05/06/2019
A Long March-11 solid propellant carrier rocket is launched from a mobile launch platform in the Yellow Sea off east China’s Shangdong Province, June 5, 2019. China successfully launched a rocket from a mobile launch platform in the Yellow Sea off Shandong Province on Wednesday, sending two technology experiment satellites and five commercial satellites into space. A Long March-11 solid propellant carrier rocket blasted off at 12:06 p.m. from the mobile platform. It is China’s first space launch from a sea-based platform and the 306th mission of the Long March carrier rocket series. (Xinhua/Zhu Zheng)
QINGDAO, June 5 (Xinhua) — China successfully launched a rocket from a mobile launch platform in the Yellow Sea off Shandong Province on Wednesday, sending two technology experiment satellites and five commercial satellites into space.
A Long March-11 solid propellant carrier rocket blasted off at 12:06 p.m. from the mobile platform. It is China’s first space launch from a sea-based platform and the 306th mission of the Long March carrier rocket series.
The rocket is also named “CZ-11 WEY” under an agreement between the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, China Space Foundation and a Chinese automobile producer.
Launching a carrier rocket from an ocean-based platform has many advantages over a land launch.
The closer to the equator a rocket launch can get, the greater the speed boost it will receive. It reduces the amount of energy required to get into space and means that less fuel is required.
The launch site is flexible and falling rocket remains pose less danger. Using civilian ships to launch rockets at sea would lower launch costs and give it a commercial edge.
The seaborne launch technology will meet the growing launch demand of low inclination satellites and help China provide launch services for countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, according to experts.
The two satellites, developed by China Academy of Space Technology, are expected to step up all-weather monitoring of ocean wind fields and improve typhoon monitoring and accuracy of the weather forecast in China.
Among the five commercial satellites, the two satellites, developed by China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, are China’s first small satellite system based on Ka-band.
The Long March-11, developed by China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, is the only rocket using solid propellants among China’s new generation carrier rockets. It is mainly used to carry small satellites and can take multiple satellites into orbit at the same time.
Source: Xinhua
Posted in China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, China alert, China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, China Space Foundation, Chinese automobile producer, completes, CZ-11 WEY, first, land launch, launch, Long March-11, ocean-based platform, offshore rocket, orbit, satellites, seaborne launch technology, shandong province, solid propellant carrier rocket, Uncategorized, Yellow Sea |
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05/06/2019
Chinese President Xi Jinping inspects the guard of honor during a welcoming ceremony upon his arrival at the airport in Moscow, Russia, June 5, 2019. Xi arrived here on Wednesday for a state visit to Russia. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)
MOSCOW, June 5 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived here on Wednesday for a state visit to Russia as the two countries are expected to bring their comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination to a new era.
Upon arrival, Xi said he would exchange views with Russian President Vladimir Putin on how to deepen bilateral ties and promote practical cooperation, and over major international and regional issues of common concerns.
The two heads of state would plan for the future development of bilateral relationship so as to push forward the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination to a new era of greater development at a higher level, Xi said.
Xi’s visit to Russia, the eighth since 2013 when he was elected Chinese president, comes as the two countries are embracing the historic moment of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties.
Thanks to the joint efforts from both sides, China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination is now at its best in history, serving as a model of living in harmony and win-win cooperation between major countries and neighboring countries, Xi said.
China and Russia enjoy strong political trust, maintain sound mechanisms of high-level exchanges and cooperation in various fields, and keep close coordination in global affairs, playing a positive and constructive role in safeguarding peace and stability of the region and the world as well as international fairness and justice, Xi said.
After standing the test of changing circumstances over the past 70 years, the bilateral relations are increasingly mature, stable and resilient, Xi said, noting the ties is at a new historical starting point with a new historic opportunity.
During the visit, Xi and Putin are expected to sign or witness the signing of important cooperation documents, and attend a gathering celebrating the 70 anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties.
Xi will also attend the 23rd St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. He will address a plenary session to expound China’s ideas on sustainable development and call for concerted efforts to safeguard multilateralism and improve global governance for the common development and prosperity of the world.
Xi and Putin, maintaining close friendship, have met nearly 30 times on bilateral and multilateral occasions since 2013. In a meeting with Putin in April, Xi said the bilateral relationship has become a major-country relationship featuring the highest degree of mutual trust, the highest level of coordination and the highest strategic value.
