Month: February 2022

The glamour-girl-next-door image of Eileen Gu holding Lunar New Year treats illuminates bus stop ads throughout Beijing. 

If you didn’t see those, you can hear China’s medal hopeful narrating a commercial for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics in Mandarin. 

And on newsstands, the freestyle skier is the cover model of this month’s Vogue Chinese edition. 

Gu, China’s unofficial face of the Winter Olympics, is everywhere. And that omnipresence belies her origins in the United States, which raises questions about her citizenship as China does not allow dual citizenship. 

Born on September 3, 2003, in San Francisco, California, to an American father and a Chinese mother who emigrated from China, Gu started training in the U.S. at the age of 8 and began competing in major skiing events in 2018 as an American. 

On June 7, 2019, however, Gu announced her decision on Instagram to represent her mother’s homeland in the 2022 Winter Olympics. 

 “I am proud of my heritage, and equally proud of my American upbringings,” Gu wrote. “The opportunity to help inspire millions of young people where my mom was born during the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help to promote the sport I love.”

Some experts say the reason behind Gu’s decision may not be that simple. 

Besides her sports career, Gu is also a model who has appeared on the cover of Vogue Hong Kong and Vogue China. She has deals with luxury brands including Louis Vuitton and Tiffany. 

Lisa Pike Masteralexis, professor in the Mark H. McCormack Department of Sport Management at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, told VOA Mandarin in an email, “Considering her goal of being a decorated Olympian, a role model, a fashion model, and with the growing market conditions in China, it appears to be a savvy move by Eileen Gu and her agency, IMG.” The agency represents top fashion industry names such as Alek Wek and Bella Hadid.

Susan Brownell, an anthropology professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis with expertise in Chinese sports and the Olympic Games, told VOA Mandarin during a virtual interview, “What’s interesting about her is that she does have a number of major sponsorships, and so it appears that representing China is actually appealing to those sponsors, which is a rather new development that you would have, you know, a Chinese American athlete who chose to represent China and was still appealing to sponsors.” 

IMG did not respond to a request for comments by VOA Mandarin. 

Gu’s decision to represent China stirred questions about her citizenship status. 

One of Gu’s main sponsors, Red Bull, used to have a message on its website that read: “At the age of 15, US-born Gu decided to give up her American passport and naturalize as a Chinese citizen in order to compete for China in Beijing – because Chinese law doesn’t recognize dual nationality.” 

After the Wall Street Journal attempted to confirm Gu’s citizenship status in January, Red Bull removed the message. 

VOA Mandarin messaged Gu and her sports agent but neither responded. 

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected VOA Mandarin’s request for comments. 

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and General Administration of Sports of China directed VOA Mandarin to the Chinese Olympic Committee (COC). But VOA Mandarin’s emails to the COC bounced back.

According to Rule 41 of the IOC Charter, “1. Any competitor in the Olympic Games must be a national of the country of the NOC which is entering such competitor. 2. All matters relating to the determination of the country which a competitor may represent in the Olympic Games shall be resolved by the IOC Executive Board.”

Gu also needs to comply with International Ski Federation (FIS) and National Olympic Committee rules. The FIS lists her as a Chinese athlete.

“A skier must be licensed by their home country to represent that nation, so Eileen Gu must have officially changed her license. According to Chinese media reports she did this in 2019 when she was 15,” Masteralexis said. 

Although Masteralexis thinks Gu is following both the IOC and FIS rules, she said, “It has been reported in Chinese media going back 2-3 years that Eileen Gu was granted Chinese citizenship and China does not recognize dual citizenship. The US does recognize dual citizenship, so one does wonder if China has created an exception for Gu.” 

In an interview with ESPN in 2020, Gu said, “Since I was little, I’ve always said when I’m in the U.S., I’m American, but when I’m in China, I’m Chinese.”

According to Brownell, all the foreign-born athletes who are representing China at the Olympics have refused to answer questions about the status of their citizenship.

She said it is not unusual for athletes to represent countries other than their birth countries at major sports events.

An article she co-authored with Niko Besnier, professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, points out that in the past few years, the U.S. offered fast-tracked citizenship for some athletes who were in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

The article notes, “Because the program involves enlisting in the U.S. Army, athletes who were born in other countries do not have to comply with the normal five-year residency rule that is strictly upheld for all other immigrants seeking citizenship.” 

