The United States has beefed up its effort to cut off the flow of advanced technology to China by instructing Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices to stop sending their flagship artificial intelligence chips there.

While the news shocked the chip sector by the time markets closed on Thursday, sending the Philadelphia semiconductor index down 1.9 percent and Nvidia and AMD down 7.6 percent and 3 percent respectively, the letters from the US officials appeared to target a narrow but critical part of China's computing industry.

The regulations appear to focus on chips called GPUs with the most powerful computing capabilities, a critical but niche market with only two meaningful players, Nvidia and AMD. 

Their only potential rival – Intel Corp – is trying to break into the market but has not released competitive products.

Originally designed for video games, the usage of GPUs, or graphic processing units, have been expanded to a wider array of applications that include handling artificial intelligence work like image recognition, categorising cat photos or scouring digital satellite imagery for military equipment. 

Because all the chip suppliers are American, the US controls access to the technology.

Some national security experts saw the US move as a long time coming.

GPUs "have been totally uncontrolled to China and to Russia, so in a lot of ways I see this action as kind of catching up to where the controls probably should have been if we were really serious about trying to slow China's AI growth," said Emily Kilcrease, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

A100, H100, MI250 chips affected

The US Department of Commerce, which declined to comment on the specifics of whatever new rules it may be developing, appears to have targeted the effort narrowly.

The only products Nvidia said would be affected are its A100 and H100 chips. 

Those chips cost tens of thousands of dollars each, with full computers containing the chips costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Similarly, AMD said that only its most powerful MI250 chip — a version of which is being used at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, one of several US supercomputing sites that supports nuclear weapons — is affected by the new requirement.

Less powerful chips such as AMD's MI210 and below are not affected.

What the affected chips share is the ability to carry out calculations for artificial intelligence work quickly, at a huge scale, and with high precision. 

Less powerful AI chips can work quickly at lower levels of precision, which is sufficient for tagging photos of friends and where the cost of an occasional mistake is low — but are insufficient for designing fighter jets.

The only major market rival to AMD and Nvidia's chips is Intel's still-unreleased Ponte Vecchio chip, whose first customer is Argonne National Lab, another US installation that supports nuclear weapons.

"While we understand the US government is continuing to look at new restrictions, no new export control rules have been published and there are currently no changes to our business," Intel told the Reuters news agency in a statement. "We are closely monitoring the process."

Source: Reuters

Rainfall 10 times heavier than usual caused Pakistan's devastating floods, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Thursday (Sep 1), as it released satellite images of a vast lake created by the overflowing Indus river.

Rains, described by United Nations chief Antonio Guterres as a "monsoon on steroids" have claimed hundreds of lives since June, unleashing powerful floods that have washed away swathes of vital crops and damaged or destroyed more than a million homes.

Data from the European Union's Copernicus satellite has been used to map the scale of the deluge from space to help the rescue efforts, the ESA said in a statement.

"Heavy monsoon rainfall - 10 times heavier than usual - since mid-June have led to more than a third of the country now being underwater," it said.

The agency released images from the satellite showing an area where the Indus River has overflowed "effectively creating a long lake, tens of kilometres wide", between the cities of Dera Murad Jamali and Larkana.

Officials say more than 33 million people are affected - one in every seven Pakistanis - and reconstruction work will cost more than US$10 billion.

Guterres has called the floods a "climate catastrophe" and launched an appeal for US$160 million in emergency funding.

While it is too early to quantify the contribution of global warming in the floods, scientists say the rains are broadly consistent with expectations that climate change will make the Indian monsoon wetter.

A recent study, based on climate models, predicted that exceptionally wet monsoons in the Indian subcontinent would become six times more likely during the 21st century, even if humanity rachets down carbon emissions.

Source: AFP

The rural farmland of Chongqing municipality in southwestern China was silent. 

It was 42 degrees Celsius outside and no farmers were in sight. The weather was too sweltering for both humans and crops. 

Farmers said they start work in the fields at 3am these days. When daylight arrived, it would be time to find shade indoors. 

Farmer Wang Yong Fu, 70, says that it is impossible to grow any crops amid the heatwave. (Photo: CNA/Emil Wan)

Wang Yong Fu, 70, has been toiling in the fields for his entire life. He pointed at the shrivelled tomato plants that should have been at least waist-high under normal weather conditions. 

