Mar102022 TechmanNo Comments

Ukrainian Charged in Ransomware Spree Is Extradited to US

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A Ukrainian man charged last year with conducting one of the most severe ransomware attacks against U.S. targets has been extradited to the United States and made a court appearance Wednesday, the U.S. Justice Department said. According to an August 2021 indictment, Yaroslav Vasinskyi accessed the internal computer networks of several victim companies and deployed Sodinokibi/REvil ransomware to encrypt the data on their computers, the Justice Department said in a statement. Vasinskyi was allegedly responsible for the July 2021 ransomware attack against Florida software provider Kaseya, the department said. Reuters could not reach a representative of Vasinskyi. Kaseya did not immediately return a message seeking comment. The Ukrainian national was accused in the indictment of breaking into Kaseya over the July 4 weekend last year and simultaneously distributing with accomplices…
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Mar92022 TechmanNo Comments

US House Lawmakers Urge Department of Justice to Investigate Amazon

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A bipartisan group of lawmakers has written a letter asking the Department of Justice to determine whether online retailer Amazon engaged in obstruction of Congress during an investigation of the company's competitive practices.  The letter said the company had "engaged in a pattern and practice of misleading conduct" that suggested it had sought to influence or obstruct an investigation into how it operates.  The House Judiciary Committee conducted a 16-month probe into how Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook operated.  During the investigation, lawmakers focused on Amazon's use of private-label products and collection of third-party data.  Amazon allegedly copied popular products in India and then manipulated search results to increase the sales of its own products, Reuters reported.  The committee's letter to DOJ alleges Amazon made untrue or misleading statements when…
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Mar92022 DmediaNo Comments

WHO Concerned About Drop in COVID-19 Testing

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The World Health Organization expressed concern Wednesday that many countries are drastically reducing COVID-19 testing, inhibiting the ability of public health professionals to monitor where the coronavirus is, how it’s spreading and how it’s evolving. During a briefing at agency headquarters in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that while cases and deaths were declining globally and many countries had lifted restrictions, the pandemic was far from over, “and it will not be over anywhere until it’s over everywhere.” Tedros said the WHO on Wednesday published new guidelines on self-testing for COVID-19 and recommended that self-tests be offered in addition to professionally administered testing services. He said evidence showed that users can reliably and accurately self-test, and that self-testing may reduce inequalities in testing access. The WHO chief said…
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Mar92022 DmediaNo Comments

Recipient of Pig Heart Transplant Dies After Two Months

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A man who received the first heart transplant from a pig two months ago has died, the University of Maryland Medical Center said Wednesday.  Doctors did not say the specific reason David Bennett, 57, died Tuesday, only saying his condition had been worsening over the past several days.  "We are grateful for every innovative moment, every crazy dream, every sleepless night that went into this historic effort," Bennett's son, David Bennett Jr., said in a statement released by the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "We hope this story can be the beginning of hope and not the end."  Prior to the January 7 transplant, Bennett had been in poor health and was ineligible for a human heart.  Organ transplants from animals — xenotransplantation — have largely failed because the…
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Mar82022 DmediaNo Comments

WHO Says COVID Boosters Needed, Reversing Previous Call

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An expert group convened by the World Health Organization said Tuesday it "strongly supports urgent and broad access" to booster doses, in a reversal of the U.N. agency's previous insistence that boosters weren't necessary and contributed to vaccine inequity. In a statement, WHO said its expert group concluded that immunization with authorized COVID-19 vaccines provide high levels of protection against severe disease and death amid the global circulation of the hugely contagious omicron variant. It said vaccination, including the use of boosters, was especially important for people at risk of severe disease. Last year, WHO's director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for a moratorium on booster doses while dozens of countries embarked on administering the doses, saying rich countries should immediately donate those vaccines to poor countries instead. WHO scientists said…
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Mar82022 DmediaNo Comments

