Category: 2. World

LONDON: Outside supermarkets or in festival crowds, millions are now having their features scanned by real-time facial-recognition systems in the UK — the only European country to deploy the technology on a large scale.

At London’s Notting Hill Carnival, where two million people are expected to celebrate Afro-Caribbean culture over Sunday and Monday, facial-recognition cameras are being deployed near entrances and exits.

The police said their objective was to identify and intercept wanted individuals by scanning faces in large crowds and comparing them with thousands of suspects already in the police database.

The technology is “an effective policing tool which has already been successfully used to locate offenders at crime hotspots resulting in well over 1,000 arrests since the start of 2024,” said Metropolitan Police chief Mark Rowley.

The technology was first tested in 2016 and its use has increased considerably over the past three years in the United Kingdom.

Some 4.7 million faces were scanned in 2024 alone, according to the NGO Liberty.

UK police have deployed the live facial-recognition system around 100 times since late January, compared to only 10 between 2016 and 2019.

Examples include before two Six Nations rugby games and outside two Oasis concerts in Cardiff in July.

When a person on a police “watchlist” passes near the cameras, the AI-powered system, often set up in a police van, triggers an alert.

The suspect can then be immediately detained once police checks confirm their identity.

“Nation of suspects”

But such mass data capture on the streets of London, also seen during the coronation of King Charles III in 2023, “treats us like a nation of suspects,” said the Big Brother Watch organization.

“There is no legislative basis, so we have no safeguards to protect our rights, and the police is left to write its own rules,” Rebecca Vincent, its interim director, told AFP.

Its private use by supermarkets and clothing stores to combat the sharp rise in shoplifting has also raised concerns, with “very little information” available about how the data is being used, she added.

Most use Facewatch, a service provider that compiles a list of suspected offenders in the stores it monitors and raises an alert if one of them enters the premises.

“It transforms what it is to live in a city, because it removes the possibility of living anonymously,” said Daragh Murray, a lecturer in human rights law at Queen Mary University of London.

“That can have really big implications for protests but also participation in political and cultural life,” he added.

Often, those using such stores do not know that they are being profiled.

“They should make people aware of it,” Abigail Bevon, a 26-year-old forensic scientist, told AFP by the entrance of a London store using Facewatch.

She said she was “very surprised” to find out how the technology was being used.

While acknowledging that it could be useful for the police, she complained that its deployment by retailers was “invasive.”

“Invasive tech”

Since February, EU legislation governing artificial intelligence has prohibited the use of real-time facial recognition technologies, with exceptions such as counterterrorism.

Apart from a few cases in the United States, “we do not see anything even close in European countries or other democracies,” stressed Vincent.

“The use of such invasive tech is more akin to what we see in authoritarian states such as China,” she added.

Interior minister Yvette Cooper recently promised that a “legal framework” governing its use would be drafted, focusing on “the most serious crimes.”

But her ministry this month authorized police forces to use the technology in seven new regions.

Usually placed in vans, permanent cameras are also scheduled to be installed for the first time in Croydon, south London, next month.

Police assure that they have “robust safeguards,” such as disabling the cameras when officers are not present and deleting the biometric data of those who are not suspects.

However, the UK’s human rights regulator said on Wednesday that the Metropolitan Police’s policy on using the technology was “unlawful” because it was “incompatible” with rights regulations.

Eleven organizations, including Human Rights Watch, wrote a letter to the Metropolitan Police chief, urging him not to use it during Notting Hill Carnival, accusing him of “unfairly targeting” the Afro-Caribbean community while highlighting the racial biases of AI.

Shaun Thompson, a 39-year-old black man living in London, said he was arrested after being wrongly identified as a criminal by one of these cameras and has filed an appeal against the police.

Two people died in central Mexico from flooding caused by heavy rains, local authorities said Saturday, as severe downpours continued to batter parts of the country.

Two bodies were found in the city of Queretaro shortly before midnight Friday, a civil protection report said.

“They were swept away by rainwater,” the report said.

