Long cultivated as a deeply personal passion, reading has evolved into a foundational pillar of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s approach to governance and global diplomacy, serving as a unique bridge connecting Chinese civilization with the wider world and advancing cross-cultural dialogue. As Xi himself has noted, reading is far more than a casual pastime for him—it is an enduring way of life that continues to shape his perspective and policy philosophy.
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Iran’s FM not to hold talks with US officials in Pakistan visit: media
In a clear formal statement released to regional media on Friday, Iran has definitively ruled out any planned negotiations between its foreign minister and United States officials during an official visit to Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, ending widespread speculation that a new round of peace talks would kick off this week.
Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s top diplomat, arrived in Islamabad on the night of April 24 alongside an official Iranian delegation, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has publicly confirmed. Per reporting from Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency, Araghchi’s agenda during the Pakistan leg of his multi-nation tour only includes bilateral discussions with Pakistani leadership, focused exclusively on sharing Iran’s official positions aimed at reaching a permanent end to ongoing conflict between Iran, the U.S. and Israel.
Iran’s state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) further clarified that while no direct meeting between Araghchi and U.S. representatives is on the schedule, Pakistani officials will serve as a communication channel to relay Iran’s stances on conflict resolution to the American side. This arrangement builds on prior indirect diplomatic engagement that has used Islamabad as a neutral intermediary for talks between Tehran and Washington.
Araghchi himself outlined the broader goals of his tour in a post on the social platform X Friday, confirming that after concluding engagements in Pakistan, he will travel onward to Oman and Russia. “Embarking on timely tour of Islamabad, Muscat, and Moscow,” he wrote. “Purpose of my visits is to closely coordinate with our partners on bilateral matters and consult on regional developments. Our neighbors are our priority.”
In a separate development also reported by Tasnim on Friday, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) seized a foreign vessel that the force says was caught conducting coordination activities with the U.S. military. The details of the seizure and vessel’s identity have not yet been fully released to the public.
The current diplomatic standoff follows a 40-day period of active conflict that ended with a temporary ceasefire between Iran, the U.S. and Israel enacted on April 8. Two days after the ceasefire went into effect, Iranian and U.S. delegations held two days of direct talks in Islamabad between April 11 and 12, but those negotiations collapsed without reaching any binding agreement.
Regional diplomatic sources had widely anticipated a second round of talks would be held in Pakistan this week, but Iran has declined to participate. Tehran cites the continuing American naval blockade in regional waters and what it describes as Washington’s excessive, unreasonable negotiating demands as the core reasons for its refusal to engage in new talks at this time.
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Asian surnames fastest-growing in US
Newly released demographic data from the US Census Bureau has uncovered a striking shift in the country’s surname landscape: between 2010 and 2020, three of the most common Chinese surnames claimed the top three spots on the ranking of fastest-growing last names among the 1,000 most frequent surnames across the United States.
According to the census analysis, the population holding the surname Zhang grew by 74% over the decade, outpacing all other surnames. Liu followed with a 62% growth rate, and Wang rounded out the top three with a 54% increase. Beyond the top three, four additional common Chinese surnames secured spots in the top 12: Li, Lin, and Chen landed in the top 10, with growth rates ranging from 37% to 48%, while Wu and Huang claimed 11th and 12th place respectively, both with 36% growth.
The census report notes that nearly all of the 15 fastest-growing surnames in the US over this period are primarily associated with people of Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Other Pacific Islander descent. The only exception is Ali, a name with broad diversity across Hispanic racial and origin groups. This concentrated growth pattern mirrors broader national demographic shifts recorded between 2010 and 2020, when the combined population of Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Other Pacific Islander communities expanded far more rapidly than the overall US population.
Official census figures put the total growth of the Asian American population at 35.5% over the decade, pushing its share of the total US population from 4.8% in 2010 to 6% in 2020. This growth rate was higher than that of every other single racial group, outpaced only by the multiracial population category.
