Netflix‘s animated film KPop Demon Hunters has officially become the streaming platform’s most popular movie ever, accumulating 236 million views since its June 20 release and adding another 25.4 million views in the week ending August 24.
Netflix’s previous record holder, Red Notice, accumulated 230 million views during its first 91 days on the platform after being released in 2021. KPop Demon Hunters has 24 days remaining before surpassing the same 91-day premiere window.
The film’s remarkable performance shows no signs of slowing, with Deadline reporting that KPop Demon Hunters has exhibited nearly 0% audience decline for three consecutive weeks after two straight intervals of 26 million views each.
The Sony Pictures Animation production is building on the unprecedented success of its music: on Monday (August 25), it was confirmed that KPop Demon Hunters had become the first ever soundtrack to claim four simultaneous Top 10 songs on the Billboard Hot 100.
The launch of KPop Demon Hunters The Sing-Along Event — which hit theaters and Netflix in the past week — drove additional viewing. (Netflix’s latest stats combine viewership numbers for both the original and sing-along versions.)
The theatrical sing-along event delivered an estimated $19 million at the North American box office over the weekend. It achieved more than 1,000 sold-out screenings across the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand before becoming available for streaming on Netflix.
Republic Records released the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack, which features contributions from major K-pop industry figures including THEBLACKLABEL co-founder TEDDY, who has worked with BLACKPINK and Taeyang.
Grammy-nominated producers who have collaborated with BTS, TWICE, and Tomorrow X Together also contributed to the project.
The soundtrack includes an original song, Takedown, performed by three members of TWICE – Jeongyeon, Jihyo, and Chaeyoung.
The film’s 12-track soundtrack features performances by EJAE, AUDREY NUNA, REI AMI, Andrew Choi, Danny Chung, Kevin Woo, samUIL Lee, Neckwav, and Lea Salonga.
Production credits include TEDDY, 24, IDO, DOMINSUK, Jenna Andrews, Stephen Kirk, Lindgren, and executive music producer Ian Eisendrath.
The success demonstrates the commercial viability of fictional music groups when supported by authentic K-pop production talent.
Directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans assembled a team capable of composing songs that industry observers say rival current K-pop hits.Music Business Worldwide
Although there was a noticeable increase in tourism during the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, the vast majority of visitors were French, according to a recent report from the French tourism agency Paris je t’Amime. Roughly 11.2 million people took part in Olympic-related activities throughout the Greater Paris area, with 85% of visitors being from the host country of France.
The breakdown shows just how local the Games were:
5.2 million (46%) were residents of the Île-de-France region of France
3 million (27%) were only day visitors who chose not to stay overnight
3 million (27%) stayed overnight
Among overnight visitors, 1.4 million were French tourists, a jump of 24% compared to 2023, while 1.6 million were non-French tourists, up 10% from the same time period in 2023. In total, there were about 420,000 more tourists during the Games period than the year before.
Looking at the breakdown of the foreign tourism, the top international representation for tourists included:
230,000 from the U.S.
130,000 from Germany
115,00 from Great Britain
107,000 from Brazil
82,000 from China
Hotels benefited most from the surge. Occupancy reached upwards of 84%, up more than ten percentage points from 2023, while room prices climbed 18%.
Landmark French attractions actually saw a lower turnout, as tourists were preoccupied by the Olympic Games:
Louvre attendance dropped 22%.
Musée d’Orsay fell 29%.
Château de Versailles was down 25%.
On a global level, regional tourism was down 4.7% from July 1 to August 11 compared to the same period last summer, although activity picked up after the Paralympic Games, which sold more than 2.5 million tickets.
Fan zones, such as the Terrasse des Jeux and the Parc George-Valbon, set up across Paris were popular, welcoming 7.5 million people. The Olympic Torch Relay was another big draw, passing in front of 8 million people in over 450 French cities and towns.