Queretaro faced heavy rainfall on Saturday, causing damage to property and prompting federal authorities to initiate a military emergency response plan.

In Mexico City, also lashed by the downpours, operations at Benito Juarez International Airport, one of Latin America’s busiest, were briefly halted on Saturday due to poor visibility.

Earlier this month, flooding in the capital and surrounding areas disrupted flights at the same airport, which served more than 45 million passengers in 2024.

Mexico experiences major storms every year, usually between May and November.

But the Latin American country has experienced an unusually wet year, particularly in the capital, where storms have been the heaviest since 1952, according to official records.

The National Water Commission reported June as the third-rainiest month since 1985.

Scientists have shown that human-driven climate change is causing more intense weather patterns that can make destructive floods more likely.

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Published On: Sun, 24 Aug 2025

09:06:46 PKT

WASHINGTON/KYIV (Reuters) – US President Donald Trump renewed a threat to impose sanctions on Russia if there is no progress toward a peaceful settlement in Ukraine in two weeks, showing frustration at Moscow a week after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.

“I’m going to make a decision as to what we do and it’s going to be, it’s going to be a very important decision, and that’s whether or not it’s massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both, or we do nothing and say it’s your fight,” Trump said.

He said he was unhappy about Russia’s strike on an American factory in Ukraine this week, which caused a fire that injured some of the facility’s employees.

“I’m not happy about it, and I’m not happy about anything having to do with that war,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, meanwhile, said on Friday that Russia was doing everything it could to prevent a meeting between him and Putin, while Russia’s foreign minister said the agenda for such a meeting was not ready.

Zelenskiy has repeatedly called for Putin to meet him, saying it is the only way to negotiate an end to the war.

Trump had said he had begun the arrangements for a Putin-Zelenskiy meeting after a call with the Russian leader on Monday that followed their Alaska meeting on August 15.

Zelenskiy accused Russia of stalling.

“The meeting is one of the components of how to end the war,” he said on Friday at a press conference in Kyiv with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. “And since they don’t want to end it, they will look for space to (avoid it).”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told NBC there was no agenda for such a summit.

“Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskiy when the agenda would be ready for a summit. And this agenda is not ready at all,” he said.

The statement echoed Moscow’s established rhetoric about a leaders’ meeting being impossible unless certain conditions were met.

Asked for his response to Lavrov’s comments and what the next steps are, Trump told reporters earlier on Friday: “Well, we’ll see. We’re going to see if Putin and Zelenskiy will be working together. It’s like oil and vinegar a little bit.”

‘HE MAY BE COMING’

Trump had taken sanctions off the table in preparation for his summit in Anchorage with Putin. But at the same White House event where he mentioned possible sanctions, he showed a photograph of his meeting with Putin on the red carpet in Alaska, saying Putin wanted to attend the World Cup 2026 soccer tournament in the United States.

“I’m going to sign this for him. But I was sent one, and I thought you would like to see it, it’s a man named Vladimir Putin, who I believe will be coming, depending on what happens. He may be coming, and he may not, depending on what happens,” Trump said.

Trump’s comments did not address the fact that Russia was banned from international competitions such as the World Cup after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and has not taken part in qualification for the 2026 tournament, which will be hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico.

During a visit to a nuclear research center on Friday, Putin said Trump’s leadership qualities would help restore US-Russia relations.

“With the arrival of President Trump, I think that a light at the end of the tunnel has finally loomed. And now we had a very good, meaningful and frank meeting in Alaska,” Putin said.

Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Russia launched in 2022. Analysts estimate that more than a million soldiers on both sides have been killed or wounded and fighting is continuing unabated, with both sides also attacking energy facilities.

Russia has maintained its longstanding demand for Ukraine to give up land it still holds in two eastern regions while proposing to freeze the front line in two more southerly regions Moscow claims fully as its own and possibly hand back small pieces of other Ukrainian territory it controls.

Zelenskiy meanwhile has dropped his demand for a lengthy ceasefire as a prerequisite for a leaders’ meeting, although he has previously said Ukraine cannot negotiate under the barrel of a gun.