Experts link the rapid rise of common Chinese surnames to the massive surge in Chinese student migration to the US during the 2010s. Data from the Open Doors report, a leading source of international student enrollment statistics, shows that the number of Chinese students studying in the US more than doubled over the decade, jumping from roughly 157,000 in 2010 to more than 372,500 in 2019. In total, more than half a million Chinese students arrived in the US to pursue education between 2010 and 2020, bringing with them the common surnames that dominate modern China’s population profile.
Notably, the ranking of the fastest-growing Chinese surnames in the US closely aligns with the popularity ranking of surnames within China itself. Official Chinese demographic data lists Wang, Li, Zhang, and Liu as the four most common surnames in the country, with Chen, Wu, and Huang also ranking among the top 10 most frequent.
Current US census data already reflects this dominance: eight of the top 10 most common surnames among people identifying as Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Other Pacific Islander in the US are ethnically Chinese surnames. The full top 10 list for this demographic group is Zhang, Huang, Kaur, Vang, Xiong, Xu, Zheng, Zhou, Zhao and Zhu, with only Kaur and Vang not being common Chinese surnames.
Researchers do caution that direct headcount comparisons between older and newer Chinese surname entries are not straightforward, due to historic differences in romanization practices. Early waves of Chinese immigrants, the majority of whom originated from southern China, commonly spelled their surnames using regional dialect transliterations that differ from the standardized Mandarin pinyin system that has become the norm for new arrivals from mainland China over the past two decades.
For example, the pinyin spelling Zhang is also commonly recorded as Chang in older records, while Chen may appear as Chan, Huang and Wang are often rendered as Wong, Zhou may be spelled Chou or Chow, Liu appears as Lau or Lew, and Wu can be recorded as Ng, Goh or Woo in historic data.
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Leaders urge Africa’s industrial shift
At the two-day Africa We Build Summit, which kicked off Thursday in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, two of East Africa’s most prominent heads of state have delivered a united call to reorient Africa’s economic model away from its centuries-long reliance on low-value raw commodity exports, toward deepened regional integration and domestic value addition through expanded refining and manufacturing sectors.
Kenyan President William Ruto and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni both warned that the continent’s ongoing dependence on exporting unprocessed raw materials has left African economies disproportionately exposed to volatile global economic shocks, including supply chain disruptions triggered by Gulf region geopolitical tensions and the lingering fallout of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Ruto laid out a stark paradox to illustrate the costs of the status quo: while Africa accounts for roughly 10 percent of global crude oil output, the continent remains a net importer of refined petroleum products, importing 120 million metric tons of finished fuels each year at a total cost of approximately $90 billion. He calculated that Africa’s annual crude oil production is currently valued at around $270 billion when sold raw at an average price of $75 per barrel. If that same volume of crude were refined domestically and sold as finished products at an average price of $800 per ton, however, it would generate more than $500 billion in annual revenue. The $230 billion annual gap between these two figures, Ruto noted, equals nearly 7.5 percent of Africa’s total current GDP – income that the continent leaves on the table every year by exporting unprocessed resources.
Museveni echoed Ruto’s assessment, pointing to Uganda’s own policy shift as a proof of concept for the benefits of domestic processing. Uganda has implemented a full ban on exports of unprocessed minerals, a policy that has already drawn new private investment and led to the construction of domestic mineral processing facilities across the country. Museveni explained that raw gold previously earned Uganda just $64 per kilogram, but domestically refined gold now commands a price of $168 per kilogram – a difference that translates to retained jobs, expanded industrial capacity, and higher national income that would have been lost under the raw export model. With domestic refining now operational, the Ugandan government is now exploring plans to build local jewelry manufacturing plants to capture even more value from the country’s gold reserves.
The two leaders also revealed early plans for a joint regional refinery project based in Tanga, Tanzania, which will be designed to support widespread mineral beneficiation across East Africa and cut the volume of raw materials exported out of the region. Museveni noted that Uganda currently only develops roughly 40 percent of its proven oil reserves, and the country is prepared to supply crude feedstock to the proposed new regional facility. Ruto confirmed that Kenya is also aligning its national policy to discourage raw mineral exports, stating: “Our policy is clear: process minerals locally first. We have the minerals, we have the market, and we have the capital and industrial partners needed to build refineries and develop downstream industries.”
