Asia Pacific

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The US will also ‘enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications’ from China and Hong Kong, the State Department said.

The United States will “aggressively revoke” the visas of Chinese students studying in the US, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced, as the Trump administration continues its crackdown on foreign students enrolled at higher education institutions in the country.

Rubio announced the shock move both in a post on X, as well as a statement published late on Wednesday titled “New Visa Policies Put America First, Not China”.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, the US State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields,” the statement said.

“We will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong,” it added.

Rubio’s announcement added to the uncertainty for international students in the US, who have faced intensifying scrutiny over recent months amid the administration’s wider assault on higher education institutions.

On Tuesday, the White House also temporarily suspended the processing of visas for foreign students, ordering embassies and consulates not to allow any additional student or exchange visas “until further guidance is issued”.

The State Department also said it plans to “issue guidance on expanded social media vetting for all such applications”.

US electronic design automation software makers were told via letters to stop supplies to China, the FT reported.

United States President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered US firms that offer software used to design semiconductors to stop selling their services to Chinese groups, the Financial Times has reported, citing people familiar with the move.

Electronic design automation software makers, which include Cadence, Synopsys and Siemens EDA, were told via letters from the US Commerce Department to stop supplying their tech, the report, which was published on Wednesday, said.

A spokesperson for the Commerce Department declined to comment on the letters but said it is reviewing exports of strategic significance to China, while noting that, “in some cases, Commerce has suspended existing export licenses or imposed additional license requirements while the review is pending”.

Shares of Cadence, which declined to comment, closed down by 10.7 percent, while shares of Synopsys fell by 9.6 percent.

Synopsys CEO Sassine Ghazi said in a call with analysts that the company had not received a letter, nor had it heard from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry (BIS) and Security, which enforces export controls.

“We are aware of the reporting and speculations, but Synopsys has not received a notice from BIS. So, our guidance that we are reiterating for the full year, reflects our current understanding of BIS export restrictions as well as our expectations for year-over-year decline in China. We have not received a letter,” Ghazi said.

After the market closed, Synopsys reaffirmed its revenue forecast for 2025. Its shares and those of Cadence bounced back 3.5 percent in trading after the close.

Siemens EDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The software of these firms is used to design both high-end processors as well as simpler products.

While the scope of the policy change described in the report was not immediately clear, any move to strip the software makers of their Chinese customers could deal a blow to their bottom line and to their Chinese chip design customers, which heavily rely on top-of-the-line US software.

“They are the true choke point,” said a former Commerce Department official, who added that rules restricting the export of EDA tools to China have been under consideration since the first Trump administration, but were ruled out as too aggressive.

Synopsys relies on China for about 16 percent of its annual revenue, while China accounts for about 12 percent of annual revenue for Cadence.

Synopsys, which partners with chip companies such as Nvidia, Qualcomm and Intel, provides software and hardware used for designing advanced processors.

A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Myanmar in March 2025, devastating communities across the country. Al Jazeera was the only international broadcaster with a team on the ground to witness the unfolding crisis. What emerged was a story of survival against overwhelming odds.

From the capital Naypyidaw to the spiritual heart of Mandalay, our cameras captured the desperate search for survivors and the scale of destruction. At the epicentre, entire neighbourhoods lay in ruins as hundreds of thousands of people found themselves without shelter, clean water or food. Emergency services struggled to cope with the response required.

The disaster struck a nation already fractured by civil conflict, where a military government appeared ill-equipped to handle the crisis. Over seven days, Al Jazeera correspondent Tony Cheng documented not just the immediate aftermath, but how this natural catastrophe exposed deeper challenges facing the people of Myanmar during their darkest hour.

Investigators in China are working to find the cause of a powerful explosion at a chemical plant that killed five people and injured 19 more. More than 200 emergency workers responded to the blast in Shandong province, which damaged properties up to a kilometre away.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), China and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agreed to “chart a unified and collective path towards a peaceful, prosperous, and just future”, following their meeting in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.

In a world roiled by United States President Donald Trump’s threats of crippling tariffs and rising economic uncertainties, alternative centres of global power were on full display, with the GCC and China attending the ASEAN summit for the group’s inaugural trilateral meeting on Tuesday.

In their joint statement released on Wednesday, the GCC – comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – China, and ASEAN members Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar said they were committed to enhancing economic cooperation.

Chief among that cooperation will be the promotion of free trade, the signatories said, adding they looked “forward to the early completion of the GCC-China Free Trade Agreement negotiations” and the upgrading of the ASEAN-China free trade area.

“We reaffirm our collective resolve to work hand in hand to unleash the full potential of our partnership, and ensure that our cooperation translates into tangible benefits for our peoples and societies,” they said.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim – whose country is currently chair of ASEAN and hosted the summits – told a news conference that the US remains an important market while also noting that ASEAN, the GCC, and China collectively represent a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of $24.87 trillion with a total population of about 2.15 billion.

“This collective scale offers vast opportunities to synergise our markets, deepen innovation, and promote cross-regional investment,” Anwar said.

The prime minister went on to dismiss suggestions that the ASEAN bloc of nations was leaning excessively towards China, stressing that the regional grouping remained committed to maintaining balanced engagement with all major powers, including the US.

James Chin, professor of Asian studies at the University of Tasmania in Australia, told Al Jazeera that the tripartite meeting was particularly important for China, which is being “given a platform where the US is not around”.

ASEAN and the GCC “already view China as a global power”, Chin said.

‘The Gulf is very rich, ASEAN is a tiger, China…’

China’s Premier Li Qiang, who attended the summit, said Beijing was ready to work with the GCC and ASEAN “on the basis of mutual respect and equality”.

