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Author: AFP

  • UK girl’s hearing restored after groundbreaking Gene Therapy

    UK girl’s hearing restored after groundbreaking Gene Therapy

    An 18-month old British girl who was born completely deaf is believed to be the youngest person to have their hearing restored after undergoing groundbreaking new gene therapy.

    Several medical teams around the world including in China and the United States have been trialling similar treatments with good results for hereditary deafness that focuses on a rare genetic mutation.

    But UK ear surgeon Manohar Bance said the toddler, Opal, was the first person in the world to receive therapy developed by US biotech firm Regeneron and “the youngest globally that’s been done to date as far as we know”.

    Opal was treated at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, part of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, in eastern England.

    Bance called the results of Opal’s surgery “spectacular –- so close to normal hearing restoration. So we do hope it could be a potential cure”.

    He said it came on the back of decades of work and marked “a new era in the treatment of deafness”.

    The little girl, from Oxfordshire in south central England, has a genetic form of auditory neuropathy, which is caused by the disruption of nerve impulses travelling from the inner ear to the brain.

    Auditory neuropathy can be caused by a fault in the OTOF gene, which is responsible for making a protein called otoferlin. This enables cells in the ear to communicate with the hearing nerve.

    To overcome the fault, the “new era” gene therapy from Regeneron delivers a working copy of the gene to the ear.

    Bance said that following surgery last September, Opal’s hearing was now “close to normal” with further improvement expected.

    A second child received the gene therapy in Cambridge with positive results seen six weeks after the surgery.

    China has been working on targeting the same gene though Bance said theirs used a different technology and slightly different mode of delivery.

    Medics in Philadelphia have also reported a good outcome with a type of gene therapy on an 11-year-old boy.

    Opal was the first person to take part in a gene therapy trial being carried out in Cambridge by Bance.

    The trial consists of three parts, with three deaf children, including Opal, receiving a low dose of gene therapy in one ear only.

    A different set of three children will get a high dose on one side. Then, if that is shown to be safe, more children will receive a dose in both ears at the same time.

    Up to 18 youngsters from the UK, Spain and the United States are being recruited for the trial and will be followed up for five years.

    Bance said the current treatment for auditory neuropathy was implanted.

    “My entire life, gene therapy has been ‘five years away’… to finally see something that actually worked in humans… It was quite spectacular and a bit awe-inspiring really,” he said.

  • Actor Bernard Hill who played Theoden, King of Rohan in the Lord of the Rings trilogy dies at 79

    Actor Bernard Hill who played Theoden, King of Rohan in the Lord of the Rings trilogy dies at 79

    British actor Bernard Hill, best known for his supporting roles in Titanic and The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, died on Sunday aged 79, his agent announced.

    He played Captain Edward Smith in the Oscar-winning 1997 epic romance Titanic, and earned worldwide recognition playing Theoden, King of Rohan, in two of the three The Lord Of The Rings films directed by Peter Jackson.

    His agent Lou Coulson confirmed his death in the early hours of Sunday to British media outlets.

    Early in his career, Hill featured in the BBC’s 1982 acclaimed drama Boys from the Blackstuff, which won numerous awards and is still lauded as one of the finest examples of its genre from the era.

    He is set to return to television screens in series two of a contemporary BBC drama, The Responder, starring Martin Freeman, which begins airing in the UK later on Sunday.

  • Security guard shot outside rapper Drake’s home

    Security guard shot outside rapper Drake’s home

    Canadian police on Tuesday were investigating a pre-dawn shooting at the home of superstar rapper Drake, whose sprawling property in a tony Toronto neighbourhood remained cordoned off.

    Police inspector Paul Krawczyk said a security guard at the mansion on The Bridle Path road was taken to hospital with serious injuries sustained from an apparent gunshot wound after suspects in a vehicle opened fire.

    The shooting, captured on grainy security camera footage that has not been released to the public, happened at 2:09am. The guard was standing outside the gates in front of the residence when the shooting occurred, Krawczyk told reporters.

