Former president Donald Trump’s executive order that attempted to ban Chinese video app TikTok has been replaced by the Biden administration, which has implemented its own executive orders to review several Chinese apps for possible national security and privacy risks. President Joe Biden’s executive order directs the Commerce Department to analyze TikTok, WeChat and other Chinese apps to see if they collect personal data or if they are connected to the Chinese military. According to a White House statement about the order, Commerce, in consultation with other federal agencies, can “make recommendations to protect against harm from the sale, transfer of, or access to sensitive personal data, including personally identifiable information and genetic information — to include large data repositories — to persons owned or controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of, foreign adversaries.”
“The administration is committed to promoting an open, interoperable, reliable, and secure internet and to protecting human rights online and offline, and to supporting a vibrant global digital economy,” a senior administration official said Wednesday, according to The Verge, which first reported the story. “The challenge that we’re addressing with this [executive order] is that certain countries, including China, do not share these commitments or values and are instead working to leverage digital technologies and American data in ways that present unacceptable national security risks,” the official added. Trump’s efforts to ban TikTok in the summer of 2020 were blocked by the courts, and the issue was soon overshadowed by the 2020 presidential election. US Judge Halts Government Ban on TikTok Trump administration wants TikTok and WeChat removed from app stores
Discussions that a U.S. company might take over TikTok operations in the U.S. never resulted in concrete action.
Last week, the Biden administration expanded a Trump-era ban on American companies investing in Chinese firms with ties to the Chinese military. The order lists 59 Chinese companies that reportedly develop surveillance technology to be used against Muslim minorities and pro-democracy groups in Hong Kong.
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Month: June 2021
Slow Vaccination Rate in Africa Could Have Major Consequences, Experts Warn
By any measure, the number of those being vaccinated against COVID-19 in Africa are running behind the rest of the world. Health experts warn that failure to inoculate the 1.3 billion people on the continent will have a huge impact on its health care systems and economies. More than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, most African countries have vaccinated only a tiny fraction of their populations.Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa, has fully vaccinated just 0.1% of its citizens.The Africa Center for Disease Control says three countries — Tanzania, Burundi, Eritrea — and the self-declared Sahrawi Republic have yet to receive any vaccines, while Burkina Faso has received 115,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine but has not yet administered a single jab.Abdhalah Ziraba, an epidemiologist and the head of the health system at the African Population and Health Research Center in Nairobi, says the failure to inoculate is partly due to vaccine hesitancy among the population, and underdeveloped health care systems, especially in non-urban areas. “In Africa, most people live in rural areas. The health care system that should be the system to deliver the vaccines to the last person is not as elaborate as the population is distributed. So, people are far away from where they can get access to vaccines, and as a consequence, they are definitely left out, but they remain at risk of getting exposed to COVID-19,” Zariba said.Kenya has fully vaccinated just 13,000 people out of a population of 50 million, although about 1 million have received one dose of a vaccine. Davji Atellah, the secretary-general of the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists’ Union, calls for the government to allocate 1% of the country’s budget to purchase COVID-19 vaccines.“Countries like Uganda, or here in Kenya, we can still see there are waves, there is a surge in infections. So, the ultimate way to get things back to normal is to vaccinate. That’s why we are asking the government, if our current budget is 3.6 trillion Kenya shillings. If 1%, that’s about 35 billion shillings ($324.4 million) is put into buying the vaccines for the Kenyans, then we may have hope to see the opening up.” Atellah said.Kenya’s western region has been witnessing high rates of coronavirus infections in recent weeks, and officials have warned they may have to impose a new lockdown to curb transmissions. In neighboring Uganda, the government recently reintroduced a strict lockdown to fight an increase in infections. The lockdown includes the shutting down of schools and religious activities, and imposing travel bans within the country.Ziraba said African countries’ failure to vaccinate their population will disrupt everyday life and will pose a problem to the rest of the world.“It will be a cascade that will be very disruptive to the African countries’ economies and health care system. But the rest of the world will not sit pretty because while a big part of their population will be protected, they will not be comfortable knowing that there will be a new infection coming to their borders every now and then,” Ziraba said.Overall, Africa has recorded about 5 million cases of COVID-19 and 133,000 deaths.
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In Billions of Cicadas, Poets Find Their Muse
Across the Eastern United States, billions of Brood X cicadas are emerging after 17 years underground. The noisy insects with the bright red eyes overwhelm predators by emerging in densities of 1 million per acre, scientists say. And the hum of mating males has been likened to the buzz of a chain saw. Cicadas have long fascinated one Washington, D.C.-based newspaper columnist, who has invited readers to muse poetic about cicadas. VOA’s Laurel Bowman has that story. Camera: Laurel Bowman
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‘In the Heights’ Lifts Hopes for a Latino Film Breakthrough
Color. Dance. Music. Joy. An all Latino cast!The hype for “In the Heights” has brought great expectation for Latinos in the United States, a group that’s been historically underrepresented and widely typecast in films. With upcoming titles like “Cinderella” with Cuban-American singer Camila Cabello, “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” with Mexican star Salma Hayek and Steven Spielberg’s revival of “West Side Story,” it’s just the beginning of a string of productions that place Latinos front and center.”In the Heights,” which opens Friday, is director Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the Tony-award winning musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes about the hopes and struggles of residents of New York City’s Washington Heights. Many hope it marks a new beginning on the big screen for the largest minority group in the country — one that mirrors shifts that have already happened for Black and Asian actors and creators.This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows director John Chu, left, and Lin-Manuel Miranda on the set of “In the Heights.””You have this beautiful collage of people in the community,” says Jimmy Smits, who plays Kevin Rosario, a single father and the owner a taxi cab service, in “In the Heights.” “It’s the immigrant experience that’s been part of the fabric of this country since it started. And it’s positive. So we need that right now after the pandemic.”John Leguizamo agrees.”I think that ‘In the Heights’ is gonna be THE project that changes the whole thing finally,” says the Colombian-American actor and playwright, who won a special Tony Award in 2018 for his commitment to bringing diverse stories and audiences to Broadway through his one-man shows like “Freak, and “Latin History for Morons.”Leguizamo says he’s been pitching stories to Hollywood for 30-plus years.”I started to believe that maybe I don’t know how to write, maybe I just don’t know how to pitch, cause all my stories were rejected,” he says. “And then I started to realize, ‘Oh my God, it’s because it was Latin content!’ They didn’t know what to do with it.”They weren’t rejecting my ability, there were rejecting my culture.”The Census Bureau estimates almost 60 million Hispanics lived in the United States as of 2018. And many are devoted filmgoers: Latinos have consistently led the box office, reaching 29% of tickets sold, according to the latest Motion Picture Association report on theatergoers.Yet they only represent 4.5% of all speaking or named characters and a mere 3% of lead or co-lead actors, a 2019 study of 1,200 popular movies from 2007 to 2018 by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found.Awards recognition, too, has been elusive. This year’s Oscars featured a diverse slate of nominees, but no Latino performers.FILE – Actress Rita Moreno poses with her Oscar after she was named best supporting actress at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles on April 9, 1962. She won for her role in “West Side Story.”Since Rita Moreno became the first Latina to win best supporting actress award in 1962 as Anita in “West Side Story” only one other Latino has won: Puerto Rican Benicio del Toro for his supporting role 2000’s “Traffic.” Before them, Puerto Rican José Ferrer became the first Latino actor to receive an Academy Award for his leading role in “Cyrano de Bergerac” in 1951, and Mexican-born Anthony Quinn got two supporting actor statues for “Viva Zapata!” (1953) and “Lust for Life” (1957).No Latina has won best actress at the Oscars, with Hayek one of the few who have even been considered.Moreno, an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony winner whose career spans seven decades, says she doesn’t expect to live to see Latinos achieve broad success in Hollywood.”My age forbids it. But I sure as hell hope something happens,” Moreno says “I can’t believe we’re still struggling the way we are.””I don’t know what the hell is wrong. I don’t know what is not working right,” Moreno says. “The Black community has done incredibly, and I have nothing but the deepest admiration for the Black professional community. They’ve done it. And I think we can take some lessons from them. But where is our ‘Moonlight’? Why are we not advancing?”Nevertheless, Leguizamo says he’s seen an important change during the COVID-19 pandemic and with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.”The studios woke up,” says Leguizamo, who is now in talks to direct a few projects, including one he’s written. “I think everybody is making moves to change into being inclusive. I see it from small producers, directors in their offices, in their casting. I see it at Viacom. I see it at Univision. I see it at Netflix. I see it everywhere!”Audiences will too, starting this summer with releases like Everardo Gout’s “The Forever Purge” with Ana de la Reguera (both Mexican); M. Night Shyamalan’s “OLD,” with Mexican actor Gael García Bernal and Steven Soderbergh’s “No Sudden Move” with del Toro.Spielberg’s “West Side Story,” set for December 10, includes a Latino cast this time. Many “Puerto Ricans” in the original were white actors in brown makeup and, although widely successful, the 1961 movie was also criticized for stereotypical portrayals of Latinos.This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Anthony Ramos in a scene from “In the Heights.”, who leads “In the Heights” as Usnavi, the character originally played by Miranda on the stage, says that “now is an incredible, beautiful moment where we can capitalize on Hollywood being receptive to what is naturally happening in the streets.”As for Miranda, who became a superstar with the Broadway hit “Hamilton” and since then has been working also on TV and film, the “time has caught up to ‘In the Heights'” and he hopes people of color will support it.”We’re part of a larger series of voices,” Miranda says. “I remember how important it was for me to go support ‘Black Panther’ opening weekend, to go and support ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ opening weekend, to vote with my wallet, to go and support ‘Minari’ opening weekend. If you want newer and richer stories beyond the ones you’ve heard, you vote with your wallet.”
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Senate Passes Bill to Boost US Tech Industry, Counter Rivals
The Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Tuesday that aims to boost U.S. semiconductor production and the development of artificial intelligence and other technology in the face of growing international competition, most notably from China. The 68-32 vote for the bill demonstrates how confronting China economically is an issue that unites both parties in Congress. That’s a rarity in an era of division as pressure grows on Democrats to change Senate rules to push past Republican opposition and gridlock. The centerpiece of the bill is a $50 billion emergency allotment to the Commerce Department to stand up semiconductor development and manufacturing through research and incentive programs previously authorized by Congress. The bill’s overall cost would increase spending by about $250 billion with most of the spending occurring in the first five years. Supporters described it as the biggest investment in scientific research that the country has seen in decades. It comes as the nation’s share of semiconductor manufacturing globally has steadily eroded from 37% in 1990 to about 12% now, and as a chip shortage has exposed vulnerabilities in the U.S. supply chain. FILE – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks at the Capitol in Washington, March 6, 2021.”The premise is simple — if we want American workers and American companies to keep leading the world, the federal government must invest in science, basic research and innovation, just as we did decades after the Second World War,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.”Whoever wins the race to the technologies of the future is going to be the global economic leader, with profound consequences for foreign policy and national security, as well,” he added. FILE – U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 25, 2021.Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the bill was incomplete because it did not incorporate more Republican-sponsored amendments. He nonetheless supported it. “Needless to say, final passage of this legislation cannot be the Senate’s final word on our competition with China,” he said. “It certainly won’t be mine.” President Joe Biden applauded the bill’s passage in a statement Tuesday evening, saying, “As other countries continue to invest in their own research and development, we cannot risk falling behind. America must maintain its position as the most innovative and productive nation on Earth.” Senators slogged through days of debates and amendments leading up to Tuesday’s final vote. Schumer’s office said 18 Republican amendments will have received votes as part of passage of the bill. It also said the Senate this year has already held as many roll-call votes on amendments than it did in the last Congress when the Senate was under Republican control. While the bill enjoys bipartisan support, a core group of Republican senators has reservations about its costs. One of the bill’s provisions would create a new directorate focused on artificial intelligence and quantum science with the National Science Foundation. The bill would authorize up to $29 billion over five years for the new branch within the foundation, with an additional $52 billion for its programs. Senator Rand Paul said Congress should be cutting the foundation’s budget, not increasing it. He called the agency “the king of wasteful spending.” The agency finances about a quarter of all federally supported research conducted by America’s colleges and universities. “The bill is nothing more than a big government response that will make our country weaker, not stronger,” Paul said. FILE – Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 5, 2020.But Senator Maria Cantwell noted that a greater federal investment in the physical sciences had been called for during the administration of President George W. Bush to ensure U.S. economic competitiveness. “At the time, I’m pretty sure we thought we were in a track meet where our competitor was, oh, I don’t know, maybe half a lap behind us. I’m pretty sure now as the decade has moved on, we’re looking over our shoulder and realizing that the competition is gaining,” said Cantwell, chair of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. The lead Republican on the committee also weighed in to support the bill. “This is an opportunity for the United States to strike a blow on behalf of answering the unfair competition that we are seeing from communist China,” Senator Roger Wicker said. Senators have tried to strike a balance when calling attention to China’s growing influence. They want to avoid fanning divisive anti-Asian rhetoric when hate crimes against Asian Americans have spiked during the coronavirus pandemic. Other measures spell out national security concerns and target money-laundering schemes or cyberattacks by entities on behalf of the Chinese government. There are also “Buy America” provisions for infrastructure projects in the U.S. Senators added provisions that reflect shifting attitudes toward China’s handling of the COVID-19 outbreak. One would prevent federal money for the Wuhan Institute of Virology as fresh investigations proceed into the origins of the virus and possible connections to the lab’s research. The city registered some of the first coronavirus cases. It’s unclear whether the measure will find support in the Democratic-led House, where the Science Committee is expected to soon consider that chamber’s version. Congressman Ro Khanna, who has been working with Schumer for two years on legislation that’s included in the bill, called it the biggest investment in science and technology since the Apollo space flight program a half century ago. “I’m quite certain we will get a really good product on the president’s desk,” Schumer said. Biden said he looked forward to working with the House on the legislation, “and I look forward to signing it into law as soon as possible.”
