Global Pulse

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  • China’s reading rate rises amid digital reading boom: survey

    China’s reading rate rises amid digital reading boom: survey

    As digital reading continues to gain widespread traction across China, new national survey data reveals a steady uptick in overall reading rates among Chinese adult citizens, marking further progress in the country’s push to build a nation of avid readers.

    The 2025 survey, conducted by the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication, was publicly announced at the fifth National Reading Conference hosted in Nanchang, the capital of east China’s Jiangxi province, on Monday. Data shows the comprehensive reading rate for Chinese adults reached 82.3 percent last year, a 0.2 percentage point increase from 2024. This marginal but consistent growth reflects the tangible outcomes of China’s long-running initiatives to promote reading across all segments of society.

    Beyond rising overall reading rates, the survey offers a detailed snapshot of evolving reading habits among the Chinese public. In 2025, the combined per capita reading volume for both print paper books and electronic books hit 8.39 copies per person, while the total number of digital reading works available to Chinese readers surpassed 70 million distinct titles. Around 80.8 percent of adult respondents reported that they regularly engage in digital reading, confirming the format’s dominant position in the modern reading landscape.

    The survey also highlights growing interest in supplementary reading formats: the share of adults who consume audiobooks rose 0.2 percentage points year-on-year to 38.7 percent in 2025, while the proportion of adults who watch video book reviews jumped 0.6 percentage points to 6.3 percent.

    Surging consumer demand for digital reading content has driven rapid expansion of the domestic market. Over the past five years, China’s mass market for digital reading nearly doubled in size, swelling from 30.25 billion yuan (approximately 4.4 billion U.S. dollars) in 2020 to 59.48 billion yuan in 2025.

    Despite the digital boom, print books have retained significant loyal support among Chinese readers. The survey found that 45.9 percent of adults still prefer physical books over all digital formats, with literary works ranking as the most popular reading category overall.

    This dual preference reveals that while Chinese readers embrace the convenience of on-the-go digital access, their demand for immersive deep thinking, structured systematic learning, and meaningful spiritual nourishment through reading has not faded in the digital era.

    Wu Shulin, chairman of the Publishers Association of China, noted that even amid widespread digital adoption, deep focused reading remains the core foundation for individual personal growth, long-term career achievement, and ethical cultivation. He called for enhanced public guidance to improve the quality of digital reading and broader efforts to nurture a culture of deep reading, encouraging readers to move beyond superficial fragmented browsing and engage with more in-depth content.

  • China launches national reading week

    China launches national reading week

    China has officially launched its annual national reading week, kicking off the 2026 initiative during the fifth National Conference on Reading held Monday in Nanchang, the capital city of East China’s Jiangxi province.

    Li Shulei, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and head of the CPC Central Committee’s Publicity Department, was in attendance at the opening event and delivered a keynote address to assembled participants.

    Event attendees united in a call for amplified action to popularize reading among all segments of the Chinese public and cultivate a pervasive, society-wide culture of regular reading. Stressing that reading forms the most foundational pillar of cultural advancement, participants emphasized that nationwide reading programs must be fully leveraged to support China’s broader national strategy to build itself into a leading global culture power.

    In addition to promoting public engagement with reading, attendees called for strengthened investment, development and regulatory oversight of public reading infrastructure, including libraries, community reading spaces and other public resources that make accessible reading materials available to all citizens.

    Running this week from Monday through Sunday, the 2026 National Reading Week will feature a diverse lineup of community and national events designed to reignite public passion for reading, spanning book fairs, author talks, reading clubs and youth engagement programs that reach across urban and rural communities to encourage people of all ages to pick up books and build regular reading habits.

  • The train expert you don’t know you need

    The train expert you don’t know you need

    For many modern travelers, navigating China’s extensive rail network can come with small, unexpected frustrations — from confusing transfer routes to uncertainty about what to expect on different types of train services. But one working rail professional is turning her on-the-job expertise into accessible, helpful content for millions of ordinary people, one short video at a time.

