After years of preparation and testing, a new NASA spacecraft is almost ready for its mission to an asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists hope the journey will uncover clues into the origins of Earth. For VOA, Villafañe visited NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, to see the spacecraft and speak with mission investigators.
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Google has expanded options for keeping personal information private from online searches.
The company said Friday it will let people request that more types of content such as personal contact information like phone numbers, email and physical addresses be removed from search results.
The new policy also allows the removal of other information that may pose a risk for identity theft, such as confidential log-in credentials.
The company said in a statement that open access to information is vital, “but so is empowering people with the tools they need to protect themselves and keep their sensitive, personally identifiable information private.”
“Privacy and online safety go hand in hand. And when you’re using the internet, it’s important to have control over how your sensitive, personally identifiable information can be found,” it said.
Google Search earlier had permitted people to request that highly personal content that could cause direct harm be removed. That includes information removed due to doxxing and personal details like bank account or credit card numbers that could be used for fraud.
But information increasing pops up in unexpected places and is used in new ways, so policies need to evolve, the company said.
Having personal contact information openly available online also can pose a threat and Google said it had received requests for the option to remove that content, too.
It said that when it receives such requests it will study all the content on the web page to avoid limiting availability of useful information or of content on the public record on government or other official websites.
“It’s important to remember that removing content from Google Search won’t remove it from the internet, which is why you may wish to contact the hosting site directly, if you’re comfortable doing so,” it said.
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A musical that depicts the remarkable escape from the Holocaust of a renowned Jewish sculptor and his family is about to open in Australia. Driftwood recounts the journey of Karl Duldig, his wife Slawa Horowitz-Duldig – inventor of the modern foldable umbrella – and their baby daughter, Eva. They fled the Nazis from Vienna in 1938, sought refuge in Singapore, but were deported to Australia in September 1940.
“Driftwood” is based on a 2017 memoir by Karl Duldig’s daughter, Eva. She was a child when the family arrived in Australia. It was during World War II, and the family were classified as enemy aliens. They were interned in an isolated camp in the state of Victoria until 1942, when Karl Duldig joined the Australian army.
Eva de Jong-Duldig, who became a talented tennis player and reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon in 1961, says the musical is an epic story of survival.
“My parents were inspiration. I think what I admire most is their resilience after coming through such a terrible period in which they lost nearly all their family. They made new lives here in Australia and they became wonderful art teachers, and my dad became really very well recognized as a sculptor,” she noted.
They rebuilt their lives as artists in Melbourne in what is described as a “magical” family history of “creativity, perseverance and freedom.”
Their granddaughter, Tania De Jong, is one of the musical’s main performers. She told the Australian Broadcasting Corp., that Driftwood has become a story with a global appeal.
“Both of us just felt a really strong yearning to create a new Australian musical that was deep and substantial and told a very meaningful story. But we do also have an enormous amount of interest from international film producers to turn this epic story into a feature film as well,” she expressed.
Karl Duldig died in Melbourne in 1986. His wife, Slawa, died in 1975.
The show has had positive reviews from Australia’s Jewish community.
Hadassah Australia, an organization that supports programs that connect the Australian community with Israel, said it looked “forward to the success of the musical telling [of Eva de Jong-Duldig] parents’ story.”
Theatrepeople.com.au, an online publication, said “Driftwood” “features a fluid sense of time, as characters reconstruct past experiences, to make sense of history. It is an epic, ambitious theatrical piece and a truly original Australian story.”
The Australian Jewish News said it would be giving away free tickets to the show’s opening night.
The world premiere takes place at Monash University in Melbourne May 13.
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China has suspended cross-border freight train services with North Korea following consultations after COVID-19 infections in its border city of Dandong, the foreign ministry said Friday.
The suspension came within four months after North Korea eased border lockdowns enforced early in 2020 against the coronavirus, measures global aid groups have blamed for its worsening economic woes and risks to food supplies for millions.
“Due to the COVID situation in Dandong, after friendly consultation between both sides, China has decided to suspend freight services from Dandong to Sinuiju,” foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told a daily briefing in Beijing.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said authorities in Dandong had acted on a request from North Korea, citing unidentified sources.
Authorities in Seoul, the capital of neighboring South Korea, said they were keeping watch on the situation.
