Abuse and poverty driving children to Uganda's streets

Thousands of children survive in the open in the Ugandan capital, Kampala by begging for money. Residents are fed up and city authorities are struggling to keep the youngest among them off the busy streets.



Thousands of Ugandan children roam the streets begging for money and handouts

It is rush hour in Uganda's capital, Kampala. Groups of young children linger on the streets, and as soon as they see a car slowing down, they quickly swarm around and beg for alms. Then, they move from car to car, hoping to get as many handouts from drivers as they can.

Peter Otai, a motorist, is used to these kids, some as young as four, crowding around him. However, he now seems overwhelmed and considers them a nuisance. "You could be walking on the street, and the street kid comes running after you asking for money," Otai says.

"They stick on you, and they are split at a distance of about five meters. Something is not adding up here. It's becoming too much, and the government has to do something," a visibly concerned Otai told DW.

16-year-old Richard Kawadwa, who has roamed the streets of Kampala with other children, told DW that he opted to flee his home out of fear. "I ran away from home because I lost my aunt's money when she sent me to the shop. So I became afraid," he said.

More than 15,000 children, aged between 7 and 14, live in Kampala's streets. According to city authorities, at least 100 children are taken off the roads every month.

President Yoweri Museveni's government plans to rehabilitate the street children and reintegrate them back into their family homes. But, that isn't happening anytime soon

Some children flee their homes due to physical or psychological abuse

Rehabilitating street children

In 2019, Kampala passed a law banning giving money or food to street children. City authorities said the law was aimed at curbing children's commercial and sexual exploitation. Offenders could face up to six months in prison or a fine of $11 (€7).

The high number of children leaving their homes for the streets has forced child support organizations to think of new strategies for interventions.

Jajja, 30, who used to live on the streets, has now been enlisted by one organization to help address the issue. "Organizations send me to talk to the children about how they are ready to take care of them," Jajja told DW.

"If they are willing to go back home or join technical schools to learn carpentry or even mechanical engineering. When we identify children who have struggled to survive, we take them to hope for justice."

Aunt Nabwire, a residential social worker who works at a child care organization based in the Kampala suburb of Kibuli, told DW that once the children are taken off the street, they are rehabilitated. Their addresses and families are traced, and then the young ones are resettled back to their homes.

"These children go through a lot," Nabwire said. "When they are on the streets, it's survival for the fittest. We have to show them love so that they know we are not like those who have been harassing them."

She said they teach them how to work and encourage them to work and not see it as a punishment. "Work is something you are supposed to do the whole of your life to keep your life going," Nabwire added.

Ugandan motorists are calling on their government to urgently address the street children issue

Punishing parents

Mondo Kyateka, Uganda's Commissioner for Youth and Children, said parents and guardians who have failed to fulfill their responsibilities were responsible for the current crisis. She warned that they would be punished for neglect when identified.

"We are doing everything possible to counsel the fathers and mothers of children not to let their children stray on to the streets," Kyateka told DW. "That's why we came up with parenting guidelines to guide anybody who decides to bring a soul into this world to know that before you call in government, it's your responsibility."

But not everyone blames poor parenting alone for the crisis. Child care organizations in Uganda have said the return of children to Kampala's busy streets is also because law enforcement officals often delay routine operations to round them up.

Frank Yiga in Kampala contributed to this article.

Edited by: Chrispin Mwakideu

Macron calls for 'French nuclear renaissance'

The French president announced a plan to build at least six new plants by 2050, despite enormous cost overruns and decade long delays in completing a prototype. He also touted massive investments in renewable energy.



France has been slow to invest in renewables, instead sticking with its ageing nuclear plants to generate 70% of its energy

President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday outlined his vision for France's energy future and announced a major plan for the construction of at least six new nuclear reactors by state-controlled energy giant Electricite de France (EDF) while on a campaign visit to a turbine factory in the eastern industrial city of Belfort, just weeks ahead of a presidential election in April.

The third-generation pressurized water reactors (EPR) facilities are to be completed by 2050. Macron also said he was looking into the possibility of building a further eight. The whole project is being pitched under the motto of reducing France's greenhouse gas emissions.

Beyond nuclear power plans, Macron said 50 offshore wind parks were slated for construction — France currently has none, despite an abundance of coastline — and that onshore solar capacity would double and hydroelectric facilities would also not be forgotten.

Macron's main emphasis, however, was on nuclear energy, a particular point of pride with the French, providing roughly 70% of the nation's energy.

Atom, mon amour

Macron strong-arms EDF into buying back facility he controversially helped sell

Despite concern about the enormous cost and complexity of building new nuclear power reactors, Macron showed his support for nuclear energy as ecologically friendly and economically viable option, saying: "The time has come for a French nuclear renaissance."

Along with announcing new construction, Macron said he wanted EDF to extend the lives of older nuclear plants from 40 years to 50: "I want no reactor that has the capability of producing (electricity) to be closed in the future ... unless obviously for safety reasons."

"We are fortunate in France to be able to count on a strong nuclear industry, rich in know-how and with hundreds of thousands of jobs," Macron said.

