Switzerland reopens door for new nuclear power plants

By AFP
August 28, 2024

The four nuclear power plants currently in service provide around a third of Switzerland's total electricity production - Copyright AFP Fabrice COFFRINI

Switzerland said Wednesday it was open to building new nuclear power stations in the long term, given new geopolitical uncertainties, climate targets and population growth boosting the demand for electricity.

The Swiss approved the gradual phase-out of nuclear power in a referendum in 2017, by banning the construction of new power plants.

That law was the result of a long process initiated after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, triggered by a tsunami.

However, “since 2017, the situation on the electricity market has changed radically”, Energy Minister Albert Rosti told a press conference, following a government meeting.

Furthermore, last year voters backed a new climate bill aimed at steering the country towards carbon neutrality by 2050.

Rosti said new nuclear power was “not an option” in the short or even medium term.

“But to be ready, if it is necessary in the long term, in the next 15 years I would say, we must start now,” he stressed.

His ministry will submit an amendment to the nuclear energy law by the end of the year.

Parliament would then have to debate it and the public would have to vote in a referendum.

“We are not saying that in 10 years there will be a new power plant… but we are responsible for leaving the door open to all possible technologies,” said Rosti, stressing that if the process was not initiated now, it will “perhaps be too late in 20 years”.

As the wealthy Alpine nation hopes to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, the government said it needed to be open to different technologies — and the ban on new nuclear plants was “not compatible” with that objective.

The four nuclear power plants currently in service provide around a third of Switzerland’s total electricity production. They can continue running as long as they remain safe.

When they eventually have to close, the government fears renewable energy might not be able to plug the gap.

“At the time, we had imagined producing the missing electricity using gas-fired power plants,” but “this option has become almost unthinkable” to achieve carbon neutrality, Rosti explained.

He said the lifting of the ban on new nuclear power plants was a “fallback option, just in case”.

The announcement was immediately criticised by Greenpeace Switzerland as well as centrist, socialist and environmentalist parties.

“The construction of a new nuclear reactor will come too late to effectively reduce our carbon emissions and will not free us from our dependence on third countries for our energy supply,” said Greenpeace Switzerland.

Pro-Trump X accounts use stolen photos of European influencers: study


By AFP
August 28, 2024


Fake accounts on X use stolen images of influencers to appear authentic - Copyright AFP/File Jim WATSON, Odd ANDERSEN
Anuj CHOPRA

Meet “Eva,” “Sophia,” and “Samantha” — fake accounts which pose as chic American women who support Donald Trump on the platform X, disguising themselves by using stolen photographs of European fashion and beauty influencers, according to a study published Wednesday.

The report by the nonprofit Center for Information Resilience (CIR) comes as researchers express alarm ahead of the US election in November that the site owned by Elon Musk –- who has endorsed Trump –- is plagued with fake accounts and political disinformation.

CIR said it uncovered 16 accounts that used images of European influencers –- without their permission –- to pose as young women promoting Trump and encouraging thousands of followers to vote for the Republican nominee.

These accounts, which use stolen images of real people to appear authentic, were among 56 profiles that appear to be part of a coordinated campaign to push pro-Trump content, it added.

“By using images of the influencers, the accounts recognize the value of creating a believable human persona, steering clear of the generic photos and bot-like usernames usually associated with fake accounts,” CIR’s report said.

It was unclear who was behind the digital deception or whether the accounts were pushing pro-Trump content for ideological or monetary gain.

The fake profiles use everyday images from the influencers’ Instagram accounts — including pictures of them at the beach or walking their dog — which are captioned with MAGA-related hashtags or pledges to vote for Trump, CIR said.

MAGA, or Make America Great Again, is a political slogan associated with Trump and his campaign.

Many of the accounts have attempted to spread misinformation about hot-button political subjects such as a recent assassination attempt against Trump, his Democratic rival Kamala Harris’s ethnicity and US military aid to Ukraine, the report said.

Some accounts also promote anti-vaccine and Covid-19 conspiracies, with some posts viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

“They post about divisive issues in US politics in a bid to exploit pre-existing tensions,” the report said.

