Israeli police push back protesters demanding deal on Gaza captives
NewsFeed Israeli police grappled with protesters marching to the house of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to demand a deal to free 134 captives held in Gaza. Published On 20 Feb 202420 Feb 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
Haiti President Moise’s widow, ex-PM among 50 charged in his assassination
Leaked document claims first lady allegedly conspired with former PM to kill the president and replace him herself. A Haitian judge investigating the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise has charged his widow, the former prime minister and an ex-chief of police with complicity in the killing. The 122-page leaked document, published by local media outlet AyiboPost on Monday, detailed how the president’s widow, Martine Moise, allegedly conspired with former Prime Minister Claude Joseph to kill the president, intending to replace him herself. In the document, Judge Walther Wesser Voltaire ordered the arrest and trial of some 50 people involved in the gunning down of Moise at his private residence in July 2021. A group of about 20 assailants, most of them Colombian mercenaries, were on the scene. All the accused were referred to the criminal court “to be judged on the facts of criminal conspiracy, armed robbery, terrorism, assassination and complicity in assassination”. Justifying the indictment of the former first lady, who was wounded during the attack, the document described her statements as “so tainted by contradictions that they leave something to be desired and discredit her”. Joseph and the former director-general of the national police, Leon Charles, were also found to have “sufficient indications” of involvement in the killing. AyiboPost specified that the document did not clearly identify the masterminds of the assassination, nor their financiers. Moise has criticised what she calls unjust arrests on social media. Joseph previously told the Miami Herald newspaper that the president’s de facto successor, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, was “weaponizing the Haitian justice system” to persecute opponents in “a classic coup d’etat”. Martine Moise grieves during the funeral for her husband, slain Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, on July 23, 2021, in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, the main city in his native northern region [Valerie Baeriswyl/AFP] A spokesperson for Henry’s office said the judge was independent and “free to issue his order in accordance with the law and his conscience”. Miami trial A separate case on Moise’s killing is being tried in Miami. The United States found the case fell within its jurisdiction because part of the assassination plot was hatched in South Florida. Prosecutions were launched against 11 people over their alleged involvement in the murder. Six of 11 defendants have pleaded guilty to a plot to send Colombian mercenaries to kidnap Moise, a plan which was at the eleventh hour changed to a plot to murder him. The conspirators had, according to US charges, sought to replace Moise with Haitian-American pastor Christian Emmanuel Sanon. Chaos Since Moise’s death, Haiti has only spiralled deeper into chaos. No election has been held and Moise has not been succeeded as president. Henry, who now leads an opposition party, postponed elections indefinitely, citing a devastating earthquake and the growing power of heavily armed criminal gangs, for which he has sought foreign aid. Gangs run rampant in large swaths of the country, now estimated to control most of the capital, and homicides more than doubled last year to nearly 4,800, according to a United Nations report released this month. Kenya is preparing to lead a UN-ratified international force to support Haitian police, though prior abuses by foreign missions and allegations against Henry’s government have left countries wary of volunteering support. Adblock test (Why?)
Australia plans to build biggest navy since World War II
Defence minister says the $7.25bn plan will increase Australian navy’s surface combatant fleet to 26 from 11. Australia has announced a decade-long plan to double its fleet of warships and boost its defence spending by an additional 11.1 billion Australian dollars ($7.25bn). Defence Minister Richard Marles said on Tuesday that the government’s plan would eventually increase the navy’s surface combatant fleet to 26 from 11, the largest since the end of World War II. He cited concerns over rising geopolitical tensions as competition between the United States, its allies and China heats up in the Asia Pacific region. Under the new plan, Marles said Australia will get six Hunter class frigates, 11 general-purpose frigates, three air warfare destroyers and six state-of-the-art surface warships that do not need to be crewed. At least some of the fleet will be armed with Tomahawk missiles capable of long-range strikes on targets deep inside enemy territory – a major deterrent capability. “It is the largest fleet that we will have since the end of the second world war,” Marles told reporters. “What is critically important to understand is that as we look forward, with an uncertain world in terms of great power contest, we’ll have a dramatically different capability in the mid-2030s to what we have now,” he added. “That is what we are planning for and that is what we are building.” The minister said the large optionally crewed surface vessels (LSOV), which can be operated remotely and are being developed by the US, will significantly boost the navy’s long-range strike capacity. The vessels could be inducted by the mid-2030s. Australia will also take steps to accelerate the procurement of 11 general-purpose frigates to replace the ageing ANZAC-class ships, with the first three to be built overseas and expected to enter service before 2030. “This decision we are making right now sees a significant increase in defence spending … and it is needed, given the complexity of the strategic circumstances that our country faces,” Marles said. The announcement – which comes amid Australian plans to procure at least three US-designed nuclear-powered submarines – would see Canberra increase its defence spending to 2.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), above the 2 percent target set by its NATO allies. Experts say that taken together, Australia is poised to develop significant naval capability. But the country’s major defence projects have long been beset by cost overruns, government U-turns, policy changes and project plans that make more sense for local job creation than defence. Michael Shoebridge, a former senior security official, told the AFP news agency that the government must overcome past errors and had “no more time to waste” as competition in the region heats up. Shoebridge said there must be a trimmed-down procurement process, otherwise, it will be a “familiar path that leads to delays, construction troubles, cost blowouts – and at the end, ships that get into service too late with systems that are overtaken by events and technological change”. Wooing specific electorates with the promise of “continuous naval shipbuilding” cannot be the priority, he said. “This will just get in the way of the actual priority: reversing the collapse of our navy’s fleet.” Adblock test (Why?)
