Global Pulse

标签： Asia

亚洲

  • Crowd surge at Hindu festival in India leaves 1 dead and many hospitalized

    Crowd surge at Hindu festival in India leaves 1 dead and many hospitalized

    A deadly crowd crush at one of the world’s biggest annual religious gatherings has turned a celebration into tragedy in eastern India, officials have confirmed. The incident unfolded Thursday at the iconic Rath Yatra chariot festival held in the coastal town of Puri, Odisha, where tens of thousands of Hindu devotees had gathered for the centuries-old tradition. The Press Trust of India reported that at least one attendee was killed in the sudden surge, and dozens more were transported to local hospitals for urgent medical care.

    The Rath Yatra festival, recognized as one of the oldest and largest religious processions on Earth, centers on a centuries-old ritual: sacred idols of Hindu deities are carried from Puri’s Jagannath Temple through city streets on massive, vibrantly decorated wooden chariots, drawing pilgrims from across the country annually. Graphic footage from the site following the incident shows strewn personal belongings—abandoned shoes, backpacks and personal items—scattered across the event grounds, as emergency workers carried injured devotees to waiting ambulances.

    Local law enforcement confirmed the response effort in an official social media statement, noting that quick-acting rescue teams administered first aid and emergency oxygen to 33 affected people before they were moved to nearby medical facilities for further treatment.

    Thursday’s tragedy is not an isolated event, and it underscores a long-running safety crisis at large religious gatherings across India. Last year, the same Rath Yatra festival saw an almost identical incident that killed three people and hospitalized more than a dozen attendees. Deadlier crushes have made headlines across the country in recent years: In January 2023, 36 people lost their lives in a crowd surge during the Maha Kumbh Mela, the world’s largest religious gathering that draws millions of pilgrims to bathe in a sacred river. A decade earlier, in 2013, a false panic over a potential bridge collapse at a Hindu festival in central India’s Madhya Pradesh left at least 115 pilgrims dead from crushing or drowning in the river below.

    Safety experts have long warned that the frequency of such fatal incidents stems from systemic gaps: massive crowds, sometimes numbering in the millions, are often concentrated in confined, restricted spaces with minimal crowd control infrastructure, insufficient safety protocols and limited emergency response planning.

  • 1 person dead and 23 missing after passenger boat sinks in Indonesia, authorities say

    1 person dead and 23 missing after passenger boat sinks in Indonesia, authorities say

    A deadly maritime accident has left one person dead and 23 others unaccounted for after a passenger boat sank while en route to an Indonesian island, local officials confirmed Thursday in a statement to reporters. The incident unfolded Wednesday morning, when the KM Nurul Salsa departed the port of Jampea Island carrying 70 passengers and crew members, along with a cargo of copra, cattle, and motorcycles. By Wednesday afternoon, emergency management authorities received an urgent distress report stating the vessel had suffered total engine failure and was going down roughly 43 nautical miles, or 79 kilometers, from its intended destination: the port of the Selayar Islands in South Sulawesi Province. As of Thursday, search and rescue teams have pulled 46 survivors from the water, but efforts to locate the remaining 23 missing people have been severely hampered by treacherous meteorological conditions, according to Muhammad Arif Anwar, leader of the Makassar Search and Rescue Office. “The primary challenge we face right now is the weather,” Anwar explained in an interview. “At the search site, waves are reaching 2 to 2.5 meters in height, and wind speeds remain high. That is the main obstacle holding back our operations.” The multi-agency search mission brings together personnel from the Indonesian National Armed Forces, the National Police, local commercial fishermen, and community residents, all working around the clock to locate the missing passengers. Maritime accidents are an all-too-common occurrence across Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago made up of more than 17,000 individual islands that relies heavily on small passenger vessels as a primary mode of inter-island transportation. Longstanding issues including lax regulatory oversight of vessel safety standards and repeated overcrowding have created a pattern of frequent deadly accidents in the region’s waters. This report included contributions from Associated Press correspondent Edna Tarigan based in Jakarta, Indonesia.

  • Deadly Bangkok bar fire exposes Thailand’s safety loopholes for nightlife venues

    Deadly Bangkok bar fire exposes Thailand’s safety loopholes for nightlife venues

    Less than a week after a devastating blaze tore through a popular Bangkok nightlife venue, leaving at least 33 dead and more than 70 injured, Thailand is confronting long-unaddressed gaps in its public safety legislation and licensing systems that experts say directly enabled the tragedy.

