RASHAMON FOR TWO
China says 'bright' prospect for democracy in Hong Kong

A police officer stands guard below China and Hong Kong flags during a flag raising ceremony, a week ahead of the Legislative Council election in Hong Kong

Sun, December 19, 2021

BEIJING (Reuters) -Prospects for democracy in Hong Kong are "bright", China said on Monday in a white paper, a day after pro-Beijing candidates won a legislative election in the city in record low turnout after a sweeping Chinese crackdown on its freedoms.

China had "restored order" and brought "democracy back on track" in Hong Kong, the State Council said in the white paper on developments in the former British colony.

The Asian financial hub was rocked by anti-Beijing and pro-democracy protests for several years before Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on it in 2020.

The white paper attributed the turmoil to "anti-China forces" and the "foreign enemies" backing them, adding that it had "advanced the system of democracy" in Hong Kong by amending the election methods for its legislative assembly.

Candidates in Sunday's election were vetted for "patriotism" and pro-democracy candidates were largely absent, having declined to run or been jailed or forced into exile.

Pro-Beijing candidates swept to victory.

(Reporting by Yew Lun Tian; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Robert Birsel)

"Hugely embarrassing": Pro-Beijing candidates sweep Hong Kong election with record low turnout

Axios

Mon, December 20, 2021

Pro-Beijing candidates claimed victory in Hong Kong's Legislative Council (LegCo) election under the new "patriots only" system, per Reuters.

Why it matters: This was the first LegCo since Beijing lawmakers passed a sweeping law to ensure only "patriotic" figures can run for positions of power — which U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called a "denial of democracy."

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Voter turnout was the lowest on record — 30.2%, the BBC notes.

All candidates running to be members of the electoral college were vetted by China's government.

What they're saying: Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam acknowledged at a news conference Monday the low voter turnout, but said she couldn't outline the "specifics" of this, according to Reuters.

"But 1.35 million coming out to vote — it cannot be said that it was not an ... election that did not get a lot of support from citizens," Lam added.

Kenneth Chan, a political scientist at Hong Kong's Baptist University, told AFP the turnout was "hugely embarrassing" for the government.

In a joint statement, Blinken and his counterparts from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.K., expressed their "grave concern" over the election outcome.

"Since handover, candidates with diverse political views have contested elections in Hong Kong. Yesterday’s election has reversed this trend. The overhaul of Hong Kong’s electoral system introduced earlier this year reduced the number of directly elected seats and established a new vetting process to severely restrict the choice of candidates on the ballot paper."


"These changes eliminated any meaningful political opposition. Meanwhile, many of the city’s opposition politicians ... remain in prison pending trial, with others in exile overseas."


"We urge the People’s Republic of China to act in accordance with its international obligations to respect protected rights and fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong."

Evergrande: China's efforts to contain its Lehman moment

Mariko Oi - Asia business correspondent
Sun, December 19, 2021

Evergrande sign on building.

When the world started to take notice of Evergrande's $300bn (£226bn) debt crisis earlier this year, some asked whether it would become China's "Lehman moment".

Since then it has become clear that Beijing is handling the situation in a very different way to how Washington dealt with the bankruptcy of investment banking giant Lehman Brothers at the start of the global financial crisis in 2008.

After Evergrande announced that it may not be able to meet all of its financial obligations, the crisis-hit firm defaulted on some of its overseas bonds.

It has now reportedly entered a debt restructuring process with Chinese authorities that may include the sale of some of its founder's personal assets.

"It is opaque but when we speak to our industry contacts in China, no one is surprised," said Vinesh Motwani of Silk Road Research.
Evergrande v Lehman

"The biggest difference between the two is that Evergrande was a train wreck that everyone saw coming," said Mr Motwani, who was working in the US as an analyst at Credit Suisse when Lehman collapsed.

"When the 'three red lines' policy was announced more than a year ago, it was clear that Evergrande was one of the worst offenders, so the reaction in China was 'this was a long time coming'."

The "three red lines" are a set of debt thresholds that severely limit the ability of certain property developers to borrow. For decades the sector had seen uncontrolled borrowing, something the China's central bank, the People's Bank of China (PBOC), described as "reckless".

Evergrande's crisis is a "grey rhino" event, a term used to describe a slow-moving obvious threat as opposed to a surprise "black swan" occurrence, according to Rory Green, the Head of China and Asia Research at investment advisory firm TS Lombard.

"The warning about Evergrande has been going around for a very long time so none of the bondholders should be surprised that they're defaulting," he said.

