Vietnam’s government is on a global vaccine shopping spree in hopes it can stem a surge of COVID-19 infections without resorting to more lockdowns like those that have already set back the economy and angered an increasingly frustrated public. Like many of its East Asia neighbors, Vietnam is experiencing some of its highest infection rates since the pandemic began early last year, registering more than 2,000 new cases in a day for the first time earlier this week. It recorded 2,383 new cases on July 12, the fifth consecutive day of record highs. However, public patience is wearing thin with the sort of restrictions that helped to keep three earlier waves of infections in check. After almost 50 days of lockdown in Ho Chi Minh City, even those who once supported the government unconditionally began to question the way Vietnam has been fighting the pandemic. FILE – A woman sells food next to a banner reading “prevent the spread of COVID-19, take away only, please keep your distance 2 meters” amid the coronavirus outbreak in Hanoi, Vietnam, May 31, 2021.Some are also questioning whether an all-out battle against the virus is necessary, given that Vietnam is reporting far lower mortality rates from COVID-19 than many countries with more advanced health care systems. The nation’s official figures show only 130 deaths from more than 30,000 cases — a mortality rate of 0.4% compared to 1.8% in the United States. Previous lockdowns have taken a toll on the economy. Vietnam’s General Statistics Office this month reported that 12.8 million people aged 15 or older were negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic during the April-June period of this year. Of those, 557,000 people lost their jobs, 4.1 million people had to temporarily suspend their business, 4.3 million people had their working hours cut or had to take time off or rotate work, and 8.5 million workers had their income reduced. That has the nation’s leaders in Hanoi placing their hopes in a stepped-up campaign to vaccinate more than 70% of the population by the end of March 2022. According to Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long, the campaign will kick off this month with approximately 8.7 million vaccine doses to be administered in 18,000 vaccination centers. That will be an ambitious undertaking, requiring an estimated 150 million vaccine doses over the next nine months. So far, Vietnam has injected not quite 4 million doses since it received its first batch of vaccines in April through COVAX, the U.N.-backed body working to get vaccines to less developed countries. The Ministry of Health says 9 million doses have been received altogether since February, including the products of U.S., Russian, Chinese and British pharmaceutical companies. The effort got a boost on July 10, when Vietnam received 2 million doses of the U.S.-made Moderna vaccine through the COVAX facility. The shipment is part of the 80 million doses vaccine that U.S. President Joe Biden has committed to share globally. FILE – Health workers wait to be vaccinated against COVID-19 at Hai Duong Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Hai Duong province, Vietnam, March 8, 2021.The foreign ministry announced this week it is also in talks with Russia and India to purchase 40 million Sputnik V and 15 million Covaxin doses, respectively. Altogether, it says, it has secured commitments to provide more than 120 million doses. Vietnam’s leaders are also intent on developing the country’s own vaccine. Nanogen’s Nanocovax vaccine, backed by Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính, is about to finish trials and is expected to be available beginning in August. An important consideration is the government’s desire to avoid the “vaccine diplomacy” of China, which has been accused of using its largess with vaccines to pressure Southeast Asia countries for favorable policies on other security issues. Another worry is that some citizens will turn down certain vaccines in hopes of being injected with one that is considered to be more effective against the virus. A wave of social media posts has emerged criticizing people who want to choose vaccines on their own.
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World Emoji Day, celebrating technology users’ favorite emoticons, is Saturday.Jeremy Burge, the founder of the icon reference site Emojipedia, created the holiday in 2014. The day is intended to celebrate the beloved icons that are increasingly used in online messaging.World Emoji Day organizers are asking the public to vote in the World Emoji Awards. The categories for this competition include most popular new emoji, most anticipated new emoji, most 2021 Emoji, and lifetime achievement. Twitter users can vote for their favorite emojis through polls posted by @EmojiAwards. The voting is now open for the most 2021 Emoji, and the competition has narrowed down to two icons: Syringe, and Microbe.Keith Brioni, the deputy emoji officer of Emojipedia, said he is rooting for the Syringe, but added “we will have to see if the wider emoji public is in agreement come World Emoji Day.” The winners of the 2020 World Emoji Awards included the White Heart as the most popular new emoji, the Smiling Face with Tear as the most anticipated new emoji, and the Raised Fist: Dark Skin Tone as the most 2020 emoji.New emojis are approved by the Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit group that regulates all digital scripts. In 2010 emojis were accepted into the Unicode Standard, which creates consistency for all programmed letters and symbols. According to Brioni, “adding these designs to this cross-platform standard allowed emojis to be exchanged in-line with words across different devices and social platforms on a global scale, beyond anything that had been experienced before.” There are already more than 3,500 emojis. Placing emojis under the supervision of the Unicode Consortium allows designers and activists to submit their proposed icons with ease. This promotes greater diversity and cultural representation that was “initially lacking or entrenched in stereotypes during emojis earlier days,” said Brioni.Organizations such as Emojination are dedicated to adding inclusivity to the emoji approval process. As reported by the group, the proposal of the Hijab emoji was accepted by the Unicode Standard in 2017 and entered the permanent collection of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York last year. The desire for diversity is a shared sentiment according to Adobe’s Global Emoji Diversity & Inclusion report: 83% of global users want more inclusive emojis. These icons will continue to evolve as their popularity accelerates, and World Emoji Day is a celebration of these changes. As an additional challenge, the World Emoji Day developers ask all texters to only communicate through emojis on Saturday. So, in honor of the holiday: 😊 🌎 📆 🎉 (Happy World Emoji Day)
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Global inequality in the distribution of vaccines continues to hamper efforts to end the pandemic worldwide. But for those able to travel to wealthier countries with an abundance of vaccines, they are now willing to travel the distance and bear the high cost of “vaccine tourism”. VOA’s Virginia Gunawan explains.Camera: VIDEOGRAPHER: Rendy Wicaksana, Ahadian Utama, Virginia Gunawan
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U.S. President Joe Biden, his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Russian President Vladimir Putin are among Pacific Rim leaders gathering virtually to discuss strategies to help economies rebound from a resurgent COVID-19 pandemic.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will chair the special leaders’ meeting Friday of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
But the pandemic and vaccine diplomacy have proved to be divisive issues among members of a forum that says its primary goal is to support sustainable economic growth and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region.
Biden spoke by phone with Ardern on Friday ahead of the leaders’ retreat and discussed U.S. interest in maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region, a White House statement said.
“They also discussed our cooperation on and engagement with Pacific Island nations,” the statement said.
The Biden administration has put a premium on tending to relations with allies in the Pacific early in his administration.
One of his first high-profile acts of diplomacy as president was hosting a virtual summit with fellow leaders of the Quad – Australia, India and Japan – a group central to his efforts to counter China’s growing military and economic power. And he hosted Suga and South Korea President Moon Jae-in for the first in-person foreign leader meetings of his presidency. South Korea is an APEC member and India is the only country in the Quad that is not.
