For decades, buying property was considered a safe investment in China. Now, instead of building a foundation of wealth for the country's middle class, real estate has become a source of discontent and anger. From a report: In more than 100 cities across China, hundreds of thousands of Chinese homeowners are banding together and refusing to repay loans on unfinished properties, one of the most widespread acts of public defiance in a country where even minor protests are quelled. The boycotts are part of the fallout from a worsening Chinese economy, slowed by Covid lockdowns, travel restrictions and wavering confidence in the government. The country's economy is on a path for its slowest growth in decades. Its factories are selling less to the world, and its consumers are spending less at home. On Monday, the government said youth unemployment had reached a record high.

Compounding these financial setbacks are the troubles of a particularly vulnerable sector: real estate. "Life is extremely difficult, and we can no longer afford the monthly mortgage," homeowners in China's central Hunan Province wrote in a letter to local officials in July. "We have to take risks out of desperation and follow the path of a mortgage strike." The mortgage rebellions have roiled a property market facing the fallout from a decades-long housing bubble. It has also created unwanted complication for President Xi Jinping, who is expected to coast to a third term as party leader later this year on a message of social stability and continued prosperity in China.

So far, the government has scrambled to limit the attention garnered by the boycotts. After an initial flurry of mortgage strike notices went viral on social media, the government's internet censors kicked into action. But the influence of the strikes has already begun to spread. The number of properties where collectives of homeowners have started or threatened to boycott has reached 326 nationwide, according to a crowdsourced list titled "WeNeedHome" on GitHub, an online repository. ANZ Research estimates that the boycotts could affect about $222 billion of home loans sitting on bank balance sheets, or roughly 4 percent of outstanding mortgages.

Some Beijing residents returning from domestic travel were asked by local authorities to wear COVID-19 monitoring bracelets, prompting widespread criticism on Chinese social media by users concerned about excessive government surveillance. Reuters reports: According to posts published on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning on microblogging platform Weibo, some Beijing residents returning to the capital were asked by their neighborhood committees to wear an electronic bracelet throughout the mandatory home quarantine period. Chinese cities require those arriving from parts of China where COVID cases were found to quarantine. Authorities fit doors with movement sensors to monitor their movements but until now have not widely discussed the use of electronic bracelets.

The bracelets monitor users' temperature and upload the data onto a phone app they had to download, the posts said. "This bracelet can connect to the Internet, it can definitely record my whereabouts, it is basically the same as electronic fetters and handcuffs, I won't wear this," Weibo user Dahongmao wrote on Wednesday evening, declining to comment further when contacted by Reuters. This post and others that shared pictures of the bracelets were removed by Thursday afternoon, as well as a related hashtag that had garnered over 30 million views, generating an animated discussion on the platform.

A community worker at Tiantongyuan, Beijing's northern suburb, confirmed to state-backed news outlet Eastday that the measure was in effect in the neighbourhood, though she called the practice "excessive." A Weibo post and a video published on the official account of Eastday.com was removed by Thursday afternoon. Weibo user Dahongmao wrote on Thursday afternoon his neighbourhood committee had already collected the bracelets, telling him that "there were too many complaints."

CNN cites a local source imagining the surprise of the looters of a Ukranian farm equipment dealership who'd transported some heavy machines over 700 miles to Russia. "They realized that they could not even turn them on, because the harvesters were locked remotely."

CNN adds that "The equipment now appears to be languishing at a farm near Grozny." Over the past few weeks there's been a growing number of reports of Russian troops stealing farm equipment, grain and even building materials — beyond widespread looting of residences. But the removal of valuable agricultural equipment from a John Deere dealership in Melitopol speaks to an increasingly organized operation, one that even uses Russian military transport as part of the heist. CNN has learned that the equipment was removed from an Agrotek dealership in Melitopol, which has been occupied by Russian forces since early March. Altogether it's valued at nearly $5 million. The combine harvesters alone are worth $300,000 each....

The contact said the process began with the seizure of two combine harvesters, a tractor and a seeder. Over the next few weeks, everything else was removed: in all 27 pieces of farm machinery. One of the flat-bed trucks used, and caught on camera, had a white "Z" painted on it and appeared to be a military truck. The contact said there were rival groups of Russian troops: some would come in the morning and some in the evening.

