New discoveries are making scientists rethink what makes us human, and even why we get sick and how to stay healthy. Research estimates that we’re only about 43% human. The rest are microorganisms that affect health, mood and how you respond to medication. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee visited a lab at the University of California San Diego for a peek at research about the bugs that live in all of us.
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San Francisco, California recently became the first U.S. city to ban police and other city agencies from using facial recognition technology. The city is not alone. More people are growing wary of the powerful tech, at the same time that others are embracing it. Deana Mitchell reports.
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When a natural disaster strikes, some of first pieces of infrastructure to go down are communication networks. And for first responders, that could lead to chaos and in some cases even lives lost. But a group of entrepreneurs, with some help from IBM, has created what they think is a solution to the problem. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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The Circus Maximus Experience, opened in Rome this week and offers visitors the chance to relive the ancient splendors of chariot racing in the Imperial period of Rome through augmented and virtual reality. The innovative project implements interactive display technologies never before used in such a large outdoor area.
“Now you find yourself in front of the Arch of Titus, which was possibly built in the place of a more ancient arch and dedicated in the year 81 After Christ by the Roman Senate and people to Emperor Flavius”.
This is just an example of what modern-day visitors will be listening to in their headsets, while at the same time through special visors see a virtual rendering of the majestic 20-meter Arch of Titus in Rome’s Circus Maximus.
Thanks to a ground-breaking project using interactive display technology never before used in such an extended outdoor area, visitors are able to re-live the life in one of Rome’s undisputed landmarks.
Visitors immerse themselves in history for with overlapping images from the past and those of the reality of today. They are able to visualize architectural and landscape reconstructions of what life was like during all of the historical stages of the Circus Maximus.
They can see the ancient Murcia Valley enriched with buildings and walk around in the Circus among the shops of the time. They can visualize the Circus during Imperial times, the Middle Ages and in a more modern age.
The full itinerary involves eight stops including: the valley and the origins of the Circus, the Circus from Julius Caesar to Trajan, the Circus during the Imperial age, the cavea or tiered seating arena, the Arch of Titus, the tabernae or shops, the Circus during the Middle Ages and modern age, and lastly “A Day at the Circus” for an experience of the exciting chariot race of the quadrigas with the screams of incitement of the public and the overturning of wagons.
Visitors are able to enjoy similar experiences in Rome at the Baths of Caracalla, the Ara Pacis and the Domus Aurea.
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The world’s coral reefs host an astounding amount of the ocean’s biodiversity, but warming waters are putting them at risk around the world. Now a group of Australian scientists is searching for corals that can thrive in warm, acidic waters. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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The United Nations has drawn up new measures to strengthen its response to the Ebola epidemic in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and put an end to the spread of this deadly virus, which already has claimed more than 1200 lives.
The plan is top-heavy with senior officials who will oversee and coordinate U.N. and international efforts to come to grips with this virulent disease. The Ebola epidemic was declared 10 months ago in conflict-ridden North Kivu and Ituri provinces in eastern DRC.
Since then, growing insecurity and community mistrust have hampered efforts to contain the virus, heightening the risk of the disease spreading to neighboring countries.
To deal with this increasingly complex situation, World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic says the U.N., in close cooperation with the DRC government and partners, is strengthening its political engagement, bolstering preparedness plans and increasing support for humanitarian coordination.
“WHO is adapting public health response strategies to identify and treat people as quickly as possible, expanding vaccination to reach and protect more people; and redoubling work to end transmission in health facilities,” said Jasarevic. “The United Nations Secretary-General has established a strengthened coordination and support mechanism in the epicenter of the outbreak, Butembo.”
To head this effort, the U.N. chief has appointed two high-ranking experienced officials. David Gressly, newly appointed as U.N. Emergency Ebola Response Coordinator will oversee the coordination of international support for the Ebola response.
He will work closely with WHO on health operations and with Assistant Director-General for Emergency Response, Ibrahima Soce Fall. He has been leading WHO’s Ebola response in DRC from Butembo since mid-March.
Fall, whose responsibilities will be expanded, praises the new approach to the Ebola crisis. He says it will provide better security for patients and health workers and wider access to an effective Ebola vaccine. He says the plan also will present a more humane face to the response, which should help allay community suspicion.
