AFP Asia Business

Piastri power rules in Saudi as Max pays the penalty

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri won the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on Sunday from Red Bull polesitter Max Verstappen to lead the world championship for the first time in his career. Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari completed the podium for this fifth round of the season under the floodlights at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.Piastri’s third win this year was in large part decided at the first turn, when Verstappen picked up a five-second penalty for gaining an advantage after going off the track.He becomes the first Australian to lead the drivers’ standings since his agent, Mark Webber, 15 years ago.”Very happy to have won, made the difference at the start. Great race. “Max was still a bit too close for my liking!” Piastri said, after crossing the line 2.843 seconds clear of the four-time world champion.”It is what it is,” said Verstappen, not wanting to discuss his penalty.Piastri’s McLaren teammate Lando Norris, who went into the weekend leading the standings, took fourth ahead of the two Mercedes of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli.As the sun dipped and the tension rose, the lights went out at the world’s fastest street circuit, a strip of asphalt hugging a lagoon on the Red Sea coastline.Piastri got off to a flyer and was upsides Verstappen at the first corner but the Dutchman cut the chicane prompting Piastri to tell his team: “He needs to give that back, I was ahead.””He just forced me off,” was Verstappen’s verdict.Behind, Verstappen’s teammate Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly’s Alpine tangled, bringing out the safety car and taking them both out of the race.Racing resumed on lap three with news that Verstappen had been slapped with a five-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.- ‘That is lovely’ -On being told of his sanction the Dutchman responded with an expletive, adding: “That is lovely”.He led Piastri on the restart, with Russell racing third and Leclerc fourth.Norris was up to eighth after starting way back on the fifth row – his car as good as new after all the ‘TLC’ showered on it last night by McLaren mechanics following Saturday’s major bust-up with a wall in qualifying.Given his start handicap, the Briton took a gamble as the only one of the top 10 to start on hard tyres, rather than mediums.Piastri was content to bide his time behind Verstappen, around a second back, safe in the knowledge that the lead was effectively his once Verstappen took his penalty.”My tyres are toast,” Russell reported, with pit stops approaching.On lap 20 with Norris up to fifth Piastri was the first of the leaders to come in to fit fresh rubber on his car.Red Bull were gambling, urging Verstappen to give everything he could to stretch his lead before his stop.The four-time champion came in on lap 22 to serve his penalty.Up front Leclerc and Norris, both yet to pit, led from Piastri, with Verstappen fourth.Leclerc finally came in on lap 30, Norris following suit a couple of laps later to leave his teammate in firm control of the race, over four seconds clear of Verstappen.Piastri held on to move on to 99 points in the race for the 2025 world title, 10 clear of Norris, with Verstappen a further two points back.After this final leg of a frantic, not to say draining, triple-header, F1 takes a breather before its well-oiled circus pitches up again in Miami in a fortnight’s time.

Lebanon army says 3 troops killed in munitions blast in south

Lebanon’s military said a munitions blast in the country’s war-torn south killed an officer and two soldiers on Sunday, days after an explosion killed another soldier.Under a November truce deal that ended a war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, the army has been deploying in south Lebanon and dismantling the militant group’s infrastructure there.”An army officer and two soldiers were killed and a number of citizens were injured due to an explosion of ammunition as it was being transported inside an army vehicle” in Braiqaa, in south Lebanon’s Nabatiyeh district, an army statement said.Specialised army units were investigating the circumstances of the incident, the statement added.An AFP correspondent in Braiqaa, around 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the Israeli border, saw several charred and burnt vehicles on the road, with some damage to nearby shops and flats.The army had cordoned off the area.President Joseph Aoun offered his condolences for the three servicemen “who fell while performing their mission to preserve security and stability” and to keep south Lebanon residents from harm, a presidency statement said. On Monday, the army said a soldier was killed and three others wounded in an explosion in the country’s south, where Aoun said they had been dismantling mines in a tunnel.According to the ceasefire, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters north of Lebanon’s Litani River. Israel was to withdraw all its forces but has kept troops in five places it deems “strategic”.

