بيت لحم معا- أعلن وزير الخارجية الصيني تشين غانغ، الاثنين، أن بلاده تعارض نشر غواصات أميركية مزودة بصواريخ “توماهوك” المجنحة في منطقة الخليج العربي بهدف مواجهة إيران.
وفي تعليقه على الخطط الأميركية لإرسال غواصات مزودة بـ 154 منظومة “توماهوك” الصاروخية إلى منطقة الخليج العربي بحجة مواجهة “التهديد النووي الإيراني”، قال تشين غانغ في حديث لصحيفة “الشرق الأوسط” السعودية: “إن منطقة الشرق الأوسط هي ملك لشعوب منطقة الشرق الأوسط وليس فناء خلفياً لأي طرف آخر”.
وأضاف: “نصرّ على أنه يجب على هذه الدولة (الولايات المتحدة) أن تلعب دورا إيجابيا من خلال الحفاظ على السلام والاستقرار وليس العكس”.
وأشار غانغ إلى أن بلدان الشرق الأوسط “بحاجة إلى المصالحة وليس التصعيد”، مذكراً أنه في الوضع الحالي العداء أمر غير مقبول والحوار السلمي مطلوب
على صفحات مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي، يتداول ناشطون صورة للصغيرة هاجر البهتيني وهي تبدو سعيدة رفقة أقرانها في روضة أطفال في قطاع غزة.
لكن هاجر البهتيني لن تلتحق اليوم بمدرستها، فقد استشهدت ضمن عدة أطفال صبت عليهم 40 مقاتلة إسرائيلية أطنانا من الجحيم فجر اليوم الثلاثاء.
وقد استشهد في القصف الإسرائيلي 13 فلسطينيا، 9 منهم من النساء والأطفال.
وقال متحدث باسم الجيش الإسرائيلي إن 40 طائرة مقاتلة شاركت في الضربات الجوية التي وصفها “بالدقيقة”. وأضاف “كان تضافرا بين المعلومات والتوقيت والطقس”.
وتحدث بيان لوزارة الصحة في قطاع غزة عن “استشهاد فتاة لترتفع الحصيلة إلى 13 شهيدا وأصيب نحو 20 مواطنا بجراح مختلفة حتى اللحظة جراء استهداف الاحتلال الإسرائيلي لقطاع غزة”.
وأضاف البيان أن عددا من النساء والأطفال من بين الضحايا، مشيرا إلى أن “طواقم الإسعاف لا تزال مستمرة في إجلاء الضحايا من المناطق التي استهدفها الاحتلال”.
وكما أن معظم الشهداء من الأطفال والنساء، فقد مثّلت أيضا هذه الشريحة الهشة نصف الجرحى على الأقل. وأفادت تقارير من غزة بسقوط 20 مصابا في الغارات. وقالت وزارة الصحة في غزة “إن بين المصابين 3 أطفال و7 سيدات” وبينهم “حالات حرجة”.
ونقل مصور من وكالة الأنباء الفرنسية أنه رأى جثة فتى في مشرحة مستشفى الشفاء في غزة حيث تجمّع المعزون.
مسح من السجل
وعلى تويتر نشر حساب صورة عائلة وكتب “عائلة كاملة مُسحت من السجل المدني.. كل من في الصورة شهداء”.
ونعى فلسطينيون على وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي طبيب أسنان معروفا قُتل هو وزوجته في منزله أثناء الضربات الجوية ووصفوه بأنه صديق وفيّ ورجل متواضع.
وأظهرت مقاطع فيديو دخانا يتصاعد وألسنة لهب تضيء السماء في الليل، في حين أسرعت سيارات الإطفاء صوب مبنى أصيب في الضربات. وطمأن أحد المسعفين فتاة بدا عليها الاضطراب، وقال “عائلتك كلها بأمان لا تقلقي”.
وفي ظل الاستهداف بأطنان المتفجرات، قُرر “تعليق الدوام الدراسي في جميع مدارس قطاع غزة اليوم الثلاثاء حفاظا على سلامة الطلاب نتيجة العدوان الإسرائيلي”.
