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The Smart TV in Your LivingRoom Is a Node in the AIScraping Economy
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"NODE" · 총 34건
필터 보기현재 지수
50.3
0 = 부정 우세
50 = 중립
100 = 긍정 우세
최근 7일 기준 88,482건을 분석한 결과, 뉴스 심리지수는 50.2(균형)입니다. 긍정 4,309건(4.9%)·중립 82,019건(92.7%)·부정 2,154건(2.4%)이며, 중립 비중이 뚜렷하게 높습니다. 성향 지수는 종합 14.9(중도 균형)입니다.
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An expert on infectious diseases called on the public on Saturday to get vaccinated against influenza before the current batch of available jabs expires at the end of this month, as cases are on the rise. A recent serious case involved a 17-year-old who was left in a critical condition yesterday after developing complications, including severe pneumonia and shock from catching influenza B. He was not inoculated against the flu. Speaking on a Commercial Radio programme, Professor Ivan Hung, head of the infectious diseases division at the University of Hong Kong and an honorary consultant at Queen Mary Hospital , said the hospital has also logged more flu cases among children and the elderly. “Right now we're seeing a rise in the number of cases in both flu A, which is [subtype] H3, and also flu B, with quite a number of older adults being admitted to hospitals with severe flu cases, and also for children as well. Recently, we have had a 17-year-old with a severe flu B infection,” he said after the show. “But whether it's peaking – it's not yet the so-called summer peak – I think we really have to wait for a few more weeks to see how the trend plays out. "I do recommend anyone who has not been vaccinated to get vaccinated before the end of June because the vaccine is going to expire by the end of June.” Hung urged the elderly, particularly those with chronic diseases, to wear masks in crowded places and use hand sanitisers. People do not have to be too worried over Covid-19, he said, adding that it has become endemic in the city. “I think the coronavirus itself is relatively benign. If you look at the variant, the latest is NB.1.8.1, it’s actually quite close to the LP.8.1, which is the vaccine candidate," Hung said. "Basically, I think it’s not a major concern in terms of coronavirus. “Overall, we have very, very few severe cases being hospitalised. For the last year or so, we didn’t really have a surge in Covid cases. In general, it’s very mild, even for the older adults.” However, those who are immunodeficient and suffer from chronic illnesses should get vaccinated regularly, Hung said, urging those who have not been inoculated against flu to take the jab without delay, as vaccines won’t be available for a short period until the next batch arrives in the fourth quarter. Edited by Robert Kemp
Vacina sendo aplicada Divulgação/Prefeitura de Santos Uma ação itinerante de vacinação contra pneumonia e meningite será realizada entre os dias 8 e 12 de junho em Montes Claros. Serão disponibilizadas doses de Pneumo 23. Segundo a Prefeitura, o objetivo é aumentar a cobertura vacinal e proteger a população. A aplicação será realizada em cinco academias de saúde, durante a manhã. 📲Clique aqui para seguir o canal do g1 Grande Minas no WhatsApp Veja os vídeos que estão em alta no g1 De acordo com o município, a Pneumo 23 é direcionada para pessoas que apresentem as seguintes condições: Asma persistente moderada ou grave; pneumopatias crônicas (exceto asma intermitente ou persistente leve); cardiopatias, hepatopatias e nefropatias crônicas (incluindo pacientes em hemodiálise ou com síndrome nefrótica); diabetes e doenças de depósito; imunodeficiência devido à imunodepressão terapêutica; doenças neurológicas crônicas incapacitantes; trissomias e usuários de implante coclear. Para receber a dose, é preciso levar documento de identificação com foto, cartão de vacina e relatório médico recente que comprove a condição elegível. As vacinas serão disponibilizadas nos seguintes locais e dias, das 8h:30 às 11h: Academia de Saúde Eldorado (08/06) Academia de Saúde Village do Lago (09/06) Academia de Saúde João Botelho (10/06) Academia de Saúde José Corrêa Machado (11/06) Academia de Saúde Tancredo Neves (12/06) LEIA TAMBÉM: Motociclista de 19 anos morre e garupa fica ferido em acidente no bairro São Judas em Montes Claros Quatro dos 12 criminosos mais procurados de MG atuam no Leste e Nordeste do estado Motociclista tenta fugir da PM, abandona mochila com mais de 600 papelotes de cocaína e é preso em Montes Claros Vídeos do Norte, Centro e Noroeste de MG Veja mais notícias da região em g1 Grande Minas.
While company representatives were tight-lipped about the exact technical details of their offering, they explained that a flexible, software-based system would allow individual member-nations to connect their sensors to another nation’s command nodes.
Com aumento dos casos de SRAG, governo do estado decreta emergência na saúde Após o Acre decretar situação de emergência devido ao aumento de Síndrome Respiratória Aguda Grave (SRAG) nesta quinta-feira (4), a Secretaria de Saúde (Sesacre) destacou que o aumento de 35,6% nos casos entre o dia 4 de janeiro e o último sábado (30) foi o fator determinante para a adoção da medida. Conforme a diretora de Atenção Primária e Vigilância em Saúde e Ambiental, Suane Souza, o documento vai permitir a ampliação da cobertura vacinal, monitoramento diário da ocupação dos leitos hospitalares além de garantir, em caso de necessidade, a abertura de novos leitos. 📲 Participe do canal do g1 AC no WhatsApp "Esse decreto é uma medida para que a gente consiga reforçar a nossa rede de saúde com a ampliação de leitos, fazer a contratação de profissionais e poder traçar medidas estratégicas com o apoio do Ministério da Saúde. Com isso, podemos receber mais rápido insumos e equipamentos", disse. Ainda segundo a gestora, no ano passado, entre a semana epidemiológica 1 e 21, o estado tinha 1.060 casos. No mesmo período deste ano, o número saltou para 1.438 registros. A diretora também frisou que um conjunto de pelo menos quatro vírus é o responsável pelo aumento das infecções. Segundo a Sesacre, a medida visa agilizar a contratação de profissionais e a compra de insumos médicos. Reprodução/TV Globo LEIA TAMBÉM: Acre tem mais de 1,3 mil notificações de casos de síndromes respiratórias em 5 meses; Saúde faz alerta Acre tem 80% de cobertura vacinal contra vírus respiratório em gestantes e aplica mais de 4,7 mil doses Acre inicia vacinação contra vírus sincicial para gestantes após receber 3,8 mil doses: 'Cuidado extra' Acre apresenta alto risco para casos de síndromes gripais, alerta Fiocruz Operação Gota: mais de 3 mil pessoas foram vacinadas em 49 comunidades do Acre "É um período de atenção, pois temos em circulação adenovírus, rinovírus, vírus sincicial respiratório e metapneumovírus, ou seja, não se trata de influenza, mas de um conjunto de vírus e suas variantes que pode afetar a todos", completou. Prevenção De acordo com a representante da Sesacre, a população deve ficar atenta aos seguintes fatores para prevenir casos de SRAG: Vacinação atualizada Evitar aglomerações Usar máscaras e evitar o contato direto com pessoas que manifestem sintomas A pasta destaca que as unidades de saúde do estado ainda contam com imunização contra o VSR, destinada exclusivamente a gestantes, além da aplicação de imunoglobulina contra o vírus para bebês prematuros nascidos a partir de abril de 2026. A vacinação contra a gripe continua disponível. A circulação do VSR, principal agente associado à bronquiolite, tem contribuído para o aumento das internações pediátricas no Acre. Os vírus respiratórios podem causar complicações em idosos e pessoas com comorbidades. 🦠 O VSR é um dos principais responsáveis por casos graves de síndrome respiratória em recém-nascidos e crianças pequenas. A imunização protege o bebê ainda durante a gestação, por meio da transferência de anticorpos da mãe para a criança pela placenta. 🚨 Sinais de alerta em crianças com sintomas respiratórios Pediatra esclarece dúvidas dos pais sobre doenças Em entrevista à Rede Amazônica Acre, o médico pediatra, alergista e imunologista Guilherme Pulici alertou para os sinais que pais e responsáveis devem observar em crianças. Fique atento aos principais sintomas: Tosse persistente Febre Respiração mais rápida que o normal Segundo o especialista, crianças pequenas — principalmente menores de 2 anos — exigem cuidado redobrado por serem mais vulneráveis a doenças como a bronquiolite. “A criança com doença respiratória aguda, principalmente nos casos mais graves, costuma apresentar respiração mais rápida. Por isso, os pais devem ficar atentos à febre e à tosse persistente. Vacinem-se, pois isso também protege indiretamente os filhos”, alertou. ⚠️ Grupos de risco merecem atenção especial Pulici também destacou que algumas pessoas têm maior risco de agravamento dos quadros respiratórios. Entre os grupos mais vulneráveis estão: Pessoas com asma Pacientes com bronquite Quem tem sinusite crônica Pessoas com doenças cardíacas Pacientes com doenças renais O médico reforçou a importância da vacinação contra a gripe. “A gripe causada pelo vírus influenza é prevenível e, por meio dos imunizantes, são reduzidas as chances de complicações, internações e mortes. É preciso um cuidado especial, sobretudo com crianças e idosos”, afirmou. 💉 Quem também precisa redobrar os cuidados Além disso, outros grupos também devem ficar atentos: Adultos com imunodeficiências Pessoas que usam medicamentos que enfraquecem o sistema imunológico 🌫️ Impactos da fumaça na saúde O especialista alertou ainda para os efeitos da poluição, especialmente da queima de vegetação. “São partículas tóxicas que causam lesões diretas no sistema respiratório e que, indiretamente, podem afetar órgãos como coração, rins e fígado, além de debilitar o sistema imunológico e reduzir as nossas defesas contra essas doenças”, explicou. Reveja os telejornais do Acre