One of the impersonators is “Luna,” a self-described 32-year-old “MAGA Trump supporter,” who used images of a German fashion influencer named Debbie Nederlof, according to CNN, which jointly conducted the investigation with CIR.

Nederlof, a single mother, voiced anger and frustration over the misuse of her images, saying she had “nothing to do with the United States, with Trump, the political things over there.”

“What the hell do I -– from a small place in Germany –- care about US politics?” she said.

X did not respond to a request for comment.

Impersonation is a violation of the platform’s rules, and accounts posing as another person, group or organization may be “permanently suspended,” according to X’s website.

Musk appears to exert an outsized influence on US voters through the platform and his own personal account, which is regularly flagged by fact-checkers for spreading political falsehoods to his nearly 196 million followers.

Since Musk’s 2022 acquisition of X, the platform has gutted trust and safety teams and scaled back content moderation efforts once used to tame misinformation, making it what researchers call a haven for disinformation.

California lawmakers pass AI safety bill


By AFP
August 28, 2024


A California bill seeks to regulate the development of AI models, though critics say the measure can threaten innovation in the nascent field -

Copyright AFP/File Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV

A bill aimed at regulating powerful artificial intelligence models passed California’s legislature on Wednesday, despite outcry that it could kill the technology it seeks to control.

“SB 1047 — our AI safety bill — just passed off the Assembly floor. I’m proud of the diverse coalition behind this bill — a coalition that deeply believes in both innovation and safety,” said Democratic state senator Scott Wiener of San Francisco, who sponsored the bill.

The bill had faced a barrage of critics, including Democratic members of US Congress, who argued that threats of punitive measures against developers in a nascent field would throttle innovation.

It did, however, win the reluctant support of Elon Musk, who argued that AI’s risk to the public justifies regulation.

“This is a tough call and will make some people upset,” he said on Monday as he stated his support on X.

The bill, called the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act, now goes to the desk of California Gavin Newsom for signature, though his position on the proposal is not known.

Newsom has until September 30 to sign the bill or put his veto.

Dan Hendrycks, director of the Center for AI Safety, said the bill provides “a workable path forward” in enforcing “safeguards to mitigate against critical AI risk.”

The bill requires developers of large “frontier” AI models to take precautions such as pre-deployment testing, simulating hacker attacks, installing cyber security safeguards, and providing protection for whistleblowers.

In order to secure the legislation’s passage in the home state of Silicon Valley, lawmakers made several changes to the bill, including replacing criminal penalties for violations with civil penalties such as fines.

But opposition to the bill remained, including from some powerful national figures.

“The view of many of us in Congress is that SB 1047 is well-intentioned but ill-informed,” influential Democratic congresswoman Nancy Pelosi of California said last week, noting that top party members have shared their concerns with Wiener.

But Wiener argues that AI safety and innovation are not mutually exclusive, and that tweaks to the bill have addressed some concerns of critics.

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, also opposed the bill, saying it would prefer national rules instead of a chaotic patchwork of AI regulations across the 50 US states.

At least 40 states have introduced bills this year to regulate AI, and a half dozen have adopted resolutions or enacted legislation aimed at the technology, according to The National Conference of State Legislatures.

Greek port grapples with flood of dead fish


By AFP
August 28, 2024

Dead fish floating in the port of Volos, central Greece, on Wednesday - Copyright AFP Angelos TZORTZINIS

Authorities in central Greece are racing to deal with an inundation of tons of dead fish at a popular port that locals say could threaten their livelihoods.

It is the second environmental catastrophe to hit the port of Volos, a three-and-a-half-hour drive north of Athens, after catastrophic floods hit the Thessaly region last year.

Those floods refilled a nearby lake that had been drained in 1962 in a bid to fight malaria, swelling it to three times its normal size.

“After the storms Daniel and Elias last autumn, around 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) of plains in Thessaly were flooded, and various freshwater fish were carried by rivers” to the sea, Dimitris Klaudatos, a professor of agriculture and environment at the University of Thessaly.