(Xinhua) — Palestine on Tuesday condemned the Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip that have killed at least 13 Palestinians.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the spokesman of the Palestinian presidency, said in a press statement that the Palestinian presidency “condemns the dangerous Israeli escalation against our people, which targeted children, women and homes in the Gaza Strip.”
He held the Israeli government “fully responsible for this dangerous escalation that drags the region into the square of violence, tension, and instability.”
Abu Rudeineh said the U.S. should not allow the Israeli authorities to continue their “ongoing crimes” against the Palestinian people, especially as they affect children and women.
On Tuesday, Israeli fighter jets and unmanned drones carried out simultaneous and surprising airstrikes against buildings and apartments that host senior military leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement in the Gaza Strip.
The Gaza-based Ministry of Health said in a press statement that 13 Palestinians were killed and more than 20 others injured in the Israeli airstrikes.
“The surprising attacks on Gaza are a practical translation of the ideology of killing,” Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Ishtaye said in a press statement.
Ishtaye called on the United Nations “to condemn the Israeli aggression on Gaza and the massacres against our people.” ■
Palestinians inspect a damaged building following an airstrike in Gaza City, on May 9, 2023. On Tuesday, Israeli fighter jets and unmanned drones carried out simultaneous and surprising airstrikes against buildings and apartments that host senior military leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement in the Gaza Strip. The Gaza-based Ministry of Health said in a press statement that 13 Palestinians were killed and more than 20 others injured in the Israeli airstrikes. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)
Palestinians inspect a damaged building following an airstrike in Gaza City, on May 9, 2023. On Tuesday, Israeli fighter jets and unmanned drones carried out simultaneous and surprising airstrikes against buildings and apartments that host senior military leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement in the Gaza Strip. The Gaza-based Ministry of Health said in a press statement that 13 Palestinians were killed and more than 20 others injured in the Israeli airstrikes. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)
Relations between Australia and India are at a critical juncture, amid a deepening of bilateral ties and proactive efforts to embed them within a broader regional partnership in the strategically vital Indo-Pacific. Engagement between the two sides is currently at an all-time high, with defense and security, trade, cultural partnerships, technology and education being key areas of collaboration. Sustained by a mutual interest in balancing China and ensuring a stable order in the Indo-Pacific, Canberra and New Delhi appear poised to consolidate the growing expansion of their partnership.
The impetus to building a strong bilateral relationship began with a landmark visit by then-Australian Prime Minister John Howard to India in July 2000. That trip was the capstone of early initiatives to develop more robust engagement between Canberra and New Delhi, including the beginning of defense talks in May 2000 and the re-establishment of dialogue channels the following year that had been previously affected by Australia’s strong criticism of India’s nuclear tests in 1998. The following decades saw several high-profile visits between the two countries, including then-Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s visit to India in September 2014. That trip was followed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Australia two months later—the first by an Indian prime minister in 28 years. Aside from the good optics of a state visit, the two sides signed the Framework for Security Cooperation that paved the way for future engagement.
In 2020, India and Australia announced a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership that includes a framework agreement on maritime and cyber-technology cooperation and a Mutual Logistics Support Agreement to increase military interoperability through defense exercises and further cooperation in defense science and technology. In November 2022, they signed the Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement, or ECTA, in an effort to strengthen trade ties. Beyond their bilateral relationship, Australia and India are involved in a range of multilateral mechanisms and regional groupings that include the Group of 20, the Indian Ocean Rim Association, the ASEAN Regional Forum and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, better known as the Quad, which also comprises the U.S. and Japan.
As the fallout from a recent heated exchange between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan continues to play out in the public sphere, analysts say both officials put up a “performance” for their respective domestic audiences.
During his visit to India for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari urged member nations to avoid using “terrorism” as a diplomatic instrument.
“Terrorism continues to threaten global security,” the foreign minister said during his address at the SCO. “Let’s not get caught up in weaponising terrorism for diplomatic point scoring.”
He also criticised India’s decision to scrap the special status of the disputed region of Kashmir, saying New Delhi’s unilateral move in 2019 had undermined the environment for holding talks between the neighbours.
