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Rocket Report: North Korean rocket explosion; launch over Chinese skyline
Fri, 31 May 2024 11:00:19 +0000
The European Space Agency again turned to SpaceX to launch an important science mission.
Match ID: 0 Score: 145.00 source: arstechnica.com age: 1 day
qualifiers: 40.00 japan, 40.00 china, 35.00 india, 30.00 south korea
Amid tension, U.S. and China defense chiefs hold first meeting in two years
Fri, 31 May 2024 14:49:15 +0000
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin met his Chinese counterpart Dong Jun in Singapore to try to prevent miscommunication in the South China Sea and around Taiwan from spiraling into a crisis.
Match ID: 1 Score: 115.00 source: www.washingtonpost.com age: 1 day
qualifiers: 40.00 china, 35.00 south china sea, 20.00 taiwan, 20.00 singapore
China’s defence chief repeats threat of force against Taiwanese independence
Sun, 02 Jun 2024 03:30:26 GMT
Dong Jun rails at length about democratic island’s ‘separatists’ during Shangri-la Dialogue defence conference in Singapore
Peaceful “reunification” with Taiwan remains China’s goal but the prospect is being eroded by Taiwanese “separatists” and external forces, the Chinese defence minister, Dong Jun, has said.
Taiwan – which is democratically governed, and has never been ruled from the Communist-run People’s Republic of China – on 20 May inaugurated its newly elected president, Lai Ching-te. The routine democratic transition was greeted with fury by the Chinese Communist party, which staged war games around the island as a “punishment”.
Continue reading...I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to predict that artificial intelligence will affect every aspect of our society. Not by doing new things. But mostly by doing things that are already being done by humans, perfectly competently.
Replacing humans with AIs isn’t necessarily interesting. But when an AI takes over a human task, the task changes.
In particular, there are potential changes over four dimensions: Speed, scale, scope and sophistication. The problem with AIs trading stocks isn’t that they’re better than humans—it’s that they’re faster. But computers are better at chess and Go because they use more sophisticated strategies than humans. We’re worried about AI-controlled social media accounts because they operate on a superhuman scale...
Spacecraft to collect samples from rarely explored area before attempting unprecedented liftoff from ‘dark side’ for trip home
China’s Chang’e-6 lunar probe has successfully landed on the far side of the moon to collect samples, state media reported on Sunday.
The lander set down in the immense South Pole-Aitken Basin, one of the largest known impact craters in the solar system, Xinhua news agency said, citing the China National Space Administration.
Continue reading...Last week’s conviction of dissidents came in the biggest case since introduction of a new national security law
The verdict wasn’t surprising but outside room no 2 of the West Kowloon courthouse, people still wept. The panel of Hong Kong national security judges had set down two days for the hearing but dispensed with the core business in about 15 minutes. In the city’s largest ever national security trial – involving the prosecution of pro-democracy campaigners and activists from a group known as the “Hong Kong 47” – almost all the defendants were found guilty of conspiracy to commit subversion.
Their crime was trying to win an election, holding unofficial primaries in 2020 attended by an estimated 600,000 residents.
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A hundred years ago, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine set off to conquer the summit. Mallory’s body was later discovered, but now the remains of both are nowhere to be found. Who moved them?
“It will be a great adventure,” George Mallory wrote to his mother before leaving for the summit of Everest a century ago this week.
His disappearance, along with his climbing partner Andrew Irvine, has become one of the most alluring mysteries in the history of exploration. A final, tantalising glimpse of the pair through mist not far from the summit has inspired successive generations of historians, authors and film-makers with competing theories on a single question: did they reach the top?
Continue reading...US says 14 protesters have been jailed for ‘peacefully participating in political activities’ that should have been allowed
The Hong Kong government has rejected western criticism of the conviction of 14 pro-democracy activists for subversion, calling it “untruthful, slandering and smearing”.
The US said on Friday it was “deeply concerned” about the guilty verdicts announced in the national security law trial of the activists in Hong Kong. The state department said the 14 activists had been subjected to “politically motivated prosecution and jailed simply for peacefully participating in political activities” that should have been protected under the basic law, which was supposed to guarantee a degree of autonomy for Hong Kong when it came under Beijing’s rule in 1997.
Continue reading...Found guilty on 34 counts by a New York jury, Trump might find himself campaigning behind bars.
The post These Convictions Thwart Trump’s Plan to Pardon Himself appeared first on The Intercept.
Biden's plan to cozy up to Arab dictators is right out of Donald Trump's playbook — but even worse.
The post Joe Biden’s Terrible Israel Policy Is Really About Getting in Bed With Saudi Arabia appeared first on The Intercept.
Hundreds of thousands of people evacuated while red alerts issued for unrelenting heat across north-western India and Pakistan
During the early hours of Saturday morning, an area of low pressure over the east-central Bay of Bengal intensified, and has been named Cyclone Remal.
