DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Biden says US destroys last of chemical weapons stockpile
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, July 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. has destroyed the last of its declared chemical weapons stockpile, President Joe Biden said on Friday, bringing to an end a decades-long effort to eliminate the deadly weapons first used on a large scale in World War One. As part of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which was ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1997, the U.S. and other signatories are required to destroy their chemical weapons stockpile by Sept. 30, 2023. The U.S. has been destroying its remaining stockpiles at U.S. Army Pueblo Chemical Depot in Pueblo, Colorado, and Blue Grass Army Depot (BGAD) in Richmond, Kentucky. "Chemical weapons are responsible for some of the most horrific episodes of human loss. Chemical weapons came to the fore during World War One, which became known as the "chemist's war."

Persons: Joe Biden, Biden, Mitch McConnell, Idrees Ali, Dan Whitcomb, Marguerita Choy Organizations: U.S, Chemical Weapons Convention, U.S . Senate, White, Army Pueblo Chemical, Blue Grass Army, The U.S, Centers for Disease Control, Senate Republican, United, Thomson Locations: U.S, United States, Pueblo , Colorado, Richmond , Kentucky, Kentucky, The, United Nations

In a sealed room behind a gantlet of armed guards and three rows of high barbed wire at the Army’s Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado, a team of robotic arms was busily disassembling some of the last of the United States’ vast and ghastly stockpile of chemical weapons. In went artillery shells filled with deadly mustard agent that the Army had been storing for more than 70 years. “That’s the sound of a chemical weapon dying,” said Kingston Reif, who spent years pushing for disarmament outside government and is now the deputy assistant secretary of defense for threat reduction and arms control. The depot near Pueblo destroyed its last weapon in June; the remaining handful at another depot in Kentucky will be destroyed in the next few days. And when they are gone, all of the world’s publicly declared chemical weapons will have been eliminated.

Persons: ”, Kingston Reif Organizations: Chemical, United, Army Locations: Colorado, United States, Pueblo, Kentucky

☆ Inside Dugway Proving Ground, where scientists work with the world's deadliest chemical and biological weapons in a top-secret military zone
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-04 | by ( James Pasley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Dugway Proving Ground is a sprawling army base in remote Utah. Despite those incidents, the army base mostly has a good safety record, according to the Pentagon. While the remote army base used to be responsible for creating chemical weapons — and, at one point, testing them on US soldiers — it now only analyzes them. A later report found that Dugway had failed to follow standard procedures — and use enough radiation — to kill the anthrax samples. The US is destroying its arsenal of chemical weapons, such as VX gas, to meet a treaty obligation that its entire stockpile is eliminated by September 30.

Persons: —, Dugway's, William E, King IV, Dugway Organizations: Pentagon, Service Locations: Utah, Korea

☆ Russian forces fired a banned choking gas at Ukrainian troops, but then the wind blew it back towards them, Ukraine says
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-26 | by ( Sinéad Baker | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A Ukrainian official said Russia used "chemical aerosol munition with suffocating effect" on troops. Shershen said the chemical used was a banned one, but he did not give further details. Shershen did not identify the gas, nor say if any Ukrainian or Russian troops were affected. Marinka, which is around 80 miles from Bakhmut, has been the scene of intense fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces, and photos published in March show it has largely been reduced to a wasteland. But in his comments, Shershen said that Ukrainian forces are still fighting there, as the country tries to push back against Russia with its long-awaited counteroffensive.

Persons: Valeriy Shershen, Shershen, —, Suspilne Organizations: Service, Russian, Joint Press Center, Tavria Defense Force, Kyiv Post, The New, Pravda, Suspilne, Politico, Russia Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Ukrainian, Marinka, Ukraine's, Donetsk, Bakhmut

☆ Guatemala will vote for new president but critics say many anti-corruption candidates were weeded out
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-24 | by ( Tara John | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

One of the expelled candidates, the rightwing Roberto Arzú, was a vocal critic of President Alejandro Giammattei. Employees of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) arrange ahead of the general elections in Guatemala City on June 20, 2023. Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty ImagesIt’s not the first time that Guatemala’s electoral tribunal eliminates presidential hopefuls, but this year’s cycle is happening in rapidly shrinking civic space. Failing battle against corruptionRights groups say graft and impunity accelerated in the country after former President Jimmy Morales dissolved a United Nations-backed anti-corruption commission in 2019. The candidatesThe US and Western allies have raised concerns about the exclusion of presidential candidates in Guatemala.

