NATO should hold meeting over Nord Stream blasts after recent findings, Russia says

Gas leak at Nord Stream 2 as seen from the Danish F-16 interceptor on Bornholm, Denmark, on September 27, 2022. (Reuters)

Reuters
Published: 12 February ,2023

NATO should hold an emergency meeting to discuss recent findings about the September explosions at the Nord Stream gas pipelines, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said late on Saturday.

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970, said in a blog post on Wednesday, citing an unidentified source, that US navy divers had destroyed the pipelines, with explosives on the orders of President Joe Biden.

The White House dismissed as “utterly false and complete fiction” the claim that the United States was behind explosions of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, which send Russian gas to Germany.

Sweden and Denmark, in whose exclusive economic zones the blasts occurred, have concluded the pipelines were blown up deliberately, but have not said who might be responsible.

The United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have called the incident “an act of sabotage.” Moscow has blamed the West for the unexplained explosions that caused the ruptures. Neither side has provided evidence.

“There are more than enough facts here: the explosion of the pipeline, the presence of a motive, circumstantial evidence obtained by journalists,” Zakharova said on the Telegram messaging platform.

“So, when will an emergency NATO summit meet to review the
situation?”

NATO did not immediately respond to Reuters request for a comment.

Singapore commuters keep masks on despite discarded COVID-19 public transport rule

On the first day where masks were no longer required to be worn on public buses or trains, CNA observed most people taking off their face coverings after alighting from a ride or exiting a station.


Ang Hwee Min@HweeMinCNA
13 Feb 2023 

SINGAPORE: Mask-wearing on public transport in Singapore ceased to be mandatory on Monday (Feb 13) but most commuters were seen retaining their face coverings while on trains and buses Monday morning.

A multi-ministry task force announced last week that from Monday, it would no longer require masks to be worn on public transport, as Singapore steps down its disease alert level for COVID-19 to the lowest.

But a 37-year-old lawyer, who only wanted to be known as Mr Ang, kept his mask on for his train commute on the North-South Line from Ang Mo Kio to his Raffles Place workplace on Monday morning.

"The train was really crowded," he told CNA. "For me, I just recovered from an illness so it's more out of consideration for others as well ... It's just more socially responsible."

He observed that about 90 to 95 per cent of other people on the train were also wearing a mask.

"Eventually (I will stop wearing one). But for now, probably out of precaution, because it has worked so far, so why change something that has worked?" said Mr Ang, adding that trains and buses were more enclosed than other indoor areas.

"Over the next two weeks, if cases get higher and then we'll see if it actually works."

Waiting at Dover MRT station to catch a bus to Bukit Merah was Ms Patricia Yap, a personal assistant. She was not wearing a mask then, and was not wearing a mask either when taking a train to Dover earlier.

"It feels good, because it doesn't smear my makeup," she said, adding that the train she took this morning was less crowded.

"There are still a lot of people wearing masks, even outside. But I've not been wearing masks in indoor places since that restriction was lifted," said Ms Yap, who had been looking forward to Monday's further relaxation of public transport safeguards.

"I'm used to not wearing masks now."

From 8am to 9am on a crowded East-West Line train with people making their way to work, only a handful of commuters in each cabin chose not to wear a mask, CNA observed.

On the slightly less packed Circle and North-East Lines, commuters had more standing room. But CNA observed most passengers still continuing to wear a mask, with some putting them on specifically for when they were about to board a train.

After alighting from the trains or exiting the stations, many commuters removed their masks.

Related:

Mask-wearing no longer mandatory on public transport from Feb 13, as Singapore steps down COVID-19 restrictions

Commentary: Here’s why I’ll continue wearing masks on Singapore public transport

Singapore to scrap all COVID-19 border measures from Feb 13

Ms Irit Regev, a 52-year-old tourist from Israel, alighted at Raffles Place station and removed her mask after stepping outside. She wore one for her short train ride from City Hall MRT station.

While researching her trip to Singapore, she knew that Monday was the first day that masks would be optional on public transport - but chose to wear one all the same.

"Because a lot of people still had their masks on ... I'm not from here so I wore one, I thought people would give me trouble if I didn't wear it," she said.

Ms Denise Ho, 27, chose not to wear a mask as she took the North-East line to her Clarke Quay workplace at about 9am.

She said the "normalcy" reminded her of pre-pandemic times.

