WATCH: WANTED - ROBOT COOKS TO REDUCE SPREAD OF COVID-19


The pandemic is feeding demand for robots that can flip burgers, make salads and blend smoothies as businesses and consumers seek to reduce the spread of coronavirus. Experts say COVID-19 is accelerating automation in the food-service industry. (July 14)

PRO LIFE GOVERNMENT

US carries out the 1st federal execution in nearly 2 decades

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FILE - In this Oct. 31 1997, file photo, Daniel Lewis Lee waits for his arraignment hearing for murder in the Pope County Detention Center in Russellville, Ark. Relatives of the victims of Daniel Lewis Lee have pleaded for him to receive the same life sentence as the ringleader in the plot that led to the slayings. Now, family members say their grief is compounded by the push to execute Lee, of Yukon, Oklahoma, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.(Dan Pierce/The Courier via AP, File)


TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — The federal government on Tuesday carried out its first execution in almost two decades, killing by lethal injection a man convicted of murdering an Arkansas family in a 1990s plot to build a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest.

The execution of Daniel Lewis Lee came over the objection of the victims’ relatives and following days of legal wrangling and delays.

Lee, 47, of Yukon, Oklahoma, professed his innocence just before he was executed at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.

“I didn’t do it,” Lee said. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I’m not a murderer.”

His final words were: “You’re killing an innocent man.”

MORE STORIES:– Victims' relatives most vocal opponents of man's execution– AP Exclusive: New dates set to begin federal executions– Priest sues to stop federal execution over coronavirus risk

The decision to move forward with the first execution by the Bureau of Prisons since 2003 -- and two others scheduled later in the week — drew scrutiny from civil rights groups and the relatives of Lee’s victims, who had sued to try to halt it, citing concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic has killed more than 135,000 people in the United States and is ravaging prisons nationwide.

Critics argued the government was creating an unnecessary and manufactured urgency for political gain.

One of Lee’s lawyers, Ruth Friedman, said it was “shameful that the government saw fit to carry out this execution during a pandemic.”

“And it is beyond shameful that the government, in the end, carried out this execution in haste,” Friedman said in a statement.

The developments are likely to add a new front to the national conversation about criminal justice reform in the lead-up to the 2020 elections.

The execution of Lee, who died at 8:07 a.m. EDT, went off after a series of legal volleys that ended when the Supreme Court stepped in early Tuesday in a 5-4 ruling and allowed it to move forward.

Attorney General William Barr has said the Justice Department has a duty to carry out the sentences imposed by the courts, including the death penalty, and provide closure to the victims and those in the communities where the killings happened.

But relatives of those killed by Lee in 1996 opposed that idea and argued Lee deserved life in prison. They wanted to be present to counter any contention the execution was being done on their behalf.

“For us it is a matter of being there and saying, ‘This is not being done in our name; we do not want this,’” relative Monica Veillette said.

They noted Lee’s co-defendant and the reputed ringleader, Chevie Kehoe, received a life sentence.

Kehoe, of Colville, Washington, recruited Lee in 1995 to join his white supremacist organization, known as the Aryan Peoples’ Republic. Two years later, they were arrested for the killings of gun dealer William Mueller, his wife, Nancy, and her 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Powell, in Tilly, Arkansas, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) northwest of Little Rock.

At their 1999 trial, prosecutors said Kehoe and Lee stole guns and $50,000 in cash from the Muellers as part of their plan to establish a whites-only nation.

Prosecutors said Lee and Kehoe incapacitated the Muellers and questioned Sarah about where they could find money and ammunition. Then, they used stun guns on the victims, sealed trash bags with duct tape on their heads to suffocate them, taped rocks to their bodies and dumped them in a nearby bayou.

A U.S. District Court judge put a hold on Lee’s execution on Monday, over concerns from death row inmates on how executions were to be carried out, and an appeals court upheld it, but the high court overturned it. That delay came after an appeals court on Sunday overturned a hold put in place last week after the victims’ relatives argued they’d be put at high risk for the coronavirus if they had to travel to attend the execution.

