Bruce Bentley

SEOUL, Dec 27 (Reuters) - South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said on Tuesday he would advance the creation of a military unit specializing in drones, criticizing the military response to a border intrusion by North Korean drones. Five North Korean drones crossed into South Korea on Monday, prompting Seoul to scramble fighter jets and attack helicopters, and try to shoot them down, in the first such intrusion since 2017. The incident rekindled questions about South Korea's air defenses at a time when it is trying to rein in the North's evolving nuclear and missile threats. The military fired warning shots and some 100 rounds from a helicopter equipped with a machine gun, but failed to bring down any of the drones while they flew over several South Korean cities, including the capital, Seoul, for about five hours. "The incident showed a substantial lack of our military's preparedness and training for the past several years, and clearly confirmed the need for more inten...

CNN — In between being blindfolded, locked in solitary confinement, and interrogated in a wheelchair while she was on a hunger strike following her late September arrest, Negin says she had a realization: Iranian officials were using her private Telegram chats, phone logs and text messages to incriminate her. “They told me 'Do you think you can get out of here alive? We will execute you. Your sentence is death penalty. We have evidence, we are aware of everything,'” said Negin, whose name CNN changed at her request, for her safety. Negin, who says she has been accused by Iranian authorities of running an anti-regime activist group on Telegram (an allegation she denies), said she has “some friends” who were political prisoners. “They put in front of me transcribed printouts of my phone conversations with those friends,” she said, and “questioned me on what my relationship with tho...

The International Space Station is no longer the only place where humans can live in orbit. On Nov. 29, 2022, the Shenzhou 15 mission launched from China's Gobi Desert carrying three taikonauts – the Chinese word for astronauts. Six hours later, they reached their destination, China's recently completed space station, called Tiangong, which means "heavenly palace" in Mandarin. The three taikonauts replaced the existing crew that helped wrap up construction. With this successful mission, China has become just the third nation to operate a permanent space station. China's space station is an achievement that solidifies the country's position alongside the US and Russia as one of the world's top three space powers. As scholars of space law and space policy who led the Indiana University Ostrom Workshop's Space Governance Program, we have been following the development of the Chinese space station with interest. Unlike the collaborative, US-led Inte...

The travel & tourism industry continues to be a hotbed of innovation, with activity driven by a greater desire from consumers for personalized offerings that heighten the traveler experience. Delivering this requires the collection and effective use of large amounts of personal data, which has significant cybersecurity implications. Technologies such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, Internet of Things, and cloud solutions are all growing in importance. In the last three years alone, there have been over 15,000 patents filed and granted in the travel & tourism industry, according to GlobalData's report on Cybersecurity in Travel: Blockchain-based ticketing platforms. According to GlobalData's Technology Foresights, which uses over 21,000 patents to analyze innovation intensity for the travel & tourism industry, there are 20+ innovation areas that will shape the future of the industry. Blockchain-based ticketing platforms is a key innovation a...