Bird flu infects 3rd US dairy worker

A third US dairy worker tested positive for bird flu after exposure to infected cows, and was the first to suffer respiratory problems, US officials said yesterday. The infection was the second human case in Michigan, which has confirmed more cases of bird flu in cattle than any other state. It also expands the symptoms for human cases, after the two workers who previously tested positive experienced only conjunctivitis, or pink eye, and recovered.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683704/international/bird-flu-infects-3rd-us-dairy-worker

Robots play soccer at Geneva AI showcase

Teams of robots jostled on a miniature artificial soccer pitch as androids answered trivia questions and took jabs at human ignorance yesterday at an artificial intelligence (AI) summit on the technology’s wide-ranging uses.Organisers said the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva showed the ways the technology could improve and even transform lives.“Sometimes we think about AI as just something big,” said Tomas Lamanauskas, deputy secretary-general of the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) which staged the event. “At the same time AI can be embedded in so many more things in everyday life ... whether it’s for flood forecasting, disaster management and early-warning systems, in agriculture, in health. It’s across the board.”Displays showed off prosthetic limbs that could learn from a user’s behaviour and adapt to muscle activity, devices to help visually impaired people avoid obstacles in the street and bionic cats and dogs built to act as companions.The football-playing robots were the work of a group of students from the university of ETH Zurich.The team kicked, passed and kept track of the ball based on input from sensors.“The project allows our undergraduate and graduate students to collect experience on a full robotic platform,” Jan-Nico Zaech, the project’s scientific supervisor, said. “It’s a platform to test algorithms that can run in the real world afterwards.”Meanwhile, a top UN official warned that humanity is in a race against time to harness the colossal emerging power of AI for the good of all, while averting dire risks.“We’ve let the genie out of the bottle,” said ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin.“We are in a race against time,” she told the opening of a two-day AI for Good Global Summit. “Recent developments in AI have been nothing short of extraordinary.”The thousands gathered at the conference heard how advances in generative AI are already speeding up efforts to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as climate change, hunger and social care.“I believe we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to guide AI to benefit all the world’s people,” Bogdan-Martin told AFP ahead of the summit.However, she lamented that one-third of humanity still remains completely offline, and is “excluded from the AI revolution without a voice”.“This digital and technological divide is no longer acceptable.”Bogdan-Martin highlighted that AI holds “immense potential for both good and bad”, stressing that it was vital to “make AI systems safe”.She said that was especially important given that “2024 is the biggest election year in history”, with votes in dozens of countries, including in the United States.She flagged the “rise of sophisticated deep fakes disinformation campaigns” and warned that the “misuse of AI threaten democracy (and) also endangers young people’s mental health and compromises cybersecurity”.Other experts at the conference agreed.“We have to understand what we’re steering towards,” said Tristan Harris, a technology ethicist who co-founded the Centre for Humane Technology.He pointed to lessons from social media – initially touted as a way to connect people and give everyone a voice, but which also brought addiction, viral misinformation, online harassment and ballooning mental health issues.Harris warned the incentive driving the companies rolling out the technology risked dramatically swelling such negative impacts.“The number one thing that is driving Open AI or Google behaviour is the race to actually achieve market dominance,” he said.In such a world, he said, “governance that moves at the speed of technology” is vital.Azeem Azhar, founder of Exponential View, also stressed the need for a more robust institutional response.“This is a technology that tends to winner-take all, and the rewards are so high that there is quite the unseemly landgrab going on at the moment,” he told the gathering. – Reuters/AFP

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683720/international/robots-play-soccer-at-geneva-ai-showcase

India’s gruelling election campaign comes to an end

More than two months of gruelling and acrimonious campaigning in India’s general election that played out in sweltering heat ended yesterday, two days before the final phase of polling, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency will cast its votes.India began voting in seven phases in the world’s largest election on April 19 and it is set to conclude on June 1. Votes will be counted on June 4 although television channels conduct exit polls and project results after voting ends.Modi, who is seeking a record-equalling third straight term and is widely expected to win, began his re-election campaign by focusing on his achievements over the last 10 years but soon switched to mostly targeting the opposition by accusing them of favouring India’s minority Muslims.This change of tack, analysts said, was likely aimed at firing up his Hindu nationalist base after a low turnout in the first phase sparked concerns that supporters of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were not voting.India’s election rules stop campaigning about 36 hours before voting begins.Modi addressed one rally in the northern state of Punjab yesterday, while his main opponent, the Congress party’s Rahul Gandhi, spoke at rallies in the states of Odisha and Punjab.“It is clear from the overwhelming support of people ... that there is going to be an unprecedented victory” for BJP and the alliance it leads, Modi posted on X minutes before campaigning ended. Modi will spend the next two days meditating at the southernmost tip of India at an island memorial for Hindu philosopher Swami Vivekananda, located at where the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean converge.Opposition parties criticised his decision, saying it was a form of campaigning as his meditation would be shown on TV and so was in breach of the rules, with the Congress complaining to the Election Commission.“This is a blatant violation of the code of conduct. We don’t mind if he goes to meditate anywhere after June 1,” Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh said.Modi meditated at a cave in the Himalayas two days before the last phase of voting in 2019, an election BJP won resoundingly.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683716/international/indias-gruelling-election-campaign-comes-to-an-end

