Raid on Hyundai: Hundreds of Koreans detained by Trump's anti-immigration police

Today's headlines: the Israeli army is now targeting the last skyscrapers in Gaza, with the Mushtaha Tower razed to the ground; Modi will not attend the virtual BRICS summit on multilateralism, attempts to thaw relations with Washington; China imposes tariffs on pork imports from Europe; Japanese companies test electric vehicle motor without the use of rare earths; According to a new study, the copper used in Venice's Lion of St Mark came from China.

SOUTH KOREA-UNITED STATES

A raid by US authorities at the construction site of an electric vehicle battery plant — operated by Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution Ltd. in Bryan County, Georgia — led to the arrest of 475 people last night, more than 300 of whom were South Korean. President Donald Trump yesterday described them as “illegal immigrants”, arguing that immigration officers were “just doing their job”. The Seoul Foreign Ministry expressed “disappointment and concern” about the incident, explaining that “people's rights cannot be unjustly violated”.

GAZA-ISRAEL

Yesterday, the Israeli army carried out raids and demolished the Mushtaha Tower, one of the tallest buildings in western Gaza City, for which the military had issued an evacuation order. The accusation that it contained Hamas surveillance infrastructure was denied by the owner. Further destruction of multi-storey buildings is reportedly underway this morning, signalling a new phase of the offensive that specifically targets these buildings, further evidence of the desire to inflict as much damage as possible on Gaza City in order to push those who remain to choose to leave.

INDIA

Just a week after images showed him alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not attend the 8 September BRICS virtual summit on multilateralism, which will also discuss US tariff measures that have hit India particularly hard. Delhi will be represented by its Foreign Minister. Although no official reason has been given for Modi's absence, according to some sources it is a rebalancing manoeuvre after the signal sent to Washington with his trip to China. Just today, Modi, responding to Trump who called him “a great prime minister and a friend”, described the partnership with the United States as “very positive and forward-looking”.

CHINA-EUROPE

China has announced that it will impose temporary tariffs on imports of pork meat from the European Union. The Beijing authorities launched an investigation into European pork imports last year, while Brussels examined Beijing's state subsidies to the Chinese electric vehicle industry. According to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, the temporary tariffs will range from 15.6% to 62.4% and will come into effect on 10 September.

JAPAN

Proterial Ltd., the Japanese company formerly known as Hitachi Metals Ltd., has announced that it has developed a neodymium magnet that does not use so-called rare earths for electric vehicle traction motors. This innovation could enable manufacturers to break away from the geopolitically sensitive rare earths market, whose extraction and processing is currently largely controlled by China. The magnet could also be used in hybrid vehicles. Proterial aims to begin large-scale production at its plants in Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture, and Yabu, Hyogo Prefecture.

RUSSIA-AZERBAIJAN

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov clarified that there was no meeting between Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, at the SCO summit in China, “they only greeted each other and exchanged a few words”, despite the high expectations of journalists in this regard, even though members of the Russian and Azerbaijani delegations “communicated actively with each other”, without reaching any concrete proposals to overcome the current crisis.

CHINA-ITALY

According to a study by a group of researchers from the University of Padua conducted on a number of samples and published in Antiquity, the archaeology journal of the University of Cambridge, the copper used in the famous Lion of St Mark's Square – the monument that symbolises Venice – was extracted from a mine in China, in the Yangtze River basin area. This new hypothesis – which shifts the origins of the Lion much further east than previous theories – argues that it may have been Marco Polo's father who brought it to Venice from the court of the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan. It would recall a type of Chinese funerary sculpture called “zhenmushou” dating back to the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD), which Venetian foundries would then have adapted and transformed into the Lion of St Mark.

TAJIKISTAN-GERMANY

The Tajikistan Ministry of Labour has officially opened recruitment for qualified German language teachers to implement training programmes for migrant workers who can travel to Germany under agreements between Dushanbe and Berlin, in particular with the company GmbH for professional training in line with current labour market needs.

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