The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionally affected midcareer and older working women in the United States. About 40% have experienced at least one job interruption, and of those who remained unemployed, 70% were out of work for six months or more. Lesia Bakalets has more in this report narrated by Anna Rice.
Cameras: Aleksandr Bergan, Artyom Kokhan.
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Ahead of next week’s climate conference in Scotland, 10 United Nations and international agency heads, including the World Meteorological Organization, are calling on governments to turn their carbon neutral commitments into climate action.
Scientists tracking the impact of human activity on the warming of the planet say the scientific case for urgent climate action is unequivocal. They note rising temperatures have led to increased sea levels and more frequent and intense extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, heat waves, and excess rainfall.
The U.N. and international agency heads have issued a united and urgent call to governments to prioritize climate action, particularly when it comes to water. They say accelerated action is urgently needed to address the water-related consequences of climate change.
World Meteorological Organization spokeswoman Clare Nullis says the agency chiefs warn climate change is dramatically affecting the water cycle, making droughts and floods more extreme and frequent, and decreasing the natural water storage in ice and snow.
“Changing precipitation patterns are already impacting agriculture, food systems, and livelihoods are becoming increasingly vulnerable, as well as ecosystems, and biodiversity. Rising sea levels threaten communities, infrastructure, coastal environments and aquifers,” Nullis said.
Participants at next week’s so-called “make-or-break climate summit” are expected to commit themselves to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. The aim is to stave off climate change by limiting global warming to one-point-five to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Nullis said scientists agree on the urgency to translate the commitments into action and to do more to accelerate carbon neutrality.
“The concentrations that are up there in the atmosphere now are at record levels. Even if we reach carbon neutrality tomorrow, the inertia in the climate system and especially in the ocean means that heat will carry on increasing for several decades even after that,” she said.
At the meeting, Nullis said the WMO, the U.N. Environment Program, and the U.N. Development Program will announce a new coalition fund to improve the collection of essential weather and climate data.
She said the facility will close the growing data gaps that impede the ability to forecast extreme weather events and, ultimately, protect the climate.
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Desperate for work, Sabila Dafadar walks every morning from her poor neighborhood tucked behind tall glass and chrome buildings in the business hub of Gurugram, 32 kilometers from New Delhi, to a busy intersection where day laborers wait for contractors who come to pick up construction workers.
After she migrated from her village 10 years ago, she easily found jobs both as household help and in an office as a cleaner. Like millions of other women, she lost her job last year during a stringent lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although Indian businesses and factories have reopened, it has been tough for Dafadar to find work as the economy struggles to recover.
“I have only managed to get work for 15 days during the last three months,” the 35-year-old said.
While women around the world have been hit harder by job losses than have men during the pandemic, the impact on women in India has been particularly severe, experts say.
Even before the pandemic, women made up only about 20% of India’s labor force – far below the global average and lower than is the case in such South Asian countries as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Many of them work in India’s vast informal sector.
Now there are fears their space will shrink further, particularly for women from poorer households.
“Women are in distress in terms of reentering the labor force, especially urban women who were the worst affected,” said Sona Mitra, principal economist at Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy in New Delhi.
“Many who worked or ran small enterprises such as beauty or tailoring services and tiny shops used up their savings during the shutdown and could not restart work when the economy reopened. Others were concentrated in sectors like the garment industry and call centers where workers have less safeguards and can be hired and fired easily.”
A report by the Center of Sustainable Employment at Aziz Premji University this year said more women and younger workers lost jobs during a stringent lockdown last year and that even after jobs recovered, fewer women were able to return to the workforce.
While women are again picking up work, many have had to turn to lower-paid and less secure employment.
“For example, when small private schools in cities shut down, teachers went back to villages and joined unskilled work,” said Amarjeet Kaur, general secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress, one of India’s largest trade unions.
“So, the direction for many women during COVID and even post-COVID has been from skilled to semi-skilled and unskilled work,” she said.
‘Opportunities simply are not there’
Although the formal sector accounts for a much smaller percentage of India’s overall female workforce, here too women were disproportionately affected because industries such as hospitality, tourism and retail that employ more women were the worst-hit.
Six women were among employees laid off last year by a food delivery company in its New Delhi office – women made up a majority of the staff.
“It has been very hard for them to find work,” said a former manager who asked that her name not be used.
“The opportunities simply are not there,” she said.
The women who had lost jobs would not speak on the record.
Experts say the pandemic has highlighted a paradox that women faced even earlier – a steady decline in their participation in the workforce despite rising levels of education and a growing pool of women with college degrees.
From a little over 30% in 2011, their share in the workforce fell to about 20% in 2019.
“The pandemic simply magnified what was already happening. The big employing sectors have not been creating jobs and everything just became much more bare in the job market,” said Sairee Sahal, founder of SHEROES, a portal for female job seekers.
“In retail for example, what has been growing is e-commerce where women’s presence is marginal and not brick-and-mortar retail that employs a lot of women,” she said.
The public health crisis that has kept schools closed for the last year and a half also worsened the situation.
“Social norms in India put the primary burden of household chores and child care on women and put restrictions on their mobility,” Mitra said.
Calling shrinking opportunities for women a wake-up call, she said policymakers must spur expansion of labor-intensive sectors such as garment manufacturing, where women have more opportunities.
