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Category: Global Affairs
Tags: AIDiplomacyEconomyFamineIndia
Entities: Donald TrumpEver GrandGazaIndiaIntelJD VanceNarendra ModiNikki HaleySergio GoreSudanUnited StatesVladimir PutinXi Jinping
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[Music] Heat. Heat.
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Heat. Heat.
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Hello namaskar. This is first post and you're watching Vantage with me Pali Sharma.
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[Music] The battle over Russian oil has escalated into a diplomatic clash. Washington is raising tariffs and New Delhi is pushing back.
In Moscow, India's ambassador sent a clear message
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that India will buy oil from wherever it gets the best deal. Foreign Minister SJ Shanka reinforced that position over the weekend.
He said India's energy policy is based on national interest. But despite New Delhi's push back, criticism in Washington is intensifying.
Nikki
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Haley has warned India to take Trump's view seriously and Vice President JD Vance has backed the tariffs. He's described them as quote unquote aggressive leverage.
And all of this is happening days before Prime Minister Modi heads to China. He could meet both Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin on the
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sidelines of the SEO summit there. We'll tell you how India is navigating this new uncertainty.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump's tariffs have yet to influence Moscow. Russia has refused to recognize Wimir Zalinski as Ukraine's legitimate leader.
What does that mean for Trump's
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peace plan? We'll discuss that tonight.
The world's central bankers met in the US over the weekend. They're worried that turmoil at the Fed could shake their economies, too.
We'll explain why. Also in focus, how Trump managed to secure a 10% stake in US chip maker
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Intel. Why China's Ever Grand has been delisted from the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Who the new US ambassador to India is, and how AI therapy is growing fast, but also raising serious concerns. All this and more coming up.
The headlines first.
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India and Fiji unveil an action plan to boost their defense ties. This comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his Fijian counterpart in New Delhi.
After the talks, the two countries inked seven pacts covering trade, skill development and medicine. This is the Fijian leader's first visit to India as
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prime minister of the South Pacific nation. Syria's president will speak at the United Nations General Assembly next month.
He will be the first Syrian leader to do so in decades. Ahmed al-Shara came to power in the war torn country last December after his Islamist
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group toppled Bashar al-Assad's regime. In recent months, Syria's new authorities have gained regional and international support.
Nuclear talks between Iran and three European powers will be held in Geneva tomorrow. The meeting will be between Iran and the UK, France, and Germany.
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This will be the second round of talks since the Iran's 12-day war with Israel in June, after which Iran suspended cooperation with the United Nations nuclear watchdog. Bangladesh says ending the Rohhinga ethnic cleansing is a global responsibility and Dhaka needs international support to host the
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refugees. More than a million Rohhinga people now live in in Bangladesh.
Most arrived after fleeing a 2017 military crackdown in neighboring Myanmar. And the world's first commercial service offering carbon storage opens in Norway.
It involves transporting and burying
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captured carbon dioxide across Europe. The aim is to prevent the emissions from being released into the atmosphere and help tackle climate change.
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The battle over Russian oil is heating up. What began as a trade dispute has turned into a full-blown diplomatic duel.
India is now sending a blunt message to Washington. The latest to Wayne is India's ambassador to Russia.
His name is Vin Kumar. He gave an interview to Russian news agency TAS and
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made India's position clear. India will buy oil from wherever it gets the best deal.
In the same breath, Ambassador Kumar took a swipe at the US. First of all, we have clearly stated that our objective is energy security of 1.4 4 billion people of India.
So the US
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decision is unfair, unreasonable and unjustified. Now government will continue taking measures which will protect the national interest of the country and the trade takes place on commercial basis.
So if the basis of commercial transaction trade imports are
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right, Indian companies will continue buying from wherever they get the best deal. The US tariffs are unfair, unreasonable and unjustified.
India buys oil based on market terms, not politics. And above all, India's energy security is non-negotiable.
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That's what the Indian ambassador said. And this has been New Delhi's position from day one.
But now the tone has shifted. The message is sharper.
India is not mincing words. And the timing is no coincidence.
Donald Trump's deadline
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is just 2 days away. On the 27th of August, the higher US tariffs will come into effect.
Another 25% duty will kick in on Indian exports which takes the total tariff burden on India to 50% 50. It's the highest rate the US has imposed
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in any country higher than what China faces higher than what any US ally faces and that is the double standard that India is calling out because remember India is not the biggest buyer of Russian oil that is China and this is where New Delhi is drawing the line.
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Foreign Minister SJ Shankar made that clear over the weekend. You know, in a way is being presented as an oil issue.
Uh but why I say is being presented is because uh the same arguments which have been used to target
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India have not been uh used to have not been applied to the largest oil importer which is China has not been applied to the largest LNG importer which is the European Union. J.
Shanker said India is still negotiating with the US but it has
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clear red lines to defend. He assured that farmers and small businesses will be protected.
