• He Weidong, Miao Hua removed for serious disciplinary violations.
• Nine senior army officials expelled in latest graft drive.
• Xi says corruption fight vital to Party’s survival and unity.
  

China said on Friday it has expelled two top generals from the military and ruling Communist Party, part of corruption investigations into nine high-ranking army officials.

The announcement marks the latest push in a sweeping drive to root out graft at all levels of the party and state since President Xi Jinping came to power over a decade ago.

It also comes just days before a closely watched four-day gathering of top officials in Beijing for deliberations on long-term economic planning.

He Weidong, the Central Military Commission (CMC) vice chairman, was among nine individuals to be expelled from the army for having “seriously violated” discipline, according to an online statement by defence ministry spokesman Zhang Xiaogang.

He had not been seen in public since March, fuelling speculation, though no formal investigation had been previously announced.

The statement did not disclose He’s current whereabouts.

Also expelled was Miao Hua, the former head of the military’s political work department, who was formally removed from his post, according to state media reports in June.

Eight of the individuals were also stripped of Communist Party membership, after previously serving on its elite Central Committee, Zhang said.

Xi has called graft “the biggest threat” to the Communist Party and said “the fight against corruption remains grave and complex”.

Proponents say the policy promotes clean governance, but others say it also serves as a tool for Xi to purge political rivals.

“The severe punishment of He Weidong, Miao Hua […] and others once again demonstrates the Party Central Committee and the CMC’s unwavering resolve to persevere in the fight against corruption,” said Zhang.

He added that the crackdown represents a “significant achievement in the Party and military’s anti-corruption campaign”.

It has “contributed to a more pure, consolidated, cohesive and combat-ready People’s Army”, he added.

Miao and He are not the only high-ranking military officials to fall afoul of Xi’s corruption crackdown in recent years.

Former defence minister Li Shangfu was removed from office in 2023 just seven months into the job, and later expelled from the Party for offences including suspected bribery.

The latest announcement comes as the Communist Party prepares to convene a key meeting Monday known as the “fourth plenum” focused on economic planning for the five-year period ending in 2030.

That plan will play a central role in the pursuit of President Xi Jinping’s core aims, including technological self-sufficiency and military and economic might.

• Charter aims at ensuring democratic reform after next year’s elections.
• Reforms are needed to prevent return to authoritarian rule: Yunus.
• Interim leader declares charter rebirth of people of Bangladesh.
  

Bangladesh’s most powerful political parties signed a charter on Friday aimed at ensuring democratic reform after next year’s elections, following a mass uprising that toppled the previous government.

However, celebrations of the government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus were muted after one party refused to sign, with police also firing tear gas to quash rock-throwing protesters ahead of the ceremony.

Yunus, 85, has championed the document as his legacy, saying he inherited a “completely broken down” system and that reforms are needed to prevent a return to authoritarian rule.

“This is the moment we are ushering in a new Bangladesh,” Yunus told the ceremony, held in front of parliament in Dhaka. “We have been reborn.”

The South Asian nation of 170 million people has been in political turmoil since Sheikh Hasina was ousted as prime minister by a student-led revolt in August 2024.

The document, dubbed the “July Charter” after last year’s uprising, has sparked intense arguments between parties jostling for power ahead of polls slated for February.

Yunus, who has pledged to step down after elections, says it will strengthen checks and balances between the executive, judicial and legislative branches.

It includes proposals for a two-term limit for prime ministers and expanded presidential powers.

It also aims to enshrine the recognition of Bangladesh as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious nation.

Leaders of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), seen as among the election front-runners, as well as Jamaat-e-Islami, the Muslim-majority nation’s largest Islamist party, signed the charter.

However, the National Citizen Party (NCP), made up of many students who spearheaded the uprising that ended Hasina’s rule, boycotted the ceremony.

Ahead of the ceremony, police and protesters clashed, including those who took part in demonstrations last year, demanding compensation for those who were injured.

“The bloodshed of martyrs is now forgotten,” said Khandakar Mashruk Sarkar, 48.

The charter was given a last-minute amendment to include monthly allowances for injured protesters.

The document is expected to be ratified either by a referendum or by the new parliament to be elected.

Mohammad Ibrahim Hossain, 25, an electrician, among the crowd watching the ceremony, was unclear about exactly what changes the charter would make.

“I don’t know what is in it, or what good it will bring for us,” he said. “I just don’t want to see people die anymore.”

Nearly 80% of the world’s poorest, or about 900 million people, are directly exposed to climate hazards exacerbated by global warming, bearing a “double and deeply unequal burden,” the United Nations warned Friday.

“No one is immune to the increasingly frequent and stronger climate change effects like droughts, floods, heat waves, and air pollution, but it’s the poorest among us who are facing the harshest impact,” Haoliang Xu, acting administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, told AFP in a statement.

COP30, the UN climate summit in Brazil in November, “is the moment for world leaders to look at climate action as action against poverty,” he added.

According to an annual study published by the UNDP together with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, 1.1 billion people, or about 18% of the 6.3 billion in 109 countries analysed, live in “acute multidimensional” poverty, based on factors like infant mortality and access to housing, sanitation, electricity, and education.

Half of those people are minors.

One example of such extreme deprivation cited in the report is the case of Ricardo, a member of the Guarani Indigenous community living outside Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia’s largest city.

Ricardo, who earns a meager income as a day labourer, shares his small single-family house with 18 other people, including his three children, parents, and other extended family.

The house has only one bathroom, a wood-and-coal-fired kitchen, and none of the children are in school.

“Their lives reflect the multidimensional realities of poverty,” the report said.

Prioritising ‘people and the planet’

Two regions particularly affected by such poverty are sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia — and they are also highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

The report highlights the connection between poverty and exposure to four environmental risks: extreme heat, drought, floods, and air pollution.

“Impoverished households are especially susceptible to climate shocks as many depend on highly vulnerable sectors such as agriculture and informal labor,” the report said.

“When hazards overlap or strike repeatedly, they compound existing deprivations.”

As a result, 887 million people, or nearly 79 percent of these poor populations, are directly exposed to at least one of these threats, with 608 million people suffering from extreme heat, 577 million affected by pollution, 465 million by floods, and 207 million by drought.

Roughly 651 million are exposed to at least two of the risks, 309 million to three or four risks, and 11 million poor people have already experienced all four in a single year.

“Concurrent poverty and climate hazards are clearly a global issue,” the report said.

And the increase in extreme weather events threatens development progress.

While South Asia has made progress in fighting poverty, 99.1 percent of its poor population is exposed to at least one climate hazard.

The region “must once again chart a new path forward, one that balances determined poverty reduction with innovative climate action,” the report says.

With Earth’s surface rapidly getting warmer, the situation is likely to worsen further, and experts warn that today’s poorest countries will be hardest hit by rising temperatures.

“Responding to overlapping risks requires prioritising both people and the planet, and above all, moving from recognition to rapid action,” the report said.