“While some work is coming back, we see it coming in the lower rung of the economy,” she said.
Those working on women’s issues say the shrinking space for them will affect not just the economic but also the social position of women in a country where they have struggled to break free of patriarchal norms.
“When they lose their earnings, they lose their independence and status. We have seen that happening during the pandemic,” Kaur said.
“And women who have no support system find themselves struggling to make ends meet,” she added.
Dafadar is aware of that situation.
“In the past year and a half, I have cut back on whatever I could, including food by half.” she said as she looked into the road, hoping for a day’s work.
Efforts by Chinese diplomats to stop cultural events deemed critical of the government in Beijing have met with mixed results in Europe, succeeding in Germany but being rebuffed by a city government in Italy.
The incident in Germany concerned a new book, Xi Jinping — The Most Powerful Man in the World, by two veteran German journalists, Stern magazine’s China correspondent Adrian Geiges, and Die Welt newspaper publisher Stefan Aust.
Confucius Institutes at two German universities had planned online events on Oct. 27 to coordinate with the book’s launch. But the book’s publisher, Piper Verlag of Munich, said the events were canceled at short notice “due to Chinese pressure.”
The company accused Feng Haiyang, the Chinese consul general in Düsseldorf, of intervening personally to quash the event at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Duisburg and Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
At Leibniz University in Hannover, the Tongji University in Shanghai — which jointly operates the Confucius Institute there — forced the cancellation of an event, according to the company. Neither the publisher nor the institute offered details on what triggered the cancellation.
The institutes, run by China’s education ministry, are seen by Beijing as a way to promote its culture. Many Western countries have become wary of the influence the institutes exert on campuses by subsidizing classes, travel and research.
Dozens of Confucius Institutes have been closed or are closing in Europe and Australia. At least 29 shuttered in the U.S. after the State Department in August 2020 designated the Confucius Institute U.S. Center as a “foreign mission” of the Chinese government.
In a statement, Piper Verlag quoted a Confucius Institute employee as saying that “One can no longer talk about Xi Jinping as a normal person, he should now be untouchable and unspeakable.”
Felicitas von Lovenberg, head of Piper Verlag, called the cancellation of the events “a worrying and disturbing signal.”
Aust of Die Welt said the incident confirmed the book’s basic thesis: “For the first time, a dictatorship is in the process of overtaking the West economically, and is now also trying to impose its values, which are against our freedom, internationally.”
The book presented China in a very differentiated way as it also talked about China’s success in overcoming poverty, co-author Geiges said. “Apparently, such balanced reports are no longer enough for Xi Jinping. Stories are no longer enough — he now wants a cult around his person internationally, just as he does in China itself.”
A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Berlin said events at Confucius Institutes were planned to bring about better understanding between the two peoples, and they “should build on the basis of comprehensive communications between the partners.”
China supports the development of the institutes as “a platform to understand China comprehensively and objectively,” the embassy spokesperson added. “But we strongly object to any politicization of academic and cultural exchange.”
Both Confucius Institutes said in their respective statements that there were different views between the German and Chinese partners, making it impossible to carry on. The Institute for East Asian Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen had expressed interest in hosting the event, according to the university’s Confucius Institute.
German human rights activist David Missal told VOA Cantonese there has always been pressure from the Chinese side when it comes to critical events, but the tactics were rarely exposed. He took it as a positive development that these incidents are coming to light.
“I think this is the only way to fight this kind of influence in a democracy — you have to make these things public, make them transparent, and then there will be political responses to these incidents,” Missal said.
Reinhard Bütikofer, a German member of the European Parliament who is critical of China, said the next German federal government must draw clear lines about its China policy. “Chinese censorship at German universities? Does not work at all. These so-called ‘Confucius’ institutes, which are in fact CCP aides, have no future,” he tweeted.
Earlier this month, the Chinese Embassy in Rome attempted to stop a critical art show, but failed.
A museum in Brescia, an Italian city about 100 kilometers east of Milan, will continue with its plans to open a solo exhibition of the work of Australia-based Chinese exiled activist Badiucao. Scheduled to run from Nov. 13-Feb. 13, the exhibition is entitled “China is [not] near.” It will feature the artist’s work criticizing issues such as China’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its crackdowns in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
The Chinese Embassy in Rome sent the Brescia city council a message on Oct. 21, contending that Badiucao’s works twisted facts, spread false information, would mislead the Italian people’s understanding of China while seriously damaging Chinese people’s feelings, and jeopardize friendly relations between China and Italy, according to Italy’s ANSA news agency.
Brescia Mayor Emilio Del Bono told the Il Foglio newspaper the show will not be canceled, adding, “I think it is important to show that you can stay friends while criticizing some things.”
Badiucao told VOA Mandarin via phone on live TV that he was not surprised by the embassy’s position. “I am very excited that the city government and the museum stood strongly with me. I can say very confidently that my exhibition will not be canceled. I will not amend my exhibits or commit any self-censorship.”
VOA Cantonese asked the Chinese Embassy in Rome for comments but received no response.
This story originated in VOA’s Cantonese Service.
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The U.S. Senate voted unanimously on Thursday to approve legislation to prevent companies that are deemed security threats, such as Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. or ZTE Corp., from receiving new equipment licenses from U.S. regulators.