Biden plans to use the virtual APEC retreat to talk to leaders about his administration’s efforts to serve “as an arsenal of vaccines to the world” in the battle against COVID-19 pandemic and how members of the alliance can collaborate to bolster the global economy, according to a senior Biden administration who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The U.S. has donated 4.5 million vaccine doses to Indonesia, 2 million to Vietnam, 1 million to Malaysia, and 3.2 million doses will soon be delivered to the Philippines. The White House says donations to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Papua New Guinea, will also soon be delivered. Laos and Cambodia are the only countries among those eight vaccine recipients that are not APEC members.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said the “important meeting” came at a critical time as the world was facing a resurgence in COVID-19 infection numbers and international cooperation against the pandemic had entered a new stage.
“We hope all parties can uphold the vision of an Asia-Pacific community with a shared future, carry forward the Asia-Pacific partnership, send a positive message of fighting the coronavirus with solidarity and deepen economic recovery and cooperation,” Zhao said.
Suga will speak about his determination to hold a safe and secure Olympics when the games start in Tokyo on July 23, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said.
Suga will also emphasis Japan’s determination to secure fair access to vaccines for all countries and regions to support the global effort toward ending the COVID-19 pandemic, and Tokyo’s vision to expand a free and fair economic bloc, Kato said.
Ardern said APEC’s first leaders’ meeting outside the usual annual summits “reflects our desire to navigate together out of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis.”
“APEC economies have suffered their biggest contraction since the Second World War over the past year, with 81 million jobs lost. Responding collectively is vital to accelerate the economic recovery for the region,” said Ardern, whose South Pacific island nation has been among the most successful in the world in containing the virus.
The pace of a global vaccine rollout and conditions attached to international vaccine deals are vexed issues among APEC members.
The United States has been accused by some of hoarding vaccines. Biden came up well short on his goal of delivering 80 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to the rest of the world by the end of June as a host of logistical and regulatory hurdles slowed the pace of U.S. vaccine diplomacy.
Although the Biden administration has announced that about 50 countries and entities will receive a share of the excess COVID-19 vaccine doses, the U.S. had shipped fewer than 24 million doses to 10 recipient countries by July 1, according to an Associated Press tally.
Taiwan, an APEC member that China claims as a renegade territory, has accused Beijing of tying the delivery of coronavirus vaccines to political demands. The government of the self-ruled island says China has intervened to block vaccine deliveries to Taiwan from fellow APEC members Japan and the United States.
China has accused Australia of interfering in the rollout of Chinese vaccines in former Australian colony Papua New Guinea. Both Australia and Papua New Guinea are also APEC members.
Sino-Australian relations plummeted last year when Australia called for an independent investigation into the origins of and responses to the pandemic.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who will also join the meeting, said in a statement now was a “critical time for Australia to engage with regional partners to promote free trade facilitation, in particular for vaccines and essential goods; build momentum for strengthening the multilateral trading system; and secure a sustainable and inclusive recovery.”
China said that by May it was providing COVID-19 vaccines to nearly 40 African countries, describing its actions as purely altruistic.
The vaccines were donated or sold at “favorable prices,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry official said.
The online leaders’ meeting that is chaired from the New Zealand capital Wellington and straddles 11 time zones comes before the scheduled annual summit in November.
New Zealand’s pandemic response has been among the most effective in the world and the isolated nation of 5 million people has recorded just 26 COVID-19 deaths. But its vaccination campaign has been far slower than in most developed countries.
Ardern said leading a regional response to the pandemic was one of New Zealand’s highest priorities when it took over as APEC’s chair from Malaysia in an annual rotation among the 21 members.
“I will be inviting discussion on immediate measures to achieve more coordinated regional action to assist recovery, as well as steps that will support inclusive and sustainable growth over the long term,” she said. “APEC leaders will work together to get through the pandemic and promote a sustainable and inclusive recovery, because nobody is safe until everyone is safe.”
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Australian cybersecurity experts are calling for more aggressive government action to protect businesses from ransomware attacks. Experts have warned a “tsunami of cybercrime” has cost the global economy about $743 billion.
Big companies can be attractive targets for cybercriminals who can extort millions of dollars after stealing sensitive commercial information.
The Cybersecurity Cooperative Research Centre is a collaboration between industry representatives, the Australian government and academics.
Its chief executive, Rachael Falk, believes Australia is an easy target for hackers because cyber defenses can be weak.
“More often than not, it is by sending an email where an employee clicks on a link,” she said. “They get into that organization, they have a good look around and they work out what is valuable data here that we can encrypt, which means we lock it up and we will take a copy of it. And then we will encrypt all the valuable data in that organization and then we will hold them to ransom for money. So, it is a business model for criminals that earns them money.”
The consequences for businesses can be extreme. They can lose valuable data, or have it leaked or sold by cyberthieves. In some cases, hackers can disable an organization’s entire operation. In March, a cyberattack disrupted broadcasts by Channel Nine, one of Australia’s most popular commercial television news networks. It sought help from the Australian Signals Directorate, a government intelligence agency.
Researchers want the government to require Australian companies to tell authorities when they are being targeted.
They also want clarity on whether paying ransoms is legal. Experts have said Australian law does not make it clear whether giving money to hackers is a criminal offense.
There is also a call for the government to use tax incentives to encourage Australian businesses to invest in cybersecurity.
Last year, federal government agencies said China had been responsible for a series of cyberattacks on Australian institutions, including hospitals and state-owned companies.
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In a medical first, researchers harnessed the brain waves of a paralyzed man unable to speak — and turned what he intended to say into sentences on a computer screen.
It will take years of additional research but the study, reported Wednesday, marks an important step toward one day restoring more natural communication for people who can’t talk because of injury or illness.
“Most of us take for granted how easily we communicate through speech,” said Dr. Edward Chang, a neurosurgeon at the University of California, San Francisco, who led the work. “It’s exciting to think we’re at the very beginning of a new chapter, a new field” to ease the devastation of patients who lost that ability.
Today, people who can’t speak or write because of paralysis have very limited ways of communicating. For example, the man in the experiment, who was not identified to protect his privacy, uses a pointer attached to a baseball cap that lets him move his head to touch words or letters on a screen. Other devices can pick up patients’ eye movements. But it’s a frustratingly slow and limited substitution for speech.
Tapping brain signals to work around a disability is a hot field. In recent years, experiments with mind-controlled prosthetics have allowed paralyzed people to shake hands or take a drink using a robotic arm — they imagine moving and those brain signals are relayed through a computer to the artificial limb.
Chang’s team built on that work to develop a “speech neuroprosthetic” — decoding brain waves that normally control the vocal tract, the tiny muscle movements of the lips, jaw, tongue and larynx that form each consonant and vowel.
