The risks of artificial intelligence to national security and the economy need to be addressed, U.S. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday, adding he would seek expert advice.

“My administration is committed to safeguarding Americans’ rights and safety while protecting privacy, to addressing bias and misinformation, to making sure AI systems are safe before they are released,” Biden said at an event in San Francisco.

Biden met a group of civil society leaders and advocates who have previously criticized the influence of major tech companies, to discuss artificial intelligence.

“I wanted to hear directly from the experts,” he said.

Several governments are considering how to mitigate the dangers of the emerging technology, which has experienced a boom in investment and consumer popularity in recent months after the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Biden’s meeting on Tuesday included Tristan Harris, executive director of the Center for Humane Technology, Algorithmic Justice League founder Joy Buolamwini, and Stanford University Professor Rob Reich.

Regulators globally have been working to draw up rules governing the use of generative AI, which can create text and images, and whose impact has been compared to that of the internet.

Biden has also recently discussed the issue of AI with other world leaders, including British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak whose government will later this year hold a first global summit on artificial intelligence safety. Biden is expected to discuss the topic with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his ongoing U.S. visit.

European Union lawmakers agreed last week to changes in draft rules on artificial intelligence proposed by the European Commission in a bid to set a global standard for a technology used on everything from automated factories to self-driving cars to chatbots.
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Нацбанк скасував перелік ознак незначного зношення банкнот
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Конференція в Лондоні запланована на 21 і 22 червня
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Chinese commercial banks lowered interest rates on Tuesday as Beijing seeks ways to boost economic growth, which has been disappointingly slow as the country recovers from pandemic-era lockdowns and supply chain bottlenecks.

The move took place just days after the Chinese central bank announced it would cut the interest rate it charges on several different facilities it uses to supply commercial banks with cash.

The change in commercial banks’ prime rates, which are offered to borrowers with the best credit, were relatively modest. The rate on one-year loans fell to 3.55% from 3.65%, while the rate on five-year loans dropped to 4.2% from 4.3%.

Striking a balance

The change, which was the most significant adjustment to interest rates in nearly a year, was smaller than some analysts had expected. China faces continued softness in its real estate sector, high levels of indebtedness and persistently slow growth.

David Qu, an economist covering China for Bloomberg Economics, said on Bloomberg television that the small rate cut was an effort to maintain what he referred to as a “balance between stabilizing the housing market and avoiding stimulating another bubble in the housing market.”

In an analysis released last week after the Peoples Bank of China signaled that rate cuts were coming, Logan Wright and Allen Feng of the Rhodium Group wrote, “[T]he reductions in mortgage rates will not have much of an impact on property sales, but may help to reduce mortgage payment burdens for Chinese households. This is more likely designed to boost household consumption, so that households can free up and come from debt service for other purposes.”

Lower growth expected

Concerns about China’s economy have worsened in recent months, a fact that senior leaders in Beijing have begun to publicly acknowledge.

On Friday, Chinese state television reported that Premier Li Qiang told a meeting of senior Communist Party leaders that the government is exploring ways of driving growth.

“The external environment is becoming more complex and severe, and the slowdown in global trade and investment will directly affect the recovery process of our country’s economy,” Li said.

Over the weekend, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. reduced its forecast for growth in China this year to 5.4% from 6%.

The Chinese economy’s growth rate is still significantly higher than that of many developed economies, including the U.S., which the International Monetary Fund expects to grow at only 1.6% in 2023. However, China’s growth rate was as high as 7.8% 10 years ago, and has been mostly slowing since, with the exception of an anomalous 8.1% rate in 2021 as it returned from the depths of the pandemic.

More stimulus expected

After reports last month that industrial output and retail sales had both come in under expectations, some experts expected that the Chinese government would engage in a careful program of targeted economic stimulus in the near future. The trouble is that some of the most obvious levers of influence may be less potent than they have been in the past.

For instance, lower interest rates are usually seen as stimulative because they encourage borrowing to fund capital investment. However, debt levels among Chinese companies are already quite high, which will serve to dampen demand for more credit.

In recent months, Chinese officials have signaled openness to foreign investment in the country as another means of increasing economic growth.

However, this comes after a period in which Beijing’s aggressive crackdown on Chinese tech firms and high-profile visits of state security officials to the Chinese offices of Western businesses have left some companies wary.

In April, security officials entered the offices of consulting firm Bain & Company and questioned employees. That visit came a month after officials entered the offices of another U.S. firm, the Mintz Group, and detained five Chinese nationals working there.