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With Trump Suspension, Facebook Tells World Leaders: Your Speech Will Not Get a Pass
Facebook’s recent decision to ban former president Donald Trump for two years sends a message to world leaders that Facebook is stepping up its role as sheriff on its service. Tina Trinh reports.Produced by Tina Trinh
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How a Fake FBI-Encrypted Device Ensnared Criminals Around the World
The global sting operation billed as “Trojan Shield” that led to the arrests of hundreds of criminals this week began with the takedown of an encrypted device maker catering to drug traffickers around the world. In 2018, the FBI dismantled Canada-based Phantom Secure, forcing its customers — at the time estimated at more than 10,000 — to look for other encrypted apps. To fill the void, the FBI in late 2019 recruited a “confidential human source” to launch its own hardened encrypted device company called ANOM, putting a new, secure communications product on the market. The informant in turn introduced the device to his network of trusted distributors, allowing the use of the device to grow organically, according to an FBI affidavit. The ANOM app quickly took off in the criminal underworld. So confident were ANOM’s distributors and administrators in the secrecy of the devices that “they openly marketed them to other potential users as designed by criminals for criminals,” Andy Grossman, acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California, said at a press conference Tuesday in San Diego, announcing charges against 17 foreign nationals accused of administering and distributing the app. The ANOM logo is displayed on the screen of a smartphone in Paris, June 8, 2021.Law enforcement officials stand in front of an Operation Trojan Shield logo at a news conference, in San Diego, June 8, 2021.The data was then provided to the FBI, which reviewed the communications for criminal activity and shared them with law enforcement agencies around the world. Law enforcement officials said they obtained more than 27 million messages in 45 different languages exchanged over the ANOM app during the 18 months of the investigation. “The supreme irony here is that the very devices that these criminals were using to hide from law enforcement were actually beacons for law enforcement,” Grossman said. While the FBI had previously infiltrated encrypted communications platforms used by criminals, Operation Trojan Shield marked the first time the bureau operated its own platform, which at the time of its takedown on Monday had more than 9,000 active users. The operation was unprecedented in its scale, innovative strategy, international coordination and investigative outcome, Grossman said. Law enforcement agencies from 16 countries took part in the investigation, searching 700 locations and arresting more than 800 people, including 300 over the last two days, on a range of criminal charges. In addition, more than 32 tons of narcotics and more than $48 million in international currencies were seized. In the U.S., prosecutors unsealed federal charges against 17 foreign nationals, including Ayik, with drug trafficking, money laundering and obstruction of justice. Eight of the 17 were taken into custody late Monday. The rest remain at large. Law enforcement officials said the sting operation’s real significance lay beyond the arrests and seizures. “The immense and unprecedented success of Operation Trojan Shield should be a warning to international criminal organizations: Your criminal communications may not be secure, and you can count on law enforcement worldwide working together to combat dangerous crime that crosses international borders,” said Suzanne Turner, special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Diego field office.
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Pipeline Executive Felt Cornered by Ransomware Attack
The top executive for the biggest fuel pipeline operator in the United States told lawmakers he felt like he had no choice but to pay off hackers after a ransomware attack shut down operations along the East Coast. Testifying Tuesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Colonial Pipeline Chief Executive Joseph Blount took responsibility for agreeing to pay the Russian-based DarkSide Network approximately $5 million to minimize potentially disastrous delays to fuel delivery. “I know how critical our pipeline is to the country, and I put the interests of the country first,” Blount said. “It was the hardest decision I’ve made in my 39 years in the energy industry,” he added. “We wanted to stay focused on getting the pipeline back up and running. I believe with all my heart it was the right choice to make.” The May 7 DarkSide ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline spawned fuel shortages and panic-buying across parts of the U.S., pushing prices higher as drivers hunted for gas stations that had not run out of fuel. FILE – A man with a gas container greets a motorist waiting in a lengthy line to enter a gasoline station during a surge in the demand for fuel following the cyberattack that crippled the Colonial Pipeline, in Durham, North Carolina, May 12, 2021.U.S. law enforcement, including cyber experts at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), routinely warn companies against paying ransoms to hackers. But Blount said that even though the company was in contact with the FBI, he felt paying DarkSide was the most prudent option. “It was our understanding that the decision was solely ours as a private company,” he told lawmakers. “Considering the consequences of potentially not bringing the pipeline back on as quickly as I possibly could, I chose the ransom.” Blount said Colonial did not deal with DarkSide directly and instead hired legal experts and negotiators to act as intermediaries. The payment was delivered May 8 to the ransomware network in the form of the bitcoin cryptocurrency. In return, DarkSide provided Colonial with a decryption key that helped the company regain access to its systems and eventually resume operations, Blount said, noting that some systems are just now coming back online. Blount’s testimony comes just a day after the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI announced that they managed to track the ransom and recover the majority of the bitcoin, which was valued at about $2.3 million. FILE – A Colonial Pipeline station is seen in Smyrna, Ga., near Atlanta, May 11, 2021.Other experts worry that companies, organizations and governments, like Colonial Pipeline, are putting themselves at a disadvantage. “With ransomware, the misconception is that there’s two options: pay criminals or don’t pay criminals,” said Raj Samani, co-founder of No More Ransom, an organization that distributes decryption keys for free. “Many of the decryptors that are developed by the ransomware groups are actually rubbish,” said Samani, who is also the chief scientist at McAfee, a U.S.-based cybersecurity company. “So, even if you pay a fee, you may not get your data back.” In the case of the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, the decryption key did allow the company to start getting some systems up and running. “It’s not a perfect tool,” Blount told lawmakers Tuesday, adding that the company is working to further harden its cyber defenses. Blount said DarkSide was able to access Colonial’s systems by exploiting a virtual private network (VPN) that was no longer in use and which was protected only by a single password. CISA recommends using what is known as multifactor authentication, which requires users use a password and then complete a second step, such as replying to a text message, in order to access critical systems.
