Social media users in Vientiane have expressed their anger and frustration over the local garbage collection service’s prolonged delays in clearing the roads of trash bags.
NANJING, CHINA – Media OutReach – 31 October 2023 – On October, the “New Youth, New Future” Asian Youth Music Festival kicked off in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province. Talented young artists, bands, and singers from China, Japan, the ROK, and ASEAN countries gathered on the same stage for a youth music and cultural feast dedicated to peace and friendship. The festival attracted a crowd of more than 20,000 people.
Guests launch the “New Youth, New Future” Asian Youth Music Festival.
When addressing the opening ceremony of the festival, Chen Wenge, president of the Center for the Asia-Pacific under China International Communications Group (CICG Asia-Pacific), called Asia the most dynamic region in today’s world, where countries are connected by mountains and rivers and enjoy cultural affinity. Through music, a popular way for young people to communicate and express themselves, artists, bands, and singers take the stage to sing for youth, highlight friendship, and delight the audience with youthful melodies of Asia, aiming to contribute to the creation of a new era of Asian civilization and the building of an Asian community with a shared future.
In his speech, Deputy Secretary General Zushi Shuji of Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat said that with the boom of pop culture in contemporary times, facilitated by ongoing digitization, music has become even more important in terms of bringing people of different nationalities together. “Through this music festival,” he remarked, “we can see that the people-to-people and cultural exchanges among China, Japan, the ROK, as well as ASEAN countries and the rest of the world are getting revitalized and gaining new momentum.”
Sun Yi, director of the General Affairs and Coordination Division of the ASEAN-China Center (ACC), noted that building and promoting inclusive Asian values has become the common pursuit of the peoples of Asia. Music transcends national boundaries and cultural differences, and ACC sees music as an important channel that facilitate China and ASEAN countries to explore opportunities and enhance exchanges and is willing to work closely with all partners to initiate, sponsor, organize, and support cultural activities of all kinds, he added.
Wang Hanping, vice president of CICG Asia-Pacific, released the “New Youth: Asian Youth Music Creation Program” on behalf of the organizer. The program will invite internationally renowned artists and young Asian musicians to co-create outstanding musical works with Chinese elements and Asian cultural characteristics through international exchange and cooperation.
The “Oriental Home” series of original songs was also released on the occasion. “President Xi Jinping proposed that China and ASEAN join hands to build a peaceful, safe, secure, prosperous, beautiful, and amicable home in the region, charting the course for China-ASEAN relations,” Wang said. “Inspired by this, we invited well-known music composers, singers, and directors from China and ASEAN countries to produce this music album with hopes to deepen the exchange and mutual learning among Asian countries through music. Let us press on toward the goal, hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder.”
At the opening ceremony, Wang Wei, a Party chief of CICG Asia-Pacific, and Yuan Zeming, designer of mascot “Niu Man Man” of the Asian Youth Music Festival, jointly unveiled the mascot.
Niu Man Man is an ox when seen from the front but a snail from the side. Yuan revealed that the vibrant dynamics behind the slogan of the festival, “New Youth, New Future,” inspired him to exhibit the vibrancy of young people who keep moving forward while maintaining a stable mindset when designing the mascot.
New youth are creating a new future. Music transcends national boundaries. This grand international music festival offered a shocking surprise for sensory organs. Through comprehensive application of modern audio-visual stage technology, the festival innovated expressive forms of traditional concerts by combining music with tradition, animation, futurism, and collaboration. Solo singers, new-age bands, rappers, pop groups, and other performing artists of different styles from a wide range of Asian countries and regions brought pop, hip hop, ballads, and impressive choreography to the stage. With passion for music supported by talent, the artists showcased the power of Asian youth to the world.
