REIGNING Brave Combat Federation (CF) Fighter of the Year Rolando “Dy Incredible” Dy of the Philippines is set to return to action in March against Kyrgyzstan’s Abdisalam Kubanychbek in a lightweight title eliminator.
In an announcement late Wednesday, Bahrain-based Brave said the Dy-Kubanychbek fight will headline Brave CF 47 on March 11, which kicks off the promotion’s “Kombat Kingdom” offering.
A veteran MMA fighter, Mr. Dy, 29, seeks to build on his good showing last year and continue his push to the summit of the division and get a shot at the title currently held by Frenchman Amin Ayoub.
Mr. Dy, son of Filipino boxing legend Rolando Navarette, has thrust himself to the fore after a fruitful season in 2020 notwithstanding the limitations presented by the coronavirus pandemic.
He defeated Maciej Gierszewski and John Brewin within a two-month span and had Brave impressed to make him the top fighter for last year.
Mr. Kubanychbek, for his part, arrived at Brave in 2019 and has steadily become one of the most prominent lightweight fighters in the promotion.
He earned back-to-back knockouts, against João Paulo Rodrigues and Vagif Askerov, and recently, at Brave CF 46, last January, submitted Jahongir Saidjamolov in the second round.
The full slate of fights for Brave CF 47 will be announced in the days ahead.
Kombat Kingdom happens within a 21-day span and will feature a series of fight nights until Apr. 1, when Brave hosts its 50th event.
Brave was founded in 2016 and has staged events in different parts of the world, including the Philippines. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo
FILIPINO pole-vaulter and Tokyo Olympics-bound EJ Obeina won a bronze medal in the 2021 Copernicus Cup in Torun, Poland, on Thursday (Manila time) to end his indoor season campaign.
Mr. Obiena had it rough early in the competition, needing three tries to clear 5.40 meters but eventually picked things.
He got to clear 5.60 and 5.72 meters after then tied Sam Kendricks of the United States and hometown bet Piotr Lisek for clearing 5.80 meters.
Mr. Kendricks, however, emerged as the winner as he cleared the height in only one try, while Messrs. Lisek and Obiena needed three attempts.
All three tried to clear 5.87 meters, but they could not succeed on it.
Mr. Obiena dropped to third behind Mr. Lisek as the former needed two attempts to clear the 5.72m jump, while the Polish athlete only did one.
The bronze in the Copernicus Cup was the fourth podium finish in this year’s indoor tour for Mr. Obiena after winning gold medals in the ISTAF Berlin Indoor Meet and PSD Indoor Meeting in Germany and a silver in the Orlen Cup in Poland.
On a Facebook post, Mr. Obiena, who is training in Europe with his coach and Olympic gold medalist Vitaly Petrov in preparation for his Olympic quest, said he was satisfied with his showing in the World Indoor Tour and thanked his supporters for rallying behind him.
“Last leg of the World Indoor Tour has come to an end with the conclusion of @copernicuscup_pl here in Torun. Going “home” with a [bronze medal] and lots and lots of learning plus some bruises,” Mr. Obiena wrote.
“Thank you coach #vitalypetrov for traveling and going thru all the covid test, travel, stress, pole transport, and most importantly the patience you have given me through and through. Hope to somehow someday to make it all worthwhile,” he added.
He also thanked the Philippine Sports Commission and his home federation the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association for continuing to look after him despite his training abroad.
“To everyone who have made this season possible. From @phil.sportscommission to #patafa and to my sponsors and friends and family and everyone who supported me and maybe doubted me as well. Thank you very much! It’s been a blast and definitely wouldn’t be possible without y’all. #muchlove Ciao 2021 Indoor Season,” Mr. Obiena further wrote.
Apart from Mr. Obiena, others who have qualified for the rescheduled Olympic Games this year to date are gymnast Caloy Yulo and boxers Eumir Felix Marcial and Irish Magno. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo
DONOVAN Mitchell had 24 points, seven rebounds, seven assists and four steals, and the Utah Jazz captured their ninth consecutive victory, a 114-96 decision over the host Los Angeles (LA) Clippers on Wednesday.
Rudy Gobert contributed 23 points on 8-of-12 shooting and grabbed 20 rebounds for the Jazz, who have won 20 of their past 21 games. Utah’s lone setback during that stretch came on Jan. 31 at Denver.
