China is catching up to the United States in the ongoing rivalry for the top spot as the global leader in artificial intelligence (AI), research from a top think tank on science and technology revealed on Monday.
Despite the US leading in the development and implementation of AI, China is quickly rising and the European Union is lagging behind the former two, the report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation found.
According to the 2020 report, the US holds the leading position at 44.6 out of 100 points, with China catching up at 32 points and the EU at 23.3 points, respectively.
While the US leads in startup investment and research and development (R&D), China was making significant progress and held the largest number of supercomputers in the world at 214, compared to 113 and 91 in the US and EU, respectively
“The Chinese government has made AI a top priority and the results are showing. The United States and European Union need to pay attention to what China is doing and respond, because nations that lead in the development and use of AI will shape its future and significantly improve their economic competitiveness, while those that fall behind risk losing competitiveness in key industries,” Daniel Castro, ITIF innovation centre director and lead report author said as quoted by the South China Morning Post.
But the EU was behind in investments, including venture capital and private equity funding, but scored higher in the number of published research papers compared with the US, the report added.
China, the EU and US had published 24,929, 20,418 and 16,233 reports on AI in 2018, respectively, it read.
The EU’s AI capabilities had also been diminished by the United Kingdom’s exit from the bloc “both in absolute terms and on a per-capita basis”, the report added.
China Steps Up Made in 2025 Initiative, Funding Amid Trade War
The report comes amid China’s increased efforts to invest in emerging technologies via a $1.4tn initiative in line with the State Council’s Made in China programme aimed at decoupling the mainland from foreign technologies. The plan will invest in new technologies in AI, semiconductors, green energy, 5G and infrastructure, among many others, over the next five years.
The news follows Washington’s acrimonious trade war with Beijing under the Trump administration, who restricted numerous Chinese tech firms from access to US technologies, including major chipmakers and software firms in May 2019.
The former Trump administration also blacklisted key Chinese firms such as Huawei, ZTE, Shanghai-based chipmaker SMIC, and over 70 others in recent months, citing national security concerns, which Beijing has repeatedly refuted as false.
Washington also blocked access to Beijing-based tech firm Xiaomi and telcos such as China Unicom, China Mobile and China Telecom in a last-ditch effort for US president Donald Trump to expand his administration’s trade war before leaving office.
The European Union has announced that, despite regarding Juan Guaido as a “privileged interlocutor”, it no longer considers him an interim president of Venezuela.
The 27 members of the block said in a joint statement that Guaido is a part of the democratic opposition, despite a recent European Parliament’s resolution for EU governments to maintain Guaido’s position as head of state.
“The EU repeats its calls for… the freedom and safety of all political opponents, in particular representatives of the opposition parties elected to the National Assembly of 2015, and especially Juan Guaido,” the statement said following a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
Last week, Guaido thanked the European Parliament for recognising him as president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, arguing that the 2020 parliamentary elections were fraudulent.
The EU, however, stopped referring to Guaido as the Venezuela’s “acting president” after his National Assembly leadership mandate expired earlier this month.
The European Union recognised Juan Guaido as president of Venezuela in January 2019, following calls from Washington to declare him as head of state.
While the Trump administration had unsuccessfully sought to put pressure on the international community to replace Maduro, Joe Biden had already said that he would be willing to “negotiate” with Maduro to put an end to the ongoing political and economic crisis , adding that he isn’t going to demand the Venezuelan president’s resignation as a precondition to ending US sanctions.
WHO has partnered with the German Government to deliver medical supplies worth 3.65 million euros to countries in the Western Balkan region. These supplies – 334 ventilators and 19 400 pulse oximeters – will equip health facilities to monitor and improve the health outcomes of COVID-19 patients, particularly in intensive care units.
The shipments were distributed at the end of 2020 to hospitals across the 5 countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, as well as Kosovo (in accordance with UN Security Council resolution 1244 (1999)). All these materials meet WHO quality and safety standards to keep frontline health care workers and patients safe and prevent the spread of COVID-19. They will serve the immediate needs of countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as strengthen the capacities of hospitals for future health emergencies.