The Paralympic Games welcomed 3.4 million visitors, 1.9 million of whom were tourists. Although the number of French tourists (950,000) was down slightly from 2023, the number of international visitors remained unchanged (970,000). The Paralympic torch relay was viewed by nearly 600,000 people in over 50 communities.
In July, India’s best-selling electric scooter, Bajaj Auto’s Chetak, hit a big speed bump. A shortage of rare-earth metals had hit production plans, and the company was forced to almost halve its output.
Bajaj manufactured just 10,824 units of the Chetak in July, as compared with 20,384 units during the same period last year, due to rare earth shortages.
“The rare-earth magnet supply situation has been a constraint that created the risk of a sharper production dip in July,” Rakesh Sharma, executive director of Bajaj Auto, told Al Jazeera.
The company has since quickly redesigned certain motors to use light rare-earth magnets and has been reworking supply chains so it can cater to its needs, Sharma said.
“These changes helped us recover close to half of our planned July output for electric two-wheelers. We expect to reach around 60 percent [of output] during August and September.”
The shortage that Bajaj is facing is industry-wide after China introduced restrictions on its rare earth exports on April 4, two days after United States President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on April 2. No shipment has come to India since then, putting automobile and other industries reliant on these metals in jeopardy.
Vigneshwar Chittur Selvakumar, president of the Federation of Automobile Dealers Association (FADA) that counts about 15,000 automobile retailers across the country as its members, says he is “deeply concerned” about how the shortages of these metals “might have a drastic impact on the automobile sector”.
“We control around 80 percent sales of the vehicles, and any dip in production will affect our business badly,” Vigneshwar said.
Rare-earth metals refer to a combination of 17 metallic elements, including dysprosium, terbium, europium, samarium, and gadolinium, that are found in abundance in China, which has the world’s largest reserves of rare-earth elements, estimated at 44 million tonnes, and dominates 90 percent of rare-earth elements processing capacity.
Apart from EVs, the metals are also used in smartphones, computer screens, and other electronic devices. They are also essential for defence equipment like radar and guidance systems, as well as medical machines such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging systems.
“The rare-earth elements help in making strong magnets that are used widely in electric vehicles … to maintain a stable magnetic field,” Aman Bir Singh, an EV consultant, told Al Jazeera. “Internal combustion engine (ICE) or hybrid vehicles that run on petrol, diesel and wind turbines also use them, but in a very small quantity, and the current shortage doesn’t impact them as much.”
The shortage comes just as India’s EV sector was taking off with sales crossing 2 million for the first time in 2024. This was up 24 percent from 1.6 million vehicle sales in 2023. Two-wheelers lead that with sales of 1.2 million units last year.
Sales of electric cars, too, are on the rise, and more than 100,000 electric cars were sold in the financial year ending March 31, 2025. Tesla, too, has joined in and launched its Model Y in the country in July. As a result, the electric car penetration has more than doubled from 1 percent to 2.6 percent during this period, and is expected to cross 7 percent by 2028, according to a July report by CareEdge Analytics & Advisory.
Sales of electric cars have started picking up in India, but businesses are concerned the current rare earth shortages might drive potential customers away [File: Rafiq Maqbool/AP]
Several EV companies, however, have refrained from speaking on the rare earth crisis.
“The industry is still in a fledgling state and companies fear that they might lose customers and also their share value if they concede to rare earth shortage as the potential buyers might be too apprehensive to purchase the vehicles,” said Nilanjan Banik, an economics professor at Mahindra University.
The shortage has also affected the television industry, where rare-earth magnets are critical in television manufacturing, particularly for speakers, due to their superior performance and compact size.
“As the country remains heavily reliant on imports for these components, this presents a clear challenge,” said Arjun Bajaj, director of Videotex – television manufacturers for various reputed brands. “We currently have adequate stocks for the current season, but our focus is also to find an alternative solution, and the industry is actively exploring alternatives like ferrite magnets, though matching the performance of rare-earth magnets will require continued research and technological upgrades,” he added.
