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Borneo Post
27-05-2025
- General
- Borneo Post
Artificial nests boost biodiversity of "China's water tower"
Workers conduct routing inspection of power transmission lines at Tanggulashan Township of Golmud City in the Mongolian-Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Haixi, northwest China's Qinghai Province, June 3, 2023. (Photo by Pan Binbin/Xinhua) XINING (May 28): Under the blue skies and white clouds of the Sanjiangyuan area in northwest China's Qinghai Province, raptors like golden eagles and upland buzzards soar through the air, frequently returning to nests perched atop electricity transmission poles and towers. There, they incubate their eggs and feed their young. Surprisingly, these nests were installed by local power grid workers in a public welfare initiative that the State Grid Corporation of China (State Grid) launched in the province in 2016 to promote biodiversity conservation. The artificial nest project is now being expanded across China and globally, and has been selected as a flagship case for the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP16). CONFLICTS The Sanjiangyuan area, known as 'China's water tower,' is home to the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers, and boasts among the highest levels of high-altitude biodiversity in the world. The area now hosts approximately 300 bird species, including over 20 raptors, such as golden eagles, saker falcons and upland buzzards. These birds, which favor high nesting sites, use the soaring transmission towers — tens of meters in height — as ideal habitats. In the past, birds frequently built nests on transmission towers using materials like iron wires and thin ropes, which often electrocuted the birds and triggered power outages. To resolve the conflict between power grid development and avian habitat conservation, which had long been recognized as an industry-wide challenge, maintenance workers from the State Grid Qinghai Electric Power Company initially installed bird deterrent and exclusion devices on power towers. However, over time, the birds became habituated to these devices and grew unafraid. 'We even tried relocating nests, but the area's high altitude and scarce tree coverage leave few suitable nesting sites for raptors,' said Wang Hui, former head of the maintenance team. COEXISTENCE According to the Yushu Power Supply Company, which is under the State Grid Qinghai Electric Power Company, 40 percent of power failures in the province's Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in 2015 were bird-related. Each repair mission required crews to traverse snow-capped mountains and vast grasslands, covering hundreds of kilometers at tremendous operational costs. To solve the problem, Wang and his colleagues devised the idea of building nests for birds on the towers, at positions that wouldn't affect power transmission safety. Soon, the first batch of simple artificial bird nests — bamboo baskets lined with straw — were installed and put to use. 'At first, the results were promising — eagles and other large birds gradually moved in,' maintenance worker Ren Liang said. However, frequent sandstorms in Qinghai blew away the straw in the bamboo baskets, and the baskets themselves quickly weathered and fell apart. After repeated trials and improvements, the workers switched to weaving nests from rattan and lining them with coir mats secured by metal fasteners. 'These upgraded nests were not only sturdier and safer, but also more comfortable for hatching chicks,' Ren said. Working with wildlife experts, the power company ultimately designed bowl-shaped nests measuring about 100 centimeters in diameter and 40 centimeters in depth, specifically sized for the physical requirements of the area's raptors. These conservation efforts have yielded significant results. Since 2016, the State Grid Qinghai Electric Power Company has installed 5,053 artificial bird nests in the Sanjiangyuan area, successfully attracting birds to nest in more than 2,600 of that total. The company now says it will install new nests while optimizing existing sites this year. This optimization will include relocating long-unoccupied nests to areas with higher concentrations of birds, thereby enhancing both utilization efficiency and the scientific deployment of these conservation structures. Wang Jianting, president of the Bird Watching Association of Qinghai National Park, noted that these artificial nests have successfully attracted raptors that prey on plateau pikas and other small animals, strengthening vulnerable links in Sanjiangyuan's ecological chain. Professional monitoring results show that according to current artificial nest installation standards in Sanjiangyuan, each nest assists in the predation of about 50 small grassland rodents in the surrounding area during the raptor breeding season alone, significantly enhancing ecological balance stability. In recent years, the State Grid Qinghai Electric Power Company has also collaborated with non-profit organizations on interdisciplinary research integrating ornithology and power grid systems, dynamically monitoring and evaluating the artificial nest project. The project has been expanded to provinces and regions such as Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang and Xizang. – Xinhua animal spec bird's nests China fauna
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Dongfeng and Changan advance merger talks
