AI company Anthropic is projected to be the largest stockmarket public listing in history by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, agencies USA   27 Oct. 2026   As the artificial intelligence company Anthropic moves toward a public offering on the U.S. stock exchange, a senior member on the US Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee has sounded the alarm about both public safety and financial concerns in a letter to CEO Dario Amodei. (The concerns expressed are relevant for all leading AI Companies)   “I write with concern following your company’s disclosure that Anthropic’s advanced AI models could ‘pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity’ at the same time that it seeks to register as a public company and sell shares in November,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).   “Anthropic disclosed extensive public safety and financial risks to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as part of its registration process for an initial public offering (IPO),” she noted.   “An IPO would provide Anthropic with broader access to the largest capital markets in the world, allowing it to raise more funding from a larger pool of investors to fuel its rapid growth.”   “It will also mean that millions of Americans with retirement accounts invested in index funds will quickly become Anthropic shareholders,” said the former Harvard University bankruptcy professor. “Public pensions are already heavily exposed to Anthropic and have expressed their concerns about Anthropic’s societal risks ahead of its IPO.”   According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Anthropic plans to list on the Nasdaq, with reports suggesting the company—known for its Claude models—could be valued at between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion.   Ms. Warren pointed out to Amodei that “this massive influx of public capital is likely to catapult the development and deployment of your technology during a time of intense public debate and concern about the risks of your frontier intelligence models.”   The senator argued that “the risks presented by this technology demand greater scrutiny before they become intertwined with the public capital markets, which could further escalate both public safety and systemic financial risks.”   Warren’s letter cites details from the Form S-1 that Anthropic submitted to the SEC, as well as the CEO’s public statements “calling for the need to slow down the development of frontier AI models.”   “You warned that ‘we still only understand a tiny fraction of what goes on inside these models’ and highlighted the ‘risk of losing control of AI systems, misuse of AI for cyberattacks and bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption,’” she reminded Amodei. “You further warned that a ‘race to the bottom, spurred by commercial incentives, can make these risks more acute.’”   “It is also difficult to trust existing safety tests and evaluations of model test environments in the wake of recent incidents in which models built by frontier AI companies, including Anthropic, have broken through security controls and hacked external systems autonomously,” the senator emphasized.   Warren highlighted that “in addition to the potentially catastrophic safety risks posed by Anthropic’s technology, the company’s launch into the public markets could inject extreme volatility and risk into the financial system, which threatens to undermine Americans’ economic security.”   “Anthropic is projected to be the largest IPO in history,” she wrote. “Given its unprecedented size, swings in Anthropic’s share price have the potential to roil the broader markets on day one, particularly for companies in the technology sector, and even more acutely for companies with direct financial entanglement with Anthropic.”   “Beyond the threats to the financial system that Anthropic’s IPO may pose, the company’s registration statement disclosures include astronomical projections supported by aggressive assumptions that require further review and due diligence,” she added.   # Anthropic’s S-1 includes nearly 100 pages of risk factors. Much of the content consists of business-related risks: Things that might challenge the company’s ability to handle debt, financing, hiring, customer acquisition, regulation. But it also underlines risks to public safety, these include as stated in the S-1 form by Anthropic:   "While the potential benefits of AI are extraordinary, its rapid advancement will impact the economy and society in ways that could create significant disruption, particularly if the technology is not developed and deployed responsibly. For example, bad actors have already conducted high-profile cyberattacks using AI’s capabilities to discover vulnerabilities, generate malware, and evade detection tools; other risks associated with misuse, including in the domain of biology, could result in even greater harm".   "AI deployed at scale also has the potential to concentrate power and wealth both within and between countries in ways that could erode trust, harm society, and destabilize the geopolitical order. Misaligned AI systems could corrupt institutional decision-making or cause large-scale harm through autonomous actions that are not visible or understandable to their users and operators".   "In addition, our increasing use of AI systems to accelerate our own research and development may cause the capabilities of our models to advance more rapidly than our ability to develop, validate, and implement corresponding safety, alignment, and security measures".   "Much of our evidence regarding the pace of such AI-driven acceleration is derived from lagging indicators, and our ability to forecast or measure the rate at which our capabilities are advancing, including any acceleration attributable to our most recent or unreleased models, is limited. As a result, we may not identify a significant acceleration in our rate of development until after it has occurred. If our capabilities were to outpace our safety, alignment, and security measures, or if we were unable to anticipate the pace of such advancement, we may be unable to adequately assess or mitigate the resulting risks, which could increase the likelihood of safety incidents, regulatory intervention, or reputational harm, and could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations".   "While our AI models are designed to comply with our AI safety and usage guidelines and be broadly safe, ethical, and helpful, and while we have implemented safety measures intended to anticipate, identify, and mitigate potential harmful uses, such measures are incomplete, may be outdated in light of evolving threat models, or may fail to identify or prevent all potential misuse of our models, and our models have been, and may continue to be, misused or manipulated to produce harmful outputs or carry out harmful actions…"   "In particular, our most capable models have demonstrated, and future models are expected to demonstrate, capabilities that could provide meaningful assistance to malicious actors seeking to develop chemical, biological, or other dangerous weapons".   "Our AI models may themselves cause harm by producing undesirable outputs or behaving in unintended, misaligned, or autonomous ways, including by taking unintended or harmful actions that no user or third party directed. These risks may increase as our models become more capable and are granted greater autonomy, permissions, and integration with external systems. Although we continue to study why these behaviors emerge, our understanding continues to evolve, and we may be unable to anticipate or understand such behaviors in the future".   "In addition, our models have been and may continue to be deployed in high-risk or sensitive contexts, such as healthcare, scientific and biomedical research, drug discovery and development, legal, finance, government, or other critical decision-making environments, and in connection with hardware, where undesirable model behaviors—which are inherently non-deterministic and may manifest in unpredictable ways, such as errors, inaccuracies, biased or unsolicited views or hallucinations—could lead to serious harm, liability, or reputational or other damage". "More broadly, the long-term effects of regular AI interaction on mental health, cognitive development, and social behavior are not yet fully understood, and if such long-term harms do materialize in the future, we could face significant liability, reputational harm, and adverse effects on our business, financial condition, and results of operations…"   "In addition, advanced AI models, including our models, give rise to novel ethical and safety risks, including risks related to autonomy, manipulation, and the simulation of aspects of human psychology. These risks could result in unforeseen harms and may require the development of governance structures, safeguards, or mitigation strategies beyond existing AI safety frameworks, and there is always a risk that we will be unable to develop or implement them effectively. In addition, models, including our own, have exhibited, and may in the future exhibit, unexpected strategic or self-preserving behaviors, including attempts to resist shutdown, conceal or manipulate information, or generate outputs that could be interpreted as coercive, deceptive, or manipulative, including behavior resembling blackmail or efforts to influence human decision-makers to preserve the model’s continued operation or access".   "We are also extending our models, platform, and applications into scientific, biomedical, and physical domains. For example, we offer Claude Science, an agentic research environment that connects our models to scientific databases, third-party and open-source scientific models, and customers’ own computing infrastructure, and we have released, initially as a limited research preview, an open protocol that enables our models to monitor and control laboratory instruments, robotic systems, and other physical hardware. We also conduct research on the ability of our models to operate robotic systems. When our models direct physical equipment, errors, misaligned behavior, adversarial manipulation, or misuse could result in bodily injury, property damage, damage to costly equipment or experimental materials, or the release of hazardous substances, and such consequences may be immediate and irreversible".   "Safety interlocks, human-in-the-loop controls, and access restrictions we implement may prove inadequate, and because certain of these components are open source, third parties may deploy them with hardware, or in configurations, that we have not evaluated or from which our safeguards have been removed. Connecting increasingly capable models to laboratory automation may also heighten governmental and public concern regarding the potential for AI systems to accelerate the development of dangerous biological, chemical, or other materials, which could result in additional regulatory restrictions on, or scrutiny of, these offerings".   "In addition, maintaining comprehensive records of the actions, decisions, and reasoning of our agentic systems across complex, multi-step workflows is technically challenging, particularly when agents interact with third-party systems outside our control, and any inability to provide adequate audit trails could impair our ability to investigate incidents, respond to regulatory inquiries, or defend against liability claims. These risks are heightened by the fact that we use our own agentic offerings, including Claude Code, as critical tools in our internal development processes, such that any errors, vulnerabilities, or degradation in these products could directly impair our ability to develop and deploy future models and products".   "As we increasingly leverage Claude to accelerate progress within Anthropic, our organization may lose visibility across certain processes in a way that may become difficult for any individual or group of humans to understand and control. Because our models write a large and growing share of our code and increasingly perform our research, including our safety research, misaligned behavior in internal use could undermine that work, introduce vulnerabilities into our systems or into the training of future models, or result in models operating outside of our intended controls. Our monitoring does not cover all of our internal and external deployments and may not detect subtle or diffuse forms of such behavior".   "Balancing Safety and Commercial Objectives. Our commitment to AI safety requires us to make difficult judgments that balance safety considerations against commercial objectives, competitive pressures, and stakeholder expectations. We often make judgment calls with respect to when we determine a model is safe enough to release and which capabilities to develop or restrict… There can be no assurance, however, that the safeguards or access regimes we adopt will prove adequate, that we will correctly identify which capabilities require restriction, or that constraints we impose will not be circumvented".   "These judgments are particularly consequential because, as AI systems become more capable, the potential severity of harm from misaligned or misused models increases correspondingly, and a wide range of stakeholders, including researchers and policymakers, have raised concerns that sufficiently advanced AI systems could pose catastrophic or existential risks to society if not developed and deployed responsibly".   "Our security capabilities continue to evolve, and certain aspects of our security program may not be sufficient to fully address the most sophisticated malicious actors, including well-resourced nation-state or state-sponsored groups, especially as those groups develop or obtain more powerful technology, which may include AI technology with offensive capabilities similar to those displayed by Mythos. While we are actively investing in and enhancing our security infrastructure and controls, we have operated in the past, and may in the future operate, for periods of time with known limitations or gaps in our defenses as we continue to mature our security posture, and no information security program can be expected to prevent all possible incidents".   "There can be no assurances that we will be able to prevent or adequately detect and defend against all cyberattacks or other cybersecurity incidents affecting our systems, including incidents caused by nation-state and state-sponsored actors. An unauthorized exfiltration of our model weights could enable adversaries to bypass significant research investment, eliminate key competitive advantages, and potentially raise national security concerns if such technology is acquired by malicious actors. Further, if our model weights were obtained by unauthorized actors, such actors may be able to deploy such models outside of our usage policies, safety mechanisms, or monitoring frameworks, which could enable harmful or misuse scenarios that our safeguards are designed to prevent and could subject us to regulatory, reputational, or public scrutiny for having developed such capabilities"..   http://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/risk-factors http://prospect.org/2026/10/28/house-progressives-ai-bailout-anthropic-google http://www.justsecurity.org/161829/deception-ruling-why-trust-meta-ai-agent/ http://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-26/ombudsman-finds-automation-in-aged-care-lacks-safeguards/107308730 http://www.accessnow.org/press-release/joint-statement-on-ai-in-warfare http://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-billionaire-barons-of-big-tech http://www.pbs.org/video/do-silicon-valley-billionaires-want-to-end-democracy-hezktt