Study: COVID-19 Can Cause Brain Shrinkage, Memory Loss

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COVID-19 can cause the brain to shrink, reduce grey matter in the regions that control emotion and memory, and damage areas that control the sense of smell, an Oxford University study has found. The scientists said that the effects were even seen in people who had not been hospitalized with COVID, and whether the impact could be partially reversed or if they would persist in the long term needed further investigation. "There is strong evidence for brain-related abnormalities in COVID-19," the researchers said in their study, which was released on Monday. Even in mild cases, participants in the research showed "a worsening of executive function" responsible for focus and organizing, and on an average brain sizes shrank between 0.2% and 2%. The peer-reviewed study, published in the Nature journal, investigated…
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Mar82022 DmediaNo Comments

As Hershey Raises Prices, Ivory Coast Cocoa Farmers Grapple With Climate Change

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Chocolate makers are expected to raise prices this year due to higher costs of cocoa from exporters like Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer. Hershey, the largest producer of chocolate products in the United States, said last month it will raise prices on its products across the board due to the rising cost of ingredients.    Meanwhile, chocolate makers like Dana Mroueh said they are seeing cocoa prices rise in Ivory Coast, the world's biggest cocoa producer.   "We've noticed the price of cocoa is going up these few years, especially organic cocoa. So, from the beginning to today, those five years, we can say the price has risen 20 percent," Mroueh said.   Demand for chocolate in America increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, and cocoa producers in Ivory…
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Mar82022 DmediaNo Comments

Amazon Rainforest Nears Climate ‘Tipping Point’ Faster Than Expected

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Hammered by climate change and relentless deforestation, the Amazon rainforest is losing its capacity to recover and could irretrievably transition into savannah, with dire consequences for the region and the world, according to a study published Monday.    Researchers warned that the findings mean the Amazon could be approaching a so-called tipping point faster than previously understood.     Analyzing 25 years of satellite data, researchers measured for the first time the Amazon's resilience against shocks such as droughts and fires, a key indicator of overall health.  Resilience has declined across more than three-quarters of the Amazon basin, home to half the world's rainforest, the researchers reported in the journal Nature Climate Change.  In areas hit hardest by destruction or drought, the forest's ability to bounce back was reduced by…
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Mar82022 DmediaNo Comments

Baby Gets Heart Transplant With a Twist to Fight Rejection

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Duke University doctors say a baby is thriving after a first-of-its-kind heart transplant — one that came with a bonus technique to try to help prevent rejection of the new organ. The thymus plays a critical role in building the immune system. Doctors have wondered if implanting some thymus tissue that matched a donated organ might help it survive without the recipient needing toxic anti-rejection medicines. Easton Sinnamon of Asheboro, North Carolina, received his unique transplant last summer when he was 6 months old. But Duke waited to announce it until Monday after doctors learned the specially processed thymus implants appear to be functioning like they'd hoped -- producing immune cells that don't treat the tot's new heart like foreign tissue. Doctors eventually will try weaning Easton off the immune-suppressing drugs…
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Mar72022 DmediaNo Comments

Afghanistan Faces Return to Highest Maternal Mortality Rates

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Afghanistan faces a serious risk of backtracking to its notoriously high maternal mortality rates because of sudden drops in foreign funding, a shortage of health care workers, mobility restrictions and worsening poverty, health professionals have told VOA.   More than 1,600 Afghan mothers were dying for every 100,000 live births in 2001. With strong technical and financial support from donors, the country reduced the rate to about 640 deaths by 2018.   Donors were spending about $1 billion annually on Afghanistan's health sector, but all development funding ceased immediately when the Taliban returned to power in August.   The abrupt funding shortage crippled the country's donor-dependent public health system amid a global pandemic and a nearly universal poverty rate in the country.   By September 2021, more than 80% of…
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Mar62022 DmediaNo Comments

