From Evergrande's debt restructuring update to crocodiles in Hong Kong – Here are today's Headlines

To start off, we're looking into:

Evergrande’s debt restructuring

The backstory: If you haven't heard of it yet, the China Evergrande Group, aka Evergrande, is the second largest property developer in China. Or, at least, it was. In 2018, it was considered by some to be the most valuable real estate company in the world. But now, based on current estimates, the company is the most indebted property developer in the history of China, with more than US$270 billion in liabilities.

More recently: About 18 months ago, Evergrande announced that it couldn't pay back its investors. Everyone involved knew how bad this was. It's one thing when someone borrows a few dollars and never pays it back, but it's a disaster when US$270 billion disappears from an entire country. It was all hands on deck as the Chinese government, Evergrande and other companies looked at solutions to the problem.

Last month, the plan was for Evergrande to restructure its debt, which basically means it agreed to pay back the debts with new interest rates and payment plans. This is typically a win/win because the company doesn't close its doors, and the lender gets more money than in a bankruptcy. To get this restructuring to go ahead, Evergrande needs to get 75% approval from its creditors.

The development: A few days ago, the company announced it needed to extend the deadline for creditors to back the restructuring by three weeks because it hadn't received enough support. With the new deadline set for May 18, it'll be some time before we know whether or not Evergrande's restructuring plan will go through.

Brazil's Lula protects Indigenous land

The backstory: According to data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), development in the world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon, has reached a high over the last couple of years. While the rainforest spreads across nine countries, over half of it sits in Brazil.

Under the previous Brazilian President Bolsonaro’s administration, deforestation in the rainforest reached an all-time high, with a report from two years ago saying that the Amazon rainforest now releases more carbon emissions than it can actually absorb. In fact, according to Nature, under Bolsonaro’s presidency, deforestation increased by 129%.

The development: However, since January of this year, the country has gotten a new leader, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. And part of his campaign promise was to protect more rainforest land. Research has shown that Indigenous-controlled forests are the best-preserved in the Brazilian Amazon. So now, Lula has officially recognized nearly 1,200 square kilometers of Indigenous lands, most of which are in the Amazon.

What this means is, while the land still belongs to the government, the Indigenous community of the country can use it in their traditional ways. Non-Indigenous people will not be able to have any economic activity in the area, and the land is also protected from mining. On top of this, special authorizations are required for farming and logging on the land.

Climate change is coming for coffee

The backstory: Two types of coffee are the most popular – arabica and robusta. One of the two is probably in your coffee cup right now. These types of coffee plants are very climate-sensitive, depending on very specific ranges of temperature and rainfall. Arabica and robusta thrive between temps of about 18-22C and 22-28C, respectively. With global warming, the countries that produce most of the world's coffee, like Colombia, Brazil, Vietnam and Indonesia, are already seeing crop changes. Last year, research showed that coffee-producing land could be cut in half by 2050 because of climate change.

The development: The biggest coffee-exporting countries in Africa are looking toward other coffee varieties that can better deal with these climate shifts. This kind of coffee plant is called Liberica excelsa, and it seems like it can withstand climate-related problems, like an increase in pests, in ways that arabica and robusta plants can't. The plant is originally native to Central Africa but isn't really popular in other parts of the world. With coffee processing methods able to handle the skin and pulp of Liberica, it's already becoming a more popular variety, but it will be a while before it beats out arabica or robusta. In countries like Uganda, growers are working on cultivating high-quality Liberica to boost exports.

To end, we'll look into:

Is Twitter dead for real this time?

Last Friday, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was asked if he thought current CEO Elon Musk was the right leader for the company. He said, “No.”

He continued: “Nor do I think he acted right after realizing his timing was bad. Nor do I think the board should have forced the sale. It all went south.” He said all of this in response to users prompting him on Bluesky, which seems to be the Next Big Thing.

Since Musk’s Twitter acquisition, there’s been poorly planned layoffs, all of that blue-check verification chaos and outages hitting the platform on a semi-regular basis. And many users want a new platform to take its place.

Bluesky was announced back in 2019, originally funded by Twitter as a kind of research project. After officially starting in 2021, it broke off into its own company in 2022. It’s only now that the platform has started to work itself into the social media conversation.

Similar to Twitter, Bluesky users can make short text and photo posts and reply to other people’s posts. Eventually the app could become decentralized, meaning that users can build their own separate servers within it. There are also plans for it to be “open protocol,” making it easy to share Bluesky posts across different platforms.

“People have been saying for years that it would be great if users could own their data and their relationships; if we could have transparent algorithms and algorithmic choice; if there could be more accountability and user control over how social platforms are moderated,” Bluesky CEO Jay Graber published on his blog last month. “We’ve now designed and built a system that we think achieves the goals stated above.”

