In their 2022 book Sinostan, Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen saw Central Asia as China’s “inadvertent empire”. If that is true – and the five-country region embracing Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan (informally called the C5) certainly sits at the heart of China’s Belt and Road Initiative – then Beijing could not have chosen…
BRUSSELS, June 10 (Reuters) – The world has just experienced the second-hottest May since records began, as climate change and the developing El Niño weather pattern conspired to push up average land and sea temperatures, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Wednesday. • The hottest May on record was in 2024,…
As part of its decades-old “multi-vector” foreign policy, based on balancing relations between major powers such as China, Russia, the United States and the European Union, Kazakhstan – Central Asia’s largest country – is now actively diversifying its economic and financial policies. While in the past, Astana sought to strengthen cooperation with the United Arab…
I just spent two weeks in a broken Britain, which is an unfortunately apt description for a country that has fallen from its former glory. Its people are funny, witty, creative, intelligent, sports-mad and educated, part of a society that has constantly evolved over the last millennium, its imperial heritage bringing in cultures from around…
They included Chan Po-ying, former chairwoman of the now-defunct League of Social Democrats opposition group, and activist Virginia Fung King-man. Police said they stopped and searched five men and two women, aged between 17 and 79, for allegedly disrupting order in the area around Great George Street and East Point Road. They were removed from…
Beijing threatened to launch trade probes against the European Union if the 27-member bloc pushes ahead with a proposal to curb imports of heavily subsidized foreign products. European leaders hold the view that China’s global industrial dominance is a result of decades of government subsidies and non-reciprocal market access. Chinese authorities could initiate anti-discrimination and…
The European Union is reportedly planning to propose a temporary lifting of sanctions on Chinese semiconductor manufacturer Yangzhou Yangjie Electronic Technology Co. A Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the matter claims that this comes after European automakers warned that maintaining the restrictions on the Chinese chip company could trigger significant disruptions across supply chains.The…
BERLIN, May 15 (Reuters) – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Friday said he would advise his children against living or studying in the United States at the moment, citing a rapidly changing social climate and limited opportunities even for the highly educated. The remarks highlight tensions between the United States and its European allies under…
Everything Mike Dolan and the ROI team are excited to read, watch and listen to over the weekend. Hello Morning Bid readers! The long-awaited summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping hogged the spotlight this week, despite producing little market-moving news. The real story remains the stalemate in the Middle…
BUDAPEST, May 15 (Reuters) – The media empire built by former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government, a key pillar of the nationalist leader’s 16 years in power, is swiftly unravelling following an election last month that abruptly ended his rule. Within weeks of the vote, which the centre-right opposition led by Peter Magyar won…