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Ratcliffe on Soar, United Kingdom — Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station has dominated the landscape of the English East Midlands for nearly 60 years, looming over the small town of the same name and a landmark on the M1 motorway bisecting Derby and Nottingham.   At the mainline railway station serving the nearby East Midlands Airport, its giant cooling towers rise up seemingly within touching distance of the track and platform.   But at the end of this month, the site in central England will close its doors, signaling the end to polluting coal-powered electricity in the UK, in a landmark first for any G7 nation.    "It'll seem very strange because it has always been there," said David Reynolds, a 74-year-old retiree who saw the site being built as a child before it began operations in 1967.   "When I was younger you could go down certain parts and you saw nothing but coal pits," he told AFP.    Energy transition  Coal has played a vital part in British economic history, powering the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries that made the country a global superpower, and creating London's infamous choking smog.   Even into the 1980s, it still represented 70% of the country's electricity mix before its share declined in the 1990s.    In the last decade the fall has been even sharper, slumping to 38% in 2013, 5.0% in 2018 then just 1.0% last year.     In 2015, the then Conservative government said that it intended to shut all coal-fired power stations by 2025 to reduce carbon emissions.   Jess Ralston, head of energy at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit think-tank, said the UK's 2030 clean-energy target was "very ambitious."   But she added: "It sends a very strong message that the UK is taking climate change as a matter of great importance and also that this is only the first step."   By last year, natural gas represented a third of the UK's electricity production, while a quarter came from wind power and 13 percent from nuclear power, according to electricity operator National Grid ESO.   "The UK managed to phase coal out so quickly largely through a combination of economics and then regulations," Ralston said.    "So larger power plants like coal plants had regulations put on them because of all the sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxides, all the emissions coming from the plant and that meant that it was no longer economically attractive to invest in those sorts of plants."   The new Labour government launched its flagship green energy plan after its election win in July, with the creation of a publicly owned body to invest in offshore wind, tidal power and nuclear power.   The aim is to make Britain a superpower once more, this time in "clean energy."   As such, Ratcliffe-on-Soar's closure on September 30 is a symbolic step in the UK's ambition to decarbonize electricity by 2030, and become carbon neutral by 2050.    It will make the country the first in the G7 of rich nations to do away entirely with coal power electricity.   Italy plans to do so by next year, France in 2027, Canada in 2030 and Germany in 2038. Japan and the United States have no set dates.    - 'End of an era' -  In recent years, Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station, which had the potential to power two million homes, has been used only when big spikes in electricity use were expected, such as during a cold snap in 2022 or the 2023 heatwave.   Its last delivery of 1,650 tons of coal at the start of this summer barely supplied 500,000 homes for eight hours.     "It's like the end of a era," said Becky, 25, serving £4 pints behind the bar of the Red Lion pub in nearby Kegworth.   Her father works at the power station and will be out of a job. September 30 is likely to stir up strong emotions for him and the other 350 remaining employees.    "It's their life," she said.   Nothing remains of the world's first coal-fired power station, which was built by Thomas Edison in central London in 1882, three years after his invention of the electric light bulb.   The same fate is slated for Ratcliffe-on-Soar: the site's German owner, Uniper, said it will be completely dismantled "by the end of the decade."   In its place will be a new development — a "carbon-free technology and energy hub", the company said.

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brussels — Europe's second-top court largely confirmed on Wednesday an EU antitrust fine imposed on U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm, revising it down slightly to $265.5 million from an initial $2.7 million. The European Commission imposed the fine in 2019, saying that Qualcomm sold its chipsets below cost between 2009 and 2011, in a practice known as predatory pricing, to thwart British phone software maker Icera, which is now part of Nvidia Corp. Qualcomm had argued that the 3G baseband chipsets singled out in the case accounted for just 0.7% of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) market and so it was not possible for it to exclude rivals from the chipset market. The Court made "a detailed examination of all the pleas put forward by Qualcomm, rejecting them all in their entirety, with the exception of a plea concerning the calculation of the amount of the fine, which it finds to be well founded in part," the Luxembourg-based General Court said. Qualcomm can appeal on points of law to the EU Court of Justice, Europe's highest. The chipmaker did not immediately reply to an emailed Reuters request for comment. The company convinced the same court two years ago to throw out a $1.1 billion antitrust fine handed down in 2018 for paying billions of dollars to Apple from 2011 to 2016 to use only its chips in all its iPhones and iPads in order to block out rivals such as Intel Corp. The EU watchdog subsequently declined to appeal the judgment.