Deepfake democracy: Behind the AI trickery shaping India’s 2024 election
New Delhi, India — As voters queued up early morning on November 30 last year to vote in legislative elections to choose the next government of the southern Indian state of Telangana, a seven-second clip started going viral on social media. Posted on X by the Congress party, which is in opposition nationally, and was in the state at the time, it showed KT Rama Rao, a leader of the Bharat Rashtra Samiti that was ruling the state, calling on people to vote in favour of the Congress. The Congress shared it widely on a range of WhatsApp groups “operated unofficially by the Congress party” according to a senior party leader who requested anonymity, it eventually ended up on the official X account of the party, viewed more than 500,000 times. It was fake. “Of course, it was AI-generated though it looks completely real,” the Congress party leader told Al Jazeera. “But a normal voter would not be able to distinguish; voting had started [when the video was posted] and there was no time for [the opposition campaign] to control the damage.” The astutely timed deepfake was a marker of the flood of AI-generated, or manipulated, media that marred a series of elections in India’s states in recent months, and that’s now threatening to fundamentally shape the country’s coming general elections. Between March and May, India’s nearly one billion voters will pick their next national government in the world’s, and history’s, biggest elections. The threats posed by deceptive AI-generated media caught the world’s attention when faked sexually explicit images of the artist Taylor Swift appeared on social media platforms in January. In November, Ashwini Vaishnaw, India’s information technology minister, called deepfakes a “threat to democracy” and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has echoed those concerns. But with the increased availability of handy artificial intelligence tools, teams across India’s political parties, including Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress, are deploying deepfakes to influence voters, managers of nearly 40 recent campaigns told Al Jazeera. While several AI tools used to generate deepfakes are free, others are available on subscription for as little as 10 cents per video. ‘Creating perception’ The BJP, arguably India’s most technologically sophisticated party, has been at the forefront of using illusions for campaigning. As far back as 2012, the party used 3D hologram projections of Modi so that he could simultaneously “campaign” in dozens of places at the same time. The strategy was deployed widely during the 2014 general elections that brought Modi to power. There was little deception involved there, but in February 2020, Manoj Tiwari, a BJP member of parliament, became among the world’s first to use deepfakes for campaigning. In three videos, Tiwari addressed voters in Delhi ahead of the capital’s legislative assembly elections in Hindi, Haryanvi and English – reaching three distinct audiences in the multicultural city. Only the Hindi video was authentic: The other two were deepfakes, where AI was used to generate his voice and words and alter his expressions and lip movement to make it almost impossible to detect, just on viewing, that they were not genuine. In recent months, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which rules the southern state of Tamil Nadu, has used AI to resurrect its iconic leader M Karunanidhi from the dead, using lifelike videos of the former movie writer and veteran politician at campaign events. Now, consultants and campaign managers say the 2024 elections could turbocharge the use of deepfakes even further. “Politics is about creating perception; with AI tools [of voice and video modulation] and a click, you can turn the perception on its head in a minute,” said Arun Reddy, the national coordinator for social media at the Congress, who oversaw the party’s tech-savvy Telangana election. He added that the team was bursting with ideas to incorporate AI in campaigning, but that they didn’t have enough “trained people” to execute them all. Reddy is strengthening his team – as are other parties. “AI will have a resounding effect in creating the narrative,” Reddy told Al Jazeera. “The political