3D-printed houses poised to go mainstream



Joann Muller
Mon, October 25, 2021

3D-printed cement houses are about to take off, offering a cheaper, more efficient way to provide homes for those who need them — as long as they can be built in ways that don't worsen climate change.

Why it matters: Developers of 3D-printed homes think they can take on multiple challenges: the affordable housing crisis, the shortage of skilled labor and rising material costs.

At least one is also adapting its technology to mass-produce homes without releasing too much carbon into the atmosphere.

What's happening: A handful of companies are erecting new subdivisions featuring 3D-printed houses.

Instead of conventional materials like steel, aluminum and lumber, 3D-printed structures are built by a robot squeezing a cement mixture out of a nozzle, layer upon layer, like a soft swirl ice cream cone.

It's the same additive manufacturing process used to make everything from dental implants to airplane parts — just on a much, much larger scale.

Only a few dozen 3D-printed homes have been built, or proposed, so far in the U.S., but that's about to change.

What they're saying: "After years of R&D, the market is nearing a tipping point as companies are moving beyond pilots and demonstration projects," according to market researchers at Guidehouse Industries.

"Considering current tight construction margins and labor shortages, 3D printing has the potential to revolutionize construction," they wrote, adding that widespread adoption is still years away.

Where it stands: Among the early pioneers is Austin, Texas-based ICON, which has delivered more than two dozen 3D-printed homes in the U.S. and Mexico and just raised $207 million to expand.

The company prints homes on-site, using its Vulcan construction system, with a gantry-mounted nozzle that lays down the house's walls, layer by layer.

Its proprietary Lavacrete cement mix is "a closely guarded secret" that combines ordinary Portland cement with "advanced additives" for structural integrity.

The homes are designed to be energy-efficient and withstand extreme weather and earthquakes, ICON says.

Mighty Buildings, a competitor, offers an alternative that focuses equally on the housing and climate crises.

The San Francisco-based company aims to become carbon neutral by 2028 — more than two decades ahead of the rest of the construction industry.

"We make houses as tools to fight climate change," co-founder Sam Ruben tells Axios.

How it works: Mighty Buildings uses 3D printing to produce modular panels in a factory, then delivers them to the lot for assembly.

The panels are a synthetic stone made from a polymer composite and include a steel frame, insulation and even gypsum board, or drywall, for the interior walls.

With robotic tools, the panels can be milled for the desired look, like stucco or siding.

Mighty Buildings started out printing "accessory dwelling units" — small guesthouses that are one answer to the housing shortage.

It's now marketing 3D-printed home kits — similar to the Sears catalog's mail-order home kits in the early 20th century — for $349,000.

It is also partnering with a developer, Palari Group, to build two subdivisions in California.

Their 15-unit neighborhood in Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs, will be "the first 3D-printed, net-zero-energy community," the companies say.

With built-in solar panels and storage batteries on-site, homeowners won't spend a nickel on electricity, says Ruben.

Yes, but: Construction is a major contributor to climate change. It takes enormous amounts of energy to produce cement, a key ingredient in concrete, the ubiquitous foundation of our built world.

The cement industry alone is responsible for 8% of global CO2 emissions, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

That's one reason Mighty Buildings is partnering with a company that figured out how to trap those emissions in an innovative low-carbon cement.

The bottom line: It's too early to say whether 3D-printed houses will meet the test of time, says Henry D'Esposito, construction research lead at JLL, a real estate services firm.

"We've never seen one of these at 20, 30, 40 years old," he tells Axios.

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Xi Jinping tells UN China will uphold world peace, does not mention Taiwan

Shweta Sharma
Mon, October 25, 2021,


File: Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during a meeting with Tedros Adhanom in January (EPA)

President Xi Jinping on Monday promised that China will always uphold world peace even as he failed to mention growing tensions with Taiwan in a speech marking the 50th anniversary of the country’s return to the United Nations.

Mr Xi called for greater global cooperation on the issues of regional conflicts, terrorism, climate change, cybersecurity, and biosecurity.

"China resolutely opposes all forms of hegemony and power politics, unilateralism and protectionism," he said, adding that countries should “vigorously advocate peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom..”


Beijing was a founding member of the UN and one of the five permanent members at UNSC before it was blocked by the US to retain its seat until 1971.

Mr Xi called the “decision to restore all rights of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations” as a “victory for the Chinese people and a victory for people of the world.”

“China will stay committed to the path of multilateralism and always be a defender of the international order,” he added.

But the president did not mention Taiwan despite concerns raised by the United States and other countries as Beijing stepped up its military intimidation of the self-ruling democracy.

China has sent a record number of warplanes into Taiwan’s air defence zone, forcing the island nation to raise alarm and seek help from the UN in what Taipei called the worst tensions in more than 40 years.

Taiwan also accuses China of preventing Taiwanese envoys from taking part in conferences by specialised UN agencies which has kept the nation distant from access to international cooperation in fields like medical science.

Taiwan held a UN seat under the title Republic of China but the island nation was expelled in 1971 after China was recognised as the sole representative under UN resolution 2758.