China will work with “ASEAN and the GCC to strengthen the alignment of development strategies, increase macro policy coordination, and deepen collaboration on industrial specialisation,” he said.

Former Malaysian ambassador to the US Mohamed Nazri bin Abdul Aziz said China was “quickly filling up the vacuum” in global leadership felt in many countries in the aftermath of Trump’s tariff threats.

The economic future looks bright, Nazri said, for ASEAN, China and the Gulf countries, where economies are experiencing high growth rates while the US and European Union face stagnation.

“The Gulf is very rich, ASEAN is a tiger, China… I cannot even imagine where the future lies,” Nazri said.

Jaideep Singh, an analyst with the Institute of Strategic & International Studies in Malaysia, said ASEAN’s trade with GCC countries has been experiencing rapid growth.

Total trade between ASEAN and the Gulf countries stood at some $63bn as of 2024, making GCC the fifth-largest external trading partner of the regional bloc, while Malaysia’s trade with the GCC grew by 60 percent from 2019 to 2024.

In terms of foreign direct investment, FDI from GCC countries in ASEAN totalled some $5bn as of 2023, of which $1.5bn went to Malaysia alone, Singh said.

However, the US, China, Singapore and the EU still make up the lion’s share of FDI in Malaysian manufacturing and services.

US still ASEAN’s biggest export market

Even as China’s trade with ASEAN grows, economist say, the US still remains a huge market for regional countries.

In early 2024, the US took over China as ASEAN’s largest export market, with 15 percent of the bloc’s exports destined for its markets, up nearly 4 percent since 2018, said Carmelo Ferlito, CEO of the Center for Market Education (CME), a think tank based in Malaysia and Indonesia.

“The US is also the largest source of cumulative foreign direct investment in ASEAN, with total stock reaching nearly $480bn in 2023 – almost double the combined US investments in China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan,” Ferlito said.

Israel’s war on Gaza was also highlighted at the ASEAN-GCC-China meeting on Tuesday.

Delegates condemned attacks against civilians and called for a durable ceasefire and unhindered delivery of fuel, food, essential services, and medicine throughout the Palestinian territory.

Supporting a two-state solution to the conflict, the joint communique also called for the release of captives and arbitrarily-detained people, and an end to the “illegal presence of the State of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory as soon as possible”.

The civil war in Myanmar was also a focus of the talks among ASEAN members at their summit on Tuesday, who called for an extension and expansion of a ceasefire among the warring sides, which was declared following the earthquake that struck the country in March. The ceasefire is due to run out by the end of May. However, human rights groups have documented repeated air attacks by the military regime on the country’s civilian population despite the purported temporary cessation of fighting.

Zachary Abuza, professor of Southeast Asia politics and security issues at the Washington-based National War College, said that while Prime Minister Anwar may be “more proactive” – in his role as ASEAN chair – in wanting to resolve the conflict, Myanmar’s military rulers were “not a good faith actor” in peace talks.

“The military has absolutely no interest in anything resembling a power-sharing agreement,” he said.

Foreign minister Wang Yi is meeting top diplomats from 11 Pacific nations in the Chinese city of Xiamen.

China is hosting a high-level meeting with 11 Pacific Island nations as it seeks to deepen ties and build what it calls a “closer” community with “a shared future” in the strategic region.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is chairing the meeting in the city of Xiamen on Wednesday.

The president of Kiribati, Taneti Maamau, and top diplomats from Niue, Tonga, Nauru, Micronesia, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Cook Islands, Fiji and Samoa are attending.

The two-day meeting is the third such gathering, but the first to happen in person in China.

Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing, said the diplomats are expected to discuss trade, infrastructure development, poverty alleviation, sustainability and climate change.

“For China, this is an opportunity to extend its influence and expand economic ties at a time when the United States is showing very little interest in this region, and we know increasingly that many of those countries are more aligned on China on things like investment, infrastructure, trade and even security assistance,” she said.

Global uncertainty

The meeting comes as United States President Donald Trump’s cuts to foreign aid and the threat of tariffs fuel global uncertainty. Analysts say this has left the door open for China to step in.

“This lack of certainty makes the US a very challenging partner to work with,” said Tess Newton at the Griffith Asia Institute. “Whereas other partners including China can offer, well you know we were here yesterday, we’re here today, and we expect to be here tomorrow.”

The Chinese foreign ministry, announcing the meeting last week, said the objective of the meeting was to “jointly build an even closer China-Pacific Island countries community with a shared future”.

Analysts say that for Beijing, that translates to greater economic aid, diplomatic engagement and the pursuit of a regional security pact.

China has already signed a security accord with the Solomon Islands in 2022, a year after deploying police to the ground in the capital, Honiara, following a series of riots there.

Beijing has also sent advisers to Vanuatu and Kiribati and wants to lock in a similar pact with other island nations.

“What China is trying to do … is to insert itself as a security player and in some cases through the angle of contributing to the individual security needs of Pacific countries such as policing,” said Mihai Sora, director of the Pacific Islands Program at the Lowy Institute in Australia.

The meeting in Xiamen is “an opportunity for China” to push its goals “in its own space, on its own turf and on its own terms,” he added.

Taiwan

The topic of Taiwan, the self-ruled island that China claims as its own and lies off the coast of Xiamen, is also expected to be discussed at this meeting.

China has been gradually whittling away at the number of countries in the Pacific that retain ties with Taiwan, and in January of last year, Nauru also switched recognition to Beijing.

Taiwan now has three remaining allies in the region – Marshall Islands, Palau and Tuvalu.

Al Jazeera’s Yu said the region is of strategic, military and diplomatic significance for China.

