raising of the Nigerian flag, told the BBC.
"Then at midnight, the lights were switched back on and the green-white-green stood majestically for all to see. This was followed by a volley of fireworks, then the military band played and we rejoiced,"
1970s - A civil war that killed millions
Seven years after independence, a civil war erupted as Nigeria's eastern region tried to form the breakaway Biafra state.
The three-year conflict, which ended with Biafran surrender, resulted in the death of more than two million people, most of them women and children who died of starvation in eastern Nigeria. US-based novelist Okey Ndibe, a child during the war, describes it as the defining event in Nigeria's difficult history. "The [government's] main goal was achieved, but at grave human and moral cost.
"The ghost of Biafra continues to haunt Nigeria. Festering violence in the north-east zone, renewed agitations for Biafra, and demands by residents of the oil-rich Niger Delta for resource control, are consequences of Nigeria's failure to use justice as the arbiter of public policies," he told the BBC.
1980s - 'Ghana Must Go!'
In 1983 the government of Shehu Shagari ordered more than a million West African migrants, most of them Ghanaians, to leave Nigeria at short notice as the country faced an economic downturn.
The red, white and blue chequered plastic bag that the desperate departing Ghanaians used to carry their possessions became known as "Ghana Must Go". But now they are more often seen as a symbol of sleaze in Nigeria, preferred by corrupt politicians to ferry huge amounts of cash.
1990s - Democracy returns after years of military rule
After 16 years of brutal military rule, interrupted by 82 days of a civilian government in 1993, democracy returned to Nigeria in 1999. Gen Abdulsalam Abubakar transferred power to Olusegun Obasanjo, who had won nationwide elections.
The 1990s was a packed decade in Nigeria's political history - including the annulment of an election by the military in 1993, the global condemnation of the 1995 hanging of nine environmental activists, among them Ken Saro-Wiwa by military ruler Gen Sani Abacha, and Abacha's own death in 1998.
The handover to democratic rule was seen by many as a culmination of these three events. The 21 years since have seen the longest uninterrupted republic in Nigeria's history.
2000s - 'We are black, we are beautiful and we are in demand'
On 16 November 2001, when a group of women competed for the judges' attention at the Miss World beauty pageant in South Africa only a handful of Nigerians were aware of the event.
But by the end of the day, millions in Africa's most populous country had become familiar with the name of 18-year-old Agbani Darego - the first black African to be crowned Miss World. "Prior to Agbani winning it wasn't easy to get Nigerians and Africans to participate in pageants because they didn't see themselves winning.
"But from having 20 to 50 participants we had hundreds of thousands who wanted to participate. Now the world wants African music, they want African dance. We are black, we are beautiful and we are in demand," Ben Murrary-Bruce, a former organiser of Miss Nigeria, told the BBC.
2010s - The abduction of the Chibok girls
In April 2014, Islamist militant group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from their school in Chibok in Nigeria's north-east, where there is still an insurgency. Boko Haram had kidnapped many girls and women before but the abduction of the schoolgirls sparked a global campaign with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls.
Bukky Shonibare, one of the leaders of the Bring Back Our Girls Group in Nigeria that protested relentlessly for government intervention to help free the girls, says the abduction greatly affected education in northern Nigeria. "Children - boys and girls - became scared of going to school, and parents had to make a choice of either keeping their children alive or sending them to school.
"Efforts at achieving gender equality were greatly affected. Gains recorded [previously], especially around girl-child education, were immensely affected," she said. After six years, more than 100 of the girls are still missing.
Translation - Chinese 尼日利亞的獨立：六十年中的六幅圖像
在尼日利亞準備慶祝獨立紀念日時，BBC的Nduka Orjinmo選擇了六幅圖像，每十年一次，代表了該國60年自治時期的分水嶺。
English to Chinese: A new island of hope rising from the Indian Ocean
Source text - English A new island of hope rising from the Indian Ocean
The modern island of Hulhumale is taking shape 8km off the north-east coast of Malé island in the Maldives in direct response to the threat posed by inexorably rising sea levels .
Scattered across the Arabian Sea, south-west of Sri Lanka and India, the Maldives present the face of a dreamy, tropical idyll to travellers from all over the world, who fly in to savour picture-perfect coral atolls fringed with white sand, luxurious resorts and world-class water sport.
But perhaps no other nation faces an environmental threat quite like the Maldives. Its luxury beach resorts may be world-famous, but with more than 80% of its scattered 1,200 islands less than 1m above sea level, rising oceans threaten its very existence.
“We are one of the most vulnerable countries on Earth and therefore need to adapt,” said the country’s vice president Mohammed Waheed Hassan in a 2010 World Bank report that warned how, at current predicted rates of sea level rise, all of the Maldives’ around 200 natural inhabited islands could be submerged by 2100.
But Maldivians are determined to fight back to preserve their existence. Back in 2008, then-president Mohamed Nasheed made global headlines by announcing a plan to buy land elsewhere so his citizens could relocate should islands become submerged. That plan gave way to considering whether it might be best to work with the sea rather than against it, by building floating urban developments – as has been done in cities like Amsterdam.
Instead, the Maldives turned to a different form of geo-engineering: creating a 21st-Century city, dubbed the “City of Hope”, on a new, artificial island christened Hulhumalé.
Pre-Covid, curious tourists could visit the new island city as it takes shape around 8km from the capital city of Malé by hopping on a 20-minute bus from the airport over the bridge. Yet, few who come to the Maldives on short luxurious breaks will think about the pragmatic social issues Hulhumalé aims to solve.
With more than 500,000 inhabitants scattered across the archipelago, delivery of services is one resource-draining logistical nightmare. Lack of job opportunities is another, driving youth unemployment to more than 15%, according to a 2020 report by the World Bank.
As well as the long-term threat of submersion, increasing coastal erosion also threatens the 70% of infrastructure – homes, other buildings and utilities – located within 100m of present shorelines. There’s also worries over encroaching salty seas tainting precious fresh water sources, plus risks posed by unpredictable natural disasters, like the 2004 tsunami that killed more than 100 people in the Maldives.
“After the 2004 tsunami, a programme for enhancing resiliency through safer islands was introduced,” explained Areen Ahmed, director of business development at the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) that oversees the City of Hope. “Hulhumalé is being developed through careful considerations of climate change in its architecture and communities.”
Ongoing land reclamation using millions of cubic metres of sand pumped from the seabed has raised the new island more than 2m above sea level, while the island’s growing City of Hope is seen as a vital new settlement to relieve the over-crowding that currently blights Malé, where more than 130,000 people cram into 1 square mile (just more than 2.5 sq km).
“Malé is one of the most densely populated cities on Earth,” said Kate Philpot, who worked as a science officer in the Maldives, researching reef fish for the Korallion Lab marine station, before becoming senior ecologist at UK-based consultancy Ecology By Design.
Phase one of Hulhumalé’s land reclamation, consisting of 188 hectares, began in 1997 and was completed in 2002. Two years later, the island celebrated the arrival of its first 1,000 residents. Further reclamation of 244 hectares of land was completed in 2015, and by late 2019, more than 50,000 people were living on Hulhumalé.
But ambitions for Hulhumalé are far greater, eventually envisioned as hosting up to 240,000 people in well-designed style by the mid-2020s. This vision includes a diverse mix of quality housing, new employment opportunities plus open recreational space three times larger per person than Malé.
According to Ahmed, in contrast to the unplanned and over-crowded nature of Malé, Hulhumalé was designed with many green urban planning initiatives. “Buildings are oriented north-south to reduce heat gain and improve thermal comfort. Streets are designed to optimise wind penetration, reducing reliance on air conditioning. And schools, mosques and neighbourhood parks are within 100-200m walking distance of residential developments, reducing car use.” Electric buses and bicycle lanes are also part of the new city landscape.
Varied housing needs are also being catered for. “Hulhumalé comprises diverse housing projects: mid-range, luxury and social housing,” said Ahmed. “Sixty percent of mid-range housing units have to be sold under the pricing ceiling set by HDC.” Affordable social housing is available for specific groups, including single women and those affected by displacement and disasters. There has been detailed consultation to ensure housing and the wider built environment is accessible to those with disabilities.
Enviable digital infrastructure proposals complement green initiatives and social planning, said Ahmed, who describes Hulhumalé as “Asia’s first 100% gigabit-enabled smart city”, with fast digital access for residents based on widespread optical fibre technology known as GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Networks).
“The ultimate benefit of building a Smart City from scratch is that Hulhumalé will be seen as a city of resilience – built by the people of Maldives for the people of the Maldives,” said Professor Hassan Ugail, a Maldivian computer scientist who is helping to make Hulhumalé a smart city, alongside his work as director of the Centre for Visual Computing at the UK’s University of Bradford.
Hulhumalé aims to tick boxes with regard to sustainable urban development too, including drawing around a third of its energy from solar power and harvesting rainwater to boost water security. Yet isn’t the very act of building an artificial island something harmful to the environment – especially in a place famed for coral reefs and pristine white-sand shores?When Belgian company Dredging International completed the 244-hectare expansion of the island in 2015, the operation required sucking around six million cubic metres of sand from the surrounding seabed to then transport and pump onto Hulhumalé.
“Land reclamation work is particularly problematic,” said Dr Holly East from Northumbria University’s Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, an expert in coral reef islands with experience conducting research in the Maldives. “Not only can it destroy coral reefs, but [it] also creates vast plumes of sediment that travel to other reef platforms. Sediment smother[s] corals and blocks out sunlight, impacting their capacity to feed, grow and reproduce.”
But with its steadily growing population, land reclamation has become a simple fact of Maldivian life, with existing coral reef providing the obvious foundation. “Efforts have been made to reduce impacts of the development of Hulhumalé, including translocation of some corals,” said Philpot. “However, it can take a long time for them to become established elsewhere – and there is often a poor success rate.”
Yet with her years of experience in the Maldives, Philpot is well aware of competing demands. Tourists may come and go, but local people need land to live on and jobs. She also makes the rather ironic observation that Hulhumalé is rising in an area that has already, to some extent, been spoiled.
“Construction is likely to be less damaging than elsewhere in the Maldives,” she said. “It seems preferable to develop an area with relatively high levels of boat traffic and pollution compared to anywhere else within the Maldives that remains relatively unspoilt.”
In this view, she is backed by the World Bank’s 2020 report, which notes “the Greater Malé Region, particularly in Hulhumalé, do not have significant natural habitats – and the coral reefs are mostly degraded”.
Waste disposal remains a key issue – both in terms of construction waste for Hulhumalé, as well as waste from its growing city of inhabitants. “Much of the waste has been transported and stored in the purpose-built island of Thilafushi,” explained Philpot wryly.
Maldivian authorities counter the idea that this is basically a tropical rubbish dump, albeit rather vaguely. “All measures to minimise the impact of construction on the environment are monitored by the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) of the Maldives,” Ahmed told me.
While Hulhumalé is being fashioned primarily to improve the lives of Maldivians, its City of Hope also aims to be a beacon for a new cohort of tourists interested in more than just lying in a beachside resort bubble. A 2018 World Finance report, for example, highlights the potential for medical and sports tourism tied into upcoming projects such as the Maldives’ first multi-specialist hospital, water theme park and yacht marina.
Philpot also hopes the dreams driving Hulhumalé will extend to a greater appreciation of their surroundings by the next generation of Maldivians. “I taught coral ecology classes to Maldivian children between [the ages of] 14 and 17 – and more than half my class had never put their faces in the water with a snorkel on,” she said.
“Their amazement at what they saw was so exciting – but also sad, that they lived so close to the sea but never got the opportunity to experience being underwater. Perhaps with more direct education aimed at marine biology there would be more interest in preserving and protecting the marine ecosystem amongst the young.”
Rather than just building a City of Hope, in other words, the people of the Maldives are taking an island-building path into the future that could make the Maldives a Nation of Hope.
The World of Tomorrow is a BBC Travel series that visits ingenious communities around the world that are adapting to environmental change or who are finding new ways to live sustainably.
English to Chinese: Living in: The world’s most eco-friendly cities
Source text - English Living in: The world’s most eco-friendly cities
What’s it like to live in a city committed to environmental protection and sustainable development? The answer might make you green with envy.
From offering plentiful bike paths and thriving farmers’ markets to ensuring cleaner air, a city’s environmental efforts don’t just help the planet – they benefit residents too.
According to the Siemens Green City Index, an ongoing project researched by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the world’s greenest cities score high marks in CO2 emissions, transportation options, water and waste management, and overall environmental governance.
Different urban areas have different sustainability strengths, so we talked to residents in the top-ranked cities across the globe to find out what living in them is like.
Vancouver, British Columbia
Compared to other cities of its size, Vancouver scored incredibly well in C02 emissions and air quality, due in part to the city’s emphasis on promoting green energy and its use of hydropower. Vancouver has vowed to reduce emissions by 33% by 2020.
That commitment doesn’t surprise resident Lorne Craig, who moved to the city from Calgary in 1985 and writes the Green Briefs blog. “Vancouver has been home to a deeper green counter-culture since the 1960s and is recognized worldwide as the birthplace of Greenpeace,” he said. “Mountains tower over the city. It reminds everyone here that we are part of something bigger and more beautiful.”
As other cities continued building freeways that promoted driving and sprawl, Vancouver remained committed to urban living, as evidenced by the development of Granville Island, a pedestrian-friendly peninsula where residents frequent large public market and art studios.
Plenty of other Vancouver neighbourhoods are eco-friendly too. A large network of bike routes makes cycling around town easy, especially West 10th Avenue, where people regularly cruise on bikes, electric scooters and even unicycles. Craig said the neighbourhoods of Commercial Drive and Strathcona, both east of downtown, are “more left-wing green” – meaning, more politically active – while Kitsilano to the west and the Main Street neighbourhood to the south of downtown are “more the Prius type of green” – wealthier, with a more laid-back approach to activism.
Curitiba, Brazil
Of all the cities on the South American Siemens Index, only Curitiba scores above average in the green rankings. After building one of the planet’s first large-scale, rapid-transit bus systems in the 1960s and developing a world-leading recycling program in the 1980s, the southern Brazilian city continues to be environmentally forward-thinking. In fact, the heavy use of public transportation means Curitiba has one of the highest air qualities in the index.
However, the city could use some revitalization, according to resident Stephen Green, who moved to Curitiba 15 years ago from London and writes the city lifestyle blog Head of the Heard. While Curitiba plans to build a metro system and an additional 300km in bike routes, the projects are expensive and the city needs more funding to complete them. Still, compared to other cities in the region, “Curitiba is excellent,” Green said.
Green lives in Merces, a traditional city-centre neighbourhood that’s popular with older residents. “We have a good market on Sundays, decent public transport links and the biggest park in the city is close by,” he said. Farmers’ markets move around the city, helping residents find local organic produce.
Copenhagen, Denmark
Though fellow Scandinavian cities Oslo and Stockholm trail close behind, Copenhagen consistently ranks as Europe’s greenest city. Almost all of the residents live within 350m of public transportation and more than 50% regularly use a bicycle to commute. As a result, Copenhagen has extremely low C02 emissions for a city its size.
While the entire city is bike-friendly, the districts of Nørrebro in the northwest and Frederiksberg in the west are especially committed to cycling, said Copenhagen native Mia Kristine Jessen Petersen. “They've spent a lot of money creating “Den Grønne Sti [the Green Path], a 9km-long path for walking and biking,” she said. “The Green Path is made to help cyclists get through the city fast and easy in beautiful scenery.
But the path isn't just a path; it’s also filled with parks, playgrounds, benches and different terrain, so the scenery shifts at every turn.” Grønne Sti ends in Valby, 4km outside of downtown, a district popular with families who live there for its plentiful parks, schools and safe streets.
In addition to their love of cycling, Copenhagen residents are passionate about recycling and composting, as well as conserving electricity and heat. “Danes see nature as a sacred haven,” Petersen said. “We do whatever we can to take care of the nature we have in the cities and to get more.”
San Francisco, California
San Francisco ranks as North America’s greenest city in the index. The city has a long history of environmental consciousness stretching back to the founding of the Sierra Club environmental group in the 19th Century. San Francisco has a 77% recycling rate, one of the highest in the world, made possible through city mandates requiring the separation of recyclable and compostable materials from regular garbage.
“We are surrounded by stunning natural beauty, and we have a history of progressiveness and open-mindedness,” said Donna Sky, who moved to the city from Costa Rica nine years ago and founded the locally produced hummus company Love & Hummus. Local farms also contribute: Many residents care where and how their food is produced and strive to eat food produced nearby.
To that end, many neighbourhoods have their own farmers’ markets, each with a distinctive character. North of the Panhandle – NoPa for short – has a market that’s open throughout the year, whereas the Mission and central Haight-Ashbury (famous for its hippie culture and Victorian houses) have seasonal markets.
All three neighbourhoods are also bike-friendly due to their flat topography, said Jarie Bolander, a long-time Bay Area resident and past president of the North of Panhandle Neighborhood Association. “Each of these neighbourhoods has its own unique vibe,” he said. “NOPA is primarily young professionals and civically minded, while the Haight is a healthy mix of aging hippies and hipsters.”
Cape Town, South Africa
South Africa’s second-largest city is making some of the biggest environmental strides in Africa, in part by pushing for more energy conservation and a greater use of renewable resources. In 2008, Cape Town started using energy from the country’s first commercial wind farm and now aims to get 10% of its energy from renewable resources by 2020.
These efforts are transforming life in the city. “More bike routes are becoming available, farmers markets are very popular, and chefs definitely place a premium on sourcing ingredients and produce locally,” said resident Sarah Khan, who moved to Cape Town from New York City in 2013 and writes The South AfriKhan blog. Still, she believes the city could do more to improve public transportation and prevent the electricity shortages that are becoming increasingly common.
Locals tend to have an “outdoorsy nature” and aren’t afraid to hop on a bike to get around. "The most bike-friendly areas to live within the city are definitely Seapoint and Greenpoint, where there is great cycle infrastructure," said Leonie Mervis, the founder and director of urban cycling campaign Bicycle Cape Town. Though the city centre itself doesn't have as many dedicated cycling routes, bikes are allowed for free on the My CiTi rapid bus service, making the city easy to get around in without a car.
Mervis lives in Hout Bay, a neighbourhood 20km south of the central business district that’s home to many creative types and environmentally conscious residents. "Many people living in our community have solar energy systems and grow their own vegetables," Mervis said. "We also have an environmental committee that works to support green initiatives and rehabilitate and care for the surrounding open space system."
English to Chinese: How Hong Kong is modernising love hotels
Source text - English How Hong Kong is modernising love hotels
With the majority of young people living with their parents, Hong Kong’s couples are turning to alternative means of having a private life.
Not far from Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour, two university students were feeling excited and a little nervous as they stood outside an old commercial building with a neon-lit sign, just after dawn.
Two weeks into dating, the now 20-year-old Waddy and 23-year-old Moomoo found themselves unwilling to separate after talking until the early hours of the morning. Like the majority of other young Hong Kongers, they both lived with their parents, so going home was not an option if they wanted some alone time.
Their solution was to go to one of Hong Kong’s hourly love hotels. Popularised in Japan, short-stay hotels began to pop up in Hong Kong in 1960s. There are about 300 love hotels in the city, according to Hong Kong Guesthouse Association founder-chairman David Leung, ranging from slightly seedy to discreet and demure. And in one of the most densely populated cities in the world, these hotels offer something that is hard to come by in Hong Kong – affordable privacy.
60-year-old Cheng has been running her love hotel for more than 20 years. Her 18-room guesthouse is located in Mongkok, the busiest commercial district for local people. She says lack of space at home has long been an issue for many. “Some are even married couples who want to have some privacy to themselves at the weekend, when it is too packed at home,” says Cheng.
Although traditional love hotels are not a new phenomenon in Hong Kong, for a younger generation, they are becoming popular for reasons beyond passionate liaisons. Recently, a new breed of self-check-in hourly hotels has started to emerge. With remote check-in, advance booking and in-room facilities such as TV streaming services or video games, it appeals to young couples who want to just hang out as well as have alone time.
The next generation
After visiting an hourly love hotel for the first time, Waddy and Moomoo started going from once or twice a week to sometimes three times a week, prompting them to start reviewing both hourly love hotels as well as traditional hotels on social media.
“We have reviewed over 90 hotels in the city so far,” Moomoo adds and currently, their page has more than 20,000 followers.
The popularity of their reviews is perhaps not surprising. Nine out of 10 young people aged between 15 and 24, and six out of 10 Hong Kongers aged between 25 and 34, are living with their parents, according to government data in 2019.
Young people complain about the lack of space in the city, which is ranked as the least affordable housing market among 309 metropolitan areas in eight countries. With a median monthly income for these age groups ranging between $13,000 Hong Kong dollars ($1,677; £1,332) to $19,300 Hong Kong dollars ($2,490; £1,978) it takes decades for the city’s young people to earn enough to afford their own living space.
“We want to buy an apartment, but we don’t think it’s possible,” says Moomoo. “The property price is too high. We will still live with our parents. After you save enough for deposits, you still need to pay mortgage loans for years.”
Being intimate with your partner at home, with only thin walls separating young couples and their parents, is a concern to most. A survey from local sex-education NGO Sticky-Rice in 2018 revealed that more than 70% of Hong Kongers find it difficult to seek a place for sex, and most visit hourly love hotels up to five times a month.
Dr Susanne Choi, a sociology professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong specialising in gender, family and sexuality, said the city’s people have “no choice” but to visit love hotels. “The property price in Hong Kong is very high. In other countries with lower rent and property price, young couples or people are used to [moving] out, which is an indicator of transitioning into adulthood,” says Choi.
Going digital
In a city housing more than 7.5 million people, the older-style hourly love hotels do not always have available rooms. Young couples visiting on impulse would often find it difficult to be discreet, according to millennial self-check-in love hotel owner Jensen Tse.
“Some [traditional] hourly love hotels charge arbitrarily. And on some occasions, you have to line up for hours – it’s even more embarrassing if you bump into someone you know,” says Tse, who started his business Mansion G in a busy commercial district in Hong Kong, with a few university classmates in 2018 after studying hotel management.
Many clients of self-check-in love hotels make a booking online with a fixed price. Mansion G’s customers, upward of 90% of whom are younger than 30, usually find their services on social media platforms, and send the direct messages via social media. They make a digital payment before receiving a passcode for the door to the hotel.
One of the main attractions of self-check-in hotels is that customers don’t have interactions with others during their stay. At Fortress Hill No. 7, another self-check-in love hotel in the city, owner Yee changes the passcode for each room’s lock via her phone at home.
For Hong Kong couple Wayne, 26 and Grace, 27, finding privacy while living with Wayne’s parents is tricky. “We cannot make any noise [during sex], because we all live together and the space is limited. In love hotels, you can hear the noise from other rooms, but you don’t know who they are, so it’s less embarrassing,” says Wayne.
The two prefer going to self-check-in love hotels, because these are often owned and operated by young people who understand their demographic and know that it’s not just about sex. Oftentimes, what they are offering is simply a place to spend time together. “They include Netflix or video games in the room so couples can enjoy spending time together. If we go to traditional love hotels we only watch Netflix on our phone. These hotels offer private space that feels like a home to a couple,” adds Wayne.
Waddy and Moomoo see similar demand from people contacting them via their Instagram review page. “The people who [direct message] us usually ask if the hotels we recommend are equipped with a kitchen or a bathtub – opposed to the older generation, our generation want to spend quality time together,” says Waddy. “Sometimes we just want to cook together, as dining out each date costs quite a lot.”
In Cheng’s traditional hourly love hotel, some twentysomethings also book a room together for some private time without being intimate.
Business amid Covid-19
During the coronavirus outbreak in February and March, upscale self-check-in love hotel Up-otel suffered a plunge in occupancy rate, renting only three rooms some days in their 25-storey hotel building. Hong Kong Guesthouse Association’s Leung also said that the virus took away about 70% of the usual business in hourly love hotels.
During the third wave hitting the city particularly hard, Cheng said her business has lost at least 80% of customers. She added that they might have to consider layoffs and even shut down two-thirds of her business to survive. She urged the government to provide more subsidies for the guesthouse industry that deals a blow amidst the shutdown of global travel due to the pandemic.
At the time of this writing, Hong Kong is nearing the end of a third wave of local transmission cases, which prompted the strictest social distancing measures the city has implemented. The city has been praised for its containment efforts, as the general public have been aware of public health and the wearing of face masks following the 2013 SARS outbreak. The citizens had started wearing face masks in public months before it was recommended by the WHO.
Yet, for self-check-in love hotels like Mansion G and Fortress Hill No. 7, sales surged among locals during the waves of outbreaks.
Fortress Hill No. 7’s founder Yee says that after getting almost no customers in January, business picked up and in February and March, and they started getting 10 customers a day – twice what they would normally get. The third wave did not affect its sales, as students and white collars still sneak out to have an intimate time. With a dinner-time ban on restaurant dine-in, Tse said he actually had more customers, with half booking a room just to have space to enjoy their food.
Even without the worrying backdrop of a global pandemic, the continued use of love hotels highlights the lack of personal space for Hong Kongers. But with people spending their hard earned cash on seeking out that space, it also shows the creative lengths people will go to find it.
Translation - Chinese 香港如何使情趣酒店現代化
由於大多數年輕人與父母同住，因此，香港的情侶正在轉向擁有私生活的其他方式。
English to Chinese: The surprising downsides of empathy
Source text - English The surprising downsides of empathy
There’s a dark side to feeling the emotions of other people. In some cases, it can even lead to cruelty, aggression, and distress.
On CBeebies, the BBC service for little children, there’s a programme called Treasure Champs, which aims to teach young viewers about their feelings, and how to manage them. In one episode, the character Barry – a blue rectangle with pink eyebrows – is glum about the result of his football match.
“We lost,” says Barry.
“It doesn’t matter!” says Kari.
“It was my fault. I let all the goals in.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so sad. Just forget about it.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? It’s just a game.”
“You’re not showing a lot of empathy, Kari. It means putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.”
“Your shoes won’t fit me, Barry.”
As definitions go, Barry’s one seems a pretty good one for empathy – it’s about projecting yourself into somebody’s mind to feel what they feel. And as the episode goes on to tell its young audience, understanding other people’s feelings is important.
In the adult world, however, the virtues of empathy are less clear. As the pandemic pushes us into isolation, culture wars rage, and disinhibited cruelty brews on social media, it feels a little controversial to suggest that empathy has downsides.
Yet in recent years, researchers have found that misplaced empathy can be bad for you and others, leading to exhaustion and apathy and preventing you from helping the very people you need to. Worse, people’s empathetic tendencies can even be harnessed to manipulate them into aggression and cruelty. So, if not empathy, what should we aim to feel instead?
The word empathy comes from the German word “einfuhling”, coined in the late 1800s, which might broadly translate as “feeling into”. But as psychologist Judith Hall of Northeastern University wrote in Scientific American last month, “empathy is a fundamentally squishy term”. Some see it as the ability to read their fellow human beings, or simply feeling connected to people, while others see it as more of a moral stance about showing concern for others. Even researchers disagree when they are studying it.
Still, “despite the conceptual squishiness, most people view empathy as having something to do with understanding what other people are going through and being concerned about them”, writes Hall.
Paul Bloom, a psychologist at Yale University, defines empathy specifically as the act of stepping into someone’s mind to experience their feelings – and it’s this that he takes issue with. “Even in this narrow sense, empathy might seem like an obvious force for good. Common sense tells us that experiencing someone else’s pain will motivate us to care about and help that person,” he writes in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences. However, it leads to some tricky moral dilemmas.
To illustrate why, Bloom tells the story of a 10-year-old girl called Sheri Summers, who has a fatal disease. Doctors have placed Sheri on a waiting list for a treatment that will relieve her pain, and potentially prolong her life. Sadly, this very bright, very brave girl learns she has weeks or months before that happens.
Imagine how that feels – how it will affect Sheri’s life? What would you do if you had the opportunity to bump her up to the top of the list? When participants in a study were presented with Sheri’s (fictional) story, encouraging them to feel empathy for her, around three-quarters moved her up the list to get her treatment earlier.
Yet as Bloom points out, doing so could mean every other child above her on the list would have to wait even longer, many of whom might be more deserving.
