Latest news with #Frankfurt
Times
15 hours ago
- Business
- Times
Premier Inn owner sets sights on Germany
The Premier Inn located in the back garden of Messe Frankfurt, the city's trade fair, has a different buzz about it compared with a typical British branch of the budget hotel chain. Dozens of cycling fanatics from around the world, including the United States and China, have descended on the hotel's plush bar to enjoy happy hour-priced steins of cold beer and cocktails before the five-day Eurobike festival taking place at Messe this week. It's an exciting event for Dominic Paul, the self-confessed cyclist and motorbike enthusiast who is chief executive of the Premier Inn owner, Whitbread, and has placed a big bet on the FTSE 100 group's growing German business. The hotel chain, originally called Travel Inn, was launched by Whitbread in 1987 in Basildon, Essex, two years after the launch of Travelodge by the old Forte Group catering empire.
The National
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The National
Syrian teenager charged over plot against Taylor Swift concerts
German prosecutors said on Friday they had filed charges against a Syrian youth and alleged ISIS supporter linked to a 2024 attack plot on a Vienna concert by US pop megastar Taylor Swift. The suspect, named only as Mohammad A., was accused of supporting a foreign terrorist organisation and preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state, federal prosecutors said. He had, as a juvenile, started following ISIS ideology from April last year and had from July been in contact with a young adult from Austria who was planning a bomb attack at one of Swift's concerts, they said. "The accused assisted the young adult in his preparations by, among other things, translating bomb-making instructions from Arabic and establishing contact with an ISIS member abroad via the internet," federal prosecutors said in a statement. "The accused also provided the young adult with a template for the oath of allegiance to ISIS, which the young adult used to join the organisation." Police first took Mohammad A. into custody last September in the eastern German city of Frankfurt an der Oder, where the then 15-year-old went to school, but later released him. The federal prosecutors office in the western city of Karlsruhe said on Friday the charges were laid on June 17 in a Berlin higher regional court, which will now decide on their admissibility. Three shows in Vienna that were part of Swift's record-breaking Eras tour were cancelled last summer after authorities warned of a terror plot by ISIS sympathisers. Police detained three suspects, including a 19-year-old Austrian with North Macedonian roots, over the alleged attack threat, with the US saying it had shared intelligence to assist in the investigation. Swift later wrote on Instagram that "the reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many had planned on coming to those shows".
CNA
21 hours ago
- Business
- CNA
DeepSeek faces expulsion from app stores in Germany
FRANKFURT: Germany's data protection commissioner has asked Apple and Google to remove Chinese AI startup DeepSeek from their app stores in the country due to concerns about data protection. Commissioner Meike Kamp said in a statement on Friday (Jun 27) that she had made the request because DeepSeek illegally transfers users' personal data to China. The two US tech giants must now review the request promptly and decide whether to block the app in Germany, she added. DeepSeek did not respond to a request for comment. Apple and Google were not immediately available for comment. According to its own privacy policy, DeepSeek stores numerous personal data, such as requests to its AI programme or uploaded files, on computers in China. "DeepSeek has not been able to provide my agency with convincing evidence that German users' data is protected in China to a level equivalent to that in the European Union," Kamp said. "Chinese authorities have far-reaching access rights to personal data within the sphere of influence of Chinese companies," she added. The commissioner said she took the decision after asking DeepSeek in May to meet the requirements for non-EU data transfers or else voluntarily withdraw its app. DeepSeek did not comply with this request, she added. DeepSeek shook the technology world in January with claims that it had developed an AI model to rival those from US firms such as ChatGPT creator OpenAI at much lower cost. However, it has come under scrutiny in the United States and Europe for its data security policies. Italy blocked it from app stores there earlier this year, citing a lack of information on its use of personal data, while the Netherlands has banned it on government devices. US lawmakers plan to introduce a Bill that would ban US executive agencies from using any AI models developed in China.
Reuters
a day ago
- Business
- Reuters
DeepSeek faces expulsion from app stores in Germany
FRANKFURT, June 27 (Reuters) - Germany has taken steps towards blocking Chinese AI startup DeepSeek from the Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab and Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab app stores due to concerns about data protection, according to a data protection authority commissioner in a statement on Friday. DeepSeek has been reported to the two U.S. tech giants as illegal content, said commissioner Meike Kamp, and the companies must now review the concerns and decide whether to block the app in Germany. "DeepSeek has not been able to provide my agency with convincing evidence that German users' data is protected in China to a level equivalent to that in the European Union," she said. "Chinese authorities have far-reaching access rights to personal data within the sphere of influence of Chinese companies," she added. The move comes after Reuters exclusively reported this week that DeepSeek is aiding China's military and intelligence operations. DeepSeek, which shook the technology world in January with claims that it had developed an AI model that rivaled those from U.S. firms such as ChatGPT creator OpenAI at much lower cost, says it stores numerous personal data, such as requests to the AI or uploaded files, on computers in China.
Zawya
a day ago
- Business
- Zawya
ECB should change inflation target, researchers to tell policymakers
FRANKFURT - The ECB should abandon targeting headline inflation and focus instead on price growth in discretionary spending to protect the bloc's poorest, a paper to be presented to policymakers at the bank's preeminent research conference argued on Friday. The ECB targets inflation at 2% and a soon-to-be-concluded review will not even discuss the definition of the target as policymakers have long argued that using a different measures, like underlying inflation, or figures incorporating housings costs, could sow confusion. But the paper written for the ECB Forum on Central Banking in Sintra, Portugal next week argues that the current framework disproportionately hurts low income workers and leads to an inferior outcome for society. The logic is that after an interest rate hike, discretionary spending contracts significantly more than needed, triggering a fall in labour demand in sectors producing discretionary goods and services. "These sectors employ a larger share of low-income, hand-to-mouth workers, whose consumption is highly sensitive to income fluctuations," the paper agued. Thus, the initial drop in discretionary spending cascades into a broader decline of overall demand, amplified by this impact on lower-income households. "By targeting discretionary inflation, the central bank provides households with an incentive to smooth their discretionary spending; in turn, this ameliorates the negative employment effects on hand-to-mouth workers in discretionary industries," the paper argued. Although this would lead to a more accommodative policy stance, stabilising discretionary spending inflation allows the economy to more effectively close the so-called output gap, or the difference between potential and actual output, the paper argued.
