paris — Pavel Durov, billionaire founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at the Bourget airport outside Paris on Saturday evening, TF1 TV and BFM TV said, citing unnamed sources. 

Telegram, particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the former Soviet Union, is ranked as one of the major social media platforms after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and WeChat. It aims to hit 1 billion users in the next year.  

Based in Dubai, Telegram was founded by Russian-born Durov. He left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on his VK social media platform, which he sold. 

Durov was traveling aboard his private jet, TF1 said on its website, adding he had been targeted by an arrest warrant in France as part of a preliminary police investigation. 

TF1 and BFM both said the investigation was focused on a lack of moderators on Telegram, and that police considered that this situation allowed criminal activity to go on undeterred on the messaging app. 

Telegram did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The French Interior Ministry and police had no comment. 

App becomes popular during wartime

After Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Telegram has become the main source of unfiltered — and sometimes graphic and misleading — content from both sides about the war and the politics surrounding the conflict. 

The app has become preferred means of communications for Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his officials. The Kremlin and the Russian government also use it to disseminate their news. It has also become one of the few places where Russians can access news about the war.

TF1 said Durov had been traveling from Azerbaijan and was arrested at around 18:00 GMT.  

Durov, whose fortune was estimated by Forbes at $15.5 billion, said some governments had sought to pressure him but the app, which has now 900 million active users, should remain a “neutral platform” and not a “player in geopolitics.” 

The Russia Embassy in France told the Russian state TASS news agency that it was not contacted by Durov’s team after the reports of the arrest, but it was taking “immediate” steps to clarify the situation.  

Bloggers encourage protesting French embassies

Russia’s representative to international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, and several other Russian politicians were quick to accuse France of acting as a dictatorship. 

“Some naive persons still don’t understand that if they play [a] more or less visible role in [the] international information space it is not safe for them to visit countries which move towards much more totalitarian societies,” Ulyanov wrote on X, formerly Twitter. 

Several Russian bloggers called for protests at French embassies throughout the world at noon Sunday. 
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BEIJING/SINGAPORE/NEW YORK — State-linked Chinese entities are using cloud services provided by Amazon or its rivals to access advanced U.S. chips and artificial intelligence capabilities that they cannot acquire otherwise, recent public tender documents showed.

The U.S. government has restricted the export of high-end AI chips to China over the past two years, citing the need to limit the Chinese military’s capabilities.

Providing access to such chips or advanced AI models through the cloud, however, is not a violation of U.S. regulations since only exports or transfers of a commodity, software or technology are regulated.

A Reuters review of more than 50 tender documents posted over the past year on publicly available Chinese databases showed that at least 11 Chinese entities have sought access to restricted U.S. technologies or cloud services.

Among those, four explicitly named Amazon Web Services, or AWS, as a cloud service provider, although they accessed the services through Chinese intermediary companies rather than from AWS directly.

The tender documents, which Reuters is the first to report on, show the breadth of strategies Chinese entities are employing to secure advanced computing power and access generative AI models. They also underscore how U.S. companies are capitalizing on China’s growing demand for computing power.

“AWS complies with all applicable U.S. laws, including trade laws, regarding the provision of AWS services inside and outside of China,” a spokesperson for Amazon’s cloud business said.

AWS controls nearly a third of the global cloud infrastructure market, according to research firm Canalys. In China, AWS is the sixth-largest cloud service provider, according to research firm IDC.

Shenzhen University spent $27,996 (200,000 yuan) on an AWS account to gain access to cloud servers powered by Nvidia A100 and H100 chips for an unspecified project, according to a March tender document. It got this service via an intermediary, Yunda Technology Ltd Co, the document showed.

Exports to China of the two Nvidia chips that are used to power large-language models, or LLM, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, are banned by the United States.

Shenzhen University and Yunda Technology did not respond to requests for comment. Nvidia declined to comment on Shenzhen University’s spending or on any of the other Chinese entities’ deals.

Zhejiang Lab, a research institute developing its own LLM, called GeoGPT, said in a tender document in April that it intended to spend 184,000 yuan to purchase AWS cloud computing services as its AI model could not get enough computing power from homegrown Alibaba.

