AP, MANILAPhilippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs has failed to substantially eradicate the menace and ensnare major drug lords and should be reformed to prevent further bloodshed, the country’s vice president said on Monday. Philippine Vice President Leni Robredo, who leads the opposition, also called for a stop to the dreaded police practice of home inspections that have led only to the killings of petty drug suspects. It was the latest criticism by the vice president of Duterte’s notorious crackdown and is likely to deepen the political divide between the two leaders. One of her first moves was to request confidential documents from law enforcers, including a list of key drug suspects targeted under Duterte’s campaign. Duterte warned Robredo about sharing confidential information about the campaign with his foreign critics, including human rights advocates.

AFP, NEW DELHILast decade was India’s hottest on record, with the Indian Meteorological Department calling the effects of global warming “unmistakable” and saying that extreme weather killed more than 1,500 people last year. Temperatures between 2010 and last year were 0.36°C above the long-term average, the hottest decade since records began in 1901, the department said on Monday. India’s five warmest years on record were all in the past decade, with 2016 the hottest. “The impact of global warming on India is unmistakable,” department Director-General Mrityunjay Mohapatra told the Times of India. “The past year had extreme weather during all seasons.”The UN last month said that last decade was set to be the planet’s hottest since records began.

“Data suggests that if we do not restore global soil health, it is highly likely the consequences within 10 years will be many, many millions facing food and water insecurity,” British soil expert John Crawford said. An area of soil the size of a soccer pitch is eroded every five seconds, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says. While soil erosion occurs naturally, human activities such as intensive agriculture, deforestation and urban sprawl have significantly increased the rate at which it is happening. Whole Foods, the upscale US retailer that made its name selling organic food, has put “regenerative agriculture” — farming that focuses on soil health — at the top of its trends for this year. All the farms were showing very low organic matter, which is produced by decomposing plants and is key to good soil health.

Reuters, WASHINGTONThe US has denied a visa to Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif that would have allowed him to attend a UN Security Council meeting in New York tomorrow, a US official said on Monday. “We have seen the media reports, but we have not received any official communication from either the US or the UN regarding Foreign Minister Zarif’s visa,” Iran’s mission to the UN said. Zarif wanted to attend a meeting of the council on the topic of upholding the UN Charter. The council meeting would have given Zarif a global spotlight to publicly criticize the US for killing Soleimani. During his July visit, Washington imposed tight travel restrictions on Zarif and diplomats at Iran’s mission to the UN, confining them to a small section of New York City.

Creating videos has become a popular sales tactic for Chinese farmers — the clips show increasingly discerning consumers the origins of the product and provide a window into rural life that captures audience imagination. For some it has helped them find a way out of poverty, which the Chinese Communist Party hopes to eradicate by this year. Ma in 2015 took on the family honey-producing business in the verdant hills of Zhejiang Province and thanks to e-commerce apps, managed to turn an annual revenue of 1 million yuan (US$144,204). So in November 2018, with help from his friends in the village, he began posting videos about his life on the farm. Ma now sells between 2 million and 3 million yuan of honey each year, as well as dried sweet potato and brown sugar.

The accident reminds us that military service is never without risk. The tragedy also reminds us that the military’s mission goes beyond preparing for war. Military cooperation is a critical component of international partnerships and Taiwan’s military personnel play a central role in maintaining substantive relationships with other states, especially the US. Professional military service is not for everyone. Military service is unique.

He urged North Korea to refrain from military demonstrations and threats that would potentially hurt the momentum in nuclear negotiations with Washington. “The South and North should work together so to create the conditions for Chairman Kim Jong-un’s visit [to South Korea] as soon as possible,” Moon said during a nationally televised speech. South Korean tours to the North’s Diamond Mountain resort were a major symbol of rapprochement between the rivals before they were suspended in 2008 after a North Korean guard fatally shot a South Korean tourist. Seoul’s previous conservative government shut down a jointly run factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong in 2016 following a North Korean nuclear test. The North Korean state media’s account of the meeting did not include any mention of South Korea.

Reuters, LAS VEGASThe White House yesterday proposed regulatory principles to govern the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) aimed at limiting authorities’ “overreach,” and said that it wants European officials to likewise avoid aggressive approaches. However, the technology raises ethical concerns about control, privacy, cybersecurity and the future of work, companies and experts have said. “Europe and our allies should avoid heavy-handed innovation-killing models,” the White House said. Some US states have raised concerns about AI applications. The White House held a meeting on AI in 2018 with more than 30 major companies from a variety of industries, including Ford Motor, Boeing, Amazon.com and Microsoft, vowing not to stand in the way of the technology’s development.

