Global Pulse

标签： Asia

亚洲

  • Indonesians brave choking smoke to pray for rain as country battles wildfires

    Indonesians brave choking smoke to pray for rain as country battles wildfires

    As raging wildfires continue to devour vast swathes of forest and peatland across Indonesia’s South Sumatra, the province with the nation’s highest concentration of active hot spots, local authorities have paired conventional firefighting efforts with an extraordinary spiritual intervention: a mass public prayer for rain to end the catastrophic dry spell fueling the blazes.

    The crisis has been amplified by a prolonged dry season supercharged by the developing El Niño climate pattern, which has created tinder-dry conditions across much of Indonesia’s Sumatra and Kalimantan islands. Latest satellite data released by Indonesia’s Environment Ministry confirms South Sumatra leads all provinces with 1,429 detected hot spots, followed by West Kalimantan at 1,226 and Central Kalimantan at 811. Data from the Forestry Ministry adds that nearly 940 square kilometers of land were destroyed by fire in July alone, with more than 20 square kilometers burned within South Sumatra’s borders.

    On Tuesday, roughly 3,000 residents gathered in the courtyard of the governor’s office in Palembang, South Sumatra’s capital, to hold *salat istisqa*—a special Islamic ritual for requesting rain. Standing shoulder to shoulder through the thick, acrid haze that already shrouded the city, participants prayed as smoke cut visibility to dangerous levels, forcing motorists to keep their headlights switched on through daylight hours.

    South Sumatra Governor Herman Deru addressed the crowd ahead of the prayer, noting that every feasible conventional response has already been deployed across the province. “We have done everything we can and worked closely with all relevant parties,” Deru said. “As people of faith, we are also praying to God to send rain so that life can return to normal.” He emphasized that the collective prayer is not a replacement for active firefighting and drought mitigation, but rather a complementary measure that unites communities in facing the shared environmental crisis.

    Indonesia’s national disaster management agency confirmed that emergency crews have been working around the clock to contain the fires, which have generated toxic haze thick enough to drift across national borders into neighboring Malaysia and Brunei. To boost response efforts, the country has ramped up large-scale weather modification operations, deploying more than 50 aircraft across Sumatra and Kalimantan for cloud-seeding—an initiative that disperses salt particles into rain-ready clouds to trigger precipitation—and targeted water-bombing missions on active fire lines.

    Alongside firefighting and weather interventions, Indonesian law enforcement has taken action against the human factor driving much of the annual dry season fire crisis. Authorities have arrested 72 people suspected of deliberately starting fires to clear land, and four agribusiness companies are currently under investigation for allegedly using illegal, low-cost slash-and-burn clearing tactics. This practice is common among both small-scale traditional farmers and large plantation operators, who set fires to clear vegetation cheaply ahead of planting season.

    Recurring annual dry season fires are a long-standing environmental and public health challenge for Indonesia, a majority-Muslim nation that is home to some of the world’s most biodiverse tropical peatlands and rainforests. Beyond domestic disruption that cuts visibility, halts air and land transport, and worsens chronic respiratory conditions, the transboundary haze from Indonesian wildfires has repeatedly sparked diplomatic protests from neighboring Southeast Asian nations in past years.

  • NZ religious sect leader jailed over death of elderly follower

    NZ religious sect leader jailed over death of elderly follower

    In a high-profile criminal case that has drawn cross-border attention, a self-proclaimed spiritual leader has been handed a more than 10-year prison sentence by a New Zealand court after being convicted of the manslaughter and kidnapping of a 70-year-old Chinese follower whose body was discovered dumped near Auckland.

    Kaixiao Liu, a former Chinese talent show contestant who relocated to New Zealand in 2017 and gained permanent residency, was found guilty of the charges stemming from the March 2024 death of Shulai Wang, a retired woman who traveled from China’s Hainan Island to join Liu’s inner circle of followers in August 2023. Wang’s remains were found wrapped in rice bags by a local fisherman near Gulf Harbour’s marina, triggering a months-long homicide investigation that ultimately implicated Liu and his entire immediate family.

    Throughout the legal proceedings, Liu maintained his innocence, rejecting allegations that he leads a secretive religious cult. He has repeatedly claimed he only amassed followers through his musical work, which includes a self-created project called the Universal Choir that produces cosmic-themed orchestral pieces. Online, Liu built his following on Chinese social platforms by sharing religious discussions, personal video diaries, and clips of his singing performances. Before moving to New Zealand, Liu also previously studied at a Chinese military-focused university, and competed on the national televised talent program *China’s Got Talent* in 2011, where viral footage showed him performing a song while blindfolded on stage.

    Court documents and trial testimony revealed that Wang moved into Liu’s Auckland residence—dubbed “the Ark” by the leader—alongside multiple other female followers. Prosecutors told the court that the women lived in conditions of servitude, with every aspect of their daily lives tightly controlled by Liu, who required them to address him as “Lord” or “Master.” Wang’s daily routine consisted of caring for Liu’s young children, studying religious texts written by Liu, and growing vegetables on the property. Due to her advanced age, Wang struggled to adapt to the group’s strict rules and faced repeated disciplinary action for non-compliance.

