Category World News

Over the past year, investors have invested billions of dollars in artificial intelligence (AI) research and development in an effort to capitalize on this rapidly developing technology.

Generative AI could transform the way that businesses are conducted in a number of fields.

This revolution has largely been led by the US, but a Chinese rival has recently emerged.

DeepSeek’s models are faster, smaller and a lot cheaper.

If there is a more affordable alternative, will investors still be willing to invest in the money?

And who is in the best position to benefit from AI’s vast potential?

Presenter: Elizabeth Puranam

Guests:

R&nbsp, “Ray” Wang – CEO and principal analyst of Constellation Research

University of New South Wales Professor of AI Toby Walsh

Kennedy, who has been picked to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), spent most of Wednesday’s hearing seeking to dispel the idea that he is “anti-vaccine”.

“News reports have claimed that I am anti-vaccine and anti-industry — I am neither. I am pro-safety”, he told the Senate Finance Committee.

“I believe that vaccines play a critical role in healthcare”, he added.

However, Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer and the late US Senator Robert F. Kennedy, has developed into one of Trump’s most contentious cabinet nominees.

Critics denounced him for a slew of past false statements questioning the safety of vaccines, including during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the start of Wednesday’s hearing, the top Democrat on the panel, Senator Ron Wyden, said Kennedy has “embraced conspiracy theories, quacks]and] charlatans, especially when it comes to safety and efficacy of vaccines”.

He has made it his life’s work to dissuade parents from obtaining life-saving vaccines for their children. He has had a lot of money and is now in the position of having enormous power,” said Wyden.

I just pressed RFK Jr. on his stance on vaccines. It’s a simple question, and the guy Trump wants running our nation’s health care system can’t give a straight answer. https://t.co/F98ThuX3q0

Other Democrats questioned Kennedy’s ability to lead HHS, which oversees healthcare initiatives nationwide, by referencing some of his earlier statements.

Senator Michael Bennet questioned the nominee about his earlier claim that Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people were spared by the COVID-19 pandemic if it had been designed to target white and Black people.

Kennedy responded that he was citing federal research, without elaborating.

Bennet also inquired about Kennedy’s assertion that Lyme disease is “likely a militarily engineered bioweapon.”

“I probably did say that”, Kennedy responded.

But Republicans, who control the 100-seat Senate, have largely supported Kennedy’s nomination.

Since then, all of Trump’s cabinet members have been confirmed, with the exception of Pete Hegseth’s confirmation as the new Pentagon head, which was pushed through by Vice President JD Vance’s tie-breaking vote last week.

Kennedy, who will face another hearing before a separate Senate committee on Thursday, needs 50 votes to be confirmed.

Reporting from Washington, DC, on Wednesday afternoon, Al Jazeera correspondent Mike Hanna noted that the hearing went largely as expected, with “softball questions” from Republicans and more pointed queries from Democrats.

“Republicans appear to be totally in support]of Kennedy’s nomination], although there were some questions about his ability to manage a massive, sprawling insurance system in this country”, Hanna said.

Kennedy was also pressed on his stance on abortion, Hanna added. &nbsp, While his position has shifted over the years, Kennedy said on Wednesday that he would uphold the Trump administration’s abortion policies, including on the availability of the pill mifepristone.

Kennedy and Trump both supported each other in the presidential election of 2024, but they both dropped out in August.

The transitional leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and the Qatari emir would meet with the president on Thursday, according to a statement released on Wednesday.

The two countries have strengthened their ties following al-Assad’s fall.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani and al-Sharaa met in Damascus on January 16th, 2011, and Qatar reopened its embassy there in December after it was shut down in July 2011 shortly after Qatar’s backing of the Syrian revolution.

Asaad al-Shaibani, the new Syrian foreign minister, was also present in Doha earlier this month.

Since al-Assad’s fall, the Gulf state has focused its efforts on the humanitarian front in Syria. It has also continued to provide urgent humanitarian aid to Damascus.

Syrian opposition factions, led by al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), took control of Damascus on December 8 after a rapid advance across the country that led to the collapse of al-Assad’s regime, after 61 years of Baath party rule and 53 years of rule by a member of the al-Assad family.

On Wednesday, Al-Sharaa was appointed as Syria’s transitional leader and authorized to form a temporary legislative body until a new constitution is approved.

Additionally, it was announced that all armed groups in the nation would be dissolved and incorporated into state institutions.

However, in a social media post on Wednesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt held firm that Trump’s executive order (EO) to pause federal spending would remain in effect.

She claimed that the Office of Budget and Management’s (OBM) memo, which was made public earlier this week, was the only subject of the most recent directive.

“This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze”, Leavitt wrote. It is merely an OMB memo rescission.

A federal court’s decision on Tuesday to temporarily halt the funding freeze came as a result of the court’s decision to take effect within hours of its intended implementation.

The funding freeze, according to nonprofits, went against the president’s constitutional authority.

The announcement on Wednesday is likely to add to the uncertainty surrounding whether programs that rely on federal funding will continue to operate in the coming weeks.

“The President’s EO’s on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented”, Leavitt wrote on Wednesday. Trump has asserted that his executive order was intended to stop wasteful spending.

Still, Democrats touted the announcement of the memo’s cancellation as a victory. In a social media post, for instance, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the reversal was Trump’s “first major loss”.

“We may not have majorities in the House and the Senate, but we DO have the power to loudly educate and mobilize against the mass looting the Trump admin is attempting against our veterans, healthcare, education, and more”, she said.

