Pentagon cancels disputed JEDI cloud contract with Microsoft
By ROBERT BURNS

FILE - This March 27, 2008, file photo, shows the Pentagon in Washington. The Pentagon said Tuesday, July 6, 2021, that it is canceling a cloud-computing contract with Microsoft that could eventually have been worth $10 billion and will instead pursue a deal with both Microsoft and Amazon. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon said Tuesday it canceled a disputed cloud-computing contract with Microsoft that could eventually have been worth $10 billion. It will instead pursue a deal with both Microsoft and Amazon and possibly other cloud service providers.

“With the shifting technology environment, it has become clear that the JEDI Cloud contract, which has long been delayed, no longer meets the requirements to fill the DoD’s capability gaps,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

The statement did not directly mention that the Pentagon faced extended legal challenges by Amazon to the original $1 million contract awarded to Microsoft. Amazon argued that the Microsoft award was tainted by politics, particularly then-President Donald Trump’s antagonism toward Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, who stepped down Monday as the company’s chief executive officer. Bezos owns The Washington Post, a newspaper often criticized by Trump.

The Pentagon’s chief information officer, John Sherman, told reporters Tuesday that during the lengthy legal fight with Amazon, “the landscape has evolved” with new possibilities for large-scale cloud computing services. Thus it was decided, he said, to start over and seek multiple vendors.

Sherman said JEDI will be replaced by a new program called Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability, and that both Amazon and Microsoft “likely” will be awarded parts of the business, although neither is guaranteed. Sherman said the three other large cloud service providers — Google, IBM and Oracle — might qualify, too.

Microsoft said in response to the Pentagon announcement, “We understand the DoD s rationale, and we support them and every military member who needs the mission-critical 21st century technology JEDI would have provided. The DoD faced a difficult choice: Continue with what could be a years-long litigation battle or find another path forward.”

Amazon said it understands and agrees with the Pentagon’s decision. In a statement, the company reiterated its view that the 2019 contract award was not based on the merits of the competing proposals “and instead was the result of outside influence that has no place in government procurement.”

Oracle, which had earlier sought the JEDI contact but didn’t make it to the final round, declined comment Tuesday. In separate statements, IBM said it was evaluating the new Pentagon approach and Google said it looked forward to discussing it with Pentagon officials.

The JEDI project began with the $1 million contract award for Microsoft, meant as an initial step in a 10-year deal that could have reached $10 billion in value. The project that will replace it is a five-year program; Sherman said no exact contract value has been set but that it will be “in the billions.” Sherman said the government will negotiate the amount Microsoft will be paid for having its 2019 deal terminated.

Amazon Web Services, a market leader in providing cloud computing services, had long been considered a leading candidate to run the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure project, known as JEDI. The project was meant to store and process vast amounts of classified data, allowing the U.S. military to improve communications with soldiers on the battlefield and use artificial intelligence to speed up its war planning and fighting capabilities.

The JEDI contract became mired in legal challenges almost as soon as it was awarded to Microsoft in October 2019. The losing bidder, Amazon Web Services, went to court arguing that the Pentagon’s process was flawed and unfair, including that it was improperly influenced by politics.

This year the Pentagon had been hinting that it might scrap the contract, saying in May that it felt compelled to reconsider its options after a federal judge in April rejected a Pentagon move to have key parts of Amazon’s lawsuit dismissed.

The JEDI saga has been unusual for the political dimension linked to Trump. In April 2020, the Defense Department inspector general’s office concluded that the contracting process was in line with legal and government purchasing standards. The inspector general found no evidence of White House interference in the contract award process, but that review also said investigators could not fully review the matter because the White House would not allow unfettered access to witnesses.

Five months later, the Pentagon reaffirmed Microsoft as winner of the contract, but work remained stalled by Amazon’s legal challenge.

In its April 2020 report, the inspector general’s office did not draw a conclusion about whether the Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft Corp. was appropriately declared the winner. Rather, it looked at whether the decision-making process was proper and legal. It also examined allegations of unethical behavior by Pentagon officials involved in the matter and generally determined that any ethical lapses did not influence the outcome.

That review did not find evidence of White House pressure for the Pentagon to favor the Microsoft bid, but it also said it could not definitely determine the full extent of White House interactions with the Pentagon’s decision makers.

—

AP writers Matt O’Brien and Joseph Pisani contributed to this report.

Former diplomat Mary Simon becomes Canada's first Indigenous governor general

With an Inuk mother and a father from the south, she believes that she can be a voice for everybody
by Charlie Smith on July 6th, 2021 

CPAC SCREEN SHOT

A woman with an Inuk mother and a father from southern Canada is the country's new vice-regal.

Mary Simon is a former CBC producer and announcer in Northern Canada, marking the third time that an ex-employee of the public broadcaster has become the country's governor general. The other two were Adrienne Clarkson and Michaëlle Jean.

From that position, Simon became secretary of the board of the Northern Quebec Inuit Association. She was later appointed ambassador for circumpolar affairs and ambassador to Denmark.

In addition, Simon is a past president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.

She told reporters that part of her cultural tradition as an Inuk is the strong bond created across generations. That was represented in her relationship with her mother and her grandmother.

"They instilled in me a boundless energy for learning, self-improvement, and helping my community," Simon said.

Her father managed a Hudson's Bay post in the north. Many months out of the year, the family camped and lived off the land, she noted.

Simon spoke to the media in English and Inuktitut, as well as some French. However, she conceded that she couldn't speak French fluently, despite being born in northern Quebec, because the government-run day school that she attended did not provide this education.

She added that she will strive to improve her French and promised to conduct the office's work in both of the country's official languages.

Simon opened her remarks by saying that she is "honoured, humbled, and ready to become Canada's first Indigenous governor general".

She also said that her appointment is "an important step on the long path to reconciliation".

Simon's predecessor, Julie Payette, resigned in January after complaints from staff about a toxic workplace—a story broken by CBC reporter Ashley Burke.

The governor general's duties include swearing-in cabinet ministers, the prime minister, and the chief justice; delivering the speech from the throne; summoning or dissolving Parliament; giving royal assent to legislation; acting as the ceremonial commander-in-chief of the armed forces on behalf of the monarch; and presiding over ceremonies honouring Canadians.

Canada's Inuit advocate Mary Simon a fierce defender of her people

Issued on: 06/07/2021 - 

Mary Simon, seen here in 2009, is the first indigenous person to be named governor general of Canada and a fierce defender of her peoples' way of life Olivier MORIN AFP/File


Ottawa (AFP)

Mary Simon, the first indigenous person to be named governor general of Canada, has fought tirelessly to preserve her people's way of life, opposing oil drilling in the Arctic, supporting seal hunting and defending Inuit culture.

As Canada's head of state and Queen Elizabeth II's representative in this Commonwealth nation, Simon said her appointment marks "an important step forward on the long path towards reconciliation."

It followed the painful discoveries of more than 1,000 unmarked graves at church-run residential schools funded by the government to forcibly assimilate Canada's indigenous population.

More than 4,000 students died of disease and neglect, while others have recounted physical and sexual abuses by headmasters and teachers who stripped them of their culture and language.

