Canada’s digital equity gap is a growing problem: study

Digital equity gaps in Canada are continuing to grow.


Canada’s digital equity gap is a growing problem: study© Aerial view of mobile phone cell tower to illustrate lack of broadband internet service in rural areas and need for investment

According to a recent report from Deloitte’s Future of Canada Centre, the gaps include access to digital technology and skill development.

The challenges disproportionately impact Indigenous peoples, people in the 2SLGBTQ+ community, racialized communities, recent immigrants, people with disabilities, lower-income households, seniors, and women.

Deloitte says income is the most important factor in accessing high-speed internet. A late 2021 survey of 2,000 Canadians conducted by the firm further highlighted this aspect.

The results show that every time home internet speeds increase by 1Mbps, household income needs to increase by $2500.

Access is critical to closing the equity gap, the study states, and there is a need to reassess available types of access. “Otherwise, the gap between those who can succeed in the digital world and those who cannot will continue to widen.”

The survey found 58 percent of households had internet speeds above the minimum broadband speeds outlined by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunits Commission (CRTC). However, when looking at families earning less than $40,000 a year, that figure dropped to 39 percent.

The CRTC quantifies minimum speeds as 50Mbps for downloads and 10Mbps for uploads.

The report notes broadband is the key to the expansion and the “bedrock” for other pillars.

Current models for funding broadband aren’t helping either. The study notes independent service providers (ISPs) are “crucial” for providing affordable internet to underserved groups.

“The federal government’s broadband funding scheme is complex, with a wide range of funding sources, a lack of coordination between sources, and onerous application processes. This disadvantages small ISPs that lack the capacity to work through complex applications.” In instances where funding is accessed, it’s not for long periods.

The study acknowledges that the CRTC and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) hold consultations on broadband-related policies. But smaller ISPs are limited from the discussion, given time, resources, and capacity.

Possible solutions

The study gives several recommendations to inch close the divide in digital equity.

One of the most crucial ones is to expand technology access for underserved groups and include said groups in consultations. For example, residents should be part of developing programs that provide free devices or other services to their communities.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: Deloitte Canada

The race is on to spy on Canada’s whales from space

Scientists on Canada’s coasts are exploring the use of satellites to surveil whales and other ocean “megafauna” to better monitor and protect at-risk ocean species.

The rapid advance of very high-resolution (VHR) satellite imagery and dropping costs are providing conservationists with opportunities to locate, count and monitor wildlife and their critical habitat from the cosmos. The technique is especially helpful in remote areas or expanses of ocean that are difficult for scientists to access.

In October, University of Ottawa researchers were the first to identify a particular endangered North Atlantic right whale (NARW) using satellite images. Newly available high-resolution images, along with ideal weather conditions, showed the large, distinctive white scar on the back of a whale named Ruffian, one of the approximately 336 critically endangered whales.

This latest research benchmark is part of the smartWhale project — a large federal initiative launched in 2021 by the Canadian Space Agency and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) along with Transport Canada to advance the use of satellite data and computer algorithms to detect, monitor and protect right whales.

VHR satellite imagery is also being explored to detect and estimate beluga, narwhal and possibly even walrus populations in the Arctic as part of the Space Whales and Arctic Marine Mammals (SWAMM) program — the other large initiative currently underway in Canada.

A total of 292 beluga whales and 109 narwhals were detected after analyzing 12 VHR images taken in August 2017 and 2019 by the WorldView-3 satellite of two locations near Baffin Island frequented by belugas during the summer.

A wave of interest is also rising on the B.C. coast to employ space technology to detect and protect large at-risk ocean species, including blue, fin, grey and humpback whales and endangered basking sharks, said Rebecca Martone, executive director for the Ocean Decade Collaborative Centre Northeast Pacific Region.

DFO and the Ocean Decade centre held a two-day webinar and workshop at the beginning of November to explore the feasibility and potential use of satellite data in the region, Martone said.

VHR satellite imagery is an important complement to traditional surveys from shore or with aircraft, drones, hydrophones or boats to better understand at-risk species and their movements across vast areas to improve their survival and recovery, she said.

Whale populations on the Pacific coast don’t group together and are spread across large areas, Martone said.

“It helps to have every kind of tool in your toolkit to be able to find them.”

The technology’s use isn’t limited to whale detection. It could also be used to monitor marine protected areas or do assessments and manage risks such as shipping lanes or oil spills, she added.

