Category: Silicon Valley

Chinese scientists have succeeded in growing kidneys containing human cells in pig embryos, a world first that could one day help address organ donation shortages.  

But the finding, published Thursday in a study in the journal Cell Stem Cell, raises ethical issues — especially since some human cells also were found in the pigs’ brains, experts said. 

The researchers from the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health focused on kidneys since they are the most commonly transplanted in human medicine. 

“Rat organs have been produced in mice, and mouse organs have been produced in rats, but previous attempts to grow human organs in pigs have not succeeded,” senior author Liangxue Lai said in a statement. 

“Our approach improves the integration of human cells into recipient tissues and allows us to grow human organs in pigs.” 

This is a different approach to the recent high-profile breakthroughs in the United States, where genetically modified pig kidneys and even a heart have been placed inside humans. 

The new research paper “describes pioneering steps in a new approach to organ bioengineering using pigs as incubators for growing and cultivating human organs,” said Dusko Ilic, a professor of stem cell sciences at King’s College London who was not involved in the research. 

Ilic cautioned there would be many challenges to turning the experiment into a viable solution, but “nevertheless, this captivating strategy warrants further exploration.” 

Gene editing 

A major challenge in creating such hybrids has been that pig cells outcompete human cells.

To overcome the obstacles, the team used CRISPR gene editing to delete two genes essential for kidneys to form inside a pig embryo, creating what’s called a “niche.”

They then added specially prepared human pluripotent stem cells — cells that have the potential to develop into any cell type — that filled the niche. 

Before implanting the embryos in sows, they grew them in test tubes containing substances that nourished both the human and pig cells. 

In total, they transferred 1,820 embryos into 13 surrogate mothers. The pregnancies were terminated at 25 and 28 days to assess how the experiment had worked. 

Five embryos selected for analysis were found to have functionally normal kidneys for their stage of development. They contained between 50 and 60 percent human cells. 

“We found that if you create a niche in the pig embryo, then the human cells naturally go into these spaces,” said co-author Zhen Dai. 

“We saw only very few human neural cells in the brain and spinal cord and no human cells in the genital ridge.” 

But the presence of any human cells in the pig brains raises concerns, said Darius Widera, a professor of stem cell biology at England’s University of Reading. 

“Although this approach is a clear milestone and the first successful attempt to grow whole organs containing human cells in pigs, the proportion of human cells in the generated kidneys is still not high enough,” he said. 

In the long run, the team wants to optimize its technology for use in human transplantation but admits it’s not ready yet. 

An important limitation was the kidneys had pig-derived vascular cells, which could cause rejection if transplanted into a human. 

Nevertheless, the team is already working on growing other human organs in pigs, such as the heart and pancreas.
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Russia’s cyber operations may not have managed to land the big blow that many Western officials feared following Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but Ukrainian cyber officials caution Moscow has not stopped trying.

Instead, Ukraine’s top counterintelligence agency warns that Russia continues to refine its tactics as it works to further ingrain cyber operations as part of their warfighting doctrine.

“Our resilience has risen a lot,” Illia Vitiuk, head of cybersecurity for the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), said Thursday at a cyber summit in Washington. “But the problem is that our counterpart, Russia, our enemy, is constantly also evolving and searching for new ways [to attack].”

Vitiuk warned that Moscow continues to launch between 10 and 15 serious cyberattacks per day, many of which show signs of being launched in coordination with missile strikes and other traditional military maneuvers.

“These are not some genius youngsters in search for easy money,” Vitiuk said. “These are people who are working on day-to-day basis and have orders from their military command to destroy Ukraine.”

Vitiuk said Russia has launched 3,000 cyberattacks against Ukraine so far this year, after carrying out 4,500 such attacks following its invasion in 2022.

In addition, he said Russian officials are targeting Ukraine with about 1,000 disinformation campaigns per month.

Last month, for example, the SBU uncovered and blocked a Russian malware plot that sought to infiltrate critical Ukrainian systems by using Android mobile devices captured from Ukrainian forces on the battlefield.

Russian officials routinely deny any involvement in cyberattacks, especially those aimed at civilian infrastructure.

But Russian denials have been met with skepticism in the West, and in the United States, in particular.

“The Russians are increasing their capability and their efforts in the cyber domain,” said CIA Deputy Director David Cohen, who spoke at the same conference in Washington.

“This is a pitched battle every day,” Cohen added, noting that the fight in cyberspace is far from one-sided.

“The Russians have been on the receiving end of a fair amount of cyberattacks being directed at them from a sort of a range of private sector actors,” he said. “There have been attacks on Russian government, some hack and leak attacks. There have been information space attacks on the TV and radio broadcasts.”

Both Washington and Kyiv agree Ukraine’s cyber defenses are holding, at least for now.

Vitiuk, though, expressed caution.

