China Signals New Era of Slower #Economic Growth

#China signaled that the world’s second-largest economy is entering an era of slower expansion, setting a target for gross domestic product growth of between 4.5% and 5% this year.

It is the lowest target set since at least the 1990s and follows three years in which officials called for growth of “around 5%.” If China’s economy were to expand at a pace below 5% this year, it would be the slowest growth reported by the country in more than three decades, other than during the Covid pandemic years.

China said its GDP grew 5% in real terms last year, meeting its official target despite a renewed trade war with the U.S.

A lower GDP target for 2026 reflects a level of tolerance for weaker growth as China’s economy contends with muted household spending, dampened investment and a real-estate market in the doldrums.

The less ambitious growth target also gives Chinese leaders some room to maneuver the economy through complicated geopolitical terrain—including conflict in the Middle East and the threat of further trade pressure from President Trump—while continuing to pursue Beijing’s strategic goal of technological self-reliance.

Premier Li Qiang, the country’s No. 2 leader, in the annual government work report released Thursday, said China must “hone our own capabilities to navigate external challenges.”

With a record $1.2 trillion trade surplus last year, China’s growth has become increasingly reliant on exports, creating a global imbalance that has drawn criticism from its trading partners and global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund. Exports drove China’s economic expansion in 2025 to a degree not seen since 1997, according to government data.

Economists inside and outside the country have long called for China to shift its economy to one driven more by consumption and less by its formidable manufacturing and export machine. Such a shift could ease tensions with the rest of the world and give its people greater spending power.

But a significant rebalancing of China’s growth model would be difficult to achieve in concert with its longstanding goals of technological and manufacturing dominance.

China is entering the first year of its next five-year economic plan, in which officials have signaled an intent to stick with its current trajectory of solidifying its pre-eminence in advanced manufacturing and attaining technological self-sufficiency from the U.S.-led West.

#MADRID — Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez again criticized the U.S. and Israel’s military actions in Iran, standing firm on Wednesday against trade threats from Washington and warning that the war in the Middle East risked “playing Russian roulette” with millions of lives.

“We are not going to be complicit in something that is bad for the world and is also contrary to our values and interests, just out of fear of reprisals from someone,” Sánchez said in a televised address.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to end U.S. trade with Spain because of Spain’s refusal to allow the U.S. to use joint military bases in the country in its attacks on Iran.

Sanchez, widely regarded as Europe’s last major progressive leader, has called the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran an “unjustifiable” and “dangerous” military intervention.

It’s not clear how Trump would cut off trade with Spain, which is a member of the European Union. The EU negotiates trade on behalf of all its 27 member states.

When asked in an interview with CNBC whether a trade embargo with Spain would be possible, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday “it would be a combination effort.” He didn’t explain further, but said Spain’s refusal to allow the U.S. to use its bases in the weekend attack on Iran endangered American lives.

“Anything that slows down our ability to engage and prosecute this war in the fastest, most effective manner puts American lives at risk,” Bessent said. “The Spanish put American lives at risk.”

On Wednesday, Sánchez expressed concern that the attacks on Iran could lead to another costly military quagmire in the Middle East, similar to the past American interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“In short, the position of the government of Spain can be summarized in four words,” Sánchez said. “No to the war.”

The EU said Wednesday it would protect its interests and work to stabilize its trade relationship with the U.S, with which it struck a trade deal last year after months of economic uncertainty over Trump’s tariff blitz.

“We stand in full solidarity with all member states and all its citizens and, through our common trade policy, stand ready to act if necessary to safeguard EU interests,” said European Commission spokesperson Olof Gill.

After Spain denied U.S. use of its bases, Trump on Tuesday said “we could use their base if we want,” referencing the Rota and Morón installations in southern Spain that the U.S. and Spain share, but which remain under Spanish command. “We could just fly in and use it,” Trump said. “Nobody’s going to tell us not to use it, but we don’t have to.”

Tuesday’s threats from Washington were just the latest instance of the U.S. president wielding the threat of tariffs or trade embargoes as punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court last month struck down Trump’s far-reaching global tariffs, saying emergency powers do not allow the president to unilaterally impose sweeping #tariffs.

Vatican warns against cosmetic surgery’s ‘cult of the body’, In a new text approved by Pope Leo, a top Vatican commission warned the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics against using cosmetic surgery, saying it can lead to a “cult of the body” and an unrealistic search for a perfect figure.

“Advances in cosmetic surgery … offer tools that significantly change the relationship with one’s corporeality,” said the document.

“A widespread ‘cult of the body’ follows, tending toward a frantic search for a perfect figure, always fit, young, and beautiful.”

