Australia, Canada, Philippine ships hold drills in tense South China Sea
Manila says exercises with Australia, Canada in flashpoint maritime area demonstrates a ‘commitment’ to defence cooperation with ‘like-minded nations’. Published On 28 Aug 202528 Aug 2025 Australia, Canada and the Philippines have conducted joint exercises off a disputed shoal in the South China Sea claimed by Beijing, deploying three warships and military aircraft in air defence exercises. The Philippine military said on Thursday that the joint naval drills east of the Scarborough Shoal – a flashpoint for confrontations with Chinese vessels – focused on simulations to counter aerial threats “through coordinated defensive measures”. Sailing from a western Philippine province of Palawan, the Philippines’ ship Jose Rizal, Australia’s HMAS Brisbane, and Canada’s HMCS Ville de Quebec participated, the military said, adding that the drills reaffirmed “the Philippines’ commitment to advancing defence cooperation with like-minded nations”. China and the Philippines both claim the Scarborough Shoal and other islands, islets and reefs in the South China Sea, while Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have overlapping claims in the busy waterway. China did not immediately issue any comment on the drills, The Associated Press news agency reports, but Beijing has repeatedly warned that it would defend the shoal and outlying waters, which it claims as its own territory. Video footage and photographs released by the Philippine military showed at least three warplanes taking part in the drills with the three ships, as well as at least one heavy-lift military helicopter. Exercise ALON Naval Forces Forge Stronger Cooperation As Maritime Exercises Conclude Off Bajo De Masinloc The Philippine Navy, together with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy, successfully concluded a multilateral maritime exercise east of Bajo de Masinloc on… pic.twitter.com/l6Pz4ifv1r — Armed Forces of the Philippines (@TeamAFP) August 27, 2025 Advertisement The joint naval drill marked the final activities of the largest military exercises Australia has staged with the Philippines – Exercise ALON 2025 – involving more than 3,600 military personnel taking part in 15 days of live-fire drills and manoeuvres that are due to conclude on Friday. Australian Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Raven was quoted by the Philippines Daily Inquirer as saying the exercises were “the largest airlift of Australian combat forces since the 1999 East Timor mission”, when Australia led a multinational peacekeeping force in response to a security and humanitarian crisis. “This shows we can deploy a combat-ready and combat-capable force within the Indo-Pacific to assist a security partner such as the Philippines,” Raven said, according to the Inquirer. One of the most sensitive areas in the South China Sea, the Scarborough Shoal has been closely guarded by China’s forces, and on August 11 witnessed an accidental collision between a Chinese navy ship and a Chinese coastguard vessel as they tried to block a Philippine coastguard vessel near the shoal. The Reuters news agency reported on Wednesday that the Chinese coastguard ship is now under repair at Hainan Island, the first confirmation that the badly damaged vessel made it back to port after the collision, which was caught on video by the Philippines. Satellite images provided to Reuters by Maxar Technologies show the vessel with a crushed bow flanked by tugs alongside a dry dock at the Yulin naval base near Sanya, a city on Hainan. Chinese officials have not commented on the collision, but Beijing has accused Philippine vessels of conducting “dangerous manoeuvres” without referring directly to the collision. Sovereignty over the Scarborough Shoal has never been established. A landmark 2016 ruling on the South China Sea by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague rejected Beijing’s sweeping claims to the entire maritime region, but the court was not tasked with establishing sovereignty over particular features. The court also ruled China’s blockade of the shoal violated international law and said the area was a traditional fishing ground for several countries. China rejects the ruling and continues to press its territorial claims in the sea backed up by its naval, coastguard and militia vessels. Adblock test (Why?)
