5 h. ago Hawaiʻi's biggest shipper is shifting its China business model

Hawaiʻi's biggest shipper is shifting its China business model  Hawaii Public Radio

Politics

24 h. ago Fighting China’s subsidies means copying China’s economic model

Fighting China’s subsidies means copying China’s economic model  Lowy Institute

Economics

24 h. ago Water diversion project drives environmental improvements and provides new jobs for locals

Green industries such as eco-agriculture and tourism are helping to raise living standards along the program's central route

Politics

25 h. ago Japan weighs plan to punish sex buyers, but will it be enough?

A campaigner who has been calling for changes in the law in Japan to allow the prosecution of men who pay for sex has welcomed reports that the government is finally considering the proposal. Experts warn, however, that an industry known as “the world’s oldest profession” will always find a way to circumvent new regulations and that the problem needs to be tackled from a number of angles simultaneously. In response to a question from independent Diet member Rintaro Ogata on November 11, Prime...

Politics

27 h. ago China’s Auto Boom Accelerates on Surge in Gasoline Model Exports

China’s Auto Boom Accelerates on Surge in Gasoline Model Exports  Mexico Business News

Politics

38 h. ago ‘No longer contentious’: Malaysia to weigh Singapore’s water project plan

Malaysia said on Thursday that it would consider a proposal by Singapore to jointly develop water infrastructure in southern Johor, signalling the intention of both sides to move beyond decades of rancour over the vital resource. The two countries have for years disagreed over various issues related to water supply, ranging from prices to the interpretation of the 1962 water agreement signed by them. Malaysia has argued that Johor’s water is sold too cheaply to Singapore. With Johor experiencing...

Politics

40 h. ago World’s first ‘ethical AI’ wades into risks of China’s new drug abuse law

A new Chinese AI system called Wen Dao – billed as the world’s first such model to be designed explicitly for ethical risk detection – has landed in the middle of its first major moral dilemma. Its immediate challenge is to navigate one of 2025’s most explosive social debates: whether the country should automatically seal the records of convicted drug users under the newly revised Public Security Administration Punishments Law. Effective January 1, an amendment to the law known as Article 136...

Events

44 h. ago Proposal for global minerals deal meets opposition as China looks away

Proposal for global minerals deal meets opposition as China looks away  Climate Home News

Politics

47 h. ago Oxford slammed for not naming Indonesian researchers in rare flower find

A recent rediscovery of the extremely rare Rafflesia hasseltii, a giant parasitic red flower, in a forest in Indonesia’s West Sumatra has sparked backlash following an initial social media post by Oxford University that left out local researchers involved in the search and credited only its scientist. The uproar has exposed the perceived lack of equal recognition for Western researchers and their Global South counterparts when they collaborate, and the lingering legacy of colonialism in...

Politics

49 h. ago Trump says next steps for Ukraine talks unclear after Putin meeting

The path ahead for Ukraine peace talks is unclear, US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday, after what he called “reasonably good” talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US envoys. The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Putin accepted some US proposals aimed at ending the war in Ukraine and was prepared to keep working to find a compromise. US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner spent hours at the Kremlin, departing in the early hours of...

Politics

63 h. ago Elon Musk reiterates aim to transform X into a ‘WeChat++’ super app

Elon Musk says he aspires to transform his social media platform X into “WeChat++”, akin to Tencent Holdings’ flagship super app, by integrating various social and finance features. On a recent People by WTF podcast hosted by entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath, Musk cited the extensive utility of WeChat as a model for X – previously known as Twitter, which he bought for US$44 billion in October 2022. “You can exchange information, you can publish information, you can exchange money,” Musk said,...

Politics

66 h. ago Tesla’s China plant sees shipment surge ahead of subsidy expiry

Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory reported a significant rebound in shipments last month as Chinese consumers took advantage of soon-expiring government incentives to snap up cars. The US carmaker’s Shanghai plant, its largest production facility globally, delivered a total of 86,700 Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles (EVs) in November, a 41 per cent jump from October and a 10 per cent rise from a year earlier, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). The deliveries...

Politics

67 h. ago Indonesia’s cyclone tragedy exposes lethal cost of forest destruction

Indonesia is facing renewed calls to curb deforestation and tighten oversight of forest concessions after a rare tropical cyclone tore across Sumatra, unleashing floods and landslides that have killed more than 700 people and left hundreds missing. The disaster has prompted a nationwide debate over whether the tragedy was driven primarily by climate change-fuelled extreme weather or by decades of ecological destruction in a region that has been transformed by plantations, mining and large-scale...

Politics

3 d. ago South Korean lawmakers push for special court as distrust of judiciary grows

A year after former president Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law, South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) is pushing ahead with a bill to create a separate court dedicated to handling cases linked to the decree, in response to widespread public distrust of what critics describe as a “biased” judiciary. President Lee Jae-myung warned on social media ahead of the December 3 anniversary of the decree: “If we leave hidden acts of insurrection as they are, insurrection will certainly...

Events

3 d. ago South Korea proposes special court to address ‘mockery of judicial process’

A year after former president Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law, South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) is pushing ahead with a bill to create a separate court dedicated to handling cases linked to the decree, in response to widespread public distrust of what critics describe as a “biased” judiciary. President Lee Jae-myung warned on social media ahead of the December 3 anniversary of the decree: “If we leave hidden acts of insurrection as they are, insurrection will certainly...

Events

3 d. ago Tesla Model Y demand in China is through the roof, new delivery dates show

Tesla Model Y demand in China is through the roof, new delivery dates show  Teslarati

Politics

3 d. ago Why Trump’s US sovereign wealth fund brings high stakes and serious risks

The US Supreme Court lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s tariff war and the recent budget fight on Capitol Hill might have dragged down – if not sunk – one of Washington’s proposed tools to spearhead its strategic competition with China. Ten months after Trump’s executive order authorising the creation of the nation’s first-ever sovereign wealth fund (SWF), there are still few clues about how it can be funded, structured and managed, leaving a giant question mark on whether it could run...

Politics

3 d. ago Trump wants a sovereign wealth fund to compete with China. Big questions remain

The US Supreme Court lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s tariff war and the recent budget fight on Capitol Hill might have dragged down – if not sunk – one of Washington’s proposed tools to spearhead its strategic competition with China. Ten months after Trump’s executive order authorising the creation of the nation’s first-ever sovereign wealth fund (SWF), there are still few clues about how it can be funded, structured and managed, leaving a giant question mark on whether it could run...

Politics

3 d. ago Chinese involvement stalls Manila Bay bridge project due to security fears

The Philippines deferred the awarding of a project that is part of a plan to build one of the world’s longest marine bridges after local opposition over the potential involvement of a Chinese company due to national security fears. The proposals were “undergoing thorough review” by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which acts as a lender and an overseer of the project to ensure it meets international environmental and governance standards, Manila’s public works department said in a statement on...

Events

3 d. ago Kuaishou debuts multimodal AI video model with ‘Nano Banana’ editing capability

Chinese short video platform Kuaishou on Monday launched a new artificial intelligence video generation model to challenge OpenAI’s Sora and start-up Runway in the global market for AI content creation. Kuaishou, which competes with TikTok’s Chinese sibling Douyin in China, said Kling O1 was the first unified multimodal video model in the industry, based on an architecture that integrated diverse video creation tasks – generation, precise and controllable editing and understanding – into a...

Culture