Volunteering to test the device was a man in his late 30s who 15 years ago suffered a brain-stem stroke that caused widespread paralysis and robbed him of speech. The researchers implanted electrodes on the surface of the man’s brain, over the area that controls speech.
A computer analyzed the patterns when he attempted to say common words such as “water” or “good,” eventually becoming able to differentiate between 50 words that could generate more than 1,000 sentences.
Prompted with such questions as “How are you today?” or “Are you thirsty” the device eventually enabled the man to answer “I am very good” or “No I am not thirsty” — not voicing the words but translating them into text, the team reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
It takes about three to four seconds for the word to appear on the screen after the man tries to say it, said lead author David Moses, an engineer in Chang’s lab. That’s not nearly as fast as speaking but quicker than tapping out a response.
‘Pioneering demonstration’
In an accompanying editorial, Harvard neurologists Leigh Hochberg and Sydney Cash called the work a “pioneering demonstration.”
They suggested improvements but said if the technology pans out it eventually could help people with injuries, strokes or illnesses like Lou Gehrig’s disease whose “brains prepare messages for delivery but those messages are trapped.”
Chang’s lab has spent years mapping the brain activity that leads to speech. First, researchers temporarily placed electrodes in the brains of volunteers undergoing surgery for epilepsy, so they could match brain activity to spoken words.
Only then was it time to try the experiment with someone unable to speak. How did they know the device interpreted his words correctly? They started by having him try to say specific sentences such as, “Please bring my glasses,” rather than answering open-ended questions until the machine translated accurately most of the time.
Next steps include ways to improve the device’s speed, accuracy and vocabulary size — and maybe one day allow a computer-generated voice rather than text on a screen — while testing a small number of additional volunteers.
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Iran appears to be intensifying its effort to exploit U.S. and Western targets in cyberspace, running a campaign aimed at manipulating American military personnel and defense companies on social media.
Tehran’s latest campaign, orchestrated on Facebook by a group known as Tortoiseshell, used a series of sophisticated, fake online personas to make contact with U.S. servicemembers and employees of major defense companies in order to infect their computers with malware and extract information.
“This activity had the hallmarks of a well-resourced and persistent operation, while relying on relatively strong operational security measures to hide who’s behind it,” Facebook said Thursday in a blog post, calling it part of a “much broader cross-platform cyber espionage operation.”
Personas used
Employees of defense companies in the U.K. and other European countries were also targeted.
“These accounts often posed as recruiters and employees of defense and aerospace companies from the countries their targets were in,” Facebook said. “Other personas claimed to work in hospitality, medicine, journalism, NGOs and airlines.”
And the hackers were in no hurry.
“Our investigation found that this group invested significant time into their social engineering efforts across the internet, in some cases engaging with their targets for months,” Facebook said. “They leveraged various collaboration and messaging platforms to move conversations off-platform and send malware to their targets.”
Facebook said it has notified users who appeared to have been targeted, took down the fake accounts and blocked the malicious domains from being shared.
The social media company said it was able to trace the activity to Iran, in part because of the distinctive malware, known to have been developed by Mahak Rayan Afraz, a Tehran-based company with links to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Mandiant Threat Intelligence, a private cybersecurity company, said Thursday that it agreed with Facebook’s assessment that Iran, and the IRGC in particular, was behind the campaign.
Tortoiseshell “has historically targeted people and organizations affiliated with the U.S. military and information technology providers in the Middle East since at least 2018,” Mandiant Senior Principal Analyst Sarah Jones said in an email.
Jones also said it was noteworthy that some of the fake domains associated with the Iranian campaign used the name of former U.S. President Donald Trump, including, “trumphotel[.]net”, “trumporganization[.]world”, and “trumporganizations[.]com”.
“Domains such as these could suggest social engineering associated with U.S. political topics,” Jones said. “We have no evidence that these domains were operationalized or used to target anyone affiliated with the Trump family or properties.”
Facebook, which discovered the hacking campaign, did not comment on whether Iran managed to steal any critical or sensitive data.
U.S. military officials also declined to speak about what, if anything, the Iranian hackers were able to steal.
“For operational security purposes, U.S. Cyber Command does not discuss operations, intelligence and cyber planning,” a spokesperson told VOA.
“The threats posed by social media interactions are not unique to any particular social media platform and Department of Defense personnel must be cautious when engaging online,” the spokesperson added.
‘Significant threat’
U.S. intelligence officials have been increasingly concerned about Iran’s growing capabilities and aggressiveness in cyberspace.
In its annual Worldwide Threat Assessment, published in April, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence called Tehran “a significant threat to the security of U.S. and allied networks and data.”
“We expect Tehran to focus on online covert influence, such as spreading disinformation about fake threats or compromised election infrastructure and recirculating anti-U.S. content,” the report said.
The U.S. intelligence community, earlier this year, also accused Iran of meddling in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, carrying out a “multi-pronged covert influence campaign intended to undercut former President Trump’s reelection prospects.”
U.S. officials said part of that effort involved hacking voter registration systems in at least one U.S. state and using the information to send prospective voters threatening emails.
More recently, the cybersecurity firm Proofpoint said a separate Iranian hacker collective with ties to the IRGC, known as TA453 and Charming Kitten, posed as British university professors to steal information and research from think tanks and academics.
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A Chinese gene company is collecting genetic data through prenatal tests from women in more than 50 countries for research on the traits of populations, raising concern that such a large DNA database could give China a technological advantage and the strategic edge to dominate global pharmaceuticals, according to a recent news report.
Analysts expressed unease with the developments exclusively reported by Reuters at BGI Group, the Chinese gene company, which is collecting genetic data via its NiPT prenatal test with the brand name NIFTY (Non-Invasive Fetal TrisomY).
The tests, sold in more than 50 countries, can detect abnormalities such as Down syndrome in the fetus by capturing DNA from the placenta in the bloodstream about 10 weeks into a pregnancy.
The tests are sold in 52 countries, including Germany, Spain and Denmark, as well as in Britain, Canada, Australia, Thailand, India and Pakistan, according to Reuters. They are not sold in the United States, where “government advisers warned in March that the genomic data BGI is amassing and analyzing with artificial intelligence could give China a path to economic and military advantage,” Reuters reported.
Collecting the biggest and most diverse set of human genomes could propel China to dominate global pharmaceuticals, and also potentially lead to genetically enhanced soldiers, or engineered pathogens to target the U.S. population or food supply, the U.S. advisers said, according to Reuters.
Reggie Littlejohn, founder and president of the rights group Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, said that due to China’s strategy of fusing military and civilian interests, “any Chinese company can be forced by the government to supply its information to the military.”
China sells the prenatal tests “a good product at a lower cost because they’re able to do that,” Littlejohn said. “But what people don’t realize is that when they get these lower cost genetic tests,” the collected information goes to the Chinese military,” she told VOA via a video interview using Microsoft Teams.
