A judge has sentenced three Mexican men to more than 158 years in prison each for the 2024 murders of two Australian brothers and their American friend, a case that tarnished Mexico’s image by exposing the risks foreigners face when visiting the tourism-dependent country. Friday’s sentencing, which came a week after the men were found guilty, marked the end of a lengthy legal process over the killings of Australians Callum and Jake Robinson, and American Carter Redd Rhoad. Their bodies were...

US President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order that puts on hold a sweeping new sanctions package targeting the Russian economy, telling Congress the pause was in the national interest. Named after late South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, the measure had sought to clamp down more quickly on the flow of financial resources fuelling the war against Ukraine. The move comes a week after Trump stunningly said the US had agreed to purchase diesel from Russia to try to bring down...

China and the Philippines recently traded accusations over the medical evacuation of a Philippine serviceman from a grounded naval vessel in the hotly disputed Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea. The incident has sparked renewed worries about potential armed skirmishes in a global artery of trade. But Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr was also quick to emphasise the economic dimensions of a major conflict. After a decade of rapid economic growth, the Philippines is facing...

US ⁠President Donald Trump made a ⁠joke about the popularity of ⁠the name Mohammad in the Muslim world as he mocked Iran’s presidency during a campaign speech on Friday. “You know, if you’re in doubt about somebody’s name from the Middle East, just say ‘Mohammad’,” Trump told a ‌crowd in Dalton, Georgia. “You have about a 65 per cent chance. ‘Hello, Mohammad.’ I’ve done it for years now. I’ve never been wrong.” Mohammad is one of the most common male names among Muslims, who often name their...

Beijing warned Brussels not to “fantasise” that taking a hard line will force it into concessions, as the bloc confirmed plans for a gung-ho new kill switch that will allow Brussels to “immediately” kick China out of the single market. Exactly a week after the two sides struck a surprise deal to restrict the volume of hybrid cars China ships to Europe, the flare-up suggests the threat of a trade war between two of the world’s three biggest economies has far from subsided. “The EU should not...

A teacher threw her phone at the teenage gunman who killed four people at an Oregon junior school, then tackled and fought with him – probably saving lives before he was shot by a father who followed him into the building, police said Friday. Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz called the teacher’s actions “heroic” during a news conference and said she was not injured. He identified the attacker as 16-year-old Griffin J. John II and said all of the victims were shot in the same classroom. Authorities...

Sean “Diddy” Combs has been moved to a federal prison in Pennsylvania after reports that the hip-hop mogul was living the high life and was injured in a fight at his New Jersey lock-up, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday. The federal Bureau of Prisons is transferring Combs, 56, from FCI Fort Dix to FCI Allenwood Low, a low-security facility south of Williamsport and about 250km (155 miles) west of New York, the person said. The person was not authorised to speak publicly and did so...

Paraguay’s technology minister said on Thursday that sanctions imposed on him by Beijing over his country’s ties with Taiwan would only accelerate joint projects with the island. Gustavo Villate, who heads the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies, wrote in a lengthy social media post that the relationship with Taipei would “never be on the negotiating table”. He also suggested that Beijing had acted to protect Chinese telecoms suppliers kept out of Paraguay’s networks. “This...

Pope Leo spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone on Friday, calling for a ceasefire in a Russian-occupied city in southern Ukraine, as he recovers in hospital from a lung cancer operation. The Vatican said that Pope Leo “expressed his deep concern about the grave humanitarian situation in the city of Oleshky, in the Kherson region, and called for a ceasefire to allow the delivery of food and medical assistance, and the voluntary and safe evacuation of the civilian population”. The...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled what he described as a “flying” car, equipped with thrusters, during a live-streamed event at his SpaceX rocket company’s facility on Thursday. Technical and regulatory challenges have so far prevented the much-hyped flying car sector from getting off the ground. Musk revealed his new Roadster sports car during a launch event at a SpaceX test facility in Texas. During the demo, which was live-streamed on Tesla’s X account, the car launched from a steep steel ramp and...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday asked European Union leaders to provide Kyiv an extra 70 billion euros (US$79 billion) in funding next year to help it keep fighting Russia. “The war will cost 155 billion euros next year. And we need at least 70 billion euros more from you – for defence, for weapons and for our resilience,” Zelensky said in a speech at an EU summit in Brussels. “This is a realistic amount. And I ask you to find this support. It will help us hold Russia back.” The...