Simon, wearing a seal skin vest, was among several indigenous leaders present in parliament in 2008 for the government's official apology for those abuses.

"I'm filled with optimism that this action by the government of Canada and the generosity of the words chosen to convey this apology will help us all mark the end of this dark period in our collective history as a nation," she said then.

But, she added, "let us not be lulled into an impression that when the sun rises tomorrow morning, the pain and scars will miraculously be gone. They won't."

- 'Colonial perceptions' -

Born in 1947 in Kuujjuaq, a small hamlet on the coast of Ungava Bay, Simon attended a day school similar to the indigenous residential schools, before landing her first job as a radio host for public broadcaster CBC.

From the 1980s, she became actively involved in defending Inuit rights and their Arctic lands. As president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), she denounced oil and gas drilling and other sources of pollution in the far north.

She has also promoted Inuit culture whenever possible, including applauding her predecessor, governor general Michaelle Jean, for eating seal meat during an official Arctic trip in solidarity with Inuit hunters fighting an EU ban on the sale of seal products.

"The seal ban," she'd said at the time, "was based on colonial perceptions of our sealing practices."

Simon brought that same zeal to Washington to fight against adding polar bears on the endangered species list, saying the hunting restriction would hurt the livelihood of many Inuit. Canada is home to about half of the world's polar bear population.

"The polar bear is a very important subsistence, economic, cultural, conservation, management, and rights concern for Inuit in Canada," she said then.

Her appointment as governor general was widely praised, but her lack of fluency in French irked some, notably in Quebec.

At a news conference, Simon committed to taking French lessons in order to "conduct the business of the governor general in both of Canada's official languages, as well as Inuktitut, (her native language and) one of many indigenous languages spoken across the country."

In Myanmar, the military and police declare war on medics


By KRISTEN GELINEAU and VICTORIA MILKO

yesterday

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) —

The clandestine clinic was under fire, and the medics inside were in tears.

Hidden away in a Myanmar monastery, this safe haven had sprung up for those injured while protesting the military’s overthrow of the government. But now security forces had discovered its location.

A bullet struck a young man in the throat as he defended the door, and the medical staff tried frantically to stop the hemorrhaging. The floor was slick with blood.

In Myanmar, the military has declared war on health care — and on doctors themselves, who were early and fierce opponents of the takeover in February. Security forces are arresting, attacking and killing medical workers, dubbing them enemies of the state. With medics driven underground amid a global pandemic, the country’s already fragile healthcare system is crumbling.

“The junta is purposely targeting the whole healthcare system as a weapon of war,” says one Yangon doctor on the run for months, whose colleagues at an underground clinic were arrested during a raid. “We believe that treating patients, doing our humanitarian job, is a moral job….I didn’t think that it would be accused as a crime.”

– VIDEO: In Myanmar, health workers 'made criminals'

Inside the clinic that day, the young man shot in the throat was fading. His sister wailed. A minute later, he was dead.

One of the clinic’s medical students, whose name like those of several other medics has been withheld to protect her from retaliation, began to sweat and cry. She had never seen anyone shot.

Now she too was at risk. Two protesters smashed the glass out of a window so the medics could escape. “We are so sorry,” the nurses told their patients.

One doctor stayed behind to finish suturing the patients’ wounds. The others jumped through the window and hid in a nearby apartment complex for hours. Some were so terrified that they never returned home.

“I cry every day from that day,” the medical student says. “I cannot sleep. I cannot eat well.”

“That was a terrible day.”
____

In this March 9, 2021 photo obtained by The Associated Press, doctors treat a wounded protester in a secret clinic set up in a resident's house in Yangon, Myanmar. In Myanmar, the military has declared war on health care _ and on doctors themselves, who were early and fierce opponents of the takeover in February. (AP Photo)

In this Sunday, Feb. 28, 2021 image from video provided by Dakkhina Insight, medics attend to a man who appeared to be wounded in his upper chest on a street in Dawei, Myanmar. In Myanmar, the military has declared war on health care _ and on doctors themselves, who were early and fierce opponents of the takeover in February. (Dakkhina Insight via AP)


The suffering caused by the military’s takeover of this nation of 54 million has been relentless. Security forces have killed at least 890 people, including a 6-year-old girl they shot in the stomach, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which monitors arrests and deaths in Myanmar. Around 5,100 people are in detention and thousands have been forcibly disappeared. The military, known as the Tatmadaw, and police have returned mutilated corpses to families as tools of terror.

Amid all the atrocities, the military’s attacks on medics, one of the most revered professions in Myanmar, have sparked particular outrage. Myanmar is now one of the most dangerous places on earth for healthcare workers, with 240 attacks this year -- nearly half of the 508 globally tracked by the World Health Organization. That’s by far the highest of any country.

“This is a group of folks who are standing up for what’s right and standing up against decades of human rights abuses in Myanmar,” says Raha Wala, advocacy director of the U.S.-based Physicians for Human Rights. “The Tatmadaw is hell-bent on using any means necessary to quash their fundamental rights and freedoms.”

The military has issued arrest warrants for 400 doctors and 180 nurses, with photos of their faces plastered all over state media like “Wanted” posters. They are charged with supporting and taking part in the “civil disobedience” movement.

At least 157 healthcare workers have been arrested, 32 wounded and 12 killed since Feb. 1, according to Insecurity Insight, which analyzes conflicts around the globe. In recent weeks, arrest warrants have increasingly been issued for nurses.

This May 24, 2021 image from a broadcast by the military-owned Myawaddy TV shows a list of nurses charged for participation in the "Civil Disobedience Movement." The military has issued arrest warrants for 400 doctors and 180 nurses, with photos of their faces plastered all over state media like criminals. (Myawaddy TV via AP)

Myanmar’s medics and their advocates argue that these assaults violate international law, which makes it illegal to attack health workers and patients or deny them care based on their political affiliations. In 2016, after similar attacks in Syria, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding that medics be granted safe passage by all parties in a war.

“In other country’s protests, the medics are safe. They are exempt. Here, there are no exemptions,” says Dr. Nay Lin Tun, a general practitioner who has been on the run since February, and now provides care covertly.

Medics are targeted by the military because they are not only highly respected but also well-organized, with a strong network of unions and professional groups. In 2015, doctors pinned black ribbons to their uniforms to protest the appointment of military personnel to the Ministry of Health. Their Facebook page quickly gained thousands of followers, and the military appointments stopped.

This time, the protest by medics started days after the military ousted democratically elected leaders, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, from power. From remote towns in the northern mountains to the main city of Yangon, they walked off their jobs on military-owned facilities, pinning red ribbons to their clothes.

In this Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021 file photo, doctors, supporters of the "Civil Disobedience Movement," participate in a march against the military's seizure of power in Yangon, Myanmar. Protests by medics started days after the military ousted democratically elected leaders from power. The response from the military was fierce, with security forces beating medical workers and stealing supplies. (AP Photo)

The response from the military was fierce, with security forces beating medical workers and stealing supplies. Security forces have occupied at least 51 hospitals since the takeover, according to Insecurity Insight, Physicians for Human Rights and the Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights.