The Chinese city of Dandong has been fighting a COVID-19 outbreak since late April, reporting 220 infections from April 24-27.
By Wednesday, authorities had locked down 77 residential compounds, while people elsewhere were asked to keep to designated areas.
North Korea has not officially reported any COVID-19 infections since the pandemic began but adopted border curbs among its anti-virus measures.
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South Korea said Friday it will lift its outdoor mask mandate next week in response to a steady drop in COVID-19 cases after an omicron-fueled surge.
The announcement comes after Seoul dropped almost all other social-distancing measures earlier this month, ending two years of strict requirements that put a massive strain on the country’s small businesses.
From Monday, residents will no longer be required to wear face masks outdoors unless attending an event with more than 50 participants, health authorities said.
“As social-distancing measures are lifted and the mask mandate is being adjusted, people are increasingly returning to their normal lives,” Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), told reporters.
“This is all thanks to the patience and cooperation of the people over a long period of time,” Jeong added.
South Korea’s incoming administration, headed by conservative president-elect Yoon Suk-y, on Friday criticized the decision to end the mask mandate as “premature,” questioning if it had been based solely on “virus prevention measures.”
Ahn Cheol-soo, chief of Yoon’s transition team, had previously said the new government planned to make a decision on the mandate in May.
South Korea reported 50,568 new coronavirus cases Friday, well down from the peak of more than 620,000 a day in mid-March.
The KDCA’s Jeong said there had been a “steady decrease” in COVID-19 cases for the past six weeks.
“The number of new critically ill patients is also decreasing,” she said, adding hospitals had enough beds to treat new inpatients.
More than 86% of South Korea’s 51 million people have been fully vaccinated, with the majority also receiving a booster shot.
About 22,700 people in the country have died from the coronavirus — a 0.13% fatality rate, one of the world’s lowest.
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Muslim worshippers in Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir say they are struggling to purchase essential groceries for Ramadan celebrations because of the country’s high inflation rate. VOA’s Xecican Farqin has details in this report narrated by Rikar Hussein. Camera: Xecican Farqin
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Mission accomplished for the latest SpaceX and NASA trip to the International Space Station. Plus, the first-ever all-private charter to the ISS ends and … see what it looks like to catch a four-story rocket out of the sky. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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Menthol cigarettes and other menthol tobacco products may soon be things of the past, according to an announcement by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday saying authorities are moving forward on a plan to ban them.
It could still be years before the products are removed from stores.
“The proposed rules would help prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers and help adult smokers quit,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
Advocates for banning menthol tobacco products have long said they disproportionately impact African Americans, among whom they’re popular. It is estimated that 85% of African American smokers use menthol products.
“Black folks die disproportionately of heart disease, lung cancer and stroke,” said Phillip Gardiner of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council. “Menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars are the main vectors of those diseases in the Black and brown communities and have been for a long time.”
Experts at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center say menthol cigarettes are more dangerous than regular cigarettes because their minty flavoring masks the harshness of tobacco smoke, allowing for deeper inhalation and possibly more intense smoking habits. They also say more than half of smokers between the ages of 12 and 17 use menthol tobacco products.
Some states such as California and Massachusetts have already banned menthol tobacco products.
Members of the public will be allowed to give their input on the proposed ban until July 5, after which the FDA will finalize a plan.
Tobacco companies are likely to launch legal efforts to prevent banning menthol tobacco products.
Cigarette stocks were mixed on the news despite menthol tobacco products reportedly accounting for one-third of the market in the United States.
It is estimated that 12% of Americans smoke cigarettes.
Some information in this report comes from Reuters and The Associated Press.
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((SOURCE: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-fda-to-publish-proposal-to-ban-menthol-cigarettes-wsj/ar-AAWHf5s
https://apnews.com/article/science-business-health-smoking-tobacco-industry-regulation-04832ac01c3596cbedc4257f460707e8))
An application developed in Kenya to improve the marketing of fish caught in Lake Victoria is helping women fishmongers fend off sex-for-fish exploitation by fishermen. The Aquarech app allows traders to buy fish without having to negotiate with fishermen – as Ruud Elmendorp reports from Kisumu, Kenya.
Videographer: Ruud Elmendorp Produced by: Henry Hernandez
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Veteran Hong Kong actor Kenneth Tsang has died while in a COVID-19 quarantine hotel in the southern Chinese city, local media reported.
