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Palestinians collecting aid in Gaza flee gunfire

Palestinians collecting aid in Gaza flee gunfire

NewsFeed Palestinians say Israeli forces fired on them as they collected aid in northern Gaza. Video shows hundreds of people fleeing as gunfire is heard. Published On 25 Jan 202425 Jan 2024 Adblock test (Why?)

Japan sentences man to death for Kyoto anime studio fire that killed 36

Japan sentences man to death for Kyoto anime studio fire that killed 36

Judge says attack on renowned Kyoto Animation by Shinji Aoba, 45, ‘instantly turned the studio into hell’. A court in Japan has sentenced a man to death after he was convicted of murdering 36 people in an arson attack on a Kyoto animation studio in 2019. The Kyoto District Court on Thursday said it found Shinji Aoba, 45, mentally capable of facing punishment for murder, arson and other crimes in the attack on Kyoto Animation’s Studio 1 on July 18 that year which shocked Japan and drew an outpouring of grief from anime fans worldwide. Prosecutors said Aoba had been motivated by a grudge against the studio, which he claimed had stolen his ideas after rejecting his novels in an annual contest. The court found no evidence the studio had plagiarised his work. NHK national TV, quoted Judge Keisuke Masuda, as saying: “The attack that instantly turned the studio into hell and took the precious lives of 36 people, caused them indescribable pain.” Survivors reported that on the morning of the attack, Aoba had broken into the building, spreading petrol on the ground floor and lighting it while shouting “drop dead”. Reeling The anime industry was left reeling by the crime, which killed young artists working in the three-storey building. About 70 people had been working on the premises at the time. Many of the victims were believed to have died of carbon monoxide poisoning. More than 30 other people were badly injured. One of the survivors said he saw a black cloud rising from downstairs, then he felt scorching heat and jumped from a window, gasping for air. A number of victims were found on a spiral stairwell leading to the roof, suggesting they were overcome as they desperately tried to escape. Mentally fit The arsonist appeared in court in a wheelchair. He had himself been left severely burned after his attack and spent 10 months in hospital before his arrest in May 2020. Shinji Aoba, sentenced to death for killing 36 people at Kyoto Animation in July 2019, is seen on a stretcher as he is carried to Fushimi police station after being arrested in Kyoto, western Japan, on May 27, 2020 [File: Kyodo via Reuters] His lawyers argued he was mentally unfit to be held criminally responsible, unable to distinguish between good and bad. However, the judge ruled that Aoba was “neither insane nor suffering diminished mental capacity at the time of the crime”, NHK reported. “I didn’t think so many people would die, and now I think I went too far,” Aoba told the court when the trial opened in September, reports said at the time. Studio ‘spread joy’ The fire was Japan’s deadliest since 2001, when a blaze in Tokyo’s congested Kabukicho entertainment district killed 44 people. Firefighters called the incident “unprecedented” and said rescuing people trapped inside was “extremely difficult”. After the attack, there was an outpouring of shock and grief around the world, with Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeting that the studio’s artists “spread joy all over the world and across generations with their masterpieces”. A US animation company raised $2.4m via crowdfunding to help the firm get back on its feet. Known as KyoAni, the studio was founded in 1981 by a couple. It is known for popular TV series, including The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and K-ON!. A man prays after placing flowers near the torched Kyoto Animation building to mourn the victims of the arson attack, in Kyoto, Japan, July 19, 2019 [File: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters] For families of the deceased, the pain of their loss remains excruciating to this day. “I should have told her not to go to work that morning,” the mother of 49-year-old Naomi Ishida told the Mainichi Shimbun daily this week. “Even if he gets the death penalty, Naomi and others won’t come back. I feel empty,” she said. Criticism Polls show public support is high for capital punishment, which has been criticised by rights groups. Japan is one of the few developed countries meting out the punishment, typically in murder cases with more than one victim. Inmates are often informed of their execution on the morning of the day they are to be hanged. The highest-profile executions in recent years were in 2018, when Japan hanged 13 people – including the guru of a doomsday cult – responsible for the 1995 sarin attacks on Tokyo’s underground railway. The last execution was in 2022 and, as of December, 107 people were on death row. Adblock test (Why?)

