(UN News)* —The concept of “autonomous” cars, moving us all around in an orderly, congestion-free fashion has been around, in various forms, for decades. But, despite some impressive technological advances in recent years, that vision is still some way off.
“Connected vehicles” also raise fears of hacking, and cars being remotely controlled by unscrupulous individuals or organizations.
A good example is the recent movie, Leave the World Behind, which features a scene in which hundreds of electric cars are hacked, causing them to smash into each other on a New York highway.
Nevertheless, the industry is forging ahead with plans to introduce increasing levels of autonomy in the latest car models, and the UN is at the heart of those discussions, which involve governments and the transport industry, aimed at developing international regulations and guidelines governing automated driving.
(New York) – Governments across the globe are reaching beyond their borders and committing human rights abuses against their own nationals or former nationals to silence or deter dissent, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on 22 February 2024.
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Feb 19 2024 (IPS)* – Imperialism continues to dominate the world. Globalisation is losing to some of its anti-theses, but imperialism still rules, increasingly by law, albeit in changing even contradictory ways.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Hence, we live in challenging times. It is often difficult to see the main challenges we face as there seem to be so many. Also, the new or the unusual gains far more attention than what appears commonplace.
Power and empire Our histories and cultures are often quite different despite our common, but varied experiences of foreign domination, even rule. Such power involves varied mixes of socioeconomic and political relations, involving governance and even the rule of law.
There are three basic problems with the CIA: its objectives, methods, and unaccountability. Its operational objectives are whatever the CIA or the President of the United States defines to be in the U.S. interest at a given time, irrespective of international law or U.S. law. Its methods are secretive and duplicitous.
Jeffrey D. Sachs
Its unaccountability means that the CIA and president run foreign policy without any public scrutiny. Congress is a doormat, a sideshow.
As a recent CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, said of his time at the CIA: “I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”
The CIA was established in 1947 as the successor to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The OSS had performed two distinct roles in World War II, intelligence and subversion.
Fewer than 1-in-10 children in low-income countries have access to child benefits, leaving them vulnerable to disease, education gaps, poor nutrition, poverty and inequality.
GENEVA / NEW YORK (ILO)* –-Globally, 1.4 billion children, aged under 15, lack any form of social protection, leaving them vulnerable to disease, poor nutrition and poverty, according to new data released on 14 February 2024 by the International Labour Organization (ILO), Save the Children and UNICEF.
SYDNEY, Feb 14 2024 (IPS)* –Israel continues to defy its strongest backer the US and its western allies in its quest to control the land from the “River to the Sea”, and in the process ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population.
Anis Chowdhury
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is determined to push ahead with a ground offensive against Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah despite mounting warnings from aid agencies and the international community that an assault on Rafah would be a catastrophe.
He also snubbed the US on the latest hostage release and ceasefire deal brokered by Qatar and Egypt. The interim order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to take all effective measures to stop “plausible” genocide in Gaza seems irrelevant to Israel.
On February 7, 2024, a U.S. drone strike assassinated an Iraqi militia leader, Abu Baqir al-Saadi, in the heart of Baghdad. This was a further U.S. escalation in a major new front in the U.S.-Israeli war on the Middle East, centered on the Israeli genocide in Gaza, but already also including ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Syria, and the U.S. and U.K.’s bombing of Yemen.
Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in Rafah, the last refuge in southern Gaza, Feb 2024. Photo credit: MENAFN
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Feb 14 2024 (IPS)* –A gathering ‘perfect storm’ – due to various developments, several quite deliberate – now threatens much devastation in the global South, likely to most hurt the poorest and most vulnerable.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Globalisation’s protracted decline The age of globalization had mixed consequences, unevenly incorporating national markets for labour, goods and even some services.
It ended gradually, with the trend far more pronounced following the protracted worldwide stagnation since the 2008 global financial crisis.
Sometimes still referred to as the Great Recession, Western central banks resorted to unconventional monetary policies, mainly ‘quantitative easing’, to keep their economies afloat.
But easier credit enabled more financialization and indebtedness, rather than recovery, let alone sustainable development.
GENEVA, 9 February 2024 (UNICEF)* –- “Three hundred days ago, a wave of atrocities were unleashed upon the children of Sudan.
“Here is some of what happened in those 300 days:
“First: the world’s largest displacement of children has been seen in Sudan. Four million children have been displaced. That’s 13,000 children every single day for 300 days. Safety, gone. Worldly possessions, gone. Friends and family members separated or lost. Hope, fading.
(UN News)* —The United Nations on Wednesday [] urged countries not to forget millions of people caught up in the war between rival militaries in Sudan, calling for $4.1 billion to help stave off famine and assist those who have fled into neighbouring countries.“
Half of Sudan’s population, 25 million people, needs humanitarian assistance,” Martin Griffiths, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, told journalists in Geneva.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 