Popular Google services including Gmail and Drive were down for many users around the world on Thursday, with the US technology giant telling affected people they were “aware of a service disruption.”
Frustrated customers in countries including Australia, Japan, France and the United States complained online of the outage and tracking website DownDetector reported Google services were down in every continent.
“Anyone else having issues with @gmail in Australia?” one person tweeted.
Another Twitter user, in Brooklyn, New York, wrote: “Nearly 16 years in and this is the first time I can remember Gmail being completely down.”
Google’s @Gmail Twitter feed replied to the posts with: “Thanks for reporting. We are aware of a service disruption at the moment.”
- Indian lawmakers go hard on Facebook over content practices
- Lenovo records 31% first-quarter profit jump amid pandemic
The message contained a link to a Gmail service details page that told users “we are continuing to investigate this issue,” and to check back later.
As well as English, the Gmail Twitter feed replied to people in French, Japanese, Portuguese and German.
Responding to an AFP enquiry, Google said to refer to the G Suite Dashboard for status updates.
Source: Ghana News Portal
Russia trials COVID-19 vaccine for domestic animals, mink
The Federal Centre for Animal Health began developing the vaccine in spring after the authorities established the virus could be passed from humans onto some domestic animals.
Russia became the first country to give regulatory approval to a human vaccine — Sputnik V — in August, and is in the process of rolling it out across the country. Over 150,000 people have already received it.
The Russian animal vaccine is aimed at rabbits, mink, cats and some other animals. Clinical trials will end in January and the approval process is likely to begin at the end of February, Yulia Melano, an aide to the head of the agricultural safety watchdog, Rosselkhoznadzor, told Reuters.
The World Health Organization has expressed concern over the transmission of the virus between humans and animals. Denmark last month ordered the culling of all 17 million mink on its farms after concluding that a strain of the virus passed from humans to mink had mutated and spread back to humans.
Russia has said it believes there will be commercial interest in the new vaccine from its own animal fur breeders and from U.S. and EU businesses.
Two cases of COVID-19 have been registered in cats in Russia but its mink population has not been affected, according to the watchdog.
Ivan Nesterov, acting head of state fur company Russian Sable, told the Zvezda TV station last month that Russia was testing a vaccine and would vaccinate its minks once the process was finished.
The global fur trade, worth more than $22 billion a year, is reeling from Denmark’s decision to kill millions of farmed mink.
Worries of a sudden shortage of mink pelts, of which Denmark was the top exporter, have lifted prices by as much as 30% in Asia, the International Fur Federation (IFF) says.
Source: Ghana Talks Radio
China’s Xiaomi adds manufacturing muscle India to boost phone production in India
China’s BYD and DBG will be the company’s new suppliers in India, Manu Jain, managing director of Xiaomi’s India operations, said at a press conference on Thursday.
Xiaomi has been manufacturing phones in India for over half a decade and has rapidly grown in the highly competitive market where voice calling and data costs are one of the lowest in the world.
“Now 99% of our smartphones and 100% of our smart TVs are manufactured in India and the majority of the components for smartphones will be locally manufactured or sourced from India,” the company said.
The company remained India’s top smartphone seller in 2020, with a 26% market share, data from research firm Counterpoint showed.
Its latest expansion plans come at a time when Chinese firms have come under scrutiny as a result of growing tensions between New Delhi and Beijing that began with a border clash last year.
Xiaomi said DBG has set up a smartphone manufacturing plant in the northern Indian state of Haryana, while BYD is setting up a plant in Tamil Nadu in south India.
The company has also opened a new factory in the southern state of Telangana to make televisions, Jain said, adding that all televisions sold in India would be made or assembled locally.
Xiaomi also makes phones at plants in India run by contract manufacturers Foxconn Technology Co and Flex Ltd.
Source: Ghana news portal
Those who cannot pay for covid-19 tests are quarantined for 14 days not detained – Dep. Aviation Min.
Deputy Aviation Minister, Yaw Maama Afful, has said no one is being detained at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) over their inability to pay the $150 fee for a COVID-19 test upon arrival.
According to him, those who cannot pay for the test are rather quarantined for 14 days but “not detained.”
“We are not detaining anybody. I don’t want to use the word detaining.
“There’s a difference between detaining and quarantining,” he said.
He explained that, “If you don’t submit to the test, we have no way of knowing whether or not you have COVID-19”.
“So, in that case, we’ll quarantine you for 14 days and after that period, if we investigate and realise you don’t have it, then we let you go”, he said.
According to him, the government settled on the $150 fee because that is what will make the private company conducting it “break even” due to its “investment, equipment, staff and overhead expenses”.
“I believe that the $150 is the amount that will help them to break even”, he stressed.
On Tuesday, the vice-presidential nominee of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Prof Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, said President Nana Akufo-Addo and his Minister of Health, Mr Kweku Agyeman-Manu, must immediately intervene to ensure that some Ghanaians who flew in from outside and have been detained at the Kotoka International Airport for their inability to pay the $150 fee for a COVID-19 test before entry, are released.
She said the fee must be waived for them since they should not be stranded in their own country.
In a statement, Prof Opoku-Agyemang said: “My attention has been drawn to a disturbing video circulating online purporting to show Ghanaian travellers, who have been detained and stranded at the Kotoka International Airport for their inability to raise $150 each to pay for the COVID test.”
“It is a distressing video”, she said, “but what is particularly heartbreaking is seeing a young nursing mother and an infant dealing with these inhumane conditions”.
The former Minister of Education said, “It is the primary responsibility of any government to offer aid to all of its citizens, especially in times like these”.
“No Ghanaian should be left stranded in their own country and no government should look on unconcerned.
“No citizen is any less of a Ghanaian because of their economic circumstance.
“All Ghanaians matter”, she noted.
“I respectfully call on the sector minister, as well as the President to show compassion in a time like this, waive their fees, and eventually release these vulnerable citizens to join their families at home”, the statement said.
Source: Ghana News