A water-proof drone is being used by Australian scientists to collect the highly-treasured nasal mucus of migrating whales. The snot is rich with fresh DNA, viruses and bacteria, and is collected by a drone that hovers over the blowholes of humpback whales as they embark on their epic annual journey along Australia’s east coast.
Whales, like all mammals need air, and come to the surface to breathe through a blowhole.
Vanessa Pirotta, a marine biologist at Macquarie University, says that nasal mucus indicates the health of the whale.
“It is the juicy biological mixture that you see as a whale takes a breath as they surface from the water,” she said. “You often see that plume and it sounds like this like [sounds of sharp breaths] as a whale breathes because, after all, they are mammals like you and I and they have two nostrils, and it is the humpback whale that I am talking about. So as they take a breath it is a lot of lung bacteria coming out from their lungs, which we can collect to provide a snapshot of whale health.”
Australian researchers have attached a petri dish that is used in scientific tests to a drone which flies through the whale’s nasal mist.
“As a whale comes to take a breath — you can actually see it coming to the surface on really good weather days that is — the drone then lowers, the petri dish is then opened and the drone is flown through the densest part of the whale snot, collecting the sample in the petri dish. Now once this happens the lid is shut and the drone is flown back to the research vessel and we collect the sample to later process it in the laboratory,” said Pirotta.
The research could help to solve one of the mysteries of another magnificent creature of the deep — the Southern right whale. Its numbers have recovered on Australia’s west coast since hunting was outlawed but its population on the eastern seaboard remains stubbornly low.
In the past studies into whale health had to rely on examining whales that were either killed or those whales that had been stranded on a beach.
Drones allow scientists to collect samples from free-swimming whales to gather information in a safe and non-invasive way.
Regular screenings and advanced treatments are helping more women than ever to survive breast cancer. But even when their disease is caught early, more than 200,000 U.S. women each year are facing possible mastectomies or weeks of radiation. But a new study suggests that, for some women, there’s an easier third option. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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In a building a few miles from Google and Facebook’s plush campuses is the Pentagon’s sparse outpost in Silicon Valley.
Here, military personnel and civilians look for commercial technology that can help the armed services solve problems they face in the field.
That could be working with a local commercial rocket company to deploy satellites faster. Or finding an up-and-coming firm that has created a novel communication system that works in some of the harshest conditions.
Defense Innovation Unit
Founded four years ago, the Defense Innovation Unit has a sense of urgency now more than ever, says its director, Michael Brown, formerly chief executive of Symantec, the cyber security firm, and of Quantum, a computer storage firm.
Because of the new so-called Tech Cold War, tensions are surging between the U.S. and China over emergent technologies, such as 5G mobile phone networks, artificial intelligence and autonomous driving.
“The Defense Innovation Unit’s mission has never been more critical, given the tech race that we’re in with China, than it is today,” Brown said.
Chinese investors and companies also are here, for many of the same reasons — to find the breakthroughs that will help their nascent and growing tech industry. But they’re presence is under increasing scrutiny, fueled by a concern that Chinese investors and companies are part of a system of transferring technology out of the U.S. and into the hands of an adversary, the Chinese government.
Raising alarms
Brown is the co-author of a report that shed light on the growing presence of Chinese firms and investors in Silicon Valley and raised alarms over whether the U.S. was in danger of losing key technology to the Chinese.
The U.S. government has expanded its restrictions on Chinese companies buying firms deemed to hold key technology. And Chinese investors are finding it harder to be part of funding rounds of U.S. startups.
“Investors have become much more sensitive to the issue,” said Rebecca Fannin, author of “Tech Titans of China.” “They’re more cautious about investing.”
Mixed reception
Some in the tech industry are skeptical of working for either the Pentagon or Chinese companies and the Chinese government. Employees at Google this year pushed back on projects involving both.
Brown’s job is two-fold. With his deep ties in the tech industry, he helps find technology that might help the military. He is also an ambassador of sorts for the Pentagon in Silicon Valley, building a bridge to tech firms large and small.
