Month: April 2026

Lebanon’s social affairs minister backed calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah but cautioned that the process would take time before a “political settlement” could be reached, calling the group a “community” and not merely a militant organisation. Haneen Sayed told a discussion on Monday that disarming Hezbollah – an Iran-backed militant group – was a demand of her government and its people, and that it “must happen”. “Of course, we understand that implementation is not easy. It’s not instant coffee. It takes time, and it, of course, is going to…

Following high-level mediation efforts in Islamabad over the weekend, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held face-to-face talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Monday. The diplomatic surge comes as US President Donald Trump convened his senior national security team to evaluate a fresh Iranian peace proposal, delivered via Pakistan, aimed at ending the months-long Middle East crisis and reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The White House confirmed the proposal called for reopening the narrow Persian Gulf shipping lane in return for lifting the US blockade of Iranian…

Yoyo Yue has spent much of her life navigating the complex US immigration system. The 31-year-old Chinese content creator moved from China to a US boarding school, went to university, secured an H-1B visa and later a “green card” – a path long considered the “gold standard” for skilled foreign workers. Now, she said, that path felt far less certain. “The H-1B path today comes with significant uncertainty, not just around job stability, but also around long-term prospects,” Yue said. Advertisement US President Donald Trump has targeted skilled work visas…

Alibaba Group Holding gained approval from the Hong Kong stock exchange to proceed with a proposed spin-off of a warehouse park in mainland China, two years after the tech giant withdrew the listing plan of its logistics arm Cainiao. The e-commerce giant said it could separate an infrastructure real estate investment trust (Reit) and list it on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, with the underlying asset being the Jiaxing Park, a logistics and warehousing infrastructure hub in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, according to an exchange filing on Monday. The move marks…

Two months after US and Israeli strikes began, their war on Iran has settled into a costly stalemate. The fighting has paused under a fragile Pakistan-brokered ceasefire, but the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked, direct talks have collapsed and neither side shows signs of yielding. Last weekend, Washington’s envoys cancelled their planned trip to the Pakistani capital for further talks after Tehran declared it would not join negotiations until the US Navy ended its blockade of Iranian ports. Advertisement Analysts argue that both sides are now eyeing the exit, though…

Chinese optical chipmaker Yuanjie Semiconductor Technology reported an elevenfold surge in first-quarter profits as domestic firms capitalise on soaring demand for computing power amid the artificial intelligence boom and the country’s tech self-sufficiency drive. Net profit in the three months ended March 31 jumped 1,153 per cent year on year to 179 million yuan (US$26.2 million), while revenue grew 321 per cent to 355 million yuan, the Shanghai-listed company said in a stock-exchange filing on Monday. Founded in 2013 and based in northwest China’s Shaanxi province, the company manufactures laser…

Yellowstone is the world’s largest active volcanic system – its eruptions are hundreds of times more powerful than Vesuvius’ blast and its ash could blanket half the US. Yet, for decades, scientists could not agree on what drove its underground magma system. A new finding detailed by Chinese researchers could settle the dispute. They declared that Yellowstone’s magma channels were not blasted open by magma forcing its way upwards. Instead, tectonic forces tore the lithosphere apart first and only then did magma rise into the pre-cut pathways, the team said…

The long-standing rivalry between China’s two largest economic heavyweights – with each boasting a gross domestic product comparable to Group of Seven members Italy and Canada – reflects the regional dynamism and shifting economic gravity within the world’s second-biggest economy. Jiangsu has been threatening to end Guangdong’s uninterrupted reign as China’s largest provincial economy since the late 1980s, and the latest economic data reveals the gap between the two narrowed further in the first quarter of this year. Jiangsu, bordering Shanghai in eastern China, saw its GDP grow by 5.4…