Author

admin

Browsing

President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday that Russia could use nuclear weapons if it was struck with conventional missiles, and that Moscow would consider any assault on it supported by a nuclear power to be a joint attack.

The decision to change Russia’s official nuclear doctrine is the Kremlin’s answer to deliberations in the United States and Britain about whether or not to give Ukraine permission to fire conventional Western missiles into Russia.

Putin, opening a meeting of Russia’s Security Council, said that the changes were in response to a swiftly changing global landscape which had thrown up new threats and risks for Russia.

The 71-year-old Kremlin chief, the primary decision-maker on Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal, said he wanted to underscore one key change in particular.

“It is proposed that aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear state, be considered as their joint attack on the Russian Federation,” Putin said.

“The conditions for Russia’s transition to the use of nuclear weapons are also clearly fixed,” Putin said, adding that Moscow would consider such a move if it detected the start of a massive launch of missiles, aircraft or drones against it.

Russia reserved the right to also use nuclear weapons if it or ally Belarus were the subject of aggression, including by conventional weapons, Putin said.

Putin said the clarifications were carefully calibrated and commensurate with the modern military threats facing Russia – confirmation that the nuclear doctrine was changing.

Russia’s current published nuclear doctrine, set out in a 2020 decree by Putin, says Russia may use nuclear weapons in case of a nuclear attack by an enemy or a conventional attack that threatens the existence of the state.

The innovations outlined by Putin include a widening of the threats under which Russia would consider a nuclear strike, the inclusion of ally Belarus under the nuclear umbrella and the idea that a rival nuclear power supporting a conventional strike on Russia would also be considered to be attacking it.

The United States in 2022 was so concerned about the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia that it warned Putin over the consequences of using such weapons, according to Central Intelligence Agency Director Bill Burns.

Confrontation

The 2-1/2-year-old Ukraine war has triggered the gravest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis – considered to be the closest the two Cold War superpowers came to intentional nuclear war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been urging Kyiv’s allies for months to let Ukraine fire Western missiles, including long-range US ATACMS and British Storm Shadows, deep into Russia to limit Moscow’s ability to launch attacks.

With Ukraine losing key towns to gradually advancing Russian forces in the country’s east, the war is entering what Russian officials say is the most dangerous phase to date.

Zelensky has urged the West to cross and disregard Russia’s so-called “red lines,” and some Western allies have urged the United States to do just that, though Putin’s Russia, which controls just under one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, has warned that the West and Ukraine are risking a global war.

“Russia no longer has any instruments to intimidate the world apart from nuclear blackmail,” Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff, said in response to Putin’s remarks. “These instruments will not work.”

Putin, who casts the West as a decadent aggressor, and US President Joe Biden, who casts Russia as a corrupt autocracy and Putin as a killer, have both warned that a direct Russia-NATO confrontation could escalate into World War Three. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has also warned of the risk of nuclear war.

Russia is the world’s largest nuclear power. Together, Russia and the US control 88% of the world’s nuclear warheads.

In his remarks to Russia’s Security Council, a type of modern-day politburo of Putin’s most powerful officials including influential hawks, Putin said that work on amendments on changing the doctrine had been going on for the past year.

“The nuclear triad remains the most important guarantee of ensuring the security of our state and citizens, an instrument for maintaining strategic parity and balance of power in the world,” Putin said.

Russia, he said, would consider using nuclear weapons “upon receiving reliable information about the massive launch of aerospace attack vehicles and their crossing of our state border, meaning strategic or tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, drones, hypersonic and other aircraft.”

This post appeared first on cnn.com

A pair of blood-spattered trousers in a miso tank and an allegedly forced confession helped send Iwao Hakamata to death row more than five decades ago.

Now, the world’s longest-serving death row convict has a chance to clear his name.

A Japanese court on Thursday is set to hand down its verdict in the retrial of 88-year-old Hakamata, who was sentenced to death in 1968 for murdering a family in a marathon legal saga that’s brought global scrutiny to Japan’s criminal justice system and fueled calls to abolish the death penalty in the country.

During the retrial, Hakamata’s lawyers argued new information proved his innocence, while prosecutors claimed there was enough evidence to confirm he should be hanged for the crime.

Once a professional boxer, Hakamata retired in 1961 and got a job at a soybean processing plant in Shizuoka, central Japan – a choice that would mar the rest of his life.

