Africa

Kinshasa: The Ministry of Health in the Democratic Republic of the Congo announced on Saturday a spike in the number of confirmed Ebola virus infections to 710, while 139 deaths were recorded. The ministry posted on X that the total confirmed Ebola cases amount to 710, with 139 deaths. On 17 May, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the Ebola outbreak in the DRC and Uganda represents a state of emergency, noting that it poses a risk to other countries. As such, the WHO assesses the risk of regional spread of the virus as high.

Europe

Istanbul: Turkiye Artificial Intelligence Summit kicked off in Istanbul on Saturday amid wider participation from experts, domestic and international decision-makers, as well as delegations and representatives of global tech firms and funding enterprises. The two-day summit intends to chart the future vision for digital transformation and the localization of smart technologies, with the keynote panels in this event focusing on enhancing technological innovation and exploring the integration of smart systems with infrastructure and various industrial sectors. The first day showcased tech announcements and a pre-eminent strategy that paves the way for advancing the tech sector throughout 2026 and 2030, foremost of which is unveiling the national action plan for AI, which aims to mobilize USD 10 billion in investments devoted to developing digital infrastructure. This is alongside building data centers and expanding cloud computing technology, in parallel with earmarking no less than 2% of the public investment program for this sector to augment the capacity of installed data centers to reach 1 gigawatt by 2030. The summit also witnessed the launch by the Turkish Ministry of Industry and Technology of the local generative AI model "Bilge", which was fully developed using national software expertise, alongside the presentation of ongoing large language model projects such as the "MAIN" platform models and the T3 Foundation. The sessions broadly centered on the importance of achieving digital sovereignty through pursuing computing systems and distributed models to protect privacy and combat technological monopolization of data. The first-day event wrapped up by launching a comprehensive national program to eradicate illiteracy, aimed at training and qualifying five million citizens on AI-powered technologies and tools through extensive workshops to be carried out across various Turkish provinces over two years.

Asia

Manila: A powerful earthquake that killed at least 61 people in the Philippines this week raised the seabed by as much as two metres (6.6 feet), exposing coral and harming marine life, the environment department said Sunday. The 7.8-magnitude tremor in southern Mindanao island on Monday has also left at least 40 people missing, according to updated tolls from the disaster agency. Local residents first reported the geological phenomenon known as "coastal uplift" two days after the quake, which extended the shoreline by as much as 200 metres in some places, the environment department said. A shifting of the Cotabato Trench "pushed upward part of the coastlines of Sarangani and Davao Occidental (provinces)... exposing the bottom of the sea that was originally submerged", the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said in a statement. "Approximately 2m (metres) was the mapped uplift." The Cotabato Trench, which lies as close as 50 kilometres (31 miles) off the coast of southern Mindanao, is the site of frequent seismic activity, including a "swarm" of thousands of mostly small earthquakes recorded in January. A team dispatched to the area "found that long stretches of shoreline, coral reef and seagrass beds have been exposed", the environment department said. An official who spoke to AFP on Sunday said they could not yet say precisely how wide an area had been affected given the size of the area they needed to survey. Images released by the department's regional office showed a large swathe of exposed coral with dead fish and other aquatic life lying on top. Residents initially reported the changes to the seabed out of concern that they might be poisoned by the fumes from decaying sea life. "These exposed corals and seagrass beds had begun dying off alongside their resident organisms such as reef fishes, eels, clams, and shells," the environment department said.