Global challenges

The change in interest rates takes place amid a number of important discussions between China and other large economies around the world.

On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing, where he met with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and then President Xi Jinping. Both sides characterized the discussions as productive, but on issues of significant economic concern to Beijing, no progress was announced.

These included the Biden administration’s continued application of broad tariffs on Chinese goods implemented by the administration of former President Donald Trump, and severe restrictions on China’s ability to buy cutting-edge semiconductors due to bans put in place by the Biden administration.

On Tuesday, Li traveled to Germany for meetings with senior officials there. Germany, which counts China as its second-largest trading partner after the European Union, saw its economy rocked after the Russian invasion of Ukraine exposed its over-reliance on Russia as a source of fossil fuels. The German government is in the midst of “de-risking” its economy by expanding the number of countries it relies on for key imports — a process that has China concerned about the future of its trade with Europe’s largest individual economy.
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«Початкове стартове фінансування становить 50 мільйонів доларів»
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Очікується, що про новий, найбільший пакет допомоги оголосять напередодні міжнародної конференції в Лондоні, присвяченої повоєнному відновленню України
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A global aid agency warned Monday that a large-scale plague of locusts is ravaging northern Afghanistan and could destroy 1.2 million metric tons of wheat, almost one-quarter of the country’s annual harvest.

“The escalating situation threatens to plunge millions of people into worsening levels of hunger,” the nongovernmental aid group Save the Children said in a statement.

The locust outbreak comes as funding shortfalls have cut off food aid for 8 million people in Afghanistan in the past two months, the group said. It urged the international community to increase humanitarian aid and resume development assistance to help prevent the impoverished country from spiraling into “famine-like conditions.”

Save the Children said that the Moroccan locust, one of the world’s most damaging plant pests, is sweeping across eight of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, the country’s wheat basket.

The agency said the outbreak has come at the worst possible time for Afghanistan, where more than 15 million people — one-third of the population — are projected to face crisis levels of hunger over the next five months, including 3.2 million children.

Aid organizations face a $2.2 billion shortfall in humanitarian funding to support Afghanistan’s most vulnerable children and families, especially women and girls.

Arshad Malik, the Save the Children country director, said that millions of children would suffer unless humanitarian aid is immediately increased.

“However, humanitarian aid alone is not a quick fix. The underlying drivers of hunger, including resuming development aid and support to the country’s ailing economy, will also need to be addressed.”

Since the Taliban regained control of the conflict-torn South Asian nation in August 2021, the international community has suspended development assistance and imposed financial sanctions.

The United Nations says the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, stemming from years of war and prolonged drought, has worsened since the Taliban took control of the country. 

U.N. officials say that the Taliban’s discriminatory policies against Afghan women have caused the humanitarian and economic situation in the country to deteriorate. The hardline group has barred Afghan women from working for the United Nations and other aid agencies. 

The Taliban have suspended girls’ education beyond the sixth grade and banned many women government employees from workplaces. 

The restrictions on Afghan women, and other human rights concerns, have deterred foreign governments from recognizing the Taliban as legitimate rulers of the country.   
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Multinational companies — including Amazon, Marriott and Hilton — pledged Monday to hire more than 13,000 refugees, including Ukrainian women who have fled the war with Russia, over the next three years in Europe.

Just ahead of World Refugee Day on Tuesday, more than 40 corporations say they will hire, connect to work, or train 250,000 refugees, with 13,680 of them getting jobs directly in those companies.

“Every number is a story of an individual family who left everything, seeking safety, seeking protection and wanting to be able to rebuild as quickly as possible,” said Kelly Clements, United Nations deputy high commissioner for refugees. “So the commitments that businesses are going to make on Monday are absolutely essential.”

She said 110 million people have been displaced worldwide, with an estimated 12 million from Ukraine, nearly half of whom are living in Europe after the continent’s largest movement of refugees since World War II.

The hiring push in Europe was organized by the Tent Partnership for Refugees, a nonprofit founded by Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya that connects businesses and refugees, and is being unveiled at a gathering in Paris. The group’s first summit in the U.S. last year led to commitments to hire 22,725 refugees.

In the new round, Amazon leads the pack, vowing to hire at least 5,000 refugees over the next three years in Europe, followed by Marriott and Hilton with 1,500 each, Starbucks and ISS with 1,000 each, and smaller commitments from brands such as Adidas, Starbucks, L’Oreal, PepsiCo and Hyatt.