“Equity and solidarity are at the core of everything WHO does,” says Dr Dorit Nitzan, WHO Regional Emergency Director for Europe. “One of our main roles in this pandemic has been to assist countries in their response efforts, taking stock of international capacity and resources, and we are extremely grateful to see many forms of solidarity in action.” This donation was made possible through a very good cooperation between Germany, the Western Balkan countries and WHO and we are grateful for it.”
“As Europe continues to fight against the COVID-19 virus, no one is safe until everyone is, and European solidarity is key,” says Susanne Baumann, Head of the Federal Foreign Office’s Directorate-General for International Order, the United Nations and Arms Control. “This is why the German Government committed to provide tangible support to countries in the Western Balkans, equipping them with life-saving equipment to strengthen our collective response. This delivery follows previous supply provision and has happened in close collaboration with WHO.”
WHO remains a committed partner supporting governmental efforts to strengthen preparedness and response for COVID-19 and beyond.
… overtook fossil fuels as the European Union‘s main source of … : Electricity production share (%) in EU 27 – https:/… overall electricity demand in the EU last year, but the impact …
Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is a victim of state-sponsored persecution in Pakistan for the last many decades and a number of Ahmadis are prisoner of conscience for their religious beliefs. Recently, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority of the Pakistan Government has enacted new regulations that would extend the reach of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws to even Ahmadi Muslims living outside of Pakistan, including Europe and the United States.
On December 25, 2020, PTA issued takedown notices to Google and Wikipedia to remove content associated with the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. The Pakistan Government is (1) requiring Wikipedia to remove articles portraying the worldwide head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, His Holiness Mirza Masroor Ahmad, as a Muslim; and (2) requiring Google to remove a Google play app published by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, which provides Arabic and English translations of the Qur’an, and (3) requiring Google to change their algorithm for the search queries “Khalifa of Islam” and “Caliph of Islam”. PTA has threatened penalties and prosecution for non-compliance.
On December 30, 2020, the Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court heard a petition “Seeking Removal of Qadiyani [Ahmadi] Caliph name as Muslims Caliph from Google Search.” The Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court instructed high-ranking federal officials to find a way to issue criminal warrants for any individuals or entities outside Pakistan who are publishing online content deemed “blasphemous” by Pakistani authorities. The PTA Chairman assured the Chief Justice that his agency was working tirelessly toward this goal.
It is astonishing to note here that neither the Lahore High Court nor PTA
has any authority of policing anyone who is not subject to their jurisdiction.
Pakistan is acting in complete disregard of its international human rights commitments to protect the basic human rights of Ahmadi Muslims, and if concrete steps are not taken for compelling Pakistan to fulfil its international obligations, state-backed vigilantism will harm all peaceful religious communities living in Pakistan.
Source : Web: www.hrcommittee.org – Address: International Human Rights Committee – 22 Deer Park Rd, London, SW19 3TL
Are you ready for yellow mealworm finger foods, with mealworms coated in icing sugar? Perhaps chocolate would be best, given that mealworms are said to taste a little like peanuts. How about a smoothie? Or would you just settle for the powder form, to be used in baking? This is the new reality now that the European Union has declared mealworms as safe for human consumption.
The declaration has been made by the EU food safety agency, as reported by The Guardian. This came about after a French insect-for-food production company Agronutris requested approval. This decision means that mealworms will shortly be appearing on grocery store shelves.
One of twelve winning designs from the ‘New symbol for Europe’ competition. Design by Rachel Graham
Rachel Graham
The safety panel concluded: “There are no safety concerns regarding the stability of the novel food (NF) if the NF complies with the proposed specification limits during its entire shelf life.”
Agronutris is biotech company specializing in rearing and transforming insects into proteins for animal nutrition. To add to the recommended array of animals, humans can now be added.
According to Bloomberg, Arcluster predicts that the insects-as-food-market will grow tenfold to exceed $4.1 billion globally by 2025. This is due to insects emerging as a more sustainable source of protein. This is due to the lower environmental impact. In addition, many insect farms are starting to attract high-levels of venture-capital financing. As reviewed by Wired, there are three primary outputs from insect farming. These are: Protein, fats and insect manure (called frass, used as a fertiliser). It is with protein that the biggest profits can be made.