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UN: Like COVID-19, Inequalities Drive AIDS Epidemic
The head of UNAIDS said Tuesday that inequalities are a chief driver of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, just as they are with COVID-19. “Inequalities in power, status, rights and voice are driving the HIV pandemic,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS. “Inequalities kill.” Since the first cases were reported 40 years ago, UNAIDS says 77.5 million people have been infected with HIV, and nearly 35 million have died from AIDS. Byanyima told a high-level meeting of the U.N. General Assembly that nations must end the inequalities that perpetuate HIV/AIDS if they want to meet their target of ending the epidemic by 2030. “Today we are setting bold, ambitious goals to reach 95% of those in need with HIV treatment and prevention,” she said. “To get there we need to re-imagine HIV services, making them easy to access and designed around people’s lives.” Byanyima said the COVID-19 pandemic has shown how political will can help push science and that the same sort of push needs to be made for HIV/AIDS treatments, prevention, care and vaccines. FILE – Charlize Theron attends a movie screening in Los Angeles, California, July 31, 2020.U.N. Messenger of Peace Charlize Theron addressed the meeting in a video message Tuesday. The South African actress said it is often the most vulnerable people who are the least likely to have access to the services they need. “Because the fact remains, that whether you live or die from AIDS is still too often determined by who you are, who you love and where you live,” Theron said. U.N. member states adopted a political declaration on scaling up progress in order to reach the 2030 goal, but it was not without some controversy. Just before the adoption, Russia’s representative tried to get the assembly to agree to three amendments, which would have eliminated language on respecting the human rights of persons living with HIV/AIDS and ending discriminatory and restrictive laws based on a person’s HIV status. The amendments were overwhelmingly voted down, and the original draft text, which was the result of lengthy negotiations and compromises among member states, was adopted with 165 votes in favor, four against and no country abstaining. Belarus, Nicaragua and Syria joined Russia in voting against the declaration.
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Europe’s Spring Coldest Since 2013, UN Climate Agency Says
The World Meteorological Organization, the United Nations climate agency, reported Tuesday that Europe saw its coldest March through May since 2013, with temperatures 0.45 C below the 1991-2020 average.During a briefing from the agency’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, WMO spokesperson Clare Nullis cautioned that Europe’s cool start did not reflect any pause in the world’s climate change problems.In fact, data from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service show that the global average temperature for May was 0.26 C higher than the 1991-2020 mean, according to the U.N. News website. Greenhouse Gases Threaten Ocean Ecosystems: WMOThe ocean absorbs around 23 percent of the annual atmospheric emissions of carbon dioxide and acts as a buffer against climate changeAlso according to U.N. News: “Temperatures were well above average over western Greenland, north Africa, the Middle East and northern and western Russia while below-average May temperatures were reported over the southern and central United States, parts of northern Canada, south-central Africa, most of India, eastern Russia, and eastern Antarctica.” Nullis said there was also “quite a considerable rise” in carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere at the Mauna Loa Observatory, an atmospheric monitoring station operated by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association in Hawaii.She said, “The fact CO2 does have such a long lifetime in the atmosphere does mean that future generations — and we’re not just talking about one or two, we’re talking about many generations — will be committed to seeing more impacts of climate change.” Nullis warned rising CO2 levels will also have a “very serious impact” on the planet’s oceans, which absorb almost a quarter of CO2 emissions.
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British Musician’s Post on what George Washington Would Look Like Today Goes Viral
American political figures have changed a lot since the days of the Founding Fathers. A British musician wondered what they would look like if they were around today. Maxim Moskalkov has the story. Camera: Aleksandr Bergan
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Internet Outage Hits Major Websites
A number of major websites could not be reached early Tuesday because of an outage at the cloud services company Fastly.The affected sites included news agencies CNN, The Guardian and The New York Times, streaming platform Twitch, and the British government website. All were back online within a period of hours.The outage also forced CNN’s website offline in the Asian cities of Hong Kong and Singapore. There was little mention of the outage on social media platforms in China, where most foreign media websites are permanently blocked.About an hour after acknowledging the problem, Fastly said, “The issue has been identified, and a fix has been applied.”The company said a service configuration issue caused the disruptions, suggesting it was an internal glitch.Based in San Francisco, California, Fastly is a content-delivery network that provides cloud computing servers to many popular internet sites.The servers store images, video and other content in various places around the world to be closer to users. Closer proximity to the servers enables users to access content more quickly.The outage occurred about a month after a cyberattack caused the largest fuel pipeline operator in the United States to stop operating for six days.
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Apple’s ‘Private Relay’ Will Not Be Available in China, Elsewhere
Apple on Monday said a new “private relay” feature designed to obscure a user’s web browsing behavior from internet service providers and advertisers will not be available in China for regulatory reasons.The feature was one of a number of privacy protections Apple announced at its annual software developer conference Monday.It will also be unavailable in Belarus, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines, Apple said.The “private relay” feature first sends web traffic to a server maintained by Apple, where it is stripped of its IP address. From there, Apple sends the traffic to a second server maintained by a third-party operator who assigns the user a temporary IP address and sends the traffic onward to its destination website.The use of an outside party in the second hop of the relay system is intentional, Apple said, to prevent even Apple from knowing both the user’s identity and what website the user is visiting.Apple has not yet disclosed which outside partners it will use in the system but said it plans to disclose them in the future. The feature will not likely become available to the public until later this year.