“This is good for us as a company because the opportunity to add diversity to our workforce will continue to make us a stronger company,” said Ofori Agboka, Amazon vice president overseeing human resources. “With diversity brings innovation, creativity, different insights.”

He said the vast majority of jobs will be hourly roles at fulfillment and storage centers and in transport and delivery.

Amazon announced 27,000 job cuts earlier this year, part of a wave of layoffs after tech companies ramped up hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those layoffs primarily affected salaried office jobs, Agboka said.

Daria Sedihi-Volchenko fled Kyiv last year and now works in Warsaw, Poland, as a senior program manager for an Amazon Web Services program providing free tech training for Ukrainians. She says about 40% of those in the program have no tech background.

“I went through the same way as many of our learners … are going through,” she said. “I had to learn, and I took a commitment on my interview. I said that ‘OK, if we can agree and I can start working for you, I promise to learn Polish and I promise to learn technical skills.'”

A year ago, Sedihi-Volchenko woke up to explosions from Russia’s invasion.

“I was terrified. I was so scared for Ukraine, for the nation, for the future, for my own life,” she said. “But also that was a shocking moment when I understood that everything in my life is changing.”

She began living in basements but left as Russian forces approached Kyiv. She drove 40 hours to reach Moldova, thankful that she “didn’t drive on a single land mine and nobody shot into my car.”

She went to Poland to find work, embarking on an IT path after working as a project manager for government ministries and as an economist in Ukraine.

Companies are hoping refugees can fill staffing needs after the economy bounced back from the pandemic. In Europe, unemployment is at its lowest since the euro currency was introduced in 1999.

“We’re seeing record levels of demand for our properties across many markets here in Europe,” Marriott International CEO Anthony Capuano said. “And so we are hiring aggressively to make sure we can accommodate our guests as demand ramps up.”

Marriott’s jobs will largely be hourly positions such as housekeepers, kitchen staff and front desk attendants.

European nations have welcomed Ukrainians, and while Clements applauded opening schools, workplaces and other opportunities to them, she said the same should be offered to others fleeing conflict and crises in places like Syria, Sudan and Afghanistan.

Sedihi-Volchenko knows the challenges ahead for refugees, even as some companies offer help with language skills, counseling and training. Job listings can be difficult to decipher, and like her, they may have difficulty securing a stable internet connection or work clothes.

“It’s important to give a refugee just time to learn the language, but the person can start working because if you bring experience with IT systems or finance or project management or any other area, naturally, you understand, it’s not so much about the language. You understand the flow of work,” she said.

She said 110 million people have been displaced worldwide, with an estimated 12 million from Ukraine, nearly half of whom are living in Europe after the continent’s largest movement of refugees since World War II.

A year ago, Sedihi-Volchenko woke up to explosions from Russia’s invasion.
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Military and civilian aircraft streaked across the sky as the Paris Air Show returned Monday after a four-year COVID-induced hiatus, with a big crowd including Ukrainian military officials and the French president.

Organizers have billed the biennial event as the “recovery airshow” after the coronavirus ravaged the sector and the event was cancelled in 2021.

This year’s airshow has a new focus on defense following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, along with the industry’s efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, with French President Emmanuel Macron arriving in a helicopter partly using sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

Huge traffic jams around Le Bourget airport outside Paris were testament to the interest in this year’s show, as aircraft makers field hundreds of orders and airlines brace for a near-record number of passengers this year.

The Ukraine conflict has also prompted countries to step up military spending, which could benefit aerospace defense firms.

While Russia has been excluded from the event, Ukrainian military officials toured the huge exhibition space at Paris-Le Bourget airport, some taking photos of missiles on display.

Le Bourget offers a forum to announce deals with some 2,500 firms lining up to show off their latest planes, drones, helicopters and prototypes such as flying taxis.

Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury, who heads France’s aerospace industry association GIFAS, called it “the return of the good old times of the excitement of the show.”

Macron was welcomed as he opened the event with an aerial display including Airbus’ latest A321 XLR airliner, civilian and military helicopters and a jet fighter.

Businesspeople and uniformed military visitors from around the world watched the action or headed into the guarded private spaces of the major firms’ stands.

With 125,000 square meters of exhibition space — the equivalent of nearly 18 soccer pitches — around 320,000 visitors are expected during the week-long event.

Big deals

Along with the Farnborough airshow in England, which takes place in even numbered years, Le Bourget is a key sales event for the civil and defense industries.

Airbus and rival Boeing compete fiercely in announcing orders for aircraft running into the billions of dollars.

Both industry heavyweights are also battling to solidify supply chains as they increase production to meet growing demand.

