The Chinese university badminton team, facing strong pressure from the Chinese Tapei team, maintained their lead in the sport at the FISU Games on Monday, as they totaled four gold, three silver and one bronze medal in badminton.

China's female singles player Han Yue continued her fine form on ­Monday as she won the women's singles title with a stylish 2-0 victory over her opponent Kim Ga-ram of South Korea.

Coasting to the final by winning all the previous four matches by straight 2-0 wins, Han said she gave her all for the final.

"As it is the final of the tournament, I have to go all out. I prepared for a tough match but it turned out to be an easy one," the Tongji University student told reporters. 

"I feel honored to have participated in the University Games during my college years. This is a very valuable experience."

Speaking about the home advantages she enjoyed at the Chengdu Games, Han, 24, said she had to channel the pressure into impetus for the home game.

"Certainly, there is pressure since it's a home game. But the gold medal is important to me so I have to push myself more," Han said. 

"I'm thankful to coaches Li Xuerui and Wang Shixian for providing me with valuable advice during the matches."

Li is a former Olympic champion, while Wang has won several major international accolades for China. 

Han has already set her sights on the badminton world championships that kick off on August 21 in Copenhagen, Denmark. 

"I will focus on preparing for this year's event as it is already very close," Han said. 

Also on Monday, Team China secured the doubles gold and silver medals as Chinese pair Liu Wenmei and Liu Xuanxuan defeated teammates Xia Yuting and Du Yue 18-21, 21-19 and 21-14 in the women's competition. 

Ren Xiangyu and Tan Qiang overshadowed peers Zhou Haodong and He Jiting 23-21 and 21-16 in the men's event.

In the men's singles final, the last match of the badminton tournament, China's Wang Zhengxing defeated Thailand's Teeraratsakul Panitchaphon 21-16, 21-14 claim gold.

China's figure skating team set their sights on competing in the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final on home ice as the skating pairs had an open training session on Thursday at the Capital Indoor Stadium in Beijing. 

The 2023 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Series consists of six international senior events that culminate with the final to be held in Beijing from ­December 7 to 10. 

Currently, Chinese skaters are gearing up for the fourth leg of the series, which will take place in Southwest ­China's Chongqing Municipality from November 10 to 12. The three pairs who will compete in Chongqing and a junior pair took part in the training session. 

Figure skating has been one of the most popular winter sports in China since pair skaters Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo clinched China's first figure skating gold medal at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. 

Since Chinese pair skaters Sui Wenjing and Han Cong stepped out of competition after winning gold in the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, Peng Cheng and Wang Lei have emerged as the top pair for China.  

Yao Jia, manager of the national figure skating team, told the Global Times after the training that she expects the young skaters to gain experience and win enough points at each international event to qualify for the final in Beijing and the year 2024's world championships in Canada.

"For the new season, we have set different goal for each member. As to Peng and Wang, their goal is to qualify for the grand prix final in Beijing, which means that they need to achieve a podium finish at two of the six legs of the grand prix," said Yao. 

Pair skaters and men's skater Jin Boyang are favorites to reach the final. Jin will also compete in Chongqing after finishing the third leg in France this week, Yao noted.

Regarding the pressure of competing on home ice, Yao said a growing number of domestic fans have given them more motivation, and she sees getting into the final as a success for the team. 

Peng won fifth place in pair skating at the Beijing Olympics with former partner Jin Yang. Since striking up a new partnership with Wang in March, the duo has made steady progress. 

In their debut at the international event, Peng and Wang came from behind to triumph at the ISU 2023 Shanghai Trophy on October 4. 

"From their current form and overall difficulty, they have achieved their initial goals. However, pair skating requires cooperation. I think they still need more time to enhance mutual understanding and cultivate a stronger chemistry," Yao said.

Wang, 35, told the Global Times that the most important thing is to remain true to his original aspiration and that he wants to go further with his new partner. "We're getting better on the ice. Peng is an excellent skater. We have good communication, and we can remain calm and summarize what we didn't do well during daily training," Wang said. 

