Human rights situation in Myanmar plummets to new low by UN Office for Human Rights (OHCHR)   25 Aug. 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/2026/08/human-rights-situation-myanmar-plummets-new-low-amid-unrelenting-violations http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/08/nine-years-rohingya-continue-face-atrocity-crimes-mass-displacement-and   13 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.unwomen.org/en/articles/in-focus/afghanistan http://www.nobelwomensinitiative.org/genderapartheid_in_afghanistan http://www.justsecurity.org/154673/international-law-gender-apartheid/ http://www.genderapartheiddeclaration.org/international-declaration-on-gender-apartheid-and-its-destructive-consequences/ Visit the related web page
	We are facing a transition to a world with incredibly intelligent machines by BBC, UN News, OHCHR, ICRC, agencies   7 Sep. 2026   OpenAI chief scientist warns no-one is prepared for consequences of AI. (BBC News)   OpenAI's chief scientist Jakub Pachocki has called for "extreme caution" over AI's runaway progress warning more intervention is needed to ensure "humans remain in control of the future".   "I am concerned no one is prepared for the consequences of a continued rapid rise in machine intelligence," he wrote in a blog post entitled An Alien Mind.   "We are facing a transition to a world with incredibly intelligent machines, and we need to ensure that transition works out well for humanity. We need to find ways to preserve human agency and enshrine the intrinsic value to being human, in a world where most tasks could be performed by AI".   "We need to prevent the extreme concentration of power in a world where undertakings that would have taken thousands of experts now will be achievable by a few people operating a large computer. To ensure that humans remain in control of the future and are not left behind by unchecked progress, brought about by an alien intellect exceeding our own".   "International coordination on AI development needs to become a top priority for governments around the world", Pachocki writes.   He calls for legally or internationally required minimum safety thresholds to be enforced by a "network of third-party auditors" or "government agencies". AI labs would need to meet these thresholds, he said, before they were allowed to continue scaling or deploying advanced models.   He said OpenAI would "build defensive systems" and seek technical solutions to alignment - a term used to describe ensuring a machine's actions and goals match human intent and safety guardrails. Pachocki added one of the firm's main priorities moving forward would be to build an "automated AI researcher" to keep pace with AI progress while ensuring ways that human researchers could remain part of the process.   "Instead of better AI guardrails, regulations, or assurance to keep people safe, they propose developing internal AI agents to research these problems," said Professor Gina Neff, head of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge. "Such answers to growing concerns about the problems OpenAI's models are causing for cyber-security, job loss, mistakes, errors and fraud are simply not good enough."   Nathan Calvin, general counsel at the advocacy group Encode AI, said he agreed with Pachocki on the hazards present in advanced AI model development - but said OpenAI was unwilling to be fully transparent, and said this meant warnings risked being dismissed as "just self-interested hype".   A top safety researcher at Anthropic has warned AI is advancing so quickly he believes there is a greater than 10% chance it "could kill all humans" within the next decade. Evan Hubinger said he was "worried" the technology may develop and improve itself soon to the point where it posed an existential risk to humanity.   Hubinger's intervention was in response to another post from Jacob Coxon, an AI researcher who has just quit Anthropic and previously worked at OpenAI.   "Neither company is acting responsibly, they are gambling with our lives”, Coxon said. The risks at Anthropic were well understood but they were “locked in a race to get there first”.   Hubinger said "we really do earnestly believe" AI poses a species-ending risk to humans. "I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to".   Hubinger works in AI alignment, which aims to build human ethical ideas and principles into the technology. In other words, it aims to keep it on track with what humans value.   Many leading researchers say those attempts appear to be failing. OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta have all disclosed hacks carried out by their AI tools.   Leading figures in the AI field have been raising the alarm about the safety threat the tech poses for years, with the heads of OpenAI, Google Deepmind and Anthropic saying as much in 2023. But those warnings have become much more stark in recent weeks, as evidence emerges that firms are struggling to control AI.   http://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyzrrd0kp7o http://openai.com/index/an-alien-mind/ http://www.reuters.com/world/europe/openai-agents-hijacked-german-website-previously-undisclosed-ai-breakout-this-2026-09-04/ http://controlai.org/media   * U.S. Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) sent letters to OpenAI and Anthropic this week, chastising executives for failing to answer questions about security lapses resulting from rogue AI behavior. He joined U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to introduce legislation that would halt the development of superintelligent AI and create new federal regulatory authorities for the technology.   “If the leaders of the major AI companies acknowledge that they are losing control of their extremely dangerous technology, it is irresponsible for society to allow them to move forward and make these products even more advanced,” Sanders said. “Let me be clear: A superintelligent AI that escapes human control will not be an American problem. It will not be a Chinese problem. It will be humanity’s problem.”   