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Beijing said yesterday it “firmly opposed” the US blacklisting of Chinese companies, after Washington added tech giants Alibaba and Baidu to a list of firms it says are aiding the Chinese military.The Pentagon update on Monday came months after it released, and then quickly withdrew, an earlier version of the list without explanation. “China has consistently and firmly opposed the United States’ generalisation of the concept of national security… and its unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a news briefing. Lin urged Washington to “correct its erroneous practices”, warning that Beijing may “take necessary measures to firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies”. The new list includes 80 companies and their subsidiaries, and is largely similar to the version momentarily published in February, although two memory chipmakers were reinstated after having been removed at the time. The re-added companies are ChangXin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies.The Pentagon’s release marks the latest test of relations between the world’s two top economies, whose leaders met in Beijing last month for a highly anticipated summit. That meeting saw US President Donald Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping seek to stabilise bilateral relations. Trump has invited Xi to pay a reciprocal visit to Washington in September.The companies targeted in the US Defense Department’s latest list include some of China’s top tech giants involved in artificial intelligence, including Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent. Tencent had already been designated in the blacklist.Alibaba called its inclusion “a mistake”, while Baidu said on social media “there is no credible justification” for adding it to the list. Electric vehicle giant BYD, which was also added, reacted by saying in a statement posted yesterday to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange website that the US decision had “no justification”. The determinations have few immediate legal implications for many of the companies, although it is seen as a move that could precede more punitive measures.Other companies on the list include pharmaceutical firm WuXi AppTec and start-up Unitree, which makes humanoid robots. A spokesperson for WuXi AppTec told AFP that its inclusion was “clearly a mistake”, adding that it is “not owned or controlled by or affiliated with any” Chinese military or government entity, nor does it “provide services” to the military. Source link
A bear that roamed the streets of a Japanese city for four days, forcing mass school closures, was caught Tuesday, capping a search involving dozens of hunters and police.Terrified families in the city of Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo, peered through windows as a search mission that included helicopters tried to track down the animal following multiple sightings, including in a shopping arcade, at a university and at a wholesale market.Tuesday dozens of police officers, hunters and city officials surrounded a private home where the bear was spotted, an AFP photographer witnessed.After a successful tranquilliser shot, they captured the animal.AFP images showed the sedated bear loaded onto a truck. Hunters stand next to a cage carrying a tranquillised bear as they prepare to leave a residential area, in Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, Tuesday. (Reuters) Issei Okabe, a 37-year-old house painter who lives in an apartment next to the house where the bear was caught, told AFP he was “so relieved”.”My kid goes to the primary school nearby… and news reports said a bear appeared around there,” he said.”Then I watched the news, and our house was shown (in the footage)… I was so surprised.”This is the first time I heard of a wild bear in Utsunomiya.”The bear sightings had forced the closure of all 94 public primary and middle schools in the city on Monday and Tuesday.Public broadcaster NHK and other major media reported the bear’s capture as breaking news.The Shimotsuke Shimbun daily, based in Utsunomiya, said the first and second tranquilliser shots missed the target but a third successfully hit the animal.A city official told AFP Monday it was not clear whether there was one bear or more roaming the city.Separately, an “extremely intelligent” bear that injured four people in Fukushima in northern Japan has remained at large after apparently unlatching a window while evading capture, NHK reported.A record 13 people were killed by bears in Japan last year, and there has been a jump in sightings as the animals emerge hungry from hibernation.Bears are thriving thanks in part to an abundance of food – including acorns, deer and boars – under the influence of a warming climate, experts say. …
Rescuers searched the rubble Tuesday of a collapsed building in the southern Philippine city of General Santos, the worst hit by a powerful earthquake that has killed at least 37 people and injured hundreds, to reach two people still believed to be trapped inside. Regional fire officer Edgar Tanawan, who is leading the operation, told Reuters two people had been pulled out alive from the commercial building, housing a grocery store and other businesses, but a third was found dead. Scanners have so far detected no signs of life from the remaining two, he added.’It’s difficult to accept, as a mother, that my son is still trapped there,” said Dioslinda Deluvio, distraught as she waited outside the building for news of her son. ‘I don’t know… it’s very hard to accept.’My only call is to have him retrieved today so we can be at peace,’ said the 65-year-old mother. The 7.8-magnitude quake, which triggered tsunami warnings across several countries, struck early on Monday morning about 20km (12.4 miles) off the coast of Sarangani province, with tremors felt strongly across Mindanao and as far as the city of Manado, 420km (261 miles) away