He reiterated India's position on Russian oil and said that India's energy policy serves national interest and helps keep global prices stable. J Shanka also took an aim at the
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US administration and western oil buyers. Listen to this.
Uh it's funny you have uh people who work for a a pro business American administration
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accusing other people of doing business. Okay, that's that's really uh uh curious.
But here's the point. If you have a problem buying uh oil from India, oil or refined products, don't buy it.
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Nobody forced you to buy it. I mean, but Europe buys, America buys.
So, you don't like it, don't buy it. So, New Delhi is standing its ground.
This has led to fresh attacks from the Republicans and the US government. And among them is Nikki Haley.
Remember, she
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was Trump's ambassador to the United Nations in the last term. She has written an opinion piece for Newsweek, which is an American news magazine.
And in this piece, Nikki Haley has said, and I'm quoting, "In India must take Trump's point over Russian oil seriously." Those
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were her words. She said that India should work with the White House and find a solution soon.
She called India a prize democratic partner and said that the US should not treat India like an adversary. Remember last week the same Nikki Haley had struck a different note.
She had
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warned that the USI India relationship is at a breaking point and it's critical to get ties back on track if the US wants to keep China in check. So Haley is now recalibrating her position.
She's tempering her criticism of Donald Trump perhaps and putting the onus on India.
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She wants India to change course to bend to US demands and to restrict its trade with Russia. US Vice President JD Vance has also spoken on this.
In an interview, he defended the Trump tariffs and he called them aggressive economic leverage.
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The president has applied aggressive economic leverage, for example, the secondary tariffs on India to try to make it harder for the Russians to get rich from their oil economy. He's tried to make it clear that Russia can be reinvited into the world economy if they stop the killing.
But they're going to
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continue to be isolated if they don't stop the killing. JD Van said that these tariffs are part of Trump's strategy to isolate Moscow from the global economy, but they're having the opposite effect.
In just a few days from now, Prime Minister Modi will travel to China. He's attending the SEO summit.
The SEO
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is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It is a block of Eurasian nations.
Leaders from China, Russia, and Central Asia will attend. So, Xi Jinping will be there.
So will Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reports say Prime Minister Modi could meet both these leaders on the sidelines of the summit.
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In fact, ahead of the summit, there's been intense diplomatic activity. China's foreign minister Wongi visited India.
Soon after that, SJ Shanka traveled to Moscow and before him, National Security Adviser Rajiv Dwal was also in Russia. So, India is clearly stepping up its engagements with both
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Russia and China. The SEO summit will be the culmination of those efforts.
The next few days are going to be very crucial. But New Delhi's position has already been spelled out.
India will not change course over Trump tariffs. It will not trade strategic autonomy for
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America's approval. Yesterday was Ukraine's national day.
It's been 34 years since Kiev declared itself free. Free from Moscow's shadows.
Yet the shadow feels longer now than it
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has in the last three decades. Independence in Ukraine right now is less about parades and more about survival.
And yet just 10 days ago, there was talk of peace. I'm talking about the Alaska summit.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin met in the Alaskan capital. There were
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handshakes, a few smiles, and whispers of progress. But if Alaska was meant to end this war, you wouldn't know it from the week that followed.
Just look at last weekend. Ukraine's president Wimir Zilinski addressed the nation and he remained as
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defiant as ever. How many times have we said that we want silence, we want peace, but a dignified and comprehensive one.
And that is why we are counting on the strength of the whole world. This is what Ukraine is like now.
This is what Ukraine will
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never again in history be forced to feel shame. We haven't won the war, but we haven't lost it yet.
Those were his words, and it shows that Ukraine is not ready to give up on the fight just yet. And Zalinski added something else here.
He said Ukraine wants peace, but it also
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wants a future that can be decided by Ukrainians. In other words, the Ukrainian leader has said that he won't be a pawn in someone else's peace talks.
But here's the problem. Even if there are peace talks, Russia is
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not willing to have them with Zilinski because according to Moscow, Zilinski is illegitimate. That's the word they used.
They do not recognize him as the president of Ukraine. We would need a very clear understanding by everybody that the person who is
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signing is legitimate. And according to the Ukrainian constitution, Mr.
Zalinski is not at the moment. Russia's foreign minister Sergi Lavrov spoke about it.
He said Vladimir Putin cannot sit down in talks with Zilinski because who will sign the deal from the
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Ukrainian side and this throws another spanner in the peace talks. Clearly the flurry of diplomatic activity is not working.
And while the politicians traded words, the militaries kept trading blows. First, Russia launched a barrage of aerial attacks on Kiev on its
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Independence Day. Ukraine reportedly hit back.
Moscow accused Kiev of launching waves of drones into western Russia. The most dramatic claim was this one.
A strike on the Kursk nuclear power plant. Just 60 km from the border.
One drone
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apparently hit an auxiliary transformer. It forced a reactor to cut its output in half.