Cyclone Remal made landfall between Sagar Island in West Bengal, India, and Bangladesh’s Khepupara region late on Sunday as the India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued warnings for heavy rain, strong winds, storm surges, and rough seas. Cumulative rainfall totals through the first half of this week could reach 200-300mm across the majority of Bangladesh, north-eastern states of India, and West Bengal. More than 150mm is also possible across southern parts of Bhutan and western Myanmar.
Continue reading...Prime minister claims victory but opposition dismisses poll results as fixed and unscientific
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP)-led alliance is projected to win a big majority in the general election that concluded on Saturday, TV exit polls said, suggesting it would do better than expected by most analysts.
Most exit polls projected the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) could win a two-thirds majority in the 543-member lower house of parliament, where 272 is needed for a simple majority. A two-thirds majority will allow the government to usher in far-reaching amendments to the constitution.
Continue reading...French Open match ended in an embrace, reflecting a wider trend in what was once a tensely competitive locker room
As Aryna Sabalenka and Paula Badosa stood by the player entrance to Court Philippe-Chatrier in anticipation of their French Open third-round match, they waited in perfect silence. There were no jokes exchanged and no small talk. This was business. The pair entered the court and put on a show, battling hard until the end.
Away from their numerous on-court battles, which have included three matches in the last three months, Sabalenka and Badosa refer to each other as best friends. It was not until the Tie Break Tens exhibition event before Indian Wells in 2022, while both players were ranked inside the top 10, that they connected. While they are hardly the first friends to compete on the court, their relationship seems reflective of the shifting dynamics in the WTA locker room.
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It’s a shame the cost of theatre tickets is out of the reach for so many people. Cinema is the cheaper option
A friend started working at the fancy cinema chain Everyman. One of his perks is that he gets free tickets, which can cost over £20 each.
I’ve never been, but apparently it’s a luxury experience: comfy chairs, food and drinks delivered to your seat. Still, £20 feels steep. There are London cinemas where a ticket costs less than a tenner. And surely the point of going to the cinema is to enjoy the film itself rather than the experience of watching it? But when I think about theatre tickets, my complaints dissolve. Some plays charge over £200 for a seat: £20 seems like peanuts.
Continue reading...The comedian’s remarks on a podcast join his cheerleading of genocidal violence and jokes about suffering children in Gaza
There are few things certain in life except death, taxes and the knowledge that every single goddamn day you can look at the news and find a rich man complaining about how feminism and wokeness have ruined the world.
Continue reading...Meteorologists found 52.9C reading to be false, though new record does appear to have been set
A record temperature registered this week for the Indian capital of 52.9C (127.22F) was too high by 3C, the Indian government has said.
The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) had investigated Wednesday’s reading by the weather station at Mungeshpur, a densely packed corner of New Delhi, “and found a 3C sensor error”, the earth sciences minister, Kiren Rijiju, said.
Continue reading...“It’s hard to see this wildly disproportionate response as anything other than an attempt to chill speech on this issue.”
The post Columbia Coincidentally Rewrites Disciplinary Rules Just in Time to Screw Over Student Protesters appeared first on The Intercept.
All over the country, architecture firms make the case for bigger jails — then get hired to design them.
The post The Little-Known Reason Counties Keep Building Bigger Jails: Architecture Firms appeared first on The Intercept.
Temperatures of more than 45C have left population of 29 million exhausted – but the poorest suffer most
As the water tanker drove into a crowded Delhi neighbourhood, a ruckus erupted. Dozens of residents ran frantically behind it, brandishing buckets, bottles and hoses, and jumped on top of it to get even a drip of what was stored inside. Temperatures that day had soared to 49C (120F), the hottest day on record – and in many places across India’s vast capital, home to more than 29 million people, water had run out.
Every morning, Tripti, a social health worker who lives in the impoverished enclave of Vivekanand Camp, is among those who has to stand under the blazing sun with buckets and pots, waiting desperately for the water tanker to arrive.
Continue reading...India is in the final stages of a general election, and almost one billion people are registered to vote. The country's prime minister ,Narendra Modi, has been in power for more than 10 years, and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) is seeking a third term.
But critics of Modi and the BJP say his government has become increasingly authoritarian, fracturing the country along religious lines and threatening India’s secular democracy. At the same time, the space for freedom of speech has been shrinking while disinformation and hate speech has exploded on social media.
The Guardian’s video team travelled through India to explore how fake news and censorship might be shaping the outcome of the election
Meteorological department examining data from Mungeshpur station amid soaring temperatures that came close to 50 degrees Celsius
Authorities in India are investigating whether a faulty sensor may have been behind a reading that showed temperatures in Delhi soaring past 50 degrees for the first time, amid a scorching heatwave in the capital.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said it was examining the data and sensors at the Mungeshpur station after an unusually large variation in temperatures was recorded at the station compared to others.
Continue reading...A city-wide message asks people not to touch the balloons and leave them for military to handle
Seoul warned the public on Saturday to avoid more balloons sent from North Korea and to report them to the military or police.