The Secure Equipment Act, the latest effort by the U.S. government to crack down on Chinese telecom and tech companies, was approved last week by the U.S. House in a 420-4 vote and now goes to President Joe Biden for his signature.
“Chinese state-directed companies like Huawei and ZTE are known national security threats and have no place in our telecommunications network,” Republican Senator Marco Rubio said. The measure would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from reviewing or issuing new equipment licenses to companies on its “Covered Equipment or Services List.”
In March, the FCC designated five Chinese companies as posing a threat to national security under a 2019 law aimed at protecting U.S. communications networks.
The affected companies included the previously designated Huawei and ZTE, as well as Hytera Communications Corp., Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., and Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co.
The FCC in June had voted unanimously to advance a plan to ban approvals for equipment in U.S. telecommunications networks from those Chinese companies even as lawmakers pursued legislation to mandate it.
The FCC vote in June drew opposition from Beijing.
“The United States, without any evidence, still abuses national security and state power to suppress Chinese companies,” Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson at China’s Foreign Ministry, said in June.
Under proposed rules that won initial approval in June, the FCC could also revoke prior equipment authorizations issued to Chinese companies.
A spokesperson for Huawei, which has repeatedly denied it is controlled by the Chinese government, declined to comment Thursday but in June called the proposed FCC revision “misguided and unnecessarily punitive.”
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said the commission has approved more than 3,000 applications from Huawei since 2018. Carr said Thursday the bill “will help to ensure that insecure gear from companies like Huawei and ZTE can no longer be inserted into America’s communications networks.”
On Tuesday, the FCC voted to revoke the authorization for China Telecom’s U.S. subsidiary to operate in the United States, citing national security concerns.
As world leaders gather in Glasgow, Scotland, for the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP26), China on Thursday announced it has no new significant goals to reduce climate-changing emissions, despite being the world’s top emitter of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
“It’s not surprising, but it is disappointing that there wasn’t anything new” in terms of goals, said Joanna Lewis, an expert on China, climate and energy at Georgetown University, The Associated Press reported.
In the past, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who is not expected to attend the summit, has said China aims to reduce peak emissions of carbon dioxide “before 2030” and to reach “carbon neutrality” before 2060.
Thursday’s announcement merely repeats those goals.
Lewis said the documents China released give details only about meeting previously set goals.
“The document gives no answers on the major open questions about the country’s emissions,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, the AP reported. “At what level will emissions peak and how fast should they fall after the peak?”
The document called climate change a “grim challenge facing all mankind” and said China “is also among countries most severely affected by climate change.”
China, which depends heavily on coal for electricity, is building new coal-fired power plants rapidly.
“New coal power and steel projects announced in China in the first half of 2021 alone will emit CO2 equal to Netherlands’ total emissions,” according to an August report from the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air in Helsinki and the U.S. group Global Energy Monitor.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
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NASA moves forward with its next moon mission. Plus, SpaceX readies its Halloween space launch, and Blue Origin offers an orbiting office park for the future. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
Producer: Arash Arabasadi.
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company is rebranding itself as Meta in an effort to encompass its virtual-reality vision for the future — what Zuckerberg calls the ” metaverse.”
Skeptics point out that it also appears to be an attempt to change the subject from the Facebook Papers, a leaked document trove so dubbed by a consortium of news organizations that include The Associated Press. Many of these documents, first described by former Facebook employee-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen, have revealed how Facebook ignored or downplayed internal warnings of the negative and often harmful consequences its social network algorithms created or magnified across the world.
“Facebook is the world’s social media platform and they are being accused of creating something that is harmful to people and society,” said marketing consultant Laura Ries. She compared the name Meta to when BP rebranded to “Beyond Petroleum” to escape criticism that it harmed the environment. “They can’t walk away from the social network with a new corporate name and talk of a future metaverse.”
What is the metaverse? Think of it as the internet brought to life, or at least rendered in 3D. Zuckerberg has described it as a “virtual environment” you can go inside of — instead of just looking at on a screen. Essentially, it’s a world of endless, interconnected virtual communities where people can meet, work and play, using virtual reality headsets, augmented reality glasses, smartphone apps or other devices.
It also will incorporate other aspects of online life such as shopping and social media, according to Victoria Petrock, an analyst who follows emerging technologies.
Zuckerberg says he expects the metaverse to reach a billion people within the next decade. It will be a place people will be able to interact, work and create products and content in what he hopes will be a new ecosystem that creates millions of jobs for creators.
The announcement comes amid an existential crisis for Facebook. It faces heightened legislative and regulatory scrutiny in many parts of the world following revelations in the Facebook Papers.
In explaining the rebrand, Zuckerberg said the name “Facebook” just doesn’t encompass everything the company does anymore. In addition to its primary social network, that now includes Instagram, Messenger, its Quest VR headset, its Horizon VR platform and more.
“Today we are seen as a social media company,” Zuckerberg said. “But in our DNA, we are a company that builds technology to connect people.”
Facebook the app, along with Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, are here to stay; the company’s corporate structure also won’t change. But on December 1, its shares will start trading under a new ticker symbol, “MVRS.”
Metaverse, he said, is the new way. Zuckerberg, who is a fan of classics, explained that the word “meta” comes from the Greek word “beyond.”
