A Chinese rocket carrying a communications satellite failed in its launch, state media said, attributing the failure to a “flight anomaly” as reports and videos suggested the spacecraft had exploded in mid-air.Beijing has plowed billions of dollars into its space program in the past few years to ach
The WHO yesterday defended the science-based process used to determine childhood immunisation schedules after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at reducing the number of recommended childhood vaccinations in the US.Trump on Monday signed an executive order calling for a reduc
Alphabet Inc’s Google pitches its artificial intelligence (AI) tools to corporate clients as a way to more quickly sift through a mountain of job applications to find the most promising candidates — but some of its own AI researchers do not want to rely on these tools when recruiting.Google DeepMind
‘INSULTING’ JOKE: Australia’s prime minister rejected the opposition’s calls for him to apologize for his ‘disrespectful behavior’ toward the Japanese leader
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday sidestepped calls to apologize after a clip emerged of him engaging in crude banter about a gift from Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.Albanese had already faced a backlash and apologized over comments made during an interview last month wit
An Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) has killed 2,011 people out of 4,381 confirmed cases of the virus, officials said yesterday. The latest toll puts it close behind the nation’s deadliest Ebola outbreak in 2018 to 2020 when nearly 2,300 people died out of 3,500 reco
AUSTRALIABirds to get flu vaccineAuthorities yesterday said they would vaccinate bird species deemed to be especially vulnerable to the highly contagious H5 bird flu virus. The country was for years the only continental landmass free of the H5 strain. The first domestic case was discovered in a migr
Workers try to clear a sea of garbage and debris brought by intense monsoon rains at the Redemptorist Water Channel in Paranaque City, Metro Manila, yesterday.
‘COCKROACH’ PARTY: The youth-led movement said it plans to travel across the nation to gather ideas for reforms directly from the public, but will not join elections
The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which spearheaded one of India’s biggest student protests, yesterday accused authorities of violating an agreement by pursuing participants and reiterated that it would remain a pressure group rather than enter electoral politics.Police continue to investigate cases
A weakening Typhoon Dolphin yesterday brought heavy rain and grounded hundreds of flights on in eastern China, where authorities said more than 1 million people had been evacuated over the past few days. The weather system has lost power after making two landfalls along the coast of Zhejiang Provinc
HELP? A small cruise ship rescued a stranded skiff in southeast Alaska even though the billionaire’s US$300 million, 118m megayacht was closer
Meta Platforms Inc CEO Mark Zuckerberg has faced questions over why a small cruise ship in southeast Alaska rescued a stranded skiff and its crew when his 118m superyacht had been closer.The Silicon Valley billionaire’s yacht, worth a reported US$300 million, is said to have “repeatedly” declined to
HERE LIES WHO? A power cable linking UK and Ireland now passes near Bronze Age human burial remains instead of the fictional grave of Dobby on a Welsh beach
Harry Potter fans have forced a new multimillion-dollar power cable between the UK and Ireland to be relocated after complaining it would desecrate the “grave” of Dobby, a fictional elf.The character was laid to rest on Freshwater West beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales, during the film Harry Potter and
Artificial intelligence (AI) users are shopping around as US giants face fierce competition from Chinese rivals — and in Beijing’s tech district, drinkers at an AI-themed bar can even plug in to DeepSeek for free.A new generation of cost-efficient, high-performance Chinese AI is putting pressure on
UNITED STATESUS not leaving Asia: official“America is definitely not disengaging from Asia” and is instead “digging in” to maintain a favorable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby said in a speech in Manila yesterday. Maintaining a favorab
CONDITIONS LAID OUT: The demands include the lifting of the US’ blockade of Iran, release of frozen assets and an end to the aggression against Iran and its allies
Iran on Saturday set preconditions for a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, including compensation for war damages, complicating a potential deal to open the waterway essential to the world economy.Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi said discussions with Oman over transit an
Indonesia yesterday sent airplanes and hundreds of firefighters to fight a blaze in a popular national park, one of a growing number of wildfires the country is battling during an unusually dry season.The largest fire reported this week has burned about 176 hectares of Mount Bromo, within the Bromo
In Afghanistan’s northeastern Badakhshan province, dozens of excavators operate day and night to extract gold from the mountains where villagers and their livestock once roamed. Thousands of miners are deployed across the Shiwa area, extracting gold for investors nationwide. Some residents in the ar
Myanmar’s military-backed government has rejected the ASEAN’s renewed call for the unconditional release of detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi and dismissed the need for the organization’s special envoy on Myanmar, the Myanmar Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Myanmar President Min Aung Hlaing, the f
Ukraine on Saturday paid tribute to Oleksiy Yukov, a volunteer who spent more than two decades recovering bodies of civilians and soldiers — many of them Russian — killed by war. He was 40.An Orthodox Christian service was held at the Cathedral of Saint Volodymyr in Kyiv, where thousands of people g
FRUSTRATED: Survivors of the attack have criticized the government’s support for nuclear deterrence and worry that Japan might ease its non-nuclear principles
Nagasaki yesterday marked the 81st anniversary of the US atomic bombing of the southwestern city, as the mayor called nuclear weapons “absolute evil,” denounced growing support for nuclear deterrence and called on the Japanese government to adhere to its three post-World War II non-nuclear principle
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