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Turkey sends military convoy to evacuate its citizens from Lebanon, deliver aid

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Turkey sends military convoy to evacuate its citizens from Lebanon, deliver aid

Turkey has deployed two navy ships to evacuate its citizens from Lebanon amid rising tensions in the region. According to a statement from the Turkish Foreign Ministry, the ships, which can accommodate up to 2,000 passengers, will start evacuations Wednesday. (AP Video shot by Mehmet Guzel; AP Production: Ayse Wieting)

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Powerful Insight From a Norwegian CEO Into the Risky Electric Vehicle Business

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Norway is a global leader in adopting electric vehicles (EVs). EVs comprise over 26% of passenger vehicles in the country and over 91% of new vehicle sales. Increased demand for charging stations and altered vehicle purchasing habits to smaller, more economical models have put Norway at the forefront of the energy game.

However, the rapid increase in EV adoption has presented significant challenges in scaling the electric vehicle charging infrastructure (EVCI) to meet the growing demand. The surge in demand has created a fragmented system that is concerned with the viability of the current power grid. 

A renewed focus on home charging stations has resurfaced following the tumultuous ride of Easee home charging units, a back-on-it’s-feet symbol of Norwegian innovation after a very public game of thrones with European regulators. Like any good competition, lessons have been learned among the splashy headlines across Norway and Europe over the last decade. 

Electrified 

Easee, the innovative Norwegian EV charging company with near-unicorn status, teetered on the fence of bankruptcy following compliance issues in the spring of 2023. Skyrocketing demand for chargers and favorable incentives across the EU had positioned Easee as the pacesetter in an exploding market. But sometimes more innovation and passion is needed to sustain startup dreams slamming against the market realities of compliance, regulatory bodies and competitors waiting for an inevitable slip-up. 

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Easee isn’t alone. As tech-driven companies’ offerings continue to outpace 24-hour days, savvy navigation is required to build sustainable companies, regardless of the sector, over time. These challenges of personnel growth and market demand underscore the complex landscape tech companies must navigate to ensure product safety while fostering innovation. 

I wanted to learn more about the robust Nordic sustainability ecosystem firsthand. Oslo Innovation Week, presented by the Oslo Business Region, was the backdrop to an in-depth interview with the co-founder and former CEO of Easee, Jonas Helmikstøl.

Once an ambassador, now a case study

In the heart of Oslo, amidst the historic charm and gentle murmur of bustling streets, Jonas Helmikstøl shared a cautionary tale of overexuberance that took him to the brink. His journey is not unlike many entrepreneurs who identified a market need and unabashedly charged forward. Once hailed as a trailblazer in Norway’s burgeoning energy sector, Helmikstøl’s story is a raw testament to the ebbs and flows of life as an entrepreneur. 

“It’s easier to breathe now,” Helmikstøl begins. “Last year, it was like breathing through a straw. My head felt like it had been put in a microwave oven.” These visceral metaphors encapsulate the physical and emotional strain he endured during Easee’s public crisis that threatened to undo years of hard work. 

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Helmikstøl’s journey with Easee was meteoric. From a modest start to being listed among Norway’s richest, he experienced exhilarating highs as the poster child for Norwegian innovation. “I was uncomfortable being listed at the top … almost being seen as a god was difficult.”

The unraveling of Easee was not just a corporate crisis entangled with regulators but a profoundly personal experience for Helmikstøl. As news broke publicly of Easee’s break with Sweden and then a handful of European neighbors in February 2023, Helmikstøl welcomed his second child into the world. “Everything was colliding at the same time. My son was born as my life was unraveling around me.” 

The startup world often celebrates meteoric rises but scowls at sharp descent. Easee, while being the toast of the Nordics, was growing too fast, even outpacing regulators, standards and best practices to date. The rapid rise exposed internal vulnerabilities within Easee. “Growing as fast as we did … it was like I was not in control,” a contrite Helmikstøl shared. In 2022, the company’s expansion from 250 to over 500 employees coincided with personal tragedies, notably the death of his father. 

Caught in the storm of success, potential failure and loss, Helmikstøl turned inward for answers. “I felt like the most terrible person in the world. How could I screw up this badly?” Helmikstøl’s critics cite his very public and defensive stance as part of the Easee story, something he is keenly aware of as he rebuilds himself and his reputation in 2024. “I’ve learned so much through the process of building a company. I’ve been forced to deal with traumas and honestly some unhealthy patterns,” reflects Helmikstøl, his tone laced with gratitude for the lessons gleaned from adversity. 

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Helmikstøl’s candid reflections reveal the dark side of entrepreneurial life, where success in a new sector creates opportunities for great success and unfortunate failure. “I was too attached to the company,” he admits. “I was suffocating – I waffled between being Easee myself and Easee being my identity.” The conflation of self with business became an unsustainable burden for Helmikstøl, causing self-reported and pervasive bouts of paralyzing anxiety.

Fast forward to Oslo Innovation Week 2024. Helmikstøl beams with hope for a future centered on being a family man and an innovator. “I’m excited about maintaining my focus on the energy sector in Norway and across Europe while also maintaining balance with myself and my family.” 

Jonas Helmikstøl’s story is not just about the rise and fall of a burgeoning business empire and persona. It is an intimate exploration of resilience, self-discovery and the relentless pursuit of authenticity. His journey is a poignant reminder that riding on a horizon line bridging the past with the future requires a stationary bike approach built on solid ground for the race ahead. 

Like all tech sectors, the ecosystem of climate, energy and sustainability is not immune to the pitfalls of entrepreneurism woven into the fabric of a bustling global economy. The Nordics may be known as self-deferential in personality and promotion, but don’t be fooled. As they collectively stretch their metaphoric arms to the North Pole, they do so with a steely focus on winning the energy game for all of us.

