With conflict spreading and old forums faltering, Manila became one of the rare places where powers still chose dialogue In late July, the Philippines did something that has become increasingly rare. It made great powers sit down. Under the chairmanship of the Philippines, the 59th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Manila and its dense constellation of related gatherings turned the capital into one of the few reliable stages where rivals still appear in the same rooms, exchange views, and keep channels open. From July 20 to 24, foreign ministers from Southeast Asia, the United States, China, Russia, Japan, India, Europe, and beyond convened against a distinctly unsettled backdrop of escalating hostilities between the US and Iran and rising tensions between Beijing and the Philippines after incidents in the South China Sea. Yet ASEAN did what it has long done best – it refused to let the frict...
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The US president said the outlines of a deal had been agreed that could reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end what he called Iran’s nuclear threat US President Donald Trump has canceled a planned attack on Iran after saying the outlines of an agreement had been reached that could reopen the Strait of Hormuz and address what he described as Tehran’s “nuclear threat.” CBS News reported that the US and Israel had been preparing a major bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic’s energy infrastructure that could begin as early as the weekend. The network said the proposed operation, which it described as potentially one of the harshest campaigns against Iran to date, was expected to target power plants and oil refineries, while military officials also reportedly discussed cutting electricity across Tehran. In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, Trump wrote that despite the US being ...
A fast-moving blaze has swept through the Spokane area, burning more than 1,000 hectares by Saturday evening Wildfires burning across more than 100,000 hectares in Washington state, US, have triggered widespread evacuations and power outages around the city of Spokane, state officials said on Saturday. Large parts of Spokane County were placed under the highest Level 3 evacuation order as strong winds drove flames into residential areas. Officials urged residents to leave immediately “due to the life-threatening conditions,” while an evacuation shelter was opened at a local community college. The largest blaze, the Old Trails Fire, ignited around noon and had burned more than 1,000 hectares by late afternoon, according to the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR). The fire spread rapidly through brush and grass into residential neighborhoods. Videos circulating on social medi...
A study found that 87% of all instances of expletives being used by US presidents since 1919 have been recorded in the past decade US politicians are using profanity in public far more frequently than in the past, according to research published by Cardiff University politics lecturer Dr Joseph Phillips. Some 87% of the 692 documented instances of presidents, vice presidents, and presidential candidates using profanity in public have occurred in just the last decade, Phillips wrote. The overwhelming majority of those cases – 78% – came from President Donald Trump and his predecessor Joe Biden, according to the study published this week. On Wednesday, Trump was heard using another expletive following an Iranian attack on US forces in Jordan. According to Fox News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent, Trey Yingst, the president said: “We’re going to beat the f**king s**t out of ...
The company launched an investigation after its advanced models escaped a test environment and hacked another company’s systems without human instruction OpenAI has uncovered additional cases in which its autonomous AI models breached containment and acted without human instruction, Reuters has reported, citing sources. The findings come as the company expands its investigation into a hacking incident last month in which an AI bot went rogue while attempting to cheat in an internal cybersecurity test. During tests of GPT-5.6 Sol and another unreleased model, both stripped of their safety guardrails, the systems were assigned ExploitGym – a benchmark designed to measure AI models’ ability to identify and exploit known software vulnerabilities. Instead of completing the tasks, one model escaped its supposedly isolated testing environment, gained internet access and hacked into Hugging Face ...
The president used the migration crisis in the EU to claim America was overrun by illegals under his predecessor The surge of migrants across the border from Morocco into Spain is an example of what could happen to the US if Republicans aren’t elected, US President Donald Trump has claimed. Trump has repeatedly attacked his political opponents over immigration, blaming his predecessor Joe Biden for illegal border crossings. An estimated 50,000 migrants, mostly young men, swam from Morocco and crossed into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta earlier this week in an unprecedented influx that triggered a humanitarian crisis in the city. The Spanish Interior Ministry has reported that around 48,000 had voluntarily returned by Friday evening. “What’s happening with Spain, with tens of thousands of Illegal Immigrants invading it, happened in the United States during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration...