Author: News Desk

WASHINGTON : Amazon.com Inc’s (AMZN.O) cloud services division said Friday it plans to invest another $35 billion by 2040 to expand data centers in Virginia. Amazon Web Services (AWS) said the new investment will create 1,000 jobs. Virginia Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin said AWS will establish multiple data center campuses across Virginia. In 2021, AWS said from 2011 to 2020 it had invested $35 billion in data centers located in northern Virginia and had 3,500 full time employees at its data centers in the state. Pending approval by state lawmakers, Virginia is developing a new “Mega Data Center Incentive Program,” which would allow the…

Seoul : About 500 people were evacuated from homes Friday morning as a fire raged through the last remaining shanty village in Seoul and destroyed at least 60 homes. The blaze broke out at 6:27 a.m. in the fourth district of the Guryong village, located in Seoul’s posh area of Gangnam Ward, and was fully extinguished around 11:46 a.m. There was no immediate report of deaths or injuries, Shin Yong-ho, a fire official of Gangnam Fire Station, told,  adding the fire engulfed around 2,700 square meters of the fire-prone town. More than 900 firefighters, police officers and government officials were…

Tokyo : Japan’s consumer inflation rate hit a 41-year high of 4% in December, as prices for everything from burgers to gas surged. That rate is still relatively low, compared to some other nations, including the U.S. Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, has been fending off deflation, or chronically falling prices, for decades. The last time core consumer prices rose that much was December 1981, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said. The Federal Reserve and many other central banks have raised interest rates to tame inflation but the Bank of Japan has kept its benchmark rate at a…

New York :  Google’s parent Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) is eliminating about 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its workforce, it said Friday, as Silicon Valley reels from recent layoffs and faces a troubled outlook. Alphabet, whose shares rose 3% in pre-market trading, is making the cuts just as the U.S. company confronts a threat to its long-held perch atop the technology sector. For years Alphabet has attracted top talent to build Google, YouTube and other products that reach billions of users, but it is now locked in competition with Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) in a burgeoning area known as generative artificial intelligence.…

Seoul : South Korea’s foreign ministry called in a Japanese embassy official in Seoul on Friday to lodge a formal protest against Tokyo’s move to have a mine linked to the wartime forced labor of Koreans listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The previous day, the Japanese government submitted a recommendation letter again to UNESCO for the listing of the former gold mine on Sado Island, after the initial version, delivered last February, was called incomplete, Yonhap news agency reported. Second Vice Foreign Minister Lee Do-hoon called in Daisuke Namioka, minister of economic affairs at the Japanese embassy, with…

Beijing : More bodies were found Friday following an avalanche that buried vehicles outside a highway tunnel in Tibet, raising the death toll to 28. Images from the scene at the exit of the tunnel connecting the city of Nyingchi in Tibet’s southwest with an outlying county showed about half a dozen backhoes digging through deep snow. Reports said around 1,000 rescuers had joined the effort. Tons of snow and ice collapsed onto the mouth of the tunnel on Tuesday evening, trapping drivers in their vehicles. Many of the people were headed home for China’s Lunar New Year holiday, which…

Bahrain : The Showjumping Season, organised by Bahrain Royal Equestrian and Endurance Federation (BREEF), is off to a strong start, held at the Military Federation Arena in Al Rafah. The first round of the 2023 season got underway with two junior competitions, and Sultan Al Rumaihi of the Ministry of Interior team continued to shine, winning the first contest which featured 80/90cm hurdles. He clocked 44.95 seconds, almost one second away from second-place Enmar Ali. Bader Janahi came third in 46.13 seconds. Bader Janahi made up for his third-place finish in the first competition by winning the second contest for…

 Manama :Bahrain’s high-level delegation has sucessfully concluded its participation at the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2023 annual meeting titled “Cooperation in a Fragmented World,” held at Davos from the 16th until the 20th of January. During its participation, the delegation, led by H.E. Noor bint Ali Alkhulaif, Minister of Sustainable Development, promoted Bahrain’s unique investment opportunities, along with the Kingdom’s achievements under the Economic Recovery Plan. The high-level delegation included H.E. Abdulla bin Adel Fakhro, Minister of Industry and Commerce, H.E. Shaikh Abdulla bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Chief Executive Officer of Osool and Chairman of Bahrain Telecommunications Company B.S.C (Batelco),…

India : An eight-year-old girl has renounced worldly comforts to become a Jain nun and live an austere life, forgoing even basics such as toothbrush and soap in pursuit of salvation. Devanshi Sanghvi, the eldest daughter of diamond baron Dhanesh Sanghvi and his wife Ami, took vows of renunciation on Wednesday in the presence of a Jain nun in Surat in western Gujarat. More than 35,000 devotees attended the event as the young girl vowed to live an austere life. A pavilion-like seating arrangement was made in a huge palace-like canopy so that thousands of people could enjoy the initiation ceremony. A religious…

Manama : His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa today returned to the kingdom following HM’s participation in the fraternal consultative meeting held in Abu Dhabi. The fraternal consultative meeting was hosted by UAE President, His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, with the participation of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tariq of Oman, the Amir of Qatar, His Highness Shaikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Jordanian monarch, His Majesty Abdulla II ibn Al-Hussein, and Egyptian President, His Excellency Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. During the meeting, the leaders discussed various aspects of…