Thankfully, this was not this did not cause any significant damage. The United Nations nuclear watchdog has said that the radiation levels were normal, but Moscow has raised an alarm.
It has
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accused Ukraine of attacking nuclear facilities and Kiev for its part has not commented or denied any of this. Meanwhile, in Washington, Vice President JD Vance was sounding oddly upbeat on national television.
He insisted that
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Russia, and I'm quoting, Russia has made significant concessions. I think the Russians have made significant concessions to President Trump for the first time in three and a half years of this conflict.
They've actually been willing to be flexible on some of their core demands.
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So, what were those concessions? Apparently, it was talk of security guarantees for Ukraine.
Now, here's the thing to note. The word concessions is doing a lot of work here.
To Moscow, agreeing to discuss guarantees costs nothing. They can be
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defined so vaguely as to mean almost anything. But to Kiev, security guarantees without NATO membership sound like a mirage.
And to Washington, the language buys time, enough to suggest progress without having to prove it. And
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while Washington tried to play up the peace talks, there came a surprise twist, a Canadian wild card. I'm talking about Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
He landed in Kiev with a radical plan. The possibility of Canadian troops on Ukrainian soil.
Now,
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to be fair, Carney was quite careful about this. He did not say combat troops.
He did not say when or how many or for what exact purpose. He wrapped it in phrases like modalities, reinforcements.
But the word was very much there,
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troops. We are working through with our allies and coalition of the willing and with Ukraine the modalities of those uh security guarantees uh on the land in the air uh and the sea.
Uh and I would
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not exclude uh the presence of troops. For Ukraine, the statement was a lifeline of possibility.
For Russia, it was a red flag. For NATO, it was a headache.
Nobody wants the war to expand, but neither do they want to appear timid. Carney may have been vague, but he
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cracked open a door that others tried to keep shut. So, 10 days after the Alaska summit, here we are.
Zilinski is as defiant as ever. Russia says it wants peace talks, but refuses to recognize Zilinski.
Washington is talking about concessions.
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Canada is talking about boots on the ground. And the fighting continues on the battlefield.
So you may ask, what is different since Alaska? Well, the answer is very little, but also a lot, both at once.
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This is the Ukraine wars reality now. Diplomacy that goes nowhere and battles that change little.
There's a storm building at the center of the global financial system. It's not
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an impending market crash, not a bank collapse. It's uncertainty at the US Federal Reserve, the American Central Bank, and the world is taking notice.
There was a high-profile gathering over the weekend. It's called the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium.
This is an
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annual conference. It happens in Wyoming every year at a mountain resort.
It is attended by central bankers from around the world, also by academics, economists, and policy makers. This conference happened over the weekend.
Many central bankers there expressed a
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common fear. They're worried about the pressure on the US Fed and its chief Jerome Powell.
Central bankers from around the world are worried about what would happen next. And if this would have any ripple effects on their economies.
These
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central bankers have a good reason to be concerned. Donald Trump is targeting the US Fed.
He's pushing for interest rate cuts. He has threatened to remove Powell as well as other other board members of the Federal Reserve.
And if that happens, the Fed's independence could be
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undermined. And that is a big deal, a big cause of concern, not just for the US, but for the whole world.
And I'll tell you why. When a central bank loses independence, it loses credibility.
Investors start doubting its decisions. And this could have serious consequences.
To begin with, inflation
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could rise. Why?
Well, it comes down to interest rates. Central banks use interest rates to control prices.
It's one of their main tools. But this tool has to be used carefully.
If interest rates stay high for too long, it hurts growth. Borrowing drops,
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businesses cut back, and jobs slow down. On the other hand, if rates are cut too early, it pumps more money into the economy.
This fuels demand. It pushes up the prices.
And that is why rate cuts must follow economic conditions. not politics.
Politics should not decide
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these decisions. If politicians force cuts for short-term gains, there's a risk of long-term damage.
Inflation can rise and everyone feels it. Food gets expensive.
Fuel prices jump. Rents go up and savings lose
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value. And if this happens, the Fed will struggle to contain the damage.
And the global economy will also feel the impact. It's not just Americans who will feel it.
Markets can turn volatile if investors feel that the Fed is being controlled. They tend to panic.
So stock prices swing and interests on bonds
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fluctuate. Remember in the month of January, foreigners held over $8 trillion worth of US government bonds.
8 trillion. Out of this, central banks held bonds worth $3.8 trillion.
Central
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banks from across the world, $3.8 trillion. And the private sector held over $4 trillion.
And this is significant exposure. If there's uncertainty, these investors will be forced to rethink.
They'll perhaps move their money to safer places. And the third impact will be on
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the US dollar. It could weaken the US dollar.
The greenback as it's called is used for trade. Central banks the world over keep the US dollar in their reserves.
Loans are issued in the dollar. And that's because central bankers trust the Fed.
But that trust
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also depends on the Fed's stability. If that stability is lost, the dollar will will lose strength and that affects currencies around the world.