The foreign ministry of Taiwan reiterated a call for the UN to allow its "meaningful participation", adding that the island had never been part of the People’s Republic and its government had no right to represent the island’s people.

Taiwan recognises itself as a free and independent country but China considers it as its breakaway province that will unify China, by force if necessary.

Without naming the US, Mr Xi appeared to take aim at the country, saying: “International rules can only be made by the 193 UN Member States together, and not decided by individual countries or blocs of countries. International rules should be observed by the 193 UN Member States, and there is and should be no exception.”

As Beijing and Washington remained embroiled in a lingering trade war, high-level diplomats from the US State Department met officials from Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday, ahead of Mr Xi’s speech, via video conference to discuss Taipei’s participation at the UN and other international forums.

State Department official Rick Waters called out China for misusing its status in the UN. Mr Waters accused China of misusing UN Resolution 2758 to restrict Taiwan from taking part in the UN, according to the semi-official Central News Agency in Taiwan.

Responding to the comments, China’s embassy in the US hit back at the statements, calling it “serious provocation to China” and “highly misleading.”

“This is a serious political provocation to China and a malign distortion of international law and universally recognised norms governing international relations," the statement said.

US president Joe Biden answered “yes” when he was asked whether his administration would back Taiwan during a CNN town hall on Thursday.

“I don’t want a Cold War with China -- I just want to make China understand that we are not going to step back, we are not going to change any of our views," Mr Biden told host Anderson Cooper in Baltimore.

Xi’s ‘Common Prosperity’ in Theory and Practice


Investors had, over the past 30 years, grown so accustomed to ignoring rhetoric about communism from nominally-communist China that a leader firmly putting equality at the heart of his economic agenda has caused more than a little heartburn. The Oct. 15 release of a fuller transcript of President

Xi Jinping’s mid-August remarks on “common prosperity” therefore piqued considerable interest.

The publication in the party’s theoretical journal, “Seeking Truth,” appears partly aimed at reassuring investors and entrepreneurs spooked by novel language about “rationally adjusting” excessive incomes in the original mid-August readout of Mr. Xi’s speech, which came at the height of Beijing’s campaign to rein in its internet giants.

The expanded remarks still contain such language, but the tone and structure contain some marked differences. Mr. Xi forcefully addresses entrepreneurship right near the top, saying that “common prosperity depends on hard work” and innovation and that law-abiding entrepreneurs should be particularly encouraged. The newly released remarks also warn about the dangers of “welfarism” and government dependence—language that was absent from the original readout.

In theory, there is a fair amount for investors to like here: most important, it shows that Mr. Xi understands the importance of incentives—and that the rapidly escalating regulatory campaign over the past year risks damaging entrepreneurship. The speech also fits with Beijing’s long standing skepticism about big outlays for social services, as opposed to infrastructure or carrots for businesses like cheap land. Notably, China’s countercyclical policy in the initial months of the coronavirus outbreak focused on loan forbearance for businesses rather than direct income support for households, as in the West.

The overall message appears to be that the policy pendulum will move more toward equality: higher taxes and more pressure to donate for high-income individuals, moderately higher spending on social programs and education and tougher antimonopoly enforcement in some areas. But that isn’t the same as a huge expansion of China’s welfare state or confiscatory economic policies.

The problem, of course, is that this is all happening in the lead-up to the 20th Party Congress next fall. Mr. Xi’s bid for an unprecedented third term at China’s helm would presumably be strengthened by showing he has solutions to festering problems such as inequality, unaffordable housing and the high cost of child-rearing. The capricious manner in which certain industries and companies have been treated also has a strong political flavor.
China recorded a steep economic slowdown in the third quarter as its pandemic bounceback fades—and now, Beijing is taking on longer-term issues including household debt and energy consumption. WSJ’s Anna Hirtenstein explains what investors are watching. Photo: Long Wei/Sipa Asia/Zuma Press

While there had been warning signs about the private tutoring industry for some time, the virtual decapitation of the sector overnight—and its overseas listed companies—still sent a very strong signal of uncertainty and vulnerability. Likewise, despite some legitimate criticisms of Ant Group’s business model, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the company’s abrupt fall from grace was related to Jack Ma’s very public criticism of some of Mr. Xi’s signature policies.

It is often said that the U.S. stock market prefers a divided government because, although inertia and ossification cause problems, it is at least predictable—and better than unchecked regulatory overreach. Likewise China’s consensus-based model of elite governance ushered in by

Deng Xiaoping created many problems—among them pollution and corruption—but was also reasonably predictable and responsive to different economic interest groups.

For better or worse, those days are over. Whether that change will result in the common prosperity that Mr. Xi envisions remains to be seen.

How China’s past shapes Xi's thinking - and his view of the world


Mon, October 25, 2021

President Xi

Heightened tensions with Taiwan have focused attention on China, with many wondering where President Xi Jinping sees his country on the world stage. Perhaps the past can provide some clues, writes Rana Mitter, a history professor at Oxford University.

China is now a global power, something scarcely imaginable just a few decades ago.

