Robotic wheelchairs are already available in some countries. But what if a disabled person needs to travel over a bumpy stretch of a road or climb stairs? A lab in South Korea is experimenting with a walking robot with a comfortable seat for a human operator. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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Latvian Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis assured the country and Europe “there is no sign of danger,” after anti-corruption police arrested the head of the Latvian central bank Saturday.
“For now, neither I, nor any other official, has any reason to interfere with the work of the Corruption Prevention Bureau,” Kucinskis said.
Neither Kucinskis nor the police gave any reason why central bank governor Ilmars Rimsevics was arrested. But a police spokeswoman said there will be an announcement “as soon as possible.”
The Latvian government plans an emergency meeting Monday.
Along with heading the Baltic nation’s central bank, Rimsevics is also one of 19 governors on the European Central Bank.
The U.S. Treasury Department has proposed sanctions against a major Latvian bank for alleged money laundering linked to North Korea’s weapons program.
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Some new, tiny pacemakers are making headway around the world. One type is keeping 15,000 people’s hearts beating in 40 countries, according to the manufacturer. Studies show these small pacemakers are safe. And, as VOA’s Carol Pearson reports, doctors expect the technology will help more heart patients over time.
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Four automakers in Japan, including Mitsubishi and Isuzu, have road-tested a form of driverless technology. The big rigs are all equipped with a type of adaptive cruise-control system as a step toward removing the one feature you’d expect to see in the cab: a driver. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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The Commerce Department is urging President Donald Trump to impose tariffs or quotas on aluminum and steel imports from China and other countries.
Unveiling the recommendations Friday, Secretary Wilbur Ross said in the case of both industries “the imports threaten to impair our national security.”
As an example, Ross said only one U.S. company now produces a high-quality aluminum alloy needed for military aircraft.
Raise US capacity
The measures are intended to raise U.S. production of aluminum and steel to 80 percent of industrial capacity. Currently U.S. steel plants are running at 73 percent of capacity and aluminum plants at 48 percent.
Ross emphasized that the president would have the final say, including on whether to exclude certain countries, such as NATO allies, from any actions.
China’s Commerce Ministry said Saturday that the report was baseless and did not accord with the facts, and that China would take necessary steps to protect its interests if affected by the final decision.
Last year, Trump authorized the probe into whether aluminum and steel imports posed a threat to national defense under a 1962 trade law that has not been invoked since 2001. He has to make a decision by mid-April.
Three options
Ross is offering the president three options:
To impose tariffs of 24 percent on all steel and 7.7 percent on aluminum imports from all countries.
To impose tariffs of 53 percent on steel imports from 12 countries, including Brazil, China and Russia, and tariffs of 23.6 percent on aluminum imports from China, Hong Kong, Russia, Venezuela and Vietnam. Under this option, the U.S. would also impose a quota limiting all other countries to the amount of aluminum and steel they exported to U.S. last year.
To impose a quota on steel and aluminum imports from all sources, limiting each country 63 percent of the steel and 86.7 percent of the aluminum they shipped to the U.S. last year.
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Delivery robots could one day be part of the landscape of cities around the world. Among the latest to be developed is an Italian-made model that drives itself around town to drop off packages. Since the machine runs on electricity, its developers say it is an environmentally friendly alternative to fuel powered delivery vehicles that cause pollution. VOA’s Deborah Block has more.
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A new exhibit showcases gadgets and inventions by designers striving to make disabled people’s lives easier — in style. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Facebook is forging ahead with its messaging app for kids, despite child experts who have pressed the company to shut it down and others who question Facebook’s financial support of some advisers who approved of the app.
Messenger Kids lets kids under 13 chat with friends and family. It displays no ads and lets parents approve who their children message. But critics say it serves to lure kids into harmful social media use and to hook young people on Facebook as it tries to compete with Snapchat or its own Instagram app. They say kids shouldn’t be on such apps at all — although they often are.
“It is disturbing that Facebook, in the face of widespread concern, is aggressively marketing Messenger Kids to even more children,” the Campaign For a Commercial-Free Childhood said in a statement this week.
Lukeward reception
Messenger Kids launched on iOS to lukewarm reception in December. It arrived on Amazon devices in January and on Android Wednesday. Throughout, Facebook has touted a team of advisers, academics and families who helped shape the app in the year before it launched.
But a Wired report this week pointed out that more than half of this safety advisory board had financial ties to the company. Facebook confirmed this and said it hasn’t hidden donations to these individuals and groups — although it hasn’t publicized them, either.