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The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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Breaking up Google would be misguided

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Break-ups are never easy. But one could be on the cards for Google’s $2tn empire. On Tuesday, the US Department of Justice recommended splitting up the company — spanning its Chrome browser, Play app store and Android operating system — as one of several options to remediate the Big Tech group’s “anti-competitive conduct”. The suggestion follows a landmark court decision in August when a federal judge, Amit Mehta, branded Google a “monopolist”. He said deals it had made with wireless carriers, browser developers and device manufacturers, including Apple, had helped to tighten its hold over the online search market.

Google is under fire on other fronts, too. On Monday another federal judge said the business must open up its Play shopfront for apps to competition. A separate lawsuit argues that the company uses unfair practices to dominate the market for online advertising technology. The cases all feed into the belief that Google’s size is a problem for the tech sector. But it makes more sense to target the company’s ability to entrench its power than to break it up.

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Google’s strength in online search — where it handles over 90 per cent of queries — has been underpinned by a network effect. As it has grown, it has collected more user data, allowing it to sharpen its search tools and, in effect, drive more traffic to its site. That has been a boon for its ad-driven revenue model, which has helped it to deliver innovative products from which Google’s users and marketers all benefit. The problem, then, is less about how big it has become, and more about its ability to raise barriers to entry.

Forcing Google to strip away Chrome or Android — which help to promote its search tool — risks being ineffective and too retrospective. A break-up will have little impact if it can still make deals to be the default search engine. Even when users have the choice they still tend to opt for Google’s search tool over the likes of Microsoft’s Bing. A misguided focus on size is also not the best message to send to other rapidly scaling tech businesses.

Time is another factor. A final decision on how to sanction Google may not come until August 2025. An appeal could add years. By the time any remedy even hits the business, technology and market dynamics could have shifted. As it is, users have been complaining over recent years about apparently declining quality in Google’s search results. New generative AI search tools are also gaining market share. Microsoft, which was ordered to be split up in 2000 for squeezing competition, is a good example. That case was overturned, but the software firm’s dominance fell anyway as it failed to innovate and mobile technology grew.

So what should be done? The DoJ is better off focusing on other, forward-looking remedies it proposed on Tuesday. That includes curtailing Google’s ability to strike contracts with other tech companies to set its search tool as default. These deals prevent other search businesses from scaling up.

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Encouraging tech firms to provide a choice of possible search engines, including AI-driven ones might help too. Asking Google to share a portion of its data trove could also support new entrants and help level the playing field for companies trying to build up generative AI search tools. But data privacy concerns abound.

Investors do not appear to be too concerned about the threat of a split for now. The looming presidential election also adds to the uncertainties surrounding the eventual outcome of the case. Either way, talk of breaking up Google is an oversimplified answer to a complex problem.

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9 Ways to Respond to Political Misinformation

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9 Ways to Respond to Political Misinformation

It’s been an intense election season, from a candidate’s momentous dropout to meme-generating debates to assassination attempts. And that’s just accounting for the things that did happen—not the ones that were made up but generated extensive attention, like fake celebrity endorsements, false claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets, and conspiracy theories about the government’s hurricane-response efforts.

It’s anyone’s guess what else will transpire in the lead-up to Nov. 5. Yet misinformation will inevitably continue to spread—and you may encounter it in conversations with friends or family members. It can be helpful to have a plan for how to respond. “Most people who are passing along misinformation are doing it inadvertently—they heard something somewhere that they believed,” says Dan Pfeiffer, co-host of the podcast Pod Save America. “If you believe they actually want to know the truth, then you want to at least give them the opportunity to [understand] the correct information and to stop passing along the incorrect information or spreading a conspiracy theory.”

Of course, not everyone is open to rethinking their perspectives. Pfeiffer speaks from personal experience: He was an advisor to Barack Obama when misinformation about the former president’s birth certificate reached a fever pitch. Many people are too attached to their ideology to care about the facts, he says, allowing their personal beliefs to eclipse evidence to the contrary. “They’re motivated to believe what they believe, and they’ll recreate the world to fit into that,” he says. Others, though—“your skeptical cousin who is not as ideological”—are more open to reasoning.

With that in mind, we asked experts exactly what to say the next time you encounter misinformation.

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“Do you mind telling me where you heard that?”

Your first move when someone tells you something false or misleading should be asking where they heard it—which reveals a lot about what types of sources they rely on. “Is it something they read somewhere? Is it something someone else told them?” Pfeiffer asks. Depending on what they say, it might be helpful to then explain that it’s important to check additional sources to get a full picture—or to ask them how they concluded the claim is true, which promotes critical thinking without directly challenging their beliefs.

Read More: How to Survive Election Season Without Losing Your Mind

Keep in mind that tone and delivery are key, Pfeiffer adds. “Approach it from a perspective of grace,” he stresses. “One of the mistakes a lot of folks make is that they talk down to the people passing along misinformation. If you treat them as being naive or foolish, or look down your nose at them,” you’re not going to get anywhere.

“I heard the football coach say ____. Do you think their perspective is worth considering?”

If you want to provide someone with counter-information, it has to come from a source they trust, Pfeiffer says. Keep in mind that’s likely different from your go-to sources; not everyone, for example, gravitates toward traditional media outlets. In these cases, it’s often more effective to point them toward people in their community or network who are “very influential, like a teacher, coach, or the fire chief,” Pfeiffer says. Slamming their preferred source will only backfire. “People are very, very skeptical of information, so if they’ve put their trust in something, they’ve already crossed a pretty big chasm,” he adds. “Simply saying, ‘Well, that news outlet is filled with lies’ or ‘That person is full of it’ is insulting their judgment.”

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“I noticed that different media sources are focusing on different information. Mine seem to be focusing on ___. What draws you to your sources?”