    According to court accounts, Wang attempted to escape the compound in March 2024, but was quickly captured and restrained by Liu and his associates. She died later that same day. Following her death, Liu, his family members, and close followers transported Wang’s body to Gulf Harbour and dumped it near the marina, with Liu bringing his own children along on the trip to act as a cover for the activity. Investigators ultimately linked the crime to Liu after tracing the specific brand of rice used to wrap the body back to him: Liu had made an unusually large bulk purchase of the rice shortly before Wang’s death.

    Alongside Liu, his wife Lanyue Xiao received a nearly eight-year prison sentence after being convicted on overlapping charges of kidnapping and manslaughter. Liu’s parents, Xiuyun Li and Jingui Liu, have already been found guilty of kidnapping and improper handling of human remains, and are scheduled to receive their official sentences later this year.

    During Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, Liu’s legal team requested judicial leniency, telling the court that their client feels genuine remorse for his actions and repeated his claim that he is not a cult leader. However, Justice Mathew Downs, the presiding judge, rejected these appeals, issuing harsh criticism of Liu’s actions. In his remarks from the bench, Downs stated that Liu had demonstrated “callous indifference” to Wang’s well-being, adding: “Because of you, Ms Wang died a lonely, frightening death. You display no remorse whatsoever. You should feel shame.”

    New Zealand police have also released an official photo of Shulai Wang as part of the public records of the case, confirming her identity as the victim who left her home in China to join Liu’s group.

  • Trump unleashes swathe of sanctions on Iran ‘enablers’

    Trump unleashes swathe of sanctions on Iran ‘enablers’

    Amid a collapsing de facto ceasefire and escalating tensions in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a sweeping new round of sanctions against Iran and what the Trump administration terms the regime’s “enablers” on Monday, framing the action as a deliberate push to economically asphyxiate Tehran.

    Speaking to reporters in Washington D.C., Bessent laid out what he calls Operation Economic Outcast, an initiative designed to eliminate any alternative path for the Iranian government beyond total capitulation to U.S. demands. “Iran now faces a very clear choice: complete global isolation and a subsistence economy, or a path back to normalcy with an opportunity to rejoin the global economy,” he told press. “America is no longer managing the Iranian threat. We are ending it.”

    To implement the campaign, the Treasury Department has adopted what Bessent describes as a “zero leakage approach”, mapping every node, facilitator and network Iran has historically used to smuggle crude oil and evade existing international sanctions. President Donald Trump has also already held private phone calls with global leaders to issue specific demands that they cut all commercial and financial ties with Tehran, though Bessent declined to name the countries that received these requests.

    Some 60 additional entities and individuals are set to face secondary sanctions in the coming weeks, but the administration is rolling out the measures gradually rather than imposing them immediately. When pressed on the phased timeline, Bessent acknowledged the need to avoid broader financial disruption, asking reporters “Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” All countries have been given a structured deadline to wind down the activities the U.S. has flagged; if they fail to act, the Treasury will unilaterally impose penalties using its existing regulatory authority. A key target of the campaign is Bank Melli, Iran’s largest commercial bank with decades of history and a network of branches across Europe and the Middle East, which the U.S. demands be fully shuttered globally.

    The new sanctions come as Washington faces lingering questions over its failure to reassert military control over the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of global oil supplies pass daily. The six-month U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran has already roiled global energy markets and upended international shipping, sending tanker charter rates soaring. A shipping-focused exchange-traded fund, BWET, has jumped 98% over the past month alone, reflecting widespread market disruption. With midterm elections approaching in November, rising energy prices have become a pressing political concern for Trump administration among American voters.

    The phased rollout also reflects sensitivity around existing commercial ties between major U.S. partners and Iran, particularly China—currently the top buyer of Iranian crude oil, according to data from California-based research firm SRI International. Other major export destinations for Iranian energy include Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey. Asked about potential friction with Beijing ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s planned state visit to the White House next month, Bessent said the administration is pursuing quiet diplomacy to set clear expectations for all global partners, adding that operating in the “gray areas” of the current conflict is no longer acceptable. “Countries cannot claim they are blind to enabling this activity,” Bessent said. “Iran’s enablers purchase and transport its petroleum. They facilitate the flow of its finances through exchange houses and free trade zones… all the while concealing the extent of their complicity.”

    Because the global financial system is structured around U.S. banking standards and U.S. dollar transactions, newly sanctioned parties will effectively be locked out of most cross-border economic activity. Just last week, Bessent first previewed what he called “the toughest sanctions in history” against Tehran, while Trump framed the campaign as an “economic D-Day” in a social media post, warning that any country that provides even a minor lifeline to Iran will face “tremendous economic consequences.”

    Iran has already pushed back against the new measures. In a speech last Thursday at an Arbaeen ceremony in Karbala, Iraq, Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Tehran and Baghdad will not allow foreign powers to dictate their futures, calling for deeper security and economic cooperation between the two neighbors to advance shared prosperity.

    U.S. and independent policy analysts have cast mixed doubt on the effectiveness of the new sanctions campaign. The National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a Washington-based advocacy group, warned Monday that the new measures will likely push Iran to escalate regional military actions—including a renewed blockade of the Strait of Hormuz or targeted attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure—consistent with Tehran’s long-held position that it will not tolerate economic warfare.

