Australia terminates coronavirus vaccine trails after ‘false positives’
A billion-dollar deal for the Morrison government to buy more than 50 million doses of the University of Queensland’s potential coronavirus vaccine has been abruptly terminated after several trial participants returned false positive HIV test results. UQ, working in partnership with Australian global biotech company CSL will abandon its current...
12 multilateral lenders team up with IMF to finance Africa’s SDGs
Twelve multilateral development banks (MDBs) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have teamed up to pool resources to finance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa. Africa’s leading financier, the African Development Bank, announced in Ivory Coast capital, Abidjan, on Thursday this week that it had joined hands...
Children’s immune systems can repulse coronavirus
Young children account for only a small percentage of Covid-19 infections – a trend that has puzzled scientists. Now, a growing body of evidence suggests why – kids’ immune systems seem better equipped to eliminate SARS-CoV-2 than are adults’. “Children are very much adapted to respond – and very well...
Dark side of Big Tech’s funding for Artificial Intelligence research
Last week, prominent Google artificial intelligence researcher Timnit Gebru said she was fired by the company after managers asked her to retract or withdraw her name from a research paper, and she objected. Google maintains that she resigned, and Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai said in a company memo on...
Antitrust litigation isn’t enough, Biden will need to go beyond the law
On Wednesday this week, the Federal Trade Commission and 46 states, the District of Columbia and Guam filed parallel antitrust suits against Facebook for the acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram, and practices that excluded competitive threats in social networking and messaging. In October, the Department of Justice and 11 states...
Kenya Rugby taps high performance wonk Harding for national teams
High performance consultant Peter Harding has been seconded to the Kenya Rugby Union on a three-month renewable contract by World Rugby. Harding’s immediate task will be to prepare Kenyan rugby teams for KRU, specifically KRU Women’s 7s for Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games. iIn a statement, KRU said Harding “will also...
Corporate Council on Africa launches US-Africa health resilience initiative
Corporate Council on Africa will launch the US-Africa health security and resilience initiative at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on December 15 formally. The two-year initiative brings together US and African opinion leaders, corporations, multilateral organisations, foundations and other players in the health sector to create strategic...
Cybersecurity: Notorious Russian hacker outdone by a creepier malware
FireEye has built its reputation on defending high-stakes clients from hackers. Early this week, the cybersecurity firm acknowledged that it had itself been the victim of a breach – and that the attackers made off with some of its offensive tools. It is a startling admission but almost certainly not...
US fair trade agency sues Facebook for ‘illegal monopolisation’
United States fair competition agency, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) moved to a federal court on Wednesday to seek a permanent injunction that, if granted, will among other things require divestitures of assets, including Instagram and WhatsApp. The agency also wants Facebook prohibited from imposing anti-competitive conditions on software developers besides...
Cocoa farmers in West Africa earn a pittance as chocolate manufacturers bank billions
Recent statistics on world chocolate industry lay bare how exploitative the beverage’s market is, with cocoa farmers in West Africa forced to make do with a paltry six per cent of total revenues. Leading chocolate companies have since 2001 made pledges to end widespread abusive labour practices, but continue to...