Source: Xinhua
Posted in arrives, China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Moscow, Russia, Russian President, State visit, Uncategorized, Vladimir Putin |
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05/06/2019
- The virus that causes the African swine fever is now endemic in Tibet and Xinjiang, the United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organisation said
- Diseases that are endemic, or generally present, are harder to stamp out
Piglets are kept in pens at a pig farm in Langfang in Hebei province on Monday, April 1, 2019. Photo: Bloomberg
China’s attempts to control African swine fever have been insufficient to stem further spread of the disease, with the deadly pig contagion now endemic in two regions, a United Nations group said.
The virus that causes the disease is entrenched among pig populations in the autonomous regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, the Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome said in a report Thursday.
Diseases that are endemic, or generally present, are more difficult to stamp out by quarantining and culling diseased and vulnerable livestock.
About 20 per cent of China’s pig inventories may have been culled in the first few months of 2019 amid fears of African swine fever spreading more rapidly, according to the FAO, which is monitoring the disease in cooperation with local authorities and China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
China’s pig production will drop by 134 million heads, or 20 per cent, in 2019, the US Department of Agriculture said last month.
“While official sources confirm a rapid spread of the disease, both the speed and severity of the spread could prove more pronounced than currently assumed,” the FAO said in its report. A government investigation in seven provinces found “irrational culling of sows on breeding farms in February, reducing the sector’s core production capacity.”
Thailand launches crackdown to keep out African swine fever
Since the first cases were reported last August, 130 outbreaks have been detected in 32 provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities and special administrative regions across the nation, which raises half the world’s pigs.
- In Jilin province, swine inventory fell 28 per cent from the previous year, with some reports pointing to a larger drop In Shandong province, sow numbers fell 41 per cent from July 2018 to February 2019
- In Guangdong province, hog inventories slumped 20 per cent from a year earlier and pig-feed sales fell 10 per cent to 50 per cent
- Production of fresh and frozen meat by meatpackers plunged 17 per cent in January and February, compared with the same months in 2018
- Source: SCMP
Posted in African swine fever virus, endemic, eradication, Food & Agriculture Organisation, guangdong province, Jilin, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Thailand, Tibet, UN, Uncategorized, US Department of Agriculture, Xinjiang |
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05/06/2019
- Communist Party says those taking part pledged to ‘cultivate the Chinese cultural character of our nation’s religions’
- Confucius has been rehabilitated by party in recent years as a means of rallying patriotism and countering foreign influences
The Communist Party for decades attacked the sage as a symbol of feudalism, but now Confucianism has been elevated. Photo: AP
China has begun five-day Confucian culture immersion courses for religious leaders in the sage’s hometown as part of a campaign to extend government control over faith communities through a
.
The ruling Communist Party’s United Work Front Department said in a news release on Monday that the activity was designed to ensure the primacy of traditional Chinese values above all.
“To hold activities here … is a collective tribute to excellent traditional Chinese culture and a conscious identification and integration with Chinese culture,” said the release, posted on the department’s website.
Participants pledged to “cultivate the Chinese cultural character of our nation’s religions so that our nation’s religions are rooted in the fertile soil of excellent traditional Chinese culture, and to ceaselessly and deeply advance the Sinicisation of our nation’s religions”, it said.
The five-day immersion courses are being held in the sage’s hometown of Qufu. Photo: United Front Work Department
President Xi Jinping has launched the harshest crackdown in decades on religious practices, especially those viewed as foreign such as Christianity and Islam, while at the same time elevating home-grown Confucianism.
While for decades the officially atheistic Communist Party attacked Confucius as a symbol of feudalism, he has been thoroughly rehabilitated in recent years as a means of rallying patriotism and countering foreign influences.
Confucianism’s emphasis on strict social organisation, advancement through study and exam taking, adherence to hierarchy and maintenance of social harmony appeals especially to the heavily bureaucratic party, which brooks no challenge to its authority.
Xi has repeatedly called for religious leaders and believers to be guided by “socialist core values”. Party bureaucrats overseeing religion have demanded that key religious tenets and texts such as the Bible and Koran be interpreted “in conformity with the demands of modern Chinese development and excellent traditional Chinese culture”.
That has been accompanied by a campaign of removing crosses and bulldozing many churches, destroying mosques and locking an
in camps where they are forced to renounce Islam and their cultural traditions.
