Kenyan developers have designed a mobile phone application that police say is helping to safeguard smartphones from theft, recover stolen cell phones and prevent loss of data. Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi. Camera: Jimmy Makhulo
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Once effectively banned, Chinese science fiction has exploded into the mainstream, embraced by the government and public alike — inviting scrutiny of a genre that has become known for its expanding diversity and relative freedom.
Its new status was epitomized by this week’s Worldcon, the world’s oldest and most influential sci-fi gathering, which closed Sunday after taking place in China for the first time.
Held in the gleaming new Chengdu Science Fiction Museum, the event’s star was Liu Cixin, author of the international phenomenon “Three-Body” series and inspiration for the domestic blockbuster “Wandering Earth.”
But the wider science fiction fandom has become a rare space where diverse voices have flourished and a vast array of issues — social, environmental, even sometimes political — can be explored.
“In its nature, part of sci-fi is talking about the present,” award-winning author Chen Qiufan told AFP.
“It takes advantage of talking about outer space, or being set in different times, but reflects the human condition right now.”
Chen’s own novel “The Waste Tide” is set in a dystopian future China, where migrant e-waste workers toil in hazardous conditions, exploited by corrupt conglomerates.
He grew up near Guiyu, once one of the largest e-waste dumps in the world.
Ecological destruction, urbanization, social inequality, gender, corruption, to name just a few — “these issues are intersectional and intertwined with each other,” said Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University’s Liu Xi.
Together, they “allow everyone to understand Chinese writers’ exploration of Chinese society,” she said.
That can be rare to find in today’s China, where the space for political and artistic expression has shrunk drastically over the last decade under President Xi Jinping.
Spiritual pollution
Historically, science fiction has had a turbulent relationship with Chinese authorities — it effectively disappeared during the Cultural Revolution and then was banned as “spiritual pollution” in the 1980s.
Though it returned, it remained relatively obscure.
Writer Regina Kanyu Wang said it was only at university that she met other fans — together they formed one of the smaller clubs on campus.
Sci-fi was not taken seriously, and seen as something for children and young adults, Chen said.
That had its advantages.
“There was a lot of freedom… because nobody was reading science fiction, (authors) could just do whatever they wanted,” the University of Zurich’s Jessica Imbach told AFP.
The global success of the “Three-Body” series changed everything, catapulting its epic themes of technological prowess and the fate of humanity into the public consciousness.
“Whether you like science fiction or not, the social reality we are facing is becoming more and more like science fiction,” said Yu Xuying from Hong Kong Metropolitan University.
“We live in a high-tech era. And then your daily life is completely technological,” she said.
The pace of digital change in China, already fast, was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cash has all but disappeared, and stringent health regulations further enhanced the state’s significant surveillance capacity.
The international interest spike in Chinese sci-fi is also related to real-world concerns, Chen believes.
“I think there are different layers of reasons for the phenomenon,” he said.
“But a major one is the rising economic and technological power of China on the world stage.”
A good vehicle
China’s government has been happy to capitalize on all this.
“At a national level, science fiction is a good vehicle for conveying the country’s discourse on its science and technology strength,” said Yu.
It can also help “highlight the relationship between the Chinese dream (a Xi-era aspirational slogan) and science,” she said.
Authorities have put their money where their mouth is.
The nebula-shaped Chengdu Science Fiction Museum, designed by the renowned Zaha Hadid Architects, was built at light speed in just a year to coincide with Worldcon.
The event, historically fan-led and funded, this year was a “capitalistic initiative, coming top-down from the Chinese government,” said Chen.
“They want sci-fi to be the name card of the city, showing China’s openness and inclusiveness to the world,” he said.
Government attention comes with potential risk.
“The Three-Body Problem” has a different structure in English, with the narrative beginning with a violent Cultural Revolution scene.
In the original Chinese, it was buried halfway through the book to make it less conspicuous, the translator Ken Liu was told.
Liu told the New York Times in 2019 that increasingly, “it’s gotten much harder for me to talk about the work of Chinese authors without… causing them trouble.”
Some works he has translated into English, deemed too sensitive, have never been published in Chinese at all.
“If you’re very marginal, if you have low print numbers in China, then it’s OK, you have more leeway. If you’re doing a mega big-budget movie… it’s much more complicated,” said Imbach.
“That’s what’s now also happening with science fiction,” she said.
“As it’s becoming more mainstream, there is increased scrutiny.”
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A Nigerian action thriller that tells a gripping story of corruption and police brutality in Africa’s most populous country has reached record viewership numbers on Netflix charts globally. It’s a reminder of the power and potential of Nigeria’s rapidly growing film industry.
“The Black Book” has taken the streaming world by storm, spending three weeks among the platform’s top 10 English-language titles globally, peaking at No. 3 in the second week.
It garnered 5.6 million views just 48 hours after its Sept. 22 release and by its second week was featured among the top 10 titles in 69 countries, according to Netflix.
“Films are made for audiences, and the bigger the audience for a film, the better the chances of your message going out,” producer Editi Effiong told The Associated Press. “The reality for us is that we made a film, made by Nigerians, funded by Nigerian money, go global.”
Nollywood, Nigeria’s film industry, has been a global phenomenon since the 1990s when it rose to fame with such films as “Living in Bondage,” a thriller with Kunle Afolayan’s Anikulapo released in 2022 and peaking at No. 1 on Netflix’s global chart. It is the world’s second-largest film industry after India based on number of productions, with an average of 2,000 movies released annually.