    The fire broke out Sunday night at the Rong Beer Na Ladprao bar, a popular live music spot in northern Bangkok. As of Thursday, Erawan emergency services confirmed that 27 injured victims remained hospitalized, with most fatalities caused by toxic smoke inhalation and a smaller number attributed to severe burn injuries. While the venue publicly claimed capacity for roughly 600 patrons, official investigations have not yet confirmed how many people were inside when the fire started. Authorities are still working to pinpoint the exact cause of the rapid flash blaze and the factors that led to such a high death toll.

    Leading structural and fire safety experts have already outlined the most likely contributing factors. Amorn Pimanmas, president of the Thailand Structural Engineers Association, pointed to three common hazards linked to lax regulation: overcrowding, the use of highly flammable interior materials, and blocked emergency exits. In a blunt assessment, Amorn noted the tragedy was entirely avoidable: “If proper engineering principles and all relevant laws and regulations had been strictly followed, this loss of life would never have happened.”

    This is not the first time Thailand has been forced to re-evaluate its nightlife safety rules after a mass casualty fire. The country’s primary legislation governing entertainment venues, the Entertainment Place Act, was first introduced in 1966 and last updated in 2012. That revision came three years after a 2009 New Year’s Eve fire at Bangkok’s Santika nightclub that killed 67 people and injured more than 200. The updated rules imposed strict requirements for venues, mandating fire-resistant or non-flammable materials for interior decor and soundproofing, as well as adequate smoke ventilation systems, sprinkler systems, and sized-appropriate fire escape routes.

    But a critical flaw in the law limits the scope of these protections: the strict safety standards only apply to entertainment venues licensed to operate in officially designated entertainment zones, three of which exist in Bangkok. Outside these zones, venues cannot obtain formal entertainment licenses — even if operators are willing to comply with the full safety requirements.

    Opposition People’s Party lawmaker Paramait Vithayaruksun told Parliament this week that the 1966-era law, last updated in 2012, is “outdated and unrealistic.” To operate outside the designated zones, thousands of nightlife venues across the country register instead as restaurants, which are only required to meet far less stringent safety regulations. Rong Beer Na Ladprao, the site of Sunday’s fire, was registered as a alcohol-selling restaurant with live music, and sat outside Bangkok’s official entertainment zones, local authorities confirmed.

    Data from Thailand’s Department of Provincial Administration shows this systemic loophole is not limited to Bangkok: the restricted entertainment zoning rule is active in 55 of Thailand’s 77 provinces, while 22 provinces do not offer any entertainment venue licenses at all. This framework has created a widespread system where venues circumvent strict safety rules with little consequence, Paramait explained. Restaurants face no requirements for fire-resistant soundproofing, for example, leading many operators to install cheap, highly flammable foam soundproofing for live music events — a material that can accelerate a blaze and release toxic smoke in minutes.

    Thailand’s restrictive zoning rules have been shaped in large part by the country’s conservative Buddhist cultural context, which has led policymakers to impose tight limits on nightlife to mitigate perceived negative social impacts. Current rules prohibit entertainment venues within 1.2 miles of any temple or school, a restriction that further limits available space for licensed entertainment operations.

    In the wake of Sunday’s tragedy, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has publicly acknowledged the systemic flaws in existing legislation and confirmed that a full review of the law will be conducted. “Times have changed. I’ve asked officials to study how we should adjust the rules,” Anutin said this week. “We need to look at it from every angle — what society is like today, as well as our culture, customs and traditions.”

    Safety inspectors and engineering experts are calling for fundamental shifts in how compliance is enforced. Wasawat Kitsiriteeraphak, former president of the Building Inspectors Association, argued that inspections should be based on how a building is actually used, not just its official licensed classification. “The risks to lives and assets of the people depends on the actual use of the building rather than how the business is called,” he said in a public statement. Wasawat joined other experts in urging Thai authorities to launch a nationwide, operation-based safety audit of all venues that operate as nightlife spots, regardless of their official licensing classification, to prevent further preventable tragedies.