The awarding of the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to South African jurist Navanethem “Navi” Pillay matters for reasons that go well beyond the laureate herself. The award does three things at once. First, it restores credibility to the prize. Second, it rejects in unambiguous terms the Thrasymachian doctrine that might is right, which has become the operating philosophy of major powers. Third, it highlights a warning of what happens when a hegemon decides it is above the law. The correction was...

European leaders on Friday rallied around Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky as Kyiv’s ties with US President Donald Trump have nosedived and worries grow that US leader is increasingly siding with Russia. Relations between Kyiv and Washington have soured since last week, when Trump eased sanctions on Russia in exchange for Moscow releasing large amounts of diesel onto global markets. Zelensky infuriated Trump further by ordering Ukraine’s forces to restart strikes on Russian oil refineries in...

Ukraine’s resumption of strikes on Russian refineries is ⁠a “disgrace” that keeps ⁠global energy prices elevated, US President ⁠Donald Trump told the Newsmax news outlet in an interview aired on Thursday. Ukraine struck a Russian oil refinery after President Volodymyr Zelensky declared that Kyiv was abandoning a ceasefire covering energy sites that Trump had announced, ‌and criticised his willingness to strike deals with Moscow. “All he’s doing is making the world oil price higher. Well, I think...

We have selected seven stories from this week’s news across Hong Kong, mainland China, the wider Asia region and beyond that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Chinese scientists say they spotted possible Israeli electronic warfare units Chinese military scientists claim they have developed an algorithm that could help identify electronic warfare units using civil aviation flight data. 2....

Illinois authorities believe a 19-year-old man charged with planning a mass shooting at a Hindu temple in suburban Chicago entered the building’s car park on Sunday, hours before police arrested him near his home after receiving a tip about the alleged attack plan. Authorities announced Wednesday that they had arrested Alexandros Paporakis and provided the additional detail about his suspected movement during a news conference Thursday. The leaders of Sri Venkateswara Swami (Balaji) Temple in a...

A teenager shot and killed three children and a teacher on Thursday at an elementary school in the US state of Oregon, police said, adding the assailant was later killed by an armed community member who pursued him into the building. Officers rushed to Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, a city of about 100,000 in the nation’s northwest, after reports of a shooter on campus on Thursday afternoon. The three children who died on the scene were aged 5, 8 and 11, said Bend police chief Mike Krantz....

A minibus collided with a stationary train in a Channel Tunnel vehicle boarding area in France on Thursday evening, injuring the driver and 18 passengers, authorities said. Five people were severely injured, though no one’s life appeared to be in danger, the local prefect said in a statement. The minibus was carrying truck drivers of various nationalities who were heading to travel on a LeShuttle train, which carries vehicles and their passengers through the tunnel. The area around the tunnel...

Talk of global decoupling from China has persisted for years, as has speculation that emerging economies such as India and Vietnam could soon replace it as the “world’s factory”. But for Indian hardware engineer Neeraj Arora, the growth of India’s electronics manufacturing industry has not eliminated the need to source components from China. Instead, it has changed the nature of those imports. A decade ago, Arora imported finished phone chargers from the world’s second-largest economy. Today,...

The Houthis launched a deadly missile attack Thursday on the presidential palace in the Yemeni government’s interim capital of Aden, as Saudi Arabia blamed Iran for the recent dramatic escalation in the long-running war. The attack hit command centres located inside the Al-Maashiq presidential compound used by government forces and the Saudi-led military coalition that supports them, a Yemeni minister said on condition of anonymity. Saudi Arabia and the internationally recognised Yemeni...

