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Aleksandar Vučić, President of the Republic of Serbia, met with Dr Sultan Bin Saif Al Neyadi, UAE Minister of State for Youth Affairs and astronaut, along with the accompanying UAE delegation, in the Serbian capital,
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Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, boarded a passenger train on a journey from Mohamed Bin Zayed City Station in Abu Dhabi to Fujairah Station, just days after the beginning
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Jihye SHIN Thirty seconds before kick-off, humanoid robot footballers in red and blue jerseys await the referee's signal in the South Korean port city of Incheon. The match setting is RoboCup, branded as the world's largest robotics competition, where engineers are betting on a fully autonomous robot team that can one day defeat the FIFA World Cup champions. Unlike remote-controlled machines, RoboCup's robots make decisions on their own once a game begins, testing dramatic recent advances in artificial intelligence. On the field Friday, a referee shouted "stop!" as a shot flew out of bounds -- prompting every robot to freeze instantly. Moments later, one squad member -- named "number one" -- scored, to cheers from dozens of spectators. But then came a foul: one robot barges into the goalkeeper, sending it crashing to the ground. "You can't do that," one spectator laughed. Across Incheon's Songdo Convensia convention centre, dozens of matches unfolded simultaneously on Friday as small, medium and large humanoid robots competed on compact pitches and spectators drifted from court to court. Founded in Japan in 1997, RoboCup has expanded beyond football into rescue, home service and industrial robotics while pursuing its long-term goal of building a fully autonomous robot team capable of defeating the FIFA World Cup champions by 2050. Although the robots play autonomously, human team members relay the referee's commands -- such as "stop" and "resume" -- through software during matches, Lea Wedmann, of the Hamburg Bit-Bots team from Germany's University of Hamburg, told AFP. Visitors said watching robot football felt surprisingly similar to viewing a human sporting event. "I had never seen robots playing football before. It was fascinating and really fun," Cho Woo-cheol, a 45-year-old construction company worker, told AFP. "When I first saw them, I found myself supporting the blue team because they looked a bit more human. "They're obviously not moving exactly like people yet, but they were much closer than I expected. Robot football has its own unique charm." - The Messi robot - Another visitor, Kim Mi-hong, 60, predicted robot athletes could one day attract loyal supporters. "If they become really good, I think they'll have fans," she told AFP. "People were already saying, 'The red team is better,' and recognising players by their numbers. As the technology improves, I think fandoms will naturally emerge." That future may not be too far ahead. "We think robots can defeat humans by 2050," said Thomas Rofer, spokesperson for Germany's B-Human team at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence. "Recently there has been a big step forward in humanoid robot development. We have already seen one company here demonstrate a robot that can kick as hard as a human." Researchers say advances in artificial intelligence have dramatically accelerated progress in recent years. Morgan Stanley Research estimates that by 2050 around 930 million humanoid robots will be working in repetitive, structured tasks, with the global humanoid robotics market potentially reaching $5 trillion. Unlike professional football, RoboCup offers no prize money, with university teams competing primarily to advance robotics research.But Shim In-wook, a professor of smart mobility engineering at Inha University, believes robot football will ultimately become a sport in its own right. "In the FIFA World Cup you might have one Lionel Messi," he told AFP."But once you build one Messi robot, you can build thousands more." Related Story
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President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan has sent a message of congratulations to President Donald Trump of the United States of America on the occasion of his country's Independence Day.His Highness Sheikh