Imports will get more expensive. Exchange rates can become unpredictable.
So there's considerable risk for the US, the
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markets, and the dollar. And that is why these central bankers are concerned.
Some of them are already issuing warnings like the European Central Bank. One of its officials said, and I'm quoting, "The politically motivated attacks on the Fed
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have a spiritual spillover to the rest of the world, including Europe." Now, if you're wondering why you should care about any of this, let me tell you why. When global interest rates rise, loans get expensive.
From mortgages to education loans, even credit for
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businesses, everything costs more. When markets swing, investors lose money, retirement funds shrink, savings take a hit.
When the world's biggest economy becomes unstable, no one is safe. So far, Powell has resisted Donald Trump's pressure.
But if that changes,
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the impact will not stop with America. Other central banks will be forced to deal with the aftershocks.
So, the fallout will be global, although we hope it does not come to that. Our
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next story is about Intel. It has a new shareholder and this new shareholder is the US government.
You heard that right? The US government now owns around 10% of Intel.
The deal came into place after a meeting between Donald Trump and Intel
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CEO Libutan. Now think about it for a second.
This is a country that has spent a century preaching one thing, the virtues of private enterprise. And now it has effectively nationalized a sliver of its most storied tech company and that too
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without a financial crisis without a bank run or a bankruptcy court. Just a president who decided it was a good deal that semiconductors are too important to leave to the market alone.
If somebody would have said that with Intel would be a giant right now. Now,
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with that, they've had some bad management over the years and and they got lost. And I said, "I think you should pay us 10% of your company." And they said, "Yes, that's about 10 billion for the I don't get it.
This comes to the United States of America." And I
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said, "I think it would be good having the United States as your partner." He agreed. And they've agreed to do it.
And I think it's a great deal for them. And I think it's a great deal.
He walked in wanting to keep his job and he ended up giving us $10 billion for the United States. So, we picked up 10 billion and
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we do a lot of deals like that. I'll do more of them.
So, let's break it down for you. First, what exactly is the deal?
The Treasury Department agreed to spend nearly $9 billion to buy 9.9% of Intel stock. Now, this is at a discounted price.
So, put
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simply, the government is now Intel's second largest shareholder. And the money did not come out of nowhere.
It was cobbled together from the unpaid chips act grants and funds. the 2022 federal law that provides incentives for semiconductor research and development.
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This is where the money came from. Now, on paper, it looks like Washington simply redirected subsidies and instead of cash handouts, it now holds equity.
But the symbolism is larger than that because Intel is a shadow of the company it used to be. It was once the
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undisputed leader of semiconductors, but has since been outpaced by many. You have Nvidia, Taiwan's TSMC, and South Korea's Samsung.
The company reported an 18.8
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billion loss last year. This is Intel's loss last year.
$18.8 billion. And the backdrop is equally volatile.
Semiconductors are the new oil. They power everything from iPhones to missiles.
And America has spent the last 5 years worrying about one thing, its
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overd dependence on overseas chips. Meanwhile, China is expanding its chip sector.
So, Trump has made Intel survival a matter of national security. Intel was the biggest most powerful chip company in the world and then uh they
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started leaving and they started going to foreign countries in particular Taiwan. And if we had a president that would have said okay you can go to Taiwan but we're going to put a 100% tariff or 200 or 300 or 500% tariff.
Anybody that sells into the United
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States has to pay. They wouldn't have left.
Here's a short version of what happens. Intel gets breathing room and the government gets a seat at the table.
Federal officials say the stake is quote unquote passive that there is no voting rights or direct meddling. But make no
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mistake when your largest customer regulator and our shareholder is the same entity the definition of passive starts to blur. So the next question is has America done this before?
The answer is yes but usually only in moments of crisis. For
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instance, in 2009, the US took a 60% stake in General Motors. This was to prevent GM's collapse.
And there are other such examples, but most of them were during or after the 2008 financial crisis. But the Intel case is different.
This is
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not about saving a failing firm in the middle of a meltdown. This is a preemptive strike, a deliberate reshaping of America's industrial base.
Next question. Do other countries do this?
Yes, they do. and they do it all the time.
China owns large stakes in
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nearly every strategic industry from Huawei to its big banks. France holds shares in Airbus and Renault.
Singapore's sovereign fund TESC owns slices of companies across sectors. Norway's sovereign fund controls significant portions of European blue
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chips. Then why is this one a problem Americans take in Intel?
Because critics say the US is violating its own gospel of free markets. On the flip side, supporters argue that this is the only way to compete with China's industrial machine.
If Beijing backs its champions,
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why should America fight with one hand tied? Well, whichever argument you subscribe to, one thing is quite clear.
This is not just about intel. Trump is sketching a new template for the American state.
One in which the line between government and corporation is
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fuzzier than ever. China's property bubble has claimed its biggest casualty yet.
