Twitter said Wednesday that it was rolling out a feature that lets users follow topics the way they do people, starting with sports and K-pop, as part of its efforts to bring in and keep more users on the service. 
 
The new “Topics” option was expected to be available to Twitter users on mobile devices powered by Android or Apple software or through web browsers by Nov. 13. 
 
“We are starting with topics that have the most volume on Twitter for now — sports, K-pop — and you’ll see us add in even more on a week-to-week basis,” Twitter told AFP. 
 
Twitter earlier this year disclosed plans to provide users the option of following any of a small number of interests. 

Accent on conversations
 
The feature was to be rolled out internationally as the messaging platform prioritizes being an online venue for conversations rather than a pulpit for one-way broadcasting to the masses. 
 
“We are basically rewriting the entire conversation service,” Twitter product team leader Kayvon Beykpour said during a briefing at the company’s San Francisco headquarters in August. 
 
Twitter has always let users follow accounts, but the new feature will let users opt into following certain sports teams or categories on a curated list. 
 
For example, sending or interacting with tweets about a team might prompt a query over whether the user wants to “follow” that team or be kept in the know about what is being said on Twitter on the topics, the company explained at the briefing. 

‘Mute’ option
 
There will be an ability to “mute” topics to avoid seeing the score of a sporting match, for example. 
 
Topics people follow will show up in their profiles as long as they are signed up for the interest. 
 
Subjects designated “interests” by Twitter are meant to be lasting — such as football or cricket — rather than passing hot topics, according to Twitter. 

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When France’s president wants to carry European concerns to the world stage to find solutions for climate change, trade tensions or Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he no longer calls Washington. He flies to Beijing.

President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to China this week suggests that the United States risks being sidelined on the global stage under President Donald Trump. One moment spoke volumes: Chinese President Xi Jinping sampling French wines, which Trump’s administration recently slapped with heavy new tariffs.

Macron portrayed himself as an envoy for the whole European Union, conveying the message that the bloc has largely given up on Trump, who doesn’t hide his disdain for multilateralism.

Just as the Trump administration formally launched the process of pulling out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, France and China issued a “Beijing call” on Wednesday for increased global cooperation in fighting climate change and better protecting biodiversity. Both countries have deplored the U.S. withdrawal.

“One country’s isolated choice can’t change the course of the world. It only leads to marginalization,” Macron said.

While China’s president tasted French wines and high-quality beef at an import fair in Shanghai, Macron was pushing for a broader opening of the Chinese market to European products.

“I think he discovered Languedoc wine. He wasn’t familiar with it, he liked it. He tasted a Burgundy and a classic Bordeaux wine,” Macron told reporters. 
 
Xi said the two leaders were sending “a strong signal to the world about steadfastly upholding multilateralism and free trade, as well as working together to build open economies.”

‘Mutual trust’

During his first state visit to China in January 2018, Macron vowed to return every year in an effort to establish “mutual trust.”

Since then, Xi has traveled to France, when China signed an agreement in March to buy 300 aircraft from European plane maker Airbus.

This time, Macron traveled east, bringing with him an ambitious agenda that includes establishing a joint stance on reforming the World Trade Organization, fighting climate change and saving the nuclear accord with Iran. 
 
After Trump pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 U.N. nuclear pact, France and China reiterated their support for the hard-fought deal both countries had helped negotiate.

In Beijing, Macron described recent Gulf tensions as “the negative impact of the non-respect of a multilateral agreement. … The American error has been to leave (the pact) unilaterally.”

“Strong multilateralism is more efficient than shrill unilateralism,” Macron said, praising China’s support for de-escalation of the tensions as the Europeans try to save the nuclear deal with Iran. 
 
“China and France are together with the Europeans and Russians,” he said. “We are convinced that we should increase our joint efforts to bring Iran back into compliance.”

‘Stable, cooperative trade rules’

On trade, the EU often joins U.S. criticism of China’s protectionist policies, government subsidies and other restrictive practices.

But whereas Trump has responded by aggressively imposing tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods from China, Europe and elsewhere, bypassing rules set by the WTO, the EU considers that a trade war is not the appropriate response. 

“We must get stable and cooperative trade rules at the international level,” Macron said, referring to a plan to reform the WTO. Trump complains that the WTO, which is tasked with resolving trade disputes, is weak and ineffective as China flouts its rules and it takes years to address trade complaints.

Macron said it is Europe and China’s shared responsibility to make proposals to reform the WTO, because it would be a “fundamental error” to wait for “those who are calling into question the multilateral system.”