Nollywood’s latest blockbuster, “The Black Book,” is a $1 million movie financed with the support of a team of experts and founders in Nigeria’s tech ecosystem and is Effiong’s first feature film.
It tells the story of Nigeria’s checkered past, spanning a period of 40 years from when military regimes killed and arrested dissidents at will until the present day, when police brutality and abuse of power remain rampant.
The film opens with the abduction of family members of the head of the Nigerian oil regulatory agency, aided by corrupt police officers working for top politicians.
To cover their tracks, the police kill a young man framed as the suspect in the kidnapping — not knowing he was the only child of a former special operative who abandoned his weapons for the pulpit.
In his prime, the character of ex-officer-turned-pastor Paul Edima — played by Nigerian movie icon Richard Mofe-Damijo — was known as Nigeria’s “most dangerous man” with a past punctuated by assassinations and involvement in several coups across West Africa.
Portrayed as a repentant man who has turned over a new leaf after being inspired by his favorite Bible passage 1 Corinthians 5:17, Edima feels compelled to take revenge for his son’s death after failing to convince authorities his son is innocent.
The issue of delayed justice is not new in Nigeria. Many on Friday remembered the deadly protests of 2020 when young Nigerians demonstrating against police brutality were shot at and killed. Three years later, rights groups say many victims of police abuse still haven’t gotten justice.
For Edima, justice for his son comes at a cost. One by one, he hunts down the officers behind his son’s death, leading him to the army general behind the plot — coincidentally his former boss.
“It is a fictional narrative, but this is what Nigeria was,” Effiong told the AP.
He believes Nigeria is not doing a good job of teaching its history in the schools and letting young people understand how the country’s past is shaping the present.
“A society must be changed positively by art, and so there was an orientation on our part to, through the film we are going to make, reflect on this issue (of police brutality),” Effiong said.
While a government-commissioned panel of inquiry investigated the protest shootings in Nigeria’s economic hub of Lagos in 2020, Effiong attended its meetings and provided live updates via his page on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. At the same time, pre-production for the movie already had begun.
“We must tell the truth in spite of the circumstances,” he said. “Justice is important for everyone: the people we like and the people we do not like — especially the people we do not like,” he said.
Some have said the movie’s plot is like that of the American action thriller John Wick. It is a surprising but flattering comparison that also testifies to the movie’s success, Effiong said.
The movie also has been lauded as signifying the potential of the film industry in Nigeria as well as across Africa. The continent’s streaming on-demand video (SVOD) market is expected to boast a robust 18 million subscribers, up from 8 million this year, according to a recent report from market intelligence firm Digital TV Research.
According to a Netflix spokesperson, entertainment with local stories remains the core of the platform’s main objective in sub-Saharan Africa. “Africa has great talent and world-class creatives, and we are committed to investing in African content and telling African stories of every kind,” Netflix said in a statement.
In Nigeria, the movie industry is at “the point right now where the world needs to take notice,” Effiong said.
He said that’s because. “The Black Book is a film by Black people, Black actors, Black producers, Black money 100%, and it’s gone ahead to become a global blockbuster.”
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“Ordain women priests!” Not far from the Vatican, where hundreds of Catholics have gathered to debate the future of the Church, purple-clad activists make their voices heard against the “patriarchy”.
The place of women in the Catholic Church — led for 2,000 years by a man, which outlaws abortion and female priests and does not recognize divorce — is one of the hot topics at the general assembly of the Synod of Bishops taking place over four weeks.
Women campaigning for change have come to Rome to make their case, from Europe and the United States but also South Africa, Australia, Colombia and India.
They have different backgrounds and diverse goals — not all want female priests, with some aiming first for women to become deacons, who can celebrate baptisms, marriages and funerals, although not masses.
But they are united in their frustration at seeing women excluded from key roles in what many view as a “patriarchal and macho” Church.
“The majority of people who support parish life and transmit the faith in families are women, mothers,” said Carmen Chaumet from French campaign group “Comite de la Jupe”, or the Committee of the Skirt.
“It is paradoxical and unfair not to give them their legitimate place.”
“If you go to the Vatican, to a mass, you see hundreds of men priests dressed the same way, and no women,” added Teresa Casillas, a member of Spanish association “Revuelta de Mujeres en la Iglesia”, “The Women’s Revolt in the Church”.
“I feel that men are the owners of God.”
‘Voting rights’
The Synod assembly, which runs until October 29, nevertheless marks a historic turning point in the Church, with nuns and laywomen allowed to take part for the first time.
Some 54 women — around 15 percent of the total of 365 assembly members — will be able to vote on proposals that will be sent to Pope Francis.
Vatican observers have called it a revolution. “A first step,” say campaigners.
Adeline Fermanian, co-president of the Committee of Skirt, said the pope had given “openings” on the question of ordaining women.
“He recognized that the questions has not been examined sufficiently on a theological level,” she said.
Since his election in 2013, Francis has sought to forge a more open Church, more welcoming to LGBTQ faithful and divorcees, and encouraging inter-faith dialogue.
He has increased the number of women appointed to the Curia, the central government of the Holy See, with some in senior positions.
But some campaigners see the changes as “cosmetic” reforms which hide a biased perception of women.
Cathy Corbitt, an Australian member of the executive board of umbrella group Catholic Women’s Council (CWC), said the inclusion of female voting members in the Synod was a sign of progress.