    NIAC Policy Director Ryan Costello noted that the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign has a long track record of harming ordinary Iranians while leaving ruling elite largely insulated from economic pain, and that Tehran has never capitulated to U.S. demands. “Trump’s gamble is that this time, amid the destruction of war, and with the reinforcement of a blockade, time is on his side and ultimately Iran will be forced to concede defeat,” Costello said.

    Richard Nephew, a former Biden administration national security official and architect of earlier U.S. sanctions campaigns against Iran, described Bessent’s announcement as mostly rhetorical bluster, noting on X that the phased rollout has watered down the “economic D-Day” framing into something far less decisive. “So, they took the weekend and looked at what they were going to do and thought ‘hmmmmm’ and are now turning this into less a ‘D Day’ than a ‘don’t make me count to 3’,” Nephew wrote.

    Eurasia Group senior analyst Gregory Brew similarly characterized the announcement as a “warning shot”, arguing that the U.S. is seeking to ratchet up pressure on Tehran without triggering major Iranian retaliation or alienating key Iranian trading partners, most notably China.

  • Caste divides make scorching summers harder in a parched corner of India

    Caste divides make scorching summers harder in a parched corner of India

    In the parched, semi-arid expanse of Bundelkhand, a region spanning multiple districts across Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in northern India, worsening climate conditions are deepening centuries-old social fault lines around access to water. For Dalit communities, who have long faced systemic discrimination under India’s historic caste hierarchy, soaring summer temperatures and growing water scarcity have turned the daily struggle for this basic necessity into an even more punishing experience of exclusion.

    Forty-year-old Mamta, a resident of a village in Jalaun district and a member of the Valmiki Dalit community, knows this struggle better than most. On a scorching May morning just after sunrise, she set out with three empty plastic buckets on what would become the first of 10 daily trips to the village’s only working handpumps. Two years prior, the piped water connections installed under a state government drinking water initiative ran dry, leaving the village’s 1,000 residents entirely dependent on just a handful of hand-operated pumps. In summer, when regional temperatures regularly climb above 40°C and have been recorded nearing 48°C in recent years, the demand for water surges.

    Even after walking hundreds of meters to the pump, Mamta cannot simply collect the water her 11-member family and livestock need. Per long-standing caste norms enforced by the village’s dominant upper castes, she must wait until every member of privileged groups has finished drawing water before approaching the pump. After she uses it, upper-caste residents often pour additional water over the pump handle to “cleanse” it of what they see as impurity. This pattern of discrimination has persisted for decades, Mamta says, and it forces her to rearrange her entire day around caste hierarchies to avoid confrontation.

    “It has been happening for decades,” she explained, noting that in cooler months she only makes a few trips daily, but summer’s higher water demand pushes that number to eight or 10. “The fear of being targeted stays with me throughout.”

    Bundelkhand has been synonymous with water scarcity in India for decades. The region’s rocky plateau terrain holds very little groundwater, and erratic monsoon patterns paired with rising regional temperatures driven by climate change have made water access increasingly unpredictable. Despite decades of government-led and community conservation initiatives, including the federal government’s high-profile Jal Jeevan Mission that aims to deliver piped water to every rural household, and local efforts to revive traditional ponds and check dams, the supply of potable water has failed to keep up with growing demand.

    A recent analysis of more than 100 years of regional weather data confirms that average temperatures have risen across nearly all of Bundelkhand, with summer heatwaves growing more intense and longer-lasting each year. Researchers and community advocates warn this growing water stress is acting as a “threat multiplier” for existing caste inequalities, pushing more families to compete for the limited available water and making the systemic exclusion of Dalits more frequent and more severe.

    “Conflict over water is not new,” explained Mitashi Singh, a researcher with the Centre for Science and Environment. “What is changing is the role hotter summers are playing in making water scarcer and intensifying tensions that already existed.”

    About 50 kilometers from Mamta’s village in Shahjahanpur, another Dalit resident, Shiv, described a nearly identical experience. His family will not approach the village handpump while dominant-caste residents are using it, even if that means waiting hours for a single bucket of drinking water in sweltering heat. “No matter how hot it is, even if we have to wait for hours for one bucket of drinking water, we wait because we do not have a choice,” he said. “Even if my parents are thirsty, we sometimes wait for hours before we can drink.”

    Three years ago, Shiv’s mother Parmi Devi was allegedly assaulted by a dominant-caste resident after a confrontation at the handpump. “I was thrashed and beaten up and thrown on the ground three times,” Devi alleged. “It was not just about water. It was because of our caste.” Though Devi filed a formal police complaint alleging assault and caste-based violence, no arrests have been made to date.

    Accounts like Devi’s are far from isolated, according to local advocacy groups. The Dalit Dignity and Justice Centre (DDJC), a Uttar Pradesh-based non-profit that documents caste-based atrocities, recorded 113 cases registered under India’s Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act in the region in 2025. Kuldeep Singh Baudh of DDJC told reporters that a majority of the complaints logged during the hottest months of May and June are tied to water access disputes, though the organization has not yet published a full breakdown of its data.