A spokesperson for Zhejiang Lab said that it did not follow through with the purchase but did not respond to questions about the reasoning behind this decision or how it met its LLM’s computing power requirements. Alibaba’s cloud unit, Alicloud, did not respond to a request for comment.

Reuters could not establish whether the purchase went ahead.

Moving to tighten access

The U.S. government is now trying to tighten regulations to restrict access through the cloud.

“This loophole has been a concern of mine for years, and we are long overdue to address it,” Michael McCaul, chair of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, told Reuters in a statement, referring to the remote access of advanced U.S. computing through the cloud by foreign entities.

Legislation was introduced in Congress in April to empower the Commerce Department to regulate remote access of U.S. technology, but it is not clear if and when it will be passed.

A department spokesperson said it was working closely with Congress and “seeking additional resources to strengthen our existing controls that restrict PRC companies from accessing advanced AI chips through remote access to cloud computing capability.”

The Commerce Department also proposed a rule in January that would require U.S. cloud computing services to verify large AI model users and report to regulators when they use U.S. cloud computing services to train large AI models capable of “malicious cyber-enabled activity.”

The rule, which has not been finalized, would also enable the Commerce secretary to impose prohibitions on customers.

“We are aware the Commerce Department is considering new regulations, and we comply with all applicable laws in the countries in which we operate,” the AWS spokesperson said.

Cloud demand in China

The Chinese entities are also seeking access to Microsoft’s cloud services.

In April, Sichuan University said in a tender document it was building a generative AI platform and purchasing 40 million Microsoft Azure OpenAI tokens to support the delivery of this project. The university’s procurement document in May showed that Sichuan Province Xuedong Technology Co Ltd supplied the tokens.

Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment. Sichuan University and Sichuan Province Xuedong Technology did not respond to requests for comment on the purchase.

OpenAI said in a statement that its own services are not supported in China and that Azure OpenAI operates under Microsoft’s policies. It did not comment on the tenders.

The University of Science and Technology of China’s Suzhou Institute of Advanced Research said in a tender document in March that it wanted to rent 500 cloud servers, each powered by eight Nvidia A100 chips, for an unspecified purpose.

The tender was fulfilled by Hefei Advanced Computing Center Operation Management Co Ltd, a procurement document showed in April, but the document did not name the cloud service provider. Reuters could not determine its identity.

The University of Science and Technology of China, or USTC, was added to a U.S. export control list known as the “Entity List” in May for acquiring U.S. technology for quantum computing that could help China’s military, and for involvement in its nuclear program development.

USTC and Hefei Advanced Computing Center did not respond to requests for comment.

Beyond restricted AI chips

Amazon has offered Chinese organizations access not only to advanced AI chips but also to advanced AI models such as Anthropic’s Claude, which they cannot otherwise access, according to public posts, tenders and marketing materials reviewed by Reuters.

“Bedrock provides a selection of leading LLMs, including prominent closed-source models such as Anthropic’s Claude 3,” Chu Ruisong, president of AWS Greater China, told a generative AI-themed conference in Shanghai in May, referring to its cloud platform.

In various Chinese-language posts for AWS developers and clients, Amazon highlighted the opportunity to try out “world-class AI models” and mentioned Chinese gaming firm Source Technology as one of its clients using Claude.

Amazon has dedicated sales teams serving Chinese clients domestically and overseas, according to two former company executives.

After Reuters contacted Amazon for comment, it updated dozens of posts on its Chinese-language channels with a note to say some of its services were not available in its China cloud regions. It also removed several promotional posts, including the one about Source Technology. Amazon did not give a reason for removing the posts and did not answer a Reuters query about that.

“Amazon Bedrock customers are subject to Anthropic’s end user license agreement, which prohibits access to Claude in China both via Amazon’s Bedrock API [application programming interface] and via Anthropic’s own API,” the AWS spokesperson said.

Anthropic said it does not support or allow customers or end-users within China to access Claude.

“However, subsidiaries or product divisions of Chinese-headquartered companies may use Claude if the subsidiary itself is located in a supported region outside of China,” an Anthropic spokesperson said.

Source Technology did not respond to a request for comment.
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Abuja, Nigeria — A U.S. State Department official was in Nigeria this week to meet with local and regional authorities about the responsible use of artificial intelligence in military applications.