The Reuters report said the company has “worked with the Chinese military to improve ‘population quality’ and on genetic research to combat hearing loss and altitude sickness in soldiers.”
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed the report, telling Reuters it was “a groundless accusation and smear campaign.”
Dan Harris, an international lawyer and author at the China Law Blog, told VOA Mandarin that he believes democratic entities, such as the United States, Japan, Korea, Australia and the European Union, are going to realize they “need to enact special laws to deal with China and China’s hoovering of data.”
Crystal Grant, a data scientist and molecular biologist with a Ph.D. in genetics who is a technology fellow in the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, told VOA Mandarin via Teams video interview that this accumulation of DNA will challenge genomic policy worldwide.
By using what she described as “this massive amount of information” and supercomputers “to crack those codes is going to be a threat to genomic policy everywhere,” she told VOA in a video interview.
Huang Yanzhong, a senior fellow for global health at the Council of Foreign Relations, told VOA Mandarin in a TV interview in February that rapid advances in genetics and biotechnology have highlighted the need for the international community to step up regulations to prevent data abuse.
“It is not just China. The progress in the legal framework in this area is lagging behind,” Huang said. “It’s vital for the international community to sit down and work out a framework.”
Genetic engineering
Yet researchers worldwide in the academic, private and government sectors, are refining genetic engineering techniques and knowledge.
China’s interest in the field is not new. In 2018, researcher He Jiankui announced that he had produced twins genetically altered to resist HIV using a relatively new, accurate and very fast American-developed genetic editing technique known by its acronym, CRISPR.
In 2019, a Chinese court found He guilty of using “illegal medical practices” and sentenced He to three years in prison.
Prenatal privacy
Reuters found no evidence BGI violated patient privacy agreements or regulations. “However, the privacy policy on the NIFTY test’s website says data collected can be shared when it is ‘directly relevant to national security or national defense security’ in China,” the report stated.
BGI dismissed the Reuters report, saying that the company’s research has met national and international requirements.
“All NIPT data collected overseas are stored in BGI’s laboratory in Hong Kong and are destroyed after five years, as stipulated by General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR),” the company said in a statement released on July 9.
BGI emphasized that it developed the NIPT test alone, not in a partnership with China’s military.
Reuters interviewed four women who have used the BGI’s prenatal tests in Poland, Spain and Thailand. They all signed consent forms stating that their genetic data would be stored and used for research, yet they are not aware that their genetic information could end up in China.
Harris, the lawyer, told VOA that most of the time, people didn’t know what they were signing.
“Maybe the sign off says that it will be limited to BGI and BGI access, though XYZ, a Chinese military company, might be one of BGI’s subsidiaries,” which would mean that the consent form allowed BGI to transfer a woman’s genetic information to the Chinese military, he told VOA via Microsoft Teams.
One of the women, a 32-year-old office administrator from Poland, told Reuters that she would have chosen a different test had she known that her data might end up in China being used for research involving military applications.
U.S. federal authorities have been watching BGI’s record on data collection. Bill Evanina, former director of the United States National Counterintelligence and Security Center, told the CBS-TV newsmagazine 60 Minutes in January that he was extremely concerned when BGI offered to provide COVID-19 testing kits to several U.S. states last year.
“Knowing that BGI is a Chinese company, do we understand where that data’s going?” Evanina asked. They are the ultimate company that shows connectivity to both the communist state as well as the military apparatus.”
Edward You, supervisory special agent with the FBI and a former biochemist, told 60 Minutes in the same January episode that Beijing authorities are betting that accumulating large amounts of human DNA will prove to be a successful strategy.
“They are building out a huge domestic database,” You said. “And if they are now able to supplement that with data from all around the world, it’s all about who gets the largest, most diverse data set. And so, the ticking time bomb is that once they’re able to achieve true artificial intelligence, then they’re off to the races in what they can do with that data.”
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A NASA-University of Hawaii study warns that upcoming changes in the moon’s orbit coupled with higher ocean levels could lead to record coastal flooding on U.S. coasts in the next decade.The study, conducted by the NASA Sea Level Change Team at the University of Hawaii, and published last month in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change, says a regularly occurring change in the moon’s orbit around the earth will raise ocean water levels along U.S. shorelines.The NASA researchers say the so-called “wobble” in the moon’s orbit is part of an 18.6-year cycle, recorded as far back as 1728. During half of the cycle, the moon creates lower high tides and higher low tides; the other half creates higher high tides and even lower low tides.The phenomenon is expected to peak the mid-2030s and is occurring just as coastal flooding is on the rise due to higher ocean levels linked to the effects of climate change. A report released Wednesday by the U.S. National Oceanic at Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says the U.S. saw record levels of coastal flooding in the past year.NOAA say flooding at high tide, often called “nuisance” or “sunny day” flooding, has regularly occurred within many coastal communities as water routinely sloshes into streets, yards and businesses.But the agency reports from May 2020 through April 2021, U.S. coastal communities saw twice as many high tide flooding days than they did 20 years ago. They expect the near-record high tides trend to continue through April 2022, as well as in decades to come.NOAA oceanographer and author on the NASA study William Sweet told The Washington Post the combination of the moon’s orbit wobble and rising sea levels is “sort of a double-whammy” that means coastal communities are likely to expect even greater flooding than they might otherwise in coming years, unless they adapt and fortify their shorelines.NASA’s Sea Level Change team leader Ben Hamlington said communities and urban planners need to plan for more extreme flooding in the future.
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The U.S. government said Thursday it will begin offering up to $10 million for information to identify or locate malicious cyber actors working on behalf of a foreign government that are trying to cripple the internet operations of American businesses and infrastructure.The new reward was announced as the U.S. faces a growing threat from ransomware attacks – the demand from foreign entities that U.S. corporations and institutions pay millions of dollars to unlock critical technology systems that hackers have seized. The attacks have usually originated overseas, frequently from Russia, according to U.S. officials.Already this year, one of the largest pipeline operators in the U.S., a major meat processing company and, most recently, hundreds of small businesses have been hit by ransomware, forcing companies to pay millions of dollars to restore their operations or risk losing vital data.The U.S. says that about $350 million in ransom was paid to malicious cyber actors in 2020, a more than 300% increase from the year before.The U.S. State Department said it has created a new Tor-based channel to let potential sources anonymously report tips on malicious activity.At the same time, the departments of Justice and Homeland Security created a new website, stopransomware.gov, with information for organizations to learn how to protect themselves and respond to attacks.Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CNN it is a “one-stop shop” for information on “how one can prevent oneself from becoming a victim of ransomware, and should one become a victim, how one can work with the federal government in partnership to address the situation.”“Of course, we advise they not pay that ransom,” he said. In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the government alone cannot prevent the ransomware attacks.“It is critical for business leaders across industries to recognize the threat, prioritize efforts to harden their systems and work with law enforcement by reporting these attacks promptly,” Garland said.
