Health authorities in Thailand began their much-anticipated mass rollout of locally produced AstraZeneca vaccines on Monday, but it appeared that supplies were falling short of demand from patients who had scheduled vaccinations for this week. Hospitals in various parts of the country have been posting notices for several days that some scheduled appointments would be delayed, adding to existing public skepticism about how many doses Siam Bioscience would be able to produce each month. The government has said it will produce 6 million doses in June, then 10 million doses each month from July to November, and 5 million doses in December. “The vaccines will be delivered as planned,” Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha told reporters Monday morning as he paid a visit to a vaccination station at an indoor stadium in the capital, Bangkok. Prayuth’s government has come under fierce criticism for failure to secure timely and sufficient vaccine supplies. It also faces criticism for its reliance on Siam Bioscience, which is owned by the country’s king and had no previous experience in vaccine production. A person receives the first dose of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine as Thailand starts a mass inoculation at a gymnasium inside the Siam paragon Shopping center, Bangkok, Thailand, June 7, 2021.Prayuth said the Health Ministry had confirmed that vaccinations could begin Monday in every province, and vaccines would be allocated according to the infection rate in each area. Opas Karnkawinpong, director-general of the Department of Disease Control, reported that 143,116 people nationwide had received vaccinations Monday by midday, about half of them 60 years of age or older. The stadium vaccination station Prayuth visited can provide 1,500 shots a day, said Mongkon Wanitphakdeedecha, director of Vichaivej International Hospital, who was supervising the operation. He said they have three days’ supply on hand, but he did not know if other sites had enough for more than one day. One of the people getting vaccinated there was Kanokarn Chueboonchart, who said afterward that she felt no side effects. “I am working at a bank and I must meet with customers,” she said. “So now that I have received the shot, I feel a bit better, knowing that the vaccine will give me some protection.” Thailand last year had been considered a success story in containing the spread of the virus and limiting the number of related deaths. It had originally planned to obtain supplies to cover just 20% of the country’s 69 million people, with most available only in the second half of this year. However, a surge of the coronavirus beginning in April has been devastating and underlined the need for a more ambitious vaccination campaign. The surge has accounted for 84% of the 179,886 total confirmed cases in Thailand since January 2020, and 92.5% of the total of 1,269 related deaths. The government has now targeted vaccinating 70% of the population this year, a figure believed to confer herd immunity against the disease. As of Monday, Thailand had reported giving a total of 4.22 million vaccinations, with just more than 4% of the country’s 70 million people receiving at least one jab. The government has been scrambling to obtain additional supplies to supplement the Chinese-made Sinovac it has been using so far and the AstraZeneca now coming onstream. It has said it has been in negotiations with Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. China has supplied 6.5 million doses of Sinovac to Thailand, including 500,000 doses that arrived Saturday. Siam Bioscience was reported to have delivered its first 1.8 million doses to AstraZeneca’s local office last Wednesday, which were then turned over to the Health Ministry on Friday. Up-to-date data on how much had been delivered by Monday to the various provinces was not available.
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Month: June 2021
Heart Disease Seen in Some Younger COVID-19 Patients
Health professionals continue to see heart disease in some young people who have had COVID-19, those who have been vaccinated against the virus, and among student athletes, in general.Cardiomyopathy is an inflammation and weakening in the walls of the heart. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta has reviewed vaccine safety data weekly since the start of the U.S. vaccination program and cautions that cases among those who have received the COVID-19 vaccine are “mild and few.” The agency says the condition appears in males more than females, more often following the second shot in a two-dose regimen, and usually around four days after the vaccination.Coronavirus-related cardiomyopathy was first observed last year in younger people when college athletes resumed play as the pandemic spread in the United States. College sport events generate significant revenues for colleges and universities, and some big schools that draw thousands into stadiums returned players to campus with the hope of public events resuming sooner than later.In a study of college athletes conducted since last September, a higher incidence of cardiomyopathy, also called myocarditis, has been seen in athletes who contracted the coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2. Symptoms include shortness of breath, weakness, tiredness, dizziness and abnormal heart rhythm, according to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. “Myocarditis is a leading cause of sudden death in competitive athletes,” researchers wrote in JAMA Cardiology in May, adding, “Myocardial inflammation is known to occur with SARS-CoV-2,” the medical name for the coronavirus. Another study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in March found that more than one in three “previously healthy college athletes recovering from COVID-19 infection showed … resolving pericardial inflammation.”Resolving is the key word here: Researchers concluded that “no athlete showed … features to suggest an ongoing myocarditis,” or inflammation of the heart walls. Knowing when athletes should play or rest is important, and research has not nailed down the long-term effects yet, the researchers said.“Further studies are needed to understand the clinical implications and long-term evolution of these abnormalities in uncomplicated COVID-19,” they wrote. Pediatric cardiologist Geoffrey Rosenthal has observed myocarditis in young people, specifically during the pandemic. He has been the team cardiologist for the University of Maryland, College Park since 2020. “Myocarditis is one of the more common causes of sudden death in athletes,” said Rosenthal. “If someone had myocarditis, it’s one of the standard recommendations that they not exercise strenuously for three to six months after their diagnosis to allow time for their heart to heal, and lessen their risk of a sudden event,” he said. The residual health of athletes who have had COVID is being assessed to try to understand the risks. Ohio State University (OSU) was one of the big universities that brought players back to campus amid the pandemic and detected heart changes in athletes who tested positive for the infection.It has led the effort to monitor athletes by overseeing a registry of nearly 1,600 COVID-19 positive athletes in the Big Ten sports conference, or a division of 14 colleges and universities among other divisions nationally. Looking at a smaller sample of 37 athletes diagnosed with myocarditis, 28 didn’t exhibit symptoms, reported OSU.Rosenthal noted that research and cooperation among universities has advanced detection of myocarditis among young people and student athletes, who are largely asymptomatic, by using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The University of Maryland adopted cardiac MRI screening for athletes before almost all other universities in the country as the pandemic was starting, he said.“The EKG is normal, and their blood tests are normal, and their echo [cardiogram] is OK,” Rosenthal explained. “And then we get the MRI and find out that there’s an abnormality that we weren’t expecting, and that we never would have found out about had we not done the MRI.“There’s still a lot of cardiac work that’s going on in the younger student population,” Rosenthal said. And this advancement in detection will help other athletes, younger and older. “There’s also hope that it will inform our understanding of COVID in older athletes, in older and non-elite athletes. … the weekend warriors,” he said.But this research will also help non-athletes whose jobs demand physical labor. “Other populations that these results might help inform is the military and other professions and occupations in which physical activity is part of what people are doing,” Rosenthal said. “First responders, firefighters, policemen, you know, other people whose jobs have physical demands. In addition to gaining insight into the health of our student athletes what other populations can we help through this work?”
