“Hello,” says the news presenter, as she effortlessly switches from Spanish to English to give her audience a summary of the day’s biggest stories.

With her clear intonation, smart appearance, and friendly-yet-serious expression, she seems the very image of a news anchor. Except, perhaps, for her name.

As she introduces herself as The Girl (“La Chama”) – and her co-presenter announces himself as The Dude (“El Pana”) – the viewer gets the first hint there is more to this newscast than meets the eye. Then she adds, “Before we continue, in case you haven’t noticed, we want to tell you that we are not real.”

Welcome to “Venezuela Retweets,” an AI-anchored news show created by a group of media organizations who want to shelter their real-life journalists from a crackdown launched by strongman Nicolas Maduro’s government following July’s disputed election.

While in much of the world, journalists view the use of artificial intelligence as a looming threat to livelihoods, in Venezuela – where showing your face on a news report can conceivably land you in jail – many view it more favorably; as protection.

“Right now, being a journalist in Venezuela is a bit like being a firefighter,” explained Carlos Eduardo Huertas, a Colombian media operator who coordinated the launch of “Venezuela Retweets.”

“You still need to attend the fire even though it’s dangerous. The Girl and The Dude want to be instruments for our firefighters: we don’t want to replace journalists, but to protect them.”

After all, as The Dude chimes in reassuringly in one clip, “Although we were generated by AI, our content is real, verified, of high quality, and created by journalists.”

Brave news world

Prompting this leap into a brave new world of technology is that real-life journalists in the country have found reporting the news an increasingly dangerous business since Maduro’s controversial reelection – a result that has been hotly disputed by the opposition and caused widespread skepticism abroad.

According to Espacio Publico, a Venezuelan organization that tracks freedom of the press, at least 16 journalists have been detained in the government crackdown that followed the vote and the nationwide protests that erupted after it. All except four of them remain behind bars, some facing charges spanning from terrorism and incitement to hatred, while others are unsure even of what they are accused. Others still have seen their passports suspended.

The United Nations has talked of a “climate of fear,” while many Caracas-based journalists have taken to working in pairs, sharing their whereabouts with loved ones and memorizing their lawyers’ numbers just in case.

It was against this backdrop that the idea for “Venezuela Retweets” formed, explained “Roberto,” the managing editor of a digital publication in Caracus that is part of the collective behind it.

Among their other considerable skills as newscasters, The Girl and The Dude simply have no fear.

A unique format

Restrictions on freedom of speech in Venezuela are nothing new: Government censors have long monitored radio and television programs, threatening to take them off air if they voice anti-Maduro content, while access to paper is heavily regulated for print publications, and local internet providers blacklist the URLs of news portals non-aligned with the government, like Roberto’s.

Because of these restrictions, most Venezuelans get their news via social media, with WhatsApp chains being the considered the “most useful” information channel, according to a report published in March by Consultores21, a Caracas-based opinion pollster.

This is where the format of Venezuela Retweets comes into its own, as it is designed specifically to be shared on social media. Rather than focus on live broadcasts or written articles, its digitally created avatars simply read the news in clips that can be posted on the likes of Instagram and Facebook, or downloaded and forwarded on WhatsApp and other messaging services. (Sharing the clips on X is more problematic, as Venezuela banned the use of the app altogether when Maduro accused tech tycoon Elon Musk of being part of a neo-fascist plot to overthrow his government.)

While this makes it harder to monitor how much traffic Venezuela Retweets generates, it adds yet another layer of security because it makes the video harder to track, according to Roberto.

An artificial sense of security?

Despite the enthusiasm around the project, some remain skeptical that hiding behind an avatar will be enough to keep the long arm of Maduro’s government at bay.

“It’s nonsense to even think for a heartbeat that it’s a safety tool. It’s a clever idea, and I hope it lasts forever,” said Shelly Palmer, a professor of Advanced Media at Syracuse University who has worked extensively on artificial intelligence.

Organizations involved in freedom of the press in Cuba and Nicaragua have gotten in touch, he said, signaling a widespread interest for using AI as a freedom of expression tool in authoritarian environments.

That does not mean Roberto, Huerta and the many journalists whose work goes into the reports of The Girl and The Dude are blind to the risks. While Roberto is keen to emphasize the difference the initiative has made to newsroom morale, he acknowledges what he and his staff are up against.

“We still live in Venezuela and at the end of the day we’re at risk despite all the measures we can take,” Roberto said.

