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Bus hits train near Channel Tunnel in France, injuring 19
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Bus hits train near Channel Tunnel in France, injuring 19

A minibus collided with a stationary train in a Channel Tunnel vehicle boarding area in France on Thursday evening, injuring the driver and 18 passengers, authorities said. Five people were severely injured, though no one’s life appeared to be in danger, the local prefect said in a statement. The minibus was carrying truck drivers of various nationalities who were heading to travel on a LeShuttle ...

The China decoupling paradox: why the world still needs its manufacturing machine
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The China decoupling paradox: why the world still needs its manufacturing machine

Talk of global decoupling from China has persisted for years, as has speculation that emerging economies such as India and Vietnam could soon replace it as the “world’s factory”. But for Indian hardware engineer Neeraj Arora, the growth of India’s electronics manufacturing industry has not eliminated the need to source components from China. Instead, it has changed the nature of those imports. A d...

Visa’s China approval a ‘direct outcome’ of Xi-Trump summit, Beijing says
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Visa’s China approval a ‘direct outcome’ of Xi-Trump summit, Beijing says

China said on Thursday that the recent government approval allowing American bank card payment giant Visa to operate in the country was the “direct outcome” of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the United States last month. “The Visa card was granted permission to establish a banking card clearing institution,” said Qiu Wenxing, the Deputy Chief of Mission at the Chinese embassy in Was...

Visa’s China approval a ‘direct outcome’ of Trump-Xi summit, Beijing says
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Visa’s China approval a ‘direct outcome’ of Trump-Xi summit, Beijing says

China said on Thursday that the recent government approval allowing American bank card payment giant Visa to operate in the country was the “direct outcome” of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the United States last month. “The Visa card was granted permission to establish a banking card clearing institution,” said Qiu Wenxing, the Deputy Chief of Mission at the Chinese embassy in Was...

Trump press secretary Katie Zacharia never passed bar exam, wrongly claims China has none

Trump press secretary Katie Zacharia never passed bar exam, wrongly claims China has none

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White House press secretary Katie Zacharia has acknowledged that she never passed a bar exam, days after telling reporters she had passed one “when I moved to China”. In an interview with the conservative commentator Jack Posobiec on Real America’s Voice on Thursday, Zacharia said she sat the California bar exam after graduating from Pepperdine University’s law school in 2011 but did not pass. She...

White House press secretary never passed bar exam, wrongly claims China has none

White House press secretary never passed bar exam, wrongly claims China has none

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White House press secretary Katie Zacharia has acknowledged that she never passed a bar exam, days after telling reporters she had passed one “when I moved to China”. In an interview with the conservative commentator Jack Posobiec on Real America’s Voice on Thursday, Zacharia said she sat the California bar exam after graduating from Pepperdine University’s law school in 2011 but did not pass. She...

Beyond baby bonuses: Hong Kong needs to attract couples with liveability

Beyond baby bonuses: Hong Kong needs to attract couples with liveability

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Hong Kong’s efforts to boost the number of newborns in the city should be considered in the context of talent retention relating to Hong Kong’s liveability. When the Census and Statistics Department reported in August that births in Hong Kong had fallen by an annualised 15.6 per cent to a historic low of fewer than 30,000, it injected a sharp sense of urgency into public discussions as Chief Execu...

Yemen’s Houthis attack presidential palace in Aden with missiles

Yemen’s Houthis attack presidential palace in Aden with missiles

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The Houthis launched a deadly missile attack Thursday on the presidential palace in the Yemeni government’s interim capital of Aden, as Saudi Arabia blamed Iran for the recent dramatic escalation in the long-running war. The attack hit command centres located inside the Al-Maashiq presidential compound used by government forces and the Saudi-led military coalition that supports them, a Yemeni mini...

Houthis launch deadly attack on presidential palace in Yemen’s Aden

Houthis launch deadly attack on presidential palace in Yemen’s Aden

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The Houthis launched a deadly missile attack on Thursday on the presidential palace in the Yemeni government’s interim capital of Aden, as Saudi Arabia blamed Iran for the recent dramatic escalation in the long-running war. Saudi Arabia and the internationally recognised government it backs in Yemen have come under sustained Houthi attack of late, shifting the focus of the wider Middle East war th...

