Iran might accept US IAEA inspectors if nuclear deal reached
DUBAI: Iran might allow the UN atomic watchdog to send US inspectors to Iranian sites if Tehran's talks with Washington succeed, Iran's nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami said on Wednesday (May 28).
Tehran and Washington are expected to hold a sixth round of talks to solve a decades-long dispute over Iran's nuclear programme, with US President Donald Trump predicting "good news".
"It is normal that inspectors from hostile countries are not allowed, but if a nuclear deal is reached, we might allow American inspectors working for the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit our nuclear sites," Eslami told a press conference in Tehran.
The two countries have clashed over the issue of uranium enrichment in Iran, which Washington says is a possible pathway to building nuclear weapons and must be brought to zero. Tehran maintains its nuclear programme is exclusively for civilian purposes and views its enrichment industry as a red line.
"Enrichment is the foundation and pillar of the country's nuclear industry. Suppose someone is allowed to have an electricity substation and network, but not allowed to establish a power plant," Eslami said.
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Business Times
an hour ago
- Business Times
China's Temu and Shein want to crack Europe, but the US is too big to quit
HUANG Lun was one of the original architects of his Guangzhou-based company's push into the US market, helping it to sell underwear and yoga pants via the online commerce platforms Amazon, Temu and Shein. The American market now makes up 70 per cent of the company's total sales, but in March, with US President Donald Trump threatening imminent tariffs on Chinese imports, Huang was tasked with finding new markets in Europe and Australia to help soften the inevitable blow. Huang's company is one of hundreds of thousands that collectively ship billions of US dollars worth of goods to the US, taking advantage of digital marketplaces, low-cost, high-volume manufacturing operations in China, US consumers' voracious appetite for cheap clothing, electronics, toys and homeware, and a 'de minimis' exemption on import taxes for low-value packages. The Trump administration's on-again, off-again trade war with China threatens the economics of the business, making it far more expensive to ship products to customers, and putting a tax on every imported product that either the consumer or the retailer will need to pay. To mitigate the risk, Chinese e-commerce platforms are shifting resources to Europe and other markets, spending heavily on promotions to try to woo European consumers. European regulators and retailers are braced for a flood of low-cost goods. But that may be slow to come. The merchants in China – the companies that actually buy, sell and ship apparel, electronics, decorations and toys – are more focused on shoring up their core markets in the US, preferring to take higher risks and lower margins rather than tackle the complexity and bureaucracy of Europe. Huang is among them. When the Trump administration announced 145 per cent tariffs on Chinese imports and cancelled the de minimis exemption, the company initially dropped its sales targets for the US. But soon after, Huang was pulled back to work part-time on the American market again. Trump suspended some tariffs for 90 days, and the company rushed to get new production orders to its factories and booked container space to ship a few more months' worth of inventory to the US. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up 'We still need to keep an eye on other markets to always prepare in case things get worse again, but it's less urgent now,' he said. 'We feel the US market is back, at least for this year.' Price hikes After the Trump administration's tariff announcement, many Chinese sellers on e-commerce platforms increased their US prices. The average price of 98 products on Shein tracked by Bloomberg News rose by more than 20 per cent by early May from two weeks prior. Observed sales on Shein were 16 per cent lower for the 28 days ended May 22, compared to the same period a year ago, according to Bloomberg Second Measure, which analyses credit and debit card transactions in the US. Temu's sales fell about 19 per cent in the same period from 2024 levels. To try to convince merchants in China to refocus on European consumers, Shein, Temu and TikTok turned to the same tactics they used to build their markets in the US, spending heavily on advertising and subsidies to sellers and customers. According to data from advertising analytics company AppGrowing Global, the number of new adverts booked by Shein and Temu in the US market fell more than 90 per cent in the first three weeks of May, compared to the same period last year. In April and May, Temu's monthly ad volume in Europe was up 12 times from a year earlier, and up more than four times in the UK. Both platforms have bought more adverts in the UK than in the US in the past two months. Temu, Shein and Tiktok have offered to pay part or all of the shipping costs to European markets, as well as directly subsidising some purchases. Merchants who spoke to Bloomberg said Temu had offered 2.99 euros (S$4.40) in subsidies on orders below 30 euros, while TikTok was willing to subsidise sales via its newly launched UK store by £3.48 (S$6.06). However, interviews with six Chinese merchants selling on Temu, Shein, TikTok and Amazon suggest that these subsidies are not enough to convince them to devote significant resources to Europe yet. Those merchants who have tried have found the experience frustrating. Last year, Roy Chen, founder of Shenzhen-based smoke detector maker Sensereo, started selling in Europe via Amazon and his own website. 