03-31 00:01 · AI,技术,HackerNews,AI
Mathematical methods and human thought in the age of AI
Mathematics > History and Overview
Title:Mathematical methods and human thought in the age of AI
View PDF HTML (experimental)Abstract:Artificial intelligence (AI) is the name popularly given to a broad spectrum of computer tools designed to perform increasingly complex cognitive tasks, including many that used to solely be the province of humans. As these tools become exponentially sophisticated and pervasive, the justifications for their rapid development and integration into society are frequently called into question, particularly as they consume finite resources and pose existential risks to the livelihoods of those skilled individuals they appear to replace.
In this paper, we consider the rapidly evolving impact of AI to the traditional questions of philosophy
with an emphasis on its application in mathematics and on the broader real-world outcomes of its more general use. We assert that artificial intelligence is a natural evolution of human tools developed throughout history to facilitate the creation, organization, and dissemination of ideas, and argue that it is paramount that the development and application of AI remain fundamentally human-centered. With an eye toward innovating solutions to meet human needs, enhancing the human quality of life and expanding the capacity for human thought and understanding, we propose a pathway to integrating AI into our most challenging and intellectually rigorous fields to the benefit of all humankind.
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03-31 00:01 · AI,技术,HackerNews,AI
I am definitely missing the pre-AI writing era
Yesterday, I wrote my first technical draft on what I was working on with the goal to share it publicly on here (well using an account dedicated to technical post), and did not realize how wanting to sound perfect actually steal the ''my voice" in the paper. Although 80 % of the content was my own writing, the fact that it was run in a LLM enginee for grammar and vocabulary cross-check, made it failed the "probable written by AI " metric; and it was rejected. I am not complaining, well, it was kinda my fault after all cause the instructions did specify the no-use of LLM, when sending first post. And the rejection made me think: why did I even need the AI to validate what I worked on?
The scary part, is I love writing, I have been writing blogs and all sort of things since I can't even remember. Have some think pieces on popular sites, and other personal blog that I used to share. And you know, before 2023, my writing was so good that I rarely had to have a second read or correction to make sure the flow stays consistent, since english is my 4th language. I always sought external review or check with tools like : Grammarly or Quilbot, for mistakes or grammars misphrasing. But now, this "superskill" has faded away, like seriously. I can't even write a 1000 words think piece, without needing or wanting to know what AI thinks or how it could have phrase it better, even for my emails. I can't write poems as before, without sounding generic, and this is mainly because I have now trained my brain to rely on these automated tools that It can not be creative anymore or think of itself. My writing has deterioted, I attempted to write a slam-poem, recently for a competition I wanted to partake in, and upon the completion when I read it, my reaction was : Who is this? Who wrote this? This is bad !
Before, I would sit and write a piece and I kid you not, the first draft was always perfect that I rarely had to write, and my best poem that got me to some "art"ies festival, was just written while I was sitting outside my hostel, with a piece of paper and a pen, and a thought that was bothering me. But now, I am slowly realizing, it has been changing in negative way.
Sorry that this sounds like a rant, well, it is one ! But like, my point was to share it out loud, and kinda know if I am the only person experiencing this or if there are others? And for people who successfully taken back their creative writing skills, how did you do it?
This post, is written without any tools assistance I just wrote what my brain is instructing to type (might not reread it before posting). Obviously, you would see some mistakes, some paraphrasing issue, some article misuse; I personally do not see them but, hey, I am not expert in literature. So bear with me, also, I think that is the beauty of writing, the raw , unedited emotions of the person behind every words either for entertainment or educational purposes, is what makes it special.
So, thank you ''LessWrong" moderators, for rejecting my first draft, it is kinda a wake up call that made me realize, maybe I just need to be focusing on my own voice, and there is nothing wrong into sounding "more or less wrong". Yeah, I know, people advocate into embracing AI as it would be/is in every aspect of our life, but maybe it is good that most of us do not let this technology rephrase our own thought. Cause those words, that the AI told you: sound wrong or aggressive or less formal, are the ones that carry the ''emotions", you ought to share.
Have a productive week, dear reader !
P.S: If you see this! I am celebrating. It means, I passed the text. Yay!