“If you look at the region, these countries are very small, their economies are small and only one of them has a population that exceeds one million. That is Papua New Guinea,” she said.

“But the region is strategically extremely important to Beijing because it’s home to crucial shipping lanes, deep sea cables, deep sea ports and potential mineral deposits underwater. Militarily, it could be strategically important, because if there could be any conflict in the future, this area could be important in terms of launching potential forward attacks on US territory, and also US ally Australia is very close by.”

Trump’s latest comments come as China, North Korea, Russia say the Golden Dome missile defence system will create ‘space arms race’.

United States President Donald Trump says he has told Canada it will have to pay $61bn to be part of his proposed Gold Dome missile defence system “if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation”.

In a post on TruthSocial, Trump claimed Canada “very much wants to be part of our fabulous Golden Dome System” and would gain free access if it joins with the US.

Participating in the proposed defence system would cost Canada “ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State”, Trump said, adding, “They are considering the offer!”

Trump’s post came just hours after Canada’s parliament hosted the UK’s King Charles III for a rare royal speech in which the monarch emphasised Canada’s sovereignty in “dangerous and uncertain” times, and amid the US president’s exhortations for the country to become part of the US.

Following the king’s speech, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told Canadian Public broadcaster CBC that he hopes Canada will join ReArm Europe by July 1, in an effort to reduce dependence on the US for weapons.

Canada did not immediately respond to Trump’s latest comment, but Carney has previously confirmed his country has held “high-level” talks on the defence system issue with the US.

Funding, timeline uncertain

In total, Trump has claimed the Golden Dome system will cost some $175bn and would be completed by the end of his current term in 2029, although defence industry experts have questioned the feasibility of this timeline and budget.

Trump is hoping to secure an initial $25bn funding for the system through the sweeping “Big, Beautiful Bill” which is next to go up for a vote in the Senate after narrowly passing the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives last week.

The bill boosts spending on the military and border enforcement while cutting funding for social programmes, including Medicaid and food assistance that helped tens of millions of low-income Americans.

The Golden Dome is modelled after Israel’s Iron Dome, which also receives significant funding from the US, including $500m per year for its upkeep.

It is unclear how Trump would scale up the Iron Dome to cover the entire US, since Israel is only about the size of New Jersey, one of the smaller states in the US.

The Iron Dome is also designed to target short-range missiles, with a range of 1,000km (about 620 miles), while the main threat to the US would likely come from long-range ballistic and hypersonic missiles.

Golden Dome will create ‘space arms race’

China, North Korea and Russia have all criticised Trump’s plan to put weapons in space, which the US president described in detail for the first time last week.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs swiftly responded, with spokeswoman Mao Ning saying the plan “heightens the risk of space becoming a battlefield, fuels an arms race, and undermines international security”.

“The United States puts its own interests first and is obsessed with seeking its own absolute security, which violates the principle that no country’s security should come at the expense of others,” Mao Ning said.

North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also responded, saying the US is “hell-bent on the moves to militarise outer space”.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday that the Golden Dome project undermines the foundations of “strategic stability” as it involves the creation of a global missile defence system.

According to Russia’s state news agency TASS, Zakharova said developing the Golden Dome would also lead to development of the “means of pre-launch missile destruction and infrastructure that ensures their use”.

“This is already a literal manifestation of the US’s highly dangerous doctrinal course toward delivering so-called preventive, but essentially first strikes,” she said, warning it would turn space into a “weaponised environment” and an “arena of armed confrontation”.

Southeast Asian leaders are set to hold their first ever summit with China and the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), as they seek to insulate their trade-dependent economies from the effect of steep tariffs from the United States.

The meeting, in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, is taking place on Tuesday, on the second day of the annual summit of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

It follows separate talks between leaders of the ASEAN and the GCC, which comprises of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, opening the ASEAN-GCC summit, said stronger ties between the two blocs would be key to enhancing interregional collaboration, building resilience and securing sustainable prosperity.

“I believe the ASEAN-GCC partnership has never been more important than it is today, as we navigate an increasingly complex global landscape marked by economic uncertainty and geopolitical challenges,” Anwar said.

Malaysia is the current chair of ASEAN, which also includes Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

In written remarks before the meetings, Anwar said “a transition in the geopolitical order is underway” and that “the global trading system is under further strain, with the recent imposition of US unilateral tariffs.”

With protectionism surging, the world is also bearing witness to “multilateralism breaking apart at the seams”, he added.

China calls for stronger ties

China’s Premier Li Qiang, who arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Monday, will join ASEAN and the GCC in their first such meeting on Tuesday. He met with Anwar on Monday and called for expanded trade and investment ties between Beijing, ASEAN and the GCC.

“At a time when unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise and world economic growth is sluggish,” Li said, China, ASEAN and GCC countries “should strengthen coordination and cooperation and jointly uphold open regionalism and true multilateralism”.

China is willing to work with Malaysia to “promote closer economic cooperation among the three parties” and respond to global challenges, Li told Anwar.

ASEAN has maintained a policy of neutrality, engaging both Beijing and Washington, but US President Donald Trump’s threats of sweeping tariffs came as a blow.

Six of the bloc’s members were among the worst hit, with tariffs between 32 percent and 49 percent.

Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs in April for most of the world, and this month struck a similar deal with key rival China, easing trade war tensions.

Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from Kuala Lumpur, said ASEAN members are “very much looking at building ties with other parts of the world, in particular China, but also the Middle East” to strengthen their economic resilience.

“A measure of the importance that the GCC is also placing on this meeting is the delegation that has been sent here and the seniority of its members,” he added. “The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, is here, and we have crown princes from Kuwait and also Bahrain. We also have a deputy prime minister from Oman.”