When Hakamata’s boss, his boss’s wife, and their two children were found stabbed to death in their home in June five years later, Hakamata, then a divorcée who also worked at a bar, became the police’s prime suspect.

After days of relentless questioning, Hakamata initially admitted to the charges against him, but later changed his plea, arguing police had forced him to confess by beating and threatening him.

He was sentenced to death in a 2-1 decision by judges, despite repeatedly alleging that the police had fabricated evidence. The one dissenting judge stepped down from the bar six months later, demoralized by his inability to stop the sentencing.

Hakamata, who has maintained his innocence ever since, would go on to spend more than half his life waiting to be hanged before new evidence led to his release a decade ago.

After a DNA test on blood found on the trousers revealed no match to Hakamata or the victims, the Shizuoka District Court ordered a retrial in 2014. Because of his age and fragile mental state, Hakamata was freed as he awaited his day in court.

The Tokyo High Court initially scrapped the request for a retrial for unknown reasons, but in 2023 agreed to grant Hakamata a second chance on an order from Japan’s Supreme Court.

Retrials are rare in Japan, where 99% of cases result in convictions, according to the Ministry of Justice website.

A justice system under scrutiny

Even as his case is closely watched around the world, a possible acquittal would not likely register with Hakamata, who after decades of imprisonment has seen a decline in his mental health, and is “living in his own world,” said his sister Hideko, 91, who has long campaigned for his innocence.

“Sometimes he smiles happily, but that’s when he’s in his delusion,” Hideko said. “We have not even discussed the trial with Iwao because of his inability to recognize reality.”

But for Hakamata’s supporters, the case is about much more than one man.

It has raised questions about Japan’s reliance on confessions to get convictions. And some say it’s one of the reasons why the country should do away with the death penalty.

“I’m against the death penalty,” Hideko said. “Convicts are also human beings.”

Japan is the only G7 country outside of the United States to retain capital punishment, though it did not perform any executions in 2023, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Hiroshi Ichikawa, a former prosecutor who was not involved in Hakamata’s case, said historically Japanese prosecutors have been encouraged to get confessions before looking for supporting evidence, even if it means threatening or manipulating defendants to get them to admit guilt.

An emphasis on confessions is what allows Japan to maintain such a high conviction rate, Ichikawa said, in a country where an acquittal can severely hurt a prosecutor’s career.

Japan’s Ministry of Justice said it could not comment on an ongoing case.

A long fight for exoneration

For 46 years, Hakamata was held behind bars after being convicted on the basis of the stained clothing and his confession, which he and his lawyers say was given under duress.

“The Japanese judicial system, especially at that time, was a system that allowed investigative agencies to take advantage of their surreptitious nature to commit illegal or investigative crimes,” Ogawa said.

Chiara Sangiorgio, Death Penalty Advisor at Amnesty International, said Hakamata’s case is “emblematic of the many issues with the criminal justice (system) in Japan” and that his conviction was “riddled with flaws and recognized as unreliable” by the fact that he was granted a retrial.

Death row prisoners in Japan are typically detained in solitary confinement with limited contact with the outside world, Sangiorgio said. Executions are “shrouded in secrecy” with little to no warning, and families and lawyers are usually notified only after the execution has taken place.

Despite his poor mental health, over the past decade, Hakamata has gotten to enjoy the small pleasures that come with living freely.

In February, he adopted two cats. “Iwao began to pay attention to the cats, worry about them, and take care of them, which was a big change,” Hideko said.

Every afternoon, a group of Hakamata’s supporters take him out for a drive, where Hideko says Hakamata “buys a large amount of pastries and juice.”

While Hakamata may not understand the significance of Thursday’s ruling, his family and throngs of supporters may finally see the world’s longest-serving death row prisoner declared innocent, once and for all.

“I hope he will continue to live a long and free life,” Hideko said.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

The killing of a Japanese schoolboy in China has sparked an outpouring of anger and soul searching over the rise of extreme nationalism in the country, with some accusing the government of fanning anti-Japan sentiment and even the “education of hatred.”

The tragic loss of a young life has once again thrown a spotlight on the complex relationship between Asia’s two biggest economies, which has been shaped by their wartime history and changing power dynamics brought about by China’s rise.

The 10-year-old, born to a Japanese father and Chinese mother, was fatally stabbed on his way to school by a man in the southern city of Shenzhen last Wednesday. It was the second knife attack on Japanese children and third assault on foreigners in China in recent months.

