The economy and consumption slow down in the middle of the communist plenum

Today’s news: No hope of finding alive the 55 passengers missing in the landslide that swept away their buses in Nepal. An alliance of minority groups agrees a four-day truce with the Burmese army in Shan State. Islamabad reaches an agreement with the IMF on a 7 billion loan. Kuwait announces the discovery of a huge new oil field.

CHINA

The Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party It meets today – for the third time since his election in 2022 – to discuss how to get the world’s second-largest economy out of the post-Covid crisis and reduce dependence on American technology. A four-day meeting behind closed doors, chaired by Xi Jinping and focused on the review of the tax system, debt reduction, the housing crisis and domestic consumption. Today, official figures from Beijing confirm the difficulties of the Chinese economy:In the second quarter of the year, growth was 4.7%, below expectations, while retail sales – a key indicator of consumption – plummeted to 2% in June, compared to 3.7% in May.

NEPAL

Rescue teams have ruled out the possibility of finding survivors in the July 12 landslide that dragged Two buses carrying 65 people were swept away by a river overflowing due to heavy rains. Seventy-two hours after the accident, which occurred in the district of Chitwan, about 86 km west of the capital, Kathmandu, 55 passengers are still missing and seven bodies have been found.

IRAQ

Iraqi authorities removed the remains of 139 people from a large Common pit The Alo Antar mass grave, a natural formation in the desert turned into a cemetery by the jihadists, is located in Tal Afar, about 70 kilometres west of Mosul (north). The exact number of bodies dumped in the mass grave is not yet known.

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. Intense fighting has been taking place in the area since late June, when the Three Brotherhoods Alliance relaunched its offensive against the army along the Yunnan Highway in China.

PAKISTAN

Islamabad reached an agreement on a new loan $7 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In exchange for the 37-month loan (the 24th in 60 years), which the country needs to sustain the economy, the government has agreed to implement more unpopular reforms. The aim is to help the executive cement macroeconomic stability.

KUWAIT

Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) announces the discovery of a “gigantic” Oilfield 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 estimated initial surface area of ​​the newly discovered oil well is about 96 square kilometers.

JAPAN – RUSSIA – NORTH KOREA

The Japanese Ministry of Defence has confirmed the accusations already made by the United States against North Korea and Russia. The two countries, which are increasingly close to each other, are allegedly working on a joint project for biological assault weapons, breaking all international conventions on bacteriological and toxic weapons, with chemical weapons “already present for some time” in Pyongyang’s arsenal.

UZBEKISTAN – Türkiye

At the initiative of the Senate and several ministries in Tashkent, a delegation from Uzbekistan travelled to several cities in Turkey to defend migrant women from slavery and abuse, focusing in particular on the legal status of 255 women. At least 34 women were released from the Silivri deportation camp and returned to their homes.