Zhang Shengmin heads anti-corruption efforts in the army and is seen as a trusted loyalist of President Xi
The Chinese Communist Party has named a veteran who has overseen anti-corruption efforts in the military to be the country's second highest ranking general, just days after nine generals were expelled in a major purge.
The appointment of Zhang Shengmin as second-ranked vice chairman of the Central Military Commission was announced at the end of a four-day Central Committee meeting.
Zhang becomes the third highest official in the country's top military body, after the first-ranked vice chairman and President Xi Jinping.
The nine expelled generals were suspected of serious financial crimes, China's defence ministry said last week. However, analysts said it could also be seen as a political purge.
Their removal marked one of the Chinese Communist Party's largest public crackdowns on the military in decades.
For months, the Central Military Commission has signalled that it would conduct a crackdown. In July, it issued new guidelines calling for the elimination of "toxic influence" in the military and listing out "iron rules" for cadres.
Following his promotion Zhang, 67, will serve with another more senior vice chair, Zhang Youxia, on the Central Military Commission.
He is a general from the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force and has been serving as deputy secretary of the Central Military Commission's anti-corruption arm.
He comes from the central province of Shaanxi and joined the army in 1978.
Getty Images
The appointment comes after one of the Chinese Communist Party's largest public crackdowns on the military in decades.
During the four-day meeting that ended Thursday, the party's Central Committee also approved a new five-year-plan – a broad document to guide its priorities.
The plan emphasised "scientific and technological self-reliance", something Chinese tech companies will need if the Trump Administration continues to restrict access to computer chips and advanced software.
The document also called for "accelerating the green transition" and "modernising defence" as well as boosting domestic consumption to make up for lost export revenue, during a time of geopolitical uncertainty.
As a pediatrician, she helped elevate breastfeeding from a medical afterthought to a specialty of its own. As a mother of nine, she practiced what she preached.
Five abuse survivors have written to prime minister Sir Keir Starmer to say they will only continue working with the grooming gang inquiry if Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips keeps her job.
It comes after four different members of the survivors panel quit the inquiry and said they would only rejoin it if Phillips resigned.
The survivors panel, thought to include about 16 women, is playing a central role in setting up the national inquiry into grooming gangs.
But they are at odds over whether it should be expanded to cover other types of child sexual exploitation - and whether they can trust Phillips to lead the process of setting it up. The prime minister has repeatedly backed the minister.
The second group of survivors, headed by Samantha Walker-Roberts, has written to Sir Keir and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood with a list of seven conditions for their continued support.
"Jess Phillips has remained impartial to the process, only listening to feedback [and] we want her to remain in position for the duration of the process for consistency," they wrote.
"Her previous experience and drive to reduce VAWG [violence against women and girls] and her clear passion and commitment is important to us."
They praised Phillips, who they said had "devoted her life to hearing and amplifying the voices of women and girls who would otherwise have been unheard" and had helped some of them access support.
Earlier today, the first group called on Phillips to quit in order to restore trust in the inquiry, accusing her of "betrayal" for describing reports the scope of the inquiry could be widened as "untrue".
Headed up by Fiona Goddard, the group of four said they would only re-join it if the minister went, because they had "raised legitimate concerns around the inquiry's direction" but "in response, your safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips called our accounts untrue".
Another survivor, known as Carly, from Huddersfield, told the BBC she wanted to remain part of the inquiry, but she also believes Phillips should go, because "she can't lie about what we all know" around the question of whether to widen the inquiry's scope.
There is disagreement among survivors on whether the focus should be widened, which the BBC understands can be tracked back to an email sent to the panel by NWG, the charity tasked with organising it on behalf of the government.
This email asked survivors if they wanted to keep the the inquiry focused on grooming gangs or if they would like it to be widened out.
Ms Walker-Roberts' group of survivors stressed that this request had not come from Phillips.
"When asked directly in the feedback session, Jess was clear that the focus would be on grooming gangs," they wrote.
"However survivors in the group explained they would be excluded for not fitting the generalised stereotype of what that is and [the inquiry] should focus on CSE (child sexual exploitation]."
On how to reconcile the differences between the two groups of survivors, they suggested "the panel should be smaller" and there should be "no re-entry to the panel after you have forfeited your position".
Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to read top political analysis, gain insight from across the UK and stay up to speed with the big moments. It'll be delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Ghetts pictured at the Ivor Novello Awards earlier this year
The rapper Ghetts has been charged with causing serious injury by dangerous driving after a fatal crash in north-east London.