This is an example of what psychologists call the “identifiable victim effect”. People are much more likely to open their hearts – or wallets – when there is a visible beneficiary whose pain could be alleviated. The charity that campaigns with a single story of a named, suffering child may win more donations compared with the charity that deploys statistics describing 1,000 anonymous children.
As journalist Tiffanie Wen wrote for BBC Future recently, this effect can also help explain why many people become numb to the deaths of strangers caused by the coronavirus – which passed one million this week – yet be in up in arms the minor loss of personal freedoms they more directly experience. For most of us, the worst suffering of the pandemic goes unwitnessed.
There’s nothing wrong with using personal stories to raise awareness of a worthy cause, of course, but the identifiable victim effect does nonetheless siphon billions of dollars away from where it could do more good for a greater number of people. If your goal was to help as many children as possible, a dollar spent on deworming programmes in the developing world, for instance, would go significantly further than a dollar donated in the US for an expensive medical procedure. It can be even harder to attract attention to problems that have no identifiable victim at all, such as future generations affected by climate change, who do not exist yet.
Extending empathy to abstract strangers is a particular challenge for the human mind. Originally described by the Stoics thousands of years ago, the concept of “oikeiōsis” describes how our empathy and affinity for others declines by proximity to our lives. Imagine a series of rings: in the bullseye there’s the self, the innermost ring represents one’s family, the next ring one’s friends, the next one’s neighbours, then one’s tribe or community, then one’s country, and so on.
The problem, says Bloom, comes when bad actors hijack these “circles of sympathy” to try and sway our behaviours and beliefs. Our natural empathy for those closer and more similar to us can be harnessed to provoke antipathy towards those who are not.
In one study, undergraduates were told about a fellow student in the next room, who was in the running for a cash prize in a mathematics contest against another competitor. The undergraduates were given the opportunity to force that competitor to eat distracting hot sauce before the contest. When empathy for the student was ratcheted up, by emphasising she was struggling financially, people were more likely to give a greater dose of hot sauce to her innocent opponent.
Politicians and activists on both sides of the spectrum often play to the idea of “us and them”, deploying empathy and identifiable victims to make a political case. It underpins some social media campaigns to “cancel” people, allows immigrants to be demonised, and can even stoke hatred and violence against apparent outsiders. Lynchings in the US were sometimes motivated by stories of victims affected by the crimes of black men, writes Bloom. And as I wrote a few weeks ago, leaders have also manipulated people’s natural empathic tendencies to help justify nuclear strikes, arguing that the lives of a million US soldiers – “our boys” – would be saved by launching atomic bombs against the Japanese people in a distant land.
A final downside of empathy is its sometimes-incapacitating emotional impact. The philosopher Susanne Langer once called empathy an “involuntary breach of individual separateness” – and this seems to apply particularly when we observe someone suffering, such as a loved one. Brain scan studies by neuroscientist Tania Singer of the Max Planck Society in Germany have shown that when people watched others in pain, their brain activity in the regions associated with pain was partially mirrored. This may be an evolutionary adaptation to help us predict, and avoid, how pain would affect us.
“While shared happiness certainly is a very pleasant state, the sharing of suffering can at times be difficult,” writes Singer and her colleague Olga Klimecki, a neuroscientist at the University of Geneva. At its worst, people feel “empathic distress”, which can become a barrier to action. Such distress leads to apathy, withdrawal and feelings of helplessness, and can even be bad for your health, according to Singer and Klimecki. During the pandemic, this sense of empathy fatigue has become of particular concern among care-givers, such as those working in mental health support or hospital doctors and nurses.
So, where does that leave us? Surely feeling no empathy at all is worse? That would make us closer to psychopathic. These scientists are not suggesting that empathy should be actively discouraged. There are times when stepping into somebody’s shoes is a necessary first step towards positive action, care and help for others.
Instead, the research suggests that we ought to start making a clearer distinction between empathy and its apparent synonym: “compassion”. If empathy is about stepping into someone’s shoes, compassion is instead “a feeling of concern for another person’s suffering which is accompanied by the motivation to help”, according to Singer and Klimecki. To be compassionate, it does not mean you have to share somebody’s feelings. It is more about the idea of extending kindness towards others.
Bloom uses the example of an adult comforting a child who is terrified of a small, barking dog. The adult doesn’t need to feel the child’s fear to help. “There can be compassion for the child, a desire to make his or her distress go away, without any shared experience or empathic distress,” he writes.
Inspired by scanning the brains of Buddhist monks, Singer discovered that it’s possible to foster greater compassion in people, via simple training methods based on mindfulness, where the goal is to feel positive and warm thoughts about others without focusing on vicarious experience. By comparing this training with techniques designed to foster greater empathy, she and colleagues found that it reduces the effects of empathic distress and makes people more likely to be motivated to help others.
So, to return to the hurt feelings of Barry that we started with: it’s not necessary for his friend Kari to empathetically feel his pain about his football match – and it may even be bad for her. But a dose of compassion? Even for cartoon rectangles, that would go a long way.
* Richard Fisher is a senior journalist for BBC Future. Twitter: @rifish
English to Chinese: Taipei’s tasty ‘House of Stink’
Source text - English Taipei’s tasty ‘House of Stink’
If you can get past the stench, the taste and health benefits of Taiwan’s stinky tofu may leave you salivating.
I was about to cross the road in Taipei’s upscale Xinyi District when a pungent and rotten stench smacked me in the face. That’s how I knew I was getting close to Dai’s House of Stinky Tofu, one of the Taiwanese capital’s most popular and putrid-smelling restaurants.
For nearly 30 years, Wu Hsu Pi-ying, now in her 70s, has been running the family business at Dai’s, using a secret fermenting process passed down by her parents to create 10 varieties of stinky tofu, a beloved Taiwanese dish that’s full of live bacteria. Often referred to as the national snack food of Taiwan, stinky tofu gives off a putrid odour that’s so intense, it engulfs its surroundings in a foul-smelling funk that’s reminiscent of sour milk and rotting garbage. Love it or loathe it, these spiced and sliced fermented slabs pack a uniquely spoiled taste that’s all their own, and have come to symbolise Taiwanese street food.
Inside the restaurant, I saw four Buddhist monks munching on cut slabs of the glistening green dish at one of the joint’s few tables. Framed calligraphy signs in Mandarin characters highlighted stinky tofu’s health benefits, while images of menu items tacked to the wall showed the eatery’s stinky star served deep-fried, steamed or in a spicy soup, with prices ranging from NT$20 to NT$100 (about 50p to £2.50).
Sensing my hesitation, a slight and softly spoken woman in a red jacket came out of the restaurant’s back fermentation room, where she was working alongside her son and daughter-in-law, and approached my table. “We have opened for 30 years,” she said, smiling. “No guest has ever thrown up [from eating my stinky tofu].”
While slightly reassuring, I couldn’t help but think about American TV host Andrew Zimmern, who criss-crosses the globe to taste the world’s strangest and most disgusting dishes in his show Bizarre Foods. After stopping at Dai’s to order a cooked cow stomach hamburger in a fried stinky tofu bun, Zimmern spat the food into his napkin, saying, “I can’t do it… that is absolutely horrifying.”
I settled on the málà (spicy) stinky tofu soup, made with mushrooms, peppercorn and chillies, and slowly lifted a spoonful of the fetid, oily broth towards my mouth.
According to legend, stinky tofu was accidentally invented in China hundreds of years ago when a struggling tofu merchant opened his container of unsold goods after several days to discover that his bean curd and soy milk mixture had started to ferment. At some point, the merchant built up the courage to bite into the rancid, green-hued concoction and realised it was quite tasty. He quickly started selling the fermenting food, and the stinky snack became so popular that China’s Empress Dowager Cixi added it to the list of imperial foods served at her Qing Dynasty palace.
The dish arrived in Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War, when some two million people followed Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek in 1949 as he fled to the island after being defeated by Mao Zedong’s Communist government. According to Cathy Erway, author of The Food of Taiwan: Recipes from the Beautiful Island, stinky tofu now exists in various forms across Asia, but nowhere else is it more beloved than in Taiwan, where vendors deep-fry it, pickle it and enhance it with different flavours at small outdoor carts at the island's night markets.
“[In] trying to lure people to come to their stand, [they had] to come up with something really sensational,” Erway said. “It’s something that really stands out in the crowd.”
Today, stinky tofu is still primarily a street food throughout Taiwan, where it’s as synonymous with the country’s outdoor night markets as beef noodle soup. When I visited one of Taipei’s largest and most famous outdoor bazaars, the Shilin Night Market, I saw (and smelled) stalls serving the stuff barbecued, braised, steamed, skewered and fried into chips served with pickled vegetables.
East of Taipei Zoo, Shenkeng Old Street is an entire boulevard dedicated to the dish, with hawkers selling it boxed, boiled in a spicy soup and even as a flavour of ice cream. While certain restaurants may serve stinky tofu with duck’s blood or as a side item, Dai’s is one of the few restaurants dedicated exclusively to the pungent dish, and it serves as the centrepiece for every menu item.
In recent years, Dai’s has become something of a mecca for stinky tofu lovers with discerning palates. In addition to the many griddled, skewered and spiced tofus found throughout Taipei’s night markets, Wu also serves a unique cold and raw variety of the versatile dish, topped with crispy seaweed-flavoured batter, spring onions and brown sauce.
And for a dish where the smellier is the better, each of Wu’s menu items comes with an accompanying ‘stink score’, ranging from the hold-your-nose Sichuan-style soup (10) to the fried cuts served with pickled cabbage (12) to the cold and raw slabs that she and her family invented (13).
Nothing, however, compares to the gag-inducing smell of Wu’s stinky tofu paste (15), a creamy, grey goo of tofu that’s been fermented for so long that it’s decomposed. The stuff is so potent that, instead of serving it to customers, Wu only sells the protein-rich paste as an ointment to help smooth and firm people’s skin.
“I really love eating stinky tofu since I was little,” said Wu, sitting across the table from me. “But also, I would not like it if it is not stinky enough.”
Growing up in Taipei, Wu remembers her parents making stinky tofu in their home and selling it on the street. An acclaimed martial artist, Wu left Taiwan to tour the world for many years as part of a kung fu performance troupe. She eventually returned to Taipei and used her family’s 60-year-old secret stinky tofu recipe to open Dai’s (named after her stepfather) in 1989.
Today, Dai’s is still very much a family business; Wu’s son and daughter-in-law help her prepare the dishes and serve guests, while Wu’s younger brother makes the pressed tofu. Yet, the undisputed brains and beating heart of the business is Wu, who maintains the family recipe and creates each batch of her specialty stink by hand.
Like all fermented food, stinky tofu takes time. Once Wu receives the pressed tofu slices from her brother, she dumps the slabs into a series of vats in the restaurant’s cramped back room, each filled with different consistencies of an all-natural vegetable and herb brine that’s been slowly fermenting at room temperature for two years. Like a sponge, the tofu slowly absorbs the dark-green mixture for up to two weeks. The longer the tofu sits, the more it absorbs – and the softer and smellier it becomes.
“I really think stinky tofu is an acquired taste. It grows on you over time, just like the bacteria that enhances the tofu’s flavour as it’s fermented,” said Mike Lee, co-founder of Taipei Eats food tours. “What’s unique is that the batter is just the bacteria that is developed through fermentation.”
Most stinky tofu aficionados maintain that if you can stomach the stench, the dish tastes far better than it smells – not unlike a sharp, fermented cheese. Though for Wu and many Taiwanese, the most important aspect of the dish is its many health benefits, which, according to Wu, include helping the digestive system and treating cold symptoms.
But that’s not all: according to a number of recent studies, eating stinky tofu can also help prevent osteoporosis, lower the risk of prostate and breast cancer, and reduce cholesterol. “People from every country come [here] to eat [stinky tofu],” Wu said. “But if they could find out the goodness of what is inside my tofu, [it] may get rid of their illness.”
Just then, Wu disappeared into her back fermentation room and emerged with a jar of the potent stinky tofu paste. Tiny bubbles rose to the top of the foamy, green concoction. Tilting it into a small saucer, Wu spooned the thick paste and told me that rubbing it on my skin would help smooth and soften it. She dipped a dollop of the mixture on my right index finger and instructed me to rub it on my left palm.
Remarkably, the skin on my hand instantly felt firmer and smoother, but even after eight washes, the robust smell of concentrated stinky tofu lingered for more than seven hours afterwards.
It turned out that, despite its soy sauce base and piquant pepper flavouring, the málà stinky tofu soup I ordered was more smooth than spicy and smelled much worse than it tasted. The tofu actually helped bring out the freshness of the mushrooms and chilli, and the broth was surprisingly light, given the tofu’s rich thickness.
In fact, I liked it so much that I then went up three notches on the stink-o-meter and ordered the cold and raw stinky slabs. The raw stuff packed a punch, and I nearly gagged before biting into the moist, jelly-like pieces. Though, as with the stinky tofu soup, if you can stomach the stench enough to taste it, the raw tofu was actually quite pleasant and reminiscent of a ripe cream cheese.
Wu no longer works every day at the shrine to stink she built, and now entrusts her son with much of the restaurant’s day-to-day operations and her family’s secret recipe. Just as her parents passed down their technique to her, Wu hopes that her son will keep the family tradition alive.
I thanked Wu and walked out of Dai’s and back into the crisp, clean air of the Taipei night, lifting my hand to my nose to smell Taiwan’s stinky snack once more.
Culinary Roots is a series from BBC Travel connecting to the rare and local foods woven into a place’s heritage.
English to Chinese: Fukushima: Japan 'to release contaminated water into sea'
Source text - English Fukushima: Japan 'to release contaminated water into sea'
Japan is to release treated radioactive water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea, media reports say.
It follows years of debate over how to dispose of the liquid, which includes water used to cool the power station hit by a massive tsunami in 2011. Environmental and fishing groups oppose the idea but many scientists say the risk it would pose is low.
The government says no final decision has been made. The release of more than a million tonnes of water, which has been filtered to reduce radioactivity, would start in 2022 at the earliest, according to Japanese media outlets including national dailies the Nikkei and the Yomiuri Shimbun.
The water would be diluted inside the plant before release so it is 40 times less concentrated, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, with the whole process taking 30 years. An official decision could emerge by the end of this month, said Kyodo news agency.
There has been growing urgency over what to do with the water as space to store the liquid - which includes groundwater and rain that seeps daily into the plant - is running out.
Most of the radioactive isotopes have been removed using a complex filtration process. But one isotope, tritium, cannot be removed so the water has been stored in huge tanks which will fill up by 2022.
On Friday Japan's industry minister Hiroshi Kajiyama said no decision had yet been made on the disposal of the water but the government planned to make one soon. "To prevent any delays in the decommissioning process, we need to make a decision quickly," he told a news conference.
Environmental groups have long expressed their opposition to releasing the water into the ocean. And fishing groups have argued against it, saying consumers will refuse to buy produce from the region.
However some scientists say the water would quickly be diluted in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, and that tritium poses a low risk to human and animal health.
What happened in 2011?
On 11 March 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the north-eastern coast of Japan, triggering a 15-metre tsunami. While the back-up systems to prevent a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant survived the initial quake, further damage was inflicted by the tsunami.
As the facility's cooling systems failed in the days that followed, tonnes of radioactive material were released. The meltdown was the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.
Around 18,500 people died or disappeared in the quake and tsunami, and more than 160,000 were forced from their homes.
Billions of dollars in compensation have already been paid to individuals and businesses affected by the disaster. Last month, a Japanese high court upheld a ruling ordering the government and the plant's operating company to pay a further $9.5m (£7.3m).
Translation - Chinese 福島：日本“將污染的水釋放到海洋中”
媒體報導說，日本將從被毀的福島核電廠中釋放出經過處理的放射性水到海洋中。
English to Chinese: Hotels train staff to spot human trafficking
Source text - English Hotels train staff to spot human trafficking
The front line for preventing human trafficking might not be at airports, international borders or in police raids.
It might be at the hotel check-in desk.
An international hotel chain has completed a two-year project to train half a million staff with the aim of spotting potential victims of trafficking.
Marriott's workforce, in almost 7,000 hotels, have completed a process of mandatory training teaching them to look out for warning signs.
"Hotels can unfortunately be unwilling venues for this unconscionable crime," David Rodriguez, the hotel group's chief global human resources officer, said.
"There is no easy fix but combating modern-day slavery starts with awareness," Mr Rodriguez said.
"And we now have a significant number of people capable of recognising suspicious behaviour and reporting it to management and, in some cases, law enforcement."
Warning signs
The type of signs might include "guests with minimal luggage and clothing" and "individuals who can't speak freely or seem disoriented". There might be "guests who insist on little or no housekeeping".
Concerns about trafficking for prostitution might be raised by multiple people being escorted to a room one at a time. Staff are taught that while none of these individually might be a sign of trafficking, when there is a "combination of indicators", it might be time to raise concerns with hotel managers.
Hotel staff, watching their guests arrive and during their stay, have an unusually close-up view of their behaviour. "In a hotel, our people wouldn't necessarily see a human trafficker visibly restraining a victim," Mr Rodriguez said.
'Privacy and anonymity'
But he said workers might recognise a "scenario that is much more nuanced and harder to detect if you don't know what to look for".
"That's why helping associates identify the signs of sexual exploitation and forced labour is so important," Mr Rodriguez said.
A spokeswoman for Marriott said the training had recently paid off when staff in a central London branch had noticed someone "using the hotel lobby to meet with and groom an under-age girl". Police were contacted and the perpetrator was subsequently jailed.
The hotel chain's training project has been a collaboration with a US-based campaign, Polaris, which works against modern slavery. The name Polaris is taken from the Pole Star, used for navigation by slaves escaping northwards in the US in the 19th Century.
Research by Polaris has highlighted how traffickers move through hotels and motels, either when travelling with their victims or as a base for sexual exploitation and prostitution.
It says it's a "popular misconception" to think this happens in seedy motels only - when it's as likely to be seen in mainstream hotel chains. The US Department of Homeland Security has highlighted how hotels are particularly vulnerable to being misused by traffickers - offering both "privacy and anonymity".
Tech to identify hotels
The Polaris charity has its own list of potential signs of trafficking, such as:
• everything being paid in cash
• guests who seem to be monitoring or controlling someone or denying them access to phones
• people who are dressed in a way that doesn't fit with the weather or who don't seem to know their whereabouts
Another hotel company, the Wyndham group, has worked with Polaris in the US to provide temporary emergency accommodation for people who have been rescued from traffickers. There have also been attempts to make it harder for traffickers to evade detection.
Last month, researchers from George Washington University published a paper showing how artificial intelligence could be used to identify hotels in the US being used for trafficking.
Traffickers involved in prostitution might take photographs of their victims for online adverts. And researchers have developed software to identify the hotel rooms in which the pictures were taken, matched against a database of more than a million images from hotels.
There are also legal pressures on hotels to take this seriously. California, a US state that has had a particularly high number of modern slavery cases reported, has introduced legislation this year requiring hotels to give their staff "awareness" training about human trafficking. The battle against trafficking has moved into the front desks and lobbies of hotels.
Translation - Chinese 酒店培訓員工以發現人口販賣
預防人口販賣的前線可能不在機場，國際邊界或警察突襲中。可能在酒店登記入住櫃檯。一家國際連鎖酒店已經完成了一個為期兩年的項目，對50萬員工進行培訓，目的是發現潛在的人口販賣受害者。
English to Chinese: Forced to undergo genital exams in colonial India
Source text - English Forced to undergo genital exams in colonial India
In 1868, police in the British-ruled Indian city of Calcutta (now Kolkata) sent a woman called Sukhimonee Raur to prison for evading a genital examination which had been made compulsory for "registered" sex workers.
Under the colonial Contagious Diseases Act, designed to contain the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, sex workers had to "register themselves at police stations, get medically examined and surveilled".
Raur fought back - she petitioned the court, demanding her release. "I did not attend for examination twice a month as I have not been a prostitute," she said. She said the police had mistakenly registered her and that she had never been a sex worker.
In March 1869, the high court in Calcutta ruled in her favour. The judges said that Raur was not a "registered public prostitute" and, moreover, such registration of women would have to be voluntary. In other words, women could not be forced to register.
Trawling the colonial archives, Durba Mitra, a professor of women, gender and sexuality at Harvard University, found that thousands of women were arrested by the colonial police for failing to abide by the rules of registration for genital examination mandated under the law.
Prof Mitra's new work Indian Sex Life, published by Princeton University Press, is a remarkable study of how British authorities and Indian intellectuals "developed ideas about deviant female sexuality to control and organise modern society in India". One way to regulate sexuality was by classifying, registering and medically examining women seen as prostitutes, she told me.
In July 1869, some prostitutes of Calcutta petitioned the colonial authorities, accusing them of "violating their womanhood" by forcing them to register and undergo genital examination.
The women protested against the "process of hateful examination which is, in other words, gross exposure". They wrote that those caught by the police were "forced to expose themselves to the doctor and his subordinates… The sense of female honour is not wholly blotted from our hearts". Authorities quickly rejected the petition.
Powerful city officials said the "clandestine prostitutes" who evaded registration were a threat to the new law. Regulating the prostitutes in Bengal was an almost impossible task, argued Dr Robert Payne, the chief of a key hospital in Calcutta. He said women should be registered without consent.
Between 1870 and 1888, says Prof Mitra, 12 women were arrested every day for breaching the law in Calcutta alone. Authorities noted that many women, discovering that they were under supervision, were fleeing the city.
The federal government debated whether the police in Bengal could legally carry out genital examination on women "who were accused of undergoing abortion and infanticide".
One magistrate felt that "false cases of rape and procuring abortion will largely increase without compulsory genital examinations of women". Another argued that securing consent from women for the examination could cripple the "administration of justice". In a letter to the secretary of Bengal, the city's police commissioner, Stuart Hogg, suggested women continued to infect men with venereal diseases because of the limitations of the law.
But with the growing opposition to the law in India and Britain, the offending Contagious Diseases Act was repealed in 1888.
Jessica Hinchy, a historian and author of Governing Gender and Sexuality in Colonial India, said it was not suspected prostitutes alone who were subjected to genital examinations in colonial India.
She told me that people whom the British "classified with the pejorative colonial term 'eunuch', especially transgender Hijras" were subjected to genital examinations under a controversial 1871 law which targeted caste groups considered to be hereditary criminals.
"The aim of this law was to cause the 'gradual extinction' of Hijras - both physically and culturally - through police registration, prohibitions on performance and dressing in feminine clothes, forced removal of children from Hijra households and interference with Hijra discipleship and succession practices," Dr Hinchy said.
The Contagious Diseases Act is considered a shameful chapter in the history of colonial India. Officials distributed questionnaires to magistrates, policemen and doctors on how to define a prostitute.
Colonial authorities, writes Prof Mitra, replied that all Indian women were potential prostitutes. A top police official, AH Giles, argued that all women who were not upper caste and married could be classified as a prostitute. Twenty volumes of a statistical account of Bengal between 1875 and 1879 repeatedly used the category of prostitutes.
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, then a mid-level bureaucrat in Bengal who would eventually become a celebrated novelist and author of India's national song, detailed "a diverse array of women who practiced clandestine prostitution".
In colonial India, according to Prof Mitra, virtually all women outside of monogamous Hindu upper-caste marriages were considered prostitutes.
They would include so-called dancing girls, widows, both Hindu and Muslim polygamous women, beggars, vagrants, women factory workers and domestic servants. The 1881 colonial census of Bengal considered all unmarried women over the age of 15 as prostitutes.
The first census of the city of Calcutta and its neighbourhood counted 12,228 known prostitutes out of a population of 145,000 women. By 1891, the number rose to more than 20,000 women. "The introduction of the act led to an epistemic shift, a pivotal change where Indian sexual practices became a primary object of knowledge for the British colonial state," says Prof Mitra.
But sexual practices of men remained almost entirely outside the formal purview of the state. Prof Mitra says the "control and erasure of women's sexuality became critical to how the British colonial state intervened in every day life".
Also, in places like Bengal, where she based her study, Indian men "also took up the control of women's sexuality in their own vision of Indian society that reorganised society along high-caste visions of Hindu monogamy, to the exclusion of Muslims and lower caste people".
At the root of all this was the notion that "deviant" womanhood was a problem that could not be easily solved. In the process, says Prof Mitra, women were "described, put on trial, scrutinised in public view, forcibly indentured, imprisoned, examined against their will". And so much of this history, she says, resonates with what is still happening with women.
Translation - Chinese 在印度殖民地被迫接受生殖器官檢查
1868年，英國統治的印度城市 加爾各答/Calcutta（現為 加爾各答/Kolkata）的警察已將一名名叫Sukhimonee Raur的婦女送進監獄，這名婦女逃避了對“註冊”性工作者強制性進行的生殖器檢查。
English to Chinese: 'One day everyone will use China's digital currency'
Source text - English 'One day everyone will use China's digital currency'
Chandler Guo was a pioneer in cryptocurrency, the digital currencies that can be created and used independently of national central banks and governments. In 2014 he set up an operation to produce one of those currencies, Bitcoin, in a secret location in western China.
"Mining" Bitcoin is a power hungry enterprise involving dozens of computers so he used power from a hydroelectric station, in partnership with a local Chinese government official. At its peak his machines were capable of mining 30% of the world's Bitcoin. He believed Bitcoin would one day change the world and replace the dollar.
But now he sees a new force emerging - a payment system created by the Chinese state and known as Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP). It's really a digital version of China's official currency, the yuan, and Mr Guo feels DCEP will become the dominant global currency. "One day everyone in the world will be using DCEP," he says.
"DCEP will be successful because there are a lot of Chinese people living outside of China - there are 39 million Chinese living outside of the country. "If they have a connection with China they will use the DCEP. They can make DCEP become an international currency."
But many question whether it will succeed and there are concerns that it will be used by Beijing to spy on citizens. Like Bitcoin, DCEP utilises a blockchain technology, a type of digitised ledger used to verify transactions.
Blockchain acts as a universal record of every transaction ever made on that network, and users collaborate to verify new transactions when they occur. In practice, that means users don't need a bank if, for example, they want to pay each other, perhaps with their phones.
China plans to launch DCEP later this year. But so far, the People's Bank of China has not given an exact date for the nationwide launch.
China began testing the digital currency earlier this year in selected cities. When rolled out it will allow users to link downloaded electronic wallets to their bank cards, make transactions and transfer money.
"It's hard to predict the timeline but the People's Bank of China is under a lot of pressure to accelerate the development because they do not want to be in a world where Libra (Facebook's digital currency) becomes the global currency, which they think is worse than the current global financial system controlled by the US," says Linghao Bao, an analyst from Beijing-based Trivium.
Observers say China wants to internationalise the yuan so that it can compete with the dollar. "The Chinese government believes that if some other countries can also use the Chinese currency it can break the United States' monetary sovereignty. The United States has built the current global financial system and the instruments," says an anonymous Chinese cryptocurrency observer known as Bitfool.
The technology enthusiast worked in the venture capital sector before joining a number of Chinese internet companies. He started researching Bitcoin and believes that digital currencies represent the future of money.
"Some traditional banking systems can't serve a poor country. In the traditional system, if you only have $10 a bank can't make money from you, but with digital currency, everyone has the right to enter. The threshold to enter is really low," he says.
Although Facebook has scaled back its plans for Libra, it was still a concern for China. The social media giant plans to roll out an e-wallet known as Novi later this year. It will work as a standalone app but can also be available on Messenger and WhatsApp.
"The two sides are definitely involved in financial warfare even though no large confrontation has happened yet," says Linghao Bao. Observers like Bitfool believe that China is already further ahead of the US in the battle for the future of money.
China's digital payment systems are widely seen as the most advanced in the world. The country is on the verge of becoming a cashless society. In 2019, four out of every five payments in China were made through either Tencent's WeChat Pay or Alibaba's Alipay. "America is the leader of the global financial system. But they don't have the motivation like China to make the change [to a digital currency]," says Bitfool. "China wants to share that power. But for America, Libra is just a backup plan.
"In poor countries and also in China there are a lot of people who live in villages. They have very little money but they are using smartphones. If you can buy a smartphone you can use DCEP." However, DCEP will be centralised and state-run, unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum which are free of state control.
Many Bitcoin enthusiasts fear that DCEP will be used as a tool by the Chinese Communist Party to exert greater control over their citizens through surveillance. The authorities will be able to monitor how money is spent in real time. They will also have the same controls over DCEP as with the yuan.