By Iysabel Woodford / The GuardianArtificial intelligence (AI) programmers are developing bots that can identify digital bullying and sexual harassment. It might be 15 messages ... it could be racy photos,” said Jay Leib, chief executive of Chicago-based AI firm NexLP. The industry is a potentially fertile ground for the bots to examine — a third of female lawyers in the UK report having experienced sexual harassment. The bot uses an algorithm trained to identify potential bullying, including sexual harassment, in company documents, e-mails and chat. We have these training courses [about harassment] at Harvard and it requires the type of understanding that AI is not yet capable of,” Subirana said.

AP, WASHINGTONThe Pentagon on Monday distanced itself from US President Donald Trump’s assertions that he would bomb Iranian cultural sites despite international prohibitions on such attacks. Trump has twice warned that he would hit Iranian cultural sites if Tehran retaliates against the US. Trump first raised the prospect of targeting cultural sites in a tweet on Saturday and reiterated that view to reporters the next day. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people, and we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? The Pentagon has long had a list of potential targets inside Iran, as well as those associated with Iran throughout the Middle East.

AFP, LAS VEGASHyundai Motor Co on Monday announced it would mass-produce flying cars for Uber Technologies Inc’s aerial rideshare network set to deploy in 2023. The deal announced at the CES in Las Vegas could help Uber, which is working with other aircraft manufacturers, to achieve its goal of deploying air taxi service in a handful of cities by 2023. Hyundai urban air mobility division head Jaiwon Shin said he expects the large-scale manufacturing to keep costs affordable for the aerial systems. “We know how to mass-produce high quality vehicles,” Shin, NASA’s former associate administrator for the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, told a news conference at CES. Hyundai is using CES to show the S-A1 model aircraft with a cruising speed up to 290kph.

By Lisa Wang / Staff reporterPassive component maker Walsin Technology Corp (華新科技) yesterday posted the weakest fourth-quarter revenue report in about two years after revenue last month dropped 4.8 percent month-on-month due to fewer working days. The firm’s revenue last month fell 29 percent year-on-year to NT$2.15 billion (US$71.47 million) from NT$2.26 billion in November. Fourth-quarter revenue fell 9.83 percent quarter-on-quarter to NT$6.51 billion from NT$7.22 billion in the third quarter and declined about 80 percent year-on-year from NT$11.68 billion in 2018. In November, the company told investors that demand would likely recover when supply-chain inventory fell to a healthy level at the end of the year. Supply-chain feedback indicates that Walsin has tried to increase its factory utilization rate to satisfy a spike in customer demand for multilayer ceramic capacitors and chip resisters.

By Kao Shih-ching / Staff reporterA new fund management service proposed by Jko Asset Management Co (街口投信), a unit of Jko Fintech Co (街口金融科技) and its business partners, could not guarantee customers a fixed return, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said yesterday. Jko Fintech’s electronic payment service, Jkos Pay (街口支付), earlier this month posted advertisements that said consumers would earn returns of at least 1.5 percent if they purchased funds managed by Jko Asset Management by using Jkos Pay. Jko Asset Management told the Taipei Times that it would delay the launch, scheduled for Monday next week, and would release more details today. In a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange, it said chairman Kao Wu-chung (高武忠) had been dismissed and that Jko Fintech chairman Kevin Hu (胡亦嘉) would serve as acting chairman of the asset management company. Jko Fintech was formerly known as Jkos Network Co.

AFP, LAS VEGASA Samsung Electronics Co lab yesterday unveiled a digital avatar it described as an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered “artificial human,” claiming it is able to “converse and sympathize” like real people. The announcement at the opening of the 2020 CES in Las Vegas touted a new kind of AI called NEON, produced by the independent Samsung unit Star Labs. “NEONs will be our friends, collaborators and companions, continually learning, evolving and forming memories from their interactions,” Star Labs chief executive Pranav Mistry said. Gold Associates, said Samsung might be ahead of the pack if it can develop avatars that can show emotions and expressions. He was known for developing Sixth Sense, a gesture-based wearable technology system built at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Hon Hai said that sales were mainly driven by its corporate products segment, followed by electronic components, and communication and consumer electronics businesses. Hon Hai, known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) internationally, broke its commitment to invest about US$5 billion in Maharashtra state, the papers said, citing Maharashtra Minister for Industries and Mining Subhash Desai. The investment was previewed by a memorandum of understanding signed between Hon Hai and the state government in 2015, the reports said. Hon Hai owns a plant in Tamil Nadu, near Chennai, where it assembles Apple’s iPhone XR, and has another plant in Sri City, where it makes mobile phones for China’s Xiaomi Corp (小米). However, Hon Hai yesterday denied having a dispute with its US client, adding that its investment in India is going smoothly.