Wednesday, July 06, 2022

THE PANDEMIC IS STILL HAPPENING
New US Study Helps Demystify Long COVID Brain Fog

July 05, 2022 
Agence France-Presse
A nurse watches over a COVID-19 patient on a ventilator in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at the la Timone hospital in Marseille, southern France, Dec. 31, 2021.

WASHINGTON —

A small new study published Tuesday by scientists at the U.S. National Institutes of Health suggests that the immune response triggered by coronavirus infections damages the brain's blood vessels and could be responsible for long COVID symptoms.

The paper, published in the journal Brain, was based on brain autopsies from nine people who died suddenly after contracting the virus.

Rather than detecting evidence of COVID in the brain, the team found it was the people's own antibodies that attacked the cells lining the brain's blood vessels, causing inflammation and damage.

This discovery could explain why some people have lingering effects from infection including headache, fatigue, loss of taste and smell, and inability to sleep as well as "brain fog" — and may also help devise new treatments for long COVID.

NIH scientist Avindra Nath, the paper's senior author, said in a statement: "Patients often develop neurological complications with COVID-19, but the underlying pathophysiological process is not well understood.

"We had previously shown blood vessel damage and inflammation in patients' brains at autopsy, but we didn't understand the cause of the damage. I think in this paper we've gained important insight into the cascade of events."

The nine individuals, ages 24 to 73, were selected from the team's earlier study because they showed evidence of blood vessel damage in their brains based on scans.

Their brains were compared to those from 10 control individuals.

The scientists discovered that antibodies produced against COVID-19 mistakenly targeted cells that form the blood-brain barrier, a structure designed to keep harmful invaders out of the brain while allowing necessary substances to pass.

Damage to these cells can cause leakage of proteins, bleeding and clots, which elevates the risk of stroke.

The leaks also trigger immune cells called macrophages to rush to the site to repair damage, causing inflammation.

The team found that normal cellular processes in the areas targeted by the attack were severely disrupted, which had implications for things such as their ability to detoxify and to regulate metabolism.

The findings offer clues about the biology at play in patients with long-term neurological symptoms, and can inform new treatments, for example, a drug that targets the buildup of antibodies on the blood-brain barrier.

"It is quite possible that this same immune response persists in long COVID patients resulting in neuronal injury," Nath said.

This would mean that a drug that dials down that immune response could help those patients, he added. "So these findings have very important therapeutic implications."
QUIT SELLING OUR PREHISTORY

Gorgosaurus tipped to fetch $8 mn at New York auction


Tue, July 5, 2022 


A skeleton of a Gorgosaurus dinosaur is going up for auction for the first time and is expected to fetch between $5 million and $8 million, Sotheby's said Tuesday.

The auction house will put the specimen, which is 10 feet tall (three meters) and 22 feet long, under the hammer in New York on July 28.

Sotheby's described the skeleton as "one of the most valuable dinosaurs to ever appear on the market."

The Gorgosaurus roamed the earth approximately 77 million years ago.

A typical adult weighed about two tonnes, slightly smaller than its more famous relative, the Tyrannosaurus rex.

Paleontologists say it was fiercer and faster than the T-Rex, with a stronger bite of around 42,000 newtons compared to 35,000.

The skeleton was discovered in the Judith River Formation near Havre, in the US state of Montana in 2018.

The sale will mark the first time that Sotheby's has auctioned a full dinosaur skeleton since it sold Sue the T-Rex in 1997 for $8.36 million.

"All of the other specimens of Gorgosaurus that have been found are in museums," Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby's head of Science and popular culture, told AFP.

"This is the only one that you can actually buy so it's an exciting moment, both for private collectors and institutions," she added.

Unlike other countries, the United States does not restrict the sale or export of fossils, meaning the skeleton could end up overseas.

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Mexican bishop proposes 'social pact' with drug traffickers

AFP - Yesterday 

A Mexican bishop has proposed a "social pact" that would include drug traffickers to tackle violence that has prompted calls for a rethink of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's security policy.


© Pedro PARDO
People with missing relatives take part in a pre-Hispanic ritual during a protest against violence, in Mexico City on July 5, 2022

The pact was needed so that "all of society and even criminals could join in some way," Sigifredo Noriega, bishop of the violent northern state of Zacatecas, told the newspaper Milenio.

Questions about Lopez Obrador's security strategy have mounted since two Jesuit priests were murdered on June 27 in a church in the northern state of Chihuahua.

Mexican Catholic bishops urged the government after the attack "to review the security strategies that are failing."


