A number of schools in Hunan, Anhui and Zhejiang provinces in China have recently started implementing a new policy of 2-day off week for high schoolers, and have sparked quite a debate among parents and netizens in China.

• High schoolers in Grade 10 and 11 will now get 2 days off per week, and Grade 12 students get to have 1 day off every week.
• Currently, there is no weekend for many high schoolers in China (the “higher ranking” a school, the tougher the routine), you get half a day off per week (~2 days off per month).
• A typical high school day looks like this: wakes up at 6am, arrives at class room at 7am, starts morning self-study routine, sits through the classes, stays for the evening self-study session, gets home at around 10pm, and if you’re lucky, gets to bed at around 12am. Rinse and repeat every day.
• As anticipated, many parents are not happy with the new policy: the gaokao (national unified exam) is so competitive that even a 1-point difference in scoring can make or break your chances of getting into university. Some parents in Hangzhou are worried that their kids might be disadvantaged if kids from the other cities don’t have as many days off.
• This has led to an explosive demand for private tuition on the weekends as parents send their kids to tuition classes instead. Previously, tuition was part of the school program and parents pay ~1000 yuan per semester. Now they have to pay an additional 1000-2000 yuan per month.
• Some private tuition companies have seen the business opportunity and have begun advertising “weekend packages” for parents, with such slogans as “you can go to work with a peace of mind. we will take over the duty of the school to take care of your kids instead.”
• One such “weekend package” as reported by the news which includes tuition for 6 subjects + physical education costs 3680 yuan per month, which is 47% of the monthly income for an average household.
• Some parents are now petitioning for the schools to keep their libraries open on the weekend and crowdfunding to pay for the teachers’ “weekend overtime fee”.
• Even more absurdity ensued, as some schools received “letters to volunteer to return to school on the weekends” by “very concerned” students.

China can be a magical place sometimes. The level of extreme competition has intensified in recent years to such an extent that it is taking a toll on everyone’s daily lives, and I don’t blame the people who want to emigrate to Western countries at all. I know many Chinese immigrants overseas who don’t want to put their kids through this.

China announces plans for major renewable projects to tackle climate change

BEIJING, March 5 (Reuters) - China said on Wednesday it would develop a package of major projects to tackle climate change as it moves to bring its carbon dioxide emissions to a peak before 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2060.

The world's largest producer of climate-warming greenhouse gas said it would develop new offshore wind farms and accelerate the construction of "new energy bases" across its vast desert areas, the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's economic planner, said in an official report published on Wednesday.

"China will actively and prudently work towards peaking carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality," the report read.

Among the proposed projects cited in the report by the state planning agency was a controversial hydropower facility on the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet, which has raised concerns in India about its potential impact on downstream water flows.

It also said it would develop a direct power transmission route connecting Tibet with Hong Kong, Macao and Guangdong in the southeast.

However, coal will remain a key fuel, with the NDRC report saying the country will continue to increase coal production and supply this year even as it plans for trials of low-carbon technology at its coal-fired power plants and to promote initiatives aimed at substituting fossil fuels with renewables.

China has been struggling to strike a balance between fostering economic growth and meeting its environmental goals.

The NDRC said the 3.4% reduction in the amount of carbon emissions per unit of economic growth last year "fell short of expectations", blaming rapid growth in energy consumption as well as extreme weather.

China is not expected to meet its five-year goal to bring carbon intensity down by 18% by the end of this year, and it has not yet announced an annual target for 2025.

It will also struggle to meet a separate target to cut the amount of energy consumed per unit of growth by 13.5% by the end of this year, despite exceeding expectations with a 3.8% reduction last year, analysts said.

"Despite the world record expansion of renewables, an inconvenient truth is that China's economy hasn't become much more energy efficient in recent years," said Yao Zhe, global policy advisor with Greenpeace in Beijing.