“For areas like artificial intelligence or cyber, we need those companies more than they need us,” he said. “But when we’re talking about smaller companies that are trying to get off the ground, get to their first $100 million in revenue, they’re interested in large customers. So, we have found no reluctance at all, in fact, enthusiastic response that they participate in our solicitations.”
American tech companies have long argued for the same access to China’s market that Chinese companies have here, for a “level playing field.” That hasn’t happened yet, but some are skeptical that disengaging from the Chinese economy is the right approach.
Vigilance, engagement
At a recent event by the Asia Society Northern California, investors, former tech executives and intellectual property experts discussed the conflict with China. Engagement with China has worked, argued Andy Rothman, an investment strategist at Matthews Asia, an investment firm, even if there is still a lot China hasn’t done that it said it would do.“The level of personal freedom that the Chinese people have today is dramatically better than it was 30 or 40 years ago and part of that is due to engagement with the rest of the world,” Rothman said.
For Brown, the issue isn’t how far China has come. It’s about the U.S. maintaining its technology edge and getting tech firms to think twice about working with the Chinese, even though the country represents a huge, largely untapped market.
“We do not share the same values as the Chinese Communist Party,” he said. “We need to be aware of that as we’re looking to make the next dollar. There’s other things at stake.”
However the trade war is settled, the ongoing tensions over whether there will be one or two tech super powers likely will remain.
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U.S. regulators have approved the most expensive medicine ever, for a rare disorder that destroys a baby’s muscle control and kills nearly all of those with the most common type of the disease within a couple of years.
The treatment is priced at $2.125 million. Out-of-pocket costs for patients will vary based on insurance coverage.
The medicine, sold by the Swiss drugmaker Novartis, is a gene therapy that treats an inherited condition called spinal muscular atrophy. The treatment targets a defective gene that weakens a child’s muscles so dramatically that they become unable to move, and eventually unable to swallow or breathe. It strikes about 400 babies born in the U.S. each year.
The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the treatment, called Zolgensma, for all children under age 2 who are confirmed by a genetic test to have any of the three types of the disease. The therapy is a one-time infusion that takes about an hour.
Novartis said it will let insurers make payments over five years, at $425,000 per year, and will give partial rebates if the treatment doesn’t work.
The one other medicine for the disease approved in the U.S. is a drug called Spinraza. Instead of a one-time treatment, it must be given every four months. Biogen, Spinraza’s maker, charges a list price of $750,000 for the first year and then $350,000 per year after that.
‘Dramatically transforms’ lives
The independent nonprofit group Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, which rates the value of expensive new medicines, calculated that the price of the new gene therapy is justifiable at a cost of $1.2 million to $2.1 million because it “dramatically transforms the lives of families affected by this devastating disease.”
ICER’s president, Dr. Steven D. Pearson, called the treatment’s price “a positive outcome for patients and the entire health system.”
The defective gene that causes spinal muscular atrophy prevents the body from making enough of a protein that allows nerves that control movement to work normally. The nerves die off without the protein.
In the most common type, which is also the most severe, at least 90% of patients die by age 2, and any still alive need a ventilator to breathe. Children with less-severe types become disabled more slowly and can live for up to a couple decades.
Zolgensma works by supplying a healthy copy of the faulty gene, which allows nerve cells to then start producing the needed protein. That halts deterioration of the nerve cells and allows the baby to develop more normally.
In patient testing, babies with the most severe form of the disease who got Zolgensma within 6 months of birth had limited muscle problems. Those who got the treatment earliest did best.
Babies given Zolgensma after six months stopped losing muscle control, but the medicine can’t reverse damage already done.
Success story
Evelyn Villarreal was one of the first children treated, at eight weeks. Her family, from Centreville, Va., had lost their first child to spinal muscular atrophy at 15 months. Two years later when Evelyn was born a test showed she also had the disease, so the family enrolled her in the gene therapy study at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
Evelyn is now 4½ years old and showing no muscle problems other than minor trouble standing up, said her mother, Elena Villarreal. She has been feeding herself for a long time, she draws and speaks well, and will be starting kindergarten in the fall.
She's very active and goes to the playground a lot,'' said Elena Villarreal.She’s walking and even jumping.”
