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Japan said Thursday it held a joint air exercise with the United States in a show of force, days after Chinese-Russian patrols in the region and following weeks of diplomatic feuding between Tokyo and Beijing.The Japanese joint chiefs of staff said Wednesday’s exercise with the US Air Force was conducted in “an increasingly severe security environment surrounding our country”.Tokyo said Wednesday that two Russian Tu-95 nuclear-capable bombers flew a day earlier from the Sea of Japan to rendezvous with two Chinese H-6 bombers in the East China Sea, then conducted a joint flight around the country.Japan said that it scrambled fighter jets in response.Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi angered Beijing last month by suggesting that Japan would intervene with military force in any Chinese attack on Taiwan.Thursday’s announcement by Japan’s chiefs of staff said: “We confirmed the strong resolve of Japan and the United States not to allow any unilateral change of the status quo by force, as well as the readiness of the Self-Defense Forces and the US military.”In a separate statement it said that the “tactical exercises” over the Japan Sea involved two US B52 bombers, three Japanese F-35 fighter jets and three Japanese F-15s.The joint exercise came as the United States criticized Beijing for the first time on Wednesday after Chinese military aircraft locked radar onto Japanese jets on Saturday.The J-15 jets from China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier twice locked radar on Japanese aircraft in international waters near Okinawa, according to Japan, which scrambled jets in response.”China’s actions are not conducive to regional peace and stability,” a US State Department spokesperson told AFP on Wednesday.”The U.S.-Japan Alliance is stronger and more united than ever. Our commitment to our ally Japan is unwavering, and we are in close contact on this and other issues.”Fighter jets use their radar for fire control to identify targets as well as for search and rescue operations. Tokyo also summoned Beijing’s ambassador following the radar incident, over which the two countries offer differing accounts of events.Japan said it scrambled its F-15 jets because it was worried about possible “airspace violations”.Guo Jiakun, spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs, accused Japan Wednesday of sending the jets “to intrude into the Chinese training area without authorisation, conduct close-range reconnaissance and harassment, create tense situations, and continue to maliciously hype up the situation”.Takaichi’s comments about intervening in any Taiwan emergency enraged Beijing as China claims the self-ruled island as its own and has not ruled out seizing it by force.Tokyo was forced to deny a Wall Street Journal report that said US President Donald Trump had advised Takaichi not to provoke China over Taiwan’s sovereignty.But Tokyo is apparently frustrated at the lack of public support from top officials in Washington and has urged the US to be more vocal, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.- ‘Regrettable’ -NATO chief Mark Rutte said on Wednesday that the radar incident and the joint Chinese-Russian patrols were “regrettable”, Japan’s Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said on X.The statement followed a 15-minute video conference between Rutte and Koizumi, the defence ministry said in a statement.Rutte “affirmed that security in the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic regions is completely inseparable”, Koizumi said.South Korea said Tuesday that Russian and Chinese warplanes also entered its air defence zone, with Seoul also deploying fighter jets that same day.Beijing confirmed later on Tuesday that it had organised drills with Russia’s military according to “annual cooperation plans”.Moscow also described it as a routine exercise, saying it lasted eight hours and that some foreign fighter jets followed the Russian and Chinese aircraft.

The administration of US President Donald Trump plans to order visa-exempt foreign tourists to disclose their social media histories from the last five years before entering the country, according to an official notice.The proposal laid out in a notice published Tuesday in the Federal Register would apply to visitors from 42 countries, including Britain, France, Australia and Japan, who do not need a visa to enter the United States.Currently, those travellers only need apply for a waiver known as the Electonic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), which still requires them to provide certain personal details.Under the proposed new rules, the collection of social media data would become a “mandatory” part of ESTA applications.Applicants would need to provide their social media histories from the last five years, according to the notice.They would also have to submit other “high-value data fields” including phone numbers from the last five years, email addresses from the past decade, personal details of family members and biometric information.The public has 60 days to comment on the proposal.The Trump administration has tightened curbs on entering the United States, part of a sweeping crackdown on migration.Along with Mexico and Canada, the country will host the 2026 World Cup, which is certain to attract large numbers of soccer fans from across the world. 