    “I cannot confirm if Drake was home at the time the incident occurred, but I can tell you that we are in contact with his team and they are cooperating,” the inspector added. He said the suspects fled in the vehicle, but no descriptions were offered.

    Police taped off most of the area. Several small orange markers, believed to indicate locations of shell casings, could be seen scattered on the road’s edge in front of the mansion.

  • World sweltered as April smashed global heat records

    World sweltered as April smashed global heat records

    April marked another “remarkable” month of record-breaking global air and sea surface temperature averages, according to a new report by the EU’s climate monitor published on Wednesday.

    The abnormally warm conditions came despite the continued weakening of the El Nino weather phenomenon that contributes to increased heat, said the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, pointing to human-caused climate change for exacerbating the extremes.

    Record heat

    Since June last year, every month has been the warmest such period on record, according to Copernicus.

    April 2024 was no exception, clocking in at 1.58 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.

    “While unusual, a similar streak of monthly global temperature records happened previously in 2015/16,” Copernicus said.

    The average temperature over the last 12 months was also recorded at 1.6C above pre-industrial levels, surpassing the 1.5C target set by the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming.

    The anomaly does not mean the Paris target has been missed, which is calculated over a period of decades.

    But it does signal “how remarkable the global temperature conditions we are currently experience are”, Copernicus climatologist Julien Nicolas told AFP.

    Last month was the second warmest April ever recorded in Europe, as was March and the entire winter period.

    Diverging extremes

    Swathes of Asia from India to Vietnam have been struck by scorching heat waves in recent weeks, while southern Brazil has suffered deadly flooding.

    “Each additional degree of global warming is accompanied by extreme weather events, which are both more intense and more likely,” Nicolas said.

    Diverging extremes in the form of floods and droughts peppered the planet in April.

    Much of Europe saw a wetter April than usual, although southern Spain, Italy and the western Balkans were drier than average, Copernicus reported.

    Heavy rain resulted in flooding over parts of North America, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf.

    While eastern Australia was hit with heavy rains, the bulk of the country experienced drier than normal conditions, as did northern Mexico and around the Caspian Sea.

    Warmer oceans

    The natural El Nino pattern, which warms the Pacific Ocean and leads to a rise in global temperatures, peaked earlier this year and was headed towards “neutral condition” in April, Copernicus said.

    Still, the average sea surface temperatures broke records in April for the 13th consecutive month.

    Warming oceans threaten marine life, contribute to more humidity in the atmosphere and puts at risk its crucial role in absorbing planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions.

    Climate forecasts suggest the second half of the year could even see a transition to La Nina, which lowers global temperatures, Nicolas said, “but conditions are still rather uncertain”.

    The end of El Nino does not mean an end to high temperatures.

    More records

    “The extra energy trapped into the ocean and the atmosphere by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases will keep pushing the global temperature towards new records,” Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo said in a statement.

    The UN already in March warned that there was a “high probability” that 2024 would see record temperatures, while 2023 capped off a decade of record heat, pushing the planet “to the brink”.

    It was “still a little early” to predict whether new records would continue to be broken, Nicolas said, given that 2023 was exceptional.

  • TikTok challenges potential US ban in court

    TikTok challenges potential US ban in court

    Washington (AFP) – TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance filed a legal challenge against the United States on Tuesday, taking aim at a law that would force the app to be sold or face a US ban.

    This comes around two weeks after President Joe Biden signed a bill giving TikTok 270 days to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a ban in the country.

    The video-sharing platform argues that this was unconstitutional.

    “For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban, and bars every American from participating in a unique online community with more than one billion people worldwide,” said the suit by TikTok and ByteDance.

    The suit, filed at a federal court in Washington, argued that the move violates the First Amendment, charging that “Congress has made a law curtailing massive amounts of protected speech.”

    It also said the divestiture demanded in order for TikTok to keep running in the United States is “simply not possible” — and not on the timeline required.

    The White House can extend the 270-day deadline once, by 90 days. During this period, the app would continue to operate for its roughly 170 million US users.