The yuan is tightly controlled by Beijing and its exchange rate is the source of much tension between the US and China. The US accuses China of keeping the yuan weak to benefit its economy.
"DCEP is the antithesis of Bitcoin. The ultimate goal of a cryptocurrency is the separation of money and state," says Stewart Mackenzie, a cryptocurrency expert based in Hong Kong. "It's easy for them to say that it's like Bitcoin when it's worlds apart."
Linghao Bao agrees. "DCEP is built on an idea of centralised control. The value of Bitcoin lies in its decentralisation nature and its isolation from the financial system," Mr Bao says. "I trust Bitcoin more. Because it really belongs to me," says Bitfool.
Translation - Chinese “有一天，每個人都會使用中國的數字貨幣”
Chandler Guo是加密貨幣（可獨立於國家中央銀行和政府創建和使用的數字貨幣）的先驅。2014年，他在中國西部的一個秘密地點開設了一家生產其中一種貨幣比特幣的公司。
English to Chinese: British Airways boss apologises for 'malicious' data breach
Source text - English British Airways boss apologises for 'malicious' data breach
British Airways's boss has apologised for what he says was a sophisticated breach of the firm's security systems, and has promised compensation.
Alex Cruz told the BBC that hackers carried out a "sophisticated, malicious criminal attack" on its website. The airline said personal and financial details of customers making or changing bookings had been compromised.
About 380,000 transactions were affected, but the stolen data did not include travel or passport details. "We are 100% committed to compensate them, period," Mr Cruz told the BBC's Today programme. "We are committed to working with any customer who may have been financially affected by this attack, and we will compensate them for any financial hardship that they may have suffered."
BA said the breach took place between 22:58 BST on 21 August and 21:45 BST on 5 September. Shares in BA parent group IAG closed 1.4% lower on Friday.
Communication
Mr Cruz also told the Today programme: "We're extremely sorry. I know that it is causing concern to some of our customers, particularly those customers that made transactions over BA.com and app.
"We discovered that something had happened but we didn't know what it was [on Wednesday evening]. So overnight, teams were trying to figure out the extent of the attack.
"The first thing was to find out if it was something serious and who it affected or not. The moment that actual customer data had been compromised, that's when we began immediate communication to our customers."
BA said all customers affected by the breach had been contacted on Thursday night. The breach only affects people who bought tickets during the timeframe provided by BA, and not on other occasions.
Mr Cruz added: "At the moment, our number one purpose is contacting those customers that made those transactions to make sure they contact their credit card bank providers so they can follow their instructions on how to manage that breach of data." The airline has taken out adverts apologising for the breach in Friday's newspapers.
British Airways data breach: What do you need to do?
What data was stolen?
"It was name, email address, credit card information - that would be credit card number, expiration date and the three digit [CVV] code on the back of the credit card," said BA boss Mr Cruz.
BA insists it did not store the CVV numbers. This is prohibited under international standards set out by the PCI Security Standards Council. Since BA said the attackers also managed to obtain CVV numbers, security researchers have speculated that the card details were intercepted, rather than harvested from a BA database.
How did hackers get in?
It isn't totally clear how hackers boarded BA's website and app - but cyber-security experts have some suggestions.
What could the hackers do with the data?
Once fraudsters have your personal information, they may be able to access your bank account, or open new accounts in your name, or use your details to make fraudulent purchases. They could also sell on your details to other crooks.
What do I need to do?
If you've been affected, you should change your online passwords. Then monitor your bank and credit card accounts keeping an eye out for any dodgy transactions. Also be very wary of any emails or calls asking for more information to help deal with the data breach: crooks often pose as police, banks or, in this instance they could pretend to be from BA.
Will my booking be affected?
BA says none of the bookings have been hit by the breach. It said it has contacted all those affected to alert them to the problem with their data, but booked flights should go ahead.
Will there be compensation for me?
If you suffer any financial loss or hardship, the airline has promised to compensate you.
'Terribly concerning'
Jorg Herrera, from Amersham in Buckinghamshire, received an email from BA last night having booked tickets with the airline last month. "I have six cards linked to my BA account," he told the BBC. "I have no idea how much of my information has been stolen.
"I will have to go to each of my credit card providers, cancel the cards, and all the direct debits, etc, related to those cards. This will take a long time, something I have to do with no help from BA. "This whole thing is terribly concerning and really annoying."
Data duty
BA could potentially face fines from the Information Commissioner's Office, which is looking into the breach.
Rachel Aldighieri, managing director of the Direct Marketing Association, said: "British Airways has a duty to ensure their customer data is always secure. They need to show that they have done everything possible to ensure such a breach won't happen again.
"The risks go far beyond the fines regulators can issue - albeit that these could be hefty under the new [EU data protection] GDPR regime."
Under GDPR, fines can be up to 4% of annual global revenue. BA's total revenue in the year to 31 December 2017 was £12.226bn, so that could be a potential maximum of £489m. The National Crime Agency and National Cyber Security Centre also confirmed they were assessing the incident.
'Flesh wound'
This is not the first customer relations problem to affect the airline in recent times. In July, BA apologised after IT issues caused dozens of flights in and out of Heathrow Airport to be cancelled.
The month before, more than 2,000 BA passengers had their tickets cancelled because the prices were too cheap. And in May 2017, problems with BA's IT systems led to thousands of passengers having their plans disrupted, after all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick were cancelled.
"It does not indicate that the information systems are the most robust in the airline industry," Simon Calder, travel editor at the Independent, told the BBC.
However, he does not think BA will be affected in the long term by the breach. "The airline has immense strength. Notably it's holding a majority of slots at Heathrow, and an enviable safety record, so while this is embarrassing and will potentially cost tens of millions of pounds to resolve, it's more like another flesh wound for BA, rather than anything serious."
Translation - Chinese 英國航空公司老闆為“惡意”數據洩露道歉
英國航空公司的老闆對他所說的複雜的公司安全系統數據洩露的事件表示歉意，並承諾給予賠償。
Alex Cruz告訴BBC，黑客在其網站上進行了“複雜的惡意犯罪攻擊”。該航空公司表示，進行或更改預訂的客戶的個人和財務詳細信息已被洩露。
English to Chinese: Pregnant modern slaves face 'shocking' danger
Source text - English Pregnant modern slaves face 'shocking' danger
A quarter of women rescued from modern slavery in the UK are pregnant and facing "shocking" levels of danger and deprivation, says a charity. Hestia, which runs safe houses, says pregnant women can escape or be abandoned by traffickers and left to sleep rough without any healthcare.
"Many contemplate suicide. All are isolated and long for contact with their mothers," says the study.
The charity says "urgent action" is needed to help such vulnerable women.
Hestia, one of the UK's biggest providers of support for victims of slavery, says there is insufficient help for the security, health and psychological needs of trafficked and often traumatised women who are pregnant or have recently given birth.
The charity, which last year worked with almost 900 adults, is to publish a report highlighting the "harrowing" risks facing enslaved pregnant women who have been living in "constant fear". The report says that a "disproportionately high number of women who have been victims of modern slavery present into our service pregnant, often very late in their pregnancy".
These women, who could be held as sex workers or in domestic servitude, have often had no access to healthcare.
The report says some of the pregnancies were the result of rape, and women's health can be seriously damaged by being "forced to consume alcohol or take drugs whilst they were being exploited".
Becoming pregnant could have been the trigger to end their servitude - either because they wanted to protect their child or because they have lost their value to their captors. A spokeswoman for the charity said that families keeping women in domestic servitude might not want to support a mother and baby.
In one case, a woman was driven to a park and abandoned there, until she was helped by local people who found her. Women have often been trafficked through different countries and can be completely disorientated about their location, says the charity.
"Issy's" story
"When Issy became pregnant, she tried to conceal it from her captors.
"When they found out, she was forcibly taken to an abortion clinic. Issy was desperate to let one of the health professionals know she did not want to go through with the abortion, but she did not speak their language and was terrified of the consequences if she was seen attracting attention.
"However, the clinic refused to perform the abortion without a medical certificate as Issy was in the second trimester of her pregnancy (13th to 27th week of pregnancy).
"Issy was returned to the flat where she was being kept and was ordered to continue having sex with her clients until they no longer wanted her.
"She overheard her captors say that they would wait until Issy's baby was born and then they would take it from her so she could continue working.
"Issy knew she had to escape. She chose a moment when her captors were distracted and ran out of the house. An older woman saw Issy visibly distressed and took her to a police station."
Issy is a real person, but her name has been changed.
Women who have been tricked by promises of work, or brought illegally into the UK, might have no documents or have anyone they can ask for help. Among such pregnant women who had left slavery, 16% became rough sleepers, others relied for food and clothes on foodbanks and charities.
The report says the way that women had been mistreated raises "questions about the human capacity for evil". But it also says that the women's stories show "great kindness on the part of strangers".
There were "everyday citizens" who had to helped to rescue women, by calling the police or intervening when they were in hospital or even "providing a distraction for traffickers".
Who are modern slaves?
• The most common countries of origin for women rescued by the charity are Albania, Nigeria, Vietnam and the Philippines. Albania and Nigeria together accounted for almost 60% of the victims.
• Among trafficked women helped by the charity, almost 70% had been brought to the UK for "sexual exploitation", including prostitution, strip clubs and pornography.
• "Domestic servitude", where women were held as domestic workers, accounted for 25% of women rescued.
• A further 6% were involved in "forced labour", such as working in nail bars.
• The National Crime Agency says the most frequent agencies involved in finding modern slavery victims are the police, voluntary groups (particularly the Salvation Army) and local authorities.
• There were referrals from over 60 different local authorities.
• National Crime Agency figures show "sexual exploitation" as biggest form of modern slavery for women, while for men "labour exploitation" is the most frequent.
A spokeswoman for the charity says there needs to be greater recognition of the needs of pregnant women - such as appropriate accommodation and access to health care and support for mental health problems.
But there is also another emotional gap in the "lack of family" when women are feeling most isolated and anxious. "It's heartbreaking. You need your mum more than ever at that point," she says.
Translation - Chinese 懷孕的現代奴隸面臨“震驚”的危險
一家慈善機構說，在英國，從現代奴隸制度中獲救的婦女中有四分之一已經懷孕，面臨著令人震驚的危險和剝奪程度。經營安全屋的 赫斯提亞（Hestia）慈善機構說，孕婦可能逃脫或被販運者拋棄，並在沒有任何醫療保健的情況下流浪街頭入睡。
English to Chinese: Should you be buying a second-hand smartphone?
Source text - English Should you be buying a second-hand smartphone?
French entrepreneur, Thibaud Hug de Larauze, looks down at his laptop and taps a few keys. "So today we have 200,000-plus smartphones available to sell," he tells me. None of those smartphones is new, instead they have been refurbished, a process involving checks, repairs and cleaning.
Once the phones meet the required standard they can then be sold with a one-year warranty on his company's website, Back Market, which operates in European countries plus the US. While smartphones are the big sellers, his website lists everything from coffee makers, laptops, to irons.
Formed six years ago by Mr Hug de Larauze and two partners, Back Market does not refurbish the products itself, instead it provides a marketplace for hundreds of other firms to sell their used goods. It is one of many firms riding the wave of growth in refurbished electronics.
Last year, around 137 million used smartphones were sold in the US and Europe, according to Counterpoint Research. Jeff Fieldhack, the head of research at research at Counterpoint, says that sales of used smartphones now account for about 10% of all smartphone sales.
So what's the attraction of owning a second-hand phone that's a few years old? Why not buy a cheaper, brand new device?
It all hinges on the so-called flagship phones from Samsung, Huawei and, in particular, Apple. Bought new these top of the range devices can be wildly expensive - Apple's top end iPhones will set you back more than £1,000.
But within months of their launch they will start appearing on second-hand marketplaces with perhaps a 15% discount and after just two years the discount will be a healthy 50%. "A flagship device from three, four years ago, from iPhone is still a better quality device, than something new in the $200 to $300 range," Mr Fieldhack says.
A decade ago, used phones would typically be sold on marketplaces like eBay. It was hard for buyers to know the quality of the device they were buying and they would be unlikely to get a warranty.
Now firms that sell refurbished electronics go to great lengths to reassure their buyers. In fact those in the industry would draw a clear line between phones that have been used and those that have been professionally refurbished.
"We want you to have exactly the same shopping experience that you would have in the Apple Store or PC World - ideally better," says Jon Godfrey, the founder of Tech.Trade, based in South Wales.
His main product is refurbished computers. "If you buy something and change your mind and want to send it back, yeah, send it back," he says.
The main problem he has is getting supplies of used computers. Most of his used machines come from people who are trading in machines they don't want anymore, but there's not enough of them.
Mr Godfrey sold around 15,000 products last year, and could double that this year if he could get more products. "We're just starting to get to the point where we're dangerously low on stock," he says.
That's mainly due to the surge in demand from people working from home during the pandemic - in May Mr Godfrey saw sales surge 35%, compared to the previous year. The second big challenge is replacement parts. Getting hold of screens and batteries can be difficult.
Despite the challenges, those in the industry are forecasting bumper times ahead. Mr Hug de Larauze expects the sales of used smartphones to match sales of new devices by 2030.
Analyst Jeff Fieldhack thinks that is a bit optimistic. He says that while firms have made big strides in improving quality and service, customers remain cautious, particularly in important markets like China, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. "There's a lot of apprehension about the secondary market and in many markets the quality issue still needs to be overcome," he says.
There is also the issue of software updates. Older phones might not get the latest software, which could make some apps unavailable.
Much also hinges on the popularity of Apple products which account for 40% of sales of used smartphones. Many customers would rather own a second-hand Apple phone or computer, than a new one from a different firm. "Apple just is so dominant in the secondary market because they have such brand value and very expensive devices," says Mr Fieldhack.
"These are $800-and-above devices that are sold in the US market for $200. That is a very attractive value proposition for consumers who are priced out of iPhones but want to get in that [Apple] ecosystem."
While the quality of Apple products makes them desirable in the used market, Apple and other smartphone makers have been criticised for making their devices difficult to repair. "They also make some aspects of refurbishment incredibly challenging by design and by policy," says Mr Godfrey.
There are moves to remedy that situation. In the US, The Repair Association is pushing for legislation that would force firms to release manuals and other information necessary to repair products.
And the European Union this year proposed an initiative to promote reusability and reparability. All of that would make life easier for refurbishment firms. In its defence Apple says it is already making devices more repairable but this needed to be balanced with creating devices that are durable and can endure the rigours of everyday use.
To helper smaller repair firms, in July Apple launched a programme offering training and access to Apple parts. The refurbishment industry also operates in the shadow of huge marketing campaigns from the smartphone industry.
Mr Hug de Larauze says massive advertising tells people everyday that what they have in their pocket is too old. He wants consumers to resist those messages, not just because it would be good for his business, but because it benefits the environment as well. "Do you need something new? No, I think not. I think you should maybe consider repair and just keep as long as possible."
Follow Technology of Business editor Ben Morris on Twitter
Translation - Chinese 您應該購買二手智能手機嗎？
法國企業家Thibaud Hug de Larauze低頭看著他的筆記本電腦，然後打了幾個鍵。他告訴我：“因此，今天我們有20萬多部智能手機可供出售。” 這些智能手機都不是新的，而是經過翻新的過程，該過程涉及檢查，維修和清潔。
Hug de Larauze先生說，大規模的廣告每天都在告訴人們，他們口袋裡的手機太舊了。他希望消費者抵制這些信息，這不僅是因為它對他的業務有益，而且還因為它也有利於環境。“您需要新的手機嗎？不，我認為不需要。我認為您也許應該考慮維修，並且要保持盡可能長的時間。”
在Twitter上關注商業技術編輯Ben Morris
English to Chinese: Mental health days. Meeting-free times. Companies are adding new benefits to help workers cope
Source text - English Mental health days. Meeting-free times. Companies are adding new benefits to help workers cope
A few months into working remotely, Jamie Coakley noticed a worrisome trend at her company: 70% of employees had not taken more than two days off since the beginning of the year.
"We were going to run into a brick wall pretty soon," said Coakley, vice president of people at IT solutions company Electric. The company changed to a flexible vacation policy, but that still wasn't enough. Employees were working longer hours, having a hard time disconnecting from work and felt perpetually behind.
So Electric announced over the summer that the entire company would close on the first Friday of every month for a mental health and wellness day. Giving everybody the day off means the work doesn't pile up while you're off and it eliminates the fear of missing out on something.
With everything going on this year, mental health has become a major focus for employers, and some companies are increasing their offerings to help their workers stay healthy amid so much uncertainty. Here are some of the ways companies are trying to help their workers:
Scheduling meeting-free times
In the office, mini-breaks occur naturally to break up the workdays and allow us to recharge a little: a colleague stopping by to chat, going to get a cup of coffee, running an errand or walking to the conference room for a meeting. But at home, we tend to stay glued to our keyboards and stuck on back-to-back Zoom calls.
To force workers to take a break, some companies have changed their meeting policies. At data platform company Talend, Friday afternoons are meeting-free to give workers more uninterrupted time to get work done ahead of the weekend.
At Electric, Thursdays before noon are designated meeting-free. "It's everyone's heaven time," said Coakley. "You have no internal meetings, you wake up and actually do work."
Increasing access to professional help
With so much going on right now, insurance company Unum increased the number of counseling sessions its workers get through its employee assistance program (EAP) to six sessions per issue, up from three.
"An employee could be dealing with a relationship issue and need support to handle that, and then later in the year could be dealing with issues with anxiety. So the six visits would reset. That is really important, people have multiple things going on," said Laurie Mitchell, assistant vice president of global wellbeing at Unum.
Offering apps and subscriptions
Giving employees quick and convenient ways to practice self care can go a long way. Shortly after going fully remote, people management platform Lattice started offering access to Modern Health, a platform that connects employees to professional help, including therapists, and digital programs and meditations. Lattice made the move after internal surveys reveled workers needed more support, and the company covers the fees.
Talend held a seminar with experts from Healthy Minds Innovations about how to maintain resilience during these tough times. Different teams within the company have also been incorporating their own mental health initiatives, like having a guided meditation at the end of their all-hands meeting.
Being candid and empathetic
Everyone is struggling on some level this year. But there is still a stigma surrounding mental health issues, which prevents employees from being honest with their managers about their struggles.
But the more we talk about it, the more these issues can be normalized. And bosses can start the conversation by being open. "It starts with being vulnerable myself," said Jack Altman, CEO of Lattice. He said he tries to be candid about how he is feeling.
When one of his employees lost a parent earlier this year, Altman got on a Zoom call with her to connect and share his experience. "Making employees feel comfortable starts with the leadership team."
Translation - Chinese 精神健康日。 無會議時間。 公司正在增加新的福利來幫助工人應對
English to Chinese: Netflix had a great 2020. But 2021 could be rough
Source text - English Netflix had a great 2020. But 2021 could be rough
New York (CNN Business) Hollywood has had a disastrous 2020 with the coronavirus pandemic leaving the entertainment industry reeling. But Hollywood's loss is Netflix's gain.
Netflix thrived in 2020 as people were stuck at home during the global health crisis. The company posted colossal subscriber gains over the past two quarters, which helped drive its stock up nearly 70% this year.
Now, investors are eager to learn whether Netflix can take that momentum into next year.
The company will report its third-quarter earnings after the bell on Tuesday. Wall Street will keep its eye on subscriber growth (as is always the case with Netflix). Still, a lot of attention will focus on what the company has to say about next quarter, and next year, according to Bernie McTernan, a senior analyst at Rosenblatt Securities.
Netflix's subscriber forecast of 2.5 million in the third quarter is a "conservative number" that the company should exceed, McTernan believes. However, it could be an indicator that next year may be much leaner than 2020.
"We think that in 2021, subscriber growth is going to be slowing substantially," he told CNN Business. "We think that the outlook for '21 will be more challenging for Netflix."
McTernan, who is more bearish on Netflix than most other investors, added that he's curious about whether the company will raise prices next year — a move that could lead customers to cancel the service.
"We did a streaming video survey, and a substantial amount of respondents indicated that they would cancel Netflix (NFLX) or reduce the number of months that they subscribed to Netflix given a one or two dollar price increase," he said.
Another concern for the streamer may be increased competition next year. Heading into 2020, Netflix was king of the streaming world. New services like Disney+ were in their infancy, and others like Peacock and HBO Max didn't exist yet. (WarnerMedia is the parent company of HBO Max and CNN.)
2021 could be a different story. For example, Disney has seen its media empire ravaged by coronavirus with its movies delayed, productions stalled, and its parks closed for months. Yet one division of Disney took a giant leap forward this year: streaming.
Disney+, the company's nascent streaming service, has brought in more than 60 million subscribers in less than a year. That put the service's growth way ahead of schedule since the company told investors last year that it projected Disney+ would have 60 million to 90 million global subscribers by 2024.
Because of Disney+'s success, the company announced a significant reorganization of its media and entertainment business last week to "further accelerate" its streaming strategy.
"The reorganization is really interesting, and it speaks to the company's focus on streaming," McTernan said. "Netflix just hasn't faced this kind of global competition before. The easy days of no competition are over for it."
Although Netflix may have a leaner 2021, it's hardly doomed. If 2020 has proved anything, it's that streaming is here to stay. That puts Netflix in an excellent position considering that it has a massive head start on its rivals and has become synonymous with streaming itself.
"The bright side is that streaming usage has accelerated during the pandemic, and Netflix has cemented itself as a global leader," McTernan said. "I think it's a great company, but I think it's a tough stock."
Translation - Chinese Netflix的2020年表現不錯，但2021年可能會很艱難
English to Chinese: Battle for online shoppers begins as Indians spend billions ahead of Diwali
Source text - English Battle for online shoppers begins as Indians spend billions ahead of Diwali
Hong Kong (CNN Business)India's festival shopping season is underway, pitting the country's biggest online retailers against each other in a battle to grab a larger chunk of the growing, lucrative e-commerce market.
The two biggest players, Walmart (WMT)-owned Flipkart and Amazon (AMZN), are going head-to-head with their own shopping events: Big Billion Days and the Great Indian Festival. Deep-pocketed JioMart, which is owned by Asia's wealthiest billionaire, is looking for market share, too.
The sales blitz leading up to Diwali, the festival of lights, is critical for the companies because "they get a big chunk of spending during this period," said Satish Meena, senior forecast analyst with market research firm Forrester.
But this year is particularly important as the world reels from economic fallout caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Millions of Indian shoppers are still wary of venturing into physical stores, and Meena expects online sales to grow more than 34% to $6.5 billion this year.
"This is the time when consumers are actually in spending mode," he said, adding that the roughly one-month sales period is expected to account for 18% of India's total online shopping for 2020. "That's why every company wants to win the battle during the festive period."
Flipkart's competitive edge during the festive season
Flipkart was India's single-largest online retailer in 2018 with 31.9% market share, according to the most recent report from Forrester. Walmart bought the homegrown company for $16 billion in 2018. Flipkart's seasonal shopping event, Big Billion Days, kicked off on Friday.
The company has built its strategy around selling affordable goods to the huge number of middle and lower middle class online shoppers in India's smaller cities, according to Rajneesh Kumar, Flipkart's senior vice president and chief corporate affairs officer.
"A significant ... number of people in India look for value for money," Kumar said. "If you provide the right value and the right customer experience, you will win."
But Amazon (AMZN) is a formidable competitor. The company was just behind Flipkart with 31.2% market share in the Forrester report, and has developed a strong reputation in the country.
Last year, the US firm was ranked as India's most trusted online retailer in an annual survey conducted by TRA. The market research firm reported that 10 times as many respondents said they trusted Amazon than they did Flipkart, which came second.
"Flipkart and Amazon are neck-to-neck in the e-commerce wars, in terms of their product offerings, their initiatives to bolster affordability and increase consumer confidence, and most importantly, their last-mile delivery initiatives," said Prabhu Ram, head of the Industry Intelligence Group at research firm CMR.
Forrester's Meena agreed, noting that "no clear winner" has yet emerged. But he added that when it comes to festive sales, Flipkart has "an edge in terms of the amount of money customers spend."
That's because Flipkart dominates online fashion sales, Meena said, adding that the company has strong tie-ups with smartphone brands to offer big discounts.
The importance of Diwali
Flipkart and Amazon each faced enormous difficulty delivering orders across the country earlier this year as cities were locked down to combat Covid-19. Since then, they have worked to improve their supply chains — especially ahead of the festive season.
Amazon opened a new warehouse in Bangalore this month to handle the spike in holiday orders and hired 100,000 seasonal workers — 10,000 more than last year. Flipkart said it hired 70,000 additional warehouse and delivery workers to handle the rush, a 20,000-person increase over 2019.
Both companies have also translated their platforms into more languages, which they say will help them reach more shoppers in smaller cities and rural areas.
"We have geared up really strongly for the festive season," said Minari Shah, director of public relations at Amazon India. Amazon's Great Indian Festival starts on Saturday, but members of its Prime subscription program have access to deals a day earlier.
Like Flipkart, Amazon declined to talk about past or projected festive sales figures, but Shah noted that "undoubtedly, [the holiday season is] a very important part of our calendar."
Like the US retail events Black Friday and Cyber Monday, India's online shoppers are loading up virtual carts ahead of time as they wait for sales to kick in. Retailers typically offer deals on fashion, smartphones and consumer electronics, as well as holiday staples like candles, lights and other decorations.
"Since I need to buy a couple of gadgets, I feel that I can wait for a couple of weeks until the sale starts and get a better deal," said Anshul Arzare, a banker who lives in Mumbai.
Arzare said he has seen a spike in online shopping since the pandemic started. In his apartment complex, "there's a designated area for delivery boys, and at any given time you can see an Amazon boy there with 20 packages."
The professional said he prefers using Amazon. "The experience has been quite good and I intrinsically have more confidence in Amazon's product delivery rather than Flipkart," he said.
Jio is not a major threat, for now
The festive sales battle is taking place as Asia's richest man makes a play for the country's growing e-commerce market. JioMart, which is part of Mukesh Ambani's sprawling conglomerate Reliance Industries, made waves earlier this year when it expanded to hundreds of cities across India — a move widely seen as a challenge to Amazon and Flipkart.
JioMart is part of Jio Platforms, which has raked in more than $20 billion in funding from the likes of Facebook (FB), Google (GOOG) and US private equity giant KKR. "Though it is fairly nascent, JioMart is ambitious, and with a cocktail of attractive discounts and cashback offers, will seek to entice online shoppers," said Ram, of CMR.
JioMart did not respond to a request for comment for this story. For now, it is only offering online groceries, leaving Flipkart and Amazon to duke it out over deals on smartphones, consumer electronics, clothing and households items.
But JioMart plans to enter the fray soon. "In addition to grocery, we will expand JioMart to cover electronics, fashion, pharmaceutical and healthcare in the days ahead," Ambani said at Reliance Industries' annual meeting in July.
Flipkart said it welcomes more competition. Growing India's e-commerce industry "requires so much investment on the ground to build supply chain," Kumar said. "More players are good because more and more investment will come to build that supply chain."
Whether it is Flipkart, JioMart or some other e-commerce player, Shah said Amazon tries not to get caught up in what rivals are up to. "We watch them, but we are always more focused and obsessed with our customers than with the competition," she said.
The competition will only intensify. E-commerce sales account for just 5% of India's total gross merchandise value, according to an August report from consulting firm McKinsey.
But now, because of the pandemic, "the digital economy in India is in the throes of taking off," said Ram, adding that companies are also picking up new consumers as rural parts of the country come online. "Some of the trends that we see this year will be here to stay," he said. "I do not see a return to the way we were."
Translation - Chinese 隨著印度人在排燈節之前花費數十億美元，在線購物者之戰開始
English to Chinese: The US government sues Google for alleged anticompetitive abuses in search
Source text - English The US government sues Google for alleged anticompetitive abuses in search
Washington (CNN Business)The Trump administration on Tuesday sued Google in what is the largest antitrust case against a tech company in more than two decades.
In its complaint, the Justice Department makes sweeping allegations that Google (GOOG) has stifled competition to maintain its powerful position in the marketplace for online search and search advertising.
Eleven states -- Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina and Texas -- joined the suit, according to the complaint. The complaint targets a series of interlocking actions by Google that, as a whole, allegedly harmed competition and prevented rivals from gaining a meaningful audience.
