See Chinese Grammar features, difficulty levels, parts of speech, practical examples of usage, basic sentence structure, vowels, consonants, different tones, pronunciation, translations, pictograms and the Pinyin system for transcription of Chinese text.
Hong Kong police have confirmed that 168 people died in the massive blaze that ripped through an apartment complex in Hong Kong last November - seven more than previously announced.
HONG KONG - The death toll from a fire at a residential complex in Hong Kong has risen to 168 from 161, officials said Thursday, after the remains of more victims were identified seven weeks after the Chinese territory’s worst blaze in decades.
The Nov. 26 fire at Wang Fuk Court killed 110 women and 58 men ages 6 months to 98 years old, Hong Kong police said in a statement Thursday night. Four people were declared dead after they were taken to the hospital, while the remains of the 164 others were recovered at the scene.
All sets of remains have been identified and all families have been notified, and there are no more missing persons unaccounted for, police said.
Few of the victims have been publicly named. They include Ho Wai-ho, 37, a firefighter, and 10 foreign domestic workers — nine from Indonesia and one from the Philippines — who were identified by their governments.
Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao is ceasing Canadian operations at the end of the month. As JP Gallardo explains, the paper served a vital role in the Chinese-Canadian community.
The Newspaper Website:
https://www.mingpaocanada.com/tor/
Some of the news on the website:
大多區橙色降雪警告意外多 災難氣象家：持續飛雪連天
Orange snow warning issued for Greater Toronto Area; unexpected snowfall looms; disaster meteorologist predicts continued heavy snowfall.
簽合作路線圖重振雙邊貿易
A cooperation roadmap signed to revitalize bilateral trade.
去年接納39.35萬永久居民 較移民部原目標少2000人
393,500 permanent residents admitted last year, 2,000 fewer than the Immigration Department's original target.
擬停可負擔住房比例要求 兩市長反對省府拓市方案
Two mayors oppose provincial expansion plan to suspend affordable housing ratio requirements.
24社區學院面臨15億財赤
24 community colleges face a $1.5 billion deficit.
The death toll in Hong Kong has surpassed over 100 since a Wednesday fire that devastated several buildings in a high-rise complex. Many people remain unaccounted for.
As the investigation continues, eight additional people involved in renovations on one of the buildings have been arrested.
Emergency officials say the fire spread rapidly due to bamboo scaffolding and highly flammable foam panels, adding that fire alarms in the building did not sound as the fires grew.
Here, one survivor recalls the moment she found out about the fire, and her subsequent escape.
Firefighters were able to fully extinguish the fires on Friday morning.
The raging fire sent up a column of flames and thick smoke as it spread on bamboo scaffolding and construction netting that had been set up around the exterior of the housing complex in Tai Po district in the New Territories.
In Hong Kong, a fire has killed at least four people after tearing through a complex of residential high-rise buildings on Wednesday. Teams of firefighters have been attempting to douse the flames at Wang Fuk Court, a housing complex made up of eight blocks in the city's Tai Po district in the north east.
The fire department said it received reports at 2:51 p.m. (0651 GMT) of a fire in the residential complex. It was upgraded to a Number 4 alarm at 3:34 p.m. and as night fell it was declared a number five-alarm fire, the highest level. Earlier, local media also reported that an unknown number of people were trapped in the 31-storey towers — home to around 2,000 residential apartments — although it is unclear as to whether that remains the case. Taipo District Council member, Lo Hiu-fung, told local broadcaster TVB that most of the residents trapped in the fire were believed to be elderly people, the AP news agency reported, although this has not yet been confirmed by authorities. A number of towers currently burning have bamboo scaffolding and construction netting fitted to their exterior. TVB reported that the complex was undergoing major renovations.
Chess is indeed a strategy game played on a board with 64 squares. Players take turns moving their pieces to capture their opponent's king.
