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Binance customers pulled US$3.64 billion, or 2.1 per cent of ⁠its assets, as the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange went back online on Sunday after hackers the FBI links to North Korea stole billions from the platform last week. Binance said withdrawals were stabilising after an initial spike and deposit volumes had remained “substantial”. The exchange said it had now covered 95 per cent of the US$6.3 billion of stolen assets. The theft, which analysts believe may be the biggest financial.

Bulgaria’s acting president Iliana Iotova, who favours dialogue with Moscow and opposes military aid to Ukraine, won a presidential run-off vote on Sunday, exit polls showed. The vote took place amid security concerns in the European Union and Nato member following a series of drone attacks on commercial vessels in the Black Sea. The race for the largely ceremonial post pitted Iotova, an ally of Prime Minister Rumen Radev, against Andrey Gyurov, a banker and former caretaker prime minister...

The longest truce of the Ukraine war, brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump and limited to just the Kherson region, was set to end on Sunday evening after neither side announced an extension. The rare pause in fighting, which began early on Tuesday, enabled a humanitarian mission to the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky and came as the Ukraine war grinds through its fifth year. An offer from Ukraine to extend the ceasefire in the southern region of Kherson, which is due to expire later Sunday,.

France on Sunday opened an attempted murder investigation after petrol bombs were thrown at security forces during Paris protests, as footage of an officer engulfed in flames sparked outrage. On Saturday, clashes erupted in Paris and other cities after hundreds of thousands of people staged a third weekend of protests against soaring living costs. The Paris police prefecture said several hundred rioters had attacked security forces with projectiles. While riots were less widespread than two...

Dozens of people were injured and at least six people died in mass shootings as gun violence broke out at nightlife districts in half a dozen cities across the country over the Halloween weekend. Police in Dallas, the site of the deadliest violence, said four people were dead and 15 are injured following a handful of shootings in a Dallas neighbourhood, a centre of music, restaurants and nightlife in the city. Police in college towns such as Fayetteville, Arkansas; Birmingham, Alabama; and...

China’s ruling Communist Party will step up “party building” across the country’s tech sector and deploy digital tools to fight corruption, according to a landmark document adopted at a key political plenum. These tools include a digital discipline inspection platform and a big-data supervision platform. The party will also crack down on corruption involving the internet, virtual currency, cross-border funds and blockchain technology, according to the document formally approved on Thursday at...

Somali pirates have seized an Iranian fishing vessel carrying 23 people, the European Union’s Maritime Security Centre Indian Ocean (MSCIO) said, warning that the ship was approaching a commercial shipping lane and could become a floating base for further attacks. The Azini was hijacked on Thursday between the coastal towns of Bandar Bayla and Hafun in northeastern Somalia, a maritime security officer with the Puntland Maritime Police Force said on Sunday. The officer said that 12 pirates seized

A potential lame-duck phase may not deter US President Donald Trump from pursuing more “transactional” or “risky” foreign policy moves after the midterm elections, Chinese experts warn, while casting doubt on expectations of a powerful Democratic wave. Amid a season of high-stakes contests that could reshape global politics, the US vote on Tuesday stands out. The election, which will determine who takes control of the US Congress, could result in Trump and his fellow Republicans no longer...

Chinese President Xi Jinping has mounted a direct defence of the campaign for strong Communist Party governance and internal discipline, describing them as a “fundamental guarantee” for China’s rise and warning against any easing of scrutiny, according to state media. Xi took the floor as the party’s 20th Central Committee closed its fifth plenum on Thursday, to directly address the scepticism over the sweeping campaign, state news agency Xinhua reported on Sunday. According to “side notes”...

Tens of thousands of volunteers helped raise 108 Buddhist stupas in Bhutan on Sunday, marking the Himalayan kingdom’s ambitious plans for a “mindfulness” city aimed at driving economic growth. The 15-metre tall solid towers – sacred Buddhist monuments found across the Himalayas – stretch along 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) of riverbank near the Indian border, at the site of the future Gelephu Mindfulness City. More than 40,000 volunteers took part in building the structures as “a physical form of...

