The European Union’s goal of supplying Ukraine with 1 million rounds of artillery ammunition is unlikely to be achieved, Germany’s defense minister said Tuesday, as Kyiv remains locked in a grinding war of attrition against Russia with winter approaching.

“It can be assumed that the 1 million rounds will not be reached,” Boris Pistorius said ahead of an EU defense ministers meeting in Brussels. EU member states are working with industry to ramp up production, he added.

In March, EU member states agreed to provide Ukraine with 1 million rounds of artillery ammunition for Ukraine to be delivered within 12 months.

Pistorius’ warning came a day after Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said the bloc may not meet targets for ammunition production to supply Kyiv by the end of the year, but said efforts were underway to increase production capacity.

In the short term, armies have been asked to provide ammunition from existing stocks, amounting to approximately 300,000 shots, Borrell said.

Borrell added that, on the production side, several contracts had been awarded, but it depends how quickly factories can produce the ammunition.

‘Ringing the bells’

Both Ukraine and Russia need to replenish extraordinary amounts of ammunition as a grinding war of attrition continues in Ukraine’s east and south. According to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, North Korea has exported more than 1 million shells to Russia since early August. The US has also been ramping up ammunition production to supply Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Kyiv urgently needed the EU to ramp up its ability to supply ammunition for the Ukrainian military.

Ukraine is “ringing the bells a lot and loudly” over EU ammunition supply, he said on national television on Monday night. “I believe that the reason for these issues is not the lack of political will in the EU to support Ukraine,” he said. “There is such political will, but, let’s say, [there is the] deplorable state of the defense industry that is capable of producing a sufficient number of shells, and warehouses, and the ability to conclude foreign contracts.

Since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, Western allies have been openly concerned about their ability to provide Kyiv with the amount of ammunition it requires – and their ability to manufacture fast enough to replenish dwindling stocks.

Western manufacturing of conventional ammunition went into decline following the end of the Cold War, as countries focused instead on modern equipment. Very few seriously believed another large-scale land war would take place in Europe.

This “dressing the shop window” approach helps us understand why European countries had low ammunition stocks going into the Ukraine conflict, but doesn’t explain why things didn’t dramatically improve in the year that followed.

“No private company that is answerable to shareholders will have kept staff and maintained large capacity to produce equipment that people are not buying, so it will be difficult to meet a sudden surge in demand in the short to medium term,” Waldwyn added.

Roughly 100 civilians were reportedly killed during a massacre on a village in the West African country of Burkina Faso, the European Union’s diplomatic service said Monday.

“Nearly a hundred civilians, including women and children, are reported to have been killed in a massacre in the village of Zaongo, in the north-central region of Burkina Faso,” the EU External Action (EEAS) said in a statement.

The attack was condemned by the US government which along with the EU called on the transitional authorities to “shed light on the circumstances” behind the massacre to “determine who is responsible.”

Burkina Faso is currently under military rule after a junta staged a successful coup d’état in July 2022. Since the military takeover, the junta has prioritized security but has struggled to rein in islamist groups whose attacks have resulted in multiple civilian casualties this year.

In early April, authorities blamed terrorists for the killing of at least 44 people in separate attacks on villages in northern Burkina Faso.

Later that month, 136 others, including babies were killed in a similar onslaught on a village in the same region by armed men in military uniform. Authorities condemned the attack and opened an investigation.

Burkina Faso has been the epicenter of violence that has spread across the vast Sahel region by Islamist groups linked to al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

According to Amnesty International, large swathes of the impoverished nation are “under siege by armed groups” who “commit war crimes and human rights abuses.”

In its statement condemning the latest attack, the EU reaffirmed “its full solidarity with the people of Burkina Faso”, describing them as “first victims of the continuing deterioration of the security situation in the country.”

Nigeria’s Lagos state marked a historic moment by making Africa’s inaugural appearance at the renowned Lord Mayor’s Show in London – an annual procession, steeped in 800 years of tradition, that celebrates the history and commerce of the city.

The debut signals the state government’s ambitions to become a global financial hub and to attract foreign investment, particularly crucial as federal authorities grapple with revitalizing Nigeria’s economy, which faces challenges such as mounting debts, unprecedented inflation rates, and a sharp decline in the local currency.