BRUSSELS — Alphabet unit Google won its challenge on Wednesday against a $1.66 billion antitrust fine imposed five years ago for hindering rivals in online search advertising, a week after it lost a much bigger case.  The European Commission, in its 2019 decision, said Google had abused its dominance to prevent websites from using brokers other than its AdSense platform that provided search adverts. The practices it said were illegal took place from 2006 to 2016. The Luxembourg-based General Court mostly agreed with the European Union competition enforcer's assessments of the case, but annulled the fine. "The court [...] upheld most of the commission's assessments, but annulled the decision imposing a fine of almost 1.5 billion euros [$1.66 billion] on Google, on the grounds in particular that it had failed to take into account all the relevant circumstances in its assessment of the duration of the contractual clauses that it had found to be unfair," the judges said. The AdSense fine, one of a trio of fines that have cost Google a total of some $9 billion, was triggered by a complaint from Microsoft in 2010. Google has said it changed the targeted contracts in 2016 before the Commission's decision. The company last week lost its final fight against a $2.6 billion fine levied for using its price comparison shopping service to gain an unfair advantage over smaller European rivals.

SPRING VALLEY, Sri Lanka — Whoever Sri Lanka's next president is, Muthuthevarkittan Manohari isn't expecting much to change in her daily struggle to feed the four children and elderly mother with whom she lives in a dilapidated room in a tea plantation. Both leading candidates in Saturday's presidential election are promising to give land to the country's hundreds of thousands of plantation workers, but Manohari says she's heard it all before. Sri Lanka's plantation workers are a long-marginalized group who frequently live in dire poverty, but they can swing elections by voting as a bloc. Mahohari and her family are descended from Indian indentured laborers who were brought in by the British during colonial rule to work on plantations that grew first coffee, and later tea and rubber. Those crops are still Sri Lanka's leading foreign exchange earners. For 200 years, the community has lived on the margins of Sri Lankan society. Soon after the country became independent in 1948, the new government stripped them of citizenship and voting rights. Around 400,000 people were deported to India under an agreement with Delhi, separating many families. The community fought for its rights, winning in stages until achieving full recognition as citizens in 2003. There are around 1.5 million descendants of plantation workers living in Sri Lanka today, including about 3.5% of the electorate, and some 470,000 people still live on plantations. The plantation community has the highest levels of poverty, malnutrition, anemia among women and alcoholism in the country, and some of the lowest levels of education. They're an important voting bloc, turned out by unions that double as political parties that ally with the country's major parties. Despite speaking the Tamil language, they’re treated as a distinct group from the island’s indigenous Tamils, who live mostly in the north and east. Still, they suffered during the 26-year civil war between government forces and Tamil Tiger separatists. Plantation workers and their descendants faced mob violence, arrests and imprisonment because of their ethnicity. Most plantation workers live in crowded dwellings called “line houses,” owned by plantation companies. Tomoya Obokata, a U.N. special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, said after a visit in 2022 that five to ten people often share a single 3.05-by-3.6 meter room, often without windows, a proper kitchen, running water or electricity. Several families frequently share a single basic latrine. There are no proper medical facilities in the plantations, and the sick are attended to by so-called estate medical assistants who do not have medical degrees. “These substandard living conditions, combined with the harsh working conditions, represent clear indicators of forced labor and may also amount to serfdom in some instances,” Obokata wrote in a report to the U.N. high commissioner for human rights. The government has made some efforts to improve conditions for the planation workers, but years of fiscal crisis and the resistance of powerful plantation companies have blunted progress. Access to education has improved, and a small group of entrepreneurs, professionals and academics descended from planation workers has emerged. This year, the government negotiated a raise in the minimum daily wage for a plantation worker to $4.50 per day, plus an additional dollar if a worker picks more than 22 kilos in a day. Workers say this target is almost impossible to achieve, in part because tea bushes are often neglected and grow sparsely. The government has built better houses for some families and the Indian government is helping to build more, said Periyasamy Muthulingam, executive director of Sri Lanka's Institute of Social Development, which works on plantation worker rights. But many promises have gone unfulfilled. “All political parties have promised to build better houses during elections but they don’t implement it when they are in power,” Muthulingam said. Muthulingam says more than 90% of the plantation community is landless because they have been left out of the government's land distribution programs. In this election, sitting President Ranil Wickremesinghe, standing as an independent candidate, has promised to give the line houses and the land they stand on to the people who live in them, and help develop them into villages. The main opposition candidate, Sajith Premadasa, has promised to break up the plantations and distribute the land to the workers as small holdings. Both proposals will face resistance from the plantation companies. Manohari says she's not holding out hope. She's more concerned with what's going to happen to her 16-year-old son after he was forced to drop out of school due to lack of funds. “The union leaders come every time promising us houses and land and I would like to have them," she said. "But they never happen as promised.”