Besides the tariffs on China, the U.S. has hit EU steel, aluminum and agricultural products with tariffs, drawing retaliation from the 28-country bloc. And the Trump administration is due to decide this month whether to impose tariffs on Europe’s massive auto exports, a move that would significantly escalate tensions that are already hurting the global economy.

Eswar Prasad, a Cornell University economist and former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China division, said “the Trump administration’s antipathy to multilateralism, its repudiation of many international agreements, and hostility toward even longstanding allies, have all eroded U.S. economic and geopolitical influence.”

“The U.S. is now seen by other countries as an unreliable and untrustworthy partner, leaving them to maneuver around the U.S. by striking bilateral and multilateral deals that protect and advance their own interests,” Prasad said.
 

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Iran resumed uranium enrichment at its underground Fordow  nuclear facility by injecting uranium gas into centrifuges, Iran’s Tasnim news agency quoted the country’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) as saying on Thursday.

“After all successful preparations … injection of uranium gas to centrifuges started on Thursday at Fordow … all the process has been supervised by the inspectors of (the) U.N. nuclear watchdog,” Tasnim reported, quoting the AEOI’s statement.

A 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers bans Fordow from producing nuclear material. But, with feedstock gas entering its centrifuges, the facility — built inside a mountain — will move from the permitted status of research plant to being an active nuclear site.

“The process will take a few hours to stabilize and by Saturday, when International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors will again visit the site, a uranium enrichment level of 4.5% will have been achieved,” AEOI’s spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told state TV.  Ninety percent purity is required for bomb-grade fuel.

Iran has gradually scaled back its commitments to the deal, under which it curbed its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of most international sanctions, after the United States reneged on the agreement last year.

Under the pact, Iran agreed to turn Fordow into a “nuclear, physics and technology center” where 1,044 centrifuges are used for purposes other than enrichment, such as producing stable isotopes, which have a variety of civil uses.

“All the centrifuges installed in Fordow are IR1 types. Uranium  gas (UF6) was injected to four chains of IR1 centrifuges (696 centrifuges),” Kamalvandi said. “Two other remaining chains of IR1 centrifuges (348 centrifuges) will be used for producing and enriching stable isotopes in the facility.”

U.S. President Donald Trump exited the deal, saying it was flawed to Iran’s advantage. Washington has since renewed and intensified sanctions on Iran, slashing the country’s economically vital crude oil sales by more than 80%. The measure will further complicate the chances of saving the accord, which European powers have called on Iran to respect.

Responding to Washington’s “maximum pressure” policy, Iran has bypassed the restrictions of the deal step-by-step — including by breaching both its cap on stockpiled enriched uranium and on the fissile level of enrichment.

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Sakshi Chauhan has not left her house in a quiet inner-city slum in the Indian capital for the past six days on her doctor’s orders.

The 22-year-old call center operator is recovering from a severe throat infection and the thick smog now blanketing New Delhi has made even breathing dangerous.

“The moment I step outside, I can’t breathe properly,” she said. “I have never seen this level of pollution in my entire life.”

The 20 million residents of New Delhi, already one of the world’s most polluted cities, have been suffering for weeks under a toxic haze that is up to 10 times worse than the upper limits of what is considered healthy. The pollution crisis is piling public pressure on the government to tackle the root causes of the persistent haze.

Air pollution in New Delhi and northern Indian states peaks in the winter as farmers in neighboring agricultural regions set fire to clear land after the harvest and prepare for the next crop season. The pollution in the Indian capital also peaks after Diwali celebrations, the Hindu festival of light, when people set off fireworks.

A declared public health emergency has remained in place in the city for the past five days. Schools have stayed closed and authorities have been handing out free anti-pollution masks to children.

New Delhi’s government has introduced a system that restricts many private vehicles from taking to the roads for two weeks. It has ordered firefighters to sprinkle water from high-rise buildings to settle the dust, tried to snuff out garbage fires and ordered builders to cover construction sites to stop dust from enveloping the area.

India’s health minister earlier played down the health consequences of the dirty air, insisting it is mainly a concern for those who have pre-existing lung conditions. Doctors in the capital, however, say many of their patients these days are complaining of ailments that stem from the filthy air they breathe.

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Dr. Salil Sharma, a throat specialist, said that 95% of the patients he has been treating over the last 10 days are sick because of the foul air.

“I have patients from all age groups and most of them are nonsmokers who complain of breathlessness, chest congestion, fatigue and weakness,” Sharma said. “In some cases, I had to put some patients on a ventilator because they couldn’t breathe.”

“We are right in the middle of a health emergency,” he said.

A study published in The Lancet estimated that in 2017, air pollution killed 1.24 million Indians — half of them younger than 70, lowering the country’s average life expectancy by almost 1.7 years.

