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WEF 2025: AI CEO Says Facial Recognition Will Replace Digital IDs in Smart Cities

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“…you won’t need a digital identity” because “you have the facial recognition and other things built into your smart cities.”

One of the panels during last week’s World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting – “Empowering People with Digital Public Infrastructure” – saw the participation of Avathon CEO Pervinder Johar, who provided a vision of a gloomy future of “optimized” and omnipresent surveillance.

Johar, of course, would not put it quite that way. Avathon, which produces AI tech, including the surveillance kind – believes that in the next five to ten years there will be no need for digital ID since facial recognition “and other things” will be built into “smart cities.”

The panel was dedicated to digital public infrastructure (DPI) – a buzzword used by digital ID proponents like the UN, the EU, the WEF, and Bill Gates – and Johar said the financial and identity portions of digital ID will “converge” to produce the result he predicted.

This suggests that the population will be under constant surveillance and identified at all times. Johar had more “good news” – Avathon makes what it calls an industrial AI platform, a surveillance system that the CEO shared has been deployed in Round Rock High School in Texas – “for children’s safety.”

It “utilizes a school’s existing camera infrastructure to proactively detect everything from a weapon to an open door, unauthorized access, or even a fire.”

Another panelist, Hoda Al Khzaimi, Associate Vice Provost for Research Translation and Entrepreneurship at New York University Abu Dhabi Hoda Al Khzaimi, also spoke about the connection between the DPI and “smart cities.”

“Digital public infrastructures came into manifestation because governments want to make sure that they provide seamless services in the rise of smart cities,” said Al Khzaimi, at the same time effectively suggesting that “the optimal application of DPI” is pushing digital ID on citizens.

Al Khzaimi also addressed the issue of DPI data. “What’s positive is that if this data provided by the DPI infrastructure are open and in many kinds of scenarios, you have open marketplaces for these data, users themselves can nudge governments and can nudge providers of these services and to tell them what do you want, and what do you not want and control the trends of how to deploy and build for solutions,” she said.

Al Khzaimi also praised the public-private partnership on the DPI. And while acknowledging the potential for abuse (“you don’t want to subject the citizens to mass analytics if they don’t want to have this mass analytics infrastructure”) she quickly contradicted herself by saying there are cases when this should be done – such as to “analyze population data for health pandemic outbreaks.”

Kapital Co-Founder and CEO Rene Saul spoke about Mexico’s digital passport (which utilizes biometric ID verification at the borders – something Saul did not mention), which he is a holder of, as a positive example of digital ID.

After all, it saved him 35 minutes.

“I arrived to Europe for the first time, and I saw the sign with other three countries that had electronic passport. So, I saved 35 minutes just to enter Europe when it took me one hour. So, that’s one of good examples, and that, and another good example of this technology is, it opened our borders,” said Saul.

Know Your Customer (KYC) was also mentioned as helpful in developing digital services such as those used by banks. KYC itself is an invasive form of digital ID verification that incorporates document scans and biometric ID verification.

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International

Boris Johnson Urges Ukraine to Continue War

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Armstrong Economics

By Martin Armstrong

Trump’s proposal for peace in Ukraine has been met with an overwhelming condemnation from the world’s neocons. Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson reemerges from the shadows whenever he hears word that a war may be winding down. He played an instrumental role in persuading Zelensky not to negotiate a peace treaty with Russia when it was apparent that Ukraine could not easily win, and now, Johnson is urging Ukraine to continue the war.

“Imagine that you are Vladimir V. Putin and you are spending a calm Saturday in the Kremlin… You casually watch the television news, and you cannot help but smile at the incompetence of your opponents, at the astonishing weakness of the West. You have lost more than a million soldiers, killed and wounded, in your attempts to subdue Ukraine. You have still failed to capture more than 20 percent of the country’s territory. Your economy is faltering. And now they are talking about some new 28-point plan to end the war – and it could have been written entirely by the Kremlin,” Johnson warned.

Boris_Johnson_We_are_in_a_proxy_war_against_Russia_

In typical neocon fashion, Johnson wants to paint the proposal as a victory for Russia. He acknowledges millions have died, but since they are Russian, their lives do not matter. Continue the slaughter at the expense of the people.

Johnson declared that Britain was in a proxy war with Russia back in November 2024. “It has been pathetic… Let’s face it: We’re waging a proxy war but not giving our proxies the ability to do the job. For years now, we’ve been allowing them to fight with one hand tied behind their backs, and it has been cruel,” he admitted one year ago. Why would Britain feel threatened by Russia? Why would any sane leader thrust their people into a battle that is not theirs to fight?

The head of M16, Sir Richard Moore, also came out in November 2024, admitting British intelligence was discreetly fighting on behalf of Ukraine. “We cherish our heritage of covert action, which we keep alive today in helping Ukraine resist the Russian invasion,” Moore commented.

Moore and Johnson know that Russia has no incentive to invade Europe, especially Britian. There is absolutely nothing for Putin to gain. Europe, on the other hand, has everything to gain through conflict with Russia. They see Ukraine as the ultimate entryway into Russia

War is a great way to default on debts. You get to form a new government, and they always disavow the debts of the previous government. Europe has been committing economic suicide. Between the COVID-19 Lockdowns, the NET-ZERO Climate Change, and then the sanctions on Russia that doubled their fuel costs, you could not ask for a more brain-dead group of politicians who have ZERO comprehension of even how the economy functions.

