Spotify has launched a site dedicated to all things K-Pop, bringing fans closer to the music they love and the artists who create it. Track" will provide anyone from the K-Pop curious to bonafide K-pop stans a home base for all of Spotify's K-Pop news, as well as exclusive artist interviews, happenings within the industry, up-and-coming trends and more. Spotify’s dedicated site for K-Pop celebrates the talent behind the tracks and the fans at the forefront. Track comes as Spotify continues to see momentum of K-Pop streams around the globe. The newly named K-Pop flagship playlist K-Pop ON!

BANGKOK — A Thai government order from 2020 prohibiting officials from traveling abroad, except on important missions, due to the Covid-19 situation was revoked by a Cabinet resolution on Tuesday, a news source informed on Thursday. The order, implemented since March 17, 2020, stipulated that government officials, civil servants, and employees of state enterprises must not travel overseas except for important missions in a bid to contain the spread of Covid-19. ADVERTISEMENTThe source said the meeting of the Center for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) last month had informed the Cabinet that the Covid-19 situation in Thailand and globally is improving with decreasing number of domestic infections and deaths, as well as significant drop in cases from overseas. The CCSA then proposed to the Cabinet to consider easing the restriction on overseas travel for government officials. On Thursday Thailand recorded 2,299 Covid-19 cases (five imported) and 18 deaths, while 1,783 patients were cured and allowed to leave hospitals.

The takeover led to a cutoff of vital international financing, and most of the world has shunned the Taliban government. Rescuers rushed in by helicopter, but the relief effort could be hindered by the exodus of many international aid agencies from Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover last August. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on Twitter that eight trucks of food and other necessities from Pakistan arrived in Paktika province. The quake was centered in Paktika, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) southwest of the city of Khost, according to neighboring Pakistan's Meteorological Department. The death toll reported by the Bakhtar news agency was equal to that of a quake in 2002 in northern Afghanistan.

Only one out of five Filipinos eligible for a first booster or around 14.85 million have received the third jab against Covid-19, the Department of Health (DoH) said Thursday. A second booster or fourth dose using the currently available vaccines is meant for those who have weaker immune systems that are not providing enough protection from the first booster," the agency said. Health care workers are given the second booster in consideration of their high-risk exposures to patients. HTAC considers the best available evidence, including the need for a World Health Organization recommendation, as required by Republic Act 11525 or the "Covid-19 Vaccination Program Act." Around 14.8 million have received their first booster shot and more than 682,000 health care workers, senior citizens, immunocompromised and individuals with comorbidities have received their second booster.

LONDON — The World Health Organization (WHO) will decide on Thursday whether to declare monkeypox a global health emergency, stirring criticism from leading African scientists who say it has been a crisis in their region for years. However, Nakounde said if the WHO declares a “public health emergency of international concern”, – its highest level of alarm – it would still be an important step. They will make a recommendation to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who makes the ultimate decision over whether to call the emergency. But the WHO is in a precarious position after COVID, said Clare Wenham, a global health assistant professor at the London School of Economics. If the WHO declares an emergency and countries do not act, it could undermine the agency’s role in controlling global disease, she said.

Talks over possible joint energy exploration between the Philippines and China in the South ChinaSea have been terminated, the Philippine foreign minister said on Thursday. Teodoro Locsin in a speech said the Philippines' objective of exploiting its offshore energy reserves could not be achieved if it were at expense of sovereignty. He did not elaborate on the decision on the talks, which were centered on assets located in the Philippines exclusive economic zone. China's embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hong Kong recorded the hottest day of the year so far on Thursday, with the Hong Kong Observatory recorded a maximum temperature of 33.8 degrees Celsius. The observatory also forecasted the very hot weather to continue into the weekend. The forecaster said an anticyclone aloft is bringing generally fine and very hot weather to the coast of southern China. It noted that the weather will be very hot tomorrow, with the maximum temperature at around 33 degrees in the urban areas, and a couple of degrees higher in the New Territories. The temperature remains very hot on Saturday and Sunday, with a maximum of 33 degrees Celsius.

However, it is concerning that some Filipinos remain hesitant in getting their booster doses. How do booster doses work? However, immunity, or the number of antibodies produced by the body after getting vaccines decline over at least 6 months. Why is there a shadow of doubtDespite the benefits of booster doses, only about 12 million out of 44 million qualified Filipinos received their booster doses. Booster doses can help the Philippines quickly respond to emerging variants and ensure our healthcare capacity will not overheat.

