“This B-Side episode delves into the world of AI and ethics with Carl M. Javier, chief AI ethicist and executive director of Data and AI Ethics PH. It explores how artificial intelligence, a technology disruptive in both good and bad ways, impacts human dignity.
While AI can worsen inequality – posing challenges for nations like the Philippines that still grapple with Internet access – making this technology “”more human”” depends on collective efforts to define humanity and build equitable systems.
Interview by Patricia Mirasol Audio editing by Jayson Mariñas
Locally made goodies await you — discover your next favorite snack at the VIYLine MSME Caravan at SM City Fairview from June 18-24.
Quezon City, are you ready? From June 18 to 24, the VIYLine MSME Caravan is making its next big stop at SM City Fairview, bringing together some of the most exciting local brands in one dynamic celebration of Filipino entrepreneurship, creativity, and grit.
Following the success of its earlier legs in SM City Dasmariñas, SM City Bacoor, SM City San Pablo, SM City Santa Rosa, and SM City Calamba, the VIYLine MSME Caravan has been winning hearts — and carts — across the country. With each stop, the movement continues to shine a spotlight on micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that represent the best of local innovation and style.
Support Filipino entrepreneurs and score your next wardrobe staple at the VIYLine MSME Caravan.
Organized by VIYline Group of Companies in partnership with SM Supermalls, this highly anticipated caravan gives MSMEs a platform to showcase their proudly Pinoy products — from beauty and skincare essentials, healthy snacks, fashion and lifestyle pieces, to charming home finds.
More than just a shopping destination, the VIYline MSME Caravan is a platform for discovery: of new favorites, of small business stories, and of the Filipino dream in action. With interactive booths, exclusive deals, and exciting surprises, this is the perfect place to support local and shop with purpose.
Spice up your meals with proudly Pinoy flavors, such as Cong TV’s King Sisig in a Jar: Pork BBQ and Lechon Sisig.
“SM remains committed to helping Filipino MSMEs thrive by giving them meaningful opportunities to grow in high-foot-traffic spaces,” said SM Supermalls Executive Vice-President for Marketing Jonjon San Agustin. “Through our collaboration with VIYline, we continue to create spaces where small businesses can shine and scale.”
So if you’re looking to explore new finds, meet local entrepreneurs, and celebrate Filipino talent, make sure to swing by the VIYline MSME Caravan at SM City Fairview from June 18 to 24.
The VIYLine MSME Caravan showcases exciting local brands and Filipino entrepreneurship.
Support local. Spark change. Be part of the VIYline MSME Caravan movement.
About SM Supermalls MSMEs
SM Supermalls, owned by SM Prime Holdings, is the leading mall developer and operator in the Philippines. As a staunch advocate for MSMEs, SM Supermalls is dedicated to helping Filipino entrepreneurs succeed. Join our thriving marketplace across 80+ malls nationwide. Visit msme.smsupermalls.com to download your MSME application or email us at customercare@smsupermalls.com with your most innovative product and preferred location. Don’t miss this opportunity to grow your business with SM Supermalls today!
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Philippine central bank Governor Eli M. Remolona Jr. said authorities are prepared to intervene more strongly in the foreign-exchange market should the decline in the peso threaten inflation.
“The effect of the exchange rate on inflation depends on how big the depreciation is, and we have estimates of that threshold,” Mr. Remolona said in an interview with CNBC on Friday. “We would come in somewhat more forcefully than before” once such threshold is breached, he said.
While Mr. Remolona reiterated his comments this week that it would be futile to step in to defend the peso in the face of the dollar’s strength, he is also outlining the limit of the central bank’s tolerance for weakness in the currency.
“We do worry about the peso weakening too much; at some point it becomes inflationary,” the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) governor said.
The peso slid about 2.6% this month, the worst performer in emerging markets, as higher oil prices fueled by the Israel-Iran tensions weighed on sentiment. The Philippines imports almost all of its oil requirement, making the currency vulnerable to rising energy costs globally.
The peso rose 0.5% to 57.15 per dollar on Friday, snapping eight days of losses. — Bloomberg
United Kingdom (UK) Trade Envoy George Freeman MP said that he is looking to identify deep partnership areas that could help double bilateral trade in the next three to four years.