    At 32 years old, Li Xin holds the position of head conductor on the high-speed rail route connecting Jilin City in northeast China and Shanghai, one of the country’s busiest economic hubs. Outside of her full-time responsibilities on the train, Li has built a growing following on the Chinese short-video platform Douyin under the screen name “Tie Xinran”, where she shares insider knowledge about all things rail travel.

    One of Li’s most popular pieces of content, a video exploring China’s classic “green skin” conventional trains — a nostalgic and still widely used service that predates the high-speed rail era — has racked up more than 100,000 likes from viewers across the platform. Li fits video editing and content creation into her schedule during work breaks, treating the project as a fun, rewarding hobby that lets her connect with passengers beyond her daily shifts.

    What started as a side project has already made a tangible difference for many travelers. Li often gets recognized by passengers during her work, who tell her that her practical transfer guide videos helped them plan smoother, less stressful trips. For Li, the project is far more than a personal pastime: she plans to keep growing her channel as an “online conductor”, committed to adding both practical convenience and a little extra joy to people’s travel journeys through her unique, insider perspective.

  • Israel restores West Bank settlement, as minister demands occupation of Gaza

    Israel restores West Bank settlement, as minister demands occupation of Gaza

    Two decades after Israel’s 2005 unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip that dismantled a handful of settlements in both Gaza and the West Bank, the Israeli government has formally re-established a Jewish settlement at the site of Sanur, a Palestinian village located southwest of Jenin in the occupied West Bank. The move is the most high-profile step in a dramatic acceleration of Israeli settlement construction that has unfolded since the start of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, a trend that has put the international legal order governing occupied territories under unprecedented strain.

    The inauguration ceremony held Sunday drew senior members of Israel’s ruling coalition, including Defense Minister Israel Katz and far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a prominent advocate for annexation who resides in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank himself. In remarks at the event, Smotrich framed the re-establishment of Sanur as a momentous turning point for Israel, calling it a “national holiday” and a “historic correction” of what he termed the “sinful expulsion” carried out during the 2000 withdrawal. He went further, declaring that the step “abolishes the disgrace of expulsion, kills the idea of a Palestinian state, and returns to the settlement of Sa-Nur.” Smotrich also used the occasion to call for the re-establishment of Israeli settlements inside the Gaza Strip to create what he described as a “security belt for Israel.”
    Alongside the Sanur project, the Israeli government has already committed to rebuilding three additional West Bank settlements that were dismantled as part of the 2005 withdrawal. All Israeli settlements constructed on land seized by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War, including those across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, are explicitly deemed illegal under international law, a standing position held by the United Nations and most of the global community.

    Palestinian groups have immediately decried the move as a deliberate escalation targeting Palestinian claims to statehood and territorial sovereignty. Mahmoud Mardawi, a senior official with Hamas, described the re-establishment of Sanur as a “dangerous escalation” aimed at erasing Palestinian presence in the West Bank. In an official statement, Hamas emphasized that the step opens an “unprecedented stage of settlement expansion, which falls within the so-called annexation plan and the complete control of the West Bank and Palestinian land.”

    Today, an estimated 700,000 Israeli settlers currently reside in roughly 300 illegal settlements spread across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Data from Israeli and peace monitoring groups confirms that settlement expansion has surged to unprecedented levels under the current Israeli government, which took office in 2022.

    Earlier in April, Israeli news outlet i24NEWS reported that the Israeli cabinet secretly approved a record-breaking batch of new settlement units during a period aligned with escalating U.S.-Israeli tensions with Iran. In a single decision, the government authorized 34 new settlements — a figure equal to more than half of all settlements approved in 2025, which itself was a record-setting year for expansion. Since 2022, the current government has greenlit a total of 68 new formal settlements, while nearly 200 unauthorised settler outposts have been established across the West Bank in the same period.

    Israeli peace advocacy group Peace Now’s annual data underscores the scale of the expansion: in 2025, the government approved 54 new settlements, shattering the previous record of nine approvals set in 2023. Twenty-six of these were unauthorised outposts that the government retroactively legalised. The group also recorded a 40 percent jump in new unauthorised outposts last year, with 86 new outposts established — an average of one to two new outposts per week.

