Latest news with #post-WWII
Metro
2 days ago
- Business
- Metro
This is the best London neighbourhood to be LGBTQ+ in 2025
For LGBTQ+ people, picking a place to live isn't just about balancing budgets and commuting needs. We also need to consider our safety, and how open the area is to accommodating queer and trans people. Just south of the River Thames, the London borough of Lambeth has one of the highest LGBTQ+ populations in the country – and it's bustling with queer spaces. According to the latest Census, 8.3% of Lambeth's residents are LGBTQ+, while neighbouring Southwark rests at 8.1%. The only other area to trump both was the City of London, at 10.3%. Of the top 10 local authorities with the highest number of LGBTQ+ residents, seven were in London, while Brighton and Hove unsurprisingly took home the prize as the gayest neighbourhood in England and Wales at 10.7%. Contrary to popular belief, though, not everywhere in London is always sparkles and glitter. Safety remains an issue, as one in five LGBTQ+ people have experienced hate crime on TfL services, while queer venues remain under threat. Between 2006 and 2022, more than half of London's LGBTQ+ spaces closed, with numbers falling from 125 to just 50. With that in mind, it's more important than ever that LGBTQ+ people feel safe in their living situation – whether that means access to a queer-friendly yoga session, or a gay bar to dance the night away. You can access completely fee-free mortgage advice with London & Country (L&C) Mortgages, a partner of Metro. Customers benefit from: – Award winning service from the UK's leading mortgage broker – Expert advisors on hand 7 days a week – Access to 1000s of mortgage deals from across the market Unlike many mortgage brokers, L&C won't charge you a fee for their advice. Find out how much you could borrow online Mortgage service provided by London & Country Mortgages (L&C), which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (registered number: 143002). The FCA does not regulate most Buy to Let mortgages. Your home or property may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage. From Vauxhall to Brixton (AKA, the home of queer pop festival Mighty Hoopla), there's so much in Lambeth enticing queer and trans people to the area. For starters, there's the iconic Royal Vauxhall Tavern. Hailed as the 'beating heart of Vauxhall,' it's the oldest surviving queer venue in South London – a title which has earned it Grade II-listed status. Built between 1860 and 1862, drag shows were reportedly held there as early as the post-WWII years as servicemen returned from war. Throughout the 1980s, Lily Savage (Paul O'Grady's drag persona) had a regular show there, taking to the stage four times a week for eight years – long before The Lily Savage Show first aired in 1997. Gay icon Princess Diana was also known to frequent the beloved RVT and was once smuggled into the venue by Freddie Mercury and Kenny Everett. They dolled her up in men's clothes, and no one batted an eyelid. These days, the RVT channels the spirit of Pride 365 days a year, with regular performances from the likes of David Hoyle and Myra DuBois. Also in Vauxhall, LGBTQ+ bar and club Eagle serves up tipples aplenty in their beer garden, and hosts residents Horse Meat Disco every Sunday. Beats the end of the weekend scaries, right? Serving up drag and cabaret to Lambeth locals since it first threw open its doors in 1981, the Two Brewers in Clapham is still open seven days a week. It's not just wall-to-wall partying either: there are also sober-friendly events, including Sheila Simmonds' famous Busy Lady Bingo and RuPaul's Drag Race UK live streamings. Just around the corner in the borough of Southwark, there's also the London LGBTQ+ Community Centre, a not-for-profit space for queer and trans people that hosts everything from LGBTQ+ ballet to co-working spaces, meditation and writing clubs. June might mark Pride Month, but the reality is that LGBTQ+ people still face issues accessing housing. Research from Stonewall shows that almost one in five LGBTQ+ people have experienced homelessness; these statistics increase to 25% of all trans people. The majority of these cases are caused by direct rejection from families over their LGBTQ+ identity, too, as 77% of people surveyed by akt said that 'family rejection, abuse or being asked to leave home' was the cause of their homelessness. Shortly before becoming homeless, more than 50% had their family members force them to stop expressing their LGBTQ+ identity, figures which rise to 64% for trans people and 55% for disabled people. More Trending The University of Stirling also finds that LGBTQ+ people have poorer housing outcomes than their straight and cis counterparts, too. Gay, lesbian and bisexual people specifically are less likely to own their own homes, while throughout the 1980s and 1990s, there were instances of gay and bisexual men having their mortgage applications refused because of the stigma tied to the HIV/AIDS crisis. View More » So, we've still got a long way to go to carve out safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people – not just in housing and in London, but everywhere. Do you have a story to share? Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@ MORE: Widow fined more than £1,000 by parking wardens after council delays Blue Badge renewal MORE: I can be myself in the UK – but now I can't go home MORE: Map reveals UK cheating hotspot where the most people have been unfaithful
