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CHINA
China could be outpacing the US and Europe in the race to realize fusion, a potentially clean energy source that has attracted massive investment in recent years. According to the Wall Street Journal, Chinese crews work 24 hours a day on fusion projects in a massive, new tech campus. China is also home to 10 times as many fusion scientists and engineers as in the US. At their current rate of experimentation, research and designing, the Chinese fusion experts will surpass Western expertise and accomplishments in a few years.
This news appeared while the New York Times reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping was welcoming Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to the capital of Beijing for previously unannounced talks on finding a resolution to the war in Ukraine. Russia is a Chinese ally and arguably Hungary’s closest friend, while Hungary is also a member of NATO and the European Union.
Both developments herald China’s strong influence on the world order. Domestically, however, many warning lights are flashing for the future of what is now the second-most populous country after India.
The Chinese economy in particular faces significant headwinds after a slowdown following the shutdowns of the coronavirus pandemic, a drop in capital and credit after a boom in lending, and the bankruptcies of major real estate firms. Banks are collapsing, reported the Economist. Lay-offs are on the rise, added the South China Morning Post, as youth unemployment is sky-high. Capital flight, or people removing their money from the country, is accelerating, the Brookings Institution found.
The economy was the big topic at the recent third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee that ended July 15, wrote World Politics Review. Xi’s solutions to the country’s problems, meanwhile, are “statist,” with spending on science and other matters of state security while making local governments more responsible for their economic planning – even though they are among the most irresponsibly indebted entities in the country.
Meanwhile, the future could be tougher.
Geopolitical observers like Peter Zeihan have long warned that China faces a demographic cliff, where the population plummets when today’s older generations pass on and younger families are producing one or no children. Another looming problem is the absence of any successor to Xi, Zeihan explained on his YouTube channel, suggesting that China might undergo a collapse of central government power when the 71-year-old president leaves the scene.
The Communist Party of China promises economic growth in exchange for obeisance to the state. The engine of prosperity is stalling. The all-important government appears rigid.
As the Atlantic Council wrote, “One might expect the government to put everything it has into plans to pull the country out of the economic doldrums … but instead of focusing on China’s current problems … it will prepare China for a confrontation with the United States by building industries powered by massive investments in cutting-edge technologies. This program is aimed at reinforcing the party’s hold on Chinese society”.
Notably, it added: “It will also underline China’s shift away from its longtime economic strategy of growth for growth’s sake.”
THE WORLD BRIEFLY
A Long Road to Justice
KOSOVO
A Kosovar court based in the Netherlands sentenced a former Kosovar independence fighter Tuesday to 18 years in prison for murdering one person and detaining and torturing dozens of others at a makeshift prison at a factory during the Kosovo-Serbia war, Radio Free Europe reported.
Pjëter Shala was found guilty of three war crimes – arbitrary detention, torture and murder – committed at a prison set up at a metal factory in Kukës, Albania in June 1999, while Shala served as commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
The case was heard by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, a court that follows Kosovar law but is staffed by international lawyers and judges and is based in The Hague to protect witnesses from intimidation.
It is separate from a United Nations tribunal, also located in The Hague, which prosecuted nationals from the former Yugoslavia over the 1990s Balkans wars, including several Serb officials and one former KLA member for crimes committed in the Kosovo conflict.
In a statement, the court said Shala’s victims were individuals suspected of collaborating or sympathizing with Serbian authorities, or insufficiently supporting the KLA during Kosovo’s war of independence from Serbia (1998-1999).
The court heard 22 witnesses who provided “vivid, detailed and convincing” testimony, according to Judge Mappie Veldt-Foglia, though the trial was held against “a backdrop of a persistent climate of witness intimidation.”
Surviving detainees were kept in inhumane conditions without enough food or water, and left with physical and mental injuries that hindered some from living a normal life, the court’s statement added.
Shala was arrested two years ago in Belgium and pleaded not guilty to all charges when the trial opened in February 2023.
Specialist Prosecutor Kimberly West, whose office indicted Shala, welcomed the ruling by calling it an “important step for the rule of law,” Euronews reported.
More than 10,000 people were killed in Kosovo’s war of independence from Serbia, which ended after a NATO air campaign repelled Serbian troops from the territory.
The former Serbian province declared its independence in 2008, earning recognition from numerous Western states while Serbia, Russia and China withheld it.
Dripping Desperation
PAKISTAN
Pakistan is planning to ban the party of former Prime Minister Imran Khan and prosecute the imprisoned politician for treason, moves that come days after Khan’s party was handed a win by the country’s top court that gives it more seats in parliament, Reuters reported.
Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the government would “ban” Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) based on allegations that the party received illegal foreign funds, incited riots last year targeting military installations and released secret information.