Everrand has been delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It used to be the country's largest developer.
Ever Grand was buried
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under more than $300 billion of debt. It promised homes to millions of buyers but left behind empty towers and unfinished projects.
It shattered confidence in China's property sector and other companies being liquidated. Everrand's
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creditors face huge losses and China's economy faces deeper troubles. So what does the fall of Everrand mean for the world's second largest economy?
Here's a report.
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In 2021, this video from the Chinese press had made the world sit up and take notice. These high-rise buildings in Yunan had been unfinished for 7 years.
The developer had run out of money. The apartments had to be demolished.
Within
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45 seconds, they were reduced to rubble. For years later, there's been another collapse.
This time on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. China's property giant Everrand has been
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delisted. The decision came after the company failed to resume trading for 18 months.
The Hong Kong court had already ordered its liquidation last year. Everrand was once China's largest developer.
It is now the world's biggest property failure. At its peak, the
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company was worth 51 billion US. Its shares once traded above 30 Hong Kong dollars a piece.
When trading halted, the stock was worth about 16. Today, the company's value has collapsed to $282 million.
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For perspective, that's smaller than many midsize firms in Asia. The story of Everrand is a story of excess.
The company grew on debt. By 2021, it owed more than $300 billion to banks, bond holders, and suppliers.
It promised
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homes to millions of buyers. But the money ran out, projects were left unfinished, and confidence in China's real estate engine evaporated.
Regulators cracked down on excessive borrowing. In 2020, developers like Everrand suddenly had no access to fresh
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funds. The cash dried up, debts piled up, defaults followed.
What began as one company's crisis soon spread to the entire property sector. Home prices fell, new projects stalled, and the Chinese economy lost one of its
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strongest growth engines. Everrand's fall is symbolic.
Experts say once a company is delisted, there is no way back. It is a warning to other developers still hanging on.
Country Garden, another major player, also faces
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liquidation hearings. The crisis is far from over.
The fallout is massive. For home buyers, it means waiting endlessly for unfinished flats.
For creditors, it means writing off billions. Analysts say recoveries could take time, and the payout will be
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minimal. For China's economy, the impact is structural.
The property sector once accounted for a quarter of its GDP. That model is broken and it won't return soon.
Everrand's founder, Hi Kaiin, once one of China's richest men, has also
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fallen. He was detained in 2023 on charges of financial crimes.
The company was fined for falsifying records. Executives were penalized and the auditing firm PWC was banned for 6 months over its role in the scandal.
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This is more than a corporate collapse. It's a cautionary tale.
It shows the risks of debt-driven growth. It shows what happens when regulation comes late.
And it shows how fragile consumer confidence can be once trust is broken. Everrand's fall is not the end of
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China's property crisis. But it is a turning point.
The demolition of towers in Yunan in 2021 symbolized waste. The delisting of Everrand in Hong Kong in 2025 symbolizes closure.
The message from both events is the same. A debt
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fuel boom always ends the same way with collapse and the aftershocks will be felt for years. They detect, they track, they intercept, they neutralize.
In today's geopolitical
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landscape, missile defense systems are crucial, which is why they're taking center stage as New Delhi bolsters its defenses. India has successfully carried out maid and firing tests of an air defense system called the integrated air defense weapon system.
This is a
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multi-layered system. It consists of indigenous missiles and high-powered lasers and it is a major step towards developing mission sudaran chakra.
Think of it as a homegrown nationwide security shield set to be completed by 2035.
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It's a clear signal of India firming up its defenses. But this is not the only boost of its kind.
Our next report tells you more. India's air defense system has hit a major milestone.
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The Defense Research and Development Organization or DRDO has successfully conducted the first flight tests of the integrated air defense weapon system. The IADWS is a multi-layered air defense system.
It can destroy targets at
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different ranges and altitudes. And the best part, it has completely homegrown components.
There are three quick reaction surface to air missiles which are designed to provide a protective shield to moving armored columns from enemy aerial
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attacks. The advanced very short range air defense system missiles which can neutralize targets between the range of 300 m and 6 km including drones and other classes of aerial threats.
and a high power laserbased directed
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energy weapon which uses focused energy to cause structural damage and disable surveillance sensors of drones. This systems maiden flight test happened off the coast of Odisha on Sunday afternoon and according to the DRDO all the components performed flawlessly.
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This is a major step forward mainly because the integrated air defense weapon system has the three different components which are meant to neutralize aerial targets at different ranges and with different speeds. Another benefit is the indigenous command and control
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system which is a key strategic asset. And that's not all.
The test flights mark a step towards developing a homegrown nationwide security shield from multi-dommain enemy attacks or what will be called the Sudashan Chakra.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the nation about it on Independence Day. He announced the launch of mission Sudashian Chakra which is a comprehensive multi-layered network system aimed at protecting India and its key installations from a range of enemy
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attacks across domains. This shield is expected to offer multiple layers of protection by combining surveillance, cyber security and air defense systems.
