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Gold prices rose in European trading on Tuesday, extending gains for a third consecutive day and continuing to smash record levels, as they moved sharply closer to trading above $4,500 per ounce for the first time in history. The rally was driven by strong investment demand for the precious metal and supported by a decline in the US dollar in foreign exchange markets.   These developments come as expectations grow that the Federal Reserve will cut US interest rates twice next year. To reprice those expectations, investors are awaiting later today the release of US economic growth data for the…

Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), already the envy of the global automotive industry, have raced to the top of the luxury segment after a new model co-developed by Huawei Technologies outsold Porsche’s Panamera and BMW’s 7 Series in the world’s largest car market.Maextro S800, a luxury sedan priced from 708,000 yuan (US$100,555) to 1 million yuan, recorded 2,145 deliveries in mainland China last month, more than the combined sales of the Panamera and the 7 Series, according to data provider ECC Intelligence.Jointly developed by telecommunications equipment maker Huawei and state-owned JAC Group, the S800 is now the mainland’s top-selling car in…

The Chinese authorities are investigating reports that cultural treasures from a leading state-run museum were secretly sold on the market by museum staff in an alleged scam that has been described as making the Louvre thieves look “dumb”.The scandal first came to light when a 16th-century painting that had been donated by the family of an art collector appeared for auction earlier this year.A former director of the museum has since come under scrutiny after a former underling claimed that he had masterminded the large-scale theft and smuggling of national treasures.The scale of the alleged crimes prompted one social media…

Beijing-based Zhipu AI, known internationally as Z.ai, on Monday evening claimed that its new GLM-4.7 model features improved coding abilities, narrowing the gap with larger US firms Google DeepMind and Anthropic in innovative coding agents.Zhipu AI touted the high scores achieved by GLM-4.7 on various coding benchmarks that surpassed those of OpenAI’s GPT-5, which was released in August. GLM-4.7’s scores were just behind those of Google DeepMind’s Gemini Pro 3 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5.On SWE-Bench, a benchmark that evaluates models on real-world software engineering issues, Anthropic broke the 70 per cent mark in May via its older Claude Opus…

Chinese tech giant Xiaomi on Tuesday rejected calls by a group of US lawmakers to add it to a Pentagon list of companies alleged to have links with China’s military, describing the move as baseless and reiterating its focus on the consumer market.The smartphone-to-vehicle giant said it was “not a Chinese military company nor affiliated with any Chinese military entities” and that it “has always been and continues to be a consumer product company”.“[Xiaomi] provides products and services for civilian and commercial use only,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday. “There is no basis for the inclusion of…

A giant flower’s rediscovery in a West Sumatran forest of Indonesia has spurred a growing campaign among researchers to change the colonial-era name of one of the world’s most famous plants.Last month’s find of an extremely rare Rafflesia hasseltii – one of the giant, foul-smelling blooms often dubbed “corpse flowers” – has energised researchers and activists seeking to strip the genus of its association with Thomas Stamford Raffles, a figure widely credited with founding colonial Singapore but criticised by scholars and campaigners for violence and coercion during Britain’s rule in parts of Southeast Asia.Recognised as among the world’s largest flowers,…

The Japanese yen rose in Asian trading on Tuesday against a basket of major and minor currencies, extending its gains for a second consecutive day against the US dollar, as it continued to recover from four-week lows, following a strongly worded warning from Japanese authorities signaling Tokyo’s readiness to intervene to support the local currency.   Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said Japan has full freedom to take whatever action it deems necessary to address excessive volatility in the yen, stressing that recent moves in the currency do not reflect market fundamentals at all.   A former Bank of Japan official…

China has emerged as a broadly positive partner for Indonesia in the public mind, according to a new survey, driven by visible economic engagement and investment on the ground, even as public support stops short of seeing Beijing as a full strategic partner.The 2025 China–Indonesia Survey, released on December 18 by Jakarta-based think tank Centre of Economic and Law Studies (Celios), suggests Indonesians increasingly view ties with Beijing through a transactional lens, welcoming economic and technological cooperation while remaining cautious in other areas.Overall, 66 per cent of the 1,022 respondents surveyed described relations between Jakarta and Beijing as positive, particularly…

The Japanese yen rose in Asian trading on Tuesday against a basket of major and minor currencies, extending its gains for a second consecutive day against the US dollar, as it continued to recover from four-week lows, following a strongly worded warning from Japanese authorities signaling Tokyo’s readiness to intervene to support the local currency.   Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said Japan has full freedom to take whatever action it deems necessary to address excessive volatility in the yen, stressing that recent moves in the currency do not reflect market fundamentals at all.   A former Bank of Japan official…

Short-video platform Kuaishou Technology reported a major cyberattack to the police after a breach on Monday evening allowed explicit content to flood high-traffic live rooms for more than an hour.Kuaishou’s live-streaming services were thrown into chaos at around 10pm when recommended feeds were inundated with explicit material, according to news website Sina. Viewership in some compromised rooms surged past 50,000 before the platform launched an emergency response.By 11.30pm, Kuaishou began a mass deletion of the videos and closed its live-streaming channels, according to Sina, adding that services began to gradually resume at 2am on Tuesday.Kuaishou said on Tuesday that the…