China is expected to look for ways to protect its maritime interests in the face of increasingly assertive efforts by the United States to seize foreign ships it accuses of breaching sanctions on countries such as Iran and Venezuela. In November, a cargo ship travelling to Iran from China was reportedly raided by a US special operations team in the Indian ...

Three news items caught my eye over the past few days. The European Union is finally ready to totally ban the import of Russian natural gas. (You mean they have still been buying Russian gas?) The new National Defence Strategy put out by the Pentagon says the United States will de-prioritise Europe which must address its own regional security needs and ...

Former Google software engineer Ding Linwei was convicted by a federal jury in San Francisco on Thursday of stealing AI trade secrets from the US tech giant to benefit two Chinese companies he was secretly working for, the US Department of Justice said on Thursday. Ding, a 38-year-old Chinese national, was found guilty after an 11-day trial of seven counts ...

Washington on Friday welcomed a Panamanian court ruling cancelling a contract held by a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings to operate two ports along the Panama Canal, a decision seen as a boost to the United States efforts to counter Chinese influence in the western hemisphere. The reaction came as Panamas government sought to reassure ...

Catherine OHara, a gifted Canadian comic actor and SCTV alum who starred as Macaulay Culkins harried mother in two Home Alone films and created the dramatically ditsy character of Moira Rose in the Emmy-winning comedy Schitts Creek, died on Friday. OHara died at her home in Los Angeles following a brief illness, according to a statement from her agency, ...

The US Justice Department has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis resident killed by Border Patrol officers on January 24, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Friday. Were looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to what ...

Beijing has lifted sanctions on British peers and lawmakers, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said, following his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. This has been a cause of concern in parliament and for parliamentarians for some time and that is why I raised it on this visit, Starmer told ITV News in Shanghai. And the response from the Chinese ...

The US Justice Department on Friday released many more records from its investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein, resuming disclosures under a law intended to reveal what the government knew about the millionaire financiers sexual abuse of young girls and his interactions with the rich and powerful. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department was ...

The Islamic State extremist group on Friday claimed responsibility for an attack in Niger on an air force base in the capital that wounded four soldiers and damaged an aircraft. The claim of responsibility was contained in a statement on Amaq News Agency, the groups propaganda wing, that said it was a surprise and coordinated attack that inflicted heavy ...

Spanish police have detained a 38-year-old Chinese national who owned a hair salon near Barcelona on suspicion of financing the militant group Hamas through about 600,000 (US$715,000) in cryptocurrency transfers, regional police said on Friday. Investigators traced at least 31 crypto transactions from virtual wallets controlled by the suspect to addresses ...

Hong Kongs treasury minister has said authorities will shelve a proposed levy on private cars crossing the border into mainland China, citing feedback from lawmakers and members of the public. Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui Ching-yu told the Legislative Council on Friday that the government had decided not to go ahead with ...

The first close-up image of the Chinese PL-17 long-range missile one of the most mysterious weapons in the PLA Air Forces arsenal appears to have surfaced online. Analysts say the PL-17 may be the worlds longest-range air-to-air missile, posing a threat to US air superiority in the western Pacific. A photo believed to show the PL-17 has recently been ...

Hong Kongs anti-corruption agency has arrested 33 people on suspicion of defrauding two government technology funding schemes of more than HK$150 million (US$19.2 million). The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) said on Friday that it had dismantled two syndicates this month and arrested 24 men and nine women aged between 27 and 66, including ...

Israel said Friday that it will reopen the pedestrian border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt in both directions over the weekend, marking an important step forward for US President Donald Trumps Gaza ceasefire plan. COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, said in a statement that starting on Sunday a limited ...

Chinese fintech giant Ant Group has open-sourced its first artificial intelligence models for robotics, as it steps up efforts to build machine intelligence capable of handling complex real-world tasks. The move signals a deeper push by the Hangzhou-based Ant into embodied intelligence AI systems designed to perceive, reason and act in physical ...

China has accused the Philippines of deliberately stoking maritime tensions following reports Manila had warned it would stage military exercises across a large area of the disputed South China Sea for more than two months. The move represents the first external military challenge facing China after two senior generals were placed under investigation on ...

Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and his South Korean counterpart Ahn Gyu Back decided on Friday to step up personnel exchanges between their forces amid mounting regional security challenges. At the Maritime Self-Defense Forces (MSDF) base in Koizumis hometown of Yokosuka, near Tokyo, the two agreed to hold annual reciprocal visits, as ties ...

Several signals from this years World Economic Forum in Davos revealed a fundamental transformation in international politics. The forum laid bare the conclusion of a long era, yet provided little clarity about the coming one. The first signal is the collapse of the post-World War II order shaped by the West and the Wests own unravelling with it. The West ...

Remarks by a prominent economist about Indias air quality have raised a debate on whether New Delhi should prioritise tackling pollution over tariff talks, as the country continues to transition towards a green economy. Former International Monetary Fund chief economist Gita Gopinath made the comments at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, arguing ...

ByteDance and Alibaba Group Holding are poised to ratchet up their artificial intelligence infrastructure initiatives, as the global AI arms race continues to intensify. The two companies latest moves lend weight to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huangs recent remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the world was witnessing the biggest ...

China and the United Kingdom are expected to sign more business deals as the British delegation, which comprises 54 companies, heads to Shanghai from Beijing as part of Keir Starmers visit, the first by a UK prime minister since 2018. The UK delegation will attend a reception in Shanghai on Friday evening, according to Peter Burnett, chief executive of the ...

US Agency for International Development staffers in early 2024 drafted a warning to senior officials in Joe Bidens administration: Northern Gaza had turned into an Apocalyptic Wasteland with dire shortages of food and medical aid. Three months after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks and Israels incursion into the Gaza Strip, the internal message laid out in ...

Alibaba Group Holding has delivered more than 100,000 units of its most advanced artificial intelligence chip, the Zhenwu 810E, whose performance is said to be comparable to Nvidias H20, according to people familiar with the matter a milestone that highlights the companys growing role in Chinas race to build domestic alternatives to US processors. The ...

Hong Kong developer Hang Lung Properties is pinning its medium-term outlook on a recovery in mainland Chinese consumption, even as it warned that both the citys and Chinas property markets remain under strain. The commercial landlord, residential developer and hotel owner said it expected a tough slog for the broader sector despite signs of improvement in ...

Chinese scientists are planting high-value alternative rubber trees in the Gobi Desert. China is the worlds largest consumer and importer of natural rubber, mainly to support its massive car sector. Consumption last year is expected to have exceeded 7 million tonnes, over 85 per cent of it imported. However, the unique Chinese medicinal plant Duzhong ...