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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Cheng Lei: ‘I'm catching up on four years. I missed my children so much'
'That is a crotch shot!' says Cheng Lei, laughing at my phone's screensaver. I tell her it's a picture of my legs but she's sceptical and laughs even more. You could be forgiven for expecting Cheng, 49, to be serious and sombre: the journalist spent two years and three months in prison in China for an absurd crime. Detained as a spy and kept in isolation for months, she was constantly watched by guards, and did not hear the voices of her two children for years. But she displays a quick wit, a devilish sense of humour and a relaxed laugh. She switches between analysing the rise of the Ministry of State Security under President Xi Jinping, to laughing about how the ladies in her cell would share a book about male yoga. Let's just say it was not for the poses. It's the second day of winter, and the morning sun is warming Melbourne's Botanical Gardens. We're strolling past rows of camellias and rhododendrons. Cheng says she picked this spot because of the colour. 'Look at where we are' she says as tears well in her eyes. It's been 19 months since she was released from prison and returned to Australia, thanks to intensive and high level diplomatic efforts by Australia during a period of worsening relations with China. She is still adjusting. 'I compare it to being a newborn, so every sensation is very intense,' she says. 'It's almost too much, but in a good way.' *** Cheng's book about her time in prison, Cheng Lei: A Memoir of Freedom, is frank and – like her – funny, describing everything from the excruciating boredom and psychological torture she experienced in prison, to her secret orgasms (turns out, prison does not kill your libido). No topic is left off the table. Between jokes about menstruation and constipation, Cheng offers her readers a rare glimpse of the secret world of China's state control. 'It gives you an insight into how they think about espionage, about state security,' she says. 'It's about how insecure they are.' In prison Cheng and other inmates slept on a piece of wood, the toilet walls were made of glass, and there was no caps for toothpaste tubes. Everything was grey. She recalls making a birthday sign for another prisoner, but even this was frowned upon by the guards. Prisoners were only meant to use pencils once a month to write letters home. 'We were underground, effectively in a coffin. And so tightly guarded,' she says. A lot of the time, she was trying to escape boredom. She would ask the guards and her family and friends for new books – books that she could savour, that were long. So desperate was she for reading material she devoured a 700-page book on interest rates and even gave Einstein's Theory of Relativity a crack. 'I read enough to realise I didn't understand it,' she says. Now, as she walks slowly through the gardens, she wipes away tears as she lists what she missed. Nature is something she keeps returning to. How much she still loves hearing Australian bird songs, and how, when she returned to Australia, going to the beach was one of the first things she wanted to do with her children, now 16 and 13. In prison, there were times she forced herself not to think about her children because it became too much to bear. When she was given her prison sentence, she immediately calculated how old her children would be when she was released. She missed her daughter's first day of high school, and cheering on her son at soccer. Missing them was more suffocating than her small cell. 'I didn't know if I'd ever see them again,' she says. 'They had to go … all that time not sure when I'd be back.' So when Cheng stepped off the plane she immediately went back into 'mum mode', she says. 'I'm catching up on four years,' she says. 'I just missed them so much.' *** Cheng was born in China, but at the age of 10 her family migrated to Australia. She wanted to study journalism, but her father persuaded her to do commerce – there was no way Australian media companies would hire a Chinese reporter he said, half-joking that the popular and long-serving SBS TV presenter Lee Lin Chin wasn't retiring any time soon. But unfulfilled, she ended up doing an internship at the Chinese state media company CCTV, before heading to Singapore and then back to the rebranded state network CGTN in 2012. Her life in Beijing was big and fast, she was a glamorous TV presenter, her show watched by millions. She interviewed everyone from the Australian ambassador to China, Geoff Raby, to David Beckham. She visited embassies and rubbed shoulders with China's elite. On 13 August 2020 she went to work thinking she was going to meet her boss about a new show proposal but instead walked into a meeting room filled with 20 people. 