India’s Supreme Court on Monday said the capital choking every year “could not be allowed in a civilized country.”

In a ruling that followed petitions filed by activists, the top court’s judges ordered an immediate halt to the practice of farmers burning their fields in the neighboring states surrounding the capital.

Some people distraught over the pollution are considering leaving the city for good.

Devendra Verma, a street vendor, did not go to work for three days last week. He said he was too weak to leave his house as filthy air made him feel fatigued.

“The city is not livable anymore,” he said. “Sometimes I think I should pack my bags and leave Delhi for once and all.”

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Brazil’s carbon emissions have remained stable despite an increase in deforestation because they were offset by a larger use of clean energy sources such as ethanol and wind power, a report said on Tuesday.

Brazilian emissions of gases blamed for global warming reached 1.939 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in 2018, 0.3% more than seen in 2017, according to SEEG, the most comprehensive study on the topic in the country.

Emissions from the energy sector fell 5% last year when compared to the previous year to 407 million tons of CO2e as renewable power continues to increase its share in the energy mix.

In contrast, emissions from the destruction of forests rose 3.6% to 845 million tons of CO2e, leading that source to increase its share in total Brazilian emissions to 44%, more than the combined participation of the industrial and energy sectors.

Clean energy contribution, however, is unlikely to avoid a larger carbon dioxide increase for 2019, as deforestation sharply increased this year to the highest level in a decade.

And while emissions were stable, there is no compensation for the losses to wildlife as hundreds of species are extinguished as fires rage.

The data places Brazil as number 7 in the ranking of the world’s largest emitters of heat-trapping gases, which is led by China followed by the United States and the European Union.

“Brazil should be in a much better position. Its energy matrix is getting even cleaner than it was. If it stopped deforestation, its emissions would be a third of that,” said Tasso Azevedo, the study’s coordinator.

“There will be a significant increase,” said Ane Alencar, science director at Ipam, the organization collaborating with data on land use changes for the SEEG study.

Deforestation leads to some curious findings. Unlikely other countries where states with higher concentration of industries lead emissions numbers, in Brazil that ranking is led by Pará and Mato Grosso states, for example, countries partly located in the Amazon, with industrialized Sao Paulo state in a distant fourth place.

Livestock activity contributed to those states’ increase in emissions numbers, besides deforestation.

“There is a large difference in the origin of emissions in Brazil when compared to most countries,” said Ricardo Abramovay, an economist at the University of Sao Paulo.

“While in countries such as United States and Japan a change to a society with less emissions will require large investments to modify production models and consumption habits, in Brazil we only need to cut deforestation, a very small investment,” he said.

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Mexico’s Congress approved a raft of constitutional changes on Tuesday that include permitting the right to a recall vote on the president, overriding opposition concerns it may open the door to allowing re-election of the country’s leader.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has pressed for the recall provision, arguing it should serve as a democratic check on his record. The president’s term is limited to six years and he has said several times he will not seek to change that.

The opposition argued he wanted a recall vote to put himself onto an electoral ticket again midway through his term. To avoid that, the Senate agreed last month that any recall vote must be held after the legislative elections in 2021.

Concluding the approval process, the lower house of Congress voted by 372-75 to endorse the constitutional changes, which also establish the rules for conducting referendums on issues of public interest.

Under the changes, the recall vote would be organized by the national electoral institute, provided it had the support of at least 3% of voters on the Mexican electoral register.

To become law, the measures must still be approved by a majority of state legislatures. The president’s ruling party controls a majority of Mexico’s state congresses.

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A global team of more than 11,000 scientists is warning that the planet “clearly and unequivocally faces a climate emergency.”

In a report published Tuesday in the journal Bioscience warns in no uncertain terms that the world would face “untold human suffering” if it does not make deep and lasting shifts in human activities that contribute to climate change.

The study, called the “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency,” was led by ecologists Bill Ripple and Christopher Wolf of Oregon State University, and climate scientist William Moomaw of Tufts University, along with scientists from universities in South Africa and Australia. The signatories to the report represent several fields of study and come from 150 countries.

“Despite 40 years of global climate negotiations, with few exceptions, we have generally conducted business as usual and have largely failed to address this predicament,” the study says. “Climate change has arrived and is accelerating faster than many scientists expected.”

It is the first time a large group of scientists have collectively used the world “emergency” in reference to climate change.

The report identified six areas that need to be addressed immediately.

