A Friday report by the United Nations says Iran is using advanced technology, including drones, facial recognition and a citizen-reporting app to crack down on violations of its mandatory hijab laws.
A key element of the effort is the government-backed Nazer app, which enables the police and “vetted” members of the public to report alleged violations by women in vehicles, including those in ambulances, mass transit and taxis.
The report describes the app as allowing users to upload the vehicle license plate, location and time of an alleged violation. It then, according to the report, alerts police. Then, according to the report, the app “triggers a text message (in real-time) to the registered owner of the vehicle, warning them that they had been found in violation of the mandatory hijab laws, and that their vehicles would be impounded for ignoring these warnings.”
According to the report, authorities are using drones in Tehran and the southern part of the country to monitor hijab compliance in public areas, as well as new facial recognition software said to have been installed last year at the entrance of Tehran’s Amirkabir University.
The report is to go to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday.
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SAN FRANCISCO — Social media giant Meta on Thursday announced it would begin testing its new “Community Notes” feature across its platforms on March 18, as it shifts away from third-party fact-checking toward a crowd-sourced approach to content moderation.
Meta’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced the new system in January as he appeared to align himself with the incoming Trump administration, including naming a Republican as the company’s head of public policy.
The change of system came after years of criticism from supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, among others, that conservative voices were being censored or stifled under the guise of fighting misinformation, a claim professional fact-checkers vehemently reject.
Meta has also scaled back its diversity initiatives and relaxed content moderation rules on Facebook and Instagram, particularly regarding certain forms of hostile speech.
The initiative, similar to the system already implemented by X (formerly Twitter), will allow users of Facebook, Instagram and Threads to write and rate contextual notes on various content.
Meta said approximately 200,000 potential contributors in the United States have already signed up across the three platforms.
The new approach requires contributors to be over 18 with accounts more than six months old that are in good standing.
During the testing period, notes will not immediately appear on content and the company will gradually admit people from the waitlist and thoroughly test the system before public implementation.
Meta emphasized that the notes will only be published when contributors with differing viewpoints agree on their helpfulness.
“This isn’t majority rules,” the company said.
Moreover, unlike fact-checked posts that often had reduced distribution, flagged content with Community Notes will not face distribution penalties.
Notes will be limited to 500 characters, must include supporting links and will initially support six languages commonly used in the United States: English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, French and Portuguese.
“Our intention is ultimately to roll out this new approach to our users all over the world, but we won’t be doing that immediately,” the company said.
“Until Community Notes are launched in other countries, the third party fact checking program will remain in place for them,” it added.
Meta said that it would not be “reinventing the wheel” and will use X’s open-source algorithm as the basis of its system.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last month warned that the rollbacks to fact-checking and moderation safeguards were “reopening the floodgates” of hate and violence online.
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BRUSSELS — Belgian federal prosecutors announced Thursday the arrests of several people as part of a corruption probe linked to the European Parliament amid reports in local media that Chinese company Huawei bribed EU lawmakers.
The arrests came as an investigation by Le Soir newspaper and other media said lobbyists working for the Chinese telecoms giant are suspected of bribing current or former European Parliament members to promote the company’s commercial policy in Europe.
About 100 federal police officers carried out 21 searches in Brussels, the Flanders and Wallonia regions, and Portugal, the federal prosecutor’s office said.
The suspects would be questioned over “alleged involvement in active corruption within the European Parliament, as well as for forgery and use of forgeries,” prosecutors said. “The offenses were allegedly committed by a criminal organization.”
Huawei public relations representatives in London did not respond to an emailed request for comment and could not be reached by phone.