    “To truly understand the heat’s impact, you have to see it from the perspective of the communities that are the most excluded,” Baudh said.

    Local officials and dominant-caste residents have pushed back against these allegations. In a formal statement, the office of Jalaun District Magistrate Rajesh Kumar Pandey rejected all claims of caste-based discrimination at public water sources and disputed that the region faces widespread water scarcity, pointing to ongoing federal and local water infrastructure projects as evidence of progress. Dominant-caste residents acknowledge that water supplies are under growing pressure, with many village wells having run dry or become polluted over the past 20 years, pushing more families to rely on shared handpumps. But they insist there is no caste-based exclusion at these water points.

    “These wells have been dry for almost 20 years,” explained 50-something Ram Gopal Singh, a dominant-caste resident. He added that most families try to collect water during the cooler early morning hours, leading to occasional disputes over turns, but “there is no caste-based dispute at these handpumps.”

    Still, researchers who study the intersection of caste and environmental change say that expanding overall water supply will not resolve the crisis on its own. Climate change did not create caste-based exclusion, but it has amplified pre-existing injustices, notes Mukul Sharma, a researcher of caste and environmental politics.

    “Climate change is not the origin of these injustices, but a threat multiplier,” Sharma said. “More water alone will not solve the problem if caste still shapes who gets to use it.”

    For Mamta, that reality means the daily cycle of waiting, walking, and collecting water will continue as long as temperatures stay high. When her turn at the handpump finally comes, she fills her buckets, carries them home, and prepares to make the trip again later that day.

  • Syria: Former grand mufti and Assad ally receives life sentence in Syria

    Syria: Former grand mufti and Assad ally receives life sentence in Syria

    In a landmark legal ruling from Syria’s new transitional administration, a Damascus court handed down a life imprisonment sentence on Monday to Ahmed Badreddin Hassoun, the country’s top Muslim cleric for more than 16 years under ousted president Bashar al-Assad.

    Hassoun’s conviction marks the 10th guilty verdict issued against a senior figure from the fallen Assad regime, and follows his arrest at a Syrian airport in March 2025, where authorities detained him as he attempted to flee the country. The court found Hassoun guilty on a sweeping array of charges, including abuse of his high religious office, stoking sectarian and racial division, inciting civil conflict, and direct participation in extrajudicial killings. Additional charges carried stacked sentences ranging from three to 20 years, and the court ordered the full confiscation of all of Hassoun’s personal assets.

    Throughout his decades-long tenure as Grand Mufti, Hassoun was a close public ally of Assad, who fled Syria in December 2024 as opposition forces swept through the country and brought his 50-year family regime to an abrupt collapse. The regime’s fall ended a 13-year civil war that began when Assad’s government cracked down on pro-democracy protests in 2011. The conflict left more than 500,000 Syrians dead, and displaced more than 6 million people both internally and across international borders.

    Hassoun’s conviction is the latest in a series of legal actions against former regime leaders. In August of this year, a Syrian court sentenced Assad to death in absentia, alongside his brother Maher and five former senior security officials, for crimes against humanity committed over the course of the civil war. Two more former Assad associates—ex-security official Atif Najib and Wassim al-Assad, a cousin of the ousted president—were also sentenced to death in that same ruling, after being taken into custody by the new government.

    Today, Syria is led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former opposition commander who got his start in extremist groups including al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front and the Islamic State. Since taking office, al-Sharaa has actively sought to distance himself from these extremist origins, and has moved to align the new transitional government closely with the United States and regional power Turkey, as the country works to rebuild after more than a decade of devastating conflict.

  • Beyond China’s humanoid robots, a quieter machine revolution is unfolding

    Beyond China’s humanoid robots, a quieter machine revolution is unfolding

    In classrooms and factory floors across China, a sweeping technological transformation is already underway, driven by a $20 billion national strategy aimed at catapulting the country to the forefront of global innovation and creating direct competition with the United States. This push for mass automation, centered on integrating robotic workers into every layer of the world’s largest manufacturing hub, is reshaping not only how goods are made but also how the next generation of workers is trained.

    At the Hangzhou Technician Institute, a sprawling purpose-built vocational school on the outskirts of one of China’s leading tech hubs, 28-year-old instructor Chen Tianyu brings real-world factory automation insights back to his classroom of 30 aspiring robotics and AI specialists. Surrounded by rows of unprogrammed industrial robots and teams of students developing robotic medical devices, Chen emphasizes a stark reality: professionals who fail to adapt to the AI and robotics age will be left behind. Unlike traditional academic institutions, this vocational campus is designed to churn out a new generation of tech-savvy engineers that can keep up with China’s rapid automation expansion. Chen notes that the institute’s graduates are already in high demand, with many pre-hired by companies before they complete their training – a potential solution to China’s ongoing youth unemployment crisis, where one in five young people currently struggle to find work.

