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Heavy rainfall in Guangdong causes flooding, landslides and mudslides, while northern China gripped by heatwave
Guangdong province in southern China has once more experienced severe flooding, two months after the late April floods and landslides led to more than 50 deaths.
On Sunday 16 June, heavy rainfall affected the area, with an average of 199mm falling in Pingyuan county. The town of Sishui experienced the highest rainfall totals of 367mm, with three others in the area recording more than 300mm.

Freddie Mac found that over the past 20 years, the homeownership gap between the AANHPI population and whites closed by 6 percentage points.

GeoGPT developed as part of Chinese-funded earth sciences programme aimed at researchers in global south
Geologists have raised concerns about potential Chinese censorship and bias in a chatbot being developed with the backing of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), one of the world’s largest scientific organisations and a Unesco partner.
The GeoGPT chatbot is aimed at geoscientists and researchers, particularly in the global south, to help them develop their understanding of earth sciences by drawing on swaths of data and research on billions of years of the planet’s history.

My poems were written in anger after Tiananmen Square. But what motivates most prison writing is a fear of forgetting. Today I am free, but the regime has never stopped its war on words. By Liao Yiwu

Robert O’Brien explains his outline to sever US-China economic ties would only be to send in ‘fighting force’
Donald Trump’s former national security adviser – tipped to play a leading role if the ex-president returns to the White House – backtracked on parts of his proposal to sever US-China economic ties, an aspect of which called for sending the entire US Marine Corps to Asia.
O’Brien, who recently submitted a 5,000-word article outlining his thinking to , explained on Sunday that instead of the “entire US Marine Corps”, it would be only the “fighting force”. And he said some Marines would still be stationed at bases like California’s Camp Pendleton and North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune.

Make no mistake: Wireless routers with security vulnerabilities, especially those developed by Chinese companies, threaten the safety of every American. Thankfully, momentum is growing in Congress to ...

The Australian government rolled out the red carpet for China’s premier, Li Qiang, last week. And while both countries were keen to signal that relations were positive, protests and an attempt to block the view of an Australian journalist hinted at tensions sitting just beneath the surface.
Jane Lee speaks to Guardian Australia’s foreign affairs and defence correspondent, Daniel Hurst, about the changing ties

A father-and-son journey through China raises sharp questions about identity within and beyond the bounds of the People’s Republic.

The defiant Russia-North Korea friendship pact raises big questions for Washington and Seoul – but also for Beijing
A quarter of a century ago, Vladimir Putin flew to Pyongyang to sign a ­“friendship treaty” with Kim Jong-il that helped revive Russia’s relations with North Korea without obliging the two sides to come to each other’s aid in case of a military attack.
With his visit last week, Putin has in effect gone further into the past, reminiscent of the 1961 security pact that existed under the Soviet Union during the cold war. But today Russia is engaged in a hot war in Ukraine that Putin has made his ­foreign policy priority, and a nuclear North Korea has become a crucial lifeline of munitions for his military.

The pact of pariahs between the Russian leader and North Korea’s unpredictable Kim Jong-un risks destabilising region
Vladimir Putin’s visits to North Korea and Vietnam last week caused great , which was undoubtedly his intention. The Russian president is keen to demonstrate that, notwithstanding the widespread condemnation of his illegal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing diplomatic ostracism and sanctions, he still has international support, and can raise the cost to his opponents of continued backing for Kyiv.
If anyone doubted the extent to which the war in Ukraine has become a truly global issue, here was conclusive proof of its almost universal impact. Putin and North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, signed a that commits each country to provide military assistance to the other “with all means at its disposal” in the event of an attack. The treaty represents a significant boost for Kim’s isolated regime – and for Putin’s efforts, with China, to build up an anti-democratic, anti-western international alliance.

Donald Trump said he wants to automatically give foreign students a green card if they graduate from a college in the U.S.