There are many narratives about the 2024 presidential election—and the ones you hear most loudly depend on who and what you’re paying attention to. Asking your friend what appeals to them about the sources they trust can open up a deeper conversation about the ways that different outlets approach coverage. “You can acknowledge that your sources are always giving you a certain angle on things, too,” says Tania Israel, a professor of counseling psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of Beyond Your Bubble: How to Connect Across the Political Divide. “It’s not calling out the media as being biased—it’s acknowledging that they’re going to take an angle, and it helps us be more informed consumers when we can recognize that angle.”

“What worries you the most about that?”

If someone tells you something you know isn’t true, respond by saying you’re curious what meaning that information has for them, Israel suggests. Maybe, for example, they’ve heard that immigrant children are being separated from their parents at the border and then sold into slavery. If you know that’s what concerns them, you can tailor your follow-ups accordingly: “I also care a lot about children, and I think it’s really important we keep them safe.” It’s an effective way to find common ground, build trust, and learn more about their thought process, Israel points out. “We’re not saying it’s true, and we’re not saying it’s not true,” she says. “We’re inquiring more about that person—it’s about the meaning and the concerns that underlie the grip that misinformation has on them.”

Read More: How to Stop Checking Your Phone Every 10 Seconds

“Let’s not forget, these stories involve real people with real lives.”

Employ this response if a conversation turns toward dehumanizing political rhetoric, like about immigration, social justice, or another polarizing issue, suggests Sophia Fifner, president and CEO of the Columbus Metropolitan Club in Ohio, a civic engagement group that hosts weekly town hall-style forums. “This phrase shifts the focus back to our shared humanity,” she says. “It’s a reminder that behind every news story, there are individuals who are impacted.” Speak from the heart, Fifner urges: “This isn’t just about the facts. It’s about connecting with the person you’re talking to on an emotional level—and fostering empathy.”

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“Before we get too deep, can we take a step back and think about who benefits from this narrative?”

Fifner has found this is an effective approach when someone shares misinformation that’s particularly divisive or inflammatory—in other words, intended to provoke rather than inform. “You’re encouraging them to consider the motive behind the information,” she says. “It’s a subtle way of inviting them to question the intention of the sources they trust, leading to a more critical understanding.” Keep things casual and conversational, she advises; the goal is to spark curiosity, not accuse or create defensiveness. “It’s about planting a seed of doubt that encourages deeper thinking,” she says.

“Would it be OK if I looked into this and shared what I find? Maybe we can compare notes.”

Try this response with close friends and family members, suggests Justin Jones-Fosu, author of I Respectfully Disagree: How to Have Difficult Conversations in a Divided World. It tends to work better than straight-up telling them they’re wrong, which inevitably triggers defensiveness. Plus, it encourages more research, which could help them reconsider the source of their information. “By framing it as a team effort,” he says, “you create a safer environment for dialogue.”

Read More: Why Gut Health Issues Are More Common in Women

“With so many fake videos and images circulating online, I’ve started asking more questions before I accept anything as real. Do you happen to know where this came from?”

Digital deception has been a theme of the 2024 election season. It’s hard to tell what’s a real image, and what’s AI-generated—and this is a way to highlight the prevalence of deepfakes without accusing the other person of naivety or bad intentions, Jones-Fosu says: “It introduces a small degree of doubt, prompting the person to think more critically without feeling embarrassed.” By asking about the source, he adds, you initiate a shift from passive consumption to active evaluation.

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“I’ve definitely been in situations where I believed something that turned out to be untrue, so I totally understand.”

No matter which precise words you use, keep in mind that, most of the time, people aren’t spreading misinformation maliciously—which is why a compassionate approach is so essential. Jones-Fosu sometimes opens conversations like this: “I know you probably didn’t intend to spread misinformation, but I did some research, and here’s what I found.” That phrasing assumes good intent, he says, and focuses on the facts rather than casting blame. Sharing a personal story, like the time you were fooled by a fake image as you scrolled through Facebook, can also help reduce tension. “Vulnerability shows empathy,” he says, “and makes it more likely that the other person will listen to what you have to say.”

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Indian tycoon Ratan Tata dies aged 86

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Indian tycoon Ratan Tata dies aged 86

Indian tycoon Ratan Tata has died aged 86, says the Tata Group, the conglomerate he led for more than two decades.

Tata was one of India’s most internationally recognised business leaders.

The Tata Group is one of India’s largest companies, with annual revenues in excess of $100bn.

In a statement announcing Tata’s death, the current chairman of Tata Sons described him as a “truly uncommon leader”.

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Natarajan Chandrasekaran added: “On behalf of the entire Tata family, I extend our deepest condolences to his loved ones. His legacy will continue to inspire us as we strive to uphold the principles he so passionately championed.”

During his tenure as chairman of the Tata Group, the conglomerate made several high-profile acquisitions, including the takeover of Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus, UK-based car brands Jaguar and Land Rover, and Tetley, the world’s second-largest tea company.

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Who’s suing AI and who’s signing: Publisher deals vs lawsuits with generative AI companies

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Who’s suing AI and who’s signing: Publisher deals vs lawsuits with generative AI companies

News publishers are increasingly deciding to sign deals with AI companies over the use of their content despite early doubts and a high-profile legal case from The New York Times.

The deals commonly include the use of news publishers’ content as reference points for user queries in tools like ChatGPT (with citation back to their websites currently promised) as well as giving them the use of the AI tech to build their own products.

This page will be updated when new deals are struck or legal actions are launched relating to news publishers and AI companies (latest: Hearst in the US signs deal with OpenAI while Mumsnet and The Center for Investigative Reporting instigate legal complaints against OpenAI).

OpenAI is reportedly offering news organisations between $1m and $5m per year to license their copyrighted content to train its models – although News Corp’s deal is reportedly worth more than $250m over five years.