For over two decades, Pakistan has been locked in a war, not of its choosing but one that it cannot escape. Long after the withdrawal of Western forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, Pakistan continues to absorb the strategic shockwaves of a conflict whose centre of gravity may have shifted, but not disappeared. The return of the Taliban to power in Kabul has transformed the security landscape of South and Central Asia, with Pakistan bearing the most immediate and severe consequences. This is not merely a bilateral problem between neighbours. It is a global security challenge with implications stretching from West Asia to Europe, amid growing international concern over Afghanistan becoming a renewed militant hub. Pakistan’s role in the post-9/11 international order was clear and costly. As a frontline partner of the United States and Nato, Pakistan provided intelligence cooperation, logistics, and sustained military operations against Al Qaeda and affiliated networks. It was later designated a Major Non-Nato Ally, reflecting its centrality to global counterterrorism efforts. Yet, while international forces eventually exited Afghanistan, Pakistan’s war did not end. Instead, it evolved into a long war of attrition aimed at preventing the spillover of militancy from Afghan territory into the region and beyond. The cost Pakistan has paid is extraordinary. Over the past two decades, approximately 100,000 Pakistanis have lost their lives to terrorism, including civilians, security personnel, and children, most tragically symbolised by the massacre at the Army Public School in Peshawar. The site of a truck bomb attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad on September 20, 2008. — Reuters/File The economic toll exceeds $150 billion, encompassing destroyed infrastructure, lost investment, and enduring reputational damage. These figures are not abstractions; they represent one of the highest sacrifices borne by any country in the global war on terror. Over the years, Pakistan has pursued a sustained counterterrorism strategy. It dismantled major terrorist sanctuaries through sequential operations, strengthened its legal framework via the Anti-Terrorism Act and National Action Plan, operationalised dedicated counterterrorism institutions, and imposed financial controls to disrupt terrorist funding. By the late 2010s, violence had dropped sharply, and Pakistan had rebuilt a measure of internal security through institutional resilience rather than episodic force. That progress has been severely undermined by the Taliban’s return to power. Despite commitments under the 2020 Doha framework to prevent Afghan soil from being used against other states, militancy accelerated after the release of thousands of prisoners and the collapse of the Afghan republic. Today, Afghanistan has once again become a permissive environment for transnational jihadist groups, as documented by the United Nations Monitoring teams, contradicting the Doha pledge that Afghan soil would not be used to threaten the security of the United States and its allies. What makes the current situation uniquely dangerous is that the Taliban are no longer an insurgent movement operating from the shadows; they control an entire state. They possess territory, resources, institutions, and an education system that is being systematically redesigned to serve ideological ends. Analysts warn that this form of state capture amounts to long-term societal engineering with consequences that do not remain confined to one country. For Pakistan, the impact is direct and violent. Afghan soil is being used as a launchpad for cross-border terrorism. Pakistani authorities have identified camps, staging areas, and logistics nodes inside Afghanistan operated by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other groups. Leaders of the TTP terror outfit operate openly from Afghan cities, enjoying protection and material support. A security personnel stands guard at an imambargah following an explosion, in Islamabad on February 6, 2026. — AFP/File In 2025 alone, Pakistan conducted more than 75,000 intelligence-based operations across the country, dismantling terrorist formations and neutralising militants. A striking proportion of those involved were Afghan nationals, reflecting the depth of Afghan-side involvement in anti-Pakistan terrorism. This has repeatedly surfaced in international reporting as Pakistan confronted a sustained spike in attacks and arrests tied to cross-border militant facilitation. Pakistan’s geographic exposure magnifies the threat. It shares a 2,670-kilometre border — by far the longest of any neighbouring state. The border cuts through rugged terrain and dense kinship networks, which are routinely exploited by militant groups for infiltration, making Pakistan the primary firewall against the westward diffusion of jihadist violence. The notion that Pakistan can be destabilised without broader repercussions is therefore dangerously myopic. Policies that tolerate, enable, or instrumentalise militant proxies against Pakistan may appear tactically convenient to some regional actors, but they undermine collective security. Terrorist ecosystems, once empowered, rarely remain controllable. As global benchmarking shows, Pakistan continues to rank among the states most affected by terrorism, reinforcing the scale of the threat confronting it. Afghanistan’s transformation into a hub for transnational militancy is now acknowledged not only by Pakistan but by Russia, China, Iran, Central Asian states, as well as UN monitoring bodies. The problem is no longer one of competing narratives; it is a documented security reality, as international reporting continues to describe Afghanistan as a post-withdrawal magnet for armed networks. Despite immense pressure, Pakistan has consistently chosen engagement over abandonment. When Kabul fell in 2021, and much of the international community closed its embassies, Pakistan kept its mission open and facilitated evacuations. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif and Afghan Defence Minister Maulvi Sahib Muhammad Yaqub Mujahid shake hands after signing a ceasefire deal between Pakistan and Afghanistan in Doha, Qatar on October 19, 2025. — X/@KhawajaMAsif/File It has advocated for humanitarian support to the Afghan people, called for the unfreezing of Afghan assets to prevent economic collapse, and invested in trade, transit, and border mechanisms to stabilise livelihoods. Pakistan has also hosted millions of Afghan refugees for decades, absorbing a humanitarian burden that few states would tolerate, even though it is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention. These actions underscore a central truth: Pakistan’s objective is not confrontation with Afghanistan but containment of a threat that endangers the region and the world. Yet engagement without accountability has limits. The Taliban’s failure to take verifiable action against terrorist groups operating from Afghan soil has turned Afghanistan into a net exporter of insecurity. Major reporting has consistently linked Afghanistan’s permissive environment with the rising tempo of attacks in Pakistan. Allowing this trajectory to continue unchecked risks recreating the pre-9/11 environment — this time with more sophisticated networks, advanced weaponry left behind after the Western withdrawal, and digital tools that accelerate recruitment and radicalisation. Evidence of ideological-military institutionalisation is increasingly visible, including reports of new militant training camps in Afghanistan linked to Taliban factions and allied groups. For major powers, the strategic implications are clear. Supporting Pakistan in its efforts to eradicate cross-border terrorism is not a favour; it is a strategic necessity that requires intelligence cooperation, diplomatic backing, and coordinated international pressure on the Taliban to honour their commitments, dismantle terrorist sanctuaries, and end cross-border militancy. The alternative strategic neglect or proxy-driven destabilisation would be far costlier. Pakistan’s war on terror has never been only Pakistan’s war. It has been fought, often quietly and at enormous human cost, on behalf of a global order that depends on preventing ungoverned or ideologically weaponised spaces from becoming incubators of transnational violence. Pakistan’s 2025 operational tempo and threat environment have been extensively documented in international reporting tracking the resurgence of militant violence. If the international community fails to recognise this reality, it risks learning once again, perhaps too late, that terrorism ignored at its source rarely stays there. The warning is no longer theoretical: international reports increasingly describe Afghanistan’s post-2021 environment as a convergence space for armed networks with regional reach, reinforcing the urgency of collective action against the renewed Afghanistan-based militant threat. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Dawn.
