Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 31

Trump has vowed to free Jimmy Lai. A Hong Kong court is about to decide the media mogul’s fate

Days before winning his second presidential term, Donald Trump made a bold promise: if he returned to the White House, he would free a pugnacious, self-made billionaire from a Hong Kong prison. “100% I’ll get him out. He’ll be easy to get out,” Trump declared in a podcast interview in October, radiating his trademark confidence.Nearly ten months later, that tycoon Jimmy Lai – a pro-democracy

Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister turns up the volume on loudspeaker standoff with South Korea

The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Thursday dismissed South Korean claims the North is removing some of its loudspeakers along the inter-Korean border, mocking the government in Seoul for clinging to hopes of renewed diplomacy between the war-divided rivals.South Korea’s military said over the weekend that it had detected the North removing some of its loudspeakers, days

Putin reaffirms 'friendship' with North Korea ahead of Trump talks

Russian President Vladimir Putin has reaffirmed his "friendship" with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, ahead of his talks with Donald Trump on Friday. It also comes as the BBC reported the "slave-like" condition facing thousands of North Korean workers sent to Russia to take part in construction projects.Putin and Kim spoke on Tuesday, with the Russian leader praising Pyongyang's military

Inside Australia's billion-dollar bid to take on China's rare earth dominance

Drive three hours north of Perth, and you'll arrive in Eneabba - barren and desolate, just the odd hill in the distance. This is Western Australia mining territory. Buried in this vast terrain is a massive pit, full of what looks like mounds of worthless dirt. But appearances can be deceiving: this pit is home to a million-tonne stockpile containing critical minerals, better known as rare earths,

China warns companies against using Nvidia and AMD chips, report says

China has told companies to refrain from using Nvidia’s H20 chips after the chipmaker recently received approval to resume shipping the less-advanced artificial intelligence product, Bloomberg reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. Authorities have recently told companies to avoid using the Nvidia chips, or those from Advanced Micro Devices, for government and national security

Wonders and woes of China’s robotics industry

At the World Robot Conference in Beijing, which concluded Tuesday, the mood was a blend of optimism and caution: Businesses showed off increasingly lifelike humanoid robots even as they conceded that technological gaps keeping these machines from mainstream usage remain wide.Thousands turned up to watch humanoid robots to perform an array of unusual feats: from clumsily serving popcorn and drinks

Trump’s major China gamble has paid off so far. But Xi still holds trump cards

President Donald Trump has placed a massive bet that the United States can take an historically aggressive stance against China, the world’s second-largest economy, and emerge stronger because of it.Although it remains unclear if the gamble will pay off over the long term, Trump has been riding an incredible winning streak in recent months. The stock market is near record highs, the US economy

China says it ‘drove away’ U.S. warship near the disputed Scarborough Shoal

China said Wednesday it warned and “drove away” a U.S. destroyer that had sailed near the coast of the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea — one of the most valuable shipping lanes globally. The destroyer, USS Higgins, “illegally entered China’s territorial waters off Huangyan Island without the approval of the Chinese government,” the country’s defense ministry said, according

China’s property crisis icon Evergrande will delist following debt woes

The severely indebted real estate developer China Evergrande, already in the process of liquidation, said on Tuesday it will be delisted from Hong Kong’s stock exchange on Aug. 25, another setback to mainland China’s property sector.Evergrande was the world’s most heavily indebted real estate developer, with over $300 billion owed to banks and bondholders, when the court handed down a liquidation

Wife of South Korea’s jailed ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol arrested over corruption allegations

The wife of South Korea’s jailed former President Yoon Suk Yeol has been arrested as investigators seek to charge her over various suspected crimes, including bribery, stock manipulation and meddling in the selection of a candidate.In granting a special prosecutor’s request for an arrest warrant late Tuesday, the Seoul Central District Court said Kim Keon Hee posed a risk of destroying evidence.&