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“American biological laboratories” in Ukraine? .. full story

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"American biological laboratories" in Ukraine?  .. full story

On social media and in the Arab news media, rumors spread about the Pentagon running secret laboratories in Ukraine, which were used to make deadly diseases and biological weapons, which the Kremlin has been promoting for years.

On Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that the Ukrainian defense forces, in collaboration with the Azov battalion, had “operated a reactor at the nuclear research plant at the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology.”

The statement was based on a “warning” issued by the Russian media, including by the Kremlin’s news site Sputnik.

Also, the Russian Defense Ministry on Monday confirmed that it has documented evidence of cooperation between Ukraine and the United States in developing biological weapons, and that the United States is funding more than $ 200 million in biological laboratories in Ukraine. Published by the official Russian news agency (TASS).

“In the context of a special military operation, traces were uncovered of the implementation of a military biological project in Ukraine with funding from the US Department of Defense,” said Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, who issued the statement.

According to the TASS, the United States and Ukraine sought to destroy specimens of “plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera and other deadly diseases” on February 24, in which Russian forces occupied Ukraine and “already have everything needed to pursue a biological military program. From Ukraine,” the official Russian agency said. Reported.

Without clarifying the details of these documents or their source, TASS released images of Russian-language documents claimed by the Ministry of Defense to be evidence of a biological weapons program.

History of lie

On October 4, 2018, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that the United States was operating a secret biological weapons laboratory in Georgia, in violation of international agreements and as a direct security threat to Russia.

According to the Associated Press, General Igor Girillov, head of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces, told a conference that the laboratory in Georgia was part of a network of US laboratories stationed near the borders of Russia and China.

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In response to the allegations, then-Pentagon spokesman Eric Bahோன்n strongly denied the allegations, calling them “inventions of Russia’s imaginary and misleading propaganda against the West” and “obvious attempts to divert attention from Russian misconduct on many fronts.”

The Associated Press said the allegations were largely based on the US-funded Richard G. Luger Center for Public Health Research in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. Documents released by Kirillov, former Georgian Minister of Defense Igor Jorkatse, show that the facility was fully funded by the United States and that on paper the Georgian right was a cover-up.

“The United States did not develop biological weapons in Lugar,” Bahn said at the time.

The laboratory is a joint human and animal health facility owned and operated by the Georgian National Center for Disease Control and Public Health (NCDC), not the United States.

“The purpose of the Luger Center is to protect citizens from biological threats and to contribute to the diagnosis, epidemiological surveillance and improvement of public and animal health for the benefit of Georgia, the Caucasus region and the global community.”

The center opened in 2013 and was named after former U.S. Senator Richard Luger. Prior to leaving Congress, the Republican Party was part of a two-party US effort to help secure the Soviet arsenal of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In 2018, the company added: “KodaThe non-profit media argues that the allegations are part of the Kremlin’s widespread propaganda to discredit the United States in the eyes of Russia’s pro – Western neighbors Ukraine and Georgia. But those false accusations did not stop there.

Adaptation of lies to justify the invasion of Ukraine

On September 21, 2021, Nikolai Badrushev, Secretary of the Russian Security Council, said in an interview with the weekly “Argumentation I Fact” that “biological laboratories established by the United States around the world pose a threat to the health of tens of thousands of people.” . “

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“The West is concerned about human rights, but in fact it is violating them on a large scale. The biological laboratories that Washington is setting up around the world are endangering the health of tens of thousands of people and thus violating their rights.” Badrushev stressed in the Toss statements.

Last January, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in a speech to the State Duma, noted that “there are US military biological laboratories in most countries near his country,” and that it was very difficult to understand what these laboratories were doing. Even.

As Russia began its occupation of Ukraine in the early hours of February 24, the hashtag #USBiolabs began appearing on Twitter.

On the hashtag, pro-Moscow accounts repeatedly told the Russian story that the United States was running secret laboratories in Ukraine that produced dangerous diseases that could be used as a biological weapon.

A new report released on March 7, says Atlantic CouncilIn another attempt to justify the invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin again accused Ukraine of inciting Russia by developing radioactive bombs and biological weapons.

According to the Atlantic Council, the latest in a series of claims by Russian officials and the Kremlin over the past two weeks is that Ukraine is developing a radioactive bomb without proof.

In the weeks leading up to the invasion of Ukraine, US intelligence agencies warned that Russia was planning a vicious attack as an excuse for aggression and was spreading false propaganda on social media to portray Ukraine as an invader.

