UAE ambassador to the UN Lana Nusseibeh warned on Monday of swarms of assassin drones being sent out in cross-border raids, as groups such as Yemen’s Houthi rebels incorporate ever-deadlier smart weapons into their arsenals.
Ms Nusseibeh urged Security Council members to crack down on the spread of artificial intelligence systems and drones before we enter a “dystopian future” of terrorists sending out killer robots.
Al Qaeda, ISIS and other extremist groups radicalise and recruit via the internet, while the Houthi militia fighting Yemen’s government has used increasingly advanced weapons to attack its neighbours, she said.
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“In the near future, it will be possible that swarms of drones, utilised by terrorist groups, could carry out cross-border attacks, using facial technology and other features enabled by artificial intelligence,” said Ms Nusseibeh.
Worse still, stealth weapons from the “nefarious side of technology” could carry out flying assassinations “without the possibility of attribution to either a state- or non-state group”, she added.
She pointed to Yemen’s Houthis militia, which has used Iran-supplied drone gear to launch sophisticated attacks on Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
“Drones do not just operate in the air,” she said, referring to a “remotely operated drone boat, laden with explosives” used by the Houthis in a failed attack on an oil tanker off Yemen’s coast in March 2020.
“If successful, the attack would have had devastating effects not only on the tanker and its crew, but on the environment, on global supply routes and on local communities,” said Ms Nusseibeh.
The UAE envoy said killer weapons were evolving at “warp speed”, with drones that “fly faster, travel further, carry larger payloads” and use facial recognition and other tools.
“We're in this Hobbesian state of nature regarding the use of technology by super-empowered, non-state actors,” Ms Nusseibeh told diplomats in New York.
“Inaction is not an option. Because when there is no regulation, we’re only encouraging proliferation.”
Council members met against a backdrop of growing global concern over new technologies in war zones, amid Russian claims that it has used powerful lasers in its war with Ukraine and with both sides in the conflict admitting to routinely using drones.
The US-based campaign group Human Rights Watch says China, Israel, South Korea, Russia, Britain and the US are already developing technology that could give rise to fully autonomous weapons.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the UN ambassador for the US, which holds the council’s rotating presidency for the month of May, said authoritarian governments are using technology to suppress “freedom of expression and spread disinformation”.
“The Russian government continues to shut down, restrict, and degrade internet connectivity, censor content, spread disinformation online and intimidate and arrest journalists for reporting the truth about its invasion” of Ukraine, said Ms Thomas-Greenfield.
“These practices are as wrong as they are widespread.”
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Silent Hill f
Publisher: Konami
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Rating: 4.5/5
Tamkeen's offering
- Option 1: 70% in year 1, 50% in year 2, 30% in year 3
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Who has lived at The Bishops Avenue?
- George Sainsbury of the supermarket dynasty, sugar magnate William Park Lyle and actress Dame Gracie Fields were residents in the 1930s when the street was only known as ‘Millionaires’ Row’.
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Hunting park to luxury living
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Karim Abdel Gawad (EGY)
Nick Matthew (ENG)
Women's:
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Raneem El Welily (EGY)
Nour El Tayeb (EGY)
Laura Massaro (ENG)
Joelle King (NZE)
Camille Serme (FRA)
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
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Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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Sunday, Sept 28 – Second ODI
Tuesday, Sept 30 – Third ODI
Thursday, Oct 2 – Fourth ODI
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