BTS may not be scheduled to reunite until 2026, but the band did just give ARMY a pretty big treat to tie fans over until then: Permission to Dance On Stage, aka the group’s first-ever live album.
Arriving Friday (July 18) with 22 tracks, the album compiles recordings of the BTS members’ performances on their 2021-2022 Permission to Dance On Stage tour. Included on the tracklist are live versions of Billboard Hot 100-toppers “Dynamite,” “Butter” and “Life Goes On.”
Along with the LP, BTS also shared a digital package titled Permission to Dance On Stage – Seoul, featuring footage of RM, Jin, SUGA, j-hope, Jimin, V and Jung Kook performing at Olympic Stadium in Seoul on March 13, 2022. The package includes a 92-page interview photobook with behind-the-scenes snapshots from the show.
Permission to Dance On Stage arrives shortly after the members of BTS reunited on camera for the first time in years, as all seven Bangtan Boys had previously been unable to maintain full-band activities while they completed their mandatory service to the South Korean military. Squeezing in next to each other on a couch, the septet announced on a July 1 Weverse livestream that they had big plans for next year.
“Starting in July, all seven of us will begin working closely together on new music,” they said in a band statement at the time. “Since it will be a group album, it will reflect each member’s thoughts and ideas. We’re approaching the album with the same mindset we had when we first started.”
“We’re also planning a world tour alongside the new album,” they added. “We’ll be visiting fans all around the world, so we hope you’re as excited as we are.”
Why have only one when you can get “Boffum?” Saweetie returned on Friday (July 18) to heat up the summer with her bouncy single “Boffum.”
The Bay Area native wants to have the block parties turned up and night club dance floors filled with the slinky J. White Did It-produced banger. She implores her Icy Girls to know their worth and how they should never settle for less in life.
“Rapper, athlete I need ‘boffum’/ Don’t you ask me just get ‘boffum’/ How many on me? Like four of ’em/ I keep a secret no tea I don’t know nothing/ Take a shot, peel off in a four-runner/ All my haters f—ked up, need a Gofundme,” she confidently raps.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Saweetie has laid relatively low on the music front in 2025, as “Boffum” serves as her first solo release of the year.
However, things are about to change for Diamonté. While her much-delayed Pretty Bitch Music debut album remains elusive, Saweetie announced plans for her HELLA PRESSURE EP, which is slated to arrive on Aug. 1 via Warner Records and comes in the midst of her upcoming four-date Australia tour run.
“I feel like it will really encompass who I’ve grown into over these past couple of years. Lots of stories to tell,” she told Billboard in February about her upcoming music.
Outside of her own music, Saweetie became a brand ambassador for Paris Hilton’s NYX Professional Makeup line. The 32-year-old was also part of the NBA All-Star Game Halftime Show in February, which saw her perform alongside E-40, Too Short and En Vogue for DJ Cassidy’s Pass the Mic Live Bay Area celebration.
It’s been almost 25 years since Linkin Park released their debut album, Hybrid Theory. An irresistible fusion of metal, hip-hop, electronica, industrial rock and infectious pop melody, it established the Californian sextet as instant nu-metal icons and laid the groundwork for the group to become, by many metrics, the biggest US rock band of this millennium: Hybrid Theory ended up the bestselling album of 2001; its follow-up, Meteora, would also go on to rank as one of the bestselling albums of the 21st century.
It’s been just 36 hours, however, since the band played their biggest headline gig to date, at a steamy and rapturous Wembley stadium. Outside, it’s still scorching, but in an icily air-conditioned hotel overlooking the Thames, Linkin Park’s co-founder, co-vocalist and chief songwriter, Mike Shinoda, is reflecting on the show. “For any band that’s been around a long time, it’s really easy to start heading into heritage territory,” says the 48-year-old. “You’re just playing that old stuff.”
Linkin Park did of course play the old stuff, crescendoing with a stone-cold triad of belt-along hits – Numb, In the End and Faint – that have 6bn Spotify streams between them. But this was no greatest hits showcase. The band’s eighth album, From Zero – which reached No 1 in 13 countries (including the UK) last November – also received an ecstatic response, and its lead single was one of the very rare hard rock songs to reach the UK Top 5. “This tour and this album are one of our most successful of all time. That, for me, is insane,” marvels Shinoda. “That is way beyond my hopes and dreams for what this whole thing could be.”
This triumphant second act is all the more miraculous considering Linkin Park are not the band they used to be. In 2017, the group’s lead vocalist, Chester Bennington, took his own life, having struggled with depression and addiction for decades. Sitting next to Shinoda today is 39-year-old Emily Armstrong, who now fronts Linkin Park alongside him (she sings, Shinoda raps).
Bleach-blond hair, dark shades, an acid yellow oversized jersey and a voice that travels from pop croon to gruff, guttural scream: on stage, Armstrong appeared every inch the nu-metal maven. Yet while performing to 75,000 adoring fans would be the ego trip of a lifetime for most rock stars, as Bennington’s replacement, it’s not quite the same. On songs such as the Grammy-winning Crawling, Armstrong’s role was more singalong facilitator than central attraction. “There’s so many fans that have been wanting to see Linkin Park for so long, you know?” she says, brandishing an enormous bottle of electrolyte-orange water. “So I look at it as: this is your moment to sing. And you sing it better than I do at this point!”
‘Introspective’ … Linkin Park in 2017. Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy
After Bennington’s death, Shinoda paused Linkin Park and found refuge in Post Traumatic, a raw and emotional solo album that detailed his struggle to process his grief. Bennington died two months after the release of the band’s seventh album, One More Light, which they were about to take on tour. Shinoda partly “wanted to make Post Traumatic as a diary of how I felt for myself”, but also had the urge to play live “to provide an area for fans to commune and go: ‘Oh, Mike is still here. We didn’t lose everybody.’”
