As the two men began a series of meetings in Beijing thought to be a message of defiance and strength to Western powers, Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomed Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as an “old friend.” Putin added that their countries’ ties were at an “unprecedented level.”
In the wake of President Donald Trump’s rampant tariff increases and the two allies’ sharp disagreements with one another, the two countries are at odds with one another.
Putin praised Moscow’s strengthening ties with Beijing on Tuesday while addressing Xi as a “dear friend.” They planned to have another meeting with some of their top aides over tea in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People following their formal discussions.
The discussions take place in Tianjin, a city in China, one day after both attended a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit. Moscow and Beijing have endorsed the SCO as a counterweight to Western-led alliances, with Putin claiming that the world needs a “system that would replace obsolete Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic models.”
Putin is expected to “sign 20 agreements increasing cooperation between Beijing and Moscow,” according to Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, who is based in Beijing. It appears that Putin and Xi have a very warm, sincere relationship, according to Yu, adding that neither the US nor Western European leaders have had any negative impact on their friendship.
In recent years, China and Russia have bolstered their ties, particularly with regard to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the early 2022.
China maintains trade despite Western sanctions, but claims to be neutral in the Ukraine war. However, it has also provided an economic lifeline to Russia by continuing to trade. Some of its businesses have been accused of supporting the military.
The two leaders’ discussions come one day before a massive Chinese military parade in Beijing to commemorate both Japan’s victory and World War II’s climax.
Around 20 world leaders will be present, including Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who state media claim he entered China before his planned visit.
Although the former Soviet Union was neutral during the majority of the war in Asia, China was helped by its earlier support for Japanese forces in the 1930s. In the final days of World War II, Japan was also at war and troops were sent over the border into northeastern China from Japan.
China hopes to convey a message to the West through this military parade, Yu said. The point China wants to make by rolling out the red carpet for them is that they are not isolated, that they do have friends and do have power, Yu said, adding that many of the leaders attending this parade “have been styled by the US, by the Trump administration as outcasts, as weak, as pariahs.”
The SCO meeting has demonstrated how to support a new global order and demonstrate solidarity among the world’s citizens. Chinese President Xi Jinping made remarks that were widely perceived as criticism of the US that “global governance has reached a new crossroads.”
Before their Tuesday meeting, Putin and Xi had a trilateral meeting with Mongolian President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa. Between the two giants are his grasslands-strewn, mineral-mined land, and his landlocked nation.
In his opening remarks, Putin stated that the three nations share a desire to develop ties and are good neighbors. He claimed that “our three nations have a lot in common.”
China, Russia, and Mongolia should strengthen their solidarity and cooperation, and increase their mutual support, according to Xi in his own words.
Australia has announced plans to outlaw deepfake nudes that are created and used for stalking.
Under the reforms announced on Tuesday by the Australian government, tech platforms will be tasked with preventing access to “nudify” and undetectable online stalking tools.
Anika Wells, the minister for communications, said Australia would work with businesses to stop “abhorrent technologies” and make sure “legitimate and consent-based” artificial intelligence (AI) and online tracking services were not adversely impacted.
Abusive technologies are now widespread and readily accessible, according to Wells, who issued a statement.
We’ll work closely with industry to achieve this by working with them as these new, constantly evolving technologies demand a new, proactive approach to harm prevention.
While this action, along with existing laws and our world-leading online safety reforms, will make a significant difference in protecting Australians, she continued.
With the proliferation of platforms that can produce photo-realistic material with the click of a mouse, there is growing concern about the use of AI to sexually explicit images of people without their consent.
In a survey of 1,200 young people conducted by the advocacy group Thorn last year, 6% of respondents said they had been a direct victim of such abuse, while 6% said they knew someone who had created fake nude imagery for them.
In recent years, Australia has implemented a number of significant legal reforms, including the first social media use ban for minors.
Pat Cummins, an Australian captain, has a back issue that prevented him from starting the limited-overs series against New Zealand and India. He is expected to be fit for the Ashes’ Ashes against England this winter.
The 32-year-old pace bowler played in the West Indies’ third Test in July before missing the white-ball series against South Africa and the same opponents.
Following the West Indies Test tour, Cummins has experienced some ongoing lower back pain, despite this planned rest period, according to a Cricket Australia statement.
In October, Australia will play three Twenty20 matches in New Zealand before hosting India in three one-day internationals and five T20 matches.
Perth, Western Australia, will host the five-test Ashes series on Friday, November 21.
There is still plenty of time left, according to Australia’s selectors, George Bailey.
We are confident in his knowledge and preparation, even if the time is a constraint.