I can definitely relate to what you wrote here. I've been writing in a particular NSFW niche since 2014 across several usernames, and have generally received positive feedback on my stories. I always wrote fast and clean - my superpower was knocking out thousands of words in a single evening like a machine, and I mostly didn't need to edit it.
I was an early and enthusiastic adopter of AI as a writing companion in 2022. I loved NovelAI, and had tons of fun using various LLMs to write the "boring stuff" and writing the spicy stuff they refused to write myself. The response to my AI-assisted efforts (never disclosed) were about as positive as my 100% human stuff. But... a switch flipped in 2025, and now I'm just not having fun all around. I used to love just writing. I used to love AI-assisted writing. But lately, I can hardly get the motivation for any of it. My superpower is gone, and I still get people commenting on my unfinished human-made and ai-assisted stories, wondering when my next post is going to be.
I'm still cautiously pro-current AI, and still a little worried about the future of AI from an existential risk standpoint (probably like many here on Less Wrong), but I know for me it has kind of been a long-term poison pill in a way. I haven't cultivated that joy again, but I have been trying to de-stress and get back into AI-writing at least,
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03-31 00:01 · AI,技术,HackerNews,AI
Recover Apple Keychain
I had the misfortune of locking myself out of my work MacBook.
You’d be justified in asking: Don’t you use it every day?
Yes, I do—and probably more than I should admit. But a few things led to this situation. For one, I’d gotten too used to relying on Touch ID. As a result, if my muscle memory failed me, I was stuck. On top of that, I kept entering my office Active Directory (AD) password instead of my Mac password—again, muscle memory at work. By the time I realized what I was doing wrong, I was locked out.
So, like every corporate employee, I reached out to IT. I’ll spare you the rant about how useful—or not—that decision was.
Using macOS recovery options, I managed to reset my laptop’s password—without fully understanding the ramifications. When I logged back in with the new password, boom: all my keychain data and some local user data were gone, and syncing had stopped.
It turns out that this data was encrypted using my old password, and the reset utility doesn’t decrypt and re-encrypt it with the new one. In hindsight, that makes sense from a security standpoint. Still, I had assumed there might be some kind of master key that would handle this automatically during a password reset.
After the reset, macOS gave me the option to resync with my old data. Unfortunately, I had already exhausted the allowed attempts to enter my old password. Every time I tried to resync, I was met with the dreaded “delete iCloud data” prompt.
As a long-time Linux (Arch Linux) tinkerer, I figured there had to be a way to either:
- Reset the failed login attempt counter, or
- Recover the data directly
But since this was Apple, I knew it wouldn’t be straightforward.
After some digging, I found that keychain data is stored at:
~/Library/Keychains
The main file is:
login.keychain-db
During the password reset, macOS had moved the original keychain to:
login_renamed_1.keychain-db
and created a fresh login.keychain-db
.
Restoring my old data turned out to be surprisingly simple: replace the new keychain file with the old one.
Steps to restore keychain data
Navigate to:
~/Library/Keychains
Remove the newly created keychain (make sure it doesn’t contain anything important):
rm login.keychain-db
Rename the old keychain back to the default:
mv login_renamed_1.keychain-db login.keychain-db
Voilà—data restored.
When I opened Keychain Access, it prompted me for my old password. After entering it, everything synced correctly and updated to use the new password going forward.
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03-31 00:01 · AI,技术,HackerNews,AI
Show HN: Coasts – Containerized Hosts for Agents
Coasts (Containerized Hosts) is a CLI tool with a local observability UI for running multiple isolated instances of a full development environment on a single machine. It works out of the box with your current setup: no changes to your existing application code, just a small Coastfile
at your repo root. If you already use Docker Compose, Coasts can boot from your existing docker-compose.yml
; if you do not use Docker or Compose, Coasts works just as well.
Build once and run N instances with whatever volume and networking topology your project needs. Check out one coast at a time to bind canonical ports to your host, and use dynamic ports to peek into the progress of any worktree.
Coasts is agnostic to AI providers and agent harnesses. The only host requirement is Git worktrees, so you can switch tools without changing how you work and without any harness-specific environment setup.
