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SKorean Pet Care Goes High-tech with AI Diagnostics

This picture taken on July 2, 2024 shows Mozzi, a goldendoodle dog, sitting near a monitor showing its x ray results as it is processed through the 'X Caliber' software to pin point x ray abnormalities in Yongin. (Photo by ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP)
This picture taken on July 2, 2024 shows Mozzi, a goldendoodle dog, sitting near a monitor showing its x ray results as it is processed through the 'X Caliber' software to pin point x ray abnormalities in Yongin. (Photo by ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP)
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SKorean Pet Care Goes High-tech with AI Diagnostics

This picture taken on July 2, 2024 shows Mozzi, a goldendoodle dog, sitting near a monitor showing its x ray results as it is processed through the 'X Caliber' software to pin point x ray abnormalities in Yongin. (Photo by ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP)
This picture taken on July 2, 2024 shows Mozzi, a goldendoodle dog, sitting near a monitor showing its x ray results as it is processed through the 'X Caliber' software to pin point x ray abnormalities in Yongin. (Photo by ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP)

When five-year-old goldendoodle Mozzi started walking "unnaturally,” his concerned owner rushed him to the vet in South Korea, where the problem was diagnosed not by humans but by AI.

South Korea, a global leader in the production of chips that power generative AI, has been quick to embrace novel uses of the technology.

One such application, "X Caliber,” is helping vets pinpoint X-ray abnormalities in seconds, making diagnostics both quicker and easier to explain, Agence France Presse reported.

The AI reading of Mozzi's X-rays showed the curly-haired goldendoodle had a 22 percent chance of knee dislocation. While not an emergency, his condition needed careful management to head off surgery.

"I wouldn't have understood the results if I didn't look at the numbers," said Mo Jae-hyun, Mozzi's owner, adding that the AI program helped him understand his pet's woes.

"Of course, I trust my vet, but looking at the results myself, it seems more credible."

The software's developer, South Korean telecom provider SK Telecom, said X Caliber has a disease detection rate of up to 86 percent.

Vets say it has transformed their ability to diagnose.

"Dogs with heart disease, for example, tend to have enlarged hearts. We use a method called VHS (vertebral heart size), which used to require measuring one by one, manually," Oh I-se, CEO of Sky Animal Medical Group, told AFP.

But now AI can reveal the result in 15 seconds, so it is "much more convenient," Oh said.

SK Telecom considers X Caliber "the beginning of AI healthcare,” said Joo Ye-seul, manager of the software's global team. "We plan further expansion into additional domains based on this."

The service is already available in the United States, Australia and some Southeast Asian countries.

In Indonesia, veterinary hospital owner Kristanya Oen says X Caliber is helping to overcome a lack of expertise and trained staff.

"There is a shortage of radiologists in Indonesian animal hospitals and it is not easy to receive radiology education in Indonesia, so we needed X Caliber to help with our diagnostics," Oen told AFP.

SK Telecom is part of the same conglomerate as SK Hynix, which launched the first high-bandwidth memory chips -- cutting-edge semiconductors that enable faster data processing and the more complex tasks of generative AI.

While many experts are questioning the payoff of lavish AI investments following a recent fall in technology stocks, the conglomerate's CEO Chey Tae-won remains committed.

SK Group must "think fiercely about next-generation products," he told employees this month.

In June, SK Group announced plans to invest 80 trillion won ($60 billion) in AI chips, services and data centers.

In South Korea, where more and more people are turning to "pet parenthood" instead of having children, it is not necessarily surprising that AI healthcare would begin with animals.

In a country with one of the world's lowest birth rates, pet ownership has roughly doubled in the last decade, official figures show.

One in four households now have at least one furry friend, and last year more strollers were sold for pets than for human babies on popular e-commerce platform, Gmarket.

The pet care industry was worth an estimated eight trillion won ($6 billion) in 2022, a fourfold increase compared with five years earlier.

The government aims to double the industry's value by 2027 and is helping support pet food and healthcare businesses through various loans and tax incentives.

Jumping on the trend, South Korean companies are working on new ways of integrating AI into pet care, including "smart toilets" for early detection of urinary diseases and "smart leashes" that monitor pulse and body temperature.