Despite international condemnation, China claims it upholds freedom of religion and is seeking only to ensure regulations are followed while discouraging religious extremism and violence.
Those participating at the launch of the five-day course included the president of the Chinese Taoist Association, vice-president of the Chinese Islamic Association, chairman of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and president of the Chinese Christian Association.
Confucius was believed to have been born in the 6th century BC in the eastern town of Qufu. He is credited with authoring or editing key texts of statesmanship and social order, particularly the Analects that contain his key aphorisms and teachings.
The sage’s legacy is also invoked in the name of the
, quasi-academic bodies set up in colleges and other centres of education around the world.
Several US universities have rejected offers to open Confucius Institutes on their campuses or declined to renew contracts over concerns about Chinese government political influence.
Source: SCMP
Posted in Analects, Bible, bulldozing many churches, China alert, Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, Chinese Christian Association, Chinese Islamic Association, Chinese Taoist Association, Christianity, Communist Party, Confucian culture courses, Confucianism, Confucius, Confucius Institute, destroying mosques, islam, Koran, President Xi Jinping, Qufu, religious leaders, removing crosses, runs, Sinicisation, symbol of feudalism, the sage, traditional Chinese values, Uncategorized, United Work Front Department |
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05/06/2019
- The ‘success’ of China’s undemocratic model hides the continued exploitation of the poor, the destruction of faith communities and other victims who can’t speak out
Villagers of the Yi ethnic group move into new houses for relocated residents from poor areas, in Zhaojue county in southwest China’s Sichuan province. Under President Xi Jinping, China has set the goal of eliminating poverty by 2020, but the state of the rural poor in remote counties may make the task difficult. Photo: Xinhua
I write to respond to Randy Lee’s letter, dated May 6, on the dilemma of democracy and prosperity in mainland China and Taiwan (“
”). Linear thinking of this kind has misled a lot of people on the issue.
Mr Lee compared the economies of China and Taiwan, saying the island’s economy is in a downturn and attributed this to its democratic governance. However, every nation faces regular ups and downs in its economy and there is no reason to place the blame on the so-called chaos of democracy.
The strong economy of China at present comes at a price, and the price is most likely paid by the individual citizens deprived of freedom of speech, businesses cultivating a “copying” culture to make a profit, as well as the
Xinjiang Uygurs: the human cost of China’s belt and road plan
Mr Lee acknowledges the widening
in the People’s Republic of China, so let’s not forget whole impoverished counties in the mainland. It is reported that the richest 100 individuals in China have more wealth than the poorest two-fifths of the country’s population combined. What does that mean? That such an economy and authoritarian government do not guarantee a more equally prosperous nation, but keep widening the gap between the poor and the rich, and even exploiting the poorest parts of the country. The image of a prosperous nation, as described by Mr Lee, is only an illusion – hiding its failure in protecting the poor from being exploited and ignored.
Source: SCMP
Posted in China’s rise, Chinese, Glowing tributes, ignore, no money or rights, People’s Republic of China, President Xi Jinping, sichuan province, Taiwan, Uncategorized, Xinjiang Uygurs, Yi ethnic group, Zhaojue county |
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05/06/2019
- Few signs of Eid celebrations after crackdown that has seen a reported million Uygurs and other minorities interned in camps
- Muslims in far western Chinese region say they are now ‘too scared’ to practise their faith in public
Worshippers leave a mosque in Kasghar after prayers on Wednesday. Photo: AFP
The corner where Heyitkah mosque in China’s far western region of Xinjiang once hummed with life is now a car park where all traces of the tall, domed building have been erased.
While Muslims around the world celebrated the end of Ramadan with prayers and festivities this week, the recent destruction of dozens of mosques in Xinjiang highlights the increasing pressure Uygurs and other ethnic minorities face in the heavily policed region.
Behind the car park in the city of Hotan, the slogan “Educate the people for the party” is emblazoned in red on the wall of a primary school where students must scan their faces upon entering the razor-wired gates.
The mosque “was beautiful,” recalled a vendor at a nearby bazaar. “There were a lot of people there.”
Satellite images reviewed by AFP and visual analysis non-profit Earthrise Alliance show that 36 mosques and religious sites have been torn down or had their domes and corner spires removed since 2017.
