After months of intense speculation and official reticence, China has finally confirmed its two former defense ministers who vanished from public view last year had been under investigation for corruption.

Their dramatic downfall has exposed deep-rooted alleged deceit in key sectors of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s military modernization drive despite his decade-long war on graft, raising questions about the country’s combat readiness at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.

Li Shangfu, who was drastically ousted as defense minister in October after only seven months on the job, and Wei Fenghe, who served from 2018 to 2023, were expelled from the ruling Communist Party following the investigations, with both cases handed over to military prosecutors for charges, state media reported Thursday.

The duo are the biggest heads to roll yet in a sweeping purge of China’s defense establishment since last summer, which has felled more than a dozen senior generals and executives from the military-industrial complex.

The turmoil in the upper ranks of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) comes as leader Xi Jinping is seeking to make China’s armed forces stronger, more combat-ready and more aggressive in asserting its disputed territorial claims in the region.

At the height of their careers, former defense ministers Li and Wei often struck a tough tone before the world’s top military officials. At successive regional security forums, the two generals warned the Chinese military would fight “at all costs” if anyone dares to “split” self-governing Taiwan from China. They also fired thinly veiled shots at the United States, vowing to push back against “hegemony” in the disputed South China Sea.

Both promoted under Xi, their removals come despite the Chinese leader’s more than decade long signature anti-graft campaign, underscoring the difficulties in preventing corruption at the highest levels of the military, according to analysts.

While Xi’s anti-corruption campaign has achieved some success, the lack of proper civilian oversight and an independent legal system means the PLA is reliant on its internal investigators for supervision, said James Char, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “That’s difficult, so corruption will definitely continue,” he said.

Corruption in weapons procurement

As part of Xi’s ambition to transform the PLA into a “world class” fighting force, China has poured billions of dollars into buying and upgrading equipment. Xi has also built up the Rocket Force, an elite branch overseeing the country’s fast-expanding arsenal of nuclear and ballistic missiles.

Most of the generals dismissed or disappeared without explanation last year were linked to the Rocket Force or military equipment, including Li and Wei.

Before becoming Defense Minister, Li headed the PLA’s Equipment Development Department for five years. An engineer by training, the 66-year-old spent decades launching rockets and satellites in southwest China before being promoted to the PLA headquarters to deal with military equipment procurement.

Wei, 70, was the inaugural commander of the Rocket Force. In late 2015, it was elevated by Xi into a full service from the PLA’s former missile arm, the Second Artillery Corps, where Wei had worked for decades. Wei’s two successors at the Rocket Force have also been purged.

The allegations against Li laid out in the announcement by the party’s 24-member Politburo clearly point to corruption in the procurement of weapons.

In addition to taking and giving bribes and abuse of power, Li was also accused of “severely polluting the political environment and industry practices of the military equipment sector,” according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Joel Wuthnow, a senior research fellow at the Pentagon-funded National Defense University, said the carefully worded phrase points to collusion between the state-owned enterprises that manufacture weapons and the PLA procurement system.

“We know there is some collusion, but it’s not clear – and the CCP would not admit it – that critical weapons actually are substandard or not reliable,” Wuthnow said. “If proven, that would be even more serious for Xi since he would have doubts not only about ethics but also about actual military readiness.”

Char, the analyst, said problems in the PLA’s procurement system have existed for many years.

In 2018, a study penned by China’s Naval University of Engineering, the Navy’s equipment procurement center and the audit office of the Central Military Commission had already analyzed the bid rigging practices in the PLA’s equipment procurement and called for improvement of the bidding system, Char noted.

“These problems in procurement and acquisitions raised questions about the quality of the equipment that the PLA had purchased earlier. How well do they actually function on the field? I think that’s quite debatable,” he said.

In a sign that China’s top military leadership could be concerned about the quality of its equipment, Gen. He Weidong, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), which oversees the armed forces, vowed in March to crack down on “fake combat capabilities” within the military, Char noted.

“His comment was quickly banned from public view afterwards. I think that says a lot about the actual combat capabilities of (the PLA),” Char said.

‘Lost confidence’

Li and Wei are the most senior military figures to be felled in six years by Xi’s relentless anti-corruption campaign.

The Chinese leader has made rooting out graft and disloyalty a hallmark of his rule since coming to power in 2012, and he has brought down powerful generals previously deemed untouchable.