“This war is not a sprint, it’s a marathon,” he said. “Our enemy is evolving, and [there are] a lot of things we still need to do, and a lot of things we still need to adopt in order to make this victory come faster.”

Vitiuk also warned that Russia’s determination should not be taken lightly, pointing to Ukrainian intelligence showing that Moscow is looking for ways to expand the reach of its cyber operations against Kyiv.

“We clearly see that there is a national cyber offensive program,” Vitiuk said. “Now they implement offensive [cyber] disciplines in their higher education establishments under control of special services.”

“They start to teach students how to attack state systems, and it is extremely, extremely dangerous,” he said.
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Hurricane Lee whirled through open waters on Thursday as forecasters warned it could become the first Category 5 storm of the Atlantic season. 

Lee was not expected to make landfall while on a projected path that will take it near the northeast Caribbean, although forecasters said tropical storm conditions were possible on some islands. Meteorologists said it was too early to provide details on potential rainfall and wind gusts. 

The Category 4 hurricane was about 1,260 kilometers east of the northern Leeward Islands. It had winds of up to 215 kilometers per hour and was moving west-northwest at 24 kph. 

The storm was expected to grow even more powerful late Thursday and remain a major hurricane into next week. 

“Lee continues to strengthen at an exceptional rate,” the National Hurricane Center said. 

U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday was given the hurricane’s latest trajectory and details of preparations underway by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, which deployed unidentified assets to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the White House. 

Life-threatening surf was expected to hit the Lesser Antilles on Friday and reach the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, the Bahamas and Bermuda this weekend, the center said. 

“We will see waves between 10 and 15 feet [3 and 5 meters], so we don’t want anyone on the beaches,” said Ernesto Morales with the National Weather Service in San Juan, Puerto Rico. 

The National Hurricane Center said dangerous surf and rip currents were forecast for most of the U.S. East Coast starting Sunday. 

Lee is the 12th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30 and peaks in September. 

Tropical Storm Margot became the 13th named storm after forming on Thursday evening. It was about 465 kilometers west-northwest of the Cabo Verde Islands. It had winds of up to 65 kph and was forecast to strengthen into a hurricane over the weekend. It was moving west-northwest at 28 kph and was expected to remain over open water. 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in August forecast 14 to 21 named storms this season, with six to 11 of them expected to become hurricanes, and of those, two to five possibly developing into major hurricanes. 

In the Pacific, Hurricane Jova churned through open waters far from Mexico’s southwest coast as a Category 4 storm. It posed no threat to land. 

It was about 965 kilometers southwest of the southern tip of Baja California, and was moving west-northwest at 28 kph with winds up to 230 kph. The storm was expected to weaken starting late Thursday. 
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As delegates gather in Kenya for the inaugural Africa Climate Summit, seeking ways to combat the effects of climate change, activists are screening films illustrating the impacts of global warming in Africa and calling for climate justice for the continent. Juma Majanga reports from Nairobi. Camera — Amos Wangwa
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China is turning to artificial intelligence to rile up U.S. voters and stoke divisions ahead of the country’s 2024 presidential elections, according to a new report.

Threat analysts at Microsoft warned in a blog post Thursday that Beijing has developed a new artificial intelligence capability that can produce “eye-catching content” more likely to go viral compared to previous Chinese influence operations.

According to Microsoft, the six-month-long effort appears to use AI-generators, which are able to both produce visually stunning imagery and also to improve it over time.

“We have observed China-affiliated actors leveraging AI-generated visual media in a broad campaign that largely focuses on politically divisive topics, such as gun violence, and denigrating U.S. political figures and symbols,” Microsoft said.

“We can expect China to continue to hone this technology over time, though it remains to be seen how and when it will deploy it at scale,” it added.

China on Thursday dismissed Microsoft’s findings.

“In recent years, some western media and think tanks have accused China of using artificial intelligence to create fake social media accounts to spread so-called ‘pro-China’ information,” Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in an email. “Such remarks are full of prejudice and malicious speculation against China, which China firmly opposes.”

According to Microsoft, Chinese government-linked actors appear to be disseminating the AI-generated images on social media while posing as U.S. voters from across the political spectrum. The focus has been on issues related to race, economic issues and ideology.

In one case, the Microsoft researchers pointed to an image of the Statue of Liberty altered to show Lady Liberty holding both her traditional torch and also what appears to be a machine gun.

The image is titled, “The Goddess of Violence,” with another line of text warning that democracy and freedom is “being thrown away.”

But the researchers say there are clear signs the image was produced using AI, including the presence of more than five fingers on one of the statue’s hands. 

In any case, the early evidence is that the efforts are working.

“This relatively high-quality visual content has already drawn higher levels of engagement from authentic social media users,” according to a Microsoft report issued along with the blog post.

“Users have more frequently reposted these visuals, despite common indicators of AI-generation,” the report added.

