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A veteran Malaysian politician pleaded not guilty on Friday to a sedition charge over remarks backing a rival claimant to the Negeri Sembilan throne amid the months-long royal crisis. Rais Yatim, 84, a former cabinet minister and president of Malaysia’s Senate, was charged at the Sessions Court in Ayer Keroh, Melaka, for his comments on June 5, during a ceremony proclaiming Tunku Nadzaruddin Tuank...
While their husbands held talks at the White House, Melania Trump hosted Peng Liyuan at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art on Thursday, where the famed Chinese soprano softly hummed along to a youth choir’s performance of a familiar classic. Footage shows the Hope Chinese School youth choir waving Chinese and American national flags during their rendition of the song “Jasmine Flower”, wh...
Online ride-hailing giant Uber will close a second Hong Kong metered taxi platform that it acquired by the end of this year, just over six months after it bought out the business. Uber said on Friday that it would fully integrate the services on FlyTaxi into its own platform by the end of the year, saying it aimed to provide “optimal” support for drivers and users. “As part of this integration, th...
Unregulated companies are running a brisk trade across Japan storing and disposing unclaimed corpses, with a recent report revealing how such “cut-price morgues” are cashing in on legal loopholes to discard the nation’s dead. The business has shed light on the growing number of “lonely deaths” of elderly Japanese as the traditional nuclear family fades. Some industry insiders have expressed shock ...
Chinese President Xi Jinping broke into rare laughter as his US counterpart Donald Trump showed him a framed “autopen” displayed in place of the former American leader Joe Biden’s portrait during a White House tour. The viral moment stood out against the Chinese leader’s otherwise restrained demeanour during his first state visit to the United States in more than a decade. A video released by the ...
Chinese President Xi Jinping broke into rare laughter as his US counterpart Donald Trump showed him a framed “autopen” displayed in place of the former American leader Joe Biden’s portrait during a White House tour. The viral moment stood out against the Chinese leader’s otherwise restrained demeanour during his first state visit to the United States in more than a decade. A video released by the ...
The US president’s eldest daughter Ivanka Trump had a front-row seat at a White House welcome ceremony for President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan on Thursday, wearing a dress by Chinese fashion designer Guo Pei. Trump, in a robin’s egg blue dress and matching jacket, and her 15-year-old daughter Arabella Kushner occupied a prominent position at the ceremony, alongside Vice-President J.D. Va...
The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) is looking into a social media allegation that dog meat was being sold illegally in Singapore. The screengrabs shared on the Facebook group Dogs Singapore appeared to show an advertisement in Vietnamese offering various cuts of dog meat. A check on Friday morning found that the post containing the screengrab had been deleted. SFA has not approved any source of dog m...
A young seal gained widespread attention on social media in China after swimming 200km to return to an island where it had lived for months following its release into the wild. This two-year-old seal marks its second return to a human-inhabited area after being freed into open seas. Internet users were touched by videos showcasing the seal, affectionately named Nana, as it returned to the shores o...
Chinese researchers have showed a handheld quantum magnetometer built for hunting submarines in a striking real-world test: it tracked a subway train rumbling beneath a city street. The device, developed by Peng Xinhua and colleagues at the University of Science and Technology of China, is described in a study published on September 14 in Acta Physica Sinica. Though it is scarcely larger than a pe...
Before setting off for Washington on Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping had some correspondence to attend to. Dozens of students from 10 US universities, including Harvard, had written to Xi about their experiences on an exchange trip to China this year. According to the State Council, Xi responded with a call to the students to advance cooperation between the two countries. The gesture exten...
Hong Kong’s first five-year plan marks an unprecedented milestone not only for its economic and social development, but also for how it governs itself. The plan, which drew on 16,000 public submissions – roughly 80 per cent from ordinary citizens – is a testament to the government’s commitment to long-term development, which shows an unusual convergence of public consensus and political will. For ...
Britain’s Newcastle University faced criticism on Thursday for awarding a sustainability professorship to Anant Ambani, the son of Asia’s richest man and owner of a scandal-hit giant wildlife centre in India. Vantara, which calls itself the world’s largest rescue centre, last month announced a major reset of its procedures following concerns about its rapid and vast acquisition of animals from aro...
Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump addressed top American business executives and officials in the White House’s East Room on Thursday evening, ahead of a state dinner. The dinner capped a tightly scheduled day for the two leaders, who delivered speeches in the morning hailing close ties and urging deeper cooperation. During the day, Xi and Trump held their second face-to-face meeting this yea...