Evergrande's shares have slumped by almost 90% this year

Why is this crisis so different?

Another major difference between the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the Evergrande crisis is that when the US government needed to act, it had to pass legislation in order to have the authority to intervene but the Chinese government does not have this problem.

By controlling the country's property market through state-owned banks, Beijing also knows which developers are likely to default - something that could not have been said about Washington during the subprime mortgage crisis.

At the same time, China is being far more selective with its actions than the US was during the global financial crisis. Unlike Washington which bailed out some of the world's biggest banks, China's Communist Party is taking a more piecemeal approach.

"Beijing is like a surgeon operating on a tumour who is thinking 'what do I need to save?'," said Alicia Garcia Herrero, the chief economist for Asia-Pacific at investment bank Natixis.

The luxury yacht "Event", reportedly owned by Evergrande's founder Hui Ka Yan

For the Chinese government, it is crucial that Evergrande's day-to-day operations remain intact. It aims to ensure the company can finish the homes it is building so that ordinary property buyers are not affected and trust in the property market is not seriously damaged.

As Ms Herrero puts it: "Beijing also needs to be looking at the heart, if it is still beating. That's people's perceptions of the property sector."

So far, this approach seems to have limited the impact on the housing market, according to Mr Motwani: "Actual property prices are still up year-on-year. Even where they have fallen month-on-month, they are not down by double digits."

But there are concerns that if prices continue to fall, potential buyers may put off purchasing new homes - which would further slow down the market.

Evergrande owns real estate in more than 20 Chinese cities

What will happen to Evergrande?

Experts predict Evergrande's restructuring could take months, if not years, with little in the way of headline-grabbing announcements as authorities try to avoid the kind of shocks that hit the global financial system after Lehman Brothers collapsed.

Mr Green points to past big Chinese business failures. Using the implosion of insurance and financial giant Anbang as an example, he expects Evergrande's restructuring to be a long process: "Anbang went into restructuring two years ago and it is still ongoing. Evergrande is much bigger so it could take years. But in my opinion, the worst funding condition has passed."

"The most likely scenario is for Evergrande to be split into separate units. It will be the cutting up of the grey rhino and regional banks will be tasked to deal with those separate units to ensure the stability of the sector and the economy."
Will international investors be scared off?

While Evergrande missing offshore bond interest payments may not have triggered a financial meltdown as they are mostly held by wealthy overseas investors, some analysts are concerned about the impact on the Chinese property sector's reputation.

"It definitely hurts the faith of international investors in China's offshore real estate bonds," said Jackson Chan from financial markets research platform Bondsupermart.

Crucially, it has made it much more expensive for Chinese property developers to borrow money from international investors.

What remains to be seen is how Beijing strikes a balance between continuing its strict property market policies and the risk of the country's massive real estate industry losing access to affordable foreign investment.

Ray Dalio’s China Fascination Predates His Ties to Beijing’s Billions


Ray Dalio’s China Fascination Predates His Ties to Beijing’s Billions

Katherine Burton
Mon, December 20, 2021

(Bloomberg) -- The visitors from China arrived in affluent Westport, Connecticut, on a singular mission: to learn the ways of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund.

These officials from the nation’s sovereign wealth fund were invited by none other than the founder, Ray Dalio, who has spent decades quietly cultivating Beijing.

The friendly invitation, made more than a decade ago and reported here for the first time, offers a glimpse into the complex relationship that Dalio has forged with officials in the Communist Party.

Bridgewater is one of dozens of Western financial players looking to expand in the world’s second-biggest economy. It’s a tricky strategy, with the U.S. and China at odds over trade, technology, Taiwan, human rights and more. But it isn’t just business: For almost 40 years, Dalio has spoken of his fascination with China, and has been a vocal -- and at times controversial -- booster of the nation and its government.

His steadfast support recently brought criticism from politicians and caused tension with his own chief executive officer, David McCormick, who’s considering a Senate run. McCormick, a Republican, made it clear to colleagues he’s not the Sinophile that Dalio appears to be.

Dalio, 72, has a deep respect for the country and its leaders, people who know him said. He once even organized a group meant to govern Bridgewater and named it the Politburo, after the Chinese government’s decision-making body.

In 1995, Dalio sent his son Matt, then 11, to live and attend school in Beijing for a year.

“I have been going to China for 37 years and am lucky enough to have become well-acquainted with the thinking of top economic policy makers and a broad range of others,” Dalio wrote in “Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail,” his latest book. “Having this direct contact has helped me see up close the reasoning behind their actions, which have produced remarkable advances.”

