ISTANBUL: Turkish prosecutors are seeking a jail term of up to five years for two Bloomberg reporters who had written about how authorities responded to last summer’s currency collapse, the US-based news agency reported.
The charges come after Turkey’s banking regulator agency, BDDK, complained about an August 2018 Bloomberg story on the currency crisis amid tensions with the United States.
Prosecutors accuse the two reporters, Kerim Karakaya and Fercan Yalinkilic, of trying to undermine Turkey’s economic stability, Bloomberg said late Thursday.
The news agency’s editor-in-chief John Micklethwait said: “We condemn the indictment issued against our reporters, who have reported fairly and accurately on newsworthy events. We fully stand by them and will support them throughout this ordeal.”
An Istanbul court accepted the indictment and the first hearing is set for September 20.
Turkish media reported 50 others, including journalists and columnists, were also indicted for commenting on the currency crisis on their social media accounts.
In April, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized Western media coverage of the country’s economy after a Financial Times report questioned the central bank’s management of foreign currency reserves.
Turkey’s economy has slipped into its first recession in a decade after a currency crisis last year battered the lira, leaving foreign investors jittery over the government’s policies to manage growth.
Turkey prosecutors seek jail terms for two Bloomberg reporters
Turkey prosecutors seek jail terms for two Bloomberg reporters
- Prosecutors accuse the two reporters of trying to undermine Turkey’s economic stability
- An Istanbul court accepted the indictment and the first hearing is set for Sept. 20
Google launches AI music model in English, Arabic
- Lyria 3 lets users generate 30-second audio tracks via Gemini
DUBAI: Google has launched Lyria 3, a generative AI music model currently in final testing, that can be used via the Gemini website and app to create customized audio tracks.
Users can provide text prompts such as “an upbeat, modern Arabic fusion track for Ramadan” or “a massive, anthemic rock song with an emotive male singer.”
They can add images to their prompts and ask the model to generate a track that reflects the ideas within the pictures. They can also add lyrics or ask the model to generate them.
Lyria 3 then produces a 30-second track along with cover art generated by Google’s artificial intelligence image generator and editor, Nano Banana.
Google said the aim was not to create a musical masterpiece or for copying existing artists but to let users express themselves in unique ways. However, if a prompt specifies a particular artist, the model can draw inspiration their style while still creating an original track.
Lyria was launched in 2023 and is the company’s most advanced music generation model. SynthID, Google’s tool to watermark and identify AI-generated content, is embedded in all tracks it creates.
Users can also upload a file to check whether it was generated using Google AI. Gemini will examine it for SynthID and provide a response based on its analysis.
Lyria 3 is available in Arabic, English, Spanish, French, Hindi, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese, with more languages expected in the future. It will be available on the mobile app in the coming days.
