Letters from readers: Exploring Hong Kong, Rugby Sevens and learning about the sun
Do you have something to share? Send us your recommendations using this form
Alfie Tang Yu-chih (aged 8), Spanish School of Hong Kong
My friend Eden and I went to Discovery Bay, one of my favourite places, because the beach has a playground.
The playground has a zip line, a very long slide with a climbing frame, three swings, an obstacle course, monkey bars and much more.
I like the zip line and the obstacle course the most.
Discovery Bay also has one of my favourite restaurants, Pizza Express.
The combination of my favourite playground and my favourite pizza makes for a perfect day.
Alfie Tang Yu-chih was excited for a fun day in Discovery Bay. Photo: Handout
Jessica Yeung (aged 9), St Paul's Co-educational College Primary School
My parents took me to watch the Rugby Sevens at Kai Tak Sports Park. It was my first time at the event, and I felt very excited. The atmosphere around us was very nice.
Rugby Sevens teams consist of no more than seven players. Each player has a different role, such as kicking, attacking, or playing defence.
The fans were absorbed in the matches and stood up to scream to support their team. Some also wore special costumes with creative and interesting outfit ideas. It was a good experience for me.
Jessica Yeung enjoyed attending the Rugby Sevens. Photo: Handout
Doreen Lee (aged 10), Kowloon Junior School
Are you interested in learning more about the sun?
Galileo Galilei was curious about the sun and used his telescope to explore it further.
The sun is essentially a massive ball of gas and is incredibly hot.
The average temperature on the surface of the sun exceeds 5,500 degrees Celsius.
In its core, where nuclear reactions take place, temperatures can reach up to 15 million degrees Celsius.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Asia Times
29-04-2025
- Asia Times
As global players focus on the Arctic, US icebreakers are scarce
Nowhere on earth is global warming proceeding more rapidly than inside the Arctic Circle. Over the past two decades, the Arctic has grown five degrees Celsius warmer. And the trend is accelerating, with the Arctic warming nearly four times as rapidly as the rest of the planet. Climate scientists expect that Arctic median temperatures will rise as much as 2 degrees Celsius annually over the coming decade. Although temperatures normally change with glacial speed, in the Arctic those transformations are now noticeable to the naked eye: Last year marked a concerning increase in arctic wildfires and flooding. And, as climate change continues unabated, the waters of the Arctic Sea, which stretch from Russia's northern Siberian shores across Alaska to Greenland, are opening at an unprecedented pace. This is bringing regularly scheduled commercial navigation to the Arctic for the first time in recorded history. Attempts to circumnavigate Eurasia are certainly not new. Almost three centuries ago, in 1728, Vitus Bering rounded the strait between Alaska and Siberia that bears his name to explore the polar seas. It was not until the 1870s that the Northern Sea route across the Arctic's Russian coast was even navigated fully by explorers. And only in 2013 did a commercial vessel actually make the entire long northern trek from Europe to Asia, even with an icebreaker escort. Yet in the last decade, the Arctic Seas have become significantly more navigable. As a result, geopolitics is rapidly arriving in the region, a trend that I outline in my recent book, Eurasian Maritime Geopolitics. For starters, the economic stakes are higher than ever. The Arctic is a vast, unexploited storehouse of raw materials critical to 21st century competition. The region harbors roughly a quarter of the unexplored oil and natural gas reserves on earth, as well as 150 rare earth deposits, valued at around $1 trillion. Platinum, nickel, and other rare metals stored below the ocean are crucial to high-tech industries, and therefore to the countries and companies seeking to preserve industrial power status. The Arctic Sea, roughly 1.5 times the size of the United States, is relatively shallow, making it amenable to exploitation, climatic conditions permitting, with 240 species of fish in ample quantities, adding to all the inanimate resources. The political-military stakes are as high as the economic ones, with the international system increasingly polarized and the Arctic a prime bone of contention. The Arctic Ocean is an area of unusual importance and a natural zone of conflict due to its geographic value. It is across the North Pole that the United States and Russia lie in closest proximity, making the Arctic seas a natural arena of rivalry in the nuclear age. The same geopolitical reality has episodically made Greenland important: it is not accidental that the US submitted a bid to buy Greenland in 1946; that the US has maintained a major Strategic Air Command base in northern Greenland since 1951; or that President Donald Trump has been obsessed with Greenland as well. Current international conflicts are amplifying the economic and military dimensions of Arctic competition. Russia, in particular, has strong stakes for status-quo revision in the rapidly emerging Arctic sea lanes. Fifty-three percent of the Arctic shore lies in Russia (compared with less than four percent for America's Alaska). The Northern Seaway along Russia's northern Arctic shores is becoming navigable as the continent warms more rapidly than on the US-Canadian side. Crucially, the opening of the Arctic Ocean to commerce and naval transport gives Russia unimpeded access to the open sea that it has sought for centuries – from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin – but never decisively achieved elsewhere in the world. The Arctic has likewise become a zone of strong geo-economic and geopolitical interest for China in recent years. Arctic energy resources, of course, are naturally attractive to the largest energy consumer on earth. China is especially motivated to win the Arctic exploration race because it imports heavily from the Persian Gulf via vulnerable Indo-Pacific sea lanes that are dominated by the United States. Once accessible to China, the Arctic would solve the problem of American strangulation of chokepoints such as the Strait of Malacca. It would also extend Beijing's critical minerals lead, further complicating Washington's efforts to compete effectively. And