Drug war in Michoacan: Mexican state faces unprecedented wave of violence

On Monday the Mexican Episcopal Conference said it was committed to "dialogue to build a path of justice and reconciliation that leads us to peace."

Lopez Obrador this week defended his security policy, which has focused on tackling the root causes of violence, including poverty.

He said Tuesday that while he supported forgiveness his government "does not negotiate" with criminals.

More than 340,000 people have been killed in a spiral of bloodshed since 2006 when the government of the time deployed the army to fight drug cartels.

The government blames most of the deaths on gangs involved in crimes including drug trafficking, fuel theft, kidnapping and extortion.

jg-dr/jh

THEY EYEBALLED IT

US experts examined bullet that killed Al Jazeera journo


Shireen Abu Akleh was covering an operation in the West Bank when she was shot on May 11. (AP pic)

WASHINGTON: The US said yesterday that experts on its own team investigated the bullet that killed journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, after Palestinians cried foul that Israel was not directly blamed.

The state department said Monday that the prominent Al Jazeera journalist was likely shot from an Israeli position as she covered an operation in the occupied West Bank on May 11 but that there was no evidence the killing was intentional and that the bullet was too damaged for a conclusive finding.

The Palestinian Authority had reluctantly handed over the bullet to the US and said it was not giving it to Israel, fearing a whitewash.

But on Monday, the Israeli army said in a statement that Israeli experts had done forensic analysis on the bullet in a laboratory in the Jewish state.

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State department spokesman Ned Price insisted that the examination was carried out by two members on the team of the US Security Coordinator (USSC), which liaises with the Palestinian Authority on security assistance.

He did not identify the experts by name or nationality, noting that non-Americans were on the staff, but said they had “a combined 42 years of experience”.

“Local experts, whether they were Israeli or Palestinian, did not conduct the USSC examination of the bullet,” Price said.

“The USSC had full custody of the bullet from the moment it was provided by the PA (Palestinian Authority) to the USSC until the moment it was returned by the USSC to the PA,” he said.

Price said the US sought accountability but stopped short of recommending that Israel launch a criminal case.

Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) say they are still probing the death.

“As a professional military force, the IDF … is in a position to consider steps to see to it that something like this can’t happen again,” Price said.

Senior Palestinian officials accused the US of covering up the truth and the family of Abu Akleh – who held US citizenship – said it was “incredulous” that the examination could not determine whose gun fired the bullet.

SEE


Olympic hockey great Dr. Hayley Wickenheiser promoted to assistant GM of Toronto Maple Leafs

Curtis Sanford also named goalie coach after 5 seasons

 with Canucks' AHL affiliate

The Maple Leafs on Tuesday announced Hayley Wickenheiser as assistant general manager of player development. She was senior director of the department this past season after being hired in 2018 as assistant director of player development. (Rene Johnston/Toronto Star/Getty Images/File)

The Toronto Maple Leafs have promoted Hayley Wickenheiser, Ryan Hardy and Darryl Metcalf to assistant general manager and hired Curtis Sanford as a goaltending coach.

Wickenheiser, a four-time Olympic gold medallist with the Canadian women's team, joined the Leafs as assistant director of player development in 2018 and was promoted to senior director of the department last year.

She will continue as AGM of player development, the team said Tuesday in a statement. The 43-year-old is also a resident physician after completing medical school in 2021.

Hardy will serve as assistant GM of minor league operations. He was hired last year as senior director of the department after three years as GM of the USHL's Chicago Steel. Hardy was voted the USHL's GM of the year in two of his three seasons in Chicago.

Metcalf has been promoted to AGM of Toronto's hockey research and development department in his ninth season with the Leafs. He's been special assistant to GM Kyle Dubas since 2018.

One of the top players in women's hockey history joins the Toronto Maple Leafs

Maple Leafs hire Hayley Wickenheiser to be assistant director of player development

4 years ago
Duration1:25

Brandon Pridham will continue in his role as Toronto's primary AGM.

Sanford joins the Maple Leafs after five seasons as goaltending coach with the Vancouver Canucks' AHL affiliate. He played 144 career NHL games with St. Louis, Vancouver and Columbus.

Laurence Gilman will be governor and senior vice-president of the American Hockey League's Toronto Marlies.


BOOK RELEASE INTERVIEWS OCTOBER 2021

  

Sharks make NHL history with Mike Grier becoming 1st Black general manager

Draft, free agency immediate priorities for former Rangers 

hockey operations adviser

Hired Tuesday by the Sharks as the NHL's first Black GM isn't something Mike Grier takes lightly. "It means a lot to me," said the former San Jose forward. "I realize there's a responsibility that comes with the territory. But I'm up for it." (Jeff Chiu/Associated Press)

The San Jose Sharks' three-month search for a general manager ended with a barrier-breaking hire as the team made longtime NHL forward Mike Grier the first Black GM in league history.

