‘Fantastic leader for NASA': Trump taps Sean Duffy as interim space chief, drops Musk ally Isaacman
04:40
02:49
02:19
02:09
04:30
07:24
02:57
08:58
13:29
09:30
09:41
11:11
04:05
03:10
03:03
08:17
04:16
02:31
02:05
03:12
02:45
05:45
09:07
09:12
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
16 minutes ago
- Indian Express
To further tech manufacturing, India rethinks China blockade
Nearly half a decade ago, India adopted a 'China-out' strategy of sorts, in response to the border clashes in 2020, introduced an anti-Beijing foreign investment policy, and kept Chinese firms out of critical sectors like telecommunications. Now, however, necessitated by changing geopolitical dynamics, following US President Donald Trump's unprecedented onslaught on global trade, and India's own manufacturing ambitions, New Delhi is undertaking a serious rethink on the existing strategy, and is strongly considering particularly easing China-based entities' entry into the country, with some riders. The most recent sign of the thaw came in the form of a recommendation made by the government think tank Niti Aayog, earlier this month, to ease India's foreign direct investment (FDI) rules, which involves government scrutiny into investments made by Chinese firms. Earlier, the Economic Survey 2023-24 had sprung a surprise by advocating attracting investments from Chinese companies to boost exports. India had earlier put restrictions on investments from China through Press Note 3 in April 2020 to curb potential opportunistic takeovers of Indian companies during the Covid-19 pandemic by making a government approval mandatory for all investments from countries sharing a land border with India, including China. It continued to be in force in the wake of national security concerns due to border tensions after the Galwan clash. Early signs of a thaw There have been some signs that India is slowly, but surely, allowing Chinese companies to partner with Indian entities. Dixon Technologies, which is a major Indian electronics assembly company, received approval from the IT Ministry to set up a joint venture with China-based Longcheer. The new company will focus on manufacturing and supplying a wide range of electronics, including smartphones, tablets, true wireless stereo (TWS) devices, smartwatches, AI-powered PCs, automotive electronics, and healthcare devices. Dixon will hold 74 per cent in the JV, and the remaining 26 per cent will be with Longcheer. 'We can not continue to avoid China. The truth is, they make things which we need for our assembly operations, and if we want to go deeper into the supply chain, our companies have to work with Chinese companies,' a senior government official said. The IT Ministry, earlier this year, notified a Rs 23,000 crore policy for electronic components manufacturing, and it is widely anticipated that Indian firms would partner with Chinese entities to participate in the scheme, given the expertise they have. Recently, India also resumed issuance of tourist visas to Chinese nationals as part of a broader effort to repair bilateral ties. Earlier this month, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar travelled to China where he had underlined that 'differences should not become disputes' nor should 'competition ever become conflict' and that while India and China have made good progress in the past nine months towards the normalisation of bilateral relations, they should work to address de-escalation on the border. China out in letter, not in spirit, and some repercussions Of course, while the government managed to keep China out in some sectors like finished smartphones, imports from the country continued, particularly for a number of electronic components, which are crucial for the final assembly process in India, but for which New Delhi has little to no production base. The Indian Express had earlier reported that the financial year 2023-24, India imported electronic components worth over $12 billion from China and $6 billion from Hong Kong, with the two accounting for more than half of total such imports to India – suggesting that the country's growing footprint in electronics manufacturing was not necessarily into reduced reliance on Beijing. In the last five years, electronics imports from China and Hong Kong have far outnumbered imports from other major manufacturing hubs like South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and all ASEAN countries, combined. China, for its own part, and seeing India's growing manufacturing footprint, also imposed restrictions on its companies, making it harder for them to do business with Indian firms. For instance, India's share in US smartphone imports surged to nearly 36 per cent in the first five months of 2025, from about 11 per cent in 2024. China, which continues to dominate the product category, saw its share drop from 82 per cent to 49 per cent over the same period, this paper had reported earlier. China's actions include pulling workers out of India, and making it more difficult for India-based manufacturing companies to obtain capital goods, which are needed for the assembly process. China has also imposed a blockade on several rare earth metals and magnets, and while the prime target of that restriction is the United States, India has found itself caught in the crosshairs. Soumyarendra Barik is Special Correspondent with The Indian Express and reports on the intersection of technology, policy and society. With over five years of newsroom experience, he has reported on issues of gig workers' rights, privacy, India's prevalent digital divide and a range of other policy interventions that impact big tech companies. He once also tailed a food delivery worker for over 12 hours to quantify the amount of money they make, and the pain they go through while doing so. In his free time, he likes to nerd about watches, Formula 1 and football. ... Read More
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
18 minutes ago
- First Post
Watch: Starmer looking on, Trump calls London mayor Sadiq Khan ‘nasty'; UK leader defends him as...