Since then the lake waters have receded drastically, forcing the freshwater fish toward the Volos port that empties into the Pagasetic Gulf and the Aegean Sea, where they cannot survive.

On Tuesday alone, authorities removed 57 tons of the dead fish washed up on beaches near Volos, with cleanup efforts continuing on Wednesday.

Tourist traffic to the area has already plunged by nearly 80 percent since last year’s flooding, according to the local association of restaurants and bars.

“The situation with this dead fish will be the death of us,” said Stefanos Stefanou, the president of the association. “What visitor will come to our city after this?”

Local authorities have opened an inquiry to study water qualities and microbial levels in the estuary of Lake Karla, as well as potential pollution in the gulf.

VP contender Walz fends off US misinformation over pro-LGBTQ stance

By AFP
August 28, 2024


Tim Walz faces a flood of misinformation ahead of the November election. - Copyright AFP KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI

Daniel Patrick Galgano and Anuj Chopra

A barrage of attacks on Tim Walz fueled by misinformation over his support for LGBTQ communities has failed to dent the US vice presidential candidate’s surging poll ratings, suggesting that voters are wearying of some “culture war” issues in a tight White House race.

The push, which includes false assertions that Walz signed a law protecting pedophiles, has been amplified by Donald Trump and top Republicans as political campaigning kicks into high gear ahead of the November 5 election.

Walz — the popular two-term governor of Minnesota — has also faced a torrent of misinformation about his legislative record on transgender rights and gender-affirming care.

Trump recently heaped scorn on Walz, saying he was “heavy into the transgender world.”

Trump’s supporters have mocked him as “Tampon Tim,” falsely asserting that he forced schools to make tampons and pads available in boys’ toilets, after he signed a law that requires schools to make the products available for free for menstruating students.

But — unlike an issue such as abortion, which has driven voters to polls at local, state and national levels since the Supreme Court overturned the right to the procedure in 2022 — the attacks appear to have failed to move the needle on Walz.

“People are getting ‘issue fatigue’ with regards to the culture wars,” Todd Belt, director of the political management program at George Washington University, told AFP.

“As the election gets closer, people want to hear out kitchen-table issues that have a material effect on their well-being.”

– ‘Real issues’ –

“Inflation is Americans’ most important issue,” said an Economist-YouGov poll in mid-August, with 26 percent expressing concern about prices.

When asked about other issues “important” to Americans, jobs and economy, immigration, healthcare and climate change were listed as the top answers.

Abortion, which many Americans regard as a hot-button culture war issue, appeared on the list, at sixth place.

“Voters are insisting that politicians focus instead on the real issues facing our nation, including inflation, abortion rights, and climate change,” said GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis.

Her statement followed a survey in March which concluded that campaigning on anti-transgender issues was a “losing strategy,” with candidates who frequently discuss them creating more opposition than support for their campaigns.

That has not stopped both Republicans and Democrats from putting the culture wars at the center of their campaigns, and in a volatile election cycle issues other than abortion could yet break through.

But for now, despite the hammering of his pro-LGBTQ record, Walz has stayed easily ahead of Republican vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance in national polling.

– ‘People are tired’ –

Much of the rhetoric against Walz involves children, including a viral claim across social media that he signed a bill last year protecting pedophiles in Minnesota, AFP fact-checkers reported.

The false claim, which garnered tens of thousands of views on sites such as Instagram, deploy a long-standing disinformation trope tying the LGBTQ community to pedophilia.

While lawmakers did remove a reference to pedophilia in the state’s human rights law, experts including Naomi Cahn, a University of Virginia professor, said the move does not affect the “criminal laws concerning sexual contact with a child.”

Other posts falsely accuse Walz of allowing the state to terminate parental custody if trans children are stopped by their parents from receiving gender-affirming care.

“Tim Walz signed a bill that lets the state take away (your) kids… in the name of ‘gender affirming care,'” conservative talk show host Megyn Kelly wrote on the platform X, a falsehood that garnered over 2.5 million views and was widely shared by Trump supporters.

