Beijing: Slowing economy and consumption at centre of communist plenum

Today's news: No chance of finding 55 passengers missing from the landslide that swept away their buses in Nepal;  Alliance of minority groups agree four-day truce with the Burmese army in Shan State; Islamabad reaches agreement with the IMF on a seven billion dollar loan; Kuwait announces the discovery of a huge new oil field.

CHINA
China's Communist Party plenum meets today - for the third time since its election in 2022 - to discuss how to lift the world's second largest economy out of the post-Covid crisis and reduce dependence on US technology. A four-day closed-door meeting, led by Xi Jinping and focusing on reviewing the tax system, debt reduction, the property crisis and domestic consumption. Just today, official figures from Beijing confirm the difficulties of the Chinese economy: growth in the second quarter of the year was 4.7%, lower than expected, while retail sales - a key indicator of consumption - slumped to 2% in June, compared to 3.7% in May.

NEPAL
Rescuers have ruled out the possibility of finding any survivors in the 12 July landslide that swept away two buses carrying 65 people, dragging them into a flooded river from heavy rain. Seventy-two hours after the accident, which occurred in the Chitwan district, about 86 km west of the capital Kathmandu, there are still 55 passengers missing, seven bodies found.

IRAQ
Iraqi authorities removed the remains of 139 people from a large mass grave allegedly containing victims of the Islamic State (IS, formerly Isis). The Alo Antar pit - a natural desert conformation turned into a cemetery by the jihadists - is located in Tal Afar, about 70 kilometres west of Mosul in the north. The exact number of bodies thrown into the pit is not known at the moment,

MYANMAR
An alliance of ethnic minority armed groups agreed yesterday to a four-day ceasefire with the Burmese army in northern Shan State, after weeks of fighting on the ground. Heavy fighting has been going on in the area since late June, when the Three Brotherhood Alliance relaunched its offensive against the military along the road to Yunnan, China.

PAKISTAN
Islamabad reached an agreement on a new seven billion dollar loan with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In exchange for the 37-month loan (the 24th in 60 years), which the country needs to support the economy, the government has committed to implement more unpopular reforms. The aim is to support the executive in cementing macroeconomic stability.

KUWAIT
The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (Kpc) announces the discovery of a 'giant' oil field in the al-Nokhatha field, east of the Kuwaiti island of Failaka, with crude oil reserves estimated at 3.2 billion barrels. The reserves would be equivalent to the country's entire production in three years. The initial estimated area of the newly discovered oil well is about 96 square kilometres.

JAPAN - RUSSIA - NORTH KOREA
The Japanese Ministry of Defence has confirmed the accusations already made by the US against North Korea and Russia. The two countries, ever closer, are allegedly working on a joint biological assault weapons project, breaking all international conventions on bacteriological and toxic weapons, with chemical weapons "already present for some time" in Pyongyang's arsenal.

UZBEKISTAN - TURKEY
On the initiative of the Senate and several ministries in Tashkent, a delegation from Uzbekistan travelled to a number of cities in Turkey to defend migrant women from the slavery and abuse to which they are subjected, dealing in particular with the legal situation of 255 women. At least 34 women were freed from the Silivri deportation camp and brought back home.

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