Biden warns on Beijing’s South China Sea moves
Long-simmering tensions between China and its neighbours took centre stage on April 11, as leaders of the US, Japan and the Philippines gathered at the White House to push back on Beijing’s stepped-up pressure on Manila in the disputed South China Sea.
US President Joe Biden’s administration is expected to announce new joint military efforts and infrastructure spending in the former American colony while he hosts Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr alongside Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington for a first-of-its-kind trilateral summit.
Topping the meeting’s agenda is China’s increasing pressure in the South China Sea, which has escalated despite a personal appeal by Mr Biden to Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2023.
The Philippines and China had several maritime run-ins in March that included the use of water cannons and heated verbal exchanges. The disputes centre on the Second Thomas Shoal, home to a small number of Filipino troops stationed on a warship that Manila grounded there in 1999 to reinforce its sovereignty claims.
Support from US vital for Ukraine’s survival, says Japan PM
Ukraine risks collapsing under Russia’s onslaught without US support, a disaster that could embolden China and spark a new crisis in East Asia, Japan’s prime minister told US lawmakers on April 11, urging them to overcome “self-doubt” about the country’s role on the world stage.
In the first speech to a joint meeting of Congress by a Japanese leader in nine years, Mr Fumio Kishida urged Americans not to doubt the country’s “indispensable” role in world affairs, and said Tokyo was undertaking historic military upgrades to support its ally.
He spoke amid deep divisions in US politics over the country’s role on the world stage in a presidential election year, including in the House of Representatives chamber where he gave his address.
OJ Simpson, football star turned murder defendant, dies
OJ Simpson, the American football star and actor who was acquitted in a sensational 1995 trial of murdering his former wife but was found to be responsible for her death in a civil lawsuit and was later imprisoned for armed robbery and kidnapping, has died at the age of 76.
Simpson, cleared by a Los Angeles jury in what the US media called “the trial of the century,” died on April 10 after a battle with cancer, his family posted on social media on April 11.
Simpson avoided prison when he was found not guilty in the 1994 stabbing deaths of former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles.
Apple plans Mac line overhaul with AI-focused M4 chips
Apple is nearing the production of M4 computer processors which would have AI processing capabilities and plans to update every Mac model with it, Bloomberg News reported on April 11, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
The company is aiming to release the updated computers in late 2024 and early 2025, and they would include new iMacs, a low-end 14-inch MacBook Pro, high-end 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros, and Mac minis, the report said.
PC makers have been in a slump since the end of a pandemic-era boom in sales for working and learning from home. The industry has pinned its hopes of a revival on a new generation of laptops and desktops with more powerful chips that can handle artificial intelligence tasks such as summarising documents without having to send data to the cloud.
Liverpool on brink of Europa League exit
Atalanta stunned Anfield as Gianluca Scamacca scored twice in a 3-0 win on April 11 to leave Liverpool with a mountain to climb to reach the Europa League semi-finals.
Mario Pasalic added a third seven minutes from time to condemn Liverpool to a first home defeat in all competitions for 14 months.
The Reds had been favourites to end the Jurgen Klopp era by completing the German’s set of trophies won as Liverpool boss in his last game in charge in the Dublin final.