Additionally, the Microsoft report says China is having Chinese state media employees masquerade as “as independent social media influencers.”

These influencers, who appear across most Western social media sites, tend to push out both lifestyle content and also propaganda aimed at localized audiences.

Microsoft reports the influencers have so far built a following of at least 103 million people in 40 languages.
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Japan launched a rocket Thursday carrying an X-ray telescope that will explore the origins of the universe as well as a small lunar lander.

The launch of the HII-A rocket from Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan was shown on live video by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, known as JAXA.

“We have a liftoff,” the narrator at JAXA said as the rocket flew up in a burst of smoke and then flew over the Pacific.

Thirteen minutes after the launch, the rocket put into orbit around Earth a satellite called the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, or XRISM, which will measure the speed and makeup of what lies between galaxies.

That information helps in studying how celestial objects were formed, and hopefully can lead to solving the mystery of how the universe was created, JAXA said.

In cooperation with NASA, JAXA will look at the strength of light at different wavelengths, the temperature of things in space and their shapes and brightness.

David Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute at Rice University, believes the mission is significant for delivering insight into the properties of hot plasma, or the superheated matter that makes up much of the universe.

Plasmas have the potential to be used in various ways, including healing wounds, making computer chips and cleaning the environment.

“Understanding the distribution of this hot plasma in space and time, as well as its dynamical motion, will shed light on diverse phenomena such as black holes, the evolution of chemical elements in the universe and the formation of galactic clusters,” Alexander said.

Also aboard the latest Japanese rocket is the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, a lightweight lunar lander. The Smart Lander won’t make lunar orbit for three or four months and would likely attempt a landing early next year, according to the space agency.

The lander successfully separated from the rocket about 45 minutes after the launch and proceeded on its proper track to eventually land on the moon. JAXA workers applauded and bowed with each other from their observation facility.

JAXA is developing “pinpoint landing technology” to prepare for future lunar probes and landing on other planets. While landings now tend to be off by about 10 kilometers (6 miles) or more, the Smart Lander is designed to be more precise, within about 100 meters (330 feet) of the intended target, JAXA official Shinichiro Sakai told reporters ahead of the launch.

That allows the box-shaped gadgetry to find a safer place to land.

The move comes at a time when the world is again turning to the challenge of going to the moon. Only four nations have successfully landed on the moon, the U.S., Russia, China and India.

Last month, India landed a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole. That came just days after Russia failed in its attempt to return to the moon for the first time in nearly a half century. A Japanese private company, called ispace, crashed a lander in trying to land on the moon in April.

Japan’s space program has been marred by recent failures. In February, the H3 rocket launch was aborted for a glitch. Liftoff a month later succeeded, but the rocket had to be destroyed after its second stage failed to ignite properly.

Japan has started recruiting astronaut candidates for the first time in 13 years, making clear its ambitions to send a Japanese to the moon.

Going to the moon has fascinated humankind for decades. Under the U.S. Apollo program, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon in 1969.

The last NASA human mission to the moon was in 1972, and the focus on sending humans to the moon appeared to wane, with missions being relegated to robots.
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Earth has sweltered through its hottest Northern Hemisphere summer ever measured, with a record warm August capping a season of brutal and deadly temperatures, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

Last month was not only the hottest August scientists ever recorded by far with modern equipment, it was also the second hottest month measured, behind only July 2023, WMO and the European climate service Copernicus announced Wednesday.

August was about 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial averages. That is the threshold that the world is trying not to pass, though scientists are more concerned about rises in temperatures over decades, not merely a blip over a month’s time.

The world’s oceans — more than 70% of the Earth’s surface — were the hottest ever recorded, nearly 21 C, and have set high temperature marks for three consecutive months, the WMO and Copernicus said.

“The dog days of summer are not just barking, they are biting,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “Climate breakdown has begun.”

So far, 2023 is the second hottest year on record, behind 2016, according to Copernicus.

Scientists blame ever warming human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas with an extra push from a natural El Nino, which is a temporary warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide. Usually an El Nino, which started earlier this year, adds extra heat to global temperatures but more so in its second year.

Climatologist Andrew Weaver said the numbers announced by WMO and Copernicus come as no surprise, bemoaning how governments have not appeared to take the issue of global warming seriously enough. He expressed concern that the public will just forget the issue when temperatures fall again.

“It’s time for global leaders to start telling the truth,” said Weaver, a professor at the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria in Canada. “We will not limit warming to 1.5 C; we will not limit warming to 2.0 C. It’s all hands on deck now to prevent 3.0 C global warming — a level of warming that will wreak havoc worldwide.”

Copernicus, a division of the European Union’s space program, has records going back to 1940, but in the United Kingdom and the United States, global records go back to the mid-1800s and those weather and science agencies are expected to soon report that the summer was a record-breaker.

