World News

From the who-needs-precogs dept.:

Researchers are alleged to be using algorithms to analyse the information of thousands of people, including victims of crime, as they try to identify those at greatest risk of committing serious violent offences.

The scheme was originally called the “homicide prediction project”, but its name has been changed to “sharing data to improve risk assessment”. The Ministry of Justice hopes the project will help boost public safety but campaigners have called it “chilling and dystopian”.

In a dramatic shift, the US president paused tariffs on most nations while hiking China's rate to 125%, triggering a global market rally but leaving key policy details unclear. 

Facing a global market meltdown, President Donald Trump on Wednesday, April 9, abruptly backed down on his tariffs on most nations for 90 days but raised his tax rate on Chinese imports to 125%. It was seemingly an attempt to narrow what had been an unprecedented trade war between the United States and most of the world to one between the US and China.

"Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World's Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately," Trump wrote on Truth Social. Saying that more than 75 countries had asked for negotiations over the tariffs, Trump said he "authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately."

Global markets surged on the development, but the precise details of Trump's plans to ease tariffs on non-China trade partners were not immediately clear. Shortly after Trump announced his latest pivot on his Truth Social platform, the S&P 500 surged 6.0% higher to 5,281.44, snapping a brutal run of losses since Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff announcement a week ago.

Hatsushima is not a particularly busy station, relative to Japanese rail commuting as a whole. It serves a town (Arida) of about 25,000, known for mandarin oranges and scabbardfish, that is shrinking in population, like most of Japan. Its station sees between one to three trains per hour at its stop, helping about 530 riders find their way. Its wooden station was due for replacement, and the replacement could be smaller.

The replacement, it turned out, could also be a trial for industrial-scale 3D-printing of custom rail shelters. Serendix, a construction firm that previously 3D-printed 538-square-foot homes for about $38,000, built a shelter for Hatsushima in about seven days, as shown at The New York Times. The fabricated shelter was shipped in four parts by rail, then pieced together in a span that the site Futurism says is "just under three hours," but which the Times, seemingly present at the scene, pegs at six. It was in place by the first train's arrival at 5:45 am.

Love the kicker of "Concrete Examples." chef's kiss

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.10-043038/https://www.ft.com/content/cd7c043a-1983-4106-b4f9-13d66f951faf

US shale oil producers are facing their gravest threat in years, as a sudden crude price sell-off triggered by Donald Trump’s trade war has pushed parts of the sector to the brink of failure, executives have warned.

US oil prices have fallen 12 per cent since Trump’s “liberation day” tariff announcement last week, leaving them below the level many producers in Texas say they need to break even — and sparking fears the industry could be forced to idle rigs.

Opec’s recent decision to raise production has also raised alarm bells.

“This reminds me exactly of Covid,” said Kirk Edwards, president of Latigo Petroleum, an independent producer based in Odessa, Texas, referring to the 2020 price crash that brought a wave of bankruptcies across the shale sector. (…)

China's Finance Ministry announced that, in reponse to US tariffs on imported Chinese goods being raised to 104%, it would raise its own tariffs on American products, effective Thursday, April 10. 

China's Finance Ministry announced on Wednesday, April 9, that it was imposing additional tariffs on American products, increasing them "from 34% to 84%," in an additional countermeasure to a further increase in US tariffs on imported Chinese products, announced by Donald Trump on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Trump's total 104% tariff rate on Chinese exports to the US went into effect.

"The US's practice of raising tariffs on China is a mistake on top of a mistake, which seriously infringes on China's legitimate rights and interests and seriously harms the rules of the multilateral trading system," the ministry announced in a statement. It added that the increase would take effect from 12:01 pm on Thursday, April 10.

Last week, China had said it would levy 34% tariffs on all US goods in response to Trump's announcement of tariffs on countries around the world.

Kathmandu (AFP) – Nearly two decades since Nepal became a secular republic, a surge of pro-monarchy protests have swept the Himalayan nation, fuelled by economic despair and disillusionment with current leaders.

The number of state executions around the world has reached its highest level in ten years, a new report by Amnesty International has said.

More than 1,500 recorded executions took place in 2024 with Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia accounting for a combined 1,380 and the United States for 25, the charity found.