Malawi Moves to Reduce Rise in Pangolin Trafficking 

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Trafficking in pangolins continues to rise in Malawi as the country registers a drop in ordinary wildlife crime, such as trafficking in elephant tusks and rhino horns. Wildlife authorities say pangolin-related arrests in Malawi more than tripled between 2019 and 2020. Police in Malawi say a month rarely passes with no pangolin-related arrest. Authorities fear this may lead to extinction of the endangered mammals. The latest is the arrest last Thursday of five people in Mangochi district, in the south of Malawi after they were found selling a live pangolin. “The four suspects are Malawian while their accomplice is a well-known businessman from Pakistan," said Ameena Tepani Daudi, who speaks for the police in the district. "The five were arrested at the Pakistan national’s house following a tip from members…
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Mar52022 DmediaNo Comments

Will COVID Mutate in Animals and Jump Back to Humans?

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A new variant of the coronavirus found in white-tailed deer in Canada was later discovered in a person who lived nearby and had contact with the deer population, according to a recent study. The researchers say it’s possible the deer transmitted the virus to the human. Emerging evidence that COVID-19 is gaining a foothold in wildlife could have negative long-term consequences for humans, according to Nükhet Varlik, associate professor of history at Rutgers University-Newark. “Even if we managed to vaccinate the entire human population, the disease can still come back — from the animals back to us — which is, in fact, what happened with some of the other historical pandemics,” Varlik says. “So, in the long term, I don't think COVID can be eradicated, to be honest.” Six out…
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Mar52022 TechmanNo Comments

To Fight Its War, Russia Closing Digital Doors

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Russia's blocking of Facebook is a symptom of its broader effort to cut itself off from sources of information that could imperil its internationally condemned invasion of Ukraine, experts say. The often-criticized social network is part of a web of information sources that can challenge the Kremlin's preferred perspective that its assault on Ukraine is righteous and necessary. Blocking of Facebook and restricting of Twitter on Friday came the same day Moscow backed the imposition of jail terms on media publishing "false information" about the military. Russia's motivation "is to suppress political challenges at a very fraught moment for (Vladimir) Putin, and the regime, when it comes to those asking very tough questions about why Russia is continuing to prosecute this war," said Steven Feldstein, a senior fellow at the…
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Mar52022 TechmanNo Comments

Ukraine Digital Army Brews Cyberattacks, Intel and Infowar

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Formed in a fury to counter Russia’s blitzkrieg attack, Ukraine’s hundreds-strong volunteer “hacker” corps is much more than a paramilitary cyberattack force in Europe's first major war of the internet age. It is crucial to information combat and to crowdsourcing intelligence. “We are really a swarm. A self-organizing swarm," said Roman Zakharov, a 37-year-old IT executive at the center of Ukraine's bootstrap digital army. Inventions of the volunteer hackers range from software tools that let smartphone and computer owners anywhere participate in distributed denial-of-service attacks on official Russian websites to bots on the Telegram messaging platform that block disinformation, let people report Russian troop locations and offer instructions on assembling Molotov cocktails and basic first aid. Zahkarov ran research at an automation startup before joining Ukraine's digital self-defense corps. His…
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Mar42022 DmediaNo Comments

Russian Space Agency Chief Threatens to End Cooperation Over Western Sanctions

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The head of Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, is again threatening to end service to the International Space Station, saying Russia will stop supplying rocket engines to the United States and may curtail cooperation on the station in retaliation for Western sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Ukraine. NASA says operations on the orbiting observatory are normal.   In an interview with Russian state television Thursday, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said, considering the situation, “We can't supply the United States with our world's best rocket engines. Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks, I don't know what.” Rogozin said Russia has delivered 122 RD-180 engines to the U.S. since the 1990s, of which 98 have been used to power Atlas launch vehicles. The Washington Post said the engines are…
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Mar42022 TechmanNo Comments