'I am informing you on behalf of the Beijing State Security Bureau that you are being investigated for supplying state secrets to foreign organisations,' one of them said. They took her to her apartment, where they went through her rooms, confiscating all her electronic devices. Cheng says she was 'naive' – she knew she had done nothing wrong, and thought she would be released in two or three days. After almost a year in prison, Cheng was charged with espionage, but her crime was innocuous: sending a private text message, eight words long, seven minutes too soon. She had allegedly broken a media embargo on a speech by the Chinese Premier by texting Bloomberg journalist, and then friend, Haze Fan, that there would be 'No growth target. GDP. 9 Min jobs target'. Breaking a media embargo in Australia would merit, at most, a verbal slap from the boss and being dropped from a media list. It would be a shitty day at work, and you might need a whinge and a wine on the way home. But it wouldn't be a life-changing crime. The original document Cheng had been given did not have an embargoed time on it. A year later, the prosecutor told security officials gathering evidence against her that they had to have proof it was embargoed for the case to go ahead. 'So they got the classification bureau to do up a document. Which they did, because they're all on the same side, and the state must win at all costs.' In China, national security trials are often conducted in secret, with sentences announced sometimes months after the trial. The conviction rate is more than 99%. Months after her arrest, she was charged, and told how long her sentence would be two weeks before her trial was due to finish. Her friend Haze was also imprisoned, and Cheng could hear her down the corridor. By then, agents had combed through their 60,000 texts and interrogated her for hours on end about their friendship. She began to wonder if their friendship had been a dangerous transaction. Had she been used? 'Honestly, I went through a lot of anger. But then also wished she was in my cell, because she was more fun to talk to. She did suffer, and I want to talk to her, because I want some form of closure, and I want to find out what happened to her.' *** Cheng says her arrest was more diplomatic pawn-playing than serious criminal conduct. 'If it wasn't [the embargo] they would have found something else,' she says. Now, after 19 months back at home, Cheng is a presenter on Sky News. In China, she is still hounded online by trolls, and state police have used a picture of her for an advertisement recruiting people to work for them breaking spies. Cheng is reflective. For her whole life she has straddled two cultures and two countries, and she is now defined by having been caught in the middle of frosty relations between the two. But in prison, with endless time, she taught herself how to change her thoughts. 'There was a time I was in solitude in a really hot cell. I switched my thinking from 'Oh my gosh, this is horrible! Even my hair feels like it's on fire', to I imagine I love the heat. 'I was like, OK, I'm going to make chips. We got these horrible steamed potatoes and I would flatten them between bits of plastic packaging and then lay them out in the sun and check them every hour. It didn't really work, they were still a bit chewy. 'But it was something new and something fun.' She now spends less time on Instagram and more time thinking about the people she loves. If someone honks at her, or she gets a traffic fine, she doesn't feel the stress she might once have. She shrugs and moves on. 'I love that I got to a space where I can see adversity for what it is. It's just a counterpoint,' she says. 'You never feel happy if you're happy all the time. Each annoyance is a chance to adapt.' • Cheng Lei: A Memoir of Freedom is out now through HarperCollins
India.com
2 days ago
- Science
- India.com
This Indian genius challenged Einstein's theory, helped NASA during..., went missing for years, died in poverty, his name is...