Despite this rise, the report also found that the total number of countries carrying out the death penalty stood at 15 - the lowest number on record for the second consecutive year.

Amnesty International's Secretary General Agnes Callamard said the "tide is turning" on capital punishment, adding that "it is only a matter of time until the world is free from the shadow of the gallows".

While these figures are the highest they have been since 2015 - when at least 1,634 people were subject to the death penalty - the true overall figure is likely to be higher.

Amnesty International says the figure does not include those killed in China, which it believes carries out thousands of executions each year. North Korea and Vietnam are also not included.

The US will impose a cumulative 104 percent tariff on goods imported from China after midnight tonight, alongside a host of tariffs on other countries, the White House confirmed to CNBC.

It’s one of the most staggering figures from President Donald Trump’s worldwide trade war launched last week. The Trump administration calls the tariffs part of an effort to get the US on even footing with trade partners, bring manufacturing jobs back to the US, and replace the existing tax structure. But critics on Wall Street and elsewhere say that thinking is flawed, and American consumers and businesses will be the ones in pain amid uncertainty and rising costs.

Even in comparison with the previously announced taxes on goods from other US trading partners, this tariff will have huge implications for many US businesses that manufacture or assemble at least parts of their products in China, including Apple and Tesla. Many economists say that price hikes are likely to be passed on to consumers. 

Trump initially planned to impose 34 percent tariffs on goods from China, on top of ones that he put in place earlier this year. This escalation comes after China imposed its own 34 percent tariffon US goods crossing into its borders. Trump threatened raising tariffs by 50 percent unless China removed its own, but the Chinese government has said it would stand firm on its tariffs, CNBC reports.

Despite the WHO's polio campaign reaching a high number of children in Gaza, hundreds of thousands remain at risk of paralysis amid Israel's blocking of aid

The UN received reports that Myanmar's military had conducted attacks, while the military accused rebels of the same.

Fighting has been reported in Myanmar despite the military junta and a rebel group alliance announcing temporary ceasefires to support earthquake relief.

As of Friday, the military had carried out at least 14 attacks since the ceasefire, according to reports received by the UN Human Rights office.

The military accused two rebel groups in the alliance that declared a ceasefire of carrying out attacks. One group said fighting broke out in response to "offensives" by the military.

Thousands of Palestinians chanted against Hamas during anti-war protests last week in the Gaza Strip, the biggest show of anger at the militant group since its attack on Israel ignited the war.

Protesters said they were venting anger and desperation as they endure a new round of war and displacement after Israel ended a ceasefire. They leveled unusually direct criticism at Hamas even while remaining furious at Israel, the United States and others for their plight.

Public expressions of dissent have been extremely rare since Hamas seized power in Gaza in 2007. The militant group has violently dispersed occasional protests and jailed, tortured or killed those who challenged its rule. Hamas has faced no significant internal challenge since the start of the war and still controls Gaza, despite losing most of its top leaders and thousands of fighters.

Obviously, things can quickly devolve on any story about Israel. Let's stick to Netanyahu's political situation.

On Monday, while Netanyahu was attending a hearing in his corruption case at the Tel Aviv district court, the prime minister was forced to interrupt his own testimony to respond to an urgent police summons after the arrest of two of his aides.

Jonatan Urich, one of Netanyahu’s most trusted advisers, and Eli Feldstein, hired as a spokesperson by the prime minister’s office shortly after the war broke out, are suspected of taking money from Qatar, funnelled via a US lobby group, in order to promote a positive image of the Gulf state in their briefings to journalists. Lawyers for both men have declined to comment on the allegations.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.06-034333/https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/in-southern-syria-israel-is-the-power-that-matters-1d2d95f6

There is a new boss in this front-line village. It isn’t the group of former rebels who overthrew a half-century of Assad family rule four months ago, and installed themselves as Syria’s government. Nor is it any of the armed militias south of the capital, Damascus, about 45 miles to the northeast.

It’s Israel, which, aiming to insulate itself from attacks across the border, took over the former United Nations buffer zone in Syrian territory that includes Al-Hamidiyah along with the strategic high ground nearby.