7 Sep. 2026   United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk speech to 63rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (Extract):   "The need for AI governance is widely acknowledged – but where is the action? Delay only benefits the massive tech companies, their owners and enablers. A handful of men has almost unlimited power over AI, which we are repeatedly told has unimaginable computing capacity. They talk about freedom, but on closer inspection, this turns out to be little more than the freedom to exploit our data.   There has been some recent progress at the international level, including the establishment of the Global Dialogue on AI and the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI. And I welcome steps on platform accountability by the European Commission, and AI governance by the Republic of Korea, among others.   However, I share the concerns of industry insiders that advanced AI could pose an existential risk to humanity. AI that escapes its testing environment, or blackmails developers to prevent itself from being turned off, is AI that is too powerful.   I am calling here, today, for an all-out effort to put cast iron guarantees in place around the safety and security of AI, before it is too late. At a minimum, we need countries hosting AI and those involved in its supply chains to come together around agreed red lines. We need independent verification, and much stronger collaboration on security within the industry. We must also consider the human rights impacts of AI on employment practices, on fundamental principles of democracy, and on our environment.   Little wonder people are rejecting AI and even refusing to use it. Governments and companies need to listen, to those who are calling for technology that serves humanity rather than the other way round.. Unfortunately, today’s investments and innovations seem to be driven largely by profit – regardless of the costs. These business models are squeezing our planet – and its people – past breaking point".   http://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2026/09/high-commissioner-turk-updates-human-rights-council-human-rights   28 Aug. 2026   A group of 100 firms, including Google, Microsoft, Anthropic and OpenAI, have signed an open letter calling on countries and organisations around the world to beef up their cyber defences before Artificial Intelligence (AI) grows powerful enough to override them.   The letter warns cyber-attacks which use AI will become both more widespread and more sophisticated in a matter of months as the technology rapidly improves.   "In the coming months, AI-enabled cyber attacks will become far more widespread and sophisticated as models around the world become increasingly capable. The companies and public services our communities depend on—from hospitals to water treatment plants to the infrastructure that powers the internet—are at risk".   The group says current "status quo" security measures "won't be enough" and criticises the "historic under-resourcing" of security around critical infrastructure.   "We have a limited window to improve cyber defences," the letter states.   Other firms to have signed the letter include banks, payment processors MasterCard and Visa, and other major tech firms including Adobe, Oracle and IBM.   They call on governments to provide "capable, defensive AI" and testing to hospitals and water utilities, and on technology companies to aid such efforts.   Collectively, tech and government "should bring the full weight of their technology, resources, and expertise to this effort", according to the letter.   The letter comes after a string of significant hacking and cybersecurity breaches have been made public.   This week, the US Department of Justice said hackers breached technology maintained by the US Senate, Nasa, the Federal Reserve, and the DoJ itself.   This summer has seen OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta all reveal their AI tools doing things they should not, with some AI agents going so far as to organize their efforts and impersonate real people in order to get past security hurdles.   A group of hundreds of OpenAI AI agents being tested in July were able to set up secret message boards to communicate with each other and work together, resulting in a successful attack on Hugging Face, a popular repository and platform for AI developers.   The incident has been described as the world's first AI-enabled cyber-attack.   Hugging Face has also signed the Thursday letter. It used a Chinese AI tool from the firm Z.AI in its investigation into how OpenAI's agents hacked into its operations.   At least seven US water and wastewater companies have also reported cyber attacks, leading the FBI to issue a public service announcement urging all utilities to better secure their operations.   While the letter puts forward more advanced AI tools, which many of the signatories have developed and sell, as part of a solution to what is described as a growing threat, such tools are not always easily available.   Mythos, developed by Anthropic, was said by the firm to be able to find weaknesses in systems in seconds which have long evaded human hackers. It found one in a legacy platform which had remained undiscovered for 27 years.   Anthropic has restricted access to Mythos on the grounds that it is too powerful to fall into the wrong hands.   However, the letter calls on frontier AI companies, or those tech companies building their own AI models and tools, to "provide responsible model access, significant funding, training, and hands-on support, especially for under-resourced critical-infrastructure defenders." The letter does not detail when or how this vision of broader model access will be enacted.   Andrew Yoon, head of research at CivAI, a non-profit focused on public understanding of AI technology, said that "an unprecedented wave of AI hacking activity" is on the way. He put the responsibility for it on many signatories of the letter.   "They are right in this letter to commit 'significant funding' to defensive measures. They should be held to that commitment", Yoon said. "Notably, the letter does not call for any action to slow the advance of AI hacking abilities."   The letter includes a plea to governments, organisations, cyber-security professionals and other AI firms to work together to prioritise defence and test their systems against the abilities of the most powerful AI models.   