Sunday, April 30, 2023

Debut Role For UK's Minority Faiths At King Charles' Coronation

The UK's non-Christian faiths and its Celtic languages will play a prominent role for the first time in a royal coronation when King Charles III is crowned next week, organisers said on Saturday.

The May 6 service at Westminster Abbey will be overwhelmingly drawn from the Christian liturgy as Charles takes an oath, in English, to serve as "Defender of the (Protestant) Faith" and to protect the established Church of England.

But in a first, it will also feature a prominent role for Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Jewish leaders, according to the order of service released by the office of Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.

At the end of the coronation, they will deliver a greeting in unison to Charles declaring that "as neighbours in faith, we acknowledge the value of public service".

"We unite with people of all faiths and beliefs in thanksgiving, and in service with you for the common good," they will say.

Members of the House of Lords from the minority faiths will hand non-Christian regalia to the king, such as gold bracelets and the royal robe.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will give a reading from the Bible at the service, which will also be attended by Scotland's First Minister Humza Yousaf, the first Muslim to hold the post and to lead a Western European government.

- Nightly prayer -

Charles is a committed Christian and, according to the memoir "Spare" by his younger son Prince Harry, prays every night.

But the king also has a lifelong interest in other religions, and has spoken in the past about defending all faiths, not just Anglicanism, as Britain grew more multi-cultural.

Before his mother Queen Elizabeth II's state funeral in September last year, he held a reception at Buckingham Palace for faith leaders, and described himself as a "committed Anglican Christian".

But he recognised that the country he inherited is very different from the one his mother did 70 years previously.

"I have always thought of Britain as a 'community of communities'," he said.

"That has led me to understand that the sovereign has an additional duty... to protect the diversity of our country, including by protecting the space for faith itself."

In another coronation first, Charles will pray aloud during the service, to ask God that "I may be a blessing to all thy children, of every faith and conviction".

He will also receive blessings from other Christian leaders, including from the Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Scottish Free Church denominations.

A Greek choir will sing as a tribute to his late father, Prince Philip, who was born on the island of Corfu. A Gospel choir will also perform.

- Four tongues -

Diversity in the coronation service will extend to a role for the English-speaking UK's other native languages: Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic.

As heir, Charles was the first Prince of Wales in seven centuries to learn Welsh, which today counts nearly 540,000 speakers.

During the coronation, after a greeting and introduction by Welby, a prayer will be sung in Welsh. After the archbishop's sermon, verses of a hymn will be sung in all three minority languages.

"The coronation is first and foremost an act of Christian worship," said Welby, who leads the worldwide Anglican communion.

"At the same time, the service contains new elements that reflect the diversity of our contemporary society.

"I am delighted that the service will recognise and celebrate tradition, speaking to the great history of our nation, our customs, and those who came before us."

In the 2021 census, some 27.5 million people, or 46.2 percent in England and Wales, described themselves as Christian, down 13.1 percentage points from 2011.

Those listing "no religion" rose by 12 points to 37.2 percent while Muslims stood at 3.9 million or 6.5 percent of the population, up from 4.9 percent.

The next most common responses were Hindu (1.0 million) and Sikh (524,000), while Buddhists overtook Jewish people (273,000 and 271,000 respectively).


 

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)



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"Another Special Message": PM Speaks To UNESCO Chief In Mann Ki Baat@100

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday interacted with UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay in the 100th episode of his monthly radio broadcast 'Mann Ki Baat'.

The Director-General of UNESCO not only wished the countrymen for the wonderful journey of the 100th episode of 'Mann Ki Baat' but also asked questions on education and cultural preservation in India.

"I have received another special message from Audrey Azoulay, DG, UNESCO regarding 'Mann Ki Baat'. She has wished all the countrymen for this wonderful journey of 100th episode," PM Modi said during his 100th Mann Ki Baat address.

Audrey Azoulay is a French civil servant and politician who has been serving as the Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) since 2017, becoming the second female leader of the organization.

Speaking to PM Modi in his radio broadcast today, the UNESCO Chief said, "Dear Prime Minister, on behalf of UNESCO, I thank you for this opportunity to be part of the hundredth episode of the Mann Ki Baat radio broadcast. UNESCO and India have a long common history. We have very strong partnerships together in all areas of our mandate education, science, culture and information."

She also asked various questions to PM Modi on education and cultural preservation amid India's ongoing G20 Presidency.
"UNESCO is working with its member states to ensure that everyone in the world has access to quality education by2030, with the largest population in the world. Could you please explain the Indian way to achieve this objective? UNESCO also works to support culture and protect heritage," she said.

PM Modi thanked the UNESCO Chief for taking part in the 100th episode of the Radio broadcast and said that he is happy that she raised important issues.

He further said that Mann Ki Baat has been a catalyst in igniting numerous mass movements. "Be it NEP or the option of studying in regional languages, many initiatives such as Gunotsav and Shala Praveshotsav were highlighted in MannKiBaat," the Prime Minister said.

"Maan Ki Baat is a programme that allows every citizen to inspire others; this positivity will propel our nation in Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav."

"Be it Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, love towards Khadi, nature-related concerns, Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav or that of Amrit Sarovar, whatever issue Mann Ki Baat got associated with, it has ignited a people's movement," PM Modi added.

Ahead of the historic 100th episode of 'Mann Ki Baat' which aired on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealed to people to join him live at 11:00 am and said that the journey of his radio monthly programme in which he addresses the common people has been "truly special".

The Prime Minister said that during the journey, the "collective spirit" of the people of the country was celebrated.

Earlier today, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday joined the Indian community in New Jersey to listen to the 100th episode of 'Mann Ki Baat'.

Union Minister Jitendra Singh too interacted with the Indian community in London before the broadcast of PM Modi's Mann Ki Baat. He said that PM Modi has raised the esteem of the Indian community abroad, according to the statement released by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The Minister said, the world is looking up to the Indian community with great hope and expectation and it is high time that they also rise to the occasion and contribute to the well-being of the entire humankind in the true spirit of the theme of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam' as given by PM Modi during India's G20 presidency.

PM Modi's monthly radio programme completed its 100th episode today which aired at 11 am and broadcast live across the country and in various parts of the world including the United Nations Headquarters.

Mann Ki Baat is broadcast on the last Sunday of every month.
The programme, which began on October 3, 2014, has inspired community action and grown to be an essential tenet of the government's citizen outreach programme, which targets a variety of social groups including women, youth, and farmers.

A study was conducted regarding the impact of Mann Ki Baat on people's lives. The study showed that over 100 crore people have connected to Mann Ki Baat at least once, it speaks directly to people, celebrates grassroots-level changemakers and achievements of people and has influenced people towards positive actions.

Apart from 22 Indian languages and 29 dialects, Mann Ki Baat is broadcast in 11 foreign languages including French, Chinese, Indonesian, Tibetan, Burmese, Baluchi, Arabic, Pashtu, Persian, Dari and Swahili.