The push for value addition extends beyond the extractive sector, the leaders emphasized, noting that African countries could similarly boost export earnings by processing agricultural commodities domestically before export. To illustrate this point, Museveni cited the example of cotton: one kilogram of raw unprocessed cotton sells for just $1.2 on global markets, but after spinning, weaving, and processing into finished garments, that same kilogram of cotton can fetch $15.
Ruto highlighted the stagnation that has held back Africa’s industrial progress for decades: manufacturing’s share of Africa’s total GDP has held steady at around 10 percent for the past 20 years, showing no meaningful growth. “As long as this pattern persists, our growth will remain constrained, our economies will remain vulnerable, and our full potential will be unrealized,” he said. Ruto added that the continent can no longer use historical structural limitations as a justification for slow industrial progress, calling for urgent action to reverse the trend.
To deliver on this industrial transformation, Ruto proposed a three-part strategy: strengthening cross-border regional integration, building shared regional infrastructure and policy platforms for strategic industrial sectors, and mobilizing domestic African capital to fund industrial development projects. He noted that established regional blocs such as the East African Community are well positioned to lead this effort, by pooling member state resources to build competitive, integrated manufacturing value chains that can also align with the global transition to green energy.
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Meta to cut 10% staff amid AI push
In a sweeping restructuring move aligned with its ambitious artificial intelligence expansion strategy, Meta Platforms has announced plans to eliminate approximately 10 percent of its global workforce, according to internal company documents cited by multiple media outlets this Thursday. The layoffs mark the latest step in the social media conglomerate’s push for operational streamlining as it diverts massive resources toward AI development and infrastructure buildout.
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Road projects empower Tajik women
Nestled in the mountainous terrain of central Tajikistan, the communities strung along the proposed Obigarm-Nurobod transport corridor have long grappled with isolation. Limited connectivity cut residents off from regional markets, essential healthcare, and sustainable work opportunities — and women in these remote areas bore the brunt of this exclusion. Today, a major infrastructure project funded by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is rewriting this story, delivering far more than just paved roads and river crossings. Beyond improved mobility, the initiative is pioneering a new inclusive development model that empowers local women through skills training and economic independence, creating ripple effects that strengthen entire families and communities.
The Obigarm-Nurobod Road Project, a flagship infrastructure investment for central Tajikistan, centers on the construction of a critical long-span bridge and connecting road segments designed to boost regional connectivity and withstand extreme weather events. But project partners — including the AIIB and the China International Development Cooperation Agency — made the unconventional choice to pair core infrastructure construction with a standalone community development program focused explicitly on advancing women’s economic participation. Local organizations like the Center for the Development of Crafts and Modern Professional Skills in Roghun, led by director Jurayeva Safiya, have stepped in to deliver these on-the-ground programs.
Jurayeva’s center, a purpose-built training hub with 12 fully equipped classrooms, offers short, accessible vocational courses in high-demand local trades ranging from tailoring and baking to traditional handicraft production and food processing. It complements these practical skills with foundational training in financial literacy and small business planning, designed to turn learners from passive aid recipients into self-sustaining entrepreneurs. For many participants, this model has already delivered life-changing results. Jurayeva points to the story of one single mother of four, who entered the program with no marketable skills and no independent income. After completing a 12-week sewing course, she launched her own home-based tailoring business, now running it alongside her daughters and earning a stable income that lets her support her family without outside assistance.
“This is not charity — this is a genuine turning point,” Jurayeva explained. “When we give a woman the opportunity to build her own skill and her own business, she doesn’t just change her own life. She changes the future of her children, and she transforms the entire home.” Children grow up watching their mothers make decisions, build businesses, and succeed, she says, creating a intergenerational cycle of empowerment that extends far beyond the original training program. “When we teach a woman a profession, we aren’t just supporting one individual — we are lifting up an entire community,” she added.