On March 28, during a strike in the city of Monywa, a nurse was fatally shot in the head, according to AAPP. On May 8, hundreds of miles away in northern Kachin state, a doctor was arrested, tied up and also fatally shot in the head while passing a military base.

Rather than acknowledging its attacks on medical workers, the military is instead accusing them of genocide for not treating patients — despite itself being accused of genocide against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority.

“They are killing people in cold blood. If this is not genocide, what shall I call it?” military spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said during an April 9 press conference broadcast live on national television.

A military spokesperson responded to written questions submitted by The Associated Press only by sending an article that blamed supposed election fraud for the country’s problems. Suu Kyi’s party won the November election in a landslide, and independent poll watchers have largely found it free of significant issues.

The crackdown on health care is hitting an already vulnerable system at a critical time. Even before the takeover, Myanmar had just 6.7 physicians per 10,000 people in 2018 — significantly lower than the global average of 15.6 in 2017, according to the World Bank.

Now, testing for COVID-19 has plummeted, and the vaccination program has stalled, with its former head, Dr. Htar Htar Lin, arrested and charged with high treason in June. Even if vaccines are available, people are afraid of being arrested just by going to the hospital, one medic told the AP.

Given the military’s crackdown on information, there are no independent figures on current COVID cases and deaths. The state media has reported almost 160,000 positive cases and 3,347 deaths. But experts say that is an undercount, and there are clear signs another COVID surge is happening in the country.

“What we’re seeing is really a human rights emergency that is turning into a public health disaster,” says Jennifer Leigh, an epidemiologist and Myanmar researcher for Physicians for Human Rights. “We’re definitely seeing echoes of what happened in Syria, where health workers and the health facility was systematically targeted.”

___

In this March 5, 2021 photo obtained by The Associated Press, Dr. Nay Lin Tun tends to a patient wounded in a protest in Yangon, Myanmar. “In other country’s protests, the medics are safe. They are exempt. Here, there are no exemptions,” says the general practitioner who has been on the run since February, and now provides care covertly. (AP Photo)

The crackdown has forced doctors to make excruciating choices and find new ways to reach patients.

As an emergency physician at a government hospital, Dr. Zaw had been on the frontlines of the fight against COVID. In January, the first vaccines arrived from India, giving the exhausted doctor a rush of hope.

But after months of fighting a virus, she found herself instead fighting for democracy. Going on strike was an agonizing decision; as a doctor, she believed in caring for those in need. However, doing so meant working for and legitimizing the generals who overthrew her government.

The solution was providing care in secret, says Zaw, whom the AP is identifying by a partial name to protect her from retaliation.

In February, she helped set up a clinic tucked away in another monastery in another part of Myanmar, with supplies donated from a COVID facility where she had previously volunteered. A generator keeps the equipment running during the frequent power cuts. Select contacts in nearby townships who know the clinic’s location direct the sick and wounded there.

Zaw fled the housing the government provides public doctors. She has since moved three times to avoid detection, and sent her family to a safehouse.

Now, she lives above the clinic, sleeping alongside seven other doctors and nurses on mats separated only by curtains. It has become too risky to leave the compound; she knows the soldiers are hunting for the clinic, and for her.

“Because of them, our hopes, our dreams, are hopeless,” she says. “Some of the medical students and some of our doctors are dying because of them.”

Sometimes, Zaw and her colleagues are tipped off by informants the night before a raid, giving them time to dismantle the clinic and hide the equipment. But on one recent day, they only had time to hide themselves. There was almost no warning, just the frantic shouts from the monks that the soldiers were already at the gate.

Zaw raced to a nearby building with her colleagues. Moments later, she watched through a window as soldiers stormed her clinic, frightening the patient she had just been treating for hypertension and diabetes. Normally shy and soft-spoken, she fought the urge to run out and hit them.

Volunteers told the soldiers that no government doctors were working there. The soldiers eventually left, and Zaw returned to her patient. She knows she was lucky that day, but she intends to keep treating the sick — even if her efforts end in her death.

“All people have to die one day,” Zaw says. “So I’m prepared.”

While some medics have gone underground, others have fled from the cities to the border areas.

Before the military takeover, it was difficult to persuade government doctors from the cities to work in states like Kachin, where ethnic armed groups have long battled the Tatmadaw, according to the founder of an underground clinic and medical training organization there. Since February, however, government doctors have come to Kachin to provide care and train others in emergency medicine, says the founder, who spoke anonymously to avoid retaliation. The group now has between 20 and 30 trainers.

This May 2021 photo obtained by The Associated Press shows medicines at an underground clinic in Myanmar's Kachin state. Since February, government doctors have come to Kachin to provide care and train others in emergency medicine, says the founder of an underground clinic and medical training organization, who spoke anonymously to avoid retaliation. (AP Photo)

Their clinic shifts locations constantly, sometimes operating out of a tent. The medics treat the injured from landmines, homemade bombs and battles with security forces.

The fear of being discovered is intense; the founder frets over a new car parked in front of his house and new faces in the neighborhood. His wife packed emergency bags filled with clothing, supplies and cash. Security forces recently abducted someone in front of one medic’s home, he says, and were probably looking for the medic.

“Every day since I started doing this, I know my life is in danger,” he says.

___

The war on medics is already taking a severe toll on those who need health care, especially the young.

Under a tarp in the jungle pounded by relentless rain, 20-year-old Naing Li stared helplessly at her firstborn child, just five days old. The newborn’s breathing had grown labored, and his tiny body felt like it was on fire.

She could do nothing. Her husband was back in their village in western Myanmar, near the embattled town of Mindat, fighting advancing soldiers. And there were no medics around to help — not here in the jungle where she had fled with her baby, and not in their village either.

The baby is among about 600,000 newborns who aren’t receiving essential care, putting them at risk of illness, disability and death, according to UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency. A million children are missing out on routine immunizations. Nearly 5 million are not receiving Vitamin A supplements to prevent infection and blindness, and more than 40,000 are no longer getting treated for malnutrition.

At the same time, COVID is spreading rapidly along Myanmar’s porous border with Bangladesh, India and Thailand, alarming health experts.

“This has the potential to turn into a very big and very bad public health crisis,” says Alessandra Dentice, UNICEF’s Myanmar representative.

Naing Li and her baby had already survived one crisis — a difficult labor at home. They hadn’t been able to go to a hospital in nearby Mindat, where the military launched a bloody assault and declared martial law. The fighting closed the few private clinics that had remained open.

Little Mg Htan Naing was healthy when he entered into this chaotic world on May 16, looking like his mother. But five days later, in the jungle, the swaddled infant struggled to breathe.

By the next morning, Naing Li was desperate enough to risk returning home for help. When she arrived, however, she found her husband, 23-year-old Naing Htan, struck in the back by shrapnel.

The couple could only watch as their son slipped away. At 11 a.m., Mg Htan Naing died in his mother’s arms.

In this photo obtained by The Associated Press, the body of 6-day-old Mg Htan Naing is swaddled in blankets during his funeral in Myanmar on May 22, 2021. The infant died after falling ill the previous night during heavy rains in the jungle, where his mother had fled with him after soldiers stormed the village where they lived. They hadn’t been able to go to a hospital in nearby Mindat, where the military launched a bloody assault and declared martial law. The fighting closed the few private clinics that had remained open. (AP Photo)

Men in Myanmar are not supposed to cry in front of others, but the father could not contain his grief.