UK Parliament dissolved ahead of election

The UK Parliament was formally dissolved on Thursday ahead of the July 4 general election.Five weeks of campaigning officially began as 650 seats of members of parliament (MPs) became vacant in line with the electoral schedule.UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made surprise decision last week calling for a snap general election.Some 129 MPs have so far announced that they will not be standing for re-election. Among them are 77 Conservatives, an unprecedented exodus for a governing party.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683656/international/uk-parliament-dissolved-ahead-of-election

ANC dominance in the balance on vote day

South African voters queued — many of them for hours — to cast their ballots yesterday in a landmark general election that leaves the ruling ANC fighting to protect its three-decade-long exclusive grip on power.More than 27mn voters are registered for the most uncertain poll since the African National Congress (ANC) led the nation out of apartheid rule, but with voting delayed in many districts, some were forced to wait.With opposition challenges from both the left and right, unemployment and crime at near record levels and a new generation growing up with no memory of the struggle against white-minority rule, the ruling party may lose its absolute majority and be forced to share power.The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said it projected turnout to go “well beyond” the 66 percent recorded in the last election in 2019.“We are experiencing a late surge and are processing a large number of voters” in big cities, IEC’s head Sy Mamabolo told a press conference.Thousands of South Africans were still waiting in hours-long queues outside polling stations after nightfall, just over an hour away from their planned closure.All those who joined the line before closing time would be allowed to vote, Mamabolo said.Earlier the IEC said seven percent of stations opened late because of delays in delivering election materials.After voting, President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is seeking re-election, said: “I have no doubt whatsoever in my heart of hearts that the people will once again invest confidence in the ANC to continue leading this country.”But John Steenhuisen, leader of the biggest opposition party the Democratic Alliance (DA), predicted no single party would win an outright majority, creating an opening for his party and an alliance of smaller outfits.“For the first time in 30 years, there’s an opportunity for change in South Africa”, he said after voting in his home city, Durban.In Soweto, the president’s hometown and unofficial capital of the anti-apartheid battle, elderly ANC loyalists turned out early but, as the queues lengthened, there were signs of disillusionment among younger voters.Kqomotso Mtumba, a 44-year-old bank official, sporting burgundy and black beaded braids, said she voted ANC in the past but had now chosen an “upcoming party” whose manifesto had impressed her. “The last party I voted for, their promises didn’t work out so I’ll be trying this one,” she said.In the eastern city of Durban, accountant and first time voter 25-year-old Sibahle Vilakazi, said she had abandoned the long queue at her polling station three times already but was now back and determined to stick it out.“We’re honestly in need of change in this country and I think that is why the queues are so long,” she said. “I’m not giving up, we need to see the change.”Voters will choose the 400 members of the National Assembly who in the coming weeks will then choose a president from among their number.For the first time since the advent of democracy in 1994, the ANC could be forced to negotiate a coalition to remain in government.“South Africa’s general election is a watershed moment in the political history of the country,” said Aleix Montana, an analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft. Under the leadership of the late Nelson Mandela, the ANC won freedom for black South Africans after decades of apartheid, then lifted millions out of poverty by creating a broad social welfare system.But many in the nation of 62mn are fed up with high unemployment, currently at 32.9%, rampant crime, corruption scandals, and regular power cuts and water shortages.The economy grew a meagre 0.6% in 2023, and polls suggest the ANC could win as little as 40% of the vote, down from 57% in 2019.If the ANC wins fewer than 201 seats, Ramaphosa would have to negotiate with opposition parties and independent MPs to secure a majority. On the right, the DA has vowed to “Rescue South Africa” through clean governance, privatisation and deregulation but has struggled to shake off its image as a party for the white minority.Polls put DA support below 25%.On the left, it is bleeding support to former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) and Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which are pushing for land redistribution and nationalisations. Polls estimate these two parties are tied at around 10%.Malema waited alongside ordinary voters for four hours to cast his ballot.“We are calling on the IEC to be more efficient and try to reduce the queues,” he said outside his polling station. Long queues were causing people to leave before voting, which compromised the freedom and fairness of the elections, he added.Were the ANC to come close to 50% it could strike an easier deal with some of the dozens of smaller groups in the running. Full results are not expected before the weekend.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683644/international/anc-dominance-in-the-balance-on-vote-day