Jordan Clarkson came off the Utah bench to score 18 points, while Joe Ingles chipped in 14 points and five assists. Royce O’Neale had 12 points and eight boards.
The Clippers again played without Kawhi Leonard (leg), Paul George (toe) and Nicolas Batum (concussion). Although the Clippers were able to earn a surprising win over the Miami Heat on Monday without the three and Patrick Beverley (rest), they had no such luck against the Western Conference-leading Jazz.
Lou Williams had 16 points, six rebounds and six assists and Reggie Jackson added 15 points for the Clippers, who had their four-game winning streak snapped. Amir Coffey added 13 points, while Serge Ibaka scored 10.
Neither team led by more than six points through the first three quarters. However, the Jazz seized control in the fourth, using a 19-7 surge for a 100-82 lead after Clarkson’s 3-pointer with 6:53 remaining. Los Angeles never recovered.
Utah took an 81-75 lead into the fourth.
The Clippers wiped out an early deficit with an 11-2 run for a 38-34 edge after a foul shot by Williams midway through the second quarter. A bucket by Utah’s Derrick Favors knotted the score at 40, but the Clippers regained the lead and grabbed a 51-46 advantage at the break.
Williams led all scorers with 14 first-half points. Mitchell topped Utah with 12 points before intermission. — Reuters
GOALS from Mehdi Taremi and Moussa Marega propelled Porto to their first-ever victory over Juventus in the Champions League after they secured a 2-1 win over the Italian champions in the first leg of their last-16 tie on Wednesday.
On a night when little went Juventus’ way, Federico Chiesa’s late strike at least handed them a lifeline going into the return leg in Turin on March 9.
Taremi pounced on a sloppy back pass after 63 seconds to fire in the opener, rattling Juventus who failed to create any meaningful chances before halftime.
Things got worse for Andrea Pirlo’s side when Marega blasted in Porto’s second 19 seconds into the second half.
Juventus eventually mustered a response when Chiesa fired in a precious away goal with eight minutes remaining, but it was not enough to stop the 2004 European champions from celebrating their first win over the Italian club at the fifth attempt.
“Up to the 70th minute we blocked out Juve, we did a good job defensively,” Porto coach Sergio Conceicao told Sky Sport Italia.
“We knew we could create problems for them with a high press, blocking their strong points, and they have many.
“On a strategic level it was a good game, but we’re only halfway.”
Chiesa’s strike ended Porto’s run of five consecutive clean sheets in the competition and left the tie wide open.
“Our approach made the game an uphill struggle,” Chiesa said. “We conceded a goal after a few seconds and in the Champions League when you’re not fully focused they will punish you. The away goal will give us strength for the second leg.”
Juve impressed in the group stage by winning five games from six, including a 3-0 victory at Barcelona.
DREADFUL START But they made a dreadful start when Taremi anticipated Rodrigo Bentancur’s pass back to Wojciech Szczesny and slid in to shoot past the goalkeeper from close range.
Juve were knocked off their stride by Porto’s pressing and were almost caught out again when Szczesny cleared the ball to Sergio Oliveira whose shot was deflected wide.
Matters got worse for the Turin club when captain Giorgio Chiellini limped off injured after 34 minutes.
Porto were even quicker out of the blocks in the second half as Marega got on the end of a Wilson Manafa cut-back to fire home within seconds of the restart.
Szczesny stopped an Oliveira shot from making it three, but the visitors came to life in the final 20 minutes.
Agustin Marchesin palmed away a deflected Chiesa shot, before the Italy international raced on to a pass and cushioned a finish into the corner.
The goal made Chiesa the first Juventus player other than Cristiano Ronaldo to score a knockout stage goal in the Champions League since Blaise Matuidi in 2018.
Ronaldo, the competition’s all-time top scorer, was largely quiet on his return to his home country, but he had appeals for a penalty waved away in stoppage time after going down under a challenge. — Reuters
THE regular season of the National Basketball Association isn’t even close to two-fifths done, and, already, longtime habitués have seen fit to work up a lather over Most Valuable Player candidates. In part, it’s because the pro hoops scene has become an endless source of barber shop talk; fanatics are simply unable to stop trumpeting the virtues of marquee names, especially when compared to others also burning rubber at elite levels. In larger measure, it’s due to the sheer number of legitimate choices on tap; at this point in the 2020-21 campaign, as many as nine stalwarts can be considered for the accolade.
