People mourn victims after an Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, on Dec. 12, 2023. The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced on Tuesday that the Palestinian death toll in the Palestinian enclave has exceeded 18,400 since the eruption of the Hamas-Israel conflict on Oct. 7.(Photo: Xinhua)

The world's elite track and field competition is returning to China.

Xiamen, Southeast China's Fujian Province, will host a meeting of the 2023 World Athletics Diamond League on September 2, which will mark the world premier one-day athletics series' return to China for the first time in four years, according to a press conference held on Wednesday in Beijing.

The meeting, which will take place at Xiamen's newly built Egret Stadium, will be the only Diamond League event in China in 2023. Athletes will compete in 13 disciplines, with the men's 110m hurdle scheduled to be the finale of the day's competition.

Feng Bin, the women's discus gold medalist at the 2022 World's Athletics Championships, and Zhu Yaming, the silver medalist for the men's triple jump at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, are among the Chinese athletes who will participate in the Xiamen event.  

Starting from 2023, Xiamen will host the Diamond League for the next 10 years in a row, according to the press conference.

Inaugurated in 2010, the Diamond League is an annual series of elite track and field athletic competitions comprising 14 invitational athletics meetings across the world. The 14th edition of the Diamond League began on May 5 in Doha, Qatar. This year's Diamond League Final will take place in Eugene, the US in September.

Team China found itself in a perilous position after an 89-69 defeat to South Sudan in the second round FIBA World Cup Group B game, despite China's first naturalized player Li Kai'er's 22 points leading China's box score, a sharp bounce-back from his scoreless debut. 

Having losing two games in Group B, Team China is on the brink of elimination in the tournament held in Manila, the Philippines and even worse, risks losing a place at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games after Japan bagged a victory over Finland coming from 18 points down on Sunday. China needs to be the best-performing Asian team in order to win direct qualification for the Paris Olympics in 2024.

Li, the 206-cm-tall Minnesota Timberwolves forward known to the National Basketball Association (NBA) as Kyle Anderson, broke his scoreless run early in the first quarter, as he drove and banked a floater in his rhythm. He then showed his basketball intelligence by drawing a foul with his shooting form ready. He bagged 22 points, three assists and five rebounds, the all-round player's chemistry with the team was increasingly noticeable. 

However, China standing in 27th place in the FIBA ranking, failed to match the firepower of opponent South Sudan, which is ranked a 62nd in the FIBA ranking during the Monday game. Even though China seemed to figure out how to play its game in the right way, South Sudan responded quickly with long shots behind the arc. Led by Carlik Jones, who just had a magnificent finish of 35 points and 11 assists against Puerto Rico, the World Cup debutants nailed a jaw-dropping 15 three-pointers with 50 percent shooting percentage during the whole game.

Team China had its chance to come back and beat the opponent as many would have predicted, and the young squad did force their game within a chasing range almost levelling at 49-50, meaning only one bucket behind in the third quarter. 

However, the Chinese squad seemed choked at both offensive and defensive end on the court, making the game end up in a drastic 20 points defeat. 

"I wish we could have come out with the win, more importantly than scoring 22 points," Li said during a post-game interview, stressing that the team has to figure it out how to play hard for 40 minutes rather than only 20 minutes in the game. 

China would take on the last Group B rival Puerto Rico, only a win of 36 points or more will propel Team China out of the group and enter the next elimination game, a scenario which now seems unlikely. 

Following their 20-point loss against South Sudan Monday, China head coach Aleksandar Djordevic said that the goal remains the same for the team to get to the Olympics.

And to win the 2024 Olympic ticket, China would have to hope that none of the other Asian teams makes it to the next elimination stage and China have to win both games in the ranking game after falling out of the group to secure a ticket to Paris.  

The team has now lost not only the two games but also its own control of future destiny.

However, we should have faith in the Aleksandar Djordevic, a proven winner in international basketball, Li Kai'er, a veteran NBA player, and more importantly the never-give-up spirit of Team China. 

Team China should keep their heads up and keep hold of the good momentum the young squad has built in the second game, just like Zhao Rui, who delivered 13 points on Monday with hot hands, said after the game, "stay focused as a team and we want to play in the Olympic Games." 

