Category: Media Library

The Strategic Calculus of Xi Jinping’s Egypt Visit

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As the renewed tensions in the Middle East push the region to the brink, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Cairo couldn’t have been more precisely timed. This was the second time Xi visited Cairo – compare that to his counterpart, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who visited Beijing eight times since assuming power in 2014.  Xi’s visit from September 1-2 was significant for both sides, though for different reasons. For Egypt, it symbolized a broader shift among Middle Eastern states toward diversifying their foreign policy partnerships. The most obvious…

How the Nepal-Tibet disaster became the latest victim of China’s ‘Clean Internet’ campaign

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Tsering Phuntsok watched news of the Nepal-Tibet flood unfold from thousands of miles away in southern India. The 46-year-old Tibetan in exile has missing family members on both sides of the border; those in Nepal are named in official government lists, but in Tibet he has received no information. “I have started praying for the lost ones now. I have to accept they will not return [because] … I’m not getting any information.” The flooding disaster is an example of the increasing use by Chinese authorities of “Clean Internet 2026”,…

China confirms 43 dead in mudslide, Tibetan resident says 26 dead in just one village

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Read a version of this story in Tibetan As Chinese officials raised the official death toll from the Nepal-Tibet mudslide to 43 on Saturday, a Tibetan resident told RFA on Sunday that 26 people died in Risur village, Kyirong county, alone, where the Kyirong (Gyirong in Chinese) border post is located. Because entry into the immediate disaster zone was restricted, the Tibetan resident told RFA that he had to trek around the mountain for about three hours to search for relatives, but could not find them. “Many people have gone…

Weather tracker: Typhoon Saudel causes mass evacuations in south-east China

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Typhoon Saudel brought days of torrential rain to Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong provinces in south-east China last week. The city of Putian, in Fujian province, recorded 416.5mm of rain in a 24-hour period between Thursday and Friday, with surrounding villages recording more than 500mm in the same period. In Fujian, authorities estimate that almost 600,000 people were evacuated from high-risk, flood-prone areas. A further 128,000 people in 53 counties were also affected across Jiangxi, with emergency evacuations affecting 9,000 people. Flooding, landslips and infrastructure damage were reported widely in…

The US now has access to more than half Australia’s military bases – could it drag the country unwillingly into war?

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Exclusive: US-controlled weapons corporations and forces have control or access to more than 100 facilities across the continent, which some analysts describe as a ‘colonisation’ of Australia’s military. Find a map of them here US military interests control or have access to more than 100 defence facilities on Australian soil, in what some analysts describe as a “saturation” – even a “colonisation” – of the Australian continent. New data compiled by the Nautilus Institute and published by Guardian Australia maps the extent of US militarisation. The US military controls 17…

EU faces 300,000 factory job cuts as China ‘colonises’ supply chains, industry warns

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Protest using 10 coffins to symbolise struggling manufacturing industry to take place in Brussels Job losses in EU manufacturing will rapidly increase unless Brussels stops the “colonisation” of industry by Chinese component manufacturers, a leading industry trade body has warned. Eurometal predicts 300,000 job losses in manufacturing in the rest of 2026 because of expanding competition from China, which is now enjoying a record €1bn-a-day trade surplus with the bloc. Continue reading… The Guardian

China prepares £40bn stimulus for financial sector amid fears over sluggish growth

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Beijing wants banks and insurers to bolster investment in stock market as it helps to replenish cash reserves China will inject $54bn (£40bn) into its financial sector as Beijing attempts to shore up banks and insurers in the face of faltering economic growth. A host of financial institutions said they were due to receive billions of yuan in capital from state institutions including the ministry of finance and even the company that runs the country’s tobacco monopoly. Continue reading… The Guardian

No bailouts for Jaguar Land Rover amid reports of thousands of job cuts, says minister

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The government has signalled that it will not invest taxpayers’ money to limit job losses at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), after it emerged that the UK’s biggest carmaker is planning up to 4,000 redundancies. Before crunch talks on Tuesday between JLR, union leaders and government officials, the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, said it was not his job to “intervene and run businesses”. JLR, owned by the Indian conglomerate Tata Motors, told staff on Friday to expect a voluntary redundancy programme, as it tries to shore itself up against tough conditions…