Trade between Brazil and China reached a record US$143 billion in the first nine months of the year, driven by Brazilian oil sales that surged after the war on Iran disrupted Gulf supply, according to a report by the Brazil-China Business Council. Brazilian exports to China rose 12 per cent to US$84.7 billion between January and September, while imports from China grew 9.9 per cent to US$58.6 billion, the council said in its quarterly analysis of government data. The resulting US$26.1 billion...

Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife on Thursday carried out their first joint engagement since their surprise move back to the UK in August, with Meghan telling well-wishers: “It’s great to be back.” King Charles’ 42-year-old younger son and Meghan, 45 – who left Britain and quit royal duties in 2020 amid a bitter royal family feud – were greeted with cheers as they arrived in the central English city of Nottingham. The couple then stopped to chat and joke with the crowd as well as pose for...

Brussels is open to developing a powerful new trade weapon that could contain a kill switch that would quickly eject Chinese companies from the EU market, the bloc’s national leaders were told during a top-level meeting in the Belgian capital on Thursday. There was broad support among the 27 members for such a tool, first laid out in a French-German joint paper last week, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signalling that her trade team could get to work on developing it,...

Former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro insisted in court on Thursday that newly unsealed torture allegations against him and his wife were “false accusations”. Maduro and Cilia Flores, both shackled at the ankles, were brought to court to face a rewritten indictment that expands from an initial set of drug trafficking charges to accuse them of leading a state-sponsored repression campaign that tortured scores of victims, including three Americans. Maduro twice defied a judge’s request that...

We have selected seven of the most interesting and important news stories covering US-China relations from the past few weeks. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. US investigates 9 universities over alleged visa fraud, with focus on China The Trump administration launched an investigation into nine US universities over alleged J-1 visa fraud, with officials raising concerns about Chinese scholars and the Chinese government. Read the full story...

Canada and Singapore are among the countries that remain committed to strengthening trade ties with China, despite growing global fragmentation and a push by governments towards greater self-sufficiency, officials from both countries said on Wednesday at an economic forum in New Delhi. Canada’s minister of international trade Maninder Sidhu said China was the country’s second-largest trading partner and highlighted opportunities for cooperation in areas where the two economies had complementary...

When US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet again in Shenzhen next month, and then in Miami in December, the world will watch for signs of progress on trade, technology, security and other contentious issues. Such high-level diplomacy is indispensable. But the future of the US-China relationship also depends on something less visible: whether their people, especially the young, can still understand one another. As Washington and Beijing navigate intensifying strategic...

EU leaders locked horns on Thursday over the bloc’s next long-term budget as they kicked off talks in Brussels under pressure to seal a deal before several high-stakes elections next year, most crucially in France. The 27-nation European Union wants an agreement by Christmas, worried that any future deal-making will be derailed by potential Eurosceptic wins across the bloc, including in France where the far-right’s Marine Le Pen is favoured in opinion polls. “We are facing very, very difficult...

South Korea will continue supporting Ukraine “as a responsible member of the international community” despite a diplomatic dispute over the disclosure of two North Korean prisoners of war being repatriated to the South, a foreign ministry official said on Thursday. The official said Seoul would treat its help to Ukraine separately from the dispute, while continuing bilateral consultations to resolve outstanding issues. The remarks came after South Korean Ambassador to Ukraine Park Ki-chang was...

Ukraine struck a Russian oil refinery ⁠on Thursday after President Volodymyr Zelensky declared that Kyiv was abandoning a ceasefire covering energy sites announced by US President Donald Trump, and criticised Trump’s willingness to strike deals with Moscow. By effectively walking away from Trump’s demand that Ukraine halt attacks on Russian refineries and openly criticising the US leader, Zelensky risks deepening the biggest rift between Kyiv and Washington since Russia’s February 2022 invasion...

One message told him to “go to hell”. Others said he deserved to be imprisoned. Death threats poured in. Asians who share a name with one of the men accused of raping a US university student have faced a torrent of online abuse. The alleged 2024 gang rape of a Cornell University student, detailed in a recent lawsuit, has sparked an outpouring of outrage against the seven accused perpetrators. The case has sent internet sleuths scouring digital footprints for clues to track them down. All seven...