Belfort is home to a key manufacturing site that produces turbines to be used in future power plants. It is well-known to Macron, who, while serving as finance minister in 2015, was instrumental in facilitating its sale by French industrial giant Alstom to US rival General Electric (GE).

The deal was widely criticized at the time, with opponents saying it would jeopardize French energy independence and cost thousands of jobs.

On Thursday, under pressure from the French government, EDF announced that it had agreed to buy back GE's nuclear turbine branch for $200 million (€175 million euros).

EDF projects decades behind schedule, billions over budget

EDF, which is heavily indebted, has faced difficulties in trying to build its latest-generation EPR reactors in separate projects in France, Britain and Finland.

The company estimates that it can build six of its reactors for France within 15 years at a cost of €50 billion ($57 billion).

Currently, EDF's flagship French project in the northern city of Flamanville — a prototype for the plants Macron spoke of — is running four times over its €3.3 billion budget and 11 years behind schedule.

Though nuclear endeavors tend to be extremely costly, France is decidedly more relaxed about the prospects of financing such projects after it was recently able to convince the European Commission to classify nuclear power as "green" in its taxonomy guide for investors — meaning that it is considered environmentally friendly, and thus investment-worthy.

Never too old to go offline

Currently, more than a dozen of France's 56 aging nuclear reactors are offline — seven for maintenance and five for serious corrosion damage. Overall output has dropped to around 55% to 60% of capacity. France also lags behind the rest of Europe when it comes to investments into renewable energy sources.

In 2021, France's nuclear authority agreed to extend the operational lifetime of the country's 32 oldest reactors by a decade, to 50 years. Since most of France's reactors were built in the 1980s, they could be shut down in the 2030s.

Paris argues that the new plan will maintain energy supplies amid increasing demand, while at the same time allowing France to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and help reduce dependency on imported fossil fuels.

Nuclear energy produces far lower emissions than coal, oil or gas, but plants are expensive to build and produce radioactive waste that remains deadly for tens of thousands of years.

That is an issue that France has yet to come to grips with — its cooling pond at the La Hague reprocessing plant will be full by 2030 and the country has not established a permanent nuclear waste storage facility to replace it.

Latvia: Parliament passes Holocaust restitution law

The bill allows for payments of €40 million and was passed after nearly two decades of negotiations. It also maintains that the Latvian state is not responsible for actions taken when it was occupied by Nazi forces.

At the end of 1941, over 27 000 Jews were murdered by the Nazis in the Rumbula forest near Riga

Latvia's parliament on Thursday passed a Holocaust restitution bill to compensate the Jewish community for lost property more than 75 years after the end of World War II.

The 100-seat Saeima voted 64-21 to approve the "Law on the Compensation of Goodwill to the Latvian Jewish Community" following years of discussion on the issue.

"Finalizing this process demonstrates that even 77 years after the end of the Holocaust, it is never too late for justice," said Arkady Sukharenko, chairman of the Latvian Council of Jewish Communities, hailing the move as a "historic step."

The bill provides for compensation payments of €40 million ($45 million) over 10 years to remedy "the historical unjust consequences" and provide social and material assistance to Holocaust survivors. It also includes funding to revitalize the Lativa's Jewish community, including funding for Jewish schools, and to build restoration and cultural projects.

It was passed after lengthy negotiations that involved the World Jewish Restitution Organization, Latvian Jewish representatives and government authorities. The process, which started in 2005, also involved the United States and Israel.

Stolen assets and property

Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany during World War II. During this period, close to 90% of the country's 95,000 Jews died.

Latvia passed laws on returning the property after independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, but there was no one left to claim the assets.

"We're not going to ask the properties to be returned," said Dmitry Krupnikov, head of the Latvian Jewish Community Restitution Fund.

"It is impossible to return them 25 years after privatization was finished. Somebody's been using them, somebody's been renovating them, somebody's been improving them. Taking that property from them would be incorrect."

Latvian state not responsible

The new legislation maintains that the Latvian state is not responsible for the Holocaust when the country was occupied by Nazi Germany.

However, it would be "ethical and fair" if the country compensated the Latvian Jewish community for the property losses it suffered, according to the bill.

Several European countries have taken steps to compensate the families that owned property before the war. However, the reparation laws have had mixed success. In Latvia, the law had been opposed by the national-conservative ruling party, National Alliance.

    

Australia lists koala as endangered in eastern states

The Australian government has listed the koala as endangered in huge swaths of the country, upping its conservation status from vulnerable.

Australian Environment Minister Sue Ley on Friday announced that the conservation status of koalas was being raised to endangered across much of the east of the country.

Devastating bushfires have exacerbated an already bleak situation, with animal numbers already plunging due to habitat loss through land-clearing, as well as drought and disease.

What does the status change mean?

Ley said the latest change would boost protection for the marsupials under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. 

"The new listing highlights the challenges the species is facing and ensures that all assessments under the act will be considered not only in terms of their local impacts but with regard to the wider koala population."

The new conservation status underlines a swift decline in numbers. It was only in 2012 that the animal — a globally recognized symbol of Australia and its unique wildlife — was deemed to be vulnerable.

