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Katherine Moseby wanted to be clear: She does not hate cats. Very smart.”That was precisely the problem, said Dr. Moseby, the principal scientist and co-founder of Arid Recovery, a conservation nonprofit and wildlife reserve in South Australia. Cats are not native to Australia, but they have invaded nearly every corner of the country. But feral cats were absolutely out there, Dr. Moseby said, and they had a taste for the tiny, threatened marsupials that lived at Arid Recovery. Over the previous few nights, a “pest control contractor” — a robustly bearded sharpshooter equipped with an all-terrain vehicle and powerful spotlight — had been riding through the Arid Recovery reserve, shooting cats.

Persons: Katherine Moseby, Moseby, ”, — Organizations: University of New Locations: South Australia, Australia, University of New South Wales

It was spring in Queensland, Australia, a season when many wild animals find themselves in trouble, and the Currumbin Wildlife Hospital was a blur of fur and feathers. A groggy black swan emerged from the X-ray room, head swaying on its long neck. A flying fox wore a tiny anesthetic mask. “We see everything,” Dr. Michael Pyne, the hospital’s senior veterinarian. The wards were often full; in 2023, the hospital admitted more than 400 koalas, a fourfold increase from 2010.

Persons: Dr, Michael Pyne, Pyne Organizations: Currumbin Locations: Queensland, Australia

☆ Should We Change Species to Save Them?
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-14 | by ( Emily Anthes | Chang W. Lee | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It is the birthplace of songbirds, the land of egg-laying mammals and the world capital of pouch-bearing marsupials, a group that encompasses far more than just koalas and kangaroos. Nearly half of the continent’s birds and roughly 90 percent of its mammals, reptiles and frogs are found nowhere else on the planet. Australia has also become a case study in what happens when people push biodiversity to the brink. Habitat degradation, invasive species, infectious diseases and climate change have put many native animals in jeopardy and given Australia one of the worst rates of species loss in the world. In some cases, scientists say, the threats are so intractable that the only way to protect Australia’s unique animals is to change them.

Locations: Australia

☆ The Taiwan Earthquake’s Aftermath in Photos
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-03 | by ( The New York Times | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Ishigaki, Okinawa, JapanImage Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesPeople on rooftops watched the news on rooftops as a tsunami warning was in effect from the earthquake in Taiwan on Wednesday.

Persons: Chang W, Lee Organizations: New York Times People Locations: Okinawa, Japan, Taiwan

Shin Joon Hwan, an ecologist, walked along a road lined with cherry trees on the verge of blooming last week, examining the fine hairs around their dark red buds. The flowers in Gyeongju, South Korea, an ancient capital, belong to a common Japanese variety called the Yoshino, or Tokyo cherry. Mr. Shin’s advocacy group wants to replace those trees with a kind that it insists is native to South Korea, called the king cherry. “These are Japanese trees that are growing here, in the land of our ancestors,” said Mr. Shin, 67, a former director of South Korea’s national arboretum.

Persons: Shin Joon Hwan, ”, Shin Locations: Gyeongju, South Korea, Tokyo

☆ A Japanese Festival of Fire and Spirits
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-13 | by ( Chang W. Lee | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

As the sun peeked out from the cloudy sky in Kyoto, Japan, monks wearing vests trimmed with pompoms and the black box-like headdresses known as tokin were being quizzed in front of Mibu Dera, one of the oldest temples in the city. These were the Yamabushi (mountain hermits), part of a Buddhist sect known as the Shugendō. To enter the temple’s sacred area, each monk had to prove he was a real Yamabushi by answering a series of questions about the sect’s beliefs, dress and tools. Only those with satisfactory responses would gain access.

Locations: Kyoto, Japan

A satellite city 22 miles northwest of Seoul, South Korea, Paju is small, with a population of around half a million. The streets are quieter than those of the bustling capital, the air cleaner and the pace of life half a beat slower. While many people know the city for its military base, Paju is also home to the nation’s elaborate book publishing hub — officially known as Paju Publishing Culture, Information and National Industrial Park but commonly referred to as Paju Book City. Around 900 book-related businesses, including printing presses, distribution companies and design studios line the streets, and signs reading “Paju Book City” are everywhere.

Organizations: Paju Publishing Locations: Seoul, South Korea

Seoul marked a somber anniversary over the weekend, a year after nearly 160 people died in a crowd surge in Itaewon, a popular nightlife district in the city. Oct. 29, 2022, had started as a long-awaited Halloween celebration — the first in several years in South Korea that was free of pandemic restrictions. A mass of revelers and a bottleneck of human traffic in a cramped alley that night led to catastrophe, and a national outpouring of grief and questions about why the authorities were unable to prevent it. This year, the gathering in Itaewon was much smaller. Several neighborhoods in Seoul saw an outsized police presence.

Locations: Seoul, South Korea, Itaewon

Over Halloween weekend last year, nearly 160 young people died in a crowd crush in Itaewon, a popular nightlife district in Seoul. For those who survived or lost loved ones, the past year has been a time of deep frustration and trauma. Many wrote online that the young victims and survivors should blame themselves. In December, Lee Jae-hyeon, 16, a survivor who had lost two of his best friends in the crowd crush, took his own life after battling online detractors of the victims. As the first anniversary of the disaster approached, survivors and victims’ family members struggled with unanswered questions, missing their loved ones and at the same time deeply troubled by the government’s response.

