Category: Silicon Valley

NAIROBI, Kenya — When Ademola Adesina founded a startup to provide solar and battery-based power subscription packages to individuals and businesses in Nigeria in 2015, it was a lot harder to raise money than it is today.

Climate tech was new in Africa, the continent was a fledgling destination for venture capital money, there were fewer funders to approach and less money was available, he said.

It took him a year of “running around and scouring” his networks to raise his first amount — just under $1 million — from VC firms and other sources. “Everything was a learning experience,” he said.

But the ecosystem has since changed, and Adesina’s Rensource Energy has raised about $30 million over the years, mostly from VC firms. 

Funding for climate tech startups in Africa from the private sector is growing, with businesses raising more than $3.4 billion since 2019. But there’s still a long way to go, with the continent requiring $277 billion annually to meet its climate goals for 2030.

Experts say to unlock financing and fill this gap, African countries need to address risks like currency instability that they say reduce investor appetite, while investors need to expand their scope of interest to more climate sectors like flood protection, disaster management and heat management, and to use diverse funding methods.

Still, the investment numbers for the climate tech sector — which includes businesses in renewable energy, carbon removal, land restoration and water and waste management — are compelling: Last year, climate tech startups on the continent raised $1.04 billion, a 9% increase from the previous year and triple what they raised in 2019, according to the funding database Africa: The Big Deal. That was despite a decline in the amount of money raised by all startups in total on the continent last year.

That matters because climate tech requires experimentation, and VC firms that provide money to nascent businesses are playing an essential role by giving climate tech startups risk capital, said Adesina. “In the climate space, a lot of things are uncertain,” he said.

The money raised by climate tech startups last year was more than a third of all funds raised by startups in Africa in 2023, placing climate tech second to fintech, a more mature sector.

Venture capital is typically given to businesses with substantial risk but great long-term growth potential. Startups use it to expand into new markets and to get products and services on the market.

Venture capitalists “can take risks that other people cannot take, because our business model is designed to have failures,” said Brian Odhiambo, a Lagos-based partner at Novastar Ventures, an Africa-focused investor. “Not everything has to succeed. But some will, and those that do will succeed in a massive way.”

That was the case for Adetayo Bamiduro, co-founder of MAX, formerly Metro Africa Xpress, which makes electric two- and three-wheelers and electric vehicle infrastructure in Nigeria and has raised just under $100 million since it was founded in 2015.

Adetayo said venture capitalists “are playing a catalytic role that is extremely essential.”

“We all know that in order to really decarbonize our economies, investments have to be made. And it’s not trivial investment,” he said.

The funds can also bridge the gap between traditional and non-traditional sectors, said Kidus Asfaw, co-founder and CEO of Kubik, a startup that turns difficult-to-recycle plastic waste into durable, low-carbon building material. His company, which operates in Kenya and Ethiopia, has raised around $5.2 million since it was launched in 2021.

He cites waste management and construction as examples of traditional sectors that can connect with startups like his.

“There’s so much innovation in these spaces that can transform them over time,” he said. “VCs are accelerating that pathway to transforming them.”

Besides venture capital, other investments by private equity firms, syndicates, venture builders, grant providers and other financial institutions are actively financing climate initiatives on the continent.

But private sector financing in general lags far behind that of public financing, which includes funds from governments, multilaterals and development finance institutions.

From 2019 to 2020, private sector financing represented only 14% of all of Africa’s climate finance, according to a report by the Climate Policy Initiative, much lower than in regions such as East Asia and Pacific at 39%, and Latin America and the Caribbean at 49%.

The low contribution in Africa is attributed to the investors putting money in areas they’re more familiar with, like renewable energy technology, with less funding coming in for more diverse initiatives, said Sandy Okoth, a capital market specialist for green finance at FSD Africa, one of the commissioners of the CPI study.

“The private sector feels this (renewable energy technology) is a more mature space,” he said. “They understand the funding models.”

Technology for adapting to climate change, on the other hand, is “more complex,” he said.

One startup working in renewable energy is the Johannesburg-based Wetility, which last year secured funding of $48 million — mostly from private equity — to expand its operations.

The startup provides solar panels for homes and businesses and a digital management system that allows users to remotely manage power usage, as it tries to solve the problems of energy access and reliability in southern Africa.

“Private sector financing in African climate is still rather low,” said founder and CEO Vincent Maposa. “But there’s visible growth. And I believe that over the next decade or so, you’ll start to see those shifts.”

Investors are also starting to understand the economic benefits of adapting to climate change and solutions as they have returns on investment, said Hetal Patel, Nairobi-based director of investments at Mercy Corps Ventures, an early-stage VC fund focused on startups building solutions for climate adaptation and financial resilience.

“We’re starting to build a very strong business case for adaptation investors and make sure that private capital flows start coming in,” he said.

Maelis Carraro, managing partner at Catalyst Fund, a Nairobi-based VC fund and accelerator that funds climate adaptation solutions, urged more diverse funding, such as that which blends private and public sector funding. The role of public financing, she said, should be to de-risk the private sector and attract more private sector capital into financing climate initiatives.

