TikTok fined $370 million over handling of children’s data in Europe

DUBLIN — TikTok has been fined 345 million euros ($370 million) for breaching privacy laws regarding the processing of children’s personal data in the European Union, its lead regulator in the bloc said on Friday.

The Chinese-owned short-video platform, which has grown rapidly among teenagers around the world in recent years, breached a number of EU privacy laws between July 31, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2020, Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) said in a statement.

It is the first time ByteDance-owned TikTok has been reprimanded by the DPC, the lead regulator in the European Union for many of the world’s top tech firms due to the location of their regional headquarters in Ireland.

A spokesperson for TikTok said it disagreed with the decision, particularly the size of the fine, and that most of the criticisms are no longer relevant as a result of measures it introduced before the DPC’s probe began in September 2021.

3 months to comply

The DPC said TikTok’s breaches included how in 2020 accounts for users under the age of 16 were set to “public” by default and that TikTok did not verify whether a user was actually a child user’s parent or guardian when linked through the “family pairing” feature.

TikTok added tougher parental controls to family pairing in November 2020 and changed the default setting for all registered users under the age of 16 to “private” in January 2021.

TikTok said on Friday it plans to further update its privacy materials to make the differences between public and private accounts clearer and that a private account will be preselected for new 16 to 17-year-old users when they register for the app from later this month.

The DPC gave TikTok three months to bring all its processing into compliance where infringements were found.

It has a second probe open into the transferring by TikTok of personal data to China and whether it complies with EU data law when moving personal data to countries outside the bloc. In March, the DPC said it was preparing a preliminary draft decision into that investigation.

Two-year inquiry

Under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), introduced in 2018, the lead regulator for any given company can impose fines of up to 4 percent of the company’s global revenue.

The DPC has hit other tech giants with big fines, including a combined 2.5 billion euros levied on Meta. It had 22 inquiries open into multinationals based in Ireland at the end of 2022.

The fine is the culmination of a two-year inquiry by the Irish watchdog, which plays a key role in policing the bloc’s strict GDPR.The regulator highlighted in its ruling Friday how children signing up had TikTok accounts set to public by default, meaning anyone could view or comment on their content.

It also criticized TikTok’s “family pairing” mode, which is designed to link parents’ accounts to those of their teenage offspring, but the DPC found the company did not verify parent or guardian status.

17M accounts deleted

TikTok is extremely popular among young people, with 150 million users in the United States and 134 million in the European Union.

In response to the fine, TikTok said it “respectfully disagrees” with the verdict and was “evaluating” how to proceed.

“The DPC’s criticisms are focused on features and settings that were in place three years ago, and that we made changes to well before the investigation even began, such as setting all under 16 accounts to private by default,” a TikTok spokesperson told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The platform insists that it closely monitors the age of its users and takes action when needed.

TikTok says it deleted almost 17 million accounts worldwide in the first three months of this year due to suspicions that they belonged to people under 13 years old.

Friday’s fine comes after the Europen Union last week unveiled a list of digital giants—including Apple, Facebook owner Meta and ByteDance—that will face tough new curbs on how they do business.

Agence France-Presse

Pfizer submits data to US for COVID-19 vaccine in younger children

Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE submitted initial trial data for their COVID-19 vaccine in children aged 5 to 11 to US regulators on Tuesday and said they would make a formal request for emergency use authorization in the coming weeks.

Coronavirus infections have soared in children and hit their highest point in early September, according to data from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The vaccine, which is already authorized in teens aged 12 to 15 and fully approved for ages 16 and up, has been shown to induce a strong immune response in the target age group in a 2,268-participant clinical trial, the companies said on Sept. 20.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was authorized in kids aged 12-15 roughly a month after the companies filed for authorization. If the same timeline is followed for this application, kids could start receiving their shots as soon as late October.

A rapid authorization could help mitigate a potential surge of cases this fall, with schools already open nationwide.

While kids are less susceptible to severe COVID-19, they can spread the virus to others, including vulnerable populations that are more at risk of severe illness. 

-reuters-

UN, World Bank urge schools to remain open amid pandemic

UNITED NATIONS, United States - The UN and World Bank pleaded in a new report Wednesday for schools to remain open despite Covid-19 risks, highlighting the damage the pandemic has inflicted on children's education, especially in poor nations. 

Children in impoverished countries have been deprived of close to four months of schooling since the pandemic began early this year, while pupils in rich nations benefiting from remote learning have lost six weeks, the report said. 

"Prioritizing reopening schools and providing much-needed catch-up classes are critical," said Robert Jenkins, education chief at the UN children's fund UNICEF. 

"We don't need to look far to see the devastation the pandemic has caused to children's learning across the world," he added in a statement.

The devastation has been magnified in low- and middle-income nations, where there has been a lack of access to distance learning, higher chances of delays for school reopenings and fewer resources to mitigate health risks.

