Live updates: follow the latest news on Russia-Ukraine
SpaceX boss Elon Musk believes there is a high chance that his Starlink satellite broadband service could be targeted by Russia.
Ukraine confirmed on Monday that it had received a donation of satellite internet terminals after its appeal to Mr Musk for help in keeping online communications working after the Russian invasion last week.
The vice-prime minister of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov, tweeted a photo of a lorry carrying Starlink equipment, but security researchers said that they could potentially be tracked and targeted by Russian military.
After some of the concerns came to light, Mr Musk said that the system should be used with caution.
“Important warning: Starlink is the only non-Russian communications system still working in some parts of Ukraine, so probability of being targeted is high,” he tweeted.
It was not immediately clear how many units have been sent to Ukraine after Mr Fedorov on Saturday first made his appeal to the SpaceX boss for the units.
But Mr Fedorov tweeted a photo of a unit apparently in position on Wednesday and said that the system was keeping “our cities connected and emergency services saving lives”.
Starlink uses a system of more than 2,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit to supply the internet in areas where connectivity is difficult or unavailable owing to natural disasters or war. It requires a small roof-based receiver with a clear view of the skies to receive signals from the satellite.
John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the University of Toronto who has studied surveillance in conflict zones, said on Twitter that the terminals could potentially send enough of a signal to be identified and targeted.
He said that Russia had decades of experience hitting people by monitoring their satellite communications, including the killing of Chechen separatist leader Dzhokhar Dudayev in 1996 while he was reportedly making a satellite phone call.
Mr Scott-Railton said the systems were different but that it was not clear if the Starlink technology had vulnerabilities because it was so new.
He wrote on Twitter that satellite internet felt like a saviour for the Ukrainians but could quickly introduce “deadly new vulnerabilities.”
He said: “If you don't understand them, people die needlessly until they learn and adapt.”
Mr Musk responded to the concerns by advising users to turn on Starlink only when it was needed and to place the receivers as far from people as possible.
Mr Musk said the software for the system had been updated so the system could be powered from a car cigarette lighter and provide a signal on the move.
Most parts of Ukraine still have the internet, but in the event of a complete shutdown experts said the Starlink system could provide hot spots for communication.
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Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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