“Over the next three or four years, I am looking to identify some strategic projects and deep partnership areas that we could develop,” Mr. Freeman told reporters in a roundtable discussion on Friday.
“There are a few areas that I am keen to explore. But by deepening and having a strategic partnership, I think that three billion number, I would like to increase that substantially over the next three or four years,” he added.
Bilateral trade between the Philippines and the UK reached an all-time high last year of 3 billion pounds.
Mr. Freeman is in the Philippines for a three-day mission to meet business leaders and government officials.
Asked if it is possible to double the bilateral trade in the next three to four years, he said, “Yes, is basically the answer. And this is really the point I was making about strategic partnerships.”
“If we develop a partnership around the digital economy, cybersecurity, tackling fraud, and giving Filipinos access to secure online trading, that alone, over the next five or ten years, if we are serious about it, can bring in a lot more UK investment into the Philippines,” he added.
He said that such fundamental and structural partnerships create a growth engine of their own.
In 2024, the Philippines ended at a surplus in terms of trade with the UK, exporting approximately 1.8 billion pounds.
Lindsey Gilbert-Crouch, director of trade and investment at the British Embassy Manila, said that the food industry is among the potential areas for growth in terms of Philippine exports to the UK.
“People in the UK are becoming ever more health conscious, and there is a lot of food in the Philippines that is incredibly in demand in the UK,” she said.
“So, I am thinking coconuts and coconut products, mangoes, dried fruits in particular, bananas, but really fruits and vegetables, particularly dried products, are a really key growth area,” she added.
She also said that there is also demand for Filipino artisanal products.
“They do not want fast fashion; they do not want mass-produced stuff. And this is something where Filipinos are incredibly talented,” she said.
“The most beautiful products are produced here, leather goods and other things in that area,” she added.
LONDON – The World Bank is urging “radical” debt transparency for developing countries and their lenders to stave off future crises, it said in a report released on Friday.
The Bank wants to broaden the depth and detail of what sovereign countries disclose regarding new loans, as more of them enter complex, off-budget borrowing deals due to global market turmoil.
“When hidden debt surfaces, financing dries up and terms worsen,” World Bank senior managing director Axel van Trotsenburg said in a statement, adding: “Radical debt transparency, which makes timely and reliable information accessible, is fundamental to break the cycle.”
The Bank wants countries to make legal and regulatory reforms that mandate transparency when signing new loan contracts and to share more granular debt data.
It also wants more regular audits, the public release of debt restructuring terms, and for creditors to open their loan and guarantee books.
It is calling for better tools for international financial institutions to detect misreporting.
The World Bank and other multilateral banks have been pressing for years to improve lending transparency. The proportion of low-income countries reporting some debt data is now above 75%, up from below 60% in 2020.
But only 25% of them disclose loan-level information. As financing costs spike due to trade wars and geopolitical risk, more countries are using arrangements such as central bank swaps and collateralized transactions that complicate reporting.
Senegal has used private debt placements as it negotiates with the International Monetary Fund over misreporting of its previous debts, and Cameroon and Gabon have also used what are known as “off-screen” deals.
Angola recently had to pay a $200-million margin call after a rout in its bond prices. In Nigeria, the central bank disclosed in early 2023 that billions of U.S. dollars of its foreign exchange reserves were tied up in complex financial contracts negotiated by the previous leadership.
The Bank said broader loan coverage and deeper loan-by-loan disclosures would enable the international community to fully assess public debt exposure. – Reuters
A North Korea flag flutters next to concertina wire at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia March 9, 2017. — REUTERS/EDGAR SU/FILE PHOTO
SEOUL – A decade after a landmark U.N. report concluded North Korea committed crimes against humanity, a U.N. official investigating rights in the isolated state told Reuters many abuses continue, exacerbated by COVID-era controls that have yet to be lifted.
James Heenan, who represents the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Seoul, said he is still surprised by the continued prevalence of executions, forced labor and reports of starvation in the authoritarian country.