A corporate rebranding won’t solve the myriad problems at Facebook revealed by thousands of internal documents in recent weeks. It probably won’t even get people to stop calling the social media giant Facebook — or a “social media giant,” for that matter.
But that isn’t stopping Zuckerberg, seemingly eager to move on to his next big thing as crisis after crisis emerges at the company he created.
Just as smartphones replaced desktop computers, Zuckerberg is betting that the metaverse will be the next way people will interact with computers — and each other. If Instagram and messaging were Facebook’s forays into the mobile evolution, Meta is its bet on the metaverse.
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A new British research ship, named for British broadcaster Sir David Attenborough, has arrived in London to call attention to climate change ahead of next week’s Glasgow climate summit.
The 129-meter RSS Sir David Attenborough has completed sea trials and is ready for service. It sailed up the Thames River on Wednesday to be part of a three-day public celebration hosted by the British Antarctic Survey to raise awareness of the importance and relevance of polar science and why it matters to everyday life.
In a launch event on the ship Thursday, Attenborough, known for his documentaries on nature and the planet, reminded people of the dangers caused by climate change and called for action from delegates attending the summit next week in Glasgow.
Commissioned by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and operated by the British Antarctic Survey, the new research platform will transform how U.K. teams conduct ship-borne science in polar regions.
The vessel enjoys a bit of infamy as well. As it was being built in 2016, NERC decided to open the naming of the ship to the public through an internet vote. The winning name was Boaty McBoatface.
The vote was overruled in favor of naming it for Attenborough, but an unmanned research submarine carried on the ship bears the name Boaty McBoatface, out of respect for the popular vote.
The ship will embark on its first Antarctic mission later this year. It has a crew of about 30 and can accommodate up to 60 scientists.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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Hong Kong lawmakers passed an amendment to the Film Censorship Bill Wednesday that will allow authorities to ban films past or present that are seen as a threat to national security.
People found guilty of producing such films can land punishments of up to three years in jail and a fine of $128,000.
Back in June, the Hong Kong government first announced proposed amendments to the territory’s film ordinance law. Filmmakers, both local and overseas, told VOA that the action would stifle the movie industry.
But at Wednesday’s meeting of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council – the city’s mini-parliament – as the bill was passed, Priscilla Leung Mei-fun, a pro-Beijing lawmaker said, “No society in the world welcomes forces that encourage young people to break the law, harbor hatred against their own countries and embrace terrorism,” The South China Morning Post newspaper reported.
The Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers had previously stated it was “worried” by the new law, but when contacted by VOA had no further comment.
Christopher Ling, a commercial director and filmmaker in Hong Kong, told VOA earlier this year that the law has raised concern in the industry.
“For films that don’t care about the Chinese market, most Hong Kong features have a lot of freedom to voice out what the director wants to talk about.”
“After the law, [that] seems like that won’t be the case anymore. And the scariest part is that it’s up to the government to say what’s alright and what’s not, there’s no clear indication of what can be said and what not,” he said.
Ling said films considered politically sensitive will be affected in other ways, even if they are not screened in Hong Kong.
“Hong Kong movies aside, I’m also worried that a lot of films can’t be imported and distributed in Hong Kong from now on. Not even big production movies should be worried, even the independent short films…filmmakers should also be worried that the law might be affecting them,” he added.
But Kenny Kwok Kwan Ng, Associate Professor at the Hong Kong Baptist University Academy of Film, told VOA that the law will likely target independent productions more than commercial, big-budget films.
“The main impact may fall on documentaries. Particularly in the past few years or the past decade, there has been a rise in documentaries, not commercially, more independently made, [and] also recording social events, social crises.”
“These kinds of movies are more prone to the censorship law because if they record the events, things that deemed by the government as risky or undesirable or endangering social harmonies, social security – these things will probably have been prohibited for showing in the public,” Ng told VOA in a phone call.
As for commercial productions, Ng said if they have value, there is still room to produce movies based on governmental issues in society. Ng pointed to the recently released Raging Fire, a Hong Kong-Chinese action movie that focuses on a good cop, bad cop scenario. The movie has so far grossed over $213 million worldwide.
“You have the leeway to talk about how the bad cop turned corrupt, what kind of social institutional problems he’s facing. Maybe that’s the way these cop genres can deal with it. In the near future will this space be even more limited? We don’t know. It has to be tested case by case. It depends on each films response, that’s why I think filmmakers are still figuring out and testing the waters,” he added.
Ng said he is trying to be optimistic about the censorship law because it encourages new filmmakers to be more creative when making independent movies.
“It really depends on the young filmmakers, their creativity, if they are willing to go around and to see other ways of storytelling – I think this is a challenge for them and hope they take up the challenge,” he added.
But with the censor law in place, Ng said filmmakers are already looking at alternative channels to showcase their productions and get around censors.
“People have also begun talking about alternative channels, rather than beyond conventional cinema houses, like streamlining, social media. It will be a kind of struggle between the players and the government,” Ng added.
Hong Kong has already seen examples of censorship in the film industry.
In March, a local cinema canceled the screening of the award-winning documentary Inside the Red Brick Wall. The documentary focused on the clashes between protesters and police at Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University in November 2019 that lasted nearly two weeks.