China bought half of Brazil’s oil exports as Iran war shut Hormuz, driving sales to record

China bought half of Brazil’s oil exports as Iran war shut Hormuz, driving sales to record

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Trade between Brazil and China reached a record US$143 billion in the first nine months of the year, driven by Brazilian oil sales that surged after the war on Iran disrupted Gulf supply, according to a report by the Brazil-China Business Council. Brazilian exports to China rose 12 per cent to US$84.7 billion between January and September, while imports from China grew 9.9 per cent to US$58.6 bill...

China bought half of Brazil's oil exports as Iran war shut Hormuz, driving sales to record

China bought half of Brazil's oil exports as Iran war shut Hormuz, driving sales to record

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Trade between Brazil and China reached a record US$143 billion in the first nine months of the year, driven by Brazilian oil sales that surged after the war on Iran disrupted Gulf supply, according to a report by the Brazil-China Business Council. Brazilian exports to China rose 12 per cent to US$84.7 billion between January and September, while imports from China grew 9.9 per cent to US$58.6 bill...

Prince Harry and Meghan in first joint outing since UK return: ‘great to be back!’

Prince Harry and Meghan in first joint outing since UK return: ‘great to be back!’

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Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife on Thursday carried out their first joint engagement since their surprise move back to the UK in August, with Meghan telling well-wishers: “It’s great to be back.” King Charles’ 42-year-old younger son and Meghan, 45 – who left Britain and quit royal duties in 2020 amid a bitter royal family feud – were greeted with cheers as they arrived in the central English ...

Firm accused of cost-cutting, false declarations over fire-safety parts in 48 lifts

Firm accused of cost-cutting, false declarations over fire-safety parts in 48 lifts

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Hong Kong authorities have uncovered alleged corner-cutting and false declarations involving fire-safety components in a contractor’s replacement of 48 lifts at two public housing estates. The Electrical and Mechanical Services Department said on Thursday that surprise inspections had found serious deficiencies in projects carried out by Taizoom Elevator (Hong Kong) at Tsui Ping (North) Estate in ...

EU open to creating ‘kill switch’ weapon to kick Chinese firms out of market

EU open to creating ‘kill switch’ weapon to kick Chinese firms out of market

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Brussels is open to developing a powerful new trade weapon that could contain a kill switch that would quickly eject Chinese companies from the EU market, the bloc’s national leaders were told during a top level meeting in the Belgian capital on Thursday. There was broad support among the 27 members for such a tool, first laid out in a French-German joint paper last week, with European Commission ...

Chinese chemicals and machinery in EU crosshairs as leaders back more trade curbs

Chinese chemicals and machinery in EU crosshairs as leaders back more trade curbs

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Chemicals and industrial machinery were identified as the top priority industries the EU needs to shield against Chinese imports during a meeting between the EU’s top leaders in Brussels on Thursday. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the bloc’s 27 member states that the EU should consider quickly introducing safeguard measures, which can involve import quotas and tariffs, to ...

Shackled Maduro defies judge, calls US torture charges ‘false accusations’

Shackled Maduro defies judge, calls US torture charges ‘false accusations’

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Former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro insisted in court on Thursday that newly unsealed torture allegations against him and his wife were “false accusations”. Maduro and Cilia Flores, both shackled at the ankles, were brought to court to face a rewritten indictment that expands from an initial set of drug trafficking charges to accuse them of leading a state-sponsored repression campaign that...

Venezuela’s Maduro says new US torture allegations are ‘false’

Venezuela’s Maduro says new US torture allegations are ‘false’

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Former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro insisted on Thursday during an appearance in a New York court that torture allegations in a rewritten drug-trafficking indictment against him and his wife were “false accusations”. Maduro, shackled at the ankles, was brought to court to face the new charges accusing the couple of leading a state-sponsored campaign of repression that tortured scores of vic...

Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority appeals for liver donor for boy, 13

Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority appeals for liver donor for boy, 13

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Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority has appealed to the public for a liver donation for a 13-year-old boy suffering from severe liver failure who urgently needs a transplant. The authority, which is also seeking help from mainland China, said on Thursday evening that the boy, being treated at Queen Mary Hospital in Pok Fu Lam, was now in a serious condition. “The patient has been experiencing severe he...

Singapore weighs legal action against companies over worsening transboundary haze

Singapore weighs legal action against companies over worsening transboundary haze

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Singapore is looking into which companies may be responsible for the forest and peatland fires in Indonesia that have caused the worsening haze, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said on Thursday. “Where warranted, we will take action under Singapore’s Transboundary Haze Pollution Act, and explore joint action with other countries,” he said in a social media post. The haze situation was worsened by the...