Some of the machinery was taken to a nearby village, but some of it embarked on a long overland journey to Chechnya more than 700 miles away. The sophistication of the machinery, which are equipped with GPS, meant that its travel could be tracked....
The end result? "After a journey of more than 700 miles, the thieves were unable to use any of the equipment — because it had been locked remotely."

Through public records requests, The Markup found more than 20 public agencies using the sometimes-controversial software. From the report: In 2020, the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) faced a daunting task: It needed to fill more than 900 job vacancies -- and fast. The center, which does things like inspect pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities, was in the process of modernizing the FDA's New Drugs Regulatory Program just as the pandemic started. It faced "a surge in work," along with new constraints that have affected everyone during the pandemic, including travel limitations and lockdowns. So they decided to turn to an artificial intelligence tool to speed up the hiring, according to records obtained by The Markup. The center, along with the Office of Management and the Division of Management Services, the background section of a statement of work said, were developing a "recruitment plan to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to assist in the time to hire process."

The agency ultimately chose to use HireVue, an online platform that allows employers to review asynchronously recorded video interviews and have recruits play video games as part of their application process. Over the years the platform has also offered a variety of AI features to automatically score candidates. HireVue, controversially, used to offer facial analysis to predict whether an applicant would be a good fit for an open job. In recent years, research has shown that facial recognition software is racially biased. In 2019, the company's continued use of the technique led one member of its scientific advisory board to resign. It has since stopped using facial recognition. The Markup used GovSpend, a database of procurement records for U.S. agencies at the state, local, and federal levels, to identify agencies that use HireVue. We also searched for agencies using Teramind and ActivTrak, both another kind of controversial software that allows employers to remotely monitor their workers' browsing activities through screenshots and logs. The Markup contacted and filed public records requests with those 24 agencies to understand how they were using the software. Eleven public agencies, including the FDA, replied to The Markup with documents or confirmations that they had bought HireVue at some point since 2017. Of the six public agencies that replied to The Markup's questions confirming that they actually used the software, all but one -- Lake Travis Independent School District in Texas -- confirmed they did not make use of the AI scoring features of the software. Documents and responses from 13 agencies confirmed that they purchased Teramind or ActivTrak at some point during the same time frame.

From Mount Everest to the Mariana Trench, microplastics are everywhere -- even high in the Earth's troposphere where wind speeds allow them to travel vast distances, a new study has found. From a report: Microplastics are tiny fragments -- measuring less than 5mm -- that come from packaging, clothing, vehicles and other sources and have been detected on land, in water and in the air. Scientists from the French national research institute CNRS sampled air 2,877 metres above sea level at the Pic du Midi Observatory in the French Pyrenees, a so-called "clean station" because of the limited influence exerted on it by the local climate and environment. There they tested 10,000 cubic metres of air a week between June and October of 2017 and found all samples contained microplastics.

Using weather data, they calculated the trajectories of different air masses preceding each sample and discovered sources as far away as north Africa and North America. The study's main author, Steve Allen of Dalhousie University in Canada, told AFP that the particles were able to travel such distances because they were able to reach great altitudes. "Once it hits the troposphere, it's like a superfast highway," he said. The research also points to microplastic sources in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Social media and search engine operators in Japan will be required to specify the countries in which users' data is physically stored, under a planned tweak to local laws. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications this week announced it plans to submit the revision to the Telecommunications Business Law early next year. The amendment, if passed, requires search engines, social media operators and mobile phone companies with over 10 million Japanese users to disclose where in the world they store data, and identify any foreign subcontractors that can access the data. The proposed law applies to overseas companies that operate in Japan -- meaning the likes of Twitter and Facebook will need to disclose their storage choices publicly. Oddly, search engines that just cover travel and food get a pass and don't have to comply. "The move is in part a reaction to Japan's hugely popular homegrown freeware instant communication app, LINE, which had several recent snafus related to data storage and protection," the report adds.

In March, the Japanese government said it was investigating LINE's parent company after a local newspaper reported that engineers at one of the app's Chinese contractors accessed the messages and personal details of LINE users. And just a couple weeks ago, the company announced that around 133,000 users' payment details were mistakenly published on GitHub between September and November of this year.

