Global Pulse

作者： admin

  • Trump fires on multiple fronts to break China’s minerals monopoly

    Trump fires on multiple fronts to break China’s minerals monopoly

    Over the course of mid-2025 to 2026, the Trump administration has rolled out a sweeping set of policy and investment measures designed to reshore and diversify U.S. defense critical mineral supply chains, with the explicit goal of breaking China’s long-held dominance over global production and processing of key industrial and defense materials including scandium, tungsten, and rare earth elements.

    The coordinated push kicked off on July 20, when President Donald Trump signed a landmark executive order tightening restrictions on the Department of Defense’s ability to grant waivers for critical materials sourced from countries classified as U.S. adversaries: China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. The order mandates that all such waivers will expire permanently on January 1, 2027, unless a contractor holds a formally approved plan to phase out materials from the four listed nations, while actively encouraging defense contractors to qualify new mineral suppliers based in the U.S. and allied partner countries.

    Ten days later, on July 30, Trump issued a formal presidential determination under Section 101 of the Defense Production Act. This designation classified recoverable critical minerals, including tungsten scrap and spent battery material known as “black mass,” as scarce and essential to U.S. national defense, and directed the Secretary of Commerce to implement new restrictions on the export of these materials to preserve domestic supplies.

    The most high-profile step of the initiative came on August 7, during a roundtable meeting with U.S. mining industry leaders. At the event, the administration announced more than $2 billion in new targeted investments to scale up domestic and allied-nation critical mineral production, while the U.S. Treasury formally welcomed the launch of new S&P Global reference prices for six key critical minerals: gallium, germanium, tungsten, antimony, neodymium, and praseodymium. The pricing framework is intended to underpin a broader critical minerals trade agreement with allied partners including Japan, Mexico, and the European Union, which will establish phased, mineral-specific price floors to support diversified, market-aligned supply chains.

    Breaking down the $2 billion investment package, the single largest award is a $1.4 billion Department of Defense grant to California-based battery manufacturer Sila Nanotechnologies. The funding will support the expansion of the company’s silicon-carbon anode production capacity, as well as the construction of a new lithium-ion cell facility dedicated to supplying defense sectors, including satellites, drones, and munitions. The second-largest allocation, $400 million, will go to Australia’s Sunrise Energy Metals to develop the world’s first primary scandium mine. The project will secure a stable supply of high-heat aluminum alloys critical for manufacturing fighter jets and spacecraft components. Additional funding includes $150 million for Minnesota-based Niron Magnetics, a firm developing rare earth-free permanent magnets that eliminate reliance on Chinese processed rare earths, and $85 million for Standard Bauxite to produce refractory-grade bauxite for high-temperature defense components. Smaller grants have been allocated to projects focused on graphite, tantalum, niobium, and boron, alongside $180 million earmarked for mining education programs at U.S. academic institutions to build a skilled domestic workforce.

    The U.S. push for supply chain independence comes in the wake of steadily tightening Chinese export controls on critical minerals over the past 18 months. After China first banned gallium, germanium, and antimony exports to the U.S. in December 2024, it expanded broader rare earth export restrictions throughout 2025, before extending dual-use technology controls to Japan in early 2026. Trade data shows the impact of these measures has been significant: in the first half of 2026, Chinese rare earth exports to Japan plummeted 51% year-on-year, with an 81% drop in June alone, and shipments of key heavy rare earths including dysprosium and terbium fell to zero. Over the same period, Chinese rare earth exports to the U.S. declined 28% year-on-year.

    Chinese analysts and state-affiliated commentators have widely pushed back on the Trump administration’s timeline, arguing that the goal of fully decoupling U.S. defense supply chains from Chinese critical minerals by 2027 is unfeasible in the near term. In a commentary published by Guancha.cn, analysts noted that U.S. mining and processing firms have not yet built out sufficient capacity to replace Chinese supplies, pointing out that it is impossible for U.S. defense contractors to eliminate purchases of rare earths, tungsten, molybdenum, and tantalum from adversary nations in the lead-up to the 2027 deadline. The commentary added that the complexity of mineral refining has slowed progress on U.S. projects, leaving the foundations of Washington’s effort to challenge China’s rare earth supply chain dominance still underdeveloped, citing examples including a scaling challenge for rare earth refining startup ReElement Technologies and ongoing intellectual property litigation between two major U.S. rare earth firms, USA Rare Earth and MP Materials.

    Tianjin-based political commentator Zui Qingfeng expanded on this criticism, noting that China built its dominant position in critical mineral processing over more than two decades, and the U.S. cannot replicate that entire industrial system in just a few years. China currently controls roughly 90% of global rare earth refining capacity, a position built on decades of investment in industrial infrastructure, and the U.S. has outsourced the polluting, long-cycle smelting and processing segment of the supply chain over the past 30 years, leaving gaps in technology, industrial capacity, and skilled labor. Zui Qingfeng estimated that rebuilding a complete, stable domestic supply chain would take the U.S. at least five years, and that American firms cannot avoid relying on Chinese rare earth supplies in the short term.

