Syria introduces dress code for women at public beaches
01:24
12/06/2025
'Facts need to come first' amid speculation over Air India crash cause
12/06/2025
London-bound Air India flight with more than 240 aboard crashes after takeoff
12/06/2025
'No survivors' in Air India flight crash, says police chief
12/06/2025
EU, Britain strike deal on Gibraltar's post-Brexit status
12/06/2025
India plane crash: All 242 on board flight to London killed this morning
Asia / Pacific
12/06/2025
Convoy arrives in Libya en route to Gaza to challenge Israel blockade
12/06/2025
UK sets up crisis team after Air India crash
12/06/2025
Third night of anti-immigrant violence hits Northern Ireland town
12/06/2025
Australia 'confident' in US nuclear sub deal despite review
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LeMonde
2 hours ago
- LeMonde
EU stands up against Netanyahu: From a change in tone to possible sanctions
An "intolerable" situation, "egregious actions," an "unacceptable" humanitarian "catastrophe." More than a year and a half after Hamas conducted its wave of attacks on Israel, which resulted in some 1,200 victims, Israel's retaliation and the intensification of its military operations in Gaza, with the death toll of more than 50,000 Palestinian victims continuing to rise, has left European leaders staggered. In recent weeks, European governments have changed their tone when speaking about the Israeli government, notably due to pressure from their populations, who have been outraged by the destruction of residential areas, attacks on humanitarian workers and journalists, the way humanitarian aid was blocked – and then unfrozen in a chaotic, piecemeal way, while the Palestinian population has been starved and regularly forced to relocate from one area to another. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, on May 26: "What the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip, I no longer understand, frankly, what its objective is." The next day, his foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, asserted that Germany defends "the rule of law everywhere and also international humanitarian law." No consensus A week before, a proposal from the Netherlands, backed by a majority of European foreign ministers, called on European Union institutions to launch a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a political and trade treaty between the EU and Israel, which was signed in 1995 and has been in force since 2000. The proposal was based on Article 2 of the agreement, which stipulates that the parties to the deal commit to upholding certain fundamental rights, notably human rights. Ireland and Spain had already called for such a review in February 2024, supported by Josep Borrell, the EU's head diplomat at the time, but the Commission stayed silent on the matter. One year later, the situation has changed: the Netherlands, which traditionally have close ties to Israel, convinced many other EU member states, and Kaja Kallas, Borrell's successor, promised to present this review to the EU's next Foreign Affairs Council on June 23, along with "options" for what comes next.
France 24
6 hours ago
- France 24
Anthropic says looking to power European tech with hiring push
The OpenAI competitor wants to be "the engine behind some of the largest startups of tomorrow... (and) many of them can and should come from Europe", Krieger said. Tech industry and political leaders have often lamented Europe's failure to capitalise on its research and education strength to build heavyweight local companies -- with many young founders instead leaving to set up shop across the Atlantic. Krieger's praise for the region's "really strong talent pipeline" chimed with an air of continental tech optimism at Vivatech. French AI startup Mistral on Wednesday announced a multibillion-dollar tie-up to bring high-powered computing resources from chip behemoth Nvidia to the region. The semiconductor firm will "increase the amount of AI computing capacity in Europe by a factor of 10" within two years, Nvidia boss Jensen Huang told an audience at the southern Paris convention centre. Among 100 planned continental hires, Anthropic is building up its technical and research strength in Europe, where it has offices in Dublin and non-EU capital London, Krieger said. Beyond the startups he hopes to boost, many long-standing European companies "have a really strong appetite for transforming themselves with AI", he added, citing luxury giant LVMH, which had a large footprint at Vivatech. 'Safe by design' Mistral -- founded only in 2023 and far smaller than American industry leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic -- is nevertheless "definitely in the conversation" in the industry, Krieger said. The French firm recently followed in the footsteps of the US companies by releasing a so-called "reasoning" model able to take on more complex tasks. "I talk to customers all the time that are maybe using (Anthropic's AI) Claude for some of the long-horizon agentic tasks, but then they've also fine-tuned Mistral for one of their data processing tasks, and I think they can co-exist in that way," Krieger said. So-called "agentic" AI models -- including the most recent versions of Claude -- work as autonomous or semi-autonomous agents that are able to do work over longer horizons with less human supervision, including by interacting with tools like web browsers and email. Capabilities displayed by the latest releases have raised fears among some researchers, such as University of Montreal professor and "AI godfather" Yoshua Bengio, that independently acting AI could soon pose a risk to humanity. Bengio last week launched a non-profit, LawZero, to develop "safe-by-design" AI -- originally a key founding promise of OpenAI and Anthropic. 'Very specific genius' "A huge part of why I joined Anthropic was because of how seriously they were taking that question" of AI safety, said Krieger, a Brazilian software engineer who co-founded Instagram, which he left in 2018. Anthropic is still working on measures designed to restrict their AI models' potential to do harm, he added. But it has yet to release details of its "level 4" AI safety protections foreseen for still more powerful models, after activating ASL (AI Safety Level) 3 to corral the capabilities of May's Claude Opus 4 release. Developing ASL 4 is "an active part of the work of the company", Krieger said, without giving a potential release date. With Claude 4 Opus, "we've deployed the mitigations kind of proactively... safe doesn't have to mean slow, but it does mean having to be thoughtful and proactive ahead of time" to make sure safety protections don't impair performance, he added. Looking to upcoming releases from Anthropic, Krieger said the company's models were on track to match chief executive Dario Amodei's prediction that Anthropic would offer customers access to a "country of geniuses in a data centre" by 2026 or 2027 -- within limits. Anthropic's latest AI models are "genius-level at some very specific things", he said. "In the coming year... it will continue to spike in particular aspects of things, and still need a lot of human-in-the-loop coordination," he forecast.