Persons: CNN —, Sandra Torres, Thelma Cabrera, Carlos Pineda –, ” Will Freeman, Roberto Arzú, Alejandro Giammattei, Cabrera, Pineda, Tik Tok, ”, Johan Ordonez, we’ve, Caren, Jimmy Morales, Consuelo Porras Argueta, Antony Blinken, José Rubén Zamora, Moises Castillo, Porras, –, Kevin López, Giammattei, Freeman, Biden, “, ” Freeman, Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols, Guatemalans, Maria Consuelo Porras, Mulet, Carin, Edmont, Ríos, Torres, Rios, El, Nayib Bukele, Álvaro Colom, Colom, Efraín Ríos Montt, CICIG Organizations: CNN, Council, Foreign Relations, Twitter, “ Corruption, Constitutional, ” CNN, Getty, Americas Society, United, International Commission, Washington Office, Guatemala Human Rights, USA, Prosecutors, US, State, José Rubén Zamora –, . Press, Patrol, Western Hemisphere Affairs, Public Ministry, United Nations, Agence, France Presse, Analysts Locations: Central America’s, Guatemala, America, Guatemala City, Americas, United Nations, Guatemalan, Central America, American, Washington, United States, Haiti, Nicaragua, France

CNN —Jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny appeared before a Russian court Monday to defend himself against fresh charges of extremism, in a trial that could extend his prison term by decades. In comments posted to his Twitter account, Navalny said the “absurd” charges could lead to him serving a further 30 years behind bars. Navalny’s team challenged judge Andrey Suvorov, and asked him to recuse himself, according to the team’s Telegram posts. Also present at the hearing is Daniel Kholodny, the former technical director of the Navalny Live YouTube channel, accused in the same extremism case. Putin himself said in December 2020 that if Russian security services had wanted to kill Navalny, they “would have finished” the job.

Persons: CNN —, Alexey Navalny, Vladimir Putin, Navalny, Navalny’s, Vadim Kobzev, Olga Mikhailova, Svetlana Davyodva, Andrey Suvorov, Vladimir, ”, Daniel Kholodny, Evgenia Novozhenina, Lilia Chanysheva, Chanysheva, “, Novichok, Putin Organizations: CNN, TASS, IK, Journalists, Russian Security Service Locations: Melekhovo, Moscow, Russian, Ufa, Russia, Germany, Soviet, Berlin, Siberian, Omsk, Siberia

☆ Opinion: We’ve reached a turning point with AI, expert says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( Jessica Chia | Bethany Cianciolo | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +33 min

Will general purpose AI — AI that is as capable as humans — eventually take over the world? CNN/Peg Skorpinski “…even though we may understand how to build perfectly safe general purpose AI, what’s to stop Dr. We don’t know if they reason; we don’t know if they have their own internal goals that they’ve learned or what they might be. It is not general purpose AI, but it’s giving people a taste of what it would be like. And so it turns out that you can actually build AI systems that have those properties, but they’re very different from the kinds of AI systems that we know how to build.

Persons: CNN —, ChatGPT, Bill Gates, —, Stuart Russell, Russell, ” Russell, they’ve, Peg Skorpinski “, ” Stuart Russell Russell, ”, STUART RUSSELL, ” Stuart Russell, we’ll, “, it’s, they’re, That’s, Arthur Samuel, Samuel, Travis Teo, I’ve, Garry Kasparov, Kasparov, Stan Honda, There’s, they’re misaligned, you’ve, It’s, that’s, we’ve Organizations: CNN, University of California, IBM Watson Media, Hyundai, Boston Dynamics, Reuters, Microsoft, Artificial, Intelligence, US National Academies, GPT, IBM's, Getty, Federal Aviation Administration, Nuclear Regulatory, PIXAR Locations: Berkeley, ”, Singapore, New York, AFP, ChatGPT, Luxembourg, Cayman Islands, United States, California, —

