A hand-drawn poster advertising the film "Niu Lai", which translates to "Here Comes the Cow", is seen at a cinema in Beijing on August 21, 2026. "Niu Lai", a low-budget Chinese animated film that was widely mocked for its crude visuals became a viral hit, with people packing cinemas to see just how bad it is. (Photo by Pedro PARDO / AFP via Getty Images)
At least 14 newborn babies have died in a fire that broke out in the maternity ward at one of Pakistan’s most prominent state hospitals.
The blaze began in the early hours of Wednesday and engulfed the ward at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, the biggest state hospital in Islamabad.
After finishing the four-or-so-hour preview build of Metro 2039, the upcoming first-person shooter sequel from Ukrainian developer 4A Games and falling completely in love with it, I reached out to the team to ask some questions about how they've approached the latest entry in their post-apocalyptic franchise – both in terms of the game itself, but also in terms of how their real lives have changed since Russia's invasion of their country in 2022.
Four missing people have been found dead on South Korean holiday island Jeju, as local police face mounting public criticism for allegedly mishandling missing persons cases.
Reports emerged last week that authorities were launching a belated search for a woman reported missing months ago. This sparked criticism of the police for failing to search for her earlier.
Since I’m apparently now RPS’ Radioactive Eastern Europe correspondent, I recently spent a couple of hours in Metro 2039, the gloom ‘n’ grit FPS sequel that Ukrainian developers 4A Games have explicitly styled as a return to the series’ roots. From what I’ve played, it is in fact as much of a hybrid as the mutated shrimp-insects that lurk in its Moscow sewers, reviving the claustrophobic tunnel dwelling of Metros 2033 and Last Light while keeping a few favoured twists from the more freely-roamable Metro Exodus.
Isn't it always the way? You spend so long yearning to leave home, to strike out and make a go of it all by yourself, but the second you step foot out the door you start missing it. All of it. The camaraderie and the rows, the shared meals and the constant, privacy-smothering proximity, and—of course—the mutated beasts from the overland, intent on your complete and utter destruction.
The Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM), the market of the Busan International Film Festival, will present InnoAsia 2026, its program built around the intersection of film and emerging technology.
Metro 2039, very refreshingly, doesn't hold your hand. It throws you straight into the deep end.
Gameplay variety was fantastic during my 3-4 hour hands-on; I was rarely doing the same thing for very long.
Metro 2039 blew me away with its handcrafted hellscapes, intense combat, and attention to detail.
I’ve spent about 3–4 hours with Metro 2039 so far, and it’s already healing me even as the in-game version of me, dubbed The Stranger in this sequel, struggles to breathe through a gas mask whose filters don’t last long, thus requiring me to craft new ones from items scrounged by scouring every last inch of its post-apocalyptic world as the countdown timer on my wristwatch constantly ticks down, threatening to choke me to death if it hits 0:00. In a real world where AI is being shoved down our throats at every corner, from our emails to the customer service reps we interact with, one of my biggest takeaways from Metro 2039 is that even though it’s an apocalypse-ravaged hellscape, every inch of it is very obviously and very painstakingly handcrafted. This franchise always was, of course; this is nothing new.
Ventures Platform has raised an oversubscribed $84 million second fund as the Pan-African venture firm expands beyond its home market of Nigeria with a strategy shaped by a tougher, more selective venture market.
