US SEC sues the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance and its founder (Image: Darrin Zammit Lupi/Reuters)
The SEC says Binance and its CEO secretly control clients’ assets, allowing them to mix and siphon client funds.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sued Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, and its CEO and founder, Changpeng Zhao, for allegedly violating U.S. securities laws. The SEC alleges that Binance failed to register as a stock exchange, allowed U.S. clients to trade on its platform, and misled investors about its market surveillance controls. The SEC also alleges that Binance engaged in laundering trading, a practice of artificially inflating trading volume, and secretly controlled clients’ assets.
The SEC lawsuit is a major setback for Binance, which has been criticized for its lack of transparency and regulation. The lawsuit could have a chilling effect on the cryptocurrency industry as it raises questions about the legality of cryptocurrency exchanges.
The SEC is seeking injunctive relief, return of profits, and civil penalties. Binance has denied the allegations and has said it will fight the lawsuit.
Here are some additional details about the SEC’s allegations:
Binance allegedly allowed U.S. customers to trade on its platform even though it knew U.S. citizens were prohibited from doing so.
Binance allegedly misled investors about its market surveillance controls by claiming it had a system in place to detect and prevent market manipulation, when in fact it did not.
Binance allegedly engaged in laundering trading by creating fake trades to artificially inflate the trading volume of certain cryptocurrencies.
Binance allegedly secretly controlled clients’ assets by allowing its employees to access and move clients’ funds without their permission.
The SEC lawsuit is a significant development in the cryptocurrency industry. It remains to be seen how the lawsuit will be resolved, but it is clear that the SEC is taking a more aggressive approach to regulating the cryptocurrency industry.
In a blog post, Binance said: “We intend to defend our platform vigorously,” adding that “because Binance is not a US exchange, the SEC’s actions are limited in reach.”
“Any allegations that user assets on the Binance.US platform have ever been at risk are simply wrong,” the blog post said.
Binance.US, which is ultimately controlled by Zhao, said in a tweet that the lawsuit was “unjustified by the facts, by the law, or by the Commission’s own precedent.”
Bitcoin, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency, fell as much as 6 percent on the news to its lowest in almost three months. Binance’s own cryptocurrency BNB, the world’s fourth-largest by market size, dropped more than 5 percent.
‘Big risk’
The move is the latest in a series of legal troubles for Binance, which was also sued by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission in March for operating what the regulator alleged was an “illegal” exchange and a “fake” compliance program. Zhao called those charges “disappointing” and an “incomplete recitation of the facts.”
Binance is also under investigation by the US Department of Justice for suspected money laundering and sanctions violations, according to people familiar with the probe.
Market players said the SEC’s allegations could hobble Binance, with the lawsuit likely to reverberate through the crypto industry. Binance dominates crypto trading, last year processing trades worth about $65bn a day with up to 70 percent of the market.
“I think that there’s a big risk here that this could be crippling to Binance,” said Ed Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda.
Binance was founded in Shanghai in 2017 by Zhao, a Canadian citizen born and raised at the age of 12 in China.
While its holding company is based in the Cayman Islands, Binance says it does not have a headquarters and has declined to state the location of its main Binance.com exchange.
The firm has processed at least $10bn in payments for criminals and companies seeking to evade US sanctions, the Reuters news agency has previously reported.
Reuters also reported on May 23 that Binance commingled its customers’ funds with its corporate revenues in a Silvergate Bank account belonging to trading firm Merit Peak in breach of US financial rules that require client money to be kept separate.
Binance denied mixing customer deposits and company funds, saying that users who sent money to the account were not making deposits but rather buying Binance’s bespoke dollar-linked crypto token.
Sudanese Foreign Ministry sources told Al Jazeera that Volker Perthes will not be allowed to return to the war-torn country.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said he was “shocked” by a letter from Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan requesting the replacement of special envoy Volker Perthes.
Perthes and the UN mission in Sudan have been the target of several protests by thousands of military and other supporters who repeatedly accused him of “foreign intervention” and demanded his ouster.
“[Guterres] is proud of the work done by Volker Perthes and reaffirms his full confidence in his special representative,” a statement from U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said late Friday. “The secretary-general is shocked by the letter he received from General al-Burhan.”
Sudanese Foreign Ministry sources told Al Jazeera that Perthes will not be allowed to return to the war-torn country.
Perthes is currently in New York City, where he briefed the UN Security Council on the situation in Sudan earlier this week. There is no information available on when he was due to return to Sudan, where authorities have not issued visas to foreign nationals since the war began.
Al-Burhan accused Perthes of widening divisions in the country by excluding voices that should have been involved in the transition to civilian rule.
Al-Burhan’s army is currently at war with his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Daglo, who commands the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The rival factions are currently on the fifth day of a week-long ceasefire brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia, during which they have repeatedly accused each other of truce violations.