But she said the wider view of women in the Church was “very frustrating”, much of it taking inspiration from the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus.
“The pope still seems to have this blind spot towards women… He seems to regard women in terms of a role, and it’s usually in terms of a mother,” she said.
Resistance
The Synod process is slow — the current meeting in Rome followed a two-year global consultation, and a second general assembly is planned for next year.
Regina Franken-Wendelsorf, a German member of CWC executive board, said women were hoping for concrete action.
“All arguments and requests are on the table. It’s now the Vatican and the Church who have to act!” she said.
While the Church debates, “there are collateral victims, frustration, Catholics who leave because they no longer feel welcomed”, added French campaigner Chaumet.
But just as Pope Francis faces resistance in his reform agenda, there is significant resistance to the women’s push for change.
“Some American bishops are afraid to follow the path of the Anglican Church,” which authorized the ordination of women in 1992, notes one Synod participant, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Another senior Church member, who also asked not to be named, noted that pressure for reform was not equal from all regions of the Church.
“We must not forget that the Church is global,” he recalled. “There are expectations (among women) in Europe, but in Asia and Africa, much less.”
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An extreme drought in parts of the Amazon has led to a dramatic drop in water levels in the river, exposing dozens of usually submerged rock formations with carvings of human forms that may date back some 2,000 years.
Livia Ribeiro, a longtime resident of the Amazon’s largest city, Manaus, said she heard about the rock engravings from friends and wanted to check them out.
“I thought it was a lie … I had never seen this. I’ve lived in Manaus for 27 years,” said Ribeiro, an administrator, after viewing the dazzling relics.
The rock carvings are not usually visible because they are covered by the waters of the Negro River, whose flow recorded its lowest level in 121 years last week.
The surfacing of the engravings on the riverbank have delighted scientists and the general public alike but also raised unsettling questions.
“We come, we look at (the engravings) and we think they are beautiful. But at the same time, it is worrying… I also think about whether this river will exist in 50 or 100 years,” Ribeiro said.
Drought in Brazil’s Amazon has drastically reduced river levels in recent weeks, affecting a region that depends on a maze of waterways for transportation and supplies.
The Brazilian government has sent emergency aid to the area, where normally bustling riverbanks are dry, littered with stranded boats.
According to experts, the dry season has worsened this year due to El Nino, an irregular climate pattern over the Pacific Ocean that disrupts normal weather, adding to the effect of climate change.
The engravings comprise an archaeological site of “great relevance,” said Jaime Oliveira of the Brazilian Institute of Historical Heritage (Iphan).
They are at a site known as Praia das Lajes and were first seen in 2010, during another period of drought not as severe as the current one.
The rock carvings appear against a backdrop of dense jungle, with the low brownish waters of the Negro River flowing nearby.
Most of the engravings are of human faces, some of them rectangular and others oval, with smiles or grim expressions.
“The site expresses emotions, feelings, it is an engraved rock record, but it has something in common with current works of art,” said Oliveira.
For Beatriz Carneiro, historian and member of Iphan, Praia das Lajes has an “inestimable” value in understanding the first people who inhabited the region, a field still little explored.
“Unhappily it is now reappearing with the worsening of the drought,” Carneiro said. “Having our rivers back (flooded) and keeping the engravings submerged will help preserve them, even more than our work.”
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Bobby Charlton, an English soccer icon who survived a plane crash that decimated his Manchester United team and became the heartbeat of his country’s 1966 World Cup-winning team, has died. He was 86.
A statement from Charlton’s family, released by United, said he died Saturday surrounded by his family.
An extravagantly gifted midfielder with a ferocious shot, Charlton was the leading scorer for both United (249 goals) and England (49 goals) for more than 40 years until being overtaken by Wayne Rooney.
“Sir Bobby was a hero to millions, not just in Manchester, or the United Kingdom, but wherever football is played around the world,” United said.
“He was admired as much for his sportsmanship and integrity as he was for his outstanding qualities as a footballer; Sir Bobby will always be remembered as a giant of the game.”
Alex Ferguson, who managed United from 1986-2013, said before Charlton’s death that he “is the greatest Manchester United player of all time — and that’s saying something.”
“Bobby Charlton is absolutely without peer in the history of the English game,” Ferguson said.
A humble man
Charlton was also renowned for his humility, discipline and sportsmanship. He never received a red card in 758 appearances for United from 1956-73 or 106 internationals for England from 1958-70.
Charlton played with George Best and Denis Law in the so-called Trinity that led United to the 1968 European Cup after surviving the 1958 Munich crash that wiped out the celebrated “Busby Babes” team. He won three English league titles at United, and one FA Cup.
“For a footballer, he offered an unparalleled combination of grace, power and precision,” said former United defender Bill Foulkes, another survivor of the Munich crash.
“It added up to a greatness and something more — something I can only call beauty.”
Charlton’s England scoring record stood for 45 years until Rooney scored his 50th goal for the national team in September 2015. Three of his England goals came in the World Cup in 1966, during which Charlton played every minute for the team and stood out especially in the semifinals when he scored twice against Portugal to lead England to a first major final.
England beat West Germany 4-2 after extra time in the final.
Although Ryan Giggs beat Charlton’s appearance record for United in 2008, his scoring record for the club lasted another nine years. It was only in 2017 — 44 years after Charlton last wore the famous red jersey of England’s most successful club — that Rooney scored his 250th goal for United.