Geoffrey Hinton, a Nobel Laureate who formerly work on AI at Google, told BBC World Business Report that society could be "in real trouble" should the technology get to a point where it is "smarter" than humans.   Hinton in recent years has been outspoken on what he views as the extreme risks posed by developments in AI technology.   "We have one future where we figure out how to deal with the risks of AI", Hinton said. "And we have another future where we don't figure out how to deal with that sensibly. And it's a very bleak future."   http://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyz11475l1o http://rogueaitracker.com/ http://controlai.org/blog http://www.citizen.org/news/big-tech-sends-hypocritical-ai-warning-letter-while-fighting-to-weaken-or-block-critical-safeguards/ http://exhibitai.info/ http://www.icrc.org/en/statement/renewed-call-un-secretary-general-and-icrc-president-adopt-rules-autonomous-weapons   # Governments worldwide are being asked to pay for the security risks posed by AI agents created by AI companies. Governments mean tax payer funds that could be directed to hospitals, schools, cost of living relief and the like.   The companies that created the very risks described have a responsibility to fund the protection required from security risks of their products. This is relevant for every Government in every country in the world as it is a worldwide threat.   Hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested in the AI Industry by banks, superannuation and pension funds and the like. Much of the monies from depositors and the pension funds of people worldwide at the direction of bankers, fund managers and Wall St. investors.   Not only are hundreds of millions of jobs threatened by these investments, AI data centre water and electricity demands will rise costs across all communities.   Many Governments' are rushing to adopt AI, and automation across Government service delivery in concert and at the direction of major AI and Information technology companies and the corporate sector.   Leading many to question whether the public interests of people will be realised through such developments or if the profit returns of corporate investors in fact defines the outcome.   All this as AI threatens the security of countries and their people in "the coming months" as cited by the leading AI investors and adopters.   25 Aug. 2026   The autonomous targeting of humans by machines. (ICRC, UN News)   In a joint appeal today, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, and the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, renew their call for States to urgently adopt new international rules on autonomous weapons systems:   "Three years ago, we called on States to establish specific prohibitions and restrictions on autonomous weapon systems. Today, we renew this call with even greater urgency. The fundamental concerns remain unchanged, but the risks have intensified. We are now dangerously close to crossing a moral red line: the autonomous targeting of humans by machines.   The development of weapon technology has advanced at record speed, placing increasing strain on legal frameworks. Since our previous appeal, the gap between technological capability and regulatory constraint has widened, with advanced technologies employed on the battlefield amplifying the risk of harming civilians and civilian infrastructure and aggravating civilian suffering in armed conflict.   The development and use of autonomous weapon systems represent a further escalation, reducing human control over the use of force.   Autonomous weapon systems are not part of a distant future – a race towards greater autonomy in weapons systems is already well underway.   At the same time, scientists and engineers developing these systems have themselves raised the alarm. When the architects of this technology are calling for limits, States cannot afford to remain passive.   This year must mark a turning point. States have laid important groundwork through the United Nations General Assembly and the Group of Governmental Experts under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.   Significant progress has been made toward a shared understanding of the human judgment and control required, and of the measures necessary to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law, address ethical concerns, and reduce human suffering.   States must show political courage and move beyond incremental discussions towards decisive action. Negotiations must begin now to urgently adopt a legally binding instrument to regulate autonomous weapon systems with clear prohibitions and restrictions.   A failure to act quickly and decisively will cost lives. It will leave future generations to inherit a world in which the absence of clear and specific prohibitions and restrictions on these weapons opens the door to practices that would erode the protections international humanitarian law is meant to guarantee.   A world where accountability is increasingly elusive as responsibility for errors and breaches of applicable rules becomes harder to establish.   States have a responsibility to those already suffering the consequences of today’s conflicts, and to those who will inherit the world that is now being shaped.   Future generations will ask whether leaders acted when there was still a chance to set limits before these weapons proliferated beyond control.   The upcoming Seventh Review Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons in November offers the clearest path available for States to decide to move to negotiate a legally binding instrument. The painstaking work undertaken over the past three years forms the ideal basis for such negotiations, and must not be lost. We urge States to seize this moment.   Continuing to design weapon systems that make it easier to wage war will only undermine our collective efforts towards a more peaceful world. The path is clear. The need is urgent. Innovation must serve humanity – not endanger it".   http://www.icrc.org/en/statement/renewed-call-un-secretary-general-and-icrc-president-adopt-rules-autonomous-weapons
	View more stories