VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis, 88, followed Sunday mass and his Angelus prayer on television from a Rome hospital, where he is being treated for bronchitis. Admitted to Gemelli hospital on Friday, the pope remains in stable condition, the Vatican said. He received the Eucharist and alternated between reading and resting.
KABUL: A Taliban government delegation arrived in Japan yesterday for a rare diplomatic visit outside the region, marking its first official trip to the country. The delegation, which left Kabul on Saturday, includes officials from the ministries of higher education, foreign affairs, and economy. The visit is expected to last
WASHINGTON: Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, has unveiled its Grok 3 chatbot yesterday, calling it the “smartest AI on Earth” in an increasingly competitive market. Musk announced the release on X, saying the AI — trained on synthetic data — can refine its reasoning by reviewing errors for logical consistency.
JAKARTA: President Prabowo Subianto has called corruption Indonesia’s “biggest disease,” blaming it for the country’s declining performance across all sectors. Speaking via video at the 2025 World Governments Summit in Dubai, Prabowo responded to Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio, who questioned how corruption has weakened education, research, and innovation in Indonesia.
BANGKOK: Thai prosecutors on Friday formally indicted Boon Vanasin, the 86-year-old former chairman of Thonburi Healthcare Group (THG), for loan fraud totalling 16 billion baht ($480 million). Boon, who fled Thailand, is accused of running a decade-long scheme that defrauded numerous individuals, according to the attorney-general’s office. Authorities have requested an
SHANGHAI: A Chinese giant panda research centre announced on Friday that Eimei, repatriated from Japan in 2023, passed away in late January at the age of 32—equivalent to 100 human years, reported Kyodo. Eimei, who fathered 16 cubs at a zoo in western Japan’s Wakayama Prefecture and was recognised as
PARIS: British surgeon and former Paralympian John McFall has been medically cleared for a mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS), making him the first astronaut with a physical disability to reach this milestone, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced on Friday. McFall, 43, lost a leg in a motorbike accident
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump will unveil tariffs on imported cars on April 2, a move that could hit South Korea’s auto industry, Yonhap reported. Trump, who has used tariffs to shrink the trade deficit and boost domestic manufacturing, hinted at the announcement during a meeting. “We’re going to do
SEOUL: Four people have died and four more were injured in a fire in South Korea’s southern port city of Busan yesterday, the National Fire Agency said. The fire started just before 11 am (local time) at a construction site at the Banyan Tree Hotel, authorities said. Around 10 workers
HANOI (Vietnam): Nearly 60 people working in a crypto fraud ring that stole millions of dollars from Vietnamese nationals have been arrested in Cambodia and Vietnam, Vietnamese state media said Thursday, citing police. Online scam operations have ballooned in Southeast Asia in recent years, with transnational criminal organisations often trafficking