5: Sanders Campaign Raises $6 Million in 24 Hours After NH Primary

The debate comes as the Sanders campaign says it has broken its own fundraising record by raising more than $6 million in just one day. The campaign says it brought in more than $6 million in the 24 hours after the New Hampshire primary polls closed. The campaign says the average donation amount for the period was $34.

Democracy Now

4: Would you bet against sex robots? AI ‘could leave half of world unemployed’

Machines could put more than half the world’s population out of a job in the next 30 years, according to a computer scientist who said on Saturday that artificial intelligence’s threat to the economy should not be understated.

Expert Moshe Vardi told the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS): “We are approaching a time when machines will be able to outperform humans at almost any task.

“I believe that society needs to confront this question before it is upon us: if machines are capable of doing almost any work humans can do, what will humans do?”

Physicist Stephen Hawking and the tech billionaires Bill Gates and Elon Musk issued a similar warning last year. Hawking warned that AI “could spell the end of the human race” and Musk said it represents “our biggest existential threat”.

The Guardian

3: Syrian Rebels Say a Ceasefire Is ‘Not Realistic, Objective, or Logical’

Plans for the world power-brokered cessation of hostilities in Syria next week appear to be on shaky ground, amid little indication that rebel groups plan to adhere to it, low confidence from the international community, Saudi Arabia preparing to put boots on the ground, and no suggestion that Syrian president Bashar al Assad is willing to step down.

The cessation of hostilities deal was a compromise because not all warring factions agreed to the terms of a ceasefire. A cessation of hostilities places a temporary pause on the conflict so that humanitarian aid can reach civilians.

On Saturday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was asked the assess the odds that next week’s ceasefire agreement would be met. Forty-nine percent, Lavrov responded. German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is only marginally more confident, and gave it a 51 percent chance.

Vice News

2: Syrian army tightens grip on Aleppo amid peace doubts

World leaders have admitted the likely success of a plan to cease “hostilities” in Syria within a week is roughly 50-50, as Syrian government forces continued to make important advances to tighten their grip around Aleppo.

Government forces, backed by Russian air strikes and fighters loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, on Saturday regained control of al-Tamoura town and several surrounding hills located in Aleppo’s northern suburbs, according to Syrian activists and the state news agency.

The offensive means that government forces are now closer to cutting off one of the main supply routes for Syrian rebels, who still control much of Aleppo city.

Syrian state news agency, SANA, said: “Army units, in cooperation with supporting forces, restored security and stability to al-Tamoura village at the northern countryside of Aleppo”.

Sami Kekhia, a Syrian activist on the Turkey-Syria border confirmed to Al Jazeera that al-Tamoura was captured, but said that rebels were fighting back in ongoing clashes.

Aljazeera

1: Henry Kissinger’s War Crimes Are Central to the Divide Between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders

The sparring during Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders over whether Henry Kissinger is an elder statesman or a pariah has laid bare a major foreign policy divide within the Democratic Party.

Clinton and Sanders stand on opposite sides of that divide. One represents the hawkish Washington foreign policy establishment, which reveres and in some cases actually works for Kissinger. The other represents the marginalized non-interventionists, who can’t possibly forgive someone with the blood of millions of brown people on his hands.

Kissinger is an amazing and appropriate lens through which to see what’s at stake in the choice between Clinton and Sanders. But that only works, of course, if you understand who Kissinger is — which surely many of today’s voters don’t.

Some may only dimly recall that Kissinger won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the Vietnam War (comedian Tom Lehrer famously said the award made political satire obsolete), and that he played a central role in President Nixon’s opening of relations with China.

But Kissinger is reviled by many left-leaning observers of foreign policy. They consider him an amoral egotist who enabled dictators, extended the Vietnam War, laid the path to the Khmer Rouge killing fields, stage-managed a genocide in East Timor, overthrew the democratically elected left-wing government in Chile, and encouraged Nixon to wiretap his political adversaries.

The Intercept