Global Pulse

作者： admin

  • He made jazz under air raids – and built an Indian city’s music scene

    He made jazz under air raids – and built an Indian city’s music scene

    Against the backdrop of World War II, when Japanese air raids sent terrified residents of Calcutta (now Kolkata) scrambling for cover, one man refused to let war stifle the city’s creative pulse. That man was Kumar Chunder (KC) Sen, a polymath whose work shaped the trajectory of modern Kolkata’s entertainment and cultural landscape – yet who has been largely erased from popular regional history.

    Sen’s life was defined by rich cross-cultural heritage, born in 1919 to a family with deeply rooted connections to both British and Bengali elite society. On his maternal side, he descended from Lieutenant General Sir Edward Barnes, a decorated veteran of the Battle of Waterloo, while his paternal line traced back to Brahmananda Keshub Chandra Sen, the iconic 19th-century Bengali social reformer. Music was woven into the fabric of his childhood home: his eldest sister Moneesha built a career as a concert pianist, second sister Pamela found acclaim as a prima ballerina, and his youngest sister Bunny became a regular on-air personality for All India Radio. It was during his school years, while cleaning instruments in the music room of Kolkata’s prestigious Jesuit boys’ school, that Sen first discovered his own passion for performance. As a teenager, he made his professional debut on Park Street – Kolkata’s iconic swinging cultural hub – at the city’s San Souci Theatre, quickly establishing himself as a versatile multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and charismatic jazz bandleader.

    Beyond music, Sen’s talents extended across multiple fields. A skilled competitive rower, he made history in 1938 as the first Indian athlete to win the coveted Macklin Sculls single sculling race at the Calcutta Lake Club. After completing an engineering apprenticeship, he traded city life for the frontlines of Burma (modern-day Myanmar), where he worked as a war correspondent for Reuters. It was there that he narrowly escaped death during a Japanese air raid, when shrapnel left a permanent dent in his military helmet – a tangible memento of his brush with mortality. Even amid the chaos of conflict, Sen never stopped creating. Throughout his wartime posting, he continued composing new music, and many of his original works from this period were pressed onto 78 rpm shellac records for distribution across India. One of his most notable early compositions, *Moonlight in Hawaii*, was written years before a Hollywood feature film of the same name hit screens; Sen later recalled in his memoir that the film’s release accidentally boosted sales of his existing recording on the Indian pop market.

    By the end of World War II, Sen returned to Kolkata to take up the role of head of programming at All India Radio, and formed the popular performance group the Casual Club Quintet, which even earned an honourable mention in *Melody Maker*, Britain’s leading music industry weekly at the time. As his influence grew, he set out to formalize jazz culture in the city: with financial backing from prominent patrons including the Maharaja of Cooch Behar, he founded the Calcutta Swing Club, an institution that did for popular jazz what the long-established Calcutta School of Music had done for Western classical music in Kolkata. He went on to organize large-scale big-band concerts at Kolkata’s New Empire Theatre, bringing top talent from Bombay to perform for local audiences, and even took over management of the Golden Slipper, one of the city’s most legendary nightclubs.

    But Sen’s most enduring and transformative contribution to Kolkata’s cultural scene came in 1953, when he launched his groundbreaking talent initiative, Band Wagon. What began as a side project off his sports magazine *Sportlight* evolved by 1957 into a popular glossy weekly covering both showbusiness and sports. More than a publication, Band Wagon grew into a full-fledged talent agency and ecosystem that professionalized Kolkata’s Park Street nightlife, turning the district’s popular entertainment venues into launchpads for untapped local talent. As a regular columnist for *Junior Statesman*, the iconic Indian youth magazine of the mid-20th century, Sen used his platform to promote emerging performers, alongside hosting weekly open auditions every Sunday at the New Empire Theatre. These auditions fed into four major annual Band Wagon showcase events: the Easter Parade, the July Birthday Revue, the October Puja Pageant and the Christmas Revue.

