The Centre has ordered a nationwide temporary block on Telegram until June 22, escalating its crackdown on online cheating rackets ahead of the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination scheduled for June 21.
The restriction, issued through the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, follows complaints that groups on the messaging platform were being used to sell, advertise or fabricate claims about leaked question papers. A separate direction requires Telegram to disable, within the country, the editing of already published messages until June 30, a feature investigators say has been exploited to alter posts after publication and mislead candidates about when alleged leak material first appeared.
The National Testing Agency, which conducts NEET-UG, welcomed the move and said the intervention was intended to protect candidates from fraud, impersonation and misinformation before the retest. The agency has also opened an online reporting mechanism for claims linked to fake paper leaks, suspicious social-media groups and attempts to contact candidates with offers of access to the examination paper.
The June 21 test follows the cancellation of the May 3 NEET-UG examination, which affected more than 2.2 million medical aspirants. The original test was annulled after allegations of a question-paper leak and organised cheating led to widening investigations, student protests and criticism of examination governance. The re-examination has become a test of the authorities’ ability to restore confidence in a high-stakes admission system that determines access to medical colleges.
Officials involved in the crackdown have focused on Telegram because of its large channels, rapid forwarding systems and privacy-oriented architecture, which have made it attractive both to legitimate users and to networks selling purported exam material. Investigators have examined groups that allegedly claimed to possess NEET papers, sought payments from anxious candidates and used screenshots of edited posts to suggest advance access to confidential material.
The role of message editing has drawn particular scrutiny. Authorities say some posts were modified after circulation to create the impression that a question paper, answer key or inside information had been available before the examination. That method can fuel panic even where no genuine paper leak has occurred, because altered timestamps and viral screenshots are difficult for candidates and parents to verify quickly.
Cybercrime teams, including the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, Bihar Police and the Ahmedabad Cyber Cell, have been involved in action against suspected digital fraud networks. Gujarat cyber officials have also arrested two people accused of promising access to NEET papers, underlining that the threat extends beyond one platform and includes paid deception, impersonation and panic-driven extortion.
The government’s decision marks one of the most visible temporary app restrictions since the sweeping blocks imposed on Chinese-linked apps in 2020, though this order is narrower in duration and linked to an examination-security objective. Telecom operators are expected to comply with blocking directions, while app-store availability and platform-level functionality may vary as implementation proceeds.
Telegram has not issued a detailed public response to the order. The platform has faced scrutiny in several countries over alleged misuse by fraud groups, piracy networks and extremist channels, even as it remains widely used for education, business updates, news distribution and community communication.
Civil-liberties groups have criticised the measure as disproportionate, saying a temporary shutdown penalises ordinary users and small businesses that rely on Telegram while leaving deeper vulnerabilities in examination management unresolved. They have called for publication of the blocking order, the reasons cited by the authorities and details of why channel-specific enforcement was judged insufficient.
By Asad Mirza The framework peace agreement between the United States and Iran has reduced the immediate risk of a wider regional war. Yet the accord leaves unresolved the central issues that have fuelled four decades of confrontation, making its long-term survival far from assured. The announcement of a framework peace agreement between the United […]
From campus-based learning to visits to a Chinese medicine production base, combining story-based learning with hands-on experience to bring students closer to TCM through fun and interactive engagement
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 16 June 2026 – Building on last year’s success, Beijing Tong Ren Tang’s “The Tong Ren Extraordinary Journey” school outreach programme has been further deepened and expanded this year. Evolving from in-school learning to a model that integrates and extends into off-campus activities, the programme combines school visits with tours of Beijing Tong Ren Tang’s production and R&D base, opening a new chapter in a comprehensive way and bringing students closer to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) through a lively and interactive engagement.
Photo 1: “The Tong Ren Extraordinary Journey” visited 20 primary schools in Hong Kong, bringing students a fun and engaging introductory journey into the world of Chinese medicine.
Two-stage learning: from in-school education to hands-on experience Through a variety of interactive formats, “The Tong Ren Extraordinary Journey” offers students an engaging and knowledge-rich introduction to Chinese medicine. Designed around the concept of “from understanding to experience,” the programme combines in-school learning with off-campus visits to Beijing Tong Ren Tang’s production and R&D base. Activities include guided storytelling on the “Tong Ren” story, acupoint-based interactive games, and lively introductions to Chinese medicine culture and basic Chinese medicine knowledge, making the learning experience both enjoyable and informative. Students can also visit Beijing Tong Ren Tang’s production and R&D base in Tai Po, where they tour the museum, learn about the operation of the production line, and explore the Chinese Herbal Garden. In this way, students gain a well-rounded understanding of Chinese medicine and learn how it can be applied in daily life.
Herbal planting activities reinforce learning experience A special feature of the programme is a planting experience in the Beijing Tong Ren Tang Chinese Herbal Garden. Guided by gardeners and instructors, students take part in a seedling transplanting activity, observing herbal plants up close and experiencing the planting process first-hand. This hands-on experience not only gives them a sense of achievement but also deepens their understanding of what they have learned. Through this enjoyable and educational activity, Chinese medicine culture is brought to life for the younger generation while supporting its preservation and continued development.
Photos 2: Students visited the “Beijing Tong Ren Tang Chinese Herbal Garden” to learn about the characteristics and medicinal value of different Chinese herbs and took part in a hands-on planting activity.
In-school learning: “The Tong Ren Extraordinary Journey” tutorial During the school visits under “The Tong Ren Extraordinary Journey,” Chinese medicine practitioners and instructors each led nearly 100 students at a time through a lively one-hour session, using an easy-to-understand approach that combined storytelling and interactive games to explore Chinese medicine knowledge. Topics covered ranged from itinerant physicians to hall physicians, from the acupuncture bronze figure to the meridian system, and from the four diagnostic methods of Chinese medicine to its internal and external treatment approaches. Students were also introduced to Tong Ren Tang’s history of supplying imperial medicine, as well as Chinese medicine concepts such as “monarch, minister, assistant and guide“. These sessions helped students understand Chinese medicine in an accessible way, while interactive acupoint games further strengthened memory and comprehension through play.
