China to power up worlds largest super-cold air battery in the Gobi Desert

The United States is likely to lose its clear edge over China in strategic relations with major nations by 2035, a prominent Chinese political scientist has predicted. Yan Xuetong, honorary dean of Tsinghua University’s Institute of International Relations, said strategic competition between Beijing and Washington was likely to remain intense in the coming decade and…

Hong Kong experienced its warmest winter on record between December and February, according to the city’s forecaster, with a mean temperature of 19.3 degrees Celsius (67 Fahrenheit) – two degrees above normal. The Hong Kong Observatory on Tuesday also attributed the unseasonably warm February to a weaker-than-normal northeast monsoon over southern China for most of…

The toll in a building collapse in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on Sunday rose to five dead, state media reported, as rescuers searched for survivors in the second such incident in weeks. The state-run National News Agency reported “the collapse of an old building” in Tripoli’s Bab al-Tabbaneh neighbourhood, the poorest in the…

As families across China gather for the 2026 Lunar New Year holiday, pre-made dishes at their reunion dinners – the centrepiece of Spring Festival celebrations – have again come under scrutiny. Chinese households, many of which tend to reduce their budget, have increasingly been cautious, following a high-profile row over food transparency and quality involving…

Argentine President Javier Milei on Friday signed into law a so-called “tax innocence” bill, which aims to encourage people to bank dollars stashed under mattresses or in offshore accounts by forgiving a degree of tax evasion. Over years of high inflation and currency controls, Argentines traded their battered pesos for dollars, which they often hoarded…

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers said on Friday they were willing to negotiate after Pakistan ⁠bombed their forces in major cities and said the allies-turned-foes were in “open war”. Pakistan struck the Afghan capital Kabul, the city of Kandahar, where Taliban leaders were based, and other towns, a Taliban spokesman said. The attacks were its first directly…