    In recent weeks, China has also implemented new border control measures to protect its critical mineral technical expertise, with new exit and entry rules set to take effect on September 15 that will restrict travel for Chinese rare earth technicians with access to core technical knowledge, to prevent intellectual property leakage to foreign firms. Chinese commentator Big Octopus documented multiple past cases of foreign actors attempting to recruit Chinese rare earth experts to obtain restricted technical information, including a case where a Singaporean-linked headhunter offered a senior Ganzhou-based rare earth engineer a $300,000 annual salary and family green cards to elicit confidential production details, a 2025 incident where a Cayman Islands-registered firm attempted to obtain the restricted chemical mixing ratio for a common rare earth extraction agent from Inner Mongolian technical staff, and a cracked case involving a U.S.-funded Shenzhen headhunting firm that built a database of more than 1,000 Chinese rare earth and solar engineers to screen for potential recruitment.

    Current U.S. Geological Survey data shows that while the U.S. remains heavily import-reliant for many critical minerals, its dependence on China is often overstated for key materials. For example, only 19% of U.S. gallium consumption comes from China, with the remainder sourced from Japan and other allied partners; 30% of U.S. yttrium imports come from non-Chinese suppliers including Germany, Austria, and South Korea; and most U.S. germanium imports are sourced from Belgium and Canada. Only heavy rare earths such as dysprosium and terbium remain overwhelmingly dominated by Chinese processing, a gap the U.S. already targeted with a $400 million investment in MP Materials in 2025. Overall, while the U.S. imports 80% of its rare earth supplies, only 56% of those imports come from China, meaning most can already be sourced from allied nations if needed. A March 2026 report from the U.S. National Association of Manufacturers underscored the scope of the challenge, finding that the U.S. is at least 50% import-reliant for 33 of the 58 minerals classified as critical to domestic manufacturing, with 13 of those minerals entirely supplied by foreign sources. The report called for a combined strategy of domestic capacity building and allied supply chain diversification to protect U.S. economic and national security.

  • Germany beefs up its intelligence services as threat from ‘foreign powers’ rises

    Germany beefs up its intelligence services as threat from ‘foreign powers’ rises

    BERLIN — Amid a growing wave of hybrid aggression from state and non-state actors, with Russia topping regional security concerns, the German federal cabinet has given formal approval to landmark draft legislation that would dramatically expand the operational powers of the country’s top intelligence agencies. The reform, which still needs a green light from the national parliament to take effect, is designed to shore up the capabilities of both the external Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and domestic Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), while cutting Germany’s heavy reliance on intelligence sharing from allied nations.

    For decades, Germany’s intelligence agencies have operated with narrower legal authority than peer services across major European states. This constrained framework stems from the country’s deep historical sensitivity to unchecked state surveillance, shaped by the mass repression carried out by the Nazi Gestapo and later the Stasi, the secret police of communist East Germany. Strict data protection norms have remained a core priority for German policy in the decades after reunification.

    But shifting global security dynamics have pushed the current government to pursue a major overhaul. Nina Warken, chief of staff to Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the official tasked with overseeing intelligence agencies, framed the change as a long-overdue response to persistent targeting of Germany. “Nowadays, Germany is constantly a target of hybrid attacks by foreign powers and that is a real, very acute danger,” Warken stated. “We are simply too dependent on the intelligence services of other countries supporting us, and at the moment this help is a one-way street in too many areas.”

    Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt emphasized that the reform will bring German intelligence capabilities in line with international partners. “We are developing our intelligence services into real intelligence services,” Dobrindt said. “The threats Germany now faces require intelligence services that are competitive with our partner services in the European Union, but also with friendly services beyond that.”
    He added that foreign adversaries have mounted constant pressure against the country: “We are a daily target of espionage, sabotage, cyberattacks and hidden actions by foreign powers with the aim of destabilizing our country, damaging our country, and bringing about political and social changes in our country.”

    The new framework grants German intelligence agencies expanded legal access to personal devices including laptops and smartphones, alongside permission to store collected intelligence data. Critically, it also authorizes the agencies to carry out a range of proactive offensive measures that were previously off-limits.
    For example, the BND will be allowed to replace legitimate hardware in transited deliveries with defective components to disrupt adversary operations. Agents will also be able to infiltrate the IT systems of drone manufacturing facilities and chemical weapons laboratories to sabotage adversarial projects. The new rules also allow intelligence services to shut down or disable servers operated by foreign-linked hackers and state-backed disinformation campaigns, and to swap explosive materials for inert, harmless substances in targeted operations.

    Plans for the reform have been in development for months, but the urgency of the proposal was underscored just last week by a high-profile security incident: an unexplained drone carrying explosives was discovered at Leipzig/Halle Airport, a critical European cargo hub that also logistically supports Ukraine’s military efforts against Russia. The incident remains under active investigation, and German authorities have not yet publicly named any potential perpetrators.
    While senior officials stopped short of explicitly naming the primary adversary driving the reform, Russian hostile activity has been a persistent top security concern for governments across the European continent in the years since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, making it the clear implicit focus of the new policy.