Israel’s war on Gaza: List of key events, day 111

Israel’s war on Gaza: List of key events, day 111

EXPLAINER The ICJ is set to deliver its response to South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel on Friday, while intense strikes continue in Khan Younis. Here’s how things stand on Thursday, January 25, 2024: Latest updates The International Court of Justice announced that it will deliver its response to South Africa’s request for emergency measures to protect Palestinians from “irreparable harm” on Friday, January 26 at 1pm local time in The Hague (12:00 GMT). On Wednesday, hundreds of protesters called on the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to secure the immediate release of captives held in the Gaza Strip. They blocked Tel Aviv’s main Ayalon Highway before they rallied outside the nearby headquarters of the Israeli military and Ministry of Defense, reported The Associated Press news agency. A reported Israeli tank fire killed at least nine people at a United Nations shelter in Khan Younis on Wednesday, and wounded dozens, sparking international outrage. Israel’s military said it investigating the incident and has so far “ruled out” that it was the result of an “aerial or artillery strike” from its forces. Human impact and fighting The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Wednesday that “no one can enter or exit” Nasser Hospital due to bombardments nearby, including 400 dialysis patients who are in “need of support”. Al-Amal Hospital, Al-Aqsa Hospital, and the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulance headquarters in Khan Younis are also surrounded by heavy fighting, OCHA said in its daily situation update on Wednesday. Four children were killed when Israeli warplanes bombed a residential area in the Nuseirat refugee camp overnight, reported Palestinian news agency Wafa. Israeli forces have arrested more than 6,225 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since October 7, according to statistics released by the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society on Tuesday. Diplomacy In a post on X on Wednesday, Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Majed al-Ansari, said Doha was “appalled” by Netanyahu allegedly calling Qatari mediation efforts to secure the return of captives in Gaza “problematic”. Netanyahu has reportedly also said he is “very angry” with the fact the United States has renewed their military presence for an additional 10 years at the US base in Qatar, reported Al Jazeera correspondent Hamdah Salhut. On Wednesday, 49 of the 51 members of the US Senate Democratic caucus backed a statement reiterating support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to Reuters. South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor will travel to The Hague to hear the ICJ ruling on her country’s request for emergency measures against Israel over alleged genocide in Gaza, according to spokesperson Clayson Monyela. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he and Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi agreed at a meeting on Wednesday on the need to avoid steps that could threaten Middle East stability. Adblock test (Why?)

Florida House passes bill banning children under 16 from social media: ‘Kids can’t stay off the platforms’

Florida House passes bill banning children under 16 from social media: ‘Kids can’t stay off the platforms’

The Florida House passed a bill Wednesday banning children under the age of 16 from creating accounts on social media platforms – even with parental approval – in efforts to keep children from growing up “hooked” on social media. House Bill 1, which is sponsored by Republican Rep. Tyler Sirois, passed with a 106-13 bipartisan vote. Supporters argue that children are more exposed to bullying and sexual predators on social media, and use can lead to depression, suicide and addiction. “They’re taking advantage of kids growing up. That’s their business model. And why do they do it? To keep them hooked … with the dopamine hits that the platform gives our children with every autoplay, with every like, with every push notification,” Sirois said toKids The Associated Press. Though the bill doesn’t explicitly name which platforms would be affected, it targets any social media platform that tracks user activity, allows users to upload material and interact with others, and uses addictive features. Apps used solely for private messaging between individuals would not be impacted. GOP BILL BANS KIDS UNDER 16 FROM SOCIAL MEDIA TO SAVE THEM FROM DANGEROUS ‘EMOTIONAL DISTRESSES’ Republican House Speaker Paul Renner said the bill should withstand constitutional scrutiny because it focuses on the addictive features of social media, not the content. “It’s a situation where kids can’t stay off the platforms, and as a result of that, they have been trapped in an environment that harms their mental health,” said Renner, who has made social media addiction and its impact on children one of his top priorities. He continued on X, formerly Twitter, Wednesday: “We must address the harmful effects social media platforms have on the development and well-being of our kids. Florida has a compelling state interest and duty to protect our children, their mental health, and their childhood.” The bill would force social media companies to shut down accounts believed to be used by minors and to cancel minors’ accounts at their request or their parents. All information related to the account must also be deleted.  SENATORS LOOK TO BAN KIDS UNDER 13 FROM SOCIAL MEDIA IN BIPARTISAN BILL Democratic Rep. Michele Rayner shared on the House floor some of the comments she received on X after referencing her deceased mother while announcing support for the bill, which included “your mother sucks” and “your mom was stupid.” “I’m 42-years old … and comments like these were a gut punch to me, but I was able to navigate,” she said. “Imagine what our babies have to deal with when they have their friends in school doing the same cyberbullying to them.” Opponents of the bill said it violates the First Amendment, takes away the benefits some children may get from social media, and said parents should determine if their children can be on social media. Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani said she found comfort and support on social media when she was 13 after her mother died. “I think the intention of those who have filed (the bill) is absolutely golden. We have a concern about the impact of social media on our young people,” Eskamani said. “I just find the solution that you propose too broad and casts a wide net with unintended consequences.” Meta, which owns a handful of social media platforms, asked the House to consider requiring parental approval instead of banning the apps for children under 16. It also would like the issue to be addressed at the federal level to avoid a variety of state laws on the topic. “Many teens today leverage the internet and apps to responsibly gather information and learn about new opportunities, including part-time jobs, higher education, civic or church gatherings, and military service,” Meta representative Caulder Harvill-Childs wrote to the House Judiciary Committee. “By banning teens under 16, Florida risks putting its young people at a disadvantage versus teens elsewhere.” The bill now moves to the Senate. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