Cummins took 18 wickets in the series, and Australia won the Ashes in a draw of 2 with England in 2023.
In 19 Tests, he has taken 91 wickets for England, an average of 24.10.
Six months before the men’s T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka, fellow fast bowler Mitchell Starc has retired from T20 internationals.
The 35-year-old helped his country win the T20 World Cup in 2021 and has taken 79 wickets in 65 matches played for his country under the shorter format.
Starc said, “I have loved every second of every T20 game I’ve played for Australia, especially the 2021 World Cup, not just because we won but also because the other team was fantastic and the team was fantastic.”
I believe that in the lead up to an Indian Test tour away from home, the Ashes, and the 2027 ODI World Cup, I think this is my best chance to stay active and mentally prepared for those campaigns.
More than 1, 000 people were killed by a landslide triggered by heavy rain on Sunday in the Darfur region of Sudan, according to an armed group that controls the area.
The price of Nip+Fab’s retinol serum has been reduced from £30 to £10 as a result of the Boots’ £10 Tuesday deal, which saw shoppers praised its “excellent results” for removing fine lines.
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The Nip + Fab serum is now £20 off in Boots £10 Tuesday deal(Image: Getty Images)
As any lover of beauty knows, Boots £10 Tuesday deals are one of the best ways to save some serious money on your favorite products or a fantastic opportunity to try something new without breaking the bank. Significant savings are often made on products like skincare, makeup, and wellness products as part of the offer, which can cost you two to three times the price.
The Nip+Fab Retinol Fix Serum Extreme 3%, a great anti-ageing addition to your skincare regimen, is one we’ve got our eyes on this week’s £10 Tuesday deal. The serum is now reduced to £10 until midnight tonight, instead of the usual $30 for 50ml.
READ MORE: I received free luxury beauty products in the form of “LookFantastic’s 2025 beauty advent calendar.”
READ MORE: What to buy now: Boots’ Star Gifts is back to save you 50% on beauty Christmas gifts.
The serum is a wise investment because it will help you avoid wrinkles in the future and reduce existing fine lines, making skin that looks younger. The high-performance pure retinol complex, which is more effective at piercing your skin, makes up the Nip+Fab Retinol Fix Serum Extreme 3%.
This results in younger skin on the inside and deeper beneath your skin layers. Additionally, it has a peptide complex that helps you tone and texture while also addressing fine lines and wrinkles.
The retinol serum penetrates deep into your skin(Image: Nip + Fab)
Additionally, the Retinol Fix Serum Extreme 3% contains bakuchiol, a naturally occurring substitute for retinol that results in comparable anti-aging effects, and works well with the other ingredients to promote increased cell turnover. The combination of ingredients helps stop conditions like hyperpigmentation, especially those brought on by sun exposure, as well as combating age-related signs.
The Nip + Fab serum is also sold at stores like LookFantastic and Boots, which frequently offer great deals on skincare. If you’ve missed out on the Boots £10 Tuesday offer, keep an eye out there. Other than the price, customers can purchase Encapsulated Retinol 3% Renewing Serum from Facetheory for as little as £30.
The Resist Anti-Aging Retinol Serum’s price has also been reduced from £47 to £39.95 thanks to a formula that uses 0.1% retinol and vitamin C to combat a variety of aging signs. The Retinol 3TR Advanced 0.3% Vitamin A Serum costs £20 less than it did in the Medik8 Outlet, which is also available there.
The serum has been highly praised by shoppers(Image: LookFantastic)
The Nip+Fab Retinol Fix Serum Extreme 3% has an impressive 4.7 star rating, but Boots customers appear to be very fond of it. One user expressed “Love this product, my skin feels amazing,” while another expressed “Great results, face feels so plump after use.”
Other customers chimed in, “Really happy with my skin – this actually works,” before adding, “I’ve been using Nip+Fab for about a year and a half, and the difference in my skin has been gradual but genuinely noticeable.” My skin appears radiant and healthy, and I frequently think, “My skin looks good.”
What I really like about it is how straightforward it is, saving me time searching for the best serum online and deciding what to layer. My skin barrier, which has previously been a problem with other products, has no longer been a problem with this serum.
One person did say, “Love the texture and how it makes my skin feel, just like the cream, but I really don’t like the smell.”
While another claimed that while the serum initially smelt a little sticky (like a banana), my skin felt soft the following morning. But I still don’t know if my skin has changed much.
Continue reading the article.
However, others praised it, saying it was “shocking on the face and soft on the skin.”
Only Tommy and Clem, the only Poets members, have revealed that the band has accomplished a significant milestone by playing at their “dream” venue while making a passionate plea for justice.