Authorities in Beijing have refused to disclose the motive in each case, describing them as “isolated incidents” that could happen in any country.

But to some Shenzhen residents and online commentators, the daylight killing in one of China’s most cosmopolitan cities has prompted urgent reflection on the role of nationalistic propaganda and xenophobia in fueling such attacks.

“As a Chinese, I feel heartbroken, outraged and ashamed,” said a Shenzhen resident who laid a white rose outside the Japanese school following the boy’s death last Thursday.

“This kind of violence is the result of long-term education of hatred … There’s no good in instilling hatred from a young age,” said the resident, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.

The resident’s comments echo a groundswell of commentaries and online posts calling for a reckoning on anti-Japan sentiment, many of which have since been censored by Chinese social media platforms.

“The ‘anti-Japan rhetoric’ based on nationalist narratives has increased to dominate the internet,” a Chinese blogger said in a now-removed viral article on social platform WeChat. “These online remarks … will inevitably spill over from the screen and impact the ‘real world,’” they wrote.

The killing has shaken the Japanese community in China, with some of Japan’s biggest companies offering to repatriate staff members and their families. The development risks undermining Beijing’s recent efforts to court Japanese businesses to expand investment in China, amid a record exodus of foreign capital from the country’s flagging economy.

Historic anger

Japan has long been a target of Chinese nationalist ire, rooted in its brutal invasion and occupation of China in World War II. Generations of Chinese grew up learning about the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers in school textbooks and on state television.

That feeling of resentment is further fueled by territorial disputes in the East China Sea and geopolitical tensions, as Beijing seethes at what it sees as Japan’s deepening alliance with the United States intended to contain its rise.

China has ramped up patriotic education under leader Xi Jinping, who frequently evokes the country’s “century of humiliation” by imperial powers to rally public support behind his nationalistic agenda to assert Chinese power on the world stage.

The fatal stabbing of the Japanese boy coincided with the anniversary of Japan’s invasion of northeast China, an emotionally charged day commemorated with sirens and moments of silence across the country.

The sensitive timing has further fueled speculation that the attack was motivated by hatred.

A rare statement issued last week by dozens of Chinese people living in Japan condemned the assault and called for reflections on the “underlying causes.”

“The extreme nationalist hate education against Japan has been prevalent in China for a long time. It has obscured some Chinese people’s understanding of Japan, and even indulged ignorance and evil,” the statement said.

Signed by intellectuals, professionals, businesspeople and students with their real names, the statement mounted a sharp criticism of Beijing’s policies and vowed to change the “disturbing situation.”

Beijing has denied the accusations.

“There is no so-called Japan-hating education in China,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said Monday.

“We advocate learning from history, not to perpetuate hatred, but to prevent the tragedy of war from happening again.”

Nationalistic clickbait

The ruling Chinese Communist Party has long cultivated nationalism to shore up legitimacy.

Under Xi, China’s heavily censored social media has seen a surge of ultra-nationalistic, anti-Japan rhetoric. In some cases, the anger appears to have been fanned by the Chinese government and state media to exert pressure on Tokyo, such as the coordinated outrage last year over Japan’s release of treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

In other instances, nationalism is used as clickbait by online influencers, who often peddle jingoistic rhetoric and conspiracy theories to compete for traffic. A Chinese man recently went viral after posting a video of himself defacing the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, a controversial symbol of Japan’s military legacy that honors the country’s war dead, including some convicted of war crimes.

Some of that online hatred has turned to Japanese schools in China’s biggest cities with a large presence of Japanese businesses and workers. Since last year, hundreds of videos fanning hostility and suspicion of these facilities have emerged on Chinese video-streaming sites. Many called for the schools to be shut down, and some even accused them of secretly training Japanese spies.

“(Conspiracies against) Japanese schools have become a cheat code for viral content,” a blogger wrote on WeChat last week, after analyzing nearly 300 clips on video platform Kuaishou, which he said drew more than 2 million upvotes.

Following the article, Kuaishou suspended more than 90 accounts that fanned hostility between China and Japan, the platform said in a statement Saturday.

Some have voiced concerns about the effect of growing online xenophobia on Chinese children.

Zhang, a teaching assistant at a private school in Shanghai, said she noticed children as young as 6 portraying Japanese as villains.

‘Absolutely unacceptable’

On Monday, Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa urged Beijing to crack down on online anti-Japan posts and ensure the safety of Japanese citizens in a meeting with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi in New York.

