INDONESIA
AI civil service in future
President Joko Widodo yesterday ordered government agencies to remove two ranks of public servants next year and replace their roles with artificial intelligence (AI), in a bid to cut red tape hampering investment. The nation should transition to higher-end manufacturing, which would require foreign investment, Widodo said, adding that he would improve the business climate by fixing dozens of overlapping rules and cutting red tape. “I have ordered my minister [of administrative and bureaucratic reform] to replace them with AI. Our bureaucracy will be faster with AI,” he said, but added that the plan would need parliamentary approval.
SOUTH KOREA
Fifteen coal plants to idle
The government plans to idle up to a quarter of its coal-fired power plants from next month to February to help limit air pollution, and the remaining plants should be enough to supply power over the winter, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said yesterday. The nation has about 60 coal-fired power plants, generating 40 percent of its electricity, but experts have said that burning coal has worsened the air quality.
NORTH KOREA
Unidentified projectile fired
The military yesterday fired an unidentified projectile, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said, three days after Pyongyang said that its troops conducted artillery drills near its disputed sea boundary with the South. The brief statement from Seoul gave no further details, such as what kind of projectile was launched, or where it landed. On Monday, leader Kim Jong-un, visited a frontline islet and ordered artillery troops there to practice firing near the sea boundary, the scene of several bloody naval clashes between the Koreas in past years.
UKRAINE
Apple slammed over map
Minister for Foreign Affairs Vadym Prystaiko accused Apple Inc of insensitivity in having some versions of its Maps app depict the Crimean Peninsula as being part of Russia. The minister tried to present the situation in terms of how Apple might react if in a parallel situation. “Imagine you’re crying out that your design & ideas, years of work & piece of your heart are stolen by your worst enemy, but then smb ignorant doesn’t give a damn about your pain,” he tweeted. “That’s how it feels when you call #Crimea a [Russian flag] land.”
FRANCE
China urged to end camps
The government on Wednesday called on China to end “mass arbitrary detentions” in the Xinjiang region. “We call on China to put an end to mass arbitrary detentions and invite the office of the [UN] High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Xinjiang as soon as possible to report on the situation,” a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said.
UNITED STATES
‘Extreme cyberstalker’
A Hawaiian man tormented a Utah family for a year by sending more than 500 people to their house for unwanted food deliveries and repairs, as well as tow trucks, locksmiths, plumbers and prostitutes, US Attorney John Huber, who called it “extreme cyberstalking,” told reporters on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Loren Okamura, 44, had a detention hearing at the US District Court in Honolulu, following his arrest last week. Okamura targeted a father and his adult daughter. “For all the good that technology offers us in our modern lifestyles, there is also a darker, seedier side to it,” Huber said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion