Day: December 22, 2021

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has declined an effort by Apple Inc. to skip a shareholder proposal asking the iPhone maker to provide greater transparency in its efforts to keep forced labor out of its supply chain.

A group of shareholders earlier this year asked Apple’s board to prepare a report on how the company protects workers in its supply chain from forced labor. The request for information covered the extent to which Apple has identified suppliers and sub-suppliers that are a risk for forced labor, and how many suppliers Apple has taken action against.

In a letter from the SEC reviewed by Reuters on Wednesday, regulators denied Apple’s move to block the proposal, saying that “it does not appear that the essential objectives of the proposal have been implemented” so far.

The letter means that Apple will have to face a vote on the proposal at its annual shareholder meeting next year, barring a deal with the shareholders who made it.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

American lawmakers last week passed a bill banning imports from China’s Xinjiang region over concerns about forced labor.

“There’s rightfully growing concern at all levels of government about the concentration camplike conditions for Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims living under Chinese government rule,” Vicky Wyatt, campaign director for SumOfUs, a group supporting the shareholder proposal, said in a statement on Wednesday.

Apple routinely asks the SEC to skip shareholder proposals, and the requests are granted about half the time.

The SEC also denied Apple’s request to skip a shareholder proposal that would give investors more information about the company’s use of nondisclosure agreements.

Source: Voice of America

Researchers in Australia have identified a gene that indicates the kidney has its own way of resisting damage. However, they have also identified a mutation of the gene that can in patients with, for example, diabetes, trigger the development of renal disease.

A gene called VANGL1 has been found to help stop the immune system from attacking the kidney. But Australian researchers say the genetic mutation, which is present in about 15% of the population worldwide, can cause renal disease in patients with diabetes and other autoimmune conditions.

The mutation is highly prevalent among indigenous people on the Tiwi Islands, 80 kilometers from the city of Darwin in the Northern Territory. According to the study, just less than 50% of the islands’ residents have the genetic mutation.

The islands’ recorded rates of kidney disease are four times those of mainland indigenous Australians and about 11 times that of non-Indigenous Australians, according to researchers.

Dr. Simon Jiang is from the John Curtin School of Medical Research at Australian National University. He says the mutation is mostly benign in healthy adults.

“If your body is not inflamed and you are otherwise healthy, it is probably not too much of an issue. It is when you have another condition that occurs on top of it. And so in the Tiwi Islands, rates of infection, of diabetes and probably some immune diseases, are a lot higher than the rest of Australia. And so, when you have that process happening within your body, what is initially a reasonably benign mutation suddenly takes on a new turn and becomes something that is really bad news for the kidney,” Jiang said.

The study could lead to better transplant screening that would identify potential donors who have the genetic mutation.

The study was published Wednesday in the journal Cell Reports Medicine.

Source: Voice of America

Madagascar’s police minister and an air force mechanic are safe after being stranded in the ocean for 12 hours following a helicopter crash in the Indian Ocean.

Gen. Serge Gellé, 57, the Secretary of State for the Gendarmerie, was plucked from the water by fishermen, while Chief Warrant Officer Jimmy Laitsara managed to swim to shore.

The two were among four passengers on the helicopter, which was surveying the scene of a shipwreck Monday that left at least 64 dead. The other two are still missing.

“My turn to die has not yet come, thank God. I’m well. I’m just cold,” said Gelle, who looked exhausted, in a video posted on Twitter. “But I’m sad because I don’t know if my friends are alive.”

He said he did not have a life jacket and used his seat as a floatation device.

The cause of the crash is still under investigation.

The shipwrecked boat, the Francia, is believed to have sunk due to flooding in the engine room. Twenty passengers are still missing.

Source: Voice of America

The death toll from a shipwreck off Madagascar’s northeastern coast has risen to at least 64 after 25 more bodies were discovered, maritime authorities said Wednesday.

A wooden vessel, believed to be a cargo ship carrying passengers illegally, sank in the Indian Ocean on Monday with 130 people on board.

Forty-five passengers were rescued and around 20 remain missing. The search for survivors continues.

“Twenty-five bodies were found this morning near Sainte-Marie islands, probably due to sea currents, which brings the death total to 64,” gendarmerie general Zafisambatra Ravoavy told AFP.

Maritime authorities said initial investigations suggested the vessel’s engine had a “technical problem”, leaving the boat vulnerable to tidal forces and causing it to run aground on a reef.

A Malagasy government minister who travelled to the disaster scene swam 12 hours to shore on Tuesday after his helicopter crashed off the island nation’s northeastern coast.

Source: Seychelles News Agency