Latest news with #Vikki
Bangkok Post
27-06-2025
- Business
- Bangkok Post
Vietnam's Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao Urges Ethical AI Future
Bangkok, June 26, 2025 – The 3rd UNESCO Global Forum on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, held from 24–27 June in Bangkok, brought together over 800 leaders, experts, and scholars from UNESCO's 194 member states to explore ethical frameworks for the future of AI. UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay opened the forum by emphasising how AI is reshaping the way we live, work, and connect. She described the moment as pivotal in human history and called for collective reflection guided by shared values. Azoulay reaffirmed UNESCO's commitment to global cooperation and expressed hope that the forum would serve as a milestone in establishing ethical AI standards that leave no one behind. Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, in her opening address, reiterated Thailand's dedication to building an ethical and inclusive AI future and urged global leaders to ensure AI delivers lasting and sustainable benefits for all. Representing Vietnam, Dr Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao—Chairwoman of Sovico Group and Vietjet Air—joined a high-level panel to discuss the role of policy, innovation, and technology in serving the public good. 'I come here today not only as a businesswoman leading a global airline and digital bank, and not only as a PhD in automation—but first and foremost as a mother,' Dr Thao began. 'A mother who believes that technology must be designed to serve humanity and to create a fairer, more inclusive world for the next generation.' She described how millions of Vietjet passengers have taken flight for the first time to access better opportunities in education, healthcare, and employment. Through Vikki, her group's digital banking platform, rural women and students in remote areas have gained access to financial services that transformed their lives. 'AI must be a tool for equity,' Dr Thao stated. 'It should provide universal access to education, healthcare, and finance. Its development must be rooted in the well-being of society and the common good.' She continued: 'We must begin with people—upholding equality based on dignity and the right to happiness, regardless of income, gender, background, or education. In the age of AI, I believe there is no difference between myself—a billionaire—and a tuk-tuk driver or an ordinary citizen on the street.' Calling for a broader vision of AI, Dr Thao said: 'We must go beyond seeing AI as a mere tool. It must become a commitment—one that always returns to the heart of humanity, guided by compassion, integrity, and a shared aspiration for a fairer world.' Dr Thao also called for global collaboration to establish an inclusive vision for AI rooted in trust and human-centred ethics. She pledged financial and operational support for international initiatives, including the proposed Fair Data Fund—a mechanism to provide transparent, unbiased, and multilingual data to train AI systems, especially in developing countries. 'Policies must prioritise vulnerable communities. No one should be left behind due to gender, geography, or circumstance,' she said. 'I urge this forum to expand policymaking spaces for women, girls, and marginalised groups—not just as recipients, but as co-creators of our digital future.' Dr Thao concluded by affirming that she and her companies—Vietjet, HDBank, Vikki Bank, among others—remain committed to building a future where AI is not only intelligent, but also compassionate. A longstanding partner of UNESCO and the United Nations, Dr Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao has supported initiatives in education, culture, science, and the empowerment of women and children. Her remarks at the forum reflect a clear and consistent message: that ethical leadership, grounded in human values, is essential in shaping the next era of technology.
Daily Mail
26-06-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
MY LIFE IN A GARDEN by Carl Gorham: Nature? It will ruin your garden
MY LIFE IN A GARDEN by Carl Gorham (Ireton Press £8.99, 272pp) What could be more relaxing and fulfilling than a spot of gardening? Fresh air, plants, birdsong, the hum of a lawnmower . . . no wonder barely an episode of Gardeners' World goes by without Monty Don earnestly assuring us that 'gardening is good for your mental health'. Yet the reality is that gardening can also be intensely frustrating and disappointing. Plants get eaten by slugs, weeds abound, and your carefully nurtured seedlings mysteriously wither and die. So it's refreshing to read a memoir which, while centred around the restoration of a garden, is written by someone who just can't see the point of gardening. 'You make something beautiful in a garden and nature ruins it,' Carl Gorham grouses. Far from being a healing interaction with the natural world, he regards working in the garden as 'a dour, repetitive series of mucky jobs'. He is so uninterested in gardening that when he lived for several years in a flat in south London which had two burned mattresses in the front garden, it didn't occur to him to move them. Yet in 2005 he became the owner of a house in Norfolk which had a three-acre garden with 'hedges, beds, shrubs, plants, a sunken valley, a beech maze, a firepit and nine lawns'. He and his wife Vikki had bought the property on impulse, swept away by images of growing their own vegetables, holding parties in the garden, and sleeping under the stars on summer nights. Owning a place like this was a sign of their confidence in the future: Vikki had endured years of treatment for cancer and was now apparently in remission. Sadly, she died suddenly, two years after they acquired the house. From then on, Gorham faced one challenge after another. Not only was he struggling with his grief and raising his young daughter, he also had to cope with the death of his mother, his own battle with cancer and then a nervous breakdown. Not surprisingly, the garden was neglected and became 'a creeping, gloomy presence reaching out in all directions like an invading army'. Eventually he and his new partner, Emma, decided the house was unaffordable and would have to be let. Gorham was put in charge of restoring the garden, and it's his account of his bungling attempts to knock it into shape that is the heart of this warm, funny and sometimes very moving book. He mines plenty of wry humour from his struggles with the garden, which he views as 'a disobedient child I've been put in charge of and am having no luck in pacifying'. But as he toils over the weed-infested paths and the bramble-choked borders, he comes to realise that, despite his lack of knowledge, the garden has sustained him through 15 years of ups and downs. Gradually, he makes his peace with it. He and the garden are 'like two old lags who've set aside past differences and agreed to work together on a final job'.