AI-manipulated content will increase multifold, much more than what it ever was.” ‘Campaigns are getting weirder’ Living in the desert town of Pushkar in western India, 30-year-old Divyendra Singh Jadoun runs an AI startup, The Indian Deepfaker. Launched in October 2020, his company cloned the voice of Rajasthan state’s Congress chief ministerial candidate Ashok Gehlot for his team to send personalised messages on WhatsApp, addressing each voter by their name, during November assembly elections. The Indian Deepfaker is currently working with the team of Sikkim’s chief minister Prem Singh Tamang for holograms during upcoming campaigns. Sikkim is one of India’s smallest states in the northeast, perched on the Himalayas between India, Bhutan and China. That’s the clean, official work, he said. But in recent months, he has been swamped by what he describes as “unethical requests” from political campaigns. “The political parties reach out indirectly via international numbers on WhatsApp, burner handles on Instagram, or connect on Telegram,” Jadoun told Al Jazeera in a phone interview. In the November election, his company denied more than 50 such requests, he said, where potential clients wanted videos and audio altered to target political opponents, including with pornography. As a startup, Jadoun said his company is particularly careful to avoid any legal trouble. “And it is a very unethical use of AI,” he added. “But I know many people who are doing it for very low prices and are readily available now.” During the election campaigns for the state legislatures of Madhya Pradesh in central India and Rajasthan in the west last November, police registered multiple cases for deepfake videos targeting senior politicians including Modi, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Kailash Vijayvargia (all BJP) and Kamal Nath (Congress). The deepfake content production is often outsourced to private consulting firms, which rely on social media networks for distribution, spearheaded by WhatsApp. A political consultant who requested anonymity told Al Jazeera that numbers of ordinary citizens with no public profile are registered
China’s C919 jetliner showcased at Singapore Airshow
Biennial air show opens to the public for the first time since the onset of the COVID-pandemic in 2020. China’s C919 jetliner is being showcased at Asia’s biggest airshow, as its Beijing-backed manufacturer seeks buyers for the country’s first homegrown passenger jet. Chinese state-run aerospace firm COMAC has touted the C919 as a challenger to the A320 and the 737 MAX, manufactured, respectively, by long-standing industry leaders Airbus and Boeing. The C919 made its inaugural flight outside China on Sunday at a media event ahead of the Singapore Airshow, which opened to the public for the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. China’s Tibet Airlines said on the sidelines of the show on Tuesday that it had finalised an order for 40 of the narrow-body jets, which are designed to carry up to 192 passengers and travel up to 3,500 miles (5,644km). The C919, which has been flying commercially in China since May, has so far only been authorised to fly in its home country. The biennial air show, which has more than 1,000 companies from some 50 countries in attendance this year, comes as Asia’s aviation sector is bouncing back from several years of dire business conditions due to the pandemic. International air traffic recovered to nearly 89 percent of pre-pandemic levels in 2023, with the remaining gap mostly the result of China’s slow exit from pandemic curbs, according to International Air Transport Association (IATA) data. Asia-Pacific airlines saw the biggest rise among regions, posting a 126 percent rise in traffic compared to 2022, according to the IATA. Other aircraft expected to be displayed in Singapore include Airbus’s A350-1000 and the US Air Force’s B-52 Stratofortress. US-based Boeing is not presenting any commercial aircraft as it grapples with the fallout of January’s near-catastrophe in which a 737 MAX 9 Alaska Airlines jet lost a door-sized section of the fuselage in mid-flight. Russian companies that attended previous shows, including Russian Helicopters and Irkut, are not participating this year amid the war in Ukraine. Adblock test (Why?)
