A peculiarly Dutch summer rite: Children abandoned in the night woods

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Children sit blindfolded in a car before participating in a Dutch tradition known as "dropping," where groups of children are deposited in a forest and have to find their way back to base, near Eindhoven, Netherlands.

27 July, 2019



AUSTERLITZ (Netherlands) — Shortly after 10pm on a recent night, a car came to a stop at the edge of the woods. The door opened to release three children: towheaded boys of 12 and 15, and a 12-year-old girl with dark pigtails and an emoji-covered backpack. Then the driver threw the car into gear and sped away, gravel crunching under its tires.

They were tiny figures at the foot of the forest, miles from the summer camp they were attending, with only a primitive GPS to indicate the right direction. Darkness was falling. And they were alone.

Electron-absorbing Bacteria from China

Could a Chinese supercharged bacterium spark a superhuman revolution?

27 July, 2019

TODAY

TIANJIN (China) — Scientists at a government laboratory in northern China say they have edited the DNA of a germ, creating a super bacterium that can use electrons as an energy source, perhaps opening the door to superpowers in humans.

["Superhumans"? Really? That seems like quite a jump to conclusion.]
The gene-edited germ uses electricity as “food”, increasing its physical performance by as much as 70 per cent, according to a team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology.

In theory, that would be like a human athlete running 100 metres in five seconds or jumping over a bar more than four metres off the ground.

Protesters calling for 'free Hong Kong' converge on airport

26 July, 2019


HONG KONG — Several hundred protesters calling for democracy and some chanting "free Hong Kong" converged on the Chinese-ruled city's airport on Friday (July 26) as neighbouring Singapore advised its citizens to avoid parts of the territory.

Airport authorities said operations would not be affected, but advised passengers to arrive early given the risk of disruption.

The former British colony of Hong Kong, which returned to China in 1997, is embroiled in its worst political crisis for decades after two months of increasingly violent protests that have posed one of the gravest populist challenges to China's leader Xi Jinping since he took office.

The demonstrations, mushrooming up almost daily, saw the defacement of China's main representative office last weekend, triggering warnings from Beijing this was an attack on China's sovereignty.

What started as an angry response to a now-suspended extradition bill, which would have allowed defendants to be sent to the mainland for trial, now includes demands for greater democracy, the resignation of Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, and even keeping mainland Chinese tourists out of Hong Kong.

Don’t be quick to blame your doctor if he does not get the diagnosis right

By Desmond Wai

25 July, 2019


I recently saw a patient with severe left-sided abdominal pain that was so bad, he said that he wanted to “kill himself to stop the pain”.

He had seen doctors in two hospitals for two weeks before his pain became unbearable and his parents brought him to the Emergency Department in the middle of the night to consult me.

It would take me another four days before I diagnosed him as having a rare condition involving inflammation of the blood vessels.

The patient’s family was upset with what they thought was misdiagnosis at the two previous hospitals. But as I will explain, there was not the case.

HK Protest 2019 - Reverberations

[Hong Kongers have been protesting a proposed Extradition Bill, that when passed (into law) would allow HKers to be extradited to China. Here is a perspective of the earlier protests (link), the future of HK, and the long-term reality.

It was an exercise in futility except for (IMHO) growing frustration, panicked realisation, and hopelessness. 

Although the HK government has backed down, and suspended the passage of the bill, people with knowledge of the legislative process have pointed out that it is NOT legislatively dead. Merely postponed. The bill has simply been retracted the request for the Legislative Council to resume the second reading.

A bill needs to have 3 readings before passage into law. The bill as it is now has only had the first reading. But if things were as in Singapore, the Second and Third Reading can usually be passed within the same day. As such, the Extradition Bill can be passed easily. All it needs is for 12 days notice for the resumption of the second reading.

Unless it is legislatively "killed" - voted down in the second and third reading, formally withdrawn, or the term of the council expires before the bill is passed. 

The frustration and hopelessness may be engendered by the realisation that it is all futile. From the previous link: 

The reality is that HK has been handed over to China in 1997, and even if the Chinese Govt keeps to the promise of not interfering in HK for 50 years, 2047 is only 28 years away, and the Chinese government plays the long game.

HK has no leverage. Beijing can simply wait 28 years. They are in no hurry. Meanwhile, panicked realisation.

Also, the HK Police has been sorely stressed and pressured. Even as protests continued (because, bill not "dead".) And then, gangsters attacked protesters returning from a march. How do we know these are gangsters? The police said so.

And comments that the protesters battled police in the past weeks only to call on the police for help when they are set upon by thugs, and so are hypocrites who want their cake and eat it too. Anyway, these are the... reverberations from the protests.] 

Young and not so upwardly mobile

Why it’s increasingly challenging to sustain inter-generational mobility in Singapore.

Sat, Jul 20, 2019

BT ILLUSTRATION: SIMON ANG

Marissa Lee

IN 2015, the last time any study of its kind was published, the Finance Ministry looked at incomes of those born from 1978-1982 (aged 37-41 this year) and concluded that inter-generational income mobility in Singapore had remained high.

But even as these findings affirmed the national belief that everyone has a fair chance of success regardless of who their parents are, the study's authors could already see that upward mobility for new cohorts of Singaporeans wouldn't be as easily achieved. Anyone who came of age during the 1980s and 1990s, when Singapore's rapid transformation was accompanied by a significant expansion in education and jobs, would have enjoyed opportunities that their parents never got, the study noted.

Conditions have since changed, the study said: "As the pace of Singapore's development slows, it will be an increasing challenge to sustain such mobility in the future."

The U.S. Should Defend Hong Kong

America’s recently departed envoy warns that Beijing poses a dire threat to the city’s cherished freedoms. 

By Kurt W. Tong

22 July 2019

Kurt W. Tong was formerly U.S. consul general for Hong Kong and Macau.

When I left my post as U.S. Consul General in Hong Kong recently, news organizations reported that the White House had effectively censored my valedictory remarks, as President Donald Trump apparently did not want to disrupt trade negotiations with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The Washington Post went so far as to say I’d been “neutered.”

Put the short-term politics aside. What matters is figuring out what’s really driving Hong Kong’s current unrest, and what the governments of Hong Kong, China and the U.S. should do about it.