    The re-opening of the Sanur settlement coincides with a dramatic spike in settler violence targeting Palestinian communities in the West Bank. Over recent weeks, dozens of Israeli settlers have carried out coordinated attacks against Palestinian civilians and property, including torching and vandalising Palestinian infrastructure, shooting at residents, and destroying agricultural and residential property.

    A United Nations report released on March 17 documented the devastating human impact of this surge in violence: between November 2024 and October 2025, more than 36,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes in the West Bank amid rising settler attacks. The UN recorded 1,732 incidents of settler violence resulting in casualties or property damage during that 12-month period, a 25 percent increase from the previous year. A tally compiled by Agence France-Presse based on data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health found that more than 1,151 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.

  • A top paramilitary commander defects to Sudan’s military as war enters 4th year

    A top paramilitary commander defects to Sudan’s military as war enters 4th year

    As Sudan’s devastating civil conflict stretches into its fourth year of brutal fighting, a high-ranking commander from the country’s powerful Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has announced his defection to the national army, a shift that Sudan’s top military leadership has framed as an opening for reconciliation and national rebuilding.

    Army chief and Sovereign Council chair Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan formally welcomed Maj. Gen. al-Nour Ahmed Adam — widely known by the alias al-Qubba — in a meeting held Sunday in Sudan’s Northern province, which shares a border with Egypt. The country’s ruling transitional body publicly shared video footage of the meeting across its social media channels, confirming the defection that was first reported earlier this month. Local Sudanese media outlets have confirmed that Adam fled RSF-held territory in the Darfur region alongside dozens of armed fighters and military equipment to cross into government-controlled areas.

    According to independent regional publication *Sudan Tribune*, the commander’s departure stemmed from internal leadership disputes within the RSF. Tensions boiled over after the paramilitary group captured el-Fasher in October 2024 — the last remaining army stronghold in the entire Darfur region — but failed to appoint Adam to the top military commander post for North Darfur province, a position he had reportedly expected. The RSF has so far declined to issue any public statement addressing Adam’s defection.

    Burhan emphasized in an official statement following the meeting that Sudan’s military remains open to reconciliation for combatants willing to lay down their weapons and join efforts to rebuild the war-torn nation. “Doors are open to all those who lay down arms and join the path of national reconstruction,” Burhan said.

    Adam’s defection marks one of the most high-profile departures from the RSF’s ranks since full-scale conflict erupted in April 2023. He is not the first senior RSF commander to switch allegiances in the past year: earlier in 2024, Abu Aqla Kaikel, leader of the Sudan Shield Forces, also left the RSF after the Sudanese Army retook control of the strategic central province of Gezira, a key agricultural and population hub.

    The current conflict grew out of a years-long unresolved power struggle between the Sudanese Army, led by Burhan, and the RSF, a paramilitary force that evolved from the country’s former janjaweed militias tied to decades of conflict in Darfur. Fighting first broke out in the capital Khartoum before spreading across the vast northeast African nation, triggering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises in modern history.

    Data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a U.S.-based conflict monitoring organization, records at least 59,000 confirmed deaths from the war to date. The group has repeatedly warned that the actual death toll is almost certainly far higher, as widespread insecurity, collapsed healthcare infrastructure, and limited access to conflict zones make accurate casualty reporting nearly impossible.

  • Migrants rush to apply under Spain’s new mass legalization program

    Migrants rush to apply under Spain’s new mass legalization program

    MADRID – Starting Monday, undocumented migrants living across Spain gained the opportunity to formalize their residency, after the Spanish government rolled out one of the most ambitious mass legalization initiatives in recent European history. The program, which could regularize the status of between 500,000 and 840,000 unauthorized foreign residents already living and working in the country, marks a sharp break from restrictive migration policies adopted by many other European governments in recent years.