Facebook’s donations to groups like the National PTA (the official name for the Parent Teacher Association) typically covered logistics costs or sponsored activities like anti-bullying programs or events such as parent roundtables. One advisory group, the Family Online Safety Institute, has a Facebook executive on its board, along with execs from Disney, Comcast and Google.
“We sometimes provide funding to cover programmatic or logistics expenses, to make sure our work together can have the most impact,” Facebook said in a statement, adding that many of the organizations and people who advised on Messenger Kids do not receive financial support of any kind.
Common Sense a late addition
But for a company under pressure from many sides — Congress, regulators, advocates for online privacy and mental health — even the appearance of impropriety can hurt. Facebook didn’t invite prominent critics, such as the nonprofit Common Sense Media, to advise it on Messenger Kids until the process was nearly over. Facebook would not comment publicly on why it didn’t include Common Sense earlier in the process.
“Because they know we opposed their position,” said James Steyer, the CEO of Common Sense. The group’s stance is that Facebook never should have released a product aimed at kids. “They know very well our positon with Messenger Kids.”
A few weeks after Messenger Kids launched, nearly 100 outside experts banded together to urge Facebook to shut down the app , which it has not done. The company says it is “committed to building better products for families, including Messenger Kids. That means listening to parents and experts, including our critics.”
Wired article unfair?
One of Facebook’s experts contested the notion that company advisers were in Facebook’s pocket. Lewis Bernstein, now a paid Facebook consultant who worked for Sesame Workshop (the nonprofit behind “Sesame Street”) in various capacities over three decades, said the Wired article “unfairly” accused him and his colleagues for accepting travel expenses to Facebook seminars.
But the Wired story did not count Lewis as one of the seven out of 13 advisers who took funding for Messenger Kids, and the magazine did not include travel funding when it counted financial ties. Bernstein was not a Facebook consultant at the time he was advising it on Messenger Kids.
Bernstein, who doesn’t see technology as “inherently dangerous,” suggested that Facebook critics like Common Sense are also tainted by accepting $50 million in donated air time for a campaign warning about the dangers of technology addiction. Among those air-time donors are Comcast and AT&T’s DirecTV.
But Common Sense spokeswoman Corbie Kiernan called that figure a “misrepresentation” that got picked up by news outlets. She said Common Sense has public service announcement commitments “from partners such as Comcast and DirectTV” that has been valued at $50 million. The group has used that time in other campaigns in addition to its current “Truth About Tech” effort, which it’s launching with a group of ex-Google and Facebook employees and their newly formed Center for Humane Technology.
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The British government has suspended new funding to the aid organization Oxfam following allegations that some of its staff had paid for sex with prostitutes in Haiti after the country’s 2010 earthquake.
British Development Minister Penny Mordaunt said the group has agreed not to bid for any new funding from Britain’s government until London is satisfied the aid organization meets its “high standards.”
In a statement, the British-based aid group said, “We are committed to proving that we deserve the confidence of the U.K. public.”
The aid group has been rocked by allegations of sexually exploiting people in crisis zones, including using prostitutes and downloading pornography in Haiti after the country’s 2010 earthquake.
Oxfam, one of the world’s biggest disaster relief organizations, said it investigated the case in 2011 and fired four staff members and allowed three others to resign. However, the British government has criticized the group’s lack of transparency.
Earlier on Friday, Oxfam said it would create an independent commission to review the group’s practices and culture.
Oxfam International’s executive director, Winnie Byanyima, told BBC Friday, “What happened in Haiti and afterwards is a stain on Oxfam that will shame us for years, and rightly so.”
“From the bottom of my heart, I am asking for forgiveness,” Byanyima said, adding she wants all victims of abuse to come forward.
Mordaunt said the British government had asked Oxfam and other recipients of aid funding to provide assurances by February 26 that they effectively safeguarded people they helped, and reported any breaches to the government.
“At that stage we will make further decisions about continuing or amending how those programs are delivered. Our primary guiding principle in this will be the welfare of the beneficiaries of U.K. aid,” she said.
Oxfam relies on public and corporate donations as well as government funding. The allegations relate to Oxfam Great Britain, one of 20 affiliates that make up Oxfam International.
The scandal has led Britain’s charity regulator to open an investigation into Oxfam and has caused three celebrity ambassadors to the aid group — South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, British actress Minnie Driver and Senegalese musician Baaba Maal — to resign.
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A disputed case of euthanasia in Belgium, involving the death of a dementia patient who never formally asked to die, has again raised concerns about weak oversight in a country with some of the world’s most liberal euthanasia laws.
