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☆ UN tells Afghan staff not to work for 48 hours - UN sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

UNITED NATIONS/KABUL, April 4 (Reuters) - The United Nations has told all Afghan staff not to report to work in Afghanistan for 48 hours for security reasons while it seeks additional information from the Taliban authorities about a ban on Afghan women working for the world body, U.N. sources told Reuters on Tuesday. Reporting by Michelle Nichols at UN and Charlotte Greenfield in Kabul; Editing byDoina Chiacu;Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres would view any ban on Afghan women working for the United Nations in their country as "unacceptable and, frankly, inconceivable", he said. The restrictions did not initially apply to the United Nations and some other international organisations. In January, the U.N Deputy Secretary-General flagged concerns that authorities could next restrict Afghan women working at international organisations. It was not immediately clear whether foreign embassies in Kabul had received similar instructions on female staff. Article 8 of its governing charter requires the U.N. not to place any restrictions on men and women working for U.N. agencies.

☆ Russian charged with war crimes may brief U.N. Security Council
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Michelle Nichols | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/3] Representatives observe a minute of silence during a meeting at the United Nations Security Council, to mark one year since Russia invaded Ukraine, at U.N. headquarters in New York City, New York, U.S., February 24, 2023. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File PhotoUNITED NATIONS, April 3 (Reuters) - Russia's commissioner for children's rights, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges, is likely to brief an informal meeting of the U.N. Security Council this week, according to a note seen by Reuters on Monday. "Russian leaders have been charged by the ICC with unlawfully deporting children from Ukraine to Russia. Such meetings are held at U.N. headquarters, but not in the Security Council chamber, and briefings can be done virtually. Given Russia's Security Council presidency started on April 1, U.S.

☆ Generative AI Tools Use Custom Data to Power More Business Functions
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Angus Loten | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Adobe’s Amit Ahuja, left, Anjul Bhambhri, center, and Ely Greenfield discuss generative AI at the Adobe Summit last week. Business software makers in financial management, design and other areas are rolling out generative artificial intelligence tools that pack troves of industry-specific data into customized applications, aiming for an edge in an already crowded market. By leveraging data gathered from specific business functions—in some cases stockpiled from decades of commercial use—software firms can offer AI tools fine-tuned for distinct applications, industry analysts said. They can also keep underlying algorithms free of extraneous data scraped online from unknown sources, which can produce unreliable results, they said.

☆ A personal-finance blogger quit being a landlord, sold her rental properties, and still plans to retire early. Here's how.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Aj Latrace | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A personal-finance blogger sold two rental properties and reinvested the money into index funds. She plans to retire early and likes that index funds "never call you in the middle of the night." Trading rental properties for index fundsThe Johnsons, who are both in their early 40s, plan to retire in the next few years. Other downsides of landlord lifeA lot of eager real-estate investors may not be fully aware of the downsides of being a landlord, Johnson said. "So many people are getting into rental properties who have no idea what they're getting into and probably shouldn't be at all," she said.

After nearly two decades of Western-led intervention and engagement with the world, 18% of the population had internet access, according to the World Bank. "For girls in Afghanistan, we have a bad, awful internet problem," Sofia said. "It's too hard to access internet in Afghanistan and sometimes we have half an hour of power in 24 hours." Seattle-based Ookla, which compiles global internet speeds, put Afghanistan's mobile internet as the slowest of 137 countries and its fixed internet as the second slowest of 180 countries. She was working with international companies to find solutions to poor internet access but said she could not elaborate.

☆ UN warns 'vampiric overconsumption' is draining world's water
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Isla Binnie | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

UNITED NATIONS, March 22 (Reuters) - The United Nations opened its first conference on water security in almost half a century on Wednesday with a plea to governments to better manage one of humanity's shared resources. A quarter of the world's population relies on unsafe drinking water while half lacks basic sanitation, the U.N. said. "We are draining humanity's lifeblood through vampiric overconsumption and unsustainable use, and evaporating it through global heating," said U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres. But Guterres said it must "result in a bold Water Action Agenda that gives our world's lifeblood the commitment it deserves". The United States quickly responded to Guterres' call.