Later this year Heenan’s team will release a follow-up report to the 2014 findings by the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which said the government had committed “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations” that constituted crimes against humanity.
DPRK is North Korea’s official name.
While the conclusions of this year’s report are still being finalized, Heenan told Reuters in an interview that the last 10 years have seen mixed results, with North Korea’s government engaging more with some international institutions, but doubling down on control at home.
“The post-COVID period for DPRK means a period of much greater government control over people’s lives and restrictions on their freedoms,” he said in the interview.
North Korea’s embassy in London did not answer phone calls seeking comment. The government has in the past denied abuses and accused the U.N. and foreign countries of trying to use human rights as a political weapon to attack North Korea.
A Reuters investigation in 2023 found leader Kim Jong Un had spent much of the COVID pandemic building a massive string of walls and fences along the previously porous border with China, and later built fences around the capital of Pyongyang.
A report this week by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said the COVID pandemic raged in North Korea for more than two years before the regime admitted in May 2022 that the virus had permeated its borders, and that the regime bungled the response in a way that violated freedoms and left most citizens to fend for themselves.
On Wednesday SI Analytics, a Seoul-based satellite imagery firm, released a report noting North Korea is renovating a key prison camp near the border with China, possibly in response to international criticism, while simultaneously strengthening physical control over prisoners under the pretense of facility improvement.
Heenan said his team has talked to more than 300 North Koreans who fled their country in recent years, and many expressed despair.
“Sometimes we hear people saying they sort of hope a war breaks out, because that might change things,” he said.
A number of those interviewees will speak publicly for the first time next week as part of an effort to put a human face on the U.N. findings.
“It’s a rare opportunity to hear from people publicly what they want to say about what’s happening in the DPRK,” Heenan said.
He expressed concern about funding cuts for international aid and U.N. programs around the world, which is pressuring human rights work and threatening support for North Korean refugees.
While human rights has traditionally been a politically volatile subject not only for Pyongyang but for foreign governments trying to engage with the nuclear-armed North, Heenan said the issues like prison camps need to be part of any engagement on a political settlement.
“There’s no point self-censoring on human rights, because… no one’s fooled,” he said. – Reuters
A federal judge on Thursday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from forcing 20 Democratic-led states to cooperate with immigration enforcement in order to receive billions of dollars in transportation grant funding.
Chief U.S. District Judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island ruled that the U.S. Department of Transportation lacked authority to require the states to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to obtain transportation funding and that the condition violated the U.S. Constitution.
Mr. McConnell said the administration provided no plausible connection between cooperating with immigration enforcement and the purposes Congress intended for the funding, which is to support highways, bridges and other transportation projects.
“Congress did not authorize or grant authority to the Secretary of Transportation to impose immigration enforcement conditions on federal dollars specifically appropriated for transportation purposes,” Mr. McConnell wrote.
The judge, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, issued a preliminary injunction preventing such a condition from being enforced against the 20 states that sued along with their government subdivisions, like cities.
The Trump administration did not respond to a request for comment. It has argued the policy was within the department’s discretion.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by a group of Democratic state attorneys general who argued the administration was seeking to unlawfully hold federal funds hostage to coerce them into adhering to the Republican president’s hardline immigration agenda.
They sued after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on April 24 notified states they could lose transportation funding if they do not cooperate with the enforcement of federal law, including with ICE in its efforts to enforce immigration law.
Since returning to office on January 20, Trump has signed several executive orders that have called for cutting off federal funding to so-called sanctuary jurisdictions that do not cooperate with ICE, as his administration has moved to conduct mass deportations.
Sanctuary jurisdictions generally have laws and policies that limit or prevent local law enforcement from assisting federal officers with civil immigration arrests.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, in a statement, hailed McConnell’s ruling, saying Trump had been “treating these funds – funds that go toward improving our roads and keeping our planes in the air – as a bargaining chip.”
The 20 states are separately pursuing a similar case also in Rhode Island, challenging new immigration enforcement conditions the Homeland Security Department imposed on grant programs. – Reuters
LONDON – British lawmakers will vote on Friday on whether to proceed with legislation to legalize assisted dying for the terminally ill, in what would be the biggest social reform in the country for a generation.