Not really a surprise
Neither the military nor the UN has released official copies of al-Burhan’s letter, which purportedly called for Perthes’ removal as Guterres’ envoy to Sudan.
It was the latest in a series of moves by al-Burhan, who last week officially sacked Hemedti as his deputy on the ruling sovereign council, rallied hardline military supporters in his inner circle, and is now trying to bolster the army’s ranks.
Observers say the presence of the UN mission in Sudan has been problematic for the military since the conflict in Darfur during the 2000s and the 2021 coup.
“For a long time, the Sudanese regime has never really accepted the role of the UN. The departure of Mr. Volker Perthes comes as no surprise. He knew the future in Sudan was pretty bleak for him,” said Aicha Elbasri, a former spokeswoman for the African Union-UN mission in Darfur.
Sudan’s Defense Ministry on Friday called for “army pensioners … as well as all those capable of bearing arms” to address their nearest military command unit and “arm themselves to protect themselves,” their families, and their neighbors.
A statement later in the day rejected the call to the army “reservists” and “pensioners.”
Recent fighting in Sudan has killed more than 1,800 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.
More than a million people have been displaced inside Sudan, in addition to 300,000 who have fled to neighboring countries, the UN says.
China Home Prices Rise First Time in 18 Months After Stimulus (Image: Bloomberg)
China’s home prices rose in February for the first time in 18 months, a sign that government efforts to revive the battered market are starting to pay off.
New home prices in 70 cities, excluding state-subsidized housing, gained 0.3% after being unchanged in January, the National Bureau of Statistics reported Thursday. Prices snapped an 18-month decline in the secondary market, rising 0.12%.
Authorities have ramped up financial support for cash-strapped developers and lowered mortgage rates in about two dozen cities after a crackdown sparked dozens of bond defaults and curbed demand for housing.
In another sign of the turnaround, sales rose in February for the first time in 20 months. The value of new home sales by the 100 biggest real estate developers climbed 15% from a year earlier to 461.6 billion Yuan ($67 billion), according to data released last month from China Real Estate Information Corp.
Beijing is aiming for a soft landing in the real estate sector, rather than trying to fuel rapid growth. At the National People’s Congress, the Communist Party-controlled parliament, the government last week vowed to prevent “unregulated” expansion of the sector and made it clear they will focus on shoring up the balance sheets of “high-quality” developers.
Country Garden Holdings Co., China’s largest developer, last week set a grim mood for the upcoming earnings season by warning of its first annual loss in at least 16 years. Sixteen Hong Kong-listed Chinese real estate firms have so far flagged profit slumps for 2022, and that number is expected to grow, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.
“Property market improvement is still limited in a few popular cities with stronger fundamentals,” Chen Wenjing, associate research director at China Index Holdings, said Wednesday ahead of the data release. “It’s too early to call an all-round recovery nationwide.”
SVB Collapse Offers Lesson for China (Image: Krystal Hu/Reuters)
Official media say a similar collapse is unlikely in China but the situation has ‘important implications for lenders.
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) will not affect China’s financial system but offers an important lesson for the country’s banking industry, the official Securities Times has said.
An SVB-style bank failure is unlikely to happen in China but the incident would have “important implications for the development of China’s small- and medium-sized lenders, and the stability of China’s financial system”, the media outlet said in an editorial on Wednesday.
SVB’s shutdown on Friday has roiled global markets, forced US President Joe Biden to rush out assurances that the financial system is safe, and prompted emergency US measures giving banks access to more funding.
In China, shares of smaller lenders, including Bank of Lanzhou, Xi An Bank, and Xiamen Bank, have far underperformed big banks over the past week amid concerns over their ability to manage risks.
China’s smaller banks, more vulnerable to interest rate risks, could suffer from shrinking interest spreads and investment losses during a rate hike cycle, GF Securities said in a report this week.
The Securities Times said while the SVB incident reflects loosened regulation of such banks in the United States, a slew of financial regulatory reforms in China over the past years have cleaned up the industry, curbed shadow banking, and reduced financial risks.
In addition, China has been closing regulatory loopholes, the editorial said. In the latest move, China said last week it would set up a new national financial regulatory body consolidating oversight of the industry.
“Although the SVB incident won’t have a material impact on China’s financial markets, China’s financial industry still needs to earnestly learn from this lesson, and always prioritize risk prevention and control,” the newspaper said.
SVB’s China joint venture has also sought to ease fears among clients and investors, saying on Saturday it has a sound corporate structure and an independently operated balance sheet.
Journalists Work Under Cloud of Fear Amid Modi's Media Crackdown (Image: Dar Yasin/AP Photo)
NEW YORK, Mar 11: The owner of a sealed newspaper in Indian-occupied Kashmir says Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “repressive media policies are destroying Kashmiri journalism, intimidating media outlets into serving as government mouthpieces and creating an information vacuum in our region of about 13 million people,” as India descends into authoritarianism.
