A Tunisian village’s fight for running water


By AFP
July 9, 2024

'Most families come to fetch water while we're working, and sometimes we can't do both,' said Djaouher Kammoun, a 26-year-old farmer - Copyright AFP FETHI BELAID
Youcef BOUNAB

In front of a small mosque in central Tunisia, women queue at one of their village’s last water sources, a pipe meant for crop irrigation, but now a lifeline in the parched area.

“We just need something to drink,” said Ribh Saket, 56, under the punishing summer sun as she placed a jerrycan beneath a makeshift tap hooked into the water supply.

Like its neighbour Algeria and large areas of the Mediterranean region, Tunisia suffers from “alert drought conditions”, according to the European Drought Observatory.

But while drought and rising temperatures impact the region as a whole, repercussions are felt twofold in rural areas, where poverty rates tend to be higher.

Tunisia’s national water grid supplies almost all of the country’s urban areas, but only about half of the rural population.

The other half largely rely on wells built by local agrarian associations officially working under the agriculture ministry.

“We’ve been marginalised,” said Saket, whose village of around 250 families had one such well.

But it was shut down in 2018 due to unpaid electricity bills — a common issue among agrarian associations — and the villagers were left without pumps to extract the water for their community in the Sbikha area, about 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of Kairouan city.

Since then, the families said they have been relying on water from wells originally dug up by local farmers to irrigate their lands.

None of these wells have been authorised by the state as they are often contaminated with pollutants and unfit for human consumption due to improper construction and testing.



– ‘Unsustainable’ –



Flashing a scar that ran the length of his abdomen, Ali Kammoun, 57, said he has had two surgeries due to waterborne diseases.

“Half of us have kidney issues,” his neighbour, Leila Ben Arfa, said. “The water is polluted, but we have to drink it.”

The 52-year-old said she and other women “bring the jerrycans on our backs”.

Tunisia, in its sixth year of drought, ranks as the world’s 33rd most water-stressed country, according to the World Resources Institute.

The World Bank says by 2030 the Middle East and North Africa will fall below the “absolute water scarcity” threshold of 500 cubic metres yearly per person.

That amount is already below 450 cubic metres per inhabitant in Tunisia.

More than 650,000 Tunisians, mainly in the countryside, have no running water at home, with almost half of them living far from a public water source, according to a 2023 United Nations report.

Bottled water, costing around half a Tunisian dinar (16 cents) per litre, remains a luxury for the families whose governorate is Tunisia’s poorest.

“We need to find a solution,” said Djaouher Kammoun, a 26-year-old farmer who has been sharing his well water with other villagers.

“Most families come to fetch water while we’re working, and sometimes we can’t do both,” he said, describing the system as unsustainable.

According to the National Agricultural Observatory (ONAGRI), about 60 percent of wells across the country are privately dug and unauthorised.

But while the practise may provide a temporary — albeit unhealthy — solution for some, it exacerbates water scarcity.

A 2022 study by ONAGRI found that Tunisia’s deep aquifers were being exploited at 150 percent their rate of recharge, and groundwater aquifers at 119 percent.



-‘Many have left’-



“Today we are in the same spiral, the same vicious circle, with the same problems,” said Minyara Mejbri, Kairouan coordinator at the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES).

The villagers have protested, blockaded roads, and complained multiple times — all to no avail.

“The governorate said we already had access to drinking water,” said Saief Naffati, a 34-year-old who has been leading his community’s efforts to solve the crisis.

“They told us if we protest, we should own up to it, because the National Guard would arrest us.”

At their wit’s end, many have left the village, Naffati added.

Among them is his brother, Raouf, now living in the coastal city of Hammamet.

Saleh Hamadi, a 55-year-old farmer also struggling with distributing his well water, said “at least 150 families have left”.

“Most of our youth have moved away, leaving their elders on their own,” he said.

“In 2024, why is this still a problem? Why are we still thirsty?”

Fuming EU partners to show Hungary PM ‘yellow card’


By AFP
Published July 9, 2024


Hungary is raising the hackles of its EU partners with a go-it-alone diplomatic initiative on Ukraine by its prime minister, Viktor Orban, slammed by Brussels as rogue troublemaking.

The anger is all the more acute because Hungary has just taken on the rotating EU presidency — and Orban’s bilateral visit to Russia last week was misrepresented both by him and President Vladimir Putin as conducted under the European Union flag.

