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      Western governments struggle to coordinate response to Chinese hacking

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 04:30

    Experts say UK-imposed sanctions will make no difference when hacking is part of ecosystem of dealing with Beijing

    With the announcement that the UK government would be imposing sanctions on two individuals and one entity accused of targeting – without success – UK parliamentarians in cyber-attacks in 2021 , the phrase “tip of the iceberg” comes to mind. But that would underestimate the iceberg.

    James Cleverly, the home secretary, said the sanctions were a sign that “targeting our elected representatives and electoral processes will never go unchallenged”.

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      Super gonorrhea rate quickly triples in China, now 40x higher than US

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Yesterday - 18:12 · 1 minute

    A billboard from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation is seen on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California, on May 29, 2018, warning of a drug-resistant gonorrhea.

    Enlarge / A billboard from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation is seen on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California, on May 29, 2018, warning of a drug-resistant gonorrhea. (credit: Getty | )

    Health officials have long warned that gonorrhea is becoming more and more resistant to all the antibiotic drugs we have to fight it. Last year, the US reached a grim landmark : For the first time, two unrelated people in Massachusetts were found to have gonorrhea infections with complete or reduced susceptibility to every drug in our arsenal, including the frontline drug ceftriaxone. Luckily, they were still able to be cured with high-dose injections of ceftriaxone. But, as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention bluntly notes: "Little now stands between us and untreatable gonorrhea."

    If public health alarm bells could somehow hit a higher pitch, a study published Thursday from researchers in China would certainly accomplish it. The study surveyed gonorrhea bacterial isolates— Neisseria gonorrhoeae —from around the country and found that the prevalence of ceftriaxone-resistant isolates nearly tripled between 2017 and 2021. Ceftriaxone-resistant strains made up roughly 8 percent of the nearly 3,000 bacterial isolates collected from gonorrhea infections in 2022. That's up from just under 3 percent in 2017. The study appears in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

    While those single-digit percentages may seem low, compared to other countries they're extremely high. In the US, for instance, the prevalence of ceftriaxone-resistant strains never went above 0.2 percent between 2017 and 2021 , according to the CDC. In Canada, ceftriaxone-resistance was stable at 0.6 percent between 2017 and 2021. The United Kingdom had a prevalence of 0.21 percent in 2022.

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      Liu Cixin: ‘I’m often asked – there’s science fiction in China?’

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 11:03

    Author of sci-fi epic The Three-Body Problem – newly serialised by Netflix – on ‘the greatest uncertainty facing humanity’ and how finding a secret copy of a Jules Verne novel inspired his career

    Chinese author Liu Cixin’s science-fiction novels have sold millions of copies all over the world, and have won him numerous awards, including the global Hugo award for science fiction in 2015. Now, the English translation of the first book in Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, The Three-Body Problem, is back in the Amazon bestsellers charts, after the release of a TV adaptation by the creators of Game of Thrones.

    But a decade ago, few in the UK had heard of Liu and The Three-Body Problem, which begins as a contemporary murder mystery and gradually builds into a story of alien contact. When it was first published here, Nic Cheetham, managing director of Liu’s UK publisher Head of Zeus, remembers being unsure if anyone would turn up for a book signing with the author in a London bookshop.

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      Why didn’t New Zealand impose sanctions on China?

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 02:02


    New Zealand did not follow the US and UK in imposing financial restrictions after accusing Beijing of links to cyber-attacks

    Politicians, journalists and critics of Beijing were among those targeted by cyber-attacks run by groups backed by China, western intelligence services said this week.

    The separate cyber-attacks hit the US, UK and New Zealand – all members of the Five Eyes alliance. The network of five countries, which also includes Canada and Australia, share security related intelligence.