	Human rights situation in Myanmar plummets to new low by UN Office for Human Rights, agencies   Sep. 2026   Human rights situation in Myanmar plummets to new low amid unrelenting violations and unregulated exploitation of natural resources – UN report.   The human rights situation in Myanmar, in particular that of minority communities, has plummeted to a new low, from the ever-worsening brutal abuse of the Rohingya population to the devastating impact of illicit economies, notably illegal mining for rare earths, a new UN Human Rights report has found.   The report details how unrelenting violence and a conflict economy work hand-in-hand to expose civilian populations to untold misery. It covers the period between 1 June 2025 and 31 May 2026.   “The military’s persistent quest for control and legitimacy has only deepened the suffering and the multiple life-threatening protection and humanitarian concerns civilians face,” the report states. “Military tactics aimed at imposing fear and control, facilitated by the use of new technologies to expand surveillance, permeate every aspect of life.”   Highlighting acts of military violence against the civilian population, the report notes the persistent use of airstrikes, arson attacks, displacement and denial of assistance. It also details the commission – by both the Myanmar military and the “Arakan Army” – of widespread and systematic violations and abuses against the Rohingya, nine years since the terrible violence of 2017 that forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee.   “Across northern Rakhine, the Arakan Army has perpetrated arbitrary arrests, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, instances of enforced disappearance, forced labour and recruitment, unlawful confiscation of land and residential property, and the destruction of villages, religious and cultural sites, caused renewed Rohingya displacement,” it says.   “Children are systematically used for labour, with witnesses describing workers as young as six years old clearing jungle, constructing buildings and doing menial work for Rakhine families. In one case, a child was forced to clear bones and skulls of victims of a massacre.”   Interviewees reported the arrest and detention of Rohingya attempting to escape forced recruitment, with cases of Rohingya girls resorting to early marriage in the hope that married girls were less likely to be forcibly recruited.   “Once detained, individuals reported being routinely subjected to ill-treatment with former detainees describing beatings with bamboo, rubber pipes, and belts; being burned with matches and cigarettes; being hung upside down with their bodies spun until they passed out; chili being applied to genitals; and removal of fingernails,” the report reads.   The absence of the rule of law across Myanmar has acted as an enabler for illicit economies in the country, helping to finance the conflict, worsen the crisis, and with impacts on the wider region, the report finds. Human rights crises continue to multiply from rising illegal mining, drug production, human trafficking, and scam centres.   Economic collapse and conflict-induced displacement have also generated a labour market that is easy for economic actors and criminal organizations to exploit, the report states, finding that civilians are lured into a system marred by endless human rights violations and abuses.   Unregulated exploitation of natural resources has destroyed the environment, livelihoods, and traditional community-based systems in a growing number of areas in the country, particularly minority areas.   Illicit economies and rare earth mining in Kachin and Shan have strengthened the expansion of transnational criminal networks, irresponsible business practices, and serious instances of transboundary environmental contamination, it finds.   Satellite images confirmed that Kachin remained the primary mining area, with 302 new sites since 2021 – a 149 percent increase. In Shan, sites increased from 12 pre-coup to 85 post-coup.   Despite limited availability of official records, findings indicated a peak in trade flows in 2023 amounting to USD 1.4 billion, the report finds.   Financial investigations have highlighted a complex web of relationships among multiple actors and entities that fostered illicit gains with impunity, the report adds.   Massive volumes of hazardous chemical leaching agents and toxic mining runoff flow directly into local waterways, resulting in severe chemical and transboundary pollution.   “Environmental contamination impacted maternal and reproductive health, with local documentation efforts confirming sharp surges in miscarriages, severe bleeding during pregnancy, childbirth, or after delivery, and pregnancy complications attributed to heavy metal and chemical exposure,” says the report.   Lack of economic opportunities, displacement and forced conscription have also triggered an influx of women into the mining sector. “This aggravated risks of sexual violence and harassment by supervisors, guards, and militia members who operated with absolute impunity,” it says.   The report also highlights the absence of occupational health and safety standards. “Without knowledge and equipment, interlocutors stated that workers developed symptoms like acute respiratory distress, severe headaches, chemical burns, and gastrointestinal illnesses,” it says. “Prolonged exposure caused the accumulation of toxic agents, leading to chronic pulmonary, kidney, and liver diseases.”   