Player became coach
After retiring in 1973, Charlton went into coaching and founded a youth scheme that included United great David Beckham among its participants.
Charlton returned to United in 1984 as a director and persuaded the board in 1986 to appoint Ferguson, who delivered 38 trophies during nearly 27 years in charge.
Knighted in 1994 by Queen Elizabeth II, Charlton remains a mainstay at Old Trafford, featuring alongside Best and Law in a statue outside United’s stadium.
In November 2020, it was announced that Charlton had been diagnosed with dementia, the same disease that afflicted his brother Jack — who died in 2020 at age 85 — and another World Cup winner, Nobby Stiles.
Charlton’s death left Geoff Hurst, who scored a hat trick in the 1966 final, as the only surviving member of that England team.
“We will never forget him and nor will all of football,” Hurst said of Charlton on X, formerly known as Twitter. “A great colleague and friend, he will be sorely missed by all of the country beyond sport alone.”
Tragedy strikes
Robert Charlton was born Oct. 11, 1937, in the coal-mining town of Ashington, northeast England, and his talent was obvious from a young age.
Charlton’s playing career began far from home in Manchester after leaving school at 15, making his United debut three years later in 1956.
Within two years, tragedy struck the tight-knit group of United players. The team was celebrating winning at Red Star Belgrade to secure a place in the European Cup semifinals when their plane caught fire on its third attempt to take off in heavy snow after a refueling stop in Germany.
Charlton miraculously emerged from the smoldering wreckage with only light head injuries and picked his way through the wreckage to help survivors. Spotting manager Matt Busby groaning on the smoke-shrouded runway, Charlton rushed to help the father-figure who had promoted him to the first team.
But eight members of the “Busby Babes” team packed with bright prospects were among the 21 fatalities. They included Duncan Edwards, considered one of England’s most talented players at 21.
“Sometimes it engulfs me with terrible anger and regret and sadness — and guilt that I walked away and found so much,” Charlton wrote in 2007.
Charlton became driven by a lingering obligation to preserve the memories of the Munich dead, returning to action less than four weeks later and helping a hurriedly assembled team of survivors and stand-ins reach that season’s FA Cup final.
Busby rebuilt his team around Charlton, adding the 1965 and 1967 English league titles to the championship they won in 1957.
The biggest prize of his club career arrived in 1968 as United became the first English club to become champion of Europe. Charlton scored twice in a 4-1 extra-time win over a Benfica team containing Portugal great Eusebio.
But Charlton is perhaps best known for being part of the England team that won the World Cup. It remains England’s only major title in men’s soccer.
He is survived by his wife, Norma, whom he married in 1961, and his two daughters.
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India successfully carried out Saturday the first of a series of key test flights after overcoming a technical glitch ahead of its planned mission to take astronauts into space by 2025, the space agency said.
The test involved launching a module to outer space and bringing it back to earth to test the spacecraft’s crew escape system, said the Indian Space Research Organization chief S. Somanath, and was being recovered after its touchdown in the Bay of Bengal.
The launch was delayed by 45 minutes in the morning because of weather conditions. The attempt was again deferred by more than an hour because of an issue with the engine, and the ground computer put the module’s liftoff on hold, said Somanath.
The glitch caused by a monitoring anomaly in the system was rectified and the test was carried out successfully 75 minutes later from the Sriharikota satellite launching station in southern India, Somanath told reporters.
It would pave the way for other unmanned missions, including sending a robot into space next year.
In September, India successfully launched its first space mission to study the sun, less than two weeks after a successful uncrewed landing near the south pole region of the moon.
After a failed attempt to land on the moon in 2019, India in September joined the United States, the Soviet Union and China as only the fourth country to achieve the milestone.
The successful mission showcased India’s rising standing as a technology and space powerhouse and dovetails with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s desire to project an image of an ascendant country asserting its place among the global elite.
Signaling a roadmap for India’s future space ambitions, Modi earlier this week announced that India’s space agency will set up an Indian-crafted space station by 2035 and land an Indian astronaut on the moon by 2040.
Active since the 1960s, India has launched satellites for itself and other countries, and successfully put one in orbit around Mars in 2014. India is planning its first mission to the International Space Station next year in collaboration with the United States.
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The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. reopened to the public on October 21 after a two-year and $70 million renovation. Karina Bafradzhian has the story. Camera: David Gogokhia
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Russia’s efforts to discredit and undermine democratic elections appears to be expanding rapidly, according to newly declassified intelligence, spurred on by what the Kremlin sees as its success in disrupting the past two U.S. presidential elections.
The U.S. intelligence findings, shared in a diplomatic cable sent to more than 100 countries and obtained by VOA, are based on a review of Russian information operations between January 2020 and December 2022 that found Moscow “engaged in a concerted effort … to undermine public confidence in at least 11 elections across nine democracies.”
The review also found what the cable describes as “a less pronounced level of Russian messaging and social media activity” that targeted another 17 democracies.
“These figures represent a snapshot of Russian activities,” the cable warned. “Russia likely has sought to undermine confidence in democratic elections in additional cases that have gone undetected.
“Our information indicates that senior Russian government officials, including in the Kremlin, see value in this type of influence operation and perceive it to be effective,” the cable added.
VOA reached out to the Russian Embassy for comment on the cable warnings but so far has not received a response.
Russia has routinely denied allegations it interferes in foreign elections. However, last November, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin appeared to admit culpability for interfering in U.S. elections in a social media post.
