Day: June 16, 2026

What launch of Himars rockets towards Taiwan Strait says about Taipei’s battle plans

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Taiwan’s recent launch of Himars rockets westwards towards the Taiwan Strait highlights how the island’s defensive strategy is shifting to the use of mobile strike weapons to disrupt a mainland Chinese attack before it reaches shore. The exercise on June 10 was the first time the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System had been launched in the direction of mainland China. Beijing has yet to respond to the launches. Analysts said the significance of the drill lay in what it revealed about how Taiwan plans to employ one of its most…

Beijing’s New Message to Its Citizens: Your Money Belongs at Home

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Beijing has long built walls between Chinese citizens and the outside world: The Great Firewall blocks out information, and passport controls and exit bans restrict movement. But money had been different. In an unspoken bargain between the government and its people, political limits could be tolerated as long as families were largely free to accumulate, protect and quietly diversify their wealth. That bargain is fraying. Over the last couple of years, Chinese citizens have increasingly invested in overseas securities, and especially in the U.S. stock market. But in recent weeks,…

Satellite images suggest North Korea is upgrading ports for new, larger destroyers

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North Korea is expanding shipyards in two key port cities, satellite imagery analyzed by Radio Free Asia has revealed, an indication that experts say falls in line with a five-year plan announced earlier this year to modernize the country’s navy. Though the North Korean navy is one of the largest in the region, most of its fleet is made up of ships constructed in the Cold War era. The new five-year plan includes orders from the country’s leader Kim Jong Un to build two new destroyers per year, the state-run…

Latin America and Europe are bystanders in the US-China AI race, says Lula’s top adviser

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The race for artificial intelligence has hardened into a two-power contest between the United States and China, fought over rare earths, data and the rules governing the technology, with Latin America and Europe sidelined, Brazil’s top foreign policy adviser said on Tuesday. Celso Amorim, a former foreign and defence minister, made the case at the Forte de Copacabana International Security Conference in Rio de Janeiro, an annual forum run by the Brazilian Centre for International Relations with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the European Union’s delegation in Brazil. “We must…

Don’t count the Russia-India-China triangle out just yet

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The Russia-India-China (RIC) dialogue is back in the diplomatic conversation. It has not formally restarted, and no summit is on the horizon. But the signals are here. In 2025, Moscow again pushed for reviving the RIC format. India said any meeting would have to be arranged in a “mutually convenient manner”, a cautious but open formula. China said it was willing to maintain communication with Russia and India on trilateral cooperation. This month, Russian President Vladimir Putin again spoke about Russia’s separate and independent relationships with China and India. Beijing…

The Battle With Anthropic Is the Start of a New Kind of Conflict

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The Trump administration has spent the past week trying to end one war while pushing deeper into another. The first war, the Iran war, feels like the coda to an era; it seems unlikely that the United States will undertake another war for regime change in the Middle East for the foreseeable future. Whereas the second war, the battle over Anthropic’s cutting-edge artificial intelligence models, is the beginning of a new kind of conflict, with private powers and national governments struggling to determine who actually rules an A.I.-dominated world. The…

Leader of Taiwan’s KMT Cheng Li-wun talks Beijing relations in Washington

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The two-week US trip by Taiwan’s main opposition leader offered Washington a different take on cross-Strait relations, although whether it will change anything remains in question, some experts said. Kuomintang (KMT) chairwoman Cheng Li-wun landed back in Taipei early on Tuesday, concluding a five-stop visit she called “beyond expectations”. Cheng began her trip on June 1, visiting San Francisco, Boston, New York, Washington and Los Angeles. Advertisement She met with representatives from several think tanks and universities, and in each city met with Chinatown communities and attended dinners for Taiwanese…

China’s Spending Slowdown Deepens as Households Tighten Their Belts

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China’s consumer spending slowdown deepened in May as retail sales unexpectedly fell from a year earlier, in the latest sign that the country’s housing market crash has left millions of families reluctant to spend. Retail sales dropped 0.6 percent in May from the same month a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday. It was the first year-over-year decline since December 2022, when a wave of coronavirus infections swept the country and kept consumers at home after Beijing abruptly dismantled its stringent “Covid zero” restrictions. Last month’s…

Pizza Hut Sold to Two Firms for $2.7 Billion

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Pizza Hut, the chain that raised a generation on its pan pizzas served on red-checkered tablecloths, has a new owner. On Tuesday, Yum Brands said it had agreed to sell the pizza chain to two companies in a combined deal valued at $2.7 billion. The restaurants in the United States and around the world, excluding mainland China, will be acquired by the private equity firm LongRange Capital for $1.5 billion. Yum China, a separate entity, will acquire Pizza Hut’s restaurants in mainland China for $1.2 billion. Yum Brands also owns…

The Guardian view on the global baby bust: people are having fewer children – even where they say they want more | Editorial

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The global fall in fertility rates has arrived faster and spread further than anticipated. Two-thirds of people now live in countries that have slipped below the replacement rate – 2.1 births per woman – required for a stable population. Last month, India revealed that its fertility rate had fallen to just 1.9. The world’s two most populous nations, which pursued cruel and coercive policies to cut births, both face shrinking populations. China’s fertility rate is now around 1, and births last year fell below 8 million – just over half…