A Hong Kong appellate court on Thursday overturned fraud convictions against the media mogul Jimmy Lai, a rare victory in the prominent pro-democracy activist’s legal battles. Lai, 78, an outspoken critic of China’s ruling Communist party who founded the now defunct Apple Daily, will stay in prison because weeks ago he was sentenced to 20 years after being convicted in another case brought under a China-imposed national security law. It is more than five years since he was arrested under the law, which was used in a years–long crackdown on…
Tag: World news
Japan to deploy missiles to island near Taiwan by 2031, says defence minister
Japan will deploy missiles to a tiny island near Taiwan within five years, its defence minister has said, in a move that is likely to inflame tensions with China. The surface-to-air missiles, which are capable of shooting down aircraft and ballistic missiles, will be located on Yonaguni – Japan’s westernmost island – by March 2031, Shinjiro Koizumi said. “It depends on the progress of preparing facilities, but we are planning for fiscal 2030,” Koizumi told reporters, giving details about the deployment’s schedule for the first time. Koizumi made the announcement…
US AI giant accuses Chinese rivals of mass data theft
US artificial intelligence company Anthropic said on Monday it had uncovered campaigns by three Chinese AI firms to illicitly extract capabilities from its Claude chatbot, in what it described as industrial-scale intellectual property theft. OpenAI leveled similar charges last month. Anthropic said DeepSeek, Moonshot AI and MiniMax used a technique known as “distillation” – using outputs from a more powerful AI system to rapidly boost the performance of a less capable one. “These campaigns are growing in intensity and sophistication,” the company said in a statement. “The window to act…
China overtakes US as Germany’s top trading partner
China has overtaken the US as Germany’s top trading partner, figures have shown, as the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, prepares for his first visit to Beijing since taking office. Merz will head to China on Tuesday and will be welcomed with military honours on Wednesday in Beijing by the prime minister, Li Qiang, before later meeting the president, Xi Jinping, for talks over dinner, his spokesperson, Sebastian Hille, said. Germany’s Federal Statistical Office released figures on Friday showing that China is back on top as the country’s most important market with…
The splinternet: how online shutdowns are getting cheaper and easier to impose
During the height of Iran’s blackout in January, people could still access a platform that, in some senses, was like the internet. Iranians could message family members on a government-monitored app and watch clips of Manchester United on a Farsi-language video-sharing site. They could read state news and use a local navigation service. What they couldn’t do was check international headlines about thousands of people being killed by government forces during one of the bloodiest weeks in recent Iranian history. Nor, for the most part, could they get evidence out…
Amid Trump crackdown on Chinese students, one US university appears to block them altogether
Several universities have scrapped partnerships with Chinese institutions in recent months as a direct result of pressure from US legislators. But no university appears to have gone as far as Purdue University in Indiana. Students and faculty at the public university say that an unofficial policy is in effect to automatically reject students from China and a number of other countries altogether. The alleged shift in admissions practices at Purdue followed a letter sent last year to six universities by the US House’s select committee on the Chinese Communist party…
Amid Trump crackdown on Chinese students, one US university appears to block them altogether
Several universities have scrapped partnerships with Chinese institutions in recent months as a direct result of pressure from US legislators. But no university appears to have gone as far as Purdue University in Indiana. Students and faculty at the public university say that an unofficial policy is in effect to automatically reject students from China and a number of other countries altogether. The alleged shift in admissions practices at Purdue followed a letter sent last year to six universities by the US House’s select committee on the Chinese Communist party…
Year of the fire horse – explained: the Chinese zodiac sign that’s all about intensity
As the lunar new year begins, the focus has turned to the Chinese zodiac and the arrival of the year of the fire horse – a rare pairing in the 60-year lunar cycle. Drawing on Chinese metaphysics, the fire horse blends the horse’s reputation for energy and independence with the intensity of the fire element, giving it a distinct place in the zodiac tradition. What is the Chinese zodiac and the five elements? The Chinese zodiac is a 12-year cycle in which each year is represented by an animal sign:…
US sanctions, power cuts, climate crisis: why Cuba is betting on renewables
Intense heat hangs over the sugarcane fields near Cuba’s eastern coast. In the village of Herradura, a blond-maned horse rests under a palm tree after spending all Saturday in the fields with its owner, Roberto, who cultivates maize and beans. Roberto was among those worst affected by Hurricane Melissa, which hit eastern Cuba – the country’s poorest region – late last year. The storm affected 3.5 million people, damaging or destroying 90,000 homes and 100,000 hectares of crops. “Many of us lost everything,” he says. “Fortunately, we have received some…
Scare Out review – twisty spy thriller is all style, little substance
Back in the 1980s and 90s, Zhang Yimou (Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern) was acclaimed as one of the most talented directors to emerge from China’s “fifth generation”, film-makers whose work broke with the socialist realist style of their predecessors. While still working within the establishment industry, the fifth generation – including Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang – were considered to varying degrees if not quite dissident, at least somewhat heterodox and anti-authoritarian. Either way, having started out as a cinematographer, Zhang quickly became an arthouse darling abroad, feted…