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Israel expands operations across Gaza
Israel widened its military campaign against Hamas in southern Gaza yesterday, with armored vehicles rolling closer to its main city and strikes pummeling urban areas.
Israel has signaled for days that it is preparing a ground invasion of the south, where it says Hamas fighters and commanders are hiding. The Israeli military said that its ground troops and air force “continued to operate across the Gaza Strip,” but did not offer details about the location of its operations. Here’s the latest.
Israel again told civilians to leave parts of Khan Younis, the area’s largest city, and head farther south including to Rafah, on the Egyptian border. Aid agencies, however, warned that the shelters in the south were already overcrowded.
“The level of human suffering is intolerable,” said the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, who visited Gaza on Monday. “It is unacceptable that civilians have no safe place to go in Gaza, and with a military siege in place there is also no adequate humanitarian response currently possible.”
A video surfaced, taken two weeks ago, in which Al Jaber says there is “no science” behind the idea that fossil fuels must be phased out in order to keep average global temperatures from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels. That’s the threshold beyond which scientists say humans would struggle to adapt to the climate.
Al Jaber suggested yesterday that he had not said what he can be heard saying on the video, and he indicated that anyone who claimed otherwise was trying to undermine his leadership of COP28. The comment, and the backlash, highlight the dilemma of hosting the climate summit in one of the world’s leading oil producers.
More from the summit: Money is a very big sticking point at this year’s event. Part of the problem is that American promises often go unmet.
Young voters propel a third party in Taiwan
As Taiwan’s presidential election approaches next month, candidates have focused on who can best handle the island’s volatile relationship with China. But many voters, especially those in their 20s and 30s, say they are weary of geopolitics and yearn for a campaign more focused on their concerns, like rising housing costs, slow income growth and narrowing career prospects.
Their disillusionment with Taiwan’s two dominant political parties has helped propel the rise of a third: the Taiwan People’s Party, an upstart that has gained traction in the polls partly by tapping into frustration over bread-and-butter issues, especially among younger people. Whom young people ultimately vote for — and how many vote at all — could be a crucial factor in deciding the presidential election on Jan. 13.
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Asia Pacific
The kiwi — a native bird so beloved by New Zealanders that its name is shorthand for them — vanished from the capital, Wellington, more than a century ago. But after a multiyear conservation effort, two hatchlings were born in the wild in the region — the first in living memory.
The future of A.I.
The question of whether artificial intelligence will elevate the world or destroy it has framed debate among Silicon Valley founders, academics and regulators about whether the technology should be controlled or set free.
That debate has pitted some of the world’s richest men against one another, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Sam Altman of OpenAI. All have fought for a piece of the business and the power to shape it.
In the first article in a series about modern artificial intelligence, The Times explored the paradox at the heart of the A.I. competition. The people who say they are most worried about A.I. are among the most determined to create it and enjoy its riches. They have justified their ambition with their strong belief that they alone can keep A.I. from endangering Earth.
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