Despite the recovery of the black box on Wednesday, there have been no new details about the cause of the plane crash in Guangxi. But some of its consequences are already foreseeable: Another 737 debacle is causing the Chinese Market to lose trust in Boeing, our Beijing team analyzes. Since China is also entering the aviation market, it remains to be seen whether this will turn out beneficial for Airbus.
The war in Ukraine is also having a major consequence for supply chains. In today’s issue, Frank Sieren examines the impact on the supply of the noble gas neon. It may be best known for its use in old-fashioned fluorescent tubes. In reality, however, it is now used primarily in the fabrication of microchips – and they are in short supply as it is. This could benefit China, which can now step in as the second-largest supplier after Ukraine in the US business. This new dependency has, in turn, significant implications for trade policy.
The shelves for flour and sunflower oil in German stores are empty solely because of hoarding. But this is the response of consumers to entirely justified concerns about food security. But food security simply concerns the Global South more than the EU. Ukraine and Russia are among the world’s most important exporters of cereals. If China now experiences poor harvests because of climate change, this will considerably intensify concerns, analyzes Nico Beckert. China indeed has enormous reserves. But it will probably keep them for itself. After all, it feeds almost a fifth of the world’s population.
It could have been a great week in China for Boeing. As Reuters reported, a Boeing 737 Max headed from Boeing’s headquarters in Seattle to the People’s Republic last Monday. There, according to a source, the plane was scheduled to first land at Boeing’s Chinese delivery center and later be handed over to Shanghai Airlines, a subsidiary of China Eastern. But the plane is currently still waiting in Hawaii.
This Monday, China experienced the worst aviation disaster in more than ten years with an estimated 132 fatalities. Analysts now believe it is unlikely that times will get better any time soon for Boeing in China. The ill-fated China Eastern aircraft was a 737-800, which, unlike the 737 Max, has an excellent safety record. Nevertheless, authorities are now “extra careful,” according to an aviation expert in Beijing.
The history of the 737 Max is well known: Two aircraft of the relatively new type had crashed in Indonesia and Ethiopia in 2018 and 2019 in quick succession, resulting in flight bans around the world. Boeing came under massive pressure because a software error was held responsible.
And now, China, of all places, the second most important market for Boeing behind the USA, is now the last country where the 737 Max is still not allowed to fly. The flight from Seattle seemed to be the clearest sign yet that the 737 Max could soon be approved for commercial flights again. This would also have cleared the way for over 140 more 737 Maxs waiting at Boeing for delivery to Chinese airlines.
But after a refueling stop in Hawaii, the 737 Max did not initially continue. It was said that there was currently no rush to deploy the 737 Max. In extreme cases, it would even be possible to ground large parts of the Chinese 737-800 fleet at the moment. With more than 1,200 aircraft, it is the most important workhorse of Chinese airlines. However, thousands of flights a day are currently canceled anyway because of the Covid pandemic. So far, only the ill-fated airline China Eastern has grounded its 737-800 aircraft. However, it is not completely ruled out that other airlines will follow suit, experts say. A lot will depend on how the investigations into the cause of the accident unfold.
Monday’s crash happened at “an extremely delicate time,” JPMorgan analyst Seth Seifman also warns in a statement. Boeing had been looking to finally resume 737 Max deliveries after a three-year halt. Comments from Chinese authorities in the coming days and weeks are now critical to assess the impact of the tragedy on Boeing. Even if authorities do not take action against Boeing, passengers’ fears could become an issue. “Given Boeing’s problems with the 737 MAX, there is some chance that consumers may not want to fly on a 737 until the cause of the China Eastern crash is determined,” analyzes US investment bank Cowen.
Even if Boeing’s current dry spell in China is now likely to last even longer: In the long term, the Americans consider the Chinese market to be highly promising. As recently as September, Boeing predicted that China’s airlines would require a total of 8,700 new aircraft worth $1.47 trillion by 2040 to meet the growing demand for post-pandemic commercial air travel. As early as 2030, China’s domestic passenger market will surpass the intra-European market, according to the estimate. By 2040, China’s domestic traffic could also exceed air travel within North America.