Already, early completed segments of the road project have delivered immediate tangible benefits for residents: travel times between mountain villages and regional district centers have dropped sharply, making daily commutes and emergency trips safer and more accessible. The improved corridor has also unlocked new access to regional markets that were previously too costly and time-consuming to reach, opening up new sales opportunities for local producers, many of whom are women. Looking ahead, the initiative plans to scale its women’s empowerment programming to expand its impact. Under the upcoming expansion, the entrepreneurship support program will train at least 340 women from communities along the road route, provide small grants and essential equipment for roughly 60 women-led microbusinesses, and open a new dedicated training center in Nurobod that includes on-site childcare to remove barriers for mothers looking to participate.
Development leaders say the project’s integrated model offers a replicable blueprint for global infrastructure investment. “When development partners align financing, concessional resources, technical assistance, and on-the-ground development expertise, infrastructure becomes more inclusive, more resilient, and far more impactful,” explained Hun Kim, chief partnerships officer and director general of the AIIB’s Sectors, Themes and Financial Solutions Department. Speaking at a sub-forum of the Third High-Level Conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development this week, Kim noted that the initiative is not a one-off pilot, but a model that can be replicated and expanded in other developing regions with the right cross-sector partnerships.
Yao Shuai, deputy director of the Institute of International Development Cooperation at the China Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under China’s Ministry of Commerce, emphasized that centering women in development projects goes to the core of sustainable social progress. “When women shift from being passive recipients of development benefits to active participants in community governance and local development, the sustainability and social stability of an aid project are fundamentally enhanced,” Yao explained. The project, she added, reflects China’s long-standing approach to international development cooperation, which pairs large-scale landmark infrastructure projects with small, targeted “livelihood-focused” interventions through multilateral cooperation.
This “integration of large and small, hard and soft infrastructure” model addresses the region’s critical connectivity gaps while ensuring that the economic benefits of new infrastructure reach marginalized groups, particularly women. By embedding gender-focused programming and vocational training into the project from its earliest design stages, local communities are able to participate throughout the entire project cycle, strengthening local ownership of the initiative. “By enhancing women’s economic independence during infrastructure development, such approaches integrate gender equality into the process and help elevate women’s role in local governance and social development,” Yao noted, adding that the model helps build more inclusive, resilient social structures across developing countries.
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Africa calls for urgent climate action
Against a backdrop of accelerating climate damage that continues to devastate vulnerable frontline communities across the continent, African leaders, policy specialists and climate researchers have issued a urgent, unified call for immediate locally rooted climate action, warning that further delays will have catastrophic consequences for millions.
Across Africa, intensifying climate-driven disasters – from record-breaking temperature spikes and multi-year droughts to devastating flood events – have already exacerbated long-standing food insecurity, forced mass displacement of local populations, and destroyed critical public and private infrastructure. Stakeholders warned that without swift, coordinated cross-border and regional intervention, climate change could erase decades of hard-won development progress, stall inclusive economic growth, and push already strained food systems, freshwater reserves and household livelihoods past breaking point.
The call to action was delivered during a high-level Nairobi-based sensitization conference focused on clarifying state obligations in the context of climate change, convened just months after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued its landmark 2025 advisory opinion on global climate responsibilities.
Issued on July 23, 2025, the historic ICJ ruling formally confirmed that all UN member states carry binding legal obligations to safeguard the global climate system, and can be held legally and financially accountable for cross-border climate harm their emissions contribute to. Experts attending the three-day conference, which concluded on April 24, 2026, framed the ruling as a transformative turning point that will force governments to embed rigorous climate risk assessment into core national planning, public budget allocation, and large-scale infrastructure project approval processes.
Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Korir Sing’Oei explained that the ICJ opinion has fundamentally shifted the global conversation around climate policy, moving it from a framework of voluntary national pledges to a system of enforceable legal obligations that carry tangible economic and legal consequences for non-compliance.
