The U.S. space agency NASA and its European and Japanese counterparts (ESA, JAXA) announced Thursday the launching of the COVID-19 Earth Observation Dashboard, a web-based collection of satellite data from all three agencies documenting how the coronavirus pandemic has changed the planet.Representatives from all three agencies announced the launch at a Thursday teleconference with managers and administrators participating from Italy, Japan and Washington.The idea, they say, is to provide a view from space of how changing patterns of human activity caused by the pandemic were having a visible impact on the planet.The agencies say they pooled their data to give the public and policymakers a unique tool to examine the short-term and long-term impacts of pandemic-related restrictions implemented around the world. The agencies will continuously add data to the dashboard as new observations come in from satellites and other observation instruments.According to a NASA release, the project began taking shape in April, when the three agencies formed a task force to identify the most relevant satellite data, select areas of interest and develop ways to effectively share that information. Air quality changes around the world were among the first noticeable impacts of pandemic-related stay-at-home orders and reductions in industrial activity that emerged from satellite observations. They have also monitored changes in water quality and economic and agricultural activity around the world.The agencies say the dashboard will be a powerful tool for examining how the pandemic has changed the world, important information to have as it works to recover.
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Month: June 2020
Back in March, filmmakers Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz gathered their artist friends and a few journalists at Manhattan’s members-only social club, Soho House, for a screening of their first feature-length project, “Antebellum.”They wanted a constructively critical reaction ahead of the planned spring release of the film — a psychological thriller about a Black woman who finds herself trapped in a pre-abolition past that isn’t at all the past. Bush, who is Black, and Renz, who is white, hoped the project would contribute to a national reckoning over the legacy of slavery and white supremacy in the U.S.”To witness how truly moved they were by the film, some even to tears, was the very first time we realized the potential impact ‘Antebellum’ will have on society and the long-deferred conversations that need to be had on race in America,” said the filmmakers, who wrote, directed and produced the project.Then, the coronavirus pandemic exploded internationally. Once the virus seized up the economy, forcing the closure of movie theaters and all but pushing Hollywood film studios into a mad dash to salvage elaborate release plans, Bush and Renz pulled their film. They said they didn’t want what was intended to be a big theatrical film relegated to a streaming platform, as several movie studios did last spring. For Bush and Renz, patience may have proven to be a virtue.As many movie theaters reopen in the coming weeks, “Antebellum,” set to be released Aug. 21 by Lionsgate, will debut during the height of a reckoning in America when people are increasingly showing a hunger for works that light a path toward racial justice. Driven in part by nationwide protests over the recent deaths of Black people at the hands of police and vigilantes, it’s a moment that positions “Antebellum” as the only summer release that speaks both to the moment and to the broader movement to defend Black lives from entrenched, systemic racism.”We’ve always believed that 2020 would usher in a brand new era that would require a new type of filmmaking. … We had no idea just how prescient that would prove to be,” Bush and Renz told The Associated Press in a series of interviews and emails since the March screening.”Antebellum,” starring singer and actress Janelle Monáe, plucks the legacy of American slavery out of the past and places it squarely in the present — in a politically divided nation where Confederate nostalgia and white supremacist violence wreak havoc on Black life. The film follows successful Black book author Veronica Henley, played by Monáe, on a quest to destroy the vestiges of that legacy.If that sounds eerily similar to present-day America, it is mere coincidence, Bush and Renz said. Over the last month, protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died May 25 after a white Minneapolis officer held a knee to his neck, have given way to the removal of Confederate monuments, building name changes at public and private schools, and the shedding of racist caricatures from food packaging.Everyday Americans, Black and non-Black, are in the streets demanding seismic policy shifts in policing and the criminal justice system. It’s a consequence of having never reckoned with America’s original sin, Bush said.”We intend to wake people up from the daydream that a superhero is coming to save us,” he said. “Only we, meaning humanity, can save us from ourselves.”Monáe played a supporting role in last year’s “Harriet,” a biopic about the abolitionist