    China already leads the world in factory robot deployment, with more than two million robotic units operating across its manufacturing facilities, and half of all industrial robots produced globally now come from Chinese factories. The BBC’s on-the-ground visits to facilities in Chengdu and Hangzhou reveal a mixed landscape where human workers and robots currently work side by side, even as companies push to expand automation to fill growing gaps left by China’s shrinking and aging population. Official projections estimate that by 2035, more than one-third of China’s population will be over 60, and some forecasts predict the country will lose nearly 60 million working-age people over the next decade – a drop roughly equal to the entire population of France. For manufacturers, this looming labor shortage is a core driver of automation investment.

    At CRP Technology in Chengdu, a 300-person firm that has built customizable industrial robot arms for nine years, a team of young engineers is currently developing a prototype robot designed to build other robots. Right now, the prototype can only complete simple repetitive tasks like scanning QR codes, but 31-year-old R&D engineer Pang Kai says the team celebrates every small incremental win, with the goal of adding new capabilities within six months. “We need these kinds of robots because maybe in 10 years, we won’t have enough workers in China,” Pang explains, noting that a single standard robot arm can already complete more than 90% of a factory’s repetitive assembly tasks.

    Even at electric vehicle maker Leapmotors, where automation has already replaced human workers in core manufacturing stages like stamping, welding, and painting, human workers still play a critical final role. The company’s Hangzhou factory integrates robots into every step of vehicle production, but hundreds of human workers still conduct final quality checks on new rolling vehicles. Cao Li, Leapmotors’ vice-president, acknowledges that full automation of even these final roles could come relatively soon, but adds that robots still require regular maintenance, inspection, and repair – work that still falls to human technicians.

    Industry experts note that China holds unique competitive advantages in the global robotics race, rooted in its massive existing manufacturing ecosystem. Dr. Susanne Bieller, General Secretary of the International Federation of Robotics, explains that China’s centralized long-term planning, paired with its accessible local supply chains, gives it an unrivaled edge: building a new robot in Shenzhen takes less than an hour to source all required components, compared to up to a week in Europe. While the U.S. still leads in developing the AI “brain” that powers advanced robotic systems, Chinese AI firms have been closing the gap faster than many expected, even amid U.S. export controls on cutting-edge semiconductors. Fueled by an open-source innovation model that encourages code sharing among startups, Chinese companies are now positioning themselves to compete by integrating AI into millions of industrial machines, rather than just developing large language models.

    Even with this rapid progress, major uncertainties remain. With 120 million people still employed in China’s manufacturing sector, a too-rapid transition to full automation could trigger mass job displacement, delivering a catastrophic blow to millions of households that rely on factory wages. It also remains unclear whether this automation revolution will solve China’s broader ongoing economic challenges, which include a lingering property sector crisis, massive local government debt, and persistently weak domestic consumption. For workers and trainers alike, the future remains unwritten. “Technology is changing so fast,” Chen says. “But we can’t just stand still and sleep here. We have to move forward to see what we are capable of doing.”

  • Trump moves toward levying new tariff on China for flooding market with cheap goods, AP sources say

    Trump moves toward levying new tariff on China for flooding market with cheap goods, AP sources say

    Behind closed doors in Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump is advancing plans to impose a fresh tariff on Chinese imports, a move designed to penalize the world’s second-largest economy over longstanding claims that China dumps underpriced goods into global markets, three anonymous sources with knowledge of internal deliberations have confirmed.

    Two of the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss unfinished internal policy discussions, noted that the White House is currently considering setting the proposed new tariff at a 7.5% rate. Administration officials have privately assessed that this moderate level would not jeopardize the one-year temporary trade truce that Washington and Beijing have upheld, nor derail the planned late September face-to-face meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping scheduled at the White House.

    If finalized, the new tariff would represent a carefully calibrated response by the Trump administration to a landmark Supreme Court ruling issued earlier this year. That ruling struck down Trump’s original proposal for a sweeping, across-the-board high-tariff regime that would have been the most aggressive trade measure implemented by the U.S. since the 1930s.

    In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, the Trump administration launched formal industry probes in March targeting what it calls excessive industrial capacity and alleged forced labor-related regulatory gaps in China and more than a dozen other global economies. To date, there is no clear indication that the administration is close to concluding its investigations into the other targeted jurisdictions, which include the European Union, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Japan and India.

    Neither the White House nor the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative responded to requests for comment on the ongoing tariff deliberations, which were first reported by Bloomberg News earlier this Monday.

    In an official statement, the Chinese embassy in Washington pushed back against the proposed action, stating that economic and trade disputes should be resolved through constructive bilateral dialogue rather than unilateral punitive tariffs, and rejected all claims that China maintains systemic unfair overcapacity. The ongoing investigation into China’s industrial capacity is being carried out under Section 301 of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act, a statute that grants the president authority to impose tariffs on nations found to engage in discriminatory practices against U.S. companies and commercial interests.

    Crucially, the proposed 7.5% tariff would be levied on top of existing trade duties already applied to Chinese goods. Sources familiar with the internal talks emphasized that Trump has not made a final decision and could still alter or scrap the plan before it is formalized. The new measure would add to the 10% to 12.5% tariffs announced last month targeting 60 global economies that the Trump administration accuses of failing to enforce bans on goods produced with forced labor.