“We’re not gonna go far enough with just the public funding,” she said. “We need the private sector and the public sector to work together to unlock more financing. And in particular looking beyond just a few industries where the innovation is writ large.”
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omaha, nebraska — Warren Buffett cautioned the tens of thousands of shareholders who packed an arena for his annual meeting that artificial intelligence scams could become “the growth industry of all time.” 

Doubling down on his cautionary words from last year, Buffett told the throngs he recently came face to face with the downside of AI. Someone made a fake video of Buffett, apparently convincing enough that Buffett himself said he could imagine it tricking him into sending money overseas. 

The billionaire investing guru predicted scammers will seize on the technology and may do more harm with it than good. 

“It has enormous potential for good and enormous potential for harm and I just don’t know how that plays out,” he said. 

Earnings 

The day started early Saturday with Berkshire Hathaway announcing a steep drop in earnings as the paper value of its investments plummeted and it pared its Apple holdings. The company reported a $12.7 billion profit, or $8.825 per Class A share, in first the quarter, down 64% from $35.5 billion, or $24,377 per A share a year ago. 

But Buffett encourages investors to pay more attention to the conglomerate’s operating earnings from the companies it owns. Those jumped 39% to $11.222 billion, or $7,796.47 per Class A share, led by insurance companies’ performance. 

None of that got in the way of the fun. 

Throngs flooded the arena to buy up Squishmallow plush toys of Buffett and former Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, who died last fall. The event attracts investors from around the world and is unlike any other company meeting. 

“This is one of the best events in the world to learn about investing. To learn from the gods of the industry,” said Akshay Bhansali, who spent the better part of two days traveling from India to Omaha. 

A notable absence 

Devotees come for tidbits of wisdom from Buffett, who famously dubbed the meeting Woodstock for Capitalists. 

This was the first meeting since Munger died. 

The meeting opened with a video tribute highlighting some of his best-known quotes, including classics like “If people weren’t so often wrong, we wouldn’t be so rich.” The video also featured skits the investors made with Hollywood stars over the years, including a “Desperate Housewives” spoof where one of the women introduced Munger as her boyfriend and another in which actress Jaimie Lee Curtis swooned over him. 

As the video ended, the arena erupted in a prolonged standing ovation honoring Munger, whom Buffett called “the architect of Berkshire Hathaway.” 

Buffett said Munger remained curious about the world up until the end of his life at 99, hosting dinner parties, meeting with people and holding regular Zoom calls. 

For decades, Munger and Buffett functioned as a classic comedy duo, with Buffett offering lengthy setups to Munger’s witty one-liners. 

Together, the pair transformed Berkshire from a floundering textile mill into a massive conglomerate made up of a variety of interests, from insurance companies such as Geico to BNSF railroad to several major utilities and an assortment of other companies. 

Next Gen leaders 

Munger’s absence, however, created space for shareholders to get to know better the two executives who directly oversee Berkshire’s companies: Ajit Jain, who manages the insurance units; and Abel, who handles everything else and has been named Buffett’s successor. The two shared the main stage with Buffett this year. 

The first time Buffett kicked a question to Greg Abel, he mistakenly said “Charlie?” Abel shrugged off the mistake and dove into the challenges utilities face from the increased risk of wildfires and some regulators’ reluctance to let them collect a reasonable profit. 

Morningstar analyst Greggory Warren said he believes Abel spoke up more Saturday and let shareholders see some of the brilliance Berkshire executives talk about. 

A look to the future 

Buffett has made clear that Abel will be Berkshire’s next CEO, but said Saturday that he had changed his opinion on how the company’s investment portfolio should be handled. He had previously said it would fall to two investment managers who handle small chunks of the portfolio now. On Saturday, Buffett endorsed Abel for the gig, as well as overseeing the operating businesses and any acquisitions. 

“He understands businesses extremely well, and if you understand businesses, you understand common stocks,” Buffett said. Ultimately, it will be up to the board to decide, but the billionaire said he might come back and haunt them if they try to do it differently. 

Nevertheless, the best applause line of the day was Buffett’s closing remark: “I not only hope that you come next year but I hope that I come next year.” 
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Sulaimaniyah, Iraq — Floods caused by torrential rainstorms have killed four hikers in the Sulaimaniyah region of northern Iraq, local officials told AFP. 

“Four members of a hiking team drowned because of heavy rains and flooding in Awaspi village” in the Qaradah district, local official Rouf Kamal said. 

Civil defense spokesperson Aram Ali confirmed the toll and said eight other hikers survived the incident south of Sulaimaniyah on Friday, the autonomous Kurdistan region’s second city. 

He said a weather warning was issued Thursday, with hikers particularly urged to avoid mountainous areas. 

Heavier than usual rainfall has caused flooding in several parts of Iraq, especially the north, and some roads in Kurdistan region capital Arbil were blocked. 

Iraq has suffered four consecutive years of drought, with irregular rainfall badly affecting water resources, forcing many farmers to abandon their land. 

