Daily News Pakistan

Elon Musk clashed with a Danish astronaut on Thursday after the spaceman criticised his claim that former US President Joe Biden deliberately left two American astronauts stranded on the International Space Station. Andreas "Andy" Mogensen had shared on X a Fox News clip featuring Musk and his boss, US President Donald Trump, where Musk claimed NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were left stranded on the orbital outpost for "political reasons" by Biden, and that the new administration was now coming to the rescue. "What a lie. And from someone who complains about lack of honesty from the mainstream media," wrote the 48-year-old European Space Agency astronaut, who has flown to the ISS twice, including aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule during a 2023 mission. Musk responded by calling Mogensen "fully retarded," adding that "SpaceX could have brought them back several months ago" and that he had made such an offer to the Biden a...

A Sri Lankan passenger train derailed on Thursday after smashing into a family of elephants, with no passengers injured but six animals killed in the island’s worst such wildlife accident, police said. The express train was travelling near a wildlife reserve at Habarana, some 180 kilometres east of the capital Colombo, when it hit the herd crossing the line before dawn. “The train derailed, but there were no casualties among the passengers,” police said, adding that wildlife authorities were treating two elephants who survived the crash. Videos shot after the accident showed one elephant standing guard over an injured youngster lying beside the tracks, with the tips of their trunks curled together. Killing or harming elephants is a criminal offence in Sri Lanka, which has an estimated 7,000 wild elephants, with the animals considered a national treasure, partly due to their significance in Buddhist culture. Two baby elephants and their pregnant mother were killed in a similar ac...

Microsoft has unveiled a new chip that it said showed quantum computing is "years, not decades" away, joining Google and IBM in predicting that a fundamental change in computing technology is much closer than recently believed. Quantum computing holds the promise of carrying out calculations that would take today's systems millions of years and could unlock discoveries in medicine, chemistry and many other fields where near-infinite seas of possible combinations of molecules confound classical computers. Quantum computers also hold the danger of upending today's cybersecurity systems, where most encryption relies on the assumption that it would take too long to brute force gain access. The biggest challenge of quantum computers is that a fundamental building block called a qubit, which is similar to a bit in classical computing, is incredibly fast but also extremely difficult to control and prone to errors. Microsoft said the Majorana 1 chip it has developed is ...

Children in Australia are able to easily bypass the minimum age limit imposed by social media platforms, a report by the country's online safety regulator showed on Thursday, ahead of a landmark ban by the government on access for those under 16. ESafety's report combined results from a national survey on social media usage by eight to 15-year olds, along with responses from eight services including Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), YouTube, Meta's (META.O), Facebook and Amazon's (AMZN.O), Twitch. In November, Australia approved a social media ban, for children under 16, setting a benchmark for jurisdictions around the world. The ban is set to take effect at the end of 2025. Social media companies largely do not allow those under 13 to access their platforms. The watchdog's report found 80% of Australian children aged eight to 12 used social media in 2024, with YouTube, ByteDance's TikTok, Meta's Instagram and Snap's (SNAP.N), Snapchat being the most popul...

China will always be Latin America’s “trustworthy” friend and partner, its foreign minister told his Bolivian counterpart, as Beijing looks to improve its foothold in a region historically under the US sphere of influence. “Latin America is the home of the Latin American people, and is not any country’s ‘backyard’,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during a meeting at the United Nations on Tuesday, according to a statement from his ministry. China wants to “continuously elevate the China-Bolivia strategic partnership”, Wang told Bolivia’s FM Celinda Sosa. Bolivia, which established diplomatic ties with Beijing in 1985, is among many countries in South America that have bonded economically with China through debt and investment. The resource-rich country owes China, the world’s biggest bilateral lender, over $1.7 billion according to World Bank data. Chinese firms have invested a further $6bn, statistics from the American Enterprise Institute think tank show, mostly in Boliv...

Hamas proposes exchanging all Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners in “one go” during the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, with the aim of reaching a permanent truce and a full Israeli pullout. The Palestinian group also confirms it will release the remaining six living captives, who were set to be freed in the first phase, on Saturday, as Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar says negotiations for the second stage of the deal “will happen this week”. The Palestinian group has just released a statement outlining its positions during the negotiations for a second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal. “We are ready for a second phase in which the prisoners will be exchanged in one go, within the criterion of reaching an agreement that leads to a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal from the Strip,” the statement said. The group also rejected Israel’s call for its disarmament and removal from the Gaza Strip. “The occupation’s condition of removing Hamas from the ...

In yet another stellar leap for Pakistan’s cosmic ambitions, the country’s first-ever lunar rover is set to journey to the Moon as part of China’s Chang’E 8 mission in 2028 — a milestone underscoring the nation's growing role in international space exploration. This development marks a historic collaboration, which will not only advance research on the Moon but also position Pakistan among the few nations contributing to space exploration through homegrown technological innovation. To celebrate this achievement and engage the nation, the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) has announced a nationwide contest, with a cash prize of Rs100,000/-, inviting the public to propose a name for the lunar rover. The Moon, which is Earth’s natural satellite, has fascinated humanity for centuries, serving as a stepping stone for deeper space exploration. It holds valuable resources, such as water ice and rare minerals, which could support future space missions. ...