Month: June 2023

Artificial intelligence is changing how wildlife reserves prevent poaching, with smart cameras, drones, and other technology helping rangers protect endangered species. Kate Bartlett and Zaheer Cassim report from Limpopo, South Africa. Video editor: Jason Godman.
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One year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court rescinded a five-decade-old right to abortion, prompting a seismic shift in debates about politics, values, freedom and fairness.

Twenty-five million women of childbearing age now live in states where the law makes abortions harder to get than they were before the ruling.

Decisions about the law are largely in the hands of state lawmakers and courts. Most Republican-led states have restricted abortion. Fourteen ban abortion in most cases at any point in pregnancy. Twenty Democratic-leaning states have protected access.

Here’s a look at what’s changed since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling.

Laws enacted in 25 states to ban or restrict abortion access

Last summer, as women and medical providers began to navigate a landscape without legal protection for abortion, Nancy Davis’ doctors advised her to terminate her pregnancy because the fetus she was carrying was expected to die soon after birth.

But doctors in Louisiana, where Davis lived, would not provide the abortion due to a new law banning it throughout pregnancy in most cases.

At the same time, abortion opponents who worked for decades to abolish a practice they see as murder cheered the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling. Anti-abortion groups said the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide was undemocratic because it prevented states from enacting bans.

“The Dobbs decision was a democratic victory for life that generations fought for,” said E.V. Osment, a spokeswoman for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a major anti-abortion group.

While some states scrambled to pass new restrictions, others already had enacted laws that were designed to take effect if the court overturned Roe.

More than 25 million women ages 15 to 44, or about 2 in 5 nationally, now live in states where there are more restrictions on abortion access than there were before Dobbs.

Davis received help from a fund that raises money for women to travel for abortions and went to New York for a procedure. The whole experience was heartbreaking, she said.

“A mother’s love starts as soon as she knows she’s pregnant. That attachment starts instantly,” she said. “It was days I couldn’t sleep. It was days I couldn’t eat.”

Abortion access has been protected in 20 states

As some states restricted abortion, others locked in access. In 25 states, abortion remains generally legal up to at least 24 weeks of pregnancy. Twenty of them have solidified abortion rights through constitutional amendments or laws.

CHOICES Center for Reproductive Health had for decades treated patients seeking abortions in Memphis, Tennessee. After Tennessee’s abortion ban kicked in last year, the clinic opened an outpost three hours away, in Carbondale, Illinois.

“They’re coming from Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and even Texas,” said CEO Jennifer Pepper. “But now they’re having to travel much farther.”

Number of abortions is not clear

With lags and gaps in official reporting, the impact of the Dobbs ruling on the number of abortions is not clear.

A survey conducted for the Society of Family Planning, a nonprofit organization that promotes research and supports abortion access, has found that the number has fallen to nearly zero in states with bans and risen in neighboring states with fewer restrictions. On balance the number of abortions is declining. But the survey does not capture self-managed abortions outside the traditional medical system, usually done with through a two-pill regimen.

Before the Dobbs ruling, pills were already the most common method of abortion in the U.S. Now, there are more networks to provide access to pills in states with abortion bans.

Some abortion opponents are calling for the abortion drug mifepristone to lose its government approval. The Supreme Court has preserved access for now.

Lawsuits abound

More than 50 lawsuits have been filed over abortion policy since the Dobbs ruling. Many challenges rely on arguments about the rights to personal autonomy or religious freedom. A Texas lawsuit alleges women were denied abortions even when their lives were at risk.

Bans or restrictions are on hold in at least six states while judges sort out their long-term fate. The only states where the top court has permanently rejected restrictions since the Dobbs ruling are Iowa and South Carolina.

Criminal courts have not been busy with abortion cases

There’s little evidence that doctors, women, or those who help them get abortions are being prosecuted.

The Mississippi attorney general’s office says no charges have been brought under a new law that calls for up to 10 years in prison for anyone who provides or attempts to provide an abortion in cases where it wasn’t to save the woman’s life or to end a pregnancy caused by rape or incest.

Progressive prosecutors across the country, including in states with bans, have said that they would not pursue abortion-related cases, or that they would make them a low priority.

Abortion remains a dominant political issue

The political table has been reset, with Republicans entering a new election season weighing how to balance the interests of a base that wants the strictest bans possible against the desires of the broader electorate.