Tsang was best known internationally for his action roles in the 2002 James Bond film Die Another Day,'' John Woo'sThe Killer” in 1989, Rush Hour 2'' in 2001 starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, and 1998'sThe Replacement Killers” alongside Chow Yun-Fat and Mira Sorvino.
Tsang had been undergoing seven days of quarantine after returning from Singapore on Monday and was found collapsed on the floor of his hotel room by staff on Wednesday, according to the South China Morning Post and other media.
The South China Morning Post said Tsang was 87 years old but other sources gave his age as 86.
No cause of death was given and the paper said he had tested negative for the virus and had no underlying medical conditions.
In all, Tsang had some 237 acting credits, mainly in Hong Kong film and television productions, and especially in detective and martial arts movies, according to his IMDb page.
Born in Shanghai, Tsang began acting after obtaining an architecture degree at the University of California, Berkeley, making his debut in 1955. In 1969 alone, he was credited in more than 20 movies and continued working up to the time of his death.
Tsang was married three times and had a son with his first wife, Lan Di, and a daughter with his second wife, Barbara Tang.
Hong Kong is dealing with a renewed outbreak in cases of the highly transmissible omicron variant and requires all inbound travelers to undergo quarantine for up to 14 days.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci has given an upbeat assessment of the current state of the coronavirus in the United States, saying the country is “out of the pandemic phase” with regard to new infections, hospitalizations and deaths, and that it appears to be making a transition to COVID-19 becoming an endemic disease — occurring regularly in certain areas.
Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, said on the PBS NewsHour on Tuesday that the coronavirus remains a pandemic for much of the world. The threat is not over for the United States, he said, adding that he was speaking about the worst phase of the pandemic.
“Namely, we don’t have 900,000 new infections a day and tens and tens and tens of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. We are at a low level right now,” he said.
In comments Wednesday to The Washington Post, however, Fauci seemed to clarify his earlier remarks, saying that unlike the “full-blown, explosive pandemic phase” during the brutal winter omicron surge, he was describing what appears to be a period of transition toward COVID-19 becoming an endemic disease.
“The world is still in a pandemic. There’s no doubt about that. Don’t anybody get any misinterpretation of that. We are still experiencing a pandemic,” Fauci told the Post.
His comments came as health authorities wrestle with how to keep COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations manageable and learn to live with what’s still a mutating and unpredictable virus.
The Biden administration has stressed that the nation has more tools — vaccinations, booster shots and medications — to better handle infections than earlier in the pandemic.
U.S. cases are far lower than they were in recent months. But health officials are keeping a close eye as highly contagious variants continue to spread. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says cases have risen about 25% in the past week.
As of Wednesday afternoon, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the U.S. has recorded more than 81 million cases and more than 992,000 deaths.
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Tokyo’s Shibuya is famed for its Scramble Crossing, where crowds of people crisscross the intersection in a scene symbolizing urban Japan’s congestion and anonymity. It may have added another boasting right.
Tokyu Railways’ trains running through Shibuya and other stations were switched to power generated only by solar and other renewable sources starting April 1.
That means the carbon dioxide emissions of Tokyu’s sprawling network of seven train lines and one tram service now stand at zero, with green energy being used at all its stations, including for vending machines for drinks, security camera screens and lighting.
Tokyu, which employs 3,855 people and connects Tokyo with nearby Yokohama, is the first railroad operator in Japan to have achieved that goal. It says the carbon dioxide reduction is equivalent to the annual average emissions of 56,000 Japanese households.
Nicholas Little, director of railway education at Michigan State University’s Center for Railway Research and Education, commends Tokyu for promoting renewable energy but stressed the importance of boosting the bottom-line amount of that renewable energy.
“I would stress the bigger impacts come from increasing electricity generation from renewable sources,” he said. “The long-term battle is to increase production of renewable electricity and provide the transmission infrastructure to get it to the places of consumption.”
The technology used by Tokyu’s trains is among the most ecologically friendly options for railways. The other two options are batteries and hydrogen power.
And so is it just a publicity stunt, or is Tokyu moving in the right direction?