In an opinion piece published in The New York Times on Saturday, Anuradha Bhasin, executive editor of The Kashmir Times, whose offices in Srinagar were sealed by the occupation authorities three years ago, wrote that Modi was taking steps that could replicate this disturbing model on a national scale.
“His Hindu-chauvinist movement, which has normalized intolerance and violence against Indian Muslims, has already put severe pressure on India’s once-rambunctious press, with journalists surveilled and jailed, and the government using strong-arm tactics against media outlets to ensure favorable coverage,” Ms. Bhasin wrote in her piece titled: Modi’s Final Assault on India’s Press Freedom Has Begun.
“In other words, the rest of India may end up looking a lot like Kashmir,” Ms. Bhasin remarked.
In 2019, Modi’s government abruptly revoked Kashmir’s autonomous status without public input from the territory’s people, sent in thousands of troops, and shut down internet access, it was pointed out. The shutdown lasted nearly six months, forcing hundreds of journalists to line up for hours to file their stories via a single designated site that had internet access. Each had 15 minutes to do so. Internet speeds have been excruciatingly slow since.
The next year new rules were introduced that empowered officials to label media content in Kashmir as “fake news, plagiarism and unethical or anti-national” and to punish journalists and publications. “The rules stated — ironically — that the goal was to ‘promote the highest standard of journalism’.”
“Journalists are routinely summoned by the police, interrogated, and threatened with charges such as income tax violations or terrorism or separatism,” Ms. Bhasin said, noting that several prominent journalists have been detained or sentenced to jail terms. At least 19 journalists were killed in Kashmir between 1990 and 2018.
“We work under a cloud of fear,” she said.
“An information vacuum hangs over Kashmir, with the public under-informed — or misinformed — about what’s going on in the region. Important news is suppressed, downplayed, or twisted to suit government ends.”
When Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a towering Kashmiri figure, died in 2021, the news was either blacked out in Kashmir or mentioned only briefly, according to the article. Last month, the government began a drive to bulldoze thousands of homes that authorities said were illegally built on state land. A leading Kashmir outlet portrayed it as a bold stroke against unnamed “influential land-grabbers.” There was no word about the poor Kashmiris suddenly left homeless or residents who claim to have valid documents proving ownership.
“An ignorant public and a government free of scrutiny and accountability are threats to democracy,” Ms. Bhasin wrote. “But Mr. Modi appears intent on replicating this across India. The proposed amendments to national guidelines for digital media that were unveiled in January are strikingly similar to those imposed on Kashmir, empowering government fact-checkers to label online content as ‘fake or false.’ Days after those changes were announced, the government ordered online platforms to block links to “India: The Modi Question,” a BBC documentary critical of the prime minister. Indian tax agents later raided the British broadcaster’s offices in India. Such raids have been used repeatedly to pressure critical voices in the media.
“Since he took power in 2014, Mr. Modi has systematically debased India’s democratic ideals, bending courts and other government machinery to his will,” she wrote.
“The media stands as one of the last remaining institutions capable of preventing India’s descent into authoritarianism. But if Mr. Modi succeeds in introducing the Kashmir model of information control to the rest of the country, it won’t just press freedom that is at risk, but Indian democracy itself.”
Best Picture Spotlight: Which Film will win Big at 2023's Oscars? (Image: AP)
Ten nominees are vying for one of filmmaking’s top honors — but what are their strengths and weaknesses? Find out.
Stars from across the filmmaking world are gathering this weekend in the United States for the 95th annual Academy Awards ceremony, one of the most prestigious events in the cinema world.
But the high point will likely come at the end of Sunday evening when this year’s best picture is crowned. Ten nominees are looking to walk away with the coveted Oscar for the top film — and the field of contenders this year is a varied bunch, ranging from quiet period dramas to punchy summer blockbusters and quirky indie favorites.
Where does each of the films stand in the race for the best picture trophy? Al Jazeera breaks down the strengths and weaknesses that could decide who wins Oscar glory.
Michelle Yeoh stars in Everything Everywhere All at Once (Image: Allyson Riggs/Courtesy of A24)
Everything Everywhere All at Once
A genre-defying absurdist masterpiece, the film Everything Everywhere All at Once was the dark horse that became a frontrunner in the best picture race.
The film tells the story of Evelyn, an immigrant mother and Laundromat owner whose life is falling apart. Not only has she alienated her husband and daughter, but her business threatens to crumble under the scrutiny of the Internal Revenue Service.
But this is no ordinary family drama. As Evelyn’s life starts to fracture, so does the universe, drawing her into a multi-dimensional action comedy that is part martial arts saga, part cinematic homage.
Why it could win: Who doesn’t love an underdog? This indie triumph was nearly universally acclaimed — and gained a cult following despite an off-season release in March 2022.
