english

Dozens of ICU medics test positive for Covid-19 after Christmas party

Dozens of hospital workers have tested positive for Covid-19 in Spain after hanging out at a Christmas party, officials have said. Extra shifts and additional staff have been arranged to ensure the ICU continues to operate. More than 170 staffers from the University Regional Hospital in Malaga, a city on Spain’s southern Mediterranean coast, attended […]

english

Abstinence & condoms? AI chatbot in Singapore dropped after giving strange advice about testing positive for Covid-19

Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) has taken down a chatbot tool after it dispensed a series of “misaligned” responses – including safe sex advice – to questions about Covid-19 concerns. The gaffes were widely shared online. When the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, called ‘Ask Jamie’, was asked what to do by a parent whose daughter had […]

english

Pyongyang restores hotline with Seoul, calls for ‘positive efforts’ to ease Korean peninsula tensions

The two Koreas have reopened a cross-border communications channel, shuttered by Pyongyang two months ago in protest against Seoul’s military drills with the US. Tensions escalated further amid recent missile tests by the North. “The South Korean authorities should make positive efforts to put the north-south ties on a right track and settle the important […]

english

Brazil’s health minister tests positive for Covid-19 shortly after unvaccinated Bolsonaro speaks at UN General Assembly

Brazilian Health Minister Marcelo Quiroga, accompanying vaccine-skeptical President Jair Bolsonaro at the UN General Assembly in New York, has Covid-19. Quiroga was earlier filmed shaking hands with British PM Boris Johnson. Quiroga’s test came back positive several hours after Bolsonaro delivered his speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday, flouting the requirement for all those […]