Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk attends the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China August 29, 2019. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo
Twitter Inc CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday the social media company is "roughly breaking even," as most of its advertisers have returned and its aggressive cost-cutting efforts have started bearing fruit after massive layoffs.
Musk, in an interview with BBC broadcast live on Twitter Spaces, said Twitter has about 1,500 employees now, a sharp decline from "just under 8,000 staff members" it had before he took it over in October.
Twitter has been marked by chaos and uncertainty since the $44 billion acquisition by Musk, as its layoffs have also included many engineers responsible for fixing and preventing service outages, sources told Reuters.
Last week, Twitter suffered a bug that prevented thousands of users from accessing links, its sixth major outage since the beginning of the year, according to internet watchdog group NetBlocks.
Musk acknowledged some glitches, including recent outages, but said they have not lasted very long.
He says Twitter was in a $3 billion negative cash flow situation and had to take drastic actions, referring to its large-scale layoffs.
"We could be cash-flow positive this quarter if things go well," he said in the interview that attracted more than 3 million listeners, adding the company currently has all-time high user numbers.
Twitter has been hit by a massive decline in advertising since his acquisition.
Musk had said that was due to the cyclical nature of ad spending and some of which was "political." He said on Wednesday most of its advertisers have returned.
The billionaire, who also runs electronic car maker Tesla (TSLA.O) and rocket company SpaceX, said he has no one in mind to succeed him as Twitter chief executive.
Musk has faced scrutiny from Tesla investors about the amount of time he spends running the social media platform and had previously said the end of this year would be "good timing" to find a new Twitter CEO.
Two police officers advance upon the suspect of a mass shooting lying on the ground at Old National Bank in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. April, 10, 2023 in a still image from police body camera video. The video was digitally obscured at source. Louisville Metro Police Department/Handout via REUTERS
The desperate rush by a rookie policeman and his training officer to bring a mass shooting at a Kentucky bank to a halt was captured in spare but dramatic detail in footage from their body cameras, released by authorities on Tuesday.
The footage, shown by the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department during an afternoon briefing and which the police posted on Twitter later, comes a day after a Louisville bank employee killed five people and wounded nine others - including the two officers - while he livestreamed video of the attack on Instagram.
The body camera footage opens with an image of the console of the police cruiser as it pulls up to the downtown building. The steering wheel veers wildly from side to side as rookie officer Nickolas Wilt drives the car and his partner, Cory Galloway, shouts directions off camera.
"Pull up, pull up, pull up," Galloway barks. Gunfire sounds. "Back up! Back up! Back up!" he shouts again.
Arriving just three minutes after they have been dispatched, Wilt readies his handgun as Galloway grabs a rifle out of the trunk, and the camera image lurches up the steps to the bank building. A burst of gunfire is heard as the suspect shoots at the officers from inside the lobby.
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Both officers appear to fall, but Galloway scrambles to his feet and runs down the steps to hide behind a planter. He waits a few seconds, hears more gunfire, then peeks out and seems to react to seeing Wilt down. "God damn it!" he shouts.
Backup appears on the scene about three minutes after Galloway and Wilt.
"The shooter has an angle on that officer," Galloway says. "We need to get up there."
"God," he shouts two minutes later, "don't have an angle!"
After more gunfire, Galloway - who is himself injured - hits the gunman, 25-year-old Connor Sturgeon, from his position out on the steps.
"Suspect down," Galloway shouts as he walks into the building.
Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey, who spoke duringTuesday's presentation, explained that Wilt was also down. He had been shot in the head but was alive. At last report, he remained in critical condition.
"What you saw on that video was absolutely amazing," Humphrey said after displaying the body camera video from both officers as well as a bystander. "There’s only a few people in this country that can do what they did."
The OPEC logo pictured ahead of an informal meeting between members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Algiers, Algeria, September 28, 2016. REUTERS/Ramzi Boudina
Non-OPEC countries will account for a higher percentage of oil production gains this year and next, a reversal of the last two years, the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicted on Tuesday.
Gains by the U.S., Brazil, Canada and Guyana will overshadow OPEC after Saudi Arabia and other Middle East producers this month disclosed plans to cut output cuts by around 1.16 million barrels per day beginning next month.
Total non-OPEC liquid fuels production is expected to grow by 1.9 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2023 and by 1 million bpd in 2024, the EIA said in its Short Term Energy Outlook. OPEC output will fall by 500,000 bpd in 2023, then rise by 1 million bpd in 2024, after the group's output agreement expires, EIA forecast.
