Xi skips UN address to show China as equal to rival US

The Americans being held in China are U Min Zin, a scholar who studied Myanmar, and Youlin Chen, a seismologist who researched North Korean nuclear tests.

Australia is exploring potential legal action after an artificial intelligence agent accessed nonpublic information on the country’s universal health care system.

Tencent Holdings on Thursday launched TenPayGo, a mobile payment app targeting foreign visitors, as the tech giant seeks to capture China’s growing inbound tourism market ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Shenzhen. Developed by Tencent’s WeChat Pay team, TenPayGo allowed international travellers to make payments at tens of millions of shops, restaurants and attractions across the WeChat Pay network by linking their credit cards or their home-country digital wallets...

Thailand’s teenage guitar sensation Nene Royal won the US$1 million top prize on America’s Got Talent, capping a viral run that made the 16-year-old a national celebrity and drew support from across her home country. Rattikarn Amloy, better known by her stage name Nene Royal, was crowned the winner during Wednesday’s live results show, beating nine other finalists after emerging as the clear favourite before the finale. During Tuesday’s final, she sang and played guitar on a rendition of “Seven...

Balendra Shah, 36, comes to the U.N. as a sun-glassed symbol of Gen Z political power. But concerns about his style are growing at home after devastating floods left thousands dead or missing.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said one soldier tried to kill himself when he was captured. “This is how they raise people in the North,” he said.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s proposal for a phased approach to Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes is a pragmatic response, analysts say, but prospects for gaining its arch-rival’s acceptance remain uncertain. In a keynote speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Lee laid out a long-term, step-by-step sequence for pursuing the ultimate goal of North Korea’s denuclearisation. He had called for Washington to ease sanctions in return for North Korea stopping its nuclear...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that U.S. negotiators had restarted conversations about Iran’s nuclear program, but that there were no breakthroughs.

Australia is exploring potential legal action after an artificial intelligence agent accessed nonpublic information on the country’s universal health care system.

Ma Yansong, China’s reigning starchitect, lets his buildings wrapped in nature do the shouting.

Toey Wattana Mongkhonnam began thinking about outfitting his family home in Thailand’s northeastern province of Yasothon with solar panels during the Covid-19 pandemic. In his household of five, electricity use rises with the day’s heat, and the monthly bill could range from 1,000 to 1,500 baht (US$30 to US$45). “Back then, I checked prices and a rooftop panel system that could put out enough power to run my household’s appliances could cost 100,000 to 200,000 baht,” said Toey, a Muay Thai...

An autonomous OpenAI programme infiltrated an Australian government health website in June in an “unacceptable” breach, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said. The artificial intelligence agent accessed public and non-public files of the health statistics service, he told reporters in New York on Wednesday. OpenAI did not raise the alarm with the Australian government until September, when it sent an email outlining the incident to a generic email address. “Today I spoke with the CEO of OpenAI,...