Those making and knowingly using fake vaccination certificates in Germany could soon face up to five years behind bars, as the country’s likely future coalition government is looking to tighten the screws.
Coming under the same category are also fake test results and Covid recovery certificates, with similar penalties for the counterfeiters and the holders. Everything envisaged in the new guidelines was drafted by the Social Democrats, along with the Free Democratic and Green Parties. The three are currently in coalition talks and expected to form a new government as early as next week.
The German Parliament will decide on the regulations this Thursday, though a draft has already been seen by the media outlet DPA.
According to German media, the manufacturing and sale of fake certificates has become a booming black-market industry in the country. In just one such case reported by Der Spiegel in late October, a counterfeiter working at a pharmacy in Munich and her accomplice had churned out more than 500 fake digital certificates in the span of one month, raking in €350 for each one sold.
Meanwhile, Berlin authorities are planning to further ramp up restrictions in the city, where, starting Monday, having either a vaccination or recovery certificate is a must to enter restaurants, cinemas, theaters, museums, galleries, swimming pools, gyms, as well as hairdressers and beauty salons. On Tuesday, Berlin Mayor Michael Müller confirmed that authorities want to “have an additional instrument” to contain the spread of the virus. However, he declined to elaborate on what the new measures will be. Local media speculate that starting next week, in addition to the requirement to have a vaccination or recovery certificate to enter public places, people inside the venues will also need to practice social distancing and wear a mask, or have a recent negative test result.
This comes after Covid-19 numbers in Berlin hit an all-time high last Thursday, with 2,874 new cases reported that day.
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Israeli and UAE defense suppliers have agreed to jointly develop unmanned vessels that can be tailored for a range of military roles, including anti-sub warfare. The move comes after the two countries held naval drills last week.
Emirati state-owned weapons maker EDGE group and the government-run Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) announced the partnership in Dubai on Thursday. In a joint statement, the firms said they would design the 170 m-USV (modular-unmanned surface vessels) series for both military and commercial applications.
The vessels, which can apparently operate remotely or with partial and complete autonomy, are expected to be used for “maritime security operations,” intelligence-gathering, surveillance, detecting and countering submarines and mines, and as a deployment platform for vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft such as helicopters and certain types of drones.
For commercial use, the manufacturers noted that they can be customized to serve in a variety of roles, including oceanography, pollution monitoring, oil and gas exploration, transportation, search and rescue, firefighting, and first interventions.
While not specifying the sources and amount of the project’s funding, or when production would begin, EDGE Chief Executive Faisal Al Bannai described the deal as an “important milestone” that would “open many doors” for the company in “local and global markets, military and commercial alike.”
According to the statement, the EDGE-owned Abu Dhabi Ship Building (ADSB) will design the vessel and integrate the platform’s control systems and payload. IAI will develop the autonomous control systems and provide various mission-requirement payloads to the control system units.
In March, the two companies had partnered up to develop an autonomous drone defense system to “detect, identify and intercept a broad range of threats.”
Last week, the UAE and Bahrain conducted their first-ever joint maritime drill with Israel’s navy. The US Fifth Fleet also participated in the five-day show of force in the Red Sea, which was reported by Israeli media outlets as sending a message to Iran.
The naval exercises came a little more than a year after Israel and the UAE established diplomatic ties in normalization agreements brokered by the Trump administration. The Abraham Accords broke decades of Arab consensus to not formally recognize Israel until the issue of a Palestinian state was settled.
France’s education minister has announced plans to boost the teaching of ancient Greek and Latin in an effort to fight the proliferation of wokeism and “develop the culture” of the country’s younger generations.
Speaking on Monday, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer, a leading figure in France’s war on woke, said that ancient Greek and Latin would become available to sixth formers pursuing vocational courses next year, as well as middle school students.
Blanquer wants sixth formers to have the opportunity to “develop their culture” by reading ancient philosophers while gaining the technical qualifications that the economy demands.
Speaking at a charter signing, alongside counterparts from Italy, Greece, and Cyprus, the minister claimed their joint commitment to the promotion of the classics came at a time when ancient languages were being threatened by American wokeism.