According to the Atlantic Council, the Kremlin has repeatedly used fake documents as part of its past influence activities, especially on misleading accounts that it continues to spread about biological weapons laboratories.

The Kremlin has a long history of accusing the West of creating biological agents since the end of the Cold War in 1991. In 2020, pro-Russian media outlets sought to blame the United States for the COVID-19 epidemic, suggesting that the corona virus had been created. In a laboratory.

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How did Russia distort the truth?

On February 24, a statementSnoopsThe fact-finding expert pointed out that “there was no evidence that Russia (US biological laboratories) targeted Russia when it launched its invasion of Ukraine.”

“This statement is another recurrence of a long-running misinformation campaign by the Kremlin and its supporters,” the statement said.

The site confirms that Russian rumors distort the fact that the decision was made by the Ukrainian Ministry of Health and the US Department of Defense (Pentagon). Agreement In 2005 with the goal of “eliminating the threat of bio-terrorism by placing protections on deadly pathogens from the Soviet-era biological weapons program.”

Biological laboratories in Ukraine are operated by the Ukrainian government in accordance with the guidelines issued by local law.

According to the Snobs website, there is no evidence that these labs were “established” by the US military, nor are they run by US forces.

In April 2020, the US embassy in Gaius denied the allegations and set a record straight for spreading false information in certain circles in Ukraine, reflecting Russian misinformation about the strong alliance between the United States and Ukraine to reduce biological threats.

She said Embassy At the time, the US Department of Defense said, “The US Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program works with the Ukrainian government to standardize and protect security-important pathogens and toxins in Ukrainian government facilities, while allowing peaceful research and development of vaccines.”

“We work with our Ukrainian partners to ensure that Ukraine is able to detect and report dangerous pathogens before they pose a threat to security or stability,” he added.

In May 2020, the Ukrainian Defense Service (SBU) called on politicians to stop spreading false information about the presence of foreign military biological laboratories in Ukraine.

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Artificial intelligence raises concerns for Britain.. The Guardian: Concerns include the development of biological weapons, terrorist uses and causing havoc. Extinction is science fiction

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Artificial intelligence raises concerns for Britain.. The Guardian: Concerns include the development of biological weapons, terrorist uses and causing havoc.  Extinction is science fiction


By: Nihal Abu Al-Saud

Tuesday, September 26, 2023 at 05:00 AM

Concerns about the power of the next generation of controversial artificial intelligence technology are growing in Britain, between its supporters and detractors, from criminals and terrorists using the technology to achieve their goals, to frequent scenes in sci-fi movies. About a machine escaping human control.

The UK is hosting a summit on AI security in November, and British officials are touring the world ahead of the summit.

According to The Guardian, fears are widespread that criminals or terrorists could use artificial intelligence to accomplish their extremist goals and cause mass death, and some around British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak worry that the technology will soon become powerful enough to help. Individuals develop biological weapons that are out of bounds.

“The purpose is to warn against this,” said a person familiar with the summit talks Artificial Intelligence Risks“Downing Street is paying attention at the moment.”

Frontier AI is a term used to refer to models of artificial intelligence that are dangerous enough to endanger human life, the newspaper noted.

Sunak warned months ago about the dangers posed by artificial intelligence and urged the international community to adopt safeguards to prevent its misuse.

Recent developments in artificial intelligence technology have raised fears among officials. Last year, an artificial intelligence tool was able to suggest 40,000 different potentially lethal biomolecules, some of which were similar to VX, in just 6 hours. .

Earlier this year, researchers found that ChatGPT can lie to a human to achieve a specific goal. The AI-powered chatbot convinced a person to solve a “captcha” tool designed to take down online bots after telling them to a human. Visually impaired and needs help accessing the website.

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Government sources fear that a criminal or terrorist could use artificial intelligence to help prepare the components of a biological weapon before sending them to a lab, where they can be mixed and shipped without any human supervision, a risk some believe will soon increase dramatically. , companies are already spending hundreds of millions of pounds. Sterling is looking for more powerful processors to train the next generation of AI tools.

Another concern is the emergence of “artificial general intelligence,” which refers to an artificially intelligent system capable of autonomously performing any task at or above human level—and which could pose an existential threat to humans in years to come.

On the other hand, the existential risk approach to general AI has been criticized by AI experts, who argue that the threat is overstated. Last week, a senior tech executive told US lawmakers that the notion of uncontrollable public AI was… “fiction”.

Several world leaders, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron, are expected to attend the summit. The UK has invited China to participate.

The British government confirmed that the summit would focus on risks such as the misuse of artificial intelligence to develop biological weapons or electronic attacks, and the emergence of advanced systems that escape human control.

