United News of Bangladesh

The story of Twitter’s blue checkmarks — a simple verification system that’s come to be viewed as an elite status symbol — began with some high-profile impersonations, just as the site began taking off in 2008 and ’09. Celebrities who saw their likeness spoofed included Kanye West, now Ye, the basketball star Shaquille O’Neil and the actor Ewan McGregor, who was also impersonated on a wildly popular website called ... MySpace. Then, in June 2009, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa sued Twitter, claiming that a fake account, using his name to make light of drunken driving and two Cardinals pitchers who died, damaged his reputation and caused emotional distress. LaRussa eventually dropped his lawsuit. But in June of that year, Twitter’s then-CEO Biz Stone introduced a verification system to sort out authentic accounts from impostors. The benefit would be to the holders of the accounts, but also to everyone else on Twitter. They could be sure, if they saw the blue check next to a name, that what they were reading was authentic. Fast-forward to 2022. Twitter’s new owner and ruler, billionaire Elon Musk, wants to turn this verification system into a revenue source for the company he paid $44 billion to purchase. It’s a 180-degree turn from the stance he took earlier this year, before his buyout closed, when he said he wanted to “verify all humans” on Twitter. After floating the idea of charging users $20 a month for the “blue check” and some extra features, he appeared to quickly scale it back in a Twitter exchange with author Stephen King, who posted “If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.” “We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?” Musk replied. Whatever the price, the idea of a paid verification system is raising some complex questions and concerns — beyond the customary cheers and jeers that have accompanied Musk’s every move since he took ownership of the social media company last week. “Tapping into Twitter users to make more money may be the right strategy, but verification isn’t the right feature to charge for,” said Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg. “Verification is intended to ensure the integrity of accounts and conversations on the platform, rather than a premium feature meant to elevate the experience. There is a growing appetite among some social users to pay for features that add value to their experiences.” Read more: Musk tweets conspiracy theory about attack on Pelosi's husband, then deletes it Instead of charging for authentication, though, Enberg said Musk should be looking at adding features to Twitter that get people to use it more and help them grow their follower base and find a way to make money from those. “Turning users into customers isn’t an easy sell, and the value exchange has to be right in order for it to pay off,” she said. Twitter already has a subscription plan, Twitter Blue, that for $5 a month lets users access extra features, such as the ability to undo a tweet and read ad-free articles. Musk’s plan, as it appears from his tweets, seems to be expanding it to charge more money for more features — including the verification badge — and spread it to more users. “Of roughly 300,000 verified accounts on Twitter we would estimate only about 25% would go down this path ultimately and pay the $8 per month fee,” Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives said. That would mean only $7.2 million a year in extra revenue for Twitter — not enough to move the dial for a company whose last reported quarterly revenue was $1.18 billion. Ives expects Musk to first go after users who already have the check to charge them to keep it, then likely introduce other tiered pricing plans for other accounts. “The problem is with many athletes and celebrities willing to lose their coveted blue check and refusing to pay the monthly fee it would be an ominous black eye moment for Musk on his first strategic move with Twitter,” he said. While Musk’s exact plans are not clear, experts are raising concerns about the consequences of having a paid verification system that leaves anyone unwilling to pay vulnerable to impersonation — and anyone who does pay the ability to have their Twitter presence boosted by the platform’s algorithms. Read more: Indian-origin tech executive ‘helping out’ Musk in revamping Twitter While many verified users on Twitter are famous, there are also community activists, journalists at small newspapers and outlets inside and outside of the U.S. — and regular people who simply find themselves in the news. For this subset, $8 a month may not be worth it, no matter how many memes Musk posts about the cost of a cup of coffee. The idea behind verification — which other social networks later copied — was to ensure that public figures, politicians and businesses were who they say they are. It began small at first, as things do when tech companies test out new features and functions. “The experiment will begin with public officials, public agencies, famous artists, athletes, and other well known individuals at risk of impersonation,” Stone wrote in 2009. He suggested that those who can’t be immediately verified put their official website in their Twitter bio to show that they are who they say they are.