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Several waterways in northern Italy are in a “critical state” due to drought, and the weathe r forecast bodes ill for the coming days, the Po River Authority (ADBPO) said yesterday. “The grip of drought continues to tighten on northern Italy,” the institution monitoring Italy’s longest river said in a statement. Light rainfall brought a drop in temperatures on Wednesday and Thursday but the authority said that if there was no more rain measures such as limiting irrigation would be needed. The body said that Lake Maggiore at the foot of the Alps was losing four centimetres (1.6 inches) per day and was now only 48% full. In Piedmont, “the waterways are suffering, and difficulties are being recorded in the agricultural sector, which is forced to make choices about which crops to bring to production”, the ADBPO said. Near Cremona, in the middle of the plain, part of the Po riverbed was dry yesterday, and sandbanks were increasingly visible, an AFP journalist saw. The river’s flow was 278 cubic metres (9,820 cubic feet) per second on Wednesday, July 1, compared to an average of 929 on that date between 1991 and 2020. In the Po delta, salt water from the Adriatic Sea has now travelled 25 kilometres (15.5 miles) up the river, partly preventing irrigation of the fields.The Veneto region declared a state of emergency due to drought on Thursday. The heatwave that has swept across Europe would have been virtually impossible in June without climate change, according to climatologists from World Weather Attribution. All-time temperature records have been broken in northern Italy, Germany, Poland, and Slovakia, and records for the month of June have been set in France, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. This heatwave has caused thousands of excess deaths in Europe, according to estimates in France, Spain and Belgium.It would have been “virtually impossible” in June without climate change, the World Weather Attribution group of scientists said. Related Story
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Hundreds of rescuers in Venezuela cheered and embraced Thursday after pulling a 43-year-old man alive from the ruins of a collapsed building eight days after deadly twin earthquakes, AFP journalists witnessed. The official death toll has risen to nearly 2,600 and huge numbers of people are still missing, which meant the rescue of security guard Hernan Gil after so long under the rubble was greeted as a miracle. Gil was brought out on a stretcher after a painstaking operation to extract him from the collapsed seven-story building where he worked in Catia La Mar, a coastal area almost entirely razed to the ground in the June 24 catastrophe. “This is truly a miracle,” Gil’s wife Gusbimar Gonzalez told AFP as rescuers worked to free him. One of Latin America’s worst earthquake disasters crushed scores of residential apartment complexes, burying many in the rubble and triggering an international rescue operation. Teams from seven countries — Venezuela, Chile, the US, Portugal, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Mexico — worked around the clock over three days to reach Gil. They provided him with more than ten liters of water to keep him hydrated via a hose and installed a tube to provide him with oxygen. During the final phase of the operation, about 30 people worked in the building’s parking area to clear away debris, while two rescuers dug a three-meter tunnel. “It wasn’t easy to reach the exact spot where the victim was located,” Cristian Vera, the leader of the Chilean rescue team, told AFP. However, while there have been a few astounding rescues — a three-year-old boy was found Tuesday, six days after the quake — hope has faded of finding many more survivors. The focus is now shifting to survival for those who escaped the quakes. Many are homeless, food and water are becoming scarce and hospitals are stretched to the limit, with experts warning of the risk of disease outbreaks. Venezuelans have not hidden their anger at what they see as the government’s inadequate response to the disaster, with help arriving slowly for many. Speaking at a press conference late on Thursday, Interim President Delcy Rodriguez defended her government’s response to dispatch military and civilian officials to help. “In the first 24 hours, it reached 4,000 personnel, and within 48 hours there were 11,000 officials,” she told reporters.She said the death toll had risen to 2,595 with more than 12,400 wounded. But she dismissed any plans for mass graves of those killed. While the government has not given any figure for the number missing, the UN has estimated as many as 50,000 people are still unaccounted for.NASA data shows almost 60,000 buildings were likely damaged or destroyed. Officials say 13,000 people had been left homeless — many of them sleeping in tents on the streets, parks and vacant lots. The majority of collapsed buildings in the hardest-hit city of La Guaira, just north of Caracas, have been marked with the letter ‘D’ for ‘deceased’ — a sign they had been searched with no signs of life found. Relatives, volunteers, and rescue workers were largely focused on retrieving the dead. In Los Corales area, Hernan Sandoval was trying to dig out his 8-year-old son Ronald and his nephew and niece, Leo, 8, and Victoria Madera, 10, buried in the collapse of their La Gambarra complex. “I ran out like a desperate madman” to save them, he said. “My heart broke. I cried a little and then kept going. I’ve searched for him in so many places.” “I still have a lot of faith.” Chances of finding anyone alive beneath deep rubble dwindle rapidly after a critical 72-hour window. Cesar Gonzalez, 54, a Mexican firefighter and handler of search-and-rescue dogs, gave water to his two dogs, Zeus and Bom. “One is for detecting the living, the other for cadavers. Just two days ago, there was much more hope. Now, it would take a miracle,” to find anyone alive, he said. Queues for aid are growing longer by the day, with many surviving on the goodwill of volunteers and donations from fellow citizens. Related Story