Lee’s execution was then set to happen at 4 a.m. EDT, but a last-minute legal question was raised by his lawyers. The Justice Department said it filed a request with the court to straighten it out but went through with the execution.

A U.S. marshal lifted a black telephone inside the execution room -- a small square room inside the prison with green tiles and windows looking at the witness rooms -- and asked if there was anything to impede the execution. He said there was not and the execution could proceed.


Lee had a pulse oximeter on a finger of his left hand, to monitor his oxygen level, and his arms, which had tattoos, were in black restraints. The IV tubes were coming through a metal panel in the wall.

He breathed heavily before the drug was injected and moved his legs and feet. As the drug was being administered, he raised his head to look around. In a few moments, his chest was no longer moving.

Lee was in the execution chamber with two men the Bureau of Prisons identified as “senior BOP officials,” a U.S. marshal and his spiritual adviser, described by a prisons spokesperson as an “Appalachian pagan minister.” They and Lee didn’t wear masks.

One of the senior prisons officials in the room announced Lee’s time of death, and the curtain closed.

Two other federal executions are scheduled for this week, though one remains on hold in a separate legal claim.

There have been two state executions in the U.S. since the pandemic forced shutdowns nationwide in mid-March — one in Texas and one in Missouri, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Alabama had one in early March.

Executions on the federal level have been rare, and the government has put to death only three defendants since restoring the federal death penalty in 1988 — most recently in 2003, when Louis Jones was executed for the 1995 kidnapping, rape and murder of a young female soldier.

Though there hadn’t been a federal execution since 2003, the Justice Department has continued to approve death penalty prosecutions and federal courts have sentenced defendants to death.

In 2014, following a botched state execution in Oklahoma, President Barack Obama directed the Justice Department to conduct a broad review of capital punishment and issues surrounding lethal injection drugs.

The attorney general said last July the review had been completed, allowing executions to resume. He approved a new procedure for lethal injections that replaces the three-drug combination previously used in federal executions with one drug, pentobarbital. This is similar to the procedure used in several states, including Georgia, Missouri and Texas.

Numbers of state executions have fallen steadily since the 2003 federal execution, according to data compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center. States put to death 59 people in 2004 and 22 in 2019.

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Associated Press writers Mark Sherman and Colleen Long in Washington and Michael Tarm in Chicago contributed to this

Global vaccine plan may allow rich countries to buy more

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FILE - In this Wednesday, June 24, 2020 file photo, a volunteer receives a COVID-19 test vaccine injection developed at the University of Oxford in Britain, at the Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital in Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa. Politicians and public health leaders have publicly committed to equitably sharing any coronavirus vaccine that works, but the top global initiative to make it happen may allow rich countries to reinforce their own stockpiles while making fewer doses available for poor ones. (AP Photo/Siphiwe Sibeko, FIle)


LONDON (AP) — Politicians and public health leaders have publicly committed to equitably sharing any coronavirus vaccine that works, but the top global initiative to make that happen may allow rich countries to reinforce their own stockpiles while making fewer doses available for poor ones.

Activists warn that without stronger attempts to hold political, pharmaceutical and health leaders accountable, vaccines will be hoarded by rich countries in an unseemly race to inoculate their populations first. After the recent uproar over the United States purchasing a large amount of a new COVID-19 drug, some predict an even more disturbing scenario if a successful vaccine is developed.

Dozens of vaccines are being researched, and some countries — including Britain, France, Germany and the U.S. — already have ordered hundreds of millions of doses before the vaccines are even proven to work.

While no country can afford to buy doses of every potential vaccine candidate, many poor ones can’t afford to place such speculative bets at all.

The key initiative to help them is led by Gavi, a public-private partnership started by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that buys vaccines for about 60% of the world’s children.

In a document sent to potential donors last month, Gavi said those giving money to its new “Covax Facility” would have “the opportunity to benefit from a larger portfolio of COVID-19 vaccines.” Gavi told donor governments that when an effective vaccine is found within its pool of experimental shots, those countries would receive doses for 20% of their population. Those shots could be used as each nation wished.