According to the New York Times, China is recruiting YouTubers to report on the country in a positive light and counter the West's increasingly negative perceptions. "The videos have a casual, homespun feel. But on the other side of the camera often stands a large apparatus of government organizers, state-controlled news media and other official amplifiers -- all part of the Chinese government's widening attempts to spread pro-Beijing messages around the planet," the report says. "State-run news outlets and local governments have organized and funded pro-Beijing influencers' travel, according to government documents and the creators themselves. They have paid or offered to pay the creators. They have generated lucrative traffic for the influencers by sharing videos with millions of followers on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook." An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from Techdirt, which summarizes the Times' findings: Typically, the Chinese government support comes in the form of free organized trips around China, particularly in Xinjiang. By showing the influencers a carefully sanitized image of life in the country, the authorities don't need to worry about negative stories. They simply make it easy for the YouTubers to present images of jolly peasants and happy city-dwellers, because that's all they are allowed to see. One of the authors of the New York Times piece, Paul Mozur, noted on Twitter another important way that the authorities are able to help their influencer guests. Once produced, the China-friendly videos are boosted massively by state media and diplomatic Facebook and Twitter accounts: "One video by Israeli influencer Raz Gal-Or portraying Xinjiang as 'totally normal' was shared by 35 government connected accounts with a total of 400 million followers. Many were Chinese embassy Facebook accounts, which posted about the video in numerous languages."

A new report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, "Borrowing mouths to speak on Xinjiang," has some more statistics on this practice: "Our data collection has found that, between January 2020 and August 2021, 156 Chinese state-controlled accounts on US-based social media platforms have published at least 546 Facebook posts, Twitter posts and shared articles from [China Global Television Network], Global Times, Xinhua or China Daily websites that have amplified Xinjiang-related social media content from 13 influencer accounts. More than 50% of that activity occurred on Facebook." Mozur says that the use of Western influencers in this way also allows employees of Beijing-controlled media, like the journalist Li Jingjing, to present themselves as independent YouTubers. On Twitter, however, she is labeled as "China state-affiliated media." The Australian Strategic Policy Institute sees this as part of a larger problem (pdf): "labelling schemes adopted by some video-sharing and social media platforms to identify state-affiliated accounts are inconsistently applied to media outlets and journalists working for those outlets. In addition, few platforms appear to have clear policies on content from online influencers or vloggers whose content may be facilitated by state-affiliated media, through sponsored trips, for example."

According to Mozur, China's state broadcaster is actively looking for more influencers, offering bonuses and publicity for those who sign up. In the US, China's consulate general is paying $300,000 to a firm to recruit influencers for the Winter Olympics, ranging from Celebrity Influencers with millions of Instagram or TikTok followers, to Nano Influencers, with merely a few thousand. The ultimate goal of deploying these alternative voices is not to disprove negative stories appearing in Western media, but something arguably worse, as the New York Times report explains: "China is the new super-abuser that has arrived in global social media," said Eric Liu, a former content moderator for Chinese social media. "The goal is not to win, but to cause chaos and suspicion until there is no real truth."

Elon Musk's Boring Company just won approval from local officials to move forward with building a network of vehicle tunnels underneath Las Vegas. The Verge reports: Elon Musk's Boring Company just won approval from local officials to move forward with building a network of vehicle tunnels underneath Las Vegas. The Boring Company already operates a small version of this "Teslas in Tunnels" system underneath the Las Vegas Convention Center, which opened earlier this year and involves two 0.8-mile tunnels. But Musk's startup proposed a massive city-wide expansion in December 2020 that largely lines up with what Clark County officials approved Wednesday.

The system that was approved involves 29 miles of tunnels and 51 stations. Clark County says as many as 57,000 passengers will be able to travel through it per hour and that no taxpayer money will be spent to build it. The Boring Company previously said that it would foot the bill for building the main tunnels but planned to ask hotel casinos or other businesses that want a station to pay for those construction costs. Each one of those stops has to go through its own permitting process, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

John Charap, Emeritus professor of theoretical physics, Queen Mary University of London and Norman Dombey Emeritus, professor of theoretical physics, University of Sussex, writing at The Guardian: Your editorial on quantum physics starts with a quote from Richard Feynman -- "nobody understands quantum mechanics" -- and then says "that is no longer true." One of us (Norman Dombey) was taught quantum theory by Feynman at Caltech; the other (John Charap) was taught by Paul Dirac at Cambridge. Quantum theory was devised by several physicists including Dirac, Erwin Schrodinger and Werner Heisenberg in the 1920s and 1930s, and Dirac made their work relativistic.