'I realised I entered a hell mode,' Chen said. 'I now deeply understand why everyone loved starting their overseas businesses in the US market.' To sell in Europe, he had to register for value-added tax in each individual market, offer a range of plugs, and translate his instruction manuals into at least five different languages. Rules and product standards kept changing, meaning he had to keep tweaking the product. 'In this highly-fragmented market, there's nowhere to generate such fat profits as people do in the huge single market such as the US.' Although he'd originally discounted the US market as too competitive, Chen started selling in the US via his own website – after the tariff announcements. He's still selling in Europe and expects to grow there, but sees the US market as a better prospect in the short term. He expects other Chinese merchants will come to the same conclusion. 'Imagine a Chinese factory boss or merchant who started their US business in the early years and used to earn US$100 million per year from just one market,' Chen said. 'Now he has to start from zero, to learn all the complicated rules from Italy, Germany to Spain, and only make a fraction of the money from each market.' Many merchants are in precisely that situation, having spent years establishing themselves in the US, building their relationships with factories and platforms, and understanding what local consumers want, Wang Xin, head of the Shenzhen Cross-border E-commerce Association, said. That's a sunk cost. 'Everyone is now putting all their efforts into prioritising the US market, busy producing and booking containers to ship as much inventory as possible,' Wang said. 'Taking good care of the US business, getting cash flows and surviving, that's the most important and urgent thing now. Exploring other markets is important too, but not urgent, and it's not something you can rush to do.' Dumping fears Some of the frustrations that Chinese companies have found in trying to enter European markets are there by design. The EU and UK typically have more rules on product standards and consumer protections than the US – non-tariff barriers that Trump has referenced in his trade disputes with the continent. European regulators have already begun cracking down. The Commission is formally investigating Temu for potential breaches related to the sale of illegal products and manipulative user interface designs. In May, a separate enforcement action found that Shein used tactics such as fake discounts and misleading sustainability claims. Shein has one-month to respond or face possible fines based on its EU turnover. The US' tariffs on China and the end of the de minimis rule has increased a sense of urgency in the EU, but the bloc's concerns predate the trade war. In 2024, about 4.6 billion parcels valued at 150 euros or less – the EU's de minimis threshold – entered the bloc, almost double the 2023 total. More than 90 per cent originated from China. Policymakers tend to argue that enforcing European standards protect consumers and mean that imported products cannot undercut local manufacturers by producing inferior, unsafe goods. 'It's not about trying to prevent affordable products or blocking clever business models that we ourselves did not come up with,' Bernhard Kluttig, a deputy German economy minister, said. 'It's really just about making sure that everyone plays by the same rules.' When the Darmstadt Regional Council, a regional authority in Germany, tested 800 products from Asian e-commerce platforms, they found 95 per cent of them did not meet European standards. Among the products were laser pointers that exceeded legal output limits by up to 300 times. 'If you get that in your eye, then your eyesight is gone,' Angelika Kuster, head of the council's department for market surveillance, product and chemical safety, said. Other checks found toys with 100 times the permitted concentration of toxic chemicals. The council has stepped up inspections and hired more staff to examine products from e-commerce sites, Kuster said: 'But it's clear that we can't compete with the sheer volume of products being introduced.' The European Commission has launched a new initiative called Priority Control Areas to carry out surprise cross-border checks and launched a web crawler tool, which it hopes can help to identify harmful products listed on e-commerce sites. Other potential solutions under discussion at the Commission include introducing a handling fee for e-commerce platforms and implementing a digital product passport, which may provide supply chain transparency through a QR code linked to detailed product information. The EU is in the process of reviewing stricter rules and the elimination of the 150 euros de minimis customs duty exemption. But as the US has already closed its equivalent in May, there's a risk that the e-commerce players now exploit Europe as a dumping ground while it's still possible. 