TOKYO/TAIPEI — A Chinese aircraft carrier entered Japan's contiguous waters for the first time on Wednesday, Japan's defense ministry said, the latest in a string of military maneuvers that has ratcheted up tensions between the neighbors. The carrier, accompanied by two destroyers, sailed between Japan's southern Yonaguni and Iriomote islands, entering an area that extends up to 24 nautical miles from its coastline where Japan can exert some controls as defined by the United Nations. Japan's Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshi Moriya said Tokyo had conveyed its "serious concerns" to Beijing, describing the incident as "utterly unacceptable from the perspective of the security environment of Japan and the region." "We will continue to closely monitor Chinese naval vessels' activities in the waters around our country and will take all possible measures to gather information and conduct vigilance and surveillance," Moriya told a news conference. Japan last month lodged a protest with China after one of its naval survey vessels entered Japanese waters, shortly after an airspace breach. In July, a Japanese navy destroyer made a rare entry into China's territorial waters near Taiwan, according to the Japanese media. An uptick in Chinese military activity near Japan and around Taiwan in recent years has stoked concerns in Tokyo. Japan has responded with a defense buildup it says aims to deter China from using military force to push its territorial claims in the region. Earlier on Wednesday, Taiwan's defense ministry said it had spotted the same Chinese aircraft carrier group sailing through waters off its east coast in the direction of Yonaguni, Japan's southernmost island, which is about 110 km east of Taiwan. China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its territory, has been staging regular exercises around the island for five years to pressure it to accept Beijing's claim of sovereignty, despite Taipei's strong objections. The ministry said the Chinese ships, led by Liaoning, the oldest of China's three aircraft carriers, were spotted in the early hours of the morning on Wednesday sailing through waters to the northeast of Taiwan. Taiwan tracked the ships and sent its forces to monitor, it said. China's defense ministry did not answer calls seeking comment.

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LONDON — Human rights groups have urged Britain not to copy Italy’s approach in trying to reduce the number of migrants arriving on its shores. Their comments come after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer traveled to Rome this week to learn more about the country’s success in tackling irregular migration across the Mediterranean Sea. There has been a surge of migrants arriving in small boats from France on Britain’s southern shores. More than 800 people arrived on Saturday, pushing the total for the year so far to more than 22,000. Eight migrants drowned that same day after their inflatable dinghy hit rocks off the French coastline. The high number of migrant arrivals has become a major political issue that successive governments have struggled to solve. Starmer traveled to Italy on Monday for talks with his counterpart, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, to learn more about her country’s recent success in tackling migration across the Mediterranean Sea from north Africa. “You've made remarkable progress working with countries along migration routes as equals, to address the drivers of migration at [the] source and to tackle the gangs. As a result, irregular arrivals to Italy by sea are down 60% since 2022. So, I am pleased that we are deepening our cooperation here,” Starmer told Meloni at a press conference after their meeting. Italy has struck deals with Libya and Tunisia worth millions of dollars to keep migrants from leaving their shores, through tougher policing on land and through the interception of boats offshore. Human rights groups accuse those countries of committing widespread abuses against migrants. Rome also signed an agreement with Albania last year to send up to 36,000 asylum-seekers annually to the Balkan country for processing. “The model that the Italian Government has conceived of is based on centers to process asylum applications for those immigrants who disembark within Italian or EU jurisdiction, in a foreign country,” Meloni told reporters in Rome. “That is a model that was never experimented with before. If it works — as I hope it will — everybody can understand that this can become a new way to deal with migration flow,” she added. Questions remain over the legality of Italy’s