Sing’Oei reiterated that these binding climate obligations must be implemented comprehensively, including through full alignment with countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) outlined under the Paris Agreement. “The ICJ advisory opinion leaves no room for ambiguity: State obligations are legal, binding and enforceable – they are not optional,” he told delegates during the conference. He added that Kenya, working alongside Rwanda, spearheaded the push to bring the question of state climate obligations before the ICJ, to address the longstanding pattern of selective implementation of international climate commitments by wealthy developed nations.
“Developing countries, particularly those in Africa, bear the brunt of a climate crisis we did almost nothing to create. We contribute less than 4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet we suffer the earliest and most severe impacts. The devastating recent floods that submerged large parts of Nairobi are a stark reminder of how high the cost of inaction already is,” Sing’Oei said.
Conference participants also raised sharp concerns over the United States’ withdrawal from key global climate commitments, warning that this move could significantly reduce much-needed climate financing for low-income developing nations – even as the ICJ ruling confirms that the US remains bound by its international climate responsibilities regardless of its withdrawal from multilateral arrangements.
George Wamukoya, team leader of the African Group of Negotiators’ Expert Support, emphasized that no nation can escape its legal climate obligations simply by exiting international climate agreements. “The ICJ has made clear that even if a country withdraws from a multilateral climate arrangement, it remains bound by foundational international legal principles. That means even the United States can face climate litigation for failing to deliver promised financing and support, when climate harm has occurred as a result of that inaction,” Wamukoya said. He added that many African nations are already forced to divert limited public funds to cover climate adaptation costs, all while grappling with unsustainable sovereign debt burdens that leave little room for new green investments.
The Nairobi conference centered on elevating homegrown African solutions as the core of any effective regional climate response. Key locally led interventions highlighted by delegates include expanding climate-smart agriculture programs to stabilize food production amid erratic weather, scaling up landscape restoration projects to improve freshwater security across drought-prone regions, and accelerating utility-scale renewable energy investments to reduce costly dependence on imported fossil fuels.
Eliane Ubalijoro, chief executive officer of the Center for International Forestry Research, noted that climate change is far more than an environmental or legal challenge – it is fundamentally a crisis of human development and equity. “Addressing this crisis effectively requires the integration of scientific expertise, legal frameworks and inclusive policy design working in lockstep, so that we can move beyond high-level principles to deliver tangible, life-changing solutions for frontline African communities,” Ubalijoro said.
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Tensions build over Hormuz as peace stalls
Growing geopolitical friction has gripped the strategic Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical energy shipping chokepoints, after planned peace negotiations between the United States and Iran collapsed in Islamabad, Pakistan earlier this week. The breakdown of talks has triggered a sharp escalation of hostile rhetoric and military posturing, while a fragile extension of the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire has failed to ease broader regional volatility.
In a provocative social media announcement this week, former US President Donald Trump issued a direct order to the US Navy, instructing forces to immediately “shoot and kill” any Iranian small craft caught laying sea mines in the strait’s international waters. Trump emphasized there should be “no hesitation” in carrying out the order, adding that ongoing US minesweeping operations in the waterway would be tripled in intensity. The president also drew widespread condemnation after reposting a user-generated video that endorsed calls to kill Iranian leaders who refuse to accept a negotiated peace deal.
Iranian officials have roundly rejected the US threats, framing the rhetoric as blatant aggression against Iranian sovereignty. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei highlighted that Trump’s repost of the call to assassinate Iranian leadership marks an unprecedented violation of basic diplomatic norms. Top Iranian government figures, including President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi, have pushed back against US claims of internal division among Iranian factions, issuing a unified public statement emphasizing national solidarity. “In Iran, there are no radicals or moderates; we are all ‘Iranian’ and ‘revolutionary’, and with the iron unity of the nation and government, with complete obedience to the Supreme Leader of the Revolution, we will make the aggressor criminal regret his actions,” the leaders posted on their social media accounts.
