Chinese influencer climbs mountain with help of helium balloon
A fitness influencer in China has sparked an impassioned debate on social media after he used a helium balloon to lighten the weight of his backpack while on a hike.
Pu, an influencer from Zhejiang, posted a video of himself on Chinese social media platform Douyin showing a white helium balloon on his bag.
“I am carrying the bag but I do not feel its weight at all because of the balloon,” he said, according to the South China Morning Post. “I feel something is dragging me upwards. This should be the way most suitable for lazy men to climb mountains.”
Pu said he had seen another influencer use a balloon to make a bag float in the air, and he opted to use helium instead of hydrogen since it’s a safer gas.
The primary purpose of using the balloon was to reduce the weight of the backpack during his hike, which Pu claimed the balloon did.
The balloon didn’t prove particularly useful in the latter half of Pu’s hike, however, as it got entangled in tree branches and burst.
“I am still satisfied with this experiment. It was a fun experience,” he said.
A Douyin user wondered why Pu called it a “lazy man mountain climbing method”. “I wonder which lazy man will bother to climb a mountain,” the user asked.
A chemistry teacher told local media that the balloon must contain a lot of helium to actually work as intended. “This would likely let the climber fly a bit and be injured by trees along the road or the balloon would possibly stick to tree branches,” he was quoted as saying by the SCMP.
“If there is a gale the person will be blown away. What’s more, the helium balloon will explode at a high altitude. Therefore it’s not convenient and not safe enough to resort to a helium balloon when hiking.”
The idea, while novel, is not unique.
In March this year, engineer Brendan Carberry experimented with using a helium balloon to make his hike easier.
Carberry’s experiment, while successful, showed problems with having a balloon tied to one’s backpack.
“In shooting this episode there were some things that really surprised me. I did think helium would make me run uphill faster, but instead it slowed me down…a lot,” he said.
“And I now want a floating backpack. That would be awesome. Not having that weight on your shoulders while you are backpacking would be the nicest hiking trip ever.”
Mysterious jade dragons could reveal origins of Chinese civilisation
Archaeologists have unearthed over 100 strange Stone Age jade artefacts in inner Mongolia, shedding more light on the origins of Chinese civilisation.
Among the relics uncovered at the Yuanbaoshan archaeological site in Chifeng city are three jade dragons of different colours and sizes, each over 5,000 years old.
One of the jade dragons, the size of a palm and emerald green in colour, is the largest of its kind found in northern China, according to Xinhua news agency.
These “pig-headed dragons” differ significantly from more modern depictions of the mythical beast. They are related to the Stone Age Hongshan culture that once flourished in Inner Mongolia and the nearby provinces of Liaoning and Hebei.
This ancient culture is known for making some of the earliest jade artefacts in the world, especially as part of its burial rituals.
“The variety of jade artefacts discovered fills important gaps in our understanding of this ancient civilization’s jade usage,” Sun Jinsong, the director of the Inner Mongolia Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, was quoted as saying by Archaeology News.
Human remains and pottery unearthed at the site indicate the artefacts indeed belong to the Hongshan culture.
More than 1,100 Hongshan culture sites have been excavated so far, mostly in and around southeastern Inner Mongolia and western Liaoning.
The burial mound unearthed in the recent dig is the largest yet discovered in Inner Mongolia related to the Hongshan culture.
The culture’s sites have also provided some of the earliest examples of the Chinese art of feng shui, which used astronomy to find links between humans and the universe.
One of the relics unearthed in the latest dig is a jade headgear resembling an artefact made by another faraway culture in what is now the Anhui province.
Archaeologists suspect there were likely long-distance exchanges between the two populations.
Recent research suggests the people of the ancient culture likely moved south as their region changed into a desert due to climate change about 4,000 years ago. Hongshan culture, according to many experts, exerted an influence on the development of the early Chinese civilisation.
Doc Harris death: Legendary Dragon Ball Z narrator dies at 76
Canadian voice actor Doc Harris, the original English-language narrator of the iconic Dragon Ball Z anime series, has died aged 76.
