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Manchester City and Algeria star Riyad Mahrez sends message to young Indonesian earthquake survivor

Riyad Mahrez promised to send the young earthquake survivor a signed shirt. (Reuters)
Updated 06 October 2018
Arab News
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Manchester City and Algeria star Riyad Mahrez sends message to young Indonesian earthquake survivor

  • Twelve-year-old Rizky was watching City in an internet cafe when the earthquake
  • He was trapped beneath rubble when a neighbour pulled him out
Updated 06 October 2018
Arab News

LONDON: Manchester City and Algeria winger Riyad Mahrez has sent a heartwarming message to a young fan injured during the earthquake in Indonesia.

Twelve-year-old Rizky was watching City in an internet cafe when the earthquake and Tsunami struck killing more than 1,600 people.

The young fan survived after being pulled from the rubble but suffered from a broken arm.

“Suddenly the earth started to shake. As I was trying to run, my hand was crushed, but I was able to stick out my other hand. Then I waved my hand, so people could see it

After hearing his story, the BBC contacted Manchester City and Riyad Mahrez recorded a message for Rizky. 

“Hi Rizky, I hope you are getting better,” the former Premier League-winning Leicester star said. “I heard that you were a big city fan, so I just want to wish you a good recovery.”

The message brought tears of joy to the young survivor’s face. Mahrez promised to send a signed shirt.

More than a week after the 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit Sulawesi island on Sept. 28, rescuer workers are focusing on the search for bodies among the mud and debris.

President Joko Widodo has said all of the victims must be found.

The official death toll from the quake and the tsunami it triggered has risen to 1,649, but will certainly increase.

Most of the dead have been found in the region's main urban centre, the small city of Palu.

Topics: Riyad Mahrez

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First artwork by humanoid robot sells for $1.3 million

Updated 08 November 2024
AFP
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First artwork by humanoid robot sells for $1.3 million

Updated 08 November 2024
AFP

REUTERS: A portrait of English mathematician Alan Turing became the first artwork by a humanoid robot to be sold at auction, fetching $1,320,000 on Thursday.
The 2.2 meter (7.5 feet) portrait “A.I. God” by “Ai-Da,” the world’s first ultra-realistic robot artist, smashed pre-sale expectations of $180,000 when it went under the hammer at London auction house Sotheby’s Digital Art Sale.
“Today’s record-breaking sale price for the first artwork by a humanoid robot artist to go up for auction marks a moment in the history of modern and contemporary art and reflects the growing intersection between A.I. technology and the global art market,” said the auction house.
Ai-Da Robot, which uses AI to speak, said: “The key value of my work is its capacity to serve as a catalyst for dialogue about emerging technologies.”
Ai-Da added that a “portrait of pioneer Alan Turing invites viewers to reflect on the god-like nature of AI and computing while considering the ethical and societal implications of these advancements.”
The ultra-realistic robot, one of the most advanced in the world, is designed to resemble a human woman with a face, large eyes and a brown wig.
Ai-Da is named after Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer and was devised by Aidan Meller, a specialist in modern and contemporary art.
“The greatest artists in history grappled with their period of time, and both celebrated and questioned society’s shifts,” said Meller.
“Ai-Da Robot as technology, is the perfect artist today to discuss the current developments with technology and its unfolding legacy,” he added.
Ai-Da generates ideas through conversations with members of the studio, and suggested creating an image of Turing during a discussion about “A.I. for good.”
The robot was then asked what style, color, content, tone and texture to use, before using cameras in its eyes to look at a picture of Turing and create the painting.
Meller led the team that created Ai-Da with artificial intelligence specialists at the universities of Oxford and Birmingham in England.
Meller said Turing, who made his name as a World War II codebreaker, mathematician and early computer scientist, had raised concerns about the use of AI in the 1950s.
The artwork’s “muted tones and broken facial planes” seemingly suggested “the struggles Turing warned we will face when it comes to managing AI,” he said.
Ai-Da’s works were “ethereal and haunting” and “continue to question where the power of AI will take us, and the global race to harness its power,” he added.