What are mealworms?
Mealworms are the larval form of the mealworm beetle, Tenebrio molitor. This is a species of darkling beetle. The life-stages are: Egg, larva, pupa, and adult beetle. T. molitor is a pest of grain, flour and food stores.
Meal-worms consume Styrofoam, which could be the answer for biodegrading plastic and Styrofoam products.
Yu Yang, Et. Al.
What is of interest in terms of the food source are the larvae. This form measures approximately 2.5 cm in length. The numbers are plentiful; over its lifetime the female beetle lays around 500 eggs. In the industrial context, for making pet food, companies specializing in this field often add a juvenile hormone to the feed of the worm. This helps to hold the mealworm in the larval stage. Hormone additives can also help the larvae to grow slightly bigger.
Source of nutrients
The mealworm’s main components are protein, fat, and fibre (chitin). The reason there is a level of interest is because the mealworm provides a sustainable and low carbon-emission source of food and one that might help with sustainability projects and reduce the reliance upon rearing animals for food, plus the environmental impact that goes with this.
Fried crickets, roasted cockroach, honey-flavoured ants, mealworm and chocolate coated popcorn are now available to try and buy in Australia’s cities — and while the cuisine remains a novelty, there are signs it is growing in popularity
ANDREW MURRAY, AFP
Mealworms have been eaten for centuries in many Asian countries. However, in other parts of the world the idea is not popular. This could be about to change.
One driver is the nutrient value. With each 100 grams of raw mealworm larvae, this contains 206 calories and up to 25 grams of protein. Essential minerals consist of potassium, copper, sodium, selenium, iron and zinc. Researchers also found levels of vitamin B12 to be 1.08 µg/100 g for the yellow mealworm.
This rich array of nutrients is not found in all insects. The nutritional values of edible insects are highly variable, not least because of the wide variety of species.
Solving world hunger
Entomophagy (or anthropo-entomophagy) describes the practice of eating insects and it has advocates in relation to overall nutrient value, solving hunger and tackling climate change. It is estimate there are some 1,900 edible insect species worldwide.
Tackling hunger crises in South Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria and Yemen requires $4.4 billion – UN.
UN - UNICEF/Rich
A greater consumption of insects not only has environmental adherents, but there are also advocates who argue that a greater consumption of insects can help to address world hunger. For instance, the United nations published a report called ‘Edible Insects’ in 2013. This report set put the case for insects to provide enough food for a growing population–insects are a great source of protein.
Allergic reactions
Not everyone can consume mealworms. Aside from vegetarians and vegans, for those with a prawn or dust mite allergy, there are some risks in a similar reaction occurring when the mealworm larvae are digested. This is either in complete or powder form.
Prawns are both sold directly and to other distributors as a result of this slave labor.
Thamizhpparithi Maari
Furthermore, there have been several cases of skin reaction, eye itching or asthma have been related when people were in contact with mealworms.
Safety issues
A typical freezer
by magnetisch
To make pet food, mealworms are often killed by freezing. However, with those insects destined for human consumption these are first sterilized in hot water and then are refrigerated or freeze-dried. However, global regulations will vary.
Essential Science
This article forms part of Digital Journal’s long-running Essential Science series, where new research items relating to wider science stories of interest are presented by Dr. Tim Sandle on a weekly basis.
Marine debris litters a beach on Laysan Island in the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge, where it washed ashore.
Susan White / US Fish and Wildlife Service (CC BY 2.0)
Last week, looking at COVID-19 from an environmental perspective, we asked what has been the effect of the pandemic upon the environment? The results, we found, were mixed, depending upon which aspect of ecology is examined.
The week before we considered the six COVID-19 vaccines for which certain national regulatory authorities have authorized the use, plus the many potential COVID-19 vaccine candidates currently in development. With this level of activity, we posed and answered the question: How are these vaccines developed?
The European Union’s Ambassador to Israel, Emanuele Giaufret, congratulated Ambassador Eitan Na’eh on Sunday evening for the opening of Israel’s newly opened Embassy in Abu-Dhabi.
“Normalization will benefit regional stability,” Giaufret added in a tweet.