UN cultural agency UNESCO and the World Bank also said it is essential for countries to invest immediately in school systems to reduce the widening gap between the education provided in poor and rich countries because of the pandemic.

The report from UNICEF, UNESCO and the World Bank was based on information collected from nearly 150 nations between June and October.

Agence France-Presse

10 million kids 'may never return to school' after virus

LONDON - The coronavirus pandemic has caused an "unprecedented education emergency" with up to 9.7 million children affected by school closures at risk of never going back to class, Save the Children warned Monday.

The British charity cited UNESCO data showing that in April, 1.6 billion young people were shut out of school and university due to measures to contain COVID-19 -- about 90 percent of the world's entire student population. 

"For the first time in human history, an entire generation of children globally have had their education disrupted," it said in a new report, Save our Education.

It said the economic fall-out of the crisis could force an extra 90 to 117 million children into poverty, with a knock-on effect on school admissions.

With many young people required to work or girls forced into early marriage to support their families, this could see between seven and 9.7 million children dropping out of school permanently.

At the same time, the charity warned the crisis could leave a shortfall of $77 billion in education budgets in low and middle income countries by the end of 2021.

"Around 10 million children may never return to school -- this is an unprecedented education emergency and governments must urgently invest in learning," Save the Children chief executive Inger Ashing said.

"Instead we are at risk of unparalleled budget cuts which will see existing inequality explode between the rich and the poor, and between boys and girls."

The charity urged governments and donors to invest more funds behind a new global education plan to help children back into school when it is safe and until then support distance learning.

"We know the poorest, most marginalized children who were already the furthest behind have suffered the greatest loss, with no access to distance learning -- or any kind of education -- for half an academic year," Ashing said.

Save the Children also urged commercial creditors to suspend debt repayments for low-income countries -- a move it said could free up $14 billion for education programs.

"If we allow this education crisis to unfold, the impact on children's futures will be long lasting," Ashing said.

"The promise the world has made to ensure all children have access to a quality education by 2030, will be set back by years, " she said, citing the United Nations goal.

The report listed 12 countries where children are most at risk of falling behind: Niger, Mali, Chad, Liberia, Afghanistan, Guinea, Mauritania, Yemen, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal and Ivory Coast.

Before the crisis, an estimated 258 million children and adolescents were already missing out on school, the charity said.

Agence France-Presse

Under 20s around half as susceptible to COVID-19, study finds

LONDON - People under 20 are around half as susceptible to COVID-19 as people aged 20 or above, according to research published on Tuesday, and clinical symptoms of the pandemic disease appear in only about a fifth of infections in children and teens.

The research, a modelling study using data from 32 locations China, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Canada and South Korea, found that by contrast, COVID-19 symptoms appear in 69 percent of infections in people aged 70 or older.

The findings suggest that school closures - introduced in many countries as part of lockdowns aimed at controlling the coronavirus pandemic - are likely to have a limited impact on transmission of the disease, the researchers said.

Published in the journal Nature Medicine, the study compared the effect school closures on simulated outbreaks of flu - which is known to spread swiftly in children - and of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

"For COVID-19, there was much less of an effect of school closures," said Rosalind Eggo, an infectious disease modeller at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who co-led the study.

She added, however, that the findings come from simulated outbreaks and need to be reinforced with real-world research.

Using demographic data from the 6 countries, as well as from 6 studies on estimated COVID-19 infection rates and symptom severity across different age groups, the model showed that people under 20 are about half as susceptible to COVID-19 as people over 20, and that among 10 to 19 year-olds, only 21 percent of those infected had clinical symptoms.

The researchers also simulated COVID-19 epidemics in 146 capital cities around the world and found that the total expected number of clinical cases varied with median age.

"The age structure of a population can have a significant impact," said Nicholas Davies, who co-led the work. "Countries with more young people may experience a lower burden of COVID-19."

-reuters-

What we know about the COVID-related syndrome affecting children

For parents, one of the most reassuring aspects of the coronavirus has been that it largely spares children, only causing mild symptoms. But recent reports of a new life-threatening pediatric inflammatory syndrome are worrying many families. Children in Europe, Britain and now the United States are being hospitalized for this mysterious illness, which can harm kids’ hearts and other organs, often requiring intensive care.

According to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, as of May 12, New York was investigating 102 cases of this syndrome and 3 deaths, and cases have been reported in 14 other states so far as well. Thankfully, this new syndrome is still quite rare and it is treatable, and most kids who develop it fully recover. Here’s what parents need to know and what they should do if they’re concerned about their children’s health.

Doctors suspect COVID-19 is involved, but they aren’t certain.

No one knows for sure whether this new syndrome, which is now being called pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or PMIS, is linked to the coronavirus, but many doctors think so. “I do think that this is related to COVID,” said Dr. Eva Cheung, a pediatric cardiologist and critical care specialist at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, which has treated more than 35 patients so far with the syndrome.

