Tag: perpetual war

Nations meet at UN for ‘killer robot’ talks as regulation lags

Countries are meeting at the United Nations on Monday to revive efforts to regulate the kinds of AI-controlled autonomous weapons increasingly used in modern warfare, as experts warn time is running out to put guardrails on new lethal technology.

Autonomous and artificial intelligence-assisted weapons systems are already playing a greater role in conflicts from Ukraine to Gaza. And rising defence spending worldwide promises to provide a further boost for burgeoning AI-assisted military technology.

Progress towards establishing global rules governing their development and use, however, has not kept pace. And internationally binding standards remain virtually non-existent.

Since 2014, countries that are part of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) have been meeting in Geneva to discuss a potential ban fully autonomous systems that operate without meaningful human control and regulate others.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has set a 2026 deadline for states to establish clear rules on AI weapon use. But human rights groups warn that consensus among governments is lacking.

Alexander Kmentt, head of arms control at Austria’s foreign ministry, said that must quickly change.

“Time is really running out to put in some guardrails so that the nightmare scenarios that some of the most noted experts are warning of don’t come to pass,” he told Reuters.

Monday’s gathering of the U.N. General Assembly in New York will be the body’s first meeting dedicated to autonomous weapons.

Though not legally binding, diplomatic officials want the consultations to ramp up pressure on military powers that are resisting regulation due to concerns the rules could dull the technology’s battlefield advantages.

Campaign groups hope the meeting, which will also address critical issues not covered by the CCW, including ethical and human rights concerns and the use of autonomous weapons by non-state actors, will push states to agree on a legal instrument.

They view it as a crucial litmus test on whether countries are able to bridge divisions ahead of the next round of CCW talks in September.

“This issue needs clarification through a legally binding treaty. The technology is moving so fast,” said Patrick Wilcken, Amnesty International’s Researcher on Military, Security and Policing.

“The idea that you wouldn’t want to rule out the delegation of life or death decisions … to a machine seems extraordinary.”

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Senators Cotton & Graham Work To Sabotage Chances Of Iran Deal

Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), two of the most hawkish members of Congress, are working together to sabotage the Trump administration’s chances of reaching a deal with Iran.

On Thursday, the senators held a press conference outlining a resolution they’re introducing that demands that any deal with Iran must include the total dismantlement of Tehran’s nuclear enrichment program, an idea that Iranian officials have made clear is a non-starter.

“To the Iranian regime: you claim all you want is a peaceful nuclear power program. You can have it, but you cannot enrich and you must dismantle,” Graham said. “And you must dismantle now.”

Graham and Cotton said that any deal must require ratification from the Senate and must also impose limits on Iran’s ballistic missile program and support for its allies in the region, conditions that are also a non-starter for Tehran.

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Rumors Swirl After Prediction That Trump Will Recognize Palestinian State, Fundamentally Change Balance of Power in Middle East

Could President Donald Trump officially recognize Palestine as an independent state on his trip to the Middle East? That’s what some analysts are predicting as a lively debate rages in the Arab media sphere over just how far the U.S. president will go while abroad.

There had already been some writing on the wall that Trump’s Middle East tour — which includes visits to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates — was not coming in the midst of a period of unalloyed harmony between the administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Hebrew-language Israeli media reported Thursday that “the U.S. president is disappointed with Prime Minister Netanyahu” after he pressured now-former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to sign off on an all-out military action by Israel against Iran.

The Washington Post also reported that, prior to a White House meeting between Trump and Netanyahu in March, Waltz looked to be “engaged in intense coordination with Netanyahu about military options against Iran,” something Trump opposed.

A source said Waltz “wanted to take U.S. policy in a direction Trump wasn’t comfortable with because the U.S. hadn’t attempted a diplomatic solution … It got back to Trump and the president wasn’t happy with it.”

That makes many wonder if Trump will use the occasion to join the 147 U.N. members which consider Palestine to be a legitimate state, albeit with some conditions.

The closest report we’ve seen to something like this comes from an unnamed “Gulf diplomatic source” who talked anonymously with American-based Middle East-centric news outlet The Media Line — who said he felt confident in predicting that outcome.

“President Donald Trump will issue a declaration regarding the State of Palestine and American recognition of it, and that there will be the establishment of a Palestinian state without the presence of Hamas,” he said in an article published Friday evening.

“If an announcement of American recognition of the state of Palestine is made, it will be the most important declaration that will change the balance of power in the Middle East, and more countries will join the Abraham Accords.”