The recent escalation comes on the heels of the cancellation of high-stakes US-Iran peace talks scheduled for Wednesday in the Pakistani capital, just as an existing US-Iran ceasefire was set to expire. Trump ultimately extended the ceasefire deadline hours ahead of its expiration, avoiding an immediate full escalation. Despite the collapse of this week’s meeting, three anonymous Pakistani sources reported Friday that talks could resume imminently, with Araghchi expected to arrive in Islamabad Friday night. Two Pakistani government sources added that a US logistics and security delegation has already deployed to the city to prepare for new negotiations. Neither Washington nor Tehran has issued an official response to these reports as of press time.
Regional analysts warn that the tit-for-tat escalation at the Strait of Hormuz is a deliberate coercive strategy that carries severe risks. Nagapushpa Devendra, a West Asia analyst and research scholar at Germany’s University of Erfurt, told China Daily that Trump’s positioning is designed to force Iran back to the negotiating table through pressure, even as he publicly claims he faces no time pressure to end the conflict. Devendra noted that Iran has shown no willingness to concede, and instead is prepared to leverage its control over the strait to counter US pressure. The most likely outcome of this dynamic, she explained, is an extended protracted standoff, marked by increased vessel seizures, higher risk of accidental military clashes, and growing volatility for global energy and shipping markets. Diplomatically, she added, the escalation risks eroding US allied support in the region while drawing Israel deeper into an expanding regional crisis.
The United Nations has warned that the ongoing US-Iran conflict has already triggered devastating humanitarian consequences across the Middle East and beyond. Alexander De Croo, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, told Reuters that the conflict has already pushed more than 30 million people back into extreme poverty, with food insecurity projected to worsen sharply in the coming months. “Even if the war stopped tomorrow, those effects, you already have them, and they will be pushing back more than 30 million people into poverty,” De Croo said, also warning of secondary impacts including widespread energy shortages and a collapse of remittance flows that support millions of vulnerable households across the region.
In a further show of military buildup, US Central Command announced Thursday that a third American aircraft carrier strike group, led by the Nimitz-class USS George H.W. Bush, has arrived in the command’s area of responsibility, which covers all US military operations in the Middle East, according to Xinhua News Agency.
Parallel to the US-Iran escalation, the conflict between Israel and Lebanon has entered a new phase after the two sides agreed to extend their existing ceasefire for an additional three weeks during Thursday’s White House talks brokered by Trump. The extension comes one day after an Israeli airstrike across the border killed five people, including veteran Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil, who worked for local newspaper Al-Akhbar. The strike marked the deadliest day in Lebanon since the original ceasefire took effect on April 16, Reuters reported.
Despite the ceasefire extension, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has rejected the terms of the truce, reserving its right to respond to any Israeli aggression during the 21-day period. Hezbollah MP Ali Fayad said that extending the ceasefire “makes no sense” in light of ongoing Israeli hostile acts, adding that the continuation of attacks gives “the resistance the right to respond at the appropriate time.” Mourners gathered in Lebanon Thursday to lay Khalil to rest, throwing flowers on her coffin as she was carried through funeral processions.
Xinhua News Agency and other international agencies contributed reporting to this article.
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Dragons demolished: Kade Reed denied epic moment on debut as Roosters heap more misery on the winless Red V
The 2024 NRL Anzac Day clash delivered a brutal reminder of just how wide the gap between title contenders and battlers has become, as the in-form Sydney Roosters crushed a crisis-hit St George Illawarra Dragons side by a stunning 46-point margin to extend the Dragons’ winless start to the season to eight straight losses. The result caps a chaotic week for the Dragons, which began with the club parting ways with head coach Shane Flanagan on Monday and ending with a humiliating defeat that stands as one of their lowest points in recent seasons. Following Flanagan’s departure, club legend Dean Young stepped into the interim head coaching role, and one of his first major decisions was to hand promising young halfback Kade Reed his NRL debut — a call that former coach Flanagan had resisted, opting to wait until Reed gained more experience in lower grades.
