The only thing that unites the parties of a would-be government is the will to oust Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. What chance their coalition can secure political stability?
A new report reveals where the gangsters of the Balkans are stashing their loot: in an increasingly distorted property market. And a look at the mysterious case of Canada’s hardened butter.
More than 60 percent of China’s population of 1.4 billion currently lives in cities. Within a decade, the share of urban dwellers is expected to increase to 75 percent. Construction is booming and competition for residential land is fierce.
But the right to live in a city in China is conditional. Authorities want their modern cities to be peopled with well-educated, highly-qualified or politically well-connected residents. As a result, certain standards have to be met to be eligible for a modern, urban home. Only members of China’s political classes and the financially successful have a hope of qualifying. Yet more than half of the people who live in cities are so-called “migrant workers.” They come from rural communities and have no official rights to settle in cities. They are there to work. With no proper rights, they are merely tolerated while they serve as merchants, servants, waitstaff, cleaners, construction workers and tradespeople.
But while they are indispensible to daily life in the cities, they are unable to afford their exorbitant rents. This documentary looks at how and where these workers live, and asks whether middle and working class Chinese even figure in the official vision of shiny, high-tech cities. The filmmakers also look at what happens to those who oppose official plans, or stand in the way of the building boom.
Zhangjiajie Glass footpath is a skywalkbridge in Zhangjiajie, Hunan, above the Wulingyuan area. The bridge, built as an attraction for tourists, is glass-bottomed and is transparent. When it opened it was the longest and tallest glass bottomed bridge in the world.
Video timeline: 0:00 Intro 1:00 The Glass Skywalk Bridge 9:00 The Roller Slide ride 12:22 The Garden 16:11 The Electric Bike Tour 28:00 The sunflower garden
San Francisco-based Ample has brought electric vehicle battery swapping to the U.S. The company was in stealth mode for seven years before launching recently with five swapping stations in the Bay Area. Uber drivers in the area are Ample’s first customers.
The concept isn’t new. A start-up called Better Place launched an EV and battery swapping company after it raised $850 million in venture funding, but it ultimately went bankrupt in 2013. Tesla also demoed battery swapping in 2013 but only opened one station for about a year. Elon Musk said Tesla owners were not interested in it.
Battery swapping is already common in China. Electric vehicle maker Nio, for example, plans to double its network of swapping stations to 500 this year and plans to open stations in Norway as part of its expansion into Europe. Ample has a different approach, with modular batteries and a focus on fleets. CNBC got an inside look at its headquarters and battery factory in San Francisco to learn how the company plans to bring battery swapping into the mainstream.
The suggestion that the virus first emerged from a Chinese laboratory has proved stubbornly persistent; as calls mount for more investigation, it has become a potent epidemiological and political idea.
Latin America’s strict lockdowns have had the expected calamitous economic effects. We look at the region’s prospects for recovery. And the tricky business of artificially inseminating a shark.
Ban Gioc – Detian Falls or Ban Gioc falls is a collective name for two waterfalls on the Quây Sơn River, that straddle the international border between China and Vietnam; more specifically located between the Karst hills of Daxin County, Guangxi, and Trùng Khánh District, Cao Bằng Province.
Five stories to know for May 24: Belarus diverts plane, Ronald Greene video, George Floyd, Jan. 6 Capitol riot, and China ultramarathon
1. Western politicians accused Belarus of state piracy amounting to a “warlike act” after Minsk forced a plane to land and arrested a dissident journalist.
2. More video of a fatal 2019 encounter of Ronald Greene with police in Louisiana was released by authorities late Friday.
3. Relatives of George Floyd, the Black man whose death triggered protests against racism and police brutality across the United States and around the world, gathered in a rally to mark the first anniversary of his death.
4. Republicans in Congress clashed over the need for an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
5. Twenty-one people were killed when extremely cold weather struck during an ultramarathon in rugged Gansu province in northwestern China.
Taiwan has long been a U.S.-China flashpoint, but its tech and military capabilities have come into sharper focus under the Biden administration. WSJ travels to three places on the island to explain how both superpowers could determine Taiwan’s future. Photo: Wally Santana/AP
After 11 days of fierce fighting, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire beginning in the early hours of Friday morning. But will the quiet last? In July, China’s Communist Party will mark the 100th anniversary of its victory in the revolution that brought it to power.
But it’s not easy for a dictatorship to celebrate a revolt. And, we look back at the life of Asfaw Yemiru, an Ethiopian educator who transformed the lives of more than 120,000 children.
May 20, 2021: Israel and Gaza, House approves Capitol probe, Abortion in Texas, U.S travel changes, and South China Sea
1. Diplomatic moves towards a ceasefire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict gathered pace after President Joe Biden called for a de-escalation.
2. The U.S. House of Representatives voted to create an independent commission to probe the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by former President Donald Trump’s supporters. One in six Republicans defied party leaders’ attempts to block it.
3. Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law a ‘fetal heartbeat’ abortion bill that bans the procedure after about six weeks of pregnancy and grants citizens the right to sue doctors who perform abortions past that point.
4. The Biden administration weighs changes to sweeping travel restrictions that bar much of the world’s population from coming to the United States.
5. China said a U.S. warship illegally entered its territorial waters in the South China Sea and was expelled by its forces, an assertion the United States denies.
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