Below is a list of countries which let people choose to end their lives, or are considering doing so.
SWITZERLAND
Switzerland legalized assisted dying in 1942 on the condition the motive is not selfish, making it the first country in the world to permit the practice. A number of Swiss organizations such as Dignitas offer their services to foreign nationals.
UNITED STATES
Medical aid in dying, also known as physician assisted dying, is legal in 10 states: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Montana, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, plus the District of Columbia. Oregon was the first state to legalize it under a law which came into effect in 1997.
NETHERLANDS
The “Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Review Procedures) Act” came into effect in 2002. A doctor is immune from punishment for euthanasia and assisted suicide where patients are experiencing “unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement”. Minors can request euthanasia from the age of 12 but require parental permission before the age of 16.
BELGIUM
Belgium legalized medically assisted dying in 2002 for the terminally ill and for people experiencing unbearable suffering, which includes patients with psychiatric conditions. Since 2014, those under 18 who are terminally ill are covered by the law as long as they have parental permission.
CANADA
Canada introduced “Medical Assistance in Dying” in 2016 for those whose death was deemed to be “reasonably foreseeable”. Five years later, the law was extended to permit people with a “grievous and irremediable” medical condition to request assisted dying.
AUSTRALIA
Voluntary assisted dying for the terminally ill or those with a condition that is causing intolerable suffering is legal in most Australian states, after being introduced first in Victoria in 2019.
SPAIN
Spain approved a law in 2021 which allows euthanasia and medically assisted suicide for people with incurable or debilitating diseases who want to end their life.
GERMANY
Assisted dying had been legal in Germany until 2015 when the country outlawed its provision on an organized or commercial basis, effectively banning it in many cases. Five years later the country’s top court ruled in favor of groups providing terminally ill adults with assisted suicide services, but lawmakers are yet to finalize new rules.
FRANCE
Doctors in France have been allowed to put a person who is close to death and in great pain under deep sedation since 2016. But they were not allowed to administer life-ending medication.
French lawmakers voted in May 2025 to give some people in the later stages of a terminal illness the right to end their lives using a lethal substance, a law change supported by President Emmanuel Macron. The bill was approved by the National Assembly and is now being considered by the Senate. It could become law by 2027.
IRELAND
A cross-party Irish parliamentary committee recommended this year that the government should legalize assisted dying in certain restricted circumstances.
A majority of lawmakers in 2024 voted in favor of “noting” the committee’s findings. Steps could now be taken to consider a law change. – Reuters
Expanding Project Arkanghel. During Schneider Electric’s Innovation Day, AboitizPower Transition
Business Group President and COO Celso Caballero III (R) announces a strategic initiative to expand the
application of artificial intelligence and data analytics to AboitizPower’s coal-fired power plants in Luzon
and Visayas, transitioning them to become smart facilities.
Technological innovation in AboitizPower’s power plants
Driven by technology and innovation, smart power plants are achieving greater operational reliability and efficiency amidst the transition to cleaner energy systems.
Operational reliability and efficiency in power generation are crucial to the Philippine energy grid, especially as it is expected to absorb both an increase in electricity demand and variable renewable energy capacities in the coming years.
With fewer downtimes and more proactive maintenance activities, smart power plants figure into the bigger picture of centering energy security — or having a sufficient power supply with reliable access — in the grand journey of the energy transition.
Living out its purpose of Transforming Energy for a Better World and partaking in the Aboitiz Group’s Great Transformation, Aboitiz Power Corporation (AboitizPower) intends to pioneer sustainable energy solutions powered by advanced technologies and human ingenuity.
Smart conventional power plants
Under Project Arkanghel, AboitizPower has set a goal to transform its existing coal-fired power plants to become smart power plants through artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics. Its first phase in the 300-megawatt Therma South Plant in Davao City is already up and running, with expansion set towards the 340-megawatt Therma Visayas Plant in Toledo City, Cebu this year and another conventional plant in Luzon in 2026.
Specialized drones. The operations and maintenance of AboitizPower’s Cayanga-Bugallon Solar Power facility in Pangasinan is supported by drone technology, allowing for precision and boosting maintenance efficiency.