French, German leaders say allow Ukraine to hit inside Russia

France and Germany’s leaders said on Tuesday Ukraine should be allowed to hit military sites inside Russia from which missiles were being fired at Ukrainian territory, but not other targets.Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West earlier in the day that Nato members in Europe were playing with fire by proposing to let Ukraine use Western-supplied weapons to strike inside Russia, which he said could trigger a global conflict.“We support Ukraine and we don’t want escalation, that hasn’t changed,” French President Emmanuel Macron said at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Meseberg, Germany.“We think we should allow them to neutralise military sites from which missiles are fired, military sites from which Ukraine is attacked, but we shouldn’t allow them to hit other targets in Russia and civilian or other military sites in Russia.”Scholz said he agreed with Macron and that as long as Ukraine respected the conditions given by countries that supplied the weapons, including the United States, and international law, it was allowed to defend itself. “Ukraine has every possibility under international law for what it is doing. That has to be said explicitly,” Scholz said.“I find it strange when some people argue that it should not be allowed to defend itself and take measures that are suitable for this.” Over two years into the deadliest land war in Europe since World War Two, as the West considers what to do about Russian military advances in Ukraine, Putin is increasingly evoking the risk of a global war, while Western leaders play it down. Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told The Economist that alliance members should let Ukraine strike deep into Russia with Western weapons, a view supported by some European members of the transatlantic alliance though not the United States.In Germany too, there is some resistance to the idea, with fears of an escalation into a wider conflict likely to play a role in upcoming local and state elections in the formerly communist east of the country.Scholz has refused to provide Kyiv Germany’s long-range Taurus missiles, which could potentially reach Moscow.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683569/international/french-german-leaders-say-allow-ukraine-to-hit-inside-russia

Rally decries adoption of ‘foreign influence’ law

Thousands of Georgians rallied on Tuesday outside parliament after ruling party MPs adopted a divisive “foreign influence” law, overcoming a presidential veto on the bill despite Western warnings the move could jeopardise the country’s path to the European Union.The law, which critics have compared to repressive Russian legislation used to silence dissent, forces groups receiving at least 20% of funding from abroad to register as “organisations pursuing the interests of a foreign power.”The proposal has drawn fierce opposition from Western governments including the United States, which said the measure risked “stifling” freedom of expression in the Black Sea Caucasus nation.Brussels warned the measure was “incompatible” with the ex-Soviet republic’s longstanding bid for EU membership, which is enshrined in the country’s constitution and supported — according to opinion polls — by more than 80% of the population. Lawmakers voted 84 to 4 to pass the bill on Tuesday, after overriding pro-EU President Salome Zurabishvili’s veto.Most opposition MPs walked out of the 150-seat chamber ahead of the vote.The EU said that it deeply regretted the law being adopted, and foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said the bloc was “considering all options to react to these developments”.Waving Georgian and EU flags, thousands of protesters gathered outside parliament on Tuesday evening with crowds swelling after the chamber voted to adopt the law.Georgia’s national anthem and EU’s Ode to Joy were performed at the rally. Zurabishvili addressed the crowd by video link.“You are angry today, aren’t you? Get angry, but let’s get to work. The work is that we have to prepare, first of all, for a true referendum,” she said referring to October’s elections.“Do we want a European future or Russian slavery? Eighty-four men cannot decide this, we can — we, all together.”

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683568/international/rally-decries-adoption-of-foreign-influence-law

Rains cause quarry collapse in India, cyclone deaths at 23

Torrential rains brought by cyclone Remal caused a stone quarry to collapse in India’s northeastern state of Mizoram, killing 12 people and trapping seven, while 11 more died in landslides and other accidents elsewhere in the remote region, officials said.Rescue workers on the outskirts of Mizoram’s state capital of Aizawl used heavy-duty excavators to cut through stone slabs while battling heavy rain and loose soil at the site, said the state’s Chief Minister Lalduhoma.“There is a continuous flow of soil and mud making matters more difficult,” he said, adding that rescue operations were hampered by the onset of the night.The powerful cyclone had weakened into a depression after devastating regional coastlines the previous day, when it killed at least 16 and cut power to millions in parts of eastern India and neighbouring Bangladesh.“There have been incessant rains in the wake of cyclone Remal, which led to the quarry collapse,” a state disaster management official in Mizoram said, speaking on condition of anonymity.Authorities in India’s northeastern states, some of which share a border with Bangladesh, have issued warnings telling people to stay at home and to take precautions.Six more people were killed in landslides in the last 24 hours in Mizoram, which borders Bangladesh, while a falling tree killed three people in the state of Assam further to the north, officials said. Schools and colleges remained shut.Two more deaths were reported in the states of Meghalaya and Nagaland, local media said.Authorities in India’s eastern state of West Bengal were working to restore electricity in the worst-affected areas, after Remal stripped power lines and uprooted trees.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683549/international/rains-cause-quarry-collapse-in-india-cyclone-deaths-at-23