“The key is it’s not possible to grow them. Whatever you do, you can’t grow anything. We are in the fields every day but we can’t do it. I can’t harvest any cabbage these days. The crops have all died,” he told CNA.

Weeks of baking temperatures and no rainfall had left 66 rivers and 25 reservoirs dry in Chongqing – where peak temperature had reached a record 45 degrees Celsius in the past month. 

In July and August, China experienced its longest and most intense heat wave since meteorological records began in 1961.

The heat has seriously affected agricultural production in parts of the country and could result in higher food inflation going forward.

REDUCED YIELDS

Some local farmers have said that they were getting 80 per cent less yield than before.

“I planted two fields. All the crops have dried and died. The soil is as hard as rock,” said Zhou Qi, a 73-year-old farmer in Xinshi village in Chongqing. 

The Central Meteorological Observatory had warned that the unprecedented heatwave would affect the production of grains like soybean, wheat and corn. 

Agricultural tractors tend to catch fire under high heat, which made farmers less inclined to use them this summer. 

As the planting season has begun, experts said the impact will be felt come harvest time.

“Particularly, leafy green vegetables are really heat sensitive. So even before talking about the drought, just having day after day of 40 degrees temperature, it does damage to that. And it's taken a while but that's the beginning to show up at prices at market,” said Even Pay, an agricultural analyst at policy analysis startup Trivium China.

Already, vegetables and fresh fruits prices have jumped in July by 12.9 per cent and 16.9 per cent year on year. Pork prices have also gone up 20.2 per cent in July from a year ago. 

According to central government statistics, over two million ha of arable land and 350,000 livestock were affected by the summer heat wave. 

Wang, who grows rice and an assortment of vegetables, said several of his chickens had died. “For 10 days or so, the chicken pen was so hot, even my largest chicken that weighed over 4kg died.” 

Without cooling measures, Pay said it only takes a couple of days of 40 degrees Celsius temperature for animals to die. 

Another factor pushing up prices is the rising cost of grain imports. 

During the drought, water levels were so low that some inland shipping routes were no longer viable. 

The Yangtze River is a key logistics channel for the shipping of imported agricultural commodities like corn and soybean, which are unloaded at a port in Wuhan to get processed into livestock feed in central China. 

These shipping channels had been cut off and ships had to unload much closer to the coast, Pay said, which added time and cost. As a result, some major feed producers said they will raise the prices of pig, poultry and fish feed. 

The regions affected by the drought account for about 30 per cent of China’s rice production area. 

But even if there is a shortage of rice – a staple food in China – experts said the government is likely to stabilise grain prices by tapping on its stockpile. 

China’s grain reserves are the largest in the world, containing enough to feed China’s population for a year even without any harvest this year. 

“I don’t think there will be an immediate food crisis,” said Wang Dan, the chief economist at Hang Seng bank.

SUPPORT FOR FARMERS

In end-August, the government announced US$1.45 billion worth of subsidies to support rice farmers experiencing the drought. 

“If they lose one crop, they are in big trouble for planting the next crop,” said Pay. “So it's really important to do as much as possible to support those farmers now and to be sure they're in good economic shape when the next planting season arrives.”

With the Chinese Communist Party holding its 20th party congress on Oct 16, during which President Xi Jinping is expected to seek a third term in power, the party is under pressure to keep prices affordable to maintain economic and social stability. 

“It is a very, very visible way that the government can indicate that it's going to support people, support farmers, and make sure that the prices that people pay for their survival food isn't going to go up too far,” said Pay.

Source: CNA

A court in Uganda has sentenced two men to 17 years each in prison for poisoning to death six lions in Queen Elizabeth National Park.

Last year, the bodies of six tree-climbing lions were discovered at the park in southwestern Uganda, making headlines around the world. All of them had been poisoned, their heads and paws cut off and their carcasses left to attract vultures, which were then also killed by the poachers for their body parts.

Following the horrific poaching incident, the government launched one of the most extensive wildlife crime investigations ever seen in Uganda.

It offered a $2,500 reward for any information leading to arrests.

A task force consisting of Uganda Police Force (UPF), Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) and Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) officers was put together to find the perpetrators in an effort to protect Africa’s dwindling lion populations.

