China says its large economic collaboration program with Pakistan has entered “the stage of early harvest”, making it the “fastest and most effective” among all projects in Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI. President Xi Jinping launched the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, two years ago, during his landmark visit to Islamabad.  Cooperation has since cemented decades-old relations between the traditionally close allies. China is investing about $60 billion on a network of roads, railways, fiber optic cables, energy pipelines, industrial clusters and special economic zones in Pakistan. The …

There are no proven ways to stave off Alzheimer’s, but a new report raises the prospect that avoiding nine key risks starting in childhood just might delay or even prevent about a third of dementia cases around the world. How? It has to do with lifestyle factors that may make the brain more vulnerable to problems with memory and thinking as we get older. They’re such risks as not getting enough education early in life, high blood pressure and obesity in middle age, and being sedentary and socially isolated in …

For the first time in the global AIDS epidemic that has spanned four decades and killed 35 million people, more than half of all those infected with HIV are on drugs to treat the virus, the United Nations said in a report released Thursday. AIDS deaths are also now close to half of what they were in 2005, according to the U.N. AIDS agency, although those figures are based on estimates and not actual counts from countries. Experts applauded the progress, but questioned if the billions spent in the past …