Microsoft Suspends Sales, Services in Russia Over Ukraine Invasion

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Software giant Microsoft announced Friday that it is suspending “all new sales of Microsoft products and services in Russia” over that country’s invasion of Ukraine. “Like the rest of the world, we are horrified, angered and saddened by the images and news coming from the war in Ukraine and condemn this unjustified, unprovoked and unlawful invasion by Russia,” the company said in a statement. The company added that it was ‘stopping many aspects of our business in Russia in compliance with governmental sanctions decisions.’ Many companies have announced they are ending or limiting their activity in Russia. Some companies include Apple, Nike and Dell Technologies. Microsoft added that it will continue to work with Ukraine to protect the country from Russian cyberattacks, noting it already had during an attack on…
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Mar42022 DmediaNo Comments

Millions of Malawian Kids to Get Polio Vaccine

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The U.N. children's agency says it is procuring nearly seven million doses of polio vaccine to inoculate children in Malawi. The action follows a confirmed polio case last month in Malawi's capital, the first reported in Africa in five years and the first in Malawi in decades.   Malawi had last reported a polio case in 1992. The country was declared polio-free in 2005 — 15 years before the African continent as a whole was declared polio-free.   But health experts said the polio strain which paralyzed a three-year-old child last month is similar to one in Pakistan, and noted that the child was not fully vaccinated against polio.  UNICEF said the planned mass immunization will target the unvaccinated as well as children previously vaccinated, so all can have full…
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Mar42022 DmediaNo Comments

IAEA ‘Gravely Concerned’ for Safety of Ukraine’s Nuclear Plants

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Even before Russian forces shelled the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, sparking a fire in a nearby building early Friday, Ukraine’s main nuclear regulatory agency had sought “immediate assistance” from the international nuclear agency. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said Wednesday he had received a letter from the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine (SNRIU) asking for "immediate assistance to ensure the safety of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and other nuclear facilities in the country." Grossi said the IAEA had begun consultations on the request. The letter submitted to IAEA by the Ukraine agency said the staff at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant had been kept at the site since Russian military forces took control of it a week ago. The agency said the staff…
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Mar32022 DmediaNo Comments

Russia’s War on Ukraine Spills Into Space 

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As Russia continues to wage war on neighboring Ukraine, a former commander of the International Space Station is in disbelief over Russian threats to destroy the decades-long partnership aboard the ISS.  Plus, Elon Musk sends a communications lifeline to Ukrainians, and a joint mission to Mars is now in doubt. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us a special edition of The Week in Space.  ...
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Mar32022 DmediaNo Comments

UNEP Marks 50 Years of Fighting for Safe Environment

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The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) marked its 50-year anniversary Thursday at its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. Activists have criticized the organization as being slow to address global threats to the environment, such as pollution and climate change. But at the U.N.'s Environment Assembly this week over 100 nations pledged to negotiate a binding treaty to reduce plastic pollution. UNEP's chief, Inger Andersen, said Thursday the agency has contributed to saving the planet from harm and destruction. “We saved millions of lives and protected nature," she said. "We showed environmental multilateralism does deliver. That is a lesson that should inspire us today. Friends, there are other major achievements, the launch of the scientific body, the IPCC, the phase-out of lead and petrol and just yesterday, the resolution starting the pathway…
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Mar32022 DmediaNo Comments

UN Environment Summit Adopts Historic Agreement on Plastic Waste

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The United Nations Environment Assembly, meeting in Nairobi, has adopted a resolution detailing what to do about plastic pollution. It calls for two years of negotiations toward a comprehensive, international treaty on the full life cycle of plastics. Delegates from 175 countries endorsed an agreement Wednesday that addresses plastic waste. The United Nations says 400 million tons of plastic is produced every year, and that figure is set to double by 2040. Rwanda is one of the countries that banned plastic in its territory and is pushing for a plastic-free world. Rwanda’s environment minister, Jeanne Mujawamariya, said her country would benefit a great deal from global regulation of the use of plastics. "If adopted, the creation of a legally binding instrument would be greatly significant for countries like Rwanda, where…
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Mar32022 DmediaNo Comments