  • AI chatbots are at risk of spreading government restrictions on online speech, a new study says

    AI chatbots are at risk of spreading government restrictions on online speech, a new study says

    A new study from the Meta Oversight Board, a quasi-independent oversight body, has uncovered a troubling bias in leading commercial large language models (LLMs): the AI systems regularly refuse to generate criticism of authoritarian leaders and restrictive governments, while freely producing critical content about democratic leaders from open societies. This pattern threatens to extend state-mandated speech restrictions across international borders, undermining global freedom of expression at a time when AI adoption is accelerating worldwide.

    The research team tested 10 top LLMs developed by leading tech firms including Meta, Anthropic and OpenAI, designing a series of consistent prompts that asked the chatbots to complete critical content tasks: drafting critical pamphlets, writing critical limericks, outlining justifications for joining political protests, and other similar requests. The prompts targeted leaders from two groups: countries with open political environments that allow domestic criticism, and countries with restrictive regimes that penalize public criticism of ruling authorities. Tests were run from an IP address based in Australia, a country with strong legal protections for free speech.

    Aggregated results showed a clear double standard. The AI models generated requested critical content for leaders of open societies including the United States, United Kingdom, Chile, Japan and Taiwan in the vast majority of trials. By contrast, they routinely declined to produce critical content about leaders from restrictive regimes including China, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Cambodia and Turkey, where domestic criticism of ruling authorities is banned or criminalized.

    This pattern does not merely affect users within restrictive borders, the report warns. Even users located in countries with full free speech protections are blocked from creating critical content about repressive regimes, meaning restrictive governments’ speech rules are effectively being exported globally through AI infrastructure. “Such impacts, wherever they originate, have the practical effect of extending the long arm of restrictive governments across borders to limit speech in free countries,” the report stated.

    The oversight board stopped short of identifying a definitive cause for the pattern, but offered two leading explanations: the training data used to build LLMs already carries latent biases shaped by global power dynamics and state information controls, and AI developers may have proactively implemented content restrictions to avoid legal or commercial liability in large regulated markets.

    The report warns that without urgent intervention, the risks to global free expression will only grow as LLMs become integrated into more digital tools and platforms. “There is a real risk that, if model developers do not undertake human rights due diligence and implement mitigation measures, they will build AI infrastructure that, intentionally or not, has the effect of extending illegitimate restrictions on freedom of expression globally,” the board concluded.

    The findings align with separate research published in May in the journal *Nature* by a team of scholars from U.S. universities, which documented how state influence over non-English language training data has shaped AI outputs along lines favorable to restrictive regimes. That study found that OpenAI’s ChatGPT gave materially different answers to the same political question depending on the language of the prompt: when asked if China is a democracy in English, ChatGPT stated it is not generally recognized as one; when asked the exact same question in Chinese, the model replied that the answer depends on one’s definition of democracy.

    While the academic team found no conclusive evidence that restrictive governments have intentionally manipulated AI training data to date, they warned that the risk of future interference is severe. “People often talk about AI as if it learns from the internet in some neutral way. It doesn’t,” explained Hannah Waight, co-author of the study and assistant sociology professor at the University of Oregon. “It learns from information environments that have already been shaped by institutions and power.”

    Outside experts not involved in either study note that the problem stems from structural inequalities in how information is controlled globally, and that there are no quick fixes. Carlos Carrasco-Farré, an AI and machine learning researcher at Esade Business School in Barcelona, explained that “AI systems inherit not only biases contained within individual documents but also inequalities in who has the power to produce and suppress information at scale.”

    While easy solutions remain elusive, Carrasco-Farré proposed actionable first steps: developers can audit training datasets to avoid weighting repeated state-sponsored narratives as independent sources, and implement regular multilingual audits of AI outputs across political use cases. As of publication, neither Anthropic nor OpenAI has issued public responses to the academic findings, and The Associated Press has not yet received comments from other major AI developers regarding the Meta Oversight Board’s report.

    The release of the study comes as policymakers around the world race to draft regulatory guardrails for advanced AI, balancing efforts to mitigate harm against the goal of maintaining international competitiveness in the fast-growing sector. U.S. regulatory efforts date back to the Trump administration, which launched an oversight initiative focused on national security risks posed by cutting-edge AI systems.

