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AdvertisementScienceChinaScienceChina unveils the largest crystal for high-powered laser weaponsSynthetic crystal can withstand hundreds of megawatts of laser power and produce far-reaching infrared beams capable of attacking satellites
Reading Time:2 minutesWhy you can trust SCMPStephen Chenin BeijingPublished: 6:00am, 25 Jul 2025Chinese researchers have manufactured the world’s largest barium gallium selenide (BGSe) crystal, a breakthrough that could pave the way for ultra-high-power laser weapons capable of zapping satellites from the ground.
AdvertisementThe synthetic crystal, measuring 60 millimetres (2.3 inches) in diameter, efficiently converts short-wave infrared lasers into mid- to far-infrared beams that can penetrate atmospheric windows for long-distance transmission.
Crucially, it can withstand laser power as intense as 550 megawatts per square centimetre – exceeding the damage threshold of existing military-grade crystals by an order of magnitude.
The resulting laser frequ..

Epstein and Maxwell (File photo-Agencies) Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted in 2021 for helping Jeffrey Epstein abuse underage girls, has been called to testify before the US Congress next month. The house oversight committee has issued a subpoena asking her to sit for a deposition on 11 August at the Tallahassee prison where she is serving a 20-year sentence. The committee said Maxwell’s testimony is crucial to examine how the US government handled sex trafficking cases, especially controversial plea deals and prosecution gaps in the Epstein investigation.“While the Justice Department undertakes efforts to uncover and publicly disclose additional information related to your and Mr. Epstein’s cases, it is imperative that Congress conduct oversight of the federal government’s enforcement of sex trafficking laws generally and specifically its handling of the investigation and prosecution of you and Mr. Epstein,” said chairman James Comer in a letter attached to the subpoena. The panel’s task ..

Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was told in May that his name appeared several times on Epstein files. In a bombshell claim, the Wall Street Journal reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi told President Donald Trump in May that his name appeared multiple times in Epstein documents. The president was also told at the meeting that “many other high-profile figures were also named” in the Epstein files, and that the “files contained what officials felt was unverified hearsay about many people, including Trump, who had socialized with Epstein in the past,” the Journal reported.WSJ report comes after Trump sued Murdoch
The Wall Street Journal report came after Trump sued Rupert Murdoch and WSJ after it claimed that Trump wrote a birthday letter to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and that note was not in good taste. Apart from calling the note fake, Trump announced that he sued WSJ and Rupert Murdoch. White House says latest WSJ report fake
White House communications director Steven Ch..

AdvertisementTibetChinaDiplomacyCould China’s Tibet mega dam help boost its sway with South Asian neighbours?Using the dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo to share electricity could carry ‘significant strategic value’ for Beijing, analysts say
Reading Time:3 minutesWhy you can trust SCMPVanessa Caiin Shanghai,Sylvie Zhuangin BeijingandMeredith Chenin Hong KongPublished: 6:00am, 24 Jul 2025China’s latest mega dam on the Tibetan Plateau could help draw neighbouring countries closer into its economic orbit by supplying electricity and boosting growth, analysts have argued.AdvertisementAccording to some estimates, the dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo will be the world’s biggest, producing up to 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, three times the output of the Three Gorges Dam.
State news agency Xinhua said over the weekend that its output would “primarily deliver electricity for external consumption” but would also meet local demand in Tibet.
But the project has drawn concerns about the ..

AdvertisementUnited StatesUSEconomy, Trade & BusinessTrump administration issues plan to limit AI exports to ChinaMove comes amid hawks’ concerns that US chips could help Chinese AI, military development
Reading Time:3 minutesWhy you can trust SCMP1Bochen Hanin WashingtonPublished: 5:31am, 24 Jul 2025Updated: 5:38am, 24 Jul 2025The White House on Wednesday released proposals to restrict exports of American AI equipment and limit the spread of Chinese AI models as part of a sweeping plan to shape the rules governing the fast-moving technology.
AdvertisementThe 28-page AI Action Plan marks US President Donald Trump’s administration’s first comprehensive strategy on the topic and comes as national security hawks have raised concerns that superior American chips may reach China – including through third countries – and advance its AI and military development.Under the plan, the US Commerce Department will lead an effort to develop new export controls on chipmaking subsystems to close “loop..