Hungary’s allies will air their grievances on Wednesday, when EU ambassadors hold a regular meeting in Brussels, and likely also during this week’s NATO summit in Washington that Orban is attending.

“Many EU member states will share their dissatisfaction, which is quite wide and deep, with Orban’s recent visits and actions,” one EU diplomat told AFP.

“Orban is trolling and playing games… We want to show him a yellow card and say we see through his games,” said another.

“Tensions are high,” agreed a third diplomat, all of whom were granted anonymity to speak more freely.

Hungary’s partners are incensed that Orban used the EU presidency logo during back-to-back bilateral trips to Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing — a blurring of lines that drew sharp reprimands from Brussels.

“Viktor Orban in no way represents the EU or the EU’s positions,” Kaja Kallas, Estonia’s prime minister and the nominee to be the bloc’s next foreign policy chief, wrote on X.

“He is exploiting the EU presidency position to sow confusion,” Kallas wrote.


– Thorn in EU’s side –


Orban, the EU leader friendliest to Putin and a populist who models himself on Donald Trump, is a longtime thorn in Brussels’ side for his government’s stances running contrary to the bloc’s democratic principles and rule of law.

The slogan Orban’s government chose for its six-month EU presidency is “Make Europe Great Again” — taken directly from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” motto.

The Hungarian leader has repeatedly blocked or hindered EU consensus on helping Ukraine fight Russia’s all-out invasion since 2022 — making it all the more galling for many that he is embarking on a self-described “peace mission”.

On day one of Budapest’s presidency, on July 1, Orban made an unannounced trip to Ukraine to speak with President Volodymyr Zelensky, then, on his own initiative, flew to Moscow days later to see Putin.

According to a letter Orban sent afterwards to European Council President Charles Michel and shared with member countries, Putin said he was open “to any ceasefire proposal that does not serve the hidden relocation and reorganisation of Ukrainian forces”.

Putin also said he had “detailed plans” on what the “new European architecture” should look like after an end to the war, but Orban’s letter — seen by AFP — gave no details.

Despite no mention of Russia’s role as the aggressor, the Hungarian leader opined there was “a greater chance” Putin would entertain ceasefire proposals. Orban said he intended to pursue his solitary mission “next week”.

Despite sharp EU and US criticism of his Moscow trip, Orban followed up with a surprise visit to Beijing to see President Xi Jinping on Monday this week.

Xi told Orban that “only when all major powers exert positive energy rather than negative energy can the dawn of a ceasefire in this conflict appear,” according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

Hungary, a former Soviet country with a population of 9.6 million, is not considered a major power even within the European Union, which it joined in 2004.

EU lawmaker Marcin Kierwinski, who hails from Poland’s ruling party, said on social media platform X that “the Hungarian presidency risks being the first in the European Union’s history where Putin will know big decisions before even the European Commission.”

– Reprimands and snubs –

For all the ire over Orban’s solo initiatives, there may be little that EU institutions or member countries can do beyond publicly rebuking Budapest or offering snubs.

“Several member countries — Poland, Germany, the Baltics — want to lay down lines (and) several things are on the table, but nothing concrete for now,” said one diplomat.

They added that Hungary could see “boycotts” of some meetings it chairs under the bloc’s presidency.

In parallel with the presidency, Orban has launched a far-right faction in the European Parliament to promote his anti-immigrant, eurosceptic views — the Patriots for Europe, joined by France’s far-right National Rally of Marine Le Pen on Monday.

The parliament is delaying the traditional speech by the EU presidency leader, pushing back Orban’s moment to sometime in September — ostensibly to focus on nominees for the European Commission following elections last month, parliament officials said.

But as for the hypothesis member countries could vote to shorten Hungary’s six-month hold on the EU presidency and hand it to the next in line — Poland — a diplomat dismissed that as “mere speculation”.

On surprise China visit, Orbán backs Xi’s peace plan for Ukraine

Euractiv.com with Reuters

A big screen shows Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban as he meets Chinese President Xi Jinping (not pictured), in Beijing, China, 8 July 2024. Hungarian Orban is visiting China to meet President Xi Jinping. [EPA-EFE/WU HAO]
 Euractiv is part of the Trust Project >>>

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday (8 July) to discuss a potential Ukraine peace deal, paying the unexpected visit to Beijing days after his talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin angered some European Union leaders.

Orbán and Xi met at the Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing, Chinese state media reported, for what Orbán described as the third leg of a “peace mission” that he has undertaken without the backing of the European Commission or Ukraine.

