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Thailand’s popular ‘Princess Bha’ dies, aged 47: royal palace
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Thailand’s popular ‘Princess Bha’ dies, aged 47: royal palace

Thai Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol, the king’s eldest daughter, has died aged 47, the royal palace announced on Friday, more than three years after she was hospitalised following a sudden illness. She was suffering from an abdominal infection and “her condition continued to worsen”, the Bureau of the Royal Household said in a statement, until she “passed away peacefully” on Thursday evening. She...

Thai princess in coma dies, aged 47: royal palace
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Thai princess in coma dies, aged 47: royal palace

Princess Bajrakitiyabha, the eldest daughter ‌of Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn, ⁠died at the ‌age of 47 ‌after nearly four ⁠years ⁠in ‌a coma, ‌the ‌royal palace ‌said in ⁠a statement ⁠on Friday. More to follow...

Can Hong Kong cash in on ecotourism without trashing its natural treasures?
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Can Hong Kong cash in on ecotourism without trashing its natural treasures?

A sea of 500 tents covered the white sands of remote Ham Tin Wan in Sai Kung during a recent holiday, turning one of Hong Kong’s most scenic beaches into a makeshift campsite for crowds of overnight visitors. Some of the campers had joined tours from mainland China for the Labour Day “golden week” holiday, sleeping in rows of identical tents and gathering around camping tables for hotpot dinners, ...

EVs capture two-thirds of China’s car market in record-breaking week
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EVs capture two-thirds of China’s car market in record-breaking week

Electric vehicles accounted for a record 66.7 per cent of new car sales in mainland China during the first week of June, the latest sign that the country’s battery-powered carmakers are benefiting from the global energy crisis. Two out of every three new cars sold on the mainland in the seven days ending June 7 were either pure electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles, according to data from the China ...

China’s ports are by far the most efficient in the world: World Bank study

China’s ports are by far the most efficient in the world: World Bank study

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China’s ports continued to dominate global efficiency rankings in 2025, with seven Chinese trade hubs placing in the top 10, according to a study by the World Bank and S&P Global released on Wednesday. The latest edition of the annual report comes at a time when ports are playing a more vital role in the global economy than ever, as facilities strive to handle intense disruptions to global supply ...

How Nvidia’s South Korean AI deals could fuel ‘the next industrial revolution’

How Nvidia’s South Korean AI deals could fuel ‘the next industrial revolution’

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A spate of agreements Nvidia has reached with South Korean companies presents a long-term road map for the country to expand its role in the semiconductor and physical AI industries, observers say. The most significant deal Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made during his whirlwind three-day trip to Seoul that ended on Sunday was with SK Telecom to build AI infrastructure, including factories. An AI factor...

Killing of Indian sailors ‘very unfortunate’, US lawmaker says, as tensions rise

Killing of Indian sailors ‘very unfortunate’, US lawmaker says, as tensions rise

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Republican Congressman Rob Wittman on Thursday called the US killing of three Indian sailors off the coast of Oman “a very, very unfortunate incident”, claiming that the US military is trying to “determine exactly what happened”. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to those Indian families who lost their loved ones there in that situation,” Wittman told the South China Morning Post. “I know that our ...

Tearful Malaysian mother begs for no jail time over attempted affair

Tearful Malaysian mother begs for no jail time over attempted affair

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A Malaysian mother of two broke down in tears as she begged for leniency from the sharia High Court in Melaka for attempting to have sex with another woman’s husband last year. According to Sinar Harian, the accused, Siti Iqbar Mazlan, 35, during the proceedings before Judge Abu Bakar Daud on Thursday said that she regretted her actions and also apologised to the man’s wife, Puteri Norfatimah Isha...

Hong Kong developers rediscover pricing power amid firmer demand

Hong Kong developers rediscover pricing power amid firmer demand

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Prices for some new homes in Hong Kong have rebounded by as much as a third from the housing market’s lowest level a few years ago amid robust demand, according to analysts. Developers have priced new units this year in Tseung Kwan O, Wong Chuk Hang and Tai Wai between 7 and 36 per cent higher than those sold in the same projects or in the same districts in previous years, data tracked by JLL show...

