Author: admin

Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group Holding, received a rock-star welcome on Friday as he appeared at an annual event for staff and family, lifting employees’ spirits during a time of strategic repositioning at the business empire he established, according to company sources.Ma, 60, visited Alibaba’s campus in Hangzhou, capital of east Zhejiang province, in the evening. He toured a replica of the flat where he founded the company 26 years ago and attended a music show alongside thousands of employees.Although he did not deliver a speech, photos and videos of his appearance went viral on Chinese social media. Employees…

China’s vice premier He Lipeng held talks with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent early on Saturday in Geneva in a tentative first step towards defusing a trade war that is disrupting the global economy, according to China’s state-owned news agency and two people close to the talks. Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer were due to meet He in Geneva after weeks of growing tensions that have seen duties on goods imports between the world’s two largest economies soar well beyond 100 per cent. The trade dispute, combined with US President Donald Trump’s decision last month to impose duties…

GENEVA: China’s vice premier He Lipeng held talks with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent early on Saturday in Geneva in a tentative first step towards defusing a trade war that is disrupting the global economy, according to China’s state-owned news agency and two people close to the talks. Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer were due to meet He in Geneva after weeks of growing tensions that have seen duties on goods imports between the world’s two largest economies soar well beyond 100%. The trade dispute, combined with U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision last month to impose duties on…

Over a six-decade career in Hollywood, Jon Voight has played an aspiring gigolo (Midnight Cowboy), won an Oscar for Best Actor (Coming Home) and, at the age of 76, been awarded a Golden Globe.Now, the 86-year-old Voight has taken on another role that has generated plenty of drama: “Special Ambassador to Hollywood” for the Trump administration.  If the role was meant to be ceremonial, Voight, a longtime conservative, did not get the memo. Last weekend, he visited US President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago compound to pitch a plan to “make Hollywood great again” — a conversation that sparked a week of…

India’s heavily protected agricultural sector is emerging as a flashpoint in trade talks with the United States, with analysts warning that opening the market to American food imports could endanger small Indian farmers and New Delhi’s long-standing food security policies.Recent reports suggest that India has offered to US President Donald Trump, who previously labelled the country as “tariff king”, to eliminate levies on steel, auto components and pharmaceuticals on a reciprocal basis, up to a specified quota.However, the US is reportedly pressuring New Delhi to also ease restrictions on its agricultural sector to allow greater access for American farm exports.Washington…

Xiaomi chairman and CEO Lei Jun said he experienced this past month “the hardest time” since founding the smartphone and electric vehicle (EV) maker in 2010, following a fatal crash in China involving the autonomous-driving feature of a Xiaomi SU7 that killed three people in late March.“I was feeling down, cancelled some meetings and business trips, and stopped interacting on social media for a while,” Lei said in a Weibo post accompanied by two photos – one featuring a gym and another of a Xiaomi SU7 Ultra.“I have been very busy in the past few years, but this time I…

As China and the United States engage in formal talks for the first time since the resurgence of their trade war, analysts who have closely followed developments in the world’s two biggest economies have made a wide range of predictions as to the outcome – with almost everything seeming to be on the table.Ideal scenarios would mean a deal that moves the two sides toward cutting their present trade-prohibitive tariff rates, even if such a steep de-escalation does not come immediately after the dialogue in Geneva.Worst cases, the analysts agree, would involve one or both parties walking out with no…

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV laid out the vision of his papacy Saturday, identifying artificial intelligence as one of the most critical matters facing humanity and vowing to continue with some of the core priorities of Pope Francis. But in a sign he was making the papacy very much his own, Leo made his first outing since his election to a sanctuary south of Rome that is dedicated to the Madonna and is of particular significance to his Augustinian order. Townspeople of Genazzano gathered in the square outside the main church housing the Madre del Buon Consiglio (Mother…

China’s top security officials said the country’s security and law enforcement apparatus must “shoulder their responsibility with passion” as external tensions put more pressure on China’s internal stability.“At present, the international and domestic situations have undergone new changes, and the task of maintaining national security and social stability is arduous and onerous,” wrote Yin Bai, secretary general of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the Communist Party’s top security organ, in an article on Friday.It was published on the front page of the Study Times, the journal of the Central Party School, where China’s political stars are trained.The commission…

On May 1, Jerry Tuazon was driving his wife, eight-year-old son and six others to a Christian youth camp in Pangasinan, more than 200km (124 miles) north of Manila, when they stopped briefly at a petrol station along the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway.The next thing he remembered was waking up in a hospital bed.“I thought I was dreaming. I said, ‘God, please wake me up from this dream. This has gone far too long, this is not where I’m supposed to be,’” he told This Week in Asia.Tuazon was the only survivor in his group of nine. A multiple car pile-up claimed…