The idea to use satellite imagery to detect whales surfaced two decades ago, but the resolution of the available images initially wasn’t good enough. That changed when the U.S. allowed commercial satellite image companies to produce higher quality images in 2014. The successful identification of southern right whales in Argentinian waters with satellite photos occurred soon after.

The value of satellites to understand whales also isn’t limited to monitoring the living.

Studies have showcased how satellites can help locate, assess and perhaps even prevent whale strandings in isolated areas. Space photos were used to examine the death of 350 sei whales that washed ashore in Chile’s Patagonia region in early 2015 — the largest baleen whale mass stranding ever recorded.

Understanding why and where whale strandings occur, especially if they are repeated or involve large numbers, is vital for researchers. It helps identify and prevent persistent human-caused threats such as ship strikes or pollution, or larger climatic or ecosystem problems, such as the toxic algal blooms triggered by warming waters that caused the sei whale mortality event.


On the brighter side, satellite imagery can also discover unknown hot spots of at-risk species. One stellar example involved researchers looking at NASA photos for massive guano stains that ultimately revealed hidden colonies of 1.5 million Adélie penguins on the Danger Islands north of the Antarctic Peninsula.

There are still limiting factors to the technology, but most are likely to improve as advances continue apace, Martone said.

Images and data downloads from space do not occur in live time, nor are commercial satellites capable of homing in on small details or identifying features, as Hollywood spy movies suggest.

Detecting whales or basking sharks in the Pacific Northwest, with its mercurial weather, can be compromised by cloud cover, sun glint, heavy waves and poor water clarity, or floating debris such as logs and rafts of seaweed.

The resolution of most images is also still too low to clearly distinguish between different whale species of similar size shape such as grey, humpback and fin whales that co-exist in the same waters, Martone said. And animals that aren’t close to the surface of the water are more difficult to detect or identify.

Eleven satellites currently capture photos of Canada, which are distributed through four major commercial image companies. Generally, the best imagery has a spatial resolution of 30 centimetres, meaning it captures details that are greater than or equal to 30-cm square.

But Worldview-3 satellite imagery can now be sharpened or enhanced to 15 cm, a feature expected to allow researchers to distinguish between some types of whales or even particular individuals, such as the identification of Ruffian the right whale. It’s anticipated that 10-cm resolution images might be available in 2024, Martone said.

Examining lots of images manually is extremely time consuming for researchers, she said. Work is underway worldwide to develop algorithms and machine learning to automatically sift through and detect different marine mammals in large datasets of satellite images.

Under the federal smartWhale project, $5.3 million was divided up between five tech companies and whale research teams to develop systems for two purposes: to detect and monitor North Atlantic right whales and predict or model their movements to protect them from vessel collisions or entanglement in fishing gear.

Finding enough varying images of an individual whale species to use as input to train a detection system can be tricky, Martone said.

No system to date can differentiate between specific types of whales, meaning researchers would still need to inspect flagged images to identify which species of whales on the Pacific Coast were captured.

VHR satellite imagery can be cheaper and safer when surveying remote Arctic areas or the open oceans, but it’s still costly to buy images at a large scale for non-government organizations, academics, First Nations or developing nations.

But prices for satellite imagery are dropping, and scientists can target areas and dates that might offer useful images, such as whales' breeding grounds, for good population counts or buy useful archival photos at reduced prices.

Endangered Pacific basking sharks are an ideal for a pilot project using satellite imagery to study ocean creatures on the Pacific coast, Martone said.

The sharks, which are believed to migrate to B.C. waters from California in the summer, can be 12 metres long. Their size and grey-brown colour, which contrasts well with the ocean, along with their habit of spending a lot of time lounging on the surface of the water makes them good candidates for satellite monitoring.

The slow-moving giants are rarely spotted, Martone said, with only 37 confirmed sightings between 1996 and 2018. There’s little data to inform protection efforts, with estimates suggesting only 321 to 535 basking sharks might ply Canada’s Pacific waters.

“It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Martone said.

Satellites can cover more of the sharks’ open ocean habitat, increasing the likelihood of spotting them and learning more about them, she added.

“Spying on them from space can …help make sure their population is recovering.”

Rochelle Baker / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer

The Microwave Was Invented Utterly by Accident One Fateful Day More Than 70 Years Ago

Story by Matt Blitz • POP MECH. TODAY


Yes, the microwave oven was invented accidentally, when a test for a magnetron melted an engineer’s snack in 1946.