Anwar said Monday he had also written to Trump to request an ASEAN-US summit this year, showing “we observe seriously the spirit of centrality.” However, his Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan said Washington had not yet responded.

‘Timely, calculated’

ASEAN has traditionally served as “a middleman of sorts” between developed economies like the US and China, said Chong Ja Ian from the National University of Singapore (NUS).

“Given the uncertainty and unpredictability associated with economic relations with the United States, ASEAN member states are looking to diversify,” he told the AFP news agency.

“Facilitating exchanges between the Gulf and People’s Republic of China is one aspect of this diversification.”

Malaysia, which opened the bloc’s 46th summit on Monday, is the main force behind the initiative, he said.

China, which has suffered the brunt of Trump’s tariffs, is also looking to shore up its other markets.

Premier Li’s participation is “both timely and calculated”, Khoo Ying Hooi from the University of Malaya told AFP.

“China sees an opportunity here to reinforce its image as a reliable economic partner, especially in the face of Western decoupling efforts.”

Beijing and Washington engaged in an escalating flurry of tit-for-tat levies until a meeting in Switzerland saw an agreement to slash them for 90 days.

Chinese goods still face higher tariffs than most, though.

Here’s where things stand on Tuesday, May 27:

Fighting:

• Ukraine says Russia launched a record number of drones overnight on Monday, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy describing the attacks as a sign that Moscow is “acting with impunity”.
• Ukrainian air defences downed most of the 355 drones, but several broke through defences, causing casualties, according to authorities. Two elderly women were killed in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, the regional governor said.
• Russia, meanwhile, accused Ukraine of launching aerial attacks on its “social infrastructure”. The Ministry of Defence said it shot down at least 48 Ukrainian drones on Monday, after shooting down 96 overnight.
• Russia’s state TASS news agency, citing the Defence Ministry, reported that Russian forces have taken over the villages of Volodymyrivka and Belovody in the northeastern region of Sumy.
• The governor of Sumy said Russian forces had captured four other villages as part of an attempt to create a “buffer zone” on Ukrainian territory. He identified them as Novenke, Basivka, Veselivka and Zhuravka, and said that residents had long been evacuated.
• The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office said Russian attacks have killed 630 Ukrainian children and wounded 1,960 since the beginning of the war.
• Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs special envoy Rodion Miroshnik has accused the Ukrainian military of causing more than 400 civilian casualties in April, including with “inhumane methods of warfare”.

Military aid

• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced that Ukraine’s key Western allies are no longer limiting the range of weapons they supply, a move the Kremlin said would be “dangerous”.

• Ukraine says it has confirmed information that China is supplying a range of important products to Russian military plants, including tooling machines, special chemical products, gunpowder and components specifically to defence manufacturing industries.

Politics and diplomacy

• The Kremlin responded to United States President Donald Trump’s remark that Putin has gone “absolutely crazy” over the scale of Russian air attacks, suggesting the US leader may be experiencing “emotional overload”.
• It also said that serious work on Russia’s proposal for a possible peace deal for the war in Ukraine was ongoing and that a draft had not yet been submitted. “This is a serious draft, a draft of a serious document that demands careful checks and preparation,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
• Zelenskyy said Russia launched more than 900 drones as well as missiles towards Ukraine over three nights, and again called for intensified pressure on Moscow. “There is no military sense in this, but it is an obvious political choice – a choice by Putin, a choice by Russia – a choice to continue the war and destroy lives,” the Ukrainian leader said in his nightly video address.
• French President Emmanuel Macron said he believes Trump is beginning to see that Putin “lied” to him about the war in Ukraine. He also called for the imposition of a deadline for Moscow to agree to a ceasefire, backed up by the threat of “massive sanctions”./li>
• Danish Prime Minister Mette Fredericton also said that Russia’s attacks on Ukraine over the weekend proved that Moscow is not interested in peace.
• Finland summoned Russia’s Helsinki ambassador to ask for an explanation regarding a suspected violation of Finnish airspace which took place last week. The NATO member said on Friday that it believed two Russian military aircraft entered its airspace off the coast of Porvoo in the southern part of the country.

The layoffs come days after US President Donald Trump threatened 50 percent tariffs on EU goods.

Swedish automaker Volvo is set to cut 3,000 white-collar jobs amid restructuring efforts as prices begin to rise due to tariff-driven uncertainty.

The company announced the news on Monday. The layoffs come as the Swedish automaker tries to resurrect its rock-bottom share price and drum up better demand for its cars by restructuring part of its business and cutting costs.

CEO Hakan Samuelsson, who was recently brought back to the role after heading the company for a decade until 2022, unveiled a programme in April to slash costs by $1.9bn (18 billion Swedish crowns), including a substantial cut to Volvo’s white-collar staff, who make up 40 percent of its workforce.

“It’s white collar in almost all areas, including R&D  [research and development], communication, human resources,” Samuelsson told the Reuters news agency.

The layoffs represent around 15 percent of the company’s office staff, Volvo Cars said in a statement, and would incur a one-time restructuring cost of $160m (1.5 billion crowns).

Volvo Cars’ new CFO Fredrik Hansson told Reuters that while all of its departments and locations would be impacted, most of the redundancies will happen in Gothenburg.

“It’s tailored to make us structurally more efficient, and then how that plays out might vary a bit depending on the area. But no stone is left unturned,” Hansson said.

With most of its production based in Europe and China, Volvo Cars is more exposed to new United States tariffs than many of its European rivals, and has said it could become impossible to export its most affordable cars to the US.

The company said in a press release that it would finalise a new structural setup by the third quarter of this year.

Volvo withdrew its financial guidance as it announced its cost cuts last month, pointing to unpredictable markets amid weaker consumer confidence and trade tariffs causing turmoil in the global auto industry.