Ryo Takagi, a professor at Kogakuin University and specialist in electric railway systems, believes the answer isn’t simple because how train technology evolves is complex and depends on many uncertain societal factors.
In a nutshell, Tokyu’s efforts are definitely not hurting and are probably better than doing nothing. They show the company is taking up the challenge of promoting clean energy, he said.
“But I am not going out of my way to praise it as great,” Takagi said.
Bigger gains would come from switching from diesel trains in rural areas to hydrogen powered lines and from switching gas-guzzling cars to electric, he said.
Tokyu paid an undisclosed amount to Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility behind the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, for certification vouching for its use of renewables, even as Japan continues to use coal and other fossil fuels.
“We don’t see this as reaching our goal but just a start,” said Assistant Manager Yoshimasa Kitano at Tokyu’s headquarters, a few minutes’ walk from the Scramble Crossing.
Such steps are crucial for Japan, the world’s sixth-biggest carbon emitter, to attain its goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2050.
About 20% of Japan’s electricity comes from renewable sources, according to the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, a Tokyo-based independent non-profit research organization.
That lags way behind New Zealand, for instance, where 84% of power used comes from renewable energy sources. New Zealand hopes to make that 100% by 2035.
The renewable sources driving Tokyu trains include hydropower, geothermal power, wind power and solar power, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility that provides the electricity and tracks its energy sourcing.
Tokyu has more than 100 kilometers (64 miles) of railway tracks serving 2.2 million people a day, including commuting “salarymen” and “salarywomen” and schoolchildren in uniforms.
Since the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, when a tsunami set off by a massive earthquake sent three reactors into meltdowns, Japan has shut down most of its nuclear plants and ramped up use of coal-fired power plants.
The country aims to have 36%-38% of its energy come from renewable sources by 2030, while slashing overall energy use.
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A hands-off approach to moderating content at Elon Musk’s Twitter could clash with ambitious new laws in Europe meant to protect users from disinformation, hate speech and other harmful material.
Musk, who describes himself as a “free speech absolutist,” pledged to buy Twitter for $44 billion this week, with European Union officials and digital campaigners quick to say that any focus on free speech to the detriment of online safety would not fly after the 27-nation bloc solidified its status as a global leader in the effort to rein in the power of tech giants.
“If his approach will be ‘just stop moderating it,’ he will likely find himself in a lot of legal trouble in the EU,” said Jan Penfrat, senior policy adviser at digital rights group EDRi.
Musk will soon be confronted with Europe’s Digital Services Act, which will require big tech companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook parent Meta to police their platforms more strictly or face billions in fines.
Other crackdowns
Officials agreed just days ago on the landmark legislation, expected to take effect by 2024. It’s unclear how soon it could spark a similar crackdown elsewhere, with U.S. lawmakers divided on efforts to address competition, online privacy, disinformation and more.
That means the job of reining in a Musk-led Twitter could fall to Europe — something officials signaled they’re ready for.
“Be it cars or social media, any company operating in Europe needs to comply with our rules — regardless of their shareholding,” Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commissioner, tweeted Tuesday. “Mr Musk knows this well. He is familiar with European rules on automotive, and will quickly adapt to the Digital Services Act.”
Musk’s plans for Twitter haven’t been fleshed out beyond a few ideas for new features, opening its algorithm to public inspection and defeating “bots” posing as real users.
France’s digital minister, Cedric O, said Musk has “interesting things” that he wants to push for Twitter, “but let’s remember that #DigitalServicesAct — and therefore the obligation to fight misinformation, online hate, etc. — will apply regardless of the ideology of its owner.”
EU Green Party lawmaker Alexandra Geese, who was involved in negotiating the law, said, “Elon Musk’s idea of free speech without content moderation would exclude large parts of the population from public discourse,” such as women and people of color.
Twitter declined to comment. Musk tweeted that “the extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all.” He added that by free speech, he means “that which matches the law” and that he’s against censorship going “far beyond the law.”
The United Kingdom also has an online safety law in the works that threatens senior managers at tech companies with prison if they don’t comply. Users would get more power to block anonymous trolls, and tech companies would be forced to proactively take down illegal content.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office stressed the need for Twitter to remain “responsible” and protect users.
“Regardless of ownership, all social media platforms must be responsible,” Johnson spokesman Max Blain said Tuesday.