Polling has consistently found that most Americans think abortions should be available early in a pregnancy, but that most also favor restrictions later in a pregnancy.

Last year, voters sided with abortion-rights advocates in all six states with abortion-related ballot measures. The issue was also a major factor in why Democrats performed better than expected in 2022 elections.

It has emerged as a key issue in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
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Kenyan video gamers are joining forces to advocate for bringing to Africa more world-class gaming servers that provide greater stability and control. Apart from South Africa, many African countries lack servers, placing players at a disadvantage and discouraging many from joining esports. Mohammed Yusuf has more from Nairobi.
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Evidence is growing about the many ways that traveling in the microgravity environment of space tampers with the human body, with new research showing how it dials down the activity of genes in white blood cells crucial to the immune system.

A study involving 14 astronauts who spent 4½ to 6½ months aboard the International Space Station found that gene expression in these cells, also called leukocytes, quickly decreased when they reached space and then returned to normal not long after returning to Earth, researchers said Thursday.

The findings offer insight into why astronauts are more susceptible to infections during flights, showing how the body’s system for fighting off pathogens is weakened in space.

“A weaker immunity increases the risk of infectious diseases limiting astronauts’ ability to perform their very demanding work in space. If an infection or an immune-related condition was to evolve to a severe state requiring medical care, astronauts while in space would have limited access to care and medication,” said molecular biologist Odette Laneuville of the University of Ottawa in Canada, lead author of the research published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology.

Leukocytes are produced in the bone marrow and travel through the bloodstream and tissues. Once they detect bodily invaders like a virus or bacterium, they produce antibody proteins to attack the pathogen. Specific genes govern the release of such proteins.

The researchers examined leukocytes isolated in blood drawn from astronauts — 11 men and three women — from the Canadian Space Agency and U.S. space agency NASA, once before the flight, four times aboard the space station and five times after returning to Earth.

Gene expression in 247 genes in leukocytes was at about one third the normal levels while in space, the study found. This occurred within the first few days in space, but then remained at a stable level. The genes typically returned to normal behavior within about a month of an astronaut’s return to Earth.

“White blood cells are very sensitive to the environment of space. They trade their specialized immune functions to take care of cell maintenance or housekeeping roles. Before this paper, we knew of immune dysfunction but not of the mechanisms,” said study co-author Guy Trudel, an Ottawa Hospital rehabilitation medicine specialist.

Discovering altered gene behavior in leukocytes is “a significant step toward understanding human immune dysregulation in space,” Trudel added.

This altered behavior, the researchers said, may result from a phenomenon called “fluid shift” in which blood in the absence of Earth’s gravitational pull is redistributed from the lower to the upper part of the body. It is unlikely that greater solar radiation exposure in space was the culprit, they added.

“New and specific countermeasures will be needed,” Trudel said.

Scientists previously documented astronauts experiencing immune dysfunction in space. This has included reactivation of latent viruses such as: Epstein-Barr, responsible for infectious mononucleosis; varicella-zoster, responsible for shingles; and herpes simplex 1, responsible for cold sores.

It also has been shown that astronauts in space shed more viral particles in their biological fluids — saliva and urine — increasing the risk of spreading pathogens to other astronauts whose own immune systems may be weakened.

The study, funded by the Canadian Space Agency, follows NASA-funded research published June 8 that detailed brain changes in astronauts — expansion of spaces in the brain containing fluid that cushions it to protect against sudden impact and remove waste products.

Other documented effects of space travel include bone and muscle atrophy, cardiovascular changes, issues with the balance system in the inner ear and a syndrome involving the eyes.

Cancer risk from greater radiation exposure is another concern.
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A panel of advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday recommended that new vaccines from Pfizer and GSK to prevent severe respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections be available to older adults in the U.S. but stopped short of saying all of them should get the shots.

In two separate votes, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) said that people aged 60 and older may receive the RSV shots after consulting with a health care provider.

It was not the strongest recommendation that the ACIP could have made for the shots. Some committee members wanted a broader recommendation, but others had concerns that there was not enough data about how effective the vaccines are in people over age 75 and other high-risk groups.

