VATICAN CITY - The growing use of autonomous weapons systems poses serious risks to global peace and stability, a Vatican representative told a U.N. meeting in Geneva.

As I wrote last week from Jerusalem, just months after the massacre at a synagogue in Har Nof, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood, I felt a duty to make a visit, to pray for the dead and to offer, in a small way, solidarity with those who suffered the desecration of their house of worship.