The US Department of Commerce on Sunday moved to close a year-old potential loophole it had created that may have led companies to export ‌the world’s most advanced chips – such as Nvidia’s most sophisticated Rubin and Blackwell processors, as well as AMD’s MI350x – to Chinese entities located outside China. The unexpected guidance suggests the United States’ best artificial intelligence chips may have been making their way to the subsidiaries of Chinese AI firms based in places such as Malaysia...

Following the ⁠first confirmation of screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite, on a US farm in decades, federal and state officials have fanned out in South Texas, where a calf was found infested this week. US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Thursday no other infestations of cattle or other animals have been detected around the confirmed case. The case in La Pryor, Texas, was a blow to US cattle ranchers who have been bracing for a domestic outbreak of New World screwworm as the fly...

The revised constitution also designates Kim, as chairman of the State Affairs Commission, as North Korea's head of state, replacing previous language that described the post as the country's supreme leader who represents the state.

Jonathan Andic, son of Mango founder Isak Andic, said on Tuesday he was stepping down temporarily as the fashion group’s vice chair after being named a suspect in an investigation into his father’s death, while strongly asserting his innocence. “The attention and focus that my defence in the judicial process currently requires do not allow me to maintain the high level of commitment demanded by my role at the company,” Andic said in an open letter to staff. “A public narrative has been...

Twenty-seven countries have moved since the Iran war started to put in place crisis instruments that could quickly access funding from existing World Bank programmes, according to an internal document viewed by Reuters. The World Bank document did not name the ‌countries or the total amount of funds potentially being sought. The World Bank declined to comment. The document showed that three countries had approved new instruments since the Middle East conflict began on February 28, while the...

United States President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that two US helicopter crew members were “fine” following their rescue by a US Navy drone after their Apache gunship went down in the Iran-controlled Strait of Hormuz.

The US military’s Central Command (Centcom) said the AH-64 Apache went down at around 3am local time on Tuesday (4am PKT) near the coast of Oman while patrolling regional waters. It gave no reason for the crash.

The pair were rescued within about two hours and were in stable condition, Centcom said.

Centcom told Reuters the rescue was carried out by a drone but did not specify the model.

It was not immediately clear whether the Apache had been shot down by Iranian fire, experienced mechanical failure, or encountered another problem.

Asked if he knew what had brought the helicopter down, Trump said a report would be issued later on Tuesday.

“The pilots are fine,” Trump said, speaking on the runway at John F. Kennedy International Airport before returning to Washington, DC.

“Nobody injured.”

The incident happened a day after Iran and Israel said they had halted attacks on each other following an appeal from Trump, though Tehran warned it would resume hostilities if Israel continued to hit Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The resumption of the tenuous ceasefire comes as Washington tries to reach an agreement with Tehran to end their more than three-month-old war.

Trump also told reporters he could have “an idea” for an Iran deal within a few days, without elaborating. The Republican president, struggling with record-low approval ratings ahead of November midterm elections, has often hinted at an imminent deal with Tehran, but none has yet eventuated.

The weekend saw the most direct confrontation between Iran and Israel since a ceasefire in April. Tehran had fired missiles towards Israeli territory late on Sunday, calling the strikes retaliation for attacks on the outskirts of Beirut.

Israel then hit Iranian air defence systems and a petrochemical plant that it claimed was used to produce ballistic missiles. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it retaliated with a strike aimed at a similar Israeli plant in the city of Haifa.

No deaths were reported by authorities on either side.

Trump tells Netanyahu to ‘be careful’

US and Israeli officials said Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Monday.

In an interview with Axios, Trump said he warned Netanyahu that if the Israeli leader went back to war with Iran, he might find himself fighting alone.

“I said, ‘Bibi, you better be careful, or you will be on your own very soon,’” Trump said.

An Israeli military official said Israel was prepared to continue operations for “as long as it takes”, while Iranian officials struck a similarly defiant tone.

A military source quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency said Tehran was ready for a prolonged conflict and could renew strikes against US interests in the region.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said Tehran was exchanging messages with Washington in an atmosphere of “extreme suspicion”.

Tehran has long said any peace deal with the US depends in part on an end to fighting in Lebanon, which Israel invaded in March.

Israel has never halted its Lebanon campaign, which has killed thousands of people, saying the conflict should be treated separately from any US-Iranian ceasefire. Hezbollah has also continued its attacks.

Tehran has continued to block most shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which before the war carried a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas. Washington has imposed its own blockade of Iranian ports.

Trump has said any peace deal must ensure Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon. Tehran denies the US stance, saying its nuclear programme is only for civilian purposes.

Iran’s demands include the lifting of international sanctions, the release of billions of dollars in frozen assets and recognition of its control of the strait.

The Trump administration has proposed a new punitive tariff of 25 per cent on many imports from Brazil, after deciding its practices were unfair on a range of issues from digital trade to illegal deforestation, top trade official Jamieson Greer said late on Monday. The measures, under the Section 301 trade statute, cover areas such as electronic payment services, preferential tariffs, intellectual property protection and ethanol market access as well, the Office of the United States Trade...

Taiwan’s government launched a website on Sunday to encourage Chinese nationals to report intelligence tips, saying it was offering a secure channel to what it says is an increasing number of people who are fed up with the system and want change.

