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Maldives rescuers search for missing Italian divers in underwater cave

Italy says five of its citizens have drowned, including a marine biology professor, her daughter and two young researchers Rescue teams in the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Maldives searched for a second day Friday for the bodies of four missing Italians following the country’s deadliest diving accident, officials said. Italy’s foreign ministry said on Thursday night that five citizens had died while diving, with Maldivian authorities recovering one body. Maldives Minister of Tourism Mohamed Ameen said coastguard officers and security forces were scouring remote seas around where the divers were reported missing on Thursday afternoon. “I am deeply saddened by the tragic deep diving accident in Vaavu Atoll today,” Ameen said in a statement. “The coastguard, and all relevant authorities, are actively engaged in the search and recovery operation.” The University of Genoa said the victims included a marine biology professor, her daughter and two young researchers.

May 15, 2026

Business

Trump, touting deal, says China to buy 200 Boeing jets with promise for more

After leaving Beijing, the US president announced a pledge to buy at least 200 jets, and up to 750 under certain conditions US President Donald Trump said China has agreed to purchase at least 200 commercial aircraft from Boeing, and up to 750 if certain conditions are met – a commitment which would end a nearly decade-long order drought – following a state visit to Beijing, where Trump said a purchase of up to 450 aircraft engines from General Electric was also agreed upon. “We made a lot of great trade deals, including over 200 planes for Boeing, with a promise of 750 planes, which would be by far the largest order ever, if they do a good job with the 200, which I’m sure they will,” Trump told journalists on Air Force One after departing China. “The engines, so they are buying General Electrics, approximately 400, 450 engines.” No official announcement has been made about purchase commitments at the summit, which concluded on Friday afternoon. A major aircraft purchase from China – the world’s second-largest aviation market – had been widely anticipated for months as a way for Beijing to address the bilateral trade imbalance long criticised by Washington.

May 15, 2026

Business

Trump’s top science adviser visited Beijing. What does that mean for AI?

Beijing is vague on whether AI cooperation was on the summit’s agenda, even as experts urge collaboration on common problems “China has always advocated that all parties jointly promote the development of artificial intelligence in an open, inclusive, beneficial and good-for-all direction,” he said on Friday afternoon, after Air Force One had taken off from Beijing Capital International Airport. The international community hoped that the United States and China could reach a consensus on AI governance and strategic stability, Xiao Junyong, a professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology’s law school, wrote in an article published by the state-run Beijing Review on Wednesday. “Both the US and China lead in AI models, computing power and ecosystems, yet share challenges like hallucinations, bias, misuse and cyberattacks. For high-impact AI systems, they can cooperate on safety, ethics, and deepfake governance.”

May 15, 2026

Business

6 bids for Hong Kong land sale signal renewed confidence despite market caution

Tung Chung site draws bids from major developers SHKP, Kerry and Sino Land, reflecting cautious optimism for the residential property market The parcel, measuring 14,152 square metres, is expected to yield about 990 residential units. Consultancy CBRE estimated its value at HK$960 million (US$122.6 million). Vincent Cheung, managing director at Vincorn Consulting and Appraisal, put the site’s value at HK$1.5 billion, equivalent to about HK$2,820 per square foot based on the maximum gross floor area of 533,160 sq ft. “The site benefits from a waterfront setting and proximity to the future Tung Chung East MTR station,” said Eddie Tsui, senior director for valuation and advisory services at CBRE Hong Kong. “Together with nearby developments such as Century Link and The Visionary, this provides a solid pricing reference and supports its long-term residential appeal.” Tsui added that the district remained in an “early-stage ‘pioneering’ phase”, with value uplift depending on infrastructure-led maturation. CBRE’s valuation indicated modest upside compared with the adjacent 106B site sold to SHKP in early 2025 for HK$602 million.

May 15, 2026

Business

The misread storytelling behind Xi Jinping’s speeches

Support us Xi Jinping delivers a speech at a ceremony marking the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing, China, on July 1, 2021. Photo: Ju Peng / Xinhua For many in the West, China still feels hard to fully understand. Public debate and media coverage too often focus on the “China threat.” Critics highlight the flaws of China’s political system and limits on freedom, yet China has still managed to rise as a major power that can now compete with the United States. One reason for this gap in understanding is that the media often interprets China through a Western-centric perspective. US President Donald Trump’s summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week, for instance, will be analyzed in the West very differently from the way it will be seen in China. Xi’s language will be parsed and scrutinized for couched messages, veiled threats and hidden meanings. But analysts may be missing some of the tools China uses to explain and justify its actions. My co-authored new research offers a new way to look at China’s grand strategy: by analyzing the way the government uses storytelling.

May 15, 2026

Business

Is Trump behind Japan’s push for radical military spending hike?

The ruling party is expected to debate raising outlays to as much as 5 per cent of GDP, in line with that of many Nato members It submitted the proposal to its Research Commission on Security on Wednesday. Trump has repeatedly pressured security allies around the globe to spend more on their national defence – even going as far as to threaten those who refuse that the US will not come to their aid in the event of a conflict. A critical defence partner in the western Pacific, Tokyo has enjoyed close ties with previous US administrations, but there is growing concern that US troops stationed in the country have become leverage for Trump and that Japan will need to do more to guarantee its own safety.