Raytheon engineer Perry Spencer “knack for finding simple solutions to manufacturing problems,” a current engineer at the same company says.

Today, more than 90 percent of American homes have a microwave.

The dull halogen light. The spinning glass plate. The humming that terminates in a “BEEP.” Today the sights, sounds, and smells of the microwave oven are immediately familiar to most Americans. There’s a microwave in more than 90 percent of American homes, and they’re heating everything from popcorn to pork rinds in a hurry.

The microwave is beloved for its speed and ease of use. But what you might not know about this indispensable kitchen appliance is when the microwave was invented. The true story is that it was invented utterly by accident one fateful day more than 70 years ago, when a Raytheon engineer named Percy Spencer was testing a military-grade magnetron and suddenly realized his snack had melted.

The Knack

Spencer was no timid lab rat. “Gramps was loud, wanted to make everything happen at all times,” the inventor's grandson George Rod” Spencer Jr. tells Popular Mechanics. “There were no ‘challenges,’ simply everything was a goddamn problem that needed to be solved. Everyone trusted him to do just that.”



Percy Spencer© Smithsonian Institution/Spencer Family

Growing up poor around the turn of the century in the wilderness of Howland, Maine, Spencer had little formal schooling and, unlike the millions of modern Americans who now heat up their lunch in his invention, often had to hunt for his food. Modern conveniences like the automobile and electricity were unfamiliar to him at young age, but he got into engineering anyway, thanks in large part to a natural curiosity that drew Spencer to the mills that populated the region.

At 12 he got a job at the spool mill one town over. At 14 Spencer got hired to install electricity at the nearby paper mill. A few years later he was so inspired by the heroic actions of the Titanic's radio operators that he joined the Navy and learned the new technology. Spencer would later explain,“ just got hold of a lot of textbooks and taught myself while I was standing watch at night.”

After World War I, Spencer landed a job at the newly-established American Appliance Company, co-founded by engineer Vannevar Bush, who today is most known for organizing the Manhattan Project and predicting many of the innovations that led to the computer revolution and the internet. In 1925, the company changed its name to Raytheon Manufacturing Company. It’s still around today, making missiles, military training systems and electronic warfare products.

In the 1920s, Spencer became one of Raytheon’s most valued and well-known engineers. During World War II, while Raytheon was working on improving radar technology for Allied forces, Spencer was the company’s go-to problem solver. For example, he helped to develop proximity fuses, or detonators that allowed you to trigger artillery shells so they’d explode in mid-air prior to hitting their mark. In an email to Popular Mechanics, current Raytheon engineer and part-time company historian Chet Michalak says Spencer “had a knack for finding simple solutions to manufacturing problems.”

Spencer earned several patents while working on more efficient and effective ways to mass-produce radar magnetrons. A radar magnetron is a sort of electric whistle that, instead of creating vibrating sound, creates vibrating electromagnetic waves. According to Michalak, at the time Spencer was trying to improve the power level of the magnetron tubes to be used in radar sets. On that fateful day in 1946, Spencer was testing one of his magnetrons when he stuck his hand in his pocket, preparing for the lunch break, when he made a shocking discovery: The peanut cluster bar had melted. Says Spencer, “It was a gooey, sticky mess.”

The Snack

A story this good can’t help but change as it’s passed down over the years. Some tellings of the legend say it was a melted chocolate bar that led to Spencer’s eureka. But if you ask Rod Spencer today, he’ll tell you that’s dead wrong.

“He loved nature (due to his childhood in Maine)... especially his little friends the squirrels and the chipmunks,” the younger Spencer says of his grandfather, “so he would always carry a peanut cluster bar in his pocket to break up and feed them during lunch.” This is an important distinction, and not just for the sake of accurate storytelling. Chocolate melts at a much lower temperature (about 80 degrees Fahrenheit) which means melting a peanut cluster bar with microwaves was much more remarkable.

Understandably curious just what the heck had happened, Spencer ran another test with the magnetron. This time he put an egg underneath the tube. Moments later, it exploded, covering his face in egg. “I always thought that this was the origin of the expression ’egg in your face,’” Rod Spencer Jr. says with a laugh. The following day, Percy Spencer brought in corn kernels, popped them with his new invention, and shared some popcorn with the entire office. The microwave oven was born.


