Articles by Thomson Reuters

Technology

Amazon Subsidiary To Invest $5 Billion In South Korea, South Korea's Presidential Office Says

Amazon Web Services will invest at least $5 billion in South Korea by 2031 to build new artificial intelligence data centres in the Asian country, South Korea's presidential office said on Wednesday.The announcement was made during AWS chief executive officer Matt Garman's meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Lee's office said in a statement. Amazon is one of seven global firms whose executives attended the group meeting with Lee in Gyeongju, South Korea, and pledged a total of $9 billion in investments for the next five years, the Korean presidential office said. Amazon's investment will accelerate the growth of an ecosystem for the AI industry in South Korea, as the country aims to become one of the world's top three AI leaders, Lee said at the meeting with Garman. "At AWS, we've invested and committed to investment of an additional $40 billion across 14 non-U.S. APEC countries and economies between now and 2028," Garman said."And, that $40 billion actually drives an additional $45 billion in U.S. GDP and downstream benefit, benefiting all of the APEC economy," he said at a business event on the sidelines of the summit.AWS unveiled in June a $5 billion investment plan in South Korea with local conglomerate SK Group for building the country's biggest data centre. It has also announced investments in other countries, including Japan, Australia and Singapore.

6 days ago

Technology

Key Issues At Stake In Trump-Lee Summit In South Korea

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung sits down with US President Donald Trump for the second time in two months on Wednesday, with crucial trade and security issues that could chart the future of their 72-year alliance at stake.The following are some issues that are likely to top the agenda of their talks ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, which Trump is not expected to attend.South Korea's hope to finalise a deal on cutting US import duties on South Korean goods during Trump's visit this week appears all but dashed, as negotiators for the two sides remain deadlocked over a $350 billion investment pledge by Seoul.Initially heralded by South Korea as a monumental commitment that could help the US rebuild its manufacturing industries, the demand by Trump for South Korea to pay the total in cash or equity "up front" has upended the preliminary deal.South Korean officials have said the plan was for the bulk of the $350 billion in investment to be in the form of loans and loan guarantees to South Korean companies setting up new facilities in the US.South Korea's Lee has said such a cash outlay would destabilise the country's financial markets.Trump has argued that countries such as South Korea should pay more for the cost of US military presence - roughly 10 times the 1.5 trillion won ($1.06 billion) that was agreed by the allies for 2026.Trump has also demanded that US allies, including the EU, spend 3.5% of their GDP on defence. South Korea's defence cost is currently 2.3% of GDP.South Korea plans to increase its defence spending by 8.3% for 2026, more than double the increase for this year.US officials have hinted at the idea of broadening the role of the 28,500 U.S. troops from a focus on countering North Korea to responding to security tensions with China's rise as a major military power.South Korea is looking to revise an agreement with the US on nuclear energy to win approval from Washington to reprocess spent nuclear fuel and enrich uranium for purely civilian energy purposes.While Seoul and Washington are formally in agreement on the goal of dismantling North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, Trump has said Pyongyang was already a "nuclear power," hinting at the idea of abandoning denuclearisation.ee has made it a top priority to bring Pyongyang back to dialogue and said Trump was the ideal person to entice North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.Trump has boasted of his three summits with Kim during his first term and has expressed willingness to meet him during this week's trip to the region.North Korea has not responded, although Kim has said he has "fond memories" of Trump from their previous meetings.The United States has pledged to improve South Korean workers' access to visas that would allow them to work in the US to set up and manage business facilities invested in by South Korean companies.The promise, which Trump has backed, follows the arrests of more than 300 South Korean workers by US immigration authorities at a Hyundai Motor facility in the US, which stunned South Korean officials and the public. The discussions have yet to yield a concrete resolution to South Korean businesses, which have resorted to a grey area in the US immigration process.