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Amazon Founder Bezos Announces Plans to Go to Space
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced Monday that he and his brother will be on board the first manned spaceflight from his aerospace company Blue Origin when it launches a rocket ship into space on July 20.
Bezos made the announcement from his Instagram account which included a video featuring pictures from his childhood. He wrote, “Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space. On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend.”
July 20th is also the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the first time a human walked on the moon.
Blue Origin is also auctioning off a passenger seat on the New Shepard space vehicle. In a news release Monday, the company said bidding has reached $2.8 million with nearly 6,000 people from 143 countries. The capsule is designed to carry as many as six passengers.
The company said the winning bid amount will be donated to Blue Origin’s foundation, Club for the Future, whose mission is to inspire future generations to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and to help invent the future of life in space.
Bezos said in February that he will step down as Amazon’s chief executive on July 5.
Andy Jassy, the head of Amazon Web Services, will become chief executive, while Bezos will become executive chairman.
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Possible First Use of AI-Armed Drones Triggers Alarm Bells
Western military experts are assessing whether an autonomous drone operated by artificial intelligence, or AI, killed people — in Libya last year — for the first time without a human controller directing it remotely to do so.
A report by a United Nations panel of experts issued last week that concluded an advanced drone deployed in Libya “hunted down and remotely engaged” soldiers fighting for Libyan general Khalifa Haftar has prompted a frenetic debate among Western security officials and analysts.
Governments at the United Nations have been debating for months whether a global pact should be agreed on the use of armed drones, autonomous and otherwise, and what restrictions should be placed on them. The U.N.’s Libya report is adding urgency to the debate. Drone advances have “a lot of implications regionally and globally,” says Ziya Meral of the Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, a defense think tank.
“It is time to assess where things are with Turkish drones and advanced warfare technology and what this means for the region and what it means for NATO,” he said at a RUSI-hosted event in London.
According to the U.N. report, Turkish-made Kargu-2 lethal autonomous aircraft launched so-called swarm attacks, likely on behalf of Libya’s Government of National Accord, against the warlord Haftar’s militias in March last year, marking the first time AI-equipped drones accomplished a successful attack. Remnants of a Kargu-2 were recovered later.
The use of autonomous drones that do not require human operators to guide them remotely once they have been programmed is opposed by many human rights organizations. There were rumors that Turkish-supplied AI drones, alongside remote-guided ones, were used last year by Azerbaijani forces in their clashes with Armenia in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and its surrounding territories.
Myriad of dilemmas
If AI drones did launch lethal swarm attacks it would mark a “new chapter in autonomous weapons,” worries the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Critics of AI drones, which can use facial-recognition technology, say they raise a number of moral, ethical and legal dilemmas.
“These types of weapons operate on software-based algorithms ‘taught’ through large training datasets to, for example, classify various objects. Computer vision programs can be trained to identify school buses, tractors, and tanks. But the datasets they train on may not be sufficiently complex or robust, and an artificial intelligence (AI) may ‘learn’ the wrong lesson,” the non-profit Bulletin warns.
The manufacturer of the Kargu-2, Defense Technologies and Trade (STM), told Turkish media last year that their drones are equipped with facial-recognition technology, allowing individual targets to be identified and neutralized without having to deploy ground forces. And company executives say Kargu-2 drones can swarm together overwhelming defenses.
Last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lauded the success of Turkish unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), saying the results they had produced “require war strategies to be rewritten.” Turkey has deployed them in military operations in northern Syria, Turkish officials have acknowledged.
Speaking at a parliamentary meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara, Erdogan said Turkey plans to go further and is aiming to be among the first countries to develop an AI-managed warplane. Recently the chief technology officer of Baykar, a major Turkish drone manufacturer, announced the company had slated 2023 for the maiden flight of its prototype unmanned fighter jet.
‘A significant player’
Sanctions and embargoes on Turkey in recent years have been a major driving force behind Ankara pressing ahead to develop a new generation of unconventional weapons, says Ulrike Franke of the European Council for Foreign Relations. “Turkey has become a significant player in the global drone market,” she said at the RUSI event. When it comes to armed drones, she noted, there are four states dominating drone development — the U.S., Israel, China and Turkey. The latter pair, the “new kids on the block,” are driving drone proliferation because unlike the U.S. they are not reticent about export sales, she said.
“Turkey has shown that a mid-sized power, when it puts its mind and money behind it, can develop very sophisticated armed drones,” says Franke.
Last October when the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh saw the worst fighting there since 1994, Turkish drones were assessed as having given Azerbaijan a key edge over the Armenians. Turkish drones sliced through Armenia’s air defenses and pummeled its Russian-made tanks.
Analysts calculate around 90 countries have military drones for reconnaissance and intelligence missions and at least a dozen states have armed drones. Britain is believed to have ten; Turkey around 140. The U.S. air force has around 300 Reaper drones alone. The deployment of armed drones to conduct targeted killings outside formal war zones has been highly contentious. But AI drone development is adding to global alarm.
“With more and more countries acquiring armed drones, there is a risk that the controversies surrounding how drones are used and the challenges these pose to international legal frameworks, as well as to democratic values such as transparency, accountability and the rule of law, could also increase,” Britain’s Chatham House noted in a research paper published in April.
“This is accentuated further, given that the use of drones continues to expand and to evolve in new ways, and in the absence of a distinct legal framework to regulate such use,” say the paper’s authors Jessica Dorsey and Nilza Amaral.