The layoff announcement comes only days after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 50 percent tariff on imports from the European Union from June 1. On Monday, however, he backed away from that date, restoring a July 9 deadline to allow for talks between Washington and Brussels.

As a result, Volvo’s CEO said the move would make it harder for it to sell one of its electric vehicles (EVs) — the EX30 EV that is made in Belgium — in the US market.

Ties with China remain sensitive within the Catholic Church over a 2018 deal between the Holy See and Beijing.

Newly elected Pope Leo XIV has asked for prayers for China’s Catholics in his first reference to one of the most contentious issues that the Catholic Church and his papacy face in the arena of geopolitics.

Speaking on Sunday from the window of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, the pontiff recalled the World Day of Prayer for the Church in China, which falls each May 24 – a feast initiated by Pope Benedict XVI.

“In the churches and shrines of China and throughout the world, prayers were raised to God as a sign of concern and affection for Chinese Catholics and their communion with the universal church,” Leo said to about 35,000 faithful.

The pope hoped the prayers “obtain for them and for us the grace to be strong and joyful witnesses of the Gospel, even in the midst of trials, to always promote peace and harmony”, he said.

Pope Benedict XVI, who headed the church from 2005 until 2013, established the feast as part of his efforts to unify China’s estimated 12 million Catholics, who were divided between an official, state-controlled church that didn’t recognise papal authority, and an underground church that remained loyal to Rome through decades of persecution.

Ties with China remain a deeply sensitive issue within the church as some clergymen reject a 2018 deal between the Holy See and China that gave Beijing a say in the appointment of Catholic bishops there, since Catholics were repressed by the Communist Party. 

The agreement was aimed at uniting the flock, regularising the status of seven bishops who weren’t recognised by Rome, and thawing decades of estrangement between China and the Vatican.

While details of the agreement were never released, Pope Francis insisted he retained veto power over the ultimate choice.

Critics, particularly on the Catholic right wing, believed Francis had caved to Beijing’s demands and sold out the underground faithful in China. The Vatican has said it was the best deal it could get, and it has been renewed periodically since then.

Pope Leo will have to decide whether to continue renewing the accord. There have been some apparent violations on the Beijing side, with some unilateral appointments that occurred without papal consent.

The issue came to a head just before the conclave that elected Leo, when the Chinese church proceeded with the preliminary election of two bishops, a step that comes before official consecration.

The Vatican has been working for years to try to improve relations with China that were officially severed over seven decades ago when the Communists came to power.

Relations had long been fraught over China’s insistence on its exclusive right to name bishops as a matter of national sovereignty, while the Vatican insisted on the pope’s exclusive right to name the successors of the original Apostles.

In Cox’s Bazar, the world’s largest refugee camp, three Rohingya artists are defying cultural erasure. Through painting, music, and photography, they preserve the memory of a people long persecuted in Myanmar. This Talk to Al Jazeera special looks beyond the headlines of displacement and genocide investigations into the creative resistance of a stateless community. As Myanmar continues to deny them recognition, these artists are fighting back with colour, sound, and story, refusing to let their heritage disappear.

Critics say the Cambodian government’s attacks on opposition members and activists have gone global.

On January 7, 2025, former Cambodian opposition politician, Lim Kimya, was gunned down outside a busy bus station in central Bangkok.

A former Thai marine confessed to carrying out the hit as a gun for hire, but two Cambodians with ties to their country’s governing party are on the run, suspected of organising the murder.

While Lim Kimya’s family and friends are seeking justice, Cambodia’s prime minister, Hun Manet, denies his government had any involvement.

101 East investigates the brazen killing and Cambodia’s increasingly repressive government.

UNHCR says two shipwrecks on May 9 and 10 could be the ‘deadliest tragedy at sea’ involving Rohingya so far this year.

At least 427 Rohingya, Myanmar’s Muslim minority, may have perished at sea in two shipwrecks on May 9 and 10, the United Nations said, in what would be another deadly incident for the persecuted group.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR) said in a statement on Friday that – if confirmed – the two incidents would be the “deadliest tragedy at sea” involving Rohingya refugees so far this year.

“The UN refugee agency is gravely concerned about reports of two boat tragedies off the coast of Myanmar earlier this month,” UNHCR said in the statement, adding that it was still working to confirm the exact circumstances surrounding the shipwrecks.

According to the agency, preliminary information indicated that a vessel carrying 267 people sank on May 9, with only 66 people surviving, and a second ship with 247 Rohingya on board capsized on May 10, with just 21 survivors.

The Rohingya on board were either leaving Bangladesh’s huge Cox’s Bazar refugee camps or fleeing Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine, the statement said.

Persecuted in Myanmar for decades, thousands of Rohingya risk their lives every year to flee repression and civil war in their country, often going to sea on board makeshift boats.

In a post on X, UNHCR High Commissioner Filippo Grandi said news of the double tragedy was “a reminder of the desperate situation” of the Rohingya “and of the hardship faced by refugees in Bangladesh as humanitarian aid dwindles”.

In 2017, more than a million Rohingya fled to neighbouring Bangladesh from Myanmar’s Rakhine State following a brutal crackdown by Myanmar’s military.

At least 180,000 of those who fled are now facing deportation back to Myanmar while those who stayed behind in Rakhine have endured dire conditions confined to refugee camps.

In 2021, the military launched a coup in Myanmar, ousting the elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. Since then, Rakhine has been the scene of fierce fighting between the military and the Arakan Army, an ethnic minority rebel group, for control of the state amid a widening civil war in the country.