"Most people still had their masks on, almost 90 per cent of them. Perhaps because it's only the first day, so some adjustment is required," she said.

Although this did not influence her to keep a mask on, she admitted to feeling "slightly insecure".

Like Mr Ang the lawyer, she said she would opt to wear a mask if she was feeling unwell.

Retiree Sim Choon Fook, who took the North-East Line from Boon Keng to Chinatown MRT station, wore a mask on the train and removed it immediately after alighting.

"I nearly forgot it was today until I saw a few people not wearing one on the bus this morning," he said in Mandarin.

The 64-year-old said he would still wear a mask on trains or buses if it was crowded.

"I don't know who here on the train will be sick and coughing everywhere. So I have to protect myself."
Source: CNA/hw(jo)

BENGHAZI CROWD GOES FULL McCARTHYISM

US House Republicans Launch Probe Into COVID-19 Origins With Letter to Fauci

February 13, 2023 
Associated Press

WASHINGTON —

House Republicans kicked off an investigation Monday into the origins of COVID-19 by issuing a series of letters to current and former Biden administration officials for documents and testimony.

The Republican chairmen of the House Oversight Committee and the subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic requested information from several people, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, surrounding the hypothesis that the coronavirus leaked accidentally from a Chinese lab.

"This investigation must begin with where and how this virus came about so that we can attempt to predict, prepare or prevent it from happening again," Representative Brad Wenstrup, chair of the virus subcommittee, said in a statement.

Representative James Comer, chairman of the oversight committee, added that Republicans will "follow the facts" and "hold U.S. government officials that took part in any sort of cover-up accountable."

The letters to Fauci, National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, Health Secretary Xavier Beccera and others are the latest effort by the new Republican majority to make good on promises made during the 2022 midterms campaign.

SEE ALSO:
Five Key House Republican Investigations

Wenstrup, who is also a longtime member of the House Intelligence Committee, has accused U.S. intelligence of withholding key facts about its investigation into the coronavirus. Republicans on the committee last year issued a staff report arguing that there are "indications" that the virus may have been developed as a bioweapon inside China's Wuhan Institute of Virology.

That would contradict a U.S. intelligence community assessment released in unclassified form in August 2021 that said analysts do not believe the virus was a bioweapon, though it may have leaked in a lab accident.

The letters sent Monday do not require the cooperation of recipients. But in announcing the Republican staff report in December, Wenstrup said that lawmakers would issue subpoenas if potential witnesses didn't cooperate.

It is extremely difficult for scientists to establish definitively how diseases emerge, but studies by experts around the world have determined that COVID-19 most likely emerged from a live animal market in Wuhan, China.

SEE ALSO:
Red Cross: World Is Dangerously Unprepared for Next Pandemic

Initially dismissed by most public health experts and government officials, the hypothesis that COVID-19 originated from an accidental lab leak began to receive scrutiny after President Joe Biden ordered an investigation into the matter in May 2021.

The 90-day review was meant to push American intelligence agencies to collect more information and review what they already had. Former State Department officials under President Donald Trump had publicly pushed for further investigation into virus origins, as had scientists and the World Health Organization. But the review proved to be inconclusive, with intelligence agencies saying that barring an unforeseen breakthrough, they wouldn't be able to conclude the origin either way.

Many scientists, including Fauci, who until December served as Biden's chief medical adviser, say they still believe the virus most likely emerged in nature and jumped from animals to humans, a well-documented phenomenon known as a spillover event. Virus researchers have not publicly identified any new key scientific evidence that might make the lab-leak hypothesis more likely.

SEE ALSO:
Biden to End COVID-19 Emergency Declarations on May 11

But Republicans have accused Fauci of lying to Congress when he denied in May that the National Institutes of Health funded "gain of function" research — the practice of enhancing a virus in a lab to study its potential impact in the real world — at a virology lab in Wuhan. Republican Senator Ted Cruz even urged Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Fauci's statements.

Fauci, who served as the country's top infectious disease expert under both Republican and Democratic presidents, has called the GOP criticism nonsense.

SEE ALSO:
WHO: Scope, Scale of Health Emergencies Growing

Cruz and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky have previously said that an October 2021 letter from NIH to Congress contradicts Fauci. But no clear evidence or scientific consensus exists that "gain of function" research was funded by NIH, and there is no link between U.S.-funded research to the emergence of COVID-19. NIH has repeatedly maintained that its funding did not go to such research involving boosting the infectivity and lethality of a pathogen.