Beijing's congenial ties to Russia, a powerful force in the Arctic, are an additional geopolitical plus. Global economic and political-military stakes driving today's Arctic geopolitical competition began in slow motion. In August 2007, Russia planted a titanium flag on the North Pole. Moscow now quietly claims over 50 percent of the Arctic Ocean floor. Two decades ago, with Vladimir Putin in power, Russia began refurbishing Cold War military bases in the North, and building more icebreakers. Today it has well over 40 bases, roughly a third more than the combined total for all the major NATO powers in the near-Arctic, including Finland, Canada and the United States.. The atomic icebreaker Yamal assisting in the dismantling of a Russian North Pole research station in 2009; Photo: Moscow Times On the economic side, Russia has also pioneered exploitation of energy resources along the Arctic shores – with China's help. Moscow's original proposals two decades ago were to involve Western multinationals such as Exxon, Shell, and British Petroleum, with their superior technology for drilling in Arctic climes. Western firms soon fell away, however, both for economic reasons and following the sanctions associated with the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea. In 2013 Russia began construction on the massive $27 billion Yamal LNG project on the Arctic shores, with China's CNPC as a 20 percent shareholder. The first Yamal LNG train was completed in 2017. In 2018 Russia also began construction on the nearby Gydan Peninsula Arctic II project, again with East Asian participation. In exchange for the provision of capital and equipment, China receives Russian oil from these specific projects today – and does so illicitly through the Northern Sea Route. Economic logic – Russia's massive resources, coupled with the economic rise of Asia – propelled gradual Arctic sea-lane development for fifteen years in the early twenty-first century. Yet it was critical junctures – short, sharp periods of structural transformation like war – that catalyzed the age of serious Arctic maritime geopolitics currently prevailing. Western sanctions following Russia's occupation of Crimea were one catalytic event, but far more important was Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, 2022. That led to several sweeping geo-economic and geo-political changes animating the intense Arctic maritime geopolitics now emerging. Climate change, as noted above, is a quiet background factor raising the stakes of geopolitical conflict: When the seas are opened, economic and political-military opportunities become more realistic. The decisive responses of key players to the new Russian aggression, however, were what gave explosive new life to simmering geopolitical rivalries. Most importantly, Finland (April, 2023) and then Sweden (March, 2024) became members of NATO. Following their actions, seven of the eight nations directly bordering on the Arctic were members of NATO, with only Russia – with the longest Arctic coastline and the strongest economic stakes – excluded. Russia not surprisingly responded to the new geopolitical environment surrounding the Ukraine conflict with countermeasures of its own. As Putin himself has stressed, Arctic development is an 'indisputable priority' with Russia, due to its strategic importance and economic potential. To consolidate its position in a vital region, Moscow has both escalated provocative actions of its own in the Arctic, as in the Baltic seas also, and simultaneously teamed up with China to put pressure on NATO and on the US bilaterally. In 2023 ships from the Russian and Chinese navies jointly patrolled near Alaska; in July 2024 Russian and Chinese bombers launched a collaborative probe in the US ADIZ over the Bering Sea within 200 miles of the Alaskan coast; and in October, 2024, the Russian and Chinese Coast Guards conducted their first joint patrol in the Arctic seas. The United States has naturally responded to Russian and Chinese Arctic brinkmanship. In 2013, following the first Arctic seaway transit of China's icebreaker Xue Long ( Ice Dragon ) and the inauguration of Russia's Yamal LNG project, the Obama administration articulated a US Arctic strategy. In 2014 Washington made controls over the supply of advanced US cold-water oil-drilling technology a major element of Crimea sanctions. In 2024 the Biden administration's Department of Defense issued an update to the 2013 strategy, mentioning both Russia and China as primary challengers, with the goal o curbing Russia's long-term Arctic development capacity. The US has grown steadily bolder in its Arctic response, with an increasingly bipartisan emphasis on the region. Despite far-sighted diplomatic gestures and a laudable concern regarding environmental dangers, the United States has nevertheless been slow to address the core geo-economic challenges now deepening along the Arctic sea lanes. Most importantly, the US has failed to build up its domestic icebreaker capacity, nor has it begun developing related naval capabilities that would allow it to actively contest and contain the rapid Russian and Chinese buildup along the Arctic sea lanes. And it has done remarkably little, until lately, to support its friends in the Arctic with respect to infrastructure investment support. The US, for example, has no Arctic deepwater ports to host heavy container ships. Canada has only one, lying 500 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Even though Russia now has over 40 icebreakers, several of nuclear-powered, and an active building program, the United States presently lacks even a single heavy or medium-duty icebreaker active in the Arctic. US icebreaker capacity, such as it is, is concentrated entirely in the Great Lakes. The July, 2024 ICE agreement with Canada and Finland, concluded at the 2024 Washington NATO summit, does begin to address the icebreaker crisis in multilateral fashion. Yet the massive deficiency in America's own icebreaker capacity, rooted in the striking weaknesses of its own domestic shipbuilding industry, still remains. In the emerging game of Arctic maritime geopolitics, too many of the high cards still ominously lie in Russian and Chinese hands. Kent Calder is Director of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University SAIS, former Special Advisor to the US Ambassador to Japan and the recent author of Eurasian Maritime Geopolitics (Brookings, 2025).
