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Trump appoints former PayPal COO David Sacks as AI and crypto czar

Trump appoints former PayPal COO David Sacks as AI and crypto czar
David Sacks speaks during the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 15, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 06 December 2024
Reuters
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Trump appoints former PayPal COO David Sacks as AI and crypto czar

Trump appoints former PayPal COO David Sacks as AI and crypto czar
Updated 06 December 2024
Reuters
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US President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday said he was appointing former PayPal Chief Operating Officer David Sacks as his artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency czar, another step toward overhauling US policy.
“He will work on a legal framework so the Crypto industry has the clarity it has been asking for, and can thrive in the US,” Trump said in a post on his social-media site Truth Social.
The crypto czar and other officials in Trump’s incoming administration such as the chairs of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission are expected to reshape US policy on digital currency along with a newly created crypto advisory council.
Trump’s tech backers generally want to see minimal regulation around AI and cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, saying Washington would throttle growing innovative sectors with excessive rules.
Trump announced on Wednesday that he was nominating prominent Washington lawyer and crypto advocate Paul Atkins to lead the SEC, in a move celebrated by the industry.
Trump — who once labeled crypto a scam — embraced digital assets during his campaign, promising to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” and to accumulate a national stockpile of bitcoin.
Bitcoin broke $100,000 for the first time on Wednesday night, a milestone hailed even by skeptics as a coming-of-age for digital assets as investors bet on a friendly US administration to cement the place of cryptocurrencies in financial markets.
Born in South Africa, Sacks, 52, is a co-founder of venture capital firm Craft Ventures and an early leader of PayPal, a payment processing firm that was acquired by eBay in 2002.
Sacks is also a former chief executive of software company Zenefits and founded Yammer, a social network for enterprise users.
He was an early evangelist of cryptocurrencies, telling CNBC in a 2017 interview that he believed the rise of bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, was revolutionizing the Internet.
“It feels like we are witnessing the birth of a new kind of web. Some people have called it the decentralized web or the Internet of money,” he said.
Trump said Sacks will also lead a White House advisory council on science and technology. 

Topics: Trump Returns

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Unidentified drones spotted over German military, industrial sites

Updated 2 sec ago
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Unidentified drones spotted over German military, industrial sites

Unidentified drones spotted over German military, industrial sites
Updated 2 sec ago
Police did not say who they thought had launched the unmanned aerial vehicles.
“In recent days, several drone flights have been detected over critical infrastructure in Rhineland-Palatinate state,” a regional police spokesman said

BERLIN: German authorities said Friday that unidentified drones had been spotted flying over sensitive military and industrial sites including the US Ramstein air base.
The reports come after German officials have repeatedly voiced alarm about the threat of Russian spying as the Ukraine war heightens tensions between Moscow and NATO.
However, police did not say who they thought had launched the unmanned aerial vehicles.
“In recent days, several drone flights have been detected over critical infrastructure in Rhineland-Palatinate state,” a regional police spokesman told AFP.
The UAVs were first sighted at German company BASF’s plant in Ludwigshafen, known as the world’s biggest chemicals complex, the spokesman said.
“This was followed in the course of this week by drone overflights over the US air base in Ramstein,” he added.
The drones were detected at dusk and were “larger than the usual commercial hobby drones,” the spokesman said.
Police in Rhineland-Palatinate have set up a special investigative unit to look into the incidents.
There is “no concrete danger to the facilities concerned,” the spokesman said.
The sightings in Ramstein were on December 3 and 4, according to Der Spiegel magazine.
Unidentified drones have also been sighted over facilities belonging to German arms maker Rheinmetall, Der Spiegel reported, citing security services.
A source with knowledge of the matter confirmed to AFP that suspicious drones had been spotted near Rheinmetall’s largest ammunition production site at Unterluess, Lower Saxony.
Unidentified drones were also reported in August over the Bruensbuettel industrial area in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock at the time said the devices were surely “not there to observe the beautiful local landscape, but because there is a chemical park there and a... storage facility for nuclear waste nearby.”
Media reports said officials believed those drones were Russian reconnaissance devices.
However, investigations into the Bruensbuettel sightings have so far shown no indications of espionage, according to a report from the ARD broadcaster on Friday.
German officials have repeatedly raised the alarm in recent months about Russian spying and “hybrid warfare,” including acts of sabotage and disinformation in the campaign toward February general elections.

Top Indian actor arrested after death of fan at film premiere

Top Indian actor arrested after death of fan at film premiere
Updated 59 min 46 sec ago
Reuters
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Top Indian actor arrested after death of fan at film premiere

Top Indian actor arrested after death of fan at film premiere
  • Allu Arjun appeared at the film premiere in the Indian city of Hyderabad on December 4
  • As fans clamoured to meet him, a 39-year-old woman died and her son was critically injured
Updated 59 min 46 sec ago
Reuters

HYDERABAD: A top movie actor in southern India was arrested on Friday, a week after a woman died and her son was seriously injured in the crush of fans that his surprise appearance at the premiere of his film provoked, police said.
Allu Arjun, prominent in the Telugu film industry, based in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where film stars are revered by die-hard fans, appeared at the film premiere in Hyderabad on Dec. 4.
As fans clamoured to meet him, a 39-year-old woman died and her nine-year-old son was critically injured. Police earlier this week arrested the owner of the theater where the incident took place, and on Friday they arrested Arjun at his residence.
He was granted bail by a local court a few hours after his arrest and he was expected to be released from prison shortly, his counsel said.
Arjun, 41, was named in the initial police complaint, which alleged that his personal security detail had tried to clear the crowd near him, causing the death of the woman who had become breathless, according to a copy of the document seen by Reuters.
Arjun’s counsel has denied any wrongdoing on his part, and he has publicly apologized for the incident.
Actors in southern India, which has a thriving film industry independent of Bollywood, are larger than life figures, with fan clubs who often build temples to their idols, and bathe their posters in milk during premieres.