About half of the forecast gain by non-OPEC producers in the next two years will come from the United States, the agency said. U.S. crude production set to rise 5.5% to 12.54 million bpd this year and another 1.7%, to 12.75 million bpd, in 2024.
GASOLINE PRICES
U.S. retail gasoline prices are expected to average around $3.50 per gallon this summer, peaking between $3.60 per gallon and $3.70 per gallon in June, the EIA said. A year ago, prices jumped to $5 a gallon as oil soared and storage levels shrank.
The average U.S. household is expected to spend between $2,140 and $2,730 on gasoline this year, down from $2,780 in 2022, the EIA forecast.
Brent crude oil spot price will average $85 per barrel this year, a $2 per barrel increase from last month's forecast on the OPEC output curbs, the EIA said.
On the demand side, oil consumption is expected to remain relatively stable. Liquid fuels consumption will rise by 1.4 million bpd in 2023 and by 1.8 million bpd in 2024, EIA said. It expects global oil markets to be in relative balance over the coming year.
U.S petroleum and other liquid fuels consumption would tick up 0.5% to 20.4 million bpd in 2023 and rise 1.6% to 20.7 million bpd in 2024, EIA added.
The Russian military is training special “tank hunter” units designed to take on the German, British, and American armor being sent to Ukraine. What sorts of weapons will Russian forces have at their disposal to counter the sophisticated Western heavy weapons platforms? Sputnik explores.
The Russian military is taking proactive steps to prepare to engage Challenger 2, Leopard 2, Abrams, and even Leclerc tanks. Speaking to media on Sunday, Russian Armed Forces Combat Training Center head Yevgeny Arifulin said troops have studied NATO tanks’ strengths and weaknesses, and absorbed a series of “methodological recommendations” created by Colonel General Ivan Buvaltsev, a veteran tankman with nearly 45 years of experience operating and commanding armored forces under his belt.
“These are groups that will be directly involved in hunting for these [Western tanks]. In addition, tankers are being prepared here for tank duels. But the main thing is the tank hunters, who will be waiting for them in the area where these tanks would not like to see us,” Arifulin said.
German and NATO officials began confirming last month that the first batches of the nearly 300 Leopard 2, Challenger 2, and Abrams tanks promised to Kiev had begun trickling into the country.
The UK’s decision to equip its Ukraine-bound Challengers with toxic depleted uranium munitions has sparked controversy, with scientists and activists expressing concerns that the conflict zone could be turned into a radioactive wasteland – just like parts of the former Yugoslavia and Iraq after their bombardment by NATO, US, and British forces in the 1990s and 2000s. NATO has ignored these concerns, while the UK’s MoD has assured that the DU rounds are safe, notwithstanding mountains of evidence to the contrary.
“Britain has delivered the Challenger. Many NATO allies have delivered the Leopard 2, and the United States is now in the process of arranging deliveries of the Abrams. And this is in addition to, for example, the Marder infantry fighting vehicles and the American Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. All this together will give the Ukrainians the necessary means to return their territories and further push back Russian forces," Stoltenberg said at a press briefing last week.
Kiev says it now has nearly 60 NATO MBTs in its inventory, and expects more to be delivered in the coming weeks.
What Kinds of Weapons Will Russia’s Tank Hunters Have at Their Disposal?
Arifulin did not go into detail about the types of weapons Russia’s special tank-hunting units could use in their operations against Western main battle tanks. But there are a variety of options, starting with the 2A46 125 mm smoothbore cannon fitted aboard the Russian T-90, T-80, T-72, and T-64 tanks, which have the necessary power to penetrate NATO armor in tank-on-tank engagements, provided the right operational deployment and combat support.
From the air, Western MBT armor can be engaged using the 9K121 Vikhr, an aircraft-mounted laser-guided anti-tank missile system fitted aboard Su-25 attack aircraft, Ka-50 and Ka-52 helicopters, as well as some warships and coastal patrol ships. Armor-mounted systems include the 9M120 Ataka – a late Soviet-era HEAT warhead ATGM which can be equipped aboard a wide array of armored fighting vehicles, as well as helicopters.
What Makes the Kornet Special?
Then there’s the Kornet. Developed through the 1980s and 1990s and first entering into service with the Russian military in 1998, the Kornet is a widely-produced man-portable anti-tank guided missile system designed specifically to take on the latest NATO third-generation battle tanks like the Leopard 2, Challenger 2, and Abrams.
While all of the systems listed above will almost certainly be among the equipment used by Russian forces against NATO armor in the coming months (unless a peace deal can somehow be reached), the Kornet is the only one among them with confirmed kills of German and US tanks under its belt.
