<p>In 2019, the illegal wildlife trade reached staggering levels. Pangolin scales and ivory were being trafficked in massive quantities from Africa to Asia, exposing a network of crime syndicates operating
AN OFF-DUTY policeman trawling for fish, not felons, helped net a Chinese shipping company whose vessel dumped garbage in Port Phillip Bay. In the first prosecution by the Environment Protection Authority for garbage pollution in Victorian waters, the company and the ship's former master were yesterday penalised a total of $52,000. Hong Kong-based Tian Ren Company Ltd and captain Zhu Hanjie, 43, since sacked over the incident, were charged after now Inspector Glenn Davies saw a large plastic bag fall from the container ship Sky Lucky on January 19 last year.
An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 struck China's Sichuan province on Monday, less than 100 km (60 miles) from the provincial capital of Chengdu. The quake was felt across much of China and as far southwest as Bangkok, Thailand's capital, some 3,300 km (2050 miles) away, where office buildings swayed for several minutes. Chengdu a fast-growing metropolis of 10 million people and home to the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base is around 1,300 km (2070 miles) southwest of Beijing.
A powerful, magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck mountainous central China on Monday, killing five people when two primary schools and a water tower collapsed, state media reported. Four children died when their schools in Chongqing municipality collapsed, the official Xinhua News Agency said. More than 100 students were injured, including two who were seriously hurt, the report said. One person was killed after the temblor toppled a water tower in neighboring Sichuan province, Xinhua said.
China has deployed troops to help victims of a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck the southwest today, with at least four children killed and 100 injured when two schools collapsed. The earthquake was so strong it was felt as far west as Thailand's capital Bangkok, some 3300km away, where office buildings swayed for several minutes. It also swayed buildings in the Taiwanese capital of Taipei, and was felt in Hong Kong. China had sent military troops to help with disaster relief work, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.
China, the world's biggest grower of rice, will start planting the grain in Tanzania next year as global food shortages create investment opportunities for the Asian country, a government report said. Chongqing Seed Corporation, a seed researcher and producer based in south-western Chongqing city, will plant its proprietary rice in a pilot project in the central African country, a report on China's ministry of commerce's website said.
The death toll from a viral illness that is striking children across China has risen by four to 34, while the number of reported infections jumped to nearly 25,000, state media reported Friday. Two of the latest deaths occurred in the hardest-hit central province of Anhui, where 22 children have already died of hand, foot and mouth disease, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The other two deaths were reported in the southern province of Guangdong and in neighboring Guangxi, the agency said.
Officials in southern China's Guizhou Province are hoping to head off future attempts at "biopiracy"--the plunder of natural resources--by enshrining the protection of indigenous knowledge into law.
It may be counter-intuitive to argue that oil prices will climb during a year in which most of the leading economies are slowing down. Yet, global oil prices have been climbing sharply, hitting a new high of $122 per barrel on Tuesday. What is worse, the trend of price forecasts (including from representatives of the Organisation of Petroleum-Exporting Countries, or Opec) points to still higher prices, going up to such previously unthinkable levels as $150-200 per barrel.
Baltimore: Carolyn Stanley, a single mother with five children, receives $327 in food stamps each month to feed her family. With prices for staples like bread and cheese going ever higher, each month is harder than the last. She buys hot dogs over higher-quality meat and feeds her kids cereal, but even with other government support she often has to seek help from local churches and from friends. "The food runs out somewhere within the middle of the month, or getting close to the end,' said Stanley, 49. "It is not easy. I pray.'
India is on a high alert against Enterovirus 71 (EV-71), a causative agent for hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) that has infected over 20,000 children and killed around 40 of them, in at least four Asian countries over the past three months. China, which has recorded over 15,799 cases of HFMD and 28 deaths, has been the worst affected, followed by Vietnam where 3,000 children have been infected and 10 died. Singapore too has recorded around 10,490 cases while Hong Kong recently isolated the virus from two children.