Reed’s debut almost got off to a fairy-tale start just minutes into the match, when the 19-year-old threw a perfectly weighted, pinpoint cut-out pass that put winger Mat Feagai over for what looked to be a dream opening try. The crowd’s cheers quickly fell silent, however, when the NRL Bunker overturned the score after spotting a marginal forward knock-on in the lead-up. Despite the disallowed try, Reed put in a fearless performance across his 80 minutes: he tested the Roosters defensive line with early attacking chips, pressed for opportunities to shift the point of attack, and even had a second try denied late in the game by an obstruction call. The rookie was not without growing pains — he finished the match with six missed tackles, and a costly dropped ball under pressure allowed Roosters captain James Tedesco to race away for a try that pushed the home side’s score past 50. Still, his bright glimpses of potential gave Dragons fans one of the few positives to take away from a grim day.
Young’s squad did little to help their new interim coach or their young debutant, however. Two first-half sin-binnings for ill-discipline left the Dragons short on the edge of their own try line repeatedly: Luciano Leilua was sent off the field for a high shot on Roosters halfback Sam Walker, while Daniel Atkinson joined him for a deliberate professional foul. Unforced errors also proved costly, with multiple spilled kicks directly leading to Roosters tries, turning small moments of pressure into converted tries for the red-hot visitors.
For the Dragons, the only other bright spot came off the field, with the club confirming Saturday that they had signed representative fullback Scott Drinkwater from the North Queensland Cowboys, with the move set to take place from the 2027 season onward. Still, it will be a long road back to competitiveness for Young, who now faces the challenge of rebuilding a culture and fixing on-field performance after one of the worst start to a season in the club’s history.
For the Roosters, the performance was far more than just another win: it was a statement of intent that the club is emerging as the biggest threat to reigning premiers Penrith Panthers’ bid for a fourth straight premiership. After scrambling to secure wins with second-half fightbacks in recent weeks, this match was a clinical 80-minute performance from Trent Robinson’s side, with their entire spine firing on all cylinders from the opening whistle. Captain James Tedesco continued his career-best form, notching two try assists and opening up the Dragons’ middle defense repeatedly to set up a first-half double for Sam Walker. Five-eighth Daly Cherry-Evans was equally dominant, laying on three first-half tries, while hooker Reece Robson turned in a dynamic performance out of dummy-half that included his first try in Roosters colours. Walker also put in a strong kicking game that pinned the Dragons deep in their own half for long stretches, forcing multiple line dropouts that kept the pressure consistent.
The Roosters will face their biggest test of the season so far next week, when they take on the red-hot Brisbane Broncos in what is already shaping up to be one of the must-watch matches of the 2024 NRL regular season.
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Another wave of public outcry tests Putin’s rule in wartime Russia
A new wave of public discontent has surged across Russia in recent weeks, with high-profile influencers, long-time government loyalists, and ordinary citizens speaking out against Kremlin policy, exposing growing frictions between the Vladimir Putin administration and segments of the public it has long relied on for support.
The outbreak of public criticism began when popular Russian blogger and former television host Victoria Bonya — who currently resides abroad and publicly maintains her support for Putin — released a 19-minute Instagram video addressing the president directly. In the clip, which has amassed more than 31 million views 10 days after publication, Bonya argued that Putin is being deliberately misinformed by lower-level officials about a cascade of unfolding crises across the country. Among the issues she highlighted are the botched local response to devastating recent floods in the southern republic of Dagestan, controversial mass livestock culling in Siberia that sparked spontaneous farmer protests, crippling internet restrictions that have disrupted daily life, and mounting pressures that are pushing small businesses to collapse.
“People are screaming at the top of their lungs now. They’ve been robbed of everything they have, and they continue to be robbed. Businesses are dying,” Bonya said in the video, emphasizing that average Russians and even pro-administration officials are too intimidated to share unvarnished truth with the president.
Bonya’s remarks quickly sparked a viral cascade of similar criticism from other Russian influencers, many of whom shared their own grievances in public posts before several of these videos were removed from platforms. In a rare public acknowledgment of the growing discontent, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that administration officials had viewed Bonya’s video, noting that “a lot of work is being done” on the issues she raised and that “none of it is being ignored.”
