NABATIEH (ANP/AFP) - De Israëlische krijgsmacht (IDF) zegt een luchtaanval te hebben uitgevoerd in het zuiden van Libanon. Die zou zijn gericht op twee Hezbollah-leden die "een bedreiging vormden" voor Israëlische troepen in de buurt.

Het is de afgelopen dagen relatief rustig in Libanon, nadat Hezbollah en Israël vrijdag een staakt-het-vuren waren overeengekomen. Toch zijn er sindsdien nog Israëlische aanvallen geweest en doden gevallen.

De situatie in Zuid-Libanon staat onder spanning, omdat de voorlopige overeenkomst tussen Iran en de Verenigde Staten deels afhangt van het bestand in Libanon. Iran heeft geëist dat Israël zijn aanvallen stopzet. Ook de VS hebben daarop aangedrongen.

Maar Israël weigert voorlopig om te vertrekken uit het zuiden van Libanon en zegt te blijven strijden tegen Hezbollah. De IDF zei na de aanval van woensdag nog door te gaan "met het nemen van maatregelen om onmiddellijke bedreigingen weg te nemen".

De VS sluiten een 'Pax Silica' pact met landen die kritieke bouwstenen leveren voor AI-chips. Nederland doet daaraan mee, maar verzet zich tegen de toenemende Amerikaanse druk op ASML.

De rechten van kinderen, zoals het recht op ontwikkeling, gelijke behandeling, onderwijs en bescherming tegen mishandeling, zijn tijdens de coronapandemie geschonden.

Consulting giant Accenture is trying to figure out how to stop non-technical workers from blowing through companies’ AI token budget on trivial tasks like converting PDFs to presentation slides, according to leaked audio obtained by 404 Media. Across the industry Accenture is seeing “soaring token spend,” according to the audio.

The news highlights a major shift in the tech industry and other companies that use AI: the wave of uninhibited AI growth is over. Some AI providers like GitHub are now charging customers per token rather than a flat subscription fee, leading some companies to burn through their tokens. Uber recently capped employees’ use of AI tools like Claude Code and Cursor; that came after Uber told employees to use AI as much as possible and Uber’s CTO said the company had blown its entire AI budget in four months. And Accenture itself reportedly started requiring senior staff to start using AI or risk losing out on promotions. 

It also undercuts the narrative that superpowered engineers generating mountains of code are behind the AI boom. In many cases it is non-technical staff burning through tokens for non-specialized tasks.

“We’re seeing from some of the data internally at least that it’s actually not our engineers that are driving the token consumption. It’s a lot of the non-engineers that are doing some of those behaviors [...] you were talking about,” Justice Kwak, Accenture’s agentic AI strategy lead, said in a recent internal meeting, according to the audio obtained by 404 Media.

At one point in the meeting, Kwak and Eduardo Salamanca de Diego, senior manager of product management at the company’s Center for Advanced AI, start presenting about what is described as “token ops.”

Kwak says he knows people aren’t using slides these days, but he has some. As he appears to be preparing to present, Stuart Henderson, Accenture’s client group lead, interrupts. He jokes he hopes Kwak didn’t just convert a PDF into images and then into markdown files. “I’m learning that’s one of the big token chewers,” Henderson says. “Turning PDFs into markdown: is that right?”

That’s when Kwak says that’s what Accenture’s own data shows. 

“What we’re seeing right now is just rapid escalation in AI token spend,” he says “As companies start to scale AI, moving from like simple chatbots into use cases that feature agentic workflows and automation and then enterprise-wide deployment of some of these tools like Copilot, Claude Code, and Codex, we’re hitting this inflection point where AI is becoming material to the cost structure; spend is becoming very unpredictable; and leadership, especially at the CFO, COO, and CIO level, are still asking the question of whether they’re getting value from what we’re spending on in the context of AI.”

“It’s really not a niche problem. It is a problem that every enterprise will face if they are bullish on AI, if they haven’t already,” he adds. The amount of token spending is increasing “exponentially, as more and more people are starting to use AI.”