“The U.S. track and field squad going to Rio includes four Kenyan-born athletes who benefited from this program,” it says.

Heidi Grappendorf, associate professor of sport management at Western Carolina University, says seeking out athletes to compete for a country other than their birth country is against the Olympics’ true meaning and needs to be addressed by the IOC. 

“When countries try to poach athletes from other countries to compete for them to make themselves look better, there certainly appears to be a violation of the Olympic spirit,” she said. 

 
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The United Arab Emirates intercepted a ballistic missile fired by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen on Monday, the third attack on the Gulf state by the rebels in the past two weeks. 

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters at the Pentagon that U.S. military personnel based in the country responded to the inbound missile threat with Patriot missile batteries, while Emirati forces fired surface-to-air missiles. 

“The U.S. Patriots were fired, but it was the Emirati surface-to-air missiles that actually engaged the targets,” Kirby said. 

The intercepted missile caused no injuries or casualties, according to Kirby.

A Houthi military spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack, which came as the UAE hosted Israeli President Isaac Herzog for a state visit. 

Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, called the attack a “useless” provocation. 

“We do not see the threats and fantasies of terrorist organizations based on illusions as more than a passing matter that will be dealt with in a manner that guarantees our security and national sovereignty,” Gargash said Monday via Twitter. 

Last week, both Emirati and U.S. forces fired interceptor missiles to stop a similar Houthi attack.

The week before, Houthi rebels carried out a drone-and-missile attack on an Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. fuel depot in the capital’s Mussafah neighborhood, killing three people and wounding at least six others. 

The Houthis frequently carried out attacks on Saudi Arabian soil before expanding strikes on the UAE this month. Israel and Sunni Muslim Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE have shared concerns over Shi’ite Iran, including its support for Yemen’s Houthis. 

 
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For teachers at a middle school in New Mexico’s largest city, the first inkling of a widespread tech problem came during an early morning staff call.

On the video, there were shout-outs for a new custodian for his hard work, and the typical announcements from administrators and the union rep. But in the chat, there were hints of a looming crisis. Nobody could open attendance records, and everyone was locked out of class rosters and grades.

Albuquerque administrators later confirmed the outage that blocked access to the district’s student database — which also includes emergency contacts and lists of which adults are authorized to pick up which children — was due to a ransomware attack.

“I didn’t realize how important it was until I couldn’t use it,” said Sarah Hager, a Cleveland Middle School art teacher.

Cyberattacks like the one that canceled classes for two days in Albuquerque’s biggest school district have become a growing threat to U.S. schools, with several high-profile incidents reported since last year. And the coronavirus pandemic has compounded their effects: More money has been demanded, and more schools have had to shut down as they scramble to recover data or even manually wipe all laptops.

“Pretty much any way that you cut it, incidents have both been growing more frequent and more significant,” said Doug Levin, director of the K12 Security Information Exchange, a Virginia-based nonprofit that helps schools defend against cybersecurity risk.

Precise data is hard to come by since most schools are not required to publicly report cyberattacks. But experts say public school systems — which often have limited budgets for cybersecurity expertise — have become an inviting target for ransomware gangs.

The pandemic also has forced schools to turn increasingly toward virtual learning, making them more dependent on technology and more vulnerable to cyber-extortion. School systems that have had instruction disrupted include those in Baltimore County and Miami-Dade County, along with districts in New Jersey, Wisconsin and elsewhere.

Levin’s group has tracked well over 1,200 cyber security incidents since 2016 at public school districts across the country. They included 209 ransomware attacks, when hackers lock data up and charge to unlock it; 53 “denial of service” attacks, where attackers sabotage or slow a network by faking server requests; 156 “Zoombombing” incidents, where an unauthorized person intrudes on a video call; and more than 110 phishing attacks, where a deceptive message tricks a user to let a hacker into their network.

Recent attacks also come as schools grapple with multiple other challenges related to the pandemic. Teachers get sick, and there aren’t substitutes to cover them. Where there are strict virus testing protocols, there aren’t always tests or people to give them.

In New York City, an attack this month on third-party software vendor Illuminate Education didn’t result in canceled classes, but teachers across the city couldn’t access grades. Local media reported the outage added to stress for educators already juggling instruction with enforcing COVID-19 protocols and covering for colleagues who were sick or in quarantine.

