LONDON, Jan 23 (Reuters) – The World Health Organization has called for “immediate and concerted action” to protect children from contaminated medicines after a spate of child deaths linked to cough syrups last year.
In 2022, more than 300 children – mainly aged under 5 – in Gambia, Indonesia and Uzbekistan died of acute kidney injury, in deaths that were associated with contaminated medicines, the WHO said in a statement on Monday.
The medicines, over-the-counter cough syrups, had high levels of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol.
“These contaminants are toxic chemicals used as industrial solvents and antifreeze agents that can be fatal even taken in small amounts, and should never be found in medicines,” the WHO said.
As well as the countries above, the WHO told Reuters on Monday that the Philippines, Timor Leste, Senegal and Cambodia may potentially be impacted because they may have the medicines on sale. It called for action across its 194 member states to prevent more deaths.
[1/4] Logo of Marion Biotech, a healthcare and pharmaceutical company is seen on a gate outside their office in Noida, India, December 29, 2022. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis
“Since these are not isolated incidents, WHO calls on various key stakeholders engaged in the medical supply chain to take immediate and coordinated action,” WHO said.
The WHO has already sent specific product alerts in October and earlier this month, asking for the medicines to be removed from the shelves, for cough syrups made by India’s Maiden Pharmaceuticals and Marion Biotech, which are linked with deaths in Gambia and Uzbekistan respectively.
It also issued a warning last year for cough syrups made by four Indonesian manufacturers, PT Yarindo Farmatama, PT Universal Pharmaceutical, PT Konimex and PT AFI Pharma, that were sold domestically.
The companies involved have either denied that their products have been contaminated or declined to comment while investigations are ongoing.
The WHO reiterated its call for the products flagged above to be removed from circulation, and called more widely for countries to ensure that any medicines for sale are approved by competent authorities. It also asked governments and regulators to assign resources to inspect manufacturers, increase market surveillance and take action where required.
It called on manufacturers to only buy raw ingredients from qualified suppliers, test their products more thoroughly and keep records of the process. Suppliers and distributors should check for signs of falsification and only distribute or sell medicines authorised for use, the WHO added.
Reporting by Jennifer Rigby; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Christina Fincher
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Jan 23 (Reuters) – Japanese Prime minister Fumio Kishida pledged on Monday to take urgent steps to tackle the country’s declining birth rate, saying it was “now or never” for one of the world’s oldest societies.
Japan has in recent years been trying to encourage its people to have more children with promises of cash bonuses and better benefits, but it remains one of the most expensive places in the world to raise a child, according to surveys.
Births plunged to a new record low last year, according to official estimates, dropping below 800,000 for the first time – a watershed moment that came eight years earlier than the government had expected.
That most likely precipitated a further population decline in a country where the median age is 49, the highest in the world behind only the tiny city-state of Monaco.
“Our nation is on the cusp of whether it can maintain its societal functions,” Kishida said in a policy speech at the opening of this year’s parliamentary session.
“It is now or never when it comes to policies regarding births and child-rearing – it is an issue that simply cannot wait any longer,” he added.
Kishida said he would submit plans to double the budget for child-related policies by June, and that a new Children and Families government agency to oversee the issue would be set up in April.
Japan is the third-most-expensive country globally to raise a child, according to YuWa Population Research, behind only China and South Korea, countries also seeing shrinking populations in worrying signs for the global economy.
Other countries are also coming to grips with ageing and shrinking populations. Last week, China reported that its population dropped in 2022 for the first time in 60 years.
Reporting by Sakura Murakami; Editing by John Geddie and Gerry Doyle
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BEIJING/HONG KONG, Jan 17 (Reuters) – China’s population fell last year for the first time in six decades, a historic turn that is expected to mark the start of a long period of decline in its citizen numbers with profound implications for its economy and the world.
The drop, the worst since 1961, the last year of China’s Great Famine, also lends weight to predictions that India will become the world’s most populous nation this year.
China’s population declined by roughly 850,000 to 1.41175 billion at the end of 2022, the country’s National Bureau of Statistics said.
Long-term, U.N. experts see China’s population shrinking by 109 million by 2050, more than triple the decline of their previous forecast in 2019.
