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US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed on Wednesday that China is “very interested” in additional Boeing plane purchases, an issue the Trump administration plans to press when President Xi Jinping visits the United States in September. “They agreed to 200 aeroplanes during the visit. We will see if they commit to a larger number when Xi Jinping arrives in Washington,” Bessent said in his budg...
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed on Wednesday that China is “very interested” in additional Boeing plane purchases, an issue the Trump administration plans to press when President Xi Jinping visits the United States in September. “They agreed to 200 aeroplanes during the visit. We will see if they commit to a larger number when Xi Jinping arrives in Washington,” Bessent said in his budg...
Despite recent back-to-back visits to Beijing by US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, no new trilateral framework or major diplomatic breakthrough has emerged. Yet, according to observers, the summits highlight Beijing’s growing ability to manage its two most important relationships on separate tracks: sustaining a deep strategic partnership with Moscow, while pursuing a...
The US and its “Five Eyes” intelligence partners issued what they said was an unprecedented joint notice warning about attempts by Chinese spies to use websites such as LinkedIn to recruit assets. “China’s military intelligence services are using an increasingly wide array of professional networking sites and online job platforms to target Five Eyes government and military personnel – and anyone w...
Since the Ukraine war began in 2022, Asia has been watching conflict as if enrolled in a study course. We have heard every argument: Nato enlargement, Russian insecurity, Ukrainian sovereignty, European fear, American power, energy politics, sanctions, nationalism and resistance. We have watched Gaza burn. We have watched the United States capture Venezuela’s president and defend the act as lawful...
US President Donald Trump suggested he might keep the Ultimate Fighting Championship cage-fighting arena being built on the lawn of the White House as a permanent fixture. The Republican compared the structure, which is being built for a night of cage fighting to mark the 250th anniversary of US independence – on Trump’s 80th birthday – to France’s Eiffel Tower which was supposed to have been di...
Prime Minister Peter Magyar said on Wednesday that Hungary and Ukraine reached an agreement on the rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine, which could allow approval of the first cluster, or a group of negotiating chapters, in Ukraine’s EU accession talks. The agreement marks a potential breakthrough in a long-running dispute over minority rights that had strained ties between Budapest an...
The administration of US President Donald Trump has proposed new tariffs of up to 12.5 per cent on imports from China and dozens of other trading partners, using a forced-labour investigation to advance what analysts see as a bid to rebuild its tariff regime after recent court setbacks. The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said on Tuesday that China and 59 other economies failed to pro...
Portugal and Austria defeated Germany for seats on the powerful but deeply divided UN Security Council on Wednesday in a hotly contested race after intense campaigning. The 10 rotating seats on the 15-member Security Council are earmarked for different regions of the world. The assembly elects five countries by secret ballot every year to serve two-year terms alongside the council’s five permanent...
Ukrainian drone strikes deep inside Russia are causing “panic” for the Kremlin, EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas said on Wednesday, saying Moscow was lashing out at Kyiv with increased attacks. Ukrainian drones hit energy and military sites in St Petersburg on Wednesday as officials gathered for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s flagship economic conference in the city. “It clearly shows also panic on...
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva thanked China for clearing the country’s beef of foot-and-mouth disease and fired a barb at US President Donald Trump, saying “I will sell to someone else”, after Washington announced new tariffs on Brazilian goods. Lula made the remarks on Tuesday, hours after Beijing announced wider access for Brazilian beef to the world’s biggest market for the prod...
German filmmaker Wim Wenders on Wednesday said he has pulled his 1975 movie The Wrong Move over a nude scene featuring a then-13-year-old Nastassja Kinski. Kinski, now 65, has urged Wenders to re-edit the film. Last month, she told the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung: “That was my first film, he was my first director and he didn’t protect me.” Wenders, the acclaimed director behind Paris, Te...
US President Donald Trump said in a podcast interview aired on Wednesday that Vice-President J.D. Vance and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, teaming up for a 2028 presidential run, would be unbeatable. Both men are seen as contenders for the 2028 Republican nomination, and Rubio’s recent turn at the White House podium drew praise from Republicans and even some Democrats who noted his smooth p...
The non-executive chairman of Hong Kong rail giant the MTR Corporation has been elected as the new head of the city’s largest business chamber for a one-year term. Jacob Kam Chak-pui, 64, took over as chairman of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday following an election among members, expressing “strong confidence” in the city’s economic development. Kam, previously the chamber’...
A man holding hostages inside a building in California that houses a bank branch and school district office has been shot and killed by the FBI, police said on Wednesday. The suspect was killed in “an officer-involved shooting involving Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel”, the Bakersfield Police Department said in a statement. The stand-off ended about 12 hours after police were called to t...