During the course of Turkiye’s police actions in Syria in 2016 and 2018, Ankara deployed dozens of its Leopard 2A4 tanks in the country, engaging in combat against Kurdish militants and Daesh (ISIS)* fighters. Over the course of the operations, Turkiye lost a dozen or more Leopard 2s to roadside bombs, suicide car bombs, and Russian-made anti-tank weapons.
In a 2017 report, German investigators concluded that six of ten Leopard 2s destroyed in fierce fighting in the city of al-Bab were killed using Kornet missiles operated by Daesh fighters. Although several Leopards had previously been lost by NATO forces in Afghanistan to roadside bombs in the 2000s, the Turkish military’s losses in Syria helped to lift the air of invincibility around Germany’s tanks against modern anti-tank weapons once and for all.
Kornets demonstrated similar characteristics against the vaunted Abrams tank in Iraq. Shortly after the US invasion in 2003, Iraqi special forces provided US forces with the first inkling that the war wouldn’t be anything like the first Gulf War in 1991 (when the Iraqi Army failed to knock out a single Abrams). This time around, Iraqi Republican Guard units equipped with Kornet anti-tank missiles knocked out two Abrams and a Bradley in fighting in the south of the country. Over half-a-dozen more Abrams, these ones belonging to the Iraqi Army, were destroyed by Daesh in Iraq between 2014 and 2016 using captured Kornets.
Hezbollah similarly used Kornets to effect in 2006, destroying up to four of Israel’s coveted Merkava tanks (which are often touted as superior to the Abrams) during the Lebanon War.
Why Are Kornets so Deadly?
The secret behind the Kornet’s deadliness lies in its tandem warheads – which can penetrate homogenous steel armor up to 1,300 mm thick (the Leopard 2A4 and Abrams have a maximum front armor thickness of 800 and 700 mm thick, respectively). After contact with the enemy tank, the first warhead explodes, with the second then generating a jet of immense heat that burns through armor, reaches the crew compartment, kills everyone inside, and detonates ammunition stores (which causes the MBT’s turret to be literally blown off in some instances).
The latest models of the weapon feature top attack capability similar to that of the American Javelin, as well as thermobaric and blast fragmentation warheads for use against targets besides tanks.
Kornets have a range of between 100 and 8,000 meters, making them deadly in urban environments, but equally dangerous across open spaces and the rolling plains which make up much of the Donbass and Ukraine east of the Dnepr River.
Along with use by troops, Kornets can be mounted aboard customized Tigr infantry mobility vehicles, with the system, known as Kornet-EM, featuring two retractable launchers carrying four Kornet missiles apiece, plus eight additional rounds. The vehicles’ payload makes them capable of destroying entire platoons of enemy tanks, although operation is potentially more dangerous given the vehicles’ size compared to individual troops. The systems can also be fitted aboard BMP-2 and MBD-2 armored vehicles.
Since the system’s introduction in the late 1990s, Kornets have been exported to over two dozen countries around the world. The system’s producers –Degtyaryov Plant and the Volskiy Mekhanicheskiy Zavod, do not provide updated statistics about the number of Kornets produced. However, according to a 2010 estimate, about 35,000 had been made and sold by the late 2000s.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has never labeled Twitter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk as a “war criminal,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
His comments came after Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” rejected calls to put restrictions on the account of former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev after the latter wrote a long post declaring Ukraine would disappear “because nobody needs it.”
Defending his decision, the billionaire CEO claimed he had been informed that “Putin called me a war criminal for helping Ukraine, so he’s not exactly my best friend.” He added that “all news is to some degree propaganda” and people should be allowed to “decide for themselves.”
However, Peskov dismissed the claim that Putin had referred to him as a war criminal.
“Apparently, Musk received somewhat incorrect, or to be more precise, fake information. It looks like another hoax. Putin has never said that,” he stated.
Peskov made the clarification when asked to comment on whether Russia would unblock Twitter after the platform lifted certain restrictions on the accounts of Russian officials.
Twitter has been banned in Russia since last spring after its media regulator, Roskomnadzor, accused the social media platform of spreading misinformation about the Ukraine conflict.
“To get an answer to this question, you need to contact the relevant department – Roskomnadzor. It’s upon them to decide whether all requirements are met. In the meantime, there is a large number of materials that do not meet the requirements,” Peskov said.
The idea to unblock Twitter in Russia was floated this week by several high-ranking Russian officials, who argued that, with Musk at its helm, the platform could once again be a good way for Moscow to voice its views to a Western audience.