Additionally, a Dialogue on Asian Cuisine and Culture was held on the sidelines of the festival. While enjoying the musical feast, attendees could enjoy a taste of food from all over Asia. They experienced the diversity of Asian cuisine and explored the unique cultures associated with each offering, from ingredients to cooking techniques. The traditional food from different countries showcased the inheritance and innovation of Asian food and highlighted the unique cultural charm of Asia, which has helped Asian youth build emotional resonance.
“I didn’t expect the Asian Youth Music Festival to be so cool, and the performances are wonderful,” exclaimed Liu Yixin from Beijing. “I hope that this music festival will become a regular event.”
Two South Korean students from Nanjing University of the Arts said it was their first time attending such an event in China. According to the girls, the Asian Youth Music Festival was amazing, modern stage technology were used for lighting and sound, and both singers and dancers were quite talented. Besides, they were also impressed with delicious foods served at the festival such as barbecue.
This event was jointly hosted by CICG Asia-Pacific, the Jiangsu Broadcasting Corporation, and the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat, and received great support from diplomatic services of China, Japan, the ROK, and ASEAN countries. Hashtag: #CICGAsiaPacific
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Guests can indulge in Private Spa Suites Equipped with Sauna and Jacuzzi Amenities, Offering a Curated Range of One-Of-A-Kind Wellness Experiences
JOHOR BAHRU, MALAYSIA – Media OutReach – 30 October 2023 – Breeze Spa at Amari Johor Bahru offers a range of services designed for wellness and relaxation. The spa is located on the 6th floor of the hotel and aims to provide a serene escape from the city’s hustle and bustle. Breeze Spa features a variety of private treatment rooms and suites, including three couple rooms, one of which includes a jacuzzi, as well as a single room with a sauna. A retail boutique is available for guests to continue their spa experience at home.
Amari Johor Bahru’s Breeze Spa offers Siam Sabai massages such as the Signature Muay Thai, Siamese Stones and Foot Massage, Siamese Back Tension Relief, and Siamese Head Massage.
The signature package, the Johor Bahru Energy Boost, is designed to invigorate the body. This treatment includes a coffee and citrus body scrub, a fusion massage combining Thai and Ayurveda techniques, and a rejuvenating Crystal Fresh Facial. One of the highlights is the Special Butterfly Pea Tea offered to guests, known for its potential benefits for skin health and blood circulation.
As Amari Johor Bahru embraces Thai culture and cuisine, Breeze Spa offers Siam Sabai massages such as the Signature Muay Thai, Siamese Stones and Foot Massage, Siamese Back Tension Relief, and Siamese Head Massage. Additionally, guests can explore Mood Massages designed to align with their emotional state, catering to various moods and preferences.
The spa also offers a selection of unique body treatments, including the Jasmine & Mint Body Scrub which offers gentle exfoliation while the Mango Sticky Rice Body Scrub combines tropical mango with nourishing sticky rice and the Sun Soother Body Wrap is designed to provide soothing relief.
Don’t miss this exclusive opportunity to replenish your senses and pamper yourself in the lap of luxury. Guests are advised to arrive 15 minutes prior to their scheduled appointment. To make a booking or for more information, please contact us at +6016 776 8341.
Breeze Spa also offers a Loyalty Membership program where members can receive various benefits, including birthday month discounts, savings on a la carte services and retail items as well as access to promotional offers. Furthermore, members have the option to extend these benefits to their partners. This lifetime membership is exclusive to Breeze Spa at Amari Johor Bahru, providing an opportunity to indulge in serenity and revitalization.
For additional information about Amari Johor Bahru and Breeze Spa, please visit our website at www.amari.com/johor-bahru or call +6072668888. Hashtag: #BreezeSpa #Spa #AmariJohorBahru #JohorBahru #health #massage #treatment
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About Amari Johor Bahru
Amari Johor Bahru is conveniently located only steps from Komtar JBCC, City Square and the Persada Johor International Convention Centre. Offering easy access, it is a 30-minute drive from Senai International Airport, and a five-minute walk from JB Sentral Customs and Immigration. To find out more, visit www.amari.com/johor-bahru.
