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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he had directed Israel’s military to take more of Gaza, initially by seizing 70 per cent of the Palestinian territory, where the population is already penned into a tiny strip of land along the coast. Israel effectively controls an estimated 64 per cent of the tiny coastal strip, bombarded to ruins by Israel’s two-year military assault tha...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he had directed Israel’s military to take more of Gaza, initially by seizing 70 per cent of the Palestinian territory, where the population is already penned into a tiny strip of land along the coast. Israel effectively controls an estimated 64 per cent of the tiny coastal strip, bombarded to ruins by Israel’s two-year military assault tha...
Hong Kong has the “most complete renminbi financial ecosystem” and is well placed to serve as a hub for Central Asian countries seeking to expand the currency’s use in trade and investment, according to a veteran banker. Stephen Chan Man, deputy chief executive of Bank of China (Hong Kong), also said on Thursday that the high-level delegation led by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu next month to K...
Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers are speeding up their pivot to the premium segment, where they hope to secure higher profit margins and dodge the cutthroat market’s most vicious price competition. New models launched by carmakers including Nio and Seres also mount a challenge to Tesla’s bestselling Model Y in the world’s largest EV market. “Intensified efforts to gain ascendancy in the premiu...
An explosion and massive fire at a Dallas residential building Thursday killed a child and at least two other people following a blast that shook nearby homes and happened while firefighters were rushing to a reported gas leak, officials said. At least five people also went to hospitals with injuries, Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesperson Jason Evans said. It was unclear how many residents lived in the ...
A huge fire destroyed a two-storey block of flats in Dallas, Texas on Thursday, causing fatalities and injuring at least four people. The search for the missing people is continuing, a fire official said. The blaze sent huge plumes of black smoke into the sky and drew a massive firefighter response. “There have been fatalities at this point,” Dallas Fire-Rescue Deputy Chief Mark Berry said at a ne...
Central Asia is tilting more decisively towards China as geopolitical uncertainty deepens, with Beijing’s expanding influence recasting the former Soviet states’ strategic orientation. In the second of a three-part series, Victoria Bela looks at how Kazakhstan is adopting China’s green tech and expertise to fight desertification, restore ecosystems and decarbonise industries. Read the first part h...
Recent articles in an Asia-focused international policy forum suggest that states such as Australia, Canada and South Korea can join up with other middle powers to secure the maritime order and restore the liberal international order. While well meaning and encouraging, the unfortunate truth is that these tasks are beyond the capacity of middle powers. The smartest ones won’t even try. Maritime se...
An Austrian court on Thursday convicted a man of planning to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna nearly two years ago. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The state court in Wiener Neustadt, south of the capital, found the 21-year-old defendant, an Austrian citizen known only as Beran A in line with Austrian privacy rules, guilty on multiple charges including those related to the concert. ...
An Austrian court on Thursday convicted a man of planning to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna nearly two years ago. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The state court in Wiener Neustadt, south of the capital, found the 21-year-old defendant, an Austrian citizen known only as Beran A in line with Austrian privacy rules, guilty on multiple charges including those related to the concert. ...
An Austrian court on Thursday convicted a man of planning to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna nearly two years ago. The state court in Wiener Neustadt found the 21-year-old defendant, an Austrian citizen known only as Beran A in line with Austrian privacy rules, guilty on charges including those related to the concert, the Austria Press Agency reported. His defence lawyer said he admitted t...
Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino on Thursday rejected suggestions that US pressure had shaped his government’s handling of a dispute over ports near the Panama Canal, as Panama seeks to stabilise relations with Beijing and renew a key maritime agreement. “The decision we made regarding those two ports was genuinely Panamanian,” Mulino said during his weekly press conference, after China accus...
There was no one in the courtroom on Thursday to speak on behalf of the four men Randy Santos bludgeoned to death with a metal bar as they slept on the New York City streets. No anguished friends or relatives to tell the judge about Florencio Moran, Nazario Vasquez Villegas, Anthony Manson and Chuen Kok’s abruptly shortened lives. No one to confront Santos face-to-face about his psychosis-fuelled ...
There was no one in the courtroom on Thursday to speak on behalf of the four men Randy Santos bludgeoned to death with a metal bar as they slept on New York City’s Chinatown streets. No anguished friends or relatives to tell the judge about Chuen Kok, Florencio Moran, Nazario Vasquez Villegas and Anthony Manson’s abruptly shortened lives. No one to confront Santos face-to-face about his psychosis-...
