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Gold prices fell in the European market on Wednesday for the first time in four days, retreating from their all-time highs, pressured by profit-taking activity and a rebound in the U.S. dollar against a basket of major currencies.   The Federal Reserve will conclude later today its sixth policy meeting of 2025 to discuss appropriate monetary policy for the world’s largest economy, with expectations pointing to a 25-basis-point interest rate cut.   Price Overview   • Gold prices today: gold declined by 0.75% to (3,662.69$), from an opening level of (3,690.06$), after recording an intraday high of (3,695.40$).   •…

The youngest son of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has filed criminal charges against four cabinet secretaries and several senior officials, accusing them of “kidnapping” his father and spiriting him to The Hague to face crimes against humanity charges before the International Criminal Court.But legal scholars and political insiders contend the case is a thinly veiled attempt by the Duterte camp to derail the appointment of Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla as the country’s next ombudsman – a position with the power to decide the fate of corruption complaints against Duterte’s daughter, Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio.Sebastian Duterte, the acting mayor…

Huawei Technologies has expressed optimism over the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) over the next decade, while anticipating that global computing capacity will increase a staggering 100,000-fold by 2035.“AGI will be the largest driver of transformation,” the Shenzhen-based company said in a forecast report published on Tuesday. “Integrating artificial intelligence with the physical world is essential to achieving AGI, which could lead to a technological singularity.”The technological singularity is a hypothetical point in the future when technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, leading to unforeseeable changes in human civilisation. This concept has gained traction amid fears that AI may…

Chinese companies will increasingly shift towards offshore yuan bonds and away from US dollar bonds for their offshore financing, according to panellists at S&P Global Ratings’ China Credit Spotlight forum on Wednesday.Over the next five years, Chinese companies will issue more offshore bonds to fund their expansion overseas, but “it doesn’t necessarily have to be in the US dollar space, it can well be in the [offshore yuan] space,” said Hua Cheng, senior vice-president and director of Asia credit research at AllianceBernstein, at the event in Hong Kong.US dollar interest rates have remained high in the past few years, making…

Chinese companies will increasingly shift towards offshore yuan bonds and away from US dollar bonds for their offshore financing, according to panellists at S&P Global Ratings’ China Credit Spotlight forum on Wednesday.Over the next five years, Chinese companies will issue more offshore bonds to fund their expansion overseas, but “it doesn’t necessarily have to be in the US dollar space, it can well be in the [offshore yuan] space,” said Hua Cheng, senior vice-president and director of Asia credit research at AllianceBernstein, at the event in Hong Kong.US dollar interest rates have remained high in the past few years, making…

Laos’ ambition to become the “battery of Southeast Asia” has left the country awash with surplus electricity, but burdened by soaring debts from a decades-long dam-building spree.Now, in a bid to turn this excess into economic gain, the government is embracing the energy-intensive business of cryptocurrency mining – drawing both international intrigue and local controversy.The multibillion-dollar business of digital asset mining, which rewards participants with tokens such as bitcoin for solving complex blockchain puzzles, is notoriously energy hungry.But Laos, having constructed dozens of hydropower projects across the Mekong River and its tributaries, finds itself with more power than it can…

Launched by TikTok and Douyin owner ByteDance in August 2023, Doubao has recorded consistent growth so far this year, with a 6.6 per cent increase in the number of users from July, according to data compiled by market research firm QuestMobile.By contrast, second-ranked DeepSeek’s chatbot saw a further decline in user numbers last month, down 4 per cent from July to 143 million MAUs.According to QuestMobile data, almost 40 per cent of users who left DeepSeek’s chatbot in May switched to Doubao.Beijing-based ByteDance has been “very serious” about improving Doubao’s features, according to Li Bangzhu, founder of AI product popularity…

Hunter-gatherers across southern China and Southeast Asia were preserving human remains thousands of years earlier than better-known examples of mummification from ancient Egypt, according to an international team of archaeologists.In a study published on Monday by the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers said that large-scale mummification of human remains was practised in the region as early as 12,000 years ago.An investigation of 54 pre-Neolithic burials from 11 archaeological sites across Southeast Asia confirmed that many of the bodies had been smoke-dried over a prolonged period, mostly in tightly bound, crouched postures, the study said.The…

Malaysian police have arrested three men on suspicion of poaching a critically endangered Malayan tiger, after the animal’s carcass was discovered inside the boot of a car in the southern state of Johor.The grisly discovery was made during a joint operation by the Bukit Aman Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) and the Johor Department of Wildlife and National Parks on Tuesday morning in Felda Tenggaroh, Mersing.In a statement on social media, the FRU said its intelligence unit had inspected a Perodua Alza multipurpose vehicle and uncovered the carcass of a Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni), believed to have been hunted illegally.…

PARIS (AP) — A ballooning deficit. A fractious Parliament. Unrest on the streets. The challenges facing Sébastien Lecornu, France’s fourth prime minister in a year, are daunting and defeated his immediate predecessors.So he’s trying a different tack. To ease tensions, Lecornu has scrapped proposals to axe two public holidays and trimmed lifetime benefits for former government ministers. A loyal ally to unpopular centrist President Emmanuel Macron, he began meeting with opposition leaders and trade unions this week.But pitfalls lie ahead. Opponents aim to turn up the heat yet further on Thursday with nationwide strikes and protests against budget cuts and…