Employees braced for widespread layoffs at Twitter Friday as new owner Elon Musk overhauls the social platform. In a letter to employees obtained by multiple media outlets, the company said employees would find out by 9 a.m. Pacific Standard Time if they had been laid off. The email did not say how many people would lose their jobs. Some employees tweeted early Friday that they had already lost access to their work accounts. The email to staff said job reductions were “necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.” Twitter’s roughly 7,500 employees have been expecting layoffs since Musk took the helm of the company. Already, the billionaire Tesla CEO has fired top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, on his first day as Twitter’s owner. Read more: Blue check mark on Twitter: Vital verification or status symbol? He also removed the company’s board of directors and installed himself as the sole board member. On Thursday night, many Twitter employees took to Twitter to express support for each other -- often simply tweeting blue heart emojis to signify Twitter’s blue bird logo -- and salute emojis in replies to each other. As of Thursday, Musk and Twitter had given no public notice of the coming layoffs. That’s even though the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification statute requires employers with at least 100 workers to disclose layoffs involving 500 or more employees, regardless of whether a company is publicly traded or privately held. Barry C. White, a spokesperson for California’s Employment Development Department, said Thursday the agency has not received any such notifications from Twitter. A class action lawsuit was filed Thursday in federal court in San Francisco on behalf of one employee who was laid off and three others who were locked out of their work accounts. It alleges that Twitter intends to lay off more employees and has violated the law by not providing the required notice. Read more: Musk fires Twitter's board of directors becomes board's sole member The layoffs come at a tough time for social media companies, as advertisers are scaling back and newcomers -- mainly TikTok -- are threatening the older class of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Meta Platforms Inc., Facebook’s parent company, recently posted its second quarterly revenue decline in history and its shares are trading at their lowest levels since 2015. Meta’s disappointing results followed weak earnings reports from Google parent Alphabet and even Microsoft.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Thursday that the planet is heading toward irreversible “climate chaos” and urged global leaders at the upcoming climate summit in Egypt to put the world back on track to cut emissions, keep promises on climate financing and help developing countries speed their transition to renewable energy. The U.N. chief said the 27th annual Conference of the 198 Parties of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change — better known as COP27 — “must be the place to rebuild trust and re-establish the ambition needed to avoid driving our planet over the climate cliff.”   He said the most important outcome of COP27, which begins Nov. 6 in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, is to have “a clear political will to reduce emissions faster.”   That requires a historical pact between richer developed countries and emerging economies, Guterres said. “And if that pact doesn’t take place, we will be doomed.”   In the pact, the secretary-general said, wealthier countries must provide financial and technical assistance – along with support from multilateral development banks and technology companies – to help emerging economies speed their renewable energy transition. Guterres said that in the last few weeks, reports have painted “a clear and bleak picture” of global-warming greenhouse gas emissions still growing at record levels instead of going down 45% by 2030 as scientists say must happen. The landmark Paris agreement adopted in 2015 to address climate change called for global temperatures to rise a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century compared to pre-industrial times, and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Guterres said greenhouse gas emissions are now on course to rise by 10%, and temperatures are on course to rise by as much as 2.8 degrees Celsius under present policies by the end of the century. Read more: Climate Change: Int’l community must act with fund and solutions to help most vulnerable nations “And that means our planet is on course for reaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible and forever bake in catastrophic temperature rise,” the secretary-general warned. He said the 1.5 degree goal “is in intensive care” and “in high danger,” but it’s still possible to meet it. “And my objective in Egypt is to make sure that we gather enough political will to make this possibility really moving forward,” the U.N. chief said. “COP27 must be the place to close the ambition gap, the credibility gap and the solidarity gap,” Guterres said. “It must put us back on track to cutting emissions, boosting climate resilience and adaptation, keeping the promise on climate finance and addressing loss and damage from climate change.” Rich countries, especially the United States, have emitted far more than their share of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, data shows. Poor nations like Pakistan, where recent floods left a third of the country under water, have been hurt far more than their share of global carbon emissions. Loss and damage has been talked about for years, but richer nations have often balked at negotiating details about paying for past climate disasters, like Pakistan’s flooding this summer. “Loss and damage have been the always-postponed issue,” Guterres said. “There is no more time to postpone it. We must recognize loss and damage and we must create an institutional framework to deal with it.” Read more: UN, ADB to support Bangladesh's fight against climate change The secretary-general said Thursday that “getting concrete results on loss and damage is the litmus test of the commitment of the governments to close all of these gaps.” “COP27 must lay the foundations for much faster, bolder climate action now and in this crucial decade, when the global climate fight will be won or lost,” Guterres said.