Introducing legislation to protect minors by regulating social media use is among the options on the table, Hong Kong’s justice minister has said, after the latest policy address unveiled plans to create a task force to review the situation. Speaking to the South China Morning Post and other media outlets on Wednesday, Secretary for Justice Paul Lam Ting-kwok dismissed concerns that such measures ...
As Donald Trump and Xi Jinping meet at the White House for a state dinner on Thursday, culinary diplomacy is on the menu for guests who include business leaders and government officials. “The menu showcases American ingredients with subtle Chinese influence, bringing the culinary traditions of both nations together,” the office of American first lady Melania Trump said. Xi is dressed in a black Zh...
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has put North Korea in a propaganda bind, analysts say, by publicly revealing that Kyiv recently transferred two North Korean prisoners of war to South Korea. The disclosure – made during Zelensky’s address to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday – directly challenges Pyongyang’s narrative that its soldiers fighting alongside Russian forces choose death over ...
Oscar-winning actor Susan Sarandon and Emmy winner Hannah Einbinder were among a reported 100 people detained by police in New York on Thursday as they broke up a protest against the Israeli prime minister. NYPD officers handcuffed and led away Thelma & Louise star Sarandon at the demonstration as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was readying to address the United Nations General Assembly...
Film star Susan Sarandon and Hacks actress Hannah Einbinder were among a reported 100 people detained by police in New York on Thursday as they broke up a protest against the Israeli prime minister. Agence France-Presse footage showed NYPD (New York Police Department) officers leading away handcuffed Thelma & Louise star Sarandon at the demonstration in the city as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin ...
Amnesty International called for the abolition of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is tasked with leading Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown, in a report released on Thursday. The report, titled “We Had Whistles, They Had Guns”, documents widespread human rights violations during ICE’s large-scale operations, the rights watchdog said. The release comes less than a week afte...
Amnesty International called for the abolition of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is tasked with leading Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown, in a report released on Thursday. The report, titled “We Had Whistles, They Had Guns”, documents widespread human rights violations during ICE’s large-scale operations, the rights watchdog said. The release comes less than a week afte...
UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has told Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in a face-to-face meeting that Britain will “not tolerate intimidation, threats or hostile activity on UK soil” from groups linked to his country. Miliband met his Iranian counterpart in the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Thursday. The Foreign Office said the pair discussed the war in th...
UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has told Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi in a face-to-face meeting that Britain will “not tolerate intimidation, threats or hostile activity on UK soil” from groups linked to his country. Miliband met his Iranian counterpart in the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Thursday. The Foreign Office said the pair discussed the war in th...
1. B-2 Spirit, AI cooperation, no US-China conflict: key Xi-Trump takeaways so far Chinese President Xi Jinping and his American counterpart Donald Trump delivered remarks at the White House on Thursday morning at the start of the second day of Xi’s closely watched state visit. 2. Beyond the Rose Garden and the military review, Trump and Xi get down to business After weeks of frustration, delays...
Arm touches, laughs, and firm handshakes were on display as Chinese President Xi Jinping and his American counterpart Donald Trump began their high-stakes summit in Washington, which has so far featured a rare airport welcome, military pageantry and closed-door bilateral talks. While the outcomes of the pair’s discussions are being closely watched, so are the exchanges between the leaders of the w...
Melania Trump and China’s first lady Peng Liyuan toured Chinese artworks and a room shaped by Asian design at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington on Thursday, as their husbands held talks at the White House. The museum’s director, Chase Robinson, said the two women spent about 45 minutes there and were “full of questions”. Much of the visit centred on the Peacock Room, who...
When the presidents of the United States and China meet in Washington, the world will be watching to see whether their two countries can make good on their agreement to work towards “constructive strategic stability”. In the sixth part of a series, Khushboo Razdan looks at how a presidential appeal to America’s heartland is playing out. Of the countless preparations being made for Chinese Presiden...
When the presidents of the United States and China meet in Washington, the world will be watching to see whether their two countries can make good on their agreement to work towards “constructive strategic stability”. In the sixth part of a series, Khushboo Razdan looks at how a presidential appeal to America’s heartland is playing out. Of the countless preparations being made for Chinese Presiden...
The European Commission is pressing China for progress by next month to address the widening EU-China trade imbalance, and raising the possibility of new protectionist trade policy. The deadline raises a question: how should China and its trading partners address perceived economic imbalances while sharing the benefits of Chinese industrial competitiveness? China’s merchandise trade surplus approa...
Costa Rica’s President Laura Fernandez on Thursday fired her foreign minister for attending a meeting on Latin America’s security led by US President Donald Trump without telling her. Fernandez said she should have been the one to attend the meeting of Trump’s anti-cartel “Shield of the Americas” alliance in New York, and that Foreign Minister Manuel Tovar’s failure to consult her caused “great st...