Within the first few years of his first term, Xi claimed his two most senior scalps in the military, Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, two former vice-chairmen of the CMC. Xu later died of cancer and Guo was sentenced to life in prison for corruption.

In some ways, Wuthnow said, the latest corruption scandal around the two former defense ministers is “even worse for Xi” than the Xu and Guo cases a decade ago.

“Back then we could say Xi was cleaning house,” he said, noting that Xu and Guo had been appointed to the CMC under former leader Jiang Zemin. But both Wei and Li were promoted under Xi.

“Wei and Li’s cases show that Xi’s own vetting processes and vaunted anti-corruption campaign over the last decade haven’t succeeded at preventing graft at the top of the system,” Wuthnow said.

“I think this shows once more that Xi has lost confidence in his own appointees.”

Wei was promoted to the rank of general just over a week after Xi took the helm of the party. Li was promoted to lieutenant general and then again to general in just three years.

The announcements by the Politburo said Li and Guo’s actions “betrayed the trust and responsibility” placed in them by the top leadership of the party and the military. Li “betrayed the party’s founding aspirations and party principles,” and Wei was accused of “collapse of faith and loss of loyalty,” according to CCTV.

“Xi must be feeling personally betrayed by this high-level corruption,” wrote Bill Bishop, a China watcher and author of the Sinocism newsletter.

But Xi remains determined to root out corruption and disloyalty. Last month, he convened the military top brass for a political-work conference in Yan’an, a sacred site of Chinese Communist revolution in party history, calling for a deepening of political rectification in the PLA.

“The gun barrel must always be held in the hands of those who are loyal and reliable to the party,” Xi told the PLA elites. “Strictness is clearly required to…achieve combat effectiveness. There must be no place in the military for corrupt elements to hide.”

Char, the PLA watcher in Singapore, said in the long run, Xi’s cleaning up of the military and its procurement system is a good sign for China’s combat capabilities.

“The problems are being rectified as and when, and there will always be an ongoing review as to how Xi Jinping can actually bring the PLA up to speed to have his dream of modernizing the PLA by 2035 realized.”

A US Marine Corps aircraft has landed on a rebuilt runway on a World War II-era Japanese airfield on the Pacific island of Peleliu, site of one of the Marines’ bloodiest battles of the war and now a possible US basing option in a strategy to counter China.

The KC-130 Hercules transport aircraft touched down on the 6,000-foot runway on June 22 in what a Marine Corps press release called “a significant and triumphant return to this iconic World War II site.”

Marine engineers had been working on rebuilding the runway for months, clearing brush, removing trees and ensuring no unexploded ordnance remained from the World War II battle on the island, which is part of the island country of Palau.

More than 1,500 US troops and nearly 11,000 Japanese were killed on Peleliu between August and November of 1944, according to the US Naval History and Heritage Command, which noted that some Japanese troops hid in the island’s jungle and weren’t found until two years after World War II ended.

One US unit, the 1st Marine Regiment, suffered 70% casualties in six days of fighting on the island.

The Marines named the rebuilt landing strip the “Sledge” runway in honor of a veteran of the Peleliu battle, Pfc. Eugene Sledge, a mortarman on the island who wrote about it in a memoir “With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa,” and whose memories were portrayed in the HBO miniseries “The Pacific.”

Sledge described Peleliu as “an alien, unearthly, surrealistic nightmare like the surface of another planet.”

Now the runway “bridges the past and the future, honoring WWII sacrifices while enhancing regional security and cooperation,” the Marine Corps release said.

That regional security has been largely focused on China in recent years, which the Pentagon identifies as its “pacing threat.”

Part of mitigating the threat has been building facilities where the US could disperse assets like aircraft in the event of hostilities, including in the so-called Second Island Chain, locations far enough away from the Chinese mainland that Beijing would have difficulty striking targets there.

The First Island Chain, in such places as Okinawa in Japan, and US bases in the Philippines, “is neither a survivable nor viable operating location due to Chinese military capabilities in long-range bombers, cruise missiles, and theater ballistic missiles,” US Air Force Lt. Col. Grant Georgulis wrote in a 2022 commentary posted on the US Defense Department website.

“Thus, the United States should prioritize Midway Island, the Marianas, Palau, and the Marshall Islands to complement an already fortified Guam,” Georgulis wrote.

