SpaceX’s Starship made a triumphant return to Earth on Saturday, caught in mid-air by giant mechanical arms where its journey began 22 hours earlier. It was the grand finale that Elon Musk and his team hoped for – the first-ever capture of a Starship flying back from space. But with the first-stage booster exploding shortly after Friday’s lift-off from Texas, the company fell short of its desired double catch. Wreckage remained in the Gulf of Mexico, cordoned off by buoys, as the stainless...

Talks at Cop31, the United Nations climate change conference being held in Antalya, Turkey, come at a critical moment for climate-vulnerable countries across the Global South. Bangladesh is among those bearing the brunt of climate change despite having negligible historical responsibility for global emissions. As delegations negotiate how to finance climate action, the “how” matters no less than the “how much”: support must arrive in time, reach those who need it and avoid deepening debt. The...

The 33rd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit will be held in Shenzhen from November 18 to 19. The venue is not accidental. Forty years ago, this was a border town of rice fields and duck ponds; it is now where a good part of the world’s electronics are designed and built, and the showcase of China’s “reform and opening up”. The event’s theme, “Building an Asia-Pacific Community to Prosper Together”, puts openness, innovation and cooperation at the centre. US President Donald Trump...

Weary travellers braced for more flight disruptions on Saturday as service resumed from US airports after an hours-long stoppage that the Trump administration blamed on faulty equipment or an error by a contractor tasked with switching out old copper wire communication lines. Friday’s nationwide ground stop sparked widespread chaos and left hundreds of thousands of passengers in limbo, with some pulled off planes moments before departure by airline staff who appeared in the dark about unfolding...

Filipino singer Carmelle won the first Asian edition of the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday with a fiery performance of her dance-pop song “Sobra-Sobra”. The 19-year-old beat 10 other acts in the grand final in Bangkok, with the winner chosen through votes from national juries in participating countries and viewers worldwide. After her victory, Carmelle said her song celebrated female empowerment and was intended as “a tribute to all Filipino women”. “I made history, since this was the first...

US negotiators have floated the idea of Ukraine’s potential withdrawal from its eastern region of Donbas in exchange for joining Nato, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, following the latest round of peace talks with Russia in Abu Dhabi. This is the first time the question of linking Nato membership to territorial concessions has been raised during the talks, Zelensky said in remarks ‌to reporters released by his office on Saturday. “The Americans raised a question: ‘What if Ukraine joins Nato?...

Disciplinary staff in Wuhan, provincial capital of Hubei in central China, were going about their routine workday when a red alert landed. It was from a large data model – flagging a possible case of corruption. “A company took on more than 10 projects this year. Its registered capital reduced from 50 million yuan (US$7.5 million) to 10 million, yet it’s paid-in capital is still zero,” the alert said. “Moreover, over 80 per cent of the projects it took were [residential] communities from...