Here are six stories you may have missed from China this week – from news about space missions, to the "train to Spring" in a Beijing suburb.

China facilitates Iran-Saudi Arabia talks in Beijing

China continued to play a key role in facilitating dialogue between regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia this week by hosting the two nations' foreign ministers in Beijing.

It's the first formal negotiations of the two nations' most senior diplomats in more than seven years and follows a landmark agreement brokered by China last month to restore diplomatic ties.

After meeting separately with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, Saudi Arabia's top diplomat Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian issued a joint statement detailing the next steps in the resumption of their bilateral relations.

That included launching arrangements to reopen their respective embassies within two months, while examining ways of resuming flights, bilateral visits and granting of visas for the two countries' citizens.

Chinese navy helicopters battle stormy weather by night to hone combat capacity

Chinese helicopter pilots, under the cover of nightfall, battled poor weather conditions at sea as part of flight training drills designed to boost combat and quick response readiness. 

Flying out to China's Guangxi amphibious assault ship amid the stormy weather, helicopters from the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army practised taking off and landing in sequence under the command of the ship's control tower. 

Training under the complex meteorological conditions, the pilots practised various synchronized battle positions to strengthen their coordination at sea, the training made all the more difficult by working under nightfall.

Water returns to world's longest and oldest canal

All the dried up sections of China's ancient Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the world's longest and oldest man-made waterway, have been replenished.

Some sections of the canal, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, had begun to dry up in the first half of the 20th century. But between March and April this year, about more than 190 million cubic meters of water was directed to the canal's northern area.

More than 2,500 years old, the Grand Canal connects Beijing and Hangzhou in east China's Zhejiang Province, and served as a significant transportation artery in ancient China. 

Thanks to the water supply project, aimed at improving the canal's ecological environment and preserving its surrounding culture, it was the second time that water flowed through the whole canal after roughly a century.

China developing parachute system to recover reusable rocket parts

Chinese engineers are working on a parachute system for recovering rocket boosters lost during launches so they can more easily find and reuse the expensive technology.

Developed by the China Academy of Space Technology, the system uses glide-control technology and can narrow the landing range of the boosters to a much smaller area than the usual range of 30 to 90 kilometers. 

That not only prevents fallen rocket parts from landing so unpredictably - especially in areas with human activity - but also enables the boosters to remain intact on hitting the ground.

Officials estimate the system could save more than 1 billion yuan (about $145 million) in launch costs each year.

Zhejiang tea farmers turn to digital technologies to boost yield

A growing number of tea farmers in east China's Zhejiang Province are adopting digital technologies to boost their yields and meet growing demand for premium tea. 

In recent years, high-tech monitoring equipment has been installed near tea plantations to collect weather data and keep track of the yield and quality of Longjing tea trees.

Only around 500 tons of this premium quality green tea is produced each year and market demand for the product is huge. 

That's produced its own issues, triggering a boom in the production of counterfeit Longjing tea. 

But by collecting such data and using new technologies like 5G, AI and Blockchain to support agricultural production, producers believe they can meet the growing consumer demand while ensuring the product's quality.

Chinese village basketball tournament goes viral

And finally a basketball tournament at a small village in China has become a viral sensation, attracting tens of thousands of tourists and over 1 billion video views.

Despite being a locally organized tournament where all the players are from the Taipan Village in Guizhou Province - a rural settlement of just 1,100 residents - spectators treated the three-day event more like an NBA match.

A total of 181,900 tourists visited for the rural games, clamoring for the best court-side seats, and bringing with them an income of more than $8 million. 

The tournament isn't sponsored by commercial brands and entry is free. And despite the mass interest and skyrocketing attendance, regional officials have agreed to let the villagers keep on organizing the event themselves.  

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