Hong Kong, a
former British colony, is struggling to retain its independent judicial Power under
the ‘one country, two systems’. That deal aims to guarantee that Hong Kong's economic and
political systems will not be changed for 50 years after the handover from
British colonial rule to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997.
The continuing protests in Hong Kong are sparked by a highly controversial proposal to allow
extraditions to mainland China, leading to further erosion of the city's
judicial independence. This change came after a murder that happened in Taiwan,
where a 19-year-old Hong Kong man allegedly killed his 20-year-old pregnant
girlfriend when they spent holidays together in February 2018. This man eventually returned
to Hong Kong last year.
Due to a lack of extradition treaty between Hong Kong and Taiwan, it is impossible for
Taiwan to ask Hong Kong to extradite the man to face justice. Therefore,
the Hong Kong governments sought to make changes that would have allowed for
them to consider requests from any country including mainland China, Taiwan and
Macau for extradition of criminal suspects.
However, Hong Kong's
protests are mainly against proposals to allow extradition to mainland China — the fear of exposing Hongkongers to unfair trials and violent treatment. Huge fires
were triggered and escalated during the protesting period because of clashes
between police and protesters. The police force had become more frequent and
more violent with tear gas, sticks, and even gunshot attacking people so that injuries
on both sides have happened. The clash also expanded to overseas as we can see there was a conflict at the University of Queensland during a protest against Hong Kong’s
controversial extradition law (The Guardian, 2019).
On the other hand, Brazil is home more than half the Amazon rainforest known as 'the lungs of the planet', the wildfires have also seen burning fire across the border in Bolivia,
not only devastating tropical forest and savannah but taking and threatening wildlife animals. According to CNN (2019), ‘so far, it has been the biggest
fire year since 2010.’
The reason for the wildfires is more complicated. Some claim this huge fire was resulted from the drought, some blame it was caused by human activities, including selective logging and surface wildfires. How bad is it? (BBC News, 2019) (also see CNN)
'The smoke is just here, it smells in the air, it is really thick...' said by an on-site reporter.
Animals in the Amazon fire are hard to survival in terms of huge burning scopes and extremely high
temperature.
Last week, I had a short stay in Manchester. Before my leaving, I saw the local
organized a campaign calling for more respects, love and actions for our
better living environments. As two of the logos have put it, ‘All THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE WILD AND FREE’, for this, 'NO ONE (SHOULD) LEFT BEHIND.'
 |
| (picture by Repost from @earthalliance, Pictame) |
在過去的幾個月裡，世界上兩場野火引起了人們的注意：6月份開始的香港反政府抗議活動，
以及8月初在巴西的熱帶雨林爆發亞馬遜火災。
香港是一個前英國殖民地，正在努力維持其一國兩制”下的司法獨立權力，這個制度保證了
香港的經濟和政治制度在1997年7月1日從英國殖民統治移交到中國主權後50年內不會改變。
香港持續的抗議活動是由一項備受爭議的提案引發的, 其允許犯罪人士引渡到中國大陸，導致
該市的司法獨立進一步受到侵蝕。這一變化是發生在台灣發生的一起謀殺事件之後. 據稱，19
歲的香港男子在他和女友共同在臺灣度假時殺死了他20歲的懷孕女友，而這男子去年回到了
香港。
由於香港與台灣之間缺乏引渡條約，因此台灣不可能要求香港引渡男子回臺面對司法審判。
因此，香港政府試圖進行改革,允許他們考慮來自包括中國大陸,台灣和澳門在內的任何國家的
請求，引渡犯罪嫌疑人。
無論如何，香港的抗議活動主要是反對允許引渡到中國大陸的提議 - 害怕將香港人暴露在不
公平審判和暴力待遇之下。在抗議期間，由於警察和抗議者之間的衝突，引發更大的怒火。
警察部隊變得更加頻繁，更加暴力，使用催淚瓦斯，棍棒，甚至用槍擊來攻擊人民，以致雙
方都有受傷。此次衝突也擴大到海外，在抗議香港有爭議的引渡法（“衛報”，2019年）期
間，昆士蘭大學親中學生和支持香港抗議的學生之間發生了衝突。
亞馬遜的野火也是如此！巴西擁有亞馬遜雨林的一半以上 -“我們地球的肺部”
–野火也在
越過邊境在玻利維亞燃燒著, 不僅是毀滅性的熱帶森林和熱帶草原，而且還在繼續威脅野生動
物。
據美國有線電視新聞網報導，到目前為止，這是自2010年以來最大的火災事件。
野火的原因比較複雜，有些人聲稱是乾旱，有些人指責導致亞馬遜火災的是人類活動，包括
選擇性伐木和點燒表面草原的野火。
有多糟糕？ （點進去看英國廣播公司的新聞）(還有CNN新聞)
"煙霧就在這裡，它可以從空氣中聞到，真的很厚......”
以巨大的燃燒範圍和極高的溫度來看,在亞馬遜大火裡的動物難以生存.(點看影片)
上週，我在曼徹斯特短暫停留，在我離開之前，我看到當地組織了一項活動，呼籲為我們用
更多的尊重，愛和行動打造更好的生活環境。正如其中幾個標語
所說的那樣，'所有生命中最
好的事情就是原野和自由', 對此訴求 '沒有人應該置身其外'。