While Hungary just assumed the EU’s rotating presidency this month, Orbán has already met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv and been received by the Kremlin, a trip that drew a strong rebuke from his allies.

Putin tells Orbán Ukraine must capitulate if it wants peace

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Viktor Orbán on Friday that Ukraine must effectively capitulate if it wants peace, in a visit to Moscow by the Hungarian leader that angered the EU, US and Kyiv

“Peace Mission 3.0.,” Orbán, a critic of Western military aid to Ukraine and the EU leader with the warmest relations with Xi and Putin, said on his official X account as he touched down in Beijing.

China, which has close ties to Russia, has been promoting a six-point peace plan it issued with Brazil in May, proposing an international peace conference “at a proper time” and calling for equal participation by both Ukraine and Russia.

Putin backs China's Ukraine peace plan, says Beijing understands the conflict
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an interview published early on Wednesday (15 May), said he backed China’s plan for a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine crisis, saying Beijing had a full understanding of what lay behind the crisis.

Ukraine is hoping to win broad global backing for its proposals on how to end the war with Russia before beginning discussions with Putin, holding a huge international summit last month in Switzerland to which Moscow was not invited.

But Kyiv’s aim of ostracising Russia is meeting resistance. China sat out the Swiss meeting and has won backing from Moscow for its own peace plan. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is now in Moscow, with Ukraine likely to be on the agenda.

India's Modi hugs Putin on first Russia visit since Ukraine offensive
Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew into Moscow on Monday (8 July) and warmly hugged President Vladimir Putin on a visit that treads a fine line between maintaining a longstanding relationship with Moscow and courting closer Western security ties.


“The international community should create conditions for the resumption of direct dialogue and negotiations between the two sides and provide assistance,” Xi told Orbán, according to Chinese state media.

“It is in the interests of all parties to seek a political solution through an early ceasefire,” he added.

Orbán said China was “a key power in creating the conditions for peace in the Russia-Ukraine war”, giving that as the reason for his meeting with Xi just two months after the Chinese leader visited Budapest.

The Kremlin said that Russia appreciated Orbán’s efforts to clarify positions in resolving the conflict.

Zelenskyy said Orbán could not act as a mediator, a task he said could only be undertaken by world powers.

“Are there many such countries around the world? Not many. I believe the US and China are such countries. And the EU, not one country, but the whole EU,” Zelenskyy said during a visit to Poland.
NATO summit

Orbán’s trip to China comes days ahead of a NATO summit in Washington, D.C. that will address providing further support to Ukraine and which he is due to attend.

Hungary’s leader also comes to China fresh off the European Commission confirming last week that it will impose tariffs of up to 37.6% on imports of electric vehicles made in China.

Hungary looks to 'de-escalate' EU-China trade tensions while Commission distances itself from Orbán's Beijing trip

“We should seek to maintain and strengthen cooperation with as many countries and market players around the world as possible,” Hungary’s Ambassador to the EU, Bálint Ódor, told Euractiv in an interview.





The central European country has become an important trade and investment partner for China, in contrast with other EU nations seeking to become less dependent on Beijing.

While Beijing threatens to impose retaliatory anti-dumping measures against European pork imports, Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s foreign affairs and trade minister, told Hungarian state media the two sides had negotiated an agreement on relaunching pork and poultry exports to China.

Chinese companies at the forefront of the electromobility transition would also continue to make investments in Hungary that would create about 25,000 jobs, he added.

EU trade policy has turned increasingly protective over concerns that China’s production-focused development model could see it flooded with cheap goods as Chinese firms look to step up exports amid weak domestic demand.

China’s electric vehicles have become a particular cause for concern because Brussels claims they benefit from unfair state subsidies, an allegation Beijing rejects.

While some EU leaders have been quick to say Hungary’s EU presidency does not mean Orbán represents the 27-strong bloc, Xi told Orbán that China hoped Hungary would “play an active role” in developing China-EU relations.

In Germany, Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said Orbán does not speak for Europe and that Hungary’s politics often do not represent the core of EU thinking.

Cuban Olympic champ trains to compete in Paris as a refugee


By AFP
July 9, 2024

Canoeist Fernando Dayan Jorge Enriquez trains in a canal in Cape Coral, Florida - Copyright AFP/File Andres Larrovere

Gerard MARTINEZ with Guillermo BARROS in Los Angeles

Fernando Dayan Jorge Enriquez, a champion sprint canoeist who fled his native Cuba two years ago, feels sick but still wakes up early to train for the Paris Olympics, where he will compete for a refugee team.