US aid cuts strain response to health crises worldwide: WHO

The United States slashing foreign aid risks piling pressure on already acute humanitarian crises across the globe, a World Health Organization official said Sunday, also warning against withdrawing from the UN agency.Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has effectively frozen foreign aid funding, moved to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other programmes, and announced plans to leave the WHO.Washington, which had long been the WHO’s biggest donor, did not pay its 2024 dues, and it remains unclear if the United States will meet its membership obligations for 2025The agency, already facing a gaping deficit this year, has proposed shrinking its budget by a fifth, likely reducing its reach and workforce, according to an earlier AFP report citing an internal email.”The WHO with its partners have a significant role in sustaining healthcare systems, rehabilitation of healthcare systems, emergency medical team training and dispatching, pre-placement of trauma kits,” Hanan Balkhy, the WHO’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, told AFP.”Many of these programmes have now stopped or are not going to be able to continue,” she said.The funding cuts will likely hinder the ability to continue delivering robust aid to communities in desperate need of care.Balkhy cited the ongoing conflicts in Gaza, Sudan, and Yemen as areas where healthcare institutions and aid programmes were already under pressure before the funding shakeups.In the Gaza Strip, where more than a year and a half of fighting has seen large swaths of the Palestinian territory reduced to rubble and few hospitals remain functioning, the public health situation is dire.”The emergency medical team support, procurement of the medications and the rehabilitation of the health care facilities, all of that has been immediately impacted by the freeze of the US support,” said Balkhy.In Sudan, the WHO is facing mounting issues amid a bloody civil war that has displaced millions, with several areas hit by at least three different disease outbreaks — malaria, dengue and cholera, according to Balkhy.”We work significantly to identify emerging and re-emerging pathogens to keep the Sudanese safe, but also to keep the rest of the world safe. So it will impact our ability to continue to do surveillance, detection of diseases,” she added.A US departure from the WHO will also undercut long established channels of communication with leading research facilities, universities and public health institutions that are based in the United States.That in turn would likely prevent the easy sharing of information and research, which is pivotal to heading off global public health crises like an emerging pandemic, said Balkhy.”These bacteria and viruses, number one, know no borders. Number two, they are ambivalent to what’s happening in the human political landscape.”

Israel’s unmanned bulldozers breaking ground in Gaza war

At first glance, there is nothing unusual about the bulky bulldozer turning up soil at a testing site in central Israel, but as it pulled closer it became clear: the driver’s cabin is eerily empty.This is the Robdozer, a fortified engineering vehicle manned remotely, and in this case operated from a military expo halfway across the globe in Alabama.Army engineers and military experts say that the Robdozer — the robotic version of Caterpillar’s D9 bulldozer — is the future of automated combat.The Israeli military has used D9 for years to carry out frontline tasks like trowelling roads for advancing troops, removing rubble and flattening terrain.But since war in Gaza broke out in October 2023 and later in Lebanon, the Israeli military has increasingly deployed this robotic version in a bid to enhance its field operations and reduce the risks to its troops.”The idea is to eliminate the person from the cockpit of the dozer,” said Rani, whose team at the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries developed the Robdozer.During the Gaza war, the military has increasingly opted for the unmanned version, which can carry out a full range of tasks “even better than a human”, said Rani, using his first name only for security reasons.While such vehicles and other systems are currently operated by humans, future versions could be autonomous, raising ethical and legal concerns over the unchartered future of warfare being shaped by the Israeli military in the Gaza war.- ‘Changing the paradigm’ -Israel’s increasing use of advanced technology on the battlefield, from air defence systems to a broad range of AI-driven intelligence tools, has been well-documented but also criticised for inaccuracies, lack of human oversight and potential violations of international law.Analysts say the growing Israeli deployment of the Robdozer reflects broader global trends towards automation in heavy combat vehicles, like remote-controlled personnel carriers that operate much like drones.An Israeli military official, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, told AFP that the army has been using “robotic tools for over a decade, but in very small numbers. Now it is being used in large-scale warfare”.Troops can now operate machinery without having to enter enemy territory, said the official.Andrew Fox, a retired British army major and a research fellow at the London-based Henry Jackson Society, said the Israeli military was likely the first force to use remote-controlled combat machinery in an active war zone.”It’s a really big development” that is “changing the paradigm” of warfare, carrying out tasks as effectively but at a far reduced risk to personnel, he said.- New era -“This is the future,” said John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the US military’s Modern War Institute at West Point.Many “have been experimenting with it, but nobody has seen direct deployment into active modern combat,” he added. “It is very unique.”But beyond ethical and legal drawbacks to such advanced technology, there is also the need for an overriding human presence to make decisions particularly in unusual situations.Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war was a disastrous example for that, when Palestinian militants breached the high-security border, said Tal Mimran of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.”I think that October 7 showed us that you can build a wall that may cost $1 billion, but if you do not patrol the border, then someone will infiltrate your country,” said Mimran, a lecturer and researcher of international law who has been closely following the Israeli military’s technological developments.”We must take note of the opportunities and of the risks of technology,” he said.”This is the era in which artificial intelligence is exploding into our lives, and it is only natural that it will also have a manifestation in the security field.”

