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Torrential rains hit parts of England, Italy, France and Belgium, while in China flooding leaves 18 dead
Prolonged heat across parts of northern and western Europe ended with torrential showers and thunderstorms this week.
On Wednesday, parts of southern England received 50-65mm of rainfall within a few hours, causing London’s Gatwick airport to delay and cancel dozens of flights.

China’s provocative actions in the skies and waters surrounding Taiwan deserve in-depth attention. There is a high possibility that China is making this encroachment on Taiwan t ...

Joko Widodo has faced pressure to exclude Russian president from summit, while Chinese ruler’s attendance will break pandemic seclusion
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin will attend the G20 summit on the resort island of Bali this November, an adviser to the Indonesian president has said.
Andi Widjajanto – unofficial adviser to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo – told Reuters the Chinese and Russian leaders would attend.

How did you get involved with the National Association of Asian American Professionals? It started in 2020 with a group of 15 Asian-Americans that represented the many countries of Asia. We discussed ...

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.