“I cried out loud in agony even though I am a man,” he says.

Even if the couple had found a doctor in time, they likely would have faced the challenge of finding medicine. Healthcare workers interviewed by the AP said soldiers are blocking aid and have taken medical equipment and drugs from clinics during raids.

A Mindat resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation, said she and her family stored medicine in preparation before the fighting broke out. But with water supplies cut and no way to properly clean themselves, they worry about diseases.

“It is very difficult here,” she says. “If we get sick, we cannot go to the clinic. We have to take whatever medicine we have at home.”

The collapse of the public hospital system has also put pressure on aid groups.

In Shan and Kachin states, Médecins Sans Frontières has taken on more than 3,045 patients who would otherwise have been treated under the government’s AIDS program. The clinics have been forced to cut the life-saving HIV/AIDS medicine they distribute to patients from three-month supplies to one.

Many aid groups have shut down or drastically scaled back operations. After the military takeover, aid groups stopped coming to a camp for 1,000 displaced people in Kachin state, a women’s advocate says. A weekly free government clinic closed.

Now, the children and elderly there are suffering from diarrhea and malnourishment. There is no one to perform surgeries or deliver babies. Food is scarce, and most people are relying on traditional medicines.

“We are barely scraping by,” she says. “I feel death is just around the corner for us.”

For countless others, like Mg Htan Naing, death has already come. The baby’s parents buried him in their garden, then fled. His father blames his son’s death not on the doctors on strike, but on the soldiers who drove them from Mindat.

This is what haunts the country’s caretakers of the sick and wounded: The people they could have saved, if only they had not been under attack.

“Given the chance, we could have stopped bleeding, we could have saved the patients, we could have prevented deaths. It hurts,” says the Yangon doctor. “The people dying are not just nobodies. They are our country’s future generations.”

___

Gelineau reported from Sydney.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

17TH CENTURY PIRACY RESULTED IN INSURANCE

In crosshairs of ransomware crooks, cyber insurers struggle

By FRANK BAJAK

July 5, 2021

1 of 3
FILE - In this Feb. 21, 2019, file photo, people stand in front of the logo of AXA Group prior to the company's 2018 annual results presentation, in Paris. The cyber insurance industry, once a profitable niche, is now in the crosshairs of ransomware criminals. Pressure is building on the industry to stop reimbursing for ransoms, but so far only one major cyber insurer, AXA, is doing so — and only with new policies in France. To try to absorb the growing onslaught and stay profitable, insurers are retooling coverage, demanding clients up their security. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)

BOSTON (AP) — In the past few weeks, ransomware criminals claimed as trophies at least three North American insurance brokerages that offer policies to help others survive the very network-paralyzing, data-pilfering extortion attacks they themselves apparently suffered.

Cybercriminals who hack into corporate and government networks to steal sensitive data for extortion routinely try to learn how much cyber insurance coverage the victims have. Knowing what victims can afford to pay can give them an edge in ransom negotiations. The cyber insurance industry, too, is a prime target for crooks seeking its customers’ identities and scope of coverage.

Before ransomware evolved into a full-scale global epidemic plaguing businesses, hospitals, schools and local governments, cyber insurance was a profitable niche industry. It was accused of fueling the criminal feeding frenzy by routinely recommending that victims pay up, but kept many from going bankrupt.

Now, the sector isn’t just in the criminals’ crosshairs. It’s teetering on the edge of profitability, upended by a more than 400% rise last year in ransomware cases and skyrocketing extortion demands. As a percentage of premiums collected, cyber insurance payouts now top 70%, the break-even point.

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Fabian Wosar, chief technical officer of Emsisoft, a cybersecurity firm specializing in ransomware, said the prevailing attitude among insurers is no longer: Pay the criminals. It’s likely to be cheaper for all involved.

“The ransomware groups got way too greedy too quickly. So the cost-benefit equation the insurers initially used to figure out whether or not they should pay a ransom — it’s just not there anymore,” he said.

It’s not clear how the single biggest ransomware attack on record, which began Friday, will impact insurers. But it can’t be good.

Pressure is building on the industry to stop reimbursing for ransoms.

In May, the major cyber insurer AXA decided to do so with all new policies in France. But it is so far apparently alone in the industry, and governments are not moving to outlaw reimbursement.

AXA is among major insurers that have suffered ransomware attacks, with operations in Thailand hard-hit. Chicago-based CNA Financial Corp., the seventh--ranked U.S. cybersecurity underwriter last year, saw its network crippled in March. Less than a week earlier, the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future published an interview with a member of the Russian-speaking ransomware gang, REvil, that is skilled in pre-attack intelligence-gathering and happens to be behind the current attack. He suggested it actively targets insurers for data on their clients.

CNA would not confirm a Bloomberg report that it paid a $40 million ransom, which would be the highest reported ransom on record. Nor would it say what or how much data was stolen. It said only that systems where most policyholder data was stored “were not impacted.”

In a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, CNA also said that its losses might not be fully covered by its insurance and “future cybersecurity insurance coverage may be difficult to obtain or may only be available at significantly higher costs to us.”

Another major insurance player hit by ransomware was broker Gallagher. Although it was hit in September, only this past week (June 30) did it disclose that the attackers may have stolen highly detailed data from an unspecified number of customers — from passwords and Social Security numbers to credit card data and medical diagnoses. Company spokeswoman Kelli Murray would not say if any cyber insurance policy contracts were on compromised servers. Nor would she say whether Gallagher paid a ransom. The criminals, from the RagnarLocker gang, apparently never posted information about the attack on their dark web leak site, suggesting that Gallagher paid.

Of the three insurance brokers that ransomware gangs claimed to have attacked in recent weeks, posting stolen data on their dark web sites as evidence, two, in Montreal and Detroit, did not respond to phone calls and emails. The third, in southern California, acknowledged being hobbled for a week.

By the time the Colonial Pipeline and major meat processer JBS were hit by ransomware in May, insurers were already passing higher coverage costs to customers.

Cyber premiums jumped by 29% in January in the U.S. and Canada from the previous month, said Gregory Eskins, an analyst at top commercial insurance broker Marsh McLennan. In February, the month-to-month jump was 32%, in March it was 39%.

In a bid to turn back ransomware-related losses — Eskins said they amounted to about 40% of cyber insurance claims in North America last year — policy renewals are carrying new, stricter rules or lowered coverage limits.

“The price has to match the risk,” said Michael Phillips, chief claims officer at the San Francisco cyber insurance firm Resilience and a co-chair of the public-private Ransomware Task Force.

A policy might now specify that reimbursement for extortion payments can’t exceed one-third of overall coverage, which typically also encompasses recovery and lost income and can include payments to PR firms to mitigate reputational damage. Or an insurer may cut coverage in half, or introduce a deductible, said Brent Reith of the broker Aon.

While some smaller carriers have dropped coverage altogether, the big players are instead retooling.