    First announced back in January and finalized earlier this month, the amnesty scheme offers eligible applicants a one-year renewable residence permit. To qualify, migrants must prove they have resided in Spain for a minimum of five months and hold a clean criminal record. The application window closes at the end of June, a tight timeline that has sparked questions about whether authorities can process the expected volume of submissions in time.

    To accommodate applicants, the government has expanded access across multiple public service points: more than 370 post offices nationwide are accepting in-person submissions, alongside 60 social security offices and a small network of dedicated migration centers. Online applications launched earlier, on Friday, to streamline the process for tech-accessible applicants.

    Early reports from application sites in major urban centers including Madrid and Barcelona confirm the process proceeded without major incidents, though many migrants reported extended wait times even for those who booked scheduled appointments in advance.

    Nubia Rivas, a 47-year-old migrant from Venezuela who submitted her application at a central Madrid post office, noted that while the process moved slowly, it remained steady and straightforward. “It’s pretty simple since I made an appointment online and I was given one for this morning,” Rivas explained. “The process here is a little slow, but it’s fluid.”

    Johana Moreno, another Venezuelan migrant who applied alongside her husband at the same Madrid location, shared her optimism about what legal status would mean for her future. Once a professional archivist in her home country, Moreno now works as a house cleaner to support herself in Spain. “It’s what we want,” she said of the regularization effort. “To be well, to work, to contribute, all those things. To pay our taxes. We know that we’ll have rights, but also we’ll have obligations.”

    Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, leader of the country’s progressive government, has framed the initiative as both a matter of fundamental justice and an economic necessity. Sanchez argues that migrants already integrated into Spanish communities and workforce should be permitted to participate in society on equal footing, contribute to public finances through taxes, and access the same rights as documented residents.

    With one of the fastest aging populations in the European Union, Spain’s government says the program directly addresses a critical labor shortage that threatens the country’s ongoing economic growth. Undocumented migrants already fill critical roles across Spain’s core economic sectors, including commercial agriculture, tourism, and domestic and hospitality services, accounting for a large share of the workforce in these industries.

    This departure from Europe’s broader restrictive migration trend has won the backing of both Spanish business associations and major trade unions. The contrast with other European nations, where many governments have prioritized curbing new migrant arrivals and ramping up deportations of undocumented residents, could position Spain as a test case for a more permissive approach to integrated unauthorized migrant populations.

    Currently, foreign-born residents account for roughly one in five people living in Spain, a share that has grown dramatically over the past two decades as migration flows from Latin America and North Africa have increased. Most of the migrants eligible for the current amnesty come from Venezuela, Colombia, and Morocco, having fled political instability, widespread violence, and deep poverty in their home countries.

    This legalization effort is not without precedent in Spanish policy: the country has launched six previous amnesty programs for undocumented migrants between 1986 and 2005, with some of those initiatives even implemented by past conservative governments.

    For many migrants, the program represents a lifelong chance to escape the uncertainty of undocumented life. Mourad El-Shaky, a 25-year-old Moroccan migrant who waited four hours outside Barcelona’s city hall last Friday to collect required paperwork for his application, described what legal status would change. El-Shaky made the dangerous journey to Spain via Turkey, traveling overland west despite the short maritime distance between Morocco and Spain. “Without papers (work and residency permits), your hands are tied,” he said. “You’re like a bird that can’t fly, with broken wings. This legalization will solve many things.”

  • Shanghai university launches new AI plus polymers platform

    Shanghai university launches new AI plus polymers platform

    A decades-long effort to reimagine polymer material development through artificial intelligence reached a major milestone this month, as researchers at Shanghai’s East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST) launched the third iteration of their groundbreaking AI plus Polymers platform. The new release marks a critical step forward in China’s transition from traditional, trial-and-error based materials R&D to a modern, intelligent and precision-driven design ecosystem.