It is absurd to say that quantum mechanics is now understood whereas it was not 50 years ago. There have of course been advances in our understanding of quantum phenomena, but the conceptual framework of quantum physics remains as it was. The examples you give of nuclear plants, medical scans and lasers involve straightforward applications of quantum mechanics that were understood 50 years ago. The major advance in the understanding of quantum physics in this period is a theorem of John Bell from Cern, which states that quantum physics cannot be local -- that is to say that it permits phenomena to be correlated at arbitrarily large distances from each other.

This has now been demonstrated experimentally and leads to what is known as quantum entanglement, which is important in the development of quantum computers. But even these ideas were discussed by Albert Einstein and coworkers in 1935. The editorial goes on to say that "subatomic particles do not travel a path that can be plotted." If that were so, how can protons travel at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern and hit their target so that experiments can be performed? We agree with Phillip Ball, who wrote in Physics World that "quantum mechanics is still, a century after it was conceived, making us scratch our heads." There are many speculative proposals in contention but none have consensus support.

The Washington Post reports that the U.S. government "plans to expand its use of facial recognition to pursue criminals and scan for threats, an internal survey has found, even as concerns grow about the technology's potential for contributing to improper surveillance and false arrests." Ten federal agencies — the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Interior, Justice, State, Treasury and Veterans Affairs — told the Government Accountability Office they intend to grow their facial recognition capabilities by 2023, the GAO said in a report posted to its website Tuesday. Most of the agencies use face-scanning technology so employees can unlock their phones and laptops or access buildings, though a growing number said they are using the software to track people and investigate crime. The Department of Agriculture, for instance, said it wants to use it to monitor live surveillance feeds at its facilities and send an alert if it spots any faces also found on a watch list...

The GAO said in June that 20 federal agencies have used either internally developed or privately run facial recognition software, even though 13 of those agencies said they did not "have awareness" of which private systems they used and had therefore "not fully assessed the potential risks ... to privacy and accuracy." In the current report, the GAO said several agencies, including the Justice Department, the Air Force and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reported that they had used facial recognition software from Clearview AI, a firm that has faced lawsuits from privacy groups and legal demands from Google and Facebook after it copied billions of facial images from social media without their approval... Many federal agencies said they used the software by requesting that officials in state and local governments run searches on their own software and report the results. Many searches were routed through a nationwide network of "fusion centers," which local police and federal investigators use to share information on potential threats or terrorist attacks...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, who have called the technology "the way of the future," said earlier this month that they had run facial recognition scans on more than 88 million travelers at airports, cruise ports and border crossings. The systems, the officials said, have detected 850 impostors since 2018 — or about 1 in every 103,000 faces scanned.

CES 2022 will be a hybrid event with in-person and digital components. However, in order to attend the event in person, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) says you'll need to provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19. The Verge reports: As far as those who are not vaccinated, whether by their own choice or because they live somewhere without access to vaccines, the CTA says it's "assessing the acceptance of proof of a positive antibody test as an alternative requirement." It's also unknown how this will apply to events happening beyond the show floor and keynote ballrooms, or outside the CTA's umbrella entirely. We expect to hear more details about all of this long before the CES 2022 media days start on January 3rd, or when the show floor opens on January 5th. Here's an excerpt from the CTA's announcement: The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) today announced that CES 2022, the world's most influential technology event, will require in-person attendees to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination. CES 2022 will take place in Las Vegas on January 5-8, 2022. For those who may be unable to travel to Las Vegas, CTA will again create a digital event that will run in parallel with the in-person program. Digital audiences will have the opportunity to share the spirit of the in-person event.
[...]
CTA is also assessing the acceptance of proof of a positive antibody test as an alternative requirement and will share more details on this later. Safety, security and health are a priority at CES, and we will follow state and local guidelines and recommendations by the CDC. CTA will continue to monitor and evaluate the situation and will announce additional or modified protocols closer to the show.

