Civil liberties union sues US government for snooping on ordinary people
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has sued the US government claiming Homeland Security agents trampled over people’s constitutional rights – by buying phone location data from commercial brokers rather than getting necessary search warrants. “These practices raise serious concerns that federal immigration authorities are evading Fourth Amendment protections for...
Hackers target Covid-19 vaccine ‘cold chain’
Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, hackers and scammers have focused extraordinary attention on it, whether for espionage or for grift. Now, as pharmaceutical companies prepare to ship long-awaited vaccines, a new round of sophisticated phishing attacks is focused on the complex supply chain that will get them to people in...
‘Old age may soon become treatable pathology rather than an inevitability’
In July 2017, I sat in a closed-door meeting coordinated by the State Department and the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. In the room were research scientists, government officials and policy wonks with PhDs in the hard sciences. Our task that day was to talk about the future...
25 countries notorious for human rights violations invest in spyware
A surveillance technology that can identify the location of a phone anywhere in the world in just seconds with only a telephone number has been detected in 25 countries, some with chequered records on human rights, according to research findings released this week. Forbes magazine reports that the technology was...
Rugby Africa dishes out €276,000 to 11 unions on the continent
Rugby Africa has disbursed €276,490 to 11 affiliates on the continent to enable them to prepare for the 2021 after a difficult 2020 rugby season. The fund will enable 11 of the 39 Unions – Namibia, Kenya, Uganda, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Algeria, Zambia, Madagascar, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Ghana – start...
Not even Attorney General Barr buys Trump’s election nonsense
President Donald Trump is running out of wrenches to throw at the gears of democracy. Since prematurely and incorrectly declaring victory on the night of the election, Trump and his legal team have launched dozens of lawsuits seeking to overturn the results of the presidential race in pivotal states like...
One Free Press Coalition spotlights journalists in life threatening situations
In May 2019, Wired news organisation joined the One Free Press Coalition, a united group of preeminent editors and publishers using their global reach and social platforms to spotlight journalists under attack worldwide. Today, the coalition is issuing its 22nd monthly 10 Most Urgent list of press freedom abuses around...
Alarm as execution looms for scientist on death row in Iran
A medical researcher sentenced to death in Iran three years ago on a charge of spying, which he denies, is under threat of imminent execution, Nature has been told. Ahmadreza Djalali, a scholar in disaster medicine who has dual Iranian-Swedish nationality, is nearing the end of a week of solitary...
How coronavirus vaccines are being divvied up around the world
Vaccine developers who have already reported promising phase III trial results against Covid-19 estimate that, between them, they can make sufficient doses for more than one-third of the world’s population by the end of 2021. But many people in low-income countries might have to wait until 2023 or 2024 for...
South Sudan: For Juba, $7.22m water project means better health and peace
Access to drinking water in South Sudan is a crucial issue for peacebuilding and dealing with community disputes that could undermine the country’s emergence from conflict and crisis Farida, her school bag on her back and her face betraying a hint of a smile, sings softly on her way to...