A newly built Israeli military outpost keeps watch over the village, its lights blazing even during the day, as does a Merkava tank positioned behind a berm. Teenage soldiers staff checkpoints and fan out every day on patrols, checking IDs and limiting the villagers’ movements at night. 

At the village’s western edge, about a mile outside Israel’s border fence, bulldozers are carving out a tall barrier of compacted soil. Some of it crosses property that belongs to Eid al-Ali, who watched warily as his goats grazed around the earthworks, an area Israeli soldiers have made off-limits. 

Archive: https://archive.is/20250405124954/https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/phone-call-led-aid-groups-to-paramedics-buried-in-a-gaza-grave-5df07dca

A United Nations team had spent several fruitless days waiting for Israeli forces to permit them to look for a group of Palestinian emergency workers who disappeared after being fired on by Israeli soldiers. Then, a call came in from Israel’s military that would end their wait.

It pointed them to a mass grave marked by a white electricity pole in the Gaza border town of Rafah, said Jonathan Whittall, the head of the United Nations’ humanitarian office in Gaza and the West Bank who received the call. 

The U.N. team found 14 bodies in the grave, including eight paramedics with the Palestine Red Crescent Society and six members of the Palestinian Civil Defense, which includes firefighters and emergency responders. The body of a U.N. worker was found in a different location. Another paramedic is missing. One survived. 

“I was hearing gunfire, but had no idea where it was coming from,” the surviving paramedic, Monzer Jehad Abed, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.05-130219/https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2025/04/05/after-myanmar-earthquake-citizens-step-in-amid-army-s-absence_6739866_114.html

As the death toll from the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28 surpassed 3,000, under the condition of anonymity, a foreign expert from a major international agency who visited Mandalay on Sunday and Monday described to Le Monde a very contrasting situation. While the eastern part of the city of 1.6 million residents was barely affected, in the Northwest of Mandalay, between the royal palace and the Irrawaddy River, the damage was much more significant – eight-story buildings had been reduced to piles of rubble.

The city has not been paralyzed: "In the entire eastern part of the city, restaurants, shops, even beauty salons are reopening. People have to work. The large covered markets are closed for inspection, but you can see food, clothing and flower stalls on the streets. It is not a city on its knees," he said.

Thousands of displaced people have settled along the moats of the royal palace, where volunteer teams continuously distributed water and meals in containers. The citizen response to the earthquake was significant. "You come across dozens of convoys coming from Yangon with banners indicating donations – from banks, companies, monasteries," the foreign expert said. "In front of the hospital are dozens of different ambulances because they belong to various NGOs."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/32113472

Archived

As a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar and Thailand last Friday, the temblor rattled buildings across the sprawling Thai capital of Bangkok, home to an incredible 142 skyscrapers. When the shaking ceased all were standing strong — with one very notable exception. The State Audit Office (SAO) building in Chatuchak district, a 30-story skyscraper still under construction by a subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned enterprise, collapsed into a heap of rubble, trapping nearly 100 people inside.

As of this week, 15 have been confirmed dead in the collapse, and a further 72 remain missing. Thailand announced over the weekend that it was launching an investigation to determine the cause of the collapse, and the prime minister said the tragedy had seriously damaged the country’s image.

As emergency teams sifted through the wreckage in the immediate aftermath, the building’s primary contractor, China Railway No. 10 Engineering Group, came under intense public anger and scrutiny. Anger was further fueled by clear efforts by the company, and by Chinese authorities, to sweep the project and the tragedy under the rug.

Shortly after the collapse, the China Railway No. 10 Engineering Group removed a post from its WeChat account that had celebrated the recent capping of the building, praising the project as the company’s first “super high-rise building overseas,” and “a calling card for CR No. 10’s development in Thailand.” Archived versions of this and other posts were shared by Thais on social media, including one academic who re-posted a deleted promo video to his Facebook account — noting with bitter irony that it boasted of the building’s tensile strength and earthquake resistance.

Trying to access news of the building collapse inside China [...] queries on domestic search engines returned only deleted articles from Shanghai-based outlets such as The Paper (澎湃新闻) and Guancha (观察网). In a post to Weibo, former Global Times editor Hu Xijin (胡锡进) confessed that the building “probably had quality issues.” Even this post was rapidly deleted, making clear that the authorities were coming down hard on the story.