It alleges in part that Google pays billions of dollars a year to device manufacturers like Apple, LG, Motorola, and Samsung and browser developers like Mozilla and Opera to be their default search engine and in many cases to prohibit them from dealing with Google's competitors. As a result, "Google effectively owns or controls search distribution channels accounting for roughly 80 percent of the general search queries in the United States."
Justice Department officials did not rule out a breakup of Google on a call with reporters Tuesday. "Nothing is off the table," said Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, who warned that if DOJ did not file suit now, "we could lose the next wave of innovation" and that "Americans may never get to see the next Google."
"Today's lawsuit by the Department of Justice is deeply flawed," Google SVP Global Affairs and Chief Legal Officer Kent Walker wrote in a blog post. "People use Google because they choose to, not because they're forced to, or because they can't find alternatives."
The post goes on to say that the DOJ complaint "relies on dubious antitrust arguments" that "would do nothing to help consumers." "To the contrary, it would artificially prop up lower-quality search alternatives, raise phone prices, and make it harder for people to get the search services they want to use," Walker wrote.
Google said its practice of paying to be the default search engine on smartphones like Apple's is "no different" from moves by other businesses to promote their products, "just like a cereal brand might pay a supermarket to stock its products at the end of a row or on a shelf at eye level."
Rosen said that the Google suit represents a "milestone" but not the end of DOJ's wide-ranging review of the tech industry, and that other lawsuits could be filed "where necessary."
The landmark federal complaint follows a year-long antitrust probe by DOJ investigators and comes right before an election in which tech platforms have been scrutinized for their impact on democracy and small business. It also comes on the heels of a major congressional report finding that Google and other tech giants enjoy "monopoly power" and have wielded their dominance in anticompetitive ways.
That report alleges that Amazon has mistreated third-party sellers; that Apple's app store fees and policies are anti-competitive; and that Facebook has sought to eliminate future rivals through targeted acquisitions.
Dozens of states have been conducting a separate antitrust inquiry into Google for the past year. On Tuesday, several of them said they intend to wrap up that probe "in the coming weeks" and that if they file a lawsuit, it could be merged with the federal case.
"We appreciate the strong bipartisan cooperation among the states and the good working relationship with the DOJ on these serious issues," said the multi-state group, which includes Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee and Utah. "This is a historic time for both federal and state antitrust authorities, as we work to protect competition and innovation in our technology markets."
The Justice Department's suit against Google marks the most consequential step the US government has taken to hold Silicon Valley to account after Washington took a dramatic turn against the tech industry following evidence that major social media platforms were manipulated by foreign election meddling efforts in 2016. Since then, the top executives of major tech platforms have been repeatedly hauled before Congress to face questions about their responsibilities toward political speech; hateful content and misinformation; small businesses and local journalism; and competition.
The looming case could pose an unprecedented risk to Google's wider advertising business, which brought in $134.8 billion in revenue last year, accounting for 84% of Google's total business.
Even as the Justice Department takes Google to court over antitrust concerns, others in the tech industry could face lawsuits of similar magnitude. Officials at the Federal Trade Commission have been investigating Facebook for over a year, and that investigation could culminate in its own landmark litigation.
The Google suit also symbolizes the growing criticism, particularly by former Democratic presidential candidates including Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, against historic levels of economic inequality and corporate concentration in the United States.
"The most important tech industry monopolization case before this one was United States v. Microsoft in 1998," William Kovacic, former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, told CNN Business before the suit was announced. During that case, the US government alleged Microsoft broke the law by bundling its browser, Internet Explorer, with every copy of Windows — to the detriment of competition among browser makers. After several years of litigation, Microsoft and the government reached a settlement that imposed new limits on Microsoft's software business.
Experts have since credited that case with paving the way for new innovation — including the rise of Google. Kovacic said that, as before, the government faces years of litigation ahead — and a challenging path to victory. "None of this will be easy," he said. "You can climb to the summit, but it's a tough climb."
Attorney General William Barr has taken a personal interest in the investigation and the resulting lawsuit, the New York Times has reported.
After the head of DOJ's antitrust division, Makan Delrahim, recused himself over having previously represented Google in private practice, Barr assigned senior staffers in his own office to oversee the probe. He has reportedly pushed for an aggressive timeline for filing a suit; as far back as March of this year, Barr told the Wall Street Journal he hoped to bring the investigation "to fruition [in] early summer."
Hanging over the case too will be President Donald Trump, who has been vocal in his criticism of tech platforms.
Trump has repeatedly blasted Facebook, Google and Twitter for allegedly systematically censoring conservative views, a claim the companies deny and for which experts have found no evidence. Last year, Trump told Fox Business that "we should be suing Google and Facebook and all that, which perhaps we will, okay?"
Trump's remarks could complicate any lawsuit targeting the tech companies. By nature and longstanding custom, presidents are expected to steer clear of addressing government investigations and potential lawsuits, in order to avoid even the perception of politically motivated litigation.
Google's critics have complained that its search business promotes Google's own apps and services to users while demoting those of its rivals.
"Google search is not a neutral gateway to the information available on the web," David Dinielli, a senior advisor at Omidyar Network and a former DOJ antitrust official, told CNN Business before the suit was announced. "Google search is a set of algorithms designed to make Google — or Alphabet, its parent company — the most money it can possibly make."
Google has also faced antitrust scrutiny and numerous multibillion-dollar fines from European regulators, punishments the company has protested.
Translation - Chinese 美國政府起訴谷歌 (Google) 涉嫌反競爭性濫用搜索的引擎
Leaked documents reveal China's mishandling of the early stages of Covid-19
London — A group of frontline medical workers, likely exhausted, stand huddled together on a video-conference call as China's most powerful man raises his hand in greeting. It is February 10 in Beijing and President Xi Jinping, who for weeks has been absent from public view, is addressing hospital staff in the city of Wuhan as they battle to contain the spread of a still officially unnamed novel coronavirus.
From a secure room about 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) from the epicenter, Xi expressed his condolences to those who have died in the outbreak. He urged greater public communication, as around the world concerns mounted about the potential threat posed by the new disease.
That same day, Chinese authorities reported 2,478 new confirmed cases -- raising the total global number to more than 40,000, with fewer than 400 cases occurring outside of mainland China. Yet CNN can now reveal how official documents circulated internally show that this was only part of the picture.
In a report marked "internal document, please keep confidential," local health authorities in the province of Hubei, where the virus was first detected, list a total of 5,918 newly detected cases on February 10, more than double the official public number of confirmed cases, breaking down the total into a variety of subcategories. This larger figure was never fully revealed at that time, as China's accounting system seemed, in the tumult of the early weeks of the pandemic, to downplay the severity of the outbreak.
The previously undisclosed figure is among a string of revelations contained within 117 pages of leaked documents from the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, shared with and verified by CNN.
Taken together, the documents amount to the most significant leak from inside China since the beginning of the pandemic and provide the first clear window into what local authorities knew internally and when.
The Chinese government has steadfastly rejected accusations made by the United States and other Western governments that it deliberately concealed information relating to the virus, maintaining that it has been upfront since the beginning of the outbreak. However, though the documents provide no evidence of a deliberate attempt to obfuscate findings, they do reveal numerous inconsistencies in what authorities believed to be happening and what was revealed to the public.
The documents, which cover an incomplete period between October 2019 and April this year, reveal what appears to be an inflexible health care system constrained by top-down bureaucracy and rigid procedures that were ill-equipped to deal with the emerging crisis. At several critical moments in the early phase of the pandemic, the documents show evidence of clear missteps and point to a pattern of institutional failings.
One of the more striking data points concerns the slowness with which local Covid-19 patients were diagnosed. Even as authorities in Hubei presented their handling of the initial outbreak to the public as efficient and transparent, the documents show that local health officials were reliant on flawed testing and reporting mechanisms. A report in the documents from early March says the average time between the onset of symptoms to confirmed diagnosis was 23.3 days, which experts have told CNN would have significantly hampered steps to both monitor and combat the disease.
China has staunchly defended its handling of the outbreak. At a news conference on June 7, China's State Council released a White Paper saying the Chinese government had always published information related to the epidemic in a "timely, open and transparent fashion."
"While making an all-out effort to contain the virus, China has also acted with a keen sense of responsibility to humanity, its people, posterity, and the international community. It has provided information on Covid-19 in a thoroughly professional and efficient way. It has released authoritative and detailed information as early as possible on a regular basis, thus effectively responding to public concern and building public consensus," says the White Paper.
CNN has reached out to China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and National Health Commission, as well as Hubei's Health Commission, which oversees the provincial CDC, for comment on the findings disclosed in the documents, but received no response.
Health experts said the documents laid bare why what China knew in the early months mattered. "It was clear they did make mistakes -- and not just mistakes that happen when you're dealing with a novel virus -- also bureaucratic and politically-motivated errors in how they handled it," said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, who has written extensively on public health in China.
"These had global consequences. You can never guarantee 100% transparency. It's not just about any intentional cover-up, you are also constrained with by technology and other issues with a novel virus. But even if they had been 100% transparent, that would not stop the Trump administration downplaying the seriousness of it. It would probably not have stopped this developing into a pandemic."
Tuesday, December 1, marks one year since the first known patient showed symptoms of the disease in the Hubei provincial capital of Wuhan, according to a key study in the Lancet medical journal.
At the same time that the virus is believed to have first emerged, the documents show another health crisis was unfolding: Hubei was dealing with a significant influenza outbreak. It caused cases to rise to 20 times the level recorded the previous year, the documents show, placing enormous levels of additional stress on an already stretched health care system.
The influenza "epidemic," as officials noted in the document, was not only present in Wuhan in December, but was greatest in the neighboring cities of Yichang and Xianning. It remains unclear what impact or connection the influenza spike had on the Covid-19 outbreak. And while there is no suggestion in the documents the two parallel crises are linked, information regarding the magnitude of Hubei's influenza spike has still yet to be made public.
The leaked revelations come as pressure builds from the US and the European Union on China to fully cooperate with a World Health Organization inquiry into the origins of the virus that has since spread to every corner of the globe, infecting more than 60 million people and killing 1.46 million.
But, so far, access for international experts to hospital medial records and raw data in Hubei has been limited, with the WHO saying last week they had "reassurances from our Chinese government colleagues that a trip to the field" would be granted as part of their investigation.
The files were presented to CNN by a whistleblower who requested anonymity. They said they worked inside the Chinese healthcare system, and were a patriot motivated to expose a truth that had been censored, and honor colleagues who had also spoken out. It is unclear how the documents were obtained or why specific papers were selected.
The documents have been verified by six independent experts who examined the veracity of their content on behalf of CNN. One expert with close ties to China reported seeing some of the reports during confidential research earlier this year. A European security official with knowledge of Chinese internal documents and procedures also confirmed to CNN that the files were genuine.
Metadata from the files seen by CNN contains the names of serving CDC officials as modifiers and authors. The metadata creation dates align with the content of the documents. Digital forensic analysis was also performed to test their computer code against their purported origins.
Sarah Morris, from the Digital Forensics Unit at Britain's Cranfield University, said there was no evidence the data had been tampered with or was misleading. She added the older files looked like they had been used repeatedly over a long period of time. "It's almost like a mini file system," she said. "So, it's got lots of room for deleted stuff, for old things. That's a really good sign [of authenticity]."
World got more optimistic data than reality
The documents show a wide-range of data on two specific days, February 10 and March 7, that is often at odds with what officials said publicly at the time. This discrepancy was likely due to a combination of a highly dysfunctional reporting system and a recurrent instinct to suppress bad news, said analysts. These documents show the full extent of what officials knew, but chose not to spell out to the public.
On February 10, when China reported 2,478 new confirmed cases nationwide, the documents show Hubei actually circulated a different total of 5,918 newly reported cases. The internal number is divided into subcategories, providing an insight into the full scope of Hubei's diagnosis methodology at the time.
"Confirmed cases" number 2,345, "clinically diagnosed cases" 1,772, and "suspected cases" 1,796.
The strict and limiting criteria led ultimately to misleading figures, said analysts. "A lot of the suspected cases there should have been included with the confirmed cases," said Huang, from the Council on Foreign Relations, who reviewed the documents and found them to be authentic.
"The numbers they were giving out were conservative, and this reflects how confusing, complex and chaotic the situation was," he added.
That month, Hubei officials presented a daily number of "confirmed cases," and then included later in their statements "suspected cases," without specifying the number of seriously ill patients who had been diagnosed by doctors as being "clinically diagnosed." Often in nationwide tolls, officials would give the daily new "confirmed" cases, and provide a running tally for the entire pandemic of "suspected cases," also into which it seems the "clinically diagnosed" were added. This use of a broad "suspected case" tally effectively downplayed the severity of patients who doctors had seen and determined were infected, according to stringent criteria, experts said.
William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University, said the Chinese approach was conservative, and the data "would have been presented in a different way had US epidemiologists been there to assist."
He said Chinese officials "seemed actually to minimize the impact of the epidemic at any moment in time. To include patients who were suspected of having the infection obviously would have expanded the size of outbreak and would have given, I think, a truer appreciation of the nature of the infection and its size."
Protocols for coronavirus diagnosis, published by China's National Health Commission in late January, told doctors to label a case "suspected" if a patient had contact history with known cases, and a fever and pneumonia symptoms, and to elevate the case to "clinically diagnosed" if those symptoms were confirmed by an X-ray or CT scan. A case would only be "confirmed" if polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or genetic sequencing tests came back positive.
Andrew Mertha, director of the China Studies Program at John Hopkins University, said officials might have been motivated to "lowball" numbers to disguise under-funding and preparedness issues in local health care bodies like the provincial CDC.
According to Mertha, the documents, which he reviewed and considered authentic, seemed to be organized so as to allow senior officials to paint whatever picture they wished. "You are giving them all the options there without putting somebody in an explicitly embarrassing position -- giving them both the anvil or the life-raft to then choose from."
Chinese officials did soon improve the reporting system, placing the "clinically diagnosed" cases into the "confirmed" category by mid-February. Top health and provincial officials in Hubei were also removed from their positions at that time, who would have been ultimately responsible for the reporting. Furthermore, wider and improved testing meant "suspected" cases could be clarified quicker and featured less in reporting. Separately, China's diagnostic criteria have been criticized by health experts for their continued, public decision to not count asymptomatic cases.
Death tolls listed in the documents reveal the starkest discrepancies. On March 7, the total death toll in Hubei since the beginning of the outbreak stood at 2,986, but in the internal report it is listed as 3,456, including 2,675 confirmed deaths, 647 "clinically diagnosed" deaths, and 126 "suspected" case deaths.
Dali Yang, who has extensively studied the outbreak's origins, said that in February numbers "still mattered because of global perceptions."
"They were still hoping it was like 2003, and like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) would be eventually contained, and everything can go back to normal," added Yang, who is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. He pointed to the February 7 call between presidents Trump and Xi. "I think that's also the (wishful) impression that Trump got -- that this is going to disappear."
The documents, however, are by no means clear cut. On two occasions, the public death numbers are narrowly over reported, with the internal figures indicating single-digit discrepancies of five and one, respectively.
On other occasions, the data provides glimpses of new information but without vital context. Even though China has never revealed the total number of Covid-19 cases in 2019, a graph in one document appears to suggest a much higher number had been detected. In the bottom left hand column of the graph marked 2019 the number of "confirmed cases" and "clinically diagnosed" cases appears to reach around 200 altogether.
The documents do not elaborate further. To date, the clearest indication of how many cases were detected in 2019 is the 44 "cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology (unknown cause)" that Chinese authorities reported to the WHO for the period of the pandemic up to January 3, 2020.
Long wait time for tests
Testing was inaccurate from the start, the documents said, and led to a reporting system with weeks long delays in diagnosing new cases. Experts said that meant most of the daily figures that informed the government response risked being inaccurate or dated.
On January 10, one of the documents reveals how during an audit of testing facilities, officials reported that the SARS testing kits that were being used to diagnose the new virus were ineffective, regularly giving false negatives. It also indicated that poor levels of personal protective equipment meant that virus samples had to be made inactive before testing.
The high false-negative rate exposed a series of problems China would take weeks to rectify. According to reports in Chinese state media in early February, Hubei health experts had expressed frustration with the accuracy of nucleic acid tests. Nucleic acid tests work by detecting the virus' genetic code, and were thought to be more effective at detecting the infection, particularly in the early stages.
However, the tests carried out at that time resulted in only a 30% to 50% positive rate, among already confirmed cases, according to officials quoted in state media. In order to avoid "false negative" results, health officials began to test suspected cases repeatedly.
By early February, laboratories in Hubei had capacity to test more than 10,000 people a day, according to state media reports. To cope with the high volume, officials decided to begin incorporating other clinical diagnosis methods, such as CT scans. This led to the creation of category referred to internally as "clinically diagnosed cases." It was not until mid-February that the clinically diagnosed cases were added to the confirmed case numbers.
Other, yet graver issues noted in the documents were raised by health experts.
In the first months of the outbreak, the average time required to process a case -- from the patient experiencing symptoms (onset) to being confirmed diagnosed was 23.3 days.
The persistent delay would likely have made it much harder to direct public health interventions, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
"You're looking at data that's three weeks old and trying to make a decision for today," he said.
The report notes that, by March 7, the system had much improved, with over 80% of the new confirmed cases diagnosed that day being recorded in the system that same day.
Multiple experts described the time lag as extraordinary, even when factoring in the initial difficulties faced by authorities.
"That adds another layer of understanding as to why some of the numbers that came out from the higher levels of government probably were off," said Schaffner from Vanderbilt University. "In the United States, Britain, France and Germany, there's always a lag. You don't know instantaneously. But 23 days is a long time."
Early warning system hampered
A lack of preparedness is reflected throughout the documents, sections of which are highly critical in their internal assessment of the government's support for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention operations in Hubei.
The report characterizes the Hubei CDC as underfunded, lacking the right testing equipment, and with unmotivated staff who were often felt ignored in China's vast bureaucracy. The documents include an internal audit, which forensic analysis shows was written in October 2019, before the pandemic began.
More than a month before the first cases are believed to have emerged, the review continues to urge the health authorities to "rigorously find the weak link in the work of disease control, actively analyze and make up for the shortcomings."
The CDC internal report complains over an absence of operational funding from the Hubei provincial government and notes the staffing budget is 29% short of its annual target.
After the outbreak, Chinese officials swiftly moved to assess the problems. Yet more than four months after the virus was first identified, major issues continued to hamper disease control efforts in key areas, the documents show.
The report also highlights the CDC's peripheral role in investigating the initial outbreak, noting that staff were constrained by official processes and their expertise not fully utilized. Rather than taking a lead, the report suggests CDC staff were resigned to "passively" completing the task issued by superiors.
Officials were also faced with a lumbering and unresponsive IT network, known as the China Infectious Disease Direct Reporting System, according to state media, installed at cost of $167 million after the 2003 SARS outbreak.
Theoretically, the system was supposed to enable regional hospitals and CDCs to directly report infectious diseases to a centrally managed system. This would then allow the data to be shared instantly with CDCs and relevant health departments nationwide. In reality, it was slow to log into, one audit said, and many other bureaucratic procedural restrictions hampered rapid data recording and gathering.
According to Huang, from the Council on Foreign Relations, the report belies China's claim to have massively invested in disease control and prevention after the 2003 SARS outbreak. "If you look at the local level, the picture is not as rosy as the government had claimed," he said.
Large outbreak of flu in Hubei
The documents also reveal a previously undisclosed a 20-fold spike in influenza cases recorded in one week in early December in Hubei province.
The spike, which occurred in the week beginning December 2, saw cases rise by approximately 2,059% compared to the same week the year before, according to the internal data.
Notably, the outbreak that week is not felt most severely in Wuhan -- the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak -- but in the nearby cities of Yichang, with 6,135 cases, and Xianning, with 2,148 cases. Wuhan was the third worst hit with 2,032 new cases that week.
Public data shows a nationwide spike in influenza in December. Experts, however, note the rise in influenza cases, while not unique to Hubei, would have complicated the task of officials on the lookout for new dangerous viruses.
Though the magnitude of the Hubei flu spike has not been previously reported, it is difficult to draw any hard conclusions, especially in regard to the potential prevalence of previously undetected Covid-19.
The documents show that testing carried out on the influenza patients return a high number of unknown results. However, experts cautioned that this did not necessarily indicate that the unknown test results were in fact undetected coronavirus cases.
"They're only testing for what they know -- this [coronavirus] is an unknown unknown," said Adalja, the JHU academic, adding that such a scenario that was not uncommon, globally.
"We're just not that great at diagnosing them. We look for the usual suspects. We're always looking for the horses, but never the zebras."
The Wuhan CDC later conducted retrospective research into influenza cases dated as early as October 2019 in two Wuhan hospitals, in an attempt to look for traces of coronavirus. But, according to a study published in the journal Nature, they were unable to detect samples of the virus dating back earlier than January 2020. Similar studies have yet to be carried out in other Hubei cities.
Separately, the flu spike could have helped to unintentionally accelerate the coronavirus' early spread, said Huang. "Those people were seeking care in hospitals, increasing the chances of COVID infection there," he said.
The influenza data also points to the influenza outbreak being worst in Yichang. While the influenza spike and the emergence of Covid-19 are not linked in the documents or by other evidence, data pinpointing a flu-like outbreak in multiple cities in Hubei will likely be of interest to those researching the origins of the disease.
The Chinese government has previously pointed to the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan as the likely initial epicenter of the outbreak in mid-December, where meat of exotic wild animals was sold. Yet that claim has been at least partially challenged by a Lancet study of the first December patients, which determined one third of the 41 infected that month had no direct connection to that market.
Yichang, 320 kilometers (198 miles) west of Wuhan, was hit hardest by the influenza outbreak -- almost three times as many as Wuhan in the same week beginning December 2.
Mertha, the China expert from JHU, said the spike in Yichang, while not connected to Covid-19 in the documents, could nonetheless open up new theories about where the virus began. "The order of magnitude of change means there has to be something going on," he said.
An unfolding crisis
China's leaders were the first to confront the virus, implementing a raft of draconian restrictions beginning in late January intended to curb the spread of the outbreak. Using sophisticated surveillance tools, government officials enforced strict lockdowns across the country, largely restricting more than 700 million people to their homes, while sealing national borders and carrying out widespread testing and contract tracing.
According to a study published in the journal Science in May, the stringent measures adopted during those first 50 days of the pandemic likely helped break the localized chain of transmission.
Today, China is close to zero local cases and although small-scale outbreaks continue to flare, the virus is mostly contained.
In February, however, it was a different story. As case numbers soared nationwide, government officials were facing a potential crisis of legitimacy, with public opinion fast turning against the ruling Communist Party over its perceived mishandling of the deadly new disease.
During the last 30 years, analysts say, many in China have appeared willing to relinquish political freedoms in return for increased material wealth, social stability and greater opportunities.
The virus fundamentally threatened that social contract -- putting hundreds of millions at risk while damaging an economy already weakened by an ongoing US-China trade war. In late January, Xi, China's most powerful leader in decades, publicly ordered "all-out efforts" to contain the virus' spread.
At the time, China was celebrating the Lunar New Year holiday, its most important annual holiday. The notion of an impending pandemic seemed to many like an abstract distraction, as people returned home to spend time with their families.
Xi's highly public intervention, which came just days after Wuhan was placed under lockdown, carried with it a clear message: Failure is not an option.
Throughout this period, the gulf between public statements by Chinese officials and the internally distributed data is at times blunt. The leaked documents show the daily confirmed death toll in Hubei rose to 196 on February 17. That same day, Hubei publicly reported just 93 virus deaths.
Another report also records the deaths of six health care workers from Covid-19 by February 10. Their deaths were not public at the time, and were highly sensitive, given the volume of sympathy over-worked health care staff, on the frontline of the pandemic, were getting on social media at the time.
As the virus spread, local officials were accused of downplaying the outbreak and its risk to the public. In late December, a young doctor named Li Wenliang in one of Wuhan's main hospitals, was among other medical workers summoned by local authorities and later received formal "reprimand" from the police for attempting to raise the alarm about a potential "SARS-like" virus. State media reported their punishment and warned public against rumour mongering.
Li, 34, later contracted the disease. His condition quickly worsened and in the early morning of February 7 he died, resulting in almost unprecedented levels of anger and outrage across mainland China's heavily censored internet.
It is not clear to what extent the central government was aware of the actions taking place in Hubei at that time, or how much information was being shared and with whom. The documents offer no indication that authorities in Beijing were directing the local decision-making process.
However, Mertha, the JHU academic, said the mismatch between the higher internal and lower public figures on the February death toll "appeared to be a deception, for unsurprising reasons."
"China had an image to protect internationally, and lower-ranking officials had a clear incentive to under-report -- or to show their superiors that they were under-reporting -- to outside eyes," he said.
Conversely, however, the leaked documents also provide something of a defense of China's overall handling of the virus. The reports show that in the early stages of the pandemic, China faced the same problems of accounting, testing, and diagnosis that still haunt many Western democracies even now -- issues compounded by Hubei encountering an entirely new virus.
Similarly, no mention is made by officials of a so-called laboratory leak, or that the virus was man-made, as some critics, including top US officials, have claimed without evidence. There is one mention of sub-par facilities at a bacterial and toxic species preservation center, though the point is not elaborated on, nor is its significance made clear.
China and its healthcare workers were under immense strain as the outbreak took hold, said Yang, from the Council of Foreign Relations.
"They had a massive run on the medical system. They were overwhelmed. There was truly despair among medical professionals by the end of January, because they were extremely overworked and they were also enormously discouraged by the high number of deaths that were occurring with a disease they had not treated previously," he added.
Hubei, which lags far behind Beijing, Shanghai and other major Chinese administrative divisions in terms of GDP per capita, was the first region to confront a virus that would go on to confound many of the world's most powerful countries.
Schaffner, from Vanderbilt University, said many of the comments in the documents might have been made in the US, "where, over the past 15 to 20 years, at particularly the state and the local level, public health funding has become constrained."
The documents show health care officials had no comprehension as to the magnitude of the impending disaster. Nowhere in the files is it indicated that officials believed the virus would become a global pandemic.
Tuesday marks exactly 12 months since the first patient in Wuhan started showing symptoms, according to the Lancet study. The death toll and number of people infected by the virus, now known to the world as Covid-19 and impacting the lives across the planet, continues to grow, day on day.
Translation - Chinese 武漢檔案
洩露的文件顯示中國對Covid-19早期階段的處理不當
English to Chinese: The Americans locked up in Myanmar's notorious Insein prison General field: Other Detailed field: Government / Politics
Source text - English The Americans locked up in Myanmar's notorious Insein prison
It was supposed to be an exciting trip home to surprise his parents in the United States, his family said.
But on May 24, before he boarded the plane at Yangon International Airport, in Myanmar's biggest city, Danny Fenster, 37, was stopped by security forces and inexplicably taken into custody.
Four months earlier, Myanmar's military had seized power in a coup and embarked on a bloody crackdown against protesters, journalists, striking workers, activists and others opposed to the new ruling junta.
Fenster, a US citizen from Detroit, Michigan, was working in Yangon as managing editor of independent news outlet Frontier Myanmar, driving the highly regarded news site's coverage of the fallout from the coup, despite the junta targeting media houses and journalists.
It remains unclear why Fenster was detained at the airport and it is unknown whether he has been charged with a crime. He has not had any contact with his parents, lawyers or officials at the US embassy in Yangon, who have tried to visit him, a state department official told CNN Business.
Frontier Myanmar said they understand he is being held in Insein Prison, Myanmar's infamous clock-shaped penitentiary north of Yangon known for holding political prisoners and having a decades-old reputation for mistreatment and brutal conditions.
Since the military seized power on February 1, more than 5,900 people have been detained by the junta's security forces, and a majority remain in detention, according to advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP). Of those, at least 87 are journalists, with 51 still in detention, Reporting ASEAN documented.
Life in Gen. Min Aung Hlaing's post-coup Myanmar has become near impossible for media workers, with many forced into exile abroad or fleeing to rebel-controlled areas in the jungles as they expose the junta's crimes. Those who remain in the cities have gone into hiding and swap safe houses every few days to avoid arrest. Despite the dangerous conditions, many of Myanmar's journalists continue to deliver vital information to the public and the rest of the world.
Not all manage to evade the authorities. Most recently, journalist Aung Kyaw with the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and Zaw Zaw, a freelance journalist with outlet Mizzima News, were sentenced to two years in prison for spreading misinformation.
