In 2021, Google announced $1 billion of investment in Africa, aiming to enhance connectivity, drive innovation and support local entrepreneurs. Three years on, it claims this investment is working. According to a recent report commissioned by the tech giant, in 2023 its services – including Search, Maps, and YouTube – generated $16 billion in economic activity across the region. The ...
Jimmy Lai, the pugnacious Hong Kong media tycoon whose now shuttered tabloid Apple Daily was a regular thorn in Beijing’s side, is expected to testify on Wednesday at his own national security trial in a high stakes court battle that could see him spend the rest of his life behind bars. The 77-year-old, known for his decades-long support of the ...
Brazilian police have arrested five people, including a former adviser to ex-President Jair Bolsonaro, over an alleged plot to assassinate President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022, authorities said. The coup plot was conceived in late 2022, before Lula took office, according to Federal Police. In addition to killing the then-president-elect, the plot also included plans to capture or ...
Sweden and Finland have updated guidance to their citizens on how to survive war, as NATO allies bolster defense measures against the backdrop of the Ukraine conflict. Both nations joined the transatlantic alliance in the past two years, after Russia invaded its neighbor. Many European countries have since ramped up military spending to bolster long-term security in the region. Booklets ...
Two undersea internet cables in the Baltic Sea have been suddenly disrupted, according to local telecommunications companies, amid fresh warnings of possible Russian interference with global undersea infrastructure. Another cable linking Finland and Germany was also disrupted, according to Cinia, the state-controlled Finnish company that runs the link. The C-Lion cable – the only direct connection of its kind between ...
British Airways is working to fix a “technical issue,” according to a spokesperson for the airline on Monday, as reports emerged on social media of flight delays and IT issues with the flag carrier. “Our flights are currently operating, but are experiencing delays as our teams work to resolve a technical issue affecting some of our systems,” a British Airways ...
Nearly a hundred aid trucks were looted in southern Gaza on Saturday in what UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, has described as “one of the worst” incidents of its kind. Drivers were forced to unload trucks at gun point, aid workers were injured, and vehicles were damaged extensively, it said. UNRWA did not identify the perpetrators of the ...
Warning: This report contains graphic descriptions of sexual violence. It was the early hours of the morning when a guard entered Sohrab’s cell – a small, dark room with a barred window and a blanket on the floor – in Kabul’s sprawling Pul-e-Charkhi prison last August. The 19-year-old was escorted to another room in the complex, where he heard a ...
Multiple students were injured after a car crashed into people outside a primary school in central China on Tuesday morning, state news agency Xinhua reported. It’s not clear how many people were injured in the incident, which took place in Hunan province’s Changde city. In a brief report, state broadcaster CCTV said “specific casualties were being investigated.” Another showed multiple ...
More than 40 of Hong Kong’s best known pro-democracy figures have been sentenced to prison terms of up to 10 years on subversion charges, in the biggest single blow to the city’s already shrinking political freedoms following Beijing’s sweeping crackdown on dissent. Among those handed sentences on Tuesday was Joshua Wong, a former student leader and poster child of the ...