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Trump to send Patriot missiles to Ukraine, says Nato will pay US

Trump to send Patriot missiles to Ukraine, says Nato will pay US

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, United States: President Donald Trump on Sunday said the United States would send Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine to help it fight off a Russian invasion, as his relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin soured.
"We will send them Patriots, which they desperately need," Trump said, without specifying how many, just two weeks after Washington said it would pause some arms deliveries to Kyiv.
"I haven't agreed on the number yet, but they're going to have some because they do need protection," he told reporters.
The weapons delivery will be part of a new deal which Trump says will involve Nato paying the United States for some of the weapons it sends to Ukraine.
"We basically are going to send them various pieces of very sophisticated military and they're going to pay us 100 percent for them," Trump told reporters.
The US president repeated that he was "disappointed" in Putin.
When he first returned to the White House in January Trump insisted he could work with the Russian leader to end the war, but grew increasingly frustrated as Russian missiles continued with no ceasefire in sight.
"Putin really surprised a lot of people. He talks nice and then he bombs everybody in the evening," said the disgruntled Trump.
US special envoy Keith Kellogg is due to begin his latest visit to Ukraine on Monday.
Trump also said he would meet Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte on Monday, when he previously said he would make a "major statement... on Russia."--AFP
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As Trump flip-flops on US academia, China's brightest head back home. Here's why
As Trump flip-flops on US academia, China's brightest head back home. Here's why