Walz battled such misinformation after he signed the Trans Refuge Bill last year, granting legal protection to transgender people who come to Minnesota to seek medical care, even if the treatment is illegal in their home state.

Top Republicans such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin did see electoral success in past voting cycles by stoking anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.

But polls showed that — unlike Democrats with abortion rights — Republicans had little success mobilizing voters around anti-trans issues in the 2022 midterm elections.

“It’s not working right now” before the November election, Belt said, adding that “people are tired” of the messaging.

“You can’t win an election just by being against something.”

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

Haiti gangs ‘aren’t even worried’ by Kenyan police


By AFP
August 28, 2024

People walk past burning tires, during a demonstration against insecurity in Port-au-Prince, Haiti - Copyright AFP Clarens SIFFROY
Jean Daniel SENAT with Gerard MARTINEZ in Miami

Two months after the first Kenyan police officers arrived in Haiti, little progress has been made against the country’s rapacious gangs — and the buildup of an international policing mission appears stalled.

With UN backing and funding from the United States, the mission was supposed to bring order to a nation where armed groups control 80 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Yet the Kenyan police — now numbering 400 — and their Haitian counterparts have not recaptured any gang strongholds, with frustration palpable among city residents.

“The abuse from the gangs continues, and the bandits aren’t even worried,” motorcycle taxi driver Watson Laurent, 39, told AFP, adding he had been in favor of the international intervention.

“I thought they would restore peace and support our police who were overwhelmed,” he said. “I am very concerned. I can’t sleep at night because of the explosions.”

Violence-plagued Haiti was plunged into further turmoil after a coordinated gang uprising in February saw attacks on the international airport and police stations, and led to the resignation of prime minister Ariel Henry.

The Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS), which Kenya had stepped up to lead, was already in planning and was finally deployed to help Haiti tackle the soaring insecurity.

The first 200 Kenyans arrived in late June, with another 200 in July.

But the force has “neither the sufficient personnel nor the equipment to launch real offensive operations against the gangs,” Diego Da Rin, Haiti analyst at the NGO International Crisis Group, told AFP.

– ‘Get to work’ –

The Kenyans and the Haitian National Police have protected key buildings and facilities in Port-au-Prince, while gangs — accused of rape, murder and kidnapping — have largely held on to their territory.

The only major operation that the Kenyan police were involved in was at the end of July, when the 400 Mawozo gang took the town of Ganthier, 28 kilometers (18 miles) east of Port-au-Prince.

But ahead of the security forces’ arrival, gang members skipped town — only to retake Ganthier once the Kenyan and Haitian police left.

Kenyan police have said they have made “significant progress,” including helping take back “critical infrastructure, including the airport, from gang control” and opening “roads that have enabled the return of thousands of Haitians earlier displaced.”

Most of that progress took place before their arrival, said Da Rin.

Many ordinary Haitians are angry.

“The MSS needs to get to work,” said Yverose Amazan, a shopkeeper. “This situation has gone on too long.”


– Where are the others? –


With a price tag of $600 million, the MSS is supposed to total 2,500 officers from Bangladesh, Benin, Chad, the Bahamas, Barbados and Jamaica — yet only the Kenyans have arrived, and with just 400 of their planned 1,000 officers.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for more funding, with the latest figures showing only $21.6 million out of the $85 million pledged has been received.

Meanwhile the United States has contributed more than $300 million in funds and equipment, including armored vehicles.

The gang uprising was just the latest shock to hit a country grappling with the compounding effects of political crises, natural disasters and poverty.

Nearly 600,000 people have been displaced in Haiti, according to the United Nations, while some 4.5 million do not have enough to eat.

The prospects may look grim, but Amazan hopes the police mission “does something” by the time school starts in mid-September.

“I would like to be able to move around my country, as was the case before the proliferation of the gangs,” she said.