That’s caused domestic demographers to lament that China will get old before it gets rich, slowing the economy as revenues drop and government debt increases due to soaring health and welfare costs.
“China’s demographic and economic outlook is much bleaker than expected. China will have to adjust its social, economic, defense and foreign policies,” said demographer Yi Fuxian.
He added that the country’s shrinking labour force and downturn in manufacturing heft would further exacerbate high prices and high inflation in the United States and Europe.
Kang Yi, head of the national statistics bureau, told reporters that people should not worry about the decline in population as “overall labour supply still exceeds demand”.
China’s birth rate last year was just 6.77 births per 1,000 people, down from a rate of 7.52 births in 2021 and marking the lowest birth rate on record.
The number of Chinese women of childbearing age, which the government defines as 25 to 35, fell by about 4 million, Kang said.
The death rate, the highest since 1974 during the Cultural Revolution, was 7.37 deaths per 1,000 people, which compares with rate of 7.18 deaths in 2021.
ONE-CHILD POLICY IMPACT
Much of the demographic downturn is the result of China’s one-child policy imposed between 1980 and 2015 as well as sky-high education costs that have put many Chinese off having more than one child or even having any at all.
The data was the top trending topic on Chinese social media after the figures were released on Tuesday. One hashtag,”#Is it really important to have offspring?” had hundreds of millions of hits.
“The fundamental reason why women do not want to have children lies not in themselves, but in the failure of society and men to take up the responsibility of raising children. For women who give birth this leads to a serious decline in their quality of life and spiritual life,” posted one netizen with the username Joyful Ned.
China’s stringent zero-COVID policies that were in place for three years have caused further damage to the country’s demographic outlook, population experts have said.
Local governments have since 2021 rolled out measures to encourage people to have more babies, including tax deductions, longer maternity leave and housing subsidies. President Xi Jinping also said in October the government would enact further supportive policies.
The measures so far, however, have done little to arrest the long-term trend.
Online searches for baby strollers on China’s Baidu search engine dropped 17% in 2022 and are down 41% since 2018, while searches for baby bottles are down more than a third since 2018. In contrast, searches for elderly care homes surged eight-fold last year.
The reverse is playing out in India, where Google Trends shows a 15% year-on-year increase in searches for baby bottles in 2022, while searches for cribs rose almost five-fold.
Reuters Graphics
Reporting by Albee Zhang in Beijing and Farah Master in Hong Kong; Additional reporting by Kevin Yao and Ella Cao in Beijing; Editing by Edwina Gibbs
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VATICAN CITY, Jan 13 (Reuters) – Australian Cardinal George Pell was lying in state on Friday, with funeral preparations overshadowed by revelations that he was the author of an anonymous memo that branded Pope Francis’ pontificate a catastrophe.
Pell’s closed dark brown wooden coffin was placed on the floor of the small church of St. Stephen of the Abyssinians, inside the Vatican walls just metres (yards) away from the Santa Marta residence where Francis lives.
Early on Friday, a reporter saw about 20 people kneeling in prayer in the church when it opened for 10 hours of lying in state.
Pell, 81, who spent more than a year in jail before being acquitted of sexual abuse allegations in his native Australia, died on Tuesday night in a Rome hospital of heart failure.
The small church, which is normally used for baptisms and weddings, is one of the oldest in the Vatican. Parts of it date back to the fifth century and it is one of the few structures not demolished to make way for the building of the current St. Peter’s Basilica, which began in the early 16th century.
His funeral is due to take place on Saturday just across the road in St. Peter’s.
In keeping with tradition for deceased cardinals, the Mass will be said by the dean of the College of Cardinals, currently Italian Giovanni Battista Re, and the pope will give the final blessing and commendation.
His surprise death of cardiac arrest during what was expected to be routine hip replacement surgery was followed by another shock the next day.
Last year, respected Italian journalist Sandro Magister, who has a long track record of receiving leaked Vatican documents, published an anonymous memo circulating in the Vatican condemning Pope Francis’ papacy as a “catastrophe”.
Magister disclosed on his widely read blog Settimo Cielo (Seventh Heaven) that it was Pell who wrote the memo and gave him permission to publish it under the pseudonym “Demos” – Greek for populace. It included what the author said should be the qualities of the next pope.