 

@AIGOD_Aida

A portrait of renowned English mathematician Alan Turing became the first artwork by a humanoid robot to be sold at auction, fetching $1,320,000 on Thursday. the world’s first ultra-realistic robot artist,

Topics: AI humanoid robot Alan Turing Ai-Da Sotheby’s Digital Art Sale

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Three charged in One Direction singer Liam Payne’s death

Updated 08 November 2024
Reuters
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Three charged in One Direction singer Liam Payne’s death

Updated 08 November 2024
Reuters
BUENOS AIRES: Three people have been charged in relation to One Direction singer Liam Payne’s death in a fall from his Buenos Aires hotel balcony last month, Argentine authorities said on Thursday.
The 31-year-old’s death shocked the world, and raised questions about how he had fallen.
A 911 call from a hotel employee the day Payne died warned that he had been acting aggressively and could have been under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
An autopsy revealed the former boy band member had traces of alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant in his system when he died, a prosecutor’s office said in a statement on Thursday.
Payne’s body was handed over to his father, Geoff, over the weekend and flown back to his native England. Over the past few weeks, Geoff had been seen alongside longtime One Direction bodyguard, Paul Higgins, at the CasaSur hotel where his son died.
Those charged in Payne’s death include a suspected drug dealer, a hotel employee who may have provided Payne with the cocaine and a person who was close to the singer, the authorities said.
All are accused of playing a role in giving Payne the drugs, with the hotel employee accused of giving Payne cocaine at least twice during his stay and the alleged drug dealer believed to have provided it twice more two days before his death.
The person who was visiting with Payne is also charged with “abandonment of a person followed by death,” authorities said.
None of those charged were named, but will be notified and are prohibited from leaving the country, according to the statement.
The investigation into the circumstances of Payne’s death will continue, prosecutors said, adding that they were still trying to unlock the singer’s broken laptop.
Witnesses had told local media that they saw Payne smashing his laptop in the hotel lobby.

43 monkeys escape from a South Carolina medical lab. Police say there is no serious danger

Updated 07 November 2024
AP
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43 monkeys escape from a South Carolina medical lab. Police say there is no serious danger

  • The Rhesus macaque primates escaped from the Alpha Genesis facility Wednesday
  • The monkeys are females weighing about 3 kilograms and are so young and small that they haven’t been used for testing, police said
Updated 07 November 2024
AP

SOUTH CAROLINA: Forty-three monkeys escaped from a compound used for medical research in South Carolina but the nearby police chief said there is “almost no danger” to the public.
“They are not infected with any disease whatsoever. They are harmless and a little skittish,” Yemassee Police Chief Gregory Alexander said Thursday morning.
The Rhesus macaque primates escaped from the Alpha Genesis facility Wednesday when a new employee didn’t fully shut an enclosure, Alexander said.
The monkeys are females weighing about 7 pounds (3 kilograms) and are so young and small that they haven’t been used for testing, police said.
Alpha Genesis employees “currently have eyes on the primates and are working to entice them with food,” police said in a statement issued around noon Thursday.
The company usually handles escapes on site, but the monkeys got outside the compound about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) from downtown Yemassee, Alexander said.
“The handlers know them well and usually can get them back with fruit or a little treat,” Alexander told The Associated Press by phone.
But rounding up these escapees is taking some more work. Alpha Genesis is taking the lead, setting up traps and using thermal imaging cameras to recapture the monkeys on the run, the chief said.
“There is almost no danger to the public,” Alexander said.
People living nearby need to shut their windows and doors so the monkeys can’t find a place to hide inside and if they see the primates, call 911 so company officials and police can capture them.
Alpha Genesis provides primates for research worldwide at its compound about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Savannah, Georgia, according to its website. The company did not respond to an email asking about Wednesday’s escape.
In 2018, federal officials fined Alpha Genesis $12,600 after dozens of primates escaped as well as for an incident that left a few others without water and other problems with how the monkeys were housed.
Officials said 26 primates escaped from the Yemassee facility in 2014 and an additional 19 got out in 2016.
The group Stop Animal Exploitation Now sent a letter to the US Department of Agriculture asking the agency to immediately send an inspector to the Alpha Genesis facility, conduct a thorough investigation and treat them as a repeated violator. The group was involved in the 2018 fine against the company.
“The clear carelessness which allowed these 40 monkeys to escape endangered not only the safety of the animals, but also put the residents of South Carolina at risk,” Michael Budkie, the executive director of the group, wrote in the Thursday morning letter.

