Tag: All Regions

(Bloomberg) — US lawmakers are urging Washington to strike back against China for its decision to bar Micron Technology Inc.’s memory chips, threatening to further inflame tensions between the two countries. Representative Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who leads a China-focused congressional committee, wants Changxin Memory Technologies Inc. placed on a blacklist that effectively bars dealings with American firms. That’s in response to Beijing this week blocking Micron from supplying Chinese critical infrastructure on national security grounds, an unusual move…

WASHINGTON — Boeing’s effort to build a new trainer aircraft for the Air Force is plagued by safety problems, schedule and testing delays, and the risk the T-7A Red Hawk could fall even further behind schedule, the Government Accountability Office said in a scathing report. Boeing’s relationship with the Air Force has also been strained by the T-7′s issues, GAO said in the May 18 report, with service officials describing their ties as “tenuous.” As the program proceeds and Boeing…

Google’s Sundar Pichai has agreed to work with lawmakers in Europe on what’s being referred to as an “AI Pact” — seemingly a stop-gap set of voluntary rules or standards while formal regulations for applying AI are still being worked on. Pichai was meeting with Thierry Breton, the European Union’s internal market commissioner, who put out a statement after today’s confab — saying: “There is no time to lose in the AI race to build a safe online environment.” A…

NEW YORK – Meta Platforms Inc started carrying out the last batch of a three-part round of lay-offs on Wednesday, according to a source familiar with the matter, as part of a plan announced in March to eliminate 10,000 roles. Meta earlier this year became the first Big Tech company to announce a second round of mass layoffs, after showing more than 11,000 employees the door in autumn. The cuts brought the company’s headcount down to where it stood as…

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States announced at a U.N. conference on Wednesday nearly $524 million in additional humanitarian aid for the Horn of Africa that aims to put a spotlight on the extreme effects of climate change and the worst drought in the region in 40 years — and the need for more than $5 billion. The U.N. has appealed for $7 billion and has received just $1.6 billion — far from enough to help the 43.3 million…

The U.S. government announced new sanctions against North Korea related to its army of illicit IT workers that have fraudulently gained employment to finance the regime’s weapons of mass destruction programs. North Korea maintains thousands of “highly skilled” IT workers around the world, primarily in China and Russia, which “generate revenue that contributes to its unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs”, according to an announcement from the U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday. These individuals, which in some…

  (Bloomberg) — Blackstone Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Schwarzman said the investment giant is in talks with several US regional banks to explore purchases of assets and loans they originate. “Pressure on those regional banks won’t just come from the markets,” he said in a video interview Wednesday for the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha. “It will come from regulators, and that will make them less apt to provide credit.” Regional banks’ retreat from lending to swaths of the…

The landmark decision comes as heat-trapping greenhouse gas concentrations are at record levels – “higher than at any time over the last 800,000 years”, WMO warned. Data from Earth and space The new Global Greenhouse Gas Watch will combine observations from Earth and from space with modelling, to fill critical information gaps. It will build on WMO’s experience in coordinating international collaboration on weather prediction. The agency said that the exchange of data will be “free and unrestricted”, in support…

German police have carried out raids in seven states in a probe into climate campaigners suspected of forming or backing a criminal group because of their controversial activities. Seven people aged 22 to 38 are suspected. No arrests have been made. For months Last Generation (Letzte Generation) has disrupted traffic in German cities and performed stunts like hurling mashed potato at an art work. Chancellor Olaf Scholz has condemned their campaign as “completely crazy”. Some 170 police took part in…

BUDAPEST (Sputnik) – Hungary has signed an agreement with Qatar on the purchase of natural gas, the countries plan to develop economic cooperation, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said after talks with Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. “Over the past year, we have learned that Qatar is a country of key importance for Europe. The European economy has made up for a significant part of the missing Russian gas with LNG coming from here… We agreed…

Following widespread diversion of lifesaving food aid in Ethiopia last month, the World Food Programme (WFP) has strengthened safeguards and controls in a bid to prevent further misuse, the UN agency said on Tuesday. WFP had paused distributions in the restive Tigray region in the north after finding evidence of significant supplies on sale in local markets, and immediately launched an investigation. Over 20 million people are in dire need of food assistance in Ethiopia, where communities continue to be…

Russia has intercepted two US Air Force strategic bombers flying over the Baltic Sea. The Russian defense ministry said on Tuesday Russia had scrambled a Su-27 fighter jet to “prevent violations of the state border” by the American bombers, AFP reported. “After removing the foreign military aircraft from the Russian state border, the Russian fighter went back to its air base,” the ministry added. The statement said that “the flight of the Russian fighter was carried out in strict accordance with international…

  Labor authorities have recognized that the mental illness suffered by an executive of the Japanese leg of Swiss watchmaker Swatch Group Ltd was caused by bullying at the hands of the branch’s president, constituting an industrial accident, the employee’s union said Wednesday. The executive, a Japanese woman in her 50s, claims she was relentlessly scolded by the president of Swatch Group (Japan) KK, a female foreign national, and subjected to power harassment, as workplace bullying is referred to in…

LONDON – Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Wednesday it had provisionally found five major global banks allegedly broke UK competition law by exchanging sensitive information on government bond trading activities in one-to-one online chats. In a statement, the watchdog alleged Citi, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Royal Bank of Canada each unlawfully shared information by participating in one or more one-to-one conversations in Bloomberg chatrooms between a small number of traders at varying times between 2009…

WASHINGTON – More than 100 members of the US Congress and the European Parliament on Tuesday called for the removal of an oil industry executive tapped to lead the next United Nations climate change conference. The choice of Sultan Al Jaber, chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), to head December’s COP28 summit in Dubai has angered activists who fear it will hold back progress on reducing emissions. The lawmakers expressed “profound concern” over the appointment in…

NEW YORK – Martin Shkreli, the former pharmaceutical chief executive officer who served almost seven years in prison for securities fraud, is earning US$2,500 (S$3,370) a month consulting for a law firm and living with his sister in Queens, New York, according to the US Probation Office. Shkreli, 40, has had a mostly “positive adjustment” since being released from prison in 2022 and is currently employed by the Law Office of Christopher K. Johnston, according to a probation report filed…