Jorge Enriquez won a gold medal in canoeing during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the doubles category, along with his teammate, Serguey Torres Madrigal.

At 22, he reached the pinnacle of a sport he began learning with his father at age 11 in the Cuban town of Cienfuegos.

Returning to Cuba, Jorge Enriquez was happy and proud, but he also felt empty wondering how he would find any motivation after having already tasted Olympic gold.

Life is hard in Cuba — with meager wages and shortages of food and other essentials — prompting him to think long and hard about his future.

“We had six months of vacation and I lived like everybody else in Cuba. I was no longer in the sports bubble,” Jorge Enriquez said.

The communist government wanted his endorsement, fashioning him as a smiling symbol of national triumph and pride.

Instead, Jorge Enriquez dismissed the regime as a farce. “So I deserted,” he said.

In March 2022, the Cuban canoe team traveled to Mexico City for a three-week training camp. Jorge Enriquez managed to sneak over the border into the United States, where he planned to meet up with his wife.

From the airport in Mexico City, Jorge Enriquez left with a colleague whose name he would not disclose.

Then began a harrowing journey to the US border, a 15-day ordeal in which they tried hard to go unnoticed and avoid getting kidnapped for ransom.

– Rio Grande rescue –

The last obstacle was to cross the Rio Grande, despite being at a spot where the water was dangerous.

They made it — barely — but had no time to celebrate.

Jorge Enriquez heard the screams of a woman in distress as he stood on the US side of the river.

“She was in the middle of the river, holding on to a rope, and saying she was going to let go, that she could not hold on any longer,” the canoe champion said.

“Her husband was behind her, but the current was so strong he could not reach her,” he added.

Jorge Enriquez decided to jump back into the water to save the woman. “I told her, ‘come on, we’re going to make it,'” he recalled.

After the rescue Jorge Enriquez entered the United States a hero, having saved the life of a stranger.

But in the following days he was treated like anyone else who entered the country without papers.

He was held for two weeks and then released pending a hearing with immigration authorities for his asylum request.

Jorge Enriquez flew to Miami, where his wife was waiting for him at a cousin’s house.

Then came more hard times. He feared his parents would be punished for his desertion from Cuba. He worked as a plumber and maintenance man while training for his sport.

“I would get up at 4:00 am to train, then go work for eight hours, then return home to train again,” Jorge Enriquez said.

– Olympic destiny –

On a recent morning in July, Jorge Enriquez practiced sprints in one of the many canals that cut through the town of Cape Coral in western Florida.

With his right knee down in the boat and the other knee bent at a right angle, he surged through the water with powerful oar strokes, even though he was sick with a cold.

Some neighbors have hung Olympic flags at the jetties behind their homes as a way of cheering him on.

Jorge Enriquez gritted his teeth as his coach Alain Nogueras followed him in a motorboat.

For both men, the Paris Olympics looked like a distant dream just a few months ago.

They met at a family gathering in Miami, where Nogueras offered to help Jorge Enriquez.

Then began the teamwork that led Jorge Enriquez to become a leading sprint canoeist in Florida and the United States at large, winning a bronze medal at the ICF Canoe Sprint World Cup.

Meanwhile, US authorities granted his request for asylum and he was able to bring his parents to Florida as he trained to go back to the Olympics.

After a year-long wait, he received a letter from the International Olympic Committee saying it accepted his request to be on the Refugee Olympic Team.

“I was bursting with happiness,” Jorge Enriquez said. “I am going to represent that flag with so much pride.”

The refugee team first competed at the Rio Games in 2016 and was also at the Tokyo Games. This time it will feature 36 athletes from 11 countries.

Looking ahead, Jorge Enriquez hopes to compete in the 2028 Games in Los Angeles — perhaps as part of the US team.

“I have no barriers in my head, especially what with all I have been through since I got here.”

Hitachi’s holography electron microscope reveals the secrets of crystalline materials


By Dr. Tim Sandle
July 9, 2024

Amethyst is a violet variety of quartz. Image by Parent Géry - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

In a recent study published in the journal Nature, researchers have achieved a groundbreaking resolution of 0.47 nm using Hitachi’s holography electron microscope to visualize atomic-scale magnetic fields.

This advancement paves the way for new discoveries in materials science and significant improvements in electronics and energy generation. Through image acquisition and defocusing correction techniques, scientists have enables observations of atomic-scale magnetic fields to be made at never-before-seen resolution.