Coasts is also offline-first with no hosted service dependency, so there is no vendor lock-in risk: even if we disappeared, your local workflow would keep running.
Install the latest public release:
eval "$(curl -fsSL https://coasts.dev/install)"
Visit coasts.dev for the website, docs, and installation instructions.
For the full user-facing documentation, see the Coasts docs.
Want a concrete example to explore? Check out the coasts-demo
repository for a small demo project you can use to try Coasts end to end.
To contribute, read the contributing guide for PR guidelines.
Note: Coasts is currently macOS-first. Linux development works, but canonical ports below
1024
require host setup beforecoast checkout
can bind them.For local HTTPS stacks that use Caddy, Coast now reuses one local Caddy root CA per Coast installation. Trust that root once and recreated workspaces under the same
COAST_HOME
keep using it.coast
andcoast-dev
stay separate because they use different Coast homes.
- Rust (stable toolchain)
- Docker
- Node.js
- socat (
brew install socat
on macOS,sudo apt install socat
on Ubuntu) - Git
Run the setup script once to build the web UI, compile the workspace, and symlink coast-dev
/ coastd-dev
into ~/.local/bin
:
./dev_setup.sh
On first run it adds ~/.local/bin
to your PATH — restart your shell or source ~/.zshrc
to pick it up.
Dev mode uses ~/.coast-dev/
and port 31416, so it never conflicts with a global coast install on port 31415.
That separation also applies to local HTTPS trust. coast-dev
reuses a stable Caddy root under ~/.coast-dev/caddy/pki/...
, while the regular install uses ~/.coast/caddy/pki/...
.
You can inspect or export the active install's root certificate with:
coast cert info
coast cert export --to ~/Downloads/coast-root.crt
Coast does not install the certificate into your OS or browser trust store automatically. Export it, then import/trust it wherever your environment needs it.
You'll want three terminals:
Terminal 1 — dev daemon:
coast-dev daemon start # start in background
# or: coastd-dev --foreground # start in foreground for log output
After Rust changes are rebuilt by make watch
, restart the daemon to pick them up:
coast-dev daemon restart
Terminal 2 — Rust rebuild on save:
make watch
This runs cargo watch
and recompiles the workspace whenever Rust source files change. After a rebuild completes, restart the daemon in Terminal 1.
Terminal 3 — web UI with hot reload:
cd coast-guard
npm install
npm run dev:coast-dev
This starts the Vite dev server on http://localhost:5173
with hot module replacement, proxying /api
requests to the dev daemon at localhost:31416
.
Use
npm run dev
(without:coast-dev
) if you're developing the UI against a production daemon on port 31415.
The Makefile is the primary entry point for development tasks:
The web UI depends on TypeScript types generated from Rust structs via ts-rs
. After changing any Rust types that are used by the UI, regenerate the bindings:
cd coast-guard
npm run generate:types
This runs cargo test -p coast-core export_bindings
and rebuilds the barrel file in src/types/generated/
.
The docs viewer in the UI reads from a generated manifest. After changing any markdown files in docs/
, regenerate it:
cd coast-guard
npm run generate:docs
Translation and search index generation are centralized Python scripts invoked via the Makefile:
make docs-status # show which docs need translation
make translate LOCALE=es # translate docs for one locale
make translate-all # translate all supported locales
make doc-search LOCALE=en # generate search index for one locale
make doc-search-all # generate search indexes for all locales
Both scripts read OPENAI_API_KEY
from the environment or from .env
in the project root. See .env.example
.
make test
Runs cargo test --workspace
across all crates.
Integration tests live in integrated-examples/
and exercise full end-to-end coast workflows. Most tests can run inside a Docker-in-Docker container via the DinD runner, which only requires Docker:
make run-dind-integration TEST=test_assign # run one test
make run-dind-integration TEST=al
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03-31 00:01 · AI,技术,HackerNews,AI
Bird brains (2023)
I was doomscrolling Reddit at 1am (as you do) and someone had posted a video from the New Zealand Transport Agency. Road workers near a tunnel by Milford Sound kept finding their traffic cones in weird places. Dragged into the road, rearranged, sometimes actively rerouting traffic. Nobody could figure out what was going on, so they checked the cameras.