The European Parliament said only that the assembly “takes note of the information” and “always cooperates fully with the judicial authorities.”
Huawei, which makes cellphones and is the biggest maker of networking gear for phone and internet carriers, has been caught in tensions between the United States and China over technology and trade.
Some European nations have followed Washington’s lead and banned Huawei’s equipment from next-generation mobile networks over allegations that it poses a security risk that could help facilitate Chinese spying. The company has repeatedly denied this.
European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said the EU’s executive branch had no comment regarding the investigation, but underlined security concerns the commission has about Huawei and Europe’s fifth-generation mobile phone networks.
“The security of our 5G networks is obviously crucial for our economy,” Regnier told reporters. “Huawei represents materially higher risks than other 5G suppliers.”
EU member states should swiftly “adopt decisions to restrict or to exclude Huawei from their 5G networks,” Regnier said. “A lack of swift action would expose the EU as a whole to a clear risk.”
The federal prosecutor’s office, which did not name Huawei, said it believes there was corruption “from 2021 to the present day” in various forms, “such as remuneration for taking political positions or excessive gifts such as food and travel expenses or regular invitations to football matches.”
Prosecutors say payments might have been disguised as business expenses and in some cases may have been directed to third parties. They would also look to “detect any evidence of money laundering.”
Police seized several documents and objects during the searches. Staff at Huawei’s offices in Brussels declined to comment and turned the lights off inside to avoid photographs taken through the window.
According to Follow The Money, an investigative journalism platform, one of the main suspects in the probe is 41-year-old Valerio Ottati, a Belgian Italian lobbyist who joined Huawei in 2019.
Before becoming Huawei’s EU public affairs director, Ottati was an assistant to two Italian MEPs who were both members of a European Parliament group dealing with China policy, Follow the Money reported.
This is the second corruption case targeting the EU Parliament in less than three years. In December 2022, the legislature was shaken by a corruption scandal in which Qatari officials were accused of bribing EU officials to play down labor rights concerns ahead of the soccer World Cup.
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An innovative solution to remotely power devices using natural biological processes could help farmers get the most from their fields. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more.
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — A launch pad problem prompted SpaceX to delay a flight to the International Space Station on Wednesday to replace NASA’s two stuck astronauts.
The new crew needs to get to the station so that Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams can head home after nine months in orbit.
Concerns about a critical hydraulic system arose less than four hours before the Falcon rocket’s planned evening liftoff from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. As the countdown clocks ticked down, engineers evaluated the hydraulics used to release one of the two arms clamping the rocket to its support structure. This structure needs to tilt back just before liftoff.
Already strapped into their capsule, the four astronauts awaited a final decision, which came down with less than an hour remaining in the countdown. SpaceX canceled for the day. The company did not immediately announce a new launch date but noted the next try could come as early as Thursday night.
Once at the space station, the U.S., Japanese and Russian crew will replace Wilmore and Williams. The two test pilots had to move into the space station for an extended stay after Boeing’s new Starliner capsule encountered major breakdowns in transit.
Starliner’s debut crew flight was supposed to last just a week, but NASA ordered the capsule to return empty and transferred Wilmore and Williams to SpaceX for the return leg.
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NEW DELHI — Encouraged by the enthusiastic reception to its DeepSeek artificial intelligence platform in January, China’s leaders are going all out to encourage AI companies to harness the power of this technology to compete with the United States and other countries in business and military spheres.
China considers AI an important tool to handle U.S. restrictions on Chinese business, particularly after DeepSeek shook up Wall Street, resulting in a loss of $589 billion for Nvidia stockholders in late January.
“The government in China works directly with the private sector and universities in the advancement and deployment of AI technology and are reducing their dependence on imports of high-technology products,” said Lourdes Casanova, director of Cornell University’s Emerging Markets Institute.