Nonetheless, Fauci indicated in November that he would "cooperate fully and testify" if Republicans followed through with their plans to investigate COVID's origin.

"I have no trouble testifying — we can defend and explain everything that we've said," he told reporters during a White House briefing last year.

'Are we going to die?': Trauma haunts Turkish kids after quake

Fulya OZERKAN
Mon, February 13, 2023


Serkan Tatoglu is haunted by the question his six-year-old keeps asking since their house collapsed in last week's earthquake in Turkey.

"Are we going to die?" she wonders, while looking up at scenes reminiscent of an apocalyptic movie set.

Coffins line roadsides, and ambulance sirens wail around the clock.

Walking through the rubble of flattened buildings, children watch as rescue workers lift body bags from the putrid-smelling debris.

Tatoglu helped his four children -- aged between six and 15 -- escape their house after the first 7.8-magnitude tremor rattled southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria before dawn on February 6.

Their building crumbled in one of the nearly 3,000 aftershocks. More than 35,000 have died across the region and the toll is likely to keep climbing for days.

Tatoglu lost nearly a dozen relatives.

But the 41-year-old knows he has to stand strong in the face of his unbearable heartache.

Tatoglu's first job is to shield his children from the horrors that keep popping into their heads as they wait out the aftershocks in a tent city near the quake's epicentre in southern Kahramanmaras.

"The youngest, traumatised by the aftershocks, keeps asking: 'Dad, are we going to die?'" Tatoglu said.

"She keeps asking about our relatives. I don't show them their dead bodies. My wife and I hug them and say 'everything is alright'."

- 'I can't do anything' -

Psychologist Sueda Deveci of the Doctors Worldwide Turkey volunteer organisation said adults need as much emotional support as children in the aftermath of such a tragedy.

She said older generations were quicker to internalise the profound scale of how much their lives have changed -- and just how much they have lost.

"One mother told me: 'Everyone tells me to be strong, but I can't do anything. I can't take care of my kids, I can't eat'," Deveci said while working in the tent city.

Deveci is gaining better insight into what the children are feeling from what they draw as they while away the time in the cold.

"I don't talk to them about the earthquake much. We are drawing. We will see how much of it is reflected in their drawings," she said.

For now, their art is mostly normal.

Child rights expert Esin Koman said this was because children adapt to their surroundings more quickly than adults.

But she added that the quake's destruction of existing social support networks left them dangerously exposed to long-term trauma.

"Some children have lost their families. There is nobody now to provide them with mental support," Koman said.

-'Where's my mum?'-

Psychologist Cihan Celik posted one exchange on Twitter he had with a paramedic involved in rescue work.

The paramedic told Celik that kids pulled from the rubble almost immediately asked about their missing parents.

"The wounded children ask: 'Where's my mum, where's my dad? Are you kidnapping me?'," the paramedic recalled.

Turkey's vice president Fuat Oktay said 574 children pulled from collapsed buildings were found without any surviving parents.

Only 76 had been returned to other family members.

One voluntary psychologist working in a children's support centre in Hatay province -- where the level of destruction was some of the worst in Turkey -- said numerous parents were frantically looking for missing kids.

"We receive a barrage of calls about missing children," Hatice Goz said by phone from Hatay province.

"But if the child still cannot speak, the family is unable to find them."

- Happy thoughts -

Selma Karaaslan is trying her hardest to keep her two grandchildren safe.

The 52-year-old has been living with them in a car parked along one of the debris-strewn roads of Kahramanmaras ever since the quake struck.

Karaaslan tries to talk to them about anything but the quake. She figures that they are much less likely to have haunting memories of the disaster if she fills their heads with happy thoughts.

But the questions still come.

"Grandma, will there be another earthquake?" the six-year-old demanded at one point.

fo/zak/raz/fb

China delivers aid supplies for earthquake relief in Syria, urges lifting of unilateral sanctions

By Global TimesPublished: Feb 14, 2023

Second shipment of humanitarian aid supplies provided by the Red Cross Society of China to Syria arrives in Damascus, Syria on February 13, 2023 local time. Photo: IC

A chartered plane carrying the Chinese government's first shipment of humanitarian aid supplies including first-aid kits for earthquake relief left Nanjing in East China's Jiangsu on Tuesday morning and is expected to arrive in Damascus, Syria, on February 15 local time, according to China International Development Cooperation Agency.

