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China Aims to Eliminate Severe Air Pollution this Year

People ride electric bicycles along street during rush hour in Beijing on February 24, 2025. (Photo by WANG Zhao / AFP)
People ride electric bicycles along street during rush hour in Beijing on February 24, 2025. (Photo by WANG Zhao / AFP)
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China Aims to Eliminate Severe Air Pollution this Year

People ride electric bicycles along street during rush hour in Beijing on February 24, 2025. (Photo by WANG Zhao / AFP)
People ride electric bicycles along street during rush hour in Beijing on February 24, 2025. (Photo by WANG Zhao / AFP)

China aims to effectively eliminate severe air pollution by the end of 2025, a senior environment official said, as authorities ramp up efforts in pollution control and emissions reduction in the "battle for blue skies."
China will improve its air quality forecasting and early warning systems and enhance coordinated management of harmful airborne particles known as PM2.5, as well as ozone pollution, said Li Tianwei, Director of the Department of Atmospheric Environment.
"The battle for blue skies remains unchanged," Li said according to a transcript on the Ministry of Ecology and Environment's website on Monday.
Though some progress has been made, air pollution remains a major problem in China and affects economies and people's quality of life, said the World Health Organization (WHO).
Air pollution is responsible for about 2 million deaths in China annually, the WHO said. Of those deaths, ambient air pollution caused more than 1 million deaths, while household air pollution from cooking with polluting fuels and technologies caused another million deaths, it said on its website.
The WHO considers PM2.5 concentrations above 50 micrograms per cubic meter "severe" air pollution.
China's air quality improved significantly in 2024, Reuters quoted Li as saying. The average concentration of PM2.5 in cities was 29.3 micrograms per cubic meter, a year-on-year decrease of 2.7%.
The proportion of days with good air quality reached 87.2%, up by 1.7 percentage points year-on-year.
China must introduce new emission standards that align with global best practices, Li said, adding that the country will boost the share of new energy vehicles and machinery in airports, ports and logistics parks.
Authorities also plan to promote the long-distance transportation of bulk goods by rail and water, rather than by roads.

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Varieties

Israel Cleared to Stay in Eurovision; Spain, Ireland and Others Quit in Protest

Pro-Palestinian protestors hold a flag and a banner outside the RTE (Radio Telefis Eireann) Irish public service broadcaster television studios as demonstrators call for an Irish boycott of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest if there is Israeli participation, in Dublin, Ireland, November 1, 2025. (Reuters)
Pro-Palestinian protestors hold a flag and a banner outside the RTE (Radio Telefis Eireann) Irish public service broadcaster television studios as demonstrators call for an Irish boycott of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest if there is Israeli participation, in Dublin, Ireland, November 1, 2025. (Reuters)
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Israel Cleared to Stay in Eurovision; Spain, Ireland and Others Quit in Protest

Pro-Palestinian protestors hold a flag and a banner outside the RTE (Radio Telefis Eireann) Irish public service broadcaster television studios as demonstrators call for an Irish boycott of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest if there is Israeli participation, in Dublin, Ireland, November 1, 2025. (Reuters)
Pro-Palestinian protestors hold a flag and a banner outside the RTE (Radio Telefis Eireann) Irish public service broadcaster television studios as demonstrators call for an Irish boycott of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest if there is Israeli participation, in Dublin, Ireland, November 1, 2025. (Reuters)

Israel was cleared on Thursday to enter the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest by the organizer, prompting Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland and Slovenia to withdraw over the Gaza war and plunging the competition into one of the biggest rows in its history.

The broadcasters who had threatened to boycott the event cited the death count in Gaza and accused Israel of flouting rules meant to guard the contest's neutrality. Israel accuses its critics of mounting a global smear campaign against it.

After a meeting in Geneva, the European Broadcasting Union, or EBU, decided not to call a vote on Israel's participation, saying it had instead passed new rules aimed at discouraging governments from influencing the contest, Reuters said.

Right after that announcement by the contest organizer, the Dutch, Spanish, Irish and Slovenian broadcasters said they would withdraw, meaning singers from their countries would not compete in the contest that draws millions of viewers worldwide.

Ben Robertson, a Eurovision expert from fan website ESC Insight, said the contest's integrity was at its lowest ebb.

"Never in the history of the contest have we had such a vote, and such a split, between the member broadcasters of the European Broadcasting Union," he said.

Both the Israeli government and opposition leaders celebrated the country's inclusion.

Golan Yochpaz, CEO of Israeli broadcaster KAN, likened the efforts to exclude Israel to a form of "cultural boycott."

Rounding on the countries withdrawing, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on X: "The disgrace is upon them."

IRELAND SAYS ITS PARTICIPATION 'UNCONSCIONABLE'

The Eurovision Song Contest dates back to 1956 and reaches around 160 million viewers, according to the EBU - more than the almost 128 million recorded for this year's US Super Bowl, according to figures from Nielsen.

Israel's participation has divided opinion in the competition that has a history of entanglement in national rivalries, international issues and political voting.

Its 2025 entrant, Yuval Raphael, was at the Nova music festival, a target of the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian group Hamas on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

A total of 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage in the assault by Hamas, according to Israeli tallies. More than 70,000 people have been killed in Gaza in the ensuing conflict, according to health authorities in the enclave.

Irish broadcaster RTE said it felt "Ireland's participation remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk".

Jose Pablo Lopez, head of Spanish state broadcaster RTVE said on X: "What happened in the EBU Assembly confirms that Eurovision is not a song contest but a festival dominated by geopolitical interests and fractured."