“Those who are at high risk for disease and for high risk for hospitalizations and death were actually not included in the trials,” said committee member Dr. Helen Keipp Talbot. “The patient population that participated in the study were younger and healthier and had fewer comorbid conditions, were not immunocompromised and were not living in nursing homes.”

The CDC’s director needs to sign off on the recommendation before the vaccines can be made available. Both drugmakers have said they expected to be able to supply the shots ahead of the RSV season later this year.

RSV usually causes mild cold-like symptoms but can also lead to serious illness and hospitalization. It is estimated to be responsible for 14,000 deaths annually in adults aged 65 and older in the United States, according to government data.

During the meeting, the companies presented data on whether one inoculation could remain effective over the course of two RSV seasons compared with protection seen with an annual shot.

In older adults, the efficacy of Pfizer’s vaccine in preventing lower respiratory tract disease with three or more symptoms fell from 88.9% at the end of the first season to 78.6% through the middle of a second RSV season. Efficacy fell to 48.9% from about 65% for less severe forms of the disease in that age group.

With the GSK vaccine, efficacy in preventing severe disease defined by three or more symptoms fell to 84.6% through the middle of the second RSV season, from about 94% at the end of first in older adults. Efficacy of the vaccine in preventing lower respiratory tract disease fell to 77.3% from 82.6% at the end of the first season in older adults.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last month approved the first RSV vaccine from GSK, branded as Arexvy, and later Pfizer’s Abrysvo for people aged 60 and older to protect them from lower respiratory tract disease caused by the virus.

Pfizer and GSK have said they expect RSV vaccines to eventually become multibillion-dollar sellers.

For this year, GSK has said it expects the U.S. market to be in the range of 10 million to 15 million people, a small fraction of the size of the expected flu or COVID-19 market for 2023.

At the meeting, GSK said it expects to price its shot between $200 and $295 a dose. Pfizer provided the CDC with a price range of $180 to $270 per dose but would not guarantee that its final price would fall within that range, saying it was in the middle of competitive price negotiations on the shots.
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In astronomical terms, summer begins Wednesday with the arrival of the summer solstice, which marks the longest day of the year for everyone north of the equator. 

This year, the summer solstice falls at exactly 10:57 a.m. EDT, when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer. South of the equator, the same time marks the astronomical start of winter. 

On two moments each year, Earth’s axis tilts the most toward the sun. The hemisphere that tilts closer to the sun experiences its longest day, whereas the hemisphere that tilts away from the sun experiences its longest night. 

The summer solstice takes place between June 20 and 22 each year. By meteorological standards, summer for the Northern Hemisphere begins on June 1. 

This year, the winter solstice will take place on December 21, marking the shortest day of the year for the Northern Hemisphere. 

On the summer solstice, the amount of sunlight people experience depends on how far north they are. The northernmost latitudes experience a full 24 hours of sunlight. By comparison, most of the United States will experience between 14 and 16 hours of sunlight. 

The word solstice comes from the Latin words sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still).

Nowadays, the summer solstice comes and goes with little significance to many. 

But for millennia, people around the world celebrated the summer solstice in various ways. Some still take part in festivities. 

The most well-known celebration takes place at 5,000-year-old Stonehenge in England.

Crowds of about 10,000 people — including druids and pagans — often gather at Stonehenge to watch as the rising sun aligns perfectly with the complex’s Heel Stone, which stands outside the main circle. 

In Scandinavian countries, Midsummer festivals mark the summer solstice. In Sweden, people dance around a maypole and feast on herring and vodka. 

Some Alaskans celebrate with midnight baseball, and in Iceland, some celebrate with late-night hiking and golf.

Meanwhile in Ukraine, celebrations honor John the Baptist, known as Ivan Kupala. 

This year, astronomical summer concludes with the autumn equinox on September 23. 
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For the first time, U.S. regulators on Wednesday approved the sale of chicken made from animal cells, allowing two California companies to offer “lab-grown” meat to the nation’s restaurant tables and, eventually, supermarket shelves. 

The Agriculture Department gave the green light to Upside Foods and Good Meat, firms that had been racing to be the first in the U.S. to sell meat that doesn’t come from slaughtered animals — what’s now being referred to as “cell-cultivated” or “cultured” meat as it emerges from the laboratory and arrives on dinner plates. 