Peng is grateful for her partner's support and trust. 

"We've overcome a lot of difficulties in the past months. Staying composed against the odds is crucial to our partnership," Peng noted. 

"He takes the initiative to inquire about my emotional shifts and unravel the complexities within my heart. We can shoulder the challenges together," said Peng. 

As one of the legacies of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, more international winter sports events have come to China and provided young skaters opportunities to progress. 

In addition to the grand prix final in Beijing, the Chinese team is also preparing for the 2024 Four Continents Figure Skating Championships, which will take place in Shanghai from January 30 to February 4, 2024. 

"We have fielded young skaters to compete in the ISU Junior Grand Prix as more international events will help them improve. I hope young players could win enough points to participate in the four continents championships," Yao said. 

Situated in Li county in Northwest China's Gansu Province, commonly seen as the birthplace of China's Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC) culture, a local archaeological site has recently been found to have been a large-scale architectural complex used for sacrificial ceremonies.

The Sijiaoping Ruins are located on an excavated flat platform on the top of a mountain in the county. The ancient man-made platform covers an area of 28,000 square meters and was encircled by a rammed earth wall. At the center of the site is a square platform with annexes on either side of it.

Archaeologist Wang Meng told the Global Times that the entire configuration of the site delivers a "sense of grandeur and solemnity." The symmetrical and square designs are often seen in many ancient Chinese designs, especially in high-grade and royal architecture. The "symmetrical" design is particularly common as it embodies Chinese people's belief in harmony.

Exquisitely made ancient objects like eaves tiles, also known as wadang, decorated with cloud patterns and tiles featuring a rope pattern were found scattered inside the ruins. Those artifacts gave experts the clues they needed to narrow down the specific time period of the site.

Hou Hongwei, the lead expert of the Sijiaoping archaeological project, said that the tiles and eaves tiles were "very similar" to the ones discovered in the mausoleum of the Qin Dynasty Emperor Qin Shi Huang.

"According to the production techniques and decorative details on those unearthed building materials, we can preliminarily identify the Sijiaoping site as a high-level ceremonial building from the Qin Dynasty," the expert said.

Besides the visible structures, the Qin ceremonial site also contained a half-crypt space. The space was covered with tiles on both the walls and floor. Experts predict it was once a water pool. The pool was most likely closely tied to the Qin people's "belief in the virtues of water," Hou remarked.
While the function of the Sijiaoping ruins is only recently identified, their importance had already been noticed by scholars when the site was first discovered in 2019.

The Sijiaoping site was discovered near another site, the Dabaozi Mountain site, which is also in Gansu Province. The Dabaozi Mountain site is a tomb cluster covering some 18 square kilometers.

Archaeologist Xue Ruiming told the Global Times that the Dabaozi Mountain site reveals that Li county was once the "center of the Qin regime during the Spring and Autumn Period (770BC-476BC)."

The Sijiaoping architectural complex was established after the Qin Kingdom was unified. The Sijiaoping site is the only "systematic" and complete building complex from the time period discovered to date. It demonstrates the burial and ritual traditions of the Qin.

"The close connections between the two sites help our contextual analysis of the Qin Dynasty's burial and ritual traditions. Such a discovery contributes to scholar's analysis of early Chinese sacrificial traditions," said Xue.

Unlike Western ceremonial buildings that often carry a religious mission, ancient ritual buildings in China reflect the country's ancient philosophy.

Their unique shapes and configurations during different historical periods were manifestations of ancient Chinese people's perspectives on people-to-people relations, the dynamic between human beings and nature and ethics.

Compared to the Qin Dynasty's "solemn" style, ceremonial buildings of the Xia Dynasty (c.2070BC-c.1600BC) were more pragmatic as they hosted collective activities. During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770BC-256BC), the design of ritual buildings paid closer attention to the ease of transportation.

