World

Key points The head of Apple's AI team, John Giannandrea, is to retire in early 2026 Apple faces criticism for lagging behind competitors in AI technology The tech company has brought in a veteran engineer from Google and Microsoft Apple announced on Monday that its head of artificial intelligence, John Giannandrea, is stepping down. Giannandrea, who led Machine Learning and AI Strategy for seven years, will retire in spring 2026, Apple said in a statement. Giannandrea will serve as an advisor during his remaining time with the technology company. He will be replaced by Amar Subramanya, who has joined Apple as a vice president of AI, the company said. Subramanya was most recently a corporate vice president of AI at Microsoft for a short stint. Before that, he spent 16 years at G...

Police said on Tuesday that gunmen in the Nigerian state of Kwara have kidnapped 10 women and children in the latest armed gang seizure to rock Africa's most populous country. Authorities said the Monday night seizure in the western state targeted the village of Isapa. Kwara state police commissioner Ojo Adekimi said the attackers were herders who had "shot sporadically" and seized women and children from local farming families. "There is a manhunt for them. Policemen are in the bush with local hunters," he told the news agency AFP, before adding that one woman had managed to flee from the attackers as the onslaught took place.Nigeria hit by second mass school abduction in daysTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video ...

Maria Magdalena and her four children live in a wooden hut in a small settlement on the sandy soil of the Ilha do Cabo peninsula in Angola. From here, she can see cargo ships waiting in endless lines to enter the harbor in the country's capital, Luanda. Angola is rich in raw materials, but the vast majority of the population lives in poverty. Magdalena also has a view of the city's skyline but is not following the key summit in the capital's government district on the other side of the bay. It is hard enough for her to organize her daily life. "I urgently need work. Without work, I cannot feed my children," she said. Africa and Europe in crisis mode In Luanda, the African Union (AU) and the European Union (EU) held their seventh summit under the theme "promoting peace and prosperity t...

China sent a replacement Shenzhou-22 spacecraft to its crewed Tiangong space station on Tuesday, ensuring that the astronauts on board again have the means to leave the station if necessary.  The mission, China's first accelerated emergency space launch, plugged an 11-day gap where astronauts were on board the station without the means to return to Earth in an emergency. The flight time to the space station was a little less than four hoursImage: Ge Lixin/Xinhua/picture alliance What the China Manned Space Agency said about the operation The China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said the spacecraft lifted off on board a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 12:11 p.m. (0411 UTC/GMT).  "The spacecraft successfully separated from the rocket and en...

Europeans are seething over US President Donald Trump's suggestion that billions in Russian assets frozen in European countries may be used to the benefit of the US government and firms. After a Trump proposal on how to end Russia's war in Ukraine that called on Ukraine to give up territory and reduce the size of its armed forces, Europeans rushed to damage control and have now floated a counter offer. "Every day with input it changes," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after meeting the Europeans on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Geneva.  But it is unclear if they will succeed in retaining control over how Russian frozen assets are spent.  Agathe Demarais, a senior policy fellow for geoeconomics at the ECFR, said billions in Russian assets appear to be Trump's key motivation in ...

The European Commission on Wednesday unveiled new proposals to ease regulations on AI and data privacy. The EU has for years sought to rein in tech companies on various issues, but is also attempting to balance this with the need to compete with tech firms in the United States and East Asia. Europe 'failing to keep up' in tech race — Commissioner "Europe has not so far reaped the full benefits of the digital revolution," EU economy commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said. "And we cannot afford to pay the price for failing to keep up with demands of the changing world," he stressed. "By simplifying rules, reducing administrative burdens, and introducing more flexible and proportionate rules, we will continue delivering on our commitment to give EU businesses more space to innovate and gro...

Chemical poisoning — not foodborne disease — is now being investigated as the probable cause of the deaths of a German-Turkish family in Istanbul last week. It has again brought the role of phosphine-producing pesticides into focus, and follows several similar incidents in Turkey and around the world. Local newspaper Cumhuriyet has now reported the initial findings from forensic analyses performed on samples taken from the bodies of the mother and her two children who died between 13 and 14 November. The father and husband of the deceased passed away on 17 November. Excerpts from the initial report said "primarily, it is believed that they died as a result of chemical poisoning caused by the circumstances in the hotel where they were staying."  A pathological examination of the victims...

In its attempts to help rebuild Gaza and sustain the Palestinian Authority (PA) to allow the Palestinians to take charge of affairs in Gaza in time, the European Union (EU) is hosting a Palestinian donor conference on Thursday, November 20, with as many as 60 delegations, including some from Arab countries. Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa is also expected in Brussels, as donors seek an update on reforms that have been implemented, and those to still be implemented before they pledge further financial resources.  The EU is already the largest provider of aid to Palestinians and the PA, and says that disbursing a large part of the €1.6 billion ($1.7 billion) in aid announced for 2025 to 2027 will be linked to structural reforms.   "In order to receive money," sa...

Sixty years ago, Polish bishops approached their German counterparts with an unexpected message of reconciliation. To the majority of Poles, the gesture came as a shock. Twenty years after the end of World War Two, at the height of the Cold War, relations between Poland and then-West Germany were characterized by mistrust, hostility and lack of communication. The division of Germany had been finalized just four years earlier with the building of the Berlin Wall. Two irreconcilable ideological blocs — the capitalist West and the communist East — were now squaring up to each other on either side of the Iron Curtain. It would be another four years before West Germany introduced a policy of detente, after the arrival of the Social Democrat Willy Brandt as chancellor. The traumatic memory of ...