The supplies include 30,000 first-aid kits, 10,000 sets of cotton clothes, 300 cotton tents, 20,000 blankets and 70,000 adult pull-up diapers, as well as emergency medical equipment and supplies such as ventilators, anesthesia machines, oxygen generators and LED shadowless lamps.

In addition to supplies provided by the Red Cross Society of China to Syria that has arrived in Damascus, the second batch of humanitarian aid supplies has arrived in Damascus on Monday local time.

The supplies included cotton tents, relief kits for families, thermal outdoor jackets and other living supplies as well as medicines and other medical supplies urgently needed in the disaster area, which can benefit more than 10,000 people affected by the disaster.

Nearly a week since the most devastating earthquakes in recent history, rescuers in Turkey and Syria were searching for signs of life in freezing temperatures as the death toll surpassed 33,000.

The United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths on Sunday said in a post on Twitter that international help has "failed the people in northwest Syria," where more than 12 years of civil war have resulted in a complex political situation.

Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, on Monday called for an immediate lifting of unilateral sanctions by the countries concerned to return the "hope of survival" to children in countries like Syria.

Zhang pointed to the "harsh reality" at the UN Security Council Briefing on Children and Armed Conflict, saying that unilateral sanctions are decimating the economic foundations and development capacity of the countries affected, robbing many children of their right to development and right to survival, which are the most fundamental of all rights.

In the aftermath of the powerful earthquake in Syria, the unlawful unilateral sanctions have led to a severe shortage of heavy equipment and search and rescue tools, raising grave concerns that many children under the rubble may have perished as a result of untimely rescue or insufficient rescue capacity, Zhang said.

"We urge the countries concerned to lift all their unlawful unilateral sanctions immediately without conditions, not to become accomplices to the natural disaster, not to rob Syrian children of their hope of survival, and desist from their hypocritical political grandstanding," he said.

Zhang said children are the most innocent group and the most vulnerable victims in armed conflict, and stressed that conflict prevention and resolution must be the primary and ultimate means of protection.

The envoy highlighted the needs to seek political solutions to resolve conflict, and invest more efforts in negotiation, good offices, and mediation, instead of resorting to sanctions and other coercive measures, much less fanning the flames or adding fuel to the fire, which would only serve some parties' self-interests by prolonging and spreading conflicts.

To have that peace, it is imperative to act in accordance with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter in good faith, and that entails respecting other countries' sovereignty and territorial integrity, refraining from interference in their internal affairs, opposing maneuvers aimed at government change, and opposing the practice of creating chaos and exporting unrest in the name of counterterrorism or democracy, Zhang said.

To have that peace, it is imperative to uphold true multilateralism, strengthen dialogue and cooperation, work together to build the architecture of common security, and unequivocally reject and oppose unilateralism, the Cold War mentality, bloc politics, and confrontation between "us and them," Zhang added.

The rule of law must be the fundamental guidance for prevention, Zhang said, adding that "supporting children's development must be the overarching direction of our endeavors."

"To effectively prevent violations against children, we must enhance the spirit of rule of law, and put into practice the requirements of international law on the protection of children in armed conflicts," he said.

"The UN must coordinate humanitarian and development resources in a way that prioritizes the eradication of poverty, zero hunger, universal education, and physical and mental health in its work to protect children," Zhang added.

Zhang urged "the last country in the world" that has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to act without delay, "so that this vital Convention can truly achieve universal coverage."

The US is the only country unwilling to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Global Times

Mexico pays homage to 'heroic' dog that died in Türkiye rescue efforts

Proteo was one of more than a dozen rescue dogs dispatched by Mexico along with 130 military personnel following the 7.7-magnitude earthquake that killed more than 36,000 people in Türkiye and Syria.

Proteo died over the weekend while on duty in the town of Adiyaman, Türkiye, during rescue efforts. (AFP)

Mexico has paid tribute to a military rescue dog that died while searching for survivors buried under the rubble of the earthquake in Türkiye.

Defence Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval announced the death of the German shepherd called Proteo at President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's daily news conference on Monday.

"You accomplished your mission... thank you for your heroic work," the military said on Twitter.

Proteo was one of more than a dozen rescue dogs dispatched by Mexico along with 130 military personnel following the 7.7-magnitude earthquake that killed more than 36,000 people in Türkiye and Syria.

"You were always a strong, hard-working dog who never gave up. I will always remember you," one rescuer who served alongside Proteo said in a video.