Those who escape the country are not guaranteed safety. Three DVB reporters and two activists were arrested last month in Thailand for illegal entry and faced deportation. They were recently granted asylum in an unnamed third safe country, DVB said.
Fenster's family does not know why he was detained, though his father Buddy Fenster told CNN Business his son had "voiced concern" for journalists before his arrest.
"All the reporters, all the journalists are leaving this country," Buddy Fenster said his son told him. "I got a feeling he thought it may be time to start heading home."
Fenster isn't the only foreign journalist to be locked up, nor the only US citizen. Nathan Maung, a US citizen and co-founder and editor-in-chief of the online news site Kamayut Media, was detained on March 9 alongside co-founder and producer Hanthar Nyein, and remains in the notorious penitentiary.
Japanese journalist Yuki Kitazumi was detained in April and charged with spreading false news. He was held in Insein Prison before being sent back to Tokyo in May. Polish reporter Robert Bociaga was detained in March and released without charge weeks later.
The junta's arrest of journalists — and refusal to release information about many of their cases — demonstrates the level of impunity and lawlessness Myanmar's military operates under as it seeks to assert control over the country.
What happened to Nathan Maung
Nathan Maung's Kamayut Media covered the junta's arrest and killing of peaceful protesters, as well as the rise of the civil disobedience movement against the coup. Seven military trucks of soldiers stormed the outlet's office on March 9, blocking entrances to the street as they arrested the two journalists, eyewitnesses said.
Like many media workers recently, they were charged with crimes under section 505a of Myanmar's penal code — a law amended by the military that makes it a crime punishable by up to three years in prison to publish or circulate comments that "cause fear," spread "false news" or incite government employees. According to Human Rights Watch, the changes to the law were "clearly designed to penalize those encouraging members of the civil service of the security services to join the Civil Disobedience Movement."
Two sources close to the pair and familiar with their treatment said Nathan Maung and Hanthar Nyein were subjected to torture during a two-week stint in an interrogation center before they were transferred to prison.
Detainees have detailed brutal acts of violence and torture by security forces in these type of military-run facilities.
The two sources said the pair were kept in adjoining rooms so they could hear each other scream during interrogations. They alleged the two journalists were beaten, denied food and water for days, and blindfolded so they couldn't tell the difference between night and day. After five days, they were forced to kneel on blocks of ice until they had melted, the sources said.
Myanmar national Hanthar Nyein was forced to hold ice on his arm — if he moved, he was hit with a pole or the back of a gun, the sources said
The sources with information on their treatment spoke to CNN Business on the condition of anonymity, due to their fear of retaliation.
CNN Business reached out to Myanmar's military for comment but has not received a response.
The US State Department said in a statement it was "deeply concerned over the detentions of US citizens Daniel Fenster and Nathan Maung."
"We have pressed the military regime to release them both immediately and will continue to do so until they are allowed to return home safely to their families."
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday the department has access to Nathan Maung but not Fenster. "That's a violation, among other things, of the Vienna Convention. We are pressing this in every way that we can," Blinken said.
Inside Insein
Both Nathan Maung and Hanthar Nyein thought they would die in the interrogation center, the sources said. But they survived, and were transferred to Myanmar's main prison, Insein.
Built more than 130 years ago during the British colonial era, Insein Prison became notorious — and feared — for its overcrowded and inhumane conditions, mental and physical torture, and terrible sanitation, food and healthcare, particularly under military rule.
Following uprisings in 1988 and 2007, Insein became packed with thousands of political prisoners including prominent democracy activists and journalists. Ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi spent time there in 2003 and 2009.
Bo Kyi, joint secretary and and co-founder of the AAPP, served two sentences in Insein following the 1988 uprising and said conditions there were "like hell."
"We were not allowed to read or write. They wanted to destroy our intellect. We did not receive proper medicine, no treatment for injuries," he said. During his second stint there in 1996, he said he was beaten every day for two weeks. "Many people died at Insein," he said.
After leaving Insein, Bo Kyi fled to neighboring Thailand and now advocates for current and former political prisoners and their families, through the AAPP.
Conditions at Insein improved under Suu Kyi's government, he said, with inmates able to access to reading materials and education, and the building of a new family visitor center. But political prisoners were still incarcerated there, and the prison remained overcrowded, with inadequate medical treatment, he said. Inmates are not treated "with human dignity," Bo Kyi said.
With the military back in charge, conditions for inmates have worsened, Bo Kyi said. On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch said the rights of women were being violated in Insein due to a lack of toilets and no menstrual hygiene supplies. Trials and hearings are conducted, not in civilian courts, but military-run courts held inside the prison walls.
Inmates have limited contact with the outside world, including their families. "Lawyers are struggling to even get access and when they do they are harassed," he said. "Family members have had to go into hiding."
Sometimes it's hard to even verify who is being held at the prison.
"There is great concern for the people who are believed to be in Insein but might be in unknown locations. They could be brutally tortured or already killed. If we can't verify where they are, no one can monitor their condition," Bo Kyi said.
Japanese journalist Yuki Kitazumi, who was detained in Insein in April, told CNN the political prisoners are kept separate from other inmates. Some are kept in a building with 14 cells and 11 prisoners — as he was with Nathan Maung and later Hanthar Nyein. There the isolated cells are 4 meters long by 2.5 meters wide.
Others are held in one room with more than 100 people packed in together. "There is a very small place to sleep, and some describe that they can not move," he said.
Kitazumi said everyone was desperate for news from the outside, from the embassy or lawyers, so they would share bits of information they picked up such as the result of the ASEAN meeting on Myanmar.
Kitazumi said Nathan Maung would keep checking he could move a finger on his left hand after guards slammed his handcuffed wrists against a table, he said.
"I did not have experience of torture myself," Kitazumi said. "A lot of political prisoners have experience of torture, from 24 to 48 hours of no sleep."
Kitazumi described Nathan Maung as a "cheerful person" who "had a lot of knowledge about the history of Myanmar" and was a "film director who talked about his favorite movies," he said.
Conditions in the cells were stifling. April and May are among the hottest months in Myanmar and the brick cells had little ventilation, let alone air conditioning.
"It was very hot during the daytime outside and in the cell. I remember Nathan Maung was always spraying water on the ground to try and cool down the cell," he said. "Our building is made from brick and what happened in the prison, the brick keeps the heat even at night, so it was very hot."
He described a chaotic court process in the prison, with overworked judges hearing case after case of those detained by the military. Embassy officials were not allowed to attend court; neither were members of the public, he said.
Kitazumi spoke of the guilt of being a foreigner and lucky enough to leave prison, but having to leave others behind. It was a feeling shared by Nathan Maung, he said.
"Of course they want to be released. However, he said that he would feel guilty to be released early for his US citizenship. He is worried about Hanthar and the other political prisoners," he said.
A letter to the outside
Kay Zon Nway, 28, is a journalist for local media outlet Myanmar Now, who has been held in Insein since February 27.
A family member told CNN Business they are concerned about her well-being in prison and said they have not been able to meet nor speak with her since her detention more than three months ago.
Her family members have only snatched glimpses of her when she appeared for a court hearing held via video link. Their only communication is through letters they are allowed to send to each other just once a month.
The family member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to safety concerns, is increasingly concerned that Kay Zon Nway's mental health is deteriorating due to the harsh conditions inside the prison. "Her nervous system is weak and her toes and fingers are stiff. She is suffering mental health issues because she was put in isolation," they said, adding that she also has stomach problems due to the food.
Kay Zon Nway, who is Muslim, was put in isolation when she started fasting for Ramadan — the guards believed she was on a hunger strike, the family member said. Myanmar Now reported that her lawyer told her family that prison officials later said she had been isolated in error, saying they had mistaken her for someone else.
"She can go crazy if this condition continues. They pressured her a lot inside the prison, they were telling her that people on hunger strike will only be released when they die," the family member said.
It has become increasingly difficult to send supplies to the prison, the family member said. Prisoners given a meal a day, they said, but even with the food her family sends, it's not enough.
"They can get hot water in the prison to make coffee or instant noodles. We used to send her food daily but the prison changed the rule and we could only send her food once in 15 days. Only dried snacks last for two weeks; not the normal food, as they don't have a freezer or microwave to warm up the food," the family member said.
In a letter sent on March 5 to her family and seen by CNN Business, Kay Zon Nway writes about her upcoming hearings and gives an insight into prison life. She asks her relatives to send things from the outside, like shampoo, face wash, Tiger Balm, a bed sheet, a new towel, and Michelle Obama's autobiography. She said she has difficulty eating the prison food and asks her relatives for fresh fruit and home cooked meals.
It's clear from the letter Kay Zon Nway is concerned for her family, telling her relatives to use her money for home expenses and for trips to see her when they can. She urgently wants to be updated on her court cases and reassures her family they will see each other soon.
Like all relatives of loved ones locked up since the coup, they just want them to come home.
"I only want her to come back alive," the family member said.
It's a feeling Danny Fenster's parents share.
"It's a total nightmare; it's a total feeling of no control. It's heart-wrenching," his mother Rose Fenster recently said on CNN's "Reliable Sources" in late May.
It has been more than two weeks since Fenster's detention and there still has been no word on his whereabouts or condition. His parents have started a petition to keep pressure on the Biden administration and US State Department to get their son back to the United States.
They, like the parents of thousands of others ensnared in the post-coup crackdown, are terrified for their son, trapped and held at the whim of a military that sees reporting the truth as an existential threat that must be extinguished.
English to Chinese: Uncovering the origins of the virus that sparked a pandemic General field: Science
Source text - English Uncovering the origins of the virus that sparked a pandemic
(CNN) Unlocking the mysteries of the exact origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 and launched a global pandemic in March 2020, has become one of the most burning questions in the scientific community. But the effort, like so many other coronavirus-related issues, has become hotly contested, fraught with implications for international relations and, in the United States at least, laced with conspiracy theories and politically motivated posturing.
Two competing theories have dominated the discussion since the early days of the pandemic, when the world was first made aware of the newly emergent, "novel" coronavirus. The first, and the one that was accepted as the likely story for a long time, is that the virus came from nature, jumping from its natural reservoir in some type of bat, through a still-unknown intermediary animal and into humans (possibly at or near a "wet market" in Wuhan, China), among whom it then spread like wildfire.
The second theory is that it leaked out of a lab in Wuhan, where there are, in fact, laboratories that study and manipulate coronaviruses very similar to SARS-CoV-2. Related to the lab-leak theory are two adjacent questions: If it was accidentally leaked, had it been genetically modified as part of legitimate scientific research? And, could the virus have accidentally leaked out without the Chinese government being aware of it, or was there a cover-up?
Roiling controversy
The lab-leak theory is controversial and politically loaded. The Chinese government vehemently denies any such possibility. In the United States, unsubstantiated claims gave it aspects of a partisan witch hunt early in the pandemic. And some in the international community, including the World Health Organization, have simultaneously tried to address the question and diplomatically tiptoe around the quagmire without offending anyone.
During a world pandemic -- a public health crisis which would eventually lead to more than 3.75 million deaths throughout the world -- the politics became overwhelming. It became so taboo, in fact, that it was difficult to discuss openly, much less evaluate scientifically, without igniting a firestorm, having motives questioned and generating layers of accusations and counter-accusations.
This story would not be complete without mention of two pieces of federal intelligence: a US State Department Fact sheet, published on January 15, 2021, in the last week of the Trump administration, that noted the federal government believed that there were sick researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology before the first clusters of Covid-19 cases were identified; and a classified May 2020 report from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory acknowledging that the lab-leak theory was a possibility.
And there's more: The continued pushback by 14 governments, including the US, on the results of a WHO fact-finding mission to China in early 2021, that found the lab-leak theory is "extremely unlikely" -- pushback because of a lack of transparency by the Chinese government while the WHO's delegation was conducting its research in China. That research was essentially limited to conversations with doctors and workers at the Wuhan lab, with limited access to data and samples, WHO now admits.
The ongoing debate even reached President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who along with his emails has managed to become a target of both Republicans in the US, who accused him of flipflopping on the issue and of being too cozy with Chinese researchers, and the Chinese state media, which accused him of "fanning a huge lie against China."
Weighing the evidence, tipping the scales
Putting aside the international and political backstories, which might be hard to do, where does the science and data leave us?
Dr. David Relman, a microbiologist and professor at Stanford University, weighed the evidence, noting that for both scenarios, natural and lab-leak, it's "all" circumstantial. But, he said, finding the answer can help prevent the next pandemic.
"For the natural spillover hypothesis ... first, nearly all previous outbreaks of emerging infectious agents have arisen through natural means ... so there's history," he said.
"Second ... all of [this virus'] nearest known relatives are bat coronaviruses, so we have to assume that at some point in the past, this virus was in a bat. We just haven't found the bats that currently carry this virus, from which the original encounter may have taken place," Relman continued.
He said the third piece of evidence is that all of the mechanisms that bring together man and bat -- "the wildlife trade, the incredible movement of bats and other natural virus reservoirs from their natural habitats to places where people work and live and shop" -- have been enhanced. "So we're doing many things to increase the likelihood of these natural encounters," he said.
And fourth, there is some environmental evidence that the virus has been found near markets in Wuhan. "The problem with that fourth form of evidence is it's not clear that those telltale signs of virus arose after the outbreak began, or before," he said.
In support of the lab-leak theory, Relman lists four items, too. "The place where all of the nearest coronaviruses are known to exist in nature is about 1,000 miles from the place where the first human cases arose," he said, calling it a "big geographic gap."
"Second, in the place where the disease started, we have some of the world's largest collections of bat samples, and in particular, of bat samples containing these very bat coronaviruses -- the nearest known relatives. They are in Wuhan, in a laboratory. So that's fact number two," he said.
Fact number three is that all laboratories have accidents. "To say that the Wuhan [Institute of Virology] never has had an accident, never could have an accident, is simply defying everything we know about human activities, about humans, and about laboratories," he said.
There have been plenty of documented cases of lab leaks of potentially deadly pathogens, such as smallpox (1978 in the United Kingdom), SARS (2004 in China) and anthrax (2014 in the United States).
And the fourth consideration is what laboratories in Wuhan were working on. "They didn't just have lots of samples of bat coronaviruses, they were working with them in ways that could have created additional risks ... modifying their genomes and creating hybrid viruses. In essence, creating an artificial form of evolution.
Do we know that some of these experiments gave rise to SARS-CoV-2? No. Could they have in theory? Yes," Relman said.
Doing this kind of research on viruses is not unusual or a sign of bad intent, Relman said. "The very questions the Wuhan lab was addressing are the same questions that many scientists around the world have been addressing, which are critically important to understanding the nature of our relationship with these emerging viruses that might cause great harm.
We need to study them," he said, adding that while some experiments are worthwhile, others might be too risky -- and that it's important for the research community to have conversations to determine where that line is.
Relman notes that the Chinese have not acknowledged having worked on viruses that look like SARS-CoV-2. "This is where they claim that that's not the case. So, I think we're just left with some degree of uncertainty about what exactly their experiments were," he said.
Obviously there has been no smoking gun to support or refute either theory, or the issue would be settled.
To confirm the natural spillover theory, Relman said solid, verifiable evidence is needed "of exactly where that first encounter took place. Who were the first patients? ... If they took place at a market, or in some venue in Wuhan, we would have much greater understanding of exactly how the encounter may have taken place. We would have perhaps the source of the virus, the animal, for example, which we presumed that may have been," he said.
It's important to point out that this is exactly the kind of data and sampling which China has yet to provide.
To confirm the lab-leak theory, Relman said, what's needed is "evidence that the encounter took place in a laboratory, perhaps during the course of an experiment where, perhaps, the virus was being cultivated and they didn't realize that they had SARS CoV-2 ... [or] evidence that a sample they never did sequence, but put into culture, in fact had SARS CoV-2, for example," he said, adding that "there are thousands of samples" the lab hasn't carefully sequenced yet.
In either case, determining how SARS-CoV-2 came to infect humans is very important.
"Mother Nature's telling us what's going to happen," Dr. Peter Hotez, director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on May 30. "There's going to be Covid-26 and Covid-32, unless we fully understand the origins of Covid-19, and this is absolutely critical and what's needed." Hotez noted this pandemic is the third major coronavirus mass infection incident of the century, following the SARS and MERS epidemics.
Calls for a closer look
Little by little, there have been increasing calls to look more seriously into the possibility of the lab leak theory.
Back in February, when former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield was interviewed for the CNN special presentation, "Covid War: The Pandemic Doctors Speak Out," he surprised many by saying, "I am of the point of view that I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory -- you know, escaped. Other people don't believe that, that's fine. Science will eventually figure it out."
It was a stunning admission from someone who had had access to intelligence and raw data that many others didn't. Others, like Fauci, maintain it's more likely than not that the virus emerged from a natural spillover event, but now acknowledge more investigation is needed.
Some scientists dismiss the lab leak theory, and Redfield's remarks, altogether.
"That's the way it would be in a movie or some sort of a thriller or a comic book," Dr. Robert Garry of Tulane University, told CNN. Garry, who studies viruses in the field and in the lab, helped write a study published in March of last year that showed the virus arose naturally. Garry and his co-authors also found no evidence that the virus was altered or manipulated. "There's just a lot of things about it that look perfectly natural," Garry said.
The missing link
Relman and 17 other scientists penned a letter, published in mid-May in the journal Science, writing, "[M]ore investigation is still needed to determine the origin of the pandemic. Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable. Knowing how COVID-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks."
They may get their wish. WHO Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan said on CNN last week that the agency will continue its investigation into the virus' origin beyond its first fact-finding mission.
"This was only phase one," she said. "From the very beginning, everyone knew that you are not going to get to the origins in that limited period of time. So there's a scope of work, of phase two and potentially future phases of work, that need to be done looking at all the options that were on the table."
And at the end of May, President Biden said he had ordered US intelligence agencies to report in 90 days on the virus' origins.
Finding the virus' immediate ancestors would go a long way to shedding light on where the virus came from. "We can't say that we have the immediate ancestors of this virus. We don't. And that's really the heart of the problem here. If we had the true parents -- the direct, immediate ancestors of this virus -- and we knew where they had first arisen, we would have the answer to where exactly this virus did its final evolution -- in nature or in a laboratory," Relman said.
According to WHO, another virus found in bats, known as RaTG13, is the closest we've come. That's the virus that was found in bats living in a cave about 1,000 miles from Wuhan. RaTG13's genome is 96% similar to that of SARS-CoV-2. But, while 96% sounds close, evolutionarily speaking, it is not.
"It's not close enough to say it's the exact virus that gave rise to this one, in a simple evolutionary step," Relman said. "That kind of gap, 4%, means years -- means decades -- in terms of natural evolutionary time, and the natural speed of evolution."
In fact, he said, if we were talking about 96% genome similar to humans, "we would be talking about a small, very simple life form that looks nothing like humans. So, 96% is actually quite a bit of distance."
While science and detective work can help figure it out, history has shown it's far from easy tracing a small strand of genetic material on a massive planet. It took 15 years of investigation in dense forests and dark caves to trace the first SARS outbreak to horseshoe bats. And despite the best efforts, it's been 44 years since the first cases of Ebola, but as Fauci pointed out, "We haven't yet nailed that down."
Says Relman: "We need to all accept the possibility that we may never arrive at a definite answer about where the virus and the disease first arose." But, he said after his letter, "My impression is that there's a growing willingness to both look at this question in a dispassionate objective way, but also to accept that there truly are multiple possibilities here."
English to Chinese: The River Nile's greatest attractions from Aswan to Luxor General field: Other Detailed field: History
Source text - English The River Nile's greatest attractions from Aswan to Luxor
(CNN) — The River Nile stretches more than 4,000 miles (6,650 km) between Lake Victoria and the Mediterranean Sea. Out of all that length, is the relatively short section between Aswan and Luxor in southern Egypt is the most intriguing.
What makes this part of the river so special? First and foremost, the ancient treasures scattered along its banks. Some of largest, most elaborate and intriguing structures built in ancient times: The Temple of Karnak, the Valley of the Kings, the crocodile temple at Kom Ombo and water-bound Philae Island.
The scenery is also incredible, the most stunning along the entire Nile. A mosaic of sapphire-colored river, emerald-green farms and palm groves, and amber desert with a sky that turns ruby red at dusk as the sun sinks over the seemingly endless Sahara.
A fraction of Cairo's size and population, Aswan and Luxor are both easy to navigate, compact tourist-friendly cities with a wide choice of hotels, restaurants, and activities. Daytime temperatures run triple-digits throughout the sweltering summer months, but the other three seasons bring on weather that's often ideal for river trips and ruin trekking.
Most visitors make the 130-mile (214-kilometer) journey between the two cities on modern floating hotels operated by upscale hospitality companies like Oberoi. Cruises normally span three days and two nights, and some of them are quite posh, featuring gourmet cuisine, onboard spas and top-deck swimming pools.
Or step back in time by cruising the river aboard a luxury dahabiya, an updated version of the large sail-powered craft popular with foreign travelers and the Egyptian aristocracy during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Normally outfitted with six to 10 cabins, dahabiyas come with all the mod-cons including private en-suite bathrooms with showers, outdoor dining and lounge areas, and a full kitchen staff. The boats can be booked through local tour companies like Cairo-based Emeco Travel.
Both the floating hotels and dahabiyas offer shore excursions along the river between Aswan and Luxor to the ancient Egyptian temples in Kom Ombo, Esna and Edfu.
It's also possible to drive this stretch of the Nile. There are three road routes: Egypt Highway 75 along the east (right) bank of the Nile; the Aswan Western Agricultural Highway along the west (left) bank; and the new Luxor-Aswan Expressway via the Sahara Desert.
While travelers can certainly self-drive these routes, it's highly advised they hire an experienced chauffeur to undertake the driving and often-mysterious parking situation near the main sights. Last but not least, the more intrepid travelers -- especially those who want a very authentic local experience -- can hire a felucca sailboat to cruise down the Nile.
It's anything but luxurious: passengers sleep on the deck, in the open air, in sleeping bags they need to supply themselves. You need to bring your own food or arrange with the felucca crew to cook for you. And toilets are wherever you can find them along the banks.
But you're traveling the Nile in the manner that Egyptians have for thousands of years, stretching all the way back to pharaonic times. Read on for the lowdown on the main sights to visit on the journey down the Nile between Aswan and Luxor.
Aswan
This pleasant riverside city has functioned as Egypt's southern gateway since it was founded around 2000 BCE. Islands in the Nile offer waterfront restaurants, ancient temples, and a botanic garden founded in British colonial times.
Aswan High Dam
Completed in 1970, this marvel of modern engineering created massive Lake Nasser and allowed Egyptian farmers to water their fields throughout the year and provided the entire nation with reliable electric power.
Philae Temple
This gorgeous Greco-Egyptian shrine to the goddess Isis is easily reached by boat from Aswan. It was dismantled and moved to its current island location as part of the massive UNESCO project to save Nubia's ancient monuments from the rising waters of Lake Nasser.
Abu Simbel
lthough it's not along the Nile between Aswan and Luxor, this stunning temple is often visited as a long day trip from Aswan by airplane or road. Constructed around 1260 BC, the shrine is fronted by four massive statues of Ramses the Great and was also rescued from Lake Nasser by the UNESCO project.
Old Cataract Hotel
Opened in 1899, this legendary hotel on the Aswan waterfront has hosted kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers, and author Agatha Christie while she was writing "Death on the Nile." Even if you don't stay overnight, indulge in afternoon tea on the outdoor terrace, grab a cocktail in the bar where Winston Churchill once quaffed, or dine on tasty Egyptian cuisine at Saraya restaurant.
Nubian Museum
Winner of several major architectural awards, Aswan's top museum revolves around the Nubian history and culture of southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Exhibits span the region's prehistory and ancient Egyptian legacy to Greek, Roman and Islamic times.
Kom Ombo
Rising dramatically beside the Nile around 30 miles (50 kilometers) downstream from Aswan, the Temple of Kom Ombo honors Sobek, the crocodile-headed god of ancient Egyptian mythology. The site museum features hundreds of mummified crocodiles discovered in the temple precinct.
Edfu Temple
One of best-preserved temples from pharaonic times, the Temple of Horus in the middle of Edfu town is where the ancients worshiped the falcon-headed god of the sky. Over the centuries, the temple and its giant pylons were nearly covered by sand from the nearby desert and silt from the annual flooding of the Nile, enabling it to be preserved in such a pristine state.
Esna Temple
The ram-headed god Khnum -- known as the "Divine Potter" because he created other Egyptian deities from clay -- is the focus of this small but fascinating shrine in Esna town. Most of the temple was constructed during Greek and Roman times, when those who occupied the Nile Valley continued to worship its ancient gods.
Luxor
Around 40 miles (70 km) downstream from Esna, Luxor served as the capital of ancient Egypt at the height of its military, political and artistic prowess between 3,000 and 3,500 years ago. Although the laidback riverside city has its own attractions -- like the evening illumination of the waterfront Temple of Luxor, the modern (and excellent) Luxor Museum, and the small but fascinating Museum of Mummification -- the city is primarily known as a jumping off point for nearby landmarks.
Temple of Karnak
Perched on the north side of town, the massive Temple of Karnak is both a masterpiece of ancient Egyptian architecture and one of the largest temples ever constructed anywhere on the planet. It begs two visits: once by daylight to appreciate the engineering and artistry of the Great Hypostyle Hall and again after dark when the ruins come alive during a sound and light show.
West Bank
Ferries connect modern Luxor with the West Bank, a mosaic of farm fields, fellaheen villages, and the flamboyant funeral shrines of famous pharaohs including queen Hatshepsut, Ramses the Great, and Ramses III. The riverside floodplain is also spangled with giant statues like the Colossi of Memnon and a toppled statue of Ramses the Great that inspired the Percy Bysshe Shelley's epic Ozymandias.
Valley of the Kings
The tomb of more than 60 pharaohs have been uncovered in this desert wadi beyond the West Bank. Among the more elaborate last resting places are those of Tutankhamun, Tuthmosis III and Ramses VI. Less than 20 of the tombs are open to the public but not all at the same time to minimize the long-term impact of tourism.
English to Chinese: Uyghurs are being deported from Muslim countries, raising concerns about China's growing reach
Source text - English Uyghurs are being deported from Muslim countries, raising concerns about China's growing reach
Istanbul, Turkey (CNN)Amannisa Abdullah and her husband, Ahmad Talip, were on their way to shop for baby clothes in Dubai, when the message that changed both their lives came through. Ahmad read it and announced an abrupt change of plan: He had to report to a police station immediately.
Ahmad dropped Amannisa off at a friend's house that day in February 2018, promising to pick her up later. He never came back.
In their Dubai apartment, a sleepless Amannisa prayed and cried through the night, watching the hours pass as her repeated calls to Ahmad went unanswered.
The next morning, the heavily pregnant 29-year-old shuffled out of the door, hugging her 5-year-old son close. They hailed a taxi to the police station where she tried to explain her predicament to a police officer.
As she spoke, her little boy tugged at her hand. Quietly, he pointed towards a jail cell where Ahmad was sitting.
For 13 days, Amannisa shuttled back and forth between her home and the jail, pleading with law enforcement officials to release Ahmad.
With each visit, her husband looked more dejected. He told her he was convinced that the long reach of China had reached his Uyghur family in the United Arab Emirates.
"It's not safe here. You must take our boy and [go] to Turkey," he told Amannisa in their last conversation. "If our new baby is a girl, please name her Amina. If he's a boy, name him Abdullah."
A week later, Ahmad was sent to the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi. Five days later, Amannisa said, Abu Dhabi authorities told her that he had been extradited to China.
Their daughter, Amina, was born a month later in Turkey. She has never met her father.
Amannisa's testimony is one of more than a dozen accounts collected by CNN, detailing the alleged detention and deportation of Uyghurs at China's request in three major Arab countries: Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
CNN has repeatedly reached out to Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia for comment on the extraditions and has not received a response. China's government has also not responded to CNN's request for comment.
In Egypt, rights groups have documented hundreds of detentions -- and at least 20 deportations -- of Uyghurs In 2017, the majority of them students at the prestigious Islamic university of Al-Azhar.
In Saudi Arabia between 2018 and 2020, at least one Uyghur Muslim was allegedly detained and deported after performing the Umrah pilgrimage in Islam's holiest cities. Another was arrested after a pilgrimage and faces deportation.