Then there are hybrid insurers like Resilience and Boston-based Corvus. They don’t simply ask potential customers to fill out a questionnaire. They physically probe their cyber defenses and actively engage clients as cyber threats occur.

“We’re monitoring and making active recommendations not just once a year but throughout the year and dynamically,” said Corvus CEO Phil Edmundson.

But is the overall industry nimble enough to absorb the growing onslaught?

The Government Accountability Office warned in a May report that “the extent to which cyber insurance will continue to be generally available and affordable remains uncertain.” And the New York State Department of Finance said in a February circular that massive industry losses were possible.

Both insured and insurers, stingy about sharing experiences and data, shoulder the blame for that, the U.K. Royal United Services Institute said in a new report. Most ransomware attacks go unreported, and no central clearinghouse on them exists, though governments are beginning to pressure for mandatory industry reporting. As a business sector, insurers are not especially transparent. In the U.S. they are regulated not by the federal government but by the states.

And for now, cyber insurers are mostly resisting calls to halt reimbursements for ransoms paid.

In a May earnings call, the CEO of U.K.-based Beazley, Adrian Cox, said “generally speaking network security is not good enough at the moment.” He said it is up to government to decide whether payments are bad public policy. CEO Evan Greenberg of the leading U.S. cyber insurer, Chubb Limited, agreed in the company’s annual report in February that deciding on a ban is government’s purview. But he did endorse outlawing payments.

Jan Lemnitzer, a Copenhagen Business School lecturer, thinks cyber insurance should be compulsory for businesses large and small, just as everyone who drives must have car insurance and seat belts. The Royal United Services Institute study recommends it for all government suppliers and vendors.

While he considers banning ransom payments problematic, Lemnitzer says it would be a “no-brainer” to compel insurers to stop reimbursing for them.

Some have suggested imposing fines on ransom payments as a disincentive. Or the government could retain a percentage of any cryptocurrency recovered from ransomware criminals, the proceeds going to a federal ransomware defense fund.

Such measures could bite into criminal revenues, said attorney Stewart Baker of Steptoe and Johnson, a former NSA general counsel.

“In the long run, it probably means that resources that are currently going to Russia to pay for Ferraris in Moscow will instead go to improve cybersecurity in the United States.”

Kaseya Ransomware Attack by REvil Gang Is Global in Scale
By Frank Bajak | July 6, 2021

INSURANCE NEWS


Cyber-security teams worked feverishly Sunday to stem the impact of the single biggest global ransomware attack on record, with some details emerging about how the Russia-linked gang responsible breached the company whose software was the conduit.

An affiliate of the notorious REvil gang, best known for extorting $11 million from the meat-processor JBS after a Memorial Day attack, infected thousands of victims in at least 17 countries on Friday, largely through firms that remotely manage IT infrastructure for multiple customers, cyber-security researchers said. They reported ransom demands of up to $5 million.


The FBI said in a statement Sunday that it was investigating the attack along with the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, though “the scale of this incident may make it so that we are unable to respond to each victim individually.”

President Joe Biden suggested Saturday the U.S. would respond if it was determined that the Kremlin is at all involved. He said he had asked the intelligence community for a “deep dive” on what happened.

Insurers’ Own Infrastructure Could Be Next Targets of Cyber Criminals

P/C Insurers Defend Ransomware Reimbursements in New Cyber Principles

Leading by Example: How Insurers Can Manage Cyber Risk Within Their Own Operations[The attack comes less than a month after Biden pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop providing safe haven to REvil and other ransomware gangs whose unrelenting extortionary attacks the U.S. deems a national security threat.

A broad array of businesses and public agencies were hit by the latest attack, apparently on all continents, including in financial services, travel and leisure and the public sector — though few large companies, the cyber-security firm Sophos reported. Ransomware criminals break into networks and sow malware that cripples networks on activation by scrambling all their data. Victims get a decoder key when they pay up.

The Swedish grocery chain Coop said most of its 800 stores would be closed for a second day Sunday because their cash register software supplier was crippled. A Swedish pharmacy chain, gas station chain, the state railway and public broadcaster SVT were also hit.


In Germany, an unnamed IT services company told authorities several thousand of its customers were compromised, the news agency dpa reported. Also among reported victims were two big Dutch IT services companies — VelzArt and Hoppenbrouwer Techniek. Most ransomware victims don’t publicly report attacks or disclose if they’ve paid ransoms.

CEO Fred Voccola of the breached software company, Kaseya, estimated the victim number in the low thousands, mostly small businesses like “dental practices, architecture firms, plastic surgery centers, libraries, things like that.”

Voccola said in an interview that only between 50-60 of the company’s 37,000 customers were compromised. But 70% were managed service providers who use the company’s hacked VSA software to manage multiple customers. It automates the installation of software and security updates and manages backups and other vital tasks.

Experts say it was no coincidence that REvil launched the attack at the start of the Fourth of July holiday weekend, knowing U.S. offices would be lightly staffed. Many victims may not learn of it until they are back at work on Monday. The vast majority of end customers of managed service providers “have no idea” what kind of software is used to keep their networks humming, said Voccola,

Kaseya said it sent a detection tool to nearly 900 customers on Saturday night.

John Hammond of Huntress Labs, one of the first cyber-security firms to sound the alarm on the attack, said he’d seen $5 million and $500,000 demands by REVil for the decryptor key needed to unlock scrambled networks. The smallest amount demanded appears to have been $45,000.

Sophisticated ransomware gangs on REvil’s level usually examine a victim’s financial records — and insurance policies if they can find them — from files they steal before activating the data-scrambling malware. The criminals then threaten to dump the stolen data online unless paid. It was not immediately clear if this attack involved data theft, however. The infection mechanism suggests it did not.

“Stealing data typically takes time and effort from the attacker, which likely isn’t feasible in an attack scenario like this where there are so many small and mid-sized victim organizations,” said Ross McKerchar, chief information security officer at Sophos. “We haven’t seen evidence of data theft, but it’s still early on and only time will tell if the attackers resort to playing this card in an effort to get victims to pay.”

Dutch researchers said they alerted Miami-based Kaseya to the breach and said the criminals used a “zero day,” the industry term for a previous unknown security hole in software. Voccola would not confirm that or offer details of the breach — except to say that it was not phishing.

“The level of sophistication here was extraordinary,” he said.

When the cyber-security firm Mandiant finishes its investigation, Voccola said he is confident it will show that the criminals didn’t just violate Kaseya code in breaking into his network but also exploited vulnerabilities in third-party software.

It was not the first ransomware attack to leverage managed services providers. In 2019, criminals hobbled the networks of 22 Texas municipalities through one. That same year, 400 U.S. dental practices were crippled in a separate attack.

One of the Dutch vulnerability researchers, Victor Gevers, said his team is worried about products like Kaseya’s VSA because of the total control of vast computing resources they can offer. “More and more of the products that are used to keep networks safe and secure are showing structural weaknesses,” he wrote in a blog Sunday.

The cyber-security firm ESET identified victims in least 17 countries, including the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Indonesia, New Zealand and Kenya.