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China Blocks Several Cryptocurrency-related Social Media Accounts Amid Crackdown
A slew of crypto-related accounts in China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform were blocked over the weekend, as Beijing stepped up a crackdown on bitcoin trading and mining. More actions are expected, including linking illegal crypto activities in China more directly with the country’s criminal law, according to analysts and a financial regulator. Last month, China’s State Council, or cabinet, vowed to crack down on bitcoin mining and trading, escalating a campaign against cryptocurrencies days after three industry bodies banned crypto-related financial and payment services. Over the weekend, access to several of widely followed crypto-related Weibo accounts was denied, with a message saying each account “violates laws and rules.” “It’s a Judgment Day for crypto KOL,” wrote a Weibo bitcoin commentator, or key opinion leader (KOL), who calls herself “Woman Dr. bitcoin mini.” Her main account was also blocked on Saturday. “The government makes it clear that no Chinese version of Elon Musk can exist in the Chinese crypto market,” said NYU Law School adjunct professor Winston Ma, referring to the Tesla founder and cryptocurrency enthusiast. Ma, author of the book “The Digital War,” also expects China’s supreme court to publish a judicial interpretation soon that may link crypto mining and trading businesses with China’s body of criminal law. The view was echoed by a financial regulator, who said that such an interpretation would address the legal ambiguity that has failed to clearly identify bitcoin trading businesses as “illegal operations.” All the rules against cryptocurrencies so far in China have been published by administrative bodies. The Weibo freeze comes as Chinese media have stepped up reporting against crypto trading. The official Xinhua News Agency has published articles that exposed a series of crypto-related scams. State broadcaster CCTV has said cryptocurrency is a lightly regulated asset often used in black market trade, money laundering, arms smuggling, gambling and drug dealings. The stepped-up crackdown also comes as China’s central bank is accelerating testing of its own digital currency.
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Train Collision Kills At Least 30 in Pakistan
Pakistani officials say two trains collided in southern Pakistan Monday, killing and injuring dozens of people. Authorities say the Millat Express, a passenger train operated daily by Pakistan Railways, derailed and slid onto the track of the oncoming Sir Syed Express near Dharki, a city in the Ghotki District of upper Sindh. A police official says that more than 30 people were killed in the accident and at least 50 injured. The death toll is expected to rise. Media reports say emergency workers are having trouble rescuing people from the overturned train cars. Ghotki Deputy Commissioner Usman Abdullah told Geo News the rescue operation is “a challenging task” and that “It will take time” using heavy machinery to free people who remain trapped.
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Anger in Ethiopia’s Tigray region
For more than six months, fighting has engulfed Ethiopia’s Tigray Region. Those in the thick of the fighting tell VOA they are so angry they can barely speak.
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Peruvian Voters Choose Between Two Polarizing Populists
Peruvian voters chose between two polarizing populist candidates Sunday in a presidential runoff held as the coronavirus pandemic continues to batter the Andean country and festering anger has led to fears of more political instability. Political novice Pedro Castillo and Keiko Fujimori, making her third run for the presidency, both promised coronavirus vaccines for all and other strategies to alleviate the health emergency that has killed more than 180,000 people in Peru and pushed millions into poverty. The election follows a statistical revision from Peru’s government that more than doubled the death toll previously acknowledged by officials. The pandemic not only has collapsed Peru’s medical and cemetery infrastructure, left millions unemployed and highlighted longstanding inequalities in the country, it has also deepened people’s mistrust of government as it mismanaged the COVID-19 response and a secret vaccination drive for the well-connected erupted into a national scandal. Amid protests and corruption allegations, the South American country cycled through three presidents in November. Now, analysts warn this election could be another tipping point for people’s simmering frustrations and bring more political instability.”I think in both situations the risk of social unrest is high. It’s a time bomb,” said Claudia Navas, an analyst with the global firm Control Risks. “I think if Castillo wins, people who support Fujimori or support the continuation to some extent of the economic model may protest.”But Navas said “a more complex scenario will evolve if Fujimori wins because Castillo has been able to create a discourse that has played well in some rural communities with regards to the social divide and saying that political and economic elites have orchestrated things to remain in power and maintain the social inequalities.” Pre-election polls indicated the candidates were virtually tied heading into the runoff. In the first round of voting, featuring 18 candidates, neither received more than 20% support and both were strongly opposed by sectors of Peruvian society.”Well, the truth is that I believe that Peruvians are used to this type of decision — of being left with two options that leave much to be desired, but what do we do?” one voter, Paul Perez, said at a school in Lima where he was voting. “We are in a social, cultural situation that limits us to anticipating all of this.”For Lima resident Felipa Yanacris, Peru’s presidential politics desperately need a shake-up. “We want change, we have been waiting for 30 years of change,” Yanacris said.Fujimori voted in the wealthy neighborhood of the capital of Lima where she lives, urging people to vote ”without fear,” while Castillo appealed for calm while casting his ballot alongside his parents in the rural Anguia area.President Francisco Sagasti also voted, saying both candidates should respect the results and ask their followers to refrain from staging protests over the outcome. Fujimori, a conservative former congresswoman, has promised various bonuses to people, including a $2,500 one-time payment to each family with at least one COVID-19 victim. She has also proposed distributing 40% of a tax for the extraction of minerals, oil or gas among families who live near those areas.Her supporters include the wealthy players of the national soccer team and Mario Vargas Llosa, Peru’s foremost author and the winner of a Nobel Prize in literature. Vargas, who lost a presidential election three decades ago to the candidate’s father, Alberto Fujimori, called her the “daughter of the dictator” in 2016 but now considers her to be the representative of “freedom and progress.” Keiko Fujimori herself has been imprisoned as part of a graft investigation though she was later released. Her father governed between 1990 and 2000 and is serving a 25-year sentence for corruption and the killings of 25 people. She has promised to free him should she win.Castillo until recently was a rural schoolteacher in the country’s third-poorest district, deep in the Andes. The son of illiterate peasants entered politics by leading a teachers’ strike. While his stance on nationalizing key sectors of the economy has softened, he remains committed to rewriting the constitution that was approved under the regime of Fujimori’s father.Among Castillo’s supporters are former Bolivia President Evo Morales and former Uruguay President José Mujica, who in a conversation via Facebook told Castillo on Thursday to “not fall into authoritarianism.” Peru is the second largest copper exporter in the world and mining accounts for almost 10% of its GDP and 60% of its exports, so Castillo’s initial proposal to nationalize the nation’s mining industry set off alarm bells among business leaders. But regardless of who gets picked to succeed Sagasti on July 28, investors will remain skittish. “A victory for left-wing populist Pedro Castillo in Peru’s presidential election on Sunday would probably send local financial markets into a tailspin, but we doubt that investors would have much to cheer about even if his rival Keiko Fujimori wins,” Nikhil Sanghani, emerging markets economist with Capital Economics, wrote in an investors note Friday.”Fujimori is a controversial figure who is under investigation for corruption charges. Given Peru’s recent history, it’s not hard to imagine that this could spark impeachment proceedings,” he said.
