Connect with us

Technology

Global Times editorial: China-Africa community with a shared future sets a stellar example for the world

Published

2 years ago

on

BEIJING, Sept. 4, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, hosted a banquet at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Wednesday evening, welcoming African and international guests attending the 2024 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), and posed for a group photo with the guests. In his toast at the welcoming banquet, President Xi frequently mentioned the China–Africa community with a shared future, emphasizing that it is built on a strong foundation, has been blessed with a good start, and enjoys broad prospects. He noted that it sets a stellar example for building a community with a shared future for mankind. There is no doubt that this summit will be another historic event witnessing and developing the China–Africa community with a shared future in the new era.

Over the past few days, heads of state, government leaders and representatives from over 50 FOCAC members, along with the chairperson of the African Union Commission, the secretary-general of the UN and several heads of international organizations, have gathered in Beijing. This has not only set a new record for the scale of diplomatic events that China has hosted in recent years and the number of attending leaders, but it has also become a significant milestone in the history of China–Africa relations and interactions among “Global South” countries. Meanwhile, enthusiasm for the 2024 Beijing Summit of FOCAC continues to rise on multiple levels. According to statistics, the summit has attracted over 3,000 registered journalists from China and abroad, setting a new record for FOCAC. An important supporting event, the Eighth Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs, is also expected to reach a scale of 1,000 participants this year. Enthusiastic registration far exceeded expectations, with 408 representatives from 48 African countries signing up to participate.

Matching the rising momentum, the content of China–Africa cooperation is also continuously being updated and elevated. This summit is expected to achieve three “new” outcomes: embarking on a new journey toward building a high-level China–Africa community with a shared future, gathering new momentum for deepening cooperation across various sectors between China and Africa, and writing a new chapter in the friendship between the people of China and Africa. China–Africa cooperation, while is being strengthened in traditional industries such as agriculture, infrastructure, and manufacturing, is also expanding to include more emerging sectors and new elements like green development, healthcare, finance, and digital innovation.

For example, at the Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs, corporate representatives will mainly discuss about and share experiences on the two topics of “promoting the integration of industrial and supply chains” and “driving the development of emerging industries.” Cooperation in the field of new energy vehicles has also become a highlight of the summit. The strong complementarity between China and Africa, along with China’s massive production capacity and Africa’s high expectations for cooperation with China, provides powerful support for the joint pursuit of modernization between China and Africa.

The deepening of China–Africa cooperation and the enduring spirit of China–Africa friendship are rooted in the shared destiny that has been evident at every stage of the development of China–Africa relations. Following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, China’s first-generation leaders, together with the older generation of African politicians, pioneered a new era of China–Africa relations. Since the 21st century, especially in the new era, China and Africa have continuously strengthened their comprehensive, multi-dimensional cooperation across various fields, including trade, agriculture, education, science and technology, and healthcare, yielding fruitful results. In 2023, China–Africa trade reached $282.1 billion, with China maintaining its position as Africa’s largest trading partner for 15 consecutive years.

“We have been fighting shoulder to shoulder imperialism, colonialism, and hegemonism, and advancing hand in hand along the path of development, revitalization, and modernization.” This is the most direct, accurate and vivid summary of China–Africa relations.

In recent years, driven by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) cooperation, Africa’s industrialization and various infrastructure capabilities have seen significant improvements. The previous sessions of the FOCAC have consistently emphasized “industrial integration” and “industrialization” in their action plans. To date, 52 African countries and the African Union Commission have signed BRI Cooperation Documents with China. China will also sign new cooperation plans with some African countries to promote the continued deepening of the China–Africa cooperation in building the “Belt and Road.” In recent years, China and Africa have collaborated to build and upgrade nearly 100,000 kilometers of roads, over 10,000 kilometers of railways, nearly a thousand bridges, and close to a hundred ports. This has greatly improved Africa’s transportation network, significantly enhancing logistics efficiency and market access, and playing a significant role in promoting the economic development of African countries.

In fact, at a time when economic globalization is facing a severe “trust crisis,” the collaboration between China and Africa to expand the economic development “cake” provides insights and direction for global economic development. China and Africa have also been actively practicing their commitment to the pursuit of universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization through concrete actions.

There is a proverb in Africa: “You can never tie a knot with one hand.” Similarly, there is a Chinese proverb: “A single strand does not make a thread. nor can one hand clap.” In the journey of development and revitalization, China and Africa have achieved fruitful results through mutually beneficial cooperation and exchanges. In the future, the 2.8 billion people of China and Africa will strengthen their unity and cooperation, which will surely inject new momentum into cooperation among the “Global South” and open up new horizons for building a community with a shared future for mankind.