    That earlier round of tariffs prompted widespread protests from affected nations, including China, and came into force only after the expiration of temporary tariffs Trump implemented following the Supreme Court’s February ruling that struck down his original broad “reciprocal” tariff plan applied to nearly all U.S. trade partners. Last month, China already publicly pushed back against overcapacity allegations, pre-empting the expected release of the U.S. probe results and the announcement of new tariff measures.

    Overcapacity in a wide range of Chinese manufacturing sectors — from automobiles and solar panels to cement and steel — has been a flashpoint for China’s major trading partners for years. While Chinese leaders have made rebalancing the domestic economy a top policy priority, slowing domestic consumer demand has pushed many Chinese manufacturers to expand their footprint in overseas markets. This export surge drove China’s annual trade surplus to a historic high of nearly $1.2 trillion in 2024. In a recently released white paper titled “China’s Position on the So-called Excess Capacity Issue,” China’s Ministry of Commerce stressed that the country has never intentionally pursued a large trade surplus.

    The trade deliberations unfolded alongside a separate announcement from the U.S. Treasury Department on Monday, which warned nations engaged in trade with Iran that new secondary sanctions are forthcoming to isolate any jurisdictions that continue commercial activity with Tehran. China is Iran’s largest single trade partner. Washington has stated that the new sanctions will ramp up pressure on Iran’s already crippled economy, which has been battered by years of previous U.S. sanctions and a ongoing U.S.-Israeli military campaign that is approaching its six-month mark. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s Monday announcement offered few concrete details and did not name specific countries that could face sanction measures.

  • French far-right leader Marine Le Pen polling at record high ahead of 2027 election

    French far-right leader Marine Le Pen polling at record high ahead of 2027 election

    A new nationwide survey conducted by Toluna Harris Interactive for leading French broadcasters RTL and M6 has revealed a seismic shift in France’s pre-election political landscape, placing far-right presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen at a record-high polling position that projects her to win the April 2027 presidential contest. The poll, which surveyed 1,764 eligible French voters aged 18 and older, shows Le Pen holding a lead of at least 16 percentage points over every other declared or potential candidate, an unprecedented margin three years out from the vote. The results also signal a clear upward trajectory for left-wing pro-Palestinian figure Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the La France Insoumise (LFI) party, who has jumped from 12% support in April polling to a current 16 to 17%. This growth puts Melenchon on track to outperform centre-right former prime minister Edouard Philippe and secure a spot in the mandatory second-round runoff, according to poll analysts. In a projected head-to-head runoff between Le Pen and 75-year-old Melenchon, the survey estimates Le Pen would claim a decisive victory with 68% of the vote against Melenchon’s 32%. Under French presidential election rules, if no candidate secures an absolute majority in the first round of voting, the top two finishers advance to a second and final round of balloting. This 2027 race marks the fourth presidential bid for Le Pen, who lost back-to-back elections to outgoing President Emmanuel Macron in 2017 and 2022, taking 41.4% of the second-round vote in 2022. Macron is constitutionally barred from running for a third consecutive term, opening up the election for the first time in a decade. France’s left-wing bloc has been grappling with internal division heading into the contest, with dozens of potential candidates splitting voter support across ideological lines. To address this fragmentation, multiple left-wing party leaders have scheduled a “united left” primary for October 11 to select a single unified contender. However, LFI and two other major left-wing parties have rejected the initiative, deepening rifts within the bloc that could benefit Le Pen’s candidacy. Le Pen’s path to the 2027 ballot was only cleared earlier this summer after a French appeals court revised a prior criminal conviction tied to an embezzlement scheme involving European Parliament funds. Last year, Le Pen and 20 other members of her Rassemblement National (RN) party were found guilty of misappropriating roughly €4.5 million in EU public funds to pay unregistered RN party staff instead of the European Parliament employees the funds were allocated for. The original ruling handed down a four-year prison sentence and a five-year ban from holding public office, which would have blocked Le Pen from running in 2027. But on July 7, the Paris Court of Appeal upheld the conviction but drastically reduced the sentence: Le Pen will now serve a one-year house arrest sentence monitored by an electronic ankle tag, removing the ban on political office that would have disqualified her campaign. Following the ruling, Le Pen announced she would file a further appeal to France’s highest criminal court, the Cour de Cassation, in a bid to have the electronic monitoring requirement removed. If the high court fast-tracks the appeal and rejects her challenge, Le Pen could be forced to conduct her 2027 campaign wearing the court-ordered ankle tag. The RN, originally founded as the Front National by Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie Le Pen, carried a decades-long reputation marred by virulent antisemitic scandals that left it ostracized by mainstream global political actors. For generations, Israel enforced a strict boycott of European far-right parties over their antisemitic or Holocaust-denying histories and ties to fascist movements, and the former Front National was a core target of that policy. But in recent years, the RN has undertaken a deliberate campaign to rebrand itself, distancing itself from its extremist origins and shifting sharply to a pro-Israel policy stance. This shift has coincided with a broader rapprochement between Israel and far-right parties across Europe. Earlier this year, Le Pen held a private, unannounced meeting with Joshua Zarka, Israel’s ambassador to France, in a sign of the warming bilateral relationship between the RN and the Israeli government. Last year, during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, Le Pen repeatedly criticized Emmanuel Macron’s public condemnations of Israeli military actions and his formal recognition of a Palestinian state. In a 2023 television interview, Le Pen framed Israel’s military operations as “a war against Islamic terrorism”. Most recently, Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli publicly endorsed Le Pen’s party during 2024 parliamentary elections, and extended an invitation to RN party president Jordan Bardella to speak at an international conference on antisemitism to be held in Jerusalem in March 2025. Beyond her foreign policy shifts, Le Pen has centered her domestic agenda on strict hardline immigration policies, framing the growth of Muslim communities in France as a process of “Islamisation” that poses an existential threat to France’s secularist constitutional values. She has previously called for the repeal of laws granting legal residency to undocumented migrants, and has pushed to cut social welfare benefits for all immigrants to reduce incentives for new arrivals to settle in France.