Qatar’s chief negotiator says ‘frustrated’ by pace of Gaza talks

Qatar’s chief negotiator voiced frustration over talks for a truce in Gaza in an interview with AFP, a month after Israel resumed its strikes on the Palestinian territory and another round of negotiations ended without a deal.”We’re definitely frustrated by the slowness, sometimes, of the process in the negotiation. This is an urgent matter. There are lives at stake here if this military operation continues day by day,” Mohammed Al-Khulaifi said on Friday.Qatar, with the United States and Egypt, brokered a truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas which came into force on January 19 and largely halted over a year of war triggered by Palestinian militants’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.The initial phase of the truce ended in early March, with the two sides unable to agree on the next steps.Hamas has insisted that negotiations be held for a second phase to the truce, leading to a permanent end to the war, as outlined in the January framework.Israel, which had called for an extension to the opening phase, resumed air and ground attacks across the Gaza Strip on March 18 after earlier halting the entry of aid.Late on Thursday, Hamas signalled the group would not accept Israel’s newest proposal for a 45-day ceasefire. Israel had wanted the release of 10 living hostages held by the Palestinian group, the militant group said.- ‘Noise’ -“We’ve been working continuously in the last days to try to bring the parties together and revive the agreement that has been endorsed by the two sides,” the Qatari minister of state said.”And we will remain committed to this, in spite of the difficulties,” he added.During the long mediation process, Qatar has been the target of direct criticism from Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.At least two of Netanyahu’s aides are suspected of receiving payments from the Qatari government to promote Doha’s interests in Israel, prompting an Israeli criminal probe. Qatar has dismissed the attacks as a “smear campaign”.Earlier in March, an investigation by Israel’s domestic security agency attributed funds from the Gulf state to an increase in Hamas’s military strength before the October 7 attack. Qatar has rebuffed the accusation as “false”.”We’ve been receiving those types of criticism and negative comments since the early times of our involvement,” Al-Khulaifi said.”Critiques without any context, such as the ones that we keep hearing from Netanyahu himself, are often just noise,” he added.Al-Khulaifi rejected recent remarks from Netanyahu to the US-based evangelical Christian channel Daystar that Qatar had promoted “anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism” on US college campuses.- ‘De-escalation’ -“His claims about Qatar’s educational partnerships have been repeatedly disproven. Everything we do is transparent,” the Qatari official added.Qatar, with Al-Khulaifi as its lead negotiator, has emerged as a facilitator in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has flared in recent months, with the armed M23 group making a series of rapid gains in the country’s resource-rich east.In early March, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, who is accused of backing the M23, held surprise meetings in Doha and later expressed their support for a ceasefire.”This meeting happened to really find a pathway towards de-escalation and more of an agreement on an implementation mechanism,” Al-Khulaifi said.”We’ve managed to create this flexible line of communication between the two sides, and we’re hoping there are more successes than you can hear within the next days,” the Qatari minister added.Al-Khulaifi said following the meetings between the leaders that Qatar had convinced the M23, Rwanda and the DRC to “de-escalate” near the strategic mining hub of Walikale.This allowed “a process of withdrawing from Walikale to the eastern sides, to Goma. That movement by itself was, in our view, a positive development,” he added, referring to the M23-held capital of DR Congo’s North Kivu Province.Al-Khulaifi said the United States had been “a reliable partner” in DR Congo and he hoped to discuss the conflict with the US envoy for Africa, Massad Boulos, in Washington in the coming days.In the United States, Khulaifi said he would also raise the issue of ongoing sanctions on Syria following the ousting of president Bashar al-Assad.Along with Qatari funding for gas supplies to Syria, Qatar is discussing with regional partners an increase in public sector salaries in the country.”We’re discussing it very closely with our US colleagues to see, how can we move on within this project,” Al-Khulaifi said.