Rehab robot helps restore damaged muscles and nerves
A rehabilitation robot prototype to help restore deteriorated nerves and muscles using electromyography and computer games. Ben Gruber reports.
A rehabilitation robot prototype to help restore deteriorated nerves and muscles using electromyography and computer games. Ben Gruber reports.
China is committed to reforms that will upgrade the technological level of its largely manufacturing-based economy and exploit green technologies expected to drive around $1.4 trillion in annual revenues, a senior Communist Party official said Thursday. “We sincerely welcome all countries to board the express train of China’s development and join hands to realize world modernization featuring peaceful development, mutually beneficial cooperation and common prosperity,” Zhao Leiji, who heads China’s rubber stamp congress and sits on the party’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, was quoted as telling business people and other leaders attending the Boao Forum for Asia. The gathering in Boao, held on China’s island island province of Hainan on the South China Sea, is the latest venue for efforts by Beijing to reassure foreign investors rattled by policies that have raised uncertainties for foreign businesses, geopolitical tensions, and an economic slowdown.
The death toll from Israeli airstrikes across southern Lebanon has climbed to 16, including several militants and members of paramedic groups, according to Lebanese state media and the militant organizations. International mediators have been scrambling to prevent an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah amid near-daily violence, mostly confined to the area along the Lebanon-Israel border. Hezbollah has been launching rockets toward Israel since Oct. 8, the day after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, triggering the war in Gaza.
Turkey holds municipal elections across 81 provinces on Sunday March 31, with President Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party (AKP) aiming to reclaim cities it lost in 2019, including the country's largest city of Istanbul and the capital Ankara. On Sunday, polling stations will be open from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. in eastern provinces and from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the rest of the country. Analysts see the vote as a nationwide gauge of Erdogan's support and the opposition's durability, especially that of Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of Istanbul.
Shoppers may get a bitter surprise in their Easter baskets this year. Chocolate eggs and bunnies are more expensive than ever as changing climate patterns eat into global cocoa supplies and the earnings of farmers in West Africa. About three-quarters of the world’s cocoa — the main ingredient in chocolate — are produced on cacao trees in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Cameroon.
Asian investors trod carefully Thursday after a Federal Reserve official floated the idea of delaying or reducing interest rate cuts, while the yen held gains having briefly hit a 34-year low the day before.That comment came a week after the bank lifted interest rates for the first time in 17 years as it shifts away from its long-running ultra-loose monetary policy, while talk of the Fed putting off its rate cut has added upward pressure to the greenback.
In the English countryside, volunteers put the finishing touches to 1,475 metal silhouettes representing British military personnel who died on D-Day, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the landings.Eleven different versions have been made, representing the different soldiers and military personnel who took part.
The King of New Zealand's Indigenous Maori people made an impassioned call Thursday for whales to be granted the same legal rights as people in a bid to protect the hallowed yet vulnerable species. King Tuheitia said granting whales the same status would act as "a cloak of protection for our taonga (treasure), our ancestor -- the whales".
Cash-in-transit heists are one of the most dramatic illustrations of a crime wave that’s shocked even the most hardened South Africans, with murder at a 20-year high.
Official campaigning for South Korea's upcoming general election kicked off Thursday, with President Yoon Suk Yeol's ruling party fighting to win back a parliamentary majority and thwart opposition attempts to derail his conservative agenda.Experts say the poll is crucial for Yoon's People Power Party (PPP), since the president could end up a lame duck for the final three years of his term if the opposition wins a super-majority.
Pakistan's benchmark index touched an all-time high on Thursday, extending a rally following a staff level agreement with the International Monetary Fund earlier this month to free up more financial aid for the country. Pakistan and the IMF reached a staff level agreement on the second and last review of a nine-month, $3 billion Stand By Arrangement, which, if cleared by the global lender's board, will release about $1.1 billion to the struggling South Asian nation. Pakistan's new government, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, has also resolved to follow through with a long delayed privatisation process of loss making state owned enterprises that have drained critical funds from the cash-strapped government.
A massive cargo ship plowed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, destroying it and plunging victims into frigid water. Here’s what we know and what’s next:
Take an invasive plant, already a threat to ecosystems, and add insult to injury: Stinknet, which smells as pleasant as it sounds, has forced the temporary closure of a picnic area at Arizona's Casa Grande Ruins National Monument.
European governments are weighing the introduction of tougher rules on cigarette makers' new zero-tobacco heat sticks, moving to close the loopholes they were designed to exploit just months after their launch. Big tobacco companies including Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco announced the launch of the sticks, made from nicotine-infused substances like rooibos tea, late last year as a way to counter an incoming European Union ban on flavoured heated tobacco products. The European Commission said it was currently evaluating EU tobacco laws and any changes would be subject to the findings of that effort, public consultation and an impact assessment.
Federal investigators have unveiled new details about what occurred in the minutes before a hulking cargo ship slammed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, including the pilot’s urgent call for assistance and authorities’ efforts to clear people off the bridge.
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) bounced back in the first quarter after a downbeat 2023, thanks to the return of mega deals, cheering investment bankers and lawyers waiting for a pick-up. Total M&A volumes globally climbed 30% to about $755.1 billion, according to the most recent data from Dealogic. The number of transactions worth more than $10 billion jumped to 14, compared with five during the same period last year.
Xiaomi, a well-known maker of smart consumer electronics in China, is joining the country's booming but crowded market for electric cars. The tech company will start taking orders for the SU7, a sporty four-door sedan, following a launch event with founder Lei Jun in Beijing on Thursday evening. Government subsides have helped make China the world's largest market for electric vehicles, and a bevy of new makers are locked in fierce competition.
Michelangelo’s David has been a towering figure in Italian culture since its completion in 1504. The Galleria dell’Accademia’s director, Cecilie Hollberg, has positioned herself as David’s defender since her arrival at the museum in 2015, taking swift aim at those profiteering from his image, often in ways she finds “debasing.” In that way, she is a bit of a David herself against the Goliath of unfettered capitalism with its army of street vendors and souvenir shop operators hawking aprons of the statue's nude figure, T-shirts of it engaged in obscene gestures, and ubiquitous figurines, often in Pop Art neon.
Former Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman has died, his family announced in a statement Wednesday, March 27.
For Evan Gershkovich, the dozen appearances in Moscow's courts over the past year have fallen into a pattern. Guards take the American journalist from the notorious Lefortovo Prison in a van for the short drive to the courthouse. Gershkovich was arrested a year ago Friday while on a reporting trip for The Wall Street Journal to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg.
With local elections across Turkey days away, legal experts are coaching thousands of volunteer election monitors on the rules they'll need to watch for fraud and ensure a fair vote. The vote across Turkey’s 81 provinces Sunday will determine who controls localities from major municipalities to tiny districts and villages. With high-stakes mayoral races in Istanbul and other major cities expected to be tight, observers fear that some parties may attempt to tamper with the results, and that losers could sow doubt in the outcome with allegations of fraud.