6 days ago

Technology

Toyota Says It Did Not Explicitly Promise Trump Fresh $10 Billion Investment In US

Japan's Toyota Motor did not explicitly promise a new $10 billion investment in the United States, a senior executive from the Japanese automaker said on Wednesday, a day after President Donald Trump mentioned a potential investment of that size.Speaking during his visit to Japan on Tuesday evening, Trump said the automaker would be looking to invest around $10 billion in the United States.However, Toyota executive Hiroyuki Ueda said no such explicit promise was made about an investment of that size, adding that Toyota would continue to invest and create jobs in America.Ueda was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Japan Mobility Show in Tokyo.

6 days ago

Technology

With ‘Innocent Man Being Locked Up’ Statement, Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy Reaches Jail To Serve 5-Year Term

Paris: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy began a five-year sentence on Tuesday for conspiring to raise campaign funds from Libya, arriving at La Sante prison in Paris in a stunning downfall for a man who led the country between 2007 and 2012.The former conservative president, 70, left his home for the car journey to the prison, walking hand in hand with his wife Carla Bruni and cheered by a crowd of supporters chanting "Nicolas, Nicolas" and singing La Marseillaise national anthem.Sarkozy, who was convicted and sentenced last month, is the first former French leader to be jailed since Nazi collaborator Marshal Philippe Petain after World War TwoShortly after he headed for La Sante, Sarkozy published a long message on X in which he claimed to be a victim of revenge and hatred."I want to tell (French people), with the unshakable strength that is mine, that it is not a former president of the Republic who is being imprisoned this morning — it is an innocent man," he said.Sarkozy's conviction capped years of legal battles over allegations that his 2007 campaign took millions in cash from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was later overthrown and killed during the Arab Spring uprisings.While Sarkozy was found guilty of conspiring with close aides to orchestrate the scheme, he was acquitted of personally receiving or using the funds.He has consistently denied wrongdoing and has called the case politically motivated.His lawyers said they had filed a request for early release, pending his appeals trial, and that they expected this request to be reviewed in about a month. They said they hoped they could get Sarkozy freed on early release by Christmas.Sarkozy will likely be held in La Sante's isolation unit, where inmates are housed in single cells and kept apart during outdoor activities for security reasons.Conditions are similar to the rest of the prison: cells measure 9 to 12 square meters (100 to 130 square feet) and, following renovations, now include private showers.Sarkozy will have access to a television - for a monthly fee of 14 euros ($16) - and a landline telephone.Sarkozy told Le Figaro he would take three books for his first week behind bars, including Alexandre Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo" - the story of a man who is unjustly imprisoned and who plots his revenge against those who betrayed him.The decision to jail a former president has sparked outrage among Sarkozy's political allies and the far right."Nicolas Sarkozy is not a criminal," said Sarkozy supporter Jacqueline Fraboulet, who was among the crowd cheering him on Tuesday. “We actually feel like the justice system is taking the power, and that's not good for France.”Sarkozy's children and brothers also attended the gathering. Sarkozy, looking sombre, waved at his supporters before heading into his car for the journey to La Sante.The sentencing reflected a shift in France's approach to white-collar crime. In the 1990s and 2000s, many convicted politicians avoided prison altogether.Despite his legal troubles, Sarkozy's political influence has proved resilient as French society has shifted to the right.President Emmanuel Macron, who had warm relations with Sarkozy and Bruni, said on Monday he had met Sarkozy ahead of his incarceration. Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said he would visit him in prison.That angered left-wing politicians who said Macron and Darmanin were breaching judicial independence.The son of a Hungarian immigrant, Sarkozy became president in 2007, pledging to shake things up with pro-business reforms that would reinvigorate France's stagnant economy and elevate the country to the top table of global players.Those efforts were quickly upended by the 2008-2009 economic crisis, and voters gave him little credit for raising the retirement age to 62 from 60 and loosening rules requiring a maximum 35-hour work week.Reporting by Manuel Ausloos Clotaire Achi, Sudip Kar-Gupta, Benoit Van Overstraeten, Jean-Stephane Brosse; Writing by Ingrid Melander and Michel Rose; Editing by Alison Williams, Benoit Van Overstraeten and Frances Kerry Read Also: 3 Women Booked for Offering Namaz in Pune’s Shaniwarwada; BJP Workers ‘Purify' Fort With Cow Urine, Dung

Oct 21, 2025