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  • AI age demands a new political system

    AI age demands a new political system

    For decades, global discourse about China’s extraordinary economic rise has been trapped in a rigid ideological binary. Critics and analysts alike have framed the country’s transformation into the world’s second-largest economy as either a triumph of communist central planning or a quiet embrace of unadulterated capitalism hidden behind a socialist political banner. But as this analysis argues, both of these competing narratives miss a far more important and transformative reality at the heart of China’s modern development.

    Modern China’s growth was not built on a pure application of either communist ideology or free-market capitalism. Instead, it has evolved a unique hybrid framework that merges the innovative, competitive dynamism of capitalist markets with the large-scale, long-term organizational capacity of a strong centralized state. The author dubs this model “capunism”: a system that draws key elements from both classical capitalism and communist state structure, with neither ideology defining the entire model.

    Capunism can be clearly defined as a strategic combination of capitalism’s ability to drive grassroots innovation and a strong state’s capacity for coordinated long-term planning. Far from being an endorsement of authoritarianism or a rejection of free markets, the model addresses a critical gap exposed by the modern artificial intelligence economy: neither isolated state control nor unregulated free markets alone can meet the complex demands of 21st-century technological progress.

    In fact, the defining question of the 21st century is no longer whether capitalism or communism is the superior global system. Instead, the core question now is whether a nation possesses the institutional flexibility to merge strategic state leadership with competitive private markets. Capunism is not a half-hearted ideological compromise between capitalism and socialism; it is a purpose-built institutional response tailored to the unique requirements of the AI age.

    Why is this hybrid model uniquely suited to succeed in the AI era? The AI revolution differs fundamentally from the industrial revolution that came before it. Unlike 19th-century manufacturing, which could thrive with either isolated market activity or limited state planning, cutting-edge AI development requires an integrated national ecosystem that combines advanced semiconductor manufacturing, hyperscale data centers, abundant low-cost energy, nationwide high-speed digital infrastructure, top-tier academic research institutions, foundational scientific investment, cloud computing networks, and a workforce of millions of highly skilled engineers. No single private market actor, and no purely centralized state planning apparatus, can deliver all these interconnected components efficiently on its own.

    As a result, the nations best positioned to lead the global AI economy will be those that can successfully pair robust state capacity with market-driven dynamism: states that set clear long-term strategic direction, while allowing competitive markets, entrepreneurs, and private firms to experiment and innovate. The AI economy demands both elements, and the hybrid model delivers this balance.

    China’s decades-long growth model offers one prominent example of this approach in practice. Since the launch of market-oriented reforms under Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s, China has structured its economy to combine centralized political authority with expanding private markets, independent enterprise, and long-term national industrial planning. Regardless of one’s stance on China’s political system, the country’s track record demonstrates that strategic state coordination and competitive market innovation can coexist successfully within a single economic framework – and this combination is proving particularly effective in the AI era.

    Recent high-profile milestones underscore this effectiveness. In one notable example, Chinese AI firm Moonshot AI launched its large language model Kimi K3, which outperformed Anthropic’s leading industry model Claude 3 (cited as Fable 5 in the original text) on standardized coding benchmarks. On August 3, Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue publicly noted that China is making rapid gains in the global AI race through its open-weight model development, and could close the gap with leading U.S. frontier AI developers as early as 2026.

    This progress in AI comes alongside reports that China has begun domestic production of deep-ultraviolet (DUV) lithography systems – a critical core technology for advanced semiconductor manufacturing, and one of the final key components that China previously relied on Western suppliers to provide. Combined with Kimi K3’s benchmark performance, these advances reinforce the core argument that the hybrid model of state-directed strategic coordination and market-driven competition – capunism – delivers tangible results in the AI age.

    Critics of state intervention often argue that competitive free markets naturally allocate resources more efficiently than any state-led plan. While this holds true for many traditional sectors of the economy, the unique scale of AI infrastructure development exposes coordination challenges that isolated markets cannot solve. No single private company can independently build out a national electric grid, a complete domestic semiconductor supply chain, and train a workforce of millions of specialized engineers all on its own. These transformative investments require decades of long-term planning and cross-sector coordination that far exceed the short-term incentive structures of individual private firms. Markets remain irreplaceable for driving iterative innovation, but cutting-edge innovation in AI increasingly depends on foundational, strategic public investment to get off the ground.

    Looking forward, the central axis of global competition in the AI era will not be capitalism versus communism. It will be institutional capability versus institutional stagnation. Nations that can adapt their frameworks to combine strong state capacity with dynamic private markets will gain a decisive strategic advantage over countries that cling rigidly to either pure market fundamentalism or exclusive centralized planning – a gap that will only widen as the AI revolution accelerates.

