Author: ALJAZEERA

The European Union is considering controversial proposals to mass scan private communications on encrypted messaging apps for child sex abuse material. Under the proposed legislation, photos, videos, and URLs sent on popular apps such as WhatsApp and Signal would be scanned by an artificial intelligence-powered algorithm against a government database of known abuse material. The Council of the EU, one of the bloc’s two legislative bodies, is due to vote on the legislation, popularly known as Chat Control 2.0, on Thursday. If passed by the council, which represents the governments of the bloc’s 27 member states, the proposals will move…

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The death toll is expected to rise as many of the 46 injured are in an ‘extremely serious’ condition, official warns.At least nine people have been killed and 46 injured after a fire triggered a series of blasts at a military ammunition depot in Chad’s capital N’Djamena. Health Minister Abdelmadjid Abderahim told journalists on Wednesday that the toll was in danger of rising as many of the injured were in an “extremely serious” condition. The fire began in N’Djamena’s Goudji district late on Tuesday and there had been “huge explosions”, Foreign Affairs Minister Koulamallah Abderaman wrote in a statement on…

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Can technology “solve” climate change? The concept of techno-optimism was created by Marc Andreessen – an American billionaire who made his fortune by co-founding the web browser ‘Netscape Navigator’ in the 1990s. Andreessen, defining his own concept, wrote, “We believe that there is no material problem – whether created by nature or by technology – that cannot be solved with more technology.” Techno-optimism is espoused by many other billionaires like Andreessen, many of them are tech billionaires themselves. While a lot of money is made available for many different causes, billionaire climate philanthropy is controversial for a number of reasons.…

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Renewables’ share of global energy consumption reaches nearly 15 percent, an all-time high.Global fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions hit record highs last year, even as renewables generated more energy than ever before, an industry report has found. Fossil fuel consumption rose 1.5 percent compared with 2022, while emissions increased 2.1 percent, the Statistical Review of World Energy report showed on Thursday. At the same time, renewables’ share of energy consumption hit 14.6 percent, up 0.4 percent from the previous year. Nick Wayth, CEO of the Energy Institute, said that while demand for fossil fuels is peaking in advanced…

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Daniel Hagari goes against Netanyahu by saying that identifying the impossible task of defeating Hamas as Israel’s end goal in Gaza means ‘throwing sand in people’s eyes’.Al Jazeera is reporting from outside Israel because it has been banned by the Israeli government. Israel’s military spokesman has exposed a widening rift between the country’s political and army leadership, questioning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stated goal of destroying Hamas in the Gaza Strip for the war to end. After nine months of war in which more than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed in the name of eliminating the armed group that governs…

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GDP grows 0.2 percent in first quarter, buoyed by record immigration.New Zealand’s economy has crawled out of recession after back-to-back downturns in the span of 18 months. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 0.2 percent in the first three months of the year, official figures showed on Thursday, after a 0.1 percent contraction during the previous quarter. While better than expected, the uptick was greeted with little fanfare, being largely driven by population growth due to record-high immigration. On a per capita basis, GDP fell 0.3 percent during the first quarter, the sixth consecutive decline. “The growth figure is camouflaging weakness,”…

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Nothing much is moving in Ben Guardane, Mohammed says. The money-changing kiosks sit silent and the ad hoc markets by the banks of the saltwater inlets that line the route into the Tunisian border town are empty, they used to sell goods imported into Libya and snuck into Tunisia. Nothing is moving, Mohammed repeats. The nearby Tunisian border crossing with Libya remains closed, as it has been since late March violence on the Libyan side of the border. The official reason for closure is technical renovations. Fighting had broken out between forces loyal to Libya’s Amazigh, who had largely controlled…

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Cherokee, North Carolina – In a converted bingo hall deep in the Appalachian Mountains, Myrtle Driver led the charge to defy the state of North Carolina. The spry 80-year-old, a venerated member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, handed a cashier a string of purple wampum beads, a traditional Indigenous currency. In return, she received packets of marijuana pre-rolls and edibles. With that, Driver made the first purchase at the Great Smoky Cannabis Company superstore, the only seed-to-sale Indigenous weed operation in a part of the United States where marijuana is illegal. Members of the tribe cheered and wiped…

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