  • Death toll rises to 44 after an overloaded ferry capsized on a Zimbabwe lake

    Death toll rises to 44 after an overloaded ferry capsized on a Zimbabwe lake

    On Wednesday, Zimbabwean national police confirmed a sharp rise in the death toll from a deadly ferry capsizing incident on Lake Kariba, with 44 bodies recovered from the waters that straddle the country’s border with Zambia. The disaster unfolded on Tuesday, when the overloaded vessel, operated by a state-run government agency, tipped over while traveling across the large reservoir.

    Initial official data from Zimbabwe’s national disaster management agency shows the ferry was carrying at least 114 ticketed adult passengers and five crew members when it capsized. By Tuesday evening, rescue teams had pulled 77 survivors from the lake. However, the full scope of casualties remains unclear, as authorities have not yet updated figures for injured or missing people. Crucially, the official passenger count only accounts for individuals who purchased tickets, meaning uncounted children below the minimum ticketing age may have also been on board. State broadcaster Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation has confirmed that children are among the fatalities, though formal official breakdowns of victim demographics have not been released to the public.

    Regulatory records show the ferry was only certified to carry a maximum of 90 passengers, meaning it was operating 29 people over its approved capacity even before accounting for any unticketed children. The vessel serves as a critical transportation link for rural communities surrounding the lake, ferrying residents to and from the lakeside town of Kariba.

    Local member of parliament Mutsa Murombedzi shared on-the-ground footage of the ferry’s final departure on Tuesday. The video captures witnesses on the shore voicing immediate concerns about whether the aging vessel could safely navigate rough, choppy water on its crossing.

    Stretching more than 200 kilometers in length and reaching up to 40 kilometers wide in some sections, Lake Kariba holds the title of the world’s largest man-made lake by water volume. Created between the late 1950s and early 1960s via the construction of the Kariba Dam on the Zambezi River, the reservoir forms the official border between Zimbabwe and Zambia along its midline.

  • Why China’s war on deflation is faltering in real time

    Why China’s war on deflation is faltering in real time

    NEW YORK – Early optimism that China had successfully pulled out of a deflationary slump has been sharply undermined by new government inflation data released this week.

    China’s headline consumer price index rose just 0.5% year-over-year in July, down from 1% in June, marking the slowest pace of consumer price growth in six months and the third consecutive month of deceleration. This cooling comes even amid global energy price spikes driven by shipping disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil chokepoint. Producer price growth also slowed, dipping to 3.5% year-over-year from 4.1% in the prior month.

    Few economic analysts are caught off guard by this slowdown, however. Yale University senior economist Stephen Roach has long warned that deflationary pressures in China are far more persistent than many optimistic forecasts suggest. “However 2026 plays out, hopes that Xi Jinping’s administration has successfully tamed China’s deflation could be in for a rude awakening,” Roach argues. “Japan’s decades-long battle with deflation demonstrates that even when top-line inflation data appears to show reflation taking hold, the entrenched deflationary mindset among households and businesses is extremely difficult to reverse.”

    Roach’s core argument is that deflationary pressures can linger for years after headline inflation turns positive, gradually eroding consumer and business confidence. This dynamic is why global financial markets are increasingly pricing in the possibility of monetary easing from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) in the coming months. A looser monetary policy stance would likely weaken the yuan, in turn widening China’s already large trade surplus.

    That trade surplus is the unspoken undercurrent of the current policy debate, according to Brad Setser, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Of course, no official explicitly says they would welcome a larger trade surplus,” Setser notes. “But if the standard policy prescription for China is monetary easing to fight deflation, paired with fiscal consolidation to address off-balance-sheet debt risks and greater exchange rate flexibility, that framework effectively amounts to advocating for China to export its way out of its domestic economic troubles.”

    Yet Beijing has so far resisted allowing the yuan to depreciate significantly. A stable or slowly appreciating yuan serves three core strategic goals for Chinese policymakers: it reduces the risk of offshore default among heavily indebted Chinese property developers; it supports the long-term push for yuan internationalization, which aims to establish the currency as a major global reserve asset; and it helps manage trade tensions with the United States, where the current administration remains highly sensitive to any signs of competitive currency devaluation. A stronger yuan also currently helps China avoid importing additional global inflation from elevated global commodity prices.

    The harder, more intractable challenge, Roach warns, is psychological – and Japan’s 30-year struggle proves just how persistent that deflationary psychology can be. Recent inflation data confirms “stalling reflationary momentum,” according to Carlos Casanova, senior economist at Union Bancaire Privée.

