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,”...