Kea. Native to New Zealand, these big parrots are usually seen on the route to Milford Sound harassing tourists. A flock of them is officially called a "circus" or a "curiosity" -- whoever named them clearly met one. The footage showed them just... casually shoving cones around a construction site. But here's the insane bit -- workers said the kea wouldlisten for cars coming through the tunnelBEFORE moving the cones, timing it so the cars would have to stop. Why? Because stopped cars mean humans getting out. Humans getting out means food.
These birds are smarter than some adults I know. Move cone → car stops → human gets out → human feeds me. They independently invented toll booths.
The transport agency's solution was equally funny. They switched to heavier cones the birds couldn't move, and then -- I'm not making this up -- they built "kea gyms" by the roadside. Puzzle stations and contraptions to keep them entertained. A government agency literally built a playground for parrots because they were too smart for traffic management. Honestly, I'm fine with my tax dollars going to this.
Obviously now I had to know -- is this the smartest bird in the world? And hold on, how do you actually measure how smart a bird is? So I whipped out ChatGPT and Google Scholar and here's what I learned.
Turns out there's no single test -- researchers have come up with a bunch of different experiments over the years, each designed to measure a different type of intelligence. Some of these I'd fail too tbh.
First up, the mirror test. You stick a coloured mark on a bird somewhere it can only see in a mirror. If it looks at the mirror and then tries to remove the mark from its own body, it recognises that the reflection isitself. That's self-awareness. Most animals completely fail this -- dogs fail it, cats fail it. Eurasian magpiespass it. One of the very few non-mammals to do so. Your local magpie has a stronger sense of self than your golden retriever. Pretty humbling for the dog.
Then there's a cool one called Aesop's Fable -- my favourite. It's literally named after the fable where a thirsty crow drops stones into a pitcher to raise the water level. Researchers put food floating in a narrow tube of water that the bird can't reach. The question is whether it'll figure out to drop objects in to raise the water level and get the food. Rooks, New Caledonian crows, and Eurasian jaysall pass. Some of them even figure out that heavy objects sink (useful) while light objects float (useless). A fable from 600 BC and it turns out Aesop was just reporting the news.
Next, the delayed gratification test. The marshmallow test, but for birds. Offer an OK snack now, or a much better snack if they wait. Ravens pick the better future rewardover 70% of the time. They'll even choose atoolthey'll need later over an immediate food reward. That's more self-control than I have around a bowl of chips.
There's also vocal mimicry and communication, which goes way beyond "Polly wants a cracker." Dr. Irene Pepperberg studied an African grey parrot named Alex for 30 years. Alex could identify objects, colours, shapes, and numbers. He understood abstract concepts like "same" and "different." His vocabulary exceeded 100 words. When he died in 2007, his last words to Pepperberg were reportedly "You be good. I love you. See you tomorrow." I don't care how you define intelligence -- that one's hard to brush off.
And finally, spatial memory. Clark's nutcrackers cache up to 33,000 seeds across thousands of locations each autumn -- and remember where most of them are months later. I lose my keys in a two-bedroom apartment.
Here's the wild part. A 2016 study inPNASfound that parrots and songbirds pack roughlytwiceas many neurons into their forebrains as primate brains of the same mass. The neurons are just much smaller and more densely packed. A crow's brain weighs about 10 grams. A chimpanzee's weighs about 400 grams. And yet corvids demonstrate cognitive abilities that rival great apes: tool use, planning, and social reasoning.
Forebrain neurons vs. brain weight
A macaw's brain weighs 20 grams and has roughly the same number of forebrain neurons as a macaque monkey's brain at 70 grams. Ounce for ounce, bird brains are some of the most computationally dense organs in the animal kingdom. Calling someone a "bird brain" is honestly more of a compliment.
I do this for the love of writing — each subscriber costs me money. But please subscribe anyway and spread the word.
There's no definitive answer because different species dominate different areas. But after going through all of this, if you made me ran
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03-31 00:00 · 中东,局势,AlJazeera,中东
The announcement comes after Madrid refused to let Washington use jointly operated military bases for the war on Iran.
