New tech uses mobile phone signals to improve rain prediction

Research Institute H2i and telco StarHub will be embarking on a pilot that aims to improve rainfall measure in Singapore.

 PHOTO: STARHUB

Gena Soh

SINGAPORE - Every time it rains, mobile phone signals are affected. Most users will not be able to tell the difference, although sensitive instruments can.

Now, research institute Hydroinformatics Institute (H2i) and telco StarHub will be embarking on a pilot that aims to improve rainfall measure in Singapore, by analysing these changes in mobile phone signals during rain.

The pilot will take place in the south-west of Singapore in the second quarter of this year, said H2i and StarHub in a statement last week.


The aim is to improve rainfall readings in Singapore, which are critical for water resource management, early flood warnings and weather predictions, they added.

Currently, national water agency PUB uses tools such as rain gauges and X-band radars to measure rainfall.

Rain gauges are essentially marked tubes that collect rain, giving meteorologists an idea of how much rain was collected at a point in that rainfall event. X-band radars measure rainfall by sending pulses of electromagnetic radiation into the atmosphere and listening for return signals scattered back by rain droplets.

But there are limitations to the data collected through these methods.

Dr Munsung Keem, radar specialist from H2i, said: "Rain gauges can only measure rainfall data at a given point, making data collected sporadic and distributed sparsely around Singapore.

"Although radar tools can collect data across wide areas spanning 30km to 50km, radar waves are sometimes blocked by tall buildings like skyscrapers, making data collection incomplete."

In the tropics, where rainfall varies greatly over space and time, rainfall episodes can often be challenging to quantify and forecast, H2i and StarHub said.


"Having a greater variety and density of data sources can make modelling more accurate, and predictions more precise," they added in the statement.

When it rains, falling water droplets sometimes interferes with mobile signals being sent island wide.

These periodic interferences cause miniscule variations in mobile signal strength, which are usually automatically compensated for by StarHub's mobile base station and are recorded as they occur.

The new technology by H2i will be able to estimate rainfall from micro changes in mobile strength. 

PHOTO: STARHUB


By tapping on StarHub's data from their network of "thousands of mobile base stations", the new technology by H2i will be able to estimate rainfall from these micro changes in mobile strength.

Such data has been recorded by StarHub for operational reasons for years, but this is the first time such data is being used for meteorological services in Singapore.

The technology was one of the four winners of PUB Global Innovation Challenge - a yearly competition by the national water agency inviting participants to address future water needs using the adoption of technology - last year.

A StarHub spokesman said: "StarHub is able to provide comprehensive round-the-clock data that outnumbers that of traditional rain gauges, plugging information gaps and supporting a more effective rainfall monitoring system."

This comprehensive data can be fed into computer models that predict rainfall across Singapore, which will then churn out predictions that are more precise.

This technology is promising because it will allow more rainfall data to be collected without investing in costly monitoring tools or the headache of finding a place to install these tools, said Dr Keem.

The mobile base stations have already been installed in set locations and maintained by StarHub. PHOTO: STARHUB

Moreover, because the mobile base stations have already been installed in set locations and maintained by Starhub, resource savings can be made through repurposing available tools.

Mr Chow Siew Loong, chief technology officer of StarHub, said: "We are delighted to collaborate with H2i to expand the use of our existing signal attenuation data for an important and meaningful purpose, and to help Singapore become more green and sustainable."

If the pilot is successful, the project could be extended to cover more of the island, and eventually lead to a full national roll-out, said H2i and StarHub.

Mr Yeo Keng Soon, director of PUB's catchment and waterways department, said: "Should the pilot prove successful, this innovative project by H2i and StarHub will provide greater spatial coverage and complement PUB's existing rainfall monitoring systems."

"This will further aid us in the timely deployment of our fleet of flood response vehicles during any flash flood events."

A*Star scientists play role in developing important component of Covid-19 antiviral drug

Scientists from the Experimental Drug Development Centre have discovered small molecules that target the Sars-CoV-2 virus' main protease. 

PHOTO: ST ILLUSTRATION

Cheryl Tan


SINGAPORE - Local researchers here have a role to play in developing an important component of an antiviral drug to treat Covid-19.

Scientists from the Experimental Drug Development Centre (EDDC), a national platform hosted by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), have discovered small molecules that target the Sars-CoV-2 virus' main protease - a protein which is critical for the virus to replicate.

Professor Damian O'Connell, the chief executive of EDDC, told The Straits Times that the protease, known as the 3CL protease, is highly conserved across the different coronavirus mutations

The team has also proven through lab tests that the drug works against the Alpha, Beta, and Delta variants, as well as other known coronaviruses like Sars and Mers.

Asked if the drug will likely work against the Omicron variant as well, Prof O'Connell said it has not been tested but he would expect that the drug continues to remain effective.

EDDC had on Jan 14 announced a global licensing agreement with Chinese biotech firm Everest Medicines, giving the company the exclusive worldwide rights to develop, manufacture and commercialise EDDC's 3CL protease inhibitor - known as EDDC-2214 - as an oral antiviral therapy against Covid-19.