His death was confirmed by Canadian trade publication Broadcast Dialogue, which reported that he died at the Vancouver General Hospital on 5 October. Harris had undergone minor surgery last month.
Born Gilbert Achinleck on 3 August 1948, Harris started his career in Canadian radio stations long before he became the beloved narrator on Dragon Ball Z, the anime series based on the manga by Akira Toriyama.
Harris voiced over 200 episodes of the series between 1996 and 2003.
His first job as Gil Harris was at CKOM in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in 1970, after which he worked at multiple radio stations in Sudbury, Hamilton, and Toronto under the name Doc Holliday. In 1973, he started at Vancouver station CKLG as Doc Harris, and then continued to foster a successful career in radio, working primarily in Vancouver stations.
Dragon Ball Z fans have posted tributes to Harris on X, remembering fondly his distinctive closing line on each episode: “Find out next time on Dragon Ball Z!”
“No Goku, no Vegeta, Buu finding Kami tower and Doc Harris delivering the most chilling ‘find out next time’ of my childhood, RIP legend!” one fan posted on X.
“Doc Harris was part of what made Dragon Ball so magical. His voice made an entire generation of anime fans hyped for every single episode. A legend,” posted another.
Actor Ian James Corlett, who did the English voice for the character Goku on Dragon Ball Z in 1996-97 described Harris as “one of a kind” in a touching tribute on Instagram.
“Doc was a HUGE force in my early career. More than just a DH, he lived and breathed music. He also had a keen eye for movies,” Corlett wrote.
Harris also worked on other animated series like My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Barbie And The Rockers: Out Of This World, Monster Rancher, Eat-Man ’98, Sister Blue, and Camp Candy.
Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama died earlier this year, aged 68.
Mixed results for Modi’s BJP in Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir polls
Narendra Modi’s ruling party is seeing mixed results across two tightly-contested local elections in different parts of India on Tuesday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in the lead in the state of Haryana which borders the capital Delhi, but trails in the federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir, which is seeing its first election results in a decade.
The first local elections in India since Mr Modi’s party lost its outright majority in parliament, the polls are seen as an important barometer for support for the Hindu nationalist leader.
The BJP was hoping for a third straight term ruling Haryana’s state assembly, and to make inroads into the former state of Jammu and Kashmir, which the Modi government stripped of its semi-autonomy in 2019 and split into two federally-administered territories – Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir.
As of Tuesday afternoon local time, the BJP won 25 out of Haryana’s 90 seats, with Congress winning 18. Exit polls had predicted a win for Congress, the main opposition party on the national scene.
In Jammu and Kashmir, by 4pm with 85 out of 90 seats declared, Congress had won 40 seats and was leading in two more, while the BJP had taken 27 and was leading in two.
NC leader Farooq Abdullah, the father of former chief minister Omar Abdullah, told reporters on Tuesday that his son was set to become Jammu and Kashmir’s chief minister once again.
“After 10 years, the people have given their mandate to us,” the senior Abdullah told reporters. “We pray to Allah that we meet their expectations. It will not be ‘police raj [kingdom]’ here but public here. We will try to release the innocent from jail. Media will be free. We have to develop trust between Hindus and Muslims,” he said.
Though Mr Modi has promised to restore Jammu-Kashmir’s statehood, in practice the local government will have little power with the federal administration retaining most legislative authority.
The BJP kicked up a pre-election row after it decided to let the lieutenant governor of the federal territory appoint members in five reserved seats, which led to a massive outcry as the party was accused of trying to subvert democracy.
The five reserved candidates, chosen by the governor, will reportedly represent Kashmiri displaced persons and those from Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir. These five will have full legislative powers and privileges, exactly like elected representatives.
One of the most-watched seats in Haryana, meanwhile, was being contested by former Olympic wrestler Vinesh Phogat. At around noon it was confirmed that she had won the Julana constituency, representing Congress.
