Showing 1 - 10 of 98
Dalai Lama wins Grammy award for best audio book, angering China
Kyodo News, Published on 02/02/2026
» LOS ANGELES — The Dalai Lama on Sunday won a Grammy award for best audio book, narration and storytelling recording, triggering backlash from China, which views him as a separatist seeking to split Tibet from the country.
A year in art
Life, Suwitcha Chaiyong, Published on 29/12/2025
» Since Thailand's art scene flourished this year, especially in Bangkok, city residents had access to a diverse range of art. As the year draws to an end, Life spoke with Sukontip Nakasem, founder of Warin Lab Contemporary & La Lanta Fine Art, and Voravuj Sujjaporamest, founder of VS Gallery, about highlights and significant art events that happened this year. While Warin Lab Contemporary is renowned for presenting prevailing issues related to ecology and the environment, VS Gallery stands out for presenting issues related to marginalised people.
US museum returns Buddhist painting thought taken during Korean War
New York Times, Published on 18/11/2025
» NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City announced Friday that it had returned a 227-year-old Buddhist painting to a temple in South Korea, where, officials said, it was believed to have been taken while it was under the control of the United States Army during the Korean War.
Pope meets film stars, hails power of cinema
AFP, Published on 15/11/2025
» VATICAN CITY - Spike Lee presented Pope Leo XIV with a New York Knicks jersey on Saturday as the US pope welcomed film stars to the Vatican, where he called cinema a “vehicle of hope”.
When students rise
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 28/10/2025
» Back in the mid-19th century, female education increased literacy and access to jobs and they began to fight for participation in public life. The public sphere promised them a new horizon. From the 1890s onwards, print media began to allow women to express their voice and authors vaunted personal talent and equality, including gender relations. Following the Siamese Revolution in 1932, women were enfranchised for the first time.
Exile songs resurface
Life, John Clewley, Published on 27/09/2025
» From the early 1970s to the 80s, Mogadishu boasted one of the Horn of Africa's liveliest night scenes with groups from this "Golden Era" like Dur Dur Band entertaining at clubs and hotels across the city. A coup in 1991 and subsequent civil war put a stop to the music and musicians had to go underground or migrate. Those who went by the latter route took their music and culture across the Somali diaspora (one of Africa's largest).
The hidden dangers of AI
Life, James Hein, Published on 24/09/2025
» There's going to be a lot on artificial intelligence topics this week so let's get started. For the time being, the most common way to leverage an AI product is using a prompt of some kind. To that end, you will see lots of posts on platforms declaring that they have the best god-level prompts for large language models (LLMs). A prompt is something like, "What are the top ten songs from Depeche Mode?", or "Draw me a picture of a frog on a toadstool in the style of Alice In Wonderland with vivid colours". The more detailed and nuanced the prompt, the better the desired outcome tends to be. As with everything in the computer world, there are bad actors looking to take advantage of this.
AI will overpromise and underdeliver
Life, James Hein, Published on 27/08/2025
» Let's start with a few brief comments on the current state of artificial intelligence. Specially targeted and trained AI models are improving. These are things like detecting something in an X-ray or hunting for potential chemical candidates for a compound to attack a specific condition. Generating pictures and videos is also improving rapidly, and by the end of the year the majority of people will not be able to tell the difference between the real thing and the AI fake. Large Language Models are still unpredictable and can give false or fake answers depending on the structure of the prompts, so be careful with the answer you get from these. The current corporate buy-in for AI is well beyond what it can deliver. This is driven by marketing, not the actual state of capabilities. My prediction is there will be a lot of out-of-pocket organisations of all types disappointed by results.
Thai gallery removes China-focused artworks after ‘pressure’ from Beijing
Reuters, Published on 08/08/2025
» One of Thailand’s top art galleries removed, at China's request, materials about Beijing's treatment of ethnic minorities and Hong Kong from an exhibit on authoritarian governments, according to a curator and communications seen by Reuters.
The lion roars on
Life, John Clewley, Published on 29/07/2025
» Musician and bandleader Thomas Mapfumo is 80 years old this month. The man, often dubbed the "Lion of Zimbabwe", is still hugely popular in his home country, despite having gone into exile and resettling in Oregon in 2000.