Dr Kerry Blanchard, chief executive of Everest Medicines, told ST that it is expected to start phase one trials by the end of the year, which will be among healthy volunteers to test for the drug's safety.


Asked about the patient profile that the drug will be targeting, Dr Blanchard said the company hopes to target "a wide range of patients", given its high efficacy shown in pre-clinical trial results.

He added that the drug will likely be available after next year, depending on the regulatory approval environment for the drug's emergency use authorisation.

EDDC-2214's targeting mechanism is similar to that of Pfizer's antiviral drug, paxlovid, which also targets the 3CL protease.

"From a global health perspective, it is important for us to have more than one drug even though they have the same mechanisms so that we can provide (more drugs) across multiple geographic regions," said Prof O'Connell.

"We've seen the emergence of multiple mRNA vaccines, how important they are, and how they've been utilised in a complementary way across the world, so it'll be very much the case here as well," he added.

Dr Shawn Vasoo, clinical director of the National Centre for Infectious Diseases, told ST that paxlovid, and another antiviral, molnupiravir, are currently being reviewed by the Health Sciences Authority (HSA).

Both drugs have already received approval by the United States' Food and Drug Administration (FDA), he noted.

Pfizer said that large-scale clinical trials have shown that the paxlovid drug was able to reduce hospitalisations or death by 89 per cent for those at risk of developing severe disease.

Likewise, trial results from molnupiravir have shown that the drug is able to halve the likelihood of dying or being hospitalised for those at risk of severe illness.

Dr Vasoo said that paxlovid, as with other Covid-19 specific treatments, may be considered for patients with risk factors for severe disease, such as those with poor immune systems or certain medical conditions.

"Vaccination is still the mainstay for prevention, and the vast majority (who are infected) will do well and not require any specific treatments if they do not have any risk factors for severe disease," he added.

Dr Vasoo also pointed out that not all Covid-19 treatments are suitable for specific patients, and doctors will have to evaluate their medical history to assess their suitability.
Current Covid-19 treatment drugs include:
Monoclonal antibodies for mild-to-moderate Covid-19

These are laboratory-made proteins that act like antibodies in helping the body to fight off infection.

It can be used to treat patients who do not require oxygen supplementation and have mild to moderate Covid-19 disease but are at risk of progressing to more serious illness.

Drugs include GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology's sotrovimab and Regeneron and Roche's antibody cocktail REGN-COV2.

Singapore has also signed a supply and purchase agreement for AstraZeneca's antibody cocktail, Evusheld. However, it has yet to be approved by the Health Sciences Authority.
For severe Covid-19:

Antiviral remdesivir

When administered at the early stage of Covid-19 disease, remdesivir can help to hasten the time to recovery. It is usually used on patients who need low amounts of oxygen support.
Steroid dexamethasone and arthritis drugs tocilizumab and baricitinib

These drugs are typically used to reduce inflammation in patients with severe Covid-19, and can help to reduce death.

Mysterious ice formations showed up in Chicago this week


By CNN

 Jan 24, 2022

You've heard of blizzards and maybe even the polar vortex, but have you heard of ice pancakes?

What about ice bites or ice jams? These unique names sound fascinating but require specific weather conditions.

This week ice pancakes were found along Chicago's shoreline of Lake Michigan.

The temperature at the time these photos were took was around -6 degrees Celsius (21 degree Fahrenheit). (Sharan Banagiri)

Sharan Banagiri's photos were taken at Loyola Beach at Rogers Park about 1.6 kilometres north of downtown.

Mr Banagiri told CNN these photos were taken on a walkway on the way to a lighthouse.

Mr Banagiri noted that the temperature at the time the photos were taken was around -6C (21 degree Fahrenheit).

Great Lakes ice coverage is currently at 21.9 per cent which is the highest (tied with 2019) for this date in the last six years.

Lake Michigan is also hovering at around 20 per cent ice coverage, near the average to date.

This time of year, because of the bitter cold temperatures across much of the northern US, peculiarities such as ice pancakes, ice bites, and ice balls pop up.

The aftermath of a snow storm was captured by NASA satellites circling above the US at the start of the year. (NASA)

Ice pancakes, much like their namesake, look exactly like you think they would -- round flat discs made of ice.

They are common in the Arctic but typically only start making an appearance in the Lower 48 states once the temperatures get well below freezing for several days.

The phenomenon is limited strictly to bodies of water such as rivers, lakes, or oceans.

Once those bodies of water are cold enough, the chunks of ice that have started to form will knock against each other forming elliptical-shaped discs with rounded edges.

"A signature feature of pancake ice is raised edges or ridges on the perimeter, caused by the pancakes bumping into each other from the ocean waves," the National Snow and Ice Data Centre explains.

Ryan Alioto also took advantage of the cold temperatures moving across the Great Lakes region by taking photos and video with his drone on Thursday, while flying it over Lake Michigan in Chicago.

He told CNN that at the time he took the footage the temperature was around 17C.

Other phenomena such as ice balls, ice jams, and even ice bites can also be seen in and along the Great Lakes during winter months.