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Israel Briefly Detains Prominent Palestinian Activist Twins
Israeli authorities Sunday briefly detained two prominent Palestinian activists who gained a global audience while fighting eviction from their homes in the Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
Israeli police arrested Mona el-Kurd, 23, at her home Sunday and left a summons for her twin brother, Muhammad, according to their father.
Muhammad reportedly turned himself in to police after hearing of the summons. Both el-Kurds have since been released.
Israeli police told reporters that Mona el-Kurd was “suspected of having participated in riots and other recent incidents in Sheikh Jarrah,” Agence France Presse, the French news agency, reported.
The el-Kurds are one of many Palestinian families facing eviction in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood because of Israeli settlements. The twins have amassed a social media following with their documentation of the area, popularizing the hashtag “#SaveSheikhJarrah.”
Palestinians are appealing an eviction decision in favor of Jewish settlers to Israel’s Supreme Court. The evictions are on hold.
After weeks of tension culminated in clashes at al-Asqa Mosque, Israeli police in April raided the site, the third holiest in Islam, during the holy month of Ramadan. Jews refer to it as the Temple Mount and consider it their holiest site.
Israeli airstrikes against Palestinian neighborhoods in Gaza during an 11-day conflict this year left more than 200 dead, including dozens of children, in what the United Nations said may constitute war crimes.UN Human Rights Chief Suggests Israeli Strikes in Gaza May Amount to War Crimes Michele Bachelet also says Hamas rocket attacks on Israel violated humanitarian laws Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, fired rockets into Jerusalem, killing 12, including two children.
A cease-fire was brokered on May 20 and has largely held since.
Many civic structures in Gaza were destroyed by the Israeli bombing, making it more difficult to treat the injured and deal with a surge in coronavirus cases brought on by Palestinians crowding into community centers and underground bomb shelters to avoid the violence.
Palestinian officials say the reconstruction will cost tens of millions of dollars.
Israel said it did its best to avoid civilian casualties in the conflict, blaming Hamas for firing rockets that targeted Israelis.
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Turkey Vows to Defeat ‘Sea Snot’ Outbreak in Marmara Sea
Turkey’s environment minister pledged on Sunday to defeat a plague of “sea snot” threatening the Sea of Marmara, using a disaster management plan he said would secure its future.A thick, slimy layer of the organic matter, known as marine mucilage, has spread through the sea south of Istanbul, posing a threat to marine life and the fishing industry.Harbors, shorelines and swathes of seawater have been blanketed by the viscous, greyish substance, some of which has sunk below the waves, suffocating life on the seabed.Environment Minister Murat Kurum said Turkey planned to designate the entire Sea of Marmara a protected area, reduce pollution and improve treatment of wastewater from coastal cities and ships, which has helped the sea snot to spread.He also called on local residents, artists and nongovernmental organizations to join what he said would be Turkey’s biggest maritime cleanup operation, starting Tuesday.”Hopefully, together we will protect our Marmara within the framework of a disaster management plan,” Kurum said, speaking from a marine research vessel that has been taking samples of the slimy substance.”We will take all the necessary steps within three years and realize the projects that will save not only the present but also the future together,” he added.Kurum said the measures Turkey planned would reduce nitrogen levels in the sea by 40%, a move he said scientists believed would help restore the waters to their previous state.Scientists say climate change and pollution have contributed to the proliferation of the organic matter, which contains a wide variety of microorganisms and can flourish when nutrient-rich sewage flows into seawater.President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed the outbreak on untreated water from cities, including Istanbul, home to 16 million people, and vowed to “clear our seas from the mucilage scourge.”
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UN: Contaminated Food Sickens 600 Million, Kills 420,000 Every Year
In advance of World Food Safety Day, U.N. agencies are calling for concerted action to ensure food is free of the toxins that every year cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.A U.N. report on global food security finds nearly 690 million people suffered from chronic hunger in 2019, before COVID-19. The full impact of the pandemic on food insecurity is not yet known. However, the report estimates as many as 132 million more people will have been short of food in 2020 because of COVID-19 lockdowns.Dominique Burgeon is director of the Food and Agriculture Organization Office in Geneva. He said food safety is key to food security.“Every year, 600 million people fall ill and one in 10, about 420,000 die from eating food contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins, or chemicals. Yet, this is the tip of the iceberg as comprehensive surveillance data for foodborne illnesses is not available everywhere,” said Burgeon.Moreover, he said unsafe food causes significant financial burdens in low-and-middle income countries, amounting to productivity losses of some $90 billion a year.U.N. agencies say food safety is a shared responsibility and everyone has a role to play in keeping food safe and keeping people healthy. Burgeon said this includes those who produce the food, industry, governments, and consumers.“The way you store your food, the way you cook it. But, of course, I would say it goes from farm to fork. So, really at the beginning of the process. The way food is being produced…the way the food is stored, and then the way it is transported, processed, etc.,” he said.U.N. agencies say food safety involves a holistic approach that considers human, animal, plant and environmental health. Understanding and keeping all aspects of the food chain safe they say will contribute to a healthy life and a healthy planet.