Off-campus experience: visits to Beijing Tong Ren Tang’s production and R&D base After completing the school visit component of “The Tong Ren Extraordinary Journey,” students also had the opportunity to visit and experience Beijing Tong Ren Tang’s production and R&D base in Hong Kong. During the guided tour, students gained a deeper understanding of the story of Tong Ren Tang, a time-honoured Chinese medicine brand, its imperial medicine tradition and its pharmaceutical culture, while revisiting the core beliefs it upholds: “cultivating benevolence and virtue, and promoting health for the benefit of society” and its corporate motto of “No compromise on cost and labour despite the complexity of processing herbal medicine. No compromise on quality and standard despite the scarcity of medicine ingredients.”
During the visit, students sampled herbal tea as an entry point to understanding Chinese herbs. They then learned about the Chinese medicine production process and took part in a workshop on the traditional pill-rolling technique, an item of intangible cultural heritage. This allowed them to translate theory into practical experience, and to understand how herbs are processed and prepared into medicinal materials for use. Through this, they learned about the development of Chinese medicine from ancient times to the present, as well as the evolution of different dosage forms. Students later moved to the Beijing Tong Ren Tang Chinese Herbal Garden for a herbal planting activity, where they learned how soil, water and sunlight affect plant growth.
Expanded to 20 primary schools, with a comic book supporting school-based extended reading This year, “The Tong Ren Extraordinary Journey” expanded to 20 primary schools, reaching approximately 3,000 teachers and students in total. To complement the in-school curriculum and extended reading, Beijing Tong Ren Tang specially wrote and produced the comic book The World of Chinese Medicine – “The Tong Ren Extraordinary Journey”. Featuring the adorable “Little Tong Ren” as the main character and guide, the comic adopts a child-friendly narrative approach to help students understand the meaning of “Tong Ren” and “Tong Ren Tang,” the wisdom of balance emphasised in Chinese medicine culture, and its people-oriented spirit of benevolence and compassionate healing. Beijing Tong Ren Tang hopes that, through more interesting and approachable content formats, Chinese medicine culture can take root on campus and, through students’ reading and sharing, extend into families and communities as a cultural learning journey that can be passed on continuously.
Bringing Chinese medicine into everyday life Beijing Tong Ren Tang hopes to foster a relaxed and enjoyable learning environment for students, introducing Chinese medicine step by step and encouraging them to share what they have learned with family and friends. By starting from a child’s perspective and focusing on themes such as meridians, herbs and balance, the programme helps integrating the wisdom of TCM into students’ everyday knowledge systems and encouraging them to share and apply these insights in daily life.
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About Beijing Tong Ren Tang
Tong Ren Tang was founded in 1669 and has a 356-year history. The company has always adhered to its corporate motto of “No compromise on cost and labour despite the complexity of processing herbal medicine. No compromise on quality and standard despite the scarcity of medicine ingredients.” This commitment has led Beijing Tong Ren Tang to steady development, lasting through every generation, achieving excellence, and becoming a national treasure while expanding globally.
At the same time, Beijing Tong Ren Tang has taken on the mission of promoting traditional Chinese medicine culture, actively participating in domestic and international traditional Chinese medicine promotion activities, facilitating cultural exchanges around the world, and striving to expand the international influence of traditional Chinese medicine. To date, it has been operating over 160 retail branches in 26 countries and regions overseas, making it one of the most recognized traditional Chinese medicine brands internationally.
About Beijing Tong Ren Tang Chinese Medicine Company Limited
Established in Hong Kong in 2004, Beijing Tong Ren Tang Chinese Medicine Company Limited serves as Tong Ren Tang’s development platform outside Mainland China. The Company was listed on the Growth Enterprise Market of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2013 and transferred to the Main Board in 2018. Guided by its corporate spirit of “cultivating benevolence and virtue, and promoting health for the benefit of society” and driven by its mission to “create health for all to share globally,” the Company has built on Hong Kong as its base while expanding its global presence. It is committed to promoting Chinese medicine culture beyond Mainland China, and has accelerated the internationalisation of Chinese medicine through a communication model that integrates medical services with pharmaceutical products and places culture at the forefront. (Beijing Tong Ren Tong Chinese Medicine Company Limited website: https://cm.tongrentang.com)
Oxford physicists have demonstrated a new class of Schrödinger’s cat-like quantum states, pushing laboratory control of quantum superposition beyond the familiar model of two classical-looking wave packets held in a fragile balance. The advance, published in Physical Review X on 3 June, shows that cat-like states can be built from components that are already strongly quantum, rather than from the coherent states traditionally used to mimic the […]
The West Synchrony™ Prefillable Syringe (PFS) System offers strategic infrastructure to support Chinese biotech innovators to expand their global footprint in biologics and vaccines.
SHANGHAI, CHINA – Media OutReach Newswire – 16 June 2026 – West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE: WST), a long-standing partner to China’s pharmaceutical industry, today announced the availability of its West Synchrony™ prefillable syringe (PFS) system to drug developers at CPHI & PMEC China 2026, taking place June 16-18, 2026. This innovative platform uniquely integrates the syringe barrel, plunger, and needle shield/tip cap into a fully harmonized, verified system from a single supplier and emphasizes the company’s commitment to supporting the development of China’s biopharmaceutical sector in alignment with the country’s 15th Five-Year Plan. By strengthening the innovation ecosystem and accelerating development and time to market, the company supports China’s biopharmaceutical companies in achieving biotechnology breakthroughs and reaching global milestones.