“What we are observing, not only new extremes but the persistence of these record-breaking conditions, and the impacts these have on both people and planet, are a clear consequence of the warming of the climate system,” Copernicus Climate Change Service Director Carlo Buontempo said.

Scientists have used tree rings, ice cores and other proxies to estimate that temperatures are now warmer than they have been in about 120,000 years. The world has been warmer before, but that was before human civilization, seas were much higher and the poles were not icy.

So far, daily September temperatures are higher than what has been recorded before for this time of year, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer.

While the world’s air and oceans were setting records for heat, Antarctica continued to set records for low amounts of sea ice, the WMO said.

“Antarctic sea ice extent was literally off the charts, and the global sea surface temperature was once again at a new record,” WMO’s secretary-general, Petteri Taalas, said in a statement released to the media. “It is worth noting that this is happening BEFORE we see the full warming impact of the El Nino event, which typically plays out in the second year after it develops.”

A strong El Nino coincided with the all-time high temperatures in 2016. The U.N. weather agency earlier this year rolled out predictions that suggest Earth would within the next five years have a year that averages 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than in the mid-19th century. Each year at or near 1.5 matters.

It also predicted 98% chance of breaking the 2016 record between now and 2027.

The new readings on high global temperatures came as WMO released Wednesday its latest bulletin on air quality and climate, noting that extreme heat, compounded by wildfires and desert dust, has had a measurable impact on air quality, human health and the environment.

WMO scientific adviser Lorenzo Labrador lamented the deteriorating air quality around the globe and cited “record-breaking wildfire season” in many parts of the world, including western Canada and Europe.

“If heat waves increase as a result of El Nino, we may probably expect a further degradation in air quality as a whole,” he said. 
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Green hydrogen is being touted around the world as a clean energy solution to take the carbon out of high-emitting sectors like transport and industrial manufacturing.

The India-led International Solar Alliance launched the Green Hydrogen Innovation Centre earlier this year, and India itself approved $2.3 billion for the production, use and export of green hydrogen. Global cooperation on green hydrogen manufacturing and supply is expected to be discussed by G20 leaders at this week’s summit in New Delhi.

What is green hydrogen?

Hydrogen is produced by separating that element from others in molecules where hydrogen occurs. For example, water — well known by its chemical symbol of H20, or two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom — can be split into those component atoms through electrolysis.

Hydrogen has been produced and used at scale for over a century, primarily to make fertilizers and plastics and to refine oil. It has mostly been produced using fossil fuels, especially natural gas.

But when the production is powered by renewable energy, the resulting hydrogen is green hydrogen.

The global market for green hydrogen is expected to reach $410 billion by 2030, according to analysts, which would more than double its current market size.

However, critics say the fuel is not always viable at scale and its “green” credentials are determined by the source of energy used to produce it.

What can green hydrogen be used for?

Green hydrogen can have a variety of uses in industries such as steelmaking, concrete production and manufacturing chemicals and fertilizers. It can also be used to generate electricity, as a fuel for transport and to heat homes and offices. Today, hydrogen is primarily used in refining petrol and manufacturing fertilizers. While petrol would have no use in a fossil fuel-free world, emissions from making fertilizer — essential to grow crops that feed the world — can be reduced by using green hydrogen.

Francisco Boshell, an energy analyst at the International Renewable Energy Agency in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, is optimistic about green hydrogen’s role in the transition to clean energy, especially in cases where energy from renewables like solar and wind can’t practically be stored and used via battery — like aviation, shipping and some industrial processes.

He said hydrogen’s volatility — it is highly flammable and requires special pipelines for safe transport — means most green hydrogen will likely be used close to where it is made.

Are there doubts about green hydrogen?

That flammability plus transport issues limit hydrogen’s use in “dispersed applications” such as residential heating, according to a report by the Energy Transitions Commission, a coalition of energy leaders committed to net-zero emissions by 2050. It also is less efficient than direct electrification as some energy is lost when renewables are converted to hydrogen and then the hydrogen is converted again to power, the report said.

That report noted strong potential for hydrogen as an alternative to batteries for energy storage at large scale and for long periods.

Other studies have questioned the high cost of production, investment risks, greater need for water than other clean power and the lack of international standards that hinders a global market.

Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who also sits on New York’s Climate Action Council, said green hydrogen is being oversold in part due to lobbying by the oil and gas industry.

Boshell, of the International Renewable Energy Agency, disagreed. His organization has projected hydrogen demand will grow to 550 million tons by 2050, up from the current 100 million tons.

The International Renewable Energy Agency says production of hydrogen is responsible for around 830 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. Boshell said just replacing this so-called gray hydrogen — hydrogen produced from fossil fuels — would ensure a long-term market for green hydrogen.

