Indonesia’s new state-owned palm oil giant has appointed Mohammad Abdul Ghani to its top role, putting an industry veteran at the helm of the company that now controls vast swathes of the country’s plantations. Ghani is now president director of Agrinas Palma Nusantara, according to its website . He previously led Indonesia’s other state-owned plantation company PT Perkebunan Nusantara III , which...
Indonesia’s new state-owned palm oil giant has appointed Mohammad Abdul Ghani to its top role, putting an industry veteran at the helm of the company that now controls vast swathes of the country’s plantations. Ghani is now president director of Agrinas Palma Nusantara, according to its website . He previously led Indonesia’s other state-owned plantation company PT Perkebunan Nusantara III , which operates sugar mills and farms about 800,000 hectares (2 million acres) of crops including palm oil, cocoa and rubber. The top position was previously held by Agus Sutomo, a retired armed forces general, who led Agrinas since it was established at the start of 2025. A company spokesperson declined to comment on the changes. Agrinas has quickly amassed a huge land bank, becoming a major player in the world’s top palm oil producer. That comes as President Prabowo Subianto seeks to strengthen state oversight of the commodities industry — a move that has resulted in the seizure of more than 4 million hectares of palm oil plantations, mine concessions and processing facilities. He has signaled plans to take more land this year. Read more: Indonesian Leader Tightens Grip With Switzerland-Sized Land Grab . Many of the seized palm plantations have been transferred to Agrinas, which now controls some 1.7 million hectares handed over by the government. The company is appointing the industry veteran as it works to manage that area and improve operations. Agrinas has previously targeted supplying about a third of the country’s cooking oil and to start manufacturing biodiesel by 2029.
Hong Kong authorities will set up a collaborative mechanism with the legislature to craft the city’s first five-year plan to align with national development, according to Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, who says the blueprint will be released by the end of this year. Lee also stressed on Tuesday that the new platform would reflect the city’s executive-led governance model, adding a public consul...
Hong Kong authorities will set up a collaborative mechanism with the legislature to craft the city’s first five-year plan to align with national development, according to Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, who says the blueprint will be released by the end of this year. Lee also stressed on Tuesday that the new platform would reflect the city’s executive-led governance model, adding a public consultation on the plan would be launched in the fourth quarter before its publication. “The plan will set visions and targets for each key sector, so residents will have an idea on how Hong Kong will grow in prosperity over five years to 2030,” he said before the weekly meeting of the government’s top decision-making Executive Council. Advertisement “It will turn economic development and livelihood improvement into a dynamic loop, allowing residents to share the dividends of development.” Lee said a collaborative mechanism between the government and the Legislative Council would be established to gather feedback, help authorities formulate the policy outline within an “urgent time frame” and complete work by the end of the year. Advertisement Under the proposed mechanism, the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau (CMAB) and different Legco panels would form joint platforms to research and hold discussions on certain topics to gather opinions. “They will also study and analyse opinions collected, and immediately report to the government to help it formulate the five-year plan under the executive-led system,” he said.
The AI-powered design platform Picsart is launching an AI agent marketplace, allowing creators to “hire” AI assistants to help them with specific tasks, like resizing and remixing social content, or editing product photos on Shopify. With over 130 million worldwide users that skew Gen Z, Picsart is like a more advanced Canva for social media managers and content creators. The company reached unico...