West Pharmaceutical Services, Booth N5D18, CPHI & PMEC China 2026
Enabling China’s Next Phase of Global Biopharmaceutical Growth
China’s biopharmaceutical sector is entering a new phase of global relevance. Long recognized as a strategic pillar of the national economy, sustained policy support and investment over the past decade have helped build deep scientific capabilities and a rapidly maturing innovation ecosystem.
As more biopharmaceutical companies “Go Global”, many are establishing a growing international footprint, while others are accelerating their overseas ambitions. Emerging as core players on the global stage, Chinese companies accounted for nearly 50%1 of all new drug molecules entering human trials in the first half of 2025 alone.
At the same time, the growing complexity of biologics and vaccines is driving increased demand for advanced, high-quality drug delivery and packaging systems that can support product performance and safety from early development through commercialization. Competing globally also requires navigating stringent regulatory environments while ensuring reliable, scalable supply. Together, these factors make trusted partners with proven technical expertise and international regulatory experience critical for sustainable growth.
To support Chinese biopharmaceutical companies in their ambitions, West has now made the West Synchrony™ PFS system available in the country.
West Synchrony™ PFS System
This gives Chinese innovators the infrastructure needed to compete on quality, safety, and regulatory compliance across international markets, with greater confidence and efficiency.
“Chinese biopharmaceutical companies today have established themselves as serious global innovators, with significant opportunities to sustain momentum through high‑quality innovation,” said Maha Guruswamy, Vice President & Managing Director, Commercial, Asia Pacific. “The challenge is that a traditional, individual-component system introduces significant technical and regulatory complexities. West Synchrony addresses these by providing a fully verified and integrated containment and delivery system from a single source, allowing our partners to accelerate development and focus on delivering therapies to patients.”
Deepening A Long-Term Partnership with China’s Pharmaceutical Ecosystem
The introduction of the West Synchrony™ PFS system reflects the company’s decades-long commitment to supporting pharmaceutical innovation. This investment extends beyond product offerings to include technical expertise, regulatory support, and a single source of accountability that serve both domestic Chinese companies and multinational partners operating in China.
“As China’s biopharmaceutical companies continue to strengthen their capabilities and expand their presence globally, West is committed to partnering with them at every stage of their growth journey,” said Philip Wang, Senior Director, Commercial, China. “We aim to enable them to achieve their global ambitions, and the West Synchrony™ PFS system is one example from our portfolio of high‑quality, innovative solutions that provide customers with the same trusted infrastructure relied upon by leading multinational pharmaceutical companies worldwide.”
Join West at CPHI & PMEC China 2026
The West Synchrony™ PFS system will be showcased at CPHI & PMEC China 2026, where an expert from West will present on the role of integrated delivery systems in supporting China’s next phase of biopharmaceutical innovation and its global ambitions for expansion. Trade media and industry stakeholders interested in learning more about the technology and its application in biologics are invited to visit the West booth during the exhibition. The details of the presentation are as follows:
Presentation: “Stop Piecing It Together—Get an Integrated Verified Prefillable Syringe System from One Source”
Date & Time: June 17, 14:10-14:40
Location: Shanghai New International Expo Center
Speaker: Lynn Yao, Senior Manager, TCS, AP
The West Synchrony™ PFS System is now available to bio and pharmaceutical companies in China. Visit West at Booth N5D18 to learn more, or find out more information via the website here.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain forward-looking statements are included in this press release. They use words and phrases such as “achieving biotechnology breakthroughs,” “reaching global milestones,” “accelerate development,” and other similar terminology. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the anticipated benefits of the West Synchrony™ prefillable syringe system in China, the expected growth of China’s bio-health and pharmaceutical industries, and West’s ability to support customers’ development and commercialization efforts. These statements reflect management’s current expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date of this release.
Forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to, changes in market conditions, regulatory requirements, global economic and geopolitical conditions, customer demand, supply chain constraints, competitive developments, technological changes, and other risks. These important factors are not all inclusive. For a description of certain additional factors that could cause West’s future results to differ from those expressed in any such forward-looking statements, see Item 1A, entitled “Risk Factors,” in West’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year that ended on December 31, 2025. Except as required by law or regulation, West undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc.
West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. is a leading provider of innovative, high-quality injectable solutions and services. As a trusted partner to established and emerging drug developers, West helps ensure the safe, effective containment and delivery of life-saving and life-enhancing medicines for patients. With over 10,000 team members across 50 sites including 26 manufacturing facilities worldwide, West helps support its customers by delivering over 41 billion components and devices each year.
Headquartered in Exton, Pennsylvania, USA, West in its fiscal year 2025 generated USD 3.07 billion in net sales. West is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: WST) and is included on the Standard & Poor’s 500 index. For more information, visit www.westpharma.com.
All trademarks and registered trademarks used in this release are the property of West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other jurisdictions, unless otherwise noted.
President Lee Jae Myung has invited Pope Leo XIV to visit South Korea next year for World Youth Day in Seoul, using his first Vatican audience as president to seek support for efforts to lower tensions with North Korea and revive dialogue on the Korean Peninsula.
Lee met the Pope at the Apostolic Palace on Monday during the Vatican leg of a wider European tour, accompanied by first lady Kim Hea Kyung. The meeting placed religion and diplomacy at the centre of Seoul’s outreach strategy, as the Lee administration looks for channels beyond formal security talks to keep a peace agenda alive despite Pyongyang’s weapons programme.
The invitation was tied to World Youth Day 2027, the Catholic Church’s largest youth gathering, which Seoul will host from August 3 to 8. The event is expected to bring large numbers of young Catholics and other visitors to the capital, giving South Korea a global platform and offering Pope Leo his first major Asian pastoral journey if he accepts.
Lee and Pope Leo agreed to cooperate on the successful staging of the event, while the South Korean leader briefed the pontiff on his government’s approach to peace-building. Seoul wants the Vatican to sustain moral and diplomatic attention on the peninsula at a time when inter-Korean contact remains frozen and North Korea has shown little interest in official exchanges.