Electron holography microscopy is an advanced technique that can be used to visualize magnetic fields in materials at atomic resolution. In a recent study, researchers from Japan addressed some key limitations in this technique, achieving a groundbreaking resolution of 0.47 nanometres (nm) when imaging magnetic atomic lattices in a crystal. Prior to this breakthrough, the maximum resolution at which the magnetic field of atomic layers could be observed was limited to around 0.67 nm.

Key to the newly developed image acquisition technology are defocus correction algorithms. These enable scientists to visualize the magnetic fields of individual atomic layers within the crystalline solid. The technique implemented was able to correct for defocusing due to minor focus shifts by analysing reconstructed electron waves. The resulting images were free of residual aberrations, making the positions and phases of atoms easily discernible with magnetic field.

These efforts by the Japanese researchers could pave the way for scientific discoveries in materials science and notable sustainability improvements in electronics, energy generation, and other applied fields.

The main complexity was with developing a system to automate the control and tuning of the device during data acquisition. This served to significantly speed up the imaging process to a speed of 10,000 images over 8.5 hours.

These developments are important since many advances in electronic devices, catalysis, transportation, and energy generation have been made possible by the development and adoption of high-performance materials with tailored characteristics.

To test out the capabilities the researchers performed electron holography measurements on samples of Ba2FeMoO6, a layered crystalline material in which adjacent atomic layers have distinct magnetic fields.

Atom arrangement and electron behaviour are critical factors that dictate a crystalline material’s properties. For instance, the orientation and strength of magnetic fields right at the interface between different materials or atomic layers are particularly important.

The findings have been published in the journal Nature. The research paper is titled “Electron Holography Observation of Individual Ferrimagnetic Lattice Planes.”

Advancing genomics to track pathogen spread


By Dr. Tim Sandle
July 9, 2024

Patients receive treatment for dengue fever in Dhaka's Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital. More than 1,000 people have died this year in Bangladesh's worst outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease - Copyright AFP Munir UZ ZAMAN

A new method to map the spread and evolution of pathogens, together with their responses to vaccines and antibiotics, provides key insights to help predict and prevent future outbreaks.

This is an approach that combines a pathogen’s genomic data with human travel patterns, taken from anonymised mobile phone data. The collected data is subject to analysis using an algorithm.

The development comes from researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, University of the Witwatersrand and National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa, the University of Cambridge, and partners across the Global Pneumococcal Sequencing project.

The scientists integrated genomic data from nearly 7,000 Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) samples collected in South Africa with detailed human mobility data. Pneumococcus is a bacterium that is a leading cause of pneumonia, meningitis, and sepsis worldwide

This collection of data enabled the scientists to see how these bacteria, which cause pneumonia and meningitis, move between regions and evolve over time.

The findings suggest initial reductions in antibiotic resistance linked to the 2009 pneumococcal vaccine may be only temporary, as non-targeted strains resistant to antibiotics such as penicillin gained a 68 percent competitive advantage.

This innovation is the first-time researchers have been able to precisely quantify the fitness – their ability to survive and reproduce – of different pneumococcal strains. The insight could inform vaccine development to target the most harmful strains and may be applicable to other pathogens.

This overcomes one of the challenges posed by many infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV, and COVID-19 exist in multiple strains or variants circulating simultaneously, making them difficult to study. An example is with Pneumococcus, where there are over 100 types and 900 genetic strains globally.

Pneumonia alone kills around 740,000 children under the age of five each year, making it the single largest infectious cause of death in children and pneumococcal diversity hampers control efforts, as vaccines targeting major strains leave room for others to fill the vacant niches.

How these bacteria spread, how vaccines affect their survival, and their resistance to antibiotics remains also poorly understood. Until now.

The researchers analysed genome sequences from 6,910 pneumococcus samples collected in South Africa between 2000 and 2014 to track the distribution of different strains over time. They combined these data with anonymised records of human travel patterns collected by Meta. From this, the researchers developed computational models which revealed pneumococcal strains take around 50 years to fully mix throughout South Africa’s population, largely due to localised human movement patterns.

Next the scientists discovered that while introduction of a pneumococcal vaccine against certain types of these bacteria in 2009 reduced the number of cases caused by those types, it also made other non-targeted strains of these bacteria gain a 68 per cent competitive advantage, with an increasing proportion of them becoming resistant to antibiotics such as penicillin. This suggests that the vaccine-linked protection against antibiotic resistance is short-lived.