    Unlike early versions of the tool, the v3.0 platform delivers comprehensive upgrades across every core layer of its infrastructure, built specifically to address the wide-ranging research and development needs of academic and industrial teams working with polymer materials. It now hosts a massive curated database of 7.6 million specialized polymer-related entries, integrates more than 80 tailored AI models, and features over 10 purpose-built algorithms designed exclusively for polymer science applications. According to the ECUST research team, these improvements enable far more efficient intelligent design of high-performance resins, organic optoelectronic materials, and advanced composite materials, supported by an enhanced human-computer interaction framework that streamlines workflows for both researchers and industry practitioners.

    ECUST’s journey in AI-accelerated polymer research stretches back more than a decade, to 2013, when the team pioneered the country’s first AI-powered polymer research program. Over the years, they have built an entirely new research paradigm dubbed “AI for polymers”, which is fully protected by independent, indigenous intellectual property rights held by the university team.

    Since the platform’s first public launch in March 2023, it has seen rapid adoption across China’s advanced manufacturing and materials sectors. To date, more than 10 national aerospace research institutes and over 60 domestic new chemical material enterprises have integrated the platform into their regular R&D operations. Real-world applications of materials developed through the “AI for polymers” paradigm are already delivering impact: high-performance resins and advanced conductive adhesives created with the platform’s support have already entered full-scale industrial use. Most notably, a novel resin with unique properties—high-temperature resistance, superior toughness, and easy processability—has already been deployed in key components of China’s aerospace and advanced precision equipment, the team confirmed.

    Looking ahead, the ECUST team has set ambitious expansion goals for the paradigm-shifting technology. “Our team’s vision is to expand the new AI paradigm to broader fields, including polymer structural materials, functional materials, and biomedical materials,” said Lin Jiaping, lead scientist of the research program. “Also, we aim to comprehensively empower the design and development of polymer materials and promote the digital transformation of the entire industry through artificial intelligence.”

  • Watch: Skydiver crashes into jumbotron at US football game

    Watch: Skydiver crashes into jumbotron at US football game

    A planned pre-game skydiving demonstration at a Virginia Tech University football event took an unexpected turn on Saturday, when one airborne performer veered off course and collided directly with the stadium’s massive overhead jumbotron.

    Witnesses captured the dramatic moment on camera, showing the skydiver becoming tangled in his parachute lines after the impact, leaving him suspended dozens of feet above the stadium playing field. Emergency first responders were already on standby for the event, and they immediately launched a coordinated rescue operation to extract the stranded skydiver from the scoreboard structure.

    In a statement released after the incident, local emergency management officials confirmed that the skydiver escaped the frightening collision without any reported injuries. The accident prompted a brief delay to the start of the scheduled football contest while the rescue was completed, and the event resumed as planned once the area was cleared. Organizers have not yet announced whether they will revisit safety protocols for future aerial demonstration events held at the venue.

  • Trump tariff refunds begin but consumers likely to miss out

    Trump tariff refunds begin but consumers likely to miss out

    More than two months after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a sweeping set of Trump-era tariffs, the current Trump administration has kicked off what historians and trade analysts describe as the largest tariff repayment initiative in U.S. history. Eligible importing companies can now submit claims online to recover the billions in duties they paid, plus accumulated interest, under the administration’s controversial “Liberation Day” tariffs.

    The legal path for refunds cleared in March, when the U.S. Court of International Trade ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to return the full $160 billion (around £121 billion) collected from importers under the tariffs, which were imposed using the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The court’s ruling puts roughly 330,000 registered importers in line to potentially claw back at least a portion of the funds they paid.

    In a March ruling, Judge Richard Eaton emphasized that “All importers of record whose entries were subject to IEEPA duties are entitled to the benefit” from the Supreme Court’s February decision. When the official online claims portal, branded the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (Cape), went live earlier this month, more than 56,000 importers had already completed their applications within the first week, submitting claims totaling $127 billion, according to early CBP data.

    CBP officials designed the Cape platform to streamline the refund process, allowing importers to submit a single bulk claim for all eligible duties rather than filing separate requests for each individual imported shipment. Approved claimants can expect to receive their full refund plus applicable interest within 60 to 90 days of approval, a CBP spokesperson confirmed.