Mallory Stewart, assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence and Stability, said her two-day visit with Nigerian officials from the regional bloc ECOWAS was part of the United States’ commitment to deepen security cooperation in Africa.

The U.S. government has been working with 55 nations, including African nations, “to agree upon responsible uses of AI in the military context, using AI in a manner consistent with international laws [and] recognizing inherent human bias,” Stewart told journalists Wednesday.

“We’ve learned the hard way [that there is] inherent human bias built into the AI system … leading to maybe misinformation being provided to the decisionmaker,” she said.

The goal, she continued, “is to hear from as many countries as possible that are at the stage of working in artificial intelligence to their military to see how we can minimize the risks.”

Last year, the Global Terrorism Index report named sub-Saharan Africa an epicenter of terrorism, accounting for nearly 60% of terror-related deaths. It is unclear whether the terror groups are using AI.

Nigerian authorities have been pushing for the integration of artificial intelligence in military operations, while acknowledging that adopting AI will require Africa-specific policies.

Security analyst Kabiru Adamu of Beacon Consulting said the use of AI in military operations has advantages.

“Given the position of the U.S. in terms of its military capacity and technological advancement, it will definitely be in the position to support Nigeria’s desires, especially if it’s able to contextualize some of the peculiarities within the Nigerian security space,” Adamu said. “We can’t isolate ourselves from the international committee of nations. AI is embedded in security, so we have to do it. But we need to be cognizant of the supporting infrastructure for good technology. Power is one of them, culture.”

The founder of Global Sentinel online magazine, Senator Iroegbu, said that while AI has benefits, the technology still needs to be treated with caution.

“It limits casualties in terms of the number of soldiers that will be deployed, so you conserve your boots,” Iroegbu said. “It helps penetrate rough terrains, gather more intelligence. It’s good that there’s growing awareness of the issue of artificial intelligence, but Nigeria needs to first of all try to define its own policy and strategy with regards to artificial intelligence. More sensitization needs to be done, and more policy aspect of it needs to be developed.”

In June, African ministers unanimously endorsed landmark continental AI strategy to advance Africa’s digital future and development aspirations. And last week, the African Union approved the adoption of AI in public and private sectors in member states, including Nigeria.
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Nairobi, Kenya — Overcrowding in African hospitals is blamed on the scarcity of health facilities and doctors, especially in rural areas.

According to the United Nations, there is only one doctor for every 5,000 people in Africa, a continent that bears 25% of the global disease burden. But with the number of mobile phone users on the rise, some technological innovations are helping to bridge the doctor-patient gap and expand health care coverage. 

Yaw Asamoah is head of MedPharma Care in Ghana. The company has developed an app that allows patients to connect face-to-face with doctors and pharmacies online so they can get medicine in their homes.

He says the system improves patients’ experiences when they seek health care services.

“That’s where MedPharma care comes in to see how we can digitize the whole idea of health care bringing telemedicine — making it possible for people either [to] have e-consultation, e-prescription, get their medicine delivered to them wherever they are, either at the office or at home… do their diagnostic remotely,” Asamoah said.

The World Health Organization says 57 countries are suffering from a critical shortage of health personnel, 36 of them in Africa.

The 2001 Abuja Declaration requires that African Union countries allocate 15% of their annual budgets to health, a requirement most governments have yet to fulfill.

Funding and infrastructure issues have blocked millions of Africans’ access to quality health care, but experts say digital tools could improve access to services in hard-to-reach areas that lack doctors.

Mountaga Keita is a Guinean-born businessman who invented three portable diagnostic terminals which can monitor a patient’s temperature, blood pressure, heart function and conduct ultrasounds.

“The benefit of that is the ease it brings to doctors and patients instead of clogging hospitals,” Keita said. “Now the doctors or nurses can get to the patient collected data and send the data in a very secure manner to the hospitals, and people can analyze and bring it back to the patient.”

Keita has so far deployed 40 kits to different hospitals in Guinea.

According Keita, the diagnostic terminals have attracted the attention of other countries like Gabon, which has requested six machines. He is in talks with the governments of Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, and Senegal to supply the kits there.

Keita said his technology can help solve the doctor-to-patient ratio problem and save patients money.   