That means rich countries can sign deals on their own with drugmakers and then also get no-strings-attached allocations from Gavi. Poorer countries that sign up to the initiative would theoretically get vaccines at the same time to cover 20% of their populations, but they would be obligated to immunize people according to an ethical distribution framework set by the United Nations.

The donor countries are “encouraged (but not required) to donate vaccines if they have more than they need,” the document says.

“By giving rich countries this backup plan, they’re getting their cake and eating it too,” said Anna Marriott of Oxfam International. “They may end up buying up all the supply in advance, which then limits what Gavi can distribute to the rest of the world.”

Dr. Seth Berkley, Gavi’s CEO, said such criticisms were unhelpful.

Right now there’s no vaccine for anyone, he said, and “we’re trying to solve that problem.”

Berkley said Gavi needed to make investing in a global vaccine initiative attractive for rich countries. Gavi would try to persuade those countries that if they ordered vaccines already, they should not attempt to obtain more, he said.

But he acknowledged there was no enforcement mechanism.

“If, at the end of the day, those legal agreements are broken or countries seize assets or don’t allow the provision of vaccines (to developing countries), that’s a problem,” Berkley said.

Gavi asked countries for an expression of intent from those interested in joining its initiative by last Friday. It had expected about four dozen high and middle income countries to sign up, in addition to nearly 90 developing countries.

Dr. Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which is working with Gavi and others, said they would be talking in the coming weeks with countries who had signed deals with drug companies to secure their own supplies.

One possibility: They might ask countries to contribute their private vaccine stockpile to the global pool in exchange for access to whichever experimental candidate proves effective.

“We’ll have to find a solution because some of these arrangements have been made and I think we have to be pragmatic about it,” he said.

After a vaccine meeting last month, the African Union said governments should “remove all obstacles” to equal distribution of any successful vaccine.

Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief John Nkengasong said Gavi should be “pushing hard” on convincing companies to suspend their intellectual property rights.

“We don’t want to find ourselves in the HIV drugs situation,” he said, noting that the life-saving drugs were available in developed countries years before they made it to Africa.

Shabhir Mahdi, principal investigator of the Oxford vaccine trial in South Africa, said it was up to African governments to push for more vaccine-sharing initiatives, rather than depending on pharmaceutical companies to make their products more accessible.

“If you expect it to be the responsibility of industry, you would never get a vaccine onto the African continent,” Mahdi said.

Last month, Gavi and CEPI signed a $750 million deal with AstraZeneca to give developing countries 300 million doses of a shot being developed by Oxford University. But that deal happened after the drug company had already signed contracts with Britain and the U.S., who are first in line to get vaccine deliveries in the fall.

“We are working tirelessly to honor our commitment to ensure broad and equitable access to Oxford’s vaccine across the globe and at no profit,” said AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot. He said its contract with Gavi and CEPI marked “an important step in helping us supply hundreds of millions of people around the world, including to those in countries with the lowest means.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping has also vowed to share any COVID-19 vaccine it develops with African countries — but only once immunization has been completed in China.

The World Health Organization has previously said it hopes to secure 2 billion doses for people in lower-income countries by the end of 2021, including through initiatives like Gavi’s. About 85% of the world’s 7.8 billion people live in developing countries.

Kate Elder, senior vaccines policy adviser at Doctors Without Borders, said Gavi should try to extract more concessions from pharmaceutical companies, including compelling them to suspend patents on the vaccines.

“Gavi is in a very delicate position because they’re completely reliant on the goodwill” of drug companies, said Elder. She said the system of how vaccines are provided to developing countries needed to be overhauled so that it wasn’t based on charity, but on public health need.

“We’re just having our governments write these blank checks to industry with no conditions attached right now,” she said. “Isn’t now the time to actually hold them to account and demand we as the public, get more for it?”

Yannis Natsis, a policy official at the European Public Health Alliance, said the last thing on the minds of officials in rich countries is sharing with poor ones.