The criticism has even spread to long-time pro-Putin political circles. Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party and a decades-long Putin ally, used a parliamentary address this week to lambaste government policy, warning that failure to address growing public hardship could trigger a repeat of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Threats of potential mass unrest have also circulated in pro-Kremlin Telegram channels and among loyalist military commentators, a unusual departure from their usual unwavering support for the administration.
Against this backdrop of growing public criticism, polling data shows a measurable decline in Putin’s national approval ratings. State-controlled Russian pollster VTsIOM reported Friday that Putin’s approval currently stands at 65.6%, the lowest recorded since before the launch of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, down from a high of 77.8% in late December 2025. The Levada Center, Russia’s leading independent polling firm, also recorded a five-point drop in Putin’s approval between October 2025 and March 2026, falling from 85% to 80%.
Analysts point to two core structural issues driving the current wave of discontent: sweeping new internet restrictions and a rapidly cooling wartime economy. Since last spring, Russians across the country have faced widespread and recurring cellphone internet shutdowns, which the Kremlin justifies as a necessary security measure to disrupt Ukrainian drone operations. Critics, however, argue the outages are part of a years-long campaign to consolidate full state control over the Russian internet, building on years of escalating censorship that has already blocked or throttled thousands of independent platforms, including two of the country’s most widely used messaging apps, WhatsApp and Telegram.
The Kremlin has simultaneously pushed a new state-backed messaging app called Max, which many analysts and ordinary Russians view as a tool for expanded state surveillance, while cracking down on VPN services that Russians have long used to bypass national censorship. These moves have spurred scattered acts of public resistance, including petitions to the presidential administration, a nationwide class-action lawsuit against the government, small unsanctioned street pickets, and multiple attempted larger protest mobilizations that were quickly dispersed by security forces. Putin has stood firm on the policy, reaffirming last week that internet shutdowns are necessary to “prevent terror attacks” and urging officials to improve public communication about the restrictions, a signal that the policy will remain in place.
Compounding public frustration is a sharp slowdown in Russia’s wartime economy, which saw an initial growth surge from massive military spending that has now fully faded. The Russian central bank’s steep interest rate hikes to curb rampant inflation, combined with recent government tax increases, have put severe new pressure on small and medium businesses. Economic Minister Maxim Reshetnikov recently acknowledged that the country’s available economic reserves “have been largely depleted,” and Putin confirmed earlier this month that GDP contracted by 1.8% between January and February, marking the second consecutive month of declining economic growth.
A third underpinning factor is the collapse of public hopes for a swift end to the war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year. Many Russians pinned their hopes on a peace deal brokered by new U.S. President Donald Trump, who made ending the conflict a core campaign promise and launched negotiations shortly after taking office in January 2025. Those talks have since stalled, leaving the public disappointed. According to Sam Greene, a professor of Russian politics at King’s College London, both the Kremlin and the Russian public priced in an end to the conflict, and the failure to reach a deal has eroded public confidence.
While the growing discontent represents a new and expanding challenge for the Kremlin, analysts across the political spectrum agree that it does not pose an imminent threat to Putin’s hold on power. Mark Galeotti, a leading Russian politics expert and head of Mayak Intelligence, noted that there is still no unified, organized opposition movement capable of challenging the administration, and Putin’s control over Russia’s security services remains absolute. Even many critics are reluctant to call for broad destabilization during an ongoing war, Galeotti added.
Denis Volkov, director of the Levada Center, echoed that assessment, noting that approval ratings are declining from a historically very high starting point, and discontent is growing only gradually. “For now, we shouldn’t downplay or exaggerate this, because we’re only at the very beginning of the road,” Volkov said. Still, former Putin speechwriter turned independent political analyst Abbas Gallyamov warned that public frustration will continue to deepen as high-profile figures give ordinary people permission to voice their own grievances, slowly shifting the national political mood.