Estimates by an independent government advisory body — the Threatened Species Scientific Committee — show koala numbers having slumped from 185,000 in 2001 to 92,000 in 2021.

The change in status applies in New South Wales, Queensland, and the Australian Capital Territory.

'A bittersweet outcome'

Three environmental organizations — the World Wide Fund For Nature, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, and the Humane Society International — submitted a joint nomination for the upgrade.

WWF Australia welcomed the news, saying that koalas and their forest homes should be provided with greater legal protection as a result.

"This is a bittersweet outcome, but a critical step towards reversing the decline of koala populations," the organization said. 

Conservation group IFAW Australia greeted the decision similarly.

"This decision is a double-edged sword and we should never have allowed it to get to this point." 

The Australian Koala Foundation (AKF) in September said the koala population was in rapid decline, with a 30% drop in numbers nationwide over three years.

Figures from New South Wales were the worst, with a 41% decline. But a decline was noted across all parts of Australia, with no upward trends in that time.

Devastating bushfires in 2019 and 2020 were thought to have seriously contributed to the fall in numbers, though drought and heatwaves were also to blame.

However, the AKF also blamed huge land clearances for farming, housing developments and mining — particularly across New South Wales and Queensland.

Chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease that can be debilitating and lead to infertility, has also spread widely among Australian koalas, affecting half the animals in some areas.

Edited by: Farah Bahgat

Gladys and her joeys — rescued from an area where urban development is encroaching on koala habitat

Bangladesh: Murder of DW journalist shrouded in mystery 10 years on

Family members and critics are calling for justice, a decade after former DW journalist Sagar Sarowar and his wife, Meherun Runi, were killed in Bangladesh.


Sagar Sarowar's mother says she has lost hope of finding justice for Sarowar and his wife Meherun Runi


Ten years after the gruesome murder of Bangladeshi journalists Sagar Sarowar and Meherun Runi, police are still looking for the killers. Critics have said the case indicates a lack of willingness on the part of authorities to solve the case.

Sarowar, who was a former DW journalist, was found dead alongside his journalist wife Mehrun Runi, in the bedroom of their apartment in Bangladesh's capital city, Dhaka, on February 11, 2012.

Police said that Sarowar had been tied up, and he and his wife had been stabbed multiple times. Their bodies were discovered early in the morning by their then five-year-old son.

Sarowar had worked as a radio host and editor with DW's Bengali service for three years in Bonn, the former capital of Germany, before returning to his home country. While working with DW, he conducted several interviews with top political leaders of the South Asian country and covered political, social and environmental issues.

The murder, which shocked Bangladesh, took place just eight months after the couple's return to Dhaka. At the time of their deaths, Sarowar worked as the news chief of Maasranga TV, while Runi was a senior reporter for the ATN Bangla TV channel.
Why were they killed?

Right after the murder, Sahara Khatun, the home minister at the time, vowed to find the killers within 48 hours. However, 10 years have passed since the promise was made, and police are yet to discover the motive behind the murder.

Runi's brother Nowsher Roman, who filed the murder case, expressed shock and frustration over the authorities' failure to solve the issue.

"Bangladesh police have solved many mysterious cases in the past. It's hard to believe that they were not able to find a clue behind the couple's murder even after such a long time," Roman told DW.

"It seems like the killers are very powerful. And nobody wants to identify them. Even journalists haven't done any in-depth investigation into it," he added.

Roman recalled that just two laptops and a phone went missing from the apartment after the killing — the killers hadn't taken anything else from the apartment, which was in the middle of a busy neighborhood, and didn't search for anything in any other rooms. The couple's only son, who was sleeping in his room during the murder, remained unharmed.

"The killers took Sarowar's laptops and mobile phone with them after the murder. Mysteriously, they didn't take Runi's phone or any other valuable goods from the apartment," Roman said.

"Sarowar used those devices for his journalistic work," he added.

Daniel Bastard, head of the Paris-based rights organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF), believes the government of the Muslim-majority country hasn't done enough to solve the case.

"There are two non-conflicting hypotheses: On the one hand, there has clearly been some mismanagement by the police force, the prosecutor's office, and ultimately, by the government," he told DW.

"On the other hand, suspicions remain extremely high regarding the motives behind the murder, and the link with the two journalists' investigative work, starting with [their work on] high-level corruption," he added.
Heightened fear among journalists

Bangladesh's press freedom situation has changed significantly over the past decade following the couple's murder. A climate of fear has taken hold in the media sector as the murder remains unsolved, even after protests demanding justice for the pair. Many journalists have limited their investigative work and chosen self-censorship over the past few years.

BANGLADESH'S 'DEATH SQUAD' SECURITY AGENCY TO SCAN SOCIAL MEDIA
Tarnished reputation
The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) was formed in 2004 to battle growing Islamism in Bangladesh. It initially managed to arrest or kill some top terrorists. But it did not take long for RAB's good reputation to be tarnished as it slowly became a symbol of fear. It's now seen as an all-powerful "death squad" unit that acts on the fringes of the law and imposes its own brand of justice.
1234567

"Authorities must provide an explanation as to why the investigation into the killing of Sagar Sarowar and Meherun Runi has taken so long and remains inconclusive even after more than a decade," Smriti Singh, Amnesty International's deputy regional director for South Asia, told DW.