Back in 2018, President Donald Trump disputed having used the epithet “shithole” to describe some countries whose citizens emigrated to the United States.Nowadays, he embraces it and pushes his anti-immigrant and xenophobic tirades even further.Case in point: during a rally in the northeastern state of Pennsylvania on Wednesday that was supposed to focus on his economic policy, the 79-year-old Republican openly ranted and reused the phrase that had sparked an outcry during his first term.”We had a meeting and I said, ‘Why is it we only take people from shithole countries,’ right? ‘Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden?'” Trump told his cheering audience. “But we always take people from Somalia,” he continued. “Places that are a disaster. Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.”Recently, he called Somali immigrants “trash.”These comments are “more proof of his racist, anti-immigrant agenda,” Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey responded on X.- The Trump megaphone -Florida Republican lawmaker Randy Fine, on the other hand, defended Trump.”Not all cultures are equal and not all countries are equal,” he said on CNN, adding “the president speaks in language that Americans understand, he is blunt.”University of Albany history professor Carl Bon Tempo told AFP this type of anti-immigrant rhetoric has long thrived on the far-right.”The difference is now it’s coming directly out of the White House,” he said, adding “there’s no bigger megaphone” in American politics.On the campaign trail in 2023, Trump told a rally in New Hampshire that immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country” — a remark that drew comparisons to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Now back in power, Trump’s administration has launched a sweeping and brutal deportation campaign and suspended immigration applications from nationals of 19 of the poorest countries on the planet.Simultaneously, the president ordered white South African farmers to be admitted to the US, claiming their persecution.- No filter left -“Any filter he might have had is gone,” Terri Givens, a professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada and immigration policy expert, told AFP. For Trump, it doesn’t matter whether an immigrant obeys the law, or owns a business, or has been here for decades, according to Syracuse University political science professor Mark Brockway.”They are caught in the middle of Trump’s fight against an invented evil enemy,” Brockway told AFP.By describing some immigrants as “killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies” — as Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem did earlier this month — the White House is designating a target other than itself for American economic ire at a time when the cost of living has gone up and fears are growing over job security and loss of federal benefits.But, Bon Tempo noted, “when immigration spikes as an issue, it spikes because of economics sometimes, but it also spikes because of these larger sort of foundational questions about what it means to be an American.”On November 28, after an Afghan national attacked two National Guard soldiers in Washington, Trump took to his Truth Social network to call for “REVERSE MIGRATION.”This notion, developed by European far-right theorists such as French writer Renaud Camus, refers to the mass expulsion of foreigners deemed incapable of assimilation.Digging into the “Make America Great Again” belief system, many experts have noted echoes of the “nativist” current of politics from the 1920s in the US, which held that white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant culture was the true American identity.That stance led to immigration policies favoring Northern and Western Europe.As White House senior advisor Stephen Miller recently wrote on X: “This is the great lie of mass migration. You are not just importing individuals. You are importing societies…At scale, migrants and their descendants recreate the conditions, and terrors, of their broken homelands.”