Why it could lose: Academy voters tend to lean conservative and this film, with its off-kilter comedy, could fall short compared with more traditional offerings.
Colin Farrell and Barry Keoghan star as characters struggling with loneliness in The Banshees of Inisherin (Image: Jonathan Hession/Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures)
The Banshees of Inisherin
A dark comedy about friendship, ambition, and spiraling hatred, The Banshees of Inisherin reunites filmmaker Martin McDonagh with the odd couple from one of his previous hits, In Bruges: Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson.
Once again, their on-screen relationship turns murderous. Farrell plays Pádraic, a farmer whose bland personality starts to grate on Gleeson’s brooding musician Colm.
So Colm makes a drastic pronouncement: Their friendship is over. And if Pádraic attempts to approach him ever again, Colm will cut off his fingers. Set against the backdrop of the Irish Civil War, McDonagh paints a stark portrait of how even the closest friends can turn into bitter enemies.
Why it could win: The Academy has shown a taste for McDonagh’s mordant humor, with his previous outing — 2017’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri — picking up seven nominations and two wins.
Why it could lose: A quaint allegory set in rural Ireland, this film lacks the pizzazz of some of its competitors and has faced backlash for perpetuating Irish stereotypes.
Director Baz Luhrmann (top center) and actor Austin Butler (top right) poses with family members and colleagues of the late singer Elvis Presley (Image: Jordan Strauss/Invision and AP Photo)
Elvis
A maestro of grand spectacle, director Baz Luhrmann has long been drawn to the touchstones of Western culture, adapting films based on Shakespeare, opera, and the writings of F Scott Fitzgerald.
But for his latest outing, Luhrmann summons one of the biggest hitmakers of the 20th century: the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley.
Blending modern influences with mid-century nostalgia, the biopic Elvis is an unconventional look at the relationship Presley had with his manager Colonel Tom Parker, played by Oscar winner Tom Hanks. But it is newcomer Austin Butler as Elvis who steals the show, with a hip-swinging tour de force.
Why it could win: Biopics are catnip for Oscar voters, and pairing a retro soundtrack with Luhrmann’s trademark visual fireworks could be a recipe for success.
Why it could lose: Luhrmann’s adrenaline-infused visual style can read as shallow, and his portrait of Elvis boasts a lot of rhythm and blues — but not much soul.
Cate Blanchett stars as the title character in the film Tár (Image: Courtesy of Focus Features)
Tár
She is a conductor at the top of her craft, a veritable celebrity in the world of classical music, with speaking engagements, a book release, and a major recording in the works.
But something is haunting the eponymous musician at the heart of the film Tár. And just when her career has reached its heights, a sex scandal will rob her of the thing she craves most: power.
Cate Blanchett delivers a towering performance as Lydia Tár, a woman who has risen in a male-dominated field, only to become an abusive force in her own right. Writer-director Todd Field plumbs the depths of Tár’s psyche, delivering a portrait tinged with dread.
Why it could win: Blanchett is ferocious as the title character and Field’s incisive psychological dramas have netted 14 Oscar nominations so far. A win could finally be in the offing.
Why it could lose: Tár is a film bathed in shadows, brimming with unanswered questions — not your typical crowd-pleaser, in short.
Felix Kammerer as Paul in a scene from the film All Quiet on the Western Front (Image: Reiner Bajo/Netflix via AP)
All Quiet on the Western Front
The World War I epic All Quiet on the Western Front heads to the Oscars on a triumphant note: It swept the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) with five wins, including the trophy for best picture.
But the film itself chronicles not triumph but defeat, seen from the mud-caked trenches of 1918 France. That’s where 17-year-old Paul finds himself after enlisting in the German army with his friends.
Paul’s patriotism, however, is soon dampened by the merciless realities of war, in director Edward Berger’s gritty, claustrophobic adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel.
Why it could win: From Platoon to The Hurt Locker to The Bridge on the River Kwai, war movies have a history of winning the best picture category — and this one boasts a literary pedigree.
Why it could lose: Of all the best picture nominees this year, this one is the arguably most traditional, which might dissuade Oscar voters looking to distance themselves from the past.
From left: Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Judith Ivey, Sheila McCarthy, Michelle McLeod, and Jessie Buckley star as a community of women seeking consensus in the film Women Talking (Image: Michael Gibson/Orion Releasing LLC)
Women Talking
Women Talking is a film as understated as its title — but in the discussion that unfurls lies a depth of pathos and complexity, as a group of Mennonite women confront the horrors of rape.
Based on a 2018 novel that fictionalized real-life events, Women Talking chronicles a community at breaking point. The women have come to realize that nearly all of them have been sexually assaulted in the night while being kept unconscious with cattle tranquilizers.