The past few weeks have seen China rolling out several new AI models, including Manus, which experts say can rival the latest model of ChatGPT. Industry experts were more than surprised to find that DeepSeek was equally efficient as ChatGPT, though it used older generation Nvidia chips. The U.S. has banned the supply of advanced chips.
“China and the U.S. have pulled way out front in the AI race. China used to be one to two years behind the U.S. Now, it is likely two to three months,” Jeffrey Towson, owner of Beijing-based TechMoat Consulting, told VOA.
“Alibaba’s Qwen is now a clear leader internationally in LLMs [large language models]. Chinese Kling AI and Minimax are arguably the global leaders in video generation,” Towson said.
Government involvement
In 2017, China released an AI development program to make the country a world leader by 2030. The government’s Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan said that AI would be adopted across different sectors and drive economic transformation.
“China has the most elaborate AI strategy compared to any other country,” Rogier Creemers, assistant professor in Modern Chinese Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands, told VOA.
China has established a National Computing Power Grid — somewhat like electricity grids — making it possible for Chinese AI companies to invest less in their own computing power. In the U.S., each company must fend for itself, Creemers said.
Competition
ChatGPT’s updated GPT4 large language model has gotten the attention of several top-ranking CEOs of Chinese tech companies. Baidu chief Robin Li recently said his firm was under “huge pressure and a sense of crisis” after seeing the updated ChatGPT. Baidu, which has launched Ernie Bot, said “the gap [between China] and leading international levels [in the field] has widened.”
“AI plus robotics is likely where China will take a commanding lead over the U.S., just like in EVs,” Towson said. “Chinese companies like Unitree are already pulling ahead. Watch for China to surprise everyone in personalized robots, industrial robots and speciality robots,” he said.
Communist Party control
Chinese President Xi Jinping recently convened a meeting with heads of private companies, including tech firms, calling on them to “show your talent” in overcoming challenges such as an economic slowdown and U.S. restrictions on Chinese business.
“There are discussions that the growth of large language models — the technology behind chatbots like DeepSeek and ChatGPT — may be hindered by media censorship, because the models will have less diverse data to work with,” said Creemers.
On the other hand, the government’s control ensures industrial policy coordination, which is helpful in the growth of AI in China.
China is focusing more on specialized software for health and other industries, which can largely tolerate political censorship. Chinese AI models are improving diagnostic accuracy in diverse areas from detecting rib fractures to cancer.
US ban on advanced chips
“It will take some time, but it would not be a surprise if China is also soon capable of building advanced chips for AI,” Cornell’s Casanova said.
Companies such as Huawei have shown that they can design and manufacture advanced chips successfully, thereby overcoming restrictions imposed by the U.S., she said.
Towson said China is 100% dedicated to building an independent semiconductor supply chain.
“It is advancing faster than anyone thought possible. But the frontier is always advancing, and it’s unclear how this will play out over time,” he said.
“But you can do a lot with software,” Creemers said. “China can work with more chips with less computing power or with fewer sophisticated chips.”
The risk for China is not limited to chips, because the Trump administration could impose restrictions on the Chinese AI model. It could also react to China’s restriction on the use of ChatGPT, because it can violate its censorship rules.
AI and the military
China’s air force is using AI-powered biometric tests to screen potential pilots as part of a rigorous hiring process, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
“AI now plays a crucial role in interpreting candidates’ biological signals, revealing underlying health risks that might not be immediately apparent to human evaluators,” CCTV said. “This data-driven approach allows the air force to predict long-term risks, ultimately ensuring that only the most suitable candidates are chosen.”
Chinese researchers have also revealed that the Chinese army has been using Meta’s publicly available Llama model to develop an AI tool for potential military applications.
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Just as discoveries of fossil fuel reserves helped to shape the 20th century, the race for critical minerals is shaping the 21st. These minerals are seen as strategically crucial for modern economies, including those used in construction, energy and manufacturing — particularly for semiconductors and other technology applications.