    For an entire generation of Indian performers, Band Wagon was the stepping stone to professional success. “KC Sen was the only promoter of local talent back then, I started in 1959 during his Band Wagon days, singing once a week for 10 rupees,” recalled Vivian Hansen, a former crooner at Park Street’s famous Trincas restaurant. Veteran guitarist Cyrus Tata similarly remembered making his stage debut at just 12 years old at one of Sen’s Sunday showcases. Between 1953 and 1968, Band Wagon built a sustainable, thriving live music economy in Kolkata that nurtured dozens of homegrown artists, including Marie Sampson and Shirley Churcher, both of whom went on to build successful international careers in the West. Sen’s influence even extended to Tollywood, Bengal’s iconic regional film industry: his most famous contribution to cinema came when he introduced cabaret performer Vicky Redwood to legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray, who subsequently cast Redwood in his critically acclaimed 1963 film *Mahanagar: The Big City*.

    After more than three decades shaping Kolkata’s cultural life, Sen closed out his career with a poignant farewell radio broadcast in October 1975, before retiring to Ashford, United Kingdom, where he died in 2007. His legacy lives on through his two sons, Neil and Robin Sen, who followed in their father’s performance footsteps as members of the band The Cavaliers, and recorded one of Kolkata’s earliest 45 rpm pop singles, *Love is a Mango*, in 1967. From his home in Sydney, Robin Sen remembered his father’s innate eye for creative potential: “If he saw even a little [talent], he would work to turn it into something – whether they could stand up, sing or dance. And on the Calcutta scene, there had to be somebody who knew what the hell they were talking about. That was him.”

  • Green Party strategist reveals plan for local elections and slams ‘sectarian’ claims

    Green Party strategist reveals plan for local elections and slams ‘sectarian’ claims

    As the United Kingdom prepares for local elections across 136 councils on May 7, where more than 5,000 council seats will be contested, the Green Party has emerged as a formidable progressive challenger to Keir Starmer’s sitting Labour government — marking the most high-stakes electoral test since Starmer took office in July 2024.

    Under the leadership of Zack Polanski, who has headed the party since last summer, the Greens have seen explosive growth in national polling. Their momentum was cemented in February, when the party secured a historic by-election victory in Greater Manchester’s Gorton and Denton constituency, defeating both Labour and the right-wing Reform UK.

    In an exclusive interview with Middle East Eye this week, Faaiz Hasan, the Green Party’s national and London elections coordinator, laid out the party’s strategy for the upcoming vote, its policy priorities, and its vision for reshaping UK politics. Hasan, who relocated to the UK from Pakistan in 1997, cut his political teeth as a member of the Labour Party during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, before leaving the party shortly after Starmer took control in 2020. Last year, he served as campaign manager for Mothin Ali’s successful bid to become the Green Party’s co-deputy leader, and he is standing as a candidate in Westminster’s Harrow Road ward this May.

    Hasan framed the 2025 local elections as a turning point for British progressive politics, saying the moment has arrived for the Greens to put forward a clear alternative vision that rejects the divisive scapegoating of migrants and racialized groups. Instead, he said, the party centers its platform on addressing the root of national inequality: the concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of a tiny elite. With 70% of the British public already rating Starmer’s performance in office as poor, and the national economy reeling from spillover effects of the US-Israeli war on Iran, the Labour government has been left floundering in the polls, creating an opening for progressive change.

    Recalling his campaign work on the ground in Harrow Road, where he stood as a by-election candidate just two years ago and secured second place from a standing start, Hasan said voter attitudes have shifted dramatically. Two years ago, many residents told the party they supported Green policies but did not see the Greens as serious contenders. Today, amid rising poll numbers, increased national media coverage of Green leadership, Labour’s ongoing collapse in support, and widespread public disillusionment with Reform’s poor performance in areas the party controls, voters are increasingly open to backing Green candidates, he said. Hasan projects a major surge in Green support across the country next month.

    Across London, the party’s momentum is already visible: Green councillor Areeq Chowdhury’s mayoral campaign in the east London borough of Newham is gaining traction, while former Labour councillor turned Green mayoral candidate Liam Shrivastava is targeting a takeover of Lewisham Council and mayoralty in southeast London, where polls currently forecast no party will win an overall majority. Nationally, polling data suggests the Greens could take control of up to nine councils, including long-held Labour strongholds such as Hackney and Lambeth in London.