Whether by chance or design, Dalio has parlayed his fascination with the country into a successful business partnership.

Bridgewater has been managing Chinese state money since 1993, and counts among its clients the sovereign wealth fund -- the $1 trillion China Investment Corp. -- as well as the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, which manages foreign-currency reserves and also has $1 trillion in externally managed assets.

In total, Dalio’s firm oversees about $5 billion for the two entities, making China one of its biggest clients by assets, according to people familiar with the firm. Even so, the business only accounts for about 2% of revenue.

A Bridgewater spokesman declined to comment. CIC officials declined to comment, and officials at SAFE didn’t respond to a request for comment.

CIC was invited to Westport those many years ago to learn how to build its own investing engine, modeled on the All Weather strategy that other clients pay for. By 2011, CIC had the internal portfolio up and running. Bridgewater has only extended such largess to a dozen sovereign wealth funds or pension funds over the years.

Dalio, with a $15.6 billion fortune according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has also steered his personal wealth to China. Since the early 2000s, his family foundation has donated $115 million to Chinese charities, including child welfare and organizations that promote U.S.-China relations, according to a person familiar with his philanthropy. Since 2015, he’s given $215 million to his home state of Connecticut.

Onshore Business

Bridgewater opened a Beijing office in 2011, and in 2016 started Shanghai-based Bridgewater China Investment Management, run by Wang Yan, who set up a small investment team. The firm acquired its license to manage onshore money in 2018.

In November, the unit raised 8 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) for a new private fund. That brought the firm’s total onshore assets to more than 10 billion yuan, people familiar with the matter have said, and vaulted Bridgewater above Winton Group Ltd., previously the biggest foreign hedge fund manager in the country, as well as heavyweights UBS Group AG, D.E. Shaw and Two Sigma Investments.

While Dalio’s public comments about both the investment opportunities in China and the country’s leaders have been overwhelmingly positive over the years, he has on occasion taken a more negative view.

In a 2015 client note that was leaked to the media, he wrote that his normally optimistic view of China had changed and that there “were no safe places to invest.” But even then, he backpedaled a few days later, saying publicly that the expected slower growth wasn’t a big deal because China “has the resources and the capable leaders to manage these challenges.”

As U.S.-China tensions continue to escalate -- it’s one of the rare issues that both major American political parties agree on -- Dalio’s support for the country and its leaders is causing more trouble at home than ever. And it comes as he’s facing the challenge of replacing McCormick at the top of the firm amid weak performance at his flagship Pure Alpha II fund, which has barely made money this year and has 10-year annualized returns of just 1.6%.

“Should I not invest in the United States because of our own human rights issues and other things?” he said in a Nov. 30 CNBC interview. “As a top-down country,” he said of China, “they behave like a strict parent.”

The ensuing furor was such that McCormick -- who is eying a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania -- told staff he’s had lots of arguments about China over the years with Dalio, and that he disagrees with the billionaire’s views.

A few days later, a seemingly contrite Dalio went on Twitter to explain that he was “not expressing my own opinion or endorsing that approach. My overriding objective is to help understanding.”

Analysis-China shines regulatory spotlight on livestream retail boom as crackdown claims biggest star

Sophie Yu and Brenda Goh
Tue, December 21, 2021, 

Illustration picture of livestreaming sessions by Li Jiaqi and Viya

By Sophie Yu and Brenda Goh

BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's 'common prosperity' crackdown has turned a harsh spotlight on the country's massive livestream e-commerce business - underlining the fragility of a surging sales channel that some of the world's biggest brands have come to rely on.

More than 100 million followers of Viya, dubbed the country's 'queen of livestreaming' by the Chinese media and public, awoke on Tuesday to find her e-commerce and social media accounts shut down after news that she had been fined more than $200 million for tax evasion.

The rise of celebrities partnering with brands from L'Oreal to Unilever and Adidas to sell consumer goods in live online streams has seen the sector billow. Consultancy McKinsey expects the trade in the world's second-biggest economy to be worth $423 billion next year - more than double estimates for 2020, and bigger than the economies of countries like Norway and Ireland.

But it has also led to an awkward tango for global players, with little choice but to partner with internet stars with the clout - until now - to make or break product sales campaigns. Some, like Viya, have even challenged how sponsors like L'Oreal do business.