There are the usual suspects, of course; these are the former winners and perennial contenders who cannot but be included in the short list for the award. In this group are such notables as LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, and even Anthony Davis, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant. And then there are those who have made a significant leap; previously on the fringes in comparison to the aforementioned heralds, their stellar play to date has granted them the privilege of being included with the best of the best. In this group are the likes of Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokić, and, yes, Rudy Gobert.
It’s perhaps no coincidence that all the MVP speculation has reached fever pitch at a time when fans are celebrating Michael Jordan’s 58th birthday. The widely acknowledged greatest of all time remains the gold standard for ambassadors of the league, and not just because he has five Maurice Podoloff Trophies on his mantel. And with James threatening to rewrite history books in the face of yet another stellar season, the latest straw polls for the hardware carry not inconsiderable meaning.
True, anything can happen in between now and the time of reckoning for the award. When voters composed of media practitioners in North America put pen to paper and formalize their first-to-fifth rankings, intervening circumstances will have pruned the number. Attrition will have happened naturally; for instance, the forced sidelining of Davis and Durant due to injuries has presumably disqualified them from serious consideration for the achievement. Ditto the controversial manner in which James Harden extricated himself from the Rockets, his seamless assimilation by the Nets notwithstanding.
In any case, it’s fair to argue that the eventual winner will deserve to be called MVP. There will inevitably be hand-wringing and second-guessing, but, no matter how justified the push against recency bias may be, there can be no taking back the hardware. Which is why the stars keep showing up and showing their best, and why they want the stars to be aligned for them.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and Human Resources management, corporate communications, and business development.
Families are attending online mass and finding ways to recreate religious communities virtually.
Family and community ties and faith will get Filipinos through the pandemic, according to panelists at a virtual conference on cultivating a culture of well-being.
Families can be mental health advocates by maintaining activities that enrich the experience of each member, thereby strengthening their support system, said Dr. Carolina U. Rayco, national executive director of the Philippine Mental Health Association.
“Everything starts with the family. If kids see that we [adults] have a good disposition, then they will have a good model for how to cope with their own challenges,” she said. Republic Act No. 11036, or the the Mental Health Act, promotes mental health services, but it can “only do so much for us,” she added.
Parents who aren’t tech-savvy can still help their children—a majority of whom are remote learners—by teaching “time management, discipline, and responsibility,” said Shiena R. Base, a technical specialist on child protection at Educo Philippines, a global development non-government organization.
Plants, suggested Dr. Kenneth Ross P. Javate, a psychiatrist who consults at The Medical City, can be used to teach children these life skills. “Find a way to get nature inside the home. Plants, which teach the value of time and patience, are a good alternative to gadgets,” he said.
THE LITTLE THINGS In taking care of their children, adults must not forget to take care of themselves. The 24/7 confinement imposed by the coronavirus threat has strained many marriages and has led to a rise in relationship conflicts worldwide.
“Arguments are a part of married life. What’s not acceptable is arguments with violence,” Educo’s Ms. Base said. “Appreciate the little things and accept that differences are part of married life. If there’s violence, never hesitate to seek advice and ask for help.”
Fr. Carmelo “Tito” A. Caluag, who hosts the weekly show Journeys of Hope on iWant, said that faith can alleviate the feeling of isolation.
“A lot of families hear mass more nowadays because of the availability of online masses,” he said. “That’s one paradigm shift. Ang buhay panalangin nagbago [There has been a change in people’s spiritual life].”
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, he added, created programs on food security, education, well-being, malnutrition, and job creation to offer to families through dioceses. He said that some of these programs have an agri-entrepreneurship focus that addresses not only immediate needs but also long-term sustainability.
“We need to find programs that empower people again,” he said. “What we need to give the Filipino family now is hope.”
Organized by Unilab Foundation, Inc., the Filipino Family Wellbeing Virtual Conference was a multisectoral event aimed at addressing issues related to the pandemic and the health of families. — Patricia B. Mirasol
Eight of the ten local enterprises believe Asian vendors provide better solutions, highest among the markets surveyed
A majority (94%) of Philippine businesses view cloud-based IT solutions as an important factor in mitigating the impact of the pandemic, according to a survey entitled “The Role of Cloud in Asia and Confidence in Asian Innovation”, commissioned by Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group.