“Politicians are scared if they don’t throw money at companies, the citizens in the next country over will get the vaccines first and they will look very bad,” Natsis said.

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Cara Anna in Johannesburg contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science

Egypt journalist dies of coronavirus after leaving prison: family

Issued on: 14/07/2020 

Video game industry faces its #metoo moment

Issued on: 14/07/2020 - 15:18Modified: 14/07/2020 - 15:17

Just Dance is one title by Ubisoft, which just shed a number of senior executives after sexual harassment allegations Robyn Beck AFP

Paris (AFP)

After years of simmering controversy over sexism in the video game industry, change may be on its way after outrage came to a boil with a C-suite massacre at Ubisoft.

Following online allegations of sexual misconduct, the publisher of Assassin's Creed and Far Cry launched a probe, resulting in the departure over the weekend of the company's chief creative officer.

The head of human resources also left, as did the chief of operations in Canada where the game maker has its biggest studios.


CEO and co-founder Yves Guillemot acknowledged that "Ubisoft has fallen short in its obligation to guarantee a safe and inclusive workplace environment for its employees".

The executive ousters were a high-profile victory for the #metoo movement in the male-dominated video game publishing industry that has a reputation for hostility towards women.

Accusations on social media of sexual harassment and abuse have targeted a number of video game publishers, as well as people in the gaming community around the Twitch platform.

In 2014, two prominent women developers became the targets of an online harassment campaign known as gamergate and seen by many as a backlash to growing pressure about sexism.

- 'Toxic' -

Women Ubisoft employees described as "toxic" the work culture at the company, particularly at its Canadian studios.

One woman who asked for her name not be used told AFP that "working on Far Cry cost me two burnouts, psychological and sexual harassment and humiliation, and human resources never bothered to listen to me".

One employee said on social media that shortly after arriving at Ubisoft a team leader told her she was hired because she was "cute" but that "to everyone's surprise you do your job well".

She discovered a mailing list where men describe what women are wearing "so guys can go take a look".

She then received comments about her looks, unwelcome invitations from superiors and was "regularly pinched on the butt and breast" while using a passageway between buildings.

A former employee said "at Ubisoft people who do bad things are unfortunately protected. They are often highly-placed and if you go to human resources or to managers they usually do nothing."

Another put the blame on the "work hard, play hard" culture inside the company.

"That is where one creates a climate that is not safe, where inhibitions are lowered and people engage in predatory behaviour."

- Lara's transformation -

On Ubisoft's creative teams only one in five employees are women.

Isabelle Collet, a French researcher who has long studied the issue in the IT industry overall, said "getting more women requires a willingness to better welcome them".

Collet said "video game publishers today are real companies that should have real tools against harassment".

But she added that the sector was "not necessarily worse" than medicine or journalism.

Fanny Lignon, a researcher at France's CNRS research institute said: "What is annoying is that sexism can be more common in other types of media without one necessarily realising it".

There has been some change in the representation of women in the games themselves.

In the successful Lara Croft game, the heroine morphed from excessively voluptuous and scantily-clad to a more normal body covered by clothes appropriate for her adventures.

"Many games are now without stereotypes, but some still engage in them extensively, and that usually includes a hypersexualistion of bodies," said Lignon.

"Women are slender and well proportioned, men have more varied builds but most are young and athletic. We end up with a vision that is similar to that presented by other media, like advertising for example," she added.

On the other hand, Lignon pointed to Ubisoft's 2018 Assassin's Creed Odyssey for offering users choices of women characters with real bodies of warriors.

"We're seeing more women characters emerge that are a bit 'badass'," she said.

But a brawny Abby in the game The Last of Us Part 2 released in June has kicked up a storm of comments about her "unrealistic" body for a woman -- illustrating that some gamer stereotypes remain well-entrenched.

burs-rl/jh

Tintin and the mystery of the duelling mummies



Issued on: 14/07/2020 - 15:18

Royal museum curator Serge Lemaitre criticised Herge for attending a 1979 exhibit that displayed the rival mummy JOHN THYS AFP

Brussels (AFP)

The mummified corpse of Rascar Capac thrilled and terrified generations of young fans of the Tintin comic book story "The Seven Crystal Balls".

