With Russian rockets targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and electrical grid, scientists in the northern city of Sumy, some 330 kilometers east of Kyiv, are hoping to start mass producing solar technology that could help keep the lights on. Olena Adamenko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera and video editing by Mykhailo Zaika.
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Day: January 4, 2023
With Russian rockets targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and electrical grid, scientists in the city of Sumy near Kyiv are hoping to start mass producing solar technology that could keep the lights on. Olena Adamenko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
Camera: Mykhailo Zaika Produced by: Mykhailo Zaika
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European Union regulators on Wednesday hit Facebook parent Meta with hundreds of millions in fines for privacy violations and banned the company from forcing users in the 27-nation bloc to agree to personalized ads based on their online activity.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission imposed two fines totaling 390 million euros ($414 million) in its decision in two cases that could shake up Meta’s business model of targeting users with ads based on what they do online. The company says it will appeal.
A decision in a third case involving Meta’s WhatsApp messaging service is expected later this month.
Meta and other Big Tech companies have come under pressure from the European Union’s privacy rules, which are some of the world’s strictest. Irish regulators have already slapped Meta with four other fines for data privacy infringements since 2021 that total more than 900 million euros and have a slew of other open cases against a number of Silicon Valley companies.
Meta also faces regulatory headaches from EU antitrust officials in Brussels flexing their muscles against tech giants: They accused the company last month of distorting competition in classified ads.
The Irish watchdog — Meta’s lead European data privacy regulator because its regional headquarters is in Dublin — fined the company 210 million euros for violations of EU data privacy rules involving Facebook and an additional 180 million euros for breaches involving Instagram.
The decision stems from complaints filed in May 2018 when the 27-nation bloc’s privacy rules, known as the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, took effect.
Previously, Meta relied on getting informed consent from users to process their personal data to serve them with personalized, or behavioral, ads, which are based on what users search for online, the websites they visit or the videos they click on.
When GDPR came into force, the company changed the legal basis under which it processes user data by adding a clause to the terms of service for advertisements, effectively forcing users to agree that their data could be used. That violates EU privacy rules.
The Irish watchdog initially sided with Meta but changed its position after its draft decision was sent to a board of EU data protection regulators, many of whom objected.
In its final decision, the Irish watchdog said Meta “is not entitled to rely on the ‘contract’ legal basis” to deliver behavioral ads on Facebook and Instagram.
Meta said in a statement that “we strongly believe our approach respects GDPR, and we’re therefore disappointed by these decisions and intend to appeal both the substance of the rulings and the fines.”
Meta has three months to ensure its “processing operations” comply with the EU rules, though the ruling doesn’t specify what the company has to do. Meta noted that the decision doesn’t prevent it from displaying personalized ads, it only covers the legal basis for handling user data.
Max Schrems, the Austrian lawyer and privacy activist who filed the complaints, said the ruling could deal a big blow to the company’s profits in the EU, because “people now need to be asked if they want their data to be used for ads or not” and can change their mind at any time.
“The decision also ensures a level playing field with other advertisers that also need to get opt-in consent,” he said.
Making changes to comply with the decision could add to costs for a company already facing rising business challenges. Meta reported two straight quarters of declining revenue as advertising sales dropped because of competition from TikTok, and it laid off 11,000 workers amid broader tech industry woes.
Iran released a prominent actress from an Oscar-winning film on Wednesday, nearly three weeks after she was jailed for criticizing a crackdown on anti-government protests, local reports said.
Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency said Taraneh Alidoosti, the 38-year-old star of Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar-winning “The Salesman,” was released on bail. Her mother, Nadere Hakimelahi, had earlier said she would be released in a post on Instagram.
After her release from the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran on Wednesday, Alidoosti posed with flowers among her friends. No further details have been released about her case.
Alidoosti was among several Iranian celebrities to express support for the nationwide protests and criticize the authorities’ violent clampdown on dissent. She had posted at least three messages in support of the protests on Instagram before her account was disabled.