ECOCIDE
Peru races to save birds threatened by oil spill

By AFP
Published January 23, 2022

A cormorant is among dozens of oil-tainted birds being treated at a Lima zoo - Copyright Parque de las Leyenzas Zoo/AFP -

Carlos MANDUJANO

A Lima zoo is racing to save dozens of seabirds, including protected penguins, left covered in oil after 6,000 barrels of crude spilled off Peru’s coast in the aftermath of the Tonga tsunami.

More than 40 birds, including Humboldt penguins — listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature — were brought to the Parque de Las Leyendas zoo after being rescued from polluted beaches and nature reserves.

“The birds’ prognosis is unclear,” biologist Liseth Bermudez told AFP.

“We are doing everything we can. It is not a common occurrence and we are doing our best.”

A team of veterinarians is caring for the birds, bathing them with special detergents to remove the suffocating oil.

The animals have also been given anti-fungal and anti-bacterial drugs, as well as vitamins.

“We have never seen anything like this in the history of Peru,” said Bermudez, while tending to a bird.

“We didn’t think it was going to be of this magnitude.”

Peru has declared an environmental emergency after almost a million liters (264,000 gallons) of crude spilled into the sea last Saturday when a tanker was hit by big waves while offloading at a refinery.

The abnormally large waves were triggered by the eruption of an undersea volcano near the archipelago of Tonga, thousands of kilometers (miles) away.

The spill near Lima has fouled beaches and harmed the fishing and tourism industries, and crews have been working non-stop to clean up the mess.

– Bird food contaminated –

Biologist Guillermo Ramos of Peru’s Serfor forestry service said more animals will die if the oil spreads.

“There are species here that feed on crustaceans and fish that are already contaminated,” he said.

Serfor staff have found many dead birds and sea otters on beaches and in natural reserves since the spill, he added.

More than 150 bird species in Peru depend on the sea for nutrition and reproduction.

Among the birds rescued alive but in need of help are different types of cormorants and six Humboldt penguins.

Juan Carlos Riveros, scientific director of rescue NGO Oceana Peru, said the oil could affect the reproductive capacity of some animals and cause birth defects, especially in birds, fish and turtles.

Sea currents have spread the spilled oil along the coast more than 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the refinery, affecting 21 beaches, according to the health ministry, which has warned would-be bathers to stay away.

The government has sought compensation from Spanish oil company Repsol, which owns the tanker.

But the company denies responsibility, saying maritime authorities had issued no warning of abnormal waves after the Tonga eruption.

Opnion 

For Israel’s Settlers, It’s War. Their Target: Palestinian Land – and Bodies

Most violent attacks by West Bank settlers are not random acts of hooliganism. They are harnessed to a strategy, a political objective wholehearted endorsed by sections of the current Israeli government


Jewish settlers throw stones towards Palestinian homes in the West Bank village of Burqa: 'Violence to harass, terrorize, and drive out Palestinians has dramatically increased'

Credit: AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed

Ori Nir
HAARETZ
Jan. 23, 2022 

This weekend’s attack on Israeli peace activists by violent West Bank settlers should put to rest any attempts to doubt or dismiss the severity of what is a grotesque and accelerating campaign of terror. But perhaps even more alarming than the attempts to turn a blind eye to settler violence is the misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the settlers’ goals.

Most of the violent attacks by West Bank settlers are not random acts of sporadic hooliganism. The extremist settlers’ violent attacks are harnessed to a strategy, a political objective, which Israeli politicians – including some members of the current coalition government – wholeheartedly endorse.

While that has been the case since I covered these violent acts for Haaretz back in the late 1980s and mid-1990s, the goals of the violence have shifted.

To better understand that strategy, and the way in which violence serves it, it’s worth re-examining the so-called "price tag" phenomenon, which has for more than a decade and a half laid the foundations for what we’re seeing today.

"Price Tag" was a strategy adopted around 2007 by young activist settlers, often endorsed by veteran leaders of the settlement movement, to deter the Israeli government and its law enforcement agencies from dismantling rogue settlements constructed in the West Bank without government authorization, in violation of Israeli law.

Open gallery view

A Palestinian in the West Bank village of Qira stands by a car whose tires Jewish settlers allegedly slashed, spray painting it with the Star of David and Hebrew graffitiCredit: AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed

These proto-settlements, known as illegal outposts, were (and still are) the settlers’ way of expanding their footprint at a time in which the Israeli government halted the establishment of new, authorized, "official" settlements.

The settlers’ leaders vociferously endorsed active resistance to government attempts to dismantle outposts. This resistance gradually turned into violent acts of vandalizing Palestinian property and sometimes bodily harm of Palestinians. The severity of the acts was typically low – graffiti, puncturing tires, cutting trees – so as to avoid accountability, to not overly alienate Israeli public opinion, and to leave room for escalation. Most attacks occurred right after illegally built structures were torn down by Israeli authorities.

Israel's public security minister: Settler attack on activists is 'terrorism'

Why Israeli settlers are targeting Palestinian kids’ playgrounds

Settler violence endangers Israel’s security

For 17 years, stone-throwing settlers have terrorized Palestinian children. I was one of them

The extremist settlers’ hope was that by initiating these attacks, they would deter law enforcement and allow illegal outpost to turn into full-fledged settlements.