Toxic wastewater from leaching pools discharged directly into downstream agricultural land also made the soil barren or significantly affected yield and quality, reducing farmers’ incomes, it adds.   “This report depicts a picture of suffering, misery, and cruelty on multiple levels and across the country that is heartbreaking,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/09/myanmar-turk-deplores-deadly-strikes-busy-rakhine-market http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/08/human-rights-situation-myanmar-plummets-new-low-amid-unrelenting-violations http://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2026/09/high-commissioner-turk-deplores-deepening-human-rights-crisis http://globalprotectioncluster.org/latest/publications/myanmar-protection-analysis-update-0 http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/08/nine-years-rohingya-continue-face-atrocity-crimes-mass-displacement-and http://www.refugeesinternational.org/advocacy-letters/9-years-on-accountability-needed-for-rohingya/ http://www.refugeesinternational.org/events-and-testimony/rohingya-crisis-enters-tenth-year/   Aug. 2026   Afghanistan: UN experts warn against normalisation of Taliban rule.   As Taliban rule in Afghanistan continues, UN experts warned that normalisation of the de facto authorities continues, despite increasing restrictions imposed on the population, including women and girls, over the past year. They urged States to accelerate steps towards accountability.   “Five years may be a short period in the life of a country, but it is a long one in a child’s life,” the experts said. “A generation of girls has now been denied secondary education. A girl who was in grade six when the ban began is reaching adulthood without another day in school.”   An Afghan girl cited by the experts said, “It has been five years since I was deprived of my education. It is deeply depressing to feel that you cannot move forward but are stuck where you were five years ago.”   Over the past year, the Taliban have further entrenched their institutionalised gender-based repression. The experts reiterated that the Taliban's intentional and targeted gender-based deprivation of fundamental rights amounts to the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds.   As this repression forms part of an institutionalised system of gender-based discrimination, oppression and domination, the experts said it can also be characterised as gender apartheid. They urged States to actively support the codification of gender apartheid as a distinct crime against humanity.   The Taliban have continued to impose repressive measures on the population, including the decree on criminal rules of courts that allows violence against women unless it “breaks bones” or “leaves obvious bruises,” and the decree on separation of spouses that implicitly allows child marriage and makes it very difficult for women and girls to escape abusive and forced marriages. These decrees also discriminate against religious minorities.   Enforcement measures, some involving cruel and inhuman punishment, have also intensified, the experts said. In 2025 alone, more people were publicly flogged than in all the previous years of Taliban rule combined.   “Women have been turned away from hospitals on account of their attire or for lacking a male guardian, denying them their right to access health care. In June 2026, at least 30 women and girls were jailed in Herat for allegedly violating the Taliban’s dress code. When residents protested, security forces opened fire, killing at least two people, including a boy."   They called for strengthened support for the International Criminal Court, warning that “the newly mandated Independent Investigative Mechanism for Afghanistan must not remain only an achievement on paper; it must also be properly and swiftly resourced.”   The experts also decried the deepening humanitarian crisis, which remains one of the world’s most severe and neglected, driven by the loss of humanitarian funding, a faltering economy, drought and mass returns from neighbouring countries.   More than 17 million Afghans — over a third of the population — faced acute food insecurity during the past winter, with nearly 4 million children acutely malnourished. The experts urged States to restore humanitarian funding and ensure that women — disproportionately harmed and largely barred from public life — can both deliver and receive assistance.   "Afghanistan is not a safe country: mass returns and forced deportations in violation of the obligation of non-refoulement must stop, particularly for those who face heightened protection risks, including religious or ethnic minorities and LGBT persons,” the experts said.   Cross-border hostilities with Pakistan have claimed the lives of about 500 civilians since October 2025, including 269 patients killed in airstrikes on a drug rehabilitation centre in Kabul in March 2026. The experts called on Pakistan and the Taliban to exercise restraint, protect civilians and investigate potential war crimes and gross human rights violations.   "There should be no moves to normalise the Taliban de facto authorities, including by accepting diplomats or holding meetings in capitals, without demonstrated, measurable progress against human rights benchmarks, particularly for women and girls," the experts said. "For five years, Afghans’ human rights have been systematically violated, yet many continue to strive bravely and against the odds to restore them. The international community must not let them down again."   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/08/afghanistan-un-experts-warn-against-normalisation-taliban-rule http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/09/turk-says-deafening-silence-suffering-afghans-urges-renewed-pressure http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/09/taliban-policies-denying-afghan-children-future-warns-un-expert http://news.un.org/en/story/2026/10/1168605 http://unama.unmissions.org/en/news/update-on-the-human-rights-situation-in-afghanistan-july-to-september-2026 http://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/in-focus/afghanistan http://www.justsecurity.org/154673/international-law-gender-apartheid/ http://www.genderapartheiddeclaration.org/international-declaration-on-gender-apartheid-and-its-destructive-consequences/ http://www.nobelwomensinitiative.org/genderapartheid_in_afghanistan   20 Oct. 2026   ‘One step away from famine’: Inside Afghanistan’s hunger crisis. (UN News)   Following extreme hunger warnings, a bitter reality is unfolding across Afghanistan: food is inaccessible for millions of people.   That’s according to UN aid coordination office spokesperson Olga Cherevko, who has just returned from a field visit with a stark call to action.   Nearly 16 million Afghans are facing crisis-level hunger – some 3.4 million of them living in emergency conditions, said Ms. Cherevko, briefing from Kabul on Tuesday.   “I want to start with something that can get lost when we talk about Afghanistan through numbers: a harvest can improve, markets can have food, but families can still go hungry,” she said, calling it “one of the clearest takeaways” from her recent visits to southern and northeastern Afghanistan.   Ms. Cherevko called for immediate and sustained action to help the people of Afghanistan “before families have exhausted their options”.   Record acute malnutrition levels for the August-October period have seen hunger levels grow for millions of Afghans, according to the latest findings from the UN-supported global food security monitor, or IPC.   The situation is poised to worsen, Ms. Cherevko said.   “I saw first-hand that this crisis is not simply about whether food exists, but whether people can afford it, whether they can earn an income, access basic services or whether they have anything left to fall back on when the next shock comes,” Ms. Cherekov said, adding that hunger levels are expected to rise for around 19 million people once winter begins next month.   “The outlook is deteriorating,” she said. “These numbers represent children whose parents cannot afford food and families whose ability to cope has been worn down by years of conflict, economic hardship, drought and other shocks,” she said.   Highlighting another dimension to this crisis that will shape Afghanistan long after the next lean season, Ms. Cherevko pointed to the Taliban’s systematic exclusion of women and girls in schools and society.   “The consequences are already felt,” she added, pointing to a “shocking” UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report warning that, if current restrictions continue, Afghanistan could lose up to 20,000 women teachers and 5,400 female health workers by 2030.   The impact on nutrition is equally important as malnutrition is shaped by maternal health, access to healthcare, dietary diversity, education and the ability to earn a living.   “Undermining this weakens families’ ability to protect their children and make recovery harder in the future,” she said.   Humanitarian assistance is indispensable and must continue, but more is needed, Ms. Cherevko said. “Humanitarian aid can and does save lives today,” she said, “but only sustained, inclusive investment in livelihoods, services and economic opportunity can help people build lives that are less dependent on emergency assistance tomorrow.”   Afghanistan needs such investment in the foundations of recovery: agriculture and rural livelihoods, local markets, employment, water systems, health and nutrition services and opportunities for women to participate in economic life.   http://news.un.org/en/story/2026/10/1168631 http://news.un.org/en/tags/afghanistan http://www.wfp.org/news/food-insecurity-and-child-malnutrition-worsen-afghanistan-despite-strong-agricultural-season http://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/countries-in-focus-archive/issue-158/en/ http://www.savethechildren.net/news/afghanistan-acute-malnutrition-cases-set-hit-record-high-2027 http://www.nrc.no/news/2026/afghanistan-families-in-free-fall-abandoned-and-ignored http://www.refugeesinternational.org/reports-briefs/no-one-died-new-frontline-evidence-from-afghanistan-on-maternal-neonatal-and-child-deaths-following-the-withdrawal-of-u-s-assistance/ Visit the related web page
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