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Carbon Dioxide Levels Hit 50% Higher Than Preindustrial Age
The annual peak of global heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air has reached another dangerous milestone: 50% higher than when the industrial age began.And the average rate of increase is faster than ever, scientists reported Monday.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the average carbon dioxide level for May was 419.13 parts per million. That’s 1.82 parts per million higher than May 2020 and 50% higher than the stable pre-industrial levels of 280 parts per million, said NOAA climate scientist Pieter Tans.Carbon dioxide levels peak every May just before plant life in the Northern Hemisphere blossoms, sucking some of that carbon out of the atmosphere and into flowers, leaves, seeds and stems. The reprieve is temporary, though, because emissions of carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and natural gas for transportation and electricity far exceed what plants can take in, pushing greenhouse gas levels to new records every year.”Reaching 50% higher carbon dioxide than preindustrial is really setting a new benchmark, and not in a good way,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, who wasn’t part of the research. “If we want to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, we need to work much harder to cut carbon dioxide emissions and right away.”Climate change does more than increase temperatures. It makes extreme weather — storms, wildfires, floods and droughts — worse and more frequent, and causes oceans to rise and get more acidic, studies show. There are also health effects, including heat deaths and increased pollen. In 2015, countries signed the Paris agreement to try to keep climate change to below what’s considered dangerous levels.The one-year jump in carbon dioxide was not a record, mainly because of a La Nina weather pattern, when parts of the Pacific temporarily cool, said Ralph Keeling, Scripps Institution of Oceanography geochemist. Keeling’s father started the monitoring of carbon dioxide on top of the Hawaiian mountain Mauna Loa in 1958, and he has continued the work of charting the now famous Keeling Curve.Scripps, which calculates the numbers slightly differently based on time and averaging, said the peak in May was 418.9.Also, pandemic lockdowns slowed transportation, travel and other activity by about 7%, earlier studies show. But that was too small to make a significant difference. Carbon dioxide can stay in the air for 1,000 years or more, so year-to-year changes in emissions don’t register much.The 10-year average rate of increase also set a record, now up to 2.4 parts per million per year.”Carbon dioxide going up in a few decades like that is extremely unusual,” Tans said. “For example, when the Earth climbed out of the last ice age, carbon dioxide increased by about 80 parts per million, and it took the Earth system, the natural system, 6,000 years. We have a much larger increase in the last few decades.”By comparison, it has taken only 42 years, from 1979 to 2021, to increase carbon dioxide by that same amount.”The world is approaching the point where exceeding the Paris targets and entering a climate danger zone becomes almost inevitable,” said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer, who wasn’t part of the research.
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US Snatches Back Ransom from Colonial Pipeline Hackers
U.S. law enforcement officials say they have hit back at the Russian-based criminal network that caused gas pipelines to shut down across parts of the country last month, seizing much of the multimillion-dollar ransom payment before it could be used.The Justice Department announced Monday it recovered $2.3 million of the approximately $5 million Colonial Pipeline paid to the DarkSide Network following the ransomware attack, which resulted in fuel shortages along the U.S. East Coast.“We turned the tables on DarkSide,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, describing the seizure as a “significant development.”“Ransomware attacks are always unacceptable, but when they target critical infrastructure, we will spare no effort in our response,” she added.Tanker trucks are parked near the entrance of Colonial Pipeline Company, May 12, 2021, in Charlotte, N.C.Colonial Pipeline, the target of DarkSide’s May 7 attack, is the top fuel pipeline operator in the U.S., responsible for about half of the fuel supply for the East Coast.Following the attack, the company made the decision to meet DarkSide’s demands, paying out about $5 million in Bitcoin cryptocurrency. But U.S. government officials said Colonial also worked closely with law enforcement agencies, who were able to track the payment to a virtual wallet.Specifically, officials said they were able to obtain a virtual key that unlocked the contents of the wallet.As a result, the Justice Department said it was able to recover about 80% of the cryptocurrency, which has dropped in value in recent weeks, before DarkSide could access it.“We deprived a cybercriminal enterprise of the object of their activity,” said FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate. “For financially motivated cybercriminals, especially those presumably located overseas, cutting off access to revenue is one of the most impactful consequences we can impose.”Officials said this is not the first time they have been able to recover ransom payment made to groups like DarkSide, and encouraged other companies to cooperate with the government if they are targeted.“The message we are sending today is that if you come forward and work with law enforcement, we may be able to take the type of action that we took today to deprive the criminal actors of what they’re going after,” Monaco said.But she added that this type of operation is a “significant undertaking” and “we cannot guarantee, and we may not be able to do this, in every instance.”The FBI has been investigating DarkSide since last October, blaming the network for attacks against 90 victims across critical sectors such as manufacturing, health care and energy.DarkSide and its affiliates have also been connected to ransomware attacks in at least 14 other countries. Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported the group made almost $60 million in seven months, including $46 million in the first three months of this year.In a statement late Monday, Colonial Pipeline President Joseph Blount said the company was grateful for the help from both the Justice Department and the FBI, calling them “instrumental in helping us to understand the threat actor and their tactics.”“Holding cyber criminals accountable and disrupting the ecosystem that allows them to operate is the best way to deter and defend against future attacks of this nature,” Blount added. “As our investigation into this event continues, Colonial will continue its transparency in sharing intelligence and learnings with the FBI and other federal agencies.”The Justice Department announcement also earned praise from some private cybersecurity firms, with one calling the seizure of the ransom payment a “welcome development.”“In addition to the immediate benefits of this approach, a stronger focus on disruption may disincentivize this behavior, which is growing in a vicious cycle,” John Hultquist, vice president of analysis at Mandiant, said in a statement. “Law enforcement agencies need to broaden their approach beyond building cases against criminals who may be beyond the grasp of the law.”U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to raise the issue of the DarkSide ransomware attack when he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Switzerland, next week.Biden has previously said Moscow bears “some responsibility” to deal with the attack.“The president’s message will be that responsible states do not harbor ransomware criminals, and responsible countries take decisive action against these ransomware networks,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters last week.National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday that Biden will also use meetings next week with G-7 leaders to discuss “increasing the robustness and resilience of our defense against ransomware attacks.”Sullivan said the U.S. also hopes to discuss ways to better share information about ransomware attacks.Information from Reuters was used in this report.