The Post Traumatic tour was cathartic “in the beginning”, he says. “And then towards the end it was exhausting. I had started to … I don’t want to say move on. ‘Move on’ to some people means not looking back and forgetting – that’s completely not how I felt. I felt like I was coping well and I was able to get up in the morning and not think about it, and I was evolving from the terrible stuff that had happened. Then I would go to the show and spend 90 minutes with half the crowd crying. And I’m like, this is fucking exhausting. You know how therapists see patients all day and help them, but then they need therapy themselves? That’s how I felt.”
Shinoda founded Linkin Park at 19, alongside his schoolmates Rob Bourdon (drums) and Brad Delson (guitar). His college friends Dave “Phoenix” Farrell (bass) and the turntablist Joe Hahn joined soon after; Bennington was a later addition after a record label executive insisted they recruit a new vocalist. After Post Traumatic, Shinoda spent the next half-decade figuring out how to bring back the band that had defined his entire adult life. “I sort through information very logically,” he says. He approached the group’s future “from a puzzle-cracking point of view”, he explains, entertaining options like hiring a mini choir for live shows or relying on a rotating cast of famous vocalists.
To begin with, Shinoda invited a few musicians – including some big names, such as the viral soul singer Teddy Swims – down to the studio to write material. He didn’t tell them this was part of a potential Linkin Park comeback, and things could get awkwardly vague. “Two hours into the session, they’d be like: ‘Hey, can I ask you a question? What’s going on here? Who are we writing for?’ And we’d be like: ‘Yeah, we don’t know.’” Sometimes it felt like these collaborators were “angling” to be Linkin Park’s new vocalist. “Like, ‘look how good I can sing!’ It was such a turn-off.”
Armstrong was the tunefully raspy frontwoman of Dead Sara, a bluesy LA punk outfit who were initially hyped (in 2013, Dave Grohl insisted they “should be the next biggest rock band in the world”) but never really made it. She got an invite too. Those sessions never felt like a “Linkin Park tryout”, she says; she was simply “excited to write with Mike Shinoda”.
He laughs: “I love when you use my full name.” The first time she met the band was in 2019, but it wasn’t until she returned to the studio in 2023 that something clicked. Performance and personality-wise, Armstrong – who has sassy little sister energy around Shinoda – seemed like a natural fit.
Shinoda also felt reassured that Armstrong and the drummer Colin Brittain – who replaced Bourdon around the same time – weren’t just using Linkin Park to grow their profiles. “There’s a lot of people for who it’s all about follower count. It’s a very greedy way to live. And these guys aren’t that way.” He appreciates that the pair never took any “sneaky pictures” of Shinoda’s home studio for clout.
A new legacy … Linkin Park today. Photograph: Warner Records
“We had a high level of respect,” nods Armstrong, before stifling a smile. “We did have a high level of respect.”
Shinoda looks mock-wistful. “Ah, to go back to those days.”
Armstrong was never going to turn down the opportunity to front Linkin Park. “I’ve been in a band for 20 years and I could only dream of this kind of success,” she says, then makes a face. “That sounded lame.” But she was scared at the prospect of stepping into such big shoes. “Why do I think I can do this?” she wondered, telling Shinoda that she didn’t want to “ruin” Linkin Park. “I’m like, you guys are a legacy band – you guys are so important.”
Shinoda drolly encourages the ego massage: “Oh, go on – tell me more!”
Once the new lineup was complete and From Zero finished (much of it was already written when Armstrong joined the band), it was time to tell the world. The response wasn’t entirely positive. Bennington’s mother said she felt “betrayed” by Shinoda’s decision to reform the band without consulting her, while Bennington’s son expressed dismay at Armstrong’s links to Scientology and her attendance at a hearing in support of Danny Masterson, an actor and Scientologist who was eventually convicted of rape – something that was also widely reported in the press and discussed by fans. I have been told that Armstrong will not discuss Scientology today. She did, however, release a statement at the time, explaining that she had severed all ties with Masterson and condemned his crimes.
Chester Bennington in 2008. Photograph: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Was Armstrong braced for that kind of reaction? “Not this. No, not this,” she says quietly. “I was a little bit naive about it, to be honest.” Even pre-Linkin Park, she tended to avoid social media “for mental-health purposes”, and coped with the clamour by getting offline. “If there was something really, really pressing, I think our PR would talk to us about it. But I’m old enough to know the difference between real life and the internet.”
Shinoda takes a different tack to public criticism, but ends up in the same place. After the Wembley show, he posted a picture of himself in a T-shirt emblazoned with the opening lines of a snide news story about the band’s decision to downsize the venue of their LA show. “There are times when I’m not above being a little petty,” he grins. The T-shirt was “not meant to be mean at all”, he clarifies, and the music outlet in question “are not the only ones who’ve said it. Lots of people have said this band is fumbling: ‘Look how stupid they are, look how bad they’re doing.’ Well, according to the data, we’re not, but you can believe whatever you want to believe.”
When it came to Armstrong, Shinoda felt people’s complaints were also disingenuous. “There were people who lashed out at Emily and it was really because she wasn’t a guy.” Fans, he thinks, were “used to Linkin Park being six guys and the voice of a guy leading this song. They were just so uncomfortable with what it was that they chose a ton of things to complain about. They’re pointing in 10 different directions saying: ‘This is why I’m mad, this is why the band sucks.’”
In the months since Linkin Park 2.0 launched, the reaction from fans has softened and Armstrong has been widely embraced. But devotees are still clearly looking for traces of Bennington in the band’s work. Many interpreted Let You Fade, a bonus track on From Zero’s deluxe edition, as a tribute to the singer, but “it wasn’t written that way,” says Shinoda. “People even pulled out the fact that there’s numbers in the song [that align with] Chester’s birthday. I was like: whoops. That’s not intentional.”
At any rate, From Zero does hark back to the band’s original sound: rock-rap fusion vocals, hip-hop record-scratching, highly accessible melodies and enough gristle (grinding guitar and screaming; anxious and indignant lyrics) to both intensify and offset them. Serendipitously, nu-metal is back in a big way, “thanks to TikTok, the Y2K revival and, of course, enduring teenage angst”, as per the New York Times, with bands such as Deftones enjoying a massive resurgence and acts including Fontaines DC, 100 gecs and Rina Sawayama incorporating the genre into their work.