Satellite images from 2014 (top) and March this year show the disappearance of the dome of the Karamay West Mosque in Xinjiang. Photo: AFP/ Distribution Airbus Defence and Space/ CNES 2019/ Produced By Earthrise
In the mosques that are open, worshippers go through metal detectors while surveillance cameras monitor them inside.
“The situation here is very strict, it takes a toll on my heart,” said one Uygur, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. “I don’t go any more,” he added, referring to mosques. “I’m scared.”
In the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, no longer does the sunrise call for prayer echo throughout the city – a ritual the manager of the city’s central mosque once proudly shared with touristsOn Wednesday, locals celebrating Eid al-Fitr quietly filed into the entrance of state-approved Idkah Mosque – one of the largest in China – as police and officials fenced off the wide square surrounding the building and plain clothes men monitored every person’s actions.
It was another low-key Ramadan for Muslims in Xinjiang, where restaurants were busy serving food to customers throughout the day, a time when practising Muslims fast.
In Hotan on Friday – a holy day for believers – the only mosque in the city was empty after sundown, an important prayer session when Muslim families typically break their daily Ramadan fast.
Earlier in the day, at least 100 people attended a midday session but the vast majority were elderly men.
Human Rights Watch decodes surveillance app used to classify people in China’s Xinjiang region
The ruling Communist Party “sees religion as this existential threat”, said James Leibold, an expert on ethnic relations and policy in China at La Trobe University.
Over the long term, the Chinese government wants to achieve “the secularisation of Chinese society,” he told AFP.
The Xinjiang government told AFP that it “protects religious freedoms” and citizens can celebrate Ramadan “within the scope permitted by law”, without elaborating.
The authorities have thrown a hi-tech security net across the region, installing cameras, mobile police stations and checkpoints in seemingly every street in response to a spate of deadly attacks blamed on Islamic extremists and separatists in recent years.
An estimated one million Uygurs and other Turkic-speaking ethnic groups are held in a vast network of internment camps.
After initially denying their existence, Chinese authorities last year acknowledged that they run “vocational education centres” aimed at steering people clear of religious extremism by teaching them Mandarin and China’s laws.
In those centres, it was a different Ramadan.
The Xinjiang government told AFP that people in the centres are not allowed to hold religious activities because Chinese law forbids it within education facilities, but they are free to do so “when they return home on weekends”.
Uygur men dance after Eid al-Fitr prayers in Kashgar. Photo: Greg Baker/ AFP
In recent years, Chinese authorities have ramped up controls on public displays of religion and Islamic traditions in Xinjiang.
AFP reporters did not see any veiled women and few men sporting long beards during a week-long visit to the region. Former internment camp inmates have said they were incarcerated for these outward signs of their religion.
Places of worship too have become targets of Beijing’s draconian security measures.
Human Rights Watch decodes surveillance app used to classify people in China’s Xinjiang region
In the satellite images analysed by AFP and Earthrise Alliance, 30 religious sites were completely demolished while six had their domes and corner spires removed.
AFP reporters visited about half a dozen sites, and found that some mosques had been repurposed into public spaces.
Police officers blocked journalists from entering Artux, just north of Kashgar, where the town’s grand mosque and dozens of other community mosques were destroyed.
The area is some 22 kilometres (14 miles) away from an enormous complex believed to be a re-education centre. Visible from a nearby village, the facility has razor-wired walls, watchtowers and imposing block buildings.In Kashgar, two cameras perched on the columns of a former mosque point at its entrance. There is no minaret or dome – instead, a shop selling dresses lies to its right alongside houses.
A demolished mosque in Hotan has been converted into a garden, paved with concrete walkways and sparsely planted trees.
On the outskirts of town, situated between a cemetery and sand dunes, two white flags and a pile of burned refuse and debris was all that was left of an old shrine named Imam Asim.
China’s top Xinjiang official Chen Quanguo should face sanctions over alleged abuses, US lawmakers say
Uygurs consider these mosques and shrines “their ancestral heritage,” said Omer Kanat, director of the Uygur Human Rights Project.
“The Chinese government just wants to erase everything … that is different from Han, everything which belongs to Uygur culture or Islamic culture in the region,” he said.
Juma Maimaiti, the official imam of Idkah Mosque, told AFP in an interview arranged by the propaganda department that the demolition of mosques “has never happened here”.
“But our government has proceeded to protect some key mosques,” he added, and said that the city of Kashgar has over 150 mosques.