In India, an algorithm declares them dead; they have to prove they’re alive

In India, an algorithm declares them dead; they have to prove they’re alive

This story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network. Rohtak and New Delhi, India: Dhuli Chand was 102 years old on September 8, 2022, when he led a wedding procession in Rohtak, a district town in the north Indian state of Haryana. As is customary in north Indian weddings, he sat on a chariot in his wedding finery, wearing garlands of Indian rupee notes, while a band played celebratory music and family members and villagers accompanied him. But instead of a bride, Chand was on his way to meet government officials. Chand resorted to the antic to prove to officials that he was not only alive but also lively. A placard he held proclaimed, in the local dialect: “thara foofa zinda hai”, which literally translates to “your uncle is alive”. Six months prior, his monthly pension was suddenly stopped because he was declared “dead” in government records. Under Haryana’s Old Age Samman Allowance scheme, people aged 60 years and above, whose income together with that of their spouse doesn’t exceed 300,000 rupees ($3,600) per annum, are eligible for a monthly pension of 2,750 rupees ($33). In June 2020, the state started using a newly built algorithmic system – the Family Identity Data Repository or the Parivar Pehchan Patra (PPP) database – to determine the eligibility of welfare claimants. The PPP is an eight-digit unique ID provided to each family in the state and has details of birth and death, marriage, employment, property, and income tax, among other data, of the family members. It maps every family’s demographic and socioeconomic information by linking several government databases to check their eligibility for welfare schemes. The state said that the PPP created “authentic, verified and reliable data of all families”, and made it mandatory for citizens to access all welfare schemes. But in practice, the PPP wrongly marked Chand as “dead”, denying him his pension for several months. Worse, the authorities did not change his “dead” status even when he repeatedly met them in person. “We went to the district offices at least 10 times, out of which five times he [Chand] also accompanied us,” said Naresh, Chand’s grandson. “Even after several attempts to get this anomaly corrected at the government offices, and after filing a grievance complaint on the chief minister’s portal, nothing happened.” It was only after Chand carried out the parody of a marriage procession and met a local politician that the authorities finally admitted their mistake and released Chand’s pension. Chand is not an isolated instance of algorithm failure. According to data presented by the government in the state assembly in August last year, it stopped the pensions of 277,115 elderly citizens and 52,479 widows in a span of three years because they were “dead”. However, several thousands of these beneficiaries were actually alive and had been wrongfully declared dead either due to incorrect data fed into the PPP database or wrong predictions made by the algorithm. Such anomalies were not restricted to old-age pensions alone. Beneficiaries of disability and widow pensions, and other welfare schemes such as subsidised food, have also been excluded because the PPP algorithm made wrong predictions about their incomes or employment, excluding them from the eligibility criteria. When people who had been wrongfully erased by the algorithm went to government officials to get the records corrected, they faced red tape. Many were shunted from one office to another, and made to file endless applications to prove the obvious – that they were in fact alive. The ordeal faced by hundreds of thousands of citizens in getting their data corrected has made PPP one of the most controversial government plans of the Haryana government in recent years. The opposition party has termed it ‘Permanent Pareshani Patra’ (permanent inconvenience document) and promised that it will scrap the programme if it comes to power in the next assembly elections, due in 2024. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar (pictured) made the controversial PPP mandatory for all welfare schemes [File photo by Sonu Mehta/Hindustan Times via Getty Images] The state, however, continues to not just defend but even expand the programme. Sofia Dahiya, secretary of the Citizen Resources Information Department that handles the functioning of PPP, in September 2022 told Al Jazeera: “PPP was easing and improving the delivery of services to the right beneficiaries and preventing leakages through the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The interlinking of different databases was done to get an integrated database which was the ‘single source of truth’.” India spends roughly 13 percent of its gross domestic product, or close to $256bn, on providing welfare benefits to about half the country’s population. Worried that such benefits were being usurped by ineligible claimants, the federal and several state governments have increasingly relied on technology to eliminate welfare fraud. In the past few years, at least half a dozen states have adopted algorithmic systems to predict the eligibility of citizens for welfare schemes. Over the past year Al Jazeera, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Accountability Network, investigated the use and impact of such welfare algorithms. Profiling families Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar launched the PPP programme in July 2019 and a year later made it mandatory for all welfare benefits. In the absence of privacy laws, the opposition parties contested the move to gather the personal data of citizens for building out the PPP. The government argued that it allowed “proactive” delivery of welfare without the claimants having to show any documents or needing a field verification. In September 2021, it gave legal sanction to the programme by passing the Haryana Parivar Pehchan Act. Within a year, however, massive problems with the PPP data started cropping up. After Chand’s ‘wedding procession’ stunt hit the headlines, thousands of poor thronged the district offices of the social welfare department, complaining about their exclusion from the schemes. The public outcry forced the government to launch grievance redressal camps across the state to review PPP data.