Last week, the United Nations General Assembly called for the 34th time for an end to the US embargo on Cuba. The resolution passed by 130 votes to 17, with 25 abstentions. It came as Cuba struggles with a severe energy crisis, mainly caused by a US fuel embargo, imposed after the abduction of Venezuela’s president to New York. The energy blockade is only the latest of America’s crimes against the Cuban people. Sergio Vigoa de la Uz, Cuba’s ambassador to Namibia, laid out the human costs of US..

Using artificial intelligence to build even smarter systems will make artificial general intelligence (AGI) more achievable, though it would need to be done safely, leading Chinese computer scientist Tang Jie said at an event in Shanghai on Saturday. The remarks underscore how AI companies in the US and China are both chasing the holy grail of recursive self-improvement (RSI), where increasingly powerful AI systems also become better at improving themselves in an ever-accelerating...

On November 4 last year, Zohran Mamdani won the New York mayoral election on a promise to make the city more affordable, with expanded social programmes funded in part by raising taxes on the city’s wealthiest residents and most profitable corporations. Nearly a year since his upset victory, he has secured one major piece of that agenda: a surcharge on high-end second homes. He also continues to push for higher corporate and income taxes. The proposals have intensified criticism of Mamdani, a...

The UAE is hoping for a breakthrough in negotiations between Iran and the United States while being prepared for the worst, a senior official said on Sunday, following threats of a resumption of the Middle East war. “We’re hoping that there is a diplomatic breakthrough,” diplomatic adviser to the UAE president Anwar Gargash said during a conference in Manama, Bahrain. “It is not the interest of the region to go through another round … But I think we’re also, as we’ve shown before, braced for the

Thousands protested in Delhi on Sunday to demand the resignation of India’s election chief over a revision of voter lists, the latest in more than a month of ‌opposition demonstrations challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Led by Congress party chief Rahul Gandhi, Sunday’s protesters say the controversial revision benefits Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Analysts say the protests and growing support for the opposition form the worst crisis for Modi since he came to power in.

Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek has previewed a plan for a more autonomous AI agent that can handle multiple tasks with minimal human intervention, as it steps up competition with US rivals OpenAI and Anthropic in developing coding assistants. The proposed system, dubbed super agent, aimed to reduce the need for humans to coordinate multiple AI agents and monitor their progress, addressing a key bottleneck in managing today’s increasingly complex workflows, according to a...

China’s first female conductor, Zheng Xiaoying, is 97 years old, but she continues to give outstanding performances to audiences. In August, the nonagenarian conducted the Chinese-language version of the opera Carmen in Xiamen, in southeastern China’s Fujian province, where she lives. Tickets for the performance were like gold dust, and audiences marvelled, as always, at her elegant, expressive conducting. Zheng has led a remarkable life. Born in Shanghai in 1929, she began studying piano at age

For decades, China has supplied African militaries with small arms and land-based equipment such as armoured vehicles, trucks and artillery. Now, it is selling them more specialised weapons, including armed drones and electronic warfare systems. Analysts noted that China’s African arms sales were shifting qualitatively to air-defence systems, armed drones and electronic warfare gear once dominated by Russia and the West. In April, four vehicles identified by defence analysis group Janes as...

Turkey has moved the country’s Kurdish militant leader to a newly built part of an island prison where he has been incarcerated since 1999 as part of efforts to end decades of conflict, a senior Kurdish official said. Improving prison conditions for Abdullah Ocalan, who heads the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, has been a key Kurdish demand in the push to end the 42-year-long conflict between the militant group and Turkish authorities. Ocalan has been imprisoned in a penitentiary on the island

Hong Kong sweltered through its warmest October on record, as an extremely strong El Nino, a weak northeast monsoon and a persistent anticyclone aloft over southern China combined to drive temperatures to unprecedented levels, the weather forecaster has said. The Hong Kong Observatory forecaster said on Sunday that the mean maximum temperature for October was 30.5 degrees Celsius (86.9 Fahrenheit), the mean temperature 27.6 degrees and the mean minimum 25.8 degrees – all the highest for any...