  • US polysilicon tariffs to move solar makers to domestic materials

    US polysilicon tariffs to move solar makers to domestic materials

    In a sweeping new move to force solar manufacturing supply chains onto U.S. soil, the Trump administration has formally proposed a 15% tariff and mandatory minimum import prices on polysilicon and all its derivative solar products, capping a 14-year U.S. effort to erode China’s decades-long dominance of the global clean energy sector. The new trade restrictions grow out of a national security investigation launched by Washington in July 2025 under Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act, a legal framework that allows the U.S. to impose trade barriers on imports deemed a threat to national security.

    The proposal marks the final pillar of a long-running U.S. strategy that stretches back 14 years to reshape the global solar industry. Since 2012, successive U.S. administrations have deployed anti-dumping probes, escalating tariffs, and targeted tax incentives to gradually push Chinese solar manufacturers out of their home production bases and toward establishing operations in the United States. The new tariffs are explicitly designed to close the remaining loophole: forcing firms that have already built U.S. assembly plants to source raw polysilicon and core components domestically, creating a fully integrated solar supply chain within U.S. borders.

    According to a Thursday Reuters report citing anonymous administration sources, the new restrictions will apply across the entire solar production chain, covering polysilicon, wafers, cells, modules, and finished solar panels. The 15% tariff will specifically target polysilicon derivatives, while binding price floors will set a minimum cost for all imported solar inputs.

    Beijing has already issued fierce pushback against the measure. In a formal statement, the Chinese Embassy in Washington called on the U.S. to immediately abandon the Section 232 tariff plan and resolve trade disagreements through equal, constructive dialogue. “China firmly opposes the U.S. overstretching the concept of national security and abusing state power to unjustifiably suppress Chinese companies,” a embassy spokesperson said. “Protectionism will not enhance U.S. competitiveness. What the U.S. has done seriously impedes normal economic and trade exchanges between Chinese and American companies and serves the interests of no party, including American businesses and consumers. China will continue to firmly safeguard the lawful and legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies.”

    Chinese industry analysts and commentators have been equally critical, with many framing the sequence of shifting U.S. solar policies as a predatory “pig-butchering scam” — a term borrowed from a common online fraud scheme where scammers lure victims into investing before cutting off contact and seizing their assets. Critics argue the Biden administration first used generous federal tax credits under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act to lure major Chinese solar manufacturers into investing billions of dollars to build new factories on U.S. soil, only for the subsequent Trump administration to abruptly slash those credits, tighten eligibility rules, and impose new tariffs that effectively trap Chinese firms into selling their assets at a loss.

    This policy shift is codified in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by Trump on July 4, 2025. The legislation sets strict new rules for solar manufacturers to access federal tax credits: to lock in the full benefit, companies must have broken ground on their U.S. factories before July 4, 2026, with a four-year grace period to complete construction. It also enforces rising domestic content requirements: for modules to qualify for credits, 50% of components must be U.S.-sourced in 2026, rising to 60% in 2027, 70% in 2028, and 80% in 2029. Inverters follow a similar schedule, starting at 50% domestic content in 2026 and increasing 5 percentage points annually to 65% by 2029. Most notably, the act bars tax credits entirely for any U.S.-based entity that is classified as a Prohibited Foreign Entity, a designation that applies to any firm where Chinese, Russian, Iranian, or North Korean interests hold 25% or more equity, directly or indirectly.

    Chinese industry experts warn the new measures will not deliver the domestic growth the U.S. is seeking, while raising costs for U.S. consumers and manufacturers. Huo Jianguo, vice chairperson of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies, told state-affiliated newspaper the Global Times that the Trump administration has grossly overextended the national security justification for tariffs. He argued that rash protectionist moves disrupt global supply chains, fail to boost U.S. competitiveness, and harm the interests of all parties involved. Lu Jinbiao, a member of the expert committee at the China Photovoltaic Industry Association, added that the policy will do little to increase U.S. polysilicon production, but will significantly raise input costs for American solar manufacturers. He noted that the impact on major Chinese producers will be relatively limited, as most have already shifted their primary export focus to markets in India, Vietnam, and other Southeast Asian nations.

    Still, many Chinese observers acknowledge that 14 years of escalating U.S. trade pressure has started to erode China’s dominant position in the global solar sector. A Shaanxi-based columnist writing under the pen name Clear Mind documented that since 2025, leading Chinese solar firms including Trina Solar, JinkoSolar, and Boviet Solar have been scaling back and exiting their newly built U.S. operations, with some facilities put up for sale just one week after starting production. While the physical production lines and equipment remain in place, high operating costs and lost tax credits have left the facilities unprofitable, forcing Chinese firms to sell at steep discounts. The core issue, Clear Mind explained, is the abrupt phase-out of tax credits: prior U.S. policy offered hundreds of millions of dollars in annual tax savings for large U.S.-based module plants, enough to offset the higher cost of domestic production, but the new 2025 legislation accelerated the phase-out and locked out most foreign-invested firms.

