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The United States on Friday announced several critical minerals agreements with multiple mining companies, marking its latest push to curb China’s dominance over the production and processing of strategic materials. While attending a round table with global mining industry executives at the State Department, US President Donald Trump, without naming China, said that his administration would ensure...
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived on Friday for his first official visit to Serbia, one of the few European countries that have maintained friendly relations with Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine. Zelensky confirmed the arrival on Friday on his official Telegram channel. The office of Serbia’s populist President Aleksandar Vucic had previously announced the visit late on Thursda...
China’s UnionPay International plans to connect Chinese payment apps to Pix, the Brazilian payment system at the centre of Washington’s trade case against Brasilia, allowing Chinese tourists to pay by scanning a code. Under the pilot, users of the UnionPay app and of Chinese bank apps linked to its platform would scan a merchant’s code and pay from the account they use at home. Chinese state media...
A US federal appeal court on Friday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to stop construction on a US$400 million ballroom on the site of the White House’s demolished East Wing, dealing the Republican leader a major setback in a case testing his presidential authority. The Washington-based US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a divided 2-1 order upheld a prelimin...
A Hong Kong-based Belgian designer is taking fashion powerhouse Prada to court, claiming at least US$5 million in damages for the alleged repudiation of a partnership agreement to redesign a series of Rolls-Royce cars for exhibitions and events worldwide. In a High Court lawsuit filed on Thursday, Jonathan Riss accused the Italian brand of breaching various written and verbal agreements to jointly...
It is financially strapped, structurally flawed, infamously bureaucratic, reputationally damaged and riven with infighting. So why would anyone want to take on the role of the next secretary general of the United Nations? “I really think there should be some sort of psychiatric test for wanting this position,” said Richard Gowan, global issues and institutions director at the International Crisis ...
Hong Kong holidaymakers in Okinawa on Friday contended with depleted supermarket shelves, potential power cuts and violent weather as Typhoon Dolphin shut the Japanese island’s main airport and disrupted every direct flight home. Social media images shared by Hong Kong-linked travel accounts showed empty bread shelves and torrential rain sweeping parts of the popular destination, although travelle...
The US economy unexpectedly lost 23,000 jobs in July, government data showed, a blow to US President Donald Trump’s claims of leading an economic revival as his Republican Party gears up for crucial midterm elections.. The unemployment rate in the world’s largest economy ticked down to 4.1 per cent, according to data published on Friday by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since taking office for...
An organised ring that helped people in the central Chinese province of Henan cheat their way to government-sponsored jobs has been exposed. An official investigation concluded that a province-wide exam held to fill the posts last month had been compromised by “large-scale, organised cheating” with suspects paying officials overseeing the exam to obtain test papers and the correct answers in advan...
Graphite has long been a workhorse of industry – used in pencils since the 1500s, in steelmaking during the 1800s, and today in battery electrodes. Research from Peking University now suggests it could even play a role in next-generation quantum computers. According to a paper published on July 23 by the peer-reviewed journal Science, the research team has cleared a major obstacle on the road to p...
With some US universities kicking off their academic year this month and Chinese students subject to increased scrutiny from Washington amid heated geopolitical rivalry, many institutions were concerned they would receive fewer applications from China, a prized source of tuition fee revenue amid cuts to state and federal education budgets. But a report issued by the Institute of International Educ...
Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Cambricon Technologies reported a 108 per cent surge in first-half revenue on Friday, as the firm capitalises on a massive domestic push to replace foreign AI hardware. The chipmaker’s revenue for the first six months of the year reached 6 billion yuan (US$890 million), while profits also jumped 122.6 per cent year on year to 2.3 billion yuan, accord...
“Philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” This famous 11th thesis from Karl Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach is engraved on his tombstone in Highgate Cemetery in London. It was meant to be a refutation of another famous saying, by G.W.F. Hegel: “The owl of Minerva takes flight only when darkness falls.” This poetic but enigmatic remark is from ...
In a sign of fraying ties amid the Middle East conflict, Israel’s consulate general in Chengdu has closed with its consul general leaving his post, two years after a controversy stoked backlash among Chinese netizens. Nevertheless, an analyst has downplayed the impact of the news, saying bilateral relations in recent years had already been strained. In a letter published on Wednesday, Gadi Harpaz ...
A bus driver knocked an explosive-laden drone out of the air, potentially preventing an attack this week at a German airport that serves as a major Nato and cargo logistics hub, a senior lawmaker said on Friday. The man spotted the drone flying low while he was working at Leipzig/Halle airport late on Tuesday, then kicked out at it in what Detlef Seif described as a courageous but dangerous act. ...