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The space-tourism industry got a major boost aboard a billionaire’s rocket ship. Plus, the EU lends Mother Earth a climate-conscious hand, and LeBron James suits-up for the big screen. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space. Produced by: Arash Arabasadi
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The World Health Organization has warned that COVID-19 is gaining ground in Africa, with the death toll jumping 43% in the past week. WHO says the continent recorded 1 million new cases in just one month, with several countries facing shortages of oxygen and beds for patients.Speaking during a virtual press briefing Thursday, Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director, said Africa is recording its highest number of COVID-19 cases since the virus hit the continent in early 2020.”Over the past month, Africa recorded an additional 1 million cases,” Moeti said. “This is the shortest time it has taken so far to add one1 million cases. Comparatively, it took around three months to move from 4 million to 5 million cases. This COVID-19 resurgence is the fastest the continent has seen.”WHO Calls for Urgent Action to Slow COVID-19 Spread in AfricaCases have been rising by 25% every week for six weeks, fueled by a surge of more contagious variants of the diseaseThe global health agency says 12 African countries are experiencing an upward trend of coronavirus, including Algeria, Malawi, Senegal and Zimbabwe.Moeti says the number of Africans losing lives to the virus is high.”As this surge sweeps across Africa, we are witnessing a brutal cost, and life-lost deaths have climbed steeply for the past five weeks, jumping 40 percent in the past week,” Moeti said. “This is a clear warning our hospitals are at a breaking point. In all, 153,000 people have sadly died. Africa is just 1 percent shy of the peak in fatalities reached in January.”The increase in deaths is partly blamed on the delta coronavirus variant that medical experts say is the most transmittable of all the variants. It has been reported in 21 African countries.
Namibia is one African country where the total number of COVID-19 positives is on the decline. However, more than 1,000 people have died there from COVID-19 in the last month. Ismail Katjitae is a physician at the Ministry of Health and Social Services in Namibia. He explains why the death rate is so high. “A high prevalence of comorbidities in some communities, limited capacity in some districts and regions to manage severe and critical cases,” Katjitae said. “And a strong misinformation lobby resulting in noncompliance with public health measures, underutilizing available health care services, and delayed complicated presentation in our health facilities.”So far, only 18 million people out of the 1.3 billion living in Africa have been vaccinated. Some African countries blame the slow vaccination process on the shortage of vaccine doses in the global market. UNICEF to Ship 220 Million Doses of J&J COVID-19 Vaccine to African Union Agreement reached with Belgium-based and J&J-owned Janssen Pharmaceutica NV
Catherine Kyobutungi is the head of the African Population and Health Research Center. She says African governments should ask their citizens to follow health protocols like washing hands and wearing masks to limit the spread of the virus.”Other than the usual measures, Africa does not have too many options without really having much of its population vaccinated,” Kyobutungi said. “So, the hope is that in the next month around August, many countries will receive at least substantial doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, but before then, keeping in place the usual measures.”Most African countries have eased health measures meant to combat the spread of the virus for economic reasons, and failure to follow those measures is blamed for the spread.
Some African countries expect to get hundreds of thousands of vaccines in the coming weeks as the Aspen pharmaceutical company in South Africa begins producing 400 million vaccines.
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The highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus is rapidly spreading in Southeast Asia as concerns mount over the efficacy of China’s Sinovac Biotech vaccine, which has been used in several countries in the region.Questions over the effectiveness of Beijing’s vaccine have prompted some governments, including Thailand’s, to consider giving people vaccinated with the Sinovac CoronaVac a booster shot, this time from another vaccine manufacturer such as AstraZeneca.Sinovac is one of seven coronavirus vaccines that have received emergency use approval by the World Health Organization. Studies on the efficacy rate are ongoing, but Sinovac appears to be less powerful against the virus than other COVID-19 vaccines. In Indonesia, the majority of vaccine doses offered so far — nearly 90% — have been made by Sinovac.Concerns about Sinovac have made some Indonesians hesitant to receive the shot. One-third of residents in the province of Jakarta said they are still undecided about whether to be vaccinated, according to a .Overall, little peer-reviewed data on the Sinovac vaccine are available. What information is available suggests that the vaccine is less potent than other COVID-19 vaccines, though it still gives users significant protection.In June, the government of Uruguay released data showing Sinovac reduced COVID-19 infections by 61%, hospitalizations by 92% and deaths by 95%. The New England Journal of Medicine published a study in early July that used results from a mass vaccination campaign that began in February in Chile. The study results showed Sinovac reduced COVID-19 infections by 65.9%, is 87.5% effective at preventing hospitalizations and 86.3% effective at preventing deaths.In comparison, the WHO says the Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective at preventing symptomatic infection and the Moderna vaccine is 94% effective.Public Health England said last month its analysis of how well the vaccines work against the delta variant suggests the Pfizer shot is 96% effective against cases severe enough to require hospitalization, compared to 92% for the AstraZeneca vaccine. In Cambodia, Sinovac doses represent a much smaller proportion of the vaccination effort than in Indonesia, but are still a major part of the campaign that has given at least one dose of a vaccine to about 5 million people.Health Ministry Secretary of State Or Vandine told VOA Khmer that vaccines used in Cambodia’s mass vaccination drive – Sinovac, Sinopharm and AstraZeneca – were effective in preventing severe illness and death, but that fully vaccinated people still needed to observe COVID-19 measures, like mask wearing and social distancing. Chea Phenghour, 21, a third year student of civil engineering at Norton University in Phnom Penh, said he was vaccinated with two doses of Sinovac in early June, though he is unsure about the efficacy level. “I don’t know exactly the efficacy,” he said. “But I don’t strongly rely on vaccines. I have to be careful by myself. If we freely go out in the gathering, vaccines can’t help fight [the virus].” Sinovac vaccine doses have also been a big part of the COVID-19 vaccination efforts in the Philippines and Thailand, but both countries have also relied on a significant portion of doses from other manufacturers such as Pfizer and AstraZeneca.Indra Yoga, Sun Narin, Aun Chhengpor, Steve Baragona, Luke Hunt contributed to this report.Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
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Briana Mariah, founder of We Speak model agency, believes models should reflect the world, and her agency finds and promotes a unique and diverse group of people. Karina Bafradzhian reports from Washington D.C.Camera: David Gogokhia
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The State Department will offer rewards up to $10 million for information leading to the identification of anyone engaged in foreign state-sanctioned malicious cyber activity against critical U.S. infrastructure — including ransomware attacks — and the White House has launched a task force to coordinate efforts to stem the ransomware scourge.The Biden administration is also launching the website stopransomware.gov to offer the public resources for countering the threat and building more resilience into networks, a senior administration official told reporters.Another measure being announced Thursday to combat the ransomware onslaught is from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at the Treasury Department. It will engage banks, technology firms and others on better anti-money-laundering efforts for cryptocurrency and more rapid tracing of ransomware proceeds, which are paid in virtual currency. Officials are hoping to seize more extortion payments in ransomware cases, as the FBI did in recouping most of the $4.4 million ransom paid by Colonial Pipeline in May.The rewards are being offered under the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program. It will offer a tips-reporting mechanism on the dark web to protect sources who might identify cyber attackers and/or their locations, and reward payments may include cryptocurrency, the agency said in a statement. The administration official would not comment on whether the U.S. government had a hand in Tuesday’s online disappearance of REvil, the Russian-linked gang responsible for a July 2 supply chain ransomware attack that crippled well over 1,000 organizations globally by targeting Florida-based software provider Kaseya. Ransomware scrambles entire networks of data, which criminals unlock when they get paid.Cybersecurity experts say REvil may have decided to drop out of sight and rebrand under a new name, as it and several other ransomware gangs have done in the past to try to throw off law enforcement.Another possibility is that Russian President Vladimir Putin actually heeded President Joe Biden’s warning of repercussions if he didn’t rein in ransomware criminals, who enjoy safe harbor in Russia and allied states.That seemed improbable, however, given Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov’s statement to reporters Wednesday that he was unaware of REvil sites disappearing.”I don’t know which group disappeared where,” he said. He said the Kremlin deems cybercrimes “unacceptable” and meriting of punishment, but analysts say they have seen no evidence of a crackdown by Putin.