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A brutal heatwave hit peak temperatures across the eastern United States yesterday, straining power grids, threatening World Cup matches and playing havoc with celebrations for America’s 250th independence anniversary. With the heat index threatening to top 46C, records could be broken in New York City, as extreme heat warnings blanketed the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions. Combined with very humid air, the “feels like” temperature could reach 40C in Boston, 44C in Philadelphia, and 45C in Washington. “Numerous daily temperature records are expected today and Independence Day, with some consecutive-day, monthly, and all-time records possible,” the National Weather Service said. Hang Dang, a 76-year-old retiree, was not letting extreme temperatures deter her from attending celebrations in Washington for the 250th July Fourth anniversary. “I came to the US in 1975 from Vietnam and... I was here for the bicentennial,” Dang told AFP, noting she drove 12 hours from Florida to attend festivities. “I said I’ve got to get back for the 250th because I don’t think I’ll make it to the 300th!” she joked as a Marine Corps Osprey aircraft hovered nearby. In New York, the most populous US city, Mayor Zohran Mamdani urged residents to “stay cool, stay vigilant and check in on your neighbors.”The city has transformed hundreds of public buildings into cooling centers, dispatched volunteers to check on vulnerable citizens, and extended the hours of swimming pools across the city. Three World Cup matches were slated for yesterday in the US, including in Miami where Argentina and Cape Verde face off. The stadium has no air conditioning and the heat index at kickoff was expected to hit 37C. On Saturday, France and Paraguay will clash in Philadelphia where the heat index could reach 40C. In response to concerns over heat, FIFA has introduced a mandatory “hydration break” in each half of every game at this World Cup, although it was not clear whether that would be adequate for matches taking place outdoors during the heat wave. Although many buildings in the United States are air-conditioned, heat waves cause more deaths in the country than hurricanes and floods.This particular heat wave is worrying because of its duration and intensity, but also because high nighttime temperatures could threaten vulnerable people and strain energy infrastructure. On Thursday, Chicago utility company ComEd said its power grid was under “critical strain,” and urged residents to “raise your thermostat as high as is comfortably safe.” The current extreme heat and humidity would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, a study from the World Weather Attribution group of leading climate researchers said Friday. In Washington yesterday morning, hundreds of people braved sizzling heat to visit the Great American State Fair taking place on the National Mall.Many visitors said they had altered their plans so they could avoid the afternoon sun. “The problem here is that the heat builds,” said Kevin Ashley of Alexandria, Virginia. “In the afternoon it becomes really intolerable, because this is reclaimed swamp,” he said. Nearby, crowds huddled in thin strips of shade outside pavilions, gulping free bottles of water that workers were distributing throughout the event. Paramedics meanwhile carted away a young woman suffering from apparent heat exhaustion. “It’s like the 30th person,” said an event staffer. A short time later, organisers closed the fair until 5 pm. “The safety and well-being of our guests, volunteers, performers, vendors, and staff is our highest priority,” a spokesperson told AFP.“Conditions are expected to improve later this afternoon.” Related Story
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Opera has rolled out Paste Protect, a built-in browser defence designed to stop malicious clipboard commands before users can paste them into terminals, run boxes or other command-line tools.The feature, launched on 2 July 2026
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Victoria Lee Robinson Hot Shots For Her 34th Birthday!!! Published July 4, 2026 1:00 AM PDT Victoria Lee Robinson knows exactly how to work the camera -- and we're celebrating all her best looks as
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Lionel Messi scored again, making Friday’s contest against Cape Verde the record-extending eighth consecutive World Cup match in which Argentina’s captain delivered at least one goal.Messi’s goal in the 29th minute was the 20th of