The meeting also touched on the possibility of a papal visit to North Korea, a move that would be unprecedented and politically sensitive. No pope has visited Pyongyang, and any such trip would require a formal invitation and guarantees from the North Korean authorities. The late Pope Francis had repeatedly signalled willingness to go if invited, but the plan never progressed beyond exploratory diplomacy.
Lee’s Vatican stop followed a peace Mass at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, celebrated by South Korea-born Cardinal Lazzaro You Heung-sik. Lee told the congregation that the “ember of hope” for dialogue and cooperation with North Korea remained alive, recalling the June 15, 2000 inter-Korean declaration that opened the way for family reunions, exchanges and humanitarian cooperation before relations deteriorated again.
The president has sought to present his North Korea policy as a shift from confrontation towards risk reduction. His administration has suspended propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts across the border and has said it does not seek unification by absorption or ideological competition. Officials frame those steps as confidence-building measures aimed at preventing accidental clashes and rebuilding basic military trust.
Pyongyang has not responded positively. North Korea has continued to define relations with Seoul as those between hostile states and has maintained its commitment to nuclear weapons and missile development. That position limits the scope for diplomacy and makes any papal role dependent on choices by Kim Jong Un’s government rather than on Vatican willingness alone.
After meeting Pope Leo, Lee held separate talks with Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Holy See’s senior diplomat for relations with states and international organisations. Those discussions covered bilateral ties, World Youth Day, regional affairs and the contribution of the local Catholic Church to education, welfare and democratic development.
The Vatican and the Republic of Korea established diplomatic relations in 1963. Pope John Paul II visited the country in 1984 and 1989, while Pope Francis travelled there in 2014 for Asian Youth Day. The 2027 event will return the papacy to a society where Catholics are a minority but hold a visible role in civic life and social services.
South Korea’s Catholic population surpassed 6 million at the end of 2025, representing about 11.4 per cent of the population. The Church has grown steadily over the past two decades, though it faces the same demographic pressures as the wider country, including ageing congregations and fewer vocations. World Youth Day is therefore being treated as both a diplomatic opportunity and a test of the Church’s appeal to younger generations.
Middle East governments moved to endorse a preliminary US-Iran peace deal on Monday, casting it as the strongest diplomatic opening yet to end a four-month conflict that has disrupted energy flows, strained Gulf security and unsettled global markets. The agreement, brokered after mediation led by Pakistan and supported by regional diplomacy, is due to be formally signed in Switzerland on Friday. It provides for a halt to […]
Attackers are probing vulnerable Jenkins servers after disclosure of a high-severity deserialisation flaw that can let a low-privileged user impersonate others, reach sensitive controller files and, in some cases, execute code through the Script Console. The bug, tracked as CVE-2026-53435, affects Jenkins 2.567 and earlier and Jenkins LTS 2.555.2 and earlier. Fixed versions, Jenkins 2.568 and LTS 2.555.3, were issued on 10 June as part of a […]
A network of 23 Chrome browser extensions has exposed about 758,000 users to privacy and phishing risks by taking control of default search settings and routing queries through monetised redirect systems. The campaign, tracked as SearchJack, shows how ordinary-looking browser tools can turn search traffic into affiliate revenue while giving users little practical visibility into who handles their queries. The extensions were presented as satellite imagery tools, […]
Dubai is preparing to award strategic contracts worth more than Dh55 billion for the expansion of Al Maktoum International Airport, marking a decisive step in turning Dubai World Central into the emirate’s main aviation gateway. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai, said work on the airport expansion was progressing in line with the […]
Hyderabad-based Drogo Aerospace has delivered 41 JK 250e surveillance drones to the Indian Army, advancing a ₹72-crore order that places the defence technology firm among a growing group of domestic companies supplying unmanned systems for frontline military use.
The first batch was received by officials of the Army’s Southern Command in Nashik, Maharashtra. The delivery forms part of a 217-drone contract, with the company aiming to supply the remaining 176 units by August 2026. The schedule gives Drogo Aerospace a tight execution window at a time when demand for tactical drones is rising across reconnaissance, border monitoring and battlefield support roles.
The JK 250e drones have been developed and built by Drogo Aerospace for surveillance, reconnaissance and other military missions. The platform can fly for up to three hours on a single charge, giving field units extended aerial coverage without depending on conventional runway infrastructure. The drone’s role is centred on intelligence gathering and real-time observation, areas that have become central to ground operations as armies adapt to a battlefield shaped by low-cost aerial systems, loitering munitions and sensor-driven targeting.
Drogo Aerospace founder and chief executive Yeshwanth Bonthu said the delivery validates the company’s technology base, manufacturing capability and commitment to national security. The company is now working on indigenous loitering munitions, long-endurance UAVs, AI-powered aerial intelligence platforms, advanced surveillance systems and reconnaissance products aimed at future operational requirements.
The order also marks a transition point for the company, formerly known as Drogo Drones Pvt Ltd. Its rebranding as Drogo Aerospace reflects a broader move beyond conventional drone manufacturing into defence, aviation, unmanned systems, satellite-linked platforms and aerospace technologies. Headquartered in Madhapur, Hyderabad, the firm has positioned itself as a next-generation unmanned systems developer at a time when procurement policy is opening more space for private manufacturers and specialised start-ups.
The company is setting up a 100,000-square-foot drone manufacturing facility at Maheshwaram in Telangana’s Ranga Reddy district. The state government has allotted about 4.5 acres to the firm within the Electronics Manufacturing Cluster for the project. The facility is expected to generate around 500 additional jobs, adding to an existing workforce of about 300. The investment is designed to support scale production as defence orders move from prototypes and limited trials to larger supply commitments.