It is an ambitious project set to be
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completed by 2035. But India has taken a sure-footed step towards it.
And that's not all. Just as India is bolstering its defenses, it is also engaging with partners abroad.
Indian Army Chief General Apendred Vivei
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is on a 4-day visit to Algeria. He is set to hold high level discussions with the country's top military leadership.
This comes nearly 10 months after the two countries signed a landmark defense cooperation agreement. This visit aims to reinforce that engagement.
But this
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is not just a sign of India's deepening security ties with Algeria. It is a significant move showcasing new Dehi's growing footprint in Africa.
And if you look at the bigger picture, you don't just see fast-paced technological defense advancements. You don't just see
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ties built across oceans. You see a message not just to rivals but to the entire world that India is prepared to defend its skies and to protect its people.
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For nearly 8 months, India has had no American ambassador. The Biden era appointee Eric Garcetti packed up in January.
Since then, Washington and New Delhi have engaged with each other and tried to negotiate a trade deal. The US hit India with 50% tariffs over imports of Russian oil.
The relationship
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suffered, but all without a steady American voice in Delhi. Now, President Donald Trump has picked his man.
His name is Sergio Gore. He is 38 years old.
He's a conservative publisher turned White House personnel chief. He has no diplomatic resume, no long speeches on
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India and not much exposure to South Asia. But he has something far more valuable in Trump's Washington and that is loyalty.
Apparently, he can walk into the Oval Office without an appointment. So, what does this nomination mean for India and why now?
Our next report tells
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you Sergio Gore is not a seasoned diplomat. He's a political enforcer.
The man who kept Trump's federal hires pure from dissenters. Elon Musk once called him a snake after Gore tanked his preferred NASA pick.
Trump Jr. calls him a friend
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and co-founder. Trump calls him a great guy who's been on my side for years.
For New Delhi, this means something unusual. An ambassador who won't just send cables back home, he'll text the president.
That could be a blessing if India wants a direct line into Trump's head.
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Gore is around 38 years old. US media reports suggest he was born in Usuzbekiststan.
His surname was originally Gorakovski. Before this, he used to run a political action committee supporting Trump.
He has also helped publish several books
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about Trump. But what role will he play in India?
Trump has slapped a 50% tariff on India over its purchase of Russian oil. Will Gore help resolve it?
Nobody knows. He has never negotiated a trade deal.
But as Trump's closest gatekeeper, he might
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simply carry the US president's blunt message. For India, the question isn't whether Gore is friendly.
The question is whether he has the leverage and the patience to untangle the economic knots or whether he's here to deliver ultimatums. And here's the twist.
Gore isn't just
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ambassador designate to India. He's also been named special envoy for South and Central Asia.
That means his desk will cover not just India but Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and even Central Asian republics. For New Delhi, this is troubling.
These
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posts being held by the same person is choir unusual. The risk is that India's voice gets diluted in Washington just when it wants to be heard.
But before Gore even steps into the role, he has to clear the US Senate. That could take months.
Eric Garcetti's
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nomination process dragged on for nearly 2 years. Until then, India has no full US ambassador.
But Gore's envoy role lets him start shaping policy now even before confirmation. From New Delhi's vantage point, Gore's nomination is both
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an opportunity and a warning. The opportunity is that this is a rare ambassador who reports directly to the president.
The warning is a man whose foreign policy instincts are untested. So, does India lean and use Gor's Oval
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Office privileges to cut through Washington's bureaucracy? Or does it brace for challenging times, knowing Trump's trade obsessions could turn that direct line into a pressure one.
So, Sergio Gore's arrival won't be business as usual. Its diplomacy Trump style, personal and unpredictable, and it's up
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though to India now on how it handles this equation in the Trump 2.0 era. It's easy to think of famine as something that just happens as a result of bad harvests, a flood, or
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an act of nature. But in 2025, famine is rarely accidental.
It is manufactured. Across the world's deadliest conflicts, leaders and armed groups have discovered or are discovering something that hunger can be as powerful as bombs
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and bullets. So global hunger may be going down, but famine deaths are rising, especially in conflict zones from Gaza to Sudan.
More and more people are starving to death in war zones. Our next report tells you why.
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If you zoom out, the picture looks slightly better than it did during the pandemic. The UN estimates that about 673 million people, roughly 8 2% of the world's population faced hunger in 2024.
It's a
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small dip from the year before, but numbers can lie. The average hides the extremes.
In places where war is raging, the hunger curve isn't going down at all. It is shooting up.
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International law forbids using food as a weapon. But the battlefield is littered with loopholes.
Armies can block roads, deny aid convoys, bomb grain silos, or loot warehouses. And when they do, they aren't just
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starving civilians accidentally. They're starving them intentionally.
That's why humanitarians now speak of weaponized famine. It's not drought.
It's not poor planning. It's by design.