A propaganda slogan and surveillance camera at a mosque in Yangisar, south of Kashgar. Photo: AFP
Though Beijing’s restrictions on religious piety, such as fasting, are not new, observers say conditions have deteriorated to the point where celebrations for the holy month in Xinjiang are reduced or largely invisible.
Islamic greetings and openly fasting in public are no longer permitted, said Darren Byler, a lecturer at the University of Washington who focuses on Uygur culture.
While there are Uygurs who continue to practise their faith, they are “internalising it at this moment – they’re not expressing it openly,” he said.
EU calls out Beijing on human rights but activists want harder line against China’s Xinjiang and Tibet policy
At state-backed mosques, religious activity is controlled as Beijing pursues a five-year plan to “Sinicise” Islam as the “only way for a healthy development of Islam” in the country, said Yang Faming, president.
Source: SCMP
Posted in Artux, Beijing, chinese government, Chinese Society, dome, draconian security measures, Earthrise Alliance, Eid al-Fitr prayers, Eid celebrations, Heyitkah mosque, Hotan, Human Rights Watch (HRW), Idkah Mosque, Kasghar, minaret, Mosque, Muslims, Ramadan, secularisation, Silk Road, Turkic-speaking ethnic groups, Uncategorized, Uygur Human Rights Project, Uygurs, vanishing mosques, Xinjiang |
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05/06/2019
BEIJING (Reuters) – With a cryptic message about UFOs and a picture of a missile launcher, China’s military has hinted that it has carried out a test of a new missile, after images of an object streaking towards the sky circulated on Chinese social media.
The People’s Liberation Army typically does not announce new missile tests, but occasionally drops hints about what it is up to, amid a massive modernisation push championed by President Xi Jinping to ramp up combat capabilities.
On Sunday, footage circulated on China’s Weibo microblogging service of an object travelling up into the sky, leaving a white trail behind it, over the Bohai Sea, partly closed at the time for military drills.
That caused some Chinese internet users to wonder if it was a UFO, though most thought it was probably the test of a new underwater launched ballistic missile.
In a short post on its official Weibo account late on Monday, the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force showed a picture of what looked like a road mobile intercontinental ballistic missile launcher against a night sky.
“Do you believe in this world there are UFOs?” it wrote in the caption, without offering further explanation.
The navy then chimed in on its Weibo account with a picture of a missile being launched from underwater heading off into the blue sky above, with a similar caption: “Do you believe in UFOs?”
Defence publication Janes said on its website that the weekend pictures could have been China’s next generation submarine-launched ballistic missile, the JL-3.
The Ministry of Defence did not respond to a request for comment.
The development of the nuclear-armed JL-3 is being closely watched by the United States and its allies as it is expected to have a longer range than its predecessor and will significantly strengthen China’s nuclear deterrent.
In its latest annual survey of China’s military modernisation, the Pentagon said last month the new missile would likely to be fitted on China’s next generation nuclear missile submarines. Construction is due to start in the early 2020s.
Source: Reuters
Posted in believe, Bohai Sea, China alert, Construction, hints, Ministry of Defence, new missile, nuclear missile submarines, nuclear-armed JL-3, Pentagon, People’s Liberation Army, President Xi Jinping, Rocket Force, test, UFOs, Uncategorized, Weibo |
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04/06/2019
- Brahma Chellaney writes that excessive damming and drastic overuse of water resources are causing the world’s major waterways to run dry
Vessels head for the lock of the Three Gorges Dam in Yichang, in central China’s Hubei province. Sediment build-up in the dam’s reservoir stems from silt flow disruption in the Yangtze River, Brahma Chellaney writes. Photo: Xinhua
Thanks to excessive damming and drastic overuse of water resources, an increasing number of major rivers across the world are drying up before reaching the sea.
Nowhere is this more evident than in China, where the old saying, “Follow the river and it will eventually lead you to a sea,” is no longer wholly true.
While a number of smaller rivers in China have simply disappeared, the Yellow River – the cradle of the Chinese civilisation – now tends to run dry before reaching the sea.
This has prompted Chinese scientists to embark on a controversial rainmaking project to help increase the Yellow’s flow. By sucking moisture from the air, however, the project could potentially affect monsoon rains elsewhere.