"Devices that can monitor mild to severe diseases in the daily life of pets are expected to expand," said Kim Soo-kyung, a senior manager at the Economic Research Institute in KPMG Korea.

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Varieties

North Korea and China to Resume Passenger Train Service After Six-Year Gap

A North Korean flag flutters from a train believed to be carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as it arrives in Beijing, China, September 2, 2025. (Reuters)
A North Korean flag flutters from a train believed to be carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as it arrives in Beijing, China, September 2, 2025. (Reuters)
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North Korea and China to Resume Passenger Train Service After Six-Year Gap

A North Korean flag flutters from a train believed to be carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as it arrives in Beijing, China, September 2, 2025. (Reuters)
A North Korean flag flutters from a train believed to be carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as it arrives in Beijing, China, September 2, 2025. (Reuters)

South ‌Korea's Unification Ministry said on Tuesday that passenger train services between Pyongyang and Beijing are set to resume this week, marking the end of a six-year suspension caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The resumption restores a critical transport link between North Korea and its primary economic ally, after ‌years of ‌strict border closures that began ‌in ⁠early 2020.

China's state ⁠railway told the Yonhap News Agency that the Pyongyang–Beijing train will begin the round-trip service on March 12, operating four times a week.

Only the last two carriages will ⁠initially carry passengers, mainly diplomats or ‌others on ‌official business, with ticket sales to the general ‌public possible if seats are ‌available, Yonhap quoted a railway official as saying.

North Korea remains closed to most foreign tourism, with limited exceptions largely for ‌Russian tour groups under restricted arrangements, according to travel agencies organizing trips ⁠to ⁠the country.

Before the pandemic, Chinese visitors made up the largest share of foreign tourists to North Korea, the agencies said.

Tour organizers said on Monday that North Korea had cancelled next month's Pyongyang Marathon for unspecified reasons. The race is one of the few events that has been open to international participants in the isolated state.

Varieties

Former Fukushima Worker Devotes Life to Abandoned Pets

This picture taken on March 5, 2026 shows former nuclear plant worker Toru Akama playing with a cat during an interview with AFP at his animal shelter in Namie, Fukushima prefecture. (AFP)
This picture taken on March 5, 2026 shows former nuclear plant worker Toru Akama playing with a cat during an interview with AFP at his animal shelter in Namie, Fukushima prefecture. (AFP)
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Former Fukushima Worker Devotes Life to Abandoned Pets

This picture taken on March 5, 2026 shows former nuclear plant worker Toru Akama playing with a cat during an interview with AFP at his animal shelter in Namie, Fukushima prefecture. (AFP)
This picture taken on March 5, 2026 shows former nuclear plant worker Toru Akama playing with a cat during an interview with AFP at his animal shelter in Namie, Fukushima prefecture. (AFP)

Not far from the Fukushima nuclear disaster site, former plant worker Toru Akama tends to dozens of pets abandoned after the catastrophe 15 years ago, work he sees as part of his quest for redemption.

Meows and barks break the silence of the countryside, once an evacuation zone, as the 63-year-old brings food to the animals left behind when their owners fled the triple disaster of March 11, 2011: earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident.

"It's because of this plant, where we worked for years, that these animals ended up like this," Akama told AFP at his home in northern Japan, surrounded by cats.

"They should have been able to go on living their lives as pets, but because of this accident they were abandoned.

"I felt it was my duty to protect them," he said.

Akama will never forget what he saw in the wake of the disaster, caused by Japan's strongest earthquake on record.

The tsunami it unleashed killed or left missing 18,500 people, and a wall of water crashed into the Fukushima nuclear plant on the northeast coast causing a devastating meltdown.

A day later, residents were ordered to evacuate and an unbroken line of cars formed on the national highway that runs past Akama's house.

"Then the dogs started wandering in search of something to eat -- least those that weren't chained up," he recalled.

"There was no one left, just my wife and me handing out food."

-'Outrage'-

Akama then began taking the animals into his home: first 40 dogs, then 50.

