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Japan power plant top duo quit over data scandal

funding and startups, has favoured a light-touch approach to AI regulation, aligning more closely with the United States than the European Union. Britain’s AI Security Institute, established after the AI Safety Summit in 2023, receives pre-deployment access to AI models under voluntary agreements with the major AI companies, enabling it to assess their capabilities and risks, and giving it a window into frontier AI development. – Reuters IRAN NUCLEAR CHIEF BARRED FROM MEETING TEHRAN: Iran’s nuclear chief was blocked from attending an annual conference yesterday at the headquarters of the UN’s nuclear agency in Vienna due to opposition from the United States. “Mohammad Eslami and his delegation took a regular flight to Vienna on Saturday, but were blocked on the way because of obstructions by the United States,” a state broadcaster reported. He was due to attend the annual general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, which runs until Friday in Austria. He attended last year’s conference and delivered a speech on behalf of Iran, a member state of the IAEA. Tehran summoned Austria’s charge d’affaires in response to the decision to bar Eslami. – AFP NORTH KOREA REPORTS LIVE-FIRE DRILLS SEOUL: North Korea said yesterday that its launch of several missiles on Saturday was part of a live-fire drill involving long-range artillery and missile units, according to state media KCNA. The “joint firepower attack drill” involved five army units and tested several weapon systems, including attack drones, tactical cruise missiles, tactical ballistic missiles and large-calibre rocket launchers, KCNA said. The drill would boost the morale of troops and improve their capability to “completely collapse the enemy” whenever ordered, KCNA said, citing an artillery director. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Saturday that North Korea fired several ballistic missiles, which flew about 250km towards the sea off its east coast. – Reuters MIGRANT BOAT SINKS, ONE DEAD ATHENS: One person died and 25 remained missing after a boat filled with migrants sank off the Greek island of Gavdos, near Crete, the coast guard said yesterday. “Fifty-one were picked up by two boats,” a coastguard spokesman said, adding that according to those plucked from the sea, 77 people were on board the boat when it went down. Crete and Gavdos, about 320km from the Libyan coast, have become the main point of entry for asylum seekers in Greece. In late August, Greece’s ANA news agency published figures from the Immigration Ministry that indicated that migrant arrivals in Greece fell from about 61,000 in the year to August 2025 to 42,000 in the following 12 months: a decline of around 31%. – AFP

BR I E F S

TOKYO: Two top executives at a Japanese nuclear plant operator stepped down yesterday following a quake data-tampering scandal, and the firm said it will abandon plans to restart two reactors. Japan is moving to revive nuclear power 15 years after an enormous earthquake and tsunami sent reactors at the Fukushima atomic plant into meltdown in 2011. Chubu Electric Power’s Hamaoka nuclear plant – located in an area of central Japan at risk of a potential “megaquake” – has been undergoing regulatory safety checks, with the aim of restarting two reactors. But in January, the operator said that it had submitted data to regulators that underestimated earthquake risks. Chubu Electric said in a statement yesterday that President Kingo Hayashi and Chairman Satoru Katsuno would be replaced and the firm would withdraw applications to restart the reactors at Hamaoka. Hayashi told a news conference that he felt “a heavy sense of responsibility and am deeply remorseful”. He said he felt “a profound sense of regret” that he was unable to “foster an organisational culture that prioritises compliance and safety above all else”. A 250-page report by an independent panel, released o Firm drops plan to restart reactors in megaquake zone

Hayashi (front) and other executives bowing during a press conference yesterday. – PHOTO BY JIJI PRESS/AFPPIC

“Cold War playbook” targeting Beijing. Charles, both as king and when he was the Prince of Wales, has used his position to convene meetings to discuss a range of topics, most notably on the environment. Buckingham Palace said the gathering would discuss how AI could be harnessed in ways that benefit society and contribute “to the flourishing of both people and the planet”. Britain, the European leader in AI them through buy-back channels. Alternatively, they will be offered free shipping to mail them out of the city. Drone flights in Beijing’s airspace already require permission from authorities. According to the new rules, exemptions may be provided for special purposes like counter terrorism, agriculture, disaster relief and research.– AFP data fraud from a whistleblower. The NRA suspended its safety review process for the Hamaoka plant in late December. The plant is in Omaezaki, Shizuoka prefecture, near a seismic fault line where a massive Pacific earthquake is expected to occur in the coming years or decades. In 2024, the Japan Meteorological Agency issued a special advisory for a possible “megaquake” in the area, known as the Nankai Trough, before lifting it a week later. – AFP

Under rules introduced in May, Beijing already prohibited drone sales, while owners had to register their devices but were allowed to keep them. The new regulations mandate that all drone owners dispose of their devices or move them out of Beijing by Nov 15, or else face confiscation and fines. Authorities will offer subsidies for owners to scrap their gadgets or sell The world’s biggest nuclear plant, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, restarted operations earlier this year. The estimate of maximum seismic ground motion is important for the earthquake-resistant design of nuclear plants. In September 2023, the Nuclear Regulation Authority approved Chubu’s estimate of 1,200 gal, a unit of acceleration used to measure the intensity of quakes. But in February last year, the NRA received information about possible

Transporting drones or their components into Beijing will also be forbidden. Airspace safety fears in the city of 22 million were raised in June when a small plane crashed into its tallest skyscraper, killing the pilot and injuring 13 others. The regulations, formulated by Beijing’s municipal government, cited the need to “safeguard the security of the capital”. yesterday, said the management’s “reprimand” over delays in the restart review had created pressure on staff, and was “one of the factors contributing to the misconduct”. Japan pulled the plug on nuclear power in the wake of the meltdown at the Fukushima atomic plant. However, Japan now wants to revive atomic energy to reduce its heavy dependence on fossil fuels, achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and meet growing energy needs from artificial intelligence.

Beijing to ban drone possession BEIJING: Beijing will ban the possession of drones within city limits under new rules from November, further tightening regulations that already prohibited the sale of the devices.

The rules, announced on Sunday and due to take effect on Nov 15, forbid possessing or storing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the Chinese capital and ban flights in its airspace.

Charles to host AI executives as threat fears mount LONDON: Britain’s King Charles will host the leaders of major artificial intelligence companies this week to discuss whether a shared set of principles is needed to guide a technology that has sparked growing warnings about its threat to humanity. With the biggest names in AI calling for a slowdown in its development, Charles will host executives from Nvidia, Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Anthropic and the UK minister for AI, to discuss how the technology can be harnessed to benefit society and uphold human dignity. The debate about AI was thrust back into the spotlight when two Anthropic researchers issued warnings that the rapidly progressing technology could lead to the extinction of the human race in the not-too-distant future. The chief executive of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, said on Saturday that companies must slow the pace of advance of AI models. The San Francisco-based firm released a threat intelligence report last week detailing how several actors had used its Claude AI models for activities ranging from weapons development and cyber operations to surveillance and fraud. However, securing a global stance will be difficult: US President Donald Trump rejected any talk of a slowdown on Sunday while China’s Global Times tabloid said it was really a