Over 176,000 people attended Taiwan’s 21st annual Pride march in the capital city of Taipei, making it the world’s largest Asian LGBTQ+ Pride event in history. The event celebrated two recent LGBTQ+ rights victories in the country: the legalization of gay adoption and the recognition of Taiwanese same-sex spouses who were married in foreign countries.
Located approximately 23.5 nautical miles offshore Virginia Beach, the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project will provide about 2,600 megawatts of clean, reliable offshore wind energy, capable of powering over 900,000 homes, and provide about 900 jobs each year during the construction phase and an estimated 1,100 annual jobs during the operations phase.
Bangladesh has become the first country globally to be validated for elimination of visceral leishmaniasis, a life-threatening neglected tropical disease. The country achieved the elimination target of less than one case per 10,000 population at the sub-district level in 2017 and has sustained it to date.
North Korea introduced a mass measles-rubella immunization program in November 2019. Through this mass immunization activity, achieving more than 99.8% coverage in almost 6 million target population, the country has rapidly built substantial population immunity for rubella.
Biden’s plans to cancel up to $400 billion in student debt for tens of millions of Americans were foiled by the Supreme Court. Still, Biden has managed to erase $127 billion in student debt so far for more than 3.5 million borrowers — more than any other president in history.
The renaming ceremony was the ninth — and final — among Army installations this year, capping a controversial three-year effort initiated by top Pentagon officials in 2020 amid a nationwide racial reckoning following the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
A decade ago, New Caledonia established its entire 502,000-square-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) as a marine protected area. However, only 2.4% of the park prohibited fishing, drilling and mining. Now, the New Caledonian government has designated an additional 7.6% of its EEZ to be highly protected.
The Indonesian federal government has recognized 55,700 acres of ancestral forests on the northern tip of Sumatra for the first time. Indigenous communities in the region have welcomed the recognition, saying it will give them legal protection to manage their forests in a sustainable manner.
The new all-electric rail line, between the Indonesian cities of Jakarta and Bandung, cuts journey time from around 3 hours, down to just 45 minutes. There are plans to continue the line onwards, from Bandung city node, all the way to the eastern end of Java.
In just a span of five months since EO 21 was issued, the number of offshore wind energy service contracts awarded to qualified investors went from 38 to 78. The biggest growth in terms of gigawatts and allocation happened between August to October when the number of rose from 63 to 78 contracts with a total of 61.6 GW.
