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Israel and Iran warned that they each stood ready to launch retaliatory attacks if provoked, even as both nations appeared to back away from further strikes on Monday, hours after trading fire for the first time since their two-month-old, US-brokered ceasefire. The renewed hostilities raised concerns that the Middle East could plunge back into a full-scale war. Since the US and Israel began striki...
Israel and Iran appeared to back away from further strikes on Monday, hours after they traded fire for the first time since the US agreed to a ceasefire with Tehran two months ago. Both countries warned that they were ready to launch retaliatory attacks if provoked. The renewed hostilities raised concerns that the Middle East could plunge back into a full-scale war. Since the US and Israel began s...
The Trump administration is stepping up efforts to revoke the citizenship of naturalised Americans, with the US Justice Department on Monday filing lawsuits against 17 people accused of obtaining citizenship through fraud or concealing serious crimes. Among those targeted is a Chinese-born resident of the state of Georgia who prosecutors say hid a prior deportation order and immigration history un...
The Trump administration is stepping up efforts to revoke the citizenship of naturalised Americans, with the US Justice Department on Monday filing lawsuits against 17 people accused of obtaining citizenship through fraud or concealing serious crimes. Among those targeted is a Chinese-born resident of the state of Georgia who prosecutors say hid a prior deportation order and immigration history un...
The United States has placed travel bans on more than 100 Nicaraguan officials and their family members as part of a broader campaign to punish the current government for human rights abuses. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement on Monday that the new sanctions were imposed in part because of the death last month of an imprisoned activist, Brooklyn Rivera, who criticised the policies...
The United States has placed travel bans on more than 100 Nicaraguan officials and their family members as part of a broader campaign to punish the current government for human rights abuses. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement on Monday that the new sanctions were imposed in part because of the death last month of an imprisoned activist, Brooklyn Rivera, who criticised the policies...
A federal judge on Monday struck down a US$100,000 fee that US President Donald Trump imposed on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers, concluding that it constituted an unlawful tax that Congress never authorised. US District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston issued the ruling in a lawsuit filed by 20 Democratic state attorneys general challenging a fee Trump announced in September that...
A federal judge on Monday struck down a US$100,000 fee that US President Donald Trump imposed on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers, concluding that it constituted an unlawful tax that Congress never authorised. US District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston issued the ruling in a lawsuit filed by 20 Democratic state attorneys general challenging a fee Trump announced in September that...
The Pentagon has designated Alibaba, BYD, Baidu and more than a dozen other prominent Chinese companies as “Chinese military companies” operating in the United States, widening a blacklist that has become an increasingly effective tool in Washington’s campaign to restrict China’s access to American capital, technology and government contracts. In a Federal Register notice scheduled for publication...
The Pentagon has designated Alibaba, BYD, Baidu and more than a dozen other prominent Chinese companies as “Chinese military companies” operating in the United States, widening a blacklist that has become an increasingly effective tool in Washington’s campaign to restrict China’s access to American capital, technology and government contracts. In a Federal Register notice scheduled for publication...
Riot police fired tear gas to disperse scores of protesters rallying on Monday against plans to build on part of a national park in Kenya’s capital. Officers moved in and arrested at least nine people, including former Chief Justice David Maraga, outside the main entrance of Nairobi National Park, Reuters reporters said. Protesters - who waved placards marked with “Nature is not vacant land” a...
US President Donald Trump told the US Supreme Court he intends to ask the justices to revive his US$475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN over use of the term “Big Lie” in reporting on his claim that the 2020 election was rigged against him. Trump’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court for a 60-day extension to August 15 to file his petition for review of the lower court’s dismissal of the case, a...
US President Donald Trump told the US Supreme Court he intends to ask the justices to revive his US$475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN over use of the term “Big Lie” in reporting on his claim that the 2020 election was rigged against him. Trump’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court for a 60-day extension to August 15 to file his petition for review of the lower court’s dismissal of the case, a...
Hungarian lawmakers unanimously voted to slash their incomes and allowances on Monday, as Prime Minister Péter Magyar seeks to reduce administrative costs. Critics had previously accused Magyar’s predecessor, nationalist premier Viktor Orban, of providing high salaries in an attempt to placate opposition deputies. Magyar, whose party filled with political newcomers won the April 12 elections by a ...
Residents of Tehran awoke on Monday anxious and drained by the prospect of full-scale war resuming, following tit-for-tat strikes between arch-foes Iran and Israel that marked the greatest threat to the fragile ceasefire thus far. “We don’t know if there will be a war, nor if a peace deal will last,” said Maryam, a 41-year-old accountant in Tehran’s central Valiasr Square. She described a pervasiv...
