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Xi-Trump summit: China and US to open ‘super intelligence’ communications channel
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Xi-Trump summit: China and US to open ‘super intelligence’ communications channel

China and the United States have agreed to establish a bilateral communication channel for “super intelligence” incidents, according to the White House. In a statement about the deliverables of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington, the US said the next meeting of the newly formed US-China Super Intelligence (SI) Dialogue would take place by November. China’s Ministry of Commerce conf...

OpenAI says its AI agents posted user images online in error
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OpenAI says its AI agents posted user images online in error

OpenAI acknowledged on Friday that its artificial intelligence tools had posted images from ChatGPT users onto online sites without the company’s knowledge, the latest example of AI agents operating outside their bounds. The company also confirmed a New York Times report that its tools had accessed websites of US federal agencies, saying they retrieved only publicly available information. Links to...

China’s first lady Peng Liyuan shines during Xi-Trump summit: everything you missed
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China’s first lady Peng Liyuan shines during Xi-Trump summit: everything you missed

We have put together stories from our coverage of Peng Liyuan during the Xi-Trump summit. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. China’s first lady Peng Liyuan projects glamour and soft power on world stage China’s first lady Peng Liyuan is again stepping into the international limelight as she travels to Washington with President Xi Jinping this week. 2. P...

Hong Kong is fast-tracking Northern Metropolis links. Will they be ready in time?
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Hong Kong is fast-tracking Northern Metropolis links. Will they be ready in time?

Hong Kong will fast-track key Northern Metropolis roads, bringing forward the San Tin highway section to 2034 and targeting 2033 for the Tsing Lung Bridge, but a transport expert and lawmaker have cautioned that the first arrivals could still end up stranded. Infrastructure projects could lag behind developments such as the Hung Shui Kiu University Town, they said, suggesting the government launch...

CNN blocked from Trump’s trip as White House signals new media curb

CNN blocked from Trump’s trip as White House signals new media curb

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The White House signalled on Friday night that CNN would be left off Air Force One for President Donald Trump’s Saturday trip, the latest media restriction from the administration in an ongoing dispute with First Amendment implications. The news organisation was replaced by Real America’s Voice News, a conservative network, for the president’s trip to Knoxville, Tennessee, according to White House...

Trump, Takaichi reaffirm US-Japan ties in phone call after Xi state visit

Trump, Takaichi reaffirm US-Japan ties in phone call after Xi state visit

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Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said she and Donald Trump had reaffirmed their collaboration on issues relating to Beijing in a phone call on Saturday. The call followed the US president’s nostalgic invocation of the World War II alliance with China during his summit with Xi Jinping, remarks that sent shock waves through Tokyo. Trump made the references as he welcomed the Chinese president ...

Will the Trump-Xi wartime ally nostalgia prompt a Japanese rethink on China ties?

Will the Trump-Xi wartime ally nostalgia prompt a Japanese rethink on China ties?

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Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is reportedly trying to arrange a phone call with Donald Trump following the US president’s nostalgic invocation of the alliance with China during World War II, references that sent shock waves through Tokyo. Trump made the references as he welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to the White House on Thursday for his first state visit to Washington in over a d...

‘Never too late’: Filipino domestic helpers pursue degree dreams they put on hold

‘Never too late’: Filipino domestic helpers pursue degree dreams they put on hold

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When Dyan Agonoy left the Philippines to work as a domestic helper in Hong Kong, she had to leave her family behind. “I’ve missed a lot of my kids’ milestones, our special occasions. I’m always the only one missing from the pictures,” she said. Agonoy left university, married young and started a family. Without the bachelor’s degree required for many jobs, she took up domestic work abroad. Gelanie...

China couple have 13 kids to avoid village bullying, elderly loneliness, dividing public opinion

China couple have 13 kids to avoid village bullying, elderly loneliness, dividing public opinion

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A middle-aged couple in rural China has recently trended on social media for having 13 children. The family, living in a village in Qinzhou in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, stands out in mainland China, particularly in light of the country’s declining birth rate. This situation has prompted authorities to implement various policies encouraging marriage and larger families. According to Jiu...