Source: AFP

Survivors still being pulled from rubble following earthquake

Ayesha stands in front of her home, which was destroyed 

in the devastating earthquake, in Atareb, Syria

(Hussein Malla/AP)

TUE, 14 FEB, 2023 - 
BERNAT ARMANGUE AND ZELNEP BILGINSOY, 

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Rescuers were working to reach people under the rubble in three provinces hit hard by the devastating quakes that hit Turkey and Syria last week.

The death toll from the magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 quakes that struck nine hours apart on February 6 in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria passed 35,000, and was certain to increase as search teams find more bodies.

Turkish television continued broadcasting rescues on Tuesday, as experts said the window to find survivors is closing.

In Adiyaman province, rescuers reached 18-year-old Muhammed Cafer Cetin, and medics gave him an IV with fluids before attempting a dangerous extraction from a building that crumbled further as rescuers were working.

Medics surrounded him to place a neck brace and he was on a stretcher with an oxygen mask, making it out to daylight on the 199th hour.

“We are so happy,” his uncle said.

Two others were rescued from one building that has been destroyed in central Kahramanmaras, near the epicentre, Tuesday some 198 hours after the quake.

Broadcaster Haberturk said one was 17-year-old Muhammed Enes, who was seen wrapped in a thermal blanket and carried on a stretcher to an ambulance.

Dozens of rescuers were working at the site and Turkish soldiers hugged and clapped after their rescue.

Rescuers then asked for quiet to continue looking for others and shouted “can anyone hear me?”

The health conditions of the rescued were unclear.

In extremely hard-hit Hatay, Sengul Abalioglu lost her old sister and four nephews.

(PA Graphics)

“It doesn’t matter if dead or alive, we just want our corpses so that they at least have a grave and we bury them,” she said as she waited in front of the rubble where her family could be.

They said last time they heard voices from the building was yesterday and complained that they started to search recently.

Also they said they wanted to have international press as she worries that if we leave, the pressure will vanish and the search will disappear

In Syria, President Bashar Assad agreed to open two new crossing points from Turkey to the country’s rebel-held northwest to deliver desperately needed aid and equipment to millions of earthquake victims, the United Nations announced Monday.

The crossings at Bab Al-Salam and Al Raee will be opened for an initial period of three months.

Until now, the UN has only been allowed to deliver aid to the Idlib area through a single crossing at Bab Al-Hawa.

People cross a bridge damaged during an earthquake in Antakya, southeastern Turkey (Bernat Armangue/AP)

The United Nations has been under intense pressure to get more aid and heavy equipment into Syria’s rebel-held northwest since the earthquake struck a week ago, with survivors lacking the means to dig for other survivors and the death toll mounting.

The first Saudi aid plane, carrying 35 tons of food, landed in government-held Aleppo airport Tuesday morning, according to Syrian state media.

Saudi Arabia has raised some 50 million US dollars in a public campaign to aid Turkey and Syria.

Prior to Tuesday, Saudi planes landed in Turkey, with some of the aid also making its way into impoverished rebel-held northwestern Syria.

Several other Arab countries have sent planes loaded with aid to government-held Syria, including Jordan and Egypt, the United Arab Emirates.

Algeria, Iraq, Oman, Tunisia, Sudan and Libya have also delivered aid to Damascus.

A girl whose family lost their home in the devastating earthquake stands outside a tent at a shelter camp in Killi, Syria (Hussein Malla/AP)

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said late Monday rescue work continued in Hatay province, along with Kahramanmaras, the epicentre, and Adiyaman.

Rescue work appears to have ended in the remaining seven provinces.

The quake affected 10 provinces in Turkey that are home to some 13.5 million people, as well as a large area in northwest Syria that is home to millions.

Quake survivors also face difficult conditions amid wrecked cities, with many sleeping outdoors in freezing weather.

Much of the region’s water system is not working, and damage to the system raises risks of contamination.

Turkey’s health minister said samples taken from dozens of points of the water system were “microbiologically unfit,” which highlights how precarious basic needs continue to be.

Cracks along the road near Koseli village in Pazarcik, Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey (IHA/AP)

More than 41,500 buildings were destroyed or so damaged that they would have to be demolished, the Minister of Environment and Urbanisation.

There are bodies under those buildings and the number of missing remain unclear.

Many in Turkey blame faulty construction for the vast devastation, and authorities continued targeting contractors allegedly linked with buildings that collapsed.