Costa Rica, considered for decades a peaceful enclave in turbulent Central America, has now made fighting drug trafficking one of its main goals. And it is turning to one of its Central American neighbours for inspiration in its hardline crackdown. On Wednesday, President Laura Fernandez inaugurated a mega-prison that emulates the Terrorism Confinement Centre (CECOT) that has become a symbol of Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele’s security strategy. Bukele has managed to reduce murders to a...

Issues affecting ageing populations worldwide will form the core of discussions for policymakers and health industry leaders gathered at the Abu Dhabi Future Health Summit, with a particular emphasis on how practising prediction and prevention can help ensure life is lived to its fullest. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has positioned itself as a global leader in transformative healthcare policy, and Dr Asma Al Mannaei, executive director of the health life science sector at the Department of...

Be warned. The global economy is likely to experience a recession next year. War across the Middle East is set to escalate, wrecking energy supplies for many years, even as the artificial intelligence (AI) bubble is ripe to burst. This, however, would also create an energy leadership opportunity for China. High energy prices already fuel demand for Chinese renewable energy products and electric vehicles. But as a leader in building coal-fired power plants, China can also offer the global market...

Tech billionaire Elon Musk called on Wednesday for Volodymyr Zelensky to “go” as Ukraine’s leader, after insisting any disruption to the war-torn country’s use of his satellite communications system was the fault of the US government, not his company. The comments came as Kyiv raised doubts over US support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, accusing Washington this week of helping Moscow by failing to warn it of incoming missile strikes and hobbling Kyiv’s military response through changes to...

US stocks dropped to their worst day since July on Wednesday, following the latest signal that inflation is getting worse. The S&P 500 sank 1.1 per cent for a fifth loss in the six days since setting its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 48 points, or 0.1 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite slid 1.9 per cent as stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry led the way lower. Stocks felt pressure from rising yields in the bond market, where worries grew after a report said US...

The Yemeni government has spoken with Beijing about the Houthis’ alleged attempts to utilise Chinese-made technology for weapons, a Yemeni minister said on Wednesday, as the two sides’ long-running civil war escalates. “The Chinese are partners and we have discussed with them about, you know, the use of dual products,” Foreign Minister Afrah al-Zouba said in response to an Agence France-Presse question about reports the Iran-backed group was trying to secure Chinese components to help...

Irish author Sally Rooney can no longer sell her books in the UK because of her support for the activist group Palestine Action, her publisher Faber said on Wednesday. Rooney has previously expressed her support for the group, which was banned as a “terrorist” organisation by the UK government in July 2025. It is not banned in Ireland, where Rooney lives. The proscription, which the organisation is appealing against, puts Palestine Action on the same blacklist as militant groups Hamas and...

Leaders of the EU’s 27 member states will instruct Brussels to “urgently” come up with new weapons to counter the imbalances they believe are caused by China’s economic policies, at a meeting in the Belgian capital on Thursday. The instruction – part of a draft statement being negotiated ahead of this week’s European Council summit – comes after the European Union and China reached a surprise deal in Beijing last week that will cap the number of Chinese hybrid cars imported to the bloc at...

A lawyer for a Ukrainian accused of blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines supplying Russian gas to western Europe said on Wednesday that Moscow used the network to exert political and economic pressure, as the former military officer’s trial opened in Germany. Sergiy Kuznietsov is the first person to go on trial over the 2022 sabotage. The 50-year-old is accused of leading a Ukrainian team of divers and an explosives expert to bomb Nord Stream, seven months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of...

US President Donald Trump said that “massive” oil, gas and mineral exploration is set to begin in “our new and beautiful Greenland”, though it was not clear what developments he was referring to on an island where resource extraction has stymied companies for decades. Despite Trump’s optimism, the harsh climate of Greenland – a self-governing territory of Denmark, rather than a part of the United States – as well as a lack of infrastructure have foiled all previous attempts to extract so-called...

