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Thousands of the world's foremost experts on artificial intelligence, worried that any technology they develop could be used to kill, vowed Wednesday to play no role in the creation of autonomous weapons. In a letter published online, 2,400 researchers in 36 countries joined 160 organizations in calling for a global ban on lethal autonomous weapons. Such systems pose a grave threat to humanity and have no place in the world, they argue. "We would really like to ensure that the overall impact of the technology is positive and not leading to a terrible arms race, or a dystopian future with robots flying around killing everybody," said Anthony Aguirre, who teaches physics at the University of California-Santa Cruz and signed the letter. Flying killer robots and weapons that think for themselves remain largely the stuff of science fiction, but advances in computer vision, image processing, and machine learning make them all but inevitable. The Pentagon recently released a national defense strategy calling for greater investment in artificial intelligence, which the Defense Department and think tanks like the Center for a New American Security consider the future of warfare. "Emerging technologies such as AI offer the potential to improve our ability to deter war and enhance the protection of civilians in the form of fewer civilian casualties and less collateral damage to civilian infrastructure," Pentagon spokesperson Michelle Baldanza said in a statement to CNNMoney.

In the strangest election year in recent American history — one in which the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson couldn’t even conjure up the name of a foreign leader he “admired” while Donald Trump remained intent on building his “fat, beautiful wall” and “taking” Iraq oil — the world may be out of focus for many Americans right now.  So a little introduction to the planet we actually inhabit is in order.  Welcome to a multipolar world.  One fact stands out: Earth is no longer the property of the globe’s “sole superpower.” If you want proof, you can start by checking out Moscow’s recent role in reshaping the civil war in Syria and frustrating Washington’s agenda to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.  And that’s just one of a number of developments that highlight America’s diminishing power globally in both the military and the diplomatic arenas.  On a peaceable note, consider the way China has successfully launched the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as a rival to the World Bank, not to speak of its implementation of a plan to link numerous countries in Asia and Europe to China in a vast multinational transportation and pipeline network it grandly calls the One Belt and One Road system, or the New Silk Road project.  In such developments, one can see ways in which the previously overwhelming economic power of the U.S. is gradually being challenged and curtailed internationally.

The Obama administration went ahead with a $1.3 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia last year despite warnings from some officials that the United States could be implicated in war crimes for supporting a Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen that has killed thousands of civilians, according to government documents and the accounts of current and former officials.State Department officials also were privately skeptical of the Saudi military's ability to target Houthi militants without killing civilians and destroying "critical infrastructure" needed for Yemen to recover, according to the emails and other records obtained by Reuters and interviews with nearly a dozen officials with knowledge of those discussions.U.S. government lawyers ultimately did not reach a conclusion on whether U.S. support for the campaign would make the United States a "co-belligerent" in the war under international law, four current and former officials said. That finding would have obligated Washington to investigate allegations of war crimes in Yemen and would have raised a legal risk that U.S. military personnel could be subject to prosecution, at least in theory.

For instance, one of the emails made a specific reference to a 2013 ruling from the war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor that significantly widened the international legal definition of aiding and abetting such crimes.The ruling found that "practical assistance, encouragement or moral support" is sufficient to determine liability for war crimes. Prosecutors do not have to prove a defendant participated in a specific crime, the U.N.-backed court found.Ironically, the U.S. government already had submitted the Taylor ruling to a military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to bolster its case that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other al Qaeda detainees were complicit in the Sept 11, 2001 attacks.The previously undisclosed material sheds light on the closed-door debate that shaped U.S. President Barack Obama’s response to what officials described as an agonizing foreign policy dilemma: how to allay Saudi concerns over a nuclear deal with Iran - Riyadh's arch-rival - without exacerbating a conflict in Yemen that has killed thousands.The documents, obtained by Reuters under the Freedom of Information Act, date from mid-May 2015 to February 2016, a period during which State Department officials reviewed and approved the sale of precision munitions to Saudi Arabia to replenish bombs dropped in Yemen. The documents were heavily redacted to withhold classified information and some details of meetings and discussion.(A selection of the documents can be viewed here: tmsnrt.rs/2dL4h6L; tmsnrt.rs/2dLbl2S; tmsnrt.rs/2dLb7Ji; tmsnrt.rs/2dLbbIX)

In a statement issued to Reuters before Saturday's attack, National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said, "U.S. security cooperation with Saudi Arabia is not a blank check. ... We have repeatedly expressed our deep concern about airstrikes that allegedly killed and injured civilians and also the heavy humanitarian toll paid by the Yemeni people."The United States continues to urge the Kingdom to take additional steps to avoid "future civilian harm," he added.