But Ammer al-Jabiri, spokesperson for the weather service in Iraq, where the rainy season is generally from December to March, said precipitation in 2024 was “better than last year.” 
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ISLAMABAD — Pakistan has recorded its wettest April since 1961, with more than double the usual rainfall for the month, the national weather center said.

The country experienced days of extreme weather in April that killed scores of people and destroyed property and farmland. Experts said Pakistan witnessed heavier rains because of climate change.

Last month’s rainfall for Pakistan was a 164% increase from the usual level for April, according to a report published Friday by Pakistan’s national weather center.

The intense downpours affected the country’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the southwestern Baluchistan provinces the most.

Devastating summer floods in 2022 killed at least 1,700 people, destroyed millions of homes, wiped out swaths of farmland and caused billions of dollars in economic losses in a matter of months.

At one point, a third of the country was underwater. Pakistani leaders and many scientists worldwide blamed climate change for the unusually early and heavy monsoon rains.
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GENEVA — The World Meteorological Organization warns that Tropical Cyclone Hidaya, which is projected to make landfall in Tanzania and Kenya this weekend, threatens to worsen the humanitarian crisis triggered by torrential rains in these and other heavily flooded countries in East Africa.

“Hidaya is the first documented system to have reached tropical cyclone status in this part of the world. We are not talking about Sudan. We are talking about lower and East Africa,” WMO spokesperson Clare Nullis told journalists in Geneva on Friday.

“It is historically significant. It is also going to have a very big impact, and specifically on Tanzania, where the ground is already absolutely soddened. Tanzania, which has suffered flooding, is about to get hit with more heavy rains falling … from this system.

“And the moisture in this tropical cyclone will also impact Kenya, where there is also very, very bad flooding,” she said, noting that “climate change was supercharging extreme weather.”

El Nino, which sparked heavy rains and severe flooding sweeping East Africa, is waning. Despite this, the WMO says this weather event still carries a big punch and is leading to more heavy rainfall, devastating floods and landslides in the East African region.

While casualty figures continue to rise, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports this disaster so far has killed more than 400 people. This includes at least 210 in Kenya, more than 150 in Tanzania and others in Burundi, Rwanda and Somalia.

OCHA reports heavy rains and floods in these five countries have affected more than 637,000 people, including 234,000 who are displaced. It says governments and humanitarian agencies are still assessing the damage and destruction of infrastructure, which is extensive.

“In terms of economic losses, it is still too early to say. When you look at the images of bridges and roads being swept away, it is going to be immense,” said Nullis. “The loss of livestock, the disruption of agriculture. It is a huge, huge investment.”

In an address to his nation Friday, Kenyan President William Ruto outlined a series of measures to deal with this emergency, noting that no corner of the country “has been spared from this havoc.”

“Sadly, we have not seen the last of this perilous period, as this situation is expected to escalate,” he said. “Meteorological reports paint a dire picture. The rains will persist, increasing both in duration and intensity for the rest of this month and possibly after.”

While all those caught in this disastrous event are suffering immense hardships, the U.N. refugee agency expresses particular concern about the welfare of thousands of refugees and other displaced people “being forced to escape once again for their lives after their homes were washed away.”

“In Kenya, nearly 20,000 people in the Dadaab refugee camps, which host over 380,000 refugees, have been displaced due to the rising water levels,” said Olga Sarrado Mur, UNHCR spokesperson.

“Many of them are among those who arrived in the past couple of years after severe drought in neighboring Somalia. Some 4,000 people are currently sheltering in six schools with facilities that have been extensively damaged,” she said.

She noted that many of the tens of thousands of refugees in Tanzania, Burundi, and other hard-hit countries in the region have had to relocate multiple times as water levels continue to rise. She said many people are struggling to find shelter, to pay the rent, to earn enough money to feed themselves and their families.

“Climate change is making many parts of the world, especially in fragile regions like East Africa and the Horn of Africa, increasingly uninhabitable,” said Sarrado Mur.

“Storms are more devastating. Wildfires have become commonplace. Floods and droughts are intensifying. Some of these impacts are irreversible and threaten to continue worsening, and displaced people are bearing the brunt of the impact,” she said.

The WMO reports early warning systems are critical in saving lives before natural disasters strike. It says these systems are more crucial than ever to protect people from the extreme weather conditions stemming from human-induced climate change.

“So, on tropical cyclones, we do have very, very good warnings these days in most parts of the world that enable evacuations to take place,” said Nullis, underscoring that early warning systems enable “what we call anticipatory action, which is sort of prepositioning by humanitarian agencies of relief supplies.”

“Thanks to such actions, we have prevented a great loss of life in many regions of the world,” she said.

However, UNHCRs Sarrado Mur observed that “many of the preparations resulting from early warnings often do not reach the most vulnerable communities, including refugees or other displaced communities, which often are in areas that are more exposed to these climate hazards.”