Its power sometimes stems from cooperation with the wider world, such as signing up to the Paris climate agreement.

Or sometimes it means competition with it, such as the Belt and Road Initiative, a network of construction projects in more than 60 countries which has brought investment to many parts of the world deprived of western loans.

Yet there is also a highly confrontational tone to much of China's global rhetoric.

Beijing condemns the US for seeking to "contain" China through the new AUKUS (Australia-UK-US) submarine pact, warns the UK that there would be "consequences" for granting residence in Britain to Hong Kongers leaving their city because of the harsh National Security Law, and told the island of Taiwan that it should prepare to be unified with the mainland.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has asserted China's place on the global stage much more strongly than any of his predecessors since Mao Zedong, China's paramount leader during the Cold War.

Yet other elements of his rhetoric draw on sources much more longstanding - looking back to its own history, both ancient and more recent.

Here are five of these recurring themes.
Confucian ways

For over 2,000 years the norms of Confucian thinking shaped Chinese society. The philosopher (551-479 BC) constructed an ethical system that combined hierarchy, where people would know their place in society, with benevolence, the expectation that those in superior positions would look after their inferiors.

Heavily adapted over time, this system of thinking underpinned China's dynasties until the revolution of 1911, when the overthrow of the last emperor spurred a backlash against Confucius and his legacy from radicals including the new Communist Party.

Statue of Confucius

One of those communists, Mao Zedong, remained deeply hostile to traditional Chinese philosophy during his years in power (1949-1976). But by the 1980s, Confucius was back in Chinese society, praised by the Communist Party as a brilliant figure with lessons to teach contemporary China.

Today, China celebrates "harmony" (hexie) as a "socialist value," even though it has a very Confucian air. And a hot topic in Chinese international relations is the question of how that term "benevolence" (ren), another key Confucian term, might shape Beijing's relations with the outside world.

Professor Yan Xuetong of Tsinghua University has written of how China should seek "benevolent authority" rather than "dominance" in contrast with what he regards as the less benevolent role of the United States.

Even Xi Jinping's idea of a "world community of common destiny" has a traditional philosophical flavour about it - and Xi has visited Confucius's birthplace of Qufu and cited his sayings in public.
A century of humiliation

The historical confrontations of the 19th and 20th centuries still deeply shape Chinese thinking about the world.

The Opium Wars of the mid-19th Century saw western traders use force for the violent opening of China's doors. Much of the period from the 1840s to the 1940s is remembered as a "century of humiliation", a shameful era that showed China's weakness in the face of European and Japanese aggression.

During that era, China had to cede Hong Kong to Britain, territory in the north-eastern region of Manchuria to the Japanese, and a whole range of legal and commercial privileges to a range of western countries. In the post-war era, it was the USSR that tried to gain influence in China's borders, including Manchuria and Xinjiang.

BBC Bitesize: The First Opium War

This experience has created a deep suspicion toward the intentions of the outside world. Even seemingly outward-looking gestures such as China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001 was underpinned by a cultural memory of "unfair treaties" when China's trade was controlled by foreigners - a situation which today's Communist Party has vowed never to allow again.

In March this year, an ill-tempered public session between Chinese and American negotiators in Anchorage, Alaska, saw the Chinese push back against US criticism by accusing their hosts of "condescension and hypocrisy". Xi's China does not tolerate the idea that outsiders can look down on their country with impunity.
Forgotten ally

However, even terrible events can yield more positive messages.

One such message comes from the Chinese phase of World War II, when it fought Japan essentially alone after being invaded in 1937, before the Western Allies joined the Asian war at Pearl Harbor in 1941.

During those years, China lost more than 10 million people and held back over half a million Japanese troops on the Chinese mainland, a feat commemorated widely in history books and in films and television.

The anniversary of victory against Japan is marked in Beijing

Today China portrays itself as part of the "anti-fascist alliance" alongside the US, Britain and the USSR, giving itself moral ballast by reminding the world of its role as a victor against the Axis powers.

China also draws on its historical role as a leader of the Third World in the Mao era (for instance at the Bandung Conference of 1955, and in projects such as the building of the TanZam railway in East Africa in the 1970s) to burnish its credentials as a leader today in the non-western world.

Witnessing Japan's surrender in China

Modern history remains a key part of the way that the Chinese Communist Party perceives its own legitimacy. Yet elements of that history - notably the terrible famine caused by the disastrous economic policies of the Great Leap Forward of 1958-62 - remain almost unmentioned in China today.

And some modern wars can be used for more confrontational purposes. The last year of bumpy US-China relations has seen new films commemorating the Korean War of 1950-3 - a conflict which the Chinese remember under a different name - "the War of Resistance to America".
On your Marx

The historical trajectory of Marxism-Leninism is also deeply embedded in Chinese political thinking, and has been very actively revived under Xi Jinping.

Throughout the 20th Century, Mao Zedong and other major communist political leaders took part in theoretical debates on Marxism with immense consequences.