In pursuit of the AI dream, the tech industry this year has plunked down about $400 billion on specialized chips and data centers, but questions are mounting about the wisdom of such unprecedented levels of investment.At the heart of the doubts: overly optimistic estimates about how long these specialized chips will last before becoming obsolete. With persistent worries of an AI bubble and so much of the US economy now riding on the boom in artificial intelligence, analysts warn that the wake-up call could be brutal and costly.”Fraud” is how renowned investor Michael Burry, made famous by the movie “The Big Short,” described the situation on X in early November.Before the AI wave unleashed by ChatGPT, cloud computing giants typically assumed that their chips and servers would last about six years.But Mihir Kshirsagar of Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy says the “combination of wear and tear along with technological obsolescence makes the six-year assumption hard to sustain.”One problem: chip makers — with Nvidia the unquestioned leader — are releasing new, more powerful processors much faster than before.Less than a year after launching its flagship Blackwell chip, Nvidia announced that Rubin would arrive in 2026 with performance 7.5 times greater.At this pace, chips lose 85 to 90 percent of their market value within three to four years, warned Gil Luria of financial advisory firm D.A. Davidson.Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made the point himself in March, explaining that when Blackwell was released, nobody wanted the previous generation of chip anymore.”There are circumstances where Hopper is fine,” he added, referring to the older chip. “Not many.”AI processors are also failing more often than in the past, Luria noted.”They run so hot that sometimes the equipment just burns out,” he said.A recent Meta study on its Llama AI model found an annual failure rate of 9 percent.- Profit risk -For Kshirsagar and Burry alike, the realistic lifespan of these AI chips is just two or three years.Nvidia pushed back in an unusual November statement, defending the industry’s four-to-six-year estimate as based on real-world evidence and usage trends.But Kshirsagar believes these optimistic assumptions mean the AI boom rests on “artificially low” costs — and consequences are inevitable.If companies were forced to shorten their depreciation timelines, “it would immediately impact the bottom line” and slash profits, warned Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie Research.”This is where companies get in trouble with creative bookkeeping.”The fallout could ripple through an economy increasingly dependent on AI, analysts warn.Luria isn’t worried about giants like Amazon, Google, or Microsoft, which have diverse revenue streams. His concern focuses on AI specialists like Oracle and CoreWeave.Both companies are already heavily indebted while racing to buy more chips to compete for cloud customers.Building data centers requires raising significant capital, Luria points out.”If they look like they’re a lot less profitable” because equipment must be replaced more frequently, “it will become more expensive for them to raise the capital.”The situation is especially precarious because some loans use the chips themselves as collateral.Some companies hope to soften the blow by reselling older chips or using them for less demanding tasks than cutting-edge AI.A chip from 2023, “if economically viable, can be used for second-tier problems and as a backup,” Peddie said.

Shares in business computing giant Oracle fell more than 10 percent on Wednesday on word its revenue missed heady expectations, dampening artificial intelligence euphoria in the market.The slide in after-market trades came despite Texas-based Oracle reporting that net income in the recently-ended quarter nearly doubled to $6.1 billion in revenue, up 14 percent from the same period a year earlier to $16.05 billion.Oracle’s cloud and business computing unit accounted for $8 billion of that revenue, an increase of 34 percent from the same quarter in 2024, according to the earnings report.”AI training and selling AI models are very big businesses,” Oracle chief executive Mike Sicilia said in the release.”We think there is an even larger opportunity — embedding AI in a variety of different products.”But investors are wary of the massive investments tech companies are making in artificial intelligence models and infrastructure, wondering how and when they will pay off.Oracle has taken on billions of dollars in debt to pay for AI infrastruture and is reported to be considering borrowing even more.The company has also announced it is putting significant resources into partnerships with AI chip makers and model builders, such as OpenAI and Meta.”We are now committed to a policy of chip neutrality where we work closely with all our CPU and GPU suppliers,” Oracle founder and chief technology officer Larry Ellison said in the earnings release.”There are going to be a lot of changes in AI technology over the next few years, and we must remain agile in response to those changes.”Oracle shares were down some 10.7 percent to $199.50 in after-market trades that followed release of the earnings figures.