 

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-times-editorial-china-africa-community-with-a-shared-future-sets-a-stellar-example-for-the-world-302238717.html

SOURCE Global Times

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Technology

Purina Films Docuseries A Different Breed Earns Three Daytime Emmy® Award Nominations

Published

29 minutes ago

on

July 21, 2026

By

Emmy®-nominated series celebrates the extraordinary bond between people and pets through the world of canine competition

ST. LOUIS, July 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — When pet lovers see the human-pet bond in action, it creates connection and deepens the appreciation they have for the animals in their own lives. That connection recently led Purina to dive deeper into the world of canine competition through a docuseries that is now receiving critical acclaim. Today, Purina is celebrating three Daytime Emmy® Award nominations for A Different Breed, its original nine-episode documentary series produced through Purina Films in partnership with InkBlot Narratives and WPP Media, including recognition for Outstanding Lifestyle Program, Outstanding Editing and Outstanding Directing.

The Daytime Emmy® Awards recognize excellence in daytime television and streaming programming across lifestyle, documentary, instructional, travel, culinary and children’s content. A Different Breed is nominated alongside productions from some of the entertainment industry’s leading studios, networks and streaming platforms.

Streaming on Prime Video, A Different Breed follows 18 teams on the road to the Purina Pro Plan Incredible Dog Challenge National Finals, putting the spotlight on the competitors, their dogs and the extraordinary relationships that drive them. The series marks an intentional shift from traditional brand-led content toward storytelling that entertains, inspires and fosters meaningful connections – all in new channels and formats that resonate with the viewing habits of today’s consumer.

“The way people discover and engage with content continues to evolve, and we’re evolving with them,” said Andrea Faccio, President and Chief Growth Officer at Purina. “At Purina, we’ve always believed the bond between people and pets is full of inspiring stories. A Different Breed gave us the opportunity to share those stories in a way people actively choose to experience, and we’re incredibly proud to see them recognized alongside some of the industry’s most celebrated programs.”

Through Purina Films, Purina is evolving how it connects with pet lovers taking a more entertainment-led approach to storytelling, creating premium content that highlights the meaningful role pets play in people’s lives. By inviting viewers behind the scenes of the Purina Pro Plan Incredible Dog Challenge and into competitors’ lives and homes, A Different Breed tells the kinds of emotionally rich stories today’s audiences actively seek out.

The backdrop of the series is the Purina Pro Plan Incredible Dog Challenge, a premier canine performance sports competition that has showcased extraordinary canine athletes and their handlers for nearly 30 years. The competition features a variety of events, including high-flying disc routines, agility courses, weave pole racing and diving dog competitions.

The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences will announce the winners of the Daytime Emmy Awards on October 30, 2026.

All nine episodes of A Different Breed are available to stream exclusively on Prime Video in the U.S. at no additional cost with a Prime membership. The second season of the Emmy®-nominated series is in production, continuing Purina’s commitment to bring audiences authentic stories that celebrate the incredible bond between people and pets.

About Nestlé Purina PetCare 
Nestlé Purina PetCare creates richer lives for pets and the people who love them. Founded in 1894, Purina has helped dogs and cats live longer, healthier lives by offering scientifically based nutritional innovations.

Purina manufactures some of the world’s most trusted and popular pet care products, including Dog Chow, Purina ONE, Pro Plan, Friskies and Tidy Cats. Our more than 11,000 U.S. associates take pride in our trusted pet food, treat and litter brands that feed 46 million dogs and 68 million cats every year. Nearly 500 Purina scientists, veterinarians, and pet care experts ensure our commitment to unsurpassed quality and nutrition.

Over the past five years, Purina has contributed more than $150 million towards organizations that bring, and keep, people and pets together, as well as those that help our communities and environment thrive.

Purina is part of Nestlé, a global leader in Nutrition, Health and Wellness. For more information, visit purina.com or subscribe here to get the latest Purina news.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/purina-films-docuseries-a-different-breed-earns-three-daytime-emmy-award-nominations-302831018.html

SOURCE Purina

Continue Reading

Technology

Toy Foundation Partners with Build-A-Bear & Chuck E. Cheese to Raise $100,000 for Children in Need

Published

29 minutes ago

on

July 21, 2026

By

The International Day of Play-themed cause marketing campaigns engaged consumers through promotions, exclusive product, & pin pad donations.

NEW YORK, July 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The Toy Foundation™, the philanthropic arm of The Toy Association™, celebrated the United Nation’s International Day of Play (June 11) with two cause marketing campaigns with Build-A-Bear Foundation and Chuck E. Cheese. Together, the campaigns raised over $100,000, as families across the country and around the world supported The Toy Foundation’s mission to deliver the power of play to children in need.