Now, Herge's fictional Inca has sparked a row between rival Belgian tourist attractions, each of which displays a mummy they say inspired Tintin's creator.

The very serious Art and History Museum is in Brussels' Jubilee Park, near where Herge used to live, and he was known to frequent its collections.

The museum's Andean mummy, squatting upright with knees bent, appears similar to the haunting effigy in the author's illustrated tale of the be-quiffed reporter Tintin's adventure.

Curators thought they had established the link beyond doubt 10 years ago, but the Pairi Daiza safari park in southern Belgium is touting a rival mummy.

Last week, the popular zoo began marketing an exhibit of the "authentic mummy nicknamed Rascar Capac".

The royal museum is not taking this well, and has all but accused the zoo park of false advertising.

"We don't attract visitors by promising them pandas," sniffed museum director general Alexandra de Poorter.

The zoo has expressed regret over an "argument started by the royal museums" but admits that "no one can say for sure which mummy inspired Herge."

If there is confusion, it dates back until at least 1979, when the 2,000-year-old preserved corpse now on display at the zoo appeared in Brussels at an exhibit titled "Tintin's museum of the imagination".

The collection was assembled to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1929 release of the boy reporter's first book-length adventure, "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets".

Author and illustrator Georges Remi -- better known under his pen name Herge -- attended the show, adding some credibility to the mummy's significance.

But this, according to the Art and History Museum's curator of Latin American relics, Serge Lemaitre, was a mistake.

The mummy in question had been bought by a Belgian collector in the 1960s, long after Herge published the "Seven Crystal Balls" book in 1948.

- French connection? -

"And in the first frames serialised in 1941 in the newspaper Le Soir, Rascar Capac was hairless and had very bent knees, just like our mummy," Lemaitre says.

Herge lived near the Jubilee Park -- still a popular spot in Brussels' European quarter -- and knew the museum and its curator Jean Capart well.

Capart even seems to have been fictionalised as Professeur Bergamotte -- or Professor Hercules Tarragon in the English-language version of "The Seven Crystal Balls".

Not only that, but items drawn from other pieces in the museum's ethnographic collections have appeared in the Tintin tales, notably a Peruvian figurine that inspired its eponymous twin in "The Broken Ear".

The museum is thus confident in its claim, but -- as is often the case in a Tintin mystery -- the plot may have a further twist, according to independent expert Philippe Goddin.

"We should stop arguing. Herge looked at lots of Inca mummies, but his first sketches of Rascar Capac are essentially based on a drawing in the Larousse dictionary," he said.

This is an explanation that will not suit anyone in Belgium, where tourist attractions have seized upon any Tintin link to exploit as a key draw.

The drawing in the Larousse was based on a mummy brought back from Peru by the 19th-century French explorer Charles Wiener and is today in the Quai Branly Museum ... in Paris.

© 2020 AFP

Anguish and anger in Serbia as virus returns with a vengeance



Issued on: 14/07/2020 - 

Petar Djuric has become a symbol of anger at the Serbian government's virus response after his father succumbed to the disease Oliver BUNIC AFP

Belgrade (AFP)

When Petar Djuric arrived with fruit and water for his father at the hospital in April, he learned it was too late. For this loss, he blames the collapse of Serbia's health system just as much as the coronavirus.

"Pops, this is for you," the bleary-eyed 31-year-old told a local TV channel as he joined protests that erupted last week over the Serbian government's handling of the health crisis.

The words became a rallying cry for those outraged at leaders accused of toying with the health of citizens for political purposes.

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After flattening its first curve of infections by May, Serbia is now reporting its deadliest days yet.

Hospitals are overstretched with more than 300 new cases reported daily, putting a record number of around 170 patients on ventilators.