"It means a lot to me," Grier said at his introductory news conference Tuesday. "It's not something I take lightly. I realize there's a responsibility that comes with the territory. But I'm up for it. How I carry myself and how this organization carries himself, I think we'll do well and hopefully we'll leave a footprint and open some doors for people to follow."

Grier fills the spot that opened when Doug Wilson stepped away for health reasons on April 7. Wilson had taken a leave of absence in November with Joe Will serving in the interim role since then.

Team president Jonathan Becher said Grier emerged from a pool of dozens of candidates because of his experience as a player, scout, coach and executive over the last few decades and his commitment to building a winning culture in San Jose.

But he acknowledged the history-making nature of the hire as well.

"I hope you do serve as an inspiration to lots of people and that I hope you're the first and certainly not the last," Becher told Grier.

Grier spent three of his 14 seasons in the NHL with the Sharks from 2006-09. He retired in 2011 after playing 1,060 career games, and has spent time as a scout in Chicago, an assistant coach in New Jersey and most recently the hockey operations advisor for the New York Rangers, where he was given many of the responsibilities of an assistant general manager.

The hire comes less than a week after Will announced head coach Bob Boughner and three of his assistants wouldn't return next season. Will said he made the move two months after the season ended to give the new GM a clean slate.

Grier has a tough task in San Jose in trying to rebuild a team that has missed the playoffs for three straight seasons for the first time in franchise history.

Grier will have to get to work quickly, dealing with the draft Thursday and Friday, the start of free agency next week and the need to hire a coaching staff and build up the front office.

Grier, who played three of his 14 NHL seasons with the Sharks, could trade defencemen Brent Burns or Erik Karlsson to create more flexibility. "We've got to stay patient and stick with the vision that we believe in," he said Tuesday. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press/File)

Not interested in complete rebuild

Grier said the draft and free agency are the immediate priorities as well as trying to create more salary cap flexibility if possible before he turns to the coaching search.

"I just think that's a challenge to try to get everything in order as quickly as possible, but still doing it the right way and being thorough," he said. "It's all a challenge but everything I'm looking forward to."

Grier said he's not interested in tearing the team down and doing a complete rebuild but acknowledged taking one step back to move forward may be necessary.

San Jose has many high-priced veterans on the roster and could look to either trade defencemen Brent Burns or Erik Karlsson or buy out defenceman Marc-Edouard Vlasic to create more flexibility.

"It's definitely a balance," Grier said. "I don't want to get ahead of myself and be the kid in a candy store and be like 'I can go get this. I can go get that.' We've got to stay patient and stick with the vision that we believe in and not rush things. I think we'll set a path and stay the course and not rush anything and get ahead of ourselves and end up digging a hole that we can't get out of in the future."

Grier comes from a family of successful sports executives. His brother, Chris, serves as general manager of the NFL's Miami Dolphins, and his father, Bobby, served as a longtime coach and front office executive for the New England Patriots and Houston Texans.

Grier said he's been preparing for this new role since he was about 10 years old in discussions he had with his brother and father.

"Growing up we talked about the challenges of building rosters and things like that at dinner," he said. "I would want to talk football, they would want to talk hockey. I lean on them a lot. They get a different perspective because of the sports, but I definitely lean on them a lot and trust their input."

The NHL has been stressing diversity with several women also getting opportunities in front office positions and on coaching staffs.

The Arizona Coyotes announced Tuesday that Kelsey Koelzer and Kori Cheverie will serve as coaches under head coach Andre Tourigny during the team's development program next week.

Colombian president-elect Petro proposes ceasefire, talks with ELN guerillas


Colombia’s leftist president-elect Gustavo Petro on Tuesday proposed a “bilateral ceasefire” with the violence-stricken country’s last active guerrilla group, the ELN, in order to restart peace negotiations.

© Luisa Gonzalez, Reuters

Talks with the ELN, which unlike the FARC did not lay down arms under Colombia’s 2016 peace agreement, broke down under outgoing President Ivan Duque.

“The message I have sent, not only to the ELN but to all existing armed groups, is that the time for peace has come,” said Petro.

“What I request is a ceasefire that will be bilateral,” to allow for talks “to bring an end to the war in Colombia.”

Petro will be sworn in on August 7.

Duque’s predecessor Juan Manuel Santos initiated peace negotiations with the ELN (National Liberation Army), but these were called off after an attack on a police academy in Bogota in 2019 that killed 22.

