Accelerating buildout of national ecosystem of Chinese-language data has emerged as a ‘more winnable’ arena amid US tech restrictions
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Final report of Tai Po fire inquiry panel delayed to late October: source
An independent committee examining the causes of Hong Kong’s deadly Wang Fuk Court blaze will delay submitting its final report to late October, a month later than expected, as more time is needed to review documents, the South China Morning Post has learned.
A source confirmed to the SCMP on Saturday that the judge-led panel’s final report was likely to be submitted to Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu in late October, rather than September as the committee’s nine-month investigation deadline had suggested.
China AI summit hears Global South needs equal access to avoid digital divide
Greater global cooperation and development-focused AI regulations are urgently needed to prevent a widening digital divide, scholars and international figures said at China’s premier AI conference on Saturday.
The message aligned with a broader pitch on display at the annual World AI Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, where Beijing is courting the Global South with an artificial intelligence package centred on training, infrastructure and a bid for greater influence over global governance.
“We need to build international consensus,” said Xue Lan, a prominent scholar of public
Chinese social media accounts ‘profit from leaking official corruption scandals’
Chinese social media accounts are profiting by hinting at the downfall of corrupt officials ahead of formal announcements, state media has warned, highlighting a “grey market” around Beijing’s anti-corruption campaign .
The trend had created a new challenge for Chinese law enforcement, state-run journal Banyuetan reported on Friday.
One tactic involves posting an official’s resume as a coded signal that they are under disciplinary investigation, according to Banyuetan, which
Sonam Wangchuk hospitalised after 21-day hunger strike over exam leaks
Authorities in India’s capital Delhi moved social activist Sonam Wangchuk to hospital against his will on Saturday, after his condition worsened on the 21st day of a hunger strike launched to demand the resignation of the federal education minister.
Wangchuk, 59, had been fasting since June 28 in solidarity with India’s youth Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which is demanding Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan step down over exam paper leaks in May that affected millions of students.
Wangchuk’s campaign has emerged as
Weather weapons: why the atmosphere could become the next geopolitical battleground
When devastating floods swept through Assam in northeastern India in 2018, the disaster quickly triggered a troubling question within New Delhi’s security corridors: could control over the weather become a new tool of geopolitical pressure or warfare?
As technology advances, could control over the weather become a tool of geopolitical pressure, or even a weapon?
Much of the concern centred on neighbouring China. Assam’s then finance minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, publicly warned about Beijing’s Tianhe, or Sky River, initiative ,
3 arrested after 131kg of ketamine disguised as sugar cubes found in air cargo
Hong Kong customs officers have arrested three men in connection with 131 kilograms (289 pounds) of suspected ketamine worth about HK$51 million (US$6.5 million), disguised as sugar cubes and found in air cargo transported to the city.
Chiu Kai-wing, a senior investigator with the Customs and Excise Department’s drug investigation bureau, said on Saturday that officers had intercepted an air cargo consignment from Germany declared as containing sugar cubes on Tuesday, after exchanging intelligence with mainland
Call to merge housing checking unit with Buildings Department after Tai Po fire
Some residents displaced by Hong Kong’s deadliest inferno in decades have called for merging the Housing Bureau’s Independent Checking Unit (ICU) with the Buildings Department, after a public inquiry revealed regulatory failures linked to communication problems between the two arms with similar functions.
In recommendations submitted to the independent committee investigating the Wang Fuk Court fire, which were released on Saturday, legal representatives for nine residents said authorities should merge the two government arms to avoid overlap in their functions.
“Given the systemic defects and collaborative failures as
Hong Kong homebuyers snap up 138 Garden Regency flats in New Territories project
Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP), Hong Kong’s largest developer by market capitalisation, has sold out the first batch of units at its Garden Regency project in the New Territories on Saturday, according to agents.
By 3.30pm, all 138 flats the developer had launched in the Kam Tin North project in Yuen Long had found buyers, the agents said.
The launch of the three-tower development of 566 units marks SHKP’s return to the market two months after units
Alibaba targets Nvidia’s dominant software ecosystem with open-source AI stack
Alibaba Group Holding’s chip design unit, T-Head, has announced that it will open-source its proprietary software stack, marking its latest effort to streamline developer operations and challenge the dominance of American chip giant Nvidia’s CUDA ecosystem.
At the World AI Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai on Saturday, T-Head announced that it was making the full technical stack of SAIL – the foundational software architecture for the unit’s