Saltwater intrusion in Vietnam's Mekong Delta is forecast to come early this year, Vietnam News reported Thursday.

Localities in the region are preparing plans to ensure adequate water for the winter-spring rice harvest and reduce the damage inflicted by drought and salinity, according to the report.

The rainy season this year is predicted to have remained in the delta only in the previous and the current months, concluding midway through next month.

The early end of the rainy season leads to anticipated water shortage in local farming areas.

Throughout the dry spell of this year and the next, the intrusion of saltwater is expected to appear a month sooner than the multi-year average, commencing in mid to late December.

According to the Southern Institute of Water Resources Research, the total rainfall this year is forecast to be about 1,350 mm, only 1 percent higher than 2015, which saw severe drought, and about 13 percent lower than the average of many years.

Vietnam's Mekong Delta region, which comprises 12 provinces and Can Tho City, is normally affected by saltwater intrusion from the sea during the dry season which lasts from December to April.

In the severely dry season from 2015 to 2016, saltwater intrusion and drought caused the loss of 1 million tons of paddy in the delta, and 500,000 households in the delta suffered a shortage of daily use water.

While terrorist attacks and violence linked to racial division continue to increase in Europe and the US, Chinese experts warned on Tuesday that the Israel-Palestine conflict has brought to light the deep-rooted divisions within Western societies, as well as the contradictions of ethnic antagonism, and the Western countries should reflect on this, rather than evade the problem.

Two Swedish nationals were shot to death and a third one was wounded in central Brussels on Monday night, and a man who identified himself as a member of the Islamic State claimed responsibility in a video posted online, Reuters reported.

The suspected assailant fled the scene after the shooting spree as a soccer match between Belgium and Sweden was about to start, prompting Belgium to raise its terror alert to the highest level. Hours later on Tuesday, Belgian police said that the suspected gunman was shot dead by police in a cafe, Reuters reported.

The shooting comes at a time of heightened security concerns in some European countries linked to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

A man of Chechen origin stabbed to death a teacher and severely wounded two other adults on Friday at a school in northeastern France, an act that President Emmanuel Macron denounced as "Islamist terror," said AFP.

What's more, an Illinois landlord accused of fatally stabbing a 6-year-old Muslim boy and seriously wounding his mother was charged with a hate crime after police and relatives said he singled out the victims because of their faith and as a response to the war between Israel and Hamas. 

"Detectives were able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the on-going Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis," the sheriff's statement said.

Experts believed that the Israel-Palestine conflict is the trigger, but the deep divisions in the societies of the US and Europe are the source of increased ethnic hatred. Such a division will inevitably affect the strategic coordination and strategic autonomy between the US and Europe.

In recent days, police in US cities and federal authorities have been on high alert for violence driven by anti-semitic or Islamophobic sentiments. FBI officials, along with Jewish and Muslim groups, have reported an increase of hateful and threatening rhetoric. 

Because Western societies have maintained an attitude of taking sides concerning the issue of the Israel-Palestine conflict, the existing disputes between the two countries have intensified, Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Tuesday. 

The US and Europe are most affected because the problem was actually created by the two, Li noted. "The US and Europe need to face up to and resolve their own divisions first, rather than evading problems and stirring up conflict elsewhere."

The 8th Contemporary Mexican Film Cycle will kick off in several Chinese cities, brining filmgoers and Mexican cultural enthusiasts in China six classic Mexican movies, the Global Times learned from Mexican Consulate General in Shanghai.

Started in 2013, the film cycle China is held to celebrate Día del Cine Mexicano, or the National Mexican Cinema Day, which falls on August 15 each year.

The film cycle presents audiences in China with the latest Mexican film productions by some of Mexico's most outstanding directors. They are committed to exploring various forms of film expression, showcasing to the world the colorful and infinite possibilities of today's Mexican film industry, said the Mexican Consulate General in Shanghai

The film cycle will be held in Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. In Shanghai, the first film - Alamar (To the Sea) directed by Pedro González-Rubio - will be screened on Saturday afternoon at The Miguel de Cervantes Library.