Harriet Tubman, and she won critical acclaim for her role in the Academy Award-winning film “Moonlight.” In “Antebellum,” Monáe gives moviegoers a modern Black heroine who takes charge of her own liberation without a male-dominated cavalry.”I knew that it was something that I needed to do, not just for myself, but for my ancestors and for all of the many Black women I considered to be modern-day superheroes,” Monáe told the AP.”I hope that (the film) causes those with privilege in this country to have conversations amongst each other, because the topics in this film … are not for Black people to try to fix,” she added.Monáe had never worked with Bush and Renz prior to “Antebellum,” only learning of them because of their work on visuals that accompanied hip hop mogul Jay-Z’s 4:44 album in 2017. The duo started out more than a decade ago as heads of a creative marketing and advertising firm with luxury brand clients such as Moët, Harry Winston and Porsche.After the 2012 killing of Travyon Martin, the filmmakers found themselves wondering if they were “just gonna sell champagne for the next 20 or 30 years,” Renz said.That period of self-reflection led to partnerships with social justice organizations such as Harry Belafonte’s Sankofa.org. In 2016, Bush and Renz directed ” Against The Wall,” a star-studded video campaign to draw attention to racial profiling in law enforcement featuring actors Michael B. Jordan, who starred in the 2013 police brutality drama “Fruitvale Station,” and Michael K. Williams, of HBO’s “The Wire,” as well as activist and CNN commentator Van Jones.The video shows Black men and women assuming the position, as though they were being stopped and frisked by police, while dispatcher recordings of actual officers describe suspects in racially discriminatory terms. It also included a recording of George Zimmerman’s voice from the day he called police to report Trayvon Martin as a suspected burglar before shooting and killing the Florida teen.That project was followed by others featuring musicreleases from artists such as Ty Dolla $ign, Raphael Saadiq and Mali Music on Jay-Z’s TIDAL streaming service. Their path to feature-length films with a racial justice message has been a long time coming, Bush and Renz said.At times, “Antebellum” uses graphically violent depictions of the inhumane treatment of enslaved people, which in recent films has elicited disapproval from some critics and Black moviegoers who were weary of unimaginative Hollywood slavery films.Bush and Renz said they want audiences to trust that they have done something entirely different.”Some within today’s culture are triggered by art, when that is precisely what art is meant to do. We would much prefer you be triggered in a theater and activated to take meaningful, positive action — than all of us continuing to live in an open-air shooting gallery every time we leave our homes,” Bush said.Even as they anticipate finding box office success with “Antebellum,” Bush and Renz are already at work on their second feature-length script, under a newly formed production company, Gloaming Pictures.”Not since the ’60s has the call for an artistic revolution been so urgent,” Bush said. “The work is only just beginning.”
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The U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory is known historically as an important nuclear research center. But as VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, a critical present-day mission at the suburban Chicago facility is using some of the world’s most sophisticated technology to combat COVID-19.
Video editor: Barry Unger
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The Eiffel Tower, one of France’s most iconic landmarks, reopened for the first time on Thursday after it was forced to close its doors for months due to the coronavirus pandemic.France was hit badly by the virus, recording 29,731 deaths and 161,348 confirmed cases as President Macron faced heavy criticism regarding his government’s management of the outbreak. Reinstating access to the famed site is yet another sign of Europe’s slow recovery as the continent struggles to balance restarting the economy with public safety concerns.Many countries have expressed cautious optimism about the summer tourist season, hoping that social distancing measures and coronavirus tracing apps will encourage people to travel responsibly.A visitor looks at the view from the Eiffel Tower, in Paris, June 25, 2020.The Eiffel Tower is one of the few Parisian sites permitting visitors. Other tourist attractions, such as the Louvre museum, will remain closed until July 6. To protect visitors, elevators to the tower’s three observation decks scaling 324-meters are closed, and only two of the three decks are open. The remaining deck, as well as the elevators, are expected to open in later summer months.Visitors are free to climb 674 steps to the 2nd floor, according to the Eiffel Tower’s website, which usually takes between 30 to 45 minutes. The tower lost $30 million in revenue from the lockdown that started in March, according to its director general, Patrick Branco Ruivo, and has not been closed for this long since World War II.