How rare earth shortages are stalling India’s burgeoning EV sector
In July, India’s best-selling electric scooter, Bajaj Auto’s Chetak, hit a big speed bump. A shortage of rare-earth metals had hit production plans, and the company was forced to almost halve its output. Bajaj manufactured just 10,824 units of the Chetak in July, as compared with 20,384 units during the same period last year, due to rare earth shortages. “The rare-earth magnet supply situation has been a constraint that created the risk of a sharper production dip in July,” Rakesh Sharma, executive director of Bajaj Auto, told Al Jazeera. The company has since quickly redesigned certain motors to use light rare-earth magnets and has been reworking supply chains so it can cater to its needs, Sharma said. “These changes helped us recover close to half of our planned July output for electric two-wheelers. We expect to reach around 60 percent [of output] during August and September.” The shortage that Bajaj is facing is industry-wide after China introduced restrictions on its rare earth exports on April 4, two days after United States President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on April 2. No shipment has come to India since then, putting automobile and other industries reliant on these metals in jeopardy. Vigneshwar Chittur Selvakumar, president of the Federation of Automobile Dealers Association (FADA) that counts about 15,000 automobile retailers across the country as its members, says he is “deeply concerned” about how the shortages of these metals “might have a drastic impact on the automobile sector”. Advertisement “We control around 80 percent sales of the vehicles, and any dip in production will affect our business badly,” Vigneshwar said. Rare-earth metals refer to a combination of 17 metallic elements, including dysprosium, terbium, europium, samarium, and gadolinium, that are found in abundance in China, which has the world’s largest reserves of rare-earth elements, estimated at 44 million tonnes, and dominates 90 percent of rare-earth elements processing capacity. Apart from EVs, the metals are also used in smartphones, computer screens, and other electronic devices. They are also essential for defence equipment like radar and guidance systems, as well as medical machines such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging systems. “The rare-earth elements help in making strong magnets that are used widely in electric vehicles … to maintain a stable magnetic field,” Aman Bir Singh, an EV consultant, told Al Jazeera. “Internal combustion engine (ICE) or hybrid vehicles that run on petrol, diesel and wind turbines also use them, but in a very small quantity, and the current shortage doesn’t impact them as much.” The shortage comes just as India’s EV sector was taking off with sales crossing 2 million for the first time in 2024. This was up 24 percent from 1.6 million vehicle sales in 2023. Two-wheelers lead that with sales of 1.2 million units last year. Sales of electric cars, too, are on the rise, and more than 100,000 electric cars were sold in the financial year ending March 31, 2025. Tesla, too, has joined in and launched its Model Y in the country in July. As a result, the electric car penetration has more than doubled from 1 percent to 2.6 percent during this period, and is expected to cross 7 percent by 2028, according to a July report by CareEdge Analytics & Advisory. Sales of electric cars have started picking up in India, but businesses are concerned the current rare earth shortages might drive potential customers away [File: Rafiq Maqbool/AP] Several EV companies, however, have refrained from speaking on the rare earth crisis. “The industry is still in a fledgling state and companies fear that they might lose customers and also their share value if they concede to rare earth shortage as the potential buyers might be too apprehensive to purchase the vehicles,” said Nilanjan Banik, an economics professor at Mahindra University. The shortage has also affected the television industry, where rare-earth magnets are critical in television manufacturing, particularly for speakers, due to their superior performance and compact size. Advertisement “As the country remains heavily reliant on imports for these components, this presents a clear challenge,” said Arjun Bajaj, director of Videotex – television manufacturers for various reputed brands. “We currently have adequate stocks for the current season, but our focus is also to find an alternative solution, and the industry is actively exploring alternatives like ferrite magnets, though matching the performance of rare-earth magnets will require continued research and technological upgrades,” he added. Relief for India On August 19, China announced it would ease export restrictions on fertilisers, rare earths, and tunnel-boring machines to India after talks with Indian foreign minister S Jaishankar in