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Yu Donglai has converted about ¥3.8 billion of his retail chain’s assets into employee share capital, granting staff equity, dividend rights and profit‑linked bonuses while retaining a one‑vote veto as an adviser. The plan embeds a decision committee dominated by grassroots representatives and aims to preserve stability, align incentives and avoid a public listing. Observers see the move as a defensive, governance‑driven response to succession, social expectations on wealth distribution and a shifting regulatory environment.

Missile and drone strikes on Dubai since early March have shattered investor confidence and precipitated a sharp collapse in property transactions and market indices. The attacks expose the emirate’s vulnerability: a small, wealthy expatriate class holds a large share of assets, and rapid capital flight could hit Dubai’s broader economy and reshuffle global luxury markets.

Markets expect the Fed to keep rates at 3.50–3.75% at its next meeting, but attention has turned to the dot plot and updated forecasts as an oil‑price shock from the Iran conflict raises the risk of renewed inflation. How Jerome Powell frames the trade‑off between growth and inflation will determine whether markets read the meeting as a postponement of easing or a signal that policy will stay tighter for longer.

Beijing has launched a performance‑based pilot scheme that offers up to Rmb1.6 billion per city cluster to scale hydrogen use, with national aims to cut hydrogen prices to Rmb25/kg on average by 2030 and to grow fuel-cell vehicle numbers to 100,000. Industry sees the policy as welcome but says cutting electricity costs and validating new electrolyser technologies are essential to make green hydrogen competitive.

Xiwang Food, China’s leading corn-oil brand, faces a judicial auction of 200 million shares held by indebted parent Xiwang Group on March 30–31, 2026. The forced sale follows years of aggressive diversification, heavy losses and creditor actions that have left the group’s other listed units collapsed, while the food business still retains a strong market position despite mounting impairments.

The US plans to issue more individual licences to allow foreign firms to operate in Venezuela’s oil sector, aiming to raise crude production and cool a price surge linked to conflict around Iran. The move is targeted rather than a full sanctions lift, balancing the need for additional supply with continued political leverage over Caracas.

U.S. officials denied a media report that linked President Trump’s delayed visit to China with demands for Chinese help securing the Strait of Hormuz, attributing any postponement to logistics and the U.S. military response to the Iran conflict. At the same time, sixth‑round Paris trade talks between senior Chinese and American negotiators produced constructive exchanges and tentative agreements to create mechanisms to stabilise bilateral trade and investment ties.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s official social account posted a third consecutive short video to demonstrate he is alive, this time showing a meeting with a U.S. envoy named in the post. The repetition reflects efforts to counter online speculation and highlights how social media has become a frontline in political information battles, with implications for domestic trust and international reassurance.

Israel announced it had assassinated Ali Larijani in a precision strike near Tehran, but Iranian state media published recent handwritten material attributed to Larijani that contradicts that claim. The episode comes amid escalating exchanges between Israel, Iran and U.S. forces, the recent appointment of hardliner Mohsen Rezaei as a military adviser in Tehran, and growing strains on U.S. naval readiness and allied willingness to secure the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s top security council secretary Ali Larijani posted a handwritten condolence note for sailors killed in a U.S. strike even as Israel publicly claimed it had killed Larijani and begun large‑scale strikes on Tehran infrastructure. The conflicting accounts underscore a perilous fog of information and a possible escalation between Israel, Iran and the United States.

Joe Kent, director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, resigned effective immediately, saying he could not support what he described as a war against Iran driven by external pressures. His public break raises questions about politicization of intelligence, operational continuity, and the domestic and international ramifications of U.S. Middle East policy.

The International Maritime Organization has cautioned that naval escorts through the Strait of Hormuz are neither fully protective nor sustainable, stressing the need for broader maritime and humanitarian measures. The warning arrives amid faltering U.S. efforts to muster a coalition for escorts and deepening disruptions to global oil flows, prompting coordinated releases from strategic reserves.

State media circulated images of a Korean War veteran playing a farewell bugle and a 76‑year‑old grandmother handing dumplings to a new recruit at an enlistment ceremony, portraying generational continuity and public support for the military. The vignette serves both as a human interest story and as a deliberate piece of messaging that reinforces domestic legitimacy for China’s defence posture.

Alibaba has launched Wukong, an enterprise-grade AI agent platform integrated with DingTalk, aiming to scale AI across businesses by leveraging DingTalk’s user base. Didi rolled out Xiaodi v1.0, an AI ride assistant that maps natural requests to executable service tags to improve matching precision, while other Chinese firms report early AI monetisation and specialized XR-AI partnerships.

Nvidia unveiled the Vera Rubin orbital module to run LLMs in space, promising dramatic on‑orbit inference gains, while China’s finance ministry pledged more proactive fiscal policy in 2026 and Beijing moved to commercialize public data for AI training. Together these developments accelerate demand for compute, datasets and resilient hardware, reshaping supply chains and competitive dynamics in the global AI industry.

Tencent’s Rock Kingdom: World topped 50 million pre-registrations ahead of a cross‑platform launch later this month, signaling strong demand for established IP remade for mobile and PC. A Shanhaijing‑themed idle card game, Yishou Lingjing, will launch on March 20, while Capcom’s Resident Evil release has rapidly reached 6 million sales—together underscoring the market premium for known brands, cross‑platform play and long‑tail monetisation.

The 139th Canton Fair will open April 15 at record scale, highlighting a shift toward branded, green and intelligent exports. Beijing has elevated the Shenzhen–Zhuhai corridor to national planning, while Dongguan and Huawei launched a ‘HarmonyOS City’ to embed domestic IoT and data platforms into urban and industrial life. Hong Kong’s forthcoming five‑year plan aims to align the city more closely with national priorities.

Researchers have, for the first time, observed lithium dendrites growing and fracturing inside an operating battery cell, revealing mechanical behaviors that explain intermittent shorting and capacity loss. Published in Science and led by teams including Rice University and Nanyang Technological University, the work improves understanding of a key safety risk and points to targeted engineering and materials solutions.

U.S. air strikes in March appear to have destroyed or severely damaged a large portion of Iran’s surface fleet, particularly ships above 1,000 tonnes that were in port or at anchor. The losses expose a strategic mismatch in Tehran’s recent push for larger support vessels and drone carriers, and they shift Iran back toward asymmetric tools—mines, small craft and submarines—to threaten the Strait of Hormuz.

China has commissioned its ninth and tenth Type 055 large destroyers, bringing the class to double‑digit strength and demonstrating growing shipbuilding and operational reach. The Dongguan conducted first operational sea training in the East China Sea, underscoring Beijing’s efforts to turn new hulls into sustained, deployable naval capability.