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Chinese robotics companies are increasingly banking on quadruped robots as major revenue drivers, a trend highlighted by AgiBot’s recent decision to spin out its four-legged robotics unit into a new subsidiary called AgiQuad, and Amap’s coming launch of a quadruped model.
The move by AgiBot was intended to drive large-scale growth so that the unit would not “live in the shadow of the humanoid...
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The US naval blockade of Iranian ports is not a tactic to force China to pressure Iran into a peace deal, according to analysts.
Rather, the US aimed to end the war through showing its maritime supremacy over the world’s most vital energy chokepoint, they argued.
Washington began to enforce the blockade on Monday, drawing threats of retaliation from Tehran.
It remains unclear how fully the...
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After more than 20 hours of high-level negotiations in Islamabad, US Vice-President J.D. Vance confirmed that Washington and Tehran were walking away without a deal. Iran reportedly refused to accept US terms on its nuclear programme, laying bare the deep strategic divides that continue to stall diplomatic solutions to the conflict.
However, the venue tells a larger story. India has long been...
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The retrial of disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein on a rape charge on which a jury was previously deadlocked started on Tuesday, although he will remain imprisoned for other offences regardless of the verdict.
Weinstein is accused of the third-degree rape of Jessica Mann, who starred in the 2015 romantic comedy This Isn’t Funny.
The judge declared a mistrial last June after the jury foreman...
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Russia and China’s top envoys met in Beijing on Tuesday to discuss the Iran war, Ukraine and Taiwan as Beijing stepped up its Iran war diplomacy and tensions with Washington increased.
In a jab at Washington and US President Donald Trump that did not mention either by name, a Chinese readout of the meeting between Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov noted that the...
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A Parisian man could not believe his luck on Tuesday when he found out he had won a Pablo Picasso painting worth US$1 million with a US$117 raffle ticket.
“How do I check that it’s not a hoax?” said Ari Hodara, 58, after organisers called him following the draw at Christie’s auction house in the French capital.
Hodara described himself as an art amateur fond of Picasso and said he bought his...
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New research suggests that gifted men are less conservative in their political views than men of average cognitive ability.
A study conducted in Germany found that men with higher IQs are less inclined to traditional values, but the lead author, psychologist and intelligence researcher Maximilian Krolo of Saarland University said the researchers did not find these differences among women.
The...
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US President Donald Trump’s son Eric Trump and his wife, Lara, will accompany the president on his trip next month to China, a spokeswoman for the family organisation said on Tuesday.
Two sources earlier said members of Trump’s family, including Eric, were considering joining Trump on his highly anticipated May 14-15 visit, potentially to contribute to US-China business relations.
The...
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Brazil will require foreign partners to process rare earth minerals domestically as a condition for access to its reserves, a senior government official said this week, setting terms that could reshape how Chinese and Western firms compete for resources the country has long exported raw.
“Our doors of Brazil to foreign investment are open, but our position has matured,” Leonardo Durans, a senior...
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A German court on Tuesday sentenced a 28-year-old Chinese student to 11 years and three months in jail for repeatedly drugging and raping his girlfriend and filming the abuse.
In a case reminiscent of that of France’s Gisele Pelicot, the Munich court said the defendant, named only as Zhongyi J., had assaulted his girlfriend while she was unconscious at least seven times.
Zhongyi J. filmed the...