For large sections of the world’s population, major river systems serve as lifelines. The rivers not only supply the most essential of all natural resources – water – but also sustain biodiversity, which in turn supports human beings.
Yet an increasing number of rivers, not just in China, are drying up before reaching the sea.
A major new United Nations study published early this month offers grim conclusions: human actions are irremediably altering rivers and other ecosystems and driving increasing numbers of plant and animal species to extinction.
“Nature across the globe has now been significantly altered,” according to the study’s summary of findings.
The Yangtze and Jialing rivers come together in the southwestern city of Chongqing. Photo: Simon Song
Water sustains life and livelihoods and enables economic development.
If the world is to avert a thirsty future and contain the risks of greater intrastate and interstate water conflict, it must protect freshwater ecosystems, which harbour the greatest concentration of species.
The Mekong is mighty no more: book charts river’s demise
Yet, according to another study published in Nature this month humans have modified the flows of most long rivers, other than those found in the remote regions of the
Amazon and Congo basins and the Arctic.
Consequently, only a little more than one-third of the world’s 246 long rivers are still free-flowing, meaning they remain free from dams, levees and other man-made water-diversion structures that leave them increasingly fragmented.
Humans have modified the flows of most long rivers, including the Yangtze, home to some of China’s most spectacular natural scenery. Photo: WWF
Such fragmentation is affecting river hydrology, flow of nutrient-rich sediment from the mountains where rivers originate, riparian vegetation, migration of fish and quality of water.
Take the Colorado River, one of the world’s most diverted and dammed rivers. Broken up by more than 100 dams and thousands of kilometres of diversion canals, the Colorado has not reached the sea since 1998.
Sinking sands along the Mekong River leave Vietnamese homeless
The river, which originates in the Rocky Mountains and is the lifeblood for the southwestern United States, used to empty into the Sea of Cortez in Mexico.
But now, owing to the upstream diversion of 9.3 billion cubic metres (328.4 billion cubic feet) of water annually, the Colorado’s flow into its delta has been reduced to a trickle.
Altering the flow characteristics of rivers poses a serious problem for sustainable development, because they affect the ecosystem services on which both humans and wildlife depend. Photo: AP
Other major rivers that run dry before reaching the sea include the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, the two lifelines of Central Asia; the Euphrates and the Tigris in the Middle East; and the Rio Grande, which marks the border between Texas and Mexico before heading to the Gulf of Mexico.
The overused Murray in Australia and Indus in Pakistan are at risk of meeting the same fate.
Are China’s Mekong dams washing away Cambodian livelihoods?
More fundamentally, altered flow characteristics of rivers are among the most serious problems for sustainable development, because they seriously affect the ecosystem services on which both humans and wildlife depend.
Free-flowing rivers, while supporting a wealth of biodiversity, allow billions of fish – the main source of protein for the poor – to trek through their waters and breed copiously.
Urgent action is needed to save the world’s rivers, including improving agricultural practices, which account for the bulk of freshwater withdrawals
Free-flowing rivers also deliver nutrient-rich silt crucial to agriculture, fisheries and marine life.
Such high-quality sediment helps to naturally re-fertilise overworked soils in the plains, sustain freshwater species and, after rivers empty into seas or oceans, underpin the aquatic food chain supporting marine life.
China’s hyperactive dam building illustrates the high costs of river fragmentation. No country in history has built more dams than China. In fact, China today boasts more large dams than the rest of the world combined.
China’s chain of dams and reservoirs on each of its long rivers impedes the downstream flow of sediment, thereby denying essential nutrients to agricultural land and aquatic species.
A case in point is China’s Three Gorges Dam – the world’s largest – which has a problematic build-up of sediment in its own massive reservoir because it has disrupted silt flows in the Yangtze River.
Likewise, China’s cascade of eight giant dams on the Mekong, just before the river enters Southeast Asia, is affecting the quality and quantity of flows in the delta, in Vietnam.
Yangtze dams may spell end to sturgeon in a decade
Undeterred, China is building or planning another 20 dams on the Mekong.
How the drying up of rivers affects seas and oceans is apparent from the Aral Sea, which has shrunk 74 per cent in area and 90 per cent in volume, with its salinity growing nine-fold.
People beat the heat by cooling off in the Yangtze River in Wuhan, in central China’s Hubei province. Photo: Nora Tam
This change is the result of the Aral Sea’s principal water sources, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, being so overexploited for irrigation that they are drying up before reaching what was once the world’s fourth-largest inland lake.