☆ World Bee Day 2023: 6 surprising things about bees
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-20 | by ( Katie Hunt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Unfortunately, many bee species are under threat as a result of changes in land use, pesticides, intensive agriculture and climate change — but there are steps you can take to help them thrive. In honor of World Bee Day on May 20, here are six surprising things you might not know about nature’s hardest-working pollinators. “It marks the first report of honey bees of any species foraging for materials that are not derived from plants or water-based fluids. It is also the first clear-cut example of honey bees using a tool in nature.”Honeybees also signal an imminent attack by making a chilling warning noise. Bees are seen on a honeycomb cell at the Urban Bee Hive rooftop site in Woolloomooloo, a suburb of Sydney.

☆ Syria's Assad to attend Arab summit, bringing regional isolation to an end
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Aziz El Yaakoubi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/2] Syria's President Bashar al-Assad arrives to attend the Arab League Summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, May 18, 2023. Assad is expected to address the summit later on Friday, along with other Arab leaders. At an Arab summit hosted by Qatar a decade ago, the Syrian opposition sat in Syria's seat. A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill last week intended to bar U.S. recognition of Assad as Syria's president and enhance Washington's ability to impose sanctions. Government forces have used chemical weapons more than two dozen times during Syria's civil war, U.N. war crimes investigators said.

☆ Syria's Assad to attend Arab summit, bringing isolation to an end
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Aziz El Yaakoubi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Ostracised by most Arab states following the crackdown on protests against his rule in 2011 and the ensuing civil war that killed 350,000 people, his government's readmission to the bloc is a signal that Assad's isolation is ending. Assad is expected to address the summit later on Friday, along with other Arab leaders. A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill last week intended to bar U.S. recognition of Assad as Syria's president and enhance Washington's ability to impose sanctions. Government forces have used chemical weapons more than two dozen times during Syria’s civil war, U.N. war crimes investigators said. While Arab countries appear to have brought Assad in from the cold, they are still demanding that he curbs Syria's flourishing drugs trade and that war refugees be allowed to return.

☆ The Long Isolation of Syria’s al-Assad Is Over
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Vivian Nereim | Raja Abdulrahim | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When a devastating earthquake struck in February, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria spotted opportunity in disaster. He called for an end to international sanctions on his country and within days, some were suspended. Other Middle Eastern states sent planeloads of aid and senior officials from those countries soon followed for the first high-level visits in years. In the three months since, Mr. al-Assad has made a remarkable comeback, going from more than a decade of near-total global isolation after a series of atrocities, to being welcomed back into the Arab fold with virtually no strings attached. Mr. Assad was shunned for brutally suppressing his country’s Arab Spring uprising in 2011, which morphed into a civil war that has ground to a standstill, but has still not ended.

☆ After years of war, Assad returns to Arab fold
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

* Aug. 2011 - U.S. President Barack Obama says Assad has lost legitimacy to rule and should surrender power. * Nov. 2011 - The Arab League suspends Syria and urges its army to stop killing civilians. * Sept. 2015 - Russia joins the war on Assad's side, deploying war planes that bomb rebel-held areas - a turning point in the conflict. * March 2022 - Assad visits the United Arab Emirates and meets its leaders, his first trip to an Arab state since 2011. Assad says he will only meet Erdogan when Turkey is ready to withdraw forces from Syria.

☆ Syria's Assad to steal spotlight at Arab summit after years in the cold
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Aziz El Yaakoubi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others for years supported anti-Assad rebels. While Arab countries appear to have brought Assad in from the cold, they are still demanding that he curbs Syria's flourishing drugs trade and that war refugees can return. His return to the Arab League is likely to revive questions over his human rights record. Government forces have used chemical weapons more than two dozen times during Syria’s civil war, U.N. war crimes investigators said. The Syrian crisis and other regional conflicts including Yemen and Libya, pose further challenges for the Arab League, which is often undermined by internal divisions.