Taiwan and China, which view the democratically governed island as its own territory, have long spied on each other, and Taiwan in particular has reported an increased number of Chinese espionage cases.

Taiwan’s National Security Bureau said on its website that in recent years, China’s economy has faced growing difficulties, while political control has remained “tight”.

“Coupled with a growing range of social and livelihood-related problems, these conditions have fuelled public discontent,” said a statement in Chinese and English. “As a result, an increasing number of individuals have approached relevant agencies in Taiwan, wishing to provide various types of information.”

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The website opens to a one-minute promotional video that the bureau said was AI-generated, showing a Chinese civil servant witnessing colleagues being investigated and removed from their posts.

“Ah, yet another person has been taken away,” the unnamed civil servant says in a northern Chinese accent, with subtitles in the simplified characters used in China. “The old comrades are inexplicably vanishing one by one,” the narrator says.

The video ends with the official buying a mobile phone and typing on it, saying: “Now is the time to change”.

The website is blocked in China, though many in China use VPNs to access other blocked sites like Western social media and search engines.

The bureau called on Chinese nationals at home or abroad to “actively provide information and make changes with courage”.

It said the new tactic was following the lead of agencies in such countries as the US, Britain and Israel.

The channel enables Chinese nationals to provide intelligence-related information to “expand the bureau’s diverse intelligence sources”, it said.

China has tried similar tactics itself. In 2024, China announced an email address where people could report tip-offs about crimes committed by Taiwan “separatists”.

Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying only the island’s people can decide their future.

The US Trade Representative has proposed new duties targeting 60 economies, including Pakistan and India, for alleged failures to act against forced labour, as the Trump administration seeks to rebuild its tariff agenda following legal setbacks.

The proposed tariffs range from 10 per cent to 12.5pc, according to a government filing, and they will undergo a public comment period before a final decision is made.

The move comes months after Washington launched investigations into trading partners, including China, the European Union (EU) and Japan.

The probes looked into whether they took action against the import of goods made with forced labour, and if this impacted US commerce.

On Tuesday, the USTR said that 54 of the economies “failed to impose and effectively enforce a forced labour import prohibition”.

This group includes China, Vietnam, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and India.

Six other economies — Canada, Ecuador, the EU, Indonesia, Mexico and Pakistan — were deemed not to have effectively enforced such prohibitions.

“The failure of our most important trading partners to address the importation of goods made with forced labour is unacceptable,” USTR Jamieson Greer said in a statement.

“This creates a dynamic where American workers are forced to compete globally on an unlevel playing field,” he added.

“We will no longer tolerate this disparity,” he said, adding that “each of our trading partners must do more to ensure that trade does not perversely encourage and entrench forced labour globally”.

The USTR said it determined that it would impose 10pc duties related to the forced labour investigation on imports from Canada, Ecuador, the EU, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Britain.

The trade agency said it would impose additional duties of 12.5pc on the remaining 45 countries that it investigated.

But the proposed tariffs come with various exemptions such as beef, coffee and certain fruits and nuts.

Goods from Canada and Mexico that comply with a North American free trade pact will also be exempt — as will certain textiles and apparel.

The public is invited to provide written comments by July 6, and the USTR will subsequently hold hearings.

The announcement comes ahead of the July 24 expiration of a 10pc temporary tariff imposed by the Trump administration on February 20, the day the Supreme Court struck down US President Donald Trump’s tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

‘Unjustified’

Following the latest tariff proposal, China said on Wednesday it opposed all forms of “unilateral” tariffs and denied allegations of forced labour.

“There is no so-called forced labour in China, and we oppose using this as an excuse for political manipulation,” Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, said at a regular press briefing.

Meanwhile, the European Commission said the tariffs proposed by the US were unjustified and reiterated its commitment to the trade deal sealed with Washington last year.

“The EU considers tariffs imposed on these grounds to be unjustified,” a spokesperson said. “On the EU side, we are on track to ensure implementation of our Joint Statement tariff commitments by the end of June.”

The Swiss government also rejected US findings on how dozens of economies, including Switzerland, deal with goods produced by forced labour.

The Swiss economy ministry said US industry was not being harmed by Switzerland’s practices, and that it had already set out its position on the issue to US authorities.

The Trump administration is planning to tell NATO allies that it will shrink the pool of US military capabilities available to assist the alliance's European nations in a major crisis, according to a report.

Tulsi Gabbard said on Friday she was resigning ⁠from her job as US President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence, saying her husband had been diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer and that she was stepping away from her role to help him. Gabbard advised Trump of her intention to step down during an Oval Office meeting on Friday, Fox News Digital reported earlier. The resignation is effective June 30, it said. A source familiar with the matter said ‌that Gabbard had been forced...

Israel’s military on Wednesday declared a new swathe of southern Lebanon as a combat zone and said residents in the area should move north, warning it would act “with great force” against Lebanese armed group Hezbollah in the zone. The military’s statement, posted on X, ‌appeared to signal further escalation after more than 120 strikes on Tuesday hit Lebanon’s south and east, despite a ceasefire announced on April 16. “We advise residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate to the north of the...