China has been deeply critical of Washington’s alliance-building efforts in the Pacific, viewing them as an attempt to halt Beijing’s rise as a military and economic superpower.

Beijing has long felt boxed in by the US presence in the First and Second Island Chains and under leader Xi Jinping has become much more assertive in regional waters and confrontational with neighbors such as Japan and the Philippines.

It has also sought to boost its own diplomatic and security ties across the Pacific region.

“In a bid to protect its hegemony, the United States is forming blocs globally to target specific countries, provoke confrontation and destabilize the world,” China’s state-run Xinhua news agency wrote in a recent editorial.

“It claims to protect its allies under mutual defense treaties, but in reality, the treaties serve as a tool to subordinate them to the superpower and push them to the forefront of conflicts.”

Reviving airfield used by US atomic bombers

Meanwhile, on Yap island in the Federated States of Micronesia, midway between Guam and Palau, the US Air Force in its 2025 budget requested $400 million to extend the runway at the island’s international airport – also a former Japanese military airfield – so it can be used by US military aircraft.

The US is already performing work on other locations in the Second Island Chain, including reviving North Field on Tinian island in the Northern Marianas, from where the US bombers that dropped the atomic bombs departed in August 1945.

“The United States must focus like a laser on the need for air superiority in the Pacific region. The United States must recapitalize islands gained during World War II to form a Second Island Chain of strategic expeditionary points,” Georgulis wrote.

For Washington, establishing strong ties to Pacific island states is also seen as a way to keep China from gaining footholds in the region. The Biden administration has signed a bilateral defense agreement with Papua New Guinea and reopened an embassy in the Solomon Islands since the beginning of 2023.

Palau is a remote archipelago of coral and volcanic islands in the western Pacific and home to about 20,000 people.

Since 1994, Palau has been covered by a compact of free association with the United States, making Washington responsible for its defense needs and allowing Palauans to serve in the US military.

Palau last year signed a bilateral law enforcement agreement with Washington that will let the US Coast Guard enforce its laws in its exclusive economic zone without a Palau officer present.

US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro visited Palau’s capital of Koror in March as part of a Pacific trip that included stops at two key US allies, Japan and South Korea, during which he said Washington’s partnership with the island state “directly supports a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

“I can assure you that the United States remains committed to Palau’s national security,” Del Toro said during a trip that also included a visit to the Peleliu island runway work.

Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr. has been critical of China’s increasingly assertive moves in the region, including toward Taiwan. Palau is one of the few remaining countries to diplomatically recognize Taiwan over Beijing.

Along with the runway, US Marines are helping make improvements to the Peleliu Civic Center Museum, to house artifacts from the World War II battle.

At an event last month marking the landing of the Marine aircraft on Peleliu, island Gov. Emais Roberts thanked the US Defense Department for its efforts there.

“Our small island community has benefitted immensely with the US Marine presence. We value the great partnership, and we feel safe and protected with the support of the greatest country in this world.”

At least 7 people, including children, were killed and at least 31 injured after Russia launched a missile strike on the town of Vilniansk in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region on Saturday, according to Ukrainian officials.

“[Today] is a day of mourning in Zaporizhzhia region for those killed in the enemy attack on Vilniansk,” Ivan Fedorov, the head of Zaporizhzhia regional military administration, said on Sunday. “There is unspeakable pain.”

Three children were among those killed and eight children were among the injured, Fedorov said.

The attack damaged critical infrastructure, as well as a retail store and residential buildings, he said Saturday. Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said trade pavilions, households and vehicles also caught fire as a result.

Speaking to the National Police, one local resident who witnessed the strike said: “It was a weekend, everyone was having a rest … it wasn’t even late, it wasn’t dark, a missile hit.”

She continued: “Children died, children were injured. So did adults. For no reason. The children had a graduation party, they were graduating from school. They were planning their future.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky offered his condolences to those who lost loved ones in the attack and appealed for more long-range weapons, saying Ukraine needs “to strike with real long-range capability and to increase the number of advanced air defense systems in Ukraine.”

“I am grateful to all partners who are helping. And the decisions we need must be accelerated. Any delay in decisions in this war means losing human lives,” he wrote on Telegram.

Recent battlefield developments have seen Russia make slow but steady tactical gains along multiple fronts in Ukraine. Russia also launched a surprise cross-border assault in May.

In the Donetsk region, Russia has made advances towards Chasiv Yar as it attempts to capture the strategic hilltop town.