The targeting of the dead languages has been most prominent in the US with Princeton University announcing this summer that it would no longer require classics students to study ancient Greek and Latin; the two vernaculars are often considered the core pillars of the discipline.
Dan-el Padilla Peralta, an associate professor of classics at Princeton, claimed the ancient languages had been used as a justification of slavery, colonialism, and fascism for 2,000 years.
In a similar move, a Massachusetts high school boasted that it had removed Homer’s Odyssey from the school curriculum as it conflicted with the anti-racist agenda it wanted to teach. “Very proud to say we got the Odyssey removed from the curriculum this year,” a teacher wrote on social media.
Blanquer told Le Point that such interpretations of the classics were “completely mind boggling.” “To stick categories and a contemporary world view on writings dating back two millennia is an abyssal absurdity,” he added, noting that these civilizations brought us “openness and a search for the universal.”
The minister believes that ancient languages are a common bond for contemporary European nations, noting that the “common linguistic fund” would help spread “common values.”
Blanquer also claimed the classics respond to a demand for logos (language as a tool for reason), in a world where “a lack of reason is spreading like wildfire.”
Last month, the education minister set up a think tank dedicated to President Emmanuel Macron’s war on wokeism.
The liberal or woke agenda, which some in France claim is an Anglo-Saxon import, is likely to be a major feature in the 2022 presidential election, where Macron’s main competitor is likely to hail from the far right of the political spectrum.
Apple has finally caved to users demanding the ‘right to repair’, allowing owners of iPhones, MacBooks, and other devices to tinker with their electronics at home instead of bringing them to notoriously expensive service centers.
Called Self Service Repair, the feature is set to launch “early next year” in the US before expanding to other countries. Some 200 parts are expected to be available, along with instructions on how to replace them.
Initially, the company will offer repairs for the iPhone 12 and 13, to be followed by Macs with M1 chips. Users will be able to replace the phones’ display, battery, and camera – some of the earliest parts to cease functioning – using original equipment from the company. While Apple encourages only “individual technicians with the knowledge and experience to repair electronic devices,” urging users to take their devices to a professional before cracking them open themselves, the move nevertheless represents a major step for a company that has long been resistant to allowing users to even swap out a battery.
After rolling out repair instructions and parts for the iPhone 12 and 13, the company will gradually expand users’ abilities to fix their phones themselves without having to wait in line at the Apple Store. Users who attempt to make these repairs on their own will not void their warranty, according to TechCrunch, representing another major change for the tech giant.
Even this week, Apple was sealing off users’ ability to fix their own phones, barring users who replaced their own screens from being able to use Face ID recognition going forward. However, the various departments seem to be coordinating among themselves – users will receive a recycling credit for returning their used or broken part after completing the repair, and the company plans to sell “more than 200 individual parts and tools,” as well as repair manuals customers can peruse before attempting to repair their devices.
The decision to open up Apple’s “right to repair” might not have been entirely that of the company – the Federal Trade Commission wrote to the corporation earlier this year vowing to “address unlawful repair restrictions,” adding it would also “stand ready to work with legislators, either at the state or federal level, in order to ensure that consumers have choices when they need to repair products that they purchase and own.”
Apple has finally caved to users demanding the ‘right to repair’, allowing owners of iPhones, MacBooks, and other devices to tinker with their electronics at home instead of bringing them to notoriously expensive service centers.
Called Self Service Repair, the feature is set to launch “early next year” in the US before expanding to other countries. Some 200 parts are expected to be available, along with instructions on how to replace them.
Initially, the company will offer repairs for the iPhone 12 and 13, to be followed by Macs with M1 chips. Users will be able to replace the phones’ display, battery, and camera – some of the earliest parts to cease functioning – using original equipment from the company. While Apple encourages only “individual technicians with the knowledge and experience to repair electronic devices,” urging users to take their devices to a professional before cracking them open themselves, the move nevertheless represents a major step for a company that has long been resistant to allowing users to even swap out a battery.
After rolling out repair instructions and parts for the iPhone 12 and 13, the company will gradually expand users’ abilities to fix their phones themselves without having to wait in line at the Apple Store. Users who attempt to make these repairs on their own will not void their warranty, according to TechCrunch, representing another major change for the tech giant.