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – Media OutReach – 31 October 2023 – Bybit, the world’s third most visited crypto exchange, has been named ‘Centralized Crypto Exchange of the Year’ at the GB Tech Web3 Awards, held at Headlines, Dubai World Trade Centre on Oct. 30. The event brought together over 120 leaders and organizations from the crypto industry, celebrating the innovative spirit and significant accomplishments within the region’s Web3 ecosystem.
Hosted by Motivate Media Group and GB Tech, a brand under the Gulf Business umbrella, in collaboration with Arte by Crypto Oasis, the ceremony recognized a total of 15 winners across various categories, highlighting their remarkable contributions to the burgeoning crypto field.
Bybit, a global cryptocurrency exchange with close to 20 million users, was commended for its outstanding performance and unwavering commitment to driving the adoption of decentralized technologies. The accolade reflects its rollout of unique and compelling products including TradeGPT, AI trading bots, and highly attractive passive income products via Bybit Earn.
“The GB Tech Web3 Awards are a testament to the incredible progress and innovation that’s taking place in the crypto industry, and we are deeply honored to be recognized amongst such a prestigious group of industry leaders,” said Ben Zhou, co-founder and CEO of Bybit. “This award is a reflection of our team’s hard work, dedication, and belief in the transformative power of blockchain technology. We remain committed to advancing the industry and providing our users with exceptional service and opportunities in the crypto space.”
The panel of judges for the GB Tech Web3 Awards included esteemed industry experts and members of the Gulf Business editorial team, ensuring a comprehensive and balanced evaluation of all nominees.
Hashtag: #Bybit #TheCryptoArk
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About Bybit
Bybit is a top-five cryptocurrency exchange established in 2018 that offers a professional platform where crypto investors and traders can find an ultra-fast matching engine, 24/7 customer service, and multilingual community support. Bybit is a proud partner of Formula One’s reigning Constructors’ and Drivers’ champions: the Oracle Red Bull Racing team.
This image is used only for representational purpose (photo: Maruhan Japan Bank Laos)
Laos and South Korea are joining forces in a pilot project to facilitate the process of cross-border money transfers for Lao workers abroad and foreign workers in Laos.
Born in a Lao refugee camp in Nong Khai, Thailand, award-winning Lao-Canadian author Souvankham Thammavongsa spoke to the Laotian Times about returning to the country of her birth for the first time and her much-lauded collection of short stories which chronicles the heartache and the wonder of the immigrant experience.
New AI Model Building Platform and a suite of innovative cloud products launched to cater for the surging demand among customers and developers
HANGZHOU, CHINA – Media OutReach – 31 October 2023 – Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, today announced the launch of Tongyi Qianwen 2.0, its latest large language model (LLM), along with new industry-specific models at its annual flagship tech event Apsara Conference. This release signifies another significant progress in Alibaba Cloud’s pursuit of cutting-edge AI innovation and its ongoing commitment to fuel digital transformation in businesses.
In response to the surging demand for powerful infrastructure supporting generative AI development, Alibaba Cloud also unveiled an AI model training platform and a series of innovative cloud products. New initiatives to bolster the open-source AI model community and global AI startups were also unveiled during the Conference. These resources are designed to enable customers, partners, developers, startups, and the wider community to fully harness the potential of generative AI.
“Currently, 80% of China’s technology companies and half of large model companies run on Alibaba Cloud. We aim to be the most open cloud in the era of AI. We hope that through this cloud, it will become easier and affordable for everyone to develop and use AI, so we can help, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, to turn AI into huge productivity,” said Joe Tsai, Chairman of Alibaba Group.
Tongyi Qianwen 2.0: A Leap Forward in LLMs
Tongyi Qianwen 2.0, a generic LLM with a few hundreds of billions of parameters, represents a substantial upgrade from its predecessor launched in April. The model successfully exceeds some leading LLMs in benchmarks across domains ranging from language understanding, arithmetic problem solving, to question-answering.