Chinese tourists pose for pictures in front of Mao's portrait

For instance, the notion of "class warfare" led to the killing of a million landlords in the early years of Mao's rule. Even though "class" has fallen out of favour as a way of defining society, China's political language today is still shaped by ideas of "struggle", "antagonism" and conceptions of "socialism" as opposed to "capitalism".

Major journals, such as the Party's theoretical organ Qiushi, regularly debate the "contradictions" in Chinese society in terms that draw extensively from Marxist theory.

WATCH: What does Marxism actually mean?

Xi's China defines the US-China competition as a struggle that can be understood in terms of Marxist antagonism.

The same is true for the economic forces in society, and their interaction - the difficulties in growing the economy and keeping that growth suitably green are interpreted in terms of contradiction. In classic Marxism, you reach an agreed point, or synthesis - but not before you work through often painful and lengthy "antagonisms".

Taiwan

Beijing stresses the unshakable destiny of the island of Taiwan, which it defines as unification with mainland China.

Yet the past century of Taiwan's history shows that the issue of its status waxes and wanes in Chinese politics. In 1895, after a disastrous war with Japan, China was forced to hand over Taiwan, which then became a Japanese colony for the next half century.

China's southeastern coast can be seen from the Taiwanese island of Kinmen

It was then briefly unified with the mainland by the Nationalists from 1945 to 1949. Under Mao, China missed its chance to unify the island; the American Truman administration would have probably let Mao take it, until the People's Republic of China joined the North Koreans in invading South Korea in 1950, prompting the Korean War and suddenly turning Taiwan into a key Cold War ally.


What's behind the China-Taiwan divide?

Mao launched attacks on the Taiwan coast in 1958, but then ignored the territory for the 20 years after that. After the US and China re-established relations in 1979, there was an uneasy agreement that all sides would agree that there was One China, but not agree over whether the Beijing or Taiwan regime was actually the legitimate republic.

Forty years on, Xi Jinping is insistent that unification must come soon, while the aggressive rhetoric and fate of Hong Kong has led Taiwan's public, now citizens of a liberal democracy, to become increasingly hostile to a closer relationship with the mainland.

Professor Rana Mitter teaches at Oxford University where he specialises in the history and politics of modern China. His latest book is China's Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism

Xi and Putin are snubbing the COP26 climate summit, even though China and Russia produce some 32% of global CO2 emissions


Thomas Colson
Mon, October 25, 2021

Vladimir Putin talks to Xi Jinping vua video link in June 2021

. Sputnik/Alexei Nikolsky/Kremlin via REUTERS


The leaders of China and Russia said they won't be at this week's COP26 climate-change summit.

Their absence may make it harder for others to secure big commitments to reducing emissions.

China emits around 28% of the world's CO2 emissions, while Russia emits around 5%.

China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin are set to snub this week's COP26 summit on climate change in Glasgow.

Their absence is especially significant given their nations' contributions to global emissions, with China producing an estimated 28% and Russia 5% of global CO2 output.

The Kremlin confirmed last week that Putin would not travel to Scotland for the summit, while China is said to be planning to send its special envoy on climate change instead.

The Times newspaper reported last week that Johnson had been told that Xi would not attend in person.

Other world leaders at the summit may find it harder to strike a historic agreement on climate change without Xi and Putin around.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is hosting the summit, is seeking support from other world leaders to commit to a radical plan tackling climate change.

Xi has not left China since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported, choosing instead to attend summits by video-link.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin would "unfortunately" not fly to Glasgow but said that climate change was "one of our foreign policy's most important priorities," AFP reported.

China emits nearly 28% of the world's global carbon dioxide emissions, according to Our World in Data, more than any other country. The figure grew rapidly as the country's expanding economy industrialized.

Russia emits around 5% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, according to Our World in Data - the fourth highest in the world behind China, the US, and India.

US President Joe Biden and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi are planning to attend the summit, as well as at least a dozen other national leaders.

 

The Chinese military is thinking about how to stealthily destroy enemy ports and just set off a big explosion to see how it might work

Ryan Pickrell

Mon, October 25, 2021

• The Chinese military is looking at options for attacking an enemy port, Chinese media reported.

• The PLA recently conducted its first test exploring port destruction with underwater explosives.

• "If we can use stealthy ways, like underwater explosions, to destroy the ports, we can kill off the enemy's war potential," said a Chinese officer.

The Chinese military is thinking about how to stealthily destroy a naval port to cripple an adversary's capabilities and hinder its ability to fight, a People's Liberation Army Navy officer explained to state media after a recent explosive test that was reportedly meant to simulate an attack on a port.

The Chinese military, through a PLA Naval Research Academy institute, recently detonated underwater explosives at an unidentified port.

Sensors set up at important structural points gathered data on the damage the port sustained. Chinese media said the data "will provide scientific support to attack hostile ports in a real war."

The test was the first of its kind for the Chinese military, according to CCTV, a state-run broadcaster which aired its report on the testing over the weekend. Chinese media did not say when the test was carried out, only noting that it happened recently.

The recent test explored the impact that different weapons might have on an operational port in an actual conflict scenario. The explosion reportedly destroyed the testing terminal. 