Compounding the challenges is the increasing pollution of rivers. Aquatic ecosystems have lost half of their biodiversity since the mid-1970s alone.
Chinese court jails nine for dumping toxic waste in Yangtze
Urgent action is needed to save the world’s rivers. This includes action on several fronts, including improving practices in agriculture, which accounts for the bulk of the world’s freshwater withdrawals.
Without embracing integrated water resource management and other sustainable practices, the world risks a parched future.
Source: SCMP
Posted in Amazon, Amu Darya, Aral Sea, Arctic, Australia, Brahma Chellaney, Cambodian, China alert, Chinese civilisation, Chongqing, Colorado River, Congo, drastic overuse, drying up, ecosystems, especially, Euphrates, excessive damming, extinction, Gulf of Mexico, hubei province, hyperactive dam building, Indus River, Jialing, major waterways, Mekong, Mexico, Middle East, Murray, nature, No time to waste, Pakistan, Rio Grande, Rocky Mountains, run dry, saving, Sea of Cortez, Syr Darya, Texas, Three Gorges Dam, Tigris, Uncategorized, United Nations, United States, Water resources, world’s rivers, Yangtze River, Yellow River, Yichang |
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04/06/2019
- Unveiled in Shandong, prototype will be a first step towards ground-breaking high-speed travel that will rival passenger jets, project engineer says
One possible future for rapid transport in China is unveiled in the form of a magnetic levitation train at Qingdao in Shandong province. Photo: Weibo
An experimental magnetic levitation train capable of travelling at 600km/h went on show at Qingdao in eastern Shandong province on Thursday, state media said.
Powerful electromagnets hold the Qingdao prototype at a thumb’s width from the rail, giving a quiet, smooth ride at speeds close to those involved in air travel, developers said.
While China operates the world’s fastest conventional train service, which can reach a speed of 350km/h, the Shanghai Maglev has been in commercial operation since the end of 2002 and can reach a top speed of 430km/h. It operates on one 30-kilometre (19-mile) line between two stations.
Ding Sansan, deputy chief engineer with developer the CRRC Sifang Corporation, said China achieved breakthroughs in maglev technology during the “three-year-battle” to build the new train that involved cooperation between more than 30 enterprises, universities and government research institutes.
The construction of a train body with ultra-lightweight, high-strength materials was a challenge, Ding said. Complex physical problems created by high speeds also needed to be solved in new ways if the Qingdao prototype was to reach peak performance.
China was a leader in technologies that included suspension, guidance, control and high-powered traction, Ding told Qingdao Daily.
“The test vehicle has been powered up and is in good order,” Ding was quoted by the newspaper as saying.
Chinese maglev train capable of travelling at 600km/h on track for 2020 test run as design completed
The prototype promised to eliminate the advantages jet passenger planes had over ground vehicles over a distance of 1,500km, he said.
Taking Beijing-to-Shanghai by plane as an example, Ding suggested: “It takes about four-and-a-half hours by plane including preparation time for the journey; about five-and-a-half hours by high-speed rail, and [would] only [take] about three-and-a-half hours by maglev.”
While earlier reports suggested the prototype was expected to begin full-scale testing by 2020, it was unclear what Thursday’s unveiling meant for this timetable.
China’s latest prototype high-speed maglev train factors the comfort of paying customers into its test operations. Photo: Weibo
More maglevs would join the development project in the coming months, the team leader was quoted as saying, while mass production of the technology was likely by 2021.
In contrast to the optimism of the team at Qingdao, Chen Peihong, professor of economics at Beijing Jiaotong University and a transport analyst, was more circumspect about the future of maglev trains.
“The market has to be bigger. Technology alone cannot make [the concept] a success,” she said.
Plane or train: as high-speed rail link connects Hong Kong to 44 mainland Chinese cities, what are cheapest and fastest ways to get where you are going?
Public transport relied heavily on economies of scale, Chen said. Chinese cities including Jinan, Hangzhou and Chongqing were considering maglev lines, but even the longest – from Jinan to Taian – would not exceed 50 kilometres.
Chen said that electromagnetic fields from maglevs were greater than those from the lines that powered high-speed trains, while environmental worries might keep maglevs out of densely-populated areas.