PARIS — Romain Rozier’s cafe should be bankrupt by now.
Since the coronavirus hit last spring, sales at the once buzzing lunch spot in northern Paris are down 80 percent. The only customers on a recent day were a couple of UberEats couriers and a handful of people spaced far apart at the counter, ordering takeout.
“We’re at death’s door,” Mr. Rozier said, tallying the 300 euros ($365) he had made from the lunch shift, well below the €1,200 he used to pull in. “The only reason we haven’t gone under is because of financial aid.”
France and other European countries are spending enormous sums to keep businesses afloat during the worst recession since World War II. But some worry they’ve gone too far; bankruptcies are plunging to levels not seen in decades.
While the aid has prevented a surge in unemployment, the largess risks turning swaths of the economy into a kind of twilight zone where firms are swamped with debt they cannot pay off but receiving just enough state aid to stay alive — so-called zombie companies. Unable to invest or innovate, these firms could contribute to what the World Bank recently described as a potential “lost decade” of stagnant economic growth caused by the pandemic.
“We need to get off of all of these subsidies at some point — otherwise, we’ll have a zombie economy,” said Carl Bildt, co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former prime minister of Sweden.
Bankruptcies fell 40 percent last year in France and Britain, and were down 25 percent on average in the European Union. Without government intervention, including billions in state-backed loans and subsidized payrolls, European business failures would have almost doubled last year, according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private American organization.
At the Commercial Court of Paris, Judge Patrick Coupeaud, who has handled bankruptcy cases for nearly a decade, sees the difference. “I have about a third fewer people coming to me, because many troubled businesses are being helped by the state,” he said, gesturing to the court’s nearly empty colonnaded marble halls.
By contrast, Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings in the United States rose in the third quarter to the highest level since the 2010 financial crisis, a trend that is expected to continue in 2021, according to an index compiled by the U.S. law firm Polsinelli.
President Biden has proposed a new $1.9 trillion rescue package to combat the economic downturn and the Covid-19 crisis, and last week, the government reported that 900,000 Americans had filed new unemployment claims.
Those statistics are shaping a debate over whether Europe’s strategy of protecting businesses and workers “at all costs” will cement a recovery, or leave economies less competitive and more dependent on government aid when the pandemic recedes.
“Parts of the misery have only been delayed,” said Bert Colijn, chief eurozone economist at the Dutch bank ING. He added that there would be “a catch-up in bankruptcies” and a spike in unemployment whenever support measures were withdrawn.
Analysts say the government programs are already seeding the economy with thousands of inefficient businesses with low productivity, high debt and a high prospect of default once low interest rates normalize.
An estimated 10 percent of companies in France were saved from bankruptcy because of government funds, according to Rexecode, a French economic think tank.
Letting unviable businesses go under, while painful, will be essential for allowing competitive sectors to thrive, said Jeffrey Franks, the head of the International Monetary Fund’s mission for France.
A wave of bankruptcies “is not something that’s necessarily so bad,” he said. “It’s part of the normal creative destruction process of regenerating economies.”
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is urging governments to fine-tune their support measures to ensure a revival in growth. “Failure to do so could hinder the recovery by trapping resources in nonproductive ‘zombie firms’ and jobs,” the organization said in a recent assessment.
Most European governments planned to end support last autumn, figuring the coronavirus would be under control. But a second wave of cases has filled hospitals, followed by faster-spreading variants of the virus, all leading to extensions in aid. The European Union late last year approved a recovery package worth €2 trillion.
In France, the investments are seen as a way of buying social stability by preventing mass unemployment. The finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, has pledged to maintain the support “as long as the crisis lasts,” a strategy that he described as adding “spirituality” to the economy.
Almost no businesses are being left out of the largess if they lobby hard enough — not even French escargot farmers, who recently won a battle for limited financial aid while restaurants that are their main buyers stay closed.
As governments’ Covid debts skyrocket, European fiscal rules have been suspended. France is among several countries declaring that they don’t plan to pay down the enormous bill until the economy has mended.
For now, financial aid is preventing the collapse of many once-healthy firms whose main misfortune was the pandemic. At the Paris Commercial Court, Judge Coupeaud said the measures had helped avoid a domino effect by encouraging businesses to use state-backed loans and other aid to pay suppliers and debts.
