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South Korea is banking on moonshots in a post-AI economy to stem sluggish growth potential amid an ageing population and deepening reliance on its semiconductor exports. From quantum chips and fusion power to a lunar landing, Seoul this week unveiled a strategy to build seven next-generation industries over the coming decades. The aim is to secure a foothold in technologies shaping a post-AI world...
President Donald Trump ordered the US Navy to return to using steam catapults to launch planes off of aircraft carriers, acting on a long-time complaint despite opposition from many naval officers. In a presidential memorandum, Trump ordered US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to come up with a plan within 60 days on what would be needed to use hydraulic catapults in the next Gerald Ford-class nucle...
Three Latin American governments that moved against Chinese commercial interests over the past year were named in a White House report on Thursday, which accused Chinese exporters of routing goods through third countries to evade US tariffs. Mexico, Panama and Colombia now join Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic among more than 40 countries the report says carry ...
Luigi Mangione is expected to plead guilty on Friday to resolve federal charges relating to the fatal shooting of UnitedHealth Group executive Brian Thompson, and prosecutors will recommend he serve life in prison, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The plea would come at a Friday hearing that US District Judge Margaret Garnett set after federal prosecutors and defence lawyers joi...
For generations, China’s brightest science and technology minds followed a well-worn path: board a Westbound flight and claim a seat at a globally renowned university. That once-reliable trajectory has fractured. Escalating US-China tech competition and tightening immigration policies across the “big four” study destinations – Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States – have redr...
When Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the Mecca defence agreement, they executed a structural overhaul of the Middle East’s security architecture. The pact codifies a defence commitment, where an armed attack on one is treated as an assault on all. Building upon September’s Saudi-Pakistan defence agre...
Bird remains were found in the engine of a Ryanair Boeing 737 NG plane where a passenger was partially sucked through a broken window shortly after take-off from Greece in July, the US National Transportation Safety Board said on Thursday. The NTSB is investigating the incident where a piece of the engine broke off the plane and smashed the window. The plane, headed to Germany, lost pressure an...
The Pacific-based aircraft carrier USS George Washington has begun heading towards the Middle East, according to Navy statements and open source information on the ship’s movements. This comes as reports have emerged of mental health and supply issues aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, whose long deployment to the Middle East in support of the Iran war includes a record-setting uninterrupted time at ...
The Kennedy Centre board voted on Thursday to add US President Donald Trump’s name to the facade of the performing arts venue and move forward with a two-year closure, according to congresswoman Joyce Beatty, a trustee through her position in Congress, and her lawyers. A representative for the Kennedy Centre did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The moves set up a test of US Distri...
A passenger train derailed on Thursday in southern England, seriously injuring two people and causing minor injuries for nine others after three carriages overturned, the British Transport Police said. The Southern Rail train from Victoria station in London to Eastbourne was carrying about 150 people when it went off the tracks outside the tourist town of Lewes. Passenger Rob Bradley said the trai...
A passenger train derailed on Thursday in southern England, leaving at least three cars flipped on their sides. Aerial footage showed firefighters and paramedics attending to passengers in a field next to the derailed train, with several ambulances and three helicopters standing by. There were no immediate official reports of injuries, though one passenger said he saw people who were bleeding. The...
A passenger train derailed on Thursday in southern England, leaving at least three cars flipped on their sides. Aerial footage showed firefighters and paramedics attending to passengers in a field next to the derailed train, with several ambulances and three helicopters standing by. There were no immediate official reports of injuries, though one passenger said he saw people who were bleeding. The...
A professor managed US funding of computer science research for more than two years while failing to disclose that he was simultaneously involved in Chinese government programmes, according to previously unreported documents. The professor, Tao Li, was a programme officer at the National Science Foundation from 2015 to 2017, a job that included overseeing the awarding of grants for research in are...
Former Hong Kong opposition leader Wu Chi-wai, who has been granted permission to enter the United Kingdom, will not be deported despite earlier complications in his attempt to settle in the country, the British immigration minister has confirmed. In a written reply on Thursday to former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten, UK Minister for Migration and Citizenship Jo White stressed that overseas conv...
The composite waiting time for general applicants for long- and short-term subsidised public rental housing in Hong Kong has edged up slightly to 4.8 years at the end of June, authorities have said, adding that a higher proportion of coveted homes in urban areas was allocated in the second quarter. Despite an increase in the “composite” figure, which includes temporary flats under the light public...
The composite waiting time for general applicants for long- and short-term subsidised public rental housing in Hong Kong has edged up slightly to 4.8 years by the end of June, authorities have said, adding that a higher proportion of coveted homes in urban areas was allocated in the second quarter. Despite an increase in the “composite” figure, which includes temporary flats under the light public...