Metro
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
We would never have got together if our partners hadn't died
Standing in our hotel room in Colchester, my girlfriend Emma and I should have been excited for our weekend break. Unfortunately, she was in tears instead. Something I'd said on the journey earlier had clearly upset her and while I can't remember the exact words I used, I do know that it concerned my previous partner and how she did things 'differently' when dealing with close family. Bringing up, let alone comparing, a former lover to your new partner is taboo for any relationship for this exact reason. But for us it was a bit more complex… Emma and I are both widowed. Emma's husband had died of a brain tumour in 2006 and I lost my wife Vikki to breast cancer a year after that. So, though we never mean it to, sometimes the past has a habit of coming back to haunt the present. Love had been the furthest thing from both our minds when our paths crossed in 2008. In fact, it happened completely by chance. Our children were in the same class at school, and we initially met at her daughter's birthday party. Our first conversation was very direct – we talked about other people's reactions to grief and we seemed to click straight away. Love reading juicy stories like this? Need some tips for how to spice things up in the bedroom? Sign up to The Hook-Up and we'll slide into your inbox every week with all the latest sex and dating stories from Metro. We can't wait for you to join us! I really liked her – she seemed clever, funny and fearless – and I thought she was gorgeous, too. I could immediately envisage a deeper relationship – it really was in that instant – but I dismissed it because it seemed too easy. How could a lovely, amazing woman who understood me, be a widow, too? On reflection though, it was my own cynicism and confidence that was the problem. After having a tough time for so long, I had to allow myself to accept that something wonderful could happen to me again, that I truly deserved a new and happy life. When we finally did get together, other people were so clearly pleased at our 'Hollywood ending' that they'd take me aside at parties to express how delighted they were. Of course, we were happy too. While grief was obviously a large part of what brought us together in the first place, we were also wrapped up in the newness of the relationship. It was such a relief just to share with someone again, have fun, be normal – simple things like going to the cinema, enjoying coastal walks, playing board games with the kids – it was all such a change after years of hospital treatments, scans and test results; of feeling like your life was on a permanent cliff edge. And yes, it helped that she and I both understood each other in a way our friends and family couldn't – there was nothing wrong with that, on the contrary, it was great. We knew what it felt like getting through those painful early anniversaries – the birthdays and Christmases. We understood how it felt to just get up on an average day and for no apparent reason, feel the sudden crushing weight of loss again. However, a year or so in, an agitating, niggling voice began to rear its head. From there, the inevitable complications, doubts, worries, insecurities – which I suppose had always been there – became more prominent. Was our attraction just a smokescreen? Did we really share more than tragedy and pain and a pretty good feel for the relative merits of oak versus oak-and-copper funeral caskets? Or was death such a big part of our relationship it was all we really had in common? In both cases it wasn't our choice to end our relationships with our previous partners, so how could we ever properly love a new partner when we'd never decided to stop loving the previous one? Then there was the fact that, though we avoided the untidiness and sense of bitterness that clouds some divorces, there was something else just as potent that we had to contend with: The deification of the deceased. You can't compete with a dead person. They don't make mistakes and it's a natural tendency to edit the past – the untidy bits, the poor bits – to paint those gone in a rosy hue somewhere in the region of perfection, and that's exactly what I did in that moment of thoughtlessness in that Colchester hotel room. My Life in a Garden: Love, Loss and Mulch: A Single Dad Seeks Answers in Nature by Carl Gorham (Ireton Press, £8.99) and available from all good book retailers Thankfully, I recognised what I'd done immediately and apologised, and she accepted and we moved past it. One of the things that we've both carried forward from our shared past is the inability to hold grudges. To this day, Emma and I rarely argue and, if we do, one of us stops it almost instantly – not because we're saints but because after everything we've been through, we know this time together is so precious and we'd rather not waste it. That's one of the reasons why in the end we haven't let our double bereavement overwhelm us. That, and the fact that there is so much more to our relationship than our common experience of losing a partner. We make each other happy. We make each other laugh. We're interested in each other, engaged by each other. We miss each other when we're apart. More Trending So, while it's true we wouldn't have got together if our partners hadn't died, we also certainly wouldn't have survived this long if we hadn't shared a lot more. In fact, our relationship, far from being weakened or undermined by our shared history, has in some ways, been strengthened by it. We have a better perspective when everyday things go wrong; we have a sort of measure against which we assess things and once you've looked on helplessly while your partner slips away, it turns out that bar ends up being pretty high. Life is very short, and we don't want to let any more of it slip by. We want to live. We want to flourish. We want to have fun. And that, for everyone, whether widowed or not, is surely the ultimate goal. Do you have a story you'd like to share? Get in touch by emailing Share your views in the comments below. MORE: Map reveals UK areas with highest rates of erectile dysfunction MORE: I was burned by 'check-in chicken' – heed my warning MORE: I'm desperate to lose my virginity but have a panic attack whenever I come close Your free newsletter guide to the best London has on offer, from drinks deals to restaurant reviews.