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US Senators in Taiwan Announce Vaccine Donation
A bipartisan delegation of three United States senators landed in Taiwan on Sunday and announced that Washington would donate 750,000 coronavirus vaccine doses to its ally.The high-profile delegation and gift comes as Taiwan accuses China of hampering its efforts to secure enough doses as part of Beijing’s ongoing campaign to keep the island isolated.Senators Tammy Duckworth, Christopher Coons and Dan Sullivan — two Democrats and a Republican — landed on Sunday morning at Taipei’s Songshan Airport in a U.S. military plane.”We are here as friends, because we know that Taiwan is experiencing a challenging time right now, which was why it was especially important for the three of us to be here in a bipartisan way,” Duckworth said.”It was critical to the United States that Taiwan be included in the first group to receive vaccines, because we recognize your urgent need, and we value this partnership.”President Joe Biden announced last week that the United States would give around 25 million vaccine doses to countries that needed them, mostly through the global Covax vaccine sharing program.It is highly unusual for the United States to use a military plane to fly officials to Taiwan.Washington remains Taiwan’s biggest ally but it does not maintain full diplomatic relations with Taipei because the U.S. officially recognizes Beijing.Taiwan foreign minister Joseph Wu was among those greeting the senators.”Taiwan is facing unique challenges in combating the virus,” he said.”While we are doing our best to import vaccines, we must overcome obstacles to ensure that these life-saving medicines are delivered free from trouble from Beijing.”Until recently, Taiwan navigated the pandemic in an exemplary fashion, recording just a handful of deaths.But cases have soared to more than 10,000 in the last month after an outbreak that began with airline pilots.Taiwan has struggled to secure enough doses for its 23 million people.Taipei has blamed Beijing for making it difficult — a charge China has flat out rejected.China’s ruling Communist Party has never controlled Taiwan but it views the island as part of its territory and has vowed to one day seize it, by force if necessary.Beijing has heaped economic, military and diplomatic pressure on Taiwan in recent years and keeps it locked out of international bodies such as the World Health Organization.It bristles whenever countries send delegations to Taiwan or push for its recognition on the world stage.Earlier this week China hit out at Japan for donating more than 1 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses to Taiwan.
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US Donates 750,000 COVID Shots to Taiwan
The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Sunday that the global count of COVID-19 cases has reached 173 million, while the death toll is approaching 4 million.India which has the second-highest number of cases reported early Sunday that it had recorded 114,460 new infections in the previous 24-hour period, the lowest count in 60 days. The daily death toll of 2,677 was the lowest tally in 42 days. Public health officials have warned, however, that India’s infection and deaths totals are likely undercounted.The U.S. has the most coronavirus infections at 33.3 million, according to Johns Hopkins, followed by India with 29 million and Brazil with 17 million.On Sunday, a bipartisan trio of U.S. senators — Democrat Christropher Coons of Delaware, Democrat Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Republican Dan Sullivan of Alaska — stopped in Taiwan. The democratically ruled island has complained that China is blocking their efforts to obtain COVID-19 vaccines.“I’m here to tell you that the United States will not let you stand “alone,” Duckworth said. “We will be by your side to make sure the people of Taiwan have what they need to get to the other side of the pandemic and beyond.”The White House has announced that it is donating millions of vaccines doses to the global community and Taiwan will receive 750,000 shots.When the leaders of the world’s industrialized nations meet this week in Cornwall, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will ask them to commit to “vaccinate the entire world against coronavirus by the end of 2022,” according to a statement Saturday.”Vaccinating the world by the end of next year would be the single greatest feat in medical history,” Johnson said in a statement. “I’m calling on my fellow G-7 leaders to join us to end this terrible pandemic and pledge we will never allow the devastation wreaked by coronavirus to happen again.”He may run into some pushback from his own country.New cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, have dropped dramatically since the United Kingdom began its vaccination campaign. Now nearly 68 million people have received at least one shot and nearly 27 million are fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins. That’s 40% of the population.But cases of the Delta variant are on the rise and that could threaten the nation’s progress. As Britain opens up, Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Reuters, a rise in cases is expected. The vaccine, he said, has broken the link between rising cases and rising deaths.“But it hasn’t been completely severed yet, and that’s one of the things that we’re watching very carefully,” he added.In China’s Guangzhou city, a port city of more than 13 million people, new restrictions took effect Saturday because of a rise in COVID-19 cases that began in late May.Of the 24 new cases of COVID-19 reported in China on Saturday, 11 were transmitted in Guangzhou province, where the city is located.Authorities had imposed restrictions earlier in the week but sought additional limits on business and social activities. Authorities closed about a dozen subway stops, and the city’s Nansha district ordered restaurants to stop dine-in services and public venues, such as gyms, to temporarily close.Officials in the districts of Nansha, Huadu and Conghua ordered all residents and any individuals who have traveled through their regions to be tested for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, Reuters reported.As Afghanistan attempts to beat back a surge in COVID-19 cases, it has received the news that the 3 million doses of vaccines it was expecting from the World Health Organization in April will not arrive until August, according to the Associated Press.Afghan health ministry spokesperson Ghulam Dastagir Nazari told AP that he has approached several embassies for help but has not received any vaccines. “We are in the middle of a crisis,” he said.The war-torn country reported nearly 7,500 new cases in the week ending Saturday, a record, according to Johns Hopkins, and 187 deaths, also a record. The official figures are no doubt an undercount because they include only those in hospitals, while most people who become sick stay home and die there, the AP said.Afghan health officials are blaming the Delta variant, first discovered in India, for its soaring infection rate. Travel to India is unrestricted and many students and those seeking medical care go there, according to the AP.While the government has tried to enforce mask wearing and social distancing, most Afghans resist.”Our people believe it is fake, especially in the countryside,” Dr. Zalmai Rishteen, administrator of the Afghan-Japan Hospital, the only hospital dedicated to COVID-19 patients, told the AP. “Or they are religious and believe God will save them.”About 626,000 Afghans have received one shot of a coronavirus vaccine, with about 145,000 fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins.