Trump has taken a number of drastic steps in his first week in office to completely overhaul the federal government and halt funding both domestic and international aid programs.

As programs scrambled to determine whether they would be affected by the administration’s diverse messages, there became a sense of chaos.

A number of elected officials claimed their states had been evicted from funding portals for Medicaid, a government insurance program for low-income and elderly people, despite the White House’s claim that medical assistance was not included in the order.

The memo was put away just before Wednesday’s legal proceedings were to end.

22 of the country’s 22 Democrat-dominated states and the District of Columbia filed their own lawsuit late on Tuesday to stop the funding freeze in addition to the legal challenge brought by nonprofits.

Opponents in both cases have argued that Trump’s order was illegal, since responsibility for government spending falls largely to Congress, rather than the president.

Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, stated to reporters on Tuesday that the president has no authority to decide which laws to enact and for whom.

Early this week, the US temporarily frozen funds for humanitarian and health-related projects around the world. Military aid for two allies, Israel and Egypt, were exempt from the decision.

A strong backlash and a government response followed from that action.

Interest rates are being held steady by the US Federal Reserve, which provides little insight into when further cuts in borrowing costs may occur in a country where growth is ongoing and inflation is on track.

At the conclusion of its most recent two-day meeting on Wednesday, the Fed made its decision.

The US central bank changed its recent policy statement’s claim that inflation “has made progress” toward the Fed’s 2 percent inflation goal, noting that only that the rate of price increases “remains elevated” after several months of inflation data moving largely sideways.

Recent significant inflation readings are still at or above the Fed’s target of 50% or more.

Fed officials say they largely believe that the rate will resume this year despite holding off on rates while awaiting data to confirm that.

“Economic activity has grown steadily,” he continued. The unemployment rate has stabilized at a low level in recent months, and labour market conditions remain solid”, the central bank’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) said in a statement.

The Committee will carefully assess incoming data, the changing outlook, and the balance of risks in light of the extent and timing of additional adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate, it said.

The Fed is now holding its own as officials wait for more inflation and job data as well as information on the impact of President Donald Trump’s policies as a result of the unanimous decision to keep the overnight interest rate at the current 4.25 percent to 4.5% range in addition to the new statement.

Short-term interest rate futures revealed that investors anticipate the central bank to hold off on rate cuts until June, according to the statement’s release. Stocks lost some ground while US bond yields were unchanged.

The Trump administration already has taken steps to deport some undocumented immigrants and temporarily halt federal spending, and it may also have plans to enact new import tariffs on major trading partners like Mexico and Canada as soon as this weekend.

‘ Mildly hawkish ‘

The decision to hold the policy rate steady was widely anticipated following&nbsp, three consecutive rate cuts&nbsp, in 2024 that reduced the Fed’s benchmark rate by a full percentage point.

The central bank is debating whether or not further rates may need to be cut, with policymakers predicting two quarter-percentage-point rate cuts over the course of the year.

“The Fed seems to think the economy is stuck with a low unemployment rate and elevated inflation”, said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. The statement could be read as mildly hawkish, suggesting that a small blip in rates could cause the economy to fall into this equilibrium.

The FOMC will want to see further progress in the inflation data delivered the next rate cut, highlighted by the removal of the reference on inflation making progress, according to Lindsay Rosner, head of multi-sector fixed-income investing at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has been named president for a transitional phase and the country’s constitution has been suspended, the Syrian state news agency (SANA) reported.

A temporary legislative council for the transitional phase, which will continue its work until a new constitution is approved, was also authorized, according to SANA’s report on Wednesday.

The announcement was made by the spokesperson for Syria’s new, de facto government’s military operations sector, Hassan Abdul Ghani, the state-run SANA news agency said.

Abdel Ghani also announced that the country’s armed groups would be absorbed into state-run institutions.

“All military factions are dissolved… and integrated into state institutions”, state news agency SANA quoted Abdel Ghani as saying, and also announcing “the dissolution of the defunct regime’s army” and security agencies, as well as the Baath party, which ruled Syria for decades.

The announcements came during a meeting of armed rivals in Damascus that had joined the deadly military exercise that had displaced President Bashar al-Assad last month. Al-Sharaa has been Syria’s de facto ruler since leading the offensive.

After Assad’s removal, Al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group became the de facto ruling party and set up an interim government largely composed of officials from the local government it previously ran in rebel-held Idlib province.

Al-Sharaa has pledged to embark on a political transition including a national conference, an inclusive government, and eventual elections, which he has said could take up to four years to hold.

Questions remain over how the interim administration can bring together a symbiotic coalition of former rebel groups with their own leaders and ideology. He has also called for the creation of a new, unified national army and security forces.

Transition begins

Al Jazeera’s Osama bin Javid, reporting from Damascus, said the announcements on Wednesday provided “more clarity on the way forward” for Syria.

We don’t know how long this presidency will last, but it will be for a transitional period. This will also pave way for the international community to lift sanctions”, he said.

“In the last 48 hours, we’ve heard about an EU roadmap to lift sanctions completely. This will be crucial because it will have an impact on everyone in Syria, including people and society. He continued, “That will determine how Syria’s economy functions and how Syria will advance””.

Radwan Ziadeh, Senior analyst at Arab Centre, a research organisation, said the announcements marked the “transition of power into civilian hands”.

According to him, “Al-Sharaa will appoint members of a legislative body, which will make institutional declarations over the next few days.”