The Obama administration threatened to pull out of talks with Russia over a collapsed cease-fire in Syria and has renewed an internal debate over giving rebels more firepower to fend off a stepped-up Russian and Syrian assault on their Aleppo stronghold, U.S. officials said. The White House put the weaponry debate on hold earlier this year to give Secretary of State John Kerry an opportunity to try to negotiate a cease-fire with his counterpart in Russia.

The renewed debate on what is referred to within the administration as Plan B, according to U.S. officials, centers on whether to authorize the Central Intelligence Agency and its partners in the region to deliver weapons systems that would enable CIA-vetted rebel units to strike Syrian and Russian artillery positions from longer distances. The Obama administration has ruled out providing so-called man-portable air-defense systems, known as Manpads, to the rebels, but officials said they are considering arming them with antiaircraft systems that are less mobile and would pose less of a proliferation risk. State Department spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday that the Obama administration was discussing options to address the conflict “that are outside diplomacy,” but declined to provide specifics.

Officials said the speed of the Russian and Syrian offensive against Aleppo has put pressure on the White House to accelerate its deliberations and forced policy makers to look at options they previously were reluctant to seriously consider. In addition to the CIA and its partners providing weapons, the U.S. is considering giving a green light to its regional allies, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, to provide more-powerful weapons systems to the rebels. Some U.S. officials believe that it already may be too late to have any impact on the battlefield, and that the administration should consider taking direct U.S. military action against the Assad regime to halt the campaign. Officials predicted there would be strong opposition at the White House to any options involving direct U.S. military action against the Assad regime, because of the risk of triggering a wider conflict with Russia. The U.S. military has been conducting strikes in Syria against Islamic State since 2014.

The yuan is about to enter the IMF’s basket of reserve currencies this coming Saturday - alongside the US dollar, pound, euro and yen. This is no less than a geoeconomic earthquake. Not only does this represent yet another step in China’s irresistible path towards economic primacy; the Chinese currency’s inclusion in the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket will also lead central banks and hyper-wealthy funds – especially from the US – to increasingly buy more Chinese assets.At the first US presidential debate, Donald Trump took no prisoners, criticizing China’s currency manipulation. This is what he said:“You look at what China’s doing to our country in terms of making our product, they’re devaluing their currency and there’s nobody in our government to fight them… They’re using our country as a piggy bank to rebuild China, and many other countries are doing the same thing.”

Well, China is not “making our product”; the manufacturing process is Made in China – then exported to the US. Most of the profits benefit US corporations – everything from design, licensing and royalties to advertising, financing and retail margins. If the mantras manage to spell out a partial truth - the US has lost manufacturing jobs to China, China is the “factory of the world” – they don't spell out the hidden truth that those who profit are essentially major corporations.China does not “devalue their currency”; the People’s Bank of China periodically adjusts the yuan according to a very narrow band. The major practitioners of quantitative easing (QE) are actually the US, as well as Japan and the European Central Bank (ECB). And the currency of global consumer goods manufacturing continues to be the US dollar, not the yuan.