Beijing. Experts, however, called this a “tactical gesture”. India’s trade deficit with China hit a record $100bn in the last financial year. Beijing has also openly backed India’s archenemy Pakistan in a recent clash between New Delhi and Islamabad in May, a reminder that India’s dependence on China can be risky for it. “India’s dependence on China gives [the latter] significant leverage during crises,” pointed out Ajay Srivastava, the founder of Global Research Trade Initiative (GTRI), a trade research group. “China now supplies over 70 percent of India’s needs in several critical areas. Everyday products like laptops (80.5 percent) and flat panel displays (86 percent) are also dominated by Chinese imports. At the same time, India’s share in bilateral trade has collapsed to just 11.2 percent from 42.3 percent two decades ago, exposing the fragility of supply chains. The easing of rare earth supply is just a tactical gesture and nothing beyond,” Srivastava said. India holds the fifth-largest rare-earth elements with 8.52 million tonnes, but contributes less than 1 percent of the global rare-earth mining as it faces stiff challenges with limited infrastructure, technological issues and regulatory hurdles and environmental concerns. Vishwas Dass, a Delhi-based policy expert, told Al Jazeera that the current disruption must be used to accelerate domestic exploration and offer incentives for refining capabilities, and forging mineral alliances with trusted nations. The Geological Survey of India (GSI) has already started exploration in the states
US auditing Chinese involvement in cloud services, defence chief says
Pete Hegseth orders review after revelations Microsoft used Chinese contractors to manage sensitive cloud services. Published On 28 Aug 202528 Aug 2025 The United States has launched a review of Chinese nationals’ involvement in managing sensitive cloud services for the US military, Washington’s defence chief has said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that he had ordered an audit of Microsoft’s use of Chinese citizens to help manage sensitive cloud services to determine if any security breaches had occurred. “The use of Chinese nationals to service Department of Defense cloud environments – it’s over,” Hegseth said in a video statement. “We’ve issued a formal letter of concern to Microsoft documenting this breach of trust, and we’re requiring a third-party audit of Microsoft’s digital escort programme, including the code and the submissions by Chinese nationals.” “Did they put anything in the code that we didn’t know about? We are going to find out,” Hegseth added. Hegseth said he had also directed software providers to identify and end “any Chinese involvement in DOD systems”. Hegseth’s order comes after an investigative report by ProPublica in July documented Microsoft’s employment of contractors in China and other foreign countries to maintain the Defense Department’s cloud systems in conjunction with US-based “digital escorts”. Following the report, Microsoft announced that it would no longer use China-based technicians to support the military. Hegseth, who announced an immediate review of China’s involvement in cloud services following the ProPublica report, said excluding Chinese nationals from sensitive systems was “common sense”. Advertisement “We expect vendors doing business with the Department of Defense to protect US national security ahead of profit maximisation,” he said. Adblock test (Why?)
Why appearances can be deceiving at Gaza City food market
[unable to retrieve full-text content] Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reports, many products for sale are not nutritious enough for Gaza’s population.
This is the work of 5 journalists killed at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital
NewsFeed The five journalists killed in an Israeli attack on the Nasser Hospital had documented the relentless destruction of Gaza. Despite the risks, they continued reporting the impact of the war on Gaza’s people. Here we highlight some of their work. Published On 27 Aug 202527 Aug 2025 Adblock test (Why?)
The Cost of Control
With rare access to El Salvador’s most secure prisons, we explore the dark side of President Bukele’s gang crackdown. President Nayib Bukele introduced a state of emergency in El Salvador, using it to dismantle the violent gangs that had terrorised the Central American country for decades. Thousands of alleged gang members have been rounded up and locked away, many of them in CECOT, a huge, purpose-built high-security prison. The streets are now safe, but at what cost? Government forces are accused of arbitrarily detaining innocent people without trial or even charge, and in some cases, of violence and torture. People & Power gained rare access to two of El Salvador’s maximum-security prisons, looking behind the scenes of Bukele’s bid to bust the gangs. Published On 27 Aug 202527 Aug 2025 Adblock test (Why?)
