YOUR WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE
- After years of detention in Iran, Mrs. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, and Mr. Anoosheh Ashoori, 67, returned to the UK in the early hours of Thursday. Following months of negotiation, the British-Iranian nationals landed at RAF Brize Norton where they were reunited with their families. Mrs Ratcliffe’s daughter, Gabriella, had not seen her for some time and rushed to embrace her. Elika Ashoori, Mr Ashoori’s daughter, expressed her joy by sharing a video of the two arriving.
- Scientists claim to have cracked one of the biggest paradoxes in physics. It was Prof. Stephen Hawking who first noted that two fundamental theories are placed at odds with each other by black hole behaviour. The researchers who solved the paradox mathematically showed that black holes have a property called “quantum hair” which, according to Prof Xavier Calmet, one of the researchers, “cracked the problem”. Black holes are dead stars that have collapsed under their own gravity and do not allow even light to escape them.
- The Financial Conduct Authority, FCA, recently stated that no UK-based company that currently provides crypto-currency services has a license to operate a crypto-ATM. As a result, all of the 81 functional crypto-ATMs in the UK must be decommissioned, or the FCA will take further action. Crypto-ATMs allow people to buy crypto-currencies, such as BitCoin, using their band cards. However, the FCA stated that the industry is not currently regulated and customers have no protection in the events of their transactions going wrong.
- Following a racial slur made about comedian Trevor Noah, Kanye West’s Instagram account has been disabled for 24 hours. Mr. Noah had previously made a statement that Kanye West’s behaviour towards his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, their children and her current partner, Pete Davidson were “terrifying” whereupon the rapper retaliated with the offensive post in violation of Instagram’s policies on hate speech and bullying. Kanye was unable to post, reply, or send private messages although the account remained visible.
- Environmentalists have protested the decision of the UK government to revise some of their clean-air targets. Standards for harmful PM2.5 particles, generated by road transport, construction and solvent use, will now only come into effect from 2040. Given the harmful effects of PM2.5 on people, including heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer, stunted lung-development in children and asthma risk, health activists warned that 2040 is too late. Minsters, however, said that an earlier date is not possible, given the many sources of the pollution.
- The German cyber-security agency has cautioned against the use of Kaspersky, the Russian-based anti-virus software. Given the invasion of the Ukraine, the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) warned that companies using this platform may be spied upon, or unwittingly used in cyber-attacks. Noting that it has no ties to the Russian government, Kaspersky stated that this warning was politically motivated.
NEWS BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMELA MOORE
Date: 18/03/22
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