Two men were arrested and admitted to killing the animals and took security officials to a location where the heads of three lions were found hidden in a tree and a fourth one was buried with 15 legs under the same tree.

Vincent Tumuhiirwe, 49, and Robert Ariyo, 40, were convicted of not only poisoning the lions but also of killing 10 vultures and of hunting a kob, or antelope, without a license and being in possession of protected species after the court heard evidence from 14 witnesses.

The two used Furadan, a dangerous chemical pesticide applied to crops to protect them from insects, on the lions.

The trial magistrate noted that the country gets huge sums of money through foreign earnings from tourists who come to see these animals and the money trickles down to communities in the form of revenue sharing every year.

“The selfish acts leading to the deaths of lions greatly affect communities around national parks and the country at large. This is because they affect nature tourism, yet tourism contributes a big percentage to Uganda’s economy. The revenue that accrues from nature tourism is shared among communities,” Chief Magistrate Gladys Kamasanyu said while delivering the sentence.

Deputy Resident District Commissioner Gad Rugaaju Ahimbisibwe said the suspects admitted to slaughtering the lions for their teeth and claws, which to them is big trade.

“They told us they did it for business. A lion’s head is sold at $10, its fat is sold at $15, and its nails and heart are sold at a negotiable price,” he said.

Lions are listed as vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which determines the conservation status of species.

Africa has two popular lion climbing populations at Ishasha in Queen Elizabeth Park in Uganda and Manyara in Tanzania.

AA

The EU drugs regulator on Thursday approved omicron-adapted versions of coronavirus vaccines developed by pharma companies BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna.

“EMA’s human medicines committee has recommended authorizing two vaccines adapted to provide broader protection against COVID-19” as a booster shot, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced.

The regulator’s extraordinary meeting was convened to deliver a decision before the start of the fall vaccination campaigns.

“These vaccines are adapted versions of the original vaccines Comirnaty (Pfizer/BioNTech) and Spikevax (Moderna) to target the Omicron BA.1 subvariant in addition to the original strain of” the coronavirus, an EMA statement explained.

According to the agency’s assessment, these jabs “can trigger strong immune responses against Omicron BA.1 and the original SARS-CoV-2 strain in people previously vaccinated.”

The EMA started the rolling review of the adapted Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer jabs in June.

However, these shots have been developed to protect against an older omicron subvariant and not the fast-spreading BA.4 and B.5 strains which are responsible for most of the coronavirus infections in Europe at the moment.

The EMA is currently gathering information on the clinical trials of another BioNTech/Pfizer jab adapted to the BA.4 and B.5 subvariants.

AA

 Toyota has said it will ramp up the production of batteries for electric vehicles in Japan and the United States through an investment of up to $5.3 billion.

Part of the cash is included in a huge two-trillion budget for the development and production of auto batteries that was announced by the Japanese giant in December, a spokesperson told AFP news agency on Wednesday.

Automakers are speeding up the transition to electric as pressure grows from governments to move away from cars with combustion engines, and also thanks to the success of Elon Musk's Tesla.

Toyota is the world's top-selling carmaker, and has championed hybrid motors and pioneered hydrogen as a fuel of the future.

But until recently it has been slow to embrace battery-powered electric vehicles, seen as a key to reducing carbon emissions.

"With this investment, Toyota intends to increase its combined battery production capacity in Japan and the United States by up to 40 GWh (Gigawatt Hours)," the company said in a statement.

Setting targets

Toyota said it aims to begin producing cells for battery-powered vehicles in the two countries between 2024 and 2026.

Around 400 billion yen will be spent in Japan and around 325 billion yen in the United States, said the company, which expects a new battery-making plant in North Carolina to come online in 2025.

The announcement comes after Honda unveiled a joint venture on Monday with South Korea's LG Energy Solution to invest $4.4 billion in a new US electric car battery plant.

And last month, Japanese electronics giant and Tesla supplier Panasonic announced its own $4 billion investment to build a new battery factory in the United States for electric vehicles.

Source: AFP

At least 50 civilians were killed during a military operation conducted by Mali's army and foreign troops on April 19, the United Nations has said in a report.