Organizers of the Lord Mayor’s Show said Lagos was invited to participate in the London procession because of the state’s “growing economic prominence.”

“Lagos isn’t just open for business — it’s open for transformative, groundbreaking projects that shape the future,” he added.

A global financial center

Lagos is Nigeria’s former capital city and has remained the economic nerve center of the West African country – contributing 30% to its GDP and more than 50 percent of Nigeria’s port revenues, according to figures released by the state.

However, it faces many issues, not least its struggles with inadequate infrastructure, such as roads, public transport, and utilities. Lagos has also experienced rapid population growth, leading to issues such as overcrowding, a strain on infrastructure, and increased demand for basic services.

However, many backers believe that Lagos has the potential to evolve into a global financial hub capable of drawing substantial foreign investments into Nigeria.

The “market infrastructure is in place,” he said adding, “The problem was the management of the market. Our market unfortunately suffered very poor management from a government standpoint for the last eight years. But things have changed.”

Huddle for investors

Amid the scramble for foreign investments into Nigeria, myriad challenges however abound for potential investors.

According to the US Department of Commerce, foreign exchange restrictions and the rising cost of doing business in Nigeria were some of the drawbacks of investing in the country.

Last year, flights between Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates were stopped after Dubai’s Emirates airline suspended its operations in the country citing trapped revenues.

In a similar move, British drugmaker GSK said this year it was ending its business in Nigeria, partly due to soaring business costs.

Aig-Imoukhuede, whose advocacy group EnterpriseNGR partnered with the Lagos government to create the LIFC, wants Nigeria’s financial authorities to address some of these issues, especially the country’s rising inflation and unstable exchange rate.

Premature babies at Gaza’s largest hospital are being wrapped in foil and placed next to hot water in a desperate bid to keep them alive in “catastrophic” conditions, the hospital director has warned, as Israeli firepower pounds surrounding streets and remaining fuel reserves dry up, leaving the facility unable to function.

Images show several newborn babies who were taken from incubators at the hospital placed together in one bed.

The doctor on Sunday told Al Araby TV that several children had died in the intensive care unit and the nursery over the past two days amid Israel’s unrelenting bombardment and blockade of Gaza, an already impoverished and densely packed territory, following the October 7 attack on its territory by Hamas militants.

“When these babies are born prematurely, to sustain their lives they need to have the same temperature of their mother. This temperature can only be offered in the incubators, which are heated properly,” Abbas said.

He warned that the situation would only worsen as winter draws in.

Working by candlelight

A freelance journalist inside Al-Shifa described dozens of bodies yet to be buried, ambulances that were unable to collect the wounded, and life-support systems with no electricity to function. Medics were working by candlelight, food was being rationed and people inside were starting to drink pipe water, the journalist said late Saturday.

“Communication is very bad and almost impossible for us to report what is happening in the hospital and its yards, we barely have cell lines but no internet,” he said.

“No-one can move or dare to go out of the hospital, the staff here are aware of many strikes that are happening around the hospital, we see smoke coming up from those strikes and we know that there are people in some of those buildings but ambulances do not make their way out of the hospital because… during the last days an ambulance was hit on its way out of the hospital.”

Inside the hospital, none of the operating rooms are functioning due to a lack of electricity, Abu Salmiya told Al Araby TV, adding that “whoever needs surgery dies, and we cannot do anything for him.”

“Now the wounded come to us and we cannot give them anything other than first aid,” he said.

The World Health Organization says Al-Shifa has been without power for three days. “Regrettably, the hospital is not functioning as a hospital anymore,” it said.

The spokesman for the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza, Dr. Ashraf al-Qidra, said over the weekend that the intensive care unit, pediatric department and oxygen devices were out of service.

Al-Shifa is far from alone. On Sunday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society announced that Al-Quds Hospital, another major facility in Gaza City, was out of service. The PRCS said the hospital – the second largest in Gaza – was “no longer operational. This cessation of services is due to the depletion of available fuel and power outage.”

Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 11,180 people, including 4,609 children and 3,100 women, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, which draws its figures from the Hamas-controlled territory. At least 28,200 people have been injured.

In recent days, 15 patients have died at Al-Shifa, among them six newborns, due to power outages and a shortage of medical supplies.