Even this week, Apple was sealing off users’ ability to fix their own phones, barring users who replaced their own screens from being able to use Face ID recognition going forward. However, the various departments seem to be coordinating among themselves – users will receive a recycling credit for returning their used or broken part after completing the repair, and the company plans to sell “more than 200 individual parts and tools,” as well as repair manuals customers can peruse before attempting to repair their devices.
The decision to open up Apple’s “right to repair” might not have been entirely that of the company – the Federal Trade Commission wrote to the corporation earlier this year vowing to “address unlawful repair restrictions,” adding it would also “stand ready to work with legislators, either at the state or federal level, in order to ensure that consumers have choices when they need to repair products that they purchase and own.”
Controversial agriculture laws that saw farmers across India protesting for over a year are going to be rolled back, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has unexpectedly announced.
“I want to tell the country that we have decided to repeal the three farm laws,” Modi said in a televised address on Friday, which local media described as “stunning.”
The Indian parliament will complete the constitutional process of repealing the agricultural legislation in late November, he added.
However, the PM again defended the divisive legislation, saying that the reform of the sector, which accounts for some 15% of India’s $2.7 trillion economy, was actually aimed at supporting the country’s small farmers.
Whatever I did was for farmers. What I am doing is for the country.
“Maybe something was lacking in our efforts, which is why we couldn’t convince some farmers about the laws,” Modi acknowledged.
The laws, which were introduced last September, allowed farmers to sell their crops outside of the government-regulated wholesale markets, in which they were guaranteed a minimum price.
The government argued that it would see them earning more, but growers feared that that move would, on the contrary, cause a drop in prices and make them hostages to large corporations.
Thousands of farmers joined the protests against what they called “black laws,” and some rallies turned violent. A year later, many demonstrators remain camped along roads outside the capital New Delhi.
And the farmers aren’t planning on going home just yet, with one of their leaders saying on Twitter: “We will wait for parliament to repeal the laws.”
Modi’s concession to the protesters may have been unexpected, but it comes several months ahead of elections in India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, as well as two other northern states with large rural populations.
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The city council in Austria’s second-largest city, Graz, has elected a new mayor. Communist Party member Elke Kahr has become the first Communist leader of a major city in the country.
The 60-year-old politician, who has been working in the municipal government for more than 15 years and previously served as vice mayor of Graz, was elected as the new city leader on Wednesday. A member of the Austrian Communist Party (KPÖ, Kommunistische Partei Österreichs) for almost 30 years, she won the election with 28 of 46 votes. Kahr succeeded the previous long-standing mayor Siegfried Nagl of the center-right, liberal-conservative People’s Party.
“Who would have thought that the daughter of a locksmith, a Communist, would become mayor,” she said in her first speech following the vote.
Having acknowledged a number of issues to deal with in the city, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, the new mayor highlighted a housing policy, pledging to put a stop to profit-driven construction in Ganz.
The Communists have also already formed a coalition with the Greens and the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ), and another precedent in European city governance was made – two women serving as mayor and deputy. Green leader Judith Schwentner was chosen as Graz’s vice mayor, with the new governing coalition saying they would support not only social, but also environmental changes, aiming to improve living standards especially for low-income groups. Providing a bicycle for every child in the city from the municipality is in their program.
However, not everyone in the local government is happy with the new Communist rule. A member of the right-wing Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), Alexis Pascuttini, described the choice as “unpleasant,” having accused the Graz Communists of empty catchphrases in their program and refusing to participate in what he described as “left-wing nonsense.” Kahr herself has been exposed to strong pressure to justify her party, being repeatedly asked about her position on “the crimes of communist parties around the world since 1917,” according to Austrian media.
The Chinese envoy to the European Union has reiterated Beijing’s goal of peacefully reuniting Taiwan with the mainland but stated the country’s preparedness to use “decisive measures.”
Speaking on Tuesday, China’s ambassador to the EU, Zhang Ming, said Beijing would never change its position on Taiwan. “If anything changes, it is that the Chinese people’s resolve to realize complete reunification of our country grows even stronger,” Ming told an online think tank event in Brussels.
“Some people in Europe seem to underestimate the Chinese people’s aspiration for a reunification of our country,” he added, noting also that the bloc must lift its sanctions if a new Sino-EU investment deal is to be ratified.
