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The UN International Maritime Organization paused its operation to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday after a vessel reported an attack, reigniting concerns about whether a preliminary deal to end the Iran war will hold. The cargo ship said it was hit close to Oman by a projectile, British navy agency UKMTO said, hours after Tehran warned vessels against taking routes that it ha...
A cargo ship reported a suspected attack as it attempted to pass through the Strait of Hormuz close to the coast of Oman on Thursday, British navy agency UKMTO said. The UN’s International Maritime Organisation is currently assisting ships escape the Gulf, hundreds of which have been stranded there since the Iran war began at the end of February. “A cargo vessel has been hit on the starboard side...
The United States has assured India that future artificial intelligence models will not be “cut off” days after Washington abruptly banned Anthropic’s advanced models on national security grounds, a senior Indian official told the South China Morning Post on Thursday. “There was an understanding, and something that they [US officials] certainly mentioned, that access to technology, once it is prov...
Harvey Weinstein avoided a fourth trial on a New York rape charge after his accuser said she could not endure testifying again, leading prosecutors to drop the #MeToo-era case on Thursday. The film mogul still stands convicted of another sexual felony in New York and others in California, and he remains behind bars. But the New York rape charge had remained unresolved after an overturned convictio...
DeepSeek is looking to “at least double the size of every department” in a new hiring spree, according to an announcement made by the Chinese AI champion on Thursday. The firm announced openings in 33 positions across seven major categories, including full-stack development and algorithms, AI core system R&D, deep learning research, and model data strategy product management and engineering. “Deep...
The United States is mounting a large-scale humanitarian operation in Venezuela after twin earthquakes devastated the South American country, putting to the test Washington’s role as the most influential international partner in the country’s post-Maduro transition. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was deploying search-and-rescue teams, military logistics and humanitarian help aft...
US “freedom of navigation” operations in the South China Sea declined last year, as it relied more on the Philippines and uncrewed drones for reconnaissance flights over the contested waters, a Beijing-based think tank found. The think tank said that as large American vessels such as aircraft carriers and amphibious groups faced growing maintenance and deployment constraints such as the Middle Eas...
Asian economies are expected to exercise caution in buying oil from Iran following a 60-day sanctions waiver for the Gulf country’s oil exports that took effect from Sunday, as they weigh compliance, financial risk and a potential return of hostilities between Washington and Tehran. Global markets have been looking for signs of progress that the United States and Iran could reach a lasting peace a...
US consumer spending accelerated in May even as prices rose at the fastest pace in more than three years, suggesting Americans are powering through the fallout from the Iran war. The personal consumption expenditures price index rose 4.1 per cent last month from a year earlier, the most since April 2023, Bureau of Economic Analysis data out on Thursday showed. Excluding food and energy, prices wer...
Beijing on Thursday rejected criticism from the United States and three European nations over its recent coastguard operations east of Taiwan, declaring the patrols were lawful and necessary to safeguard its maritime rights and regional order. The rebuke came a day after the US, Britain, France and Germany expressed concern over the coastguard deployments, saying the activities “threaten regional ...
A Chinese physical AI start-up has launched a new world model designed to simulate reality by embedding the laws of physics directly into its code – a departure from the data-driven approaches favoured by American tech giants like OpenAI and Meta Platforms. Shanghai-based Fysics AI announced the launch of the Fysiverse, which it described as a “new-generation physics-based world model that adheres...
EU governments’ ministers gathered for a long day’s discussion of climate change policies on Thursday were surprised by a fresh-faced participant at their negotiating table: a three-month-old baby. Swedish Climate Minister Romina Pourmokhtari brought her son, Adam, to the EU council meeting in Luxembourg, to highlight the benefits of parental leave policies which do not force women to choose betw...
Days after imposing fresh restrictions on dozens of American firms in response to earlier US actions, Beijing has vowed to keep pursuing tariff cuts and “win-win” cooperation with Washington, illustrating how cooperation and confrontation now run in parallel between the world’s two largest economies. Both sides will continue discussing reciprocal tariff reductions within the framework of a newly e...
China must develop its own equivalent to Anthropic’s Mythos model to counter the cybersecurity risks posed by the artificial intelligence era, according to 360 Security Technology founder Zhou Hongyi, who likened the powerful US technology to a “cyber nuclear weapon”. Released in April with the ability to autonomously identify software vulnerabilities, Mythos has accelerated vulnerability discover...
Fissures along ethnic lines are being opened ahead of the Johor state election in Malaysia next month, as the Malay-nationalist Barisan Nasional (BN) moves to box in the Chinese-dominated Democratic Action Party (DAP), and political imperatives pit key government coalition members against each other. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim helms an uneasy coalition of erstwhile political rivals. He is seekin...
