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The G20 summit in Johannesburg opened on Saturday with a firm call from the host nation to safeguard the group’s credibility and role, despite the shadow cast by the first-ever US boycott in the forum’s history.South Africa has, however, secured crucial diplomatic backing from China for the assembly of the world’s wealthiest and leading emerging economies.Members should “not allow anything to diminish the value, stature and impact of the first African G20”, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told the opening session, in what was seen as a veiled reference to Washington’s boycott and threat to veto the resolutions.The event “carries…

A tiny piece of debris triggered the most serious mishap at China’s Tiangong space station since it became operational three years ago.Earlier this month, a crack discovered on the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft’s window forced three Chinese astronauts to remain on board Tiangong for nine extra days and eventually borrow their newly arrived colleagues’ ship to return to Earth.The event underscores the growing threat posed by Earth’s ever-expanding cloud of orbital junk – a scare that could push China, as well as other countries including the United States, to speed up their debris tracking and removal capabilities.Many of these systems are inherently…

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AP) — American senators panned a U.S. peace proposal on Ukraine at an international security conference Saturday, with one calling it one of the most serious geopolitical mistakes of his lifetime.The 28-point peace plan was crafted by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and the Kremlin without Ukraine’s involvement. It acquiesces to many Russian demands that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has categorically rejected on dozens of occasions, including giving up large pieces of territory.“You think Xi Jinping is paying attention to this? You think Kim Jong Un is paying attention? I mean, this is one of the most…

PARIS (AP) — Thousands of people marched Saturday in the French southern port city of Marseille to denounce drug trafficking after the killing last week of an activist’s brother shocked the country.Mehdi Kessaci, 20, was killed in Marseille last week in a shooting officials have described as ordered by drugs criminals to frighten or punish his older brother, Amine, a prominent anti-drugs activist.An estimated 6,000 people, many dressed in white, gathered behind a “Justice for Mehdi” banner, observing a minute of silence and later raising hands in a sign of rejection of drug violence. Some politicians from across the political…

China and the United States have held their second round of maritime security talks this year to help manage risks between their militaries, according to the Chinese navy.The talks, held in Hawaii from Tuesday to Thursday, were “candid and constructive,” the PLA Navy said in a statement on Saturday.It said both sides exchanged views on the security situation, discussing cases of air and sea encounters and measures to improve operational safety.The meeting marked the latest effort by the geopolitical rivals to keep military-to-military communication on track amid tensions across multiple domains, including in the East and South China seas.The talks…

People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s flagship mouthpiece, has published yet another sharply worded attack on the Japanese leader’s comments on Taiwan, warning that Sanae Takaichi was leading her country to its “demise”.The commentary on Saturday – written under the “Zhong Sheng” pen name often used to voice Beijing’s position on global affairs – is the fourth signed commentary on the issue in the newspaper in nine days, an unusually high rate that reflects the weight of Beijing’s criticism of Tokyo.“Sanae Takaichi’s erroneous words and actions are leading Japan into a dangerous situation where warmongering will inevitably lead to its demise,”…

Pakistan’s cement export proceeds surged to $42.6 million in October 2025, the highest monthly level in 11 years, even as export volumes dropped sharply, shared Topline Securities on Saturday. “Pakistan’s monthly cement export proceeds in Oct-2025 surged to $42.6mn, marking the highest level in 11 years since the record of $43.9mn in Sep-2014,” said the brokerage house. “This reflects renewed momentum in Pakistan’s cement exports,” it added, attributing the growth to supply-side disruption from key European exporting markets. The development comes as export dispatches declined by a massive 23.44% in October 2025, as volumes fell from 1.081 million tons in…

China’s military has eased stringent physical requirements for pilots, based on the improved cockpits of the People’s Liberation Army’s newest warplanes.Changes to height, weight and limb length requirements are among several revisions made to the physical selection criteria for pilots, military mouthpiece PLA Daily reported on Monday.The report did not include the full revised set of criteria but said the changes had taken into account factors such as aircraft upgrades, advances in medical technology, and physical and mental changes in the population.“Given changes to the position of the control stick and the increased adjustable angle of the seat in new…

Samad Rubber Works Pvt Ltd has clarified that the recent boiler blast in Faisalabad did not occur at any of its facilities, terming any reports linking the company to the incident as incorrect. “We are deeply saddened to hear about the tragic boiler blast in Faisalabad and extend our deepest condolences to the families affected,” read a statement. The glue-maker clarified that the incident did not occur at Samad Bond Factory or any of its facilities. “Our manufacturing units are only present in Lahore, and this incident has no connection to our company. All claims or reports suggesting otherwise are…

Xiaomi has open-sourced a new foundation model that integrates autonomous driving and embodied artificial intelligence, as the Chinese smartphone and electric-vehicle (EV) manufacturer seeks to enhance its AI capabilities.MiMo-Embodied, which comes after Xiaomi’s first large language model MiMo launched in April, was described as the “first open-source vision-language model” that combined autonomous driving and embodied AI tasks. Technical reports and project files are available on platforms such as Hugging Face and GitHub.The cross-embodied model achieved state-of-the-art performance in both domains, according to Xiaomi It demonstrated “superior” results in task planning, affordance prediction and spatial understanding for embodied AI, while excelling…