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seoul – South Korea’s acting President Choi Sang-mok said on Tuesday he would immediately move to fill vacancies on the Constitutional Court in a effort to restore stability after the impeachment of two of his predecessors this month triggered political turmoil. Finance Minister Choi became acting leader on Friday after the impeachment of Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who had been acting president since Dec. 14 when Yoon Suk Yeol was suspended from power after a short-lived attempt to impose martial law on Dec. 3. Choi said he would appoint two Constitutional Court justices immediately, and a third when ruling and opposition parties can agree on nominating a candidate. Source link

LAHORE, Pakistan – Pakistani student Laiba Rashid, 22, hopes her life will change once she learns how to drive a motorcycle after undergoing a training program that teaches women how to operate two-wheelers in the bustling eastern city of Lahore. Although the program is 7 years old, it’s rare to see women driving motorcycles. Women driving cars or riding pillion on two-wheelers driven by a male relative is more socially acceptable in the conservative, Islamic nation. “I hope this will change my life because I am dependent on my brother to pick me up and drop me to college,” Rashid said on her first day at the Women on Wheels (WOW) driving program offered free by the Lahore traffic police. Source link

Suzu, Ishikawa Pref. – Municipalities in the Noto Peninsula damaged by a massive earthquake on Jan. 1, 2024, geared up to welcome the new year on Tuesday. On the final day of 2024, preparations were being made for the day’s “Machi no Yu” bathing support service, launched in late May in the city of Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, to be offered to residents. The bathing service is also available in the morning of New Year’s Day on Wednesday, which marks the first anniversary of the magnitude 7.6 temblor, according to a man in his 60s who is a temporary staff member of the Peace Boat Disaster Relief, which runs the service. “I’m ready to continue supporting local people in 2025,” he said. In a square in front of the municipal government office of the city of Suzu in the prefecture, preparations were being made for a series of events to be held from the afternoon of New Year’s Eve to the afternoon of New Year’s Day, such as one featuring mochitsuki — the pounding of rice cakes — and a karaoke competition. Toshikoshi soba, or traditional Japanese noodles, will be served from Tuesday evening. “It must be fun and healing, so I think I’ll join in (the karaoke event) and sing,” Akiko Nakayachi, 66, said. “The past year was neither short nor long, and went by as usual,” Seiju Mukai, 64, said at his home in Kanazawa, the prefecture’s capital. Mukai’s 97-year-old father, Hiroshi, a resident of Suzu, lost his life in the earthquake. While showing concern that another major earthquake may strike, Mukai said he wants his father to “rest in peace.” Source link

Shen Yun’s success flows in part from its ability to pack venues worldwide — while exploiting young, low-paid performers with little regard for their health or well-being. Source link

BOSTON – These are uncertain and confusing times. Not only are we contending with pandemics, climate change, societal aging in major economies, and rising geopolitical tensions, but artificial intelligence is poised to change the world as we know it. What remains to be seen is how quickly things will change and for whose benefit. If you listen to industry insiders or technology reporters at leading newspapers, you might think artificial general intelligence (AGI) — AI technologies that can perform any human cognitive task — is just around the corner. Accordingly, there is much debate about whether these amazing capabilities will make us prosperous beyond our wildest dreams (with less hyperbolic observers estimating more than 1% to 2% faster GDP growth), or instead bring about the end of human civilization, with superintelligent AI models becoming our masters. But if you look at what is going on in the real economy, you will not find any break with the past so far. There is no evidence yet of AI delivering revolutionary productivity benefits. Contrary to what many technologists promised, we still need radiologists (more than before, in fact), journalists, paralegals, accountants, office workers, and human drivers. As I noted recently, we should not expect much more than about 5% of what humans do to be replaced by AI over the next decade. It will take significantly longer for AI models to acquire the judgment, multidimensional reasoning abilities, and the social skills necessary for most jobs, and for AI and computer vision technologies to advance to the point where they can be combined with robots to perform high-precision physical tasks (such as manufacturing and construction). Source link

Mizuho Bank and Resona Bank may have been hit by what is known as a distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attack, in which perpetrators overload traffic by sending enormous amounts of data. Mizuho Bank said Tuesday users had difficulty accessing its internet banking system at around 7 a.m. on Tuesday morning due to overloaded traffic. The system, however, was restored at around 10 a.m. Users had difficulty accessing the bank’s internet banking system for individual customers and a business site for corporate customers. “We apologize for causing trouble for customers,” Mizuho said in a statement. Resona Bank, meanwhile, said a glitch occurred Saturday night that made it difficult for retail customers to connect to its online banking service. The system was restored early Monday but has been unstable again since shortly after 1 p.m. the same day. Resona Bank is investigating the cause of the glitch. The bank’s smartphone app was also affected. Similar problems were found at Saitama Resona Bank, Kansai Mirai Bank and Minato Bank, all part of the Resona Holdings group. No customer data leaks have been confirmed at any of the banks. Last week, MUFG Bank and Japan Airlines were also affected by glitches apparently caused by DDoS attacks. Source link

The year-end balance of banknotes in circulation in Japan is estimated to be around ¥124.1 trillion in 2024, falling for the second straight year, according to Bank of Japan data released Monday. A stack of ¥10,000 bills equivalent to that value would be 1,240 kilometers high — or about 328 times higher than 3,776-meter Mount Fuji, the highest mountain in the country. The balance of banknotes in circulation is the total value of banknotes held at homes, in corporate vaults and elsewhere. The drop resulted from people increasingly opting for cashless payments, although the country’s new bank notes attracted demand since their introduction in July 2024. The year-end balance declined in 2023 for the first time in 14 years amid the growing spread of cashless payment services. Source link

Hatsumōde (first shrine visit of the year), osechi (celebratory feast) and Hakone Ekiden (what some people call the greatest race on earth): These are three of the Japanese New Year’s traditions that have stood the test of time. For many Japanese people, Hakone Ekiden — the long-distance road relay from central Tokyo to the foothills of Mount Fuji and back — has become an essential part of oshōgatsu (New Year’s) and tens of millions of people tune in yearly to watch young men on university teams run, often in freezing temperatures. Every year on Jan. 2 and 3, Hakone Ekiden brings millions of fans across Japan to a standstill. Even people who normally don’t care about running care about Hakone Ekiden. Source link

LONDON – Chemicals factories founded or owned by some of Russia’s wealthiest men are supplying ingredients to plants that manufacture explosives used by Moscow’s military during the war in Ukraine, an analysis of railway and financial data shows. Reuters identified five chemical companies, in which five Western-sanctioned billionaires hold stakes, that provided more than 75% of the key chemicals shipped by rail to some of Russia’s largest explosives factories from the start of the war until September this year, according to the railway data. The analysis demonstrates for the first time how heavily factories forming part of Russia’s war machine rely on these men and their companies. The billionaires include Roman Abramovich, former owner of Chelsea Football Club, and Vagit Alekperov, who was ranked by Forbes in April as Russia’s richest man with a fortune estimated at $28.6 billion. Source link

Seoul – A South Korean court has issued an arrest warrant for impeached, suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol, investigators said Tuesday, over his short-lived bid to impose martial law in the country. The warrant makes Yoon the first sitting South Korean president to face arrest. “The arrest warrant and search warrant for President Yoon Suk Yeol, requested by the Joint Investigation Headquarters, were issued this morning,” the Joint Investigation Headquarters said in a statement. The detention warrant was filed after Yoon ignored all three summonses from an anti-corruption agency requesting his appearance for questioning over the short-lived martial law declaration. Source link