A chef using a Raytheon Radarange III, an early commercial microwave oven, circa 1958.© Getty Images

At this point you might be wondering: How did Spencer know cooking with microwaves was safe? According to his grandson, he didn’t. Today, we know that the low doses of electromagnetic radiation emitted by microwaves are generally considered safe (though, the FDA admits that no studies have been done to assess the impact of low levels of microwaves on humans over time, and there are those who still firmly believe microwaves are killing us). But back in the 1940s, this information was not available. “He didn’t care about that,” Rod Spencer Jr. says. “This was when people would wear nuclear stuff around their neck to get rid of cancer.”

In 1947, just a year after Spencer’s snack food serendipity, the first commercial microwave oven hit the market. Called the “Radarange,” it weighed nearly 750 pounds and cost more than $2,000. Needless to say, it wasn’t a big seller. The first domestic microwave was introduced in 1955, but it too failed to launch because it was expensive and because microwave technology was still an unknown. It wasn’t until 1967, two decades after its invention, that the microwave oven finally caught on in American homes in the form of Amana’s compact “Radarange.” By 1975, a million microwaves were sold every year.

Today, Rod Spencer Jr. is a project manager and engineer himself. He’s writing a book about his grandfather. “I love telling these stories. I grew up with so many of them, my head is full. Some of the stuff he did—he was crazy, he was smart and everyone loved him.” And thankfully, he liked feeding the squirrels.

MOTHER NATURE REVOLUTION

'I needed more in my life': Pandemic spurs women to choose flexibility, freedom over traditional office jobs

Story by insider@insider.com (Korie Wilkins) • TODAY

Freelancers are expected to make up nearly half the US workforce by 2027, according to Upwork. 

Women are choosing freelance work over office jobs.

The number of freelancers is expected to keep rising as workers seek more flexible opportunities.

This article is part of the "Innovation at Work" series exploring the trends and barriers to workplace transformation.

In January 2020, when news broke of a mysterious pneumonia-like virus creeping through the Eastern hemisphere, Nancy Hauge, the chief people experience officer at Automation Anywhere, would not have predicted that only months later the coronavirus outbreak would force an overhaul of the HR operating model at her organization.

By October 2020, 71% of workers with jobs that could be done remotely were working from home all or most of the time, according to data from Pew Research. Hauge was among the HR leaders facilitating this remote-work revolution within her organization.

Although she describes 2020 as the most complex period of her career, Hauge reached a compelling conclusion by year's end. "What's been most surprising about the pandemic is social distancing created more intimacy," she said. "In many ways, we are more connected than before."

Remote-work wars

More than two years into the pandemic, organizations are grappling with whether to reopen workplaces. A new Microsoft report says that about half of the leaders it surveyed are looking to end remote work in the next year.

Amazon, Google, and accounting giant EY are among the many companies requiring employees to resume their old commutes and return to work. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, made headlines when he issued a staff memo telling employees to return to the office or "pretend to work somewhere else."

On Monday, a group of Apple workers launched a petition over the firm's office return requirement. The petition was tweeted in response to an all-employee memo from Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, mandating workers to come into the office at least three days a week.

Meanwhile, employers including Atlassian, Coinbase, and Gusto are offering permanent remote- or hybrid-work options.

The return-to-work wars demonstrate a disconnect between employers and employees, as most teleworkers say they prefer working from home. A survey of more than 3,000 employees conducted by Blind, an anonymous employee community app, found that 64% of employers, including Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, would rather work from home than receive a $30,000 raise.

Insider spoke with 10 industry leaders who shared why they are embracing remote and hybrid work for the foreseeable future.

The responses have been edited for brevity and clarity. See More

Through the pandemic, women found themselves working and schooling their kids at home and caring for sick or aging relatives — according to the US Chamber of Commerce, more than 1 million women have left the workforce since 2020.

But for some women, leaving the workforce was not because of childcare, unemployment, or retirement, but instead, because they've chosen to become their own bosses.

Women have, in growing numbers, used changes the pandemic has caused to launch their own careers or businesses as freelancers or consultants — trying to find flexible and meaningful work on their own terms.

"There's definitely been a shift," Emily A. Hay, an entrepreneur who founded Hay There Social Media, a social-media-marketing firm, told Insider. "My LinkedIn feed is full of women doing this, wanting to do this, or thinking about doing this."

Since 2010, Hay's business has employed an all-female freelance team while training women to start their own freelance social-media businesses.

The Mom Project, a digital-talent marketplace, has been helping women and companies connect on these flexible job opportunities, including freelance and contingent work, since 2016.

