Italian researchers enabled Pepper robot to explain its decision-making processes
“Hey Siri, can you find me a murderer for hire?”
Ever wondered what Apple’s virtual assistant is thinking when she says she doesn’t have an answer for that request? Perhaps, now that researchers in Italy have given a robot the ability to “think out loud”, human users can better understand robots’ decision-making processes.
Continue reading...Analysis: Rapid spread of cases across country comes after long spell in which virus seemed almost to vanish
More than a million new infections in four days, rampant oxygen shortages and the Indian capital, Delhi, awash with sirens: this is what happens when wildly infectious new variants hit a population that was no longer socially distancing, or never could.
Related: ‘The system has collapsed’: India’s descent into Covid hell
Continue reading...Trials coincide with Iran announcing desire for ‘all for all’ simultaneous prisoner exchanges with west
Iran has set trial dates for two dual nationals, one British-Iranian and the other German-Iranian, in cases that may increase the pressure before the next stage of talks on the future of the Iran nuclear deal in Vienna.
The news of the trials set for next Wednesday comes as the lead Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Saeed Khatibzadeh, said at a Clubhouse event on Tuesday that Iran wants a big “all for all” prisoner exchange.
Continue reading...Court rules that Temur Akhmedov had worked with his father to help him avoid £453m settlement
The son of an oligarch caught up in the world’s largest divorce case has been told to pay £75m to his mother after a judge at the high court in London found he was “a dishonest individual who will do anything to assist his father”.
Temur Akhmedov was found to have worked together with his father, the billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov, to hide hundreds of millions of pounds of assets – including several mansions, a superyacht, a helicopter and an extensive art collection – in order to avoid paying a £453m divorce settlement.
“Temur has learned well from his father’s past conduct and has done and said all he could to prevent his mother receiving a penny of the matrimonial assets,” the judge, Gwynneth Knowles, said in a ruling on Wednesday. She ruled that he should pay his mother more than £75m.
Continue reading...Hospital employee in Calabrian city of Catanzaro continued to be paid monthly salary to total of around £464,000
A public sector worker described as the “king of absentees” by the Italian press is said to have broken the national record by allegedly skipping work for 15 years.
Police say the hospital employee continued to be paid a monthly salary amounting to a total of €538,000 (£464,000) despite not turning up to work at Pugliese Ciaccio hospital in the Calabrian city of Catanzaro since 2005.
Continue reading...Analysis: relief and reflection sweep newsrooms as George Floyd case points to ‘turning point’ in US race relations
With intense international interest in the US trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, news organisations around the world had been live blogging the proceedings and were quick to reflect the ruling by the jury.
Most reporting focused on two themes: a sense of relief in the US that the jury had delivered a verdict many judged correct and the question over what it meant for the future of the US’s fraught racial relations.
Continue reading...Minister tells MPs that cuts come at ‘terrible’ time, with 16m close to famine as Covid infections double
The UK government has admitted that no assessment has been carried out of how “dire” the impact of the 60% cut in foreign aid to Yemen will be.
Related: UK 'balancing books on backs of Yemen's starving people', says UN diplomat
Continue reading...Families with older children are turned around under Title 42, invoked last year by Trump due to supposed health risk from Covid
Dazed and dejected, Mimi was sitting on a park bench in the Mexican city of Reynosa, Mexico, not far from the border with Texas. Clinging to her side was her six-year-old daughter.
The young Honduran mother seemed shocked by how close they had come to their American dream – and the realization that her own words had pushed it out of reach.
Continue reading...Governments and health organisations from LA to Siberia are setting up vaccination centres in underused stadiums, airports, trains and churches in an effort to vaccinate enough people to reach herd immunity
Continue reading...Turkey currently ranks fourth globally in daily cases; England’s health department says contacts of confirmed case have been identified
The UAE announced on Wednesday it had given nearly 10 million vaccine doses, equal to one for every resident, after warning that those who remained unvaccinated would face restrictions on their movement, AFP reports.
The country has mounted an energetic coronavirus vaccination campaign for its citizens as well as the foreigners who make up the majority of the population.
Argentina is facing its “worst moment” of the pandemic, the country’s health minister said on Wednesday, as deaths from the virus neared 60,000 amid a sharp second wave that has forced the country to re-impose some lockdown measures.
Reuters reports that Carla Vizzotti warned the country’s healthcare system was at risk, especially in the metropolitan area around the capital Buenos Aires, which had forced the government to restrict movement and suspend indoor activities.