"Repeat failures to identify those responsible not only erodes the faith of the people in the law enforcement and justice system, but also shows a lack of accountability on the part of authorities," said Singh.

"Such prolonged delays bolster fear among journalists for the work they do, and the lack of protection that they are afforded by the state," Singh added.

Bastard pointed out that Bangladesh has dropped eight positions in RSF's World Press Freedom Index since 2013, from 144 to 152.

"Of course, this cannot be explained only by the February 11, 2012 killing. But the ongoing impunity around this case must be understood as a symptom of a larger trend of deterioration of the level of press freedom in Bangladesh," said Bastard.
Journalists continue to demand justice

Local journalists have continued demanding justice for their colleagues. Farida Yasmin, president of Bangladesh's Press Club, blames what she sees as a culture of impunity on the negligence of authorities to find clues.

"Not only the couple's murder case, but many other incidents of attacks on journalists have also remained unsolved. Journalists often don't get justice," she told DW.

"Apart from the police, investigative journalists could have investigated the murder, but they didn't do that either,” Yasmin added.

After the police force failed to solve the case, the country's elite police force Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has taken on the duty of investigating the murder. However, it missed 85 dates to produce an investigative report before the courts in Dhaka.

A spokesperson of the Legal and Media Wing of the force said it needs more time to solve the murder.

"We have interrogated around 160 people in connection with the murder in the past few years. We even took eight of them to remand. But the motive behind the killing is yet to be discovered,” the spokesperson told DW.

"Some DNA samples of the suspects were sent to a forensics lab in the US a few years ago. We are still waiting for the result,” the spokesperson added.

Meanwhile, Saleha Munir, the mother of Sagar Sarowar, says she's lost hope of getting justice for her son and daughter-in-law.

"I have been left clueless about the killing. I want to know the truth, whatever it is, before my death,” she said.

Edited by: Leah Carter

India hijab row: 'All I want to do is study'

Muskan Khan, a college student in Karnataka state, told DW that she is not afraid of the Hindu right-wing activists who want to enforce a veil ban in educational institutes. The row has now spread across the country.

Many rights activists have taken to the streets to protest the imposition of hijab ban in Karnataka state

Huge protests have erupted across Karnataka state following the government's decision to ban hijabs, or headscarves, in schools and colleges.

After six students were banned from entering a college in Karnataka's coastal Udupi district for wearing hijabs on January 1, the debate over the rights of Muslim women, pluralism and secularism has gripped the entire country.

Amid escalating communal tensions and sporadic violence, authorities have closed all high schools and colleges in the southern state for three days.

The Karnataka state is governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which many Muslims accuse of deviating from the country's secular ideology.

The state's High Court is hearing two petitions on the issue and will decide whether to keep the ban or discard it. One of the petitions argues that it is a citizen's fundamental right to choose the attire, and that is guaranteed by the country's constitution.

The other petition challenges the legality of the government's decision to enforce a dress code in educational institutes.

DW contacted several ruling party officials, who said they didn't want to comment as the matter is now in court.

The hijab row, however, was echoed in the national Parliament, with opposition parties staging a walkout.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi, who is a lawmaker from Karnataka, told reporters that "all students must follow the dress code prescribed by schools and their administration."

An unlikely 'hero'

The issue became more prominent when a video of a college student became viral on social media. It showed Muskan Khan, a second-year student of Mandya College, being heckled by Hindu right-wing activists. They were purportedly supporting the dress code in the college. Khan, a Muslim girl clad in a burqa (face veil), confronted them and shouted "Allah Akbar" (God is great in Arabic). She refused to remove her veil.

Khan is now being hailed by many Indian Muslims as a "hero" who stood for the rights of minorities.

"They were not allowing me to enter college because I was wearing the burqa. They started shouting Jai Shri Rama (Hail Lord Rama), so I started yelling Allah Akbar," Muskan told DW over the phone from Mandya.

"All I want to do is study, and these people are stopping us. But I am not afraid," she added.

'Objectification of women'

Supporters of the ban argue that it is the right of college authorities to decide what kind of attire the students are allowed to wear. But many Muslims, and India's secular sections, counter it by saying that it is every individual's basic right to exercise religious beliefs.

"The hijab is a part of cultural and religious identity of the Muslim women. It is like mangal sutra (necklace) for Hindus, the cross for Christians, and turbans for Sikhs," T N Prathapan, a lawmaker from the opposition Congress party, told DW.

Prathapan said the constitutional rights of all citizens must be protected.

Meanwhile, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai called on Indian authorities to take measures to "stop the marginalization of Muslim women."

"Refusing to let girls go to school in their hijabs is horrifying. The objectification of women persists, for wearing less or more," Yousafzai tweeted.

Political mileage

Some experts say the BJP is deliberately igniting the issue for political gains.