Mann Ki Baat is being broadcast by more than 500 All India Radio broadcast centres.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



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Man Arrested At US Airport For Carrying Titanium Vampire Straw

A 26-year-old passenger was arrested for carrying a self-defence titanium weapon known as a 'Vampire Straw' through the security check at Boston's Logan International Airport, as per a report in Independent

The Massachusetts authorities discovered the same and subsequently confiscated the weapon from the man's carry-on luggage. The picture of vampire straw, which resembles a dagger, was shared in a tweet from Transportation Security Administrator Dan Velez on Monday. He said in the caption, "This is a Vampire straw. These items are not allowed in passenger carry-on bags. A passenger found that out yesterday @BostonLogan when @MassStatePolice confiscated the item and eventually arrested the 26-year-old man on a state charge. #travelfail"

As per the outlet, Chicago resident Arman Achuthan Nair was arrested on Sunday night and accused of possessing a dangerous weapon after a 10-inch titanium straw with a "bevelled end" was discovered in his backpack. The drinking straws are referred to as a "weapon" on the website of knife merchant Szaboinc.com. "Designed for self-defense, the Vampire straw is super tough and long enough to be used like a dagger; its chiselled tip is sharp enough to puncture most synthetic materials," the site added. 

The titanium vampire straw priced at $85 (Rs 6,900) is promoted on the Szabo website. The straw "enables the user to drink any thick shake or smoothie effortlessly," according to the product description. "The Vampire straw's dimensions make it the most comfortable straw to use; it's length and wide gauge allows the user to drink effortlessly any thick shake or smoothie. The Vampire straw is also long enough to drink from any long beverage can," reads the website. 

The straw is "designed for self-defence" and is "super tough and long enough to be used like a dagger," according to the website. The company claims that every 10-inch straw is produced to order in the United States.



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"Unacceptable Behaviour": Doull Blasts PBKS Star On-air during IPL match

No matter what is the reputation of the player, former New Zealand pacer Simon Doull doesn't belive in mincing his words when doing commentary. Having criticised top players like Babar Azam and Virat Kohli in the past, Doull took a swipe at South Africa and Punjab Kings pacer Kagiso Rabada during an Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 match on Friday. Doull, who was commentating during the match, slammed Rabada for his 'unacceptable behaviour' as the express pacer bowled a couple of no-balls by overstepping during the match against Lucknow Super Giants.

"This is unacceptable behaviour. You're an international bowler. He's pushing it all the time, even when he is behind he is just there by an inch," Doull said live on-air.

Doull's comments came when Rabada overstepped for the second time in the match against LSG. It was the fifth ball of the 16th over when the Proteas pacer bowled a no-ball. His next ball was a wide, much to the disappointment of Doull and PBKS fans. However, the following delivery only resulted in a single.

Punjab Kings went on to concede a whopping 257 runs, the second-highest innings total in IPL history, in the match against Lucknow Super Giants. After the game, PBKS skipper Shikhar Dhawan admitted that the bowlers gave away too many runs for the batters to chase.

"We gave away too many runs. I felt that it (ball) didn't come on quickly to the bat and it went straight to the fielder (on his dismissal). I felt my strategy to play with the extra bowler backfired. We missed a spinner today. It's a learning for me. Livi (Livingstone) and even Sam (Curran) were there, so we couldn't send him (SRK) ahead," he said after the match.

Rabada, despite being a world-class bowler, conceded 52 runs in 4 overs while picking two wickets.



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100th Episode Of 'Mann Ki Baat': Top Quotes By PM Modi

  1. "'Mann Ki Baat' has also become a unique festival of goodness and positivity of the countrymen. A festival that comes every month, keenly awaited by all of us. We celebrate positivity in this. We also celebrate people's participation in this."
  2. "'Mann Ki Baat' is the 'Mann Ki Baat' of crores of Indians, it is the expression of their feelings."
  3. "3rd of October, 2014 was the festival of Vijaya Dashami and all of us together started the journey of 'Mann Ki Baat' on the day of Vijaya Dashami. Vijaya Dashami is the festival of victory of good over evil. 'Mann Ki Baat' has also become a unique festival of goodness and positivity of the countrymen."
  4. "Whether it is about Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, or the Swachh Bharat movement, love for Khadi or nature, whether it is the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav or Amrit Sarovar, any subject with which 'Mann Ki Baat' got associated, turned into a mass movement, and you people have made it so."
  5. "For me 'Mann Ki Baat' is not a program, for me it is a matter of faith, of worship, or Vrat. Like when people go to worship God, they bring along a Thaal of Prasad. For me, 'Mann Ki Baat' is like a Thaal of Prasad at the feet of God in the form of Janata-Janardan, the people. 'Mann Ki Baat' has become a spiritual journey of my being."
  6. "I always say that before going abroad for tourism, we must visit at least 15 tourist destinations of our country and these destinations should not be from the state where you reside...they must be from any other state outside your state."
  7. "Today we are completing the 100th episode of 'Mann Ki Baat' with the same spirit of Charaiveti Charaiveti. In strengthening the social fabric of India, 'Mann Ki Baat' is like the thread of a rosary, holding each bead together."
  8. "In every episode, the spirit of service and capability of the countrymen have inspired others. In this program, every countryman becomes an inspiration to other countrymen. In a way, every episode of Mann Ki Baat prepares the ground for the next episode."
  9. "I have an unwavering belief that the biggest change can be brought about by collective effort."
  10. "Through 'Mann Ki Baat', many mass movements have come into being and gained momentum. For example, the very mission to re-establish our toys and our toy industry started with 'Mann Ki Baat'. The beginning of raising awareness about Indian breed dogs, our native dogs, was also started with 'Mann Ki Baat' only."


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Barack Obama, Steven Spielberg Surprise Staff At Barcelona Restaurant

Former US President Barack Obama, along with film director Steven Spielberg and singer Bruce Springsteen, surprised the staff members at a Barcelona restaurant, as per a report in The Guardian

The employees at Amar restaurant in Barcelona were left in shock on Thursday night as the trio walked in. Chef Rafa Zafra claimed that renowned Spanish-American restaurant Jose Andres had recommended the restaurant to them.

"They came recommended by José Andrés, who has a very close relationship with Obama," Mr Zafra told a radio station Cadena SER, as per the outlet. The chef stated that Mr Andres had informed the 44th President of the US that a reservation at the restaurant was essential. He further added that a reservation was just hours prior to their visit. 

"Jose Andres called me and told me that it was a very important table, but that we should please not say anything. And of course, I began to investigate and saw that Obama was coming, that Bruce had a concert.." Mr Zafra told Cadena SER, as per the outlet. 

He then understood that both Mr Spielberg and Mr Obama were in the city to attend a Springsteen concert along with the former first lady Michelle Obama. 