Bluesky is still invite-only and in its beta-testing phase. But it’s already pulled some big names. Yes, dril is using it. So are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes, Jack Dorsey himself, Chrissy Teigan, The New York Times and CNN. Last Thursday, the company said it had experienced the “biggest single-day jump in new users” ever, doubling its number of users from the day before and now having over 300,000 App Store downloads, according to data.ai. And everyone’s trying to get their Bluesky invitations – by asking around on Twitter, of course.

In other news ...

🔥Drone attacks at Crimea oil depot: On Friday, Russia fired over 20 missiles and two drones at Ukraine, killing at least 23 people. The next day, an oil depot in Russia-annexed Crimea was hit by two suspected Ukrainian drones, according to a Russia-appointed official. This resulted in a huge fire which has now been contained, and there were no reported casualties.

💣Truce unstable Sudan: The civil Sudan conflict is entering its third week as the two security forces involved continue to fight for power. The 72-hour ceasefire from last Thursday had been extended for another 72 hours, but now both sides are accusing each other of violating that agreement with fresh attacks.

📩Paraguay heads to the polls: Paraguay is one of Taiwan’s 13 official diplomatic allies. On Sunday, Paraguayans headed to the polls to vote for a new president, who could end up defining Paraguay’s future relationship with Taiwan. This is a tight race between Colorado Party candidate Santiago Pena, known for his economic outlook, and political veteran Efrain Alegre, leader of the broad center-left coalition and who has plans to pivot foreign policy. On Sunday evening, Pena was in the lead, with half the votes counted.

🤴Swearing allegiance to the crown: Next Saturday, King Charles III will be officially coronated in the UK. People in the UK have been invited to swear their allegiance to him during the ceremony, wherever they’re watching or listening from, which is the first time the public has been invited to participate in the ceremony. On top of that, the service will also involve representatives of faiths other than Christianity for the first time, a hymn sung in English, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Irish and the participation of female Anglican bishops.

👟Adidas faces lawsuit over Yeezy: Late last year, Adidas ended its Yeezy partnership with Kanye West following his antisemitic remarks. But now, investors are suing Adidas, saying that the brand knew about Ye’s problematic behavior patterns for a while before it broke off the partnership. This would mean that Adidas didn’t limit financial losses and take the precautionary measures that are expected.

🌸Japan’s tourism in full bloom: Japan has reported a very successful post-pandemic cherry blossom season, with the number of tourists visiting the country expected to meet April 2019 numbers. Meanwhile, China’s outbound tourist sector is not rebounding as quickly, as we reported last week, with travelers not super keen on going outside the mainland just yet.

🐤More Twitter changes: In Twitter news that’s sure to create more controversy, a new feature was just announced. On Saturday, Musk announced that Twitter would enable media platforms to charge users for every article link they click.

💧Water on Mars? China’s Mars rover, Zhurong, has been on the planet since 2021. In a new study, it looks like Zhruong might’ve actually found proof of liquid water in the planet’s lower-altitude dunes! This could point toward the possibility of life on Mars at some point.

💸Airbnb revenge: A Chinese couple purchased an Airbnb stay in South Korea without realizing it was in the suburbs and a bit far from where they really wanted to stay. So, they asked the owner to cancel their booking, but the owner wouldn’t do it. To get revenge, the couple left the gas and water running in the place for almost a month, racking up nearly US$900 in utility bills. We’re gonna bet the pair didn’t get a gleaming review from the property owner.

📦Mail mishap: A man in eastern China had ordered a golden, Lionel Messi-autographed football worth 99,800 yuan (US$14,400). Well, the mail company lost it. But, the crazy thing is he was awarded just 90 yuan (US$13) from the courier company after the mishap. He’s currently negotiating with the state-owned Express Mail Service for more compensation, and people are talking about it pretty heavily online.

🚫Dutch sperm donor banned from bank: Over the past few years, a 41-year-old Dutchman has been responsible for fathering between 500 to 600 children thanks to his uhhhh prolific sperm donation habits. On Friday, a Dutch court banned him from ever donating sperm again anywhere in the world because of accidental incest fears. He could be fined €100,000 (US$110,000) if he tries to do it again.

🐊Crocodile discovered in Hong Kong village: On Sunday, a two-meter-long female crocodile was discovered in a Hong Kong village after someone had apparently smuggled her in as a pet. Four hours after she was first spotted by a resident, conservation officers safely collected the animal, and it’s now being quarantined and inspected by veterinarians.

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Written and put together by Krystal Lai, Vanessa Wolosz, Caleb Moll and Christine Dulion