The tactic worked. Israeli governments, both under Benjamin Netanyahu and now under Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, rarely take action to dismantle illegal outposts. Those now number approximately 120 throughout the West Bank.

Meanwhile, particularly during Donald Trump’s four-year term, the Israeli government shifted its policy toward illegal outposts from enforcement of the law to legalization of the blatantly unlawful. Officially so. The legalization effort accompanied a government drive – fueled by the settlers and their lobby in the Knesset and the government – to bolster Israel’s grasp on Area C of the West Bank.

Area C, about 61 percent of the West Bank, in which all Israeli settlements are located, was designated by the Oslo Accords as an area under full Israeli security and administrative control. It was not destined to be annexed to the State of Israel, however. Most of it, according to past Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, would become a part of the future state of Palestine.

While former Prime Minister Netanyahu flirted with the idea of annexing Area C to Israel, his defense minister, Naftali Bennett, a former director of the settlers’ Yesha Council and who previously published a plan to annex Area C, announced exactly two years ago the establishment of a "forum to fight for the future of Area C" in the Ministry of Defense.

Open gallery view

Israeli settlers adjust a large Star of David in the recently established wildcat outpost of Eviatar as seen from the nearby Palestinian village of Beita, near the West Bank city of Nablus last year

Credit: AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed

The goal was to encourage Israeli settlement construction and outpost legalization and to discourage Palestinian construction in Area C. In practice, the goal was de-facto annexation of Area C. Bennett at the time said: "The State of Israel’s policy is that Area C belongs to it. We are not the UN." While this was not endorsed as the official policy of the Bennett-Lapid government, creeping annexation continues.

Enforcement to remove unlawful construction in illegal outposts has all but stopped, and the government connected most of the illegal outposts to Israel’s national water system and to the electrical grid.

For the settlers, Bennett’s 2019 push signaled a paradigm shift, a huge victory and an opportunity. Now the government is formally on their side, actively working with them to legalize the illegal, to endorse a rogue tool used to systematically seize land from Palestinians, and to dispossess Palestinians.

Open gallery view

A Palestinian family is seen through their house's shattered window following a settlers' attack from nearby illegal outposts in the West Bank village of al-Mufagara, near Hebron last year

Credit: AP Photo/Nasser Nasser

Indeed, in the past couple of years, this became the strategic objective of the settlers, their imperative. And the use of anti-Palestinian violence to harass, terrorize, and dispossess Palestinians has dramatically increased. It is a tool to drive Palestinians out, to maximize Israeli presence there and minimize Palestinian presence. As simple as that.

With government wind in their sails, the settlers have been fighting in the past couple of years what they view as a zero-sum war in Area C. And - à la guerre comme à la guerre – when you fight, you use violence.

Law enforcement efforts alone are not enough for settler violence to subside, for its perpetrators to be caught and for the violence itself to be deemed as utterly illegitimate. An effective effort must include a political shift.

The government of Israel must divorce itself from the very objective of the violence: A no holds-barred land grab. Otherwise, the perpetrators will continue to view themselves as acting on behalf of the state to advance its goals.


Ori Nir, formerly Haaretz's West Bank and Washington correspondent, is Americans for Peace Now's vice president for public affairs. Twitter: @OriNir_APN

Protesters rally in republic of Georgia in support of Ukraine

Demonstrators carrying Ukrainian, Georgian, EU and NATO flags gather in front of Ukraine’s embassy in Tbilisi

Davit Kachkachishvili |24.01.2022

Gürcistan'da Ukrayna'ya destek gösterisi


TBLISI, Georgia

Protesters held a rally Sunday in Georgia’s capital calling on the government to send a clear message of solidarity with Ukraine amid heightened tensions between Kyiv and Moscow.

The demonstrators, carrying Ukrainian, Georgian, European Union and NATO flags, gathered in front of the Ukrainian Embassy in the capital Tbilisi.

Chanting slogans against Russia such as "Stop Russia" and "Long live the friendship of Georgia and Ukraine," they announced their support for Ukraine.

Representatives of opposition parties and Ukrainians living in Georgia also took part in the rally.

The demonstrators noted that Russia occupied Ossetia in Georgia and Crimea in Ukraine, adding the two countries have similar problems regarding territorial integrity.

Tbilisi fought a five-day war with Russia in 2008 over Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Georgia lost control of both areas and Russia later recognized both South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

Speaking at the beginning of the rally, Georgia's former ambassador to the US, Batu Kutelia, said Ukraine is Georgia's strategic partner and its brother country.

Noting that the Georgian people are in solidarity with Ukraine, Kutelia said that even the Soviet Union collapsed with the solidarity of the West.

"Solidarity is a very powerful weapon,” he added.

Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014 in a move that has never received international recognition and which has been decried as illegal under international law.

Russia recently amassed tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine’s eastern border, prompting fears that the Kremlin could be planning another military offensive against its former Soviet neighbor.

Moscow has denied that it is preparing to invade and said its troops are there for exercises.

Working from home: how it changed us forever

Office staff working late into the evening. 

