Bomb hoax threats to Indian airlines spark chaos

More than 90 fake bomb threats have been made against flights operated by multiple Indian airlines this week, Indian media reported Sunday, sparking fear among passengers and global delays.

All flights landed safely, but the spate of threats has resulted in planes being diverted to Canada and Germany, and fighter jets scrambled to escort aircraft in the skies above Britain and Singapore.

India’s government and civil aviation authorities have warned that “very strict action” will be taken.

New Delhi’s civil aviation authorities have not said how many threats have been received in the past week, but The Times of India and broadcaster News18 reported more than 70 hoaxes targeting both domestic and international flights since October 13.

At least 30 hoax threats were made on Saturday alone, and at least 20 more threats were made to different airlines on Sunday. India’s IndiGo airline confirmed threats were made against six of its flights on Sunday.

Two were on domestic routes, and four were international — linking Indian cities to Saudia Arabia’s Jeddah and Dammam, as well as two separate flights to Istanbul in Turkey.

“The safety and security of our passengers and crew is our highest priority,” IndiGo said in a statement. “We are working closely with the relevant authorities and taking all necessary precautions.”

The global impact of delays and diversions has been heavy on airline schedules and costs. At least one person — a minor — has been arrested in India, but the threats have continued.

“All others responsible for the disruptions will be identified and duly prosecuted,” India’s aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu said after the arrest on Wednesday.

A report in The Indian Express said that an anonymous account on X, formerly Twitter, was suspended after posting bomb threats to at least 40 flights on Friday and Saturday. This included both Indian and international airlines, including from the United States and New Zealand.

“There are bombs placed onboard… No one will make out alive. Hurry up and evacuate the plane,” read the identical messages from the suspended account, the newspaper reported.

Among the recent flights impacted was an Air India plane heading from Mumbai to New York, with US security officials sweeping the aircraft after its safe landing on Saturday.

Other flights that were impacted include an Air India plane from New Delhi to Chicago, which was forced to make an emergency landing in the far northern Canadian city of Iqaluit on Tuesday. Canada’s airforce had to fly the passengers onward.

The same day, Singapore scrambled fighter jets to escort an Air India Express plane. On Thursday, British RAF fighter jets escorted an Air India Boeing 777-300 after a threat was made against the plane, which landed safely in London.

SpaceX launches 20 Starlink internet satellites

SpaceX successfully carried out its 99th operational mission of the year, launching 20 Starlink satellites into orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Friday night.

The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 7:31 pm ET from Space Launch Complex 40, marking the 17th flight for this specific booster, which was successfully recovered on the "Just Read the Instructions" droneship in the Atlantic Ocean.

This mission marks a significant milestone for SpaceX, as it approaches a new annual record for launches.

With 71 missions from Florida alone, SpaceX is just one launch shy of matching its 2023 record of 72 launches from the Space Coast.

The company has conducted the majority of these launches, with only five handled by the United Launch Alliance.

Friday's mission also added to SpaceX's rapidly expanding Starlink constellation, bringing the total number of satellites launched for its satellite internet network to over 7,100 since 2019.

Notably, 13 of the satellites launched in this mission include direct-to-cell capabilities, part of SpaceX's continued efforts to enhance global internet coverage.

In total, SpaceX has launched 97 Falcon 9 missions in 2024, including this one, along with two Falcon Heavy missions.

Trudeau has wrecked Canada-India political relations, says expelled envoy

India's envoy to Canada, who is being expelled over what Ottawa says are links to the murder of a Sikh leader, insisted in an interview he was innocent and said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had wrecked bilateral political ties.

Both countries on Monday ordered out six diplomats in tit-for-tat moves over Ottawa's allegations that New Delhi was targeting Indian dissidents on Canadian soil.

Trudeau specifically tied the six to the murder of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar last year in British Columbia. Sanjay Kumar Verma, India's envoy to Canada, told CTV that Trudeau had been relying on intelligence rather than evidence.

"On the basis of intelligence, if you want to destroy a relationship, be my guest. And that's what he did," Verma said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

Asked whether he had had anything to with Nijjar's murder, Verma said: "Nothing at all. No evidence was presented. (This is) politically motivated."

Canada is home to the highest population of Sikhs outside their home state of Punjab and demonstrations in favor of a separate homeland carved out of India have irked New Delhi.

Meta releases AI model that can check other AI models' work

Facebook owner Meta said on Friday it was releasing a batch of new AI models from its research division, including a "Self-Taught Evaluator" that may offer a path toward less human involvement in the AI development process.

The release follows Meta's introduction of the tool in an August paper, which detailed how it relies upon the same "chain of thought" technique used by OpenAI's recently released o1 models to get it to make reliable judgments about models' responses.

That technique involves breaking down complex problems into smaller logical steps and appears to improve the accuracy of responses on challenging problems in subjects like science, coding and math.

Meta's researchers used entirely AI-generated data to train the evaluator model, eliminating human input at that stage as well.

The ability to use AI to evaluate AI reliably offers a glimpse at a possible pathway toward building autonomous AI agents that can learn from their own mistakes, two of the Meta researchers behind the project told Reuters.

Many in the AI field envision such agents as digital assistants intelligent enough to carry out a vast array of tasks without human intervention.

