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☆ The Russian military is trying to recruit Central Asian migrant workers to fight in Ukraine to avoid another mandatory mobilization, UK intel says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Alia Shoaib | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Russia is attempting to recruit Central Asian migrants to fight in Ukraine, UK intelligence said. They are reportedly being enticed with high payments and offers of a fast track to Russian citizenship. Russia is likely trying to avoid another mandatory mobilization to minimize domestic anger. Recruiters have visited mosques and immigration offices, where staff who speak Tajik and Uzek attempt to recruit migrants, the update said. The attempts to recruit migrants come amid reports that Russia is trying to sign up 400,000 additional soldiers.

☆ Apple doing 'extremely well' in challenging macroeconomic environment, says analyst
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailApple doing 'extremely well' in challenging macroeconomic environment, says analystRichard Windsor, founder at Radio Free Mobile, discusses Apple's latest earnings and his outlook for the consumer market.

The size of subsidies under the EU Chips Act, which aims to tempt the world's top chipmakers to build factories in the bloc and double its share of global output to 20% by 2030, lags the $52 billion CHIPS for America Act. Taiwan accounts for more than 60% of global chip production and concerns are growing about heightened tensions between Taipei and Beijing. But Europe's relatively modest subsidies could put a brake on its ambition, said Richard Windsor of research company Radio Free Mobile. GOOD STARTThe EU Chips Act is a good start given the EU has little choice but to join the subsidy race, but the bloc should play to its chipmaking strengths, said Christopher Cytera, research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Analysis. Catching up on the chips race is more than just building factories and the Chips Act acknowledges this with its focus on developing skilled labour for the future, said Anielle Guedes, senior research analyst at IDC Technologies.

☆ Myanmar junta says military carried out deadly attack on rebel ceremony
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

At least 50 people, including children, were killed in Tuesday's air strike in the Sagaing area in northwest Myanmar, according to media reports. Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun told military broadcast channel Myawaddy the attack on the ceremony held by the National Unity Government (NUG), a shadow administration, for their armed People's Defence Force was aimed at restoring peace and stability in the region. They are the ones opposing the government of the country, the people of the country," said Zaw Min Tun. Kyaw Zaw, a spokesman for the NUG, said it believed nearly 100 people were killed in the Tuesday attack when air force jets dropped bombs on villagers and military attack helicopters then followed up, calling it "another senseless, barbaric, brutal attack by the military". The military has ruled Myanmar for most of the past 60 years saying it is the only institution capable of holding the diverse country together.

☆ At least 30 killed as Myanmar military attacks rebel group event -media
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

April 11 (Reuters) - At least 30 people were killed in a central area of Myanmar on Tuesday, after the army launched an attack on an event being held by opponents of military rule, media outlets reported. Reuters could not immediately verify the reports and a spokesperson for the ruling military did not answer a phone call seeking comment. We cannot retrieve the bodies yet," said the PDF member, who declined to be identified. Myanmar's military, which ousted an elected government in 2021, has drawn global condemnation for its lethal attacks on pro-democracy opponents and civilians. Last month, at least eight civilians including children were killed in an air strike on a village in northwest Myanmar, according to a human rights group, ethnic minority rebels and media.

☆ A former Russian military intelligence officer has defected to Ukraine and is setting up his own battalion of dissidents
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A former Russian intelligence officer has defected and says he's setting up a pro-Ukrainian unit. Ethnic minorities in Russia are treated like second-class citizens, he said, according to Ukrainian outlet Focus. Ammosov served in the GRU — the military intelligence wing of Russia's army — for 15 years before moving to Europe, Radio Free Europe reported. None have had a formal explanation, which has led to speculation that they were targeted by Ukrainian commandos or Russian dissidents. According to Focus, Ammosov's unit is the fourth such dissident unit to be formed.

☆ One of Russia's few remaining allies asked Moscow for guarantees that it would defend his country if it was attacked
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Belarus' leader Alexander Lukashenko asked Russia to defend it if attacked, state media reported. The embattled leader asked Russia to protect his country "as its own territory." Lukashenko met with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in Minsk on Monday, according to Belarusian state-owned news agency Belta. In the meeting, Lukashenko requested that "in case of aggression against Belarus the Russian Federation protects Belarus as its own territory," the outlet reporting him as saying. Belarus has avoided committing troops to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but has aided it by training Russian troops and allowing Russian use of its military bases.