Meanwhile Apple has reportedly been exploring AI deals with the likes of Conde Nast, NBC News and People and Daily Beast owner IAC to license their content archives, but nothing has yet been made public.

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Scroll down or here are the quick links:

Plenty of other news organisations are understood to be in negotiations with OpenAI while some, including the publisher of Mail Online, have suggested they are seriously considering their options legally.

But not all publishers want deals: Reach chief executive Jim Mullen told investors on 5 March that the UK’s largest commercial publisher is not in any “active discussions” with AI companies and suggested other publishers should hold off on deals to allow the industry to come at the issue with a position of solidarity.

He said: “We would prefer that we don’t get into a situation where we did with the referrers ten years ago and gave them access and we became hooked on this referral traffic and we would like it to be more structured. We produce content, which is really valuable, and we would like to license or agree how they use our base intelligence to actually inform the AI and the open markets. The challenge we have as an industry is that we need to be unified.

“I used to be the chairman of the NMA and if we stay together and work with it, then that’s a really strong position that we have, particularly with the Government to help us get to there. So I’m using this as a bit of a campaign, [it] only takes one publisher to break away and start doing deals and then it sort of disintegrates.”

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Press Gazette analysis in February found that more than four in ten of the 100 biggest English-language news websites have decided not to block AI bots from the likes of OpenAI and Google.

If you feel there is something missing that should be included, or you want to alert us to a new development, please contact charlotte.tobitt@pressgazette.co.uk.

Suing

Mumsnet

UK parenting forum and publisher Mumsnet has launched legal action via an initial letter against OpenAI over the scraping of its site and its more than six billion words – “presumably” for the training of large language model ChatGPT.

Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts told users: “Such scraping without permission is an explicit breach of our terms of use, which clearly state that no part of the site may be distributed, scraped or copied for any purpose without our express approval. So we approached Open AI and suggested they might like to licence our content.”

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In particular, she said, Mumsnet’s content would be valuable because it could help to counter the misogyny “baked in” to many AI models.

But, she continued: “Their response was that they were more interested in datasets that are not easily accessible online.”

Roberts said what OpenAI differs from Google’s scraping of the web for search purposes because there is a “clear value exchange in allowing Google to access that data, namely the resulting search traffic… The LLMs are building models like ChatGPT to provide the answers to any and all prospective questions that will mean we’ll no longer need to go elsewhere for solutions. And they’re building those models with scraped content from the websites they are poised to replace.”

Roberts continued: “At Mumsnet we’re in a stronger position than most because much of our traffic comes to us direct and though it’s a piece of cake for an LLM to spit out a Mumsnet-style answer to a parenting question I doubt they’ll ever be as funny about parking wars or as honest about relationships and they’ll certainly never provide the emotional support that sees around a thousand women a year helped to leave abusive partners by other Mumsnet users.

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“But if these trillion-dollar giants are simply allowed to pillage content from online publishers – and get away with it – they will destroy many of them.”

Roberts acknowledged it is “not an easy task” to go up against a big tech company like OpenAI but said “this is too important an issue to simply roll over”.

Responses from users on the forum contained a lot of “well done” and “good luck”.

The Center for Investigative Reporting

Non-profit news organisation The Center for Investigative Reporting, which produces Mother Jones (after a merger this year) and Reveal, is suing OpenAI and its largest shareholder Microsoft, it announced on 28 June.

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It said the companies had used its content “without permission or offering compensation” and accused them of “exploitative practices” in a lawsuit filed in New York.

Chief executive Monika Bauerlein said: “OpenAI and Microsoft started vacuuming up our stories to make their product more powerful, but they never asked for permission or offered compensation, unlike other organizations that license our material.

“This free rider behavior is not only unfair, it is a violation of copyright. The work of journalists, at CIR and everywhere, is valuable, and OpenAI and Microsoft know it.”

She added: “For-profit corporations like OpenAI and Microsoft can’t simply treat the work of nonprofit and independent publishers as free raw material for their products.

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“If this practice isn’t stopped, the public’s access to truthful information will be limited to AI-generated summaries of a disappearing news landscape.”

Eight Alden Global Capital daily newspapers

Eight daily newspapers in the US owned by Alden Global Capital are suing OpenAI and Microsoft, it was revealed on 30 April.

The newspapers involved in the lawsuit are: the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, the Orlando Sentinel, the Sun-Sentinel in Florida, the Mercury News in San Jose, the Denver Post, the Orange County Register and the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

The lawsuit says the newspapers want recognition that they have a legal right over their content and compensation for the use of it in the training of AI tools so far.

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Frank Pine, executive editor of Media News Group and Tribune Publishing Newspapers, the Alden subsidiaries that own the newspapers concerned, said: “We’ve spent billions of dollars gathering information and reporting news at our publications, and we can’t allow OpenAI and Microsoft to expand the Big Tech playbook of stealing our work to build their own businesses at our expense.

“They pay their engineers and programmers, they pay for servers and processors, they pay for electricity, and they definitely get paid from their astronomical valuations, but they don’t want to pay for the content without which they would have no product at all. That’s not fair use, and it’s not fair. It needs to stop.

“The misappropriation of news content by OpenAI and Microsoft undermines the business model for news. These companies are building AI products clearly intended to supplant news publishers by repurposing purloined content and delivering it to their users.

“Even worse, when they’re not delivering the actual verbatim reporting of our hard-working journalists, they misattribute bogus information to our news publications, damaging our credibility. We employ professional journalists who adhere to the highest standards of accuracy and fairness. They are real people who go out into the world to conduct first-hand interviews and engage in actual investigations to produce our journalism.