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Microsoft Says ‘Tank Man’ Image Blocking Due to Human Error
Microsoft Corp. blamed “accidental human error” for its Bing search engine briefly not showing image results for the search term “tank man” on the anniversary of the bloody military crackdown in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.Users in different parts of the world, including the U.S., said Friday that no image results were returned when they searched for the term “tank man.””Tank man” refers to the iconic image of a standoff between an unidentified civilian and a line of military tanks leaving Beijing’s Tiananmen Square after a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. The photo has become a symbol of defiance around the world.After being alerted by reporters, Microsoft said in a statement that the issue was “due to an accidental human error and has been resolved.” Hours later, images of “tank man” photographs were returned by the search engine.The company did not elaborate on what the human error was or how it had happened. Nor did it say how much of its Bing development team is China-based. The company’s largest research and development center outside the United States is in China, and it posted a job in January for a China-based senior software engineer to lead a team that develops the technology powering Bing image search.Chinese authorities require search engines, websites and social media platforms operating within the country to censor keywords and results deemed politically sensitive or critical of the Chinese government.References to the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 are blocked in China, as are images relating to the event, such as “tank man.”Microsoft’s Bing is one of the few international search engines that operate in China, where it abides by local censorship laws and competes with larger Chinese search engines such as Baidu and Sogou.Bing has a 2.5% market share in China, according to data site Statcounter.Rival Google exited the Chinese market in 2010 after four years of operation, following disputes over censorship and a major hacking attack that Google believes originated in China.
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US Vice President to Bring Message of ‘Hope’ to Guatemala and Mexico
U.S Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Guatemala and Mexico this week, bringing a message of hope to a region hammered by COVID-19 and which is the source of most of the undocumented migrants seeking entry in the U.S.Harris is taking her first trip abroad as President Joe Biden’s deputy with an eye towards tackling the root causes of migration from the region — one of the thorniest issues facing the White House.”We have to give people a sense of hope, a sense of hope that help is on the way, a sense of hope that if they stay, things will get better,” Harris has said, after Biden tasked her with leading diplomatic efforts on the issue in March.She is set to fly Sunday to Guatemala, where she will meet with President Alejandro Giammattei on Monday before setting off to meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday.Harris also has plans to meet with community, labor and business leaders, according to her team.Harris said she hopes to have “very frank and honest discussions” about corruption, crime and violence.Detentions of undocumented travelers, including unaccompanied minors, along the US-Mexico border hit a 15-year record high in April, with nearly 180,000 people intercepted — more than 80% of them coming from Mexico or the so-called Northern Triangle of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.Vaccines, TPS, Title 42Donation of coronavirus vaccines by the United States to the region is also expected to be up for discussion.Harris already addressed the subject over the phone with Giammattei and Lopez Obrador on Thursday, just before Biden announced the shipment of a first batch of 6 million doses to be distributed in Central America and the Caribbean through the global Covax program, plus others to be sent directly from Washington to partner countries such as Mexico.For security and democracy expert Rebecca Bill Chavez, “a real commitment” on the number of doses destined for the Northern Triangle would be “one very positive outcome” of Harris’s trip.Another potential topic is the possibility of granting Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Guatemalans living in the United States, allowing them to work legally.And there could be talk in Mexico of the end of “Title 42,” a Trump-era coronavirus policy allowing the immediate deportation of undocumented migrants — even those who arrive seeking asylum.’A lot tougher’The vice president’s trip to Central America is part of the Biden administration’s promise of a more humane immigration policy — in contrast to the hardline approach taken by his predecessor Donald Trump.But Harris faces challenges even more complicated than the ones Biden dealt with as vice president under Barack Obama, when he himself was charged with handling the same matter.”The conditions have deteriorated dramatically since 2014,” said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank, referring to a worsening economic situation and an increase in violence, both exacerbated by the pandemic.Harris’s work is therefore “a lot tougher,” Shifter said, “because the (country) partners are far more problematic.”The relationship between Washington and El Salvador has been tense since the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly, led by the ruling party, fired judges and the attorney general May 1, and after the U.S. labeled members of President Nayib Bukele’s government as corrupt.And Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez was implicated of cocaine trafficking in a New York court earlier this year.A group of 18 US Democratic senators wrote a letter to Harris ahead of her trip.”Ensuring stability in Central America directly supports the national interests of the United States,” said the group, led by Foreign Relations Committee head Bob Menendez.The Republican opposition, on the other hand, has accused Biden of creating a “crisis” on the country’s southern border.Congress must still decide whether to approve the $861 million Biden has asked for next year as part of his $4 billion plan to take on the issue of illegal immigration.
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Africa Promotes Investment in Food Security
PCUSA guest host Kim Lewis speaks with Atsuko Toda, acting vice-president of the African Development Bank’s Agriculture, Human and Social Capital about the latest breakthroughs to boost food production and ensure food security in Africa. Toda also shares highlights from the recent high level virtual “Leaders’ Dialogue” presented by the African Development Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD.