“Gentlemen, we interfered, we interfere and we will interfere,” Prigozhin said.
U.S. officials assess that, in addition to Russia’s efforts to sow doubt surrounding the 2016 and 2020 elections in the United States, Russian campaigns have targeted countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America.
The goal, they say, is specifically to erode public confidence in election results and to paint the newly elected governments as illegitimate — using internet trolls, social media influencers, proxy websites linked to Russian intelligence and even Russian state-run media channels like RT and Sputnik.
And even though Russia’s resources have been strained due to its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow election interference efforts do not seem to be slowing down.
It is “a fairly low cost, low barrier to entry operation,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the intelligence assessment.
“In many cases they’re amplifying existing domestic narratives that kind of question the integrity of elections,” the official said. “This is a very efficient use of resources. All they’re doing is magnifying claims that it’s unfair or it didn’t work or it’s chaotic.”
U.S. officials said they have started giving more detailed, confidential briefings to select countries that are being targeted by Russia. Some of the countries, they said, have likewise promised to share intelligence gathered from their own investigations.
Additionally, the cable makes a series of recommendations to counter the threat from the Russian disinformation campaigns, including for countries to expose, sanction and even expel any Russian officials involved in spreading misinformation or disinformation.
The cable also encourages democratic countries to engage in information campaigns to share factual information about their elections and to turn to independent election observers to assess and affirm the integrity of any elections.
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Those miracles of modern science, the Rolling Stones, celebrated the release of their first album of original music in 18 years with a Manhattan club gig on Thursday.
Before a celebrity-strewn audience of invited guests that included Christie Brinkley, Elvis Costello and Trevor Noah at Racket NYC, the Stones made a notable racket themselves over seven songs, four from the new “Hackney Diamonds” disc.
Mick Jagger alluded to past stunts the Stones had done in New York to tout new music over the years, including performing on a flatbed truck on Fifth Avenue.
He saluted the city by opening with the 1970s-era punkish tune, “Shattered,” with the lyric “my brain’s been splattered all over Manhattan.”
After performing the new single, “Angry,” Jagger noted to his bandmates, “There’s a first time for everything.”
With the death of drummer Charlie Watts in 2021, the Stones are down to a core trio of Jagger and guitarists Keith Richards and Ron Wood. They’re supplemented onstage with four other musicians.
“Hackney Diamonds,” coming at a time many fans wondered if the Rolling Stones would ever bother again with new music, has been well received by critics, with many noting the crisp energy the band displayed. It’s out on Friday.
That vigor was apparent at the performance in Manhattan’s Meatpacking district.
Following an opening DJ set by Questlove, Jagger pranced and prowled a stage much smaller than he’s used to, one that a roadie prepared for him by sprinkling powder on the floor. Now 80, he moved like a man half his age. His tongue wagged slightly as he caught his breath after another punk-inspired tune, “Bite My Head Off.”
“You might be familiar with this one,” Jagger said before Richards began the opening riff to “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” instantly trumping the thousands of bar band versions attempted in the 55 years since the song’s release.
This time, the bar band was the Rolling Stones.
Lady Gaga, dressed in a maroon sequined pantsuit, appeared to recreate her duet — duel, really — with Jagger on the new “Sweet Sounds of Heaven.”
“New York, the Rolling Stones!” she said before leaving, after exchanging kisses with Jagger and Richards.
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The Philippine defense chief has ordered all defense personnel and the 163,000-member military to refrain from using digital applications that harness artificial intelligence to generate personal portraits, saying they could pose security risks.
Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. issued the order in a Saturday memorandum, as Philippine forces have been working to weaken decades-old communist and Muslim insurgencies and defend territorial interests in the disputed South China Sea.
The Department of National Defense on Friday confirmed the authenticity of the memo, which has been circulating online in recent days, but did not provide other details, including what prompted Teodoro to issue the prohibition.
Teodoro specifically warned against the use of a digital app that requires users to submit at least 10 pictures of themselves and then harnesses AI to create “a digital person that mimics how a real individual speaks and moves.” Such apps pose “significant privacy and security risks,” he said.
“This seemingly harmless and amusing AI-powered application can be maliciously used to create fake profiles that can lead to identity theft, social engineering, phishing attacks and other malicious activities,” Teodoro said. “There has already been a report of such a case.”
Teodoro ordered all defense and military personnel “to refrain from using AI photo generator applications and practice vigilance in sharing information online” and said their actions should adhere to the Philippines Defense Department’s values and policies.
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After the Hamas attack on Israel, the Israeli Embassy in Beijing began posting on China’s social media platform Weibo. The online effort to gain popular support appears to be backfiring as comments revile the Jewish state, applaud Hamas and praise Adolf Hitler.
The embassy’s account, which has 24 million followers, shows almost 100 posts since the Oct. 7 attack. Some are disturbing, such as an image of a baby’s corpse burnt in the attack. Others suggest Israeli resilience, such as the story of one person who was wounded at the Nova Festival but rescued several other music fans after the attack.
The comment areas have been flooded with hate speech such as “Heroic Hamas, good job!” and “Hitler was wise” referring to the German leader who orchestrated the deaths of 6 million Jews before and during World War II. Many people changed their Weibo avatars to the Israeli flag with a Nazi swastika in the middle.
Occasionally, someone expresses support for Israel and accuses Hamas of being a terrorist group. This triggers strong reactions from other netizens, such as “Only dead Israelis are good Israelis” and “the United States supports Israel, and the friend of the enemy is the enemy.”