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[Music] Take Gaza for example. In 2025, the word famine was officially attached to Gaza, the first time in its history.
More than half a million people are trapped in conditions of acute hunger. Malnutrition
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has hollowed out bodies, particularly those of children's. Miam began showing signs of malnutrition while we were in Rafa.
At that time, the hunger wasn't as severe as it is now.
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Because of the extreme starvation we're facing now, she lost even more weight, dropping to just 9 kg. What we're going through now is far worse than what we experienced in the south.
Her condition back then wasn't nearly this bad.
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This wasn't caused by nature. It was caused by war.
Bombed farmland, shattered infrastructure, and tight restrictions on humanitarian access have combined to create a perfect storm of starvation. Aid agencies describe Gaza today not as
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a hunger crisis, but as engineered famine. It is a famine in 2025.
A 21st century famine watched over by drones and the most advanced military technology in history. It is a famine
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openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war. It is a famine on all of our watch.
Everyone owns this. The Gaza famine is the world's famine.
It is a famine that asks.
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But what did you do? A famine that will and must haunt us all.
If Gaza is the world's most visible famine, the Sudan may be its most invisible.
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Since fighting erupted between the Sudin armed forces and the rapid support forces in 2023, millions have been cut off from food. Both sides have reportedly blocked or stolen humanitarian aid,
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using hunger to weaken rivals and terrify civilians. The consequences are catastrophic.
Aid workers themselves are attacked. Supply routes are deliberately severed and millions hover on the brink of
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famine. What makes the Sudan different is its scale.
Humanitarians warned this could be the world's largest hunger disaster if the siegelike tactics continue. A famine is preventable.
Unlike an earthquake, this is man-made, which
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means it could be stopped with political will. It exists.
Food exists. The problem is access.
Yet, global leaders treat famine as background noise until the images are too gruesome to ignore.
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So global famine deaths aren't climbing everywhere. But in Gaza, the Sudan, and other war zones, they are rising sharply because leaders have rediscovered a terrible old truth.
Hunger works. The question is whether the rest of the
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world is willing to let food remain a weapon of war in the 21st century. In 2023, a Belgian man ended his life.
He developed anxiety over the future of the planet. He confided in an AI chatbot
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for weeks and eventually took his own life. His widow blames the bot for his death.
Last year, a Florida teen killed himself. His mother says it happened after he became obsessed with an AI bot.
In April this year, a Florida man was
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killed. He believed that a woman was trapped inside Chad GPT.
His father tried to reason with him. This led to an altercation.
When he was confronted by the police, he charged at them with a knife and he was shot dead. And a few weeks ago, a man from New Jersey formed an intimate relationship
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with a bot. He went to New York to New York City to find it and never returned home.
He injured himself and died later. When chatbots first became popular, all sorts of promises were made.
More productivity, more efficiency, better
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essays, quicker coding, even a cure for cancer. But what we did not see coming was this intimate emotional connections with AI chatbots.
In recent months, people have increasingly turn to AI not just for
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productivity but also for so-called AI therapy where people share personal experiences with AI bots. They look for emotional support and the bots give them advice.
It could be about work, personal relationships or general day-to-day
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anxieties. So users are increasingly sharing their private thoughts and forming close one-way bonds with artificial intelligence.
Now this is a broad umbrella but AI therapy can come in many forms. People can ask generic bots like Chat GPT for
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advice or they can look for bots with celebrity personas. Plus there are thousands of bots specifically built for AI therapy often with more than a million downloads a piece.
Some of the bots come with therapy personas. For instance, you can pick an
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AI therapist with more optimism or more patience. Some chat bots come with an intense backstory like education from top universities and a steady psychology career in the suburbs.
Of course, all of this is fake, but a lot of users don't
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seem to care because AI therapy is booming. About 28% people who use AI have utilized it for therapy.
Overall, the perks are obvious. AI therapy is free.
It is convenient. As long as you have access to the internet, AI chatbots are
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available 24/7 in multiple languages. But you see, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
And like most things AI, there are major privacy concerns here. Traditional therapy can be timeconuming,
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gut-wrenching as a process. But it is built on the foundation of trust.
Both the parties, the patient and the therapist take time to build that trust and therapy is supposed to be a safe space. There is doctor patient
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confidentiality. This this is not true for AI therapy.
Once you have an emotional conversation with AI, what happens to your data? Recently Sam Alman spoke about it.
Sam Alultman as you would know is the top boss of OpenAI the parent company of
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Chad GPT. He said that if you have conversations with Chad GPT their staff can read the messages.
They may even have to share those conversations like in the case of a lawsuit. And Chad GPT by the way is a widely
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popular bot. What about the millions of other lesserk known unregulated bots?
In all likelihood, users are sharing their deep, dark secrets, not with a so-called AI therapist, but with big tech.
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So, that's one issue, privacy. The second big problem is AI psychosis.