During its offensive Russia has been exploiting Ukraine’s weak spots including thinly stretched manpower and delays in western supplies.

As Zelensky repeats his appeals for more long-range weapons, these developments have again highlighted Ukraine’s reliance on ammunition and weapons from the United States and other allies.

Concerns have been raised over how long aid from the US will continue should former US President Donald Trump be reelected this November.

Thursday’s debate saw US President Joe Biden struggle, while Trump questioned continuing to fund Ukraine’s fight against Russia.

“We’re very concerned because we, more or less, understand what it means for Ukraine, [a] Biden presidency, and we really don’t know what it means for Ukraine, a Trump presidency. It can be very good, it can be very bad. We just don’t know. And that’s definitely concerning,” Goncharenko said.

Those concerns, to be clear, are not about whether or not Biden is fit to make decisions. They are not worried that he will implement dangerous policies or take dramatic actions internationally – always a factor when talking about the person in charge of the world’s most powerful armed forces, a nuclear arsenal and largest economy.

The common view among US allies is that Biden is a sensible man who surrounds himself with sensible people and whatever happens, they will continue to make rational, reasonable decisions.

Nor is the concern that Biden’s stumbling, at times incomprehensible, performance has ensured a second Trump term. The prospect of a Trump return is a concern, but it has already been baked into allied thinking.

Europe, in particular, has never really moved on from Trump 1.0 and has held the view since 2020: that if it could happen once, it could happen again. That has been at the heart of European strategic thinking since Trump took office in 2016 and has continued through Biden’s presidency.

The concerns that America’s allies have are that the most powerful country on earth cannot provide the one thing they most want: stability.

Removing a candidate this late in the electoral cycle, diplomats fear, could undermine the whole process. It could allow adversaries like China and Russia to lash out at the US democratic system, making it look weak in comparison to their autocracies where strongmen grip power tight.

This may sound trivial, but diplomacy at this level is often seen in zero-sum terms: something bad or embarrassing for the West, particularly the mighty US, is good for its enemies.

These small shows of supposed weakness create openings for adversaries to spread propaganda, sow divisions in the US and the West itself through disinformation.

These risks would be bad enough in removing a candidate, but imagine if these conversations are taking place once Biden had secured a second term. Constant speculation about his ability to govern at home and abroad might be unfounded at a policy level, but it would doubtless create division, distrust and panic throughout his second term.

What might that materially mean? Would Biden be able to push things like aid for Ukraine through the House? Would he have the political capital to take potentially unpopular action in the Middle East or Indo-Pacific if those regions further destabilise? And would a question mark over the White House’s power embolden America’s global adversaries in to act more aggressively in their own backyards? Meeting all of these challenges effectively requires stability.

That brings us back to Thursday night. The world saw an old man struggling to speak eloquently or coherently. Whether you are a supporter or opponent, that performance raises legitimate questions about whether or not he is simply too old for the job he wants to keep doing.

Stability means more than political stability or consistency. If the noise and questions about Biden’s ability to govern continue, allies fear that he will be unable – fairly or unfairly – to provide the stability the West desperately needs at an uncertain time.

Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party has taken the lead in the first round of France’s parliamentary elections on Sunday, initial projections showed, taking it closer to the gates of power than ever before.

After unusually high turnout, the RN bloc won with 34% of the vote, while left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) coalition came second with 28.1% and President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble alliance slumped to a dismal third with 20.3%, according to initial estimates by Ipsos.

While the RN appears on track to win the most seats in the National Assembly, it may fall short of the 289 seats required for an absolute majority, suggesting France may be heading for a hung parliament and more political uncertainty.

Projections show that, after the second round of voting next Sunday, the RN would win between 230 and 280 seats in the 577-seat lower house – a staggering rise from its count of 88 in the outgoing parliament. The NFP was projected to secure between 125 and 165 seats, with Ensemble trailing with between 70 and 100 seats.

The election, which Macron called after his party was battered by the RN in European Parliament elections earlier this month, could leave him to see out the remaining three years of his presidential term in an awkward partnership with a prime minister from an opposition party.

The RN election party in the northern town of Henin Beaumont erupted in celebration as the results were announced – but Marine Le Pen was quick to stress that next Sunday’s vote will be key.

