Latest news with #UnitedNations-led
Hans India
18 hours ago
- Politics
- Hans India
North Korean assembly chief claims US, South Korea preparing to 'actualise' nuclear war
Geneva: The head of North Korea's legislative body on Wednesday accused the United States and South Korea of preparing to "actualise" a nuclear war, insisting that its nuclear development is a self-defence measure vital to ensuring its security against such threats. Pak In-chol, Chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly, made such a claim during a United Nations-led gathering of top legislators around the world in Switzerland, blaming the US and other Western countries for causing "instability and chaos" to maintain their "hegemonic position". "The advanced preparations of the United States and the ROK to actualise a nuclear war have entered the gravity stage," Pak said through an interpreter at the sixth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament. "This impels the DPRK to take every necessary measure in response to such a geopolitical crisis. Possessing capabilities to cope proactively with various security threats ... is an issue of vital importance to our state for defending its sovereignty, security threats and territorial integrity," he said, Yonhap news agency reported. The ROK is short for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea. The DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name. Pak said that North Korea will never tolerate the "high-handedness, arbitrariness of the US and its following forces," and will "fully discharge its responsibility" to defend international justice. He also claimed that his country is carrying out various activities under its development road map for the "prosperity and happiness" of its people, including long-term construction plans and other measures to improve education, health care and science. "Our people are achieving miraculous successes in their struggle for overall development," Pak said. South Korea's National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik attended the meeting and delivered a speech calling for communication channels between the two Koreas to be kept open even as inter-Korean relations remain frayed. No encounter between Woo and Pak took place at the meeting.
Egypt Independent
18 hours ago
- Egypt Independent
‘We don't want you to die': Palestinian mom's children fear for her life as she sets out to get food
Gaza City, Gaza — It's a long and dangerous walk to the point through which trucks carrying aid into Gaza are expected to pass. Um Khader and other women who live in the tents neighboring hers are huddled next to a car in the dark, surrounded by a large crowd of men. Not many women can be seen around the bonfires dotting the horizon near Gaza City on this night in June, captured on video. The sole providers for their children, this group of mothers sticks together for protection. The most dangerous part of their journey is yet to start. Thousands of people wait overnight for aid trucks to pass. Only a few women can be spotted among the crowds. Tareq Al Hilou/CNN They could come under Israeli fire and, once the aid trucks arrive, they will have to jostle their way through thousands of men if they hope to get their hands on a bag of flour and keep it. 'Everything around us is a risk to our lives, whether it's thieves, Israeli soldiers, rockets or drones. Everything,' says Um Khader, a mother of three. Her friend Walaa recounts what happened the previous day, when she managed to get a bag of flour after waiting 10 hours from dawn to dusk. 'Then a young man with a knife said, 'drop the flour or I'll kill you,'' she says. She handed it over. Their feet are aching and they had to take frequent rests on the up to 2-hour walk to the spot where the aid trucks might pass. Their friend Maryam gave birth just three weeks earlier but she's been doing the same journey every day for the past week, hoping to secure food for her three older children. There's little hope of formula to help feed her newborn. That night ended in disappointment. No aid trucks passed through, and they all went back empty-handed. Awful choice The trickle of aid allowed into Gaza, the breakdown of law and order and the dismantling of United Nations-led delivery systems have created new levels of desperation, according to aid groups. The fittest struggle to survive and the most vulnerable are left with nothing. Over the course of several weeks in June and July, CNN followed a group of Palestinian women facing an awful choice between risking their own lives, which could deprive their families of their only remaining provider, or watching their children starve. Um El-Abed has eight children to feed. A bowl of soup is hardly enough. Tareq Al Hilou/CNN 'My children tell me: 'Don't go, Mama, don't go to the aid centers, we don't want you to die, Mama. Who will take care of us if something happens to you?' Um El-Abed said. Her husband was killed in an Israeli airstrike and she is now caring for her family alone, she told CNN. The pot of soup she could secure from a crowded charity kitchen was hardly enough for her eight hungry children. So, like many Palestinians in Gaza, Um El-Abed eventually tried her luck with aid trucks, making the trek at night while her children slept. And, like most of the women on that route, she came back empty-handed, she said. The threat facing their children is real. Famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption levels in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition rates in Gaza City, where the women live, according to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. Sixty-three people have died of starvation in July alone, including 25 children, all but one of those aged under 5, according to the World Health Organization. Over 11,500 children sought treatment for malnutrition