China's burgeoning space program plans to place astronauts on the moon before 2030 and expand the country's orbiting space station.

This announcement comes amid the background of a rivalry with the U.S. for reaching new milestones in outer space, reflecting their competition for influence on global events.

That has conjured up memories of the space race between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s, although American spending, supply chains and capabilities are believed to give it a significant edge over China, at least for the present.

The U.S. aims to put astronauts back on the lunar surface by the end of 2025 as part of a renewed commitment to crewed missions, aided by private sector players such as SpaceX and Blue Origin.

China's first manned space mission in 2003 made it the third country after the USSR and the U.S. to put a person into space.

China built its own space station after it was excluded from the International Space Station, largely due to U.S. objections over the Chinese space programs' intimate ties to the PLA.

Space is increasingly seen as a new area of competition between China and the United States — the world's two largest economies and rivals for diplomatic and military influence — one a highly centralized, one party state, the other a democracy where the partisan divide largely evaporates over the issues of relations with China and space exploration.

Saudi Arabia said it executed two Bahraini men on May 29  after being convicted of belonging to a militant group wanting to destabilise the two Middle East kingdoms.

Amnesty International criticised their trial as being "grossly unfair." The Saudi Interior Ministry's announcement, carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, identified the men as Jaafar Sultan and Sadeq Thamer.

Last year, Amnesty said the men were detained in May 2015 and held incommunicado for three-and-a-half months.

The Saudi statement said that the Specialised Criminal Court convicted the two men of belonging to a militant group - headed by a man wanted by the Bahrani authorities - spreading chaos and smuggling explosives to be used inside Saudi Arabia.

Amnesty, however, had criticised their October 2021 trial and conviction, adding they also had faced charges for "participation in anti-government protests in Bahrain."

The execution took place in Saudi Arabia's predominantly Shiite Eastern Province.

Bahrain, an island nation in the Persian Gulf just across from Saudi Arabia, did not immediately acknowledge the executions.

Bahrain has seen a low-level insurgency by militant groups since it cracked down on protesters during the 2011 Arab Spring.

Saudi Arabia is one of the world's top executors.

It typically beheads prisoners sentenced to death.

Long-time political kingmaker Bola Tinubu was sworn in as president of Nigeria on May 29, succeeding Muhammadu Buhari, a former general who stepped down after two terms in office.

The 71-year-old southerner took over from an 80-year-old northerner as Africa's most populous nation faces a sea of economic troubles and security challenges.

Foreign leaders and representatives present at the ceremony included presidents Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana as well as delegations from the US, Britain and China.

Kashim Shettima was sworn in as vice president, taking over from Yemi Osinbajo.

The ruling party duo were declared winners of the February 25 election, gaining the highest number of votes -- 8.8 million -- and picking up the required number of ballots across two-thirds of Nigeria's states.

British director Molly Manning Walker won the coveted Un Certain Regard newcomer prize at Cannes for her much-praised feature debut "How to Have Sex".

"This film was the most magical moment of my life," the 29-year-old Londoner said after receiving the prize, which she dedicated to "all those who have been sexually assaulted".

The film follows three best friends getting drunk in Crete, with one of the girls, Tara, on a mission to lose her virginity -- but things soon go wrong.

All the stereotypes of Brits abroad feature in the film but Manning Walker also sought to break them by digging deeper into the thorny issues of rape and consent.

It caused a storm at this year's festival and drew rave reviews.

Turkey's Merve Dizdar wins best actress at Cannes for 'About Dry Grasses'

The real winner at Cannes was actress Sandra Hueller

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Japan's Koji Yakusho won best actor at Cannes for "Perfect Days" by German director Wim Wenders, a touching tale about a Tokyo toilet cleaner.

Yakusho, 67, appears in most scenes of "Perfect Days" as a mysterious, bookish man without friends, content to spend his spare time reading, watering his plants, taking photos and listening to songs on his car stereo.