CFO Zinsner insists the troubled node was a one-off as 14A stays on track
Pseudomonas aeruginosa com pigmento fluorescente em luz UV BiotechMichael/Divulgação A bactéria Pseudomonas aeruginosa voltou a ser motivo de preocupação de saúde pública após aparecer em dois episódios recentes de recolhimento de produtos no Brasil. Nesta quarta-feira (3), a Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária (Anvisa) determinou o recolhimento de um lote da água mineral Crystal após análises laboratoriais confirmarem a presença do microrganismo. Meses antes, a mesma bactéria havia sido identificada em lotes de produtos da Ypê, levando a empresa a realizar um recolhimento voluntário e, posteriormente, motivando medidas mais amplas de fiscalização por parte da agência reguladora. Embora seja considerada uma bactéria comum no ambiente e raramente represente risco para pessoas saudáveis, a Pseudomonas aeruginosa é conhecida por causar infecções oportunistas em indivíduos com o sistema imunológico comprometido. Entenda a seguir o que é esse microrganismo, onde ele costuma ser encontrado e por que sua presença em produtos destinados ao consumo ou uso doméstico desperta preocupação das autoridades sanitárias. O que é a bactéria? A Pseudomonas aeruginosa é um microrganismo comum no ambiente. Está presente no ar, na água, no solo e pode ser encontrado inclusive na pele de pessoas saudáveis. Ela é classificada na literatura médica como uma bactéria oportunista: raramente causa infecção em pessoas saudáveis, mas pode provocar ou agravar quadros infecciosos em pessoas com o sistema imunológico comprometido. É justamente esse perfil que explica a preocupação com imunossuprimidos, cuidadores e profissionais de saúde. De acordo com o Manual MSD, referência em informações médicas, "essas bactérias são favorecidas por áreas úmidas, como lavatórios, sanitários, banheiras de hidromassagem e piscinas com cloro inadequado, e soluções antissépticas vencidas ou inativadas. Às vezes, essas bactérias estão presentes nas axilas e na área genital de pessoas saudáveis". As infecções por Pseudomonas aeruginosa variam de infecções externas pequenas a distúrbios sérios com risco de morte, segundo a MSD. Quem são os imunossuprimidos São pessoas cujo sistema de defesa do organismo está enfraquecido, seja por doenças ou por tratamentos. Entram nesse grupo, por exemplo: Pacientes em tratamento contra o câncer (quimioterapia, radioterapia) Pessoas transplantadas que usam imunossupressores Pessoas com HIV/aids sem controle adequado Pacientes em uso prolongado de corticoides ou outros imunossupressores Pessoas com doenças autoimunes em tratamento Nesses casos, microrganismos que normalmente não causariam problema podem representar risco maior. De acordo com a MSD, as infecções ocorrem com mais frequência e tendem a ser mais severas em pessoas que: Estão enfraquecidas (debilitadas) por certos distúrbios graves Têm diabetes ou fibrose cística Estão hospitalizadas Têm um distúrbio que enfraquece o sistema imunológico, como infecção avançada pelo vírus da imunodeficiência humana (HIV) Tomam medicamentos para suprimir o sistema imunológico, como aqueles usados para tratar câncer ou para evitar a rejeição de um órgão transplantado
The outspoken crime novelist talks his provocative new book, his hatred of technology and why the film adaptation of LA Confidential is a ‘turkey’ James Ellroy does not own a computer, his publicist explains, so will a phone interview be OK? When the self-proclaimed “mad dog of American crime fiction” picks up his landline at the appointed hour, it transpires that he has never owned a mobile phone either. Nor sent an email. Nor figured out how to turn on his ex-wife Helen Knode’s TV set. “Everything is very complex and it’s satanic to me, the dependency that people have on computers,” Ellroy, 78, says cheerfully in a bass baritone drawl from his pad in Denver, Colorado. “I don’t engage in internet chat and I understand there’s all this crazy shit on the internet and people with the most outlandish beliefs on God’s green Earth.” Continue reading...
Nike released a new promotional image featuring LeBron James and Cristiano Ronaldo for its Mind Slide recovery shoes. The campaign quickly went viral online because both athletes are among the world’s most famous sports stars. Nike says the slides include 22 sensory nodes designed to support recovery and stimulate areas connected to the body and brain after physical activity.
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias “I am in blood, Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” — William Shakespeare, Macbeth PROLOGUE This is and isn’t about America’s illegal war against Iran. It is primarily about hiding an empire in plain sight and now watching it unravel in plain sight. The war against Iran becomes a consequential event in tandem with other structural weaknesses, a fillip of sorts. It reminds one of the Soviet war on Afghanistan. That war, in and of itself, did not bring down the Soviet Leviathan. The process inhered in the very make-up of the Soviet Union. The war just shoved it over the precipice. But let’s get on with our purpose here. In August 2022, then-US President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law. A $280 billion legislative package, it sought to revitalise domestic semiconductor manufacturing. The act was a response to a startling vulnerability: the world’s most advanced chips, essential for everything from F-35 fighter jets to surgical equipment to artificial intelligence, are overwhelmingly manufactured by a single company, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), located on an island claimed as sovereign territory by America’s primary strategic rival, China. This dependence is not an accident of geography or a supply chain anomaly. The semiconductor industry wasn’t even hobbled by Covid 19. Despite its complex and far-flung operations, the industry works smoothly. The US dependence is the logical endpoint of a decades-long corporate strategy that maximised profit by outsourcing physical production while retaining only the high-value design and marketing ends of the value chain, the so-called “Smile Curve” strategy. The undoing of the United States in the Iran war may be far more significant than its defeats in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. It may well mark a historic milestone in the fraying of the position of the US as a global hegemon. But the seeds of this erosion of American dominance, argues Ejaz Haider, were laid long before its misadventure in Iran… The Italian economist and sociologist Giovanni Arrighi, to whom I shall return, would have been amused to see the revered smile curve — taught at prestigious business schools and which encourages firms to outsource capital-intensive manufacturing to focus solely on high-margin research and development (R&D), branding and marketing — as a classic trap of late-stage capitalism. In fact, the CHIPS Act stands as a state-level admission that this strategy, so profitable for individual corporations like Apple and NVIDIA, to name just two, has become a major geopolitical vulnerability for the US. This is the central paradox of America’s declining empire. The very mechanisms that generated unprecedented wealth have systemically dismantled the material and industrial foundations upon which that wealth ultimately rests. The decline of the American empire is not a partisan talking point. The US is a behemoth. It won’t just collapse one day like the Berlin Wall. Nor is a snapshot view the way to go. It is an ongoing structural process and a number of scholars have used longitudinal designs to analyse the trend lines. I argue that it is a slow, systemic unravelling across interconnected domains. First, the financialisation of capital, theorised most rigorously by Arrighi. Capital shifts from productive investment to speculative finance, generating short-term profits at the cost of long-term industrial vitality. It hollows out domestic industrial and political power, a process identified by American sociologist and political scientist Ho-fung Hung, who argues that off-shoring of production destroys the industrial ecosystem, skilled labour base and, ultimately, the social cohesion required for great power competition. Second, the erosion of the alliance system. And no, it’s not just Trump. Three deeper currents are involved: the gradual unravelling of the post-WWII security architecture; the economic failure of neoliberalism; and the imperial outreach baked into the very idea of neoliberalism. Third, the lateral diffusion of technologies, now commodified and everywhere. They help innovative and determined weaker powers offset the asymmetric advantage of bigger powers: Ukraine versus Russia; Hamas/Hezbollah/Houthis versus the US-Zionist duo; and now Iran versus the US-Zionist duo. As I note later in this space, the war against Iran is a much bigger setback for the US than its wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. Corollary: the post-WWII ‘Pax Americana’ is transitioning from a period of hegemonic stability, to use American historian Charles Kindleberger’s concept, into a protracted and likely irreversible, terminal crisis, to borrow Arrighi’s term. But let’s first begin with the peg: the war against Iran. THE PRESENT Since its inception, America has been at war: wars of choice, wars of conquest, wars for resources, wars to defend its hegemony, wars to spread “American values.” How or why does the Iran war stand out? Foremost, the conflict has confirmed the structural limits of US coercive diplomacy in a shifting multipolar world. It has exposed acute structural vulnerabilities in defence economics and inventory endurance, as well as