The musician, whose real name is Justin Clarke-Samuel, allegedly failed to stop after hitting a 20-year-old man in Redbridge Lane East, Ilford, on Saturday, 18 October, the Met Police said.
Mr Clarke-Samuel, 41, appeared at Stratford Magistrates' Court on Monday, the same day the man died in hospital. The indictment is expected to change from causing serious injury to causing death by dangerous driving at the next hearing.
The rapper, from Woodford Green, was remanded into custody and is due to appear at Barkingside Magistrates' Court on Monday, 27 October.
Mobo Pioneer Award
Police are appealing for witnesses to the crash to come forward.
Ghetts is a Mercury Prize-nominated grime MC, rapper and songwriter who has had high-profile musical collaborations with major acts including Stormzy, Ed Sheeran and Skepta.
Graham Platner is shaking up his campaign amid a swirl of controversy, bringing in a longtime friend to function as his Maine Senate campaign’s new manager, hiring a compliance firm and sending non-disclosure agreements to staffers.
Kevin Brown — who became the campaign manager this week and whose past campaign work includes the presidential bids of Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama, though he has not worked in Maine — is only one of the changes. The campaign has also brought on an in-house attorney, as well as compliance firm Spruce Street Consulting, which has ties to a constellation of buzzy progressives including Zohran Mamdani.
Amid fallout from Platner’s controversial years-old social media posts, his campaign began sending non-disclosure agreements to staffers last week, according to his former top political director, Genevieve McDonald, who said she declined to sign one.
“The campaign offered me $15,000 to sign a NDA,” McDonald told POLITICO in an interview. “I did not accept the offer. I certainly could have used the money. I quit my job to work on Platner’s campaign, believing it was something different than it is.”
A statement from the campaign referred to the $15,000 offer as standard severance. A Platner campaign spokesperson said the team recently hired Spruce Street “to take over campaign compliance to institute standard practices that had yet to be put into place. Some of those standards had to be instituted retroactively but as a matter of course we do not require anyone previously involved in the campaign to do so. Genevieve McDonald was offered severance which is standard for all campaign employees and contractors.”
The moves to salvage a campaign months after its launch underscore how fast Platner took off and how imperiled he finds himself, in a crucial state for Democrats in their uphill quest to retake the Senate. Platner burst onto the scene with viral videos as a kind of progressive warrior poet, campaigning for Mainers’ “freedom to live a life of dignity and joy.” But his promising bid has been beset by negative stories about his past over the last week, shortly after Gov. Janet Mills, favored by national Democrats to take on Sen. Susan Collins, entered the primary.
Revelations of the staffing changes and non-disclosure agreements — which have not been previously — come as Platner’s campaign is in damage control. On Wednesday, the candidate confirmed to The Advocatethat his Reddit posts included “homophobic slurs, anti-LGBTQ+ jokes, and sexually explicit stories denigrating gay men.”
That follows Platner expressing regret over getting a Nazi symbol tattooed on his chest 20 years ago, along with previously unearthed offensive Reddit posts, including one from 2013 downplaying sexual assault in the military and another since-deleted 2018 one suggesting violence is necessary to enact social change. Platner has apologized for the posts and said they do not represent his growth in recent years.
Brown, the new campaign manager, declined to comment on the record.
The non-disclosure agreement first circulated among the Senate Democratic hopeful’s campaign in the hours after he came under fire for those Reddit posts last week.
The paperwork — sent electronically by a campaign contractor Sunday to McDonald, who resigned two days earlier — was voided by the campaign at 7:04 p.m. Wednesday, several days after she had already resigned and hours after POLITICO requested comment from the campaign on its use of NDAs.
The NDA — titled "Graham for Maine NDA.pdf” — was sent by Victoria Perrone, a political compliance expert and Spruce Street’s president and founder. Peronne, reached by phone, confirmed Platner was a client but would not comment further.
McDonald said she understood the financial offer to be conditional on her signing the NDA. She provided a screenshot of a text message from Perrone suggesting Monday that if McDonald could "get it back to me before the end of the day, I can get your payments out the door."
McDonald said that Daniel Moraff, who ran Nebraska Senate candidate Dan Osborn’s 2024 campaign, functioned as the de facto campaign manager prior to Brown’s arrival this week. In a brief phone call, Moraff said he was never officially Platner’s campaign manager.