Beijing's vow to be tough on tax dodgers as it seeks to eliminate vast disparities in income at a time of slower economic growth has claimed numerous high-flying victims. But the scale of the fine on Viya, a 36-year-old former singer whose real name is Huang Wei, and who once appeared on a stream with U.S. reality TV star Kim Kardashian, far exceeds that of other well-known cases.

"People were shocked to learn livestreamers make so much money," said Liu Xingliang, president of tech consultancy China Internet Data Center. "With such profitability, Viya's company could be valued at 100 billion yuan ($16 billion) if it went public."

Along with Viya's closest-selling rival by sales, Li Jiaqi - also known as 'Lipstick Brother' - the two biggest stars of the sector have come to be seen as crucial for brands seeking to get a product placed on daily evening livestreamed shows on Taobao, the online marketplace owned by Alibaba Group.

So much has their clout grown that the pair broke ties with L'Oreal last month in a public dispute after they accused the French cosmetics giant of not giving their viewers the lowest price on a facial product. L'Oreal later offered shopping vouchers to settle the dispute.

L'Oreal didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Viya.

In a statement, Viya apologised for not paying her taxes but could not be reached for further comment. Li's company told Chinese media on Monday that business operations were normal.

TRUST AND COMMUNITY

Analysts say livestreaming sales personalities like Viya and Li appeal to Chinese consumers not only because they are entertaining or are able to negotiate steep discounts for their viewers with brands. Crucially, they have been seen as a credible go-between after past scandals involving product quality and fake goods left many distrustful of brands' claims.

One typical follower is Beijing white collar worker Liang Ye, who said she usually spends most of her evenings playing Li or Viya's livestreams in the background. Her recent purchases include a Shu Uemura cleansing oil and a Yves Saint Laurent lipstick.

"They sell things that suit you," she said. "For a facial lotion, Li Jiaqi won't vaguely say it's moisturising or anti-aging like most advertising, he will recommend it to people at the right age with the right skin type."

Unilever China's chairman and North Asia executive vice president Rohit Jawa, who told Reuters the company has worked with livestreamers including Li and Viya since 2019, said the interactive element was its main appeal. Unilever didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the Viya case.

"Questions can be answered immediately and be viewed, shared and commented on by others," Jawa said. "There's a real sense of community and livestreamers have incredibly loyal fans ... China definitely leads the way in livestreaming and is Unilever’s most advanced e-commerce market globally."

GROWTH AMID HEADWINDS

The fine doled out to Viya, however, comes after a series of warnings aimed to tighten up practices in the sector and other punishments levelled against some of her smaller peers - a sign that more headwinds could be in store.

The industry saw a sharp jump in the number of new personalities last year, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last year, research consultancy iiMedia Research said there were over 28,000 so-called multi-channel network agencies in China, each which tend to manage multiple online influencers.

But China's internet watchdog drafted rules for the first time last year - being implemented on trial this year - to regulate the country's livestreaming marketing industry requiring internet platforms to better monitor their content and ordering livestreamers to register with their real names.

Its commerce regulator followed this up with guidelines in August, saying live streamers should speak Mandarin and dress appropriately when promoting product.

Other popular live streamers were also known to be under investigation for tax evasion prior to Viya's punishment.

On Nov. 22, the third most popular live streamer behind Li and Viya on Taobao, Xueli, was fined 65.55 million yuan for tax evasion and her Taobao livestreaming channel has been suspended ever since. She has also disappeared from social media platforms.

Some analysts, however, said the crack down could even be good for brands, weakening the bargaining power the top live streamers have and potentially sending traffic to their self-operated stores.

But for all the clouds around the business, one thing remains certain - brands will continue to seek growth via livestreaming, and not just in China.

"Live commerce has become table stakes for successful consumer companies in China and much of the rest of Asia," McKinsey concluded in a report earlier this year, "and is rapidly spreading to Europe and the United States."

($1 = 6.3741 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Sophie Yu in Beijing and Brenda Goh in Shanghai; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)

Thousands of Chinese influencers are rushing to settle their back taxes as the country's top live streamer was forced to pay $210 million in tax fines

Huileng Tan
Tue, December 21, 2021

Top Chinese live streamer Viya was fined $210 million for tax evasion.

Chen Zhongqiu/VCG/Getty Images

More than 1,000 live streamers have stepped forward to pay back taxes before a year-end deadline.

Chinese authorities said in September they were intensifying tax regulation for the entertainment sector.

On Monday, top live streamer Viya was slapped with a record $210 million fine for tax evasion.

