Warsaw, Poland | AFP | A woman has given birth to Poland’s first sextuplets with each newborn weighing about one kilogram (2.2 pounds), physicians at the University Hospital in the city of Krakow announced on Monday. “This is the first birth of sextuplets in Poland and one of the few …
Read More »Brexit compromise talks collapse after six weeks
London, United Kingdom | AFP | Britain’s Labour opposition pulled the plug Friday on six weeks of Brexit compromise talks with Prime Minister Theresa May, blaming her evaporating authority as her premiership nears its death throes. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said the gaps between them could not be bridged — …
Read More »Huawei: Rags to riches story, or Chinese Trojan horse?
Shanghai, China | AFP | Chinese army technician Ren Zhengfei founded Huawei with just $5,000 in seed money, according to company lore, but 32 years later it is at the centre of a titanic tug-of-war between the United States and China for world technological supremacy. Here are answers to key questions …
Read More »New laws of robotics needed to tackle AI: expert
Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | Decades after Isaac Asimov first wrote his laws for robots, their ever-expanding role in our lives requires a radical new set of rules, legal and AI expert Frank Pasquale warned on Thursday. The world has changed since sci-fi author Asimov in 1942 wrote …
Read More »US slaps sanctions over Russia rights despite revived ties
Washington, United States | AFP | The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on five Russians over abuses including the killing of a prominent opposition leader, days after top-level talks seemed to ease tensions between the powers. The State Department highlighted the actions against the five people, plus one …
Read More »Huawei becomes flashpoint in China-US economic showdown
Washington, United States | AFP | The US crackdown on Huawei has made the Chinese telecommunications giant the flashpoint in a monumental economic and technological showdown between the two superpowers that is testing allies of both. One day after the US moved to block Huawei from the US market and banned …
Read More »Europe’s captured media
Independent media is fleeing attacks by government and involvement by large financial groups COMMENT | MARIUS DRAGOMIR | In its March 22 edition, the Slovenian weekly magazine Mladina featured on its cover a cartoon of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán performing a Nazi salute while being hugged by right-wing politicians of …
Read More »Soda taxes work in cutting consumption, US study finds
Washington, United States | AFP | New research backs the argument that “sin taxes” lead to a reduction in consumption, justifying the use of the duties in combating obesity and other health issues, its authors say. The 2017 decision by city officials in Philadelphia to impose a beverage tax on …
Read More »Nissan profits hit ‘rock bottom’ as Ghosn weighs
Tokyo, Japan | AFP | Crisis-hit Japanese car company Nissan on Tuesday unveiled net profits at a near-decade low as it battles to recover after the shock arrest of its talismanic former boss Carlos Ghosn. Net profits for the fiscal year to March 2019 came in at 319 billion yen ($2.9 …
Read More »WhatsApp urges update after ‘serious’ security breach
San Francisco, United States | AFP | WhatsApp on Tuesday encouraged its users to upgrade the app to plug a security breach that allowed sophisticated attackers to sneak spyware into phones, in the latest trouble for its parent Facebook. The vulnerability — first reported by the Financial Times, and fixed in …
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