The case was described in a letter provided to The Associated Press, written by a doctor who resigned from Belgium’s euthanasia commission in protest over the group’s actions on this and other cases.
Some experts say the case as documented in the letter amounts to murder; the patient lacked the mental capacity to ask for euthanasia and the request for the bedridden patient to be euthanized came from family members. The co-chairs of the commission say the doctor mistakenly reported the death as euthanasia.
Although euthanasia has been legal in Belgium since 2002 and has overwhelming public support, critics have raised concerns in recent months about certain practices, including how quickly some doctors approve requests to die from psychiatric patients.
Dispute revealed
The AP revealed a rift last year between Dr. Willem Distelmans, co-chair of the euthanasia commission, and Dr. Lieve Thienpont, an advocate of euthanasia for the mentally ill. Distelmans suggested some of Thienpont’s patients might have been killed without meeting all the legal requirements. Prompted by the AP’s reporting, more than 360 doctors, academics and others have signed a petition calling for tighter controls on euthanasia for psychiatric patients.
Euthanasia — when doctors kill patients at their request — can be granted in Belgium to people with both physical and mental health illnesses. The condition does not need to be fatal, but suffering must be “unbearable and untreatable.” It can be performed only if specific criteria are fulfilled, including a “voluntary, well-considered and repeated” request from the person.
But Belgium’s euthanasia commission routinely violates the law, according to a September letter of resignation written by Dr. Ludo Vanopdenbosch, a neurologist, to senior party leaders in the Belgian Parliament who appoint members of the group.
The most striking example took place at a meeting in early September, Vanopdenbosch wrote, when the group discussed the case of a patient with severe dementia who also had Parkinson’s disease. To demonstrate the patient’s lack of competence, a video was played showing what Vanopdenbosch characterized as “a deeply demented patient.”
The patient, whose identity was not disclosed, was euthanized at the family’s request, according to Vanopdenbosch’s letter. There was no record of any prior request for euthanasia from the patient.
After hours of debate, the commission declined to refer the case to the public prosecutor to investigate whether criminal charges were warranted.
Vanopdenbosch confirmed the letter was genuine but would not comment further about details.
Palliative sedation
The two co-chairs of the euthanasia commission, Distelmans and Gilles Genicot, a lawyer, said the doctor treating the patient mistakenly called the procedure euthanasia, and that he should have called it palliative sedation instead. Palliative sedation is the process of drugging patients near the end of life to relieve symptoms, but it is not meant to end life.
“This was not a case of illegal euthanasia but rather a case of legitimate end-of-life decision improperly considered by the physician as euthanasia,” Genicot and Distelmans said in an email.
Vanopdenbosch, who is also a palliative care specialist, wrote that the doctor’s intention was “to kill the patient” and that “the means of alleviating the patient’s suffering was disproportionate.”
Though no one outside the commission has access to the case’s medical records — the group is not allowed by law to release that information — some critics were stunned by the details in Vanopdenbosch’s letter.
“It’s not euthanasia because the patient didn’t ask, so it’s the voluntary taking of a life,” said Dr. An Haekens, psychiatric director at the Alexianen Psychiatric Hospital in Tienen, Belgium. “I don’t know another word other than murder to describe this.”
Kristof Van Assche, a professor of health law at the University of Antwerp, wrote in an email the commission itself wasn’t breaking the law because the group is not required to refer a case unless two-thirds of the group agree — even if the case “blatantly disregards” criteria for euthanasia.
But without a request from the patient, the case “would normally constitute manslaughter or murder,” he wrote. “The main question is why this case was not deemed sufficiently problematic” to prompt the commission to refer the case to prosecutors.
Other problems
Vanopdenbosch, who in the letter called himself a “big believer” in euthanasia, cited other problems with the commission. He said that when he expressed concerns about potentially problematic cases, he was immediately “silenced” by others. And he added that because many of the doctors on the commission are leading euthanasia practitioners, they can protect each other from scrutiny, and act with “impunity.”
Vanopdenbosch wrote that when cases of euthanasia are identified that don’t meet the legal criteria, they are not forwarded to the public prosecutor’s office as is required by law, but that the commission itself acts as the court.
In the 15 years since euthanasia was legalized in Belgium, more than 10,000 people have been euthanized, and just one of those cases has been referred to prosecutors.
Genicot and Distelmans said the group thoroughly assesses every euthanasia case to be sure all legal conditions have been met.