☆ Amid feud with Putin, Wagner mercenary leader offered Ukrainians the locations of invading troops in exchange for sparing his for-hire army, leaked documents reveal
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has been feuding with Putin over supplies for his mercenaries. WaPo reported leaked intelligence showed Prigozhin offered to sell out Russian troops to Ukraine. In exchange, Prigozhin wanted Ukraine to ease off his for-hire army on the front lines in Bakhmut. Some versions of the leaked documents circulating online have been edited, Insider previously reported, but two anonymous Ukrainian officials confirmed to WaPo that Prigozhin has spoken to Ukrainian intelligence officers on multiple occasions. The document does not specify which Russian troop positions Prigozhin offered to reveal, WaPo reported, and US officials similarly cast doubt on the Wagner leader's intentions.

☆ Syria's Assad boosted by return to Arab fold
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Tom Perry | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

[1/3] Syria's President Bashar al-Assad addresses the new members of parliament in Damascus, Syria in this handout released by SANA on August 12, 2020. Now, as Arab states bring him back into the fold, the logic appears to have worked for him once again. In exchange for ending Syria's isolation, Arab states want action, notably towards ending trafficking of the highly-addictive and lucrative amphetamine captagon across Syria's borders towards the Gulf. The threat of a U.S. missile strike was averted when Moscow brokered a deal for Syria's chemical weapons to be destroyed by the following year. But while Assad remained a pariah to the West, Arab states which once backed his opponents began opening doors to him.

Jack Teixeira, the Air National Guardsman implicated in a vast leak of classified documents, was fixated on weapons, mass shootings, shadowy conspiracy theories — and proving he was in the right, and in the know. Even as he relished the respectability and access to intelligence he gained through his military service and top secret clearance, he seethed with contempt about the government, accusing the United States of a host of secret, nefarious activities: making biological and chemical weapons in Ukrainian labs, creating the Islamic State, even orchestrating mass shootings. “The FBI and other 3 letter agencies contact these unhinged mentally ill kids and convince them to do mass shootings,” Airman Teixeira, 21, wrote in an online chat group, sharing a debunked conspiracy theory after a gunman killed three people at a mall in Indiana last summer. In messages posted on Discord, a social media platform popular among gamers, Airman Teixeira claimed that the 20-year-old gunman behind the rampage at Greenwood Park Mall was one of many mass shooters groomed by the American government as part of a secret plot “to make people vote for” gun control.

☆ Massive incendiary attack in Bakhmut shows Russia's 'scorched earth' tactics have turned the eastern Ukrainian city to rubble
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut was bombed in an apparent incendiary attack on Friday. Video shows the city ablaze with a bright glow, demonstrating Russia's "scorched earth" tactics. "The Kremlin or Prigozhin might have decided to resort to incendiary weapons as a last roll of the dice to force out Ukrainian troops." Videos circulated on social media early Friday, showing the Ukrainian city ablaze with a glow that prompted military analysts to suggest chemical weapons had been used. "The use of these horrific arms may violate the 1983 Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons.

☆ Factbox: Sudan's history of coups, wars and instability
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The commanders of the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, who shared power as part of an internationally backed transition to democratic rule, have shown no sign of compromise. Here are some major episodes of political turmoil and conflict in Africa's third largest country:* 1985. President Jaafar Nimeiri, who seized power in a coup in 1969, is ousted after a popular uprising. A conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region flares, pitting rebels against government forces backed by a militia known as "Janjaweed", which roughly means "devils on horseback". This is followed by a period of rising tension between the army and civilian politicians over the transition to democratic rule.

☆ Moscow accuses US of preparing a 'toxic chemicals' provocation in Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

Feb 28 (Reuters) - The United States is planning a provocation in Ukraine using toxic chemicals, the Russian defence ministry said on Tuesday. The ministry cited former U.S. ambassador to Russia John Sullivan as saying that "Russian troops plan to use chemical weapons in the special military operation area." "We regard this information as the intention of the United States and their accomplices to carry out a provocation in Ukraine using toxic chemicals," Igor Kirillov, chief of the radiation, chemical and biological defence troops of Russia's armed forces said during a briefing. He said that Russia "will identify and punish the true culprits." Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Tom HogueOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ A single mother escaped Kyiv with her 5-year-old at the onset of the Russian invasion. She is one of 8 million refugees who can only dream of returning home.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-26 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Kseniya Kharchenko and her then 5-year-old son fled Kyiv a day after the start of the invasion. And yet, Before the war, her ex-husband had called her paranoid over her fears of an invasion — Kharchenko said she was waiting for the war to begin for months. "I was so frightened, I really was," Kharchenko told Insider, thinking about how she and her son would survive. The act of protecting her son's life, Kharchenko told Insider, brings her strength and gives her purpose when she feels overwhelmed by the events of the last year. I have a fantasy," Kharchenko told Insider.