US lawmakers on Wednesday approved a sweeping defense bill bolstering European security — a sharp rebuke to President Donald Trump’s mounting threats to downgrade Washington’s ties to traditional allies and NATO.The bipartisan House of Representatives vote came on the heels of the publication of a White House national security strategy that amounted to a startling attack on Europe — rattling its governments and opening the biggest transatlantic rift in years.By contrast, the House’s $900 billion Pentagon bill stands out for its pro-Europe orientation and its clampdown on Trump’s authority to reduce troop numbers, move equipment or downgrade NATO-linked missions.”President Trump and congressional Republicans are restoring American strength, defending our homeland, standing with our allies, and ensuring the United States remains the most powerful and capable military force the world has ever known,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said ahead of the vote. In his security strategy published last week, Trump lambasted Europe as an over-regulated, censorious continent lacking in “self-confidence” and facing “civilizational erasure” due to immigration.His administration accuses European nations of taking advantage of American generosity and of failing to take responsibility for their own destiny.The security strategy openly supports far-right European parties, questioning the continent’s commitment to peace and indicating that its security is no longer a top US priority.But lawmakers are explicitly moving in the opposite direction — deepening US resources for the Baltic states and hardening NATO’s northeastern flank, in a move that amounts to one of the strongest congressional assertions in years of Europe’s strategic importance.The 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — which now advances to the Senate — carries a robust $8 billion more than the funding Trump requested in May. It leans hard into European defense, barring troop levels on the continent from falling below 76,000 for more than 45 days and blocking the removal of major equipment.- Demand for drug-strike videos -The White House has backed the 3,086-page text, despite its misgivings over Europe, as well as a provision forcing the Pentagon to hand over videos of maritime strikes against suspected drug-smuggling vessels in Latin American waters.The footage has become a flashpoint in a transparency dispute between congressional defense and security committees and the military. To ensure compliance, lawmakers will withhold a quarter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget until the videos arrive — an unusually personal tactic reflecting frustration over slow document production and the administration’s expanding use of lethal force in drug interdictions.The NDAA also adds traditional security priorities. It places fresh limits on any reduction of the 28,500 US troops in South Korea, a signal to Seoul amid uncertainty over America’s long-term military commitment in East Asia.With support from the administration wavering, the bill also doubles down on Ukraine — setting aside $400 million in security assistance to sustain a baseline of support even if emergency funding stalls.The National Transportation Safety Board had warned against a provision that it said would roll back critical air-safety requirements for military aircraft operating in Washington’s restricted airspace. A group of conservative hardliners mulled blocking the bill over its Ukraine assistance and the absence of a ban on a central bank digital currency.But opposition on multiple fronts is routine for a final NDAA, and there was never significant risk of a rebellion capable of sinking the package.

The United States has seized a large oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, President Donald Trump said Wednesday, dramatically escalating tensions between Washington and Caracas.The move comes amid a huge US naval build-up in the Caribbean, which Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolas Maduro says is aimed at regime change, and strikes on alleged drug boats.A video published by US Attorney General Pam Bondi showed troops rappelling from a helicopter onto the tanker’s deck, then entering the ship’s bridge with rifles raised.”We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, a large tanker, very large — the largest one ever seized, actually,” Trump told reporters at the start of a roundtable with business leaders at the White House.”And other things are happening, so you’ll be seeing that later.”Bondi said the tanker was part of an “illicit oil shipping network” used to carry sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.US media reported that the tanker was heading for Cuba, another American rival, and was detained by the US Coast Guard. Trump just said the tanker “was seized for a very good reason.”Trump’s announcement came a day before Venezuelan Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was set to address the world from Oslo after coming out of hiding.Machado, who won the Nobel for challenging Maduro’s grip on power in oil-rich Venezuela, has not been seen out in the open for months after threats to her life.Venezuela had warned she could be arrested as a fugitive if attempting to re-enter the country after traveling for the Nobel, but Trump warned Caracas against any such step.”I don’t like if she would be arrested, I wouldn’t be happy with it,” Trump told reporters.- ‘State terrorism’ -After saying she was coming to Norway but would not arrive in time for Wednesday’s prize ceremony, Machado will make her first public appearance at a press conference in Oslo at 0915 GMT Thursday, Norway’s government said.Accepting the award on Machado’s behalf on Wednesday, her daughter delivered her blistering acceptance speech, in which she urged her compatriots to fight for freedom against “state terrorism” by Maduro.Trump’s administration has piled pressure on Maduro in recent months, deploying a fleet of warships and the world’s largest aircraft carrier under the pretext of combating drug trafficking.The United States has also carried out deadly strikes on more than 20 alleged drug boats in the region, killing at least 87 people.Washington has accused Maduro of leading the alleged “Cartel of the Suns,” which it declared a “narco-terrorist” organization last month.Trump told Politico on Monday that Maduro’s “days are numbered” and declined to rule out a US ground invasion against Venezuela.Maduro — the political heir to leftist leader Hugo Chavez — says the US is bent on regime change and wants to seize Venezuela’s oil reserves.The Venezuelan army swore in 5,600 soldiers on Saturday after Maduro called for stepped-up military recruitment.Trump’s administration also alleges that Maduro’s hold on power is illegitimate and that he stole Venezuela’s July 2024 election — a claim backed by opposition leader Machado.Since going into hiding, Machado’s only public appearance was on January 9, in Caracas, where she protested against Maduro’s inauguration for his third term.

