As part of its “Year in Review” series, the EFF shares their dramatic behind-the-scenes details about 2020’s fight over the future of .org domains. It begins when the Internet Society (ISOC) announced plans to sell the Public Interest Registry — which manages the .org top-level domain (TLD) — to private equity firm Ethos Capital. “If you come at the nonprofit sector,…
Tag: solidarity
In Rare Show of Solidarity, 14 Key Nations Commit To Protect Oceans
When the heads of state of 14 nations sat down together in late 2018 to discuss the grim condition of the world’s oceans, there was no certainty that anything consequential would result. The leaders planned 14 gatherings, but met only twice before the pandemic upended their talks. So when the group announced this week the world’s most far-reaching pact to protect…
The Pope Praises Medical Workers, Criticizes ‘Personal Freedom’ Protests
More Americans travelled Wednesday than on any other day in the last eight months — 1.1 million Americans — continuing the country’s long-standing annual tradition of gathering to give thanks. The same week the Pope apparently felt compelled to publish an opinion piece in one of the country’s largest newspapers to share his own thoughts about the pandemic. First, the Pope…
Debian Donates 10,000 Euros to Fund Free and Decentralized Livestreaming
PeerTube (developed by Framasoft) is “the free and decentralized alternative to video platforms, providing you over 400,000 videos published by 60,000 users and viewed over 15 million times,” according to its web site. But now they’re exploring livestreaming, writes Debian developer Phil Hands (Slashdot reader #2,365): Holding DebConf20 online this year highlighted the effort involved in setting up Live Streaming using…
Remdesivir Has Little Effect on Covid-19 Mortality, WHO Study Says
The Covid-19 treatment remdesivir has no substantial effect on a patient’s chances of survival [Editor’s note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], a clinical trial by the World Health Organization has found, delivering a significant blow to hopes of identifying existing medicines to treat the disease. From a report: Results from the WHO’s highly anticipated Solidarity trial, which studied the…
The WHO Announces End of Its Testing of Hydroxychloroquine
“The World Health Organization announced Saturday that it discontinued its trial on hydroxychloroquine’s effect on COVID-19 patients in hospitals,” reports UPI: WHO said in a statement that it accepted a recommendation from the Solidarity Trial’s International Steering Committee that it stop the testing of the drug. The decision to cease the trial came after interim trial results showed that the anti-malaria…
WHO Sees First Results From COVID Drug Trials Within Two Weeks
The World Health Organization (WHO) should soon get results from clinical trials it is conducting of drugs that might be effective in treating COVID-19 patients, its Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday. From a report: “Nearly 5,500 patients in 39 countries have so far been recruited into the Solidarity trial,” he told a news briefing, referring to clinical studies…
250 Microsoft Employees Call on CEO To Cancel Police Contracts and Support Defunding Seattle PD
Hundreds of Microsoft employees have signed a letter to the company’s top executives asking for Microsoft to take action in the wake of national protests. From a report: The letter, which was obtained by OneZero, requests that Microsoft cancel contracts with the Seattle Police Department (SPD) and other law enforcement agencies, asks the company to formally support the Black Lives Matter…
GTA Online, Red Dead Online Will Temporarily Go Offline In Honor of George Floyd
Rockstar Games, 2K games, and their parent company Take-Two Interactive announced on Thursday that they will shut down the servers for games such as Grand Theft Auto Online, Red Dead Online, and NBA 2K for two hours on Thursday afternoon “to honor the legacy of George Floyd.” Polygon reports: “Black Lives Matter,” said Rockstar Games on its official Twitter account. “To…
WHO Temporarily Suspends Trial of Hydroxychloroquine Over Safety Concerns
The World Health Organization is temporarily pausing tests of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment in order to review safety concerns, the agency’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu said Monday. From a report: The decision comes after a retrospective review published in The Lancet found that coronavirus patients who took hydroxychloroquine or its related drug chloroquine were more likely to…