'We are often not as quick as Donald Trump,' Kluttig said. 'We can't issue executive orders that apply immediately and across all of Europe. We have different elaborate and complex legal processes. Which is important – but decisions take longer.' Similar conversations are going on in the UK, where the de minimis threshold is £135, and where industry groups have long argued that online retailers selling Chinese goods are undercutting local companies by skirting duties and safety checks. Exports of 'low-value' parcels from China to the UK rose 53 per cent in April, according to an analysis of China's customs trade database. Parcels under the £135 threshold generally pass through customs with limited inspection. In research published in October 2024, the British Toy and Hobby Association found 85 per cent of the 75 toys it tested from third-party sellers on 11 marketplaces, were non-compliant with EU and UK safety standards. 'It's difficult enough to pay all the taxes that we do without facing competition from people who pay none, particularly when they're supplying goods that are demonstrably not up to UK safety standards,' said Andrew Goodacre, chief executive officer of Teal Group, which owns toy retailer The Entertainer. A Temu spokesperson said that the company takes product safety seriously, with 'a robust seller onboarding process, regular monitoring, and enforcement actions to ensure compliance', and that it works with testing and certification agencies. 'We are committed to fair competition and supporting local businesses,' the spokesperson said. 'Our platform allows European and UK-based sellers to reach new customers through a low-cost channel, with half of our UK sales expected to come from local sellers and warehouses by the end of 2025. We are expanding this model across Europe, aiming for 80 per cent of our European sales to come from local sellers over time.' A Shein spokesperson said that the company is 'fully committed to ensuring the products we offer are safe and compliant', and that it is investing US$15 million this year in product safety and compliance initiatives, performing 2.5 million product safety and quality tests, and expanding its partnerships with testing agencies. AliExpress did not respond to a request for comment. Britain has taken action in recent years. Responsibility for collecting VAT has been shifted onto platforms, as sellers are now required to collect the tax upfront when dispatching parcels. Ollie Marshall, managing director of online electronics retailer Maplin, said that this has lessened competition and led 'Chinese direct sellers on platforms such as Amazon actually becoming less prevalent'. However, just as in the EU, the US' dropping of its de minimis rule has increased fears of goods being rerouted and dumped in the UK. The Labour government announced a review of its policy in late April. So far, retailers and trade groups say there is not much evidence that dumping is happening. Martino Pessina, CEO of Takko Fashion, a German discount clothing chain, said he's actually found short-term benefits from the US policy changes, as the temporary slowing of US demand has meant he's getting more favourable pricing from his own suppliers in China. This speaks to a point that is not always reflected in the arguments over de minimis rules and the threat of dumped goods via Chinese platforms. 'We already buy in our local stores in the UK and the EU cheap Chinese goods, it's the same goods, often made in the same place,' Anna Jerzewska, customs and trade adviser to the EU and the UK, and director of consultancy Trade & Borders, said. Safety concerns are valid, as is the need to have a level playing field on regulations, she said. 'But the cheap Chinese goods isn't the problem. It's the profits of the UK retailers or the EU retailers.' Constant disruption Chinese online platforms are unlikely to see the increasing regulatory complexity in developed economies as an insurmountable barrier, according to Mark Greeven, dean of Asia at IMD Business School. The companies are expanding their warehouse capacity in Europe, he said, and Temu has begun to explore different business models, including working with small businesses in European markets. In April, the company signed a memorandum of understanding with DHL to develop its logistics on the continent. 