The research has been published in the science journal Nature, titled “Geographic Migration and Fitness Dynamics of Streptococcus pneumonia.”

AI boom reshapes Wall Street as TSMC joins trillion-dollar club


By AFP
July 8, 2024

TSMC, with most of its factories based in Taiwan, is well placed to also reap the rewards of the AI frenzy - Copyright AFP Amber Wang
Virginie MONTET

The entry of Taiwanese chip giant TSMC into the elite club of the world’s most valuable companies is further proof that the generative AI revolution is shaking up Wall Street.

TSMC, listed in both Taiwan and New York, briefly broke the one trillion dollar market capitalization barrier on Monday, putting it ahead of Tesla as the seventh most valuable technology giant on the stock market.

Also on Monday, Alphabet, Apple and Meta all hit all-time highs.

The top ten of the world’s most valuable companies is headed by Microsoft and Apple, closely followed by AI chip designer Nvidia.

Their global stock market valuations exceed three trillion dollars on Wall Street.

Alphabet and Amazon, which recently topped the two trillion dollar mark, follow in an ever-changing ranking.

The Saudi oil giant Aramco slipped into sixth place followed by Meta, TSMC and Tesla.

“The semiconductor industry is now the leading sector in the S&P 500,” noted CFRA analyst Angelo Zino recently.

“It’s taken over the last 15 or 18 months. That shows you how much the world has changed.”

The explosion in worldwide demand for chips, boosted by the rise of computing-intensive generative AI, promises sustained expansion for the industry.

Chip-makers are not only attracting investors but also a host of government subsidies.

The Biden administration, for example, has granted tens of billions of dollars in financial support over several years to help build chip factories in the United States.

Worldwide sales of semiconductors, which include integrated circuits, microprocessors and memory chips, are expected to reach $611.2 billion in 2024, a record for the industry, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.

Sales are expected to jump by 16 percent in 2024 and a further 12.5 percent in 2025, according to the trade organization.

Nvidia, the designer of graphics processing units (GPUs) , is the frontrunner of the craze, and has triumphed on Wall Street in recent months.

Nvidia’s GPU’s are a crucial component to building generative AI and since the November 2022 launch of ChatGPT, its market capitalization has increased eightfold.

In mid-June, the Santa Clara, California-based group even briefly became the world’s most valuable publicly traded company, ahead of Microsoft at $3.3 trillion.

“Nvidia’s GPU chips are the new gold or oil of the technology sector,” said analysts at Wedbush Securities.

For them, Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft are now engaged in “the race for the four trillion dollar billion market valuation.”

TSMC, with most of its factories based in Taiwan, is well placed to also reap the rewards.

While Nvidia, which only designs chips but does not manufacture them, remains discreet about its supply chain, it is widely believed that the bulk of its products are manufactured by TSMC.

The Taiwanese giant, which controls more than half of the world’s semiconductor demand, earlier this year posted first-quarter sales of $18.87 billion, up 13 percent year-on-year while net income climbed 9 percent to $6.97 billion.

As for Nvidia, its quarterly profit reached $14.9 billion, a seven-fold increase over the previous year, on sales of $26 billion.

737 MAX: Key dates in US criminal case against Boeing


By AFP
July 8, 2024


A Boeing 737 MAX aircraft is assembled at the Boeing Renton Factory in Washington state in June 2024 - Copyright POOL/AFP/File Jennifer Buchanan

Here are key dates in the US Department of Justice’s ongoing criminal case against Boeing over its 737 MAX airplane, following deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019.

2018

– October 29: A 737 MAX operated by Lion Air crashes into the Java Sea about 12 minutes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia, killing all 189 people on board.

2019

– March 10: A 737 MAX operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashes about six minutes after taking off, killing all 157 people on board.

– April 4: Boeing acknowledges that flaws with a software program called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) played a role in the crashes.

2020

– September 16: A US congressional investigation of the MAX crashes points to “repeated and serious failures” by the company and air safety officials that involved “faulty technical assumptions by Boeing’s engineers, a lack of transparency on the part of Boeing’s management, and grossly insufficient oversight by the Federal Aviation Administration.”

2021

– January 7: The Department of Justice (DOJ) announces a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with Boeing in which the planemaker agrees to pay $2.5 billion in fines and restitution, and to upgrade its compliance and quality control efforts. The agreement is designed to expire in three years if Boeing meets the conditions.

