China
Beijing court rejects monetary compensation in Bitcoin mining contract plea
A district court in Beijing has rejected monetary compensation in a Bitcoin (BTC) mining contract plea against a blockchain company. The Chaoyang District People’s Court on Wednesday deemed the Bitcoin mining contract between the plaintiff and the blockchain firm “invalid,” the South China Morning Post reported on Dec. 16. The plaintiff in the case reportedly paid 10 million yuan ($1.6 million) to the blockchain firm for deployment of mining machines, but incurred losses on his investment. The Beiijng based plaintiff claimed he earned only 18.5 Bitcoin on his investment and demanded an additional 217.17 BTC in compensation for his losses. The court rejected the plea and also directed the Sichuan branch of the National Development and Reform Commission to look into any illegal mining going ...
2 key Bitcoin trading metrics suggest BTC price has bottomed
Bitcoin (BTC) has been struggling to sustain the $47,500 support since the Dec. 4 crash, a movement that wiped out over $840 million in leveraged long futures contracts. The downside move came after the emergence of the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus and recent data showing U.S. inflation hitting a 40-year high. Bitcoin/USD price at FTX. Source: TradingView While newcomers might have been scared by the 26% price correction over the past month, whales and avid investors like MicroStrategy added to their positions. On Dec. 9, MicroStrategy announced that they had acquired 1,434 Bitcoin, which increased their stake to 122,478 BTC. According to some analysts, the rationale behind Bitcoin’s weakness was the contagion fear that Evergrande, a leading Chinese property developer, defaulte...
Eight-thousanders: the 14 highest peaks in the world
The eight-thousanders are so ferocious that only 44 people have summited them all. We explain why they bewitch climbers all across the globe Most boys grow out of their fascination with mountains and the great outdoors. Those that do not usually end up on the side of a mountain, asking ‘what the hell am I doing here?’ But, as the saying goes, the best alpinists have the worst memories and so they venture once again into the ether. My fascination with mountains was piqued as a child when I visited the Glen Coe region in the Highlands of Scotland and eyed the gullies of Ben Nevis, Britain’s highest mountain. This fascination has only grown through the years. My bookcase continues to expand with mountaineering books, from thrilling first-person accounts of difficult first ascents to thick bio...
Netease Cloud Village Stock Slips 2.5% Following Hong Kong IPO
Chinese music streaming company Cloud Village finally had its initial public stock offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Thursday (Dec. 2) after postponing its plans in August amid a Chinese regulatory crackdown. Investors’ initial reaction was underwhelming as Cloud Village’s share price closed at 199.90 Hong Kong dollars ($25.66), about 2.5% below the 205.00 Hong Kong dollars ($26.31) IPO price. Tech giant Netease spun off the company, which runs NetEase Cloud Music, in an offering of 16 million shares — 7.7% of the outstanding shares — that raised 41.5 billion Hong Kong dollars ($421 million). NetEase gained approval for the spin-off on Aug. 2 but delayed the listing indefinitely about a week later after Beijing’s tightening regulations brought attention to publicly traded Chinese...
The Simpsons Episode with Tiananmen Square Reference Cut from Disney+ Hong Kong
Disney+ launched in Hong Kong earlier this month, finally giving the city’s residents access to all its various IPs. Well, almost all of them; it turns out one particular episode of The Simpsons has been omitted from the streaming platform due to its references to Tiananmen Square. Season 16, Episode 12 of The Simpsons finds Aunt Selma heading to China to adopt a baby, with Homer posing as her husband. When the family attempts to flee the country with the newborn in hand, they end up in Tiananmen Square, where a sign reads, “Tien An Men Square: On this site, in 1989, nothing happened.” Selma is then stopped by the head of the adoption agency as she arrives in a tank, making a visual reference to the famed Tank Man from the 1989 Beijing protests and crackdown. As one might expect,...
The seven second summits: a tougher challenge
The seven second summits are considered to be a much harder mountaineering challenge than the more popular seven summits Previously, I’ve written about my dream of climbing the seven summits and laid out a realistic if not deeply challenging and expensive program of how to achieve that goal. This week I look at the seven second summits; the second-highest mountains on each continent. The highest summits are a dream of mine, but I draw the line at the second-highest – they’re simply too scary for an amateur enthusiast like me! Introducing the seven second summits Alpinism author Jon Krakauer wrote in Into Thin Air (one of my favourite mountaineering books) that it would be a bigger challenge to climb the second-highest peak of each continent instead of the highest. An ob...
