LE SSERAFIM’s new documentary, ‘LE SSERAFIM – Make It Look Easy,’ offers an intimate look at their journey over the past year, highlighting their rapid rise in the music industry. Premiering on July 29 on the HYBE Labels YouTube channel, the series captures the group’s intense rehearsals, heartfelt fan meetings, and groundbreaking solo tour. The documentary also delves into their challenges, showcasing moments of self-doubt and resilience. ‘Make It Look Easy’ promises to inspire fans with a comprehensive look at LE SSERAFIM’s growth and triumphs.
Britain’s New Sikh MP Focuses on Restoring Trust and Strengthening India Ties, UK
London, Jul 28 (PTI) Jeevun Sandher, one of Britain’s newest members of Parliament elected in the Labour Party’s landslide general election victory earlier this month, is determined to restore trust in politics and strengthen his party’s connection with India and its diaspora communities.
The British Sikh first-time MP was elected from Loughborough in the East Midlands region of England, considered a bellwether constituency which has reflected the national result in UK general elections over the years.
He referenced the visit of UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy to India earlier this week as a symbol of the high level of priority the incoming government places on the relationship as it gets on with the job of delivering change.
From a personal perspective, I am a part of the Indian diaspora so I see it as a natural connection, for the Labour Party and the incoming Labour government, he told PTI in an interview at the Parliament complex in London this week.
It is a hugely important strategic partnership for us, which is why David has gone out there to stress that it is an incredibly important partnership for us in the region and globally. India is the world’s largest democracy, there is a trade deal in the works as well. It is about ensuring that we achieve a lot together for the mutual benefit of both nations, he said.
Sandher, in his mid-30s, was born in the eastern England town of Luton to parents who migrated from Punjab and regularly travels back to the region with his family. While these India visits will now face a few more protocol hurdles given his new parliamentary role, his work with voluntary organisations such as Labour Indians keeps him closely connected to the country of his heritage.
I think Labour Indians has helped inform policy, helped me personally as well. I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved and look forward to achieving even more in the weeks, months and years to come, he said of his party’s diaspora outreach.
I am really proud of my Indian roots and really proud of the way our contribution is reflected and recognised in this country. We watch football and then go for a curry, that is the country we live in and it says a lot about our culture, he noted.
As an economist and political strategist who also spent some time as a teacher in classrooms with disadvantaged children in Somaliland, Sandher feels he has been training all his life for this new challenge in the House of Commons.
He has a clear-eyed vision of his key focus areas after a hectic election campaign interacting with voters in the market town of Loughborough, where he lives when he is not in London on parliamentary business.
I am an economist and the first thing for me is to get more money in people’s pockets. The way we’re going to do that is by investing in clean energy, bringing that investment and green prosperity into Loughborough, he said.
The second priority is about the health service, there’s nothing more important to any of us than the health of our loved ones and getting the highest NHS waiting list in history fixed. And thirdly, getting crime down by hiring more police officers and getting youth hubs going, he added.
Sandher believes there is a wave of optimism sweeping through the country since the July 4 election voted out the Conservatives after 14 years, but the focus must now be on delivery for the celebrations to really kick in.
There’s a lot for us to do and a lot for us to fix. It is going to be really hard. I would not underestimate the scale of the challenge. This country is in its greatest crisis since 1945, it’s a real turnaround job. It’s a massive mess the Tories left us with… We go into politics because we want to achieve change and now we have the chance to make that change, said the MP, who is slowly getting to grips with a lot to learn in his brand-new job profile.
US Defense Secretary Visits Papua New Guinea to Strengthen Military Ties & Counter China in Indo-Pacific
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin Grows Ties with Papua New Guinea to Counter China Influence
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Papua New Guinea to bolster military cooperation and enhance security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region, amid escalating rivalry with China.
During discussions with Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape, the U.S. emphasized collaboration under the Defense Cooperation Agreement, focusing on modernizing the country’s military capabilities.
Austin reiterated the U.S.’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific while clarifying that there are no intentions for permanent military installations in Papua New Guinea. The emphasis lies on aiding the nation’s defense capabilities and fostering interoperability with the U.S. military.
In response to concerns about potential military alliances with China, Marape affirmed Papua New Guinea’s stance on maintaining economic relations, dismissing any plans for security pacts with Beijing.
The collaboration between the U.S. and Papua New Guinea drew student protests in Lae, voicing apprehensions about regional militarization. However, both nations are focused on infrastructure development and maritime security enforcement.
