World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

In a pre-emptive move, Saudi Arabia defended its military actions in Yemen as defense in its “backyard.”  The UN has been conducting an inquiry into Saudi military actions in Yemen and its report is expected to be highly critical of Saudi actions as insufficiently protective of civilians.   The Saudis believe that the Houthi rebels in Yemen are backed by its Middle East rival, Iran.  The Saudis have been conducting airstrikes against the rebels since March of 2015, but a settlement of the issues seems far from likely.

There is an interesting controversy in Italy.  Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visited Italy and nude statues at various sites he visited were covered-up.  Some Italians were outraged at what they considered “cultural appeasement” to the Muslim President.  Those Italians believe that the statues were part of Italy’s cultural heritage and should be accepted as such by visitors to the country.  What is interesting about the controversy is that neither the Italian or Iranian side will admit asking for the cover-up.

Google has developed a computer system that has defeated a human opponent at the 2,500 year-old game of Go.  Artificial Intelligence has mastered games such as Chess and even Jeopardy, but the success at Go is staggering.  In a game of chess, each move has about 35 different consequences.  In the game of Go, with its 19 x 19 grid, each move has about 250 possible consequences.   According to experts: “there are more possible positions on a Go board than atoms in the universe.”  And, unlike Chess in which brute force computing can ultimately work, Go requires adaptive learning by the intelligence:  Google developed a computer system that, in the final stages, taught itself how to master the game.