Inflation-squeezed Japanese flock to claw machines dangling everyday items

Dozens were injured and more than 300 homes were toppled by the 7.0-magnitude quake, which sent residents fleeing into the cold night air, state media said.

The son of Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi said she sounded “fairly healthy” after speaking to the detained ex-democratic leader on Thursday for the first time in more than five years. Suu Kyi, 81, is under house arrest in the capital, Naypyidaw, according to Myanmar authorities, where she has been sequestered since being unseated in a 2021 military coup. “She was sounding fairly healthy,” Kim Aris, who lives in the UK, said after the telephone conversation. It was the first time he had spoken to his...

The United Nations’ climate loss and damage fund moved to provide US$20 million in aid sought by flood-stricken Nepal – the first time it has set aside money for any country – in a key test of the body’s credibility. In an extraordinary meeting on Thursday, the fund’s board agreed to earmark the modest sum for the Himalayan country, which was hit in August by tsunami-like floods triggered by a climate-induced ice and rock avalanche that killed more than 1,400 people and left over 5,000...

A wind energy partnership between Vietnam and Denmark has fuelled expectations of the Southeast Asian country boosting its competitiveness in renewable electricity to serve overseas and domestic markets. Vietnam is well placed to grow its renewable electricity sector by tapping its large pool of engineering talent and abundant wind resources with help from Denmark, a global leader in wind energy, according to analysts. On Tuesday, the two countries signed a comprehensive strategic partnership...

A joint communique ups the diplomatic rhetoric but offers no solutions.

One expert said the likelihood that a mayor announces closure of work and school because of a typhoon increases 31 percent during an election year.

Governments and businesses around the world scrambled to prevent hackers from exploiting a vulnerability in PHP, a popular programming language.

Typically, South Korea has used loudspeakers to respond to North Korean provocations. Now Pyongyang has vowed to turn them on – and the prospects for de-escalation are dim.

China is building a dense network of relationships across all pillars of influence while the United States continues to weaken the institutions it traditionally used to compete.

Organisations in Singapore have been urged to immediately fix two critical security flaws in a widely used programming language amid reports of widespread attempts by hackers to exploit the vulnerabilities. The flaws in PHP, which powers many websites and online services, could allow attackers to take control of web servers, steal data or disrupt services without needing login credentials, Singapore’s Commissioner of Cybersecurity Gwenda Fong said on Thursday. “The threat is immediate,” Fong,...

Unitree Robotics is developing a “self-evolving” feedback loop designed to allow humanoid robots to write code, run simulations and improve their real-world performance independently, founder Wang Xingxing said, in a move that mirrors a broader push towards “self-improving” artificial intelligence. Speaking on Thursday at a physical AI conference hosted by Unitree in Hangzhou, Wang unveiled the project, dubbed “Unitree Rehearsal”, which he called the company’s most important initiative of the...