Influencers in China are rushing to pay back taxes amid a government crackdown that has taken down the country's top live streamer.

Viya, who is known for hosting a popular shopping stream on the e-commerce platform Taobao, was slapped with a record 1.341 billion Chinese yuan ($210 million) fine for tax evasion.

The 36-year-old once had over 120 million followers on various platforms, according to TechNode, and is known for her ability to sell almost anything, including a 40 million Chinese yuan ($6 million) rocket launch service, in 2020.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Viya hosted a live stream to raise funds for businesses and individuals struggling in COVID-wracked Wuhan and managed to raise around $32 million within a matter of hours.

According to the state-owned China News Service (CNS), more than 1,000 live streamers have stepped forward to pay back taxes following the government's September announcement that it would strengthen its regulation of state revenue collection from the entertainment sector. Taxpayers have until the end of 2021 to rectify their taxes arrears to avoid heavy penalties, according to CNS.

Two other high-profile Chinese live streamers — Cherie and Sunny — were fined $15 million collectively in September for tax evasion, but Viya is the most significant star to have fallen so far.

Viya apologized for the breach on her Weibo microblog account, which had around 18 million followers, on Monday after news broke, saying she felt "deeply guilty" and would "totally accept" the punishment meted by the tax authority, according to a copy of the notice Insider saw. She also pledged to pay the fine on time.

Despite the apology, Weibo (China's version of Twitter), Douyin (China's version of TikTok), and Taobao took her accounts offline.

Beijing is intensifying oversight of the entertainment industry and regulating what celebrities can do. China's internet regulator said in November that celebrities in China must avoid flaunting their wealth and adhere to "core socialist values."

In November, China also revealed a blacklist which included the names of 88 celebrities it had cited for "illegal and unethical" behavior.

U.S. names Tibet coordinator, drawing warning from China


Zeya, Acting Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, speaks at a news conference in Beijing

Mon, December 20, 2021
By David Brunnstrom and Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Monday named Under Secretary of State Uzra Zeya as special coordinator for Tibet, drawing warnings from China to stay out of its internal affairs.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Zeya, who is responsible for democracy and human rights, would lead U.S. efforts to preserve the Chinese-ruled territory's religious, cultural, and linguistic heritage in the face of human rights abuses by Beijing.

Beijing has consistently refused to deal with a U.S. coordinator on Tibet and denounced the move as political manipulation.

"By naming a special coordinator for Tibetan issues, the U.S. is interfering with China's domestic affairs," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters.

"China firmly rejects this, and we will never recognize this designation. We urge the U.S. to take concrete actions to abide by its commitment of recognising Tibet as part of China and not supporting Tibet's independence, and stop using Tibetan-related issues to interfere in China's domestic affairs."

Blinken said Zeya would seek to promote dialogue between China and Tibet's spiritual leader-in-exile, the Dalai Lama, or democratically elected Tibetan leaders.

"She will lead U.S. efforts to preserve the religious, cultural, and linguistic heritage of Tibetans who are facing human rights abuses and challenges to their livelihoods and environment," Blinken said in a tweet.

China reacted angrily last year and accused the United States of seeking to destabilize Tibet after the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump appointed Zeya's predecessor to the same role.

U.S.-China relations have been at their lowest point in decades over a range of issues, including trade, Taiwan, Hong Kong, human rights, the South China Sea and the coronavirus.

China seized control of Tibet after its troops entered the region in 1950 in what it calls a "peaceful liberation". Tibet has since become one of the most restricted areas in the country. Critics, led by the Dalai Lama, say Beijing's rule amounts to "cultural genocide".

China denies wrongdoing in Tibet and says its intervention ended "backward feudal serfdom".

The International Campaign for Tibet advocacy group welcomed Zeya's new role and in an emailed statement its interim president, Bhuchung Tsering, urged Zeya to take the lead in gathering support from like-minded countries to formulate a common approach on Tibet, as mandated by the Tibetan Policy and Support Act passed in the United States last year.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru, David Brunnstrom in Washington and Emily Chow in Beijing; Editing by Howard Goller and Nick Macfie)

China Ordered Amazon to Delete Reviews of Xi Jinping’s Book, Reuters Reports



Vlad Savov
Sun, December 19, 2021

(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc.’s efforts to curry favor with the Chinese government included quieting criticism of President Xi Jinping’s book on its Chinese outlet, according to a Reuters report.