NDTV
3 days ago
- Politics
- NDTV
India, US, Israel And Others: How These 9 Countries Acquired Nuclear Weapons
For over three decades, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu consistently claimed Iran was months away from becoming a nuclear power and that it posed an existential threat to his nation. His alarms, dating back to the 1990s, have often clashed with assessments by US intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), both of which say Iran halted its weapons programme in 2003. In June, a day before the US and Iran were to discuss a new nuclear deal, Israel launched preemptive strikes on Tehran 's nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak, citing urgent intelligence. Israel called the move necessary to stop an "irreversible" nuclear threat and avert a potential "holocaust." Nine countries currently possess nuclear weapons: the United States, Russia, France, China, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea. Together, they hold nearly 13,000 nuclear warheads, with the US and Russia alone accounting for about 90 per cent of the total. Here's how each became a nuclear power: How They Got the Bomb United States The US was the first country to develop nuclear weapons during World War II under the Manhattan Project. In July 1945, it conducted the world's first nuclear test (Trinity Test) and dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August that year. Russia (Formerly The Soviet Union) The Soviet Union tested its first nuclear bomb in 1949, four years after the US. Aided by homegrown research and intelligence obtained through espionage from the Manhattan Project, the USSR, by the 60s, built the world's largest nuclear arsenal, eventually surpassing the US in total warheads. United Kingdom The UK, initially part of WWII nuclear research, was later excluded from the US Manhattan Project. It developed its own bomb and tested it in 1952, later strengthening its programme through a nuclear cooperation deal with the US. France France developed an independent nuclear programme to assert global power post-WWII, testing its first bomb in Algeria in 1960. It later built thermonuclear weapons and maintained a "force de frappe", a fully French-controlled deterrent delivered by air and submarines. China With early help from the Soviet Union, China tested its first nuclear bomb in 1964 at Lop Nur. After the Sino-Soviet split, it advanced independently, achieving thermonuclear capability by 1967. Today, China is rapidly growing its arsenal, with over 500 warheads reportedly in development. India India carried out its first nuclear test in 1974, called "Smiling Buddha," under the label of a "peaceful nuclear explosion." India's nuclear weapons programme is purely indigenous, with scientists from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and DRDO playing a critical role that led to India becoming a nuclear weapons state after a full test series in 1998 (Pokhran-II). India cited deterrence, particularly against China and Pakistan, as its motive. Pakistan In response to India's 1974 test, Pakistan ramped up its nuclear programme under physicist AQ Khan, allegedly with help from China. It conducted its first nuclear tests in May 1998, shortly after India's Pokhran-II. Pakistan continues to expand its arsenal, with a focus on short-range tactical nukes that raise concerns about regional escalation. Israel Israel is widely believed to have developed nuclear weapons by the late 1960s, aided by France in building the Dimona facility. Though it has never confirmed or denied its arsenal, US intelligence estimates it holds around 80-90 warheads. Israel follows a policy of "nuclear opacity" and has never conducted an acknowledged test. North Korea North Korea began developing nuclear infrastructure in the 1960s with Soviet support. It joined the NPT (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons) in 1985 but withdrew in 2003, and conducted its first nuclear test in 2006. Since then, it has carried out several tests and claims to have miniaturised warheads for missiles. Nations That Gave Up Nuclear Weapons Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, formerly part of the Soviet Union, became independent nations after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 and acquired a huge cache of warheads. These countries voluntarily gave up their nuclear arsenal and became signatories to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. South Africa reportedly collaborated with France and Israel in the 1970s to develop a nuclear weapon. A planned nuclear test in the Kalahari Desert was first halted in 1977. Roughly 12 years later, following continuous international pressure, the country dropped its plan to become a nuclear power.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Zuckerberg's Meta Just Made a Huge Investment in a Very Dark AI Company
