richtebw has added a photo to the pool:
Public offering of Aliko Dangote’s Nigerian oil refinery business could swell his net wealth by two-thirds
The fortune of Africa’s richest person could swell by two thirds to nearly $60bn (£44bn) after his refinery in Nigeria listed publicly in the continent’s biggest-ever initial public offering.
If Monday’s flotation of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals on the Nigerian exchange goes to plan, then Aliko Dangote will add a further $23bn (£17bn) to his $35bn net worth.
Continue reading...Impasse comes amid growing Saudi anger with Tehran over Houthi advances and strikes on airbase and pipeline
Gulf states have postponed a critical meeting with Iran on the future of the strait of Hormuz owing to a lack of Arab consensus and growing Saudi Arabian anger with Tehran for helping the Houthis loosen Riyadh’s grip in Yemen.
The stalemate over the vital waterway came as Houthi rebels launched a fresh barrage of missile and drone attacks on Saudi military targets. A Houthi military spokesperson claimed its forces had attacked the King Khalid airbase in Khamis Mushait, hitting fighter-jet hangars, radar systems, runways and landing strips, ammunition depots and additional targets.
Continue reading...The Sweden Democrats slipped to third after decades of growth, but their hardline positions have already reshaped the political mainstream
Since the party was founded in 1988, the story of the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD) has been one of such continuous growth that a triumph in Sunday’s general election seemed inevitable.
In 2022, the party capitalised on electoral gains – and the desperation of right-leaning parties to form a minority administration – and almost made its way into government. A supporting role in prime minister Ulf Kristersson’s Tidö coalition earned the party, which has neo-Nazi roots, huge influence and mainstream acceptance by the political establishment.
Continue reading...We must stop companies from allowing AI to self-improve into an uncontrollable level of intelligence
Major AI lab CEOs advocated for slowing the pace of AI development this weekend. They are right to be concerned: the field runs an extremely dangerous race towards superintelligent AI. We can and should be demanding that our governments protect us from the catastrophe of out-of-control AI.
This July, OpenAI’s AI swarm of 700 agents broke containment to hack Hugging Face, a multi-billion dollar company. OpenAI didn’t tell the AIs to hack that company, but the AIs had different priorities: cheating on the unrelated challenge OpenAI gave them. AI researchers call this a “misalignment” between what OpenAI wanted and what the AI actually prioritized.
Continue reading...Intimidated by the thought of midweek entertaining? Three simple rules make it simple…
Entertaining midweek can feel daunting, but if you employ a couple of tricks, things can very quickly go from mayhem to magic. First, choose a dish that goes perfectly with good bread, so your carb is covered. Second, choose a protein that is quick to cook and great for sharing – little lamb chops are perfect for this, while also being a treat. And, finally, use other ingredients that don’t need much help. Here, the walnuts just get cooked in butter and the lamb juices, the courgettes are simply boiled and dressed, and the yoghurt is, well, yoghurt. Suddenly you’ve conjured up a masterpiece ready for many hands to dig in.
Good Time Cooking: Show-Stopping Menus for Easy Entertaining, by Rosie Mackean, is published by Pavilion Books at £26. To order a copy for £23.40, visit guardianbookshop.com
Continue reading...I know from our early days how high-pressure road life can be. While big tours often hire therapists, grassroots acts can’t afford it. I’m pleased to back a new scheme that aims to change that
When Radiohead started touring, it was hugely exciting, but we got signed when we had been going for five or six years and had only really played in Oxford. Suddenly you’re entering a new world: the first flush of fame, being compared to everyone else, the furnace-like experience when a band takes off and a whole new routine of late nights, bad food and everything else that goes on around live music. Everything is heightened and it can be very isolating.
In 1992 we were playing small venues in a van and then suddenly in 1993 we were spending the second half of the year in the US. On our second long tour that year, everything caught up with me. I kind of withdrew into myself. Something about being in the US made me feel “impostor syndrome”. I really did feel a very long way from home. All that anxiety has to come out somewhere – for some it’s drink and drugs – but for me it came out in my playing. There was one particular show where we were opening for Tears for Fears and another band who had [Blondie’s] Clem Burke on drums. Clem was my absolute drummer hero but I just hit peak overwhelm, and my drumming went off a cliff. Every limb seemed to be going at its own speed. The kick drum became like trying to open a heavy door.
Continue reading...