    The electoral landscape is complicated by the presence of Corbyn’s new Your Party, which has taken a selective approach to the election, backing independent candidates and targeted local groups. In some seats, including Newham, Your Party-backed candidates are standing against Greens. Hasan, who entered politics inspired by Corbyn and still holds him in high regard, said he finds the internal infighting plaguing Your Party disappointing for left-wing politics. While he wished the faction well and hopes it resolves its internal disputes, he noted the electoral timeline leaves no room for delay. Across London, where 1,800 seats are up for grabs, the Greens are contesting 80 to 90% of all seats, and Hasan said the party is the only major left force consistently speaking out against what the party describes as genocide in Gaza and advancing progressive solutions to national issues.

    Hasan emphasized the party has no inherent conflict with Your Party or independent left candidates, and said there is substantial room for tactical cooperation in both local ward contests and the 2025 London elections, which include votes for mayor, a constituency seat, and a London-wide Assembly seat. Looking ahead to the next general election, Hasan said formal cooperation between left parties and independents will be essential to defeat Starmer and his centrist allies in their constituencies, echoing recent reporting from Middle East Eye that saw Health Secretary Wes Streeting attack independent left rivals in his east London seat for being “divisive” over foreign policy. In Birmingham, where 101 council seats are being contested and a hung council is forecast, Hasan said he has long pushed for strategic electoral alliances, and expects cooperation in roughly 90% of seats despite limited overlapping candidacies.

    Hasan framed the 2025 local elections as a key milestone in a broader permanent realignment of British politics. The long-standing two-party, first-past-the-post system that dominated UK politics for generations is now dead, he argued, noting the two main parties are currently polling at less than 30% combined. He warned that the existing electoral system, which rewards the first-place finisher even with a tiny share of the vote, creates a dangerous democratic deficit: a fragmented field with five parties polling between 15% and 25% could see a candidate win a seat with just 24% to 26% of the vote, granting power that does not reflect the popular will. For that reason, Hasan said the UK must transition to a proportional representation electoral system that ensures representation matches the share of votes parties receive.

    On policy, the Green campaign centers domestic working-class issues: the ongoing cost of living crisis, unsustainable household debt, the broken housing market marked by sky-high rents for poor-quality accommodation, and the inability of young people to get on the property ladder. The party also highlights the ongoing pressure on public services caused by the continuation of Conservative-era austerity policies. Local campaigns will also prioritize hyper-local issues specific to their communities, such as anti-social behavior, street litter, and road safety in Hasan’s own central London Harrow Road ward.

    Foreign policy is also a core pillar of the Green campaign, with a sharp focus on the impacts of the US-Israeli war on Iran and the Starmer government’s decision to allow the US to use UK military bases to launch attacks on Iranian missile sites. Hasan argued there is no separation between local, national, and international issues: the illegal war in Iran has directly exacerbated the UK’s cost of living crisis, impacting every household in the country, so framing the conflict as a distant problem irrelevant to UK voters is false. The party is also campaigning for local councils to divest pension funds from companies that profit from what it calls genocide in Gaza, as well as from fossil fuel companies and arms manufacturers. Hasan noted that the UK’s continued reliance on oil and gas leaves the country vulnerable to global energy price shocks, and greater investment in renewable energy would insulate UK households from these crises. While Labour has attempted to distance itself from the war by claiming Starmer did not bring the UK into the conflict, Hasan said the Greens will challenge that narrative: Starmer’s decision to allow US bombers to launch attacks on Iran from UK bases makes him complicit, he said, a position that is completely unacceptable to British voters.

    On the right, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has led national polls for more than a year, and is targeting a major takeover of local councils in May, with forecasts suggesting the party could win as many as 17 councils and 1,500 council seats. After the Green’s February by-election win in Gorton and Denton, Reform accused the Greens of engaging in sectarian politics. Hasan dismissed the accusation as the complaints of sore losers, noting Reform attacked the Greens for producing multi-language leaflets in English, Bangla and Urdu — a practice that has been common in UK politics since the 1960s. Hasan said the attack stems from Reform’s ongoing targeting of migrant and Muslim communities, and it is no surprise that those communities rejected the right-wing party at the polls. He framed Reform’s complaints as an attempt to discredit democratic outcomes when the party loses, noting the Gorton and Denton seat saw a large Muslim community vote for a white working-class Green candidate led by a Jewish party leader — a demonstration of the Greens’ broad, inclusive appeal.

