agrees

GENEVA: Nearly 130 countries on Saturday agreed on a text defining lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) — “killer robots” to their critics — a first step toward talks on a possible international treaty to regulate them.

The text agreed upon has not yet been made public — but campaign groups following the talks have already criticized leading countries for dragging their feet on the issue.

Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen announced the agreement, by 128 countries, on Saturday. The Netherlands has been overseeing the talks.

Countries are already developing and using weapons capable of selecting targets and using force against them without human intervention.

But the International Committee of the Red Cross warned in a statement that “the unconstrained development and use of autonomous weapon systems pose serious legal, ethical and humanitarian challenges.”

The ICRC and several campaigning groups have called for international legally binding rules to restrict and regulate their use.

Nicole van Rooijen, executive director of Stop Killer Robots, an international alliance of campaign groups, accused the United States, Russia and their allies of trying to weaken the agreed text.

Lex International, a Geneva-based philanthropic group funding work on key policy issues, also criticized some nations’ position.

“The United States, Russia, India and Israel are among the key opponents of negotiations,” it said.

“The governments of Brazil, Ireland, and Norway are leading efforts to get such negotiations started in November,” it added.

UN member states will decide at November talks of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons whether to move toward an international treaty regulating such weapons.

Swedish club Djurgardens have agreed a National League record fee thought to be in excess of £1.5m to sign winger Abdul Abdulmalik from Boreham Wood.

The 23-year-old’s move breaks the record fee paid for a fifth-tier player in England, set in 2012 when Leicester City paid Fleetwood Town £1m for Jamie Vardy.

Abdulmalik is currently in Sweden completing a medical after the deal was agreed on Sunday morning.

The forward enjoyed a breakthrough season in 2025-26, scoring 17 goals and providing 10 assists as Boreham Wood reached the National League play-off final, where he scored and set up a goal at Wembley.

The agreement also brings to an end a long-running transfer saga, with the Hertfordshire club having rejected bids of £1m and £1.5m for the former Millwall academy player earlier this summer.

Abdulmalik said: “I’m ready for the next challenge. I’m ready to prove to myself and those around me that I’m capable of reaching the top.”

He scored in his final appearance for Boreham Wood in mid-August but subsequently made himself unavailable for selection in an attempt to secure a move.

Clubs in England, including Peterborough United, had also expressed an interest.

Abdulmalik was previously an England Under-17s international but was released by Millwall in 2024 and had an unsuccessful trial at Portsmouth.

Stockholm-based Djurgardens are currently fifth in the Allsvenskan – which runs from April to November – but have two games in hand on the majority of their rivals and remain in contention to qualify for Europe.

Meta settles $16.68bn lawsuit over child addiction claims, agreeing to major changes in Facebook and Instagram features.

Meta Platforms has agreed to settle a lawsuit that accused the company of designing Facebook and Instagram in a way that addicted children, misled consumers about safety, and collected personal data of children on the platform.

On Wednesday, the social media giant agreed to pay a maximum of $16.68bn as part of a settlement to resolve claims brought in the United States case, championed by a coalition of 29 US states. The case, which started on August 18, was expected to last six weeks.

Meta, based in Silicon Valley in California, has also agreed to make changes to Facebook and Instagram nationwide as part of the settlement. Among these are daily usage limits of two hours for those under the age of 18, which can only be removed by a parent, and nighttime blocks.

The California State Attorney General’s Office said that the Mark Zuckerberg-led company would also identify and remove children under the age of 13 from the platform.

Meta denied any wrongdoing as part of the settlement, which still needs court approval. It had faced up to $1.4 trillion in fines in the case, but the coalition had been seeking a penalty closer to $200bn.

The settlement comes after a loss in a comparable landmark case in New Mexico, where a jury ordered Meta to pay $375m in March and another $567m in August.

Meta’s stock tumbled in early trading on Wall Street, down 0.1 percent since the market opened.