The head of the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday that the US and other wealthy nations needed to urgently tackle mounting global debt levels that were weighing heaviest on low-income countries and straining the global financial system. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said that while US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other US leaders recognised that the federal deficit and national debt had grown too high, just trying to grow the US economy out of its more than US$40...

Ukraine on Wednesday accused Russia of wilfully flouting Donald Trump’s purported “energy ceasefire” and passing up an opportunity to ease hostilities, after a renewed wave of deadly strikes across the country that also hit vital power supplies. Kyiv in particular faced a barrage of powerful ballistic missiles and attack drones targeting energy facilities and critical infrastructure, despite the US president’s surprise weekend announcement. Four people were killed in the city and power to at...

Deforestation slowed worldwide last year, but the improvement is unlikely to last as the situation deteriorates in Central Africa and an exceptionally strong El Nino weather pattern intensifies, a new study said on Wednesday. Seven million hectares of forest – roughly the size of the Republic of Ireland – were permanently destroyed in 2025, a 15 per cent drop from the previous year, according to the annual Forest Declaration Assessment. The slowdown, however, is not enough to keep the world from...

German authorities opened an investigation into possible sexual harassment after a robot controlled by two young men touched the buttocks of a 16-year-old girl and made thrusting movements toward her, police said. Police in the western city of Cologne responded after the incident overnight Saturday to Sunday in which the robot’s suspected 16-year-old owner and a 19-year-old companion were said to have filmed the alleged assault. They were said to have streamed the incident and commentated on it...

An administrative building belonging to Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco in the eastern city of Dhahran was attacked, causing a limited fire, the Energy Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday as fighting between Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthis and the kingdom intensified. Authorities responded to the incident late on Tuesday and took necessary measures, the ministry said, adding that there were no injuries or deaths. A company source told Reuters earlier that a ballistic...

The US Treasury Department said on Tuesday that it was imposing US$1.2 billion in fines on Bank of America for allegedly violating anti-money-laundering and sanctions laws. The fines on America’s second-biggest bank amount to the third-largest in the department’s history. “When a bank of this size fails to meet its anti-money-laundering and sanctions obligations, the consequences extend far beyond its own walls, exposing the entire US financial system to significant illicit finance risks,”...

Russia’s FSB security agency said on Tuesday it had detained a Japanese journalist for alleged espionage, and Moscow’s Foreign Ministry said it regretted that Tokyo was using correspondents to carry out spying. In a statement on its website, the FSB said the Hokkaido Shimbun journalist was detained in the far eastern Sakhalin region on the day before he planned to leave Russia. It did not specify when this was. Russia and Japan, ‌which never signed a formal World War II peace treaty, have seen...

Cornell University on Tuesday suspended fraternities’ parties and social events for the remaining academic year following outcry over an alleged gang rape at one of the elite college’s all-male clubs. The 2024 incident, as alleged in a graphic lawsuit filed last month, has drawn accusations that the Ivy League institution in New York state failed to properly punish the men involved. The accuser claimed that she was pressured to take ketamine, assaulted and raped by seven members of the Chi Phi...

A planned US$844 million port in southern Peru has drawn interest from several foreign investors, including Chinese companies, a regional governor said on Monday, as the government began promoting the project abroad. “Several companies have approached us. We have investors from the US, China and India who are very interested,” Rohel Sanchez, the governor of Arequipa, told reporters after signing an agreement with the state investment agency Proinversion. He said firms from Turkey and the...

Pope Leo XIV spent a peaceful night in Rome’s Gemelli hospital after doctors removed the lower lobe of his right lung and confirmed he has cancer, the Vatican said on Wednesday. The surgery confirmed that the pope had the most common type of lung cancer, known as lung adenocarcinoma, the Vatican said in a medical bulletin late on Tuesday. The Vatican said doctors were waiting for the results of further tests before deciding on a course of treatment. The press office pointed to the medical...