It’s a risk that cannot be underestimated. As regular listeners to The Girl and The Dude will know, the past two weeks alone saw the detention of another two reporters.

The Ukrainian drones targeted the Russian defense ministry-operated warehouse in the city of Toropets, which was storing Iskander tactical missile systems, Tochka-U tactical missile systems, guided aerial bombs and artillery ammunition, the source said.

Large fires broke out from the debris of drones repelled by local air defenses, the regional government said, prompting the governor, Igor Rudenya, to order a partial evacuation of the area during the early hours of Wednesday.

NORSAR, which has been using seismic monitors since 2022 to evaluate the impact of the war in Ukraine, is currently analyzing the preliminary data to capture the full extent of the blast, Dando added.

Satellite images taken by Maxar Technologies on Wednesday morning showed huge plumes of smoke rising up from several depot buildings, as well as extensive damage to the buildings and nearby forest.

Fires continue to burn, as seen in the Maxar Technologies images.

Russian state news agency TASS reported that a drone attack had been launched on the city of Toropets overnight causing a fire “due to the fall of debris,” without specifically mentioning any targeting of a weapons facility.

Affected residents, including 11 children, have already been evacuated to the settlements of Kunya and Velikiye Luki in the neighbouring Pskov region, TASS said. No civilians are thought to have been injured in the drone attack, the news agency reported, citing Rudenya.

“Now we are engaged in evacuating the population, residents, maintaining public order,” Rudenya said in a later video statement, stressing that multiple emergency service units were involved in the response.

Rudenya made the call to evacuate so emergency services at the scene could work fully to bring the blazes under control, the local government said in a post on its official Telegram channel.

Toropets is located around 300 miles from the Ukrainian border and about 250 miles west of Moscow.

Ukraine has been pushing its key allies, including the United States, to give the go-ahead to carry out missile strikes on targets deeper into Russian territory. Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned NATO members that lifting restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range missile systems would mean entering into war with Russia itself.

United Nations members voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to demand that Israel end its occupation of Palestinian territories within 12 months.

The resolution was adopted in the UN General Assembly after receiving 124 votes in favor. Fourteen countries voted against, including the United States, Hungary, Israel, Argentina, Czechia, Fiji, Malawi, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Tonga, and Tuvalu. Forty-three nations abstained from the vote.

The vote comes after the UN’s top court, the International Court of Justice, said in July that Israel’s presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal and called on Israel to end its decades-long occupation of territories claimed by Palestinians for a future state.

In its advisory opinion, the ICJ said Israel should end its occupation “as rapidly as possible.” The UN’s resolution gives a 12-month timeline.

Riyad Mansour, Palestinian ambassador to the UN, called the vote a turning point “in our struggle for freedom and justice.”

The resolution was put forward by observer state Palestine, which was granted new privileges – including the right to submit proposals in the assembly – in May.

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, meanwhile slammed the vote outcome as “a a shameful decision that backs the Palestinian Authority’s diplomatic terrorism.”

Neither the ICJ advisory opinion nor the assembly resolution are binding, however the two decisions could further isolate Israel as world leaders prepare to meet next week in New York for the annual UN General Assembly.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are expected to address other world leaders at the UN on September 26.

Monitoring group Human Rights Watch (HRW) welcomed Wednesday’s resolution.

“Israel should immediately heed the demand of an overwhelming majority of UN member states to abide by the World Court’s historic ruling on Israel’s decades-long occupation,” Louis Charbonneau, UN director at HRW, said in a statement.

Amnesty International also welcomed the resolution and called on Israel to abide by it.

“This resolution vindicates long-standing calls from the Palestinian people and many countries around the world, by pursuing the implementation of the ICJ’s historic advisory opinion which confirmed Israel has a legal obligation to end its unlawful occupation of the OPT and its systemic discrimination against the occupied Palestinian population,” said Amnesty secretary general Agnes Callamard said.

During the 1967 war, Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Golan heights from neighboring Arab states. Soon after, it began establishing Jewish settlements in these territories.

The Palestinians want the West Bank and Gaza for a future state, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israel considers the entirety of Jerusalem as its “eternal capital.”

Australian police said Wednesday they have infiltrated Ghost, an encrypted global communications app developed for criminals, leading to dozens of arrests.

The app’s alleged administrator, Jay Je Yoon Jung, 32, appeared in a Sydney court Wednesday on charges including supporting a criminal organization and benefitting from proceeds of crime.