Relief for India
On August 19, China announced it would ease export restrictions on fertilisers, rare earths, and tunnel-boring machines to India after talks with Indian foreign minister S Jaishankar in Beijing.
Experts, however, called this a “tactical gesture”.
India’s trade deficit with China hit a record $100bn in the last financial year. Beijing has also openly backed India’s archenemy Pakistan in a recent clash between New Delhi and Islamabad in May, a reminder that India’s dependence on China can be risky for it.
“India’s dependence on China gives [the latter] significant leverage during crises,” pointed out Ajay Srivastava, the founder of Global Research Trade Initiative (GTRI), a trade research group.
“China now supplies over 70 percent of India’s needs in several critical areas. Everyday products like laptops (80.5 percent) and flat panel displays (86 percent) are also dominated by Chinese imports. At the same time, India’s share in bilateral trade has collapsed to just 11.2 percent from 42.3 percent two decades ago, exposing the fragility of supply chains. The easing of rare earth supply is just a tactical gesture and nothing beyond,” Srivastava said.
India holds the fifth-largest rare-earth elements with 8.52 million tonnes, but contributes less than 1 percent of the global rare-earth mining as it faces stiff challenges with limited infrastructure, technological issues and regulatory hurdles and environmental concerns.
Vishwas Dass, a Delhi-based policy expert, told Al Jazeera that the current disruption must be used to accelerate domestic exploration and offer incentives for refining capabilities, and forging mineral alliances with trusted nations.
The Geological Survey of India (GSI) has already started exploration in the states of Assam and West Bengal.
“The exploration is part of India’s long-term strategic vision to achieve self-reliance in key sectors and aligns with the government’s policy of securing domestic mineral supplies for further technological and industrial needs,” Asit Saha, director general of GSI, told Al Jazeera.
Mahindra University’s Banik, however, says that processing of rare-earth metals will be a tricky issue. “It might take over a decade to completely set up the processing units of rare metals, but the technology of using rare earth in vehicles might become outdated by then.”
Few challenges test the limits of technology as severely as natural disasters. The day when humanity is fully prepared for them never seems to arrive. Even the most obvious assumptions can prove unreliable. Albrecht Beck, founder and CEO of Prepared International, UN adviser on natural disaster recovery and a regular speaker at the Disasters Expo, recalls that many lives were spared during Hawaii’s devastating 2023 wildfires precisely because the warning systems were not activated.
“In the case of the fires in Hawaii, there was no warning because the only disaster people there recognise as the primary threat has always been the tsunami,” Beck explains. “So, had an alert been issued, people would have fled towards the mountains—straight into the path of the fire.”
Collaboration is essential when facing a natural force capable of wreaking record levels of destruction. In California alone, damages this year have been estimated at an unprecedented $165 billion. According to the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, over 60,000 fires ignite across the EU each year, consuming an average of 500,000 hectares, claiming lives and generating losses of around €2 billion.
On 17 June, G7 leaders signed the Kananaskis Forest Fire Charter, marking a landmark commitment. The deployment of fire management technologies features prominently in this declaration. In parallel, initiatives such as the European Patent Office’s (EPO) Firefighting Technologies platform have been launched to gather the most promising ideas and make them available to companies and public authorities.
Prevention is key
It is striking that a reconstruction specialist such as Albrecht Beck places so much emphasis on the pre-disaster phase: “Afterwards, it is always too late. We must succeed during preparation, not once disaster has already struck on such a dramatic scale,” he insists.
When it comes to forest fires, prevention remains the major unresolved challenge in every country. Public spending on firefighting still outweighs prevention budgets by as much as six to one. The OECD has warned of the common practice of “fire loans”, in which funds earmarked for prevention are diverted to finance emergency response and recovery.
Innovation in wildfire management must be pursued from multiple disciplines. The Forest Science and Technology Centreof Catalonia, Spain, has launched 11 Living Labs as part of the FIRE-RES project. These open-air test sites allow firefighters, researchers, farmers and local communities to trial new approaches, including drone-based early detection systems, controlled burns and fire-resistant construction materials.
