Global report

1 NATO

Summit leaders classify China as security challenge

Nato leaders declared that China presents a security risk, the first time the traditionally Russia-focused military alliance has asserted the need to respond to Beijing’s growing power.

The final communique, signed off by leaders of the 30-member alliance at the urging of the new US administration, said China’s stated ambitions and assertive behaviour presented “systemic challenges to the rules-based international order”. At their annual summit in Brussels, the leaders also declared concern about China’s “coercive policies” – an apparent reference to the repression of the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang – the expansion of its nuclear arsenal and its “frequent lack of transparency and use of disinformation”.

The language, notably stronger than the China remarks in last Sunday’s G7 statement, follows US lobbying to create a counterweight of democratic nations to Beijing’s growing economic and military might. However, Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, insisted China was “not an adversary”, saying instead the emerging strategy was to address “the challenges” posed by Beijing.

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2 ARGENTINA

Maradona Jr in DNA appeal to search for stolen babies

Diego Armando Maradona Jr, son of the late Argentinian football legend, is urging Italians to submit DNA to help the Argentinian government trace hundreds of children who were stolen and their parents murdered by the military junta that