Zhao Pengduo, who Chinese media identified as a captain and the deputy director of the Naval Port Demolition Test Program, highlighted the military's thinking behind the test in his interview with CCTV.

Zhao said that naval bases and ports are valuable targets because they are used to support logistics vessels that move munitions, fuel and other essential supplies to the frontlines of a fight.

He told Chinese media that "if we can use stealthy ways, like underwater explosions, to destroy the ports, we can kill off the enemy's war potential," according to a Global Times translation of his remarks.

A unnamed military analyst in Beijing told the Chinese state-affiliated media outlet that attacking key ports could undermine the US strategy of dispersing its forces throughout the Indo-Pacific region by threatening the critical supply lines that US forces would require to operate effectively.

The media reports on the Chinese military's naval port destruction testing did not explain how China would deliver underwater explosives to an adversary's port and likely under intense fire.

It is unclear if China is thinking about manned infiltration, autonomous systems, submarines, mines, or some other approach entirely.

Bryan Clark, a former US Navy officer and defense expert at the Hudson Institute, said attacking a US naval port is "easier said than done," telling Insider that attackers would have to bypass security barriers, nets to stop submersibles, acoustic sensors to detect divers, patrols, and other countermeasures. The risk is greater at civilian ports though given that they are not as well defended.

As the recent test was the first such test China has conducted, the Chinese military may still be working through these questions, but the testing clearly indicates some degree of interest in developing this combat capability.

UH OH

Rise in human bird flu cases in China shows risk of fast-changing variants - health experts

FILE PHOTO: Man provides water for chickens inside a greenhouse at a farm in Heihe

Dominique Patton
Mon, October 25, 2021, 11:13 PM·3 min read


BEIJING (Reuters) - A jump in the number of people in China infected with bird flu this year is raising concern among experts, who say a previously circulating strain appears to have changed and may be more infectious to people.

China has reported 21 human infections with the H5N6 subtype of avian influenza in 2021 to the World Health Organization (WHO), compared with only five last year, it said.


Though the numbers are much lower than the hundreds infected with H7N9 in 2017, the infections are serious, leaving many critically ill, and at least six dead.

"The increase in human cases in China this year is of concern. It's a virus that causes high mortality," said Thijs Kuiken, professor of comparative pathology at Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam.

Most of the cases had come into contact with poultry, and there are no confirmed cases of human-to-human transmission, said the WHO, which highlighted the rise in cases in a statement on Oct. 4.

It said further investigation was "urgently" required to understand the risk and the increase in spill over to people.

Since then, a 60-year-old woman in Hunan province was admitted to hospital in a critical condition with H5N6 influenza on Oct. 13, according to a Hong Kong government statement.

While human H5N6 cases have been reported, no outbreaks of H5N6 have been reported in poultry in China since February 2020.

China is the world's biggest poultry producer and top producer of ducks, which act as a reservoir for flu viruses.

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) could not be reached for comment on the rise in H5N6 human cases. However, a study published on its website last month said the "increasing genetic diversity and geographical distribution of H5N6 pose a serious threat to the poultry industry and human health".

Avian influenza viruses constantly circulate in domestic and wild birds, but rarely infect people. However, the evolution of the viruses, which have increased as poultry populations grow, is a major concern because they could change into a virus that spreads easily between people and cause a pandemic.

The largest number of H5N6 infections have been in southwestern Sichuan province, though cases have also been reported in neighbouring Chongqing and Guangxi, as well as Guangdong, Anhui and Hunan provinces.

At least 10 were caused by viruses genetically very similar to the H5N8 virus that ravaged poultry farms across Europe last winter and also killed wild birds in China. That suggests the latest H5N6 infections in China may be a new variant.

"It could be that this variant is a little more infectious (to people)...or there could be more of this virus in poultry at the moment and that's why more people are getting infected," said Kuiken.

Four of the Sichuan cases raised poultry at home and had been in contact with dead birds, said a September report by China's CDC. Another had bought a duck from a live poultry market a week before developing symptoms.

China vaccinates poultry against avian influenza but the vaccine used last year may only partially protect against emerging viruses, preventing large outbreaks but allowing the virus to keep circulating, said Filip Claes, Regional Laboratory Coordinator at the Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases at the Food and Agriculture Organization.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.

Backyard farms in China are common and many people still prefer to buy live chickens at markets.

Guilin city in Guangxi region, which had two human cases in August, said last month it had suspended trading of live poultry in 13 urban markets and would abolish the trade within a year.

(Reporting by Dominique Patton; Editing by Michael Perry)

Douyin users criticize 'baiting crowd' for egging on Chinese influencer's livestream suicide



Bryan Ke
Mon, October 25, 2021

A Douyin influencer who livestreamed her suicide has prompted other users to question the social media platform’s prevention efforts and the “baiting crowd” phenomenon on China’s version of TikTok.

What happened: Luo Xiao Maomao, 25, posted a video on Douyin on the afternoon of Oct. 14, where she explained that she had been severely depressed and “had reached her lowest point,” according to SupChina.