RTÉ News
18-06-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Nadine Doherty: Vikki Wall being held to a 'different standard' by refereeing calls
Former Donegal footballer Nadine Doherty feels Meath's two-time All-Ireland winner Vikki Wall is held to a "different standard" to her peers when it comes to refereeing decisions. Speaking to RTÉ's Game On, Doherty highlighted Wall's sin-binning in Meath's 0-07 to 0-04 win over Kildare and felt the decision was harsh on the 27-year-old, with the yellow card incurred in the 44th minute when she was adjudged to have fouled Claire Sullivan. "The biggest talking point in that game was Vikki Wall's sin-bin. It wasn't a sin-bin for me," said Doherty. "I just felt that Vikki had the ball, she was at full pace which is a lot of pace but that's her strength, so she can't be punished for that. "And the Kildare player came across her, very clearly put two hands up to Vikki's chest. Vikki saw this late, turned her shoulder to protect herself as you would and straight away I knew she'd get a sin-bin, and you could see she was dumbfounded, as was everybody." Doherty feels that has not been an isolated occurrence and feels the player has been incurring more on-field punishment than has been warranted by the way she plays the game. "It just angers me to be honest because she's one of our top players," she said. "Look, Vikki is attritional, she has a lot of pace. Does she commit fouls? Of course she does. "But I just feel she's held to a higher standard. Not even a higher standard but a different standard when it comes to the majority of referees in this country. "I just think she's one of our top players, who has come home from AFL. She could easily have stayed out there (in Australia) for a year. "She has come home, back into that Meath team, she's upping the standard of our game and I just don't understand how week after week these calls are made against her." While she viewed Wall's sin-binning as "simply a bad call", Doherty did distinguish that from the wider issue of the charging rule in women's football. "I just think the charge rule is outdated. I don't know why it's in our game. Is it to keep our game and I put this in inverted commas, a 'non-contact sport' game? "The game isn't non-contact. It's full-contact, it's a physical game. I don't see the point of (the charge rule) because it actually puts refs in positions where sometimes I feel they don't actually know what the right call is. They might argue that. "Because it's such split-second tackles, it's all in the moment. But I just think at the weekend that Vikki was punished and shouldn't have been and I just think over the last few years, she's held to a different standard in that regard. "And teams also play into that. You can see it. When Vikki has the ball and she's at full tilt, teams play into it and sometimes that's the only way they can stop her is to draw a charge." Follow a live blog on the All-Ireland Football Championship on Saturday and Sunday on and the RTÉ News app. Listen to updates on Saturday Sport and Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1. Watch highlights on The Saturday Game at 9.15pm and The Sunday Game from 9.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player.