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US Highlights Commitment to Women’s Reproductive Rights
The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations met Monday with the head of the U.N. Population Fund in the first such high-level engagement in more than four years.The U.S. Mission to the United Nations said Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield highlighted the resumption of extensive support to the organization, which provides life-saving health care to millions of women and girls around the world.“I’m delighted to announce the resumption of U.S. humanitarian funding for UNFPA, including support for the Rohingya refugee crisis, Afghanistan, Sudan and those fleeing the Tigray region,” Thomas-Greenfield tweeted after the meeting. To mark our renewed commitment to @UNFPA, I met today with Executive Director Natalia Kanem. I’m delighted to announce the resumption of U.S. humanitarian funding for UNFPA, including support for the Rohingya refugee crisis, Afghanistan, Sudan and those fleeing the Tigray region. pic.twitter.com/aMJ9cAbgpL— Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield (@USAmbUN) June 7, 2021In April 2017, the Trump administration withdrew funding to UNFPA, saying it “supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization” in China. For decades, China had a “one-child policy” for couples, which it revised in 2016 to a “two-child policy.” The country had been accused of using forced sterilization and abortions to enforce the restrictions. Last week, it relaxed the policy further, saying it would allow families to have up to three children, due to decreasing birth rates.The United Nations rejected the Trump administration’s accusation, but that did not persuade Washington to restore the nearly $76 million the U.S. contributed to the agency’s core operating budget. It was also the beginning of what many Western diplomats and activists said was the former Republican administration’s war on women’s health and reproductive rights at the United Nations.Since taking office in January, the Biden administration has offered the agency nearly $31 million toward its core operating budget. Washington has also resumed funding UNFPA’s humanitarian activities, including $2.6 million for the Rohingya refugee crisis and nearly $1.2 million for Ethiopian refugees in Sudan fleeing the conflict in the Tigray Region. The U.S. is also contributing nearly $1.5 million for international protection issues in Afghanistan and $1.3 million to assist Sudan in improving the response to gender-based violence for internally displaced persons and vulnerable communities.In 2015, UNFPA received $979 million in total contributions for its work in more than 150 countries. The United States provided nearly $76 million to the fund’s core budget and specific programs and initiatives, making it one of the top international donors.
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Heart Disease Seen in Some Younger COVID-19 Patients
Health professionals continue to see heart disease in some young people who have had COVID-19, those who have been vaccinated against the virus, and among student athletes, in general.Cardiomyopathy is an inflammation and weakening in the walls of the heart. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta has reviewed vaccine safety data weekly since the start of the U.S. vaccination program and cautions that cases among those who have received the COVID-19 vaccine are “mild and few.” The agency says the condition appears in males more than females, more often following the second shot in a two-dose regimen, and usually around four days after the vaccination.Coronavirus-related cardiomyopathy was first observed last year in younger people when college athletes resumed play as the pandemic spread in the United States. College sport events generate significant revenues for colleges and universities, and some big schools that draw thousands into stadiums returned players to campus with the hope of public events resuming sooner than later.In a study of college athletes conducted since last September, a higher incidence of cardiomyopathy, also called myocarditis, has been seen in athletes who contracted the coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2. Symptoms include shortness of breath, weakness, tiredness, dizziness and abnormal heart rhythm, according to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. “Myocarditis is a leading cause of sudden death in competitive athletes,” researchers wrote in JAMA Cardiology in May, adding, “Myocardial inflammation is known to occur with SARS-CoV-2,” the medical name for the coronavirus. Another study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in March found that more than one in three “previously healthy college athletes recovering from COVID-19 infection showed … resolving pericardial inflammation.”Resolving is the key word here: Researchers concluded that “no athlete showed … features to suggest an ongoing myocarditis,” or inflammation of the heart walls. Knowing when athletes should play or rest is important, and research has not nailed down the long-term effects yet, the researchers said.“Further studies are needed to understand the clinical implications and long-term evolution of these abnormalities in uncomplicated COVID-19,” they wrote. Pediatric cardiologist Geoffrey Rosenthal has observed myocarditis in young people, specifically during the pandemic. He has been the team cardiologist for the University of Maryland, College Park since 2020. “Myocarditis is one of the more common causes of sudden death in athletes,” said Rosenthal. “If someone had myocarditis, it’s one of the standard recommendations that they not exercise strenuously for three to six months after their diagnosis to allow time for their heart to heal, and lessen their risk of a sudden event,” he said. The residual health of athletes who have had COVID is being assessed to try to understand the risks. Ohio State University (OSU) was one of the big universities that brought players back to campus amid the pandemic and detected heart changes in athletes who tested positive for the infection.It has led the effort to monitor athletes by overseeing a registry of nearly 1,600 COVID-19 positive athletes in the Big Ten sports conference, or a division of 14 colleges and universities among other divisions nationally. Looking at a smaller sample of 37 athletes diagnosed with myocarditis, 28 didn’t exhibit symptoms, reported OSU.Rosenthal noted that research and cooperation among universities has advanced detection of myocarditis among young people and student athletes, who are largely asymptomatic, by using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The University of Maryland adopted cardiac MRI screening for athletes before almost all other universities in the country as the pandemic was starting, he said.“The EKG is normal, and their blood tests are normal, and their echo [cardiogram] is OK,” Rosenthal explained. “And then we get the MRI and find out that there’s an abnormality that we weren’t expecting, and that we never would have found out about had we not done the MRI.“There’s still a lot of cardiac work that’s going on in the younger student population,” Rosenthal said. And this advancement in detection will help other athletes, younger and older. “There’s also hope that it will inform our understanding of COVID in older athletes, in older and non-elite athletes. … the weekend warriors,” he said.But this research will also help non-athletes whose jobs demand physical labor. “Other populations that these results might help inform is the military and other professions and occupations in which physical activity is part of what people are doing,” Rosenthal said. “First responders, firefighters, policemen, you know, other people whose jobs have physical demands. In addition to gaining insight into the health of our student athletes what other populations can we help through this work?”