At the press conference with Rutte, Zelenskiy said they had discussed security guarantees for Ukraine. He said the guarantees ought to be similar to NATO’s Article 5, which considers an attack on one member of the alliance as an attack against all.

Rutte said NATO allies and Ukraine are working together to ensure security guarantees are strong enough that Russia will never try to attack again.

“Robust security guarantees will be essential, and this is what we are now working on to define,” he said. 

Two years ago, Gaza’s largest city was sprawling with life. Classrooms brimmed with schoolchildren, markets were full of shoppers and beachside cafes offered respite for those escaping the stresses of a besieged enclave.

Gaza City boasts a rich history, inhabited for thousands of years and shaped by successive takeovers from ancient civilizations. It served as a key landing point for Palestinians displaced during Israel’s founding in 1948 and has hundreds of millennia-old sites documenting its past.

It was therefore no surprise that Islamist militant group Hamas chose Gaza City as its de facto capital when it seized control of the strip in 2007.

Years of conflict, a crippling blockade and Hamas’ autocratic rule made life for Palestinians hard. But the institutions set up by the militants, with help from regional governments like Qatar and a robust United Nations aid system, gave some structure to the strip’s exhausted population.

An established underground smuggling system gave Gaza City a taste of the outside world amid the land, air and sea siege imposed by neighbors Israel and Egypt – who both designate Hamas a terror organization. While life was far from easy in Gaza City, with half the population unemployed and Hamas’ police strictly patrolling the streets, you could still get a matcha latte on the way to a yoga studio, or relax in a park.

Today, what was once the cultural and financial hub of the enclave, lies in lawless ruins, devastated by months of a brutal Israeli assault triggered by Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel almost two years ago. And as Israel’s plans to launch a new offensive on the densely populated area to eliminate Hamas militants hiding underground, Palestinians of the Gaza historic city reckon, once again, with mounting fears of survival.

Normal life in the coastal enclave collapsed after Israel’s brutal retaliation to Hamas’ attack.

Hundreds of thousands sheltering in shattered buildings of the city have been left to fend for themselves after the fall of Hamas’ policing apparatus. Unclear about their future, residents of Gaza City listen for news of the next food shipment, or the sudden sound of a trickle of salty water from bathroom pipes – which would give them a rare chance for a shower.

Israel does not allow journalists into Gaza. CNN spoke to several of Gaza City’s residents to paint a picture of how the city looks amidst the war.

Tens of thousands of Israeli strikes have left the city’s many towers lying in rubble as garbage and sewage water flood the streets. Black smoke from burning plastic and wood, used by residents for fuel, fill the skies and the sounds of overhead Israeli drones buzz non-stop amid sporadic blasts from airstrikes nearby.

A chaotic web of wires from street generators supply power to those who can afford to pay. Markets display a random assortment of exorbitantly priced food items, possibly looted by criminal gangs from the few aid trucks Israel allows into the strip.

Hospitals and pharmacies no longer function, and hygiene products remain a scarcity for Palestinians, who say infestations of lice, a lack of vitamins, with no food have left them ill and weak.

As night falls, armed thugs roam the streets and families pick up guns to protect themselves. Cash can be transferred to Gaza through an informal banking system – but those seeking to withdraw it are forced to pay up to 50% in commission to individuals and groups controlling the money supply.

Majdi Abu Hamdi, 40, a father of four, said dust from the explosions chokes the streets and seeps into the homes that are still standing, where blown-out windows make it hard to breathe.

Even stray dogs have changed their behaviour, he told CNN. “At night, we hear dogs howling. They have turned wild from eating so many bodies. Their barking has changed, becoming fierce.”

“They are even dangerous to people, attacking residents savagely. Two days ago, by mistake, a cat walked near them. More than twenty dogs attacked and tore it apart,” he said.

He continued, “People may be thirty years old, but the exhaustion of war makes them look seventy. Hunger and poor food wear them down. We only use the bathroom every three days because of lack of food and high prices.”