“Democracy has spoken, and the French people have placed the National Rally and its allies in first place – and has practically erased the Macronist bloc,” she told a jubilant crowd, adding: “Nothing has been won – and the second round will be decisive.”

In a speech at the RN’s headquarters in Paris, Jordan Bardella, the party’s 28-year-old leader and its to become prime minister, echoed Le Pen’s message.

“The vote taking place next Sunday is one of the most decisive in the entire history of the Fifth Republic,” Bardella said.

In bullish speeches before the first round, Bardella said he would refuse to govern a minority government, in which the RN would require the votes of allies to pass laws. If the RN falls short of an absolute majority and Bardella stays true to his word, Macron might then have to search for a prime minister on the hard left, or somewhere else entirely to form a technocratic government.

Cordon sanitaire

A week of political bargaining will now ensue, as centrist and left-wing parties decide whether or not to stand down in individual seats to block the nationalist and anti-immigrant RN – long a pariah in French politics – from winning a majority.

When the RN – under its previous name, the National Front – has performed strongly in the first round of votes in the past, left-wing and centrist parties have previously united to block them from taking office, under a principle known as the “cordon sanitaire.”

After Jean-Marie Le Pen – the father of Marine and decades-long leader of the National Front – unexpectedly defeated the Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin in the 2002 presidential election, the Socialists swung their weight behind the center-right candidate Jacques Chirac, delivering him a landslide in the second-round runoff.

In an attempt to deny the RN a majority, the NFP – a left-wing coalition that formed earlier this month – promised it will withdraw all of its candidates who came in third place in the first round.

“Our instruction is clear – not one more vote, not one more seat for the National Rally,” Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of France Unbowed – the largest party in the NFP – told supporters Sunday.

“A long week awaits us ahead, everyone will take his or her decision with conscience, this decision will determine, in the long-term, the future of our country and each one of our destinies,” Melenchon added.

It is not yet clear if Macron’s allies will return the favor and call on their supporters to support the NFP in constituencies where Ensemble trails in third. Marine Tondelier, leader of the Green Party – a more moderate part of the NFP – made a personal plea to Macron to stand down in certain seats to deny the RN a majority.

“We’re counting on you: withdraw if you come third in a three-way race, and if you don’t qualify for the second round, call your supporters to vote for a candidate who supports republican values,” she said.

A huge gamble

Macron’s decision to call a snap election – France’s first since 1997 – took the country and even his closest allies by surprise. Sunday’s vote was held three years earlier than necessary and just three weeks after Macron’s Renaissance party was trounced by the RN at the European Parliament elections.

Macron has pledged to see out the remainder of his final presidential term, which runs until 2027, but he now faces the prospect of having to appoint a prime minister from an opposition party – in a rare arrangement known as “cohabitation.”

The French government faces little trouble in passing laws when the president and majority in parliament belong to the same party. When they don’t, things can grind to a halt. While the president determines the country’s foreign, Europe and defense policy, the parliamentary majority is responsible for passing domestic laws, like pensions and taxation.

But these remits could overlap, potentially sending France into a constitutional crisis. Bardella, for instance, has ruled out sending troops to help Ukraine resist Russia’s invasion – an idea floated by Macron – and said he would not allow Kyiv to use French military equipment to strike targets inside Russia. It is unclear whose will would prevail in disputes like this, where the line between domestic and foreign policy is blurred.

A far-right government could spell a financial as well as constitutional crisis. The RN has made lavish spending pledges – from rolling back Macron’s pension reforms to cutting taxes on fuel, gas and electricity – at a time when France’s budget might be brutally slashed by Brussels.

With one of the highest deficits in the Eurozone, France may need to embark on a period of austerity to avoid falling foul of the European Commission’s new fiscal rules. But, if implemented, the RN’s spending plans would make France’s deficit soar – a prospect that has alarmed the bond markets and led to warnings of a “Liz Truss-style financial crisis,” referring to the shortest-serving prime minister in British history.

In a terse statement Sunday evening, Macron said the high turnout showed French voters’ “desire to clarify the political situation” and called for his supporters to rally in the second round.

“Faced with the National Rally, the time has come for a broad, clearly democratic and Republican rally for the second round,” he said.

Polls have opened for the first round of France’s snap parliamentary election, which could oust President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance and leave him to see out the remaining three years of his term in an awkward partnership with the far right.

