SINGAPORE: US Vice President Mike Pence pressed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi “multiple times” on Wednesday to pardon two Reuters journalists jailed in her country, a senior White House official said.
Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested in Yangon in December 2017. They were found guilty in September of breaching the Official Secrets Act and sentenced to seven years in prison.
Pence met Suu Kyi on the sidelines of an Asia summit in Singapore.
“He raised the case of two Reuters journalists in particular and raised the request that a pardon could be made,” a senior White House official told reporters on condition of anonymity. “They had a very candid exchange of views on that.”
The White House official said Pence urged Suu Kyi directly to pardon the Reuters journalists “multiple times.”
The official declined to comment on Suu Kyi’s response in the closed-door meeting.
Lawyers for the two Reuters reporters have lodged an appeal against their conviction.
At the time of their arrest in December, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were working on a Reuters investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim villagers during an army crackdown in Rakhine state.
Pence presses Myanmar’s Suu Kyi to pardon Reuters journalists
Pence presses Myanmar’s Suu Kyi to pardon Reuters journalists
- Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested in Yangon in December 2017
- Lawyers for the two Reuters reporters have lodged an appeal against their conviction
OpenAI’s Altman says world ‘urgently’ needs AI regulation
- Sam Altman, head of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, told a global artificial intelligence conference on Thursday that the world “urgently” needs to regulate the fast-evolving technology
NEW DELHI: Sam Altman, head of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, told a global artificial intelligence conference on Thursday that the world “urgently” needs to regulate the fast-evolving technology.
An organization could be set up to coordinate these efforts, similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), he said.
Altman is one of a host of top tech CEOs in New Delhi for the AI Impact Summit, the fourth annual global meeting on how to handle advanced computing power.
“Democratization of AI is the best way to ensure humanity flourishes,” he said on stage, adding that “centralization of this technology in one company or country could lead to ruin.”
“This is not to suggest that we won’t need any regulation or safeguards,” Altman said.
“We obviously do, urgently, like we have for other powerful technologies.”
Many researchers and campaigners believe stronger action is needed to combat emerging issues, ranging from job disruption to sexualized deepfakes and AI-enabled online scams.
“We expect the world may need something like the IAEA for international coordination of AI,” with the ability to “rapidly respond to changing circumstances,” Altman said.
“The next few years will test global society as this technology continues to improve at a rapid pace. We can choose to either empower people or concentrate power,” he added.
“Technology always disrupts jobs; we always find new and better things to do.”
Generative AI chatbot ChatGPT has 100 million weekly users in India, more than a third of whom are students, he said.
Earlier on Thursday, OpenAI announced with Indian IT giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) a plan to build data center infrastructure in the South Asian country.