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“Their work is vetted and checked by professional editors. The Mercury News has never recommended injecting disinfectants to treat COVID, and the Denver Post did not publish research that shows smoking cures asthma. These and other ChatGPT hallucinations are documented in our legal filings.”

The Intercept, Raw Story and Alter Net

Three US progressive news and politics digital outlets filed lawsuits against OpenAI on Wednesday 28 February.

The Intercept, Raw Story and Alter Net objected to the use of their articles to train ChatGPT. The Intercept also sued Microsoft, which has partnered with OpenAI to create a Bing chatbot.

Raw Story publisher Roxanne Cooper said: “Raw Story’s copyright-protected journalism is the result of significant efforts of human journalists who report the news. Rather than license that work, OpenAI taught ChatGPT to ignore journalists’ copyrights and hide its use of copyright-protected material.”

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CEO and founder John Byrne added: “It is time that news organisations fight back against Big Tech’s continued attempts to monetise other people’s work.”

The New York Times

The most high-profile case against OpenAI and Microsoft from a news publisher so far, The New York Times made a surprise announcement in the days after Christmas that it would seek damages, restitution and costs as well as the destruction of all large language models (LLMs) trained on its content.

OpenAI and NYT had been in negotiations for nine months but the news organisation felt no resolution was forthcoming and decided instead to share its concerns over the use of its intellectual property publicly. The success of the lawsuit will depend on the US court’s interpretation of “fair use” in copyright law – assuming the companies don’t find their way to a settlement first.

OpenAI previously said a “high-value partnership around real-time display with attribution in ChatGPT” was on the cards with the NYT before the news organisation surprised it by launching the lawsuit.

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The NYT said the two tech companies, which have a partnership centred around ChatGPT and Bing, have “reaped substantial savings by taking and using – at no cost” its content to create their models without paying for a licence. It added that the use of its content in chatbots “threatens to divert readers, including current and potential subscribers, away from The Times, thereby reducing the subscription, advertising, licensing, and affiliate revenues that fund The Times’s ability to continue producing its current level of groundbreaking journalism”.

In its response, filed on Monday 26 February, OpenAI argued: “In the real world, people do not use ChatGPT or any other OpenAI product” to substitute for a NYT subscription. “Nor could they. In the ordinary course, one cannot use ChatGPT to serve up Times articles at will.”

OpenAI accused the NYT of paying someone to hack its products and taking “tens of thousands of attempts to generate the highly anomalous results” in which verbatim paragraphs from articles were spat out by ChatGPT. “They were able to do so only by targeting and exploiting a bug (which OpenAI has committed to addressing) by using deceptive prompts that blatantly violate OpenAI’s terms of use,” it said.

“And even then, they had to feed the tool portions of the very articles they sought to elicit verbatim passages of, virtually all of which already appear on multiple public websites. Normal people do not use OpenAI’s products in this way.”

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Getty Images

Getty Images began legal proceedings against Stability AI in the UK in January 2023, claiming that the AI image company “unlawfully copied and processed” millions of its copyrighted images without a licence through its text-to-image model Stable Diffusion.

In December, the High Court in London ruled that Getty’s case could go to trial after Stability AI failed to persuade a judge that two aspects of the claim – relating to training and development as well as copyright – should be struck out.

Mrs Justice Joanna Smith said Getty’s claim has a “real prospect of success” in relation to Stable Diffusion’s “image-to-image feature” which the photo agency claimed allows users to make “essentially identical copies of copyright works”.

Who’s signed news AI deals?

Hearst

Newspaper and magazine giant Hearst has agreed a “content partnership” with OpenAI in the US, it announced on 8 October.

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Hearst said OpenAI products including ChatGPT will incorporate content from its US brands including Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Runner’s World and Women’s Health – more than 20 magazine titles and 40 newspapers in total. It does not include Hearst’s content in other countries like the UK.

Hearst said its content will “feature appropriate citations and direct links, providing transparency and easy access to the original Hearst sources” from ChatGPT.

Hearst Newspapers president Jeff Johnson said: “As generative AI matures, it’s critical that journalism created by professional journalists be at the heart of all AI products.

“This agreement allows the trustworthy and curated content created by Hearst Newspapers’ award-winning journalists to be part of OpenAI’s products like ChatGPT — creating more timely and relevant results.”

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Hearst Magazines president Debi Chirichella added: “Our partnership with OpenAI will help us evolve the future of magazine content. This collaboration ensures that our high-quality writing and expertise, cultural and historical context and attribution and credibility are promoted as OpenAI’s products evolve.”

And OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said the use of Hearst content “elevates our ability to provide engaging, reliable information to our users”.

Conde Nast

Vogue, Wired, Vanity Fair and GQ publisher Conde Nast has become the latest publisher to sign a “multi-year partnership” relating to the display of its content in OpenAI products, it announced on 20 August.

Conde Nast chief executive Roger Lynch has been outspoken about the risks generative AI poses to news businesses, telling US Congress “many” media companies could go out of business by the time any litigation passes through the courts and that “immediate action” should be taken through a clarification that content creators should be compensated for the use of their work in training.

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In a memo to staff he has now said the OpenAI deal helps to make up for revenue being lost through declining search traffic.

He wrote: “It’s crucial that we meet audiences where they are and embrace new technologies while also ensuring proper attribution and compensation for use of our intellectual property. This is exactly what we have found with OpenAI.

“Over the last decade, news and digital media have faced steep challenges as many technology companies eroded publishers’ ability to monetize content, most recently with traditional search. Our partnership with OpenAI begins to make up for some of that revenue, allowing us to continue to protect and invest in our journalism and creative endeavours.”

The deal will allow OpenAI to display content from Conde Nast brands in its products, including ChatGPT and its SearchGPT AI-driven search engine prototype.