One message had expressed solidarity with the first man to be executed on charges linked to the protests, which were triggered by the death of a woman in police custody and have escalated into widespread calls for the overthrow of Iran’s ruling clerics.
The protests mark one of the biggest challenges to the Islamic Republic since it was established after the 1979 revolution. Security forces have used live ammunition, bird shot, tear gas and batons to disperse protesters, according to rights groups.
Mohsen Shekari was executed Dec. 9 after being charged by an Iranian court with blocking a street in Tehran and attacking a member of the country’s security forces with a machete. A week later, Iran executed a second prisoner, Majidreza Rahnavard, by public hanging. He had been accused of stabbing two members of the paramilitary Basij militia, which is leading the crackdown.
Activists say at least a dozen people have been sentenced to death in closed-door hearings over charges linked to the protests.
“His name was Mohsen Shekari,” Alidoosti wrote on an account with some 8 million followers before her arrest. “Every international organization who is watching this bloodshed and not taking action, is a disgrace to humanity.”
At least 516 protesters have been killed and over 19,000 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has closely monitored the unrest. Iranian authorities have not provided an official count of those killed or detained.
Hengameh Ghaziani and Katayoun Riahi, two other famous Iranian actresses, were arrested in November for expressing solidarity with protesters on social media. Voria Ghafouri, an Iranian soccer star, was also arrested that month for ”insulting the national soccer team and propagandizing against the government.” All three have been released.
The protests began in mid-September, when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. Women have played a leading role in the protests, with many publicly stripping off the compulsory Islamic headscarf, known as the hijab.
The protesters say they are fed up after decades of political and social repression. One of the main slogans has been “Death to the dictator,” referring to Iran’s 83-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has held the country’s highest office for more than three decades.
Iranian officials blame the protests on the U.S. and other foreign powers. State-linked media have highlighted attacks on security forces, while authorities have imposed heavy restrictions on coverage of the demonstrations, including periodically cutting off internet access.
Khamenei, who has said little about the protests, spoke about Islamic dress on Wednesday in a meeting with women, saying the hijab is necessary but that those who do not “completely observe” the practice “should not be accused of being non-religious or against the revolution.”
Even before the protests, many Iranian women wore the headscarf loosely, and authorities sometimes eased off on enforcing it, particularly during the presidency of Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate who governed from 2013 to 2021. His successor, the hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi, had moved to tighten the restrictions.
Alidoosti had previously criticized the Iranian government and its police force before this year’s protests.
In June 2020, she was given a suspended five-month prison sentence after she criticized the police on Twitter in 2018 for assaulting a woman who had removed her headscarf.
Other well-known movies Alidoosti has starred in include “The Beautiful City” and “About Elly.”
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CES 2023 opens this week in Las Vegas. After an unusually low turnout last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain issues, organizers say the consumer electronics show is back in full swing. VOA’s Julie Taboh shows us some of what to expect.
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The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday finalized a rule change that allows women seeking abortion pills to get them through the mail, replacing a long-standing requirement that they pick up the medicine in person.
The Biden administration implemented the change last year, announcing it would no longer enforce the dispensing rule. Tuesday’s action formally updates the drug’s labeling to allow women to get a prescription via telehealth consultation with a health professional, and then receive the pills through the mail, where permitted by law.
Still, the rule change’s impact has been blunted by numerous state laws limiting abortion broadly and the pills specifically. Legal experts foresee years of court battles over access to the pills, as abortion-rights proponents bring test cases to challenge state restrictions.
For more than 20 years, the FDA labeling had limited dispensing to doctor’s offices and clinics, due to safety concerns. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA temporarily suspended the in-person requirement. The agency later said a new scientific review by agency staff supported easing access, concurring with numerous medical societies that had long said the restriction wasn’t necessary.
Two drugmakers that make brand-name and generic versions of abortion pills requested the latest FDA label update. Agency rules require a company to file an application before modifying dispensing restrictions on drugs.
Danco Laboratories, which sells branded Mifeprex (mifepristone), said in a statement the change “is critically important to expanding access to medication abortion services and will provide healthcare providers” another option for prescribing the drug.