    A timeline of 14 years of U.S. policy shows a deliberate incremental strategy to shift solar production away from China. After China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, local government support helped Chinese solar firms rapidly expand, capturing 50% to 60% of global cell and module production by 2012. That same year, the Obama administration imposed the first round of anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese solar products, but a major regulatory loophole allowed Chinese firms to easily bypass the restrictions by routing production through third countries. In 2018, the first Trump administration imposed broader tariffs that forced most Chinese manufacturers to shift assembly operations to Southeast Asia. In 2022, the Biden administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which offered generous subsidies to encourage Chinese firms to relocate production to the U.S. By 2025, China still controlled 95% to 98% of global wafer production, 85% to 92% of global cell output, and 80% to 85% of global panel assembly. After returning to office, the second Trump administration rejected the Inflation Reduction Act as a waste of public funds, imposed new tariffs on panels made in Southeast Asia, and implemented the strict new construction deadline and domestic content rules in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

    Guangdong-based commentator Tanshuo Renjian noted that U.S. trade enforcement has effectively chased Chinese producers across the globe over the past decade and a half. After U.S. tariffs pushed manufacturers out of Southeast Asia, many shifted production to Ethiopia, where solar exports to the U.S. surged from near zero to roughly $300 million in the second half of 2025 — only for the U.S. to extend anti-dumping investigations to the East African nation shortly after. Despite the persistent pressure, Tanshuo Renjian noted that Chinese firms have consistently adapted and found new pathways to operate.

    The U.S. tariff announcement coincided with China’s implementation of new tightened exit-entry regulations, set to take effect September 15, which some outside commentators initially misinterpreted as a broad restriction on citizen travel. In reality, the new rules are specifically targeted at stemming the outflow of highly skilled engineers with expertise in advanced clean energy technologies, including cutting-edge N-type solar cell production. Under the new regulations, any individual deemed to pose a risk to China’s national industrial or technological security can be barred from exiting the country. Industry analysts note that the rules mean Chinese solar technicians who take jobs with U.S. solar firms could be barred from re-entering China after temporary trips home, effectively forcing them to leave their positions in the U.S.

  • Australian aviation crew carries out daring midwinter Antarctica rescue

    Australian aviation crew carries out daring midwinter Antarctica rescue

    In a remarkable feat of aviation skill and emergency response, an Australian aviation team from Skytraders has pulled off a rare and dangerous midwinter medical evacuation of an American researcher from Antarctica, pulling off the operation in extreme darkness and bone-chilling temperatures never before attempted by a civilian airliner this close to the southern hemisphere’s winter solstice.

    The urgent mission was triggered last week when the United States government reached out to Skytraders requesting immediate assistance to extract a sick or injured expedition member from McMurdo Station, the largest research facility on the southern continent. Within just 24 hours of receiving the emergency call, the company’s team completed a full refit of their Airbus A319 jet, converting the aircraft into a fully functional specialized medical evacuation configuration ready for the harsh Antarctic conditions.

    After the refit was complete, the crew faced a new hurdle: waiting 12 hours for a narrow break in the unpredictable polar weather to get a safe launch window. Finally, in the early hours of Friday, the specially modified plane, callsign Snowbird 1, departed from Hobart, the capital of Australia’s southern state of Tasmania, and began the long journey south to McMurdo Station, located on Ross Island off the coast of Antarctica.

    Against all odds, the flight crew successfully landed the jet on the station’s ice runway, facing what pilot Captain Al Wallach described as conditions that pushed even the most purpose-built aircraft to the absolute limit of their operational capabilities. At the time of landing, temperatures plummeted to -43°C (-45.4°F), and the entire region was gripped by the total, unbroken darkness of the Antarctic midwinter.

    Following the landing, the patient was safely transferred onto the medevac-configured plane. Snowbird 1 then departed the ice station and flew north to Christchurch, New Zealand, where the patient was immediately transferred to local medical providers for care. Skytraders officials confirmed the patient is now recovering well, though no further details about the individual’s identity or specific medical condition have been released to the public.

    Skytraders Deputy Chief Executive Duncan Mackay explained that while the company has completed winter medical evacuations from Antarctica before, this mission marked the closest any civilian airliner has ever operated to the winter solstice, which fell on June 21 in the southern hemisphere. Successfully landing on an ice runway in total darkness at such extreme temperatures, Mackay noted, requires decades of accumulated experience and intimate knowledge of the continent’s unforgiving conditions.

    Captain Wallach emphasized that the successful outcome of the mission was a collective effort, crediting the wide range of specialist teams that made the operation possible. Beyond the flight crew, the mission relied on skilled meteorologists to track the fragile weather window, operational planners to map out the risky flight path, on-ice teams to prepare the frozen runway, and medical personnel ready to support the patient during the flight.

    “Every Antarctic mission demands absolute precision, but winter operations raise the complexity significantly,” Wallach said. “The conditions we encountered were right on the edge of even the most specialised aircraft capability.”