  • Hong Kong official says booksellers should ensure titles won’t harm national security after arrests

    Hong Kong official says booksellers should ensure titles won’t harm national security after arrests

    In the latest high-profile police operation focused on independent booksellers in Hong Kong, five individuals connected to two local bookstores were taken into custody on Wednesday, marking the third mass arrest targeting independent book retailers in the city within just four months. The next day, Hong Kong’s Secretary for Security Chris Tang defended the enforcement action during a press briefing at the city’s legislative building, pushing back against growing public criticism over vague boundaries for permissible content and threats to long-held free expression rights in the special administrative region.

    Tang emphasized that the requirements of Hong Kong’s national security legislation are clear and unambiguous, drawing a parallel to common consumer protection rules to frame the responsibility of book vendors. “If you are a bookseller, you have the responsibility to make sure the books you sell won’t endanger national security. It’s equal to, for example, when you are selling food, you need to ensure the food won’t cause a stomach ache and is not either poison or illegal,” Tang told reporters.

    When pressed on whether authorities would release a public, standardized list of banned publications to give vendors clear guidance, the top security official rejected the proposal, arguing that a pre-approved list would undermine enforcement efforts against materials intended to undermine national sovereignty. “We will not let criminals off the hook like this,” Tang added.

    Wednesday’s operation targeted two distinct independent book outlets: Have A Nice Stay, a relatively new shop founded by a collective of former local journalists, and Greenfield Book Store, a long-standing independent retailer that has operated in Hong Kong for years. Police confirmed in an official statement that the five arrestees face allegations of displaying and distributing seditious materials that are designed to stir up widespread resentment and hatred toward the Hong Kong government, the city’s judiciary, and local law enforcement institutions.

    In what serves as a striking precursor to the raid, Have A Nice Stay had already publicly announced plans to permanently cease operations on August 30. In a social media post shared ahead of the police action, the bookstore cited two core reasons for its closure: persistent financial struggles, and the uncertainty created by an unclear “red line” defining acceptable content. The shop’s management noted that it lacks the resources and institutional capacity to vet every title it carries for compliance with national security standards, leaving it unable to operate without constant risk of penalty.

    This week’s arrest operation is the third crackdown on independent booksellers since March, when police detained the owner and multiple staff members of Book Punch, another independent Hong Kong bookstore, also on suspicion of selling seditious publications. Among the titles that reportedly drew law enforcement attention in that case was a biography of Jimmy Lai, the former pro-democracy media tycoon who was ultimately sentenced to 20 years in prison following a high-profile national security trial. A second round of arrests followed in June, when police took two booksellers into custody on charges of selling seditious publications and receiving illegal funding from foreign political organizations.

    Critics of the ongoing enforcement actions argue that the broad, flexible definition of seditious content and the refusal to issue a clear public list of prohibited titles creates a chilling effect on free expression in Hong Kong, forcing independent book retailers to self-censor broadly to avoid legal consequences, and eroding the city’s tradition of open access to diverse political and social commentary.

  • Donald Trump is running out of options in Iran

    Donald Trump is running out of options in Iran

    Eight weeks after a temporary ceasefire between the United States and Iran took hold, large-scale armed conflict has erupted once again in the Middle East. On July 8, former U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the June truce was formally terminated, and immediately ordered the U.S. military to launch a wave of intensive airstrikes targeting Iranian positions, alongside the full reimposition of a crippling economic blockade on the Islamic Republic.

    In addition to military strikes, the Trump administration has revived a series of hardline threats first issued earlier in the ongoing conflict. Among these menacing warnings are suggestions of deliberate strikes on Iranian civilian infrastructure and a potential military seizure of Kharg Island, the critical hub that hosts the vast majority of Iran’s oil export and processing infrastructure.

    The conflict, initially launched in partnership with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the stated goals of curbing Iran’s nuclear program and potentially toppling the country’s ruling regime, has seen its strategic center of gravity shift dramatically over time. Today, hopes inside the White House for a negotiated agreement to resolve Iran’s nuclear activities have all but faded. Instead, Trump has framed his latest escalation as a pressure campaign to force Tehran to abandon its claimed control over the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of global oil supplies transit daily. The U.S. aims to restore the pre-war status quo of unimpeded free passage through the waterway, a move Trump claims would stabilize jittery global energy markets.