The composite waiting time for general applicants for long- and short-term subsidised public rental housing in Hong Kong has edged up slightly to 4.8 years by the end of June, authorities have said, adding that a higher proportion of coveted homes in urban areas was allocated in the second quarter. Despite an increase in the “composite” figure, which includes temporary flats under the light public...
Hong Kong residents have borne the brunt of extreme weather this summer, with July rainfall exceeding the monthly norm by 23 per cent, followed by hot spells in August linked to Tropical Cyclone Dolphin’s influence. As of Thursday, the maximum temperature recorded at the Hong Kong Observatory reached 33 degrees Celsius (91 Fahrenheit) or above for nine consecutive days, marking the longest streak ...
Poland has arrested a Russian man who was hired by Moscow to kill a Ukrainian-American citizen in Warsaw, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday. The Russian was detained on August 7 and had been recruited to kill a man who was “inconvenient to the Putin regime”, Tusk told journalists. The Russian embassy in Warsaw did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. Mosc...
The F-35 and F-22 may be among the world’s most advanced stealth fighters, but they cannot hide one thing: heat. When heat-seeking missiles lock onto aircraft, fighters release flares to confuse infrared sensors and break missile tracking. But the infrared signals produced by fighters, including heat from engine exhaust and air friction over the fuselage, are different from those generated by flar...
A blast at a storage facility for petroleum products at the Netherlands’ Rotterdam port killed one person and wounded six others on Thursday, officials said, as police investigated the cause of the explosion. A spokesperson for major energy commodities trading company Gunvor said an “incident” occurred during maintenance work on a storage tank. A police spokesperson said that there was no immedia...
A blast at a storage facility for petroleum products at the Netherlands’ Rotterdam port killed one person and wounded several others on Thursday, officials said, adding that the cause was unknown. A spokesperson for major energy commodities trading company Gunvor said an “incident” occurred during maintenance work on a storage tank. A police spokesperson said that there was no immediate sign of ...
Hong Kong has conducted its first large-scale drill at the revamped Huanggang border crossing, with authorities describing traffic flows at the facility as smooth. About 1,000 civil servants from more than 20 departments mobilised for Thursday’s drill. They were instructed to travel by public transport to the Hong Kong port area of the revamped Huanggang Port, enter the port building and leave by ...
Hong Kong authorities have invited interested parties to submit expressions of interest to develop land parcels set aside for a modern logistics cluster under the Northern Metropolis megaproject. The Transport and Logistics Bureau and the Civil Engineering and Development Department said the sites would meet long-term demand, promote the development of modern logistics and reinforce the city’s pos...
Alibaba Group Holding has made the core files of its latest flagship AI model Qwen3.8-Max free for anyone to download, as the tech giant introduces new rules requiring large companies to pay for a separate commercial licence to use it. The terms apply to users or their affiliates running a “model as a service” or “AI work assistant” business whose aggregate revenue exceeds US$50 million over any c...
SF Reit, Hong Kong’s first real estate investment trust to focus on logistics properties, saw its distributable income fall by 7.3 per cent year on year to HK$110.7 million (US$14.11 million) in the first half of the year. The firm – which is controlled by the Chinese logistics giant SF Holding – recorded total revenue of HK$219.3 million for the first six months of 2026, down 4.6 per cent from a ...
Turn-of-the-century images of Zhu Rongji alongside former US president Bill Clinton have largely accompanied coverage following the former Chinese premier’s death on Wednesday. The moment in April 1999 was more than a diplomatic milestone. It underpinned some of China’s most consequential reforms that defined Zhu’s tenure, from its drive to join the World Trade Organization to an overhaul of the s...
China appears to be adding capacity to the vertical launch system (VLS) of its most advanced guided-missile frigate Type 054B under construction in Shanghai, satellite images show, allowing it to have a larger missile reserve and stronger anti-air defence capabilities. According to satellite images taken by US intelligence company Vantor on June 28, the VLS at the bow of a Type 054B vessel had a d...
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by surging waters across Myanmar and Laos, with Thai farming communities along the Mekong River bracing themselves for difficult days ahead as authorities warn persistent heavy rains may bring flash floods. Each year monsoon rains bring extensive flooding across the region. Environmental campaigners say the damage is exacerbated by changing weather p...
CK Hutchison Holdings has revealed the “forced termination” of operations at two strategic Panama Canal ports shaved 1 per cent off overall throughput in the first half of this year, even as the overall port portfolio performed better than a year ago. In its half-year financial results released on Thursday, the Li Ka-shing family-backed conglomerate for the first time quantified the impact of losi...
