BEIJING: On China’s frenetic and hugely popular retail livestreams, glamorous hosts sell goods ranging from shoes and lipsticks to baby products and, increasingly, truckloads of sulphurous coal. With coal inventories at China’s ports and power plants reaching record highs in recent weeks as a sluggish economy saps demand from utilitiesContinue Reading
JAKARTA: Short video app TikTok plans to invest billions of dollars in Southeast Asia over the next few years, its CEO Shou Zi Chew said on Thursday (Jun 15). Chew said at an event held in Indonesia that TikTok’s content is becoming more diversified as it adds more users andContinue Reading
JAKARTA: Short video app TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, said on Thursday (Jun 15) it would invest billions of dollars in Southeast Asia over the next few years, as it doubles down on the region amid intensifying global scrutiny over its data security. Southeast Asia, a region with a collectiveContinue Reading
‘NATURAL RESOURCES CHAOS’ Further dimming the outlook for lepidolite, environmental damage is a growing concern. Along the road to the Baishi mine, red banners implore: “Unite to crack down on natural resources chaos.” Lepidolite extraction and smelting produce toxic by-products like thallium and tantalum that cause severe water pollution, saidContinue Reading
NEW DELHI: India on Tuesday (Jun 13) denied claims it had threatened to shut down Twitter inside the country if it did not block accounts critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. The world’s biggest democracy petitions Twitter for content removals more than almost any other country, and the platform regularlyContinue Reading
SEOUL: South Korean prosecutors said they indicted a former Samsung Electronics executive on Monday (Jun 12) on suspicions of stealing the company’s technology to build a chip factory in China. The defendant, who also formerly worked at SK Hynix as a vice president, is accused of illegally acquiring Samsung dataContinue Reading
BEIJING: Chinese inflation came in flat again in May, official figures showed Friday (Jun 9), as the country’s economy sputters owing to softening demand and falling exports, leading to calls for a rate cut and a bigger government stimulus. The consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.2 per cent on-year, fromContinue Reading
BEIJING: China should standardise requirements for electric vehicle (EV) batteries in order to keep its edge over other markets such as the US and Europe in the rapidly growing industry, the country’s former industry minister said on Friday (Jun 9). “Europe and the United States are ramping up efforts toContinue Reading
Robert Mogielnicki, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, said one key reason for Saudi-Chinese linkages strengthening is that the Arab country is looking for major growth areas via international partnerships. “The calculation here is that there (is) much to gain from more cooperation with China,”Continue Reading
BEIJING: AI tech that spots “undesirable” behaviour and long-distance facial recognition software was on show on Thursday (Jun 8) at a Beijing expo attended by hundreds of companies – many blacklisted by the United States for their alleged role in repression in China and abroad. The three-day Security China eventContinue Reading