Persons: Lee Jae, “, ” Locations: Itaewon, Seoul

A recent rally in Seoul carried the sound of a rock festival — high-amp speakers throbbing with the K-pop hit “Gangnam Style” — if not the look of one. The crowd of mostly elderly people waved South Korean and American flags to the song’s revised refrain: “Anti-communist style!” When speaker after speaker revved up the crowd with pro-American, anti-communist chants, the crowd shouted, “Hooray for President Yoon Suk Yeol!”Days later, when thousands of mostly younger protesters marched through the same city center, they shook handheld signs and chanted, “Out with Yoon Suk Yeol!”Park Yeol, a regular at such rallies, showed up as an inflatable caricature of the South Korean leader. Fellow protesters took selfies while putting him in a headlock. “Some people try to punch me,” said Mr. Park, 50. “But that’s the point: I want to demonstrate how mad people are at Yoon.”

Persons: revved, Yoon Suk, “, ”, Yoon Organizations: South Locations: Seoul

That’s not an issue for QI.X, which doesn’t aspire to the immaculately styled look of the typical K-pop act (and, in any case, couldn’t afford the ensemble of stylists those groups have). They handle their own bookings and manage their social media presence, recording videos themselves to post on TikTok and Instagram. Many of the videos are shot at LesVos, an L.G.B.T.Q. Myoung-woo YoonKim, 68, who has run LesVos since the late 1990s, grew up at a time when lesbians were practically invisible in South Korea. “I would often think, ‘Am I the only woman who loves women?’” they said.

Persons: That’s, QI.X, YoonKim, “, ‘, ’ ” Organizations: Seoul Disabled People’s, Festival Locations: Seoul, South Korea

The subway rumbled toward its final stop north of Seoul. Along the way, hordes disembarked, with the determined, brisk gait of those with somewhere to be. Far from the city center, the thicket of high-rise buildings grew sparser, and the afternoon sun crept deeper into the train cars, riding on an elevated track at that point. By the end of the line, many who remained on board were noticeably older — nodding off, gazing out the window, stretching their shoulders. He ambled about a hundred yards beyond the station, rested briefly in the shade — and then got right back on the train heading south.

Persons: Lee Jin, Lee Organizations: Adidas Locations: Seoul

☆ Russia Repels Attack on Ship in Crimea: Live Ukraine War Updates
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-14 | by ( Andrés R. Martínez | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +9 min

News AnalysisA photograph released by North Korean state media showing President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia on Wednesday. The Korean War never officially ended after the guns fell silent in a cease-fire in 1953. North Korea, though isolated and impoverished, has prioritized a military buildup, with its propaganda machines urging constant vigilance against American invasion. Image At the border between North Korea and South Korea. “Trust is so low among Russia, North Korea and China that a real alliance of the three isn’t credible or sustainable.”

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Kim Jong, Matthew Miller, , Putin “ , Chang W, Lee, ”, Yang Uk, Yoon Suk Yeol, It’s, ” Mr, Yang, Michael Park, Kim, “, Siemon, Mr, Wezeman, Hong Min, Hong, David Guttenfelder, Leif, Eric Easley Organizations: North, North Korean, Vostochny, United Nations, State Department, New York Times, Asan Institute, Policy Studies, ” Artillery, ., The New York Times, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, NATO, Korea Institute for National Unification, Russian, Mr, Ewha Womans University Locations: North Korean, Russia, . Washington, Moscow, South, United States, Ukraine, Russia’s, North Korea, Pyongyang, Washington, South Korea, Soviet, Syria, Iran, Korea, “, Seoul, Changwon, Stockholm, Sweden, North, , Zaporizhzhia, Komsomolsk, Vladivostok, China

The three-year Korean War was the single most traumatic event in modern Korean history. It came to a halt in a truce 70 years ago, after millions had been killed. The guns fell silent along the Demilitarized Zone, a 155-mile-long strip of land that divides the Korean Peninsula. But a formal peace treaty was never signed, leaving the Korean Peninsula still technically at war. Millions of troops on both sides stand ready to plunge back into battle at a moment’s notice.

Around the world, most of the 1.4 billion tons of food thrown away each year goes to landfills. As it rots, it pollutes water and soil and releases huge amounts of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases. But not in South Korea, which banned food scraps from its landfills almost 20 years ago. Here, the vast majority of it gets turned into animal feed, fertilizer and fuel for heating homes. Food waste is one of the biggest contributors to climate change, not only because of the methane but also because the energy and resources that went into its production and transport have been wasted, too.

Locations: South Korea

☆ The Next Frontier in Farming? The Ocean.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Somini Sengupta | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +10 min

For centuries, it’s been treasured in kitchens in Asia and neglected almost everywhere else: Those glistening ribbons of seaweed that bend and bloom in cold ocean waves. Far beyond South Korea, new farms have cropped up in Maine, the Faroe Islands, Australia, even the North Sea. But even as its champions see it as a miracle crop for a hotter planet, others worry that the zeal to farm the ocean could replicate some of the same damages of farming on land. “Seaweed is not going to replace all plastic, but seaweed combined with other things can tackle single use plastic,” he said. Seaweed farms are a far cry from the rows of corn and wheat that make up monoculture farming on land.

☆ The Year in Pictures 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( The New York Times | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +57 min

Every year, starting in early fall, photo editors at The New York Times begin sifting through the year’s work in an effort to pick out the most startling, most moving, most memorable pictures. But 2022 undoubtedly belongs to the war in Ukraine, a conflict now settling into a worryingly predictable rhythm. Erin Schaff/The New York Times “When you’re standing on the ground, you can’t visualize the scope of the destruction. Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 25. We see the same images over and over, and it’s really hard to make anything different.” Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb 26.

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