Trump loyalist who pushed false election claims takes on government role
The administration of United States President Donald Trump has installed a right-wing researcher who pushed false claims about the 2020 election to a position in charge of election oversight. As of Tuesday, a leadership chart for the Department of Homeland Security shows Pennsylvania activist Heather Honey serving as the deputy assistant secretary for election integrity in the Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans. Honey’s appointment was first reported by the investigative news outlet Democracy Docket on Monday. Her position has raised eyebrows among critics of the Trump administration due to her involvement in several efforts that resulted in misleading research about the 2020 presidential race. Trump has pushed the false claim that his loss in the 2020 election was the result of massive fraud, and he has consistently refused to admit defeat. Since returning to the White House for a second term in January, he has placed loyalists in positions of power, raising fears about the independence of certain offices. He has also used his false claims of fraudulent elections to place pressure on the country’s electoral system, which is administered largely by state and local officials. Critics have warned that overtly partisan appointments to posts overseeing elections could diminish confidence in the voting process. “What I’m concerned about is that it seems like DHS [Department of Homeland Security] is being poised to use the vast power and megaphone of the federal government to spread disinformation rather than combat it,” David Becker, the executive director of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, told The Associated Press news agency. Advertisement “It’s going to really harm DHS’s credibility overall.” Who is Heather Honey? Honey’s appointment in particular has prompted election experts and local officials to speak out, given her prominent role in spreading misinformation about the 2020 election. For instance, Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s secretary of state and a Democrat, told the news outlet ProPublica in a statement that Honey has a “well-documented history of spreading election lies”. Honey leads a consulting firm called Haystack Investigations, which was involved in election “audits”, which experts consider flawed, as well as another organisation called Verity Votes, which also purports to conduct election research. Trump and his supporters have drawn on some of her firms’ conclusions in their efforts to undermine the 2020 election results. In the key swing state of Pennsylvania, for instance, Honey’s group misrepresented incomplete voter data to falsely allege that the state had more votes than voters in 2020. Two years later, in 2022, Verity Vote claimed that Pennsylvania sent mail-in ballots to voters who failed to provide appropriate identification. State officials, however, accused Verity Vote of misrepresenting the “not verified” designation in its voting system. In public statements, the Pennsylvania Department of State explained that it uses the “not verified” tag to signal to local officials that a voter’s identification needs to be verified. The designation is a “security feature” for voter applications, it said – not an indication that voters could submit ballots without proper ID. Trump narrowly lost Pennsylvania in the 2020 election, with Democrat Joe Biden edging him out by less than 1 percent. In Arizona, another critical battleground swing state that Trump lost in 2020, Honey participated in a partisan audit of election results in Maricopa County, a populous area containing the city of Phoenix. Despite searching for fraud for nearly six months, the audit turned up no evidence that the outcome in Biden’s favour was erroneous. Still, experts say that audit was filled with errors and biased methodology. In the years since, former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, told The Associated Press that he had received dozens of public records requests related to elections from Honey. Richer served in the role from 2021 to 2025, and said that such requests occupied “scores of hours of staff time”. He told The Associated Press he was surprised to hear Honey was in a position of such “authority and responsibility” and said that she was “not a serious auditor”. Advertisement Honey is not the first Trump official to face public scrutiny for her role in his administration. Other appointees, like Emil Bove, have faced intense public questions about whether they would prioritise their loyalty to Trump over their commitment to government ethics. Since his victory in the 2024 election, Trump has also opened investigations into critics and officials who probed his false claims about the 2020 election. He has said he will do away with things like mail-in ballots and voting machines, demands shared by others who push anti-election conspiracies on the US right. Adblock test (Why?)
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,280
Here are the key events on day 1,280 of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Here is how things stand on Wednesday, August 27: Fighting Russian attacks killed one person and injured six in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Governor Vadym Filashkin said. One worker was killed and six others were injured in a Russian attack on a Ukrainian mine, according to the energy company DTEK, which said the attack damaged buildings and caused a power outage. “At that time, 146 miners were underground, and their ascent to the surface is ongoing,” the company said. Ukrainian attacks killed one person and injured three others in the Russian-occupied Kherson region of Ukraine, the Moscow-appointed Governor Vladimir Saldo said. Russian forces occupied Zaporizke and Novoheorhiivka, in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, the Ukrainian battlefield monitoring