The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected Russia’s attempt to establish a commission to investigate its unfounded claims that Ukraine and the United States are carrying out “military biological” activities that violate the convention prohibiting the use of biological weapons. Russia only got support from China in the vote on its resolution, with the U.S., Britain and France voting “no” and the 10 other council nations abstaining. The resolution was not approved because it failed to get the minimum nine “yes” votes required for adoption. The 2-3-10 vote reflected the council’s continuing opposition and skepticism about Russia’s actions since its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. The council has been paralyzed from taking any action against Russia’s military offensive because of Russia’s veto power. Russia circulated the draft resolution and a 310-page document to council members last week alleging that military biological activity is taking place at biological laboratories in Ukraine with support from the U.S. Defense Department. Russia’s deputy ambassador Dmitry Polyansky said after the vote that his government was “extremely disappointed” that the council did not respond positively to its request to establish a commission. Its proposed resolution called for the Security Council’s 15 members to carry out the investigation of Russia’s complaint, as allowed under Article VI of the biological weapons convention, and present a report with recommendations to the council by Nov. 30. Polyansky claimed “Western countries demonstrated in every way that the law does not apply to them” and “are ready to trample any norm, to flout any rule,” accusing them of a “colonial mentality.” U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield countered that the United States voted against the resolution “because it is based on disinformation, dishonesty, bad faith, and a total lack of respect for this body.” Before the vote, Russia’s Polyansky called the resolution “a considerable milestone” that would show whether the Security Council was prepared to act in line with international law giving state parties to the biological weapons convention the right to seek an investigation at the Security Council. “It is a milestone for Russia’s deception and lies,” Thomas-Greenfield shot back. “And the world sees it.” At a meeting in September of the 197 state parties to the biological weapons convention, she said, “Russia failed to provide any credible evidence to support these false allegations” and an overwhelming number of countries that spoke “considered that the issues raised by Russia were unsubstantiated and had been conclusively addressed.” But Thomas-Greenfield said that wasn’t enough for Russia and “it inappropriately raised the same false claims here, abusing its position and abusing us.” Mexico’s deputy ambassador Juan Manuel Gomez Robledo, whose country abstained, said Russia didn’t provide evidence to activate an investigation. He said it was not “realistic” to set up a commission to report in 28 days — and a commission could not be independent and objective if Russia as a council member was included so it would have to be excluded “since it is one of the parties involved in the armed conflict.” Russia’s initial allegation of secret American biological warfare labs in Ukraine in March has been disputed by independent scientists, Ukrainian leaders and officials at the White House and Pentagon. An Associated Press investigation in March found the claim was taking root online, uniting COVID-19 conspiracy theorists, QAnon adherents and some supporters of former President Donald Trump. Ukraine does have a network of biological labs that have gotten funding and research support from the U.S. They are owned and operated by Ukraine and are part of an initiative called the Biological Threat Reduction Program that aims to reduce the likelihood of deadly outbreaks, whether natural or manmade. The U.S. efforts date back to work in the 1990s to dismantle the former Soviet Union’s program for weapons of mass destruction. Russia called a Security Council meeting on its claims last Thursday, which the United States and its Western allies vehemently dismissed. Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador, called the meeting “a colossal waste of time” and said the claims are part of a Moscow “disinformation campaign” that is attempting “to distract from the atrocities Russian forces are carrying out in Ukraine and a desperate tactic to justify an unjustifiable war.” “Ukraine does not have a biological weapons program,” she said. “The United States does not have a biological weapons program. There are no Ukrainian biological weapons laboratories supported by the United States.” Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused the U.S. of conducting work in Ukraine with deadly pathogens — including cholera, plague, anthrax and influenza — that couldn’t be justified under the guise of public health. He said documents and evidence recovered by Russian authorities suggested a military application. Nebenzia told the Security Council that the Russian military during its time in Ukraine had recovered drones capable of spraying bioagents as well as documents that he said related to research on the possibility of spreading pathogens through bats and migrating birds. Thomas-Greenfield countered that Russia’s claims are “absurd for many reasons, including because such species, even if they could be weaponized, would pose as much a threat to the European continent and to Ukraine itself as they would to any other country.” Russia’s Polyansky told the council Wednesday that regardless of the vote, “the questions to the United States and Ukraine is something that we do retain and the evidence accompanying our complaint still requires clarifications.” He said Russia will continue to make efforts to establish the facts through the biological weapons convention and any violators will still have to be held accountable by the international community.  