The move launches a new era of meat production aimed at eliminating harm to animals and drastically reducing the environmental impacts of grazing, growing feed for animals and animal waste. 

“Instead of all of that land and all of that water that’s used to feed all of these animals that are slaughtered, we can do it in a different way,” said Josh Tetrick, co-founder and chief executive of Eat Just, which operates Good Meat. 

The companies received approvals for federal inspections required to sell meat and poultry in the U.S. The action came months after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration deemed that products from both companies are safe to eat. A manufacturing company called Joinn Biologics, which works with Good Meat, was also cleared to make the products. 

Cultivated meat is grown in steel tanks, using cells that come from a living animal, a fertilized egg or a special bank of stored cells. In Upside’s case, it comes out in large sheets that are then formed into shapes like chicken cutlets and sausages. Good Meat, which already sells cultivated meat in Singapore, the first country to allow it, turns masses of chicken cells into cutlets, nuggets, shredded meat and satays. 

But don’t look for this novel meat in U.S. grocery stores anytime soon. Cultivated chicken is much more expensive than meat from whole, farmed birds and cannot yet be produced on the scale of traditional meat, said Ricardo San Martin, director of the Alt:Meat Lab at University of California Berkeley. 

The companies plan to serve the new food first in exclusive restaurants: Upside has partnered with a San Francisco restaurant called Bar Crenn, while Good Meat dishes will be served at a Washington, D.C., restaurant run by chef and owner Jose Andrés. 

Company officials are quick to note the products are meat, not substitutes like the Impossible Burger or offerings from Beyond Meat, which are made from plant proteins and other ingredients. 

Globally, more than 150 companies are focusing on meat from cells, not only chicken but pork, lamb, fish and beef, which scientists say has the biggest impact on the environment. 

Upside, based in Berkeley, operates a 70,000-square-foot building in nearby Emeryville. On a recent Tuesday, visitors entered a gleaming commercial kitchen where chef Jess Weaver was sauteeing a cultivated chicken filet in a white wine butter sauce with tomatoes, capers and green onions. 

The finished chicken breast product was slightly paler than the grocery store version. Otherwise it looked, cooked, smelled and tasted like any other pan-fried poultry. 

“The most common response we get is, ‘Oh, it tastes like chicken,'” said Amy Chen, Upside’s chief operating officer. 

Good Meat, based in Alameda, operates a 100,000-square-foot plant, where chef Zach Tyndall dished up a smoked chicken salad on a sunny June afternoon. He followed it with a chicken “thigh” served on a bed of potato puree with a mushroom-vegetable demi-glace and tiny purple cauliflower florets. The Good Meat chicken product will come pre-cooked, requiring only heating to use in a range of dishes. 

‘Ick factor’

Chen acknowledged that many consumers are skeptical, even squeamish, about the thought of eating chicken grown from cells. 

“We call it the ‘ick factor,'” she said. 

The sentiment was echoed in a recent poll conducted by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Half of U.S. adults said that they are unlikely to try meat grown using cells from animals. When asked to choose from a list of reasons for their reluctance, most who said they’d be unlikely to try it said “it just sounds weird.” About half said they don’t think it would be safe. 

But once people understand how the meat is made, they’re more accepting, Chen said. And once they taste it, they’re usually sold. 

“It is the meat that you’ve always known and loved,” she said. 

Cultivated meat begins with cells. Upside experts take cells from live animals, choosing those most likely to taste good and to reproduce quickly and consistently, forming high-quality meat, Chen said. Good Meat products are created from a master cell bank formed from a commercially available chicken cell line. 

Once the cell lines are selected, they’re combined with a broth-like mixture that includes the amino acids, fatty acids, sugars, salts, vitamins and other elements cells need to grow. Inside the tanks, called cultivators, the cells grow, proliferating quickly. At Upside, muscle and connective tissue cells grow together, forming large sheets. After about three weeks, the sheets of poultry cells are removed from the tanks and formed into cutlets, sausages or other foods. Good Meat cells grow into large masses, which are shaped into a range of meat products. 

Challenges

Both firms emphasized that initial production will be limited. The Emeryville facility can produce up to 50,000 pounds of cultivated meat products a year, though the goal is to expand to 400,000 pounds per year, Upside officials said. Good Meat officials wouldn’t estimate a production goal. 