approach, said Sacha Deshmukh, CEO of the human rights group Amnesty International UK. “Keir Starmer needs to be very careful about what lessons he thinks he should learn from Italy’s experience. Amnesty International has some deep concerns as to whether Italy is being compliant with its international legal obligations and its human rights obligations in elements of its approach, both in terms of its own practice, for example, of its migrant camps, but also in terms of Italy's deal that it struck with Albania,” Deshmukh told VOA. “What we would hope for would be countries like the UK to have a functioning asylum system, one that considered claims properly but swiftly, and dealt humanely with people who are fleeing terrible situations in many cases,” he added. There are also doubts about whether Britain could replicate Italy’s agreement with Albania, according to Raphael Bossong, a migration expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “To think that this can be reproduced in other settings where you don't have these particular things coming together, and to expect that there are many other countries lining up? Albania already officially said ‘no’ to various other countries who tried to follow suit. Never say never, but I think it's a highly doubtful proposition,” Bossong told VOA. Britain is giving France nearly $600 million over three years to boost the policing of French shores. Despite increased patrols along the French coast, the number of migrants who have made the journey so far this year is higher than at the same point in 2023. Prime Minister Starmer said his focus would be on returning failed asylum-seekers to their countries of origin and on better intelligence and policing to break up the smuggling gangs.

BEIJING — Malaysia's king Sultan Ibrahim will visit China starting Thursday, the first by a Malaysian monarch in a decade, where he will meet President Xi Jinping and likely seek support for projects boosting connectivity to neighboring Singapore. The ceremonial ruler from the southern state of Johor, will be accompanied by Malaysia's transport and housing ministers, a statement from the country's foreign ministry said on Wednesday. "His Majesty's visit provides an excellent opportunity for both sides to reaffirm a shared commitment in ensuring that Malaysia-China relations continue to remain forward-looking, dynamic and prosperous," Malaysia's foreign ministry said. Sultan Ibrahim was installed as the country's 17th king in January, under a unique system of monarchy where the heads of Malaysia's nine royal families take turns to sit on the throne every five years and are supposed to stay above politics. But the 65-year-old has indicated he intends to weigh in on the country's political issues and proposed in a media interview before his ascension that Malaysia's state oil firm Petronas and the country's anti-corruption agency report directly to the king. The last time a Malaysian king visited China was in 2014. Ibrahim will also meet China's second-ranking official, Premier Li Qiang, Malaysia's foreign ministry said. Li visited Kuala Lumpur in June and backed Malaysian plans to develop its connectivity through a $10-billion rail link to other China-backed railway projects in Laos and Thailand. Li said that the initiative would realize plans for a proposed Pan-Asia railway running from Kunming in China to Singapore, presumably through Johor, which is where the outspoken Sultan wants to develop a rail link, too. Ibrahim has spoken of plans to revive a stalled high-speed rail project between Malaysia and Singapore, with a border crossing in Forest City, a $100-billion joint venture between China's Country Garden 2007. HK and a private Malaysian company backed by the Sultan. Data compiled by the American Enterprise Institute shows the embattled Chinese developer had invested just $110 million out of the total $26 billion Chinese firms have directed to Malaysia since 2010, the bulk of which was in its metals, energy and transport sectors. The two countries' commercial ties came under the spotlight earlier this month when Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said China had protest notes to stop Malaysia's oil exploration activities in the South China Sea, but stressed the two sides continued to communicate over the issue. China claims almost the entire South China Sea as its territory based on historic maps, including parts of the exclusive economic zones of Malaysia the Philippines, Brunei, Taiwan and Vietnam. An international arbitration tribunal in 2016 said China's claim had no basis under international law, a ruling Beijing does not recognize.