Similar commentary has flooded sites elsewhere on China’s heavily censored internet.
VOA Mandarin could not determine how many of the Weibo accounts posting to the Israeli Embassy account belong to people who work for the Chinese government.
The Israeli Embassy in China did not respond to interview requests from VOA Mandarin.
Eric Liu, a former Weibo moderator who is now editor of China Digital Times, told VOA Mandarin the Israeli Embassy “has received more comments recently, which are very straightforwardly hateful, with antisemitic content. They probably have taken the initiative to contain it.”
Liu believes that because the antisemitic remarks remain online, that shows the Chinese government is comfortable with them. China has long backed the Palestinian cause but more recently it has also boosted ties with Israel as it seeks a larger role in trade, technology and diplomacy.
“It’s more of a voice influenced by public opinion,” he said. “Relatively speaking, it is an extreme voice. Moderate voices cannot be heard. Most of the participants are habitual offenders who hate others. But they are also spontaneous, or rather, they are spontaneous under the guidance” of the government censors.
Gu Guoping, a retired Shanghai teacher and human rights citizen-journalist, told VOA Mandarin, “I don’t go to Weibo, WeChat, or QQ. These are all anti-human brainwashing platforms controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. Due to the CCP’s long-term brainwashing and indoctrination of ordinary people, as well as internet censorship, many Weibo users … [confuse] right and wrong.”
“They don’t know Israel at all. The Israeli nation is an amazing, great, humane and civilized nation,” said Gu, who emphasized that Hamas killed innocent people in Israel first, and Israel’s counterattack was legitimate self-defense.
Liu said that Weibo moderators usually must delete hateful comments toward foreign embassies in China. However, they may receive instructions from the Cyberspace Administration of China and the State Council Information Office for major incidents, and different standards may be applied.
VOA Mandarin contacted the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Cyberspace Administration of China and the State Council Information Office for comment but did not receive a reply.
“The government’s opinion has been very, very clear, which is why the online public opinion has such an obvious tendency,” he said. “It must be the all-round propaganda machine that led the public opinion to be like this.”
While calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza conflict, Chinese officials have refused to condemn Hamas by name. Some observers say Beijing is exploiting the Israel-Hamas war to diminish U.S. influence.
On Saturday, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi condemned Israel for going “beyond the scope of self-defense” and called for it to “cease its collective punishment of the people of Gaza.”
When the Iranian Embassy in China posted comments by the Iranian president accusing the United States and Israel of causing the deadly explosion at the Ahli Arab Hospital, Chinese netizens posted their support.
U.S. President Joe Biden said during his visit to Tel Aviv on October 18 that the “intel” provided by his team regarding the hospital attack exonerated Israel. Israel said the militant group Islamic Jihad caused the blast that killed at least 100 people. The militant group that often works with Hamas has denied responsibility. Palestinian officials and several Arab leaders accuse Israel of hitting the hospital amid its ongoing airstrikes in Gaza.
The Weibo accounts of other foreign embassies and diplomats that have posted support for Israel have also been targeted by Chinese netizens. When the Swiss ambassador to China, Jürg Burri, posted on Oct. 13, “I send my deepest condolences to the victims and their families in the terrorist attacks in Gaza,” he was criticized for “pseudo-neutrality.”
“I don’t even want to wear a Swiss watch anymore! So angry,” said one netizen.
Liu believes the netizens’ support for Gaza will change.
“It’s not like that they stand with Palestine,” he said. “Maybe they will hate Palestine tomorrow because they believe in Islam. [The posters] are talking in general terms and do not care about the life and death of Palestine. Hatred of Israelis and Jews is the core.”
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The EU announced probes Thursday into Facebook owner Meta and TikTok, seeking more details on the measures they have taken to stop the spread of “illegal content and disinformation” after the Hamas attack on Israel.
The European Commission said it had sent formal requests for information to Meta and TikTok respectively in what is a first procedure launched under the EU’s new law on digital content.
The EU launched a similar probe into billionaire mogul Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly Twitter, last week.
The commission said the request to Meta related “to the dissemination and amplification of illegal content and disinformation” around the Hamas-Israel conflict.
In a separate statement, it said it wanted to know more about TikTok’s efforts against “the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech”.
The EU’s executive arm added that it wanted more information from Meta on its “mitigation measures to protect the integrity of elections”.
Meta and TikTok have until October 25 to respond, with a deadline of November 8 for less urgent aspects of the demand for information.
The commission said it also sought more details about how TikTok was complying with rules on protecting minors online.
The European Union has built a powerful armory to challenge the power of big tech with its landmark Digital Services Act (DSA) and a sister law, the Digital Markets Act, that hits internet giants with tough new curbs on how they do business.
The EU’s fight against disinformation has intensified since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last year and Russian attempts to sway European public opinion.
The issue has gained further urgency after Hamas’ assault on October 7 on Israel and the aftermath which sparked a wave of violent images that flooded the platforms.
The DSA came into effect for “very large” platforms, including Meta and TikTok, that have more than 45 million monthly European users in August.
The DSA bans illegal online content under threat of fines running as high as six percent of a company’s global turnover.
The EU’s top tech enforcer, Thierry Breton, sent warning letters to tech CEOs including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew and Sundar Pichai of YouTube owner Alphabet.
Growing EU fears
Breton, EU internal market commissioner, told the executives to crack down on illegal content following Hamas’ attack.