From psychologists to tech experts and even tech bosses, an overwhelming number of experts have been sounding an alarm about it. AI psychosis happens when the imaginary becomes real, when it feels
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real. It happens when people rely too much on chat bots and are convinced about things that do not exist.
After all, AI bots hallucinate. They make things up.
Plus, they're not built to understand or tackle complex emotional needs. All they do is copy
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user behavior or what is called mirroring. AI bots validate users.
They praise. They fuel delusions.
They enable users and eventually people tend to lose touch with reality. So at the end of the day, sure AI has a
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lot of benefits, but it is artificial as the name suggests, artificial intelligence. It is not real and it is no way to form connections really.
It is merely the one-way route to unhealthy attachments.
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For our last story tonight, let's turn our attention to Pakistan, a country racked with poverty and devastated by deadly floods. Since late June, floods have killed more than 780 people, injured more than a thousand people, and damaged about 7,000 homes in Pakistan.
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Raging waters have left destruction in their wake. But Pakistan is no stranger to this.
Something similar happened last year and the year before. In fact, in 2022, monsoon rains killed about 1,700 people in the country.
So, why does
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history keep repeating itself? Why can't Pakistan better protect itself?
Here's a report. Mudo bodies lifted out of the debris, homes destroyed, and livelihoods lost.
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As the story repeats itself, heavy monsoon rains have battered Pakistan for about a month now. They have triggered flash floods across the northern region,
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causing entire villages to wash away, leaving urban infrastructure underwater. Kyber Puktankqua and Punjab provinces are among the worst hit.
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Since late June 26th, floods have claimed more than 780 lives, injured more than a,000 people, and damaged nearly 7,000 homes.
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I witnessed the disaster here. Thunder struck on the hill and soon after black flood waters came rushing down carrying stones, soil, and sand.
The water swept through the houses and by the time we arrived, it was impossible to save anyone.
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People's anger is palpable. Residents say that the government is underprepared.
Again, they had no warning that the floods were coming. And as rescue teams scramble to help people, many of them are removing debris
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with bare hands due to lack of support from local officers. While some residents have evacuated their homes, others remain in place.
If water levels continue to rise, we may need to conduct forced evacuations.
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Rescue 1122 personnel also came to us and asked us to leave. But how can we go?
Where can we go? We don't have any other land or home.
We are daily wage laborers. We can't go anywhere.
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But Pakistan is not new to this devastation. Every year monsoon rains wreak havoc in the country.
In 2022, about $1,700 people died. The flood cost Pakistan about $15 billion in
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damages. That could have been a stark warning to the country, but history has repeated itself again.
Our four families are here. Two other families are at lower ground.
Many have
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moved further higher ground than us. They're also homeless.
They're also affected by flood. They borrowed tents.
The government has not arranged any tents for us so far. Our cattle are also here.
The water turned towards us and trapped all our families.
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Pakistan's geography makes it vulnerable to natural disasters. The country doesn't just have heavy monsoons, but also extreme temperatures and droughts.
These trends have only been made worse by climate change.
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But that is part of a much bigger issue. Housing laws often go ignored in Pakistan.
So far about 30% of all deaths during the monsoon season are from houses collapsing. Many vulnerable communities live by the riverbeds.
Even though it is
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prohibited, people don't have alternative options because shelters are not built for the vulnerable communities. These families are living under makeshift tents.
When we saw the sky turning cloudy, we set them up ourselves
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because their homes were destroyed. The tents weren't provided by anyone.
Neighbors brought them to help. The only green tents you see were given by aid organizations in the urban regions as well.
Building
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laws are widely violated. Take Pakistan's commercial capital Karachi for instance.
It has been paralyzed by flooding on multiple accashions this past month. So much so that the officials were forced to declare a public holiday.
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Year after year, it is the same story. Monsoon comes and what should be a source of life, a boon to agrarian livelihoods, fuels disaster.
Because as Pakistan continues to survive on bailout after bailout amid political
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upheaval, prepation for natural disasters takes a backseat. And by proxy, so do precious lives.
And now it's time for vantage shots. Images that tell the story.
The Eiffel Tower lights up in blue and yellow to
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mark the Ukrainian independence day. Thousands evacuated, many flights canled as a powerful typhoon drenches Vietnam's co coastal areas.
In Bavaria, people participate in an unusual race. And finally, we're taking you back in history.
On this day in 1944, Paris was
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liberated from German forces during the Second World War. Before this, Paris had been under Nazi occupation for four years.
A battle was fought between Nazi soldiers and members of the French resistance. They were helped by American forces.
And finally, the battle ended in
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a major victory for Paris. We're leaving you on that note.
Thank you for watching. We'll see you tomorrow.
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[Music] [Music] which is the open
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each moment in a three person. [Music] Do you know
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[Music] [Applause] [Music] Baby,
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[Applause]
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Heat. [Applause] [Music] Heat.
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[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat.
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[Music] Heat up [Music]