With an expanded model size and improved alignment technique, Tongyi Qianwen 2.0 demonstrates remarkable capabilities in understanding complex instructions, copywriting, reasoning, memorizing, and preventing hallucinations. The model is now accessible to the public via its website and mobile applications, and available for developers through APIs.
Industry-specific Models: AI for Enhanced Business Performance
In addition, Alibaba Cloud also released new industry-specific models to help businesses unlock the transformative potential of generative AI across sectors for enhanced business performance. These sectors include customer support, legal counselling, healthcare, finance, documentation management, audio & video management, code development, and character creation.
“Large language models hold immense potential to revolutionize industries. We’re committed to using cutting-edge technologies, including generative AI, to help our customers capture the growth momentum forward,” said Jingren Zhou, CTO of Alibaba Cloud. “To help businesses better reap the benefits of generative AI in a cost-effective way, we are launching a more powerful foundation model as well as industry-specific models to tackle domain-specific challenges. Through these initiatives, we hope that our proprietary models can deliver real values to our customers to improve operation efficiency and stay competitive.”
GenAI Service Platform: A Comprehensive AI Model Building Platform
To cater to the burgeoning demand for generative AI, Alibaba Cloud introduced GenAI Service Platform, an all-in-one AI model building platform aimed at streamlining the model development and application building process. The platform offers a comprehensive suite of tools for data management, model deployment and valuation, and prompt engineering, making it easier for enterprises of all sectors to develop their enterprise-specific AI models.
Innovative Cloud Products to Drive Generative AI Development
To support the increasing computing and data processing needs required in generative AI development, Alibaba Cloud has launched a series of innovative cloud products across machine learning, container and database.
To improve efficiency of LLM models training and inference, Alibaba Cloud has upgraded its Platform for Artificial Intelligence (PAI), featuring enhanced computing power, network, storage, computing, container, model training and inference capabilities. AI and metaverse technology firm Futureverse has been training its text-to-music generation model on PAI leveraging its high performance and easy-to-scale capabilities to enhance effectiveness and efficiency.
To expedite the process of building customized generative AI applications, Alibaba Cloud has enhanced its full range of database solutions – including cloud-native database PolarDB, cloud-native data warehouse AnalyticDB, and cloud-native multi-model database Lindorm – with its proprietary vector engine. It has also introduced LLM-powered database ecosystem tools, including the intelligent data analytics assistant Data Management Service (DMS) Data Copilot.
To enable a more scalable and efficient cloud infrastructure for application development, Alibaba Cloud unveiled Alibaba Cloud Container Compute Service (ACS), a pioneering serverless solution that integrates container services with its cloud computing resources. ACS enables businesses and developers to deploy the resources of Kubernetes, a container-centric management software, in a more cost-effective and user-friendly way.
Community Programs to Foster AI Development In a bid to support the broader AI community, Alibaba Cloud has pledged to contribute more to open-source communities, including ModelScope, the company-initiated AI community with over 100 million model downloads since its inception a year ago. The cloud pioneer plans to opensource its 72 billion-parameter version of Tongyi Qianwen later this year.
Alibaba Cloud also announced the Alibaba Cloud Startup Catalyst Program, offering cloud computing resources, including cloud credit support of up to USD $120,000, free online learning memberships, and networking opportunities to promising global startups including AI companies.
Hashtag: #alibabacloud #tongyiqianwen
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About Alibaba Cloud
Established in 2009, Alibaba Cloud (www.alibabacloud.com) is the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group. It offers a complete suite of cloud services to customers worldwide, including elastic computing, database, storage, network virtualization services, large-scale computing, security, management and application services, big data analytics, a machine learning platform and IoT services. Alibaba maintained its position as the third leading public cloud IaaS service provider globally since 2018, according to IDC. Alibaba is the world’s third leading and Asia Pacific’s leading IaaS provider by revenue in U.S. dollars since 2018, according to Gartner.