Trump took a fresh swipe at London Mayor Sadiq Khan during a press conference in Scotland, calling him 'a nasty person' and criticising his leadership. British PM Keir Starmer, standing beside Trump, quickly defended Khan, calling him 'a friend of mine.' read more US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer attend a family photo during the Group of Seven (G7) Summit at the Kananaskis Country Golf Course in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada. AFP US President Donald Trump reignited his feud with London Mayor Sadiq Khan during a press conference in Scotland alongside British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who stepped in and defended Khan as 'a friend of mine.' When asked if he planned to visit London during his upcoming state visit in September, Trump replied, 'I'm not a fan of your mayor. I think he's done a terrible job.' He went on to call Khan 'a nasty person,' prompting Starmer's brief response: 'He's a friend of mine, actually.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Unfazed, Trump further went back and forth saying, 'I think he's done a terrible job. But I would certainly visit London.' 'I am not a fan of the London mayor. I think he has done a terrible job. He's a nasty person.' US President Donald Trump launches into attack on Sadiq Khan during his UK visit Follow our live blog for more🔗 📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602 and YouTube — Sky News (@SkyNews) July 28, 2025 The animosity between Trump and Khan—both of whom have clashed repeatedly since 2016—is long-standing. Khan, a Labour politician like Starmer, has often criticised Trump, particularly over his stance on immigration and his travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority nations. In return, Trump has lashed out at Khan on multiple occasions, calling him a 'stone cold loser,' 'very dumb,' and accusing him of doing a 'very bad job on terrorism.' Khan, who is the first Muslim to lead a Western capital, has said Trump's attacks are rooted in bias. 'He's come for me because of, let's be frank, my ethnicity and my religion,' Khan said in a podcast prior to Trump's 2024 re-election. However, following Trump's win, Khan told AFP that 'the American people have spoken loudly and clearly' and that the election result must be respected. Responding to Trump's latest remarks, a spokesperson for Khan issued a statement Monday saying the mayor was 'delighted that President Trump wants to come to the greatest city in the world,' adding: 'He'd see how our diversity makes us stronger not weaker; richer, not poorer.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
18 minutes ago
- First Post
Radio silence: Trump's fund cuts gift Kim Jong-un a tighter grip on North Korea's ‘mind apartheid'
As US-funded broadcasts are slashed, millions of North Koreans are left more isolated than ever cut off from the outside world and solely at the mercy of the regime's propaganda read more In the world's hermit kingdom, the rulers appear anything but hermits — the face allegations of relentlessly hounding their hapless citizens in a, what many describe as, barbaric fashion, crushing human rights as a hippopotamus crushes a watermelon: with brute force and no second thought. While the rest of the world thrives fighting for greater and unrestricted access to information, those in North Korea are understood to live under an apartheid of the mind, cut off from realities of the world, deliberately by a regime that distorts or blocks information to suit its grip on power. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD For many in North Korea, the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia stood as rare lifelines — vital sources of uncensored news for the bold few willing to risk everything to tune in. But that's now a thing of the past. In a Maga move, US President Donald Trump — who once claimed he 'developed a very good relationship' with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un — pulled the plug from these radio services. A switch in DC, silence in Pyongyang When the US Senate passed a funding cut earlier this month, it effectively ended decades of American support for independent media channels that had managed to pierce North Korea's ironclad information barrier. The decision prompted widespread alarm as it became obvious that this move could plunge North Korea's 26 million citizens into even deeper informational darkness, a report in South China Morning Post said. Broadcasts from the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia — two long-standing American-backed radio channels — had served as vital channels, providing North Koreans with unfiltered insights into global affairs, human rights and life beyond their tightly controlled borders. The