The move came three days after the Supreme Court granted the PTI extra seats in the National Assembly, Pakistan’s lower house of parliament, saying the party’s candidates fairly won them and were eligible to be seated.
The ruling dealt a blow to Prime Minister Sherbaz Sharif’s weak coalition government, which has strived to keep Khan at bay since his ousting in 2022, while grappling with a collapsing economy the Associated Press wrote.
The PTI won the most seats in the 2024 general election despite the obstacles thrown up by the government such as forcing candidates to run as independents. The top court’s verdict gave the PTI some of the 70 seats reserved for women and non-Muslim minorities, distributed among parties according to their share of the vote.
Khan’s aide Zulfi Bukhari told Al Jazeera the government’s latest decision to ban the party “betrays their complete panic” following a run of bad luck in courts. Meanwhile, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said they were “shocked” at the government’s move.
Khan and other senior PTI politicians – former President Arif Alvi and former Deputy Speaker of the Assembly Qarim Suli – will also face treason charges for their attempt to dissolve Parliament in 2022, the Diplomat reported.
Khan has been involved in a series of legal battles with Pakistani authorities that have kept him behind bars since August last year. He was acquitted on Saturday, along with his third wife, on charges that they married unlawfully. However, he will not be freed because the government ordered him arrested soon after the acquittal. Meanwhile, all four jail sentences Khan received ahead of a February national election have now been overturned or suspended.
A former cricket world champion, Khan is still Pakistan’s most popular politician, Le Monde Diplomatique wrote.
Short and Bitter
WALES
Plagued by scandals, Wales’ elected First Minister Vaughan Gething said this week he would be stepping down, less than four months after he became the first Black individual to lead a European country, the BBC reported.
Controversies over his campaign’s funding and the sacking of a minister had made Gething’s tenure uneasy. He was finally pushed toward the exit door on Tuesday when four cabinet members quit in protest of his leadership and asked him to resign.
“My integrity matters. I have not compromised it,” Gething said as he denied wrongdoing, adding that he regretted that “the burden of proof is no longer an important commodity in the language of our politics.”
Appointed in March, the first minister almost immediately faced outcry from all sides of the aisle over a $260,000 donation he took when he ran for the leadership of the Welsh Labour Party. The donation had come from a company whose owner had been convicted of environmental offenses.
In May, he fired a minister after she allegedly leaked text messages to the press, which she denied.
The scandals led Plaid Cymru – a left-leaning party that advocates for Welsh independence from the United Kingdom – to end a cooperation deal with Labour, leaving Gething’s administration one seat short of an absolute majority in the Senedd, Wales’ devolved parliament.
Gething then lost a non-binding no-confidence vote, exasperating his governing partners.
He said his party would agree on a new leader by the fall.
“Labour has put party interests ahead of the interests of the nation for too long,” said Plaid Cymru’s leader Rhun ap Iorwerth, who instead called for a snap election.
But for the election to be held, two-thirds of the Senedd must agree to dissolve the assembly. The opposition currently holds exactly one half.
DISCOVERIES
All Bite
About 40 million years before the dinosaurs dominated the planet, one gigantic salamander-like creature haunted the swamps of what is modern-day Namibia.
Meet the Gaiasia jennyae, whose name could translate to “salamander from hell.” This extinct amphibian was more than six feet long and had a suction cup mouth and a skull about two feet in length, according to findings published in the journal Nature.
It also had a peculiar head and mouth that packed four-inch fangs and a ring of smaller sharp teeth.
“It’s got a big, flat, toilet seat-shaped head, which allows it to open its mouth and suck in prey,” explained co-author Jason Pardo in a statement. “It has these huge fangs, the whole front of the mouth is just giant teeth.”
The species lived around 280 million years ago during the Permian Period and its fossilized remains were found in northern Namibia. During that period, Namibia was part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana.
Pardo and his colleagues suggested that G. jennyae was a formidable ambush predator that lurked near the bottom of prehistoric swamps and lakes. Its diet mainly consisted of fish, freshwater sharks and even smaller Gaiasia – indicating it was the apex predator of the era.
The study shows that the ancient creature was a stem tetrapod, an early four-legged vertebrate, linking it to the ancestors of modern reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and birds.
“Tetrapods were the animals that crawled out of the water around 380 million years ago, maybe a little earlier,” Pardo told Ars Technica.
Because its fossils were found in an area that was possibly cold and glaciated during the Permian period, the findings contradict the belief that large, cold-blooded animals could only thrive in warm environments.
Pardo noted that the study challenges previous beliefs that such creatures had gone extinct 10s of millions of years earlier due to climate change or competition with more advanced tetrapods.
Meanwhile, the study opens up new possibilities for understanding the diversity and distribution of life in Gondwana during the late Carboniferous and early Permian periods.
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