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Put politics aside and act on online harms, mother of sextortion victim tells MPs188 number 。

NoneA martial law order from South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has again put communist influence in the country under the spotlight. For the first time in nearly four decades, the South Korean leader invoked the authority, accusing the opposing Democratic Party of aligning with communist North Korea. He revoked martial law hours later after parliament voted to lift the order. “I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free constitutional order,” Yoon said in a late-night address on Dec. 3. He said the political opposition, which dominates the national assembly, was “paralyzing the judiciary by intimidating judges and impeaching a large number of prosecutors,” and causing dysfunction in other government sectors as well. North Korea is far from the only country bringing communist influence over the peninsula. During a campaign rally in March, Lee criticized Yoon’s approach to China and his comments on the regime’s military encroachment on Taiwan, which the Chinese regime has sought to claim as its own. “Why are you provoking China?” Lee said. “What does the Taiwan issue have to do with South Korea?” The former presidential candidate Lee was convicted two weeks ago of violating election law and was sentenced to a one-year suspended prison term. Lee lost the 2022 election to Yoon by a 1 percent margin, marking the closest election in South Korean presidential history. The concern may be a pressing one if Yoon’s popularity plummets as a result of his emergency declaration. His own political party has disavowed the marital law order and said they would “stop it with the people.” “Yoon’s political days are likely numbered since the populace will be united in its criticism and the majority opposition party will seek Yoon’s impeachment,” Bruce Klingner, a veteran at the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency who specializes in Korean affairs, told The Epoch Times. During the brief martial law declaration, Lee called for people in South Korea to descend on the national assembly to protest the order. “Economy, culture, universities, there is no place that hasn’t been penetrated,” a former counter-espionage official, who asked for anonymity, previously told The Epoch Times. Cities in the two countries have signed nearly 700 hundred friendship or sisterhood agreements. Hundreds of Chinese civil servants had been sent to work and train in South Korea through a state-sponsored civil servant exchange program. The Chinese embassy pays for South Korean youths to spend a week in China; it hands them books of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s speeches to read before they depart and expresses hope that they'll be leaders of future bilateral relations. A mayor for the South Korean city of Gwangju in 2023 tried to build a park to honor the composer of the anthem of the People’s Liberation Army and a marching song for North Korea in order to attract tourists from China. The subversion by the Chinese Communist Party in Korea is not as well known compared to the threats from North Korea, but “it is extensive, and it is rather deep,” Tara O, author of The Collapse of North Korea, previously told The Epoch Times’ sister media NTD. She said the effort to build the park was “very ironic.” “That is just one of cultural warfare by China,” she said. Dozens of South Korean media outlets carry articles by the Chinese regime’s propaganda mouthpiece People’s Daily. South Korea also has the highest number of Confucius Institutes, a Chinese state-funded language education program to promote Beijing’s agenda. In a previous interview with The Epoch Times, Choi Soo Yong, a retired case officer from the National Intelligence Service, noted that there’s a room dedicated to the collections of works about Xi at the Seoul National University. By contrast, the university has no memorial to South Korea’s forefathers.

