London-based blockchain-powered firm Millicent has won a prestigious research grant from the U.K. government to develop a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Kene Ezeji-Okoye, co-founder and president of Millicent, shares his insights into the firm's latest projects, including creating regulator complaint stablecoins and a "highly secure blockchain." Plus, addressing privacy concerns of a potential digital pound.
The U.S. government's auto safety agency is investigating whether last year's recall of Tesla's Autopilot driving system did enough to make sure drivers pay attention to the road. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says in documents posted on its website Friday that it has concerns about the December recall of more than 2 million vehicles. The agency pushed the company to do the recall after a two-year investigation into Autopilot's driver monitoring system, which measures torque on the steering wheel from a driver's hands.
Sergei Shoigu, Russia's defence minister, has tried to send a "business as usual" message since his deputy was arrested on a bribery charge. On the surface, the timing of the detention on Tuesday of Timur Ivanov, one of Shoigu's 12 deputy ministers, was unexpected, coming when Russia is waging war in Ukraine and the authorities have made discrediting the army a jailable offence. Allegations of graft funding a lifestyle way beyond his means made against 48-year-old Ivanov by the late opposition politician Alexei Navalny's anti-corruption foundation had been in the public domain for more than a year with no apparent fallout.
Students blocked access to Paris' prestigious Sciences Po university over the war in Gaza on Friday, demanding the institution condemn Israel's actions, in a protest that echoed similar demonstrations on U.S. campuses. Chanting their support for the Palestinians, the students displayed Palestinian flags at windows and over the building's entrance. Several wore the black-and-white keffiyeh head scarf that has become an emblem of solidarity with Gaza.
The practice of giving sedatives to people detained by police spread quietly across the nation over the last 15 years, built on questionable science and backed by police-aligned experts, an investigation led by The Associated Press has found. At least 94 people died after they were given sedatives and restrained by police from 2012 through 2021, according to findings by the AP in collaboration with FRONTLINE (PBS) and the Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism. Supporters say sedatives enable rapid treatment for drug-related behavioral emergencies and psychotic episodes, protect front-line responders from violence and are safely administered thousands of times annually to get people with life-threatening conditions to hospitals.
Demetrio Jackson was desperate for medical help when the paramedics arrived. Elijah McClain’s 2019 death in Aurora, Colorado, was a rare exception: Two paramedics were convicted of giving McClain an overdose of ketamine, the same drug given to Jackson.
A Colorado judge on Friday is expected to sentence a paramedic convicted in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, the last defendant to face jail time for the young Black man's death. McClain, 23, died after police slammed him to the ground soon after stopping him and put him in a chokehold at least twice. Paramedics injected him with an excessive dose of ketamine, an anesthetic used for sedation, after police said he was in a state of "excited delirium."
Azerbaijan, host of this year's U.N. climate summit, will defend the right of oil and gas producing nations to invest in the sector, the country's president said on Friday, noting that despite climate targets, fossil fuel demand remains strong. As the host of the United Nations COP29 climate summit in November, Azerbaijan will oversee negotiations among nearly 200 countries on how to raise more finance to combat climate change and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions heating the planet.
A former researcher working in the U.K. Parliament and another man charged with spying for China were granted bail Friday after an initial court appearance in London. Christopher Cash, 29, and Christopher Berry, 32, were charged with violating the Official Secrets Act by providing information or documents that could be “useful to an enemy” — China — and “prejudicial to the safety or interests” of the U.K. between late 2021 and February 2023. Cash, a parliamentary researcher who worked with senior lawmakers from the governing Conservatives, was ordered not to enter Parliament or contact members of the House of Commons.
Syria has avoided getting embroiled in the Gaza war, experts said, despite a strike on Iran's Damascus consulate, blamed on Israel, that threatened to ignite a regional conflagration.Recent months have seen a series of strikes on Iranian targets in Syria, widely blamed on Israel, culminating in an April 1 raid that levelled Tehran's consulate in Damascus and killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.