The AI-powered design platform Picsart is launching an AI agent marketplace, allowing creators to “hire” AI assistants to help them with specific tasks, like resizing and remixing social content, or editing product photos on Shopify. With over 130 million worldwide users that skew Gen Z, Picsart is like a more advanced Canva for social media managers and content creators. The company reached unicorn status amid the creator economy boom in 2021, but has remained relevant by continuing to ramp up its AI-powered products to serve the current market. The timing is good for Picsart to launch such a marketplace, since viral projects like OpenClaw have fueled industry demand for agentic AI chatbots that can carry out requests like a personal assistant. “Creators have been stuck as the operator of every workflow — the one doing, not deciding,” said Hovhannes Avoyan, Picsart founder and CEO, in a statement. “Our Agents change that relationship — you set direction, the agent builds a plan using real data, you approve, it executes. Picsart says that it will introduce more specialized agents each week, but to start, creators can work with four different agents: Flair, Resize Pro, Remix, and Swap. Image Credits:Picsart The Flair agent is perhaps the most sophisticated of the bunch, integrating with Shopify to act as an assistant for online store owners. The agent analyzes market trends to make recommendations for how a shop could improve, like suggesting it edit product photos to look more cohesive. In a future update, Flair will be able to run A/B tests and identify underperforming products to proactively offer recommendations for how a creator can improve their sales. The Resize Pro agent can resize images and videos for the recommended dimensions on various different platforms, but it uses AI to generatively extend the frame if the original media isn’t conducive to a certain size. The AI supposedly will ensure that resized images look like they were composed intentionally and...
Chinese and Chilean scientists have reached the bottom of the Atacama Trench, where light does not penetrate, in what they called the “most ambitious” deep-sea expedition ever conducted in the eastern Pacific. The joint mission to one of the deepest ocean trenches – which runs parallel to the coasts of Peru and Chile – took place from January 19 to March 5. It comes as Chile ’s expanding cooperati...
Chinese and Chilean scientists have reached the bottom of the Atacama Trench, where light does not penetrate, in what they called the “most ambitious” deep-sea expedition ever conducted in the eastern Pacific. The joint mission to one of the deepest ocean trenches – which runs parallel to the coasts of Peru and Chile – took place from January 19 to March 5. It comes as Chile ’s expanding cooperation with China on science and technology has inflamed geopolitical tensions with the United States. Advertisement Washington has in recent months raised concerns over China’s collaborations with South American countries, saying they could also have military purposes. Tensions escalated over the Humboldt submarine fibre-optic cable that will connect South America with Asia, resulting in Washington revoking visas for Chilean diplomats linked to the project. Advertisement Chinese state-owned research vessel Tan Suo Yi Hao hosted the Atacama Trench expedition and its operations were closely monitored by the Chilean Navy. No irregular activities were reported after it concluded in the Chilean port city of Valparaiso.
Visa Direct also provides security measures such as tokenisation to protect credentials, passkey-based login authentication to prevent account fraud, risk “tools” powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that analyse and legitimise transactions in real time, and network-grade encryption and compliance controls. “The goal is simple: to keep money movement both fast and trusted,” Krishnakumar says. T...
Visa Direct also provides security measures such as tokenisation to protect credentials, passkey-based login authentication to prevent account fraud, risk “tools” powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that analyse and legitimise transactions in real time, and network-grade encryption and compliance controls. “The goal is simple: to keep money movement both fast and trusted,” Krishnakumar says. The company’s application programming interface (API), which allows different software apps to communicate, has been designed to be user-friendly and efficient so partners can access its network across endpoints such as cards, accounts and digital wallets through one platform, he says. “For SMEs, embracing digital tools to streamline workflows and staying competitive are critical,” Rhidoi Krishnakumar, head of Visa Direct for Asia-Pacific, says. “Visa Direct helps platforms embed real-time payouts, supplier payments and cross-border collections into SME workflows – so funds arrive fast, can be easily reconciled and businesses can serve new markets without adding operational complexity.” Visa’s “Unlocking opportunity in SMB [small and medium-sized business] payments” report, based on a survey of 5,774 companies and published in 2024, found that 41 per cent of participants that needed to carry out cross-border payments favoured using fintechs such as Checkout.com and Aspire as their primary provider. However, Visa Direct, one of the world’s largest digital payment networks, which provides international money transfer services across Visa’s global reach, works with financial technology (fintech) partners to provide solutions for SMEs to help them conduct fast and seamless cross-border payments. A healthy cash flow is crucial for the success of businesses around the world, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In addition to problems such as late payments by customers, rising costs and supply shortages, other issues such as expensive bank fees and delays in glo...