Now they have to decide what to do about it. Actor-turned-director Sarah Polley assembles a star-studded cast — headlined by Claire Foy, Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, and Oscar winner Frances McDormand — to explore the fallout for the isolated religious community.
Why it could win: Women Talking is a poignant look at a timely issue, and its largely female ensemble features some of the top talents in cinema today.
Why it could lose: Some cultural critics warn the momentum behind the #MeToo movement is waning, and other recent films that have explicitly grappled with sexual assault — like the 2022 drama She Said — have been passed over at the Oscars.
Michelle Williams (center) and Gabriel Labelle (right) star in Steven Spielberg’s latest film, The Fabelmans (Image: Merie Weismiller Wallace/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment via AP)
The Fabelmans
An institution in US filmmaking, director Steven Spielberg unveils his most intimate project yet with The Fabelmans, a semi-autobiographical portrait of his childhood passion for filmmaking — and his parents’ dissolving marriage.
Gabriel LaBelle stars as Sammy Fabelman, a teenager caught between his engineer father’s practical ambitions and his pianist mother’s stifled artistry.
Inspired by the classic cinema of Cecil B DeMille and John Ford, Sammy picks up a movie camera and embarks on filmmaking endeavors of his own. But the truths he discovers through the eye of the camera lens could fracture his family for good.
Why it could win: Spielberg’s fourth big-screen collaboration with Pulitzer-winning playwright Tony Kushner is a warm-hearted love letter to Hollywood cinema.
Why it could lose: Spielberg’s self-mythologizing is gently paced and perhaps a bit too neat, side-stepping some of the heavier emotional stakes that accompany depictions of anti-Semitism and dream deferred.
Director James Cameron used underwater motion-capture technology for his latest film (Image: Avatar: The Way of Water/Courtesy of 20th Century Studios)
Set more than 10 years later, the film reunites with Jake Sully, a former US Marine whose consciousness now resides in the body of a Na’vi, one of the moon’s tall blue indigenous inhabitants.
But the Na’vi remain under attack as humans attempt to colonize Pandora and strip its resources. Sully and his family escape to Pandora’s coastline where they embark on a seafaring adventure that owes a nod to Moby Dick — only this time, the whale is the protagonist.
Why it could win: Cameron has long embraced cutting-edge technology, and his latest Avatar employs underwater motion-capture animation that lends crisp beauty to the film’s aquatic scenes.
Why it could lose: Though it was the top-grossing film worldwide, the latest Avatar suffers from symptoms common to many blockbusters: It is long, bloated with action sequences, and heavy-handed in its depiction of bad guys versus mystical indigenous protagonists.
From left: Erik Hemmendorff, Dolly De Leon, Philippe Bobe, and director Ruben Östlund pose with the 2022 Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival (Image: Vianney Le Caer/Invision and AP)
Triangle of Sadness
Winner of the prestigious Palme d’Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, Triangle of Sadness is a satire and castaway movie rolled into one.
Writer-director Ruben Östlund rallies a cast of nouveau-riche characters to board the film’s doomed yacht. Among the guest list are a pair of models-turned-influencers, an arms-dealing couple, a Russian oligarch, and even a tech magnate.
But their world of easy pleasures gets upended when a string of disasters strikes the ship, capsizing the hierarchy they long enjoyed.
Why it could win: Triangle of Sadness packs the same satirical punch that made the 2019 South Korean film Parasite the best picture winner, sharing its affinity for class commentary, dark humor, and overflowing toilets.
Why it could lose: Despite its big win at Cannes, Triangle of Sadness earned mixed reviews, with some critics denouncing its lack of nuance and intellectual posturing.
Monica Barbaro and Tom Cruise on the set of Top Gun: Maverick (Image: Scott Garfield/Courtesy of Paramount Pictures Corporation, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films)
Top Gun: Maverick
An unapologetic throwback to the era of big 1980s action movies, Top Gun: Maverick soared into theatres in May 2022, just in time for the summer blockbuster season, and it came away as the top earner at the US box office last year.
The engine, of course, behind the high-flying film, is Tom Cruise, who at age 60 remains a silver-screen draw.
In this sequel to 1986’s Top Gun, Cruise returns as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, a daredevil pilot whose disdain for authority has scuttled his military career. But new opportunities — and new challenges — emerge when Maverick is put in charge of training the next generation of fighter pilots.
Why it could win: Top Gun: Maverick is the quintessential popcorn film, a breathless, stunt-filled extravaganza that resonates with a broad American audience.
Why it could lose: Broad, splashy blockbusters rarely take home the Academy’s top honor, and Top Gun: Maverick might not play well with audiences skeptical of its military-themed nostalgia.
Hyundai Reviews Russia Plant After Sales Reports in Kazakhstan (Image: Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)
South Korean automaker says it is considering ‘various options’ for the Saint Petersburg factory.
