Ardhitaputri

Let’s get the good news out first: Dua Lipa’s new album is, by any stretch of the drqeaded phrase, not a sophomore slump. Far from it, it’s a cool, compact and breezy listen from start to finish, an item of note in itself compared to her effective and promising yet eventually overstuffed 2017 debut (its Complete Edition contains a whopping 25 tracks). The bad news? Despite its hefty title and obvious quality control, there’s little reward from cursory and repeated listening. Although clearly devised as an attempt to establish her stranglehold in the upper echelons of pop stardom, Future Nostalgia   is, for all intents and purposes, merely a step above your average New Music Friday tunes on Spotify. From Lipa’s perspective, this is understandable. Following a double win at last year’s Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist (the first year with eight nominees in the category to boot), there must have been immense pressure to build on the foundation of this type of recogni...

The UK is still seeking clarity on the US position towards Huawei before deciding whether the firm should be allowed involvement in the construction of 5G networks, according to culture secretary Jeremy Wright. The US has been flip-flopping over its position towards Huawei. A month after it was banned from working with US firms, President Donald Trump announced that this   restriction would be lifted .  But it has remained on the entity list and Huawei announced this week that it was laying off two-thirds of workers at its US research centre. The UK has also been cautious to embrace the Chinese firm over cybersecurity and espionage concerns as well as fears that if it relaxed its position, the US could rescind key data-sharing agreements. Wright said the UK is still seeking clarity on the implications of US action against the Chinese firm, adding it would be “wrong to make specific decisions” before this has been achieved. He also told MPs the Telecoms Supply Chain ...