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Eastern Congo marked an official end Thursday to the second deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, which killed 2,280 people over nearly two years, as armed rebels and community mistrust undermined the promise of new vaccines.Thursday’s milestone was overshadowed, though, by the enormous health challenges still facing Congo: the world’s largest measles epidemic, the rising threat of COVID-19 and another new Ebola outbreak in the north.”We are extremely proud to have been able to be victorious over an epidemic that lasted such a long time,” said Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, who coordinated the national Ebola response and whose team also developed a new treatment for the once incurable hemorrhagic disease.The announcement initially was set for April but another case emerged just three days before the Ebola-free declaration was expected. That restarted the 42-day waiting period required before such a proclamation can be made.The epidemic, which began in August 2018, presented an unprecedented challenge for the World Health Organization, Congo’s Health Ministry and international aid groups because it was the first Ebola epidemic in a conflict zone. Armed groups posed such a risk that vaccinations sometimes could only be carried out by small teams arriving by helicopter.But much of the risk to hospitals and health workers came from the communities, often angered by the presence of outsiders and the amount of money being spent on Ebola as far more people died of perennial killers like malaria. Some suspected the epidemic was a political scheme, a theory that grew after then President Joseph Kabila canceled the national elections in Ebola-affected areas.Only a few years earlier, West Africa’s Ebola epidemic killed more than 11,000, as at that time there was no licensed vaccine or treatment. By the time of the eastern Congo outbreak there was not one but two new experimental vaccines to ward off the disease that kills about half its victims.After more than a quarter century of conflict, though, distrust of government health workers and other outsiders was exceptionally high in eastern Congo. Many residents initially outright refused the vaccine, fearing it would harm them.New treatment options also offered promise, and the aid group ALIMA even developed a way for patients to feel less isolated. A transparent enclosure for individual patients allowed visitors to still see their loved ones who were undergoing treatment. Yet fear of dying alone still kept many people from going to medical facilities until it was too late.Ultimately two different experimental vaccines were made available in eastern Congo on a compassionate use basis — one manufactured by Merck, the other by Johnson & Johnson. Those vaccines later received regulatory approval and now are expected to be used again in Congo’s northern Equateur province where a new outbreak already has claimed 11 lives. That area also had an outbreak in 2018 that killed 33 people before it was brought under control within months.And with the arrival of COVID-19, health teams in eastern Congo are once again trying to persuade people that a virus they’ve never heard of before could still kill them. The COVID-19 outbreak in the region has been minimal so far, but the challenges of Ebola underscore how fraught it could be to test and treat those in areas under the control of armed rebels.Some, though, are hopeful the region can weather coronavirus — people here already know how to social distance. Schools, churches and mosques are already armed with hand-washing kits. “Ebola has changed our culture,” said Esaie Ngalya, whose grandmother died from the virus. “Now I go to see my uncle but we don’t shake hands. In our culture that is considered disrespectful but now we have no choice because health comes first.”
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Disney is postponing the mid-July reopening of its Southern California theme parks until it receives guidelines from the state, the company announced Wednesday.
Disney had hoped to reopen Disneyland and Disney California Adventure in Anaheim on July 17 after a four-month closure due to the coronavirus. But the state has indicated it won’t issue guidelines until after July 4, the company said.
“Given the time required for us to bring thousands of cast members back to work and restart our business, we have no choice but to delay the reopening of our theme parks and resort hotels until we receive approval from government officials,” Disney said in a statement.
The company didn’t provide a new reopening date. The parks closed on March 14 and the reopening requires government approval.
Gov. Gavin Newsom “appreciates Disney’s responsiveness to his concerns about reopening amid the recent increases in COVID-19 infections across many Southern California counties,” Newsom spokesman Nathan Click said. “The governor, the state and our public health experts continue to be in contact with the company and their workers — as well as other theme parks in the state — as we track and combat the spread of the virus.”
Disney also said it is still negotiating agreements with employee unions, some of which have raised safety concerns about the reopenings. Disney said it has signed agreements from 20 union affiliates representing more than 11,000 employees, detailing enhanced safety protocols.
Disney also will delay the planned July 23 reopening of its Grand Californian and Paradise Pier hotels.
The Downtown Disney District restaurant and shopping area will reopen on July 9 as previously planned “with health and safety protocols in place for our cast members and guests,” Disney said.
Disneyland fans normally can bank on the park being open regardless of what’s going on in the world around it. The park closed only a handful of times in 65 years. The last time was after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
The company indicated it still planned to proceed with reopening Disney World in Florida on July 11. Disney resorts in Shanghai and Hong Kong already reopened.
California is seeing a COVID-19 spike, recording a 69% increase in new cases this week.
The virus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause pneumonia and death.
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Собаки лают, а караван идет: Турция жестко ответила на ультиматум путляндии и Египта
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На своем параде обиженный карлик пукин остался даже без ближайших союзников, приехали те, кто просто не смог отказаться
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Сегодня, 24 июня, вместо 9 мая, был проведен парад в честь 75-летия победы в, по формулировке путляндии, «великой отечественной войне».
В окупированных Луганске и Донецке тоже провели такие парады.
