Author: Editorial Desk

Singapore:  Singapore and Zurich have shared the title of the world’s most expensive cities this year, according to the Economic Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Worldwide Cost of Living 2023 report. Singapore has reclaimed the top spot in the rankings for the ninth time in the past eleven years. This ranking is based on a comparison of over 400 individual prices for everyday goods and services across 173 cities worldwide. As per the reports, “Price growth has slowed from the 8.1 percent reported in last year’s survey, but remains significantly above the trend in 2017-21.” Singapore’s rise to the top was made…

Israel: The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has stated that it has struck again after a week-long Gaza ceasefire. Israel also accused Hamas of violating the terms of the truce and firing towards Israeli territory. “Hamas violated the operational pause, and in addition, fired toward Israeli territory. The IDF has resumed combat against the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza,” said the IDF on social media platform X. The seven-day ceasefire, which started on November 24 and was twice extended, had made it possible to exchange dozens of hostages held in Gaza for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and facilitated the entry of humanitarian…

United States: Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, has shut down China-based influence campaigns on its platforms this year. The decision comes after the campaign that spreading polarising content about US politics ahead of the 2024 presidential election, the company stated. Meta has removed nearly 4,800 fake accounts. The influence operation was one of two China-based campaigns detected by Meta, in the third quarter of 2023, the tech said in its latest threat adversarial report. Meta remarked that, “The people behind this activity posted in English about US politics and US-China relations. The same accounts would criticise both sides of…

United States: Amazon has launched its own AI-powered Titan Image Generator tool during the AWS re:Invent conference. The new tool is part of the Amazon Titan multimodal foundation models. According to the company, Amazon Titan Image Generator enables content creators to swiftly and precisely refine images using English language cues. Mr. Swami Sivasubramanian, Vice President of Database, Analytics, and Machine Learning, stated that, “It facilitates easy background swaps, transforming scenes from a rainforest backdrop to lifestyle images while maintaining the primary focus of the image and expanding creative options.” Rivals like Google, Microsoft, and startups such as Stability AI have…

United States: A new study suggests that radiation therapy, a conventional approach used against cancer, may help treat patients with a life-threatening abnormal heart rhythm called ventricular tachycardia. Cardiologists and radiation oncologists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis repurposed the use of radiation therapy. The research team discovered that low-dose radiation therapy appears to improve heart function in various forms of heart failure. This results after analysing the cardiac effects of radiation in a small number of individuals and modelling the effects of low-dose radiation in mice with heart failure. The study, published in the journal Med,…

United States: Mr. Henry Kissinger, former United States Secretary of State, has passed away at the age of 100. According to the sources, Mr. Kissinger died last day in his home in Connecticut. The top diplomat served under two US presidents, Mr. Richard Nixon, and Mr. Gerald Ford, as the secretary of state and played a key role in shaping the country’s foreign policy during the Cold War era. A German-born Jewish refugee, Mr. Kissinger oversaw initiatives to begin diplomatic negotiations with China, a landmark US-Soviet arms talks, strengthen ties amid Israel and Arab neighbours, and the Paris Peace Accords…

United States: Google has launched the .meme domain, a virtual space for the world of memes. With the widespread popularity of funny and relatable images and videos, the new platform aims to be the go-to hub for meme enthusiasts. This week witnessed the start of .meme domains, with Google Registry showing six partners, including several purr-worthy cat-themed sites, that have staked their claim. Know Your Meme, known for keeping up with the latest meme trends, can now be found at knowyour.meme and stonks.meme. These websites guarantee to stay up to date on the ever changing landscape of online culture. Fashion…

Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh has been chosen to host the World Expo 2030, beating South Korea’s Busan and Italy’s Rome. The event, which is expected to attract millions of visitors, will be taking place from October 2030 until March 2031. The Paris-based Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) revealed that the hosting bid had a secret ballot in which Riyadh received 119 votes, Busan 29, and Rome 17. Mr. Giampiero Massolo, head of the Italian Expo bid, remarked that, “This huge result for Saudi was unexpected in those proportions. It is no longer about the merits but about transactions.”…

Belgium:  Mr. Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, has asked for members of the security alliance to continue supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia’s invasion during the meeting between NATO foreign ministers in Brussels. Mr. Stoltenberg stated that, “We just have to stay the course. This is also about our security interests.” The US has provided more than $40 billion in security aid to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022 and pledged to back Kyiv for as long as necessary. However, the $60 billion US military aid package proposed by the US President, Mr. Joe Biden’s administration is in…

London, UK:  A new study has found that Open AI’s ChatGPT can give better personal advice than human columnists. Traditionally, people believed personal advice required human empathy, but ChatGPT is challenging this idea. According to research published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, ChatGPT’s responses were regarded as ‘more balanced, complete, empathetic, helpful and better overall compared to the advice by the professional’ by a set of participants. This shows a significant shift in AI’s capacity to understand and engage with human emotions, an area where the previous GPT 3.5 model faced challenges. Unlike GPT 3.5, the GPT-4 model is…