The work report of the government from Third Session of the 14th National People's Congress is out on March 5th, summarized below:

Looking back at 2024

• 5% GDP growth
• Food production reached 1.4 trillion pound for the first time
• New employment in the urban area: 12.56 million
• Alternative energy vehicle production breached 13 million annually

Target for 2025

• GDP growth at ~5%
• New employment in the urban area: >12 million jobs
• CPI to reach 2%
• Food production at ~1.4 trillion pound
• Energy consumption per unit GDP to fall ~3%

Important work for 2025

• Budget: deficit spending to reach ~4% (from 3%, or +1.6T yuan from previous year)
• Government investment: to arrange new local government bonds at 4.4T yuan (+500B yuan), combined government debt to reach 11.86T yuan (+2.9T yuan)
• Special debt: to issue special extra long term government bonds at 1.3T yuan (+300B yuan), and new special government bond at 500B yuan
• Consumption: to implement targeted policies to raise consumption, to arrange extra long term bond at 300B yuan to support consumption (subsidies to trade in older goods with new goods)
• Nascent industries: to further propel the development of nascent industries e.g. commercial airliners, low attitude airspace economy. To cultivate biotech production, quantum technology, embodied AI, 6G and other nascent industries. To accelerate the digital transformation of manufacturing sector. To develop AI networked EV, AI-powered phones and computers, AI-powered robots etc.
• Education: to increase the number of higher and middle education degrees, to gradually implement free pre-school education
• Market environment: to implement long term mechanisms to resolve problems with outstanding payments by corporations/companies, to increase law enforcement actions against corporate crimes
• Opening up: to push for the orderly opening up of internet and cultural spaces, to further the opening up of telecommunications, healthcare, education and various sectors
• Housing: to continue implement strong policies to slow the plunging real estate prices and stabilize the market. implement the redevelopment of provincial towns and aging residential housing units. to encourage purchase of stock houses (oversupplied units). to continue the good work on settlement/closing for housing purchases.
• Rural development: to revitalize the rural industries, to activate the central government coordinated inter-provincial food production compensatory policy, to increase support for food producing provinces, to expand on channels to improve farmers’ income.
• Urbanization: to push for guaranteed housing system for qualified citizens who are turning from farmers into urban workers. to continue the revitalization of urban and redevelopment of old neighborhoods in cities.
• Ecology: mechanisms to encourage healthy and green consumption, to encourage new green, low carbon production and lifestyles
• Employment: to enlarge the employment opportunities for high school graduates, to strengthen the welfare guarantee for gig workers and new hires. to improve benefits for tech talents.
• Healthcare: to optimize the drug procurement policy and strengthen the regulation and evaluation of drug quality (note: this was a huge scandal in China last year when many hospitals procured fake drugs to lower costs), to increase the per capita subsidies of citizens health insurance and basic public healthcare service by 30 yuan and 5 yuan, respectively
• Social welfare: to raise the minimum amount of urban citizen pension by 20 yuan, to formulate policies to encourage birth, to provide childcare subsidies

Overall, not that different from last year’s budget, with the exception on the new emphasis on AI. The budget deficit is still on the conservative side, breaking from the usual 3% to 4% this year. It may or may not be enough to boost the slumping consumption, but time will tell. Other than that, nothing indicates fundamental change from the usual policies.

Greece population

Two Alawite families that my mom knows from her university days have been killed in Baniyas. She's in a facebook group with her old classmates and it's just full of obituaries of old people that have been mercilessly slaughtered by the terrorists. I don't know what to say, death just surrounds my people from all angles.

Germany’s ‘Whatever It Takes’ Moment Powers European Markets

• Merz announces historic plan to fund defense, infrastructure
• Stocks rally, bonds slump as investors assess spending shift

Germany’s extraordinary spending plans are shaking up the region’s markets, powering European equities past US peers this year and reviving the euro from the brink of parity with the dollar.

Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz said Germany would do “whatever it takes” — a catchphrase made famous by former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi — to defend the country and amend the constitution to exempt defense and security from limits on fiscal spending.

