*Tuesday marked the decade anniversary of a commercial logging ban in the forest area in the Greater Khingan Mountains in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. *The ecological functional area of this forest totals 106,700 square kilometers, and includes 940,000 hectares of China's only concentrated contiguous virgin forest area. *In recent years, more than 3 million new seedlings have been cultivated annually. In 2024 alone, 3.4 million spruce and larch saplings were used in afforesting an area covering 3,666.7 hectares in the forest.

* According to Myanmar's State Administration Council, by Sunday about 1,700 people have been reported killed, 3,400 injured, and 300 missing in the massive 7.9-magnitude earthquake that struck the country and its neighbors on Friday. * "We have lost so many family members. There aren't many of us left," a retired high school teacher said. * In Mandalay, more than 100 young overseas Chinese volunteers in Myanmar have started providing technical, information and logistical support such as collecting information under the guidance of the professional rescue team.

* The ongoing 2025 Zhongguancun Forum (ZGC Forum) Annual Conference highlights the transformation of Zhongguancun, China's "Silicon Valley," into a global innovation hub. * Nearly 100 robots from 15 companies are actively engaged throughout the event to enhance the experience of the attendees. They showcase how humanoid robots are rapidly advancing to boost productivity and expand their real-world applications. * The 2025 ZGC Forum hosted multiple parallel forums to boost global sci-tech cooperation, focusing on topics including carbon neutrality, youth talent development and regional collaboration.

* As of Saturday, the disaster has left 1,002 people dead, 2,376 injured and 30 missing in Myanmar alone, the Information Team of the country's State Administration Council reported. * In Thailand, 10 people were killed and 42 others injured, with 78 others remaining missing in the capital of Bangkok, authorities said Saturday. * China has dispatched a national rescue team to assist in disaster relief efforts and also decided to provide Myanmar with 100 million yuan (approximately 13.9 million U.S. dollars) in emergency humanitarian aid to support earthquake relief efforts.

* A white paper, titled "Human Rights in Xizang in the New Era," was released by the State Council Information Office at a press conference held in Lhasa, capital city of the region. * The white paper expounded in details on remarkable human rights progress in Xizang in various fields. Xizang enjoys political stability, ethnic unity, economic development, social harmony, and amity among different religions, the document said.

* Amid the tranquility of the coastal town of Boao, the Boao Forum for Asia annual conference opened with a timely theme: "Asia in the Changing World: Towards a Shared Future." * The conference was more than just an event for Asia. * It served as a reminder that, amid global turbulence, platforms for dialogue and trust-building still exist and still matter.

* "China gave the answer for where growth would come from: Growth from high tech, growth by higher efficiency, and high-quality growth," remarked Siemens AG President and CEO Roland Busch during the just-concluded China Development Forum (CDF) 2025. *"Looking ahead, China will not only serve as a global innovation hub but also a core arena for setting standards and reshaping industrial chains," noted a PwC report released at the CDF. * While China accelerates its push toward innovation-led growth and deepens its commitment to openness, global businesses continue to see the country as a critical partner in achieving long-term economic prosperity.

* Negotiations between the U.S. and Russia, as well as between the U.S. and Ukraine, concluded in Saudi Arabia without an official joint statement. * Ukraine and Russia remain at odds over a potential agreement on Black Sea navigation and a ban on attacks on energy facilities, while the United States touts "positive" progress. * Analysts believe a truce remains distant, citing deep-seated distrust and conflicting interests between Moscow and Kiev.

* Amid rising global economic fragmentation and geopolitical tensions, the forum, themed "Asia in the Changing World: Towards a Shared Future," serves as a critical platform for fostering regional cooperation, driving global economic growth and strengthening the region's role in global governance. * Often referred to as the "Asian Davos," the forum brings together political and business leaders to discuss trade, investment and technology, with growing participation from Global South countries in recent years. * China, the world's second-largest economy, is restructuring by prioritizing high-end manufacturing, digital development and green industries, bringing new opportunities for Asia and beyond.

* In 2014, China initiated the strategy of coordinating the development of the national capital of Beijing and neighboring Tianjin Municipality and Hebei Province. * Over the past decade, the region has undergone a significant transition, shifting from reducing excessive capacities to fostering high-quality development. * In 2024, Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei recorded respective GDP growth rates of 5.2 percent, 5.1 percent and 5.4 percent, bringing the region's total economic output to 11.5 trillion yuan.

* Although Putin has ordered an immediate halt to strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure for 30 days, there is no mention of Russia's willingness to sign on to a comprehensive 30-day ceasefire as proposed by Trump and accepted by Ukraine. * In response to the phone call, Zelensky said that his country supports any proposals leading to a lasting and just peace, but his country's direct involvement in peace negotiations is needed. * The lack of information in the readouts by the White House and the Kremlin is striking. Key omissions include whether the phone call covered territorial arrangements; the question of Ukraine's NATO membership, which is a strategic concern for Moscow; the ongoing sanctions against Russia; and security guarantees for Ukraine.