    This is not the first time Skytraders has supported the United States Antarctic Program with emergency medical evacuations from McMurdo Station. In a similar 2020 mission conducted in March, the company evacuated another station member when temperatures hit -30°C, a reading 13 degrees warmer than the conditions faced during last week’s unprecedented operation.

  • UK observatory nervously watches growing space junk threat

    UK observatory nervously watches growing space junk threat

    Beneath the sweeping arc of one of southern England’s most powerful satellite dishes, a team of experts at Chilbolton Observatory works around the clock to map a rapidly growing threat: the chaotic cloud of human-made debris cluttering Earth’s orbit. Operated by RAL Space, the UK’s national space laboratory, the facility is the backbone of Britain’s national space monitoring infrastructure, tracking every object from active UK-licensed satellites to shards of exploded rockets scattered across low and medium Earth orbit.

    When the observatory’s giant antenna pivots into position, control room screens light up with a real-time log of everything the high-resolution radar detects: distant stars, functioning communications satellites, discarded rocket hulls, and tiny fragments left over from decades of space launches, explosions, and accidental collisions. This space junk poses a growing risk to all orbital activity: even centimeter-sized fragments can disable working satellites, while larger objects that survive re-entry into the atmosphere threaten populated areas on the ground.

    Current data from the European Space Agency underscores the scale of the problem: more than 46,000 tracked pieces of large orbital debris, with a combined total mass of 17,000 tonnes, are currently circling the planet. “Most of those don’t collide with anything, most of the time,” explained Matthew Archer, deputy director for launch and space domain awareness at the UK Space Agency, during a press visit to the site. “But any of them can cause significant damage or even destroy potential satellites.”

    The urgency of the threat was highlighted just this month, when a bus-sized segment of a discarded SpaceX rocket crashed into the lunar surface, creating a new crater and adding thousands of additional fragments to the already crowded orbital environment. Researchers warn that rising congestion could eventually trigger Kessler syndrome, a catastrophic cascade effect where one collision generates more debris that triggers further impacts, rendering entire orbital orbits unusable for future missions.

    Chilbolton Observatory feeds its real-time detection data to the UK’s National Space Operations Centre (NSpOC), a joint initiative led by the UK Space Agency and UK Space Command that works 24/7 to prevent orbital collisions and monitor incoming debris re-entries. “Our role is to look at everything that happens and is in space,” Archer said. For the UK, the stakes could not be higher: orbital infrastructure underpins roughly 20 percent of the national economy, from GPS navigation to weather forecasting and global communications, making congestion mitigation a critical economic and national security priority.

    As the number of satellites in orbit skyrockets, the pressure on monitoring systems has grown exponentially. Right now, around 14,000 active satellites circle Earth, but private companies including SpaceX have announced plans to launch more than 1.7 million additional satellites in the coming decade, with SpaceX alone set to deploy over 1 million starting in 2028. Dozens of these SpaceX Starlink satellites pass across Chilbolton’s screens every day, a visible reminder of the rapid commercial expansion of orbit.

    To meet this growing challenge, the UK government has committed £85 million ($114 million) to expanding NSpOC’s capabilities, which currently issue roughly 3,000 collision warnings to satellite operators every month. Beyond debris tracking, the facility also enforces license compliance for UK-registered satellites and monitors potential adversarial activity from foreign space actors. “We see examples of countries that have demonstrated the ability to get close or to fly by certain objects,” Archer noted. “We do have to track… threats regularly from a military perspective.”

    When large debris objects do begin their re-entry into the atmosphere, Chilbolton’s team stands by to issue warnings if fragments are expected to survive and land on populated areas. Earlier this year, the facility joined European partners in closely tracking the re-entry of a large Chinese rocket, after initial projections raised fears that fragments could fall on British territory. The rocket ultimately disintegrated and landed harmlessly in the Pacific Ocean.

    Beyond orbital debris and satellite monitoring, Chilbolton also plays a key role in planetary defense, tracking near-Earth comets and asteroids that could pose an impact risk to the planet. Last year, the UK Space Agency joined the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN), a global collaborative body that coordinates monitoring of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects. The UK team works alongside NASA and other U.S. partners to calculate impact probabilities for asteroids that pass close to our planet, and is supporting the European Space Agency’s 2029 mission to study Apophis, a 375-meter wide asteroid that will make a close pass by Earth that year.

    Sarah Nash, Chilbolton’s facility leader, emphasized that the changing nature of the space environment demands coordinated global action. “The whole environment is changing,” she said. “It really is a multinational environment and there are so many objects that are not controllable. The only way that all of this can continue to operate safely is by keeping track of where everything is.”

    For Graham Marshall, the observatory’s station manager, the threat of large asteroids serves as a reminder of the limits of current monitoring technology. Giant asteroids are tracked by long-range optical sensors, as they are usually too distant for Chilbolton’s radar to detect. “If they’re close enough for the antenna to see them, then we have bigger problems,” he joked.