a critical absence of pragmatic post-war planning and a misreading of societal resilience. The conflict has also underscored the changing nature of global alignments in a multipolar world. This comes with the collapse of coercive economic power. For four decades, the US has relied on sophisticated sanctions and lawfare to pressure Iran into subjugation. It has failed, showing the limits of sanctions, especially on fungible commodities. Even sanctions on non-fungible elements like technology can be circumvented. As in Iran’s case, the sanctioned state can develop indigenous expertise through varied strategies. There’s clear evidence that Tehran has developed complex and sophisticated non-dollar lifelines with China and Russia, rendering unilateral sanctions increasingly ineffective. It has used an array of strategies to blunt the effect: interchangeability (can’t sell to X; sell to Y); value retention (barter, use of cryptocurrencies); substitution and evasion (relying on third parties, covert ship-to-ship transfers, use of shell companies). Unlike the insurgencies in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the US is not involved in ground combat in Iran (so far). It has relied on high-tech aerial and missile attacks through its formidable ISTAR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance) capabilities. Iran has not responded through elusive, hit-and-run ground attacks. It has countered US technology through technology in a non-contact war. But its employment of technology is grounded in asymmetric capabilities: a large arsenal of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and one-way attack drones. The cost-exchange ratio, by most accounts, is unfavourable for the US. For instance, the Iranian Shahed-136 one-way attack drone has an estimated unit cost of $20,000 (some estimates put it at around $10,000). It is a simple, slow-moving, and relatively easy to detect drone. But it is also cheap and plentiful. To intercept it with costly SM-2 or ESSM missiles creates a cost-exchange ratio of between 30 to one and 100 to one. It is also a shoot-and-scoot system. Iran can afford to lose hundreds of such drones and produce some 1,000 per month. The US cannot afford to fire thousands of interceptors at them. And those interceptors take three to four years to manufacture. It is a cost-asymmetric war. Similarly, the US has been pulling out assets from the Pacific to the Gulf. The USS Boxer amphibious group is an example. Diverting naval assets from the Pacific physically manifests deployment overstretch. As Robert Farley, visiting professor at US Army War College notes, resources needed to prevail in one theatre guarantee weakness in another. It’s the same with all force deployments and employments: “Every missile allocated to one target is unavailable for another.” The contrast with Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan is instructive. In those theatres, the US was defeated by determined insurgencies, even as it bombed and bombed. The adversaries were willing to absorb enormous casualties, drag it out and inflict mission fatigue on the US. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, broadly speaking, the US won the conventional war expeditiously but then got bogged down. In the Iran conflict, while Tehran has demonstrated the ability to absorb much pain, the US is not facing elusive insurgents but a state with a sophisticated missile programme, a sharp understanding of force employment, a network of allies across the region (Hezbollah in Lebanon, Ansar Allah in Yemen, and Hashd al-Shaabi in Iraq and Syria), and the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil passes. Iran has also demonstrated adaptation under fire, used the operational strategy of dispersal and delegation, exercised deception, demonstrated growing targeting capabilities through ISR, rapid repair of underground sites after US-Zionist bombing and consistently shifted locations for counterattack operations. Can the US still bomb Iran? Of course. Will that be painful? Yes. Will Iran respond? Hell, yes. Would that raise the overall cost? You can bet your dime on it. It will be proof, yet again, that it is a slow grind and the US cannot achieve its objectives at a sustainable cost. Yet, it is stuck, because to walk away means it loses credibility. Trump needs a win; Iran is not prepared to give him that. The war has changed the ground realities. There is no status quo ante. The objectives remain strategically incompatible — ie we might get a pause, even a long one, but the essential causes remain unaddressed. Spoiler alert: Zionist entity. US President Donald Trump attending the return of the bodies of the first six American soldiers killed during the war with Iran on March 7, 2026: the lateral diffusion of technologies help innovative and determined weaker powers, such as Iran, offset the asymmetric advantage of bigger powers, such as the US | AFP THE POINTILLIST EMPIRE: HOW IT BEGAN American imperialism did not begin with grand pronouncements like the Monroe Doctrine or the Big Stick diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt, though they give us a potent sense of a rising, expansionist power. It literally began with bird poop, which sounds about right if one were to understand imperialism as a crap enterprise. The Guano Islands Act of 1856 allowed US citizens to claim uninhabited, guano-rich islands. The act set a precedent for later overseas acquisitions. Historian Daniel Immerwahr calls this a “pointillist” empire. This practical, resource-driven, and often hidden expansion set a pattern that would define America’s power and military bases for the next century. The Mexican-American War (1846-1848) established the continental empire, seizing vast territories from Mexico. This wasn’t a war of liberation but a war of conquest, not manifest destiny but a fig leaf to cover the musty crotch of violent expansion, economic greed and racial supremacy. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo formalised the seizure of over half of Mexico’s territory. The Spanish-American War of 1898 definitively projected American power overseas. Theodore Roosevelt’s Secretary of State John Hay, in a personal letter to Roosevelt, called it a “splendid little war.” By its end, the US had seized Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. But the “splendid” label concealed a brutal reality, just like the payload of Trump’s “gorgeous B-2 bombers.” The subsequent Philippine-American War (1899-1902) resulted in Filipino genocide. That savagery has been systematically erased from American popular memory, even as Mark Twain was scathing in his condemnation and also did a fantastic job of calling out Rudyard Kipling for The White Man’s Burden. But this wasn’t all. Immerwahr documents that American forces employed waterboarding (yes, much before the darned ‘War on Terror’), concentration camps (“black sites”), and scorched-earth tactics that would be recognisable to any student of colonial atrocities. After World War I, US President Woodrow Wilson attempted a new form of imperialism: liberal internationalism, rather than direct territorial control. Much has been written about the “Wilsonian moment.” British historian and diplomat E. H. Carr called it a utopian project, divorced from the reality of power politics. In fact, it wasn’t. The project was essentially colonial and Wilson’s liberal internationalism fit it perfectly. The mandates were thriving. The US Senate’s refusal to join the League of Nations left a vacuum that no amount of idealistic pronouncements could fill. War did come. Carr gives us insights into why it became inevitable. The US emerged from the war as the leading power. The post-WWII order was a direct lesson learned from the intervening two decades. No more “isolationism”. The US must play the role of the hegemonic stabiliser. The core argument was simple and powerful: a stable world economy requires a single power to act as lender of last resort, maintain an open market for distressed goods, and coordinate macroeconomic policies. The US did that via the Bretton Woods system, the Marshall Plan and a vast security architecture that spanned the globe. The quid for the quo? American dominance. The US was now fully involved. It bore the cost but the return on investment was handsome. It kept the US in the lead, even during the bipolarity of the Cold War and beyond. With the Berlin wall crumbling, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama became the mascot for neoliberalism. History had ended; all the wagon trains were destined for one town. Some might arrive late, but arrive they would. Europe was pacified and rebuilt. Japan was demilitarised and transformed into a manufacturing powerhouse. The dollar became the world’s reserve currency, giving the US what French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing called “exorbitant privilege.” For three decades, from 1945 to the early 1970s, this system appeared to confirm the virtues of hegemonic stability. Real GDP growth in Western Europe averaged nearly five percent annually, and the US share of world manufacturing output remained above 40 percent. But beneath the surface, the seeds of decline were already being sown. ARRIGHIAN COUNTER World-systems theorists like Immanuel Wallerstein and Giovanni Arrighi were not focused on immediate “imperial overstretch” in the manner of British historian Paul Kennedy. Kennedy argued that empires declined when their military commitments outpaced their economic base. The US, he warned, was suffering from imperial overreach. For Arrighi, the decline was gradual and subtle. He argued that capitalist hegemonies move through repeating “systemic cycles of