Hyundai Motor says it is considering “various options” for its suspended factory in Russia, following a report that the South Korean automaker is discussing the plant’s sale to a Kazakhstan company.
Hyundai, South Korea’s third-largest conglomerate, said on Friday it had not decided the future of its Saint Petersburg facility following a news report that negotiations to sell the plant were in the final stages.
The company added that it would make an announcement once the matter had been decided, or no later than one month’s time.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported on Thursday that the local government in St Petersburg was in negotiations to sell the factory to an auto-related company in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Hyundai Motor suspended operations at its Russian factory in March 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, joining numerous brands that have paused their business or exited the country.
Google's Plan to Catch ChatGPT is to Stuff AI into Everything (Image: Bloomberg)
A new internal directive requires “generative artificial intelligence” to be incorporated into all of its biggest products within months.
Artificial intelligence was supposed to be Google’s thing. The company has cultivated a reputation for making long-term bets on all kinds of far-off technologies, and much of the research underpinning the current wave of AI-powered chatbots took place in its labs. Yet a startup called OpenAI has emerged as an early leader in so-called generative AI—software that can produce its own text, images, or videos—by launching ChatGPT in November. Its sudden success has left Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. sprinting to catch up in a key subfield of the technology that Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai has said will be “more profound than fire or electricity.”
ChatGPT, which some see as an eventual challenger to Google’s traditional search engine, seems doubly threatening given OpenAI’s close ties to Microsoft Corp. The feeling that Google may be falling behind in an area that it has considered a key strength has led to no small measure of anxiety in Mountain View, California, according to current and former employees as well as others close to the company, many of whom asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t allowed to speak publicly. As one current employee puts it: “There is an unhealthy combination of abnormally high expectations and great insecurity about any AI-related initiative.”
Sundar Pichai (Image: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg)
The effort has Pichai reliving his days as a product manager, as he’s taken to weighing in directly on the details of product features, a task that would usually fall far below his pay grade, according to one former employee. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have also gotten more involved in the company than they’ve been in years, with Brin even submitting code changes to Bard, Google’s ChatGPT-esque chatbot. Senior management has declared a “code red” that comes with a directive that all of its most important products—those with more than a billion users—must incorporate generative AI within months, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. In an early example, the company announced in March that creators on its YouTube video platform would soon be able to use the technology to virtually swap outfits.
Some Google alumni have been reminded of the last time the company implemented an internal mandate to infuse every key product with a new idea: the effort beginning in 2011 to promote the ill-fated social network Google+. It’s not a perfect comparison—Google was never seen as a leader in social networking, while its expertise in AI is undisputed. Still, there’s a similar feeling. Employee bonuses were once hitched to Google+’s success. Current and former employees say at least some Googlers’ ratings and reviews will likely be influenced by their ability to integrate generative AI into their work. The code red has already resulted in dozens of planned generative AI integrations. “We’re throwing spaghetti at the wall,” says one Google employee. “But it’s not even close to what’s needed to transform the company and be competitive.”
In the end, the mobilization around Google+ failed. The social network struggled to find traction with users, and Google ultimately said in 2018 that it would shutter the product for consumers. One former Google executive sees the flop as a cautionary tale. “The mandate from Larry was that every product has to have a social component,” this person says. “It ended quite poorly.”
A Google spokesperson pushes back against the comparison between the code red and the Google+ campaign. While the Google+ mandate touched all products, the current AI push has largely consisted of Googlers being encouraged to test out the company’s AI tools internally, the spokesperson says a common practice in tech nicknamed “dogfooding.” Most Googlers haven’t been pivoting to spend extra time on AI, only those working on relevant projects, the spokesperson says.
Google is not alone in its conviction that AI is now everything. Silicon Valley has entered a full-on hype cycle, with venture capitalists and entrepreneurs suddenly proclaiming themselves AI visionaries, pivoting away from recent fixations such as the blockchain, and companies seeing their stock prices soar after announcing AI integrations. In recent weeks, Meta Platforms Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been focused on AI rather than the metaverse—a technology he recently declared so foundational to the company that it required changing its name, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Zuckerberg (Image: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)
The new marching orders are welcome news for some people at Google, who are well aware of its history of diving into speculative research only to stumble when it comes to commercializing it. Members of some teams already working on generative AI projects are hopeful that they’ll now be able to “ship more and have more product sway, as opposed to just being some research thing,” according to one of the people with knowledge of the matter.
In the long run, it may not matter much that OpenAI sucked all the air out of the public conversation for a few months, given how much work Google has already done. Pichai began referring to Google as an “AI-first” company in 2016. It’s used machine learning to drive its ad business for years while also weaving AI into key consumer products such as Gmail and Google Photos, where it uses the technology to help users compose emails and organize images. In a recent analysis, research company Zeta Alpha examined the top 100 most cited AI research papers from 2020 to 2022 and found that Google dominated the field. “The way it has ended up appearing is that Google was kind of the sleeping giant who is behind and playing catch-up now. I think the reality is actually not quite that,” says Amin Ahmad, a former AI researcher at Google who co-founded Vectara, a startup that offers conversational search tools to businesses. “Google was actually very good, I think, at applying this technology into some of their core products years and years ahead of the rest of the industry.”