The delivery comes as the armed forces are accelerating induction of drones for tactical and operational roles. Planned domestic military drone orders may exceed $2 billion this year, with deliveries expected over 18 to 24 months. More than 600 drone and component companies now operate in the country, including over 100 focused on defence applications. The sector includes large industrial groups as well as specialist start-ups developing reconnaissance platforms, logistics drones, loitering munitions, precision-strike systems and critical components.
Battlefield developments over the past three years have sharpened the focus on unmanned systems. The war in Ukraine demonstrated how inexpensive drones can alter artillery targeting, logistics interdiction and frontline surveillance. Conflicts in West Asia have further highlighted the value of layered air defence, counter-drone technology and rapid intelligence cycles. Along the northern and western frontiers, persistent surveillance has become a core requirement for ground formations operating across difficult terrain and extended lines of control.
The Ministry of Defence has also widened support for smaller firms through innovation challenges and procurement pathways aimed at turning prototypes into deployable systems. Under the iDEX framework, hundreds of start-ups, MSMEs and individual innovators have entered the defence innovation ecosystem since 2018. Dozens of prototypes have received procurement clearance, and contracts worth thousands of crores have moved from concept development into acquisition. This has helped shorten the distance between battlefield requirements and production-ready technology.
For Drogo Aerospace, execution of the JK 250e order will test its ability to deliver at scale while maintaining quality and mission reliability. Military drone contracts require not only airframe performance but also secure communications, rugged field handling, dependable batteries, payload integration, training, maintenance support and spare availability. The Army’s experience with the first batch is likely to shape follow-on acceptance, deployment tempo and confidence in the remaining units due by August.
XRP held near $1.22 on Tuesday, stabilising after a bruising sell-off as extreme bearish commentary around the token began drawing attention from traders looking for a contrarian rebound. The token’s sideways move followed a modest recovery of about 4 per cent over the past week, a gain that stood out against a cautious wider cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin and Ether also traded firmer, but investor conviction remained fragile […]
BingX has launched a stock-focused trading campaign with a prize pool of more than $1m, stepping up its attempt to draw crypto users into global equity-linked markets through a single multi-asset platform. The Stock Trading Carnival runs from 15 June to 4 July 2026 and is positioned as the third edition of the exchange’s Global Capital Gala series. The campaign allows eligible users to share rewards by […]
Arabian Post Staff -Dubai Red Sea Global has opened Four Seasons Resort and Residences AMAALA at Triple Bay, bringing the developer’s second flagship destination into operation and adding a major luxury wellness asset to Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea tourism corridor. The arrival of the first guests at the northwestern coastal property marks the operational start of AMAALA, a planned high-end wellness and lifestyle destination built around Triple […]
Shoppers can stand to win S$10,000 daily exclusively on foodpanda when ordering from Sheng Siong, while enjoying islandwide delivery within an hour
SINGAPORE – Media OutReach Newswire – 16 June 2026 – foodpanda, Singapore’s leading food and grocery delivery platform, today announced a partnership with Sheng Siong, bringing one of the nation’s largest supermarket chains exclusively onto its platform for on-demand grocery delivery.
(From left) Peter Tan, Senior System Architect, Sheng Siong Group; Lin Zi Kai, Director of Customer and Operations, Sheng Siong Group; Lin Ruiwen, Executive Director, Sheng Siong Group; Bhavani Mishra, Managing Director, foodpanda Singapore; Ricky Davda, Head of Marketplace, foodpanda Singapore; and Yingchun Li, Head of Marketing & Growth, foodpanda Singapore, at the launch of foodpanda’s partnership with Sheng Siong
From 22 June 2026, consumers can order more than 12,000 grocery products and household essentials from 43 Sheng Siong outlets islandwide, with plans to progressively onboard more outlets. Orders can be delivered in an hour, bringing Sheng Siong’s signature value and budget-friendly savings straight to the doorstep.
“As grocery delivery becomes part of everyday life for more Singapore households, consumers are looking for trusted brands, competitive prices and the convenience of shopping on their own terms,” said Bhavani Mishra, Managing Director of foodpanda Singapore. “Sheng Siong has earned the trust of generations of Singaporeans, and we are excited to welcome this beloved household brand onto foodpanda. By bringing together Sheng Siong’s trusted value with foodpanda’s convenience, we are making everyday grocery shopping even more accessible for consumers across Singapore.”
The partnership comes as demand for quick-commerce continues to grow in Singapore. foodpanda has seen grocery order frequency increase by 7% since 2023, while the average number of items per order has risen by 8%. This points to a broader shift in shopping habits, with more consumers relying on on-demand delivery not just for last-minute top-ups, but for their regular weekly grocery runs.
Strengthening foodpanda’s grocery ecosystem
Complementing foodpanda’s network of pandamart stores and existing grocery partners, Sheng Siong further strengthens the platform’s grocery offering and expands access to affordable options for Singapore households.
As grocery baskets continue to grow, foodpanda is also investing in fulfilment capabilities to support larger and bulkier orders. This includes a three-wheeler delivery fleet with increased carrying capacity to improve fulfilment efficiency, helping customers receive their weekly essentials quickly and reliably.
Through the partnership, consumers can look forward to:
Access to over 12,000 grocery and household products from Sheng Siong
On-demand doorstep delivery in an hour
Additional perks for pandapro subscribers, including free delivery on applicable orders
Lin Ruiwen, Executive Director, Sheng Siong Group, said,”At Sheng Siong, our focus has always been on providing quality products at competitive prices for Singapore households. As more consumers embrace the convenience of online grocery shopping, partnering with foodpanda allows us to extend that value proposition beyond our physical stores and better serve our consumer’s needs.”
Celebrating the launch with daily S$10,000 giveaways and exclusive savings
To celebrate the partnership, foodpanda and Sheng Siong are rolling out one of foodpanda’s biggest grocery campaigns to date, with S$280,000 total in cash prizes to be won.