The revelation that an alleged Malaysian scam kingpin was released after paying 10 million ringgit (US$2.4 million) fine has sparked public outrage over claims of preferential treatment for a man at the centre of a controversial photo-op with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. Liow Soon Hee – better known as Nicky Liow – was cleared of all 26 money-laundering charges involving more than 36 million ring...
Once overshadowed by natural diamonds in consumer markets, lab-grown versions of the world’s strongest natural substance have become a bright spot for industrial applications, fuelled by the global artificial intelligence (AI) boom. As the world’s largest producer of the synthetic gems, China has posted strong export growth in recent years. Official data shows that the value of exports of lab-grow...
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey signed a joint defence agreement in Mecca on Friday, wedding Sunni Muslim US allies alarmed at a regional conflagration that has rained missile fire onto Gulf oil exporters. Iran and its allies have been firing on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, and blockading their energy shipments, since the US and Israel attacked it on February 28 in a major escalation of y...
An independent inquiry into Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades has released further details about the final moments of fallen firefighter Ho Wai-ho, who died in the line of duty while responding to the blaze at Wang Fuk Court last November. An interim report from an interdepartmental fire investigation task force was released by the government-appointed independent committee on Thursday. The di...
China plans to expand production capacity of a mine in Bayan Obo in its Inner Mongolia region with an investment of over half a billion yuan (US$74 million). The expansion will raise the mine’s annual output by 50 per cent from 10 million to 15 million tonnes at the world’s largest rare earth deposit. Bayan Obo is a complex polymetallic deposit containing iron, rare earths, fluorite, niobium, scan...
A University of Hong Kong (HKU) virologist has been spared a criminal conviction for assaulting a man and damaging his mobile phone at a railway station last year. Eastern Court on Friday placed Vijaykrishna Dhanasekaran on a two-year bind-over order and instructed him to pay HK$800 (US$102) in damages, after he admitted attacking a stranger at Hong Kong MTR station on August 17, 2025. The 48-year...
Rina left Myanmar shortly after the 2021 coup as military violence escalated against pro-democracy protesters like herself and the economy of her country, once a Southeast Asian frontier that had flickered with promise, ground to a virtual halt. Now in Bangkok, the 21-year-old has found work in a cafe, a regular, albeit low-salaried income, the minimum required by the millions of her age group for...
Chinese chip-tool developers continue to make technical progress, with the latest breakthrough in wafer polishing – a critical manufacturing step that flattens and smooths silicon discs – even as the industry remains heavily dependent on foreign suppliers for more complex manufacturing procedures. Hwatsing Technology, China’s leading producer of chemical mechanical polishing equipment, announced a...
A 38-year-old man in China, who was admitted to the prestigious Tsinghua University 18 years ago, recently sat for the national university entrance exam and achieved a remarkable score, allowing him to realise his dream of studying medicine at Peking University. Tsinghua and Peking Universities are two of the most elite institutions in mainland China, admitting students with the highest scores fro...
The release of Spider-Man: Brand New Day in the Philippines was supposed to be a shared cinematic moment for fans who had waited months for the latest instalment in the superhero franchise. But for some deaf viewers, the experience was defined less by the action on screen than by what was missing: subtitles or captions that would allow them to follow the dialogue. That frustration, captured in a v...
Japan’s latest defence white paper’s emphasis on adaptivity and scale of drones signals its intention to seek asymmetric capabilities against China in the event of a conflict, while drawing lessons from Ukraine, according to experts. The 610-page document released on Tuesday highlights the need to integrate unmanned systems, artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced technologies across the J...
Hong Kong police have found the body of a missing 58-year-old man in Ma On Shan, with his cause of death to be confirmed following an autopsy. Officers received a report at around 12.50am on Friday from a passer-by who had spotted a man lying on the ground near a slope on Nui Po Shan in Ma On Shan. Upon arrival at the scene, officers confirmed the death of the man, who was believed to be the missi...
The Philippines is seeking to move its South China Sea row with Beijing into classrooms, a push that analysts say could shape how young Filipinos understand the country’s maritime claims while raising questions over potentially blurred lines between education and state narrative-building. Congressmen in the House of Representatives introduced legislation on Thursday requiring the Department of Edu...
Since the mid‑2000s, China has established itself as Africa’s principal bilateral financier for large infrastructure projects, including railways, bridges, dams and ports. But as the loans involved reach maturity, Beijing has transitioned from a net provider of funds to a net collector. Drawing on data from Boston University’s Global Development Policy Centre and its own calculations, Oxford Econo...
Hong Kong’s security chief has warned he will take down anyone who endangers national security, while also slamming an embattled press group for lacking credibility ahead of an already delayed leadership election. Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung said on Friday that the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) was “not a statutory organisation” and that candidates for its executive com...