in Gaza's barely functioning hospitals and clinics in June and July, the UN agency said Sunday. Nearly one in five of them had severe acute malnutrition, the most life-threatening form, it added. The crisis is also exacting a heavy toll on pregnant and breastfeeding women, WHO said, with recent data showing that over 40% were severely malnourished. Um Bilal (right) and Um Khader formed a friendship in a displacement camp in Gaza city. They share the little food they manage to get. Tareq Al Hilou/CNN Israel announced over the weekend that it would pause fighting in certain areas and establish corridors for humanitarian deliveries on the ground. But far too little food is making its way in to meet the needs of Gaza's 2.2 million people, thrust into a crisis that the United Kingdom, France and Germany last week described as 'man-made and avoidable.' Israel imposed an 11-week blockade on all aid into the strip beginning in March, finally restarting distribution in late May through the controversial US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Instead of the 400 aid distribution points the UN managed in the past, Palestinians can only get food through four GHF sites, at over-crowded soup kitchens, or by stopping and overpowering aid trucks as they drive through the territory. Looted sacks of flour are sold in the market for exorbitant prices, unaffordable for these women and their children. Friendship and desperation After numerous failed attempts in June to get food from aid trucks, Um Khader received a donation from a sympathetic stranger along the way. She shared the bag of flour with her neighbor Um Bilal, who was struggling to feed her five children. Their friendship and camaraderie hit a rare tender note in a cacophony of suffering. The screams of their hungry children are often unbearable. Um Bilal said her youngest daughter sometimes pulls her hair out as she screams in pain. Both women said they often go without food for days on end so that their children can have every single drop of the soup they get, yet the children always go to sleep hungry. Over the weeks, their desperation has deepened. They decided to try their luck at the GHF distribution sites, where the majority of the 1,100 aid-related killings have occurred since May, according to the UN and the Palestinian health ministry. Israel admits to firing warning shots but denies responsibility for the heavy death toll, while the GHF rebuffs accusations, saying the statistics are exaggerated. 'The American aid points are death zones. I reached one and spent the night there. A sniper fired above my head. The bullet missed me by mere centimeters,' Um Khader recalled as the two women spoke to CNN on Friday. She hasn't gone back since. Um Bilal keeps going to places where she might get aid, despite the dangers and numerous failed attempts. Tareq Al Hilou/CNN She dissolves salt in water to give her children between their sporadic meals. This isn't the first time she's experienced hunger during the war that has followed the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks. 'We used to eat animal feed. A year ago, our bodies could handle it, but now, it's famine on top of famine, our bodies can't take it anymore,' she said. Now she has become too weak to make those long treks. Um Bilal is unrelenting. She has come across tanks, dodged gunfire, and fainted from sunstrokes and fatigue as she's tried to get food from moving UN trucks or at GHF sites. But her desperate efforts to feed her children often go unrewarded. 'My mother is not like the young men, she goes and comes back empty-handed,' her 10-year-old daughter Dalia said. 'She asks me what we'll eat for lunch or dinner, and I tell her 'it's okay, don't cry, Mom.''
Korea Herald
20 hours ago
- Politics
- Korea Herald
N. Korean assembly chief claims US, S. Korea preparing to 'actualize' nuclear war
The head of North Korea's legislative body on Wednesday accused the United States and South Korea of preparing to "actualize" a nuclear war, insisting that its nuclear development is a self-defense measure vital to ensuring its security against such threats. Pak In-chol, chairman of the North's Supreme People's Assembly, made such a claim during a United Nations-led gathering of top legislators around the world in Switzerland, blaming the US and other Western countries for causing "instability and chaos" to maintain their "hegemonic position." "The advanced preparations of the United States and the ROK to actualize a nuclear war have entered the gravity stage," Pak said through an interpreter at the sixth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament. "This impels the DPRK to take every necessary measure in response to such geopolitical crisis. Possessing capabilities to cope proactively with various security threats ... is an issue of vital importance of our state for defending its sovereignty, security threats and territorial integrity," he said. The ROK is short for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea. The DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name. Pak said that the North will never tolerate the "high-handedness, arbitrariness of the U.S. and its following forces," and will "fully discharge its responsibility" to defend international justice. Pak also claimed that his country is carrying out various activities under its development road map for the "prosperity and happiness" of its people, including long-term construction plans and other measures to improve education, health care and science. "Our people are achieving miraculous successes in their struggle for overall development," Pak said. South Korea's National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik attended the meeting and delivered a speech calling for communication channels between the two Koreas to be kept open even as inter-Korean relations remain frayed.