Plain and simple—Russia invaded due to the West’s failure to honor the Minsk Agreement. The neocons disregard the proposal entirely and conveniently disregard the original signed agreement when discussing conceding territory.

“The document offers Ukrainians not only to give up any attempts to reclaim Crimea or Donbas, but also to cede vast territories, including about 250,000 Ukrainians whom the Russians do not even control. Of course, you knew your negotiators would try something like that. But you never believed anyone would take this seriously. You can’t believe that President Trump would back this plan, because it is a complete betrayal of Ukraine,” Johnson continued in his recent writing.

LET THE PEOPLE VOTE! The ethnically Russian people living in Ukraine have been unable to decide on their leadership. Zelensky outlawed their religion and language. Everyone believes they are protecting the people in these regions from the other side, but only one side is open to learning the people’s wishes. The 28-point plan saves the PEOPLE of both Russia and Ukraine. Russia cannot abandon the war without guarantees that NATO will back down and Ukraine is merely an EU puppet. Zelensky now has two days to decide whether he is willing to destroy his nation for the neocons.

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Daily Caller

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s An Inside Look At The UN’s Disastrous Climate Conference

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Audrey Streb

The United Nations’ annual climate conference concluded Saturday, and some critics in attendance told the Daily Caller News Foundation that it was a chaotic affair.

After Thursday’s fire forced an evacuation and temporarily halted the talks, COP30 was prolonged by an extra day. Corporate media outlets and green groups critiqued the final agreement reached on Saturday, arguing that it did not do enough to restrict carbon emissions. The environmental groups claimed the resolution departed from COP28’s declaration which called for an end to fossil fuels.

Hosted in Belém, Brazil, COP30 provoked backlash after developers razed the Amazon rainforest ahead of the climate talks and China worked to seize the spotlight in America’s absence. Craig Rucker, co-founder and president of the conservative nonprofit known as the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow,(CFACT) told the DCNF that this year’s UN climate talks were especially chaotic and disorganized.

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“I’ve been to 27 of the 30 conferences. … What you see on the ground is just how chaotic it’s gotten. There was a certain chaos in the past, but this was particularly disorganized because they picked a venue that I think was unsuited for all the delegates that were coming in,” Rucker told the DCNF in an interview. “They wanted to emphasize the rainforest, yet hypocritically, they’re chopping them down to accommodate delegates flying in on private jets.”

The UN did not respond to the DCNF’S request for comment.

Rucker and Marc Morano, who publishes CFACT’s ClimateDepot.comventured into the Amazon rainforest to investigate the four-lane highway initially reported by BBC in March. Rucker told the DCNF that Brazil was “still cutting and burning. We heard the chainsaws ourselves, and this is something they [the Brazilian state] try to keep [quiet].”

The highway, known as Avenida Liberdade, was shelved multiple times in the past due to environmental concerns but revived as part of a broader push to modernize Belém ahead of COP30, according to the outlet. State officials say the development efforts will leave a lasting legacy, including an expanded airport, new hotels and an ungraded port to accommodate cruise ships.

The Brazilian state denied that the highway was built for the climate conference, noting that plans for the road were underway as early as 2020 — well before Brazil was selected to host COP30, Reuters reported in March.

President Donald Trump sharply criticized the conference for deforesting portions of the Amazon to ease travel for environmentalist attendees. The U.S. did not send an official delegation this year.

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse attended the talks, where they denounced the Trump administration’s energy policies and absence.

A top United Nations official reportedly directed Brazilian authorities to address concerns including leaky light fixtures, sweltering heat and lackluster security at the conference, according to Bloomberg News. Days later, the fire broke out.

Morano also documented water pouring from vents, and Rucker told the DCNF that attendees were not allowed to flush toilet paper as the venue “didn’t have a septic system.”

Rucker also recalled what he described as elitism, noting that delegates were in the “blue zone” while other attendees and indigenous groups were relegated to the “green zone.”

“The blue zone is where the official delegates go, the people that are from Spain, Portugal, Brazil. … And these are the people that make the decisions,” Rucker said. “The indigenous people, they say, don’t have a voice allowed in there. That’s partially why they crashed it.”

Though COP30 did host several events featuring indigenous voices, some native groups stormed the COP30 venue the first week, demanding their voice be heard by the UN.

Rucker told the DCNF that China seemed to have become a “new leader” on the environmentalism and green energy front at the climate conference, though the oriental nation is “pumping out with two coal plants per week.”

Recent media reports have hailed China as a giant in building out “renewables,” though China is far from dependent on intermittent resources like solar and wind as it also churns out new coal plants and is the world’s top emitter.

“They genuinely looked at China as the world leader on climate change,” Rucker noted, branding it as “totally bizarre.”

Rucker recalled that upon the entrance of the “blue zone,” there was a “very impressive Chinese booth.”

Additionally, a statue demeaning Trump stood outside COP30, according to Reuters, as well as a horned jaguar-dragon hybrid statue with its hands gripping the globe. The fanged construction purportedly represented China and Brazil partnering to protect the rainforest.

“The statues are purely political statements: one symbolizes how communism is alive and well in Brazil and China, and the other is a misguided attempt to shame or critique Trump,” Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute Sterling Burnett told the DCNF. “Trump’s promotion of fossil-fuel development and broader use — especially encouraging developing countries to tap into affordable energy — will do more to help children in poor countries than all the climate agreements and green energy scams combined.”

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