Hard Numbers: AI for Ukraine, Norwegian NATO drills, Ethiopian violence, engine-less Chinese sub
2 billion: Ukraine has been given free access to Clearview's AI facial recognition technology in order to track Russian assailants, fight misinformation, and identify the dead. The US startup says it has a database of 2 billion photos culled from Russian social media.
30,000: In Norway, some 30,000 NATO and partner armed forces are testing how the Land of the Midnight Sun would handle NATO reinforcements on its soil. The exercises were, in fact, planned long before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
64: Human rights watchdogs say 64 people were killed in an attack in Ethiopia’s Benishangul-Gumuz region earlier this month. It’s unclear what caused the violence this time, but in late 2020 clashes erupted between the local Gumuz people and farmers from neighboring Amhara, whom the Gumuz accuse of trying to steal fertile land.
410 million: This will never float. China is building Thailand a submarine as part of a $410 million defense deal meant to bolster the countries’ ties. But there’s one big problem: Germany refuses to send China the diesel engine to power the sub.