She emphasized the importance of providing funding to vulnerable peoples and the communities hosting them, “so they can be equipped and be prepared, and so they can adapt to this new situation which is unfortunately the new reality.”
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DUESSELDORF, Germany — Herbert Rubinstein was 5 years old when he and his mother were taken from the Jewish ghetto of Chernivtsi and put on a cramped cattle wagon waiting to take them to their deaths. It was 1941, and Romanians collaborating with Germany’s Nazis were rounding up tens of thousands of Jews from his hometown in what is now southwestern Ukraine.

“It was nothing but a miracle that we survived,” Rubinstein told The Associated Press during a recent interview at his apartment in the western German city of Duesseldorf.

The 88-year-old Holocaust survivor is participating in a new digital campaign called #CancelHate. It was launched Thursday by the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, also referred to as the Claims Conference.

It features videos of survivors from around the globe reading Holocaust denial posts from different social media platforms. Each post illustrates how denial and distortion can not only rewrite history but perpetuate antisemitic tropes and spread hate.

“I could never have imagined a day when Holocaust survivors would be confronting such a tremendous wave of Holocaust denial and distortion, but sadly, that day is here,” said Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference.

“We all saw what unchecked hatred led to — words of hate and antisemitism led to deportations, gas chambers and crematoria,” Schneider added. “Those who read these depraved posts are putting aside their own discomfort and trauma to ensure that current and future generations understand that unchecked hatred has no place in society.”

The Claims Conference’s new digital campaign comes at a time when antisemitic incidents, triggered by Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on October 7 and Israel’s ensuing military campaign in Gaza, have increased from Europe to the U.S. and beyond, to levels not seen in decades, according to major Jewish organizations.

Hamas and other militants abducted around 250 people in the attack and killed around 1,200, mostly civilians. They are still believed to be holding around 100 hostages and the remains of some 30 others. The war has ground on with little end in sight: the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, displaced around 80% of the population and pushed hundreds of thousands of people to the brink of famine.

The war has inflamed tensions around the world and triggered pro-Palestinian protests, including at college campuses in the U.S. and elsewhere. Israel and its supporters have branded the protests as antisemitic, while critics of Israel say it uses such allegations to silence opponents.

The launch of the Claims Conference campaign also comes days before Yom HaShoah — Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day — on Monday.

In one of the videos, Rubinstein reads out a hate post — only to juxtapose it with his personal testimony about his family’s suffering during the Holocaust.

“‘We have all been cheated, lied to, and exploited. The Holocaust did not happen the way it is written in our history books,'” he reads and then says: “That is a lie. The Holocaust happened. Unfortunately, way too many members of my family died in the Holocaust.”

Rubinstein then continues to talk about his own persecution as a Jewish child during the Holocaust.

While forced into the ghetto of Cernisvtsi, his family managed to obtain forged Polish identity documents, which were the only reason he and his mother were taken off the cattle train in 1941.

They fled and hid in several eastern European countries until the war ended in 1945. After that, they briefly went back to his hometown, only to find out that his father, who had been forced into the Soviet Red Army during the war, had been killed. They moved on to Amsterdam, where his mother married again, and eventually settled in Duesseldorf.

“I lived through the Holocaust. Six million were murdered. Hate and Holocaust denial have returned to our society today. I am very, very sad about this and I am fighting it with all my might,” Rubinstein says at the end of the video. “Words matter. Our words are our power. Cancel hate. Stop the hate.”

Even at his old age, Rubinstein, who calls himself an optimist, says he will continue fighting antisemitism every single day. And he has a message, especially for the young generation of Jews.

“Don’t panic,” Rubinstein says. “The good will win. You just have to do something about it.”
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MEXICO CITY — If a woman wins Mexico’s presidency on June 2, would she rule with gender in mind?

The question has been raised by academics, humans rights organizations and activists ahead of the voting that will likely elect Mexico’s first female president for the term 2024-30.

Out of three candidates, the frontrunner is Claudia Sheinbaum, who has promised to keep President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s legacy on track. Next comes Xóchitl Gálvez, representing several opposition parties, one of which is historically conservative.

The triumph of Sheinbaum or Gálvez, however, would not guarantee their support for certain gender-related policies.

In a country of more than 98 million Catholics, neither of the two leading candidates has shared specific proposals on abortion. Both have suggested equality and protection measures for women amid a wave of violence and femicide.

Here’s a look at some of the challenges that Mexico’s next president would face regarding abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.

What’s the current abortion landscape?

Twelve of Mexico’s 32 states have decriminalized abortion, most of them in the past five years. One more will join them after its legislature complies with a recent court’s ruling, demanding a reform in its penal code.

A few more states allow abortion if the mother’s life is in danger, and it is legal nationwide if the pregnancy is the result of rape.

Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that national laws prohibiting abortions are unconstitutional and violate women’s rights. The ruling, which extended Latin America’s trend of widening abortion access, happened a year after the U.S. Supreme Court went in the opposite direction, overturning the 1973 ruling that established a nationwide right to abortion.