Turkey has introduced construction codes that meet earthquake-engineering standards, but experts say the codes are rarely enforced.

The death toll in Turkey stood at 31,643 as of Monday.

Officials have decreased the frequency of death toll updates since the first week of the response, now releasing larger updates once or twice a day.

The toll in the northwestern rebel-held region has reached 2,166, according to the rescue group the White Helmets, while 1,414 people have died in government-held areas, according to the Syrian Health Ministry in Damascus.

The overall death toll in Syria stands at 3,580.

WILL SHE WEAR A HIJAB IN SPACE

Saudi Arabia To Send Its First Female Astronaut Into Space

The astronauts "will join the crew of the AX-2 space mission" and the space flight will "launch from the USA", the agency said.

Agence France-Presse

Updated: February 14, 2023

Rayyana Barnawi will visit the International Space Station later this year.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia:

Saudi Arabia will send its first ever woman astronaut on a space mission later this year, state media has reported, in the latest move to revamp the kingdom's ultra-conservative image.

Rayyana Barnawi will join fellow Saudi male astronaut Ali Al-Qarni on a mission to the International Space Station (ISS) "during the second quarter of 2023", the official Saudi Press Agency said on Sunday.

The astronauts "will join the crew of the AX-2 space mission" and the space flight will "launch from the USA", the agency said.

The oil-rich country will be following in the footsteps of the neighbouring United Arab Emirates which in 2019 became the first Arab country to send one of its citizens into space.

At the time, astronaut Hazzaa al-Mansoori spent eight days on the ISS. Another fellow Emirati, Sultan al-Neyadi, will also make a voyage later this month.

Nicknamed the "Sultan of Space", 41-year-old Neyadi will become the first Arab astronaut to spend six months in space when he blasts off for the ISS aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Gulf monarchies have been seeking to diversify their energy-reliant economies through a plethora of projects.

Saudi de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has also been trying to shake off the kingdom's austere image through a push for reforms.

Since his rise to power in 2017, women have been allowed to drive and to travel abroad without a male guardian, and their proportion in the workforce has more than doubled since 2016, from 17 percent to 37 percent.

Saudi Arabia's foray into space is not the first, however.

In 1985, Saudi royal Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, an airforce pilot, took part in a US-organised space mission, becoming the first Arab Muslim to travel into space.

In 2018, Saudi Arabia set up a space programme and last year launched another to send astronauts into space, all part of Prince Salman's Vision 2030 agenda for economic diversification.

Axiom’s U.S.-Saudi Crew Approved for Private Mission to Space Station


The Ax-2 crew includes, from left, Peggy Whitson, John Shoffner, Ali AlQarni and Rayyanah Barnawi. (Axiom Space Photos)

POSTED ON  FEBRUARY 13, 2023 BY ALAN BOYLE

NASA and its international partners have approved the crew lineup for Axiom Space’s second privately funded mission to the International Space Station — a lineup that includes the first Saudi woman cleared to go into orbit.

Two of the former crew members — former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson and John Shoffner, a Tennessee business executive, race car driver and aviator — had previously been announced.

They’ll be joined by Ali AlQarni and Rayyannah Barnawi, representing Saudi Arabia’s national astronaut program. Only one other Saudi citizen — Sultan bin Salman Al Saud, who flew on the space shuttle Discovery in 1985 — has ever been in space. The 10-day Axiom Space mission, known as Ax-2, is currently scheduled for this spring.

AlQarni, 31, is a Royal Saudi Air Force captain and fighter pilot, according to the Saudi Space Commission’s bio. Barnawi, 33, is a research laboratory specialist with nine years of experience in cancer stem cell research. Two other participants in the Saudi space program, Mariam Fardous and Ali AlGamdi, are being trained as backups.

The Saudi Space Commission says the Axiom Space mission “is an integral milestone of a comprehensive program aiming to train and qualify experienced Saudis to undertake human spaceflight, conduct scientific experiments, participate in international research, and future space-related missions contributing to the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.”

Whitson already has her name in space history books as the first female commander of the International Space Station and the record-holder for the longest cumulative time in space by a NASA astronaut. She retired from NASA’s astronaut corps in 2018 and joined Axiom Space soon afterward.

Ax2 will make her the first female commander of a private-sector space mission. She’ll be the only one of the four crew members with previous space experience.