Meanwhile, Canada’s FPInnovations’ Wildfire Operations Research programme has employed industrial-grade cinema smoke machines to train fire-alert technologies in recognising wildfire signatures. The datasets generated are now available to technology developers keen to refine their artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
Data as a fireline
A digital ecosystem of data platforms will be indispensable in understanding and combating wildfires in the years ahead. The EU has launched the EFFIS programme, while the United States’ ACERO project is harnessing NASA’s expertise to develop an air traffic management system enabling drones to fight fires even in low light and poor visibility. ACERO has also acquired a portable airspace management system (PAMS), compact enough to fit in a briefcase, to support drone operators in the field.
Reliable real-time data is crucial. EURO1k is the first numerical weather model covering Europe and parts of North Africa with a one-kilometre resolution. Its developers claim it can accurately simulate small-scale weather events, including thunderstorms, hail and gales.
Satellite systems can now detect a fire in as little as one minute, while the ALERT network, run by the universities of Reno, Nevada and Oregon, has confirmed detections in under three minutes using cameras and sensors. Spain’s Technosylva combines geospatial and government data with GPS feeds from firefighters to generate real-time simulations guiding operational decisions. Its software, used by power companies, manages over 20,000 incidents worldwide each year.
Bringing detection and suppression technologies together is proving decisive. FireMap, developed by WIFIRE Lab—a spin-off of the San Diego Supercomputer Centre—uses AI to produce predictive maps of wildfire trajectories within minutes. Meanwhile, Stanford University researchers have developed a fire-retardant gel that acts as a protective barrier for forested areas..
Unmanned aviation takes on wildfires
Alongside the growth of data platforms, one of the most dynamic areas of innovation lies in unmanned aviation. China has begun mass production of the AG600 Kunlong, the world’s largest amphibious aircraft, developed by the Aviation Industry Corporationof China (AVIC). With a range of 4,500 kilometres, it can carry 12 tonnes of water for firefighting missions.
Drones may well prove the most effective tool for early fire mitigation. The Windracers Ultra fixed-wing drone can deliver over 100 kilograms of fire retardant and is fitted with artificial intelligence designed by the University of Sheffield. Using thermal and optical imaging, it can autonomously detect and evaluate wildfires.
The Ignis system, a funnel-shaped attachment fixed to the underside of a drone, can release 450 small incendiary capsules, known as “dragon eggs”, in about four minutes. Each contains two chemicals that ignite upon impact, creating controlled burns to deprive a larger fire of fuel.
Elsewhere, a Canadian company is developing quadcopter drones for wildfire suppression. Equipped with sensors and AI-driven swarm algorithms originally designed for defence, each drone is capable of lifting 400 kilograms—about a third of a conventional helicopter’s load—and can operate at night.
“Today’s technology can handle vastly greater volumes of data,” concludes Albrecht Beck. “Drone swarms can now provide continuous, real-time coverage, and artificial intelligence makes sense of it all. Just four or five years ago, it was overwhelming—we could not process it quickly enough during an emergency. Now, AI does that work for us.”
Nvidia reported another quarter of strong growth on Wednesday in the face of market jitters about demand for artificial intelligence and how its China chip business will navigate geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Booming sales of its AI chips have helped Nvidia withstand the hit to its business in China, and propelled it to become the world’s most valuable group by market capitalisation.
Chief executive Jensen Huang predicted spending on AI infrastructure would only increase in the coming years, as some investors question whether the pace of investment in chips and data centres is sustainable.
The $4tn tech giant said its revenue was $46.7bn for the quarter to July 28, up 56 per cent year on year and slightly above consensus estimates of $46.5bn, according to Visible Alpha.
Nvidia said it expected $54bn in sales for the current quarter, plus or minus 2 per cent, better than expectations of $53.8bn.
Despite the solid results, its shares fell 3 per cent in after-hours trading as the report left uncertainty over sales of Nvidia’s AI chips in China unresolved.