“The onus is on India to create a conducive environment for talks,” Bhutto Zardari said.
India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar took strong exception to Bhutto Zardari’s statement, calling him the “spokesperson of a terrorism industry”.
“Victims of terrorism do not sit together with its perpetrators to discuss terrorism,” said Jaishankar at the SCO summit held in the Indian city of Goa, referring to deadly attacks on Indian soldiers in Indian-administered Kashmir. New Delhi has accused Pakistan of backing Kashmir rebels – a charge Islamabad has denied.
The Indian foreign minister also said that Kashmir’s special status was “history”, rejecting Pakistan’s demands to reverse the scrapping of the region’s special status.
In comments made during an interview with India Today news channel, Bhutto Zardari later said Islamabad was willing to engage and address any concerns India might have, but added New Delhi will also have to address Islamabad’s concerns.
Despite the multilateral nature of the summit, the broadside between Bhutto Zardari and his Indian counterpart Jaishankar shifted the focus from matters of regional security towards the standoff between the two South Asian neighbours.
The two countries did not hold any bilateral talks during the summit, which was also attended by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Russia and Uzbekistan.
Two days after the summit’s conclusion and Bhutto Zardari’s return to Pakistan, the Indian foreign minister continued to engage in indirect criticism by saying “he [Bhutto Zardari] spoke about everything, including India’s role in Kashmir, the G20, India’s foreign policies except the finer details of the meeting he was invited for.”
Playing to the crowd
As the host nation for the summit, India’s Hindu nationalist government reluctantly invited Bhutto Zardari, who became the first Pakistan foreign minister to visit India in 12 years amid heightened tensions between the neighbours, who have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir.
Analysts say the indirect public exchange between the two officials has been “entirely on expected lines”.
“Both foreign ministers were more worried about the internal politics in their own countries than making any progress on issues concerning their foreign policies,” Sushant Singh, a senior fellow at India’s Centre for Policy Research, told Al Jazeera.
Prior to setting off for India, Bhutto Zardari said his country was committed to establishing peace in the region and urged the attendees to isolate terrorism from “geopolitical partisanship”.
According to Singh, Jaishankar’s comments are reflective of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s endeavour to demonstrate that Pakistan doesn’t matter to India.
“Modi’s dominant narrative has been to portray India as an emerging great global power, and to portray Pakistan as being insignificant to India,” Singh said.
India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and his Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari pose for a photograph during the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in Goa, India on May 5, 2023 [India’s Ministry of External Affairs/Handout via Reuters]
‘India’s petty behaviour will limit its potential’
Bhutto Zardari’s statement that Islamophobic wolf whistling won’t be an effective “terrorism” strategy has been welcomed by Pakistan’s media.
“It is important for Pakistani leaders to continue to highlight and underscore the wild levels of hatred that can form mainstream Indian public discourse and public policy,” Mosharraf Zaidi, of Pakistan-based public policy think-tank Tabadlab, told Al Jazeera from Islamabad.
Zaidi said India’s “petty behaviour” will limit its potential as a major world power, but that should not deter Pakistan from “resisting India’s hegemony”.
The brief meeting between the two ministers, as Bhutto Zardari walked up to Jaishankar and was greeted by his Indian counterpart with a Hindu greeting of “namaste” with clasped hands, has been subject to analysis on social media in both countries.
However, Zaidi said that while much attention should not be given to the nature of the physical engagement, as the greeting was “respectful”, the way in which Jaishankar talked about Pakistan should be scrutinised.
“India can afford to misbehave as it did at the conference because its powers and stakes far exceed the cost of this kind of behaviour,” he said.
India’s ‘two-fold’ problem
Singh, the Indian expert, noted that Jaishankar and India may have chosen to keep away from bilateral talks with Pakistan as they do not wish to “up the ante” with India’s western neighbour.
“India is under pressure due to its border crisis with China, and it would be very difficult for it to manage a two-front challenge by engaging with Pakistan,” he said.
A clash in the Ladakh border region between Indian and Chinese soldiers left 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese dead three years ago. It turned into a long-running standoff in the rugged mountainous area, where each side has stationed tens of thousands of military personnel backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets.