The United States has seized a large oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, President Donald Trump said Wednesday, further escalating tensions between Washington and Caracas.”We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, a large tanker, very large — the largest one ever seized, actually,” Trump said at the start of a roundtable with business leaders at the White House.”And other things are happening, so you’ll be seeing that later and you’ll be talking about that later with some other people.”Trump did not immediately give further details on the incident.His announcement came a day before Venezuelan Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was set to address the world from Oslo after coming out of hiding.Trump’s administration has piled pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, deploying a fleet of warships and the world’s largest aircraft under the pretext of combating drug trafficking.The United States has also carried out deadly strikes on more than 20 alleged drug boats in the region, killing at least 87 people.Washington has accused Maduro of leading the alleged “Cartel of the Suns,” which it declared a terrorist organization last month.Trump told Politico on Monday that Maduro’s “days are numbered” and declined to rule out a US ground invasion against Venezuela.Maduro says the US is bent on regime change and wants to seize Venezuela’s oil reserves.The Venezuelan army swore in 5,600 soldiers on Saturday after Maduro called for stepped-up military recruitment.

The US Supreme Court on Wednesday examined how to determine whether a death row inmate is intellectually disabled and should be spared execution.The top court more than 20 years ago outlawed executing individuals with diminished mental capacity, ruling it to be a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.The nine-member court left it up to the states to define whether or not a person is intellectually disabled.At issue in the case heard by the Supreme Court is the role of IQ tests in making that determination.Joseph Smith, 55, who was sentenced to death in the southern state of Alabama for a 1997 murder, claims he should be spared the death sentence because he is intellectually disabled.Smith has taken five IQ tests over the years, scoring between 72 and 78.A score of 70 or lower is considered evidence of intellectual disability under Alabama law.Even though Smith scored above 70, a district court ruled he is intellectually disabled after taking into consideration the test’s margin of error and other factors.An appeals court affirmed the ruling and Alabama appealed to the Supreme Court.”Every identified method of handling multiple IQ scores favors the conclusion that Smith is not intellectually disabled,” Robert Overing, the attorney representing Alabama, told the justices on Wednesday.Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a liberal, asked why the test for intellectual disability “should be simply and solely IQ score cutoff at 70?””IQ is originally how intellectual disability was defined as a condition, and it’s always been the primary criterion,” Overing said. “And states are allowed to take the best evidence of intelligence and to make that the test.”Jackson pushed back, saying the words “IQ score under 70″ do not appear in the court’s prior rulings related to intellectually disabled individuals.”I think what you’ve done is shift this to be all about the IQ test in a way that is not supported by our case law,” she said.Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative, said there did appear to be a need for a “concrete standard.””As opposed to a situation where everything is up for grabs in every case, and both sides can bring in experts to testify about the person’s intellectual disability or lack of intellectual disability,” Alito said.Smith’s lawyer Seth Waxman told the justices IQ test scores alone should not be used to determine mental capacity.Sub average intellectual functioning “is a condition, not a test score,” Waxman said.The Supreme Court is expected to rule in the case before the end of June.