The Trump administration earlier this year blocked exports of the H20 chip, which Nvidia designed for the Chinese market. Nvidia then cut a deal to allow sales to resume in exchange for giving the US government 15 per cent of the revenues.
But it is still unclear how quickly these sales can recover.
Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said the fact that Nvidia did not include AI chip revenue from China in its financial guidance meant the forecast disappointed some investors’ expectations.
“That $54bn doesn’t include the H20 — and I was shocked that they didn’t,” he said. Many Wall Street revenue estimates had factored in about $2bn in additional revenue for the current quarter after the export restrictions were lifted, he added.
Nvidia chief financial officer Colette Kress told analysts on Wednesday that the company was still waiting on the US government to publish a “regulation” codifying the deal struck earlier this month.
If these issues were resolved, Nvidia could ship between $2bn and $5bn of its H20 chips to China during the current quarter, Kress said, with a “select number” of Chinese customers having received licences in recent weeks.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nvidia warned in an earnings filing that its agreement with the Trump administration could also “subject us to litigation, increase our costs and harm our competitive position”. Rival AMD has struck a similar deal.
Beijing has pushed back against Chinese companies using Nvidia chips, adding to the doubts over how much it will sell this year as wider trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing drag on.
Nvidia said that despite there being no revenue from the H20 in China during the quarter due to new US export controls, it had managed to sell $650mn of the chips to a customer outside of the country.
Its other revenue from customers whose billing locations are in China, which includes sales of its gaming chips, fell by 50 per cent from the previous quarter and was down 25 per cent year on year, to $2.8bn.
Nvidia’s stock has surged 35 per cent this year as of Wednesday’s close, helping drive gains in the broader market. But the shares have been sensitive to any negative news.
They took a hit last week during a widespread sell-off in companies linked to AI, after a negative report on the technology’s practical applications and comments by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman about investors overhyping it.
Nvidia’s growth has slowed relative to the astronomical figures it reported at the start of the AI boom two years ago.
Its future prospects depend on Big Tech groups such as Google and Amazon continuing their massive spending on AI hardware, alongside smaller cloud companies and governments.
Huang told analysts that the spending spree would continue. “The AI race is now on,” he said, adding that just four “hyperscaler” tech companies had doubled their “capex spend . . . to $600bn per year”.
The company’s next generation chip — known as “Vera Rubin” — is on track to ship next year. With customers building “ever greater-scale AI factories . . . we’ll be building millions and millions of Rubin GPU platforms”, Huang said.
More growth would come as other countries start to catch up to the US, which represents about 60 per cent of the world’s computing power, he predicted.
Global data centre revenue, which relates to Nvidia’s AI chip business, was $41.1bn, slightly under consensus estimates of $41.4bn. The slip was offset by better than expected revenue from its gaming segment.
Nvidia’s net income jumped 59 per cent from last year to $26.4bn, against forecasts of $23.5bn. Earnings per share were $1.08, while adjusted gross margin was 72.7 per cent, slightly above consensus estimates of 72.3 per cent.
Nvidia’s board has also authorised $60bn in share buybacks, up from the $50bn it announced during the same quarter last year.
The rollout of Blackwell Ultra, the latest generation of hardware using its most advanced Blackwell chips, was “ramping at full speed, and demand is extraordinary”, Huang said.
Blackwell hit technical snags early in its development due to the more complex infrastructure required to run ever-larger racks of interconnected chips.
Nvidia is working on a new chip based on Blackwell for the China market, that is more powerful than the H20 but still not as capable as its most advanced US chips. Trump has indicated that he is open to a similar revenue deal.
Leaders from France, Germany and Poland have travelled to Moldova to show support for the country’s accession to the EU and warn of Russia’s “relentless” efforts to undermine that ambition.
The visit comes as Moldova marks 34 years of independence from Moscow, declared as the Soviet Union fell apart.
But it is also taking place a month before critical parliamentary elections in which the EU and the Moldovan government fear pro-Russian elements could gain ground.
