Met Gala, also known as the “fashion’s biggest night out”, is an iconic event in the fashion industry. After the cancelation last year due to the coronavirus crisis, the annual gala was postponed from May to September as virus infections showed no signs of slowing down. The Met Gala was first held by Vogue in 1948 to fundraise for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Under the theme of “American Fashion,” the hottest movie stars, models, and numerous inf

SoftBank Group Corp. sold about $1.69 billion worth of its stake in Coupang Inc., the South Korean e-commerce giant whose stock surged and then tumbled after its initial public offering in March. SoftBank sold 57 million shares at $29.685 on Sept. 14, the company said in a statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Japanese company is still Coupang’s largest shareholder. Masayoshi Son has stepped up sales of stakes in his portfolio of public companies in recent months

  The World Bank is canceling a prominent report on business conditions around the world after investigators found staff members were pressured by the bank's leaders to alter data about China and some other governments. The bank said Thursday it would discontinue ``Doing Business'' following an investigation prompted by internal reports of ``data irregularities'' in its 2018 and 2020 editions and possible ``ethical matters'' involving bank staff. Staff members changed data on China to im

VIENNA (AFP) -- Iran and the UN nuclear agency said Sunday they have agreed to allow inspectors to service the agency‘s surveillance equipment as Tehran has restricted access since earlier this year. “IAEA’s inspectors are permitted to service the identified equipment and replace their storage media which will be kept under the joint IAEA and (Iran‘s) AEOI seals in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The way and the timing are agreed by the two sides,” they said in a j

KABUL (AFP) -- Afghan women will be allowed to attend university as long as they study separately from men, the Taliban‘s new higher education minister said Sunday. Women’s rights in Afghanistan were sharply curtailed under the Taliban’s 1996-2001 rule, though since returning to power last month the hardline Islamists have claimed they will implement a less extreme rule. But speaking to reporters about the new regime’s plans for the country‘s education, Minister

HONG KONG (AFP) -- Hong Kong police on Thursday raided a museum that houses exhibits commemorating Beijing‘s deadly crackdown on Tiananmen Square in 1989, a day after they arrested four members of the group that ran the venue. The raid came as police accused one of the four arrestees -- prominent barrister Chow Hang-tung, vice-chairwoman of the group -- of inciting subversion, according to Chow’s lawyers and relatives. Officers from the newly created national security unit w

COLOMBO (AFP) - Sri Lankan women were urged to delay getting pregnant after more than 40 expectant mothers died of Covid-19 in four months, the health ministry said Thursday. 　The island nation, which recorded its first maternal coronavirus death in May, is battling a spike in Delta variant infections after travel restrictions were eased for local new year celebrations in mid-April. 　“Usually, we have 90 to 100 maternal deaths a year, but since the start of the third wave we have record

Hurricane Ida originated from the Caribbean sea on Aug. 26. After drenching Cuba on Aug. 27, Ida made landfall in Louisiana. The hurricane then barreled into New York and New Jersey, causing flash flooding and claiming lives. The National Weather Service in the US announced a “flash flood emergency” in New York City for the first time in history, with Central Park in Manhattan recording 7.9 centimeters of rain in an hour. The hurricane has halted hundreds of flights to New York

　South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor’s electric vehicle sales increased in the first half of the year compared with a year ago, but its global market share fell in the face of toughening competitions with Chinese rivals, industry data showed.  　Hyundai Motor was in sixth place in terms of global EV sales in the January-June period, one notch down from the fifth position a year ago, according to the data by industry tracker SNE Research. 　The automaker’s global EV sales

The Islamic State-Khorasan group claimed a rocket attack Monday on the airport in Afghanistan's capital. "The soldiers of the caliphate targeted Kabul's international airport with six... rockets," the group said in a statement. The rockets fell as US troops were racing to complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan and evacuate allies. President Joe Biden has set a deadline of Tuesday to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan, drawing to a close his nation's longest military conflic

Rockets were fired at Kabul's airport on Monday where US troops were racing to complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan and evacuate allies under the threat of Islamic State group attacks. President Joe Biden has set a deadline of Tuesday to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan, drawing to a close his nation's longest military conflict, which began in retaliation for the September 11 attacks. The return of the hardline Islamist Taliban movement, which was toppled in 2001 but took back pow

　The Taliban now hold the keys to an untouched trillion-dollar trove of minerals including some that could power the world’s transition to renewable energies, but Afghanistan has long struggled to tap its vast deposits. 　The Taliban are already in a financial bind since they returned to power 20 years after their ouster, as major aid donors halted their support for Afghanistan. 　Endless wars and poor infrastructure have prevented the country from getting its hands on the metals that