Chinese tennis players got off to a strong start at the ongoing Hangzhou Asian Games as four participants in the women's and men's singles progressed to the third round on Monday. 

There are five golds on offer in the tennis events at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre, attracting 11 Chinese athletes to participate. The winners of the two singles events will qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. 

In the women's singles, top seed Zheng Qinwen breezed past Maralgoo Chogsomjav of Mongolia with a 6-0, 6-0 clean sweep. 

Earlier, second seed Zhu Lin also marched to the third round with a straight-sets victory over Ushna Suhail of Pakistan.Zheng, who made it to the US Open quarterfinal in September, and Zhu were tipped to continue China's grip on the women's singles title since the 2006 Doha Asian Games in Qatar. However, resting only three hours after the singles match, Zheng and Zhu suffered a 6-7, 3-6 defeat to Momoko Kobori and Ayano Shimizu of Japan in the first round of the women's doubles.

In Zhu's third match of the day, she and Buyunchaokete eased past Shakhnoza Marimova and Amir Milushev of Uzbekistan 6-0, 6-0 in the mixed doubles in 43 minutes.

Liu Yu, a Beijing-based sports commentator, told the Global Times that China has fielded its strongest team for this Asian Games and the top two singles players in the men's and women's singles will fight for a spot at the Paris Olympic Games. 

"Chinese players are a favorite to win the women's singles title. But playing on the home court, our players will be under enormous pressure. It's important for them to forget their world rankings, stay composed and take it one game at a time," she said.

As the women's doubles champion in 2018 Jakarta Asian Games, Yang Zhaoxuan will team up with new partner Wang Xinyu to have a crack in the women's doubles this year.

Liu Feng, head coach of the Chinese national women's tennis team, said forging the new partnership is a bold attempt to prepare for the Paris Olympic Games. 

"We want to try and find the best partners for the Paris Games. Wang is skilled in serving and baseline rallies, while Yang is good at attacking the net. The Asian Games is like a trial run for this new pair," said the coach. 

In the men's singles, Zhang Zhizhen coasted to a 7-5, 6-2 win over Faleh Alhogbani of Saudi Arabia. 

Wu Yibing, who won the men's singles silver medal in the Jakarta Games, edged past Justin Barki of Indonesia 7-5, 6-1. The Hangzhou native has set his sights on becoming the first man from the Chinese mainland to win the singles title since the 1990 Beijing Asian Games.

Meanwhile in the men's doubles, Zhang and Wu reached the men's doubles quarterfinals after overpowering Mashari Naif and Mubarak Alharrasi of Qatar 6-3, 6-4. The Chinese duo seeks to become the first pair from the Chinese mainland to claim the men's doubles title since China's last triumph in 1990. 

In addition to the men's singles and doubles, Zhang, who reached the third round at this year's French Open and US Open, also competes in the mixed doubles with Yang.

China won two golds and two silvers in tennis events at the Jakarta Games in 2018. 

The World Memory, Peaceful Vision - Exhibition on the Historical Facts of the Nanjing Massacre exhibition organized by the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders was held in Madrid, Spain, and Budapest, Hungary, showcasing the atrocities committed by Japanese invaders in Nanjing and an international tribunal's prosecution of Japanese war criminals.

Featuring more than 100 historical pictures and nine replica exhibits, the exhibition consists of three parts: The Calamity in Nanjing, Justice Trial and The City of Peace. 

The exhibition also quotes Western media reports and Western diaries and letters, describing history from a third-party perspective. These include photographs shot by Hungarian-based war photographer Robert Capa during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1931-45). These works were published through US magazine Life, which focused on the international community's attention toward the Chinese battlefield.

On May 16, 1938, Life featured a famous cover photo showcasing a young and fearless Chinese soldier taken by Capa in Hankou, Central China's Hubei Province. Capa arrived in China in 1938 and documented the Chinese resistance against the Japanese invasion and the wartime lives of the people.

