Just days before a major summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping in San Francisco, Taiwan admitted that Washington is continuing its effort to pump the island with weapons in hopes of countering a Chinese invasion.
ECONOMIC UPDATE – MARKET OVERVIEW
As we had forecast back in November 2022, the U.S. equity markets would climb in 2023, with the S&P 500 expected to increase at least 16 percent.
CRUSADES 2000: WEST BOUND BY ‘CRUSADER IMPERIALIST IDEALS’
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, accused the West last week of being “bound by crusader imperialist ideals” when considering the Gaza genocide, which makes any room for diplomacy almost impossible.
TOP ISRAELI POLITICIAN: ‘BURN GAZA NOW…NOTHING LESS!’
Nissim Vaturi, a far-right member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, took to social media to accuse his country of being too soft on Palestinians in Gaza and said the city should be burned to the ground.
CHATGPT’S NEW TACTICS: CITING SOURCES, AND AVOIDING INCRIMINATING QUESTIONS
So how are the latest “training” and “guardrails” helping the most prominent public facing generative AI, CHATGPT, to better serve humankind?
EUROPE INCREASES MILITARY AID FOR UKRAINE TO MAKE SURE LOSING WAR CONTINUES
European countries have increased their military assistance for Ukraine as the war shifts from Kyiv trying to win back territory now in Russia’s control to Ukrainian forces digging in behind their own lines to prevent further Russian advances.
EUROZONE ECONOMY HEADED FOR “ANOTHER LOST YEAR”
Europe’s economy appears to be poised to enter a technical recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of shrinkage. The region’s GDP shrank by 0.1 percent in the third quarter and is widely expected to contract again in this year’s final three months.
Global Economy
SPOTLIGHT: BIGS GETTING BIGGER
Consolidation is the name of the Bigs game. The more they own the more they control... it’s the way of the power-hungry world.
SPOTLIGHT: CHINA’S ECONOMY
Last month, retail sales in China surged 7.6 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported, beating a 7-percent gain foreseen in a Reuters survey of economists.
TOP TREND 2023, GOING GREEN, LIKE IT OR NOT: EXXONMOBIL GOES INTO THE LITHIUM BUSINESS
ExxonMobil, the world’s most profitable oil company, will drill for lithium on 120,000 acres it leased earlier this year in Arkansas’s Smackover oil play, the company has announced. It expects to bring its lithium to market in 2027.
The Israel War
MAJOR PROTESTS DEMANDING CEASEFIRE IN GAZA GROW, DESPITE ISRAEL’S VOW TO EXPAND OPERATION
Massive protests continue to break out across much of the world calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and rejecting Israel’s genocide operations in Gaza.
JEWISH AMERICANS OVERWHELMINGLY APPROVE BIDEN’S HANDLING OF ISRAEL WAR
The vast majority of Jewish voters in the U.S. approve of the way President Joe Biden is handling the Israel War in Gaza by refusing to push for a ceasefire and allowing Israeli forces to choke off Gazans from food, water, and fuel as a form of collective punishment after...
ISRAEL HAD PLANS TO ATTACK YEMEN AFTER OCTOBER HAMAS INVASION
Tomer Bar, the Israeli Air Force commander, told reporters last week that Israel had attack plans for Yemen after the 7 October Hamas attack raised fears of a multi-front war in the country.
AI
AI WEATHER FORECASTS ARE FASTER THAN HUMANS’ AND AT LEAST AS ACCURATE
Using one conventional desktop computer for as little as a minute, new artificial intelligence systems are making 10-day weather forecasts that are as accurate as the best conventional methods and, in some cases, even more correct, Science magazine reported.
ALTMAN OUT AS OPENAI CEO; PRESIDENT QUITS
Sam Altman, the most prominent face of the current AI revolution, was booted from his job as CEO of OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, the bot that launched the new AI era.
OPENAI WILL OPEN A “CHATGPT STORE” FOR CUSTOM AI APPS
OpenAI, creator of the ubiquitous ChatGPT, will soon open an online store where shoppers can browse chatbots customized for various purposes, such as tutoring children in reading and other academic subjects or helping entrepreneurs build a website.
Hi-Tech Science
SCIENCE FINDS ANOTHER MAGIC BULLET AGAINST AGING
Researchers at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging have found another molecule that shows strong powers to slow, and for some people reverse, the unhappy symptoms of aging.
SOLAR-POWERED RAFT CLEANS DIRTY WATER AND MAKES HYDROGEN FUEL
Engineers at the University of Cambridge have devised a self-powered raft that can not only provide clean water to an increasingly thirsty world but also deliver hydrogen for fuel or industrial uses.
“SMART PILL” LIGHTS UP HEALTH DANGERS IN THE GUT
A “smart pill” the size of a blueberry can be easily swallowed, then travel through the large intestine, lighting up symptoms and causes of illness as it moves through.