Boeing and Airbus will no longer dominate the Chinese market as a duopoly in the future. After all, Comac is the first Chinese aircraft manufacturer on the verge of a breakthrough. But since Comac is technologically lagging behind its Western competitors, they will probably still be able to claim a large share of the Chinese market for themselves in the foreseeable future. That is, assuming political tensions will not escalate. Joern Petring/Gregor Koppenburg
Russia’s war on Ukraine jeopardizes the food supply for millions of people around the world. The country on the Black Sea is a breadbasket. Ukraine produces more than eleven percent of the wheat traded on the global market. For corn, the figure is as high as 17 percent. Grain prices have skyrocketed in the wake of the war. This does not create a supply problem for most rich countries. In the West, most people can afford higher prices. In addition, Germany, for example, produces more wheat than it consumes.
But many African countries are dependent on grain imports from Ukraine and Russia, and rising world market prices are threatening their supplies. And the problem of rising prices could soon become even more pressing. China is expecting a poor harvest. This has been caused by severe storms in the past year, which are attributed to climate change.
At the same time, China has built up the world’s largest grain reserves and could thus take pressure off the global market. However, whether it is willing to do so is debatable. Securing the food supply for its own population has always been one of the Communist Party’s greatest concerns.
The People’s Republic’s Minister of Agriculture recently warned about the impact of climate change on crops. “China faces big difficulties in food production because of the unusual floods last autumn,” Tang Renjian told reporters. “Many farming experts and technicians told us that crop conditions this year could be the worst in history.” Parts of China had experienced extreme rain and flooding last fall (China.Table reported). This had caused damage to crops. Nearly 30 million hectares of farmable land were destroyed, Bloomberg reported. The floods delayed sowing on more than 18 million hectares of land, well over a third of China’s total winter wheat acreage.
The effects of climate change will become even more severe in the future. China is at risk of losing 20 percent of its harvests if the world does not manage to cut carbon emissions. That is the conclusion of a recent study by Tsinghua University in Beijing and London-based think tank Chatham House (China.Table reported). Scientists warn of a “significant threat to major grain-growing regions” in the People’s Republic if temperatures rise by 3.5 degrees over the next 80 years. Currently, the global community is on an emissions course that would result in a 2.7-degree temperature rise by 2100. But the Chinese authors write that even with an increase of just 1.6 degrees by 2100, eight percent of crops would be lost.
These are bleak prospects, especially for the People’s Republic. After all, China has only ten percent of the world’s agricultural land, but has to feed more than 20 percent of the global population with it. And Beijing is not willing to increase its reliance on the global market. “Climate change felt in the rest of the world could also impact China’s food security,” says Even Pay of consulting firm Trivium China.
The impact of climate change on harvests could be amplified by socio-economic aspects. Increasingly unpredictable crop yields could cause farmers to quit their jobs and migrate to cities. The already existing labor shortage in the agricultural sector could potentially be exacerbated, Zhang Zhaoxin, a researcher at the Ministry of Agriculture told Bloomberg. In addition, farmers have been ill-prepared for extreme weather events. In many regions that were hit by heavy rains last year, flooded fields could not be drained due to lacking infrastructure such as pipes and drainage systems. Farmers were unable to harvest corn because their machinery could not handle the water, Zhang said.
China has been preparing for droughts and poor harvests in recent years, accumulating large stockpiles of grain. The country now stores 142 million tons of wheat. By comparison, only ten million tons have been stored in the EU. The People’s Republic’s stockpiles account for over half of global stocks. For every Chinese citizen, there are now a good 100 kilograms of wheat in storage. At the end of 2005, the value was only 26 kilograms. According to official data, these stockpiles could secure wheat supplies for 18 months. However, large stocks can only cushion the medium-term crop damage caused by unchecked climate change to a certain extent. It will be more important to slow down climate change and take adaptive measures.
Whether China is willing to sell grain on the world market or supply it to partner countries is an open question. According to estimates by the United States Department of Agriculture, the war in Ukraine will result in a loss of about four million tons. Some of this could be offset by strong harvests in India and Australia. Thus, China would not have to “release” large quantities of its reserves at all. But a bad harvest and general concerns about securing food supplies for its population could prevent Beijing from co-supplying other countries. And even if China shares its reserves with other countries, it is doubtful that prices on the global market will fall. After all, it is not only supply and demand that determine prices on agricultural markets. Speculation with food and land also drives prices.