“Everyone here is talking about it,” said one Vatican official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The official said he did not doubt that Pell was the author but said the revelation should have been held back until after his funeral “out of respect for the dead”.
Father Joseph Hamilton, Pell’s personal secretary, declined to comment on Magister’s report and Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said he had no comment.
Pell will be buried in the crypt at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, where he served as archbishop, the Australian Church has announced.
Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Nick Macfie
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MOGADISHU, Dec 13 (Reuters) – More than 200,000 Somalis are suffering catastrophic food shortages and many are dying of hunger, with that number set to rise to over 700,000 next year, according to an analysis by an alliance of U.N. agencies and aid groups.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which sets the global standard for determining the severity of food crises, said its most acute level, “IPC Phase 5 Famine”, had been temporarily averted but things were getting worse.
“They have kept famine outside of the door but nobody knows for how much longer,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson of the U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA).
“That people are dying from hunger, there’s no doubt about it, but I cannot put a number on it,” he told a news briefing in Geneva after the latest IPC analysis on Somalia came out.
A two-year drought has decimated crops and livestock across Horn of Africa nations, while the price of food imports has soared because of the war in Ukraine.
In Somalia, where 3 million people have been driven from their homes by conflict or drought, the crisis is compounded by a long-running Islamist insurgency that has hampered humanitarian access to some areas.
The IPC had previously warned that areas of Somalia were at risk of reaching famine levels, but the response by humanitarian organisations and local communities had staved that off.
“The underlying crisis however has not improved and even more appalling outcomes are only temporarily averted. Prolonged extreme conditions have resulted in massive population displacement and excess cumulative deaths,” it said.
Somalia’s last famine, in 2011, killed a quarter of a million people, half of them before famine was officially declared.
Fearful of a similar or even worse outcome this time, humanitarian chiefs were quick to say the situation was already catastrophic for many Somalis.
‘STOP WAITING’
“I have sat with women and children who have shown me mounds next to their tent in a displaced camp where they buried their two- and three-year-olds,” said James Elder, spokesperson of the U.N. children’s charity UNICEF, at the Geneva briefing.
“Whilst a famine declaration remains important because the world should be past this, we also do know that children are dying now.”
The IPC Acute Food Insecurity scale has a complex set of technical criteria by which the severity of crises are measured. Its Phase 5 has two levels, Catastrophe and Famine.
The Somalia analysis found that 214,000 people were classified in Catastrophe and that number was expected to rise to 727,000 from April, 2023 as humanitarian funding dropped off.
Catastrophe is summarised on the IPC website as a situation where starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident.
It said famine was projected from April onwards among agropastoral populations in the districts of Baidoa and Burhakaba, in central Somalia, and among displaced populations in Baidoa town and the capital Mogadishu.
The IPC data showed 5.6 million Somalis were classified in Crisis or worse (Phase 3 or above) and that number would rise from April to 8.3 million — about half the country’s population.
The OCHA is appealing for $2.3 billion to respond to the crisis in Somalia, of which it has so far received $1.3 billion, or 55.2%.
David Miliband, head of aid group the International Rescue Committee, said the underfunding of the appeal showed the world was not treating this as an urgent moment.
“The time for action is now in Somalia,” he told Reuters in an interview, adding that what happened in 2011 should serve as a warning. “Stop waiting for the famine declaration,” he said.
Reporting by Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu, Bhargav Acharya and Alexander Winning in Johannesburg and Sofia Christensen in Dakar and Emma Farge in Geneva; Writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by James Macharia Chege and Ed Osmond
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NEW DELHI, Nov 3 (Reuters) – Delhi’s 20 million residents were effectively breathing smoke on Thursday as the air quality index (AQI) breached the “severe” and “hazardous” categories in nearly all monitoring stations of the Indian capital, raising calls to close schools.
The AQI exceeded 450 at many places early in the day, according to data from the Central Pollution Control Board. A reading over 400 affects healthy people, with serious impacts on those with existing diseases, the federal government says.
The index was over 800 in some pockets of the city, according to data from the Delhi Pollution Control Committee.
“What is happening with air pollution in Delhi is nothing short of a crime against humanity!” author and socialite Suhel Seth wrote on Twitter. “There’s a total collapse of accountability!”
