Author: Agency Reporter

Chinese tech company Alibaba (9988.HK), opens new tab on Wednesday released a new version of its Qwen 2.5 artificial intelligence model that it claimed surpassed the highly-acclaimed DeepSeek-V3. The unusual timing of the Qwen 2.5-Max’s release, on the first day of the Lunar New Year when most Chinese people are off work and with their families, points to the pressure Chinese AI startup DeepSeek’s meteoric rise in the past three weeks has placed on not just overseas rivals, but also its domestic competition. “Qwen 2.5-Max outperforms … almost across the board GPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3 and Llama-3.1-405B,” Alibaba’s cloud unit said in an announcement posted on its official…

Global investors who have historically bet on China’s economic development are ditching grand narratives of long-term prosperity and instead adopting more modest views that see the market as an opportunity for smaller bets with quicker payoffs. Frustration over Beijing’s efforts to shore up faltering growth and fading investor conviction over where the economy is headed have kept stocks moving sideways, despite some initial excitement over promises of stimulus last year. The lack of investor consensus and increasing policy uncertainty have fundamentally changed the way analysts and money managers see China’s domestic markets and have tightened their investment horizons. “People basically…

Most of us are increasingly aware of the importance of gut health, with its link to every aspect of our overall wellbeing – from our immune systems to our moods. We know that to enhance the quality of friendly bacteria in our microbiome, the community of microorganisms within our intestines, we should be eating kefir for breakfast, ordering kimchi with our sushi and drinking kombucha with our evening meal. Fewer of us realise, however, that the key to optimal gut health lies not just in the food we consume, but the way we combine those foods. “Pairing certain foods with one…

Police have recorded 504 cases of child sexual abuse in UK high street hotel chains in 2023, according to data shared exclusively with BBC News. Of these, 92% (464 cases) involved physical contact with a child, and 40% (203 cases) were classified as rape. The data, provided by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), reveals that most incidents occurred in budget hotel chains, often located near transport hubs like train stations and motorways. These areas make it easier for perpetrators to meet victims. While offences in hotels accounted for less than 1% of all recorded child sexual abuse and exploitation…

In Britain, the summer of 2012 — when London hosted the Olympic Games with a stunning opening ceremony — is a beacon of nostalgia. In November of that year, Elon Musk visited the country on a business trip, where he rode a bike around the capital. “I met with many interesting people,” he later wrote on Twitter. “I really like Britain!” His views, to put it mildly, have evolved. Since last summer, when the Labour Party won a landslide majority, ending 14 years of Conservative government, Mr. Musk has accused Britain of going “full Stalin,” being a “tyrannical police state” and sliding toward an…

Hours ahead of the reinauguration of Donald Trump as US president last week, Goldman Sachs hosted its annual investment summit in its London office, and one big so-called Trump trade kept on cropping up: the dollar. The new US president’s economic policy platform remains tough to parse or predict in any kind of detail. But investors, especially speculative hedge funds, have been pretty settled on the idea that Trump means a strong buck — the result of American exceptionalism, stubborn inflation, or both. For many clients it is, as one of the bank’s most senior traders outlined to the assembled…

As Nigeria battles rising inflation rates, which reached a near 30-year high of 34.8% in December 2024, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has reassured Nigerians that the country has not entered a hyperinflationary economy. In a statement signed by its Executive Secretary, Dr. Rabiu Olowo, the FRC clarified that the application of International Accounting Standards (IAS) 29, which governs financial reporting in hyperinflationary economies, is unnecessary for the 2024 financial year. Rising Inflation: Key DriversAccording to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), inflation climbed from 34.6% in November to 34.8% in December, marking the fourth consecutive monthly increase. Key contributors…

LAGOS, Jan 23 – Nigeria’s Central Bank Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, has announced an optimistic economic outlook for 2025, projecting a GDP growth of 4.17%. Speaking at a conference on Thursday, Jan 23, 2025; Cardoso attributed the anticipated expansion to ongoing reforms and stabilizing inflation in Africa’s most populous nation. Reforms implemented by President Bola Tinubu’s administration in 2023, including the removal of petrol subsidies and the devaluation of the naira currency, initially stoked inflation. However, Cardoso expressed confidence that these measures would soon begin to bear fruit, reducing the current inflation rate of 34.8%. Rising Foreign Exchange Reserves and Oil…

A prominent chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Fouad Oki, has called on the impeached Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa, to focus on his legislative responsibilities and move on from his bid to reclaim the speakership position. Obasa, who was removed from his role last Monday, continues to assert that he remains the rightful Speaker of the Lagos Assembly. However, Oki has urged the lawmaker representing Agege Constituency to abandon his efforts to return to the leadership seat and instead dedicate himself to his duties as an active member of the legislature. Speaking during…

As women have made gains in leadership roles and narrowed the gender wage gap with men, many U.S. teens say women still face discrimination in these areas. And girls are much more likely than boys to say this, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of survey data from the University of Michigan. Overall, shares ranging from 48% to 53% of the nation’s 12th graders said in 2022 that women face a great or good deal of discrimination when it comes to: Smaller shares said there’s very little or no discrimination against women in these areas. Views were more mixed on whether women are…