One quarter of China’s energy now comes from clean sources: white paper


By AFP
August 28, 2024

China said its wind and solar capacity overshot a target set by President Xi Jinping nearly six years ahead of schedule 

- Copyright AFP/File GREG BAKER

A quarter of all the energy China consumes now comes from clean sources, according to research published Thursday, as Beijing rapidly pivots its huge economy to a greener footing.

The country is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, though has in recent years emerged as a global leader in renewable energy.

It has pledged to bring its emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide to a peak by 2030 and to net zero by 2060.

A white paper published Thursday said the proportion of “clean energy” in total national consumption rose from 15.5 percent to 26.4 percent over the past decade, according to state news agency Xinhua.

Wind and solar capacity increased by ten times over the same period, Xinhua quoted the document as saying.

It said China was responsible for over 40 percent of annual additions to global renewable energy capacity since 2013.

“China has… achieved historic breakthroughs in green and low-carbon energy development,” the white paper said.

Under the Paris climate accord, countries have pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions with a view to keeping global temperature rises below 1.5 Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

China has won plaudits for its efforts to rapidly ditch polluting energy sources such as coal, but has also resisted calls to act even more ambitiously.

Last week, its wind and solar capacity overshot a target set by President Xi Jinping nearly six years ahead of schedule.

Mismatched development in the country’s renewables sector also means a significant amount of energy gets wasted, while turbulence in the domestic solar industry has pushed some firms into dire financial straits.

China’s solar sector blazes trail in commitment to renewables


By AFP
August 28, 2024

China is building almost twice as much wind and solar capacity as every other country combined - Copyright AFP GREG BAKER

Rebecca Bailey with Matthew Walsh in Beijing

Hundreds of rows of gleaming panels blanket swathes of scrubby sand at sunset in a remote northern Chinese desert — once the biggest solar farm in the world.

On the edge of the forbidding Tengger desert, the solar park produces 1.5 gigawatts of power — but it has since been eclipsed and the largest is now further west with more than double the capacity.

China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, is building almost twice as much wind and solar capacity as every other country combined.

Last week, its wind and solar capacity overshot a target set by President Xi Jinping nearly six years ahead of schedule.

The vast solar arrays in the Ningxia region are a testament to a state-led industrial policy that has driven that breakneck growth.

South of the regional capital Yinchuan, huge lorries roar down a highway flanked by photovoltaic panels and wind turbines stretching to the horizon.

Ningxia, like much of China’s northwest, is sparsely populated and sun-soaked, pockmarked with small farms, vineyards and hulking power stations.

This geography makes it a prime location for generating solar power, which is then sent to China’s eastern and southern provinces where electricity demand is highest.

“China’s solar energy is developing at an unprecedented pace and scale,” said analyst Wu Di from Peking University’s Institute of Energy.

The country increased its installed solar capacity by more than 55 percent last year, according to the National Energy Administration.

China now accounts for over 40 percent of the total installed capacity worldwide, said Wu.

– ‘Need for coal waning’ –

Beijing aims to bring emissions of planet-heating carbon dioxide to a peak by 2030 and to net zero by 2060, part of its commitments under the Paris climate accord that seeks to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

“Carbon can’t peak unless incremental consumption demand is covered entirely by incremental growth in clean energy,” said David Fishman, a senior manager at the Lantau Group specialising in China’s power sector.

“Incremental solar capacity growth is an important part of making sure all power demand growth is met by clean sources.”

The government only permitted around nine gigawatts of new coal power in the first half of 2024, a year-on-year reduction of 83 percent, according to a report published this month by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

“With new renewable energy installations now capable of meeting all incremental power demand in China, the need for new coal is waning,” the Finland-based independent research group said.

But it also warned that construction continued on existing coal projects, potentially slowing Beijing’s energy transition.

– Industry shake-out –

The blistering pace at which extra solar capacity has been added has not quite been matched by developments in the power grid, causing some energy to be lost — a phenomenon known as curtailment.

In May, Fitch Ratings said this could continue to rise in the near term, with the solar curtailment rate for the first quarter of 2024 increasing to four percent.

“In the future, in order to control the solar curtailment ratio within a reasonable range, China still has lots of work to do,” said Wu.