* The Chinese economy has maintained good growth momentum, starting the year on a steady note with sound industrial performances and impactful macro policies. * During January and February 2025, most key indicators saw solid increases, employment remained generally stable, and new quality productive forces continued to grow. * The country's sound economic performance in the first two months has laid a good foundation for success in meeting its annual growth target.

* As the tariff turmoil escalates and the risks of inflation rise once again, economists and market participants are increasingly concerned about whether the "hard way" Trump refers to will lead to an economic recession or even stagflation. * Under the tariff chaos, while economic activity slows down, prices may rise. Some economists worry that if this situation continues, it could lead the U.S. economy into stagflation.

* The construction of marine ranches, dubbed "blue granaries" in the vast blue ocean, highlights the nation's efforts to diversify food supplies. * This year's "No. 1 central document" stresses that work must be done to build a diversified food supply system and adopt an all-encompassing approach to agriculture and food. * The technological advances, including automated feeding and underwater imaging systems, have transformed the aquaculture industry.

* China is witnessing a rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics into eldercare services, offering innovative solutions to the challenges of an aging population. * The latest data shows that by the end of 2024, China's population aged 60 and above reached 310 million, accounting for roughly 22 percent of its total population. * The International Electrotechnical Commission recently released a global standard for elderly-care robots. Led by China in its formulation, the standard sets technical benchmarks for product design, manufacturing, testing and certification for such robots.

* Taihu, China's third-largest freshwater lake, has seen its water quality improve to its best level in 30 years. * The lake's water quality has improved from Grade V the lowest level in China's five-tier water quality rating system to Grade III, which means it is now classed as "fairly good." * Strict environmental measures did not hinder economic development in the region, but spurred industrial transformation through scientific and efficient management.

* A high-stakes meeting held Tuesday between senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials resulted in Kiev okaying a U.S.-proposed 30-day ceasefire plan and Washington consenting to lift its pause on military aid to and intelligence sharing with Ukraine. * While expectations had remained low for tangible outcomes from the meeting, the final joint statement revealed a sharp diplomatic shift of both sides almost two weeks after a rare row between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House. * Despite the progress in negotiations, it is still too early to perform a "hooray dance," especially at a time when fighting on the battlefield remains intense.

Gone are the days when a bean bag and free kombucha made your office cool. Todays top tech talent wants something far more valuable: their health. Thats the view of Lucien Engelen, a renowned healthcare innovation expert, who believes workplace wellbeing is about to spark a seismic shift. This transition will not only transform employment perks, but also create a new tech market. Engelens vision...

The European Space Agencys (ESA) Rosalind Franklin rover is back on course for a landmark trip to Mars, where it will probe the red planet for signs of extraterrestrial life. ESA initially designed the Mars rover alongside Roscosmos, Russias space agency, as part of the ExoMars programme. The vehicle was set to launch in 2022, but when Russia invaded Ukraine, ESA severed ties with Moscow, putting...

German startup Isar Aerospace launched its Spectrum rocket from Andya Spaceport in Norway today, marking the first-ever vertical orbital rocket launch in Western Europe. Spectrum blasted off at 12:30 PM CEST (11:30 BST) but lost control at about 25 seconds into the flight. A video from the launch shows the rocket wobble, pitch over, and then plummet back to the ground, where it collided with the...

Five high-flying scaleups from the Benelux region have made it into TECH5 the Champions League of Technology. The classy quintet joins an exclusive group of Europes fastest-growing tech companies. Over the next two months, they will join six other regions the Nordics, Southern Europe, France, the Baltic States, DACH, and the UK & Ireland in a competition for the crown of hottest scaleup on...

A coalition of European startups has urged swift action to slash burdensome EU regulations after a landmark declaration from the D9+ group of digitally advanced nations. The declaration stressed the need for removing barriers and simplifying EU rules and procedures. Ministers from all 13 countries in the D9+ Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the...

Teslas sales in Europe have plummeted by 42% this year, according to the latest figures from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. Teslas slip came despite total EV sales on the continent rising 28% over the same period. Analysts have linked the slump to Teslas aging model lineup and growing backlash against CEO Elon Musks increasingly polarising behaviour. Whatever the reason,...

In the summer of 2018, a devastating fire tore through Greeces Attica region. In its aftermath, four scientists from the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London including two Greeks set out to answer a simple yet crucial question: why did some houses burn while others were left untouched? That question set off years of research into computer simulations for predicting wildfire risk...

