Author: AFP

Apple on Wednesday introduced a new iPhone 16e model with a lower price tag as the company seeks to revive sales of its iconic device. Apple touted the iPhone 16e as having many features found in more expensive models, including Apple-tailored artificial intelligence features and integration with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. “iPhone 16e packs in the features our users love about the iPhone 16 lineup, including breakthrough battery life, fast performance powered by the latest-generation A18 chip, an innovative 2-in-1 camera system, and Apple Intelligence,” Apple Vice President of Worldwide iPhone Product Marketing Kaiann Drance said in a release. The iPhone 16e…

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday that US President Donald Trump’s decision to label Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator was “wrong and dangerous”. “It is simply wrong and dangerous to deny President Zelensky democratic legitimacy,” Scholz told news outlet Der Spiegel, adding that Zelensky is the elected head of state. “That proper elections cannot be held in the middle of a war is in accordance with the requirements of the Ukrainian constitution and electoral laws.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov endorsed “future cooperation” between their two countries, at odds over the Ukraine war, in their Riyadh meeting Tuesday, the State Department said. Rubio and Lavrov agreed to “lay the groundwork for future cooperation on matters of mutual geopolitical interest and historic economic and investment opportunities which will emerge from a successful end to the conflict in Ukraine”, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday criticised US-Russia talks for excluding Kyiv, saying efforts to end the war must be “fair” and involve European countries including Türkiye. His remarks came after Washington and Moscow said they would name teams to negotiate a path to ending the war in Ukraine, during their first high-level official talks since Russia invaded nearly three years ago. The Ukrainian leader spoke after a nearly three-hour meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the Turkish capital Ankara. “Ukraine, Europe in a broad sense — and this includes the European Union, Türkiye, and the UK –…

A senior Ukrainian official on Tuesday criticised US President Donald Trump for launching talks with Russia without Ukraine, after officials from Washington and Moscow held their first meeting since the invasion of Ukraine. “Both (former US presidents Barack) Obama before 2014 and (Joe) Biden before this war talked to Putin about everyone without everyone, about Europe without Europe, and someone in Trump’s team led him in the same footsteps. This will only be feeding Putin’s appetite,” a senior official requesting anonymity told AFP.

An asteroid that could level a city now has a 3.1 percent chance of striking Earth in 2032, according to NASA data released Tuesday — making it the most threatening space rock ever recorded by modern forecasting. Despite the rising odds, experts say there’s no need for alarm. The global astronomical community is closely monitoring the situation and the James Webb Space Telescope is set to fix its gaze on the object, known as 2024 YR4, next month. “I’m not panicking,” Bruce Betts, chief scientist for the nonprofit Planetary Society told AFP. “Naturally when you see the percentages go up,…

Freedom in Russia and the end of President Vladimir Putin’s rule depends on Ukraine winning the war, Kremlin critic Garry Kasparov said Tuesday as Moscow and Washington held talks. As US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held talks in Saudi Arabia, former chess world champion Kasparov said any outcome that Putin could present as a victory would only extend his grip on power. “There is no freedom of Russia, no end of the Putin regime, without Ukrainian victory,” the chess grandmaster told a press conference after addressing the annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights…

Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta has said it will lay an undersea cable stretching across five continents to carry data, including for developing artificial intelligence. The cable will run for more than 50,000 kilometres (31,000 miles) between the US, South Africa, India, Brazil and “other regions”, Meta wrote in a blog on Friday. Global digital communication relies on a vast network of undersea conduits, with roughly 1.2 million kilometres of cable already installed, according to a 2024 report by the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The links can be short hops between countries or globe-spanning systems…

Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta has said it will lay an undersea cable stretching across five continents to carry data, including for developing artificial intelligence. The cable will run for more than 50,000 kilometres (31,000 miles) between the US, South Africa, India, Brazil and “other regions”, Meta wrote in a blog on Friday. Global digital communication relies on a vast network of undersea conduits, with roughly 1.2 million kilometres of cable already installed, according to a 2024 report by the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The links can be short hops between countries or globe-spanning systems…

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday dismissed a proposal by the United States to displace Palestinians from the war-devastated Gaza Strip, saying it “will go nowhere”. Khamenei made the remarks during a meeting in Tehran with Ziyad al-Nakhalah, leader of the Palestinian resistance group Islamic Jihad. “The idiotic American plans or some other plans regarding Gaza and Palestine will go nowhere,” Khamenei said. US President Donald Trump this month proposed a plan for a US takeover of the war-battered Gaza Strip and its Palestinian inhabitants to be relocated elsewhere, including to Egypt and Jordan. Trump’s plan sparked an…