“Many congratulations to the country’s daughter Vinesh Phogat for her victory. This fight was not just for one Julana seat, it was not just with 3-4 other candidates, it was not just a fight between parties. This fight was against the strongest oppressive forces in the country. And Vinesh emerged victorious,” Bajrang Punia, a fellow wrestler who joined Congress days before the assembly election along with Phogat, posted on X.
The voter turnout for the 90-seat Haryana assembly was 67.90 per cent.
Election was held in three phases in Jammu and Kashmir, with a voter turnout of 63.45 per cent, slightly lower than the 65.52 per cent seen in the 2014 polls.
Once a dominant political force in Jammu and Kashmir, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was predicted to struggle. The party just won three seats.
Mehbooba Mufti, the last chief minister of the undivided Jammu and Kashmir, acknowledged that voters chose a “stable government” as PDP faced one of its worst defeats.
She said that people of Jammu and Kashmir believed that the Congress-NC alliance could provide stability and keep the BJP out of power.
The PDP had previously formed a coalition government with the BJP in 2015, but it collapsed in 2018 after the BJP withdrew support following Ms Mufti’s leadership takeover after her father’s death.
Iltija Mufti, daughter of Ms Mufti, also conceded defeat in the assembly elections while contesting from the Bijbehara constituency – a stronghold of the Mufti family.
Congress, NC and PDP have all accused the BJP of trying to benefit the party in the elections. Ms Mufti called the appointment of members in five reserved seats a brazen “pre-result rigging and shameful manipulation” while the senior Abdullah threatened to go to the Supreme Court.
“What they want to do, I do not know. However, if they do it, we will go to the Supreme Court. What is the point in making the government, if the Lord Sahib remains here? We have to fight against all this,” he said referring to the governor Manoj Sinha.
Russian climbers die after falling from world’s seventh-highest peak
Five Russian mountaineers died after falling from the world’s seventh-highest peak, the expedition organiser said on Tuesday.
They went missing on 6 October during an attempt to summit the 8,167m Mount Dhaulagiri in Nepal.
The bodies were found at an altitude of 7,100m by a rescue helicopter on Tuesday, Pemba Jangbu Sherpa of I AM Trekking & Expeditions in Kathmandu said.
The victims were identified as Alexander Dusheyko, Oleg Kruglov, Vladimir Chistikov, Mikhail Nosenko, and Dmitrii Shpilevoi, The Himalayan Times reported.
The mountaineers fell from 7,700m, said an official with Nepal’s tourism department.
Two of the climbers had managed to scale the summit while the others were returning without getting to the top. They departed from the high camp on Sunday at around 6am local time and last communicated with the base camp at around 11am, according to the organiser.
It has not yet been decided if or when and how the bodies would be brought down from the mountain, an operation which would require extensive planning, manpower and equipment.
The sixth member of the team, who had abandoned the summit attempt, was rescued from Camp 1 and brought to Kathmandu, according to local media reports.
The autumn climbing season, which is not as popular as the spring season, began last month. Mountains are less crowded and the permit fees are also lower during this season.
Dhaulagiri’s peak was first scaled in 1960 by a Swiss-Austrian team and has since been climbed by hundreds of adventure seekers.
Nepal has eight of the world’s 14 highest peaks. Until 14 May last year, the country generated $5.8m (£4.43m) in annual revenue from mountain tourism.
Kim Jong-un makes outlandish claim in birthday message to Putin
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un toasted his “closest comrade” Vladimir Putin on Monday in a birthday message that claimed the countries’ deepening military alliance would make them “invincible”.
The increasingly isolated Russian president turned 72 on Monday and received well-wishes from a small group of international backers, including Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko and the Chechyan strongman Ramzan Kadyrov.
Addressing his message to “my closest comrade Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin”, Mr Kim said the two leaders would take relations between Russia and North Korea to a new level, state news agency KCNA reported on Tuesday.
