“The pandemic years are behind us and borders are open as normal,” Willie Walsh, head of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), told IATA’s annual summit of some 300 carriers.IATA boosted its industry profit forecast to $9.8 billion from $4.7 billion cheered by strong travel demand and an easing in oil prices.Revenue is expected to grow by 9.7% to $803 billion, inching closer to 2019’s pre-pandemic level of $838 billion. But slender profit margins of 1.2% mean repairing damaged balance sheets and offering sustainable returns on investments will continue to be a headache for some airlines, Walsh said. He said…
Author: Mike Harrison
The disaster struck on Friday, when a passenger train hit a stationary freight train, jumped the tracks and hit another passenger train passing in the opposite direction near the district of Balasore, in the eastern state of Odisha.Following non-stop efforts to rescue survivors and clear and repair the track, trains resumed running over that section of the line on Sunday night. Trains were passing slowly through the derailed and mangled compartments, while repair work continued at the track side. Some 120 km (75 miles) further north, at Kharagpur in West Bengal state, railway officials and witnesses gathered to submit evidence…
We got married due to an unplanned pregnancy. Even though we were already dating for two years, it was a long-distance relationship filled with fights and breakups, and yet we stayed together.After getting married, I didn’t have a stable job, and my husband didn’t get a job until our baby was 18 months old.He would watch over the kids for me but refused to do any household chores. He has a habit of reading comic books and playing video games that he just can’t get rid of.He rarely helps me with chores because he says, “I do men’s work and…
Mai celebrates the last night of the lunar year yachting on the Saigon River in January, 2023. Photo by VnExpress/Minh Tam Born to a father who served in the American marine corps and a Vietnamese immigrant mother, May, 32, felt she was different from others ever since she was a child.”Our names, our hair color, and our eye color were different,” Mai told VnExpress as she recalled her and her siblings’ childhood in a small town an hour’s drive from San Diego, California, where the majority of residents were white.”We considered ourselves different from others the moment we stepped out…
Quants’ focus on advanced artificial intelligence to aid decision-making comes amid a tough investment environment, as China’s post-Covid recovery wanes and competition rises in the country’s 20 trillion yuan ($3 trillion) private fund industry.”ChatGPT is an epoch-making application … It can draw conclusions from a complicated network of relationships with numerous dimensions in ways human brains cannot,” said Steve Chen, partner of Shanghai-based MX Capital.”Exploring its ability is now our main focus.”His hedge fund already uses ChatGPT to better understand a company’s fundamentals and avoid value traps, project earnings power, and identify investment opportunities and risks.ChatGPT, trained using a huge…
(From L) Vu Thu Phuong, Anh Thu, Minh Trieu, Ky Duyen, four coaches of “The Face Vietnam 2023.” Photo from The Face Vietnam’s Facebook In the first episode of “The Face Vietnam 2023”, which aired Sunday, the organizers announced that standing positions of the four coaches in the show’s opening sequence would be determined with a draw to ensure fairness.Having agreed with the rule, Trieu and Duyen later insisted on standing next to each other and not being separated.The argument reached a climax when Trieu announced she would quit shooting, which Phuong said was unprofessional. Thu agreed, adding that Trieu…
The Directors Guild of America (DGA) will ask its 19,000 members to approve the three-year contract, which was announced late on Saturday after three weeks of talks.The agreement includes gains in wages and residuals plus guardrails around the use of artificial intelligence, according to the DGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents Netflix, Walt Disney Co and other major studios.The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has been on strike since May 2, shutting down several TV and film productions, and has no new talks scheduled with the studios.During the last WGA strike in 2007…
Over 100 people in various stages of rest in the waiting room of Aeon Mall Long Bien on June 2, 2023. Photo courtesy of Aeon Mall According to a mall spokesperson, people have been turning up in large numbers following blackouts in many neighborhoods in Long Bien District. Aeon has set up a separate waiting room for visitors to rest and eat. The northern region experienced intense heat this past week due to a tropical disturbance and Foehn wind. Temperatures peaked on Wednesday and Thursday. Muong La weather station in the northern mountainous province of Son La reported a maximum…
By Reuters  June 5, 2023 | 10:30 am GMT+7 An employee works on the production line of Nio electric vehicles at a JAC-NIO manufacturing plant in Hefei, Anhui province, China August 28, 2022. Photo by China Daily via Reuters China’s services activity picked up in May, a private-sector survey showed on Monday, as a rise in new orders shored up a consumption-led economic recovery in the second quarter. The Caixin/S&P Global services managers purchasing’ index (PMI) rose to 57.1 in May from 56.4 in April. The 50-point mark separates expansion from contraction in activity.The reading contrasts with the official PMI…
It’s not something most people would think to pay for but Kawano’s services as a smile instructor are seeing a surge in demand in Japan, where mask-wearing was near universal during the pandemic.Himawari Yoshida, 20, one of the students taking the class as part of her school’s courses to prepare them for the job market, says she needed to work on her smile.”I hadn’t used my facial muscles much during COVID so it’s good exercise,” she said.Kawano’s company Egaoiku – literally “Smile Education” – has seen a more than four-fold jump in demand from last year, with customers ranging from…