Enes Kanter Freedom holds up a mirror to the world’s premier basketball league. When his former employer, the glorious Boston Celtics, recently showed up to an NBA match in North America with a small solidarity flag in Ukraine’s national colors on his jersey, the Turkish native spoke up on Twitter. “What about Syria, Afghanistan, Uyghurs, Hong Kong, Tibet, Taiwan. Why is it okay to speak up about human rights violations there but not in other countries? Is there not much profit from Russia?”
It was the exclamation point behind a conflict between the business interests of a billion-dollar empire on the one hand, and the courage and consistency of an individual on the other. Kanter Freedom has been taking a fierce stand against injustice in the world for years. He has used his public persona as a top athlete on several occasions to denounce human rights violations in Turkey, Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong. But his commitment ultimately cost the 29-year-old his athletic career.
In recent months, he has repeatedly appeared at NBA games wearing basketball shoes with political messages. “Free Tibet,” “Free Uyghurs” or “No Beijing 2022”. On Twitter, he called China’s President Xi Jinping a “brutal dictator”. He accused the US sporting goods manufacturer Nike of hypocrisy because it would profit from the forced labor of Uyghur prisoners.
Kanter Freedom went for confrontation with the league, which threatened to kick him out if he continued to call for Tibet’ Freedom on his footwear. Chinese state television had already suspended all live broadcasts of Celtics games, sending a warning signal to the league. Kanter Freedom, however, kept returning with new slogans against forced labor or torture in Xinjiang.
A few months ago, the Boston Celtics drew consequences and swapped Kanter at the transfer deadline. No other club signed him afterward. The club claimed that Kanter’s departure was due to athletic reasons. But it is an open secret that the only reason was to avert possible damage to the NBA.
China is the league’s biggest foreign market. There are live broadcasts on television almost every morning. The euphoria was sparked in the 2000s by Chinese basketball superstar Yao Ming. An enthusiasm that was provoked in Germany at best by icons like Boris Becker or Michael Schumacher.
The NBA pays its biggest stars annual sums of more than $40 million. Even comparatively average players sign contracts that pay $5 or $10 million per season. A large part of this expenditure is returned through TV rights and merchandise in China.
The deep political consequences for the NBA became apparent at the latest when a club manager publicly supported the mass protests in Hong Kong in 2019. Back then, Chinese state television also suspended broadcasts of league matches. The league’s superstar LeBron James, who is otherwise perceived as a loud voice against racism and social inequality in the US, distanced himself at the time from solidarity with the Hong Kong democracy movement.
Earlier this year, a statement made by one of the Golden State Warriors’ co-owners added fuel to the debate over the NBA’s dependence on China. In a podcast, billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya had responded to a co-host’s provocative question, “Nobody cares about the Uyghurs.” He stated that he was concerned about inflation, climate change, or US health care, but not that China was accused of genocide against the Uyghurs.
The statement came in for such sharp criticism in the USA that Palihapitiya felt compelled to justify himself. His statement had been misunderstood. Even his club distanced itself from the sharpness conveyed by its shareholder, so as not to come across as a heartless cog in the sports machinery.
Naturally, the billionaire’s statements also drew the attention of Enes Kanter Freedom. The 29-year-old had long since made a name for himself as an advocate for freedom. In 2017, he had already railed against the political purge in Turkey under President Erdoğan. Turkey revoked his citizenship at the time, and Kanter Freedom received several death threats. The NBA, however, allowed him to continue. In 2020, the US authorities even made him an American citizen. In the course of his naturalization, Kanter added the suffix Freedom to his official name.
Now Enes Kanter Freedom is without an NBA club and the prospect of a return to the world’s biggest basketball stage is close to zero. Nevertheless, he will soon be able to play professional sports – probably in Greece. Thus, the NBA is free from its troublemaker, whose commitment may yet bring a much bigger award than a championship ring in the NBA.
A Norwegian parliamentarian recently nominated Kanter Freedom for the Nobel Prize, which will be awarded in Oslo near the end of the year. The nomination was accompanied by a letter from 30 Nobel Prize winners to the Boston Celtics, asking them to support their player “to be on the right side of history.” Kanter Freedom himself was humbled. “Sometimes taking a stand is more important than your next paycheck,” he wrote on Twitter. Marcel Grzanna
Classes from space: The three taikonauts Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu conduct scientific experiments in zero gravity and present the Chinese space station to children via livestream. The crew of the Shenzhou-13 has been on mission for six months, and for the second time the space travelers have now been live-streamed into a classroom at the China Science and Technology Museum. Will that help against homesickness?