“I am now recollecting with deep emotion the days when we developed the traditional DPRK-Russia relations into the invincible alliance relations and eternal strategic relations,” Mr Kim said, referring to his country by its official name of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
He recalled that the two of them declared to the world the “realisation of independence and justice as common idea and deepened their friendship” when they met in June this year.
“Pyongyang will always stand by Moscow,” Mr Kim said.
Mr Kim said Mr Putin will lead “great Russia to the road of victory” and toasted the president’s good health. He said he would be celebrating the president’s birthday in “Pyongyang together with my friends”said.
Mr Putin marked his birthday quietly in Moscow but that did not prevent public celebrations in Moscow, where the president has outlived an average Russian male by three years despite persisten speculation about his poor health.
“God save the Tsar!” was one of the first public birthday wishes for Mr Putin, who has led Russia for nearly a quarter of a century. The message came from Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin.
Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of the Russia republic of Chechnya, wrote: “Today, friends, is the birthday of our national leader, supreme commander-in-chief, president of Russia Vladimir Putin! Undoubtedly, this is a significant day for our entire Fatherland.”
Mr Putin and Mr Kim appear to have developed a strong relationship since the Russian leader made a visit to North Korea in June.
The Russian president received a red carpet welcome and he and Mr Kim took turns driving each other around Pyongyang in a Russian Aurus limousine.
It was Mr Putin’s first visit to Pyongyang since July 2000.
Mr Kim gifted a pair of Pungsan, a breed of hunting dogs native to northern North Korea, to the Russian leader, according to state media.
The two leaders signed an agreement that provided for mutual defence in case of aggression against either nation.
Mr Putin linked Russia’s deepening relations with North Korea to the West’s support for Ukraine and said Moscow could develop military and technical cooperation with Pyongyang.
Why Chinese workers are a prime terror target in Pakistan
As Chinese workers and development projects increasingly come under attack in Pakistan, security experts say separatist militants see the foreign presence as a threat to local resources and their grip on the restive South West.
Two Chinese nationals were killed in a bombing near the international airport of the southern Pakistani city of Karachi on Sunday. The attack, which took place around 11pm outside Pakistan’s Jinnah International Airport, targeted a van of Chinese nationals, just a week before the high-level Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
Shortly after, separatist militant group, Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), from Pakistan’s troubled southwestern Balochistan province claimed responsibility, stating that it used a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device targeting “a high-level convoy of Chinese engineers and investors”.
China has supported its smaller Asian allies Pakistan and Afghanistan with financial and infrastructure aid for decades and invested significantly in its defence and technology. But its resources are now prime targets for dozens of terrorist groups in the region, experts said.
“Sunday night’s attack is part of a larger pattern of attacks by Baloch separatist militants and Pakistani Taliban factions targeting Chinese nationals and interests in Pakistan,” said security analyst Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud.
This is one of the biggest terrorist attacks since 2018 targeting Chinese workers in Pakistan, Mr Mehsud told The Independent, including the November 2018 attack on Karachi Chinese Consulate which killed four, July 2021’s Dasu suicide attack which killed nine Chinese nationals, BLA’s attack on the Pakistan Stock Exchange in June 2020, and their suicide attack in April 2023 which killed three Chinese tutors.
This is the second major attack on Chinese nationals. Earlier in March, a suicide car bombing killed five Chinese workers in Pakistan’s Shangla district. The Chinese engineers, who were employed on the site of a hydropower project in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, were on their way to the Dasu Dam In Afghanistan. The December 2022 attack targeted Kabul’s China Town and wounded five Chinese nationals in a hotel where Beijing’s investors were staying.
“The Baloch militants’ propaganda is heavily focused on Chinese presence in Balochistan and they consider it as a threat to their influence and resources. They believe China’s financial and technical assistance to Pakistan strengthens the government’s grip on the region, undermining their activities and influence,” said Mr Mehsud, who is also the co-founder of The Khorasan Diary, a digital news and research platform specialising in tracking and analysing militancy in the region.