CNN
a day ago
- CNN
‘We don't want you to die': Palestinian mom's children fear for her life as she sets out to get food
It's a long and dangerous walk to the point through which trucks carrying aid into Gaza are expected to pass. Um Khader and other women who live in the tents neighboring hers are huddled next to a car in the dark, surrounded by a large crowd of men. Not many women can be seen around the bonfires dotting the horizon near Gaza City on this night in June, captured on video. The sole providers for their children, this group of mothers sticks together for protection. The most dangerous part of their journey is yet to start. They could come under Israeli fire and, once the aid trucks arrive, they will have to jostle their way through thousands of men if they hope to get their hands on a bag of flour and keep it. 'Everything around us is a risk to our lives, whether it's thieves, Israeli soldiers, rockets or drones. Everything,' says Um Khader, a mother of three. Her friend Walaa recounts what happened the previous day, when she managed to get a bag of flour after waiting 10 hours from dawn to dusk. 'Then a young man with a knife said, 'drop the flour or I'll kill you,'' she says. She handed it over. Their feet are aching and they had to take frequent rests on the up to 2-hour walk to the spot where the aid trucks might pass. Their friend Maryam gave birth just three weeks earlier but she's been doing the same journey every day for the past week, hoping to secure food for her three older children. There's little hope of formula to help feed her newborn. That night ended in disappointment. No aid trucks passed through, and they all went back empty-handed. The trickle of aid allowed into Gaza, the breakdown of law and order and the dismantling of United Nations-led delivery systems have created new levels of desperation, according to aid groups. The fittest struggle to survive and the most vulnerable are left with nothing. Over the course of several weeks in June and July, CNN followed a group of Palestinian women facing an awful choice between risking their own lives, which could deprive their families of their only remaining provider, or watching their children starve. 'My children tell me: 'Don't go, Mama, don't go to the aid centers, we don't want you to die, Mama. Who will take care of us if something happens to you?' Um El-Abed said. Her husband was killed in an Israeli airstrike and she is now caring for her family alone, she told CNN. The pot of soup she could secure from a crowded charity kitchen was hardly enough for her eight hungry children. So, like many Palestinians in Gaza, Um El-Abed eventually tried her luck with aid trucks, making the trek at night while her children slept. And, like most of the women on that route, she came back empty-handed, she said. The threat facing their children is real. Famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption levels in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition rates in Gaza City, where the women live, according to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. Sixty-three people have died of starvation in July alone, including 25 children, all but one of those aged under 5, according to the World Health Organization. Over 11,500 children sought treatment for malnutrition in Gaza's barely functioning hospitals and clinics in June and July, the UN agency said Sunday. Nearly one in five of them had severe acute malnutrition, the most life-threatening form, it added. The crisis is also exacting a heavy toll on pregnant and breastfeeding women, WHO said, with recent data showing that over 40% were severely malnourished. Israel announced over the weekend that it would pause fighting in certain areas and establish corridors for humanitarian deliveries on the ground. But far too little food is making its way in to meet the needs of Gaza's 2.2 million people, thrust into a crisis that the United Kingdom, France and Germany last week described as 'man-made and avoidable.' Israel imposed an 11-week blockade on all aid into the strip beginning in March, finally restarting distribution in late May through the controversial US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Instead of the 400 aid distribution points the UN managed in the past, Palestinians can only get food through four GHF sites, at over-crowded soup kitchens, or by stopping and overpowering aid trucks as they drive through the territory. Looted sacks of flour are sold in the market for exorbitant prices, unaffordable for these women and their children. After numerous failed attempts in June to get food from aid trucks, Um Khader received a donation from a sympathetic stranger along the way. She shared the bag of flour with her neighbor Um Bilal, who was struggling to feed her five children. Their friendship and camaraderie hit a rare tender note in a cacophony of suffering. The screams of their hungry children are often unbearable. Um Bilal said her youngest daughter sometimes pulls her hair out as she screams in pain. Both women said they often go without food for days on end so that their children can have every single drop of the soup they get, yet the children always go to sleep hungry. Over the weeks, their desperation has deepened. They decided to try their luck at the GHF distribution sites, where the majority of the 1,100 aid-related killings have occurred since May, according to the UN and the Palestinian health ministry. Israel admits to firing warning shots but denies responsibility for the heavy death toll, while the GHF rebuffs accusations, saying the statistics are exaggerated. 'The American aid points are death zones. I reached one and spent the night there. A sniper fired above my head. The bullet missed me by mere centimeters,' Um Khader recalled as the two women spoke to CNN on Friday. She hasn't gone back since. She dissolves salt in water to give her children between their sporadic meals. This isn't the first time she's experienced hunger during the war that has followed the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks. 'We used to eat animal feed. A year ago, our bodies could handle it, but now, it's famine on top of famine, our bodies can't take it anymore,' she said. Now she has become too weak to make those long treks. Um Bilal is unrelenting. She has come across tanks, dodged gunfire, and fainted from sunstrokes and fatigue as she's tried to get food from moving UN trucks or at GHF sites. But her desperate efforts to feed her children often go unrewarded. 'My mother is not like the young men, she goes and comes back empty-handed,' her 10-year-old daughter Dalia said. 'She asks me what we'll eat for lunch or dinner, and I tell her 'it's okay, don't cry, Mom.''