Transferring power from west to east is also “not the most cost-effective approach”, said Gao Yuhe from environmental group Greenpeace East Asia.

Besides the behemothic parks in the north, China’s solar revolution has also relied on distributed solar energy — smaller panels set onto rooftops in residential and commercial areas, which reduce transmission losses.

But even this smaller-scale infrastructure needs upgrading to cope with recent increased capacity, said Wu.

Long backed by generous government subsidies, China’s domestic solar-panel industry is struggling with a global oversupply crisis that has driven down prices and pushed some firms into bankruptcy.

Fishman, of the Lantau Group, said the intense competition “is good news for builders, who continue to benefit from the cheapest panels the world has ever seen”.

“Once a few of them go toes-up because they can’t endure the competition, the market should stabilise,” he added.

Chinese subsidies have also created friction with global trading partners, with the EU launching an investigation to discern whether the subsidies have helped homegrown firms undercut European rivals.

Beijing denies that its industrial policies are unfair and has initiated a series of probes into European imports in apparent retaliation.

Brazil judge threatens to suspend X within 24 hours

By AFP
August 28, 2024


Elon Musk's X. — © AFP

A Brazilian Supreme Court judge threatened Wednesday to suspend X, formerly Twitter, if CEO Elon Musk doesn’t name a new legal representative for the social media site’s operations in the country.

Earlier this month Musk shut down X’s business operations in Brazil while preserving access to the social media site for users after accusing the judge of threatening the company’s previous legal representative.

In an order made public Wednesday, judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered Musk “to appoint the company’s new legal representative in Brazil within 24 hours.”

“In the event of non-compliance with the order, the decision provides for the suspension of the social network’s activities in Brazil.”

Moraes has spearheaded the battle against disinformation in South America’s largest nation, clashing with Musk along the way.

Musk and other critics have said Moraes is part of a sweeping crackdown on free speech.

Justifying the shutdown of the offices, Musk said that had X complied with de Moraes’s orders, “there was no way we could explain our actions without being ashamed.”


Brazil Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered Elon Musk to name a new legal representative in the country or face X being shut down there – Copyright AFP/File EVARISTO SA

Moraes previously had ordered the suspension of several Twitter accounts suspected of spreading disinformation, including those of supporters of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who tried to discredit the voting system in the 2022 presidential election, which he lost.

In April, X admitted that several users of blocked accounts had managed to circumvent the restrictions.

Musk is also the subject of a judicial investigation into an alleged scheme where public money was used to orchestrate disinformation campaigns in favor of Bolsonaro and those close to him

Banned but popular: The apps that have been blocked the most


ByDr. Tim Sandle
August 28, 2024

DIGITAL JOURNAL


Meta says Russian operation called 'Doppelganger' has persisted in efforts to undermine support for Ukraine by using fake accounts on social media

 - Copyright AFP Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV

A new study shows that the most popular app that is banned in multiple countries is Facebook with 3.05 billion monthly users. Following this, TikTok stands out as an app that may become banned in the US for 170 million users in the country.

PUBG Mobile closes the ranking as the only game on the list of the most popular banned apps.

Researchers based at Linkee.ai conducted a study to rank the most popular apps that are currently banned in other countries.The information about monthly world and US users and revenue was collected from Statista. Google searches in the US were added for additional context.

App	Type	Monthly Users	US Users	Revenue Total 2023	Revenue US 2023	Banned in
Facebook	social media	3.05B	175M	$134.9B	$61.2B	China, Iran, North Korea, Myanmar, Russia, Turkmenistan and Uganda
Whatsapp	messaging app	3.03B	98M	$1.24B	$40M	China, North Korea, Syria, Qatar and the UAE
Youtube	video sharing	2.7B	239M	$31.5B	$18B	North Korea, partial ban in Germany, China, North Korea, Thailand, Malaysia
Intagram	social media	2B	133.5M	$50.58B	$60.3B	China, Vietnam, North Korea, Turkey
Google	search engine	1.5B	276M	$305.6B	$256B	China
WeChat	messaging app	1.3B	4M	$16.4B	$71.4M	India, partial ban in Canada, UK, New Zealand (government devices)
TikTok	social media	1B	170M	$120B	$16B	India, partial bans in Nepal, New Zealand, Taiwan, Indonesia
Twitter	social media	335.7M	76M	$3.4B	$1.75B	China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, and Turkmenistan
Baidu	browser	667M	7.5M	$14.57B	164M	India
Spotify	music service	602M	100M	$13.2B	$1.43B	China, Ethiopia, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Myanmar, Cuba and Venezuela