“With this kind of technology, all the vital signs of a patient, forward it in a very secure manner, encrypted to a specialist who is in Tunisia, who is in Kenya, who is in Tokyo, Paris to interpret and bring the result,” he said. “Then we know if we are supposed to spend that 45,000 euros to evacuate … or if we can locally cure the person.”

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine has grown expansively and gained attention in Africa.

Asamoah said telemedicine provides access to many doctors who specialize in different diseases, easing the burden on health care facilities. 

“In a normal circumstance, if you went to a clinic in Ghana, you wanted to talk to a specialized consultant, you might probably not get either because they don’t have, they haven’t booked you, or they are not available,” he said. “But telemedicine can make it possible for you to make your appointment and talk to any doctor.”

McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, analyzed the impact of digital health tools in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa and found that the tools could reduce the continent’s total health care costs by 15% by 2030.
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Some bosses might want all their workers back in the office, but a clear majority of U.S. workers crave the flexibility of remote or hybrid jobs. And studies have found that such work, if managed well, will not harm a company’s culture or capability to innovate. But some companies concerned about productivity are using software to monitor employees working from home. Maxim Adams has the story. Camera: Aleksandr Bergan
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Manzini, Eswatini — Eswatini has launched an initiative to achieve sustainable development by harnessing the power of nuclear technology in such sectors as agriculture, health and energy planning. The plan was developed with the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The aim of the Country Program Framework, or CPF, launched two weeks ago by Eswatini Minister of Natural Resources and Energy Prince Lonkhokhela, is to leverage nuclear technology for social and economic development. Its key focus areas are energy security, food security and human health, aligning with the country’s National Development Plan and the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework.

Bongekile Matsenjwa, a chemical engineer and engineering manager for the Eswatini National Petroleum Company, believes the partnership between Eswatini and the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, can help the country make well-informed decisions about its energy future.

“Access to clean, affordable and safe, reliable energy is an important ingredient for the sustainable development of the country,” he said. “I believe that this partnership can help Eswatini to make knowledgeable decisions on energy supply options with the help of energy planning so the country … can independently chart our national energy future.”

Sonia Paiva, a sustainable agriculture expert and advocate for nuclear technology, who was a panelist at the COP28 U.N. Climate Change Conference, believes Eswatini’s focus on nuclear technology is happening at the perfect moment, as the country has already established policies around the topic and is now moving toward implementation.

“The whole world is looking to see how we can make our planet a better place to live in,” she said.

In addition to its potential benefits in agriculture and energy, Dr. Mduduzi Mbuyisa, a medical doctor, believes this technology has immense potential to improve the health care system in Eswatini.

“Nuclear medicine has a potential to ensure our diagnostic capabilities such that it helps us to take clearer pictures and help us in advanced imaging because we [are] using what we call PET or SPECT, which help to improve the care and overall health care system,” he said. It will also … help develop new skills and open up new career opportunities.”

Eswatini’s venture into nuclear technology is part of a larger trend of African countries seeking to harness the benefits of this technology. Against the backdrop of rising energy demands and climate change concerns, nuclear energy is increasingly seen as a potential solution.
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In Nairobi, a new restaurant is generating business and buzz – not just because of the food, but because of the staff. Robots serving dishes is the main attraction of diners who flock to the Robot Cafe. Juma Majanga reports. Camera: Jimmy Makhulo.
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NEW YORK — Google said Wednesday that an Iranian group linked to the country’s Revolutionary Guard had tried to infiltrate the personal email accounts of roughly a dozen people linked to President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump since May. 

The tech company’s threat intelligence arm said the group was still actively targeting people associated with Biden, Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, who replaced Biden as the Democratic candidate last month when he dropped out of the presidential race. It said those targeted have included current and former government officials, as well as presidential campaign affiliates. 

The new report from Google’s Threat Analysis Group affirmed and expanded upon a Microsoft report released Friday that revealed a suspected Iranian cyber intrusion in this year’s U.S. presidential election. It shed light on how foreign adversaries are increasing their efforts to disrupt the election that is now less than three months away. 

Google’s report said its threat researchers detected and disrupted a “small but steady cadence” of the Iranian attackers using email credential phishing, a type of cyberattack where the attacker poses as a trusted sender to try to get an email recipient to share login details. John Hultquist, chief analyst for the company’s threat intelligence arm, said the company sends suspected targets of these attacks a Gmail pop-up that warns them that a government-backed attacker might be trying to steal their passwords. 