"What to eat and what to wear is a fundamental right. The BJP is trying to impose its choices on people. This is nothing but majoritarian politics at play," Nawab Malik of the Nationalist Congress Party told DW.

Activists say attacks on Muslims, who number about 200 million of India's 1.4 billion population, have increased since Modi took power in 2014.

Communal tensions are also on the rise in Karnataka, a state ruled by the BJP. According to the Karnataka Communal Harmony Forum, the state's coastal districts witnessed over 120 communal incidents last year, the highest number in the last four years.

A recent report by the joint initiative of the United Christians Forum, the Association for Protection of Civil Rights and United Against Hate revealed that at least 305 incidents of violence against Christians took place nationwide in the first nine months of 2021. This includes at least 32 incidents in Karnataka alone.

Cynthia Stephen, a social policy researcher in Karnataka, said the BJP "could have nipped the issue in the bud" much earlier.

Kavita Krishnan, of the All India Women's Progressive Association, told DW that the headscarf issue could easily be used as a justification for mob attacks on Muslims.

"Hijab is only the latest pretext to target Muslim women. It came after Hindu supremacists held multiple online auctions of Muslim women and made speeches calling for their sexual and reproductive enslavement," Krishnan said.

GR8T NEWS

Federal judge restores protections for U.S. gray wolves

A federal judge Thursday, restored protections to the American gray wolf population under the Endangered Species Act, meaning they will no longer be hunted. 

Photo by Rain Carnation/Pixabay

Feb. 10 (UPI) -- A federal judge on Thursday moved to once again protect American wolves under the Endangered Species Act, according to court records.

U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White of the Northern District of California made the ruling, overturning a 2020 decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In November 2020, the Fish and Wildlife Service removed federal protections for the gray wolf population across most of the continental United States.

That delisting took effect in January 2021, leaving it up to individual states to manage their respective populations.

Some states quickly allowed open season on gray wolves, with Wisconsin culling its Canis lupus population by one-third during the initial hunting season.

A state judge temporarily blocked Wisconsin's plans to open a second hunt this past fall.

The Humane Society of the United States and a coalition of conservation organizations filed a lawsuit in January 2021 to have the animals' protections restored under the Endangered Species Act.

In the ruling, White found the government failed to assess threats to wolves across their entire range.

"The Service did not adequately consider threats to wolves outside of these core populations. Instead, the Service avoids analyzing these wolves by concluding, with little explanation or analysis, that wolves outside of the core populations are not necessary to the recovery of the species," reads the judge's ruling.

"The Court concludes the Service failed to adequately consider the threats to wolves outside of the core populations in the Great Lakes and Northern Rocky Mountains in delisting the entire species."

The Northern Rockies population of wolves is the lone unprotected wolf population in the United States.

Regional subspecies of the gray wolf were declared endangered by the federal government between 1966 and 1976.

"Today is a monumental victory for wolves who will now be protected from state-sponsored bloodbaths. After having yet another wolf delisting overturned in federal court, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should finally learn its lesson," Kitty Block, president and CEO of the Human Society of the United States, said in a statement on Thursday.

"Instead of continuing to devise convoluted excuses to strip these beloved animals of legal protections, the agency must develop a plan for meaningful recovery across the species' range and ensure that states will not decimate their wolf populations," Block said.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 

Facebook, Instagram are hot spots for fake Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Chanel

By Elizabeth Culliford and Silvia Aloisi

NEW YORK/MILAN (Reuters) - Facebook owner Meta Platforms is struggling to stop counterfeiters from pushing fake luxury goods from Gucci to Chanel across its social media apps, according to research and interviews, as the company barrels into ecommerce.

Its platforms have emerged as hot sots for counterfeit offenders who exploit their range of social and private messaging tools to reach users, according to interviews with academics, industry groups and counterfeit investigators, who likened brands' attempts at policing services like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp as a game of "whack-a-mole."

"Facebook and Instagram are the key marketplaces where counterfeit goods get sold to members of the public. It used to be eBay 10 years ago, and Amazon five years ago," said Benedict Hamilton, a managing director at Kroll, a private investigation company hired by brands hurt by counterfeiting and smuggling.

Research, led by social media analytics firm Ghost Data and shared exclusively with Reuters https://ghostdata.io/report/Upd-Meta-Counterfeit-Empire1221.pdf, showed counterfeiters hawking imitations of luxury brands including Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Prada and Chanel.

It identified more than 26,000 active counterfeiters' accounts operating on Facebook in a June-October 2021 study, the first time its counterfeit research had focused on Meta's flagship app, and it found more than 20,000 active counterfeiters' accounts on Instagram, up from its count the previous year but down from a 2019 peak when they identified about 56,000 accounts. About 65% of the accounts found in 2021 were based in China, followed by 14% in Russia and 7.5% in Turkey.

Ghost Data is an Italian analytics firm founded by cybersecurity expert Andrea Stroppa, who is also a data analyst consultant for the World Economic Forum. The firm has a track record of exposing the use of social media by counterfeiters, Islamic State supporters and for digital propaganda.