Genius doesn't always mean thinking outside the box but it means changing what the box even means. That's exactly what Vashishtha Narayan Singh, a brilliant mathematician from Bihar, did. His life is a true example of how greatness comes from questioning limits and building new paths. Born in a small village in Bihar's Siwan, Vashishtha showed signs of brilliance in mathematics from a very young age. Teachers were stunned by how easily he solved complex problems. Coming from a humble background, his father was a police constable, Vashishtha's early education began at Netarhat School in Jharkhand, followed by Patna Science College. He stood out in every way. He not only topped his BSc but also his MSc examinations in back-to-back years. In 1964, he again proved his talent by securing the top rank in the UGC's Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) exam, a national-level test for research scholars. By the time he turned 21, Vashishtha had already achieved what many dream of. He was invited to work as a visiting fellow at top places like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the University of California in Berkeley. His work was so impressive that he reportedly challenged even the famous equation E = MC² by Einstein and explored theories by Gauss. The rise, fall, and legacy of Vashishtha Narayan Singh In 1967, Vashishtha Narayan Singh reached a remarkable milestone in his career after he became the Director at Columbia University's Department of Mathematics. Just two years later, in 1969, he wrote a groundbreaking work titled 'The Peace of Space Theory', in which he questioned Einstein's 'Theory of Relativity.' His thesis on this subject earned him a PhD, and his genius was so widely acknowledged that the University of California, Berkeley honored him with the title 'Genius of Geniuses.' In 1971, Vashishtha returned to India. The following year, he joined IIT Kanpur as a mathematics professor. There are several fascinating stories about Vashishtha. One popular claim reports that NASA sought his help when their computers failed during an important mission. Some even say he played a crucial role during the Apollo moon landing project, contributing to vital calculations when time was critical. But just as life seemed perfect, tragedy struck. Shortly after getting married, Vashishtha was diagnosed with schizophrenia, a serious mental illness. This illness deeply affected his life: his marriage broke down, his health deteriorated, and his brilliant career came to a halt. He was admitted to several hospitals for treatment, including NIMHANS in Bengaluru and IHBAS in Delhi. During his toughest times, actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha offered support for his treatment. In these years, Vashishtha somehow disappeared during the train journey and started to reappear later on living in misery in his home village. As per reports in one of the train journeys undertaken by him, Singh vanished for a long time, only to come back years later. Despite years of isolation and struggle, Vashishtha showed incredible resilience. He made a quiet yet powerful return to teaching, taking a post as a lecturer at Bhupendra Narayan Mandal University (BNMU) in Madhepura, Bihar. It was a small comeback for a giant mind. On 14 November 2019, at the age of 72, Vashishtha Narayan Singh passed away. Though his life was filled with both brilliance and hardship, the Indian government recognized his legacy and honored him posthumously with the Padma Shri, one of the country's highest civilian awards.
Time of India
6 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
That's a steal!
Credit is laughably easy to filch in a post-truth world In the interest of world peace, it would be prudent to nod politely, smile blandly and let POTUS take the credit for preventing a nuclear holocaust in the nick of time, halting a thousand-year conflict or whatever else he may wish to claim. Such an accommodative attitude is smart management. Let's face it, in the praise-starved world we live in, almost everyone covets credit, preferably deservedly but all kinds are welcome. There are some who decide to wait their turn, hoping that when the bouquets do come, they are doubled because the intended recipient has been patient and gracious. But Trump has no time for such fripperies. He knows from long experience that good guys finish last, and the meek are not even in the running. Credit is laughably easy to filch in our post-truth world. You just need to look authoritative, and act busy, for virtually any accomplishment in the vicinity to be ascribed to you. That's why this battle between those who do all the work and those who take the credit has been raging in many quarters. It sows dissension at the workplace as it divides offices and factories into hierarchical camps, pitting the junior staff (who do the work) against bosses who inscribe their initials at the bottom of the sheet, and walk away with the credit. The 'creative' professions are even more vulnerable. Authors and artists go through sleepless nights, fearing their carefully wrought masterpiece will appear in someone else's name. As for science, history is awash with experts kicking themselves for being lax when they ought to have rushed to the patent office and got their submissions in order. Most of the major discoveries and inventions of science are actually of uncertain parentage. Graham Bell's phone, Edison's light bulb, Fleming's Penicillin and even Einstein's Theory of Relativity have enough drama behind the scenes to become the subject of whodunits. The names with which we commonly associate landmark achievements belong to those who did a fastest-finger-first and staked their claim early. Perhaps, that's all POTUS attempted to do. In light of this, does it matter if he adds a truce in Asia to his other long list of 'accomplishments', including rebuilding an economy wrecked by Biden, winning for US the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and bringing about peace in Gaza? History has seen worse. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Associated Press