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New data by two leading U.N. agencies find the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted routine life-saving immunization services for millions of children, many of whom risk dying from vaccine-preventable diseases.The World Health Organization and U.N. Children’s Fund report 23 million children missed out last year on vaccines against killer diseases such as measles, polio, and diphtheria. They say global disruptions of immunization services caused by COVID-19 have set back progress in childhood vaccinations by a decade.They report children in the Southeastern Asian and eastern Mediterranean regions were most affected. India topped a list of 10 countries with the greatest increase in children who did not receive a first dose of the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis combined vaccine. The nine following countries are in the Americas and African regions.Director of Immunization, Vaccines, and Biologicals Department at WHO Kate O’Brien said new waves of COVID-19 and the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines must not derail routine immunization. She noted vaccines are the most powerful tools available to safeguard public health.A student reacts as a medical worker administers a shot of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine during a vaccination campaign for children ages 12-17 at a school in Tangerang, Indonesia, July 14, 2021.“The world has rightly prioritized the emergency response to COVID-19,” she said. “But if we fail to find a catch-up, and catch up those who have missed their vaccines, and restore and improve the essential immunization program, there is a serious risk of disease outbreaks that will continue to grow. We really cannot trade one crisis for another.”Principal adviser and chief of immunization at UNICEF, Ephrem Lemango, said immunizations in the first half of 2020 decreased significantly in many countries. This due to the closure of health facilities, pandemic lockdown measures and transportation disruptions.“Later on, recovery interventions, such as the community mobilization activities and supply of protective equipment to health providers and conducting participatory activities, have actually enabled some regions such as the Middle Eastern, Northern Africa region, as well, to really improve its coverage,” Lemango said.He adds the African region also saw a significant improvement in coverage.WHO, UNICEF and partners are helping countries and regions in their efforts to recover from the pandemic and strengthen immunization systems.The agencies aim to achieve 90% coverage for essential childhood vaccines by 2030. If this U.N.-designated goal is fully implemented, they say the deaths of an estimated 51 million future children could be averted.
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It began in February with a tweet by pop star Rihanna that sparked widespread condemnation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s handling of massive farmer protests near the capital, souring an already troubled relationship between the government and Twitter.Moving to contain the backlash, officials hit Twitter with multiple injunctions to block hundreds of tweets critical of the government. Twitter complied with some and resisted others.Relations between Twitter and Modi’s government have gone downhill ever since.At the heart of the standoff is a sweeping internet law that puts digital platforms like Twitter and Facebook under direct government oversight. Officials say the rules are needed to quell misinformation and hate speech and to give users more power to flag objectionable content.Critics of the law worry it may lead to outright censorship in a country where digital freedoms have been shrinking since Modi took office in 2014.Police have raided Twitter’s offices and have accused its India chief, Manish Maheshwari, of spreading “communal hatred” and “hurting the sentiments of Indians.” Last week, Maheshwari refused to submit to questioning unless police promised not to arrest him.On Wednesday, the company FILE – In this Feb. 25, 2021, photo, India’s Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, left, and Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar new regulations for social media companies and digital streaming websites.Tech companies also must assign staff to answer complaints from users, respond to government requests and ensure overall compliance with the rules.Twitter missed a three-month deadline in May, drawing a strong rebuke from the Delhi High Court. Last week, after months of haggling with the government, it appointed all three officers as required.“Twitter continues to make every effort to comply with the new IT Rules 2021. We have kept the Government of India apprised of the progress at every step of the process,” the company said in a statement to the Associated Press.Apar Gupta, executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, says he worries the rules will lead to numerous cases against internet platforms and deter people from using them freely, leading to self-censorship. Many other critics say Modi’s Hindu nationalist government is imposing what they call a climate of “digital authoritarianism.”“If it becomes easier for user content to be taken down, it will amount to the chilling of speech online,” Gupta said.The government insists the rules will benefit and empower Indians.“Social media users can criticize Narendra Modi, they can criticize government policy, and ask questions. I must put it on the record straight away . . . But a private company sitting in America should refrain from lecturing us on democracy” when it denies its users the right to redress, the ex-IT minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, told the newspaper The Hindu last month.FILE – India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Despite the antagonisms between Modi and Twitter, he has been an enthusiastic user of the platform in building popular support for his Bharatiya Janata Party. His government has also worked closely with the social media giant to allow Indians to use Twitter to seek help from government ministries, particularly during health emergencies. Bharatiya Janata Party’s social media team has meanwhile been accused of initiating online attacks against critics of Modi.Still, earlier internet restrictions had already prompted the Washington-based Freedom House to list India, the world’s most populous democracy, as “partly free” instead of “free” in its annual analysis.The law announced in February requires tech companies to aid police investigations and help identify people who post “mischievous information.” That means messages must be traceable, and experts say this it could mean end-to-end encryption would not be allowed in India.Facebook’s WhatsApp, which has more than 500 million users in India, has sued the government, saying breaking encryption, which continues for now, would “severely undermine the privacy of billions of people who communicate digitally.”Officials say they only want to trace messages that incite violence or threatening national security. WhatsApp says it can’t selectively do that.“It is like you are renting out an apartment to someone but want to look into it whenever you want. Who would want to live in a house like that?” said Khursheed of Laminar Global.The backlash over online freedom of expression, privacy and security concerns comes amid a global push for more data transparency and localization, said Kolla, the tech expert.Germany requires social media companies to devote local staff and data storage to curbing hate speech. Countries like Vietnam and Pakistan are drafting legislation similar to India’s. In Turkey, social media companies complied with a broad mandate for removing content only after they were fined and faced threats to their ad revenues.Instead of leaving, some companies are fighting the new rules in the courts, where at least 13 legal challenges have been filed by news publishers, media associations and individuals. But such cases can stretch for months or even years.Mishi Choudhary, a technology lawyer and founder of India’s Software Freedom Law Center, says that under the rules, social media platforms might lose their safe harbor protection, which shields them from legal liability over user-generated content. Courts have to decide that on a case-by-case basis, she said. And their legal costs would inevitably soar.“You know how it is in India. The process is the punishment,” Choudhary said. “And until we get to a place where the courts will actually come and tell us what the legal position is and determine those legal positions, it is open season for tech backlash.”