"We gave them oysters, shellfish and fish from Roses, my classic - the caviar bikini - a little bit of everything... and super grateful!" Mr Zafra continued telling the outlet.

The chef stated that the security detail had asked the employees not to ask for pictures. "The security people told us to please not ask them for photos, but just before leaving, Obama entered the kitchen and told us that this had been one of their best meals and if they could take a photo with the whole team." 

An employee of the restaurant, Pol Perello Franch, took to Instagram to share the now-viral photo. He wrote in the caption, "Pleasures that this job gives you!! Great night."

According to The Guardian, Barack and Michelle Obama visited a few of Barcelona's iconic cultural locations on Friday, including the Sagrada Familia and the Moco Museum. According to photos and videos shared online, the Obamas walked hand in hand through the city while being closely guarded by their security officers and occasionally waving at the crowd.



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Saturday, April 29, 2023

Big Take: KKR Star Says Country Didn't 'Invest' In Him Like His IPL Team

Kolkata Knight Riders, despite some pre-season injury hiccups, have been dishing out inspiring performances. With three wins in eight games they are at the seventh spot. The Nitish Rana-led team has showed gumption to fight against sides with better star power. Andre Russell is an important member of the team. The West Indies all rounder has been part of the KKR side since 2014. In eight matches of the IPL 2023 so far,  Rusell has scored 108 runs and has taken five wickets. He recently spoke about the contribution that KKR have in his cricket career.

"KKR actually make things happen for me when they sent me to get proper treatments on my knees. That's something special to me to be honest. No other franchise or even my country never really invest that much on me," Russell said in a video posted on KKR's YouTube channel.

"I'm happy here. I don't see any other franchise that I would really love to be a part of in this tournament because I've been here for about 9 years now. Being here for so many years, and meeting these guys, get closer to them every year. When cricket isn't not being played, I'm still in communication with Mr Venky (Mysore). I look up to him, I really respect him," the all-rounder further stated.

A resurgent Gujarat Titans, boasting a power-packed bowling unit, will come in the way of Kolkata Knight Riders' revival hopes when the two teams cross swords in the IPL on Saturday. The home side's misfiring campaign finally came on track after they fired in unison to snap their four-match losing streak with a convincing win at Bangalore. In a season their Caribbean star duo of Andre Russell and Sunil Narine are yet to fire, the low-profile KKR side without their regular skipper Shreyas Iyer may just have found a trump card in Jason Roy.

The Englishman set the tempo with a fiery half-century for the likes of Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh and David Wiese to capitalise and set a winning total of 201 against Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Included only in their sixth match of the season, Roy has scores of 43, 61 and 56 in three matches and KKR's batting will once again centre around him.

The win lifted KKR to seventh in the 10-team standings but they still have a long way to go to make the playoffs.

With PTI inputs



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Huge Fire At Fuel Depot In Russia-Annexed Crimea After Drone Strike

A huge fire broke out on Saturday at a fuel depot in Sevastopol, the main port in Moscow-annexed Crimea, with authorities saying it was the result of a drone attack.

Sevastopol is home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet and has been hit by a series of drone attacks since the Kremlin's Ukraine offensive launched last year.

"A fuel reserve is on fire in the Kazachya Bay district" of the city, the Moscow-installed governor of the peninsula Mikhail Razvozhayev said on Telegram in the early hours of Saturday.

"According to preliminary information, it was caused by a drone strike."

He said the fire's size was "around 1,000 square metres" and published images of huge clouds of smoke rising into the air.

Razvozhayev called on Crimeans to "remain calm" and in a later post said "nobody was hurt."

He said authorities had "the situation under control" and said there was no threat to civilian infrastructure.

Earlier this week, Russia said it had "repelled" a drone attack on the port.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



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Twitter to Take 10 Percent Cut on Content Subscriptions After 12 Months

Twitter CEO Elon Musk said on Friday that the social media platform will take a 10 percent cut on content subscriptions after the first year, as the company looks to monetize content on the website in a bid to diversify its revenue sources.

Earlier this month, billionaire owner Musk said users of the social media platform will be able to offer their followers subscriptions to content, including long-form text and hours-long video.

He had also said that the company will not take a cut for the first 12 months on content subscriptions.

Musk has been bringing in changes at Twitter to boost revenue after the platform saw advertising income drop last year in the run up to his $44 billion (nearly Rs. 3,59,700 crore) acquisition that closed in October.

He added that the company's cut from subscriptions on iOS and Android platforms will drop to 15 percent in the second year from 30 percent in the first.

A few days back, Musk also has made an important announcement regarding the blue tick verified accounts on Twitter. In a series of updates that Musk has introduced to Twitter after his takeover, he has also added a pointer to his updates about getting verified accounts prioritised. 

After Twitter began removing blue ticks from the accounts of several celebrities and famous personalities, only those account which paid for the blue tick could be seen as verified. However, as multiple accounts have started paying, the announcement from Musk will definitely motivate others to join the bandwagon.

The blue tick served as a way of protecting well-known individuals from impersonation and tackling false information.

© Thomson Reuters 2023


Apple is opening its first stores in India, one in Mumbai and the other in Delhi. What does this mean for Apple customers in India? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.


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Sperm Donor Who Fathered Over 550 Children Ordered To Stop By Dutch Court

A  court in the Netherlands on Friday banned a man from donating any more of his sperm after he was suspected of fathering more than 550 children. The man named Jonathan Jacob Meijer aged 41, could be fined more than 100,000 Euros (Rs 90,41,657) if he tries to donate again, BBC reported.

The shocking case came to the limelight after a foundation and the mother of one of the children filed a lawsuit against him in Hague. The judge who heard the civil case said the donor "misinformed prospective parents about the number of children he had already fathered in the past.''

"All these parents are now confronted with the fact that the children in their family are part of a huge kinship network, with hundreds of half-siblings, which they did not choose. The court prohibits the defendant from donating his semen to new prospective parents after the issuing of this judgement," Judge Hesselink said in a ruling on Friday.

He has also been ordered not to contact any prospective parents "with the wish that he was willing to donate semen... advertise his services to prospective parents or join any organisation that establishes contact between prospective parents," Mr Hesselink added,

Notably, Mr Meijer donated his sperm to at least 13 clinics, with 11 of them located in the Netherlands. According to Dutch clinical guidelines, sperm donors should not donate to more than 12 women or should not father over 25 children. This is to prevent cases of accidental breeding and psychological problems in children who may get disturbed after learning that they have hundreds of siblings.

However, he helped produce between 550 and 600 children since he started donating sperm in 2007. In 2017, he was banned from donating to fertility clinics in the Netherlands. Instead of stopping he carried on donating sperm abroad and online.

The mother of one of the children in the court case said she was grateful that the court had stopped the man from ''mass donations that [have] spread like wildfire to other countries''.

"I'm asking the donor to respect our interests and to accept the verdict because our children deserve to be left alone," she said in an official statement.