UN General Assembly calls for ‘unconditional’ ceasefire in GazaTwo robotic arms named Robin and Cardinal can lift packages that weigh up to 50 pounds. A third, called Sparrow, picks up items from bins and puts them in other containers. Proteus, an autonomous mobile robot that operates on the floor, can move carts around a warehouse. The bipedal, humanoid robot Digit is being tested to help move empty totes with its hands. And there’s also Sequoia, a containerized storage system that can present totes to employees in a way that allows them to avoid stretching or squatting to grab inventory. Amazon says Robin is currently being used in dozens of warehouses. The others are in a testing stage or haven’t been rolled out widely. But the company says it’s already seeing benefits, such as reducing the time it takes to fulfill orders and helping employees avoid repetitive tasks. However, automation also carries drawbacks for workers, who would have to be retrained for new positions if the robots made their roles obsolete. In October, Amazon held an event at a Nashville, Tennessee, warehouse where the company had integrated some of the robots. The Associated Press spoke with Julie Mitchell, the director of Amazon’s robotic sortation technologies, about where the company hopes to go from here. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Q: When you’re working on robotics, how long does it typically take to roll out new technology? A: This journey that we’ve been on has taken a couple of years. Luckily for us, we’ve been at this for over a decade. So we have a lot of core technology that we can build on top of. We started these particular robots, Cardinal and Proteus, in this building in November 2022. We came in and began playing around with what it would look like to pack and move a production order. Less than two years later, we are at scale and shipping 70% of the items in this building through that robotics system. Q: So, two years? A: We talk about “build, test and scale” and that’s about a two-year cycle for us right now. Q: It’s challenging to build robots that can physically grab products. How does Amazon work through that? A: As you can probably imagine, we have so many items, so it’s an exceptional challenge. We rely on data and putting our first prototype in a real building, where we expose it to all the things we need it to do. Then we drive down all the reasons that it fails. We give it a lot of sample sizes in a very short period of time. For example, a couple of years ago, we launched our Robin robotics arm – a package manipulation robot – and we’re at 3 billion picks. So the ability to launch into our network, rapidly collect data, scale and iterate has enabled us to go fast. The challenge itself can be boiled down to three simple things: you need to perceive the scene, plan your motion and then execute. Today, those are three different parts of our system. Artificial intelligence is going to help us change all of that, and it’s going to be more outcome-driven, like asking it to pick up a bottle of water. We’re on the verge, so that’s why I’m personally excited to be here at the onset of generative AI and use it to dramatically improve the performance of our robotics. Q: How do you think about the impact of automation on Amazon’s workforce as you’re developing the technology? A: With the technology we’ve deployed here, we’re creating new roles for individuals that can acquire new skills to fulfill those roles. And these new skills are not something that is too difficult to achieve. You don’t need an engineering degree, Ph.D. or any really technical skills to support our robotics systems. We designed the systems so they’re easy to service and train on the job to be a reliability maintenance engineer. We are working backwards from the idea that we want to employ more skilled labor. These opportunities are obviously higher paid than the entry level jobs in our buildings. And partnering with MIT has helped us understand what matters most to our team as we’re deploying these technologies across our network. Q: Are you experiencing any challenges as you introduce these robots in your warehouses? A: Not in the adoption. We’re integrating it. But these are complex systems and this is the real world, so things go wrong. For example, we had bad weather due to the storms in the Southeast. When I look at the robotics systems data, I can tell the weather is bad outside because that dramatically affects how the ship dock works. When trucks don’t arrive on time or when they can’t leave, you see bottlenecks in the building in strange ways. Containers build up, we have to put them in different places, and then humans need to recover them. So communication between what our robotics system is doing and what we need employees in the building to do to recover is important. It’s a collaboration of automation and humans to deal with real-world problems. It’s not a matter of having robotics take over but making it one system of humans and robotics working together to accomplish the goal of shipping the product.

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AP Business SummaryBrief at 6:40 p.m. ESTAlcohol use increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. A new study shows that it's still highAfter three seasons at Michigan, the tall kid from Idaho is heading to the NFL. Two-time all-Big Ten tight end Colston Loveland announced Friday plans to forego his remaining year of college eligibility and declare for the 2025 NFL Draft, capping a three-year career in Ann Arbor that saw him quickly rise to stardom. In a social media post, Loveland thanked his family, coaches, teammates and Michigan for “embracing me and making my time in Ann Arbor unforgettable.” “After careful consideration and discussions with those who have supported me, I have made the decision to declare for the 2025 NFL Draft,” Loveland wrote. At 6-foot-5 and 245 pounds, Loveland is considered one of the top tight ends available in the upcoming draft. ESPN’s Matt Miller has Loveland No. 1 among TE prospects, while Mel Kiper, Field Yates and Jordan Reid all have him second. That could make Loveland a fringe first-round prospect, appealing to his desire to go pro. A post shared by Colston Loveland (@_colstonloveland_) In three seasons at Michigan, Loveland had 117 receptions for 1,466 yards and 11 touchdowns, highlighted by his 2023 season when he caught 45 passes for 649 yards and 4 TDs. He was a primary target in the Wolverines’ 2024 offense, catching 56 passes for 582 yards and five TDs, despite sitting out two games due to injury. Loveland was a second-team all-Big Ten pick by the media and coaches this year and Mackey Award finalist as one of the nation’s top tight ends. In an appropriate fit, ESPN’s Miller had Loveland going No. 25 to the Los Angeles Chargers in his late-November mock draft, reuniting the star tight end with his former coach, Jim Harbaugh. “I was wowed by his flexibility, movement traits and straight-line speed when watching him catch passes from J.J. McCarthy at Michigan’s pro day in March,” Miller wrote. “Loveland is a modern tight end with Dallas Goedert-like upside.” A Gooding, Idaho, native, Loveland arrived at Michigan in 2022 as a four-star prospect who set high school records for single-game and season receptions. He played immediately as a true freshman, playing in all 14 games while making five starts. Loveland is the third Michigan player to declare for the 2025 NFL Draft, set for April 24-26 in Green Bay. Meanwhile, the Wolverines continue to prepare their Dec. 31 ReliaQuest Bowl game against Alabama.

Trudeau calls violence in Montreal 'appalling' as anti-NATO protest continuesNonePembina Pipeline Corp. stock falls Friday, underperforms marketPerella Weinberg chairman Peter A. Weinberg sells $3.58m in stock

A multibillion-dollar plan to create “clean” hydrogen from brown coal and ship it to Japan is on the brink of collapse, according to Japanese media reports suggesting that Kawasaki Heavy Industries has withdrawn from the trial, blaming procurement delays. The controversial plan was billed as a lifeline for the Latrobe Valley’s ageing brown coal industry. Under the plan, hydrogen would be extracted from coal, creating the world’s first liquefied hydrogen supply chain. Kawasaki Heavy Industries has reportedly withdrawn from plan to create “clean” hydrogen from brown coal sourced from the Latrobe Valley. Credit: Eamon Gallagher Proponents said the joint venture, led by Japan’s largest industrial conglomerates, would use commercially unproven CO2 capture and storage technology to sequester carbon in the Bass Strait. It was also to send the super-cooled hydrogen extracted from coal in purpose-built bulk carriers out of Hastings to Kawasaki in the Asian nation’s industrial heartland. The Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain project (HESC) was a partnership between international fossil energy companies, including Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd (KHI), Royal Dutch Shell and AGL. Japanese outlet Nikkei reported that Kawasaki Heavy Industries had abandoned its bid to establish an international supply chain to procure hydrogen from Australia because it had become “difficult to procure hydrogen in Australia within the deadline”. “With the completion of the demonstration test by fiscal year 2030, as originally scheduled, being an absolute requirement for ensuring competitiveness, the company has changed hydrogen procurement to domestic,” Nikkei reported. “It has also downsized its hydrogen carriers and is now steering toward a more ‘realistic’ solution.” Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio raised doubts about the project last year at an Australian Financial Review Energy and Climate Summit, saying it was not clear that the proponents would be able to adequately capture the carbon from the coal and safely sequester it. “That is a question that is yet to be answered,” she said. The AFR reported that Kawasaki Heavy Industries’ chairman Yoshinori Kanehana told a separate event last year that his business had been focused on winning “social license” from Victorian communities and hoped to avoid “ideological divides”. Friends of the Earth gas campaigner Freja Leonard said Kawasaki Heavy Industries’ decision to withdraw indicated the project wasn’t financially or practically feasible. “It’s just an absolute nonsense to use brown coal in a climate crisis to produce hydrogen,” she said. “Hydrogen is notoriously difficult to contain. It’s incredibly expensive to produce, and any project that expects to successfully ship hydrogen from one country to another without significant leakage is doomed to failure.” A commercial-in-confidence report on the proposal compiled by the Department of Industry, Science and Resources in 2022 and released under freedom of information laws argued the plan was broadly supported in the Latrobe Valley. “There are a limited number of groups within the Latrobe Valley that do not support the use of fossil fuels and are against CCS [carbon capture and storage],” it stated. “However, the predominant sentiment in the Valley is one that supports the HESC [Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain].” Identifying challenges getting stakeholders like the local council on board, the report noted that the HESC had “revised [its] messaging”, “highlighting the carbon neutrality” the project could achieve by combining biomass with coal. This, it said, “softens the image of HESC as a coal-driven project”. Under the plan, the cooled hydrogen would have been piped more than 150 kilometres from Gippsland to the Port of Hastings and shipped to Japan. In January 2022, according to the confidential report, hydrogen was successfully generated under trial from brown coal and biomass. However, it reported cost overruns and lengthy delays to the trial. More to come Get to the heart of what’s happening with climate change and the environment. Sign up for our fortnightly Environment newsletter.