The vast majority of children who’ve fallen ill in New York have either tested positive for active COVID-19 infection or have had antibodies suggesting that they were exposed to the virus at some point. A few kids have tested negative for both active infection and antibodies, and it’s unclear what that means. It’s possible that these negative tests were inaccurate, Cheung said, because many coronavirus antibody tests are unreliable.

What’s interesting, though, is that most of the children who have gotten sick — even those whose tests indicated prior coronavirus exposure — did not report having a recent respiratory illness. This suggests that these children were either exposed to the coronavirus but didn’t get sick or that they had very mild symptoms, said Dr. George Ofori-Amanfo, the division chief of pediatric critical care medicine at Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital.

Even if COVID-19 is involved, it’s unclear what happens to make these children so sick.

Ofori-Amanfo suspects that children who develop this syndrome were exposed to the coronavirus and that their bodies for some reason mounted an exaggerated — and ultimately dangerous — immune response, much like the “cytokine storms” that have caused some adults to fall quite ill in the later stages of infection.

They may “have an abnormal and aggressive immune response to COVID — and that immune response is so aggressive that it affects other organ function and affects their ability to maintain their blood pressure,” Ofori-Amanfo said. This may then cause their bodies to go into rapidly progressive shock, requiring medications and, in rare cases, the use of life support to take over the job of their heart and lungs.

Still, doctors stress that no one yet knows for sure what is going on. “We don’t even exactly know what this disease is,” said Dr. Rebecca Pellett Madan, an associate professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

The syndrome has been compared to several known conditions, but it’s probably new.

When it first arose, many doctors noticed that this new syndrome had features similar to Kawasaki disease, a rare condition that typically afflicts children under 5, causing their blood vessels to become inflamed. But although its symptoms are similar, and both are conditions marked by widespread inflammation, most doctors do not think this current syndrome is the same thing as Kawasaki. “They may share features,” Cheung said, but “I truly do think that this is its own syndrome.”

The pediatric inflammatory syndrome also looks a lot like toxic shock syndrome, which occurs when the body goes into shock because it has been exposed to toxins released during bacterial infections. But Ofori-Amanfo said that none of Mount Sinai’s patients had evidence of a bacterial infection in their body, so it was likely that the pediatric inflammatory syndrome, again, looked similar to toxic shock syndrome but was not actually the same thing.

The symptoms are noticeable and serious.

The good news is, the new pediatric inflammatory syndrome is easy to spot; its symptoms are serious enough that parents should be able to notice them. All patients developed a fever of 101 or higher that didn’t go away, said Dr. James Schneider, a pediatric critical care specialist at Cohen Children’s Medical Center in Queens, which has treated more than 40 patients so far with the syndrome.

Cheung agreed, adding that kids with temperatures of 99 or 100 probably aren’t at risk. “That is not what we’ve seen here. The patients that we’ve seen that have needed admission to the hospital have had pretty moderate to high fevers,” she said.

Most kids also develop serious abdominal pain that get progressively worse over time. It’s not a garden-variety kids’ stomachache; it’s serious pain that is often accompanied by vomiting and diarrhea and is “severe enough for the parent to be worried,” said Ofori-Amanfo. For some kids, the pain has been so bad that parents and doctors assumed the child had appendicitis and needed surgery, said Dr. Nadine Choueiter, a pediatric cardiologist at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx.

Many kids with the syndrome — but not all — develop rashes, too. The rashes are red and often appear on the hands, forearms and chest, Ofori-Amanfo said, although they can appear anywhere. They typically turn white when you press on them and then turn red again when you stop. They also usually cover a large area — a child’s entire face, for instance, or a substantial part of their arms or legs. “It’s not like a tiny speck of a rash. It’s pretty diffuse,” Cheung said.

Kids with the syndrome sometimes also have red eyes, cracked lips, a sore tongue and swollen hands and feet; and they might complain of muscle soreness and not want to walk. But these symptoms are not as common as the fever and abdominal pain, doctors said, and some of the symptoms may come and go. “Sometimes the skin and the eye findings kind of wax and wane to the point that one doctor will go in the room and say, ‘I saw a rash,’ and then another doctor goes in the room three hours later, and the rash is entirely different,” Choueiter said.

Doctors haven’t identified any conditions or medical histories that put children at risk for the syndrome — except for coronavirus exposure.

“All our patients have been previously healthy patients, with no underlying illnesses,” Ofori-Amanfo said. Some of the kids who developed the syndrome even had multiple siblings who remained perfectly healthy.

Doctors are also seeing the syndrome in both sexes, but “we are seeing it in slightly more boys than girls — like 60% boys, 40% girls,” Choueiter said. The age range is wide, too; the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore has seen the syndrome in kids from 5 months to 20 years old. It has not been observed in adults.

The one thing that clearly puts children at risk is living in an area with a lot of COVID-19 cases. But again, because kids who get sick with the syndrome didn’t necessarily have any COVID-19 symptoms, it can be hard for parents to know if their children might be at risk.

If your child develops a fever and seems unwell, contact your pediatrician.

If you child has a persistent fever above 101 — and especially if they develop other symptoms consistent with the syndrome, like a bad stomachache — contact your pediatrician. “Ask to speak to them over the phone or do a telemedicine visit and have your pediatrician walk through the steps of what to look for,” Pellett Madan suggested. Cheung agreed, noting that in geographical areas where this syndrome has appeared, hospitals are making sure that local pediatricians know what to look for and what to do.

If your child has a fever but is in good spirits and is eating and drinking and not complaining about pain, you don’t need to rush them to the emergency room, but again, stay in touch with your doctor. On the other hand, if your child really seems unwell — isn’t eating or drinking, doesn’t want to move much and especially if they develop a rash or red eyes along with a high fever — it’s not a bad idea to go directly to the ER, Pellett Madan said.

Remember that this syndrome is rare and that most kids recover.

It’s estimated that hundreds of thousands of children around the country have contracted the coronavirus, and the vast majority only have very mild symptoms. This serious syndrome is “still a very rare occurrence,” Schneider said. Your child is probably going to be fine.

Even the few kids who do go on to develop this inflammatory syndrome usually get better. “Some of them don’t even go to the intensive care unit. They’re with us for a few days, less than a week, and they go home,” Choueiter said. They’re typically treated with what’s called “supportive care” to ease their symptoms: They might get fever reducers to lower their temperature, IV fluids to keep them hydrated, medications to increase blood pressure if it drops, and steroids or other drugs to quell the inflammation. Ultimately, “most of these children do fine,” Choueiter said.

Melinda Wenner Moyer, The New York Times

TikTok violated children's privacy rules, US consumer consent decree: group

WASHINGTON - A group of privacy advocacy organizations is filing a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday alleging that the popular app TikTok violated a consent decree and a law protecting children's privacy online.

The Center for Digital Democracy, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and others said TikTok had failed to take down all videos made by children under the age of 13, as it agreed to do under a consent agreement with the FTC announced in February 2019.

At the time, the FTC said that TikTok, then known as Musical.ly, had known that young children used the app and had failed to get parental consent to collect their names, email addresses and other personal information. It paid a fine of $5.7 million.

But, the privacy advocates said, TikTok failed to delete personal information about users age 12 and younger as they promised as part of the consent agreement.

"We found that TikTok currently has many regular account holders who are under age 13, and many of them still have videos of themselves that were uploaded as far back as 2016, years prior to the consent decree," they said in their complaint.

TikTok's decision to create accounts for children age 12 and under that have less functionality failed to meet requirements of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act because the company still collects information, which it shares with third parties that want it for advertising. Also, children can easily avoid using the kids version of the app by being dishonest about their age, the groups said.

In addition, TikTok fails to post on its homepage an easy-to-find link to its privacy policy, the groups said.

"TikTok continues to be one of the most popular apps in the world, and it is widely used by children and teens in the United States, so it is especially important that the FTC promptly and thoroughly investigate TikTok’s practices and take effective enforcement action," the groups said in their complaint.

Other groups signing on to the complaint include Berkeley Media Studies Group, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Reports and Electronic Privacy Information Center. 

-reuters-

Thunberg donates $100,000 to support children during pandemic

UNITED NATIONS, United States - Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has donated a $100,000 prize she won from a Danish foundation to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) for use against the COVID-19 pandemic, the world body said Thursday.


"Like the climate crisis, the coronavirus pandemic is a child rights crisis," Thunberg, 17, was quoted as saying in the UNICEF statement.

"It will affect all children, now and in the long term, but vulnerable groups will be impacted the most," she added.

"I'm asking everyone to step up and join me in support of UNICEF's vital work to save children's lives, to protect health and continue education."

The Danish anti-poverty non-governmental organization, Human Act, will match the $100,000 donation, the statement added.

UNICEF said the funds would give it a boost as it struggles to support children impacted by anti-virus lockdowns and school closures, particularly in the fields of "food shortages, strained health care systems, violence and lost education."

Thunberg said at the end of March that she had "likely" contracted the coronavirus, after experiencing several symptoms after a trip to central Europe. 

Agence France-Presse

WHO reiterates warning that kids are hit by coronavirus, too

COPENHAGEN - The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday reiterated its warning that children can also be affected by the new coronavirus, which has claimed the lives of several young people.

"The very notion that 'COVID-19 only affects older people' is factually wrong," the head of the WHO's European branch, Hans Kluge, told reporters during an online briefing from Copenhagen.

"Age is not the only risk for severe disease," Kluge insisted.

Severe cases have been reported among teens and young adults, with some requiring intensive care and several deaths, he said.