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Every few years, a piece of open-source software arrives that rewires how the industry thinks about computing. Linux did it for servers. Docker did it for deployment. OpenClaw — the autonomous AI agent platform that went from niche curiosity to the fastest-growing open-source project in history in a matter of weeks — may be doing it for software itself. Nvidia CEO and co-founder Jensen Huang made ...
Every few years, a piece of open-source software arrives that rewires how the industry thinks about computing. Linux did it for servers. Docker did it for deployment. OpenClaw — the autonomous AI agent platform that went from niche curiosity to the fastest-growing open-source project in history in a matter of weeks — may be doing it for software itself. Nvidia CEO and co-founder Jensen Huang made his position plain at GTC 2026 this week: "OpenClaw is the operating system for personal AI. This is the moment the industry has been waiting for — the beginning of a new renaissance in software." And Nvidia wants to be the company that makes it enterprise-ready. At its annual large GTC 2026 conference in San Jose this week, Nvidia unveiled NemoClaw , a software stack that integrates directly with OpenClaw and installs in a single command. Along with it came Nvidia OpenShell , an open-source security runtime designed to give autonomous AI agents — or “ claws” , as the industry is increasingly calling them — the guardrails they need to operate inside real enterprise environments. Alongside both, the company announced an expanded Nvidia Agent Toolkit , a full-stack platform for building and running production-grade agentic workflows. The message from Jensen Huang was unambiguous. "Claude Code and OpenClaw have sparked the agent inflection point — extending AI beyond generation and reasoning into action," the Nvidia CEO said ahead of the conference. "Employees will be supercharged by teams of frontier, specialized and custom-built agents they deploy and manage." Watch my video overview of it below and read on for more: Why 'claws' — and why it matters that Nvidia is using the word The terminology shift happening inside enterprise AI circles is subtle but significant. Internally, teams building with OpenClaw and similar platforms have taken to calling individual autonomous agents claws — a nod to the platform name, but also a useful shorthand for a new class of software that di...
imaginima/iStock via Getty Images Introduction The last time I covered Sempra ( SRE ), I highlighted their solid earnings and advancements towards their key targets, offering a solid level of predictability in a very uncertain market. With the price now reflecting what I’d call a fair value for a solid company like this, I believe SRE is a Hold, SRE is a Hold, with a decent and sustainable dividen...
imaginima/iStock via Getty Images Introduction The last time I covered Sempra ( SRE ), I highlighted their solid earnings and advancements towards their key targets, offering a solid level of predictability in a very uncertain market. With the price now reflecting what I’d call a fair value for a solid company like this, I believe SRE is a Hold, SRE is a Hold, with a decent and sustainable dividend that can likely compound alongside the business and even potential for more growth than expected, but a weaker margin of safety due to the recent price growth. Internal Developments Sempra IR SRE reported a solid Q4 and 2025 as a whole, beating the market’s non-GAAP EPS expectations despite a miss on revenue, with their Adjusted Earnings reaching $3.066 billion. Sempra IR After completing their Fit for 2025 program, investing a significant $13 billion while prioritizing utility investments and achieving several operational improvements, and unlocking value through the previously announced sale of a $10 billion stake in their infrastructure business mentioned in previous coverage, SRA has now implemented a couple of new plans, including a new one for 2026 and an updated broader 2026 - 2030 capital plan. As they mention, they expect to invest another ~$13 billion in 2026, this time for their energy infrastructure following the commissioning of ECA LNG Phase 1 and PAPLC alongside other projects and Oncor's base rate settlement request, while advancing on previous initiatives, with up to $9 billion in potential opportunities for CAPEX, especially in their Texas branch. With a company like this, it’s important to understand that the return on these investments is then visible in the company’s earnings, as we’re talking about regulated utilities with predictable income, which is a key aspect of SRE. Sempra IR As a result of these major investments and an 11% projected rate base growth (from 2025 to 2030), the company expects its adjusted EPS to grow by 7-9% per year through 203...