An American military drone strike over the weekend in southern Libya killed a top recruiter and logistics specialist for Al Qaeda's branch in northwest Africa, the Pentagon said on Wednesday, and a senior military official warned of more attacks on extremists there. The military's Africa Command said in a statement that the attack killed two militants, one of whom was identified as Musa Abu Dawud, a high-ranking official in Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, known as AQIM. Mr. Dawud trained Qaeda recruits in Libya for strike operations in the region, and provided logistics, money and weapons that enabled the group to threaten and attack American and Western interests, the military statement said. Until now, the Pentagon had focused its counterterrorism strikes in Libya -- eight since President Trump took office -- almost exclusively on Islamic State fighters and operatives farther north. Over several months in 2016, the military conducted nearly 500 airstrikes in the coastal city of Surt to destroy the Islamic State's stronghold there.

INTERNATIONAL - The World Economic Forum predicts that five million jobs will be lost by 2020 as the Fourth Industrial Revolution continues to transform labour markets. Many of the casualties will be repetitive manufacturing and mining tasks and those considered dangerous for humans to perform, but white-collar jobs in banks and other services industries are also under threat. Robots and artificial intelligence (AI) can do these jobs faster and with greater precision than humans could ever hope to, leading to higher productivity and lower costs - the Holy Grail of business. A study by Citi and the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford suggests that two-thirds of jobs in South Africa are at risk of being replaced by robots. We're already seeing South African financial services institutions such as Rand Merchant Bank and Nedbank replace thousands of hours of human labour with robotic process automation, a form of intelligent software automation.

Military officials say no civilians appear to be injured in the strike. A U.S. drone strike killed a "high ranking" official in the Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb terror cell in Libya on Saturday, the Pentagon disclosed Wednesday. Musa Abu Dawud was one of two AQIM terrorists killed in the airstrike in southwest Libya near the city of Ubari in the Sahara desert. "Dawud trained AQIM recruits in Libya for attack operations in the region. He provided critical logistics support, funding and weapons to AQIM, enabling the terrorist group to threaten and attack U.S. and Western interests in the region," U.S. military's Africa Command said in a statement.

Many executives in all branches of insurance underestimate the disruption that will occur -- and the new talent that is needed. The disruptive power of digital technologies has spread more slowly across the insurance industry than other financial services. This will not last much longer, and many insurance executives risk being caught by surprise by the drastic changes these advanced technologies will inspire. What kind of change is coming? In life insurance, a U.S. company says it can help companies accept or reject new policies by analyzing selfies to determine an applicant's health. In other examples, advanced analytics can help fine-tune prices and segment customers more accurately; machine learning can present precise cross-selling opportunities; and digital interfaces can support single-event policies and purchases without any interaction with human agents. Indeed, the first waves of disruption have already hit automotive insurance, where claims are being processed using smartphone apps and where online aggregators are leading buyers to the lowest-priced offers from a range of companies.

Even if you're not particularly interested in video games, you'll probably have heard of Assassin's Creed. They're a series of historically themed action games that take place in digital recreations of places such as Revolution-era Paris, medieval Jerusalem and 1860s London. Playing Assassin's Creed involves climbing up ancient buildings and mingling with the residents of cities of the past, meeting (and occasionally assassinating) historical figures as a member of an ancient, clandestine brotherhood working against the Templars. The games have been around since 2007 and have made an awful lot of money for their publisher, Ubisoft. The company employs a team of hundreds of artists, historians, writers, coders, sound designers and more to create these virtual places.

It is not news that AI is shaking up the world, unlocking new frontiers in addressing business and societal challenges. The AI progress metrics maintained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation show that in several applications, including tasks previously thought to be doable only by humans, AI has superseded human ability. Businesses and countries are leveraging this to improve their bottom-line and make life easier for their citizens respectively. They are also putting their money where their mouths are. Globally there was an investment of over 6 billion dollars in AI companies in just 2017.

Sudanese radiologist Dr Hania Fadl speaks with reporters in 2015 at the Khartoum Breast Care Centre (KBCC), which she opened in 2010 and equipped with screening and anesthetic equipment despite financial advisers' warnings to abandon the project. The mammogram is one of medical science's best tools for detecting breast cancer, but when the typically painful test reveals a potential problem, women frequently undergo breast biopsies for a closer look--a practice that's all too often unnecessary, according to a group of artificial intelligence (AI) researchers, and which doctors may be able to significantly reduce thanks to a little insight from computers. Announced today, researchers from Houston Methodist have developed AI software that can interpret mammogram results a full 30 times quicker than doctors and with 99 percent accuracy, according to the team's recent study. Published in the journal Cancer, the study found that the software was able to intuitively translate patient charts into diagnostic information for human review at top speeds, which offers doctors reliable and seriously time-saving support when it comes to assessing patient cancer risk and the need for further tests. To determine the software's effectiveness for assessing breast cancer risk, the team provided its AI with mammogram and pathology reports of 500 breast cancer patients, as well as information on diagnostic features and correlated mammogram findings for breast cancer subtypes.

The United States military carried out its first ever drone strike against Qaeda militants in southern Libya this weekend, signaling a possibly significant expansion of the American counterterrorism campaign in the North African nation. Until now, the Pentagon had focused its counterterrorism strikes in Libya almost exclusively on Islamic State fighters and operatives farther north -- eight since President Trump took office. In 2016, the military conducted nearly 500 airstrikes in the coastal city of Surt over several months to destroy the Islamic State's stronghold there. But the attack on Saturday that the military's Africa Command said had killed two militants -- later identified by a spokeswoman as belonging to Al Qaeda's branch in northwestern Africa -- took place in the country's southwest, a notorious haven for a deadly mix of Al Qaeda and other extremist groups that also operate in the Sahel region of Niger, Chad, Mali and Algeria. "This appears to be the continuation of expanding AFRICOM activity in Libya's ungoverned areas," said Deborah K.

You totally prepared for this trip. You booked the flights months ago. You have all the best sights saved in Google Maps. But then you land in Munich or Kigali or Buenos Aires and realize you can't even identify the sign pointing toward baggage claim, much less tell your cabbie where you're headed. Luckily your phone can now do those things for you.

Within less than two decades it will be cheaper to operate robots in US factories than hire workers in Africa, a new report warns. Falling automation costs are predicted to cause job losses as manufacturers return to richer economies. Some analysts say poorer countries could be less impacted by this trend, however the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) suggests otherwise. But its report adds African nations have time to prepare for the change. "African countries must not shy away from manufacturing, but instead prepare by increasing access to internet, investing in technical skills and promoting technological innovation," said Karishma Banga a senior research officer at ODI. "If done well, automation can present important opportunities for African countries by improving labour productivity in manufacturing," she said.