  • Carlton interim coach Josh Fraser remains coy on applying for permanent top job

    Carlton interim coach Josh Fraser remains coy on applying for permanent top job

    A stunning mid-season turnaround for AFL side Carlton has catapulted the club from the bottom of the ladder into wildcard contention, yet the architect of that resurgence, interim coach Josh Fraser, still declines to definitively say he wants the permanent top job.

    When former head coach Michael Voss parted ways with the Blues earlier this season, the club was mired in a dismal slump: just one win from its opening nine matches, sitting 16th on the competition ladder with little sign of improvement. Since Fraser stepped into the caretaker role, the narrative has flipped dramatically. The interim leader has guided Carlton to nine wins across his first 11 games at the helm, transforming a disappointing season into one with genuine finals aspirations.

    This Sunday, Carlton will face 11th-ranked St Kilda at Marvel Stadium, with a win nearly locking in their spot in the upcoming finals series. Despite the on-field success that has sparked widespread speculation about his candidacy for the full-time position, Fraser is taking a deliberate, cautious approach to confirming his intentions.

    Speaking to reporters on Friday, the interim coach acknowledged his long-term career goals while pushing for time to make a considered decision. “I’m very ambitious about being a senior coach,” Fraser said. “If I don’t put my hand up for the role, there will be a reason for that. I’m in a fortunate position where the club has given me time to gather all the information I need around the position. I’d love for it to be as simple as just saying ‘yeah, I’m all in’, but it’s not that straightforward.”

    Fraser emphasized that leading a top AFL club carries enormous weight, and a rushed decision would do the club a disservice. “Coaching this football club is a huge responsibility,” he explained. “I’d be doing a disservice to the process if I wasn’t making a decision based on all the information all together. It’ll take some conversations, and I need time to work through that.”

    Looking ahead to Sunday’s critical clash, Fraser warned his side against falling into the habits that have derailed past Carlton campaigns, urging the team to focus on process rather than obsessing over the finals outcome. “We need to lean into the occasion to a certain extent, but it’s important that we attach ourselves to the process around this game and not get too outcome driven,” he said. “This club maybe historically has ridden the wave, and I just look at where we’re at, and I think we’ve got so much work in front of us still.”

  • Houthi missile attacks kill 58 Saudi-backed Yemeni govt forces: source

    Houthi missile attacks kill 58 Saudi-backed Yemeni govt forces: source

    A devastating wave of missile and drone strikes carried out by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen has claimed the lives of at least 58 troops aligned with the Saudi-backed internationally recognized government, marking one of the deadliest single days of conflict in the country’s civil war in four years, a senior military source confirmed Thursday.

    The lethal assault comes as Yemen is increasingly drawn into the expanding regional conflict centered on escalating tensions between the US-Israeli bloc and Iran, with Houthi forces ramping up attacks on both Yemeni government positions and neighboring Saudi Arabia, a key American ally and primary backer of Yemen’s official administration.

    Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree stated that the strikes targeted government military outposts in retaliation for what the rebels claim is a Saudi-backed military buildup by government forces in contested regions. Initial casualty reports from medical sources had put the death toll at 38, but an updated figure from an anonymous military source confirmed 58 troops killed, with dozens more wounded.

    A senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, noted that Thursday’s coordinated attacks on multiple military camps represent the worst single loss of life for government forces since 2022. Yemen’s defense ministry issued a brief statement following the strikes, affirming that the country’s armed forces would respond to the assault “at the appropriate place and time.”

    The escalation of violence spilled across Yemen’s northern border into Saudi Arabia on Thursday, with Saudi officials confirming that Houthi cross-border attacks wounded 11 civilians in the southern Saudi region of Najran. Coalition spokesperson Major General Turki al-Malki told the official Saudi Press Agency that the wounded casualties included seven Saudi citizens, one Yemeni, two Egyptians, and one Pakistani national.

    Saudi Arabia has led a regional military coalition supporting Yemen’s government against Houthi forces since the conflict escalated in 2015. Al-Malki condemned the rebels for carrying out “indiscriminate shelling against civilian objects” and reaffirmed that coalition forces would continue all necessary measures to protect civilian populations on both sides of the border.

    Houthi forces have significantly increased provocations against Saudi Arabia over the past month, amplifying regional chaos that followed the eruption of open US-Iran hostilities in late February. The coordinated strikes Thursday hit three key government positions: a major military camp in the al-Ruwaik district of Yemen’s central Marib province, and two additional camps in the Al-Abr and Al-Wadiah areas of Hadramawt governorate, located near the Saudi border.

    One of the deadliest single strikes hit troops during their morning formation at the Marib province camp, leaving “at least 45 personnel killed and wounded,” according to a military source who requested anonymity for security reasons. Saree confirmed Al-Ruwaik, al-Thaniyah, and al-Abr as targeted locations, and warned that Houthi forces remain “prepared to confront any escalation” from government and coalition forces.