Austin announced the provision of a U.S. Coast Guard cutter to Papua New Guinea for maritime law enforcement, emphasizing the non-aggressive nature of the U.S.’s presence in the country.
The visit underscores the strategic importance of Papua New Guinea in the broader U.S. geopolitical stance in the Indo-Pacific region, highlighting the complexities of balancing regional influence amidst growing tensions with China.
Austin and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken proceeded to Australia for bilateral discussions, underscoring the ongoing efforts to fortify alliances in the region and uphold peace and security.
As diplomatic dialogues continue, the visit signals heightened engagement between the U.S. and Papua New Guinea, foregrounding the evolving dynamics of power play and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific theater.
Backstage Winner Interviews: UFC 304 Recap from Manchester, England, UK
MANCHESTER, England – UFC 304 took place Saturday with 14 bouts on the lineup. We’ve got you covered with backstage winner interviews from Co-op Live in Manchester, England.
You can hear from all the UFC 304 winners by checking out their post-fight news conferences below.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 304.
Shauna Bannon Mick Parkin Sam Patterson Modestas Bukauskas vs. Marcin Prachnio Oban Elliott vs. Preston Parsons
Uttar Pradesh Leads with Over 9% Startup Registrations in India
Over 9% of the total registered startups across India are based in Uttar Pradesh, according to official data from the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industries. The information, shared by Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jitin Prasada in the Rajya Sabha, revealed that the number of startups in India has surpassed 1.4 lakh.
Prasada mentioned that Maharashtra leads with 25,044 registered startups, followed by Karnataka with 15,019, Delhi with 14,734, Uttar Pradesh with 13,299, and Gujarat with 11,436. The minister emphasized various government initiatives aimed at nurturing and supporting the startup ecosystem, including the Startup India initiative launched in January 2016.
The Startup India Action Plan focuses on simplification, handholding, funding support, incentives, and industry-academia partnership and incubation. In addition, the government introduced the ‘Startup India: The Way Ahead’ scheme to promote ease of doing business, leverage technology, build stakeholder capacities, and enable a digital Aatmanirbhar Bharat.
To address monetary needs, the government established the Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) oversees the monitoring, while the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) operates the scheme with funding planned over the 14th and 15th Finance Commission cycles.
These initiatives underscore the government’s commitment to fostering innovation, supporting startups, and creating a conducive environment for entrepreneurship across the country, with Uttar Pradesh emerging as a notable hub for startup growth.
Open-Source AI Threat: Fueling Adversaries in Global Race, China
The open-source approach to technology development has fuelled innovation across the tech industry for decades. Now, it risks fueling adversaries in the geopolitical battles of the 21st century.
People working on open-source projects share their work openly online for others to use, contribute to, and build upon. This approach fosters broad collaboration and speeds innovation, as individuals and companies contribute their time and effort to building toward common goals.
Open-source is a big deal making much of the internet possible, and it fuels innovation. When the world was flat, this drove unprecedented innovation that benefitted all. However, the tech world has developed a new super technology that brings the open-source approach into question.
Artificial intelligence is likely to become the most significant technology of the 21st century. It will transform every business, spawn new products and industries, and forever change the nature of work. Countries that harness it first will yield significant economic and strategic benefits.
In 2017, China announced an ambitious program to become the world’s major AI innovation center by 2030. While the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom continue to dominate in AI research, China is highly motivated to close the gap and win the race to develop powerful AI.
Recognizing the importance of maintaining an AI leadership position, the U.S. government has released a series of ever-tightening restrictions on exporting the powerful chips that provide computing capabilities for AI to China. Open-source should be examined closely here, too.
The RISC-V chip architecture is an open-source project that emerged from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2014. RISC-V defines the instruction set architecture of a chip and offers a blueprint for how-to-design computer hardware. RISC-V is used by many Chinese, Indian and Western companies.
China has enthusiastically embraced RISC-V to fuel its domestic chip design ambitions. While RISC-V is focused on traditional central processing unit workloads, new vector instructions added recently by the RISC-V International Foundation accelerate machine learning functions. It’s likely that future extensions will accelerate AI training and inference. One Chinese company has already built a RISC-V-based processor with tensor units, giving it 200 TOPS of impressive AI number-crunching performance.