Although the Mexican ruling orders the removal of abortion from the federal penal code and requires federal health institutions to offer the procedure to anyone who requests it, further state-by-state legal work is pending to remove all penalties.

In most of the states where it has been decriminalized, abortion-rights activists say they face persistent challenges in trying to make abortion safe, accessible and government-funded.

To address restrictions and bans, dozens of volunteers — known as “acompañantes” — have developed a nationwide network to share information on self-managed medication abortions following guidelines established by the World Health Organization.

Could a new government strike down the constitutional right to abortion in Mexico?

Whoever wins, the next president would not directly affect abortion legislation, since each state has autonomy over its penal code.

However, the president could indeed have an impact as a moral authority among the members of his or her party, said Ninde Molina, lawyer at Abortistas MX, an organization specializing in abortion litigation strategies.

“Much of the governors’ behavior emulates what the president does,” Molina said.

She’s among the activists who worry that neither Sheinbaum nor Galvez have shared specific proposals addressing abortion, LGBTQ+ rights and the protection of migrants.

“Such lukewarm proposals send the message that these are not fundamental rights,” Molina said.

And though she wouldn’t immediately worry about a setback on abortion policy, the scenario would change if López Obrador or Sheinbaum manage to get the approval of a judiciary reform aiming to replace the current judges with new ones elected by popular vote.

“The court is also in danger,” Molina said. “People may find this (electing the judges) attractive, but they don’t realize what it entails.”

If, for example, an abortion case reaches the Supreme Court and its current composition has changed, then a setback could indeed happen, Molina said.

What do the conservatives think?

Isaac Alonso, from Viva México Movement, which supported right-wing activist Eduardo Verástegui’ s presidential aspirations, thinks that neither Sheinbaum nor Gálvez represent Mexico’s conservative interests.

In his ranks, he said, no one is in favor of criminalizing women who have abortions. But since they firmly believe that abortion is unjustifiable, they would hope for government policies that encourage births through improvements in the adoption system.

Rodrigo Iván Cortés, director of the National Family Front, an anti-abortion group, said the current administration could not be considered an ally. “Before 2018, abortion had only been approved in Mexico City,” he said.

“It is very relevant to say how the Supreme Court, under the leadership of Arturo Saldívar, had an ideological bias,” said Cortés about a judge who currently advises Sheinbaum.

Still, he said, despite who wins the elections, his organization will continue “to take care of the first and fundamental of rights: life.”

What’s needed to rule with a feminist perspective?

“Just because a woman wins does not guarantee a gender perspective at all,” said Pauline Capdevielle, an academic from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

“In fact, what we are seeing are strategies by conservative sectors to create a façade of feminism that opposes the feminist tradition.”

A true change, Capdevielle said, would start by integrating feminists into the government.

“It is not about putting women where there were none, but about politicizing these issues and really promoting a transformation.”

Some feminists have shown support for Sheinbaum, but both she and López Obrador have also received criticism for their lack of empathy towards women who protest against gender violence.

Amnesty International and other organizations have denounced excessive use of force against women during International Women’s Day protests and say that Mexican women’s right to protest has been stigmatized.

According to Capdevielle, some of the issues that need to be addressed in Mexico’s gender agenda are reproductive justice and women’s participation in political processes.

“The right to get an abortion must be consolidated,” she said. “It is far from being a reality for all women.”

Comprehensive sexual education, access to contraceptives and the rights of the LGBTQ+ community should be prioritized as well, Capdevielle said.

What about LGBTQ+ rights?

“The needs of this community are not likely to figure prominently in Mexico’s presidential elections,” said Cristian González Cabrera, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Gay and transgender populations are regularly attacked and killed in Mexico, a nation marked by its “macho” culture and highly religious population. Human rights organization Letra S documented more than 500 homicides of LGBTQ+ people in the last six years, 58 of them in 2023.

The latest deaths came in 2024, with the murder of three members of the transgender community. This group, along with migrants, are particularly vulnerable to attacks, Gonzalez Cabrera said.

“LGBT migrants continue to suffer abuse from criminal groups and Mexican officials,” he said. “Too often, these human rights violations are not effectively investigated or punished.”

Sheinbaum said in 2023 that, as Mexico City’s mayor, she created a special unit for trans people and said that her dream would be to continue fighting on behalf of sexual diversity, but did not go into specifics.

As for Gálvez, she showed support for women “from the sexual diversity,” but also did not delve into specifics.

González Cabrera highlights that since 2022 all Mexican states recognize same-sex marriage, but some LGBTQ+ rights are not yet guaranteed nationwide.

“There are 11 states where the legal recognition of gender identity for trans people is not possible through administrative means, despite a Supreme Court’s ruling recognizing this right,” he said.

For there to be an agenda in favor of the LGBTQ+ population, González Cabrera said, a government should approach the communities’ organizations to learn about their needs, allocate resources to address violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity, support LGBTQ+ migrants and encourage local governments to align their legislation with the court’s rulings on their rights.
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islamabad — Pakistan on Friday witnessed the launch of its first lunar satellite aboard China’s historic mission to retrieve samples from the little explored far side of the moon in a technologically collaborative mission that signals deepening ties between the countries.