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Scientists Should Probe Lab Leak Origin of COVID-19, Analysts Say
Analysts say there is increasing interest in determining whether the coronavirus leaked from a research lab in Wuhan, China, where the deadly virus was first detected in humans, as the U.S. intelligence community acts on President Joe Biden’s directive to “redouble” efforts to investigate the origins of COVID-19.Michael Pillsbury, director for Chinese strategy at the conservative FILE – The P4 laboratory of Wuhan Institute of Virology is seen behind a fence during the visit by the World Health Organization (WHO) team tasked with investigating the origins of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Wuhan, China, Feb. 3, 2021.One of the Science letter signatories, David Relman, is a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Stanford University medical school. He criticized the WHO report in a May 20 interview with the medical school newsletter.”The report dedicated only 4 of its 313 pages to the possibility of a laboratory scenario, much of it under a header entitled ‘conspiracy theories,'” he said. “Multiple statements by one of the investigators lambasted any discussion of a laboratory origin as the work of dark conspiracy theorists.”Relman continued to say, “Given all this, it’s tough to give this WHO report much credibility. … Fortunately, WHO’s director-general recognizes some of the shortcomings of the WHO effort and has called for a more robust investigation, as have the governments of the United States, 13 other countries and the European Union.”Then on May 26, The Wall Street Journal A security guard watches residents wearing face masks to help curb the spread of the coronavirus line up to receive the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination center in the Central Business District in Beijing, June 2, 2021.He continued to say that intelligence services “have experts and scientists that can bring in a formal, systematic, unbiased assessment. Because, at the end of the day, it’s this intelligence assessment (that) is going to the president of the United States. The intelligence community has no incentive to manipulate the data or information that is out there.”Pillsbury, when suggesting an examination of satellite imagery, pointed to a study conducted by Harvard Medical School researchers who put forward that the coronavirus may already have been spreading in China as early as August 2019.The Harvard researchers based this on “satellite imagery of hospital parking lots and Baidu search queries of disease related terms. … We observe(d) an upward trend in hospital traffic and search volume beginning in late Summer and early Fall 2019. While queries of the respiratory symptom ‘cough’ show seasonal fluctuations coinciding with yearly influenza seasons, ‘diarrhea’ is a more COVID-19 specific symptom and only shows an association with the current epidemic. The increase of both signals precedes the documented start of the COVID-19 pandemic in December.” Baidu is the dominant internet search engine in China.Beijing has dismissed the Harvard study as “ridiculous.”Pillsbury said the more important questions for investigators to ask should focus on the possibility of a cover-up and on when China’s President Xi Jinping knew of the existence of the virus that eventually became known as COVID-19.Pillsbury also told VOA Mandarin that the U.S. government’s involvement in WIV should be investigated.From late 2017 to early 2018, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing sent three teams of health and science diplomats to visit WIV, according to Politico. The diplomats suggested that Washington increase its funding to the WIV because of concerns over the lab’s lax safety standards. But the warning was ignored at the time, according to Politico and other media outlets.Referring to the 2017 and 2018 lab visits, Pillsbury said the new investigation into the origin of COVID-19 should be led by the scientists.Relman, when asked why it is important to understand the origins of COVID-19, told the Stanford newsletter, “Evidence favoring a natural spillover should prompt a wide variety of measures to minimize human contact with high-risk animal hosts. Evidence favoring a laboratory spillover should prompt intensified review and oversight of high-risk laboratory work and should strengthen efforts to improve laboratory safety. Both kinds of risk-mitigation efforts will be resource intensive, so it’s worth knowing which scenario is most likely.”
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Johnson to Call on G-7 to ‘Vaccinate World by 2022’
When the leaders of the world’s industrialized nations meet next week in Cornwall, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will ask them to commit to “vaccinate the entire world against coronavirus by the end of 2022,” according to a statement Saturday.”Vaccinating the world by the end of next year would be the single greatest feat in medical history,” Johnson said in a statement. “I’m calling on my fellow G-7 leaders to join us to end this terrible pandemic and pledge we will never allow the devastation wreaked by coronavirus to happen again.”He may run into some pushback from his own country.New cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, have dropped dramatically since the United Kingdom began its vaccination campaign. Now nearly 68 million people have received at least one shot and nearly 27 million are fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. That’s 40% of the population.But cases of the Delta variant are on the rise and that could threaten the nation’s progress. As Britain opens up, Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Reuters, a rise in cases is expected. The vaccine, he said, has broken the link between rising cases and rising deaths.“But it hasn’t been completely severed yet, and that’s one of the things that we’re watching very carefully,” he added.In China’s Guangzhou city, a port city of more than 13 million people, new restrictions took effect Saturday because of a rise in COVID-19 cases that began in late May.Of the 24 new cases of COVID-19 reported in China on Saturday, 11 were transmitted in Guangzhou province, where the city is located.Authorities had imposed restrictions earlier in the week but sought additional limits on business and social activities. Authorities closed about a dozen subway stops, and the city’s Nansha district ordered restaurants to stop dine-in services and public venues, such as gyms, to temporarily close.A man is admitted at the COVID unit of the Moscoso Puello hospital in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, June 2, 2021, as the country suffers a spike in the number of positive cases.Officials in the districts of Nansha, Huadu and Conghua ordered all residents and any individuals who have traveled through their regions to be tested for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, Reuters reported.As Afghanistan attempts to beat back a surge in COVID-19 cases, it has received the news that the 3 million doses of vaccines it was expecting from the World Health Organization in April will not arrive until August, according to the Associated Press.Afghan health ministry spokesperson Ghulam Dastagir Nazari told AP that he has approached several embassies for help but has not received any vaccines. “We are in the middle of a crisis,” he said.The war-torn country reported nearly 7,500 new cases in the week ending Saturday, a record, according to Johns Hopkins, and 187 deaths, also a record. The official figures are no doubt an undercount because they include only those in hospitals, while most people who become sick stay home and die there, the AP said.Afghan health officials are blaming the Delta variant, first discovered in India, for its soaring infection rate. Travel to India is unrestricted and many students and those seeking medical care go there, according to the AP.While the government has tried to enforce mask wearing and social distancing, most Afghans resist.”Our people believe it is fake, especially in the countryside,” Dr. Zalmai Rishteen, administrator of the Afghan-Japan Hospital, the only hospital dedicated to COVID-19 patients, told the AP. “Or they are religious and believe God will save them.”About 626,000 Afghans have received one shot of a coronavirus vaccine, with about 145,000 fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins.On Saturday, India’s health ministry reported 120,529 new COVID-19 cases in the previous 24 hours period, the lowest daily count of new infections in 58 days. More than 3,000 deaths were also recorded.Johns Hopkins reported Saturday more than 172 million global COVID infections. The U.S. has the most cases with 33.3 million, followed by India with 28.7 million and Brazil with nearly 17 million.
