Author: HeraldStar

China’s manufacturing activity expanded at the fastest pace in three months in February as new orders and higher purchase volumes led to a solid rise in production, an official factory survey showed on Saturday. The reading should reassure officials that fresh stimulus measures launched late last year are helping shore up a patchy recovery in the world’s second-largest economy, ahead of China holding its annual parliamentary meeting starting on March 5. Whether the upturn can be sustained remains to be seen amid a trade war that was kicked off by U.S. President Donald Trump’s first salvo of punitive tariffs. The…

A gathering of countries in Rome this week agreed a plan to generate $200 billion in finance a year by 2030 to halt and begin to reverse the destruction of the natural world. The U.N.’s COP16 talks on biodiversity began last October in Colombia but failed at that time to reach an agreement on key elements, including who would contribute, how the money would be gathered and who would oversee it. U.S. President Donald Trump is scaling back the involvement of the world’s biggest economy in development finance, so the agreement late on Thursday night was a welcome boost for global deal-making.Led…

Bitcoin hit its lowest since November and was set for its biggest weekly fall in over two years, swept up in a sell-off in tech stocks at a time when a $1.5 billion hack and doubts about U.S. crypto policy has left industry sentiment fragile. The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value dropped as much as 7% on Friday to $78,273 , its lowest since November 10 and on track for a fifth straight day of declines. It has fallen 16% in the past week, its biggest weekly drop since the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange in November 2022.…

China’s Baidu (9888.HK), opens new tab will launch the next generation of its artificial intelligence model Ernie in mid-March, which will see improved capabilities in areas such as reasoning, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said. The upgraded 4.5 Ernie model will also feature enhanced multimodal capabilities, the source said. Multimodal AI systems are capable of processing and integrating various types of data – like text, video, images, and audio – and can convert content across these formats. Baidu had said earlier this month it would gradually launch the Ernie 4.5 series in the coming months and officially make it open source…

Chinese technology startups are racing for fresh fundraising to capitalise on the DeepSeek-induced fervor towards artificial intelligence, as well as President Xi Jinping’s recent show of support to the country’s private enterprises. AI-powered optics startup Rid Vision, brain-computer interface company AI CARE Medical and robot-maker Shanghai Qingbao Engine Robotics are among Chinese tech start-ups seeking fresh onshore financing, venture capitalist Andrew Qian said.”Many people are knocking at the doors of these AI companies, half discussing business cooperation, the other half talking about investment,” said Qian, the CEO of New Access Capital, which has invested in the three firms. “You can…

Intel’s (INTC.O), opens new tab promised $28 billion chip fabrication plants in Ohio are facing further delays, with the first factory in New Albany now expected to be completed only by 2030, the struggling chipmaker said on Friday. The first factory will begin operations sometime shortly thereafter, between 2030 and 2031, the company said, extending its original timeline by at least half a decade. Intel has been cutting capital expenses after its expensive bid to become a contract chip manufacturer for other companies, in a move to restore its lost glory, strained its balance sheet.The changes were made so Intel can align…

Four people have died in the Indian avalanche incident, ANI news agency reported on Saturday, citing a defence public relations officer. An avalanche struck the Indian Himalayan mountain state of Uttarakhand, authorities said on Friday, following recent heavy snowfall in the region. It struck a labour site of the federal Border Roads Organisation (BRO), where eight containers and one shed, with 57 workers inside, were buried under the snow, according to an Indian army statement.

Cricket commentator Andrew Leonard discusses the United States’ historic win over Pakistan in the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.

Shakoofa Khalili was waiting for her husband to return home with bread from the market when she heard their eight-year-old daughter scream from the balcony. The girl had seen police approach her father in the street outside their safe house in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad and ran to confront them. “(She) cried and grabbed the policeman’s hand begging him to let her father go,” Khalili told CNN, as she recounted what she thought was her worst fears coming true. When Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in 2021, hundreds of thousands of refugees fled across the border to neighboring Pakistan, seeking safety…

Taiwanese actor Barbie Hsu, one of the most prominent stars in the Chinese-speaking world, has died of a flu-related illness at age 48, Taiwan’s official Central News Agency reported Monday, citing her sister. Hsu died of pneumonia after catching the flu during a family holiday in Japan, her younger sister Dee Hsu said in a statement shared by her agent, CNA reported. “I am grateful that I could be her sister in this life, to take care and accompany each other,” Dee Hsu said. “I will always be grateful to her and miss her.” The star had faced poor health…