Hamas, once so visible on the streets of Gaza City, is now absent. Its political offices, organizational municipalities and police stations are destroyed, and its militants stay hidden.

“The sons of bitches have no control, it’s not like old times… but sometimes you find them appearing suddenly, you don’t know where from,” said Abu Mohamed, a resident of Gaza City who opposes Hamas.

The resident, who didn’t provide his full name out of fear of Hamas’ retaliation, said the group has no forces visibly present, and civilians do not know how the group organizes itself.

“They don’t have specific places where they gather. They have their own special ways on how they communicate or how they organize… we don’t know how they do that,” Abu Mohamed said of Hamas.

Bashar Taleb, a journalist in Gaza City, questioned the purpose of Hamas’s weapons if they fail to protect Palestinians.

“What is the use of the weaponry if it has not protected a single civilian, and has not prevented the hunger and the continuous death that has lasted for nearly seven hundred days among innocent civilians who have no power in this war,” Taleb wrote on Facebook.

“I want one reasonable person to answer me or to give me just one benefit, even a single benefit, of Hamas’s weapons.”

When an agreement was reached with Israel for a ceasefire and the release of some hostages in January, armed members of Hamas emerged en masse wearing their full uniform at a public square in Gaza City. It was Hamas’ reminder that the group was still alive months after Israel set out to destroy it.

In the weeks that followed, Hamas choreographed ceremonies to parade its strength during scheduled releases of Israeli hostages captured on October 7. The ceremonies were so infuriating to Israel that it threatened to withdraw from the agreement.

In one of the most recent videos circulating on social media and geolocated by CNN, an armed group of masked men chanted for Hamas’ armed wing – Al Qassam Brigades – while carrying automatic weapons. The video, released in August, showed masked militants setting fire to a vehicle and threatening “thieves and businessmen” who steal aid.

Self-styled as ‘Al Rade’a, or ‘The Deterring,’ the subgroup said in its first statement that it was formed by Hamas’ security apparatus to “deter monopolizing businessmen” and gangs who collaborate with Israel in Gaza.

Al Rade’a claimed that it executed people who belong to gangs that collaborate with Israel, including six people last month in the southern city of Khan Younis.

“Let’s not forget Hamas is not a static institution or figure. They started out with a certain number of fighters on October 7, and then given the destruction and deaths inside Gaza, they’ve also gone on a recruiting spree and replaced folks that were there,” Alex Plitsas, a military expert and senior non-resident fellow for the Atlantic Council, told CNN.

It is near-impossible to establish an accurate picture of the number of Hamas militants remaining in Gaza City.

“Hamas is not a uniform force, while their government was elected in Gaza and they have institutions that they’re responsible for, their military wing doesn’t operate like a uniform military… they effectively act like an insurgent force for an elected government that is in the middle of a war, and they don’t play by the rules,” Plitsas said.

The takeover and occupation of the largest city in northern Gaza, which Netanyahu said is one of the last Hamas strongholds, will require the Israeli military to bring in 60,000 more reserve troops and extend the service of another 20,000, in addition to those already called up.

An Israeli source said this week that the military will give Palestinians approximately two months to evacuate the densely populated area before the assault begins, setting a symbolic deadline of October 7, the two-year mark of the war.

Another Israeli military official could not provide a figure on how many Hamas forces are in Gaza City, but the official said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not ventured deep into the area in nearly two years of war.

The expectation is that troops will face an enemy that has had time to dig in, using its extensive tunnel network under Gaza City

“They know we’re coming,” the official said, “so they prepare for that.”

The Hamas “metro,” as Israel calls it, is more than just a system of uniform tunnels, the official explained. It’s far more complex than the IDF anticipated, with larger strategic hubs and branches, as well as smaller tactical tunnels for quick movement and surprise attacks.

Once Gaza City is evacuated, the IDF will likely strike an expanded set of targets in the dense urban area, the official added, including sites that weren’t struck before because of the density of the civilian population.