'Part of their advantage which they had in the US, they are trying to transplant to Europe, but they are also reinventing themselves a bit,' Greeven said. It will be challenging to build in Europe the 'proximity with the consumer' that the platforms have achieved in the US, he said, and their model of ultra-low price, algorithmically-marketed products may need to change. It could take a year or more to figure out how to navigate tariffs and tailor their offering to European markets. But the expertise that the Chinese platforms have built-in logistics and supply chains means that they are powerful, highly adaptable businesses that will be hard to regulate out of existence, because they have dealt with constant disruption throughout their existence. 'It's been round after round after round, and I think they got pretty good at focusing on their core capabilities,' Greeven said. 'It's a mess, but a mess is an opportunity from the point of view of Chinese entrepreneurs. I think that typically in this situation, Chinese companies prosper because they are not afraid of it, they are used to it.' The future of the US tariff regime is uncertain. In late May, a court ruled that the Trump administration's import taxes were illegal. The government has appealed. For the merchants, the timing of any short-term shift to Europe will be dictated by the simple metric of the US tariff numbers, Wang, from the Shenzhen Cross-border E-commerce Association said. When tariffs were set at 54 per cent, that was the point most exporters couldn't make a profit, he said. 'Before reaching that level, people were struggling with thinner profits, but would rather stay in the US for cash flows and meanwhile start doing research on new markets,' Wang said. 'But let's say the tariffs return to figures higher than that again, you will just be forced to completely exit and jump to other markets as you'll die faster if you stay.' BLOOMBERG
Singapore Law Watch
2 hours ago
- Singapore Law Watch
Fighting deepfakes with content ‘nutrition labels': Opinion
Fighting deepfakes with content 'nutrition labels': Opinion Source: Straits Times Article Date: 03 Jun 2025 Author: Irene Tham How does genuine content prove that it is not manipulated? Some big moves are afoot. There may come a time when 'nutrition labels' for online content become mainstream, just as they are for packaged food. It seems a bold vision and a tall order. But for Mr Andy Parsons, senior director of content authenticity at Adobe, it is the need of the hour amid the urgency to protect online users from scams, misinformation and artificial intelligence (AI) deepfakes. 'The reason that there are now laws coming to bear is because everyone is concerned about cryptocurrency scams and untrue news,' said Mr Parsons in an interview with The Straits Times on May 27. The European Union's AI Act – which requires users to visibly disclose that they had used AI to manipulate or generate content – came into force in 2024, a world-first legislation to rein in AI harms. A second, the California Digital Content Provenance Standards Act, which requires AI-generated images, video and audio to be identifiable as such through metadata, is expected to go into effect in 2026. How bad is the deepfake problem? While creating deepfakes isn't new, governments and think-tanks are alarmed about the levels of realism they can achieve, and the speed at which they can be churned out, with generative AI tools that have become widely available since 2022. The potential for harm increases exponentially when deepfakes are shared via social media that amplify reach. The most recent example involves Pope Leo XIV. He has been head of the Catholic Church for only a few weeks, and social media is already rife with AI-generated deepfake videos and images of the new pontiff. In a video shared on TikTok and Instagram, the Pope was depicted criticising US President Donald Trump and opposing everything Mr Trump stands for. The AI-manipulated video had the Pope saying: 'Trump, the immigration policies you've implemented are a blatant trampling on both the teachings of the church and the promises of the American dream.' It was a deepfake. Singapore politicians have their own encounters with deepfakes. Spoofed videos of Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong promoting cryptocurrency schemes with guaranteed returns circulated online in 2024. Scammers appear to have manipulated his video interview in March 2023 with Chinese news network CGTN. The Singapore police frequently send advisories to the public detailing the latest ruse. In many instances, scammers have convincingly replicated the logos and layouts of news publications such as ST and CNA, complete with the bylines of known journalists. Sometimes the articles quote prominent figures like Prime Minister Lawrence Wong or a local bank's chief singing praises about obscure cryptocurrency platforms. Many carry links to fraudulent websites, prompting unsuspecting victims to enter bank card details. ST has received letters from readers asking if the investments were genuine, and had published a story to debunk these fake articles. Little surprise then that the World Economic Forum's 2025 Global Risk Report named misinformation and