With its huge munitions factories and endless rose fields, Kazanlak in central Bulgaria has been really living up to its "Guns and Roses" nickname since Moscow invaded Ukraine.. Although Bulgaria itself has largely not sent arms to Ukraine because of the EU member's historic ties with Moscow, that is where Kazanlak's burgeoning production is mostly destined.
Search giant Baidu's lacklustre unveiling of its chatbot exposed gaps in China's race to rival ChatGPT, as censorship and a US squeeze on chip imports have hamstrung the country's artificial intelligence ambitions.. The Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, established in 2018, introduced a ChatGPT-like product two years ago.
Asia extended a global equities rally Wednesday as more pledges of government support soothed worries over the banking sector and provided some much-needed stability after more than a week of upheaval.. - 'Fear index' drops - The US and European rally filtered through to Asia, where banks were among the big gainers with tech firms.
The arranged marriage of UBS and Credit Suisse will create the biggest bank Switzerland has ever seen, with some wondering if the superbank might be too big for its own good.. The other solution would have been to nationalise Credit Suisse "to enhance the good bank" and consolidate the poor assets into a "bad bank" to be liquidated, he explained.
A shareholder lawsuit filed late Monday accuses board members of Instagram and Facebook parent Meta of shirking their duties by ignoring human and sex trafficking on the tech giant's social platforms.. Meta board members and senior executives named in the suit "turned a blind eye to sex/human trafficking, child sexual exploitation, and other predatory conduct occurring on Meta's online platforms," the suit charged.
Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Chinese leader Xi Jinping for two days of closely-watched talks on Monday and Tuesday. . The Russian leader said that bilateral cooperation "has truly unlimited possibilities and prospects" and toasted the "prosperity" of Russian and Chinese people at a state dinner after the talks.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen warned Tuesday that President Emmanuel Macron was pushing the country to the verge of a "social explosion" with his highly contested pensions reform.. "Consciously the government is creating all the conditions for a social explosion, as if they were looking for that," Le Pen told AFP in an interview, adding that she would not help "extinguish the fire" of public anger over the legislation.
Spain needs more transparency over the Pegasus spyware hacking scandal, a European Parliament committee said Tuesday at the end of a two-day fact-finding mission to Madrid. . An interim report published by the European Parliament in November found that Pegasus spyware had been used "illegitimately" to conduct surveillance in at least four EU countries -- Greece, Spain, Poland and Hungary -- and called for a moratorium on the sale, acquisition, transfer and use of spyware in the EU. al/hmw/giv
Food delivery platform Just Eat Takeaway unveiled plans Tuesday to axe more than 1,700 mostly courier jobs in Britain, as it slashes costs in the wake of huge annual losses.. Just Eat Takeaway said its UK division will stop employing its own couriers -- and instead will only use self-employed gig economy workers.
Google on Tuesday invited people in the United States and Britain to test its AI chatbot, known as Bard, as it scrambles to catch up with Microsoft-backed ChatGPT. Bard, ChatGPT and other similar apps churn out essays, poems or computing code on command, though they come with warnings that the information they create can be incorrect or inappropriate.. "We've learned a lot so far by testing Bard, and the next critical step in improving it is to get feedback from more people," Google vice presidents Sissie Hsiao and Eli Collins said in a blog post.