accumulation.” A phase of material expansion where capital is invested in production, infrastructure and trade, inevitably gives way to a phase of financial expansion, where capital seeks profit through speculation, lending and financial engineering. The material foundation is hollowed out even as the financial superstructure appears to boom. This was the logic of capitalism. The “autumn” of each hegemon is marked by a dazzling financial belle époque that masks terminal decline. The smile curve strategy is the purest expression of this financialisation and Apple is a textbook case. It designs its products, develops its chips, creates the operating systems, controls the branding, marketing and the retail experience. But it manufactures almost nothing. The iPhones and MacBooks are assembled by Foxconn in Zhengzhou and by Pegatron in Shanghai. The advanced chips are fabricated by TSMC in Taiwan. The displays come from Samsung in South Korea and LG Display. Apple captures an estimated 80-90 percent of the profit from each device, while the suppliers who do the actual physical work fight over the remaining scraps. Business schools love this strategy because it maximises corporate profits and shareholder value. But as Hung argues in his work on global value chains and the Arrighian counter, what maximises corporate profits does not necessarily maximise national power. In fact, it may systematically undermine it. By outsourcing the middle of the smile curve, the US has drastically hollowed out its industrial ecosystem. Combine it with the faith in short, sharp wars of shock and awe through high-tech precision weapons and we get the full picture of what has happened in the war against Iran. This is very different from the WWII industrial base of America. This brings us to TSMC and the chokepoint crisis. It manufactures chips designed by other companies (Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm) rather than designing and selling its own chips. Over three decades, TSMC has built an unassailable lead in advanced process nodes. By 2025, it was manufacturing 92 percent of the world’s most advanced chips. The entire global technology industry (including the US military and intelligence apparatus) became dependent on a single cluster of fabs (fabrication plants) in Hsinchu, Taichung and Tainan. China, which views Taiwan as a breakaway province to be reunited with the mainland by force if necessary, has the physical means to blockade or invade the island. Whether it would do so or should is a different debate. On ground, the People’s Liberation Army has been systematically building anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities, to prevent US intervention in a Taiwan scenario. It’s a fairly absurd position from the US point of view! Its technological supremacy is guaranteed by a factory complex on an island which, in theory, its primary strategic rival could potentially seize or blockade. To circle back to the CHIPS Act, this is the background. TSMC is now building a fab complex in Arizona. Intel is expanding in Ohio and Arizona. Samsung is building in Texas. But, as a 2023 Marketplace report noted, replicating TSMC’s “deep, deep process knowledge” will take years. The fab in Arizona has already faced delays, cost overruns, and labour disputes. Taiwanese engineers are reluctant to relocate to the United States. The set goes to Arrighi. America’s weaponisation of the dollar has accelerated efforts by China, Russia and other BRICS members to create alternatives | Shutterstock THE DOLLAR DILEMMA The dollar’s role as the world’s primary reserve currency has been a central pillar of American power since the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944. This exorbitant privilege allows the US to borrow in its own currency, run persistent trade deficits without penalty and, crucially, impose unilateral financial sanctions on states, corporations, and individuals. This weaponisation of the dollar has accelerated efforts by China, Russia and other BRICS members to create alternatives. China has been aggressively promoting its own Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) as an alternative to Swift. The People’s Bank of China has signed bilateral currency swap agreements with dozens of countries, allowing trade to be settled in renminbi rather than dollars. Russia has demanded payment in rubles for its natural gas exports. India has established a rupee settlement mechanism for trade. Brazil and China have agreed to trade in their own currencies. The Central Bank of Brazil has announced that it is diversifying its reserves away from the dollar. And yet, the actual pace of de-dollarisation has been glacial. Several structural factors explain this “stickiness”, to use American political economist Benjamin Cohen’s term. First, there is network stickiness. The dollar’s dominance is not simply a matter of policy; it is an issue of deep, self-reinforcing infrastructure. Global supply chains, commodity exchanges, derivatives markets, and correspondent banking networks are all built around the dollar. Second, as various experts have argued, there is a lack of viable alternatives. The Chinese renminbi, despite China’s enormous economic weight, is not a free-floating, fully convertible currency. China maintains capital controls, a heavily regulated financial system, and a non-independent central bank. No foreign investor can be certain that their renminbi holdings would not be frozen or devalued by arbitrary state action. The euro, the second-largest reserve currency, is hobbled by the Eurozone’s fragmented fiscal system and the lingering scars of the 2011 debt crisis. Gold is impractical for everyday transactions. And cryptocurrencies are far too volatile and illiquid to serve as a reserve asset. Third is the absence of a deep, liquid and open bond market. A reserve currency requires a “safe asset” in which foreign central banks can park their surplus reserves. The US Treasury market, with $25 trillion in outstanding debt and extraordinary liquidity, is the only game in town. Result: while China and Russia publicly call for de-dollarisation, their central banks have themselves continued to accumulate US Treasury securities, because there is nowhere else to go. Corollary: the near-term prognosis for de-dollarisation is not collapse but slow erosion. IMF data shows the dollar’s share of global reserves has declined from over 70 percent in 2000 to approximately 58 percent in 2025. This is not a precipitous decline, but it is a steady one. The debate is not if the dollar will lose its dominance but when. I have no expertise in this area and I have relied on studying existing expertise. Most analyses measure the timeframe in decades, not years. From that, my understanding is that increasing uncertainty, further weaponisation of the dollar, continuing application of sanctions and asset freezes will (a) erode the confidence that underpins the entire system and (b) force experts (and governments) to find alternatives. EPILOGUE: TERMINAL CRISIS Two other issues are important but I am only flagging them here for paucity of space: the implosion of neoliberalism and its internal effects and the fraying of the transatlantic alliance. Both are exacerbated by Trump but neither is a direct result of his election. Both are extremely consequential. The United States has not collapsed; not yet. Nor can it be defeated from outside. But it can crumble from within. The future is not about a return to US hegemony, certainly not in a unipolar sense. The industrial base may be gone but it can be rebuilt, albeit not overnight. Alliances are frayed; trust cannot be easily restored. The fiscal position is precarious, with a $35 trillion US national debt. Internal politics is deeply polarised, with a significant portion of the American electorate believing that the system is rigged against them. A lot of these factors, singly and in combination with other factors, are self-reinforcing. The future also lies in terra incognita, a contested transition to a multipolar world, whose contours remain unknown. A recent book by German political analyst Marc Saxer, Geopolitical Conflict in the Wolf World, is a sobering structural assessment of where the world and the US are headed. “Homo homini lupus est” (Man is a wolf to man) is how Saxer begins. With that statement, we are back to Plautus and Hobbes. This is not mere rhetorical flourish. Saxer’s wolf world is an analytic category, a systemic condition characterised by the absence of a hegemon capable of enforcing rules, the demise of neoliberalism, the collapse of shared legal-normative frameworks, the return of great-power competition, the rise of Middle Powers, many with regional hegemonic aspirations, and the normalisation of coercion as a primary instrument of statecraft. As I said to Saxer during the launch of his book in Lahore, for the Global South, it has always been a wolf world. Pax Americana did not keep the peace for the periphery. It financed selective peace on credit. The bill has now come due. The writer is a journalist interested in security and foreign policies. X: @ejazhaider Published in Dawn, EOS, May 31st, 2026