Djuric, a basketball coach, became a symbol of anger among protesters who accuse the government of lifting an initial lockdown prematurely in order to hold an election that tightened the ruling party's grip on power.

After his father came down with a high fever and cough in late March, "we called the COVID-19 call centre every day. They told us to wait, not to come to the hospital," Djuric, who finally drove his father to the hospital himself, told AFP.

On April 9, a doctor recommended the 71-year-old painter be transferred to a ward for respiratory assistance, according to his son.

But in the hospital in Zemun, a neighbourhood of the capital Belgrade, "no ventilator was available at the time," Djuric said.

A few days later, his father was gone.

"I think the doctors did their best. But apparently the system does not work. My father told me the situation was catastrophic," he added.

President Aleksandar Vucic -- the target of protesters' anger -- responded to Djuric in a nationally televised address, calling the story a "lie", while pro-government tabloids launched their own attacks.

- 'Manipulated data' -

Officially, nearly 420 people have died in the country of seven million.

But protesters accuse the authorities of covering up the true death toll, an allegation first levied by a local investigative outlet.

Members of a government crisis team recently admitted that the actual death count is "almost certainly" higher because some patients who died "didn't get the chance to be tested".

Stana, a 50-year-old Belgrade native who declined to give her surname, told AFP she is convinced her father-in-law falls in that category.

She believes he died of the respiratory disease but was not counted in the official COVID-19 figures because he could not be tested in time.

Experiences like this helped fuel the frustration of protests that started on July 7, several of which ended in violent clashes with police.

"We are fed up with the manipulation of COVID-19 figures," Danijela Ognjenovic, a 52-year-old protester, told AFP.

"No one trusts any information coming from the government at this point," added Branko Jovanovic, 44.

- 'Danger was denied' -

President Vucic claims the country has "a health system that is better than that of nine European Union countries".

But some frontline doctors disagree.

While Serbia's medical care was once highly respected -- a legacy of the socialist Yugoslav era -- the health system has been deteriorating for decades.

Like other sectors, the medical industry has suffered from a huge exodus of young professionals moving abroad for better pay in places like Germany.

A nurse earns on average 400 euros ($455) a month in Serbia, while a specialist doctor can make just over 800 euros, according to data from doctors' unions.

The country now lacks some 3,500 doctors and 8,000 nurses, according to the economic news portal novaekonomija.rs.

A doctor working in one of Belgrade's dedicated COVID-19 wards told AFP he believed initial health measures were dropped too early, allowing President Vucic to campaign on a victory against the virus ahead of the June 21 parliamentary elections that cemented his party's domination.

"Until the last moment, the existence of danger was denied, even when it was obvious," he told AFP on the condition of anonymity.

"There was no preparation" before the second wave, in order to "create the image of a system (that) works," he said.

"The situation was bad two weeks ago, now it's even worse."

© 2020 AFP

Humanity on Mars? Technically possible, but no voyage on horizon
Issued on: 14/07/2020 -

A member of the AMADEE-18 Mars simulation mission wearing a spacesuit standing in the doorway of a simulation habitat, with a view of the night sky above in Oman's Dhofar desert, in February 2018 KARIM SAHIB AFP/File

Washington (AFP)

Robotic landers and rovers have been touching down on Mars since the 1970s, but when will humanity finally set foot on the Red Planet?

Experts believe the technical challenges are nearly resolved, but political considerations make the future of any crewed mission uncertain.

NASA's human lunar exploration program, Artemis, envisions sending people back to the Moon by 2024 and using the experience gained there to prepare for Mars.

Plans have been proposed for a crewed exploratory mission of our neighboring planet since before NASA was created in 1958, but have never taken off.

In the spring of 1990, then president George Bush Sr announced the most audacious promise to date -- a man on Mars before July 20, 2019, the fiftieth anniversary of the first lunar landing.

The commitment clearly never came to pass, and similar goals articulated by presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump have not led to concrete programs.

"I have seen maybe 10,000 graphs, charts, proposing various ideas about how to get to Mars, for humans," G. Scott Hubbard, an adjunct professor at Stanford and former senior NASA official, told AFP.