Turkey's Merve Dizdar wins best actress at Cannes for 'About Dry Grasses'

Russia's Interior Ministry  hasMonday issued an arrest warrant for U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham following his comments related to the fighting in Ukraine.

In an edited video of his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that was released by Zelenskyy's office, Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, noted that “the Russians are dying” and described the U.S. military assistance to the country as “the best money we’ve ever spent.”

While Graham appeared to have made the remarks in different parts of the conversation, the short video by Ukraine's presidential office put them next to each other, causing outrage in Russia.

India's top oil and gas producer ONGC will invest Rs 1 lakh crore by 2030 on energy transition projects as it targets net zero carbon emissions by 2038, its chairman Arun Kumar Singh said.

The firm joins fellow state-owned oil and gas firms Indian Oil (IOC), Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL), GAIL and Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) in preparing roadmaps for net zero emissions as part of the nation's commitment to deal with the climate challenge.

Net-zero for a company means achieving a balance between the quantum of greenhouse gases it places into atmosphere and the amount it takes out.

The company is planning to scale up electricity generation from renewable sources from 189 MW to 1 GW by 2030.

It already has 5 GW of project planned in Rajasthan and is scouting for a similar capacity, he said adding ONGC would also look at offshore wind farms.

It is also looking at setting up a 1 million tonne per annum green ammonia plant at Mangalore.

"Overall, the investments will be of the order of Rs 1 lakh crore," he said.

The company reversed the declining trend of oil and gas production in 2022-23 and is now looking at raising output with projects both on the east and west coast.

ONGC produced 19.584 million tonne (MT) of oil in 2022-23, up from 19.545 MT of previous year.

The output is likely to rise to 21.263 MT in the current fiscal (April 2023 to March 2024), to 21.525 MT in 2024-25 and 22.389 MT in the following fiscal.

Natural gas output is slated to rise from 20.636 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2022-23 to 23.621 bcm in 2023-24, 26.08 bcm in the following year and 27.16 bcm in 2025-26.

This rise in output is due to projects the firm is implementing on both the east and west coast to raise productivity from current fields and bringing new discoveries into production.

As much as Rs 61,200 crore is being invested in 14 development and nine infrastructure projects including KG gas field and rejuvenation of existing producing fields like Mumbai High North and Heera.

Singh said ONGC has planned a capital expenditure of Rs 30,125 crore in 2023-24, almost same as Rs 30,208 crore spent in the previous fiscal year.

The company, which has 1.62 lakh square kilometer of acreage, is looking to take the acreage to 5 lakh square kilometer by acquiring one lakh square km every year, spending Rs 10,000 crore annually on exploration.

Nvidia chief Jensen Huang said the world was at "the tipping point of a new computer era" as he unveiled a raft of AI-related products  on may 29  in his first public speech in four years at a Taiwan tech trade show.

The US firm, which specialises in chips coveted in the artificial intelligence boom, saw its value surge to nearly $1 trillion last week, after the company's quarterly earnings report blew past expectations.

Nvidia is known for creating graphics chips long coveted by gamers but which have become engines for the kind of complex processes involved in artificial intelligence, known as accelerated computing.

Its chips are a central ingredient to the generative AI revolution, capable of delivering the computing heft needed to churn out complex content in just seconds from data centres around the world.

In Taipei , the Taiwanese-American CEO expressed excitement to be back at the Computex forum, one of the largest trade shows for the sector.

Huang's two-hour presentation introduced a dizzying host of new products -- including an AI supercomputer platform called DGX GH200, which he said is now "in full production".

The new supercomputer will -- in theory -- help the tech industry as it seeks to create more AI-related products, which require more complex computing tasks.

Founded 30 years ago by Huang, Nvidia was initially a star in the video game world. The Silicon Valley-based company has since built its reputation on making graphics processing units (GPUs), which ramp up image quality and vanquish response lag time for gamers.

Its shares soared more than 25 percent Wednesday after an earnings report showed the AI trend is fuelling demand for its sophisticated chips.