Albuquerque Superintendent Scott Elder said getting all students and staff online during the pandemic created additional avenues for hackers to access the district’s system. He cited that as a factor in the Jan. 12 ransomware attack that canceled classes for some 75,000 students.

The cancellations — which Elder called “cyber snow days” — gave technicians a five-day window to reset the databases over a holiday weekend.

Elder said there’s no evidence student information was obtained by hackers. He declined to say whether the district paid a ransom but noted there would be a “public process” if it did.

Hager, the art teacher, said the cyberattack increased stress on campus in ways that parents didn’t see.

Fire drills were canceled because fire alarms didn’t work. Intercoms stopped working.

Nurses couldn’t find which kids were where as positive test results came in, Hager said. “So potentially there were students on campus that probably were sick.” It also appears the hack permanently wiped out a few days worth of attendance records and grades.

Edupoint, the vendor for Albuquerque’s student information database, called Synergy, declined to comment.

Many schools choose to keep attacks under wraps or release minimal information to prevent revealing additional weaknesses in their security systems.

“It’s very difficult for the school districts to learn from each other, because they’re really not supposed to talk to each other about it because you might share vulnerabilities,” Elder said.

Last year, the FBI issued a warning about a group called PYSA, or “Protect Your System, Amigo,” saying it was seeing an increase in attacks by the group on schools, colleges and seminaries. Other ransomware gangs include Conti, which last year demanded $40 million from Broward County Public Schools, one of the nation’s largest.

Most are Russian-speaking groups that are based in Eastern Europe and enjoy safe harbor from tolerant governments. Some will post files on the dark web, including highly sensitive information, if they don’t get paid.

While attacks on larger districts garner more headlines, ransomware gangs tended to target smaller school districts in 2021 than in 2020, according to Brett Callow, a threat analyst at the firm Emsisoft. He said that could indicate bigger districts are increasing their spending on cybersecurity while smaller districts, which have less money, remain more vulnerable.

A few days after Christmas, the 1,285-student district of Truth or Consequences, south of Albuquerque, also had its Synergy student information system shut down by a ransomware attack. Officials there compared it to having their house robbed.

“It’s just that feeling of helplessness, of confusion as to why somebody would do something like this because at the end of the day, it’s taking away from our kids. And to me that’s just a disgusting way to try to, to get money,” Superintendent Channell Segura said.

The school didn’t have to cancel classes because the attack happened on break, but the network remains down, including keyless entry locks on school building doors. Teachers are still carrying around the physical keys they had to track down at the start of the year, Segura said.

In October, President Joe Biden signed the K-12 Cybersecurity Act, which calls for the federal cyber security agency to make recommendations about how to help school systems better protect themselves.

New Mexico lawmakers have been slow to expand internet usage in the state, let alone support schools on cyber security. Last week, state representatives introduced a bill that would allocate $45 million to the state education department to build a cybersecurity program by 2027.

Ideas on how to prevent future hacks and recover from existing ones usually require more work from teachers.

In the days following the Albuquerque attack, parents argued on Facebook over why schools couldn’t simply switch to pen and paper for things like attendance and grades.

Hager said she even heard the criticism from her mother, a retired school teacher.

“I said, ‘Mom, you can only take attendance on paper if you have printed out your roster to begin with,'” Hager said.

Teachers could also keep duplicate paper copies of all records — but that would double the clerical work that already bogs them down.

In an era where administrators increasingly require teachers to record everything digitally, Hager says, “these systems should work.”
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ((FDA)) Monday gave full approval to U.S. pharmaceutical company Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, which will be marketed under the name Spikevax.

The vaccine has been widely distributed in the United States and around the world under the FDA’s emergency use authorization since December of 2020. It is the second COVID-19 vaccine the agency has fully approved, after Pfizer’s vaccine received the designation in August of 2021.

In a statement, acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said full authorization of the vaccine is an important step in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. She said that while hundreds of millions of doses of the Moderna shot have been administered under the emergency use authorization, she understands “for some individuals, FDA approval of this vaccine may instill additional confidence in making the decision to get vaccinated.”

Woodcock said the public can be assured that the Moderna vaccine “meets the FDA’s high standards for safety, effectiveness and manufacturing quality required of any vaccine approved for use in the United States.”

The Moderna vaccine has been approved for use in more than 70 countries including Britain, Canada, Japan and those in the European Union.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press and Reuters.
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