It is too early to know how long the benefit of the treatment lasts, but doctors’ hopes are rising that they could last a lifetime, according to Dr. Jerry Mendell, a neurologist at Nationwide Children’s. Mendell led one of the early patient studies and is Evelyn’s doctor.
“It’s beginning to look that way,” he said, because a few children treated who are now 4 or 5 still have no symptoms.
Early diagnosis is crucial, so Novartis has been working with states to get genetic testing for newborns required at birth. It expects most states will have that requirement by next year.
The FDA said side effects included vomiting and potential liver damage, so patients must be monitored for the first few months after treatment.
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A SpaceX rocket has launched 60 satellites into orbit, which will be used to provide internet service from space.
The rocket was launched Thursday night from Cape Canaveral in the southeastern U.S. state of Florida.
It had been originally scheduled to launch last week, but was postponed because of high winds over the Cape and the need for a software update.
The Starlink internet service will go into service only after hundreds more satellites are launched into orbit and activated.
SpaceX is the private rocket company of Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk.
Musk said he saw Thursday’s launch as “a key stepping stone on the way towards establishing a self-sustaining city on Mars and a base on the moon.”
Thousands of school students in Australia and New Zealand took to the streets Friday, initiating an international day of protests against the lack of action against climate change.
Organizers expect that more than a million young people in at least 120 counties will participate in protests.
Demonstrators are demanding that politicians and business leaders take swift measures to slow global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions, which are damaging planet Earth.
The school protesters in Frankfurt, Germany, marched on the headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) to demand it stop financing the fossil fuel industry.
According to environmental scientists, greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels have caused droughts and heatwaves, the melting of glaciers, rising sea levels and devastating floods.
The worldwide protests are inspired by Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish activist who began a single-handed climate protest outside the Swedish parliament in August. Since then, her school strike movement “Fridays for Future” has grown exponentially.
Global carbon emissions reached a record high last year, despite warnings from the United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in October that gas emissions must be curbed over the next 12 years to stabilize the climate.
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Silicon Valley has long been a power center of American innovation. Now that high-tech is also becoming a focus of tensions between the U.S. and China, companies based here are trying to understand how they fit in. VOA’s Michelle Quinn speaks with the head of the U.S. Defense Department’s local outpost who sees the tech industry as key to U.S. national security.
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Anna, a female green anaconda that has lived most of her life in an all-female enclosure at the New England Aquarium, has given birth.
The anaconda produced 18 snakes in early January. A DNA test has confirmed that the births were a result of a nonsexual reproduction process known as parthenogenesis, or “virgin birth,” according to the aquarium.
Parthenogenesis commonly occurs in the plant world and among animals without a backbone, but is rare among vertebrates. The process has been documented only among lizards, birds, sharks and snakes.
The phenomenon involving Anna is the second known confirmed case of parthenogenesis for a green anaconda. The first was at a British zoo in 2014.
Only two of Anna’s 18 offspring have survived.
Aquarium staff said the young snakes are clones of their mother. Limited genetic sequencing shows complete matches on all the sites tested.
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Chile’s 12,000 square kilometer (4,633 square mile) Southern Patagonia Ice Field split in two and is likely to continue to fracture amid climate change, according to a team of Chilean scientists who were in the region in March.
Gino Casassa, chief of the Snow and Glacier Division of Chile’s DGA water authority, told Reuters increasing temperatures along the Andes Mountains in southern Chile and Argentina have meant less snow and ice to replenish the region’s abundant glaciers.
“What occurred is a fracture as the ice has retreated, Casassa said.
The chunk of ice that split off from the main glacier was estimated at 208 square kilometers (80.3 square miles), a relatively small part of the ice field.
But Casassa said it may be a sign of things to come.
The ice field, he said, is now “split in two, and we’ll likely discover further divisions to the south,” he said.
Two icebergs broke off the Grey Glacier in southern Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park earlier this year, adding to fears that such ruptures are becoming more frequent.
President Donald Trump says he is “honored” to give U.S. farmers hurt by the trade war with China another $16 billion in aid.
Flanked by potato growers, ranchers and dairymen in the White House, Trump said Thursday the aid “will help keep our cherished farms thriving and make clear that no country has a veto on America’s economic and national security.”
Trump added that trade has been “very unfair” to the farmers who he says support him politically.