They include:

• Cutting fossil fuel use by imposing carbon taxes and using energy more efficiently
• Stabilizing global population growth by strengthening women’s rights and making family planning services “available to all people”
• Cutting emissions of pollutants like soot and ethane
• Moving to a more plant-based diet
• Preventing the loss of biodiversity and the destruction of forests
• Moving the global economic focus away from growth of wealth to sustainability and income equality

The scientists said it will most likely take strong actions by the public to move politicians toward adopting lasting policy changes.

“We believe that the prospects will be greatest if decision-makers and all of humanity promptly respond to this warning and declaration of a climate emergency, and act to sustain life on planet Earth, our only home,” the paper said.

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Five years ago, a car bound for the Ho Chi Minh City airport from downtown might get stuck in a couple of quick jams, costing just an extra minute. Now big swathes of the Vietnamese financial center are congested, and not just during rush hour. That stationary traffic, with engines idling among canyons of high-rises, are contributing to the country’s first major air pollution problem.

The glut of cars reflects people’s rising wealth, which is the byproduct of fast economic growth fueled by a boom in export manufacturing. Cities in Vietnam including the capital Hanoi are the latest Asian cities to become smothered in smog. Mega-cities such as Bangkok, Beijing and Jakarta have been grappling with dirtier air, and for longer, mainly because of vehicular exhaust and factory emissions.

“This is something the Vietnamese government is pretty aware of and I think policy makers and anyone who’s living here can kind of see is becoming more and more of an issue as more people start pouring into the city,” said Maxfield Brown, senior associate with Dezan Shira & Associates in Ho Chi Minh City.

Crops, fires and industrialization

Vietnamese authorities initially assumed smoke wafting north from crop burning in Indonesia had caused the dirty air. They also looked into the role of low rainfall and local crop burning, business consultancy Dezan Shira & Associates said in an October 2019 country briefing.

“If you go up in an airplane, it’s amazing,” said Frederick Burke, a partner with the law firm Baker McKenzie in Ho Chi Minh City. “One burning from one field pollutes a whole valley or a whole series of plains. It really has a wide-reaching effect.”

Urban burning of garbage including,  plastics,  adds to the foul air, Brown said. Burning is illegal, he said, but enforcement hasn’t caught up to the law.

A major cause is industry, the consultancy says. Over the past decade, coal consumption tripled and oil consumption rose 70%, the country briefing says. Vietnam depends on coal-fired plants for electricity, and,  because a lot of their northern locations depend on coal,  they give Hanoi “deteriorating air quality,” it says.

Vietnam’s $300 billion economy is forecast to grow up to 6.8% this year, SSI Research in Hanoi says. It expanded 7.1% in 2018, the fastest in 11 years.

Ho Chi Minh City smog

Humidity plus automotive pollution and “waste from industries” creates smog in the south, particularly from September into October, Dezan Shira says. Construction of urban residential buildings, shopping malls and office buildings further addles air in the south, it says.

On Monday, Ho Chi Minh City received a World Air Quality Project score of 149, which falls in the “moderately polluted” range. That means children, the elderly and people with certain diseases should avoid strenuous outdoor activities. At times of the day, the sky takes on a pasty white hue. Hanoi got a rating Monday of 129, also in the unhealthy category.

People living in Ho Chi Minh City point to a growing urban population of workers and students, meaning more vehicles on the road. The population stands at 9 million.

“It seems like we don’t have any regulations to limit the pollution from (buses), form cars, from motorbikes,” said Phuong Hong, a Ho Chi Minh City travel sector businessperson with a 30-minute daily motorcycle commute. “We even have some motor bikes from the 1980s, which means they are 30 years of working.”

Construction work also kicks up dust, and projects across the city have forced the removal of trees, she added. In their place are high-rises for housing and office-commercial space.

A year ago the Vietnamese company Vinfast began selling electric motorcycles, but few appear on the streets now. Ho Chi Minh City dwellers say the electric bikes cost more than gasoline-powered motorcycles and that the city lacks battery charging stations. Two-wheelers are staple transport for commuters.

Metro lines due to open in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City within the next two years should ease some pollution, Brown said. City officials are working toward a ban on motorcycles in central Ho Chi Minh City by 2030, local media say.

Dirtier elsewhere in Asia

Vietnamese city planners probably consider air pollution a problem to solve over the next decade as they watch more severe cases in other cities and learn from them, Brown said.

India, Bangladesh and China have the world’s dirtiest air, with Jakarta fast approaching Beijing levels, Asian media outlet Eco-Business reported in March. Cities in India and China dominated the world’s 50 dirtiest in 2018, according to the air quality monitoring service AirVisual. None were in Vietnam.

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It has captured the attention of teenagers, celebrities and global brands.