Jung did not enter pleas or apply to be released on bail. He will remain behind bars until his case returns to court in November.

Australian police arrested 38 suspects in raids across four states in recent days while law enforcement agencies were also making arrests in Canada, Sweden, Ireland and Italy, Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Ian McCartney said.

“We allege hundreds of criminals including Italian organized crime, motorcycle gang members, Middle Eastern organized crime and Korean organized crime have used Ghost in Australia and overseas to import illicit drugs and order killings,” McCartney told reporters.

Australian police had prevented 50 people from being killed, kidnapped or seriously hurt by monitoring threats among 125,000 messages and 120 video calls since March, Assistant Commissioner Kirsty Schofield said.

Police allege that Jung developed the app specifically for criminal use in 2017.

Australia joined a Europol-led global taskforce targeting Ghost in 2022.

Col. Florian Manet, who heads France’s Home Affairs Ministry National Cyber Command Technical Department, said in a statement issued by Australian police that his officers provided technical resources to the taskforce over several years that helped decrypt the communications.

McCartney said the French had “provided a foot in the door” for Australian police to decrypt Ghost communications.

Australian police technicians were able to modify software updates regularly pushed out by the administrator, McCartney said.

“In effect, we infected the devices, enabling us to access the content on Australian devices,” McCartney said, adding that the alleged administrator lived in his parents’ Sydney home and had no police record.

Jung was arrested at his home on Tuesday.

Police say Jung used a network of resellers to offer specialized handsets to criminals around the world.

The modified smartphones sold for 2,350 Australian dollars ($1,590) which included a six-month subscription to Ghost and tech support.

A 10-year-old boy attending a Japanese school in southern China has died after being stabbed on his way to class on Wednesday, according to Tokyo’s foreign minister, in the second knife attack near a Japanese school in the country in recent months.

The boy was attacked by a man about 200 meters (650 feet) from the gates of the Japanese school in Shenzhen, a tech-hub metropolis home to many Japanese businesses, according to China’s foreign ministry.

A 44-year-old suspect was apprehended at the scene and taken into custody, police in the city said in a statement.

Japanese and Chinese authorities did not specify the nationality of the victim. But Japanese nationality is required for enrollment at the Shenzhen Japanese School, according to its website.

“The fact that such a despicable act was committed against a child on his way to school is truly regrettable,” Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa told reporters Thursday.

“We take this incident extremely seriously, and we have once again requested that the Chinese side ensure the safety of Japanese nationals.”

The attack took place on a sensitive date, the anniversary of the “918” incident in 1931, when Japanese soldiers blew up a Japanese-owned railway in northeast China in a pretext to capture the region.

The emotionally charged day is commemorated in China as the start of Japan’s invasion, with state media and officials urging the public to never forget the national humiliation.

Chinese authorities did not mention the motive for Wednesday’s attack. But nationalism, xenophobia and anti-Japanese sentiment are on the rise in the country, often fanned by state media.

In June, a Chinese man wounded a Japanese woman and her child in a stabbing attack in front of a school bus in Suzhou, eastern China. A Chinese bus attendant who tried to intervene later died of her injuries.

Following that attack, Japan’s foreign ministry told Japanese schools to review their safety measures, Kamikawa said.

Ahead of the 918 anniversary, “we had just made a request to the Chinese foreign ministry to take thorough measures to ensure the safety of Japanese schools, so we are extremely disappointed that this incident occurred in this situation,” she added.

At a regular news conference Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said the case was being investigated.

“China will continue to take effective measures to protect the safety of all foreigners in China,” he added.

Public attacks against foreigners had been rare in China, but a series of high-profile stabbings have raised concerns in recent months.

Two weeks before the Japanese mother and child were attacked in Suzhou, four American college instructors were stabbed by a Chinese man at a public park in Jilin in the northeast, after he bumped into one of them, according to Chinese police.

China’s foreign ministry has described both attacks as isolated incidents and did not release further information on the motives.

Lebanon is reeling after facing deadly back-to-back attacks targeting Hezbollah members – with pagers simultaneously exploding across the country on Tuesday, then walkie-talkies detonating in a similar fashion on Wednesday.

Panic, fear and grief have now gripped the country, with questions swirling about how the attacks could have been carried out, where the devices came from, and whether this latest development could plunge the Middle East into a wider regional conflict.

At least 22 people, including children, have died so far from the two attacks, which Lebanese officials have blamed on Israel. Thousands more are injured – many maimed and in critical condition after communications devices exploded in their pockets or in their face.