    Hasan also rejected claims that the Green’s focus on the crisis in Gaza is a niche issue only of concern to Muslim voters. He pointed to the enormous diversity of the British pro-Palestine movement, which includes people of all faiths and no faith, all racial backgrounds, all age groups, and large contingents of Jewish and LGBTQ organizers. Framing the issue as a narrow concern is factually wrong, he said, because the crisis impacts every person in the UK through its economic and political ripple effects.

  • Historic 1926 census shows Protestant population drop in Irish Free State

    Historic 1926 census shows Protestant population drop in Irish Free State

    A century after it was collected, the first national census of the newly formed Irish Free State has been made fully accessible to the public online, unlocking groundbreaking new details about one of the most dramatic demographic shifts in modern Irish history.

    Released by the National Archives of Ireland on Saturday, the 1926 survey captures the first comprehensive snapshot of the country’s population just four years after the Irish War of Independence concluded with the formation of the independent Irish Free State (the precursor to the modern Republic of Ireland) and the partition of the island into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland, which remained part of the United Kingdom.

    The census data confirms a staggering 32% drop in the non-Catholic population — overwhelmingly made up of Protestant communities — across the 26 counties of the Irish Free State between 1911 (when all of Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom) and 1926. In comparison, the Catholic population saw only a 2% decline over the same 15-year period, while the overall population of the 26 counties fell just 5% from 3.14 million in 1911 to 2.97 million in 1926.

    That period of Irish history was marked by unprecedented political and social upheaval, including the 1916 Easter Rising, the two-year War of Independence, and the violent split over the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty that created the partition. The divide ran largely along religious lines: most Protestants identified as unionists who favored remaining in the UK, while most Catholics supported Irish nationalist calls for full independence.

    National Archives director Orlaith McBride explained that the scale of the non-Catholic population decline is far out of line with the overall population drop, making it a historically significant shift. “That’s very, very significant,” she said of the 32% decline. Census analysts estimate roughly one quarter of the Protestant population decline can be attributed to the withdrawal of British military personnel and their families from the new state after independence. McBride added that much of the remaining decline stemmed from internal migration across the new border: many Protestants relocated from the Irish Free State to Northern Ireland, while Catholics from border regions moved south into the Irish Free State.

    The decline was not uniform across all regions of the new state. The southern province of Munster recorded the sharpest drop at 42.9%, followed by the western province of Connacht at 36.3% and Leinster at 32.4%. The border counties of Ulster that became part of the Irish Free State — Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan — saw the smallest decline at just 22.5%. Dublin was the only county in the Irish Free State to record a population increase overall, growing by nearly 6% between 1911 and 1926.

    Despite the overall population drop, the census also reveals that Protestant communities remained heavily overrepresented in many of the most prominent professional, commercial and agricultural roles in 1926. Protestants made up 17% of all employers, 18.4% of managers and professional workers, 46% of all chartered accountants, and 39% of barristers. The number of Protestant farmers and their families actually saw a small increase of nearly 4% compared to 1911, and Protestants continued to hold a disproportionate share of large agricultural estates. Historians with the National Archives note this overrepresentation stemmed in part from past land reform policies that benefited Protestant landowners, many of whom retained large demesne estates after the breakup of old aristocratic land holdings.

    In addition to its historical demographic insights, the 1926 census offers members of the public the chance to search for their own ancestors and connect with their family history. One of the people still alive who appears in the 1926 census is 101-year-old Anne Carey, a County Meath resident who will turn 102 in November. Carey is one of 48 centenarian ambassadors selected by the National Archives from the nearly 100 living people who were alive at the time of the 1926 census and reached out to the institution.

    A former seamstress who worked making fur coats in Dublin and sewed all of her own clothing, Carey has lived through both World Wars and recalled the 1941 German bombing of Dublin in an interview. When her mother woke her to warn her of the bombing, she recalled asking, “Why did you wake me up?” When asked for the secret to her longevity, she shared her simple philosophy: “In my bedroom, I have a window and I look out. And I say to myself: ‘I’ll never see this day again, don’t bang it up.’”