The Amazon.cn entry for Xi’s “The Governance of China” had its ratings, comments and reviews scrubbed and disabled roughly two years ago in response to an edict from Beijing, the report said. Triggering the request were reviews rating the work at less than the maximum five stars, according to one of the unidentified people familiar with the incident.

The move was part of a broader campaign to ensure that Amazon could carry on with business in the world’s most populous country, where its Kindle and cloud computing operations had room to grow. By 2018, the company was receiving an “increasing number of requests from (Chinese) watchdogs to take down certain content, mostly politically sensitive ones,“ according to an internal briefing document cited by Reuters.

An Amazon spokesperson told Bloomberg News that it “complies with all applicable laws and regulations, wherever we operate, and China is no exception.”

The experience recounted in the report mirrors that of Apple Inc., which has grown increasingly compliant with Beijing in recent years. Apple complied with 97% of requests from the Chinese government for user device information in 2019, up significantly from 65% in 2014.

Reviews for Xi’s book of speeches and writings are blocked only on Amazon’s Chinese website. One Amazon.com entry has received 74% five-star reviews.

Other U.S. firms, such as Yahoo! and Microsoft Corp.’s LinkedIn, have, by contrast, exited the Chinese market this year, citing an increasingly challenging business and legal environment in the country.

Rare eagle, native to Asia, spotted in Massachusetts after sightings in Texas, Canada: 'Most likely lost'


Gabriela Miranda, USA TODAY
Tue, December 21, 2021

A rare bird spotted in Massachusetts has birdwatchers wondering how it arrived on the East Coast since the bird, known as a Stellar's sea eagle, is native to Asia.

While some of these sea eagles have appeared in Alaska, the state closest to the bird's home continent, none have been seen in Massachusetts, much less in Texas and in other states.

This eagle was rumored to be visiting the Taunton River in Massachusetts, and as it roamed the area, more than a hundred photographers and birders turned up.

The Steller's sea eagle is one of the largest raptors in the world, weighing up to 20 pounds with a wingspan of up to 8 feet. It is native to China, Japan, Korea and eastern Russia, according to Smithsonian Magazine. You can identify the bird by its yellow beak and white patterned feathers on its wings.

In November alone, the bird is believed to have traveled to Texas and parts of Canada, including Nova Scotia, Quebec and New Brunswick. Andrew Farnsworth, a senior researcher at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology told The New York Times for the bird to be so far from home is “mind-boggling.”

Phil Taylor, a biologist at Acadia University who studies bird migration, spotted the eagle on Wednesday afternoon in Falmouth, Nova Scotia.

“I knew exactly what it was, immediately,” Taylor told The Times. “I couldn’t believe it. Something like this is just one in a million.”

Bird watchers, Nate Levy (Plymouth), Tonya Tromblee (Salem NH.) and Jane Williamson (wayland) at Mallard Point in Somerset Monday.

As for how it migrated thousands of miles away, the Smithsonian reported it is "most likely lost." Birds sometimes lose their way and wind up far from their species' usual range. It's a phenomenon called "vagrancy." Changes in extreme weather and navigation errors can result in vagrancy.

What's next for the rare eagle?

"It’s like an avian soap opera,” an avian vagrancy expert Alexander Lees told the New York Times.

Lees guessed the sea eagle could migrate along with native bald eagles down the coastline, find its way back to northeastern Asia or die. All humans can do is keep an eye out.

“We’re all rooting for it. Will it make it home? 

Or is it doomed to never see another species of its own in its lifetime?”

Contributed: Chris Helms, Taunton Daily Gazette

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rare eagle from Asia spotted in Massachusetts, Texas, Canada

A dinosaur embryo has been found in a fossilized egg

Caitlin O'Kane
Tue, December 21, 2021

A well-preserved dinosaur embryo has been found inside a fossilized egg. The fossilized dinosaur embryo came from Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province in southern China and was acquired by researchers in 2000.

Researchers at Yingliang Group, a company that mines stones, suspected it contained egg fossils, but put it in storage for 10 years, according to a news release. When construction began on Yingliang Stone Natural History Museum, boxes of unearthed fossils were sorted through.

"Museum staff identified them as dinosaur eggs and saw some bones on the broken cross section of one of the eggs," Lida Xing of China University of Geosciences, Beijing, said in a news release. A embryo was found hidden within, which they named "Baby Yingliang."

The embryo is that of the bird-like oviraptorosaurs, part of the theropod group. Theropod means "beast foot," but theropod feet usually resembled those of birds. Birds are descended from one lineage of small theropods.