☆ Russia's plan to get 400,000 more volunteer fighters won't work, so they will have to coerce people, UK intel says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Sinéad Baker | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The UK MOD said Russia wants it to appear like people volunteered, to minimize domestic anger. But it will likely struggle to get enough people, and authorities may have to coerce them, it said. But the UK MOD said it is very unlikely that many Russians will choose to sign up, so authorities will end up coercing them instead. "Russia is presenting the campaign as a drive for volunteer, professional personnel, rather than a new, mandatory mobilisation," it said. The UK MOD said that adding new troops would not fix Russia's struggles in Ukraine.

☆ Russian who served in Ukraine says female medics from her unit were used as sex slaves for high-ranking officers
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Sinéad Baker | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Russian officers expected female medics to sexually please them, according to a new report. She said she was made to sleep outside for a month after she refused to sleep with a colonel. Other female service members were forced to sleep with multiple men, she said. Punishments were part of military life in Ukraine, Margarita said. Russian soldiers have been accused of sexual assault and rape against Ukrainians during the conflict.

☆ Russia wants to replenish its troops by recruiting 400,000 new contract soldiers starting April: reports
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Matthew Loh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Russia wants to recruit 400,000 new contract soldiers starting in April, per multiple local reports. Russian contract soldiers are typically volunteers who serve three-year paid stints in the army. The authorities said the summons were issued just to collect information, and not to lay the groundwork for a second mobilization, BBC Russia reported. Russian contract soldiers are typically volunteers who sign up for a three-year paid stint in the army, per the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank. Since the war began in February 2022, recruiters have been offering hefty bonuses and increased salaries to contract soldiers, while the Kremlin rushes to bolster resources for its hard-hit troops.

☆ Mortars, artillery and small arms fire as battle for Bakhmut rages
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Mike Collett-White | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] Ukrainian service members fire a mortar towards Russian troops outside the frontline town of Bakhmut, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine March 6, 2023. Reuters reporters heard dozens of shells being fired from Ukrainian positions near Chasiv Yar and Bakhmut on Thursday alone. Ihor, a 36-year-old soldier at the mortar position, said they had been targeted by air strikes, mortar fire and tank shelling. In the next door town of Chasiv Yar, a volunteer evacuation team drove a minibus through potholed lanes between small homes, many of them in ruins as artillery shelling shook the ground. On the side of the next street a man prepared a fire to make shashlik while a woman sat nearby chatting.

☆ Russia convicted a soldier who admitted killing a civilian in Ukraine — not for killing anyone but for spreading illegal 'fake news'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A Russian court sentenced a soldier after he confessed to killing a civilian in Ukraine. Daniil Frolkin was tried under Russia's "fake news" law, which outlaws claiming that Russia is committing atrocities. Daniil Frolkin was given a suspended sentence in a military court in Khabarovsk, in eastern Russia, according to the news site Siberia.Realities, an affiliate of Radio Free Europe. In June, Ukraine's Office of the Prosecutor General announced Frolkin was suspected of killing a civilian there — something that Frolkin initially denied. It outlaws contradicting the Kremlin's official version of events in the war — in which Russia commits no atrocities and stringently avoids harming civilians.

☆ Ukraine, Russia say hundreds of enemy troops killed in battle for Bakhmut
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-11 | by ( Nick Starkov | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/4] A Ukrainian serviceman looks on from a tank near the frontline town of Bakhmut, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine March 7, 2023. Serhiy Cherevatyi, a Ukrainian military spokesperson, said that 221 pro-Moscow troops were killed and more than 300 wounded in Bakhmut. Russia's defence ministry said that up to 210 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the broader Donetsk part of the frontline. While Moscow did not specify Bakhmut casualties, the eastern Donetsk town, now nearly deserted, has been the site of one of the bloodiest and longest battles of the year-long war. Writing by David Ljunggren and Lidia Kelly; editing by Grant McCool and Raju GopalakrishnanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ 13 times solar storms caused freak events on Earth, from detonating mines to crashing financial markets
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Marianne Guenot | Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