McDonald resigned last week, citing Platner’s past posts.
“Either they didn't thoroughly vet him or they didn't think the things they found would be a problem,” McDonald said in an interview. “Either way, that was a poor calculus. You cannot say things like rural Mainers are ‘racist’ and ‘stupid’ or you're a radicalized communist at 37, play them off as 'you were a young man’ and remain a serious contender against Susan Collins. This was four years ago.”
A Platner campaign representative called McDonald a “disgruntled former employee” to the Bangor Daily News, before voiding her NDA offer.
It remains unclear whether the controversy surrounding Platner’s past will present a long-term drag on his campaign in this anything-goes era of politics for both parties.
A poll conducted over the past week — as some of Platner’s Reddit controversies were making news — and released Thursday by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center found Platner leading Mills in a primary matchup, 58 percent to 24 percent among first choices for Maine’s ranked-choice voting system, with remaining voters preferring other candidates or undecided.
The poll was largely conducted after the first revelations about Platner’s social media history had emerged, but before news of his tattoo. It found both him and Mills with positive favorability numbers among likely Democratic primary voters, with Platner’s advantage driven by younger voters.
Will the Trump administration offer a financial bailout if the A.I. bubble bursts? Jason Furman, a contributing Opinion writer and an economist at the Harvard Kennedy School, explains what President Trump’s investments tell us about his priorities in the event of a crash.
Are we living through an A.I. bubble? Or is it all just vibes? Jason Furman, a contributing Opinion writer and an economist at the Harvard Kennedy School, tells Ross Douthat that while it’s hard to put a number on it, “there’s something enormous going on here.”
Can the U.S. economy thrive without a steady stream of immigration? This week on “Interesting Times,” Jason Furman, a contributing Times Opinion writer and an economist at the Harvard Kennedy School, tells Ross Douthat why he thinks our future “rises and falls with immigration.”
Yes, Trump is assaulting democracy, but what worries me more is what has happened to the rest of us — the loss of the convictions and norms that undergird democracy.
Yes, Trump is assaulting democracy, but what worries me more is what has happened to the rest of us — the loss of the convictions and norms that undergird democracy.
Kim Kardashian during a meeting at the White House last year. Ms. Kardashian has previously promoted full-body M.R.I. scans, despite doctors warning that these scans may not be useful for every patient.
Ukraine's president has urged the European Union to back a plan to release billions of euros in frozen Russian cash to help fund the country's defence.
As EU leaders met in Brussels, Volodymyr Zelensky said he hoped they would make a "positive decision" about using €140bn (£122bn) in Russian assets currently held in a Belgian clearing house.
The controversial move would would be on top of sanctions the block has imposed on Russia - the latest on Thursday targeting the Kremlin's oil revenues.
They followed US measures against Russia's oil industry earlier - the first time President Donald Trump has sanctioned Moscow as he grows frustrated over President Vladimir Putin's refusal to end the war.
On Wednesday evening, the US president confirmed that a planned meeting with Putin in Budapest had been shelved indefinitely.
"Every time I speak to Vladimir, I have good conversations and then they don't go anywhere," he said.
The US sanctions targeted Russia's oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil.
On Thursday, European ministers held talks about how billions of euros worth of frozen Russian cash could be made available to Ukraine as a so-called "reparations loan".
Zelensky, who is attending the summit in Brussels, said: "I hope that they will make a political decision, positive decision in one or another way to help Ukraine with funds.
"Russia brought war to our land, and they have to pay for this war," he said
There are a number of legal complexities surrounding using Russia's money.
Belgium, in particular, has been reluctant to back using the frozen assets, as it is nervous about having to shoulder any potential consequences should Russia legally challenge Euroclear, the clearing house where the money is located.
EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas admitted there were "some issues" about using the assets for a loan.
But she said: "The fundamental message is Russia is responsible for the damages in Ukraine and has to pay."
Russia has criticised the idea. "Any confiscatory initiatives from Brussels will inevitably result in a painful response," said Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
The EU's latest measures against Russia targeted three Chinese businesses, including two oil refineries and an energy trader, that are "significant buyers of Russian crude oil".
The measures are "meant to deprive Russia of the means to fund this war," said Kallas as well as send a message, specifically that "Russia can't outlast us," she said.
China condemned the decision, which a commerce ministry spokesperson said "seriously undermined the overall framework of China–EU economic and trade co-operation".