Trump scraps plan to live-stream Fort Hood shooter’s execution by firing squad

Trump scraps plan to live-stream Fort Hood shooter’s execution by firing squad

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US President Donald Trump on Thursday cancelled plans to live-stream the execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, reversing a Pentagon initiative that drew political and religious criticism. Trump said Hasan’s execution by firing squad would proceed as scheduled, but would not be broadcast. The Pentagon has set the execution for December 3. “He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but...

Trump scraps livestream for Fort Hood shooter’s execution by firing squad

Trump scraps livestream for Fort Hood shooter’s execution by firing squad

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US President Donald Trump on Thursday cancelled plans to livestream the execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, reversing a Pentagon initiative that drew political and religious criticism. Trump said Hasan’s execution by firing squad would proceed as scheduled, but would not be broadcast. The Pentagon has set the execution for December 3. “He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but ...

Trump cancels planned Pentagon live stream of Fort Hood shooter’s firing squad execution

Trump cancels planned Pentagon live stream of Fort Hood shooter’s firing squad execution

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President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the Pentagon would no longer live stream the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan after the announcement faced bipartisan criticism and Vice-President J.D. Vance said he would not watch it. Trump said on social media that publicly airing the execution “might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals...

China is a beacon of global embryo research, says scientist on return from US to lead lab

China is a beacon of global embryo research, says scientist on return from US to lead lab

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Leading life scientist Wu Jun, who recently left the United States to return to his homeland, believes many of the world’s top embryo researchers are now working in China. Wu, well known for his stem cell research, particularly related to the stem cell-derived embryo model, is speaking in an office at Westlake University, in Hangzhou in the eastern province of Zhejiang. Some of his belongings rema...

Blast simulation, university probes, robotics fine, AI spies: 7 US-China relations reads

Blast simulation, university probes, robotics fine, AI spies: 7 US-China relations reads

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We have selected seven of the most interesting and important news stories covering US-China relations from the past few weeks. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. US investigates 9 universities over alleged visa fraud, with focus on China The Trump administration launched an investigation into nine US universities over alleged J-1 visa fraud, with offic...

Hong Kong loses record 40 kindergartens as birth rate drops, women wait to have kids

Hong Kong loses record 40 kindergartens as birth rate drops, women wait to have kids

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Hong Kong suffered a record net loss of 40 kindergartens this year amid a shrinking student population and as the median age of women giving birth to their first child rose to its highest yet, according to official figures. In its overview of preschools released on Thursday, the Education Bureau revealed that 930 kindergartens were currently operating in Hong Kong, down from roughly 970 in the pre...

DeepSeek offers user refunds after suffering another major outage

DeepSeek offers user refunds after suffering another major outage

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Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek apologised and promised compensation to users after its services suffered a nearly five-hour outage on Thursday. DeepSeek will issue users a full refund for any consumption between October 8 and October 14 in the form of credits, according to a notice posted on the Hangzhou-based start-up’s application programming interface (API) platform. DeepSeek’s n...

Canada, Singapore reaffirm China trade ties amid global push for self-sufficiency

Canada, Singapore reaffirm China trade ties amid global push for self-sufficiency

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Canada and Singapore are among the countries that remain committed to strengthening trade ties with China, despite growing global fragmentation and a push by governments towards greater self-sufficiency, officials from both countries said on Wednesday at an economic forum in New Delhi. Canada’s minister of international trade Maninder Sidhu said China was the country’s second-largest trading partn...

Young Americans are key for the US to better understand China

Young Americans are key for the US to better understand China

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When US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet again in Shenzhen next month, and then in Miami in December, the world will watch for signs of progress on trade, technology, security and other contentious issues. Such high-level diplomacy is indispensable. But the future of the US-China relationship also depends on something less visible: whether their people, especially the y...

Laos private jet bust reveals how Mekong meth slips past borders

Laos private jet bust reveals how Mekong meth slips past borders

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A private jet hired from Malaysia – seemingly destined for the Philippines – but stopped on the tarmac by Laos’ drug police who found suitcases stuffed with 512kg of crystal methamphetamine, has returned the spotlight to the unrelenting flow of narcotics from the Mekong’s drug laboratories. Cyberscams have dominated headlines and authorities’ attention across Southeast Asia for over a year as the ...