In Europe, the youngest victim is a 12-year-old girl who died in Belgium. In the United States, a six-week-old baby has died from the virus.

Some 10 to 15 percent of cases detected in people under the age of 50 were a moderate to serious infection, according to the WHO.

However, Kluge noted that "people who age healthily are less at risk."

"There are reports of people over the age of 100 who were admitted to hospital for COVID-19 and have now since made a complete recovery."

The WHO's Europe branch said there were 464,859 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 30,098 deaths in the 53 countries that make up its region.

Some 80 percent of those who died from the virus had at least one underlying illness, in particular cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Kluge said it was of utmost importance "for every age group" to respect hygiene guidelines.

"It is not only an act of solidarity with others, in particular with those most likely to be severely affected, but also vital for your own health and safety."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

More than 850 million students worldwide not at school because of COVID-19 pandemic: UNESCO

PARIS - More than 850 million young people, or about half the world's student population, are barred from their school and university grounds because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, UNESCO said Wednesday.

Calling it an "unprecedented challenge," UNESCO said schools had been closed in 102 countries, with partial closures in 11 more -- with more closures to come.

"Over 850 million children and youth -- roughly half of the world's student population -- had to stay away from schools and universities," the UN educational organization said in a statement.

"This represents more than a doubling in four days in the number of learners prohibited from going to educational institutions," it added, citing figures from late Tuesday.

"The scale and speed of the school and university closures represents an unprecedented challenge for the education sector," it said.

UNESCO said countries worldwide were rushing to fill the void by offering real-time video classes and other high-tech solutions.

Some countries were offering classes over television or radio.

The organization said it was holding regular virtual meetings with education ministers around the world to find the best solutions and determine priorities.

"The current situation imposes immense challenges for countries to be able to provide uninterrupted learning for all children and youth in an equitable manner," it said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Christmas continues

Children enjoy a ride at the Times Square Food park at the Araneta City, Cubao on Friday. Various food stalls and rides are set up at the park for visitors to enjoy this holiday season.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Measles killed more than 140,000 amid stagnating vaccine rates

WASHINGTON—More than 140,000 people died from measles worldwide in 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) and US authorities said Thursday, the result of global vaccination rates that have stagnated for almost a decade.

Poorer countries were hardest hit, with the vast majority of measles cases and deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. 

Wealthier countries however have also been battling their own outbreaks, with 4 European nations losing their "eliminated" status in 2018.

The announcement came as the Pacific island nation of Samoa was locked down in order to carry out a mass vaccination drive to cope with an epidemic that has killed 62 and, according to UN officials, was fuelled by anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories on the internet.

"The fact that any child dies from a vaccine-preventable disease like measles is frankly an outrage and a collective failure to protect the world's most vulnerable children," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus, director-general of the World Health Organization.

"To save lives, we must ensure everyone can benefit from vaccines, which means investing in immunization and quality health care as a right for all."

Most of the deaths occurred among children under the age of 5. Babies and infants are at greatest risk of infection and of developing complications, including pneumonia and brain swelling that can lead to permanent damage, blindness or hearing loss.

About 142,300 people lost their lives to the disease in 2018—a quarter of the number of deaths in 2000, but up 15 percent compared to 2017. There were 9.7 million total cases.

The WHO and UNICEF estimated that 86 percent of children globally received the first dose of measles vaccine in 2018, but fewer than 70 percent received the second recommended dose.

That is far short of the recommended 95 percent vaccination coverage, with 2 doses of measles vaccine deemed necessary to protect populations from the disease.

The 5 worst affected countries, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Liberia, Madagascar, Somalia and Ukraine, accounted for half of all cases worldwide.

But the United States also saw its highest number of cases in 25 years, narrowly avoiding losing its status of having eliminated the disease. The status is lost if an outbreak is sustained continuously for more than a year.

Albania, the Czech Republic, Greece and the United Kingdom meanwhile all lost their eliminated status.

The rise comes as a growing anti-vaccine movement gains steam around the world, driven by fraudulent claims linking the MMR vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella to a risk of autism in children.

A recent study meanwhile showed that contracting the measles virus decimated the protective antibodies responsible for remembering previous encounters with disease: effectively wiping the host's immunity memory.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Santa Claus is in Korean town

South Korean children wearing Santa Claus outfits gather as they await their turn for a performance during a ceremony to launch a year-end fundraising campaign of the Salvation Army at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul on Friday. The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church and charitable organization with presence in over a hundred countries all over the world.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Amazon fires drive spike in child breathing problems in Brazil - study

BRAZIL—The surge in fires in Brazil's Amazon rainforest this year fueled a spike in young children being treated for breathing problems as smoke clouded the air throughout the region, according to a study released on Wednesday.

Roughly 5,000 children aged 9 or younger were treated each month in May and June in 36 areas within Brazil's so-called "arc of deforestation," the area partially encircling the Amazon where destruction of the forest is the highest, according to a study by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, a public health research institute.

