Taiwan’s President Visits the U.S.

Tsai’s U.S. transit could lead to a “serious” confrontation in the U.S.-China relationship and have a “severe impact” on their ties, China’s charge d’affaires Xu Xueyuan told reporters in Washington.

“What the U.S. has done seriously undermines China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Xu said, adding that the U.S. should bear “all consequences.”

When Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ingwen, stepped foot on U.S. soil on Wednesday, Chinese authorities were enraged.

By coming to New York, Tsai said that the relationship between Taiwan and the U.S. “has never been closer.”

Taiwan faced “tremendous challenges,” Tsai acknowledged. “We know that we are stronger when we stand together in solidarity with fellow democracies. Taiwan cannot be isolated and we do not take friendship for granted.”

Her visit comes at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and China and has sparked sharp condemnation from Beijing – which claims democratic Taiwan as its territory, despite never having controlled it.

Beijing launched extensive, days-long military exercises around the island last August, following a visit from then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei. Pelosi was the highest ranked American official to visit Taiwan in 25 years, and the trip sparked accusations from Beijing that the U.S. was changing the nature of its relationship with Taiwan – a claim U.S. officials have repeatedly refuted.

The U.S. is bound by law to sell arms to Taiwan for its self-defense, though it ended its formal diplomatic relationship with Taipei in 1979 when it recognized the government in Beijing.

Because of the unofficial relationship the U.S. has with Taiwan, Tsai’s transit is not characterized as an official visit in order to keep the U.S. within the longstanding “One China” policy.

Under the “One China” policy, the U.S. acknowledges China’s position that Taiwan is part of China but has never officially recognized Beijing’s claim to the island of 23 million.

Tsai had previously transited the U.S. six times while president.

Tsai’s U.S. current trip is part of a broader international trip featuring state visits to two of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, Guatemala and Belize, before transiting in Los Angeles for her April 7 return to Taiwan. Guatemala and Belize are part of a handful of nations maintaining diplomatic relations with Taipei. That number shrunk to 13 last weekend, when Honduras formally established diplomatic ties with China and severed them with Taiwan.

Beijing does not have diplomatic relations with countries that recognize Taipei.

Pablo Escobar’s Hippos

Colombia said recently that it was making progress on the transfer of 70 hippos to overseas sanctuaries – but it’s not cheap to move the large animals previously owned by drug lord Pablo Escobar.

The cocaine baron brought four of the African beasts to Colombia in the late 1980s. But after his death in 1993, the socalled “cocaine hippos” were left to roam freely in a hot, marshy area of Antioquia department. Now, there are about 150 of the animals. life-saving measure.

The hippos are a nuisance. They have no natural predators and consume enormous amounts of grassland and produce significant waste.

Russia Arrests WSJ Reporter

American side to collect information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex that constitutes a state secret.”

The Journal “vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter, Evan Gershkovich,” the newspaper said. “We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family.”

As the war in Ukraine continues, Russia has implemented numerous crackdowns on opposition activists and journalists.

Authorities said they plan to capture and move nearly half of the hippopotamuses in the coming months, with 10 bound for the Ostok Sanctuary in northern Mexico and 60 destined for a facility in India.

“The whole operation should cost around $3.5 million,” Ernesto Zazueta, owner of the Ostok Sanctuary, said.

He is hoping to lure the animals into pens with bait, so they can be confined while they do the transfer.

The environment ministry declared the hippos an invasive species last year, which opened the door to an eventual cull. The hippo transfer plan is seen as a

Russia’s security service arrested an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal last week on espionage charges, the first time a U.S. correspondent has been detained on spying accusations since the Cold War.

Evan Gershkovich, 31, was detained in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city. Russia’s Federal Security Service accused him of trying to obtain classified information.

The FSB alleged that Gershkovich “was acting on instructions from the

Last week, a Russian court convicted a father for social media posts critical of the war and sentenced him to two years in prison. His 13-year-old daughter was sent to an orphanage.

Gershkovich is the first American reporter to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since September 1986, when Nicholas Daniloff, a Moscow correspondent for U.S. News and World Report, was arrested by the KGB. Daniloff was released without charge 20 days later in a swap for an employee of the Soviet Union’s United Nations mission who was arrested by the FBI, also on spying charges.

Gershkovich, who covers Russia, Ukraine, and other ex-Soviet nations as a correspondent in the Journal’s Moscow bureau, could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of espionage. Prominent lawyers noted that past investigations into espionage cases took a year to 18 months, during which time he may have little contact with the outside world.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “It is not about a suspicion – it is about the fact that he was caught red-handed.”

Gershkovich’s last report from Moscow, published a few days before his arrest, focused on the Russian economy’s slowdown amid Western sanctions imposed after Russian troops invaded Ukraine last year.