Direct-to-cell technology uses LEO satellites as spaceborne cell towers. It delivers LTE services to existing smartphones without hardware changes, bridging global coverage gaps. What Attendees will Learn How DTC works as a spaceborne cell tower — LEO satellites carry LTE eNodeB payloads in regenerative mode. How they serve unmodified phones using quasi-earth-fixed multi-beam antennas. How the satellite compensates for Doppler shift and time delay on thenetwork side. Why Doppler shift and round-trip time are critical challenges — A LEO satellite’s high velocity causes carrier frequency offsets in OFDMA systems. Pre-compensation at a reference point helps, but cell-edge users still face residual Doppler. How spectrum sharing and regulation shape DTC deployment — DTC has no dedicated spectrum allocation. It relies on spectrum sharing between terrestrial and satellite operators or re-farmed MSS bands. How national regulations like the FCC SCS framework govern access. Where DTC fits in the evolution toward 5G NTN and 6G — DTC is an interim technology offering fast time-to-market satellite services. It bridges the gap until 3GPP NR-NTN matures. How NR-NTN will bring purpose-built NTN features and international spectrum frameworks. Download this free whitepaper now!
ISLAMABAD: A Senate subcommittee on Monday voiced alarm over widespread internet degradation and fuel theft from telecom sites, after being told that more than 9,200 incidents of theft and vandalism had hit about 16 per cent of the country’s cellular infrastructure in 11 months. The subcommittee of the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology, chaired by Senator Sadia Abbasi, reviewed challenges posed to nationwide telecom service continuity. The committee was informed that Sindh recorded the highest number of 3,938 fuel theft cases across 31 districts, followed by Punjab with 2,827 incidents in 38 districts. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa reported 1,668 incidents across 25 districts, while Balochistan reported 716 incidents in 26 districts. During the briefing, officials of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said that persistent loadshedding had severely deteriorated service continuity by rapidly depleting backup batteries and exhausting local generators. To build long-term resilience, the PTA has engaged Nepra and the power division to secure dedicated priority power feeders and speed up deployment of smart transformers for critical telecom nodes. Separately, the Universal Service Fund (USF) and its quality assurance teams reported infrastructure deployments in Balochistan. While 80pc of target areas are identified through competitive bidding, severe security vulnerabilities and systemic diesel theft continue to undermine telecom operations. In response, the committee directed relevant departments to map high-theft hotspots and instructed district and provincial authorities to handle complaints strictly under the law. The panel also reviewed network modernisation steps, including recent spectrum auctions that expanded bandwidth by 480 MHz and the issuance of 5G commercial licences in March 2026. Infrastructure targets include raising average 4G speeds from 4 Mbps to 20 Mbps, mandatory rollout of 1,000 new sites annually, and introducing Voice over LTE and Voice over Wi-Fi services. To enforce compliance, the regulator has set stringent network downtime thresholds for cellular mobile operators. CMOs must now keep downtime to 5pc or less at the UC level, 3pc or less at the tehsil level, 2pc or less at the district level, and 1pc or less nationwide. The committee reaffirmed that internet access must be classified under essential services criteria. It directed all telecom operators to execute immediate safeguards against fuel theft to ensure national connectivity standards are met without interruption. Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2026
A partir desta terça-feira (2) até o dia 16 de junho, o VetMóvel da Prefeitura de Fortaleza atenderá gratuitamente cães e gatos dos bairros José Walter e Vila Velha com consultas, vacinação antirrábica e castrações. A unidade funcionará das 7h às 16h, de terça-feira a sábado. Por dia, são disponibilizadas 40 fichas para consultas clínicas e vacinação antirrábica - sendo 20 pela manhã e 20 pela tarde. ✅ Clique e siga o canal do g1 Ceará no WhatsApp Os tutores precisam apresentar RG, CPF e comprovante de residência em Fortaleza para que os animais sejam atendidos. Cães devem usar guia, coleira e focinheira, enquanto gatos precisam ser levados em caixas de transporte adequadas. Os testes são realizados mediante avaliação e solicitação do médico veterinário durante o atendimento, como o de Vírus da Imunodeficiência Felina (FIV), Vírus da Leucemia Felina (FeLV), leishmaniose, cinomose, entre outros. Castração Quem deseja castrar o animal de estimação precisa agendar previamente ligando na Central 156 (opção 6) ou na página de agendamento no site da Central 156. A equipe de agendamento da SMPA entrará em contato com os tutores informando a data e o horário da cirurgia, além dos cuidados pré-cirúrgicos a serem adotados. A situação do cadastro pode ser acompanhada pelo WhatsApp através dos números: (85) 9 9224-7488 e (85) 9 9165-7839. Vacinação A vacina antirrábica pode ser aplicada a partir dos quatro meses de idade, em cães e gatos, anualmente. Cadelas não podem estar prenhas, lactantes ou no cio. Já as felinas apenas não podem estar prenhas e lactantes, mas podem estar no cio. É recomendado que o tutor tenha em mãos o cartão de vacinação do animal no ato da vacinação, entretanto, quem não possuir o documento o receberá no local. VetMóvel José Walter Atendimento: terça-feira a sábado Horário: das 7h às 16h Local: Praça Padre Cícero (ao lado da torre de segurança da GMF) (Av. João de Araújo Lima, 911 – José Walter) VetMóvel Vila Velha Atendimento: terça-feira a sábado Horário: das 7h às 16h Local: Av. L, 1366 – Vila Velha (ao lado da torre de segurança da GMF) Mais informações sobre castrações, consultas clínicas e vacinação antirrábica: (85) 9 9165-7839 (WhatsApp) e (85) 9 9224-7488. Alguns atendimentos precisam ser agendados com atencedência Divulgação Assista aos vídeos mais vistos no Ceará:
The corridor links NH-44 and NH-16, runs through five districts and opens direct access to the Hindupuram and Kopparthi industrial nodes
LIG 디펜스앤에어로스페이스(LIG D&A)는 지난달 29일 디토닉과 LIG D&A 판교하우스에서 '방산특화 AI 플랫폼 L-NODE 개발을 위한 업무협약'을 체결했다고 1일 밝혔다. 이번 협약은 LIG D&A의 방위산업 전문성과 디토닉의 인공지능(AI) 운영체제(OS) 기술을 접목해 미래 전장의 전투관리와 지휘통제체계 기술력을 강화하기 위해 추진됐다. L-NODE는 온톨로지 기반의 지식 체계와 에이전틱 AI를 결합한 방산 특화 에이전트 플랫폼이다. 물리적 공간과 사이버 공간이 융합된 전장 환경에서 국방 에이전틱 AI의 협업을 통해 유무인 복합전투체계(MUM-T)를 포함한 통합 작전 능력을 극대화하기 위해 개발하고 있다. LIG D&A가 미래 기술의 선제적 확보를 위해 신설한 조직인 기술혁신본부가 개발을 주도하고 있다....
Técnico de enfermagem é condenado a pagar quase R$ 500 mil por danos morais O técnico de enfermagem Wesley da Silva Ferreira, condenado por abusar sexualmente de pacientes em uma Unidade de Pronto Atendimento (UPA) de Curitiba, terá que pagar quase R$ 500 mil por danos morais coletivos. A decisão foi tomada pela 4ª Câmara Criminal do Tribunal de Justiça do Paraná (TJ-PR), após recurso apresentado pelo Ministério Público. Wesley está preso desde outubro de 2024. A RPC, afiliada da TV Globo no Paraná, procurou a defesa dele, mas não obteve retorno até a última atualização desta reportagem. ✅ Siga o canal do g1 PR no WhatsApp Wesley foi condenado anteriormente a mais de 44 anos de prisão em regime fechado pelos crimes cometidos contra pacientes sedados. A sentença também determinou o pagamento de indenização individual equivalente a 50 salários mínimos para cada uma das seis vítimas identificadas no processo. No entanto, a condenação por danos morais coletivos havia sido negada em primeira instância. O Ministério Público recorreu da decisão e teve o pedido acolhido por unanimidade pelos desembargadores. À polícia, técnico de enermagem disse ter cometido abuso contra pelo menos cinco vítima Reprodução Segundo o MP, os crimes ultrapassaram os danos causados às vítimas e atingiram a confiança da população no sistema de saúde. Por isso, a Justiça entendeu que também houve prejuízo coletivo. O valor da indenização será destinado a um fundo público voltado à reparação de danos coletivos. Os recursos poderão ser utilizados em ações como aquisição de equipamentos de segurança para hospitais, capacitação de equipes e programas de acolhimento a vítimas de violência. Leia também: Entenda: Como montagem com Bolsonaro agredindo jogador Gustavo Gómez causou confusão na fronteira Demitido: Estagiário do MP-PR que ofereceu defesa a acusado pode responder por três crimes Resgatado: Idoso obrigado a trabalhar 24h por dia, dormir em caminhão e correr para conseguir comida é resgatado Relembre o caso Wesley da Silva Ferreira, técnico de enfermagem Reprodução/RPC Wesley da Silva Ferreira foi denunciado pelo Ministério Público por uma série de crimes cometidos contra pacientes internados em unidades de saúde de Curitiba. Entre as acusações estão estupro de vulnerável, registro não autorizado de intimidade sexual, perigo de contágio de moléstia grave, lesão corporal grave pela transmissão de Vírus da Imunodeficiência Humana (HIV), além de produção e armazenamento de conteúdo pornográfico infantil. Durante as investigações, o técnico de enfermagem confessou à Polícia Civil ter abusado de pacientes sedados e afirmou que registrava os atos em vídeos e fotografias armazenados em seu celular. Segundo ele, os abusos aconteciam na sala de estabilização da UPA, setor destinado a pacientes em estado grave. A denúncia relata crimes cometidos entre novembro de 2023 e outubro de 2024 contra seis vítimas. O Ministério Público também apontou como vítima um ex-companheiro de Wesley, que teria contraído HIV sem saber que o técnico era portador do vírus. O caso veio à tona após o então companheiro do acusado encontrar vídeos dos abusos no celular dele e procurar a polícia. Durante as investigações, também foram localizadas imagens registradas quando Wesley trabalhava em outro hospital da capital. Na casa do técnico, os investigadores encontraram medicamentos desviados de unidades de saúde, incluindo substâncias de uso controlado. VÍDEOS: Mais assistidos do g1 Paraná Leia mais notícias em g1 Oeste e Sudoeste.
