BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AFP) -- Kyrgyzstan on Monday accused the United States of meddling in its internal affairs after Washington criticized the Central Asian country for mirroring legislation used in Russia. A new bill would require organizations that get money from abroad to register as “foreign representatives”, a label with Soviet-era connotations similar to Russia’s “foreign agent” law. President Sadyr Japarov responded to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who had written to him to express concern about the bill. “I have to note with regret that the content of your letter has signs of interference in the internal affairs of our state,” Japarov wrote in the letter, published by his spokesman. He said there are “tens of thousands” of non-government organizations “successfully working” in Kyrgyzstan and many receive funding “not only from the USA and EU”. “Naturally there is a problem directly related to the protection of the legitimate interests of the Kyrgyz state,” Japarov said. He went on to say that some foreign-funded groups “often disseminate false and unreliable information”.

 

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KYIV (Reuters) -- Ukraine will produce thousands of long-range drones capable of deep strikes into Russia in 2024 and already has up to 10 companies making drones that can reach Moscow and St Petersburg, Ukraine’s digital minister said. Mykhailo Fedorov spoke about the wartime drone industry he has championed in an interview in Kyiv in which he revealed new details about the sector, after a spate of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil facilities in recent weeks. “The category of long-range kamikaze drones is growing, with a range of 300, 500, 700, and 1,000 kilometers. Two years ago, this category did not exist ... at all,” he told Reuters. Fedorov, 33, has been at the heart of Ukraine’s effort to nurture private military startups to innovate and build up the drone industry as the war goes into its third year and Ukraine seeks new ways to fight back against well dug-in Russian forces. The recent series of strikes on oil facilities, he said, reflected the government’s progress in rapidly deregulating the drone market and increasing funding for it, with the state acting as a venture investor.

 

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SYDNEY (AFP) -- Australia awarded public contracts to firms suspected of money laundering, bribery, arms running, drug smuggling and corruption, according to the findings of a probe into lax procurement practices published Monday. A damning investigation by Australia’s former spy chief found that several companies and individuals who won contracts to manage Australia’s controversial offshore migrant detention programs were suspected of engaging in unethical or illegal activities. “It’s possible that hundreds of millions of dollars was funneled from taxpayers into companies which were using that money in part to conduct criminal wrongdoing,” said Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil, who commissioned the report. Under Australia’s so-called “Pacific Solution”, thousands of people who attempted to reach the country by boat were moved to offshore “processing” centers on the Pacific islands of Manus and Nauru from 2001. Many languished in the camps for years, in conditions described by rights groups as “hellish”. 

 

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MANILA (AFP) -- The alleged mastermind of a bombing at a Catholic mass in the southern Philippines has died after a clash between members of a pro-Daesh group and government troops, officials said Monday. Four people were killed and dozens wounded in the December 3 attack on worshippers inside a university gym in Marawi, the country’s largest Muslim city, that was later claimed by the Daesh group. Eight militants were suspected of carrying out the attack on Mindanao island, army brigade commander Brigadier General Yegor Rey Barroquillo told AFP. Five have been killed in manhunt operations, one has been detained and another two were still on the run, he said. Among the dead was Khadafi Mimbesa, who went by the alias of “Engineer”. The Armed Forces of the Philippines said in a statement that he was the “mastermind” behind the bombing. 

 

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AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -- Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Monday that every country needs to have its own artificial intelligence infrastructure in order to take advantage of the economic potential while protecting its own culture. “You cannot allow that to be done by other people,” Huang said at the World Government Summit in Dubai. Huang, whose firm has catapulted to a $1.73 trillion stock market value due to its dominance of the market for high-end AI chips, said his company is ‘democratizing’ access to AI due to swift efficiency gains in AI computing. “The rest of it is really up to you to take initiative, activate your industry, build the infrastructure, as fast as you can.” He said that fears about the dangers of AI are overblown, noting that other new technologies and industries such as cars and aviation have been successfully regulated. “There are some interests to scare people about this new technology, to mystify this technology, to encourage other people to not do anything about that technology and rely on them to do it. And I think that’s a mistake.” 

 

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ATHENS (AFP) -- Three people died in a shooting at the premises of a shipping company in a coastal suburb of Athens on Monday, a Greek police source said. The shooter was found dead with his weapon next to him, according to ANA news agency and several Greek media, which reported he had barricaded himself inside the building.