disinformation as the top global threat over the next two years. Mr Parsons is helping to counter this. He was in Singapore in May to meet officials from the Centre for Advanced Technologies in Online Safety, Singapore's $50 million effort to build tools to spot misinformation and deepfakes. He also participated in a panel on misinformation at the Infocomm Media Development Authority-organised ATxSummit, which took place on May 28 and 29. Countering fakes with nutrition labels Conmen ride on the trust that people have in personalities and brands, and will keep going. To counter their schemes, there must be an easier way for consumers to tell the genuine from the fabricated. Thankfully, lawmakers are getting involved. The success of the EU and California laws could inspire global new norms in online content tagging. A crack team at Adobe under Mr Parsons had a head-start five years ago in developing the tools to enable this reform. Its technology received a timely update in the past year. One tool, called Content Credentials, provides metadata about who created an image, when it was created and how (whether it came from a camera or was generated using AI) and what edits have been made. An accompanying tool, called Trust Mark, embeds invisible watermarks in images or videos, ensuring that a piece of the authentic content's metadata is not lost when someone takes a screenshot. The invisible watermarks embedded in the copied content allows its metadata to be recovered. There are several competing tools in the market, but many are not free and are based on proprietary standards. This means that there may be compatibility issues. Conversely, Trust Mark and Content Credentials are designed to be open and free for all, including non-Adobe customers, as part of the firm's broader push to make the tech an industry standard. To be precise, Adobe is the key funder of the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), a global non-profit coalition it co-founded with Twitter and the New York Times in 2020 to combat misinformation. Twitter, now called X, is no longer involved. But the CAI has expanded to include more than 4,500 members from across industry, civil society and journalism – including the Associated Press, The New York Times, BBC, Getty Images, The Wall Street Journal, Nvidia, Nikon, Panasonic, Leica and Universal Music Group. Mr Parsons, who leads the charge at CAI, is working on tools to allow nutrition labels to be tagged to webpages. Genuine content creators can attach these labels to indicate that the content has not been manipulated. News websites and brands vexed by criminals impersonating them online should watch this space. Spotting the labels Attaching labels is only one part of the equation. The other is that these content labels should be as easy to spot and inspect as food labels on cereal boxes. They are. That is one checkbox ticked. Content Credentials-marked images and videos carry a 'CR' icon at the top left corner. Mousing over the CR icon will display a metadata box detailing origins and edit history. But there is one snag. Users need to download and install the free Adobe Content Authenticity add-on for Google Chrome to view the metadata. Those without the add-on will not be able to see or interact with the CR icon on laptops and mobile phones. Because Chrome accounts for more than 60 per cent of global users, this extra step could limit the technology's reach. The Apple users' camp is even worse off. Safari does not have the Adobe Content Authenticity add-on. Neither does the browser natively support the viewing of Content Credentials metadata. For content nutrition labelling to take off, more checkboxes must be ticked. First, the app makers could play a bigger role. They are starting to display Content Credentials, with LinkedIn and TikTok leading the way. But the approach is not consistent across the industry. YouTube, for instance, does it differently. It provides a 'Captured with a camera' disclosure in the 'How this content was made' section in the expanded description of some videos. It also lets users disclose AI-generated content with the 'altered or synthetic content' label through an honour system that does not attach the labels by default. Second, more work can be done by hardware makers so that nutrition labelling is done by default, say, when smartphone users snap a picture or shoot a video. Although the majority of the traditional camera market represented by firms such as Sony, Canon and Nikon are already using Content Credentials, only one smartphone player does this today. And smartphones are what most people use to produce multimedia content these days. So kudos to Samsung, which is trailblazing this space. Its latest Galaxy S25 series, which started shipping earlier in 2025, allows users to automatically generate Content Credentials nutrition labels when users snap a picture or shoot a video with the devices. It is unclear if the Chrome browsers in the Samsung devices have also been updated to display the labels. Third, phone and laptop operating systems can be updated to allow the viewing of content nutrition labels by default – so users need not download any browser add-ons. Standards are still evolving. But judging from the size of the CAI, with its more than 4,500 members, organisations seem to have coalesced around the open standards that Content Credentials support. To be sure, Adobe's approach is not meant to identify bad actors but rather to empower good ones by allowing them to prove their authenticity. It is a pragmatic strategy that deserves more support. Irene Tham is an assistant news editor and oversees tech coverage as The Straits Times' technology editor. She writes regular columns that look at how technology is shaping the world. Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction. Print