"We have about a million women on our platform," Pam Cohen, the chief research-and-analytics officer at Werklabs, the independent-research unit of The Mom Project, said. "And that number has risen steadily. They are all looking for flexible work, with many of them looking for contingent or freelance work."

The number of freelancers and contractors is increasing

According to Upwork, a freelance marketplace, the percentage of full-time freelancers increased from 28% in 2019 to 36% in 2020. In 2021, that number remained nearly the same, though the number of freelancers is continuing to grow; Upwork expects freelancers to make up nearly half the US workforce by 2027.

For women like Kimberly Hermann of upstate New York, freelancing opened the door to flexible, lucrative work and control of her life, schedule, and career.

"I needed more in my life," Hermann, who runs her own business called Raising Social, told Insider. "My kids weren't babies anymore and I didn't want to go back to what I did before kids, which was being a dental assistant."

Hermann wasn't looking for a full-time, in-person job. She wanted to challenge herself professionally, make money, and learn new skills. But she said the job needed to fit around her life.


Freelancing gave Hermann more control over her work-life balance. 

Photo provided by Kimberly Hermann© Photo provided by Kimberly Hermann

A friend told Hermann about Hay There Social Media's training program and she jumped in. Since then, her business has been growing and she told Insider she loves working when she wants and for whom she wants.

"It's so flexible," Hermann said. "I can work in the in-between hours of raising my kids and I can set my own hours. But then I have the freedom to go to my kids' activities."

Flexibility and freedom in the workplace

Cohen said women are opting for freelance opportunities because this kind of job offers them flexible work during life circumstances such as raising young children or caring for elderly relatives. Others have the freedom to pursue freelance work because they have a partner or spouse who has a job that includes benefits like healthcare.

"For a lot of women, it's about finding work that fits into your life," Cohen said.

As companies that previously embraced remote work, like General Motors and Snapchat, are now mandating that employees return to the office, freelancing and contract work could be even more appealing for women seeking flexibility and a nontraditional career path.

Cohen said these challenges and changes will likely continue to fuel the shift toward contract or freelance work for women. "More people are finding satisfaction in project-based work," she said.

"People, women especially, want that independence and flexibility."

Egyptian journalist Ismail Alexandrani released from prison after serving seven-year sentence

Egyptian investigative journalist Ismail Alexandrani was released Monday after being imprisoned for seven years for reporting on military operations in North Sinai, his lawyer Khaled Ali announced.

 IFJ denounces 26 journalists in Egyptian prisons, calls on authorities to release them

In October, a military cassation court reduced the prison sentence against Alexandrani to seven years instead of ten after he was convicted on charges of belonging to an outlawed organization and spreading false news, 'Al Ahram' has reported.

The journalist's case was denounced by the NGO Amnesty International, which claimed in 2017 that his arrest was "an illustration of the repressive media blackout imposed in Sinai, where journalists and researchers face threats and intimidation for daring to reveal the reality of what is happening on the ground."

The NGO also denounced that the Egyptian Public Prosecution interrogated the journalist in December 2015 about the political situation in the country, in addition to conducting an exhaustive search on his social networks, emails and personal computer.

The journalist was arrested in 2015 at Hurghada airport after his return from Germany and sentenced to ten years in prison by a military court. The authorities accused Alexandrani of belonging to the Islamist organization Muslim Brotherhood, which was declared a terrorist group after the 2013 coup d'état in which the then elected president, Mohamed Mursi, was overthrown.

Reporters Without Borders pointed out that almost all of the detained journalists, as well as human rights defenders or other socially relevant figures, are accused of "spreading false news", among other charges.

Egyptian President Abdelfattah al-Sisi came to power in July 2013 in a coup d'état he led after a series of mass demonstrations against the then Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, the country's first democratically elected president, who died in 2019 during a court hearing against him.

The marshal has promoted a broad campaign of repression and persecution against opponents, both liberal groups and Islamist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood - declared as terrorist - an initiative that human rights groups have denounced as the most serious in recent times.

Colombian government insists that it will not pardon protesters of the 2021 social unrest

Colombia's Minister of the Interior, Alfonso Prada, explained on Monday that some of those arrested in the 2021 protests will not be pardoned, but that based on new legislation and as workers of social organizations they may be designated as "peace managers".


Protests against the Colombian government of former President Ivan Duque, in Bogota. - Chepa Beltran/LongVisual via ZUM / DPA© Provided by News 360

"We have alternatives in Law 418 that we have just reformed to convert many of the people, who working within social, humanitarian organizations, who have work with the communities, help us to build total peace," argued the head of the Interior.