  • Egyptian-UAE free zone for oil storage and trading established in New Alamein

    Egyptian-UAE free zone for oil storage and trading established in New Alamein

    Egypt has formally finalized the establishment of Fujairah Alamein Oil and Gas Company, following official approval for a dedicated private free zone for the joint Egyptian-Emirati venture in the Mediterranean coastal city of New Alamein, Egypt’s Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade announced in an official statement.

    Spanning roughly 738,000 square meters in the North African Mediterranean coastal hub, the newly approved free zone will purpose-built facilities dedicated to the storage, handling and logistics of crude oil and refined petroleum products. The project traces its origins back to three framework agreements signed in 2025 between Egyptian government bodies and the Emirate of Fujairah, which also outlined parallel plans to develop the Fujairah-Alamein energy logistics zone and carry out expansion and modernization upgrades at El-Hamra Port, located west of Alexandria.

    Egyptian Investment and Foreign Trade Minister Mohamed Farid emphasized that the rapid completion of the company’s founding process offers clear proof of the government’s ability to translate formal regulatory approvals into fully operational investment projects in a compressed timeline. Farid noted that leveraging flexible investment frameworks, including the free zone model, paired with streamlined cross-ministerial coordination, is a core strategy to speed up delivery of critical national energy projects. He added that the investment ministry is continuing close collaboration with other state agencies, most notably the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, to resolve outstanding requirements and clear any regulatory or bureaucratic barriers that could risk delaying project implementation.

    The Egyptian cabinet first granted formal approval for the special private free zone for the joint venture last year, locating the site in New Alamein within Egypt’s northwestern Matrouh Governorate. Per the official cabinet decree published in Egypt’s official government gazette, the free zone sits on the southern flank of the Alexandria-Matrouh coastal highway and falls under the regulatory supervision of the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones.

    The decree outlines a series of binding requirements for the new enterprise: all annual output from the facility must be exported to global markets, and at least 50% of all components used in any on-site manufacturing activity must be sourced from domestic Egyptian suppliers. Additional mandatory conditions include proof of legal ownership or long-term tenure for the project site, formal environmental clearance from the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, strict compliance with physical security standards (including full coverage surveillance camera systems and dedicated security watchtowers), and full alignment with national industrial safety, civil defense and fire protection regulations.

    This new energy project aligns with Egypt’s long-term strategic goal to leverage its geographic location between major European, Asian and African energy markets, its extensive network of coastal ports, and established regional transport links to position the country as a leading regional hub for energy product storage, processing and cross-border trade. The push to attract foreign direct investment in the energy sector also comes as Egypt navigates ongoing economic pressures, including constrained foreign currency reserves and shifting domestic energy supply dynamics, as the government works to expand export volumes and generate much-needed hard currency.

    Recent official trade data underscores the growth trajectory of Egypt’s energy export sector: in April 2026, the country’s crude oil exports hit $115.3 million, marking a $15.6 million year-over-year increase, while exports of refined petroleum products rose by $181 million year-over-year to reach $585.2 million. As part of a national five-year energy development plan, the Egyptian government has set a target of 20% growth in domestic oil and gas exploration and production activity for 2026, while simultaneously expanding the country’s capacity to process and export refined petroleum products.

    New Alamein, a planned coastal development on Egypt’s Mediterranean shore, has emerged as a key focal point for the government’s push to draw private domestic and international investment to the region. Current announced projects for the city include a $140 million metallic silicon production complex, an $82 million furniture manufacturing free zone, and a 12 billion Egyptian pound ($236 million) green industrial complex. Official government data puts total public and private investment in New Alamein at 240 billion Egyptian pounds as of 2024.

    The Fujairah Alamein project also forms part of a broader wave of growing Emirati investment in Egypt under the administration of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, highlighted by the landmark $35 billion Ras El-Hekma coastal development agreement announced in 2024, one of the largest foreign investment deals in Egypt’s recent history.

    In closing remarks, Minister Farid reaffirmed that the Ministry of Investment will maintain ongoing coordinated work with all relevant state authorities to ensure Fujairah Alamein Oil and Gas Company can launch commercial operations as quickly as possible, meet its stated investment commitments, and deliver maximum positive impact to the Egyptian national economy.