“Groundless, malicious and anti-Japanese social media postings and others, including those targeting Japanese schools, directly affect the safety of children and are absolutely unacceptable,” Kamikawa told Wang, demanding a thorough crackdown as soon as possible, the Associated Press reported, citing a statement from the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

Wang, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, vowed to protect the safety of all foreign citizens in China and urged Japan to “remain calm and rational” to avoid “policization and escalation.”

A Japanese mother of two in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou said her husband’s automotive company had given families the option to return home, but her family decided to stay.

The mother, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, said the extreme nationalist rhetoric online did not represent the views of Chinese people she has met during her two years living in China.

“I’m almost torn in the middle. I’m so sad about the tragedy. But at the same time, I’m also so sad that so many Japanese people are hating China about this one incident.

“One crazy person can do crazy things, doesn’t mean everyone in the country is crazy. I’ve only received love and kindness from the Chinese people I met in Guangzhou.”

She said some of her Chinese friends who live in nearby Shenzhen went to lay flowers at the Japanese school.

By Friday evening, the school had received more than 1,000 bouquets, according to the Japanese consulate in Guangzhou – including from residents of faraway cities.

Some tributes carried a note of apology. “Child, I’m sorry, please rest in peace,” said a note signed from “a mother in Shenzhen.”

“Wish there’s no hatred in heaven,” another reads.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Hong Kong will roll out the red carpet Thursday to receive two giant pandas gifted by the Chinese government to mark 75 years of Communist Party rule, part of a citywide push by authorities to deepen patriotism.

An An and Ke Ke, both five years old, are expected to land shortly after noon at Hong Kong International Airport, where they will be greeted with a welcoming ceremony.

But fans hoping to catch a glimpse of them will have to wait for at least a month, as they will spend the next 30 days in quarantine in the southern Chinese city.

Elite police motorcyclists, who normally escort visiting VIPs, will reportedly usher them to their new home across town at Ocean Park, where the pair will join four other pandas at the theme park.

An An and Ke Ke arrive from a breeding center in mainland China’s Sichuan province. Staff in the metropolis of Chengdu sprung into action as early as 2 a.m. to ferry the pandas to the airport for the 1,350-kilometer (840-mile) journey, carried in crates with a supply of snacks.

They used forklifts to load the duo onto a truck, as a line of staff bade farewell from the curb, according to footage from Hong Kong’s public broadcaster RTHK.

A panda keeper from Ocean Park has been in Chengdu since July to enable the bears to acclimatize to his scent and voice, the theme park said on its Instagram page, adding that staff had also introduced bamboo from southern China to their diet.

An An, a male weighing 130 kilograms, is “strong, nimble and clever,” while Ke Ke, a female weighing 100 kilograms, is “good at climbing, gentle and cute,” the city’s Chief Executive John Lee told at a press conference on Tuesday.

They bring the total number of pandas in the city to six, joining Le Le and Ying Ying who were gifted to Hong Kong in 2007. Ying Ying made headlines in August by giving birth to twins, making her the oldest known first-time panda mother.

‘Panda diplomacy’

While these animals are not leaving China, their journey does carry an undertone of “panda diplomacy.” Beijing loans pandas to more than 20 countries as envoys of friendship, which is at times seen as a barometer of relations.

Similarly, An An and Ke Ke’s arrival in Hong Kong has a political objective, coming as Hong Kong officials drum up enthusiasm for the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the of People’s Republic of China on October 1.

“I would like to once again express my sincere gratitude to the central government for its care and support for Hong Kong for gifting two beloved and energetic giant pandas to Hong Kong,” Lee said on Tuesday.

Activists in Hong Kong used to protest for greater democracy on October 1. But crackdowns by city authorities have left opposition figures largely in jail or exile since Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law in 2020.

Chinese and Hong Kong officials say the law has helped return the financial hub to stability following mass protests in 2019. They have vowed to instill a new culture of Chinese patriotism among Hong Kongers and crack down on what they call “foreign interference.”

The US government, its allies and human rights groups have criticized the national security crackdown for eroding individual freedoms and ending the international business hub’s once outspoken and freewheeling culture.

Ahead of this year’s celebrations, Chinese flags are up in many parts of the city alongside giant billboards hailing the anniversary with preparations underway for a litany of events aimed at boosting patriotism, including a lengthy fireworks show on Tuesday evening.