Luo thanked her more than 760,000 fans “for everything,” adding that the video would probably be the last one she would publish. “If you want to know why I said that, come watch my livestream later,” Luo continued.

During the fashion influencer’s livestream later that day, around 1,200 viewers witnessed her drink a bottle of pesticide, which led some of them to debate whether her actions were serious or a stunt.

Luo eventually grabbed her throat, unable to stop gagging

The influencer reportedly turned off her camera and called an ambulance. She was later taken to a hospital, where she died the following day.

Cry for help: Following the news of her death, some social media users wondered if it could have been prevented had Douyin intervened after Luo’s post that afternoon.

Some netizens even condemned those who indirectly caused her death and called them “cold-blooded murderers.” One Weibo user said the livestream was Luo’s final cry for help and called the people who urged her to commit suicide “pure monsters.”

Doudou Rongyi E, a Douyin user who was a close friend of Luo, revealed that it was not her intention to end her life during that livestream. She was allegedly trying to catch the attention of her ex-boyfriend, Zhào Ruòlín, Global Times reported via 8Days.

Zhào, a basketball player, has over 2 million followers on Douyin. According to Doudou, Luo became the target of the basketball player's envious female fans after they began dating. Luo tried to reconcile her relationship with Zhào since their breakup over the summer.

Comments during Luo’s livestream included “Oh, my God” and “Good for you” as she showed difficulty breathing. One user, who has been banned on Douyin following Luo’s death, wrote, "Haha, you really did it" after she drank the pesticide.

Luo’s death is another case of "baiting crowd," a form of phenomenon where a group of unified anger that people have toward another person threatening to commit actions such as self-harm and suicide. A similar incident went viral in 2018 when people cheered for a sexual assault victim after she jumped from a building to her death in Qingyang, Gansu Province, China.

Criticism: Other netizens also questioned Douyin’s delayed response in preventing the suicide from happening. The platform has an option that lets users report "harmful content" that may promote self-harm or suicide.

A Zhihu user allegedly reported the video to Douyin that afternoon, but moderators deemed that the post was not against its community guidelines. However, Douyin retracted its initial decision 12 hours after Luo’s last livestream.

The social media platform asserted its stance against harassment and bullying in its statement shared after Luo’s death. It also released a list of banned accounts that failed to follow its community guidelines.

Luo is the fourth Chinese influencer known to have died since July 2021, The Independent Singapore reported.

Featured Image via Sohu

Lev Parnas Is a Reminder—and Warning—of Trump’s Sleazy Corruption

The Ukrainian-American businessman, convicted last week of campaign finance violations, was in the background of Trump’s first impeachment.

by KIMBERLY WEHLE

THE BULWARK
OCTOBER 25, 2021 5:30 AM

Lev Parnas walks into the Southern District of New York Courthouse on December 2, 2019 in New York City. A business associate of President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, Parnas accused of conspiring to make illegal contributions to political committees supporting President Donald Trump and other Republicans, and wanting to use the donations to lobby U.S. politicians to support the removal of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. (Photo by Scott Heins/Getty Images)

Buried in last week’s news was the conviction by a Manhattan jury of Lev Parnas for arranging over $350,000 in illegal campaign donations to two pro-Trump super PACs and a Republican member of Congress in 2018. Parnas is a Ukrainian national who, according to former House Intelligence Committee counsel Daniel Goldman, resided “in the underbelly of the Ukraine story” that gave rise to Donald Trump’s first impeachment, and who operated as “[Rudy] Giuliani’s liaison to a lot of the significant officials in Ukraine.”

Giuliani, you’ll recall, was in 2018 and 2019 acting as Trump’s personal lawyer—or really more of a fixer. With an eye on the 2020 presidential race and the expectation that Joe Biden would be a serious rival to Trump, Giuliani sought to persuade Ukrainian officials in 2019 to open a criminal investigation into Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. The events culminated in Trump’s infamous July 2019 “quid pro quo” phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Compared to some of the intervening political crises, Trump’s pressuring Ukraine to announce a criminal investigation into Biden seems almost quaint, but less than two years ago it led to his first impeachment on abuse of power charges.

Today, Trump seems more emboldened than ever to secure power—dangling the possibility of another presidential run in front of the slavering, sycophantic Republican party. Parnas, however, faces prison time. It is worth taking a moment to revisit the basis of the charges against Parnas—which did not arise from his dealings with Giuliani—as a reminder of the kinds of corruption that surround Trump.

Federal law bans foreign donations to campaigns, and also requires public reporting to the Federal Election Commission of contributions and expenditures made in connection with federal elections. The Department of Justice indicted Parnas and three co-conspirators—Igor Fruman, David Correia, and Andrey Kukushkin—for allegedly having made false statements to the FEC, falsified records, conspired to defraud the United States by using a phony corporation to make campaign donations and by wiring hundreds of thousands of foreign-sourced dollars through a bank account under Fruman’s control. The straw company was called Global Energy Producers, a purported liquefied natural gas import-export business that Parnas incorporated with Fruman around the time of their illegal campaign contributions on behalf of a Russian financier who sought political influence to further his business interests in the U.S. marijuana industry.