Reports of Uyghur disappearances have unnerved the largely Muslim global diaspora from China's Xinjiang region.
The families of the deported fear their loved ones have ended up among the estimated 2 million Uyghurs who have been sent to internment camps in Xinjiang in recent years.
As Beijing's global influence expands, rights activists fear that even as Western nations take China to task over its treatment of Uyghurs, countries in the Middle East and beyond will increasingly be willing to acquiesce to its crackdown on members of the ethnic group at home and abroad.
A Human Rights Watch report released in April said China had tracked down hundreds of Uyghurs across the globe, forcing them to return and face persecution. In many cases "it is impossible to find out what has happened" to them, the report said.
For some Uyghurs, the extraditions from Muslim countries will be especially galling, shattering notions of Islamic solidarity and deepening feelings of isolation on a world stage where China's power has grown rapidly.
CNN has seen a document issued by Dubai's public prosecutor on February 20, 2018 -- eight days after Ahmad Talip was taken into custody -- confirming a Chinese extradition request for him, listed in the paperwork under his Chinese name, Aihemaiti Talifu.
The document says that Dubai authorities initially decided to release Ahmad due to insufficient proof that he should be extradited. The Dubai prosecutor's office instructed police "to stop searching the above-mentioned person and lift all the restrictions on him, unless he is wanted for another reason."
But on February 25, 2018, Amannisa was told that Ahmad had been deported. Authorities in the UAE never explained what her husband was accused of. Three years on, she still has no answers.
"If my husband [has committed] any crime, why they don't tell me? Why China don't tell me?" she asked CNN.
"I don't know if my husband is still alive or not," she said. "I have no ... news about him from China, from UAE. Both [are] silent. They are silent, completely silence."
"Why you don't obey your own court paper? You say you are Muslim country. And I never believed that since this happened, I never believe you."
Dubai authorities and the UAE's Foreign Ministry have not responded to CNN's repeated requests for comment on Ahmad's case.
Deportations from Muslim-majority countries
Xinjiang is among China's most ethnically diverse regions, home to a variety of predominantly Muslim ethnic groups; the Uyghurs, who have their own distinct culture and language, are the largest of these.
Many Uyghurs have long felt marginalized in their homeland. Inter-ethnic tensions have been stoked by grievances linked to allegations of unfair economic policies and government-backed restrictions on religious behavior, halal food and Islamic dress.
In recent years, under President Xi Jinping, Beijing's policy towards the region's minority groups has hardened noticeably, prompting many to head overseas.
Since 2016, evidence has emerged that the Chinese government has been operating huge, fortified centers to detain Uyghur citizens in Xinjiang. As many as two million people may have been taken to the camps, according to the US State Department.
Former detainees and activists call these "concentration camps" — places where inmates are subjected to intense indoctrination intended to de-Islamize them, forced to learn Mandarin, and instructed in Communist Party propaganda.
China vehemently denies allegations of human rights abuses, insisting that the Xinjiang camps are voluntary "vocational training centers," designed to stamp out religious extremism and terrorism.
But testimonies collected by CNN from former detainees describe incidents of forced labor, torture, sexual abuse and even the deaths of fellow detainees.
The US State Department has accused Beijing of "genocide" against the Uyghurs.
In addition to cultural assimilation, human rights groups and overseas Uyghur activists have also alleged that the Chinese government coerced Uyghurs to submit to birth control and enforced sterilization.
Over the years, Uyghurs abroad have spoken out about relatives who have disappeared in Xinjiang. Families have been ripped apart, and many children are growing up as orphans, with no contact from their parents back home.
Abduweli Ayup, a Uyghur activist based in Oslo, says he has documented and confirmed at least 28 Uyghur deportations from three Muslim-majority countries between 2017 and 2019: 21 from Egypt, five from Saudi Arabia, and two, including Ahmad, from the UAE, according to Ayup.
But he fears this may be only the tip of the iceberg. Too often, he says, family members fear going public about deportations in case it jeopardizes the safety of loved ones who have disappeared, as well as other family members in Xinjiang.
In the Middle East, China has adeptly navigated the region's hodgepodge of political fault lines, its friendships across the region transcending political divides.
China has increasingly robust relations with both Saudi Arabia and its regional arch-nemesis Iran.
Middle Eastern countries in financial dire straits, such as Lebanon, may find any overtures from China difficult to resist. Similarly, oil-rich Gulf Arab countries facing a pandemic-induced economic slump also view China as a possible financial lifeboat.
In a 2019 open letter, more than a dozen Muslim-majority countries — including the UAE, Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia — publicly endorsed China's policies in Xinjiang. They were among 37 signatories responding to Western criticism of China at the UN Human Rights Council.
Following a visit to Xinjiang in 2020, the UAE's ambassador to Beijing publicly praised China's policies in the province. In a sit-down interview with Chinese state media this February, Ali al-Dhaheri said what "impressed" him the most during the visit was "the positive plan and vision for Xinjiang -- China wants the region to play an active part in the Chinese economy, provide stability, raise living standards and improve the lives of the region's people."
For Maya Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, the alleged treatment of Uyghurs by the autocratic governments of the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt is not surprising -- despite those countries being signatories to the UN's Convention Against Torture.
"A lot of these governments don't care about human rights," she told CNN. "They are unelected governments that persecute their citizens in their countries. There is no real rule of law and democracy when it comes to deportations of Uyghurs."
Disappearances in Egypt
Maryam Muhammad, 29, has been keeping a dark secret from her two sons. To shield them from the cruel reality they were born into, she tells them their father, Muhtar Rozi, is on a long overseas work trip. He has been gone for almost four years.
But Salaheddiin and Alaeddin rarely ask about him. They were only 18 months old and 5 months old when he disappeared.
Maryam last heard from her husband on July 16, 2017, when he sent her a message saying he had been detained.
Rozi was among dozens of Uyghurs rounded up by Egyptian security services -- believed to have been acting at the behest of the Chinese government -- in a dramatic sweep documented by human rights groups.
According to Human Rights Watch, at least 62 Uyghurs were arrested in a series of July 2017 raids at restaurants and supermarkets popular with the ethnic group, as well as at their homes. Many of those detained were students at Al-Azhar University.
Maryam is stoic. Recounting her story, she sticks to the facts, leaving out the emotional impact on her family. But she chokes up when she remembers her husband's last words to her: "He said: 'You are my precious. I love you so much.'"
"I'm tired of trying to be strong," she says, wiping away the tears. "I know I must try to be strong because of my children, because of my husband."
China and Egypt have never officially acknowledged the alleged deportations, which occurred less than a year after the two countries signed a security cooperation agreement -- and less than three weeks after the Egyptian Interior Ministry and China's Ministry of Public Security signed a "technical cooperation document."
Neither government has responded to CNN's request for comment on the events of 2017.
Earlier that year, China had demanded that all Uyghur students studying abroad return home, according to Human Rights Watch.
Maryam says the family had all the required documentation to prove their legal status in Egypt: "We have passports. We have [Egyptian] residency cards and we also have permission of the Chinese Embassy in Egypt to enter the school," she told CNN. "So, we did not worry much about this."
She showed CNN documents confirming her family's legal status and a marriage certificate issued by the Chinese Embassy in Cairo.
As news of the raids began to spread in early July 2017, the family went into hiding, drawing up plans to flee the country. Maryam and the boys would fly to Istanbul, but since they believed Muhtar was more likely to be arrested, he would take a ferry to Jordan, hoping to escape state surveillance.
But in his last message to his wife, Muhtar told her he had been detained at Egypt's Nuwaiba port.
She searched frantically for him — even risking a flight back to Egypt and hiring a lawyer. But the police told her they had no record of him.
"It's like my husband became air," she says.
Disappearance from pilgrimage
A small group of Uyghurs stand silently in the snow outside Istanbul's Saudi consulate, infamous as the site of the October 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Nuriman Veli leads the group, her glasses fogging up from the cold. Hands trembling, she holds up a placard with a message to Saudi Arabia: "Don't deport my father to China, send him to Turkey where he is a resident."
Her father, Hamdullah Abduweli, was detained in the kingdom while on pilgrimage to Islam's holy cities, Mecca and Medina. He has not yet been deported, and Nuriman and her sister are in a race against time, desperate not to lose another parent.
More than four years ago, they lost contact with their mother in Xinjiang. "If we lose our father, it will destroy us," she said.
The pandemic prompted Saudi Arabia to close its airports just as Hamdullah was performing his pilgrimage, leaving him stranded in Saudi Arabia.
In October, he told family members he suspected he was being trailed by "Chinese agents." A month later, Hamdullah and his Uyghur roommate were detained by Saudi authorities. Despite calls for their release by Human Rights Watch and others, the two have not been heard from since.
Hamdullah is at least the second Uyghur reported to have been detained during a Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.
In July 2018, Osman Ahmed was also allegedly arrested by Saudi authorities during a visit to the holy sites. After three months spent trying to locate Osman Ahmed, his family in Turkey was told by an elderly relative in Saudi Arabia that she had received word about Osman's whereabouts from Saudi authorities.
"They told her: 'We sent him back to wherever he is from,'" Osman Ahmad's daughter Ilminur Osman told CNN.
The family has not been able to confirm Osman's fate, but they say they have heard from people in Xinjiang that he was spotted in one of the region's internment camps.
CNN reached out to the Saudi government for comment on both cases but did not receive a response.
"Shame on Saudi Arabia. If they don't want Uyghurs to come to perform pilgrimage just say: 'We do not want you here,'" activist Ayub told CNN. "Do not do this when people [come] to perform pilgrimage."
It was only after her father's detention that Nuriman found out other Uyghurs had been arrested in Saudi Arabia and forcibly returned to China. "If I knew, I would have told him not to go," Nuriman says.
Activists say the situation is a damning indictment of the Muslim world's leadership.
"These countries pride themselves for being leaders of the Islamic world, but they don't bat an eyelid when returning people for persecution for being Muslim," says Wang. "It is quite outrageous and I think it's hypocritical, but that illustrates the geopolitical reality."
Growing Sino-Turk relations
Even in Muslim countries that have traditionally been seen as places of safety for Uyghur Muslims, the sand is shifting.
Over the last decade, thousands of Uyghurs have settled in Turkey, with Uyghur neighborhoods and schools cropping up in the country's major cities.
In addition to sharing a religion with the majority of Turkey's population, Uyghurs — a Turkic ethnic group — also speak a similar language.
But in recent years, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- who once championed Uyghur rights — has toned down his criticism of China's Xinjiang policy, in an apparent bid to boost relations with Beijing.
An extradition treaty between the two countries, ratified late last year by China and now awaiting approval by Turkey's Parliament, is exacerbating fears. Turkish officials have sought to reassure Uyghurs, as well as the Turkish public, that they will not extradite Uyghurs back to China.
"It is not right to interpret this as Turkey will hand over Uyghur Turks to China," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said last December, adding that Beijing had made requests in the past, but that Turkey had not complied.
But at least four Uyghurs, including a mother and her two children, were deported by Turkey to Tajikistan last year, according to activist Abduweli Ayup.
He says multiple testimonies suggest they eventually ended up in China.
Last September, Turkey's Directorate General of Migration Management denied that Turkey had extradited Uyghurs to China. "We have not directly, or through third countries, deported any Uyghur Turks to China and Turkey does not and will not ever have such a policy," the directorate said in a written statement.
But official statements like these do little to assuage Uyghurs' concerns.
A small Istanbul apartment is the only home Amannisa's 3-year-old daughter Amina has ever known. As she follows developments in Turkey, Amannisa fears the world is closing in on her and her children.
A few weeks after she arrived in Istanbul, she trekked across the city, asking passers-by for directions to the sea. She told them she wanted to take her children to enjoy the view, but says her real intentions reveal the depths of her despair.
"What I want to do is I want to go inside ... with my child ... because I don't know how to swim," says Amannisa. "I have no right to live [in] this world. Maybe this world is not big enough to let me live like other people."
Translation - Chinese 維吾爾族正被穆斯林國家驅逐出境，引發對中國日益擴大的影響的擔憂
English to Chinese: Makeup may contain potentially toxic chemicals called PFAS, study finds
Source text - English Makeup may contain potentially toxic chemicals called PFAS, study finds
(CNN)The "No PFAS in Cosmetics Act" was introduced in the US House and Senate on Tuesday, following the release of a new study that found high levels of a marker for toxic PFAS substances in 52% of 231 makeup products purchased in the United States and Canada.
Some of the highest levels were found in foundations (63%), waterproof mascara (82%) and long-lasting lipstick (62%), according to the study published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters.
In addition, the study found some 88% of the tested products failed to disclose on their labels any ingredients that would explain those chemical markers, even though that is a requirement of the US Food and Drug Administration.
"It's a little shocking and hopefully a wake-up call for the cosmetics industry in terms of how widespread the PFAS contamination is across types of makeup products," said David Andrews, a senior scientist for the Environmental Working Group, or EWG, a consumer organization that maintains a database on personal care products which contain toxins.
"The most common PFAS is polytetrafluoroethylene, the ingredient most commonly known as Teflon, or the coating on pans. But alll in all, we have identified 13 different PFAS chemicals in more than 600 products from 80 brands," said Andrews, who was not involved in the study.
The bill was introduced in the US Senate on Tuesday by Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and in the House by Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan.
"Americans should be able to trust that the products they are applying to their hair or skin are safe. To help protect people from further exposure to PFAS, our bill would require the FDA to ban the addition of PFAS to cosmetics products," said Collins in a statement.
"Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of man-made chemicals, which includes PFOA, PFOS, and GenX. These chemicals can bioaccumulate in bodies over time and have been linked to cancer, thyroid disease, liver damage, decreased fertility, and hormone disruption," the statement said.
In an email to CNN Health, Dingell said, "These chemicals are in products that we use every single day and most people don't even know the danger they face daily."
The proposed act would direct the FDA to issue a proposed rule banning the intentional addition of PFAS in cosmetics within 270 days of enactment, with a final rule to be issued 90 days thereafter.
Lack of disclosure
The new study used a marker for PFAS -- the chemical fluorine, which is different than the inorganic fluorine added to drinking water -- to identify the presence of PFAS chemicals in the 231 products they purchased from retail stores in the United States and Canada.
"We found fluorine as a surrogate for PFAS was in all sorts of cosmetics. We didn't expect almost every cosmetic to light up like it did," said study author Graham Peaslee, a professor of physics, chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame.
The study found that more than three-quarters of waterproof mascara, nearly two-thirds of foundations and liquid lipsticks and more than half of eye and lip products had high fluorine concentrations.
In addition, samples from 29 of the products with the highest levels of fluorine were sent to an outside lab for an in-depth analysis that could identify 53 specific PFAS chemicals. The analysis found each of those 29 products contained at least four PFAS chemicals of concern.
However, the most disturbing finding, Peaslee said, is that 28 of the 29 products in which specific PFAS chemicals were found did not disclose those chemicals on the label.
"Some of it could be unintentional, due to manufacturing issues, but there are several products where the levels are so large, they had to be intentionally added for something like durability or water resistance, because that's what PFAS do very well," Peaslee said.
"Although I've often counseled my patients to avoid products with "perfluor" or "polyfluor" on the ingredient list, this new study concerns me because many of the products contaminated with these compounds did not even list these compounds on the ingredient list," said Dr. Whitney Bowe, a clinical assistant professor of dermatology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center, who was not involved with the study.
"Moreover, the types of products that tested positive for high levels of fluorine -- and thus likely to contain PFAS -- are often used close to and around the eyes and lips," Bowe said.
That's a danger because PFAS chemicals may be more readily absorbed by the "thin, delicate mucous membranes" that are close to the eyes tear ducts, she said. In addition, women often "lick their lips and unknowingly ingest the ingredients in their lipstick, which is yet another route of exposure," Bowe said.
In response, the Personal Care Products Council, a trade association whose 600 members "represent more than 90% of the U.S. beauty industry," said "we are waiting for internal scientific review" before commenting.
CNN also reached out to the Cosmetics Alliance Canada but did not hear back before publication.
What are PFAS?
PFAS chemicals are made up of a chain of linked carbon and fluorine atoms, which do not degrade in the environment.
"In fact, scientists are unable to estimate an environmental half-life for PFAS, which is the amount of time it takes 50% of the chemical to disappear," according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
PFAS chemicals are used in all sorts of products: Nonstick cookware, infection-resistant surgical gowns and drapes, cell phones, semi-conductors, commercial aircraft and low-emissions vehicles.
The chemicals are also used to make carpeting, clothing, furniture and food packaging resistant to stains, water and grease damage. Foods that contain a lot of grease -- such as burgers, fries and cookies -- are prime candidates for wrappers made with PFAS.
While two of the most ubiquitous PFAS -- the 8-carbon chain perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) -- were removed from consumer products in the United States in the early 2000s, the industry has created many new versions. More than 4,700 types of PFAS existed in 2018, a number that rises as industry invents new forms.
Newer PFAS chemicals are made with 4- or 6-carbon chains but appear to have many of the dangerous health effects as the older versions, leaving consumers and the environment still at risk, experts say.
"They went to the shorter chain carbons, and you study them, and they do just about the same thing," microbiologist Linda Birnbaum, the former director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program, in a prior CNN interview.
"Some people call it the 'Whack-a-Mole' problem; others call it the chemical conveyor belt," Birnbaum said. "We don't really require adequate safety testing before things are put on the market."
Called "forever" chemicals because they do not degrade in the environment, PFAS are so widespread that levels have been detected in the blood of 97% of Americans, according to a 2015 report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
PFAS in cosmetics
The fact that PFAS chemicals are added to cosmetics is not new.
The FDA says they are "intentionally added" to products such as "lotions, cleansers, nail polish, shaving cream, foundation, lipstick, eyeliner, eyeshadow, and mascara" to condition, smooth or make skin appear shiny or to "affect product consistency and texture."
Common names for PFAS include "PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene), perfluorooctyl triethoxysilane, perfluorononyl dimethicone, perfluorodecalin, and perfluorohexane," the FDA said.By law, all ingredients are supposed to listed on the product label, in descending order of magnitude. However, the FDA said, some of these chemicals "may also be present in cosmetics unintentionally as the result of raw material impurities or due to the breakdown of PFAS ingredients that form other types of PFAS."
How much PFAS can be absorbed via the skin? That's a question that needs to be resolved with future studies, the FDA says.
What to do?
If you are concerned about PFAS chemicals in the makeup you wear, you could start by avoiding using any waterproof or long-lasting products. Much of the makeup with the highest levels of PFAS markers were labeled as "wear-resistant" or "long-lasting," the study said.
"Although it's desirable to have mascara or lipstick or foundation that lasts a little longer, I believe most consumers would rather opt for safe products that might not have the same staying power," Bowe said. "They do present a legitimate public safety concern."
Shopping for organic or "natural" makeup product doesn't always help either, experts say.
"Although many consumers assume that a product labeled 'natural' is inherently safer for the skin, that's not actually the case," Bowe said. "I've seen many brands use the word "natural" on their labels and in their marketing, yet they contain ingredients that are considered controversial in terms of safety for humans and the environment.
"I encourage my patients to shop brands that are transparent about their supply chain and take efforts to ensure that ingredients and packaging are being sourced from safe, reliable sources in a sustainable and ethical way," Bowe said.
Although it won't capture products in which PFAS chemicals are not disclosed on labels, consumers can use the Skin Deep database on EWG's site to look up specific products, Andrews said. EWG has also created a page for each of the 13 chemicals they have seen listed on labels:
• PTFE (Teflon)
• Perfluorononyl Dimethicone
• Perfluorodecalin
• C9-15 Fluoroalcohol Phosphate
• Octafluoropentyl Methacrylate
• Perfluorohexane
• Pentafluoropropane
• Polyperfluoroethoxymethoxy Difluoroethyl Peg Phosphate
• Polyperfluoroethoxymethoxy Peg-2 Phosphate
• Methyl Perfluorobutyl Ether
• Perfluorononylethyl Carboxydecyl Peg-10 Dimethicone
• Perfluorodimethylcyclohexane
• Perfluoroperhydrophenanthrene
Some retailers are taking action
Some retailers, including Walmart, Target, Rite Aid, CVS, Walgreens and Amazon, have said they are now looking for toxic chemicals in beauty products, including those marketed to women of color, including skin lightening creams, hair straighteners and relaxers, according to the 2021 Who's Minding the Store? A Report Card on Retailer Actions to Eliminate Toxic Chemicals.
The report is a collaboration of nonprofit partner organizations, including the environmental advocacy groups Toxic-Free Future, WE ACT for Environmental Justice and Defend Our Health.
"Restrictions on cosmetics sold by Target, Rite Aid, CVS, Walgreens and Amazon primarily apply to their private brand beauty products," said report coauthor and Mind the Store campaign director Mike Schade.
The World Health Organization has called out the dangers of mercury in skin lightening creams, while studies have found endocrine-disrupting chemicals in hair relaxers and other products marketed to women of color. Women of color typically use more beauty products than other races, including skin lightening creams, hair straighteners and relaxers.
Formaldehyde is released into the air as a gas when some hair solutions are applied and then processed with heat, according to the US Food and Drug Administration.
"Research shows that women of color have higher levels of toxic chemicals related to beauty products in their bodies, and this is linked to higher incidences of cancer, poor infant and maternal health outcomes, learning disabilities, obesity, asthma, and other serious health concerns," said Taylor Morton, director of environmental health and education at WE ACT for Environmental Justice, when the report was released.
"Availability of safe and affordable consumer products marketed to Black women is an environmental justice issue," said Mount Sinai pediatrician Dr. Maida Galvez, the founding director of the New York State Children's Environmental Health Center, in a statement at the time.
Some of the greatest gains by companies evaluated by the report card were in the beauty and personal care sector. The report named Ulta Beauty as the most improved retailer -- rising from an F result in 2019 to a C grade today. Sephora showed the greatest improvement over time, the report card found, moving from a D in 2017 to an A today.
報告卡評估的公司的一些最大收益是在美容和個人護理領域。該報告將 Ulta Beauty 評為進步最快的零售商——從 2019 年的 F 級 結果上升到今天的 C 級。報告卡發現，絲芙蘭隨著時間的推移表現出最大的進步，從 2017 年的 D 級變為今天的 A 級。
English to Chinese: 50 reasons why Shanghai is the world's greatest city
Source text - English 50 reasons why Shanghai is the world's greatest city
(CNN) — The hardest thing about listing 50 reasons why Shanghai is the greatest city in the world is trimming it down. After a lot of sieving, here's what we're left with:
1. Direct to your door
Everything delivers in Shanghai, and we're not just talking Chinese food. Even the woman pushing around the metal cart full of fresh flowers will give you her cell phone number. Airline tickets ... groceries ... that heavy potted plant you bought at the market -- all of it can magically appear at your door, often much faster than expected.
2. Muslim noodle shops
We love the way the waiters create noodles right in front of you at Shanghai's local Muslim soup joints. As soon as you order a bowl of the savory la mian, the magical process begins. The dough starts in a thick ball, which is stretched, twisted and wrung out by hand, effortlessly resulting in perfectly thin, fresh noodles. Where else can you get a live performance and a delicious bowl of noodle soup for less than $5?
3. Wallet-friendly grooming
Having a blah hair day? In Shanghai, there's no need for a pricey cut. For around $5, you can stop into any one of the city's many local salons and get a hair wash. The relaxing scalp (and shoulder, if you're lucky) massage is worth the price tag alone, but you'll also end up with shiny tresses straight out of a fashion mag. The best part: most salons are open until midnight.
4. Anything and everything is possible
Shanghai's energy is what makes it one of the greatest cities around -- it's the American Dream "a la Chinoise" where everything and anything is still possible, according to Jonathan L. Hasson, co-director, Luxury Concierge China.
5. Convenience store ladies
There's nothing like stopping by the local convenience store for a late-night ice cream (or one last bottle of Qingdao) and a hard time from the shopkeepers.
As they lounge back on their stools, perhaps puffing a cigarette, they'll entertain themselves at your expense. Where did you go tonight? Was it expensive? You look like a nun in that outfit!
The women behind the counters are like your mom, but funnier. If they're having a good night, they'll even sprinkle some broken English in -- which sends them into contagious gales of laughter.
6. Community karaoke
Chinese parks are known for having everything, from backward power walkers to kite-flying grandpas. But Fuxing Park takes park-side entertainment to a new level. A group of retired folks frequently gathers in the park for mid-afternoon karaoke, belting out Chinese tunes on a microphone as they scan a laptop for the lyrics. If they see an interested audience, they'll even swish their hips a bit to enliven the performance.
7. People's Square marriage market
This unusual event that takes place on Saturdays at People's Square is jam-packed with parents who have children of marrying age. Their mission: to match-make their unwed offspring. They show off their child's best attributes by writing their details on a placard or piece of paper (a bit like a resume), and pegging it to a branch. It lists their height, weight, interests, education and may include a photo.
"I've got a boy, what do you have?" says a woman.
"I've got a girl," says a man.
"Perfect," the woman says and the match is done.
The next step is to get their children to meet on a blind date in the hope they'll hear wedding bells.
8. Myriad Mao memorabilia
Mao's iconic figure has inspired many odd gifts, from old pocket watches with the Chairman's face behind the hands and porcelain collectible figurines to cigarette tins, lighters and T-shirts. The best place to find 'em? Dongtai Lu "Antique" Market. Although anything with dust here is called an antique, if you're looking for Mao memorabilia this street can't be beat.
9. The town that's tailored to you
Get your favorite, suit, dress, jeans -- hell, even your best gown copied here. The tailors at the South Bund Fabric Market (aka The Fabric Market) will make anything you can dream up for a fraction of the designer price. We recommend stall 174 for leather goods, stall 377 for linen goods and stall 282 for a good cashmere winter jacket.
10. Brunch is a way of life
At the Wolong Panda Reserve near Chengdu, visitors either disdain the critters' sloth or enviously wish that they too could loll around eating and drinking the day away. The latter can live out their fantasies at the human panda reserve that is Mr & Mrs Bund where the French Toast is like a creme brulee in the form of bread.
11. In fact, decadent brunch is a way of life
There are several iconic Shanghai experiences, and Brunch at The Stage in the Westin Hotel is one of them. This gluttonous affair offers a two-floor culinary experience with live music and almost any dish imaginable from foie gras to fresh seafood, soup, teppanyaki and traditional Chinese delicacies -- all accompanied by Champagne, shots of iced Van Gogh vodka and free-flowing wine. Go ahead and overfill your plate, then go back for more -- at this brunch, that's the point.
12. Fabulous cabaret
After a night at the cabaret? The Pearl in Shanghai is a must-visit -- it is a historic theater turned nightlife hotspot.
13. Ballroom dancing doesn't need a ballroom
Early in the morning and during weekends all over Shanghai, the city shows off its community spirit. Pensioners gather with a boom box in squares and parks city-wide. Not to battle it out to hip-hop beats, but to gracefully move and turn, ballroom-style. Anyone can get involved and many people just go to watch -- and still get pulled in for a dance.
14. Haibao
The mascot for the Shanghai World Expo 2010, this Gumby-esque figure achieved cult-like status and is still very much in evidence despite the mania having subsided.
15. The last place on Earth to truly meander
Although Shanghai moves at a frenetic clip, there are still a few places where it's best to stroll at a more leisurely pace. Start at the corner of Wukang and Hunan and get lost in the quiet tree-lined avenues of the former French Concession. Finish up with a cigar and a drink at Mardi Gras at 372 Xingguo Lu.
16. My Place Ruin Bar
After nightlife institution Bar 88 closed down in 2014, it was like lifting a log on a colony of nightlife loving cockroaches. Fortunately, they have scurried out across Shanghai to set up new colonies. Bars where you can find regulars and can stay all night quaffing beer abound. My Place Ruin Bar has only been open two years but already it's attracting a great ragtag crowd of drinkers on the third floor of an old European-style house.
“17. I feel privileged to live in China, Shanghai specifically, because I get to see the music scene grow up from really nothing: bands, venues, labels, promoters and managers. It's incredible to be associated with something as early-stage and dramatic as the music scene here.”
Archie Hamilton, managing director of Split Works, one of Shanghai's most influential concert organizers and music promoters
18. (Oriental) Pearl Tower
Phallic jokes aside (although that is part of the fun), it wouldn't be the Shanghai skyline without the Pearl Tower. Other buildings might come up around and above it, but this was the first building to define the Shanghai cityscape and it's irreplaceable.