RISC-V International, the organization that controls the direction of the RISC-V architecture, deliberately relocated itself to Switzerland in 2020 to insulate itself from potential U.S. sanctions and influence. While it’s unlikely this group will develop technology that meaningfully challenges the AI performance of Western companies, they are likely to enable at least some of the future ambitions of a China starved of AI chips by export controls.
Sovereign nations have realized they need their own national AI strategies. They don’t want to rely on a few American companies to provide the essential digital fuel that will power their industries and societies of tomorrow.
The global race to develop AI is on. Which brings us back to open-source.
The three leaders in AI research — OpenAI, Google and Anthropic — create what is known as frontier models, the most powerful models. Some time ago, these companies stopped publishing their research, deciding to take a more responsible approach to releasing AI capabilities. AI services are accessed through a programming interface that allows these companies to restrict access if they determine bad actors are using their models.
The next tier down is more cavalier. Several tech players have released powerful large language models as open-source. These models are typically a generation or so behind the frontier models, but they are still very powerful.
Meta, Stability, Abacus and Databricks — all U.S. companies — are fundamentally committed to open-source, believing that technology as powerful and impactful as artificial intelligence should be democratized rather than restricted to a few giant companies. They have each released powerful large language models for anyone to download and use. The day these models hit the web, AI researchers in China, Iran and other adversaries eagerly download them, dissect them and use them as the foundation for new capabilities.
Open-source technology has fueled widespread innovation in tech for decades. Most people benefit from it hundreds of times a day. However, the continued release of powerful open-source AI models without necessary security controls risks empowering our adversaries and diminishing U.S. leadership.
Would we open-source nuclear know-how? Policymakers should consider the situation and act accordingly.
Oil Prices Slide as China Demand Weakens, Middle East Ceasefire Hopes Rise
Oil prices slipped on Friday and were on track for a third consecutive weekly decline, pressured by muted demand in China and hopes of a Gaza ceasefire deal that could ease Middle East tensions and accompanying supply concerns.
Brent crude futures for September dipped 56 cents to $81.81 a barrel by 2:50 p.m. Saudi time. US West Texas Intermediate crude for September fell 40 cents to $77.88.
For the week, Brent is trading down almost 1 percent while WTI is down more than 2 percent.
Recent data, such as July 20 figures showing that China’s total fuel oil imports dropped 11 percent in the first half of 2024, have raised concern about the wider demand outlook in China.
In the Middle East, hopes of a ceasefire in Gaza have been gaining momentum.
A ceasefire has been the subject of negotiations for months, but US officials believe the parties are closer than ever to an agreement for a six-week ceasefire in exchange for the release by Hamas of female, sick, elderly and wounded hostages.
Oil price declines were capped, however, by threats to production from Canadian wildfires, a large US crude stocks draw and continued hopes of a September cut to US interest rates after strong economic data, said PVM oil analyst Tamas Varga.
Morocco’s Olympic Delegation Energized for Paris 2024 Performance
Rabat – Chakib Benmoussa, Morocco’s Minister of National Education, affirmed that the Moroccan sports delegation is both energized and ready to deliver a standout performance at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Speaking in Paris today, Benmoussa brought to the forefront the delegation’s enthusiasm and readiness as they are gearing up for the Olympics 2024. The distinguished presence of Morocco at these Olympics is the result of years of sustained efforts by the Moroccan National Olympic Committee (CNOM) and all the national sports federations supporting these athletes, Benmoussa stated in an interview with MAP, Morocco’s official news agency. This represents a crucial milestone in the careers of our athletes who have qualified for these games, he continued, hoping that Moroccan champions will deliver outstanding performances on the global stage. During his visit to the Olympic Village today, Benmoussa inspected the accommodations and preparations for Moroccan athletes and reported that both the athletes and their support staff are being provided with top-notch facilities. He also reported that the athletes are approaching the games with high spirits, fueled by a strong determination to achieve outstanding results. Benmoussa commended the CNOM for its outstanding support and organization, which have established optimal conditions for the Moroccan delegation’s success at the Olympics. Aligning with Benmoussa’s views, Nawal El Moutawakil, the former Moroccan Olympic champion and re-elected vice president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), also recently voiced a keen hope for a Moroccan athlete to secure a medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Morocco made its Olympic debut in 1960 and has participated in every Summer Games since, with the exception of the 1980 Olympics due to their participation in the American-led boycott. To date, Moroccan athletes have secured a total of 24 medals since the country began participating in the competition, including 20 in athletics and 4 in boxing.