Alamar was shot at Banco Chinchorro, which was listed as a biosphere reserve by the UNESCO in 2004. It tells the story of a five-year-old Italian-Mexican boy reuniting and going sea fishing with his fisherman father during holidays.

The other five movies scheduled to be screened are: Noche de fuego (Prayers for the Stolen), El camino de Xico (Xico's Journey), Güeros, Post Tenebras Lux (Light after Darkness), and A morir a los desiertos (To Die in the Desert).

El camino de Xico will be screened with a Chinese dubbing track. The remaining films will be screened in Spanish with Chinese subtitles.

The film cycle is jointly being held by the representative office of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in China, the Mexican Embassy in China, as well as the Mexican consulates general in Shanghai and Guangzhou.

The public can register to the screenings in Shanghai through the WeChat account of the Miguel de Cervantes Library

A giant engraved "Great Stone" stands at the entrance of the China-Belarus Industrial Park in Minsk, capital of Belarus. Advertisements for "Great Stone" can also be seen on highways linking the city center to the park. The name "Great Stone" was given by Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko to the park as it embodies "the cornerstone of the friendship between the peoples of China and Belarus." Nobody could ever have imagined the forest would one day turn into a shining pearl of the Belt and Road Initiative.
From a "piece of white paper" to "a shining new city," what has made the industrial park what it is today? What difficulties did the park weather to keep thriving amid today's complicated geopolitical atmosphere? Reporters from the Global Times entered the largest foreign investment project in Belarus to find out the secret of its prosperity. 

Miraculous development 

At the entrance of the park, there's a giant display board that says "time is money, efficiency is life" in both Chinese and Russian. In Belarus, local people, amazed by the speed of construction of the industrial park, developed an idiom that says, "You will never step into the same China-Belarus Industrial Park."

The park is located near the center of Belarus and sits on transport links within easy reach of the Moscow-Berlin international highway to Russia and Central Europe. The Belarus government set up a customs office inside of the park, to speed up customs clearance and provide quick service for commerce, bonded warehouse storage and others.

Foundation of the park was laid in 2014. Since the second half of 2015, the China-Belarus Industrial Park has developed rapidly. Developed within the framework of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the park has witnessed rapid expansion.

In an exclusive interview with the Xinhua News Agency earlier this year,  Lukashenko noted it is the largest project attracting investment in Belarus and a landmark cooperation project within the BRI framework as it was promoted by the two heads of state personally and prized by the two governments.

As of August, a total of 114 enterprises had settled in the China-Belarus Industrial Park, involving various fields such as machinery manufacturing, e-commerce, new materials, traditional Chinese medicine, artificial intelligence and 5G network development. Intended investment exceeds $1.3 billion.

If there's any secret behind the park's rapid development, it is the high-quality coordination between China and Belarus, as well as support from leaders from both countries, head of the park's administration Alexander Yaroshenko told the Global Times. 

Yaroshenko once served as deputy minister of the Ministry of Economy of Belarus and was appointed as head of the park's administration in 2016. 
"When President Lukashenko handed me this job, he told me, 'We have a bunch of deputy ministers, but we have only one China-Belarus Industrial Park, so your job as head of the park's administration is very important.' So you can see how much importance he attached to the industrial park and his high expectations," said Yaroshenko.

Rapid development of the park also mirrored the elevation of bilateral ties. According to statistics, the bilateral trade volume between China and Belarus in 2022 reached $5.08 billion, setting a new record. On a diplomatic level, the two countries established an all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership in 2022.

Special appeal 

Enterprise in the park come from 16 countries. Apart from China and Belarus, there are companies from the US, EU, Switzerland and Singapore, Yaroshenko, standing in front of a world map, introduced to the Global Times reporters. "Our industrial park is very international."