The alleged April massacre took place on market day in Hombori municipality, in the central region of Douentza, after a Mali military convoy hit an improvised explosive device, the UN report said on Wednesday.

The massacre victims included a woman and a child, the UN's peacekeeping mission MINUSMA said in the quarterly report on human rights violations in the violence-hit West African country.

It did not specify the nationality of the foreign military personnel accompanying local troops.

Some 500 people were briefly detained during the military operation prompted by the explosion, but most were later freed.

Days later, a single Malian soldier allegedly executed 20 of the 27 civilians still held at the military camp in Hombori, according to the UN.

Mali's military spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Authorities have previously denied accusations that soldiers tortured civilians held in Hombori, the report said.

High civilian death toll

The UN has repeatedly accused Malian soldiers of summarily executing civilians and suspected militants over the course of their decade-long fight against groups linked to Al Qaeda and Daesh.

Mali's military government, which took power in a 2020 coup, has been battling armed groups with the help of private military contractors belonging to Russia's Wagner group.

MINUSMA's Tuesday report documented 317 civilian deaths between April 1 and June 30, 42 percent lower than the 543 registered during the first quarter of 2022.

While armed groups carry out most of the abuses, Malian defence and security forces were responsible for just over a quarter of violent acts against civilians recorded during that period, according to the report.

Mali's military has in some cases acknowledged its forces were implicated in executions and other abuses. But few soldiers have faced criminal charges.

Authorities have banned UN investigators from a site where Malian troops and suspected Russian fighters allegedly executed around 300 civilian men during a military operation in March.

Both Mali and Russia have previously said the Wagner group is not made of mercenaries but trainers helping local troops with equipment bought from Russia.

Source: Reuters

The leader of Madagascar's largest opposition party has accused the government of committing "state terrorism" after police shot dead 19 civilians angered by the abduction of an albino child.

"I am talking about state terrorism because it was the gendarmes and the police who fired on the population," Marc Ravalomanana, who leads the main opposition party, Tiako I Madagasikara, told the AFP news agency on Wednesday.

"They have to protect people and not shoot them. I'm very shocked," said the 72-year-old, who served as Madagascar's president between 2002 and 2009.

Police in the southeastern town of Ikongo opened fire on what was described as a lynch mob who stormed a police station, demanding to mete out justice to suspects arrested over the abduction.

Nineteen people were killed and 21 wounded, the police said.

The national police chief defended the officers, saying they acted in self-defence after a crowd armed with sticks and machetes tried to force its way into the station.

The government hit back at Ravalomanana for labelling the tragedy "state terrorism" without details of the circumstances surrounding the incident

It is "pure provocation", Communication Minister and government spokesperson Lalatiana Rakotondrazafy told AFP.

For such comments to come "from a former head of state who plans to run for re-election, and who ordered the shooting of a crowd in 2009, is inadmissible and it stirs up hatred among our compatriots," she said.

She was referring to the death of at least 68 people during a wave of rioting in January 2009 on the large Indian Ocean island nation, when Ravalomanana –– who was then head of state –– accused his main rival and now President Andry Rajoelina of stoking political unrest.

Authorities promise 'necessary sanctions'

Minister Rakotondrazafy said what happened in Ikongo was "regrettable"

"We deplore the loss of life," she said.

Authorities have opened an investigation into the incident, with Defence Minister Richard Rakotonirina vowing "necessary sanctions" would be taken.

Police have given no information about what happened to the four kidnap suspects, who were unaccounted for, according to local district gendarme commander Cyr Razafialison.

After the shooting, the officers involved had made a "strategic retreat" to a nearby town, he said.

Additional forces have been deployed "to keep the peace" in Ikongo, a town about 350 kilometres south of the capital Antananarivo.

Revenge attacks are common in Madagascar.

Ikongo saw 800 people barge into a prison in February 2017, in search of a murder suspect they intended to kill. They overpowered guards, allowing 120 prisoners to break out of jail.

In 2013, a Frenchman, a Franco-Italian and a local man accused of killing a child on the tourist island of Nosy Be were burnt alive by a crowd.

Some sub-Saharan African countries have suffered a wave of assaults against people with albinism, whose body parts are sought for witchcraft practices in the mistaken belief that they bring luck and wealth.

Source: AFP