06/05/2025

TUESDAY | MAY 6, 2025

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Popemobile set to become health clinic

BRITAIN HONOURS LAST VETERANS OF WWII LONDON: A military parade, street parties and a balcony appearance by the royal family began four days of celebrations yesterday to mark 80 years since the end of World War II. King Charles III, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and thousands of spectators watched Nato personnel from the US, France and Germany, along with Ukrainian troops, in a military procession that began with Winston Churchill’s 1945 victory speech, voiced by actor Timothy Spall. The procession culminated in a fly past featuring aerobatic team the Red Arrows and 23 current and historic military aircraft. This year’s commemorations took on extra poignancy given the fading of the “Greatest Generation”. This will be the last major commemoration for which “anyone will still be alive who actually served in the Second World War,” said monarchy specialist Robert Hazell of University College London. – AFP KREMLIN CALLS FOR KASHMIR DE-ESCALATION MOSCOW: The Kremlin called for de escalation between India and Pakistan, as tensions between the two neighbours flare following last month’s deadly attack on tourists in Kashmir. “We hope that the parties will be able to take measures (...) that will reduce tensions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, adding that “we are following with great concern the tense atmosphere that has developed on the border.” President Vladimir Putin told Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a phone call yesterday that the “particularly privileged partnership” between Moscow and Delhi was“not subject to external influence and continues to develop dynamically in all areas”, the Kremlin said. Moscow last week said it was ready to mediate. – AFP Francis had a number of popemobiles, with the one used in the 2014 visit to Israel and the Palestinian Territories staying in the region following his return to the Vatican. A conclave to elect a new pope starts tomorrow. – Reuters VATICAN CITY: One of Pope Francis’ popemobiles is being transformed into a mobile health clinic for children in the Gaza Strip, fulfilling one of his final wishes, the Vatican’s official media outlet said on Sunday. The vehicle, used by the late pontiff during his 2014 visit to the Holy Land, is being outfitted with diagnostic and emergency medical equipment to help young patients in the Palestinian enclave, where health services have been devastated by the Israeli invasion. Pope Francis, who died last month, entrusted the initiative to the Catholic aid organisation Caritas Jerusalem in the months before his death, Vatican News said. “This is a concrete, life-saving intervention at a time when the health system in Gaza has almost collapsed,” said Peter Brune, secretary general of Caritas Sweden, which is supporting the project. The mobile unit will be equipped with rapid infection tests, vaccines, diagnostic tools, and suture kits, and staffed by medical personnel. Caritas plans to deploy the clinic to communities without access to functioning healthcare facilities once humanitarian access to Gaza is feasible. “It’s not just a vehicle,” Brune said. “It’s a message that the world has not forgotten about the children in Gaza.” Gaza has a tiny Christian community and the Vatican has said Francis used to call the Holy Family Church in Gaza on an almost daily basis for much of the war.

Palestinians queueing for a hot meal at Nuseirat refugee camp on Sunday. – AFPPIC

Israel Cabinet approves Gaza ‘conquest’

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several ministers, “unanimously approved” the plan aimed at defeating Gaza’s rulers Hamas and securing the return of hostages held in the territory. The official source said the plan included “powerful strikes against Hamas”, without specifying their nature. On Sunday, army chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said the military was calling up “tens of thousands” of reservists to expand its offensive. The Health Ministry in Gaza said on Sunday that at least 2,436 people had been killed since Israel resumed its campaign on March 18, bringing the overall death toll from the war to 52,535. The attack on Oct 7, 2023 that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians. Gunmen also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead. Israel says its renewed offensive is aimed at forcing Hamas to free its remaining captives, although critics charge that it puts them in mortal danger. and Nvidia has publicly claimed it cannot track its products after they are sold. Representative Bill Foster, a Democrat from Illinois who once worked as a particle physicist, said the technology to track chips after they are sold is readily available, with much of it already built in to Nvidia’s chips. Independent technical experts agreed. Foster, who successfully designed computer chips during his scientific career, plans to introduce a Bill that would direct US regulators to come up with rules in two key areas: Tracking chips to ensure they are where they are authorised to be under export licences, and preventing those chips from booting up if they are not properly licensed. Foster said there are already credible reports, some of which have not been publicly

plan for expanded military operations is “sacrificing” hostages. “The plan approved by the Cabinet deserves to be called the ‘Smotrich-Netanyahu Plan’ for sacrificing the hostages,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said. The reference was to far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Netanyahu, who heads one of the most right-wing governments in Israeli history. Alongside the plan to expand military operations, Netanyahu “continues to promote” a proposal by President Donald Trump for the voluntary departure of Gazans to neighbouring countries, the source added. Israel’s security Cabinet also approved overnight the “possibility of humanitarian distribution” in Gaza, which has been under full Israeli blockade since March 2. It said there was “currently enough food” in the territory, although humanitarian organisations and UN agencies have warned of the blockade’s dire consequences for Gaza’s 2.4 million people. The Cabinet “approved by a large majority the possibility of a humanitarian distribution, if necessary, to prevent Hamas from taking control of the supplies and to destroy its governance capabilities”. – AFP disclosed, of large-scale chip smuggling. “This is not an imaginary future problem,” Foster said. “It is a problem now, and at some point we’re going to discover that the Communist Party, or their military, is busy designing weapons using large arrays of chips, or even just working on (artificial general intelligence), which is as immediate as nuclear technology.” Prosecutors in Singapore have charged three men with fraud in a case that involved servers that may have contained Nvidia chips. The technology to verify the location of chips already exists. Google already tracks the location of its in-house AI chips and others in its vast network of data centres for security purposes, according to two sources with direct knowledge of its operations. – Reuters

o Plan will sacrifice hostages, say relatives

TEL AVIV: Israel’s security Cabinet approved the expansion of military operations in Gaza including the “conquest” of the enclave, an official said yesterday, after the army called up tens of thousands of reservists for the offensive. The plan, approved overnight, includes the holding of territories in the besieged Gaza Strip and comes alongside Israel’s promotion of Gaza’s residents to leave, the official said. Israel resumed major operations across Gaza on March 18 amid deadlock over how to proceed with a two-month ceasefire that had largely halted the war with Hamas. Israel has since carried out intensive aerial bombardments and expanded ground operations across the Palestinian territory, with Gaza rescuers yesterday saying Israeli airstrikes killed at least 19 people in the north. The majority of Gaza’s residents hail from the north of the territory, particularly Gaza City, and nearly all have been displaced at least once since the war began. The Cabinet, which includes Prime SAN FRANCISCO: A US lawmaker plans to introduce legislation to verify the location of artificial-intelligence chips like those made by Nvidia after they are sold. The effort to keep tabs on the chips, which drew bipartisan support from lawmakers, aims to address reports of smuggling of Nvidia’s chips into China in violation of export laws. Nvidia’s chips are a critical ingredient for creating AI systems such as chatbots, image generators and more specialised ones that can help craft biological weapons. President Donald Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, have implemented progressively tighter export controls of Nvidia’s chips to China. But Reuters and other news organisations have documented how some of those chips have continued to flow into China,

BR I E F S

An Israeli campaign group representing hostages’ relatives said yesterday that the new New Bill to target Nvidia chip smuggling