From 22 June to 19 July 2026, customers who order from Sheng Siong on foodpanda will stand a chance to win S$10,000 in cash awarded to one winner each day throughout the campaign (terms and conditions apply).
Shoppers can also enjoy exclusive launch discounts on foodpanda, including:
Up to 40% off selected Sheng Siong products
Additional rewards and promotions throughout the campaign period
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About foodpanda Singapore
foodpanda is a leading on-demand delivery platform in Asia dedicated to bringing consumers a wide range of food, groceries and more, quickly and conveniently. Powered by technology and operational excellence, foodpanda is spearheading the growth of quick-commerce (q-commerce) across the region with its network of retail partners, as well as pandamart cloud stores to provide more on-demand options beyond the millions of food delivery options. foodpanda operates across 10 markets in Asia Pacific – Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Pakistan, Taiwan, Philippines, Bangladesh, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. foodpanda is a subsidiary of Delivery Hero, a global leader of the food delivery industry. For more information, visit www.foodpanda.com.
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA – Media OutReach Newswire – 16 June 2026 – Malaysia’s wellness market is moving beyond traditional competition over ingredients, dosage, and pricing toward product-format experience, sustained use, and differentiated innovation. The Global Wellness Consumer & Product Trends Forum 2026 will hold a forum on June 23, 2026, in Kuala Lumpur. Under the theme “Defining the Next Generation of Health Industry,” the event will bring together Malaysian trade associations, leading distribution channels, and Taiwanese R&D teams to jointly explore market opportunities.
As a core component, James Pereira, general manager of MADSA, will share insights on Malaysian health industry regulations. Adrian Toh, CEO & Executive Director of R Pharmacy, will provide frontline retail channel observations regarding shifting consumer demands. Alex Liao, General Manager of Welbloom Bio-Tech, will represent Taiwan to share how format innovation effectively responds to brand differentiation, consumption experiences, and market compliance needs.
Faced with brands’ attention toward differentiated experiences, Welbloom Bio-Tech will showcase its proprietary, Halal-certified FRESH-Jelly® technology on-site, demonstrating the innovative application to make supplements more food-like. Through ingredient payload capacities, zero- or low-sugar designs, and customized flavor development, FRESH-Jelly® allows supplements to maintain functionality while becoming more enjoyable to consume regularly, providing Malaysian brands with a distinctive option beyond capsules and tablets.
With the rapid rise of Malaysia’s wellness consumer market, its mature distribution channels and exceptional potential for regional expansion are accelerating the country’s growth as a critical hub for the Southeast Asian health industry. Welbloom Bio-Tech states that this forum is a bridging platform connecting Taiwan’s manufacturing capabilities with Malaysian market insights, aiming to unlock commercially viable partnerships for both regions.
The event is organized by The PAGE, co-organized by Welbloom Bio-Tech and SEAbizs, and supported by NTBSA, MATRADE, R Pharmacy, and MADSA.
【Event Information】 Time: June 23, 2026, 09:30 – 14:00 Venue: The Zenith – Connexion Conference & Event Centre, Kuala Lumpur
Hashtag: #WelbloomBioTech
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About Welbloom Bio-Tech
Welbloom Bio-Tech focuses on health supplement R&D, manufacturing, and dosage form innovation. Through forward-looking market foresight and robust R&D technologies, it provides one-stop services from formulation design and flavor development to manufacturing, assisting clients in Malaysia and Singapore to build highly competitive health supplements.
Abdullah Ibrahim, the South African pianist and composer whose spare, meditative sound carried Cape Town’s musical memory into the global jazz canon, has died in Germany at the age of 91 after a short illness. The musician, born Adolph Johannes Brand in Cape Town in 1934 and known early in his career as Dollar Brand, became one of the defining cultural figures of the anti-apartheid era. His […]
Rise vGPU + ModelHub Power China’s AI into the Heterogeneous Orchestration Era
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 15 June 2026 – Frost & Sullivan, a globally renowned growth consulting firm, has released its “2026 AI Infrastructure Orchestration Platform White Paper”. The report recognizes Phancy Group’s Rise vGPU as a Tier 1 Leading Platform, the highest maturity tier in heterogeneous GPU orchestration. Phancy’s ModelHub also achieved the highest Overall Score in the enterprise-grade model management platform evaluation. This marks a significant endorsement of Phancy’s technological capability in heterogeneous AI infrastructure.
According to the white paper, as large model applications scale rapidly, China’s AI industry is facing structural challenges stemming from multi-chip coexistence. These include hardware heterogeneity, fragmented software stacks, persistently low GPU utilization (generally below 30%), and rising model adaptation complexity — all of which have become major bottlenecks for enterprise-scale AI deployment.
The report highlights a fundamental shift in AI infrastructure competitiveness – moving away from “single-chip performance” toward “cluster-scale system coordination.” At this critical juncture, Phancy has positioned itself as a leader in advanced orchestration through its full-stack AI infrastructure platform, offering a proven solution to heterogeneous compute challenges and helping drive China’s AI industry from “compute accumulation” into a new era of “compute orchestration.”
Phancy Rise vGPU: Tier 1 Leading Platform
In its assessment of mainstream AI infrastructure platforms, Frost & Sullivan defined Tier 1 criteria across three core dimensions: heterogeneous support, fine-grained control, and production-grade execution. Phancy Rise vGPU meets all three standards and has been recognized as a Tier 1 Leading Platform.
Rise vGPU transforms AI infrastructure from fragmented, low-efficiency device-level management to a unified software-defined control plane. Its key technology breakthroughs include:
Comprehensive Heterogeneous Management: Unified onboarding and management across more than 10 mainstream GPU/NPU vendors, including NVIDIA, Ascend, Cambricon, Hygon, and others.