Blast off on Wall Street: record SpaceX IPO could make Musk a trillionaire

Blast off on Wall Street: record SpaceX IPO could make Musk a trillionaire

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Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Thursday confirmed it will begin trading on the Nasdaq exchange Friday in the biggest initial public offering in history, a blockbuster market debut that could propel the entrepreneur to trillionaire status. In a filing with the US markets regulator, the company priced more than 555 million shares at US$135 each, placing SpaceX in the top 10 of Wall Street’s biggest companies...

SpaceX prices record IPO that could make Musk a trillionaire

SpaceX prices record IPO that could make Musk a trillionaire

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Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Thursday confirmed it will begin trading on the Nasdaq exchange Friday in the biggest initial public offering in history, a blockbuster market debut that could propel the entrepreneur to trillionaire status. In a filing with the US markets regulator, the company priced more than 555 million shares at US$135 each, placing SpaceX in the top 10 of Wall Street’s biggest companies...

US lawmakers warn next revolution in AI race must be in America, not China

US lawmakers warn next revolution in AI race must be in America, not China

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The United States must ensure the next chapter of responsible innovation is written in America, not in China, lawmakers and witnesses told a congressional hearing on Thursday as they sounded the alarm over US-China competition for global supremacy in artificial intelligence (AI). “Cyber security and national security must be taken seriously. The United States cannot afford to let China or any othe...

Canadian policeman killed during investigation tied to US consulate shooting

Canadian policeman killed during investigation tied to US consulate shooting

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A Toronto police officer was shot and killed Thursday by a suspect in the investigation into a shooting attack that damaged the facade of the US consulate in the Canadian city in March, police said. One 19-year-old suspect was in custody at a hospital in critical condition while officers searched for a second suspect, who was identified as 19-year-old Zara Jabbi and was considered armed and danger...

Taipei envoy sees US$14 billion arms package moving ahead under Trump

Taipei envoy sees US$14 billion arms package moving ahead under Trump

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Taiwan’s representative to the United States expressed confidence that Washington would approve a new round of arms sales to Taiwan, though US President Donald Trump has yet to make a decision on the matter. Asked on Thursday about a pending US$14 billion US arms sale to Taiwan, Alexander Tah-ray Yui, Taipei’s de facto diplomatic envoy, told CNN: “It’s up to President Trump to decide. Once the rev...

Thanks to Trump, Chinese people have a more realistic view of America

Thanks to Trump, Chinese people have a more realistic view of America

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For much of the reform era, the United States occupied a special place in the Chinese imagination. When I was growing up in China in the 1980s, the US – or meiguo, the “beautiful country” – was more than a country. It was an idea. Many Chinese, myself included, associated it with prosperity, freedom, scientific innovation and a functioning democracy. Even those who disagreed with American foreign ...

Biotech firm WuXi sues US over allegations it supports China’s military

Biotech firm WuXi sues US over allegations it supports China’s military

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A Chinese biotechnology company sued the US government on Thursday over being placed on a list of businesses from China that the ‌US Department of Defence has linked to that country’s military. WuXi AppTec filed its complaint in the Washington federal court, calling its inclusion on the list arbitrary, capricious, unsupported by the facts and “the product of political pressure”. It also accused th...

US targets Cuba oil giant as Beijing and Havana deepen party ties

US targets Cuba oil giant as Beijing and Havana deepen party ties

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The Trump administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on Cuba’s state-owned oil and gas company, escalating pressure on Havana’s communist government and targeting a sector central to the island’s worsening energy crisis. The move came hours after senior Chinese and Cuban officials held a video conference to discuss bilateral cooperation and party-to-party ties. According to statements released b...

US targets Cuba oil giant as China and Havana deepen party ties

US targets Cuba oil giant as China and Havana deepen party ties

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The Trump administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on Cuba’s state-owned oil and gas company, escalating pressure on Havana’s communist government and targeting a sector central to the island’s worsening energy crisis. The move came hours after senior Chinese and Cuban officials held a video conference to discuss bilateral cooperation and party-to-party ties. According to statements released b...

Trump picks Wall Street ‘top cop’ as US spy chief after Pulte backlash

Trump picks Wall Street ‘top cop’ as US spy chief after Pulte backlash

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US President Donald Trump said he is nominating Jay Clayton to be the next director of national intelligence, following backlash over his selection of housing regulator Bill Pulte to serve in the role on an acting basis. Clayton, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, was chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term. “I encourage the United States Senate to confir...