“The first thing we have to do is start replacing the existing demand for gray hydrogen,” he said. “And then we can add additional demand and applications of green hydrogen as a fuel for industries, shipping and aviation.”
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Yuriy Fedorenko got his call sign Achilles for bravery and independence. Before the war, he was working full time as a Kyiv city council deputy; today, he is fighting against Russian forces in Donbas as commander of an attack drone squadron. Anna Kosstutschenko has his story. VOA footage by Pavel Suhodolskiy
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Researchers at Oregon State University have developed a process that uses polluted water to produce hydrogen while purifying the water at the same time. VOA’s Julie Taboh reports on advances in the fossil fuel alternative.
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Greece is working with Israel on developing artificial intelligence technology that would help in early detection of dangerous wildfires, the Greek prime minister said Monday.

After talks with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia, Kyriakos Mitsotakis also said that Israel could be brought into the European Union fold when it comes to civil protection initiatives to better coordinate firefighting efforts.

Israel and Cyprus are among several countries that have dispatched firefighting aircraft and crews to help battle wildfires in Greece that consumed vast tracts of forest over the last two months, including the EU’s largest such blaze on record that claimed the lives of 20 people.

Mitsotakis said Greece could act as a proving ground for Israeli AI technology in the early detection of wildfires.

“We are already talking to Israel about AI-based solutions that will offer us early detection capabilities,” added Mitsotakis.

Netanyahu said the three leaders discussed “going well beyond” dispatching firefighting aircraft and crews by deploying AI systems for early detection.

“This is really one of those areas where when we say we’ll do it better together, there’s no question that that’s the case,” Netanyahu said.

The three leaders said they delved into how to harness recent natural gas discoveries in Israeli and Cypriot waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Netanyahu said decisions on how Israel and Cyprus will export natural gas to foreign markets will have to be made within the next three to six months.

Israel and Cyprus are looking into plans for a pipeline that would convey offshore natural gas from both countries to the east Mediterranean island nation where it would be liquefied for export by ship.

“We agreed that natural gas and renewable energy is a prime pillar of cooperation in the region, especially in light of the recent geopolitical developments and energy insecurity, especially in Europe, dictating the need for energy diversification and increase interconnectivity,” Christodoulides said.

Another project the three leaders expressed keen interest in was an undersea electricity cable stretching 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) that would link the power grids of Israel, Cyprus and mainland Greece.

“That’s something that we’re eagerly interested in pursuing, and we discussed … [including] the mechanism of how to advance this,” said Netanyahu.

Energy has been the focus of a series of ongoing meetings between the three leaders to deepen their countries’ ties since 2016, which Mitsotakis said reflected their importance on the political, economic and other levels.
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Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced Monday a 20.7 billion yen ($141 million) emergency fund to help exporters hit by a ban on Japanese seafood imposed by China in response to the release of treated radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant.

The discharge of the wastewater into the ocean began Aug. 24 and is expected to continue for decades. Japanese fishing associations and groups in neighboring countries have strongly opposed the release, and China immediately banned all imports of Japanese seafood. Hong Kong has banned Japanese seafood from Fukushima and nine other prefectures.

Chinese trade restrictions have affected Japanese seafood exporters since even before the release began, with shipments held up at Chinese customs for weeks. Prices of scallops, sea cucumbers and other seafood popular in China have plunged. The ban has affected prices and sales of seafood from places as far away from Fukushima as the northern island of Hokkaido, home to many scallop growers.

Kishida said the emergency fund is in addition to 80 billion yen ($547 million) that the government previously allocated to support fisheries and seafood processing and combat damage to the reputation of Japanese products.

“We will protect the Japanese fisheries industry at all costs,” Kishida said, asking people to help by serving more seafood at dinner tables and other ways.

The money will be used to find new markets for Japanese seafood to replace China and fund government purchases of seafood for temporary freezing and storage. The government will also seek to expand domestic seafood consumption.

Officials said they plan to cultivate new export destinations in Taiwan, the United States, Europe, the Middle East and some southeast Asian countries — such as Malaysia and Singapore.

Kishida talked with workers at Tokyo’s Toyosu fish market last Friday to assess the impact of China’s ban and pledged to protect Japan’s seafood industry.

Kishida heads to Indonesia Tuesday to attend the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, where he may face criticism over the wastewater release from Chinese Premier Li Qian, who is also attending.

Large amounts of radioactive wastewater have accumulated at the Fukushima plant since a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 destroyed its cooling systems and caused three reactors to melt.

All seawater and fish samples taken since the release of the treated wastewater began have been way below set safety limits for radioactivity, Japanese officials and the plant operator say.

Mainland China is the biggest overseas market for Japanese seafood, accounting for 22.5% of the total, followed by Hong Kong with 20%, making the ban a major blow for the fisheries industry.