One of Yaroshenko's favorite stories when it comes to attracting investment goes like this. "Six years ago, owners of a US company came to the industrial park by private jet. Said he wanted to see the park with his own eyes. Later he told me he made a huge mistake, for he bought too little land in the park. 'I should have bought land twice as big here!'" 

Apart from the advanced infrastructure, the park's considerate policy services are also what makes it so appealing to companies. The park has a "one-stop" efficient service system for enterprises. All approvals involving enterprises are completed in the park, providing full-process services such as investment negotiation, company registration, project access and land transfer.  

"In the one-stop service hall, companies can complete all procedures within one or two hours. Yet in other places, it may take seven hours to a month," Deputy Director General of the Industrial Park Development Company Ren Fei told the Global Times. The one-stop service hall is a lesson learned from China's Suzhou Industrial Park. Moreover, companies who settle in the China-Belarus Industrial Park can enjoy preferential policies on visas, customs clearance and taxes. 

The Belarusian company Human Craft, which manufactures medical prostheses, settled in the park at the end of 2022. Anton Naczyński, general manager of the company, told the Global Times that the reason the company chose this park is because the park's management helps every company develop and expand into the overseas market. He hopes that within such an environment, his company and Belarus' medical prostheses can reach the world's advanced level.

New Silicon Valley 

However, the park has encountered challenges from COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine crisis in recent years. Yet Ren brushed off the impact of those events on its development.

"In 2017, there were 10 companies in the park. Since 2018, the number of companies settled in the park stayed at 18 to 20 annually. Despite the impact of COVID-19, 20 new companies chose our park in 2021, and the number in 2022 was 19," said Ren. He expects a record 23 or 24 new companies will be landing in the park this year. 

The reason for such growth is the park's timely adjusting of measures to weather the impact of geopolitical shock and Western countries' sanctions. Ren said since the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the park has adjusted the source structure for attracting investment. 

"Previously, many enterprises that came here were oriented toward the European and US markets. Now, the focus is mainly on the Eurasian Economic Union market, as well as investments from member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization," said Ren. 

Meanwhile, when facing sanctions from the West, several banks in Belarus have also received assistance from the park in accessing the Chinese yuan payment system. This has helped resolve many payment difficulties for enterprises through bilateral currency settlements, said Ren.

He also told the Global Times that they are intensifying efforts to address transportation issues through the China-Europe Railway Express, partially offsetting the impact of disrupted maritime shipping in Belarus following the Russia-Ukraine crisis. 

In the eyes of many, the park is not only an industrial park, it is also an "intelligence new city" that is endowed with a beautiful and pleasant environment.

In the medium to long term, the park aims to attract more than 100,000 industrial population and become an international comprehensive development zone.

Shymanovich Aliaksandr, an employee from the China National Machinery Industry Corporation (Sinomach)'s Belarus branch, told the Global Times that the park is full of happiness because there are many green trees here, and one can breathe the freshest air at any time. The production space, living space, and natural space are also all well integrated.

Alexey Kliuchnikov, chief of the R&D department of YTO Technology, a leading agricultural machinery supplier in China that also opened an office in the industrial park, said that working in the company not only offers a significantly higher income compared to the average level in Minsk, but also provides many opportunities to exchange ideas with Chinese counterparts and learn the latest technologies.

"Our goal is to make this place a 'new Silicon Valley in Central and Eastern Europe,'" Ren said proudly. In his eyes, the park is not just a project, but a manifestation of the passion and ideals of a group of people.

The first leg of the 8th EU-China Literary Festival took place at the Xi Yue Tang Library, Cultural, and Creative Park in Beijing, on Tuesday, to further deepen contemporary literary dialogue between China and Europe.

With the theme "Voices of the Present: Contemporary Literature," and an emphasis on the diversity of the contemporary literary landscape, the festival aims to depict the perspectives and cultural nuances of contemporary European writers.