Known for its bright red color and wooden interior, the vintage lorry carried stories, songs, and goods across Saudi Arabia’s rugged landscapes/ Image: SPA TL;DRFrom the 1940s to 1970s, red vintage trucks were the backbone of transport across Saudi Arabia.These trucks moved people, goods, and culture, connecting isolated villages to growing cities.Though no longer in use, their legacy lives on in stories, memories, and even modern truck manufacturing in Saudi.In Saudi Arabia, from the 1940s through the 1970s, vintage red trucks, mostly American-made, often Fords, became essential for getting people and goods across long stretches of desert. Known locally as a “lorry,” the truck wasn’t just transport. It was a lifeline.Families used it to reach cities. Pilgrims used it to reach holy sites. Merchants relied on it to bring goods, like dates, spices, and livestock, to local markets. In a time when camels were still common, the red lorry offered something new: comfort, speed, and a sense of..

With zero natural rivers or lakes, Kuwait depends almost entirely on seawater desalination to meet its water needs/Image: Renderhub TL;DR:Kuwait is one of the only countries in the world without a single natural lake or river.
The country relies heavily on desalination plants and imports to meet its freshwater needs.
Despite geographic limitations, Kuwait has built one of the world’s largest per-capita water systems.
Kuwait’s shimmering skyline and bustling urban centres sit on a desert landscape with one defining characteristic: the total absence of natural freshwater bodies. It has no rivers, no lakes, and no perennial streams. In fact, the country holds the rare distinction of being among the very few globally with zero internal renewable freshwater resources. So, how does a modern nation keep its taps running, crops growing, and population hydrated in such an arid setting?No Rivers, No Problem:According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Kuwait has no..

AdvertisementMalaysiaThis Week in AsiaPeopleMalaysian security guard counts cost of viral knockout by MMA coach: ‘I was embarrassed’Security guard Muhammad Alim Muhamad Adnizam says he is thankful not to lose his job after challenging MMA coach Tony Lim to a fight
Reading Time:3 minutesWhy you can trust SCMPSCMP’s Asia deskPublished: 6:55pm, 23 Jul 2025A security guard in a block of flats in Malaysia thought he had the upper hand when he challenged a resident smaller than him, not realising the man he had picked on was a mixed martial arts (MMA) coach.AdvertisementNot only did Muhammad Alim Muhamad Adnizam, 24, end up having to get stitches, he had to watch his embarrassing knockout go viral. In addition, he was reassigned to another building and counted himself lucky he did not lose his job, the New Straits Times newspaper reported on Tuesday.
In the video of the street brawl on July 10, Alim can be seen aggressively provoking another man, later identified as 22-year-old amateur MMA f..

AdvertisementArtificial intelligenceTechTech TrendsAlibaba unleashes Qwen3 coding model for developers to push AI agent adoptionIn new benchmark tests, Alibaba’s Qwen3-Coder outperformed rival models from Moonshot AI and DeepSeek
Reading Time:2 minutesWhy you can trust SCMPWency Chenin ShanghaiPublished: 6:30pm, 23 Jul 2025Alibaba Group Holding is looking to ratchet up the high-performance development of artificial intelligence (AI) agents, with Wednesday’s release of a new open-source coder under its Qwen3 family of models.AdvertisementTouted as the company’s “most advanced agentic AI coding model to date”, the Qwen3-Coder-480B-A35B-Instruct – built on a so-called Mixture of Experts (MoE) architecture – features a total of 480 billion parameters, 35 billion of which are active, and supports a 256,000-token context window, expandable to 1 million tokens through extrapolation methods.
In a blog entry on developer platform GitHub, the Qwen team of Alibaba Cloud – the AI and cloud computi..

Trump says US has struck trade deal with Japan2 hours agoShareSavePeter Hoskins & Tom EspinerBusiness reporters, BBC NewsShareSaveWatch: 'I just signed the largest trade deal in history' says Trump on Japanese tariffsPresident Donald Trump says the US has agreed to a “massive” trade deal with Japan, one of the country's largest trading partners.
Japan has agreed to invest $550bn (£407bn) in the US while its goods sold to America would be taxed at 15% when they reach the country – below the 25% tariff Trump had threatened.
Trump said on social media that Japan would open its economy to US goods, including cars, trucks, rice and certain agricultural products.
Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba welcomed the announcement, saying it was “the lowest figure to date among countries with trade surpluses with the US”.
“I just signed the largest trade deal in history, I think maybe the largest deal in history with Japan,” Trump touted at a White House event on Tuesday eveni..