HONG KONG, July 7 — Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd announced today its artificial intelligence (AI) image generator, initially available to enterprise customers in beta form, as it ramps up its offerings in the fast-growing AI sector.

WASHINGTON, July 7 — Elon Musk’s Twitter has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, in anticipation of a lawsuit over the launch of Instagram’s new Threads app.

KUALA LUMPUR, July 6 — Total air passenger traffic in May 2023 jumped 39.1 per cent compared to May 2022, as load factor rose to 2019 levels, said the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

BERLIN, July 6 — Twitter competitor Threads attracted more than 10 million users within hours of being launched by Facebook parent company Meta, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Thursday, reported the German News Agency (dpa).

HONG KONG, July 6 — Hong Kong-born American singer Coco Lee died at 48 on Wednesday (July 5) following a suicide attempt that left her in a coma, Lee's two sisters, Carol and Nancy Lee, said in a statement posted on Instagram and Facebook.

SEOUL, July 6 — South Korea will announce on Friday (July 7) its own assessment of Japan's plan to release treated radioactive water from the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima plant into the ocean, a senior government official said.

JEDDAH, July 5 — The Ministry of Hajj and Umrah has started issuing electronic visas for umrah as part of its efforts to enable more Muslims to come to the Kingdom to perform the umrah rituals and facilitate its procedures for them.

JAKARTA, July 5 — Blue economy has big potential to become a new engine for the development of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), said Indonesian Minister of National Development Planning Suharso Monoarfa.

SINGAPORE, July 5 — Singapore's central bank warned on Wednesday of weak near-term growth for one of Asia's top financial hubs and said its fight against rising prices was not yet over, even as it lowered its 2023 headline inflation forecast.

BANGKOK, July 5 — Thailand's Parliament will vote for a new prime minister on July 13, house speaker Wan Muhamad Noor Matha said on Wednesday.

GENEVA, July 4 — The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Tuesday that Japan's plan to release treated radioactive water stored at the Fukushima nuclear power station into the sea is consistent with its safety standards.

GENEVA, July 4 — Temperatures are expected to soar across swathes of the world as El Nino begins in the tropical Pacific for the first time in seven years, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said today.

PARIS, July 4 — Defiant gatherings were held outside town halls across France on Monday following a wave of rioting triggered by the fatal police shooting of a teenager of north African descent.

WASHINGTON, July 4 — The Biden administration is preparing to restrict Chinese companies' access to the United States' cloud-computing services, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the situation.

CANBERRA, July 2 — Thousands of people rallied on Sunday in Australia to back a campaign to recognise the country's Indigenous people in the constitution ahead of a referendum later this year, after a recent dip in support for the change.

AMSTERDAM, July 2 — Dutch King Willem-Alexander on Saturday (July 1) apologised for the Netherlands' historic involvement in slavery and the effects it still has today.

PHNOM PENH, July 2 — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Saturday (July 1) commenced his ruling party's campaign for an election later this month — a poll that has been criticised as a sham after the main opposition party was prevented from running.

LONDON, July 2 — Elon Musk has announced that Twitter is temporarily limiting the number of tweets people can read in a day, as thousands of users reported problems accessing the site.

KUALA LUMPUR, June 29 — The European Commission (EC), Indonesia, and Malaysia have agreed to set up a joint task force to strengthen the cooperation on the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which will hold its first meeting in the first week of August 2023.

LONDON, June 29 — One of the world's most common artificial sweeteners is set to be declared a possible carcinogen next month by a leading global health body, according to two sources with knowledge of the process, pitting it against the food industry and regulators.