Engaging ‘Far From Mars’ Offers Welcome Respite From Armageddon Journalism

We have selected seven of the most interesting and important news stories covering Latin American relations from the past few weeks. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Air China scrambles to fly stranded passengers out of fuel-starved Cuba As a US oil embargo deepened Cuba’s energy crisis, dozens of Air China passengers found themselves stranded on the island. Read the full story here. 2. Paraguay tech minister defies Beijing sanctions, vows to...

Zhang Shengmin, China’s most senior uniformed general, met Russian Defence Minister Andrey Belousov in Beijing on Tuesday in his first publicly reported meeting with a foreign official since he became a member of the Politburo. Zhang, the vice-chairman of China’s Central Military Commission (CMC), pledged to deepen military cooperation and strategic coordination with Russia during the meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. He was elected to the Politburo last week at a key Communist Party...

A Chinese court has begun hearings in a defamation case filed by authorities and institutes in Beijing and Wuhan against the US state of Missouri over accusations tied to Covid-19. In a notice on Monday, the Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court said it held a hearing on Friday and legal proceedings were continuing. The case was jointly filed on April 30, 2025 by the Wuhan government in Hubei province, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and its subordinate entity, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV),...

China appears to be testing a stealthy new trimaran at sea, according to a photograph circulating on social media, in what could be a further effort to develop unconventional naval platforms. The image first emerged on Weibo on Sunday and appears to show a vessel featuring an inverted wave-piercing bow, three-hull design and angular superstructure surfaces that could be intended to reduce its radar signature. The vessel, which is fitted with a prominent antenna mast and multiple dome-shaped...

China has pledged to work with Pakistan to advance “high-level security cooperation” and ensure the safety of a joint flagship infrastructure project that has become a target for terrorists. That was the message Liu Haixing, head of the Communist Party’s International Department, conveyed in talks with Pakistan defence forces chief Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday, as part of his first official visit to the South Asian country since taking office just over a year ago. In...

A People’s Liberation Army air defence unit has for the first time intercepted two new types of missile simultaneously during a drill – including one that made a sudden change of direction, according to state television. The CCTV report on Monday said it was a rapid response operation by the ground-based Shenwei Missile Battalion – under the PLA Central Theatre Command Air Force – which is equipped with Hongqing surface-to-air missiles. It did not disclose the type of missiles intercepted or any...

China’s embassy in Papua New Guinea has disputed reports that a suspected Chinese-made artillery shell was found in a shipping container in Port Moresby, saying the object was instead a shell-shaped wine bottle. The embassy said in a social media post on Tuesday it was awaiting the official findings of an investigation by the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary (RPNGC). It cited an on-site verification by a company involved in the case, which said the object was a wine bottle. “It poses no...

CD Tenerife footballer Jesús de Miguel died at age 30 following a cardiac arrest after colliding with FC Andorra goalkeeper Jesus Owono during a match.

A year after stepping away from competition, Olympic shot put champion Gong Lijiao has lost more than 30kg (66lbs) after refusing to “lie flat” during her retirement. The 36-year-old submitted her official retirement paperwork after the National Games in November last year. She said then she aimed to lose 25kg before pursuing marriage. “I also want to become beautiful. You will surely see a different version of me,” Gong said. Speaking to Chinese media in an interview published on Monday, the...

Lakshya Sen said that constant travel and fitness issues limited his ability to experiment in training, forcing him to focus on workload management during a challenging few months.

This article was first published on November 4, 2011. China a step closer to building its own space station by Stephen Chen Encouraged by yesterday (November 3, 2011) morning’s historic rendezvous and docking of the Shenzhou VIII spacecraft, Chinese authorities said construction of a space station will begin as soon as 2013. “We will do two more rendezvous and docking flights next year,” said Wu Ping (武平), spokeswoman for the manned space programme, at a press conference in Beijing yesterday....

An anticancer drug developed by Sichuan Biokin Pharmaceutical took centre stage in a late-breaking oral presentation at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress in Madrid last week. Researchers said the drug, iza-bren, showed a significant advantage over platinum-based chemotherapy in a phase 3 randomised, double-blind clinical trial conducted at 73 hospitals in China and involving 432 patients with advanced lung cancer. The median progression-free survival (PFS) – the length of...