With cloud technologies being seen as an enabler of digital transformations, 88% of Philippine businesses stated they are now more supportive of using cloud-based IT solutions to grow their businesses as compared to before COVID-19, among the highest of the markets surveyed.
“Businesses in the Philippines are embracing cloud technology because it has given them the flexibility to adjust quickly and easily during the pandemic. We anticipate that more businesses in the Philippines will adopt cloud services for their core businesses in the near future,” said Allen Guo, General Manager for the Philippines, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.
Increasing cloud adoption
Given the impact of COVID-19 on business operations and working arrangements, an increasing number of Philippine enterprises are turning to cloud-based IT solutions to navigate the new conditions with more than half (51%) of businesses reporting they have adopted more cloud-based IT solutions. Close to 8 out of 10 (78%) ITDMs surveyed said they increased their working relationships with cloud vendors or consultants since the pandemic to develop solutions for remote working, building new apps or products, and managing workloads.
COVID-19 also increased demand for hybrid cloud solutions in the Philippines, with 74% of local businesses seeing the approach as key to their disaster recovery and business continuity efforts, as it captures the public cloud’s highly elastic, scalable, and accessible benefits while simultaneously supporting the needs of private cloud users.
The survey found that nearly 70% of local enterprises agree that working with third-party IT vendors can help businesses react more quickly to COVID-19 compared to relying on an in-house team.
Confidence in Asian vendors
Given a greater understanding of the Asian mindset, 80% of ITDMs from the Philippines believe Asian vendors are able to offer better cloud solutions, the highest among the markets surveyed. The Philippines also showed the highest degree of confidence in cloud service providers among the markets surveyed, with 90% of respondents saying they believed cloud providers deliver on their promises.
Since the pandemic began, Philippine respondents have considered security credentials (62%), the ability to integrate with existing IT infrastructure (54%), and cost (48%) as the top three most important factors when deciding to partner with a cloud solutions provider. These factors were the same prior to COVID-19 as well.
As the leading public cloud service provider in the Asia Pacific, Alibaba Cloud provides localized solutions and all of its major products – such as its elastic computing, storage, database, and network and security services – to empower the digital transformation of enterprises in the Philippines.
Further to this end, Alibaba Cloud has set a goal of supporting 5,000 local enterprises with their digital migrations by the end of 2023 as well as training 50,000 and certifying at least 10,000 IT professionals within the next three years.
“The Role of Cloud in Asia and Confidence in Asian Innovation Survey” polled over 1,000 IT decision-makers (ITDMs) from the Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, India, and Indonesia late last year to understand how the business community is viewing cloud solutions and local innovation in the context of the pandemic.
In the working-class neighborhood of Sham Shui Po, a Mecca for cheap electronics, more than a dozen vendors told Reuters they have seen a spike in demand for old smartphones since last week, when the government announced plans to ease restrictions.
HONG KONG — Electronics shops in Hong Kong have seen a sharp increase in demand for cheap burner phones as the Chinese-ruled city’s government eases coronavirus restrictions but pushes the use of a contact-tracing app which has raised privacy concerns.
The former British colony saw anti-government and anti-China protests erupt in 2019 and a sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020 in response, along with the arrest of most of its prominent pro-democracy activists.
The swift authoritarian turn taken by the government, which denies curbing the rights and freedoms of the special administrative region’s 7.5 million residents, has resulted in deep-seated mistrust of public policies, including of measures to curb the coronavirus.
Health Secretary Sophia Chan said the app poses no privacy risks as it only stores data on users’ phones and no third party collects it. The app notifies users if they had been in the same place with a person confirmed with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
“I’m buying a burner phone because the government clearly doesn’t trust Hong Kong people, so why would I trust them?” said Vincent, 28, an accountant who gave only his first name because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Contact-tracing apps have sparked similar privacy and trust issues around the world, from Singapore to the United States.
Hong Kong on Thursday lifted limits on how many people could sit together in restaurants to four from two and the cut-off time for dining to 10 p.m. from 6 p.m.
Restaurants and other venues just reopening, such as gyms or beauty salons, are required to write down customers’ details or ask them to scan a QR code with the LeaveHomeSafe app, which authorities use for contact tracing.
Civil servants have been asked to scan the code before entering and leaving government offices.