Reconstruction of a close-to-hatching oviraptorosaur egg. 

 Credit: Lida Xing/iScience

In studying the embryo, researchers found the dinosaur took on a distinctive tucking posture before hatching, which had been considered unique to birds. The study is published in the iScience journal.

Researchers say this behavior may have evolved through non-avian theropods. "Most known non-avian dinosaur embryos are incomplete with skeletons disarticulated," said Waisum Maof the University of Birmingham, U.K. "We were surprised to see this embryo beautifully preserved inside a dinosaur egg, lying in a bird-like posture. This posture had not been recognized in non-avian dinosaurs before."

The oviraptorosaur embryo

While fossilized dinosaur eggs have been found during the last 100 years, discovering a well-preserved embryo is very rare, the researchers said in the release.

The embryo's posture was not previously seen in non-avian dinosaur, which is "especially notable because it's reminiscent of a late-stage modern bird embryo."

The researchers will continue to study the rare specimen in even more depth. They will attempt to image its internal anatomy. Some of its body parts are still covered in rocks. Their findings can also be used in more studies of fossil embryos.

A perfectly preserved dinosaur egg highlights link to modern birds

Tom Metcalfe
Tue, December 21, 2021

A 66-million-year-old fossil of a complete baby dinosaur in its egg, apparently just a few days before it would hatch, shows the remarkable similarities between theropod dinosaurs and the birds they would evolve into, according to a study published Tuesday.

The fossilized bones of the embryo, named “Baby Yingliang” after the museum in southern China where it was discovered, can be seen curled-up inside its 6-inch elongated eggshell and looking almost exactly like a modern bird at that stage, although it has tiny arms and claws rather than wings.

Fion Waisum Ma, a paleontologist at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, said the head is particularly striking in its similarity to the head of a newly hatched bird — a resemblance heightened by a beak that was a feature of this dinosaur species, called an oviraptorosaur. Ma is one of the lead authors of the fossil study published in the journal iScience. Scientists from China, Canada and elsewhere in the U.K. were also involved.

Oviraptorosaurs, a type of theropod dinosaur with hollow bones and three-toed limbs, were very close to the dinosaur ancestry that evolved into modern birds. As well as beaks, they had feathers on their arms. They could not fly, but there’s evidence they spread the feathers out above their nests to keep the eggs beneath them warm, said John Nudds, a paleontologist at the University of Manchester in the U.K, who was not involved in the study.

Embryonic dinosaur fossils are extremely rare — paleontologists have only found them at about half a dozen sites. And this is the first time any have shown signs of a distinctive posture known as “tucking” — with the head under the right arm — although some other dinosaur embryos have shown distinct “egg teeth” that they may have used to break out of their shells, Nudds said.

Life reconstruction of a close-to-hatching oviraptorosaur dinosaur embryo, based on the new specimen ‘Baby Yingliang’. (Courtesy Lida Xing)

Ma said that until now the tucking posture had been seen only in birds.

“Some embryos are quite well preserved, but they don’t show this posture,” she said. “And some are very fragmentary, so it is difficult to see their posture clearly.”

Baby birds adopt the posture, with their head “tucked” under their right wing, in the egg just a few days before they hatch; and embryos that fail to get it right are seldom able to hatch properly.

Ma said tucking seems to help baby birds make their first cracks in the eggshell by restricting the movement of their head.

“It’s easier to stabilize the beak and to direct it to the same place when they try to break the eggshell,” she said.

The researchers suggest the tucking posture evolved because oviraptorosaurs had a hard shell, like those of birds, instead of a soft shell, like those of turtles — an early form of shell that was still common about 70 million years ago among dinosaurs like the sheep-sized protoceratops.

Scientists think hard egg shells gave better protection from the environment than soft egg shells, and so oviraptorosaurs and related dinosaur species may have evolved the tucking posture to break through their harder eggshells, Ma said.

Baby Yingliang was in a cache of fossils that were delivered in 2000 to the Yingliang Stone Nature History Museum in the Chinese city of Nan’an, possibly after they had been found at a construction site in the nearby city of Ganzhou.

But it wasn’t until 2015 that one of the museum staff examined the fossil egg and noticed that what appeared to be bones could be seen in a fracture.

The fossilized egg has now been scientifically analyzed, and the fossil split so that the complete skeleton of the embryo can be seen curled up in its shell.

The study suggests the fossil is 66 million to 72 million years old. The baby dinosaur would’ve been about 10 inches from beak to tail when it was hatched, and might have grown to more than 6 feet long as an adult.