More than half of U.S. abortions are now done with pills rather than surgery, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.
The FDA in 2000 approved mifepristone to terminate pregnancies of up to 10 weeks when used with a second drug, misoprostol. Mifepristone is taken first to dilate the cervix and block the progesterone hormone, which is needed to sustain a pregnancy. Misoprostol is taken 24 to 48 hours later, causing the uterus to contract and expel pregnancy tissue.
Bleeding is a common side effect, though serious complications are very rare. The FDA says more than 3.7 million U.S. women have used mifepristone since its approval.
Several FDA-mandated safety requirements remain in effect, including training requirements to certify that prescribers can provide emergency care in the case of excessive bleeding. Pharmacies that dispense the pills also need a certification.
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Walter Cunningham, the last surviving astronaut from the first successful crewed space mission in NASA’s Apollo program, died Tuesday in Houston. He was 90.
NASA confirmed Cunningham’s death in a statement but did not include its cause. Spokespersons for the agency and Cunningham’s wife, Dot Cunningham, did not immediately respond to questions.
Cunningham was one of three astronauts aboard the 1968 Apollo 7 mission, an 11-day spaceflight that beamed live television broadcasts as they orbited Earth, paving the way for the moon landing less than a year later.
Cunningham, then a civilian, crewed the mission with Navy Capt. Walter M. Schirra and Donn F. Eisele, an Air Force major. Cunningham was the lunar module pilot on the space flight, which launched from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, Florida, on October 11 and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean south of Bermuda.
NASA said Cunningham, Eisele and Schirra flew a near perfect mission. Their spacecraft performed so well that the agency sent the next crew, Apollo 8, to orbit the moon as a prelude to the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969.
The Apollo 7 astronauts also won a special Emmy award for their daily television reports from orbit, during which they clowned around, held up humorous signs and educated earthlings about space flight.
It was NASA’s first crewed space mission since the deaths of the three Apollo 1 astronauts in a launch pad fire January 27, 1967.
Cunningham recalled Apollo 7 during a 2017 event at the Kennedy Space Center, saying it “enabled us to overcome all the obstacles we had after the Apollo 1 fire and it became the longest, most successful test flight of any flying machine ever.”
Cunningham was born in Creston, Iowa, and attended high school in California before enlisting with the Navy in 1951 and serving as a Marine Corps pilot in Korea, according to NASA. He later obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from the University of California at Los Angeles, where he also did doctoral studies, and worked as scientist for the Rand Corporation before joining NASA.
In an interview the year before his death, Cunningham recalled growing up poor and dreaming of flying airplanes, not spacecraft.
“We never even knew that there were astronauts when I was growing up,” Cunningham told The Spokesman-Review.
After retiring from NASA in 1971, Cunningham worked in engineering, business and investing, and became a public speaker and radio host. He wrote a memoir about his career and time as an astronaut, “The All-American Boys.” He also expressed skepticism in his later years about human activity contributing to climate change, bucking the scientific consensus in writing and public talks, while acknowledging that he was not a climate scientist.
Although Cunningham never crewed another space mission after Apollo 7, he remained a proponent of space exploration. He told the Spokane, Washington, paper last year, “I think that humans need to continue expanding and pushing out the levels at which they’re surviving in space.”
Cunningham is survived by his wife, his sister Cathy Cunningham, and his children Brian and Kimberly.
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A top health official in China has said that the fatalities from the latest surge in COVID-19 cases are “increasing” but within the normal range for mortality.
In an interview with state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), Jiao Yahui, a National Health Commission official, said, “We have a huge base, so what people feel is that the severe cases, the critical cases or the fatalities are increasing.
“Relative to the rest of the world, the infection peaks we are faced with across the country are not unusual,” she added.
The contrast between statements by Chinese officials assessing the COVID situation and social media footage of crowded hospital hallways and long lines at clinics prompted leading scientists advising the World Health Organization to call Tuesday for a “more realistic picture” about what China is experiencing after the pivot from “zero-COVID.”
