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The meeting may have been delayed but when the summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump took place on Thursday, it yielded a forward-looking agreement. Sitting down for talks at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing, the two leaders agreed to make stability a key goal of relations over the next three years – and beyond, according to state media. Tru...
Kevin Warsh’s confirmation as the next chair of the United States Federal Reserve has fuelled debate over whether potential policy compromises with the administration of US President Donald Trump could undermine American financial credibility and inadvertently strengthen Chinese assets. The Senate confirmed Warsh as the 17th chair of the Fed on Wednesday in a 54-45 vote, mostly along bipartisan li...
The chandeliers glittered at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday night when Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump raised a toast to a “fantastic” summit. “It was a fantastic day, and in particular, I want to thank President Xi, my friend, for this magnificent welcome ... and for so graciously hosting us on this very historic state visit,” Trump said, nearly nine yea...
Chinese President Xi Jinping raised the “Taiwan question” early in his summit with US counterpart Donald Trump on Thursday, warning that any mishandling of the critical issue could lead to conflict and push relations into an “extremely dangerous situation”. Xi’s messaging on Taiwan was tougher in tone than during their last Beijing summit in 2017, analysts noted. They suggested that managing this ...
A star Chinese researcher laid off by Facebook owner Meta Platforms has co-founded a start-up focused on self-improving artificial intelligence systems, joining a wave of US and Chinese firms developing models capable of autonomously refining their own code and reasoning. Tian Yuandong, former research scientist director at Meta’s FAIR (Fundamental AI Research) team, launched Recursive Superintell...
Hong Kong health authorities have opened an investigation into an alleged medical blunder involving an improperly sealed catheter that led to the death of a 75-year-old man following a heart procedure at Tuen Mun Hospital. The Hospital Authority said on Thursday that the patient, who had a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and high cholesterol, was admitted on Wednesday last week af...
Statements issued by China and the United States after their summit on Thursday revealed stark contrasts in each side’s priorities. Washington focused on trade, fentanyl and Iran, while Beijing emphasised Taiwan, stabilising bilateral ties and Trump’s compliments about President Xi Jinping. Trump’s state visit to China marks the first trip to the country by a US president in nine years and it bega...
Wrestling with mounting financial difficulties and the challenges of caring for a child with autism, Hong Kong mother Chau Ting-ting found herself struggling several years ago with thoughts of ending her life. The 30-year-old recalled on Thursday that her son Ziyi, now five, began displaying symptoms consistent with autism when he was two years old. Counsellors advised her to send the boy to a nur...
Wrestling with mounting financial difficulties and the challenges of caring for a child with autism, Hong Kong mother Chau Ting-ting found herself struggling several years ago with thoughts of ending her life. The 30-year-old recalled on Thursday that her son Ziyi, now five, began displaying symptoms consistent with autism when he was two years old. Counsellors advised her to send the boy to a nur...
Labour’s Wes Streeting announced his resignation as health minister on Thursday, calling for a leadership contest to oust British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has shown no sign he is ready to step down. Disastrous results for the governing Labour Party in last week’s local elections have plunged Britain into its latest crisis, just under two years after Starmer won a large majority on a vow ...
France’s health minister said on Thursday that 26 people in France identified as close contacts of hantavirus cases linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship had tested negative for the illness. Dutch authorities said that all people who arrived in the Netherlands on evacuation flights from the ship this week have also tested negative. Twenty-six people are in hospital isolation in France, including 22...
China’s leading semiconductor foundries, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) and Hua Hong Semiconductor, expect their second-quarter sales to rise amid a dynamic global market defined by surging artificial intelligence demand and a memory supply crunch, while Hua Hong said it hopes this week’s Xi-Trump meetings could help relax US export controls. SMIC expected its second-...
Handshakes, taps on the arm, and frequent asides marked the much-awaited meeting between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump on Thursday morning, as the two presidents projected a close rapport during the first full day of Trump’s visit to China. Attention was focused not only on the substance of the high-stakes talks, but also on the personal dynamics between the US and Chinese heads of state – a relatio...
The average waiting time for long and short-term general applicants for subsidised public rental housing in Hong Kong had fallen to 4.7 years as of March, authorities said, marking the first time it has dropped below five years under the current administration. Despite the decrease in the “composite figure”, which included light public flats, the average waiting time for a standard public rental h...
A Philippine senator wanted by the International Criminal Court for an alleged crime against humanity has fled from the Senate, where he sought refuge to evade arrest, officials said on Thursday. Senator Ronald dela Rosa’s exit from the heavily guarded Senate came after volleys of gunshots were fired on Wednesday night by the building’s security personnel during an argument with a government agent...
