Day: January 3, 2024

Black Box From US Osprey Found Off Japan

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Tokyo —  The black box from an Osprey military aircraft that crashed off Japan in November with eight people on board has been recovered, the US military said Thursday, five weeks after the accident. “Critical equipment identified by investigation officials has been recovered, including the Voice and Data Recorder, often called the black box,” U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command spokesperson Rebecca Heyse said. “The equipment will be transported to laboratories for data retrieval with follow analysis of the data at AFSOC. We expect the analysis process to take several…

South Korea, US Conduct Firing Drills Near North Korea Border

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SEOUL, South Korea —  South Korean and U.S. troops have conducted joint combat firing drills near the border with North Korea involving heavy weapons, as Pyongyang lambasted the allies for dangerous moves pushing the region to the brink of “an inferno of nuclear war.” The exercise by a South Korean Army mechanized infantry brigade and U.S. Army armored Stryker brigade was to test and enhance combat readiness simulating enemy aggression, South Korea said in a statement on Thursday. The drills took place over a week starting on Dec. 29 and…

Taiwan elections: mainland Chinese reporters on short-term permits can ‘only observe’ as island votes for new president

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Journalists of non-mainland background from the same organisation, however, were not affected. The rule also does not affect mainland reporters currently based in Taiwan, who are allowed to cover the election. The reporting restriction, which appears to specifically target mainland citizens, comes against the backdrop of a spike in distrust and hostility between Taipei and Beijing in the lead-up to the widely watched election. Who is running in Taiwan’s presidential race and what does it mean for Beijing? The move has also raised questions about freedom of the press in…

S Korean spy agency sees Kim Jong Un’s daughter as ‘probable successor’

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The nominee to be the next head of South Korea’s spy agency said Thursday that he sees North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s daughter, Ju Ae, as his “probable successor,” marking the first time the agency has officially indicated her possible succession of power. Radio Free Asia reported in November last year that the daughter received a new official title “Morning Star of Korea” – an apparent and deliberate parallel to the country’s founding leader Kim Il Sung. Historically, Kim Il Sung was referred to by the title during his…

Japan’s natural disaster preparedness has a corporate price

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The fish and vegetable market in Wajima has been in pretty much constant operation for the past 1,000 years: a talisman of commercial resilience and a jewel of the Noto peninsula. Today, the streets lie in a blackened expanse of ash and rubble — victims of the huge earthquake, tsunami and fires that so cruelly ushered Japan’s western coastline into 2024.  The disaster serves in part as a reminder, to both Japan and the outside world, of why the country and its companies — more than 30,000 of which are over…

China steps up aid for regional banks as economic risks mount

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Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Chinese business & finance myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Chinese provinces pumped a record Rmb218.3bn ($31bn) of capital into fragile regional banks last year using special-purpose bonds, in a sign of concern at the risks within one of the world’s most important financial systems. Sales of bonds that are used to boost the capital buffers of regional lenders more than tripled in 2023 from the previous year, according to data from Chinese financial data provider Wind. The…

China, in search of new growth drivers, considers urban residency reforms

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Even without an increase of incomes, he said, it would raise migrant workers’ spending power by 30 per cent because of improvements to their social safety net. “China accounts for 17.8 per cent of the global population, yet contributes only 12.8 per cent of global consumption,” Cai wrote in a December article published on the website of the Chinese Economists 50 Forum, a Beijing-based think tank. “If migrant workers can be converted to urban residents, it would help to fill that gap.” Presently, access to government services is restricted outside…

China’s services activity expands at quickest pace in 5 months in December thanks to rise in new business

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China’s services activity expanded at the fastest pace in five months thanks to a solid rise in new business, a private-sector survey showed on Thursday, lifting the degree of optimism in the sector to a three-month high. The Caixin/S&P Global services purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose to 52.9 in December from November’s 51.5, above the 50-mark separating growth from contraction and posting the highest reading since July. The data, offering a snapshot of business sentiment, was in contrast to an official survey on Sunday, which showed a subindex of services…

Risk of censorship to China’s AI leadership ambitions is overblown

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What this framing misses, however, is that censorship constrains only one application of LLMs: public-facing chatbots. In reality, the myriad applications of the technology that would provide the bulk of the economic and military gains from AI are not subject to the so-called political alignment problem. An example is Huawei’s Pangu Mine Model – a mining-specific model created with Shandong Energy Group that enhances activities such as rock burst prevention and tunnelling by making them safer, reducing labour intensity and increasing efficiency. One capability involves analysing camera signals on the…

American Victims of Hamas Attack on Israel Plan to Sue North Korea

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Tel Aviv/Washington, DC —  Families of Americans killed and injured in Hamas’ October 7 terror attack in Israel are contemplating a lawsuit against North Korea for indirectly supplying the Palestinian militant group with weapons, according to an Israeli attorney representing the families. Weapons that Hamas used in its surprise attack on Israel were provided by North Korea “knowingly and intentionally,” said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, an Israeli attorney and human rights activist who spoke with VOA’s Korean Service in Tel Aviv on December 27. “North Korea knows its weapons go to Iran,…