The world’s most polluted capital is blanketed in smog every winter as cold, heavy air traps construction dust, vehicle emissions and smoke from the burning of crop stubble in the neighbouring states to clear the fields for the next crop.
[1/3] A couple poses during a pre-wedding photo on the banks of Yamuna river on a smoggy morning in the old quarters of Delhi, India November 2, 2022. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi/File Photo
Lower temperatures, calmer winds and their changing direction worsen the air quality from time to time.
Parents and environmentalists on social media demanded schools to be closed.
“I know children don’t vote for you, but still, requesting all the chief ministers of Delhi (capital region) to immediately SHUTDOWN all the schools,” environmental activist Vimlendu Jha wrote on Twitter. “It’s not NORMAL to breathe 500+ AQI, not for our children, where every third child already has some pulmonary challenge.”
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, whose party also rules Punjab where crop burning is rampant, said on Twitter that the “people of Punjab and Delhi are taking all steps at their level” to tackle pollution.
The capital this week stopped most construction and demolition work to curb dust pollution and appealed to residents to share car and motorcycle journeys, work from home when possible and reduce the use of coal and firewood at home.
Reporting by Krishna N. Das; Editing by William Mallard
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Protesters mark 40 days since Mahsa Amini’s death in custody
DUBAI, Oct 26 (Reuters) – The militant group Islamic State said it carried out an attack on a Shi’ite Muslim shrine in Iran on Wednesday which killed 15 people, escalating tensions in a country reeling from a wave of protests and prompting warnings of a response from Tehran.
Iranian officials said they had arrested a gunman who carried out the attack at the Shah Cheragh shrine in the city of Shiraz. State media blamed “takfiri terrorists” – a label Tehran uses for hardline Sunni Muslim militants like Islamic State.
The group has claimed previous attacks in Iran, including deadly twin bombings in 2017 which targeted Iran’s parliament and the tomb of the Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Wednesday’s killing of Shi’ite pilgrims came on the same day that Iranian security forces clashed with increasingly strident protesters marking the 40-day anniversary since the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman.
Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi blamed the protests sweeping Iran for paving the ground for the Shiraz attack, and President Ebrahim Raisi said Iran would respond, according to state media.
“Experience shows that Iran’s enemies, after failing to create a split in the nation’s united ranks, take revenge through violence and terror,” said Raisi, speaking before Islamic State released its claim of responsibility.
“This crime will definitely not go unanswered, and the security and law enforcement forces will teach a lesson to those who designed and carried out the attack.”
The semi-official Tasnim news agency said the attacker shot an employee at the shrine entrance before his rifle jammed and he was chased by bystanders.
He managed to fix his gun and opened fire on his pursuers, before entering a courtyard and shooting worshippers. Several women and children were among the dead, it said.
A witness at Shah Cheragh told state television: “I heard sounds of gunfire after we prayed. We went to a room next to the shrine, this lowlife came and fired a barrage of shots. Then (the bullet) hit my arm and leg, it hit my wife’s back, but thank God my child was not hit, he is seven years old.”
DAY OF CLASHES
The attack in Shiraz took place at the end of a day of confrontations across the country between security forces and protesters, with video footage showing some of the most violent clashes in more than a month of unrest following Amini’s death.
The demonstrations have become one of the boldest challenges to the clerical leadership since the 1979 revolution. A wide range of Iranians have come out on to the streets, with some calling for the downfall of the Islamic Republic and the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Security forces opened fire at mourners in Amini’s Kurdish home town of Saqez on Wednesday, according to a witness.
[1/7] A bullet hole seen after a terrorist attack at the Shah Cheragh Shrine in Shiraz, Iran October 26, 2022. Amin Berenjkar/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
“Riot police shot mourners who gathered at the cemetery for Mahsa’s memorial ceremony … dozens have been arrested,” the witness said. Iranian authorities were not available to comment.
The semi-official ISNA news agency said about 10,000 people were at the cemetery, adding that the internet was cut off after clashes between security forces and people there.
Videos on social media showed crowds packing streets in many cities and the bazaars of Tehran and some other cities shut down with people chanting “Death to Khamenei”.
1500tasvir, a Twitter account focused on Iran protests with 280,000 followers, reported a “brutal crackdown” on protesters in multiple locations in Tehran, including a gathering at the Tehran Medical Association.