Flanked by European heads of state, Moldova’s pro-Western President Maia Sandu told her country that it proved EU membership was “not a distant dream, but a project we are working on”, one that is vital as a guarantee of security.
“The merciless war that Russia wages against Ukraine shows us daily that Europe means freedom and peace, whilst Putin’s Russia means war and death,” the president said.
Ukraine is close by, just across the border.
Last year Sandu called a referendum on enshrining the goal of EU membership in the constitution. The “yes” vote narrowly won.
Shortly after that vote, the president, who went to Harvard and used to work for the World Bank, won a second term after a tense second round.
There were allegations of Russian interference with evidence of everything from widespread disinformation campaigns to paying cash for votes, as our own team discovered on the ground.
Today, Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that is because Moscow “is trying relentlessly to undermine freedom and prosperity in Moldova,” as Vladimir Putin attempts to return it to Russia’s fold.
In response, Sandu is focused on forging strong relations with Europe.
In Chisinau she laid out the red carpet for her guests, greeting each of the leaders in turn before leading them up steps lined by soldiers standing to attention in white, elaborately embroidered capes.
Inside, in front of EU flags, President Emmanuel Macron described membership of the bloc as the “clear and sovereign choice” of Moldova and said he was there to convey “a message of solidarity and confidence” in that process from France.
Donald Tusk recalled how Poland’s own journey from beneath Moscow’s shadow towards EU accession had been littered with challenges, but worth the work. “You have chosen the right path,” said the Polish prime minister. “You chose peace not war, and we support your aspirations.”
Moldova has been a firm supporter of Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, fearful that its own land was also in Putin’s sights. Today, Merz said that Europe and the US were “putting everything” into trying to end the war there.
“We want to see the weapons in Ukraine finally to fall silent …ideally today…but not at any cost,” the chancellor warned. “We don’t want to see the capitulation of Ukraine. Such a capitulation would only buy time for Russia, and Putin would use that to prepare the next war.”
President Sandu’s party, PAS, are hoping that elections next month will give it a new mandate to push ahead with reforms and keep moving closer towards Europe, after the country began formal accession talks last year.
But polls suggest PAS will lose seats – and likely its majority – in parliament.
Which is why the president called in the European cavalry for Independence Day: keen to make Moldova’s path to EU membership as “irreversible” as she asserts.
Local sources report an Israeli operation in Kiswa, where six soldiers were killed by Israeli drones strikes a day before.
Published On 27 Aug 202527 Aug 2025
Israeli forces have conducted a series of strikes on a former army barracks in Kiswa, southwest of the Syrian capital of Damascus, according to Syria’s state-run al-Ekhbariya TV.
Video verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency showed Israeli aircraft attacking sites in the village on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a Syrian military source told Al Jazeera that the Israeli army carried out a landing operation in the barracks with the use of four helicopters.
According to the source, the Israeli army brought in dozens of soldiers and an unspecified amount of search equipment as it spent more than two hours at the site.
No clashes took place between the Israeli forces involved in the landing and the Syrian army forces.
The operation came a day after an Israeli drone strike killed six soldiers near Kiswa, and as Syrian officials in the government of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa have increasingly accused Israel of seeking to expand its control in the region.
In a statement on Wednesday, Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the strike “a gross violation of international law and the United Nations Charter”.
It added that the attack represented “a clear breach of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic”.
Israel has launched hundreds of strikes targeting military sites and assets across Syria since the fall of former leader Bashar al-Assad in December. It has also expanded its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights by seizing the demilitarised buffer zone, a move that violated a 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria.
On Monday, Syria’s Foreign Ministry said that Israel had sent 60 soldiers to take control of an area inside the Syrian border around Mount Hermon, near a strategic hilltop close to the border with Lebanon.
Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs Asaad al-Shaibani decried the “military incursion” as part of an effort by Israel to advance its “expansionist and partition plans”.