China’s largest rocket, a Long March-5, blasted off from the Wencheng Space Launch Center on Hainan Island at 09:27 UTC, ferrying China’s 8-metric-ton Chang’e-6 probe.

If successful, the uncrewed mission will make China the first country to retrieve samples from the moon’s largely unexplored South Pole, also known as the “far side” of the moon that is not visible from Earth.

Chang’e-6 will spend 48 hours digging up 2 kilograms of surface samples before returning to a landing spot in Inner Mongolia.

In 2018, China achieved its first unmanned moon landing on the far side with the Chang’e-4 probe, which did not retrieve samples. India became the first country to land near the moon’s South Pole in August with its Chandrayaan-3.

Chang’e-6 is carrying cargo from Pakistan, Italy, France and the European Space Agency.

According to the Institute of Space Technology (IST) in Islamabad, Pakistan’s lunar cube satellite named ICUBE-Qamar (or ICUBE-Q for short) will be placed into lunar orbit within five days, circling the moon for three to six months, photographing the surface for research purposes.

IST engineers say ICUBE-Q is also designed to “obtain lunar magnetic field data; establish a lunar magnetic field model and lay the foundation for subsequent international cooperation on the moon.”

IST developed the iCUBE-Qamar satellite in collaboration with the country’s space agency SUPARCO and China’s Shanghai University. Qamar, which means moon in Urdu, is the nuclear-armed South Asian nation’s first mission in space.

The iCUBE-Q orbiter has two optical cameras that will gather images of the lunar surface.

‘Milestone’

The mission’s launch from China was carried live on Pakistan state television.

Calling it a “milestone,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said it would help the country build capacity in satellite communications and open new avenues for scientific research, economic development and national security, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Information.

The Pakistan-China friendship, Sharif said, has “gone beyond borders to reach space,” according to the official statement.

Beijing is one of Islamabad’s closest allies. Pakistan is home to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a multibillion-dollar development project that is part of Beijing’s Belt and Road global infrastructure initiative.

Pakistan’s navy in late April launched its first Hangor-class submarine, built jointly with China, with a ceremony in China’s Wuhan province.

According to the Washington-based U.S. Institute of Peace, Beijing is Islamabad’s leading supplier of conventional and strategic weapons platforms. China is also the dominant supplier of Pakistan’s higher-end offensive strike capabilities, the report found.

Some information for this report came from Reuters. 
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TAIPEI, Taiwan — China is preparing to launch a lunar probe Friday that would land on the far side of the moon and return with samples that could provide insights into geological and other differences between the less-explored region and the better-known near side.

The unprecedented mission would be the latest advance in the increasingly sophisticated and ambitious space exploration program that is now competing with the U.S., still the leader in space. China already landed a rover on the moon’s far side in 2019, the first country to do so.

Free from exposure to Earth and other interference, the moon’s somewhat mysterious far side is ideal for radio astronomy and other scientific work. Because the far side never faces Earth, a relay satellite is needed to maintain communications.

The Chang’e lunar exploration probe is named after the Chinese mythical moon goddess.

The probe is being carried on a Long March-5 YB rocket set for liftoff Friday evening from the Wenchang launch center on the southern tropical island province of Hainan, the China National Space Administration announced. The launch window is 5-6 p.m. with the target of 5:27 p.m.

Huge numbers of people crowded Hainan’s beaches to view the launch, which comes in the middle of China’s five-day May Day holiday.

After orbiting the moon to reduce speed, the lander will separate from the spacecraft and begin scooping up samples almost as soon as it sets down. It will then reconnect with the returner for the trip back to Earth. The entire mission is set to last 53 days.

China in 2020 returned samples from the moon’s near side, the first time anyone has done so since the U.S. Apollo program that ended in the 1970s. Analysis of the samples found they contained water in tiny beads embedded in lunar dirt.

Also in the past week, three Chinese astronauts returned home from a six-month mission on the country’s orbiting space station after the arrival of its replacement crew.

China built its own space station after being excluded from the International Space Station, largely because of U.S. concerns over the Chinese military’s total control of the space program amid a sharpening competition in technology between the two geopolitical rivals. U.S. law bars almost all cooperation between the U.S. and Chinese space programs without explicit congressional approval.

China’s ambitious space program aims to put astronauts on the moon by 2030, as well as bring back samples from Mars around the same year and launch three lunar probe missions over the next four years. The next is scheduled for 2027.

Longer-term plans call for a permanent crewed base on the lunar surface, although those appear to remain in the conceptual phase.

China conducted its first crewed space mission in 2003, becoming the third country after the former Soviet Union and the U.S. to put a person into space using its own resources.

The three-module Tiangong, much smaller than the ISS, was launched in 2021 and completed 18 months later. It can accommodate up to six astronauts at a time and is mainly dedicated to scientific research. The crew will also install space debris protection equipment, carry out payload experiments, and beam science classes to students on Earth.

