Chinese EV makers have been counting on Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe as their largest exporting markets. BYD, the world’s largest EV maker by sales, has repeatedly said it has no plan to sell its cars in the US market, but on Wednesday said it was looking forContinue Reading
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s economy ministry has been asked to coordinate meetings at the working committee level to follow up on several proposals related to the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone (JS-SEZ). Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said this on Wednesday (Feb 28) during a Johor state development meeting in Putrajaya, which he chaired.Continue Reading
TOKYO: Japan sent on Thursday (Feb 29) two mini-drones and a “snake-shaped robot” into one of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plant crippled by a tsunami in 2011, the facility’s operator said. The gadgets were deployed in preparation for the removal of hundreds of tonnes of highly radioactive fuel andContinue Reading
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s newly elected lower house of parliament met for the first time on Thursday (Feb 29) with freshly elected members taking oaths amid protests on the floor of the house by supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan. The Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) party backed by Khan allegesContinue Reading
Mr Prashant Thakur, senior director of Anarock Property Consultants, told CNA that there has been a “great resurgence” in the entire residential real estate market after the pandemic, and notably in the luxury and ultra luxury segments.
“The top and foremost reason is that a lot of people realised the importance of a house, typically a physical asset. There were a lot of upgrades happening. People upgraded from a smaller house to a bigger house,” he told CNA.
“And people were sitting on good money. During the pandemic, the stock market did well, so the savvy investors moved their money from the stock market to the physical market.”
For young Indians with new wealth, home ownership is something they aspire towards and is seen as proof of success.
According to a recent survey by global commercial real estate firm CBRE, 44 per cent of millennials polled in India said they plan to use their earnings to invest in a home within the next two years.
This is a big change from previous generations, which usually invested in stocks or gold, said observers.
HONG KONG: China on Thursday (Feb 29) criticised British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and other foreign politicians for “smearing” an upcoming Hong Kong security law, as local authorities said feedback on the law had been largely positive. The law, known as Article 23, will target crimes including treason, theft ofContinue Reading
HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s property market immediately celebrated the removal of decade-long curbs with a jump in transactions, property agents said on Thursday (Feb 29), as authorities made a concerted bid to boost the city’s depressed real estate market. Hong Kong, long among the world’s most expensive housing markets, sawContinue Reading
“In the new law, cannabis will be a controlled plant, so growing it would require permission,” he said. “We will support (cannabis cultivation) for the medical and health industry.” The draft law specifies a fine of up to 60,000 baht (US$1,700) for recreational use, while those selling cannabis for suchContinue Reading
The agency is also looking into large language models that have led to an increase in “potency and proliferation of phishing scams”, said Ms Cheryl Tan, deputy director of sense-making and surveillance centre of expertise at HTX.
Cybersecurity firms CNA spoke to have also adopted AI to defend against increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks.
An example is the analysis of behaviour patterns to detect anomalies that can indicate potential attacks, said Mr Johan Fantenberg, a Principal Solutions Architect APJ at Ping Identity.
Another cybersecurity firm, Infoblox, also makes use of AI to help security teams detect threats.
“On an average day, security teams could look at anywhere from 500,000 to a million security reports, varying from false positives to serious threats,” said Mr Paul Wilcox, Vice President of Infoblox Asia Pacific and Japan.
Infoblox uses AI-driven analytics to help distil the number to a much more manageable figure, allowing security teams to concentrate their attention on these.
AI in cybersecurity is “increasingly critical” to protecting online systems, said cybersecurity form Fortinet. If used correctly, AI systems can be trained to detect threats automatically, identify new strands of malware and protect sensitive data, it added.
“However, organisations also need to be aware that cyber criminals adjust their methods to resist new AI cybersecurity tools,” said Fortinet in an article on its website.
While some governments in the region are establishing rules to deal with the potential misuse of AI, these may not be enough to deter criminals, Mr Wilcox from Infoblox noted.
“Proactive early detection for crime prevention is far more effective than responding to cyber threats only when it happens,” he added.
Still, having AI rules is still better than none, analysts pointed out, highlighting a regional guide on AI governance and ethics that was launched this month.
Despite being voluntary, the guidelines by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are likely to be influential on organisations as well as policy makers, pointed out Mr Benjamin Wong, a lecturer at the National University of Singapore’s Faculty of Law.
Mr Wong added that the endorsement of the AI guidelines by ASEAN member states shows that governments are aware of the risks, and are aligned on principles including transparency, security, privacy and data governance.
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s finance ministry on Thursday (Feb 29) dismissed adjusting monetary policy or pegging the ringgit to support the weakened currency, saying it expects the ringgit’s value to appreciate this year. The ringgit has fallen about 3.7 per cent this year so far and briefly hit a 26-year lowContinue Reading