He said in a statement: “There are two areas that the summit will focus on in particular: the risks of misuse, for example when new AI capabilities help a bad actor in biological or cyber attacks, and the risks of losing control. The risks may arise from the advanced systems we want to “counter it”.

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Sunak warned months ago about the dangers posed by artificial intelligence and urged the international community to adopt safeguards to prevent its misuse.

Downing Street is reportedly spending £100m on a new artificial intelligence team. The United Kingdom to evaluate them before using them more widely. .

A Downing Street spokesman said AI has “huge potential to transform every aspect of life and the Frontier AI Taskforce has been established to ensure technology is developed safely and responsibly”. Potential risks.



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Finding the genetic causes of a rare cancer affecting the kidney

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Finding the genetic causes of a rare cancer affecting the kidney

An international team led by researchers at the British Wellcome Sanger Institute has revealed a new drug target that could act as an alternative treatment for kidney cancer if doctors don’t recommend surgery. According to the results of a study published in the journal Nature Communications (Monday), this rare cancerous form of kidney tumor is called Renin tumor, and its complete genetic code has been understood for the first time.

Reninoma is one of the rarest cancers in humans, with only about 100 cases reported worldwide. Although it can usually be treated with surgery, it can cause severe high blood pressure and develop into malignant tumors that can spread.

There are still no medical treatments for kidney tumors, as treatment management only involves surgery. Before the results of the latest study came out, it was not known what genetic error caused these types of tumors.

Reninoma is one of the rarest cancerous tumors in humans (Public Domain).

According to the study’s co-principal investigator, Dr. Sam Bagadi, Wellcome Senior Research Fellow at the Wellcome Sanger Institute: “The significance of our results is that we have succeeded in discovering the essence of this type of tumor. Based on the fact that it is so rare, there have been no previous studies on it.

He added to Asharq Al-Awsat: “Not only have we been able to understand the genetic code of a kidney tumor, but we have also shown that drugs can counteract what triggers it, and this may be important for patients whose tumors cannot be removed. through surgery.”

Researchers have identified a specific error in the genetic code of a known cancer gene called NOTCH1, which is behind the development of this rare cancer.

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“This is the first time we have identified the causes of kidney tumors, and we believe our work will continue to pave the way for new treatments,” said lead study author Taryn Trescher at the Wellcome Sanger Institute.

The team has already studied two cancer samples, one from a young adult and the other from a child, using advanced genetic techniques. Their findings suggest that existing drugs that actually target this gene could be used as a potential solution for treating kidney tumors in patients for whom surgery is not a viable option.

Dr Tansina Chowdhury, lead researcher on the study at Great Ormond Street Hospital in the UK, explained: “Rare forms of kidney cancer known as renal tumors do not respond to traditional anti-cancer treatments. “Currently the only known treatment is surgery.” She added: “There is a specific, well-known gene that drives this rare cancer. Our study shows that the studied gene has “If we use drugs that are already known to affect this gene, we can deal with it without the need for invasive medical technology like surgery.”

Here Bahjati said: “Rare cancers are a huge challenge for research and analysis. Patients with other types of tumors may not benefit from them. “But here is a powerful example of cutting-edge science that is changing our understanding of an extremely rare type of tumor: a discovery that could have immediate clinical benefits for patients.” He added: “We will continue to study these extremely rare tumors to understand their genetic code, which we hope will reveal more new therapeutic approaches.”

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Climate change: Saudi Arabia warns against rush to abandon traditional fuels – Financial Times

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Climate change: Saudi Arabia warns against rush to abandon traditional fuels – Financial Times

image source, Good pictures

We begin our tour of British newspapers with Amy Williams in New York and Miles McCormick in Calgary at the Financial Times on what they describe as deep tensions and divisions over the oil and gas industry’s role in combating climate change. Recent events in New York, US and Calgary, Canada this week cast doubt on the likelihood of an agreement at the upcoming United Nations COP28 conference.

According to the article, when world leaders and senior officials meet in New York in ten weeks ahead of the United Nations’ COP28 climate summit, there is a deep divide between those who support and those who urge the expansion of fossil fuel use. Stopping all forms of growth and expansion is critical to achieving stability in the world.

In December, the UN The authors quoted Dan Jorgensen, Denmark’s minister for development cooperation and global climate policy, who is leading discussions on new climate targets that could be agreed at the climate change conference COP28, as saying: “Countries agree that we must move. Move forward on this issue.” “But the bad news is that we’re far from reaching an agreement. We need to address the larger problem of burning fossil fuels.”

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