    While the 1926 census for Northern Ireland has been lost to history, the surviving Irish Free State census offers an unparalleled window into life in Ireland a century ago. Beyond religious demographics, the data outlines broader social and economic trends: 92.6% of the population identified as Catholic, just 18.3% of residents could speak Irish, and 51% of the working population was employed in agriculture, 4% in fishing, 14% in manufacturing, and 7% worked as domestic servants. The population was split nearly evenly by gender, with 51% male and 49% female residents.

  • Tourists flock to blooming Qinhuangdao

    Tourists flock to blooming Qinhuangdao

    As early spring sweeps across northern China, a stunning natural floral display has turned Qinhuangdao, a coastal city in Hebei province, into a magnet for domestic travelers seeking seasonal scenery. Since mid-April 2026, thousands of tourists have flocked to Haigang District, where delicate pink blossoms are in full peak bloom along stretches of road near Jinmeng Bay Tourist Resort and Haibitai Community. The continuous clusters of soft pink flowers form an elegant, dreamy urban corridor that blends natural beauty with the city’s coastal charm, drawing visitors from across Hebei and neighboring regions. Photos from the site capture crowds of visitors posing among the blossoms, capturing social media-worthy moments of the seasonal spectacle. What began as an unplanned roadside bloom has quickly grown into one of northern China’s most popular unheralded spring outing destinations, as travelers seek out accessible, outdoor seasonal getaways as temperatures rise across the region.

  • Digital Dunhuang exhibition hosted at HKUST(GZ)

    Digital Dunhuang exhibition hosted at HKUST(GZ)

    An innovative digital exhibition that blends cutting-edge technology with centuries-old Chinese cultural heritage has opened its doors at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) [HKUST(GZ)], bringing the timeless allure of China’s famed Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes directly to a university campus. Titled ‘Cave Dance’, the Dunhuang-themed exhibition is the result of a groundbreaking cross-institutional and cross-border collaboration between a research team led by Professor Wang Zeyu at HKUST(GZ) and the Center for the Archaeological Materials and Advanced Technologies (CAMLab) at Harvard University.

    Unlike traditional cultural exhibitions that rely on physical artifacts or static reproductions, this showcase reimagines Dunhuang’s most iconic cultural elements through immersive digital technology. Visitors can explore digitally reconstructed cave structures of the Mogao Grottoes, the UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Northwest China’s Gansu Province, and interact with dynamic digital renditions of the legendary flying apsaras — the graceful celestial figures that are one of the most recognizable symbols of Dunhuang art.

    The project marks a major milestone in innovative cross-disciplinary and cross-border practice, bridging the fields of cultural heritage conservation, digital technology, and contemporary art creation. By leveraging modern digital tools to preserve and reinterpret ancient cultural treasures, the exhibition offers students, scholars, and visitors a new, accessible way to engage with Dunhuang’s thousand-year legacy, opening up fresh pathways for cultural inheritance and creative innovation in the digital age.

  • Chongqing’s meteorological systems praised by UN body

    Chongqing’s meteorological systems praised by UN body

    During an official two-day visit to southwest China that concluded on April 16, Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO), has publicly lauded Chongqing’s innovative modernized meteorological infrastructure, calling the megacity’s work a replicable global benchmark for extreme weather management in dense, complex urban environments.

    Saulo made her remarks following an inspection tour of the Chongqing Meteorological Bureau, where she reviewed the city’s end-to-end early warning system for meteorological disasters. “I was impressed by many elements of the early warning system here,” she stated. “What Chongqing can bring to the world is a valuable example of how to manage extreme events, and develop early warning systems in complex environments such as megacities.”

    Saulo specifically highlighted the city’s successful fusion of cutting-edge digital innovation and traditional local climate knowledge, aligned with a core people-centered approach that matches the United Nations system’s own global priorities. “Protecting people should be at the center of what we do as part of the United Nations system. We have an obligation to global society and to the global population,” she added.

    As China’s largest megacity by both land area and population, Chongqing holds unique geographic and administrative significance. Designated the country’s fourth direct-controlled municipality in 1997 (after Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin), it serves as a key gateway to China’s inland regions and a major national manufacturing hub. Spanning roughly 82,400 square kilometers — an area comparable to the entire nation of Austria and five times larger than Beijing — it is home to more than 32 million residents, making disaster preparedness and public safety a uniquely challenging governance priority.