    In the short term, Casanova notes, the data reveals clear signs of broad weakening in domestic demand: retail sales remain in contractionary territory, and commodity cost pressures have faded for the time being. Casanova adds that the PBOC itself has acknowledged growing structural divergence across the Chinese economy, with AI-related sectors outperforming sharply while broader consumer spending remains sluggish. Subdued credit demand has also weakened the transmission of monetary policy, leaving room for the PBOC to cut the reverse repo ratio by 25 basis points to stimulate lending.

    Setser is skeptical that currency policy alone has meaningful impact on China’s deflation trajectory one way or the other. “There is no evidence that the nominal yuan depreciation in 2022-2023 materially slowed deflation in China, and there is also zero evidence that the modest nominal appreciation over the last year accelerated deflation,” he argues. “If anything, the pace of deflation has moderated, though I fully accept that higher global oil prices have played a role in that shift.”

    Even so, many analysts worry the PBOC is moving too slowly to address mounting deflationary pressures. Société Générale economist Michelle Lam notes that “China’s growth likely cooled notably in the second quarter to 4.4%, as weak consumption and sluggish property activity offset resilient export growth and a modest end-of-quarter industrial rebound.” She adds that while producer-led reflation has supported nominal GDP growth, any future policy easing will likely be incremental rather than a precursor to large-scale stimulus.

    The big open question is just how incremental policy action can afford to be. Japan’s decades-long deflation battle offers a clear cautionary lesson: even when consumer and producer prices start rising again, Japanese households still lack the confidence to increase spending enough to drive sustained economic growth or lift long-term business confidence.

    For Xi Jinping’s administration, the most urgent structural reforms are resolving China’s chronic housing market crisis – which increasingly resembles Japan’s 1990s bad loan spiral – and building a robust national social safety net that gives 1.4 billion Chinese citizens the confidence to spend rather than hoard savings. These two priorities are deeply connected: roughly 70% of Chinese household wealth is tied to real estate, so stabilizing property markets across China’s 70 largest cities is a prerequisite for reviving consumer spending and hitting the government’s 4.5% to 5% annual growth target.

    The longer Beijing allows deflationary pressures to fester without decisive action, the more deeply a deflationary mindset becomes entrenched – and the harder it is to reverse. Japan’s experience bears this out: even as the Bank of Japan recently lifted short-term rates to 1%, the highest level in more than three decades, deflationary undercurrents still persist across the economy, most notably in wage growth, which continues to lag far behind inflation. The result has been a slow-burn stagflation, and Tokyo has yet to implement the structural reforms needed to close the gap between rising prices and stagnant household incomes.

    Toshihiro Nagahama, an economist at the Dai-ichi Life Research Institute, argues that for Japan to fully break free of its decades-long deflationary mindset, “it is imperative for the government and the central bank to align their policy frameworks, clearly articulate their risk assessments, maintain honest and transparent dialogue with financial markets, and resolutely execute bold, long-term growth investments.”

    Nagahama echoes a widespread view that today’s global economy is being rapidly reshaped by the war in Ukraine, Middle East tensions, and a series of historic shifts in global central bank policy, all against a backdrop of persistent global inflation and a strong U.S. dollar. Amid this widespread uncertainty, governments cannot anchor their strategies to best-case scenarios – they must plan for worst-case risks, including the possibility of multi-year shipping disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz that would upend global energy flows and inflation dynamics.

    “While these shifts present a formidable trial for Japan, they also represent a historic opportunity,” Nagahama notes. “As the country sheds its decades-long deflationary mindset and restores nominal growth, these external shocks serve as a critical test for fully escaping the paradigm of contracting equilibrium.”

    Back in China, the gap between accelerating producer price growth and muted consumer price expansion is now the widest it has been since June 2022. This divergence indicates that Chinese manufacturers are struggling to pass higher input costs on to end consumers, putting increasing pressure on corporate profit margins. If this margin squeeze persists, it could lead to slower wage growth across the world’s second-largest $21 trillion economy, undermining household spending and complicating Beijing’s reflation goals.

    This risk of China getting stuck in a “deflation trap” worries geopolitical analysts such as Ian Bremmer, CEO of risk consulting firm Eurasia Group. Bremmer’s concern is that Xi’s administration continues to “prioritize political control and technological supremacy over the consumption stimulus and structural reforms that could break the deflationary cycle. Beijing has the financial resources to prevent a full-blown economic crisis, but living standards will deteriorate, the economic fallout will spread to other countries, and the world’s second-largest economy will remain stuck in a trap of its own making.”

    Bremmer warns that the steady decline in Chinese home prices since 2020 has already erased household wealth on a scale comparable to the 2008 U.S. housing crash, and the decline is still accelerating. Consumer confidence, business investment, and domestic demand have all plummeted alongside falling property values. “Beijing bet big that high-tech manufacturing would fill the economic gap left by a shrinking property sector,” Bremmer adds. “Instead, state-driven investment has created massive overcapacity, and weak domestic demand means there are not enough buyers to absorb that excess production.”

