China’s crude imports plunged in May to the lowest level in a decade and could languish for the coming months, as weaker demand, refinery cuts and limited exports help the world’s top buyer weather the impact of the Iran War. Cargoes fell to 6.7 million barrels a day, according to data intelligence firm Kpler, as substantial refinery inventories and run cuts reduce the need to for China to add pur...
China’s crude imports plunged in May to the lowest level in a decade and could languish for the coming months, as weaker demand, refinery cuts and limited exports help the world’s top buyer weather the impact of the Iran War. Cargoes fell to 6.7 million barrels a day, according to data intelligence firm Kpler, as substantial refinery inventories and run cuts reduce the need to for China to add purchases or to draw heavily on strategic reserves. Over 2025, the country imported an average of closer to 10.4 million barrels a day of seaborne crude. “This trend of lower Chinese buying could continue through the summer,” said Sumit Ritolia , lead analyst for refining supply and modeling at analytics firm Kpler. China’s strategic petroleum reserves increased by approximately 8 million barrels since the beginning of the conflict, according to Kpler estimates. “Meanwhile, refinery-held inventories declined by around 15 million barrels during May, suggesting refiners have primarily relied on existing stocks rather than fresh imports,” Ritolia added. For global markets, the trend has been good news in the short term, helping to counter the supply impact of the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. “China’s backing off from the crude market has played a crucial role in attempting to rebalance the global market, which has helped cap oil prices — the extent of which has taken most of the market by surprise,” said Warren Patterson , head of commodities strategy for ING Groep NV in Singapore. “While sizable domestic inventories mean lower import volumes should be sustainable over the coming months, uncertainty over the duration of the conflict suggests that China’s pullback may be more temporary,” he added. China did not feel the immediate impact of the historic oil crisis in the Persian Gulf, thanks to factors including ample floating storage and diversified suppliers — but the effects of higher prices and disrupted supply are beginning to ripple through. Beijing initially li...
Bank of Ghana Governor Johnson Asiama played down the weakness of the cedi this year and said policymakers could resume cutting interest rates once the Iran war ends. “Based on our data, there could be scope for a return to the easing cycle,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in London on Wednesday. “But it’s all contingent largely to this global shock and how it continues to unfol...
Bank of Ghana Governor Johnson Asiama played down the weakness of the cedi this year and said policymakers could resume cutting interest rates once the Iran war ends. “Based on our data, there could be scope for a return to the easing cycle,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in London on Wednesday. “But it’s all contingent largely to this global shock and how it continues to unfold.” Asiama and his colleagues held interest rates at 14% last month, pausing an aggressive rate-cutting campaign that has lowered borrowing costs from a 28% peak in 2025. That process was initially accompanied by a strengthening local currency, which was buoyed by rocketing gold prices in a boon for Africa’s largest bullion producer. But the cedi has slumped more than 11% against the greenback this year to make it the second-worst performer in the world among those tracked by Bloomberg. Asiama acknowledged the cedi’s depreciation, but said “there’s no cause for alarm, there’s no cause for panic at all.” The unit was 0.2% weaker at 11.81 per dollar at 12:25 p.m. in Accra on Thursday, the lowest in more than seven months. Read More: Ghana Joins Global Peers Holding Rates to Assess War Risks The central bank has significantly increased its foreign-exchange activity to provide dollar liquidity to the local currency market, where higher petroleum import prices have boosted demand for dollars since the Middle East conflict began in late February. But the governor said the bank hadn’t tapped its intervention war chest because Ghana has bolstered its reserves and the fundamentals underpinning the cedi are strong, citing low inflation, a favorable current-account position and robust economic growth. Ghana’s inflation stood at 3.7% in May, compared with 18.4% the same time last year. The current account surplus widened to 2.6% of gross domestic product at the end of March from 2.2% a year earlier. And Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson this week raised the 2026 economic growth forec...