France’s bankruptcy system is unlike those in other countries, in that it encourages troubled companies to come forward before default and offers help in negotiating with creditors.
“Failure is not a word that the French like to use,” said Dominique-Paul Vallée, the judge at the court in charge of helping business owners avoid bankruptcy. “We prefer to say we are saving companies.” He added that there had been a sharp rise in firms going to him for help.
Those that did file for bankruptcy protection in 2020 tended to be big companies with large work forces, such as the retailer Camaïeu, with 3,900 workers, and Alinea, a furniture maker with 2,000 employees. That was a shift from the small and medium-size business cases that the court typically hears.
Still, the safety net extends only so far. Countless businesses face mounting debts, declining profitability and a limited capacity to invest the longer the pandemic lasts.
Mr. Rozier is a case in point. He started his organic-themed cafe, Make Your Lunch, in 2016 in a bustling business and cultural district. The concept was so successful that he opened a second cafe near the high-traffic Paris Opera.
After the pandemic hit, business plunged as offices that housed thousands of workers stood empty and remained largely unoccupied most of the year.
The government helped pay the bulk of his employees’ salaries, and Mr. Rozier got a low-interest €30,000 state-backed loan with payments deferred until May, which the government last week extended for a year. After a new national lockdown in October, restaurants like his got an additional €10,000 a month in direct aid.
But that money hasn’t made up for months of lost sales. “My treasury is drained,” said Mr. Rozier, who sold his cafe near the opera in the summer and spent much of the government loan paying off suppliers. With 80 percent fewer clients, he is three months behind on his €4,000 monthly rent, and he struggles to pay social security taxes, electricity and other expenses.
The government allows restaurants to offer takeout only. Mr. Rozier has become an unofficial spokesman for restaurant owners who demand that the government let them seat patrons again, with social distancing, to survive.
After the New Year’s holiday break, he said, his morale slumped when he reopened the business.
“I waited. And I waited. And three people came in the door,” Mr. Rozier said.
“At this point, there is a real danger I will have to close within a couple of months,” he continued. “I’d rather sell the business than have to go to bankruptcy court.”
Two of his friends, also restaurant owners, have already declared bankruptcy.
“There are many more that will follow in their footsteps,” Mr. Rozier said. “That we know for sure.”
Thousands of care workers in the UK risk being criminalised and losing their right to work overnight, according to a new report that issues a stark warning about a lack of knowledge of the EU settlement scheme.
The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) warns that the care sector faces being “devastated” at a time when it has already been brought to its knees by the coronavirus pandemic, as a large cohort of its workforce are unaware that they need to apply for settled status.
The EU settlement scheme allows EU citizens and their family members living in Britain to apply for a new post-Brexit immigration status. They have until the end of June 2021 to apply, and if they fail to do so they will lose their legal right to reside in the UK and become liable to removal.
Nearly 4.9 million people have so far applied under the scheme, but the total number of EU nationals in Britain is unknown so the Home Office will never know if all those who are eligible to apply have done so. The report warns that even a small fraction of people do not apply, tens or hundreds of thousands of people could lose their immigration status.
The research, which is based on an online survey and in-person interviews with 295 EU care workers, reveals that one in seven surveyed online did not know or were not sure what the EU settlement scheme was, and that one in three were not aware of the deadline.
The figures for those surveyed in-person were more stark, with one in three unaware of the scheme and more than 50 per cent not knowing when the deadline was.
The care industry, which has suffered severe cuts in recent years, employs around 250,000 non-UK nationals who make up 16 per cent of the workforce – 113,000 of whom are EU citizens.
Campaigners said the lack of awareness about the EU settlement scheme stemmed from a number of factors, including a lack of outreach work by the Home Office and a shortage of support to help people apply – which has been further reduced by the loss of face-to-face contact during the pandemic.
Susana Auger, a Portuguese care worker living in Chippenham, who has applied for and been granted settled status, told The Independent that while she was fortunate to have had the skills and support to do so, many of her colleagues did not.