Streets were empty, shops shuttered and soldiers fled a key eastern DR Congo city Wednesday a day after the Rwanda-backed M23 militia entered the outskirts, in a move Burundi called a “middle finger” to the United States after the signing of a peace deal in Washington.M23 fighters entered the strategic city of Uvira at the gateway to Burundi late Tuesday, security and military sources said, plunging the city of several hundred thousand residents into uncertainty over who was in charge.It comes less than a year after the anti-government group seized Goma and Bukavu, two provincial capitals in the mineral-rich eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been plagued by conflict for around three decades.”The residents are locked inside their homes,” one of them told AFP. “Everyone is staying home,” another added.”We don’t understand anything, we can only wait for new authorities to take over. We can’t remain without an army or police,” a third resident said. All spoke by telephone and asked to remain anonymous.The latest offensive — launched on December 1 against the Congolese army backed by Burundian forces and allied armed groups — has further shaken hopes that an agreement brokered by US President Donald Trump will succeed in halting the conflict.Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame inked the deal in Washington last Thursday.”Signing an agreement and not implementing it is a humiliation for everyone, and first and foremost for President Trump,” Burundian Foreign Minister Edouard Bizimana told AFP over the phone.”It’s truly a slap in the face to the United States, a middle finger,” he said, adding that sanctions against Rwanda were “necessary”.Rwanda accused the DRC and Burundi of deliberately violating the peace agreement, in a statement Wednesday. A day earlier, the United States and European powers urged the M23 to “immediately halt” its offensive and for Rwanda to pull its troops out of the eastern DRC.- Border closed – Burundi, which neighbours both the DRC and Rwanda, views the prospect of Uvira falling to Rwanda-backed forces as an existential threat.Uvira sits across Lake Tanganyika from the Burundian economic capital Bujumbura, with only around 20 kilometres (12 miles) between the two cities.  Burundi’s main border posts with the DRC were closed on Tuesday afternoon and are now considered “military zones”, military and police sources told AFP. The M23, for its part, has closed the border on the Congolese side, according to local and military sources, though it is not yet clear whether the armed group has taken control of Uvira. Several Congolese army soldiers and members of pro-Kinshasa militia were still seen in the area of Uvira, military sources and witnesses said.A few stray shots were reported.The city nestled between mountains and Lake Tanganyika had already largely emptied on Tuesday as soldiers, police and administrative personnel fled the M23’s advance.Residents speaking to AFP by telephone had pointed to a “every man for himself” mentality and growing panic.Congolese soldiers, some of whom had abandoned their weapons and uniforms, fled, looting shops and a pharmacy as they went, according to witnesses and military sources.- Threatened -Several residents told AFP by telephone in the early afternoon Wednesday that they had seen M23 fighters in Uvira’s northern districts.”I can confirm the presence of M23 in the city,” a representative of civil society told AFP. “I’ve just the M23 with my own eyes pass by my house.”More than 40,000 Congolese have fled the fighting and arrived in Burundi in the space of a week, the Burundian foreign minister told AFP.According to an initial estimate by the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA, more than 200,000 people have been displaced within South Kivu province since December 2. Meanwhile thousands of others have crossed the border into neighbouring countries, especially Burundi but also Rwanda.The latest advance on Uvira marks a new blow for the DRC government.According to several European diplomatic sources, Kinshasa fears the M23 pushing on towards the copper- and cobalt-rich Katanga province in the southeastern DRC, the vast country’s mining hub which the state relies on to fill its coffers thanks to taxes imposed on mining companies.The peace agreement — which Trump called a “miracle” deal — includes an economic portion intended to secure US supplies of critical minerals present in the region, as the United States seeks to challenge China’s dominance in the sector.The M23 is supported by up to 7,000 Rwandan troops in eastern DRC, according to UN experts. Burundi, which has thorny relations with Rwanda, deployed about 10,000 soldiers to the eastern DRC in October 2023 as part of a military cooperation agreement, and security sources say reinforcements have since taken that presence to around 18,000 men.While denying offering the M23 military support, Rwanda argues that it faces an existential threat from the presence in the eastern DRC of ethnic Hutu militants with links to the 1994 Rwandan genocide of the Tutsis.burs-cld/kjm/sbk