Duque has insisted that the group, formed in 1964 after the Cuban communist revolution, cease all activities for talks to resume.

On the campaign trail, Petro had vowed to talk to the ELN.

‘Availability’ for talks

The day after the leftist ex-Bogota mayor won the presidential election last month, the ELN said it was ready to reopen negotiations with the South American nation’s government.

The group’s central command said it was “keeping its system of political and military struggle and resistance active, but also maintaining its clear availability to advance the peace process.”

The ELN has grown in number and today counts about 2,500 fighters and an extensive support network in urban centers, mostly on the border with Venezuela and along the Pacific coast.

It is largely funded through drug trafficking, and continues fighting over territory and resources with FARC dissidents who refused to lay down arms, as well as rightwing paramilitary forces and narco cartels.

Petro also reiterated his desire to reestablish diplomatic ties with Venezuela, and to dislodge armed groups active on either side of the border.

Duque has repeatedly claimed Colombian armed groups are taking refuge in Venezuela with the complicity of authorities there, a claim Caracas denies.

Bogota says at least four FARC dissident commanders have died in Venezuela in recent months, but no confirmation has been forthcoming from across the border.

The political party that emerged from the now-disbanded FARC, meanwhile, said an ex-guerrilla leader and peace deal signatory was killed by a sniper in Colombia’s south.

The killing of Ronald Rojas, 41, brought to 333 “the terrifying figure of peace agreement signatories killed, mainly under the Duque government,” Rodrigo Londono, leader of the Comunes party, said on Twitter.

Hundreds of former guerrillas have been killed since 2016 by dissident ex-colleagues, drug traffickers and members of the security forces, according to official figures.

Carlos Ruiz Massieu, the head of the UN mission in Colombia, condemned the killing on Twitter and reiterated “the need to strengthen the security of ex-combatants” in the country.

(AFP)
TRANSJORDAN WAS PALESTINE
Jordan chalks up business success from limestone riches

Mussa Hattar
Tue, July 5, 2022 


Long before whiteboards, beamers and laptops entered modern school classrooms, teachers relied on the humble, dusty, sometimes screechy blackboard chalk -- a material that has created a Jordanian business success story.

Chemical engineer Salah Aloqbi remembers sitting on a bus in Amman in 1995 when he hit on the idea that would lead him to create his company. More than two decades later it boasts 150 staff, with exports to more than 100 countries.

Chalk, a white, soft limestone, was formed aeons ago when the shells of tiny marine creatures were compressed on the sea floor -- and the landlocked Middle Eastern desert country of Jordan is blessed with vast deposits.



"It was a game-changing idea," recalled Aloqbi, now 49, who founded the Jordan Chalk Manufacturing Company.

"I was returning from work at the Jordan Carbonate Company when I heard a radio interview saying that the calcium carbonate produced by the company is used in various industries in Jordan -- except the chalk industry."

Aloqbi pondered how to make blackboard chalk, which was until then wholly imported, to gain extra value from the calcium carbonate that is also used to produce white cement, make soils less acidic, and toothpaste more abrasive.


Seven years later, he launched a small factory in Karak governorate south of Amman, with two rooms and just five workers, and started experimenting -- initially by pulverising the porous material with a meat mincer.

"But the chalk that we produced at that time was no longer used around the world, so we moved to produce dustless medical chalk," he said, referring to a carbonate-based type with larger particles.
- The right stuff -


Some 2,149 attempts later, the businessman said proudly, he hit the right formula for dustless chalk, creating a "very strong export opportunity" that now sees his company produce 10 billion pieces a year.

Jordan has a near endless supply of the raw material, with the ministry of energy and mineral resources estimating the country's "assets of limestone exceed 1.3 billion metric tons".

Limestone is the common form of calcium carbonate CaCO3, the main ingredient for chalk.


"It comes to mind that this is an outdated product, but the truth is that we are struggling to meet the great demand," Aloqbi said as he inspected hundreds of cartons heading to Britain and Germany, Mali and Morocco.

The chalk pieces come in a wide palette of colours and are used for art and play around the world.

The firm has also branched out into coloured crayons and modelling clay, and is the country's only producer of chalk sticks.

Today, the company sits on a 7,500 square metre plot and offers sought-after jobs in a country where the unemployment rate soared to 25 percent last year, about the same as the poverty rate.



"Most of us are from villages in Karak governorate," said one employee, 28-year-old Sundus Majali. "More than half of the workers are women."

At first, she said, "it was difficult for parents to allow females to work ... But today they have no problem with that, especially because the factory is safe, not like other workplaces."

Another colleague, Alaa Aloqbi, 33, said "the factory has provided job opportunities at a time when life became difficult".