Israel’s blockade on essential supplies including fuel entering Gaza has deepened a humanitarian crisis as hospitals, water systems, bakeries and other services reliant on electricity shut down.

Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on Wednesday that both Hamas and Israel had committed war crimes in the past month.

‘If they are left behind, they will die’

Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, the director-general of the Hamas-controlled health ministry, said Monday that medical staff at Al-Shifa had refused an IDF evacuation order because they fear approximately 700 patients will die if they are left behind.

“There has been no response until now by the doctors, but some of the displaced people and families have already been leaving.”

The evacuation order, according to Al-Bursh, is not coordinated with any international humanitarian agencies, such as the International Red Cross. The lack of coordination raises concerns about the safety and feasibility of transferring such a large number of patients, many of whom are in critical condition and will die in transport, he said.

Earlier on Monday, the IDF announced that an evacuation corridor for residents of northern Gaza had been reopened. IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said Sunday that the majority of people in Al-Nasr hospital and Al Rantisi Pediatric hospital, both in northern Gaza, had been evacuated.

The Israeli military estimates 240 hostages are being held by Hamas in Gaza, including civilian men, women and children. The militant group has released just four hostages – two elderly Israeli women and an American mother and daughter – while the Israeli forces said they had rescued an Israeli soldier.

Israeli troops on Sunday continued their ground operation in Gaza by going deeper into Gaza City, army spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a press briefing. Infantry and combat engineering forces reached the outskirts of al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza, Hagari said, which is near Al-Shifa hospital. Meanwhile, army forces in coordination with the Navy raided the Gaza marina area and are currently in the areas to its east.

Dispute over fuel offer

On Sunday, the Israeli military said it had put 300 liters of fuel at the entrance to the Shifa hospital complex, but that Hamas had blocked the hospital from receiving it. Abu Salmiya told Al Araby TV that staff had been too scared to go out to get it.

The IDF released a video it said showed soldiers delivering the jerry cans to a curbside location near the hospital entrance. It also released an audio recording, purportedly of a hospital official accusing a Hamas leader at the health ministry of refusing to allow it to be collected.

Abu Salmiya said it was the presence of Israeli tanks that had prevented collection.

“Of course, my paramedic team was completely afraid to go out,” he said, adding: “We want every drop of fuel, but I told (the IDF) that it should be sent through the International Red Cross or through any international institution.”

Hamas dismissed the allegations and said the Israeli fuel delivery was a propaganda stunt.

This story is being updated with additional developments.

Head lice have been constant, if unwanted, human companions for as long as our species has been around.

Evidence of this ancient connection includes a 10,000-year-old louse found on human remains at an archaeological site in Brazil and an inscription on a 3,700-year-old ivory lice comb that might be the oldest known sentence written with an alphabet.

For scientists interested in how humankind evolved and spread around the globe, the blood-sucking parasite — officially called Pediculus humanus — also contains a lode of genetic information that, as new research shows, is illuminating some of the biggest questions in the human story.

“Lice have been with us since the origin of humankind; for millions of years they have evolved with us,” said Marina Ascunce, a research molecular biologist at the US Department of Agriculture who has analyzed and compared the DNA of 274 lice collected with the help of head lice researchers from all over the world. The analysis is part of a new study published Wednesday in Plos One.

“When the first anatomical modern humans left Africa, they carried their lice with them,” she said.

Ascunce, who did the work as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Florida, and her colleagues found that lice clustered genetically into two distinct groups that rarely interbred.

The team also detected a small number of “hybrid lice” — reflecting a mix of the two clusters — that were mostly found in the Americas, which she said she interpreted as a “signal of contact between Europeans and Native Americans.” The group appeared to be a mixture of lice descended from the earliest Americans and those descended from European lice, which were brought over during the colonization of the Americas. However, it was unclear why the researchers found so few of these lice.

One weakness of the new study was that only one of the lice samples was from Africa. However, another study is underway using the 274 samples from this research and additional samples from other places, including Africa, Ascunce said. New, more efficient sequencing techniques available now may reveal additional information, she added.

Using parasites to understand the past

It’s not the first time that researchers have harnessed the genetic diversity of lice as a tool to better understand the ancient history of the insects’ hosts.