AI Revolutionizes Digital Marketing: Future Strategies Unveiled
Artificial Intelligence is steadily creating transformative waves across various business sectors. Thanks to its unparalleled ability to enhance efficiency, AI is quickly becoming a pivotal force in numerous areas of business operations, including Digital Marketing. With its capacity to mimic human rationality, AI significantly boosts efficiency in many aspects of business. In particular, AI and Digital Marketing are increasingly intertwined, working together to revolutionize the field.
According to a report by Gartner, companies that successfully integrate AI in their digital marketing strategies can expect a 30% increase in key performance metrics by 2025. This leap is not just about more data; it’s about smarter data usage, more effective targeting, and real-time responsiveness.
Not too long ago, marketers hesitated to incorporate AI into their digital marketing strategies. However, this trend has been gradually reversing as the subtle advantages of AI become more apparent. In a survey involving 1,600 marketing professionals, 61% indicated that AI would be the most crucial data initiative in the upcoming years.
A prominent example of AI’s use in digital marketing is Amazon. The company leverages AI to display relevant products to specific website visitors based on their previous purchases, searches, and views. This personalized user experience increases the likelihood of shoppers making an initial purchase or becoming repeat customers.
AI-based digital marketing strategies can revolutionize how marketers interact with their audience. With its specialized capabilities, AI can drive relevant traffic, acquire new customers, increase sales, and retain existing customers.
Let’s explore the range of benefits and options AI offers and analyze how these can be integrated into digital marketing strategies.
A/B testing has long been a staple of digital marketing. This method involves comparing two versions of a web page or ad to see which performs better. Traditional A/B testing requires a manual traffic switch, where marketers allocate a certain percentage of traffic to each variant. This process is time-consuming and often lacks the flexibility to adapt in real time.
Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) algorithms are transforming A/B testing by incorporating real-time decision-making capabilities. Inspired by the problem of allocating resources among competing options to maximize rewards, MAB algorithms use reinforcement learning to dynamically adjust the traffic distribution based on real-time performance. Techniques like Thompson Sampling allow these algorithms to continually learn and adapt, ensuring the best-performing variants receive the most exposure.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is another area where AI is making significant strides. SEM involves bidding on keywords to display ads in search engine results. Traditionally, marketers set bids and keywords manually, a process that can be both labor-intensive and imprecise.
AI-driven SEM tools can analyze vast amounts of data to identify the most effective keywords and adjust bids in real time. These tools consider factors like competition, search volume, and user behavior to optimize ad placements. For instance, an AI tool might detect that a particular keyword is gaining popularity and increase the bid to ensure the ad appears prominently. This level of precision and adaptability was previously unattainable with manual methods.
Personalization is crucial for enhancing user engagement and conversion rates. AI allows for the creation of personalized landing pages tailored to individual user profiles. When a user logs in and performs a search, the system can analyze their behavior, preferences, and past interactions to present a customized landing page.
Click-through rate (CTR) is a critical metric in digital marketing, indicating the effectiveness of an ad or a landing page. AI can analyze CTR data to uncover insights and optimize campaigns. Machine learning algorithms can identify patterns and trends that humans might miss, providing actionable recommendations.
While AI offers numerous benefits, it also raises ethical considerations. Marketers must ensure that AI systems are used responsibly and transparently. Issues like data privacy, algorithmic bias, and the potential for manipulation must be addressed proactively.
The integration of AI and cloud technologies is transforming digital marketing, offering unprecedented opportunities for optimization and personalization. Techniques like Multi-Armed Bandit algorithms and AI-driven SEM tools are pushing the field forward, enabling real-time responsiveness and precision targeting. Personalized landing pages and advanced CTR analysis are enhancing user engagement and campaign effectiveness.
As we navigate this new landscape, it is essential to balance innovation with ethical considerations. By embracing AI responsibly, marketers can harness its full potential, driving growth and delivering exceptional value to their customers. The future of digital marketing is here, and it is smarter, faster, and more personalized than ever before.
NATO Evolution: Europe Prepares for Increased Defense Responsibility
Twenty-three of the alliance’s 31 non-US members will meet or exceed their commitment to spend at least 2 percent of economic output on defense this year, up from just three 10 years ago, according to figures compiled by NATO. Overall, the non-US members now spend 2.02 percent of gross domestic product on defense, compared with 3.4 percent by the US.