19. Di Shui Dong ribs
Not your typical, sweet-and-sour, miniature rib appetizer, these are the meaty, spicy, grab-on-with-both-hands goodness that the Shanghai dining masses can get behind -- and do, again and again.
20. City rivalries
Because Shanghai is not Beijing and never will be.
21. The Bund
Deriving its name from Hindi (bet you didn't know that, did you?), the Bund is Shanghai's most famous attraction. We could go on about the history and how, even today, the city's most respected business, loved restaurants and infamous clubs all call the Bund home, but we don't need to. It's The Bund. Enough said.
22. Maglev
This is, hands down, the fastest way to Pudong International airport, and a fun way at that. Go ahead, be a tourist and take a photo as the speedometer hits 431 km/h. If this doesn't give Shanghai bragging rights, we don't know what does.
23. Low-cost late-night cuddling
You can buy giant teddy bears on the street, in the middle of the night. When all the world's asleep -- or in bars -- racks of giant, almost life-sized bears are wheeled around town by local vendors. Nothing says love like a bear nearly as big as you are.
24. The abolition of "Expat Apartheid"
Shanghai blows Beijing away in style, elegance and nightlife, but our cousins to the north have always held the upper hand in local-expat relations -- until now. An unlikely candidate is changing the game. In the heart of Expense Accountville (Xintiandi) lies Brown Sugar. Too real for preening peacocks on the Bund, too slick for crunchy English teachers, this live music venue has something for expats and locals alike, from legitimately good house acts and international guests to a flaming bartender show that puts Tom Cruise's skills in "Cocktail" to shame. Shanghai is back on top.
25. DVDs
Shanghai just might be the DVD capital of the world. Name the movie or the TV series and we're sure you can find it for RMB 7 a disc in one of the hundreds of DVD stores in Shanghai.
“26. It is quite rare to have the opportunity to grow together with a new city of this scale, to feel a part of the city growth. I love Shanghai because it never sleeps. It is hectic. We can feel the energy. You need to try it to understand ”
Paul Pairet, executive chef at Mr & Mrs Bund and creator of the Lemon & Lemon Pie
27. Shanghainese
There is nothing that defines Shanghai more than Shanghainese. Caught somewhere between the sign of a lost generation and the true pretentiousness of a new generation that wants to make sure everyone knows exactly which world-class city they grew up in, Shanghainese is part of the code that forms this city.
28. Historic Shanghai
Whether it's river cruises down the Huangpu or walks with Historic Shanghai's founders through the French Concession, this city offers historical sights and depths that are mildly addictive. Packed with everything from classical buildings erected by colonists to futuristic neon-lined skyscrapers, Shanghai offers an living history lesson with every step.
29. Jiaozi in all forms: fried
Shanghai is a jiaozi city, but few dumpling vendors have made a name for themselves the way Yang's Fried Dumplings has. These aren't just any old jiaozi; Yang's specializes in the shenjianbao (RMB 4.5 for four) -- fried, round dumplings containing a scalding, delicious "soup" along with the meat. Line up at Yang's new store at the Maomin Bei Lu side of Wujiang Lu, inside the mall. Foodie tip: Don't dive into these shenjianbao all at once. Carefully suck out the soup before you dunk the dumpling in vinegar and devour it.
30. Jiaozi in all forms: steamed
Yang's might have cornered the market on shenjianbao, but Fu Chun reigns supreme when it comes to xiaolongbao (RMB 4 for six dumplings). Somewhere between a restaurant and a hole-in-the-wall, this local staple offers some of the best xialongbao (pork or pork-and-shrimp varieties) in town. Order downstairs for a quick bite or savor them in the upstairs restaurant.
31. Pajama people
Although the government hopes to phase out the practice of wearing PJs in public, we hope it continues. Men and women shop, play cards, drink tea, and chat with neighbors in their nightwear, even in winter. Yes, they have top-and-bottom matching wooly pajamas for that, too.
32. It's one big gym
Anyone can work out for free. With Crayola-colored equipment in many parks and apartment complexes, there's sure to be a gym near you, and at the lowest possible price: free. Most machines are simple, stripped-down versions of what you'd use in a regular gym: ropes and pulleys, chin-up bars, elliptical trainers, leg and ab isolators, all using your own bodyweight for resistance. Twist, push, and pull your way to a taught bod in the great outdoors.
33. Creativity is where you find it (everywhere)
Up-and-coming artists, architects and interior designers are making their respective marks in Shanghai, launching their work here, and redefining Shanghai's public spaces with flair. For example, MoCA has an unforgettable bathroom lined in the beautiful, but controversial, artwork of Zeng Jin Hua.
“34. Shanghai has an interesting pool of creative people who draw the city together very successfully. It's also the most international city in China, with lots of opportunities to work all over the PRC from here. It's something new every day, every project. ”
Frank Krueger, creative director of Logon Shanghai Frank Krueger, which transforms old villas and factories into exhibition spaces, preserving heritage and giving it a new twist
35. We're always hustling
Shanghai is a city of entrepreneurs. Whether selling new technologies or old crafts, there's always a will and a way. Small shops often specialize in selling one fruit, implements for one trade or tools for one craft. Treasures can be found anywhere, not just in malls and major shopping streets, from the man who makes rocking horses -- and only rocking horses -- by Suzhou Creek to the guy who sharpens knives outside your neighborhood food market.
36. Bargain back rubs
Why is life so good in Shanghai? Two words: cheap massages. Whether or not you believe in TMC (traditional Chinese medicine), life looks rosier after a massage from experienced hands for less than US$10 in some places. Your qi will never look so good.
37. Look up
Behold the amazing apocalyptic yellow skies that form just before a storm over Shanghai. Sudden summer rains and air pollution may be nuisances, but they're also the reason why the city is prone to yellow hours; several times a year the sky turns the color of maize before rain pours down.
38. A multitude of markets
There's a market for everything in Shanghai, from trophies and hair dye to electronics and retro specs.
39. Tai chi republic
You might walk past people hitting themselves, walking backwards or flailing their arms in many of the parks and grassy areas in Shanghai, but you don't blink because this is quite normal here. It is believed that banging ones arms and legs or rocking against a tree (hitting your back as you do) improves circulation. Walking backwards, it's thought, will turn back the years, and it also improves agility.
40. Green living
Eco-conscious fashion designers are leading the way to a greener future with recycled and organic couture. In Shanghai, you'll find chemical-free undyed baby clothes, bamboo evening gowns softer than silk, and hip purses made from recycled billboard paper.
41. Social consciousness
Social entrepreneurs here are popping up all over the place. For example, D4D (Design for the Disadvantaged) this year opened its collaborative environment, aimed at improving the lives of Shanghai's lower classes. Luminaries from many industries -- strategists, architects, designers and more -- gather to research and workshop in creating innovative products to make life easier for those who are struggling on low incomes.
42. “Shanghai is one of the world’s greatest cities because there is so much possibility for everyone here, ever day. “
Gary Wang, co-owner of The Shelter, DJ and entrepreneur
43. 山寨 (Shanzhai)
From Shanghai's own Trader Zhou's (pronounced Joe's, as in Trader Joe's) to iPhone minis and much more, the city's shanzai market is alive and kicking. Originally meaning mountain stronghold -- areas where bandits used to hide out -- the term now refers to all those products operating and being created outside of government regulation, and Shanghai consumers love each of every one of them.
44. The Avocado Lady
To many foreigners shopping in Shanghai, the Avocado Lady is an icon. Her shop at 274 Wulumuqi Lu is one of the only places in the city to buy cheap, fresh avocados, a rare find. Her store looks like nothing special from the outside, but the good import foods at incredibly low prices have made this woman famous. Her business savviness, catering to the globalized market, is both ingenious on its own and representative of the nature of Shanghai as a whole.
45. Bund Tourist tunnel
While many of Shanghai's tourist attractions have gained fame worldwide either for their architectural feats or historic value, few have achieved the infamy of the 647-meter Bund Sightseeing Tunnel. Simply put, the tunnel is (in)famous for leaving riders asking "Huh?" There are few people who have travelled the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel more than once, but it's also rare to find someone who regrets the trip.
46. Fast-moving food fads
Mexican, Italian, crepes, cupcakes and steak -- this city has seen more than its fair share of dining trends. New ones keep rolling out before we can even get around to trying all the places that popped up during the last fad. Italian restaurants and wine shops are still on the rise. Keep your eyes peeled. That innocent looking couple renovating the apartment next door to yours might be opening their very own house of pasta or vino.
47. Scrappy live performers
You gotta give credit where it's due when it comes to Shanghai's love of live music. Like the little brothers (and a few sisters) who just won't be shown up by Beijing's music scene, local musicians have kept the riffs coming. Live music shepherds like Lao Sun, Zhang Haisheng and to some extent Soma Records have fought to develop local talent and get them heard -- and it's working. We have a live music scene that just won't die, and nothing could make us prouder.
48. Taikang Lu
There's nothing more Shanghai than brand spanking new commerce blooming in old lanes. Taikang Lu is a residential area turned restaurant and retail district with at least a hundred shops that sell silver jewelery, traditional handicrafts, clothes, antiques, art, tea and T-shirts with Chinese iconography. You can easily spend a whole day here, getting lost among the weaving side streets, ducking the photographers who stage regular fashion shoots among the area's quaint old houses.
49. Chinglish
It's everywhere, and we love it. From semi-offensive T-shirts, to nonsensical bank signs indicating that the ATM is a "cash recycling machine," it's impossible to walk very far without enjoying a giggle at yet another idea lost in the translation from Chinese to English.
50. Thank you
Everything says thank you -- the taxis, the Maglev, everything that has speakers on it will thank you for using it, usually in amusing Chinglish. Hearing "Thank you for take my taxi" is as common as hearing a phone ring. Who doesn't appreciate being appreciated?
整個上海的清晨和周末，這座城市都在炫耀著它的社區精神。領取養老金的人聚集在全市備有的便攜揚聲器的廣場和公園裡。不是要與嘻哈音樂節拍搏鬥，而是要優雅地移動和轉動，舞廳風格。任何人都可以參與進來，很多人只是去看——但仍然會被拉進來跳舞。
14. 吉祥物海寶
作為 2010 年上海世博會的吉祥物，這個 甘比動畫 風格的人物獲得了類似崇拜的地位，儘管狂熱已經消退，但仍然非常明顯。
15. 地球上最後一個真正蜿蜒的地方
儘管上海以瘋狂的節奏移動，但仍有一些地方最好以更悠閒的步調漫步。從武康和湖南的拐角處開始，迷失在前法租界的寧靜林蔭大道中。最後在興國路 372 號的 Mardi Gras 法國餐廳享用雪茄和飲品。
16. My Place Ruin 酒吧
在夜生活機構 88酒吧 於 2014 年關閉後，這就像在一群熱愛夜生活的蟑螂身上舉起一根木頭。幸運的是，他們已經跑到上海各地建立新的群體。酒吧里你可以找到常客，可以整夜喝啤酒。My Place Ruin 酒吧才開張兩年，但它已經在一座古老的歐式房子的三樓吸引了一大群酒鬼。
“17. 我很榮幸能住在中國，特別是上海，因為我可以看到音樂界從無到有成長：樂隊、場地、唱片公司、發起人和經理。能夠與這裡的音樂場景這樣的早期和戲劇性事物聯繫起來真是令人難以置信。”
上海最具影響力的音樂會組織者和音樂推廣者之一 Split Works 音樂公司 的董事總經理 Archie Hamilton
當談到上海對現場音樂的熱愛時，你必須給予應有的讚譽。就像那些不會出現在北京樂壇上的小兄弟（和一些姐妹）一樣，當地音樂家一直在不斷地演奏即興演奏。像老孫、張海生這樣的現場音樂牧羊人，在某種程度上，索瑪唱片公司 一直在努力培養本地人才並讓他們的聲音被聽到——而且它正在奏效。我們有一個不會消亡的現場音樂表演，沒有什麼能讓我們更自豪。
48. 泰康路
沒有什麼比在老巷子裡綻放的品牌新商業更能代表上海了。泰康路是一個由住宅區改建的餐廳和零售區，擁有至少一百家商店，出售銀飾、傳統手工藝品、服裝、古董、藝術品、茶和帶有中國圖案的 T 卹。您可以輕鬆地在這裡度過一整天，在蜿蜒的小巷中迷路，躲避在該地區古色古香的老房子中定期拍攝時尚照片的攝影師。
49. 中式英語
它無處不在，我們喜歡它。從半冒犯性的 T 卹，到表明 自動櫃員機/ATM 是“現金回收機”的荒謬銀行標誌，走很遠的路，不可能不為從中文到英文的翻譯中丟失的另一個想法而咯咯笑。
50. 謝謝
一切都在說謝謝——出租車、磁懸浮列車、任何有揚聲器的東西都會感謝你使用它，通常是有趣的中式英語。聽到“謝謝你乘坐我的出租車”就像聽到電話鈴一樣常見。誰不喜歡被尊重？
English to Chinese: Garlic facts and history: The truth about vampires and health benefits
Source text - English Garlic facts and history: The truth about vampires and health benefits
(CNN) For thousands of years, we've used one vegetable as a spice to flavor our toast, treat ear infections and ward off vampires: garlic.
Garlic is the edible bulb of a plant in the lily family, native to central Asia. In addition to making food taste better, it has traditionally been used for health purposes by cultures such as the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese and Japanese.
The folkloric link between vampires and garlic has to do with allicin, the major sulfur "compound that is (briefly) released when the garlic clove is cut," said Eric Block, a distinguished professor emeritus of chemistry at the University at Albany State University of New York and author of "Garlic and Other Alliums: The Lore and the Science."
"The reason for the presence of sulfur compounds in garlic is to allow the garlic bulb to survive (while it's) in the ground, where it's surrounded by predators microscopic and larger," Block said. The smelly, burning "compounds that are released when the garlic clove is disrupted serve to deter further attack."
Some medieval Europeans believed that vampires -- the fictional blood-drinkers that have come to dominate the horror genre -- were created by a blood disease, so people carried garlic thinking it was a strong antibiotic that could kill the monsters.
The blood disorder porphyria may have supported this belief, according to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Porphyria is a group of disorders characterized by a defective enzyme our bodies need to make heme, the deep-red, iron-containing compounds that help transport oxygen throughout the body.
Complications of the disorder can make skin pale and shrink gums, which can make teeth look bigger. Garlic and sunlight can worsen the symptoms, so people with porphyria might avoid it -- a habit some people attributed to vampirism. By drinking human blood, "vampires (or people with porphyria) might theoretically replenish their heme stores," said a 2014 paper published in QJM: An International Journal of Medicine.
The role of allicin found in garlic
Allicin is also the compound to which most potential health benefits attributed to garlic have been credited. Some small studies have suggested that garlic may be helpful for slightly improving blood pressure, cholesterol, immune function, the prevention of certain cancers and oxidative stress -- an imbalance that can lead to diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's and diabetes.
At high doses, garlic's compounds have reportedly helped protect organs from heavy metal toxicity. A four-week-long study of employees of a car battery plant found that garlic reduced blood lead levels by 19%.
"There is a lot of folklore as to the beneficial health effects of garlic in the diet," said Alan Slusarenko, a professor of plant physiology at RWTH Aachen University in Germany, via email. "However, we have no data from controlled clinical trials."
Study results have been inconclusive or subpar. Additionally, many of these studies have used garlic that is a very high dose, concentrated or given in a form of stabilized allicin. Another reason some researchers have stabilized allicin is that when garlic enters the body, the digestive tract must break it down and neutralize it before the liver takes over to carry away waste and help the bloodstream absorb nutrients. Therefore, "the chances of actually reaching a cell somewhere in the body are very small," Block said.
Issue: How to turn allicin into a useful drug
"That's been the big problem: How do you take this compound allicin, with all these wonderful properties demonstrated in (human) cells, and make it into a useful drug?" Block said.
"To try to translate that into a medicine has proven very, very challenging, and has led a lot of companies -- that are out to make money -- to make false claims based on the activity of these compounds in cells," he added. In other words, some companies have been "trying to convince people that just because they're very active in all these experiments, it's also active as a pill or as a supplement."
Allicin is "destroyed" when cooked, Slusarenko said, "and off-the-shelf supplements generally have no or variable contents of allicin."
And the US Food and Drug Administration doesn't regulate dietary supplements, so "advertisers can say whatever they want," Block said.
Possible side effects
Given these issues, you might think that people could just eat raw garlic for health benefits.
However, this isn't a good idea for several reasons: Because allicin is garlic's very potent defense, eating raw garlic "can cause severe irritation and burns," Block said. The slower a person's metabolism, the more likely it is that they could experience side effects such as rash, heartburn, stomach irritation, and burns in the esophagus or digestive tract.
Some people who have consumed raw garlic or rubbed it on their skin have "wound up in the emergency room with second-degree burns," Block added.
Some cultures don't have this problem. In some areas of the Mediterranean, for example, "people will chew on garlic, and I guess they've developed a resistance to it," Block said. But for many others, it's "dangerous and it should never be used with children. And it should not be used on sensitive areas of the body."
A positive, not a panacea
Maybe the biggest benefit of garlic isn't what science has to say about it, but rather how garlic can help us eat better.
Garlic has around 2% of the recommended daily value of manganese, phosphorus and vitamin B6, and 1% to 2% of the recommended daily value of calcium, vitamin C, potassium and selenium. Garlic's aroma and taste can boost the flavor of meat, poultry, seafood, vegetables, pastas, pizzas and more. "It's just part of a healthy diet, along with eating blueberries and everything else that we might eat," Block said.
"Scientifically, garlic and onions and related plants are really one of nature's wonders. I think that there's some very exciting science that one can discover," Block said.
"It's possible that, in the future, scientists will discover ways to utilize these remarkable molecules in a way to treat disease. But again, that has to be done using the full power of science to test compounds in a fair and honest way to make sure that they actually work."
English to Chinese: 'Heartbreaking' delays in autism diagnosis and treatment got even worse during pandemic General field: Medical Detailed field: Medical: Health Care
Source text - English 'Heartbreaking' delays in autism diagnosis and treatment got even worse during pandemic
Wylie James Prescott, 3, had to wait more than a year after his autism diagnosis to begin behavioral therapy, even though research shows early treatment of autism can be crucial for children's long-term development.
His mother, Brandie Kurtz, said his therapy wasn't approved through Georgia's Medicaid program until recently, despite her continued requests. "I know insurance, so it's even more frustrating," said Kurtz, who works in a doctor's office near her home in rural Wrens, Georgia.
Those frustrations are all too familiar to parents who have a child with autism, a complex lifelong disorder. And the pandemic has exacerbated the already difficult process of getting services.
This comes as public awareness of autism and research on it have grown and insurance coverage for treatment is more widespread. In February, Texas became the last state to cover a widely used autism therapy through Medicaid. And all states now have laws requiring private health plans to cover the therapy, applied behavior analysis.
Yet children from Georgia to California often wait months — and in many cases more than a year — to get a diagnosis and then receive specialized treatment services. Therapies that can cost $40,000 or more a year are especially out of reach for families who don't have insurance or have high-deductible health plans. Children from minority communities and those who live in rural areas may face additional barriers to getting help.
"You would never allow a kid with cancer to experience these waits," said Dr. Kristin Sohl, a pediatrician at University of Missouri Health Care and chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Council on Children With Disabilities Autism Subcommittee.
During the early months of the covid-19 pandemic, many families canceled in-home services, fearing infection. Virtual therapy often didn't seem to work, especially for nonverbal and younger children. With fewer clients, some providers laid off staff or shut down entirely.
And treatment services always face high turnover rates among the low-wage workers who do direct, in-home care for autism. But covid made the staffing problem worse. Companies now struggle to compete with rising wages in other sectors.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that autism affects 1 in 44 U.S. children, a higher prevalence rate than ever before. Autism symptoms can include communication difficulties and repetitive behaviors and can be accompanied by a range of developmental and psychiatric health conditions.
Early diagnosis of autism can make a difference, Sohl said. Symptoms of some kids who begin their therapy by age 2 or 3 can be greatly reduced.
Diagnoses are typically done by developmental-behavioral pediatricians, psychologists, psychiatrists, and neurologists, all of whom are in short supply. The shortage of developmental pediatricians is especially acute. Even though they do three more years of fellowship training than a general pediatrician does, developmental pediatricians typically earn less.
General pediatricians with training can also do assessments, but insurers often require a specialist's diagnosis before paying for services, creating a bottleneck for families.
"If we solely rely on specialists, we're setting ourselves up for failure because there aren't enough of us. We need the insurance companies on board," said Dr. Sharief Taraman, a pediatric neurologist and president of the Orange County, California, chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Even in a metro area, getting a child an appointment can take months. "We cannot get these families in fast enough," said Dr. Alan Weintraub, a developmental pediatrician in suburban Atlanta. "It's heartbreaking."
Some parents pay cash for an evaluation with a private specialist, worsening disparities between kids whose parents can afford to skip the wait and those whose parents cannot.
Once a child has been diagnosed, many face an equal — or longer — wait to get autism therapies, including applied behavior analysis, a process that aims to improve social, communication, and learning skills. These sessions can take more than 20 hours a week and last more than a year. ABA techniques have some critics, but the American Academy of Pediatrics says that most evidence-based autism treatment models are based on ABA principles.
Accessing such treatment largely depends on insurance coverage — and for many families how well Medicaid pays. The Georgia Medicaid program reimburses well for ABA, Georgia doctors said, while Missouri's pay is low, leading to a scarcity of options there, Sohl said.
In California, Medicaid reimbursement rates vary by county, and wait times for ABA range from about three to 12 months. In the rural northern reaches of the state, where few providers work, some families wait years.
During the first year of the pandemic, Claire Hise of Orange County was thrilled with the ABA therapist who worked with her son. But in January 2021, the therapist quit to go back to school. The company she was working with sent others. Hise had to train each new therapist to work with her son, a difficult process that always took more than a month. "It's a special relationship, and each kid with autism is an individual," Hise said. "It takes time."
By then, they were out the door, replaced by another after no more than four to six weeks. Sometimes the family waited weeks for a replacement.
Hise tried switching to another company, but they all had a six-month waitlist. "He's already so far behind," Hise said. "It's really a year I feel we've lost."
The average age of diagnosis in the U.S. is about 4 years old, but Black and Latino children on average are evaluated later than white kids.
"The impact on families having to wait for diagnosis or treatment can be devastating," said Kristin Jacobson, founder of the Autism Deserves Equal Coverage Foundation, an advocacy group in California. "They know in their gut something is seriously not right and that there is help out there, and yet they are helpless to do anything about it."
Araceli Barrientos helps run an autism support group in Atlanta for immigrant families, for whom language barriers can cause additional snags. It took her over a year to get her daughter, Lesly, diagnosed and two more years to secure further treatment.
Sabrina Oxford of Dawson, in rural southwestern Georgia, had to take her daughter Jamelyn more than 150 miles to the Marcus Autism Center in Atlanta to get her diagnosed. "You don't have any resources around here," Oxford said.
Dr. Michelle Zeanah, a behavioral pediatrician, draws families from 60 mostly rural counties to her clinic in Statesboro, Georgia. "There's a massive shortage of people willing and able to do an autism diagnosis," she said.
Getting insurance to pay for autism treatment can be another frustrating process for families. Therapy denials can be triggered by clerical errors or missed paperwork. Insurer approvals can be especially difficult for older children, who can be less likely to get treatment services than younger ones, said Dr. Donna Londino, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Augusta University in Georgia.
Many children with autism also need speech, occupational, and physical therapy, all of which are generally easier to secure than behavioral therapy. But even then, Weintraub said, the insurers push back: "They really dictate how many services you can have. These families, literally, meet obstacles at every turn."
David Allen, a spokesperson for AHIP, an insurance industry trade group formerly known as America's Health Insurance Plans, said insurers often require prior authorization to ensure that autism services are "medically necessary and evidence-based" and that patients are treated by "providers with appropriate education and training in treating autism."
Tracy-Ann Samuels of New York said she paid out-of-pocket for speech and occupational therapy for her son, Trey, now 15. Two years ago, after 18 months on a waiting list, he finally got ABA services covered by insurance.
"He's doing so great," she said. "My son was nonverbal. Now he's talking my ear off."
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.
紐約的 特蕾西-安塞繆爾 說，她為她現年 15 歲的兒子 特雷支付了言語和職業治療費用。兩年前，在等待名單上 18 個月後，他終於獲得了保險覆蓋的 ABA 服務。“ABA的 治療師做得很好，”她說。 “我兒子不會說話。現在他和我談了很長時間。”
KHN（凱撒健康新聞）(Kaiser Health News) 是一個全國性的新聞編輯室，提供有關健康問題的深度新聞。與政策分析和民意調查一起，KHN 是 KFF（凱撒家庭基金會）的三大運營項目之一。KFF 是一個捐贈的非營利組織，向國家提供有關健康問題的信息。
English to Chinese: The Chilean mycologist celebrating fungi's "hidden kingdom" General field: Science Detailed field: Biology (-tech,-chem,micro-)
Source text - English The Chilean mycologist celebrating fungi's "hidden kingdom"
A chance encounter with a mushroom inspired Giuliana Furci to become a champion of these organisms that can feed, heal and even tackle climate change.
Giuliana Furci was hiking through a temperate rainforest with an antenna strapped to her back in search of an elusive fox when she stumbled across the mushroom that would change her life. At the time she was a 19-year-old student on a field trip in Chiloé, a weather-beaten archipelago off the coast of Chile's Lake District. Her job was to set up traps to capture Darwin's foxes, tag these endangered creatures and then release them back into the wild.
"We were old school, so used radiotelemetry to track them," she said. "As I walked, I was passing so many mushrooms and a big orangey-red one on a tree stump caught my eye. I really wanted to know its name, but it was impossible to find out anything." The lack of information about Chilean fungi hit Furci, who was studying aquaculture during this period, like a "lightning bolt". "I suddenly thought, 'This is what I'm going to do [with my life]'," she said. "Nothing had happened previously with me and fungi, apart from trying psilocybin – magic mushrooms – at some point. But that wasn't the reason. It was just this one mushroom in the forest."
Since that moment in 1999, Furci has dedicated her life to studying, protecting and championing one of the planet's most important but least-known group of organisms. She became Chile's first female field mycologist (a biologist specialising in fungi), has written field guides and, in 2012, launched the Fungi Foundation, the first NGO dedicated to these organisms. The following year, thanks in large part to her work, Chile made history by becoming the first country in the world to include protection of fungi – organisms such as yeasts, moulds, mildews and lichens, as well as mushrooms – in its environmental legislation.
"My work is really about bringing justice to the fungi, acknowledging their essential and fundamental role," she said. "They're the coolest and most important organisms on Earth. Life on Earth wouldn't exist as we know it without them. But they're unacknowledged."
Speaking from her home in Santiago, Furci described herself as a "product of exile". She was born and brought up in London after her Chilean mother, a student and member of the Socialist party, was forced to flee by the brutal Pinochet dictatorship. After the return of democracy in 1990, the family moved to Chile when Furci was 15. "The children of exiles are a generation of unrooted people," she said with a smile.
Pausing periodically to sip mate tea, Furci explained that even as a teenager she was driven by the desire to have a positive impact on the world. "I was always interested in giving back, either to humanity or the Earth," she said. Although she came to fungi by chance, these essential but under-appreciated organisms were a natural fit. "Fungi are the recyclers, the decomposers; they make sure energy is ever flowing in ecosystems," she said. "Fungi allow plants to live outside of water [by providing nutrients and moisture in return for sugars produced from photosynthesis]. They allow animals to digest their food." Remarkably, fungi even enable plants to communicate with each another. Thin strands of mycorrhizal fungi connect different root systems and allow information and nutrients to be exchanged. These subterranean networks have been dubbed the "wood wide web".
Fungi are equally important to humans. Even though they often provoke squeamishness, disgust or even fear, these organisms are responsible for everything from bread to beer to antibiotics. "Fungi not only feed us, they also heal us," said Furci. "Statins, from which we get cholesterol-lowering compounds, are from mushrooms. Medicines like penicillin come from moulds." Fungi also have a vital role to play in addressing the climate crisis, thanks to their ability to sequester carbon and encourage biodiversity. There's even an Amazonian fungus that can break down plastics. "They are fundamental for maintaining the balance, in every sense, in the environment," she said.