on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.Officials said they hoped the death toll would not rise further as search and rescue operations continued, with more than 400 people injured and four still missing. Scenes of devastation were visible in parts of General Santos, which is home to more than 700,000 people and now under a state of calamity, with several buildings collapsed and debris strewn across streets beneath a tangle of toppled power lines and utility posts. Philippine disaster officials scoured damaged buildings to assess damage and worked to restore power and water for the thousands of residents affected by the disaster. The quake came eight months after the country suffered its deadliest tremor in 12 years, when a shallow 6.9 magnitude quake hit off the central island of Cebu, killing 79 people.DAMAGE TO SCHOOLS, HOSPITALSThe Philippines experiences hundreds of quakes each year and sits on tectonically complex parts of the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’, a seismically active belt stretching from South America to the Russian Far East. Schools, which had just reopened on Monday after a long break, remained closed as authorities checked the condition of school buildings, thousands of which sustained minor to severe damage, Rafaelito Alejandro, head of the office of civil defence, told DZBB radio. A video shared by one school of the moment the quake struck showed a large group of children sitting on a floor swaying violently from side to side, some hugging teachers, before they fled en masse as a makeshift shelter collapsed behind them.The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) recorded 23 strong aftershocks, with the strongest measuring magnitude 6.7, forcing some residents to spend the night in evacuation centres and tents. In General Santos and Sarangani, patients were treated in makeshift tents as officials worked to ensure hospitals were safe, Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa told DZBB, adding the restoration of power was critical as outages limited access to sensitive and sophisticated treatments needed by patients. Source link
The United Kingdom, Canada, France, Norway, New Zealand, and Australia announced coordinated sanctions against Israeli individuals and organizations accused of financing, supporting, and carrying out settler violence in the occupied West Bank. In a joint statement, the countries said the measures aim to hold extremist settlers accountable for violence against Palestinian civilians and urged the Israeli government to ensure meaningful accountability. They also warned of further action if urgent steps are not taken to address the situation. Separately, the United Kingdom called on British companies to end activities linked to Israeli settlements, while France announced entry bans on Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, several settlement leaders, and a number of settlers, reaffirming its support for a two-state solution. The move comes amid growing international concern over escalating settler violence and its impact on prospects for a future Palestinian state. Related Story Source link
A bear roaming the streets of a Japanese city for three days forced the closure of nearly 100 schools yesterday, as dozens of hunters and officials searched for the animal.The city government of Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo, closed all 94 public primary and junior high schools in the area after receiving more than 10 reports of bear sightings since Saturday — including in a shopping arcade. “We have vehicles out to areas where a bear was seen to make people aware and to urge people to stay indoors or in vehicles,” a city official told AFP, adding that dozens of hunters, police and local officials have been looking for the animal. It was not clear whether there is one bear or more, he said, speaking on the customary condition of anonymity. In recent years, Japan has seen an increasing number of bear sightings and attacks, especially in urban areas. A record 13 people were killed by bears in Japan last year, and there has been a jump in encounters as the animals emerge hungry from hibernation. In the last year to March, bear sightings nationwide topped 50,000 — more than double the previous record set two years earlier, according to official data. In Utsunomiya, a regional capital and home to 510,000 residents, there were just two unconfirmed bear sightings in the previous year. The bear now being hunted was first spotted Saturday morning, north of the city centre, and was described as being around one metre (three feet) long. A series of sightings followed, including in a residential neighbourhood that day, at a shopping arcade on Sunday, and at a park, a high school and a junior school. Source link
India has deported nearly 5,000 Bangladeshi citizens since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist party swept to power in West Bengal last month, according to official statistics.Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a sweeping victory in elections in the eastern border state of more than 100 million people, promising to “detect, delete and deport” illegal migrants. India shares a long and porous border with Muslim-majority Bangladesh, where migration has historically been driven by economic hardship and longstanding family links. On taking power, the new West Bengal government ordered the establishment of detention centres for undocumented Bangladeshis and Rohingya refugees, a mainly Muslim people who fled persecution in Myanmar.State Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, speaking in the capital Kolkata on Sunday, said nearly 5,000 Bangladeshi citizens had been deported across the border. “We have started the work of deporting Bangladeshi infiltrators who do not fall under the purview of the Citizenship Amendment Act,” Adhikari said, saying the government had “established holding centres in all districts of the state” in May. “From these centres, 4,800 Bangladeshi infiltrators have already been deported so far,” he added.“Another 836 people are currently in the holding centres… we are making arrangements to deport the 836 soon,” Adhikari said. The deportation campaign comes against a backdrop of longstanding political tensions over immigration in the border state.Top Indian officials have referred to migrants as “termites” and “infiltrators”. Critics say the BJP’s rhetoric and policies have added to the unease and marginalisation of India’s more than 200 million Muslims, accusing the party of conflating religious identity with illegal migration.Rights groups have previously accused India of also pushing hundreds of Bengali-speaking Muslims into Bangladesh without due process. Source link