The 49-year-old, who has been in Britain since 2013 and lives with her British husband, said she was not surprised by the report’s findings, citing poor English language skills, a lack of support and inability to access a smartphone as barriers to care workers applying to the scheme.
“There are a lot of care agencies out there that just want the profit. They won’t help the carers to apply for settlement, they are there to make money, and the carers have to sort out their own problems,” she said.
“There are small networks of support here and there, but a lot of people don’t know about them. Lots of people in the sector don’t speak English, which presents another barrier. And many of the houses live-in carers live and work in don’t have broadband, so they can’t access the internet – especially now that most libraries, cafes and pubs are closed.”
Ms Auger called on ministers to improve outreach support for care workers to ensure people apply, adding: “They could do that if they wanted to, and I think they will want the carers to continue to work here. There aren’t enough carers here as it is.”
The Home Office has provided up to £17m to 72 charities across the UK to support people applying to the scheme, but the JCWI said this was “inadequate” and insufficient to meet the need, adding that the reliance on charities and employers to “fill the gaps” was “unrealistic and dangerous”.
Nine in 10 care workers surveyed in-person for the report did not know where to find assistance with the application process, and of those who had received help to apply, 77 per cent said this support was a “quite” or “very” important part of the process.
Karolina Gerlich, executive director of the Care Workers’ Charity, pointed out that the Covid-19 crisis meant the care sector had little time to support and inform employees about the scheme, and workers themselves had little time to think about it.
“This kind of thing isn’t at the forefront of people’s minds. Care workers are working beyond their capacity all the time at the moment because there’s just so much to do. Brexit on top of Covid is already very bad timing, so capacity is particularly low at the moment,” she said.
“The scheme should be extended because we need to give people time to be able to do everything.”
Under the government’s new post-Brexit immigration system, there is a mandatory requirement for visa applicants to have a job offer on a list of eligible occupations, with a minimum salary requirement of £20,480 – meaning most foreign care workers are not eligible.
The report calls on the government to lift the deadline to beyond June in order to ensure care workers do not lose their legal status and rights, and recommends that every EU citizen and family member resident in the UK before the end of December 2020 is granted automatic settled status.
It goes on to warn that the problems are not unique to care workers but will affect EU citizens from all walks of life, particularly those who are vulnerable, including older and disabled people, survivors of domestic abuse, looked-after children, homeless people and Roma communities.
Caitlin Boswell, author of the report and EU citizens project officer at JCWI, said that with the scheme’s deadline less than six months away and the UK still in the middle of a pandemic, ministers must “act now” to prevent EU citizens from losing their right to live in the UK and “providing the services we so rely on”.
She added: “This includes thousands of care workers and others who have worked tirelessly throughout the past year, putting their lives and their families’ lives on the line to get us through this crisis.
“The window of time for EU citizens to apply to the scheme was already extremely short and now Covid has used up around half of that. It couldn’t be more urgent that the government lift the deadline, otherwise tens of thousands of EU citizens face losing their right to remain in June.”
Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said the findings were “worrying” and should serve as a “wake-up call” for the Home Office, warning that failure to extend the deadline and renew its effort to raise awareness among care agencies and staff would “risk making an already very difficult situation in social care even worse”.
“Our care system was in bad shape before the pandemic arrived and has taken a terrible hammering over the last ten months. And with more than a hundred thousand vacancies in the care workforce the contributions of European care workers are vital – we need every good care professional we can get,” she added.
Minister for future borders and immigration Kevin Foster said:“This report presents an incredibly misleading picture of the EU settlement scheme it paints given it relies on a small survey of less than 300 people conducted a year ago, since then millions of applications have been received by the scheme.”
UK news in pictures
Show all 50
“We have now had almost 4.9 million applications to the hugely successful EU settlement scheme which is terrific news. There is now less than six months before the 30 June 2021 deadline and I would encourage all those eligible to apply now to secure their rights under UK law.
“A wide range of support is available online and over the telephone if you need it and we are funding 72 organisations across the UK to ensure no one gets left behind.”
… World Bank Group, and the European Union signed today a grant agreement … in September 2018 with the European Union to strengthen public financial management … ;s institutions”, said Martin Huth, European Union Ambassador to Iraq.
The project …