China Bans “Sissy Men” From Television
China has announced that effeminate men are banned from television. This homophobic crackdown is being touted as a “national rejuvenation,” according to Deadline, as state TV regulators call to “resolutely put an end to sissy men and other abnormal esthetics.” In signaling the kind of men who were undesirable, China used the insulting slang phrase, “niang pao,” which could literally be translated as, “girlie guns,” according to Deadline. The ban extended to “vulgar internet celebrities,” and regulators also warned broadcasters away from promoting admiration of wealth. Instead, television should “vigorously promote excellent Chinese traditional culture, revolutionary culture, and advanced socialist culture.” Advertisement Related Video This “national rejuvenation” initiative ...
China Limiting Children’s Online Gaming to Three Hours a Week
Let’s be real: there’s a lot of bad vices to have out there. Frequent gaming isn’t one of them, but that isn’t stopping China from putting a new rule in place that will heavily restrict it as if it were. On Monday afternoon, China’s National Press and Publication Administration announced that kids will only be allowed to play video games for three hours a week, reports Bloomberg. The statement released to the press indicates that children and teenagers under 18 years old alike will only be allowed to play one hour of gaming from 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That’s a decrease from 2019, when a previous restriction limited online gaming to 1.5 hours per day. Apparently Chinese authorities are hell bent on taking on the role of super strict parents. “Teenagers are t...
The travel that changed me: Vaseem Khan
Award-winning writer Vaseem Khan tells us how India’s ‘city of dreams’ turned him into an author There’s no denying it: Vaseem Khan is an overachiever. Born and raised in Newham (one of the UK’s most deprived areas), Vaseem went on to study at the London School of Economics, one of the best universities in the world. He spent a decade on the subcontinent setting up a chain of high-end hotels before returning to the UK to write The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, the first of a best-selling series of crime novels featuring Ashwin Chopra, a fastidious Mumbai Inspector, and his unlikely sidekick, a one-year-old elephant called Baby Ganesh. In 2020, after five Baby Ganesh novels, Vaseem published Midnight at Malabar House, the first in a new series featuring Persis Wadi...
Ekiti governor urges Nigerians to rise up, defend democracy
The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, and Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, has called on Nigerians to rise to the defence of democracy in Nigeria with a view to advancing the development of the country. Mr Fayemi made the call Tuesday in Abuja when he visited the Canadian Ambassador to Nigeria, Nicolas Simard, at his residence. The visit by the NGF Chairman was part of the Chairman’s shuttle diplomacy to representatives of the diplomatic corps in Nigeria, which is one of the initiatives of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum’s secretariat towards engendering inter-governmental synergy between global governments at the subnational level. Mr Fayemi’s visits on Monday took him to the residence of the Canadian ambassador to Nigeria, and the embassy of the People’s Republic of China and...
Mikel Obi leaves Stoke City, joins Kuwaiti club
Former Nigeria captain John Obi Mikel has joined Al Kuwait SC, the Kuwaiti Premier League side on a year’s deal. The announcement was made by the club on Thursday, after Mikel and Stoke City cancelled their contract by mutual consent. Mikel’s new club finished third in the division last season behind Al-Qadsia and champions Al-Arabi. The Nigerian spent 11 years and made 372 appearances across all competitions for Chelsea. After Chelsea he played for Trabzonspor and Middlesbrough, before heading to China to spend two years with Tianjin Teda in the Chinese Super League. Mikel returned to UK in August 2020 to play Stoke City. Stoke boss Michael O’Neill told the club’s official website: ‘Although John triggered the second year of his contract, we always had an agreement in place whereby we wou...
Akwa Ibom governor, former Kaduna senator urges leaders to learn vision from communist party of China
Akwa Ibom State Governor, Mr. Udom Emmanuel, has commended the Communist Party of China (CPC) for a laudable administration that transformed China into the global second largest economy. Emmanuel made the commendation as Special Guest of Honour at a symposium to mark the centenary of China’s governing party, the Communist Party of China, CPC, with the theme: “Communist Party of China at 100: Trajectories, Achievements and Prospects,” held at the Chinese Cultural Centre, Abuja recently. Emmanuel who was represented by his Chief of Staff, Mr. Ephraim Inyangeyen, said, China emerged over the years as a leading country in industrialisation, science and technology and information communication revolution, even adding that she is a major player in world trade, finance, commerce, aviation and int...