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Roger Federer may have seen his dreams of Olympic gold dashed this week, but he can celebrate that t-shirts, racquets, and shoes from his trophy-laden tennis career proved a treasure trove at auction. The sports legend saw every single item that went under the hammer at a two-phased Christie’s auction sold, raking in $4.7 million. The combined proceeds from an online and a live auction — over three times more than his 1-million target — will go to the Roger Federer Foundation, which supports educational projects in southern Africa and his native Switzerland. “I am overwhelmed by the generosity and enthusiasm of the support from around the world,” Federer said in a statement. The auction of items the 20-time Grand Slam winner’s career happened in two phases. A live sale on June 23 in London focused on Federer’s career at the four Grand Slams: Wimbledon and the Australian, French and US Opens. The subsequent online sale from June 23 to July 14 featured 300 lots from other tournaments spanning 21 years — dating back to his first Olympics appearance at the Sydney 2000 Games, aged just 19. The items sold online found buyers from 44 countries and across six continents, Christie’s said. The highlight of the online sale was a set of three rackets used at the 2019 Wimbledon Championships, which sold for $224,898 — more than 23 times above their estimate of nearly $10,000-$14,000. “The prices achieved have been unbelievable,” Federer said. “We started collecting items which accompanied me on court because we thought that perhaps one day, we could do something meaningful with them,” he said. He said he and his wife, Mirka, were “humbled to see that the decision we made will make a profound difference to so many children.” The Roger Federer collection was the most important single-owner collection of sporting memorabilia ever to come to market, a Christie’s representative told AFP prior to the auction. Federer, who turns 40 on August 8, had been hoping to secure his first Olympic singles gold medal at the upcoming Tokyo Games, but announced Tuesday he had withdrawn after a “setback” in his recovery from a knee injury.
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Singer Britney Spears on Wednesday won the right to choose her own lawyer to help her end a 13-year-long conservatorship and tearfully pleaded for the court to oust her father immediately from the role of controlling her business affairs.Her father, Jamie Spears, has been a major figure in the conservatorship since he set it up in 2008 when his daughter had a mental health breakdown. He is currently the sole person in charge of her $60 million estate.”You’re allowing my dad to ruin my life,” Spears told the Los Angeles judge by phone. “I have to get rid of my dad and charge him with conservatorship abuse,” she added.Speaking for about 10 minutes on Wednesday, Spears, 39, said she had always been “extremely scared of my dad.”She said she was fed up with multiple psychological evaluations in the last 13 years and wanted the conservatorship brought to an end without another one.“I’m not a perfect person … but their goal is to make me feel like I’m crazy,” Spears said. Details of Spears’ mental health issues have never publicly been disclosed.Last month, she called the legal arrangement abusive and stupid in a 20-minute public address.Los Angeles Superior Court judge Brenda Penny on Wednesday approved former federal prosecutor Mathew Rosengart to represent Spears going forward. The singer’s court-appointed attorney stepped down last week.Rosengart, who has previously represented Hollywood stars Sean Penn and Steven Spielberg, said his goal was to end the conservatorship.“Does anybody really believe Mr. Spears’ continued involvement is in the best interest of Britney Spears?” Rosengart said. “If he loves his daughter, it is time to step aside.”Rosengart’s first job is likely to be filing a formal document asking for the conservatorship to be terminated.In June, the pop star complained of being prevented from marrying or having more children, and said she was compelled to take medication against her will.Jamie Spears’ attorney on Wednesday said that many of the singer’s complaints were not valid.“I’m not sure Ms. Spears understands she can in fact make medical decisions and can have birth control devices implanted or not,” attorney Vivian Thoreen said.Thoreen said Spears believes her father “is responsible for every bad thing that happened to her and that is the farthest from the truth.”Outside the courthouse, dozens of fans held a rally, chanting “Free Britney” and calling for the conservatorship to end. A smaller rally took place near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.”If you look at her, she looks tired. She just wants her life back and I understand that completely,” said fan Christina Goswick.Penny made no decisions on requests for 24/7 security following death threats against those involved in the conservatorship.Jodi Montgomery, who is tasked with the pop star’s personal care, Jamie Spears, Ingham and the singer’s sister Jamie Lynn Spears have all received threatening calls and messages that have escalated since the pop star’s address to the judge on June 23, according to court documents.The next hearing in the case was set for Sept. 29.