‘We did this first!’ … Emily Armstrong performs during the From Zero tour. Photograph: Variety/Getty Images
For millennials such as Armstrong, the sound of nu-metal provides nostalgia-coated comfort. She was a fan in her early teens, and feels “like a child again” when she performs Linkin Park’s old tracks. The era’s garb – voluminous shorts, pulled-up sports socks, chunky jewellery, wraparound sunglasses – is also back in style, which reminds Armstrong of her teen self’s beloved Adidas T-shirt and camouflage combats combo. “We did this first!” she laughs. “I’m old as shit!”
But Shinoda doesn’t look back with rose-tinted spectacles. In the early 2000s, Linkin Park did “a bunch of metal tours and played with Metallica – the energy there was very masculine, bro energy. We were immersed in a culture where it was like an arms race for who could make the most macho music.”
With peers including Korn, Slipknot and System of a Down, the nu-metal cohort was novel and outrageous enough to precipitate a mild moral panic – yet sexist lyrics in the work of groups like Limp Bizkit really were a problem. Linkin Park always seemed less aggressive and intimidating than their peers, and Shinoda always disliked the macho aspect. “Chester connected with it a little more than the rest of us did, but not by much.” His band, he feels, featured “more lyrics that were introspective. It wasn’t like: ‘Hey, I’m gonna kick your ass.’ It was like: ‘Somebody kicked my ass and I’m so frustrated.’ In high school, I wasn’t kicking anybody’s ass. That was not happening.”
Nowadays, nu-metal’s aesthetic has been freed from its more unsavoury elements by a streaming generation who simply don’t remember it; it’s just another fun retro style to rehabilitate. Even Shinoda is less disgusted. “Genres are so blended and music is so all over the place, I don’t hate nu-metal any more.”
Whether down to this defanged nostalgic comeback, the quality of the band’s back catalogue or the incredibly catchy new material, it’s clear from the Wembley show that Linkin Park have a whole new generation of obsessive young fans. The delight in the crowd was palpable – an energy Shinoda is deliberately cultivating, especially after the mental exhaustion of the Post Traumatic tour. “I think we all wanted our show to be really good vibes,” he says. “I want you walking away feeling like, this was such a wonderful, special, fun night.”
Inevitably, this means certain songs are off the setlist. There are a couple that Shinoda would “feel weird playing”, including One More Light, the title track of the band’s last album with Bennington. It was originally written “for a woman at the label that we worked with who passed away. Then after Chester passed, the world decided that it was about him. And so that’s just too sad to play.”
One billion people in Africa still lack clean cooking solutions but IEA’s new roadmap shows cost-effective path to eradicate major energy poverty, health and development issue
African countries can close one of the continent’s most harmful energy and development gaps in just 15 years if they replicate the progress seen in other developing economies, according to a new IEA report showing how universal access to clean cooking could be achieved across sub-Saharan Africa by 2040.
Today, four in five families across the continent still cook with polluting fuels like wood, charcoal or dung, often over open fires or basic stoves. These practices contribute to over 800 000 premature deaths each year due to household air pollution – mostly among women and children – and trap millions more in poverty with significant impacts on health, gender equality and economic opportunity.
The new report – Universal Access to Clean Cooking in Africa – features the first comprehensive mapping of clean cooking infrastructure across sub-Saharan Africa, combined with an assessment of the cost and accessibility of each cooking solution down to the square kilometre. This detail informs a country-by-country roadmap for how sub-Saharan Africa can replicate the most effective policies, financing models and business strategies seen elsewhere, while adapting them to local contexts.
The report also tracks the outcomes of the Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa – held in May 2024 in Paris by the IEA and its partners – which mobilised over $2.2 billion in public and private sector commitments. According to the report, more than $470 million of those commitments has already been disbursed. In parallel, 10 out of 12 African governments that took part in the Summit have enacted or implemented new clean cooking policies – and more than 70% of people in Africa without access to clean cooking now live in countries that strengthened their policy frameworks since 2024.
“As geopolitical uncertainties dominate headlines and international cooperation is severely tested, lack of clean cooking access remains one of the great injustices in the world and a clear example of a cause all countries agree must be addressed. Nowhere is it more visible than in Africa where one billion people still rely on open fires or basic stoves. The IEA has been at the forefront on the clean cooking issue for over two decades, and 2025 can be a turning point for Africa if we build on the commitments made at our landmark summit,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.
“This new IEA report provides a clear, data-driven roadmap for every household across Africa to gain access,” he added. “The problem is solvable with existing technologies, and it would cost less than 0.1% of total energy investment globally. But delivering on this will require stronger focus and coordinated action from governments, industry and development partners. With South Africa’s G20 Presidency in 2025, there is an opportunity to accelerate efforts on one of the most consequential investments the world can make for Africa’s future.”
Under the new roadmap in the report, 80 million people gain clean cooking solutions each year, representing a sevenfold acceleration from today’s pace. Through a granular, country-by-country analysis, the roadmap is based on real-world conditions, ensuring that the technology and fuel choices are viable and aligned with consumer preferences and infrastructure realities.
In the roadmap, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) provides access for over 60% of newly connected households, with the rest gaining access through growing shares of electricity, bioethanol, biogas and advanced biomass cookstoves. Urban areas reach near-complete access by 2035 while rural access expands steadily through the 2030s.
Achieving universal access in Africa requires $37 billion in cumulative investment to 2040, equivalent to roughly $2 billion per year, or less than 0.1% of what the world invests annually in energy. This includes upfront spending on household equipment such as stoves, fuel cylinders and canisters, as well as enabling infrastructure like fuel distribution networks, storage terminals and electricity grid upgrades.