WASHINGTON — Tupperware Brands and some of its subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday, the food container firm said in a statement. The company, known for its trademark food storage containers, has been hit by dwindling sales in recent years. Last year the New York Stock Exchange-listed firm warned of "substantial doubt" about its ability to keep operating in light of its poor financial position. "Over the last several years, the company's financial position has been severely impacted by the challenging macroeconomic environment," president and CEO Laurie Ann Goldman said in a statement announcing the bankruptcy filing. "As a result, we explored numerous strategic options and determined this is the best path forward," added Goldman. The company said it would seek court approval for a sale process for the business to protect its brand and "further advance Tupperware's transformation into a digital-first, technology-led company." The Orlando, Florida-based firm said it would also seek approval to continue operating during bankruptcy proceedings and would continue to pay its employees and suppliers. "We plan to continue serving our valued customers with the high-quality products they love and trust throughout this process," Goldman said. The firm's shares were trading at $0.5099 Monday, well down from $2.55 in December last year. Tupperware said it had implemented a strategic plan to modernize its operations and drive efficiencies to ignite growth following the appointment of a new management team last year. "The company has made significant progress and intends to continue this important transformation work." In its filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, Tupperware listed assets of between $500 million and $1 billion and liabilities of between $1 billion and $10 billion. The filing also said it had between 50,000 and 100,000 creditors. Tupperware, whose name became synonymous with its airtight plastic containers, in recent years lost popularity with consumers and an initiative to gain distribution through big-box chain store Target failed to reverse its fortunes. The company's roots date to 1946, when chemist Earl Tupper "had a spark of inspiration while creating molds at a plastics factory shortly after the Great Depression," according to Tupperware's website. "If he could design an airtight seal for plastic storage containers, like those on a paint can, he could help war-weary families save money on costly food waste." Over time, Tupper's hermetically sealed plastic containers also became associated with "Tupperware Parties," where friends would gather with food and drink as a company representative demonstrated the items.

WASHINGTON/TOKYO — The U.S. national security panel reviewing Nippon Steel's $14.9 billion bid for U.S. Steel let the companies refile their application for approval of the deal, a person familiar with the matter said, delaying a decision on the politically sensitive merger until after the Nov. 5 presidential election. The move offers a ray of hope for the companies, whose proposed tie-up appeared set to be blocked when the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) alleged on Aug. 31 the transaction posed a risk to national security by threatening the steel supply chain for critical U.S. industries. CFIUS needs more time to understand the deal's impact on national security and engage with the parties, the person said on Tuesday. Refiling sets a new 90-day clock to review the proposed tie-up and make a decision. The review was expected to take close to the full 90 days, another person familiar with the matter said. Nippon Steel declined to comment. CFIUS and U.S. Steel did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters. "Extending the timeline takes pressure off the parties and, importantly, pushes the decision past the election in November," said Nick Klein, a CFIUS lawyer with DLA Piper. The deal has become a political hot potato. This month, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, said at a rally in Pennsylvania, the swing state where U.S. Steel is headquartered, that she wants U.S. Steel to remain "American owned and operated," echoing a view held by President Joe Biden. The White House reiterated that position on Tuesday. Harris' Republican rival Donald Trump has pledged to block the deal if elected. Both candidates have sought to woo union votes. Postponing the decision to after the U.S. elections will “dial down” the political temperature but does not guarantee approval, said David Boling, a former U.S. trade official who is now an analyst at Eurasia Group. "Regardless of the CFIUS review, Nippon Steel still must reach an agreement with the United Steelworkers," Boling said. "Without that, it's very hard to see this deal happening." The United Steelworkers Union, which vehemently opposes the deal, said on Tuesday "nothing has changed regarding the risks that Nippon's acquisition would pose to national security or the critical supply chain concerns that have already been identified." The deal is being closely watched in Japan, a close U.S. ally and its biggest foreign investor. "Further strengthening economic relations, including expanding mutual investment between Japan and the U.S., are essential for both countries," Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshi Moriya told reporters on Wednesday. Nippon Steel shares were up 1.1% in afternoon trading in Tokyo. U.S. Steel shares closed down 0.4% on Tuesday. CFIUS is concerned Nippon Steel's merger could hurt the supply of steel needed for critical transportation, construction and agriculture projects, it said in its August letter to the companies, exclusively obtained by Reuters. It also cited a global glut of cheap Chinese steel, and said that under Nippon, a Japanese company, U.S. Steel would be less likely to seek tariffs on foreign steel importers. It added that decisions by Nippon could "lead to a reduction in domestic steel production capacity." In a 100-page response letter to CFIUS, also exclusively obtained by Reuters, Nippon Steel said it will invest billions of dollars in U.S. Steel facilities that otherwise would have been idled, "indisputably" allowing it to "maintain and potentially increase domestic steelmaking capacity in the United States." The company also reaffirmed a promise not to transfer any U.S. Steel production capacity or jobs outside the U.S. and would not interfere in any of U.S. Steel's decisions on trade matters, including decisions to pursue trade measures under U.S. law against unfair trade practices. The deal, Nippon added, would "create a stronger global competitor to China grounded in the close relationship between the United States and Japan." Robust CFIUS reviews take 90 days but it is common for companies to withdraw their filings and resubmit them to give them more time to address the panel's concerns. According to CFIUS's 2023 annual report, 18% of companies seeking deal approval refiled their applications last year. Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel filed for the review in March, and CFIUS allowed them to refile in June, starting a second 90-day clock that runs out on Sept. 23, Reuters reported on Friday. In December, CFIUS could approve the deal, possibly with measures to address national security concerns, recommend that the president block it, or extend the timetable again.

