Month: November 2025

China has expressed “serious concerns” regarding a trade agreement signed last month between Malaysia and the United States, and some analysts suggest it might be related to how the pact could force the Southeast Asian nation to align with Washington’s sanctions regime. The official reaction on Thursday followed a meeting between Chinese and Malaysian commerce officials earlier in the week. While Beijing did not publicly specify the offending clauses, critics point to provisions that ostensibly limit Malaysia’s ability to pursue independent trade deals. Here is why the agreement, which the…

Popular Japanese singer Ayumi Hamasaki has cancelled a concert in Shanghai scheduled for Saturday evening, following a request to call off the performance. In a notice posted on Chinese social media on Friday afternoon, the organiser of the concert said that the event had been cancelled due to “force majeure”. The organiser gave no details but Hamasaki, Japan’s most prolific singer-songwriter, posted on social media that “key staff members were hastily gathered in the morning, and we received a request to call off the performance”. Advertisement She added that the…

The Cop30 UN climate change conference in Belem, Brazil, concluded with a package of decisions that champions implementation and finance, yet its success is nuanced, marked by both institutional progress and political compromises over the core issue of fossil fuels. The conference, framed as the “implementation Cop” by the Brazilian presidency, turned attention away from purely text negotiations to implementing action. The world is grappling with the complex realities of executing a systemic shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. This transition represents a technological and geopolitical contest that is…

Chinese physicist Pan Jianwei and his team have created a “quantum Lego block” that refuses to fall apart – even when shaken. Using a programmable quantum processor named Zuchongzhi 2, Pan’s team has simulated an exotic new state of matter where quantum effects are locked into the corners of a material, according to a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Science on Friday. These corner states are protected by the deep laws of topology – a kind of quantum armour against errors and noise. This achievement marks the first experimental…

Li Minyong, a prominent medicinal chemist and a fellow of multiple international research societies, died on November 16 at the age of 49. His sudden death marks China’s latest loss of a leading scientist at the height of their research career. Li, a professor and deputy dean of the school of pharmaceutical sciences at Hainan University, dedicated himself to pioneering drug discovery through light-controlled and bioactive visualisation technologies. Advertisement He was elected a Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society of Chemistry in 2019 and of the Royal Society of Biology in…