    The one bright spot is that Beijing is working to restructure its $28 trillion domestic stock and bond markets to better fund its semiconductor rivalry with the United States. This shift marks a move away from blanket state subsidies and backing toward a model that aligns more closely with Xi’s pledge to let market forces play a “decisive role” in economic decision-making.

    The core worry remains that deep vulnerabilities in China’s “old economy” and underlying financial system will limit the growth of the new, technology-focused economy that Xi aims to build. Roach argues that Xi’s focus on a growth model centered on “new quality productive forces” driven by innovation and new technology relies on unsustainable support, and that Beijing is only paying lip service to boosting consumer spending while refusing to implement the large-scale reforms needed to shift to a consumer-led growth model.

    As Japan demonstrated to the world, Roach says, “the problem was not so much its technological successes but the long-term sustainability of its growth model. The same lesson might be very much applicable to China” at a moment when the country’s growth model is “showing unmistakable signs of sputtering.”

    For now, Beijing’s immediate priority is halting capital outflows from mainland Chinese stock markets. In recent weeks, the government reactivated the so-called “national team” of state-owned investment funds that is mobilized to support sagging equity markets. But analysts broadly agree that what is really needed to turn the tide is bold, long-term action to revive economic confidence – a policy response that remains in short supply as of mid-2026.

  • Danube river’s low water levels reveal remains of WWII soldiers and motorcycle

    Danube river’s low water levels reveal remains of WWII soldiers and motorcycle

    A severe, long-lasting drought across central Europe has dropped water levels in the Danube River to historic lows, uncovering a long-buried piece of World War II history in the heart of Budapest, Hungary. The German War Graves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge), a non-profit mandated by the German government to locate, recover and properly inter German war dead across the globe, has confirmed the discovery of the remains of two German troops, alongside a remarkably preserved military motorcycle, identification tags, and other personal and military artifacts.

    The first clue of the find emerged on August 2, when a pedestrian walking along Budapest’s central Danube riverbank spotted a portion of the motorcycle sticking out from exposed river rocks. Upon receiving the report, archaeological recovery teams from the German War Graves Commission moved in to excavate the site, uncovering the full remains of the two soldiers alongside a trove of well-preserved items. Along with the partial skeleton remains, crews recovered two intact military identification tags, a wedding ring, the Kuban Shield — a combat decoration awarded to German forces who fought in the Kuban campaign on the Eastern Front in 1943 — and the nearly complete Wehrmacht motorcycle. The recovery team also encountered inactive anti-tank mines at the site, forcing authorities to temporarily close the river stretch while a specialized bomb disposal unit secured the explosives.

    Experts from the commission confirmed the motorcycle is a DKW NZ 350-1 model, a variant specifically mass-produced for German military use starting in 1944, near the end of the conflict. Of the two identification tags recovered, one is linked to a regular Wehrmacht soldier, while the other belongs to a member of the Waffen-SS — the military wing of the Nazi Party that was formally ruled a criminal organization for its role in systematic war crimes and atrocities during the Nuremberg Trials after the war.

    A rare combination of harbor sludge and oil on the Danube riverbed created an anaerobic environment that kept many of the recovered artifacts in surprisingly good condition after nearly 80 years submerged, according to commission experts. This preservation has given researchers new hope that they can trace the identities of the two soldiers and connect with their surviving family members, many of whom have waited decades for answers about their missing relatives.

    During World War II, German military protocol required identification tags to be split in half when a soldier died. One half stayed with the remains, while the other was sent to military command to register the casualty and notify next of kin. For these two troops, however, that notification never came. Their families “waited in vain” for official word of their fates, the commission said.

    Arne Schrader, a representative of the German War Graves Commission, told German outlet Bild that the process of confirming identities is just beginning. “Now begins a puzzle, in which we will try to determine the identity of the two dead,” Schrader explained. While the names on the identification tags can be cross-referenced relatively quickly with the commission’s public missing persons database, researchers still need to confirm that the tags and decorations actually belong to the remains recovered at the site. Bone analysis will be a key step in verifying matches, and the commission has noted the final outcome of the investigation remains uncertain. Relatives of missing German troops from World War II are encouraged to search the commission’s online database to cross-reference names as the investigation progresses.

    The discovery has resonated widely among communities of people researching the fates of their World War II ancestors, particularly on social media groups dedicated to wartime history. Many commenters have noted that while the extreme drought that exposed the site is a worrying climate event, the find offers a rare chance for closure for grieving families. “As bad as the low water level is, I am glad that bereaved families can once again be informed about the whereabouts of their relatives, and that the fallen soldiers can be given a dignified burial. Rest in peace,” one user wrote in a public Facebook group focused on tracking missing World War I and II service members.

    Once the investigation is complete, the two soldiers will be interred with full dignity at the German war cemetery in Budaörs, located just outside the Hungarian capital. Budapest was the site of some of the bloodiest Eastern Front fighting in the final months of World War II, when Soviet forces pushed German troops out of Hungary in a brutal 1944-1945 siege.

