Apple Daily executives arrested in massive Hong Kong police raid on pro-democracy figures
Hong Kong police raided the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and arrested five senior executives on June 17. All were charged under the controversial national security law and accused of colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns the charges calls for their immediate...
‘Spy industry’ now biggest threat to human rights, conscience freedom – lawyer
The increased number of prisoners of conscience in the world has been linked to proliferation of surveillance technology. Aware of the dangers posed to the right to privacy and association, human rights lawyer and freedom of expression crusader Eitay Mack is pushing for transparency in the Israeli war industry. In...
Israeli lawyer Eitay Mack fears surveillance gadget exports threaten press freedom
“Many countries are using these technologies to put people in jail,” Israeli lawyer Eitay Mack told Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in a recent video interview. Mack was describing how advanced surveillance capabilities such as those that CPJ has documented are being used to target journalists like Omar Radi and...
Opec Secretary General confirms he will attend African Energy Week in South Africa
Opec General Secretary Mohammed Barkindo and three oil ministers from three African countries have confirmed they will attend African Energy Chamber’s conference in Cape Town, South Africa, in November. The confirmations come against a backdrop of criticism of a similar event set for Dubai, United Arab Emirates, which some oil...
Precarisation of journalists by employers is main cause of decline in quality of editorial production – EFJ
The Forum on Information and Democracy published yesterday its report titled A New Deal for Journalism. The report presents, among other things, a plan to guarantee up to 0.1 per cent of GDP per year to journalism “in order to preserve its social function for the future”. The document, however,...
Real America’s attitude toward the rest of the world is isolationist, hostile to humanitarianism
From its beginnings, Real America has also been religious and in a particular way: evangelical and fundamentalist, hostile to modern ideas and intellectual authority. The truth will enter every simple heart and it doesn’t come in shades of grey. “If we have to give up either religion or education, we...
Mobile phone app Truecaller announces launch of ‘smart’ SMS feature in Africa
Truecaller, the world’s most trusted and accurate caller ID and telephone search engine, is rolling out a new feature to further augment the user experience in Africa. The new feature, Smart SMS, has been introduced based on user feedback and is designed to cater to the evolving needs of consumers,...
America grapples with millions of people with organ transplants in need of extra Covid vaccination
Covid vaccination in the US has been framed as a binary: People either seek out the inoculation, or they distrust the formula or the politics that produced it and reject the shot. People who accept the vaccine get to return to normal life. For the people who don’t, “Your health...
Ethical and moral red flag raised about DNA data use without informed consent
Last year, forensic geneticist a Berlin research hospital Lutz Roewer removed profiles that had been uploaded by the authors of a paper describing DNA studies of Uyghur, Kazakh and Hui minority groups in China. He did so after Springer Nature investigated and retracted that paper. The authors said that the...
Can bar of soap fix tired legs syndrome? Some medics agree, but can’t explain why
At times, we are all prone to feeling restless. When it is chronic, it can be a symptom of restless legs syndrome (RLS). Restless legs syndrome or RLS, is a sleep disorder characterised by an uncontrollable urge to move the lower legs. It is usually worse in the evening and...
