Trump may not be a fan of clean energy but Iran war is accelerating global shift from oil and gas | Heather Stewart

Operation Epic Fury has thus far achieved none of Donald Trump’s war aims, but it may well accelerate the global transition towards the clean energy he loves to hate. Last week brought... Read more »

Netizen Voices on MSS Claim That Foreign Forces Are Funding Chinese Slackers: “If Everyone Slacked Off, Who’d Be Left To Exploit?”

In an article published to its official WeChat account on Tuesday, the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) accused unnamed “foreign organizations” of trying to brainwash Chinese youth into “lying flat” (also... Read more »

‘Temu Range Rover’: what the bestselling Jaecoo 7 says about China’s electric car ascendancy | Automotive industry

The UK is no stranger to foreign cars. The bestseller lists in recent years have been dominated by the US’s Ford Puma, Japan’s Nissan Qashqai, Korea’s Kia Sportage and occasionally even Tesla’s... Read more »

UK Biobank has my data, but I’m not worried. I know the benefits are too great to consider pulling out | Polly Toynbee

One thing Britain is exceptionally good at is collecting and using health data for research, studying cohorts of people over many decades. A shudder of alarm rippled through the research world at... Read more »

Student’s alleged jailing in China over Australian pro-democracy protests sparks calls for inquiry | Australian universities

Australia’s human rights commissioner has said the Chinese student who was allegedly jailed for six years by Chinese authorities for joining protests in Sydney underscores the “very real and growing risks of... Read more »

More private health records of UK Biobank volunteers appear on Chinese website | Data protection

There have been further listings of confidential health records of UK volunteers on the Chinese website Alibaba since the breach reported last week, and the government is braced for further leaks, the... Read more »

China’s New Supply Chain Security Rules Raise the Risks for Foreign Companies

On April 7, 2026, China turned supply chain decisions into national security decisions. The regulations took effect the same day. No transition period. These regulations, issued as State Council Order No. 834,... Read more »

Translation: “Why Do Urban Chinese Have So Many Misconceptions About the Countryside?” (Part One)

Despite huge leaps in recent decades, rural living standards remain an issue of widespread popular concern in China. A heating crisis in Hebei last winter, for example, became the focus of intense... Read more »

EU faces ‘China shock’ as EV imports drive Beijing’s record surplus with bloc | European Union

The EU is experiencing a prolonged “China shock” as a flood of Chinese EVs into Europe helped push Beijing to a record surplus with the bloc. New data showed China’s trade surplus... Read more »

Beyond the “Ching Chong” Controversy: The “Pocket Asian” in The Devil Wears Prada 2

Subscribe to support this work. If you aren’t subscribed yet, you can also join our Substack channel (same content) and redeem a single-use unlock for paywalled posts. The Devil Wears Prada 2... Read more »