India’s ‘cockroach’ movement targets election chief in political pivot

The United States and China must work together to establish safety guardrails for artificial intelligence, leading scholars and industry leaders said at a Singapore forum, warning that rapid advances in the technology demand stronger risk controls. Speaking at the FutureChina Business Forum on Friday, Jude Blanchette, managing director of consultancy Macro Advisory Partners, urged the two superpowers to find common ground despite escalating geopolitical tensions. “If ever there was a moment for...

American chief executives turned out in force to see Xi Jinping, while their Chinese counterparts were absent, a sign of how drastically business ties have changed.

The first known breach of a government website by rogue artificial intelligence agents has prompted global calls for more regulation of the technology.

Mary Jane Veloso was convicted of drug smuggling and nearly killed by a firing squad in Indonesia. On Friday, more than a decade later, she was pardoned in the Philippines.

The Philippines’ decision to block messaging platform Discord for less than a day following a series of school shootings has raised questions about the government’s response to child safety online, with analysts describing the move as a show of regulatory muscle that did little to address underlying problems. The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) announced on Thursday that it had lifted the ban after what officials described as successful negotiations with Discord...

Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump discussed artificial intelligence (AI) and Taiwan at the White House on Thursday as part of a state visit dominated by pageantry. On AI, Xi said that “the right thing to do is to draw on each other’s strengths, not guard against each other”, according to a statement from the Chinese foreign ministry. He also backed continued dialogue about risks, joint efforts to prevent misuse and keeping AI under human control. Trump earlier said on...

A major coal deal in Indonesia is set to secure a powerful new partner for one of the country’s biggest miners, even as the industry worries a delay in the government’s approval of production quotas could have a severe impact on the business outlook. Low Tuck Kwong and his daughter Elaine Low, the biggest shareholders of Bayan Resources, agreed on September 16 to sell a 30 per cent stake in Indonesia’s third-largest coal producer to fellow tycoon Andi Syamsuddin Arsyad, better known as Haji...

Former Malaysian leader Najib Razak has no money to pay the fine to secure his transfer to house arrest, his lawyers have said, as they question the delay in releasing the full details of the conditional pardon granted by Malaysia’s king last week. King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar last Friday decreed that Najib would be allowed to serve out the remainder of his sentence at home, on condition that he pay his 50 million ringgit (US$10.3 million) fine. The decision triggered widespread outrage among...

Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah proposed a climate alliance with neighbouring India and China, urging action to protect the fragile Himalayan ecosystem after catastrophic flooding across the region. “Glaciers and floods do not travel with stamps and passports,” Shah told world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “As an urgent first step, we propose that we establish the Himalaya climate resilience mechanism, led by Nepal, India and China, so the Himalayas become a...

If the American guests seated at the head table with President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump at Thursday’s White House state dinner were any indication, Washington now views its relationship with Beijing largely through the prism of technology. Analysts said the seating arrangement underscored how tech industry titans driving the global AI infrastructure boom were pushing to draw the two economic superpowers closer together. Sitting alongside Xi, Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan, Trump...

Altman. Musk. Huang. Bezos. They all came to the White House Thursday night, though you might not have seen it on TV.