In May, Brussels halted an investment pact agreed with China last December, after Beijing imposed sanctions on several members of the European Parliament. The EU responded, introducing its own sanctions related to the treatment of the Uyghur people and alleged genocide in Xinjiang.
In recent years, China has become increasingly assertive about reuniting its wealthy island neighbor with the mainland. Beijing claims Taiwan is an inalienable part of the country and has called on Western parties to refrain from interfering in Chinese internal affairs. Western nations, notably the US and UK, have shown willingness to defend the democratic island.
Taiwan considers itself to be independent of China since 1949 when the communist forces overthrew the government of the Republic of China on the mainland, forcing the Kuomintang-ruled state to relocate there.
An Argentinian woman has become the second-ever HIV-infected person whose immune system helped defeat the virus without requiring additional medical treatment. She was first diagnosed with the AIDS-causing infection in 2013.
Scientists have dubbed the 30-year-old mother the “Esperanza patient,” after her hometown. The word ‘esperanza’ translates to ‘hope’ in English. Publishing their findings in the Annals of Internal Medicine journal on Monday, the researchers said the discovery boosts hope for a “sterilizing cure” for the estimated 38 million people with the life-long infection.
“I enjoy being healthy,” the Esperanza patient told NBC News over email. “I have a healthy family. I don’t have to medicate, and I live as though nothing has happened. This already is a privilege.”
The study found no intact remnants of the virus in the 1.5 billion blood and tissue cells the researchers analyzed – confirming the discovery first announced in March at an international meeting of HIV experts.
No additional information about the woman has been made public, but she was described at the time as “athletic and beautiful” and revealed to have an HIV-negative boyfriend and newborn baby.
Only one other person, identified in August 2020 as 67-year-old Loreen Willenberg from San Francisco, has been confirmed to have overcome the virus without medical intervention. The two women have been labeled ‘elite controllers’, referring to a rare subset of HIV patients who show no signs of the infection despite not undergoing antiretroviral treatments.
Typically, an HIV-infected person requires constant drug therapy to prevent the virus from attaching to their immune cells’ DNA and replicating. But, in the eight years since she was diagnosed, the Esperanza patient only received medication for six months during pregnancy to ensure her baby would be healthy.
In all, there have been four patients cured of HIV, two of whom – the ‘Berlin patient’ Timothy Ray Brown and the ‘London patient’ Adam Castillejo – were also cancer patients who received risky bone marrow transplants from donors with HIV-resistant genes. However, the success of their procedures is yet to be replicated.
“This is really the miracle of the human immune system that did it,” Dr. Xu Yu, an immunologist at the Ragon Institute in Boston, who co-authored the study, told NBC.
Scientists have used an AI tool to identify which animals are most likely to contract and spread mutated versions of Covid-19. The model highlighted both pets and wild animals as likely reservoirs for the virus.
Using information about their habitats and various biological traits, researchers at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York developed the machine learning tool to figure out which animals had the particular ACE2 protein that the coronavirus was most likely to latch onto.
Out of 5,400 tested, the scientists narrowed it down to 540 mammalian species.
Some of its predictions have been previously documented as transmission risks, for instance, dogs, cats and bats, while farm animals like pigs and exotic zoo animals were surprise additions.
Other expected additions are minks, Sunda pangolins, and 35 species of bats – which are together ranked among the top 10% of animals most likely to spread the virus, in line with lab results.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society journal, also ranked water buffalo, a number of primates, including gorillas and 76 rodent species as being more susceptible to infection.
The researchers taught the AI to identify patterns between rates of transmission and some 60 ecological and biological traits collected by earlier studies, including the overlap between the animal and human habitats as well as their respective lifespans, diets, and sizes.
Previously, the specific amino acid sequences had only been mapped out in around 300 species, including about 143 mammals — and figuring out which ones are more prone to infection is key to predicting the spread of the virus, researchers said.
Arinjay Banerjee at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada told the New Scientist that the results will help researchers “track viral infections and the possible emergence of animal-adapted coronavirus variants” around the world. Barbara Han, who led the study, said predictions needed to be followed up with systematic surveillance and lab studies.
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