The WHO has refused to allow Taiwan to send observers to participate in its plenary meeting.

I think western powers should bite the bullet and start recognizing Taiwan as "Taiwan". There could, by chance, be a more convenient moment in the future, but it won't get easier.

*Academics suspect papers with grabby conclusions are waved through more easily by [peer] reviewers.*

In Arnhem Land, in northern Australia, indigenous rangers actively manage fires.

This sort of management can reduce destructive fires and protect species. However, whether it will succeed in storing carbon long-term depends on how bad global heating gets. It is good to pay rangers to do it, but we should not take for granted it will reduce net emissions.

Indeed, I think we should not plan for curbing global heating in terms of "net emissions" and "offsets". Rather, we should make plans to reduce emissions; and we should also make plans to protect various sorts of terrain.

*Mexico Wants to Import Non-GMO Corn and US Farmers Say They Can Deliver It.*

However, Mexicans can also grow it, and that might enable a lot of Mexicans to get out of the poverty that NAFTA pushed them into.

Belarus forced down an airliner crossing its airspace in order to arrest a passenger — Roman Protasevich, a Belarusiano protest organizer who had gone into exile.

Lukashenko's toadies say they will kill him.

How to push back? Other countries could close their airspace to flights going to or from Belarus airspace, until Lukashenko frees Protasevich and commits not to do this again.

In spirit, this resembles what the UK did to David Miranda when he transited through the UK with a copy of Snowden material. However, that did not involve forcing down an airliner.