Changpeng Zhao, founder of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, has been pardoned by US President Donald Trump.
Mr Zhao, also known as "CZ", was sentenced to four months in prison in April 2024 after pleading guilty to violating US money laundering laws.
Binance was ordered to pay $4.3bn (£3.4bn) after a US investigation found it helped users bypass sanctions.
A White House official confirmed to the BBC Mr Zhao has been pardoned, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Binance has been approached for comment.
The exchange, which is registered in the Cayman Islands, remains the world's most popular platform for buying and selling cryptocurrencies and other digital assets.
According to the WSJ, the company has spent nearly a year pursuing a pardon for its former boss, who completed his four month prison sentence in September 2024.
The move comes amid the Trump administration's adoption of a more friendly stance towards cryptocurrency.
The President has vowed to make the US the "crypto capital" of the world and made his own mark in the digital currency landscape by releasing his own coin shortly ahead of his inauguration in January.
Since then, he has sought to establish a national cryptocurrency reserve and pushed for making it easier for Americans to use retirement savings to invest in them.
Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings became first lady in June 1979
Ghana's former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings has died at the age of 76.
She was the widow of Ghana's longest-serving leader, Jerry John Rawlings, who died five years ago.
He led two coups before twice being elected president in multiparty polls.
Social media is awash with tributes to the former first lady, politician and women's rights advocate, who Ghanaian presidential spokesperson Felix Kwakye Ofosu said had died after a short illness on Thursday morning.
Her family visited President John Mahama in the afternoon to officially notify him of her death. The president leads the National Democratic Congress (NDC) party, founded by Jerry Rawlings after he took power.
Agyeman-Rawlings also had political ambitions - but lost out in her bid to become the NDC's presidential candidate in 2012.
As first lady, she founded the 31st December Women's Movement to empower women and teach them how to earn money to develop their communities. It was named after the date of her husband's second coup, which took place in 1981.
Born in November 1948, Agyeman-Rawlings came from a middle-class family and grew up in the city of Cape Coast.
She met her future husband when she became a boarder at the prestigious Achimota School in the capital, Accra.
Unlike her husband, she went on to get a university education, studying art and textiles.
Jerry Rawlings joined the air force and earned the rank of flight lieutenant in 1978 - a year after the couple were married.
It was not long afterwards that Rawlings, aged 32, took power, with his wife said to be an important adviser to him.
Young, glamourous and charismatic, they proved a dynamic if controversial duo in the West African nation.
The former first lady's women's group, initially regarded as an arm of the NDC, is credited with significantly helping women across the country - especially in poorer areas.
Her advocacy also influenced national policy and she played a key role in shaping a law in 1989 that guaranteed inheritance rights for women and children.
She is also credited with contributing to provisions for gender equality in Ghana's 1992 constitution, which saw the return of multiparty politics.
Ghana's parliament has adjourned to mark the former first lady's death as the country prepares to officially mourn one of its most iconic political figures and one who fought for the inclusion of women in politics.
AFP/Getty Images
In 1999 the Ghanaian first couple joined their US counterparts - Bill and Hillary Clinton - at the White House for a state dinner
The Winter Paralympics take place from 6-15 March with about 600 athletes competing in 79 medal events across six sports
Published
Russian and Belarusian para-athletes will not be at the 2026 Winter Paralympics, despite the International Paralympic Committee lifting its ban on them.
Although the IPC oversees the Games, there are four separate governing bodies in charge of the six sports taking place in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo.
Three of the governing bodies have decided to keep their bans on athletes from the two countries, and although Russia and Belarus are now allowed to compete in ice hockey, the decision came too late for them to take part in qualifying.
Both countries were suspended from Paralympic competition after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with Belarus a close ally of Russia.
A partial ban - allowing athletes to compete as neutrals - was introduced in 2023.
IPC members then voted to lift the suspensions on the two countries at a meeting last month, allowing para-athletes from Russia and Belarus to compete under their own flags.
However, the four international federations have now told the IPC "that, in practice, no athletes from the two nations are likely to qualify for March's Games".
The International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS), International Biathlon Union (IBU) and World Curling have not lifted their bans, while World Para Ice Hockey has already decided which countries will enter the qualifying tournament for the two remaining places at the Games.
"In the same way that the IPC fully respects the decision of the IPC General Assembly not to maintain the partial suspensions of NPC Belarus and NPC Russia, we also fully respect the decisions of each international federation regarding the sports they govern," said IPC president Andrew Parsons.