☆ Trump loses bid to delay October 2 fraud trial where New York attorney general will try to run him out of state
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Laura Italiano | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

A judge denied Trump's request for a six-month delay for his October 2 fraud trial in New York. State Attorney General Letitia James sued Trump, his family, and his business in September. The judge declined to move the trial date even though lawyers for Trump said Tuesday that even just a three-week delay would be useful. But the attorney general alleges a decade-long pattern of fraudulent valuations that go beyond the subjective, one of James' lawyers said. "Our complaint shows that there were objective facts that are false," assistant attorney general Kevin Wallace told the judge.

Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) unveiled its own service, known as "Picasso," that uses AI to generate images, videos and 3D applications from text descriptions. Nvidia trained the technology on images licensed from Getty Images, Shutterstock Inc (SSTK.N), and Adobe, and plans to pay royalties. Image-generation technology is "trained" on billions of images, but whether that use is legally permitted is not always clear. Because the AI has been trained on Adobe Stock images, openly licensed content and older content where copyright has expired, the resulting creations are safe for commercial use, it said. "We're very interested in making this creator friendly," Ely Greenfield, chief technology officer for digital media at Adobe, told Reuters.

☆ Earthquake of magnitude 6.5 hits northern Afghanistan, killing at least 3
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

KABUL, March 21 (Reuters) - A magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck northern Afghanistan on Tuesday evening, according to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre, killing two in the east of the country and one child in neighbouring Pakistan. The tremor was very deep, 194 km (120.5 miles), and its epicentre was in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the remote northern Afghan province of Badakhshan. A spokesperson for Red Cross said they had no immediate reports of damages from Badakhshan's capital but were making checks on other areas. "We felt a strong earthquake, according to primary information the main place (affected) was Yamgan District," he said. A 6.1 magnitude earthquake in eastern Afghanistan killed over 1,000 people last year.

☆ US, China, Russia argue over North Korea at United Nations
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Michelle Nichols | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] People watch a TV broadcasting a news report on North Korea firing a ballistic missile into the sea off its east coast, at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, March 16, 2023. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/File PhotoUNITED NATIONS, March 20 (Reuters) - The United States, China and Russia argued during a United Nations Security Council meeting on Monday over who was to blame for spurring North Korea's dozens of ballistic missile launches and development of a nuclear weapons program. North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions for its missile and nuclear programs since 2006. China and Russia blamed joint military drills by the United States and South Korea for provoking Pyongyang while Washington accuses Beijing and Moscow of emboldening North Korea by shielding it from more sanctions. Russia and China, veto powers along with the United States, Britain and France, have said more sanctions will not help and want such measures to be eased.

[1/2] The processing facility at an oil sands operations near Fort McMurray, Alberta, September 17, 2014. The company joins Canada's biggest oil producers in urging policymakers to boost public funding for the costly technology that is seen as key to cutting emissions from the carbon-intensive oil sands. Until then, the company will pay Canada's carbon tax, set to rise to C$170 a tonne by 2030, Nicholson said. Canada's oil sands produced a record 3.15 million bpd in 2022 and are forecast to hit 3.7 million bpd by 2030, according to S&P Global. "The oil sands are long-life, low-decline assets," said Wood Mackenzie analyst Scott Norlin.