The same month, Hong Kong’s largest TV network, Television Broadcast Ltd, known as TVB, canceled its broadcast of the Academy Awards for the first time in over 50 years, citing “commercial reasons.” The decision came as China requested media to lessen the coverage of the awards after Norwegian filmmaker Anders Hammer’s documentary Do Not Split received an Oscar nomination. The documentary also focused on Hong Kong’s much-publicized anti-government demonstrations.
And organizers of the Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival in Hong Kong canceled the screening of Far From Home, a short political film that also focused on political unrest two years ago.
China’s government has been targeting the entertainment sector of late. Its crackdown has seen new government controls for broadcasters on beauty standards, and to curb “effeminate male celebrities.” The government has also been displeased with the political views of Beijing-born director Chloe Zhao, who subsequently won the best director award for her movie Nomadland.
Since Beijing enacted a national security law in Hong Kong last year, books judged to be sensitive to the law have been removed from libraries and schools. In June, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily was forced to close after its executives were arrested under the security law. Among other things, the law prohibits secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, and its details can be widely interpreted.
The United States is sending more than 4.8 million coronavirus vaccine doses to four African nations, the White House told VOA on Wednesday.
White House officials said the 55-member African Union determined the allocations. Landlocked Chad, one of the world’s poorest nations, will get 115,830 doses; populous U.S. ally Egypt will receive 3,634,020 doses; West Coast oil producer Gabon is to get 101,790 doses and East Coast bulwark Kenya will receive 990,990 doses.
The donated Pfizer vaccine doses should all arrive in the countries by Friday or Saturday, White House officials said. That vaccine requires two shots for full immunity, and American authorities have recommended that certain high-risk groups should receive booster shots of that vaccine after their initial course.
The move follows an announcement earlier in the week that the United States would allow the African Union to purchase an allotment of 33 million doses of the two-shot Moderna vaccine that were originally intended for the United States.
“As the president has said, the virus knows no borders, and it is going to require every company and every country to step up and take bold, urgent action to stop the spread of COVID-19 and save lives,” said Natalie Quillian, White House deputy COVID-19 response coordinator. “We are grateful to have helped negotiate this encouraging step forward between Moderna and the African Union that will significantly expand access to vaccines on the continent in the near term. This is an important action, as we continue to expand manufacturing capacity now and expand access to mRNA vaccines with some of the hardest-hit parts of the world.”
U.S. officials have been criticized for urging booster shots for vulnerable Americans while vaccination rates are low in the developing world. The White House casts the controversy over booster shots as a false choice, claiming that the United States can help vaccinate the world while also protecting Americans.
Critics say wealthy countries are not moving fast enough.
“At our current pace, it could take over a decade until low-income countries reach the 70% vaccination target,” said Tom Hart, acting CEO at the anti-poverty ONE Campaign. “We can’t end this pandemic anywhere if the vaccine isn’t everywhere. The world needs an escape plan, not just life preservers thrown out in the dark.”
According to projections by an Oxford University COVID-19 database, Our World in Data, only one nation in sub-Saharan Africa — the tiny enclave nation of Lesotho — is on track to meet the target of inoculating 40% of their population with at least one dose of the vaccine by the end of this year.
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A cheap antidepressant reduced the need for hospitalization among high-risk adults with COVID-19 in a study that was looking for existing drugs that could be repurposed to treat coronavirus.
Researchers tested the pill used for depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder because it was known to reduce inflammation and looked promising in smaller studies.
They’ve shared the results with the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which publishes treatment guidelines, and they hope for a World Health Organization recommendation.
“If WHO recommends this, you will see it widely taken up,” said study co-author Dr. Edward Mills of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, adding that many poor nations have the drug readily available. “We hope it will lead to a lot of lives saved.”
The pill, called fluvoxamine, would cost $4 for a course of COVID-19 treatment. By comparison, antibody IV treatments cost about $2,000 and Merck’s experimental antiviral pill for COVID-19 is about $700 per course. Some experts predict various treatments eventually will be used in combination to fight the coronavirus.
Researchers tested the antidepressant in nearly 1,500 Brazilians recently infected with coronavirus who were at risk of severe illness because of other health problems, such as diabetes. About half took the antidepressant at home for 10 days, the rest got dummy pills. They were tracked for four weeks to see who landed in the hospital or spent extended time in an emergency room when hospitals were full.
In the group that took the drug, 11% needed hospitalization or an extended ER stay, compared to 16% of those on dummy pills.
The results, published Wednesday in the journal Lancet Global Health, were so strong that independent experts monitoring the study recommended stopping it early because the results were clear.
Questions remain about the best dosing, whether lower risk patients might also benefit and whether the pill should be combined with other treatments.
The larger project looked at eight existing drugs to see if they could work against the pandemic virus. The project is still testing a hepatitis drug, but all the others — including metformin, hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin — haven’t panned out.
The cheap generic and Merck’s COVID-19 pill work in different ways and “may be complementary,” said Dr. Paul Sax of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the study. Earlier this month, Merck asked regulators in the U.S. and Europe to authorize its antiviral pill.
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The State Department is creating a new Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy to focus on tackling cybersecurity challenges at a time of growing threats from opponents. There will also be a new special envoy for critical and emerging technology, who will lead the technology diplomacy agenda with U.S. allies.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the organizational changes underscore the need for a robust approach for dealing with cyber threats.