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Palestinian president and Hamas chief hold rare meeting

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh met publicly for the first time in over five years, on the sidelines of Algerian independence anniversary celebrations.


© Mohamed AL-HAMMADIFrom left to right, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, Algerian President Abdelmajid Tebboune and the Hamas movement's leader Ismail Haniyeh

Algeria's state broadcaster reported late Tuesday that representatives of the Palestinian Authority and the Islamist Hamas movement also attended this meeting, which it called "historic".

The pair, who officially last met face-to-face in Doha in October 2016, were brought together in a meeting with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, whose country marked the 60th anniversary of independence from France.

Abbas' secular Fatah party, which dominates the Palestinian Authority that rules the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has been at loggerheads with Hamas since elections in 2007, when the Islamists took control of Gaza.

Tebboune and Abbas also signed a document to name a street "Algeria" in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

As well as Abbas and Haniyeh, Tebboune on Tuesday hosted several foreign dignitaries, who watched a huge military parade to mark independence in 1962 when Algeria broke free from 132 years of French occupation.

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Sri Lankans return to cooking with firewood as economy burns


Amal JAYASINGHE
Tue, July 5, 2022 


As once relatively wealthy Sri Lanka suffers a dire economic crisis with shortages of everything from medicines to gas, people are returning to cooking with firewood.

The switch began at the beginning of the year when more than 1,000 kitchens exploded across the country, killing at least seven people and injuring hundreds more.

The reason was suppliers looking to cut costs and increasing the proportion of propane, which raised the pressure to dangerous levels.

But now, along with much else in the country of 22 million people, gas is either unavailable or too expensive for most.

Some tried to shift to kerosene oil cookers, but the government did not have dollars to import it along with petrol and diesel, which are also in short supply.


And those who bought electric cookers were in for a rude shock when the government imposed lengthy power blackouts as it ran out of dollars to import fuel for generators.


Niluka Hapuarachchi, 41, was miraculously unharmed when her gas range exploded soon after cooking Sunday lunch in August.

"Fortunately, no one was there at the time. There were pieces of glass all over the floor. The glass-top stove had exploded. I will never use gas for cooking. It is not safe. We are now on firewood," she said, despite moves to address the propane problem.

Roadside eatery owner M.G. Karunawathi, 67, also switched to wood and said it was a choice between closing her business or putting up with smoke and soot.

"We suffer (smoke inhalation) when cooking with firewood, but we have no choice," Karunawathi told AFP. "It is also difficult to find firewood and it is also becoming very expensive."
- Pain into 2023 -

Sri Lanka used to be a middle-income country, with GDP per head comparable to the Philippines and living standards the envy of neighbouring India.

But with economic mismanagement and the crucial tourism industry hammered by Covid-19, the nation has run out of dollars needed to pay for most imports.

And the pain will likely continue for some time, with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in parliament on Tuesday saying: "We will have to face difficulties in 2023 as well.


"This is the truth. This is the reality."

Unofficial inflation is now second only to Zimbabwe, and the United Nations estimates about 80 percent of people skip meals because they cannot afford food.

Before the crisis, almost all households in Colombo could afford to use gas, but now woodcutter Selliah Raja, 60, is doing a roaring trade.

"Earlier we had just one customer -- a restaurant that had a wood-fired oven -- but we now have so many, we can't meet the demand," Raja told AFP.

He says his timber suppliers in the provinces have doubled their prices because of the sharp rise in demand and skyrocketing transport costs.

"Earlier, land owners paid us to uproot rubber trees that are no longer productive," lumberjack Sampath Thushara told AFP in the tea-and-rubber-growing southern village of Nehinna.


"Today, we have to pay to get these trees."

Foraging for wood can also be dangerous in the snake- and insect-infested forests. Last week, a father of three died from wasp stings in central Sri Lanka and four others were hospitalised.

Demand is also surging for alternative energy, and entrepreneur Riyad Ismail, 51, has seen sales light up for the hi-tech firewood stove he invented in 2008.

He has attached a small battery-powered electric fan to blow air into the barrel-shaped stove to ensure better burning, thus reducing smoke and soot associated with traditional firewood burners.

His upmarket "Ezstove" and the mass-market "Janalipa", which uses coconut charcoal, promises a minimum 60 percent savings compared with cooking with gas.

Both his stoves -- which cost around $20 and $50, respectively -- have become big sellers with buyers having to go on a waiting list.

It has been so successful, Ismail says, there are several copies on the market.

"You will see many renditions of my design... other people are piggybacking (on the design)," Ismail said while making chicken satay.

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