The world is being driven to the brink by thugs and dictators, but there is a route to a brighter future | Simon Tisdall

Don’t look up! The world is a mess. The sky could fall in any day. Unending wars, expanding humanitarian crises, rising authoritarianism, dysfunctional democracies, rampant racial and religious extremism, and unchecked lawlessness cast a dark cloud as the west’s new political year begins. Set all that against a backdrop of staggering global economic inequality, corporate and individual greed, irresponsible government indebtedness, dangerous AI gambles, climate breakdown and proliferating nuclear weapons, and a truly apocalyptic global outlook begins to take shape. It’s enough to make anyone shut their eyes, cover their…

Rescuers in Nepal find two more people alive after flood disaster

Emergency responders rescued a Chinese man and a Nepali woman in two separate operations on Saturday, as authorities continued to search for thousands of people missing 10 days after massive floods hit Nepal. The Nepali military said a joint team comprising personnel from its army and South Korean disaster experts rescued the man from a 225-metre (740ft) tunnel in the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower project, and that he was undergoing a health assessment. Pictures showed him being evacuated by helicopter after being carried out of the tunnel. Rescue efforts have focused…

Humanoid Robots and China’s Vision of the Future

The robots lined up on the track. For a moment, it looked almost like an ordinary athletics meet. Then the race started. The machines lurched forward, their metal legs struggling to keep their balance as they sprinted toward the finish line. One of them, a Chinese humanoid robot called Tiangong Ultra, finished the 100 meters in 8.64 seconds – faster than Usain Bolt’s human world record. The scene took place this August at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, where more than 2,000 robots competed in 51 events. Some ran…

How the Chinese Government Has Controlled the Narrative on the Tibet Floods

As rescue efforts have continued on both sides of the border following the devastating floods in Nepal and Tibet, a fight over how the disaster is being reported has been growing in intensity on social media. The dispute centers on the claims and counterclaims following a story by the BBC’s China correspondent, Laura Bicker, about how China is censoring videos of the floods. Bicker said videos of the landslide and flood surge sweeping through Gyirong Port on the border was scrubbed from the internet, in part, because Beijing fears instability…

‘Everyone seems to have forgotten’: In Tibet, flood-hit families search for the missing and grapple with China’s silence

Fan Hong last heard from her husband on the morning of the Nepal-Tibet disaster. More than a week later, the 31-year-old is desperately searching for information about Lin Bo, who was working on a Chinese highway project in Nepal. Struggling to get information from authorities, Fan turned to social media for help. “My husband works on a project in Nepal, about 5 kilometres from the Gyirong border crossing. I want to know what the situation is, but I haven’t been able to reach him,” the 31-year-old from China’s Sichuan province…