Significant Utilization Improvement: Through safe oversubscription and time/space multiplexing, GPU utilization is increased from industry averages below 30% to 70%-90%.
Intelligent Precision Scheduling: Multi-dimensional scheduling algorithms based on priority, topology, load, and resource awareness to achieve optimal compute allocation.
Production-Grade SLA Assurance: The Deterministic Execution Layer delivers committed and auditable SLA guarantees for critical inference workloads.
Full Lifecycle Operability: Comprehensive monitoring, metering, and cost allocation capabilities that turn GPU resources into truly operable digital assets.
Model Hub: Highest Overall Score in Model Management Platform Evaluation
Beyond compute orchestration, the report underscores the strategic importance of enterprise-grade model management platforms. As a powerful complement to Rise vGPU, Phancy ModelHub enables enterprises to build a complete full-stack AI infrastructure — from compute to models and from resource scheduling to business delivery.
The white paper notes that Phancy ModelHub delivers leading performance in key areas such as Model & Chip Compatibility, Execution Stability & Performance, and Model-GPU Coordination & Scheduling, achieving the highest Overall Score. Through its unified model management and execution platform, ModelHub creates a seamless closed-loop process covering model onboarding, deployment optimization, inference services, and version governance — significantly lowering the barrier to model deployment and accelerating AI innovation.
Dr. Dai Wenyuan, Founder & CEO of Phancy, said: “The Frost & Sullivan white paper accurately captures the inflection point in AI infrastructure development. The recognition of Rise vGPU as a Tier 1 Leading Platform and ModelHub’s top Overall Score provide important authoritative validation of Phancy’s technology strategy and product strength. As a full-stack AI cloud service platform, Phancy believes the next wave of competitiveness in the AI industry will come from systematic improvements in compute orchestration efficiency. We will continue to focus on heterogeneous compute unified scheduling and model ecosystem operations, working closely with customers and industry partners to advance China’s AI industry from ‘compute accumulation’ to a true ‘compute orchestration’ era.”
Hashtag: #PhancyGroup
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About Phancy Group
Phancy Group (6682.HK) is a leading full-stack AI cloud services platform, providing comprehensive solutions for the AI 2.0 era. Our offerings include Rise vGPU, ModelHub and SageAIOS, delivering efficient and scalable AI infrastructure with end-to-end capabilities. We provide a complete solution from heterogeneous compute resource management and optimization to the deployment of intelligent agent models. These solutions empower digital transformation across a wide range of industries, supporting our vision of building a large-scale and efficient “Token Factory.”
Guided by the mission of “AI for Everyone” and positioned as the “Navigator of AI,” Phancy Group is committed to becoming a global leader in Artificial General Intelligence.
Arabian Post Staff -Dubai DMCC has rolled out a business acceleration package aimed at lowering costs, freeing cash flow and giving companies in its 26,000-plus member ecosystem more room to expand as competition for global trade and investment intensifies. The initiative offers licence renewal incentives, penalty waivers, administrative flexibility and set-up discounts for new entrants, positioning the Dubai business district to support established firms and companies weighing […]
SHANGHAI, CHINA – Media OutReach Newswire – 15 June 2026 – ACE ROBOTICS today announced that its open-source Kairos world model has achieved leading results across four global embodied-intelligence benchmarks: RoboTwin 2.0, LIBERO-Plus, WorldModelBench Robot and DreamGen. Kairos ranked first among evaluated world models and vision-language-action (VLA) systems on these benchmarks’ public leaderboards as of 12 June 2026, leading across the core capabilities of embodied intelligence, including complex robotic manipulation, scene-level generalization, physical-world modeling and zero-shot transfer. The project is openly available on GitHub, Hugging Face and ModelScope, giving researchers and developers a public reference point for the model, benchmark results and technical materials.
Tops Four Leading Benchmarks in World Generation & Prediction
Embodied intelligence faces a fundamental challenge: generalization. A robot must operate reliably in environments it has never seen, adapting to new lighting, layouts, objects, embodiments and noisy real-world conditions. While VLA models have become a prevailing approach by directly mapping perception and language inputs to robot actions, ACE ROBOTICS believes world models offer a more scalable path by explicitly learning the underlying dynamics of the physical world and predicting how environments evolve. Kairos is designed to validate that approach.
Leading scene-level generalization on LIBERO-Plus
One of Kairos’ most significant results comes from LIBERO-Plus, a scene-level generalization benchmark proposed by the Shanghai Innovation Institute with Fudan University, Tongji University and the National University of Singapore. It evaluates robustness under seven real-world variables: camera angle, robot embodiment, language instruction, lighting, background, sensor noise and spatial layout.
Kairos achieved an overall score of 89.0, ranking first among all evaluated world models and VLA systems. It surpassed leading VLA models including ACoT-VLA (88.0), Pi 0.5 (85.7) and ProGAL-VLA (85.5), as well as the Being-H0.7 world model (84.8). It also showed strong environmental robustness, with near-ceiling performance on lighting (97.7), noise (96.8) and background (95.8), and ranked highly on camera angle and language instruction.
According to ACE ROBOTICS, this marks the first time a world-model approach has outperformed leading VLA systems on LIBERO-Plus for scene-level generalization, pointing to a path where robots adapt to homes, factories, retail spaces and other environments with far less environment-specific retraining.
A compact model with strong physical modeling efficiency
On WorldModelBench Robot, a physical-modeling benchmark proposed by researchers from UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, NVIDIA and MIT, Kairos-4B achieved an overall score of 9.30, ranking first on the benchmark. With only 4 billion parameters, it outperformed larger systems including 28-billion-parameter Lingbot, 16-billion-parameter Cosmos 3, 14-billion-parameter Abot-PhysWorld and 5-billion-parameter Wan 2.2, setting a new record for parameter efficiency in embodied world models.