North Korea continued its barrage of weapons tests on Thursday, firing at least three missiles including a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile that forced the Japanese government to issue evacuation alerts and temporarily halt trains. The launches are the latest in a series of North Korean weapons tests in recent months that have raised tensions in the region. They came a day after Pyongyang fired more than 20 missiles, the most it has fired in a single day ever. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the North firing a missile it presumed as an ICBM from an area near its capital Pyongyang around 7:40 a.m. and then firing two short-range missiles an hour later from the nearby city of Kacheon that flew toward its eastern waters. While South Korean officials didn’t immediately release more specific flight details, the longer-range missile may have been fired on a high angle to avoid reaching the territory of the North’s neighbors. Japan’s Defense Minister Yasukazu said one of the North Korean missiles reached a maximum altitude of 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) and flew about 750 kilometers (460 miles). The Japanese government initially said at least one of the missiles flew over its northern territory but later revised its assessment, saying there were no overflies. The office of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida issued warnings to residents in the northern prefectures of Miyagi, Yamagata and Niigata, instructing them to go inside firm buildings or underground. There have been no reports of damage or injuries from areas where the alerts were issued. Bullet train services in those regions were temporarily suspended following the missile alert before resuming shortly. Kishida condemned the North’s launches and said officials were analyzing the details of the weapons. One of the more than 20 missiles North Korea shot on Wednesday flew in the direction of a populated South Korean island and landed near the rivals’ tense sea border, triggering air raid sirens and forcing residents on Ulleung island to evacuate. South Korea quickly responded by launching its own missiles in the same border area. Those launches came hours after North Korea threatened to use nuclear weapons to get the U.S. and South Korea to “pay the most horrible price in history” in protest of ongoing South Korean-U.S. military drills that it views as a rehearsal for a potential invasion. North Korea has been ramping up its weapons demonstrations to a record pace this year. It has fired dozens of missiles, including its first demonstration of intercontinental ballistic missiles since 2017, as it exploits the distraction created by Russia’s war in Ukraine and a pause in diplomacy to push forward arms development and dial up pressure on the United States and its Asian allies. The North has punctuated its tests with an escalatory nuclear doctrine that authorizes preemptive nuclear attacks over a variety of loosely defined crisis situations. U.S. and South Korean officials say North Korea may up the ante in the coming weeks with its first detonation of a nuclear test device since September 2017. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a telephone call with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin over Wednesday’s missile launches, including the one that “recklessly and dangerously” landed near the South Korean coastline, and stressed the “ironclad” U.S. commitment to the security of its ally, according to their offices. State Department spokesperson Ned Price also addressed concerns about possible North Korean preparations for another nuclear test, which would be its seventh overall. Experts say such tests could possibly bring North Korea a step closer to its goal of building a full-fledged arsenal threatening regional U.S. allies and the American mainland. “Should it go forward with a seventh nuclear test there would be additional costs and consequences,” Price said, noting that the test would be a “dangerous, reckless, destabilizing act.” North Korea last flew a missile over Japan in October in what it described as a test of a new intermediate range ballistic missile, which experts say potentially would be capable of reaching Guam, a major U.S. military hub in the Pacific. That launch forced the Japanese government to issue evacuation alerts and pause train services. Experts say North Korea is escalating a brinkmanship aimed at forcing the United States to accept the idea of the North as a nuclear power and negotiating economic and security concessions from a position of strength. Nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang have been stalled since early 2019 over disagreements in exchanging the release of crippling U.S.-led sanctions against the North and the North’s denuclearization steps. The North has so far ignored the Biden administration’s calls for open-ended talks, insisting that Washington should first discard its “hostile” policy, a term North Korea mainly uses to describe sanctions and combined U.S.-South Korea military exercises. White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on Wednesday underscored that the Biden administration has repeatedly sought to reach out to North Korean officials through diplomatic channels and has made clear “we’re willing to sit down with North Korea without precondition to discuss the denuclearization of the peninsula.”