And now U.S. lawmakers and regulators are interested in TikTok, the video app downloaded by 1 billion people.

According to Reuters, the U.S. government is launching a national security review into the Chinese company ByteDance’s 2017 acquisition of U.S. app Musical.ly. ByteDance is the parent of TikTok, which makes it easy for users to make videos 15 to 60 seconds long.  

National security concerns

The move comes at a time when lawmakers have called for increasing scrutiny of Chinese companies and their investments in the United States. Some lawmakers question whether TikTok censors users and how safe U.S. user data is if it is held in the hands of a Chinese company.

ByteDance has repeatedly defended itself. In a recent blog post, it said that U.S. user data is stored in the United States. As for content moderation, the company said its “U.S. moderation team, which is led out of California, reviews content for adherence to our U.S. policies—just like other U.S. companies in our space.”

In China, ByteDance owns Douyin, a Chinese version of TikTok.

Making a viral video

For users of TikTok, the app is a way to make a short vertical video, similar to Vine, which Twitter shut down in 2017. Video editing tools are built into the TikTok app, with a music library to choose from, so that a video can be made and posted in a school hallway between classes.

Scrolling through TikTok videos is a window into pranks played on parents and friends, dance routines in school bathrooms or in backyards. Users say that watching the videos are addictive and a quick check of TikTok can lead to hours spent watching video after video.

Silicon Valley takes note

Competitors such as Facebook and Snap, the parent of Snapchat, have not missed TikTok’s rise. They are either imitating the company or looking to acquire a similar one. Facebook has its own service called Lasso. Google, which owns YouTube, has had talks about buying a TikTok competitor, The New York Times reported.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, recently said that “China is building its own internet focused on very different values, and is now exporting their vision of the internet to other countries.”

This isn’t TikTok’s first run in with U.S. regulators. Earlier this year, it paid a $5.7 million fine to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over how it had illegally collected information about children under 13.

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The U.S.-based democracy and freedom watchdog group said in its latest report that many governments are using social media to spy on citizens and manipulate elections.

“Our two main themes this year were looking at how governments are using social media to undermine their own elections and also monitor their citizens,” said Allie Funk, co-author of the report titled Freedom on the Net 2019.

“We found that domestic actors – whether that be government or politicians that are seeking to be elected – actually used the internet to undermine a fair and free election in their country.”

The report says the most often-used tool was the spread of disinformation mostly by far-right politicians. “I don’t know if everybody realized how quickly governments were going to use this against us,” Funk said.

But government attempts to curb internet freedoms can backfire. This summer in Russia, after the Kremlin stymied opposition political candidates anti-government protesters used social media to organize.

“The protesters there were acutely aware that the government was probably watching or surveilling, so they started using code words for different protest movements, and they started to organize on these platforms as well to get administrative aid or to get food or water to other protesters,” Funk said.

The report finds that internet freedoms have been declining every year since Freedom House began compiling the report in 2009.

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Dubai-based Mara Group launched in October what it calls Africa’s first smartphone manufacturer in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.  Mara Phone says its device is the first high specification, affordable smartphone made in Africa to compete in a market dominated by South Korean and Chinese brands.  As Ruud Elmendorp reports from Kigali, customers are starting to notice the African phone brand.

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An enterprising Minnesota college student who drove to Iowa every weekend to buy hundreds of Krispy Kreme doughnuts that he then sold to his own customers in the Twin Cities area has been warned by the confectionary giant to stop.

There have been no Krispy Kreme stores in Minnesota for 11 years.

Jayson Gonzalez, 21, of Champlin, Minnesota, would drive 270 miles (430 kilometers) to a Krispy Kreme store in Clive, Iowa, pack his car with up to 100 boxes, each carrying 12 doughnuts, then drive back up north to deliver them to customers in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

He charged $17 to $20 per box. He said some of his customers spent nearly $100 each time. Gonzalez said he did not receive a discount from the store in Iowa where he bought the doughnuts.

But less than a week after the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported on his money-making scheme, Gonzalez received a phone call from Krispy Kreme’s Nebraska office telling him to stop. The senior studying accounting at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul said he was told his sales created a liability for the North Carolina-based company.

In a statement Sunday night, Krispy Kreme said it’s looking into the matter.

“We appreciate Jayson’s passion for Krispy Kreme and his entrepreneurial spirit as he pursues his education,” the statement read.

Gonzalez, also known as “The Donut Guy,” would have made his 20th run to Iowa on Saturday. He told his Facebook followers on Thursday that he has been told he has to shut down operations.

“Life happens, and it could be a sign that something else it meant to be,” Gonzalez posted.

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