Зачем проводить эти мероприятия в условиях коронавируса? И каково значение парадов для современности?
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США превращают Польшу в главный форпост безопасности в Европе
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У разі прийняття поправок до Конституції, які обнулять президентські терміни ображеного карлика пукіна, він зможе обиратися і в 2024-му, і в 2030 році, тобто залишатися на своєму посту до 2036 року. Як ставляться до такої перспективи росіяни, наші колеги із телепроєкту дізнавалися на вулицях Москви
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Hannah Gjerde starts her day at her hot-mat yoga class on the front lawn of her parent’s home, right before settling onto the couch for the rest of the day. “Being home makes it hard because my dad will be in the kitchen working, or it’s too crowded in my room to do it,” says Gjerde. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many gyms have been deemed non-essential businesses and are not allowed to open. Closing fitness centers has created a sedentary lifestyle for many people. So more people are moving their fitness routines online. Gjerde, a Californian, also uses the backyard for her workout space, completing workouts online with an instructor at her usual yoga studio. Gyms and gym-goers alike are finding innovative ways to keep moving while practicing social distancing to thwart the spread of the coronavirus.Photo of Hannah Gjerde working out. (Courtesy of photo/Hannah Gjerde)In a pre-pandemic world, Yo Dinh, who works in investments in Australia, found that the most effective way to get himself to work out was to invest in a personal trainer. YouTube videos just weren’t enough, he says. “I didn’t really push myself. You know, it’s that barrier,” he says. That’s when the idea behind his website Avatar PT was born. It started as a private project where he and his personal trainers had a platform to connect and virtually work out together. “I actually started with one person from the Philippines, and then now I’ve actually gotten a guy from Bulgaria and another guy from Serbia as well,” Dinh says. From all over the world, they could still connect. After the coronavirus outbreak, Australia restricted public gatherings of more than two people. The thought occurred that “maybe other people might be interested in working at home as well. And then that’s when I shared it to other people,” he says. “And now I’ve got my brother and my brother’s friends, my housemates, other people doing it with me as well.” For Dinh, it’s not about the profit. “It’s free at the moment. I just said it’s free until the end of April to see if anyone’s interested,” says Dinh. On the other side of the globe, Mark Harrington, the president of the four Healthwork Fitness centers in the Greater Boston area, is taking advantage rather than lamenting COVID closures in the U.S. He says Healthworks corporate team is “launching stuff and iterating hourly,” he says, to help customers adapt to exercising remotely. The fitness centers offer free and paid programs through their Instagram Live. “I think a lot of people want to try it before they buy it,” he says. To stay motivated, he said, “the best thing to do is get one of your friends to do it, too. Even though you’re not together, you’re both holding each other accountable to doing it.” Jeanette Thong, also a private trainer based in Singapore, first got into fitness when she started experiencing back pain and weight gain from sitting at a desk all day at her office job. But since the outbreak, her standards for her workout achievements have decreased. “Right now, it’s more of maintenance of what I have,” she says. Singapore was one of the first countries to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak and maintains a lockdown lite compared to other countries. Although restrictions have been easing up in the city-state, she says that Singapore has experienced a “mini lockdown” for a while. “It has been more mentally draining than anything else,” says Thong. She acknowledges that working out from home can be a challenge now, but a sedentary lifestyle should be far from acceptable. “It’s really important for people to remember to move and try to keep active the best they can. It will also help mentally. It is okay to also not want to do anything, but it’s important to at least try.” In California, Gjerde continues to do yoga on her front lawn. A high school English teacher in Rancho Cucamonga who has played soccer since she was 4, she says she keeps up with her yoga. “That’s all I do. I teach and I work out,” she says. Since the quarantine, Gjerde, too, has found it difficult to find the motivation to work out. “I’m not doing as much as I was, but I’m trying. […] I’m way less likely to stick it out. Usually I’m competing with the girl next to me, in my head,” she says. Now, “there’s no one to hold me accountable.” One of the biggest ways Gjerde manages to complete her workout is to keep in mind her goals. “When this is over, I do want to look super good when I go to the beach […]. Set your intention, and when you hit the hard spot in class, go back to that intention.”
