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Posts touting off-grid locations as ‘secret resorts’ have fuelled a travel craze that is now being criticised over risks to public safety
Chinese social media influencers and their platforms have come under fire for posts about “wild trips” – or visits to off-grid locations – after a huge flood killed seven tourists in Sichuan province.
The tragedy, on 13 August, left seven tourists dead and eight injured after a flash flood at a valley in Mengzhou, in the country’s south-west.

Xi Jinping is expected to secure a third term as leader at the CCP’s conference later this year
Every five years, China’s ruling Communist party (CCP) holds a key congress, where China watchers look for clues to the country’s future. The 20th party congress will take place in Beijing before year-end. The date has not been announced, but analysts expect it to be held in mid-to-late October or early November.
Selection for the delegates of the 20th Congress began in November last year. For ambitious CCP cadres, this is a crucial opportunity to join the elite circle of the party’s ruling class.

This will be the first loan from China since the Pacific country switched allegiance from Taiwan in 2019
The Solomon Islands government has secured a $66m (A$96m) loan from China to build 161 mobile communication towers, which will be built and supplied by Chinese telco giant Huawei.
It is the Pacific country’s first loan from Beijing since it switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China in 2019 and is a significant bilateral development between the two countries, which signed a earlier this year.

Jade Gross was born in Hong Kong, and studied human rights law at university before going to culinary school and working at some of the world's best restaurantsAfter seven years at two-Michelin-star ...

Plus the U.S. and Taiwan will begin formal trade talks and Cambodia spars with the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Ukraine, Turkey and UN review grain export deal; tensions rise over Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and at least 15 killed in strikes on Kharkiv

Exclusive: President José Ramos-Horta says his country’s leadership ‘has to make decisions … if necessary a trip to China’Get our , or
Timor-Leste’s , has warned his nation will seek Chinese support if Australia and Woodside Energy fail to back a gas pipeline between the resource-rich Timor Sea and his country’s southern shore, rather than Darwin.
Ramos-Horta has warned Timor-Leste – Australia’s neighbour and ally – would “absolutely” look to Chinese investment to secure what he says is the “national strategic goal” of piping gas from the Greater Sunrise fields to his nation’s coast. The comments are likely to heighten concerns about Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific.

It will be no good if in transitioning to climate neutrality, large tracts of the planet are left uninhabitable by the mining of key raw materials
Rare earth elements may be in short supply but they are not rare. Even the rarest, thulium, is more than 100 times more than gold. But only a few countries – such as the and – contain deposits substantial enough to mine. Crucially, climate solutions – such as solar energy, wind energy and electric vehicles – depend on rare earth elements, which have unique magnetic and luminescent properties. The trouble is that their production and disposal is environmentally destructive. It is worrying, therefore, that the said that it wants lower regulatory barriers to mining raw materials needed for a green transition.
To get to net zero, Europe will require up to the amount of rare earth metals in 2050 compared with today. Demand is also increasing because of digitalisation. The EU, like the UK, is dependent on imports, while the geopolitics of supply chains are increasingly unstable. China is the world’s largest producer of rare earths. Russia is the fourth-largest supplier. The west views this as a potential threat to its security of supply. Given Russia’s attempts to its gas supplies, this is not an unreasonable belief.

Richard Sproat, Joseph R Allen and Adam Burden put the Chinese ambassador’s pronouncements in an opinion article into historical context
Zheng Zeguang, the Chinese ambassador to the UK, parrots the standard People’s Republic of China talking point that “Taiwan has been an inalienable part of China’s territory since ancient times” ().
The island of Taiwan has indeed been inhabited by humans for thousands of years, but the Han Chinese only started settling there in the late 13th century. This hardly counts as “ancient times” in terms of the 3,200-year recorded history of China (dating from the earliest Chinese written documents, the ), not to mention the much, much earlier history of continuous settlement in mainland China, for which there is ample evidence in archaeological records.

Beijing says its participation in Vostok exercises ‘unrelated’ to current events and part of ongoing cooperation with Moscow
Chinese troops will travel to Russia for large military exercises amid heightened tensions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The joint exercises in Russia’s far east, which will include India, Belarus, Mongolia, Tajikistan and other countries, are held every four years. But the week-long manoeuvres will be presented by Russia as a symbol of international support despite sanctions and other efforts to isolate the country due to its war with Ukraine.

Former student leader among 29 pro-democracy activists entering same plea on subversion charges after more than a year in jail
Joshua Wong and a group of 28 Hong Kong pro-democracy activists charged under a controversial national security law have entered guilty pleas, in the largest joint prosecution in the territory in recent years.
A total of 47 defendants, aged 23 to 64, were charged with conspiracy to commit subversion under the sweeping national security law. They were detained in 2021 over their involvement in an that authorities said was a plot to paralyse Hong Kong’s government. At the time, the primary showed strong support for candidates willing to challenge the Beijing-backed local government.

A severe drought has dented energy supplies and disrupted access to water for hundreds of thousands. Cities order rolling blackouts; farmers rush to save crops.