Thousands of hotels in Europe to sue Booking.com over ‘abusive’ practices

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds is set for a showdown with the Chinese owners of British Steel after the government claimed they demanded hundreds of millions in taxpayer money for the steelworks at Scunthorpe. A search for a new buyer has stalled after Jingye asked for the cash to complete the transfer of the company. The…

The puerile standoff between the US and Russia ought to alert a slumbering public to a risk that is in many ways greater than during the cold war

Nuclear weapons – their lethal menace, dark history and future spread – are back in the headlines again and, as usual, the news is worrying, bordering on desperate. Russia’s decision last week to formally abandon the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty banning medium- and short-range nuclear missiles completes the demolition of a key pillar of global arms control. It will accelerate an already frantic nuclear arms race in Europe and Asia at a moment when US and Russian leaders are taunting each other like schoolboys.

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, has repeatedly threatened the west with nuclear weapons during his war in Ukraine. Last November, Russian forces fired their new Oreshnik hypersonic, nuclear-capable intermediate-range missile at Dnipro. It travels “like a meteorite” at 10 times the speed of sound and can reach any city in Europe, Putin boasted – which, if true, is a clear INF violation. Moscow blames its decision to ditch the treaty on hostile Nato actions. Yet it has long bypassed it in practice, notably by basing missiles in Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave on the Baltic sea, and Belarus.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

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China wants the United States to ease export controls on chips critical for artificial intelligence as part of a trade deal before a possible summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

Chinese officials have told experts in Washington that Beijing wants the Trump administration to relax export restrictions on high-bandwidth memory chips, the newspaper reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.

The White House, State Department, and China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report.

HBM chips, which help perform data-intensive AI tasks quickly, are closely watched by investors due to their use alongside AI graphic processors, particularly Nvidia’s NVDA.O.

The FT said China is concerned because the US HBM controls hamper the ability of Chinese companies such as Huawei to develop their own AI chips.

Successive US administrations have curbed exports of advanced chips to China, looking to stymie Beijing’s AI and defence development.

While this has impacted US firms’ ability to fully address booming demand from China, one of the world’s largest semiconductor markets, it still remains an important revenue driver for American chipmakers.

PTI’s Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Omar Ayub Khan and Opposition Leader in the Senate Shibli Faraz, were removed from their seats, according to notifications by the respective houses’ secretariats that came to light on Friday. On Tuesday, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had disqualified the Senate and National Assembly opposition leaders, Sunni…

In the frenzy of racism and culture warring, the issue of why hotels are used gets overlooked

A broad section of Britain’s right has spent the summer behaving as if it would like a repeat of last year’s racist riots. As politicians and commentators cry “tinderbox Britain” – are they warning us, or willing it on? – far-right extremists have been actively trying to stoke violence. This year, they have pinned their hopes on asylum hotels, an issue where public fears over crime, immigration and the welfare state conveniently converge.

In some places, far-right activists have piggybacked on protests prompted by local grievances. The most significant this year was in Epping, Essex, after an alleged sexual assault by an asylum seeker led to demonstrations that turned violent when they were joined by members of various far-right groups. A similar pattern has unfolded in London’s Canary Wharf, after untrue rumours that some of the Epping hotel residents were being moved there. In other cases, far-right activists have themselves organised the protests. A call has gone out among their online networks for gatherings this weekend in several parts of England.

Daniel Trilling is the author of Lights in the Distance: Exile and Refuge at the Borders of Europe and Bloody Nasty People: The Rise of Britain’s Far Right

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