At least 158 planes, helicopters and drones are on display, from the latest long-haul commercial jets to the F-35, a U.S. stealth fighter.

The United States has a strong presence with 425 exhibitors, bolstered by renewed interest in military equipment in the aftermath of the Ukraine war.

Firms from 46 other nations are present.

China, which lifted COVID restrictions only at the beginning of this year, is also represented.

However, Beijing is not displaying its first homegrown medium-haul passenger jet, the C919, built to compete with the Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX.

Flying taxis

The airshow also hopes to open a window into the future as projects for flying taxis and other vertical takeoff aircraft abound.

Several prototypes will be on display as part of a “Paris Air Mobility” exhibition to showcase the latest innovations that developers hope will change how people travel.

Engine maker Safran announced early Monday that it would open four production lines in France and Britain making electric motors for small planes.

For his part, Macron arrived aboard Airbus’ latest helicopter, the H160, in a flight fueled with 30% SAF before visiting the European group’s stand laying out its net-zero-by-2050 plan.

Macron had on Friday announced $2.2 billion to help develop technologies to reduce aircraft emissions.

Air travel accounts for nearly 3% percent of global CO2 emissions but serves only a small minority of the world population.

With the industry targeting net zero emissions by mid-century, firms are turbocharging efforts to achieve it.

The initial focus is on SAF, made from sources such as municipal waste, leftovers from the agricultural and forestry industry, crops and plants, and even hydrogen.

But companies are also working to develop battery- and hydrogen-powered aircraft.
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Chinese consumers snapped up billions of dollars’ worth of items in China’s first major online shopping festival after emerging from the pandemic as merchants slashed prices, but analysts say that consumer confidence still remains weak.

Chinese merchants offered customers steep discounts during the 618 shopping festival, which ran on China’s major shopping platforms from the end of May until June 18, in the hopes of shoring up sales amid a weaker-than-expected recovery in consumption.

Major shopping festivals, like e-commerce retailer JD.com’s 618 and Alibaba’s Singles’ Day, are typically barometers of consumption in China, and Chinese e-commerce platforms often participate by offering discounts and incentives to consumers.

Analysts say that consumption remains soft this year as China emerges from the pandemic, even as platforms including JD.com, Tmall, Taobao and Pinduoduo offered billions in subsidies.

“Chinese consumer confidence remains weak due to a mix of geopolitics, continued weakness from COVID-19 and domestic Chinese politics,” said Shaun Rein, founder and managing director of the China Market Research Group in Shanghai.

Rein said that consumers were less likely to spend more during 618 as merchants had already been discounting heavily for years because of the pandemic, and deals were not that much better compared to previous months.

In March, JD.com launched a “10-billion-yuan subsidies” program to compete with rival Pinduoduo, which is known for its low-priced goods. The CEO of Alibaba’s e-commerce business unit, Trudy Dai, also previously pledged to make “huge, historic” investments to attract users to its platforms.

“For months, Chinese consumers have been price-conscious, looking for deals and trading down across most product categories,” Rein said.

This year, for the first time, JD.com did not reveal its total sales numbers for the 618 event, despite saying in a blog post that the 2023 shopping extravaganza had “exceeded expectations, setting a new record.”

Last year, neither Alibaba nor JD.com unveiled final numbers for Singles’ Day in November, amid muted festivities during COVID-19 and an expected slowdown in growth.

JD.com said in a blog post that during the 618 shopping festival, consumers snapped up 10 times the number of products that were eligible under its “10-billion-yuan subsidies” program, compared to March.

Despite overall soft consumption, categories like cosmetics and luxury goods saw a bigger uptick in sales compared to the previous quarter, according to Jacob Cooke, CEO of e-commerce consultancy WPIC.

For this year’s 618 event, more luxury brands took part as they sought to boost sales in China after the sector in 2022 declined for the first time in five years amid China’s strict “zero-COVID” policies and lockdowns that hammered retail spending.

Brands like Moncler and Lemaire took part in 618 on Tmall for the first time.

Many luxury brands also took the opportunity to launch new products online, with some offering rare discounts and other incentives such as interest-free payment in instalments over 12 months.

Brands like Burberry, Chloe and Miu Miu’s sales in the first 30 minutes of the 618 festival at the end of May had exceeded its total sales during the shopping festival a year ago, according to Tmall data.

“Luxury coming back online is a big trend, because that’s the category that’s been hit really hard over COVID-19,” said Cooke. “Some brands may see up to a 10-fold increase in sales over last year.”
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