Business Times
2 hours ago
- Business Times
Asia: Markets rise as traders eye possible Trump-Xi talks
[HONG KONG] Asian stocks rallied on Tuesday as investors kept tabs on developments in the China-US trade war amid speculation the countries' leaders will hold talks soon. After a period of relative calm on the tariff front, Donald Trump at the weekend accused Beijing of violating last month's deal to slash huge tit-for-tat levies and threatened to double tolls on steel and aluminium. The moves jolted Asian markets on Monday, but hopes that the US president will speak with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping - possibly this week - has given investors some hope for a positive outcome. Meanwhile, oil prices extended Monday's surge on a weak dollar and Ukraine's strike on Russian bombers parked deep inside the country that stoked geopolitical concerns as well as stuttering US-Iran nuclear talks. Trump has expressed confidence that a talk with Xi could ease trade tensions, even after his latest volley against the Asian superpower threatened their weeks-old tariff truce. 'They violated a big part of the agreement we made,' he said on Friday. 'But I'm sure that I'll speak to President Xi, and hopefully we'll work that out.' BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up It is unclear if Xi is keen on a conversation - the last known call between them was in the days before Trump's inauguration in January - but the US president's economic adviser Kevin Hassett signalled on Sunday that officials were anticipating something this week. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent - who last week warned negotiations with China were 'a bit stalled' - said at the weekend the leaders could speak 'very soon'. Officials from both sides are set for talks on the sidelines of an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ministerial meeting in Paris on Wednesday. While there has been no movement on the issue, investors took the opportunity on Tuesday to pick up recently sold shares. Hong Kong gained more than one per cent while Shanghai returned from a long weekend on the front foot. There were also gains in Tokyo, Sydney, Wellington, Singapore, Taipei and Manila. Seoul was closed for a presidential election. Deals queued up? The advances followed a positive day on Wall Street led by tech giants in the wake of a forecast-beating earnings report from chip titan Nvidia. Still, National Australia Bank's Rodrigo Catril remained nervous after Trump's latest salvos. 'The lift in tariffs is creating another layer of uncertainty and tension,' he wrote in a commentary. 'European articles suggest the lift in tariffs doesn't bode well for negotiations with the region (and) UK steelmakers call Trump doubling tariffs 'another body blow',' he added. 'The steel and aluminium tariffs also apply to Canada, so they will likely elicit some form of retaliation from there and while US-China trade negotiations are deteriorating due to rare earth, student visas and tech restrictions, steel tariffs will also affect China.' Separately, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Monday voiced optimism for a trade deal with India 'in the not too distant future', adding that he was 'very optimistic'. And Japanese trade point man Ryosei Akazawa is eyeing another trip to Washington for more negotiations amid speculation of a deal as early as this month. Also in focus is Trump's signature 'big, beautiful bill' that is headlined by tax cuts slated to add up to US$3 trillion to the nation's debt. Senators have started weeks of what is certain to be fierce debate over the mammoth policy package, which partially covers an extension of Trump's 2017 tax relief through budget cuts projected to strip health care from millions of low-income Americans. Oil prices extended Monday's surge that saw West Texas Intermediate briefly jump five percent on concerns about an escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and suggestions Washington could hit Moscow with stricter sanctions. That compounded news that the Opec+ producers' grouping had agreed a smaller-than-expected increase in crude production. Traders were also monitoring tensions over Iran's nuclear programme after Tehran said it would not accept an agreement that deprives it of what it calls 'peaceful activities'. AFP