South Korea’s military said North Korea was sending more balloons carrying “filth” across the heavily fortified border.
Continue reading...Ukrainians hold 70% of Vovchansk, says army; Zelenskiy in Singapore for security forum. What we know on day 830
A Russian missile strike on residences injured 13 people including eight children in Balakliia town, Kharkiv region, on Saturday, Ukrainian prosecutors said. Prosecutors also announced that recovery operations had concluded at the site of three missile strikes on Friday in the city of Kharkiv, with a death toll of nine, most in a badly damaged apartment building.
A military spokesperson, Nazar Voloshin, told national television on Saturday that Ukrainian forces controlled 70% of Vovchansk, 5km (three miles) inside the border, which Russian troops have been trying to capture.
The Ukrainian president, Volodomyr Zelenskiy, arrived in Singapore on Sunday to address the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum.
Russian forces fired a combined 100 missiles and drones at Ukraine overnight into Saturday morning, hitting energy sites, Ukrainian officials said. The air force said it shot down 35 of the missiles and all but one of the drones. Two thermal power plants were damaged, said their operator, DTEK operator.
Mourners and soldiers have laid flowers at a statue over the St Petersburg grave of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner mercenary leader who sent his forces into Ukraine for Vladimir Putin but then staged a mutiny against the Russian government before being killed when his plane was blown up. Putin, who said grenade fragments were found in the plane’s wreckage, called him a “talented” man who had made “serious mistakes”.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has estimated that the number of Russian troops killed or wounded since the war’s outbreak “has now likely reached 500,000”.
Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, has told the BBC that “we have no Plan B for a Russian victory, because then we would stop focusing on Plan A” – helping Ukraine push back the Russian invasion. “We should not give in to pessimism. Victory in Ukraine is not just about territory. If Ukraine joins Nato, even without some territory, then that’s a victory because it will be placed under the Nato umbrella.” Estonia’s government has given more than 1% of its GDP for Ukraine’s defence – concerned that Vladimir Putin might also turn his attention to the Baltics to bring countries like Estonia back under Moscow’s control.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our Ukraine war coverage here
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy has now arrived in Singapore for the annual Shangri-La security summit, where he will address delegates tomorrow.
He is expected to hold talks with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other leaders attending the conference, seeking support for a “peace summit” this month in Switzerland.
Continue reading...We know turbulence is a common part of flying – but are some routes more prone? And where is it the worst? Turbulence is the leading cause of in-flight injuries to crew and passengers and after the fatal Singapore Airlines incident and injuries to passengers above Turkey on a Qatar Airways flight, you might be wondering if flights are about to get bumpier. Incidents of severe turbulence are on the rise – increasing by 55% between 1979 and 2020 – and the climate crisis is thought to be a responsible factor
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Continue reading...He tells the world he intends to be an authoritarian. So why won’t journalists repeat it?
The post The Media Still Doesn’t Grasp the Danger of Trump appeared first on The Intercept.
Study confirms huge concentrations of potentially dangerous PFAS in rivers, lakes and taps in Dhaka
Rivers, lakes and tap water in areas of Bangladesh that host garment factories are swarming with dangerous levels of toxic “forever chemicals”, some with links to serious health issues, according to new research.
In the first study of its kind conducted in Bangladesh, a global fashion hub supplying international brands, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), commonly known as forever chemicals, were found in 27 water samples collected close to textile factories in the capital, Dhaka.
Continue reading...Kuo Chiu, known as KC to his friends, teaches urban design at Tunghai University in Taiwan. He’s also one of many of the country's citizens who practises rifle skills in his spare time, in case of a Chinese invasion.
The population of Taiwan has long grown familiar with Beijing’s pledge to one day ‘unify’ what it claims is a breakaway province. But recently, there has been a significant increase in aggressive and intimidatory acts.
Taiwan’s 160,000 active military personnel are vastly outnumbered by China’s 2 million-member armed forces, leading many civilians to turn to voluntary medical and combat training to protect themselves.
The Guardian's video team spent time with KC to see how he is preparing
Continue reading...From targeting humanitarian vehicles to standing by as mobs attack trucks, Israel is blocking aid from reaching Gaza.
The post The State Department Says Israel Isn’t Blocking Aid. Videos Show the Opposite. appeared first on The Intercept.
Khaled Al Serr, a young surgeon, vanished from Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis two months ago. He hasn’t been heard from since.
The post Hundreds of Palestinian Doctors Disappeared Into Israeli Detention appeared first on The Intercept.
Ban Khun Samut Chin, a coastal village in Samut Prakan province, Thailand, has been slowly swallowed by the sea over the past few decades. This has led to the relocation of the school and many homes, resulting in a dwindling population. Currently, there are only four students attending the school, often leaving just one in each classroom. The village has experienced severe coastal erosion, causing 1.1-2km (0.5-1.2 miles) of shoreline to disappear since the mid-1950s
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