Where mineral resources are located and extracted has often played a major role in geopolitical and economic relations. Today, the world’s attention is turning to two places believed to be rich in untapped reserves — but accessing each of them comes with unique challenges.

Afghanistan

Sitting at the intersection of multiple tectonic plates, Afghanistan’s geology has resulted in extensive and diverse mineral deposits. Historically, its territory was a primary source of copper and gold as well as gems and semiprecious stones, particularly lapis lazuli, a stone prized for its intense blue color.

Today, Afghanistan is estimated to hold nearly $1 trillion worth of mineral reserves. This includes 60 million tons of copper, 183 million tons of aluminum and 2.2 billion tons of iron ore. Gold is mined on an artisanal scale in the northern and eastern provinces, while the mountainous north contains valuable marble and limestone deposits used in construction.

The China National Petroleum Corporation also pumps oil in the north, though Afghanistan has no domestic refining capability and is reliant on neighbors such as Turkmenistan, Iran and Kyrgyzstan for fuel.

Most of the international focus, however, is on Afghanistan’s other metal deposits, many of which are crucial to emerging technologies. These include cobalt, lithium and niobium, used in batteries and other electronics. The country’s unexplored lithium reserves may even exceed those of Bolivia, currently the world’s largest.

Afghanistan also holds major deposits of rare earth metals like lanthanum, cerium and neodymium, which are used for magnets and semiconductors as well as other specialized manufacturing applications.

One obstacle to extracting Afghanistan’s minerals is its terrain, considered the eighth most mountainous in the world. But security has been a much bigger impediment. Amid the political instability that followed the first fall of the Taliban in 2001, many gemstone and copper mines operated illegally under the command of local militants. With workers paid very little and the product smuggled out to be sold in neighboring Pakistan, the Afghan people saw little benefit from these extraction operations.

Since retaking power in 2021, the Taliban, who have been eager to make use of the country’s mineral wealth and increase exports, are hampered by a lack of diplomatic recognition and their designation as a terrorist group by multiple nations. This is, however, beginning to change, as some countries establish de facto diplomatic ties.

In 2024, the Taliban government’s resource ministry announced that it had secured investments from China, Qatar, Turkey, Iran and the United Kingdom. China, which was the first nation to accredit a Taliban-appointed ambassador, is expected to be a major player in Afghanistan’s extractive industries as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.

However, as newly discovered deposits require an average of 16 years to develop into operational mines, harnessing Afghanistan’s mineral potential will take a great deal of investment and time — if the political and security issues can somehow be worked out.

Greenland

For millions of years, Greenland has been mostly covered by an ice sheet, habitable only along coastal areas. Despite some offshore petroleum and gas exploration, fishing and whaling have remained the primary nongovernment industries.

Now, as ice recedes amid climate change, the large island’s frozen interior offers new opportunities in untapped mineral resources. These include more common metals such as copper and gold, as well as titanium and graphite. But as elsewhere, there is even greater interest in Greenland’s deposits of technology-critical minerals.

The autonomous Danish territory is estimated to contain deposits of 43 of the 50 minerals designated by the United States as crucial to national security. Among these are the sought-after rare earth metals, in addition to other metals with technological applications such as vanadium and chromium.

Currently, a majority of the world’s rare earth metals are mined in China, making Greenland’s deposits vital for countries seeking to reduce their dependence on Chinese imports. This strategic importance is one of the factors that led U.S. President Donald Trump to propose buying Greenland from Denmark.

Greenland’s government has issued nearly 100 mining licenses to companies like KoBold Metals and Rio Tinto. But these have mostly involved exploration, with only two mines currently operating in the country. Getting a mine to production can take as long as a decade, because it involves several unique challenges.

One such hurdle is Greenland’s strong environmentalist movement, which has successfully shut down mining projects for safety concerns. Rare earths pose a particular issue, because they must be extracted from other ores — a process that can cause waste and pollution. At the Kvanefjeld site in the south, metals were to be extracted from uranium ore until the fear of radioactive pollution led to a ban.

The receding ice and warming climate have made extraction easier not only by revealing more territory but also by extending possible working hours and easing ship navigation. However, the environment remains harsh and inhospitable, and the island suffers from a lack of infrastructure, with few roads or energy facilities outside major settlements. Nevertheless, Greenland’s government considers the mining industry to be an important means of developing the economy.