Project Arkanghel establishes a Unified Operations Center, which includes digital twin technologies, anomaly detection and early warning systems, and an “end-to-end” fully integrated live asset health monitoring system. This empowers engineers to predict potential issues and optimize plant operations.
AI-based systems have the potential to help maximize the efficiency of plants, which means lower heat rates, better fuel efficiency, reduced outage days and longer intervals between planned outages. With its data-driven intelligence, these systems enable engineers to do bolder and more accurate decision-making.
By embracing digital transformation, AboitizPower is optimizing its operations to enable faster, more informed decision-making. This enhances the reliability and availability of its baseload power plants, helping ensure a stable grid amidst growing energy demand.
Strengthening the performance of its baseload facilities helps provide a stable foundation for integrating more renewables into the power system. As the Philippines experiences population and economic growth, dependable and resilient power will be essential in sustaining progress.
In developing Project Arkanghel, AboitizPower has partnered with Thailand-based company REPCO NEX Industrial Solutions. The project also utilizes AVEVA Predictive Analytics, a Schneider Electric solution, to analyze historical data, recognize patterns, and provide early warning detection.
Smart renewable energy facilities
AboitizPower’s investments in technology include its National Operations Control Center (NOCC) managed by its renewable energy arm, Aboitiz Renewables, Inc. This first of its kind in the Philippine power generation sector allows for the operation and monitoring of 28 renewable energy facilities all from one location.
National Operations Control Center. AboitizPower’s control center, which allows for the operation and monitoring of 28 renewable energy facilities, is run by talented engineer top-notchers all from one location.
Despite most of the plants being in faraway, mountainous areas, NOCC engineers can observe, make decisions, and control its operations from their computer. Monitoring and data collection are also streamlined, making it easier to consolidate data for strategizing and meeting regulatory requirements.
With operational control and data collection being centralized in the NOCC, operators utilize data analytics, data science, and A.I. for better resource management, leading to more efficient operations and dispatch of the hydropower and solar facilities integrated in the system. The NOCC also allows for faster communication of detected plant anomalies within its regulated ecosystem, contributing to minimized downtime and losses.
At the same time, in some of AboitizPower’s hydropower and solar power plants, specialized drones are being deployed to make maintenance and rehabilitation activities more efficient.
Power plant operators would no longer have to manually visit and inspect each solar panel, conveyance line, or any other component of a renewable energy facility if a drone can do it for them.
Using drones makes inspections quicker, saving AboitizPower a lot of resources since it initially takes significant time and effort for a person to check on the Company’s assets given the sheer size and scope of its facilities.
Outfitted with high-resolution cameras and other onboard sensing equipment, the drones diagnose maintenance requirements faster, resulting in less downtime and more reliability in clean power generation.
The drones have empowered the operators to take preemptive measures, preventing costly breakdowns and ensuring the power plant’s capability to generate electricity. The data collected through drone inspections served as the foundation for a thorough evaluation and design process leading to focused maintenance activities and improvements in the infrastructure.
AboitizPower
AboitizPower is one of the largest power producers and distributors in the Philippines, with a balanced portfolio of assets located in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. To date, together with its partners, it offers the largest renewable energy portfolio in the country based on installed capacity under its operational control. It also has thermal power plants in its generation portfolio to support baseload and peak energy demands.
In step with the country’s ambitions for its energy mix, AboitizPower aims to grow its portfolio of generation assets with renewables and selected baseload builds.
The Aboitiz Group launched its Great Transformation campaign in 2022 to become the Philippines’ first Techglomerate, leveraging resources and cross-company synergies to deliver more stakeholder value and help tech-up the Philippine economy.
Beyond the technological shift, the Great Transformation also signals a change in human behavior, especially as navigating adversities and opportunities still hinges on the quality of the people, including their capacity and willingness to learn and innovate.
By focusing on the operational reliability and efficiency of its generation portfolio and putting a premium on people development, AboitizPower is helping strengthen energy security and deliver reliable power amidst the Philippine energy transition.