A Reuters search of keywords identified dozens of Instagram accounts and Facebook posts that appeared to promote counterfeit goods, which Meta removed for violating its rules after Reuters flagged them.

Online commerce is a key priority for Meta, which has pushed new shopping features that could help grow its revenue as it faces pressures like ads tracking changes and sputtering user growth https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-owner-meta-forecasts-q1-revenue-below-estimates-2022-02-02, and has signaled a hard stance against counterfeiters. Instagram said luxury brands like Dior, Balenciaga and Versace had adopted shopping features on its app and said some like Oscar De La Renta and Balmain were using in-app checkout.

But users exploiting its platforms to sell fake goods present a persistent problem for the company, which also faces scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators about its content moderation.

"The sale of counterfeits and fraud is a problem that has always persisted with new technology," said a Meta company spokesperson in a statement. "We are getting better every day at stopping these sales and cracking down on fraudsters," the person added.

'PLAYING CATCH-UP'

Most buyers know they are not getting the real deal when they pay $100 for a handbag that retails for over $5,000. But harms include hits to brands' sales and reputation, potential safety issues of unregulated goods, and ties between counterfeiting and organized criminal activity, experts said.

Meta has joined ecommerce sites and online marketplaces in grappling with the sale of counterfeit goods. But unlike public listings on sites dedicated to shopping like eBay and Amazon.com, social platforms also provide offenders multiple channels to post in closed spaces, send private messages and use disappearing content like Instagram Stories, experts said.

"They're creating a lot of unique opportunities for counterfeiters to hide," said Lara Miller, vice president of corporate strategy at the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition. "We're all playing catch-up."

Counterfeiters took advantage of features like WhatsApp product catalogs, which are unencrypted and available through the app's "business profile" option, to show their wares, the Ghost Data report said.

Ghost Data's Stroppa said he had seen an increasing trend of whole counterfeit transactions occurring on the company's platforms, rather than linking out to external sites.

Some high-end labels remain wary of the ability of a broad spectrum of major online platforms, from ecommerce sites to social apps, to deal with counterfeiters.

In 2020, Chanel, Lacoste and Gant left a European Commission initiative aimed at increasing cooperation between brands and sites including eBay, Alibaba and Facebook's Marketplace to fight counterfeiting, saying it was not effective.

Chanel finance chief, Philippe Blondiaux, said in an interview last year that Chanel, which only sells cosmetics and perfume online, did not believe Facebook or Instagram were "the right environment to sell luxury items," adding the brand wanted a "very protected" and intimate environment for its customers.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which estimated the global trade in counterfeit products was as much as $464 billion in 2019 https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/74c81154-en/index.html?itemId=/content/publication/74c81154-en, has said a boom in ecommerce in 2020-21 led to massive growth in the supply of online counterfeit goods. Academics said the fraud had mushroomed during the COVID-19 pandemic, while legislation in the United States and European Union remained unable to combat it.

Chanel, Gucci and Prada said their fight against counterfeiters resulted in hundreds of thousands of social media posts taken down last year, but did not comment specifically on Meta's services. Vuitton and Fendi owner LVMH, which in a filing said it spent $33 million to fight counterfeiting in 2020, declined to comment.

According to a lawsuit Meta filed with Gucci last year, the platform has struggled since 2015 to shut down a woman in Moscow accused of selling fake goods on is services via a network of more than 150 accounts.

BATTLING COUNTERFEITERS

Meta having more user shopping data https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/facebook-expands-shops-whatsapp-marketplace-commerce-updates-2021-06-22 could help with ad targeting, filling an information vacuum left after Apple started letting owners of its devices block companies from accessing user information.

Meta legal directors told Reuters that cracking down on counterfeiters was key as its commerce plans ramped up. "As commerce has become a strategic priority for the company and as we've been building new shopping experiences, we've recognized that we want to make sure those experiences are safe and trusted for brands and for the users," Meta's director and associate general counsel for IP Mark Fiore said last summer.

Meta, which says it has 3.59 billion monthly active users across its apps, in October launched an updated tool for brands to search and report counterfeits in posts, ads or commerce features, and says it typically responds to complaints of such infringements within 24 hours.

In a recent report https://transparency.fb.com/data/intellectual-property/notice-and-takedown/facebook, the company said it removed 1.2 million pieces of counterfeit Facebook content, including accounts, reported to it from January to June 2021 and about half a million on Instagram. The company said in this period it also proactively removed 283 million pieces of Facebook content violating counterfeit or copyright infringement rules and about 3 million on Instagram, either before they were reported by brands or before they went live.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford in New York and Silvia Aloisi in Milan; Editing by Kenneth Li, Vanessa O'Connell and Lisa Shumaker)

'Almost invisible' earthquake set off 2021 South Atlantic tsunami

Ian Randall For Mailonline - 

A global tsunami which originated in the South Atlantic last year before travelling more than 6,000 miles was caused by a shallow, 'nearly invisible' earthquake.

This is the conclusion of Caltech experts who set out to solve the mystery of how the tidal wave formed when, based on initial readings, such seemed impossible.

The far-reaching disturbance followed in the wake of an apparent magnitude 7.5 earthquake centred near the South Sandwich Islands that struck on August 12, 2021.