The Toy Foundation’s partnership with Chuck E. Cheese included a three-part fundraising campaign throughout the month of June. At nearly 500 Chuck E. Cheese locations, families who donated $5 at checkout received 500 tickets to use toward prizes, turning a charitable gift into extra fun. Families also had the option to make a $1 or $3 donation directly at the pin pad, powered by FreedomPay’s Gateway to Giving™ — a charitable program that enables seamless giving at the point of sale, creating another opportunity to support a child in need. At select fun centers, families could also purchase a Chuck E. Cheese x Crazy Aaron’s Limited-Edition Thinking Putty, with one hundred percent of the purchase price benefitting The Toy Foundation.

“Partnering with The Toy Foundation this International Day of Play allowed us to make a real difference through the power of play,” said Scott Drake, CEO of CEC Entertainment. “Play is at the heart of everything we do, and we are deeply grateful to the families that joined us in supporting this great cause. Together, we are giving back in a meaningful way that inspires pride across our entire community.”

Build-A-Bear brought its signature warmth to workshops across the U.S. and the UK with a weeklong fundraising campaign held June 8 to 12. Shoppers made donations in amounts of their choosing at checkout, both in stores and online, with every dollar supporting The Toy Foundation’s work to deliver play to children in need.

“Build-A-Bear Foundation is proud to partner with The Toy Foundation in advancing the shared belief that play has the power to positively impact children’s lives,” said David Henderson, president of Build-A-Bear Foundation. “From toy donations and sponsorship support to this International Day of Play fundraising campaign, we are committed to helping create more moments of joy for children and families in need. We are so grateful to our guests and partners whose generosity continues to make that impact possible.”

These fundraising campaigns complimented The Toy Foundation’s International Day of Play toy collection initiative, which resulted in nearly 20 companies donating $5.7 million in toys. The toy donations are being distributed to more than 450,000 children in under-resourced communities, schools, and hospitals around the world.

“We are grateful to Build-A-Bear Foundation and Chuck E. Cheese for their support, collaboration, and partnership in hosting two successful cause marketing campaigns, and to the companies that generously donated toys in honor of International Day of Play,” said Pam Mastrota, executive director of The Toy Foundation. “Together, we are making a lasting impact, transforming children’s lives with the power of play.”

The Toy Foundation partners with companies and retailers to create tailored cause marketing campaigns that engage consumers and support children through play.

Campaign opportunities include:

Retail campaigns that donate a portion of proceeds from select productsPoint-of-sale donation campaignsCo-branded products featuring cause-related messagingCustomized campaigns tailored to a company’s goals

To learn more and get involved in advancing the toy industry’s collective impact, visit toyfoundation.org or contact The Toy Foundation team.

About The Toy Foundation™ www.toyfoundation.org
The Toy Foundation™ is a 501(c)(3) children’s charity and philanthropic arm of The Toy Association. The uniting force for the collective philanthropy of the toy industry, The Toy Foundation is dedicated to creating a world where every child experiences the comfort, joy, and extraordinary benefits of play. The Toy Foundation works toward this vision through two program areas, Toy Chest, a toy distribution initiative, and Play Fund, a grant distribution initiative. By working together, The Toy Foundation has delivered the power of play to 38 million children in need worldwide. To learn more about The Toy Foundation, visit toyfoundation.org.

About Build‑A‑Bear Workshop, Inc.
Founded in 1997, Build‑A‑Bear is a leading global retailtainment brand on a mission to add a little more heart to life. At Build-A-Bear, guests are invited to create personalized furry friends through a unique stuffing, dressing, accessorizing and naming process, accentuated by a memorable “heart ceremony” that creates moments of connection for people of all ages.

Over the years, Build‑A‑Bear has grown into a multi‑generational phenomenon, positioned at the intersection of pop‑culture trends. Beyond its signature retail experience, the brand also offers pre‑stuffed plush, gifting, partnerships with best‑in‑class licensed and collectible characters, and original storytelling through Build‑A‑Bear Entertainment, LLC. Build‑A‑Bear’s current brand platform and message, “The Stuff You Love,” crosses ages and cultures while celebrating nearly 30 years of helping people mark life’s meaningful moments.

Today, Build‑A‑Bear operates more than 650 company-owned, partner-operated and franchise experience locations across more than 30 countries, complemented by buildabear.com. Build‑A‑Bear Workshop, Inc. (NYSE: BBW) reported $529.8 million in total revenues for fiscal 2025, representing the company’s 5th consecutive year of record results. Learn more at the Investor Relations section of buildabear.com.