Conclusion

Shaped by both politics and geography, Greenland and Afghanistan have become two major frontiers in the global scramble for critical minerals. Which parties will have the opportunity to benefit from their resources will depend on the interplay of military power, economics and diplomacy. 
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The U.S. Department of Justice dropped a proposal Friday to force Alphabet’s Google to sell its investments in artificial intelligence companies, including OpenAI competitor Anthropic, to boost competition in online search.

The DOJ and a coalition of 38 state attorneys general still seek a court order requiring Google to sell its Chrome browser and take other measures aimed at addressing what a judge said was Google’s illegal search monopoly, according to court papers filed in Washington.

“The American dream is about higher values than just cheap goods and ‘free’ online services. These values include freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom to innovate, and freedom to compete in a market undistorted by the controlling hand of a monopolist,” prosecutors wrote.

A spokesperson for Google said the “sweeping proposals continue to go miles beyond the court’s decision, and would harm America’s consumers, economy and national security.”

A spokesperson for Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he would continue a crackdown on Big Tech, which began during his first term and continued into former U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration. Trump has tapped veteran antitrust attorney Gail Slater to lead the DOJ’s efforts.

Google holds a minority stake worth billions of dollars in Anthropic. Losing the investment would give a competitive advantage to OpenAI and its partner Microsoft, Anthropic wrote to the court in February.

Evidence prosecutors obtained since making their draft recommendation in November showed a risk that banning Google from AI investments “could cause unintended consequences in the evolving AI space,” they said in the final proposal Friday. They asked that Google be required to give prior notice to the government about future investments in generative AI.

Google, which has said it will appeal, has made its own proposal that would loosen agreements with Apple and others to set Google as the default search engine on new devices. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta has scheduled a trial on the proposals for April.

The blockbuster case is one of several U.S. antitrust cases against Big Tech companies. Apple, Meta Platforms and Amazon.com also face allegations of maintaining illegal monopolies in their respective markets.

Since Trump’s reelection, Google has sought to make the case that the DOJ’s approach in the case would hobble the company’s ability to compete in AI and “jeopardize America’s global economic and technological leadership.”

Many of the measures prosecutors proposed in November remain intact with a few tweaks.

For example, a requirement that Google share search query data with competitors now says that Google can charge a marginal fee for access and that the competitors must not pose a national security risk.

The proposal drew statements of support from Democratic and Republican attorneys general as well as the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday hosts top cryptocurrency players at the White House, a political boost for an industry that has struggled to gain legitimacy — and where the Republican president faces conflict of interest concerns.

The president’s “crypto czar,” Silicon Valley investor David Sacks, has invited prominent founders, CEOs and investors along with members of a Trump working group, to craft policies aimed at accelerating crypto growth, and providing legitimacy that the industry has long sought.

On Thursday night, Trump signed an executive order establishing a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve,” a move that Sacks said made good on a campaign promise to an increasingly important component of his coalition.

Summit guests include twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, founders of crypto platform Gemini, as well as Brian Armstrong of Coinbase and Michael Saylor, the boss of major bitcoin investor MicroStrategy.

In a post on X, Sacks said the event would take place as a roundtable, and despite industry interest, the White House would have to “keep it small.”

For believers, cryptocurrencies represent a financial revolution that reduces dependence on centralized authorities while offering individuals an alternative to traditional banking systems.

Bitcoin, the world’s most traded cryptocurrency, is heralded by advocates as a substitute for gold or a hedge against currency devaluation and political instability.

Memecoins

Critics, meanwhile, maintain that these assets function primarily as speculative investments with questionable real-world utility that could leave taxpayers on the hook for cleaning up if the market crashes.

The proliferation of “memecoins” — cryptocurrencies based on celebrities, internet memes, or pop culture items rather than technical utility — presents another challenge.

Much of the crypto industry frowns upon these tokens, fearing they tarnish the sector’s credibility, amid reports of quick pump-and-dump schemes that leave unwitting buyers paying for assets that end up worthless.

Trump also faces conflict of interest concerns.

U.S. crypto investors were major supporters of Trump’s presidential campaign, contributing millions of dollars toward his victory in hopes of ending the Biden administration’s deep skepticism toward digital currencies.