Seafood exports are a fraction of Japan’s total exports, and the ban’s impact on overall trade will be limited unless tensions escalate and China widens its restrictions to other trade sectors, said Takahide Kiuchi, executive economist at Nomura Research Institute.

Beijing is angry over U.S. trade controls that limit China’s access to semiconductor processor chips and other U.S. technology on security grounds. Japan has also curbed exports of chipmaking technology. Such restrictions imposed by Tokyo and possible future steps could cause an escalation of Chinese trade bans against Japan, Kiuchi said.

“Taking into consideration such risks, the Japanese government needs to carefully think about how to deal with worsening ties with China, not just over the treated water discharge but also how it should cooperate with the United States in areas of investment and trade restrictions with China,” Kiuchi said in a recent analysis.
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Nuclear fusion has excited scientists for decades with its potential to produce abundant carbon-free energy. In the Pacific Northwest state of Washington, one startup is hoping to win the race to develop the technology that finally makes that power available to consumers. From Seattle, Phil Dierking has our story. (Camera and Produced by: Philip Dierking)
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One of the world’s biggest auto shows opened in Munich on Monday, with Tesla ending a 10-year absence to jostle for the spotlight with Chinese rivals as the race for electric dominance heats up.  

Chancellor Olaf Scholz will officially inaugurate the IAA mobility show, held in Germany every two years, on Tuesday.  

But carmakers used Monday’s press preview as an early chance to show off some of the new models that will be hitting the road soon.  

The industry-wide shift towards electric vehicles will be front and center at this week’s fair, with Chinese carmakers out in force as they eye the European market.  

U.S. electric car pioneer Tesla, owned by Elon Musk, will return to the IAA for the first time since 2013 and is expected to unveil a revamped version of its mass-market Model 3.  

That Tesla, usually a holdout at such events, is coming to Munich shows it is taking the growing competition seriously, said Jan Burgard from the Berylls automotive consulting group.  

“The electric car market with its many new players will be divvied up over the next few years and people want to know: who is offering what?” Burgard told the Handelsblatt financial daily.  

Having captured an increasingly large part of the prized Chinese market, Chinese upstarts are now hoping to win over European customers with cheaper electric cars.  

Chinese manufacturers are starting “their assault on Europe with the IAA”, said industry analyst Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer from the Center Automotive Research in Germany.  

Muted European presence

Chinese groups benefit from lower production costs, allowing them to offer cut-throat prices at a time when entry-level EVs are still a rarity.  

Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Kallenius said it was necessary for European firms to stay competitive in the face of stiff competition.  

“Don’t make it worse. Don’t start a debate that we should work less hours at the same pay, those types of things. That would be going the wrong direction,” Kallenius told reporters at the IAA on Sunday.  

Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume meanwhile said he was “impressed” by the speed at which China had advanced its electric car technology.

He added that it was “crucial” for VW to succeed in China’s domestic EV market — where it is currently lagging far behind China’s BYD and Tesla.  

“The more electric cars we have, the more we can benefit from economies of scale,” Blume said.

In all, 41% of exhibitors at the industry fair have their headquarters in China, including brands such as BYD, Leapmotor and Geely.  

Contrary to the Asian onslaught, participation from European carmakers at the IAA will be muted.  

Germany’s homegrown champions Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz will be joined by Renault from France, but the 14-brand Stellantis Group will only be represented by Opel.  

BMW presented its “Neue Klasse” (New Class) generation of electric cars in Munich on Saturday, a series of six vehicles that will be manufactured from 2025.  

European automakers are investing heavily in the switch towards zero-emission driving as the European Union aims to end the sale of polluting combustion engine cars by 2035.  

The historic transition comes at a challenging time.  

While the supply chain problems caused by the pandemic have eased, surging energy prices in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine and a weaker global economy are weighing on European manufacturers.

Although car sales in the EU have steadily improved over the last 12 months, they remain around 20 percent below their pre-pandemic levels as inflation and higher interest rates dampen appetites for new vehicles.  

Climate protests

Some 700,000 visitors are expected to attend this week’s IAA.  

Climate groups have vowed to stage protests, including acts of “civil disobedience” aimed at disrupting the fair.   

On Monday morning, Greenpeace activists submerged three cars in a small lake outside the convention center.   

“The car industry continues to rely on too many cars, that are too big and too heavy. It’s sinking the planet with that business model,” Greenpeace spokeswoman Marissa Reiserer told AFP.
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A California tech startup is using artificial intelligence, or AI, to mask the accents of call center workers to reduce discrimination, but some say diversity is being erased. Matt Dibble has the story.
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With their outsized ears and fluffy fur, rabbits are often seen as cute and harmless. Yet the creature is behind one of the globe’s most harmful biological invasions, ravaging Australia, whose efforts to limit the problem have tended only to make things worse. 

