UK sees record Channel migrant arrivals in 2024 as regular immigration falls

WASHINGTON: Five Microsoft employees were ejected from a meeting with the company’s chief executive for protesting contracts to provide artificial intelligence and cloud computing services to the Israeli military.
The protest on Monday came after an investigation by The Associated Press revealed last week that sophisticated AI models from Microsoft and OpenAI had been used as part of an Israeli military program to select bombing targets during the recent wars in Gaza and Lebanon. The story also contained details of an errant Israeli airstrike in 2023 that struck a vehicle carrying members of a Lebanese family, killing three young girls and their grandmother.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was speaking about new products at an employee town hall meeting at the company’s corporate campus in Redmond, Washington. Workers standing about 15 feet to his right then revealed T-shirts that when they stood side-by-side spelled out the question “Does Our Code Kill Kids, Satya?“
Photos and video of the incident, which was live streamed throughout the company, shows Nadella kept speaking and did not acknowledge the protesters. Two men quickly tapped the workers on the shoulders and ushered them out of the room.
“We provide many avenues for all voices to be heard,” Microsoft said in a statement provided to the AP. “Importantly, we ask that this be done in a way that does not cause a business disruption. If that happens, we ask participants to relocate. We are committed to ensuring our business practices uphold the highest standards.”
Microsoft did not answer Tuesday when asked whether the employees involved in the protest would face disciplinary action. The company also previously declined to comment about the AP’s Feb. 18 story about its contracts with the Israeli military.
In October, Microsoft fired two workers for helping organize an unauthorized lunchtime vigil for Palestinian refugees at its headquarters. Microsoft said at the time that it ended the employment of some people “in accordance with internal policy” but declined to give details.
A group of workers has been raising concerns within the company for months about Microsoft providing services to the Israeli military through its Azure cloud computing platform. Some employees at the company have also spoken out in support of Israel and said those supporting Palestinians have made them feel unsafe.
The AP’s investigation included exclusive details drawn from internal company data and documents, including that the usage of AI models by the Israeli military through Azure increased nearly 200 times after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas militants.
The AP’s report was shared and discussed among Microsoft employees on social media and within the company’s internal systems. In a community forum designated for employees to raise concerns with senior leadership, an employee shared links to the AP report. More than a dozen others questioned whether the company was violating its stated principles to defend human rights and not to let its AI models be used to harm people, according to screenshots reviewed by the AP.
Abdo Mohamed, a researcher and data scientist who was one of the Microsoft workers fired over the October vigil, said the company is prioritizing profits over its own human rights commitments.
“The demands are clear,” said Mohamed, who works with a group of Microsoft workers called No Azure for Apartheid. “Satya Nadella and Microsoft executives need to answer to their workers by dropping contracts with the Israeli military.”
 

MOGADISHU: More than 70 members of the Islamist armed group Al-Shabab were killed during an army operation with local forces in Somalia, the information ministry said on Tuesday.
Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab has been fighting the federal government for more than 15 years, to try to establish Islamic law in the impoverished country.
“Over 70 extremist militants were eliminated through the coordinated efforts of the National Army and local forces,” the ministry said in a statement.
“In addition to the significant militant losses, a large cache of weapons was seized, and several combat vehicles utilized by the extremists were destroyed.”
The operation took place on Tuesday at several sites in Hirshabelle state, in south central Somalia, it added.
AFP could not independently verify the death toll but several witnesses confirmed the fighting.
“The armed men of Al-Shabab were beaten,” one resident contacted by telephone said, adding that “dozens” of their bodies were visible in the combat zones.
Several sources said the armed operation came in response to Al-Shabab attacks in the area in the last few days.
Al-Shabab has carried out numerous bomb and other attacks in the capital Mogadishu and several other regions of the volatile Horn of Africa country.
Although they were driven out of the capital by African Union forces in 2011, the group is still present in rural areas.
Somalia’s president has promised “total” war against Al-Shabab. The army has joined forces with local militias in a military campaign backed by an AU force and US airstrikes.