    This is not the only World War II relic uncovered by the Danube’s record-low water levels this year. Further downstream in Serbia near Prahovo, low water has already exposed the wrecked hull of a sunken World War II warship, a reminder of how shifting climate conditions are continuing to reveal long-hidden secrets from one of the deadliest conflicts in human history.

  • Woman pulled alive from rubble 36 hours after Colombia quake

    Woman pulled alive from rubble 36 hours after Colombia quake

    A remarkable story of survival has emerged from the wreckage of Colombia’s devastating 7.4-magnitude earthquake, where a 32-year-old woman was pulled alive from beneath a collapsed building after spending 36 hours trapped. Daniela Largo’s rescue capped a grueling 10-hour operation carried out by coordinated emergency teams in the coffee-growing city of Pereira, one of the hardest-hit regions in the disaster.

    The powerful quake struck at 07:34 local time (12:34 GMT) on Monday, with its epicenter located near the rural village of San José del Palmar in Chocó province. Seismic readings from monitoring stations closest to the impact zone recorded intense shaking that lasted between 90 seconds and two minutes, and more than 100 aftershocks have rattled the region in the days since the initial tremor, extending the disruption for affected communities.

    According to official government data, the disaster has killed at least 188 people across western Colombia, with hundreds more still unaccounted for. As of latest figures from the Association of Colombian Capital Cities (Asocapitales), Cali, Colombia’s third most populous city, has recorded the highest death toll at 95 fatalities. Pereira follows closely with 79 confirmed deaths, and the city has seen at least 92 buildings completely leveled by the quake. As of 16:00 local time Tuesday, more than 200 people remained trapped in Cali, while 15 are still trapped in Pereira and another 37 are listed as missing in the city.

    Largo’s unlikely rescue began when a local resident passing through the wreckage heard her cries for help coming from deep beneath the rubble, her mother told AFP. When first responders arrived at the site, they deployed a small camera to pinpoint her exact location, but the rescue effort immediately hit a major obstacle: four massive concrete slabs separated the team from the trapped woman.

    To overcome the barrier, local firefighters joined forces with additional crews deployed from the capital Bogotá and the national police disaster response unit to dig two separate access tunnels. The first tunnel, excavated from above, allowed crews to pump life-sustaining oxygen to Largo while they worked. A second tunnel, dug from below the collapsed structure, ultimately provided the path to extract her.

    After hours of painstaking work to avoid triggering further collapse, rescue teams successfully pulled Largo from the rubble and carried her on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance, a moment captured in photos from AFP via Getty Images. Back at her family home, Largo’s 12-year-old son waits for her recovery, her mother confirmed.

    Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella hailed the successful rescue in a social media post, calling it “news which fills us with hope” amid the widespread devastation. In Cali, where 87 people have already been rescued alive, mayor officials have enacted a night-time curfew and deployed soldiers to patrol the worst-hit neighborhoods to protect rescue operations.

    “We need to ensure that the rescue work can be carried out safely,” the mayor said, adding that search teams still hold out hope of finding more survivors. “Everyone will do their utmost to free those trapped.”

    Across the quake zone, residents continue to sift through shattered neighborhoods searching for missing loved ones, as emergency teams expand their search and rescue operations across the impacted region.

  • Man City signs Argentina international Rulli as back-up goalkeeper to Donnarumma

    Man City signs Argentina international Rulli as back-up goalkeeper to Donnarumma

    English Premier League powerhouse Manchester City has bolstered its goalkeeping ranks with the signing of 34-year-old Argentine international Gerónimo Rulli, who joins the club on a two-year contract from French side Olympique de Marseille. Rulli will step into the role of backup to starting goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, filling the vacancy created last week when former second-choice keeper James Trafford departed City to sign with Leeds United.

    A member of Argentina’s triumphant 2022 FIFA World Cup squad, Rulli brings a wealth of experience both internationally and across top European leagues to the Etihad Stadium. He has earned eight senior caps for the Argentine national team throughout his career, and has previously plied his trade at clubs across the continent: stints at Spain’s Real Sociedad and Villarreal, France’s Montpellier, and the Netherlands’ Ajax preceded his most recent spell at Marseille, which he joined in 2024. This transfer marks Rulli’s return to Manchester City, after he spent a short stint with the club during the 2016-17 campaign more than seven years ago.

    In an official statement following the completion of the deal, Manchester City’s Director of Football Hugo Viana expressed confidence in the new signing, praising Rulli’s commitment and professionalism. Viana noted that the coaching staff were impressed by Rulli’s evident strong desire to join the club during negotiations, and emphasized that the club is adding not only a talented shot-stopper but an exceptional professional to its squad.

