China allocates funds to help flood, drought relief efforts

China has allocated multiple batches of funds to provinces and regions across the country to support disaster relief efforts, including flood and drought response.

The Organization Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee has allocated a special fund of 138 million yuan (about 19.01 million U.S. dollars) to 11 provinces and regions to help with flood and drought relief work.

The fund comes from Party fees collected from CPC members and administered by the department on behalf of the CPC Central Committee.

The department said that all local authorities need to make every effort to deal with the disaster, do a solid job in flood control, rescue and relief work, minimize disaster losses, and effectively ensure the safety of people's lives and property and overall social stability.

According to the department, officials at all levels should pay close attention to flood control and drought relief and implement various relief measures carefully.

The department also stressed that the fund should be promptly allocated to the people at the primary level, mainly for Party members, officials, and residents who are fighting on the front lines of flood control and drought relief and those who have encountered difficulties due to serious disasters.

The fund will also cover repairing damaged education facilities at the primary level for Party members.

The department said the authorities of relevant provinces and regions should allocate supporting funds in a timely manner in accordance with the actual situation to control floods and ease the drought.

Moreover, the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Water Resources said on Wednesday that it had already allocated 916 million yuan (about 126.16 million U.S. dollars) to flood and drought response work in the country's southern and northern regions and to support disaster relief efforts.

The Ministry of Finance said on Friday that 105 million yuan (about 14.46 million U.S. dollars) has also been allocated to support the urgent restoration of flood-damaged roads.

According to the ministry, the funds will be used promptly to restore roads destroyed by flooding in Guangdong, Guangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, and Guizhou and ensure safe traffic during the flood season.

Persistent rainfall has battered many of China's southern regions this summer, damaging roads and buildings and leading to casualties.

The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters on Friday activated a Level-IV emergency response to flooding in Jiangsu and maintained a Level-IV response in Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Chongqing, and Guizhou. It also downgraded the response in Guangxi from Level III to Level IV.

China allocates funds to help flood, drought relief efforts

The U.S.-led international mission formed a decade ago to combat the Islamic State extremist group in Iraq will cease to exist by September 2025, said a joint statement issued Friday by the U.S. and Iraqi governments.

There will be, however, a "transitioning to bilateral security partnerships in a manner that supports Iraqi forces and maintains pressure on ISIS," said the statement, which on the U.S. part was carried by the State Department's website, using the abbreviation of an alternative name of the Islamic State known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

According to the statement, the Iraq-U.S. Higher Military Commission which consists of representatives from both sides will formulate necessary measures to ensure the safety of coalition advisors present in Iraq during the transitional period.

The coalition's military mission in neighboring Syria, where the Islamic State also operates, "will continue until September 2026," the statement said.

The statement provided few details as to what, if any, number of U.S. troops will leave Iraq as a result of the end of the mission.

"I just want to foot stomp the fact that this is not a withdrawal. This is a transition. It's a transition from a coalition military mission to an expanded U.S.-Iraqi bilateral security relationship," a senior U.S. official told reporters during a briefing Friday.

The United States has some 2,500 military personnel in Iraq and roughly 900 troops in Syria, tasked with the mission of fighting Islamic State militants while also serving as trainers and advisors to local security forces.

U.S.-led coalition mission in Iraq drawing to end by September 2025