The Star

time17 minutes ago

  • The Star

As Trump flip-flops on US academia, China's brightest head back home. Here's why

This year, Beijing's Tsinghua University is up two spots to be just outside the top 10. Peking University and Zhejiang University have also moved up the list, climbing to 25th and 45th respectively. The rankings are the latest list of the Best Global Universities compiled by American media company US News and World Report, which looks at 2,250 top institutions from 105 countries. The assessment focuses exclusively on the overall academic research and reputations of the universities, weighing up 13 factors, from publications to citation impact. This year's results show just how far Chinese universities have come in a few short years. In 2018, Tsinghua University was 50th and Peking University 68th, the only two in the top 100. Now they are among 15 Chinese universities in the top 100, with Tsinghua leading the pack at 11th. It has been a steady rise for Chinese institutions up these kinds of ladders in recent decades, one built on sustained investment in education, students and recruitment of overseas staff. That brain gain is growing in momentum, as the administration of US President Donald Trump flip-flops on visas for international students and cuts research funding, deterring more of China's best and brightest from study and research in the United States. The decline in Chinese students heading to the US has been particularly stark over the past five years. In the 2019-20 academic year, China accounted for the largest group of international students in the United States, with 372,532 crossing the Pacific for further studies. By the 2023-24 school year, that number had fallen to 277,398, a decline of more than a quarter over that period. So much so that India now sends more students to the US than China. Similarly, almost 20,000 scientists of Chinese descent left the US for other countries between 2010 and 2021, according to a study by Princeton University sociologist Yu Xie. The rate jumped after 2018 when the US government launched the 'China Initiative' in what it framed as an effort to uncover 'Chinese economic espionage' threatening US national security. The China Initiative was launched during Trump's first term and reportedly involved US Department of Justice investigations of thousands of scientists suspected of hiding Chinese connections. Most cases were quickly dropped due to lack of evidence, and the programme was scrapped in 2022 under Trump's successor, Joe Biden. However, the academic chill between China and the US is still apparent at the institutional level. In January, the University of Michigan ended a two-decade partnership with Shanghai Jiao Tong University over what it said were national security risks. The University of California, Berkeley, recently announced it was decoupling from the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute after the US government began investigating millions of undisclosed dollars given to the institute by the Chinese government. And in September 2024, the Georgia Institute of Technology announced the end of its participation at the China-based Georgia Tech Shenzhen Institute, also due to national security concerns. The effect could be lasting. While the most popular American universities – Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Stanford – continue to dominate the top spots in the US News university rankings, 'visa challenges and government scrutiny could deter talented Chinese students and researchers from choosing to study in the US in the future', according to Rick Carew, adjunct professor of finance and economics at Fordham University's Gabelli School of Business in New York. 'China-born scholars contribute immensely to academic research in the US. The heightened US-China political tensions have made them a target for scrutiny,' Carew said. 'Generous funding and the opportunity to teach the next generation of top Chinese students in their native language have made offers to return to Chinese universities attractive for some top scholars more interested in conducting research than geopolitics.' One of the major pull factors for returning to China – the increase in funding – stems from Beijing's efforts to ramp up domestic innovation and development. China is seeking to move up the industrial value chain and is counting on investment in high technology to help get it there. At the National Science and Technology Conference in the capital last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping set a 2035 goal to develop the country's science and technology sectors into world-leading research hubs. That involves a bigger emphasis on research. According to a report released in March by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, China spent more than US$780 billion on research and development in 2023, reaching 96 per cent of US R&D spending, measured in terms of gross domestic expenditure. That compared with just 72 per cent 10 years earlier. In 2017, China surpassed the US in terms of research output, and since then has generated an increasing number of cited publications, a sign that Chinese research is attracting more attention from the international research community, according to the Springer Nature 2024 China Impact Report. Xiong Bingqi, dean of the 21st Century Education Research Institute in Beijing, said conditions for researchers had improved over the past five years, with incentives such as higher salaries, better research funding, and benefits like housing subsidies and healthcare. 'The good scientific research environment has attracted a large number of foreign academic talent to teach in China, and the talent attraction policies are also quite helpful,' Xiong said. Zhejiang University, a cradle of tech start-ups in China, has been on the receiving end of some of the research funding and has attracted notable scientists from the US. That reputation was burnished this year when university engineering graduate Liang Wenfeng made the world sit up with his AI start-up DeepSeek and its cost-effective, open-source and competitive approach to large language models. Notably, many of the people at DeepSeek were young and educated wholly in China. In an interview with The China Academy, an academic networking hub, Liang said his hiring practice was to pick and nourish fresh young graduates from the very top Chinese universities but with little to no work experience. Apart from DeepSeek, Zhejiang University graduates have been at the forefront of other innovative tech start-ups such as Deep Robotics, known for specialising in robot dogs and pioneering autonomous inspections of electrical substations and dangerous high-voltage environments. Both companies are part of the 'Six Little Dragons', the Hangzhou-based tech firms whose successes have come to embody China's tech aspirations. 'China produces an estimated 1.4 million engineering graduates each year, providing fresh talent to technology firms like Huawei and BYD competing with Silicon Valley,' Carew said. 'Chinese tech innovation has benefited from a combination of engineering talent, China's advanced manufacturing ecosystem in Zhejiang and Shenzhen, and government policies supporting investment in hard tech industries.' In addition, US controls on technology exports to China, such as a ban on sales of some advanced chips, introduced in 2022 were supposed to help secure technological leadership, but they ended up costing US companies billions of dollars in market capitalisation while boosting Chinese domestic innovation and self-reliance, according to a 2024 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. But this has not always been the case. China-US relations, arguably one of the world's most important sets of bilateral ties, boast decades of strategic academic cooperation and competition. In 1979, the two countries signed the US-China Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement. That agreement was renewed late last year after much delay and some changes but the extension signalled a continued willingness to cooperate. And in May, Beijing's Tsinghua University opened four new residential colleges aimed at developing talent in science, engineering and AI, with one of them designed specifically for international students. The colleges were part of a global strategy launched in 2021 to boost worldwide competitiveness. 'Promoting internationalisation is an important part of efforts by Chinese universities to enhance their competitiveness,' Xiong said. Attracting American students to China is one of Xi's goals. In late 2023, Xi said China was ready to invite 50,000 young Americans to China on exchange and study programmes in the next five years to increase exchanges between the two peoples, especially between the youth. The number of American students studying in China is a shadow of just a decade ago. In the 2023-24 academic year, 800 US students were enrolled in Chinese universities, according to a 2024 American Chamber of Commerce in China report. Enrolments peaked in 2011, when around 15,000 Americans studied in China. The drastic decline was attributed mostly to three years of the zero-Covid policy and ongoing bilateral tensions. Just before the pandemic, 11,000 American students had been studying in China, according to the report. Improving those numbers would not just benefit international relations. Xiong, from 21st Century Education, said that maintaining a global education push was 'a strategic step in building a strong country'. 'The tensions will have a severe impact on Chinese universities to achieve joint international cooperation in scientific research and talent cultivation,' Xiong said. And university rankings may not be the best way of measuring that success. Xiong said that rating systems could have a negative influence on university operations, leading to more pressure for quantity over quality and more frequent cases of fraudulent research papers. 'Ranking universities by using indicators such as the number of papers published and the number of citations is a simplistic and quantitative approach, but the spiritual qualities and traditions of a university cannot be quantified,' Xiong said. 'Talent development is the key to competitiveness. We cannot have first-class scientific research without first-class talent.' -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