Correia—who also has business ties to Giuliani—pleaded guilty in October 2020. Last month, Fruman pleaded guilty to soliciting donations from a foreign national, but made no agreement to testify against the others as part of his plea deal. Parnas and Kukushkin pleaded not guilty to all the charges and on Friday they were convicted at trial.

In January 2020, Parnas told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that Trump “knew exactly what was going on” with Giuliani in Ukraine, and that former Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General William Barr were also “in the loop.” In July of this year, new audio was leaked of a 2019 phone call between Giuliani, former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker, and Andriy Yermak, a senior adviser to Zelensky. In the forty-minute recording, Giuliani is captured saying: “All we need from the President [Zelensky] is to say, I’m gonna put an honest prosecutor in charge, he’s gonna investigate and dig up the evidence, that presently exists and is there any other evidence about involvement of the 2016 election, and then the Biden thing has to be run out.”

It should go without saying that it’s bad for the American system of government if a sitting president can use his unparalleled national security, law enforcement, financial, and diplomatic power to strongarm his way into more time in office. Yet that’s precisely what Donald Trump tried to do, and thus far there has been zero accountability for it. He was impeached, but Senate Republicans blocked his conviction. Far from distancing itself from him because of his Ukraine malversation, the GOP has stuck with Trump through the pandemic, through his attempt to steal the election, through the riot he incited at the Capitol, and through the first ten months of his conspiracy-theory-spreading ex-presidency.

Lest we forget, eleven other close associates were charged with crimes in connection with Donald Trump’s presidency, including Steve Bannon (fundraising fraud and now possibly criminal contempt of Congress); Tom Barrack (providing illegal intelligence to UAE officials); Elliott Broidy (conspiracy involving secret lobbying); Michael Cohen (illegal hush money payments on Trump’s behalf); Michael Flynn (lying to the FBI); Rick Gates (concealing funds relating to Ukraine lobbying work); Paul Manafort (conspiracy to obstruct justice); George Nader (sex crimes involving minors); George Papadopoulos (lying to investigators); Roger Stone (lying to Congress and threatening a witness); and Allen Weisselberg (tax crimes). Trump pardoned Manafort, Papadopoulos, and Stone.

And that’s just the old crowd. A younger generation of Trump-supporting Republicans, who have for the last five years seen Trump’s lies and corruption without punishment as the norm, is coming up behind them. This is the slate of villains, both familiar and new, who could be expected to populate a second Trump administration in 2025.

In an interview for my YouTube show SimplePolitics, Ruth Ben-Ghiat—a professor at New York University, author of the book Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, and expert in fascism, global autocracy, and propaganda—described “a great sense of dread” watching Trump on the campaign trail back in 2015. Although “classic fascism is a one-party state with no opposition of any sort” that uses “a combination of propaganda and repression and corruption to rule,” she explained, to think of Trump’s initial entry into politics as fascism would be a mistake. Benito Mussollini led a democracy for three years, and only slowly chipped away at it over time. Said Ben-Ghiat: “Today, it’s incremental. . . . It’s evolution and not revolution.”

What she saw “very tragically” in four years of Trump was “a shift from a culture that supports the rule of a law to a culture of corruption, a culture that supports violence, and a culture that supports lawlessness basically. Because the essence of authoritarianism is getting away with things.” Time and again, conservative elites have looked at figures like Trump and thought “that they’re going to dominate and control this outsider, this hothead, and instead the opposite happens.” Likewise, Trump “got ahold of the GOP and they were ready for a person like him. And then he instituted a kind of an authoritarian-style party discipline.”

Ben-Ghiat mapped out the next stage of democracy’s death, whereby authoritarians populate government with “zealots,” “sycophants,” and “people who are going to do your bidding.” (“The Nazis and the fascists used to hire criminals,” she added, “because they were more easy to corrupt.”) Then, once they’re in power, “the law becomes weaponized by these modern autocrats. And they use less overt mass violence and more use of regulatory codes, fiscal codes, tax codes. So they have armies of lawyers working for them. And that’s how they get at their enemies.”

Parnas’s case—the sleazy corruption and foreign influence in U.S. politics—is a reminder of what Trump administration’s was. But it’s also a harbinger of what a second Trump term might be, if Democrats in Congress and Merrick Garland at the helm of DOJ don’t avail themselves of every ounce of political and legal capital to save democracy. The clock is ticking.

Kimberly Wehle is a contributor to The Bulwark. She is a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, a former assistant U.S. attorney and associate independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation, and the author of How to Read the Constitution—and Why (HarperCollins). Her latest book is What You Need to Know About Voting—and Why (HarperCollins). Twitter: @kimwehle.

Climate migration doesn’t have to be a crisis

Mike Bebernes
·Senior Editor
Mon, October 25, 2021
“The 360” shows you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories and debate

What’s happening

The Biden administration on Wednesday released a report that predicts climate change will force “tens of millions” of people around the world to be displaced in the next few decades. The report echoes the findings of a number of previous studies that suggest worsening climate impacts — sudden disasters like fires and storms, plus more gradual problems like rising seas and drought — could displace as many as 200 million people before 2050.