"The positions of FIS, IBU and World Curling currently mean that athletes and teams from Belarus and Russia cannot compete in their events, making it impossible for them to qualify for the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games.
"While Belarus and Russia can now compete in Para ice hockey competitions, at this late stage of the qualification cycle, the six teams for November's Paralympic Games qualification tournament have already been determined.
"I hope the focus will now be very much on the outstanding athletes and NPCs that will compete at Milano Cortina 2026 next March, as well as the tremendous transformational legacies the Paralympic Winter Games will create."
Sputnik/Alexander Kazakov/Pool via Reuters and Reuters
One week ago I had the distinct feeling it was Groundhog Day, or as the Russians call it, Dyen Surka.
Amid US threats to pressure Moscow - by supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine - Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump held a telephone call. The result: the announcement of a US-Russia summit in Budapest.
Last August, amid threats of additional US sanctions against Russia, Putin met Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff. The result: the announcement of a US-Russia summit in Alaska.
Déjà vu.
But Groundhog Day seems to be over.
The Alaska meeting went ahead, with minimal preparation and little result.
But the Budapest summit is off. It barely had time to be "on", to be fair. Now President Trump has cancelled it.
"It didn't feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get," the US president told reporters.
And that's not all.
Previously, Trump had not followed through on threats of more pressure on Russia, preferring carrots to sticks in his dealings with the Kremlin.
For the moment he has put his carrots away.
Instead he's imposed sanctions on two major Russian oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil.
That's unlikely to force a U-turn on the war from President Putin. But it's a sign of Trump's frustration with the Kremlin's unwillingness to make any compromise or concessions to end the fighting in Ukraine.
"The USA is our enemy and their talkative 'peacemaker' has now fully set on the path to war with Russia," wrote former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on social media. "The decisions that have been taken are an act of war against Russia."
Thursday morning's edition of the tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets was slightly less dramatic, but obviously unflattering. The paper criticised "the capriciousness and fickleness of [Russia's] main negotiating partner."
So what's changed?
Instead of rushing off to summit no.2, as he had done for summit no.1, this time around President Trump was slightly more cautious.
He had asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio to lay the groundwork for the summit with the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov; to make sure there was a point in decamping to Budapest.
It soon became clear that there wasn't, and that a new summit now was unlikely to produce a breakthrough.
Russia is fiercely opposed to Donald Trump's idea of freezing the current battle lines in Ukraine.
The Kremlin is determined to take control, at the very least, of the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. It has seized and occupied much of it.
But President Volodymyr Zelensky is refusing to cede to Russia those parts of the Donbas that Ukraine still controls.
Reuters
Members of Russia's National Guard patrol Red Square near St. Basil's Cathedral in central Moscow on 23 October
Moscow would have welcomed a second US-Russia summit.
The first, in Alaska, was a diplomatic and political coup for the Kremlin. The red-carpet welcome in Anchorage for President Putin symbolised Russia's return to the international stage and the West's failure to isolate Moscow.
Over the last week Russian state media have been savouring the idea of a summit with President Trump in Europe, but without the European Union at the table. Russian commentators portrayed the proposed meeting in Budapest as a slap in the face for Brussels.
At the same time, few here seemed to believe that, even if it went ahead, the Budapest summit would produce the kind of result Moscow wanted.
Some Russian newspapers have been calling for the Russian army to continue fighting.
"There isn't a single reason Moscow should agree to a ceasefire," declared Moskovsky Komsomolets yesterday.
That doesn't mean the Kremlin doesn't want peace.
It does. But only on its terms. And right now those are unacceptable to Kyiv and, it would appear, to Washington.
Those terms involve more than just territory. Moscow is demanding that what it calls the "root causes" of the Ukraine war be addressed: an all-encompassing phrase with which Russia broaden its demands to include a halt to Nato enlargement eastwards.
Moscow is also widely believed to retain the goal of forcing Ukraine back into Russia's orbit.
Is Donald Trump ready to increase the pressure on Russia even more?
Possibly.
But it's also possible we may wake up one morning and find ourselves back in Groundhog Day.
"In the game of Trump tug-of-war, Russia is leading again," wrote Moskovsky Komsomolets after the Budapest summit had been announced.
"In the couple of weeks before the meeting in Budapest, Trump will be pulled in the opposite direction by telephone calls and visits from Europe. Then Putin will pull him back to our side again."
Login