North Korea says tested new type of cruise missile with nuclear capability

North Korea says tested new type of cruise missile with nuclear capability

State news agency says Pulhwasal-3-31 cruise missile is still in its development phase. North Korea has said it conducted its first test of a new-generation cruise missile, as it continues to expand its military capabilities. The official Korean Central News Agency reported on Thursday that the Pulhwasal-3-31 missile was still in its development phase and described the missile as “strategic”, implying an intent to arm it with nuclear weapons. KCNA did not specify how many missiles were fired. “The test-fire had no impact on the security of neighbouring countries and has nothing to do with the regional situation,” it said. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Wednesday morning it had detected the launch of “several” cruise missiles from North Korea’s western coast. The JCS said it was analysing the launch, which followed the January 19 test of a nuclear-capable underwater attack drone, and the test-firing of Pyongyang’s first solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile five days earlier. On Thursday, it said it thought the launch was a test of upgrades to existing missiles’ capabilities. North Korea carried out its first test of a strategic cruise missile in September 2021. Tensions on the Korean peninsula have increased in recent months as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continues to move ahead with his weapons development programme and issue provocative threats of nuclear conflict with the United States and its allies in the region. North Korea’s cruise missiles, which tend to be jet-propelled and fly at a lower altitude, are harder to detect and intercept than ballistic missiles and are among a growing arsenal aimed at overwhelming missile defences in South Korea and Japan. North Korea claims they are nuclear-capable and have a range of up to 2,000 kilometres (1,242 miles), a distance that would include US military bases in Japan. Cruise missile tests are not banned under long-running United Nations sanctions imposed over North Korea’s nuclear programme. The latest launch took place as South Korean special forces staged a drill off the country’s east coast, “in light of serious security situations” with North Korea. The 10-day exercise concludes on Thursday, according to the South’s navy. “We will achieve our mission to infiltrate deep into the enemy’s territory and neutralise them completely under any circumstances,” the drill’s commander said in a statement. Adblock test (Why?)