Genetic analysis of clothes or body lice, which are one of three lice to live on humans, revealed that humans likely began wearing some form of clothing at least 83,000 years ago, according to a paper published in 2010.

Some 20 years ago, David Reed, a coauthor of the new study and a researcher and curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History, found that human head lice are composed of two ancient lineages, with origins predating Homo sapiens. That 2004 study controversially suggested that our species had been in direct contact — at least close enough to rub heads — with archaic humans such as Neanderthals.

The groundbreaking hypothesis was later corroborated when the first Neanderthal genome was sequenced in 2010, confirming that Homo sapiens had in the past encountered Neanderthals and had babies with them.

That 2010 study analyzed mitochondrial DNA, which is more easily retrievable than nuclear DNA and gives information about the female line only. The latest study in the journal Plos One tapped both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, which reflects the genetic lineage of both parents. Doing so allowed researchers to detect the hybrid lice and better capture the genetic diversity of head lice.

Ascunce said she had hoped the information they gleaned might answer whether Neanderthal head lice are still around today, but the 15 genetic markers, known as “microsatellites,” that they studied in the lice nuclear DNA didn’t reveal that information.

“Because very little was known about the louse genome when we started the study, we used markers that have a high mutation rate, so we were not able to answer those questions,” she said.

“New ongoing studies are being done using whole genome sequences from human lice, so stay tuned for more exciting research on that.”

NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara marked their first spacewalk this month with a tool bag floating through space.

The pair concluded their maintenance work outside the International Space Station (ISS) in six hours and 42 minutes, according to the space agency.

The spacewalk on November 1 saw Moghbeli and O’Hara complete works on the station’s solar arrays, which track the sun, but they ran out of time to remove and stow a communications electronics box. Leaving this task for a future spacewalk, the pair instead conducted an assessment of how the job could be done.

During the their hours-long mission, a tool bag gave them the slip and was “lost,” NASA said, with flight controllers spotting it using the ISS’ external cameras. Fortunately, the tools were not required for the remainder of their tasks.

“Mission Control analyzed the bag’s trajectory and determined that risk of recontacting the station is low and that the onboard crew and space station are safe with no action required,” NASA said on its official blog.

According to EarthSky, a website tracking cosmic events, the tool bag is currently orbiting Earth ahead of the ISS, and can potentially be spotted from Earth with a pair of binoculars during the next few months until it disintegrates in our planet’s atmosphere.

This isn’t the first time an astronaut has lost tools in space. In 2008, Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper’s bag floated away while she was cleaning and lubricating gears on a malfunctioning rotary joint. A 2006 spacewalk saw astronauts Piers Sellers and Michael Fossum lose a 14-inch spatula while testing a method of repairing the space shuttle.

Space debris or junk, like these objects, are artificial materials that orbit Earth but are no longer functional. They can be anything from a small chip of paint to parts discarded during rocket launches.

In September 2023, the European Space Agency estimated 35,290 objects were being tracked and cataloged by the various space surveillance networks, with the total mass of objects orbiting Earth amounting to more than 11,000 tons.

A frantic effort is underway in northern India to rescue dozens of workers trapped after a mountain tunnel they were helping to construct collapsed on Sunday, leaving them confined behind a pile of rubble with little oxygen and water.

As many as 40 men were working in the tunnel, part of an ambitious Himalayan highway project in town of Uttarkashi, when part of the passageway leading to the entrance gave way, authorities said.

Rescuers have been supplying oxygen and water to the men through the debris, Yaduvanshi added.

Photos and video from the scene showed a large machine excavating debris from the dark tunnel as dozens of rescue officials gathered by the entrance. State and national disaster officials have come together to assist with the operation, alongside local police officials.

Uttarkashi Circle Officer Anuj Kumar said workers have removed about 20 meters (65 feet) of debris and have another 40 meters (130 feet) to go.

“It would take approximately another day or so to clear it up,” he said.

The tunnel is part of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s Char Dham Highway project, a multimillion-dollar infrastructure plan to improve connectivity in the state of Uttarakhand and better access to important pilgrimage locations.

Uttarakhand, a mountainous and picturesque state on India’s border with China, is often referred to as “Devbhumi” or “Land of the Gods” owing to its rich cultural heritage and the abundance of Hindu religious sites.