    Yemen has been mired in full-scale conflict for more than a decade, after Houthi forces seized the capital Sanaa and much of the country’s populous northern region in 2014, forcing the internationally recognized government into exile and later into control of most of southern Yemen. The conflict, which has already killed hundreds of thousands of people through direct fighting and humanitarian crisis, created what the United Nations has long called the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

    A UN-negotiated truce brokered in 2022 largely froze frontline fighting, and the truce agreement broadly held even after its official expiration. That fragile calm collapsed last month, however, as Houthi forces allowed an Iranian plane to land directly in Sanaa in a move that violated truce terms, triggering escalating tit-for-tat strikes. The rebels later announced a self-declared maritime blockade of Saudi ports and began attacking Saudi commercial tankers. Just last month, Houthi strikes killed 16 government-aligned troops south of the strategic port city of Hodeidah, two medical officials confirmed to AFP.

  • South Africa coach Erasmus wary of struggling Argentina

    South Africa coach Erasmus wary of struggling Argentina

    As world rugby champions South Africa prepare to face Argentina in a one-off Test in Buenos Aires this Saturday, Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus has warned his squad against underestimating their opponents, dismissing the idea that the match is a mere warm-up ahead of their upcoming series against New Zealand.

    Erasmus, the mastermind behind South Africa’s back-to-back Rugby World Cup titles in 2019 and 2023, stressed that the Pumas, despite their inconsistent results in the recent Nations Championship, will pose a bruising, high-stakes test for his side in the iconic Estadio Jose Amalfitani. “Argentina are a quality outfit and we are preparing for a physical and gruelling battle,” Erasmus told reporters ahead of the clash. “They are a well coached team who have tested us in the last few years, so it will be a good challenge for us. They gave us one of the biggest hidings we have suffered since I became involved with the Springboks in 2018.”

    The lead-up to the match has been marked by mixed results for Argentina in the inaugural Nations Championship. The Pumas secured a solid win over Wales but fell to Scotland and England in a controversial, ill-tempered closing clash. In that match, Argentina thought they had scored a late game-tying try, only for referee Angus Gardner to disallow the score following a lengthy VAR review. The call sparked an angry reaction from Pumas fly-half Tomas Albornoz, who had to be restrained by teammates and staff while confronting the official. Albornoz has since received a four-match suspension, ruling him out of Saturday’s clash against the Springboks.

    Even with the absence of their star playmaker and primary goal-kicker, Erasmus said he has not eased off preparation for the match, rejecting growing narratives that the game is a warm-up for South Africa’s four-Test home series against New Zealand, set to kick off on August 22. “This match was not planned with that reason in mind — it was always about honouring our relationship with Argentina,” he insisted. This year, the annual Rugby Championship, which traditionally includes two regular matchups between the Springboks and Pumas, has been canceled to accommodate the All Blacks tour schedule.

    South Africa has named an experimental starting XV for the Test, with only five players penciled in as probable starters for the opening New Zealand clash. The match marks the long-awaited return of several key stars from injury, including fly-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, locks Eben Etzebeth and Lood de Jager, and captain and flanker Siya Kolisi. Only two players from the Springboks’ dominant 43-0 win over Wales in Durban retain their starting spots: full-back Aphelele Fassi and scrum-half Cobus Reinach.

    For Argentina, head coach Felipe Contepomi has handed a starting Test debut to tighthead prop Francisco Moreno. Three other players — hooker Leonel Oviedo, and back-rowers Juan Penoucos and Juan Martin Scelzo — are in line to earn their first international caps if they come off the substitutes bench on Saturday. English referee Christophe Ridley has been named to officiate the cross-hemisphere clash.

  • Meta ordered to pay US state $567 mn to abate ‘public nuisance’ and child harm

    Meta ordered to pay US state $567 mn to abate ‘public nuisance’ and child harm

    In a landmark ruling that adds to growing legal pressure on social media platforms over youth safety, a New Mexico judge has ordered tech giant Meta to pay $567 million in penalties and remediation funds to resolve claims that the company created a public nuisance and inflicted widespread harm on children across the state. The decision marks a major escalation of a legal battle that first reached a jury verdict earlier this year, and it sets a clear precedent for dozens of similar pending cases against the company across the United States.

    The case dates back to 2023, when New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez filed a lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of major platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, accusing the firm of systemic failures to protect minor users from a range of online dangers. In March 2025, a jury already found Meta liable for endangering children, including leaving young users vulnerable to predation, and awarded $375 million in damages to the state. Thursday’s ruling finalizes additional penalties and outlines required changes to Meta’s platform operations in the state.

    Prosecutors argued during the trial that Meta’s recommendation algorithms actively steered adult users toward content posted by teenage users, while the company intentionally suppressed internal research that documented significant mental health and safety risks that its platforms posed to young people. The jury ultimately agreed that Meta violated New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act by misleading consumers about the child safety standards of its products.