Photograph: olaser/Getty Images

As people in England are told to return to the office, five Observer writers assess the impact of the last two years on work, home – and our wider social framework

Eva Wiseman, Rowan Moore, Jay Rayner, Susie Orbach and Zoe Wood
Sun 23 Jan 2022 

Office life

The future of work might find efficiency in compassion: it might not be focused on cities or require five-day weeks

Eva Wisman

I’ve read and thought more about office life over the last two years than I have at any time over the previous two decades when I worked in one. I say worked, but of course from this distance I can see that what I called office work might not quite stand up in a court of law, being comprised of equal amounts gossip, tea-runs and shouting passive aggressively at computers, alongside the clattery typing I am paid for.

There was a moment, in those early pandemic days, the days of shock and clapping, before the felt-tip rainbows in our windows faded to a ghostly grey, when the closure of offices felt like an opportunity. The future of work might find efficiency in compassion – it might not be focused on cities or require five-day weeks, or offices with dubious rat control. For many of us, once we had cleared a decent space at the kitchen table and evacuated our children, working from home for the first time in our lives was a revelation. Yet every day brought another small hurdle, a step forward in our psychosocial development.

Zoom meetings required a new kind of listening, along with the daily shock of our large, lined face at rest. The fashions we’d cultivated were now obsolete. Bras and heels and other such fripperies seemed suddenly absolutely ridiculous, and Zoom style (bold accessories and jazzy jumpers) took hold. We learned how to translate the nuanced opacity of a colleague’s Gchat in under three hours. Once we’d clarified that our bosses were human, and not of the Pimlico Plumbers founder’s mould (“The virus has turned millions into selfish, cowardly liars who don’t give a damn about their fellow citizens so long as they can hide away at home while continuing to get paid,” he said in 2020) we felt confident enough to fold our days into new shapes that allowed such luxuries as a mid-afternoon dentist appointment. And still, still we did our work. Better, some say. Faster, without the grim commute or distraction of eight other people’s failing relationships, or emails about toilets and printers and “please refrain from leaving plates in the sink”, or the exhausting knowledge that at any moment the person you fancy from the post room might appear and you’ll have to look up, glittering and fabulous.

Though England has ended its work-from-home guidance, this time, surely, for good, we won’t forget what we learned, the new ways of communicating, the particular realisations about our own mangled productivity, the importance of switching off when the work day ends. But nor will we forget what we missed about office culture, and what we appreciate afresh – the thrill of really good gossip, the unlikely community there, the change that happens when you leave the house. As many British office spaces remain vacant, it is projected that one in 10 will no longer be required by 2027, which suggests that while the grand work revolution is yet to emerge, a smaller shift, allowing a flake of flexibility, has taken place. One that has unearthed, among the coffee cups and charger cables, some dusty humanity.

Housing

If it’s tolerable to live further away from work, a house, a garden, might become affordable

Rowan Moore

One of the most enduring and intractable problems of British society is housing. There aren’t enough homes in the places where – for economic and sometimes social reasons – there is the greatest demand. This means London and some other big cities such as Bristol, Manchester and Edinburgh, Cambridge and Oxford, the south-east. Decades of attempts to build more homes in and around these hotspots repeatedly founder on local opposition (some of it reasonable, some of it not) to development. Too little gets built, and at too high a price.

Working from home offers the attractive prospect of at least partly addressing this problem without laying a brick. If you only have to go into your office three days a week, it’s tolerable to live further away, in less overheated parts of the country, where the use of existing housing stock is slacker. A house, a garden – things which should not be unattainable dreams – might become affordable to those previously excluded from them. If you can’t bring more affordable houses to where people are, in other words, perhaps people can choose places where affordable houses are.

Other benefits would follow. People working from home might contribute more to their local economies and their famously suffering high streets by spending the money that they would otherwise be handing over to a big city Pret a Manger. They might have the time and mental space to be active members of local communities. It can only be a good thing if daily mass commutes become less intense. There would be environmental advantages to putting existing buildings to good use rather than building new homes.

There are also drawbacks to this redistribution of human and financial energy. It can simply mean gentrification on a national scale. One of the less happy effects of the pandemic has been the pressure on notable beauty spots in places like Cornwall and Wales, as well-off buyers seek rural idylls for their remote working, further squeezing locals out of the housing market.

There are plenty of jobs that can never be done remotely, often poorly paid, and relocation to less-expensive parts of the country is no kind of solution to the housing issues of those who do them.

But there has never been any one solution to something as big, complex and multi-faceted as the housing crisis. What is the case is that there are many parts of the country where two- and three-storeyterraced houses can cost a tenth of what otherwise identical homes sell for in London. The disparity presents opportunities that shouldn’t be lost in thestrange urge to rush back to five-day-a-week commuting.

In Boris Johnson’s Peppa Pig speech last November, an event so much outshone by subsequent scandals that it seems to belong to another era, he hinted that people who partly work from home might be called twats, on the basis that they come into their offices only on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Instead of throwing out cheap insults, he should salute them for their role in helping with one of the many problems his government is failing to solve.