Offshore wind farm could create radar blind spots and ‘ghost’ targets, Chinese study warns

Offshore wind farm could create radar blind spots and ‘ghost’ targets, Chinese study warns

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Offshore wind farms can reduce the coverage of shore-based radar systems and create areas where targets become harder to detect, according to a new study. The researchers found that at a range of 5km (3 miles), effective radar coverage fell by 6.9 per cent while blind spots increased by 14.9 per cent. The research, published online last month in the peer-reviewed Chinese journal Radio Engineering,...

TikTok settles lawsuit with Alabama for at least US$100m, to apply safety steps

TikTok settles lawsuit with Alabama for at least US$100m, to apply safety steps

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Alabama said on Friday it had reached a settlement with TikTok and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, that requires the social media platform to impose new usage limits and enhanced age-verification measures for users in the US state, resolving claims that the platform endangered children and misled consumers about its safety. The agreement, which came days before a scheduled trial, calls for ...

How Hong Kong firms are future-proofing business in challenging times

How Hong Kong firms are future-proofing business in challenging times

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Hong Kong’s economic transformation is at a critical juncture, and the private sector must adapt along with it, as Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has noted. In the first of a two-part series, Ambrose Li and Wynna Wong examine the forces driving change among established enterprises. Before visiting a vendor in mainland China’s Jiangsu province, a salesman from Hong Kong bottling giant Swire Coca-...

China’s biotech firms move up value chain as drug deals evolve beyond licensing: analysts

China’s biotech firms move up value chain as drug deals evolve beyond licensing: analysts

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Chinese biotech deal making is moving beyond the licensing of individual drug candidates, as the country transforms from a follower to a global innovation leader, according to analysts. The latest transaction underscores that shift. Beijing-based cancer drug developer InnoCare Pharma said on Thursday that it had entered into a strategic research collaboration and licensing agreement with US pharma...

Xi-Trump atmospherics welcomed but mask structural rifts: analysts

Xi-Trump atmospherics welcomed but mask structural rifts: analysts

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During their three-day summit that ended on Friday, US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping worked overtime to underscore their increasingly close relationship even as the meeting produced few concrete deliverables. But the fact that the two economic and military giants are talking – and pledging to talk some more – suggests some period of relative stability ahead, certainly rel...

Thailand has had enough of foreign tourists behaving badly

Thailand has had enough of foreign tourists behaving badly

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At a zoo a short drive south of Bangkok, Charoon Youngprapakorn has spent a lifetime taking the pulse of Thailand’s tourism industry from an unlikely vantage point: the open jaws of crocodiles. Handlers at his Samut Prakan Crocodile Farm & Zoo have long thrilled onlookers by coaxing tips from the audience and carefully placing the money into the mouths of animals capable of taking off an entire ha...

What Donald Trump and Xi Jinping revealed in the body language with their wives

What Donald Trump and Xi Jinping revealed in the body language with their wives

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As Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump wrapped up their three-day state visit on Friday, a stark contrast in the two presidential couples’ hand-holding dynamics was on display, body language experts said. The exchanges between Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, and Trump and first lady Melania Trump, were closely followed on the trip, with the couples’ activities together on Friday ...

China and the US can make nice, if not peace

China and the US can make nice, if not peace

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Washington and Beijing have spent nearly a decade trading tariffs, export controls and blacklists, with each round threatening rupture. Yet they keep recovering from the brink. Tensions soared before summits and plunged immediately after. For example, in 2019 at Osaka, Trump walked back threats to impose tariffs on US$300 billion of Chinese goods and eased curbs on Huawei after Beijing reportedly ...

Iran offers US plan to reopen Hormuz within 7 days

Iran offers US plan to reopen Hormuz within 7 days

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Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday that Tehran had offered Washington a plan that would see the Strait of Hormuz reopened to maritime navigation within seven days once agreed. Araghchi met with US President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff for talks on Tuesday, and previously set out conditions for ending the war and reopening the vital energy shipping channel. “Iran has conve...

Black woman Tasia Fortune’s hanging was ‘staged’ after her death, Mississippi police say

Black woman Tasia Fortune’s hanging was ‘staged’ after her death, Mississippi police say

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Investigators believe Tasia Fortune was already dead before the black woman’s body was hanged from a tree behind an abandoned home in the Mississippi capital this summer, a detective testified on Friday. The hanging of Tasia Fortune’s body, which was found on August 3, was “staged”, Jackson police detective Samuel Dukes testified, citing the medical examiner’s opinion. Authorities have not disclos...

