‘Silence Breakers’ Time’s Person of Year

Time magazine has named “The Silence Breakers” who revealed the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and assault across various industries that triggered a national reckoning in the US as Person of the Year. “The Silence Breakers” designates a broad range of people, mostly women, from this year’s first public accusers of disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein to those who shared their stories of abuse using the hashtag #MeToo and its foreign language equivalents.

China to establish robot station on moon

 China is planning to establish a robot station on the moon to conduct bigger and more complicated experimental research on lunar geography. The station could slash the costs of returning rock samples to Earth, said Jiao Weixin, a Peking University space science professor. In support of the lunar landing programme, China will launch a carrier rocket with a 100-tonne-plus payload for the first time by about 2030.

Yemen rebels holding more than 40 media staff

Yemeni rebels who seized full control of the capital Sanaa over the past week have detained more than 40 media staff, press watchdogs has said  demanding their immediate release.

They include staff of Yemen Today — a television channel affiliated with former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, whom the Houthi rebels killed on Monday as he fled the capital following the collapse of their uneasy three-year alliance, the watchdogs said.

The rebels overran the television’s Sanaa offices  after attacking it with rocket-propelled grenades and wounding three guards, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said.

“This hostage-taking is typical of the climate of hostility in Yemen towards journalists, who are often targeted in this conflict,” said RSF’s Alexandra El Khazen.