Need seen for cleanup
Damian Collins, a British lawmaker who led a parliamentary committee working on the bill, said that if Musk really wants to make Twitter a free speech haven, “he will need to clean up the digital town square.”
Collins said Twitter has become a place where users are drowned out by coordinated armies of “bot” accounts spreading disinformation and division and that users refrain from expressing themselves “because of the hate and abuse they will receive.”
The laws in the U.K. and EU target such abuse. Under the EU’s Digital Services Act, tech companies must put in place systems so illegal content can be easily flagged for swift removal.
Experts said Twitter will have to go beyond taking down clearly defined illegal content like hate speech, terrorism and child sexual abuse and grapple with material that falls into a gray zone.
The law includes requirements for big tech platforms to carry out annual risk assessments to determine how much their products and design choices contribute to the spread of divisive material that can affect issues like health or public debate.
“This is all about assessing to what extent your users are seeing, for example, Russian propaganda in the context of the Ukraine war,” online harassment or COVID-19 misinformation, said Mathias Vermeulen, public policy director at data rights agency AWO.
Violations would incur fines of up to 6% of a company’s global annual revenue. Repeat offenders can be banned from the EU.
More openness
The Digital Services Act also requires tech companies to be more transparent by giving regulators and researchers access to data on how their systems recommend content to users.
Musk has similar thoughts, saying his plans include “making the algorithms open source to increase trust.”
Penfrat said it’s a great idea that could pave the way to a new ecosystem of ranking and recommendation options.
But he panned another Musk idea — “authenticating all humans” — saying that taking away anonymity or pseudonyms from people, including society’s most marginalized, was the dream of every autocrat.
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Elon Musk’s request to scrap a settlement with securities regulators over 2018 tweets claiming he had the funding to take Tesla private was denied by a federal judge in New York.
Judge Lewis Liman on Wednesday also denied a motion to nullify subpoenas of Musk seeking information about possible violations of his settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Musk had asked the court to throw out the settlement, which required that his tweets be approved by a Tesla attorney. The SEC is investigating whether the Tesla CEO violated the settlement with tweets last November asking Twitter followers if he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock.
The whole dispute stems from an October 2018 agreement with the SEC in which Musk and Tesla each agreed to pay $20 million in civil fines over Musk’s tweets about having the money to take Tesla private at $420 per share.
The funding was far from secured and the electric vehicle company remains public, but Tesla’s stock price jumped. The settlement specified governance changes, including Musk’s ouster as board chairman, as well as pre-approval of his tweets.
Musk attorney Alex Spiro contended in court motions that the SEC was trampling on Musk’s right to free speech.
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Belarusian-American composer Eugene Magalif has organized an international musical event to honor and show support for Ukraine. Maxim Moskalkov has the story.
Videographer: Andrey Degtyarev
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The Democratic Republic of Congo has kicked off Ebola vaccinations to stem an outbreak in the northwest city of Mbandaka, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.
Two people are known to have died so far in the city of over one million inhabitants where people live in close proximity to road, water and air links to the capital Kinshasa.
The first death occurred on April 21 and the second on Tuesday, marking the central African country’s 14th Ebola outbreak.
Around 200 doses of the rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine have been shipped to Mbandaka from the eastern city of Goma, with more to be delivered in coming days, the WHO said in a statement.
So far 233 contacts have been identified and are being monitored, it added.
Three vaccination teams are on the ground and will focus on reaching all people at high risk.
“With effective vaccines at hand and the experience of the Democratic Republic of the Congo health workers in Ebola response, we can quickly change the course of this outbreak for the better,” WHO Africa Director Matshidiso Moeti said in the statement.
Congo’s equatorial forests are a natural reservoir for the Ebola virus, which was discovered near the Ebola River in northern Congo in 1976.
The country has seen 13 previous Ebola outbreaks, including one in 2018-2020 in the east that killed nearly 2,300 people, the second highest toll recorded in the history of the hemorrhagic fever.
The most recent ended in December in the east and caused six deaths. Mbandaka, the capital of Equateur province, has also contended with outbreaks in 2018 and in 2020.
Genetic testing has shown that the current outbreak was a new “spillover event,” meaning it was transmitted from infected animals rather than linked to previous events.
