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RTQA : Recursive Thinking for Complex Temporal Knowledge Graph Question Answering with Large Language Models

Gong, Zhaoyan, Li, Juan, Liu, Zhiqiang, Liang, Lei, Chen, Huajun, Zhang, Wen

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Current temporal knowledge graph question answering (TKGQA) methods primarily focus on implicit temporal constraints, lacking the capability of handling more complex temporal queries, and struggle with limited reasoning abilities and error propagation in decomposition frameworks. We propose RTQA, a novel framework to address these challenges by enhancing reasoning over TKGs without requiring training. Following recursive thinking, RTQA recursively decomposes questions into sub-problems, solves them bottom-up using LLMs and TKG knowledge, and employs multi-path answer aggregation to improve fault tolerance. RTQA consists of three core components: the Temporal Question Decomposer, the Recursive Solver, and the Answer Aggregator. Experiments on MultiTQ and TimelineKGQA benchmarks demonstrate significant Hits@1 improvements in "Multiple" and "Complex" categories, outperforming state-of-the-art methods. Our code and data are available at https://github.com/zjukg/RTQA.


Under Trump, US strikes on Somalia have doubled since last year. Why?

Al Jazeera

Mogadishu, Somalia – Ending the United States' "forever wars" was a major slogan of Donald Trump's 2024 election campaign, during which he and many of his supporters spoke out against American resources and lives being put to waste in conflicts across the globe. But on February 1, a mere 10 days after being inaugurated for a second time, President Trump announced that the US had carried out air strikes targeting senior leadership of ISIL (ISIS) in Somalia. "These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States," his post on X read. This marked Trump's first military action overseas, but it wouldn't be his last. In the time since, the US has provided weapons and support to Israel in its wars in Gaza and across the Middle East; it has launched strikes on Yemen; and even attacked Iran's nuclear facilities.


Addis summit raises questions about AU's muted stance on Ethiopia rifts

Al Jazeera

From Thursday, African leaders will gather in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, home of the African Union (AU), for the continental body's annual summit. According to AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat, regional integration and "maintaining momentum in addressing issues of peace and security" is high on the agenda. But in an ironic twist, the host of the summit has either initiated or been involved in multiple conflicts in the last three years. Ethiopia's two-year civil war with the state of Tigray may have ended in November 2022 after a Pretoria pact, but federal troops are currently upping drone strikes against rebels known as Fano militia in the state of Amhara, next door to Tigray. This week, the Ethiopian Human Rights Council said "at least 45 civilians" had been killed by federal troops in Amhara.


Evaluating the Impact of Humanitarian Aid on Food Security

Cerdà-Bautista, Jordi, Tárraga, José María, Sitokonstantinou, Vasileios, Camps-Valls, Gustau

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

In the face of climate change-induced droughts, vulnerable regions encounter severe threats to food security, demanding urgent humanitarian assistance. This paper introduces a causal inference framework for the Horn of Africa, aiming to assess the impact of cash-based interventions on food crises. Our contributions encompass identifying causal relationships within the food security system, harmonizing a comprehensive database, and estimating the causal effect of humanitarian interventions on malnutrition. Our results revealed no significant effects, likely due to limited sample size, suboptimal data quality, and an imperfect causal graph resulting from our limited understanding of multidisciplinary systems like food security. This underscores the need to enhance data collection and refine causal models with domain experts for more effective future interventions and policies, improving transparency and accountability in humanitarian aid.


Comment: how ships can outwit piracy with AI

#artificialintelligence

Deep learning is on the frontline in a new age of piracy, outwitting attacks with pre-emptive tech, explains Yarden Gross, CEO and co-founder of Orca AI. Almost a decade has passed since piracy raged off Somalia, and yet the danger posed by maritime hijackings is as present as ever. The global pandemic last year sparked a resurgence of attacks, with piracy incidents doubling across Asia, in a worrying uptick also seen in the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa. The fallout from coronavirus, including the loss of key security personnel, turned quarantined vessels into easy targets. This wave has since receded a little, with the International Maritime Bureau reporting a 44 per cent YoY dip in piracy and armed robbery incidents in 2021.