By comparison, the U.S. produces about 50 billion pounds of chicken per year. 

It could take a few years before consumers see the products in more restaurants and seven to 10 years before they hit the wider market, said Sebastian Bohn, who specializes in cell-based foods at CRB, a Missouri firm that designs and builds facilities for pharmaceutical, biotech and food companies. 

Cost will be another sticking point. Neither Upside nor Good Meat officials would reveal the price of a single chicken cutlet, saying only that it’s been reduced by orders of magnitude since the firms began offering demonstrations. Eventually, the price is expected to mirror high-end organic chicken, which sells for up to $20 per pound. 

San Martin said he’s concerned that cultivated meat may wind up being an alternative to traditional meat for rich people, but will do little for the environment if it remains a niche product. 

“If some high-end or affluent people want to eat this instead of a chicken, it’s good,” he said. “Will that mean you will feed chicken to poor people? I honestly don’t see it.” 

Tetrick said he shares critics’ concerns about the challenges of producing an affordable, novel meat product for the world. But he emphasized that traditional meat production is so damaging to the planet it requires an alternative — preferably one that doesn’t require giving up meat all together. 

“I miss meat,” said Tetrick, who grew up in Alabama eating chicken wings and barbecue. “There should be a different way that people can enjoy chicken and beef and pork with their families.” 
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Australia’s annual whale migration has started with researchers documenting an unusually high number of humpbacks off the coast. Scientists say the surge is a sign that whale populations are recovering. From Sydney, Phil Mercer reports.
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As the world mark Sickle Cell Day on Monday, Nigeria accounts for about 33% of the 300,000 children diagnosed every year with the disease.

The World Health Organization and Nigeria’s Health Ministry say 25% of the country’s total population are carriers of mutant genes that give rise to the genetic disorder. In 2011, Nigeria’s Health Ministry initiated mandatory screening for newborns to help detect the condition early, but many Nigerian hospitals have yet to comply with the directive.

Anna Ochigbo of Nigeria has lost two siblings to sickle cell anemia. In May 2022, Ochigbo launched the nonprofit Hoplites Sickle Cell Foundation in memory of her siblings. 

“We don’t just create awareness on the importance of genotype testing before marriage,” she said. “We go as far as conducting free genotype testing in certain communities, and we also try as much as possible to educate young people.”

About 50 million people are estimated to be living with sickle cell disease globally, but Nigeria has the highest burden. Every year, an estimated 100,000 kids are diagnosed with the condition in Nigeria, according to the Health Ministry, and up to 80% die before they turn five. 

Hoplites Foundation holds periodic hangouts for sickle cell warriors to meet and share their experiences.

“The participation has been really, really massive,” Ochigbo said. “A lot of sickle cell warriors are coming out now. They want to connect. They want to network. They want to go to a place where they feel loved and appreciated.”

Nigerian authorities in 2011 initiated universal screening for newborns at hospitals to help detect the condition early. However, the Health Ministry’s sickle cell program manager, Alayo Sopekan, said many health centers have yet to adopt the measure.

“Every single child born in Nigeria should be screened at birth. Now, we have a much more refined technology. We have started training health workers,” Sopekan said.

Experts say apart from screening newborns, authorities need to intensify community genotype testing to help create awareness about the disease, and to dispel myths and misinformation about the condition, including that the disease is a spiritual attack on the body.

Nigerian musician Excel Praiseworth has been living with sickle cell disease for 29 years. 

Last year, he started a nonprofit called The Sickle Sound, where he uses his music to debunk misinformation about the condition.

“We’ve been writing songs. We have the sickle sound, which has gone far and wide, and it’s beautiful to know that warriors can listen to these songs and have solace,” Praiseworth said. “Nigeria and the world at large should just get rid of unnecessary stereotypes.”

In 2021, Nigerian lawmakers introduced a bill to screen couples before they get married, but the bill was suspended due to rights issues.

As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to mark World Sickle Cell Day, advocates are urging authorities to take interventions about the condition more seriously in order for the negative trend to improve. 
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Members of the United Nations adopted the first-ever treaty to protect marine life in the high seas on Monday, with the U.N.’s chief hailing the historic agreement as giving the ocean “a fighting chance.”