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      India left reeling by Afghanistan as World Cup hopes begin to fade again

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 2 days ago - 12:06 · 1 minute

    Expanded 2026 World Cup finals have given hope to Igor Stimac’s side but the Lions of Khorasan had other ideas

    Perhaps the one positive for India from their shock 2-1 home defeat by Afghanistan in 2026 World Cup qualification is that the team have risen far enough for shock defeats to be a thing. It’s not much of a comfort, however, and once solid-looking dreams of getting to the final stages on the road to the World Cup for the first time are starting to hang by delicate threads of Assam silk.

    On Thursday, fans in that state’s biggest city, Guwahati, were confident of a comfortable win against Afghanistan, a team ranked 158 in the world. The 0-0 draw between the two five days earlier in the south-west corner of Saudi Arabia, rather than in Kabul, was surely a blip. Qatar were streaking ahead in Group A of qualification, leaving India and Kuwait to fight for the second spot that also brings a place in the final 18 that will fight it out for Asia’s increased World Cup allocation of eight. India had four points from the first three games and could have moved four points clear of third with two games to go.

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      UK watchdog secures changes from Asos, Boohoo, Asda on green claims; Xi Jinping meets US CEOs – business live

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 2 days ago - 08:49

    Regulator acts after identifying concerns of possible greenwashing during review of fashion sector

    Shares in the British packaging group DS Smith rose after it announced that it is in discussions with a New York-listed paper producer over a £5.7bn takeover offer.

    London-based DS Smith confirmed that it is in talks with International Paper , the largest paper and pulp company in the world, over an all-stock offer from the US company, which gatecrashed an agreed £5.1bn deal between DS Smith and Mondi , another London-listed group.

    The board acknowledges the strategic merits and potential for value creation through a combination with International Paper. Accordingly, the board is progressing its discussions with International Paper regarding the proposal.

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      Rocket Report: A mysterious explosion in China; Firefly tests new engine

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 1 December - 12:00

    Imagery from Europe's Sentinel-2 satellite shows the aftermath of an explosion on a test stand at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China.

    Enlarge / Imagery from Europe's Sentinel-2 satellite shows the aftermath of an explosion on a test stand at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China. (credit: Sentinel Hub EO Browser/CC BY 4.0 )

    Welcome to Edition 6.21 of the Rocket Report!

    Someone is always watching, and it's more difficult than ever to hide bad news. This is one of my mantras as a reporter who will always come down on the side of transparency. We've seen space companies and government agencies in the United States try to downplay setbacks, which, let's face it, are inevitable in the space business. In China, it looks like a recent test-firing of a rocket motor didn't go well. Unsurprisingly, Chinese officials haven't said a thing.

    As always, we welcome reader submissions , and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

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      How Huawei made a cutting-edge chip in China and surprised the US

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 30 November - 14:37

    montage of logos and chips

    Enlarge (credit: FT)

    In late 2020, Huawei was fighting for its survival as a mobile phone maker.

    A few months earlier, the Trump administration had hit the Chinese company with crippling sanctions, cutting it off from global semiconductor supply chains.

    The sanctions prevented anyone without a permit from making the chips Huawei designed, and the company was struggling to procure new chips to launch more advanced handsets.

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      2023 has been another year with a record number of orbital launches

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 29 November - 23:18

    A solid-fueled Ceres 1 rocket, developed by the Chinese company Galactic Energy, fires away from an ocean-going launch platform in the Yellow Sea on September 5.

    Enlarge / A solid-fueled Ceres 1 rocket, developed by the Chinese company Galactic Energy, fires away from an ocean-going launch platform in the Yellow Sea on September 5. (credit: Chen Xiao/VCG via Getty Images )

    Led by SpaceX and China, the world's launch providers have put more rockets and payloads into orbit so far in 2023 than in any prior year, continuing an upward trend in launch activity over the last five years.

    On Sunday, the Transportation Security Administration reported that it screened more than 2.9 million airline passengers making their way through US airports after Thanksgiving. It was the busiest day in history for US airports.

    A few days earlier, the world's spaceports set a new record with the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with another batch of Starlink Internet satellites from Florida. This launch on November 22 was the 180th launch of 2023 to put its payload into orbit, eclipsing the mark of 179 successful orbital launches from last year.

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