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Global War on Ransomware? Hurdles Hinder US Response
Foreign keyboard criminals with scant fear of repercussions have paralyzed U.S. schools and hospitals, leaked highly sensitive police files, triggered fuel shortages and, most recently, threatened global food supply chains.Escalating havoc caused by ransomware gangs raises an obvious question: Why has the United States, believed to have the world’s greatest cyber capabilities, looked so powerless to protect its citizens from these kind of criminals operating with near impunity out of Russia and allied countries?The answer is that there are numerous technological, legal and diplomatic hurdles to going after ransomware gangs. Until recently, it just hasn’t been a high priority for the U.S. government.That has changed as the problem has grown well beyond an economic nuisance. President Joe Biden intends to confront Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, about Moscow’s harboring of ransomware criminals when the two men meet in Europe later this month. The Biden administration has also promised to boost defenses against attacks, improve efforts to prosecute those responsible and build diplomatic alliances to pressure countries that harbor ransomware gangs.Calls are growing for the administration to direct U.S. intelligence agencies and the military to attack ransomware gangs’ technical infrastructure used for hacking, posting sensitive victim data on the dark web and storing digital currency payouts.Fighting ransomware requires the nonlethal equivalent of the “global war on terrorism” launched after the Sept. 11 attacks, said John Riggi, a former FBI agent and senior adviser for cybersecurity and risk for the America Hospital Association. Its members have been hard hit by ransomware gangs during the coronavirus pandemic.”It should include a combination of diplomatic, financial, law enforcement, intelligence operations, of course, and military operations,” Riggi said.A public-private task force including Microsoft and Amazon made similar suggestions in an 81-page report that called for intelligence agencies and the Pentagon’s U.S. Cyber Command to work with other agencies to “prioritize ransomware disruption operations.””Take their infrastructure away, go after their wallets, their ability to cash out,” said Philip Reiner, a lead author of the report. He worked at the National Security Council during the Obama presidency and is now CEO at The Institute for Security and Technology.A JBS Processing Plant stands dormant after halting operations on June 1, 2021, in Greeley, Colorado. JBS facilities around the globe were impacted by a ransomware attack, forcing many of its facilities to shut down.But the difficulties of taking down ransomware gangs and other cybercriminals have long been clear. The FBI’s list of most-wanted cyber fugitives has grown at a rapid clip and now has more than 100 entries, many of whom are not exactly hiding. Evgeniy Bogachev, indicted nearly a decade ago for what prosecutors say was a wave of cyber bank thefts, lives in a Russian resort town and “is known to enjoy boating” on the Black Sea, according to the FBI’s wanted listing.Ransomware gangs can move around, do not need much infrastructure to operate and can shield their identities. They also operate in a decentralized network. For instance, DarkSide, the group responsible for the Colonial Pipeline attack that led to fuel shortages in the South, rents out its ransomware software to partners to carry out attacks.Katie Nickels, director of intelligence at the cybersecurity firm Red Canary, said identifying and disrupting ransomware criminals takes time and serious effort.”A lot of people misunderstand that the government can’t just willy-nilly go out and press a button and say, well, nuke that computer,” she said. “Trying to attribute to a person in cyberspace is not an easy task, even for intelligence communities.”Reiner said those limits do not mean the United States cannot still make progress against defeating ransomware, comparing it with America’s ability to degrade the terrorist group al-Qaida while not capturing its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who took over after U.S. troops killed Osama bin Laden.”We can fairly easily make the argument that al-Qaida no longer poses a threat to the homeland,” Reiner said. “So, short of getting al-Zawahiri, you destroy his ability to actually operate. That’s what you can do to these [ransomware] guys.”The White House has been vague about whether it plans to use offensive cyber measures against ransomware gangs. Press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that “we’re not going to take options off the table,” but she did not elaborate. Her comments followed a ransomware attack by a Russian gang that caused outages at Brazil’s JBS SA, the second-largest producer of beef, pork and chicken in the United States.FILE – Tanker trucks are parked near the entrance of Colonial Pipeline Company, May 12, 2021, in Charlotte, N.C. The operator of the nation’s largest fuel pipeline paid $4.4 million to a gang of hackers who broke into its computer systems.Gen. Paul Nakasone, who leads U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, said at a recent symposium that he believes the U.S. will be “bringing the weight of our nation,” including the Defense Department, “to take down this [ransomware] infrastructure outside the United States.”Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who is a legislative leader on cybersecurity issues, said the debate in Congress over how aggressive the U.S. needs to be against ransomware gangs, as well as state adversaries, will be “front and center of the next month or two.””To be honest, it’s complicated because you’re talking about using government agencies, government capabilities to go after private citizens in another country,” he said.The U.S. is widely believed to have the best offensive cyber capabilities in the world, though details about such highly classified activities are scant. Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show the U.S. conducted 231 offensive cyber operations in 2011. More than a decade ago a virus called Stuxnet attacked control units for centrifuges in an underground site in Iran, causing the sensitive devices to spin out of control and destroy themselves. The cyberattack was attributed to America and Israel.U.S. policy called “persistent engagement” already authorizes cyberwarriors to engage hostile hackers in cyberspace and disrupt their operations with code. U.S. Cyber Command has launched offensive operations related to election security, including against Russian misinformation officials during U.S. midterm elections in 2018.After the Colonial Pipeline attack, Biden promised that his administration was committed to bringing foreign cybercriminals to justice. Yet even as he was speaking from the White House, a different Russian-linked ransomware gang was leaking thousands of highly sensitive internal files — including deeply personal background checks — belonging to the police department in the nation’s capital. Experts believe it’s the worst ransomware attack against a U.S.-based law enforcement agency.”We are not afraid of anyone,” the hackers wrote in a follow-up post.
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Essential Quality Crosses Finish Line First in Belmont Stakes
Favorite Essential Quality passed early leader Hot Rod Charlie to cross the finish line first Saturday in the Belmont Stakes.Essential Quality passed Hot Rod Charlie around the final turn and held on to win the 1½-mile race. Hot Rod Charlie was second, Preakness winner Rombauer third and Known Agenda fourth.The race was run without any horses from two-time Triple Crown-winning trainer Bob Baffert. New York suspended Baffert indefinitely after his Kentucky Derby-winning Medina Spirit failed a drug test.The scene at the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown, was a return to normalcy even if it wasn’t quite the crowd of 100,000-plus that would attend if a Triple Crown were on the line.The crowd of mostly maskless fans had no trouble finding room to walk around the vast grandstand hours before the running of the $1.5 million race. New York state had removed the cap on attendance amid easing of pandemic restrictions.There was no walkup crowd possible because fans were required to pre-purchase tickets.
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