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Many of the technological advances in lithium ion batteries that now power many electric vehicles began in a laboratory just outside Chicago’s city limits decades ago. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports on new innovations at Argonne National Laboratory preparing for the next-generation needs of drivers.
Camera: Kane Farabaugh, Mike Burke
Produced by: Kane Farabaugh
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Rising seas from climate change are forcing difficult choices for coastal communities around the world. The southern U.S. state of Louisiana plans to spend billions restoring land it has already lost to erosion. But the plan has winners and losers. Video: Steve Baragona, Arturo Martinez
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The United Nations is calling for better management to reduce the risks from rapidly increasing natural disasters largely triggered by climate change. The U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has issued its 2022 Global Assessment Report, which prescribes solutions to lessen the threatened risks.
The report warns the world is set to face more frequent and extreme disasters and nations are ill-prepared to tackle the dangers.
It says the number of natural disasters experienced over the last two decades is five times higher than in the previous three decades.
Based on current trends, says Director of the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction Ricardo Mena, the world will face some 560 disasters per year.
“Disasters have forced over a quarter-of-a-billion people into internal displacement,” said Mena. “So, that is much more than those that have been displaced by conflict and war each year on average between 2010 and 2020.”
Over the last decade, the cost of disasters has amounted to around $170 billion a year. The U.N. report notes the Asia-Pacific region bears the greatest share of economic loss, followed by the African region.
Mena says it is the poorest countries that are most impacted by disasters, forcing the most vulnerable into a spiral of destruction.
But he says that destructive spiral can be stopped if governments adopt better risk reduction policies and management strategies.
“Governments will need to invest more in disaster resilience, strengthening national budgets to protect people, and critical infrastructure,” Mena said. “But they also will have to strengthen efforts to avoid the creation of new risks as a result of risk-line decisions.”
Mena says decisions people make on how they live, build, and invest can create new risks. For example, he says, someone who builds a house in an earthquake-prone area without respecting the building codes is likely to have his house destroyed. A municipality that builds a school in a flood-prone area may see the building washed away.
Making better decisions, Mena says, can lead to fewer disasters.
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Sensor-packed robots are changing how movies and commercials are made. Deana Mitchell has the story.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $44 billion deal to buy Twitter Monday met mixed reactions as observers speculated how digital speech on the service might change under his leadership.
Musk, a prolific Twitter user who has criticized Twitter’s management in tweets, said in the press release Monday announcing the deal that “Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”
Musk’s takeover of Twitter was applauded by some U.S. conservatives who have alleged that internet firms — including Twitter — promote a liberal political agenda and suppress conservative voices.
Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, tweeted that it’s “amazing to watch the Left panic at the prospect of free speech on Twitter.”
But others expressed concern that Musk’s takeover would mean less moderation of hate speech and misinformation on the site.
Sumayyah Waheed, senior policy counsel with Muslim Advocates, a national civil rights organization, told VOA that Twitter doesn’t have a good track record of taking down hateful speech against Muslims.
“We already face threats and regular harassment on Twitter, and a weaker content moderation system will just make that even worse,” she said.
Twitter, with more than 400 million monthly active users, has a smaller audience than Facebook, with 3 billion users, and YouTube, with over 2 billion.
Twitter is primarily used in the U.S. and Western Europe, where it is influential among journalists, political leaders, celebrities and other thought leaders. Because powerful people use Twitter, it has an outsized influence, observers say.
Twitter allows people to post anonymously and is credited with helping marginalized voices around the world speak. Musk has talked recently of wanting to “authenticate all real humans” on the site, raising concerns among digital rights advocates that Twitter will require accounts to be tied to a person’s identity.
Twitter under Musk
Michael Posner, director of the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, said that Musk’s statements about free speech “are not very well developed.”
“We have to hope that once he gets into the driver’s seat, he understands that social media platforms need to be moderated by people who own them and run them,” he told VOA. “A site where content moderation is not taken seriously is going to yield spam, pornography, hate speech and disinformation, and all kinds of things that are not good for society.”
Emerson Brooking, a resident senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council, a U.S. think tank, said Twitter will probably change under the new leadership.
“Musk’s absolutist view of freedom of speech, his unfamiliarity with the challenges that many people face around the world in expressing their political points of view, these two things are going to clash,” he said in an interview with VOA. “And I expect that the Twitter of the future will look quite a bit different and quite a bit less inviting for many people.”