Topics: South Indian films Allu Arjun Hyderabad

Ukraine’s Zelensky to meet European leaders in Brussels on Wednesday

Ukraine’s Zelensky to meet European leaders in Brussels on Wednesday
Updated 13 December 2024
Reuters
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Ukraine’s Zelensky to meet European leaders in Brussels on Wednesday

Ukraine’s Zelensky to meet European leaders in Brussels on Wednesday
  • Zelensky and some of his European allies have called for European troops to be deployed to Ukraine
  • “It won’t be a meeting that has concrete decisions, but more political to discuss the coming weeks and months,” said a source
Updated 13 December 2024
Reuters

BRUSSELS: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will attend a meeting with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, NATO and the EU in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss support for his country in its war with Russia, sources familiar with the plan told Reuters.
The meeting comes as European countries face the possibility of the US, Ukraine’s largest source of support, changing its approach to the conflict when Donald Trump returns to the White House in January.
Zelensky and some of his European allies have called for European troops to be deployed to Ukraine to act as a deterrent to further military action by Russia after any ceasefire.
“It won’t be a meeting that has concrete decisions, but more political to discuss the coming weeks and months,” said a source familiar with the meeting.
The gathering, hosted by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, will be held on the day leaders were already due to meet for the EU-Western Balkans summit in Brussels, and involve a joint meeting and several bilateral meetings with Zelensky.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky NATO EU

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Companies from UK, Italy and Japan to form joint venture for new fighter jet

Companies from UK, Italy and Japan to form joint venture for new fighter jet
Updated 13 December 2024
AP
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Companies from UK, Italy and Japan to form joint venture for new fighter jet

Companies from UK, Italy and Japan to form joint venture for new fighter jet
  • Under the agreement, Britain’s BAE Systems, Italy’s Leonardo and Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement will each own a third of the new joint venture
  • The headquarters for the Global Combat Air Programme will be the UK
Updated 13 December 2024
AP

LONDON: The three companies building a next generation fighter jet for the UK, Italy and Japan revealed Friday that they are forming a joint venture to deliver the aircraft.
Under the agreement, Britain’s BAE Systems, Italy’s Leonardo and Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement will each own a third of the new joint venture, which will be subject to regulatory approvals.
“This agreement is the result of an intensive journey made possible by pooling our mutual and shared experiences,” said Roberto Cingolani, Leonardo’s chief executive.
The headquarters for the Global Combat Air Programme, or GCAP, will be the UK, but operations will take place in each of the partner nations. Under the terms of the agreement, the first chief executive will come from Italy.
“The new business will bring together the significant strengths and expertise of the companies involved to create an innovative organization that will lead the way in developing a next generation combat air system, creating long-term, high value and skilled jobs across the partner nations for decades to come,” said Charles Woodburn, BAE Systems’ chief executive.
The triangular-shaped jets will have supersonic capability and cutting-edge technology. Pilots will be able to use virtual reality in the aircraft’s digital cockpit, with vital information displayed directly in front of them.
The aim is that they will take to the skies by 2035.
Kimito Nakae, president of JAIEC, acknowledged that the way ahead “might not always be simple and straightforward,” but that “through continuing the strong spirit of trilateral cooperation and collaboration that we have fostered up to this point, we will not only deliver the GCAP on time but also at a level that exceeds all of our expectations.”

Topics: UK Italy Japan Global Combat Air Programme aircraft

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Austria offers Syrian refugees 1,000 euros to return home

Syrians celebrate during a demonstration following the first Friday prayers since Bashar Assad's ouster, in Damascus' central sq
Syrians celebrate during a demonstration following the first Friday prayers since Bashar Assad's ouster, in Damascus' central sq
Updated 13 December 2024
Reuters
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Austria offers Syrian refugees 1,000 euros to return home

Syrians celebrate during a demonstration following the first Friday prayers since Bashar Assad's ouster, in Damascus' central sq
  • Conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer said Syria now needs its citizens in order to be rebuilt
Updated 13 December 2024
Reuters

VIENNA: Austria’s conservative-led government said on Friday it is offering Syrian refugees a “return bonus” of 1,000 euros ($1,050) to move back to their home country after the fall of Bashar Assad.
Conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer reacted quickly to Assad’s overthrow on Sunday, saying the same day that the security situation in Syria should be reassessed so as to allow deportations of Syrian refugees.
Deporting people against their will is not possible until it becomes clearer what direction Syria is taking. For now, Austria’s government has said it will focus on voluntary deportations. It has also stopped processing Syrians’ asylum applications, as have more than a dozen European countries.
Like many conservatives in Europe, Nehammer is under pressure from the far right, with the two groups often seeming to try to outbid each other on tough-sounding immigration policies. Syrians are the biggest group of asylum-seekers in Austria, a European Union member state.
“Austria will support Syrians who wish to return to their home country with a return bonus of 1,000 euros. The country now needs its citizens in order to be rebuilt,” Nehammer said in an English-language post on X.
How many Syrians will take up the offer remains to be seen. With national flag-carrier Austrian Airlines having suspended flights to the Middle East because of the security situation, the Austrian bonus may not even fully cover travel.
An economy class one-way ticket in a month’s time to Beirut, a common starting point for those heading overland to Damascus, currently costs at least 1,066.10 euros ($1,120.58) on Turkish Airlines, according to the company’s website.
Austria’s far-right Freedom Party came first in September’s parliamentary election with around 29 percent of the vote but, as no potential coalition partner was forthcoming, Nehammer is leading coalition talks with the Social Democrats and liberal Neos.

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