    During her visit, Saulo also toured two additional key sites: the Chongqing Digital Urban Operations and Governance Center, and a grassroots community in Shapingba District. The trip was organized to allow the WMO chief to assess Chongqing’s on-the-ground implementation of the UN’s global initiative for universal early warning coverage, giving her firsthand insight into how digital meteorological tools are strengthening megacity governance and improving grassroots disaster warning coordination.

    Per the Chongqing Meteorological Bureau, the city’s decades-long push for meteorological modernization has yielded a series of groundbreaking practices tailored to its unique terrain and population size. These include integrating artificial intelligence and big data-powered meteorological solutions into urban governance, rolling out all-encompassing public early warning services, and developing targeted digital flood risk management strategies.

    Today, Chongqing operates a fully integrated cross-agency warning network, built in partnership with 10 local government departments spanning emergency management, water resources, and transportation. Focused on the three deadliest meteorological threats facing the region — heavy rainfall, extreme heat, and low-temperature snow and ice events — the system represents a major evolution from outdated single-factor weather alerts to comprehensive, actionable risk warnings that enable faster, more coordinated emergency response.

    Critically, the city has achieved unified, seamless dissemination of warning information across all communication channels. Its robust distribution network reaches more than 1 million registered emergency responders, and the public coverage rate for life-saving early warning information now exceeds 99.9 percent, ensuring nearly all residents receive timely alerts to prepare for oncoming extreme weather.

  • Guangzhou’s tech hub proving popular with innovators

    Guangzhou’s tech hub proving popular with innovators

    Just four years after its official launch, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) (HKUST(GZ)) has emerged as a thriving technology and entrepreneurship hub in South China, rapidly attracting a growing community of researchers, innovators and industry investors.

    Founded in 2022 in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, the young institution has already fostered more than 120 registered enterprises and over 240 startup incubation projects launched by its current students and academic faculty, according to university president Lionel M. Ni, who shared these latest development milestones with reporters during a recent media event.

    These innovative ventures span a diverse range of high-growth, cutting-edge sectors, including advanced artificial intelligence, smart manufacturing, embodied intelligence, biomedicine and new functional materials, Ni confirmed.

    The rapid expansion of HKUST(GZ)’s innovation ecosystem has been backed by strong policy support from the Guangzhou municipal government. The 2024 Guangzhou government work report formally earmarked the region surrounding HKUST(GZ) for development as a dedicated innovation zone, laying out clear policy and resource frameworks to support the growth of campus-led startups.

    In a key milestone for the hub, the HKUST(GZ) Innovation and Technology Transfer Base commenced full operations in the second half of 2024. The facility initially provides nearly 20,000 square meters of purpose-built incubation space for early-stage ventures founded by campus members, offering specialized infrastructure and support services to move research projects from lab to market.

    “We are committed to nurturing innovative enterprises that hold independent intellectual property rights and strong core competitive edges in the global market,” Ni said, adding that the hub will continue to expand its incubation capacity and connect innovators with industry resources to accelerate the translation of academic research into commercial impact.

    As a core component of Guangzhou’s strategy to build a regional innovation center, the HKUST(GZ) hub has already demonstrated strong momentum, filling a gap for technology translation and startup support in the Greater Bay Area and attracting growing attention from both domestic and international innovators looking to establish a foothold in one of China’s most dynamic economic regions.

  • Chongqing university honors hybrid rice pioneer Yuan Longping

    Chongqing university honors hybrid rice pioneer Yuan Longping

    As Chongqing’s Southwest University approaches its 120th founding anniversary, the institution has unveiled a new multi-building museum complex that centers a lasting tribute to one of its most accomplished alumni: the legendary hybrid rice pioneer Yuan Longping. The inauguration of the new facility, held on April 14, marks a significant milestone in honoring the agronomist whose revolutionary work transformed global food security. Yuan, who passed away in 2021 at the age of 91, earned his agronomy degree from Southwest University’s predecessor institution before launching his groundbreaking research career. In 1964, he launched his formal inquiry into hybrid rice technology, a pursuit that would upend conventional agricultural wisdom at the time. Just nine years later, in 1973, he successfully developed the world’s first high-yield hybrid rice strain, a breakthrough that boosted rice output across Asia and beyond. The far-reaching impact of Yuan’s life’s work cannot be overstated: his persistent research and widespread推广 of hybrid rice varieties enabled China to feed nearly 20 percent of the world’s population using only 9 percent of the planet’s total arable land. The new memorial hall, housed within the university’s newly opened museum complex, preserves personal artifacts, research notes, and historical records from Yuan’s decades of work, offering students and visitors a chance to trace the scientist’s journey from early curiosity to transformative discovery. University officials noted that the tribute also aims to inspire future generations of agricultural scientists to address ongoing global challenges related to food production and sustainability.