Kairos matched the top instruction-following score (2.36) of the 16-billion-parameter Cosmos 3 with about one quarter of the parameters, a fourfold efficiency gain. It scored 4.96 on physics adherence, with perfect marks on Newtonian mechanics and gravity, and a perfect score on temporal quality, reflecting strong temporal consistency and visual continuity over long horizons.
A unified architecture, not a modular pipeline
ACE ROBOTICS attributes Kairos’ performance to its native unified “multi-modal understanding-generation-prediction” architecture. Unlike modular approaches that stitch together separate components for world understanding, generation and prediction, Kairos integrates these within a single backbone that shares one global world state, reducing the information loss and coordination latency between modules for more consistent physical modeling, stronger long-horizon prediction and more reliable action planning.
ACE ROBOTICS first introduced this architecture in December 2025, and the broader industry is now converging on a similar path: NVIDIA’s Cosmos 3.0, introduced in 2026, adopts a comparable single-system design that brings vision reasoning, world generation and action prediction into one architecture. Built on this foundation, Kairos-4B is, in ACE ROBOTICS’ description, the first embodied world model able to drive a physical robot directly on-device, closing the perception-to-action loop without intermediate translation latency.
Leading on synthetic data transfer and complex robot manipulation
Kairos also ranked first on DreamGen Bench, a benchmark led by NVIDIA with the University of Washington, UC Berkeley and UCLA that measures how well synthetic data generated by world models transfers to unseen objects, behaviors and environments, a key predictor of downstream robot-training value. Kairos ranked first on both average physics adherence (AVG_PA 0.538) and overall average score (AVG_Score 0.618), and led globally on new-behavior execution and new-environment adaptation.
On RoboTwin 2.0, a demanding dual-arm manipulation benchmark proposed by Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the University of Hong Kong with Shanghai AI Laboratory, Kairos scored 96.1% — a state-of-the-art result on the benchmark’s public leaderboard as of 12 June 2026. Across the benchmark’s 50 complex two-arm tasks it scored 96.9% in clean scenarios and 95.2% in randomized scenarios, ahead of VLA models such as G0.5 (93.2) and starVLA (88.3) and world models including AIM (93.1), Fast-WAM (91.8) and MotuBrain (96.0).
From benchmark leadership to commercial deployment
Together, these results validate Kairos’ technical direction across the core dimensions of embodied intelligence, from physical-rule understanding and zero-shot generalization to environmental robustness and fine-grained dual-arm manipulation, supporting ACE ROBOTICS’ aim to move robots beyond task imitation toward physical-world understanding, long-horizon reasoning and real-world execution.
The results come as ACE ROBOTICS accelerates commercialization. The company says it has raised several hundred million U.S. dollars across financing rounds in the first half of 2026, including a recent Angel+ round backed by investors such as Geely Capital, Dachen Caizhi, Shenzhen Capital Group and the Shanghai Sci-Tech Innovation Fund, with existing shareholder SenseTime’s Guoxiang Capital increasing its stake. The proceeds will support continued world-model research and integrated hardware-software solutions for sectors including smart retail, security and inspection, tourism and hospitality.
“Embodied intelligence is the next era of AI, and a world model is the key to unlocking it,” said Wang Xiaogang, Chairman of ACE ROBOTICS. “Our mission is to give every robot a capable brain.”
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About ACE ROBOTICS – Equipping robots with intelligent “brains” and engaging “souls”
ACE ROBOTICS is a pioneering robotics company dedicated to advancing the field of embodied intelligence. Through breakthrough technological innovations and deep insights into embodied intelligence scenarios, we aim to empower robots with the ability to autonomously understand and explore the physical world, thereby accelerating their commercial implementation.
The company pioneered the ACE R&D paradigm and built a vision-based “environmental data engine, real-world cognition, embodied interaction generalization” technology chain. Using full spatiotemporal and multi-perspective environmental capture as its engine, along with Kairos 3.0 – China’s first open-source and commercially applicable world model – plus the Embodied Foundation Model as its technical backbone, ACE ROBOTICS addresses core industry challenges such as data scarcity, common sense gaps, poor generalization, and limited versatility. Simultaneously, the company unveiled its flagship A1 Embodied Super Brain Module, accelerating the large-scale commercial deployment of embodied intelligence across diverse scenarios.
ACE ROBOTICS is both a technology pioneer and an ecosystem builder. Through strategic cooperation with top hardware manufacturers, cloud service providers, and vertical scenario partners, we have broken through the “model-hardware-scenario” industrial deadlock, providing standardized and customized solutions that are driving the development of China’s embodied intelligence industry.
By K Raveendran The promise of a ‘great settlement’ from President Trump has been enough to pull oil prices lower, calm equity markets and revive hopes that the Strait of Hormuz may return to normal traffic. Yet it shows how fragile the relief remains. A diplomatic opening can move prices in an instant, but a […]
Arabian Post Staff -Dubai The UAE has firmly rejected allegations that money was moved from the country to Iran, including claims involving as much as $3bn, saying no frozen Iranian assets have been released, transferred or facilitated through its territory. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said reports carried by unnamed international media outlets were “entirely false and unfounded”. The statement followed accounts suggesting that funds linked to […]
Nintendo has reintroduced purchase checks for the multi-language version of the Switch 2 in Japan after detecting orders suspected of bulk buying, adding a fresh layer of control to one of the year’s most sought-after gaming devices. The Kyoto-based company temporarily halted sales of the Nintendo Switch 2 Multi-Language System on its official Nintendo Store and said future purchases would be limited to accounts showing at least […]
OpenAI has shut down two China-linked ChatGPT account clusters that it says tried to manipulate US debates over artificial intelligence infrastructure, tariffs and technology policy, with one campaign generating posts and cartoons that blamed data centres for higher electricity bills. The San Francisco-based company said the accounts were used to produce social media comments, comic strips, slogans and political cartoons for apparent covert influence operations. The activity […]
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