Hikers looking to summit Scotland's highest mountain and other peaks in the area are being sent up "potentially fatal" routes by Google Maps, the region's mountaineering organizations have warned. CNN reports: The John Muir Trust said Thursday that growing numbers of people using Google Maps to navigate up Ben Nevis risk being directed via a route that is "highly dangerous, even for experienced climbers." Ben Nevis, a popular tourist destination, is the highest mountain in the British Isles, standing at 1,345 meters (4,413 feet). Although thousands summit it annually, climbing the peak is not without risks and deaths have been recorded on the mountain as recently as this year. "The problem is that Google Maps directs some visitors to the Upper Falls car park, presumably because it is the closest car park to the summit," John Muir Trust's Nevis Conservation Officer Nathan Berrie said in a statement. "But this is NOT the correct route and we often come across groups of inexperienced walkers heading towards Steall Falls or up the south slopes of Ben Nevis believing it is the route to the summit," Berrie added. Mountaineering Scotland also warned that a route suggested by Google Maps was "potentially fatal."

"For those new to hill walking, it would seem perfectly logical to check out Google Maps for information on how to get to your chosen mountain," Heather Morning, Mountaineering Scotland's mountain safety adviser explained in a statement. "But when you input Ben Nevis and click on the 'car' icon, up pops a map of your route, taking you to the car park at the head of Glen Nevis, followed by a dotted line appearing to show a route to the summit." Morning said that "even the most experienced mountaineer would have difficulty following this route. The line goes through very steep, rocky, and pathless terrain where even in good visibility it would be challenging to find a safe line. Add in low cloud and rain and the suggested Google line is potentially fatal." She also added that Google Maps suggested other routes which would direct users towards "life threatening terrain" when they sought to navigate the country's other high peaks, including the 1,062-meter An Teallach. "For An Teallach in the northwest, a 'walking' route was input into the search engine and the line offered would take people over a cliff," she warned. A spokesperson for Google said the company was looking into the complaints. "We built Google Maps with safety and reliability in mind, and are working quickly to investigate the routing issue on Ben Nevis and surrounding areas," the spokesperson said in an email. "In addition to using authoritative data and high definition imagery to update the map, we encourage local organizations to provide geographic information about roads and routes through our Geo Data Upload tool."

UPDATE (7/11): The BBC reports Google has in fact changed their Ben Nevis route "after fears that walkers may mistakenly attempt a 'potentially fatal' route..." The firm insisted its walking directions on Google Maps did not direct people to dangerous routes. However, its driving directions took people to a car park where a dotted line showing distance to the summit could be misinterpreted by users.

In future the maps will direct drivers to a visitor centre instead.

"A federal judge on Wednesday blocked for the time being a new Florida law that sought to punish large social media businesses like Facebook and Twitter if they remove content or ban politicians," reports the Associated Press: U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle granted a preliminary injunction stopping the new law from being enforced. The law — which was supposed to take effect on Thursday — enabled the state to fine large social media companies $250,000 a day if they remove an account of a statewide political candidate, and $25,000 a day if they remove an account of someone running for a local office. The legislation was challenged in federal court in Tallahassee by NetChoice, a lobbying firm that represents Twitter, Facebook and other online companies, and the Computer and Communications Industry Association. Both said the new law was unconstitutional and violated federal law.

The plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their claim that the new law violated the First Amendment if the case went to trial, the judge said.

Hinkle said the new law was aimed at only large social media businesses, not smaller ones that provide the same services, and made exceptions for Disney and their apps by including that theme park owners wouldn't be subject to the law.
The judge also argued that the law "compels providers to host speech that violates their standards."

The maintainers of the Exim email server software have released updates today to patch a collection of 21 vulnerabilities that can allow threat actors to take over servers using both local and remote attack vectors. The Record reports: Known as 21Nails, the vulnerabilities were discovered by security firm Qualys. The bugs impact Exim, a type of email server known as a mail transfer agent (MTA) that helps email traffic travel across the internet and reach its intended destinations. While there are different MTA clients available, an April 2021 survey shows that Exim has a market share of nearly 60% among all MTA solutions, being widely adopted around the internet. The 21Nails vulnerabilities, if left unpatched, could allow threat actors to take over these systems and then intercept or tamper with email communications passing through the Exim server.