Daily Mail
16-06-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
I'm a tired mum of two and was looking exhausted. A $20 buy has given me my best ever skin, I can't believe the difference
A busy Sydney mum has shared how an affordable beauty buy transformed her skin taking it from lacklustre and dull to glowing and hydrated in a matter of weeks. Vikki felt she was looking exhausted thanks to running after two kids under three, and wanted a nourishing product to address fine lines and wrinkles as well as offer intense hydration. The designer and photographer trialled the new Skin Physics Anti-Ageing Intensive Hydration Serum, which launched just last month and after just four weeks of using the product daily she's been left with her 'best ever skin'. The potent product $39.95 which is currently on sale for just $19.97 in the brand's 50 per cent sitewide EOFY sale, addresses signs of ageing by offering skin intense hydration and works to improve firmness and elasticity dramatically improving the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. Vikki told Daily Mail Australia: 'My skin felt so dry and dehydrated, my lines appeared more visible and after years of sleepless nights with my babies, life was definitely taking its toll. My simple skincare routine wasn't working, I knew I needed something more hardworking.' After using the Skin Physics Anti-Ageing Intensive Hydration Serum for just two days, Vikki said: ' I woke up and couldn't believe that I looked noticeably more rested and refreshed, despite having my usual broken sleep.' The hydrating serum contains 15 per cent WrinFix-Px, an ingredient which boasts an active compound derived from xylitol, known for its skin-rejuvenating properties. The potent ingredient enhances the production of collagen and enhances overall skin structure. The nourishing formula also contains collagen promoting ingredients, including rice extract and soluble collagen, to help improve firmness and elasticity and hyaluronic acid providing incredible hydration and enhancing water retention in the skin. Although Vikki noticed an immediate difference after using the serum for a few days, after a few weeks she was 'blown away' by the difference. Mum Vikki trialled the new Skin Physics Anti-Ageing Intensive Hydration Serum and after just four weeks of using the product daily she's been left with her 'best ever skin' 'After a few weeks of using the serum I can see that my lines have faded and my forehead looks smooth. I'm genuinely so impressed with the change,' Vikki said. 'After three weeks of use, I think my skin looks so good, my best ever skin. I can't believe the difference. I feel like I don't need any makeup or other products, I just do my eyebrows and off I go.' The serum, which is free from fragrance, parabens, alcohol and silicones has already attracted a number of rave reviews from happy customers. One shopper who gave the product a five star review said: 'This serum is a hydration game changer! My skin feels instantly plumper and smoother, and after a few weeks, I noticed reduced fine lines and better elasticity. Love that it's fragrance-free and gentle on my sensitive skin. A must-try for anyone targeting dryness and signs of aging!' Another said: 'Love this product especially before bed. It hydrates and plumps my face - I wake up feeling supple still the next morning!! Highly recommend!' 'After a few weeks of using the serum I can see that my lines have faded and my forehead looks smooth. I'm genuinely so impressed with the change,' Vikki said. The Anti-Ageing Intensive Hydration Serum is one of three new serums that were launched by the brand last month alongside the Skin Physics Repairing Phyto Serum and the Discolouration Serum, with the trio addressing a myriad of the most common concerns. The Repairing Phyto Serum is suitable for sensitive or irritated skin and is a calming, nourishing serum formulated to enhance the skin barrier and improve hydration. Harnessing extracts of olive leaf, cucumber fruit, morus alba root, and eucalyptus leaf, the Repairing Phyto Serum 's formula boasts antioxidant protection to promote skin repair and to reduce pigmentation and redness. Skin is hydrated thanks to hero ingredient Hyaluronic Acid, while Ectoin shields the skin from environmental damage. Vikki, pictured with her daughter, saw an immediate difference but said she was impressed with the results after using the serum after several weeks The Repairing serum has also become a fan favourite attracting plenty of praise from happy customers who say it's a great option for irritated winter skin. 'It's a beautiful barrier-supporting serum that's become a staple in my skincare lineup - especially now with the cooler weather. Highly recommend if you're looking for something calming, hydrating, and suitable for sensitive skin,' one shopper said. Another raved: 'Love this product. I have sensitive skin and these serums have worked wonderfully for me. Great ingredients, lightweight and absorbs well. Easy to use with my other products.' Finally, the Skin Physics Discolouration Serum is the last in the trio and it is is formulated to target uneven skin tone and discolouration for a more radiant complexion. The high-performance serum uses melanin-reducing Tranexamic Acid for dark spot correction, while brightening Alpha-Arbutin targets pigmentation and sun damage, and Niacinamide works to reduce hyperpigmentation and even skin tone. Exfoliating agent HEPES gently buffs and smooths the skin, while speeding up cell renewal, and also boosts the efficacy of the formulation by allowing the ingredients to penetrate the skin at a deeper level. With only five star reviews from thrilled customers plenty of shoppers have shared their thoughts on the serum. One reviewer shared: 'I have sun damage pigmentation and have tried many different products however saw a difference with this serum. It has really helped to lift it in just 14 days of use, I've also noticed a difference in my skin texture.' Another, who said they were 'obsessed' with the product said: 'What sets this serum apart in my opinion is its ability to tackle stubborn pigmentation. I had a few dark patches that hadn't budged in months, but this serum gradually lightened them without irritation. My skin tone now looks more balanced, and I've even received compliments about how 'glowy' my skin looks without makeup.' The newest trio for Skin Physics comes after the brand built a loyal following as a cosmeceutical skincare brand renowned for its science-backed, results-driven formulations. The brand's award-winning Oxygen-C 15% Vitamin C + Ferulic Acid buy, has been labelled as the 'holy grail' of skincare. The brand, which launched in 2007, has more than 2000 rave reviews on Trustpilot, with an average 4.7 out five star rating. To shop the trio of serums in the brand's EOFY 50 per cent off sitewide sale, click here.