The new roadmap shows the far-reaching benefits of reaching universal access. Over 4.7 million premature deaths could be avoided cumulatively between now and 2040 in Africa. Women and girls could recover roughly two hours a day, freeing time for education and work. The amount of time gained would match the total annual working time of the entire labour force of Brazil today. Meanwhile, 460 000 new permanent jobs would be created in the clean cooking value chain, primarily in fuel distribution, retail services, and equipment maintenance – comparable to the total number of electric utility workers in Africa today.
There are also major climate and environmental benefits to progress on clean cooking. While the pathway entails some additional energy-related emissions from greater LPG and electricity use, these are dramatically outweighed by reductions in emissions from forest degradation and the incomplete combustion of wood-based fuels. As a result, 540 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions are avoided annually in 2040.
As part of its ongoing commitment, the IEA will continue to track the delivery of the 2024 Summit pledges, reporting regularly on policies, financing flows and real-world outcomes. This coincides with the momentum on the African continent, where leadership by the African Union and the Government of Tanzania – both longstanding champions of clean cooking access in Africa – culminated in the recent Dar es Salaam Declaration. Senior representatives of both the African Union and Tanzania will take part in the launch event of the report today.
President Samia Suluhu Hassanof Tanzania said:
“Tanzania was proud to co-host the IEA Summit on Clean Cooking, and we are already seeing the impact of our shared commitments. Clean cooking is not a luxury. It’s an issue that touches every family, every day. From rural villages to growing cities, Tanzania is introducing new policies that will support the most vulnerable in society. But we cannot do it alone. Continued support from partners and investors is essential to reach every home, and to build a healthier, more equal future for people in Tanzania and across Africa. The African Union Dar es Salaam Declaration on clean cooking, signed earlier this year by 30 Heads of State from across Africa and now adopted by the AU Assembly in February this year is a clear signal of our commitment to making energy access and clean cooking a national and continental priority.”
African Union Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy Lerato Mataboge said:
“Clean cooking is a fundamental need and a foundation for health, equality, and economic empowerment, especially for women and girls across the continent. The African Union is proud to see growing momentum behind this issue, and we urge all partners to sustain their efforts. With strong political commitment, targeted finance and regional cooperation, we can make universal access to clean cooking a reality for every African household. The IEA’s leadership in convening partners and tracking progress has been instrumental in elevating clean cooking on the global agenda and turning pledges into real action on the ground.”
A new wave of purges has engulfed the senior leadership of China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army. Since the 20th National Party Congress in October 2022, more than 20 senior PLA officers from all four services—the army, navy, air force, and rocket force—have disappeared from public view or been removed from their posts. The absences of other generals have also been reported, which could foreshadow additional purges.
Most notably, since the fall of 2023, three of the six uniformed members of the party’s Central Military Commission, the top body of the Chinese Communist Party charged with overseeing the armed forces, have been removed from their posts. The first to fall was Defense Minister Li Shangfu, who was removed in October 2023 and expelled from the CCP in June 2024. Then, this past November, Miao Hua, the director of the CMC’s Political Work Department, which manages personnel and party affairs, was suspended for “serious violations of discipline” before being formally removed from the CMC last month. And most recently, the Financial Times reported that He Weidong, the second-ranked vice chair who has not appeared in public since early March, had been purged.
Never before has half the CMC been dismissed in such a short period. Even stranger is the fact that all three generals had previously been promoted by Chinese leader Xi Jinping; they were appointed to the CMC itself in 2022, after Xi consolidated his control over the party at the 20th Party Congress. He Weidong was even a member of the Politburo, one of the party’s top decision-making bodies, comprised of the 24 highest-ranking party leaders. And Miao and He have been described by analysts as being part of a “Fujian faction” within the PLA, because the generals had been stationed in that province at the same time as Xi and are believed to have close ties with him.
The fact that these high-profile purges are occurring now is not lost on outside observers. In 2027, the PLA will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding. It is also the year by which Xi expects China’s armed forces to have made significant strides in their modernization. Finally, the year is noteworthy because, according to former CIA Director Bill Burns, Xi has instructed the PLA to be “ready by 2027 to conduct a successful invasion” of Taiwan. Xi’s instructions do not indicate that China will in fact invade Taiwan that year, but, as Burns put it, they serve as “a reminder of the seriousness of his focus and his ambition.”
With such ambitious goals set for the PLA, the question then arises as to how this new wave of purges could affect the PLA’s readiness. The purges themselves are likely to slow some weapons modernization programs, disrupt command structures and decision-making, and weaken morale—all of which would degrade the PLA’s ability to fight in the near to medium term. Beijing may now be forced to exercise greater caution before pursuing large-scale military operations, such as an amphibious assault on Taiwan, even as the PLA continues to pressure Taiwan with aerial activity and naval patrols around the island.
Nevertheless, it is useful to remember that Beijing has rarely waited for the right conditions before ordering the PLA into battle. In 1950, for instance, Chinese forces intervened in support of Pyongyang in the Korean War, even though China’s economy and society had been devastated by years of civil war. In 1962, the PLA attacked India, even though China’s most senior military officer had recently been purged for questioning Mao Zedong’s disastrous Great Leap Forward. And in 1979, Beijing dispatched an ill-prepared PLA to Vietnam, where Chinese troops suffered significant losses for limited political gains. Now, as then, Chinese leaders may pursue war even if the domestic economic and political conditions appear unfavorable—and even if the PLA is not ready to fight.
CASTAWAYS
For outside observers, it is notoriously difficult to gather detailed information and analyze the ongoing purges in China. The CCP rarely announces them, and even when they are publicized, the charges leading to dismissal are often vaguely described only as violations of discipline. Charges announced publicly may also not reflect the true underlying reason for an official’s removal from office. Still, there are several likely reasons that Li, Miao, He, and other senior officers were purged.
First, a common reason for many purges is graft. Corruption has long plagued the PLA and the CCP more broadly. Since Xi came to power in 2012, Beijing has more than doubled its defense budget in order to fund the military’s rapid modernization. This flood of new money, especially related to weapons procurement and construction projects, has increased opportunities for officers and defense industry executives to pad their budgets or skim money off the top. Before becoming defense minister, Li had been in charge of the CMC’s weapons development department, which oversees the procurement process. A few months before Li’s dismissal, both the commander and commissar of the PLA Rocket Force, and two of the commissar’s deputies, were all detained. The PLARF’s rapid expansion on Li’s watch, including the construction of more than 300 silos and the significant expansion of its ballistic missile arsenal, likely offered many opportunities for self-enrichment.