Spain has closed its airspace to planes of the United States involved in the US-Israel war on Iran, the latest step in the country’s opposition to the conflict.
Defence Minister Margarita Robles confirmed the airspace closure to reporters on Monday after Spain’s El Pais newspaper first reported on it, quoting military sources.
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“This was made perfectly clear to the American military and forces from the very beginning. Therefore, neither the bases are authorised, nor, of course, is the use of Spanish airspace authorised for any actions related to the war in Iran,” Robles said.
“I think everyone knows Spain’s position; it’s very clear,” the minister added, calling the war on Iran “profoundly illegal and profoundly unjust”.
Spain had already said earlier this month that the US could not use jointly operated military bases in the war, which Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has described as “unjustifiable” and “dangerous”.
Trump’s threats
US President Donald Trump threatened to cut trade with Madrid after the Spanish government denied the US use of the Rota and Moron military bases in southern Spain, forcing 15 US aircraft to relocate.
Under the left-wing government led by Sanchez, Spain has been Europe’s loudest opposing voice against US and Israeli military actions in the Middle East, at a time when the European Union vaguely called for de-escalation and protecting civilians without rejecting the assault on Iran.
Commenting on the war earlier this month, the prime minister said: “This is how humanity’s great disasters start … The world cannot solve its problems with conflicts and bombs.”
Spain has also been a vocal critic of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. In October, its parliament approved the enshrinement in law of a total arms embargo on Israel, permanently banning the sale of weapons, dual-use technology and military equipment.
That announcement drew a furious response from Israel, which had already withdrawn its ambassador when Spain recognised a Palestinian state in May 2024.
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03-31 00:00 · 中东,局势,AlJazeera,中东
Palestinian Authority calls the bill a ‘war crime’ against Palestinians, says it breaches the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, has passed a controversial one-sided bill that will instruct military courts to impose the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis in acts of “terror”, but will not impose the same penalty on Jewish Israelis convicted of killing Palestinians.
The law, which enters into effect within 30 days, was approved on Monday in the 120-seat Knesset by 62 lawmakers, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with 48 voting against it and one abstention.
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Its passage marks a major victory for Israel’s far right, with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir having pushed for its enactment as one of the main conditions of his Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party’s coalition agreement with Netanyahu.
The Palestinian Authority called the bill “a war crime against the Palestinian people”, saying that it breached the Fourth Geneva Convention, “particularly the protections it guarantees for individuals and the safeguards for fair trials”.
The new law, introduced as Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza continues, instructs military courts trying only West Bank Palestinians, who are not Israeli citizens, to impose the draconian sentence for lethal attacks on Israelis.
Amichai Cohen, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute’s Center for Democratic Values and Institutions, told the Associated Press that “Jews will not be indicted under this law”.
Under international law, he noted, Israel’s parliament should not be legislating in the West Bank, which is not sovereign Israeli territory in spite of the best efforts of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition to annex the territory to Israel.
The lawyer for the Knesset’s National Security Committee also raised several concerns during earlier deliberations, noting that it did not allow clemency, contradicting international conventions.
Rights group B’Tselem pointed out prior to the Knesset’s approval of the bill that the conviction rate for Palestinians tried in military courts is about 96 percent. “In many cases, these convictions are based on ‘confessions’ obtained through pressure and torture during interrogations,” it said in a post on X on Sunday.
“The law is worded in such a way that it targets only Palestinians. And it will turn the killing of Palestinians into an accepted and common tool of punishment through several mechanisms,” said the group.
According to Palestinian prisoner advocacy group Addameer, more than a third of the 9,500 Palestinians detained by Israel as of March 11 were being held under administrative detention without being tried.
Minutes after the law was passed, the Association of Civil Rights in Israel said it had filed a petition with Israel’s Supreme Court to challenge it, describing it as “discriminatory by design” and “enacted without legal authority” over West Bank Palestinians.
On its website, the association notes, among other criticisms, that the “threshold for imposing the death penalty would be lowered”, with courts able to impose sentences of death by hanging by simple majority rather than a unanimous decision by judges.