2022

– March 18: The DOJ begins a trial of former Boeing pilot Mark Forkner, who was accused of misleading US aviation regulators during the MAX certification process. Forkner, the only Boeing official charged with a crime, was acquitted five days later.

2023

– January 26: In line with the DPA, Boeing pleads not guilty to a fraud charge at a federal hearing in Texas, as families of MAX victims argue the DPA should be revised and bolstered in light of what attorneys for the victims called the “deadliest corporate crime in US history.”

– February 10: US District Judge Reed O’Connor rejects arguments to strengthen the DPA, concluding the “court lacks statutory authority to supervise, or substantively review” the settlement between Boeing and DOJ.

2024

– January 5: A panel on the fuselage of a recently delivered Boeing 737 MAX blows out during an Alaska Airlines flight, resulting in an emergency landing and heaping scrutiny back on Boeing.

– May 14: The DOJ concludes that Boeing flouted its obligations under the 2021 DPA, opening up the company to possible prosecution. Boeing defends itself, saying it believes it is compliant with the agreement.

– June 12: Boeing responds to the DOJ, officially contesting the finding that it violated the 2021 accord.

– June 30: DOJ representatives brief families on a new proposed plea agreement that includes a guilty plea from the company.

– July 7: Boeing accepts “an agreement in principle” with the DOJ to plea guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States. A finalized plea deal is to be filed in federal court by July 19.

Casual work and summertime: Assessing job prospects in the US


By Dr. Tim Sandle
July 8, 2024

Retail therapy? People visiting an outdoor market. — Image by © Tim Sandle

In the U.S. the summer break provides an opportunity for those seeking casual employment (such as students) to gain short-term tenures. To assess the prospects, a review has been conducted by the firm CoworkingCafe.

This review is based on a study of the job markets of more than 300 U.S. cities in order to identify the best places for unqualified young adults looking to work part-time.

To gather the data, the firm compared cities with at least 100,000 residents that had data for all metrics analysed.

The metrics used for this study were: youth part-time job availability (number of unqualified part-time job openings per 100,000 residents aged 16-24), youth idle rate (share of young population who did not participate in the labour force in the past 12 months), youth part-time work prevalence (difference between the number of young residents working full-time and those working less than full-time), share of part-time employees with health insurance coverage, and share of commuters riding public transportation (excluding taxicabs).

The data set shows that Northeast is the region with the most high-scoring cities for summer part-time work. In particular, Rochester, NY takes the first place nationally based on there being many entry-level job openings and high health insurance coverage among part-timers.

Also, within this region, Hartford, CT comes in 4th, while Syracuse, NY was 5th. Massachusetts was represented by Springfield in the 6th spot and Boston in the 12th place nationally.

The West Coast was also represented by five cities in our top 15. Everett, WA ranked 3rd nationally, with the most unqualified part-time job openings per capita. Another Washington city, Bellevue, rounded out our top 15. California had 3 cities in the top – Burbank & Torrance in the 10th and 11th spot, respectively, and Irvine came in 14th.

The Midwest was represented by 4 cities in our top 15 – with St. Louis, MO in the 7th spot and Cleveland, OH following in 8th place. Illinois had two cities in the top with Springfield in the 11th spot and Peoria in 13th.

The South-Atlantic region was also prominent, snatching one place on the podium – Charleston, SC ranked 2nd nationally, scoring high in most metrics. Richmond, VA came in the 9th spot nationally.

Commenting on the rankings, Ralph E. McKinney, Jr., Associate Professor of Management at Marshall University, recommends employers to: “plan early. February is a great time to advertise summer work opportunities to young adults. In addition to providing a realistic job-preview, an advertisement should clearly detail the compensation and benefits of the position.”

McKinney, from a statement sent to Digital Journal, continues: “This helps attract applicants that more closely align with that position. Moreover, where the advertisement is seen is also important to attracting the right applications.”

There are benefits for industry as well: “If an organization is looking at recruiting younger employees, efforts should be made to go beyond a digital application. That is, recruit from high school, colleges, community centres, and places where young people gather.”

Dr. Tim Sandle is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for science news. Tim specializes in science, technology, environmental, business, and health journalism. He is additionally a practising microbiologist; and an author. He is also interested in history, politics and current affairs.

Project highlights dangers of online gaming for children


By Dr. Tim Sandle
July 8, 2024

Blockchain-based play-to-earn games have proved hugely popular in parts of Asia and Latin America - Copyright AFP Jam STA ROSA

How harmful is online gaming on children? Successive global studies indicate that a child can spend even more time, money, and experience more anxiety than a professional gambler.