“We want to make sure technology works for democracy, fighting back against disinformation, standing up for internet freedom, and reducing the misuse of surveillance technology,” Blinken said in a speech on modernizing American diplomacy.
Blinken said the new bureau will be led by an ambassador-at-large. The chief U.S. diplomat is also seeking a 50% increase in State Department’s information technology budget.
The announcement comes as hackers backed by foreign governments, such as Russia and China, continue to attack U.S. infrastructures and global technology systems to steal sensitive information.
Earlier this year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that more countries are relying on cyber operations to steal information, influence populations and damage industry, but the U.S. is most concerned about Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.
The U.S. technology giant Microsoft said on Monday that the same Russia-backed hackers responsible for the 2020 SolarWinds breach of corporate computer systems are continuing to attack global technology systems, this time targeting cloud service resellers.
A senior State Department official told reporters on Wednesday that Washington has been clear with Moscow that cyber criminals targeting the U.S. is “not acceptable.” The United States has asked the Russian government to “take action against that type of criminal behavior.”
Confronting cyberattacks continues to be “a high priority” in U.S. relations with Russia, the senior official said.
China is also considered to be one of the United States’ main cyber adversaries, having coordinated teams both inside and outside of the government conducting cyberespionage campaigns that were large-scale and indiscriminate, according to analysts.
Over the past year, experts have attributed notable hacks in the U.S., Europe and Asia to China’s Ministry of State Security, the nation’s civilian intelligence agency, which has taken the lead in Beijing’s cyberespionage, consolidating efforts by the People’s Liberation Army.
In addition to expanding the State Department’s capacity on cybersecurity, Blinken also unveiled other steps to modernize American diplomacy, including the launch of a new “policy ideas channel” that allows American diplomats to share their policy ideas directly with senior leadership, building and retaining a diverse workforce, as well as a plan to “reinvigorate the in-person diplomacy and public engagement.”
The organization changes to beef up resources and staffers to tackle international cybersecurity challenges came after the State Department completed an extensive review of cyberspace and emerging technology.
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Actor Alec Baldwin fired a vintage Colt pistol loaded with a live lead round in the accidental fatal shooting last week of a cinematographer on the New Mexico set of his movie “Rust,” authorities said on Wednesday.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza and District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies held a briefing six days after Baldwin accidentally shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal for a scene inside a church at the filming location in New Mexico.
No one has been charged. Mendoza and Carmack-Altwies it is too early to discuss charges but said charges would be filed if warranted.
“No one has been ruled out at this point,” Carmack-Altwies said referring to potential charges. She said the investigation is not yet concluded.
Authorities have the firearm used in the shooting, the sheriff said. Mendoza said what is thought to be additional live rounds have been found on the set but they would be subject to testing by ballistics experts.
Mendoza said the gun was Long Colt revolver. “It’s a suspected live round that was fired but it did fire from the weapon and it did cause injury. That would lead us to believe it was a live round,” he said.
The sheriff said Baldwin has been cooperative in the investigation.
“He’s obviously the person that fired the weapon,” Mendoza said. “Right now, he is an active part of this investigation.”
The sheriff also said there was “complacency” on the set regarding firearms.
The shooting has sent shockwaves through Hollywood, prompting a debate about safety protocols in film and television – including whether certain types of guns used as props should be banned – and working conditions on low-budget productions.
Authorities have said in court filings that Baldwin last Thursday was handed what he thought was a “cold,” or safe, gun by the film’s assistant director David Halls, who took it from a cart used by Hannah Gutierrez, who was employed to oversee firearms and their safety in a job called an armorer.
The gun instead contained what police called “live rounds,” and a shot hit Hutchins in the chest and director Joel Souza, standing behind her, in the shoulder. Hutchins was transported by helicopter to the University of New Mexico Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Souza was treated at a hospital and released.
The lead round was recovered from Souza, Mendoza said.
Baldwin, 63, serves as a co-producer of “Rust,” a Western film set in 1880s Kansas, and plays an outlaw grandfather of a 13-year-old boy convicted of an accidental killing. Production had been taking place at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, located south of Santa Fe, and has been halted.
Baldwin has called it a “tragic accident” and, like other cast and crew, is cooperating with police.
The film’s producers have hired the law firm Jenner & Block to investigate the shooting. In a letter sent to cast and crew on Tuesday night, the film’s production team said Jenner “will have full discretion about who to interview and any conclusions they draw.”
Baldwin was drawing a revolver across his body and pointing it at a camera while rehearsing when the weapon fired, according to a sheriff’s department affidavit released on Sunday.
Detectives recovered two boxes of “ammo,” “loose ammo and boxes” as well as “a fanny pack w/ammo,” along with several spent casings, according to a court filing.
Before the incident, camera operators had walked off the set to protest working conditions, according to the affidavit.
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The past several weeks have been difficult for the social media behemoth Facebook, with a series of whistleblower revelations demonstrating that the company knew its signature platform was exacerbating all manner of social ills around the globe, from human trafficking to sectarian violence.
The tide shows no sign of receding. New revelations this week have demonstrated that the company’s supposed commitment to freedom of expression takes a back seat to its bottom line when repressive governments, like Vietnam’s, demand that dissent be silenced. They showed that Facebook knew its algorithms were steering users toward extreme content, such as QAnon conspiracy theories and phony anti-vaccine claims, but took few steps to remedy the problem.