Germany has expanded border controls on more of its land crossings following two recent knife attacks allegedly committed by migrants. The measure comes as the country sees far-right politicians make substantial gains in regional elections. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from Ricardo Marquina on voter sentiment ahead of key elections on Sept. 22 in northeastern Germany's Brandenburg state.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

BEIJING — China's decision to raise the retirement age will give a brief boost to its strained pension system but risks further discouraging weary young workers and cannot arrest long-term demographic decline, experts say. The ruling Communist Party last week announced a gradual increase in the statutory retirement age starting next year — rising from 60 to 63 for men, from 55 to 58 for white-collar women workers, and from 50 to 55 for blue-collar female employees. The government said the changes would bring a system that has changed little since the 1950s into line with decades of improvements in public health, life expectancy and education, and help society adapt to a shrinking population and workforce. Analysts told AFP that growing concerns over the sustainability of the nationwide pension system pushed Beijing to act. "The pension system is under a lot of strain," said Zhao Litao, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore's East Asian Institute. "It is... clear to the leadership that the stakes for postponing the reform (were) getting increasingly high," he said. China's retirement age had been among the youngest in the world, and officials have discussed raising it for more than a decade. Opposition from lower-wage workers, a slowing economy and high youth unemployment had thwarted change, experts said. Officials could wait no longer, Zhao said, partly because "the pace of population-aging and population-decline is faster than previously anticipated." Pension tension China's sprawling pension system has three pillars: basic state pensions, mandatory plans for company employees, and voluntary plans for private personal schemes. But the state-led scheme lacks coordination at a national level, while the latter two pillars remain underdeveloped, critics say. A top government think tank said in a 2019 report that one main state pension fund may dry up by 2035 as the workforce shrinks. Around a third of Chinese provinces already run pension deficits, and local finances have come under more stress since the COVID-19 pandemic. Xiujian Peng, a senior research fellow at Australia's Victoria University, said the higher retirement age would ease pressure on the system "in the short and medium term." Under the new rules, the age will rise incrementally over 15 years from 2025, so younger people will end up working for longer than those currently close to retiring. Workers will eventually need to make a minimum of 20 years of contributions to draw their basic pension, up from the current 15 years. "After the government increases the retirement age, this decline (in the number of workers) will become... slower," Peng told AFP. But, she added, "the labor force is still declining — this is a (longer-term) trend." Working harder, longer But economic necessity has not necessarily bred widespread acceptance. Many posts on Chinese social media have pointed to a perceived lack of transparency over how workers born from the 1990s onwards would be impacted. Those generations already face widespread joblessness or an intense work culture that leaves many feeling overwhelmed or burnt out. "For many Chinese individuals, these changes in retirement policies feel like a reneged commitment of social welfare provision — kicking the problem down an already murky road," Yun Zhou, a sociologist at the University of Michigan, told AFP. "As gender- and age-based discriminations remain deeply entrenched in the Chinese labor market, it remains to be seen to what extent workers... can enjoy effective labor rights protection," she said. Dali Yang, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, said the government faced a "loss of credibility" on pensions. Recent economic challenges have already prompted many Chinese to prioritize short-term cash over saving for retirement, Yang told AFP. Demography is destiny Chinese state media has said a rise in the retirement age was "inevitable" given the country's development. The current age was set decades ago when scarcity and poverty were common, before market reforms brought rapid gains in living standards. Life expectancy rose from around 50 in the early 1960s to 79 by 2022, according to World Bank data. But development coincided with families having fewer children, hastened by decades of birth restrictions under the former one-child policy. Now, China is stuck with a growing senior population and fewer young people to fill the gap. Experts said only a suite of bold policies — from creating high-quality jobs to raising productivity, expanding public healthcare, fostering better work-life balance and raising the social position of women — could help Beijing adapt to its alarming demographic destiny. Several told AFP that last week's announcement was unlikely to be the last of its kind. "There is still considerable room to further increase the retirement age," Zhao, of NUS, said. But, he added, "if (younger people) have to work longer and contribute more... they want to get answers for questions like job security and quality, and the level of future pension benefits."