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FDA Approves Controversial New Alzheimer’s Drug
The first new drug against Alzheimer’s disease in nearly two decades received a conditional and controversial green light from U.S. drug regulators on Monday. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved biotech company Biogen’s antibody drug aducanumab. The drug reduces the amyloid plaques that riddle the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. But the approval drew sharp criticism from experts who note that the company has not proved that it slows the debilitating cognitive decline in patients with the disease. The FDA will require Biogen to continue testing the drug after it is released and ultimately demonstrate that patients actually do fare better on the drug. In the meantime, the company said the drug will cost each patient $56,000 per year, but is likely to be covered by most insurers, including Medicare. FILE – A sign marks a Biogen facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Jan., 26, 2017.Alzheimer’s, a degenerative neurological disease, is responsible for roughly two-thirds of the 50 million cases of dementia worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Aducanumab, marketed as Aduhelm, is the first approved treatment to target the underlying disease process of Alzheimer’s rather than just treat the symptoms. In two clinical trials, aducanumab reduced amyloid plaques by 59% to 71% after 18 months. However, those studies were stopped early because they did not show that patients taking aducanumab were declining in brain function any slower than patients who were not taking it. Biogen reevaluated the data from a subset of patients in one trial and found a slight improvement in patients receiving the highest dose. The FDA decided to approve the drug under what is called accelerated approval, which has a lower standard of evidence than full approval. The FDA said Biogen’s data show that reducing amyloid plaques is “reasonably likely to result in clinical benefit.” “This pathway allows FDA to provide patients suffering with a serious disease earlier access to a potentially valuable drug when there is some residual uncertainty about the clinical benefit of the drug,” Patrizia Cavazzoni, director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said on a call with reporters. Patients’ groups cheered. “This approval is a victory for people living with Alzheimer’s and their families,” Harry Johns, president and CEO of the Alzheimer’s Association, an advocacy group, said in a statement. “It is a new day,” he said. “This approval allows people living with Alzheimer’s more time to live better. For families it means being able to hold on to their loved ones longer. It is about reinvigorating scientists and companies in the fight against this scourge of a disease. It is about hope.” Not everyone agreed. “The FDA is saying, ‘Never mind the lack of determined effectiveness,'” said Lon Schneider, director of the California Alzheimer’s Disease Center at the University of Southern California. Reducing plaques is not the same as slowing the patient’s decline, he noted. It will be like doctors telling patients, “‘You need to be confident (that) because we’re knocking down the plaques, you’re benefiting.'” Others were skeptical that Biogen will do a satisfactory follow-up study to show its drug really works. “Past experience with accelerated approval ‘conditions’ has been disappointing in a lot of respects,” said Harvard Medical School professor Aaron Kesselheim, “with too many cases of ‘confirmatory trials’ taking too long, still testing surrogate measures rather than real clinical endpoints, and even keeping the drug indication on the labeling when the confirmatory trials are negative.” Other therapies are in the pipeline, and some hope that the FDA’s move opens the door to better treatments down the road. “History has shown us that approvals of the first drug in a new category invigorates the field, increases investments in new treatments and encourages greater innovation,” the Alzheimer’s Association’s chief science officer, Maria Carrillo, said in a statement. “While today’s approval is an important first step in our ongoing fight against Alzheimer’s,” the FDA’s Cavazzoni said, “it’s just that: the first step.”
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Bruce Springsteen Plans Broadway Return of His One-Man Show
The Boss just can’t quit Broadway.
Bruce Springsteen will return to Broadway this summer for a limited run of his one-man show “Springsteen on Broadway.” Performances at the St. James Theatre begin June 26 with an end date set — at least for now — for Sept. 4.
“I loved doing ‘Springsteen on Broadway’ and I’m thrilled to have been asked to reprise the show as part of the reopening of Broadway,” the rocker said in a statement.
“Springsteen on Broadway” debuted in 2017 and was extended three times, finally closing in late 2018. Columbia Records put out a two-disc soundtrack of “Springsteen on Broadway” and a filmed version of the show is on Netflix.
In the show, Springsteen performs 15 songs — including “My Hometown,” “Thunder Road,” and “Born in the USA” — and tells stories about growing up in New Jersey. Some of the stories will be familiar to readers of his autobiography, and he even reads from it. His wife, Patti Scialfa, accompanies him for “Brilliant Disguise.”
Audience members will be required to provide proof of full COVID-19 vaccination in order to enter the theater.
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Amazon Founder Bezos Announces Plans to Go to Space
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced Monday that he and his brother will be on board the first manned spaceflight from his aerospace company Blue Origin when it launches a rocket ship into space on July 20.
Bezos made the announcement from his Instagram account which included a video featuring pictures from his childhood. He wrote, “Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space. On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend.”
July 20th is also the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the first time a human walked on the moon.
Blue Origin is also auctioning off a passenger seat on the New Shepard space vehicle. In a news release Monday, the company said bidding has reached $2.8 million with nearly 6,000 people from 143 countries. The capsule is designed to carry as many as six passengers.
The company said the winning bid amount will be donated to Blue Origin’s foundation, Club for the Future, whose mission is to inspire future generations to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and to help invent the future of life in space.
Bezos said in February that he will step down as Amazon’s chief executive on July 5.
Andy Jassy, the head of Amazon Web Services, will become chief executive, while Bezos will become executive chairman.
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Greece Deploys Drones to Stop Partygoers from Breaching COVID Safety Protocols
Authorities on Greece’s most popular tourist island, Mykonos, will deploy more than a dozen drones to spot those who defy safety protocols aimed at preventing the spread and resurgence of COVID-19.
The decision, known as “Operation Mykonos,” comes after a string of local so-called “Corona-parties” organized by entrepreneurs at private villas and estates in recent weeks to bypass safety rules banning the operation of nightclubs.
It also comes as the beleaguered government of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis scrambles to revive its battered tourism sector, luring foreign travelers — mainly from the United States, Europe, Israel, and Russia — with the promise of a safe summer holiday stay under the Greek sun.
Foreign travelers are required to abide by local lockdowns, curfews, and safety protocols during their stays.
FILE – People gather as the sun sets at the windmills on the Aegean Sea island of Mykonos, Greece, Aug. 16, 2020.Under “Operation Mykonos,” authorities will deploy 15 drones to fly over private villas or establishments in Mykonos that in recent weeks were host to parties packed with hundreds of locals and foreigners. Ten-member strong teams of officers will also be formed to raid the establishments upon notice, arresting and fining the offenders, authorities told VOA.
Fines range between $365 to over $6,000.
Officials tell VOA the measures, coupled with heightened police controls, inspections and added surveillance cameras across Mykonos, will serve as a blueprint for other popular hotspots among foreign travelers. These include Rhodes, Santorini and Paros, according to authorities.
“Illegal parties spell a greater risk of seeing the virus spread, infecting more and more people,” warned Nikos Hardalias, the head of Greece’s Civil Protection Agency, on Sunday. “It spells a spike in COVID cases that can lead to fresh restrictions, leading businesses to shut down, causing major damage to tourist areas.”
“It is high time,” he warned, “for everyone to size up to the challenge and take on full responsibility of their actions.”