“It can obviously occur that some debate emerges among members, but our role is to make sure that the law is observed and certainly not to trespass it,” they said. They said it was “absolutely false” that Vanopdenbosch had been muzzled, and they said they regretted his resignation.
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In multiple online comments and posts, Nikolas Cruz, 19, the suspect in the Valentine’s Day high school shooting in Florida, apparently signaled his intent to hurt other people.
I want to “shoot people with my AR-15,” a person using the name Nikolas Cruz wrote in one place. “I wanna die Fighting killing…ton of people.”
As investigators try to piece together what led to the school shooting that left 17 people dead and many others wounded, they are closely examining the suspect’s social media activity, as well as other information about him.
The focus on Cruz’s digital footprint highlights a question that law enforcement, social scientists and society at large have been grappling with: If anyone had been paying attention to his postings, could these deaths have been prevented?
The FBI was contacted about a social media post in which the alleged gunman says he wants to be a “professional school shooter.”
However, though the commenter’s username was “Nikolas Cruz” — the same name as the shooting suspect — the FBI couldn’t identify the poster, according to the Associated Press.
But what if an algorithm could have sifted through all of Cruz’s posts and comments to bring him to the attention of authorities?
Data mining
In an era where data can be dissected and analyzed to predict where cold medicine will most likely be needed next week or which shoes will be most popular on Amazon tomorrow, some people wonder why there isn’t more use of artificial intelligence to sift through social media in an effort to prevent crime.
“We need all the tools we can get to prevent tragedies like this,” said Sean Young, executive director of the University of California Institute for Prediction Technology.
“The science exists on how to use social media to find and help people in psychological need,” he said. “I believe the benefits outweigh the risks, so I think it’s really important to use social media as a prevention tool.”
Despite the 2002 movie Minority Report, about police apprehending murderers before they act based on knowledge provided by psychics known as “precogs,” the idea of police successfully analyzing data to find a person preparing to harm others is still a far-off scenario, according to experts.
Predictive policing
Increasingly, police departments are turning to “predictive policing,” which involves taking large data sets and using algorithms to forecast potential crimes and then deploying police to the region. One potential treasure trove of data is social media, which is often public and can indicate what people are discussing in real time and by location.
Predictive policing, however, comes with ethical questions over whether data sets and algorithms have built-in biases, particularly toward minorities.
A study in Los Angeles aims to see if social media postings can help police figure out where to put resources to stop hate crimes.
“With enough funds and unfettered data access and linkage, I can see how a system could be built where machine learning could identify patterns in text [threats, emotional states] and images [weapons] that would indicate an increased risk,” said Matthew Williams, director of the social data science lab and data innovation research institute at Cardiff University in Wales. He is one of the Los Angeles study researchers.
“But the ethics would preclude such a system, unless those being observed consented, but then the system could be subverted.”
Arjun Sethi, a Georgetown law professor, says it is impossible to divorce predictive policing from entrenched prejudice in the criminal justice system. “We found big data is used in racially discriminating ways,” he said.
Using Facebook posts
Still, the potential exists that, with the right program, it may be possible to separate someone signaling for help from all the noise on social media.
A new program at Facebook seeks to harness the field of machine learning to get help to people contemplating suicide. Among millions of posts each day, Facebook can find posts of those who may be suicidal or at risk of self-harm — even if no one in the person’s Facebook social circle reported the person’s posts to the company. In machine learning, computers and algorithms collect information without being programmed to do so.
The Facebook system relies on text, but Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, has said that the firm may add photos and videos that come to the attention of the Facebook team to review.
Being able to figure out if someone is going to harm himself, herself or others is difficult and raises ethical dilemmas but, says Young of UCLA, a person’s troubling social media posts can be red flags that should be checked out.
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says 84 children have died in this year’s flu season, one of the most intense flu seasons since the swine flu pandemic in 2009.
In Friday’s report from the nation’s public health agency, experts said this year’s unusually hardy flu strain is still widespread in 48 of the 50 U.S. states, with only the Pacific Island state of Hawaii and the northwestern state of Oregon excepted.
Friday’s report also said for the week ending January 27, nearly 10 percent of U.S. death certificates listed flu or pneumonia as the cause.
The report noted that about one of every 13 doctor visits during that time was due to flu symptoms — no worse than the previous report, which means a steady increase in that total late last year and early this year has leveled off.
In a separate report Thursday, CDC experts reported that this year’s flu vaccine is only about 25 percent effective at preventing this year’s dominant flu strain, although success rates are higher among young children.
The CDC said most of the child deaths from this year’s flu and in past seasons were among children who had not been vaccinated.