The proposal, however, has been met with some resistance from certain Russian lawmakers, with Aleksandr Yushchenko, an MP from the Communist Party, claiming that the platform is still “hostile” to Russia and is filled with “outlandish and mostly pro-Ukrainian” followers.
A man walks past the International Monetary Fund (IMF) logo at its headquarters in Washington, U.S., May 10, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo
The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday trimmed its 2023 global growth outlook slightly as higher interest rates cool activity but warned that a severe flare-up of financial system turmoil could slash output to near recessionary levels.
The IMF said in its latest World Economic Outlook report that banking system contagion risks were contained by strong policy actions after the failures of two U.S. regional banks and the forced merger of Credit Suisse. But the turmoil added another layer of uncertainty on top of stubbornly high inflation and spillovers from Russia's war in Ukraine.
"With the recent increase in financial market volatility, the fog around the world economic outlook has thickened," the IMF said as it and the World Bank launch spring meetings this week in Washington.
"Uncertainty is high and the balance of risks has shifted firmly to the downside so long as the financial sector remains unsettled," the Fund added.
The IMF is now forecasting global real GDP growth at 2.8% for 2023 and 3.0% for 2024, marking a sharp slowdown from 3.4% growth in 2022 due to tighter monetary policy.
Both the 2023 and 2024 forecasts were marked down by 0.1 percentage point from estimates issued in January, partly due to weaker performances in some larger economies as well as expectations of further monetary tightening to battle persistent inflation.
The IMF's U.S. outlook improved slightly, with growth in 2023 forecast at 1.6% versus 1.4% forecast in January as labor markets remain strong. But the Fund cut forecasts for some major economies including Germany, now forecast to contract 0.1% in 2023 and Japan, now forecast to grow 1.3% this year instead of 1.8% forecast in January.
The IMF raised its 2023 core inflation forecast to 5.1%, from a 4.5% prediction in January, saying it had yet to peak in many countries despite lower energy and food prices.
"Monetary policy needs to stay focused on price stability" to keep inflation expectations in check, IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas told a news conference.
In a Reuters interview, Gourinchas said central banks should not halt their fight against inflation because of financial stability risks, which look "very much contained."
BANKING TURMOIL SCENARIOS
While a major banking crisis was not in the IMF's baseline, Gourinchas said a significant worsening of financial conditions could recur as nervous investors try to test the "next weakest link" in the financial system as they did with Credit Suisse.
The report included two analyses showing financial turmoil causing moderate and severe impacts on global growth.
In a "plausible" scenario, stress on vulnerable banks - some like failed Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank burdened by unrealized losses due to monetary policy tightening and reliant on uninsured deposits - creates a situation where "funding conditions for all banks tighten, due to greater concern for bank solvency and potential exposures across the financial system," the IMF said.
This "moderate tightening" of financial conditions could slice 0.3 percentage point off of global growth for 2023, cutting it to 2.5%.
The Fund also included a severe downside scenario with much broader impacts from bank balance sheet risks, leading to sharp cuts in lending in the U.S. and other advanced economies, a major pullback in household spending and a "risk-off" flight of investment funds to safe-haven dollar-denominated assets.
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Emerging market economies would be hit hard by lower demand for exports, currency depreciation and a flare-up of inflation.
This scenario, which Gourinchas put at a 15% probability, could slash 2023 growth by as much as 1.8 percentage points, reducing it to 1.0% - a level that implies near-zero GDP growth per capita. The negative impact could be about one-quarter of the recessionary impact of the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
Other downside risks highlighted by the IMF include persistently high inflation that requires more aggressive central bank rate hikes, escalation of Russia's war in Ukraine, and setbacks in China's recovery from COVID-19, including worsened difficulties in its real estate sector.
OIL PRICE RISK
The IMF forecasts do not include the impact of a recent oil output cut by OPEC+ countries that has caused oil prices to spike. It assumes an average 2023 global oil price of $73 per barrel - well below Monday's $84 Brent crude futures price, but Gourinchas said it was unclear if this level could be sustained.
For every 10% rise in the price of oil, IMF models show a 0.1 percentage point reduction in growth and a 0.3 percentage point increase in inflation, Gourinchas added.
The IMF also now pegs global growth at 3% in 2028, its lowest five-year growth outlook since the WEO was first published in 1990, reflecting naturally slowing growth as some emerging economies mature, but also slower growth in workforce populations and fragmentation of the global economy along geopolitical lines, marked by U.S.-China tensions and Russia's war in Ukraine.