Some generals may also have been purged because they were engaging in bribery related to promotions and patronage networks. This has been a long-standing problem for the PLA: often, the most well-connected officers, rather than the most competent ones, are promoted to higher ranks. Miao, the head of the Political Work Department, oversaw personnel and appointments. If the promotions he signed off on were not strictly merit-based, it may have contributed to his undoing. Miao’s predecessor, Zhang Yang, was placed under investigation in 2017 for similar reasons. Less than two months later, he died by suicide, and the following year, he was posthumously expelled from the party.
CMC members and other senior officers may also have been removed if they were deemed to be using personnel appointments to create their own power centers, or “mountaintops,” within the PLA. Senior officers who prioritize the accrual of personal power are a liability for Xi because they create conflicting loyalties and factional tensions within the armed forces that can harm operational readiness. Because Miao and He were newly appointed members of the CMC, they may have sought to strengthen their positions at the expense of veteran members, such as the first-ranked Vice Chair Zhang Youxia, a childhood friend of Xi’s. Xi has kept Zhang, now 75, on the CMC despite the normal retirement age of 68.
Finally, it’s possible that the purged senior officers committed no offense at all beyond incompetence: Xi may simply have been dissatisfied with their performance and lost confidence in their ability to lead and achieve his goals for the PLA. As Joel Wuthnow and Phillip Saunders observed in their new book, China’s Quest for Military Supremacy, the structure of the relationship between the party and the armed forces makes it hard for Xi to trust his generals. The PLA enjoys substantial autonomy with little direct supervision, so the party must rely on the PLA to discipline itself. Moreover, the highly specialized nature of modern military affairs means that the party lacks the expertise to ensure that the PLA is meeting the party’s modernization goals.
INSECURITY DILEMMA
Whatever the reasons for the recent purges, they will almost certainly degrade China’s combat readiness and the Chinese leadership’s confidence in the PLA’s capabilities. In order for the PLA to prevail in potential conflicts on China’s periphery, especially a war over Taiwan, it seeks to master joint operations, which combine elements from the different services and branches to achieve military objectives. The complexity of such operations requires unity of command and integrated planning, the interoperability of platforms within and across services, delegation and flexibility, and robust command, control, communications, and surveillance systems. Reorganizing the PLA to better conduct such operations was one of the main reasons Xi launched unprecedented organizational reforms in 2015. Now, although Xi has a number of reasons to avoid taking major military action against Taiwan, he may also be concerned about how well the PLA would perform so soon after the purges.
If the CCP uncovered corruption in the weapons procurement system, for instance, the party leadership may doubt the reliability and performance of the advanced weapons systems developed and fielded over the past decade. According to U.S. intelligence, some of China’s new ballistic missiles were filled with water, not fuel, and the blast doors constructed for new silos needed to be repaired or replaced. Efforts are likely underway to review and recertify new and planned weapons systems to ensure they will function as expected, which may slow their development and deployment.
The purges also disrupt the functioning of the entire command system. The CMC, a six-member body that Xi chairs to oversee all aspects of the PLA, has 15 subordinate units. Yet with three of its six members missing in action, key decisions relating to operations, planning, and force development may be delayed until new permanent members are appointed. Before joining the CMC, for example, He played a key role in planning operations in his capacity as head of the Eastern Theater Command, whose forces would play a central role in any operation against Taiwan; now the apex of military decision-making in China lacks someone with his experience.
Decision-making and command may also be affected in other ways. Officers at all levels are likely to become much more risk averse for fear of making decisions that could later ensnare them in a purge. Thewillingness of more junior officers to take initiative will also suffer, reinforcing the PLA’s already strong tendency toward centralization in decision-making that undermines effective joint operations. Officers at all levels will spend more time engaged in political work and study sessions related to party ideology and discipline at the expense of their professional military tasks. Morale may suffer, too, as officers worry who might be next, fueling distrust within the officer corps and weakening cohesion.
READY OR NOT
But the focus on how the leadership upheaval in the PLA may affect its operational readiness should not obscure a basic fact: Xi may well deem it necessary to fight even if the PLA is not completely prepared. Since the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949, China has usually gone to war when conditions appeared to be unfavorable.
In 1950, after much debate among the party’s senior leaders, Beijing decided to intervene in the Korean War, transforming the conflict into one largely between China and the United States. At the time, the CCP was focused on consolidating control over the entire country and rebuilding the economy after its war with the Nationalists. Many senior party and military leaders, weary after years of a punishing civil war, were reluctant to go up against the strongest force in the world. Yet in the end, the strategic rationale of keeping the United States off China’s border (and ideally off the entire Korean Peninsula) trumped these concerns. Yet by the time of the armistice in 1953, China’s armed forces suffered more than 500,000 casualties, while the war ended roughly where it began, along the 38th parallel, and the United States began to build an alliance network along China’s eastern periphery.
Early the following decade, China attacked India’s forces on the two countries’ disputed border. At the time, Mao was on the back foot politicallyafter his disastrous Great Leap Forward, an industrialization campaign in which as many as 45 million people perished in famines. Yet Chinese party and military leaders concluded that war was necessary to blunt Indian pressure on Tibet and restore stability to the Chinese-Indian border. Moreover, the attack occurred only a few years after Peng Dehuai, China’s top military officer throughout the 1950s, was purged for questioning the wisdom of the Great Leap Forward. Peng’s dismissal also led to the removal of other senior military officers who were seen as closely tied to him, shaking up the PLA high command. In this instance, China enjoyed overwhelming superiority on the battlefield, destroying Indian forces and achieving its political objectives, as India did not challenge China on the border militarily for the next two decades.