China has also said that it eventually plans to offer access to its space station to foreign astronauts and space tourists. With the ISS nearing the end of its useful life, China could eventually be the only country or corporation to maintain a crewed station in orbit.

The U.S. space program is believed to still hold a significant edge over China’s due to its spending, supply chains and capabilities.

The U.S. aims to put a crew back on the lunar surface by the end of 2025 as part of a renewed commitment to crewed missions, aided by private sector players such as SpaceX and Blue Origin. They plan to land on the moon’s south pole where permanently shadowed craters are believed to be packed with frozen water.
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Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukraine has an AI-generated spokesperson called Victoria who will make official statements on behalf of its foreign ministry.

The ministry said on Wednesday that it would “for the first time in history” use a digital spokesperson to read its statements, which will still be written by humans.

Dressed in a dark suit, the spokesperson introduced herself as Victoria Shi, a “digital person,” in a presentation posted on social media.

The figure gesticulates with her hands and moves her head as she speaks.

The foreign ministry’s press service told AFP that the statements given by Shi would not be generated by AI but “written and verified by real people.”

“It’s only the visual part that the AI helps us to generate,” it said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the new spokesperson was a “technological leap that no diplomatic service in the world has yet made.”

The main reason for creating her was “saving time and resources” for diplomats, he said.

Shi’s creators are a team called The Game Changers who have also made virtual reality content related to the war in Ukraine.

The spokesperson’s name is based on the word victory and the Ukrainian for artificial intelligence: shtuchniy intelekt.

Shi’s appearance and voice are modeled on a real person: Rosalie Nombre, a singer and former contestant on Ukraine’s version of The Bachelor reality show.

Nombre was born in the now Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

She has 54,000 followers on her Instagram account, which she uses to discuss stereotypes about mixed-race Ukrainians and those who grew up as Russian speakers.

The ministry said that Nombre took part free of charge.

It stressed that Shi and Nombre “are two different people” and that only the AI figure gives official statements.

To avoid fakes, these will be accompanied by a QR code linking them to text versions on the ministry’s website.

Shi will comment on consular services, currently a controversial topic.

Ukraine last week suspended such services for men of fighting age living abroad, making it necessary for them to return to their country for administrative procedures and potentially face the draft. 
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phoenix — Democratic Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs has relegated a Civil War-era ban on most abortions to the past by signing a bill Thursday to repeal it. 

Hobbs said the move was just the beginning of a fight to protect reproductive health care in Arizona. The repeal of the 1864 law that the state Supreme Court recently reinstated won’t take effect until 90 days after the legislative session ends, which typically happens in June or July. 

Abortion rights advocates say they’re hopeful a court will step in to prevent what could be a confusing landscape of access for girls and women across Arizona as laws are introduced and then reversed. 

The effort to repeal the long-dormant law, which bans all abortions except those done to save a patient’s life, won final legislative approval Wednesday in a 16-14 vote of the Senate, as two GOP lawmakers joined with Democrats. 

Hobbs denounced “a ban that was passed by 27 men before Arizona was even a state, at a time when America was at war over the right to own slaves, a time before women could even vote.” 

“This ban needs to be repealed, I said it in 2022 when Roe was overturned, and I said it again and again as governor,” Hobbs said during the bill signing. 

In early April, Arizona’s Supreme Court voted to restore the 1864 law that provides no exceptions for rape or incest and allows abortions only if the mother’s life is in jeopardy. The majority opinion suggested doctors could be prosecuted and sentenced to up to five years in prison if convicted. 

Democrats, who are the minority in the Legislature, struck back with the help of a handful of Republicans in the House and Senate to advance a repeal in a matter of weeks to Hobbs’ desk. 

A crowd of lawmakers — mostly women — joined in the signing ceremony with celebratory airs, including taking selfies and exchanging congratulations among Democrats. 

The scene stood in sharp contrast to Wednesday’s vote in the Senate that extended for hours as Republicans described their motivations in personal, emotional and even biblical terms — including graphic descriptions of abortion procedures and amplified audio recordings of a fetal heartbeat. 

Meanwhile, across the country, an abortion rights initiative in South Dakota submitted far more signatures than required to make the ballot this fall. In Florida, a ban took effect against most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many people even know they are pregnant. 

In Arizona, once the repeal takes effect in the fall, a 2002 statute banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy will become the state’s prevailing abortion law. 

Whether the 1864 law will be enforced in the coming months depends on who is asked. The anti-abortion-rights group defending the ban, Alliance Defending Freedom, maintains county prosecutors can begin enforcing it once the Supreme Court’s decision becomes final, which hasn’t yet occurred. 

Planned Parenthood Arizona filed a motion Wednesday asking the court to prevent a pause in abortion services until the repeal takes effect. Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes has joined in that action. 

The Supreme Court set deadlines next week for briefings on the motion.
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NASA may soon have another way to get astronauts into space. Plus, the agency reconnects with an old friend and how to train a dog for a walk … on the moon. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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STAVANGER, Norway — A convicted sex offender is asking the Norwegian Supreme Court to declare social media access is a human right.