However, the donor's lawyer said in a court hearing that he wanted to help parents who would otherwise be unable to conceive. A musician by profession, Mr Meijer currently lives in Kenya.



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See You At The Met Gala, Alia Bhatt - Pics Of Her Airport Look

Alia Bhatt, all set to make her big Met Gala debut this year, flew out of Mumbai on Friday night. The actress was all smiles as she was photographed at the Mumbai airport. The actress topped a pair of blue denims with a plain white t-shirt and a quirky printed jacket. She completed her look with white sneakers and a matching sling bag. Alia Bhatt will be wearing designer Prabal Gurung's creation at the grand fashion gala. Meanwhile, Prabal Gurung congratulated the actress on her Best Actress win at the Filmfare Awards and he wrote, "Congratulations Alia Bhatt on winning the Best Actress Filmfare for Gangubai Kathiawadi. Can't wait to see you soon and celebrate at the Met Gala." Thanking him in her Instagram story, Alia wrote, "Thank you Prabal. See you tomorrow."

Here are the pictures of Alia Bhatt at the Mumbai airport:

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See Alia Bhatt and Prabal Gurung's Instagram exchange here:

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Screenshot of Alia Bhatt's Instagram story

The Met Gala takes place on the first Monday of May at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This year, besides Alia Bhatt, Priyanka Chopra will also attend the gala. Previously, Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone, Natasha Poonawalla and Isha Ambani have attended the Met Gala.

Alia Bhatt will soon made her Hollywood debut with Heart Of Stone, co-starring Gal Gadot. The actress will also be seen in Jee Le Zaraa with Priyanka Chopra and Katrina Kaif and, Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani with Ranveer Singh. The film will also feature veterans Dharmendra, Jaya Bachchan and Shabana Azmi.



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Joe Biden To Get Roasted At White House Journalists' Dinner

Washington's political and media elites observe their annual truce -- of a few hours -- Saturday at the White House Correspondents Association dinner, where President Joe Biden will find himself the butt of jokes and hit back with his own.

The ritual is a landmark on the US capital's social calendar and once again takes place in the same Hilton Hotel where Ronald Reagan was shot and nearly killed by John Hinckley Jr in 1981, as he left from delivering a speech to trade unions.

The dinner institution had started to wither -- first boycotted by Donald Trump, then shut down for Covid-19 altogether.

Even last year, strict Covid testing, frequent use of masks and many guests keeping away resulted in a relatively low-key affair.

Saturday's event, said White House Correspondents Association President Tamara Keith, is "completely sold out."

Keith, a correspondent for NPR radio, said hundreds of people had been turned away after tickets ran out.

"It's post-Covid. People last year were pretty nervous about going into a ballroom with 2,600 people in it, and this year, they are climbing over each other to get there," she told The Hill.

Among those extra guests is Vice President Kamala Harris, joining 80-year-old Biden on stage in the same week that they declared their 2024 reelection bid.

Having both the president and vice president in attendance will restore a tradition last observed in 2016, the final dinner before Trump entered the White House.

Hollywood figures, Washington politicians of all stripes and representatives of every media organization imaginable will cram inside Saturday.

As in previous years, a prominent comedian will perform, this time "Daily Show" correspondent Roy Wood Jr.

- Serious joking matter -

The occasion is meant to celebrate the constitution's First Amendment guaranteeing free speech -- and a free press. However, the jokes tend to get the headlines.

Wood, speaking to CBS News, said the two aspects are mutually reinforcing.

"I have an opportunity as a citizen to look elected officials in the face and go, 'Here's where you're all messing up,'" he said, adding, "it needs to be funny."

If previous editions are a guide, many jokes will be directed at Biden, but also at the journalists who cover him. Polls show less than half the country approves of the Democrat, while the media get little love from much of the country, presenting many easy targets.

Wood is also likely to direct barbs at members of Congress and, undoubtedly, given the new election cycle, Trump and other Republicans eying White House runs.

Biden will get his own slot and an opportunity to show he can take the heat.

He may have been practicing on Friday, delivering his trademark brand of self-deprecation about his age -- though more dad joke than edgy late-night TV fare.

Referring to a speech by president Dwight Eisenhower 65 years ago, Biden quipped at a ceremony honoring the Air Force football team, "I wasn't there."

After pausing for the laughter, he added: "No matter what the press says."

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



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Friday, April 28, 2023

"The Reason Was...": MS Dhoni's Honest Admission After CSK's Defeat To RR

Table-toppers Chennai Super Kings suffered a comprehensive loss to Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 match on Thursday, falling 33 runs short of the target of 203 runs. The hosts, despite lacking a bit of home support from fans, put in a fabulous display of batting, with Yashasvi Jaiswal emerging as the top-scoring batter. Chasing such a stiff target, CSK skipper MS Dhoni admitted that there were just too many runs to chase for his team, especially because of the way the Royals batted in the first 6 overs.

Rajasthan started the match in 5th gear, putting a whopping 64 runs on the board in the first 6 overs, with Jaiswal and Buttler putting yet another half-century stand for the opening wicket. Though Buttler failed to convert his start into a big score, Jaiswal went on and scored 77 runs off 43 balls to lay a solid foundation for his team.

Chasing the target of 203 runs, Chennai barely looked in control of the required run-rate which kept increasing despite Ruturaj Gaikwad (47) and Shivam Dube (53) producing solid knocks.

Dhoni, speaking at the post-match presentation ceremony, admitted that the target was quite above par. In fact, he felt CSK ended up on the losing side because of what RR did in their first six overs.

"It was quite a bit above par score. The reason was the first six overs, we gave away too many in the first six. At the same time the wicket was best to bat on at that period. Then our bowlers bowled well in the middle overs but even when we were finishing, there were a few edges that went for boundaries and that actually kept adding to the score. If I just go through it, maybe there were at least five or six boundaries with edges and that had a very big impact on the score. I think they got a par-plus score and we were not able to get a good start in the first six overs," he said.

Dhoni also held special praise for Royals opener Jaiswal at the end of the match.

"Yashasvi batted really well, it was important to go after the bowlers and I think he took calculated risks. It felt it was slightly easy with our bowlers because they had to assess as to what is a good length to bowl. As a captain you can tell them initially that you want to be slightly on the shorter side," he said.

"But it's very difficult to calculate as to what is that shorter side. So I felt initially we gave away a few boundaries that were too up (on the fuller side) and then you are doing the catching up work. Still I felt Yashasvi batted very well at the top and in the last few Jurel batted well. (But) I think it was in the first six that took the game away from us," he asserted.

The defeat saw CSK drop down to the 3rd spot in the points table while RR climbed to the No. 1 position.