In addition, on December 13, 1937, the Japanese army occupied Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province, committing atrocities over the next six weeks that included massacring civilians, looting, sexual violence, and destruction of buildings. These actions resulted in the death of over 300,000 Chinese people. The killing competition carried out by the Japanese army in Nanjing was exposed to the world by Spain's El Diluvio newspaper.

The atrocities committed by the invading Japanese army in China were heinous and exceed the red line of civilized humanity, former Hungarian prime minister Peter Medgyessy said in a speech at the exhibition. "Such an exhibition allows young people to learn about peace and living together," he noted.

"War is like a mirror, allowing people to better understand the value of peace," Zhou Feng, director of the Memorial Hall, said.  

He also expressed the hope that the painful memories of history would evoke people's yearning for peace and inspire them to more firmly defend diverse civilizations and maintain world peace, and work together to create a better future.

The Nanjing Massacre Archives were included in the UNESCO Memory of the World on October 9, 2015. To date, the Memorial Hall has organized exhibitions in cities such as Los Angeles in the US, Moscow in Russia, Florence in Italy, Manila in the Philippines and Aarhus in Denmark.

South Africa's mining production, one of the country's pillar industries, decreased by 2.5 percent year on year in August, with diamonds, manganese ore and other metallic minerals being the main contributors, data have shown.

In August, the production of diamonds dropped by 54.6 percent, becoming the largest negative contributor to the country's mining sector, while the production of manganese ore and other metallic minerals went down 7.9 percent and 17.6 percent in August, respectively, according to data released by Statistics South Africa Thursday.

In the three months ended August, seasonally adjusted mining production in South Africa decreased by 2 percent compared with the previous three months, with the largest negative contributors being gold, coal and manganese ore.

Gold production went down 6.5 percent in the three months ended August, and the production of coal and manganese ore dropped by 2.8 percent and 6 percent, respectively, Statistics South Africa said.

"The International Cultural Festival facilitates cross-cultural exchanges and mutual understanding among young people from different countries, allowing them to explore core values in different cultural contexts," Georgian Ambassador to China Archil Kalandia said at the opening ceremony of 2023 Peking University International Culture Festival. 

The festival successfully kicked off on October 21 in Beijing, titled "Meet the World at PKU," and included participation from students from more than 100 countries and regions. Ambassadors from Jordan, Venezuela, Grenada, Cuba, Thailand, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Mexico also attended the opening ceremony.

Ambassador Kalandia expressed a belief that cooperation in the field of higher education is an important direction to promote international exchanges and cooperation. He encouraged teachers and students from the two countries to participate in a variety of international exchange programs to promote mutual exchanges and mutual understanding, and hoped that Peking University would play a more active role in strengthening educational cooperation between the two countries.

This year's festival featured a number of activities, including a themed garden tour, an international food festival at the world food court, and a chess tour of Yanyuan in Peking University. 

Among them, the "Meet the World at PKU" theme garden set up more than 50 booths covering 47 countries and regions from five continents. At the booths, international students from different countries elaborately displayed their unique histories and cultures, allowing teachers and students to appreciate the social customs of different countries. 

Launched in 2004, the Peking University International Culture Festival will hold a series of activities from October to December, such as a singing contest to feature the top 10 singers among international students, international youth speeches, the Chinese speech contest for international students, a movie view party, and a photography exhibition.

"We are disappointed that Japan still wants to go ahead and dump the nuclear polluted water into the Pacific, because we are not convinced by the scientific reports that it will be safe for marine life, or for communities who are going to be affected," former prime minister of Papua New Guinea Peter O'Neill told the Global Times in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.

He told the Global Times that efforts will continue to ask international agencies including the United Nations to attend to the concerns of people in the Pacific region.

On July 4, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and announced the final safety review report for the release of contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The report stated that Japan's plan for dumping the nuclear-contaminated wastewater "meets safety standards," but it also emphasizes that the report cannot serve as the standard for Japan's approval of the policy.

Japan's plan to dump the nuclear-contaminated wastewater has been met with strong protests and concerns from the international community since it was first proposed in 2021. According to the plan, Japan intends to discharge 1.3 million tons of treated nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean over the next 30 to 40 years.