That is double the monthly average for the past 10 years, with the study linking the rise to the forest fires.

The study only examined cases for May and June, the latest data available, when the number of fires were slightly higher than the previous year. But that period is well before the surge in August when fires in the Amazon nearly tripled compared to the same period a year ago.

The number of forest fires in the Amazon for the year had surged to their highest point since 2010 by August, drawing global outcry that Brazil was not doing enough to protect the world's largest tropical rainforest.

Environmentalists and researchers say that farmers and others destroying the forest were purposefully setting the fires. Brazil's government sent in the military to fight the fires and launched an investigation into the causes.

Cristovao Barcelos, one of the researchers who wrote the study, said it stands to reason that with the increase of fires starting from July that the number of cases could also show an increase.

"There's a sequence that starts with deforestation, then comes fires and breathing problems," Barcelos said.

In areas recording more fires than usual, a child is 36 percent more likely to develop respiratory problems, the study said. Barcelos added that 2 percent of the children who sought treatment later died.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Two children beaten to death in India for defecating in open

NEW DELHI, India - Two children were beaten to death in India for defecating in the open, police said Thursday, underlining the violence sometimes unleashed to enforce Prime Minister Narendra Modi's flagship cleanliness drive.

The children from the Dalit community, India's lowest social caste previously known as "untouchables." were on their way to their grandfather's house in the Shivpuri district in the central state of Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday.

"It was early morning and they had stopped to attend to nature's call" when they were attacked, police inspector general Raja Babu Singh told AFP by phone.

"The kids were taken to the hospital but they succumbed to their injuries."

Two brothers had been arrested, one of whom appeared to be "mentally unsound," Singh added.

Modi is set to declare India free of open-air defecation on Wednesday, coinciding with the 150th birthday of independence hero Mahatma Gandhi, who also campaigned vigorously for better sanitation.

Modi, currently in his second term, launched his pet Clean India Mission in 2014, promising to build toilets for all by 2019. 

His government says it has built more than 100 million toilets, particularly in rural areas, a major public health issue in the country of 1.3 billion people.

The multi-billion-dollar campaign combines raising awareness, subsidies for making latrines, and communal naming and shaming of those still relieving themselves in the open.

Critics, however, say lack of running water, poor maintenance and slow behavior change are hampering the program.

Catching those defecating in the open has previously resulted in violence.

In 2017, a man was lynched after he tried to stop authorities from photographing women who were defecating in the open. 

A news channel earlier urged viewers to send in images of those defecating in the open so they could be shamed on national television.

The father of one of the children who died in the latest incident alleged his family had been facing discrimination from higher caste men.

"We don't have a toilet at home. The children went out to defecate in the morning," Manoj Balmiki was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India news agency.

"The (brothers)... shouted at them for defecating on the road and rained sticks on their heads while the children were relieving themselves, killing them in seconds."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

2 million children out of school in war-torn Yemen: UN

SANAA, Yemen - Two million children are out of school in war-torn Yemen, a fourth of whom have dropped out since the conflict escalated in March 2015, the United Nations children's agency said Wednesday.

The education of a further 3.7 million children is at risk as teachers' salaries have not been paid in more than two years, UNICEF said in a statement.

"Violence, displacement and attacks on schools are preventing many children from accessing school," said Sara Beysolow Nyanti, UNICEF representative in Yemen.

One in five schools in the country can no longer be used as a direct result of the conflict that has devastated Yemen's already fragile education system, the UN agency says.

"Children out of school face increased risks of all forms of exploitation including being forced to join the fighting, child labor and early marriage," Nyanti said.

"They lose the opportunity to develop and grow in a caring and stimulating environment, ultimately becoming trapped in a life of poverty and hardship."

Tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, have been killed since Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in March 2015 in support of the beleaguered government after the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels captured the capital Sanaa.

The fighting has displaced millions and left 24.1 million -- more than two-thirds of the population -- in need of aid.

According to UNICEF, 1.8 million children under the age of five are suffering from severe malnutrition.

The United Nations has described Yemen as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Indonesian forest fires putting 10 million children at risk: UN

JAKARTA - Indonesian forest fires are putting nearly 10 million children at risk from air pollution, the United Nations warned Tuesday, as scientists said the blazes were releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases.

The fires have been spewing toxic haze over Southeast Asia in recent weeks, closing schools and airports, with people rushing to buy face masks and seek medical treatment for respiratory ailments.

Jakarta has deployed tens of thousands of personnel and water-bombing aircraft to tackle the slash-and-burn blazes set to clear agricultural land. The fires are an annual problem but this year are the worst since 2015 due to dry weather.

Almost 10 million people under 18 -- about a quarter below five -- live in the areas worst affected by fires on Indonesia's Sumatra island and the country's part of Borneo island, the UN children's agency UNICEF said.