The latest Israel operations follow deadly clashes in the Druze-majority Syrian province of Suwayda, where 1,400 people were killed in a week of sectarian violence in July.
Nvidia recorded no China sales revenue for H20 chips and just narrowly beat Wall Street estimates as the AI chipmaker reported quarterly earnings Wednesday. Tied up H20 chip inventory intended to be sold to China before U.S. intervention in April was sold elsewhere, the company said.
Revenue increased 56% from the same period a year ago to $46.74 billion, exceeding Wall Street’s projection of $46.52 billion, per data compiled by Visible Alpha. Profits came in at $26.4 billion, a 40.8% increase from $18.78 billion last quarter. Nvidia posted diluted earnings per share at $1.08, beating projections of $1.02 for the second quarter. Nvidia’s gross margins grew to 72.4%, up significantly from 61% last quarter.
“Production of Blackwell Ultra is ramping at full speed, and demand is extraordinary,” CEO Jensen Huang said of the tech behemoth’s next-generation AI chip, which is used in data centers globally, in the earnings release. “The AI race is on, and Blackwell is the platform at its center.”
The top-line results received a lukewarm reaction from investors. Shares edged down over 3% to around the $175 mark in extended trading Wednesday evening.
“(The stock movements are) probably just an initial reaction to a so-so number,” Scott Bickley, advisory fellow at Info-Tech Research Group told Fortune before the earnings call. “Which is kind of insane that we’re viewing $46.7 billion in a quarter” as ‘so-so,’ he said.
The company’s automotive and robotics segment grew the most at 69% year-over-year.
Nvidia has been navigating trade restrictions on H20 shipments to China since April, and the company said no H20 chip revenue to China was included in the second-quarter figure. The company estimated $2 billion to $5 billion in value of H20 chips could be shipped to China this quarter, and that some China buyers received licenses over the past few weeks for these transactions.
“Expectations were sky-high, but Nvidia exceeded them again,” Michael Smith, senior portfolio manager and head of the growth equity team at Allspring Global Investments told Fortune. Allspring owns in Nvidia in some of the funds. “Margins are rising as Blackwell ramps, China remains a massive untapped opportunity post-export controls, and a $60 billion buyback is an extra sweetener amid record free cash flow.”
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Journalists in Gaza work and sleep in tents near various hospitals
“I never imagined that one day I would be living and working in a tent, deprived of the most basic human necessities – even water and a bathroom.
“It’s more like a greenhouse in the summer and a refrigerator in the winter,” journalist Abdullah Miqdad told the BBC.
After 22 months of war in Gaza, most journalists find themselves working in tents around hospitals in order to access the electricity and reliable internet connection they need to do their jobs.
Power has been cut off across Gaza, so hospitals, whose generators are still functioning, provide the electricity to charge phones and equipment, and offer high points with better mobile reception.
But working at hospitals has not afforded them safety, with Israeli strikes on hospitals and their compounds killing a number of journalists during the conflict.
On Monday, five journalists were among at least 20 people killed in a double Israeli strike on Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.
International news outlets, including the BBC, rely on local reporters within Gaza, as Israel does not allow them to send journalists into the territory except on rare occasions when they are embedded with Israeli troops.
‘As journalists, we feel we are targeted all the time’
At least 197 journalists and media workers have been killed since the war in Gaza began following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 – 189 of them Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza, according to the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Ahed Farwana of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate in Gaza told the BBC that he and his colleagues felt targeted by Israeli forces “which leaves us in constant fear for our own safety and that of our families”.
After nearly two years of war, journalists are exhausted from non-stop work, but demand for news coverage persists.
This has opened the door for young people in Gaza, some of whom had never worked in journalism before, to become reporters and photojournalists.
Some journalists work officially for local or international media outlets, but many are hired on temporary contracts. This means their employment is less predictable and the protective equipment, insurance, and resources they receive varies greatly.
“Every journalist in the world has the right to enjoy international protection. Unfortunately, the Israeli military does not treat journalists this way, especially when it comes to Palestinian journalists,” Ghada al-Kurd, a correspondent for German magazine Der Spiegel, told the BBC (for which she also sometimes works).