☆ China wants to prevent Ukraine crisis from getting out of control
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BEIJING, Feb 24 (Reuters) - China wants to prevent the Russia-Ukraine crisis from getting out of control, noting that dialogue and negotiation are the only viable ways to resolve the conflict, a position paper from the Chinese foreign ministry released on Friday said. On the one-year anniversary of Russia invading Ukraine on Feb. 24, China called for a comprehensive ceasefire to the fighting and gradual de-escalation and easing of the situation. In its position, China said unilateral sanctions and maximum pressure cannot solve the issue and that "they only create new problems." "China opposes unilateral sanctions unauthorised by the U.N. Security Council. Relevant countries should stop abusing unilateral sanctions and 'long-arm jurisdiction' against other countries."

[1/2] Police officers stand amid the rubble of a damaged building at the site of a rocket attack in the Kafr Sousa neighbourhood of central Damascus, Syria, February 19, 2023. Its support for Damascus and the Lebanese group Hezbollah has drawn regular Israeli air strikes meant to curb Tehran's extraterritorial military power. A source close to the Syrian government with knowledge of Sunday's strike and its target said it hit a gathering of Syrian and Iranian technical experts in drone manufacturing, though he said no top-level Iranian was killed. "The strike hit the centre where they were meeting as well as an apartment in a residential building. On Sunday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry condemned what it described as attacks on "residential buildings in Damascus which killed and maimed innocent Syrian citizens".

☆ Ukraine yet to make defence a safe investor haven
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-20 | by ( Lisa Jucca | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

MUNICH, Feb 20 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The West’s rush to supply weapons to war-torn Ukraine looks like a golden opportunity for defence companies to exit the ESG doghouse. As with air-polluting coal, socially-minded investors including pension funds and insurers - particularly European ones - have long excluded or heavily restricted investment in defence companies on ethical grounds. Risk committees, particularly at domestic banks, are now more frequently assessing the merits of financing defence companies, two senior bankers among the 850 or so conference participants said. Proponents of the approach argue military companies that help Ukraine perform a globally valuable social function by upholding democracy. The Munich Security Index, a global risk perceptions survey conducted before the conference, showed security concerns had replaced climate challenges as the top concern.

☆ Ukrainian UN diplomat tells Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters to keep to 'strumming guitar' after pushing Ukraine misinformation during council meeting
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Azmi Haroun | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters spoke on behalf of Russia at the UN security council Wednesday. He regurgitated conspiracies about the Ukraine war, calling it "illegal" in the same breath. During Wednesday's meeting, Waters struck a more flimsy tone, criticizing Russia on one hand and obfuscating its role on the other. I'm on the fucking list," Waters told Rolling Stone in October 2022. He has also denied the existence of chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government and defended Russian bombardment in Syria, according to Rolling Stone.

☆ Without supplying evidence, Russia says it's investigating alleged Ukrainian use of chemical weapons
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Feb 6 (Reuters) - Russia's state Investigative Committee said on Monday it was examining the alleged use of chemical weapons by Ukrainian forces near the towns of Soledar and Bakhmut. Ukraine's Defence Ministry did not immediately reply to requests for comment on the allegation, which was not accompanied by any publicly released evidence. The Investigative Committee said the Donetsk People's Republic - one of Russia's proxies in the territories it has seized and occupied in eastern Ukraine - had reported the use of chemical weapons by Ukrainian drones near the two locations. Since the start of its invasion nearly a year ago, Russia has repeatedly warned that Ukraine might be preparing to use non-conventional weapons, including biological weapons or a radioactive dirty bomb. Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Jon BoyleOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Search resuls for: "Chemical Weapons"

25 mentions found