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said negotiations over a peace deal to end the Middle East war were in their final stages, after Iran and Israel halted attacks that threatened to reignite the months-long conflict.Iran fired missiles at Israel on Sunday in response to strikes against Lebanon’s Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of Beirut, before Israel struck back despite Trump’s efforts to dissuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from doing so.Iran and Israel “were going back and forth and now they both agreed through me to stop and we’re in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal,” the US leader told reporters on his return from an NBA Finals game.When asked whether a deal would be a matter of days or weeks, he said it would take “two or three days.” The flare-up came after weeks of negotiations seeking to bring about a definitive end to the regional war sparked by US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, with Tehran insisting a halt to the conflict must include a truce in Lebanon. Trump, who has reportedly grown increasingly exasperated with Netanyahu, had earlier urged both sides to stop “shooting” and said that “final negotiations” towards peace would proceed “subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way”. US Vice President JD Vance told Fox News on Monday that while the United States and Israel shared interests, their positions did not always align.”The Israelis and the United States, we have a lot of shared interests,” Vance said. “But we also have some situations where our interests diverge.” Source link
Rescue workers use search-and-rescue dogs to look for trapped people at a collapsed grocery store a day after the magnitude 7.8 quake in Calumpang, General Santos,…
Iran and Israel said yesterday they had halted attacks on each other after an appeal from US President Donald Trump that they immediately “stop ‘shooting’”, though Tehran said it would resume strikes if Israel continued to hit Hezbollah in Lebanon. The wave of attacks over 24 hours were the most direct confrontation between Iran and Israel since an April ceasefire, threatening to wreck Washington’s efforts to reach an agreement with Tehran to end their more than three-month-old war. A source briefed on the matter said Israel had also decided to halt its attacks on Iran. Tehran fired missiles towards Israeli territory late on Sunday, calling them retaliation for Israeli attacks on strongholds of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia on the outskirts of Beirut. Israel then hit a petrochemical plant in southwest Iran that it said was used to produce ballistic missiles. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had retaliated with a strike aimed at a similar Israeli plant in the city of Haifa. Iran’s military said it had “delivered a painful response” against Israel for its attacks on Lebanon. “Accordingly, the operations of the armed forces are hereby declared halted; however, it is emphasised that if the aggressions and acts of mischief continue — including in southern Lebanon — much more severe and crushing actions than before will follow.” Hours after Iran’s announcement, sirens sounded in the Zar’it area of northern Israel when a projectile was identified as falling in an area of southern Lebanon where Israeli forces are operating. Source link
A federal judge in Washington has been asked to block President Donald Trump’s plan to host an Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts bout at the White House next week and to halt construction of the metal arena structure called ‘the Claw’ on the South Lawn of the iconic executive residence.Two Washington-area residents in a court filing on Sunday asked US District Judge Amit Mehta to issue a temporary restraining order halting the event, scheduled to coincide with Trump’s 80th birthday on June 14.Mehta Monday asked the lawyers in the case to propose a schedule to hear the emergency request.Dubbed ‘UFC Freedom 250’, the event is set to feature fighting inside the 92-foot-tall (28 meters), octagon-shaped cage with weigh-ins at the nearby Lincoln Memorial.The lawsuit, filed on Saturday, alleges that authorization of the program by the National Park Service and Interior Department was unlawful and should be set aside.’This nation’s public monuments should not be loaned out for private exploitation,” the plaintiffs said.In a statement, the White House called the case an ‘obstructionist, baseless, and dilatory lawsuit” and said the event ‘is no different than the various other White House-hosted events on the South Lawn and properly permitted events on the Ellipse and National Mall throughout the year.”The lawsuit contends the event violates rules barring sporting events on the South Lawn and at the Lincoln Memorial, and that construction of the large arena structure requires congressional authorization.Trump is facing other lawsuits over construction projects on the White House and elsewhere in the capital, including his plan to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom on the site of the demolished East Wing, and his proposal to renovate and close The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Source link