    But analysts warn this rebooted strategy faces the same fatal flaws that derailed U.S. efforts from the start of the conflict: none of the pressure tactics Trump is now employing delivered acceptable outcomes for Washington in the past, and there is little evidence they will succeed this time around. Trump’s reliance on the same failed playbook lays bare just how narrow the administration’s viable options have become to resolve the crisis it created.

    Today, the Strait of Hormuz has displaced nuclear concerns as the central flashpoint of the conflict. Iran’s top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has asserted that future transit through the strait must operate under “Iranian arrangements,” meaning commercial vessels would only be allowed passage on terms set by Tehran. This demand is categorically rejected by Washington, which remains committed to restoring open, unregulated passage.

    To understand why Washington has failed to achieve this goal after months of conflict, it is necessary to examine the limitations of the three main levers of U.S. power: military, diplomatic, and economic. Militaey analysts note that no single power can ever exercise full, uncontested control over the 21-mile-wide strait, which is surrounded by Iranian territory and a contested space where multiple global powers project military force. For Iran, however, full territorial control is not required to advance its strategic goals. Tehran only needs to maintain a credible enough threat to commercial shipping to deter insurers and vessel operators from transiting the waterway.

    Iran retains a large, well-concealed stockpile of anti-ship missiles, attack drones, and fast attack craft well-suited for harassing commercial and military vessels, a supply the Central Intelligence Agency confirms remains abundant despite months of U.S. strikes. Eliminating these capabilities entirely would require the U.S. to seize and occupy large swathes of Iranian coastal territory, a mission that would almost certainly result in heavy U.S. casualties with no guarantee of long-term success.

    A move to seize Kharg Island, while feasible in an initial invasion, would also carry enormous long-term risk. Any U.S. occupation force stationed on the island would remain highly vulnerable to retaliatory Iranian missile and commando attacks, and a prolonged occupation would almost certainly produce steady American casualties, making it impossible to hold the island as a lasting negotiating leverage.

    While deliberate strikes on civilian Iranian targets would violate international law and carry significant ethical costs, Trump appears to be gambling that this pressure will force Tehran back to negotiations. But the far more likely outcome is a wave of devastating Iranian retaliation targeting energy infrastructure and civilian sites across the Persian Gulf, which would only deepen regional instability and drive global energy prices even higher.

    The well-documented risks and high probability of failure of these military options pushed the Trump administration to explore diplomatic solutions over the past several months, but those efforts have also come up empty. Diplomatic outcomes almost always reflect the balance of power on the battlefield, and with Washington lacking a viable military option to roll back Iran’s influence over the strait, Tehran has no incentive to concede its core strategic demand. Mohsen Rezaee, an adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, recently described Iran’s strategic influence over the strait as “more important than dozens of nuclear bombs,” a comment that underscores the centrality of the waterway to Iran’s national security calculations. Control of the strait gives Tehran irreplaceable leverage over Washington, and it will not abandon that advantage without significant concessions that the Trump administration has so far refused to offer.

    On the economic front, a prolonged full blockade of Iran’s ports represents the most effective tool the U.S. has to inflict pain on the Iranian government. Months of economic pressure have already fueled widespread domestic discontent: high inflation and widespread supply shortages sparked a wave of mass unrest across Iran in early 2026, which the Iranian regime put down with brutal force. The Trump administration is betting that further economic strain will erode public support for the regime enough to force concessions.

    But the economic blockade inflicts pain on both sides. As long as the blockade remains in place, Iran will continue to disrupt oil and gas transit through the strait, pushing up global energy prices and creating significant domestic political headwinds for Trump ahead of upcoming elections. The blockade also imposes massive sustained costs on the U.S. military, requiring a permanent large deployment to the Gulf that strains American military resources already stretched thin by competing commitments in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. It cannot be maintained indefinitely. When the blockade is eventually lifted and U.S. forces draw down, Iran’s geographic proximity to the strait means it will immediately be able to resume disrupting shipping, erasing any gains the blockade achieved.

    In the end, Trump’s escalatory moves have left the United States backed into an inescapable corner. For all of America’s overwhelming conventional military power, there are hard limits to what military force can achieve in this conflict. In a war of his own making, Trump is now running headlong into those limits, with no clear path out.

