Author: staff
Contestants raced up a 14-metre tower covered in thousands of plastic steamed buns during the annual Bun Scrambling Competition on Cheung Chau. The event is one of the main attractions of Hong Kong’s traditional Bun Festival, which also features lion dances, lantern displays and street celebrations. Video showed climbers scrambling to the top of the tower before grabbing buns and descending as crowds cheered below. Residents and tourists packed the island to watch the contest, while vendors sold traditional steamed buns linked to the centuries-old festival.
Thousands of AI-generated “personalities” are competing in a new global awards programme that organisers say is the largest contest of its kind. The AI Personality of the Year Awards, co-organised by AI creation platform OpenArt and creator subscription platform Fanvue, asked participants to build, post and grow virtual characters across categories including entertainment, lifestyle, comedy, fitness, and anime, cartoon or fantasy personas. The competition ran over several weeks, with entrants required to publish at least four posts during the challenge period. Winners will be announced this month, according to OpenArt. “We saw an incredible response, around 3,300 total submissions,” Chloe…
There are plenty of reasons to move abroad, from job prospects and joining your other half to simply wanting to live somewhere with better weather. If you need a bit of guidance when deciding where to go, we have good news, as Remitly’s Immigration Index 2026 is out now. The index evaluates 82 countries across 34 metrics, including the cost of living in terms of food, rent, mortgages and purchasing power, culture, education systems, happiness, healthcare, safety and salaries. In this year’s ranking, Switzerland came out on top overall, having placed second in 2025. “Switzerland stands out for its exceptional…
While the document didn’t explicitly name China, it implicitly refered to Beijing by stressing that “some of the European Union’s (EU) main trading partners are breaking with this multilateral framework by imposing new trade barriers or contributing to systemic and structural industrial overcapacity.” The non-paper’s signatories, which include all of the EU’s biggest economies except Germany, urged the Commission to “contemplate more frequently the opportunity to open safeguard investigations in case of sector-wide trade disruptions.” The countries also called for the bloc to “be more proactive” in bringing breaches of trade rules before the World Trade Organization, and to allocate…
By Jane Witherspoon & Toby Gregory Published on 25/05/2026 – 13:52 GMT+2•Updated 13:55 Growing instability in the Gulf and disruption in the Strait of Hormuz are a direct challenge to European energy supply and trade, the UAE president’s top adviser said on Sunday. “We did not arrive at where we are in 2026,” Diplomatic Adviser to the UAE President Dr Anwar Gargash told the GLOBSEC conference in Prague. “The seeds of discontent, so to speak, whether it’s in the international system or in the Middle East as a subsystem of the international system, have been there for a long time.” When asked about…
Published on 25/05/2026 – 14:14 GMT+2 Over the weekend, China launched the Shenzhen-23 mission to its space station with three astronauts, including one who is set to stay in space for a year. The spacecraft blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in China’s northwestern Gobi Desert with three astronauts onboard: commander Zhu Yangzhu, Zhang Zhiyuan, and Lai Ka-ying. The astronauts will be conducting dozens of experiments while in space, including an in-orbit rotation with the crew of Shenzhou-21, the mission before them that has been at the Tiangong space station for more than 200 days. This latest mission…
Published on 25/05/2026 – 13:56 GMT+2 Three of France’s top luxury hotels have lost the country’s coveted “palace” distinction, in the first downgrades since the label was introduced in 2010. Described by Le Figaro as a “devastating blow to the hushed world of luxury hotels”, the French newspaper revealed that the Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme, Mandarin Oriental Paris and Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz have all been stripped of the title. This is following a review by the Palace Commission, the body responsible for awarding the highest distinction in French hospitality. The commission reportedly judged that the properties no longer met…
Rinkevics on Monday green-lit the coalition. Kulbergs is expected to unveil his cabinet appointments on Tuesday, Latvian outlet Diena reported. Under the terms of the coalition deal, caretake prime minister Siliņa, who belongs to the New Unity party, aims to become defense minister. The Latvian parliament could vote on the new government later this week. Security and defense will be among the main priorities of the incoming coalition. Latvia, which shares a 283-kilometer border with Russia, is one of the most outspoken advocates for Ukraine and EU defense policy. The next government will also prioritize negotiations on the EU’s next…
Published on 25/05/2026 – 13:56 GMT+2 The biggest obstacle to housing production is not money but the breakdown in communication between local and central governments, the mayor of Turkey’s sixth-largest city told Euronews at the World Urban Forum in Baku. “What we see in other cities is actually the most important obstacle in the face of housing production, not the financial problem, but the communication problem between the central government and the local administration,” said Uğur İbrahim Altay, mayor of Konya and Executive President of the United Cities and Local Governments network. Altay said housing built without integration into the…
Published on 22/05/2026 – 12:24 GMT+2•Updated 23/05/2026 – 10:03 GMT+2 Italy’s presence in the Persian Gulf and its military cooperation with Kuwait are being strengthened. Leonardo has signed a contract with Abu Dhabi Ship Building (ADSB), a subsidiary of the EDGE Group, to supply naval combat systems for latest-generation patrol vessels ordered from the shipbuilder by Kuwait. As part of the “Al Dorra” programme, Kuwait has launched a modernisation of its maritime component by ordering eight FALAJ 3 Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) built in the United Arab Emirates by ADSB. Military and commercial agreements between Italy and Kuwait Military and…