Food and drink

People have discovered the joy of meal kits even if, or even because, they require a little finishing

Jay Rayner


In the summer of 2021, the north-west-based chef Gary Usher crowdfunded a new business. There was nothing new in that; he’d done it numerous times for his restaurants. On this occasion, however, it was to fund a different kind of enterprise: one that would prepare and deliver the meal kit boxes that had got him through the pandemic. “There’s no doubt that the lockdowns created an entirely new revenue stream for restaurant businesses like mine,” Usher says. He did bigger trade in those kits over Christmas 2021, despite there being no lockdown, than he did in 2020, when there was a lockdown. It has, he says, continued into January.

People have discovered the joy of importing restaurant-quality food into their homes even if, or perhaps even because, it requires a little finishing at home. Companies like Dishpatch, which works with well-known chefs including Michel Roux Jr, Angela Hartnett and Ravneet Gill to create ambitious meal kits, are thriving. Meanwhile, takeaways have become ever more sophisticated, and there have even been major advances in recyclable and compostable packaging. For the food sector, innovation in food delivery is the big dividend of the pandemic.

For restaurants, the picture is much more mixed. “The positives are that demand remains strong,” says Kate Nicholls of industry body UKHospitality. “When restrictions are lifted, diners do want to come out and have a good time.” But it depends on location. The centre of London is in a dire state, with trading at only 20% to 30% of normal. In other city centres, it’s around 60%. It’s in the suburbs, closer to where people actually live, that business is building healthily.

But the restaurants themselves, robbed of Christmas business by Omicron and battered by staff shortages and food price inflation, may not be so healthy. “A third of hospitality businesses have no cash reserves,” Nicholls says.

What’s more, they are trading into massive headwinds. “Both the lower VAT rate for hospitality and the rent moratorium will finish at the end of March,” Nicholls says. “Plus, there’s the increase to the national living wage, and the energy bill hike. It all amounts to a 13% cost price hike in the sector.” Diners may be ready to eat out; a lot of the restaurants may no longer be there to feed them, without continued government support, she says.

Which leaves many of us at home, interrogating our own kitchen skills. There’s no doubt there’s been an awful lot of that, perhaps by necessity. The growth in retail food sales at the big supermarkets has been marked, up 5.4% year on year in 2020, then up again another 3.1% in 2021. In a retail market worth more than £90bn, this is an enormous increase in spend on food to be consumed inside the home rather than outside. But what are people doing with it all?
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If cookbook sales – which saw double-digit percentage increases – are anything to go by, they are trying to improve their repertoire. As we finally emerge from restrictions it seems many of us have become rather better, and rather more ambitious, cooks. And all thanks to a virus.

Relationships

Will I have to learn new social codes? What will it be like being in the same room as my boss?

Susie Orbach

The difference between imagining going back to the office – sometime – and the announcement that we are to go back, is like night and day. A languorous exploration of what an individual was wanting, looking forward to or dreading, allowed for all possibilities: it will be good to see everyone, I will hate the journey, I hope the office venting is sound, I can’t wait to have my lunch out and be part of an old but new physical ambience. The envisioning was abundant.

Being able to challenge five days of relentless commuting and the juggling of domestic life had sparked creative solutions inconceivable two years ago. Some had babies in lockdown and can’t imagine leaving them even for a few hours. Others were desperate to leave their childhood bedrooms or demanding partners who didn’t take one’s work as seriously as their own. The anticipation of being a little more separate was intoxicating for those who didn’t want to see their schleppy partner, or themselves, in joggers endlessly, who didn’t want another’s moods or needs constantly on show. The chance to sparkle, to get away from the domestic, from all those meals and dishes, was a magical fantasy.

But there was also an ennui. Will we go back to the office only to find ourselves returning to the home again? Is the dangerous phase really over? Will we be gearing up only to deflate again? What kind of choices and personal agency will I have? How do I protect my vulnerable colleagues?

Then the announcement came. You will return to work. No exemptions, unless your work decides it. An excitement and a chill. A fear as well. Will I lose the easy sharing and continuity I have with my partner, where we have to come to know what each other actually does daily as well as the triumphs and grinds of the jobs we do? Will it be akin to riding a bike or do I have to learn new social codes? What will it be like to be in the same room as my boss, students, co-workers? How will I respond to their smells, their looming, their presence and a work etiquette so different from bendy boundaries of work-from-home?

Last spring I was approached by a few HR departments of large companies to prepare seminars for staff on returning to work. Interestingly, nothing came of the initiatives. It simply wasn’t real enough to be happening, and the more pressing need was to help staff with the psychological changes – both helpful and difficult – that the stop-go of Covid was creating for the new geographies of work. It needed to address present dilemmas, not prospective ones.

Work was and is where many live, thrive, have their struggles, have their identities affirmed or negated or some mix of the two. Now that the injunction to be at the office is seriously on the table, discussions are more focused on the practicalities of avoiding rush hour or finding childcare again and on the nervousness of leaving one’s nest, how to get as much work done as one was doing when not commuting, managing one’s boss’s expectations and so on.

The passion many Observer readers bring to work will be recast in the following weeks as the balance between togetherness and separation on the home front is recalibrated. Expect confusion, relief, pleasures and frustrations. In other words, life. We make it where we find it, rarely in conditions of our own making but which we mould as much as we can to satisfy ourselves.