Despite the recovery of the black box on Wednesday, there have been no new details about the cause of the plane crash in Guangxi. But some of its consequences are already foreseeable: Another 737 debacle is causing the Chinese Market to lose trust in Boeing, our Beijing team analyzes. Since China is also entering the aviation market, it remains to be seen whether this will turn out beneficial for Airbus.
The war in Ukraine is also having a major consequence for supply chains. In today’s issue, Frank Sieren examines the impact on the supply of the noble gas neon. It may be best known for its use in old-fashioned fluorescent tubes. In reality, however, it is now used primarily in the fabrication of microchips – and they are in short supply as it is. This could benefit China, which can now step in as the second-largest supplier after Ukraine in the US business. This new dependency has, in turn, significant implications for trade policy.
The shelves for flour and sunflower oil in German stores are empty solely because of hoarding. But this is the response of consumers to entirely justified concerns about food security. But food security simply concerns the Global South more than the EU. Ukraine and Russia are among the world’s most important exporters of cereals. If China now experiences poor harvests because of climate change, this will considerably intensify concerns, analyzes Nico Beckert. China indeed has enormous reserves. But it will probably keep them for itself. After all, it feeds almost a fifth of the world’s population.
It could have been a great week in China for Boeing. As Reuters reported, a Boeing 737 Max headed from Boeing’s headquarters in Seattle to the People’s Republic last Monday. There, according to a source, the plane was scheduled to first land at Boeing’s Chinese delivery center and later be handed over to Shanghai Airlines, a subsidiary of China Eastern. But the plane is currently still waiting in Hawaii.
This Monday, China experienced the worst aviation disaster in more than ten years with an estimated 132 fatalities. Analysts now believe it is unlikely that times will get better any time soon for Boeing in China. The ill-fated China Eastern aircraft was a 737-800, which, unlike the 737 Max, has an excellent safety record. Nevertheless, authorities are now “extra careful,” according to an aviation expert in Beijing.
The history of the 737 Max is well known: Two aircraft of the relatively new type had crashed in Indonesia and Ethiopia in 2018 and 2019 in quick succession, resulting in flight bans around the world. Boeing came under massive pressure because a software error was held responsible.
And now, China, of all places, the second most important market for Boeing behind the USA, is now the last country where the 737 Max is still not allowed to fly. The flight from Seattle seemed to be the clearest sign yet that the 737 Max could soon be approved for commercial flights again. This would also have cleared the way for over 140 more 737 Maxs waiting at Boeing for delivery to Chinese airlines.
But after a refueling stop in Hawaii, the 737 Max did not initially continue. It was said that there was currently no rush to deploy the 737 Max. In extreme cases, it would even be possible to ground large parts of the Chinese 737-800 fleet at the moment. With more than 1,200 aircraft, it is the most important workhorse of Chinese airlines. However, thousands of flights a day are currently canceled anyway because of the Covid pandemic. So far, only the ill-fated airline China Eastern has grounded its 737-800 aircraft. However, it is not completely ruled out that other airlines will follow suit, experts say. A lot will depend on how the investigations into the cause of the accident unfold.
Monday’s crash happened at “an extremely delicate time,” JPMorgan analyst Seth Seifman also warns in a statement. Boeing had been looking to finally resume 737 Max deliveries after a three-year halt. Comments from Chinese authorities in the coming days and weeks are now critical to assess the impact of the tragedy on Boeing. Even if authorities do not take action against Boeing, passengers’ fears could become an issue. “Given Boeing’s problems with the 737 MAX, there is some chance that consumers may not want to fly on a 737 until the cause of the China Eastern crash is determined,” analyzes US investment bank Cowen.
Even if Boeing’s current dry spell in China is now likely to last even longer: In the long term, the Americans consider the Chinese market to be highly promising. As recently as September, Boeing predicted that China’s airlines would require a total of 8,700 new aircraft worth $1.47 trillion by 2040 to meet the growing demand for post-pandemic commercial air travel. As early as 2030, China’s domestic passenger market will surpass the intra-European market, according to the estimate. By 2040, China’s domestic traffic could also exceed air travel within North America.