Though Israel technically has the death penalty on the books as a possible punishment for acts of genocide, espionage during wartime, and for certain “terror” offences, the country hasn’t put anyone to death since Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was executed in 1962.
Appearing in the Knesset before voting began, Ben-Gvir wore a pin featuring a small metal noose on his lapel. “From today, every terrorist will know, and the whole world will know, that whoever takes a life, the State of Israel will take their life,” he said.
The bill, which comes into effect as the occupied West Bank experiences a surge in Israeli military and settler violence, was condemned by the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom on Sunday.
Amnesty International said in February that it would make the death penalty “another discriminatory tool in Israel’s system of apartheid”.
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03-31 00:00 · 中东,局势,AlJazeera,中东
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Egypt set up a team for backchannel talks with the US and Iran.
Islamabad, Pakistan – When the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Egypt landed in Islamabad over the weekend, it marked the second meeting in less than two weeks of a diplomatic track working to contain the fallout of the US-Israel war on Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory strikes across the region.
Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar confirmed at the conclusion of Sunday’s consultations that the US and Iran had expressed confidence in Pakistan to facilitate direct talks. Islamabad, he said, was “honoured” to host them “in the coming days, for a comprehensive and lasting settlement of the ongoing conflict”.
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The four ministers, he added, held “a very detailed and in-depth discussion” on the war, reaffirmed “unity to contain the situation, reduce the risk of military escalations and create conditions for structured negotiations”, and agreed to constitute a Committee of Four senior officials, one from each foreign ministry, to work out the modalities of the process.
Besides Dar, the meeting was attended by foreign ministers Hakan Fidan of Turkiye, Badr Abdelatty of Egypt and Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud of Saudi Arabia.
The quadrilateral format first came together on the sidelines of the broader Arab and Islamic consultative meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on March 19. What began as a wider gathering has hardened into a focused four-country peace push, with Pakistan acting as the primary channel between Washington and Tehran.
Hours later, in an interview with the British newspaper Financial Times, United States President Donald Trump said his “favourite thing is to take the oil in Iran” and did not rule out seizing Kharg Island, the export hub that handles roughly 90 percent of Iran’s crude.
“Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options,” Trump said. He also confirmed that indirect talks via Pakistani “emissaries” were progressing and reiterated the April 6 deadline he set on Truth Social on March 26 for Iran to accept a deal or face US strikes on its energy sector.
But on board Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said, “I do see a deal in Iran, yeah. Could be soon”, and described negotiations as going “extremely well”.
Those contrasting postures underscored the central tension confronting Pakistan’s diplomatic initiative.
At a moment when Islamabad and its partners are attempting to build a multilateral framework to prevent further escalation, the war appears headed in the opposite direction, with continued Israeli strikes and an expanding US military presence in the region.
‘Baby steps’ amid escalation
Mushahid Hussain Sayed, former Pakistani information minister, senator and foreign policy analyst, said the Islamabad meeting was significant for three reasons.
He described it as the first institutional initiative from the Muslim world aimed at opening a pathway to dialogue.
According to Sayed, Pakistan and Turkiye, both neighbours of Iran, are among the most credible interlocutors available, one a nuclear power and the other a NATO member.
“Both Iran and the US have reposed confidence in Pakistan as a bridge of communication between Tehran and Washington, and most likely the feasible venue for any future peace talks,” he told Al Jazeera.
But he was blunt about the limitations. “These are baby steps for diplomacy in a war scenario that is not only escalating but also becoming more complicated by the day,” Sayed said.
Masood Khan, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US and the United Nations, said the meeting had “opened a diplomatic corridor, building on earlier shuttle diplomacy, sustained communications and behind-the-scenes efforts to persuade the United States and Iran to engage”.
The Committee of Four, he said, provides a structured backchannel, enabling “a step-by-step, layered, and calibrated process” supported by regional consensus.
Khan outlined four possible stages: trust-building measures, ceasefire negotiations, direct talks on complex issues including the nuclear programme and the Strait of Hormuz, and ultimately an agreement on reciprocal commitments.
However, he cautioned that major obstacles remain. “Tehran’s demands for war reparations and its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz are likely to prove the most difficult issues to resolve,” Khan told Al Jazeera.