How to play:
1. Set up the board with the pieces. White moves first, then Black, and so on.
2. Move a piece to a vacant square or capture an opponent's piece.
3. Repeat until the opponent's king is checkmated or the game ends in a draw.
Piece movement:
King: Moves one square in any direction. The king can be put in check, but it can't be captured.
Queen: Moves any number of squares in any direction.
Rook: Moves any number of squares horizontally or vertically. Rooks can also castle with the king.
Bishop: Moves any number of squares diagonally. Bishops can only move on squares of the same color they started on.
Knight: Moves in an "L" shape, jumping over other pieces if needed.
Pawn: Moves one square up the board, or two squares on its first move.
Capturing pieces:
When an attacking piece takes an opponent's piece, the captured piece is removed from the game. The move is recorded using algebraic notation. For example, "Rxf5" means the rook captured the opponent's piece on the f5 square.
Winning:
The goal of chess is to checkmate the opponent's king, which means threatening to capture it in a way that can't be escaped.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a type of AI that creates new content like text, images, audio, and video. It uses machine learning to analyze large amounts of data and generate new content based on a user's input.
Castling is indeed a move in chess. It consists of moving the king two squares toward a rook on the same rank and then moving the rook to the square that the king passed over.
Can chess pieces be brought back to life after being killed?
Yes, in chess, a captured piece can be reborn as a different piece through a process called promotion. A pawn can also be promoted when it reaches the other side of the board.
In chess, en passant (French: [ɑ̃ pasɑ̃], lit. "in passing") describes the capture by a pawn of an enemy pawn on the same rank and an adjacent file that has just made an initial two-square advance. This is a special case in the rules of chess.
An AI might make illegal moves in chess because it lacks a deep understanding of the chess rules, particularly when dealing with complex situations, and might rely on pattern matching without fully considering the logical constraints of the game, leading to moves that violate basic chess principles or simply aren't allowed by the rules; this is especially true for language-based AI models that aren't specifically designed for chess gameplay.
A so-called illegal move in the game of chess happens whenever a player violates the official rules, approved and governed by the International Chess Federation (FIDE). For example, a move that breaks these rules would be placing or leaving your king in check. This is a big no-no because kings don't like being in check.
Has anyone beaten the "best AI" in chess?
The Ponomariov vs Fritz game on 21 November 2005 is the last known win by a human against a top-performing computer under normal chess tournament conditions.
If during a game it is found that an illegal move has been completed, the position immediately before the irregularity shall be reinstated. If the position immediately before the irregularity cannot be determined, the game shall continue from the last identifiable position prior to the irregularity.
It is illegal to make a move that places or leaves one's king in check. The possible ways to get out of check are: Move the king to a square where it is not in check. Capture the checking piece.
"Competing in the AI market" - is this a kind of "economic chess move" itself? While billion-dollar companies are busy throwing money at problems, DeepSeek seems to be playing so-called 4D chess, one smart move at a time. So, the next time someone tells you that you need a mountain of cash to compete in AI, just point them to DeepSeek. DeepSeek seems to require less expenses.
Xiangqi (/ˈʃɑːŋtʃi/; Chinese: 象棋; pinyin: xiàngqí), commonly known as Chinese chess or elephant chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is the most popular board game in China.
The names of the pieces in Chinese chess, or xiangqi, are:
General: Jiàng (将) or shuài (帅)
Advisor: Shì (士)
Elephant: Xiàng (象)
Chariot: Chū (車)
Horse: Mǎ (馬)
Cannon: Pào (砲)
Soldier: Zú (卒) or bīng (兵)
Explanation
The general is also known as the king.
The advisor is also known as the guard.
The elephant is also known as the bishop.
The chariot is also known as the rook.
The horse is also known as the knight.
The cannon is also known as the catapult.
The soldier is also known as the pawn.
In xiangqi, pieces are placed on intersections of lines, not squares.
What are the names of Western Chess pieces (not 象棋)?