Voting began at 8 a.m. local time (2 a.m. ET), as France started the process of electing the 577 members of its National Assembly through locally fought contests across the country and in its overseas territories.

The election is being held three years earlier than it needed to be, and three weeks after Macron’s Renaissance party was trounced by the far-right National Rally (RN), the party of Marine Le Pen, in the European Parliament elections.

Minutes after the humiliating defeat, in an apparent attempt to call voters’ bluff, Macron said he could not ignore the message sent by voters and took the “serious, heavy” decision to call a snap election – France’s first since 1997.

Whatever the outcome, Macron has pledged to remain in post until France’s next presidential election in 2027.

The National Assembly is responsible for passing domestic laws – from pensions and taxation to immigration and education – while the president determines the country’s foreign, Europe and defense policy.

When the president and majority in parliament belong to the same party, things run well. When they don’t, the government can grind to a halt – a prospect that could haunt Paris as it prepares to host the summer Olympics next month.

France most recently had such a government – known as “cohabitation” – when right-wing President Jacques Chirac called snap polls and was forced to appoint a socialist, Lionel Jospin, as prime minister, who stayed in the post for five years.

The first round of votes eliminates weaker candidates ahead of the second round next Sunday. If a candidate wins an absolute majority of votes in the first ballot on a 25% turnout, they win the seat. Typically, only a handful of deputies will be elected this way – but most will go to a second round.

Only those who win more than 12.5% of ballots cast by registered voters are allowed to stand in the second round. Often this is fought between two candidates, but sometimes three or four. Some candidates choose to drop out at this stage to give their allies a better chance of victory.

Most voters will choose one of three blocs: the RN-led far-right alliance; the New Popular Front (NFP), a recently formed left-wing coalition; and Macron’s centrist Ensemble.

The RN bloc is headed by Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old party leader handpicked by Le Pen, who has striven to polish the image of a party historically ridden with racism and antisemitism that proliferated under the decades-long leadership of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Until recently, the prospect of a far-right government was unthinkable. In the past, opposition parties have made marriages of convenience in an attempt to block the RN – under its previous name, the National Front – from entering government. Now, within a couple of weeks, Bardella could become France’s prime minister – and Europe’s youngest in more than two centuries.

On the left, a previously fractious cluster of parties have recently banded together to form the New Popular Front – a coalition meant to resurrect the original Popular Front that prevented fascists from gaining power in 1936. The broad alliance comprises more radical figures like Jean-Luc Melenchon, three-time presidential candidate and leader of the France Unbowed party, as well as moderate leaders like Place Publique’s Raphael Glucksmann.

Meanwhile, outgoing French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal – who was only appointed to his post by Macron in January – is representing Macron’s centrist Ensemble alliance. Attal was reportedly among the last of Macron’s inner circle to learn that a snap election was imminent.

Polls will close at 8 p.m. local time (2 p.m. ET) Sunday, with the full results expected early Monday.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story miscalculated the time polls open in the election. It is 8 a.m. local time (2 a.m. ET) Sunday.

A Chinese rocket crashed after being accidentally launched during a ground test Sunday, its company Space Pioneer said in a statement.

The crash happened when the first stage of the Tianlong-3 rocket detached from its launch pad during a test, due to structural failure. It landed in a hilly area of the city of Gongyi in central China.

“Due to the structural failure of the connection between the rocket body and the test platform, the first-stage rocket was separated from the launch pad,” Space Pioneer, also known as Beijing Tianbing Technology, said.

“After liftoff, the onboard computer was automatically shut down, and the rocket fell into the deep mountains 1.5 kilometers [0.9 miles] southwest of the test platform. The rocket body fell into the mountain and disintegrated.”

There were no injuries as a result of the crash, the company said, as people in the area were evacuated in advance of the rocket test.

Space Pioneer, a leading company in the commercial rocket sphere, specializes in liquid-propellant rockets.

In April 2023, it successfully launched its Tianlong-2 rocket, making the company China’s first commercial launch operator to send a liquid carrier rocket into space and successfully enter orbit, according to state media.

Tianlong-3, the rocket that crashed on Sunday, is a large liquid carrier rocket. It was made to help construct China’s satellite internet network.

The rocket’s product performance is comparable to SpaceX’s Falcon 9, according to Space Pioneer, adding that it will be capable of launching the rocket over 30 times per year after the rocket’s first successful flight.