undefined China’s “Olympic babies” born in 2008 are facing an increasingly volatile college admissions landscape this year, as shifting employer demands and the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence disrupt both university curricula and the broader job market. A total of 12.9 million students registered for China’s national college entrance examination, known as the gaokao, in 2026. This re...
undefined China’s “Olympic babies” born in 2008 are facing an increasingly volatile college admissions landscape this year, as shifting employer demands and the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence disrupt both university curricula and the broader job market. A total of 12.9 million students registered for China’s national college entrance examination, known as the gaokao, in 2026. This represents a drop of 450,000 from the 13.35 million applicants in 2025, marking the second consecutive year of decline. Despite the dip in exam registrations, the overall number of senior secondary school graduates has been rising steadily since 2022. The graduation pool grew to 14.46 million in 2025, a 10.7% increase from the previous year. That figure included 9.24 million regular high school graduates and 5.21 million vocational high school graduates, representing year-over-year expansions of 3.8% and 25.6%, respectively. Fewer applicants does not automatically translate into an easier path to a degree. According to data from the Ministry of Education, higher education institutions enrolled 10.7 million associate and bachelor’s degree students in 2025. This yielded a gross admission rate of 80.21%, edging up slightly from 79.65% in 2024.
President Xi Jinping will make a state visit to North Korea next week, state media reported Friday, a move that signals Beijing’s intent to shore up relations with its isolated neighbor amid broader geopolitical realignments. Xi will visit Pyongyang from June 8 to 9 at the invitation of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to a spokesperson for the International Department of the Central Com...
President Xi Jinping will make a state visit to North Korea next week, state media reported Friday, a move that signals Beijing’s intent to shore up relations with its isolated neighbor amid broader geopolitical realignments. Xi will visit Pyongyang from June 8 to 9 at the invitation of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to a spokesperson for the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, as reported by the official Xinhua News Agency.
Councils are sending vulnerable kids to homes run by money-grabbing cowboys and private-equity vultures Bring your suitcase, your bin liner, your dumpy bag. They’re handing out money faster than you can stuff it in a sack. All you need do is join the market in what may now be England’s most lucrative commodity. A commodity with arms and legs, hearts and brains, thoughts and feelings. Children. Two...
Councils are sending vulnerable kids to homes run by money-grabbing cowboys and private-equity vultures Bring your suitcase, your bin liner, your dumpy bag. They’re handing out money faster than you can stuff it in a sack. All you need do is join the market in what may now be England’s most lucrative commodity. A commodity with arms and legs, hearts and brains, thoughts and feelings. Children. Two years ago I stumbled into this issue after discovering that children in care who were being helped by a local charity I’m involved with were suddenly being whisked away, terminating the amazing progress they had been making, breaking their relationships, their sense of home, stability and security. When I began exploring why this was happening, I could scarcely believe what I was seeing: a highly lucrative trade in highly vulnerable young people. Children in “care” were being exchanged between private equity companies for £100,000 apiece. That figure is now wrong. Today they are worth far more. George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
The movie adaptation of Gary Owen’s acclaimed play Iphigenia in Splott, Effi o Blaenau, is released this month. Here, its director and crew explain why they relocated the film to a post-industrial mining town – and refused to make it in English The one-woman play Iphigenia in Splott was first performed in 2015. Eleven years on, Gary Owen’s reworking of Greek tragedy, transplanted to working-class ...
The movie adaptation of Gary Owen’s acclaimed play Iphigenia in Splott, Effi o Blaenau, is released this month. Here, its director and crew explain why they relocated the film to a post-industrial mining town – and refused to make it in English The one-woman play Iphigenia in Splott was first performed in 2015. Eleven years on, Gary Owen’s reworking of Greek tragedy, transplanted to working-class Splott in Cardiff, has earned its place as a modern classic. It reimagines the mythological heroine Iphigenia as Effie, a young woman filling her days drinking vodka out of a mug in her dressing gown. The play is about poverty and social inequality, closures and cuts, services scraped to the bone by austerity. Its most recent five-star Guardian review in 2022 advised: “Everyone should see this.” One person who did was Leisa Gwenllian, a final-year drama student from north Wales. “I was on the front row with my mate,” says Gwenllian, 24, drinking mint tea in a London hotel. “I can remember thinking: wow! A Welsh woman with a strong Cardiff accent on the stage at the Lyric [in Hammersmith, London], that’s what it’s all about.” At the Oxford School of Drama, Gwenllian was mainly studying the classics alongside people with different accents and backgrounds from her own. “To see yourself on stage is really powerful.” Continue reading...