Video footage on social media appeared to show members of the Basij militia shooting at protesters in Tehran.
Other videos showed protesters chasing riot police and throwing stones. They also showed protesters in the holy Shi’ite city of Mashhad setting fire to a riot policeman’s motorbike. In Tehran, a protester hit a policeman, while in the city of Qazvin riot police opened fire on protesters.
Some protesters chanted: “We will fight, we will die, we will get Iran back” from its clerical rulers.
Reuters was not able to verify the authenticity of the footage.
State news agency IRNA said a member of the elite Revolutionary Guards was shot dead “by rioters” in the western city of Malayer.
An Iranian former pro-reform official said the spread of the protests appeared to have taken authorities by surprise and contrasted with the establishment’s assertions that support for the Islamic system is overwhelming.
While some analysts said prospects for the imminent dawn of a new political order are slim, activists said a wall of fear had fallen and the path to a new revolution was not reversible.
Students have played a pivotal role in the protests, with dozens of universities on strike. Hundreds of schoolgirls have joined in, chanting “Freedom, Freedom, Freedom,” despite fierce crackdowns by security forces.
State media and hardline officials have branded protesters “hypocrites, monarchists, thugs and seditionists”.
Rights groups said at least 250 protesters had been killed, including teenage girls, and thousands had been arrested.
The authorities, who have accused the United States and other Western countries of fomenting what they call “riots”, have yet to announce a death toll but state media have said around 30 members of the security forces have been killed.
Writing by Parisa Hafezi and Dominic Evans
Editing by Michael Georgy, Nick Macfie and Alistair Bell
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UTHAI SAWAN, Thailand, Oct 9 (Reuters) – A three-year-old child who managed to survive last week’s massacre at a nursery in northeast Thailand slumbered through the horror under a blanket in the corner of a classroom.
Paveenut Supolwong, nicknamed “Ammy”, is normally a light sleeper, but at naptime on Thursday when the killer burst into the nursery and began murdering 22 children, Ammy was fast asleep with the blanket covering her face, her parents said.
It likely saved her life.
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She was the only child in the nursery to have escaped unscathed after former police officer Panya Khamrap killed more than 30 people, mostly children in the nursery, in a rampage through the town of Uthai Sawan.
“I’m in shock,” said Ammy’s mother, Panompai Sithong. “I feel for other families… I’m glad that my kid survived. It’s a mixed feeling of sadness and gratitude.”
On Sunday, the family’s wooden home was bustling with relatives and neighbours sharing plates of fish, papaya salad, and reflections on the tragedy.
They fussed over Ammy as she played in the yard in a flowery gown, an amulet tied around her neck, alternating between bewilderment and gap-toothed smiles at all the sudden attention.
Ammy’s parents said she seems to have no memory of the tragedy. Someone found her stirring in a far corner of a classroom, after the killer had left, and carried her out with her head covered by the blanket so she did not see the bodies of her classmates.
Of the 22 children stabbed to death, 11 died in the classroom where she was napping, according to police. Two other children were in hospital with serious head wounds.
RARE MOMENT OF JOY
On Sunday afternoon, the family sat in a circle as a religious leader read from a Sanskrit prayer book, conducting a Buddhist ceremony for children who endure bad experiences.
Ammy sat patiently in her mother’s lap, looking around shyly through big eyes and playing with two candles she held.
Tawatchai Supolwong holds his 3-year-old daugther Paveenut Supolwong, nicknamed Ammy, who is the only child survivor of the day care centre mass shooting, during a family meeting at their home in Uthai Sawan, Nong Bua Lam Phu province, Thailand, October 9, 2022. REUTERS/Jorge Silva
Relatives splashed one another with rice wine poured from a silver bowl and cried out wishes for good fortune.
They loaded Ammy’s tiny wrists with white threads for luck, pinching her cheeks and whispering blessings.
It was a rare moment of joy in a town plunged into grief.
In addition to the slaughter at the nursery, Panya rammed his pickup truck into passersby on the street and shot at neighbours in a two-hour rampage. Finally, he killed the woman he lived with, her son, and himself.
In the close-knit community, few have been left untouched.
From dawn on Sunday, families of the victims gathered at the temples where bodies are being kept in coffins. They brought treats for the souls of the dead, according to local traditions, including food, milk and toys.
