Kenya next month is to resume construction of a Chinese-backed railway it abandoned almost seven years ago after funding dried up — this time without taking new loans from Beijing.Kenya hopes to raise as much as US$4 billion by securitizing a railway levy to fund the 369km extension of the Standard
South Korea would soon no longer be one of the few countries where Google Maps does not work properly, after its security-conscious government reversed a two-decade stance to approve the export of high-precision map data to overseas servers.The approval was made “on the condition that strict securit
Australian supermarket giant Woolworths has been forced to rein in an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered customer service assistant after users reported it had been rambling about its mother.The AI assistant, who goes by Olive, offers around-the-clock help with everything from tracking orders to f
The biggest exhibition ever devoted to the decades-spanning career of provocative British artist Tracey Emin opened yesterday at London’s Tate Modern, celebrating her ability to transform “life’s trauma” into visceral art. One of the best-known contemporary artists in the world, Emin, 62, nearly die
PROMISING: DengiAll would become one of the world’s first single-dose dengue vaccines, and could become an affordable dengue vaccine for lower-income countries
As dengue surges globally, an Indian vaccine candidate has entered the final stage of testing, raising hopes for one of the world’s first single-dose shots against the deadly mosquito-borne disease.Dengue, which causes severe flu-like symptoms and debilitating body aches, has exploded globally, fuel
ANOTHER LOOK: The previous investigation lasted three years, confirming just 56 of 367 complaints filed by adoptees, while 311 are to be carried over along with 300 new filings
South Korea has relaunched a fact-finding commission into its past human rights violations, with a key focus on the extensive fraud and malfeasance that corrupted the nation’s historic foreign adoption program.The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the third in the country’s history, began accepti
‘JUDICIAL FARCE’: Anna Kwok said that her father’s conviction under the guise of national security was ‘transnational repression’ based on ‘guilt by blood’
A Hong Kong court sentenced the father of a wanted democracy activist to eight months in prison under the territory’s homegrown national security law, after he attempted to terminate her insurance policy and withdraw the funds.Kwok Yin-sang (郭賢生), 69, was found guilty on Feb. 11 for “attempting to d
As he watched the Boston Celtics play from the stands of TD Garden, one noise kept catching Adel Djellouli’s ear.“This squeaking sound when players are sliding on the floor is omnipresent,” he said. “It’s always there, right?”Squeaky shoes are part of the symphony of a basketball game, when rubber s
A record 129 journalists and media workers were killed in the course of their work last year, two-thirds of them by Israel, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Wednesday.It was the second consecutive year that press killings set a record and the second year in a row that Israel was re
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her family are relocating to Australia, becoming the most high-profile addition to a growing wave of Kiwis moving across the Tasman Sea.After spending much of her time overseas since her 2023 resignation, Ardern and her family now plan to base the
The US Department of Justice on Wednesday announced the arrest of a former US Air Force fighter pilot who allegedly trained Chinese military personnel without authorization.Gerald Brown, 65, was arrested in Indiana after returning to the US from China, where he had been since December 2023, a justic
JAPANElderly man held for graffitiPolice yesterday arrested a man in his 90s for allegedly graffitiing a sign at a prosecutor’s office in Osaka, a local officer said. A security guard at the government building made an emergency call saying “graffiti had been scrawled on a sign with red lacquer pain
Hikers are silhouetted against the setting sun at Papago Park in Phoenix, Arizona, on Wednesday. The desert park, known for its distinctive geological formations, is home to a pyramid tomb built by the state’s first governor for his wife and the home of former US Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’C
‘BIGGER, BETTER’: Trump’s record-breaking one-hour, 47-minute address focused on his economic achievements, but offered little solace for voters angered by the cost of living
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday night boasted of a “turnaround for the ages” in his State of the Union speech, seeking to reverse dismal polls and see off mounting challenges at home and abroad ahead of crucial midterm elections.Trump sought to paint a rosy picture of his achievements in his lo
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic’s CEO until tomorrow to open the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology for unrestricted military use or risk losing its government contract, a person familiar with their meeting said on Tuesday.Anthropic makes the chatbot Claude and is
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday said he did not take his security for granted, after he was evacuated from his residence for several hours following a bomb threat sent to a Chinese dance group.Albanese was evacuated from his Canberra residence late on Tuesday following the threa
The biggest contributor was The biggest contributor was marriages, which rose 8.1 percent last year, following a record 14.8 percent jump in 2024, an analyst said
South Korea’s birthrate rose for a second straight year last year, government data showed yesterday, in a further sign that a country facing a demographic crisis for nearly a decade might be starting to turn a corner.South Korea’s total fertility rate, the average number of babies a woman is expecte
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi yesterday was under pressure after it emerged she gave congratulatory gift catalogues to lawmakers from her ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) following its landslide election victory this month.More than 300 lawmakers were given the option to choose an item
Japanese researchers have unveiled a robot monk powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that they say can dispense spiritual advice and maybe one day ease shortages of its human counterparts.Trained on even the most esoteric Buddhist scriptures, the University of Kyoto said the machine can answer se
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