On Monday, government spokesman Aristotelia Peloni also criticized the mushrooming “corona-parties” gripping the country, saying she wished “Greece’s youth showed similar zeal and enthusiasm in the state’s nationwide vaccination drive.”
“The country’s freedom,” she said, “can only come through comprehensive immunization.”
Effectively in lockdown since last November, Greece started easing some of its sweeping restrictions, including curfews and travel bans, in mid-May when it re-launched international travel.
The latest crackdown, however, underscores the paradox of what critics call a hasty and ill-thought-out strategy. FILE – A waiter serves a group of people in a restaurant of Plaka district, as restaurants and cafes in Greece open after six months of lockdown, amid the coronavirus outbreak, in Athens, Greece, May 3, 2021.“You can’t say ‘restaurants and bars can open but no music playing in the background to block crowds from gathering,’” said Heracles Zissimopoulos, a leading entrepreneur on the island of Mykonos. “It’s absurd.”
“The government should seriously rethink its policy, and provide locals and tourists with an outlet, instead. Otherwise, these types of parties will be difficult to stop,” he added.
Greece recorded less than 3,000 cases during the country’s first bout with the pandemic. But as tourists streamed in last summer, infections and deaths sky-rocketed, making Greeks apprehensive to foreign travelers.
But with 20 percent of the nation’s domestic output reliant on tourism, Greeks now know they can ill afford to lose a second summer tourism season in a row.
FILE – People wait at the reception hall of a COVID-19 vaccination mega center in Athens, Feb. 15, 2021.Under a campaign called “Blue Freedom,” the government wants to vaccinate all 700,000 or so adult residents of Greece’s islands in the Aegean and Ionian Seas by the end of June, hoping Greece can be included in Britain’s revised green-list of travel nations. All islanders are being offered the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine to boost immunization.
As of early June, Mykonos had vaccinated about four in ten of its residents, and Santorini over 50% — among the highest in the country.
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Possible First Use of AI-Armed Drones Triggers Alarm Bells
Western military experts are assessing whether an autonomous drone operated by artificial intelligence, or AI, killed people — in Libya last year — for the first time without a human controller directing it remotely to do so.
A report by a United Nations panel of experts issued last week that concluded an advanced drone deployed in Libya “hunted down and remotely engaged” soldiers fighting for Libyan general Khalifa Haftar has prompted a frenetic debate among Western security officials and analysts.
Governments at the United Nations have been debating for months whether a global pact should be agreed on the use of armed drones, autonomous and otherwise, and what restrictions should be placed on them. The U.N.’s Libya report is adding urgency to the debate. Drone advances have “a lot of implications regionally and globally,” says Ziya Meral of the Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, a defense think tank.
“It is time to assess where things are with Turkish drones and advanced warfare technology and what this means for the region and what it means for NATO,” he said at a RUSI-hosted event in London.
According to the U.N. report, Turkish-made Kargu-2 lethal autonomous aircraft launched so-called swarm attacks, likely on behalf of Libya’s Government of National Accord, against the warlord Haftar’s militias in March last year, marking the first time AI-equipped drones accomplished a successful attack. Remnants of a Kargu-2 were recovered later.
The use of autonomous drones that do not require human operators to guide them remotely once they have been programmed is opposed by many human rights organizations. There were rumors that Turkish-supplied AI drones, alongside remote-guided ones, were used last year by Azerbaijani forces in their clashes with Armenia in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and its surrounding territories.
Myriad of dilemmas
If AI drones did launch lethal swarm attacks it would mark a “new chapter in autonomous weapons,” worries the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Critics of AI drones, which can use facial-recognition technology, say they raise a number of moral, ethical and legal dilemmas.
“These types of weapons operate on software-based algorithms ‘taught’ through large training datasets to, for example, classify various objects. Computer vision programs can be trained to identify school buses, tractors, and tanks. But the datasets they train on may not be sufficiently complex or robust, and an artificial intelligence (AI) may ‘learn’ the wrong lesson,” the non-profit Bulletin warns.
The manufacturer of the Kargu-2, Defense Technologies and Trade (STM), told Turkish media last year that their drones are equipped with facial-recognition technology, allowing individual targets to be identified and neutralized without having to deploy ground forces. And company executives say Kargu-2 drones can swarm together overwhelming defenses.
Last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lauded the success of Turkish unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), saying the results they had produced “require war strategies to be rewritten.” Turkey has deployed them in military operations in northern Syria, Turkish officials have acknowledged.
Speaking at a parliamentary meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara, Erdogan said Turkey plans to go further and is aiming to be among the first countries to develop an AI-managed warplane. Recently the chief technology officer of Baykar, a major Turkish drone manufacturer, announced the company had slated 2023 for the maiden flight of its prototype unmanned fighter jet.
‘A significant player’
Sanctions and embargoes on Turkey in recent years have been a major driving force behind Ankara pressing ahead to develop a new generation of unconventional weapons, says Ulrike Franke of the European Council for Foreign Relations. “Turkey has become a significant player in the global drone market,” she said at the RUSI event. When it comes to armed drones, she noted, there are four states dominating drone development — the U.S., Israel, China and Turkey. The latter pair, the “new kids on the block,” are driving drone proliferation because unlike the U.S. they are not reticent about export sales, she said.
“Turkey has shown that a mid-sized power, when it puts its mind and money behind it, can develop very sophisticated armed drones,” says Franke.
Last October when the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh saw the worst fighting there since 1994, Turkish drones were assessed as having given Azerbaijan a key edge over the Armenians. Turkish drones sliced through Armenia’s air defenses and pummeled its Russian-made tanks.
Analysts calculate around 90 countries have military drones for reconnaissance and intelligence missions and at least a dozen states have armed drones. Britain is believed to have ten; Turkey around 140. The U.S. air force has around 300 Reaper drones alone. The deployment of armed drones to conduct targeted killings outside formal war zones has been highly contentious. But AI drone development is adding to global alarm.
“With more and more countries acquiring armed drones, there is a risk that the controversies surrounding how drones are used and the challenges these pose to international legal frameworks, as well as to democratic values such as transparency, accountability and the rule of law, could also increase,” Britain’s Chatham House noted in a research paper published in April.
“This is accentuated further, given that the use of drones continues to expand and to evolve in new ways, and in the absence of a distinct legal framework to regulate such use,” say the paper’s authors Jessica Dorsey and Nilza Amaral.
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