And on Thursday, acting CDC director Anne Schuchat told reporters that the U.S. flu season this year, which she called “challenging and intense,” is expected to last several more weeks.
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The uncovering of one of the biggest frauds at a state-owned bank in India has rocked the country’s financial sector and brought scrutiny to a billionaire jeweler who counted Hollywood stars among his customers.
The nearly $1.8 billion fraud reported at India’s second-largest state-owned bank is a blow to the government’s efforts to revive the state-owned banking sector, which is already staggering under a mountain of bad debt.
Nirav Modi, whose jewelry boutiques span high-end streets from Hong Kong to London to New York and whose diamonds have been worn by Hollywood stars such as Dakota Johnson and Kate Winslet, is being investigated for the fraudulent transactions. His brand ambassador is Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra, who has also carved a niche in the United States.
The fraud, which officials say had been going on from a single branch of Punjab National Bank in Mumbai, went undetected since 2011. Calling it a “cancer,” the bank’s chief executive, Sunil Mehta, told a news conference earlier this week that it had been removed. “We will resolve it and we will honor all our bona fide commitments.”
Officials at the bank have accused Modi and his companies of obtaining unauthorized letters of undertaking from junior employees to secure credit from overseas branches of Indian banks.
Modi has not responded to the allegations and, according to some reports, left the country last month. His home, stores and offices were raided by Indian investigators. His passport is being revoked, according to the Law and Justice Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad.
“No one will be spared,” he said. “The taxpayers’ money will not be allowed to be lost. The investigation is proceeding with great speed and pace.”
Modi, whose worth is estimated at about $1.74 billion, is the 85th richest man in India, according to Forbes. Belonging to a family of diamond traders, the soft-spoken businessman founded a company called Firestone Diamond in 1999 — later rechristened Firestar Diamond — and quickly made a name in the business. He later set up his own jewelry design brand and won the rich and famous among his customers.
In January, he attended the economic summit in Davos, where a large Indian business delegation was present, along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The two are not related.
The fraud, which went undetected for years, has reignited concerns about governance standards at Indian banks and norms that are used for lending to corporate customers. Questions have been raised as to why audits failed to detect the fraud for years.
It came to light weeks after the government announced a $14 billion bailout for state banks. These banks, which account for about two-thirds of all bank assets in the country, are the backbone of the financial system, but are saddled with bad debt estimated at $147 billion.
Economists have warned that this mountain of bad loans threatens India’s efforts to accelerate its economy as it slows down efforts by banks to lend to potential investors.
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Belgian media say a Brussels court has ordered Facebook to stop collecting data about citizens in the country or face fines for every day it fails to comply.
The daily De Standaard reported Friday that the court upheld a Belgian privacy commission finding that Facebook is collecting data without users’ consent.
It said the court concluded that Facebook does not adequately inform users that it is collecting information, what kind of details it keeps and for how long, or what it does with the data.
It has ruled that Facebook must stop tracking and registering internet usage by Belgians online and destroy any data it has obtained illegally or face fines of 250,000 euros ($311,500) every day it delays.
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Spacewalking astronauts stepped out Friday to wrap up months of repair work on the International Space Station’s big robot arm.
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Japan’s Norishige Kanai emerged from the orbiting complex as the sun rose over Peru’s western coast, 250 miles below.
The 58-foot robot arm had both of its aging mechanical hands replaced on spacewalks conducted in October and January. Friday’s work involved bringing one of those old hands inside so it can be returned to Earth for a tuneup and then flown back up, and moving the other gripper to a long-term storage location outside.
This last spacewalk in the series should have been completed by now, but was postponed because of complications with the robotic hand that was installed last month. Further delays were caused by this week’s late arrival of a Russian supply ship.
It was the first spacewalk for Kanai, a surgeon and former diving medical officer who arrived at the space station in December. For Vande Hei, it was spacewalk No. 4. He returns to Earth at the end of the month.
Four other men currently live at the space station.
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Most analysts and economists agree, robots are slowly replacing humans in many jobs. They weld and paint car bodies, sort merchandise in warehouses, explore underground pipes and inspect suspicious packages. Yet we still do not see robots as domestic help, except for robotic vacuum cleaners. Robotics experts say there is another barrier that robots need to cross in order to work alongside humans. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Iraq’s prime minister was in Kuwait this week, selling his country as a promising investment opportunity. After years of war and sectarian violence, Iraq is moving toward stability and wants to attract the private sector to help fund its $88 billion reconstruction and recovery effort. From the Kuwaiti capital, VOA’s Margaret Besheer reports investors are interested.
