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According to Chinese official media, a nuclear fusion reactor ran five times hotter than the sun for over 17 minutes before setting a new benchmark for sustained high temperatures.

According to the Xinhua News Agency, the “artificial sun” dubbed as the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) achieved temperatures of 70,000,000C during the trials. Artificial sun devices are being developed with the ultimate goal of providing near-limitless renewable energy by simulating natural processes in stars.

“The development of nuclear fusion energy is not only a way to solve China’s strategic energy needs, but also has great significance for the future sustainable development of China’s energy and national economy.”

This Tokamak reactor is the nation’s biggest and comprehensive nuclear fusion research equipment, and experts believe it might unlock a tremendous source of clean energy. People’s Daily reports that it can achieve temperatures of 150 million degrees Celsius—ten times warmer than the sun’s core—using an extremely strong magnetic field.

The reactor, which was finished late last year and is positioned in southwest Sichuan province, is sometimes referred to as an “artificial sun” because of the immense heat and electricity it generates.

As per project leader Gong Xianzu, an affiliate investigator at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Plasma Physics, a solid scientific and experimental foundation has been created for a fusion reactor. A total of over £700 billion has already been spent on China’s EAST project, which will continue its testing through the end of June.

Fusion is a sought-after and elusive sort of nuclear technology that researchers have been attempting to develop for years. Atomic nuclei are fused to create energy by fusion, which produces very little radioactive waste.

Fission, the atom-splitting technique now used in atomic warheads and power plants, is the polar opposite of this process. Although fission is more convenient, nuclear waste is generated. Fusion, on the other hand, is more difficult, but it is more environmentally friendly.

Solar power is generated by a fusion of nuclear nuclei, which is similar to the science of the sun and can be harnessed for electricity production.

Unlike the nuclear fission procedure that drives commercial nuclear energy production, this technology doesn’t require fossil fuels and doesn’t produce any toxic waste. According to physicists, environmental catastrophes are also less likely to occur.

When (ITER) the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor goes online in 2035, it will be the biggest nuclear fusion reactor ever built. China’s EAST project is a component of ITER. This project includes countries from across the world, notably Russia, United States India, South Korea, and Japan. The EAST project’s next objective is to keep the high temperature steady for an extended length of time.

China’s test could aid experts in their hunt for methods to reduce the prices of fusion, which is currently deemed prohibitively expensive.

Robert Durst, a rich heir to the New York real estate who spent decades on the run after being linked to a string of mysterious disappearances and killings, has died unexpectedly. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering his closest friend. He was 78 years old at the time.

After being transferred to San Joaquin Medical Center for testing, Durst’s lawyer Chip Lewis verified his death. Mr. Lewis reported that he fell into cardiac arrest and died as a result of the unsuccessful revival attempt. Robert Durst was convicted and was serving life in prison for murdering his longtime friend Susan Berman.

He was put on a ventilator shortly after his homicide conviction and tested positive for the Covid-19. Mr. Lewis said that the virus had worsened a variety of pre-existing health conditions.

“After 40 years spent seeking justice for her death, I know how upsetting this news must be for Kathleen Durst’s family,” Westchester County District Attorney Miriam E. Rocah said in a statement Monday after news of his death. “We had hoped to allow them the opportunity to see Mr. Durst finally face charges for Kathleen’s murder because we know that all families never stop wanting closure, justice and accountability.”

According to tabloid newspapers, Mr. Durst was a cross-dressing criminal with over $100 million in assets who was on the run from the law. When he was on the loose, he became a wanderer who urinated in public and sometimes pretended to be a mute woman to do so. Forcing his wife to abort their child was only one of his many crimes against her.

He decapitated another victim as the body of the first lied in a puddle of his blood, and even left a “cadaver note” for the Los Angeles Police directing them to a lady who had been shot through the head. An HBO series about him was released in 2015 and featured a live video in which he unintentionally confessed to all of his murders.

Over forty years, Mr. Durst was accused of killing three people: his wife Kathleen Durst, Morris Black, and Susan Berman; all three were found dead in their respective apartments.

Kathie Durst, a medical resident nearing the conclusion of her education, disappeared without a trace in January 1982. Her husband, Robert Durst, claimed that after a quarrel at their suburban Westchester County weekend house, he sent her off to board a train back to The City, and that was the last place he had ever seen her.

As news of her disappearance spread, Durst called the NYPD to report her missing, and Berman was tapped to serve as his spokesperson. Kathie’s family members and the police worked tirelessly for years to find Kathie’s body but failed.