radio programmes reportedly saw their broadcasts reduced by as much as 80 per cent after an executive order issued by Trump in March called for the dismantling of their parent agency, the United States Agency for Global Media, the Hing Kong-based newspaper reported. Silence after the signal North Korea experts, including Human Rights Watch's Teppei Kasai, expressed concern that this informational blackout would hinder international awareness of North Korea's worsening human rights situation. According to Martyn Williams, a senior fellow at the Stimson Centre, the timing could not have been better for Pyongyang's censors. In his analysis for 38 North, he observed that North Korean propagandists had been battling the flow of foreign broadcasts for decades. Suddenly, with no effort on their part, the playing field had tilted decisively in their favour, the South China Morning Post reported. From unity to discord The blow to North Korea-focussed media and human rights efforts didn't occur in a vacuum. For nearly two decades, the North Korean Human Rights Act had anchored America's engagement with the country on a bipartisan basis. Passed in 2004 and renewed in subsequent years, the legislation ensured funding for radio broadcasts, satellite analysis and human rights documentation. These efforts informed everything from US sanctions policy to United Nations reports on crimes against humanity. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD However, that act quietly expired in 2022. Though funding had temporarily continued through the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour (DRL), recent cuts proposed by the Trump administration aim to all but eliminate DRL's global funding. Human rights advocates have warned that this move will not only gut existing projects but destroy the infrastructure and institutional expertise necessary to rebuild them later, senior Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch Lina Yoon wrote in Foreign Policy in Focus. Real-world consequences The stakes go far beyond theoretical policy losses. Civil society organisations once supported by the act are now struggling to survive. Groups like the Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, which had previously traced illicit financial networks tied to North Korea's cyber theft operations, are at risk of shuttering. The DailyNK, a Seoul-based newsroom that reports using sources inside North Korea, may soon fall silent. Similarly, the Transitional Justice Working Group, known for its geocoding of execution and burial sites using scapee testimony and satellite imagery, may no longer be able to continue its work, Lina wrote. She feared that cutting off these data sources would severely compromise the US government's ability to make informed policy decisions. A regional reversal Compounding the problem, the recently elected South Korean administration under President Lee Jae-myung has reportedly taken a softer stance toward Pyongyang. In addition to ending government-led broadcasts into the North, Seoul has banned activists from launching balloons containing leaflets, rice, medicine and cash across the demilitarised zone. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Human rights observers noted that while this strategy may aim for diplomatic rapprochement, it simultaneously weakens the already scarce flow of outside information into North Korea. Williams from the Stimson Centre told South China Morning Post that the reduced broadcasts would leave North Koreans even more cut off from both local and global events. In a deteriorating security climate, such isolation could come at a high price, not only for North Koreans but for neighbouring countries and allies relying on accurate, timely intelligence. Why the world should pay attention The broader message from policy analysts and human rights organisations is clear: supporting independent media in North Korea is not charity — it's strategy, said Lina. And yet, the Trump administration's broad-stroke cuts threaten to erase years of painstaking progress. Organisations holding DRL grants, including the Unification Media Group and the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, may soon have no funds left to continue. Radio Free Asia has already ceased its Korean-language broadcasts, a move that could embolden Pyongyang's censors and silence dissident voices before they ever reach the airwaves. A future in the dark? Unless the US Congress takes urgent action to renew the North Korean Human Rights Act and protect funding for programmes that monitor and expose the regime's abuses, the world could lose its last windows into the country. As one expert put it, North Korea thrives in the dark. And with Washington now dimming the light, the shadows are growing longer.