"But putting the money behind it to make it a reality has not occurred."

The mission itself would last two or three years.

Today, Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin are building heavy rockets capable of sending tens of tons toward Mars.

- Alone, and far -

For the seven-month journey, twenty years of living and working in the International Space Station (ISS) has reassured scientists about the dangers posed by radiation and by weightlessness, such as muscle atrophy.

The body does not emerge unscathed, but the risks are deemed acceptable.

Then there is the stay on Mars itself, which would last 15 months so that the planets are once more on the same side of the Sun.

The surface temperature will average -63 degrees Celsius, and though radiation is a factor, suits and shelters exist that would shield astronauts.

In case of medical emergencies, distance would make an evacuation impossible.

What mishaps should astronauts anticipate?

First of all fractures, but plaster casts would often suffice, says Dan Buckland, an engineer and emergency room doctor at Duke University, who is developing a robotic intravenous needle with support from NASA.

Diarrhoea, kidney stones and appendicitis are generally treatable, except for 30 percent of appendicitis cases which must be operated and could therefore be fatal.

With extensive screening of astronauts' genetics and family history, you can greatly reduce the probability of having a crew member who develops cancer over the course of a three-year mission.

"I have not found a showstopper for going to Mars, in terms of a health condition," said Buckland.

One major issue would be protecting the habitats and vehicles from the ravages of the fine dust that covers the surface.

"Mars is unique in that there's also a concern about dust storms," said Robert Howard of the NASA Johnson Center.

These hellish planet-wide tempests can block out the Sun for months, rendering solar panels useless.

Small nuclear reactors would therefore be needed.

In 2018, NASA and the Department of Energy successfully completed a demonstration project, the Kilopower Project.

Ultimately, the goal will be to manufacture materials on site using mined resources, probably with 3D printing machines.

Development is embryonic, but the Artemis program will be a testing ground.

- Colonies? -

Musk has proposed colonizing Mars, with a first expedition to build a factory that converts Martian water and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into oxygen and methane fuel.

"Becoming a multi-planet species," he said in a 2017 speech, "beats the hell out of being a single-planet species."

Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, likewise advocates for the creation of "new branches of human civilization."

That no progress has been made since humanity last walked on the Moon in 1972 is, to him, shameful.

"It was as if Columbus had come back from the New World the first time and then (king and queen) Ferdinand and Isabella had said, 'so what, we're not interested,'" he said.

Not everyone is convinced.

"Enough of the nonsense!" said exobiologist Michel Viso from CNES, the French space agency.

"We have an amazing planet with an atmosphere, with oxygen, with water...It's criminal, you don't have the right to fool people into thinking there is a 'Plan B,' a 'Planet B,' that we will have a Martian civilization."

Whether humanity installs a colony or permanent bases, the most important obstacle, for a lasting human presence on Mars, will be to convince people to accept a higher level of risk than for the Moon or the ISS, argues Buckland.

In the long run, not everyone will return.

© 2020 AFP

Brazil's Bolsonaro fed up with quarantine, to take new virus test

Issued on: 14/07/2020

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who says he is bored staying at home after testing positive for COVID-19, feeds emus outside the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia Sergio LIMA AFP

Brasília (AFP)

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has been in quarantine nearly a week after testing positive for the new coronavirus, announced Monday he plans to take another test as he "can't stand" being in isolation.

The result of the test, which is scheduled for Tuesday, "should be out in a few hours, and I will wait quite anxiously because I can't stand this routine of staying at home. It's horrible," Bolsonaro said in a telephone interview with CNN Brazil, from his official residence at the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia.

Since the beginning of the crisis, the far-right president has dismissed the seriousness of the epidemic and criticized containment measures ordered by governors in Brazilian states.

During his interview, Bolsonaro said that he feels "very well" and has no fever or problems breathing. He also has not lost his sense of taste, one of the most common symptoms of COVID-19.