Inflation hit a new record in the 19 countries that use the euro currency, fueled by out-of-control prices for natural gas and electricity due to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Economic growth also slowed ahead of what economists fear is a looming recession, largely as a result of those higher prices sapping Europeans’ ability to spend. Annual inflation reached 10.7% in October, the European Union’s statistics agency, Eurostat, reported Monday. That is up from 9.9% in September and the highest since statistics began to be compiled for the eurozone in 1997. Read: Germany postpones decision on mandatory speed limits Natural gas prices skyrocketed in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine as Russia throttled back pipeline supplies to a trickle of what they were before the war. Europe has had to resort to expensive shipments of liquefied gas that come by ship from the U.S. and Qatar to keep generating electricity and heating homes. While liquid gas succeeded in filling Europe’s storage for the winter, the higher prices have made some industrial products such as steel or fertilizer expensive or simply unprofitable to make. Consumer spending power has been drained at shops and elsewhere as more income goes to pay for fuel and utility bills and as basics such as food become more expensive. Natural gas prices for short-term purchases have eased recently but remain high on markets for coming months, suggesting that costly energy may be a persistent drag on the economy. A survey of professional forecasts last week by the European Central Bank showed expectations for inflation next year rose to 5.8% from 3.6% predicted three months ago. Read: Kanye West drops to No. 3 on list of richest hip-hop stars as top brands cut ties The inflation outbreak has been an international phenomenon, sending price increases to near 40-year highs in the U.S. as well. Eurostat figures showed prices for food, alcohol and tobacco have increasingly joined energy prices as a major contributor, rising 13.1%, while energy prices rose an astronomical 41.9% from a year earlier. Inflation figures varied widely by country, from 7.1% in France to 16.8% in the Netherlands among the biggest member economies, while the highest were in the three Baltic countries: Estonia at 22.4%, Latvia at 21.8%, and Lithuania at 22%. The economy, which had been rebounding from the COVID-19 pandemic, showed growth of 0.2% in the July-September period, slowing from 0.8% in the second quarter. Economists say a major reason is higher prices, and many are predicting the economy will shrink over the last months of this year and the first part of next year. Read: Swiss railway company claims record for world’s longest passenger train The growth in gross domestic product was higher than expected because of extensive government support that softened the blow to people’s incomes from inflation as well as pent-up savings that consumers had left over from the worst of the pandemic restrictions, said Joerg Zeuner, chief economist at Union Investment. “However, there’s no cause for celebration,” he said. “The GDP numbers, along with many other indicators, show that the economy has clearly lost steam over the summer.” With more recent data weakening, “it is a matter of how deep the recession will be and not if there will be one,” wrote economists at Oxford Economics. Higher inflation has sent a chain of tremors through the economy and financial markets. It has led the European Central Bank to raise interest rates at the fastest pace in its history with back-to-back three-quarter point increases at its Oct. 27 and Sept. 