Concentration of power
Evan Greer, director of the digital rights organization Fight for the Future, said Musk’s acquisition exposes another issue: A handful of companies have a monopoly on “what can be seen, heard and done online,” she said.
“If we want a future of free speech, it’s not a future where the richest person on Earth can purchase a platform that millions of people depend on and then change the rules to his liking,” she said in an interview with VOA.
There’s been speculation that under Musk, former President Donald Trump, whom Twitter banned permanently in 2021, could return to the site. But Trump told Fox News prior to the announcement of the deal Monday that while he hoped that Musk would buy Twitter, he would not return to the service. Instead, he will join his own social media site, Truth Social, he said.
For his part, Musk appeared to acknowledge the varied reactions about his new role, tweeting Monday: “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal told employees Monday that he is uncertain of the direction the company will go after Tesla CEO Elon Musk takes over.
Musk reached an agreement Monday to buy Twitter for $44 billion, promising to make the platform more supportive of free speech. The move has raised questions about how far Twitter will go to relax restrictions on users’ speech and led critics to fear new policies would make it easier for people to spread disinformation and hate speech.
Agrawal answered employee questions Monday in a town hall that was heard by Reuters.
The news agency reported that Agrawal told employees, “Once the deal closes, we don’t know which direction the platform will go.” The CEO was answering a question about whether former President Donald Trump would be allowed to rejoin Twitter despite his permanent suspension.
“I believe when we have an opportunity to speak with Elon, it’s a question we should address with him,” Agrawal said.
Twitter banned Trump after the U.S. Capitol was stormed on January 6, 2021, citing a risk of more violence.
Musk has proposed relaxing the type of content restrictions that led Twitter to suspend the former president’s account.
Musk, who is also CEO of rocket developer SpaceX, has said Twitter needs to become a private company so that it can realize its potential for free speech. He has described himself as a “free-speech absolutist.”
Reuters reported that Agrawal deferred many staff questions to Musk, who he said would join Twitter staff for a question-and-answer session at a later date.
Agrawal also told employees there were no plans for layoffs.
Musk said in a securities filing this month that he did not have confidence in Twitter’s management.
He said in a statement Monday that “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”
Some information in this report came from Reuters.
The first all-private astronaut team ever flown aboard the International Space Station (ISS) safely splashed down in the Atlantic off Florida’s coast on Monday, concluding a two-week science mission hailed as a landmark in commercialized human spaceflight.
The SpaceX crew capsule carrying the four-man team, led by a retired NASA astronaut who is now vice president of the Texas company behind the mission, Axiom Space, parachuted into the sea after a 16-hour descent from orbit.
The splashdown capped the latest, and most ambitious, in a recent series of rocket-powered expeditions bankrolled by private investment capital and wealthy passengers rather than taxpayer dollars six decades after the dawn of the space age.
The mission’s crew was assembled, equipped and trained entirely at private expense by Axiom, a five-year-old venture based in Houston and headed by NASA’s former ISS program manager. Axiom also has contracted with NASA to build the first commercial addition to and ultimate replacement of the space station.
SpaceX, the launch service founded by Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk, supplied the Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule that carried Axiom’s team to and from orbit, controlled the flight and handled the splashdown recovery.
NASA, which has encouraged the further commercialization of space travel, furnished the launch site at its Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and assumed responsibility for the Axiom crew while they were aboard the space station. The U.S. space agency’s ISS crew members also pitched in to assist the private astronauts when needed.
The multinational Axiom team was led by Spanish-born retired NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, 63, the company’s vice president for business development. His second-in-command was Larry Connor, 72, a technology entrepreneur and aerobatics aviator from Ohio designated the mission pilot.
Joining them as “mission specialists” were investor-philanthropist and former Israeli fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe, 64, and Canadian businessman and philanthropist Mark Pathy, 52.
Connor, Stibbe and Pathy flew as customers of Axiom, which charges $50 million to $60 million per seat for such flights, according to Mo Islam, head of research for the investment firm Republic Capital, which holds stakes in both Axiom and SpaceX.