A man holding hostages inside a building in California that houses a bank branch and school district office has been shot and killed by the FBI, police said on Wednesday. The suspect was killed in “an officer-involved shooting involving Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel”, the Bakersfield Police Department said in a statement. The stand-off ended about 12 hours after police were called to t...
Kenya’s health minister said on Wednesday that the US-funded quarantine centre would proceed, days after deadly protests erupted over the project. The US-built facility at Kenya’s Laikipia Air Base was due to open last week, according to US officials, to quarantine Americans arriving from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is battling a major Ebola outbreak. But it has been temporarily bl...
Kenya’s health minister said on Wednesday that the US-funded quarantine centre would proceed, days after deadly protests erupted over the project. The US-built facility at Kenya’s Laikipia Air Base was due to open last week, according to US officials, to quarantine Americans arriving from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is battling a major Ebola outbreak. But it has been temporarily bl...
Swedish authorities who have taken over the care of the daughter of a Hong Kong couple with a troubled parenting history have said that whether a child faces risks at home is one of the key factors when deciding if intervention is needed. But the social services department of Sweden’s Linkoping municipality declined to comment on the legal status of the couple’s daughter Lily on Wednesday, saying ...
Skipping pleasantries like “please” and “thank you” when talking to chatbots could save enough energy to power the annual needs of 760,000 residents in sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting the massive but often hidden environmental toll of artificial intelligence, according to a new UN report. Released by the Institute for Water, Environment and Health under the United Nations University, the UN’s aca...
The Hong Kong Generative AI Research and Development Centre (HKGAI) has officially launched a new DeepSeek-based large language model that can run on domestic chips, as the government-backed lab seeks to commercialise its products and export Chinese AI overseas. The HKGAI-V3 model, built on DeepSeek V4, has achieved “significant improvements” in efficiency and agentic capabilities, the centre said...
China is preparing to launch compute futures in Shanghai, signalling a push to link financial markets to computing power as the global AI boom drives new demand for digital infrastructure. The Shanghai municipal government has released guidelines stating the new financial derivative would form part of efforts to turn the city into a global wealth management hub. It is the first time Shanghai’s aut...
Quantum computing has long carried an aura of exclusivity, cloaked in dense academic papers and ultra-cold laboratory systems understood by only a small circle of physicists and mathematicians. However, a Chinese start-up has changed quantum computing into something closer to an AI chatbot. On May 15, Shanghai-based Youshu Quantum Technology unveiled what it described as the world’s first agent-dr...
EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic will meet China’s international trade envoy, Li Chenggang, in Paris on Thursday, as the sides look to defuse tensions that have pushed them to the brink of a trade war. The officials will meet on the sidelines of an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ministerial meeting, setting the stage for a month of intensified engagement ahead of Commer...
EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic will meet China’s international trade envoy Li Chenggang in Paris on Thursday, as the sides look to defuse tensions that have pushed them to the brink of a trade war. The officials will meet on the sidelines of an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ministerial summit, setting the stage for a month of intensified engagement ahead of Commerce ...
A citizen watchdog has been launched in the Philippines to monitor Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio’s impeachment trial, as turmoil inside the Senate threatens to deepen public doubts over whether the politically explosive proceedings can be handled fairly and constitutionally. Members of civil society launched the coalition, called Bantay Senado (Senate Watch), on Monday, saying it would “help ...
Typhoon Jangmi on Wednesday ripped through the Pacific side of western and eastern Japan after making landfall in the morning, causing flooding and mudslides and leaving dozens of people injured. The typhoon made landfall around 4.30am in the southern part of Wakayama Prefecture in western Japan, after it passed near Okinawa and Kagoshima prefectures the past two days. At one point, the weather ag...
In its latest bid to dominate China’s next-generation digital gateway, Alibaba Group Holding is opening its Qwen AI assistant to major brands, allowing users to order everything from fried chicken to bubble tea through simple conversation. The company announced on Wednesday that it was opening Qwen’s ecosystem to third-party partners’ agents. Fast-food giant KFC, tech-driven coffee chain Luckin Co...
Indonesian officials arrested the former head of the country’s free school meals programme on Wednesday, a day after he was fired by President Prabowo Subianto. Dadan Hindayana, an entomologist who had led the National Nutrition Agency since its inception in late 2024, stands accused of “crimes in the management” of Prabowo’s flagship scheme, Syarief Sulaeman Nahdi of the attorney general’s office...
A Hong Kong school principal has been fired after he swore at security guards during a student trip to Singapore last month, the institution has announced. The management committee of San Wui Commercial Society Secondary School in Tuen Mun announced on Wednesday the immediate dismissal of principal Lee Cheuk-hing and its refusal to accept his resignation, submitted about a week after the confronta...