Techday NZ
7 days ago
- Health
- Techday NZ
Alibaba DAMO Academy partners to drive AI in health, climate
Alibaba DAMO Academy, the research division of Alibaba Group, has announced a collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union to use artificial intelligence in addressing challenges related to healthcare, climate, and science. The partnership will involve joint activities under the initiatives AI for Health, AI for Climate, and AI for Science. These activities will comprise both online lectures and in-person events, and are designed to facilitate knowledge sharing and expert exchanges between the two organisations. Both parties will also explore potential cooperation in robotics and embodied intelligence, as well as deepen work in AI and video technologies with the goal of supporting global technological development, solution deployment, and standardisation. In addition to these activities, Alibaba DAMO Academy has become a founding member of the United Nations-led AI Skills Coalition, a platform aiming to help build AI skills and capacity in both developed and developing countries. Through this coalition, DAMO Academy will support efforts to empower governments, businesses, and organisations in less developed regions to fully leverage AI for sustainable development and good governance. Healthcare applications in Singapore and Saudi Arabia As part of its AI for Health efforts, Alibaba DAMO Academy is collaborating with NHG Health in Singapore to promote innovation in medical AI research and clinical applications at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. Tan Tock Seng Hospital is one of Singapore's largest multidisciplinary hospitals, and the joint initiative targets early screening for pancreatic cancer, osteoporosis, sarcopenia, breast cancer, and kidney masses. The collaboration is utilising the strengths of both DAMO Academy and NHG Health, focusing on research, development, and the external validation of AI-powered early detection tools. The aim is to broaden access to precision medicine and enable earlier diagnosis and treatment. DAMO Academy intends for this partnership to support more timely and effective healthcare interventions by integrating advanced AI technologies within clinical settings. Furthermore, in Saudi Arabia, DAMO Academy is working with Abdul Latif Jameel Health to examine opportunities for AI-assisted diagnosis of a range of acute and chronic medical conditions. This includes cancers such as pancreatic, gastric, and oesophageal cancers, chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and fatty liver disease, as well as urgent conditions such as acute aortic syndromes and pulmonary embolism. "This partnership leverages the combined expertise of both organizations in medical AI technology and scientific research. The focus is on enhancing early screening for conditions such as pancreatic cancer, osteoporosis, sarcopenia, breast cancer, and kidney masses. Through joint research, development, and external validation, the collaboration aims to expand access to AI-driven early detection tools, ultimately supporting the advancement of precision medicine and enabling more timely and effective treatments." This joint work seeks to extend the benefits of medical AI systems to wider populations and regions, merging DAMO Academy's technology products with Abdul Latif Jameel Health's global resources. By doing so, it is expected that more people will gain access to advanced diagnostic tools designed to facilitate the early identification and management of various medical conditions. Featured innovations and recognition Several of DAMO Academy's AI systems have recently been recognised in the United Nations' AI for Good: Innovate for Impact Interim Report 2025. One of the featured projects is Baguan AI Weather Forecasting, which produces specialised weather indicators that can support power energy generation, agricultural meteorology, low-altitude forecasting, and renewable energy planning at the regional level. In healthcare, DAMO Academy's PANDA system (Pancreatic Cancer Detection with Artificial Intelligence) was highlighted for its ability to use deep learning to detect and categorise pancreatic lesions accurately using non-contrast CT scans. DAMO GRAPE (Gastric Cancer Risk Assessment Procedure with Artificial Intelligence), a framework for analysing three-dimensional CT scans to detect and segment gastric cancers, was also noted for its high sensitivity and specificity. According to DAMO Academy, these innovations are part of its ongoing commitment to support scientific advancement and societal benefit through artificial intelligence. By contributing technologies and expertise to joint international and regional initiatives, the organisation seeks to further the practical deployment of AI that can address health, environmental, and scientific challenges across diverse communities.