Shopping

Lockdowns turned homewares into fast fashion used to dress home offices for work Zoom calls

Zoe Wood

The high street limped into the pandemic and the edict to work from home caused a retail earthquake. Shops were already closing and, two years of turmoil later, it has turbocharged the shift to online shopping and cost the high street billions of pounds of trade. In February 2020 online sales were around a fifth of retail spending, but by that Christmas they would be 37%. The easing of restrictions has seen that number fall back to 28%, but it is a dramatic shift in the balance of power that will affect the long-term financial viability of some high-street outlets.

The hiatus forced people to replace shopping trips with clicks and buy everything from groceries to wardrobe updates (read tracksuit trousers and slippers) to toiletries and cars, online.

This topsy-turviness, with so much time spent in our houses and flats, also had a dramatic impact on the profile of spending as people diverted cash spent on foreign holidays and socialising into room makeovers and garden projects.

With social lives on hold, the going-out look was ditched in favour of cosy comfort. The trend was writ large in John Lewis’s annual shopping report as demand for slippers, pyjamas and dressing gowns rocketed while the casualties included neck ties, briefcases, makeup bags and thongs.

But if people were less invested in how they looked, the opposite was true of their homes. Lockdowns turned homewares into fast fashion used to dress home offices for work Zoom calls. This focus on home and hearth in 2021 saw an extra £500m spent in DIY stores, while the country’s 1.2 million new gardeners spent an extra £50m on plants, sheds and decking.

This tilt to the web was the final nail in the coffin for big high street names already on the ropes, with Debenhams and Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia shutting all their stores, following BHS.

House of Fraser and John Lewis are still standing, but the department store model, with its fragrant beauty counters and huge expanses of fashion, has been shaken hard by restrictions that made it hard to try on clothes or smell perfume, or basically take any enjoyment from shopping. It will be difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.

With restaurants, cafes and pubs often off limits, the pandemic also signalled big changes for supermarkets. The big weekly shop came back with a bang while other consumers, including older shoppers, embraced home delivery for the first time. After going through the initial pain of setting up accounts, many are converts.

With the number of empty stores at a record high, the pandemic has left scars on nearly every high street and shopping centre. But despite the gloom it is too early to deliver the postmortem because the sands are shifting again as last week’s reports of downturn at lockdown winners Peloton, the trendy exercise bike maker, and Netflix attest.

In the UK Aldi is ditching Deliveroo’s delivery services because shoppers are returning to its stores. This is likely to be a trend as the cost-of-living crisis sees people seek out cheaper stores. We get the high street we deserve, so use it or lose it.

KILLER BOT

Israeli firm develops an infantry drone that can fire machine guns and sniper rifles at targets while flying

Alia Shoaib

Smart Shooter's SMASH Dragon allows rifles to be mounted on drones. Smart Shooter

An Israeli company has developed an armed drone system that can fire infantry weapons while flying.

The Smash Dragon can strike static and moving targets while hovering above.

The next-generation fighting drone was designed by the company Smart Shooter.

An Israeli arms manufacturer has developed a robot weapon that can fire infantry weapons at static and moving targets while flying.

The Smash Dragon, designed by Israeli company Smart Shooter, can be mounted on different forms of unmanned aerial platforms, such as drones, and can strike targets while hovering over them.

An assault or sniper rifle can be mounted to the system and remotely triggered by an operator.

The weapon is "extremely lightweight" and uses a "unique stabilization concept," which allows it to precisely hit targets no matter how fast the drone is traveling, the company said in a press release shared with Insider.


The system has sophisticated computer vision capabilities and works during the day and the night.

The SMASH Dragon has completed successful live firing tests and is in the advanced stages of development but is not yet operational, the company said.

The system will utilize the company's Smash 2000 technology, which uses built-in targeting algorithms to track and strike targets with precision.

The technology has been used to take down Hamas drones and incendiary balloons launched from Gaza, The Jerusalem Post previously reported.


"Smart Shooter's SMASH technology offers precise elimination of threats at ground, air, and sea," Smart Shooter CEO Michal Mor said in a statement shared with Insider.

"We are now happy to offer the same precise, combat-proven target engagement technology mounted on an unmanned aerial platform that can be controlled from a distance," he said.

Mor said it was critical to keep the system lightweight as weight impacts mission endurance and cost when it comes to drones.


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Researchers break down WhisperGate wiper malware used in Ukraine website defacement

The wiper is similar to malware previously used in attacks against the country – with added functions.

Written by Charlie Osborne, Contributor
Posted in Zero Day on January 24, 2022 | Topic: Security

The malware used to strike Ukrainian government websites has similarities to the NotPetya wiper but has more capabilities "designed to inflict additional damage," researchers say.

Dubbed WhisperGate, the malware is a wiper that was used in cyberattacks against website domains owned by the country's government. The spate of attacks led to the defacement of at least 70 websites and a further 10 subject to "unauthorized interference," according to the Security Service of Ukraine, State Special Service and Cyber Police.

The wave of attacks was made public on January 14. Websites impacted included the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Education and Science, and various state services.

