WORLD

  Barcelona, Spain | AFP | Is your dog getting enough exercise? Who will change your cat’s litter box while you are away on holiday? Relax. Mobile entrepreneurs are jumping into the pet industry with smartphone-enabled gadgets that can help care for your four-legged friends, from activity trackers to a litter …

Paris, France | AFP | Brexit will inflict “significant harm” on Britain’s National Health Service, experts warned on Tuesday, with a no-deal departure from the EU likely to provoke acute shortages of staff and medicines. With little over a month remaining until Britain is due to leave the European Union, there …

Sinuiju, North Korea | AFP | The manager of North Korea’s Sinuiju Cosmetics Factory clenches her fists when asked about a rival plant in Pyongyang, then bumps them together. “We compete,” Kim Hye Yong says firmly. Throughout the plant, masked workers in white overalls, gloves and hairnets operate machines producing shampoos, …

Doha, Qatar | AFP | Abdulla Sager al-Khori has little doubt about the significance of a luxury watch when it comes to fashion — and making a statement — even in the thick of Qatar’s diplomatic crisis. “Because we have the traditional dress the only thing we can use as an …

San Francisco, United States | AFP | The weed killer Roundup was a “substantial factor” in the cancer of a US man who developed a lump in his throat after decades of spraying his garden, his lawyer said Monday at the start of the first ever federal trial targeting its manufacturer …

Barcelona, Spain | AFP | From a tiny robot which strikes a pose when you point a camera at it to earbuds that translate languages, here are five eye-catching devices on display at the Mobile World Congress trade fair which opened Monday in Barcelona: Smartphone-controlled light bulb Want to dim the …

Barcelona, Spain | AFP | Huawei’s chairman said Tuesday that the United States has “no evidence” that its equipment to build next-generation 5G wireless networks could be used as a vehicle for Chinese spy operations. In a keynote address at the mobile industry’s biggest annual global event in Barcelona, Guo Ping reiterated his …

Hanoi, Vietnam | AFP | Kim Jong Un arrived in Hanoi Tuesday to ultra-tight security and enthusiastic crowds ahead of a second summit with Donald Trump, as the world looks for tangible progress over North Korea’s nuclear programme. After a historic initial meeting in Singapore in June that produced only …

Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt | AFP | European Council chief Donald Tusk said Monday that an extension to the March 29 deadline for Britain to leave the EU would be a “rational solution” given political developments. Tusk said he had discussed the legal and procedural context of a potential extension during talks Sunday with British …

Washington, United States | AFP | US President Donald Trump on Monday accused veteran film director Spike Lee of a “racist hit” job after he won his first competitive Oscar and urged voters to mobilize for the next election. Lee took home a statuette for best adapted screenplay for “BlacKkKlansman,” a stranger-than-fiction true story of …