☆ Failure of Silicon Valley Bank Mirrors the Myth of the Wild West
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-19 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

As Silicon Valley Bank went down the tubes, it wasn't surprising that the loudest mouths in Techworld started demanding that the federal government cover everyone's losses. They were pioneers on the frontier of tech and finance, and as such they acted the way pioneers always do. Myths of the frontiersIt's unfashionable for people in the tech industry to dispute the central role that government-funded infrastructure and academic projects have played in the development of Silicon Valley and the digital age. Shout down into Silicon Valley and you'll hear echoes of this same pioneer myth. They see themselves as heroes not of a Western frontier but of space — the Final one — as refracted by the legendary writers of the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

The aim was to combat a global food crisis that was fueled in part by Russia's Feb. 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine and Black Sea blockade. The United Nations and Turkey said on Saturday that the deal had been extended, but did not specify for how long. [1/2] Commercial vessels including vessels which are part of Black Sea grain deal wait to pass the Bosphorus strait off the shores of Yenikapi during a misty morning in Istanbul, Turkey, October 31, 2022. Dujarric said on Saturday that the United Nations was strongly committed to implementing both the Ukraine Black Sea grain deal and the pact with Moscow and urged "all sides to redouble their efforts to implement them fully." Ukraine has so far exported nearly 25 million tonnes of mainly corn and wheat under the deal, according to the United Nations.

☆ Pakistan police enter Lahore property of ex-PM Imran Khan - party officials
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/2] Supporters of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan gather, as they guard the entrance of Khan's house, in Lahore, Pakistan March 17, 2023. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro/ File PhotoLAHORE, March 18 (Reuters) - Pakistani police on Saturday entered the property in Lahore of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, officials from his political party said, as he was arriving in the capital Islamabad for a court appearance. The move followed days of standoff and intense clashes between police and his supporters around the property, where police had attempted to arrest Khan on Tuesday. Khan said in a Tweet that his wife was at the property. (This story has been corrected to say police entered Imran Khan’s Lahore property as he was arriving in Islamabad for a court appearance in paragraph 1)Reporting by Mubasher Bukhari; Writing by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by William MallardOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ U.S. accuses China of trying to hide North Korea atrocities
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Michelle Nichols | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

China and Russia argue that the 15-member Security Council, which is charged with maintaining international peace and security, should not discuss human rights issues. They say such meetings should be confined to other U.N. bodies like the U.N. Human Rights Council or the U.N. General Assembly. Thomas-Greenfield said North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs were "inextricably linked to the regime's human rights abuses." Pyongyang rejects accusations of human rights abuses and blames sanctions for a dire humanitarian situation in North Korea. "Everybody knows full well that the U.S. uses human rights to settle scores with governments not to their liking."

☆ UN says it is doing everything possible to continue Ukraine grain deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Michelle Nichols | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

UNITED NATIONS, March 17 (Reuters) - The United Nations is "doing everything possible" to make sure a deal allowing the export of Ukrainian grain from Black Sea ports continues, U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council on Friday, a day before the pact is due to expire. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said that Moscow had notified Turkey and Ukraine on Monday that it would extend the Black Sea export deal for 60 days, until May 18. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the Security Council. Ukraine has so far exported nearly 25 million tonnes of mainly corn and wheat under the deal, according to the United Nations. Russia and Ukraine are leading suppliers of food commodities and Russia is also a top exporter of fertilizer.

☆ If TikTok is banned, it would have the biggest stock impact on Snap: LightShed's Rich Greenfield
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | 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 EmailIf TikTok is banned, it would have the biggest stock impact on Snap: LightShed's Rich GreenfieldRich Greenfield, LightShed Partners co-founder, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss controversies surrounding TikTok, the diplomacy concerns with China wrapped up in TikTok, and more.

☆ Ted Cruz's publisher shaved off his mullet on the cover of his new book about 'cultural Marxism'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Ted Cruz's infamous mullet was edited out of a photo on the cover of his new book by the publisher. The Texas Republican announced last week that he's writing his third book, titled "Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America." A person familiar with the matter told Insider that the decision to edit Cruz's mullet out of the picture was made by his publisher, the conservative outfit Regnery Publishing, and not the senator himself. "Is the routine touching up of a photo for a book cover considered newsworthy?" Cruz later began sporting a mullet fade as the Senate began debating impeachment charges against former President Donald Trump for incitement of an insurrection, prompting the Houston Chronicle to ask "What the hell is going on with Ted Cruz's hair?"