Inside New York’s notorious jail complex, nearly 2,000 incarcerated people watched Game 1 of the NBA finals, arguing calls, roasting celebrity fans and sharing in a rare citywide moment It’s nearly half past eight on Wednesday evening and approximately 30 men in tan uniforms drift into the common area of a housing unit deep inside the George R Vierno Center, an 850-bed jail and one of eight active...
Inside New York’s notorious jail complex, nearly 2,000 incarcerated people watched Game 1 of the NBA finals, arguing calls, roasting celebrity fans and sharing in a rare citywide moment It’s nearly half past eight on Wednesday evening and approximately 30 men in tan uniforms drift into the common area of a housing unit deep inside the George R Vierno Center, an 850-bed jail and one of eight active facilities on New York’s Rikers Island. Some hover around a folding table piled to the edges with snacks. Others make their way into the smaller rooms on the perimeter of the two-floor communal space and drag plastic chairs closer to the flat-screen televisions mounted inside. The excited chatter and nervous energy bubbles as a familiar refrain cuts through the din. Knicks in four. Pictured above: An exterior view of the Rikers Island jail complex on 3 June 2026. Pictured below: The bridge connecting Rikers Island to Queens crosses a sprawling employee parking lot before reaching the jail complex, which houses the vast majority of people held in New York City’s custody. All photographs by Lauren Caulk. Continue reading...
Women coaches routinely overlooked, undermined and denied opportunities despite qualifications, say experts Women are being shut out of careers in sport by entrenched sexism, discrimination and workplace bullying, MPs have been told. Female coaches are routinely overlooked, undermined and denied opportunities despite their qualifications, experts told a parliamentary select committee on Thursday. ...
Women coaches routinely overlooked, undermined and denied opportunities despite qualifications, say experts Women are being shut out of careers in sport by entrenched sexism, discrimination and workplace bullying, MPs have been told. Female coaches are routinely overlooked, undermined and denied opportunities despite their qualifications, experts told a parliamentary select committee on Thursday. Continue reading...
Migrant insects have been seen in large numbers along east coast thanks to heatwave and benign southerly winds If you’ve spotted a pale orange butterfly dashing at frenetic pace through streets, fields or gardens, you’ve noticed the new migrants that will add colour to the summer in record-breaking numbers. What is expected to be the largest arrival of painted lady butterflies in Britain for 17 ye...
Migrant insects have been seen in large numbers along east coast thanks to heatwave and benign southerly winds If you’ve spotted a pale orange butterfly dashing at frenetic pace through streets, fields or gardens, you’ve noticed the new migrants that will add colour to the summer in record-breaking numbers. What is expected to be the largest arrival of painted lady butterflies in Britain for 17 years is under way after heatwaves and favourable winds ushered thousands if not millions of the insects northwards. Continue reading...
Cross-border finance is becoming more complex, not less. Businesses operating across jurisdictions are dealing with tighter regulation and more pressure to demonstrate transparency across markets, raising the bar for the international financial centres they use. This shift helps explain why global benchmarking is gaining more attention. Labuan International Business and Financial Centre (Labuan IB...
Cross-border finance is becoming more complex, not less. Businesses operating across jurisdictions are dealing with tighter regulation and more pressure to demonstrate transparency across markets, raising the bar for the international financial centres they use. This shift helps explain why global benchmarking is gaining more attention. Labuan International Business and Financial Centre (Labuan IBFC) entered the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI) in 2025, debuting at 60th out of 120, and has...