A decade and a half later, he has found adoptive families for more than 1,000 animals and continues to take in new pets who have been abandoned for other reasons.

He says he has "felt outrage" at the pet owners, who have sometimes left their animals in front of his house.

Some "are remorseful, but others simply do it because the animals have become a nuisance", he said.

In difficult moments, "of course... people's priority is human beings, but animals are living beings too, members of the family. It's as if people were abandoning their own children".

After the nuclear disaster, some residents had to flee by bus, and animals were not allowed aboard.

"There were elderly people in tears, asking if someone could take their pet," he recalled.

A month after the disaster Akama also had to leave, but he returned every day for his work at the plant and to look after his charges.

"Because they had known hunger, I absolutely wanted to give them a good life. Sometimes we went without ourselves in order to buy them quality food," he said.

-They 'watch over me'-

Over the past 15 years, Akama says he has spent almost all of the compensation he received after the plant accident on the animals, and he continues to cover most of their care and food costs.

"I don't have time to deal with collections or crowdfunding campaigns," he explained, although he has received some donations.

Akama's days are structured around cleaning the cages where new arrivals spend their first days, feeding, walking the dogs, and taking in new residents, leaving him little respite.

"It never stops. To be honest, I feel like my old job was easier," he said.

"But thanks to them I've never fallen ill: they force me to stay active. Maybe it's their way of thanking me, of watching over me in their own way."

At first, he kept the ashes of the deceased animals in his house, but he eventually had to build a grave outside to hold the remains of around 30 dogs and even more cats, beneath the inscription "rest in peace".

Akama's brother took over his subcontracting business for the plant, allowing him to devote himself full time to the 47 cats and seven dogs with whom he currently shares his life.

"If I'm still able to keep going today, it's because I carry within me the distress these animals experienced. That's what keeps me going."

He would nevertheless like to find a successor.

"That's my biggest concern right now, because I too am starting to get older," he said.

"But I'd like to keep going like this until the end."

Varieties

February Fifth Warmest on Record, Extreme Rain in Europe, Says EU Monitor

The sun rises over Panama Bay in Panama City on March 7, 2026. (AFP)
The sun rises over Panama Bay in Panama City on March 7, 2026. (AFP)
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February Fifth Warmest on Record, Extreme Rain in Europe, Says EU Monitor

The sun rises over Panama Bay in Panama City on March 7, 2026. (AFP)
The sun rises over Panama Bay in Panama City on March 7, 2026. (AFP)

The world logged its fifth hottest February on record, with western Europe drenched by extreme rainfall and widespread flooding, the European Union's climate monitor said on Tuesday.

Global temperatures last month were 1.49C above pre-industrial times, defined as the 1850-1900 period before large-scale fossil fuel use drove climate change.

Temperatures and precipitation varied widely in Europe.

The average temperature in Europe was among the three coldest in the past 14 years at -0.07C.

But western, southern and southeast Europe experienced above-average temperatures, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Colder conditions were experienced in northwest Russia, Baltic countries, Finland and its Scandinavian neighbors.

"Wet and dry conditions across the continent showed a pronounced contrast: much of western and southern Europe was wetter than average, whereas the rest of the continent... was mostly drier than average," the service said in its monthly report.

The United States, northeast Canada, the Middle East, Central Asia and east Antarctica had warmer-than-average temperatures.

- Need for global action -

Sea surface temperatures were the second highest for the month of February.

In the Arctic, the average sea ice extent was at its third lowest level for the month at five percent below average.

In the Antarctic, the monthly sea ice extent was close to average for February -- a "sharp contrast to the much below-average" levels observed over the past four years, Copernicus said.

"The extreme events of February 2026 highlight the growing impacts of climate change and the pressing need for global action," said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which operates Copernicus.

"Europe experienced stark temperature contrasts," Burgess said.

"Exceptional atmospheric rivers -- narrow bands of very moist air -- brought record rainfall and widespread flooding to western and southern Europe," she said.

Human-driven climate change intensified torrential downpours that killed dozens and forced thousands of people from their homes across Spain, Portugal and Morocco between January and February, according to the World Weather Attribution (WWA) network of climate scientists.