BEIJING, June 15 (Reuters) – China’s economy stumbled in May with industrial output and retail sales growth missing forecasts, adding to expectations that Beijing will need to do more to shore up a shaky post-pandemic recovery. The economic rebound seen earlier this year has lost momentum in the second quarter, prompting China’s central bank to cut…
Google parent company Alphabet told employees to avoid entering confidential information into chatbots and warned them about the risks of AI tools including its very own chatbot Bard. Alphabet also advised engineers against directly utilizing code provided by chatbots. While bots can, in fact, produce certain code, they run the risk of introducing errors or producing “undesirable”…
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa claimed on Monday that a confidential source who allegedly bribed Hunter Biden and then-Vice President Joe Biden years ago has audio proof of dealings with them. Grassley said from the Senate floor the individual who paid the duo kept recordings of them — 17 in total — as an “insurance…
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko will not hesitate to use the Russian nuclear weapons set to be deployed to his country next month, he said on Tuesday. Last week, Vladimir Putin said Russia would deploy nuclear weapons to Belarus on July 7-8, when the requisite facilities are ready, during a conversation with his Belarusian ally. Putin…
Illinois has become the first state to ban book bans. Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law Monday a first-of-its-kind bill that he says outlaws book bans from public schools and libraries, The Associated Press reported. The bill, which would cut funding for any public library that bans books for “partisan or doctrinal” reasons, goes into effect…
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, US — Bunge and Viterra announced on June 13 that they have agreed to a merger that will create one of the world’s largest agribusiness firms, moving it closer in size and scope to leading agribusiness giants Cargill and ADM. As part of the $18 billion deal, which was unanimously approved by…
BEIJING – Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday hailed the “historic decision” by Honduran President Xiomara Castro to switch the Central American country’s diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in March as the two met in the capital, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said. Castro is making her first visit to China since the establishment of…
ISLAMABAD, June 12 (Reuters) – Pakistan paid for its first government-to-government import of discounted Russian crude in Chinese currency, the South Asian country’s petroleum minister said on Monday, a significant shift in its U.S. dollar-dominated export payments policy. Discounted crude offers respite as Pakistan faces an acute balance of payments crisis, risking a default on…
UBS talks of the ‘beginning of a historic new chapter’ UBS said Monday that it has finalized its takeover of Credit Suisse, ending a months-long saga that saw the near-collapse of one of Switzerland’s biggest financial institutions. The bank announced that completion in an open letter to Swiss, German-language daily newspaper, NZZ and other international publications,…
The data breach allegedly cost Samsung $230 million. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol recently declared the chip manufacturing industry to be in an “all-out war,” and the latest developments certainly support that statement. Prosecutors in the Suwon District have indicted a former Samsung executive for allegedly stealing semiconductor plant blueprints and technology from the…