Measles in the US, a cholera outbreak in the DRC, TB patient registration drops in Cambodia, Kenya, and Mozambique and closer to home, HIV outbreaks in children have all been linked to what doctors have warned are cuts to programmes and disastrous policy changes. Global funding has shrunk for healthcare across countries that need it the most which is why experts in Pakistan are really getting worried. The effects are immediately clear on the ground. In the busy streets of Lyari, Karachi, Amna Sualeh once navigated confidently through her community as a health worker with the Greenstar Social Marketing’s Sitara Baji (star sister) programme. Women trusted her to provide affordable intrauterine devices (IUDs), counselling on how to space out their children, and basic reproductive health services. “Before, with donor support, we could perform IUD insertions for just Rs500,” she says. “Now it costs up to Rs10,000 in private clinics. Many simply can’t afford it anymore.” Her clients, mostly working-class mothers, have begun skipping visits or turning to unsafe alternatives. As Pakistan’s macroeconomic crisis stretches out, many women have stopped coming altogether as their incomes have shrunk. This refrain is repeated across the provinces as overseas development assistance, once an indispensable backbone of the country’s public health system, contracts sharply. While not a principal focus of the global conversation on the impact of the Great Aid Recession, Pakistan enters the second quarter of the 21st century with its health system already stretched thin. It spends just 0.9 per cent of its GDP on public health, far below the WHO’s 5pc benchmark for universal health coverage. Life expectancy is 67.3 years, which is four years below the South Asian average, and conversely, infant and maternal mortality remain stubbornly high at 50.1 deaths per 1,000 live births and 155 deaths per 100,000 live births, respectively, more than double the rates of neighbours such as Bangladesh and Nepal. These outcomes reflect chronic underinvestment, rigid budgetary structures, and a system that has long relied on overseas technical and financial assistance for crucial health functions that domestic resources have not historically covered. For years, overseas development assistance, including both on-budget funds that flowed through government budgets and off-budget funds directed to NGOs, helped bridge key gaps in the system. While it comprised only a small proportion (around 1pc) of public health spending, much of this assistance was for crucial system functions that have historically been underserved in government budgets and policy. This is particularly true for funding from Global Health Initiatives (GHIs), specialised international financing mechanisms that support priority health programmes around the world, through organisations such as the Global Fund for TB, AIDS and Malaria and Gavi. In Pakistan, this support included the less visible aspects of health, such as supply chain logistics, cold chain management and storage, commodity procurement, monitoring support, and technical capacity building across key programmes like mother and child health, family planning, immunisation, HIV-AIDS, malaria and TB. As laid out in a recent report by think tank Tabadlab, the unprecedented global aid retrenchment crisis that has enveloped the world since 2025 has hit many of these programmes hard. USAID’s suspension led to the closure of over 60 UNFPA-run health facilities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, directly disrupting care for 1.7 million people and halting HIV-AIDS programmes in Sindh that were providing life-saving medications to patients. Screengrab from Tabadlab research paper on aid cuts. This was followed by reductions in financial commitments in Pakistan from multilateral GHI donors such as Gavi and The Global Fund, as finances were redistributed across regions and priorities. Drawdowns in Gavi affected vaccination programmes caused layoffs of over 200 vaccinators in Lahore alone. A $27.2 million Global Fund reduction halved TB support in multiple provinces, cut diagnostic kit financing by 75pc, and placed treatment for over 42,000 HIV-positive patients at risk. Across the board, these cuts are eroding important nodes of the health system for which ODA had earlier provided the systemic architecture and connective tissue. Preventative healthcare’s invisible erosion Preventative health programmes—long under-prioritised in domestic health budgets and rarely accorded priority by local politicians and policymakers who tend to focus resources on visible infrastructure—have been disproportionately impacted. Organisations like the Global Fund helped develop monitoring and surveillance systems and trained thousands of frontline workers to prevent and monitor the spread of communicable diseases. Over the past year, many of these programs have been terminated. Dr Ilyas Gondal, former director general of health in Punjab, oversaw the administration of these programmes firsthand. “Preventative healthcare has not been given its due importance here,” he observes. “Donors filled critical gaps in programmes such as the Expanded Programme for Immunisation (EPI), AIDS, Hepatitis and TB through support for training, outreach, health awareness, literature, and logistics. Now, most of that work has stopped across all of these programmes.” Dr Gondal fears that progress on coverage for vaccine-preventable diseases could be reversed if no arrangements are made for alternative financing. Ejaz Mahmood, a community health worker at Indus Hospital in Faisalabad, worked with the Global Fund-supported Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) programme, which trained 10,000 frontline workers in standard operating procedures for infection prevention across the country and developed IPC committees following the Covid-19 pandemic. He describes how most of those IPC committees have now become non-functional, and critical infection prevention training has been abandoned. “No one is there to train health workers anymore. We are already seeing needle-stick injuries rising, with over 111 such cases in Faisalabad this year, along with rising cases of HIV-AIDS and Hepatitis B.” Screengrab from Tabadlab research paper on ODA cuts on Pakistan’s health system. Some of the fallout of such crucial programmes being abandoned may already be contributing to disease outbreaks. Over the past year, Pakistan has witnessed one of the fastest-growing HIV epidemics in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean region, with a 200pc rise in infections between 2010 and 2024. Recent media investigations in Punjab and Sindh uncovered multiple HIV outbreaks originating from health facilities that disproportionately affected children, with the reuse of syringes, non-screening of blood samples, and other unsafe medical and waste management practices identified as the causes. As donors that were crucial in enabling preventative interventions and programmes draw down support, the risk of such outbreaks is likely to increase, unless the funding and institutional structures for these programmes are sustained or replaced with domestic capacity and resources. Tuberculosis detection and treatment in jeopardy Pakistan ranks fifth globally in TB burden, with nearly 650,000 cases and 70,000 deaths annually; over half of cases go undetected. Provincial TB control programmes have long depended on donors for the bulk of programme funding. While provincial governments contribute brick-and-mortar infrastructure for these projects, organisations like The Global Fund financed everything from service delivery to detection and surveillance to commodity stocks. Dr Sher Afghan, director of the TB Control Programme in Balochistan, is direct about the scale of the crisis: “We currently face an 80pc funding gap.” The cuts resulted in a 50pc reduction in programme human resources. “We have had to halve monitoring and surveillance staff, postpone prevalence surveys, and capacity building programmes that were training 800 workers a year.” In resource-strapped provinces with unique geographical access challenges like Balochistan, this has made TB detection increasingly difficult. Programme administrators like Dr Afghan are concerned about the increased risk of undetected transmission. “Every TB-positive patient who is not treated spreads the disease to 12 people on average. Thus, every undiagnosed case means potentially 13 undiagnosed cases.” The Global Fund cut has also triggered a 50pc reduction in district-level monitoring and community interventions staff in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, alongside a 75pc cut in diagnostic testing kits and the elimination of capacity-building. Utilisation of USAID in Pakistan’s healthcare system Life and healthcare programmes; primary healthcare in erstwhile FATA and frontier regions; childhood and neonatal support; malaria control. Screengrab from PIDE research paper on foreign aid, donors and consultants. Babar Shigri, former programme management specialist with USAID Pakistan, observed the impact of donor withdrawal firsthand. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh, USAID supported TB programmes with contact tracing, pharmaceutical products, community mobilisation and management information systems that improved detection rates. “It’s not about funding alone,” he says. “When USAID left, work slowed down overall as one of the main actors driving and coordinating advocacy was gone.” In Balochistan, Dr Sher Afghan is cautiously optimistic that the government will step up to the challenge and is working on creating budgetary space for the programme. But with the sudden shock to a system long dependent on donor-led systems, there is a risk of systemic collapse to the programme unless there is rapid action to create fiscal and institutional mechanisms for transitional planning. Family planning being priced out of access Family planning programmes have been among the hardest hit. Through off-budget ODA, donors like USAID supported access by underwriting everything from supply chains to capacity building for large non-governmental family planning providers such as Greenstar Social Marketing and Rahnuma FPAP. When funding evaporated, the effects were immediate. Dr Syed Azizur Rab, CEO of Greenstar Social Marketing Pakistan, describes a donor-supported network that enabled underserved rural and working-class communities to access contraceptives and SRH services nationwide. “Donor support covered functions ranging from commodity subsidies, training, and logistics to community outreach and monitoring,” he explains. With that support gone, clinics have had to raise fees to cover costs and scaled back services. Screengrab from PIDE research paper on foreign aid, donors and consultants. Access to contraceptives, particularly long-acting ones like IUCDs and implants has been severely affected. According to Dr Rab, due to a lack of domestic production and rising costs of imports, “without donor subsidies, implants and IUCDs in private are simply commercially non-viable.” This effect has been compounded by increased taxes on contraceptives by the government as a revenue measure, further pricing them out of reach amid a prolonged inflationary crisis. Greenstar-affiliated clinicians such as Amna Sualeh now watch clients weigh the increased cost of an IUCD against tighter household budgets. Many are now forgoing modern contraceptive methods altogether and having unintended pregnancies as a result. In Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Noreen Nasir, a lady health visitor and midwife with over two decades of experience, worked for years as a family planning provider with USAID’s now-terminated Building Healthier Families programme. The project supported training and diagnostics, IUCDs, injections and implants for women in working-class neighbourhoods. “We used to be able to provide these commodities and services at a very minimal cost because of donor support,” she says. “Now we have to charge for them and face frequent shortages of implants and injections. At times, I pay for delivery kits out of my own pocket because the client can’t afford them and the delivery would be riskier otherwise.” As a result of the loss of support, she says, increasing numbers of women are turning to unqualified providers and stocks of key family planning products have fallen short. According to Noreen, the loss of access to affordable natal and post-natal care is also affecting infant nutrition, with reduced breastfeeding rates and rising underweight deliveries in the community she serves. Rahnuma FPAP, one of the country’s largest reproductive health networks, has closed dozens of centres. District Programme Manager Farrukh Bashir is pessimistic in his assessment: “When the funding stopped, all project beneficiaries lost access, and we had to close all donor-supported clinics. In facilities where we used to have three doctors, we now have just one. Doctor-client ratios have worsened across the board, and thousands of women from working-class communities have lost reliable sexual and reproductive health care.” Mother and child health fragile gains at risk The cuts have also severely impacted mother and child health programs and services in a country that has long had some of the worst maternal, neonatal and child health outcomes in Asia. Donor financing for these programmes was critical in reducing maternal mortality across the country (from 276 per 100,000 births in 2006 to 155 by 2024). ODA for it was particularly important for remote and marginalised regions of provinces such as Balochistan, where access to facility-based maternal and child healthcare is limited amid resource and geographical access challenges. Community health worker Shazia Ahmad worked with the EU-ECHO project, which helped upgrade basic health units and hospitals in underserved districts, and provided delivery kits, folic acid, nutrition advice, breastfeeding support and health awareness sessions. “The project was very well received in the communities, and we registered over 100,000 women. We were conducting health screenings for mothers and children while also providing nutrition supplements in districts with the highest malnutrition rates in the country.” Screengrab from PIDE research paper on foreign aid, donors and consultants. But with the termination of the project, medicines and services have been halved, and more layoffs are planned. Shazia worries about reversing the substantive gains they had made in rural communities in Balochistan. “The project was very popular with communities, and we were already seeing genuine behavioural change. Now all that work is at risk, and we are unable to follow up on the healthcare needs we had identified.” In a Rahnuma clinic in a working-class neighbourhood in Faisalabad, Punjab, Dr Amna Ehsan once operated under a “no refusal” policy with low charges for marginalised women. Donor funds allowed subsidised medicines and gynaecological OPD services. Now services are being privatised, and fees are rising. “We had very low charges and could provide low-cost medicines which were affordable for the marginalised communities we work in,” she says. Patient volumes, faced with increased fees for services and medicines, have slowed to a trickle. Systemic vulnerabilities and the transition challenge These individual stories of the struggles of health workers and administrators in the face of ODA cuts illustrate the broader structural problems documented in recent analyses of Pakistan’s health system and financing. As is clear, the impact is not just fiscal but functional. ODA, particularly off-budget flows through Global Health Initiatives, were critical for crucial health system functions that public budgets cover only partially or not at all. Bilateral cuts such as the USAID suspension have produced “cliff-edge” disruptions—abrupt programme discontinuities without transitional periods or buffers. Multilateral financing reductions have eroded the infrastructure of vertical disease programmes, including for commodities, diagnostics, surveillance and field operations. Commodity supply chains are particularly vulnerable. Donors handled pooled procurement that secured steep discounts on vaccines, TB drugs and diagnostics. As things stand, domestic systems lack the fiscal flexibility, technical capacity and regulatory agility to absorb these functions quickly. Further, technical assistance withdrawal is eroding surveillance, monitoring, data systems and planning capacity. The result is not total collapse or catastrophe but precise ruptures: stockouts, shortages, laid-off outreach workers, broken referral chains and rising exposure to out-of-pocket costs that can push families deeper into poverty and raise the underappreciated risk of disease outbreaks. While the risks are very real, the current moment also presents an opportunity for the kind of structural change that Pakistan’s health system has long needed. However, the government’s response must move beyond emergency and ad-hoc plugging of gaps and outbreak controls towards transition planning. If governments demonstrate adequate initiative and come together to coordinate, assess and fill these financing gaps, we can secure and build on the fragile health gains of recent years. At Greenstar, Dr Azizur Rab sees this moment as a reform opportunity that could build on what already exists: “The federal and provincial governments will have to look at the models already created with donor money and scale them up. However, this requires government ownership and political will.” If Pakistan seizes the crisis as a catalyst for functional transition—from donor dependence to resilience and sustainability—it can build a fully domestically financed health system capable of protecting the most vulnerable while also preventing outbreaks and creating effective local referral systems and commodity supply chains. The choice, and the cost of inaction, will be measured in lives and in the hard-won public health gains now hanging in the balance.
