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Clearing Gaza rubble could take 15 years, UN agency says

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 18:32
The war debris contains unexploded ordnance, harmful substances and bodies, according to a UN report.

Israel seeks to rewrite the laws of war

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 18:18
If the world accepts the way Israel now interprets the principle of proportionality, genocide will become justified.

At least 100 wounded as Bangladesh students protest government job quotas

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 17:09
Demonstrators say the quota system benefits the children of pro-government groups and demand it be scrapped.

From basement to battlefield: Ukrainian startups create low-cost robots to fight Russia

Technology - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 17:03
Northern Ukraine — Struggling with manpower shortages, overwhelming odds and uneven international assistance, Ukraine hopes to find a strategic edge against Russia in an abandoned warehouse or a factory basement. An ecosystem of laboratories in hundreds of secret workshops is leveraging innovation to create a robot army that Ukraine hopes will kill Russian troops and save its own wounded soldiers and civilians. Defense startups across Ukraine — about 250 according to industry estimates — are creating the killing machines at secret locations that typically look like rural car repair shops. Employees at a startup run by entrepreneur Andrii Denysenko can put together an unmanned ground vehicle called the Odyssey in four days at a shed used by the company. Its most important feature is the price tag: $35,000, or roughly 10% of the cost of an imported model. Denysenko asked that The Associated Press not publish details of the location to protect the infrastructure and the people working there. The site is partitioned into small rooms for welding and body work. That includes making fiberglass cargo beds, spray-painting the vehicles gun-green and fitting basic electronics, battery-powered engines, off-the-shelf cameras and thermal sensors. The military is assessing dozens of new unmanned air, ground and marine vehicles produced by the no-frills startup sector, whose production methods are far removed from giant Western defense companies. A fourth branch of Ukraine's military — the Unmanned Systems Forces — joined the army, navy and air force in May. Engineers take inspiration from articles in defense magazines or online videos to produce cut-price platforms. Weapons or smart components can be added later. "We are fighting a huge country, and they don't have any resource limits. We understand that we cannot spend a lot of human lives," said Denysenko, who heads the defense startup UkrPrototyp. "War is mathematics." One of its drones, the car-sized Odyssey, spun on its axis and kicked up dust as it rumbled forward in a cornfield in the north of the country last month. The 800-kilogram (1,750-pound) prototype that looks like a small, turretless tank with its wheels on tracks can travel up to 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) on one charge of a battery the size of a small beer cooler. The prototype acts as a rescue-and-supply platform but can be modified to carry a remotely operated heavy machine gun or sling mine-clearing charges. "Squads of robots … will become logistics devices, tow trucks, minelayers and deminers, as well as self-destructive robots," a government fundraising page said after the launch of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces. "The first robots are already proving their effectiveness on the battlefield." Mykhailo Fedorov, the deputy prime minister for digital transformation, is encouraging citizens to take free online courses and assemble aerial drones at home. He wants Ukrainians to make a million of flying machines a year. "There will be more of them soon," the fundraising page said. "Many more." Denysenko's company is working on projects including a motorized exoskeleton that would boost a soldier's strength and carrier vehicles to transport a soldier's equipment and even help them up an incline. "We will do everything to make unmanned technologies develop even faster. [Russia's] murderers use their soldiers as cannon fodder, while we lose our best people," Fedorov wrote in an online post. Ukraine has semi-autonomous attack drones and counter-drone weapons endowed with AI and the combination of low-cost weapons and artificial intelligence tools is worrying many experts who say low-cost drones will enable their proliferation. Technology leaders to the United Nations and the Vatican worry that the use of drones and AI in weapons could reduce the barrier to killing and dramatically escalate conflicts. Human Rights Watch and other international rights groups are calling for a ban on weapons that exclude human decision making, a concern echoed by the U.N. General Assembly, Elon Musk and the founders of the Google-owned, London-based startup DeepMind. "Cheaper drones will enable their proliferation," said Toby Walsh, professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. "Their autonomy is also only likely to increase."

Is America’s gun fixation backfiring on its pushers?

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 16:31
The assassination attempt on Trump may not have happened, had there been actual gun control in the country.

Who was Thomas Matthew Crooks, the suspected Trump rally gunman?

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 16:23
Here’s what we know about Thomas Matthew Crooks, the suspected Trump rally gunman.

UEFA Euro 2024: Top-5 takeaways – Spain win, Yamal outdoes Ronaldo, Mbappe

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 16:18
From Spain's Lamine Yamal to Cristiano Ronaldo's and Kylian Mbappe's failures, Euro 2024 wasn't short on talking points.

Key questions over Trump rally security after assassination attempt

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 16:05
Video showing an armed man on a roof near to where Donald Trump was on stage have raised more questions over security

Florida judge dismisses Trump classified documents case

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 15:20
Trump faced 31 counts of willful retention of national defence information, each punishable by upto 10 years in prison.

Video: Israel keeps attacking UN school shelters in Gaza

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 14:39
Palestinians say at least 17 people have been killed in a new Israeli attack on a UN school shelter in Gaza.

France’s Olympic Gamble

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 14:00
People & Power investigates the costs and benefits of the Parisian Olympics, and if global sporting events are worth it.

Gambia’s parliament upholds ban on female genital mutilation

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 13:40
MPs vote to kill the Women's (Amendment) Bill, which had sought to decriminalise the practice of female circumcision.

Orban’s ‘peacemaking’ mission: Did Hungary’s leader achieve anything?

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 12:37
Hungary's leader widens rift between Budapest and Brussels by visiting Putin and Xi amid Ukraine war.

Israel strikes five schools in week of ‘massacres’

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 12:25
The latest attack on a UN-run school in Nuseirat camp kills 17, wounds about 80.

Target of million Welsh speakers may become law

Education - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 12:24
All schoolchildren would have “fair opportunity” to become “confident” Welsh speakers under new law.

Suspected serial killer ‘confessed’ to murder of 42 women in Kenya: Police

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 12:07
Police says nine bodies had been recovered so far and that autopsies are under way in Nairobi.

Paris 2024 Olympics: Key issues – Israel, Russia, Seine, hijab ban, workers

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 11:34
As Paris gets closer to hosting its third Olympics, Al Jazeera looks at the five biggest talking points.

FBI probing Trump shooting as ‘domestic terrorism’ as RNC opens

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 11:19
Evidence thus far points to the suspect acting alone, says the FBI, but it has yet to identify a motive.

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 871

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 10:59
As the war enters its 871st day, these are the main developments.

As Rwanda votes, tensions with neighbouring DR Congo deepen over M23

Around The Globe - Mon, 07/15/2024 - 10:50
A recent UN report accuses Rwanda of aiding M23 rebel group that's battling Congolese forces in eastern DRC.

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