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OpenAI explained what this means in a blog post: “With the introduction of our SearchGPT prototype, we’re testing new search features that make finding information and reliable content sources faster and more intuitive. We’re combining our conversational models with information from the web to give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources. SearchGPT offers direct links to news stories, enabling users to easily explore more in-depth content directly from the source.

“We plan to integrate the best of these features directly into ChatGPT in the future.

“We’re collaborating with our news partners to collect feedback and insights on the design and performance of SearchGPT, ensuring that these integrations enhance user experiences and inform future updates to ChatGPT.”

Lynch praised OpenAI for being “transparent and willing to productively work with publishers like us so that the public can receive reliable information and news through their platforms”.

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He continued: “This partnership recognises that the exceptional content produced by Condé Nast and our many titles cannot be replaced, and is a step toward making sure our technology-enabled future is one that is created responsibly.

“It is just the beginning and we will continue what we started in Washington earlier this year – the fight for fair deals and partnerships across the industry until all entities developing and deploying artificial intelligence take seriously, as OpenAI has, the rights of publishers.”

Financial Times, Axel Springer, The Atlantic, Fortune

Financial Times, Axel Springer, The Atlantic and Fortune (as well as Universal Music Group) have agreed to license their content to generative AI start-up Prorata.ai.

Prorata says it has a proprietary algorithm that can work out how much of various publishers’ content is used in an answer and share revenue accordingly. When it launches its own chatbot this autumn, it says, it will share 50% of the revenue from subscriptions with content creators.

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Read our full story about Prorata’s plan here.

Time, Der Spiegel, Fortune, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune and WordPress owner Automattic

Time, Der Spiegel, Fortune, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune and WordPress.com owner Automattic have become the first publishers to sign up to a revenue-sharing deal launched by AI search chatbot Perplexity.

When Perplexity introduces advertising via sponsored related questions within the next few months, signed-up publishers will be able to share the revenue generated by interactions where their content is referenced.

The programme also gives them access to analytics platform Scalepost.ai to see which of their articles show up frequently in Perplexity answers that get monetised, access to Perplexity tech to create their own custom answer engines for their websites, and one year of Perplexity Enterprise Pro for all employees for a year.

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Read our full story about the revenue-sharing programme, and Perplexity’s view on its relationship with publishers, here.

Time

Time has signed a “multi-year content deal and strategic partnership” with OpenAI, it revealed on 27 June.

The deal will give the ChatGPT creator access to Time’s 101-year-old archive and its current reporting to give up-to-date answers to users (with a citation and a link back to the website).

Time will also have access to OpenAI tech to build its own products and provide feedback to the tech company on the delivery of journalism through its tools.

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Time chief operating officer Mark Howard said: “Throughout our 101-year history, Time has embraced innovation to ensure that the delivery of our trusted journalism evolves alongside technology. This partnership with OpenAI advances our mission to expand access to trusted information globally as we continue to embrace innovative new ways of bringing Time’s journalism to audiences globally.”

OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said the deal supports “reputable journalism by providing proper attribution to original sources.”

Vox Media

Vox Media has signed a “strategic content and product partnership” with OpenAI that means content – including archive journalism – from its brands including Vox, The Verge, Eater, New York Magazine, The Cut, Vulture and SB Nation will be surfaced on ChatGPT and also that it can use OpenAI’s tech to develop audience-facing and internal products.

The publisher said it will use OpenAI tech to create stronger creative optimisation and audience segment targeting on its first-party data platform Forte, which is used across all Vox Media sites and on its ad marketplace Concert.

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It will also use OpenAI tools to match people with the right products on its search-based affiliate commerce tool The Strategist Gift Scout.

Vox Media co-founder, chair and chief executive Jim Bankoff said: “This agreement aligns with our goals of leveraging generative AI to innovate for our audiences and customers, protect and grow the value of our work and intellectual property, and boost productivity and discoverability to elevate the talent and creativity of our exceptional journalists and creators.”

The Atlantic

The Atlantic also announced on 29 May it has signed a “strategic content and product partnership” with OpenAI meaning its articles will be discoverable within ChatGPT and the AI giant’s other products, with these results providing attribution and links to its website.

The partnership also means The Atlantic “will help to shape how news is surfaced and presented in future real-time discovery products”.

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The companies are also collaborating on product and tech, with The Atlantic’s product team given “privileged access” to OpenAI tech to give feedback and help shape the future of news in ChatGPT and other OpenAI products.

The Atlantic said it is currently developing an experimental microsite called Atlantic Labs “to figure out how AI can help in the development of new products and features to better serve its journalism and readers”. It will pilot OpenAI’s and other emerging tech in this work.

Nicholas Thompson, chief executive of The Atlantic, said: “We believe that people searching with AI models will be one of the fundamental ways that people navigate the web in the future.”

He added that the partnership will mean The Atlantic’s reporting is “more discoverable” to OpenAI’s millions of users and give the publisher “a voice in shaping how news is surfaced on their platforms”.

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OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said: “Enabling access to The Atlantic’s reporting in our products will allow users to more deeply interact with thought-provoking news. We are dedicated to supporting high-quality journalism and the publishing ecosystem.”

[Read more: What’s next for The Atlantic after reaching profitability and 1m subscribers]

WAN-IFRA

The World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) has announced a partnership with OpenAI for a programme, Newsroom AI Catalyst, designed to “help newsrooms fast-track their AI adoption and implementation to bring efficiencies and create quality content”.

The project will work with 128 newsrooms in Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and South Asia providing expert guidance with funding and technical assistance from OpenAI.

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Each team will receive three months of learning modules, hands-on workshops, a mini hackathon, and a showcase. They will go back to their newsrooms with a clear plan on how to roll out AI.

Vincent Peyregne, chief executive of WAN-IFRA, said: “News enterprises across the globe have come under pressure from declining advertising and print subscription revenues. The adversity confronting news leaves communities without access to a shared basis of facts and shared values and puts democracy itself at risk.