“Bob Durst has been around a lot of years, and he’s been able to commit a lot of horrific crimes. We just feel really gratified that he’s been held accountable,” Deputy District Attorney John Lewin remarked follwoing Durst’s conviction.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced a 14-month delay in the trial, which commenced in March 2020. During the trial, the prosecution depicted the defendant as a wealthy narcissist who mercilessly disposed of anybody who got in his face. They connected the dots between Berman’s murder, the disappearance of Kathie Durst, as well as the murder of Black.

Omicron is baring its fangs in China.

The Chinese Government has imposed a partial lockdown in the city of Tianjin as soon as new cases of Omicron variant of the coronavirus were found.

According to authorities, a total of 20 COVID-19 cases were found on Sunday, and among these, 2 were found to be infected with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

These newfound cases have added to the city’s total tally of the cases found in total. The total tally rose above 40 as 21 more cases were added to it by Monday.

The Circumstances in China

Even though the numbers found are small, these numbers could still lead China to face its first local outbreak of Omicron.

China follows a very strict zero-tolerance strategy whose motto is to ‘eliminate the virus rather than live with it.’ And this policy is being implied even more strictly as the time remaining for the Winter Olympics is less than a month.

Tianjin is located 115 km away from Beijing where the Winter Olympics will be held on February 4. A lot of people travel between the two cities regularly, either by car or in the high-speed rail links.

The two other cities Xi’an and Yuzhou have reported larger outbreaks of delta variants of coronavirus. Due to that, people living in Xi’an have been imposed to a lockdown for more than two weeks however the decreasing numbers are being reported so the lockdown can be lifted soon.

Strict Measures Are Being Taken

The State Broadcaster CCTV has reported that the Chinese Government has divided the city of Tianjin along with its 14 million residents into three restriction levels:

• Lockdown Areas, where the residents are completely confined in their homes and no one is allowed to leave.
• Control Areas, where only one member from each household is allowed to buy groceries every other day.
• Prevention Areas, where the residents are allowed to go out of their homes but they should not leave their neighborhood in any case.

All the public transports including trains and buses going from Tianjin to Beijing have been temporarily suspended and no resident is allowed to leave the city unless it is extremely urgent.

The authorities in Tianjin have also started mass testing the residents and the people who are in need to leave the city will have to obtain official permission and get tested for coronavirus within 48 hours of their departure.

Until now, the country has reported approximately 12 cases of the omicron variant. Among these cases, most of the people have been those that arrived in the country from abroad and were in isolation.

Ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to four more years in prison by a court in Myanmar. According to a legal official, this decision was announced after she was found guilty of illegal import and violating coronavirus restrictions.

Who is Suu Kyi?

Aung San Suu Kyi is a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner. She is a politician, diplomat, and author. She also has been awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Suu Kyi was a serving State Counsellor of Myanmar as well as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2016 to 2021, after which she was ousted by the Military.

The politician has spent years under house arrest because of previous regimes under Myanmar’s previous military.

The Charges on Suu Kyi

Last month Aung San Suu Kyi was convicted on the charges of ‘incitement’ and breaching COVID-19 protocols and then ordered a sentence of 4 years in prison. This was later halved by the Military-installed government’s Head, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.

And now she has been sentenced to 4 more years in prison after she was found guilty of illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies. She was also held guilty for violating the restrictions places because of the coronavirus pandemic.

A legal official reported that she was sentenced to two years of prison because of the illegal import and one year under telecommunications law for the possession of walkie-talkies. And a two-year sentence was imposed under Natural Disaster Management Law for allegedly violating COVID-19 rules during her campaign.

The Circumstances in Myanmar

The Nobel Laureate has denied all charges placed on her. Aung San Suu Kyi is on trial in a closed court currently and her sentence could be a total of more than 100 years in prison if she is declared guilty against all the charges placed on her.

The State Television last month said that the sentences on Suu Kyi will be applied to her current detention place. However, it has not been clear where she is currently being held and if the same approaches will be taken in this case.

The new convictions placed on Suu Kyi were “the latest act in the farcical trial against the civilian leader,” said the rights group Amnesty International on Twitter. The group also called for her release and also the thousands of ‘unjustly detained’ people since the coup.

Reports say that the trial of the diplomat in Naypyitaw, the capital of Myanmar has been completely closed off from media and all of Aung San’s lawyers have been ordered not to release information to the media or the public.

The situation is dire and there is little to no information regarding the trial.