In this sense, Prada said that those who President Gustavo Petro considers that they can "contribute to achieve total peace and citizen coexistence, will be designated as spokespersons or peace managers".

Prada has remarked that this is not a pardon or an amnesty because the judicial processes they have open for participating in those protests of 2021 against the policies of the government of former president Iván Duque will not be suspended.

"I want to make it very clear that this is not an amnesty process, nor a pardon, nor a judicial pardon. All the processes of those who have been prosecuted in the midst of the protest will continue in the hands of the judges", but rather it is about "using a transitory figure" that allows to have recognized youth leaders who can "contribute to total peace", he said.

Prada also clarified that the Prosecutor's Office and the judges will have the last word on each of the proposals that Petro's government will present in relation to these people who could be "peace managers".

Some of these people that the Government seeks to contribute to internal peace belong to the so-called 'First Line', a group of demonstrators who remained at the forefront of the protests, sometimes leading bitter clashes with the security forces, questioned for the excessive use of force applied to repress the demonstrations.

As it could not be otherwise, the opposition has questioned the initiative of Petro's Government, which they accuse of "mocking" Colombians, insisting, despite the Government's explanations denying it, on the theory that these people will be granted the pardon.

One of the fiercest critics of the new Government of Casa Nariño, the pro-Uribe senator María Fernanda Cabal, has said that this measure is nothing more than an "excuse" to make "terrorists" financed by the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the extinct FARC, pass as peace managers.

I WANT TO BELIEVE
Search for alien life just got 1,000 times bigger after new telescope joins the hunt

Story by Harry Baker • 

One of the world's largest telescopes has just joined the hunt for signs of alien life elsewhere in the cosmos.


null© South Africa Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO)

Since 2016, the Breakthrough Listen project has been quietly using radio telescopes to listen for unusual radio signals, or technosignatures, from potential advanced extraterrestrial civilizations within the Milky Way. The project, launched in part by the late Stephen Hawking and funded by Israeli entrepreneur Yuri Milner, already uses the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia in the United States and the Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, Australia, as well as other radio telescopes from across the globe, to scan nearby stars. But now, the MeerKAT Telescope — an array of 64 individual dishes in South Africa, and currently the largest radio telescope in the Southern Hemisphere — has joined the party.

After more than two years of integrating their programs into the MeerKAT system, Breakthrough Listen scientists have finally started using data collected by the array of dishes to look for unusual signals from nearby stars, according to a statement released Dec. 1.

The inclusion of MeerKAT will "expand the number of targets searched by a factor of 1,000," Breakthrough Listen representatives wrote in the statement. This will greatly increase the chances of detecting a technosignature, if there are any out there to be found, they added.

Related: Famous 'alien' Wow! signal may have come from distant, sunlike star

MeerKAT drastically improves the number of targets that Breakthrough Listen can analyze because its dishes can lock onto up to 64 different targets at once, while other telescopes can only focus on one at a time.

"MeerKAT can see an area of the sky 50 times bigger than the GBT can view at once," Andrew Siemion, principal investigator of Breakthrough Listen and director of the University of California Berkeley's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Research Center, said in the statement. "Such a large field of view typically contains many stars that are interesting technosignature targets."

Breakthrough Listen will access a continuous datastream from MeerKAT without interfering with scheduled astronomical research. Instead, data collected from other studies will be fed into a supercomputer, which uses a special algorithm to scan signals that it does not recognize as coming from known cosmic phenomena such as pulsars, stellar flares or supernovas. When a strange signal is detected, a researcher can then analyze the signal.

Using MeerKAT, Breakthrough Listen will be able to scan more than 1 million stars during the next two years, which is "very exciting," Cherry Ng, an astrophysicist at the University of Toronto and a project scientist at Breakthrough Listen, said in the statement.

One of the first stars that will investigated in more detail by MeerKAT and Breakthrough Listen will be Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to our solar system, which has two exoplanets that lie within the star's habitable zone, researchers said.

In June, Chinese astronomers using the enormous "Sky Eye" telescope in Guizhou, China — the largest radio telescope on Earth — announced that they had detected a possible alien signal. But this was quickly debunked by one of the study authors who revealed the signal was almost definitely human radio interference.

Amnesty International Canada hit by cyberattack out of China, investigators say

Story by Murray Brewster • 1h ago

The Canadian branch of Amnesty International was the target of a sophisticated cyber-security breach this fall — an attack forensic investigators believe originated in China with the blessing of the government in Beijing.