Later in the day they sat for a Buddhist ceremony at the nursery, where mourners have left white floral wreaths and more presents.
At Ammy’s home, her mother said she believed spirits had protected her little girl.
“My kid is not a deep sleeper,” Panompai said. “I believe there must be some spirits covering her eyes and ears. We have different beliefs, but to me, I think it protected my kid.”
Another relative told local media Ammy’s survival was a “miracle”.
But the family had to break the news to her that her beloved best friend, two-year-old Techin, and her teacher were dead. “She was asking her grandmother, ‘Why don’t you pick up Techin from school?’,” Panompai said.
She does not yet know the full extent of the tragedy she lived through.
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Writing by Poppy McPherson; Editing by Susan Fenton
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Ex-policeman killed 34 at daycare centre using knife and gun
After attack, he killed wife and son, turned weapon on himself
Police depict attacker as stressed by marital, money worries
Thai flags fly at half-mast on buildings to mourn attack
UTHAI SAWAN, Thailand, Oct 7 (Reuters) – Grief-stricken relatives sobbed and clutched toys at a children’s daycare centre on Friday, a day after a former policeman killed 34 people, most of them young children, in a knife and gun rampage there that has horrified Thailand.
Government buildings flew flags at half mast to mourn victims – 23 of them children – of the carnage in Uthai Sawan, a town 500 km (310 miles) northeast of Bangkok, the capital of the largely Buddhist country.
After leaving the daycare centre filled with dead, dying and wounded, the ex-officer went home and shot dead his wife and son before turning his weapon on himself.
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Police identified the attacker as Panya Khamrap, 34, a former police sergeant who had been discharged over drug allegations and who was facing trial on a drugs charge.
It was not clear if Panya still used drugs. An autopsy report indicated he had not used them on the day of the attack, national police chief Damrongsak Kittipraphat said on Friday.
“The reasons are probably unemployment, no money, and family issues,” he said, adding that the attacker and his wife had had “longstanding problems”.
One witness, Kittisak Polprakan, said he saw the attacker calmly walking out of the daycare centre – a pink, one-storey building surrounded by a lawn and small palm trees – after the massacre “as if he was just taking a normal stroll”.
“I don’t know (why he did this), but he was under a lot of pressure,” Panya’s mother told Nation TV, citing debts her son had run up and his drug taking.
Most of the children, aged between two and five, were slashed to death, while adults were shot, police said in the aftermath of one of the world’s worst child death tolls in a massacre by a single killer in recent history.
Police official Chakkraphat Wichitvaidya told Reuters autopsies showed the children had been slashed with a large knife, sometimes multiple times, and adults shot.
Three boys and a girl who survived were being treated in hospital, police said.
‘I IMMEDIATELY KNEW’
The aunt of a three-year old boy who died in the slaughter held a stuffed dog and a toy tractor in her lap as she recounted how she had rushed to the scene when the news first spread.
“I came and I saw two bodies in front of the school and I immediately knew that the kid was already dead,” said Suwimon Sudfanpitak, 40, who had been looking after her nephew, Techin, while his parents worked in Bangkok.
A woman prays at Wat Rat Samakee following a mass shooting in the town of Uthai Sawan, Nong Bua Lam Phu province, Thailand October 7, 2022. REUTERS/Jorge Silva
Another of the dead was Kritsana Sola, a chubby-cheeked two-year-old who loved dinosaurs and football and was nicknamed “captain”. He had just got a new haircut and was proudly showing it off, said his aunt, Naliwan Duangket, 27.
In the late afternoon, relatives wailed in pain as funerals were set to be held at Wat Rat Sammakhi. Some collapsed and had to be laid on straw mats and fanned by medical workers.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha met victims’ families in a sweltering compound crowded with police and media, after laying flowers and observing a moment of silence in front of the centre.
The government would try its best to take care of the families and the prime minister asked everyone to “be strong to get through this great loss,” said government spokesperson Anucha Burapachaisri.
Late on Friday, King Maha Vajiralongkorn visited the hospital where the injured were taken, according to photographs posted by the government’s public relations office.
Reuters Graphics
Photographs taken at the centre by rescuers and provided to Reuters showed the tiny bodies of the killed laid out on blankets. Abandoned juice boxes were scattered across the floor.