  • What it’s like flying with Trump on Air Force One

    What it’s like flying with Trump on Air Force One

    For most people, Air Force One – the iconic flying fortress that serves as the mobile office and residence of the sitting United States president – remains a mythic symbol of American executive power, rarely glimpsed up close by the general public. But for a small pool of journalists assigned to cover the commander-in-chief’s travel, stepping on board the modified Boeing 747 is a rare behind-the-scenes look at how a president operates on the move. In a firsthand exploration of this exclusive experience, BBC chief correspondent Tom Bateman has pulled back the curtain on what life is really like for reporters traveling alongside former President Donald Trump aboard the famous aircraft.

    Unlike the carefully choreographed public appearances that shape most voters’ perception of presidential campaigns and official travel, life on Air Force One offers a uniquely unfiltered vantage point, Bateman explains. The press corps is typically confined to a designated section of the plane, separated from the president’s private quarters and senior staff offices by locked bulkheads, but the close proximity of the aircraft creates unexpected opportunities for off-the-cuff interactions that never happen on the ground. During Trump’s tenure, reporters often found the former president willing to stop and answer unscripted questions as he walked through the press cabin, leaning in to make his case on everything from policy disputes to personal feuds, creating a far more informal dynamic than many observers expect.

    Bateman details the rhythms of life on board: the constant hum of jet engines that drowns out casual conversation, the unlimited servings of free food and soda that become a running joke among the traveling press, the nonstop work of filing reports and updating stories while bouncing through turbulence at 35,000 feet. What stands out most, he notes, is the distinct culture that shaped Trump’s travels. Unlike previous administrations that often maintained a more formal distance between the president and the press pool, Trump regularly used access to Air Force One as a tool to shape media narratives, inviting reporters into his office for one-on-one interviews or holding impromptu press conferences mid-flight that generated headlines around the world.

    Even for experienced political correspondents who have covered multiple presidents, Bateman says traveling on Air Force One with Trump remains a one-of-a-kind experience, offering a raw, unvarnished look at how the 45th president operated away from the carefully staged rallies and scripted speeches that defined his public persona. For the press corps, it is both a professional perk and a relentless work environment, where every offhand comment can become a breaking news story, and the close quarters create a unique shared experience between the president and the journalists who cover him.

  • Ex-Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, architect of growth, dies of illness at 97

    Ex-Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, architect of growth, dies of illness at 97

    BEIJING – Zhu Rongji, the fiercely determined, plain-spoken former Chinese Premier whose sweeping economic reforms laid the groundwork for China’s emergence as a global economic powerhouse, has passed away at the age of 97. According to China’s official Xinhua News Agency, Zhu died of illness in Beijing at approximately 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

    Over his five-year tenure as premier from 1998 to 2003, China’s top economic policy post, Zhu pushed through a wave of transformative changes that built on the early market-oriented reforms launched by former leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979. A figure unafraid to push back against entrenched interests, Zhu clashed with Communist Party conservatives and state-owned industry leaders as he pushed unwieldy state enterprises to restructure for efficiency and profitability. The restructuring process resulted in millions of layoffs, but it cleared the way for decades of rapid expansion that ultimately saw China overtake Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy, trailing only the United States, by 2010.

    One of Zhu’s most historic legacies is steering China to membership in the World Trade Organization, a milestone that capped nearly 20 years of marathon negotiations. The effort nearly collapsed during a 1999 trip to Washington, where the Clinton administration rejected Zhu’s initial market-opening concessions as insufficient, while domestic political opponents attacked him for conceding too much. Zhu persevered, and China formally joined the WTO in December 2001, locking in national commitments to free trade that allowed him to pressure local officials to end protectionist policies for favored domestic companies. The entry into the global trading system ultimately helped transform China into the world’s largest exporter, and supported annual economic growth that averaged above 8% between 2000 and 2010, peaking at 14.2% in 2007.

    Beyond trade and state industry reform, Zhu launched China’s modern homeownership boom in 1998 with an initiative to sell off state-owned enterprise housing to urban families. Within a decade, the majority of urban housing in China was privately owned, reshaping the daily lives of hundreds of millions of people. He also famously tamed double-digit inflation in the early 1990s while serving as deputy premier, implementing strict price controls and cutting off lending to unprofitable state firms, pushing back against fierce resistance from local leaders. Another key policy achievement was restructuring China’s tax system to increase central government revenue from local authorities, a reform Zhu once joked made him worthy of a Nobel Prize in economics.

    Unlike many authoritarian leaders, Zhu rejected the narrative of ruling party infallibility, openly admitting fault and taking responsibility when government policies failed. After devastating 1998 summer floods that killed more than 4,000 people, he condemned shoddily built flood dikes embezzled by corrupt officials as “no stronger than bean curd.” In 2001, he issued a public national television apology after a southern China schoolhouse explosion killed at least 42 people, most of them children, for his cabinet’s failure to prevent the tragedy. His blunt, demanding style and zero-tolerance approach to corruption earned him the nicknames “Boss” and “Zhu Fengzi” — or “Madman Zhu” — and he famously declared in 1998: “I have prepared 100 coffins here — 99 for corrupt officials and one for myself.”