North Korea’s Kim gifted car by Russia’s Putin, state media says
The Russian-made car was delivered to Kim for his ‘personal use’, North Korea’s state-run KCNA says. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been gifted a car by Russian President Vladimir Putin in recognition of their “special personal relations”, state media has reported. The Russian-made car, the make and model of which was not disclosed, was delivered to Kim’s top aides, including his sister Kim Yo Jong, on February 18 for the North Korean leader’s “personal use”, state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Monday. “Kim Yo Jong courteously conveyed Kim Jong Un’s thanks to Putin to the Russian side, saying that the gift serves as a clear demonstration of the special personal relations between the top leaders of the DPRK and Russia and as the best one,” KCNA said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Putin’s gift appears to violate Moscow-backed United Nations sanctions against Pyongyang, which prohibit the supply of all “transportation vehicles” to North Korea. Kim is believed to own an extensive collection of high-end cars and has been spotted travelling in luxury models including the Mercedes-Maybach S600, Rolls-Royce Phantom and Lexus LX 570. During his visit to Russia’s far east in September, Kim admired Putin’s presidential Aurus Senat limousine and was invited by the Russian leader to sit in the back seat. [embedded content] Putin and Kim, both of whom are increasingly isolated on the international stage, have forged closer ties since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In October, Kim wished Putin victory over the “imperialists’ anti-Russia scheme” in a letter marking the 75th anniversary of their countries’ bilateral relations, state media reported. The United States and its ally South Korea have expressed concern about growing military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang. South Korea’s spy agency said in November that Russia likely assisted North Korea’s successful launch of a spy satellite, which Seoul, Tokyo and Washington condemned as a pretext to test ballistic missile technology. Adblock test (Why?)
US banking giant Capital One to buy Discover Financial for $35.3bn
The proposed acquisition would create the biggest credit card company in the US. Banking giant Capital One has announced plans to acquire Discover Financial Services for $35.3bn in a deal combining two of the United States’s biggest lenders and credit card issuers. Capital One founder and CEO Richard Fairbank described the deal as an “incredible opportunity to bring together two exceptional companies”. “This deal accelerates our longstanding journey to work directly with merchants, to leverage our customer base, our technology and our data to drive more sales for the merchants and great deals for consumers and small businesses,” Fairbank said in a video statement posted on the company’s website on Monday. Discover CEO Michael Rhodes said the acquisition would bring “together two strong brands with enhanced ability to accelerate growth” and that it “maximises value for our shareholders”. “We look forward to a bright future as part of the Capital One family and to providing expanded opportunities for our loyal customers,” Rhodes said in a statement. Capital One, the 12th largest US bank with more than $470bn in assets, would become the biggest US credit card company by loan volume under the acquisition. Discover, the smallest of the four major US-based credit card companies, boasts a network of some 305 million cardholders – nearly triple Capital One’s existing customer base. Credit cards have been a lucrative business for US issuers, with Americans’ card balances rising to a record $1.13 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to the New York Federal Reserve. Under the proposed takeover, Discover shareholders would receive a little more than one share of Capital One for every Discover share they hold – a premium of about 27 percent compared with Discover’s closing price Friday. Capital One’s shareholders, which include Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, would own 60 percent of the combined company, with Discover shareholders owning the rest. The announcement of the deal attracted pushback from consumer rights advocates. Jesse Van Tol, the chief executive of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, said the acquisition would likely raise concern among regulators, including the Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “Retailers might also oppose? I can’t think of [a] bank merger facing more opposition than Capital One buying Discover,” Van Tol said in a post on X. US President Joe Biden’s administration has put tougher antitrust enforcement at the centre of his economic agenda, declaring that “capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism”. Last year, the US Justice Department’s antitrust division announced plans to enhance its review process for bank mergers in light of advances in technology in the financial services industry. Adblock test (Why?)