EPA, AP, Reuters
The five journalists killed in Monday’s double Israeli strike on Nasser hospital: Husam al-Masri, Mariam Abu Dagga, Ahmed Abu Aziz, Mohammad Salama and Moaz Abu Taha
Israel has repeatedly denied that its forces target journalists.
However, the Israeli military said it did target Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif in his media tent in Gaza City on 10 August, in a strike that also killed three other Al Jazeera staff, two freelancers, and one other man. The military alleged Sharif had “served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas”, which he had denied before his death.
The CPJ said Israel had failed to provide evidence to back up its allegation, and accused Israeli forces of targeting journalists in a “deliberate and systematic attempt to cover up Israel’s actions” in Gaza.
Reuters cameraman Husam al-Masri was killed in the first strike on Nasser hospital on Monday. The second strike, minutes later, killed rescue workers and four other journalists who had arrived at the scene – Mariam Abu Dagga, a freelancer working with the Associated Press; Al Jazeera cameraman Mohammad Salama; freelance journalist Ahmed Abu Aziz and freelance video journalist Moaz Abu Taha.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incident as a “tragic mishap”.
The Israeli military said on Tuesday that, after an initial inquiry, “it appears” troops struck “a camera that was positioned by Hamas in the area of the Nasser Hospital that was being used to observe the activity of [Israeli] troops”. It also identified six people whom it said were “terrorists” killed in the strikes. None of the five journalists were among them.
The military provided no evidence and gave no explanation for the second strike.
Journalists work inside the tent of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, whose secretary in Gaza says they feel “constantly targeted”
“When you’re working inside a tent, you never know what might happen at any moment. Your tent or its surroundings could be bombed – what do you do then?” says Abdullah Miqdad, who is a correspondent for Qatar-based Al-Araby TV.
“In front of the camera, I have to be highly focused, mentally alert, and quick-witted despite the exhaustion. But the harder part is staying aware of everything happening around me and thinking about what I could do if the place I’m in is targeted,” he told the BBC.
‘We ourselves are hungry and in pain’
Last Friday, famine was confirmed in Gaza City for the first time by a UN-backed body responsible for monitoring food security.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) reported that more than 500,000 people in the Gaza Strip were facing “starvation, destitution and death”.
The journalists in Gaza are suffering the same extreme hunger as those they are covering.
“A cup of coffee mixed with ground chickpeas, or a glass of unsweetened tea, might be all you can consume during an entire workday,” says independent journalist Ahmed Jalal.
“We suffer from severe headaches and fatigue, unable to walk from the sheer hunger,” he told the BBC, “but we still carry on with our work.”
Ahmed has been displaced many times with his family, yet each time he has continued his journalistic work while trying to secure food, water and shelter for his family.
“My heart breaks from the intense pain when I report the killing of fellow journalists, and my mind tells me I might be next… The pain consumes me inside, but I hide it from the camera and keep working.”
“I feel suffocated, exhausted, hungry, scared – and I can’t even stop to rest.”
‘We have lost the ability to express our feelings’
Ghada Al-Kurd
Ghada Al-Kurd is a correspondent for the German magazine Der Spiegel and also works with other international organisations, including the BBC
Ghada Al-Kurd says two years of covering news about death and hunger has changed her.
“During this war, we have lost the ability to express our emotions,” Ghada told the BBC. “We are in a constant state of shock. Maybe we will regain this ability after the war ends.”
Until that day comes, Ghada holds back her fear for her two daughters and her grief for her brother and his family, whose bodies she believes are still buried under rubble following an Israeli strike in northern Gaza early in the war.
“The war has changed our psyches and personalities. We will need a long period of healing to return to who we were before 7 October 2023.”
The Solidarity Media Center – an example of a tent Gazan journalists are living and working in
Photojournalist Amer Sultan in Gaza assisted in preparing the report.