In the working-class neighborhood of Sham Shui Po, a Mecca for cheap electronics, more than a dozen vendors told Reuters they have seen a spike in demand for old smartphones since last week, when the government announced plans to ease restrictions.
“People are just looking for a cheap smartphone that can run the LeaveHomeSafe app,” said Wong, a vendor at Phone House, who said she sold 50 phones in the past week, compared with the usual 10 or so per week previously.
Other vendors reported a three- or four-fold increase in sales of cheap phones.
“I have seen a lot more people asking about and buying older phones over Chinese New Year,” said Andy Kwok of Ah Ling Telecommunications. “I have had to tell them the phone needs to be at least on Android 8 (for the app) to run.”
The most popular phone was the Samsung Galaxy J5, released in 2015, now selling for as little as HK$300 ($38.70).
The app has been downloaded 840,000 times since its launch last November, with more than 70,000 venues participating in the scheme, the government said this week. — Justin Chan/Reuters
Borrowing levels are expected to run well above pre-COVID levels in many countries and sectors again this year, supported by still low interest rates, although a reopening of economies should help on the GDP side of the equation. Image via Freepik
LONDON — The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has added $24 trillion to the global debt mountain over the last year a new study has shown, leaving it at a record $281 trillion and the worldwide debt-to-GDP ratio at over 355%.
The Institute of International Finance’s (IIF) global debt monitor estimated government support programs had accounted for half of the rise, while global firms, banks, and households added $5.4 trillion, 3.9 trillion and $2.6 trillion respectively.
It has meant that debt as a ratio of world economic output known as gross domestic product surged by 35 percentage points to over 355% of GDP.
That upswing is well beyond the rise seen during the global financial crisis, when 2008 and 2009 saw 10 percentage points and 15 percentage points respective debt-to-GDP jumps.
There is also little sign of a near-term stabilization.
Borrowing levels are expected to run well above pre-COVID levels in many countries and sectors again this year, supported by still low interest rates, although a reopening of economies should help on the GDP side of the equation.
“We expect global government debt to increase by another $10 trillion this year and surpass $92 trillion,” the IIF report said, adding that winding down support could also prove even more challenging than it was after the financial crisis.
“Political and social pressure could limit governments’ efforts to reduce deficits and debt, jeopardizing their ability to cope with future crises.”
“This could also constrain policy responses to mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change and natural capital loss,” it added.
EUROPE DEBT Debt rises were particularly sharp in Europe, with non-financial sector debt-to-GDP ratios in France, Spain, and Greece increasing some 50 percentage points.
The rapid build-up was mostly driven by governments, particularly in Greece, Spain, Britain, and Canada. Switzerland was the only mature market economy in the IIF’s 61-country analysis to record a decline in its debt ratio.
In emerging markets, China saw the biggest rise in debt ratios excluding banks, followed by Turkey, Korea, and the United Arab Emirates. South Africa and India recorded the largest increases just in terms of government debt ratios.
“Premature withdrawal of supportive government measures could mean a surge in bankruptcies and a new wave of non-performing loans,” the IIF said.
However, sustained reliance on government support could pose “systemic risks” as well by encouraging so-called “zombie” firms—the weakest and most indebted corporates—to take on even more debt. — Marc Jones/Reuters
The changes made by Facebook wiped clean pages operated by news outlets and removed posts by individual users sharing Australian news, three days before the country begins a nationwide vaccination program to slow the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). — REUTERS
SYDNEY — Australians woke to empty news feeds on their Facebook Inc. pages on Thursday after the social media giant blocked all media content in a surprise and dramatic escalation of a dispute with the government over paying for content.
The move was swiftly criticized by news producers, politicians, and human rights advocates, particularly as it became clear that official health pages, emergency safety warnings, and welfare networks had all been scrubbed from the site along with news.
“Facebook was wrong, Facebook’s actions were unnecessary, they were heavy-handed, and they will damage its reputation here in Australia,” Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told a televised news conference.
Mr. Frydenberg said Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg gave no warning of the news shutdown when the pair spoke over the weekend about looming laws that will force both Facebook and search engine giant Google to pay local publishers for content.
The two men had a subsequent conversation on Thursday morning which was “constructive,” Mr. Frydenberg said, adding they discussed what he called “differing interpretations” about how the new Media Bargaining Code would work.