Before the ministers’ meeting, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif held a 90-minute call with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, briefing him on Islamabad’s diplomatic outreach to the US, Gulf states and other Islamic countries to “create a conducive environment for peace talks”, according to a statement f
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03-31 00:00 · 中东,局势,AlJazeera,中东
Fighters from a major Iraqi pro-Iran armed group have entered the country, carrying aid — and a signal of support.
Tehran, Iran – Iranian authorities have welcomed a number of paramilitary Iraqi forces as part of a “humanitarian convoy” while war with the United States and Israel threatens to enter a new phase involving potential ground assaults.
Footage circulated online by Iranian and Iraqi media outlets on Saturday and Sunday showed a convoy belonging to Hashd al-Shaabi, also known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) of Iran-aligned fighters, entering Iran.
The convoy consisted of dozens of pickup trucks carrying packaged cargo, as well as men in military attire, some of whom also wore clerical turbans. The group waved the Iraqi flag, as well as the flag of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, another member of the Tehran-led “axis of resistance” of armed forces.
The Fars news agency, affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), whose Quds Force leads the axis, described the movement as “the first humanitarian aid convoy from the people of Iraq”.
Al-Alam, the Arabic-language news channel run by Iranian state television, described the effort as a “loyalty campaign” and said it carried 70 tonnes of food and medical supplies. The Iranian government has repeatedly emphasised since the start of the war a month ago that the country does not face a shortage of essential goods.
The convoy started its journey from Basra in southern Iraq and crossed the border into Khuzestan in western Iran. It was spotted entering from Shalamcheh, a historic town on the border where invading Iraqi forces launched a deadly chemical gas attack during the eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s.
In the decades following the devastating war, and especially after the US invasion of Iraq in the early 2000s, the Iranian establishment grew close to armed factions in the neighbouring country, which became part of the anti-US and Israel regional axis.
During the journey this week, PMF fighters released videos in Abadan and Khorramshahr, as welcoming groups could be seen cheering them and Shia Muslim songs played in the background. The local Friday prayer imam was filmed exchanging warm greetings with the fighters and clerics while carrying a rifle himself as a sign of defiance during wartime.
The PMF, an umbrella group of armed factions that have now integrated into the regular Iraqi army, has claimed responsibility for attacks on US interests in Iraq and beyond and has itself been targeted.
There were unconfirmed reports and speculation online this week that some of the Iraqi forces had been spotted on the streets in Tehran, but there was no comment from Iranian authorities or any verified footage.
Such speculation is tied to years-long accusations that Iranian authorities use the PMF and other aligned armed groups to crack down on local dissent, including during nationwide protests, which the authorities have rejected.
The Basij paramilitary force of the IRGC and other security forces continue to set up heavily armed checkpoints and roadblocks on the streets in Tehran and other cities, and have launched a “campaign of warriors defending the homeland” that is officially recruiting children over 12 years old for field activities.
Amid a month-long internet shutdown, Iranian authorities have warned against dissent while the US and Israel express varying interest in overthrowing the Islamic Republic.
“I think we’ve had regime change; we can’t do much better than that,” US President Donald Trump told reporters aboard his presidential plane on Monday. “One regime was decimated, destroyed; they’re all dead. The next regime is mostly dead, and the third regime we’re dealing with different people than anybody has ever dealt with before.”
Washington says it has been preparing for a series of ground incursions on Iranian soil to take control of strategic islands on the country’s southern shores that are crucial for processing oil and gas resources while offering control over the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
At the same time, the US and Israel have been entertaining the idea of using armed Kurdish groups based in Iraq to open another ground front inside Iran.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported this week that premature leaks to the media, lobbying by allies, and assurances required by the Kurdish fighters have led the Trump administration to consider the plan unfeasible, at least for now.
Since the start of the war, the IRGC has repeatedly bombed Iraq-based interests linked with Kurdish fighters using explosive-laden drones and ballistic missiles that have also been launched against countries across the region.
Earlier in March, senior Defence Council official Ali Akbar Ahmadian said Iran has only targeted “bases of the US and the Zionist regime and secessionist groups” in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, but will bomb “all facilities” in the region if Kurdish fighters enter Iran.