Boeing and Airbus will no longer dominate the Chinese market as a duopoly in the future. After all, Comac is the first Chinese aircraft manufacturer on the verge of a breakthrough. But since Comac is technologically lagging behind its Western competitors, they will probably still be able to claim a large share of the Chinese market for themselves in the foreseeable future. That is, assuming political tensions will not escalate. Joern Petring/Gregor Koppenburg
Russia’s war on Ukraine jeopardizes the food supply for millions of people around the world. The country on the Black Sea is a breadbasket. Ukraine produces more than eleven percent of the wheat traded on the global market. For corn, the figure is as high as 17 percent. Grain prices have skyrocketed in the wake of the war. This does not create a supply problem for most rich countries. In the West, most people can afford higher prices. In addition, Germany, for example, produces more wheat than it consumes.
But many African countries are dependent on grain imports from Ukraine and Russia, and rising world market prices are threatening their supplies. And the problem of rising prices could soon become even more pressing. China is expecting a poor harvest. This has been caused by severe storms in the past year, which are attributed to climate change.
At the same time, China has built up the world’s largest grain reserves and could thus take pressure off the global market. However, whether it is willing to do so is debatable. Securing the food supply for its own population has always been one of the Communist Party’s greatest concerns.
The People’s Republic’s Minister of Agriculture recently warned about the impact of climate change on crops. “China faces big difficulties in food production because of the unusual floods last autumn,” Tang Renjian told reporters. “Many farming experts and technicians told us that crop conditions this year could be the worst in history.” Parts of China had experienced extreme rain and flooding last fall (China.Table reported). This had caused damage to crops. Nearly 30 million hectares of farmable land were destroyed, Bloomberg reported. The floods delayed sowing on more than 18 million hectares of land, well over a third of China’s total winter wheat acreage.
The effects of climate change will become even more severe in the future. China is at risk of losing 20 percent of its harvests if the world does not manage to cut carbon emissions. That is the conclusion of a recent study by Tsinghua University in Beijing and London-based think tank Chatham House (China.Table reported). Scientists warn of a “significant threat to major grain-growing regions” in the People’s Republic if temperatures rise by 3.5 degrees over the next 80 years. Currently, the global community is on an emissions course that would result in a 2.7-degree temperature rise by 2100. But the Chinese authors write that even with an increase of just 1.6 degrees by 2100, eight percent of crops would be lost.
These are bleak prospects, especially for the People’s Republic. After all, China has only ten percent of the world’s agricultural land, but has to feed more than 20 percent of the global population with it. And Beijing is not willing to increase its reliance on the global market. “Climate change felt in the rest of the world could also impact China’s food security,” says Even Pay of consulting firm Trivium China.
The impact of climate change on harvests could be amplified by socio-economic aspects. Increasingly unpredictable crop yields could cause farmers to quit their jobs and migrate to cities. The already existing labor shortage in the agricultural sector could potentially be exacerbated, Zhang Zhaoxin, a researcher at the Ministry of Agriculture told Bloomberg. In addition, farmers have been ill-prepared for extreme weather events. In many regions that were hit by heavy rains last year, flooded fields could not be drained due to lacking infrastructure such as pipes and drainage systems. Farmers were unable to harvest corn because their machinery could not handle the water, Zhang said.
China has been preparing for droughts and poor harvests in recent years, accumulating large stockpiles of grain. The country now stores 142 million tons of wheat. By comparison, only ten million tons have been stored in the EU. The People’s Republic’s stockpiles account for over half of global stocks. For every Chinese citizen, there are now a good 100 kilograms of wheat in storage. At the end of 2005, the value was only 26 kilograms. According to official data, these stockpiles could secure wheat supplies for 18 months. However, large stocks can only cushion the medium-term crop damage caused by unchecked climate change to a certain extent. It will be more important to slow down climate change and take adaptive measures.
Whether China is willing to sell grain on the world market or supply it to partner countries is an open question. According to estimates by the United States Department of Agriculture, the war in Ukraine will result in a loss of about four million tons. Some of this could be offset by strong harvests in India and Australia. Thus, China would not have to “release” large quantities of its reserves at all. But a bad harvest and general concerns about securing food supplies for its population could prevent Beijing from co-supplying other countries. And even if China shares its reserves with other countries, it is doubtful that prices on the global market will fall. After all, it is not only supply and demand that determine prices on agricultural markets. Speculation with food and land also drives prices.