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A massive cloud of Saharan dust darkened much of Cuba on Wednesday and began to affect air quality in Florida, sparking warnings to people with respiratory illnesses to stay home.The dust cloud swept across the Atlantic from Africa over the past week, covering the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico since Sunday and hitting south Florida in the United States on Wednesday, authorities there said.Conditions over the Cuban capital, Havana, are expected to worsen on Thursday, specialists on the Communist-run island reported.Francisco Duran, head of Epidemiology at the Ministry of Health, said the cloud is likely to “increase respiratory and allergic conditions.”Air quality in Miami is currently “moderate,” the city’s health department said, asking people with respiratory problems to stay home.Powered by strong winds, dust from the Sahara travels across the Atlantic Ocean from West Africa during the boreal spring.But the density of the current dust cloud over Cuba “is well above normal levels,” said Cuban meteorologist Jose Rubiera.”The highest concentration over the capital will occur (Thursday),” he said.In Havana, scientist Eugenio Mojena said the phenomenon “causes an appreciable deterioration in air quality.”Mojena said the dust clouds are loaded with material that is “highly harmful to human health.”Mojena listed “minerals such as iron, calcium, phosphorous, silicon and mercury” in the dust, and said the clouds also carried “viruses, bacteria, fungi, pathogenic mites, staphylococci and organic pollutants.”According to the Institute of Meteorolgy, temperatures in Cuba’s eastern province of Guantanamo reached a record for the time of year of 37.4 degrees Celsius on Wednesday.Duran ruled out any link with the coronavirus pandemic.The government said its epidemic is under control and last week began to relax quarantine measures, with Havana the only area where restrictions remain because it continues to register infections.The island reported a single new case on Wednesday, bringing the total number of infections to 2,318, with 85 fatalities from COVID-19.
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The Boston City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to pass a ban on the use of facial recognition technology by city government. The move makes Boston the second-largest U.S. city after San Francisco to enact a ban. The city joins several other Massachusetts communities that passed similar bans, including Cambridge, Springfield, Northampton, Brookline and Somerville. “Boston should not use racially discriminatory technology that threatens the privacy and basic rights of our residents,” At-Large Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu said in a statement. “Community trust is the foundation for public safety and public health.” The push against the technology is being driven both by privacy concerns and after several studies have shown current face-recognition systems are more likely to err when identifying people with darker skin. “While face surveillance is a danger to all people, no matter the color of their skin, the technology is a particularly serious threat to Black and brown people,” Councilor Ricardo Arroyo said in a statement. The American Civil Liberties Union-Massachusetts has been pushing a bill on Beacon Hill that aims to establish a statewide moratorium on the government use of facial surveillance and other remote biometric screening technologies until the Legislature imposes checks and balances to protect the public’s interest. The Boston measure is now sent to Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh’s desk. If he takes no action in 15 days, it will automatically become law.
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Recent research finds that women are more likely than men to produce trustworthy news reports on the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Factual, a technology company in San Mateo, California, that measures the credibility of hundreds of news outlets.Phillip Meylan, a political analyst at The Factual, said he began crunching data on coronavirus reporting early in the pandemic and started to notice that many of the top-rated articles had been written by women.“Why are eight of them female out of 10? And so if you see that once, it’s kind of incidental. You think, okay, well, that, you know, it’s just random. It’s what I chose. But we saw it over and over and over again,” he told VOA.So he started to look at the data FILE – Marine One arrives on the White House South Lawn as CBS journalist Paula Reid and others prepare for President Donald Trump to board the presidential helicopter, May 14, 2020, in Washington.The Factual uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to determine credibility, based on the publication’s history of trustworthiness, the author’s work, the sources used and the tone of the story. Anything with a rating of 75 percent or above is considered very credible.“What those numbers tell us overall is just that, at least when it comes to coronavirus, female journalists have been more neutral in their tone,” Meylan said. “They’ve been better resourced, and they’ve overall just produced better articles.”Female reporters tend to score more highly than their male counterparts on other kinds of reporting as well, though not by such a significant margin. But allowing for the fact that they are outnumbered by the men, the number of women in the top ranks “does suggest that female journalists on average are more credible.”Meylan said the findings did not suggest that “you should go just read female journalists on coronavirus. But we saw it as an inroad to looking at why female journalists are underrepresented when it comes to anywhere in journalism, and how that may be affecting our news quality overall.“So if female journalists face challenges, face more obstacles, basically, when going out to do stories, whether it’s on coronavirus or the recent protests, how is this affecting our news output? And how is it affecting the overall narratives?” he said.To put the findings into a wider context, The Factual contacted gender equality expert Lucina Di Meco in San Francisco. Di Meco told VOA that in many fields, including journalism and political leadership, women have to be “as prepared or even overprepared to hold the same jobs that men hold, sometimes being paid less for those jobs, and are not afforded any mistakes.”