While Israel has refused to publicly comment, it warned on Wednesday that a “new era” of war was beginning, appearing to tacitly acknowledge its role.

Here’s what we know so far.

What happened, when and where?

The first attack came on Tuesday afternoon when pagers exploded at the same time across several parts of Lebanon – including the capital Beirut, and in several towns in the central Beqaa valley, strongholds for the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

Videos showed the bloody aftermath on streets and public spaces. In one CCTV video, a man was picking out fruit in a supermarket when an explosion detonated – leaving him groaning in pain on the ground, clutching his lower abdomen as panic breaks out around him.

Lebanese hospitals were quickly overwhelmed, with limited staff attending to hundreds of bandaged and bleeding patients – some of whom had to lie on the floor as more of the injured arrived.

The second attack took place on Wednesday, with walkie-talkies detonating in the suburbs of Beirut and in the south of the country.

One witness who cannot be named for security reasons described seeing a man’s hands blown off by an exploding walkie-talkie while attending a Hezbollah funeral. Fires broke out in dozens of homes, stores, and vehicles, with videos showing smoke billowing on chaotic streets.

Why would Israel target Lebanon now?

Hezbollah and Israel have been at conflict for decades – but the two have ramped up their cross-border attacks on each other since last October when the war in Gaza began, following Palestinian militant group Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel.

Hezbollah is part of a larger Iran-led axis across the Middle East spanning Yemen, Syria, Gaza and Iraq that has engaged in a simmering conflict with Israel and its allies over the past 10 months.

The axis has said they will continue striking Israeli targets as long as the war in Gaza goes on, rebranding themselves as a “supportive front” for Palestinians in the strip, as described by a senior Hezbollah leader.

Israel may have chosen this timing for the attacks because it believed Hezbollah had discovered the pagers’ capability – making it a “use it or lose it” moment, said an Israeli source familiar with national security.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may also have wanted to shore up domestic support. Officials and residents from the northern region have become increasingly vocal about the need to return to their homes after being evacuated due to attacks, piling pressure on the government to act against the threat of Hezbollah’s rockets from southern Lebanon.

On Tuesday, Israel made it a new war objective to return Israel’s northern residents to their homes near the border – which has long been understood to be a political necessity.

How did it happen?

There are still many questions on how Israel might have carried out its attacks this week – and where the devices that detonated came from.

Hezbollah is highly secretive, and its leader has previously urged families to dump their cell phones to avoid infiltration from Israeli and US spyware. That’s why so many Hezbollah members and their families rely instead on low-tech wireless communication devices like pagers.

Damaged pagers in Lebanon bore the name of a Taiwanese manufacturer – but the company said the devices were instead made and sold by a Hungarian company in Budapest.

Hungarian authorities denied this, however, saying the Budapest firm was a “trading intermediary” with no manufacturing sites in the country.

Making things even stranger, the address for the company’s office is in a residential area – where other people in the building said they hardly saw people coming to work, and that the Budapest company had never physically been to the building.

Meanwhile, Lebanon said the walkie-talkies that exploded were a discontinued model made by Japanese firm ICOM.

The devices were not supplied by a recognized agent, were not officially licensed and had not been vetted by the security services, Lebanese authorities said. ICOM said the model was discontinued a decade ago, and it could not determine whether the ones used in Lebanon were counterfeit or shipped from its company.

How have Hezbollah, Israel and the world responded?

Hezbollah has vowed retribution, warning on Tuesday that Israel will “definitely receive a fair punishment for this sinful assault, both in ways that are expected and unexpected.”

The Lebanese government also condemned the attack as “criminal Israeli aggression” and a violation of their national sovereignty.

It’s less clear what capacity Hezbollah might have to launch a counterattack if many of its members are wounded and key communication methods are no longer reliable.

Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant appeared to reference the attacks on Wednesday during a visit to an air force base – praising the “excellent achievements” of the military and intelligence agency.

“We are at the beginning of a new era in this war and we need to adapt ourselves,” Gallant said.

It appears US officials were largely in the dark until reports emerged of the explosions, according to three sources familiar with the matter. Israeli officials notified the US that it was going to carry out an operation in Lebanon on Tuesday but did not give any details about what they were planning, the sources said.

The UN rights chief condemned the attacks, calling them a violation of international humanitarian law and urging an “independent, thorough and transparent investigation.” International NGO Human Rights Watch echoed his remarks, saying the inquiry should be “prompt” and “urgently conducted.”