Kevin Yeung, the city’s minister for culture, sports and tourism, said Wednesday he hoped the pandas’ arrival “can make Hong Kong feel more deeply about the care of the central government.”

This post appeared first on cnn.com

When award-winning actress Meryl Streep spoke on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly about cats, squirrels and birds, she wasn’t making a point about hunters and prey.

She was comparing all three with women and girls in Afghanistan – and pointing out that the animals have more rights.

“A cat may feel the sun on her face. She may chase a squirrel into the park… A bird may sing in Kabul, but a girl may not, and a woman may not in public. This is extraordinary,” Streep said on Monday. “This is a suppression of the natural law. This is odd.”

As Streep’s words ricocheted around social media, four countries stepped forward to announce “unprecedented” action against the ruling Taliban for its “systematic oppression” of women and girls.

Germany, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands on Thursday accused the hardline Islamist group of violating the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

The convention was ratified by the previous Afghan government in 2003, well before the Taliban re-seized power three years ago after the withdrawal of the United States and its allies following a 20-year war.

“We know that women and girls of Afghanistan are effectively being erased from public life by the various edicts the Taliban have issued,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong told reporters in New York.

“The steps we are taking with Germany, Canada and the Netherlands are unprecedented.”

Tightening restrictions

Since taking power, the Taliban has gradually tightened restrictions on women and girls.

They are no longer allowed to work or study beyond grade 6. Their bodies must be fully covered, and they are forbidden to look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.

The Taliban’s latest edicts last month, referred to by Streep, include the demand for women and girls to remain silent in public.

According to the Taliban’s own strict interpretation of Islam, a woman’s voice is deemed intimate and so should not be heard singing, reciting, or reading out loud.

This systematic oppression of women and girls, also alleged by the UN, has fueled a mental health crisis in Afghanistan’s female population.

Depression among women and girls is rising, according to health experts and rights activists – leading to a surge in suicide and suicide attempts.

Human Rights Watch says the legal move by the four Western nations could lead to proceedings at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

As a signatory to CEDAW, Afghanistan is expected to respond to the complaint.

However, the document was signed by the previous government, and so far, the Taliban has shown no sign of changing its stance despite international condemnation.

The Taliban government has yet to respond to the CEDAW action.

“Erasure of an entire gender”

Fawzia Koofi, a former Afghan member of parliament, told Amanpour the Taliban had “failed to understand that Afghanistan has transformed.”

Despite the Taliban’s efforts to erase them, she said women were fighting to have their voices heard.

After the Taliban banned women’s voices in public, some posted videos of themselves to social media, singing in defiance.

“That is a sign of a different Afghanistan that the Taliban don’t get,” said Koofi. “Today, every woman in Afghanistan is a journalist, every woman in Afghanistan is a TV, by talking about what their experience is.”

Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the action by Germany and its partners may mark the beginning of the path to justice for the Taliban’s “egregious human rights violations against Afghan women and girls.”

“It is vitally important for other countries to register their support for this action and for them to involve Afghan women as the process moves forward,” she said.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

A senior executive at CrowdStrike has apologised for a faulty software update that caused a global IT outage in July.

The incident led to worldwide flight cancellations and impacted industries around the globe including banks, health care, media companies and hotel chains.

The outage disrupted internet services, affecting 8.5 million Microsoft Windows devices.

Adam Meyers, senior vice president for counter adversary operations at CrowdStrike, said the company released a content configuration update for its Falcon Sensor security software that resulted in system crashes worldwide.

“We are deeply sorry this happened and we are determined to prevent this from happening again,” Mr Meyers said.

“We have undertaken a full review of our systems and begun implementing plans to bolster our content update procedures so that we emerge from this experience as a stronger company.”

The committee members pressed Mr Meyers on how the incident occurred in the first place, with legislators likening its impact to that of a well-planned, sophisticated cyber attack, rather than because of a “mistake” inside CrowdStrike’s software.

He said the issue was not the result of a cyberattack or prompted by AI.

Giving evidence to US legislators, Mr Meyers said: “We appreciate the incredible round-the-clock efforts that our customers and partners who, working alongside our teams, mobilised immediately to restore systems.

“We were able to bring many customers back online within hours. I can assure that we continue to approach this with a great sense of urgency.”

CrowdStrike said an “undetected error” in a software update sparked the problem.

A bug in the firm’s content validation system meant “problematic content data” was not spotted and then allowed to roll out to Microsoft Windows customers, causing the crash.

