Tuesday marks the third anniversary of the launch of the Fujian, China's first aircraft carrier equipped with electromagnetic catapults. Official media said China is about to enter a three-aircraft-carrier era, with the Fujian expected to enter service by 2025.
After the launch of the Fujian on June 17, 2022, it carried out its first sea trial from May 1 to 8 in 2024. Since then, the Fujian has completed multiple sea trials, accumulating more than 100 days of sea trial, China Central Television (CCTV) News reported on Tuesday.
Wei Dongxu, a Chinese military affairs commentator, said that the aircraft carrier Fujian has been making steady progress in sea trials, and is expected to be commissioned within this year, CCTV News reported.
With a full displacement of more than 80,000 tons, the Fujian is the world's first conventionally powered aircraft carrier to feature electromagnetic catapult technologies, according to CCTV News. The report noted that it will carry a wide variety of carrier-borne aircraft, including fighter jets, early warning aircraft, anti-submarine aircraft and drones.
The Fujian is China's third aircraft carrier. In September 2012, China commissioned its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning. The Shandong, China's second aircraft carrier and first domestically built, entered service in December 2019. Both the Liaoning and the Shandong utilize ski-jump ramps rather than catapults to assist aircraft takeoff.
Fu Qianshao, another Chinese military affairs expert, told the Global Times that since the Fujian uses advanced technologies such as electromagnetic catapults and is equipped with new aircraft such as the J-35 stealth fighter jet, may require longer testing periods than the Liaoning and Shandong. "But I personally think it is very likely that the Fujian will enter service in 2025," Fu said.
China's growing number of aircraft carriers, along with their increasingly advanced capabilities, contributes to peace and stability, Wei said.
Unlike the US-led Western naval system, which operates through a "gang-up" approach, using military alliances to form joint maritime forces for blockades and intimidation in regions like the Western Pacific, China's strengthening carrier force provides crucial strategic balance. It enhances self-defense capabilities while fostering greater peace, Wei said.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), a leading civil rights organization, has accused Israel of carrying out “an organized and systematic practice of sexual torture” against Palestinian detainees from the besieged Gaza Strip.
PCHR said in a new report that its investigators have documented extensive sexual violence against both Palestinian women and men detained by Israeli forces across Gaza over the past two years.
According to PCHR, researchers and lawyers interviewed several Palestinians recently released from Israeli custody, who described repeated incidents of rape, forced stripping, filming of abuse, and sexual assault using objects and dogs, along with other forms of psychological humiliation.
One 42-year-old mother, detained while crossing an Israeli checkpoint in northern Gaza in November 2024, told investigators she endured repeated rape and physical abuse over several days.
“They put me on a metal table, pressed my chest and head against it, cuffed my ...
Accepting the Washington-based lender’s plan would be a “disgrace” for Dakar, the African state’s prime minister has said
Senegal has rejected a debt-restructuring proposal put forward by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The West African country’s prime minister, Ousmane Sonko, said following the plan would amount to a national “disgrace.”
Sonko made the remarks at a rally in the capital, Dakar, on Sunday, days after the Washington-based lender concluded a two-week mission to Senegal without a new financing deal.
Senegal’s public debt has risen to over $11 billion amid the discovery of $7 billion in undeclared loans. The IMF has since frozen a $1.8 billion lending facility to the former French colony, citing misreporting and hidden debt.
Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who came to power in April 2024, has blamed his predecessor, Macky Sall, for the debt crisis.....more here
https://www.rt.com/africa/627581-senegal-rejects-imf-debt-restructuring-proposal/
While Washington dreams of a Golden Dome, Beijing is quietly building one that actually works
When Donald Trump unveiled the Golden Dome in May 2025, he promised nothing less than a revolution in American security – a $175-billion missile defense shield designed to intercept any threat to the United States.
Modeled on Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, the new project envisions an integrated network of satellites, next-generation interceptors, radars, and laser weapons extending from the Earth’s surface to outer space. The ambition is clear: complete, preemptive, and absolute protection by 2029.
Yet behind the spectacle of technological grandeur lies a troubling pattern. No concrete system architecture has been presented, and early projections suggest the true cost could triple the official figure. More importantly, the concept of “absolute security” signals an enduring American desire for unipolar dominance – one that undermines, rather than reinforces, global ...