The report said Google observed the group gaining access to one high-profile political consultant’s personal Gmail account. Google reported the incident to the FBI in July. Microsoft’s Friday report had shared similar information, noting that the email account of a former senior adviser to a presidential campaign had been compromised and weaponized to send a phishing email to a high-ranking campaign official. 

The group is familiar to Google’s threat intelligence arm and other researchers, and this isn’t the first time it has tried to interfere in U.S. elections, Hultquist said. The report noted that the same Iranian group targeted both the Biden and Trump campaigns with phishing attacks during the 2020 cycle, as early as June of that year. 

The group also has been prolific in other cyber espionage activity, particularly in the Middle East, the report said. In recent months, as the Israel-Hamas war has fueled tension in the region, that activity has included email phishing campaigns targeted at Israeli diplomats, academics, nongovernmental organizations and military affiliates. 

Trump’s campaign said Saturday that it had been hacked and that sensitive internal documents had been stolen and distributed. It said Iranian actors were to blame. 

The same day, Politico revealed it had received leaked internal Trump campaign documents by email, though it wasn’t clear whether the leaked documents were related to the suspected Iranian cyber activity. The Washington Post and The New York Times also received the documents. 

While the Trump campaign hasn’t provided specific evidence linking Iran to the hack, both Trump and his longtime friend and former adviser Roger Stone have said they were contacted by Microsoft related to suspected cyber intrusions. Stone’s email was compromised by hackers targeting Trump’s campaign, a person familiar with the matter said. 

Google and Microsoft wouldn’t identify the people targeted in the Iranian intrusion attempts or confirm that Stone was among them. Google did confirm that the Iranian group in its report, which it calls APT42, is the same as the one in Microsoft’s research. Microsoft refers to the group as Mint Sandstorm. 

Harris’ campaign has declined to say whether it has identified any state-based intrusion attempts but has said it vigilantly monitors cyber threats and isn’t aware of any security breaches of its systems. 

The FBI on Monday confirmed that it’s investigating the intrusion of the Trump campaign. Two people familiar with the matter said the FBI also is investigating attempts to gain access to the Biden-Harris campaign. 

The reports of Iranian hacking come as U.S. intelligence officials have warned of persistent and mounting efforts from both Russia and Iran to influence the U.S. election through their online activity. Beyond these hacking incidents, groups linked to the countries have used fake news websites and social media accounts to churn out content that appears intended to sway voters’ opinions. 

While neither Microsoft nor Google specified Iran’s intentions in the U.S. presidential race, U.S. officials have previously hinted that Iran particularly opposes Trump. U.S. officials also have expressed alarm about Tehran’s efforts to seek retaliation for a 2020 strike on an Iranian general that was ordered by Trump. 

Iran’s mission to the United Nations, when asked about the claim of the Trump campaign, denied being involved. 

“We do not accord any credence to such reports,” the mission told The Associated Press. “The Iranian government neither possesses nor harbors any intent or motive to interfere in the United States presidential election.” 

The mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday about Google’s report.
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The New Zealand government said Tuesday that it would introduce new legislation to make it easier for companies and researchers to develop and commercialize products using gene technologies such as gene editing. 

Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins said in a statement that rules and time-consuming processes have made research outside the lab almost impossible. 

“These changes will bring New Zealand up to global best practice and ensure we can capitalize on the benefits,” she said. 

Current regulations mean that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) cannot be released out of containment without going through a complex and vigorous process and it is difficult to meet the set standard. Furthermore, gene editing is considered the same as genetic modification even when it doesn’t involve the introduction of foreign DNA. 

Under the new law, low-risk gene editing techniques that produce changes indistinguishable from conventional breeding will be exempted from regulation, local authorities will no longer be able to prevent the use of GMOs in their regions and there will be a new regulator of the industry. 

“This is a major milestone in modernizing gene technology laws to enable us to improve health outcomes, adapt to climate change, deliver massive economic gains and improve the lives of New Zealanders,” Collins said. 

The government hopes to have the legislation passed and the regulator in operation by the end of 2025.
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