A Ford Motor electric vehicle (EV) battery plant in the US state of Michigan, edging closer to inauguration, has shed light on global marques’ reliance on Chinese technologies to accelerate their EV transition amid US President Donald Trump’s state visit to Beijing. With trade and investment among the top issues on the agenda for the summit between Trump and President Xi Jinping, the US$3 billion ...
As the US delegation met with their Chinese counterparts in Beijing, some hugely important topics were on the agenda. However, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also found the time to admire the meeting room’s interior design. Footage of Rubio checking out the ceiling of one of the grand reception rooms in which President Xi Jinping hosted his US counterpart Donald Trump on Thursday went viral onl...
Popular weight-loss injections have the potential to help patients recover from severe strokes when used alongside a surgical procedure to remove blood clots in the brain, scientists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) have said. The scientists said on Thursday that administering a GLP-1 injection before and after a thrombectomy, a blood clot removal procedure, could have neuroprotective...
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s former right-hand man was taken into custody on Thursday on money-laundering charges, part of a fight against corruption that is fuelling wartime political tensions. Investigators on Monday had named Andriy Yermak as an official suspect in a sprawling, multi-episode case that has gripped Ukraine for months and stoked anger among a war-battered population a...
“Large Boeing orders” appear to be coming, US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent told CNBC on Thursday, adding that China and the US will discuss establishing a new joint board of trade to manage commercial ties. More to follow ...
Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings are doubling down on a massive artificial intelligence spending spree, betting that a new wave of Chinese-made chips will break the supply bottlenecks stifling their ambitions. While both Chinese tech giants saw revenues trail expectations this quarter, they pledged an aggressive acceleration in capital expenditure, as home-grown silicon from Huawei Techn...
Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings are doubling down on a massive artificial intelligence spending spree, betting that a new wave of Chinese-made chips will break the supply bottlenecks stifling their ambitions. While both Chinese tech giants saw revenues trail expectations this quarter, they pledged an aggressive acceleration in capital expenditure, as home-grown silicon from Huawei Techn...
Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings are doubling down on a massive artificial intelligence spending spree, betting that a new wave of Chinese-made chips will break the supply bottlenecks stifling their ambitions. While both Chinese tech giants saw revenues trail expectations this quarter, they pledged an aggressive acceleration in capital expenditure, as home-grown silicon from Huawei Techn...
A proposed airport on a former US naval base in the Philippines near the entrance to Manila Bay is drawing fresh strategic attention after Washington agreed to fund a feasibility study, a move analysts say fits into US efforts to strengthen logistics, access and interoperability with the country in the South China Sea. Experts said the proposed Sangley Point International Airport in Cavite could b...
Getting a proper sleep has been a problem for people throughout history and the ancient Chinese set up some rules and methods that are still believed to be effective today. In Chinese culture, sleep time is believed to be an important period for the body to absorb and restore energy. Ancient people were meticulous about the number of hours’ sleep they got and in what position they did so. For exam...
The United States’ first firing of its Philippines-based Typhon missile launcher last week marked the “worst provocation” in years in the South China Sea and Beijing should ramp up air defence and stealth strike drones in response, according to Chinese military observers. Beijing has opposed the Typhon deployment since the Lockheed Martin system arrived at its Luzon base in the Philippines two yea...
Russia unleashed the largest aerial attack on Ukraine over a two-day period since the war began, pounding the capital Kyiv and other cities across the country with hundreds of drones, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday. President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia had launched more than 1,560 drones since the start of Wednesday. Overnight on Thursday, Moscow fired more than 670 attack drones a...
Xi Jinping and Donald Trump struck an optimistic tone at the start of their two-day presidential summit in Beijing, even as the Chinese leader highlighted risks surrounding Taiwan. Pre-summit trade talks “produced generally balanced and positive outcomes”, Xi told the US president at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday, according to Xinhua. “This is good news for the people of the ...
Samsung Electronics’ biggest labour union is threatening to strike at the height of the global AI chip boom, turning a fight over bonuses into a test of how the industry’s windfall profits should be shared and sparking fears of an economic slowdown in South Korea. The union has warned it will stage an 18-day walkout from May 21 to June 7, raising concerns about production disruptions, customer def...
A stray Falcon 9 rocket part is on course to slam into the moon in August. The expected impact poses no immediate danger, experts say, but warn that it highlights a critical lack of rules for managing debris as lunar activity by the US, China and private companies ramps up. Measuring 13.8 metres (45 feet) long and 3.7 metres wide, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket’s upper stage has been drifting through ...