group DeepState has reported. Russian forces also advanced near the Ukrainian settlements of Shevchenko, Bila Hora, and Oleksandr-Shultyno, according to DeepState. Russian air defences shot down 191 Ukrainian drones, six guided aerial bombs, and a long-range guided missile in one day, Russia’s state TASS news agency reports. Ukrainian men aged 18 to 22 are now permitted to cross Ukraine’s borders freely in either direction despite the continuing imposition of martial law, which had previously prevented such movement, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office told the Ukrainska Pravda news site that more than 200,000 cases have been opened into soldiers who were absent without leave (AWOL), including some 50,000 investigated for desertion. Advertisement Peace talks United States President Donald Trump said he is prepared to impose economic sanctions against Russia if its leader, Vladimir Putin, fails to agree to a peace deal in Ukraine: “We want to have an end. We have economic sanctions. I’m talking about economic because we’re not going to get into a world war.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged governments to work quickly on creating security guarantees for Ukraine in the event of a peace deal with Russia, saying: “We must intensify our work to the maximum and ensure clarity and transparency in everything related to security guarantees”. The US may provide intelligence assets and battlefield oversight to assist Western powers in the provision of security guarantees for post-war Ukraine, as well as take part in a European-led air defence shield for the country, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed European and Ukrainian officials. Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, and Kyiv’s national security council chief, Rustem Umerov, met with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani in Doha, where they had a “substantive conversation” on topics including “the details of security guarantees for Ukraine”, Yermak wrote on X. Exxon Mobil and the Russian energy company Rosneft secretly discussed resuming work on the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas producing project, on Russia’s Pacific coast, if Moscow and Washington give their approval as part of a Ukraine peace process, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the secret discussions. Politics and diplomacy Polish President Karol Nawrocki’s decision to veto a bill on aid to Ukrainian refugees in his country could cost Poland’s economy 8 billion zlotys ($2.20bn), in part because thousands of Ukrainians would lose the right to legal employment, Poland’s Ministry of the Interior said. Adblock test (Why?)
US envoy prompts outrage in Lebanon after telling media to ‘act civilised’
Tom Barrack’s remarks to journalists trigger calls for an apology and media boycott. A top US diplomat has triggered outrage and calls for an apology in Lebanon after telling a group of local journalists to “act civilised”. Tom Barrack, the United States ambassador to Turkiye and the special envoy for Syria, made the comments on Tuesday after meeting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in Beirut to discuss plans for the disarmament of Hezbollah. Briefing local media after the meeting, Barrack, who is of Lebanese descent, chided reporters for shouting out questions all at once, and appeared to draw a link between their behaviour and conflict in the Middle East. “We’re going to have a different set of rules… please be quiet for a moment,” Barrack said. “And I want to tell you something, the moment this starts becoming chaotic, like animalistic, we’re gone. So, you want to know what’s happening? Act civilised, act kind, act tolerant, because this is the problem with what is happening in the region.” “In cadence with your kindness, your interest and your thoughtful questions, we’ll give you responses,” Barrack added. “If that’s not how you’d like to operate, we’re gone.” Barrack’s remarks prompted a swift backlash in Lebanon and farther afield, with commentators accusing the diplomat of displaying arrogance and a colonial mentality. The Lebanese Presidency expressed regret over the comments, saying in a statement on X that the government has “full appreciation for all journalists” and “extends to them its highest regards for their efforts and dedication in fulfilling their professional and national duties”. Advertisement The Union of Journalists in Lebanon called on Lebanese and Arab media outlets to boycott future events involving the envoy until he issues a formal public apology. “The union considers Barrack’s comments against journalists not as a mere slip of the tongue or an individual stance, but rather as a reflection of an unacceptable superiority in dealing with the media and an implicit disdain for the essence of journalistic work,” the media union said in a statement. “Furthermore, the content of his remarks reflects ingrained colonial arrogance towards the peoples of the region and constitutes a blatant violation of basic diplomatic etiquette and the values that diplomacy should represent – chief among them respect for press freedom and the people’s right to knowledge.” Speaking to Al Jazeera, Mohamad Hasan Sweidan, a Beirut-based columnist at The Cradle, said Barrack’s comments reflected Washington’s attitude towards the region. “Today, Tom Barrack is reminding us how they view people of the region by defining their actions as animalistic,” Sweidan said. The US Department of State did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Adblock test (Why?)
Qatar says Israel hasn’t responded to Gaza ceasefire proposal
NewsFeed Qatar says Israel hasn’t responded to a Gaza ceasefire proposal which has already been agreed to by Hamas, despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying last week that he was pushing for ‘immediate negotiations’. Published On 26 Aug 202526 Aug 2025 Adblock test (Why?)