A fortune-teller gives Year of the Fire Horse predictions for careers, relationships and more, plus lucky numbers, colours and elements.
February 17 sees the beginning of the Year of the Fire Horse, which occurs every 60 years in the Chinese calendar and is known as a period of rapid change.
Renowned fortune-teller Tong Pik-ha offers her comprehensive predictions for the year, delving into the celestial influences that will shape the destinies of those born under each Chinese zodiac sign.
University rankings - CWTS Leiden Ranking Traditional Edition - Ranking 2025
Seven Chinese universities are in the top ten of the Leiden rankings, with Zhejiang University at the top of the listings.
…The Leiden Ranking provides information exclusively about the research done at universities. Research is represented in publications, and carefully collected data about these publications forms the basis for the Leiden Ranking. This basis also ensures the independence of the Leiden Ranking, since there is no reliance on data submitted by the universities themselves. Finally, because universities are complex institutions that have a variety of forms, contexts and missions, their performance cannot be represented by a single number. The Leiden Ranking presents a variety of indicators for you to explore the performance of universities from different angles.
Growth momentum in the mainland car market may shift from battery-powered to petrol-based models this year on account of a revised subsidy policy, exacerbating a bearish profit outlook for the country’s 50-odd electric vehicle (EV) builders.
Slower growth in EV adoption would deal another heavy blow to assemblers from BYD to Leapmotor, which are known for low-priced cars, after big-name international banks reduced forecasts for car deliveries this year.
“Petroleum-powered cars will regain market share this year,” said Zhao Zhen, a sales director at Shanghai dealer Wan Zhuo Auto. “EV brands are und
China has developed smart power grid technology that cuts blackout recovery time to a 10th of a second, according to state media, which said the innovation was expected to play a bigger role in ensuring the safe and stable distribution of electricity worldwide.
The grid protection technology enables power grid faults to be isolated and restored within a hundred-millisecond window, compared with the hours otherwise required, according to a Science and Technology Daily report on Tuesday.
It also solves the problem of identifying micro-current faults at the hundred-milliampere level.
A leading young Chinese chemical engineer has left the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to return home to Peking University.
Zheng Yu recently completed her postdoctoral training in bioelectronics in the US but has now joined the Chinese university’s college of chemistry and molecular engineering as an assistant professor.
According to her Peking University webpage, Zheng is working on wearable and implantable electronic devices, such as smart bandages that are used to monitor health.
Chinese tourist numbers are recovering across Asia after a pandemic-era contraction, buoyed by the expansion of visa-free policies and a stronger yuan. But one thing has not returned: the spending sprees that used to boost duty-free retailers around the world.
The trend can be clearly seen in South Korea, which relied on Chinese travellers for 70 per cent of its duty-free sales before Covid-19. Around 5 million visitors from China arrived in the country during the first 11 months of 2025, a recovery to 92.3 per cent of 2019 levels.
But duty-free sales not only failed to rebound; they actually fell to levels last seen in 2015. Sales at South Korea’s duty-free shops declined 12 per cent year on year to US$80.6 billion between January and November last year, according to the Korea Duty-Free Shops Association.
Canada and China appear ready to kick-start trade talks after years of strained relations, with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to Beijing this week coinciding with both countries questioning their once stronger ties with the United States, analysts said.
Carney travelled to Beijing on Tuesday for his first official visit to the country, where he will discuss trade, agriculture and energy with officials from Canada’s second-largest single-country trading partner.
nurse in China has been suspended from work for letting her boyfriend accompany her during night shifts and publicly showing off how he helped her.
The nurse, who works at the privately-run Singde Brain Blood Vessel Hospital in Qingdao, Shandong province, eastern China, came under fire after she shared a video on social media on January 2.
She apparently intended to show how considerate her boyfriend was, the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald reported.
China has pulled off a daring underground feat, using a multimillion-dollar tunnel boring machine (TBM) to recover its stranded twin beneath the country’s largest river.
The rendezvous between the TBMs was achieved with just 2mm (0.078 inch) of vertical error and no horizontal deviation under the Yangtze’s riverbed, setting a benchmark for precision in deep underground engineering, according to state media on Wednesday.
The feat saved a megaproject that might otherwise have been scrapped.
This weekly newsletter is put together by DeLisle Worrell, President of the ABCF. Visit us at Association for Barbados China Friendship | (abcf-bb.com).
Thanks to everyone who sent contributions for this week’s Update. Please send items of interest to me via the contact page at ABCF-BB.com or to info@DeLisleWorrell.com
The ABCF mission is to build a deeper understanding between the Chinese people and Barbadians and Caribbean people from all walks of life. The association’s focus is on personal experiences, people-to-people contact, cultural exchanges and exchanges of ideas, and the facilitation of travel, business and study. From the outset we aim to learn from and build on the experiences of the Caribbean and China, and to develop mutual understandings and support that will be to the benefit of both sides.