Egypt sent a high-level delegation to Israel on Friday with the hope of brokering a cease-fire agreement with Hamas in Gaza, two officials said. At the same time, it warned that a possible Israeli offensive focused on Gaza's city of Rafah — on the border with Egypt — could have catastrophic consequences for regional stability. Egypt's top intelligence official, Abbas Kamel, is leading the delegation and plans to discuss with Israel a “new vision” for a prolonged cease-fire in Gaza, an Egyptian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the mission freely.
Zuckerberg's track record of making money only after achieving a kind of critical mass is a harder sell for AI.
South Korean police said Friday they searched the office of the hard-line incoming leader of an association of doctors and confiscated his mobile phone as he faces accusations that he incited the protracted walkouts by thousands of medical interns and residents. The office of Lim Hyun-taek, who is to be inaugurated as head of the Korean Medical Association next week, called the raid politically motivated and questioned whether the government is sincere about its offer for dialogue to end the strikes. Police said they sent officers to Lim's office in Seoul and residence in the southern city of Asan on Friday to confiscate his mobile phone and other unspecified materials.
Philippine forces killed an Abu Sayyaf militant, who had been implicated in past beheadings, including of 10 Filipino marines and two kidnapped Vietnamese, in a clash in the south, police officials said Friday. Philippine police, backed by military intelligence agents, killed Nawapi Abdulsaid in a brief gunbattle Wednesday night in the remote coastal town of Hadji Mohammad Ajul on Basilan island after weeks of surveillance, security officials said.
The Burkinabe army has repeatedly committed mass atrocities against civilians in the name of fighting terrorism, HRW said, calling on authorities to investigate the massacres. However, the country's communication council said HRW's report contains "peremptory and tendentious" declarations against the army likely to create public disorder and it would suspend the programmes of the broadcasters over their coverage of the story.
Burkina Faso suspended the BBC and Voice of America radio stations for their coverage of a report by Human Rights Watch on a mass killing of civilians carried out by the country's armed forces. Burkina Faso's communication spokesperson, Tonssira Myrian Corine Sanou, said late that Thursday that both radio stations would be suspended for two weeks, and warned other media networks to avoid reporting on the story. According to the report published by Human Rights Watch on Thursday, the army killed some 223 civilians, including 56 children, in villages accused of cooperating with militants.
Russia and its allies in Asia should expand joint military exercises as they face a direct threat from attempts by the United States to expand its security influence in the region, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday. He was speaking at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a security grouping that includes Russia, India, China, Iran, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. "I believe that everyone present shares the opinion that the deployment of military infrastructure in the region by the United States and its allies is unacceptable," Shoigu said.
LONDON (Reuters) -Sergei Mingazov, a journalist for the Russian edition of Forbes, has been detained on suspicion of spreading false information about the Russian army, the magazine said on Friday. Konstantin Bubon, Mingazov's lawyer, said on Facebook that his client was in a detention centre in the far eastern city of Khabarovsk, where he lives. Forbes Russia said it had not been able to contact the reporter.
The Israeli army said Friday a civilian was killed near the country's northern border with Lebanon, as near-daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah rage.Israel says 11 soldiers and nine civilians have been killed on its side of the border.
FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Bayer shareholder Deka Investment said on Friday it would not join other large investors in supporting the healthcare and agriculture group's management at its annual general meeting. Two other larger German mutual fund management houses, DWS and Union Investment, have said they would vote in favour of approving the management board's actions while shareholder advisory firms Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) have recommended such a vote. Bayer CEO Bill Anderson will face questions at the AGM over his decision in March to suspend for up to three years any preparations to break apart the German maker of pharmaceuticals, crop protection products and consumer health remedies.
Criticism of Qatar over its role as a mediator between Israel and Hamas has prompted a rare pushback by the Gulf state against its detractors, analysts have said.But, as talks have stalled, and in the face of calls -- particularly from Israel and the United States -- for Qatar to exert pressure on Hamas, the gas-rich emirate has warned it could walk away as a mediator.
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