In 1979, Beijing invaded Vietnam, ostensibly to teach Hanoi a lesson for entering into an alliance with the Soviet Union, then China’s nemesis, and for invading Cambodia, which Beijing was supporting. At the time, China had only started to recover from the economic and political upheaval of the Cultural Revolution. Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping remained in a power struggle with Mao’s chosen successor, Hua Guofeng. And the PLA was divided between Maoists and reformers. Deng was keenly aware of the PLA’s shortcomings, having described the force as “bloated, lax, arrogant, extravagant, and lazy”—hardly in fighting form. Deng even delayed the invasion by a month after his chief military adviser reported that the troops were not ready. Nevertheless, the need to signal resolve to counter Soviet encirclement outweighed the state of readiness. PLA forces paid a high price, with more than 31,000 casualties in just one month of fighting, and Vietnam did not withdraw its military presence from Cambodia until the late 1980s.
These military actions in Korea, India, and Vietnam represent the largest uses of armed force that the PLA has undertaken since the founding of the People’s Republic. In all three cases, political calculations trumped military readiness and favorable domestic conditions. Chinese leaders viewed these operations as conflicts of necessity, not choice or opportunity. If the recent purges harm the PLA’s readiness and reflect Xi’s confidence in the PLA, then opportunistic uses of force may be less likely in the near to medium term. But if Xi views military action against Taiwan as necessary, he will still order the PLA into battle.
Clean cooking access is a defining challenge for Africa’s prosperity. While the number of people without access to clean cooking has halved globally since 2010, the number in sub-Saharan Africa continues to rise. This harms health, economic development, and the environment – contributing to 815 000 premature deaths annually and significant deforestation.
In a new report, Universal Access to Clean Cooking in Africa: Progress update and roadmap to implementation, the International Energy Agency (IEA) provides an updated picture of where things stand today, where efforts are gaining ground, and where urgent action is still needed. This includes tracking the implementation of the USD 2.2 billion in public and private commitments made at the 2024 Summit on Clean Cooking for Africa, which the IEA co-hosted with the President of the United Republic of Tanzania, the Prime Minister of Norway, and the President of the African Development Bank Group.
The report introduces a new scenario – the Accelerating Clean Cooking and Electricity Services Scenario (ACCESS) – which charts a pathway for all African countries to accelerate efforts by replicating the best historic rates of progress seen in other leading countries globally. This country-by-country analysis builds on the first-ever mapping of clean cooking infrastructure across Africa, as well as an assessment of clean cooking fuel availability and affordability in each region.
The report is the latest entry in the IEA’s 25-year history of tracking progress on energy access and promoting clean cooking as a crucial part of the global energy agenda. The tracking in this report will continue to be updated in the future.
This study utilized data from 4,823 Kurdish women enrolled in the Ravansar Non-Communicable Disease (RaNCD) cohort, a prospective epidemiological study based in Ravansar County, Kermanshah Province, Iran. The RaNCD cohort is a component of the larger Prospective Epidemiological Research Studies in Iran (PERSIAN) cohort, which aims to investigate the risk factors associated with non-communicable diseases across various Iranian subpopulations. The RaNCD cohort includes individuals aged 35 to 65 years, and this analysis focused specifically on women within this age range.
Participant recruitment was carried out using a structured census approach. In urban areas, trained research assistants conducted door-to-door visits to register eligible residents. In rural regions, household information was obtained from local health units that maintain regularly updated demographic records. Recruitment commenced in March 2015, and by February 2017, a total of 10,065 individuals had been enrolled, reflecting a high participation rate of 93.2%. All eligible participants received comprehensive information about the study’s objectives and procedures prior to providing informed consent [22].
For this analysis, we included women who had been married at least once—encompassing those currently married, widowed, and divorced—in order to provide a comprehensive evaluation of CU among individuals with marital experience. Accordingly, younger married women outside the cohort’s age range, as well as single individuals, were excluded, as the study focused on family planning within the context of formal marital relationships. The data were derived from the recruitment phase of the RaNCD cohort conducted in 2017.
In the initial stage of analysis, we employed the Pearson Chi-square (χ2) test to examine associations between categorical variables, with a particular focus on evaluating differences in CU across socioeconomic quintiles.
Conceptual model
Our study examines how socioeconomic and demographic determinants influence CU among Kurdish women in western Iran. The framework is structured as follows:
1.
Independent Variables (Determinants)
• Demographic Factors: Age, marital status, age at first pregnancy, number of live births.
• Socioeconomic Factors: Socioeconomic quintile, place of residence (urban/rural).
2.
Mediating Factors
3.
Outcome Variables
Measures of inequality
To assess socioeconomic-related inequality in CU, we employed the normalized concentration index (NC), a widely accepted metric that quantifies the degree of socioeconomic-related inequality in a health variable. The NC ranges from −1 to + 1, with zero indicating no inequality, negative values suggesting a higher concentration of CU among poorer individuals, and positive values indicating a greater prevalence among wealthier individuals. The NC was calculated using the Eq. 1 [23]:
where ({y}_{i}) represents the history of contraceptive use or tubectomy for the (i)-th participant, ({r}_{i}) denotes the fractional rank of the (i)-th participant based on SES, and (mu) is the mean of the outcome variable (history of contraceptive use/tubectomy).
Decomposition of inequality
To identify the primary factors contributing to socioeconomic inequality in CU, we applied the Wagstaff decomposition method. This analytical approach allows for the quantification of each explanatory variable’s contribution to overall inequality. The variables considered in the decomposition included age, marital status, age at first pregnancy, number of live births, place of residence (urban vs. rural), and SES.
SES was operationalized through a composite index constructed using principal components analysis (PCA). Using this method, we synthesized a broad array of indicators reflecting household wealth and living standards. These included housing characteristics (per capita living space, per capita number of rooms), housing tenure (ownership vs. rental), and ownership or access to household assets such as freezers, washing machines, dishwashers, computers, internet, automobiles, motorcycles, color televisions, bathrooms, and vacuum cleaners. Additionally, the index incorporated cultural and educational dimensions, including the number of books read in the past year, participation in pilgrimage trips, the frequency of national and international travel, and the highest level of educational attainment. PCA was employed to reduce the dimensionality of these correlated variables and generate a single SES index that captures the underlying variance in socioeconomic position. Based on their SES scores, women were subsequently classified into five quintiles. This SES index served as a key independent variable in analyzing inequalities in contraceptive us.