Small children are especially vulnerable due to undeveloped immune systems while babies born to mothers exposed to pollution during pregnancy may have low birth weights and be delivered early, they said.

"Poor air quality is a severe and growing challenge for Indonesia," said Debora Comini from UNICEF.

"Every year, millions of children are breathing toxic air that threatens their health and causes them to miss school -- resulting in lifelong physical and cognitive damage."

Thousands of schools have been closed across Indonesia due to poor air quality, with millions of youngsters missing classes.

Schools were forced to shut across Malaysia last week as dense smog from its neighbor clouded the skies, while Singapore was also shrouded in haze during the weekend's Formula One motor race.

Air quality had however improved in Malaysia and Singapore Tuesday, and the skies were clearer.

There have been a series of wildfire outbreaks worldwide, from the Amazon to Australia, and scientists are increasingly worried about their impact on global warming.

The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, part of the EU's Earth observation program, said this year's Indonesian fires were releasing almost as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as blazes in 2015, the worst for two decades.

From the start of August to September 18, the fires emitted about 360 megatons of the greenhouse gas, compared to 400 megatons over the same period four years ago, the service said.

One megaton is equivalent to one million tons.

At the peak of the 2015 crisis, the fires were emitting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each day than all US economic activity, according to environmental watchdog the World Resources Institute.

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Australia probes PayPal over child abuse payments

SYDNEY - Australia's financial regulator on Tuesday ordered an investigation into global money transfer platform PayPal over concerns it is being misused by sex offenders to buy child abuse material from Asia.

The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (AUSTRAC) will appoint an external auditor to examine what it calls "ongoing concerns" over PayPal's alleged breaches of the country's anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws.

Announcing the appointment in a statement Tuesday, AUSTRAC said it was working with its partners to "combat serious crimes such as child sex exploitation" using funds transfer information reported by the financial services sector.

"Online child abuse material can be ordered from Australia to areas such as the Philippines in quite often small amounts that are repeated often, and PayPal unfortunately is one of the areas that they can use to do that," AUSTRAC CEO Nicole Rose told the ABC.

"That's why we want to get the auditor in to really what sort of risks there have been and continue to be with PayPal systems or their reporting regime."

A PayPal Australia spokesperson said that following an internal review the company had "self-disclosed an issue" in its reporting system to AUSTRAC.

"We are working in full cooperation with AUSTRAC to remediate this reporting system issue and to undertake the audit as outlined by AUSTRAC in the time specified," they said in a statement. 

An audit report must be compiled within 120 days and will be used to determine whether the regulator takes any further action against the digital payments platform.

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Schoolchildren throng streets in vast global climate strike

NEW YORK, United States—Huge numbers of children skipped school Friday to join a global strike against climate change that teen activist Greta Thunberg hopes will mark a turning point in persuading leaders to act against environmental disaster.

Chanting slogans and waving placards, youngsters and adults filled the streets of cities across the world in what was expected to be the biggest ever protest against the threat posed to the planet by warming temperatures.

Demonstrations across Asia and the Pacific kicked off the day of action, which spread to Africa and Europe, with crowds turning out in Paris, London and Berlin, before nearing their completion in the United States where Thunberg rallied.

"I hope this will be another social tipping point that we show how many people are engaged, how many people are putting pressure on leaders," the 16-year-old told AFP in New York.

Organizers forecast protests in more than 5,000 locations across 137 countries. In Australia alone, they said more than 300,000 children, parents and supporters rallied.

Although there was no official turnout, Thunberg said "millions" had participated.

"It can't go on any longer. We are at the end of our planet," said Bernie Waldman, 14, one of thousands to protest in New York, where 1.1 million students were permitted to skip school for the event.

In Slovakia, 5-year-old Teo asked a crowd of 500 "not to cut down forests, and reduce garbage production and not to use so many petrol-fuelled cars."

"Stop climate change now" and "There is no planet B" read some of the signs brandished by demonstrators in a trendy central shopping district of Tokyo.

"We adults caused this planet emergency. We should take our responsibilities for the next generation," said Chika Maruta, 32.

'WE DESERVE BETTER'

Swedish schoolgirl Thunberg called on leaders to act now to curb gas emissions.

"Now we have proven what we can do, now they have to prove what they can (do). They need to take their responsibility," she said. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel used Friday to pledge at least 100 billion euros by 2030 to tackle emissions in the energy and industrial sectors, boost zero tailpipe emission electric vehicles and get passengers out of planes and onto trains.

About 200 marched in Ghana's capital Accra, where some 44 percent of the country's population has not heard of climate change, according to a study by Afrobarometer.

"Developing countries like Ghana are the most affected. We don't have the resources to adapt to climate change," said 26-year-old protest organizer Ellen Lindsey Awuku.

Hundreds also took to the streets in Kenya and Uganda.

Events began in the deluge-threatened Pacific Islands of Vanuatu, the Solomons and Kiribati, where children chanted: "We are not sinking, we are fighting."