Climate change affects the whole world, but the citizens of certain low-income countries everywhere from Central America to sub-Saharan Africa are especially vulnerable to climate-related displacement. Beyond the harm of millions of people being forced from their homes, climate migration could threaten the stability of resource-strained countries and increase the risk of conflict between nations, according to a separate national security assessment released this week.

While estimates paint a particularly dire picture of the future, some of the effects of climate displacement are already being felt around the world. The United Nations estimates that an average of 21.5 million people worldwide are displaced by sudden disasters every year. Droughts and storms in Central America are believed to be one of many reasons for an influx of migrants heading to the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years. The Syrian civil war, which has created a devastating humanitarian crisis and displaced more than 13 million people over the past 10 years, has been partially attributed to a drought that forced rural farmers to flood into urban areas.
Why there’s debate

As worrying as some forecasts of the future are, a range of experts say that with the right preparation and investment, climate migration can be managed to limit suffering and prevent countries from falling into chaos.

A key step, most experts argue, is for rich countries like the U.S. to do everything within their power to prevent people from being forced to migrate in the first place. That starts with limiting greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Doing so would reduce the potential severity of storms, droughts and other factors that drive people from their homes. Rich countries also need to offer aid to poorer countries to adapt to climate change — for example, helping low-income countries build infrastructure to handle higher sea levels and stronger storm surges and dealing with major population shifts within their borders, since most climate migrants relocate to new areas of their home countries.

Many also argue the U.S. will need to update its immigration system to prepare for the unique challenges of managing climate migration. Some immigrant rights activists say climate displacement should be added to the list of reasons a person can qualify for refugee status. That’s controversial on both the left and the right. There’s broad agreement among experts, though, that a more permissive immigration system — with less focus on aggressive border enforcement and more pathways to enter the country legally — could not only prevent unnecessary suffering, but also create benefits for the U.S. economy.
What’s next

Climate migration is expected to be one of many important issues discussed by world leaders at the upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland. Representatives from nearly 200 countries will meet over the course of two weeks in hopes of reaching an agreement on an emissions reduction strategy to avert the worst potential impacts of climate change.
Perspectives

Strict immigration enforcement isn’t the answer

“States that have grown addicted and accustomed to solving problems with walls and weapons are acting to news of climate-linked mobility by trying to repel people, hoping to insulate themselves. ... Not only will this cause ever more human suffering, it will fail on its own terms.” — Todd Miller, Independent

Fear-inducing rhetoric about the threat of climate migration must end

“When most people think of ‘climate’ and ‘immigration,’ they think at the global scale — which can be scary. The idea that a changing, increasingly inhospitable climate will drive mass migration is frightening. ... But migration is, and has always been, a form of adaptation — and it can be a major benefit to receiving communities.” — Claire Elise Thompson, Grist

Immigration laws need to be updated to recognize climate displacement

“A lack of lawful migration opportunities forces many of those moving for climate-related reasons to do so without authorisation and at risk of exploitation and abuse. But solutions are within our grasp.” — Tamara Wood and Edwin Abuya, Thomson Reuters Foundation

With the right planning, climate migrants can help the U.S. thrive

“Migration can bring great opportunity not just to migrants but also to the places they go. As the United States and other parts of the global North face a demographic decline, for instance, an injection of new people into an aging work force could be to everyone’s benefit.” — Abrahm Lustgarten, New York Times

The U.S. must provide extensive support for vulnerable countries

“The best deterrent to migration is hope. We must provide the leadership that allows the people

in our own hemisphere the chance to survive and prosper at home.” — Cecilia Muñoz, The Hill

Climate shouldn’t be treated as the only reason people leave their homes

“In general, illegal border crossings can be traced to any number of factors: job opportunities, drug trafficking, political shifts, and, yes, climate change. There’s nothing wrong with bringing attention to these issues by examining them in print. But to solve a problem, you have to properly define it first. We can and should address the border crisis and climate change at the same time. But conflating the two only makes that task more difficult.” — Sean-Michael Pigeon, National Review

Limiting climate change will reduce the need for climate migration in the first place

“The most useful thing that the developed countries of the West can do to help endangered societies elsewhere is to rapidly limit our own carbon emissions — for if we fail to do so and temperatures rise uncontrollably, then weak states around the world will assuredly fail.” — Anatol Lieven, Foreign Policy

We should start helping people relocate before their situation becomes desperate

“Real change — like relocating entire neighborhoods and communities out of harm’s way — would be far better handled not in times of crisis, when the displaced must weigh complex decisions in the midst of chaos and loss, but before a crisis hits.” — Alexandra Tempus, New York Times

Climate migrants can be an enormous asset if given the right opportunities

“The easier we make it for the young to move to places where they can contribute productively, such as by building more sustainable housing and irrigation systems, the better our odds during the turbulent decades ahead.” — Parag Khanna, National Geographic

Is there a topic you’d like to see covered in “The 360”? Send your suggestions to the360@yahoonews.com.

Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Joe Raedle/Getty Images