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Israeli and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, April 24, 2024.
— REUTERS/DADO RUVIC/ILLUSTRATION
TEL AVIV/DUBAI/WASHINGTON – Israel bombed nuclear targets in Iran on Thursday and Iran fired missiles and drones at Israel after hitting an Israeli hospital overnight, as a week-old air war escalated with no sign yet of an exit strategy from either side.
That might not be a firm deadline, as Trump has commonly used “two weeks” as a timeframe for making decisions. Meanwhile, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi have spoken by phone several times since last week, sources say.
Israel has been hitting Iran from the air since last Friday in what it describes as an effort to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. Iran has denied plans to develop such weapons and has retaliated by launching counterstrikes on Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tehran’s “tyrants” would pay the “full price” for a strike that damaged the Soroka medical center in Israel’s southern city of Beersheba
“Are we targeting the downfall of the regime? That may be a result, but it’s up to the Iranian people to rise for their freedom,” Netanyahu said.
Israeli military spokesperson Brigadier General Effie Defrin accused Iran of deliberately targeting civilians in the hospital attack by using a missile that scattered smaller bombs over a wider area. It was the first reported use of cluster munitions in the seven-day-old war.
“That is state-sponsored terror and a blatant violation of international law,” Defrin told a press briefing.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had targeted Israeli military and intelligence headquarters near the hospital. An Israeli military official denied there were military targets nearby.
Israel attacked the special forces headquarters of the internal security apparatus in Tehran in the last 24 hours, Defrin said. Earlier, Defense Minister Israel Katz said the military had been instructed to intensify strikes on strategic-related targets in Tehran in order to eliminate the threat to Israel and destabilize the rule of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
As darkness fell on Thursday evening, Iranian media reported that air defenses were engaging “hostile targets” in northern Tehran.
Israel’s airstrikes aim to do more than destroy Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and missile capabilities. They seek to shatter the foundations of Khamenei’s government and leave it near collapse, Israeli, Western and regional officials said.
Netanyahu wants Iran weakened enough to be forced into fundamental concessions on permanently abandoning its nuclear enrichment, its ballistic missile program and its support for militant groups across the region, the sources said.
In an apparent reference to the U.S., Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said it would use a different strategy if a “third party” joined Israel in the war.
STRIKES ON NUCLEAR SITES
Earlier, Israel said it had struck Iran’s Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites. It also targeted the partially built Arak heavy-water research reactor, also known as Khondab, in central Iran.
Airbus Defense satellite imagery published by the Open Source Centre, a London-based research group, showed a large, blackened hole in the roof of the Arak reactor and destroyed heavy water distillation towers nearby.
Heavy-water reactors produce plutonium, which, like enriched uranium, can be used to make the core of an atom bomb.
David Albright, a former U.N. nuclear inspector and head of the Institute for Science and International Security, said the Israelis hit the facility because of concerns about Iran’s declared intention to begin operating the reactor next year.
The Iranians “play all these different games so Israel took it out,” he said.
Israeli air and missile strikes have wiped out the top echelon of Iran’s military command and killed hundreds of people. Iranian retaliatory strikes have killed at least two dozen civilians in Israel.
On Thursday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said it had launched combined missile and drone attacks at military and industrial sites linked to Israel’s defense industry in Haifa and Tel Aviv.
Iran has been weighing wider options in responding to the biggest security challenge since its 1979 revolution. A member of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security Committee Presidium, Behnam Saeedi, told the semi-official Mehr news agency Iran could consider closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of daily global oil consumption passes.
‘STAY AWAY FROM OUR COUNTRY’
Israel, which has the most advanced military in the Middle East, has been fighting on several fronts since the October 7, 2023, attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas triggered the Gaza war.
It has severely weakened Iran’s regional allies, Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and has bombed Yemen’s Houthis.
The extent of the damage inside Iran has become more difficult to assess in recent days.
Iran has stopped giving updates on the death toll, and state media have ceased showing widespread images of destruction. The internet has been almost completely shut down, and the public has been banned from filming.
Arash, 33, a government employee in Tehran, said a building next to his home in Tehran’s Shahrak-e Gharb neighborhood had been destroyed in the strikes.