    ‘Shutdown TikTok’

    ByteDance has said it has no plans to sell TikTok, leaving the lawsuit, which will likely go to the US Supreme Court, as its only option to avoid a ban.

    “There is no question: the Act will force a shutdown of TikTok by January 19, 2025,” the lawsuit said, “silencing (those) who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere.”

    TikTok first found itself in the crosshairs of former president Donald Trump’s administration, which tried unsuccessfully to ban it.

    That effort got bogged down in the courts when a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s attempt, saying the reasons for banning the app were likely overstated and that free speech rights were in jeopardy.

    The new effort signed by Biden was designed to overcome the same legal headaches and some experts believe the US Supreme Court could be open to allowing national security considerations to outweigh free speech protection.

    “TikTok has prevailed in its previous First Amendment challenges, but the bipartisan nature of this federal law may make judges more likely to defer” to Congress and arguments over national security, said Gautam Hans, professor of law at Cornell University.

    “Without public discussion of what exactly the risks are, however, it’s difficult to determine why the courts should validate such an unprecedented law,” Hans added.

    The United States has strict limits on foreign ownership of broadcast media, but authorities have until now left internet platforms largely untouched.

    TikTok had taken a series of measures to assuage concerns that the data of US users was unprotected, but the lawsuit said those efforts were ignored by the government.

    There are serious doubts that any buyer could emerge to purchase TikTok even if ByteDance would agree to the request.

    Big tech’s usual suspects, such as Meta or YouTube’s Google, will likely be barred from snapping up TikTok over antitrust concerns, and others could not afford one of the world’s most successful apps for a key demographic.

    There are also doubts that the company would ever give up the secrets of its algorithm that saw TikTok become a cultural juggernaut, rivaling YouTube and Instagram for the attention of young people.

  • Iraqi court suspends Kurdistan election preparations

    Iraqi court suspends Kurdistan election preparations

    Iraq’s highest court on Tuesday temporarily suspended preparations for June 10 parliamentary elections in the autonomous northern Kurdistan region, a source of tension between the two main Kurdish parties.

    The Federal Supreme Court suspended procedures related to “the registration of lists of candidates”, while it decides on another case linked to legislative elections in Kurdistan, a statement on the court’s website said.

    Kurdistan’s prime minister, Masrour Barzani, had filed an appeal to the supreme court arguing the “unconstitutionality” of the division of electoral constituencies planned for the vote.

    While awaiting a verdict, Barzani requested “a halt and suspension of the procedures of the electoral commission”.

    “The proceedings are suspended from today until the verdict,” an electoral commission source told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

    The suspension comes amid a long-running conflict between the region’s two historic parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

    The court issued a ruling in February to reduce the number of seats in the Kurdish parliament from 111 to 100, effectively eliminating a quota reserved for Turkmen, Armenian and Christian minorities.

    In response, Barzani’s KDP said it would boycott legislative polls and did not register candidates.

    Since then the KDP pushed for postponement of the June 10 elections, which had initially been scheduled for October 2022, but were pushed back several times.

    The PUK has opposed any delay in holding the elections.

    Tuesday’s verdict comes as Kurdistan’s president, Nechirvan Barzani, is visiting Iranian leaders in Tehran, after meeting senior politicians in Baghdad.

    The KDP is the largest party in the outgoing parliament, with 45 seats against 21 for the PUK.

    The Kurdistan region has been autonomous since 1991, and presents itself as an oasis of stability favourable to foreign investment in Iraq.

    However, activists and opposition figures denounce what they say is corruption, repression of dissident voices and arbitrary arrests in the region.

  • Pro-Palestinian student protests spread in Switzerland

    Pro-Palestinian student protests spread in Switzerland

    Pro-Palestinian protests on Tuesday spread to three universities across Switzerland — inspired by similar student demonstrations that began in the United States.

    For weeks, students around the world have been calling for their universities to cut ties with Israeli institutions over the war in Gaza.