8 meetings. That has sent market borrowing costs higher for companies and governments and raised concerns that the war on inflation will hurt growth. Higher rates by the ECB and the U.S. Federal Reserve also have roiled markets for stocks and bonds, which had been supported by years of low central bank benchmarks and money-printing stimulus. Meanwhile, higher bond market costs for governments remain a concern for heavily indebted eurozone countries such as Italy. Read more: Soaring inflation threatens to unleash political turmoil across Europe  

Germany is postponing politically sensitive decisions on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector until 2023 amid strong opposition from one governing party to the idea of a universal speed limit, officials said Monday. The libertarian Free Democratic Party, which controls the Transport Ministry, has long blocked the introduction mandatory speed limits seen in most of Germany’s neighbors. Read: UN nuclear agency to probe Russia claim of `dirty bombs' Experts say that limiting speeds on highways to 120 kilometers per hour (74.5 mph) would save 2.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. A limit of 100 kmh (62 mph) would more than double the savings, according to Germany’s Environment Agency. Those annual savings would make a significant contribution to closing the remaining emissions gap in Germany’s transport sector of 118-175 million tons by 2030. Proposals released Monday by the Economy Ministry would close the emissions gap in all other sectors for the country to meet its climate goals. Germany wants to cut emissions by 65% from 1990 levels by 2030, but have acknowledged that this will be a “gigantic” task and the country is lagging. Europe’s biggest economy aims to have ‘net zero’ emissions by 2045. Read: Russia halts grain deal over Ukrainian drone attack To achieve this, Germany will have to double its current rate of emissions cuts by the middle of this decade, then triple them from 2030 onward, the ministry said. It noted that significant measures have already been put in place to increase renewable energy generation and to ramp up the production of hydrogen for industrial use. While Germany plans to introduce a monthly 49-euro ticket to encourage the use of public transit, the ministry said “climate policy failures of the past decades” meant further measures would need to be agreed in 2023.  

Only a few years ago, a Halloween party, which was variously viewed as a suspiciously pagan foreign holiday or as sinful, unnecessary and weird, meant arrests in Saudi Arabia. Now, a government-sponsored "horror weekend" means sold-out costume shops and scary clowns. This year, it looked like creatures from a haunted house had escaped and taken over parts of the Saudi capital Riyadh. Monsters, witches, and bank robbers were everywhere, according to The New York Times. Saudi Arabia celebrated the festival of Halloween alongside activities of the Riyadh Season 2022 from October 27 to 29, two days before the Americans' Halloween celebrations. Read: Halloween crowd stampede in Seoul leaves at least 151 dead "The atmosphere at the weekend is terrifying," the head of the General Authority for Entertainment, Advisor to the Saudi Royal Court, Turki Al-Sheikh, wrote on social media. However, the government-sponsored event was not, strictly speaking, a Halloween festival. Instead, it was promoted as a horror weekend, conveniently coinciding with the weekend before Halloween. Some of the revellers seemed to have only a vague idea of what Halloween was, and had come simply to enjoy the atmosphere, reported The New York Times.