Chinese state-owned automakers Dongfeng Motor and Chongqing Changan Automobile Company are in advanced talks to merge their operations, reported The New York Times, citing people familiar with the matter. The discussions, involving detailed plans for combining the companies, have been communicated to their foreign partners. Dongfeng is valued at $4.89bn and Changan Automobile at $15.65bn, according to data compiled by London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). This development follows discussions from February, when the two companies were understood to be considering a merger to create a stronger entity. This move aligns with China's strategy to encourage state-owned automakers to become more self-reliant, particularly in the field of new energy vehicles. Changan Automobile encompasses brands such as Chang-An, Deepal, Avatr, and joint ventures like ChangAn Ford, ChangAn Mazda, and JMC. The company recently held a European launch event, announcing its intention to enter at least ten regional markets in Europe by the end of the year. It aims to sell three million vehicles this year, with a target of five million units annually by 2030. Adding to its global expansion efforts, Changan Automobile announced in January a partnership with Kim Long Motor to build a new vehicle manufacturing plant in Hue, Vietnam. The facility is set to produce Kim Long Changan Vietnam five to seven seater passenger vehicles. Changan Automobile Group vice-president Wang Hui said: 'This collaboration with Kim Long Motor Hue marks a crucial step in Changan Automobile's globalisation strategy, and will serve as an important starting point for Changan Automobile's entry into the Vietnamese market. "Dongfeng and Changan advance merger talks" was originally created and published by Just Auto, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Chinese state media blames US for cyberattack that disrupted DeepSeek
A massive cyberattack that forced DeepSeek to close its groundbreaking AI model for new registrations on Tuesday originated in the US, Chinese state media has claimed. The Chinese startup released its new AI system, called R1, last week and the development immediately rocked the Western tech industry and stock markets. DeepSeek claims its AI model cost a fraction of the money and computing power to train compared to its rivals like OpenAI's ChatGPT, which employs more expensive Nvidia chips. R1 quickly gained popularity, climbing to the top of the list of free apps downloaded from Apple Store, surpassing ChatGPT. As news spread over the weekend that the DeepSeek system matched the most advanced AI models of American tech giants such as Google, OpenAI and Meta despite being far more cost-effective and open-source, investors in companies such as Nvidia and Oracle began selling their stocks, wiping off nearly a trillion dollars in value from the American stock market on Monday. Nvidia is the leading supplier of chips used to train advanced AI models. On Tuesday, DeepSeek said that it came under a brute-force cyberattack. The company limited R1 signups with phone numbers in China and prohibited registrations from international users. A banner on its app notified users that it faced 'malicious attacks' without revealing where they were coming from. 'Due to large-scale malicious attacks on DeepSeek's services, we are temporarily limiting registrations to ensure continued service,' the notification said. 'Existing users can log in as usual. Thanks for your understanding and support.' On Wednesday, DeepSeek notified users that the issue had been identified, and a fix was being implemented. Not long after, Yuyuan Tantian, a social media account affiliated with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, claimed the attacks originated from IP addresses in the US. While initial attacks disrupted DeepSeek by overwhelming its servers and bandwidth with a flood of internet traffic, according to the Chinese cybersecurity company QAX Technology Group, the more recent ones attempted to crack user credentials by checking all possible password combinations to understand how the AI model worked. 'All the attack IPs were recorded, all are from the US,' QAX cybersecurity expert Wang Hui told CCTV. The cyberattack on DeepSeek has raised concerns about the security of AI platforms and the risks they pose to users. Bill Conner, former security adviser to American and British governments, said DeepSeek 'represents a clear risk to any enterprise whose leadership values data privacy, security and transparency'. US president Donald Trump warned that DeepSeek's emergence was a 'wake-up call' for American AI giants. Some AI experts have also raised concerns about DeepSeek's ties to the Chinese government. The controlling shareholder of the startup based in Hangzhou is Liang Wenfeng, co-founder of a quantitative hedge fund called High-Flyer. Mr Liang attended a symposium for businessmen and experts hosted by Chinese premier Li Qiang the day the new DeepSeek model was released, according to state news agency Xinhua.
South China Morning Post
30-01-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Cyberattack on DeepSeek started in US: Chinese state media
The massive cyberattack targeted at China's AI start-up DeepSeek in recent days originated in the US, according to China's state broadcaster. The cyberattack on DeepSeek started on January 3 and reached a peak on Monday and Tuesday with a massive brute-force attack from US IP addresses, said Yuyuan Tantian, a social media account affiliated with China's state broadcaster CCTV, on Wednesday. DeepSeek last week launched a free and open sourced AI assistant that claimed to use less data at a fraction of the cost of incumbent US artificial models, which was regarded by some as a 'Sputnik moment' for America's AI industry for possibly marking a turning point in the level of investment needed for AI. 05:10 Chinese AI disrupter DeepSeek claims top spot in US App Store, dethroning ChatGPT Chinese AI disrupter DeepSeek claims top spot in US App Store, dethroning ChatGPT The earlier stage of the cyberattack contained more distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that aimed to disrupt DeepSeek's normal service by overwhelming its servers and bandwidth with a flood of internet traffic, and the more recent attacks were primarily brute-force attacks, aiming to crack user ID and passwords in an effort to understand how DeepSeek works, said CCTV, quoting a report from China's cybersecurity company QAX Technology Group. A brute-force attack will systematically check all possible passwords and passphrases until the correct one is found. With the compromised ID and passwords, the attacker can pretend to be the registered users of web services to use and analyse their services. 'All the attack IPs were recorded, all are from the US,' Wang Hui, a QAX cybersecurity expert, told CCTV.
