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Waves break along Cenang Beach as the sun drops over the Andaman Sea, washing Langkawi’s white sand in gold. Tourists sip fresh coconuts beneath rows of bright umbrellas, gazing out at the “Jewel of Kedah”: a duty-free archipelago long sold as one of Malaysia’s premier tropical escapes. Out on the water, meanwhile, small boats traverse the 8km (five miles) of open water that separates Langkawi fro...
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday he currently saw no reason to meet Volodymyr Zelensky after the Ukrainian president published an open letter proposing they hold face-to-face talks to agree an end to a war now in its fifth year. In his letter, which was sent to other countries, including the US, Zelensky said most Russians had grown tired of Ukrainian missile and drone attacks, hig...
Indonesia is considering buying hi-tech policing equipment from China, setting out a shopping list for technology ranging from drones to tactical armoured vehicles at a police equipment trade show in Beijing. The Indonesian National Police is particularly interested in counterterrorism equipment, including intelligence technology, tactical weapons, bomb disposal gear and special purpose vehicles, ...
Given that control over energy reinforces superpower status, the contest of the century has morphed into an intense rivalry between China, a rising “electrostate”, and the United States, the world’s hydrocarbon hegemon safeguarding its position. China recognises that electricity drives its economy. Despite being a major producer of coal, crude oil and natural gas, China remains an importer of thes...
Taiwan’s main opposition leader said cross-strait peace can be maintained as long as Taipei did not move towards “de jure independence”, during her trip in the United States. Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of the Kuomintang (KMT), attended a closed-door seminar at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government on Thursday, according to a KMT statement on Friday. Cheng told the seminar that pe...
US President Donald Trump said Friday he wants his incoming acting spy chief to start firing employees, deepening the controversy over the appointment of a man with no previous intelligence experience. Bill Pulte, a Trump loyalist who heads the Federal Housing Finance Agency, was named by the Republican president on Tuesday as acting Director of National Intelligence. “If he cut, I wouldn’t mind t...
A firestorm of recrimination raged in France on Friday over failures in the justice system that kept a man now suspected in the disappearance and death of an 11-year-old girl out of custody despite allegations that he preyed on young adolescents. The disappearance of the girl identified by police as Lyhanna and days of searches that ended with the discovery of her body in a disused grain silo have...
A vaccine targeting a broad range of viruses that was designed using artificial intelligence had a “modest” effect on immune systems in a small, early trial, according to a new study. The trial marks the first time a vaccine whose active ingredient was entirely designed by AI has been tested in humans, researchers at the University of Cambridge in the UK said on Friday. The experimental jab is int...
President Donald Trump’s administration unlawfully barred applicants from 39 travel-ban countries from receiving decisions on asylum, work permits, green cards and citizenship, a US federal judge ruled on Friday. Chief US District Judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island, ruled that the US Citizenship and Immigration Services had adopted a series of unlawful policies targeting people fr...
Actor Anthony Head, best known for his roles in Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Ted Lasso, has died at the age of 72, his family announced on Friday. The British actor, the brother of singer Murray Head, was best known as librarian Rupert Giles in the cult US supernatural television series starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, which ran from 1997 to 2003. “It is with heavy hearts that we announce the death...
A worsening air leak aboard the International Space Station prompted five astronauts to take shelter and prepare for evacuation for roughly two hours on Friday as Russia attempted to fix a crack on its portion of the orbital laboratory, Nasa said. The four astronauts of Nasa’s Crew-12 mission aboard the station – two Americans, a French astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut – along with another US as...
Makeda George steps out of a Mixue store in downtown Brooklyn, New York, clutching a bubble tea as she weaves through a crowd of teenagers. The local resident says she had been eager to try the brand after noticing a surge of new outlets opening in recent months. “I decided to try the bubble tea. It was good,” she said, adding that she did not know it was a Chinese drink chain but figured it was A...
Makeda George steps out of a Mixue store in downtown Brooklyn, New York, clutching a bubble tea as she weaves through a crowd of teenagers. The local resident says she had been eager to try the brand after noticing a surge of new outlets opening in recent months. “I decided to try the bubble tea. It was good,” she said, adding that she did not know it was a Chinese drink chain but figured it was A...
Hong Kong police have arrested a 65-year-old man in connection with a suspected indecent assault case in Mong Kok hours after footage appeared online showing a passenger harassing a schoolgirl sitting in front of him on a bus. Police said officers intercepted the suspect at the boundary checkpoint of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge. The victim, 17, is understood to be a Form Three student. The i...
Russia could attack a Nato country within four years according to western intelligence assessments, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned on Friday. He made the comments as he pledged his government would publish a long-delayed defence investment plan before next month’s Nato summit. “It is our intelligence assessment and the assessment of other countries in Nato that there could be an attack by R...