Residents of Tehran awoke on Monday anxious and drained by the prospect of full-scale war resuming, following tit-for-tat strikes between arch-foes Iran and Israel that marked the greatest threat to the fragile ceasefire thus far. “We don’t know if there will be a war, nor if a peace deal will last,” said Maryam, a 41-year-old accountant in Tehran’s central Valiasr Square. She described a pervasiv...
Apple and Google have been given a three-month ultimatum to make it impossible for children to take, share or view nude images on their smartphones, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday. The government wants firms to activate built-in features on their devices or come up with technological solutions on phones and tablets to detect and block such content. It means all adults will need...
There is a long tradition of reading a nation’s character in the way it marks its own milestones. When the United States turned 150, Philadelphia raised an 80-foot-tall luminous replica of the Liberty Bell and hosted a six-month Sesquicentennial International Exposition. When it turned 200, a country shaken by Vietnam, Watergate and political assassinations nonetheless found in its bicentennial a ...
Afghan residents in the western city of Herat have told of witnessing multiple women detained by the Taliban government’s morality police, in a crackdown over clothing which has drawn criticism from the United Nations. The UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said Sunday it was “concerned over multiple arrests and detentions of women in Herat, Afghanistan, for alleged non-compliance with dress requir...
China’s national security authority has warned of risks in using “artificial intelligence relay services” that provide access to overseas AI models, highlighting concerns over data leaks, privacy breaches and unauthorised cross-border data transfers amid a thriving grey market for restricted foreign systems. In a notice on its official WeChat account on Monday, the Ministry of State Security (MSS)...
Alibaba Group Holding on Monday established a new unit called Token Foundry, consolidating key model-development teams as the Chinese technology giant steps up efforts to commercialise artificial intelligence and align its businesses around a unified AI strategy. The new division brings together Alibaba’s Tongyi Lab and Future Life Lab and will be led directly by CEO Eddie Wu Yongming, according t...
Singapore will push for connectivity in Asean in its role as bloc chair next year amid a challenging global environment, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has said, as he warned about the United States and China navigating a new dynamic. At the Singapore Press Club Eminent Speaker Series on Monday, Wong noted that keeping communication lines open between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his American co...
China has delivered 5 million gallium nitride semiconductors to power smart terminals for a space‑air‑ground integrated 6G network – the first time the cutting-edge chips have been mass-produced and put into commercial use. According to an article in state media, the breakthrough chip was developed by the US-sanctioned No 55 Research Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CET...
Malaysia ordered a crackdown on Monday against illegal businesses run by foreigners, joining a growing list of Southeast Asian nations rocked by similar operations amid simmering local resentment. In recent years, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia introduced visa-free entry for foreign visitors following the Covid-19 pandemic in a bid to revive their flagging tourism, property and investme...
A licensing scheme allowing dogs in Hong Kong restaurants has attracted an “overwhelming” 2,100 applications, more than double the 1,000-place quota allocated, according to food hygiene authorities. In response to inquiries from the South China Morning Post, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) said on Monday that it had received more than 2,100 applications by 12pm, the last day o...
Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers are opening a new front in their battle with Tesla: humanoid robots. After spending years competing on electric cars and autonomous driving technology, leading Chinese manufacturers including BYD and Xpeng are now accelerating plans to mass-produce humanoid robots, betting that advances in artificial intelligence will unlock a vast new market beyond transportat...
As part of its decades-old “multi-vector” foreign policy, based on balancing relations between major powers such as China, Russia, the United States and the European Union, Kazakhstan – Central Asia’s largest country – is now actively diversifying its economic and financial policies. While in the past, Astana sought to strengthen cooperation with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the leading interna...
Hong Kong developer New World Development (NWD) is making 28 units of its Pavilia Rosa project in Kowloon Tong available to buyers on Friday, a test of sentiment and demand in the city’s residential property market amid a slumping Hang Seng Index. NWD said the flats would be sold via a regular price list on a “first come, first served” basis as the developer announced that the project had so far s...
A worker died on Monday afternoon after falling from a building under construction at a public housing site in Hong Kong. Police said they received a report at 2.25pm from a staff member at the Yan Po Road site in Tuen Mun that a 33-year-old man had fallen about 44 metres (144 feet) from a building under construction and was found unconscious. He was rushed to Tuen Mun Hospital but was certified d...
Taiwan has accused Beijing of escalating tensions after mainland Chinese coastguard and survey vessels carried out law-enforcement operations in waters off the island’s east coast. Over the weekend, mainland China’s transport ministry announced a “special maritime traffic law enforcement operation” and dispatched a flotilla of coastguard vessels into the waters east of Taiwan. That included the co...