“I’m honored to be heading back to the station for the fourth time, leading this talented Ax-2 crew on their first mission,” Whitson said today in a NASA news release. “This is a strong and cohesive team determined to conduct meaningful scientific research in space and inspire a new generation about the benefits of microgravity. It’s a testament to the power of science and discovery to unify and build international collaboration.”

Houston-based Axiom Space sent three millionaire investors into orbit last April under the command of a former NASA astronaut. That marked the first time a U.S. company organized a space station tour for paying customers, but the trip wasn’t totally unprecedented: Russia’s Roscosmos space agency has supported similar ISS trips for deep-pocketed spacefliers since 2001, and the Inspiration4 space effort executed a philanthropic orbital mission (which didn’t stop at the space station) in September 2021.

Like Axiom Space’s first mission, the Ax-2 mission will use SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule to get the crew to and from the space station. The crew members for Ax-1 were each said to have paid a fare of roughly $55 million — and although the ticket price for Ax-2 hasn’t been announced, it’s likely to be in the same ballpark.

Axiom Space sees such missions as setting the stage for its own orbital outpost, which would start out as a module attached to the International Space Station and eventually become the core of a stand-alone commercial space station.

“Axiom Space’s second private astronaut mission to the International Space Station cements our mission of expanding access to space worldwide and supporting the growth of the low-Earth-orbit economy as we build Axiom Station,” Michael Suffredini, president and CEO of Axiom Space, said in a news release. “Ax-2 moves Axiom Space one step closer toward the realization of a commercial space station in low-Earth orbit and enables us to build on the legacy and achievements of the ISS, leveraging the benefits of microgravity to better life on Earth.”

ELON MUSK TELLS EX-NASA ASTRONAUT SPACEX COULD CAUSE WORLD WAR 3
CAN HE NOT?

JUSTIN SULLIVAN VIA GETTY / FUTURISM

All's Fair

SpaceX Elon Musk apparently has never learned to think before he tweets, even since buying the entirety of Twitter, as most recently evidenced by his bizarre assertion that one of his companies could potentially be responsible for a third world war.

Musk's strange comments came during a minor spat with ex-astronaut Scott Kelly. To be fair, Kelly had been beefing with the multi-hyphenate entrepreneur about his Starlink internet service in Ukraine, to which Musk curtailed the Ukrainian military's access last week.

"Ukraine desperately needs your continued support," Kelly, a staunch Ukraine advocate and regular Musk critic, tweeted on Saturday. "Please restore the full functionality of your Starlink satellites. Defense from a genocidal invasion is not an offensive capability. It’s survival. Innocent lives will be lost. You can help."

Taking His Time

Nearly a full day after the celebrated astronaut's plea, Musk finally responded — though what he said was about as murky as if he'd just left it alone.

"You’re smart enough not to swallow and other propaganda [bullshit]," the Twitter owner responded. "Starlink is the communication backbone of Ukraine, especially at the front lines, where almost all other Internet connectivity has been destroyed."

Here's where it gets weird: Musk also appeared to suggest that if Starlink continued to supply internet to Ukraine, that country's military would use it to turn the heat up on its resistance to Russia, which has led its land-grab offensive there for a year now — and could ultimately result in a world war.

"We will not enable escalation of conflict that may lead to WW3," he concluded.

Twitter Fingers

Though he did not initially tag Kelly, Musk appeared to subtweet the ex-astronaut hours before actually responding him when he tweeted that he found it "amazing" that "some of the smartest people I know actively believe the press.

This is far from the first time the South African-Canadian billionaire has expressed opinions that are strikingly convenient for Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Once again, in other words, the guy whose politics often boil down to half-baked Martian utopianism peppered with stupid memes is wading into wartime geopolitics — and once again, his commentary is far from welcome.

Astronomers Spot Asteroid Hours Before It Turns Into Fireball Over Europe

It put on a show in Europe, and also shows our eyes on the sky are much improved in recent years.

Eric Mack
Feb. 13, 2023 

The fireball as seen at its brightest above France.
Twitter @MegaLuigi video screenshot
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/02/meteor-filmed-exploding-above-france-as.html


It may be one of the most widely observed space rocks no one even knew existed just a day earlier. An asteroid officially designated 2023 CX1 (it also went by the temporary label Sar2667 during its approach toward Earth) was discovered Sunday evening by an observatory in Hungary and seven hours later was burning up as a brilliant fireball over the English Channel before a potential audience of millions.

