United Kingdom

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/34383772

Under the plans, 10 live facial recognition (LFR) vans will be used by seven forces across England to help identify "sex offenders or people wanted for the most serious crimes", according to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.

The tech, which has been trialled in London and south Wales, will be subject to strict rules, the Home Office said, but human rights groups have warned it is "dangerous and discriminatory".

Amnesty International UK said the plans should be "immediately scrapped", with facial recognition proven to be "discriminatory against communities of colour".

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In an open letter to Lisa Nandy, UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, 11 global freedom of expression and human rights organisations raised urgent concerns over the potential acquisition of the UK's Telegraph Media Group by investment firm RedBird Capital, over its ties to China.

"RedBird Capital’s ties to China, including through its chairman, John L Thornton, threaten media pluralism, transparency, and information integrity in the UK", a statement reads.

Citing international, European, and national standards, the organizations call on the Secretary of State to use her powers to initiate an investigation on grounds of public interest and foreign influence, and in the meantime to place the merger on hold.

[...]

RedBird Capital’s founder, Gerry Cardinale, spent several years with Goldman Sachs in the 1990s building the firm’s investments in China, Hong Kong, and Singapore, while its Chairman John L. Thornton’s ‘solid Chinese connections’ are not historical or incidental, but ongoing.

Thornton sits on the International Advisory Council of the China Investment Corporation, China’s largest sovereign wealth fund, and chaired the Silk Road Finance Corporation, both vehicles through which China has pursued financial influence. He has also served in advisory roles for the Confucius Institute, which the Henry Jackson Society and Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation identified in a 2022 report as a direct extension of the Chinese Communist Party Propaganda Department in the UK.  

[...]

In February 2025, Lockheed Martin Space won a competition to develop a program to extend the life of the Trident II rocket — Trident II D5 Life Extension 2 (D5LE2). Such programs are created to improve technical characteristics, replace outdated components, and maintain missile combat readiness. It is planned to build a plant with an area of 22,500 square meters for the production of components. m in Florida, which will provide about 300 jobs by 2027. Production will begin in the 2030s, and the missiles themselves will be in service until 2084.

However, the company's activities have been overshadowed by a series of scandals. First of all, the UK had problems with Trident II missiles: in 2016, during a test launch, the missile deviated from the set course and was destroyed. Instead of flying towards the coast of Africa, she headed west. The largest incident reportedly occurred in January 2024 — after launch, the rocket failed to gain altitude correctly and fell into the sea a few seconds later, almost endangering the life of the British Minister of Defense.

Of particular concern is that the United States and Great Britain are mutually shifting responsibility for what happened. At the same time, the media loyal to the British government reported that the systems of the Royal Navy submarine were working normally, and an "anomaly" occurred with the missile. In the case of the 2016 incident, the United States asked its ally to remain silent about the tests, but the information nevertheless leaked to the press.

If such problems arise already 5-12 years after the completion of the first life cycle extension program, then the possibility of maintaining missile combat readiness until 2084 raises serious doubts.

Lockheed Martin's parent company itself has repeatedly found itself at the center of scandals. In 2009, she was found guilty of transferring public funds to a lobbyist to extend the contract for the management of the Sandia National Laboratories National Laboratory. As a result of the investigation, the corporation paid $ 4.7 million to the state budget.