From the above table, Facebook is the most popular app that is banned in other countries with 3.0 billion monthly users all over the world. It is currently banned in China, Russia, Iran and North Korea among other countries but it still brought over $130B in revenue last year.

Whatsapp takes the second place in the ranking of the most popular banned apps, getting 3.03 billion monthly users, closely trailing Facebook. Popular messenger is similarly banned in China and North Korea, but it is also not allowed in Syria, Qatar and UAE. Whatsapp has less users in the US with 98 million but it is more searched online than Facebook, gathering over 5M queries in a month.

Youtube is third with 2.7 million monthly users all over the world. Youtube is the most searched app online to download with over 10M queries as well as second most used app in this ranking, losing only to Google. Currently Youtube is banned only in North Korea but it also faces partial bans and content restrictions in China, Thailand, Malaysia and even Germany.

Instagram takes the fourth place with 2 billion monthly users, a billion less than WhatsApp or Facebook. Instagram earned $60.3B dollars in revenue in 2023 and $45B dollars came from the users in the United States. While hugely popular in the US, the app is banned in Vietnam, North Korea, China and Turkey.

Google is fifth in the ranking of the most popular apps banned in other countries, having 1.5B monthly users. The popular search engine has the most users in the ranking, accounting for 276 million monthly users. Google also has the biggest revenue with over $305 billion earned last year. Currently Google is banned only in China.

South Korea court to rule on embryo plaintiff climate case

By AFP
August 28, 2024


Children play in a water fountain during a heatwave in Seoul. The country's constitutional court will decide Thursday a case brought by child plaintiffs against official carbon emmission goals -

Copyright AFP ANTHONY WALLACE

A groundbreaking climate case brought against the South Korean government by young environmental activists who named an embryo as a lead plaintiff is set to be decided Thursday by the country’s Constitutional Court.

In Asia’s first such case, the plaintiffs claim South Korea’s legally binding climate commitments are insufficient and unmet, violating their constitutionally guaranteed human rights.

A similar youth-led effort recently succeeded in the US state of Montana, while another is being heard at the European Higher Court.

The case — known as “Woodpecker et al. v. South Korea” after the in-utero nickname of an embryo, now toddler, involved — includes four petitions by children.

In 2021, South Korea made a legally binding commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 290 million tons by 2030 — and to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

To meet this goal, the country needs to reduce emissions by 5.4 percent every year from 2023 — a target they have so far failed to meet.

If no changes are made, the plaintiffs argue, future generations will not only have to live in a degraded environment, but will also have to bear the burden of undertaking massive greenhouse gas reductions.

This, the case claims, would mean that the state has violated its duty to protect their fundamental rights.

Similar climate cases globally have found success, for example, in Germany in 2021, where climate targets were ruled insufficient and unconstitutional.

But a child-led suit in California over alleged government failures to curb pollution was thrown out in May.

The lawyer for one 12-year-old plaintiff told AFP that the age of the plaintiffs helped hammer home people’s desperation for change, and urged the court to rule in their favour.

“This lawsuit is not just a symbolic lawsuit, but a lawsuit that we can and must win,” Youn Se-jong said.

“The essence of the climate lawsuit is no different from the numerous constitutional issues related to fundamental rights that the Constitutional Court has judged, such as conscientious objection to military service or right to abortion,” Youn said.

“If we delay our response to reduce the burden of climate change, that burden will be passed onto future generations.”