  • Iranian FM says passage for all commercial vessels through Strait of Hormuz ‘completely open’ during ceasefire

    Iranian FM says passage for all commercial vessels through Strait of Hormuz ‘completely open’ during ceasefire

    TEHRAN – In an official announcement shared Friday on the social media platform X, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi has confirmed that unimpeded passage for all commercial ships through the strategic Strait of Hormuz will remain completely open for the full duration of the ongoing ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. The declaration aligns with the terms of the 10-day truce that recently went into effect along the Israel-Lebanon border, a deal that has already lowered tensions across the broader Middle East region. The Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical chokepoints for global energy trade, sees roughly 20 percent of the world’s total oil shipments pass through its waters on an annual basis. This announcement comes amid a long-running backdrop of heightened geopolitical friction in the region, including prior United States blockade actions in the Hormuz area and repeated American threats to impose sanctions on nations purchasing Iranian crude oil, a situation that has repeatedly disrupted global shipping markets. China has long pushed back against unilateral American sanctions targeting Iran’s energy sector, and has maintained active diplomatic communication with the U.S. ahead of the planned visit of former President Donald Trump. The Iranian foreign minister’s clarification comes as global markets closely monitor developments in the Middle East, as any disruption to Hormuz transit would have immediate ripple effects on global energy prices and international supply chains. By explicitly guaranteeing open access for all commercial vessels during the ceasefire period, Iranian authorities have signaled their commitment to upholding the terms of the regional truce and supporting the stability of global maritime trade.

  • London police investigating incident near Israeli embassy

    London police investigating incident near Israeli embassy

    Authorities in London have launched a counter-terrorism investigation after an unverified group issued an uncorroborated claim that it launched drone attacks carrying hazardous materials targeting the Israeli Embassy in the United Kingdom capital.

    The incident unfolded on Friday, when uniformed officers in protective gear cordoned off an area near the diplomatic mission, located adjacent to Kensington Gardens. Law enforcement teams have cordoned off the entire public access to the gardens and surrounding streets as they conduct forensic examinations of a collection of discarded items recovered at the site, and have issued urgent appeals for local residents and visitors to steer clear of the restricted zone.

    As of Friday, officials have released limited concrete details about the circumstances of the incident. However, law enforcement confirmed they are assessing the credibility of a video circulated widely on social media overnight. In the footage, a little-known organization calling itself Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (Hayi) claims responsibility for a drone strike against the embassy. The video displays a target overlay on an exterior photograph of the Israeli Embassy, and shows unidentified individuals in hazmat suits operating unmanned aerial vehicles that the group alleges are loaded with dangerous substances.

    According to open-source claims, Hayi has been linked to Iran by multiple international observers, and the group only emerged publicly following the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against that country. The organization has also been named as the claimant for a string of alleged attacks targeting Jewish and Israeli sites across multiple European nations. Despite these claims, independent security analysts have repeatedly raised major questions about the actual existence of the group, the veracity of its claimed attacks, and the alleged ties to the Iranian government. Experts have pointed to multiple inconsistencies in the group’s public messaging and a complete lack of verifiable evidence confirming its operations, casting major doubt on its credibility.

    In an official statement issued Friday, London’s Metropolitan Police moved to reassure the public that there is currently no identified elevated risk to community safety. “While we can confirm that the embassy has not been attacked, we are carrying out urgent inquiries to determine the authenticity of the video and to identify any potential link between it and the items discarded in Kensington Gardens,” the statement read. Counter Terrorism Policing London confirmed it is leading the ongoing investigation, with forensic teams continuing to process the scene and verify the online claim as of Friday afternoon.