This perception fuels their attacks on Chinese nationals, investments, and projects, he added.
“This is not merely an attack but a larger security and intelligence failure by Pakistan in protecting Chinese nationals, mostly engineers working on major projects,” said Abdullah Khan, a senior defence analyst and managing director of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies.
“They also show something critical: most of the attacks are moving targets and vehicles in transit carrying workers,” he said, adding that it meant there was obviously a security breach.
The BLA seeks independence for the province of Balochistan, located in Pakistan’s southwest and bordering on Afghanistan and Iran. BLA specifically targets Chinese interests, in particular the strategic port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, accusing Beijing of helping Islamabad exploit the province.
Security issues have affected China’s billions of planned investments, including under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which is part of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road.
In August prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said the attacks by separatist militants were aimed at stopping development projects that form part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). “The terrorists want to stop CPEC and development projects,” he said in a televised address to cabinet, adding that the militants also wanted to drive a wedge between Islamabad and Beijing.
But the predictable civilian losses will not deter China from sending its nationals to the region, Mr Khan added, stating that Mr Xi visited Pakistan in April 2015 for the massive CPEC project investment when the country was facing its worst surge in terrorism.
“The Chinese are very much aware that this is a conflict zone where they are pursuing these projects because when they had started the CPEC in Pakistan in 2015, that was the time Pakistan was facing the highest degree of terrorism in the country with tremendous terrorist attacks in 2014,” Mr Khan said.
“Their investment projects are development projects in Pakistan which they will continue despite these challenges,” he said.
Pakistan is preparing to host the SCO summit in capital Islamabad, which was roiled by protests and clashes over the weekend between police and supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan. High-level Chinese representation and the first visit by an Indian foreign minister in a decade are expected at the summit next week, which authorities have vowed to secure.
Japanese government caught out in ‘embarrassing’ photo editing row
A group photo of Japan’s cabinet ministers was edited, the government admitted after media reports revealed discrepancies.
The photo, posted online by the new prime minister Shigeru Ishiba’s office, underwent minor edits, Japan’s cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi confirmed on Monday.
The edits included tucking in the white shirts of Mr Ishiba and defence minister Gen Nakatani, which were visible in the original media photos. “Minor editing was made,” Mr Hayashi told reporters, trying to deflect criticism of the photo manipulation.
Earlier, photos captured by local media revealed what seemed to be an untidy glimpse of white shirts beneath the suits worn by Mr Ishiba and his defence minister, Mr Nakatani, while the version on the government website had them neatly tucked in.
But not before online mockery of the “sloppy” original cabinet photo had taken over social media.
“This is more hideous than a group picture of some kind of a seniors’ club during a trip to a hot spring. It’s utterly embarrassing,” one user wrote on X, according to the BBC.
The Japan Times reported that the official photo also appeared to have repositioned several ministers to enhance their prominence.
Mr Hayashi explained that such minor edits have been common for official photos. “Group photos taken at official events at the Prime Minister’s Office will remain as a memento for the people for many years to come, which is why minor edits have been done in the past, and the practice is not exclusive to this photo,” Mr Hayashi said.
The photograph was taken after Japan’s new cabinet’s first meeting last week. A few days earlier, Mr Ishiba, 67, replaced Fumio Kishida as the leader of the ruling party and was officially appointed prime minister on Tuesday.
Mr Ishiba’s newly appointed cabinet has also faced criticism for gender inequality, with only two women in relatively minor positions in the 19-member team, a drop from five women in the previous cabinet.
Mr Ishiba has also announced plans for a snap election on 27 October.
In March, a photo of Kate Middleton and her three children, George, Charlotte, and Louis, sparked controversy.
The picture was released but then pulled by news agencies after errors in the image were spotted. Initially, the palace refused to comment, but later the Princess of Wales apologised as she admitted to editing what was the first official picture of her since she underwent abdominal surgery in January.
“Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing,” she said in a statement. “I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused.”