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Google Pixel 7a Leaked Render Shows Off New Coral Shade, May Debut in Four Colour Options

Google Pixel 7a is expected to make its official debut at Google I/O 2023 alongside the Pixel Fold. Ahead of the expected launch, multiple leaks have exposed almost every detail about the upcoming smartphone. Now, a well know tipster has shared an alleged image of Pixel 7a in a new colour option. The new render leak shows off the handset in a new shade. Past leaks have suggested blue, grey, and white colour options for the Pixel 7a. It is expected to be powered by a Tensor G2 chipset.

Known tipster Evan Blass (@evleaks) posted the alleged render of Google Pixel 7a on Twitter. The leaked render shows the handset in an orange shade. This colour option looks quite identical to the coral colour we've seen in past Google handsets such as the Pixel 6 and Pixel 4. Previous leaks have also given us a look at the blue, grey, and white colourways.

The Google Pixel 7a is seen with dual rear cameras similar to the outgoing Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro models. A Google logo is also placed at the bottom. Further, power and volume buttons are seen arranged on the left spine.

Thanks to multiple tipsters, we've learned of the price details and specifications of the Pixel 7a. The Pixel 7 series smartphone is expected to be unveiled during Google's I/O 2023 event on May 10 alongside the Pixel Fold. It could go on sale in global markets in the third quarter. The handset is said to be priced between $450 to $500 (roughly Rs. 32,000 to Rs. 40,000).

The Pixel 7a is tipped to come with a 6.1-inch full-HD+ OLED display with a refresh rate of 90Hz. It is said to be powered by Google's in-house Tensor G2 chipset, paired with 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB of UFS 3.1 internal storage. The dual rear camera unit of the Pixel 7a is expected to comprise a 64-megapixel primary sensor with optical image stabilisation (OIS) support and a 12-megapixel sensor with an ultra-wide lens. Further, there could be a 10.8-megapixel selfie camera. The Pixel 7a is expected to carry a 4,400mAh battery with 20W wired charging support.


Are the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro the best in their segment? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.


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Cheetah Deaths Were "Expected" In "Risky" India Relocation: South Africa

The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) South Africa on Thursday said the deaths of two cheetahs in Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park are within expected mortality rates for a project of this nature.

In a statement issued by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) South Africa said, "The cheetah joined eight of the mammals relocated to India's Kuno National Park from Namibia in September 2022. The two cheetah deaths (one from Namibia and one from South Africa) observed to date are within expected mortality rates for a project of this nature."

The cheetahs were relocated to Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh as part of an initiative to expand the cheetah meta-population and to reintroduce cheetahs to a former range state.

The statement further said, "Large carnivore reintroductions are extremely complex and inherently risky operations. This is a critical phase of the project, with cheetahs being released into larger environments where there is increasingly less control over their day-to-day wellbeing."

According to the statement, the risks for injury and mortality will be increasing, and these risks are factored into the reintroduction plan.

"The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) awaits a diagnosis (an autopsy) for the death of the cheetah, but there is no indication that it is any form of infectious disease or that there is a similar threat to any of the other cheetahs", the government of South Africa said in a statement.

The statement further added, "All the South African cheetahs are in larger enclosures and are closely monitored twice daily. As they are wild cheetahs, their behaviour, movements, and body condition must be evaluated from a distance, limiting the ability of teams on the ground to gain precise knowledge of their health status."

"The remaining eleven South African cheetahs will be released into free-ranging conditions over the next two months. Kuno is an unfenced protected area that supports a high density of competing predators including leopards, wolves, sloth bears, and striped hyenas. It is anticipated that, as observed with cheetah reintroductions in Africa, a few of the founder population may be lost within the first-year post-release", the statement said.

The statement added, "Many of the released cheetahs will escape the boundaries of Kuno National Park and may have to go through short-term stress during the recapture process. Once the cheetahs have established home ranges, the situation will stabilise."

Reportedly, Uday, a six-year-old cheetah who was brought to India from South Africa, died on April 23.

Earlier on March 27, five-year-old Sasha, one of the eight cheetahs brought to India from Namibia, succumbed to kidney failure after she was diagnosed with a kidney infection in January.

Earlier this year, the governments of South Africa and India signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Cooperation on the Re-introduction of Cheetah to India.

The MoU facilitates cooperation between the two countries to establish a viable and secure cheetah population in India; promotes conservation and ensures that expertise is shared and exchanged, and capacity is built, to promote cheetah conservation. This includes human-wildlife conflict resolution, capture and translocation of wildlife and community participation in conservation in the two countries.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



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Bengaluru Food Blogger Sparks Debate On Expensive 5-Star Restaurant Meals

Eating out is a rejuvenating experience. It gives us a much-needed break in the form of an outing, gives us time out from cooking and treats our taste buds to delicious flavours. That's why some people don't mind spending a little extra for a good meal at a fancy restaurant for the sheer luxury of it. But everyone wants to get the best bang for their buck. This food blogger was clearly not happy with the expensive meal she had at a 5-star restaurant. She took to Twitter to pour out her anger and asked fellow Twitter users about their opinion of spending too much money on a single meal.

Also Read: Man Bashes 'Overpriced' Airport Food, Eats Homemade Paratha With Mother At Airport

Bengaluru-based food blogger Kripal Amanna posted about her 5-course meal at a 5-star restaurant, which turned out to be quite costly according to her. She wrote, "7500 plus tax! Nearly 10 grand per person for a meal in Bengaluru! For food alone, five courses look good but not overly spectacular or exotic. Is it just me who thinks our five-star hotels now dwell in a parallel universe!?"

Also Read: "Where Is The Cheese?" Angry Customer Shares Pic Of Costly But "Dry" Burger

The tweet was posted today, April 27, 2023, and it has already received over 33 K views. Other Twitter users did share their responses to her query. Many of them agreed with her. 

Also Read: Huge Bill For Chai Samosa At Mumbai Airport Shocks Twitter

One user suggested that 5-star hotels' food is for corporates and the cream of society, not middle-class people. 

Another user seconded it by saying that meals at 5-star restaurants are usually sponsored by companies for business meetings. "It's more to satisfy the business interest than the stomach," he said.

One user ranted that the food doesn't even taste that great at luxury hotels.

Another user agreed that the taste doesn't justify the price of the food and the services.

Also Read: British Airways' First-Class Meal Leaves Twitter Horrified, Here's Why

Here are some more reactions to the post:

What do you think about the high pricing of food at 5-star hotels? Is it justified? Let us know in the comments section below.



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Twin Earthquakes Hit Western Nepal Overnight, No Casualties Reported

The National Seismological Center recorded two earthquakes Thursday overnight in Western Nepal with no casualties recorded till morning.

As per the Seismological Center in Surkhet District in the Western region of Nepal, two earthquakes measuring 4.8 and 5.9 magnitude with epicentre at Bajura's Dahakot were recorded overnight.

"First earthquake struck at 11:58 PM (local time) measuring 4.9 magnitude while at 1:30 (local time) another measuring 5.9 magnitude has been recorded," Rajesh Sharma an official at Seismological Center in Surkhet District of Nepal told ANI over the phone.