According to Zaidi, India’s conflict with China is political and territorial.
With Pakistan, however, the standoff has continued since both countries were separated in a bloody partition in 1947.
“India’s hatred for Pakistan is existential and cuts across all political parties, but is especially stark and profound when it comes to the Bharatiya Janata Party of which Jaishankar is a representative,” Zaidi said.
Despite the apparent lack of attention towards Pakistan, Singh predicted that India could “invoke Pakistan at any point”.
“Pakistan can always be brought out of the close by Modi as and when he wants, and it can be used as a proxy for Indian Muslims or invigorating Hindu nationalist tendencies in the country.”
فيما تتنافس الدولتان الكبريان اقتصادياً، يبدو أن الولايات المتحدة بدأت تخسر سباقها مع الصين في مجال التكنولوجيا والتطور التقني.
فعلى مبدأ “رب ضارة نافعة”، دفعت العقوبات الأميركية شركات التكنولوجيا الصينية إلى تسريع الأبحاث من أجل تطوير الذكاء الاصطناعي دون الاعتماد على أحدث الرقائق الإلكترونية الأميركية، حسب ما ذكرت صحيفة “وول ستريت جورنال”.
الصين تتحمل العقوبات الأميركية
وباتت الشركات تدرس الأساليب التي تسمح لها بتحقيق أفضل وأحدث أداء للذكاء الاصطناعي بأشباه موصلات أقل عدداً أو أقل قوة.
كما بدأت تبحث كيفية دمج أنواع مختلفة من الرقائق لتجنب الاعتماد على نوع واحد من الأجهزة، مثل “هواوي تكنولوجيز” للاتصالات، وشركة الأبحاث “بايدو”، ومجموعة “علي بابا” العملاقة للتجارة الإلكترونية من بين الشركات التي تسعى إلى الحصول على مزيد من الأداء من رقائق الكمبيوتر الموجودة بالفعل.
ورأت نقلا عن باحثين ومحللين أنه إذا نجحت هذه الأبحاث، فإنها ستسمح لشركات التكنولوجيا الصينية بتحمل العقوبات الأميركية، وتجعلها أكثر مرونة في مواجهة القيود المستقبلية.
كذلك لفت التقرير إلى أن العقوبات الأميركية باتت تحفز شركات التكنولوجيا الصينية على تسريع البحث لتطوير ذكاء اصطناعي متطور دون الاعتماد على أحدث الرقائق الأميركية.
بدورها، اعتبرت باحثة الذكاء الاصطناعي سوزان تشانغ، أن على الصين تشجيع الابتكار في تطوير الذكاء الاصطناعي العام، وذلك بعد أن فرضت وزارة التجارة الأميركية قيودا شاملة على توريد الرقائق إلى بكين في أكتوبر الماضي.
في موازاة ذلك، سعت الشركات الصينية إلى استخدام تقنيات برمجية مختلفة لتقليل الكثافة الحسابية لتدريب نماذج الذكاء الاصطناعي واسعة النطاق، وهو نهج تسارع عالميا مؤخراً، بما في ذلك بين الشركات الأميركية.
وتظهر الأوراق على عكس الشركات الأميركية، أن الشركات الصينية كانت أكثر جرأة في الجمع بين تقنيات برمجيات متعددة معا.
“ChatGPT” نوبة جنون عالمي
يشار إلى أن إطلاق أوبن إيه آي لـ ChatGPT في نوفمبر الماضي، نوبة جنون عالمي لتطوير الذكاء الاصطناعي.
وفي حين أن العديد من هذه الأساليب لا يزال يتم تسويتها في مجتمع الأبحاث العالمي ويصعب تنفيذها، فقد شهد الباحثون الصينيون بعض النجاح.
وتتصارع كل من أميركا والصين، أعظم قوتين اقتصاديتين في العالم، سياسيا على عدة ملفات، واقتصادياً أيضاً.
فيما يحتل السباق في مجال العلوم والتكنولوجيا الدور الأهم في هذا الصراع الخفي.