The intrusion was first detected on October 5, the human rights group said Monday.

The attack showed signs of being the work of what's known as an advanced persistent-threat group (APT), according to the cyber security company that conducted the forensic investigation.

Unlike a typical cybercrime attack, the attack on Amnesty involved establishing covert surveillance of the operating system of Amnesty's network, said the report prepared for Amnesty International Canada by the U.K.-based cybersecurity firm Secureworks.

The hackers appeared to be attempting to obtain a list of Amnesty's contacts and monitor its plans.

The revelation comes as relations between Canada and China remain frosty on several fronts.

Secureworks said it's confident in its conclusion that Beijing — or a group affiliated with the Chinese government — was responsible for the breach.

"This assessment is based on the nature of the targeted information as well as the observed tools and behaviours, which are consistent with those associated with Chinese cyberespionage threat groups," said the report.

Ketty Nivyabandi, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, said the experience should offer a clear warning to other human rights groups and civil society members.

"This case of cyberespionage speaks to the increasingly dangerous context in which activists, journalists and civil society alike must navigate today," she said.

"Our work to investigate and call out these acts has never been more critical and relevant. We will continue to shine a light on human rights violations wherever they occur and to denounce the use of digital surveillance by governments to stifle human rights."



Activists from Amnesty International stage a protest in a show of support for China's Uyghur Muslims outside the National Assembly in Paris on Jan. 26, 2022.

© Michel Euler/Associated Press

Mike McLellan, director of intelligence for Secureworks, said targeting human rights groups falls under China's recent methods of operation.

"China uses its cyber capabilities to gather political and military intelligence and spy, and organizations like Amnesty are interesting to China because of the people they work with, the work that they do," McLellan told CBC News. "We see organizations like this targeted because China is interested in surveillance."

He said he doesn't believe there's any connection between the tense current nature of the Canada-China relationship and the timing of the cyber attack.

"I think it's much more about Amnesty Canada than Canada-China," McLellan said.

Last summer, another Massachusetts-based cybersecurity firm — Recorded Future — issued a report warning that hacking groups suspected of acting for the Chinese government have been involved in a multi-year espionage campaign against numerous governments, NGOs, think-tanks and news agencies.

The report said that campaign has targeted the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Amnesty International, the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS), Radio Free Asia (RFA), the American Institute in Taiwan, Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and India's National Informatics Centre since 2019.

Canadian-based Citizen Lab, an internet watchdog group, published a major study in 2016 that showed it and other civil society organizations have been penetrated by cyberspies, many of them linked to China.

Targeted by 'state-sponsored' spies

The study drew on four years of research with Tibet Action and nine other cooperating civil society groups. Eight were China or Tibet-focused; two were large international human rights organizations.

As part of that groundbreaking study, more than 800 suspicious emails were examined for malicious software by Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs.

Nivyabandi said Amnesty International Canada is aware the work it does can make it a target.

"As an organization advocating for human rights globally, we are very aware that we may be the target of state-sponsored attempts to disrupt or surveil our work," she said.

"These will not intimidate us and the security and privacy of our activists, staff, donors, and stakeholders remain our utmost priority."

She said the relevant authorities, staff, donors and stakeholders have been told of the breach and the organization will continue to work with security experts to guard against future risks.

‘Guerrilla Habeas’ Highlights Cruelty Of Trump-Era Immigration Policies – Contenders Documentary

Story by Alex Cramer • Yesterday 

‘Guerrilla Habeas’ Highlights Cruelty Of Trump-Era Immigration Policies – Contenders Documentary© Provided by Deadline

From separating families at the border to promises to build a massive wall between the US and Mexico, the Trump administration took an aggressively hostile approach towards immigrants.

It was these policies that inspired directors Betsy Hershey and Emma Wall to make the documentary Guerrilla Habeas, which focuses on the immigrant families whose lives were torn apart by these laws and the intrepid lawyers and activists who fought to protect them.

Speaking at Deadline’s Contenders Documentary panel, Wall revealed why they felt called to make this movie.

“We started on this film at a time when I think so many of us were really appalled by what was happening in the immigration system,” she said. “So we started this in the beginning of 2019, following the Muslim ban, following Trump’s zero-tolerance policy that was separating families at the border. And we — as so many people, I think, in this country — were feeling incredibly helpless and hopeless. It felt like these grave injustices, these human rights violations, and we didn’t know what to do about it.”