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called for a “new partnership” with the United States to “help make America great again”, in a speech delivered in New York on Thursday. Carney said that while the world is undergoing a “rupture” as the US transforms its commercial relationships, working closely with Canada in specific sectors, including aluminium, cars and critical minerals, would strengthen b...
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called for a “new partnership” with the United States to “help make America great again”, in a speech delivered in New York on Thursday. Carney said that while the world is undergoing a “rupture” as the US transforms its commercial relationships, working closely with Canada in specific sectors, including aluminium, cars and critical minerals, would strengthen b...
Worn down by thousands of passers-by honouring an unusual tradition, a floor mosaic of an anatomically detailed bull in one of Milan’s grand arcades is getting a sensitive makeover. Legend has it that grinding one’s heel on the mosaic bull’s testicles at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II guarantees a return one day to the city. “Because of constant pirouettes on the heel made by tourists visiting ...
Worn down by thousands of passers-by honouring an unusual tradition, a floor mosaic of an anatomically detailed bull in one of Milan’s grand arcades is getting a sensitive makeover. Legend has it that grinding one’s heel on the mosaic bull’s testicles at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II guarantees a return one day to the city. “Because of constant pirouettes on the heel made by tourists visiting ...
Israel pounded south Lebanon with deadly strikes and widened its offensive with the first raid near Beirut in weeks where authorities said a woman and two children were killed despite a ceasefire. The attack near the capital came after heavy strikes on south Lebanon that authorities said had killed at least 14 people, including three children. The escalation comes as Lebanon and Israel prepare for...
Several members of a family were killed in fresh Israeli attacks in Lebanon on Thursday, health authorities said, as tensions between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah continue to escalate despite a ceasefire. Six people were killed in a strike south of the coastal city of Sidon in the morning, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. The dead included two children as well as their mother and father,...
Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews, Brittany Howard and Joan Baez will headline a star-studded protest festival set for the Washington area a month before the US midterm elections. Springsteen and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello announced the festival on Wednesday while performing together at Nationals Park in Washington as Springsteen winds down his Land of Hope and Dre...
Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews, Brittany Howard and Joan Baez will headline a star-studded protest festival set for the Washington area a month before the midterm elections. Springsteen and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello announced the festival on Wednesday while performing together at Nationals Park in Washington as Springsteen winds down his Land of Hope and Dreams...
Across the vast United States, soybean farmers caught in the crossfire of the US-China trade war hoped for a deal on the crop when US President Donald Trump met with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. There was optimism after the two presidents met in Busan, South Korea, in October, when China committed to increased soybean purchases. This time, however, Trump left Beijing without any concrete ag...
A tentative agreement has been reached in the ongoing negotiations with Iran, US sources confirmed, though they stressed that the deal has not yet been finalized and remains subject to formal approval by US President Donald Trump. Earlier, Axios reported that Trump has asked for take a couple of days to consider the proposal before making a decision. The development comes amid a fragile ceasefire ...
BYD, the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) maker, has set its sights on achieving zero traffic accidents through self-developed autonomous driving technology, aiming to assemble next-generation cars affordable for mass consumers. Founder and chairman Wang Chuanfu told a press conference in Shenzhen on Thursday that BYD’s “God’s Eye” advanced driver-assistance system would be priced at just 12,...
China has a unique window to internationalise its currency by deepening domestic financial markets, according to a former senior US central bank official who pointed to the evolution of the US dollar and the euro for lessons to be gleaned. The comments from Charles Evans, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, provide a fresh perspective in the growing discussion over whether and...
China has a unique window to internationalise its currency by deepening domestic financial markets, according to a former senior US central bank official who pointed to the evolution of the US dollar and the euro for lessons to be gleaned. The comments from Charles Evans, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, provide a fresh perspective in the growing discussion over whether and...
President Donald Trump’s foreign policy direction could have lasting effects on America’s alliances and global leadership, and it could also speed up the shift to a multipolar world where China plays a bigger role. That is according to Wu Xinbo, dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. Speaking at a seminar hosted by the university on Tuesday, Wu said the Tru...
A key inflation gauge accelerated in April to the highest level in three years, the latest sign that spiking gas prices and higher food costs are squeezing Americans’ finances. Inflation jumped to 3.8 per cent in April compared with a year ago, the Commerce Department said on Thursday, up from 3.5 per cent in March and the highest since May 2023. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.4 per cent, down ...
Hong Kong’s Fire Services Department has given approval for 3,600 old low-rise residential buildings to install a new Internet of Things (IoT) smart fire alarm system as an alternative to traditional fire-safety equipment, following a successful pilot scheme in the first quarter of this year. The IoT-enabled system consists of detectors installed in individual flats and public areas of the buildin...
