BEIRUT: Lebanon’s oldest English-language daily newspaper laid off its entire staff and became the latest casualty in the collapse of the country’s once-flourishing press, employees said Tuesday.
The Daily Star’s employees were notified a few days earlier that they were all being made redundant from October 31, according to an email which was sent to the staff and seen by AFP.
The newspaper, which is co-owned by the family of former prime minister Saad Hariri, had halted its print edition early last year and stopped updating its website two weeks ago.
There was no statement from the newspaper but the layoffs put an end to years of financial difficulties during which staff were routinely paid late.
Hariri’s once prosperous media empire has unravelled in recent years, with his Future TV channel and Arabic-language Al Mustaqbal daily downsizing to bare bones.
Lebanon’s prominent As-Safir daily shut down five years ago and An-Nahar, another of the country’s historical newspapers, is clinging on for dear life.
The Daily Star was founded in 1952 by Kamel Mroue, then owner and editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab Al-Hayat newspaper.
It closed for more than a decade during the 1975-1990 civil war, returning to news stands in 1996.
Lebanon’s oldest English-language daily goes under
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Lebanon’s oldest English-language daily goes under
UAE outlines approach to AI governance amid regulation debate at World Economic Forum
- Minister of State Maryam Al-Hammadi highlights importance of a robust regulatory framework to complement implementation of AI technology
- Other experts in panel discussion say regulators should address problems as they arise, rather than trying to solve problems that do not yet exist
DUBAI: The UAE has made changes to 90 percent of its laws in the past four years, Maryam Al-Hammadi, minister of state and the secretary-general of the Emirati Cabinet, told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.
Speaking during a panel discussion titled “Regulating at the Speed of Code,” she highlighted the importance of having a robust regulatory framework in place to complement the implementation of artificial intelligence technology in the public and private sectors.
The process of this updating and repealing of laws has driven the UAE’s efforts to develop an AI model that can assist in the drafting of legislation, along with collecting feedback from stakeholders on proposed laws and suggesting improvements, she said.
Although AI might be more agile at shaping regulation, “there are some principles that we put in the model that we are developing that we cannot compromise,” Al-Hammadi added. These include rules for human accountability, transparency, privacy and data protection, along with constitutional safeguards and a thorough understanding of the law.
At this stage, “we believe AI can advise but still (the) human is in command,” she said.
Authorities in the UAE are aiming to develop, within a two-year timeline, a shareable model to help other nations learn and benefit from its experiences, Al-Hammadi added.
Argentina’s minister of deregulation and state transformation, Federico Sturzenegger, warned against overregulation at the cost of innovation.
Politicians often react to a “salient event” by overreacting, he said, describing most regulators as “very imaginative of all the terrible things that will happen to people if they’re free.”
He said that “we have to take more risk,” and regulators should wait to address problems as they arise rather than trying to create solutions for problems that do not yet exist.
This sentiment was echoed by Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, who said “imaginative policymakers” often focus more on risks and potential harms than on the economic and growth benefits of innovation.
He pointed to Europe as an example of this, arguing that an excessive focus on “all the possible harms” of new technologies has, over time, reduced competitiveness and risks leaving the region behind in what he described as a “new technological revolution.”