Meta said last week that it was putting special resources towards cracking down on illegal and problematic content related to the Hamas-Israel conflict.
On Wednesday, Breton expressed his fears over the impact of disinformation on the EU.
“The widespread dissemination of illegal content and disinformation… carries a clear risk of stigmatization of certain communities, destabilization of our democratic structures, not to mention the exposure of our children to violent content,” he said.
AFP fact-checkers have found several posts on Facebook, TikTok and X promoting a fake White House document purporting to allocate $8 billion in military assistance to Israel.
And several platforms have had users passing off material from other conflicts, or even from video games, as footage from Israel or Gaza.
Since the EU’s tougher action on digital behemoths, some companies, including Meta, are exploring whether to offer a paid-for version of their services in the European Union.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the International Olympic Committee of “ethnic discrimination” ahead of the 2024 Paris Games, from which Russian and Belarusian athletes are banned from competing under their national flags.
The IOC still has to make a final ruling on whether athletes from Russia and Belarus, a key ally for Moscow in its war with Ukraine, will be permitted to compete next summer.
“Thanks to some heads of the modern International Olympic Committee we found out that an invitation to the Games is not an unconditional right for the best athletes, but some kind of privilege and you can get it not on sports results but by some political gestures,” Putin said at a sports forum in the Urals city of Perm.
“The Games themselves could be used as an instrument of political pressure towards those people who have nothing to do with politics, and as a gross — in reality — racist, ethnic discrimination.”
He added that: “Some sports officials have simply given themselves the right to determine who is covered by the Olympic Charter and who is not.”
The IOC last week suspended Russia’s national Olympic body for violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine’s membership by recognizing regional organizations in occupied Ukraine.
Russia launched a full-scale offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, with its neighbor Belarus allowing Moscow’s troops to use its territory as a launchpad.
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A reedy pipe and a high-pitched trill duet against the backdrop of a low-pitched insect drone. Their symphony is the sound of a forest and is monitored by scientists to gauge biodiversity.
The recording from the forest in Ecuador is part of new research looking at how artificial intelligence could track animal life in recovering habitats.
When scientists want to measure reforestation, they can survey large tracts of land with tools like satellite and lidar.
But determining how fast and abundantly wildlife is returning to an area presents a more difficult challenge — sometimes requiring an expert to sift through sound recordings and pick out animal calls.
Jorg Muller, a professor and field ornithologist at University of Wurzburg Biocenter, wondered if there was a different way.
“I saw the gap that we need, particularly in the tropics, better methods to quantify the huge diversity… to improve conservation actions,” he told AFP.
He turned to bioacoustics, which uses sound to learn more about animal life and habitats.
It is a long-standing research tool, but more recently is being paired with computer learning to process large amounts of data more quickly.
Muller and his team recorded audio at sites in Ecuador’s Choco region ranging from recently abandoned cacao plantations and pastures to agricultural land recovering from use to old-growth forests.
They first had experts listen to the recordings and pick out birds, mammals and amphibians.
Then, they carried out an acoustic index analysis, which gives a measure of biodiversity based on broad metrics from a soundscape, like volume and frequency of noises.
Finally, they ran two weeks of recordings through an AI-assisted computer program trained to distinguish 75 bird calls.
More recordings needed
The program was able to pick out the calls on which it was trained in a consistent way, but could it correctly identify the relative biodiversity of each location?
To check this, the team used two baselines: one from the experts who listened to the audio recordings, and a second based on insect samples from each location, which offer a proxy for biodiversity.
While the library of available sounds to train the AI model meant it could only identify a quarter of the bird calls the experts could, it was still able to correctly gauge biodiversity levels in each location, the study said.
“Our results show that soundscape analysis is a powerful tool to monitor the recovery of faunal communities in hyperdiverse tropical forest,” said the research published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
“Soundscape diversity can be quantified in a cost-effective and robust way across the full gradient from active agriculture to recovering and old-growth forests,” it added.
There are still shortcomings, including a paucity of animal sounds on which to train AI models.
And the approach can only capture species that announce their presence.
“Of course (there is) no information on plants or silent animals. However, birds and amphibians are very sensitive to ecological integrity, they are a very good surrogate,” Muller told AFP.
He believes the tool could become increasingly useful given the current push for “biodiversity credits” — a way of monetizing the protection of animals in their natural habitat.
“Being able to directly quantify biodiversity, rather than relying on proxies such as growing trees, encourages and allows external assessment of conservation actions, and promotes transparency,” the study said.
TOKYO — Rickshaw puller Yuka Akimoto is one of a handful of women who have chosen to pull rickshaws in Tokyo, attracted to the male-dominated profession through social media, which in turn has given some of these female pullers a strong local and international following.
When the 45-minute tour comes to an end, the 21-year-old bows deeply to her clients and offers a blistered palm – covered with a clean cloth – to help the couple alight. Sweat pours down her flushed face.
Now, she says she loves her job and wants to work as long as she is physically able. A tag hanging on a cord around her neck reads: “I don’t want to give up.”
Wearing traditional tabi split-toed socks, Akimoto and her fellow rickshaw pullers walk or run an average of 20 km (12 miles) a day, no matter the weather.
Akimoto joined Tokyo Rickshaw two years ago after the pandemic dashed her plans to start a job at Tokyo Disneyland. The company, which mainly operates in the Asakusa tourist area, says about third of their 90 pullers are now women, and they are seeking more female recruits.
