Sri Lanka’s main opposition took to the streets on Thursday to protest against judicial reforms, including raising the retirement age for judges, that the government says are needed to reduce legal delays. Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa told thousands of supporters outside parliament that the legislation proposed by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s left-wing administration would “annihilate” judicial independence. The government unveiled two bills last month to increase the number of...

A decade after the sale of Germany’s Kuka, Europe is seeking to shift into a higher gear to unlock the potential in robotics and artificial intelligence.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that U.S. negotiators had restarted conversations about Iran’s nuclear program, but that there were no breakthroughs.

Efforts to detect multiple cancers through a single blood draw are gathering momentum after US regulators endorsed the technology for the first time, although experts say wider adoption in Hong Kong still faces challenges as doctors remain cautious about its clinical value. In a landmark decision for the emerging field of multi-cancer early detection (MCED) blood tests, a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel on Thursday voted in favour of US company Grail’s “Galleri test”, recommending it...

For millions of Indians, buying a cup of chai or groceries from roadside vendors has come to mean reaching for their phones rather than wallets – a habit made possible by a system that has so far charged consumers nothing for such everyday transactions. Now, a decade after the government launched the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), India is asking some merchants to pay for the hugely popular system – raising questions over whether it can preserve the low-cost model that drove its mass adoption...

The Americans being held in China are U Min Zin, a scholar who studied Myanmar, and Youlin Chen, a seismologist who researched North Korean nuclear tests.

The artificial intelligence road map presented at its flagship Apsara Conference this week showcased a pragmatic pivot by Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group Holding, offering a clearer path to monetisation despite a sharp escalation in capital expenditure, analysts said. The conference, which ran from Tuesday to Thursday under the theme “Intelligence goes beyond”, highlighted “Alibaba’s disciplined execution across its full-stack AI ecosystem”, said Cathy Chan, an analyst at CCB International. She...

Singapore police have launched an investigation after a video of a man allegedly filming female students using smart glasses went viral, sparking concerns about privacy and safety. In the social media video, a man wearing black-rimmed glasses and a face mask is seen walking behind two female students wearing what appear to be uniforms from Raffles Institution, a premier school in the city state. The girls seem unaware of his presence. The man clutches his phone to his chest and presses what...

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr is weighing an absolute pardon for Mary Jane Veloso, a former death row inmate detained since her 2010 conviction for drug trafficking in Indonesia. “The Office of the President is seriously considering granting an absolute pardon to Mary Jane Veloso on humanitarian grounds in support of the government’s commitment to protecting Filipino migrant workers,” lawmaker Albert Garcia said on Wednesday, as quoted by the Philippine Daily Inquirer. “There will be...

The Philippine Senate has made it mathematically easier to convict Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio, but observers say the ruling could intensify a battle over an impeachment trial already viewed by the public as deeply divisive. The Senate, sitting as an impeachment court, ruled on Wednesday that only senator-judges who are able to take part in the trial should be counted in determining the threshold for conviction. Under the Philippine constitution, a two-thirds vote of the Senate is...

Malaysia’s haze crisis has flared again just weeks after emergency measures and cloud-seeding operations brought temporary relief, with experts warning that smoke from Indonesian fires could continue drifting across the country until monsoon winds change. All 108 schools in Serian, a district in the state of Sarawak on Malaysian Borneo, were ordered to close on Thursday after the air pollutant index (API) breached 200 on Wednesday night, forcing pupils back to home-based learning. By noon,...

A fundraiser to help pay disgraced former leader Najib Razak’s 50 million ringgit (US$12.3 million) fine has become a lightning rod for insults and mockery, as Malaysians continue to pile criticism on a decision last week to allow him to spend the rest of his jail sentence under house arrest. King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar last Friday granted Najib a “conditional pardon”, which will allow the jailed ex-prime minister to complete his term in the comfort of his home – provided he first pays off his...

Indonesia’s navy commissioned its first aircraft carrier on Thursday after acquiring the former Italian vessel to strengthen its maritime defences and disaster response. The Italian flag on the former ITS Giuseppe Garibaldi was replaced with the Indonesian flag on the carrier renamed the KRI Sriwijaya-100 as part of its official transfer at the ceremony held at Tanjung Priok seaport in North Jakarta. “The ship, which previously served in the Italian navy, now bears the name KRI Sriwijaya-100,...

As a Rohingya exile who abandoned his life in Malaysia to return to Myanmar, Ismail’s bleak prospects may portend what awaits others caught in Kuala Lumpur’s migrant crackdown. Weeks ago, the 25-year-old was eking out a living at a Malaysian fish market, one of legions of the Muslim minority group who left Myanmar to escape violence some monitors say amounted to genocide. But a wave of anti-Rohingya sentiment, migrant arrests and a government plan to repatriate Myanmar nationals drove Ismail...

Australia is exploring potential legal action after an artificial intelligence agent accessed nonpublic information on the country’s universal health care system.

Tencent Holdings on Thursday launched TenPayGo, a mobile payment app targeting foreign visitors, as the tech giant seeks to capture China’s growing inbound tourism market ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Shenzhen. Developed by Tencent’s WeChat Pay team, TenPayGo allowed international travellers to make payments at tens of millions of shops, restaurants and attractions across the WeChat Pay network by linking their credit cards or their home-country digital wallets...

Thailand’s teenage guitar sensation Nene Royal won the US$1 million top prize on America’s Got Talent, capping a viral run that made the 16-year-old a national celebrity and drew support from across her home country. Rattikarn Amloy, better known by her stage name Nene Royal, was crowned the winner during Wednesday’s live results show, beating nine other finalists after emerging as the clear favourite before the finale. During Tuesday’s final, she sang and played guitar on a rendition of “Seven...

Balendra Shah, 36, comes to the U.N. as a sun-glassed symbol of Gen Z political power. But concerns about his style are growing at home after devastating floods left thousands dead or missing.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s proposal for a phased approach to Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes is a pragmatic response, analysts say, but prospects for gaining its arch-rival’s acceptance remain uncertain. In a keynote speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Lee laid out a long-term, step-by-step sequence for pursuing the ultimate goal of North Korea’s denuclearisation. He had called for Washington to ease sanctions in return for North Korea stopping its nuclear...

Australia is exploring potential legal action after an artificial intelligence agent accessed nonpublic information on the country’s universal health care system.