Trump picks Wall Street ‘top cop’ Clayton as US spy chief after Pulte backlash

Trump picks Wall Street ‘top cop’ Clayton as US spy chief after Pulte backlash

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US President Donald Trump said he is nominating Jay Clayton to be the next director of national intelligence, following backlash over his selection of housing regulator Bill Pulte to serve in the role on an acting basis. Clayton, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, was chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term. “I encourage the United States Senate to confir...

Trump taps Wall Street top cop Jay Clayton as spy chief after Pulte backlash

Trump taps Wall Street top cop Jay Clayton as spy chief after Pulte backlash

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US President Donald Trump said he is nominating Jay Clayton to be the next director of national intelligence, following controversy over his selection of housing regulator Bill Pulte to serve in the role on an acting basis. Clayton has been serving as the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan and was chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term. “I encourage the Unite...

Belfast stabbing victim ‘improving’ and may soon wake from coma

Belfast stabbing victim ‘improving’ and may soon wake from coma

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The condition of the Belfast stabbing victim is “improving” and he could be awoken from a coma within the next 48 hours, pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Gavin Robinson said on Thursday. Stephen Ogilvie lost his left eye and suffered deep cuts to his head, face and back in a stabbing attack on Monday night which preceded two nights of disorder in Northern Ireland. Twelve police o...

Nvidia denies Latin America role in chip smuggling as US-China AI rivalry reaches Brazil

Nvidia denies Latin America role in chip smuggling as US-China AI rivalry reaches Brazil

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Nvidia’s top executive for Latin America denied on Wednesday that the region has served as a corridor for restricted chips into China, weeks after Anthropic, the American maker of the Claude AI models, alleged that Chinese labs had relied partly on smuggled processors to drive recent advances. Speaking at Web Summit Rio at a moment of intensifying rivalry between Washington and Beijing over artifi...

NVIDIA denies Latin America role in chip smuggling as US-China AI rivalry reaches Brazil

NVIDIA denies Latin America role in chip smuggling as US-China AI rivalry reaches Brazil

SCMP

NVIDIA’s top executive for Latin America denied on Wednesday that the region has served as a corridor for restricted chips into China, weeks after Anthropic, the American maker of the Claude AI models, alleged that Chinese labs had relied partly on smuggled processors to drive recent advances. Speaking at Web Summit Rio at a moment of intensifying rivalry between Washington and Beijing over artifi...

Trump calls off Iran strikes, citing progress in talks

Trump calls off Iran strikes, citing progress in talks

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US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he had cancelled planned military strikes against Iran after negotiations with Tehran reached what he described as the highest levels of the Iranian leadership and received approval from all parties involved. “Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I h...

Trump cancels planned strikes on Iran

Trump cancels planned strikes on Iran

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US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he had cancelled planned military strikes against Iran after negotiations with Tehran reached what he described as the highest levels of the Iranian leadership and received approval from all parties involved. “Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I h...

US man pleads guilty to assassinating Minnesota House speaker and husband

US man pleads guilty to assassinating Minnesota House speaker and husband

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A ⁠Minnesota man pleaded guilty ⁠on Thursday to federal charges that he killed ⁠Minnesota’s House speaker and her husband and attempted to murder a state senator and his wife. Vance Luther Boelter, 58, of Green Isle, Minnesota, pleaded guilty to six federal murder, firearms, and stalking charges related to the attacks nearly a year ago ‌on the state lawmakers, changing a not guilty plea he had ent...

US man pleads guilty to assassinating Minnesota lawmaker and husband

US man pleads guilty to assassinating Minnesota lawmaker and husband

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The man charged in the political assassinations of the top Democrat in the Minnesota House and her husband, as well as the non-fatal shootings of a state senator and his wife, pleaded guilty in federal court on Thursday after prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty. Vance Boelter was charged with murdering Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, and wi...

El Nino is back – and it could be ‘one for the history books’

El Nino is back – and it could be ‘one for the history books’

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The phenomenon El Nino has arrived, the US weather agency said on Thursday, and scientists expect the pattern synonymous with droughts, floods and soaring temperatures will intensify into the end of the year, potentially to historic strength. El Nino is a natural climate occurrence that warms surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, bringing worldwide changes in wi...