“So it doesn’t surprise me that if we look at issues that are so crucial, women would really be especially careful in their approach, and female journalists in particular would be especially careful in the kind of news that they deliver,” she said.Different approach to leadershipDi Meco is the author of #ShePersisted, a study of the relationship between women and men in politics and social media globally. She said women take an approach to leadership that is “more participatory, that’s more careful, that tries to take into consideration a broader set of stakeholders.“And those are some of the same skills that are needed for a journalist to really shape a very good story that takes into account all the dimensions. So I definitely see parallels here.”FILE – A view of young mother pushing a stroller during the coronavirus pandemic on May 20, 2020, in Bethesda Fountain, Central Park in New York City.“The treatment that female politicians receive is very similar to the treatment that female journalists receive,” she said. “And that’s having to do with the fact that they are public figures.“And there are some groups of the population and some groups of interest [who] just don’t want to see women holding those leadership positions and being thought leaders in our society.”Di Meco noted that the pandemic was negatively affecting women in other ways as well, including greater job losses and an increase in domestic violence.She said policymakers have a responsibility to ensure that the needs of women and girls are taken into account in any decisions on how to deal with the effects of the pandemic, including the economic recovery.
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Germany is banning the sale of single-use plastic straws, cotton buds and food containers, bringing it in line with a European Union directive intended to reduce the amount of plastic garbage that pollutes the environment.The Cabinet agreed Wednesday to end the sale of plastics including single-use cutlery, plates, stirring sticks and balloon holders, as well as polystyrene cups and boxes by July 3, 2021.Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said the move was part of an effort to move away from “throw-away culture.” Up to 20% of garbage collected in parks and other public places consists of single-use plastic, mainly polystyrene containers.Plastic takes decades to degrade and microscopic particles have been found inside the bodies of fish, birds and other animals.
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Twitter has launched a new prompt to fight gender-based violence in response to a surge in sexual assaults and domestic attacks during lockdown, a company official said on Wednesday.
The social network said the feature, currently available in 11 countries, directs users to local helpline services if they search for terms such as “domestic violence” or “sexual assault.”
“This is the first time that this notification prompt has been made available in multiple locations in multiple languages,” said Kathleen Reen, a senior director of Twitter in Asia-Pacific.
The prompt was introduced across Asia last week, then expanded to the United States on Wednesday, with notifications in English and Spanish. Next step: Europe and Latin America.
“Twitter is a very popular service during crisis. People come to find out what’s happening, what’s breaking and to get key information on real-time basis,” Reen told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The initiative came after the United Nations warned there had been a “horrifying global surge” in domestic violence, with calls to helplines doubling or tripling in some countries, as lockdowns trapped many women indoors with their abusers.
The feature is an expansion of Twitter’s #ThereIsHelp initiative, which provides similar notifications on issues such as suicide prevention and vaccinations.
U.N. chief Antonio Guterres has called on governments to take urgent measures to tackle the spike in domestic violence and make it a part of national response plans for COVID-19.
More than 240 million women and girls aged 15 to 49 worldwide have faced sexual or physical violence by an intimate partner over the past 12 months, U.N. figures show.
It says the figure is likely to increase due to health and money worries ratcheting up tensions at home.
“Violence against women and girls across Asia-Pacific is pervasive but at the same time widely under-reported,” said Melissa Alvarado, a manager at the U.N. Women Asia-Pacific, which partners with Twitter on the latest feature.
“Connecting women who are feeling fearful or in danger is critical for their safety,” she added in a statement.
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Google is tweaking its privacy settings to keep less data on new users by default. The search giant said that starting Wednesday, it will automatically and continuously delete web and app activity and location history for new users after 18 months. Settings for existing users won’t be affected but the company will send reminders about the feature.The change comes after Google added new controls last year that allow users to effectively put an expiry date on their data, by providing the option to auto-delete location history, search, voice and YouTube activity data after three or 18 months. The company is also making it easier to toggle in and out of incognito mode while using its Search, Maps and YouTube mobile apps by doing a long press on the profile photo. In incognito mode, Google doesn’t remember any activity during online browsing. In another change, users will get easier access to their controls when doing Google searches. If they’re signed into their Google accounts and search for terms like “Google Privacy Checkup,” they will see a box only visible to them with their privacy and security settings.
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