A “system malfunction” has caused several self-driving robotaxis to stall in the middle of the road in China, police have confirmed, after distressed riders were stranded for hours. Local authorities in the central Chinese city of Wuhan said they began receiving calls “one after another” on Tuesday night from riders reporting that autonomous vehicles operated by the Chinese internet company Baidu had frozen. “Multiple Apollo Go cars stopped in the middle of the road, unable to move,” police said in a statement on Wednesday, referring to Baidu’s driverless taxi service.…
Tag: World news
Robotaxi outage in China’s Wuhan leaves passengers stranded in moving traffic
Some robotaxi passengers were left stranded in the middle of fast-moving traffic in a major Chinese city after their driverless vehicles stopped running, according to police and media reports on Wednesday. A preliminary investigation indicates more than 100 robotaxis came to a halt because of a “system malfunction”, police in the city of Wuhan said in a statement, without elaborating. No injuries were reported. One passenger told Chinese media that their robotaxi stopped after turning a corner. An instruction on a screen read: “Driving system malfunction. Staff are expected to…
Pakistan and China propose five-part peace plan for Middle East
Pakistan and China have released a joint five-part proposal for peace in the Middle East, after Pakistan’s foreign minister flew to Beijing on Tuesday to seek Chinese support for the country’s faltering efforts to negotiate an end to end the war. The one-day meeting between Ishaq Dar and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, came as Pakistan continues to push for the role of peacemaker between the United States and Iran, even as the war shows little sign of relenting. According to a statement from China’s foreign ministry, the trip was…
China to ban storing remains of dead in ‘bone ash apartments’
China is introducing a law to stop people storing the ashes of their dead relatives in empty high-rise flats rather than paying steep costs for increasingly scarce cemetery plots. China’s new funeral management legislation will prohibit the use of “residential housing specifically for the purpose of storing cremated remains” and the burial of corpses or construction of tombs in “areas other than public cemeteries”. The law will come into force on Tuesday ahead of Sunday’s Qingming grave-sweeping festival – a traditional Chinese celebration in which people clean their ancestors’ tombs…
US-based dissident artist put on trial in China over satirical Mao sculptures, says rights group
The Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen, known for making satirical sculptures of China’s former leader Mao Zedong, has been tried over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs”, his wife and a rights group have said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit to China from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, his wife, Zhao Yaliang, and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese human rights defenders group, said. The closed-door, one-day trial took place on Monday at Sanhe city people’s court in Hebei province…
The ‘Third Front’: China resurrects Mao’s military capabilities
Dotted across the mountainous roads of Sichuan and just a few hours’ drive from some of China’s most bustling cities, the crumbling ruins of an abandoned military experiment are eerily quiet. Top secret factories that once housed thousands of workers are now overgrown with vegetation; nearby villages, empty of young people who were once shipped in from across the country to build China’s future, are plastered with advertisements for hearing aids and, in one case, a bundle deal on coffins. The factories in south-west China were once part of its…
China’s ‘teapot’ oil refineries keep economy brewing – but surging crude prices leave them strained
The towns that are the bulwark of China’s energy security can, at a moment of global crisis, appear deceptively quiet. Trucks carrying oil trundle along wide-open highways that have little traffic, while a few boarded-up shops in crumbling low-rise buildings hint at a long-forgotten local buzz. A ramshackle noodle shop serving hand-pulled ribbons of dough was empty at lunchtime, save for a few construction workers and a teacher watching videos on Douyin, the social media platform, with his meal. But its boss wasn’t worried about low footfall. Peak time was…
The Guardian view on Myanmar’s forgotten war: the military cosplay democracy but people demand the real thing | Editorial
China promoted elections in Myanmar, while those fighting for democracy boycotted them. That tells you everything about the shift to a supposedly civilian administration in the coming days, five years after the military seized power in a coup. It appears likely that Min Aung Hlaing will swap his leadership of the army for the presidency. Whatever the details, the junta will still be running the show, and bombing civilians – just while cosplaying as democrats. Myanmar’s suffering has been overshadowed by higher-profile wars. But the conflict-monitoring organisation Acled estimates that…
Trump’s trip to meet Xi Jinping in China rescheduled for May due to Iran war
Donald Trump will meet Xi Jinping in May during the US president’s first visit to China in eight years, a closely watched trip that had been postponed due to the Iran war. Trump was initially slated to travel next week, but will now visit Beijing on 14 and 15 May, he wrote in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday. Trump said he would host the Chinese leader in a reciprocal visit in Washington later this year. Trump wrote: “Our Representatives are finalizing preparations for these Historic Visits. I look…
‘They can reach me wherever’: China using financial tactics to coerce people who flee, says report
UK urged to tackle transnational repression, as dissidents say Beijing has targeted them with tax letters and other threats “I didn’t feel safe, even though I’m not based in Hong Kong any more,” said Christopher Mung Siu-tat after getting tax bills from Hong Kong authorities. “The regime can reach me by their long arms wherever I am.” Siu-tat, the executive director at the Hong Kong Labour Rights Monitor, a UK-based NGO, fled Beijing’s sweeping national security laws years ago. The letters are the latest example of a series of transnational…