Daniel Bird Assistant Celebrity and Entertainment Editor
With concert tickets rising due to the cost-of-living crisis, rockers Only The Poets are set to change things. A massive concert will be played for just £1, and the band, which will feature frontman Tommy Longhurst, guitarist Clem Cherry, bassist Andy ‘Roo ‘ Burge, and drummer Marcus Yates, will be playing.
Since launching the band seven years ago, the quartet has toured across the globe, supporting artists such as Louis Tomlinson, Yungblud, Lewis Capaldi, and Bastille. However, the boys aren’t particularly interested in raising the costs of their gigs, despite the fact that dozens of musicians do so.
Instead, they will headline the iconic O2 Brixton next year, and fans won’t have to spend a lot to see them. Tommy and Clem exclusively revealed how important music was to them in their early years through an initiative that supports the LIVE Trust.
Only The Poets frontman Tommy Longhurst struggled to contain his excitement over their upcoming Brixton gig(Image: Redferns)
Anything more than that is a total bonus, Tommy said backstage at their Berlin show last week, “It’s always been the destination for us, that’s the dream, that’s the goal, everything is the dream.” He went on to add: “It’s a rite of passage in the UK, it’s a phenomenal venue. We couldn’t think of a better place to perform it because we were very inspired in that room. We’re going there and playing a show there, hopefully doing something similar for some younger people, and for our fans because it’s our dream venue.
The gig will take place on February 2 next year, just days after the release of their debut album, And I’d Do It Again. Regardless of socio-economic status, they are passionate about making music accessible to everyone. “Music for us in our early years was so important, especially live music”, Tommy added, before explaining the band wants the night to be an “escapism” for people to leave all of their troubles at the door.
Clem responded, “To draw attention to a problem that, for us, gigs were everything. Going to concerts is where we made our friends, it’s where you go to let go and escape, for us, musically speaking, it’s where we got our inspiration to start picking up instruments. That’s everything if we can return that to other people.
The lads will play the O2 Brixton next year, and tickets will cost just £1(Image: Instagram/onlythepoets)
Emotionally Hungover is one of the band’s upcoming albums that makes them particularly proud. “I guess that song is about how even your emotions can bring you to a point that you almost feel like you’re feeling hungover, and you feel rough just from your brain”, Tommy explained.
The album, which centers on the direction they are currently headed, is called “And I’ll Do It All Again,” as the quartet firmly believes that “everything happens for a reason.” Tommy explained: “It feels like it’s almost a time capsule of our journey as a band for the last seven years.
However, we have all experienced a lot of personal hardship when writing and producing it. It’s a real emotional journey. We simply believe that everything in life, not just the band, everything that happens in our lives, has led to this conclusion, I suppose. And if people say, ‘ Would you change it a bit? ‘ No, that’s the answer. We really believe that everything happens for a reason, and hopefully, the fans will feel like we’re celebrating with them.
It’s really going back to where it started at the point of our record, behind the messaging of it all, and it’s that full-circle moment. “We’re going to all the grassroots venues that we love dearly. We’re so proud of it, the boys produced it with our producer Dandelion, it feels the most cohesive, and we feel like we’re the band we’ve always wanted to sound like”.
Clem admits that the band never set out to record and release the album, admitting it happened naturally(Image: Getty Images)
Meanwhile, while Clem admits things have never felt “forced”, he says this record is the most “unforced” project they have ever worked on. He said: “The whole process of putting it together has just been so natural. We never really sat out like ‘Right, it’s time to make an album’ it was just kind of like we just sort of slowly stockpiled this collection of songs that kind of all met each other in terms of like themes, in songwriting, and sonically, they kind of gelled, it felt like it was a really natural, organic process for us as well.”
Although the band are signed to Capitol UK, one of the biggest labels in the world, one thing that will never change is how much creative freedom the four lads have. “We’re firm believers in doing everything like this,” Tommy said, adding that they always want to make the fans feel involved in “really poignant moments” of their career.
The boys have always had a lot of open communication with fans about their mental health, breaking the silence on men talking about emotions, which Tommy says is very important to them. “We are four guys that are incredibly with how we feel and we’re more than happy to be open”, he said.
He continued, “Music is kind of that outlet for us, isn’t it,”’ he said, referring to Clem. We’ve poured that into this album and these new songs, and hopefully, if we can encourage even a couple of people to feel like they can speak up about how they’re really feeling, that’s just an amazing bonus. To assist people, that’s kind of the purpose of your music. I do think the conversation is definitely getting better, and I feel more people are, even with me and my friends, everyone is more open than they were maybe a decade ago. We must feel very strongly about that, in my opinion.