RTV Slovenija said it together with Spain, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Türkiye, Algeria and Iceland requested a secret vote on Israel's participation, but it was not held.

Icelandic public broadcaster RUV said its board will make a decision on Wednesday on whether to participate in the next Eurovision, which will be held in Vienna in May.

"I feel sad that other countries are not going to compete next year," said 33-year-old Tel Aviv Eurovision fan Jurij Vlasov, adding the Netherlands' song this year was his favorite.

In Austria, which backed Israel, Eurovision fans welcomed its inclusion, even as some in Spain took the opposite view.

"Why should the population, or a part of the population, not participate?," said Vienna resident Bernhard Kleemann. "If countries decide not to participate because they condemn the government and the prime minister, that's their decision."

"BORN FROM THE ASHES OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR"

Instead of voting on Israel, the EBU said its members backed rules intended to discourage governments and third parties from disproportionately promoting songs to sway voters after allegations that Israel unfairly boosted its 2025 entrant.

"This vote means that all EBU Members who wish to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 and agree to comply with the new rules are eligible to take part," it said.

Israel's President Isaac Herzog thanked his country's supporters, saying he hoped the song contest would continue to champion "culture, music, friendship between nations".

Germany, a major Eurovision backer, had signaled it would not take part if Israel was barred. Germany's culture minister Wolfram Weimer told the Bild newspaper he welcomed the decision.

"Israel belongs to the Eurovision Song Contest like Germany belongs to Europe," he said.

Martin Green, the contest's director, said EBU members showed they wanted to protect the neutrality of the competition.

"Eurovision was born from the ashes of the Second World War," he said. "It was designed to bring us together, and it will hit bumps in the road, and we have a complicated world, but we hope it's a temporary situation, and we'll move forward."

Varieties

Study Says African Penguins Starved En Masse Off South Africa

Yellow-eyed penguins fights in their colony in Katiki Point, on the southern end of the Moeraki Peninsula in New Zealand's South Island, about 80 kilometers north of Dunedin on November 12, 2025. (Photo by Sanka VIDANAGAMA / AFP)
Yellow-eyed penguins fights in their colony in Katiki Point, on the southern end of the Moeraki Peninsula in New Zealand's South Island, about 80 kilometers north of Dunedin on November 12, 2025. (Photo by Sanka VIDANAGAMA / AFP)
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Study Says African Penguins Starved En Masse Off South Africa

Yellow-eyed penguins fights in their colony in Katiki Point, on the southern end of the Moeraki Peninsula in New Zealand's South Island, about 80 kilometers north of Dunedin on November 12, 2025. (Photo by Sanka VIDANAGAMA / AFP)
Yellow-eyed penguins fights in their colony in Katiki Point, on the southern end of the Moeraki Peninsula in New Zealand's South Island, about 80 kilometers north of Dunedin on November 12, 2025. (Photo by Sanka VIDANAGAMA / AFP)

Endangered penguins living off South Africa's coast have likely starved en masse due to food shortages, a study said Friday, with some populations dropping by 95 percent in just eight years.

Fewer than 10,000 breeding pairs of the small, black and white African Penguin are left globally, according to scientists, and the species was listed as critically endangered last year by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Two of the most important breeding colonies near Cape Town had collapsed between 2004 and 2011, with some 62,000 birds estimated to have died, the study by the UK's University of Exeter and the South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment said.

In those eight years, sardine populations in South African waters -- a main food source for penguins -- were consistently below 25 percent of their peak abundance, Agence France Presse quoted co-author and biologist Richard Sherley as saying.

This drop in sardine stocks was due to fishing practices combined with environmental causes such as changes in water temperatures and salinity.

This "appears to have caused severe food shortage for African penguins, leading to an estimated loss of about 62,000 breeding individuals", Sherley said.

The global population of the species had declined by nearly 80 percent in the past 30 years, the scientists said.

Conservationists say that at the current rate of population decrease, the bird could be extinct in the wild by 2035.

For 10 years, authorities have imposed a commercial fishing ban around six penguin colonies, including Robben and Dassen islands, the two sites observed in the study.

Other initiatives underway include artificial nests and creating new colonies.

The birds are a strong attraction for tourists to South Africa, with thousands of people visiting colonies each year.

But the pressure from tourism also disturbs the birds and causes enhanced stress.

Varieties

Saudi Post Issues Stamp Marking Int’l Day of Persons with Disabilities

Saudi Post (SPL) issued a set of commemorative stamps to mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
Saudi Post (SPL) issued a set of commemorative stamps to mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
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Saudi Post Issues Stamp Marking Int’l Day of Persons with Disabilities

Saudi Post (SPL) issued a set of commemorative stamps to mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
Saudi Post (SPL) issued a set of commemorative stamps to mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

Saudi Post (SPL), the Kingdom's national postal and logistics provider, has issued a set of commemorative stamps valued at SAR3 to mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, observed annually on December 3.

The day is celebrated worldwide, including in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to reinforce care for persons with disabilities, empower them to achieve their aspirations, enhance their quality of life, ensure their rights, and include them in all activities and events by highlighting their talents and diverse abilities, said the Saudi Press Agency on Thursday.

The launch took place during a ceremony organized by the Authority for the Care of People with Disabilities (APD).

The event included the unveiling of a campaign titled “Say It Right,” which promotes the correct and officially adopted terminology for persons with disabilities.

The stamp features several individuals with disabilities who participated in the campaign.

APD continues to work collaboratively with various sectors to enhance service quality and raise awareness of the rights of persons with disabilities.