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Firms agree deals with Beijing-based Baidu to take self-driving cabs to UK capital
Chinese robotaxis are due to be on the streets of London next year after the US ride-hailing companies Lyft and Uber announced tie-ups with Beijing-based Baidu to deploy its self-driving technology.
Lyft is the third firm to announce plans to introduce self-driving taxis to the UK capital next year, after Uber and Waymo, the main operator of robotaxis in the US.

In the first 10 months of this year, South Korea imported $159m worth of kimchi, almost entirely from China, while exporting $137m
The pungent scent of red chilli powder hangs in the air at Kim Chieun’s kimchi factory in Incheon, about 30km west of Seoul. Inside, salted cabbage soaks in large metal vats in the first stage of a process that Kim has followed for more than 30 years.
But watching over the production line has become increasingly fraught. imports more kimchi than it exports, and the gap has widened as cheaper Chinese-made products take hold in the domestic market.

The Chinese government once focused on political dissidents and exiled activists. Now, federal officials say, it is targeting artists in the United States whose creative protests test its tolerance.

The conviction of Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong is another hostile act. How can Britain ignore Beijing’s provocations and human rights abuses?
The UK pushed hard to secure the release of Jimmy Lai, the newspaper publisher and British citizen who was a leading light in Hong Kong’s brutally suppressed pro-democracy movement. So, too, did press freedom and human rights campaigners. But the Beijing-appointed high court judges in the former colony convicted him anyway, finding Lai guilty last week on fake charges of trying to (CCP). For Xi Jinping, China’s dictator-emperor, there is no greater crime.
Protesting to China’s ambassador, the UK’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, as “politically motivated”. She’s right, of course – but her angry words will make no difference. Beijing’s contempt for Britain’s views is as painfully obvious as the UK’s weakness and indecision in the face of Chinese hubris. The breaking of its solemn promise to respect Hong Kong’s freedoms after the 1997 handover typifies the arrogance and untrustworthiness of Xi’s CCP.
Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

Videos and photographs show how the Chinese authorities have tried to dismantle Zion Church, a Christian network with branches across the country.

Lai, who is facing life in prison, always said he owed Hong Kong, a city that had given him "everything".

From pop to politics, it’s been quite the year. Were you paying attention? Let’s find out …
1-5 Please pay more attention. 6-14 Very good. But spend less time looking up from your phone in 2026. 15-20 Please write this next year.

A reordering of the rules of trade, set on top of transformational change in technology, demographics and climate, is remaking jobs, politics and lives.

Minister says risk to ‘any individual’ from cyber-attack is low and that it is still unclear who is responsible
The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office was hacked in October, a minister has said.
Chris Bryant, a trade minister in Keir Starmer’s government, told Sky News there was a low risk to “any individual” from the cyber-attack.

Joint venture will take over part of app’s US operations, including data protection, algorithm security and content moderation


TikTok has reached a deal to form a joint venture that will allow it to continue operating in the US, five years after Donald Trump over privacy and national security concerns, a move that further strained relations with China.
ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese owner, has signed a deal with Larry Ellison’s Oracle, the private-equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi’s MGX that will allow it to retain control of its core US operations.

The deals would end years of efforts by Washington to force ByteDance to sell its US operations.

Pandas have stood for friendship between China and Japan since 1972. But the last two are about to go, and a dispute over Taiwan could get in the way of sending more.