Meta's AI development isn't going quite as well as billionaire CEO Mark Zuckerberg had hoped. Once a frontrunner in the AI race, a year's worth of technical failures and setbacks to his company's "state-of-the-art" Llama 4 Behemoth have spurred Zuckerberg to pull out all the stops. Now, the second richest man on the planet is said to be handpicking a team of some 50 AI researchers for a shadowy "superintelligence group." To do so, he's set aside some $15 billion for a 49 percent stake in — the despotic AI startup that's been accused of using wage-slave labor to train chatbots, commiting systemic wage theft, and is contracted to run the Pentagon's "flagship" weapons automation program. Zuckerberg's goal, according to the New York Times, is to be the first to develop the first AI system that exceeds the abilities of the human brain — a dream, it's worth noting, which the majority of AI researchers still think is "very unlikely." is probably the biggest player in the data labeling game, hiring third world laborers to do the laborious task of writing, scraping, and cataloguing data for companies to train their AI systems. It'll be in good company at Zuckerberg's operation; Meta was recently caught scraping over seven million copyrighted books to feed Llama, leading to a major class action lawsuit. "This is like the AI equivalent of the Marshall Plan," wrote tech critic Ed Zitron, referring to the post-WWII scheme that made the US the global dynasty it is today. "[Meta's] running out of training data (if they haven't already) and all they have left is one company that generates it using sweat shop labor. Gotta wonder why this much money too." Per Bloomberg, the "superintelligence" initiative is Meta's largest external investment to date. As part of the investment, co-founder Alexandr Wang is set to join Zuckerberg's secret society of AI developers. The Meta CEO even rearranged the desks so that his new team could "sit near him," according to reporting. As part of his shadow cabal recruitment drive, Zuckerberg highlighted Meta's ad-based revenue stream, suggesting that AI developers would be free from investor scrutiny if they came to work for him, according to Bloomberg. The CEO also stressed that he had enough cash tucked away to erect a "multi-gigawatt data center," which if ever realized be among the most powerful in the world. (For context, it currently costs about $30 billion for a one-gigawatt data center, which is about the amount it takes to power 750,000 homes.) It's not currently known who else will be joining Meta's AI scrum — though the company is reportedly offering potential recruits anywhere from seven to nine figures to join. If Wang is any indication, Zuckerberg's desk is sure to be flanked by a league of headline-grabbing tech personalities. Breathlessly described as the "world's youngest self-made billionaire" — as if any billionaire is self-made — Wang has become a darling of the US defense industry as of late. A notorious China hawk, Wang's cozy deals with the Pentagon come alongside drastic escalations in anti-China rhetoric, declaring an all-out "AI war" with the nation. He'll be a major asset for Zuckerberg, whose own collaboration with the US military apparatus are well known, and ramping up in recent months. The tech billionaire has previously given the federal government carte blanche to spy on US citizens through data scraped from Facebook. He eventually went on to become an outspoken champion of free speech, even as he helped build a "clean" global internet closed off to Chinese nationals. Even if his "superintelligence" scheme doesn't work out — remember the metaverse, a scheme he was so obsessed with that he renamed the entire company? — Zuckerberg should have more than enough dough serving up brainrot to the elderly. There's always money in the banana stand. More on Meta: Meta Says It's Okay to Feed Copyrighted Books Into Its AI Model Because They Have No "Economic Value" Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
India.com
11-06-2025
- Politics
- India.com
The Ally Who Gifted Billions To India Just Gave China A Sleepless Night