Trade deliverables, Taiwan push and ‘strategic stability’: key Xi-Trump takeaways overall

Trade deliverables, Taiwan push and ‘strategic stability’: key Xi-Trump takeaways overall

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Chinese President Xi Jinping has completed a whirlwind 43-hour trip to the United States, his first state visit to the country in more than a decade, with US President Donald Trump pulling out all the stops to make it a grand affair. The two leaders met several times during the visit, including at a ceremonial airport welcome, the White House reception and bilateral talks on a wide range of topics...

China set to decide if Costa Rican or Guyanese diplomat becomes first woman UN chief

China set to decide if Costa Rican or Guyanese diplomat becomes first woman UN chief

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China is poised to decide which of two Latin American women becomes the first to lead the United Nations, after three rounds of informal voting in the Security Council failed to produce a favourite. Several UN delegations that spoke to the South China Morning Post over the past three days said Beijing was weighing Rebeca Grynspan, the Costa Rican economist who heads UN Trade and Development, and C...

US TV networks back at White House, as Trump praises ‘fair’ coverage of Xi visit

US TV networks back at White House, as Trump praises ‘fair’ coverage of Xi visit

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US television networks resumed their coverage of President Donald Trump’s White House events on Friday, amid an ongoing court fight over the administration’s decision to block CNN, MS Now and Politico from the presidential grounds. The White House television press pool on Friday aired video of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s arrival at the White House for tea as well as the two leaders’ tour of ‌th...

Japan says Trump voiced concern over weak yen in summit with PM Takaichi

Japan says Trump voiced concern over weak yen in summit with PM Takaichi

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US President Donald Trump raised concerns about yen weakness at a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said on Friday, offering an unusually detailed account of the leaders’ talks on currencies. “At the recent Japan-US summit meeting, President Trump expressed concern about the yen’s weakness,” Katayama said at a regular news conference, add...

Whistle-blower Jason Poon and wife charged over HK$6 million Covid-19 loan fraud

Whistle-blower Jason Poon and wife charged over HK$6 million Covid-19 loan fraud

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Hong Kong businessman Jason Poon Chuk-hung and his wife have been charged with defrauding a government financing scheme for businesses out of HK$6 million during the Covid-19 pandemic, the South China Morning Post has learned. A source said on Friday that construction businessman Poon, 56, and his 54-year-old wife, both out on bail, had been charged with conspiracy to defraud and money laundering ...

US TV blackout and midterms turmoil overshadow Xi-Trump red-carpet treatment

US TV blackout and midterms turmoil overshadow Xi-Trump red-carpet treatment

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Domestic US political turmoil and Donald Trump’s feud with the media overshadowed a summit that Beijing hoped would project an image of China on equal footing and help stabilise ties with the United States. Trump rolled out the full red-carpet treatment for Chinese President Xi Jinping as he paid his first state visit to the US in over a decade. In addition to Trump and his wife Melania greeting X...

What summit? US TV blackout and midterms turmoil overshadow red-carpet treatment

What summit? US TV blackout and midterms turmoil overshadow red-carpet treatment

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Domestic US political turmoil and Donald Trump’s feud with the media overshadowed a summit that Beijing hoped would project an image of China on equal footing and help stabilise ties with the United States. Trump rolled out the full red-carpet treatment for Chinese President Xi Jinping as he paid his first state visit to the US in over a decade. In addition to Trump and his wife Melania greeting X...

Police arrest 3 over HK$70,000 Jellycat claw machine shop theft

Police arrest 3 over HK$70,000 Jellycat claw machine shop theft

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Hong Kong police have arrested three men suspected of using crowbars to steal popular Jellycat dolls and other plush toys worth about HK$70,000 (US$8,923) from a claw machine shop to resell them. The force on Friday said it received a report in the early hours of September 17 that two thieves had broken into an unstaffed claw machine shop in Tai Wai. The shop owner had offered a HK$100,000 reward ...

Xi ends 3-day Trump visit with promise to meet again in November in China – as it happened

Xi ends 3-day Trump visit with promise to meet again in November in China – as it happened

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This live article is freely available to our registered users. Please log in or create an account. Unrivalled Xi-Trump summit analysis: get real-time updates and exclusive boots-on-the-ground reporting from our US and China bureaus all year round. Subscribe now with great savings to stay ahead. After three days in Washington, President Xi Jinping and first lady Peng Liyuan returned to China with a...