Pro-ficiency and Scarritt Group Join Forces to Create Comprehensive Solutions for Virtual Investigator Meetings and Site Initiation Visits

Runners in Malaysia are swapping their usual routes through parks and city streets for laps around shopping malls, commandeering air-conditioned corridors to keep up their training as a stubborn blanket of haze makes exercising outdoors increasingly hazardous. The switch comes as smoke from forest and peatland fires continues to foul the air across parts of Southeast Asia, with Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur and its surrounding districts among the hardest-hit areas. By 9am on Thursday, 15 of...

Malaysia’s highway authority is working to resolve technical disruptions affecting its TuJu navigation application following a sharp increase in users. In a statement on Thursday, the Lembaga Lebuhraya Malaysia (LLM) said the matter was being resolved together with the application provider Prosignal Consortium. LLM said the surge in users came after Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim suggested that the public consider using a locally developed navigation application instead of Waze. “We apologise for...

The two Koreas appear to be coming closer to an armed clash along their poorly marked military dividing line after a series of increasingly hostile warnings from the North, observers say. Back-to-back statements on Wednesday and Thursday by Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, appear aimed at building a case for blaming Seoul for any future exchange of fire, they say. “The two sides appear to be edging closer to accidental armed clashes,” said Oh Gyeong-seob, a...

Smoke from the blazes, blamed on destructive agricultural practices, has sickened hundreds of thousands and blanketed neighboring countries.

The two sides turn to proxy groups after eight months of a conflict that has taken a heavy toll on civilians.

Malaysian police have arrested a 16-year-old student after he live-streamed an attack on a teacher with an axe at a private school in Kuching, the capital of Sarawak state. CCTV footage shows the teenager entering a classroom at around 7.50am on Wednesday, hitting the female teacher with an axe before leaving. He re-enters through a second door and swings the axe at students as they flee the room. As the teacher tries to intervene, he attempts to hack at her again but is subdued by two male...

South Korean publishers are calling for stronger copyright protections and compensation as bulk book purchase requests suspected of being linked to artificial intelligence training raise concerns over intellectual property theft. Publishing groups are investigating suspicious orders and seeking a coordinated response. However, authors and publishers face a fundamental obstacle: they often cannot know for sure whether their books are being used to train AI systems. Kyobo Book Centre, a bookstore...

Southeast Asian nations are seeking to make it easier for businesses and consumers to operate across borders in the digital economy, but achieving the goal will depend on whether governments can align their domestic laws under a proposed pact, according to analysts. Targeted to be signed during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Manila in November, the Asean Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA) is aimed at improving compatibility between rules and systems governing...

Indonesia’s president railed against “countries that like to insult” his nation over wildfires that have razed vast areas, spewing toxic haze into neighbouring countries. The Southeast Asian giant has for months struggled to contain fires that Nusantara Atlas, an independent monitor analysing satellite data, said had consumed more than 1.9 million hectares (4.7 million acres) in the nine months to September. The haze has sent air pollution levels surging to dangerous levels not only at home, but...

A knife-wielding intruder is confronted. A car is lifted to free a trapped victim. A pedestrian is pulled from the path of an oncoming vehicle. The scenes described are not from a Hollywood blockbuster, but a promotional clip for a new “guardian” robot created by the Chinese technology firm Unitree Robotics. The footage for the H2-X model, released on Wednesday, underscores a wider shift in strategy by the Hangzhou-based firm, as it focuses on finding practical, real-world uses for its athletic...

Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has marked one year in office still riding relatively high in public opinion polls – a heady position that few political analysts anticipated despite geopolitical tensions and persistent inflation. A poll by the conservative-leaning Yomiuri newspaper published on Monday indicated that Takaichi’s cabinet retains the support of 57 per cent of the Japanese public, down two percentage points from the previous survey on September 18 and significantly lower than...

Government agencies and companies around the world shut down websites Wednesday after two critical flaws came to light involving PHP, a programming language that is the basis for a large share of the internet. PHP sits underneath popular web design platforms, so the weaknesses potentially affect a vast range of websites, from online stores and news outlets to government services. Wiz, one of the security firms that found the flaws, estimated that PHP runs about 70 per cent of the world’s...