Facebook’s dramatic move represents a split from Alphabet Inc.-owned Google after they joined together for years to campaign against the laws. Both had threatened to cancel services in Australia, but Google has instead sealed preemptive deals with several outlets in recent days.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. was the latest to announce a deal in which it will receive “significant payments” from Google in return for providing content for the search engine’s News Showcase account.
Google declined to comment on the Facebook decision on Thursday, while a News Corp. spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
An advertisement on News Corp.’s main Australian news site said, “You don’t need Facebook to get your news,” alongside a link to the company’s smartphone app.
The Australian law would require Facebook and Google to reach commercial deals with news outlets whose links drive traffic to their platforms, or be subjected to forced arbitration to agree on a price.
Facebook said in its statement that the law, which is expected to be passed by parliament within days, “fundamentally misunderstands” the relationship between itself and publishers and it faced a stark choice of complying or banning news content.
The tech giant has said news makes up just 4% of what people view on its website, but its role in news delivery is growing. A 2020 University of Canberra study found 21% of Australians use social media as their primary news source, up 3% from the previous year, while 39% of the population uses Facebook to receive news. The same study said 29% of Australian news video content is consumed on Facebook.
BLANK PAGES The changes made by Facebook wiped clean pages operated by news outlets and removed posts by individual users sharing Australian news, three days before the country begins a nationwide vaccination program to slow the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Lisa Davies, editor of daily The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, owned by Nine Entertainment Co Ltd, tweeted: “Facebook has exponentially increased the opportunity for misinformation, dangerous radicalism and conspiracy theories to abound on its platform.”
The Facebook pages of Nine and News Corp Australia, which together dominate the country’s metro newspaper market, and the government-funded Australian Broadcasting Corp., which acts as a central information source during natural disasters, were blank.
Also affected were several major state government accounts, including those providing advice on the coronavirus pandemic and bushfire threats at the height of the summer season, and scores of charity and non-governmental organization accounts.
“Demand for food relief has never been higher than during this pandemic, and one of our primary comms tools to help connect people with #foodrelief info & advice is now unavailable,” tweeted Brianna Casey, chief executive of hunger relief charity Foodbank.
“Hours matter when you have nothing to eat. SORT THIS OUT!”
SOME PAGES RESTORED By mid-afternoon, many government-backed Facebook pages were restored but several charity pages and all media sites remained dark, including those of international outlets like the New York Times, the BBC, News Corp’s Wall Street Journal, and Reuters.
A Facebook representative in Australia did not reply to a request for comment on the situation. A later Facebook statement said the ban should not affect government pages but “as the law does not provide clear guidance on the definition of news content, we have taken a broad definition.”
Facebook’s own page was down for several hours in Australia before being restored.
“This is an alarming and dangerous turn of events,” said Human Rights Watch in a statement. “Cutting off access to vital information to an entire country in the dead of the night is unconscionable.”
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said Facebook had sent the message to Australians that “you will not find content on our platform which comes from an organization which employs professional journalists, which has editorial policies, which has fact-checking processes”.
Health Minister Greg Hunt called the move “an assault on a sovereign nation” and “an utter abuse of big technology’s market power”. — Byron Kaye/Reuters
The overall amount of money stolen by the hackers is not clear because in some cases the thefts were either halted or reversed. But the figures are significant. In one 2016 heist alone—at the Bangladesh Bank—the hackers are alleged to have made off with $81 million.
WASHINGTON — The United States has charged three North Korean computer programmers with a massive hacking spree aimed at stealing more than $1.3 billion in money and cryptocurrency, affecting companies from banks to Hollywood movie studios, the Department of Justice said on Wednesday.
The indictment alleges that Jon Chang Hyok, 31, Kim Il, 27, and Park Jin Hyok, 36, stole money while working for North Korea’s military intelligence services. Mr. Park had previously been charged in a complaint unsealed in 2018.
The Justice Department said the hackers were responsible for a wide range of criminal activity and high-profile intrusions, including a retaliatory 2014 attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment for producing The Interview movie, which depicted the assassination of North Korea’s leader.
The group is alleged to have targeted staff of AMC Theatres and broken into computers belonging to Mammoth Screen, a UK film company that was working on a drama series about North Korea.
The Justice Department also alleged that the trio participated in the creation of the destructive WannaCry 2.0 ransomware—which hit Britain’s National Health Service hard when it was set loose in 2017.