  • The Palestinian-American determined to defend his home from Israeli settlers

    The Palestinian-American determined to defend his home from Israeli settlers

    Living 10,000 kilometers away in Ohio, Louai Abu Ridi, a Palestinian-American property owner, spent weeks glued to live security camera footage, watching armed Israeli settlers escalate their campaign of harassment against his family at his dream home in Qusra, a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank. For months, settlers had targeted the property, where his brother had been staying while Abu Ridi lived and worked in the U.S. with his wife and two daughters. But earlier this month, the intimidation crossed a dangerous line: settlers surrounded the home and pitched permanent tents outside, launching a full siege to force the Abu Ridi family to abandon their land.

    When he watched settlers establish the encampment on his property in real time, Abu Ridi immediately began working from overseas to end the blockade. He urged his brother to contact Israeli law enforcement, and reached out to U.S. diplomatic officials and his elected representatives in Congress for intervention. But when days passed with no meaningful action to dislodge the settlers, the emotional weight of watching his family trapped 24/7 through security cameras became too heavy to bear. He booked the next available flight to Qusra, the town where he was born, raised, and built the home he intended for his family to enjoy for generations.

    “I told my brother, ‘I’m tired. I can’t sleep another night watching this siege unfold from thousands of miles away. I’m coming to stand with you, to bring you supplies, and to end this blockade together,’” Abu Ridi told Middle East Eye in an interview from inside the besieged property. Today, he remains inside the home alongside his brother, sister, 83-year-old mother, and a neighboring family that was already forced out of their own adjacent property by settlers, adamant that he will not leave until the siege is lifted and his home is secure.

    For Abu Ridi, the Qusra home is far more than a structure of concrete and brick. Though he now resides permanently in Ohio with his family, he returns to his hometown two to three times a year to visit relatives who still live in the community. He began constructing the vacation home nearly three years ago, envisioning a space where his American-born daughters could connect with their ancestral roots and build memories alongside their extended family. That dream, he says, has curdled into a persistent nightmare.

    Sporadic attacks on the property began in January 2024, just three years after construction broke ground. In May, Abu Ridi watched via live feed as roughly 15 settlers pelted the home with rocks while his brother hid inside. The August 9 siege marked a dangerous escalation that immediately reminded Abu Ridi of a recent, high-profile takeover just kilometers away in Jalud, another West Bank town. Just weeks prior, settlers cut water and electricity, blocked access roads, and laid siege to the home of the al-Tubasi family. After five days of blockade, settlers stormed the property at gunpoint, forced the family out, and raised the Israeli flag over the roof, where the home remains under settler control today.

    United Nations data underscores the growing scale of this crisis: since January 2023, more than 6,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from their homes in the occupied West Bank following violent settler attacks, with attacks spiking sharply after October 2023. Fearing his family’s home would be the next seizure, Abu Ridi pushed for urgent intervention.

    After the siege drew international condemnation and media attention, the Israeli military announced it would deploy forces to Qusra to remove the settlers and prevent violent clashes. But Abu Ridi says the on-the-ground reality could not have been more different from the official statement. “When the army arrived, they took the settlers’ side,” he explained. “They went to their tent, prayed with them, and celebrated with them.” The military also designated Qusra a closed military zone, restricting access for non-residents, a move that Abu Ridi says has only reinforced the siege, rather than ending it. Soldiers have blocked food and supplies from reaching the family trapped inside the home, he says, even though just 10 to 15 settlers are camped outside the property.

    “It’s insane. If the army actually wanted to remove them, they could simply arrest the settlers and move them out, and the problem would be solved in hours,” Abu Ridi said. “They tell the media they sent the IDF to protect Palestinian residents and remove the settlers, but that is not what’s happening here on the ground.”

    Abu Ridi also sought help through U.S. channels, reaching out to the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and the office of his Ohio congressional representative, Marcy Kaptur. While both entities responded with public condemnation of the settlers—including U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee labeling the settlers terrorists, a step Abu Ridi says he appreciates—no action has changed his family’s situation on the ground. After two full weeks under siege, the blockade remains firmly in place.

    The decision to leave his wife and two daughters behind in Ohio to return to Qusra was not an easy one, Abu Ridi says. His 10-year-old daughter messages him repeatedly, even after midnight Ohio time, to check if he is safe, asking if she will ever get to sleep in the Qusra home, and if he will make it back to the U.S. alive. Still, he says leaving his mother, siblings, and extended family to face the siege alone was unthinkable.

    Life inside the besieged home is a constant state of vigilance. No one in the house can sleep through the night; family members take turns keeping watch around the perimeter, waiting for the next potential attack. “It is a nightmare. We can’t sleep at night. We have to keep watch,” Abu Ridi said. “This has been going on for months. Someone has to stay up all night watching the property.”

    Abu Ridi has also opened his home to a neighboring couple with two young daughters, ages two and four, who were forced out of their adjacent home by soldiers after settlers laid siege to it. The young girls constantly ask to return to their home to retrieve their toys, he says, too young to understand why they cannot go back. “It is a mixed emotion: sad, devastating, terrifying, all of the above,” he said of the ongoing crisis.

    Even with the constant threat of a violent settler raid, Abu Ridi says he has no plans to leave. “I’m not leaving this house until I make sure it’s safe and won’t be stolen by settlers,” he said.