Back in 1859, a mere 24 European breeding rabbits, scientific name Oryctolagus cuniculus, disembarked from England, brought over by Thomas Austin, who enjoyed hunting parties on his Victoria estate.  

But 150 years on, and according to a 2022 study by PNAS, a peer reviewed journal of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, some 200 million rabbit colonizers now roam the land of the kangaroo, devouring vegetation as they go, laying waste to native plant species, causing habitat degradation and threatening the survival of numerous native species. 

With as many as seven annual litters — each with an average of five offspring who reach sexual maturity from the age of 3-4 months — the rabbit can spread its presence very quickly. 

From its early years Down Under, the creature benefited from the general absence of predators and its ability to adapt to its new climate. 

That enabled it to spread out by some 110 kilometers (65 miles) a year. Within 70 years, it had occupied around 70 percent of Australia’s land mass.  

That made it “the fastest known invasion by a mammal anywhere in the world,” according to a report by Australia’s national science agency CSIRO.   

Counting the cost   

The rabbit may look small and placid — yet it is voracious in the extreme. Herbs, bulbs, seeds, shrubs — its appetite extends to all kinds of herbaceous plant. This contributes to desertification of the outback, deprives other species of food and also eats away at crops. 

The agricultural and horticultural damage wrought by the critters comes in at some 200 million Australian dollars ($130 million) each year, according to the Western Australian ministry for agriculture and food. 

As such, for more than a century now, the authorities have been doing all they can to try to limit the damage. 

Intensive hunting, traps, bulldozers to destroy burrows, poison or even explosives — everything has been tried. But the rabbit has resisted, and its numbers have progressed. 

In 1901, Australia decided to construct an 1,800 kilometer-long (1,118 miles) barrier in a bid to stop the furry creatures proliferating to the country’s western agricultural lands. 

Yet by the time construction was completed, rabbits had already reached the other side. An extension followed, then another, taking the fence to beyond 3,000 km (about 1864 miles) of barriers and fences. All in vain.  

Australia tried plan B — introducing predators, such as the fox. 

The “cure” proved to be worse than the disease. It turned out the fox preferred to target easier prey such as small marsupials — endemic to the country and already threatened with extinction. 

Classic cases  

In the 1950s, science was recruited to come to the rescue. 

The myxomatosis virus, a disease which causes fatal tumors in rabbits, was introduced into the country. To begin with, success looked to have been achieved, the rabbit population going from 600 million down to 100 million. But it managed to adapt and ended up developing resistance to a virus which gradually became ineffective. 

Australia tried a new angle of attack some years later: the Spanish flea, supposed to spread disease among rabbits. 

Again, the plan failed. Worse still, the parasite infected other species. 

In 1995, a new attempt at eradication followed, via a hemorrhagic fever virus, which ended up worrying the scientific community amid fears it might mutate. 

Very effective against rabbits, this highly contagious pathogen can further spread quickly to other countries via mosquitoes. Two years later, it arrived in New Zealand, likewise also laboring under a rabbit invasion. 

If Australia thought that might have been a price worth paying, there would soon be disabused. 

The stoat, introduced as a predator to the rabbit left deprived as the population dropped, fell back on targeting the kiwi, a bird endemic to the island which became threatened in turn. 

Both Australia and New Zealand represent classic cases in terms of what not to do regarding the introduction and management of invasive species, says Elaine Murphy, principal scientist at New Zealand’s Department of Conservation and an expert on introduced mammals and the threats to diversity they pose. 

While rabbit numbers look to have stabilized, now under 300 million — the Australian government says it is maintaining research into means of permanently stemming the propagation problem. 
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Cambodia’s ex-leader Hun Sen returned to Facebook on Sunday, claiming the social media giant had “rendered justice” to him by refusing to suspend his account after he posted violent threats on the platform.

In a post, Hun Sen said Facebook had rejected a recommendation from its Oversight Board to suspend his account after he had posted a video threatening to beat up his rivals.

It is the latest twist in a months-long row that has seen the prolific user quit Cambodia’s most popular social media site, deactivate his account, and threaten to ban the platform.

“I have decided to use Facebook again… after Facebook rejected recommendations of a group of bad people and rendered justice to me,” he wrote on Sunday, referencing the Oversight Board.

Hun Sen’s hugely popular page — which has around 14 million followers — was reactivated in July, but his social media assistant claimed to be running it in his place at the time.

Facebook’s parent company Meta did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.

Suspension row

The row kicked off in June when the platform’s Oversight Board recommended that Hun Sen’s Facebook and Instagram accounts be suspended for six months due to a video he posted in January.

In the clip, he told opponents they would face legal action or a beating with sticks if they accused his party of vote theft during elections in July.

The Oversight Board’s recommendation prompted a furious reaction from the then-leader, who banned Facebook representatives from the country and blacklisted more than 20 members of the board.