“The dire humanitarian situation, exacerbated by funding cuts, is having a devastating impact on the lives of Rohingya, with more and more resorting to dangerous journeys to seek safety, protection and a dignified life for themselves and their families,” said Hai Kyung Jun, who leads UNHCR’s regional bureau for Asia and the Pacific.

In 2024, some 657 Rohingya died in the region’s waters, according to UNHCR.

Humanitarian organisations have been hit hard by funding cuts from major donors, led by the United States administration of President Donald Trump and other Western countries, as they prioritise defence spending prompted by growing fears of Russia and China.

UNHCR is seeking financial support to stabilise the lives of Rohingya refugees in host countries, including Bangladesh, and those displaced inside Myanmar.

Its request for $383m for support in 2025 is currently only 30 percent funded, the agency said.

EU official says a trade deal ‘must be guided by mutual respect, not threats’ after the US president says talks with the bloc are ‘going nowhere’.

The European Union has said it will defend its interests after United States President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 50-percent tariff on all goods from the 27-member bloc.

The EU’s top trade official, Maros Sefcovic, said in a post on X that he spoke on Friday with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on the issue.

“The EU is fully engaged, committed to securing a deal that works for both,” he said, adding that the EU Commission remains ready to work in good faith towards an agreement.

“EU-US trade is unmatched and must be guided by mutual respect, not threats. We stand ready to defend our interests.”

Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he is “recommending” a huge 50 percent duty on the EU starting on June 1 since talks with them “are going nowhere”.

Speaking later in the Oval Office, the Republican president emphasised that he was not seeking a deal with the EU but might delay the tariffs if more European companies made major investments in the US.

“I’m not looking for a deal,” Trump told the reporters. “We’ve set the deal. It’s at 50 percent.”

European leaders warned the tariffs will hurt both sides.

German economy minister Katherina Reiche said everything must be done “to ensure that the European Commission reaches a negotiated solution with the United States” while French foreign minister Laurent Saint-Martin said the bloc prefers de-escalation but is “ready to respond”.

If implemented, the tariffs would mean that the EU will have higher import taxes on its hundreds of billions worth of exported goods compared with China, which had its tariffs cut earlier this month to allow more negotiations between Washington, DC, and Beijing.

In early April, Trump announced a 20 percent tariff on most EU goods but brought it down to 10 percent until July 8 to allow time for more negotiations.

Trump has complained that existing frameworks are “unfair” to US companies as the European bloc sells more goods to its ally than it buys from it.

Trump on Friday also warned that the US tech giant Apple could also be hit with a 25 percent import tax on all iPhones not manufactured but sold in the US.

His announcements online dealt another blow to stock markets both in the US and in the EU, with the S&P 500 down about 0.8 percent and the pan-European STOXX 600 index falling about 1.2 percent.

Science and technology ministry accuses messaging app of not cooperating in combating alleged crimes committed by users in Vietnam.

Vietnam has ordered the country’s telecommunication service providers to block the messaging app Telegram for not cooperating in combating alleged crimes committed by users of the platform, in a move that Telegram said was surprising.

A report on the government’s news portal on Friday said Vietnam’s telecommunications department at the Ministry of Science and Technology sent letters to internet service providers warning that there were “signs of law violation” on Telegram.

The ministry said internet service providers should “deploy solutions and measures to prevent Telegram’s activities in Vietnam”.

The letter dated May 21 ordered the providers to take measures against Telegram and report back to the ministry by June 2.

Almost 70 percent of 9,600 channels on Telegram in Vietnam contain “poisonous and bad information”, the government said in its report on the app, quoting police. Groups and associations on Telegram, involving tens of thousands of people, had disseminated “antistate documents” and were involved in “reactionary activities”, the government added.

The government also claimed that some groups on Telegram also used the app to sell users’ data, and were involved in drug trafficking or had “terrorist” links.

Vietnam’s hardline administration generally moves swiftly to stamp out dissent and arrest critics, especially those who find an audience on social media.

New rules came into force in Vietnam last year that required platforms such as Facebook and TikTok to verify user identities and hand over data to authorities, in what critics described as the latest attack on freedom of expression in the communist-ruled country.

In a statement to the Reuters news agency, a representative of Telegram said the company was “surprised” by the Vietnamese government’s move.

“We have responded to legal requests from Vietnam on time. The deadline for the response is May 27, and we are processing the request,” the Telegram representative said.

An official at Vietnam’s Science and Technology Ministry told the Reuters news agency that the decision followed Telegram’s failure to share user data with the government as part of criminal investigations.

Telegram was still available in Vietnam as of Friday.

According to the Data Report website, there were 79.8 million individuals using the internet in Vietnam at the start of 2025, and according to the data extraction company SOAX, there were 11.8 million Telegram users.

With close to one billion users worldwide, Telegram has been involved in controversies across the world related to security and data breach concerns.

Telegram’s Russian-born founder and chief executive, Pavel Durov, was detained at a Paris airport and later charged with several counts of failing to curb extremist and “terrorist” content on the app. He reportedly remains in France and is unable to leave without authorisation from authorities.

Bangkok, Thailand – Over several years in the mid-1960s, the crumbling ruins of an ancient temple in northeast Thailand were picked clean by local looters.

Possibly hundreds of centuries-old statues that were long buried beneath the soft, verdant grounds around the temple were stolen.

To this day, all the known artefacts from the pillaging spree, collectively known as the Prakhon Chai hoard, sit scattered thousands of miles away in museums and collections across the United States, Europe and Australia.

In a matter of weeks, though, the first of those statues will begin their journey home to Thailand.

The acquisitions committee of San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum recommended the release last year of four bronze statues from the hoard, which had been held in its collection since the late 1960s.