20 years on, the 'war on terror' grinds along with no end in sight

The Japan Times

When U.S. President Joe Biden told an exhausted nation on Aug. 31 that the last C-17 cargo plane had left Taliban-controlled Kabul, ending two decades of American military misadventure in Afghanistan, he defended the frantic, bloodstained exit with a simple statement: "I was not going to extend this forever war." And yet the war grinds on. As Biden drew the curtain on Afghanistan, the CIA was quietly expanding a secret base deep in the Sahara, from which it runs drone flights to monitor al-Qaida and Islamic State group militants in Libya, as well as extremists in Niger, Chad and Mali. The military's Africa Command resumed drone strikes against the Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked group in Somalia. The Pentagon is weighing whether to send dozens of Special Forces trainers back to Somalia to help local troops fight militants.


Pentagon sends B-52 bombers to Persian Gulf, as US launches airstrikes in Somalia after pulling out

FOX News

Former CIA director, author of the book'Undaunted,' John Brennan provides insight on'Fox News Sunday.' The U.S. military flew a pair of B-52 bombers to the Middle East Thursday from Barksdale AFB in Louisiana the second deterrence mission against Iran in recent weeks and comes on the same day U.S. drones attacked al-Qaeda-linked'explosives experts' in Somalia. "We have seen some indications of increased attack planning by Iranian-linked forces inside Iraq" said one U.S. military official who declined to be identified to discuss the sensitive nature of the information. "Presidential transitions are normally a time when our adversaries try to test us," the official added. U.S. military forces are drawing down to 2,500 in Iraq and Afghanistan before January 20th.


Trump Is Said to Be Preparing to Withdraw Troops From Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia

NYT > Middle East

But the president's aspirations have long run into resistance, as his own national security officials argued that abandonment of such troubled countries could have catastrophic consequences -- such as when the United States pulled out of Iraq at the end of 2011, leaving a vacuum that fostered the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Mr. Trump has also repeatedly pushed to withdraw from Syria, but several hundred U.S. troops remain stationed there, partly to protect coveted oil fields held by American-backed Syrian Kurdish allies from being seized by the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. The current deliberations over withdrawals would not affect those in Syria, officials said. The plan under discussion to pull out of Somalia is said to not apply to U.S. forces stationed in nearby Kenya and Djibouti, where American drones that carry out airstrikes in Somalia are based, according to officials familiar with the internal deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Keeping those air bases would mean retaining the military's ability to use drones to attack militants with the Shabab, the Qaeda-linked terrorist group -- at least those deemed to pose a threat to American interests.


Using AI to Predict Climate Change and Forced Displacement Omdena

#artificialintelligence

Together with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) 34 collaborators built several AI and machine learning based solutions to predict forced displacement, violent conflicts, and climate change in Somalia. In addition, an exploratory data analysis resulted in powerful insights regarding conflict types, areas, and reasons. The findings will help UNHCR to execute necessary support mechanism for people at need in a faster and more effective way. Millions of people in Somalia are forced to leave their current area of residence or community due to resource shortage and natural disasters like droughts and floods as well as violent conflicts. Our challenge partner, UNHCR, provides assistance and protection for those who are forcibly displaced inside of Somalia.


US launches drone strikes in Somalia after deadly car bombing

FOX News

ISIS is quickly recruiting to supplant existing al-Shabab fighters in Somalia to declare a more entrenched presence in the horn of Africa. Three drone airstrikes on Sunday against the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic terrorist group Al-Shabab in Somalia killed four militants, according to the U.S. military. U.S. Africa Command officials said an initial assessment concluded that two airstrikes killed two militants and destroyed two vehicles in Qunyo Barrow, and the third airstrike killed two militants in Caliyoow Barrow. The precision airstrikes, which were in coordination with the Somali government, came a day after a truck bombing in Somalia's capital killed at least 78 people. People salvaging goods after a car bomb destroyed shops in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Saturday.