The indictment pins the blame on the hackers for breaking into banks across South and Southeast Asia, Mexico, and Africa by penetrating the financial institutions’ networks and abusing the SWIFT protocol to steal money. They are also alleged to have deployed malicious applications from March 2018 through September 2020 to target cryptocurrency users.
The overall amount of money stolen by the hackers is not clear because in some cases the thefts were either halted or reversed. But the figures are significant. In one 2016 heist alone—at the Bangladesh Bank—the hackers are alleged to have made off with $81 million.
“North Korea’s operatives, using keyboards rather than guns, stealing digital wallets of cryptocurrency instead of sacks of cash, are the world’s leading 21st-century nation-state bank robbers,” US Assistant Attorney General John Demers told a news briefing.
Kristi Johnson, the FBI assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles Field Office, told reporters that the three alleged hackers were believed to be in North Korea. Officials alleged they had been stationed at times in various other countries, including China and Russia.
The North Korean mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to requests for comment and contact details for the trio could not immediately be found. The Chinese and Russian embassies in Washington also did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price told a regular news briefing on Wednesday that North Korea’s malicious cyber activities threaten the United States and its allies and would be included in an ongoing review of US policy toward the country by the Biden administration.
Overall, North Korea has generated an estimated $2 billion using “widespread and increasingly sophisticated” digital intrusions at banks and cryptocurrency exchanges, according to a United Nations report in 2019 by independent experts monitoring international sanctions on Pyongyang.
“According to one member state, the DPRK total theft of virtual assets, from 2019 to November 2020” was approximately $316.4 million, the report said.
Officials said on Wednesday that Ghaleb Alaumary, a Canadian-American citizen, had separately pleaded guilty to laundering some of the alleged hackers’ money. Requests for comment sent to Alaumary’s lawyers were not immediately returned.
Mr. Alaumary is slated to be sentenced in June in a federal court in Georgia. — Sarah N. Lynch, Raphael Satter and Mark Hosenball/Reuters
A laboratory study suggests that the South African variant of the coronavirus may reduce antibody protection from the Pfizer Inc./BioNTech SE vaccine by two-thirds, and it is not clear if the shot will be effective against the mutation, the companies said on Wednesday.
The study found the vaccine was still able to neutralize the virus and there is not yet evidence from trials in people that the variant reduces vaccine protection, the companies said.
Still, they are making investments and talking to regulators about developing an updated version of their mRNA vaccine or a booster shot, if needed.
For the study, scientists from the companies and the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) developed an engineered virus that contained the same mutations carried on the spike portion of the highly contagious coronavirus variant first discovered in South Africa, known as B.1.351. The spike, used by the virus to enter human cells, is the primary target of many coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines.
Researchers tested the engineered virus against blood taken from people who had been given the vaccine, and found a two-thirds reduction in the level of neutralizing antibodies compared with its effect on the most common version of the virus prevalent in US trials.
Their findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
Because there is no established benchmark yet to determine what level of antibodies are needed to protect against the virus, it is unclear whether that two-thirds reduction will render the vaccine ineffective against the variant spreading around the world.
However, UTMB professor and study co-author Pei-Yong Shi said he believes the Pfizer vaccine will likely be protective against the variant.
“We don’t know what the minimum neutralizing number is. We don’t have that cutoff line,” he said, adding that he suspects the immune response observed is likely to be significantly above where it needs to be to provide protection.
That is because in clinical trials, both the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and a similar shot from Moderna Inc. conferred some protection after a single dose with an antibody response lower than the reduced levels caused by the South African variant in the laboratory study.
Even if the concerning variant significantly reduces effectiveness, the vaccine should still help protect against severe disease and death, he noted. Health experts have said that is the most important factor in keeping stretched healthcare systems from becoming overwhelmed.
More work is needed to understand whether the vaccine works against the South African variant, Mr. Shi said, including clinical trials and the development of correlates of protection—the benchmarks to determine what antibody levels are protective.
Pfizer and BioNTech said they were doing similar lab work to understand whether their vaccine is effective against another variant first found in Brazil.
Moderna published a correspondence in NEJM on Wednesday with similar data previously disclosed elsewhere that showed a sixfold drop in antibody levels versus the South African variant.
Moderna also said the actual efficacy of its vaccine against the South African variant is yet to be determined. The company has previously said it believes the vaccine will work against the variant. — Michael Erman/Reuters