    Students at the University of Lausanne (UNIL) were the first to mobilise in Switzerland, with several hundred occupying a hall Thursday evening to demand an end to partnerships with Israeli universities.

    UNIL responded in a statement that it “considers that there is no reason to cease these relations”. Protesters and the rector will meet later Tuesday.

    On Tuesday, the movement spread to the prestigious EPFL university in Lausanne, where a group of students occupied the university’s hall, an AFP photographer observed.

    The students are demanding “an academic boycott” of Israeli institutions and “an end to censorship at EPFL”, and called on other universities to join in.

    Tens of students protested in the entrance hall of the ETH Zurich shortly before midday on Tuesday, shouting “Free Palestine” and rolling a poster onto the floor that said “no Tech for Genocide” before being removed by police, according to news agency Keystone-ATS.

    In Geneva, the Palestine Student Coordination – University of Geneva (CEP-UnigGe) took over a hall at the university with sofas, chairs and tables around midday, the Swiss agency reported.

    Numerous Palestinian flags and banners were hung on all floors of the building. An assembly is scheduled for Tuesday.

    In a letter to the university’s rector, the group called for “an immediate end to links between the University of Geneva and Israeli universities” and called on the rectorate to encourage the admission of Palestinian students.

    Students across Europe have launched pro-Palestinian protests on campuses in Ireland, France, The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

  • Taylor Swift ready to shake up Europe

    Taylor Swift ready to shake up Europe

    Having shaken four continents, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour finally brings the biggest pop culture icon of the century to Europe from Thursday, starting with a four-night run in Paris.

    Swift has broken almost every record in music, and her sixth tour is no exception.

    The Eras Tour, which began in March 2023, is already the first to sell more than $1 billion in tickets, and is expected to more than double that by the time it concludes in Vancouver this December.

    Swifties in Paris are especially excited to hear songs off her new album, “The Tortured Poets Society”, being performed for the first time.

    Many critics have derided the 31-track album as bloated and mediocre – “a rare misstep” in the words of British music mag NME.

    Such blasphemy leaves her devoted fanbase seeing red –- Paste magazine felt the need to keep their damning review anonymous, knowing all too well how her fans would react.

    But a few bad reviews are unlikely to lead to a cruel summer for Swift – the album sold 1.4 million copies on its first day and broke every streaming record going, reaching a billion streams on Spotify within five days.

    Some 42,000 people will see Swift in Paris before she heads on for dates in Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Britain, Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Poland and Austria.

    Many are travelling a long way – around one in five of the Paris audience is coming from the United States, according to the La Defense Arena where she is performing.

    ECONOMIC JUGGERNAUT

    The 34-year-old’s tour remains a money-making machine beyond the wildest dreams of promoters and venues.

    Research group QuestionPro estimated that last year’s US dates generated $5 billion for the country’s economy. The US Travel Association said the figure may have exceeded $10 billion when hotel rooms, restaurants and other indirect sales were included.

    The La Defense Arena says it has doubled the previous record of merchandise-sellers across its dates.

    The mere mention of a London pub, The Black Dog, on her new album was enough to send a swarm of Swifties to its doors this month, potentially saving the struggling boozer.

    Fans tracked it down after realising it lay close to the home of British actor Joe Alwyn, with whom Swift had a six-year relationship that ended last summer.

    Swift’s tell-all dissections of her love stories have been the fuel powering her global domination, and fans have been pouring over “The Tortured Poets Department” for cryptic clues about Alwyn, her short-but-dramatic fling with Matty Healy (lead singer of The 1975), and her current beau, American football star Travis Kelce.

    “There is something in her music that captures the adolescent desire for a poetic existence, charged with passion, danger and love,” said Satu Hämeenaho-Fox, author of “Into the Taylor-Verse”.

    Soukeyna, a 16-year-old fan travelling up from southwest France for opening night, said Swift gives her “the feeling of being part of a community”.

    “She’s a complete artist who writes her own words, and you really have to listen to the lyrics and understand them, which is something unique,” she added.