Chinese Coast Guard boards Taiwan tourist boat, triggers panic
Incident comes as Beijing announces stepped up patrols near Taiwan’s Kinmen Islands following the death of two Chinese fishermen in the area. Chinese Coast Guard officials briefly boarded a Taiwanese cruise ship on Monday in an incident the government in Taipei said triggered panic among the people of the self-ruled island. The incident near the Taiwanese Kinmen Islands, off the coast of the Chinese cities of Xiamen and Quanzhou, came a day after Beijing said it would step up patrols in the area in response to the deaths of two Chinese fishermen who drowned last week while being chased by the Taiwanese Coast Guard. In a statement on Monday, Taiwan’s Coast Guard said six Chinese officials boarded the Taiwanese tourist boat, which was carrying 11 crew members and 23 passengers. The Chinese officials checked the boat’s route plan, certificate and crew licenses and left about half an hour later. Taiwan’s Coast Guard said it dispatched its personnel to the scene. They arrived shortly after their Chinese counterparts left the cruise ship and “accompanied the ship all the way back to Shuitou Port” in Kinmen, it said. There was no immediate comment from Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its territory. In Taipei, Kuan Bi-ling, the head of Taiwan’s Ocean Affairs Council, condemned Beijing’s actions. “We think it has harmed our people’s feelings and triggered people’s panic. That was also not in line with the interest of the people across the strait,” she told reporters, adding that it was common for Chinese and Taiwanese tourist boats to accidentally enter the other side’s waters. “Boats like these are not illegal at all,” she said. Kinmen is located just 5km (3 miles) from China’s Xiamen and has been controlled by Taipei since Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists. Fishermen from Taiwan and China regularly sail the stretch of water between Kinmen and the Chinese mainland. And on Wednesday, Taiwan said two of four Chinese fishermen died after their boat capsized while fleeing the Taiwanese Coast Guard. It said their boat was fishing “within prohibited waters” about one nautical mile (1.8km) away from the Kinmen archipelago. The other two survivors remain in Taiwan’s custody. China issued a furious condemnation and its coast guard said it would step up law enforcement patrols in the area. The patrols are intended to “further maintain the order of operations in relevant waters and protect the safety of fishermen’s lives”, Gan Yu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Coast Guard, said in a statement on Sunday. Beijing has also called for the immediate release of the detained Chinese nationals. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council – which handles issues regarding Beijing – announced late on Monday that the families of the detained Chinese crew members are expected to arrive in Kinmen on Tuesday. The Straits Exchange Foundation – a semi-official Taiwanese body that handles technical and business affairs with China – said it “will also send personnel to Kinmen to provide humanitarian care to the mainland family members… and assist them in handling the aftermath”, it said. The incident has added to escalating tensions in the Taiwan Strait. Chinese President Xi Jinping has in recent years ramped up rhetoric of unifying China and Taiwan, while the Chinese military has stepped up pressure on the island by deploying warplanes and naval vessels around it on a near-daily basis. Taiwan had a presidential election in January, which saw the win of Democratic Progressive Party’s Lai Ching-te – a candidate Beijing considers a “separatist”. Adblock test (Why?)
Brazil recalls ambassador to Israel in row over Lula’s Gaza comments
Israel says Brazilian president is not welcome in the country after he compared Israel’s war on Gaza to the Holocaust. Brazil has recalled its ambassador to Israel, and Israel says Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is not welcome in the country in a diplomatic rift after Lula compared Israel’s military campaign in Gaza to the Holocaust. “What’s happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people hasn’t happened at any other moment in history. Actually, it has happened: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews,” Lula said on Sunday. During World War II, the Nazis systematically killed six million Jewish people. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Lula’s comments as “disgraceful and grave”. On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced that Lula is not welcome in the Middle Eastern country until he takes back his comments. “We will not forget nor forgive. It is a serious anti-Semitic attack. In my name and the name of the citizens of Israel, tell President Lula that he is persona non grata in Israel until he takes it back,” Katz told Brazil’s ambassador, according to a statement from Katz’s office. Israel says Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is not welcome in the country {file: Adriano Machado/Reuters] In response, Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it would summon Israel’s ambassador to Brazil, Daniel Zonshine, for a meeting in Rio de Janeiro. “He [Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira] also recalled the Brazilian ambassador in Tel Aviv, Frederico Meyer, for consultations. He will depart for Brazil tomorrow,” the Foreign Ministry added on Monday. Meanwhile, Lula, 78, also faced backlash at home over his statements on Sunday, which came during a press conference on the sidelines of an African Union summit in Addis Ababa. The Brazil-Israel Institute called his comments “vulgar” and warned they risk “fuelling anti-Semitism”. Lula condemned the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on southern Israel as a “terrorist” act the day it happened, and he has since grown vocally critical of Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza. Adblock test (Why?)
ICJ: Palestine presents case against Israeli occupation
NewsFeed In a historic hearing, Palestine presented its case against Israel’s occupation of territories to the International Court of Justice. Palestinian lawyers and representatives outlined how Israel ‘systematically denies’ Palestinians a right to life and called for an immediate end to the occupation. Published On 19 Feb 202419 Feb 2024 Adblock test (Why?)