Fiery reentry
The splashdown, carried live by an Axiom-SpaceX webcast, was originally planned for last Wednesday, but the return flight was delayed, and the mission was extended to about a week due to windy weather. The potential costs of such an extension were factored into Axiom’s contracts with NASA and its customers, so none of the parties bore any additional charges, the company said.
The return from orbit followed a reentry plunge through Earth’s atmosphere generating frictional heat that sends temperatures surrounding the outside of the capsule soaring to 1,927 degrees Celsius.
Applause was heard from the SpaceX flight control center in suburban Los Angeles as parachutes billowed open above the capsule in the final stage of its descent — slowing its fall to about 24 kilometers per hour — and again as the craft hit the water off the coast of Jacksonville.
In less than an hour, the heat-scorched Crew Dragon was hoisted onto a recovery ship before the capsule’s side hatch was opened and the four astronauts, garbed in helmeted white-and-black spacesuits, were helped out one by one onto the deck. All were visibly unsteady on their feet from over two weeks spent in a weightless environment.
Each received a quick onboard checkup before they were flown back to Florida for more thorough medical evaluations.
“Everybody looks great and is doing reasonably well,” Axiom operations director Derek Hassmann told a post-splashdown news briefing, describing the astronauts as being “in great spirits.”
‘Low-Earth orbit economy’
Axiom, SpaceX, and NASA have touted the occasion as a milestone in the expansion of privately funded space-based commerce, constituting what industry insiders call the “low-Earth orbit economy,” or “LEO economy” for short.
“We proved that we can prepare the crew in a way that makes them effective and productive in orbit,” Hassmann said. “What it demonstrates to the world is that there is a new avenue to get to low-Earth orbit.”
Launched on April 8, the Axiom team spent 17 days in orbit, 15 of those aboard the space station with the seven regular, government-paid ISS crew members: three American astronauts, a German astronaut and three Russian cosmonauts.
The ISS has hosted several wealthy space tourists from time to time over the years.
But the Axiom quartet was the first all-commercial team ever welcomed to the space station as working astronauts, bringing with them 25 science and biomedical experiments to conduct in orbit. The package included research on brain health, cardiac stem cells, cancer and aging, as well as a technology demonstration to produce optics using the surface tension of fluids in microgravity.
It was the sixth human spaceflight for SpaceX in nearly two years, following four NASA astronaut missions to the ISS and the “Inspiration 4” flight in September that sent an all-private crew into Earth orbit for the first time, though not to the space station.
SpaceX has been hired to fly three more Axiom astronaut missions to ISS over the next two years.
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One in four children in Latin America and the Caribbean does not have vaccine protection against three potentially deadly diseases, a U.N. report said Monday, warning of plummeting inoculation rates.
While 90% of children in the region in 2015 had received the vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough (DTP3), by 2020 coverage had dropped to three-quarters, according to the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), a regional office of the World Health Organization.
This means that some 2.5 million children were not fully protected — and 1.5 million of them have not had even one dose in the three-shot regimen.
Globally, according to WHO, 17.1 million infants did not receive an initial dose of the DTP3 vaccine in 2020, and another 5.6 million were only partially jabbed.
Outbreaks of preventable diseases “have already occurred” in Latin America and the Caribbean, the agencies said.
In 2013, only five people in the region contracted diphtheria — a bacterial disease that can cause breathing difficulties, heart failure and potentially death.
Five years later, the number was nearly 900.
There has also been a rise in cases of measles — another disease that can be prevented with inoculation — from nearly 500 cases in 2013 to more than 23,000 in 2019, said the statement.
“The decline in vaccination rates in the region is alarming,” said UNICEF regional director Jean Gough.
The reasons were multifold.
“The context in the region has changed in the last five years. Governments have focused their attention on other emerging public health issues such as Zika, chikungunya and more recently COVID-19,” UNICEF neonatal expert Ralph Midy told AFP.
“The existence of migrant populations that are difficult to locate and do not always have access to regular health services, in addition to people living in isolated or hard-to-reach areas, also hinders the vaccination process,” Midy said.
The downward trend started even before the COVID-19 epidemic, which worsened the situation by interrupting primary health care services and causing some people to avoid clinics and hospitals for fear of the virus.
“As countries recover from the pandemic, immediate actions are needed to prevent (vaccine) coverage rates from further dropping, because the re-emergence of disease outbreaks poses a serious risk to all of society,” said Gough.