San Francisco city’s Asian Art Commission, which manages the museum, then approved the proposal on April 22, officially setting the pieces free.

Some six decades after the late British antiquities dealer Douglas Latchford is suspected of spiriting the statues out of the country, they are expected to arrive back in Thailand within a month or two.

“We are the righteous owners,” Disapong Netlomwong, senior curator for the Office of National Museums at Thailand’s Fine Arts Department, told Al Jazeera.

“It is something that our ancestors … have made, and it should be exhibited here to show the civilisation and the belief of the people,” said Disapong, who also serves on Thailand’s Committee for the Repatriation of Stolen Artefacts.

The imminent return of the statues is the latest victory in Thailand’s quest to reclaim its pilfered heritage.

Their homecoming also exemplifies the efforts of countries across the world to retrieve pieces of their own stolen history that still sit in display cases and in the vaults of some of the West’s top museums.

From Thai temples to the Acropolis in Athens

Latchford, a high-profile Asian art dealer who came to settle in Bangkok and lived there until his death in 2020 at 88 years of age, is believed to have earned a fortune from auction houses, private collectors and museums around the world who acquired his smuggled ancient artefacts from Thailand and neighbouring Cambodia.

In 2021, Latchford’s daughter, Nawapan Kriangsak, agreed to return her late father’s private collection of more than 100 artefacts, valued at more than $50m, to Cambodia.

Though never convicted during his lifetime, Latchford was charged with falsifying shipping records, wire fraud and a host of other crimes related to antiquities smuggling by a US federal grand jury in 2019.

He died the following year, before the case against him could go to trial.

In 2023 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York agreed to return 16 pieces tied to Latchford’s smuggling network to Cambodia and Thailand.

San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum has also previously returned pieces to Thailand – two intricately carved stone lintels taken from a pair of temples dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries, in 2021.

While Thailand and Cambodia have recently fared relatively well in efforts to reclaim their looted heritage from US museum collections, Greece has not had such luck with the British Museum in London.

Perhaps no case of looted antiquities has grabbed more news headlines than that of the so-called “Elgin Marbles”.

The 2,500-year-old friezes, known also as the Parthenon Marbles, were hacked off the iconic Acropolis in Athens in the early 1800s by agents of Lord Elgin, Britain’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which controlled Greece at that time.

Elgin claimed he took the marbles with the permission of the Ottomans and then sold them in 1816 to the British Museum in London, where they remain.

Greece has been demanding the return of the artefacts since the country’s declaration of independence in 1832 and sent an official request to the museum in 1983, according to the nongovernmental Hellenic Institute of Cultural Diplomacy.

“Despite all these efforts, the British government has not deviated from its positions over the years, legally considering the Parthenon marbles to belong to Britain. They have even passed laws to prevent the return of cultural artefacts,” the institute said.

‘Colonialism is still alive and well’

Tess Davis, executive director of the Antiquities Coalition, a Washington-based nonprofit campaigning against the illicit trade of ancient art and artefacts, said that “colonialism is still alive and well in parts of the art world”.

“There is a mistaken assumption by some institutions that they are better carers, owners, custodians of these cultural objects,” Davis told Al Jazeera.

But Davis, who has worked on Cambodia’s repatriation claims with US museums, says the “custodians” defence has long been debunked.

“These antiquities were cared for by [their] communities for centuries, in some cases for millennia, before there was … a market demand for them, leading to their looting and trafficking, but we still do see resistance,” she said.

Brad Gordon, a lawyer representing the Cambodian government in its ongoing repatriation of stolen artefacts, has heard museums make all sorts of claims to defend retaining pieces that should be returned to their rightful homelands.

Excuses from museums include claiming that they are not sure where pieces originated from; that contested items were acquired before laws banned their smuggling; that domestic laws block their repatriation, or that the ancient pieces deserve a more global audience than they would receive in their home country.

Still, none of those arguments should keep a stolen piece from coming home, Gordon said.

“If we believe the object is stolen and the country of origin wishes for it to come home, then the artefact should be returned,” he said.

Old attitudes have started breaking down though, and more looted artefacts are starting to find their way back to their origins.

“There’s definitely a growing trend toward doing the right thing in this area, and … I hope that more museums follow the Asian Art Museum’s example. We’ve come a long way, but there’s still a long way to go,” Davis said.

Much of the progress, Davis believes, is down to growing media coverage of stolen antiquities and public awareness of the problem in the West, which has placed mounting pressure on museums to do the right thing.

In 2022, the popular US comedy show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver dedicated a whole episode to the topic. As Oliver said, if you go to Greece and visit the Acropolis you might notice “some odd details”, such as sections missing from sculptures – which are now in Britain.

“Honestly, if you are ever looking for a missing artefact, nine times out of 10 it’s in the British Museum,” Oliver quips.

Gordon also believes a generational shift in thinking is at play among those who once trafficked in the cultural heritage of other countries.

“For example, the children of many collectors, once they are aware of the facts of how the artefacts were removed from the country of origin, want their parents to return them,” he said.

Proof of the past

The four bronze statues the San Francisco museum will soon be returning to Thailand date back to the 7th and 9th centuries.

Thai archaeologist Tanongsak Hanwong said that period places them squarely in the Dvaravati civilisation, which dominated northeast Thailand, before the height of the Khmer empire that would build the towering spires of Angkor Wat in present-day Cambodia and come to conquer much of the surrounding region centuries later.

Three of the slender, mottled figures, one nearly a metre tall (3.2 feet), depict Bodhisattva – Buddhist adherents on the path to nirvana – and the other the Buddha himself in a wide, flowing robe.