We selected the Wagstaff decomposition method because it offers a comprehensive breakdown of socioeconomic inequality while accounting for the full distribution of SES. This method is widely recognized and aligns with best practices in health inequality research [24,25,26]. Given that the outcome variables in this study—history of contraceptive use and tubectomy—are binary, we employed the extended decomposition technique proposed by Wagstaff (2005), which allows the normalized concentration index (NC) for binary outcomes to be decomposed accordingly. This decomposition is represented in Eq. 2 [27]:
In this equation, the normalized concentration index (NC) is decomposed into two components: the explained component (({C}_{widehat{y}})), which captures the inequality attributable to the observed explanatory variables included in the study, and the unexplained residual component ((varepsilon)). The term ({beta }_{k}) represents the marginal effects of the explanatory variables, derived from a logistic regression model and Ck is concentration index for explanatory variables. Utilizing marginal effects enhances the interpretability of logistic regression outcomes by expressing the impact of predictor variables in terms of changes in predicted probabilities, which is particularly valuable in decomposition analyses of health inequalities [28,29,30].
The elasticity of each explanatory factor, expressed as (left(frac{{beta }_{k}{overline{X} }_{k}}{upmu }right)), measures how responsive the outcome variable (i.e., history of contraceptive use or tubectomy) to changes in that particular variable. Here, ({overline{X} }_{k}) is the mean or proportion of the k-th explanatory variable, and μ is the mean of the outcome variable.
To quantify the absolute contribution of each explanatory variable to total inequality, we multiplied its elasticity by its concentration index (({eta }_{k}{C}_{k})). This allowed us to quantify the specific contribution of each factor to the overall socioeconomic inequality in CU. Furthermore, we computed the percentage contribution of each explanatory factor by dividing its absolute contribution by the total value of the normalized concentration index. This enabled a clear assessment of the relative importance of each determinant in explaining the observed inequality.
The direction of each variable’s contribution to inequality in CU indicates its directional effect. A positive contribution means the variable is associated with lower CU among poorer individuals, whereas a negative contribution suggests lower CU among wealthier individuals.
Given that our analysis involved two distinct outcome variables—(1) a history of contraceptive use and (2) tubectomy—we constructed separate analytical models for each to better capture the nature of socioeconomic disparities. Tubectomy, or female sterilization, is a permanent method of contraception that involves surgically obstructing the fallopian tubes to prevent pregnancy. It is regarded as one of the most reliable long-term family planning strategies and is generally selected by women who do not wish to have more children or who seek a permanent solution to contraception [31].
In this study, we defined CU based on lifetime experience. Specifically, a participant was classified as having a history of contraceptive use if she had ever used any temporary method of contraception—excluding withdrawal—at any point in her life, irrespective of current use status. This broader definition enables a more comprehensive assessment of contraceptive behavior over time, rather than limiting analysis to current or recent practices.
Data extraction was conducted using Microsoft Excel 2016, while statistical analyses were carried out using Stata version 17 (StataCorp, College Station, TX, USA).
KARACHI – Pakistani rupee recorded change against various foreign currencies in open market as the buying and selling prices of Euro, Saudi Riyal and UK Pound witnessed fluctuations.
On July 18, US Dollar’s buying rate stood at Rs288.2, while selling rate hovered at Rs288.7, according to forex.pk
Euro’s (EUR) buying rate stood at Rs334.5 and the selling rate at Rs338.5 while UK Pound buying rates settled at Rs386.5 and selling Rs390.5.
Several currencies, including the Australian Dollar (AUD), Canadian Dollar (CAD), Chinese Yuan (CNY), Danish Krone (DKK), Japanese Yen (JPY), Kuwaiti Dinar (KWD), Malaysian Ringgit (MYR), New Zealand Dollar (NZD), and Swiss Franc (CHF), showed no change in their rates compared to the previous update.
Currency Exchange Rates Today
Currency
Symbol
Buying (Rs)
Selling (Rs)
US Dollar
USD
288.2
288.7
Euro
EUR
334.5
338.5
UK Pound Sterling
GBP
386.5
390.6
Australian Dollar
AUD
186
191
Bahrain Dinar
BHD
763
773
Canadian Dollar
CAD
210.5
215.5
China Yuan
CNY
39.28
39.68
Danish Krone
DKK
44.27
44.67
Hong Kong Dollar
HKD
35.91
36.26
Indian Rupee
INR
3.22
3.31
Japanese Yen
JPY
1.92
2.02
Kuwaiti Dinar
KWD
931.8
943.8
Malaysian Ringgit
MYR
66.5
67.1
New Zealand Dollar
NZD
167.36
169.36
Norwegian Krone
NOK
27.53
27.83
Omani Riyal
OMR
747.7
757.7
Qatari Riyal
QAR
77.43
78.13
Saudi Riyal
SAR
76.85
77.5
Singapore Dollar
SGD
222
227
Swedish Korona
SEK
29
29.3
Swiss Franc
CHF
352.88
355.63
Thai Baht
THB
8.57
8.72
UAE Dirham
AED
78.6
79.5
Currency exchange is the process of converting one country’s currency into another. It plays a crucial role in global trade, travel, and investment. By enabling international transactions, currency exchange supports businesses, tourists, and governments in conducting cross-border activities.
The exchange rate—how much one currency is worth in terms of another—affects import and export prices, inflation, and economic stability. Central banks and financial institutions monitor exchange rates to manage economic policy.
For travelers, exchanging currency ensures they can spend money abroad. For investors, fluctuations in exchange rates create opportunities and risks. Overall, currency exchange is essential for a connected global economy.