A German doctor admitted to having killed 12 patients nearly a year since the start of his high-profile trial at the Berlin Regional Court on Thursday. The 40-year-old palliative care doctor is charged with killing 15 patients in total – 12 women and three men – between September 2021 and July 2024. He is alleged to have administered a “lethal mixture of various drugs” to the victims, who were bet...
When a modest Chaoshan-dialect film about an indebted grandson, a missing grandfather and a bundle of yellowing remittance letters opened quietly in China in late April, few expected it to become one of the biggest films of the year. Yet Dear You has earned more than 1.8 billion yuan (US$265.75 million) at the Chinese box office. It has done so without major stars or heavy promotion – an unlikely ...
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Gulf allies on Thursday that any deal with Iran would take their interests into account, as he wrapped up a Middle East trip aimed at winning over regional partners with deep reservations about the preliminary accord. Speaking at a meeting of Gulf Arab foreign ministers in Bahrain – home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet – Rubio said Washington was seeking an end...
Hong Kong police have arrested model and porn actress Erena So Hoi‑lam on suspicion of promoting or facilitating bookmaking after she appeared in advertising videos for an overseas gambling website. Officers from the force’s West Kowloon regional crime unit detained So in Sham Shui Po on Thursday, saying they had uncovered an illegal betting website that had hired local personalities as brand amba...
Hong Kong police have arrested model and porn actress Erena So Hoi‑lam on suspicion of promoting or facilitating bookmaking after she appeared in advertising videos for an overseas gambling website. Officers from the force’s West Kowloon regional crime unit detained So in Sham Shui Po on Thursday, saying they had uncovered an illegal betting website that had hired local personalities as brand amba...
Hong Kong police have arrested model and porn actress Erena So Hoi‑lam on suspicion of promoting or facilitating bookmaking after she appeared in advertising videos for an overseas gambling website. Officers from the force’s West Kowloon regional crime unit detained So in Sham Shui Po on Thursday, saying they had uncovered an illegal betting website that had hired local personalities as brand amba...
Hong Kong police have arrested model and porn actress Erena So Hoi‑lam on suspicion of promoting or facilitating bookmaking after she appeared in advertising videos for an overseas gambling website. Officers from the force’s West Kowloon regional crime unit detained So in Sham Shui Po on Thursday, saying they had uncovered an illegal betting website that had hired local personalities as brand amba...
China is “on track to surpass the United States” in its efforts to eradicate poverty and protect the planet, according to a new report from the United Nations. The “Sustainable Development Report 2026”, which tracks global progress on the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), was launched on June 23. Also known as the “Global Goals”, the framework is intended to be a comprehensive worldwide ...
The European Union has disbursed the first €3 billion (US$3.4 billion) tranche of a €90 billion loan to Ukraine, the country’s prime minister announced on Thursday at the opening of a conference on Ukraine’s post-war recovery in Poland. The conference, attended by key European leaders including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, is both a fundr...
Hong Kong has become the world’s most unequal society in terms of wealth distribution, a study has found, as the core drivers of income inequality in the city have shifted from wage disparities to capital concentration, reducing social mobility. The findings of the study, which analysed the evolution of income and wealth inequality in the city between 1981 and 2021, were presented by Yang Li, a re...
Hong Kong police’s bomb squad has been called in to investigate a suspicious object discovered in Quarry Bay, with a source saying it was likely to be “mud, a rock or concrete”. The force was alerted at 4.52pm on Thursday to a suspicious object discovered on Pan Hoi Street in Quarry Bay. “The explosive ordnance disposal bureau has been summoned to investigate the object,” a spokesman said. A sourc...
A three-year-old has died after finding himself trapped in a car in the Paris region in extreme heat, a prosecutor said on Thursday, the third such fatality this week. The boy had slipped into the family car while his father thought he was napping, then found himself unable to get out with the child lock in the town of Saint-Gratien, the prosecutor said, after a police source and civil defence als...
Lessons from the Iran war suggest that China’s ageing Dongfeng-15B short-range missiles may be more useful in penetrating modern missile defences than previously thought, according to military analysts. The suggestion surfaced this month in an article published by Ordnance Science and Technology which said that missiles with biconic manoeuvring re-entry vehicles (MRVs) could achieve a penetration ...
HK Electric has announced a nearly 34 per cent rise in its fuel charge, after a double-digit increase last month, as the war in the Middle East contributed to a “significant rise” in global fuel prices. The utility, which mainly serves Hong Kong Island and Lamma Island, also warned on Thursday that the charge was expected to continue rising. HK Electric announced it would adjust its fuel charge fo...
Chinese internet giants are increasingly moving beyond software and into semiconductor design, betting that proprietary chips will give them greater control over computing infrastructure as artificial intelligence workloads surge and geopolitical tensions hamper access to advanced foreign technology. Short video giant Kuaishou is the latest to ride the wave, after its chip spin-off TranStreams rai...