As Qualys explains in its security advisory, the 21Nails vulnerabilities are as bad as it gets. All Exim server versions released in the past 17 years, since 2004, the beginning of the project's Git history, are affected by the 21Nails bugs. This includes 11 vulnerabilities that require local access to the server to exploit, but also 10 bugs that can be exploited remotely across the internet. Security experts recommend that Exim server owners update to Exim version 4.94 to protect their systems against attacks.

AmiMoJo writes: French MPs have voted to suspend domestic airline flights on routes that can be travelled by direct train in less than two and a half hours, as part of a series of climate and environmental measures. After a heated debate in the Assemblee Nationale at the weekend, the ban, a watered-down version of a key recommendation from President Emmanuel Macron's citizens' climate convention was adopted. It will mean the end of short internal flights from Orly airport, south of Paris, to Nantes and Bordeaux among others, though connecting flights through Charles de Gaulle/Roissy airport, north of the French capital, will continue. The climate commission set up by Macron had originally recommended the scrapping of all flights between French destinations where an alternative direct train journey of less than four hours existed. This was reduced to two and a half hours after strong objections from certain regions and from Air France-KLM, which, like other airlines, has been badly hit by local and international Covid-19 restrictions on travel.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Dark clouds loom over the pine forest surrounding Hummelsta, a town of 1,000 people that hasn't had any local shops for a decade. Since December, a red wooden container, about the size of a mobile home, has offered a lifeline. It's a mini supermarket that locals can access round-the-clock. "We haven't had any shops here during the time we have been here, and getting this now is perfect," says 31-year-old Emma Lundqvist who moved to Hummelsta with her boyfriend three years ago. "You don't need to get into the city to buy this small stuff," she adds, pointing to the packet of bacon she's popped in for. There's a wide assortment of groceries available, from fresh fruit and vegetables to Swedish household staples like frozen meatballs, crisp breads and wafer bars. But there are no staff or checkouts here. You open the doors using the company's app, which works in conjunction with BankID, a secure national identification app operated by Sweden's banks. Then, you can scan barcodes using your smartphone and the bill is automatically charged to a pre-registered bank card.

The store is part of the Lifvs chain, a Stockholm-based start-up that launched in 2018 with the goal of returning stores to remote rural locations where shops had closed down because they'd struggled to stay profitable. In Asia several companies including Alibaba are testing unstaffed stores in more urban locations. Amazon has also opened supermarkets in US cities and this month in the UK, which use sensors and cameras to work out what you've bought, so there's not even the need for self-scanning. But Lifvs co-founder Daniel Lundh saw the opportunity in rural locations: "There were food deserts where people had to travel to the next town or city to pick up their groceries and so we definitely saw that there was a need." Alongside skipping the need to pay cashiers, the firm also avoids pricey long-term rental leases. And if there's less footfall than expected in one location, the wooden containers can easily be picked up and tested elsewhere.

Airbnb said Wednesday it is canceling existing reservations and blocking new ones in the Washington, D.C., area during inauguration week as federal officials remain on alert for potential violence. Axios reports: Airbnb says the move is in response to requests from local, state and federal officials asking people not to travel to D.C. for President-elect Biden's inauguration. Guests whose reservations are canceled will receive refunds and Airbnb says it will reimburse hosts' lost earnings.

"We are aware of reports emerging yesterday afternoon regarding armed militias and known hate groups that are attempting to travel and disrupt the Inauguration," the company said in its announcement. Airbnb also said it has banned from its platform numerous individuals it has learned that are "either associated with known hate groups or otherwise involved in the criminal activity at the Capitol Building."

AmiMoJo quotes Universe Today: Other worlds aren't the only difficult terrain personnel will have to traverse in humanity's exploration of the solar system. There are some parts of our own planet that are inhospitable and hard to travel over. Inner Mongolia, a northern province of China, would certainly classify as one of those areas, especially in winter. But that's exactly the terrain team members from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASTC) had to traverse on December 16th to retrieve lunar samples from the Chang'e-5 mission. What was even more unique is that they did it with the help of exoskeletons.