☆ Blast at Afghanistan journalist event kills at least one, injures eight
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

KABUL, March 11 (Reuters) - A blast hit a cultural centre during an event for journalists in northern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing at least one person and wounding eight, according to authorities and journalists, a few days after the province's governor died in an explosion claimed by Islamic State. Takor added that five journalists and three children were among the injured and a security guard was killed. Sajad Mosawi, a journalist in Balkh who was injured in the blast, said it had torn through the centre during an event to celebrate journalists. Taliban authorities were already investigating the explosion that killed provincial governor Mawlawi Mohammad Dawood Muzamil and two others at his office on Thursday. Reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar; Writing by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by William Mallard and Mark PotterOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

But that copper sits below the federally owned Oak Flat Campground, a place some Apache consider home to deities. The mine would create a crater 2 miles (3 km) wide and 1,000 feet (304 m) deep that would destroy that worship site, which the San Carlos Apache tribe strongly opposes. Some other Apache tribes in the area support Rio's project, but the San Carlos Apache have vowed to block it. Rio said it will continue to try to win the San Carlos Apache's approval. Several courts have ruled against the San Carlos Apache and their allies, which have appealed to the full 9th U.S.

LONDON, March 3 (Reuters) - The race for electric vehicle (EV) battery metals is heating up. Carmakers have already been busy tying up supplies of battery metals under direct off-take agreements with existing metals producers. Automakers' collective move into the mining sector has so far largely prioritised the lithium sector, where Western companies have been playing catch-up with Chinese investors. Lithium supply is struggling to scale up at the speed required to meet accelerating demand from battery-makers. Capital expenditure in the sector slumped, miners opting to return cash to shareholders rather than dig more big copper mines.

Summary Customs delays, tariff uncertainty and soaring global demand have hiked solar costs and delayed projects as the U.S. weans itself off Chinese dependence. The Biden administration's Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act (UFLPA) prevents the import of goods produced using forced labour in China’s Xinjiang Province, including much of the polysilicon used in solar panels. UFLPA checks have blocked panel imports at the U.S. border, delaying projects and driving up project costs. CHART: Solar manufacturing capacity by country, regionSource: International Energy Agency's Report on Solar PV Global Supply Chains, August 2022The UFLPA requires visibility into labour practices along the solar value chain. Lightsource bp has contracted for more than 20 million solar panels through 2028 and is considering imports from Southeast Asia, Turkey and India, Smith said.

☆ 2 college friends created energy gum and mints that got the attention of Kevin O'Leary and Robert Herjavec on 'Shark Tank.' They turned down the offers and still built a 7-figure business while workin
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Kathleen Elkins | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

College friends Kent Yoshimura and Ryan Chen came up with the idea of making caffeinated gum in 2013. "Shark Tank" stars Robert Herjavec and Kevin O'Leary both wanted a piece of the company when the co-founders entered the tank three years ago. Yoshimura and Chen came up with the idea of creating energy gum and mints on a 2013 scuba diving trip. Courtesy of Kent Yoshimura and Ryan ChenIt was on a scuba diving trip in 2013 when the friends thought about creating an energy product more approachable than pills. Turning down a $1 million deal from Robert Herjavec on 'Shark Tank'In 2019, Yoshimura and Chen got a casting call from the hit business reality TV show "Shark Tank."

☆ Swiss-based trust holds second meeting to discuss plans for Afghan funds -trustee
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Charlotte Greenfield | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The frozen central bank reserves were transferred from Washington into the "Fund for the Afghan People" last year where U.S. officials say it will be shielded from the Taliban. Trustee Shah Mehrabi, a U.S. academic who also remains on the Afghan central bank's Supreme Council, said a meeting of the four trustees was held virtually on Feb. 16. "The issue of disbursements of funds and the options for that was discussed," Mehrabi told Reuters. "The idea clearly here is the necessary steps to disburse funds and potential options for achieving monetary stability." Mehrabi said he believed the funds should only be used for achieving monetary stability and reducing volatility in Afghanistan's exchange rate.

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