But Israel’s incoming operation is drawing warning from governments and aid groups, who remain concerned about the Israeli military’s conduct over the past two years amid a high civilian casualty rate, reports of war crimes, human rights abuses and aid blockades.

“The Israeli military would probably take a couple of months to go into every single building, clear it up and hit all the tunnels. Is it possible? Yes,” Plitsas said, “Is it extremely difficult and will it take a lot of troops to clear and take all the territory? Also yes.”

Since the ambitious launch of the Kaveri engine programme in 1986, India has faced repeated setbacks— lost decades, wasted resources and unfulfilled national ambitions.

There is now some momentum to change that. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has said at ET World Leaders Forum that India’s indigenously built fifth-generation fighter aircraft will have indigenously built engines. The plan is to jointly develop them with the French company Safran.
About time too. Originally slated for completion in 1996, the Kaveri project remains unfinished, with its objectives frequently shifting toward secondary applications rather than its initial purpose.

The cost escalation is staggering. What began with an allocation of Rs 382 crore in 1986 ballooned to more than Rs 1,300 crore by 2004, surpassed Rs 2,000 crore by 2014, and officially totalled Rs 2,839 crore by 2016—as acknowledged by the then defence minister Manohar Parrikar in the Lok Sabha. Today, it is estimated that over Rs 3,000 crore has been invested, yet India remains without a homegrown operational engine for its fighter aircraft.

Jet engine is the heart of any aircraft as its mission and performance hinge on this singular technology. Despite years of relentless effort from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and its Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE), India has not produced an engine capable of powering its own Tejas multirole aircraft. Our inability to deliver on this promise has not only resulted in prolonged delays but has also dealt a serious blow to national security. There are various factors that contributed to the programme’s persistent failures.

LIMITED EXPERIENCE

When GTRE received the mandate to build an advanced jet engine, its prior experience was minimal. Though it developed the GTX37-14U turbojet in 1977, this basic engine advanced only to the prototype stage.The lack of sophisticated testing facilities in India hampered progress, and GTRE was suddenly tasked with developing a modern turbofan engine—demanding cutting-edge materials, advanced technology and constant, accountable effort.

Resources were limited and experience was lacking. So what GTRE could do was try and deliver whatever possible. That’s not how challenges in the aviation industry are met.

LACK OF TECH EXPERTISE

While senior officials at GTRE and DRDO were aware of their limited expertise, no early efforts were made to acquire foreign technology or pursue international collaboration.

The reluctance to seek outside assistance caused years of unnecessary delay. Just one example will be sufficient to cement this. When no light was visible at the end of the tunnel, India approached France’s Snecma (now Safran) for technical help only in 2008, after 22 years of futile efforts and spending over Rs 1,500 crore of taxpayers’ money.

Even then, bureaucratic hurdles led to a two-year wait to sign a formal agreement and actual collaboration finally began in 2016. Moreover, India’s licence raj obstructed private sector engagement, delaying essential infrastructure development. It wasn’t until 2020—three and a half decades later—that meaningful private partnership began.

CHANGING REQUIREMENTS

Kaveri was designed to power the Tejas fighter, then under development. But as Tejas’ designs changed, so did engine requirements. Initial specifications called for 52 kilonewton (kN) dry thrust and 81kN afterburner thrust with the engine weight of 1,100 kg.

By the turn of the century, Tejas grew heavier by 1,000 kg, demanding over 90 kN of wet thrust while GTRE’s prototypes fell short, yielding only 49-51kN dry and 70-75kN wet thrust.

Meanwhile, rapidly advancing technology prompted the air force to demand additional features like full authority digital engine control, low-infrared signatures, super-cruise capability, advanced turbine blades, thrust-vectoring nozzles and improved safety.

Unable to meet the original objectives, GTRE eventually shifted its focus to new variants that are proposed to power future advanced medium combat aircraft (AMCA), some of the marine applications and indigenous unmanned systems.

SCARCITY OF MATERIALS & FACILITIES

Producing cutting-edge engines requires superalloys and specialised materials, areas in which DRDO and GTRE lacked expertise. Sourcing these materials was complicated by government inertia and the sanctions imposed on India after the 1998 nuclear tests.

