OPPOSITION: US lawmakers and the Treasury chief voiced their disapproval, while global central bank officials are working on a statement in support of the Fed chair
US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro did not seek sign-off from her bosses at the US Department of Justice before subpoenaing the US Federal Reserve and has no plans to back down from an investigation into Chairman Jerome Powell, a person familiar with the matter said.The probe eli
Days of demonstrations against immigration agents left Minnesota tense yesterday, a day after federal authorities used tear gas to break up crowds of whistle-blowing activists, and state and local leaders sued to fight the enforcement surge that led to the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman.Confr
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Monday said that Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok would join Google’s generative AI engine in operating inside the Pentagon network, as part of a broader push to feed as much of the military’s data as possible into the developing technolog
Should foreign tourists pay more for state-funded galleries than locals, or should art be accessible to all, without discrimination? France is hiking prices for non-Europeans at the Louvre this week, provoking debate about so-called “dual pricing.” Effective today, any adult visitor from outside the
KOREASKim revamps security: SeoulNorth Korean leader Kim Jong-un has replaced three top officials in charge of his personal security, the South Korean Ministry of Unification said yesterday, a sign that he might increasingly fear assassination plots. The reshuffle was spotted during a military parad
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week
Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state.Next week about 1,600 deleg
One Battle After Another reigned supreme at the Golden Globes on Sunday, winning best comedy, while Hamnet sprung a surprise by taking best drama film at the splashy Hollywood ceremony.Paul Thomas Anderson’s screwball thriller One Battle, which centers on an aging revolutionary played by Leonardo Di
A landmark case accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against minority Muslim Rohingya yesterday opened at the UN’s top court.It is the first genocide case the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is to hear in full in more than a decade. The outcome will have repercussions beyond Myanmar, likely
CHINESE DOMINANCE: The scientific drilling boat is headed to Minami Torishima, where the surrounding waters are believed to contain a rich trove of the minerals
A Japanese research vessel yesterday began a historic voyage to attempt to dig deep-sea rare earths at a depth of 6,000m to curb dependence on China.Scientific drilling boat the Chikyu left Shimizu Port in Shizuoka at about 9am for the remote island of Minami Torishima in the Pacific, where surround
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images.The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI
Hong Kong’s High Court yesterday began hearing on the mitigation plea of pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai (黎智英), the final step before sentencing in a landmark national security trial that has drawn international condemnation and could see Lai jailed for life.Last month, Lai, 78, was found guilty of b
ICE DISPUTE: The Trump administration has sought to paint Good as a ‘domestic terrorist,’ insisting that the agent who fatally shot her was acting in self-defense
Thousands of demonstrators chanting the name of the woman killed by a US federal agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota, took to the city’s streets on Saturday, amid widespread anger at use of force in the immigration crackdown of US President Donald Trump. Organizers said more than 1,000 events were plann
Syria’s Kurdish fighters yesterday said that they agreed under a ceasefire to withdraw from Aleppo after days of fighting government forces in the city. Hours earlier, Syria’s military said it had finished operations in the Kurdish-held Sheikh Maqsud neighborhood with state television reporting that
The US has urged its citizens to leave Venezuela immediately amid reports that armed paramilitaries are trying to track down US citizens, one week after the abduction of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. In a security alert sent out on Saturday, the US Department of State said there were rep
Almost a decade after China began curbing coal burning to stop thick winter smog, villagers in northern Hebei Province are struggling to afford their heating bills with most gas subsidies now phased out. In 2017, Beijing mandated that dozens of northern areas wind down the use of coal-fired stoves i
US and allied forces on Saturday carried out “large-scale” strikes against the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria, the US military said, the latest response to an attack last month that killed three Americans. US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees US military forces in the region, said multipl
DEMONSTRATION: Many European farmers fear their livelihoods would be undercut by a flow of cheaper goods from Latin American countries if the deal passes
Thousands of farmers in Ireland and France on Saturday protested against the EU’s trade deal with the South American bloc Mercosur, a day after EU states approved the treaty despite opposition from some members. In central Ireland, tractors streamed into the roads of Athlone for a demonstration, dis
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited
North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.”Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its ef
Rescuers detected signs of life in an avalanche of garbage on Thursday that killed at least four workers and left more than 30 missing in a Philippine landfill, and plan to intensify search efforts, an official said yesterday.Twelve workers have been rescued with injuries from the huge mound of garb
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