  • Al Jazeera to pursue legal action ‘until the end’ over Israel ban

    Al Jazeera to pursue legal action ‘until the end’ over Israel ban

    Doha (AFP) – Al Jazeera will look to pursue all possible legal action “until the end” to challenge Israel’s ban on its operations there, the TV network’s news director told AFP in an interview.

    The Qatar-based station was taken off air in Israel after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government voted on Sunday to shut it down over its coverage of the Gaza war.

    Speaking on Monday, Al Jazeera English news director Salah Nagm said the network would “follow every legal path”, adding: “If there is a possibility of challenging that decision we are going to pursue it until the end.”

    Under a cabinet decision which Netanyahu said was “unanimous”, Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem offices were shuttered, its equipment confiscated and its team’s accreditations pulled.

    “The equipment which was confiscated, the loss that we suffered from stopping our broadcast, all of that is subject matter for legal action,” Nagm said.

    The Israeli government on Sunday said the order was initially valid for 45 days, with the possibility of an extension.

    Hours later, screens in Israel carrying Al Jazeera’s Arabic and English channels went blank, apart from a message in Hebrew saying they had “been suspended in Israel”.

    ‘An action from the 60s’

    The shutdown does not apply to the Israeli-occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip, from which Al Jazeera still broadcasts live on Israel’s war with Hamas.

    Al Jazeera immediately condemned Israel’s decision as “criminal”, saying on social media site X that it “violates the human right to access information”.

    But Najm downplayed the ban’s impact on Al Jazeera’s coverage of the war and on the public’s ability to access its content, even with its website now blocked in Israel.

    “It’s an action from the 60s rather than the 21st century to take such a decision of shutting down,” he said, explaining the channel could rely on other sources for information without “people on the ground”.

    “I know people that have VPN can see us online anytime,” the news director said referring to virtual private networks that establish protected internet connections and can allow users to access the internet as if they were in a different country.

    The decision came after Israel’s parliament last month voted to pass a new national security law granting senior ministers powers to ban broadcasts by foreign channels over threats to security.

    In his statement on Sunday, Netanyahu charged that “Al Jazeera correspondents have harmed the security of Israel and incited against IDF (Israeli military) soldiers”.

    ‘Arbitrary decision’

    But Nagm questioned which Al Jazeera broadcasts the Israeli government considered a security threat, calling the ban an “arbitrary decision”.

    Since the start of the Gaza war, Al Jazeera’s office in the Palestinian territory has been bombed and two of its correspondents killed.

    “Al Jazeera has lost a few people, their families have suffered so that’s really different from other conflicts in this sense,” Nagm said.

    Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh was wounded in an Israeli strike in December that killed the network’s cameraman.

    Dahdouh’s wife, two of their children and a grandson were killed in October in a bombardment of central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp.

    And Dahdouh’s eldest son, an Al Jazeera staff journalist, was killed alongside another journalist in Rafah in January when an Israeli strike targeted the car they were travelling in.

    At least 97 journalists and media workers have been killed since the war began, among them Palestinians, Israelis and Lebanese, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

    “That’s not something that we can just report politely,” Nagm said.

    “We have to be wary and careful and alert the people of the nature of the war that’s going on and how deadly it is for the people and also for us as a profession.”

  • Putin takes oath for record fifth presidential term

    Putin takes oath for record fifth presidential term

    Russian President Vladimir Putin was Tuesday sworn into office at a lavish Kremlin ceremony for a record-breaking fifth term with more power than ever before.

    The 71-year-old has ruled Russia since the turn of the century, securing a fresh six-year mandate in March after winning presidential elections devoid of all opposition.

    ‘Together we will win’: Putin tells Russians at inauguration

    Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia would pass through the current “difficult” period stronger and emerge victorious, as he took power for a record fifth presidential term.

    “We will pass through this difficult period with dignity and become even stronger,” Putin said at his inauguration ceremony, adding: “We are a united and great nation, and together we will overcome all obstacles, realise everything we have planned, and together, we will win.”