This is the second multibillion-dollar bailout the Trump administration has provided to U.S. farmers who have seen Chinese markets for their products dry up because of tariffs China imposed on U.S. goods to retaliate for U.S. tariffs on Chinese products. The White House gave farmers $12 billion last year.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue says farmers should see the first installment of the new $16 billion in aid in July or August. Perdue said he doubts if the United States and China can reach a trade deal by then.
Most of the money will go to farmers who grow and sell such crops as soybeans, corn, peanuts and wheat. Money will also be set aside to buy excess products from the farmers and send them to schools and food banks.
“I can’t recall a president more concerned about farmer well-being. We are working hard to assess trade damages and this package ensures farmers will not bear the brunt,” Perdue said.
While Trump said Thursday that many farmers told him he is “doing the right thing,” some trade experts call the bailout a political ploy and say farmers are more concerned about winning back the lost Chinese market.
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East African countries are set to ban skin-lightening products that contain hydroquinone, a medical agent linked to health problems when used in high concentrations. The East African Legislative Assembly last week passed a resolution calling for a region-wide ban on the manufacturing and importation of products containing hydroquinone.
At a beauty parlor in Arusha, 52-year-old Rose Mselle has been using skin-bleaching products since she was a teenager. She says women like her want to be beautiful
“And in the process of looking for beauty, or for our skin color to shine, we use things that we shouldn’t,” she added.
At a nearby market, 32-year-old clothing vendor Janet Jonijosefu used skin-lightening products that contain hydroquinone, a medical agent used to treat dark spots, for years. She stopped after her skin became fragile.
She said the beauty products containing hydroquinone badly affected her skin. She started developing patches on her face. She went to the doctor and was advised to stop using products containing hydroquinone and instead use aloe vera.
Skin-lightening products often use high concentrations of hydroquinone, which can cause skin problems or become toxic when mixed with other bleaching chemicals.
Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and South Africa ban or regulate the agent in cosmetics. Tanzania bars imports.
The East African Legislative Assembly last week passed a resolution on a region-wide ban of hydroquinone’s manufacture and importation.
Suzan Nakawuki, a member of the regional assembly from Uganda, noted that hydroquinone is not only used by women but also men.
“We have seen men bleaching seriously even more than women,” she said. “But it’s becoming a problem. If we don’t regulate it, it is going to become very problematic.”
When used medically, hydroquinone can be an effective treatment for skin discoloration. Some East African lawmakers spoke out against a blanket ban.
Aden Abdikadir, a lawmaker from Kenya, said he is concerned a blanket ban will cause “serious trade disruption” for cosmetics.
If signed by heads of state, the ban becomes law in all six East African Community states, which include Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
Critics point out bans on hydroquinone have failed to stop smuggled products from being sold openly. Cosmetics labeled as having hydroquinone are on display at shops in Arusha.
If bans are not backed by enforcement, they will have little effect on the use of the high demand skin-lightening products, despite the risk to health.
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A Belgian abbey is reviving its centuries-old tradition of beer-making after 220 years. The monks at Grimbergen Abbey are using ancient recipes to offer specialty beers in their new microbrewery. Meanwhile, researchers in Israel have made beer with yeast from jars that are thousands of years old. Beer is one of the oldest beverages, but producers are making new and attractive brews. As VOA Zlatica Hoke reports, there is a growing interest in traditional beers and the history of brewing.
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Veterinarian Dr. Karin Lourens has become known as Africa’s “pangolin doctor” for leading medical efforts to help the scaly anteaters rescued from the illegal wildlife trade to recover. Her pioneering tube-feeding and blood testing is helping to improve her endangered patients’ survival rate. Marize de Klerk reports for VOA from Johannesburg.
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People using e-cigarettes to quit smoking are about 95% more likely to report success than those trying to quit without help from any stop-smoking aids according to the results of a large study in England.
The research, funded by the charity Cancer Research UK and published in the journal Addiction on Thursday, analyzed success rates of several common stop-smoking methods – including e-cigarettes, nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) patches and gum, and Pfizer’s varenicline, sold as Champix in the UK.
It also adjusted for a wide range of factors that might influence success rates for quitting – such as age, social level, degree of cigarette addiction, previous attempts to quit, and whether quitting was gradual or abrupt.