A solar storm shorted Quebec's power grid for 8 hours. NASA/SDOOn March 10, 1989, an enormous solar flare blew up on the sun with the power of thousands of nuclear bombs exploding at the same time. The particles created a strong current in the sky, and the Earth created electrical current in the ground to rectify this. This surged the Quebec power grid, which was out of commission for eight long hours on a weekday morning, affecting about 6 million people. And radio interference jammed signals from Radio Free Europe into Russia.

☆ A regiment of drafted Russian soldiers who made video plea to Putin to stop them being 'slaughtered' are now mostly dead, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-04 | by ( Alia Shoaib | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Drafted Russian soldiers made a video appeal to Vladimir Putin for help. Most of the soldiers in the regiment have died in Donetsk since recording the video, a report says. "Please help," the soldiers say in the video while in their uniforms with their faces covered. In the video, which was published by Telegram channel of the Siberian news outlet Lyudi Baikala on February 25, the soldiers directly ask Putin for help. The video was the soldiers' third such appeal, according to the Russian outlet The Insider.

☆ How Ukraine uses high-tech anti-drone guns to down Russian drones and recover intelligence from them
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-18 | by ( Alia Shoaib | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Ukraine is using anti-drone guns to down Russian drones and collect intelligence from them. The Ukrainian company Kvertus Technology developed the KVS G-6, a long-range anti-drone gun that uses radio signals to jam Russian drones. While both Russia and Ukraine have used older anti-aircraft guns to shoot down drones, anti-drone guns disrupt drones without physically damaging them. It uses electromagnetic pulses to jam and down Russian drones. Samuel Bendett, an analyst and expert in unmanned and robotic military systems at the Center for Naval Analyses, told Insider that weapons like anti-drone guns are in high demand.

☆ Russia advances in eastern Ukraine, strike on apartments kills civilians
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Tom Balmforth | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Fierce fighting was unabated in eastern Ukraine, where Russian troops are trying to gain ground near the strategic logistics hub of Lyman, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said on Wednesday evening. The Russian forces were trying to make gains that they could show on the anniversary of their Feb 24, 2022 invasion, Zelenskiy said. At least 44 people were killed in January when a Russian missile hit an apartment building in the city of Dnipro. In April 2022, Ukraine said 57 people died when a Russian missile hit the train station in Kramatorsk. Ukraine and its Western allies have accused Russian forces of war crimes and targeting civilians, charges Russia rejects.

☆ Russian rocket destroys Kramatorsk apartment building; 2 dead, governor says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/4] People remove debris at a site of a residential building destroyed by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kramatorsk, Ukraine February 1, 2023. Head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration Pavlo Kyrylenko/Handout via REUTERSFeb 1 (Reuters) - A Russian rocket destroyed an apartment building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk late on Wednesday and at least two people were killed and seven injured, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote on Telegram. "Rescuers, law enforcement and public utilities are working at the scene to go through the rubble of the destroyed building. At least 44 people were killed last month when a Russian missile hit an apartment building in the eastern city of Dnipro. Last April, Ukraine said 57 people died when a Russian missile hit the train station in Kramatorsk.

☆ Microsoft's $10 billion bet on ChatGPT's maker gives it a powerful new weapon in the cloud wars with Amazon and Google
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Cloud, increasingly important to Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, is slowing down in the short term. But the company has a longer-term strategic weapon that could help it win the cloud wars: its once-in-a-generation bet on OpenAI. Any hint of a slowdown in growth for Microsoft's Azure, Amazon's AWS, and Google Cloud tends to provoke analyst angst. Even if there are immediate challenges for cloud growth, Microsoft sees its OpenAI bet, reported to be worth $10 billion, as a bigger strategic move. Microsoft Cloud, which also includes revenue from Office 365 and other products as well as Azure, represented around 50% of the company's overall revenue.