Google has also wrestled with the tension between its commercial priorities and the need to handle emerging technology responsibly. There’s a well-documented tendency of automated tools to reflect biases that exist in the data sets they’ve been trained on, as well as concerns about the implications of testing tools on the public before they’re ready. Generative AI in particular comes with risks that have kept Google from rushing to market. In search, for instance, a chatbot could deliver a single answer that seems to come straight from the company that made it, similar to the way ChatGPT appears to be the voice of OpenAI. This is a fundamentally riskier proposition than providing a list of links to other websites.
Google’s code red seems to have scrambled its risk-reward calculations in ways that concern some experts in the field. Emily Bender, a professor of computational linguistics at the University of Washington, says Google and other companies hopping onto the generative AI trend may not be able to steer their AI products away “from the most egregious examples of bias, let alone the pervasive but slightly subtler cases.” The spokesperson says Google’s efforts are governed by its AI principles, a set of guidelines announced in 2018 for developing the technology responsibly, adding that the company is still taking a cautious approach.
Other outfits have already shown they’re willing to push ahead, whether Google does or not. One of the most important contributions Google’s researchers have made to the field was a landmark paper titled “Attention Is All You Need,” in which the authors introduced transformers: systems that help AI models zero in on the most important pieces of information in the data they’re analyzing. Transformers are now key building blocks for large language models, the tech powering the current crop of chatbots—the “T” in ChatGPT stands for “transformer.” Five years after the paper’s publication, all but one of the authors has left Google, with some citing a desire to break free of the strictures of a large, slow-moving company.
They are among dozens of AI researchers who’ve jumped to OpenAI as well as a host of smaller startups, including Character.AI, Anthropic, and Adept. A handful of startups founded by Google alumni—including Neeva, Perplexity AI, Tonita, and Vectara—are seeking to reimagine search using large language models. The fact that only a few key places have the knowledge and ability to build them makes the competition for that talent “much more intense than in other fields where the ways of training models are not as specialized,” says Sara Hooker, a Google Brain alumna now working at AI startup Cohere Inc.
It’s not unheard of for people or organizations to contribute significantly to the development of one breakthrough technology or another, only to see someone else realize stupefying financial gains without them. Keval Desai, a former Googler who’s now managing director of venture capital firm Shakti, cites the example of Xerox Parc, the research lab that laid the groundwork for much of the personal computing era, only to see Apple Inc. and Microsoft come along and build their trillion-dollar empires on its back. “Google wants to make sure that it’s not the Xerox Parc of its era,” says Desai. “All the innovation happened there, but none of the execution.”
Haris Credits Babar for His Success as Pakistan Mainstay (Image: AFP)
KARACHI: Running and bowling at a raw pace was never a problem for Haris Rauf. After all, he had done it all his life with the ribbon ball and replicated the skill in the trials of the HBL Pakistan Super League franchise Lahore Qalandars.
But after proving his worth as a product of Qalandars at the club level in Australia, the Big Bash League, and PSL and making his debut in Pakistan, he finally began struggling with his bowling economy.
Until October 2021, the right-hander was leaking races to nearly nine above at Twenty20 Internationals, but in the year and a half that followed, he reduced his economy rate to less than eight.
Haris’ transformation was evident during the 2021 Q20 World Cup, in which he took eight wickets at an average of 21 while conceding 7.3 runs over to lead Pakistan to the semi-finals of the tournament.
The 2021 T20 World Cup was also the first time Pakistan looked like a tight-knit unit under their captain Babar Azam, who led the team to the T20 Asia Cup and T20 World Cup finals the following year, with Haris being one of the central figures in their journey to become one of the best white ball teams in the world.
For Haris, the main man behind his emergence as Pakistan’s premier death bowler in the shortest formats is none other than Babar.
“I strongly believe that the improvement in my performance is all because of Babar Azam,” Haris told Dawn. “We played really good and exciting cricket in the last two years.
“In this period, we emerged as a good unit, especially in white-ball cricket, and the credit goes to our skipper Babar Azam, who trusted the abilities of players, which ultimately gave us confidence.”
While Babar enjoys Haris’ respect as the leader of the group, the pacer has got a special place in his heart for fellow quick and Pakistan’s pace spearhead Shaheen Shah Afridi
His pairing with Shaheen has symbolized Lahore Qalandars’ identity, with both bowlers staying associated with the franchise since the start of their PSL careers.