The Char Dham Highway project is expected to be nearly 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) long, improving access to the state from India’s capital New Delhi.

Sunday’s collapse isn’t the first construction disaster in recent months to make headlines in India, a country that has been rapidly transforming its infrastructure and spending billions to upgrade its transport network.

In August, more than a dozen workers were killed after a bridge under construction collapsed in the northeastern state of Mizoram.

In June, a four-lane concrete bridge that was being built across the River Ganges in the eastern state of Bihar collapsed for the second time in just over a year, raising questions about the quality of its construction.

Last October, a recently repaired suspension bridge gave way in the town of Morbi in Gujarat, killing 135 people.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across France on Sunday to call out a sharp rise in antisemitic acts since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

Protesters were joined in the French capital by political figures including Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and former presidents Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy. Together they held a banner with the words, “For the Republic, against antisemitism.”

Demonstrators came out in smaller numbers in cities including Nice, Lyon and Marseille, according to BFM TV. More than 182,000 people took part in marches across the country, BFM TV reported, citing the interior ministry.

Tensions have been rising in France, and particularly in the capital, over the Israel-Hamas war, resulting in a surge in antisemitic incidents, according to French President Emmanual Macron.  
 
In a letter published in French newspaper Le Parisien on Saturday, Macron condemned “the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism.”

He said more than 1,000 antisemitic acts were committed in France in one month alone – three times more than over the course of the entire previous year.

Macron did not join the Sunday march but said in a social media post that “a France where our Jewish fellow citizens are afraid is not France.”

“A France where French people are afraid because of their religion or their origin is not France,” he wrote. “No tolerance for the intolerable.”

Later Sunday, Macron reiterated France’s solidarity with Israel, after he was criticized by prominent figures in Israel over comments he made in an earlier interview with the BBC.

On Friday, Macron told the BBC that a ceasefire is “the only solution” to the situation in Gaza. “We share the pain and we do share a willingness to get rid of terrorism. We know what terrorism means in France. But I think there is no justification to attack civilians,” Macron said.

In a phone call with Israeli President Issac Herzog Sunday, Macron said Israel has the right to defend itself “‘in compliance with international humanitarian law.”

“The threat of terrorist groups in Gaza had to be eliminated,” Macron said, according to a statement from the Elysee Palace.

“This fight must be conducted in compliance with international humanitarian law and taking into account the protection of civilian populations.”

Macron’s calls for a ceasefire resonated as far as Australia, where Foreign Minister Penny Wong noted his comments and said, “We all want to take the next steps towards a ceasefire.”

But she added that it cannot be one-sided, pointing out that Palestinian militant group Hamas, who attacked Israel on October 7, still holds Israeli hostages.

Pro-Palestinian rallies in Europe

The marches against antisemitism in France came as pro-Palestinian demonstrators also rallied in multiple European capitals over the weekend.

Around 300,000 people in London turned out for a large pro-Palestinian rally on Saturday, according to police, marching through the streets of the British capital calling for a ceasefire.

There was a heavy police presence in central London’s Hyde Park Corner as protesters chanted “free, free Palestine” and the more controversial refrain “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”

Police said they had “faced aggression from counter-protesters” who stormed the area “in significant numbers” as the rally was building up.

Officers intercepted a group of 150 people who were launching fireworks towards the end of the march, police Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist said in a statement issued later Saturday. Arrests were made after some of the fireworks struck officers in the face, the statement read.

A pro-Palestinian demonstration also took place in Germany’s financial capital Frankfurt on Sunday, as well as in Barcelona and Brussels on Saturday.

A Philippine court has granted bail for Leila De Lima, one of the most vocal critics of ex-President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody “war on drugs” after being held in police custody for over six years.

She was led out of the courtroom with a police escort while cheers of “Free Leila Now” were heard as she exited. The bail conditions were set at roughly $5,300 (300,000 Philippine pesos), and her legal team is expected to file the paperwork later on Monday evening.

De Lima had been acquitted of two out of the three charges laid against her, which all stemmed from allegations made by Duterte that she received payoffs from convicted drug gangs to fund her 2016 senatorial bid.

Organizations like the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have criticized De Lima’s detention, calling it “arbitrary” and demanding her immediate release.

Human rights activists have long criticized the detention of De Lima, pointing out that she has been held in a police cell since February 2017 despite not having been convicted of any charges.