Researchers at EPFL and Kyoto University have created a stable hydrogen-rich liquid formed by mixing two simple chemicals. This breakthrough could make hydrogen storage easier, safer, and more efficient at room temperature.
Hydrogen can be the clean fuel of the future, but getting it from the lab to everyday life isn’t simple. Most hydrogen-rich materials are solids at room temperature, or they only become liquids under extreme conditions like high pressure or freezing temperatures.
Even materials such as ammonia borane, a solid, hydrogen-rich compound that can store a lot of hydrogen, are difficult because they release hydrogen only when heated, often producing unwanted byproducts.
Making a hydrogen-rich liquid that stays stable at normal temperatures could make hydrogen storage and transport much easier. In fact, there have been efforts to improve hydrogen storage by changing the chemical makeup of current storage materials or by adding substances that help hydrogen release more easily.
One promising area is deep eutectic solvents (DESs), which are mixtures that melt at lower temperatures than their ingredients. This is important for hydrogen storage because DESs can turn solid hydrogen-rich materials into easy-to-handle liquids at much lower temperatures. Until now, though, none of these DESs had used hydride components, which are especially rich in hydrogen and could open up new ways to store more hydrogen in liquid form.
Scientists from the groups of Professors Andreas Züttel at EPFL and Satoshi Horike at Kyoto University have developed the first example of a hydride-based DES: a transparent, stable hydrogen-rich liquid that stays liquid at room temperature. The new DES can contain up to 6.9% hydrogen by weight, exceeding several technical targets for hydrogen storage including those set for 2025 by the US Department of Energy.
To make the new DES, the researchers physically mixed ammonia borane and tetrabutylammonium borohydride in different amounts to determine which combination(s) would stay liquid at room temperature. The right ratio (between 50% and 80% ammonia borane) produced a stable liquid that stayed amorphous, meaning it didn’t form crystals again even at cold temperatures.
Using spectroscopy, the researchers confirmed that the molecules formed strong hydrogen bonds, breaking up their usual solid structure and keeping the mixture liquid down to minus 50°C. Tests showed the new liquid could release hydrogen when heated to just 60°C, much lower than most hydrogen-rich solids. This means hydrogen can be accessed more easily and efficiently, making storage and use much more practical for real-world applications.
Mixing ammonia borane with tetrabutylammonium borohydride creates a new, hydrogen-rich liquid that doesn’t crystallize under normal conditions. The glass transition, which refers to when the liquid becomes glassy, happens at -50°C, far lower than our everyday conditions.
The mixture stays stable for weeks if kept dry, and its density is among the lowest reported for similar liquids. When heated, it releases pure hydrogen gas at relatively low temperatures without producing many impurities. Only the ammonia borane part breaks down first, which means parts of the mixture could be reused.
This new DES could make hydrogen storage and transport much simpler and safer. Instead of relying on high-pressure tanks or super-cold liquids, industries could use stable, easy-to-handle hydrogen carriers at room temperature.
Beyond hydrogen storage, these results could lead to new custom liquids for other uses, such as chemical production or green energy. The discovery opens up new directions for both hydrogen research and practical energy technology.
The complex pattern of gravitational waves emitted by a pair of black holes circling each other before merging.
| Photo Credit: Henze/NASA
Scientists working with a network of observatories located around the world recently reported that they had detected a powerful and unusual burst of gravitational waves, which they called GW231123. The signal was traced back to two black holes colliding into each other on November 23, 2023.
This isn’t the first time the observatories have detected gravitational waves, but the event is special because of the extraordinary size of the black holes involved: they are much heavier than most seen before. More interesting is the fact that the heavier black hole appeared to have a “forbidden” mass — a value inside a range called the pair instability mass gap — which challenges what physicists thought was possible for black holes created from dying stars.
Imagine a massive star at the end of its life. Usually, very heavy stars explode in supernovae, leaving behind black holes. But theory predicts that no black holes should form with masses between about 60 and 130 times the mass of our sun. This is the pair instability mass gap: it’s thought to exist because stars this large explode so violently that nothing remains, not even a black hole, just scattered gas.
Above 130 solar masses, stars may skip the explosion and directly collapse to create supermassive black holes.
So finding black holes in the mass gap raises important questions about how they got there.
On November 23, 2023, the two Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatories (LIGO) in the U.S. detected a burst of gravitational waves, faint ripples in spacetime created by massive objects accelerating and colliding. The GW231123 event lasted only about one-tenth of a second and the signal was strong and clear. The collision happened about 2 billion lightyears away.
Scientists at the LIGO as well as Virgo and KAGRA observatories in Italy and Japan, respectively, conducted a detailed analysis and determined the pre-merger mass of the two colliding black holes. The heavier one had 120-159 solar masses but likely centred at 137 solar masses. The lighter one weighed 51-123 solar masses but likely centred at 103 solar masses. The total mass involved in the collision was thus likely 190-265 solar masses, rendering GW231123 the most massive black hole merger ever seen with high confidence.
The mass of the heavier black hole in the merger is right inside, or just above, the pair instability mass gap. The mass of the lighter one could also be in or near the gap, given the large uncertainty. According to theory, stars can’t leave behind black holes in this range, so the scientists figure something else must be going on.
They are already considering several explanations. One, for example, is called a hierarchical merger: smaller black holes could merge inside dense star clusters, then the resulting larger black holes merge again, building up over time and ending up inside the gap. This possibility finds some support from the fact that both black holes were spinning rapidly. Usually, black holes formed from individual stars aren’t spinning this fast.
Another possibility is a stellar merger. Sometimes, two stars might merge before they die, creating a much larger star that might collapse to form a black hole whose mass lands inside the gap. It’s also possible these two black holes formed right after the Big Bang, by a process unrelated to stars, although this idea is in the realm of speculation. Yet other potential explanations include some stars losing less mass before exploding or hitherto entirely unknown processes.
The main idea is that the detection of GW231123 suggests the universe can make black holes in the mass gap after all, and not just through the collapse of single stars. And that this fact means scientists’ theories about the lives and deaths of massive stars need updating.