However, on Sunday, Hun Sen said the ministry of telecommunications would allow Facebook representatives to return to work in Cambodia — although the ban on members of the Oversight Board remained.

The move comes after the country’s parliament elected Hun Sen’s son Hun Manet as the new prime minister last month.

Hun Sen, who ruled Cambodia for nearly four decades, has publicly said that he will continue to dominate the country’s politics, serving in other positions until at least 2033.        
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The news lit up the world of weed: U.S. health regulators are suggesting that the federal government loosen restrictions on marijuana.

Specifically, the federal Health and Human Services Department has recommended taking marijuana out of a category of drugs deemed to have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” The agency advised moving pot from that “Schedule I” group to the less tightly regulated “Schedule III.”

So what does that mean, and what are the implications? Read on.

First of all, what has actually changed? What happens next?

Technically, nothing yet. Any decision on reclassifying — or “rescheduling,” in government lingo — is up to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which says it will take up the issue. The review process is lengthy and involves taking public comment.

Still, the HHS recommendation is “paradigm-shifting, and it’s very exciting,” said Vince Sliwoski, a Portland, Oregon-based cannabis and psychedelics attorney who runs well-known legal blogs on those topics.

“I can’t emphasize enough how big of news it is,” he said.

It came after President Joe Biden asked both HHS and the attorney general, who oversees the DEA, last year to review how marijuana was classified. Schedule I put it on par, legally, with heroin, LSD, quaaludes and ecstasy, among others.

Biden, a Democrat, supports legalizing medical marijuana for use “where appropriate, consistent with medical and scientific evidence,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday. “That is why it is important for this independent review to go through.”

So if marijuana gets reclassified, would it legalize recreational pot nationwide?

No. Schedule III drugs — which include ketamine, anabolic steroids and some acetaminophen-codeine combinations — are still controlled substances.

They’re subject to various rules that allow for some medical uses, and for federal criminal prosecution of anyone who traffics in the drugs without permission. (Even under marijuana’s current Schedule I status, federal prosecutions for simply possessing it are few: There were 145 federal sentencings in fiscal year 2021 for that crime, and as of 2022, no defendants were in prison for it.)

It’s unlikely that the medical marijuana programs now licensed in 38 states — to say nothing of the legal recreational pot markets in 23 states — would meet the production, record-keeping, prescribing and other requirements for Schedule III drugs.

But rescheduling in itself would have some impact, particularly on research and on pot business taxes.

What would this mean for research?

Because marijuana is on Schedule I, it’s been very difficult to conduct authorized clinical studies that involve administering the drug. That has created something of a Catch-22: calls for more research, but barriers to doing it. (Scientists sometimes rely instead on people’s own reports of their marijuana use.)

Schedule III drugs are easier to study.

In the meantime, a 2022 federal law aimed to ease marijuana research.

What about taxes (and banking)?

Under the federal tax code, businesses involved in “trafficking” in marijuana or any other Schedule I or II drug can’t deduct rent, payroll or various other expenses that other businesses can write off. (Yes, at least some cannabis businesses, particularly state-licensed ones, do pay taxes to the federal government, despite its prohibition on marijuana.) Industry groups say the tax rate often ends up at 70% or more.

The deduction rule doesn’t apply to Schedule III drugs, so the proposed change would cut pot companies’ taxes substantially.

They say it would treat them like other industries and help them compete against illegal competitors that are frustrating licensees and officials in places such as New York.

“You’re going to make these state-legal programs stronger,” says Adam Goers, an executive at medical and recreational pot giant Columbia Care. He co-chairs a coalition of corporate and other players that’s pushing for rescheduling.

Rescheduling wouldn’t directly affect another pot business problem: difficulty accessing banks, particularly for loans, because the federally regulated institutions are wary of the drug’s legal status. The industry has been looking instead to a measure called the SAFE Banking Act. It has repeatedly passed the House but stalled in the Senate.

Are there critics? What do they say?

Indeed, there are, including the national anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana. President Kevin Sabet, a former Obama administration drug policy official, said the HHS recommendation “flies in the face of science, reeks of politics” and gives a regrettable nod to an industry “desperately looking for legitimacy.”

Some legalization advocates say rescheduling weed is too incremental. They want to keep focus on removing it completely from the controlled substances list, which doesn’t include such items as alcohol or tobacco (they’re regulated, but that’s not the same).

National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Deputy Director Paul Armentano said that simply reclassifying marijuana would be “perpetuating the existing divide between state and federal marijuana policies.” Minority Cannabis Business Association President Kaliko Castille said rescheduling just “re-brands prohibition,” rather than giving an all-clear to state licensees and putting a definitive close to decades of arrests that disproportionately pulled in people of color.

“Schedule III is going to leave it in this kind of amorphous, mucky middle where people are not going to understand the danger of it still being federally illegal,” he said.
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