A new algorithm has improved the ability of quantum computers to model new materials and chemicals by a factor of 10. Thats according to its developer, UK startup Phasecraft. The Bristol- and London-based company describes the breakthrough as the largest single leap in quantum simulations to date moving us a step closer to real-world quantum applications. Quantum computers improve on classical...

BlackRock, the worlds largest asset manager, has launched its first Bitcoin product in Europe, a move that industry experts say will help legitimise cryptocurrencies in mainstream finance. This is a landmark development for crypto, displaying confidence in Bitcoin for mainstream investments, Meryem Habibi, chief revenue officer at London-based crypto paymentgatewayBitpace, told TNW. Through this...

San Francisco-based 23andMe, which sells at-home DNA testing kits, has filed for bankruptcy in the US and is looking for a new buyer heightening concerns about the personal data of millions of people. 23andMe experienced a major data breach in 2023, which exposed personal information like family trees, birth years, and geographic locations of approximately half of the companys 15 million users....

Modern distributed systems, like microservices and cloud-native architectures, are built to be scalable and reliable. However, their complexity can lead to unexpected failures. Chaos engineering is a useful way to test and improve system resilience by intentionally creating controlled failures. However, it can be costly due to resource usage, monitoring needs, and testing in production-like...

In , we spoke about hunting bugs. But a time will come when your hunters trophy collection grows to a scary size. More and more targets will be coming as if it were a zombie apocalypse. There will be red lamps flashing across your metrics dashboard. If (or rather when) that happens, it would mean its time for a bigger change than just routine debugging and streamlining your codebase. Today, I am...

In my , I wrote about how quick and easy it is to turn an idea into reality. I built a Spring Boot API service using Gradle as my build management tool and then deployed it to Heroku.  But what about my readers who have Maven in their toolchain? 

SQL Server Query Store is an essential feature introduced in SQL Server 2016, designed to provide insights into query performance by storing a history of executed queries, query plans, and runtime statistics. Acting as a flight recorder for your database, Query Store simplifies performance troubleshooting and helps DBAs optimize database workloads efficiently. In this article, we will explore...

Data lakes are centralized repositories that facilitate flexible and economical data management, and businesses are using them to store, process, and analyze this data effectively. AWS offers a strong ecosystem for creating a safe and scalable data lake with services like Lake Formation AWS Glue and Amazon S3.  Along with best practices for implementation, this article examines the essential...

The 2024 IBM Cost of a found that data breaches cost organizations an average of $4.88 million per incident globally. Many of these breaches were caused by accidental or intentional mishandling of sensitive information. As businesses rely more on cloud collaboration tools, SaaS applications, and global data sharing, Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions have become essential to cybersecurity....

TL;DR: A Harvard Study of Procter and Gamble Shows the Way Recent research shows AI isnt just another tool its a cybernetic teammate that enhances agile work. A found individuals using AI matched the performance of human teams, broke down expertise silos, and experienced more positive emotions during work.  For agile practitioners, the choice isnt between humans or AI but between being...

Sales and marketing professionals in high tech are being told daily, loudly, and from every direction that they should be using AI. And while it's absolutely true that AI has real potential to boost productivity and unlock new insights, there's a crucial first step that often gets skipped: testing. This article is the result of testing AI with data from a large developer community with over...

Extracting insights from data and leveraging them in decision-making processes is becoming increasingly prevalent. Today, this approach enables impactful actions across various domains, including digital advertising. In the world of digital advertising, interactions between users exposed to ads and the platforms displaying those ads hold critical importance. Matches between advertisers and...

DeepSeek-R1 has made a significant impact since its release. A number of cloud-based providers offer the ability to use DeepSeek-R1. It is also possible to use DeepSeek-R1 locally using Ollama. In this article, we'll test the smallest DeepSeek-R1 model, using Ollama, with a number of different tasks and evaluate its response. The notebook file used in this article is available on .

One of the most exciting innovations in the rapidly advancing field of AI is the development of agentic AI, a new paradigm that focuses on creating intelligent systems capable of performing autonomous tasks with humanlike reasoning and actions.  Among the key concepts driving this field are function calling and the development of AI agents. These elements are paving the way for more...

Python has become a popular choice for developers working with PDF documents because it's flexible and has many free libraries available. Whether you need to create PDFs, edit them, extract information, or analyze them, Python has strong tools to help.  This guide looks at different Python libraries for handling PDFs, compares what they offer, and helps you choose the best one for various...

MTG announces new Secret Lair x Marvel collaboration with fan-favorite anti-hero

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Troll of Khazad-dum and Sowing Mycospawn banned in Legacy

Your guide to the cards banned and restricted in the major MTG formats.