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Top U.S. and Mexican officials on Thursday expressed cautious optimism that the North American Free Trade Agreement will be renegotiated, speaking ahead of the next round of trade talks later this month.
Asked on local television whether it was more likely the $1.2 trillion trilateral trade pact would survive or die, Mexico’s Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said there was cause for optimism, though Mexico should be prepared for all eventualities.
“We should be prepared for a future with or without NAFTA,” he said.
In Washington, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said it was a priority for the Trump administration to renegotiate NAFTA, declining to speculate on the consequences if the United States withdraws from talks.
The seventh round of negotiations in Mexico City will take place Feb. 25 to March 5, starting and ending a day earlier than initially planned.
There is a “window of opportunity” for concluding the talks in March or April, said Moises Kalach, head of the international negotiating arm of Mexico’s CCE business lobby.
“That’s the objective,” Kalach told reporters.
Talks to renegotiate the 1994 pact have stalled as Canada and Mexico are at loggerheads with the United States over some of the most contentious proposals its negotiators have put on the table.
“I am cautiously hopeful that [U.S. Trade Representative] Ambassador Lighthizer will be renegotiating this deal,” Mnuchin told the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over trade matters in the U.S. Congress.
“It is a major priority of ours,” he added U.S. President Donald Trump has called NAFTA one of the worst deals in history, blaming it for U.S. manufacturing job losses, and has threatened to quit the agreement unless he can rework it to better suit U.S. interests. His remarks have unsettled financial markets.
At the last round in Montreal, Canada made several proposals to address the U.S. insistence on raising the North American content of autos. Washington also wants a clause that would allow any member to withdraw after five years.
The early March deadline for concluding talks has been extended to at least early April, officials have said. But participants have conceded privately it could take months longer.
If talks run past Mexico’s July presidential election, Mexico’s private sector will work with the president-elect to update NAFTA, Kalach said.
The current frontrunner, leftist contender Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has said Mexico should suspend talks until after the election.
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The White House on Thursday blamed Russia for the devastating “NotPetya” cyber attack last year, joining the British government in condemning
Moscow for unleashing a virus that crippled parts of Ukraine’s infrastructure and damaged computers in countries across the globe.
The attack in June of 2017 “spread worldwide, causing billions of dollars in damage across Europe, Asia and the Americas,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
“It was part of the Kremlin’s ongoing effort to destabilize Ukraine and demonstrates ever more clearly Russia’s involvement in the ongoing conflict,” Sanders added. “This was also a reckless and indiscriminate cyber attack that will be met with international consequences.”
The U.S. government is “reviewing a range of options,” a senior White House official said when asked about the consequences for Russia’s actions.
Earlier on Thursday, Russia denied an accusation by the British government that it was behind the attack, saying it was part of a “Russophobic” campaign that it said was being waged by some Western countries.
The so-called NotPetya attack in June started in Ukraine where it crippled government and business computers before spreading around Europe and the world, halting operations atports, factories and offices.
Britain’s foreign ministry said in a statement released earlier in the day that the attack originated from the Russian military.
“The decision to publicly attribute this incident underlines the fact that the UK and its allies will not tolerate malicious cyber activity,” the ministry said in a statement.
“The attack masqueraded as a criminal enterprise but its purpose was principally to disrupt,” it said.
“Primary targets were Ukrainian financial, energy and government sectors. Its indiscriminate design caused it to spread further, affecting other European and Russian business.”
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The World Health Organization (WHO) warns healthy pregnant women are undergoing unnecessary medical interventions at an alarming rate. Given the trend, WHO is launching new recommendations aimed at reducing potentially harmful interventions.
The organization reports most of the estimated 140 million annual births occur without complications. Yet, it says over the past 20 years there has been a significant rise in medical interventions previously used to avoid risks. These include oxytocin infusion to speed up labor and caesarean sections.
WHO says health providers tend to intervene medically when the rate of labor appears to be slower than what is considered normal. This is based on a long-held benchmark for cervical dilation to occur at a rate of one centimeter per hour.
Olufemi Oladapo, a medical officer in WHO’s department of Reproductive Health and Research, says every labor and childbirth is unique, and it is perfectly normal for some women to be slower than the prescribed rate of cervical dilation.
He says WHO has set another boundary for cervical dilation of up to five centimeters per hour during the first stage of labor until the woman is ready to push out the baby.
“It should not be longer than 12 hours in first-time mothers. And it should not be longer than 10 hours in subsequent labors…. So, as long as a woman is making some progress within that time frame, and the condition of the mother as well as the baby are reassuring, then there should be no reason for intervening,” Oladapo said.