Enes Kanter Freedom holds up a mirror to the world’s premier basketball league. When his former employer, the glorious Boston Celtics, recently showed up to an NBA match in North America with a small solidarity flag in Ukraine’s national colors on his jersey, the Turkish native spoke up on Twitter. “What about Syria, Afghanistan, Uyghurs, Hong Kong, Tibet, Taiwan. Why is it okay to speak up about human rights violations there but not in other countries? Is there not much profit from Russia?”
It was the exclamation point behind a conflict between the business interests of a billion-dollar empire on the one hand, and the courage and consistency of an individual on the other. Kanter Freedom has been taking a fierce stand against injustice in the world for years. He has used his public persona as a top athlete on several occasions to denounce human rights violations in Turkey, Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong. But his commitment ultimately cost the 29-year-old his athletic career.
In recent months, he has repeatedly appeared at NBA games wearing basketball shoes with political messages. “Free Tibet,” “Free Uyghurs” or “No Beijing 2022”. On Twitter, he called China’s President Xi Jinping a “brutal dictator”. He accused the US sporting goods manufacturer Nike of hypocrisy because it would profit from the forced labor of Uyghur prisoners.
Kanter Freedom went for confrontation with the league, which threatened to kick him out if he continued to call for Tibet’ Freedom on his footwear. Chinese state television had already suspended all live broadcasts of Celtics games, sending a warning signal to the league. Kanter Freedom, however, kept returning with new slogans against forced labor or torture in Xinjiang.
A few months ago, the Boston Celtics drew consequences and swapped Kanter at the transfer deadline. No other club signed him afterward. The club claimed that Kanter’s departure was due to athletic reasons. But it is an open secret that the only reason was to avert possible damage to the NBA.
China is the league’s biggest foreign market. There are live broadcasts on television almost every morning. The euphoria was sparked in the 2000s by Chinese basketball superstar Yao Ming. An enthusiasm that was provoked in Germany at best by icons like Boris Becker or Michael Schumacher.
The NBA pays its biggest stars annual sums of more than $40 million. Even comparatively average players sign contracts that pay $5 or $10 million per season. A large part of this expenditure is returned through TV rights and merchandise in China.
The deep political consequences for the NBA became apparent at the latest when a club manager publicly supported the mass protests in Hong Kong in 2019. Back then, Chinese state television also suspended broadcasts of league matches. The league’s superstar LeBron James, who is otherwise perceived as a loud voice against racism and social inequality in the US, distanced himself at the time from solidarity with the Hong Kong democracy movement.
Earlier this year, a statement made by one of the Golden State Warriors’ co-owners added fuel to the debate over the NBA’s dependence on China. In a podcast, billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya had responded to a co-host’s provocative question, “Nobody cares about the Uyghurs.” He stated that he was concerned about inflation, climate change, or US health care, but not that China was accused of genocide against the Uyghurs.
The statement came in for such sharp criticism in the USA that Palihapitiya felt compelled to justify himself. His statement had been misunderstood. Even his club distanced itself from the sharpness conveyed by its shareholder, so as not to come across as a heartless cog in the sports machinery.
Naturally, the billionaire’s statements also drew the attention of Enes Kanter Freedom. The 29-year-old had long since made a name for himself as an advocate for freedom. In 2017, he had already railed against the political purge in Turkey under President Erdoğan. Turkey revoked his citizenship at the time, and Kanter Freedom received several death threats. The NBA, however, allowed him to continue. In 2020, the US authorities even made him an American citizen. In the course of his naturalization, Kanter added the suffix Freedom to his official name.
Now Enes Kanter Freedom is without an NBA club and the prospect of a return to the world’s biggest basketball stage is close to zero. Nevertheless, he will soon be able to play professional sports – probably in Greece. Thus, the NBA is free from its troublemaker, whose commitment may yet bring a much bigger award than a championship ring in the NBA.
A Norwegian parliamentarian recently nominated Kanter Freedom for the Nobel Prize, which will be awarded in Oslo near the end of the year. The nomination was accompanied by a letter from 30 Nobel Prize winners to the Boston Celtics, asking them to support their player “to be on the right side of history.” Kanter Freedom himself was humbled. “Sometimes taking a stand is more important than your next paycheck,” he wrote on Twitter. Marcel Grzanna
Classes from space: The three taikonauts Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu conduct scientific experiments in zero gravity and present the Chinese space station to children via livestream. The crew of the Shenzhou-13 has been on mission for six months, and for the second time the space travelers have now been live-streamed into a classroom at the China Science and Technology Museum. Will that help against homesickness?
