AI's'opportunity divide' could deepen global inequality, UN official warns Share AI's'opportunity divide' could deepen global inequality, UN official warns on social media Artificial intelligence (AI) risks widening the gap between rich and poor countries, potentially deepening existing social and economic inequalities, a senior United Nations official has warned. Developing countries face significant barriers to benefitting from the AI revolution, Tomas Lamanauskas, the deputy secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN agency focused on information and communication technologies, told Al Jazeera. "AI has the huge potential of powering health, education, public services, industries, agriculture, trade. So a great divide could really mean an opportunity divide, and really could deepen the socioeconomic divide," he said. Lamanauskas said the disparities are already evident in digital infrastructure, citing the examples of Africa and Latin America, which together account for just 3.3 percent of global data centre capacity.

Image caption, Juan López was one of the environmentalists killed in Latin America recent years. The anti-mining activist was shot in Honduras in 2024. Colombia has again topped the list of countries with the highest number of killings of land and environmental activists, according to an annual report by campaign group Global Witness, external . Out of at least 124 activists killed globally in 2025, 39 were murdered in Colombia, followed by Brazil with 26. Global Witness says that 85% of the documented killings took place in Latin America, making it the deadliest region for every year since the group started publishing its reports in 2012.

The world's oceans are under heat stress, with average sea surface temperatures hitting 21 C, surpassing the record highs of 2023 and 2024. They're expected to rise further as El Niño, a natural climate pattern that warms the tropical Pacific for months, develops. How AI is being weaponised against India's Muslim women

Gojek co-founder and former Education Minister Nadiem Makarim has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted of corruption. Makarim, a former billionaire and symbol of Indonesia's tech boom, says the verdict is politically motivated and plans to appeal. Why is MAGA in meltdown over the Supreme Court birthright ruling? Supreme Court's divided ruling on birthright citizenship may be revisited Iran says it couldn't export a'single barrel of oil' during US blockade Mexican fans keep Ecuador's team awake before World Cup showdown

Game Theory: Why did Africa boycott the 1966 World Cup? Game Theory Why did Africa boycott the 1966 World Cup? A record 10 African teams are competing at the 2026 World Cup. But 60 years ago, not one African nation played in the 1966 World Cup. Al Jazeera's Samantha Johnson looks at the 1966 boycott that helped reshape the tournament for generations to come. Why are World Cup tickets so expensive?

Apple CEO warns price rises'unavoidable' amid AI boom The prices of Apple products will have to increase due to the new demand for memory chips from the artificial intelligence boom, outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook has told The Wall Street Journal. "Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable," he told the newspaper on Wednesday, adding that his company has been "trying to shield customers from the increases" but that it had become "unsustainable." It is also unclear, for instance, how much the price of Apple's iPhone 18, which is expected to launch in September, will be affected. "There's less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases," Cook said. Citing an estimate from research firm TechInsights, the Journal reported that Apple would need to increase the price of its iPhone Pro model by $270 to maintain its current profit margin .

Why do AI models struggle with online hate speech detection? Hate speech that once circulated in person now travels farther and faster via anonymous online accounts behind a screen. As the United Nations marks the International Day for Countering Hate Speech on June 18, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that social platforms are amplifying the threat. With artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly tasked with detecting and removing hate speech online, Al Jazeera looks at where these systems fall short compared with human judgement. How is hate speech defined?

FIFA's discrimination monitor at the World Cup has called for a VAR official to be removed for appearing to make a hand gesture resembling a white supremacist sign. When the official broadcast of Germany's opening game against Curacao on Sunday cut pre-game to show the team of video review analysts, Shaun Evans from Australia made an "OK" symbol with his right hand in front of his right leg. Though the game was played in Houston, video officials work in Dallas at the World Cup broadcast centre. "Advice from our experts is that the gesture used clearly resembles an upside down'OK' hand symbol used as a'white power' symbol in global far-right circles," the Fare network, a long-time partner of FIFA and European football body UEFA to monitor racist and discriminatory chants, flags and symbols at international games, said in a statement. "Clearly this official should have no further role to play in this World Cup," Fare said in a statement, describing the gesture as "neo-Nazi".

We asked four AI models to predict the winner of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. This is what Grok, ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini had to say. Australian man charged with murder after Thai girl's body found in suitcase

Recent weeks have seen a significant escalation of military tensions in and around the Baltics. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which are all NATO members, now experience regular incursions into their airspace by Ukrainian drones. According to both Kyiv and the Baltic capitals, those drones, en route to hit targets in western Russia, get diverted by Russian electronic jamming and end up entering these countries' territories. In early May, several stray unmanned aircraft crashed in Latvia, one of them damaging an oil storage facility. Those developments triggered a political crisis in Latvia and led to the collapse of its government.