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Photos shows Japan’s love of pandas as twins Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei return to China

By The Associated Press

SAITAMA, Japan (AP) — Japanese panda fans gathered Sunday for the final public viewing at Tokyo’s Ueno zoo before twins Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei return to China.

Their departure on Tuesday will leave Japan with no pandas for the first time in half a century, and the chances of getting a replacement are poor, with Tokyo’s relations with Beijing at their lowest point in years.

This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

Legal setbacks against a dam in the Amazon raise questions about Brazil’s reliance on hydropower

By The Associated Press
SAO PAULO (AP) — The Belo Monte hydropower plant in the Brazilian Amazon, one of the world’s largest, was designed to channel water from the Xingu River in a way that would avoid the need for large reservoirs, which could flood surrounding areas. After years of legal battles, authorities approved the project, located in the southwestern part of the state of Para, on one condition: it would not threaten ecosystems and communities of Indigenous people along stretches of the river. A decade after operations began in 2016, Brazilian courts have found that Belo Monte failed to meet that requirement and that its environmental and social impacts were far greater than forecast. “They were just confirming what we already knew,” said Ana Laíde Barbosa, a member of Movimento Xingu Vivo, an advocacy group that has been fighting the Belo Monte project since 2008.
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