Latest World Health Organization data show that smoking and other tobacco use kills more than 7 million people a year globally. Of the 1.1 billion people worldwide who smoke, around 80 percent live in poor or middle-income countries.
E-cigarettes have no tobacco, but contain nicotine-laced liquids that the user inhales in a vapor. Many big tobacco companies, including British American Tobacco, Imperial Brands and Japan Tobacco, sell e-cigarettes.
This study involved almost 19,000 people in England who had tried to quit smoking in the preceding 12 months, collected over a 12-year period from 2006 to 2018. Successful quitters were defined as those who said they were still not smoking.
As well as the 95% increased success rate for e-cigarettes, the study found that people prescribed Champix were around 82% more likely to have succeeded in stopping smoking than those who tried to quit without any aids.
“Our study adds to growing evidence that use of e-cigarettes can help smokers to quit,” said Sarah Jackson, a professor at University College London who co-led the study.
Using e-cigarettes, or ‘vaping,’ is considered by many experts to be an effective way for smokers to give up tobacco, but some in the scientific community are skeptical of their public health benefits, fearing they might normalize the idea of smoking and lead young people into the habit.
Smokers who were prescribed NRT by a medical professional were 34% more likely to quit successfully, the study found. But those buying NRT from shops were no more likely to succeed that those trying to quit without any help at all.
Experts said the results were robust and important.
Peter Hajek, director of the tobacco dependence research unit at Britain’s Queen Mary University of London, said the study yielded two key findings about e-cigarettes:
“They help smokers quit at least as much as stop-smoking medications, and they are used by many more smokers. This means they generate many more quitters and do this at no cost to the NHS (National Health Service),” he said in an emailed comment.
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In a potential challenge to U.S.-led efforts to build consensus on the Boeing Co 737 MAX flying again, Canada and Europe said on Wednesday they would bring back the grounded aircraft on their own terms if their specific concerns are not addressed.
Global regulators will meet in Fort Worth, Texas, on Thursday where the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration hopes to reach an international consensus on how to move forward with the MAX, U.S. officials told Reuters.
The plane was grounded worldwide in March following a fatal Ethiopian Airlines crash just months after a similar Lion Air disaster in Indonesia which together killed 346 people.
Global airlines that had rushed to buy the fuel-efficient, longer-range aircraft have since canceled flights and scrambled to cover routes that were previously flown by the MAX.
“From our point of view, if we all work together and we all reach the same aim, fine. If we don’t, we’ll choose our own time to decide when the planes are safe to fly again,” Canadian Transport Minister Marc Garneau told Reuters in an interview.
“The number one focus for us is that we in Canada must be satisfied. It doesn’t matter what others do. So if we are not perfectly synchronized with certain other countries that’s how it going to be,” Garneau said.
Regulators are expected to discuss Boeing’s proposed software fix and new pilot training that are both key to re-starting flights. Boeing has not yet formally submitted its proposals to the FAA.
A spokesman for the European Aviation Safety Agency said on Wednesday that it would complete an additional independent design review of the plane once the FAA approves Boeing’s proposed changes and establishes “adequate training of Boeing MAX flight crews.”
Foreign regulators have already signaled disagreements over measures to end the grounding, with Garneau calling in April for pilots to receive simulator training for the MAX, rather than computer courses, going a step beyond FAA-backed proposals.
Acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell told Congress last week the FAA is working closely with other civil aviation authorities “to address specific concerns related to the 737 MAX.”
United Airlines Chief Executive Oscar Munoz said on Wednesday that FAA approval is only the first step, with public and employee confidence key to deciding when to fly its 14 MAX jets again.
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British and Japanese mobile phone companies said Wednesday they’re putting on hold plans to sell new devices from Huawei, in the latest fallout from U.S. tech restrictions aimed at the Chinese company.
Britain’s EE and Vodafone and Japan’s KDDI and Y! Mobile said they are pausing the launch of Huawei smartphones, including some that can be used on next generation mobile networks, amid uncertainty about devices from the world’s No. 2 smartphone maker.