Trump also has significant financial ties to the sector, partnering with exchange platform World Liberty Financial and launching the “Trump” memecoin in January, as did his wife, Melania.

Once hostile to the crypto industry, Trump has already taken significant steps to clear regulatory hurdles.

Under Thursday’s executive order, the bitcoin stockpile will be composed of digital currency seized in U.S. criminal proceedings.

The use of these assets “means it will not cost taxpayers a dime,” Sacks said in a post Thursday night on X.

Sacks has said that if previous administrations had held onto their digital holdings over the past decade, they would be worth $17 billion today.

Trump also appointed crypto advocate Paul Atkins to head the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Under Atkins, the SEC has dropped legal proceedings against major platforms like Coinbase and Kraken that were initiated during Biden’s term.

The previous administration had implemented restrictions on banks holding cryptocurrencies — which have since been lifted — and allowed former SEC chairman Gary Gensler to pursue aggressive enforcement.

However, meaningful change will likely require congressional action, where crypto legislation has remained stalled despite intense lobbying efforts led by investors, including Trump ally Marc Andreessen, an influential venture capitalist.
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President Donald Trump is signaling a major change in how the U.S. will support growth in key domestic industries such as semiconductors. Michelle Quinn reports.
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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — A U.S. judge on Tuesday denied Elon Musk’s request to prevent OpenAI from becoming a for-profit business in a loss for the Tesla tycoon amid his feud with Sam Altman. 

U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Musk and his xAI startup failed to prove an injunction against OpenAI was necessary as the case heads to trial. 

Musk sued in California federal court to stop OpenAI from transitioning from a nonprofit to a for-profit business, arguing the startup violated antitrust law and betrayed his trust in their mission as a co-founder of OpenAI. 

The judge wrote that, while Musk did not prove the need for an injunction, she is prepared to expedite a trial on that claim later this year. 

The ruling leaves OpenAI free to continue its transition from nonprofit to for-profit enterprise. 

Musk’s injunction bid argued that OpenAI’s co-founders, including chief executive Altman, “took advantage of Musk’s altruism in order to lure him into funding the venture,” according to court documents. 

Musk contended in filings that it was clear his backing of OpenAI was contingent on it remaining a nonprofit, offering a few email exchanges to support the claim. 

“Whether Musk’s emails and social media posts constitute a writing sufficient to constitute an actual contract or charitable trust between the parties is debatable,” the judge said in her ruling. 

OpenAI’s board chairman in February rejected a Musk-led offer to buy the valuable artificial intelligence company for $97.4 billion. 

“OpenAI is not for sale, and the board has unanimously rejected Mr. Musk’s latest attempt to disrupt his competition,” OpenAI Board Chair Bret Taylor said in a statement posted by the company on Musk-owned X, formerly Twitter. 

OpenAI currently operates in a hybrid structure, as a nonprofit with a money-making subsidiary. 

The change to a for-profit model, one that Altman says is crucial for the company’s development, has exacerbated ongoing tensions with Musk. 

Musk and Altman were among the 11-person team that founded OpenAI in 2015, with the former providing initial funding of $45 million.  

Three years later, Musk left the company, with OpenAI citing “a potential future conflict for Elon … as Tesla continues to become more focused on AI.” 

Musk established his own artificial intelligence company, dubbed xAI, in early 2023 after OpenAI ignited global fervor over the technology. 

The massive cost of designing, training, and deploying AI models has compelled OpenAI to seek a new corporate structure that would give investors equity and provide more stable governance. 
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Chinese tech firms and state media have spotlighted humanoid robots, which have grown in popularity since the Unitree G1 appeared to run, jump, dance and perform martial arts-like movements in a recent demonstration.

Both the United States and China are leaders in humanoid robot technology. But industry analysts believe that the United States is superior in AI technology, which is responsible for the robot’s “brain,” while Chinese technology companies have flourished in the hardware manufacturing capabilities of the robot’s “body.”

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
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