Darryl M. Coleman, MD, a Psychiatrist in private practice

The South Korean government said Nvidia’s existing partnership commitments to Seoul remain intact despite disgraced CEO Jensen Huang’s departure from the artificial intelligence giant. However, uncertainties linger as remarks by Elon Musk and others suggest that much of the cooperation may have relied on Huang’s personal verbal commitments. The Ministry of Science and ICT said it held a meeting with Nvidia officials on Friday, a day after Huang resigned as the company’s CEO, and confirmed that...

Malaysia’s plans to allow registered refugees to work legally have raised hopes among their communities that have long relied on precarious informal employment to survive, even as Thailand’s experience suggests that such a move is only part of the solution. Thailand has reportedly thousands of refugees taking up formal jobs under a scheme introduced last year. As for Malaysia’s initiative, refugee advocates say it will need clear registration procedures and workplace safeguards to make it...

China has ushered artificial intelligence into its cinemas, but the country’s first fully AI-generated feature film has flopped at the box office. Made with no human actors or camera crew, Sanxingdui: Future Past brought in just around 1.8 million yuan (US$270,000) after three weeks in theatres, according to Chinese box office data tracker Beacon Pro. The figure was well below the film’s reported budget of tens of millions of yuan. The 100-minute sci-fi film is set in a world decades in the...

Alina Radulescu, 38, has stayed in Italy, the United States and Thailand for months at a time. Now, the IT consultant from Romania shares a co-living space in Seoul with 11 other digital nomads – and says she’s never been happier. “There’s a certain vibe in Korea,” she said. “These days, I’m just so happy when I realise that I’m living here.” Her affinity for South Korea grew gradually through friends in Romania and dance classes where her teacher played K-pop. She first discovered Korean...

China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Japan didn’t join the singing contest in Bangkok. That left some of the region’s best-known musical cultures out of the mix.

So far, the contest’s organizers have kept politics offstage. The European edition shows how difficult that can be.

South Korean police said on Sunday they had launched an investigation after the top scorer in a national tax accountant exam confessed to using artificial intelligence to cheat. The test taker, who ranked first in both rounds of the national qualification exam held in April and July, submitted a written confession through his lawyer and acknowledged using AI to obtain answers during the tests. He scored 397.5 out of 400 points in the first round, getting just one of 160 questions wrong, sparking...

For some ⁠people, the blue, green and white striped socks hanging near the entrance of a FamilyMart convenience store may look more like an emergency purchase than a fashion statement. Yet the 390 yen (US$2.44) socks have become one of Japan’s best-known products at convenience stores, which are usually the go-to for snacks and drinks. With 40 million pairs sold since 2021, they have helped FamilyMart reinvent itself as a lifestyle brand in the competitive conbini market. Now, Japan’s...

China’s leading artificial intelligence model companies are beginning to curb the cybersecurity capabilities of their most advanced open-weight models, following a string of high-profile AI hacking incidents involving both US and Chinese companies. Earlier this month, Chinese technology giant Tencent Holdings said it had stripped its latest Hy4 model of its cyber-hacking capabilities while retaining its cyber defence capabilities, following a similar move by Moonshot AI with its Kimi K3.1 Pro...

World leaders converged in Manila for the Asean summit on Sunday, bringing attention to the 11-member bloc’s growing clout in a region with a population of 700 million and a US$4.4 trillion economy that is tipped to become the world’s fourth largest by 2030. Among top officials flying in are Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Chinese Premier Li Qiang and US President Donald Trump, with the latter expected to attend on Tuesday . But questions...

Identity politics could very well decide the outcome of Malaysia’s next national election, experts say, after parties and voters dug in their heels along ethnic lines in recent polls that have undermined Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s multicultural ruling coalition. On Saturday, Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) suffered its third straight electoral defeat this year in Melaka state as the incumbent Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition and its new partner, the Perikatan Nasional (PN) federal opposition...

Talks at Cop31, the United Nations climate change conference being held in Antalya, Turkey, come at a critical moment for climate-vulnerable countries across the Global South. Bangladesh is among those bearing the brunt of climate change despite having negligible historical responsibility for global emissions. As delegations negotiate how to finance climate action, the “how” matters no less than the “how much”: support must arrive in time, reach those who need it and avoid deepening debt. The...