“AI technologies can positively influence news organisations’ sustainability as long as you quickly grasp the stakes and understand how to turn it to your advantage.”

He added that OpenAI’s support will “help the newsrooms through the adoption of AI technologies to provide high-quality journalism that is the cornerstone of the news business”.

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OpenAI’s chief of intellectual property and content Tom Rubin said the programme is “designed to turbocharge the capabilities of 128 newsrooms” and he wants to help “cultivate a healthy, sustainable ecosystem that promotes quality journalism”.

News Corp

News Corp has signed a deal that includes the use of content from many of its major newsbrands in the UK, US and Australia in OpenAI’s large language models, it was announced on 22 May.

The partnership covers content from The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch, Investor’s Business Daily, FN, and the New York Post in the US; The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun in the UK; and The Australian, news.com.au, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier Mail, The Advertiser, and the Herald Sun in Australia.

The Wall Street Journal put a value on the deal of more than $250m over five years.

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News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson described OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his team as “principled partners… who understand the commercial and social significance of journalists and journalism.

“This landmark accord is not an end, but the beginning of a beautiful friendship in which we are jointly committed to creating and delivering insight and integrity instantaneously.”

Dotdash Meredith

Dotdash Meredith, which publishes more than 40 titles including People, Instyle and Investopedia, on 7 May signed a multi-year deal with OpenAI that will see its content and links surfaced in ChatGPT responses.

OpenAI will incorporate real-time information from Dotdash sites into ChatGPT’s responses to queries and will use the publisher’s content to train its large language models. Dotdash meanwhile will receive assistance from OpenAI in developing both consumer-facing AI products and its AI-powered contextual advertising tool, D/Cipher.

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B2B giant Informa

Business information giant Informa announced a non-exclusive Partnership and Data Access Agreement with Microsoft (the main backer of OpenAI) in a trading update on 8 May. There has been an initial fee of $10m+ and then three more recurring annual payments.

Informa said the deal covers:

Improved Productivity: Explore how AI can enable more effective ways of working at Informa, streamlining operations, utilising Copilot for Microsoft 365 to enable Colleagues to work more efficiently, and enhancing the capabilities of Informa’s existing AI and data platforms (IIRIS);

Citation Engine: Collaborate to further develop automated citation referencing, using the latest technology to improve speed and accuracy;

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Specialist Expert Agent: Explore the development of specialised expert agents for customers such as authors and librarians to assist with research, understanding and new knowledge creation/sharing;

Data Access: Provide non-exclusive access to Advanced Learning content and data to help improve relevance and performance of AI systems.”

Informa said the deal “protects intellectual property rights, including limits on verbatim text extracts and alignment on the importance of detailed citation references”.

Axel Springer (again)

Following its deal with OpenAI (see below) Axel Springer has announced an expanded partnership with Microsoft covering AI, advertising, content and cloud computing.

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On AI, they will partner to develop new AI-driven chat experiences to inform users using Axel Springer’s journalism.

They added: “In addition, Axel Springer will leverage Microsoft Advertising’s Chat Ads API for generative AI monetisation.”

Their existing adtech collaboration will be expanded from Europe into the US to encompass Politico, while users of Microsoft’s aggregator Start-MSN will have access to more premium content from Axel Springer’s brands. Finally the publisher will migrate its SAP solutions to Microsoft Azure.

Axel Springer chief executive Mathias Dopfner said: “In this new era of AI, partnerships are critical to preserving and promoting independent journalism while ensuring a thriving media landscape.

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“We’re optimistic about the future of journalism and the opportunities we can unlock through this expanded partnership with Microsoft.”

Microsoft chairman and chief executive Satya Nadella added: “Our expanded partnership with Axel Springer brings together their leadership in digital publishing with the full power of the Microsoft Cloud — including our ad solutions — to build innovative AI-driven experiences and create new opportunity for advertisers and users.”

Financial Times

On 29 April the Financial Times became the first major UK newsbrand to announce a deal with OpenAI.

The partnership involves up-to-date news content and journalism from the FT archive, meaning it is likely to assist with both real-time queries on ChatGPT and its continued training.

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FT Group chief executive John Ridding said: “This is an important agreement in a number of respects.

“It recognises the value of our award-winning journalism and will give us early insights into how content is surfaced through AI… Apart from the benefits to the FT, there are broader implications for the industry. It’s right, of course, that AI platforms pay publishers for the use of their material.”

Le Monde and Prisa Media

OpenAI announced on 13 March it had signed deals with French newsbrand Le Monde and Spanish publisher Prisa Media, which publishes El País, Cinco Días, As and El Huffpost.

The deals will mean ChatGPT users can surface recent content from both publishers through “select summaries with attribution and enhanced links to the original articles”, while their content will be allowed to contribute to training OpenAI’s models.

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Le Monde chief executive Louis Dreyfus said: “At the moment we are celebrating the 80th anniversary of Le Monde, this partnership with OpenAI allows us to expand our reach and uphold our commitment to providing accurate, verified, balanced news stories at scale.

“Collaborating with OpenAI ensures that our authoritative content can be accessed and appreciated by a broader, more diverse audience… Our partnership with OpenAI is a strategic move to ensure the dissemination of reliable information to AI users, safeguarding our journalistic integrity and revenue streams in the process.”

Carlos Nuñez, chairman and chief executive of Prisa Media added: “Joining forces with OpenAI opens new avenues for us to engage with our audience. Leveraging ChatGPT’s capabilities allows us to present our in-depth, quality journalism in novel ways, reaching individuals who seek credible and independent content.

“This is a definite step towards the future of news, where technology and human expertise merge to enrich the reader’s experience.”