RTHK
23-04-2025
- RTHK
Coral bleaching has hit 84pc of world's reefs
Coral bleaching has hit 84pc of world's reefs Coral bleaching threatens to overwhelm a reef in France's Mayotte archipelago in the Indian Ocean last year. File photo: AFP An unprecedented coral bleaching episode has spread to 84 percent of the world's reefs in an unfolding human-caused crisis that could kill off swathes of the essential ecosystems, scientists warned on Wednesday. Since it began in early 2023, the global coral bleaching event has mushroomed into the biggest and most intense on record, with reefs across the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans affected. Coral turns ghostly white under heat stress and the world's oceans have warmed over the past two years to historic highs, driven by humanity's release of planet-warming greenhouse gases. Reefs can rebound from the trauma but scientists said the window for recovery was getting shorter as ocean temperatures remained higher for longer. Conditions in some regions were extreme enough to "lead to multi-species or near complete mortality on a coral reef", said the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This latest episode was so severe and lasting that even more resilient coral was succumbing, said Melanie McField from the Healthy Reefs for Healthy People initiative, which specialises in the Caribbean. "If you continue to have heatwave after heatwave, it's hard to see how that recovery is going to happen," the veteran reef scientist said from Florida. Bleaching occurs when coral expels algae that provides not just their characteristic colour but food and nutrients, leaving them exposed to disease and possibly eventually death. Live coral cover has halved since the 1950s due to climate change and environmental damage, the International Coral Reef Initiative, a global conservation partnership, said on Wednesday. Scientists forecast that at 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, some 70 to 90 percent of the world's coral reefs could disappear – a disastrous prospect for people and the planet. Coral reefs support not just marine life but hundreds of millions of people living in coastal communities around the world by providing food, protection from storms, and liveloods through fishing and tourism. Mass coral bleaching was first observed in the early 1980s and is one of the best known and most visible consequences of steadily rising ocean temperatures caused by global warming. The latest coral bleaching event is the fourth and largest yet, and the second in a decade, exceeding the record area affected during the last episode of 2014-2017. "From 1 January 2023 to 20 April 2025, bleaching-level heat stress has impacted 83.7 percent of the world's coral reef area", NOAA said in its latest update on Monday. Oceans store 90 percent of the excess heat caused by humanity's burning of fossil fuels, causing warmer sea temperatures, which are the leading cause of coral bleaching. The planet has already warmed at least 1.36 degrees above pre-industrial times, says the EU's climate monitor Copernicus. Scientists predict the 1.5-degree threshold could be crossed early in the next decade. At two degrees almost all corals would disappear. (AFP)
Asia Times
21-04-2025
- Asia Times
China's new hydrogen bomb aims to shock and awe Taiwan
China's new non-nuclear hydrogen bomb is designed to unleash sustained firepower to terrorize Taiwan's defenders and break their resistance in urban wars. This month, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that Chinese researchers successfully detonated a non-nuclear hydrogen bomb in a controlled field test, citing a peer-reviewed study published last month in the Chinese-language Journal of Projectiles, Rockets, Missiles and Guidance. Developed by the China State Shipbuilding Corporation's 705 Research Institute, the device uses magnesium hydride—a solid-state hydrogen storage material originally engineered for off-grid energy applications—as its main component. During activation, shockwaves break the material into micron-scale particles, releasing hydrogen gas. This gas ignites into sustained combustion and reaches temperatures exceeding 1,000 degrees Celsius. Unlike conventional TNT blasts, which produce a brief, extremely high-pressure shockwave, China's new bomb creates a lower peak blast pressure but sustains its fireball for over two seconds, causing extended thermal damage and enabling directed energy effects. Researchers emphasized the weapon's military applications, ranging from widespread heat projection to precision-target destruction, facilitated by its controllable chain reaction mechanism. The production of magnesium hydride, long restricted to laboratories, saw a breakthrough with the opening of a high-capacity plant in Shaanxi province earlier this year, capable of producing 150 tons annually. However, specific details about the test location or operational strategies remain unclear. The characteristics of China's magnesium hydride bomb appear functionally similar to those of a thermobaric weapon. These weapons disperse a massive cloud of fuel that ignites upon contact