Delegates from the 193 member nations burst into applause and then stood up in a sustained standing ovation when Singapore’s ambassador on ocean issues, Rena Lee, who presided over the negotiations, banged her gavel after hearing no objections to the treaty’s approval.

The treaty to protect biodiversity in waters outside national boundaries, known as the high seas, covering nearly half of earth’s surface, had been under discussion for more than 20 years as efforts to reach an agreement had repeatedly stalled. But in March delegates to an intergovernmental conference established by the U.N. General Assembly in December 2017 agreed on a treaty.

The new treaty is under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which came into force in 1994, before marine biodiversity was a well-established concept. It will be opened for signatures on Sept. 20, during the annual meeting of world leaders at the General Assembly, and it will take effect once it is ratified by 60 countries.

The treaty will create a new body to manage conservation of ocean life and establish marine protected areas in the high seas. It also establishes ground rules for conducting environmental impact assessments for commercial activities in the oceans.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told delegates that the adoption of the treaty comes at a critical time, with the oceans under threat on many fronts.

Climate change is disrupting weather patterns and ocean currents, raising sea temperatures, “and altering marine ecosystems and the species living there,” he said, and marine biodiversity “is under attack from overfishing, over-exploitation and ocean acidification.”

“Over one-third of fish stocks are being harvested at unsustainable levels,” the U.N. chief said. “And we are polluting our coastal waters with chemicals, plastics and human waste.”

Guterres said the treaty is vital to address these threats and he urged all countries to spare no efforts to ensure that it is signed and ratified as soon as possible, stressing that “this is critical to addressing the threats facing the ocean.”

 
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A submarine on a tourism expedition to explore the wreckage of the Titanic has gone missing off the coast of southeastern Canada, according to the private company that operates the vessel.

OceanGate Expeditions said in a brief statement on Monday that it was “mobilizing all options” to rescue those on board the vessel. It was not immediately clear how many people were missing.

The U.S. Coast Guard did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Media reports said the Coast Guard has launched search-and-rescue operations.

“We are deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to reestablish contact with the submersible,” OceanGate said in a statement.

The company is currently operating its fifth Titanic “mission” of 2023, according to its website, which was scheduled to start last week and finish on Thursday.

The expedition, which costs $250,000 per person, starts in St. John’s, Newfoundland, before heading out approximately 400 miles into the Atlantic to the wreckage site, according to OceanGate’s website.

In order to visit the wreck, passengers climb inside Titan, a five-person submersible, which takes about two hours to descend to the Titanic.

The British passenger ship famously sunk in 1912 on its maiden voyage after striking an iceberg, killing more than 1,500 people. The story has been immortalized in non-fiction and fiction books as well as the 1997 blockbuster movie “Titanic.”

 
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The Dutch government is soon to join the United States and Japan in rolling out new semiconductor export control measures aimed at keeping sensitive technology away from China due to concern for potential misuse, the country’s economic affairs minister told reporters on a visit to Washington.

The measures are likely to further restrict sales to China by Netherlands-based ASML, maker of the world’s most advanced chip-printing machines, which last year disclosed the “unauthorized misappropriation of data” by a now former employee in China.

The United States in October 2022 announced its own export control measures affecting advanced computing integrated circuits and certain semiconductor manufacturing items.

The U.S. said the measures were aimed at items that “could provide direct contributions to advancing military decision making” such as “designing and testing weapons of mass destruction (WMD), producing semiconductors for use in advanced military systems, and developing advanced surveillance systems that can be used for military applications and human rights abuses.”

The U.S. subsequently asked allies including Japan and the Netherlands, which play key roles in the semiconductor supply chain, to introduce similar measures.

“The main concern is [the chip-making technology] will be used in military products,” Micky Adriaansens, Netherlands’ minister of economic affairs and climate, told a group of journalists on June 8 at the Dutch Embassy in Washington.

Adriaansens acknowledged that the negotiations with Washington have not been easy.

“To be honest, the conversation has been intense, and is still intense,” she said. “But we agreed already upon the main issues, with a good [mutual] understanding of what is the right thing to do.”

Adriaansens said those understandings still have to be translated into regulations but that her country understands the importance of the measures.

“We realize that we, the U.S., the Netherlands, Japan and Korea, are very strong in the semicon[ductor] value chain, supply chain, and we have a responsibility there,” the minister said, echoing a statement made by Japan’s trade minister in March.