Kaseya says the attack only affected “on-premise” customers, organizations running their own data centers, as opposed to its cloud-based services that run software for customers. It also shut down those servers as a precaution, however.

Kaseya, which called on customers Friday to shut down their VSA servers immediately, said Sunday it hoped to have a patch in the next few days.

Active since April 2019, REvil provides ransomware-as-a-service, meaning it develops the network-paralyzing software and leases it to so-called affiliates who infect targets and earn the lion’s share of ransoms. U.S. officials say the most potent ransomware gangs are based in Russia and allied states and operate with Kremlin tolerance and sometimes collude with Russian security services.

Cyber-security expert Dmitri Alperovitch of the Silverado Policy Accelerator think tank said that while he does not believe the Kaseya attack is Kremlin-directed, it shows that Putin “has not yet moved” on shutting down cyber criminals.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

MNI WISCONI WATER IS LIFE

Tribe becomes key water player with drought aid to Arizona

By FELICIA FONSECA

July 5, 2021

1 of 4

In this undated photo provided by Angie Ingram/CRIT Water Resources, a canal system on the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) reservation is seen near Parker, Ariz. The tribe has played an outsized role in Arizona to help keep Lake Mead from falling to drastically low levels. Still, Arizona is expected to face the first-ever mandatory cuts to its Colorado River water supply in 2022. (Angie Ingram/CRIT Water Resources via AP)

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — For thousands of years, an Arizona tribe relied on the Colorado River’s natural flooding patterns to farm. Later, it hand-dug ditches and canals to route water to fields.

Now, gravity sends the river water from the north end of the Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation through 19th century canals to sustain alfalfa, cotton, wheat, onions and potatoes, mainly by flooding the fields.

Some of those fields haven’t been producing lately as the tribe contributes water to prop up Lake Mead to help weather a historic drought in the American West. The reservoir serves as a barometer for how much water Arizona and other states will get under plans to protect the river serving 40 million people.

The Colorado River Indian Tribes and another tribe in Arizona played an outsized role in the drought contingency plans that had the state voluntarily give up water. As Arizona faces mandatory cuts next year in its Colorado River supply, the tribes see themselves as major players in the future of water.

“We were always told more or less what to do, and so now it’s taking shape where tribes have been involved and invited to the table to do negotiations, to have input into the issues about the river,” first-term Colorado River Indian Tribes Chairwoman Amelia Flores said.

Lake Mead on the Nevada-Arizona border has fallen to its lowest point since it was filled in the 1930s. Water experts say the situation would be worse had the tribe not agreed to store 150,000 acre-feet in the lake over three years. A single acre-foot is enough to serve one to two households per year. The Gila River Indian Community also contributed water.

The Colorado River Indian Tribes received $38 million in return, including $30 million from the state. Environmentalists, foundations and corporations fulfilled a pledge last month to chip in the rest.

Kevin Moran of the Environmental Defense Fund said the agreement signaled a new approach to combating drought, climate change and the demand from the river.

“The way we look at it, the Colorado River basin is ground zero for water-related impacts of climate change,” he said. “And we have to plan for the river and the watersheds that climate scientists tell us we’re probably going to have, not the one we might wish for.”

Tribal officials say the $38 million is more than what they would have made leasing the land. The Colorado River Indian Tribes stopped farming more than 15 square miles (39 square kilometers) to make water available, tribal attorney Margaret Vick said.

“There’s an economic tradeoff as well as a conservation tradeoff,” she said.

While some fields are dry on the reservation, the tribe plans to use the money to invest in its water infrastructure. It has the oldest irrigation system built by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, dating to 1867, serving nearly 125 square miles (323 square kilometers) of tribal land.

The age of the irrigation system means it’s in constant need of improvements. Flores, the tribal chairwoman, said some parts of the 232-mile (373-kilometer) concrete and earthen canal are lined and others aren’t, so water is lost through seepage or cracks.

A 2016 study conducted by the tribe put the price tag to fix deficiencies at more than $75 million. It’s leveraging grants, funding from previous conservation efforts and other money to put a dent in the repairs, Flores said.

“If we had all the dollars in the world to line all the canals that run through our reservation, that would be a great project to complete,” Flores said. “I don’t think that’s going to happen in our lifetime.”

The tribe is made up of four distinct groups of Native Americans — Chemehuevi, Mohave, Hopi and Navajo. The reservation includes more than 110 miles (177 kilometers) of Colorado River shoreline with some of the oldest and most secure rights to the river in both Arizona and California.

While much of the water goes to farming, it also sustains wildlife preserves and the tribe’s culture.

“We can’t forget about the spiritual, the cultural aspect to the tribes on the Colorado River,” Flores said. “Our songs, clan songs, river and other traditional rites that happen at the river.”

The tribe can’t take full advantage of its right to divert 662,000 acre-feet per year from the Colorado River on the Arizona side because it lacks the infrastructure. It also has water rights in California.

An additional 46 square miles (121 square kilometers) of land could be developed for agriculture if the tribe had the infrastructure, according to a 2018 study on water use and development among tribes in the Colorado River basin.

“One day,” Flores said. “That’s the goal of our leaders who have come behind me, to use all of our water allocation and develop our lands that right now are not developed.”

___

Fonseca is a member of The Associated Press’ race and ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/FonsecaAP.

July 6 marks World Zoonoses Day

How identifying hotspots of zoonotic disease could prevent another pandemic

Researchers have developed a tool to assess wildlife markets for risks of zoonotic outbreaks. It can help governments decide on courses of action, with strict veterinary requirements potentially more effective than bans.

The virus may have jumped from animal to human in a local wet market, such as this one in Wuhan

July 6 marks World Zoonoses Day, the anniversary of Louis Pasteur's first successful testing of his rabies vaccine on a human subject. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage across the globe, active measures are required to quell further outbreaks of zoonotic diseases.

For decades, scientists have been warning of dangerous zoonoses —zoonotic diseases caused by germs that spread between animals and people. From SARS to MERS and Ebola, many infectious diseases are transmitted by viruses that have an animal origin.

According to a report by the World Biodiversity Council, there are as many as 1.7 million undetected viruses in the animal kingdom, 827,000 of which could infect humans. As humans and wild animals come into ever closer contact, it is unlikely that COVID-19 is the last pandemic in our globalized world.
Wildlife trade with a potential for zoonotic diseases

Ever since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, there have been calls to strictly regulate or completely ban the trade in wild animals. Wildlife markets are considered to be potential "zoonotic hotspots" because different animal species are kept in close quarters, making it easy for dangerous viruses to spread.

A zoonosis is an infectious disease caused by a pathogen that has jumped from an animal to a human

Once it was clear that the new SARS CoV-2 virus had an animal origin, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for wild animal markets, which are particularly popular in Asia and Africa, to be shut down.

China, which faces particular criticism, temporarily banned the entire trade with wild animals in January 2020, to last until the COVID-19 pandemic is over. In the end, the ban did not last quite that long, with the markets now partially open again. Still, the trade with exotic animals and food in China has dropped significantly.
Wild animals important for food and medicines

Wild animals play an important cultural, traditional and even nutritional role for many people. Plans to ban the trade or consumption of wild animals in general are unrealistic; and in addition, strict bans are almost impossible to monitor, especially in regions with poor infrastructure or weak governance.