As per the District Police Office Bajura, locals had to run out of their houses when the earthquake rattled the ground. Adjoining districts of Bajura in Western Nepal also witnessed the shaking of grounds.

"We are ascertaining the impact of the earthquake," the District Police Office Bajura confirmed.

The Western region of Nepal which had remained stable for a long time has been recording earthquakes in recent months. Earlier, the earthquake in the area had claimed the lives of six people.

Bajura, a hilly and treacherous geographical district of Nepal lies some 850 Kilometers far from the capital Kathmandu.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



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Thursday, April 27, 2023

The Future Of AI Relies On A High School Teacher's Free Database

In front of a suburban house on the outskirts of the northern Germany city of Hamburg, a single word - "LAION" - is scrawled in pencil across a mailbox. It's the only indication that the home belongs to the person behind a massive data gathering effort central to the artificial intelligence boom that has seized the world's attention.

That person is high school teacher Christoph Schuhmann, and LAION, short for "Large-scale AI Open Network," is his passion project. When Schuhmann isn't teaching physics and computer science to German teens, he works with a small team of volunteers building the world's biggest free AI training data set, which has already been used in text-to-image generators such as Google's Imagen and Stable Diffusion.

Databases like LAION are central to AI text-to-image generators, which rely on them for the enormous amounts of visual material used to deconstruct and create new images. The debut of these products late last year was a paradigm-shifting event: it sent the tech sector's AI arms race into hyperdrive and raised a myriad of ethical and legal issues. Within a matter of months, lawsuits had been filed against generative AI companies Stability AI and Midjourney for copyright infringement, and critics were sounding the alarm about the violent, sexualized, and otherwise problematic images within their datasets, which have been accused of introducing biases that are nearly impossible to mitigate.

But these aren't Schuhmann's concerns. He just wants to set the data free.

Large Language

The 40-year-old teacher and trained actor helped found LAION two years ago after hanging out on a Discord server for AI enthusiasts. The first iteration of OpenAI's DALL-E, a deep learning model that generates digital images from language prompts - say, creating an image of a pink chicken sitting on a sofa in response to such a request - had just been released, and Schuhmann was both inspired and concerned that it would encourage big tech companies to make more data proprietary.

"I instantly understood that if this is centralized to one, two or three companies, it will have really bad effects for society," Schuhmann said.

In response, he and other members on the server decided to create an open-source dataset to help train image-to-text diffusion models, a months-long process similar to teaching someone a foreign language with millions of flash cards. The group used raw HTML code collected by the California nonprofit Common Crawl to locate images around the web and associate them with descriptive text. It does not use any manual or human curation.

Within a few weeks, Schuhmann and his colleagues had 3 million image-text pairs. After three months, they released a dataset with 400 million pairs. That number is now over 5 billion, making LAION the largest free dataset of images and captions.

As LAION's reputation grew, the team worked without pay, receiving a one-off donation in 2021 from the machine-learning company Hugging Face. Then one day, a former hedge fund manager entered the Discord chat.

Emad Mostaque offered to cover the costs of computing power, no strings attached. He wanted to launch his own open-source generative AI business and was keen to tap LAION to train his product. The team initially scoffed at the proposal, taking him for a kook.

"We were very skeptical in the beginning," Schuhmann said, "But after four weeks or so we got access to GPUs in the cloud that would normally have cost around $9,000 or $10,000."

When Mostaque launched Stability AI in 2022, he used LAION's dataset for Stable Diffusion, its flagship AI image generator, and hired two of the organization's researchers. A year on, the company is currently seeking a $4 billion valuation, thanks largely to the data made available by LAION. For his part, Schuhmann hasn't profited from LAION and says he isn't interested in doing so. "I'm still a high school teacher. I have rejected job offers from all different kinds of companies because I wanted this to stay independent," he said.

New Oil?

Many of the images and links in databases like LAION have been sitting in plain sight on the web, in some cases for decades. It took the AI boom to reveal its true value, as the bigger and more diverse a dataset is, and the higher quality the images in it, the clearer and more precise an AI-generated image will be.

That realization, in turn, has raised a number of legal and ethical questions about whether publicly-available materials can be used to feed databases - and if the answer is yes, if creators should be paid.

To build LAION, founders scraped visual data from companies such as Pinterest, Shopify and Amazon Web Services - which did not comment on whether LAION's use of their content violates their terms of service - as well as YouTube thumbnails, images from portfolio platforms like DeviantArt and EyeEm, photos from government websites including the US Department of Defense, and content from news sites such as The Daily Mail and The Sun.

If you ask Schuhmann, he says that anything freely available online is fair game. But there is currently no AI regulation in the European Union, and the forthcoming AI Act, whose language will be finalized early this summer, will not rule on whether copyrighted materials can be included in big data sets. Rather, lawmakers are discussing whether to include a provision requiring the companies behind AI generators to disclose what materials went into the data sets their products were trained on, thus giving the creators of those materials the option of taking action.

The basic idea behind the provision, European Parliament Member Dragos Tudorache told Bloomberg, is simple: "As a developer of generative AI, you have an obligation to document and be transparent about the copyrighted material that you have used in the training of algorithms."

Such regulation wouldn't be an issue for Stability AI, but it could be a problem for other text-to-image generators - "no one knows what Open AI actually used to train DALL-E 2," Schuhmann said, citing it as an example of how tech companies lock up public data. It would also upend what is now the status quo in data collection.

"It has become a tradition within the field to just assume you don't need consent or you don't need to inform people, or they don't even have to be aware of it. There is a sense of entitlement that whatever is on the web, you can just crawl it and put it in a data set," said Abeba Birhane, a Senior Fellow in Trustworthy AI at Mozilla Foundation who has studied LAION.

Although LAION has not been sued directly, it has been named in two lawsuits: one accusing Stability and Midjourney of using copyrighted images by artists to train their models, and another by Getty Images against Stability, which alleges that 12 million of its images were scraped by LAION and used to train Stable Diffusion.

Because LAION is open-source, it's impossible to know which or how many other companies have used the dataset. Google has acknowledged that it tapped LAION to help train its Imagen and Parti AI text-to-image models. Schuhmann believes that other large companies are quietly doing the same and simply not disclosing it.

Worst of the Web

Sitting in the living room as his son played Minecraft, Schuhmann likened LAION to a "small research boat" on top of "big information technology tsunami," taking samples of what's beneath to display to the world.

"This is a tiny amount of what's available publicly on the Internet," he said of LAION's database. "It's really easy to get because even we, with maybe a budget of $10,000 from donors, can do it."

But what's publicly available isn't always what the public wants - or is legally allowed to see. In addition to SFW photos of cats and firetrucks, LAION's dataset contains millions of images of pornography, violence, child nudity, racist memes, hate symbols, copyrighted art, and works scraped from private company websites. Schuhmann said he was unaware of any child nudity in LAION's data set, though he acknowledged he did not review the data in great depth. If notified about such content, he said, he would remove links to it immediately.

Schuhman consulted lawyers and ran an automated tool to filter out illegal content before he began assembling the database, but he is less interested in sanitizing LAION's holdings than in learning from them. "We could have filtered out violence from the data we released," he said, "but we decided not to because it will speed up the development of violence detection software." LAION does provide a takedown form to request the removal of photos, but the dataset has already been downloaded thousands of times.

Offensive content lifted from LAION appears to have been integrated into Stable Diffusion, where despite recently tightened filters, it's easy to generate fake Islamic State beheading photos or Holocaust images. Some experts believe such material can also create biases within an AI generator itself: Tools like Dall-E-2 and Stable Diffusion have been criticized for reproducing racial stereotypes even when a text prompt doesn't imply the subject's race.

Such biases were why Google decided not to release Imagen, which had been trained on LAION.

When reached for comment, Stability AI said it trained Stable Diffusion on a curated subset of LAION's database. The company sought to "give the model a much more diverse and wide-ranging dataset than that of the original SD" it wrote in an email, adding that they tried to remove "adult content using LAION's NSFW filter."

Even advocates of open source-based AI warn of the implications of training AI on uncurated datasets. According to Yacine Jernite, who leads the Machine Learning and Society team at Hugging Face, generative AI tools based on tainted data will reflect its biases. "The model is a very direct reflection of what it's trained on."

Introducing guardrails after the product is up and running isn't sufficient, Jernite added, as users will always find ways to circumvent the safety measures. "That's what happens when you take a model that is trained to emulate what people do on the Internet in general and then say, 'Okay, but don't do that.' People will find a way to still make it do that," they said.

Gil Elbaz, founder of the data nonprofit Common Crawl, doubts whether "there's a straight line that you can draw from the training sets to what's produced," and instead likened the process to an artist who goes to museums for inspiration but is blocked from making replicas of artworks. Instead, he said, "it's important for society to decide what use cases are legal or not legal."

It won't only be left up to society. As regulators in Europe craft legislation to navigate the uses of artificial intelligence, they are grappling with the fact that the data now being mined for the current AI boom has for years been generated in in a legal gray zone that is only now coming under serious scrutiny. "AI wouldn't have been possible at this level of complexity without years of the accumulation of data," said Tudorache, the European Parliament member.

But to Schuhmann, it's not the datasets that should be monitored. In his eyes, the worst-case scenario for AI is one in which Big Tech is able to crowd out developers by catering their tools to a regulatory framework. "If we try to slow things down and over-regulate," he warned, "there is a big danger that in the end, only a few big corporate players can afford to fulfill all the formal requirements."

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



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"The End" Of Kim Jong Un? What The 'Washington Declaration' Means

If North Korea uses its nuclear weapons against the United States or its ally South Korea, it would be "the end" of Kim Jong Un's regime, Seoul and Washington announced this week.

The stern threat comes as President Yoon Suk Yeol is on a six-day state visit to the United States, where he and his counterpart Joe Biden discussed ramping up the US security shield for South Korea in the face of the nuclear-armed North's increased missile tests.

But how significant is the tough-sounding statement? AFP takes a look at what we know:

What is it?

The Washington Declaration boosts the US nuclear umbrella over South Korea.

It includes the regular deployment of a US nuclear submarine to South Korea -- something that has not happened since the 1980s -- and other measures, including more information sharing in the event of a North Korean attack.

But there are no plans to station US nuclear weapons in South Korea, and some analysts doubt the declaration's practical value.

"It is questionable whether the North would be afraid of a strategic nuclear submarine equipped with an SLBM with a range of more than 7,400 kilometres (4,600 miles)," Cheong Seong-chang of the Center for North Korea Studies at the Sejong Institute told AFP.

The "too long" range of the submarine's missiles mean it may not be able to hit North Korea if it were in South Korean waters, he said.

Is it significant?

The state visit undoubtedly "represents a new high-water mark for US-South Korea relations, with the breadth and depth of security, economic, and cultural cooperation on full display", Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, told AFP.

US officials described the new arrangement as akin to moves last witnessed when Washington oversaw the defence of Europe against the Soviet Union.

Yoon has been trying to reassure the South's increasingly nervous public about the US commitment to so-called "extended deterrence", where US assets -- including nuclear weapons -- serve to prevent attacks on allies.

A majority of South Koreans now believe the country should develop its own nuclear weapons, surveys show. Yoon has previously hinted Seoul could pursue this option.

Will Seoul get nuclear weapons?

Absolutely not. And this could cause problems, experts said.

"One thing was clear: there was an implied agreement that Seoul would not go nuclear," said Soo Kim, Policy Practice Area Lead at LMI Consulting and a former CIA analyst.

"Seoul's nuclear ambitions have been capped."

Gi-Wook Shin, a Korea expert and sociology professor at Stanford University, told AFP that the declaration was "a step forward".

"I don't think this will be enough to appease a South Korean public that has increasingly demanded that Seoul develop nuclear weapons of its own," Shin said.

What will North Korea do?

Closer cooperation between its self-declared arch enemies, Washington and Seoul, is bound to concern Kim Jong Un's regime and there could be more missile launches to demonstrate this, experts say.

In public, "North Korea will downplay the message of reassurance by the US regarding nuclear deterrence", Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean army general, told AFP.

But behind closed doors "they will get the message: if they use nuclear weapons it will be the end of the regime", he said.

Having spent decades -- and a huge chunk of the impoverished country's GDP -- on developing his banned nuclear weapons programmes, Kim is not going to change track, experts said.

"It is unlikely that North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons by giving in to these threats," Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP.

What about Trump?

The major problem with the Washington Declaration is not the agreement itself, but US political dysfunction, which means it could be worthless after the next presidential election there, Karl Friedhoff at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs told AFP.

The potential return to power of former US president Donald Trump is likely to trigger "very serious discussions" in Seoul, he said.

For the US-South Korea relationship "the biggest challenge is something that the alliance doesn't really have any control over: US domestic politics", he said.

"There is serious concern in Seoul about a return of the GOP -- especially Trump -- to the White House. If he wins the election in 2024, that could spark a very unpredictable turn of events in the relationship."

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)



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Apple, Android Rivals First-Quarter Sales Slide in China as Smartphone Shipments Fall 11 Percent YoY

Apple and its Android rivals saw sales slide in the first quarter in China, research firm Canalys reported on Thursday, as consumers continued to tighten their belts following the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions.

The iPhone maker was the top-selling brand over the first three months of the year, with 20 percent market share. But its overall shipments in China fell to 13.3 million units, a 3 percent decrease from the same period in 2022.

Sales for all other top-selling brands also fell, with total smartphone shipments dropping 11 percent year-on-year to 67.2 million units, the lowest quarterly total since 2013.

Despite being the best-selling brand in the quarter, Apple saw its total market share fall 3 percentage points year-on-year.

Oppo and Vivo, Android brands that trail Apple as the second and third best-sellers, saw shipments fall 10 percent and 7 percent respectively.

Honor and Xiaomi, which specialise in low-end models, saw shipments fall 35 percent and 20 percent respectively, suggesting consumers shied away from phone purchases even at the cheapest prices.

China's GDP grew 4.5 percent in the first quarter, beating expectations, and policy makers in Beijing are working on plans to further stimulate demand. However, economists expect most Chinese consumers and businesses to spend cautiously over the coming year.

© Thomson Reuters 2023


Apple is opening its first stores in India, one in Mumbai and the other in Delhi. What does this mean for Apple customers in India? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.


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"Speak In Tamil, Not Hindi": AR Rahman Tells Wife At Event. Her Reaction

China's Covid Cover-Up Had Huge Help From Western Elites: Report

China's Covid ambitions, to hide crucial data and avoid blame, could not have been accomplished without Western academics eagerly playing the useful idiot for Beijing, The New York Post has claimed in a report.

The report stated "Chinese scientists have withheld data, withdrawn genetic sequences from public databases and altered crucial details in journal submissions" while "Western journal editors enabled those efforts", and the World Health Organization just let all of it happen.

The New York Post wrote that two China-pushed narratives are at stake: that the virus did not escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and that China's murderous, totalitarian response to the pandemic was a model of success.

The degree of complicity in pushing these among leading institutions outside China astounds.

The guilty include major universities like Oxford and cutting-edge scientific journals, to say nothing of mega-powerful global nonprofits.

The journal Clinical Infectious Diseases seemingly falsely amended a paper on possible paths for Covid mutation to suggest that the data it was based on were collected later than they actually were.

The Lancet, arguably the most important academic journal, pulled a group letter from Chinese hospital workers begging for international aid.

And WHO, the chief global health watchdog, played the role of a megaphone for China's claims about the virus' origin too many times to count, The New York Post wrote.

Journals don't want to lose access to the lucrative Chinese market by offending the government; many universities rely on monies coming via various paths from China; Beijing plays hardball bureaucratic politics to dominate outfits like WHO.

And elite institutions, especially in the academy, have been utterly captured by the left and have long sought some alternative to the evil, capitalistic hegemony of the United States and found it in Beijing's allegedly benevolent dictatorship.

"It's beyond time for our elite to face facts and stop bending the knee to Beijing by pretending it's a state like any other," read the report in the New York Post.



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Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Nvidia Releases Software Tools for AI Chatbots to Curb Unwanted Responses, Dangerous Information

Nvidia, a major supplier of chips and computing systems for artificial intelligence, on Tuesday, released a set of software tools aimed at helping chatbots watch their language.

Nvidia's chips have helped companies like Microsoft add human-like chat features to search engines like Bing. But the chatbots can still be unpredictable and say things their creators wish they did not.

Microsoft in February limited users to five questions per session with its Bing search engine after the New York Times reported the system gave unsettling responses during long conversations.

Nvidia's software tools, provided free of charge, are designed to help companies guard against unwanted responses from chatbots. Some of those uses are straightforward - the maker of a customer service chatbot might not want the system to mention products from its competitors.

But the Nvidia tools are also designed to help AI system creators put into place important safety measures, such as ensuring that chatbots do not respond with potentially dangerous information such as how to create weapons or send users to unknown links that could contain computer viruses.

US lawmakers have called for regulations around AI systems as apps like ChatGPT have surged in popularity. Few legal rules or industry standards exist on how to make AI systems safe.

Jonathan Cohen, vice president of applied research at Nvidia, said the company aims to provide tools to put those standards into software code if and when they do arrive, whether through industry consensus or regulation.

"I think it's difficult to talk about standards if you don't have a way to implement them," he said. "If standards emerge, then there'll be good place to put them."

© Thomson Reuters 2023


Xiaomi launched its camera focussed flagship Xiaomi 13 Ultra smartphone, while Apple opened it's first stores in India this week. We discuss these developments, as well as other reports on smartphone-related rumours and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.


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On Virat-Anushka's 'Fresh Lime Soda' Pic, Fans Point Out Dravid's Presence

Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma, who is the wife of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and India star batter Virat Kohli, shared an unseen photo with his husband and Faf du Plessis. In the picture, Anushka gave a serious expression, while Kohli made a hilarious pose. RCB captain Faf, who was standing behind the couple, also made a funky pose for the picture. Anushka also had a funky name for the trio as she wrote "Team Green" on the her Instagram story.

Faf also reposted the photo on his Instagram story and wrote: "Haha what are we called" and tagged Anushka.

Anushka responded by saying: "Band name - fresh lime soda"

Kohli and Faf's franchise, RCB, also shared the photo with a caption: "The coolest band in the IPL: Fresh Lime Soda".

While Anushka and Faf were sharing a funny banter on Instagram, fans on Twitter were quick to spot Team India head coach Rahul Dravid in the background as the photo went viral on social media.

Here's how Twitter reacted: 

RCB are back on track in IPL 2023 after registering back-to-back wins. With wins over Punjab Kings in Mohali and Rajasthan Royals in Bengaluru, RCB have moved into the top half of the points table.

On Wednesday, RCB host Kolkata Knight Riders at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. A win would take them upto third spot in the points table with 10 points.

Faf is currently the leading run-scorer in IPL 2023, having scored 404 runs in seven matches.



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Twitter Says It Removed 6.5 Million Pieces of Content in First Half of 2022 Before Elon Musk's Takeover

Twitter on Tuesday said it required users to take down over 6.5 million pieces of content in the first half of 2022, before the social media platform was taken over by billionaire Elon Musk, a 29 percent increase from the second half of 2021.

Twitter disclosed the number of content removals in a blog post on the same day the European Union said the social media platform would be among 19 tech companies subject to new landmark rules that require them to share data with authorities, do more to tackle disinformation and conduct external and independent auditing.

Failure to comply with the rules - some of the world's strictest regulations on online platforms - could result in fines of up to 6 percent of global revenue or even a ban from operating in the EU, according to the European Commission's website.

Before Musk purchased Twitter in October and cut roughly 80 percent of its staff, Twitter normally published twice-yearly reports on its Transparency Center website, detailing information such as the number of accounts it suspended and the number of government requests it received for data.

Twitter's update on Tuesday came in the form of a short blog post, and the company said it would give an update about its "path forward for transparency reporting" later this year.

Publishing transparency reports is one of the requirements under the EU's new internet rules.

The company said it received 53,000 legal requests from governments during the first half of 2022 to remove certain content, with Japan, South Korea, Turkey and India submitting the most requests.

Twitter did not disclose the number of requests it complied with.

© Thomson Reuters 2023


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