Meanwhile, the machinery of propaganda continued to turn out feel-good news on China’s response to the quake. The Global Times reported that emergency assistance for Myanmar embodied Xi Jinping’s foreign policy vision of a “community of shared future for mankind.” In Hong Kong, the Ta Kung Pao (大公報) newspaper, run by the Liaison Office of China’s central government, twisted the knife into the United States as it reported on the earthquake response, noting the absence of USAID, recently dismantled by the Trump administration. Behind the news, the paper declared, “China’s selfless response demonstrates the responsibility of a great power.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/32116772

Archived

The tragic collapse of a skyscraper in Bangkok [which was the only building that collapsed during the recent earthquake in Thailand], behind the same Chinese contractors associated with the works on Novi Sad railway station, has opened new questions about the security of Chinese projects around the world. While CNN and the Telegraph are investigating the responsibility of Chinese companies in detail, Serbia has reason to follow the developments related to this case with special attention.

While the safety of the Novi Sad railway station and the responsibility of the Chinese contractors from the CRIC-CCCC consortium, led by the China Railway International Company, are still being investigated in Serbia, the new tragedy has once again raised an avalanche of questions about the safety and reliability of projects implemented by Chinese construction companies around the world. In question is the collapse of a skyscraper in Bangkok, the construction of which, according to international media, was entrusted to the company China Railway Number 10 Engineering Group - a related entity of the state corporation that also operates in Serbia.

[...]

The project worth more than two billion Thai baht (about 45 million pounds), built for three years, was led by a company whose actors are known to the public in Serbia - the Italian-Thai corporation Italian-Thai Development Plc and the company China Railway Number 10 (Thailand) Ltd. The latter is the local branch of the Chinese giant China Railway Number 10 Engineering Group, with a share of 49 percent, which is the maximum share of foreign companies in Thai companies, according to the Telegraph, referring to local source The Nation.

[...]

The investigation by the Thai Ministry of Industry is focused on the possible reasons for this disaster, among which are issues of the quality of the steel used, a poor construction project, as well as the possible inadequacy of the specific construction method - the so-called "flat slab" slabs, i.e. flat slabs that lie directly on the pillars, without classic supporting beams. In addition, experts point out the problem of the ground on which Bangkok rests: the soft and unstable ground could significantly increase the effects of the earthquake.

[...]

What further strengthened the suspicion of omissions in the construction process was the deletion of all posts by China Railway Number 10 Group on Chinese social networks related to this project.

[...]

The lack of responses to media inquiries also points to possible attempts to cover up responsibility, which is of particular concern in partner countries around the world, including Serbia, where Chinese contractors have already faced safety issues in the tragic collapse of the canopy at the Novi Sad railway station.

[...]

South Korea's Constitutional Court on Friday, April 3, upheld President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment over his disastrous martial law declaration, voting unanimously to strip him of office for violating the constitution. Yoon, 64, was suspended by lawmakers over his December 3 attempt to subvert civilian rule, which saw armed soldiers deployed to parliament. He was also arrested on insurrection charges as part of a separate criminal case. His removal triggers fresh presidential elections, which must be held within 60 days.

"About 72 per cent of fatalities aged 13-55 are men, which is the rough age range of Hamas combatants, Mr Fox said. “We know that Hamas uses child soldiers, and these statistics show clearly that Israel is targeting fighting-aged men.”

According to the Henry Jackson Society who's entry in Wikipedia says: While describing itself as non-partisan, its outlook has been described variously as right-wing, neoliberal, and neo-conservative

Occasionally, an image from a conflict zone makes the world stop and take notice.

Like in September 2024, when a heart-breaking picture went viral online of 10-year-old Tala Abu Ajwa’s pink rollerblades protruding from her cloth-shrouded body.

Her parents in Gaza City said she had been killed by an Israeli airstrike as she went outside her home to skate.

But what about the huge quantity of online material from conflict zones that most of us don’t see?

Unless it's archived, it's at risk of being lost forever.

Archivists such as Dr Jamila Ghaddar seek to capture and preserve as much online material as they can, from videos shared on Telegram to viral posts on Instagram.