Topics: South Carolina monkeys

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Australia moves to ban children under 16 from social media

Updated 07 November 2024
AFP
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Australia moves to ban children under 16 from social media

Updated 07 November 2024
AFP
SYDNEY: Australia will move to pass new laws banning children under 16 from social media, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Thursday, vowing to crack down on tech giants failing to protect vulnerable users.
Platforms such as Facebook, TikTok and Instagram would be held responsible for enforcing the age ban, Albanese said, and face potentially hefty fines for failing to do so.
The Australian government first mooted a social media age limit earlier this year, and the idea enjoys broad bipartisan support among lawmakers.
“This one is for the mums and dads. Social media is doing real harm to kids and I’m calling time on it,” Albanese said.
The new laws would be presented to state and territory leaders this week, before being introduced to parliament in late November.
Tech platforms would then be given a one-year grace period to figure out how they would implement the ban.
Albanese said unchecked social media algorithms were serving up disturbing content to highly impressionable children and teenagers.
“I get things popping up on my system that I don’t want to see. Let alone a vulnerable 14-year-old,” he said.
“Young women see images of particular body shapes that have a real impact.”
Albanese said he had settled on 16 as an appropriate age after a series of age verification trials conducted by the government.
Analysts have previously expressed doubt that it would be technically possible to enforce such a strict age ban.


“We already know that present age verification methods are unreliable, too easy to circumvent, or risk user privacy,” University of Melbourne researcher Toby Murray said earlier this year.
A series of exemptions would be decided for platforms such as YouTube, which teenagers may need to use for school work or other reasons.
Australia has been at the vanguard of global efforts to clean up social media.
The government introduced a “combating misinformation” bill earlier this year, outlining sweeping powers to fine tech giants for breaching online safety obligations.
Australia’s online watchdog is locked in a running battle with Elon Musk’s X, accusing the platform of failing to stamp out harmful posts.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the reforms were “truly world-leading.”
Social media platforms were repeatedly “falling short,” she said at Wednesday’s press briefing with Albanese.
“Social media companies have been put on notice,” Rowland said.
“They need to ensure their practices are made safer.”
Rowland flagged that there would be financial penalties for tech companies that failed to comply.

French-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud wins top French literary prize

Updated 04 November 2024
AFP
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French-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud wins top French literary prize

  • The prize money itself amounts to just 10 euros ($11), paid by a cheque that winners usually frame and hang on the wall rather than cash.
Updated 04 November 2024
AFP

PARIS: French-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud on Monday won France’s top literary prize, the Goncourt, for a novel centered on Algeria’s civil war between the government and Islamists in the 1990s.
The jury needed just one round of voting to award the coveted prize to Daoud for his novel “Houris” about what has become known as Algeria’s “black decade.”
The book, written in French, is banned in Algeria.
Daoud was already known internationally for his 2013 debut novel “The Meursault Investigation” — a retelling of Albert Camus’ “The Stranger” from the opposite angle — for which he won the First Novel category of the Goncourt prize.
The writer, who used to work as a journalist and columnist in Algeria, has stirred controversy with his analyzes of society in Algeria.
The prestigious Goncourt prize usually sparks book sales in the hundreds of thousands for the winning author.
However, the prize money itself amounts to just 10 euros ($11), paid by a cheque that winners usually frame and hang on the wall rather than cash.
Daoud’s main rival for this year’s edition was Gael Faye, a Rwandan-born writer, composer and rapper, whose novel “Jacaranda” deals with the rebuilding of Rwanda after the 1994 genocide.
While losing out on the Goncourt, Faye was Monday handed the Renaudot, another coveted prize awarded during the French literary competition season.
Macron, on X, congratulated both writers, saying that “thanks to their voices, our French language expresses beauty, tragedy and universality even better.”

Topics: Algeria France

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