Mr Meyers said the cybersecurity firm would continue to share “lessons learned” from the incident to ensure it did not happen again.

CrowdStrike faces numerous lawsuits

Some people said CrowdStrike didn’t face such an intense grilling by the committee as other tech executives have been subjected to in recent years.

Instead, emphasis was placed on firms working with committees and government to prevent future incidents of a similar nature.

However, CrowdStrike still faces lawsuits from people and businesses impacted by the outage – it has been sued by its own shareholders as well as by US aviation giant Delta Airlines after it cancelled thousands of flights because of the system shutdown.

In the UK, the CrowdStrike outage left GPs unable to access systems that manage appointments or allow them to view patient records or send prescriptions to pharmacies – which were also widely impacted – forcing doctors to return to using pen and paper.

Meanwhile, flights were cancelled or delayed and passengers left stranded as airline systems were knocked offline or staff were forced to handwrite boarding passes and luggage tags.

Many small businesses also reported a substantial impact on their income, with some saying their websites being knocked offline by the incident cost them hundreds or even thousands of pounds in sales.

This post appeared first on sky.com

The moon will get a companion this week as an asteroid around the length of a double-decker bus enters Earth’s orbit.

The temporary guest, called 2024 PT5, should arrive on 29 September and is expected to befriend the regular moon for around two months.

“A mini-moon is a small object orbiting another solar system body,” said Daniel Brown, an associate professor in astronomy at Nottingham Trent University.

It can either be made of rock, which is an asteroid or a mixture of rock, dust and ice, which is a comet.

“In either case, we have to think about these not orbiting around us forever but for a short amount of time,” said Dr Brown.

2024 PT5 was first discovered in August last year, the day before it approached Earth at a distance of 353,200 miles (568,500km).

It belongs to the Arjuna asteroid belt, a group of space rocks in the solar system that revolve around the Sun.

Dr Brown said the mini-moon will orbit Earth for 57 days before eventually swinging out of the planet’s gravitational pull.

“There is nothing explosive or dramatic happening to it for it to leave, it simply has too much energy to hang around us for too long,” he said.

The mini-moon will be back

Although a temporary visitor, Earth will not see the last of this mini-moon.

Scientists predict it will re-enter our orbit in 2055.

This is not the first time the Earth has had a mini-moon.

Four years ago, scientists identified another mini-moon called 2020 CD3, which orbited the Earth for more than a year.

Read more: New mini-moon discovered orbiting Earth – but it’s only temporary

Dr Brown said mini-moons are fairly common but “what tends to be less common is being able to observe them, as they are small, very faint and very fast-moving”.

This year’s mini-moon will not be visible to the naked eye and can only be seen through telescopes.

2024 PT5 is a near-Earth object – a group of space rocks that pass by Earth regularly.

Astronomers track these objects in case they are a threat to Earth in the future but experts said it is unlikely 2024 PT5 will pose such a risk.

This post appeared first on sky.com

Hundreds of thousands of Instagram users, including actors Julianne Moore and Ashley Tisdale, have shared a post that supposedly revokes Meta’s right to train its artificial intelligence tool using their information. 

“Goodbye Meta AI,” it says before saying the user does “not give Meta or anyone else permission to use any of personal data, profile information or photos”.

It doesn’t work.

The viral Instagram story, which was also shared by England cricketer Jonny Bairstow, is actually repurposed from an old, equally ineffective meme and Meta sources confirmed to Sky News it does not count as a valid form of objection to their new AI policies.

However, there is a simple way to object that Meta has to honour.

Meta AI is coming

Over the next few months, Meta will start using public posts and information on UK Instagram and Facebook accounts to train its artificial intelligence, Meta AI.

The new rules were supposed to roll out in June but Meta was forced to delay them to deal with changes demanded by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Now, because of those changes, the way you can object is “even simpler, more prominent and easier to find”, according to Meta.

How to object

In the coming days, Facebook and Instagram users will start receiving notifications explaining what is changing and how to access the objection form.

If a user has already objected through the old form, they will not receive a notification.

That’s because Meta says it will “honour their choice” and they will be excluded from the training data by default.

The objection form itself has been simplified from its previous version.

It now takes three clicks and only requires an email address to revoke access to your data.

Anything that is not public on your account, like private posts and messages, will already be excluded from the data used to train Meta AI.