Even in the Pakistan shirt, Shaheen’s support has motivated Haris to do better.
“Shaheen Shah Afridi is a great support from the other end, he said. “We have a very strong bond, and it helps me to keep enhancing my bowling skills. “
Haris had to do without Shaheen after the latter was ruled out for nearly six months after picking up an injury during Pakistan’s tour to Sri Lanka in July. Shaheen was unavailable for the Asia Cup and the seven-match home T20I series against England before returning for the 2022 T20 World Cup, that too, only to walk off following an injury in the final.
In Shaheen’s absence, Haris said, he had to take the responsibility of leading the Pakistan attack. The extra bit of pressure was a challenge Haris ensured only helped him to improve.
In the Asia Cup, Haris bagged eight victims at 19.12 and was the fifth-highest wicket-taker in the tournament. In the home T20 series against England, he took as many wickets and topped the bowling charts.
“Shaheen wasn’t part of that series, so I was leading the bowling unit,” Haris noted about the England T20s. “So I was extra responsible and managing my bowlers accordingly.”
“It wasn’t easy to lead the bowling unit without him, but I was lucky enough that I took the advantage and learned this job from Shaheen.”
Haris and Shaheen were reunited before Pakistan kicked off their T20 World Cup campaign in Australia last year. The national side’s start in the showpiece was horrific as they lost against India and Zimbabwe in their first two matches.
Pakistan, however, rallied to win the remaining group stage matches to eventually reach the semi-finals, in which they beat New Zealand before losing to England in the final.
“That bad start was the beginning of our good finish,” Haris said of Pakistan’s T20 World Cup campaign. “The defeat against Zimbabwe was a real wake-up call, and then everyone stood up to act.”
Pakistan could also have started with a win had it not been for the incredible spectacle of Virat Kohli, who helped India recover from a rough start in their chase to win the match.
Kohli’s two sixes in the death overs against Haris proved crucial in turning India’s tide as the pacer saw the ball fly past the limit at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground.
“Well, the plan was simple; to fool him with variation, but he played it well,” Haris said of his confrontation with Kohli. “And I’m saying this since the night that only a player like Kohli could hold back his nerves and play that shot.”
Kohli’s entries were an example of the unforgivable nature of international cricket, which Haris believed a player needed to embrace to ensure improvement.
“You learn every day, and I think when you get the experience, the responsibilities come to you, and there’s no chance of making any mistakes in competitive cricket,” he said. “So to cope with these situations, you have to stay in challenging situations, and that’s the only way you can improve.”
iPhone Maker Plans $700 Million India Plant in Shift from China
Apple Inc. partner Foxconn Technology Group plans to invest about $700 million on a new plant in India to ramp up local production, people familiar with the matter said, underscoring an accelerating shift of manufacturing away from China as Washington-Beijing tensions grow.
The Taiwanese company, also known for its flagship unit Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., plans to build the plant to make iPhone parts on a 300-acre site close to the airport in Bengaluru, the capital of the southern Indian state of Karnataka, according to the people, who asked not to be named as the information is not public. The factory may also assemble Apple’s handsets, some of the people said, and Foxconn may also use the site to produce some parts for its nascent electric vehicle business.
The investment is one of Foxconn’s biggest single outlays to date in India and underscores how China’s at risk of losing its status as the world’s largest producer of consumer electronics. Apple and other US brands are leaning on their Chinese-based suppliers to explore alternative locations such as India and Vietnam. It’s a rethink of the global supply chain that’s accelerated during the pandemic and the war in Ukraine and could reshape the way global electronics are made.
The new production site in India is expected to create about 100,000 jobs, the people said. The company’s sprawling iPhone assembly complex in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou employs some 200,000 at the moment, although that number surges during the peak production season.
Output at the Zhengzhou plant plunged ahead of the year-end holidays due to Covid-related disruptions, spurring Apple to re-examine its China-reliant supply chain. Foxconn’s decision is the latest move that suggests suppliers may move capacity out of China far faster than expected.
The plans could still change as Foxconn is in the process of finalizing investment and project details, the people said. It’s also unclear if the plant represents new capacity or production that Foxconn is shifting from other sites such as its Chinese facilities.
Apple declined to comment. Hon Hai, whose Chairman Young Liu met India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The Karnataka state government also did not immediately respond. Liu, who is on tour in India, has committed to another manufacturing project in the neighboring Telangana state.
Foxconn’s decision would be a coup for Modi’s government, which sees an opportunity to close India’s tech gap with China as Western investors and corporations sour on Beijing’s crackdowns on the private sector.
India has offered financial incentives to Apple suppliers such as Foxconn, which began making the latest generation of iPhones at a site in Tamil Nadu last year. Smaller rivals Wistron Corp. and Pegatron Corp. have also ramped up in India, while suppliers such as Jabil Inc. have begun making components for AirPods locally.