In statements to various media outlets, the company has defended itself, saying it dedicates enormous resources to assuring safety on its platform and asserting that much of the information provided to journalists and government officials has been taken out of context.
In a conference call to discuss the company’s quarterly earnings on Monday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed that recent media coverage is painting a misleading picture of his company.
“Good faith criticism helps us get better,” Zuckerberg said. “But my view is that what we are seeing is a coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture of our company. The reality is that we have an open culture, where we encourage discussion and research about our work so we can make progress on many complex issues that are not specific to just us.”
The revelations, as well as unrelated business challenges, mean that Facebook, which also owns Instagram and the messaging service WhatsApp, has a lot of things to worry about in the coming weeks and months. Here are five of the biggest.
A potential SEC investigation
Whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former product manager with the company, delivered thousands of pages of documents to lawmakers and journalists last month, prompting the wave of stories about the company’s practices. But the documents also went to the Securities and Exchange Commission, raising the possibility of a federal investigation of the company.
Haugen claims the documents provide evidence that the company withheld information that might have affected investors’ decisions about purchasing Facebook’s stock. Among other things, she says that the documents show that Facebook knew that its number of actual users — a key measurement of its ability to deliver the advertising it depends on for its profits — was lower than it was reporting.
The SEC has not indicated whether or not it will pursue an investigation into the company, and a securities fraud charge would be difficult to prove, requiring evidence that executives actively and knowingly misled investors. But even an investigation could be harmful to the company’s already bruised corporate image.
In a statement provided to various media, a company spokesperson said, “We make extensive disclosures in our S.E.C. filings about the challenges we face, including user engagement, estimating duplicate and false accounts, and keeping our platform safe from people who want to use it to harm others . . . All of these issues are known and debated extensively in the industry, among academics and in the media. We are confident that our disclosures give investors the information they need to make informed decisions.”
Antitrust suit
Facebook is already being sued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which claims that between the company’s main site, Instagram, and WhatsApp, Facebook exercises monopoly power in the social media market. The agency is demanding that the three platforms be split up.
Facebook has publicly claimed it does not have monopoly power, but internal documents made available by Haugen demonstrate that the company knows it is overwhelmingly dominant in some areas, potentially handing the FTC additional ammunition as it attempts to persuade a federal judge to break up the company.
Legislative action
Congress doesn’t agree on much these days, but Haugen’s testimony in a hearing last month sparked bipartisan anger at Facebook and Instagram, especially over revelations that the latter has long been aware that its platform is harmful to the mental health of many teenage users, particularly young girls.
Several pieces of legislation have since been introduced, including a proposal to create an “app ratings board” that would set age and content ratings for applications on internet-enabled devices.
Others seek to make social media companies like Facebook liable for harm done by false information circulating on the platform, or to force the company to offer stronger privacy protections and to give users the right to control the spread of content about themselves.
Ramya Krishnan, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute and a lecturer in law at Columbia Law School, is one of many academics who have been pushing for lawmakers to require Facebook and other social media platforms to allow researchers and journalists better access to data about their audiences and their engagement.
“We’ve seen increased interest among lawmakers and regulators in expanding the space for research and journalism focused on the platform, reflecting the understanding that in order to effectively regulate the platforms we need to better understand the effect that they are having on society and democracy,” she told VOA.
Internal dissent
One of the most striking things about the documents released this week is the amount of anger inside Facebook over the company’s public image. The disclosures include reams of internal messages and other communications in which Facebook employees complain about the company’s unwillingness to police content on the site.
“I’m struggling to match my values to my employment here,” one employee wrote in response to the assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, which was partly organized on Facebook. “I came here hoping to effect change and improve society, but all I’ve seen is atrophy and abdication of responsibility.”
The documents show that the company is losing employees — particularly those charged with combating hate speech and misinformation — because they don’t believe their efforts have the support of management.
Advertiser boycott
Last year the Anti-Defamation League organized a campaign to pressure companies to “pause” their advertising on Facebook in protest over its failure to eliminate hateful rhetoric on the platform. In a statement given to VOA, Jonathan A. Greenblatt, the group’s CEO, said it is preparing to do so again.
“Mark Zuckerberg would have you believe that Facebook is doing all it can to address the amplification of hate and disinformation,” Greenblatt said. “Now we know the truth: He was aware it was happening and chose to ignore internal researchers’ recommendations and did nothing about it. So we will do something about it, because literally, lives have been lost and people are being silenced and killed as a direct result of Facebook’s negligence.”
He continued, “We are in talks to decide what the best course of action is to bring about real change at Facebook, whether it’s with policymakers, responsible shareholders, or advertisers,” he said. “But make no mistake: We’ve successfully taken on Facebook’s hate and misinformation machine before, and we aren’t afraid to do it again. It’s time to rein in this rogue company and its harmful products.”
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Chinese organizers have confirmed participants in next year’s Winter Olympics will be strictly isolated from the general population and could face expulsion for violating COVID-19 restrictions.
Vice mayor and Beijing 2022 organizing committee official Zhang Jiandong told reporters Wednesday that those taking part in the games beginning Feb. 4 must remain in a “closed loop” for training, competing, transport, dining and accommodation.