By the time the sanctions eased, crucial years had already slipped by. Testing also posed a major obstacle as India lacked high-altitude testbeds, wind tunnels and stress-testing labs.

These could have been developed over time, but we failed. As a result, even today, India relies on foreign facilities for engine testing and is sending its engines to Russia or elsewhere.

DEFICIT OF WILL

India’s political instability between 1989 and 2004, marked by repeated coalition governments, deeply affected the indigenous engine project.

Even after relative stability returned, official neglect persisted and accountability was rare. The issue simply was not prioritised. India, which is surrounded by formidable adversaries on all sides, should have treated national security with utmost seriousness, but political inertia and babudom consistently stifled progress.

The Kaveri story is now sliding into history, leaving behind hard-earned lessons. For self-reliance, strategic leverage, cost efficiency and globalcompetitiveness, India must urgently develop its own jet engine.

While private participation has begun—with firms like Godrej developing dry variants for unmanned aerial vehicles—what’s needed is national will and a robust partnership between academia, industry and government. State-of-the-art testing, advanced metallurgy and research ecosystems are vital if India hopes to power its next-generation fighter within a desired timeframe.

India faces real threats. China spends nearly 3.7% of its GDP on defence, while Pakistan allocates 2.8%. India, confronting multi-pronged security challenges, lags at just 1.9%—far short of the recommended 3-3.5%. The time has come for the government to prioritise defence spending, move beyond populist measures, enforce accountability and foster broad collaboration.

The Kaveri experience must serve not as a setback, but as a springboard for a new era of innovation, capability and pride. This transformative journey demands a long-term commitment not only from the government, but also from industry leaders, engineers and academia across the nation.

By fostering world-class research, investing in advanced manufacturing and encouraging collaboration at every level, India has the potential to achieve true technological independence under tight timelines. With unwavering national will and strategic focus, we can witness Indian fighter aircraft propelled by engines built entirely at home, marking a breakthrough in both national security and global prestige.

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SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised the test-firing of two types of new antiair missiles, state media said Sunday, displaying his expanding military capabilities as the South Korean and U.S. militaries carry out joint drills.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said the test Saturday proved the missiles effective in countering aerial threats such as drones and cruise missiles, and that Kim assigned unspecified “important” tasks to defense scientists ahead of a major political conference expected early next year.

The report did not specify the missiles that were tested or where the event took place. It did not mention any remarks by Kim directed at Washington or Seoul.

The test coincided with new South Korean President Lee Jae Myung ’s trip to Tokyo for a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, where they vowed to strengthen bilateral cooperation and their trilateral partnership with the United States to address common challenges, including North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. Lee was to depart for Washington on Sunday for a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Kim’s government has repeatedly dismissed calls by Seoul and Washington to restart long-stalled negotiations aimed at winding down his nuclear weapons and missiles programs, as he continues to prioritize Russia as part of a foreign policy aimed at expanding ties with nations confronting the United States.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Kim has sent thousands of troops and large shipments of weapons, including artillery and ballistic missiles, to help fuel President Vladimir Putin’s warfighting.

That has raised concerns Moscow could provide technology that strengthens Kim’s nuclear-armed military, with experts pointing to North Korea’s aging antiair and radar systems as a likely area of cooperation. South Korea’s previous conservative government said in November that Russia supplied missiles and other equipment to help strengthen air defenses of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, but did not specify which systems were provided. Kim held a ceremony in Pyongyang last week to honor North Korean soldiers who fought in Ukraine, awarding state “hero” titles to those who returned and placing medals beside 101 portraits of the fallen, praising them as “great men, great heroes and great patriots,” state media reported. According to South Korean assessments, North Korea has sent around 15,000 troops to Russia since last fall and about 600 of them have died in combat. Kim has also agreed to send thousands of military construction workers and deminers to Russia’s Kursk region, a deployment South Korean intelligence believes could happen soon.