PARIS — Almost 200 environmental activists were murdered last year, with the toll especially heavy in South America, according to rights group Global Witness. Here are the stories of three campaigners who have faced violence and repression trying to stop wildcat gold mining in Ecuador, illegal shrimp farming in Indonesia and a controversial oil project in Uganda. 'We have a responsibility' Daniel Frits Maurits Tangkilisan has been assaulted, arrested and prosecuted for his activism to protect a national park, but he is unbowed. "Why be afraid? Why back down? Your home should be defended," the 51-year-old told AFP in Jakarta, where he is awaiting a new ruling in legal proceedings against him. Born and raised in the Indonesian capital, he "fell in love at first sight" with the remote Karimunjawa Islands National Park off Java, on his first visit in 2011. He later settled there. Daniel began to notice the growing impact of illegal shrimp farms, which began to proliferate around 2017. Run-off from the farms killed seaweed and forced marine life to move further from shore, impacting the livelihoods of fishing communities, he said. In 2022, Daniel helped start the #SaveKarimunjawa movement, which pushed for a local zoning law banning the shrimp farms. But his activism made him a target — he was threatened, assaulted and put in a chokehold, and fellow environmentalists received death threats. He was arrested in December 2023 over allegations of hate speech stemming from a Facebook post criticizing illegal shrimp farming. A local court sentenced him in April to seven months behind bars. The conviction was overturned on appeal but prosecutors took the case to the Supreme Court, insisting he should not be recognized as an environmental activist. "This is a price that must be paid," Daniel said of the threats and legal battles. And his activism has had some success, with recent government inspections forcing many illegal operations to shut. "We have a responsibility to our children, grandchildren and future generations," he said. "If you give up... you say goodbye to your future." 'Hell on Earth' Abdulaziz Bweete grew up in Kawempe, a shanty town in the Ugandan capital Kampala, and saw first-hand the devastating impact of environmental change in poorer communities. "I have grown up seeing floods around but I had not interested myself in what is causing floods," he told AFP. It took two things to galvanize the 26-year-old — going to university, and seeing the Uganda government's response to climate protests. Bweete was among a group of student organizers who marched on parliament in July with a petition opposing a multi-billion-dollar oil project that campaigners say will badly affect a delicate environment. He and several other young activists were arrested, charged with illegal assembly, and held in Kampala's maximum-security Luzira prison until August. He told AFP he and fellow protesters were beaten by police. The activist was previously imprisoned and arrested following rallies in the capital. "All I can say is prison is a hell on Earth," he said. "We don't have freedom of protest in this country," he said, glancing around nervously in Kyambogo University's lush campus setting. Demonstrations in Uganda, ruled with an iron fist by President Yoweri Museveni for four decades, are often met with a heavy-handed police response. Bweete said politics and climate change go hand in hand. "If we have good leaders, we can have good climate policies. This is a long struggle, but we are determined to win," he insisted. 'Defend life' Alex Lucitante, a leader of the Cofan Indigenous people on the border between Ecuador and Colombia, won a historic legal victory in 2018 over mining companies in the Amazon, striking out 52 gold mine concessions. It helped win him the Goldman Environmental Prize — the Nobel of environmental defenders — two years ago. But despite setting up a system of patrols and even drone surveillance, it has not stopped gold prospectors violating their territory. "The destruction is still going on all around our land, and the threat is stronger," he told AFP, telling of illegal mining, deforestation and threats from armed groups. "Today, the situation is particularly critical in our territories," said Lucitante. "It all happens in plain sight and with the knowledge of the authorities," which are "sometimes linked to illegal actors operating in the area," he added. The environmentalist has urged global leaders to listen to the "voice of Indigenous communities" and hear their plea to "defend life."