Other sources disagreed — including a former Gulf diplomat willing to go on record, unlike the anonymous source predicting U.S. endorsement of Palestinian statehood.

Ahmed Al-Ibrahim, a former diplomat, said he thought this would be about tariffs and trade.

“I don’t expect it to be about Palestine,” the source said.

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Kiev tried to intimidate foreign leaders in Moscow – Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the Ukrainian government of attempting to intimidate foreign leaders who traveled to Moscow for Victory Day celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany.

Putin criticized Kiev for escalating attacks ahead and during Russia’s unilaterally declared ceasefire period, which included numerous drone strikes on multiple regions and five attempted ground incursions into Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions. These actions, he told journalists in the early hours of Sunday, were intended not only to provoke militarily but also to pressure the foreign dignitaries in attendance.

“The Kiev authorities not only rejected our proposal for a ceasefire, but also, as we all saw, they tried to intimidate the leaders of states gathered for the celebrations in Moscow,” Putin said.

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Israeli Government Approves Plan for Full Military Occupation of Gaza

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said once the new offensive begins, it will not end until the Strip is ‘conquered’

The Israeli government has approved plans to expand the genocidal war on Gaza that Israeli officials say will lead to the full Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territory.

The plan involves capturing more territory in Gaza, expanding the so-called “buffer zone” where the IDF has demolished virtually every structure, and forcibly displacing Palestinian civilians to move them all to a small area of southern Gaza.

Axios later reported that the Israeli plan involves flattening every single building that remains in Gaza, forcing the entire civilian population into one single area, and pressuring them to leave as part of an ethnic cleansing plan, though it’s unclear what countries are willing to take them.

An Israeli official told Haaretz that the plan is different from previous Israeli military operations because it will lead to “the occupation of territory and a sustained Israeli presence in Gaza.”

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel is “finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip” and that it was “no longer afraid of the word ‘occupation.’”

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Why did 30 Met officers kick the door down at a teenage tea and biscuits meeting in a Quaker house?

When six young women gathered in central London to discuss the climate crisis and the war in Gaza, the setting could not have been more appropriate. The building in which they sat was a Quaker meeting house, the home of a movement whose centuries-long history is rooted in protest and a commitment to social justice. On the table were cups of jasmine tea, ginger biscuits and a selection of vegan cheese straws.

But the events that brought this apparently convivial gathering to an abrupt end have sparked protests of a different kind and raised questions about how justice is administered by the UK’s largest and most embattled police force.

Talk among the youth activists that evening had turned to the 1963 Children’s March in Birmingham, Alabama, when a flash of blue light interrupted the chatter. Seconds later up to 30 Metropolitan police officers, some armed with stun guns, smashed down the door of the Grade II-listed building and arrested the young women inside.

One of the six, 18-year-old Zahra Ali, was held in a cell for 17 hours. Another was “rear stacked”, hands cuffed behind her back and held against the wall in what she described as an hour-long ordeal. Phones were seized and laptops bagged as evidence.

The raid, described as “intelligence-led”, was targeting the protest group Youth Demand. The members in attendance were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. Five remain under investigation.

Six weeks on, the operation has drawn criticism from religious groups, politicians and activists. The need for such a severe course of action, meted out in a place of worship, remains a concern, not least for those who were targeted.

“I was the last one to be taken into custody,” said Ali, the youngest of the six women. “I got to the station about 10pm-ish and I had to wait two hours to be booked in. I was taken to a freezing cold cell for hours. I wasn’t allowed a personal call. I didn’t get to speak to my solicitor until he came in person.

“We saw the blue lights a second before they marched in. We were just a bunch of young people talking about our government, about protesting, and they arrested us for that.

“I think had they rung the bell we would have let them in, obviously … They didn’t have to raid us. It’s six young women in a room, in a place that we hired, that we publicly advertised, and they could have just sat in and listened to us. I don’t really see any conspiracy in that.”

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Trump Announces US-Mediated ‘Full and Immediate Ceasefire’ Between Warring Nuclear Powers India and Pakistan

The situation between warring neighbors (and nuclear powers) India and Pakistan seemed to be devolving into an open war, as the two countries targeted military bases and exchanged missile and drone attacks.

This military conflict arose after a deadly terrorist attack on tourists in the disputed Kashmir region, raising concerns of a full-blown military confrontation between the two nations that have Historically had a tumultuous relationship, marked by multiple conflicts since their partition in 1947.

But the efforts by the US Donald J. Trump administration have made a difference: after a full night of negotiations mediated by Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a ceasefire has been achieved.