I have been an application-specific IC (ASIC) designer for almost three decades. Over that time, I’ve moved through the full academic trajectory, from graduate student to full professor; later, I transitioned to industry after an unsuccessful stint at entrepreneurship. When I made the switch to the private sector in 2019, I began focusing on a critically important aspect of the electronic industry: silicon intellectual property. As much as 80 percent of the physical area in today’s most advanced chips is occupied by blocks that aren’t made for specific products or even designed by the consumer-facing companies that built them. Instead, chipmakers draw heavily on established silicon IP from companies like Arm, Cadence, Rambus, Synopsys, and the company I work for, Silicon Creations. Throughout my career, I’ve designed chips for very different purposes, including enabling the research program in my academic lab and expanding the IP portfolio of my company. When I joined Silicon Creations, I had no idea how differently the industry approaches IC design and encountered a steep learning curve. Initially, it seemed that much of my two decades of academic research and training did not directly translate to the role. I had to learn new skills and adopt a new mindset. Today, demand for ASICs is rapidly growing, driven by the need for specialized chips in the automotive sector, AI applications, and more. By one market estimate, the ASIC market is expected to grow from US $23.4 billion to $38.8 billion by 2033, and the semiconductor industry as a whole is projected to hit $1 trillion by 2030. The industry needs more chip designers—but if you’re coming from an academic background as I did, there are a few things you’ll need to know. Different goals lead to different strategies The differences between industry and academe begin with a divergence in purpose. In academia, my primary objective was to generate new knowledge: to propose a novel circuit technique, validate an unconventional architecture, or explore the limits of performance in a given domain. A successful chip is one that demonstrates a concept. In industry, it is not nearly enough to prove that something can work. The goal is to ensure that it works reliably, repeatedly, and at scale. Success is measured not by novelty but by whether the silicon meets specifications, yields as expected in production, and supports a competitive product delivered on schedule. This leads to a stark contrast in risk tolerance. Academic designs often deliberately push into unproven territory, where even partial success can yield valuable insight. In industry, however, we systematically minimize risk. The cost of failure makes first-time silicon success a central requirement—especially at advanced technology nodes, where the lithography masks used to transfer circuit designs onto silicon wafers alone can cost tens of millions of dollars. As a result, industry design flows are built around eliminating uncertainty through conservative margins, extensive validation, and careful reuse of proven solutions. “Academia explores the design space, asking what is possible, while industry exploits it, determining what is viable at scale.” This paradigm has existed since the 1970s, when application-specific chip design was established. However, the gulf between academia and industry has expanded since the mid-2010s, when FinFET technology, a 3D architecture using vertical “fins” of silicon, was widely adopted in industry. System designs are also becoming increasingly modular with the advent of chiplets. This fundamentally altered the economics and complexity of ASIC development, with design costs rising by almost an order of magnitude. Initiatives like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s University FinFET Program and new government-funded chip-design hubs now let some well-resourced universities design for more advanced architectures, but the technology is still out of reach for many academics. What the industry-academia split means in practice Consider a startup developing an ASIC. Its engineering team may have deep expertise in a particular algorithm, sensor interface, or system architecture, the features that define its competitive advantage. But it is unlikely to possess world-class expertise in every supporting function. Developing each of these blocks internally would require significant time, capital, and specialized talent. Doing so could delay market entry beyond the startup’s viability. Even large semiconductor companies face similar constraints. Advanced-node development demands intense focus. Allocating a team to redesign a standard interface block that has already been implemented elsewhere may be difficult to justify when differentiation lies at the system level, such as an inference chip’s ability to speed up neural network computations. The time it takes to move a new chip from conception to market and risk mitigation, not self-sufficiency, govern most decisions about in-house development versus outsourcing. The economics of advanced IC manufacturing reinforce this reality. When the development cost of a leading-edge chip reaches hundreds of millions of dollars, minimizing risk becomes a central design imperative. In this context, silicon IP emerged as a practical solution. Similar to how software developers rely on preexisting libraries rather than writing every function from scratch, ASIC designers license predesigned, preverified silicon blocks—such as processor cores, memory interfaces, and security engines—from highly specialized IP vendors. These blocks can then be integrated into larger, increasingly complex systems. Design scope, verification, and time horizons With the use of silicon IP, industry is able to widen the scope of its designs. Academic efforts tend to focus on block-level innovation: a new analog-to-digital converter architecture or an ultralow-noise amplifier, for instance. These designs typically abstract away many of the complexities of bringing a chip to market, such as packaging constraints, long-term reliability, and manufacturing yield. In industry, the focus shifts to system-level integration. Modern systems on chips, or SoCs, incorporate dozens or even hundreds of functional blocks. Managing signal integrity, timing, firmware interaction, and system-level validation becomes as critical as the design of any individual block. Verification philosophy also diverges sharply. In academia, the goal of verification is to demonstrate that the concept works under nominal conditions, which may not always reflect how it would perform in real applications. Even if only a fraction of fabricated chips from a multiproject wafer operates correctly, the design may still be considered a success if it validates the underlying idea. At my academic lab for instance, we used to receive 40 chips from a TSMC prototyping service and started testing them in batches of five. If the first five or 10 chips proved functional, we had already collected more than enough data for a publication. If some of them failed, we weren’t required to mention this when publishing the results. In industry, verification is exhaustive, critical, and often dominates the development schedule. Failures are measured in parts per million, and even rare anomalies are carefully analyzed and documented to identify root causes and prevent recurrence. When I started at Silicon Creations, I was surprised by the level of detail and scrutiny designs face. Differences in time horizons and economic constraints reinforce each of these contrasts. Academic projects operate on flexible timelines aligned with research and funding cycles. If I missed a deadline, I just had to wait for the next cycle. Industry projects are driven by fixed product schedules and market windows, frequently targeting costly leading-edge nodes to achieve competitive performance, power, and area efficiency. Missing a deadline can negate the value of an entire design and may have major financial consequences along the entire supply chain. In essence, academia explores the design space, asking what is possible, while industry exploits it, determining what is viable at scale. Both are indispensable, but they operate under fundamentally different definitions of success. As ASIC complexity continues to grow, understanding both perspectives will be essential for the next generation of engineers navigating the evolving semiconductor landscape. This article appears in the June 2026 print issue.
Chinese tech biz shows off clever workaround for its process node gap, but it isn't catching up with Intel and TSMC