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 31 October 2023 – Hongkong Land and American Express today announced a strategic partnership that will see the two companies create exclusive privileges and luxury lifestyle experiences for American Express Cardmembers at LANDMARK in Central, Hong Kong.
The partnership will provide American Express Cardmembers in the most premium segment with access to unique privileges at LANDMARK, the pre-eminent luxury shopping destination in the heart of Hong Kong. The exceptional offerings will include a series of specially curated experiential engagements involving luxury fashion, watches and jewellery, arts and lifestyle, and international fine dining. Additionally, it will draw on the premium amenities of Hongkong Land’s market-leading regional hospitality and loyalty programme, BESPOKE.
This marks a unique strategic partnership between American Express and a commercial property landlord in Hong Kong. It demonstrates the commitment of both companies to delivering exceptional experiences to their customers and underscores a shared vision of Central in Hong Kong as a leading international luxury shopping destination and business centre.
“We are delighted to launch this innovative partnership with American Express, a brand that aligns with LANDMARK’s passion for bringing luxury experiences in fashion, dining, art and culture to discerning customers,” said Mr Alexander Li, Chief Retail Officer at Hongkong Land.
“I am confident that, together, we will elevate client experiences to a level unmatched anywhere on the global stage. In turn, this will reinforce LANDMARK and Hong Kong as one of the world’s most sophisticated and desirable locations to visit, shop and dine,” he added.
“We are always looking for ways to create new value and bring premium experiences to American Express Cardmembers. Drawing on the renowned heritage of American Express and Hongkong Land in providing exceptional services and experiences, our closer collaboration will open the door to new prestigious perks and lifestyle services for our premium customers,” said Mr Walter Liu, Head of Asia Region at American Express.
“This is a well-timed partnership as international visitor numbers to Hong Kong continue to climb and consumption activity among high-end consumers gathers pace,” he concluded.
Hashtag: #HongkongLand
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Hongkong Land
Hongkong Land is a major listed property investment, management and development group. Founded in 1889, Hongkong Land’s business is built on excellence, integrity and partnership.
The Group owns and manages more than 850,000 sq. m. of prime office and luxury retail property in key Asian cities, principally Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing and Jakarta. Its properties attract the world’s foremost companies and luxury brands.
The Group’s Central Hong Kong portfolio represents some 450,000 sq. m. of prime property. It has a further 165,000 sq. m. of prestigious office space in Singapore mainly held through joint ventures, four retail centres on the Chinese mainland, including a luxury retail centre at Wangfujing in Beijing, and a 50% interest in a leading office complex in Central Jakarta. The Group also has a number of high-quality residential, commercial and mixed-use projects under development in cities across China and Southeast Asia, including a 43% interest in a 1.1 million sq. m. mixed-use project in West Bund, Shanghai. Its subsidiary, MCL Land, is a well-established residential developer in Singapore.
Hongkong Land Holdings Limited is incorporated in Bermuda and has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange, with secondary listings in Bermuda and Singapore. The Group’s assets and investments are managed from Hong Kong by Hongkong Land Limited. Hongkong Land is a member of the Jardine Matheson Group.
LANDMARK
LANDMARK represents the epitome of top-tier luxury shopping and lifestyle experiences. Drawing from a rich heritage which began in 1904 – LANDMARK today is the luxury shopping destination of Hongkong Land’s Central portfolio including 4 iconic connected buildings, LANDMARK ATRIUM, LANDMARK ALEXANDRA, LANDMARK CHATER and LANDMARK PRINCE’S. LANDMARK offers approximately 208 of the finest stores and restaurants, all seamlessly linked by pedestrian bridges. From high fashion and accessories to watches and jewellery, from luxury living to beauty and grooming, from international cuisine to authentic gourmet dining, LANDMARK brings the ultimate shopping experience to the discerning customer.
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