Tanongsak, who brought the four pieces in the San Francisco collection to the attention of Thailand’s stolen artefacts repatriation committee in 2017, said they and the rest of the Prakhon Chai hoard are priceless proof of Thailand’s Buddhist roots at a time when much of the region was still Hindu.

“The fact that we do not have any Prakhon Chai bronzes on display anywhere [in Thailand], in the national museum or local museums whatsoever, it means we do not have any evidence of the Buddhist history of that period at all, and that’s strange,” he said.

The Fine Arts Department first wrote to San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum about the statues’ illicit provenance in 2019, but started to make progress on having them returned only when the US Department of Homeland Security got involved on Thailand’s behalf.

Robert Mintz, the museum’s chief curator, said staff could find no evidence that the statues had been trafficked in their own records.

But they were convinced they had been looted and smuggled out of Thailand – and of Latchford’s involvement – once Homeland Security provided proof, with the help of Thai researchers.

“Once that evidence was presented and they heard it, their feeling was the appropriate place for these would be back in Thailand,” Mintz said of the museum’s staff and acquisition committee.

‘Pull back the curtain’

The San Francisco Asian Art Museum went a step further when it finally resolved to return the four statues to Thailand.

It also staged a special exhibit around the pieces to highlight the very questions the experience had raised regarding the theft of antiquities.

The exhibition – Moving Objects: Learning from Local and Global Communities – ran in San Francisco from November to March.

“One of our goals was to try to indicate to the visiting public to the museum how important it is to look historically at where works of art have come from,” Mintz said.

“To pull back the curtain a bit, to say, these things do exist within American collections and now is the time to address challenges that emerge from past collecting practice,” he said.

Mintz says Homeland Security has asked the Asian Art Museum to look into the provenance of at least another 10 pieces in its collection that likely came from Thailand.

Tess Davis, of the Antiquities Coalition campaign group, said the exhibition was a very unusual, and welcome, move for a museum in the process of giving up looted artefacts.

In Thailand, Disapong and Tanongsak say the Asian Art Museum’s decision to recognise Thailand’s rightful claim to the statues could also help them start bringing the rest of the Prakhon Chai hoard home, including 14 more known pieces in other museums around the US, and at least a half-dozen scattered across Europe and Australia.

“It is indeed a good example, because once we can show the world that the Prakhon Chai bronzes were all exported from Thailand illegally, then probably, hopefully some other museums will see that all the Prakhon Chai bronzes they have must be returned to Thailand as well,” Tanongsak said.

There are several other artefacts besides the Prakhon Chai hoard that Thailand is also looking to repatriate from collections around the world, he said.

Davis said the repatriation of stolen antiquities is still being treated by too many with collections as an obstacle when it should be seen, as the Asian Art Museum has, as an opportunity.

“It’s an opportunity to educate the public,” Davis said.

“It’s an opportunity to build bridges with Southeast Asia,” she added, “and I hope other institutions follow suit.”

Investors interpreted Trump’s comments to mean Nippon Steel had received his approval for its takeover of US Steel.

United States President Donald Trump has expressed support for Nippon Steel’s $14.9bn bid for US Steel, saying their “planned partnership” would create jobs and help the US economy.

Shares of US Steel soared 21 percent on Friday after Trump’s comments as investors interpreted the president’s post on Truth Social to mean Nippon Steel had received his approval for its long-planned takeover, the last major hurdle for the deal.

“This will be a planned partnership between United States Steel and Nippon Steel, which will create at least 70,000 jobs, and add $14 Billion Dollars to the US Economy,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Friday.

This week, the Reuters news agency reported that Nippon Steel has said if the merger is approved, it would invest $14bn into US Steel’s operations, including up to $4bn in a new steel mill.

Trump added that the bulk of that investment would occur in the next 14 months and said he would hold a rally at US Steel in Pittsburgh next Friday.

Nippon Steel said it applauded Trump’s decision to approve the “partnership”. The White House did not immediately reply to questions about the announcement.

US Steel share price kept rising after hours and reached $54, just shy of Nippon Steel’s $55-per-share offer price made in late 2023. While no details were released, investors expressed confidence that terms will be similar to those agreed in 2023. Investors said that eventually US Steel will no longer be publicly traded and they will receive a cash payout for their shares.

Politically controversial

The deal has been one of the most highly anticipated on Wall Street after it morphed into the political arena with fears that foreign ownership would mean job losses in Pennsylvania, where US Steel is based. It factored into last year’s election that saw Trump return to the White House.

Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick, who also called the deal a “partnership”, on Friday said it was a “huge victory for America and the US Steel Corporation”, that will protect more than 11,000 Pennsylvania jobs and support the creation of at least 14,000 more.

The last pieces of the deal came together surprisingly fast. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), which reviews deals for national security risks, told the White House this week that the security risks can be addressed, Reuters reported, moving the final decision to Trump’s desk.

Following an earlier CFIUS-led review, former President Joe Biden blocked the deal in January on national security grounds.

The companies sued, arguing they did not receive a fair review process. The Biden White House rejected that view.

The companies argued Biden opposed the deal when he was running for re-election to win support from the United Steelworkers union in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. The Biden administration had defended the review as essential to protecting security, infrastructure and supply chains.

Trump also initially opposed the deal, arguing the company must be owned and operated in the US.

The United Steelworkers were against the deal as recently as Thursday when they urged Trump to block the deal despite the $14bn investment pledge from Trump.

For investors, including prominent hedge funds, the news spells relief after more than a year of waiting for a resolution. “There were huge high-fives all around today,” one recent investor said, adding, “We understood Donald Trump’s psyche and we played it to our advantage here.”

Investors said Trump appears to have won ground after the pledge for new investments was increased.

“This deal ensures that steelmaking will live on in Pittsburgh for generations,” another investor said.