They say her treatment is emblematic of a deteriorating rights situation in a country where political activists and the media often face threats, harassment and even death for attempting to keep those in power in check.

Court proceedings against de Lima have been marked by undue delays, including the failure of prosecution witnesses to appear in court and changes in judges handling her cases.

With her long-awaited temporary release, De Lima said she will be prioritizing spending quality time with her family, especially with her mother who is now 91 years old.

“She’s waiting for me. I have to be with her. She’s been waiting for me all these years,” De Lima said.

De Lima’s bail “must lead to dismissal of last bogus charge against her,” Amnesty International said in a statement on Monday.

“The court’s granting of Leila de Lima’s bail application is indeed a welcome development. Allowing her temporary liberty should be a step toward justice for Leila, beginning with the dismissal of this last charge against her,” said Butch Olano, section director of Amnesty International Philippines.

“Leila has been targeted by the government for her criticism of the murderous ‘war on drugs’ and other human rights violations. She should have never spent even a single day in detention. This last remaining drug case against her must be dismissed expeditiously, and those behind her arbitrary detention and other violations of her human rights must be brought to justice,” Olano added.

Leading the fight against the “war on drugs”

Duterte and De Lima had been facing off for years, dating all the way back to his long reign as mayor of Davao City in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao.

In 2009, De Lima launched a probe into the suspected Davao Death Squad where members were reported to be “routinely killing street children and others in broad daylight,” according to a report by Philip Alston, a United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions.

The investigation, led by De Lima, who at the time was the chair of the Commission on Human Rights chair, uncovered a mass grave of human remains near a quarry and hundreds of deaths allegedly linked to members of the Davao Death Squad – with at least two hitmen publicly accusing Duterte for ordering the killings.

Years later, De Lima, who had wrapped up her service as Secretary of Justice, was elected to the Senate in May 2016, on the same day Duterte won the presidency on a platform of cracking down on crime, particularly illegal drugs.

Duterte had admitted to killing drug suspects during his time as mayor of Davao City, and openly waged a crackdown on suspected drug dealers and petty peddlers through a vast network police allies and vigilantes.

More than 6,000 people were killed in anti-drug operations between July 1, 2016 and May 31, 2022 during Duterte’s controversial anti-drug campaign, according to police data.

Many of the extrajudicial killings of suspected drug offenders have occurred in the poorest areas of the country – and independent monitors believe the number of those killed could be much higher.

Murder on the streets of the Philippines were rampant when the war on drugs took off, with shocking photographs published in local and international media showing suspected drug dealers shot dead in pools of blood next to labels alleging their crimes. Often the unidentified gunmen have fled the scene.

Minors were frequently among those killed as well people that locals and rights groups said had nothing to do with the drug trade. Critics of the government were also often named by Duterte as being placed on kill lists, or warned they could end up there.

Police accounts of how a suspected drug dealer was killed would often clash widely with CCTV and witness testimony later gathered by journalists and rights workers.

De Lima used her position in the senate to rail against Duterte’s war on drugs and call for an inquiry into extrajudicial killings.

Duterte rejected criticism over the killings, and warned lawmakers in a speech saying,“Be careful with me because when I say I will do it for my country, I will do it even if I have to kill you or be killed in the process.”

Despite growing outcry abroad and his divisive ruling style, his war on drugs and his administration’s attacks against the free press, Duterte remained popular at home for much of his tenure.

Last January, the International Criminal Court said it wants to revive its investigation into possible “crimes against humanity” over Duterte’s drug war. The Hague-based court initially announced plans for an investigation in February 2018 but suspended them in November 2021 at the request of Manila after it said it was undertaking its own review.

However, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. – who succeeded Duterte last year – said his country is “disengaging” from any contact with the ICC, saying Manila did not recognize its authority over matters of national sovereignty.

Far from the watchful eyes of the coastguard, Scotland’s waters are home to a growing number of offshore wind farms, alongside their oil and gas rigs – and working on this remote infrastructure brings many risks.

Accidents are all too common, and often deadly, says Sam Mayall, a lifelong sailor and former maritime transport deck officer. A 2023 report by the UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch indicates that 40% of man-overboard maritime incidents are fatal.