The defiance message was heard across Asia.

"We are the future and we deserve better," 12-year-old Lilly Satidtanasarn, known as "Thailand's Greta" for her campaign against plastic bags in malls, told AFP in Bangkok.

'YOU'RE BEING LIED TO'

In Australia, some local authorities, schools and businesses encouraged people to participate in the strikes.

Australia has been struck in recent years by droughts, more intense bushfires, devastating floods and the blanching of the Great Barrier Reef—phenomena blamed on a changing climate.

Numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies have shown a link between human-made gas emissions and climate change.

But the protests also highlighted resistance from those who question the threat.

Australian ruling coalition parliamentarian Craig Kelly told children Thursday that "everything you're told is a lie."

"The facts are, there is no link between climate change and drought, polar bears are increasing in number."

BUSINESSES TAKING ACTION

An increasing number of businesses backed the protests.

Amazon chief Jeff Bezos pledged Thursday to make the US retail giant carbon neutral by 2040 and encouraged other firms to do likewise.

Friday's mass action set the scene for a range of high-profile climate events in New York.

A Youth Climate Summit will take place at the United Nations on Saturday.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will then host an emergency summit on Monday in which he will urge world leaders to raise their commitments made in the 2015 Paris climate accord.

The agreement saw countries pledge to limit the long-term rise in the average temperature of the Earth to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels, and if possible, to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

A landmark UN report to be unveiled next week will warn that global warming and pollution are ravaging Earth's oceans and icy regions in ways that could unleash misery on a global scale.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google to pay $170M fine for collecting YouTube data from kids

CAPTION: FILE PHOTO: People are silhouetted as they pose with laptops in front of a screen projected with a Google logo, in this picture illustration taken in Zenica October 29, 2014. This logo has been updated and is no longer in use. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo]


WASHINGTON - Google agreed Wednesday to pay $170 million to settle charges that it illegally collected and shared data from children on its YouTube video service, a deal critics said was too soft on the internet giant.

The settlement with the Federal Trade Commission and the New York state Attorney General is the largest amount in a case involving the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, a 1998 federal law, officials said.

Officials said YouTube violated the law that requires child-directed websites and online services to obtain parental consent prior to collecting personal information from children under 13 which may be used for advertising.

The company marketed itself as a destination for children and benefitted by selling advertising to toymakers and others seeking to connect with young audiences, according to the FTC.

FTC chairman Joe Simons said the settlement "prevents YouTube and Google from turning a blind eye to the existence of kids-directed content" on its platform.

Simons said the settlement makes Google liable for violations by third-party content creators, going beyond federal law that requires the platform to have knowledge that videos are directed at children.

"No other company in America is subject to these requirements," he said.


Change to business practices

Letitia James, the New York attorney general, said the deal calls for "major reforms" to YouTube's business practices in addition to the fines.

"Google and YouTube knowingly and illegally monitored, tracked, and served targeted ads to young children just to keep advertising dollars rolling in," said James. 

YouTube outlined how it would change the way it handles children's content under the agreement.

"We will treat data from anyone watching children's content on YouTube as coming from a child, regardless of the age of the user," YouTube chief Susan Wojcicki said in a statement.

"This means that we will limit data collection and use on videos made for kids only to what is needed to support the operation of the service. We will also stop serving personalized ads on this content entirely, and some features will no longer be available on this type of content, like comments and notifications."

Wojcicki added that Google would create a $100 million fund "dedicated to the creation of thoughtful, original children's content on YouTube and YouTube Kids globally."


'Insufficient' remedies

The settlement, which must be approved by a federal court, calls for the FTC to receive $136 million and New York state the remaining $34 million.

The deal was approved by a 3-2 vote of the FTC commissioners, with the two Democrats calling for tougher penalties.

The deal "repeats many of the same mistakes from the flawed Facebook settlement: no individual accountability, insufficient remedies to address the company's financial incentives, and a fine that still allows the company to profit from its lawbreaking," Democratic commissioner Rohit Chopra said in a dissent.

"The terms of the settlement were not even significant enough to make Google issue a warning to its investors."

Activists who filed a complaint last year against YouTube also said the deal falls short.

"We are gratified that the FTC has finally forced Google to confront its longstanding lie that it wasn't targeting children on YouTube," said Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy, one of the groups in the complaint.

The "paltry financial penalty of $170 million" is a mere slap and "sends a signal that if you are a politically powerful corporation, you do not have to fear any serious financial consequences when you break the law," Chester said.

Josh Golin of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood said it was "disappointing that the FTC isn't requiring more substantive changes or doing more to hold Google accountable for harming children through years of illegal data collection."

Simons said that it would be difficult to get a harsher penalty imposed in court, which would require proving that Google knew about its violations from third parties.

The regulatory chief added that the settlement "sends a strong signal about the importance of children's privacy."

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