“I saw at least three dead children and two women in that building. Is this how Netanyahu plans to ‘liberate’ Iranians? Stay away from our country,” he told Reuters by telephone. – Reuters
SpaceX’s massive Starship spacecraft exploded into a dramatic fireball during testing in Texas late on Wednesday, the latest in a series of setbacks for billionaire Elon Musk’s Mars rocket program.
The explosion occurred around 11 p.m. local time while Starship was on a test stand at its Brownsville, Texas Starbase while preparing for the tenth test flight, SpaceX said in a post on Mr. Musk’s social-media platform X.
The company attributed it to a “major anomaly” and said all personnel were safe. Its engineering teams were investigating the incident, and it was coordinating with local, state and federal agencies regarding environmental and safety impacts, the company said.
“Preliminary data suggests that a nitrogen COPV in the payload bay failed below its proof pressure,” Mr. Musk said in a post on X, in a reference to a nitrogen gas storage unit known as a Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel. “If further investigation confirms that this is what happened, it is the first time ever for this design,” he continued.
The Starship rocket appeared to experience at least two explosions in quick succession, lighting up the night sky and sending debris flying, according to video capturing the moment it exploded.
The 400-foot (122-meter) tall Starship rocket system is at the core of Mr. Musk’s goal of sending humans to Mars. But it has been beset by a string of failures this year.
In late May, SpaceX’s Starship rocket spun out of control about halfway through a flight without achieving some of its most important testing goals. The Starship lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase, Texas, launch site, flying beyond the point of two previous explosive attempts earlier this year that sent debris streaking over Caribbean islands and forced dozens of airliners to divert course.
Two months earlier, the spacecraft exploded in space minutes after lifting off from Texas, prompting the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to halt air traffic in parts of Florida.
Videos on social media showed fiery debris streaking through the dusk skies near South Florida and the Bahamas after Starship broke up in space shortly after it began to spin uncontrollably with its engines cut off, a SpaceX live stream of the mission showed. Mr. Musk called that explosion “a minor setback.”
The FAA said earlier this month that it had closed an agency-required investigation into the mishap, citing the probable cause as a hardware failure in one of the engines. SpaceX identified eight corrective actions to prevent a recurrence and the FAA said it verified SpaceX implemented those prior to the late May Starship mission.
In January, a Starship rocket broke up in space minutes after launching from Texas, raining debris over Caribbean islands and causing minor damage to a car in the Turks and Caicos Islands. – Reuters
VIENNA – U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi on Thursday identified Isfahan, home to one of Iran’s biggest nuclear facilities, as the location of a uranium enrichment plant that Iran said it would soon open in retaliation for a diplomatic push against it.
The day before Israel launched its military strikes against Iranian targets including nuclear facilities last Friday, Iran announced it had built a new uranium enrichment facility, which it would soon equip and bring online. Tehran did not provide details such as the plant’s location.
Iran’s announcement was part of its retaliation against a resolution passed by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors declaring Tehran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations over issues including its failure to credibly explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites.
Had it gone online, the new enrichment plant would have been the fourth in operation in Iran. But Israel’s attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities destroyed one of those plants and put another out of action by killing its power supply, the IAEA has said.
“There was an announcement, quite coincidentally, on the eve of the start of the military operation by Israel of a new enrichment facility in Isfahan, precisely, that we were going to be inspecting immediately, but this inspection had to be postponed, we hope, because of the start of the military operation,” Mr. Grossi said.
He did not say where exactly in Isfahan the planned plant was, but he said the nuclear complex there is “huge”.
The IAEA has previously reported that Israeli military strikes on Friday damaged four buildings at Isfahan, including the Uranium Conversion Facility that transforms “yellowcake” uranium into the uranium hexafluoride feedstock for centrifuges so that it can be enriched.
Mr. Grossi told the BBC on Monday that the “underground spaces” at Isfahan did not seem to have been affected. Officials say those spaces are also where much of Iran’s most highly enriched uranium stock has been stored.
The IAEA has not, however, been able to carry out any inspections since the strikes. – Reuters