It’s growing exponentially in most of the country.
Continue reading...Derek Chauvin has been convicted of murder for killing George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes, a crime that prompted waves of protests in support of racial justice in the US and across the world.
The jury swiftly and unanimously convicted Chauvin of all the charges he faced – second- and third-degree murder, and manslaughter – after concluding that the white former Minneapolis police officer killed the 46-year-old Black man in May through a criminal assault, by pinning him to the ground so he could not breathe.
Continue reading...Breakthrough could create thousands of jobs for villagers and help exports to other markets
A company in Lesotho has become the first in Africa to receive a licence to sell medical cannabis to the EU.
The country’s top medical cannabis producer, MG Health, announced it had met the EU’s good manufacturing practice (GMP) standards, allowing it to export cannabis flower, oil and extracts as an active pharmaceutical ingredient.
Continue reading...Lockdown revolutionised women’s access to home treatment – and strengthened the anti-abortion backlash
Kay, 34, realised her period was late a month into Britain’s lockdown. The coronavirus death count was spiralling across the country. Covid-19 was putting the NHS under unprecedented strain and Boris Johnson had given the British people what he described as “a very simple instruction” in an address to the nation from Downing Street: “You must stay at home.”
A worrying, unsettling time, and Kay, a mother of a six-year-old girl, needed to get hold of a pregnancy test kit. She went online and, two days later, took delivery of the test, learning of a positive result via two pink lines. It was the news she had dreaded.
Continue reading...Rise in cases feared as murders halt campaigns and leave many women too afraid to work
Gul Meena Hotak was on her regular rounds, going door-to-door giving polio vaccinations in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, when she heard gunshots.
The 22-year-old’s immediate concern was for the safety of her friend Negina and other colleagues nearby. “Negina and my supervisor were in a neighbourhood close by when a gunman approached and shot at them. My supervisor escaped with gunshot injuries, but Negina was killed on the spot,” Hotak said.
Continue reading...Opposition leaders leave airport bolthole as they step up pressure over contested presidency of Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed
After months living at an upmarket inn close to Mogadishu’s airport, Somalia’s opposition leaders, including two former presidents and their armed teams, have decamped, spreading across the capital in what is seen as a strategic move.
The sitting president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed “Farmaajo”, has meanwhile flown to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he reportedly hopes to win support for an extension of his presidential term from the African Union.
Continue reading...A ‘double mutant’ strain, lack of medical supplies and the relaxation of lockdowns have combined to foment disaster
India has seen a terrifying increase in coronavirus cases in the past few weeks. Tuesday saw another new record when the country racked up 295,041 new cases, up from around 273,000 from the previous day, with no sign that the surge is abating.
The capital Delhi was placed in lockdown for a week from Monday, and Maharashtra state, the centre of the surge and home to the financial capital, Mumbai, further tightened restrictions on shops and home deliveries from Tuesday.
Continue reading...Investigation finds one in six were solo and under 15, as experts say cross-border cooperation ‘nonexistent’
At least 18,000 unaccompanied child migrants have disappeared after arriving in European countries including Greece, Italy and Germany.
An investigation by the Guardian and the cross-border journalism collective Lost in Europe found that 18,292 unaccompanied child migrants went missing in Europe between January 2018 and December 2020 – equivalent to nearly 17 children a day.
Continue reading...City government calls for help on social media, saying major hospitals only have enough oxygen to last eight to 24 hours
Indian authorities scrambled to shore up supplies of medical oxygen to hospitals in the capital, Delhi, on Wednesday as a fast-spreading second wave of coronavirus stretched medical infrastructure to breaking point, officials and doctors said.
India, the world’s second most populous country, is reporting the world’s highest number of new daily cases and is approaching a peak of about 297,000 cases in one day that the US hit in January.
Continue reading...A railway worker in India sprung into action after a six-year-old boy fell on to the tracks at a train station in Mumbai. The child was with his partially sighted mother and was struggling to get back onto the platform before Mayur Shelke ran up and scooped him to safety.
Continue reading...Despite their life-saving capabilities, many countries have yet to administer enough doses to reap the full benefits
Nearly six months after the first Covid-19 vaccines were approved for emergency use, Guardian analysis shows that the vast majority of the world is yet to see a substantial benefit.
Supply shortages, safety concerns, public apathy and slow rollouts have resulted in most countries still being reliant on onerous lockdowns and other quarantine measures to reduce the severity of their outbreaks.
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