Research, editing : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA
The ambling reptile, clocking in at just over 4 pounds and 1 foot long, delayed five flights at the Narita International Airport near Tokyo, in Chiba Prefecture, on Friday after being spotted by a pilot just before his plane was scheduled to take off.
Air traffic control ordered all flights to pause while staff safely captured the turtle and swept the 4,000-meter-long (roughly 13,100 feet) runway for any other anomalies, prompting further delay, according to local reports.
Identified as a red-eared slider, a species native to North America and considered invasive in Japan, Narita Airport officials and one animal expert have suggested the critter may have crawled out of a nearby retention pond, located about 100 meters (328 feet) from the runway where it was found. They added that turtle sightings are rare compared to other stray animals, such as cats and dogs.
“In Hawaii, sea turtles are seen as bringing good luck, and we hope this turtle that came to see the flight off signals a bright future,” they said.
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Vegetarian turtle ate bird for the first time
Ecological researchers at the University of Cambridge’s Museum of Zoology caught the disturbing incident on video, which occurred in July 2020 on Frégate Island in the Indian Ocean.
“This is completely unexpected behavior and has never been seen before in wild tortoises,” said lead researcher Justin Gerlach, director of studies at Peterhouse Cambridge college, in a statement on Monday, according to CNN.
“The giant tortoise pursued the tern chick along a log, finally killing the chick and eating it,” recalled Gerlach, whose recent work was published in the journal Current Biology. “It was a very slow encounter, with the tortoise moving at its normal, slow walking pace — the whole interaction took seven minutes and was quite horrifying.”
Frégate Island conservation manager and study co-author Anna Zora said that she was alerted to keep her camera’s lens pointed towards the tortoise when she “saw [it] moving in a strange way.”
The slow-moving reptile was stalking its prey — a tern chick — Zora realized.
“It’s moving very deliberately — it’s not just wandering
about, it’s looking at this tern, and it’s walking straight at it, clearly
intending to do something. That suggests to me that it’s doing it with intent.
It knows what it’s doing, it’s done this before,” said Gerlach, who added that
the tortoise looked “experienced” at hunting.
Tortoises are most typically herbivorous, although they
are considered “opportunistic” eaters that will snag a leftover meaty morsel
for a boost of protein.
“It’s quite common for herbivores to eat a bit of dead animal as a free protein source, essentially,” Gerlach told CNN. “But this is the first video evidence of them deliberately killing in order to eat.”
Researchers plan to continue their study of the Seychelles tortoise’s diet to determine how widespread omnivorous behavior has become across the species. They also added that the tortoise’s unexpected craving is unlikely to have an impact on the island’s tern population.
“It’s
probably not uncommon for animals to surprise our expectations by eating
unexpected things that may just be a one-off,” Gerlach explained.
“Just
by watching and recording what animals are doing you can find really totally
unexpected things, things that we couldn’t discover deliberately — it has to be
by chance,” he added.
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2 more covid cases from Ocean Financial Centre
The building management of Ocean Financial Centre (OFC) disclosed on 27 and 28 September 2021 that there are two confirmed covid cases from two tenant offices in the building. Necessary sanitization and disinfection of the common areas, lifts etc have been completed.
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A
research institution affiliated with the French Ministry of Defense published a
report exposing that around 2018, the CCP began to use "wolf war
diplomacy" extensively, and Sweden became the CCP's testing ground.
Recently, Gui Congyou, the Chinese ambassador to Sweden, was revealed to have left his post on 24 September. The Swedish media said that not many people would miss him.
Gui Congyou has been controversial since he took office in 2017. He has repeatedly intimidated Swedish journalists, think tanks, politicians, and even the government. His fierce behavior caused the normally uncooperative parties to unite and demand his expulsion.
During Gui Congyou's tenure, relations between China and Sweden deteriorated greatly, and he himself was regarded as a "wolf war" diplomat.
The analysis report of "Les Operations D'Influence Chinoises" (The CCP's Influence Operation) released by the French Military Academy recently put forward an interesting point: In addition to the uproar caused by Gui Congyou, at a deeper level, Sweden may have been selected by the Chinese Communist regime, to test its more aggressive strategy in advance before spreading to the world. There have been discussions on this point in Sweden.
So why did the CCP choose Sweden? The report summarizes the following reasons.
One is that the size of Sweden is just right. Small enough, so small that even if something goes wrong, it will not pose a threat to the Chinese Communist regime but the influence of this country is large enough, at least for Europe.
The second is that Sweden ranks among the best in defending democracy and freedom on a global scale. For example, in the press freedom ranking of Reporters Without Borders, Sweden is in the top 5 every time. The CCP is at the other extreme, counting down to 5 each time. It can be said that Sweden is a symbol of democracy and freedom and a "typical" that the CCP wants to crack down. Once Beijing succeeds, it will mean that the cornerstone of freedom and democracy in the West will be shaken.
Third, Sweden is also the country that criticizes the CCP for persecuting human rights the most. At this point, the CCP must let the world know that criticizing the CCP has a price.
In addition, Sweden is also a competitor of the CCP in certain areas, especially in the 5G industry, battery industry, and truck industry.
At the same time, there have been several frictions between China and Sweden before. For example, the CCP kidnapped the Swedish citizen Gui Minhai, and the CCP detained Peter Dahlin, a Swedish human rights defender, and forced him to confess his crime on TV.
Finally, there is another reason. Sweden provides political asylum to the persecuted groups of Uyghur, Tibet and Falun Gong, and received the Dalai Lama in September 2018. These people are the main targets of the Beijing regime.
The report stated that the purpose of the Beijing regime is to make Sweden surrender, and at the same time scrabble rabbits and send warning signals to other countries, especially European countries. However, in the end, the CCP's test completely failed. Sweden resisted the pressure and did not give in. Instead, it made a series of powerful countermeasures.
For example, Sweden is the first European country to close all Confucius Institutes.
Sweden
also rewrote the "China Strategy" and handed it to Parliament to
better counter the influence of the CCP.
In October 2020, the Swedish telecom agency banned Huawei and ZTE from participating in the construction of the country's 5G network.
The Swedish government is becoming more and more vigilant towards the CCP. It used to be seen as an opportunity for economic development, but now it is more as a threat to national security.
The report concludes that the situation in Sweden is an attempt by the CCP to explore the Western world. The same problem also occurs in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and other places. The degree of situation varies from country to country, but the essence is the same. In addition, the situation in Sweden also reflects the transformation of the CCP's overall foreign policy, which is to change from the "friendly image" that people wanted to win to the "wolf-like war" approach that people wanted to fear.
As for this method of tactics, the report concludes that it will be a strategic failure of the CCP, because more and more countries will stand up against it.
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