Watch video 12:00 COVID-19 Special: When animal diseases jump to humans

Regulating hygiene, or veterinary requirements for the trade and consumption of wild animals, might be a more effective strategy. This would also provide insight into the potential sources of danger.

Risk grids to identify hotspots

The World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) has worked with scientists from Hong Kong to develop a tool to assess wildlife markets for future risks of zoonotic outbreaks. The risk matrix, published in the One Health scientific journal, will initially be used to analyze wildlife markets in the Asia-Pacific region. The sales situation in the respective market and the animal species or the number of wild animals traded are taken into account.

The team surveyed 46 wildlife markets in Laos and Myanmar. They showed a high zoonotic risk on about half of the days when the researchers made their observations.

It is clear that there are wildlife markets that always seem to have a high risk of zoonosis, said Stefan Ziegler, Senior Conservation Advisor Asia for the WWF and one of the authors of the study.
Strict veterinary requirements vs. ineffective bans

According to WWF, millions of wild animals are traded in the region each year for food or use in traditional medicine — including wild boar and deer, as well as rodents and bats, which are considered reservoirs for a variety of pathogens.

Wild boar and deer are also consumed in Germany. "However, the trade in these products is subject to strict veterinary regulations," as Ziegler told dpa news agency.

PHILIPPINES: STUDYING BATS MIGHT HELP PREVENT ANOTHER PANDEMIC

Casting their nets

The researchers, who call themselves "virus hunters," are out to catch thousands of bats for a simulation model. They hope that this will help them prevent another pandemic on the scale of the COVID-19 crisis in the future   1234567

Preventing zoonotic diseases a global job

Stopping the illegal and unregulated wildlife trade is just as important as monitoring wildlife markets, wildlife farms and restaurants where such meats are served, according to the environmental organization. In many places the relevant authorities, which are supposed to monitor the trade and enforce applicable law, are severely underfunded, the WWF added.

Pandemic protection is a global task, according to the WWF. The global community must provide targeted assistance in building national capacities for pandemic prevention, the international organization says — and the risk matrix could help minimize risks associated with the legal trade of wildlife.

Meet the 'zombie frog,' a new species found in the Amazon

The spooky-looking amphibian is less scary than it appears to be. But it might already be endangered, as deforestation rates continue to go up.



The so-called zombie frog is one of three new species recently described by scientists

Everything is dark. There's no one around. The raindrops fall heavily. Suddenly, the call ― it's time to dig. The man digs with his bare hands until he is covered in mud. But he keeps going. His goal is to find the enigmatic creature making that unique call ― a sound that has never been heard before.

At first sight, this scene could be part of a horror or a thriller movie. But it has nothing to do with the zombie apocalypse. This is how German herpetologist (an expert on amphibians and reptiles) Raffael Ernst described his experience trying to identify frogs in the Amazon. And the effort paid off.

Ernst was part of the discovery of a new species, which has been dubbed the "zombie frog." Although its orange-spotted appearance is indeed quite peculiar, the 40-millimeter (1.5 inches) amphibian is no undead monster.

"Actually, we chose this name because the researchers are the ones that look like zombies when they dig out the frogs from the ground," recounts Ernst. The animals are usually active at night and make species-specific sounds.

German herpetologist Raffael Ernst found the frog while doing field work in Guyana

"So once you hear a new call, you can be pretty sure that you actually have new species," he says. "And then you have to dig them up and you're muddy all over, because they are hidden underground, and they usually come out only when it's raining."
Discovering a new species

Ernst spent two years in the Amazon rainforest in Guyana, South America, mostly alone, doing field work for his PhD studies. His original goal was to investigate the impacts of human-caused loss of biodiversity by looking at amphibians as an example. That was when he found the frog. He describes the moment as "a mixture of knowing what to do, where to look, and a lot of luck."

Since then, Ernst has joined efforts with a group of international researchers to find out more about the animal. They ended up describing three different species, all from the same genus, called Synapturanus. The amphibians were identified across the so-called Guiana Shield, which encompasses tropical rainforest areas across Guyana, French Guiana and Brazil. Little is known about the frogs since they are found in such remote places.

"It's not so easy to find them or actually collect them because they have really short activity times," Ernst explains. Based on their research, the scientists estimate that there may be six times more species belonging to the same genus, which have not yet been spotted.

SAVE THE FROGS

200 million years

Frogs have been around for some 200 million years, during which time they have shown an ability to adapt to changing habitats. Today there are almost 5,000 species of frogs. Human activities, habitat destruction, disease, pollution, climate change, invasive species and overuse for food and pets all contribute to declining frog numbers.

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Ernst's passion for amphibians and reptiles goes way back. "I got my first snake when I was seven or so," he says. For someone so emotionally connected to the profession, it was naturally exciting to discover a new frog. However, he clarifies that in the case of amphibians, it is not uncommon to come across new species: "The amount of newly discovered species is pretty big for vertebrates, and most of the people who do fieldwork will eventually probably come across new taxa."

But the discovery brings mixed emotions, since amphibians are among the most endangered vertebrate groups. "Whenever we discover new species, we always have in mind that we are losing species at the same time, probably more than we discover, and before we even have the chance to describe them," Ernst says.

It is in fact possible that the zombie frog is endangered, even though it was just recently discovered.


Amphibians such as the zombie frog are among the most endangered animals in the world, even in pristine environments such as the Guiana Shield in the Amazon

'The threats are multiple'

The Amazon rainforest is the world's biggest biodiversity hot spot, especially for amphibians. Most amphibian species known in the world come from the region, which is home to more than a thousand types of frogs. Because they breathe through their skin, amphibians are highly sensitive to water quality and environmental degradation, including toxic chemicals, habitat destruction, pollution, and diseases, to name a few examples. The so-called global amphibian decline, a term used by experts to designate systematic decreases in amphibian populations, indicates that around 70% of amphibian species are threatened with extinction. This phenomenon is a warning that ecosystems, even remote ones, may be out of balance.

In the case of the Amazon, Ernst affirms that there is increasing pressure, caused by numerous human activities ― most of them illegal ― such as mining, timber extraction, logging, poaching and large-scale infrastructure projects, particularly in northern Brazil. "The threats are multiple and on top of that, we have climate change problems as well," he says.

Humble lodgings in the Iwokrama forest in the Guiana Shield, where the researchers spent about two weeks doing field work

Unprecedented destruction

The Amazon's dry season, which runs from May to September, is the time of the year when deforestation peaks. Fires spread easily, as forest areas succumb to illegal activities such as logging, land-grabbing and land clearing ― mostly to turn the jungle into cattle pastures for agrobusiness.

According to Brazil's national space research institute (INPE), May 2021 was the third consecutive month to break deforestation records: 1,180 square kilometers (455 square miles) were lost in May alone (40% more than over the same period in 2020). And the trend looks worrying for the months to come.

"We are losing biodiversity at an unprecedented rate, and the current administration in Brazil has unfortunately been a disaster for that," says Ernst.