Western Australia Finally Opens Border After COVID-19 Closure

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After almost two years, Western Australia has lifted the nation’s toughest COVID-19 border controls. Double-vaccinated international and domestic travelers are now allowed in, as the so-called hermit state reconnects with the rest of the world. For almost 700 days Western Australia was cut off from the rest of the country and the world. Most international visitors were banned, as Australia’s largest state, which is 10 times the size of the United Kingdom, tried to isolate itself from the pandemic. The state premier, Mark McGowan, said the tough policy had “avoided needless deaths,” but he acknowledged the pain felt by separated families and businesses. The tough measures did keep infections low, but they were unable to stop a recent surge in omicron cases. A total of 1,770 cases were reported Wednesday…
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Mar32022 DmediaNo Comments

Judge Blocks Texas Investigation of Trans Teen’s Parents

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A Texas judge on Wednesday blocked the state from investigating the parents of a transgender teenager over gender-confirmation treatments but stopped short of preventing the state from looking into other reports about children receiving similar care. District Judge Amy Clark Meachum issued a temporary order halting the investigation by the Department of Family and Protective Services into the parents of the 16-year-old girl. The parents sued over the investigation and Republican Governor Greg Abbott's order last week that officials look into reports of such treatments as abuse. Meachum wrote that the parents and the teen "face the imminent and ongoing deprivation of their constitutional rights, the potential loss of necessary medical care, and the stigma attached to being the subject of an unfounded child abuse investigation." Meachum set a March…
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Mar32022 DmediaNo Comments

Giant Piece of Space Junk on Collision Course With Moon 

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The moon is about to get walloped by nearly 3 metric tons of space junk, a punch that will carve out a crater that could fit several semitrailer trucks. The leftover chunk of a rocket will smash into the far side of the moon at 9,300 kph (5,800 mph) on Friday, away from telescopes' prying eyes. It may take weeks, even months, to confirm the impact through satellite images. It's been tumbling haphazardly through space, experts believe, since China launched it nearly a decade ago. But Chinese officials are dubious it's theirs. No matter whose it is, scientists expect the object to carve out a hole 10 to 20 meters (33 to 66 feet) across and send moon dust flying hundreds of kilometers across the barren, pockmarked surface. Not hard…
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Mar22022 TechmanNo Comments

Eight US States Investigate TikTok’s Impact on Children 

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A consortium of U.S. states announced on Wednesday a joint investigation into TikTok's possible harm to young users of the platform, which has boomed in popularity, especially among children.  Officials across the United States have launched their own investigations and lawsuits against Big Tech giants as new national regulations have failed to pass, partly because of partisan gridlock in Congress.  The consortium of eight states will look into the harm TikTok can cause to its young users and what the company knew about such possible harm, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said a statement.   Leading the investigation is a coalition of attorneys general from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee and Vermont. The investigation will focus, among other things, on TikTok's techniques to boost young user engagement,…
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Mar22022 TechmanNo Comments

Apple, Ford, Other Big US Brands Join Corporations Shunning Russia 

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Some of America's best-known companies including Apple, Google, Ford, Harley-Davidson and Exxon Mobil rebuked and rejected Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, under steady pressure from investors and consumers decrying the violence.  Late Tuesday, Apple said it had stopped sales of iPhones and other products in Russia, adding that it was making changes to its Maps app to protect civilians in Ukraine.  Tech firms including Alphabet's Google dropped Russian state publishers from their news, and Ford Motor, with three joint venture factories in Russia, told its Russian manufacturing partner it was suspending operations in the country. Motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson suspended shipments of its bikes.  Exxon wants out of Russia Exxon Mobil Corp said it would discontinue operations in Russia and was taking steps to exit the Sakhalin-1 venture, following in…
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