Yet its focus was 29 miles below the Earth's surface — too deep to trigger a tsunami — and the 249-mile-long rupture should have caused a much larger earthquake.

Taking a closer look at seismic recordings from the time, the team found that what had seemed to be one quake was in fact a series of five, spread over several minutes.

And the seismic waves from these events interfered with each other, creating something of a tangled web of data that obscured the third in the sequence.

This particular quake — a magnitude 8.2 event that struck just 9 miles below the Earth's surface — was, the researchers said, likely the source of the global tsunami.

In fact, they said, this particular quake accounted for some 70 per cent of all the energy released during the episode.

Fortunately, the resulting tsunami had become quite small by the time it reached distant shores, and the residents of the islands it did affect were mostly penguins.

However, the team said, the findings highlight the need to improve seismic monitoring to better deal with complex earthquakes and their associated hazards.


© Provided by Daily MailA global tsunami (depicted) which originated in the South Atlantic last year before travelling more than 6,000 miles was caused by a shallow, 'nearly invisible' earthquake


© Provided by Daily MailTaking a closer look at seismic recordings from the time, Caltech researchers found that what had seemed to be one quake was in fact a series of five (as depicted), spread over several minutes. The seismic waves from these events interfered with each other, obscuring the third in the sequence. This particular quake — a magnitude 8.2 event that struck just 9 miles below the Earth's surface — was, the researchers said, likely the source of the global tsunami

THE FIVE QUAKES


E1 — M 7.2 foreshock with duration 23s

E2 — M 7.2 foreshock, duration 19s

E3 — M 8.2 mainshock, duration 180s

E4 — M 7.6 aftershock, duration 26s

E5 — M7.7 aftershock, duration 50s

The study was undertaken by seismologist Zhe Jia and his colleagues at the California Institute of Technology.

'The third event is special because it was huge, and it was silent,' Mr Jia explained.

'In the data we normally look at [for earthquake monitoring], it was almost invisible.'

Typically approaches to seismic monitoring typically focus on waves with short and medium periods only, the expert explained.

In fact, he noted, the shallow, magnitude 8.2 quake — which lasted for 180 seconds — only became clearly visible in the data when he filtered the waveforms down to those with a longer period of up to 500 seconds.

Even this approach wasn't quite enough on its own, however, to pick apart all the messy seismic signals generated in the episode.

'It's hard to find the second earthquake because it's buried in the first one,' Mr Jia explained.

'It's very seldom that complex earthquakes like this are observed. If we don’t use the right dataset, we cannot really see what was hidden inside,' he added.

The team developed a special algorithm to break down — or 'decompose' — the collected seismic observations from the five earthquakes into individual events.


© Provided by Daily MailThe third quake in the sequence accounted for some 70 per cent of the energy released during the episode. Fortunately, the resulting tsunami had become quite small by the time it reached distant shores (as depicted), and the residents of the islands it did affect were mostly penguins

According to Judith Hubbard, a geologist from the Earth Observatory of Singapore who was not involved in the present study, we need to improve our hazard predictions to account for the fact that these quake can cause unexpected tsunamis.

'With these complex earthquakes, the earthquake happens and we think, "Oh, that wasn't so big, we don't have to worry",' she explained.

'And then the tsunami hits and causes a lot of damage.'

'We need to rethink our way to mitigate earthquake-tsunami hazards,' agreed Mr Jia.

'To do that, we need to rapidly and accurately characterize the true size of big earthquakes, as well as their physical processes.'

According to both Mr Jia and Professor Hubbard, a long-term goal will be to automate the analyses of these large, complication seismic events, just as we already have for simple earthquakes.

'This study is a great example of how we can understand how these events work, and how we can detect them faster so we can have more warning in the future,' Professor Hubbard added.

'I think a lot of people are daunted by trying to work on events like this. That somebody was willing to really dig into the data to figure it out is really useful.'

The full findings of the study were published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.Read more

CANADA

A little nervous’: Experts question politics behind lifting COVID-19 restrictions

Aya Al-Hakim 


As provinces across Canada start to lift COVID-19 restrictions, some experts are questioning whether public health decisions are being made based on medical data or politics.

Ontario's three-phase reopening plan that stretches into mid-March is underway, with proof of vaccination and masking to remain in place as capacity limits widen and more businesses reopen.

Read more:
COVID-19: Quebec announces staggered reopening plan through to mid-March

Quebec, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island have also laid out plans to lift public COVID-19 health measures over the course of the next month or so.

Video: Reaction mixed after Saskatchewan announces plan to lift COVID-19 restrictions

But Saskatchewan and Alberta are aiming to end all COVID-19 restrictions.

Epidemiologist Timothy Sly says even though the COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll on the mental health and lives of Canadians, it's still not reasonable enough to ignore scientific evidence.

"Hospital rates, ICU rates, wastewater rates, if they're going down and they have been for the last three weeks, then we can look forward to taking a few more steps (in lifting restrictions)," said Sly.

