Day: July 7, 2026

A total of 21 people out of 33 have died and seven injured in a landslide in northwestern China, as typhoon, flooding and other geological disasters continue to ravage the country. The victims, who were mostly woodworkers hired to trim trees in Longnan, Gansu province, were buried on Tuesday. Local government said in a press conference that as of Wednesday morning, everyone involved in the incident had been rescued. Rescue parties are continuing to search for those trapped in unprecedented floods in southern China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, while in…

Who would have thought that Leon Trotsky inadvertently offered a theory to explain China’s economic leapfrog into the 21st century after bouncing back from history’s worst famine and the Cultural Revolution? In recent decades, some people thought China was done for and would eventually collapse. They might have done better if they had read at least the first chapter of Trotsky’s The History of the Russian Revolution. Here, he expounds on what he calls “the privilege of historic backwardness”, which seems to apply quite well to China’s economic and technological…

A Chinese military magazine has highlighted a spate of non-combat losses across the US Navy, claiming they have eroded the fleet’s capabilities and exposed “systemic pressure and shortcomings”. The report in Naval & Merchant Ships pointed to fires, electrical failures and propulsion issues on America’s most advanced warships in recent months. They include the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, the USS Zumwalt destroyer, Nimitz-class carrier the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and Arleigh Burke-class destroyer the USS Higgins. The report said the problems had revealed critical vulnerabilities stemming from excessive…

The US Federal Communications Commission ⁠said on Tuesday it is adding California-based Digitalsystem Technology to a list of companies posing risks to US national security, citing links to Chinese telecoms firms and its ownership by a Chinese national. The FCC also said ‌it was denying the Los Angeles-based IT company permission to provide international telecommunications services, saying it could be exploited by Chinese threat actors. “There is significant risk that the government of China and other threat actors could exploit any vulnerabilities to the detriment of US national security and…

US President Donald Trump doubled down on his criticism of Nato member states’ refusal to aid Washington’s military operation in the Middle East, while noting that his country would consider selling F-35 fighter jets to Turkey after years of deadlock. In his meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday, the US president, who arrived in Ankara to attend this year’s Nato summit, said he was “very disappointed” with fellow Nato member states during Washington’s military operation against Iran and the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. Noting that…

Nato member states unveiled a series of defence initiatives on Tuesday aimed at strengthening weapons development, production and supply chains in response to security challenges posed by Russia and China. Speaking at the Nato Summit Defence Industry Forum (NSDIF) on the first day of this year’s summit in Ankara, Turkey, Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte announced several new projects involving member states and defence contractors to bolster the alliance’s advanced military capabilities. Among them was a multinational initiative on defence-critical raw materials involving 12 Nato member states: Belgium, Canada, Denmark,…