The 10 most important things in the world right now

Advertisement

Eclipse

Reuters/Beawiharta Beawiharta

A total solar eclipse is seen from the beach of Ternate island, Indonesia, March 9, 2016.

Advertisement

Good morning! Here's what you need to know on Thursday.

1. Saudi Arabia is seeking a bank loan of $6 billion to $8 billion, in what would be the first significant foreign borrowing by the kingdom's government for over a decade. Riyadh has asked lenders to submit proposals to extend it a five-year US dollar loan of that size.

2. Twitter has been offering additional restricted stock and cash bonus to employees to prevent staff departure, the Wall Street Journal reports. Employees are being offered cash bonuses of between $50,000 and $200,000 to stick around another six months to a year.

3. EU interior ministers are set to meet in Brussels Thursday to discuss the migrant crisis after western Balkan nations slammed shut their borders, exacerbating a dire humanitarian situation on the Macedonian frontier.

Advertisement

4. Tens of thousands of documents containing the names, addresses, phone numbers, and family contacts of jihadis who joined the Islamic State have been given to Sky News. Sky reported that a disillusioned former member had handed over the documents on a memory stick that had been stolen from the head of the group's internal security police.

5. Tech giant Samsung has seen stronger-than-expected preorders for its new flagship Galaxy S7 smartphones launching this week, a senior company executive said on Thursday.

6. Maria Sharapova posted a Facebook message on Wednesday evening thanking her fans for their support after she announced she had failed a drug test. The Russian wrote a long, scrambled note about reading emails, going to the gym, online shopping, and being followed by paparazzi.

7. Apple's online-services boss has warned that if the FBI were to get its way, Apple might be forced to use an iPhone's camera or microphone to spy on people. In an interview broadcast on Univision, Eddy Cue defended Apple's refusal to cooperate with the FBI and extract data from an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.

8. Stephen Hawking was among 150 academics to declare support for Britain remaining in the European Union on Thursday in a letter to The Times newspaper which said leaving the bloc would damage science and research.

Advertisement

9. The CEO of Greenlight Digital, which last week bought part of failed London tech business Powa Technologies, says just one of Powa's three main businesses made any money.

10. In a major milestone for artificial-intelligence research Google's DeepMind AI division defeated a human world champion at Chinese strategy game Go. DeepMind's "AlphaGo" AI won the game in Seoul, South Korea, by resignation after 186 moves.

And finally ... Meet Laurene Powell Jobs, the mysterious woman who inherited Steve Jobs' fortune.

NOW WATCH: This is how rapper 50 Cent made millions and then lost it