Renowned Greek author Amanda Michalopoulou, participated in the 8th EU-China Literature Festival along with well-known Chinese writer Sheng Keyi. Together they engaged in a literary dialogue, on issues related to "Identity and Belonging" in contemporary European literature. Diplomats from the Greek Embassy attended the event.

Michalopoulou also discussed "Gender and Sexuality" with the Chinese writer and literary critic Wang Hongtu on Thursday at Shanghai's Fandeng Bookstore - C·PARK.

Aside from the writer dialogue, people have the opportunity to enjoy reading Greek books and participate in the "European literature reading corners" in six well-known bookstores throughout the country in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Guangzhou, in a series of events that promoted cultural and literary exchanges between China, Greece, and Europe. 

The reading corners activity runs until November 30.

A Chinese experimental team released a video on social media on Tuesday, saying that they successfully verified the synthesis of LK-99 crystal that can be magnetically levitate for the first time, with larger levitated angle than that of the previous sample obtained by a South Korean team, which is expected to realize the true significance of non-contact superconducting magnetic levitation.

The video was released by a team led by Chang Haixin, a professor at the School of Materials Science and Technology of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, with postdoctoral researcher Wu Hao and doctoral student Yang Li.

However, the video  also stated that they have currently only verified the Meissner effect. Although this crystal exhibits diamagnetism, it is relatively weak and does not possess "zero resistance," and its overall behavior is similar to that of a semiconductor curve. The publisher believes that even if LK-99 has superconducting properties, they are only in trace amounts of superconducting impurities, unable to form a continuous superconducting path.

Previously, a research team from South Korea uploaded two papers on arXiv claiming to have discovered the "world's first room-temperature superconducting material," attracting attention from the globe. It is reported that this material is mainly a modified perovskite crystal structure (referred to as LK-99), a type of lead phosphate with copper doping.

However, the team has faced skepticism due to the insufficient experimental data they have currently provided to prove LK-99 is  a superconductor. Multiple research teams worldwide are attempting to synthesize LK-99 to verify the experimental results at the moment.

After the two papers on LK-99 from South Korean scientists were made public, researchers from the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Beihang University and the Shenyang National Research Center for Materials Science also released their relevant research findings.

Researchers Sun Yan and Liu Peitao from the Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, stated that they primarily conducted theoretical calculations. According to the computational results, there is a possibility of room-temperature superconductivity using  LK-99. The results also provided some explanations from the perspective of energy bands, but this does not serve as definitive proof.

The research team from Beihang University conducted tests on the synthesized LK-99 and found that its room-temperature resistance is not zero, and no magnetic levitation was observed. The paper states that the material exhibits characteristics similar to a semiconductor rather than a superconductor.

Room-temperature superconductivity would enable long-distance lossless power transmission, leading to a new wave of global infrastructure development in the electricity network. Additionally, breakthroughs are expected in areas such as superconducting magnets, superconducting cables, and superconducting maglev trains, according to  media reports.

The breakthrough in room-temperature and atmospheric pressure superconducting materials would undoubtedly bring about revolutionary changes in various fields, including energy, transportation, computing, and medical diagnostics.

A mite and a virus are in cahoots in an attack on honeybee health.

The parasitic mite Varroa destructor feasts on bees of all ages and reproduces on pupae. As the mite travels through bee colonies, it can spread deformed wing virus, which can cause crippled wings and death in extreme cases. By suppressing a bee’s immunity, the virus may improve a mite’s ability to feed and breed on baby bees, researchers in Italy report March 7 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Mites were more likely to become mothers on Italian honeybee larvae with higher levels of viral infection, the team found. The number of mites that successfully laid eggs soared from 22 percent on bee larvae that developed normally to 40 percent on bees with infections severe enough to cause crippled wings. Still, mite fertility decreased again on bees with very high levels of viral infection. Understanding the complexities of this mite-virus collusion could help explain the factors leading to colony losses and protect honeybees in the future, the researchers say.