Amber Wang (The Jakarta Post) PREMIUM Agence France-Presse/Taipei ● Thu, March 30 2023 China vowed on Wednesday to "fight back" should Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen meet the United States House speaker during a trip to the US. Tsai left on Wednesday for the US, from where she will head to Guatemala and Belize to shore up ties with diplomatic allies before heading to California, where US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had said he would meet her. China claims the democratic island as part of its territory to be retaken one day and, under its "One China" principle, no country may maintain official ties with both Beijing and Taipei. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium … [Read more...] about China vows to ‘fight back’ if Taiwan leader meets US speaker
Taiwan
China threatens retaliation if Kevin McCarthy meets with Taiwan’s president
HONG KONG — China on Wednesday threatened retaliation if House Speaker Kevin McCarthy meets with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen as she passes through the United States next week, saying it would be a “provocation.” Speaking hours later as she left Taiwan, a self-governing island democracy that Beijing claims as its territory, Tsai said external pressure would not deter her government from engaging with the world. Tsai’s trip comes as Beijing is buoyed by newly established diplomatic ties with Honduras and a historic visit to China by Tsai’s predecessor. The dueling visits underscore Taiwan’s increasingly fragile status, as well as the growing tensions between the U.S. and China, which experts told NBC News could make Beijing respond to Tsai’s U.S. travel more aggressively than in the past. In remarks at an airport outside Taipei before her departure, Tsai said, “We are calm and confident, will neither yield nor provoke.” “Taiwan will firmly walk on the road of … [Read more...] about China threatens retaliation if Kevin McCarthy meets with Taiwan’s president
UBS Taps an Ex-C.E.O. to ‘Pilot’ Its Takeover of Credit Suisse
A Swiss chief returns UBS unexpectedly said on Wednesday that it was bringing back Sergio Ermotti as C.E.O., as the Swiss bank begins the tough task of digesting its archrival, Credit Suisse. It’s another sign of how tricky UBS considers the work of taking over its main competitor, via a $3.2 billion deal that continues to draw blowback from investors and Swiss lawmakers alike. The move had been in the works for days. Colm Kelleher, UBS’s chairman, said at a news conference that he first called Mr. Ermotti to discuss a potential return on March 20, less than a day after UBS announced it was buying Credit Suisse. Mr. Ermotti, who left UBS in 2020, will replace Ralph Hamers on April 5. The UBS board determined that “for this massive integration exercise, Sergio would be the better pilot for the next part of this voyage,” Mr. Kelleher said. Mr. Hamers will stay on for an unspecified period as an adviser to help with the transition. At the news conference, Mr. Hamers … [Read more...] about UBS Taps an Ex-C.E.O. to ‘Pilot’ Its Takeover of Credit Suisse
How ChatGPT and Bard Performed as My Executive Assistants
By now, plenty of us know that artificially intelligent virtual assistants like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard can pull off sensational stunts, such as winning coding contests, passing bar exams and professing love to a tech columnist. But I wondered: How helpful are the bots, really, as actual assistants? It’s worth asking because our first rodeo with virtual assistants didn’t go so well. Older A.I. bots like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa had more than a decade to improve, but they ended up stagnating and are now used mostly for setting timers and playing music. ChatGPT and Bard, on the other hand, use so-called large language models that recognize and generate text based on enormous data sets scraped off the web. They are trained to compose sentences on the fly as if they were human, which potentially makes them far more versatile as assistants. To test that theory, I came up with a list of tasks that people might ask of a human assistant. I prodded friends who … [Read more...] about How ChatGPT and Bard Performed as My Executive Assistants
China on ‘disturbing’ path to eclipse US military by mid-century, Milley warns
close Video Pentagon officials testify before Congress on the China threat Fox News chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin reports on Pentagon leaders detailing the growing threat from China. China is on a "disturbing" path to become militarily "superior" to the United States by mid-century, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley testified Wednesday, while warning that the United States probably would not be able to "stop, slow down, disrupt, interdict or destroy" China’s nuclear development program. Milley testified Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a hearing dedicated to the fiscal year 2024 budget request for the Department of Defense. US INTEL COMMUNITY WARNS OF 'COMPLEX' THREATS FROM CHINA, RUSSIA, NORTH KOREA During the hearing, Milley stressed that the United States needs to "outpace" China’s development, specifically their military … [Read more...] about China on ‘disturbing’ path to eclipse US military by mid-century, Milley warns
Husband and new dad banned from air travel as wife insists he’d be ‘abandoning’ their baby
close Video Fox News Flash top headlines for March 29 Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. A new dad's wings have been clipped. On social media, a new mom has vented about a dramatic marital conflict involving her husband and air travel — and some 3,000 people have reacted to it, with nearly 2,000 comments posted to date. A wife by the username of "MethodSubstantial580" shared that her "husband loves to travel and sometimes even does it solo," she wrote on Reddit. She said that earlier on in their relationship, "we went together [to] some countries and it was fun being with him." MAN KICKED OFF FLIGHT FOR BEING ‘FATPHOBIC’ AND RUDE, YET HE HAD NOWHERE TO SIT But then the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted everything. During the lockdowns, she became pregnant, she wrote — "so we sat down to talk about this because it was an accident." She added, "I've always wanted a baby … [Read more...] about Husband and new dad banned from air travel as wife insists he’d be ‘abandoning’ their baby
Exclusive — Cotton: Biden Should Invite Netanyahu to White House
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is calling on Democrat President Joe Biden to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House for a formal visit. “The president should invite Prime Minister Netanyahu to the White House,” Cotton told Breitbart News in an interview on Wednesday afternoon. “He’s one of our closest partners in the world.” Cotton’s direct call on Biden to invite Netanyahu to the White House comes after Biden this week contradicted the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, by saying Netanyahu will not be invited to the White House anytime soon, citing concerns over Israel’s judicial reforms that are under consideration. Cotton told Breitbart News there seems to be something more sinister going on here, where Biden seems to be continuing what Cotton says has been a decades-long effort by U.S. Democrats dating back to the 1990s under former President Bill Clinton and earlier this century under former President Barack Obama to undercut Netanyahu. NEW … [Read more...] about Exclusive — Cotton: Biden Should Invite Netanyahu to White House