☆ Ukraine's battlefields look like World War I but with a new and terrifying addition that leaves troops with almost nowhere to hide
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-22 | by ( John Haltiwanger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

The conflict in Ukraine has emerged as the first major war involving drone use on both sides. By the late 1990s, Predator drones were being used by the US and NATO for reconnaissance missions in the Kosovo War. Ukraine has in many ways emerged as a guinea pig for drone warfare. Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesLater in the war, Russia began launching swarms of Iranian-made Shahed-136 "kamikaze" drones, striking targets across Ukraine. Drones have significantly shortened the so-called kill chain, Cancian explained, helping troops swiftly locate targets and provide coordinates for artillery.

☆ Google's big fear is AI running wild. After ChatGPT, it's too late.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

It's in Google's financial interest to present itself as a responsible custodian of AI. On Monday, some of Google's most senior executives, including CEO Sundar Pichai, senior vice president James Manyika, and the chief executive of its AI research unit DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, published an explainer on their approach to AI research, titled "Why we focus on AI (and to what end)." This is a "thinly veiled swipe at OpenAI and ChatGPT", according to a research note from Richard Windsor of Radio Free Mobile. In other words: If ChatGPT and its successors cause widespread havoc, it'll ruin AI adoption for everyone, including Google. There'll be more ChatGPT momentsThere is a flood of money pouring into generative AI startups promising real-world applications.

☆ Serbia asks Russia to end recruitment of its people for Ukraine war
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BELGRADE, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Russia should halt its efforts to recruit Serbs to fight alongside its Wagner paramilitary group in Ukraine, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said. Vucic criticised Russia's websites and social media groups for publishing advertisements in the Serbian language in which the Wagner group calls volunteers to join its ranks. Serb volunteers took part in the fighting alongside pro-Russian forces in Ukraine in 2014 and 2015. Serbian Defence Minister Milos Vucevic also warned Serbs against joining Russian ranks in the war against Ukraine. Serbia is entirely dependent on gas imports from Russia and its NIS oil retailer is owned by Russia's Gazprom.

☆ ChatGPT and generative AI look like tech's next boom. They could be the next bubble.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Generative AI is the catchall term for artificial intelligence that can create something new — text or images for example — from existing data, when given prompts. OpenAI's generative AI tools can seemingly do anything from write poetry and code to producing frame-worthy art, triggering huge excitement in the space. How generative AI generates revenue is unclearAll of this might be justifiable if there was a clear path for AI firms to make money. Some of the hype around generative AI may be justified and the technology feels genuinely exciting. But to avoid another bubble, investors would do well to quiz the fundamentals of generative AI businesses, before handing out hefty valuations.

☆ Inside SoftBank Vision Fund's awful, terrible, really bad year. How the venture fund tumbled, according to former employees, investors and rival VCs.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | Ben Bergman | Samantha Stokes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

SoftBank's Vision Fund just experienced one of its most dismal years in its history. SoftBank's Vision Fund was once a power broker, having raised a jaw-dropping $100 billion in 2017, followed by plans to raise $108 billion for Vision Fund 2 in 2019 — two of the largest venture-investing vehicles ever established. But insiders are now questioning if it will ever regain influence, according to 11 ex-Vision Fund investors, former employees, VCs, and industry analysts who weighed in on the future of the Vision Fund. One ex-Vision Fund investor described Son, now taking the reins of Vision Fund 2, as someone who is "not a manager." Given its investing performance so far, the obvious question is what happens once Vision Fund 2 has reached full investment.

☆ Heaviest Ukraine fighting rages in east, West seeks to sustain support against Russia
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

[1/2] Ukrainian servicemen fire with a Bureviy multiple launch rocket system at a position in Donetsk region, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, Ukraine November 29, 2022. In Washington, a $1.2 billion contract for six National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) for Ukraine was awarded to Raytheon, the Pentagon said. At the NATO foreign ministers meeting, allies on Wednesday pledged to help Moldova, Georgia and Bosnia-Herzegovina as they face pressure from Russia, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and ministers said. Russia invaded Ukraine nine months ago in what it calls a "special military operation" to rid Ukraine of nationalists it considers dangerous. "We haven't seen these Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles for about two weeks ... the first batch has probably already run out," he told Ukraine's main television network.

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