This marks just the seventh time ever that a meteoroid has actually been spotted in space before it impacted the atmosphere, according to the European Space Agency. The tiny size of the mini bolide -- it was just one meter across at the time of discovery -- makes the feat all the more impressive. It was first spotted by Krisztián Sárneczky at the Piszkéstető Observatory, who also made a similar discovery of asteroid 2022 EB5 last year just before it met its own demise in our atmosphere.

Its small size also practically ensures that it poses no real threat to anyone on the ground, as all but the tiniest bits surely burned up well before reaching the surface.

In the seven hours that elapsed between Sárneczky's original find and impact, observatories around the world swung into action trying to get a glimpse of the imminent impactor and refining its trajectory. A second observation just 40 minutes later confirmed the discovery wasn't a false positive and then several more pinpointed the moment and location it would impact the upper atmosphere: right over the English Channel in the early morning hours.

The predictions turned out to be dead on and 2023 CX1 did not disappoint, lighting up the predawn skies over France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK and as far off as Germany.

"It is likely that some fragments of the meteoroid may have survived the atmospheric pass and fell somewhere onshore close to the coast north of Rouen, in Normandy, France," the ESA wrote in a statement Monday.

It's becoming clear that we are entering a new era when it comes to spotting and tracking small asteroids and other near-Earth objects, especially when they're on a collision course with our planet. The last time astronomers caught one just hours in advance of impact was November, this time over the Great Lakes and even smaller than 2023 CX1.

The other handful of imminent impactors were seen in 2019, 2018, 2014 and 2008, so this is a relatively newly acquired superpower for humans to be able to spot even the smallest inbound bit of cosmic detritus.

The ESA credits new sky-scanning observatories like the South Africa-based Meerkat facility and other eyes on the near-Earth environment for the boost in discoveries.

In addition to providing a little bit more confidence in our planetary protection capabilities, it also amounts to an improving alert system for night sky watchers who no longer have to depend on total randomness to catch a stray fireball in the night sky.

Bard vibes: even Google's own employees are mocking its ChatGPT rival

By Christian Guyton 

Google recently unveiled its Bard AI chatbot at its Live from Paris livestream event, hoping to provide a worthy rival to Microsoft’s new ChatGPT-integrated Bing search engine.

Unfortunately, things got off to a rocky start; the Bard bot’s presentation included a key factual error made by the AI program, which saw a whopping $100 billion share drop for Google in the span of just one day. We noted that this could indicate that Bard simply isn’t ready for a widespread rollout – and it seems that Google’s own employees agree.

According to a report from CNBC, Google employees are using the company’s internal meme forum MemeGen to poke fun at Bard, the presentation as a whole, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. The memes reportedly describe the event as “rushed, botched, and myopic” amongst other things.

One meme declared that “rushing Bard to market in a panic validated the market’s fear about us”, referencing the huge share drop after the AI reveal, while another ridiculed the fact that a recent layoff of 12,000 employees actually raised the stock value by 3%.

Bard times (gonna make you wonder why you even try)

It’s really not a good omen for Google that its own engineers are so willing to mock Bard, which is a major project for the tech giant. ChatGPT is providing some stiff competition, so Google needs to get its act together if it hopes to win the AI arms race.

I recently argued that ChatGPT wasn’t going to save Bing from Google’s AI expansion (because, y’know, it’s Bing) but Google isn’t exactly filling me with confidence here. Bard is based on Google’s LaMDA chatbot, which stands for Language Model for Developed Applications, and has been the cause of some problems for Google in the past.

Perhaps the most well-known debacle resulting from LaMDA’s development was the story of Blake Lemoine, an engineer at Google who became convinced that the AI program had developed true sentience and was subsequently laid off by the company. Not long after that, the AI asked to speak to a lawyer, for reasons known only to itself.

These teething issues have led to a degree of caution on Google’s part. Last year, it announced that it had a competitor to the popular AI image generation tool DALL-E, called Imagen, which was capable of converting text prompts into pictures (and later, video clips). However, Google restricted public access to the software, citing that there may be safeguarding issues.

Prudence in the face of new technologies might be wise, but it looks as though Google may have still managed to jump the gun here – at least, its internal teams seem to think so. Bard could evidently benefit from a bit more time in the oven, and I’m of the mind that AI developers should take as much time as they need to get these complex systems ready for the broader public. Otherwise, well, the consequences could be disastrous…