“A lot of the technologies employed offshore now are the same technologies that have been there for the last 40 or 50 years,” says Mayall.

Turning to artificial intelligence and smart tech to overhaul maritime safety, his company Zelim is working on a trio of life-saving technologies — including an autonomous, unmanned lifeboat called “Guardian.”

The Scottish startup, which Mayall founded in 2017 when he was just 22 years old, is now working with the US Coastguard and several offshore energy companies to perfect its tech, which Mayall hopes can make rescues quicker for the victims and safer for the rescuers.

“Mariners should no longer be putting their lives in harm’s way to save people,” says Mayall. “We believe we can set a new benchmark in safety.”

Autonomous lifeboats

The Guardian vessel incorporates Zelim’s AI detection system for spotting victims and its Swift conveyor belt for lifting people out of the water. The boat has two-way comms on board so that, once rescued, the victim can speak to a telemedicine team that offers first-aid guidance until the craft can reach a larger vessel.

Rather than replacing rescuers, the technology is designed to take the ethical dilemma out of difficult rescues, says Mayall: “In a lot of cases worldwide, the decision is made not to launch the rescue assets because of the risk to the rescuer.”

Guardian could be deployed from an offshore facility, where personnel are often scarce, and there isn’t always time to call emergency services, with many accidents happening hours away from lifeboats, says Mayall.

“(Around) 80% of the deaths happen in the first 30 minutes, so it’s critical that you have the ability to help yourself when you are offshore,” he adds.

“Swift” rescues

Guardian is still undergoing development, but Zelim’s detection and conveyor belt technologies are already being trialed.

Back in 2017, the team began with the basics: spotting people in choppy waters and harsh weather conditions.

“Trying to find someone in the water is exceedingly difficult,” says Mayall, adding that eyesight is fallible and varies between individuals. “There’s inconsistency between my eyes at the beginning of a search and my eyes half an hour in.”

To combat this, Mayall’s team created an AI-powered software program that can be applied to existing camera feeds, like drones or CCTV.

Using data provided by the US Coastguard, Zelim’s machine-learning model is trained on more than five million images of real-life people in the water, and currently detects casualties in the water with 90% accuracy, Mayall says.

Spotting people is just one part of search and rescue — getting them out of the water rapidly is also critical.

In cold water, shock sets in within three minutes, which can cause hyperventilation, restricted blood flow, and ultimately, hypothermia. The Marine Accident Investigation Branch report found that on average, victims become unresponsive within 11 minutes of hitting cold water.

Zelim’s “Swift” conveyor belt is adapted to the maritime environment to get people out of the water quickly.

Traditionally, people are pulled out of the water using a davit winch, which takes around 10 minutes, says Laura Tognarelli, a former army engineering officer who joined Zelim in 2022 and oversees the rollout of its technology.

Swift, on the other hand, takes just 30 seconds.

“It’s not just about getting there quicker, it’s not just about finding them quicker, but it’s about the consistency and the speed and taking out the fatigue and the rescue as well,” says Tognarelli. “It takes away the stigma of needing to have a certain level of strength or endurance to work offshore and it allows that rescue to be open for everybody.”

“The most hazardous jobs”

The Swift conveyor system is currently undergoing trials, including with the Milford Haven Port Authority (MHPA), one of the largest energy ports in the UK.

“We were impressed by the simplicity of the design,” says Gareth Phillips, project manager at MHPA. Because it is easy to use, store and maintain, Phillips can see applications for Swift across a range of industries, including ports and offshore wind farms.

MHPA is planning to install Swift on one of its pilot vessels, which guide large ships in and out of the port. Marine pilots often board ships from their vessel, climbing up a ladder on the exterior of the hull. “Marine pilot transfer is probably one of the most hazardous jobs out there in the marine industry,” says Phillips.

Despite the upfront installation and development costs, the price of Swift is comparable to other spending on safety equipment, says Phillips — and if the trial is successful, MHPA plans to roll out the system across its pilot vessel fleet.

The maritime industry is slow to innovate, says Phillips, and the industry-standard rescue winches have been the same for decades. Zelim’s solutions offer a new, smarter way to approach maritime safety, he says.

“We have to ensure for our own people that we have the best possible life-saving equipment on our vessels,” he adds.