A strict Olympic bubble has long been on the books, but Beijing has now made it official in keeping with its zero-tolerance approach to the pandemic. Athletes and other participants will also be tested regularly for the coronavirus before and during the Games. Family, spectators and sponsors from outside the country will not be allowed to attend.
“All participants of the Games and our Chinese staff and volunteers will implement the same policy,” Zhang said. “They will be strictly separated from the external society.
“Those who do not comply with the epidemic prevention regulations may face severe consequences such as warning, temporary or permanent cancellation of registration, temporary or permanent disqualification or expulsion from the competition, and other punishment.”
All participants must have been fully vaccinated at least 14 days prior to their departure for China.
China has enforced strict rules on mask wearing, quarantines and contact tracing that have largely succeeded in eliminating the local transmission of COVID-19, but imported cases and domestic infections continue to appear in daily reports.
“Indeed, epidemic prevention and control is the biggest challenge for us to host the Winter Olympic Games,” Zhang told a news conference.
Wednesday marked 100 days until the Beijing Games. Organizers have held test events featuring international athletes at Olympic venues under strict conditions.
Japan imposed restrictive rules and an Olympic bubble during the July 23-Aug. 8 Summer Games in Tokyo, which had been postponed by 12 months because of the pandemic.
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Wildlife officials and environmental groups in Florida are raising an alarm over the unprecedented die-off this year of manatees, the large, slow-moving sea animals that are the southeastern U.S. state’s official marine mammal.
The latest figures from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission show that as of October 15, 974 manatees have been found dead, more than twice the number that died all of last year and more than any other year on record.
The number represents more than 10% of the total population of manatees in the state.
Officials fear the onset of winter and colder weather could bring another wave of deaths.
Environmental officials say there is no real mystery for the die-off. They say over the past 10 years, seagrass, the primary food for the animals, has been steadily declining.
When wildlife officials conducted postmortem examinations on the bodies found in the first half of the year, the vast majority were found to have starved to death.
Environmental experts say the seagrass is being killed off by declining water quality traced to man-made sources such as fertilizer runoff, wastewater discharges and other pollutants. State estimates show that since 2009, about 58% of the seagrass has been lost in the Indian River Lagoon, a prime habitat for manatees, The Associated Press reported.
The Florida Legislature this year approved $8 million in funding for a manatee habitat restoration program run by state and federal environmental officials.
The Associated Press reports the Fish and Wildlife Commission is calling for state lawmakers to approve another $7 million for seagrass restoration projects, manatee rehabilitation centers and other projects.
The manatees in Florida are West Indian animals known for their round bodies, large front flippers and paddle-shaped, flat tails. The average adult is just more than 3 meters long, weighs as much as 550 kilograms and may live as long as 65 years. They are closely related to elephants.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
U.S. federal law enforcement agencies and Europol announced dozens of arrests to break up a global operation that sold illegal drugs using a shadowy realm of the internet.
At a Department of Justice news conference Tuesday in Washington, officials said they arrested 150 people for allegedly selling illicit drugs, including fake prescription opioids and cocaine, over the so-called darknet. Those charged are alleged to have carried out tens of thousands of illegal sales using a part of the internet that is accessible only by using specialized anonymity tools.
The 10-month dragnet called “Operation HunTor” — named after encrypted internet tools — resulted in the seizure of 234 kilograms of drugs, including amphetamines, cocaine and opioids worth more than $31 million. Officials said many of the confiscated drugs were fake prescription pills laced with the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. The counterfeit tablets are linked to a wave of drug overdoses.
“This international law enforcement operation spanned across three continents and sends one clear message to those hiding on the darknet peddling illegal drugs: there is no dark internet,” said U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.
Investigators rounded up and arrested 65 people in the United States. Other arrests occurred in Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. In addition to counterfeit medicine, authorities also confiscated more than 200,000 ecstasy, fentanyl, oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methamphetamine pills.
“We face new and increasingly dangerous threats as drug traffickers expand into the digital world and use the darknet to sell dangerous drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine,” said Anne Milgram, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). “We cannot stress enough the danger of these substances.”
The international police agency Europol worked alongside the U.S. Justice Department’s Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement team.
“No one is beyond the reach of the law, even on the dark web,” said Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, Europol’s deputy executive director.
The dark web is preferred by criminal networks who want to keep their internet activities private and anonymous. In this case, it served as a platform for illegal cyber sales of counterfeit medication and other drugs that were delivered by private shipping companies.
Investigators said the fake drugs are primarily made in laboratories in Mexico using chemicals imported from China. Prosecutors also targeted drug dealers who operated home labs to manufacture fake prescription pain pills.
“Those purchasing drugs through the darknet often don’t know what they’re getting,” Associate Deputy FBI Director Paul Abbate said. The joint investigation followed enforcement efforts in January in which authorities shut down “DarkMarket,” the world’s largest illegal international marketplace on the dark web.
Last month, the DEA warned Americans that international and domestic drug dealers were flooding the country with fake pills, driving the U.S. overdose crisis. The agency confiscated more the 9.5 million potentially lethal pills in the last year.
More than 93,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2020, the highest number on record, according the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. U.S. health officials attribute the rise to the use of fentanyl, which can be 100 times more potent than morphine.
U.S. officials said investigations are continuing and more arrests are expected.