While few dispute that China is narrowing the gap with the United States in developing artificial intelligence (AI) models, there is one area where Chinese firms are already the undisputed leaders: video. China has seen a proliferation of advanced generative AI video models – systems trained on visual data to generate or edit video content based on user inputs such as text prompts, images and audio. The country’s vast short-video ecosystems and looser copyright rules have helped give Chinese...

North Korea sent a letter to the United Nations Security Council accusing Seoul of fabricating a landmine explosion that injured three South Korean soldiers, its state media reported Monday. Tensions between the two Koreas have soared since the South last month blamed the blast inside the heavily fortified demilitarised zone that separates the countries on landmines laid by the North, an accusation it has fiercely rejected. The North Korean permanent representative to the UN sent a letter on...

“How can South Korea’s law be this weak? Twenty-three people died!” Those were the words of Chinese mother Li Shun-ji after South Korea’s Supreme Court upheld a reduced four-year prison sentence for Aricell CEO Park Soon-kwan last Tuesday over a 2024 factory fire that killed 23 workers, including Li’s then-24-year-old daughter, Yan Jing-jing. The blaze at the lithium battery manufacturer’s factory in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi province, killed 17 Chinese nationals, one Laotian national and five South...

After HSBC RedCoin launched on Friday, Anchorpoint – the stablecoin-issuing joint venture led by Standard Chartered – said it plans to launch a retail product on a public blockchain, even as it takes a “prudent approach”. “Our next major milestone is to [help] bring regulated digital money into everyday payments and commercial applications, while connecting traditional payment infrastructure with this emerging digital finance,” said Dominic Maffei, CEO of Anchorpoint. “This is a public...

Long before artificial intelligence became the next big thing in the tech industry, Wang Jian was crafting the foundational infrastructure that would eventually power it. In 2008, he joined Alibaba Group Holding – owner of the South China Morning Post – as chief architect and founded Alibaba Cloud in 2009, convincing the company’s leadership to invest heavily in building a cloud computing infrastructure from scratch. Today, Wang’s purview has expanded considerably. As an academician at the...

Philippine police are investigating a laptop found alongside images of child abuse at the former home of Meghan Markle’s estranged father, with “full results” expected in a week, the country’s interior minister told reporters. Thomas Markle, whose daughter is married to Britain’s Prince Harry, had been living in Cebu in the Philippines until reportedly returning to the US earlier this year. Philippine interior minister Jonvic Remulla said the country planned to take “appropriate legal actions”...

Prosecutors indicted a 20-year-old US Marine on Sunday on suspicion of robbing and murdering a woman in Okinawa earlier this month as the case renews anti-base sentiment among locals burdened with hosting the bulk of US military installations in Japan. Devin Ballard, who is stationed at Futenma Air Base, is charged with killing the woman by wrapping a phone cord around her neck at a hotel in Naha, the capital of the southern island prefecture, and taking her backpack containing a wallet on...

The appearance of K-pop singer G-Dragon on electronic billboards in major Chinese cities despite Beijing’s K-pop ban points at a contrast between political shadows clouding international relations and actual commercial linkages in East Asia. Amid tensions over Seoul’s military alliance with the United States and other issues, G-Dragon featured in eight McDonald’s products across more than 8,000 outlets in mainland China. The penetration and appeal of Korean cultural icons show how transnational...

Filipinos are almost evenly divided over the Marcos administration’s handling of the maritime dispute with China, even as nearly three in four favour diplomacy over confrontation, according to a new survey. That preference has taken on added significance after recent remarks by China’s ambassador to Manila sparked a diplomatic row ahead of November’s Asean summit. The feud underscored the challenge of managing tensions with Beijing, and increasingly hostile rhetoric could make the diplomatic...

Chinese technology giants are dangling annual pay packages approaching 1 million yuan (US$149,739) to attract artificial intelligence engineers who can turn AI models into commercial applications. Companies including ByteDance, Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group Holding are stepping up recruitment and training of the so-called forward-deployed engineers (FDEs), who work directly with customers to develop and integrate AI applications into business operations. Demand for such professionals has...

The tanker detained by Indonesian authorities that was used in an attempt to smuggle 1.16 tonnes of ketamine is owned by a Malaysian-registered company. Bukit Aman Narcotics Crime Investigation Department director Hussein Omar Khan said the two directors of the company that owns the MT Global 168 are Malaysians. He said the company’s office is located in Johor Bahru, Malaysia’s Johor state. According to Hussein, the tanker had previously applied for registration under the Malaysian flag but had...

Tran Dai Thang spotted two young people who had picked up their drinks at a pop-up cafe beside his travelling bookstore and were about to leave, so he called them over. One of them said they did not read books, Thang recalled. But he kept the conversation going and eventually persuaded the visitor to buy a book for 10,000 dong (US$0.40) – heavily discounted from its original price of 45,000 dong. For Thang, an artist and publisher, the small sale mattered far less than the fact that someone who...

Singapore expects all parties who have signed commercial contracts for gas supplies to “honour their commitments”, said Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on Sunday after Indonesia cut its exports. Speaking at the People’s Action Party (PAP) convention, Wong added that Singapore’s gas importer will take the necessary steps to protect its rights and interests. Indonesia began reducing natural gas exports to Singapore on Saturday. Indonesia’s upstream oil and gas regulator SKK Migas said the move was to...

Ayumi lives alone in a spacious suburban house originally bought to raise a family, her two cats now her only full-time companions. Her two daughters have grown up and left home, and her husband of more than two decades moved out nearly a year ago as they finalise a divorce. For the 62-year-old Kawasaki resident, who spoke on condition that her surname be withheld, this was not how she envisioned her later years. “He worked very long hours, including on weekends, and I was always busy taking...

The North Korean leader crossed the border on a newly opened bridge for the trip, as the two countries move to deepen ties.

Singapore is turning to major technology firms to strengthen its cyber defences, even as it presses them for greater transparency over security breaches – a balancing act facing regional governments as they seek to harness artificial intelligence while guarding against the risks it introduces. Those risks were highlighted by an AI agent linked to OpenAI that gained unauthorised access to files on an Australian government website earlier this year, raising questions over how quickly companies...

On October 18, Anthropic, the artificial intelligence (AI) laboratory preparing one of the largest listings in history, committed 5 per cent of its shares to a public benefit fund. The next day, Elon Musk promised one SpaceX share, next year, for “every kid in America” – about US$10.6 billion for some 73 million children. The offers differ in who holds the shares. Anthropic’s will sit in an entity the company owns, spent on the public’s behalf; Musk’s would land, by a route he has not explained,...