Rahm Emanuel coy about future, critical of Dem Party: 'Stop telling people how to live their lives'Bayan al-Hinnawi, who spent years behind bars in Bashar al-Assad's Syria, joined crowds in the heartland of the Druze minority on Friday to celebrate the president's fall, "a dream" come true for the former prisoner. Hundreds of people descended on Sweida's main square, singing and clapping in jubilation, just days after Islamist-led rebels took the capital Damascus, sending Assad fleeing. The Druze-majority city in Syria's south has been a focal point of renewed anti-government demonstrations over the past year and a half. On Friday, residents waved Syria's pre-Assad flag of white, green and black with three stars, and raised olive branches in a sign of peace. Some of them have lost family members during the anti-government uprising that began in 2011 and spiralled into civil war. Others, like Hinnawi, had languished in prison under the Assad family's five-decade rule. "It was a dream," said 77-year-old Hinnawi of Assad's ouster. Decades ago, a few years after Hafez al-Assad seized power -- which he later handed over to his son Bashar -- a 23-year-old Hinnawi was jailed. He was released 17 years later. The grey-haired man said he had "dreamed that one day the regime would fall", but did not believe that he would live to see the day. "It's a wonderful sight. Nobody could have imagined that this could happen", he said. - 'Dignity' - But his joy was incomplete, remembering the many who have died in jail. "I wish that those who died when I was imprisoned in Mazzeh or Saydnaya could see this scene," said Hinnawi. Since Assad's fall, rebel forces and residents have broken into both detention centres, freeing political prisoners and searching for long-missing loved ones. Activists and rights groups say the Assad government tortured and abused inmates at both facilities. "I got out when I was 40, I missed out of my whole life," said Hinnawi, who served in the Syrian army before being jailed. Recalling torture behind bars, he said that "no oppressor in history has done what they did to us." Since Sunday, the ousted government's security forces were nowhere to be seen in Sweida, and the office of Assad's Baath party has been abandoned, as have army checkpoints on the road to Damascus. Local armed men are present, but not the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham which spearheaded the rebel offensive against Assad. Siham Zein al-Din, who lost her son in 2014 after he defected from the national army to join rebel fighters, said he had "sacrificed his life... for freedom, for dignity". The family was still searching for Khaldun's remains, said his 60-year-old mother. Like her son, some members of the Druze community took up arms against Assad's forces during the war. - A brother's congratulations - The Druze, who also live in Lebanon, Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, make up about three percent of Syria's population, around 700,000 people. Beyond defending themselves from attacks in the areas where they live, Syria's Druze largely stayed on the sidelines of the civil war. Many managed to avoid compulsory conscription since 2011. Residents of Sweida have long complained of discrimination and the lack of basic services. Many buildings in the city are constructed from black volcanic stone that can be found in the area, and its roads have fallen into disrepair. Sheikh Marwan Hussein Rizk, a religious leader, said that "Sweida province has been marginalised" for decades, with most of its residents living in poverty. But, surrounded by the joyful protesters, Rizk said better days may be coming. "Today, we look to the future and ask for a helping hand... Our hand is extended to all Syrians." Next to him, resident Hussein Bondok held up a poster of his brother Nasser, a journalist and opposition activist who was last heard from in 2014 when he was arrested. Bondok, 54, said he believes his brother was likely killed under torture in one of Damascus's prisons. Nasser struggled for freedom, Bondok said. "I want to congratulate him now, because the seeds he had planted with his brothers-in-arms has become a tree." lk/ami/it