WHO warns unnecessary labor and potentially harmful routine medical interventions are rampant in all parts of the world – in poor and rich countries alike. WHO’s new guidelines include 56 evidence-based recommendations on best care for mother and baby during labor and immediately after.
These include permitting a woman to have a companion of choice present during labor and childbirth; ensuring good communication between women and health providers; and allowing women to make decisions about their pain management, labor and birth positions.
The European Commission says social media giants Facebook and Twitter have only partially responded to its demands to bring their practices into line with EU consumer law.
The Commission asked the two companies a year ago to change their terms of service following complaints from people targeted by fraud or scams on social media websites.
The EU’s executive arm said Thursday that the firms only partly addressed “issues about their liability and about how users are informed of possible content removal or contract termination.”
It said changes proposed by Google+ appear to be in line with demands.
Europe’s consumer affairs commissioner, Vera Jourova, said “it is unacceptable that this is still not complete and it is taking so much time.” She called for those flouting consumer rules to face sanctions.
Shares in European plane maker Airbus flew higher on Thursday after the company reported improved earnings and was more upbeat about the future following problems to several of its key aircraft programs.
The company said that it surged to a net profit of 1 billion euros ($1.25 billion) in the fourth quarter, from a loss of 816 million euros a year earlier, while revenue was stable around 23.8 billion euros. Airbus delivered a record 718 aircraft last year and expects that figure to rise further in 2018, to 800.
CEO Tom Enders credited “very good operational performance, especially in the last quarter.”
Shares in the company jumped about 10 percent on Thursday in Paris. Investors seem optimistic that the company is putting behind it the worst of its troubles with three airplane production programs.
Airbus, which is based in Toulouse, France, said it took another charge of 1.3 billion euros on its A400 military plane, which has had cost overruns for years. It said, however, that it had reached a deal with the governments that are buying the planes on a new delivery schedule that should rein in any new charges on the program.
The company also acknowledged that it had had more struggles with engines supplied by Pratt & Whitney for the A320neo, a narrow-body plane that’s popular with regional airlines. The supplier had had problems with the engines last year, which it fixed, but reported a new issue more recently that could affect 2018 deliveries, Airbus said.
Another of Airbus’ troubled plane models, the A380 superjumbo jet, now has a more stable outlook after the company reached a deal with Emirates airline that will cover the cost of production for years.
The various problems with these production programs risked overshadowing what was otherwise a strong year for Airbus in terms of earnings, as global demand for commercial aircraft grows. Airbus raised its dividend by 11 percent and said it expects one of its key earnings metrics — earnings before interest and tax — to rise 20 percent in 2018.
Until recently, Javier, a 60-year-old line cook, couldn’t afford a smartphone.
Now, thanks to a Silicon Valley company, Javier has a Galaxy S8, one of Samsung’s high-end smartphones. Javier said he relies on it for everything.
Once a month, he walks into a mobile phone store near San Francisco and makes a cash payment. If he didn’t, the phone would be remotely locked. No YouTube, no Skype calls, no Facebook. He has never missed a payment.
WATCH: Pay-As-You-Go Smartphone Gives the Poor Access to Better Technology
Smartphones out of many people’s reach
Around the world, people rely more and more on their smartphones for connecting to the internet, and yet for many, the device is still cost prohibitive. For the roughly 1 in 10 American consumers without financial identities — no banking history or credit scores — it is difficult to get smartphones on one of the low-cost payment plans offered by the major carriers.
Javier, who declined to give his last name because he is an undocumented immigrant, is on his third phone from PayJoy, a company founded by former Google employees. PayJoy offers a pay-as-you-go model for the smartphone market aimed particularly at customers with little or bad credit histories.
“We work with immigrants from all over the world coming to the U.S., and we work with Americans who are just outside the financial system,” said Doug Ricket, PayJoy’s chief executive, who worked in the pay-as-you-go solar industry in Africa. “They can afford $10 a week, and they can get a great smartphone. And for PayJoy, we say, ‘Welcome to the 21st century and get all the modern apps.’”
A new way to figure out a person’s credit risk
PayJoy figures out a person’s risk differently than most companies. A customer provides a Facebook profile, a phone number and some sort of official government ID. PayJoy decides the person’s risk level before offering him or her credit for a phone. Then, a customer picks a payment plan and makes a down payment. PayJoy’s research has found that a Facebook profile can be useful in establishing a person’s identity.