  • Fujitsu and leading Japanese robotics companies to use Nvidia technology in ‘physical AI’

    Fujitsu and leading Japanese robotics companies to use Nvidia technology in ‘physical AI’

    In a landmark announcement made in Tokyo Thursday, Japanese tech and communications giant Fujitsu has partnered with U.S. semiconductor and AI leader Nvidia to launch a groundbreaking physical AI robotics initiative, bringing together Japan’s top industrial robotics manufacturers to combine the nation’s legendary manufacturing precision with cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology.

    Defined as a new category of intelligent automation, physical AI powers next-generation robots capable of independent, real-time decision-making, rather than being limited to rigid pre-programmed instructions. This technology enables these smart machines to work seamlessly and safely alongside human workers across a wide range of settings, from factory floors and residential homes to medical and care facilities.

    The partnership was formally introduced by Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, and Takahito Tokita, CEO of Fujitsu, alongside chief executives from Japan’s three biggest industrial robot makers: Fanuc Corp., Yaskawa Electric Corp. and Kawasaki Heavy Industries. The new collaboration builds on a existing strategic partnership Nvidia and Fujitsu established last year, deepening their shared commitment to advancing AI-powered robotics in Japan.

    Executives at the announcement framed the initiative as a targeted solution to one of Japan’s most pressing socioeconomic challenges: an acute and growing national labor shortage, driven by the country’s status as one of the fastest-aging developed nations in the world. Beyond manufacturing roles, the leaders noted that physical AI-powered robots could fill critical gaps in elder care, supporting the growing population of older adults living alone across the country.

    Huang emphasized that physical AI is uniquely positioned to leverage Japan’s global reputation for manufacturing excellence. Autonomous moving robots carry inherent safety risks, he explained, requiring the extreme precision and quality control that Japan has long perfected. “Japan’s excellence is a philosophy, a way of life. ‘Made in Japan’ means the highest quality, the highest precision. Japan sets the standard for the state-of-the-art in modern manufacturing,” Huang said, noting that Japan’s iconic “kaizen” (continuous improvement) manufacturing philosophy aligns perfectly with the iterative development needed for safe, reliable physical AI.

    While the participating companies have not announced a specific timeline for when these physical AI robots will become widely available in everyday settings, they confirmed that the first phase of the collaboration will launch later this year. No decision has been made to establish a formal joint venture at this stage, though executives left open the possibility of that structure for future phases of the project.

    The initiative comes as Japan works to close a perceived gap in global AI development, trailing front-runners including the United States and China. The current Japanese administration under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has prioritized tech catch-up, recently unveiling a national strategy to mobilize more than 370 trillion yen ($2.3 trillion) in combined public and private investment for key technology sectors by 2040 — physical AI, semiconductors and data centers are all core priorities outlined in the plan.

    Nvidia, the Silicon Valley-based leader in AI computing hardware and open-source AI infrastructure, has rapidly expanded its strategic partnerships across Japan in recent years. Beyond the new robotics collaboration, the firm already has working ties with major Japanese institutions including leading domestic banks, automotive giant Toyota Motor Corp., video game developer Sega, and national research institute Riken.

  • International Cricket Council revamps formats for men’s World Cups

    International Cricket Council revamps formats for men’s World Cups

    Following weekend board meetings, cricket’s global governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), has announced sweeping structural changes to two of men’s cricket’s most prestigious international tournaments, introducing a new preliminary round to the 2027 50-over World Cup and redesigning the playoff pathway for the 2028 Twenty20 World Cup.

    In an official statement, the ICC framed the adjustments as a deliberate push to deliver more high-stakes competitive matches, raise overall playing standards, solidify the competitive hierarchy of top-tier international cricket, and create a more engaging experience for both participating players and global audiences.

    The traditional 50-over ODI World Cup, held on a four-year cycle, most recently wrapped up in 2023 in India, where Australia claimed its sixth title by defeating the host nation in a tightly contested 10-team final. The 2027 edition will break recent precedent with an expanded 14-team field, co-hosted across three southern African nations: South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia.

    Under the new format rolled out by the ICC, the 2027 tournament will kick off with a new opening phase dubbed the “Super Series”. The three teams that secure the 12th, 13th, and 14th qualifying positions will compete in this preliminary round, with only one winner advancing to the main 12-team group stage, joining the 11 highest-ranked automatic qualifiers.

