Day: September 27, 2025

US soyabean farmers squeezed as China blocks imports and stockpiles rise

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Overseas sales of the US’s top farm export have plummeted as China shuns American soyabeans in a “devastating” blow to the country’s farmers. The new export season for soyabeans has opened with no sales or shipments to China, government data shows — a sharp break from a year ago, when it had already booked 6.5mn tons. Meanwhile, inventories have begun to pile up with the onset of the fall US harvest season. For decades, more than half of all US soyabeans went to China, the world’s biggest buyer. But this…

China’s Gansu province hit by 5.6 magnitude earthquake, injuring at least 7

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At least seven people have been injured and more than 110 dwellings damaged after a 5.6 magnitude earthquake rattled the northwestern Chinese province of Gansu on Saturday morning. Advertisement No fatalities have been identified in the first round of inspection by local rescue teams, who said eight houses had collapsed, according to the state broadcaster CCTV, adding that all of those injured had been hospitalised. Chinese central authorities activated the level-four national earthquake contingency response – the lowest in its four-tier system – and deployed a working group to the…

Maths star Yuan Yuan returns to China after more than 20 years in US

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After more than two decades in the United States, internationally recognised mathematician Yuan Yuan has returned to China as a full-time professor at Westlake University in Hangzhou. Advertisement He joined Westlake’s Institute for Theoretical Sciences in May, just months after being promoted to full professor at Syracuse University in New York, according to the university’s website. Yuan is one of four mathematicians recruited by Westlake this summer after long careers in the US. The others are mathematical analysis expert Zhongwei Shen from the University of Kentucky, machine-learning statistician Yiyuan She…

China sends 2,000 workers to build battery power in Europe

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China is locking in European dependence on its technology by sending thousands of workers to build cutting-edge car battery factories that the continent needs to breathe new life into its auto industry. The large-scale movement of labour, which has echoes of the dispatch of Chinese workers to construct infrastructure in Africa, underscores big gaps in Europe’s skills and knowhow in electric vehicle batteries. The starkest example is a lifeline from China’s CATL, one of the world’s most advanced battery makers, which plans to send 2,000 workers to build and fit…