“We’re starting from this pool of people who have no traditional credit score and we’re saying for most of them, we can actually find something that the credit agencies are not finding,” Ricket said.
No payment means no YouTube
If a customer doesn’t pay by 5 p.m. the day payment is due, PayJoy remotely locks the phone. A customer can only make emergency calls or call PayJoy’s customer service. The customer can see that friends are texting or messaging on Facebook, but cannot open the phone to read the messages.
“Now, when we look internationally, we see more people going from a flip phone to smartphones, and people upgrading from a really basic level to one that can handle Facebook, maps and Instagram,” Ricket said.
If customers stop paying, they can return the phone without penalty. But if they do pay off the phone, they can qualify for an even better one. PayJoy makes its money by charging monthly interest — as high as 50 percent in some cases — on the retail price of the phone.
Expanding into Africa, Asia and India
The company is operating in the United States and Mexico and has plans to expand into Kenya, Tanzania, southeast Asia and India. So far, PayJoy offers only smartphones running Android, the operating system created by Google, but Ricket hopes to offer iPhones one day.
PayJoy’s vision is to be not just a smartphone firm, but a financing company, offering customers a way to use their phones as collateral to pay off televisions and other household goods.
“Once the customer gets the smartphone, they can potentially use that smartphone either by buying the smartphone with PayJoy or just collateralize an existing smartphone to finance a TV or a sofa,” Ricket said.
If PayJoy takes off, people in emerging markets may be able to upgrade their phone choices, and have a new way to finance their purchases.
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A key to any successful business is to provide customers with what they want. For automakers at the 2018 Chicago Auto Show, they say their customers want sport utility vehicles, or SUVs.
“2017 was a record year for Ford SUV sales,” said Dan Jones, Ford’s SUV communications manager for North America. “We sold almost 800,000 SUVs in the year alone. We are actually growing our SUV portfolio 25 percent in the last four years. So, all the signs are there that the Ford SUV portfolio is really booming, and we’re going to capitalize and ride that wave.”
Ford isn’t alone.
“Trucks, SUVs and crossovers — we have grown 15 percent,” said Tiago Castro, Nissan’s director of trucks and commercial vehicles.
His company’s Rogue SUV promotional tie-in with Disney’s Star Wars film franchise comes at a time when the model, with versions equipped with some self-driving features, is one of Nissan’s best-selling vehicles overall.
“Over 400,000 units last year for the Rogue lineup,” Castro said.
High gas prices and poor fuel economy contributed to the dramatic decline of SUV sales in the United States in the mid-2000s. At the time, those customers buying new vehicles opted for smaller, more fuel-efficient sedans, including vehicles with new electric motors and technology.
But today, SUVs dominate the American automobile market, which is easy to see on the floor of the 2018 Chicago Auto Show, billed as the nation’s largest auto show.
“The SUV segment is incredibly hot,” said Trevor Dorchies, product manager for Jeep and Dodge, two brands under the Chrysler/Fiat company with a variety of options in the medium and large-size SUV ranges — which weren’t just on display at the Chicago Auto Show. Potential customers have an opportunity to ride in them on an indoor obstacle course that demonstrates their performance in challenging terrain.
“I think gas prices, where they are at right now, have helped Jeep and Grand Cherokee and Durango sales,” Dorchies said. Gas prices in many parts of the United States remain below $3 a gallon (79 U.S. cents per liter).
“Cheap gasoline means folks want to get a bigger SUV,” he said.
But aside from affordable fuel prices, today’s offerings are a far cry from the gas-guzzling SUVs of the past.
“One thing that has really changed in the last few years is the competitiveness of fuel economy of SUVs compared to cars,” explained Ford’s Jones. “So, people aren’t seeing a huge warp now, in terms of MPG improvement or a range improvement in a car to an SUV. It’s less of a compromise. So, people are liking the high seating position, more space, the utility to go off road.”
Overall, sedan sales are down in the U.S. by more than 30 percent for some manufacturers as customers flock to SUVs.
But Jones said evolving needs and taste factor as much for customers as gas prices.
“The millennials, the biggest cohort of consumers, were coming to the age where they were having children, starting to have a little more money, wanting to have a higher seating position, preferring all-wheel drive. So, SUVs have really just taken off.”
Jones said he doesn’t see the SUV trend cooling off for Ford either.
“We think 2018 should be another record year for us,” he said.
While automakers retool and shift production lines to keep up with increased SUV demand, the National Automobile Dealers Association predicts overall new vehicle sales for 2018 will trend slightly downward.
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