    The main group stage will split 12 teams into two groups of six. After round-robin play, the top three teams from each group, plus the highest-performing fourth-place team across both groups, will progress to the newly created Super 7 stage. This phase will use a single round-robin structure where every team faces each of the other six competitors once. The top four teams on the Super 7 standings will advance to the knockout semifinals, with the bracket pairing the first-ranked side against fourth, and second against third.

    “This structure has been designed to strengthen the competitive narrative across every stage of the event,” the ICC noted in its breakdown of the new format.

    For the 2028 T20 World Cup, co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, the ICC has reworked the tournament’s group and playoff structure from previous editions. The 20-team tournament will retain its total size, but rearrange the initial group stage layout: instead of four groups of five, teams will be split into five groups of four for the opening round, with the top finisher from each group advancing to the next round.

    The second phase, renamed the Super 10, will split the 10 advancing teams into two groups of five for round-robin play. Unlike previous T20 World Cup formats where the top two from each second-phase group advanced directly to the semifinals, the 2028 edition introduces a new eliminator round to fill out the final four. The winner of each Super 10 group will earn an automatic semifinal spot. The second-place team from each group will then face the third-place team from the opposite Super 10 group in knockout eliminators, with the two winners claiming the remaining two semifinal positions.

    Twelve teams have already secured their place in the 2028 tournament based on results from the 2024 T20 World Cup and ICC Men’s T20 team rankings: Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies, and Zimbabwe. Eight remaining spots will be awarded via a 16-team global qualifier tournament, with the U.S., Canada, Italy, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates already guaranteed automatic entry into that qualifier, while Scotland has earned direct placement into the European regional final.

  • Taiwan computer chipmaker TSMC pledges another $100 billion to expand US chipmaking capacity

    Taiwan computer chipmaker TSMC pledges another $100 billion to expand US chipmaking capacity

    HONG KONG, Aug. 1 (AP) — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker and a linchpin of global technology supply chains, announced on Thursday a $100 billion expansion of its planned U.S. manufacturing investment, pushing the firm’s total commitments to American chip production to $265 billion. The announcement came alongside the release of the firm’s quarterly financial results, which delivered record-breaking profits that outpaced analyst expectations, fueled by unrelenting demand for AI-capable semiconductors.

    As the global leader in advanced chip manufacturing and one of the world’s most valuable public companies, TSMC’s financial performance and strategic decisions are closely watched as a key benchmark for the broader global semiconductor sector and the fast-growing artificial intelligence industry. Right now, the company’s outlook carries extra weight amid ongoing market volatility driven by widespread concerns over whether the current AI boom is inflating an unsustainable asset bubble.

    Against a backdrop of surging global demand for AI-related chips, TSMC has already launched major capacity expansion projects across three key hubs: its home base of Taiwan, Japan, and the United States. Alongside the new U.S. investment commitment, the firm also raised its 2024 annual capital expenditure guidance to a range of $60 billion to $64 billion, up from its earlier projection of $52 billion to $56 billion to account for accelerated buildout plans.

    TSMC, a critical supplier to major tech giants including Nvidia and Apple, previously pledged $165 billion to develop a chip manufacturing complex in Arizona, where six total fabrication facilities are already in the works. The additional $100 billion in funding is specifically earmarked to meet growing long-term demand from the company’s major U.S.-based clients, TSMC Chairman and Chief Executive Officer C.C. Wei explained during the firm’s quarterly earnings call.

    “This investment will help to further foster the development of the U.S. semiconductor ecosystem, strengthen the supply chain and support an increasing number of high-tech, high-paying jobs in the United States,” Wei said during the call. He added that global AI-related demand remains “extremely robust,” noting that “the AI megatrend continues to drive the need for more and more computation” that requires increasingly advanced semiconductor hardware.

    For the April-June second quarter, TSMC reported a record net profit of 706.6 billion new Taiwan dollars, equal to approximately $22 billion. This represented a 77% year-over-year increase from the same period last year, and landed above the consensus profit forecast compiled by industry analysts.