Similarly, private accounts and accounts of under-18s will also be excluded.

You can also object before you receive the notification by going to the Meta’s “privacy centre” in your settings and clicking on the “object” hyperlink at the top.

Meta isn’t immediately joining new EU AI pact

While Meta has tweaked its AI policy for UK accounts, some say it is holding out in the European Union (EU) because it is not joining a new pact for companies using AI.

Earlier in the year, the EU passed a groundbreaking set of laws called the EU AI Act.

It regulates how AI can be used, and grades different AI uses based on their risk to society.

All companies operating in the EU, including Meta, have to abide by the rules which are slowly coming into force.

Meta says it “welcomes” the new “harmonised” rules.

Read more from Sky News:
UK and allies issue alert over huge China-backed botnet
Cards Against Humanity sues SpaceX for $15m

AI taught how to spot buildings and settlements

However, an interim set of guidelines has been launched called the EU AI Pact, which hopes to get businesses following the new laws without waiting for them to come into full force.

Signatories pledge to commit to governance strategies that comply with the AI Act, identify high-risk AI systems in their business and promote AI literacy among staff.

Over a hundred companies signed up to the pledge, which was announced on Wednesday – but not Meta.

In a statement to Sky News, the company said it is “focusing on our compliance work under the AI Act at this time” but did not rule out joining the pact in the future.

“We also shouldn’t lose sight of AI’s huge potential to foster European innovation and enable competition or else the EU will miss out on this once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

This post appeared first on sky.com

China fired a missile into the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday following a speech on the international stage by President Biden, in which he called for security in the region.

The Ministry of Defense of the People’s Republic of China announced that its military had launched an intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday morning.

The missile, which carried a dummy warhead and was not targeting any nation, fell into the ocean without incident. The People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force claims that the launch was part of its routine military training calendar.

Just hours prior, Biden made his final address to the United Nations in New York City, running through a series of security concerns for the international body.

Biden specifically noted the threat posed against Western interests by China and urged efforts for peace.

‘We also need to uphold our principles as we seek to responsibly manage the competition with China so it does not veer into conflict,’ he said. ‘We stand ready to cooperate on urgent challenges for the good of our people and the people everywhere.’

‘We recently resumed cooperation with China to stop the flow of deadly synthetic narcotics,’ Biden continued. ‘I appreciate the collaboration. It matters for the people in my country and many others around the world.’

Biden specifically referenced the need to combat the forces of ‘military coercion’ being applied to Taiwan and others in the region.

‘On matters of conviction, the United States is unabashed, pushing back against unfair economic competition and against military coercion of other nations in the South China Sea, in maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits, in protecting our most advanced technologies so they cannot be used against us or any of our partners,’ the president said.

A U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that they were given some notice before the launch.

‘We monitored the PRC ICBM test launch that occurred earlier today,’ the spokesperson told Fox News Digital. ‘The PRC did give some advance notification of the ICBM test. This is a step in the right direction to reducing the risks of misperception and miscalculation.’

‘It also is a step toward facilitating a more regularized bilateral notification arrangement for ballistic missile and space launches—which the USG has previously proposed to the PRC—and represents a common sense confidence-building measure,’ they added.

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

Republicans are set to flip the Senate for the first time this cycle in this week’s Fox News Power Rankings

Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris enjoys a small post-debate bump, three new toss-up races emerge in the House, and the GOP loses ground on the governor’s map.

Harris comes out stronger from the first debate

Two weeks after their first debate, Harris is up a point and former President Donald Trump is down the same in an average of high-quality polls.

If those numbers sound familiar, it is because they match the shifts after the first debate between President Biden and Trump four years ago.

That could be a problem for Republicans. In 2020, Trump did not narrow the polling gap that the first debate created until a stronger showing in the second. As of today, Harris and Trump have not agreed on terms for a rematch.

Harris’ improvement comes from independents more than any other group. They backed Trump by eight points in a Fox News survey last month but now prefer Harris by 12. Biden won independents by 15 points in the last election, so an enduring Harris lead in this group could give her an edge on election night. (Poll results among subgroups can be volatile.)

The same post-debate poll has Trump down two points among all voters, leaving the former president at 48% and Harris at 50%. A spread like that on election night gives Trump an electoral college advantage.

Further slippage in support for the former president would change that math.

Republicans are poised to control the Senate

Republicans have enjoyed a head start in the Senate from the beginning of this cycle. Their star candidate in Montana is doing more than anyone to get them to the finish line.

