Month: March 2022
Clearview AI to Identify Russians
Facial recognition firm Clearview AI has offered its services to Ukraine’s government. A system that searches a database of billions of facial images could help Ukraine uncover Russian infiltrators, fight misinformation and identify the dead. The letter claims that the company has more than two billion images from the Vkontakte (VK), a social network sometimes
North Korea Rocket Launch
North Korea quietly carried out two rocket launches in late February and early March, which landed off its east coast. North Korea’s claim to be testing equipment for satellites is not implausible. The country’s satellite programme has a relatively long history. After a string of failures it carried out its first successful launch in 2012
Return to Office
Two years ago this month the era of remote working abruptly began. As the first wave of covid-19 cases prompted lockdowns and white-collar workers had to get used to new ways of conducting themselves. Unmuting was not yet a reflex movement, Zoom fatigue not yet a common affliction. More and more workers will go to
China Bets on Russia
In Beijing, scholars and high-ranking government advisers predict that today’s shows of Western unity will fade sooner or later, as sanctions fail to break Russia and instead send energy prices soaring. In their telling the conflict will hasten America’s decline and slow retreat from the world. A crumbling of American-led alliances will then usher in
America to Deal with Russia and China
The West has long experience of keeping a hostile power in eastern Europe at bay without resorting to war. In 1947 George Kennan, a celebrated American diplomat, argued in an anonymous article in Foreign Affairs that Russia’s hostility was the product of its insecurity, yet its foreign policy would nonetheless respond to the “logic and
Hungary Use of anti-covid campaigns for propaganda
in Hungary Viktor Orban’s government really is using covid vaccination campaigns to manipulate its citizens not with microchips or 5g, but with old-fashioned propaganda. Mr Orban faces an election on April 3rd. In February, people who registered for jabs on the health ministry’s website began receiving thinly disguised campaign emails for Fidesz, the ruling party.
Russia Gaining Sympathy in Africa and Middle East
In 2019 vladimir putin welcomed 43 African leaders to the inaugural Russia-Africa summit, a higher turnout than Britain or France attracted to similar shindigs. The summit stressed Russia’s increasingly muscular approach to Africa. After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and the West imposed sanctions, it boosted efforts to sell arms, extract resources and prop up
Dodge Sanctions via Crypto
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the West’s subsequent sanctions on Russian banks, companies and elites have intensified this debate. Warnings from politicians and regulators in America and Europe suggest fears are high that people and entities hit with sanctions, and those wanting to keep doing business with them, will use cryptocurrencies and the exchanges on
The dire fate of Mariupol
We are seeing a devastating humanitarian crisis unfold in Ukraine,The city enduring the most brutal siege is Mariupol, a port on the south coast in Donetsk province. It has been on the front line since 2014, when Russian-backed separatists seized chunks of the province. Mariupol remained under the control of the government, which worked hard
Robot arms in Cancer Operation
Thousands of cancer patients across Wales could soon be operated on by robotic arms controlled by surgeons. The robotic arms will be used by the NHS to perform procedures for some prostate and gynaecological cancers, and some procedures on the digestive system, kidneys and bladder. The jointed arms with surgical instruments at the end are