Author: ALJAZEERA

US president’s proposal comes amid scepticism of claimed savings from Elon Musk’s cost-cutting drive.United States President Donald Trump has proposed using some of the savings from tech billionaire Elon Musk’s cost-cutting drive to give Americans cash and pay down government debt. Speaking at an investment summit hosted by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund in Miami Beach, Florida, on Wednesday, Trump said he was considering using 20 percent of the savings for payouts to the public and 20 percent to pay down the federal government’s $36 trillion debt. “The numbers are incredible, Elon. So many billions of dollars … hundreds of…

The iPhone 16e is the fourth-generation of a model sold historically at dramatically lower prices.Apple has released a sleeker and more expensive version of its lowest-priced iPhone in an attempt to widen the audience for a bundle of artificial intelligence technology that the company has been hoping will revive demand for its most profitable product lineup. The iPhone 16e unveiled Wednesday is the fourth generation of a model that’s sold at a dramatically lower price than the iPhone’s standard and premium models. The previous bargain-bin models were called the iPhone SE, with the last version coming out in 2022. Like…

US president claims DOGE will save hundreds of billions of dollars without cutting healthcare and welfare benefits.United States President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk have defended their sweeping cost-cutting drive in a joint interview in which the two men lavished each other with praise. In an interview with Fox News that aired on Tuesday, Trump said he had tapped Musk to lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as he wanted someone “really smart” to work with. “I respect him; I have always respected him. I never knew that he was right on certain things, and I…

Democratic lawmakers express concern that Tesla CEO is seeking to weaponise the tax system against his rivals.Elon Musk’s task force for streamlining the United States government is seeking access to troves of taxpayer information, media outlets have reported, prompting fears of privacy violations and retribution against political rivals. In the latest phase of his sweeping cost-cutting drive, Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are pushing to access the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) protected Integrated Data Retrieval System (IDRS), outlets including The Associated Press, CNN, The New York Times and the Washington Post reported on Monday. The IDRS…

Personal Information Protection Commission says Chinese start-up accepted proposal to suspend downloads of AI chatbot.South Korea has suspended downloads of DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence-powered chatbot pending a review of the Chinese start-up’s privacy standards. South Korea’s privacy watchdog said on Monday that DeepSeek’s R1 chatbot was removed from the local versions of Apple’s App Store and Google Play after the Hangzhou-based firm acknowledged that it had failed to comply with personal data protection rules. The Personal Information Protection Commission said in a statement that DeepSeek accepted its proposal to suspend downloads of the app. The chatbot is still available for those…

Central bank says Southeast Asian economy on track for robust investment, exports and household spending going forward.Malaysia’s economy grew 5.1 percent in 2024, as strong domestic demand and investment offset a downturn in the commodities sector, according to the Southeast Asian country’s central bank. Gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 5 percent in the October-December quarter, Bank Negara Malaysia said on Friday, down from 5.3 percent growth in the third quarter but ahead of an advance estimate of 4.8 percent. The year on year performance marked a significant jump from GDP growth of 3.7 percent in 2023. “Going forward, while the…

As United States President Donald Trump barrels forward with tariff threats against key trading partners Canada and Mexico, a renegotiation of the three countries’ trade agreement could be in the offing. In his first term as president, Trump pushed to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement with the current United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA. Under Trump’s leadership, the US added a clause, Article 34.7, which requires a joint review of the pact within six years, a deadline that lands on July 1, 2026. The agreement also includes a sunset clause to render the pact void by 2036 in the…

Two of Silicon Valley’s most prominent tech titans, Elon Musk and his former protégé Sam Altman, are in the middle of a very public feud over the future of OpenAI, the company behind the groundbreaking ChatGPT. Musk – the world’s richest man and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX – has filed multiple lawsuits over the past year to stop Altman from restructuring OpenAI from a hybridised nonprofit into a for-profit company. Earlier this week, Musk raised the stakes by offering to buy the nonprofit for $97.4bn to preserve the original mission of the AI research lab – ensuring that “artificial…

When United States President Donald Trump announced his latest tariffs on steel and aluminium this week, he insisted there would be “no exemptions, no exceptions”. Washington’s closest allies in the Asia Pacific are hoping they will be able to change the mercurial US president’s mind. Japan and Australia, US treaty allies with export-reliant economies, have both confirmed they are seeking exemptions from Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminium, while South Korea, also a US treaty ally, has announced it is seeking high-level talks on the issue. “We will take necessary measures, including lobbying the United States for an…

California-based internet giant says the name of the body of water will depend on the user’s location.Google has begun calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America following United States President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the body of water. The California-based internet giant said on Monday that the name of the gulf on its applications would depend on the location of the user. “People using Maps in the U.S. will see ‘Gulf of America,’ and people in Mexico will see ‘Gulf of Mexico.’ Everyone else will see both names,” Google wrote in a blog post. Google flagged its…