The accident comes just days after China’s Chang’e-6 lunar module returned to Earth from space, where it collected the first ever samples from the far side of the moon.

The mission was a key milestone in China’s “eternal dream” – as articulated by Chinese leader Xi Jinping – to establish the country as a dominant space power and comes as a number of countries, including the United States, also ramp up their own lunar exploration programs.

At least four people have died and another is missing due to flooding this weekend in southern Switzerland, according to local police and Swiss state media.

Three people were killed in a landslide in the Maggia Valley, Swiss public broadcaster SRF reported.

Police in Switzerland’s Valais canton said another man was found dead in a hotel in Saas-Grund, adding that initial findings suggest he could have been taken by surprise by the rapidly rising waters.

A search is also underway for a 52-year-old man who has been missing in the village of Binn since Saturday evening, Valais Cantonal Police added in a press release Sunday. The public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the case of the missing man in Binn and the man found dead in Saas-Grund, police said.

The floods are a result of a rapid increase in water levels of several rivers, including the Rhône, caused by storms and melting snow, police said in Sunday’s press release. Police added the flooding has also caused debris flows and numerous road closures.

The river Rhône overflowed in several places causing hundreds of people in the Canton of Valais to be evacuated, according to a local government statement on Sunday, which said that “major damage” had also been reported in the valleys near the Rhône River in Upper Valais.

As a result of the flooding, the Valais canton said it called on the army to provide support.

Meanwhile in France, the department of Haute-Saône, which is near the border with Switzerland, was also hit with strong storms overnight. “Last night, Haute-Saône was hit by violent storms with intense rainfall and strong gusts of wind,” the local government said in a post on X.

Iran’s presidential election is expected to head to a second round after none of the candidates managed to secure more than 50% in Friday’s vote, according to the spokesperson of the election committee, Mohsen Eslami.

A runoff vote is expected to take place on July 5 between the candidates with the most votes – Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist lawmaker and former health minister ahead of Saeed Jalili, a hardline security adviser and former nuclear negotiator.

The results will be reviewed by the influential Guardian Council before the top two candidates start campaigning again.

Pezeshkian received almost 10.5 million votes while the runner up Jalili received almost 9.5 million votes, according to numbers published by state news agency IRNA.

Twenty-four million people cast their ballots out of 60 million eligible voters, with a turnout of 40%, Eslami said.

This is a breaking news story. Updates to follow…

Dozens of sick and injured children, including 20 cancer patients, have been evacuated from Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, the first to leave since Israel launched its offensive in Rafah last month.

The 68 were transferred to Cairo, Egypt, on Thursday, Israeli authorities say. COGAT, the Israeli agency responsible for approving aid into Gaza, coordinated the passage along with the Israeli military, the US, Egypt and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The news provided a moment of relief for the parents, whose children who had been unable to access lifesaving care after more than eight months of Israeli bombardment in Gaza.

“She is suffering and moving between hospitals receiving blood treatments… Every day she feels more pain than the day before,” said her mother Umm Ubaida. “She is extremely tired. She can’t wait any longer.”

The evacuations come with the southern Rafah crossing, a key transit point, still closed despite negotiations on its re-opening.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus welcomed the evacuation on Friday. He appealed for increased medical passage “via all possible routes including Rafah and Karem Shalom, to Egypt, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and from there to other countries when needed.”

But as Israel’s siege persists – and the risk of famine grows – Palestinian officials have warned that the operation was “a drop in the ocean” compared to hundreds more severely ill children who are still trapped in the ravaged enclave.

More than 25,000 sick people require urgent treatment abroad, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Among those are 980 children with cancer – including 250 patients who could face “certain death” – the ministry reported on Friday. Israel’s military campaign has depleted the medical system and drained food supplies.

Israel insists there is “no limit” on the amount of aid that can enter Gaza, but human rights agencies warn that its rigid inspection regime on trucks, sustained restrictions on land crossings and relentless bombing campaign means relief is barely dripping in.

Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza after the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on southern Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others were abducted.

Israeli attacks in Gaza have since killed 37,718 Palestinians and injured another 86,377 people, according to Gaza health officials.

‘I was not allowed to leave with them’

Even before the war, chronically ill patients in Gaza faced numerous hurdles when trying to access medical treatment abroad – having lived through years of partial blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt.

“I submitted a request to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital to travel with them. They said you cannot travel because you are less than 60 years old.”