Killer Robots Have Arrived in Ukrainian Battle Fields — Coda Story
December 8, 2022
Amid Ukraine’s muddy trench warfare, grinding artillery bombardments and Soviet-era tank battles, a futuristic digital war is waged as the line between human and machine decision-making becomes ever thinner.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, AI-powered drones — both homemade and highly sophisticated — have been deployed on an unprecedented scale on the battlefield. Russia has reportedly used the Kalashnikov Kub and Lancet Kamikaze “highly autonomous” drones. Ukraine has relied on the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 that has autonomous flight capabilities and boasts “laser guided smart ammunition.” The U.S. has committed to sending Ukraine 700 Switchblade kamikaze drones and “Phoenix Ghosts” that use GPS-tracking and object recognition software.
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Either Freedom Or Death — The Baffler
October 5, 2022
ON THE GREEK ISLAND OF CHIOS, you can stare across the Aegean Sea and see the edge of Europe. It’s hard to imagine where the West ends or the East begins, but somewhere, in between, a frontier delineates where civilizations, histories, identities, people, religions, and ideas have clashed for centuries. All this bloodshed exists as if a line between us and them. When sitting on a little beach along the main road into Chios port, the smooth pebbles underneath, it feels like you can reach out and touch the Çeşme coast. Across the calm blue sea, this liminal space fluctuates back and forth, bringing trade and migration but also a great deal of death and destruction.
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A Banana Is Not A Penis - The Baffler
May 2022
THE OTHER NIGHT, as I made my way to Amsterdam’s red-light district, De Wallen, I was accosted by a group of students dressed as bananas, with large fruit-shaped hats wrapped around their heads. After raucously belting out a drinking song, they forced me to drink warm (Dutch) gin on camera, cheering wildly as the rancid liquor went down my throat. A tall young man, their big banana, explained they were on a university “treasure hunt” that involved dares and challenges across the inner city. They gave another hearty cheer, grabbed their bikes, and disappeared down the street.
I felt a little used. But more so, confused. Was this the kind of interaction that Amsterdam officials had in mind when, in May 2018, they launched the “Enjoy and Respect” campaign, aimed at stamping out the rowdy behavior of (mostly) young Dutch and English men in De Wallen? Was this the sort of low-brow carousing that, according to officials, had overwhelmed the city for years, leading Ombudsman Arre Zuurmond to describe it as “a jungle at night”? Probably not. These students were far tamer than the insufferable men who last year were warned their days of misbehaving “dressed like a penis” were over. But while a banana is not a penis, the exchange did point to the municipality’s ongoing struggle to scale back the phallocentric reveling.
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Blood Gold Flows Illegally From Central African Republic
March 9, 2015
(Bloomberg) -- Freddy Bonjour, covered in yellow dust from head to toe, stands exhausted after a day using his bare hands and a shovel to dig for gold in eastern Central African Republic.
Like his fellow diggers, Bonjour says his life, and work, were better before war erupted in the country and fighters from the mainly Muslim Seleka rebel group began demanding illegal taxes and fees. The alliance of anti-government militias says the money collected pays for food and security.
“We’ve lost everything,” Bonjour, 28, said in an interview in Djoubissi, about 316 kilometers (196 miles) northeast of the capital, Bangui. “The Seleka are in control of the mine.”
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