New Delhi: The country that once gifted India a multi-billion-dollar lifeline has just rattled Asia's biggest military power. Japan, India's closest strategic ally in the East, has jolted China wide awake with a powerful signal from Mount Fuji. Not words. Not warnings. But missiles. In a stunning display of military precision, Japan test-fired long-range anti-ship and hypersonic missiles during a live-fire drill near Mount Fuji. The event, part of an annual military exercise, was meant to signal readiness. But the fallout went far beyond Japanese borders. By June 11 morning, the Chinese military's official newspaper, PLA Daily, had fired its own salvo, this time in words. It accused Japan of abandoning its pacifist past and dangerously redrawing the region's balance of power. The report warned that the extended range of these new Japanese missiles could 'threaten surrounding regions' and questioned whether Tokyo had just violated its own post-WWII constitution. The Chinese fear runs deeper. The newspaper did not mince words and called Japan's move a 'strategic threat'. It alleged Tokyo is secretly preparing for a first-strike capability. The article even suggested that Japan intentionally avoided sensitive zones like Okinawa during the test to escape global scrutiny. Drafted under U.S. guidance after its WWII defeat, Japan's constitution forbids it from maintaining aggressive military capabilities. But recent years have seen Tokyo steadily expand its defense preparedness. China says the missile tests are proof that Japan is shifting from defense to offense and dragging Asia into a new arms race. What exactly did Japan fire? According to the Japanese media, the military tested upgraded Type-12 surface-to-ship missiles and the futuristic Hypersonic Velocity Gliding Projectiles (HVGPs). The weapons are not for show. The Type-12s are headed for Japan's southern Kyushu Island within range of China. Meanwhile, the HVGPs are likely to be stationed in the north, in Hokkaido, potentially aimed at another rising threat that is Russia. For India, this is more than just geopolitics. Japan has long been one of New Delhi's most reliable friends. From low-interest infrastructure loans to crucial technology partnerships, Japan has supported India's rise with both trust and capital. The iconic Bullet Train project in India, for instance, is being built on a 50-year loan of Rs 88,000 crore at just 1% interest – with repayments starting only after 15 years. But now, that same 'generous friend' is sharpening its own claws. Tokyo's move comes amid rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific, where China's muscle-flexing has alarmed most of its neighbors. With Japan now flexing back, and India already locked in its own standoff with China – a new axis of resistance is forming. Missiles may have flown over Mount Fuji. But the real tremors were felt in Beijing.
India.com
08-06-2025
- Business
- India.com
China Cornered; Xi's Worst Nightmare? Two Asian Rivals Seal Explosive Military Deal
New Delhi: Japan has formally ratified the Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) with the Philippines after months of speculation and delays. Though Manila approved the pact nearly a year ago, Tokyo's green light came only recently. It marks a significant moment in Asia's shifting strategic landscape. The final push came after Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's high-profile visit to the Philippines that showcased how seriously both countries are taking China's increasing aggression. Under the agreement, Japanese and Filipino forces will now be able to train and operate on each other's territories. This includes live-fire military drills and joint exercises, an unprecedented move considering Japan's post-WWII military restrictions. Analysts call it a strategic masterstroke against China, which has ongoing maritime disputes with both nations over contested islands in the East and South China Seas. Manila had already signalled its commitment back in 2024. In a ceremony held in July that year, Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa formally signed the deal. Even President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. attended the event, reinforcing the high level of political and military will behind the pact. Philippine Ambassador to Japan, Mylene Garcia-Albano, did not hold back. In a statement on Friday, she welcomed the Japanese upper house's approval of the RAA and declared it a 'major milestone' that now completes the legislative process in Tokyo. According to her, this agreement will simplify joint training and disaster relief deployments and will boost military cooperation between the two nations. This deal is considered to be groundbreaking. It marks the first time since World War II that Japanese troops will return to Philippine soil, which they once occupied during wartime. Until now, Japan had signed similar agreements only with allies like Australia and the United Kingdom. With this step, it boldly enters the Asian military partnership arena. An Anti-China Alliance in the Making? Japan and the Philippines are both close allies of the United States, and this agreement comes amid growing concern over China's rising belligerence in the region. From the East China Sea to the South China Sea, China has repeatedly flexed its military muscles, claimed territory and tested regional limits. But this new axis between Tokyo and Manila could be the most serious check on Beijing's power yet. Xi Jinping's ambitions for regional hegemony may have just hit a serious roadblock.