About Chuck E. Cheese
Chuck E. Cheese is where over 550,000 happy birthdays are celebrated every year. For nearly 50 years, Chuck E. Cheese has been the place Where A Kid Can Be A Kid®, making birthday kids the star of the show through its interactive experiences, arcade games and the beloved Chuck E. Cheese character. The brand operates more than 500 locations globally and remains committed to providing a fun, safe and inclusive environment through industry-leading programs such as Kid Check® and its partnership with Autism Speaks. As a strong advocate for local communities, Chuck E. Cheese has donated more than $24 million to schools and nonprofits through its fundraising programs. For more information, visit www.chuckecheese.com.

Contact: Erin Wright
The Toy Foundation
646.520.4851
ewright@toyfoundation.org

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/toy-foundation-partners-with-build-a-bear–chuck-e-cheese-to-raise-100-000-for-children-in-need-302831086.html

SOURCE The Toy Foundation

Continue Reading

Technology

Play a Video Game Against a Dish of Living Neurons: Intactis Bio Launches “Biostack”

Published

29 minutes ago

on

July 21, 2026

By

Served from a rack mountable Biohybrid Processing Unit (BPU) to lower AI energy usage. 

SALT LAKE CITY, July 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Intactis Bio launched the Biostack Alpha, a video game in which allows anyone to compete against living human neurons grown in the lab. A player sits on one side of the web-browser. On the other is Biohybrid Intelligence: a small population of neurons in a dish that receives the game board as patterns of electrical stimulation. These neurons then answer, move by move, where to drop the next piece.

 

Play a video game against living neurons in rack mountable Biohybrid Processing Unit (BPU) to lower AI energy usage.

Biocomputation is a field focused on curbing the AI energy crises by replacing inefficient silicon chips with low energy biological processors. Biostack is the most tactile and publicly accessible demonstration yet to emerge from the field of biocomputation. Play today at play.intactis.bio. 

A biocomputer you can rack

Biostack runs on the Intactis BPU (Biohybrid Processing Unit), a biocomputer built into the same form factor as the GPUs widely distributed in data centers today. Living neurons at its core are wrapped in the cooling, life support, and signal hardware needed to keep the neurons healthy while they compute. The unit pairs the living substrate with silicon and rack mountable networking, which allows the systems to scale out using existing data center infrastructure.

The map that makes neurons playable

What makes the tissue controllable is a computational neuroscience model. Intactis ran a comprehensive screen to map how electrical stimulus drives neural outputs, cataloguing more than 150 statistically significant relationships and accounting for up to 96% of the tissue’s response. “Biocomputation is not a black box. We have the actual equation,” said Daniel Rodriguez-Granrose, PhD, Founder and CEO of Intactis Bio. This design space lets the company map neural responses onto specific game controls, so the biocomputer can directly learn the Biostack board state and ideal responses in a closed loop.

How a dish of neurons plays

Each turn, Biostack compresses the board (the current piece, the height of every column, and any gaps) into a compact code and delivers it to the tissue as a timed sequence of electrical pulses. The neurons respond, and the system reads their answer as a six-bit placement: four bits choose one of ten columns, two bits choose one of four rotations. Together this represents over 1000 unique electrical inputs to encode the board space and up to 40 possible destinations for every piece. Intactis has successfully transmitted this information to the neurons, and mapped their response back to the live game. In this demo, game performance held and even improved across overnight gaps between sessions. The living network is genuinely shaped by use.

Why a game matters

The stakes reach well beyond the screen. AI’s appetite for electricity is on track to outrun global electricity production. A supercomputer can draw on the order of 20 megawatts; a human brain runs on about 20 watts. The company projects energy-cost reductions around 95%, total-cost reductions around 90%, and data center footprint reductions around 88% versus exaflop-scale silicon.

From demo to business

Intactis sells the capability as Cloud Biocompute as a Service, targeting gaming, robotics, AI and LLM developers already spending $20,000 or more per month on GPUs. The company has secured more than $1 million in early capital and non-dilutive support and is raising a $5 million seed round to bring the BPU to data center partners. Intactis is built by a team with more than $900 million in prior exits.

About Intactis Bio

Intactis Bio builds biohybrid computers that run living human neurons alongside silicon to deliver compute with dramatically lower energy, cost, and footprint. Its rack-mountable Biohybrid Processing Unit (BPU) targets the widening gap between AI compute demand and available power. Learn more at intactis.bio.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/play-a-video-game-against-a-dish-of-living-neurons-intactis-bio-launches-biostack-302831095.html

SOURCE Intactis Bio Corp

Continue Reading

Trending