There was a debate in China in the early 2000s about the benefits of a developing a maglev compared to high-speed rail, researchers on that project said. Rail was preferred by the government because it was an established technology and one that was cheaper to realise.
By the end of last year, China’s high-speed rail network extended to most of the country at a distance in excess of 29,000 kilometres, according to government figures, twice as long as the rest of the world’s high-speed rail lines combined. Spain’s high-speed AVE network was the second-longest at 3,100km.
Elsewhere, researchers in Chengdu, Sichuan province, said a vehicle inside a vacuum tube powered by a superconductor coil from a maglev train – a hyperlink – was in development. They expected the vehicle to reach speeds in excess of 1,000km/h as air was pumped from the tube and resistance to the speeding object gradually eliminated.
Source: SCMP
Posted in air travellers, AVE network, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing-to-Shanghai, Chengdu, Chongqing, CRRC Sifang Corporation, down to earth, Hangzhou, High-speed rail, Hong Kong, Jinan, Jinan to Taian, maglev train, professor of economics, Qingdao, Qingdao Daily, shandong province, Shanghai Maglev, sichuan province, Spain, Uncategorized |
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04/06/2019
- Yutu’s discovery of olivine helps pave the way for scientists to confirm existence of a mantle beneath the moon’s crust
- Crystallised mineral likely came from a crater caused by a meteor strike
China’s lunar rover, Yutu, has made a groundbreaking discovery. Photo: Xinhua
China’s lunar rover, Yutu, has made a groundbreaking discovery that proves what scientists have been thinking for decades: that the moon has a mantle.
Scientists have long suspected that the moon has a mantle under its crust, just like the Earth, but for the past 60 years lunar explorations, including the US Apollo missions, have failed to provide proof. While there were clues, there was no direct evidence.
“Now we have it,” said Professor Li Chunlai, deputy director of the National Astronomical Observatory of China and a lead scientist on the Chang’e-4 mission that put Yutu, or Jade Rabbit as it is known in English, on the moon.
The findings, published in the latest issue of journal Nature on Thursday, answer some fundamental questions about the moon, such as its internal structure and history of its formation.
The rover discovered olivine in surface samples collected near its landing site. Photo: Xinhua
During its first mission on January 3, Yutu discovered olivine, a green, crystallised mineral usually found deep underground – like the upper mantle of the Earth – in surface samples collected near its landing site.
Further analysis showed that the olivine was not local, but had originated from a 72km diameter (45-mile) crater nearby.
The far side of the moon has more craters than the near side, which faces the Earth, and a meteor strike probably penetrated to the mantle and brought up materials to the surface.
What you need to know about Chang’e 4’s mission to the moon
Yutu’s landing site used to be littered by rocks, but cosmic rays and solar wind weathered them to dust, Li said.
“What we found is the first direct evidence of materials from deep below the lunar crust,” though how deep is still unknown, he said.
It is generally believed that the moon was once covered by oceans of molten rock. Lighter substances rose to the surface and formed a crust while heavier ones sank to form the mantle and core. The new findings support that theory.
China is the first country to land a rover on the far side on the moon and is planning to send a larger spacecraft there later this year to bring back samples.
The first Chinese astronauts will land on the moon between 2025 to 2030, according to Beijing’s latest schedule.
The Apollo missions brought back many rock samples, some of which contained olivine, but some scientists suspected they might have come from a volcanic eruption.
First photo of lunar rover leaving ‘footprints’ on moon
China, the United States and other nations have all announced plans to launch missions to exploit the moon’s resources within the next decade or two.
Yutu’s discovery could help scientists to draw a more accurate map of those resources, including the volume and distribution of minerals, researchers said.
In Chinese folklore, Yutu or Jade Rabbit as it is known in English, is a companion of the moon goddess Chang’e. Photo: Handout
US President Donald Trump gave Nasa an additional US$1.6 billion budget to put Americans back on the moon by 2024.
Li said Chinese scientists were willing to work with their colleagues in the US, but Washington had blocked any such collaboration.
“Our door remains open,” he said.
Source: SCMP
Posted in Chang’e-4 lunar exploration mission, crater, discovery, far side on the moon, Jade Rabbit, Lunar rover, meteor strike, mineral olivine, moon’s mantle, NASA, National Astronomical Observatory, riddle, Uncategorized, United States, US Apollo missions, US President Donald Trump, Washington, Yutu |
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