Self-improving models could cut out the need for an often expensive and inefficient process used today called Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback, which requires input from human annotators who must have specialized expertise to label data accurately and verify that answers to complex math and writing queries are correct.

"We hope, as AI becomes more and more super-human, that it will get better and better at checking its work, so that it will actually be better than the average human," said Jason Weston, one of the researchers.

"The idea of being self-taught and able to self-evaluate is basically crucial to the idea of getting to this sort of super-human level of AI," he said.

Other companies including Google and Anthropic have also published research on the concept of RLAIF, or Reinforcement Learning from AI Feedback. Unlike Meta, however, those companies tend not to release their models for public use.

Middle East, Ukraine wars in focus as G7 defence ministers meet in Italy

The Group of Seven (G7) defence ministers are meeting in Italy against a backdrop of brewing tensions in the Middle East and the drawn-out conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

The one-day gathering on Saturday marks the group’s first ministerial meeting dedicated to defence, and is being held in Naples, the southern Italian city that is also home to a NATO base.

In his address, Italian Minister of Defence Guido Crosetto said the global security framework is growing increasingly precarious due to competing world visions.

“The brutal Russian aggressions in Ukraine and the indeed critical situation in Middle East, combined with the profound instability of sub-Saharan Africa and the increasing tension in the Indo-Pacific region, highlight a deteriorated security framework,” Crosetto said in his opening speech.

“Ample space” would be given to discussing the escalating Middle East conflict during the one-day summit, Crosetto had said a day earlier in Brussels.

There is also deep concern over China’s military activities around Taiwan and heightened tensions along the border of North and South Korea.

Warning that forecasts for the near future “cannot be positive”, Crosetto said tensions were fuelled by “a common driver: the confrontation between two different, perhaps incompatible, visions of the world”.

On the one side are the countries and organisations that believe in a world order based on international law, said Crosetto, a prominent member of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy party.

“On the other side, [there are] those who systematically disrespect democracy to pursue their objectives, including by a deliberate use of military force.”

On Ukraine, the G7 ministers will contemplate Kyiv entering a third winter at war, battlefield losses in the east – and the prospect of reduced US military support should Donald Trump be elected to the White House next month.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, under mounting pressure from Western allies to forge a winning strategy against Russia, on Thursday presented what he called a “victory plan” to the European Union and NATO.

Under discussion will also likely be reports, based on South Korean intelligence, that North Korea is deploying large numbers of troops to support Moscow’s war against Ukraine. NATO was not yet able to confirm that intelligence, its Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Friday.

Drone launched from Lebanon targets Netanyahu's home

A drone was launched towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's home in the northern Israeli town of Caesarea on Saturday, his spokesman said, adding that the premier was not in the vicinity and there were no casualties.

Earlier, the Israeli military said that a drone was launched from Lebanon and that it had hit a building. It was not immediately clear what the building was.

Two more drones that crossed into Israeli territory were intercepted, the military said.

There were no casualties reported, according to the Israeli ambulance service and police said explosions had been heard in Caesarea, coastal town where Netanyahu has a holiday home.

The drone attack was not immediately claimed by the Lebanese Iran-backed group Hezbollah, which has been trading fire with Israel since last October, or any other group.

IAEA releases 2024 climate change and nuclear power report

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has released the 2024 edition of its Climate Change and Nuclear Power report, emphasizing the need for a substantial increase in investments to meet global nuclear power expansion targets.

This report was unveiled on the sidelines of the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) held in Brazil.

Amid growing global interest in nuclear energy as a means to enhance energy security and achieve decarbonization, the report indicates that nuclear power is set to play a crucial role in reaching net zero emissions by 2050. According to the IAEA's high case scenario, global nuclear power capacity could expand by 2.5 times its current level by mid-century.

The report calls for a sharp rise in global investment in nuclear energy, suggesting a requirement of $125 billion annually—significantly up from the $50 billion per year invested from 2017 to 2023. For those countries aiming to triple their nuclear capacity by 2050, as pledged at COP28, the investment would need to reach at least $150 billion annually.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi highlighted the challenges of financing nuclear projects, particularly in market-driven economies and developing nations. He noted that both private sector involvement and support from multilateral development banks are essential for making nuclear energy investments more accessible to these countries.

The report also focuses on strategies to unlock private sector funding, an area gaining significant attention. Last month, during New York Climate Week, 14 major financial institutions, including some of the largest global banks, expressed their interest in financing new nuclear projects.

At the report's launch event, organized alongside the CEM's Nuclear Innovation: Clean Energy Future (NICE) initiative, Jean-Francois Garnier, Head of the CEM Secretariat, emphasized the importance of making clean energy, including nuclear power, more affordable and accessible to accelerate global energy transitions.

Discussions at the event involved stakeholders from various countries and organizations, including the International Energy Agency (IEA) and representatives from the U.S., focusing on capital investment strategies for nuclear power. Attention also turned towards COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, where financing the clean energy transition will be a key topic.

Sylvia Beyer, Senior Energy Policy Analyst at the IEA, stressed the urgency of expanding nuclear capacity by 2035 to meet climate goals. She pointed out the need for robust financing mechanisms that support the development of workforce and supply chains essential for scaling nuclear power.

The report concludes by advocating for policy reforms, international collaborations, and regulatory frameworks to bridge the financing gap for nuclear power expansion, particularly in emerging markets and developing economies.