Category: Semafor

by Sharon Weinberger. Veteran security journalist Weinberger chronicles Silicon Valley’s takeover of the military industrial complex “in uncomfortable detail,” with chilling insights into the intricacies of drones, surveillance systems, and autonomous AI agents, as well as the CEOs and companies behind them. This “superb new book… describes how the US ...

The Scene A prominent researcher is warning the world is on the verge of a massive transformation thanks to the emergence of a new technology that could drastically benefit society or cause massive destruction. No one quite understands how it works, or whether governments should step in. It’s 1941 in ...

Reed’s view There’s a groundswell of people in Silicon Valley and Washington claiming the AI doomer narrative sweeping the nation is part of some carefully coordinated “psyop.” I don’t buy that. Some inside OpenAI and Anthropic were “blindsided” by an apparent agreement over the weekend that both companies would slow ...

The Scoop The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen, has blocked an arms sale to Israel since July and continues to withhold consent for advancing the $2.8 billion transaction, a person familiar with the matter told Semafor. Shaheen has asked the Trump administration how ...

Yinka’s view The African diaspora is often discussed as a vast reservoir of capital and goodwill waiting to be tapped for the continent’s development. But that may undersell its value. The numbers are there: the broader sub-Saharan African diaspora in the US has swelled to roughly 4.8 million people, tripling ...

Researchers used Anthropic’s Claude technology to break into OpenAI’s ChatGPT systems, underlining the immediate dangers of AI even as regulators fret over its long-term risks. The effort, part of a bug-hunting program, was the latest in a series of cybersecurity breaches aided in large part by fast-developing AI technology, The ...

Shipowners have this year commissioned more than twice the number of tankers than in all of 2025 as they look to keep up with soaring demand sparked by the Middle East conflict. The $20 billion buying spree, the biggest in at least a quarter century, comes as global conflicts redraw ...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz faced growing pressure on his leadership ahead of state elections in which polls suggest his governing party will fare badly. In one region, his CDU party is barely above the threshold required to enter the state assembly, and it faces the prospect of falling to second ...

The US approved new investments in Africa aimed at challenging China’s preeminence on the continent. Washington’s bets include $414 million in financing for a uranium project in Niger — a country that expelled all US forces two years ago — and hundreds of millions for digital infrastructure providers. China has ...

The News An energy price spike in Nigeria is renewing fears of an inflation rise and concerns that Africa’s top oil producer remains vulnerable to global shocks despite growing domestic refining capacity led by a giant facility owned by the continent’s richest man Aliko Dangote. The Dangote Refinery, whose shares ...