China has built the world's largest navy. Now what's Beijing going to do with it?
Updated 0129 GMT (0929 HKT) March 6, 2021
In 2018, Chinese President Xi Jinping donned military fatigues and boarded a People's Liberation Army Navy destroyer in the South China Sea.
Spanish farmers deeply split as ban on hunting wolves is extended
The predators, protected in the south, are widely blamed for attacks on livestock but some think coexistence is possible
“There have always been wolves. We humans have hunted and killed all the animals around us because we want everything for ourselves,” says Laura Serrano Isla, who tends her flock of 650 sheep near Burgos in north-west Spain.
“We think we rule the world but if we kill all the rest of the animals, the wolf will come for our livestock.”
Serrano’s sympathy for the plight of wolves has not won her many friends among fellow farmers, who claim a new ban on hunting the predators in the north-west of the country, home to 90% of Spain’s wolf packs, threatens not only their livestock but their way of life.
Anger and collective trauma scar Ethiopia's Tigray region
The conflict in Tigray, the northern region of Ethiopia, has mostly been unfolding under a media blackout since early November. Thousands of civilians have likely died as a result of the crisis.
They were sobbing silently, waiting for their turn at the end of a dark corridor — a dozen petrified women, seeking medical check-ups in Adigrat's hospital after having been raped. None of them was willing to utter more than a few words.
Every day, Eritrean soldiers come to take medical equipment. Patients and doctors are terrified. "They come here every day, even two times per day," explained a general practitioner, who wished to remain anonymous. "Yesterday, they stole a stretcher. When they come, not only the patients, but also the staff run away. The treatments get interrupted."
Business revolt brewing in coup-crippled Myanmar
Myanmar businesses are divided over how to respond to the new regime, even as the junta’s attempts to win legitimacy among investors have been rebuffed by major foreign business groups.
Western business groups, namely European, American, British, Italian and French chambers of commerce, rejected the regime’s invitation to meet on March 4. At the same time, major Asian business groups such as the Thai, Hong Kong, Japanese and Chinese have not released any statements of concern since the coup and lethal crackdown on protesters.
The Western chambers’ refusal comes at a time of widespread and rising condemnation against the regime’s brutal crackdown on unarmed protesting civilians, with more than 50 killed as of March 3, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), an independent monitoring group.
Pope Francis denounces extremism on historic visit to Iraq
Pope Francis has condemned extremism in the name of religion on a historic visit to Iraq where he discussed the plight of the Christian minority.
Hostility, extremism and violence are "betrayals of religion" he told an inter-faith prayer service.
Iraq has been wracked by religious and sectarian violence, both against minorities and between Shia and Sunni Muslims too.
Pope Francis also visited one of Shia Islam's most powerful figures.
The World Needs Syringes. He Jumped In to Make 5,900 Per Minute.
In late November, an urgent email popped up in the inbox of Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices, one of the world’s largest syringe makers.
It was from UNICEF, the United Nations agency for children, and it was desperately seeking syringes. Not just any would do. These syringes must be smaller than usual. They had to break if used a second time, to prevent spreading disease through accidental recycling.
Most important, UNICEF needed them in vast quantities. Now.
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