The U.S. government last week restricted technology sales to Chinese telecom gear suppliers because of alleged security risks, though telecom carriers got a 90-day grace period to let them find other suppliers. The sales ban is part of a broader trade war between Washington and Beijing.
British mobile chip designer Arm said separately it was complying with the U.S. rules, after the BBC reported it was suspending business with Huawei — a move that could hobble the Chinese tech company’s ability to produce chips for new devices.
Vodafone said in a statement that it’s “pausing pre-orders” for the Mate 20X, Huawei’s first phone for 5G networks, as “a temporary measure while uncertainty exists regarding new Huawei 5G devices.”
EE CEO Marc Allera said sales would not resume until it gets “the information and confidence and the long-term security” that customers will be supported over the device’s lifetime. The company was also set to sell the Mate 20X followed by Huawei’s Mate X folding handset.
EE said it’s working with Huawei and Google, which makes the Android mobile operating systems to make sure it “can carry out the right level of testing and quality assurance.”
The Trump administration’s order last week cuts Huawei’s access to American chips and Google, which makes the Android operating system and services for its smartphones.
Y! Mobile, owned by Japanese technology company Softbank, said sales of the Huawei P30 lite, set for May 24, have been delayed, and advance orders were canceled.
SoftBank spokesman Hiroyuki Mizukami said the company wants its “customers to feel safe using our products.”
KDDI also indefinitely delayed its sales, initially set for late May.
It’s unclear when, or if, the companies will lift the sales freezes.
British carriers plan this year to roll out 5G services while Japan will follow in 2020. Fifth generation mobile networks will enable superfast downloads and pave the way for new innovations like connected cars and remote medicine.
Arm, which is also owned by Softbank and designs mobile microprocessors that power most of the world’s smartphones and tablets, said it “is complying with all of the latest regulations set forth by the U.S. government.”
The company told employees to halt all business deals with Huawei, the BBC reported, citing a company memo that said its designs contained “U.S. origin technology.”
In response to the report on Arm, Huawei said it recognizes that some of its partners are under pressure as a result of “politically motivated decisions” but that it’s “confident this regrettable situation can be resolved.”
British lawmakers are denouncing Prime Minister Theresa May’s latest proposal to withdraw from the European Union (EU) amid growing demands from her own Conservative Party for her resignation.
May said on Tuesday a bill she plans to present to Parliament next month would include a provision to vote on whether to hold a second referendum to leave the EU, a key demand of many opposition lawmakers.
May also offered closer trading arrangements with the EU as another incentive in what she called a “last chance” opportunity to finalize a Brexit deal.
Speaking before the House of Commons on Wednesday, May implored lawmakers to support her bill, warning a rejection would lead to “division and deadlock.”
May said her withdrawal bill would be disclosed Friday so that lawmakers would have time to study it.
Legislators previously spurned May’s exit deal three times and her latest attempt to win support faces an uphill fight. She plans to ask lawmakers to vote on the bill again during the week of June 3.
Members of May’s own Conservative Party accused her of relenting to pro-EU demands while opposition Labour Party lawmakers rejected her latest plan as too little too late.
On Tuesday, May said after Parliament votes on the measure, she will establish a timetable for her departure as leader of the Conservative Party and as prime minister.
A growing number of Conservative Party members, however, are pressing her to cancel the vote and step down sooner.
May is likely to face even more pressure when the results of this week’s European Parliament elections are released, as the Conservative Party is expected to suffer heavy losses.
The election will be held in Britain on Thursday, but the results won’t be announced until all European countries have finished voting late Sunday.
British citizens voted in a referendum to leave the EU three years ago and the country was scheduled to leave the EU on March 29, but the 28-nation bloc extended the deadline until October 31.
Palestinian officials say they have inaugurated their first solar panel plant as part of a plan to reduce their dependence on Israeli power sources.
Mohammed Mustafa, head of the government’s investment fund, says that Tuesday’s plant opening in the ancient West Bank city of Jericho is one of four planned plants. One has been donated from China.
He says the Palestinians rely almost entirely on power imported from Israel and the new plants are part of a long-term project to reduce that by 50% over the next decade. He says the four solar panel stations should cover about 30% of Palestinian power consumption.
Mustafa says the West Bank consumes about $700 million a year in electricity.
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