Euronews
14 hours ago
- Euronews
Istanbul mayor boycotts court hearing in expert witness case
Istanbul's jailed opposition Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and his legal team have boycotted a court hearing on Thursday after they claimed that a late change in venue for the proceedings was 'unlawful'. The case, one of many criminal allegations Imamoglu is facing, was over comments the Istanbul mayor made on an expert witness, over the prosecution of other officials from his Republican People's Party, or CHP. In a statement, the CHP said neither Imamoglu nor his legal team would attend Thursday's hearing due to a change in venue through 'unlawful procedures.' Imamoglu, in a post from jail, described the hearing as 'irregular' and said it 'does not comply with the principles of the trial. I refuse to be a part of such a process and therefore I will not attend this hearing.' CHP Istanbul Provincial Chairman Ozgur Celik posted on X that the mayor's hearing had been moved from Caglayan courthouse in central Istanbul, to Silivri prison – where Imamoglu is being held – in western Istanbul, only 24 hours earlier. Imamoglu was arrested in almost three months ago, alongside other prominent political figures. His home was raided early morning on 19 March, as part of an investigation into alleged corruption and links to terror organisations. His arrest triggered weeks of nationwide protests calling for his release. Protesters believe Imamoglu, seen by many as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's main political rival in the next presidential elections, was arrested for political reasons. The protests, which often turned violent, results in hundreds of arrests, many of whom are also on trial for 'inciting violence'. The demonstrations were the biggest Turkey has seen in over a decade. A conviction in any of the cases Imamoglu is facing could see the Istanbul mayor banned from holding or running for public office. Prosecutors have requested a prison sentence of two to four years and a political ban on charges of 'attempting to influence' an expert witness in the case. The hearing was adjourned to 26 September. Emerging priorities such as defence and competitiveness are increasingly drawing resources away from other sectors, raising concerns that health – a key focus of the previous EU mandate – may pay the highest price in the upcoming long-term EU budget. The European Commission is expected to unveil its proposal for the next seven-year budget in July. However, early leaks and mounting speculation suggest that the dedicated health fund could be merged with broader funding instruments, or potentially scrapped altogether. Although health policy is primarily the responsibility of national governments, EU member states allocated €5.3 billion for health through the EU4Health programme in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This marked the first time a standalone health budget was created at the EU level. Prior to this, EU health initiatives operated with much smaller resources: The health programme for 2014–2020 had a total budget of just €450 million, significantly less than EU4Health. Since its launch, EU4Health has financed a range of initiatives, such as a recent €1.3 million project to address the nursing shortage across Europe by promoting the profession in countries most affected. Yet many fear that the programme will not survive the next programming cycle. Even some EU officials have hinted that EU4Health may have been a one-time measure. Lawmakers have raised alarms about the potential disappearance of EU4Health and its impact on flagship initiatives from the previous term, such as the Beating Cancer Plan. Croatian MEP Tomislav Sokol pointed out the importance of maintaining a dedicated health budget since health has become one of the most important topics in the EU after the pandemic. For this reason, the EU has opted to create a separate health programme within the bloc's budget to support initiatives like the EU health data space and the European reference networks. 'If we're not able to protect this, I'm afraid this will all be diluted and absorbed by some other big funds in the budget, and we will lose this focus on healthcare that we have now,' he told Euronews. Sokol also cited newer priorities like the Critical Medicines Act, arguing that they, too, will require substantial EU funding. "Of course, healthcare remains largely a national responsibility, but EU support is needed to create a level playing field across member states," he added. Concerns over future health investment stem in part from recent budget reallocations. In February 2024, approximately €1 billion was redirected from EU4Health to help finance an aid package for Ukraine. The looming cuts are causing anxiety in the health sector. The PHSSR – a coalition of academics, policymakers, and politicians working on sustainable health systems – highlighted the need for continued investment in a recent report ahead of the Commission's proposal. In an interview with Euronews, AstraZeneca senior vice-president Greg Rossi, who participated in the PHSSR, stressed that Europe risks falling behind in life sciences. "We're seeing massive innovation and opportunity in improving health outcomes. My area, cancer, has seen extraordinary advances in the last 10 to 15 years. But Europe is losing ground," he said, adding that research and development funding has declined, with clinical trials increasingly moving out of Europe. He warned that, without specific health investment initiatives like a dedicated EU health funding, access to innovation will worsen, health outcomes will deteriorate, and Europe's competitive edge will erode. 'Health is an investment to be made, not a cost to be managed. And if we do so, we'll improve the health and the wealth of our countries,' he said. The European Commission is preparing a comprehensive overhaul of the its long-term budget, also known as Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) post-2027. The aim is to make it simpler, more effective, and more aligned with evolving policy priorities. Currently, the MFF stands at around €1.2 trillion – roughly 1% of the EU's GDP. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is considering a major restructuring of the MFF for 2028–2034, possibly moving away from the current system of over 50 EU-level programmes. Budget Commissioner Piotr Serafin previously indicated that the next budget proposal will focus on "fewer, more focused programmes" and a more strategic, ambitious framework. The European Commission's proposal, expected in mid-July, will offer the first concrete signal of what lies ahead for health funding in the EU.