Malaysia yet to receive formal request on Nick Adams as US envoy
Malaysia yet to receive formal request on Nick Adams as US envoy

New Straits Times

time17 minutes ago

  • New Straits Times

Malaysia yet to receive formal request on Nick Adams as US envoy

KUALA LUMPUR: The government has yet to receive any formal request from the United States regarding the proposed appointment of conservative commentator and author Nick Adams as the new US ambassador to Malaysia. Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan said the ministry will wait and provide views and recommendations to the Cabinet upon receiving the request. He also said it would be premature for Malaysia to react to the proposed appointment without having received any formal documentation or proposal. "We have yet to receive any agreement request from the US. Let's wait and see how the agreement is presented. "Wisma Putra will evaluate it (once received), provide its recommendations, and the matter will then be brought to the Cabinet for a decision. "That is all I can say for now because nothing has been received and we are only hearing talks. "If we reject something that has not even been formally requested, people might say we were never asked in the first place, which would be embarrassing, so let's not appear overeager," he said during a question and answer session in Dewan Rakyat here today Mohamad said this in response to Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh (PH-Ledang) who enquired about the ministry's views on Adams' proposed appointment. On July 11, US President Donald Trump announced that Adams would be nominated as the next US ambassador to Malaysia. In a post on Truth Social, Trump described Adams as a "remarkable patriot" and successful entrepreneur, praising his dedication to what he called "the Virtues of American Greatness." Adams, an Australian-born conservative figure, is a vocal supporter of Trump and is known for his pro-American advocacy. He has authored several books and made numerous media appearances promoting right-wing values. His nomination is expected to undergo the Senate confirmation process before it can be formalised. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, meanwhile, had previously said that the government will give due consideration to Adam's proposed appointment, but said it is still too early to make a decision. He said Malaysia would continue to adhere to proper diplomatic procedures while maintaining strong bilateral ties with the US.

Commerce Secretary Lutnick says he is confident US will secure trade deal with EU
Commerce Secretary Lutnick says he is confident US will secure trade deal with EU

New Straits Times

timean hour ago

  • New Straits Times

Commerce Secretary Lutnick says he is confident US will secure trade deal with EU

WASHINGTON: US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Sunday he was confident the United States can secure a trade deal with the European Union, but August 1 is a hard deadline for tariffs to kick in. Lutnick said he had just gotten off the phone with European trade negotiators and there was "plenty of room" for agreement. "These are the two biggest trading partners in the world, talking to each other. We'll get a deal done. I am confident we'll get a deal done," Lutnick said in an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation." US President Donald Trump threatened on July 12 to impose a 30 per cent tariff on imports from Mexico and the European Union starting on August 1, after weeks of negotiations with the major US trading partners failed to reach a comprehensive trade deal. Lutnick said that was a hard deadline. "Nothing stops countries from talking to us after August 1, but they're going to start paying the tariffs on August 1," he said on CBS. Trump announced the tariffs in a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. He sent letters to other trading partners including Mexico, Canada, Japan and Brazil, setting blanket tariff rates ranging from 20 per cent to 50 per cent, as well as a 50 per cent tariff on copper. Lutnick also said he expected Trump to renegotiate the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) signed during Trump's first White House term in 2017-21. Barring any major changes, USMCA-compliant goods from Mexico and Canada are exempt from tariffs. "I think the president is absolutely going to renegotiate USMCA, but that's a year from today," Lutnick said.

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