Addiction is one of the behavioural traits of concern. According to a Harris poll, 8 percent of video-game players aging 8 to 18 “exhibited pathological patterns of play”.

In Brazil, among children aged 10 to 18, 20.4 percent met the criteria of “gaming disorder”. Faced with this growing global crisis, the Regional Psychology Council of São Paulo (CRP-SP), has created a platform aimed at creating more conscious consumption of online games by younger audiences.

Vegas Generation, initially a term coined to pertain to children born into the digital age dominated by addictive online games, has been created to help parents, guardians, carers, and educators promote a healthier and more responsible approach to children’s online gaming activity.

Although this is a project started in Brazil, the developers are confident that it can be leveraged by caretakers across the world.

The Vegas Generation platform seeks to function as a clear guide to help to detect problematic online gaming use by children, something that has concerned parents, guardians, educators and youth advocates around the world.

The platform provides parents, guardians, and caregivers with a test in which their own answers indicate if their child is playing games beyond what experts consider a normal amount.

The platform additionally provides suggestions and guidance on taking the first steps to deal with a child’s toxic online gaming.

Child psychologist Luiza Brandão, who has done studies about the phenomena, recommends guardians of children safeguard their children’s mental health during this online generation.

Brandão wrote an article for her postgraduate degree in Clinical Psychology at the University of São Paulo (USP) on factors associated with the misuse of video games among Brazilian teenagers.

“It is important for us to understand that video games can be incredible tools for entertainment and learning; however, their use without care by children and adolescents can lead to catastrophic outcomes”, explains Brandão.

She adds: “To provide the utmost care, it is essential to educate parents on how they can prevent problematic outcomes by managing their children’s access to this form of media, taking into account the developmental stages of children and adolescents.”

Outlining the benefits, the psychologist continues: “This is the vital role that the platform plays, centralizing scientifically based information for parents, in a language accessible to them, allowing them to make conscious and healthy choices for the development of their children”.

Dr. Tim Sandle is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for science news. Tim specializes in science, technology, environmental, business, and health journalism. He is additionally a practising microbiologist; and an author. He is also interested in history, politics and current affairs.

Australia sounds warning over state-backed Chinese hackers


By AFP
July 8, 2024

Australia's cyber intelligence agency sounded a rare warning Tuesday about the rising threat of state-backed Chinese hackers - Copyright AFP/File I-Hwa CHENG

Australia’s cyber intelligence agency sounded a rare warning Tuesday about the rising threat of state-backed Chinese hackers, saying they were “actively” looking for targets to compromise.

The Australian Signals Directorate singled out the APT40 hacking group in a detailed, technical advisory note that unpicked its evolving tradecraft.

“APT40 has repeatedly targeted Australian networks as well as government and private sector networks in the region, and the threat they pose to our networks is ongoing,” the note read.

The Australian Signals Directorate said APT40 — meaning Advanced Persistent Threat — conducted “malicious cyber operations” for an arm of China’s Ministry of State Security based in Hainan Province.

The directorate said APT40 looked to infiltrate old and forgotten devices that were still connected to sensitive computer networks.

Using these computers to gain an undetected “foothold”, they were then able to “rapidly” exploit vulnerabilities and plunder information.

“APT40 is actively conducting regular reconnaissance against networks of interest in Australia, looking for opportunities to compromise its targets,” the Australian Signals Directorate said.

Attribution of sophisticated cyberattacks is both technically difficult and politically fraught — and comes at the risk of angering China.

“In our current strategic circumstances, these attributions are increasingly important tools in deterring malicious cyber activity,” said Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles.

The advisory note was co-authored with input from the United States, the UK, Germany, Japan, South Korea and other international partners.

Cybersecurity experts have said inadequate safeguards and the stockpiling of sensitive customer information have made Australia a target for hackers.

Major ports handling 40 percent of Australia’s freight trade ground to a halt earlier this year after hackers infiltrated computers belonging to operator DP World.

Russia-based hackers in 2022 breached one of Australia’s largest private health insurers, accessing the data of more than nine million current and former customers.

In September 2022, telecom company Optus fell prey to a data breach of similar magnitude in which the personal details of up to 9.8 million people were accessed.

New Zealand’s government earlier this year blamed APT40 for a 2021 cyber attack that infiltrated its parliamentary computer network.