    Zhu’s path to power was marked by decades of hardship for his willingness to speak his mind. Born in October 1928 in Hunan Province, the home province of Mao Zedong, Zhu was labeled a “rightist” in 1957 just a few years into his career as an economic planner for praising reform efforts in Hungary and Yugoslavia. He spent 22 years on the political margins, and was exiled to the countryside to perform manual labor during the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. He was formally rehabilitated in 1979 following Deng’s rise to power, and rose quickly through the ranks: he became deputy party secretary of Shanghai in 1987, and mayor a year later, where he earned a reputation for moderating tensions with pro-democracy protesters and avoided military intervention that could have escalated violence, according to contemporary diplomatic accounts.

    After Jiang Zemin was elevated to top party leader in Beijing, Zhu was brought to the capital as deputy premier in 1991, and joined the party’s ruling Politburo Standing Committee in 1993. When he was appointed premier in 1998 at age 69, he ranked third in the country’s party hierarchy, behind President Jiang Zemin and ceremonial legislature chairman Li Peng. Though he lacked his own independent political power base — a limitation he once complained let lower officials ignore his orders — Zhu leveraged his position as top economic policymaker to advance his transformative agenda.

    Not a radical advocate for full privatization, Zhu was a skilled pragmatic bureaucrat who carried out the party’s mandate to modernize China’s state-dominated economy. He oversaw the restructuring of major state-owned assets including banks, airlines, and oil companies into profit-focused corporations, while retaining majority government ownership of the firms.

    Widely popular among the Chinese public for his crackdown on corruption and willingness to speak plainly, Zhu stepped down from the premiership in 2003 and rarely made public appearances in the years that followed. A correction to an earlier version of this report clarifies Zhu was 97 at the time of his death, not 98 as initially reported.

  • Putin threatens retaliation for Western seizures of Russian commercial vessels

    Putin threatens retaliation for Western seizures of Russian commercial vessels

    Amid escalating tensions over sanctions enforcement on Russian maritime trade, Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued a sharp warning of reciprocal retaliation against Western powers that have seized Moscow-linked commercial ships, labeling the detentions as outright state-sponsored piracy. Speaking Wednesday during an inspection tour of a Russian warship participating in large-scale Pacific Ocean naval exercises, Putin slammed the Western seizures as a clear violation of long-standing international maritime law, emphasizing that Moscow would not leave the actions unchallenged.

    “This is nothing less than piracy and open robbery,” Putin told naval personnel on site. “When these illegal acts are carried out against our vessels, we will be forced to respond in kind.” The Russian leader further clarified that retaliatory measures would not be limited to the specific maritime regions where Russian ships have been detained, stressing that Moscow reserves the right to act “in any area where we deem it necessary and appropriate” — including the Pacific Ocean, where Russia’s large naval exercise is currently underway.

    Shortly after Putin’s remarks, Admiral Viktor Liina, commander of Russia’s Pacific Fleet, formally reported to the president that the Russian navy is fully prepared to begin inspections of commercial vessels operated by so-called “unfriendly nations” that have imposed sanctions on Russia. Liina pointed out that many commercial ships owned by British, French and other European shipping companies avoid direct sanctions by operating under third-party flags, making up what he called a European “shadow fleet” similar to the one Russia uses to evade oil and trade sanctions.

    “We have sufficient naval and maritime resources to carry out inspections and detain vessels from unfriendly nations and their shadow fleets,” Liina stated. “We are ready to begin executing this mission immediately.”

    Background to the current escalation dates back to February 2022, when Western powers imposed sweeping economic and trade sanctions on Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. To bypass these restrictions, Russia has built a large “shadow fleet” of hundreds of oil tankers and cargo vessels that operate under third-party flags to avoid detection and seizure. In recent months, France, the United Kingdom and other European nations have moved to detain multiple tankers linked to Russia’s shadow fleet that were suspected of violating sanctions on Russian oil exports. The European Union has also added hundreds of these shadow fleet vessels to its sanctions blacklist. In response, Russia has already begun deploying military warships to escort its commercial cargo vessels operating in international waters.

    Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president from 2008 to 2012 and current deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, expanded on Putin’s warning in remarks that underscored the scope of potential Russian action. Medvedev noted that European shipping firms already use the same “flags of convenience” loophole that Russia relies on for its shadow fleet, creating a legal opening for symmetrical retaliation.

    “Applying a symmetrical and completely fair approach means Russia has the right to stop and search any merchant vessel belonging to hostile states, whether in our territorial waters or neutral international waters, as long as there are reasonable grounds to suspect it is carrying cargo for an enemy’s benefit,” Medvedev said. “This rule applies to any type of cargo. There are a great many such vessels operating globally, and our military has the capability to dramatically expand these operations far beyond the boundaries of the Black Sea basin.”

    The latest exchange of threats has raised international concerns about growing risks to civilian commercial shipping in global waterways, particularly as the conflict in Ukraine continues to spill over into maritime domains that carry a large share of global trade.