A Talking Plant

and that these sounds contain information — for example about water scarcity or injury. We assume that in nature the sounds emitted by plants are detected by creatures nearby, such as bats, rodents, various insects, and possibly also other plants that can hear the high frequencies and derive relevant information.

“We believe that humans can also utilize this information, given the right tools — such as sensors that tell growers when plants need watering.”

She quipped, “Apparently, an idyllic field of flowers can be a rather noisy place. It’s just that we can’t hear the sounds.”

The research team recorded ultrasonic sounds – above the limit of human hearing – emitted by tomato and tobacco plants that had been deprived of water, suffered a cut to the stem, or been left alone (as a control group).

Prof. Yossi Yovel, head of the School of Neuroscience and a faculty member at the School of Zoology and the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, has been recording the sounds of bats, which also operate within this frequency range. He joined Hadany in the study.

Hadany noted, “Unstressed plants emitted less than one sound per hour, on average, while the stressed plants – both dehydrated and injured – emitted dozens of sounds every hour.”

If you think your marror has been talking to you, you may not be wrong.

Scientists in Israel are saying that they have discovered “words” that plants have been “saying” and go so far as to say that different plant species speak different “languages.”

Scientists already know that plants communicate in a variety of ways when they are stressed. They might change physically (by wilting or changing leaf color), become bitter to the taste (to deter herbivores), or emit smells (volatile organic compounds) to tell other members of the family that they are under attack, for example by insects.

According to the study published in the journal Cell, plants “talk” in clicks, which sound a bit like popcorn popping. The sounds are emitted at a volume similar to human speech, but at high frequencies, beyond the hearing range of humans.

Prof. Lilach Hadany, from the university’s School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, who co-led the study, said, “We resolved a very old scientific controversy. We proved that plants do emit sounds!”

She added, “Our findings suggest that the world around us is full of plant sounds

Ehud Barak Wants to Bring Down Gov’t

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak revealed his strategy for a “counter-revolution” to bring down the Netanyahu government, speaking in an address to Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, a London-based think tank, on Monday.

Barak, a supporter of the anti-judicial reform protests which have roiled Israel and led Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call for a temporary halt to the legislation, said he was sure his side would win “because I know our people, and we have even empirical evidence for this.”

He referred to the U.S. research of Professor Erica Chenoweth and political scientist Maria J. Stephan, who co-authored a 2012 book, “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.”

Barak said the two researchers looked at hundreds of civil protests from 1900 to 2006, and “they found a common denominator”—protests that succeeded included 3.5% of the population, or roughly 8% of the adult population, and “tenaciously and persistently” kept up the protests, boycotts, and civil disobedience.

“At the end, the government either falls or capitulates,” Barak said. “We already crossed this number in less than three months, so we are heading in the right direction.”

Barak said Israel’s government is acting “in a blatantly illegitimate manner,” and is trying to make Israel “basically a dictatorship or a non-democratic kind of entity.” (JNS)

Ramming Incident

in the West Bank near Beit Umar. The terrorist who perpetrated the attack was shot and killed at the scene.

One of the soldiers was in serious condition and had to be transported to Shaare Zedek for surgery.

The terrorist, Mohammed Baradeya, 23, was from Kfar Zurif and was an officer in the Palestinian Authority’s security.

“Terror Attack” in Old City

On Saturday evening, three IDF soldiers were injured in a ramming attack

On Shabbos, police officers said that a 26-year-old man grabbed the gun from a police officer and fired it twice before he was shot dead in the Old City. Police are calling it a “terror attack.”

Mohammed Elasibi was a resident of the Bedouin town of Hura in southern Israel.

There seems to be no footage of the incident.

“I was checking the suspect, I asked him where he was from and asked him to leave as the area was closed at that time,” an officer identified only as “Mem,” the first initial of his name, said. “He argued with me, and I took him toward the exit. At a certain point, the attacker turned to me, grabbed my gun and managed to fire a few bullets toward [Border Police] officers. I managed to take control of him within seconds, to get the weapon out of his hands, and I neutralized him along with the second policeman with me.”

His partner “Yud” recounted, “I felt our lives were in real danger. If I hadn’t tackled him, shot him and neutralized him, he would have shot me, my partner and the Border Police cops.”

A Border Police officer, “Lamed,” backed up their testimony, saying the suspect “aimed the gun at my head” and that she hid behind a cement pillar as he fired.

Elasibi’s family had earlier called for the release of video footage of the shooting near the Chain Gate, an entrance to the Temple Mount holy site.

“We know that every meter in the alleys of the Old City of Jerusalem is recorded and the police are supposed to be equipped with cameras,” Fahad Elasibi told Haaretz, questioning why the footage has not been released.

The head of the Ra’am party Mansour Abbas also demanded the immediate release of the footage: “I don’t believe the police version that there is no documentation from the security cameras. There is an attempt to cover up and hide the truth.”