Despite being signed to one of the biggest labels, Only The Poets continue to have freedom over their career(Image: Redferns)
When someone is “having a bit of a wobble,” the lads can check in on one another while traveling by taking some time for themselves. “We do things, go off on our own and have a bit of time on our own”, Tommy said, adding: “We don’t fall out, we know each other so well, so there’s a good dynamic”.
Clem once said, “It’s like a baptism of fire, I think, when you make a band, you hear of so many bands, I suppose, that don’t make it because of inter-political stuff, right? Or, like people fall out and whatever, there’s so many stories about huge bands that have done that. However, I believe we both learned a lot from our interactions because we all have a strong sense of commonality and are now friends with one another.
” You can immediately sense if someone is having a bit of a funny day or whatever, you know to give them space or the opposite, lean in a bit more if that’s what the person needs. We, as a group, are very supportive of one another, in my opinion. That really does shine through. We really make an effort to be there for each other even with our crew because sometimes the road can be challenging, but we also have a dream.
Tommy admits that while aspects of the band, including travelling as far as America, can be tough being away from home, he checks in with himself, saying it’s ok to have a bad day, adding that the band get on” really well, like brothers. “
In recent years, the band have been open with fans and are breaking the taboo around men’s mental health(Image: Corbis via Getty Images)
” That kind of falls into the meaning of the album, “Clem said, adding:” Everything we’ve ever done from point A to point B is we are here now as a result of all of those choices and the mistakes and everything but would we want to change any of it to be where we are now well the answer would be no, even the highs and the lows. “
However, the band has had a personal roller coaster over the past seven years, with Tommy claiming that it has helped him learn more about himself. Especially with this album, I went through a breakup and I sort of scratched the service of why that went wrong, “he explained.
You’ll hear and feel that undertone throughout it, and he continued, “Before that, I started to analyze myself. It’s a very honest recollection of that kind of reflection amongst the record. What I’ve learnt about myself, I’ve had some kind of hard conversations with myself but then come out the other side, lighter and better. “
Clem continued, “I’d say the thing I’ve learned is how incredibly powerful it can be, not about me but our fans. It really is amazing for us to have the fan base that we do. They are truly amazing and powerful, and their actions are unfathomable. “Tommy continued”, Like Clem said, it’s the most amazing feeling, everyone’s got your back. “
The quartet have some of the most dedicated fans, with some jetting into foreign cities to see them perform and catch up with friends(Image: PR Handout)
” We now know of so many people by name, and we know they are best friends through liking us. This entails the album’s complete circle, revealing how significant live music is. We feel so grateful and honoured, there’s no bigger compliment than helping people. The band shares their musical connection with this, “having met through music.” We know there are some fans of ours, who will come to our shows to see friends they’ve met at shows, “Clem commented, adding that some fly in from foreign cities to catch up with their pals. He claimed that it was “that all-inclusive sense of community that I find to be incredibly beautiful to see occasionally.”
And while they’ve played some incredible venues across the world, grassroots venues will always remain close to their hearts”. It simply stated, “Tommy said of dozens, including Sheffield’s The Leadmill, closing down.” He went on to add that many musicians start their careers at smaller venues, performing to a handful of people”. He continued, “You fall in love with it more,” adding, “They are the seed that will hopefully grow the tree and help you climb the live music ladder.”
Tommy admits it’s ‘sad’ that grassroots venues are closing down(Image: Corbis via Getty Images)
Clem said, “I think that’s what gives a lot of up-and-coming or undiscovered artists the confidence that they can do it, which is obviously what happened.” “This week, having already played a handful of shows in Europe and their hometowns, the band will hit the road, performing in Manchester, Birmingham, Oxford and Southampton.
However, they will begin their biggest American tour to date next month. Tommy said:” We’ve only ever done four states, we’re doing 20 shows with The Wombats, which is going to be unbelievable. They won’t be slowing down anytime soon, though, as their next album will be released next year.
” Then we’re doing our biggest European tour and our biggest ever US headline tour and hopefully a bunch of festivals, “an excited Tommy said. They’ll be traveling across the country in a van for their US trip, which will take them ten hours.
And while they’ve already played Reading and Leeds Festivals in the past, the thought of playing on the Main Stage as the opening act would be the” cherry on the cake “for them”. “Tommy said, “I’d love to open the Main Stage, I think that’s a slot that people don’t really like,” adding, “I’d love to do that, fingers crossed.
Only The Poets will become the only band to headline O2 Academy Brixton for £1 on February 2, 2026. For pre-sale, click here starting at 10am on September 11.