  • Asian shares mostly decline with South Korea’s Kospi down 6.6%, while oil prices slip

    Asian shares mostly decline with South Korea’s Kospi down 6.6%, while oil prices slip

    Escalating military conflict between the United States and Iran, combined with a broad sell-off in artificial intelligence-linked tech stocks, dragged most Asian equity markets lower on Thursday, even as oil prices pulled back slightly from multi-week highs. Geopolitical uncertainty and shifting central bank policy created a volatile trading environment across the region, with only a handful of benchmarks bucking the downward trend.

    The selling pressure was most acute in South Korea, where the benchmark Kospi index plummeted 6.6% to close at 6,816.70. Two factors drove the steep decline: first, a broad pullback in AI and semiconductor shares that form the core of the country’s equity market, and second, an unexpected interest rate hike from the Bank of Korea (BOK), the first such increase the central bank has implemented since 2023. The rate move was crafted to tamp down resurgent inflationary pressures stoked by rising energy costs tied to the Iran conflict. Leading the losses, major memory chip manufacturer SK Hynix dropped 11.2%, while tech giant Samsung Electronics fell 8.2% by market close.

    Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 also suffered heavy losses, sliding 2.9% to end the session at 66,767.64, weighed down by the same AI-related sell-off that hit South Korea. Japanese chip industry firms led the declines: memory chipmaker Kioxia plummeted 13.5%, chip equipment producer Tokyo Electron fell 5.2%, and semiconductor testing specialist Advantest gave up 5.6%. Conglomerate SoftBank Group, which holds large stakes in global AI ventures, also shed 6.4% on the day.

    Taiwan’s Taiex index recorded a more modest 0.3% loss, as investors adopted a cautious stance ahead of highly anticipated quarterly earnings from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). TSMC is widely viewed as a key barometer for both the global semiconductor sector and the ongoing AI boom, making its earnings report a closely watched event for markets across the region.

    Against the broader regional downturn, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index emerged as a clear outlier, gaining 1.7% to close at 25,111.22. The gains were led by e-commerce and tech giant Alibaba, whose Hong Kong-traded shares climbed 4.4% following a key regulatory announcement from Chinese authorities. On Wednesday, China’s cyberspace regulator announced it had approved Apple’s Apple Intelligence AI tool for use in mainland China, and Alibaba subsequently confirmed that its in-house Qwen large language model will be integrated into the Apple Intelligence system. Mainland China’s Shanghai Composite Index bucked the Hong Kong trend, however, falling 0.9% to 3,921.20. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.2% lower to 8,820.50, while India’s Sensex bucked the regional trend to climb 0.3% by close of trading. U.S. stock futures ticked slightly higher in early Asian trading hours, building on gains seen on Wall Street in the previous session.

    In energy markets, crude oil prices slipped slightly early Thursday but remained at sharply elevated levels amid ongoing military escalation between the U.S. and Iran. Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil pricing, dropped 0.4% to $84.55 per barrel; before the outbreak of the Iran conflict in late February, Brent traded at roughly $72 per barrel. U.S. benchmark crude fell 0.2% to $79.34 per barrel. In a Thursday research note, ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey noted that oil prices had notched three consecutive days of gains as diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions between Washington and Tehran failed to make progress. The ongoing conflict has disrupted global energy logistics, the pair explained, with rising tensions creating meaningful disruptions to vessel traffic through the Persian Gulf, specifically the Strait of Hormuz — a strategic chokepoint that accounts for roughly a fifth of global oil shipments.

    Overnight on Wednesday, U.S. equities closed higher: the benchmark S&P 500 gained 0.4% to reach 7,572.40, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.3% to 52,658.64, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 0.6% to 26,269.23. Gains were supported by a June inflation report showing U.S. price growth slowed more than expected, as well as strong quarterly earnings from major Wall Street firms including asset management giant BlackRock, whose shares rose 6.6% after posting revenue and profit that far outperformed analyst expectations. SpaceX, Elon Musk’s private space launch firm that began trading publicly this week, briefly dipped below its $135 per share IPO price before recovering a portion of its losses in midday trading.

    In currency markets, the U.S. dollar edged lower against the Japanese yen, slipping to 162.09 yen from 162.19 yen in the previous session. The euro also ticked slightly lower, falling to $1.1467 from $1.1464 against the U.S. dollar.