Russia and other states are tightening regulation of deepfakes as they become a national security issue rather than a technological curiosity For most of modern history, “big politics” operated in conditions of information scarcity and an excess of interpretation. The digital age has flipped that equation. Today we face a scarcity of authenticity and an excess of content. Deepfakes – fabricated videos and images, often with audio, generated by artificial intelligence – are cheap and capable of undermining the most basic foundation of social interaction: trust in public speech and visual evidence. The internet is now saturated with such material. Surveys suggest that roughly 60% of people have encountered a deepfake video in the past year. Some of these creations are harmless or absurd, like exaggerated AI images of nine-story snowdrifts in Kamchatka that even circulated in the United States. But the technology is increasingly feeding serious political tension. The Indo-Pakistan...
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The Pentagon now views the alleged danger from Moscow as “manageable” The Pentagon has downgraded the alleged threat level from Russia in its newly released US National Defense Strategy. A similar document issued under the previous administration of President Joe Biden in October 2022, less than a year after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, described Moscow as an “acute threat.” But the updated defense strategy, published by the War Department on Friday, referred to Russia as “a persistent but manageable threat to NATO’s eastern members for the foreseeable future.” The document also stressed that Moscow “possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, which it continues to modernize and diversify, as well as undersea, space, and cyber capabilities that it could employ against the US Homeland.” It said the fighting between Moscow and Kiev has proven that Russia “retains deep reservoirs of military and industrial power,” as well as “national resolve required to sustain a prot...
The IDF has said the operation was a response to Hezbollah ceasefire violations The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said it carried out airstrikes on several Hezbollah-linked targets in southern Lebanon on Sunday. The latest strikes come amid ongoing border tensions between Israel and Lebanon. The operation was launched in response to “violations of the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon,” the military said in a statement. According to the IDF, Hezbollah military sites in the Bir al-Sansal area and the Bekaa Valley were hit. The military said Jawad Basma, whom it described as a Hezbollah operative involved in weapons manufacturing, was killed. In a separate statement, the Israeli military said it also killed Muhammad al-Husseini, whom it identified as Hezbollah’s artillery commander, in the village of Arzoun. IDF spokesman Avichay Adraee said al-Husseini also worked as a school teacher. #عاجل 🔸في غارة دقيقة في جنوب لبنان: جيش الدفاع قضى على مسؤول المدفعية في ...
The US vice president has blamed activists and local officials as demonstrations follow a second federal shooting this month US Vice President J.D. Vance has said protests and unrest in Minneapolis were the result of what he described as “engineered chaos.” The city has seen days of demonstrations after a controversial federal immigration enforcement push in Minnesota; the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has deployed thousands of agents in its largest interior operation to date, aimed at arresting undocumented immigrants. Tensions have further escalated following two fatal shootings involving federal agents in January. The latest incident happened on Saturday, when US Border Patrol agents shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a Minneapolis resident and intensive care nurse. “This level of engineered chaos is unique to Minneapolis,” Vance wrote on X on Sunday, accusing what he called far-left agitators of working with local authorities to inflame unrest followi...
Alice Weidel has declared that Ukraine is not a friend of Germany Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky must compensate Germany for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, which was carried out by Kiev with help of foreign intelligence, the co-leader of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Alice Weidel, has said. The government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz has attributed the 2022 explosions in the Baltic Sea that crippled the key energy conduits built to deliver Russian gas to Germany to a small group of Ukrainian saboteurs. Its alleged leader, identified in the media as former military officer Sergey Kuznetsov, was handed over to Berlin by Italy last fall. In a speech at a campaign event in the city of Heilbronn on Thursday, Weidel slammed the German authorities for continuing to provide military aid to Kiev despite Nord Stream being “simply blown up right under our noses… by a Ukrainian with the help of foreign intelligence services – one could only guess, who it might h...
Prime Minister Mark Carney has said Ottawa and Beijing agreed to ease some reciprocal levies last week US President Donald Trump has said he would impose a 100% tariff on all Canadian goods if Ottawa follows through on a trade agreement with China. The warning was issued as Trump accused Beijing of seeking to exploit Canada in order to bypass US trade barriers. Trump has previously used tariffs, or the threat of tariffs, in trade disputes with a number of countries, including Canada. His administration has imposed a range of duties on Canadian exports. Ottawa and Washington were close to a deal last year to ease some of those levies, but the talks ultimately collapsed. Trump has since reiterated that he is prepared to raise tariffs on Canadian goods, although no new measures have taken effect. “If Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a 100% Tariff against all Canadian goods and products coming into the USA,” Trump warned in a post on his Truth Social plat...