It happened at a music festival in Houston, a soccer stadium in England, during a hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, in a Chicago nightclub, and countless other gatherings: Large crowds surge toward exits, onto playing fields or press up against a stage with such force that people are literally squeezed to death. And it has happened again, during Halloween festivities in the South Korean capital Seoul, where a crowd pushed forward, the narrow street they were on acting as a vice, leaving more than 140 people dead and 150 more injured. The risk of such tragic accidents, which receded when venues closed and people stayed home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has returned. To be sure, most events where large crowds gather happen without injury or death, with fans coming and going without incident. But those that went horribly wrong shared some common traits. Here is a look at why that happens: HOW DO PEOPLE DIE AT THESE EVENTS? While movies that show crowds desperately try to flee suggest getting trampled might be the cause of most of the deaths, the reality is most people who die in a crowd surge are suffocated. Read: Seoul Halloween stampede: World leaders offer condolences What can’t be seen are forces so strong that they can bend steel. That means something as simple as drawing breath becomes impossible. People die standing up and those who fall die because the bodies on top of them exert such pressure that breathing becomes impossible. “As people struggle to get up, arms and legs get twisted together. Blood supply starts to be reduced to the brain,” G. Keith Still, a visiting professor of crowd science at the University of Suffolk in England, told NPR after the Astroworld crowd surge in Houston last November. “It takes 30 seconds before you lose consciousness, and around about six minutes, you’re into compressive or restrictive asphyxia. That’s a generally the attributed cause of death — not crushing, but suffocation.” WHAT IS THE EXPERIENCE OF BEING SWEPT INTO A CRUSH OF PEOPLE LIKE? Survivors tell stories of gasping for breath, being pushed deeper under what feels like an avalanche of flesh as others, desperate to escape, climb over them. Of being pinned against doors that won’t open and fences that won’t give. “Survivors described being gradually compressed, unable to move, their heads ‘locked between arms and shoulders ... faces gasping in panic,’” according to a report after a human crush in 1989 at the Hillsborough soccer stadium in Sheffield, England, led to the death of nearly 100 Liverpool fans. “They were aware that people were dying and they were helpless to save themselves.” WHAT TRIGGERS SUCH EVENTS? At a Chicago nightclub in 2003, a crowd surge began after security guards used pepper spray to break up a fight. Twenty-one people died in the resulting crowd surge. And this month in Indonesia, 131 people were killed when tear gas was fired into a half-locked stadium, triggering a crush at the exits. Read: Halloween crowd stampede in Seoul leaves at least 151 dead In Nepal in 1988, it was a sudden downpour that sent soccer fans rushing toward locked stadium exits, leading to the deaths of 93 fans. In the latest incident in South Korea, some news outlets reported that the crush occurred after a large number of people rushed to a bar after hearing that an unidentified celebrity was there. But Still, the British professor who has testified as an expert witness in court cases involving crowds, pointed to a variation of the age-old example of someone shouting “Fire” in a crowded movie theater. He told the AP last year that what lights the fuse of such a rush for safety in the U.S., more than in any other country, is the sound of someone shouting: “He has a gun!” WHAT ROLE DID THE PANDEMIC PLAY? Stadiums are filling up again. During the pandemic, as games went forward, teams took some creative steps to make things look somewhat normal. Cardboard figures of fans were placed in some of the seats and crowd noise was piped in — a sports version of a comedy show laugh track. Now, though, the crowds are back, and the danger has returned. “As soon as you add people into the mix, there will always be a risk,” Steve Allen of Crowd Safety, a U.K.-based consultancy engaged in major events around the world, told the AP in 2021.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has catalogued the 19 fungi that represent the greatest public health risk today to promote research and strengthen the response to fungal infections and antifungal resistance. People most at risk are those with underlying health problems or a weakened immune system, the UN health agency said. The invasive fungal infections increased significantly among hospitalised patients, often with devastating consequences when the Covid-19 pandemic gathered pace. "New groups at risk of invasive fungal disease are constantly being identified," the WHO said Tuesday. "As the fungi that cause common infections – such as candida oral and vaginal thrush – become increasingly resistant to treatment, risks for the development of more invasive forms of infections in the general population are also growing." There are only four types of antifungal medicine available today, which is a problem, as fungal infections are becoming more common and resistant to treatment. Even more worrying is the fact that most fungal pathogens lack rapid and sensitive diagnostics, and those (medicines) that exist are not widely available or affordable globally, the WHO said. People at greatest risk from invasive fungal infections include those with cancer, HIV or AIDS, organ transplants, chronic respiratory disease and tuberculosis. Latest data shared by the WHO indicates that fungal diseases are expanding in number and reach worldwide. Global warming and the increase in international travel and trade are believed to be responsible, the UN health agency said. To tackle the fungal disease, the WHO urged the strengthening of laboratory and surveillance capacities, to better understand the burden of infection and antifungal resistance. The UN health agency's catalogue focuses on fungal pathogens that can cause invasive acute and subacute systemic fungal infections which have proved resistant to medication. The pathogens are ranked and listed in three priority groups: critical, high and medium. The critical group includes Cryptococcus neoformans, Candida auris, Aspergillus fumigatus and Candida albicans.