Strangely enough, the workers wearing the exoskeletons weren't there to help with a difficult mountain ascent, or even pick up the payload of the lunar lander itself (which only weighed 2 kg). It was to set up a communications tent to connect the field team back to the main CASTC headquarters in Beijing. The exoskeletons were designed to help people carry approximately twice as much as they would be able to. Local state media described a single person carrying 50kg over 100m of the rough terrain without becoming tired. Setting up communications equipment isn't all the exoskeletons are good for though. They were most recently used by Chinese military logistics and medical staff in the Himalayas, where the country has been facing down the Indian military over a disputed line of control.

Since 1976 "Project Censored," a U.S.-based nonprofit media watchdog organization, has been identifying "the news that didn't make the news," the most significant stories it believes are being systematically overlooked. Slashdot ran stories about its annual list of the year's most censored news stories in 1999, 2003, 2004, and in 2007, when they'd presciently warned that the media was ignoring the issue of net neutrality.

But their latest list of underreported stories includes this disturbing headline: "Antibiotic Abuse: Pharmaceutical Profiteering Accelerates Superbugs." Pharmaceutical giants Abbott and Sun Pharma are providing dangerous amounts of antibiotics to unlicensed doctors in India and incentivizing them to overprescribe. In August 2019 the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) reported that these unethical business practices are leading to a rise in superbugs, or bacterial infections that are resistant to antibiotic treatment. Bacteria naturally evolve a resistance to antibiotics over time, but the widespread and inappropriate use of antibiotics accelerates this process. Superbugs are killing at least 58,000 babies each year and rendering a growing number of patients untreatable with all available drugs.

India's unlicensed medical practitioners, known as "quack" doctors, are being courted by Abbott and Sun Pharma, billion-dollar companies that do business in more than one hundred countries, including the United States. The incentives these companies provide to quack doctors to sell antibiotics have included free medical equipment, gift cards, televisions, travel, and cash, earning some doctors nearly a quarter of their salary. "Sales representatives would also offer extra pills or money as an incentive to buy more antibiotics, encouraging potentially dangerous overprescription," a Sun Pharma sales representative revealed to an undercover BIJ reporter... [P]atients without access to better care often turn to quack doctors for treatment, and many are unaware that their local medical "professionals" have no formal training and are being bribed to sell unnecessary antibiotics.

In September 2019, the BIJ reported on similar problems with broken healthcare systems, medical corruption, and dangerous superbugs in Cambodia. Their account describes how patients often request antibiotics for common colds, to pour onto wounds, and to feed to animals. Illegally practicing doctors and pharmacists in Cambodia admitted that they would often prescribe based on customer requests rather than appropriate medical guidelines. As the BIJ noted, "This kind of misuse speeds up the creation of drug resistant bacteria, or superbugs, which are predicted to kill 10 million people by 2050 if no action is taken...."

Although superbugs have attracted some attention, their cause and importance remain poorly understood by the public. The Independent and BuzzFlash republished the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's report; otherwise, the role of pharmaceutical companies in the rise of dangerous superbugs has been drastically underreported.
The site's list of the top 25 censored stories of 2019 - 2020 also includes:

• Growing interest in so-called "public" banks, "not legally obligated to maximize profits, as private banks are; instead, public banks are mandated to serve their communities."

• How rising sea levels and warmer waters will impact nuclear power plants, "posing increased risks of nuclear disasters."

• Proposals to revitalize journalism through public funding.

• How the U.S. military represents "a massive, hidden contributor to the climate crisis."

China says it has pulled Tripadvisor (TRIP) from mobile app stores in the country as the government embarks on a fresh bid to "clean up" the internet. From a report: In a statement Tuesday, the Cyberspace Administration of China said it had removed 105 apps it considered to be "illegal," including that of the US travel giant. Most of the platforms belonged to local Chinese firms, and it was not immediately clear why Tripadvisor -- which features reviews of hotels and holiday destinations -- was caught up in the crackdown. The Massachusetts-based company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. As of Tuesday afternoon, Tripadvisor's website was still accessible in China. Chinese regulators said the apps they removed were the first of many that would be taken down in a wide-ranging "clean-up" of online content that started last month. The campaign is being held in accordance with several Chinese laws, and is intended to wipe out content related to illegal activity, including obscenity, pornography, prostitution, violence, fraud or gambling, according to authorities. "The Cyberspace Administration of China will continue to ... strengthen the supervision and inspection of mobile apps' information services, promptly clean up and dispose of illegal mobile applications and application stores, and strive to create a clear cyberspace," the agency said in a statement.