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Students uncover Chinese espionage at Stanford University

Students at Stanford University have allegedly uncovered a pattern of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attempting to gain sensitive information about American research.

CCP agents reportedly impersonate students at the university to gain trust from students and staff and steal information as part of a “nontraditional collection effort,” while others are already connected with Chinese nationals studying in the U.S., according to The Stanford Review. The report states that several Chinese students studying at Stanford are currently acting as spies for the CCP.

Those affiliated with the CCP attempt to gain access to sensitive STEM research, particularly AI, as well as gather intel into U.S. research on China, the Review reported.

In one instance, a Chinese agent impersonated a student at the university and attempted to pressure a Stanford student, who was involved in “sensitive research on China,” into flying to Beijing, the Review found. The man advised the student to limit her trip to between 24 to 144 hours “to avoid visa scrutiny by authorities” and tried to keep communications solely on a CCP-monitored app.

After the student tipped off authorities, it was revealed the man had apparently been impersonating a Stanford student for years and had targeted multiple students, mainly women focused on China-related research, the Review said.

One “China expert” who spoke to the Stanford Review claimed that several of the university’s Chinese students are actively reporting information back to the CCP. More than 1,000 Chinese nationals study at Stanford.

“Many Chinese [nationals] have handlers; they [CCP] want to know everything that’s going on at Stanford,” one unnamed Chinese national attending Stanford told the Review. “This is a very normal thing. They just relay the information they have.”

In 2020, Stanford student researcher and Chinese national Chen Song was indicted for attempting to conceal her affiliation with the Chinese military. During her time in the U.S., the student allegedly sent multiple updates on her research in medical science to Chinese government officials.

Despite her crime carrying the penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000, Song’s charges were dropped under the Biden administration over technicalities stemming from a visa application question.

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Dying in ‘Hell’: The fate of Palestinian medics jailed by Israel

The head of orthopaedics at Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital was working at the al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza in December when he and other medics were arrested by the Israeli army for, they said, “national security reasons”.

Four months later, Ofer Prison guards dragged Al-Bursh and dumped him in the prison yard, naked from the waist down, bleeding and unable to stand, according to a statement provided by Israeli human rights organisation, HaMoked.

Recognising him, some of the other prisoners carried Al-Bursh to a nearby room, and he died moments later.

Dr Al-Bursh had become a fixture in the lives of many through the video diaries he posted before his arrest.

His videos showed him with his colleagues, digging mass graves in the al-Shifa yard to bury people because Israel would not let their bodies be taken to a cemetery, operating on the injured and the dying with little or no equipment, and waiting together for the Israeli assault on a hospital where thousands had sought safety.

The assault came in mid-November when, in scenes captured by Dr Al-Bursh, the Israeli army ordered al-Shifa, its patients, staff and approximately 50,000 displaced people sheltering in the compound to vacate.

Dr Al-Bursh made his way to the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza where he worked until that too came under fire in November and he moved to Al-Awda Hospital.

There he was arrested and entered a prison system that Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem describes as “Hell”.

Israel often detains healthcare workers like Dr Al-Bursh, holding them in horrific conditions for “investigation”.

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Controversial Aid Plan For Gaza Revealed In New Document, Includes American CEOs & Banks

The organization set to administer Israel’s controversial plan to take control of humanitarian aid distribution in Gaza will use private contractors to secure hubs where Palestinians will receive 1,750 kcal meals that will cost donors a little more than a dollar each.

Details about the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) strategy for Gaza are laid out in a 14-page document circulating amongst aid organizations working on Gaza and seen by Middle East Eye.

The hitherto unknown nonprofit, which was registered in Switzerland in February, has been touted as the umbrella body that will seemingly take over humanitarian operations in Gaza while inviting NGOs to “take advantage” of its “logistics, security and transparency frameworks”.

The pitch-like document offers detailed information about how the foundation, largely led by Americans and involving a mix of disaster relief, security and financial experts, will operate and how it is organized, though some details appear yet to be finalized. The document is undated.

The new details have emerged as UN agencies and international aid organizations, which have roundly rejected the plan that GHF would administer, reportedly coming under pressure from the US government to participate. Earlier this week, Amnesty Switzerland raised concerns that, based on the information available, GHF could be risking contributing to international crimes through its services. 

The Israeli operation appears to already be underway. Israel security cabinet approved its plan on Sunday with satellite evidence emerging on Wednesday suggesting that work has already begun to build the humanitarian hubs from which aid will be distributed.

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