    But the structure of the program has sparked widespread frustration, as ordinary consumers who bore the indirect cost of the tariffs through higher retail prices are excluded from direct compensation. The tariffs pushed up prices on a huge range of imported goods, from raw materials used by small businesses to finished consumer products, but only registered importing companies are eligible to file claims. While consumers could theoretically see indirect benefits if companies choose to pass recovered funds back to shoppers through lower prices, few firms have announced plans to do so, leaving millions of affected Americans with no path to relief.

    In response to the exclusion, hundreds of consumers have launched class-action lawsuits against major retailers and brands, arguing that any refunds businesses receive should be passed through to the customers that ultimately paid the tariff costs. Federal suits have already been filed against EssilorLuxottica, the parent company of Ray-Ban, global delivery firm FedEx, and wholesale retail giant Costco in multiple U.S. district courts. Costco is an outlier among major companies: chief executive Ron Vachris has confirmed the retailer plans to pass any tariff refunds back to consumers “through lower prices and better values.”

    For small business owners who absorbed higher supply costs, the exclusion is a particularly bitter blow. Sue Johnson, a small-batch lamp designer based in the Midwest, told the BBC that her key material supplier doubled prices immediately after the tariffs went into effect, cutting her profit margins dramatically. “Maybe [the importers] will get repaid, but I have no hope they’re going to refund me,” Johnson said, adding that she expects no relief from the current refund program.

    The issue of consumer compensation is further complicated by the uneven impact of tariffs on business pricing. Many importers only partially passed tariff costs through to consumers to stay competitive, meaning they absorbed a portion of the cost themselves. Tariffs also triggered secondary, hard-to-quantify costs for businesses, from higher debt loads taken on to cover upfront duty payments to lost sales from reduced consumer demand at higher price points.

    Top Trump administration officials have openly acknowledged that consumers are not expected to see direct benefits from the program. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer encouraged successful claimants last month to allocate any unexpected “windfall” refunds to worker bonuses rather than passing the money to consumers. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent echoed that framing in February, saying “I got a feeling the American people won’t see it.”

  • Mother and six children die in Pennsylvania house explosion

    Mother and six children die in Pennsylvania house explosion

    A devastating domestic disaster has claimed the lives of a 34-year-old mother and her six young children in rural Clinton County, Pennsylvania, after an explosion sparked an out-of-control blaze that engulfed their entire residence, law enforcement officials confirmed this week.

    Local emergency dispatchers received initial reports of a large explosion at the single-family home in Lamar Township at 8:30 a.m. local time Sunday, according to an official statement from Pennsylvania State Police. When first responder fire crews arrived at the scene, they encountered the entire property fully engulfed in intense flames, making an immediate search for trapped residents impossible. All seven people inside the home at the time of the blast were later found dead.

    Authorities have identified the victims as Sarah B. Stolzfus, 34, and her six children — four boys and two girls between the ages of 3 and 11. Preliminary investigations point to an indoor propane leak as the likely trigger for the explosion, though official probes into the exact origin and cause of the incident remain active. The BBC has reached out to Pennsylvania State Police to request additional details and updates on the ongoing investigation.

    Footage captured by local media outlets on the scene shows thick black smoke billowing into the sky above the burning property, as the fire weakened the home’s structural framework and caused partial collapse before crews could bring the blaze under control.

    Neighbors described the terrifying moment of the explosion, with Christina Duck, a nearby resident, telling local broadcaster WNEP-TV that she was eating breakfast with her own daughter when the blast occurred. “I could feel it [the shockwave] and I got up and looked out the window, and I could see the flames through the windows, and I come running outside and within a minute the whole house was completely engulfed,” Duck recalled in her account of the incident.

    Duck added that neighbors who witnessed the blast immediately began running through the neighborhood to alert others and call 911, and fire crews arrived at the scene just minutes after the initial explosion. Still, the speed of the fire left no opportunity to save the home or the people trapped inside. “By the time they got here, there was no saving that house. It went up so fast,” she said.