"Tomorrow, I don't know if the new test will confirm (the virus), but if everything is fine, I'll go back to work. Of course, if it's the other way around, I'll wait a few more days," said the 65-year-old, adding he hoped to resume his activities within a week at most.

"Otherwise everything is fine. We are working by videoconference all the time and we are doing our best not to let things accumulate," he said.

Brazil is the second-worst hit country in the world, after the United States. As of Monday, 72,833 people had died out of 1.8 million confirmed cases.

During his weekly Facebook Live post last Thursday, Bolsonaro said that after feeling unwell, he had started taking one hydroxychloroquine tablet every day.

The drug, originally tested to fight malaria, has been pushed as a treatment for COVID-19 in many countries -- but its effectiveness has not been formally proven and the issue is deeply dividing the global scientific community.

"I took (hydroxychloroquine) and it worked, and I'm fine, thank God. And let those who criticize it at least offer an alternative," he said during the Facebook Live.

© 2020 AFP

Brazil's displaced indigenous struggle in concrete jungle far from home

Issued on: 14/07/2020 -

Angoho, an indigenous woman of the Pataxo Ha-ha-hae community, wears a face mask at the Vila Vitoria favela on the outskirts of Belo Horizonte, Brazil DOUGLAS MAGNO AFP

Belo Horizonte (Brazil) (AFP)

Forced to leave her home after last year's Brumadinho dam disaster that killed 270 people, indigenous woman Angoho Pataxo Ha-ha-hae is now fighting the coronavirus sweeping through her community in the concrete jungle of a favela far from her ancestral home.

"Here in the neighborhood there are already 120 cases, if we go on like this more people from our group will be contaminated," said 53-year-old Angoho, panting for breath as she spoke.

The Pataxo Ha-ha-hae people are an 11,000 strong indigenous group from Bahia in northeastern Brazil.

But Angoho and her husband Hayo, the community's chief, are living in a two-room concrete house in Vila Victoria, on the the outskirts of Belo Horizonte, one of Brazil's biggest cities and a world away from their ancestral home.

They were diagnosed with COVID-19 in early July and are trying to fight the disease with a combination of ancient tribal remedies and Western medicine.

Suffering from fever, she coughs a lot and sometimes has trouble breathing. Five other members of her family also have symptoms of COVID-19.

Thirteen families from her village have settled in Vila Vitoria, and others have left for other Brazilian states.

It is her family's third home, having originally been forced our of Bahia.

"In Bahia we were deprived of water on our land because of the eucalyptus farms in the area and we left in search of better living conditions," she said, speaking slowly and haltingly because of her breathing problems.

Together with about 20 other Pataxo Ha-ha-hae families, they traveled more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to settle on the banks of the Paraopeba River in Minas Gerais state.

But on January 25 2019, a massive dam owned by the Vale mining company at Brumadinho collapsed, releasing tonnes of toxic waste into the river, on which the indigenous people depended.

The tragedy killed 270 people and swept away the livelihood of hundreds of others. Earlier this year, Angoho and her family decided to move on for Belo Horizonte.

"We left there because we couldn't take it anymore, the river was dead, we couldn't plant or fish, we were getting sick," said Angoho, who became a prominent critic of the environmental and human tragedy.

Millions of tons of toxic mining waste engulfed houses, farms and waterways, devastating the mineral-rich region in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais.

- 'Living in peace' -

From the roof of their modest red brick house in the favela, Angoho gazes out over a urban landscape that stretches as far as the eye can see.

She still wears a majestic traditional tribal headdress of black and white feathers and a yellow protective mask that matches the geometric patterns of her body paint.

Some days, her husband is unable to leave his bed with COVID-19. She tries to treat him with traditional remedies, including herbal teas made from ginger, avocado pits, tobacco leaves or rosemary.

Her family is among those receiving compensation from the Vale mining conglomerate, following a court decision in the wake of the disaster. But she says it is not enough and the family has to rely on donations to survive.

"But we don't want to live on donations. We know how to plant, we know how to make crafts. We just want our land back so that we can live in peace," she says.

© 2020 AFP