One of the bright spots in outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte's much talked about Build, Build, Build infrastructure program has been its focus and subsequent significant progress in rail development. Without the investment support of institutions such as ADB and JICA, none of this would have been possible. The government's appetite for rail development has been subjected to some criticism, however. If we are to offer one caution, it would only be that any development, rail or otherwise, be undertaken with capacity demand growth in mind. As long as demand growth is addressed, however, the new rail developments are truly transport for the future, and we thank the ADB and JICA for the steadfast support of these efforts.

Guillermo however said she has yet to see the documents on the Marcos tax liabilities first so that she would have the “correct data” and information. Guillermo admitted that the money from the Marcos estate “will really help the collections of BIR.”“We have to convert those properties to cash para madagdag sa tax collections ng BIR. ADVERTISEMENT(We have to convert those properties to cash so that it can be added to the tax collections of BIR. I don’t know if it’s really P200 billion and maybe if that’s really the amount, imagine it will help really collections of BIR.) In 1997, the Supreme Court ordered the Marcos heirs to pay ₱23 billion in estate tax.

Grammar teachers furiously drill into every learner's head that the sentence "Emilio hit Andres violently with a bat" is superior to "Andres was hit violently by Emilio with a bat." One major use of the passive voice is, in fact, to leaven such verbal performances — to provide low-energy counterpoints to the high-energy semantic field created by active-voice sentences. Well, it's that we should write them or say them in the most natural way possible — using the active voice if called for, but never hesitating to use the passive voice when logic and good sense demands it. Unless you are a student forced by your English teacher to stick to the active voice on pain of failing in the subject, or perhaps a journalist bound by an inflexible standing order by your editors never to use the passive voice, the active voice should only be a secondary consideration in writing your sentences. Our prose and our speech will thus be squandering that latitude and opportunity by blindly and inflexibly deferring to the cult of the active voice.

"The final bridge between humans and machines is Society 5.0, also known as the super-smart society, that employs AI in health care manufacturing and logistics." Referring to a supersmart society, Society 5 aims to solve social issues and pursue prosperity by making full use of digital technology. Society 5 is a "human centered society that balances economic advancement with the resolution of social problems by a system that highly integrates cyberspace and physical space." Thus, "the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation, Cabinet Office, and the Government of Japan is strongly promoting a major policy for the economy, society and the general public popularly called 'Super Smart Society' (Society 5.0)." (Super Smart Society: Society 5.0 | Robotics Tomorrow) (https://www.roboticstomor row.com › article › 2016/09)AI in health care.

Hongkongers can register to change their payment method for receiving the second batch of HK$5,000 worth of consumption vouchers starting Thursday. With two more new electronic payment methods added to the consumption voucher scheme – HSBC’s PayMe and Bank of China’s BoC Pay – Hongkongers can register to change their method between June 23 and July 23. Authorities have reminded citizens to consider which payment method to swap to, or whether to make a change at all, as once a new payment method has been registered, they will not be able to make another alteration. To help citizens with registration, the government will set up eight temporary service centers across the city. Click here for the locations of the service centers.

Many of the residents in New Territories West on Wednesday morning rushed to nearby shopping malls in search of air-conditioning and electricity to charge their mobile phones. This came as some 20,000 households living in the area were without electricity last night after a CLP cable bridge in Yuen Long caught fire and exploded. CLP said the affected households were on Tin Ching Estate, Tin Yuet Estate, Tin Chak Estate, and in Tin Fu Court in Tin Shui Wai. She also said many of her neighbors are worrying about whether the electricity supply will resume normal tonight. Also in Tin Chak Shopping Centre is secondary school student Wan, who said his school was shut down due to the power shortage.

SINGAPORE – The Ministry of Health (MOH) of Singapore has confirmed an imported case of monkeypox. ADVERTISEMENTHe tested positive for monkeypox on Monday and is currently warded at the National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID). This is the first imported monkeypox infection detected in Singapore since 2019, when a Nigerian man tested positive. MOH also said on June 6 that a traveler who transited through Singapore to Australia the week before had tested positive for monkeypox. MOH said contact tracing is ongoing for the affected flights and for the duration of his stay in Singapore.