    Under the terms of the new ruling, roughly three-quarters of the $567 million payment will be allocated to fund long-term mental health treatment for children harmed by Meta’s platforms, with the full amount paid out over a five-year period. The remaining quarter of the fund will be distributed across targeted programs: public awareness and harm prevention, youth mental health screening and assessment, care referral and coordination, and ongoing compliance implementation and evaluation.

    Beyond financial penalties, the judge imposed sweeping operational changes on Meta for its New Mexico user base. The company is required to strengthen efforts to block users under the age of 13 from accessing Facebook and Instagram, a mandate that aligns with growing global regulatory momentum for age verification on social platforms, even as implementation of such policies remains technically and logistically complex.

    In his written ruling, Judge Bryan Biedscheid emphasized that adolescent brains are uniquely susceptible to the addictive platform features designed to maximize user engagement, including infinite scrolling, autoplay video, public like counts, push notifications and algorithmic content recommendations. While the ruling acknowledged that many of these design choices represent industry-wide practices that intersect with complex free speech debates, it ordered Meta to implement targeted restrictions for users under 18 in New Mexico: limiting monthly platform usage to 90 hours (an average of three hours per day), capping push notifications, and hiding public like counts from minor user accounts. Meta will also be required to submit bi-annual compliance updates to the court to ensure the changes are being implemented.

    In an immediate response to the ruling, Meta reiterated its intent to challenge the decision, saying, “We disagree with the ruling and will appeal.” The company added that it “works hard to keep people safe on our platforms and have been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content,” noting that it remains “confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts.”

    For New Mexico officials, however, the ruling represents a long-awaited win for families. “This case has always been about protecting children, standing up for families, and making sure that one of the world’s largest technology companies cannot profit from practices that endanger young people without consequence,” Torrez said in a statement Thursday. “Today’s decision is a victory for every parent who has worried about what social media is doing to their child and every child who deserves to grow up safer online.”

    The New Mexico ruling is part of a much broader wave of legal action against social media companies across the U.S. Thousands of individual and state-level lawsuits have been filed holding platforms liable for alleged youth mental health harms, with more than 30 states bringing similar cases against Meta. The next major bellwether trial is scheduled to begin in August in Oakland, California, which will set a key framework for resolving thousands of remaining pending claims across the country. Recent prior bellwether proceedings have produced mixed outcomes: a July 2025 trial against Meta ended when the teenage plaintiff dropped the case days before opening arguments, after reaching confidential settlements with other major platforms including TikTok, YouTube and Snap. The first bellwether trial concluded in March 2025, when a Los Angeles jury ordered Meta and Google to pay $6 million in damages to a 20-year-old woman who alleged social media addiction caused her lasting harm. In May, Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube reached confidential settlements with a Kentucky school district that had sued over youth social media harms.

  • Greens’ plea for $4bn for homelessness as women’s ministers meet

    Greens’ plea for $4bn for homelessness as women’s ministers meet

    As Australia’s federal, state and territory women’s ministers gather for the national Women’s Safety Ministers Council, the Australian Greens have issued a stark warning: a $4 billion-plus funding gap is putting thousands of women and children fleeing domestic violence at grave risk of returning to abusive situations due to a critical shortage of accessible, affordable housing.

    New data from the 2024-25 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) underscores the severity of the crisis. Women and children escaping family and domestic violence make up the single largest group of people seeking support from specialist homelessness services across the country, with more than 100,000 survivors reaching out for help annually. Despite this overwhelming demand, the system is failing to deliver: nearly 12,000 women and children are turned away from life-saving short-term accommodation each year, and roughly 60% of survivor-victims leave crisis housing without securing stable long-term housing. For many of these people, the only available option is to return to live with their abusive perpetrator.

    Greens leader Larissa Waters emphasized that the national housing and homelessness crisis is not just an economic issue—it is a core women’s safety issue. “When politicians ask ‘why didn’t she just leave?’ they’re ignoring that unaffordable housing, skyrocketing rents, and widespread shortages of crisis and transitional housing leave women and children with nowhere to go,” Waters said in a statement released ahead of the council meeting.

    Waters noted that soaring housing costs have pushed more survivors to seek help from crisis accommodation and frontline support services, but the overstretched sector is on the brink of collapse. “The sector is breaking at the time it is needed most, forcing services to turn away women and children every day,” she said. “This is something that the government can, and must, fix by investing in public housing and frontline services.”

    Speaking directly to the ministers gathering for Friday’s summit, Waters called on national and state leaders to step up and address the unmet need. She pointed out that the $4.6 billion the Greens say is needed to close the housing gap amounts to less than a quarter of the annual revenue that would be raised by a tax on gas exports, and a tiny fraction of the billions the Australian government has committed to the AUKUS nuclear submarine program, a project Waters argued wastes public funds on defense assets that may never be delivered.

    Waters also criticized the ruling Labor government for dragging its feet on responding to the crisis. “Labor knows there is massive unmet need, but even their pilot project to collect data on that need is years overdue and just got another extension,” she said. “The sector, and the women and children who rely on it, cannot wait any longer. Labor must start prioritising people over corporate profit and investing in the things that people need to survive and live a good life.”