Huawei wants near-packaged optics (NPO) standardized for AI networks, pitching it as a replacement for conventional pluggable modules without the cost and maintenance headaches it attributes to co-packaged optics. The Chinese tech giant showcased an NPO module with a capacity of 7.2 terabits per second (Tbps) at the China International Optoelectronic Exposition (CIOE) held in Shenzhen over September 9-11, and said this will form part of the company's next-gen SuperPOD AI systems. NPO refers to the placement of the optical engine in a network switch as close as possible to the switch's application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), but still as a separate package plugged into the mainboard. This is one potential option to supersede the pluggable modules now widely used to terminate optical fiber links to a switch. Pluggable modules typically contain a digital signal processor (DSP) to clean up the incoming signal, and their power consumption and heat output increase with network speed. With AI infrastructure pushing network connections to 800 Gbps and even 1.6 Tbps, this is becoming a problem. Another upgrade path for switches is co-packaged optics (CPO), where the optical engine sits even closer – on the same substrate as the switch ASIC silicon. This is expected to deliver low latency and power consumption, but Huawei says the advanced packaging is expensive and makes failed optical engines difficult to replace in the datacenter. This is why Huawei says it is pushing NPO as the pragmatic choice for the near future. "When it comes to optical interconnects, there are two technical choices. One is NPO, near package optics. The other is CPO, co-packaged optics. Compared with CPO, the NPO technology is more mature, making it easier for production ramp up and it's easier for maintenance. So NPO stands as the most mature technology at the moment, and it is also a practical choice in this day and age," said Dr Man Jiangwei, director of Huawei's Advanced Opto-Electronics Laboratory. Huawei says its NPO design eliminates the module's separate DSP by integrating those functions into the ASIC. Man claims this cuts latency from 100 nanoseconds to 10 nanoseconds and reduces power consumption by around 60 percent. "When you put all these factors together, we're able to bring down the cost by a large margin," he claimed. But a project to define NPO standards was officially started only in May this year, at the Q2 meeting of the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF). Its members include Cisco, HPE, Arista, and Nvidia. The members there were focused on defining a 6.4 Tbps NPO interface with a future extension to 12.8 Tbps, while Huawei is already demonstrating its 7.2 Tbps product. Asked about this at a roundtable to discuss NPO, Dr Man said 6.4T and 7.2T represent the fan-out bandwidth capabilities required by different vendors and system players. "I believe this kind of technical divergence or differing opinions is quite common in standardization. Looking ahead on the standards platform, I'm confident we'll find an appropriate way to ensure compatibility between 6.4T and 7.2T, meeting the needs of the entire industry chain," he said. One of the goals of the OIF NPO project is to come up with common electrical interfaces, mechanical form factors and connectors. Huawei's NPO is understood to employ 200 gigabits per second per lane across a total of 36 lanes, while the proposed 6.4 Tbps OIF interface would use 32 lanes. The company has already committed to using its own NPO in the upcoming third generation of its SuperPOD AI infrastructure platform, an analog of Nvidia's NVL rack-scale systems. The SuperPOD platform links large numbers of Huawei's Ascend neural processing units (NPUs). Huawei declined to say when this SuperPOD will be available, but Dr Man hinted more will be revealed at the Huawei Connect event in Shanghai later this week. He also said Huawei will be "more than happy to share this product with our customers in the downstream, and not only downstream, but we also like to share this technology with the suppliers on the upstream, including various vendors from different countries and regions." Huawei's exposure to US export restrictions, imposed on national security and foreign policy grounds, raises a related question. One roundtable participant asked whether industry adoption could suffer if the Trump administration perceives NPO as Huawei-driven technology. Man said he wasn't the right person to discuss the political environment and reiterated Huawei's commitment to openness and collaboration. "We are happy to work with vendors from different regions, including vendors from the United States, from China, and from Japan. So together we can advance the development of the NPO ecosystem and ultimately contribute to the booming AI ecosystem," he said. NPO isn't the only alternative to CPO. Earlier this year, Arista Networks unveiled its eXtra-dense Pluggable Optics (XPO) concept, which proposes updating pluggable modules to include cooling via an integrated liquid cooling cold plate, and offering up to 12.8 Tbps per module (64 lanes at 200 Gbps each). Huawei pitches NPO as the most mature option; XPO retains the front-panel plug-in module format. Which format will get the widest adoption will depend on switch vendor support as well as customer priorities, and it is likely that NPO, CPO and XPO will coexist for some time. ®
Oscar Piastri had a race to forget in Madrid, a first lap incident derailing his afternoon on a day where Lando Norris showed the McLaren had the pace to fight for the win. The Australian finished down in eighth place behind the Alpine of Franco Colapinto, while his team mate took yet another rostrum.