The latest forecast predicts Republicans will take at least 51 seats on election night, while Democrats are expected to take at least 47. That leaves two races in the Toss Up category.

Montana moves out of that category this week.

This state has been represented for nearly two decades by Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, one of the last rural Democrats, who has leaned on his farming background and gun rights advocacy to exceed expectations in three elections. 

However, Trump won the state by 16 points in 2020, and Tester faces a strong opponent in businessman and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy. He has run an efficient, disciplined campaign on the economy and the border. 

That makes Montana a better pickup opportunity for the GOP than Ohio, which does not lean toward Trump as much as its western neighbor and where Republican candidate Bernie Moreno has made missteps on the trail.

Sheehy leads with 51% to Tester’s 45% in an AARP poll conducted in late August. The incumbent Democrat is ahead among independents, but that is not enough to overcome this conservative electorate.

Sitting among the peaks that shape Montana’s landscape is a mountain of cash. Over $121 million has been spent by the campaigns and outside groups so far, according to OpenSecrets, with at least $100 million more in reserved spending. That is an extraordinary sum for a race that isn’t competitive at the presidential level and equates to more than $150 per registered voter.

That is what keeps this race tight. Tester has more than three times as much cash on hand as Sheehy, giving the Democrat spending money for local advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts.

If that cash can push this race back within the margin of error, Democrats have a shot at retaining the upper house.

Montana moves from Toss Up to Lean R.

With 22 toss-up races, the House is up for grabs

The House is still a toss-up in the latest forecast. In fact, with three more races joining that category, it is less clear than ever which direction the lower chamber will take.

  • California’s 45th district: President Biden won this southern California district by six points last cycle (Dave’s Redistricting), but its heavy and right-leaning Asian American population makes it highly competitive. Republicans are pouring money into the race to protect incumbent Rep. Michelle Steel, whose position on abortion could be an issue with Los Angeles-area voters. She faces Democratic lawyer Derek Tran. This race moves from Lean R to Toss Up.
  • Iowa’s 1st district: A recent Des Moines Register survey showing Harris four points behind Trump raised eyebrows in the Iowa presidential race. It could have a downballot impact as well. Second-term GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks won by six votes in 2020, and while redistricting gave her a more comfortable win in the midterms, she remains vulnerable in this Davenport and Iowa City district. Former State Representative Christina Bohannan is the Democratic candidate. Iowa’s 1st district moves from Likely R to Toss Up.
  • Nebraska’s 2nd district: This Omaha-centered district has been represented by Republican Rep. Don Bacon since 2017. Bacon and the district made news last week when he signed a letter calling for Nebraska to become a ‘winner-take-all’ state before the presidential election. The gamble would have helped Trump if it had succeeded, but calling for the change could put Bacon in danger with some of the centrist voters he has relied on in previous elections. He faces Democratic State Sen. Tony Vargas. This district moves from Lean R to Toss Up.

Republicans run from Robinson in North Carolina

Finally, a sleepy gubernatorial cycle had its wake-up call last Thursday when CNN reported that North Carolina Republican Lt. Gov Mark Robinson referred to himself as a ‘Black Nazi’ on a porn website he frequented between 2008 and 2012. He denied the report.

Robinson is more than embattled in this race. At least four senior staffers have resigned from his campaign, allies have jumped ship, and the Republican Governors Association is not spending another dollar on advertising. 

No one knows how this will impact Trump. Voting has begun with Robinson’s name a few rows down from Trump’s on the ballot, and Democrats are reminding voters about the strong, consistent praise that the former president has offered Robinson. However, calcified support for Trump among Republicans and the state’s history of ticket splitting should keep him competitive. 

In the meantime, the Power Rankings already had the governor’s race at Lean D because of previous Robinson scandals. Now, it moves to Likely D.

Voting underway with six weeks to go until election day

Voting has begun in 21 states, including Wisconsin, North Carolina, Minnesota and Virginia. By the end of the month, more than half of all states will send ballots to voters.

While many voters are expected to cast a ballot early, election day itself is only six weeks away. 

Next week, vice presidential hopefuls Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, will participate in a debate hosted by CBS News in New York City. Fox News will simulcast the debate with special coverage anchored by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum at 8:20 p.m. ET.

Fox News Media has proposed a second Harris-Trump debate to be moderated by MacCallum and Baier in October.

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS