Thursday 26 March 2026 - 13:20
US and Israeli military strikes on Iran since February 28 have thrown Asia's $19 billion used car export industry into disarray. Ships avoid the Middle East, stranding cargoes at sea and overwhelming ports from Sri Lanka to China. Dealers feel the impact acutely. Umar Ali Hyder Ali runs Yokohama-based Kobe Motor, which ships about 18,000......
Researchers at Rice University have developed a new lithium-ion battery recycling method that recovers nearly 95 percent of valuable metals by combining microwave-induced plasma with citric acid, the same compound found in lemons. The patented process, published in the journal Advanced Materials, offers a less energy-intensive and chemically......
Gold dropped below $4,500 an ounce Thursday morning while oil prices remained elevated above $100 a barrel, as markets absorbed the collapse of a U.S. ceasefire proposal to Iran and the continued military conflict in the Middle East. The Trump administration transmitted a 15-point ceasefire plan to Iran through Pakistani intermediaries earlier......
IBM announced Thursday its quantum computer accurately simulated a real magnetic material's behavior. Results matched neutron scattering experiments from national labs. Researchers once deemed this beyond current quantum hardware. The breakthrough advances quantum computing as a practical tool for scientific discovery. The study targeted......
The US dollar eased slightly in Asian trading Thursday. Investors parsed prospects for diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the US-Israel-Iran conflict. Expectations for Federal Reserve rate hikes by year-end fell. The US dollar index, tracking the currency against six major peers, dropped 0.1 percent. It hovered near 99.5 after its biggest......
Two U.S. senators, Tom Cotton and Chuck Schumer, plan to introduce the American Security Robotics Act, aimed at prohibiting the federal government from purchasing or operating humanoid robots produced by Chinese companies. The proposed legislation would also block federal funding related to these robots, citing national security concerns.......
Google unveiled a new set of compression algorithms that sharply reduce the memory footprint of large language models, triggering an immediate selloff in memory and storage chip stocks. The system includes TurboQuant, PolarQuant, and Quantized Johnson Lindenstrauss. These tools focus on the key value cache, a component used during AI inference......
Salesforce shares dropped 5.8 percent on Tuesday after Anthropic said its Claude assistant can now control a user’s computer to perform tasks. The move renewed concerns that autonomous AI agents could weaken traditional enterprise software models. The stock decline extends a difficult year for the CRM company. Shares are down about......
Asian stock markets declined and oil prices rose on Thursday after Iran rejected a US-backed ceasefire proposal, dimming hopes for a swift resolution to the conflict now entering its fourth week. Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.3 percent, while South Korea’s Kospi dropped 1.9 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.4 percent......
A study from Stanford University finds that greenhouse gas emissions from the United States have caused more than 10 trillion dollars in global economic damage since 1990. The research, published in Nature, introduces a new method that connects emissions from countries, companies, and individuals to measurable economic losses worldwide. The......
Portkey, a San Francisco-based AI infrastructure firm, open-sourced its unified Gateway on March 24. The control plane targets the emerging agentic AI era, shifting paid SaaS features like governance, observability, authentication, and cost controls to open source. The gateway already scales massively. It processes over 1 trillion tokens......
Nearly one month after US and Israeli strikes hit Iran on February 28, the effective Strait of Hormuz closure triggered Asia's worst energy crisis in decades. Regional governments rolled out fuel rationing, cut workweeks, and scrambled for alternative supplies. Asia depends on over 80% of the oil and LNG normally passing through the strait. Oil......
Jet fuel prices have more than doubled since the US-Israeli war against Iran began late February. They surpassed $4 per gallon this week, per Airlines for America data. Airlines globally pass costs to travelers amid peak spring break and rising summer bookings. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby warned employees on March 20 of the hit. Fuel......
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Les Impériales Week 2026: Under the Theme “Daba or Never”
Tuesday 31 March 2026 - 10:03
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Iran under the lens
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AFCON 2025: Morocco at the heart of African football
Friday 19 December 2025 - 11:16
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Walaw at the Heart of the Mawazine Festival – Rhythms of the World 2025
Saturday 21 June 2025 - 15:48
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First 100 days of the second Donald Trump presidency
Monday 28 April 2025 - 09:38