“He was heading towards me and I begged him for mercy, I didn’t know what to do,” one distraught woman told ThaiPBS, fighting back tears.
“He didn’t say anything, he shot at the door while the kids were sleeping,” said another woman, becoming distraught.
About 24 children were at the centre when the attack began, fewer than usual as heavy rain had kept many people away, said district official Jidapa Boonsom.
Hundreds of people posted condolences on the Facebook page of the Uthai Sawan Child Development Centre under its last post before the massacre, an account of a visit the children made to a Buddhist temple in September.
In a message, the Vatican said Pope Francis had been deeply saddened by the “horrific attack”, which he condemned as an “act of unspeakable violence against innocent children”.
The massacre was among the worst involving children killed by one person.
In Norway in 2011, Anders Breivik killed 69 people, mostly teenagers, at a summer camp, while the death toll in other cases includes 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut in 2012, 16 at Dunblane in Scotland in 1996 and 19 at a school in Uvalde, Texas, this year.
Gun laws are strict in Thailand, but gun ownership is high compared with some Southeast Asian countries, and illegal weapons are common, with many brought in from strife-torn neighbours.
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Additional reporting by Orathai Sriring, Panarat Thepgumpanat, Chayut Setboonsarng, Juarwee Kittisilpa in Bangkok, and Philip Pullella in Rome
Writing by Ed Davies
Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Clarence Fernandez, Gareth Jones and Frances Kerry
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Sept 28 (Reuters) – Some major advertisers including Dyson, Mazda, Forbes and PBS Kids have suspended their marketing campaigns or removed their ads from parts of Twitter because their promotions appeared alongside tweets soliciting child pornography, the companies told Reuters.
DIRECTV and Thoughtworks also told Reuters late on Wednesday they have paused their advertising on Twitter.
Brands ranging from Walt Disney Co (DIS.N), NBCUniversal (CMCSA.O) and Coca-Cola Co (KO.N) to a children’s hospital were among more than 30 advertisers that appeared on the profile pages of Twitter accounts peddling links to the exploitative material, according to a Reuters review of accounts identified in new research about child sex abuse online from cybersecurity group Ghost Data.
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Some of tweets include key words related to “rape” and “teens,” and appeared alongside promoted tweets from corporate advertisers, the Reuters review found. In one example, a promoted tweet for shoe and accessories brand Cole Haan appeared next to a tweet in which a user said they were “trading teen/child” content.
“We’re horrified,” David Maddocks, brand president at Cole Haan, told Reuters after being notified that the company’s ads appeared alongside such tweets. “Either Twitter is going to fix this, or we’ll fix it by any means we can, which includes not buying Twitter ads.”
In another example, a user tweeted searching for content of “Yung girls ONLY, NO Boys,” which was immediately followed by a promoted tweet for Texas-based Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital. Scottish Rite did not return multiple requests for comment.
In a statement, Twitter spokesperson Celeste Carswell said the company “has zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation” and is investing more resources dedicated to child safety, including hiring for new positions to write policy and implement solutions.
She added that Twitter is working closely with its advertising clients and partners to investigate and take steps to prevent the situation from happening again.
Twitter’s challenges in identifying child abuse content were first reported in an investigation by tech news site The Verge in late August. The emerging pushback from advertisers that are critical to Twitter’s revenue stream is reported here by Reuters for the first time.
Like all social media platforms, Twitter bans depictions of child sexual exploitation, which are illegal in most countries. But it permits adult content generally and is home to a thriving exchange of pornographic imagery, which comprises about 13% of all content on Twitter, according to an internal company document seen by Reuters.
Twitter declined to comment on the volume of adult content on the platform.
Ghost Data identified the more than 500 accounts that openly shared or requested child sexual abuse material over a 20-day period this month. Twitter failed to remove more than 70% of the accounts during the study period, according to the group, which shared the findings exclusively with Reuters.
Reuters could not independently confirm the accuracy of Ghost Data’s finding in full, but reviewed dozens of accounts that remained online and were soliciting materials for “13+” and “young looking nudes.”
After Reuters shared a sample of 20 accounts with Twitter last Thursday, the company removed about 300 additional accounts from the network, but more than 100 others still remained on the site the following day, according to Ghost Data and a Reuters review.