Normal mortality is the number of deaths authorities expect for a specific period based on long-term population data. Excess mortality reveals the difference between the number of deaths caused during the current wave of COVID and the number of fatalities expected had the pandemic not occurred. The excess mortality number has been used worldwide during the pandemic to provide a better sense of how many people have died of COVID.
Tong Zhaohui, vice president of Chaoyang Hospital in Beijing, agreed that while the actual number of deaths is growing, the fatalities remain a small percentage of China’s population.
“Think how many people around you have been infected but how many have developed critical cases or pneumonia? I think everyone has the idea,” he told CCTV.
China began relaxing its stringent zero-COVID policy in early December. Since then, Tong has supervised treatment for critically ill COVID patients at two major hospitals in Beijing.
Tong said, “I roughly counted, both severe and critical cases (of COVID) at the two designated hospitals accounted for 3% to 4% of infected patients.” He added that the actual number can’t be determined because PCR testing is no longer mandatory.
Beijing reported three new COVID deaths for Monday, taking the official death toll to 5,253 since the pandemic began in January 2020. China’s population was over 1.4 billion people in 2021.
CCTV’s coverage acknowledged that the number of fever outpatients in some hospitals increased tenfold, and one doctor saw up to 150 patients in one night. A fever patient cannot be assumed to be a COVID patient.
Photos and videos of hospitals full of sick people waiting to be treated are circulating on social media from facilities across the country. Reuters visited a Shanghai hospital and reported finding crowded hallways and emergency rooms. China’s censors are moving quickly to keep photos and videos from circulating inside the country, but many are leaping the country’s Great Firewall for the internet and posting photos and videos that were said to be from hospitals in China’s central and southern Hunan province as well as other cities.
Although VOA Mandarin was unable to independently verify the videos circulating on Twitter that are said to show hospitals in Hunan, a staffer who answered the phone at Changsha No. 1 People’s Hospital in Changsha, the province’s capital, said the hospital has no vacant beds left and new patients are being asked to go to other hospitals. According to Baike, China’s version of Wikipedia, the hospital has a total capacity of 1,593 beds. The staffer said that while many doctors have tested positive, they are still working.
Social media videos from various cities show long lines waiting to be admitted outside crematoriums.
In an interview with Da Jiangdong Studio, an affiliate of the state-run newspaper People’s Daily, Chen Erzhen, vice president of Shanghai’s Ruijin Hospital and a member of the city’s COVID expert advisory panel, estimated that 70% of population of 25 million people in Shanghai may have been infected. The interview was conducted December 31 and published Tuesday.
“Now the spread of the epidemic in Shanghai is very wide, and it may have reached 70% of the population, which is 20 to 30 times more than (in April and May),” he told Da Jiangdong Studio. Shanghai endured a two-month long lockdown in April and May, during which over 600,000 residents were infected and already weakened global supply chains were further strained.
China could see as many as 25,000 deaths a day from COVID later in January, according to a Bloomberg report.
That daily total is “roughly equivalent to China’s normal daily death toll from all other causes,” according to The British Medical Journal referencing research published December 20 from Airfinity, a London-based research firm that focuses on predictive health analytics.
Mortalities from the contagious respiratory illness will probably peak around January 23, the second day of the annual new year holiday, according Airfinity.
China said it had submitted genome sequence data from recently sampled COVID-19 cases to GISAID, an international database hosted by Germany, ahead of a meeting with WHO officials on Tuesday.
Before the meeting, Reuters reported that two unnamed scientists affiliated with WHO had asked Beijing for a “more realistic picture” of COVID in China.
Some experts doubted that Beijing would be forthright in its statistical offerings.
Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at National University of Singapore, told Reuters, “I don’t think China will be very sincere in disclosing information.”
“They would rather just keep it to themselves, or they would say nothing happened, nothing is new,” said Wu. “My own sense is that we could assume that there is nothing new … but the problem is China’s transparency issue is always there.”
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