Beijing also is not “using our country as a piggy bank to rebuild China.” This is all about balance of payments. What US consumers spend on Made in China products – many of them delocalized by US corporations – is pumped back to the US as capital inflows that keep interest rates down and help to support the Empire of Chaos’s global hegemony.

rime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday that Iran is building up its ground forces in Syria with the intention of establishing a naval base on the Mediterranean.These moves, Netanyahu told diplomatic reporters in a conference call after the meeting, have wide-ranging regional ramifications

Netanyahu said that Iran’s efforts to establish a permanent presence in Syria in any future arrangement in the country was the reason for his visit. Russia is a central player in the on-and-off talks under way about the future of Syria.An Iranian presence in Syria, Netanyahu said, goes against the “long-term interests of everyone, except the Iranians.”“I made it clear to President Putin our resolute opposition to the consolidation of Iran and its proxies in Syria,” he said. “We see Iran trying to build a military force, military infrastructure, with the intention to be based in Syria, including the attempt by Iran to build a seaport. All this has serious implications in terms of Israel’s security.”

In its efforts to grapple with North Korea, the US might consider killing its leader Kin Jong-un or deploying nuclear weapons in South Korea, the National Security Council has reportedly suggested to President Donald Trump.

The NSC also presented Trump with the possibility of assassinating Kim, along with the option of infiltrating special forces into North Korea and then sabotaging key nuclear infrastructure. One option “is to target and kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and other senior leaders in charge of the country’s missiles and nuclear weapons and decision-making,” NBC news said. Such scenarios are part of an accelerated review of North Korea policy that were prepared in advance of Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, NBC said, quoting multiple top-ranking intelligence and military officials.

As the disaster-relief effort enters its second week, air traffic is slowly resuming, which means hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans will likely flee the devastated island to stay with friends and relatives in the continental US as they wait for FEMA to rebuild roads, repair power grids and and revive the island's communications infrastructure – a process that could take months, if not longer.

While the urgency of the situation leaves many of Puerto Rico’s 3.4 million population little choice, the Financial Times is reporting that the scramble to flee could worsen the population decline as some of those leaving may opt to permanently resettle. Meanwhile, cities with large Puerto Rican populations are asking for federal assistance as they prepare to absorb as many as 100,000 people fleeing the hurricane. Mainland US cities with large Puerto Rican populations are warning that they will need federal help to cope with an anticipated influx of island residents fleeing the devastation visited on the US commonwealth by Hurricane Maria. “If it’s as large-scale as we anticipated, it’s got to be a federal and state-co-ordinated response,” said Buddy Dyer, Orlando’s mayor. “It can’t be city by city.” Some have said they expect to host the disaster victims for up to six months.

The government of Pakistan is considering a proposal to start using the Chinese yuan in trade with China, according to the Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal, as quoted by Pakistan’s English-language daily Dawn. “We are examining the use of yuan instead of the US dollar for trade between the two countries,” the minister told the media after the official launch of the Long Term Plan (LTP) for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

ilateral trade between Pakistan and China was worth $13.8 billion in 2015 to 2016, a decade after the countries signed a free trade agreement. Pakistan will continue to use the rupee domestically, according to Iqbal.The LTP includes cooperation between the countries in energy, information network infrastructure, road and rail connections, trade and industrial parks, tourism, agriculture, and poverty alleviation. The plan will be implemented in three phases, the first ending in 2020, followed by another in 2025, with completion in 2030.

Under the plan, the countries intend to develop multi-level cooperation and strengthen policy coordination, as well as establish and improve the cross-border credit system and financial services. Karachi and Beijing are also planning to enhance currency swap arrangements and create a bilateral payment and settlement system.

The Israeli government has approved a plan setting aside $72 million to fighting the campaign to boycott the Jewish state. The plan, which would entail the largest monetary investment yet by Israel specifically toward combating the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, was announced last week to cabinet ministers and approved as an executive order after none of them objected, the Ynet news site reported Friday.

It calls for setting up a not-for-profit organization whose board will be made up of government officials and donors from abroad, the report said. The board will oversee the first major “civil-society infrastructure servicing the State of Israel and the pro-Israel community in the fight against the de-legitimization of Israel,” the notice sent to ministers read. The $75 million budget will come partly from the government and partly from Jewish donors and communities abroad, the report said. It did not say when the new organization would become operational or even established formally.

While such activities today formally fall under the purview of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, privatizing them would allow for quicker and more flexible action unconstrained by government bureaucracy and legal limitations on third party services, that require tenders when carried out by the government, the announcement explained. The new organization will, however, be subject to review by the state.