Rickshaw drivers Misato Otoshi is one of a handful of women who have chosen to pull rickshaws in Tokyo with less than 10 percent of all applicants getting a job offer. “Even though it’s considered to be men’s jobs, I thought it would be fun if I, a woman, could also do it,” she said. “I thought that being something out of the ordinary would be a strength for me.”
The pullers actively promote themselves on social media, winning repeat customers who request them personally.
And it was those social media posts that drew college student Yumeka Sakurai, 20, to join Tokyo Rickshaw.
After four months of training and overcoming opposition from friends and families, she is now proud to haul passengers in her rickshaw. “I’ve watched many videos of women training hard and becoming rickshaw drivers themselves. They gave me the confidence that I could do it too if I tried hard,” she said.
Pullers walk or run an average of 20 km (12 miles) a day and, in addition to being physically strong, they must have extensive knowledge of Tokyo and know how to engage with the tourists, who mostly hire them for sightseeing.
The most popular drivers make over 1 million yen ($6,730) a month, three times the national average, Tokyo Rickshaw said, adding that less than 10 percent of all applicants get offered a job.
Tokyo Rickshaw President Ryuta Nishio said sometimes he gets complaints that women should not be doing such physically demanding work. Female pullers also occasionally face sexual harassment or have their knowledge challenged by male customers, he added.
“We treat both male and female pullers completely equally,” Nishio said. “The women say they want to be treated as same as the men, and in fact many of them are way tougher.”
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The U.S. Commerce Department on Tuesday tightened its export controls to keep China from acquiring advanced computer chips that it could use to help develop hypersonic missiles and artificial intelligence.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the new controls are “intended to protect technologies that have clear national security or human rights implications.”
The new controls could increase tensions between the United States, the world’s biggest economy, and No. 2 China. In recent talks over several months with high-ranking U.S. officials, Beijing had appealed for “concrete actions” from Washington to improve relations between the two countries, although U.S. officials warned that the new export rules were in the offing.
Raimondo told reporters, “The vast majority of [the sale of] semiconductors [to China] will remain unrestricted. But when we identify national security or human rights threats, we will act decisively and in concert with our allies.”
The Commerce Department said the new restrictions came after consultations with U.S. chip manufacturers and conducting technological analyses.
The new controls allow the monitoring of the sale of chips that could still be used for military aims, even if they might not specifically meet the thresholds for trade limitations. The U.S. said chip exports can also be restricted to companies headquartered in Macao, a Chinese territory, or other countries under a U.S. arms embargo, to prevent them from circumventing the controls and providing chips to China.
The updated restrictions, an expansion of export controls announced last year, also make it more difficult for China to manufacture advanced chips abroad. The list of manufacturing equipment that falls under the export controls has also been expanded, among other changes to the policy.
China protested last year’s export controls, viewing the design and manufacture of high-level semiconductors as essential for its economic growth. Raimondo has said the limits on these chips are not designed to impair China’s economy.
Chinese government officials are scheduled to go to San Francisco in November for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
U.S. President Joe Biden has suggested he could meet on the sidelines of the summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, though a meeting has yet to be confirmed. The two leaders met last year following the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, shortly after the export controls were announced.
Some material in this report came from The Associated Press.
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West African artist Amoaka Boafo has a new exhibit of portraits in the Western U.S. state of Colorado. VOA correspondent Scott Stearns has our story
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Artificial Intelligence is being used to create musical “deepfakes” – songs that sound like one artist but were made by a computer. Deana Mitchell brings us the story of one artist who is engaging with machine learning to create new kinds of music.
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A technology, innovation and entrepreneurship summit sparked imaginations in Ethiopia last week. The inaugural Enkopa summit — a collaboration between the Ethiopian Ministry of Labor and Skills and other partners — brought in speakers and exhibitors from across the world to Addis Ababa to discuss technology, innovation and entrepreneurship.
Speaking at the two-day event, Ethiopian State Minister of Labor and Skills Nigussu Tilahun emphasized the important role of the government in clearing a path for job creation in the country.
Nigussu said government’s role in building the entrepreneurship ecosystem is to create and facilitate a conducive environment for it.
The event, which was October 12 and 13, had 150 speakers from sectors like fintech, health care and agriculture.
Feven Tsehaye, founder and CEO of Chakka Origins — which sources natural ingredients in biodiversity hotspots — said land management is crucial to the work the company does in Ethiopia.
She said working with small holder farmers is essential.
“It makes sense to work with them and more efficiently utilizing their space instead of engaging in land clearing or displacing people,” Feven said.
Sessions during the two-day summit also explored the role of AI in agriculture, and sustainable farming in Ethiopia.
Abrhame Endrias leads Lersha, which provides digital services to farmers. He said making technology accessible to farmers encourages tech adoption.
Lersha provides climate and pest control advisories, farming inputs and options for mechanization.
Abrhame said Lersha translates information into local languages so farmers can understand the information and make decisions. The information comes to the farmers via text message.
While Lersha focuses on small holder famers, there were startups at the summit that focused on Ethiopia’s commercial farmers.
Semegn Tadesse, CEO of ARMADA AgriTech, said working with commercial farmers promises to deliver a more radical change.
“If you want to show progress, here is a big room for improvement in commercial farmers,” Semegn said. “They are also underserved even though they have financial capacity.”
The summit, funded by the United Nations Development Program, and other partners is expected to be held every year.
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