Reuters then on Monday shared the full list of more than 500 accounts after it was furnished by Ghost Data, which Twitter reviewed and permanently suspended for violating its rules, said Twitter’s Carswell on Tuesday.
In an email to advertisers on Wednesday morning, ahead of the publication of this story, Twitter said it “discovered that ads were running within Profiles that were involved with publicly selling or soliciting child sexual abuse material.”
Andrea Stroppa, the founder of Ghost Data, said the study was an attempt to assess Twitter’s ability to remove the material. He said he personally funded the research after receiving a tip about the topic.
Twitter’s transparency reports on its website show it suspended more than 1 million accounts last year for child sexual exploitation.
It made about 87,000 reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a government-funded non-profit that facilitates information sharing with law enforcement, according to that organization’s annual report.
“Twitter needs to fix this problem ASAP, and until they do, we are going to cease any further paid activity on Twitter,” said a spokesperson for Forbes.
“There is no place for this type of content online,” a spokesperson for carmaker Mazda USA said in a statement to Reuters, adding that in response, the company is now prohibiting its ads from appearing on Twitter profile pages.
A Disney spokesperson called the content “reprehensible” and said they are “doubling-down on our efforts to ensure that the digital platforms on which we advertise, and the media buyers we use, strengthen their efforts to prevent such errors from recurring.”
A spokesperson for Coca-Cola, which had a promoted tweet appear on an account tracked by the researchers, said it did not condone the material being associated with its brand and said “any breach of these standards is unacceptable and taken very seriously.”
NBCUniversal said it has asked Twitter to remove the ads associated with the inappropriate content.
CODE WORDS
Twitter is hardly alone in grappling with moderation failures related to child safety online. Child welfare advocates say the number of known child sexual abuse images has soared from thousands to tens of millions in recent years, as predators have used social networks including Meta’s Facebook and Instagram to groom victims and exchange explicit images.
For the accounts identified by Ghost Data, nearly all the traders of child sexual abuse material marketed the materials on Twitter, then instructed buyers to reach them on messaging services such as Discord and Telegram in order to complete payment and receive the files, which were stored on cloud storage services like New Zealand-based Mega and U.S.-based Dropbox, according to the group’s report.
A Discord spokesperson said the company had banned one server and one user for violating its rules against sharing links or content that sexualize children.
Mega said a link referenced in the Ghost Data report was created in early August and soon after deleted by the user, which it declined to identify. Mega said it permanently closed the user’s account two days later.
Dropbox and Telegram said they use a variety of tools to moderate content but did not provide additional detail on how they would respond to the report.
Still the reaction from advertisers poses a risk to Twitter’s business, which earns more than 90% of its revenue by selling digital advertising placements to brands seeking to market products to the service’s 237 million daily active users.
Twitter is also battling in court Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk, who is attempting to back out of a $44 billion deal to buy the social media company over complaints about the prevalence of spam accounts and its impact on the business.
A team of Twitter employees concluded in a report dated February 2021 that the company needed more investment to identify and remove child exploitation material at scale, noting the company had a backlog of cases to review for possible reporting to law enforcement.
“While the amount of (child sexual exploitation content) has grown exponentially, Twitter’s investment in technologies to detect and manage the growth has not,” according to the report, which was prepared by an internal team to provide an overview about the state of child exploitation material on Twitter and receive legal advice on the proposed strategies.
“Recent reports about Twitter provide an outdated, moment in time glance at just one aspect of our work in this space, and is not an accurate reflection of where we are today,” Carswell said.
The traffickers often use code words such as “cp” for child pornography and are “intentionally as vague as possible,” to avoid detection, according to the internal documents. The more that Twitter cracks down on certain keywords, the more that users are nudged to use obfuscated text, which “tend to be harder for (Twitter) to automate against,” the documents said.
Ghost Data’s Stroppa said that such tricks would complicate efforts to hunt down the materials, but noted that his small team of five researchers and no access to Twitter’s internal resources was able to find hundreds of accounts within 20 days.
Twitter did not respond to a request for further comment.
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Reporting by Sheila Dang in New York and Katie Paul in Palo Alto; Additional reporting by Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles; Editing by Kenneth Li and Edward Tobin
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.