with air, producing a high-temperature fireball and a deadly shockwave that can penetrate bunkers and buildings. These weapons are particularly effective in urban warfare. Russia's use of its TOS-1 thermobaric rocket launcher in Ukraine offers a glimpse into how China could employ its new bomb in Taiwan, using overwhelming blasts to destroy infantry in buildings, starve occupants of oxygen and inflict devastating internal injuries. In a June 2024 article for The National Interest (TNI), Peter Suciu mentions that Russia's urban warfare tactics using the TOS-1 appeared to emphasize that the best way to take out infantry in buildings is to prevent them from getting out, and that those who get out are too severely injured to continue fighting. China may face a similar situation in Taiwan should an invasion of the latter bog down into an urban war of attrition. In the 2022 book Crossing the Strait, Sale Lilly mentions that China's urban warfare tactics are guided by the principle of 'killing rats in a porcelain shop,' emphasizing the brutality of such operations while exercising caution to prevent the destruction of cities. Further, Lilly points out that besides the height of Taipei's skyscrapers, the city's underground infrastructure, including parking garages, shopping centers and subway stations, dramatically expands the area available for urban warfare. Such infrastructure may play a vital role in Taiwan's attritional defense. E Sean Rooney and other writers mention in an October 2024 Proceedings article that if Taiwan were forced to defend itself without the US, its urban environment would provide an ideal defensive environment, as massed fires against urban targets would create more rubble and defensive positions, requiring China to hold both aboveground and underground layers in a laborious advance. Rooney and others also say that China using mass fires against urban areas could generate an international backlash and turn international popular opinion against it. While thermobaric weapons could be effective in such an environment, they could also cause massive collateral damage. However, as China claims its new bomb has a controllable chain reaction and a weaker blast force than TNT, it hints at the weapon's power being scalable to address such concerns. Alternatively, China may also take a page from the US 'shock-and-awe' tactics in Afghanistan, using its new bomb as a psychological weapon. Michael Schmitt and Peter Barker mention in an April 2017 Just Security article that the US Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) weapon, originally designed to be used against large troop formations or hardened aboveground bunkers, was thought to have a potent effect on Islamic State (IS) morale due to its reported 1.6-kilometer blast and the fact its detonation creates a mushroom cloud similar to a nuclear weapon. Schmitt and Barker note that the MOAB was effective against IS cave and tunnel networks, with the pressure wave killing or injuring the occupants and collapsing the system. They say that the MOAB could cause an adversary to abandon certain operations, such as underground warfare, forcing them to expose themselves. Additionally, they mention that such a potent weapon sends a powerful message to adversaries, signaling resolve and other strategic messaging. In the case of China and Taiwan, Afghanistan's cave and tunnel networks may not be too dissimilar from Taiwan's underground defenses. A MOAB-type weapon — leveraging sustained blast and thermal effects — could be particularly effective against small frontline strongholds like Kinmen and Matsu. Taipei's urban setting and dense civilian presence contrast markedly with isolated cave networks, which pose minimal collateral damage risks. Since China would most likely want to minimize collateral damage, avoid massive urban battles and contain international backlash if it attempts to invade Taiwan, it may use its new bomb as a psychological weapon in conjunction with a blockade. Using such a weapon against Kinmen and Matsu could rapidly degrade defender capabilities, particularly in confined underground spaces where sustained thermal effects and pressure waves would be most devastating. Still, the extent and speed of defensive collapse would depend heavily on factors such as weapon yield, defensive preparations and the effectiveness of air defense neutralization efforts. The purported sheer power of China's new bomb, alongside the potential for rapid neutralization of Kinmen and Matsu's defenders, would be a prelude to landing operations to eliminate surviving resistance and seize the islands. However, a shock-and-awe island seizure of Kinmen and Matsu and a blockade of Taiwan may be a low-risk, low-reward strategy. Capturing Kinmen and Matsu is not the same as seizing Taiwan. While the loss of Kinmen and Matsu and resulting shortages could impose severe psychological and logistical pressure, Taiwan's leadership has demonstrated resilience in past crises. Strong international support, including US military intervention, could bolster Taiwan's resolve, making outright capitulation unlikely even after heavy initial setbacks.