The Catholic Church teaches that the human body is made in the image of God. While the Church does not prohibit cosmetic surgery, it says Catholics should not pursue procedures merely to suit their vanity.

The new warning came in a document from the Vatican’s International Theological Commission, which advises the pope on doctrinal questions facing the Church.

The commission warned against cosmetic surgery as part of a long reflection on procedures using technology to advance humanity.

It also warned against a future where artificial intelligence “risks escaping the control of human reason” and where humans might choose to have mechanical implants in order to become akin to “cyborgs.”

Cosmetic surgery can lead to an attitude of changing your body “according to the tastes of the moment,” the text warned.

“A curious situation arises: the ideal body is exalted ... while the real body is not truly loved, since it is a source of limits, fatigue, aging,” it said.

(Reporting by Joshua McElwee; Editing by Alvise Armellini, Aidan Lewis)

The #CIA is working to arm Kurdish forces with the aim of sparking a popular uprising in Iran, multiple people familiar with the plan told #GlobalNews.

🚨 BREAKING: An Iranian ballistic missile has just struck the LARGEST US military base in the Middle East — Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar

Unknown if there were any casuaIties at this time.

Developing…

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova commented on a potential European cooperation in nuclear security, emphasizing the importance of neighboring states’ attitudes.

"There is one important ‘but:’ as we have just seen, any initiative must be acceptable to the neighboring countries which should not feel threatened by potential newcomers. Otherwise… I think, everyone following the news has realized that, in this matter, not only the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency are important but also the attitudes of the countries bordering the region and beyond," Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel.

On March 2, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that eight #European countries had expressed interest in cooperating with Paris on joint nuclear deterrence, naming Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, and Denmark. Commenting on the initiative at a press conference on March 3, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned of a growing risk that nuclear proliferation could spiral out of control.

The United States is going to rupture all trade relations with Spain after its refusal to increase defense expenditures to 5% of the GDP, President Donald Trump said.

"They have great people, but they don't have great leadership. And as you know, they were the only country that in NATO would not agree to go up to 5%. I don't think they want to agree to go up to anything," Trump said at the press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the White House.

"They wanted to keep it at 2% and they don't pay the 2% so we're going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don't want anything to do with Spain," the US leader added.

Has the U.S. ever assassinated a world leader before?

The U.S. government for decades shied away from targeting foreign leaders after embarrassing failures and unintended consequences from covert activities by the #CIA.

The targeting and killing of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which opened an undeclared war with Iran, is the first time in modern history the U.S. — in this case working with Israel — openly killed the leader of a foreign country, according to CNN presidential historian Tim Naftali.

For those keeping track, the U.S. has now decapitated two foreign governments — both U.S. adversaries overseeing vast oil reserves — in the past two months. Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro is in New York awaiting trial and Khamenei is dead.

There is actually a ban on U.S. involvement in assassinations in U.S. law – most recently in an executive order signed by Ronald Reagan. It is still technically in effect.

But since 9/11, after which Congress gave presidents broad authority to use force to combat terrorism, there has been a slow but steady move toward this moment. Presidents from both parties have killed leaders of terrorist groups such as Osama bin Laden. U.S. President Donald Trump took another step when he ordered the killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani by airstrike in Iraq in 2020. Now the U.S. has killed a foreign head of state.

“You can always come up with an individual who, by their power and their depth of depravity, whose removal benefits humanity,” Naftali said, arguing few will mourn Khamenei’s demise. “But making the decision to wipe out a foreign head of state should not be taken easily or quickly.”

‘I got him before he got me’

Neither U.S. President Donald Trump nor the Trump administration has publicly used that word – assassination – to describe the killing of Khamenei. They have offered multiple reasons for attacking Iran – lack of faith in Iran’s leaders in negotiations over Iran’s plans for a nuclear program; the potential for Iran to develop anti-ballistic missiles; Iran’s sponsorship of terror groups in other countries, the recent killing of protesters in its streets.

When Trump announced the strikes in a video posted to his social media account at 2:30 a.m. ET Saturday, he said, without evidence, that Iran posed an “imminent” threat. But in a phone conversation with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, Trump offered a more personal reason for killing Khamenei.

“I got him before he got me. They tried twice, well I got him first,” Trump said, according to Karl.

Trump is likely referring to U.S. intelligence from the summer of 2024 that Iran was plotting to assassinate then-candidate Trump and other officials, around the same time a gunman with no known ties to Iran tried to kill Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. Iran denied the claim.

When the U.S. military has been involved, foreign leaders have faced justice in their own countries.

Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was hanged after a trial by authorities in Iraq after the U.S. invaded and toppled his government.

Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi was killed in crossfire after being captured by revolutionary forces, aided by a multinational bombing campaign with allies.

After World War II, allies put Nazi leaders on trial in Nuremberg.

READ MORE: War widens to include Iranian-backed militias as Israeli and American planes pound Iran
CIA involvement in coups and assassinations was previously kept secret

The U.S. was complicit in the overthrow and killing of Vietnamese dictator Ngo Dinh Diem, who previously had been propped up by U.S. support.

The CIA was directly, and secretly, involved in the 1973 ouster of Chilean leader Salvador Allende, which led to his suicide.

The U.S. orchestrated an overthrow in Iran in the 1950s

Other leaders overthrown with help by the U.S., like Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran in 1953, were put in prison rather than killed. The U.S. has since acknowledged its role in the coup, undertaken because the US and Britain feared Iran, and its oil, would fall behind the Iron Curtain. It was Kermit Roosevelt Jr., grandson of former President Theodore Roosevelt, who worked in Iran to help orchestrate the coup.

After Watergate, a special bipartisan Senate committee was convened to assess abuses by the American intelligence community. The Church Committee, named for Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, issued a special report specifically on the issue of assassinations.

Over hundreds of papers, it ticked through U.S. efforts to undermine foreign leaders and assassinate them. Most notable are the failed assassination attempts against Cuba’s Fidel Castro, first ordered by the Kennedy administration.
Today, death is more likely to come from above

During the Obama administration, the U.S. revolutionized the use of covert drone strikes, as CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen has written, to kill suspected terrorists.

Technology has progressed since then. Israel Defence Forces released footage on its social media from a drone of what it said were the last moments of the Palestinian leader Yahya Sinwar, when he was sitting alone in a bombed-out room while the drone hovered nearby.

It’s not clear what technology was used in the strike on Khamenei. Last July, Iran claimed that another Palestinian, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in Tehran by a “short-range projectile.”

Tracking his daily moments

Israel appears to have fired the projectile that killed Khamenei and other leaders, but CNN reported Sunday that the CIA provided key intelligence on the Ayatollah’s whereabouts that allowed him to be targeted.
From CNN’s report:

(The CIA was) monitoring for his daily patterns — where he lived, whom he met with, how he communicated and where he might retreat under threat of attack, five people familiar with the matter told CNN. They were keeping tabs, too, on Iran’s senior political and military leaders, who rarely gathered in the same place with the ayatollah, the country’s supreme leader for nearly four decades.

The attacks coincided with an opportunity to take out not only the ayatollah but also other Iranian leaders, who recent intelligence suggested would be at a Tehran compound that is home to the offices of the ayatollah, the Iranian presidency and the national security apparatus.

In other words, the opportunity was there.
When the U.S. decided assassinations were a bad idea

The Church Committee concluded there were at least eight attempts to assassinate Castro between 1960 and 1965, including by mob hit, according to the author Dan Bohning, who wrote for CNN about the assassination attempts in 2008.

Its conclusions express bipartisan opposition to assassinations. It quotes President John F. Kennedy, somewhat ironically given attempts to kill Castro and his own ultimate demise, as saying the U.S. should not be assassinating foreign leaders.

“We can’t get into that kind of thing, or we would all be targets,” Kennedy said, according to the Church report.

More detailed quotes from the testimony of Richard Helms, who was involved in the 1953 Iran coup and also CIA assassination attempts before rising to be CIA director.

In testimony, Helms explained both moral and practical opposition to assassination.

“If you are going to try by this kind of means to remove a foreign leader, then who is going to take his place running that country, and are you essentially better off as a matter of practice when it is over than you were before?”

Helms pointed to the assassination of Diem in Vietnam as an example.

“That whole exercise turned out to the disadvantage of the United States,” Helms said. At the time he made those comments, in the years before the Islamic Revolution, Helms was the U.S. ambassador to Iran.

“It isn’t because I have lost my cool, or because I have lost my guts, it simply is because I don’t think it is a viable option in the United States of America these days,” Helms said of his opposition to assassination.

Three successive U.S. presidents, Republican Gerald Ford, Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican Reagan would each sign executive orders making it illegal for the U.S. government to engage in assassination.

Reagan’s order is still technically in effect, but Trump has been given broad immunity by the Supreme Court for his official acts while in office.

Trump is now seizing his opportunity to remake the geopolitical system, operating without seeking congressional approval in both hemispheres.

🇮🇷 Funeral service for the 150+ Iranian primary school girls murdered by the U.S.

#BREAKING: Newly appointed Supreme Leader of #Iran, Ayatollah Arafi, has reportedly been killed in an airstrike, just hours after being given the role.