21-04-2025
- Science
- Associated Press
Renowned Physicist Dr. Young Suh Kim Honored By Close Up Radio in the Field of Science
Close Up Radio honors one of our most respected guests, Dr. Young Suh Kim BELTSVILLE, MD, UNITED STATES, April 21, 2025 / / -- How do the orbits of the hydrogen atom appear to you while you are in motion? Einstein asked this question in the 1950s. In 1978, Dr. Young Suh Kim answered. His paper, 'Representations of the Poincaré Group for Relativistic Extended Hadrons' was published by the Journal of Mathematical Physics in 1979. Dr. Kim reflects, 'It wasn't Einstein's fault. He didn't have access to high-energy accelerators—but fortunately, we do.' Born in Sorae, Korea in 1935, Dr. Kim shares that the United States has been very good to him. 'I could never accomplish all I have in any other country except America.' Poverty, political unrest, and cultural norms would have made a life in academia impossible. 'Growing up in Korea during the 1950s gave me a solid work ethic. We attended the Sorae Church, which was founded by Horace Underwood, the first American Presbyterian missionary to come to Korea. My grandfather was a very good friend of Underwood's and took care of his properties while Underwood was traveling.' Kim explains. This foundation is what Dr. Kim brought to America in 1954, where he attended Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University). That's where Dr. Kim first learned about Albert Einstein. 'I just knew I had to meet Dr. Einstein, who had worked with Princeton University. In 1958, I was accepted to Princeton and my dream came true (as best it could),' explains Dr. Kim. 'Even though Einstein had passed in 1955, I was able to work with him through his research.' That's when Dr. Kim learned that during the time Einstein formulated his Theory of Relativity in 1905, all particles were considered 'point particles,' or particles that do not take up space. Later, particles such as the hydrogen atom or the proton, were found to have very rich internal structures that do take up space. This discovery created a problem—how do particles appear when in motion? Being so close to Dr. Einstein, Dr. Kim had to discover the answer. 'While at Princeton, I began studying Dr. Eugene Wigner's 1939 paper titled, 'On Unitary Representations of the Inhomogeneus Lorentz Group.' That's when I discovered a sort of dark period in scientific history.' During the early years of the 20th Century, Niels Bohr was researching the hydrogen atom, while Einstein was studying how particles appear to moving observers. Although the two scientific icons met occasionally to discuss physics, they left no writings on whether or not they discussed how moving hydrogen atoms appear to observers at rest. After 20 years (1966-1986) of continuous research, Dr. Kim discovered Wigner's 1939 mathematical paper is applicable to the internal space-time structure of particles. When Einstein formulated his theory of relativity in 1905, particles were considered to be 'point particles.' Later, particles such as the hydrogen atom or the proton, were found to have very rich internal structures. According to Dr. Kim, 'Wigner's 1939 paper allows us to extend Einstein's theory of relativity to the insides of those particles.' While a graduate student and post-doc at Princeton, Dr. Kim met Professor Wigner. Both men are honored to now have a place in Einstein's genealogy as scientific leaders who made discoveries Einstein could not. Dr. Kim became known as Wigner's youngest student. In 1962, Dr. Kim became an assistant professor of physics at the University of Maryland. After retiring from teaching duties in 2007, Dr. Kim is a Professor of Physics Emeritus at UMD where he has been focusing on research. A prolific author of several books and scientific articles, Dr. Kim most desires to expand Dr. Einstein's theories. Although the competitive academic life has not always been easy for Dr. Kim, he is very happy to have created his very own Einstein-Wigner-Kim genealogy. 'I believe in what I believe,' concludes Dr. Kim. 'I endured a lot of hardship in delays in promotion to create this genealogy, and I succeeded. This is what makes me proud.' So how do the orbits of the hydrogen atom appear to you while you are in motion? 'Spherical, of course,' Dr. Kim proudly replies. Close Up Radio featured Dr. Young Suh Kim in an interview with Jim Masters on Friday, March 29th, 2024 at 2pm Eastern Listen to His Show For more information about Dr. Kim and the University of Maryland, please visit and Lou Ceparano Close Up Television & Radio +1 631-850-3314 email us here Visit us on social media: Facebook Legal Disclaimer: EIN Presswire provides this news content 'as is' without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
