A focused recap of international news stories by Newsendip: The rise of phone scams with the voice of relatives cloned by AI, the definition of family in Ireland, and more.
- Redefining family in Ireland
- Korean airline weighs its passengers
- Phone scams with the help of IA
- Yogurts Enjoy Norway threatened by milk shortage
- Record book sales in the Netherlands thanks to English
- Canada limits international students’ permits
- Japan’s first-ever racial profiling lawsuit expected this week
Ireland Supreme Court’s important ruling before a referendum
The Supreme Court of Ireland ruled in favor of a man who challenged the constitutionality of Irish welfare legislation that denied him the widower’s pension after the death of his partner of almost 20 years and the mother of his children because they were not married or in a civil union. The decision comes a few weeks before a referendum on Ireland’s constitution where the definition of the family is still limited to married couples and where the State needs “to ensure that mothers are not obliged to work to the detriment of their domestic duties.”
Weighing airline passengers for their safety
South Korean Asiana Airlines announced it would weigh all its passengers and their luggage for a week to gain data on the overall weight average for “safe operations,” justifying it is required by Korean laws. An unorthodox collection of personal data, forbidden in the European Union by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for instance, while Korean Air took down their announcement they would weigh their passengers last year after receiving public backlash. In 2003, a U.S. flight crashed killing 21 people on board because of an incorrect balance of the weight across the plane.
Phone scams with artificial intelligence
Russia’s Central Bank recently shared public concerns about the rise of fraudsters who are faking the voices of relatives and friends to deceive potential victims via phone scams. With the latest AI voice-cloning programs, a three-second audio clip of a person can be enough to sound just like the person. Last year, American software company McAfee conducted a survey on 7,000 people across seven countries and showed that 70% couldn’t tell the difference between a real voice and an AI clone. US-based Federal Trade Commission held a “Voice Cloning Challenge” this month with a $25,000 reward on its website to address ways to “prevent the harms of AI-enabled voice cloning.”
Norway facing milk shortage
Norway is facing a milk shortage that is disrupting the industry as major dairy company Tine relies on foreign milk powder imports to meet Norwegian market demand. Milk quotas to avoid overproduction were raised but didn’t compensate for the sudden rise in demand for Norwegian-made yogurt and cheese, as a deficit of 15 million liters of milk this winter aggravated the situation. Controversy arose as some products labeled “Nyt Norge” (Enjoy Norway) contain up to 3% of German milk powder, for which Tine had to apologize.
The largest book sales since 2012, thanks to books in English
Netherlands residents bought 43 million books across all formats in 2023, the largest number of books sold since 2012. The overall turnover has also grown for the ninth year in a row. Although the best-selling books are in the Dutch language, the books in English are responsible for the growth of the market. Sales of foreign-language books have increased by 65% since 2019 and now account for one in five paper books sold in the country.
Fewer international students in Canada
Canada’s immigration ministry announced a two-year cap on international student permits to curb record numbers of new arrivals. There will be 360,000 approved study permits in 2024, a 35% decrease from 2023. While universities were largely tapping into this revenue opportunity, the country is also suffering from a housing crisis as the supply has failed to keep pace with demographic growth fuelled mainly by immigration. As a result, a student can pay 2,600 Canadian dollars a month (US$1,900), for a half-basement room with three flatmates in Toronto.
Japan’s first-ever racial profiling lawsuit expected this week
Three Japanese citizens of foreign origin claim they’ve been subjected to numerous unlawful searches and could file the first-ever racial profiling lawsuit in the country.