Hong Kong serves as an ideal platform to help Uzbek enterprises expand through its world-class professional services and international business environment, the city’s leader has told the Central Asian country’s prime minister as he wrapped up a five-day regional tour. Sources said Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu on Friday also invited Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov to be a keynote speaker at the ...
While a wave of job cuts across Asia’s finance and other industries due to wider use of artificial intelligence has spurred concerns, a new study shows that the technology’s net impact on employment is not as clear-cut. Recruiters and industry observers say many companies are adding AI-related roles without having to lay off workers. A study by professional services firm Aon released on Wednesday ...
Cai Qi, the fifth-ranked member in the Communist Party’s hierarchy, has been picked to head the Central Party School, the top training ground for cadres. Cai, 70, sits on the elite Politburo Standing Committee and is secretary of the party’s secretariat as well as director of the party’s general office. Responsible for daily operations of the party’s nerve centre, Cai is often referred to as Presi...
Any US military attack on Cuba would most likely take place this summer, according to a Chinese defence technology company closely tracking US military movements around the island. The assessment by Jingan Technology, a civilian start-up founded in 2021 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, said that if the US were to use force against Cuba, it would most likely take the form of a rapid “decapitation an...
China is ramping up its bets on space-based artificial intelligence computing with the launch of a state-backed research institute in Beijing, accelerating a frontier tech race with the US just as Elon Musk’s SpaceX eyes a record-shattering US$75 billion market debut to fund its own orbital AI ambitions. The establishment of the Beijing Space Intelligent Computing Research Institute marks a major ...
Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit has been placed on a waiting list for a lung transplant after a significant deterioration in her health that likely gave her only a year left to live without the surgery, her doctors said on Friday. The 52-year-old wife of Crown Prince Haakon, the heir to the Norwegian throne, was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis in 2018, a chronic disease that causes scarring...
China and Russia have largely moved away from the US dollar in bilateral trade settlement, with most transactions now settled in their own currencies. Yet cross-border payment bottlenecks persist as Chinese banks carefully manage their exposure to Washington’s sanctions regime, according to a senior Russian banker. At the heart of the friction is a stark balancing act facing Chinese lenders: how t...
The EU’s trade chief has confirmed publicly for the first time that the bloc is considering a specific rule to compel companies to diversify their suppliers, as Europe looks to unwind its dependencies on China. “Diversification now requires a dedicated instrument,” commissioner for trade and economic security Maros Sefcovic said on Friday, adding that he would model it on the manner in which the E...
US employment growth surged in May, beating market expectations, while the unemployment rate remained steady, government data showed on Friday, with the labour market in the world’s largest economy sustaining recent gains. “Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 172,000 in May, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.3 per cent,” the US Bureau of Labor Statistics said. Economists polle...
A team of Chinese researchers has claimed a breakthrough in training robots in real-world home environments, tackling a long-standing data bottleneck in the field and potentially accelerating the adoption of robots at home. Kairos-HomeWorld was the world’s first unified framework capable of generating coherent, accurate and simulation-ready home environments using simple text prompts, according to...
Thailand said on Friday it will join a UN arbitration process chosen by Cambodia to resolve a festering maritime boundary dispute, but put on hold for now other two-way efforts to settle their contested borders. This week Cambodia launched a compulsory conciliation process under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), after Bangkok decided last month to unilaterally end a 20...
A Hong Kong private tutor found guilty of orchestrating a failed plot to murder his business partner eight years ago has secured a three-year reduction to his 27-year jail sentence, but lost an appeal against his conviction. In a written judgment on Friday, the Court of Appeal found that the sentence imposed on Stephen So Hon-to was too high, despite the egregious nature of the offence and the nee...
China-Canada relations are undergoing a thaw after years of estrangement and recrimination. China and India are seeking a rapprochement despite deep-seated distrust and sometimes violent border disputes. Both cases share a common element: Donald Trump. Meanwhile, following the US president’s visit to Beijing, his defence secretary Pete Hegseth avoided mentioning Taiwan at the Shangri-La Dialogue i...
Asia’s governments have spent years promising to protect the seas that feed their people, shelter their coasts and support some of the world’s richest marine life. World Ocean Day on Monday will put those promises back in the public spotlight, but the more consequential test will come days later in Mombasa, Kenya, where governments, donors, companies and conservation groups will gather for the 11t...
International marques have failed to sustain the market share they regained in China early this year after consumers fell back in love with electric vehicles (EVs), a sector where domestic brands continue to enjoy an overwhelming advantage. Foreign carmakers from Volkswagen to Toyota held a combined 30.3 per cent share of the Chinese automotive market in April, with about 418,140 vehicles handed t...
