The Philippine navy successfully delivered supplies to marines guarding a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, a week after China’s coast guard used water cannons to force the boats to turn back.
A bus crash in western Bulgaria early Tuesday has killed at least 45 people, authorities said. Children were among the victims The bus was one of four traveling together.
China has reported its lowest birth rate since 1978: 8.52 births per 1,000 people in 2020, and these numbers are getting dangerously close to the death rate.
According to the Yearbook 2021, published by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics at the weekend, the death rate last year was 7.07 per 1,000 people. That means that the natural growth rate of the population is at a record low level of 1.45 compared to 3.32 in 2019. The birth rate has been in steady decline since 2016 after decades of family planning policies and the changing economic climate.
According to census data released by China in spring, 12 million babies were born in 2020, the lowest number since 1961. With people aged 60 and over accounting for 18.8% of the 1.4 billion population, China faces a major problem of an aging population.
Despite the recent decision to allow all couples to have a third child and other measures taken to increase birth rates, the Chinese authorities admit that an increasing number of Chinese people from all ethnic groups are choosing to marry late and to have smaller families for economic and educational reasons.
The number of marriage registrations dropped this year too to 814.3 per 10,000 couples.
“The next ten years will be a major turning point for my country’s population to enter negative growth,” warned He Dan, the director of the China Population Development and Research Center, in an article published earlier this year.
The Oscar-winning director told Afshin Rattansi how he was baffled by President Joe Biden’s decision to once again postpone the release of classified files on the assassination of the 35th president, John F. Kennedy, in 1963.
A White House memo written last month alleged that, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the National Archives and other agencies needed “additional time” to prepare the Kennedy files for publication. The release of the documents was delayed until December 15, 2022.
“That was the official reason. I don’t know how that applies because I don’t know why you can’t read or think while you have Covid,” Stone told the host of RT’s ‘Going Underground’.
Former President Donald Trump released around 19,000 declassified documents, many of them with redactions, from the JFK case in 2018. However, others were withheld on the grounds of national security.
‘I don’t know how that applies because I don’t know why you can’t read or think while you have COVID…it makes me cry’@TheOliverStone on Biden blocking the release of classified JFK papers, citing COVID-19 as the reason
“Not only he backed down at the last second and refused to release roughly 20,000 documents that we’re interested in,” Stone said of Trump. “He illegally added a step: he said that the next time the National Archive had to be also consulted. It was originally a decision made by Congress that the president was the last one to say anything to stop [the publication].”
Stone’s new documentary, ‘JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass,’ premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last summer. Stone told Rattansi in July that Kennedy may have been killed in “a very organized black op” for his anti-colonial policies and desire to end the Cold War.
Watch the full interview on RT.com on Wednesday.
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SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 23 (IPS) – The planet is already 1.1°C warmer than in pre-industrial times. July 2021 was the hottest month ever recorded in 142 years. Despite the pandemic slowdown, 2020 was the hottest year so far, ending the warmest decade (2011-2020) ever.
HAMILTON, Canada, Nov 23 (IPS) – The overuse and misuse of antimicrobial medicines and chemicals has become the main driver of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and drug-resistant infections that threaten human health and the global economy.
The Philippine navy successfully delivered supplies to marines guarding a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, a week after China’s coast guard used water cannons to force the boats to turn back.
A bus crash in western Bulgaria early Tuesday has killed at least 45 people, authorities said. Children were among the victims The bus was one of four traveling together.