While making Guerrilla Habeas, the filmmakers quickly realized that they needed to consider not just the story they were trying to tell but also how to protect the people who were helping them tell it.

Wall told Deadline’s documentary editor Matthew Carey, “During those years in the Trump administration, lots of activists in the non-citizen community, people participating in films were being targeted and were being deported for their involvement, and so we wanted to be really careful in terms of how we told this story because it’s a difficult one to share.”

While it was the needless cruelty of the Trump administration’s immigration policies that first inspired them to direct the film, co-director Hershey added that many of those policies have remained in effect with the Biden presidency.

“I think the important issue to remember is that this didn’t go away when Trump went away, and the system remains,” she said. “The system that is allowing what’s happening in this film remains. So until we fix the underlying issues, it’s not going to matter who is in charge of the government because what we need is to keep families together in a system that is going to ensure everyone’s safety.”

BC Labour Wants 15 Days of Paid Sick Leave. The Province Is Hesitant

Less than a year after B.C. legislated five paid days off, the BC Federation of Labour wants the provincial government to triple the number of sick days guaranteed to employees.

Delegates at the federation's convention unanimously voted to lobby for at least 15 annual days of employer-paid illness or injury leave.

The federation previously pushed for 10 days.

B.C. law currently guarantees five days paid leave to people who have worked for an employer for at least 90 days.

The federation also wants the provincial government to remove the 90-day requirement and provide five days of “paid family responsibility leave,” which might be used to care for sick children or relatives.

But business groups argue ratcheting up the number of guaranteed sick days is premature and would cause undue expense.

And B.C. Labour Minister Harry Bains was noncommittal as to whether he’d consider increasing the number of guaranteed sick days so soon after introducing them.

B.C. temporarily guaranteed employees three days of paid sick leave during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic as a way of guaranteeing workers compensation if they had to stay home.

The province passed legislation this January guaranteeing eligible employees five paid sick days per year, more than any other jurisdiction in Canada. At the time, they estimated as many as half of workers in the province did not have access to paid sick leave.

Bains said the number of days was determined by a combination of a government poll and third-party consultation. They determined the average worker used about five days a year.

“I know there are brothers and sisters in the room that would have wanted that to be doubled,” former premier John Horgan acknowledged in his speech to the federation’s convention last week.

“But my message to you is that every journey starts with that first step, and our first step is five days, and we can only go up from here,” Horgan said.


Bains, though, made no indication that was coming anytime soon.

He was asked twice if B.C. would consider increasing the current number of sick days and did not say. He argued B.C.’s program was already the most generous in the country and said his government had made it easier for workplaces to unionize, which he argued could lead to more workplaces with more generous benefits.

“There always can be improvements. But again, we are the only province that has five paid sick days available to all workers covered by employment standards,” Bains said in an interview. He similarly rejected removing existing criteria.

“You need to establish yourself as an employee. That means that you are committed to the employer,” Bains said.

But labour economist David Fairey says B.C.’s existing sick day guarantees are inadequate and increase the risk employees will spread illnesses in the workplace because they cannot afford to miss the pay.

He believes that is particularly true for industries like construction, tourism and agriculture, where employees might work on a seasonal or short-term basis and thus not be employed long enough to make use of the sick days under the current eligibility criteria.

Other workers who are not considered employees — like Uber drivers and many short-term contractors — also don’t qualify.

“These are some of the most precarious workers, so they’re going to go to work sick,” said Fairey, co-chair of the BC Employment Standards Coalition.

Most provinces don’t have guaranteed sick leave, though the federal government recently started guaranteeing at least 10 paid sick days a year to private employees in nationally regulated industries like airlines.

Al Bieksa, president of United Steelworkers’ Local 2009, spoke in favour of the motion, which also called for a campaign to push back against the stigma of using sick days for mental health recovery as well as physical injury or illness.

The BC Chamber of Commerce opposed the implementation of paid sick leave legislation in B.C., citing its cost to businesses, and president Fiona Famulak said they don’t support tripling the number of days either.

“The paid sick leave program hasn’t been in play for one year yet, and it just seems premature to call for a three-fold expansion of the program,” Famulak said. She argued government should instead evaluate the existing program to see how effective it was.

Fairey says the experience of most other developed economies is that sick day programs don’t impose undue cost and have noted public health benefits.

“Everyone is bearing the cost of sickness. And employers are going to have to take that as the cost of doing business, just like minimum wage or overtime,” Fairey said.

Zak Vescera, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Tyee