US Central Command destroys drone over Red Sea

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced the destruction of a drone over the Red Sea.US forces destroyed a drone over the Red Sea that had been launched from an area in Yemen controlled by the Houthis, CENTCOM said in a statement, stressing that these drones represent an imminent threat to both coalition forces and commercial ships in the region.Washington leads an international maritime coalition with the aim of 'protecting' maritime navigation in this strategic region, through which 12 percent of global trade passes.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683497/international/us-central-command-destroys-drone-over-red-sea

Pakistan temperatures cross 52C in heatwave

Temperatures rose above 52 degrees Celsius (125.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh, the highest reading of the summer and close to the country’s record high amid an ongoing heatwave, the met office said on Monday.Extreme temperatures throughout Asia over the past month were made worse most likely as a result of human-driven climate change, a team of international scientists have said.In Mohenjo Daro, a town in Sindh known for archaeological sites that date back to the Indus Valley Civilisation built in 2500 BC, temperatures rose as high as 52.2C (126F) over the last 24 hours, a senior official of the Pakistan Meteorological Department, Shahid Abbas told Reuters.The reading is the highest of the summer so far, and approached the town’s and country’s record highs of 53.5C (128.3F) and 54C (129.2F) respectively.Mohenjo Daro is a small town that experiences extremely hot summers and mild winters, and low rainfall, but its limited markets, including bakeries, tea shops, mechanics, electronic repair shops, and fruit and vegetable sellers, are usually bustling with customers. But with the current heatwave, shops are seeing almost no footfall.“The customers are not coming to the restaurant because of extreme heat. I sit idle at the restaurant with these tables and chairs and without any customers,” Wajid Ali, 32, who owns a tea stall in the town. “I take baths several times a day which gives me a little relief. Also there is no power. The heat has made us very uneasy.”Close to Ali’s shop is an electronic repairs shop run by Abdul Khaliq, 30, who was sat working with the shop’s shutter half down to shield him from the sun. Khaliq also complained about the heat affecting business.Local doctor Mushtaq Ahmed added that the locals have adjusted to living in the extreme weather conditions and prefer staying indoors or near water.“Pakistan is the fifth most vulnerable country to the impact of climate change. We have witnessed above normal rains, floods,” Rubina Khursheed Alam, the prime minister’s coordinator on climate, said at a news conference on Friday adding that the government is running awareness campaigns due to the heatwaves.The highest temperature recorded in Pakistan was in 2017 when temperatures rose to 54C (129.2F) in the city of Turbat, located in the Southwestern province of Balochistan. This was the second hottest in Asia and fourth highest in the world, said Sardar Sarfaraz, Chief Meteorologist at the Pakistan Meteorological DepartmentThe heatwave will subside in Mohenjo Daro and surrounding areas, but another spell is expected to hit other areas in Sindh, including the capital, Karachi — Pakistan’s largest city.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683491/international/pakistan-temperatures-cross-52c-in-heatwave

Spain pledges €1bn to visiting Zelensky

Spain on Monday pledged €1bn in military aid to Ukraine as Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a security deal here.The deal “includes a commitment for €1bn in military aid for 2024,” Sanchez told a joint news conference “It will allow Ukraine to boost its capabilities including its essential air defence systems to protect its civilians, cities and infrastructure which are still suffering indiscriminate attacks as seen this weekend in Kharkiv,” he said, referring to a Russian strike on the northeastern city that killed at least 16 people.Zelensky’s visit comes as Ukraine has been battling a Russian ground offensive in the Kharkiv region which began on May 10 in Moscow’s biggest territorial advance in 18 months. With the Russian assault now in its third year, Ukraine has been pleading for more weapons for its outgunned and outnumbered troops, notably seeking help to address its lack of air defence systems. Sanchez said Spain had already pledged to supply Patriot missiles, but what Zelensky needed from Ukraine’s allies was “the systems to launch these missiles”. “That’s what he working on with different allies to see exactly how many we can send to guarantee this aerial security.”Spain would also send “another batch of Leopard tanks and above all ammunition,” Sanchez said, pledging to keep working with Kyiv “to understand how else — and with what other alternative systems — we can help ensure Ukraine’s air security.”Zelensky has already signed bilateral security agreements with several countries including France, Germany and the UK.Sanchez said the security agreement would cover a range of a different issues, ranging from “military, humanitarian and financial support, to collaboration between Spanish and Ukrainian defence industries, as well as help with reconstruction and de-mining among other things”.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683492/international/spain-pledges-1bn-to-visiting-zelensky