The case before the court Thursday involves a man who molested a minor and used the Snapchat messaging app to connect with young boys.

The unnamed offender was sentenced last year to 13 months in prison and banned from using Snapchat for two years.

His lawyers argue that depriving him of his account is unlawful under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case turns on how vital social media has become for freedom of expression, even though the court must decide the case through laws that predate such sites.

“The case raises important questions about the extent to which the state can restrict access to social media platforms, which are significant tools for exercising the right to freedom of expression and maintaining social connections,” defense lawyer John Christian Elden said.

A November 2023 appeal against the ban failed with the state successfully arguing the ban was “proportionately measured against the fact that the defendant has used Snapchat to exploit children sexually.” The Appeal Court added that he still had the right to use other social media. If the Supreme Court also upholds the decision, the offender could attempt to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

The European convention has been used before to test the limits on Norwegian justice. Anders Behring Breivik, the far-right extremist who murdered 77 people in 2011, lost a court challenge in February that argued being held in isolation while serving his prison sentence amounted to inhumane punishment under the convention.

Signatories to the ECHR agree to abide by 18 articles guaranteeing citizens rights including life, liberty and freedom of expression. Norway was the second country to ratify the convention in 1952, after the United Kingdom.

Snapchat, run by Snap Inc., allows users to send and receive messages that disappear once they are read. Users also can physically locate other users who opt in to location tracking.

Snap prohibits child sexual exploitation on the app but allows accounts to be create anonymously. In an email it said, “when we disable accounts for sexual exploitation and grooming behavior, we also take steps to block the associated device and other accounts connected to the user from creating another Snapchat account.”

Snap disabled 343,865 accounts connected with child sexual exploitation in the second half of 2023. It sanctioned 879 accounts in Norway though it is not clear how many of these were permanently disabled.

The Norwegian court will issue its ruling in the coming weeks.
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WASHINGTON — Hackers who breached UnitedHealth’s tech unit in February potentially stole data from a third of Americans, the largest U.S. health insurer’s CEO told a congressional committee on Wednesday.

Two congressional panels grilled CEO Andrew Witty about the cyberattack on the company’s Change Healthcare unit, which processes around 50% of all medical claims in the U.S.

The breach has caused widespread disruptions in claims processing, impacting patients and providers across the country.

Witty fielded heated questions from House Energy and Commerce Committee members about the company’s failure to prevent the breach and contain its fallout.

Pressed for details on the data compromised, Witty said protected health information and personally identifiable information pertaining to “maybe a third” of Americans was stolen.

“We continue to investigate the amount of data involved here,” he added. “We do think it’s going to be substantial.”

The cybercriminal gang AlphV hacked into Change on Feb. 12 using stolen login credentials on an older server that did not have multifactor authentication, Witty said.

“It was … a platform which had only recently become part of the company was in the process of being upgraded,” Witty said, referring to UnitedHealth’s $13 billion acquisition of Change in 2022.

The platform also did not have the security measures prescribed in a joint alert issued by the FBI and U.S. cyber and health officials in December 2023 to specifically warn about AlphV, or BlackCat, targeting healthcare organizations.

UnitedHealth paid the gang around $22 million in bitcoin as ransom, Witty said, adding that however there was no guarantee that the breached data was secure and could not still be leaked. Another hacking group claiming to be an offshoot of AlphV said last month it had a copy of the data, though the company has not verified that claim.

The Senate Finance Committee probed the outsized influence of UnitedHealth – which has a market capitalization of $445 billion and annual revenue of $372 billion – on American health care. But Witty said the company’s problems were not a threat to the broader economy.

Senator Bill Cassidy said senators on the panel “would have to ask, is the dominant role of United too dominant because it is into everything and messing up United messes up everybody?”

“My point is, the size of United becomes a it’s almost a too big to fail and sure, because if it fails, it’s going to bring down far more than it ordinarily would,” Cassidy said.

Witty said in response, “I don’t believe it is because actually despite our size, for example, we have no hospitals in America, we do not own any drug manufacturers.”

Yet, Change processes medical claims for around 900,000 physicians, 33,000 pharmacies, 5,500 hospitals and 600 laboratories in the U.S.

U.S. military members’ data was also stolen in the hack, Witty revealed, without saying how many of them were impacted.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden called the hack a national security threat.

“I believe the bigger the company, the bigger the responsibility to protect its systems from hackers. UHG was a big target long before it was hacked,” he added.

“UnitedHealth Group has not revealed how many patients’ private medical records were stolen, how many providers went without reimbursement, and how many seniors are unable to pick up their prescriptions as a result of the hack,” said Wyden.

In letters to both congressional committees, the American Hospital Association said an internal survey of its members found that 94% of hospitals reported damage to cash flow, and more than half reported “significant or serious” financial damage due to Change’s inability to process claims.

Similarly, 90% of respondents to an American Medical Association survey of doctors said they continue to lose revenue because of the hack, according to the group’s written testimony to the Senate Finance Committee.
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