Japan also takes steps

Tokyo announced its own measures on March 31, saying that beginning in July, Japan will restrict 23 types of semiconductor manufacturing equipment from being exported to China. “We are fulfilling our responsibility as a technological nation to contribute to international peace and stability,” Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura told reporters.

At the center of the Netherlands’ semiconductor export control deliberations is ASML, a Dutch company with its headquarters in Veldhoven, about an hour and a half’s drive southeast of Amsterdam. The company was known as Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography in its early years but is now known as ASML.

Europe’s biggest high-tech firm by market capitalization, ASML is the world’s largest supplier of photolithography machines, which are used to produce computer chips.

Its flagship products are the EUV, or extreme ultraviolet, and DUV, or deep ultraviolet, lithography machines that use advanced light technology to shrink and then print tiny patterns down to the nanometer level on silicon wafers, a critical and essential component of the semiconductor manufacturing process.

Since 2019, ASML’s world-exclusive EUV machines have been on the Netherlands’ export control list, meaning they cannot be sold to China without government approval. In a statement issued in March, the company said it understood that the new export controls could be applied to its less-advanced DUV machines and other products as well.

While Taiwan is its top customer, ASML has more than 1,000 employees working in 12 office buildings in major Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Last year, sales to China made up 14% of the company’s total net systems sales.

In its 2022 annual report, released on February 15 this year, the company disclosed that it had experienced “unauthorized misappropriation of data relating to proprietary technology by a (now) former employee in China.” The incident may have led to the violation of certain export control regulations, the report said.

The company said a comprehensive internal review has since been launched, but the nature and extent of the data that was misappropriated has not been publicly disclosed.

Report mentions possible leak

Another possible leak of the company’s proprietary information that happened in China was disclosed in the previous year’s annual report.

“Early in 2021, we became aware of reports that a company associated with XTAL, Inc., against which ASML had obtained a damage award for trade secret misappropriation in 2019 in the USA, was actively marketing products in China that could potentially infringe on ASML’s IP rights,” said the 2021 report.

The second company was identified as Beijing-based DongFang JingYuan Electron, which was established in 2014 at about the same time as XTAL and controlled by the same people.

ASML’s annual report said the company had shared its concerns with the Chinese authorities and was monitoring the situation closely.

In its case against XTAL, ASML told the court that a former Chinese employee working at an ASML subsidiary in the United States had stolen 2 million lines of source code for critical software. It said the theft was conducted on behalf of both XTAL and DongFang.

ASML’s representatives told the court that it took XTAL only two years to replicate a technology that ASML had spent $100 million and a decade developing, as first reported by Bloomberg. XTAL, which ASML’s attorneys described in court proceedings as essentially the same as DongFang JingYuan, then tried to sell the technology to South Korea-based Samsung, a longtime client of ASML.

In late March, ASML CEO Peter Wennink met with China’s newly installed minister of commerce in Beijing. China is “firmly committed to high-level openness, willing to create favorable conditions for multinationals such as ASML to do business in China,” Wang Wentao, the newly minted commerce minister, told the visiting CEO.

“We hope ASML will affirm and strengthen its confidence in trading and investing in China and make proactive contributions to Sino-Dutch collaboration in trade and economics,” Wang continued.

It isn’t clear whether the two sides discussed the intellectual property infringement issues described in ASML’s 2021 and 2022 annual reports or if they did, what remedies Beijing may have proposed.

‘Relentless pursuit’

Asked how the company plans to fend off future attempts to steal its trade secrets, a company spokesperson told VOA that ASML is committed to “relentless pursuit of individuals or entities that violate or threaten to violate our [intellectual property] in any way.”

While less well known for semiconductor manufacturing than Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. or U.S.-based Intel, ASML is often viewed as Europe’s most valuable high-tech company, likely key to the Netherlands’ winning the bid to be the seat of NATO’s newly established Innovation Fund.
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Getting vaccinated is an effective way to prevent infection from human papillomavirus, also known as HPV, a virus that can lead to cervical cancer in women and other cancers in men. But the vaccine is neither available nor affordable to many in Venezuela. For Adriana Nunez Rabascall in Caracas, Venezuela, Cristina Caicedo Smit narrates the story. Camera – Jackson Vodopija.
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