Ernst reportedly found the zombie frog just a couple hundred meters from this creek in Mabura Hill

Environmentalists from Brazil ― the country that is home to more than two-thirds of the Amazon rainforest ― continuously denounce the purposeful weakening of official environmental protection agencies and enforcement rules under the Bolsonaro administration. Brazil's former environment minister Ricardo Salles quit in June 2021 amid a criminal investigation of his involvement in an illegal logging scheme in the Amazon.

Environmental destruction affects all aspects of life in the Amazon, including amphibians and possibly the zombie frog. Should its habitat conditions be altered, the species ― despite its name ― will not come back from the dead.

Watch video01:06 Frog species believed extinct reappears in Ecuador

The Colombian frog farm trying to put animal traffickers out of business

In one of the world’s most biodiverse countries, thousands of animals fall victim to poaching each year. Could captive breeding projects help save some from extinction?

Opinion: The global tax revolution is coming

One hundred and thirty countries have reached an agreement on implementing a better system of taxation, under the aegis of the OECD. This could be real, historic progress, says Bernd Riegert.

Escaping to tax havens should no longer be worth the while for large corporations

The world is truly on the verge of a "colossal" upheaval of the tax system applied to big companies. This was how German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz hailed the agreement reached in principle by 130 countries, under the guidance of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It really can be described as historic. For the first time in 100 years, the global community is set to agree on a radical restructuring of the tax system that would make it fairer with regard to the global economy, including online business.

The agreement envisages that international corporations will no longer pay taxes in the country where they register their headquarters for tax purposes, but where they generate their sales. This would affect not just the big American internet giants, like Google's parent company Alphabet and online retailers such as Amazon, but also Chinese corporations, French firms, and German companies such as Volkswagen, Daimler and Siemens, which would in future pay more tax in the countries that are their principal markets.

DW's Bernd Riegert

Initially, it would only apply to highly profitable companies with a turnover of more than $20 billion (€16.8 billion). Nonetheless, it is a genuine revolution that will make the tax avoidance models offered by Luxemburg, Ireland, the Netherlands, and many financial havens in the Caribbean or the British Channel Islands, less attractive.

The second mainstay of the system would be the introduction of a minimum global tax of 15% of profits, applicable initially to companies with a turnover of more than $750 million. This aims to prevent competition among countries with low taxation levels. Even notorious suspects like Panama and the Cayman Islands have agreed to it — which is suspicious, to say the least. Perhaps the agreement does still have loopholes, after all?
Exceptions reduce chances of success

Of course, even this "revolution" has unfortunate exceptions. Big banks and financial service providers have been exempted, in response to pressure from Britain. So has the oil industry — the result of some brilliant lobbying by Saudi Arabia, Russia, and oil multinationals like Exxon. There are special rules for smaller states, i.e. the former tax havens. Investment in physical production facilities or logistics centers will reduce tax liability.

The United States is keen to move things along. Its new secretary of the treasury, Janet Yellen, is anticipating higher tax revenues. The OECD has calculated that, in total, finance ministers can expect the agreement to bring in an additional €100-150 billion. For Germany, specifically, the increase will be relatively small — around €750 million — because German corporations would in future pay more tax in China and the United States. Digital penalty taxes, which already exist in the UK and France, and which the EU was planning to introduce, will have to be scrapped. This will enable the United States and Europe to resolve at least this element of the trade dispute.

Breakthrough has been made

The goal has not yet been achieved. This agreement on global tax reform is voluntary, and will have to be incorporated into national laws. But the most important group of 20 states will approve it. Ultimately, the European holdouts — Ireland, Hungary, Estonia and Cyprus — will probably have no choice but to follow suit, otherwise they may face sanctions. US congressional approval will be the deciding factor. This is not a given, because of the Biden administration's razor-thin majority, but it is absolutely imperative for the success of the "revolution."

Many of the details, as well as the timetable for the introduction of the new tax system, are still vague, and will need to be negotiated before October's G20 summit in Rome, Italy. However, the breakthrough toward a better and fairer taxation system has been made. Now we must keep a close eye on whether the increased taxes are indeed paid by the corporations' owners, or whether consumers — i.e. all of us end up footing the bill by way of price increases.

This opinion piece was translated from German.

Paris gets a taste of pizza-making robots

Issued on: 06/07/2021 - 11:32

The glass-enclosed kitchen is staffed by silver robots that build, bake and box up pizzas with the help of specially developed equipment, at a rate of up to 80 an hour BERTRAND GUAY AFP/File

Paris (AFP)

Behind the dark green facade of a new Paris pizzeria, arms wielding ladles and spatulas perform an intricate ballet to churn out made-to-order pies -- but no human hands are involved in the performance.

The glass-enclosed kitchen is staffed by silver robots that build, bake and box up pizzas with the help of specially developed equipment, at a rate of up to 80 an hour.

After ordering at self-service terminals, clients can watch as the machines flatten fresh dough, spread tomato sauce, add organic vegetables, cheese and other toppings, then whisk the creations into the oven.

"It's a very fast process, the timing is perfectly controlled and quality is assured because the robots are consistent," says Sebastien Roverso, 34, a co-founder and inventor of the Pazzi robot and its namesake restaurant.

"And it's a pretty cool and relaxed atmosphere," he says. "The idea is that you spend a few pleasant minutes watching the robot while waiting."

Or as the sign says in English out front: "Come for the show, Stay for the Pizza!"

Roverso and a fellow engineer and inventor, Cyrill Hamon, launched their adventure eight years ago in a family garage, securing millions of euros from venture funds including the state-owned development bank, Bpifrance.

After a first restaurant in a Paris suburb in 2019, the company has its sights on an international chain where employees would focus solely on customer service or table cleanup.

"We're finalising contracts for new spots" in Paris, "and in March or April we'll open in Switzerland," said Philippe Goldman, a former L'Oreal executive who came on as managing director for the start-up.

- Labour shortage? -

The Pazzi robots are almost completely autonomous and in theory won't be susceptible to breakdowns.

"And we have engineers who work remotely and can take control and watch with cameras, so they can correct things if necessary to make sure service continues," Roverso said.

The tricky part was dealing with fresh dough, since using frozen products was out of the question.

"The dough is alive... every hour that passes, it's different," said Thierry Graffagnino, a chef and three-time winner of World Pizza Contest in Rome, who was brought in to help elaborate Pazzi's recipes and process.

"We had to make sure the robot could figure things out alone and adapt, something that even some pizzaiolos don't always know how to do," Graffagnino said.

"Today we make a very good pizza, but we're still looking to improve it, we're not going to stop here," he said.

The robots are also seen as an answer to chronic labour shortages in restaurants and food service -- in many countries owners are struggling to rehire workers furloughed in Covid lockdowns, since many are abandoning the sector's long and stressful hours.

"Fast food is facing a crisis everywhere in terms of hiring and the ability to find employees," Goldman said.

But even if robots start supplementing cooks in the kitchen, Pazzi has no intention of trying to replace traditional pizza cooks entirely.

"You have Neapolitan pizza, Sicilian pizza, Roman pizza, and now there's Pazzi pizza -- it's made by a robot but after all, it's healthy competition," Graffagnino said.

"It's up to everyone to make a good pizza."