Kwak says after Accenture tried to get enterprises to adopt AI as quickly as possible, AI has reached scale in most areas in both Accenture and its clients. But with that scale is a new opportunity for Accenture regarding its clients: “to really think about token economics.” The bill of the overall AI spend is visible, Kwok explains, but attributing that AI spend at the token level to the value outcomes on the projects where AI is being used is not visible. 

Finally, the “controls are just arriving too late.” Those are things that might stop someone spending a bunch of money on tokens, like budgeting or different tiers.

Following the Financial Times’ reporting of Accenture’s policy to force AI adoption or risk missing promotions, an Accenture spokesperson told CNBC, “Our strategy is to be the reinvention partner of choice for our clients and to be the most client-focused, AI-enabled, great place to work. That requires the adoption of the latest tools and technologies to serve our clients most effectively.”

Kwak says Accenture plans to formally launch a product called “Token IQ” soon. Accenture did not respond to a request for comment.

As 404 Media has reported, some startups have bragged about how much they’ve spent on AI instead of human workers. Walmart also capped its staff’s use of AI tools following high demand.

Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:

The Cathedral Hotel is a beautiful heritage listed venue at the southern end of North Adelaide. It is conveniently located just a short stroll from both the Memorial Hospital and the Women's and Children's Hospital, as well as historic Adelaide Oval and the spectacular St Peter's Cathedral.

The original Scotch Thistle Hotel was owned by William Field. In 1852, the first deliberations of the newly recreated Municipal Corporation were held there. The hotel faced Kermode Street, which was then a major thoroughfare. Field had a new hotel constructed in 1880 due to the shift in importance to John St (now King William Rd), which had been created to connect King William Road, via Poole Street, (now King William Road) to O’Connell Street.

On the south-east corner of Kermode Street and John Street (now King William Road) in North Adelaide. Established originally on the north side of Kermode Street, the license was moved to the present location in 1881. Changed name to the Cathedral Hotel in 1925 and continues to trade under that name.

Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:

The Cathedral Hotel is a beautiful heritage listed venue at the southern end of North Adelaide. It is conveniently located just a short stroll from both the Memorial Hospital and the Women's and Children's Hospital, as well as historic Adelaide Oval and the spectacular St Peter's Cathedral.

The original Scotch Thistle Hotel was owned by William Field. In 1852, the first deliberations of the newly recreated Municipal Corporation were held there. The hotel faced Kermode Street, which was then a major thoroughfare. Field had a new hotel constructed in 1880 due to the shift in importance to John St (now King William Rd), which had been created to connect King William Road, via Poole Street, (now King William Road) to O’Connell Street.

On the south-east corner of Kermode Street and John Street (now King William Road) in North Adelaide. Established originally on the north side of Kermode Street, the license was moved to the present location in 1881. Changed name to the Cathedral Hotel in 1925 and continues to trade under that name.

Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:

The church was founded, as a ‘Congregational’ Church, on the 20th of October, 1859. The foundation stone was laid on the 15th of May, 1860. The first service was held on the 22nd of February, 1861. Its first minister was the Reverend James Jefferis, MA, LLB.

Since becoming part of the Uniting Church in 1975, the traditional Congregational ethos of freedom of thought, independence of church government, and interest in public concerns, remains influential within the community.

The church site cost four hundred pounds ($800). The lowest tender for the erection of its Greco-Italian style exceeded the estimated cost of four thousand pounds so it was built by day labour under the direction of architects. The first Superintendent of the Sunday School acted as Clerk of Works!

Sparta heeft de eerste versterking van deze zomer binnen: de 31-jarige linksback Bas Kuipers komt over van FC Twente. In Rotterdam-West tekent de verdediger voor twee seizoenen met een optie voor nog een jaar.

Klamme nachten, tropenroosters en de zoektocht naar verkoeling: het is bloedheet in onze regio. Vanaf woensdag 12:00 is het code oranje vanwege de aanhoudende hitte. Volg via dit liveblog de laatste ontwikkelingen over de hitte.