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Reuters

Thomson Reuters chief executive Steve Hasker told the Financial Times that the company had struck “a number” of deals with AI companies looking to use Reuters news content to train their models but he did not give any further details about who was involved in the deals or for how much.

He did say that “there appears to be a market price evolving”, adding: “These models need to be fed. And they may as well be fed by the highest-quality, independent fact-based content. We have done a number of those deals, and we’re exploring the potential there.”

However away from the Reuters news part of the business Thomson Reuters is suing Ross Intelligence for allegedly unlawfully copying content from its legal research platform Westlaw to train a rival AI-powered intelligence platform.

Unknown independent publishers

A handful of unnamed independent publishers are taking part in a private programme with Google, according to Adweek, which will see them paid a five-figure annual sum to take part in a trial of a new AI platform.

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The publishers are reportedly expected to produce a certain number of stories for a year and provide analytics and feedback in exchange.

Reddit

Social media platform Reddit has signed a deal allowing its content to be used by Google in the training of its AI tools. Reuters reported that the deal is worth around $60m per year.

Although not a news organisation, the Reddit deal is still a content licensing deal. There is also likely to be news media content copied within Reddit posts from users on the platform which could therefore fall within the remit of the deal.

Semafor (sort of)

Ben Smith and Justin B Smith’s start-up Semafor has secured “substantial” Microsoft sponsorship for an AI-driven news feed, although this was not built by the tech giant but by the newsroom itself.

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The deal, announced in February, will see Microsoft help Semafor refine the tool and makes the digital outlet one of the first newsrooms to heavily involve ChatGPT in their workflow.

Although not a content deal as such, the agreement indicates a level of co-operation rather than acrimony.

Axel Springer

In December Politico, Business Insider, Bild and Welt owner Axel Springer agreed a partnership with OpenAI that would see its content summarised within ChatGPT around the world, including otherwise paywalled content, with links and attribution. Axel Springer’s content is permitted to be used to train OpenAI products going forward.

Axel Springer can also use OpenAI technology to continue building its own AI products.

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Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner said: “We are excited to have shaped this global partnership between Axel Springer and OpenAI – the first of its kind. We want to explore the opportunities of AI empowered journalism – to bring quality, societal relevance and the business model of journalism to the next level.”

American Journalism Project

In July 2023 OpenAI committed $5m to the American Journalism Project, a philanthropic organisation working to support and rebuild local news organisations, to support the expansion of its work. It also pledged up to $5m in OpenAI API credits to help participating organisations try out emerging AI technologies.

American Journalism Project chief executive Sarabeth Berman said: “To ensure local journalism remains an essential pillar of our democracy, we need to be smart about the potential powers and pitfalls of new technology. In these early days of generative AI, we have the opportunity to ensure that local news organisations, and their communities, are involved in shaping its implications. With this partnership, we aim to promote ways for AI to enhance—rather than imperil—journalism.”

Associated Press

OpenAI and Associated Press signed a deal in July 2023 that allows the AI company to license the news agency’s content archive going back to 1985 for training purposes.

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The companies said they are also looking at “potential use cases for generative AI in news products and services” but did not share specifics.

Kristin Heitmann, AP senior vice president and chief revenue officer, said: “We are pleased that OpenAI recognises that fact-based, nonpartisan news content is essential to this evolving technology, and that they respect the value of our intellectual property. AP firmly supports a framework that will ensure intellectual property is protected and content creators are fairly compensated for their work.”

One professor told AP the deal could be particularly beneficial to OpenAI because it would mean they can still use a wealth of trusted content even if they lose other lawsuits and are forced to delete training data as a result, from The New York Times for example.

Shutterstock

In July 2023 Shutterstock expanded its partnership with OpenAI with a six-year agreement allowing access to a wealth of training data including images, videos, music and associated metadata.

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For its part, Shutterstock gets “priority access” to new OpenAI technology and can offer DALL-E’s text-to-image capabilities directly within its platform.

The post Who’s suing AI and who’s signing: Publisher deals vs lawsuits with generative AI companies appeared first on Press Gazette.

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EU countries back €35bn loan to Ukraine

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EU countries have approved providing Ukraine with a loan of up to €35bn before the end of the year as part of a G7 plan to fund Kyiv’s defence against Russian aggression.

A majority of EU ambassadors on Wednesday backed the issuance of a loan guaranteed by the bloc’s common budget, according to people familiar with the matter. The decision comes after months of wrangling over how to structure their share of a $50bn plan by the G7 to support Ukraine.

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The option of raising money against the EU budget was announced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen when she travelled to Ukraine last month, as a way to circumvent objections from countries opposed to further aid for Kyiv.

Under the G7 plan, the entirety of the $50bn loan will be repaid by profits from Russian state assets frozen in the west in response to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. More than €200bn of those assets are immobilised in the EU.

It remains unclear whether the US will be able to join the G7 scheme and reduce the EU’s share from €35bn. The UK, Canada and Japan are also part of the G7 fundraising effort. 

Washington had premised its participation in the G7 loan on the EU extending the length of its sanctions regime from 6 months to 36 months in order to guarantee that the Russian assets remained frozen and put the repayment scheme on a more predictable footing.

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“The scale of our participation depends on the strength of EU assurances that the Russian reserves will remain immobilised” until Moscow pays for the destruction it has carried out in Ukraine, a US official said.

But Hungary and Slovakia on Wednesday blocked that change to the EU’s sanctions regime, casting the US participation into doubt, said two people familiar with the decision.

The leaders of Hungary and Slovakia have indicated their preference for former US president and Republican candidate Donald Trump to win the November 5 election. Trump has said that if he is returned to the White House, he would cease aid to Ukraine.

Malta abstained on the €35bn loan raising concerns over its neutrality, but the decision did not require unanimity. The European parliament will also need to approve the loan later this month.

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