US and Israeli warplanes continue to launch major strikes in Tehran and cities across the country, this week also hitting civilian nuclear sites, steel factories and
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03-31 00:00 · 中东,局势,AlJazeera,中东
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra about Iran war objectives.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that talks with Iran are under way through intermediaries and that Washington will continue its military campaign until Tehran abandons its nuclear and missile programmes.
He warned on Monday that the Strait of Hormuz will be kept open “one way or another” and that US war objectives could be achieved “in weeks, not months”.
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He also said the United States would welcome political change in Iran if the opportunity arose, but said it was not an official objective. Rubio criticised some NATO allies for refusing US access to bases during the war, and said Washington is closely watching developments in Cuba and Venezuela.
Here are the key takeaways from Rubio’s exclusive interview with Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra:
Marco Rubio says talks with Iran are happening
Much of the communication between Tehran and Washington is indirect and through intermediaries, but Rubio insisted that it is ongoing.
He said there are “messages and some direct talks going on between some inside of Iran and the United States, primarily through intermediaries”, adding that the US president “always prefers diplomacy, always prefers an outcome”.
His comments come as US President Donald Trump escalated his rhetoric on social media, threatening to “obliterate” Iran’s energy infrastructure if a ceasefire is not reached soon, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett reported from Washington.
“Taken together, Rubio’s statements and Trump’s posts suggest the US is pursuing a dual-track approach: keeping diplomatic channels open through intermediaries while simultaneously increasing military and economic pressure on Iran,” she said.
US demands Iran abandon nuclear and missile programmes
Rubio said Iran must abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions and stop producing missiles and drones that can threaten countries across the Gulf region, and insisted “The Iranian regime can never have nuclear weapons.”
He said Iran’s missile programme poses a direct threat to countries across the Gulf, and claimed “These short-range missiles that they’re launching, they only have one purpose, and that is to attack Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Qatar and Kuwait and Bahrain.”
Rubio said Iran could pursue civilian nuclear energy, but not in a way that would allow it to quickly develop a nuclear weapon.
“What they cannot have is a system that allows them to quickly weaponise it,” he said. “They have to abandon all these weapon programmes and all their nuclear ambitions.”
However, Hassan Ahmadian, an assistant professor at the University of Tehran, questioned the narrative that Iran poses an offensive threat in the region.
“When was the last time Iran attacked its neighbours over three centuries?” Ahmadian asked, arguing that Iran’s military strategy is shaped by deterrence in an asymmetric conflict.
“Why is it doing this now? Because it’s the underdog in an asymmetric war that it wants to shield itself by expanding.”
Ahmadian added that Iran has been a central focus of US policy for years.
“With the break of two wars in less than a year, we have experienced, Iran has been on the table in different US administrations – all options are on the table,” he said.
Strait of Hormuz will be kept open ‘one way or another’
Rubio said the US would not accept Iran claiming sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz and warned that the waterway would remain open regardless of Iran’s actions.
“Not only is the sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz not acceptable to us, it won’t be acceptable to the world.”
“It sets an incredible precedent … nations can now take over international waterways and claim them as their own.”
“The Strait of Hormuz will be open … It will be open one way or another,” he said, adding that otherwise, Iran would “face real consequences” from the US and other countries.
Iranian analysts suggested the closure of the strait is a temporary wartime measure and could be reversed once the conflict ends.
“It’s opened partially,” Ahmadian said, adding “I think there is no Iranian interest to not open it beyond the war.”
“It’s an asymmetric way of putting pressure on Americans, just as they are bombing Iran, and so after the war there would be no need,” Ahmadian explained. “There will be an arrangement, according to the Iranians, with the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries to reopen it and see how things are managed.”
War objectives will be achieved ‘in weeks, not months’
Rubio said the US military campaign is progressing quickly and outlined the military objectives Washington is trying to achieve.
“Those objectives are the destruction of their air force, which has been achieved, the destruction of their navy, which has largely been achieved.”
“A significant reduction in the number of missile launchers… and we are going to destroy the fa
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