The move drove up Germany’s benchmark DAX stock index by as much as 3.8% and the prospect of more borrowing sent the country’s bond yields tumbling, both seeing the biggest moves since 2022. The pan-European Stoxx 600 climbed 1.8% to near a record set earlier this week, while traders bet on hefty gains for the euro.

“Big, bold, unexpected — a game changer for the outlook,” said Evelyn Herrmann, Europe economist at Bank of America Corp., adding that it represented a “paradigm shift.”

Making Europe Great

The historic plan, unlocking hundreds of billions of euros for transportation, energy and housing, is a dramatic shift that upends Germany’s controls on government borrowing. It invokes memories of Draghi’s 2012 speech to save the euro, which became a shorthand for policy determination.

Deutsche Bank AG strategist Maximilian Uleer — a long-standing bullish voice on European stocks — said the region was facing its own “Make Europe Great Again” moment — a play on US President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan for America.

Uleer reiterated his overweight stance on European stocks overall, calling the German proposal “above even our positive expectations.”

Stocks geared toward the German economy jumped, with the country’s mid-cap MDAX Index surging as much as 6.9% — the most since March 2020. That was led by construction firms such as Bilfinger SE and Hochtief AG, up 24% and 18% respectively. Defense companies like Rheinmetall AG added to a stellar rally this year, while heavyweights Deutsche Bank and Siemens AG were both up over 8%.

“There’s a very strong dynamic in Germany,” said Frederic Surry, deputy head of equities at BNP Paribas Asset Management, who has reduced his overweight on the US in favor of Europe. “We’re looking at a broadening, notably on midcaps.”

Winning Stocks

European stocks have been among the best performers in the world this year, as investors bet on stimulus and a potential cease-fire in Ukraine. Cheaper valuations have also proved attractive at a time when funds are exiting pricey US equities, overshadowing concerns around a global trade war for now.

The benchmark Stoxx 600 is on course to outperform the S&P 500 by the most in a decade on a quarterly basis, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Nine of the top 10 best performing stocks this year in the MSCI World Index — the benchmark for the developed world — are now European, data compiled by Bloomberg show. They include defense companies Rheinmetall, Thales SA, Leonardo SpA and Saab AB.

Euro Recovery

The euro climbed nearly 1% to its strongest level since November at over $1.07. Just a month ago, the common currency was a whisker away from parity with the dollar, trading almost at $1.02. This shifting dynamic could potentially reverse a multi-year US dollar rally, according to Julian Weiss, head of global Group-of-10 vanilla FX options trading at Bank of America.

Banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have been abandoning predictions that the euro will slide to be worth the same as one greenback. Instead, some hedge funds are now buying options wagering the euro will climb another 12% to $1.20 in six to nine months, according to traders familiar with the transactions. “This is Merz’s ‘Draghi moment’,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB. “The strong recovery in the euro suggests that Europe’s star is rising.”

Europe about to abandon its neoliberal fiscal “balance the budget” rule to invest heavily in military and infrastructure.

Is this the turning point for the European economy?

Meanwhile, Trump appears to have bought into the charlatans who told him that “dollar must weaken” in order to re-industrialize, which will prove fatal if it keeps going. I give it a few months before the US realizes the huge mistake it is in and will likely attempt to pivot by then.

Boy Boy just came out with a video where they interviewed an Australian who was tortured repeatedly removed, waterboarded, electric shocked to face and genitals, etc) for six months by the CIA at various US black sites all over the world including Guantanamo Bay. He said the Australian Ambassador to Pakistan was even present at one of the times he was tortured! https://youtu.be/xEqrm9OIqro

what the fuck. He said he saw other captives completely lose their minds and weren't able to recall their own names. They accused him of training the 9/11 hijackers with kungfu which he was a practitioner of.

What is Known About U.S.-Ukraine Minerals Deal So Far? - Telesur English

Austrian Parties Agree to Form Government Without Far-Right Freedom Party - Telesur English

Linking to locked thread as a new thread is excellence.

also kallas saying openly "how can we defeat china" is some next level of diplomacy, too bad everybody has humiliation fetish