In addition to neighboring countries such as China and South Korea, many Pacific island nations, which are ecologically vulnerable and heavily reliant on ocean fisheries, are also affected. Earlier this year, the Pacific Island Forum collectively opposed Japan's plan to dump the nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean and sent a delegation to Japan for talks on the issue.

O'Neill was talking to the Global Times after attending an event organized by the think tank Center for China and Globalization (CCG). He said Japan owes it to the international community and to the Pacific to take the issue seriously, adding that they should not dump the nuclear-contaminated wastewater and should find other ways of trying to treat the water or to manage the problem.

He stressed that it isn't the Pacific that started the problem of the nuclear-contaminated wastewater in Japan.

"It is their own issue and they need to manage it better. Many countries in the Pacific are very disappointed. They do not support Japan in doing this," he said.

"We all know from experience that for nuclear waste of any form, it takes time, it takes years, it takes decades [to resolve]. It's not resolved in a few years. Over time you will still have the presence of nuclear content within the waste that has been disposed of," he said.

As Japan continues with its plan despite the protests from Pacific Island countries, O'Neill told the Global Times that they will raise their questions to international organizations including the UN.

"Is this water safe? Will this water affect marine life? Is this water not going to affect individuals who have to drink water in the Pacific? These are questions that need to be answered," he said.

On the IAEA's release of a comprehensive report on the dumping of nuclear-contaminated wastewater at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday that the report "failed to fully reflect views from experts that participated in the review." Also, "the conclusion was not shared by all experts. The Chinese side regrets the hasty release of the report," the spokesperson said.

"We believe that the IAEA report should not be a 'shield' or 'greenlight' for Japan's discharge of nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean. Due to its limited mandate, the IAEA failed to review the justification and legitimacy of Japan's ocean discharge plan, assess the long-term effectiveness of Japan's purification facility and corroborate the authenticity and accuracy of Japan's nuclear-contaminated water data. Therefore, the conclusion is largely limited and incomplete. We noted that Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi stated that the IAEA conducted the review at the request of the Japanese government and the report is neither a recommendation nor an endorsement of Japan's ocean discharge policy," said the spokesperson.

The UAE Ambassador to China Hussain bin Ibrahim Al Hammadi met with the Chinese Minister of Science and Technology Wang Zhigang, on July 19, to discuss strengthening bilateral cooperation between the two countries in the fields of science, technological development and innovation.
The ambassador gave a positive evaluation of the effectiveness of China-Arab cooperation in science and technology. He affirmed his willingness to work together with the Chinese side to further deepen cooperation in the field of science and technology innovation.

Wang said that China and the UAE have a long history of relations and technical that are constantly being strengthened. 

During Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the UAE in 2018, the two countries announced the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership, which opened a new chapter in China-Arab relations.

Wang said that scientific and technological progress is the key driving force of human progress, noting that China-Arab scientific and technological cooperation benefits both countries and peoples, and he is willing to work together with the UAE Ambassador to continue to deepen China-Arab scientific and technological innovation cooperation.

Sri Lankan Ambassador to China Palitha Kohona visited the Beijing Hanyitang TCM Hospital on August 7 and praised traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as an attractive form of medical treatment. 

Kohona experienced TCM techniques of pulse-taking, tuina, cupping and acupuncture, all experiences that the ambassador termed "amazing!" 

Kohona has always been interested in Chinese medicine and has experienced TCM techniques such as tuina in the past, but his visit to the Beijing Hanyitang TCM Hospital was his first acupuncture experience. "The whole process was so relaxing that I even took a nap. After doing it, my body was much more relaxed and I felt amazing," he said.

Zhang Ju, the chairman of the Beijing Hanyitang Medical Health Group, briefed the history of the  hospital to the ambassador. Zhang said that inheriting and innovating TCM culture has always been the aim of the hospital and new technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence are being applied in TCM.

"I hope China will open a TCM hospital in Sri Lanka, where there are also many lovers of Chinese medicine in our country, and at the same time, I hope that there will be more mutual exchanges and learning experiences between the medical practitioners of our two countries," Kohona said.