There are few better places to study these organisms than Chile, which Furci describes as a "fungi hotspot". The north is covered by the world's driest desert outside the poles; the central regions have a Mediterranean-style climate; and the south is blanketed by rainforests, glaciers, fjords and tundra. It has one of the world's longest coastlines and biggest mountain ranges, as well as several subtropical islands.
"The diversity of these ecosystems translates directly into the diversity of the fungi," she said. "Every time I go into the field I find new species – it's a goldmine. In an hour I can collect more than 100 species of fungi without walking more than 30m. There's consensus in the mycological community that we only know about 5% to 10% of the fungal species on Earth."
In a room filled with hundreds of sample bags, mushroom-shaped ornaments and even a hat made from fungus, Furci said the richest hunting grounds are in Patagonia. This is largely thanks to the Bosque Valdiviano, a vast temperate rainforest dominated by Nothofagus trees, which are only found in southern Chile and Argentina and parts of Australasia. "We have seven species of Nothofagus, which associate with dozens of species of fungi that produce mushrooms specific to those trees."
These include the eye-catching Cytarria genus, bulbous, brain-like clusters that cling to trunks and branches. One common Cytarria species is known as llao llao or "Pan de Indio" (Indian bread) and has a slightly sweet taste; another, Cytarria drawinii, is orange or white and resembles golf balls.
Furci is particularly drawn to the swath of the Bosque Valdiviano in the isolated Aysén region of central Patagonia.
"My specialty – I would even say my fetish, it's really bad as that – is that I like to go where nobody's ever been before to look for fungi," she said. "So Aysén, it's hostile, really hostile – cold, windy, rainy, hail. There's no electricity or water. In terms of an expedition, it's very difficult. But the reward in fungal diversity is unique in the world."
Most of her expeditions last two or three weeks, limited only by the amount of food, equipment and samples she can carry. The terrain is challenging, and she has found herself in some dangerous situations, including, on one occasion, getting lost for two days.
Indigenous peoples such as the Mapuche, who now live predominantly in the Araucanía region on the northern edge of Patagonia, have long use wild fungi for food and medicine.
This is something Furci is keen to explore. The Fungi Foundation's Elders programme is mapping every known ancestral and traditional use of fungi in the world," she said. "We have co-evolved with fungi from the beginning of our existence. And we see that many of the problems of the Earth – for people and the planet – have solutions in the kingdom of fungi."
Yet while indigenous peoples have always taken advantage of the country's fungi, Furci has described Chile as a whole as "mycro-phobic". "I think it's not by total chance the Chileans are called 'the British of South America'," she said. "It's one of the more conservative countries. People are scared of eating the wrong mushroom, so there's a cautionary approach."
Furci is trying to change these attitudes, working closely with chefs and raising awareness about the country's mushrooms. "Chile shares its land ingredients – like meat – with Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil," she said. "It shares its marine ingredients with Peru. What makes our cuisine unique are the mushrooms that aren't found anywhere else. In the autumn, you can eat ones like the loyo, a huge native porcini, and the Grifola gargal, which is like the hen-of-the-woods. Come in the spring and you get to try the Cytarria and native morels."
Through the Fungi Foundation, Furci is trying to create a bigger domestic market for Chilean mushrooms. The organisation teaches producers about sustainable harvesting and packaging techniques, and helps chefs identify and source ingredients from eco-friendly suppliers. "It's a beautiful relationship," she said. "There's never been a penny traded between any of us. It's the mission of the foundation to bring justice to these organisms, and the chefs are doing their bit by using native ingredients."
Her efforts are bearing fruit, with Chilean mushrooms increasingly appearing on menus across the country. "Of the four Chilean restaurants that entered the Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants list [in recent years], three of them – Boragó, 99 Restaurante and Ambrosia – entered with mushroom dishes," she said.
Looking to the future, Furci is plotting expeditions beyond Chile to search for new species of fungi, working on education projects to ensure children learn as much about the organisms as they do about plants and animals, and campaigning for fungi to be included in conservation agreements worldwide. "Wherever it says 'flora and fauna', we need it to say 'flora, fauna and funga' – it's the third F," she said. "And wherever it says 'plants and animals' in any regulation it should say 'plants, animals and fungi'. That's the mission we're on and we're relentless with it."
Travellers may struggle to replicate Furci's forays into the wilderness, but there are more accessible ways to explore the myriad fungal species of southern Chile. She highlights the Route of Parks, a 1,700-mile chain of 17 reserves that runs through Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, as an "extraordinary opportunity to go out and look for fungi". In fact, Furci continued, the challenge in these pristine protected areas is how to avoid them. "The diversity is so high there are moments in autumn that you can't walk without stepping on a mushroom."
English to Chinese: Eating 2 servings a week of 1 fatty fruit can reduce heart attack risk, study says General field: Medical Detailed field: Medical: Health Care
Source text - English Eating 2 servings a week of 1 fatty fruit can reduce heart attack risk, study says
(CNN) Eating avocados reduced the risk of heart attacks in both men and women, including when eaten in place of butter, cheese or processed meats, a new study found.
Cardiovascular disease is a leading killer worldwide, taking nearly 18 million lives every year, according to the World Health Organization. In the United States alone, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says heart disease takes a life every 36 seconds.
Eating at least two servings of avocado a week reduced the risk of having a heart attack by 21% when compared to avoiding or rarely eating avocados. However, there was not an equivalent benefit in reducing the risk for stroke, according to the study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
A serving of avocado, which is a fruit, was defined as "½ avocado or ½ cup of avocado, which roughly weighs 80 grams," said study author Lorena Pacheco, a postdoctoral research fellow in the department of nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.
"Although no one food is the solution to routinely eating a healthy diet, this study is evidence that avocados have possible health benefits," said Cheryl Anderson, chair of the American Heart Association's Council on Epidemiology and Prevention, in a statement. Anderson was not involved in the study.
"We desperately need strategies to improve intake of AHA-recommended healthy diets — such as the Mediterranean diet — that are rich in vegetables and fruits," said Anderson, who is also professor and dean of the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at University of California San Diego.
Long-term study
The study followed more than 68,000 women and 41,000 men who were enrolled in two long-term government studies on risk factors for chronic disease: the Nurses' Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study. All participants were free of cancer, coronary heart disease and stroke at the start of the studies and completed dietary questionnaires every four years over a 30-year period.
In addition to looking at the overall impact of eating avocados, researchers did statistical modeling and found consuming half a serving of avocado (¼ cup) a day instead of the same amount of eggs, yogurt, cheese, margarine, butter or processed meats (such as bacon) lowered the risk of heart attacks by 16% to 22%.
"The full benefit of routine avocado consumption observed here derives from swapping avocado into the diet, and less healthful foods out," said Dr. David Katz, a specialist in preventive and lifestyle medicine and nutrition, who was not involved in the study.
However, the study did not find a difference in risk reduction when a half-serving of avocado was replaced with an equivalent serving of nuts, olive and other plant oils. That makes sense, Katz said, because the health benefits are dependent on what food is replaced.
"If, for instance, the common swap were between avocado and walnuts or almonds, the health effects would likely be negligible since the foods have similar nutritional properties and expected health effects," said Katz, the president and founder of the nonprofit True Health Initiative, a global coalition of experts dedicated to evidence-based lifestyle medicine.
But if the avocado replaced butter and margarine as a spread, or was eaten instead of processed meats or cheese on a sandwich, "the nutritional distinctions are sizable" and would be expected to change the health outcome, he added.
Although avocados are "particularly rich sources of monounsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat and fiber," they can also be pricey and therefore not readily available to all, Katz said. Similar substitutes could include walnuts, almonds, olives, olive oil and a variety of seeds such as pumpkin and flax, he said.
Other foods to include that have major health benefit at "much lower price points," include beans, chickpeas and lentils, "and perhaps whole grains and related seeds like quinoa," Katz said.
Preventing heart disease
Preventing heart disease means keeping your weight, blood pressure and cholesterol under control, getting plenty of good-quality sleep and regular exercise, managing stress, limiting alcohol and avoiding tobacco use, and eating a healthy diet lower in sugar, processed foods and saturated fats, according to the National Library of Medicine.
The American Heart Association says your body needs fat to boost energy, protect organs, produce hormones and help with nutrient absorption. However, fats like monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are the heart-healthy choices. Olive oil, canola oil, peanut oil, safflower oil and sesame oil are sources of monounsaturated fats, along with avocados, peanut butter and many nuts and seeds.
Saturated fat and trans fats raise levels of LDL, known as "bad cholesterol," the AHA said. Saturated fats, such as butter, are typically solid at room temperature and are found in full-fat dairy products, eggs, coconut and palm oils, and fatty cuts of beef, pork and skin-on poultry.
Artificially made trans fats, also called partially hydrogenated oils, raise bad LDL cholesterol and lower good HDL cholesterol, which can increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and Type 2 diabetes. Those can often be found in "fried foods like doughnuts, and baked goods including cakes, pie crusts, biscuits, frozen pizza, cookies, crackers, stick margarines and other spreads," according to the AHA.
Translation - Chinese 研究表明，每週吃 2 份 1 種高脂肪水果可以降低心髒病發作的風險
CNN一項新的研究發現，食用酪梨可以降低男性和女性心髒病發作的風險，包括代替奶油、起司或加工肉類食用時。
根據世界衛生組織的數據，心血管疾病是全球頭號殺手，每年奪去近 1800 萬人的生命。僅在美國，美國疾病控制和預防中心就表示，心髒病每 36 秒就會奪去一個生命。
與避免或很少吃酪梨相比，每周至少吃兩份酪梨可將心髒病發作的風險降低 21%。然而，根據周三發表在《美國心臟協會雜誌》上的研究，降低中風風險並沒有同等的益處。
一份酪梨是一種水果，被定義為“½顆酪梨或 ½ 杯酪梨，大約重 80 克” 、波士頓哈佛公共衛生學院 營養系博士後研究員作者 Lorena Pacheco 說。
“雖然沒有一種食物可以解決日常健康飲食，但這項研究證明酪梨可能對健康有益，” 美國心臟協會(AHA)流行病學和預防理事會主席Cheryl Anderson 在一份聲明中說，她沒有參與這項研究。
“我們迫切需要策略來提高 AHA 推薦的健康飲食的攝入量——比如地中海飲食——富含蔬菜和水果，” Anderson 說，他也是加州大學聖地亞哥分校赫伯特韋特海姆公共健康與人類長壽科學學院的教授兼院長。
長期學習
該研究跟踪了 68,000 多名女性和 41,000 名男性，他們參加了兩項關於慢性病風險因素的長期政府研究：護士健康研究和衛生專業人員跟進研究。所有參與者在研究開始時都沒有癌症、冠狀動脈心臟疾病和中風，並在 30 年的時間裡每四年完成填寫一次飲食調查問卷。
English to Chinese: The complicated truth of post-traumatic growth General field: Other Detailed field: Psychology
Source text - English The complicated truth of post-traumatic growth
We are often told about people’s capacity to thrive after trauma – but these claims may put unnecessary pressure on survivors.
Eranda Jayawickreme was born in London but grew up in Sri Lanka during the 80s and 90s, in one of the most turbulent periods in its history. He witnessed the insurrection by the People’s Liberation Front, and the ongoing civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
“There was a lot of violence,” he says. “But growing up with so much adversity and trauma going on around me, I was often struck by the extent to which people somehow managed to ‘keep on keeping on’ in the wake of all these bad experiences.”
When he moved to the US to study psychology at university, it was perhaps only natural that he would be drawn to the science of human resilience. Jayawickreme was particularly fascinated by the concept of “post-traumatic growth”. This is the idea that many people not only recover from life-shattering events, but also experience a positive transformation in their values, actions and relationships. The research seemed to affirm Nietzsche’s aphorism that “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”.
The intuitive appeal of the concept is obvious – and it has been promoted in numerous magazine articles and books, including Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant’s best-selling book Option B. As Jayawickreme delved into the research, however, he found that the truth was much more complicated than some of the media coverage would suggest – and that many of the scientific studies themselves may have serious flaws.
Jayawickreme’s conclusions are nuanced, but it now seems increasingly likely that the reported prevalence of post-traumatic growth has been exaggerated. This is not just nit-picking or pessimistic naysaying: it might have serious consequences.
“In some cases, this narrative around the potential to grow could be oppressive,” says Jayawickreme, who is now a professor of psychology at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, US. “It creates the expectation that not only do I have to recover from what happened to me, but apparently, I'm supposed to become better than ever before.” And this pressure, he thinks, could lead to worse mental health outcomes for some individuals.
The phoenix from the ashes
Nietzsche may have hinted at the existence of post-traumatic growth (PTG) in the 19th Century, but the scientific study of the phenomenon only emerged in the 90s, with pioneering research by the psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun. To measure PTG, they asked participants to consider how they felt now, compared to how they felt before their trauma, in five domains: appreciation of life, relationships with others, new possibilities in life, personal strength and spiritual change. They then had to estimate how much of that change was linked to the trauma itself.
As one example, they cited the words of Rabbi Harold Kushner, describing his life after the death of his son:
I am a more sensitive person, a more effective pastor, a more sympathetic counsellor because of Aaron's life and death than I would ever have been without it. And I would give up all of those gains in a second if I could have my son back. If I could choose, I would forego all of the spiritual growth and depth which has come my way because of our experiences... But I cannot choose.
Such accounts suggest a positive transformation that goes far beyond recovery and coping. “Post-traumatic growth is not simply a return to baseline – it is an experience of improvement that for some persons is deeply profound,” Tedeschi and Calhoun wrote in one of their early papers.
Subsequent research found evidence of post-traumatic growth in the survivors of many different crises – including relationship break-ups, bereavement, cancer diagnoses, sexual abuse and immigration from war zones. And it seemed to be astonishingly common, with some estimates suggesting that as many as 70% of trauma survivors might experience PTG.
Along the way, the researchers have had to understand how post-traumatic growth emerges. Amy Canevello, a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina, US, describes it as a constructive process. “Trauma shatters your worldview and disrupts your core beliefs,” she says. “And post-traumatic growth, at least theoretically, is the result of you trying to put your worldview back together in a way that incorporates that traumatic event. You come out the other side looking different in some way.”
Supporting this hypothesis, Canevello has found that levels of post-traumatic growth tend to correlate with levels of rumination after the event: the more people think about it, the more likely they are to see a positive transformation. At first, these thoughts may be intrusive and unwanted, she says, but over time the thinking can become more controlled and reflective. “It allows you to start cognitively putting those pieces together and make sense of the event.”
Some people reporting post-traumatic growth describe enormous grit and determination to come to terms with their adversity. Ann Wild was born with a congenital spine condition and describes experiencing a series of traumas as a result of her disability and the medical procedures that she has endured – the last of which has resulted in complications that may prove fatal in the years to come. She competed in five Paralympics, has an OBE and works as an occupational therapist.
Trauma shatters your worldview and disrupts your core beliefs – Amy Canevello
“I was constantly growing as a person and always held the principles of independence optimism, gratitude and kindness,” she adds. “Although I don't follow an organised religion, I have a deep unwavering spirituality and faith in what I do in the world and what I can achieve past the limitations of my impairments… I think for some people it takes trauma to make us realise our potential.” Wild recognises that many people do not see that growth, however.
Positive illusions?
The researchers studying post-traumatic growth have been careful not to dismiss the pain of overcoming adversity. “It certainly isn’t all sunshine and rainbows,” says Canevello. “It means that you have come out the other side of this thing – that you are having these growth experiences, despite the stress.”
This message is sometimes lost in the media coverage and public understanding of post-traumatic growth, however, which can focus on the inspirational elements of the phenomenon. “The concept lends itself to a pretty ‘Pollyannaish’ understanding of recovering for adversity,” says Jayawickreme.
Jayawickreme’s main concern, however, regards the specific scientific methods behind the research and the way that post-traumatic growth is most commonly measured – problems that he recently outlined in a book for Oxford University Press. He does not doubt that some people experience a positive transformation after trauma, but believes that these flaws have led us to overestimate how likely that is to happen.
One issue is the phrasing of the survey items. Almost all studies use the “Post-traumatic Growth Inventory” (PTGI), in which participants are asked to consider a series of statements describing potentially positive changes and then report how often they have experienced them, from 0 (“I did not experience this change as a result of my crisis”) to 5 (“I experienced this change to a very great degree as a result of my crisis”).
“You can't report a change for the worse,” says Jayawickreme. This could prime people to report growth, he says. (In general, participants may be reluctant to circle 0 for every single question.)
He points to one study from 2015 that looked at people’s responses to the earthquakes in Canterbury, New Zealand, in 2010 and 2011. In these surveys, the participants were given the option of reporting negative as well as positive change – and the evidence for widespread post-traumatic growth was much less convincing than the standard studies.
Then there is the potential for memory bias to skew the results. To complete the PTGI, the participants have to look back and compare how they were before the trauma with their current state. They must then evaluate how much of that change was due to the adversity they had faced. “It’s assuming that someone can accurately calculate their change, and its cause, and my guess is that most people aren't able to do that,” he says.
Human memory is notoriously unreliable, after all, and previous research suggests that most people are naturally inclined to find improvements in their personalities over time– even when there is little reason to think it has actually occurred.
The best way of demonstrating actual growth would be to survey people before and after the traumatic event. Unfortunately, very few studies of post-traumatic growth have done this – but the results of those that have are telling.
Consider a paper by Patricia Frazier, a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, which examined a sample of more than 1,500 students. At the beginning and end of the study, the participants completed various in-depth questionnaires that measured the domains that are thought to be positively affected by adversity, such as appreciation of life and the state of their relationships.
One hundred twenty-two of the participants reported some kind of trauma, such as experiencing a life-threatening accident or the death of a close friend, over the two months the study took place. By comparing their responses at the start and end of that period, the researchers were able to work out if any actual psychological transformation occurred, and compared this to the participants’ perceived growth, measuring at the end of the study with the PTGI.
Despite the fact the study had only lasted a couple months, many of these people did indeed report positive change using the PTGI. Yet those responses did not generally reflect an improvement in any of the psychological measures taken at the beginning and end of the study period.
Such a discrepancy would seem to support Jayawickreme’s suspicion that many of our estimates of PTG prevalence may be flawed, and do not reflect the number of people experiencing real psychological transformation.
“We should be especially wary of encouraging people to see positive transformations resulting from their trauma”
You might wonder whether the perception of growth after a trauma could help people to cope; perhaps it’s healthy to try to see some positive outcome from adversity. In reality, PTG may be associated with a higher risk of mental illness. One study examined soldiers deployed in Iraq for 15 months after they had returned home from service. The soldiers who reported greater post-traumatic growth five months after their return tended to show worse symptoms of PTSD at the end of the study.
This suggests that for some people, the false perception of growth may be an unhelpful way of processing trauma. If so, we should be especially wary of encouraging people to see positive transformations resulting from their trauma.
Shades of grey
Jayawickreme is not alone in these concerns, though many researchers continue to believe the standard questionnaires measuring post-traumatic growth have captured something meaningful. “There’s a split view in the literature,” says Dr Matt Brooks, a lecturer in psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK.
In his own work exploring PTG, Brooks has found that some people who report experiencing post-traumatic growth in questionnaires also describe ongoing difficulties arising from their adverse experiences. They might still struggle to leave the house, for example, or report suicidal ideation. In such cases it is natural to wonder whether the perception of positive change is illusory or may even reflect a dysfunctional coping strategy, he says. “But for some people certainly, there is a transformative change,” he adds. He describes people who have come to reassess their basic values, so that they change jobs, travel the world or commit themselves to charity work. “They've channelled [their distress] into something positive.”
Dr Hanna Kampman, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of East London, takes a similarly nuanced view. “We have a major responsibility in how we present the theory,” she says, “so that it doesn't come with additional pressure for somebody who has already gone through a very difficult time.” It could be particularly damaging, she says, if the discourse on post-traumatic growth means that others start to expect people to recover too quickly.
Kampman is also concerned about our culture veering in the opposite direction, however – so that the potential for resilience and growth is completely neglected. Her research investigates post-traumatic growth in people with acquired disabilities, which many people may only associate with vulnerability and weakness. “It’s very important that we also show the other side – that some people are excelling and challenging themselves – rather than just focusing on the expectation of suffering.”
Future research – using better designed experimental methods – should help to resolve the uncertainty about the real prevalence of post-traumatic growth, and the factors that might help people to process their crises. With this knowledge, therapists should be better able to tailor their conversations with their clients and to guide them through their recovery.
In the meantime, we need to remember each individual’s experience is going to be very different and must be judged on its own terms. The priority should be providing whatever support they personally need to come to terms with their trauma, whether they are reporting distress or growth – or both at the same time – without imposing a narrative on their recovery.
東倫敦大學心理學高級講師 Hanna Kampman 博士也持同樣細微的觀點。“我們對如何提出理論負有重大責任，”她說，“這樣就不會給已經經歷過非常困難時期的人帶來額外的壓力。”她說，如果關於創傷後成長的討論意味著其他人開始期望人們恢復過快，這可能會特別具有破壞性。
然而，Kampman 也擔心我們的文化會朝相反的方向轉變—因此完全忽視了復原力和增長的潛力。她的研究調查了患有後天性殘疾的人的創傷後成長，許多人可能只將其與脆弱性和弱點聯繫起來。“非常重要的是，我們還展示了另一面—有些人正在超越和挑戰自己—而不是僅僅關注對痛苦的期望。”
未來的研究—使用設計得更好的實驗方法—應該有助於解決關於創傷後成長的真實流行率的不確定性，以及可能幫助人們處理危機的因素。有了這些知識，治療師應該能夠更好地調整他們與客戶的對話，並指導他們完成康復。
與此同時，我們需要記住，每個人的經歷都會非常不同，必須根據自己的情況來判斷。優先事項應該是提供他們個人需要的任何支持，以應對他們的創傷，無論他們是報告痛苦還是成長—或同時報告兩者—而不是對他們的康復强加敘述。
English to Chinese: How the next coronavirus variant could emerge General field: Science Detailed field: Biology (-tech,-chem,micro-)
Source text - English How the next coronavirus variant could emerge
(CNN) Stopping the next major coronavirus variant involves knowing where it might come from.
With Omicron, those answers are still a mystery: How did a variant that looked so different from all its older cousins appear so suddenly? How to explain its jumble of mutations, many of which had rarely been seen in variants of interest?
"When that virus sequence first started to emerge, it was really hard for me to fathom that that would take off," Emory University virologist Mehul Suthar said.
The alphanumeric soup has also revealed BA.2, a faster-spreading subtype of Omicron that has become dominant in the United States.
Viruses change all the time, often in ways that actually hurt their chances at survival. But once in a while, those mutations can work out in the virus' favor.
Catch my drift?
The virus you sneeze or cough out may be ever so slightly different from the one you were infected with.
That's because viruses mutate -- especially when their genetic code is made of RNA, a close cousin of our DNA.
"As the virus reproduces itself, there are errors in reproducing its code," explained Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of World Health Organization's health emergencies program, in a March briefing. "Most of those errors result in a virus that's either not competent or just dies away."
But rarely, these accidents can give the virus an advantage. Perhaps it becomes more contagious. Or perhaps it becomes better at escaping our immunity.
Sarah Cobey, associate professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, explained in an op-ed in the New York Times this week that the coronavirus' transmissibility will hit a ceiling -- eventually. However, it probably won't stop evolving in ways that skirt our immune response.
But not all mutations happen the same way.
"Before Omicron, I think most people in the field would say that we would see immune escape through the accumulation of these mutations one by one," Cobey told CNN.
Over time and over the course of hundreds of infections, circulating viruses move further and further away from their ancestors on the evolutionary tree. It's a process known as antigenic drift.
However, while this may explain variants that appear closer on the evolutionary tree -- like Omicron and its BA.2 offshoot -- it doesn't explain how Omicron appeared in the first place.
"Omicron took everyone by surprise," Cobey said.
Marietjie Venter, a professor in the Department of Medical Virology at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, said it's unlikely that a "slow change" led to Omicron.
This would mean the virus evolved gradually in a population that wasn't being monitored. And South Africa, where many of Omicron's early samples were identified, has a good surveillance program, she said.
Thus, it would have been hard for a variant like Omicron to sneak up slowly. Instead, its appearance seemed curiously abrupt.
"Delta almost disappeared, and then suddenly we saw Omicron that was completely different," Venter said.
Shifting gears
In some cases, viruses don't drift; they shift.
"Antigenic shift" is a more dramatic change that can happen, for example, when viruses in animals find their way to humans or when two strains infect the same person and exchange genes.
Examples of the latter include rare instances of a hybrid virus containing stretches of Delta and Omicron genes.
Researchers at Helix, a company whose Covid-19 tests have helped track a number of variants, identified a handful of combined Delta-Omicron infections in the US among nearly 30,000 coronavirus samples from late November to mid-February, when both variants were circulating.
Of those samples, researchers identified 20 cases in which people had gotten infected by both variants at the same time. One of these samples did show some evidence that the variants had exchanged genes, though at low levels. In addition, the researchers found two unrelated cases whose infections originated from hybrid viruses.
"There is currently no evidence that the two Delta-Omicron recombinant viruses identified are more transmissible between hosts compared to the circulating Omicron lineages," the researchers wrote.
"We're not calling this Deltacron," Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's technical lead on Covid-19, said at the March briefing. "That's not terminology that we are using."
At the time, Van Kerkhove said this combination appeared to be circulating "at very low levels" but she offered the caveat that we should be testing more to get a clearer picture of its prevalence and spread -- or lack thereof.
Still, the ability to swap genes has driven the re-emergence of multiple viruses, most prominently influenza.
Influenza's genetic material is made up of multiple segments of RNA that can shuffle back and forth when two viruses co-infect the same cell. This is known as reassortment.
But the coronavirus "can actually do something that is even harder for us to wrap our heads around," Cobey explained, referring to a gene-swapping process called recombination.
Unlike influenza, the coronavirus has one long strand of RNA as its genetic code. When two strains infect the same cell, their replication machinery may occasionally hop from one strain to the other. This creates random "breakpoints" in its genetic code that are stitched together.
Whereas influenza shuffles whole cards, in a sense, each coronavirus has just one card -- but it's an extra-long one, and it can be cut up and taped back together in a variety of ways.
This means the virus has "a lot more evolutionary space that can be explored pretty quickly," Cobey said.
In the op-ed, she and her co-authors describe how we may have seen only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the number of possible mutations the virus can sustain and still be able to infect human cells.
Though it's unclear whether recombination is more likely than other pathways to generate the next variant of concern, Cobey said that Omicron in particular has lit a fire under scientists to understand its origins and the true breadth of viable mutations.
"That's the sort of divergence that is really difficult to study and anticipate in the lab," she said.
The mystery of Omicron
No single explanation seems to neatly fit Omicron's backstory. But experts are circling several theories that may explain its sudden appearance last year.
The most popular view appears to involve an infection that sticks around for a long time in an immunocompromised person.
"They actually develop antibodies, but they don't clear the virus," said Venter, who also chairs WHO's Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens.
That gives the virus plenty of time to accumulate changes, potentially ones that enable it to dodge that person's antibodies and acquire immune resistance.
Another theory is known as reverse zoonosis, Venter added. This refers to humans infecting an animal population, where the virus accumulates new mutations before jumping back to humans. (Indeed, this coronavirus has spread widely among the animal kingdom.)
Staying ahead of the virus isn't just a question of anticipating its next move, experts say. It's about finding ways to avoid threats and ultimately ensure the durability of our vaccines.
And it's not just this virus.
"Most of the pathogens that are infecting us repeatedly are able to do that because they're escaping some of our immunity to previous infecting strains," Cobey said.
"Viral evolution is actually a real problem in our lives that we maybe don't recognize formally as such."
Stay up to date on what is happening in the language industry
Work for non-profits or pro-bono clients
Meet new end/direct clients
Network with other language professionals
Build or grow a translation team
Learn more about translation / improve my skills
Learn more about interpreting / improve my skills
Get help on technical issues / improve my technical skills
Learn more about additional services I can provide my clients
Learn more about the business side of freelancing
Find a mentor
Bio
I am a native Fujian dialect speaker. Before I was a professional in the accounting and tax fields, and also had great knowledge in English and Chinese.
I am keen to learn new skills, used to working under tight deadlines, self disciplined.
Expertise