May 15, 2026

Business

3 ways to build Hong Kong’s yacht economy beyond infrastructure

Licensing regulations, Greater Bay Area integration and the vital role of casual boaters need to be included in the discussion Hong Kong is in a unique position to capitalise on yacht tourism – with over 1,000km of coastline and more than 200 islands, this natural advantage is something few international cities can match. Much of the media conversation around Hong Kong’s yacht economy has focused on the city’s shortage of berths and marina facilities. And rightly so – physical infrastructure is crucial to the industry. But infrastructure alone will not unlock Hong Kong’s full potential. The first of these significant, yet overlooked, barriers is Hong Kong’s system for operator licensing. Under current regulations, pleasure vessels operating in Hong Kong waters must have a captain with a local Pleasure Vessel Operator Licence on board and in charge of the craft. This licence is not easily obtained by international sailors and in most cases does not have global reciprocation with other licence regimes. One notable exception includes reports that the Hong Kong authorities may, in some cases, accept the RYA Yachtmaster Offshore Certificate of Competence as equivalent to the Pleasure Vessel Operators Certificate Grade 1.

May 15, 2026

Business

Elderly woman dies in fire sparked by faulty air-conditioner in Hong Kong flat

Blaze ignited at Yu Tung Court in Tung Chung on Friday morning, with 300 people evacuated A 70-year-old woman has died in a fire at a Hong Kong flat, with police suspecting it was caused by a malfunctioning air-conditioner. The blaze broke out at Yu Tung Court’s Hei Tung House in Tung Chung on Friday, with police saying they received reports from several residents at around 4.42am. “A woman was certified dead at the scene and her body was found when firefighters arrived,” a police spokesman said, adding that around 300 people had to be evacuated. “Some residents said they saw black fumes coming out from the flat’s air-conditioner unit.” Four flats on the same floor were affected and residents returned to their homes after the fire was extinguished at around 5.12am.

May 15, 2026

Business

Singapore doctor jailed over woman’s death during beauty treatment

A judge slammed Chan Bingyi’s ‘deplorable’ choice to hide the truth from the victim’s family and paramedics to protect himself A doctor was sentenced to 18 months’ jail on Thursday for administering a substance to a woman as part of an aesthetic treatment that killed her. The ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) was administered too quickly and at too high a concentration, causing 31-year-old Lau Li Ting to develop EDTA toxicity, which led to cardiac arrest and death. Dr Chan Bingyi later concealed the fact that he had administered EDTA to the victim from her family, paramedics and doctors, in what the judge said was “deplorable conduct” done for his own self-preservation. The 38-year-old Singaporean had contested one charge of committing a negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide in causing Lau’s death, but was convicted. Lau, whom the prosecution described as a healthy woman, had visited Revival Medical & Aesthetics Centre in Bras Basah in March 2019 for aesthetic treatment. In his account to the Ministry of Health (MOH) after the incident, Chan said Lau wanted to improve the fine lines on her forehead.

May 15, 2026

Business

Does China’s Jiuzhang 4.0 computer herald the age of quantum supremacy?

China’s new programmable photonic quantum computing prototype, Jiuzhang 4.0, completed a complex calculation in microseconds Jiuzhang 4.0 completed a Gaussian boson sampling task in just 25 microseconds – a calculation they estimated would take the world’s most powerful supercomputer, El Capitan in the United States, a mind-boggling more than 10^42 years to finish, according to the university in the eastern city of Hefei. A Gaussian boson sampling task is a quantum computing task that is computationally difficult for classical computers to handle. “No realistic classical computing resources, to our knowledge, can bring the MPS [matrix product state] algorithm anywhere near the accuracy achieved by our experiment,” the team said in a press release. Jiuzhang 4.0 operates with 1,024 squeezed-state inputs across an 8,176-mode interferometric network, and can manipulate and detect up to 3,050 photons – more than 10 times the scale achieved in previous experiments.

May 15, 2026

Business

Chinese man earns US$7,400 monthly selling fried rice at night market while dressed in a suit

Stylish 19-year-old attracts customers by striking a variety of poses as he works with his wok, dangles unlit cigarette from his mouth as gimmick A young Chinese man has gone viral for making and selling fried rice wearing a suit at a night market, making 50,000 yuan (US$7,400) a month. The man, surnamed Lu, began running the stall in Yantai in eastern China’s Shandong province when he was 17 and has now become the “backbone” of his family. To look more “decent”, on a whim, he decided to don a suit one day while cooking the fried rice. Lu, now 19, often strikes stylish poses while cooking, such as slicking back his hair, winking at the camera, catching an egg his family throws at him, striking a high-knee pose while ditching the leftovers from the wok. He also does something that all Chinese cooks are known for, flipping the wok. On his social media account that has amassed 46,000 followers and 190,000 likes, Lu posted videos of his cool cooking style and attached the hashtag #sanjifriedrice. Sanji is a stylish fictional cook in the Japanese anime One Piece, created by Eiichiro Oda.

May 15, 2026

Business

Xi-Trump summit live: Trump talks student exchange, G2 and deals with China

Key bilateral and global issues on the table during final day of US president’s trip to Beijing This live article is freely available to our registered users. Please log in or create an account below. On Friday, the final day of his Beijing trip, US President Donald Trump will again meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, this time over tea and a working lunch. The two leaders are expected to continue discussions on critical bilateral and global issues, with Xi framing the talks around “constructive strategic stability” – a phrase he used during Thursday’s formal session to signal consensus with Trump. Trump arrived in the Chinese capital on Wednesday evening and was officially welcomed by Xi on Thursday morning with a full honour guard ceremony at the Great Hall of the People. The leaders then held two hours of formal talks before visiting the Temple of Heaven, a Ming‑era cultural site with more than 600 years of history, and attending a lavish state banquet. Reporting by Teresa Frontado, Mark Magnier, Orange Wang, Dewey Sim, Alyssa Chen, Cao Jiaxuan and Shi Jiangtao

May 15, 2026