US working to avert ‘greater war’ between Israel and Hezbollah: Biden envoy
US says halt of cross-border hostilities is ‘urgent’ as Gaza war threatens to escalate into major regional conflict.
The United States is working to prevent “a greater war” between Israel and Hezbollah, a White House envoy has said amid growing fears of an major conflict between the two sides..
Speaking on Tuesday during a trip to Lebanon, from where the Iran-aligned armed group is engaged in near daily clashes with Israel, Amos Hochstein said that the US is urgently seeking to calm a conflict that has been threatening to escalate since it started in October with the war in Gaza.
Far-right violence a ‘significant’ threat to German democracy, minister warns
Report finds ‘alarming’ rise in extremism, with Islamist groups and cyber-attacks also posing dangers
A surge in far-right violence, Islamist extremism and cyber-attacks from Russia and China are putting German democracy under “significant” threat, the interior minister, Nancy Faeser, said as she presented a government report on domestic and foreign adversaries.
The wars in Ukraine and Gaza are having strong ripple effects on German security, driving radicalism and attacks, the study by the office for the protection of the constitution (BfV) found.
“Our democracy is strong but it is under significant pressure,” Faeser said. “We have got to stand up to domestic threats from extremism as decisively as to external threats, above all from the Russian regime.”
North Korea: Why is Kim Jong Un eager to welcome Putin?
Both Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un are ostracized from much of the international community. With Putin visiting Pyongyang, the two leaders want to position themselves as powerful allies resisting the US dominance.
As Vladimir Putin heads to North Korea, both Moscow and Pyongyang hope his talks with Kim Jong Un will reinforce the relationship between the two countries as they find themselves ostracized by large parts of the world.
The talks are expected to produce a number of both economic and military initiatives. Analysts warn that some of the agreements — especially those on the exchange of weapons and advanced missile and satellite technology — are likely to be kept under wraps.
Beyond those deals, however, both sides are just as eager to put on a grand display of statesmanship. Kim Jong Un is desperate to burnish his credentials as a significant world leader, and satellite images of the North Korean capital are showing lavish preparations for Putin's arrival in downtown Pyongyang. Putin, for his part, wants to demonstrate that Russia still has friends and allies and he is free to travel overseas despite UN sanctions and international arrest warrants issued against him by the International Criminal Court over Russian troops allegedly abducting children in Ukraine.
UNESCO sounds alarm over artificial intelligence-fuelled Holocaust denial
AI technology is helping to create false stories about World War II atrocities including Holocaust denial, risking an "explosive spread of anti-Semitism", the UN warned Tuesday.
The UN's education and culture body UNESCO called for governments and tech companies to introduce ethical safeguards around AI technology, and for schools to spread the word about the risks of AI-generated content.
UNESCO's report highlighted instances where hackers had rigged chatbots to spread Nazi ideology, and others where bots dreamt up their own stories around the Holocaust.
"If we allow the horrific facts of the Holocaust to be diluted, distorted or falsified through the irresponsible use of AI, we risk the explosive spread of anti-Semitism," said Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO's director-general.
Listening to unheard Wu-Tang Clan - the world's rarest album
By Tiffanie Turnbull, in Hobart, Australia
Inside a delicately hand-carved silver box on display in an Australian museum lies the most exclusive, most valuable, and perhaps most infamous album in the world.
And this weekend, I became one of the lucky few on the planet to have heard it.
Recorded in secret over six years by trailblazing hip-hop group the Wu-Tang Clan, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin was designed to be a piece of fine art.
Only a single CD copy exists – and with it comes a legal stipulation that the owner cannot publicly release the 31 tracks until 2103.
The record, which features the nine surviving members of the group, is currently on loan to Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) – a gallery so well known for its headline-catching art some dub it Australia’s “Temple of Weird”.
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