SCHIPHOL (ANP) - Schiphol en KLM zijn blij dat het kabinet met het advies van de Raad van State nieuwe regels voor de luchthaven kan vaststellen. De luchthaven en de luchtvaartmaatschappij noemen het advies maandag over nieuwe regels die Schiphol op papier stiller moeten maken "een belangrijke stap" daarnaartoe.
Het kabinet wil de regels vanaf 1 november laten ingaan. In eerste instantie geldt een grens van 478.000 vluchten van en naar Schiphol. Later moet "gefaseerde terugkeer" naar 500.000 vluchten mogelijk worden. Als het volgens de berekeningen stiller wordt rond Schiphol, zou het maximumaantal vluchten deels automatisch omhooggaan. Maar dat moet dan wel echt zeker zijn, aldus de Raad van State.
Met dit advies komt goede rechtsbescherming voor omwonenden en de luchtvaartsector dichterbij, aldus Schiphol. "We blijven werken aan een goede balans met de omgeving. Zo stimuleren we het gebruik van stillere vliegtuigen."
BRØNDBY (ANP) - De Deense wielrenner Mattias Skjelmose (25) heeft zich afgemeld voor de wereldkampioenschappen, die van 20 tot en met 27 september plaatsvinden in de Canadese stad Montréal. Anthon Charmig is opgeroepen als zijn vervanger. Dat heeft de Deense wielerunie maandag bekendgemaakt.
Reden voor de afmelding van Skjelmose is volgens de bond "een zwaar schema met de Tour de France en de Vuelta". De Deen eindigde in Frankrijk als zesde, de Ronde van Spanje sloot hij zondag af met een dertiende plek in het eindklassement. Skjelmose wist in 2025 verrassend de Amstel Gold Race te winnen door de inmiddels tweevoudig wereldkampioen Tadej Pogačar en olympisch kampioen Remco Evenepoel te verslaan in een sprint. Pogačar ontbreekt in Montréal door een harde val in de Vuelta. Evenepoel geldt als een van de topfavorieten.
Charmig (28) won dit jaar een etappe in de Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, voorheen bekend als het Critérium du Dauphiné.
Het netwerkseizoen is weer geopend waardoor mijn mensenschuwe lievelingsnicht afgelopen week, na de zoveelste nazomerborrel, weer eens uitgeput op mijn bank plofte.
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When he's right he's right
Ja het is ook gewoon doodziek natuurlijk. Jettens HONDERDEN AI-berichten, waaronder die over Westerbork, waar hij (volgens AI?) geen greintje bezinning of reserves voor hoefde te tonen 'omdat bijna iedereen het dagelijks gebruikt'. MinDef Yesilgöz en stas Derk Boswijk ook al - overigens echt EXACT de twee zwaargewichten uit het lichtste segment waar je dit van zou verwachten. En dan ging Jetten de volgende dag gewoon weer vrolijk verder met AI-posts over 9/11 enz. Nja, daar denkt Sander het zijne van:
"Waar staatssecretaris Boswijk nog stond te stamelen als een puber die betrapt is op afkijken, toonde Jetten geen enkele schaamte. Hij liet weten ‘net als driekwart van de Nederlanders’ ook af en toe AI te gebruiken ‘om dingen beter te maken’. Maar die zijn geen minister-president, beste Rob! En als dit ‘beter’ is, hebben we een probleem. (...) Nederland is een idiocratie aan het worden; geleid door LinkedInLiberalen die niet zelf kunnen schrijven en denken, en met een jonge generatie die vrijwel ongeletterd is, zo bleek uit het nieuwe Pisa-rapport.
(...) Ik heb het een tijdje aangekeken met dit stelletje, maar dit is voor mij de druppel. Een kabinet van middelmanagers die geen probleem in AI zien omdat ‘iedereen het doet’ en je het ‘toch niet tegenhoudt’, verdient niets dan de totale ondergang."
Waarvan akte.
Dit is ook gewoon doodziek natuurlijk
(D66)
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