Video: Alberta drops mask mandate for kids, education minister says boards can’t enforce their own

But in the Prairies, the hospitalizations have only just started to decline.

"If politics chooses not to listen to that, then I think we're a little nervous," said Sly.

As of Tuesday, there were 1,623 people in hospital with COVID-19, according to Alberta Health, with 129 in intensive care.

Read more:
COVID-19: Alberta doctors, mayors react to Kenney removing vaccine passport, restrictions

Dr. Noel Gibney, professor emeritus in the department of critical care medicine at the University of Alberta, said the removal of COVID-19 restrictions is premature.

“If we look back at some of the previous waves, the government used hospitalization numbers of 400 or 500 to make decisions about what public health measures would be added or removed,” Gibney explained on Wednesday in an interview with Global News.

“We’re actually significantly above those numbers now, and our system remains under profound pressure.”

On Tuesday, Saskatchewan was the first province to announce it would be ending the use of COVID-19 vaccine passports beginning on Feb. 14, with facemasks in indoor public settings to lift by end of February.

“Proof of vaccination has been an effective policy, but its effectiveness has run its course,” said Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe on Tuesday.

“The benefits no longer outweigh the costs. It’s time to heal the divisions over vaccination in our families, in our communities and in our province. It’s time for proof of vaccination requirements to end," he added.

Alberta then followed by announcing its COVID-19 vaccine passport program would end first thing Wednesday. Almost all public health restrictions would be lifted by March 1 — including masking — if hospitalizations continue to improve.

At a news conference, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said Tuesday that while the restrictions exemption program (REP) served its purpose of increasing vaccination rates, it is no longer an effective tool for doing so and no longer needed, especially with so many vaccinated people still contracting the highly-transmissible Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Read more:
B.C. throne speech lays out post-pandemic plans, including child care and safe workplaces

Ontario’s health minister Christine Elliot said on Wednesday that the province is “not in the clear” to remove COVID-19 vaccine passports that are required to enter some indoor public settings such as gyms and restaurants or to drop the mask mandate.

“We have no plans, currently, to drop the passport vaccination situation or masking,” Elliot said. “We always said that we were going to take a very cautious, phased, prudent approach to opening up and that’s the path that we’re going to follow.”

On Wednesday, Ontario reported another drop in hospitalizations, with 2,059 people with COVID in hospitals and 449 in intensive care units. This is down from a week ago at 2,939 hospitalizations with 555 in ICU. Case counts, test positivity and wastewater signal have also been on the downward trend, Elliott said.

A clinical professor in the School of Population & Public Health at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Hoption Cann, said ending COVID-19 restrictions is a "political decision."

Read more:
COVID-19: Quebec reports 56 more deaths, another drop in hospitalizations

He also said there are both scientific and economic issues for politicians to look at and try to balance.

"Economically, there's been a lot of harm due to lockdowns during the pandemic. So as a politician, they kind of have to balance the two things. And it's not an easy balance to make," Cann said.

As provinces ease restrictions, he believes that potentially the number of infections could go up again, but it's hard to predict at this time.

"What we do know is having two doses and particularly three doses offers very good protection against being hospitalized or dying from this infection. So an easing up of restrictions is one thing, but you still have to try and promote those people to get a triple dose or get vaccinated if they haven't been," said Cann.

With some provinces moving faster than others, Sly says provinces need to respond thoughtfully based on the data they have, like the number of hospitalizations and new cases, and not rush to remove all of the COVID-19 mandates on a single date.

"We need to look at the local situation and say, how are we responding sensibly and responsibly or are we just having a knee-jerk reaction due to some ideology," said Sly.

Sly also acknowledged that there are many sides to the discussions that aren't just based on epidemiology, stating that "we cannot have a future dictated by a scientist without any regard at all to the fallout."

"We need a roundtable discussion. But when we have policies that seem to be made (because a political party) is looking for the popular vote or not really listening to what's being said, then it is a little too soon to ease restrictions," said Sly. "Evidence-based decision-making is the key here."

When Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announced plans to lift COVID-19 restrictions in phases on Tuesday, he said, “It’s time for us to learn to live with COVID-19,” listing the challenges of the pandemic: disrupting livelihoods, dividing people and hurting mental health.

In late January, Ontario Premier Doug Ford also said the province needs to “learn to live with” COVID-19.

Beginning on Jan. 31, social gatherings were increased to a maximum of 10 people indoors, and 25 outdoors.

Restaurants, bars, retail stores, malls, gyms, cinemas and other indoor public settings were also allowed to open to a 50 per cent capacity.

Video: COVID-19: Ontario to roll out free rapid tests in grocery stores, pharmacies

The province is planning to lift more measures on Feb 21, and again on March 14.

One of the first countries to choose to "live with COVID" is Denmark, which is now seeing a record number of hospitalizations.

Although ICU numbers remain low, the country is registering a similar number of COVID-19 deaths as in previous waves of the pandemic.

"If we make a wrong move and because it's politically expedient to do so, we could be rewarded by a sudden surge of cases again, mainly among the unvaccinated," said Sly.

— with files from Jamie Mauracher, Kaylen Small, and Gabby Rodrigues