News Headlines - 20 October 2020

▽Why the World Should Care About Language in Inner Mongolia - The Diplomat

On August 26 China passed a law to sideline teaching in the Mongolian language in the region of Inner Mongolia (also referred to as Southern Mongolia). This measure, which sparked immediate protests, will create irreparable losses not just for ethnic Mongolians, but also for many cultures around the world.
What is at stake here is not just the spoken language, but an 800-year-old script with a multicultural lineage that emanated from the golden era of the Silk Route.

▽Ex-justice minister sought help with deleting data, net PR agent claims | The Japan Times

A man engaged in internet-related reputation management has said that former Justice Minister Katsuyuki Kawai requested the deletion of personal computer data shortly after an alleged vote-buying scandal involving him and his wife, Anri, came to light last year.
According to a statement of confession made by the man, read out by prosecutors during a hearing Monday as part of the trial of Anri Kawai at Tokyo District Court, Katsuyuki Kawai, 57, a lawmaker in the House of Representatives, met with the man at the former minister’s residence in a dormitory for Diet members in Tokyo on Nov. 3 last year.
At the time, Katsuyuki Kawai told the man that staff at his office may have taken some data without authorization, and that he wanted to delete any data that could cause a problem if it was leaked, the man said in the statement.

▽Chile protest anniversary turns violent as churches burned, police fire tear gas - CNN

Tens of thousands of Chileans gathered in the central square of Santiago to mark the one-year anniversary of mass protests that left over 30 dead and thousands injured, with peaceful rallies on Sunday devolving by nightfall into riots and looting.
People gathered early in the day in demonstrations downtown and in cities throughout Chile that gained size and fervor through the evening. Many touted signs and rainbow colored homemade banners calling for a "yes" vote next Sunday in a referendum over whether to scrap the country's dictatorship-era Constitution, a key demand of the 2019 protests.

▽What Pandemic? Japanese Film Draws a Record Flood of Moviegoers - The New York Times

The movie, “Demon Slayer: Mugen Train,” based on a smash-hit Japanese comic book, had been hotly anticipated for months by both fans and an industry desperate to get moviegoers back in front of big screens amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The film outperformed all expectations, more than doubling the country’s record for the largest opening weekend, with over 3.4 million people shelling out nearly $44 million on tickets. In what may be a first for Japan, the movie had the biggest opening in the world last weekend - more than all other countries combined - despite having debuted only domestically.

▽NASA is launching a 4G mobile network on the moon

NASA has selected Nokia to build the first-ever 4G mobile network on Earth’s natural satellite, the Finnish telecommunications firm announced Monday.
The company’s U.S. industrial research arm, Bell Labs, is offering up its equipment to NASA to help build out the lunar network, with the aim of launching it in late 2022... Under its Artemis program, NASA plans to send astronauts to the moon by 2024 - for the first time in five decades - followed by a “sustainable” human presence by 2028.