    To date, government commitments have fallen far short of what is required. The Albanese Labor government has allocated $100 million for new crisis, transitional and youth housing as part of its $1 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, launched in 2023. The fund’s stated goal is to deliver 55,000 new social and affordable homes by mid-2029, but the broader program has faced ongoing implementation delays and challenges, and independent analysis suggests it is unlikely to hit its target.

    At the state level, the New South Wales government committed $130 million last year to expand crisis accommodation beds for people experiencing homelessness, on top of a $6.6 billion state housing program that aims to deliver 8,400 new public homes, with at least half reserved for women and children escaping violence. Even with these investments, Greens and frontline service providers agree that national collective action and far greater public investment are needed to end the preventable crisis putting survivors’ lives at risk.

  • Young activists in the Maldives confront climate threats to their island nation

    Young activists in the Maldives confront climate threats to their island nation

    Scattered across the low-lying Indian Ocean archipelago of the Maldives, a new wave of youth-led environmental activism is pushing back against unregulated development and accelerating ecological damage, as young citizens confront the reality that climate collapse is not a distant future, but an immediate threat to their island homes.

    In Addu City, a southern Maldivian community situated within a protected UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, nonprofit organization Project ThimaaVeshi – whose name translates to “self and surroundings” – has led high-profile direct action against a controversial land reclamation project that is clearing critical mangrove wetlands. In June 2026, a cohort of young activists paddled kayaks to the construction site and spray-painted the word “ECOCIDE” across a section of newly reclaimed land, drawing global attention to the destruction of a habitat that protects coastlines from erosion, supports endangered marine life, and stores carbon at rates far higher than most terrestrial forests.

    What began as a small group of high school friends collaborating with the Addu City council has grown into a registered nonprofit movement. Twenty-one-year-old co-founder Yameen Maumoon recalled that the group started with nothing more than shared passion and collective ambition. Project ThimaaVeshi has since partnered with Veshi Saafu, a group of older local women also active in environmental advocacy, to amplify their campaign during World Environmental Day, documenting how unplanned development is degrading Addu’s wetlands and coral reefs.

    Parallel movements have emerged in the crowded capital city of Male and its neighboring Hulhumale, where youth organizers are tackling the pervasive plastic waste that clogs public spaces, coastlines and nearshore waters. Ripple, a youth group currently pursuing formal registration, began when a circle of friends noticed trash piling up in their favorite gathering spots. Co-founder Mariyam Maasha Waheed recalled that the idea grew from a casual joke while playing Minecraft: the group decided to post cleanup content on TikTok, and their videos quickly went viral, turning a small informal initiative into a sustained movement. Today, Ripple hosts weekly community cleanups, partners with local surfing groups to remove discarded fishing gear and plastic from coral reefs, and runs recycling programs for the waste they collect.

    The newest of these youth-led groups, Barnacles – also working toward official registration – centers its work on climate education and building youth leadership. Co-founder Yania Hussain Ishan first became engaged with environmental issues while researching a school presentation on nature protection. Ishan notes that widespread discourse around the climate emergency has left many young people feeling disempowered, so Barnacles works to frame environmental action as accessible, communal, and meaningful for all participants.

    Across all three groups, a shared unifying belief drives their work: unlike previous generations, young Maldivians see firsthand that sea level rise, coastal erosion, plastic pollution, and development-driven ecosystem damage are not abstract threats – they are daily realities reshaping their country. Climate scientists project that 80% of the Maldives, a nation located south of India and Sri Lanka with an average elevation of just 1.5 meters above sea level, could become uninhabitable within 50 years due to rising ocean waters.

    While the Maldivian government has publicly positioned itself as a global advocate for climate action given the country’s extreme vulnerability to sea level rise, officials have argued that short-term sacrifices are sometimes necessary to support economic development. Activists counter that existing environmental protections are being implemented far too slowly to save the country’s fragile ecosystems.

    The youth activists have faced pushback from establishment figures, including government officials who have dismissed their work as naive and futile, arguing that their youth makes them too emotional to contribute meaningfully to environmental decision-making. Last year, Maldivian Climate Change Minister Ali Shareef publicly claimed at a forum that young people cannot be trusted with governance due to emotional bias.

    Unfazed by the criticism, the activists acknowledge that small-scale cleanups and local protests cannot single-handedly solve the Maldives’ massive climate and development challenges. But they reject the idea that they must wait for large-scale systemic solutions to act, instead focusing on building a culture of environmental stewardship that will carry forward to future generations.

    “We are deciding what kind of ancestors we will be,” Ishan said. “We are defending our home, our heritage and the right of every Maldivian child yet to be born to stand on these shores, look out at the sea and feel the same wonder and security that defines who we are.”

    This reporting from the Associated Press is supported by funding from private philanthropic foundations, with AP retaining full editorial independence over all content.