Image: Baby Yingliang dinosaur embryo (Lida Xing)

Modern chicken eggs take about 21 days to hatch, although they are much smaller than this dinosaur, and scientists don’t know how long Baby Yingliang had been developing in its egg before it was fossilized. It seemed to be about to hatch within a few days, Ma said.

Many dinosaur experts have hailed the fossil as one of the best-preserved embryos they have ever seen. But some are not certain, however, that what the researchers have interpreted as a tucking posture in the embryo is actually that.

“This is an interesting discovery, but I am skeptical about the ‘tucking’ behavior as it is primarily based on a single specimen,” said Shundong Bi of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. “I think more evidence is needed.”

Bi was not involved in the latest research but studied the fossilized remains of a different oviraptorosaur crouching above a clutch of 24 eggs, some of which contained embryos.

The interpretation of the tucking posture depended on the dinosaur egg containing a pocket of air, like the eggs of birds. But that could not be seen in this fossil and had not been seen in other dinosaur eggs, Bi said in an email.

Giant millipedes "as big as a car" once roamed Earth

Li Cohen
Tue, December 21, 2021

Before dinosaurs, it was giant bugs that roamed the Earth, or at least northern England, scientists say. In a new study published on Tuesday, scientists confirmed that a fossil discovered in 2018 is that of a massive millipede "as big as a car," measuring nearly 9 feet long.

A roughly 29.5-inch piece of the giant invertebrate was discovered in a block of sandstone next to a coastal cliff in northern England's Northumberland beach in January 2018. The Arthropleura fossil is only the third such fossil ever discovered, and according to researchers, is the largest and oldest. The creature dates back about 326 million years, more than 100 million years before dinosaurs.

Reconstruction of the Howick Arthropleura. (a) and (b) Reconstruction of the Howick Arthropleura within its habitat of a lower delta plain with open woodland. / Credit: "The largest arthropod in Earth history: insights from newly discovered Arthropleura remains"/Journal of the Geological Society

When it was alive, researchers estimate, the bug measured roughly 8.8 feet long and weighed more than 110 pounds. Their findings were published in the Journal of the Geological Society.

"Finding these giant millipede fossils is rare, because once they died, their bodies tend to disarticulate, so it's likely that the fossil is a moulted carapace that the animal shed as it grew," Neil Davies, lead author of the study and researcher at the University of Cambridge's Department of Earth Sciences, said in a statement. "We have not yet found a fossilized head, so it's difficult to know everything about them."

Scientists believe the millipede only existed in areas near the equator, including Great Britain during the Carboniferous period, and preferred open woodland habitats near the coast. This type of millipede is believed to have existed for roughly 45 million years before going extinct.

Davies said it's unclear exactly how the creatures became so large, but that researchers think their diet may have played a role.

"While we can't know for sure what they ate, there were plenty of nutritious nuts and seeds available in the leaf litter at the time," he said, "and they may have been predators that fed off other invertebrates and even small vertebrates such as amphibians."

The giant millipede fossil will be on display at Cambridge's Sedgwick Museum starting in 2022.

First full asteroid return sample confirms early Solar System origins


Ryugu asteroid samples obtained by the Hayabusa2 probe.


Jon Fingas
·Weekend Editor
Tue, December 21, 2021

Scientists have finally studied their first full samples returned from an asteroid in space, and they confirm what you'd expect — while providing some new insights. ScienceAlert reports researchers have released two papers revealing their first analysis of samples from Ryugu, the space rock the Hayabusa2 probe visited in February 2019. The team knew Ryugu would be a common, carbon-rich C-type asteroid, but that still makes it a good peek at the ingredients of the early Solar System.

The sampling indicates Ryugu has a carbon-dominated composition similar to the Sun's photosphere (outer shell), much like certain meteorites. It's made of the most primitive materials in the Solar System, emerging from the dust disc that formed along with the Sun itself. It's also quite porous, like many asteroids. However, it's not quite a neat and tidy example. Most C-type asteroids have a low albedo (solar radiation reflectivity) of 0.03 to 0.09 due to their carbon, but Ryugu's is 0.02. It's dark even by the standards of its cosmic neighbors.

As it stands, the very existence of these studies represents an achievement. The first attempt to return a sample, from the astroid Itokawa in 2010, only netted a tiny amount of dust. There's still more to come from Ryugu, but even the existing data could help scientists reshape their understanding of the Solar System's birth and development.