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Guernsey’s Auction House in New York is auctioning off pieces of music history this week. Evgeny Maslov has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
Camera: Michael Eckels Producer: Barry Unger
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European Union leaders on Wednesday introduced the bloc’s most comprehensive plans yet to combat climate change, with a new goal of reducing carbon emissions to 55% below 1990 levels by 2030.Unveiled by the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, the legislation would make the bloc’s goal of reaching climate neutrality by 2050 legally binding and completely overhaul its energy system.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said during a press conference that the “Fit for 55” plan would act as a road map of concrete actions necessary to achieve the bloc’s climate goals.“Our package aims to combine the reduction of emissions with measures to preserve nature, and to put jobs and social balance at the heart of this transformation,” von der Leyen said.The sweeping proposal would involve every sector of the EU’s economy in its Emissions Trading System, which incentivizes companies to lower their emissions by taxing the carbon they produce.New taxes on previously exempt sectors are proposed for aviation and shipping fuels. The plan also calls for increasing existing carbon taxes to the transportation, manufacturing and power sectors.FILE – Cars sit at a standstill during morning rush hour on a main artery in the European Quarter of Brussels, Dec. 12, 2019. The European Union on July 14, 2021, unveiled new legislation to help meet its pledge to cut climate-changing emissions.Border taxOne of the package’s most noteworthy aspects is a first-of-its-kind tax on the carbon produced by foreign imports, which in turn likely would raise prices for consumers.This border tax — known officially as the carbon border adjustment mechanism — would ensure the EU is reducing emissions across the board, and it would protect domestic companies against price competition from foreign companies without the same environmental restrictions.In April, environmental leaders from China, India, South Africa and Brazil spoke out against such a tax, asserting that a carbon border adjustment would be discriminatory against developing countries that lack the resources to focus on cutting emissions.The commission also is planning to completely phase out the sale of combustion-engine cars by 2035, effectively bringing new car emissions to zero.Other proposals include shifting millions of buildings in the EU toward renewable energy by 2030 via renovation and implementation of a carbon tax on road transport.“Emission of CO2 must have a price, and we know that carbon pricing works,” von der Leyen said. “Our existing emission trading system has already helped significantly to reduce emissions in industry and in power generation.”European Commissioner for the European Green Deal Frans Timmermans speaks during a media conference at EU headquarters in Brussels, July 14, 2021.Fairness, accessibilityThe commission emphasized a focus on making the transition to renewable energy fair and accessible to everyone, particularly low-income individuals and member states whose economies are more reliant on polluting industries.Environmental taxes that target the individual have caused controversy in the past, as seen with the massive yellow vest movement in opposition to the French government’s raising fuel taxes.Since energy prices are expected to rise, the commission proposed creating a $85.2 billion fund that citizens of member states could access to help mitigate the costs of switching to energy-efficient housing and transportation.The commission’s plan comes six years after the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement signaled a worldwide commitment to mitigating the impact of climate change and keeping global temperatures from increasing significantly.Additionally, since the EU produces only 8% of the world’s carbon emissions, the plan is intended to push other world powers to follow suit and produce more concrete plans for reaching climate neutrality.In coming years, the commission’s plan will be the subject of scrutiny and negotiation as the leaders from the 27 member states convene in the European Parliament and Council to implement the laws across the EU.
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More than 93,000 people died from drug overdoses in the U.S. last year, a record experts say was partly triggered by the isolation that many experienced during coronavirus-related lockdowns.
The government reported Wednesday that the 2020 total easily surpassed the previous record of about 72,000 deaths in 2019.
“This is a staggering loss of human life,” Brandon Marshall, a Brown University public health researcher who tracks overdose trends, told the Associated Press. He said the United States was already faced with an overdose epidemic but that the pandemic “has greatly exacerbated the crisis.”
In addition to isolation, many sources of help for addicts were not available during lockdowns.
“During the pandemic, a lot of [drug] programs weren’t able to operate. Street-level outreach was very difficult. People were very isolated,” said Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, a health policy expert at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
Health experts say that while prescription painkillers once played a key role in U.S. drug overdose deaths, heroin and then in recent years fentanyl — a dangerously powerful opioid — proved exceptionally lethal.
Fentanyl was developed to legitimately treat intense medical pain, but now is sold illicitly and mixed with other drugs.
The government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said its studies show fentanyl was involved in more than 60% of overdose deaths last year.This August 2017 shows Jordan McGlashen, left, and his siblings, Brandon, Collin, and Kaitlin, in Battle Creek, Michigan. Jordan died of a drug overdose in his Ypsilanti, Michigan, apartment in 2020. (Courtesy Collin McGlashen via AP) One of the 93,000 was Jordan McGlashen of Ypsilanti, Michigan, who died of a heroin and fentanyl overdose May 6. He would have turned 39 six days later.
“It was really difficult for me to think about the way in which Jordan died. He was alone, and suffering emotionally and felt like he had to use again,” said his younger brother, Collin McGlashen.
Fentanyl is increasingly being found mixed with other drugs.
“What’s really driving the surge in overdoses is this increasingly poisoned drug supply,” said Shannon Monnat, an associate professor of sociology at Syracuse University who researches geographic patterns in overdoses. “Nearly all of this increase is fentanyl contamination in some way. Heroin is contaminated. Cocaine is contaminated. Methamphetamine is contaminated.”
The scope is staggering. The CDC is reporting that drug overdoses in 2020 increased in every state but New Hampshire and South Dakota.
States with the biggest increases in overdose deaths were Vermont, up 57.6%; followed by Kentucky, up 54%; South Carolina, up 52%; West Virginia, up nearly 50%; and California, up 46%.
Sharfstein of Johns Hopkins says the U.S. is likely now seeing more overdose deaths than deaths from COVID-19.
“This is a different kind of crisis, and it’s not going to go away as quickly,” he said.Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
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More than 93,000 people died from drug overdoses in the U.S. last year, a record experts said was partly triggered by the isolation that many experienced during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.The government reported Wednesday that the 2020 total easily surpassed the previous record of about 72,000 deaths in 2019.“This is a staggering loss of human life,” Brandon Marshall, a Brown University public health researcher who tracks overdose trends, told The Associated Press. He said the United States was already faced with an overdose epidemic but that the pandemic “has greatly exacerbated the crisis.”Health experts said that while prescription painkillers once played a key role in U.S. drug overdose deaths, heroin and in recent years fentanyl, a dangerously powerful opioid, proved exceptionally lethal.Fentanyl was developed to legitimately treat intense medical pain but now is sold illicitly and mixed with other drugs.The government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said its studies showed fentanyl was involved in more than 60% of the overdose deaths last year.Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed Wednesday to enact measures to protect British professional soccer players from online abuse. Punishment for someone found guilty of such abuse could include banishment from games. The move comes after online abuse, some of it racist, was directed at three Black players for the English national team who missed their penalty shots in the Euro 2020 final shootout on Sunday, leading to an Italian win. According to the Guardian newspaper, an analysis of 585,000 social media posts directed at the English team during the entire Euro 2020 tournament found that 44 messages were explicitly racist. More than 2,000 were “abusive.” “I do think that racism is a problem in the United Kingdom, and I believe it needs to be tackled. And it needs to be stamped out with some of the means that I’ve described this morning,” Johnson told Parliament as he announced his plan. “I repeat that I utterly condemn and abhor the racist outpourings that we saw on Sunday night. And so, what we’re doing today is taking practical steps to ensure that the football banning order regime is changed, so that if you are guilty of racist abuse online of footballers, then you will not be going to the match — no ifs, no buts, no exemptions and no excuses,” he added. But it’s unclear how much of the online abuse actually comes from the U.K. The Daily Mail reported that the Premier League, the top division of professional soccer in England, found that roughly 70% of online abuse directed at British professional soccer players comes from outside the U.K. According to Yahoo News, the Greater Manchester Police said they had arrested a man Wednesday for social media posts directed at players for England’s national team. Johnson added that in addition to going after internet trolls, his government would potentially fine social media companies if they failed to quickly remove offensive content. “Last night, I met representatives of Facebook, of Twitter, of TikTok, of Snapchat, of Instagram, and I made it absolutely clear to them that we will legislate to address this problem in the Online Harms Bill. And unless they get hate and racism off their platforms, they will face fines amounting to 10% of their global revenues,” Johnson said. Some information in this report comes from Reuters.
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