The defacement and reported compromise of at least two government systems come at a time when there appears to be a growing threat of invasion by Russia into Ukraine, despite the country denying any such plans. The UK has recently pulled a number of UK embassy staff out of Kyiv in response.

Microsoft has published an analysis of WhisperGate, which was discovered on January 13. In a follow-up, Cisco Talos said it was likely that stolen credentials provided the access point for the deployment of the wiper.

Cisco Talos says that two wipers are used in WhisperGate attacks. The first wiper attempts to destroy the master boot record (MBR) and to eradicate any recovery options.

"Similar to the notorious NotPetya wiper that masqueraded as ransomware during its 2017 campaign, WhisperGate is not intended to be an actual ransom attempt, since the MBR is completely overwritten," the researchers say.

However, with many modern systems now moving to GUID Partition Tables (GPTs), this executable may not be successful – and so an additional wiped has been included in the attack chain.

In the second stage, a downloader pulls code required for the third step. After a base64-encoded PowerShell command is executed twice and an endpoint is requested to enter sleep mode for 20 seconds. A Discord server URL, hardcoded into the downloader, is then pinged to grab a .DLL file.

The .DLL, written in C#, is obfuscated with the Eazfuscator, a .NET platform obfuscator and optimizer. The .DLL is a dropper that deploys and executes the main wiper payload through a VBScript. In addition, Windows Defender settings are tampered with to exclude the target drive from scans.

"The fourth-stage wiper payload is probably a contingency plan if the first-stage wiper fails to clear the endpoint," Cisco Talos says.

In the fourth stage, the wiper seeks out fixed and remote logical drives to target. Enumeration then occurs and files are wiped in drives outside of the "%HOMEDRIVE%\Windows" directory. Files with one of 192 extensions, including .HTML, .PPT, .JPG, .RAR, .SQL, and .KEY, are destroyed.

"The wiper will overwrite the content of each file with 1MB worth of 0xCC bytes and rename them by appending each filename with a random four-byte extension," Talos says. "After the wiping process completes, it performs a delayed command execution using Ping to delete "InstallerUtil.exe" from the %TEMP% directory. Finally, it attempts to flush all file buffers to disk and stop all running processes (including itself) by calling ExitWindowsEx Windows API with EWX_SHUTDOWN flag."

Following the cyberattack, the European Union said it was mobilizing "all its resources" to assist Ukraine, NATO has pledged its support, and US President Biden has warned Russia of a cyber 'response' if Ukraine continues to be targeted.

CISA has recommended (.PDF) that organizations in general, as well as those linked to Ukraine, implement multi-factor authentication for remote systems, disable ports and access points that are not business-critical, and that strong controls be implemented for cloud services to mitigate the risk of compromise.

"We assess with medium confidence that stolen credentials were used in the attack based on our investigation thus far," Cisco Talos says. "We have high confidence that the actors had access to some victim networks in advance of the attacks, potentially for a few months or longer. This is a common trait of sophisticated APT attacks."

PREVIOUS AND RELATED COVERAGE
A 'massive' hacking attack has hit government websites in Ukraine

Ukraine says more than 70 government websites were defaced, 10 were subjected to 'unauthorized interference'

Biden warns of US 'cyber' response after Ukraine says computers wiped during attack

Edmonton Humane Society gets $60,000 from the #BettyWhiteChallenge

Hamdi Issawi 

Animal shelters in and around Edmonton are thankful for having Betty White as a friend after a charitable challenge in her memory has sent thousands of dollars their way.© Provided by Edmonton Journal The #BettyWhiteChallenge has led to thousands of dollars in donations to animal shelters and rescues in and around Edmonton.

When White, an animal welfare advocate and renowned actor of Golden Girls fame, died on Dec. 31, a social media campaign under the #BettyWhiteChallenge hashtag followed, encouraging netizens to donate to local animal shelters and rescues on Jan. 17 — what would have been her 100th birthday.

Liza Sunley, CEO of the Edmonton Humane Society, said the organization has received about $60,000 so far from more than 1,700 donations that began trickling in after White’s death and culminated on Monday.

“To see a whole new group of people come forward and say that animal welfare is important, and that they value the work that we do, has been really heartwarming,” Sunley said.

Proceeds from the campaign, which went viral on social media, will help the Edmonton non-profit fund shelter programs, including food, training and medical care for homeless and neglected animals, Sunley added.

In Sherwood Park, just east of Edmonton, the Companion Animal Welfare Society (CAWS) said it’s “beyond grateful” for the $8,700 in donations it reported on Facebook Thursday — just over a week after announcing a funding crisis that forced it to halt intakes.

With veterinary expenses costing the organization more that $10,000 a month, “these donations get us one step closer to being able to take in animals again,” CAWS said in a Thursday Facebook post.

Both the Whitecourt Homeless Animal Rescue Foundation (WHARF) in Edmonton, and the Farm Animal Rescue and Rehoming Movement (FARRM), an animal sanctuary near Wetaskiwin, about 70 km south of Edmonton, also reported fundraising windfalls on Facebook to the tune of about $3,000 each — also in White’s name.

“Donations are so important in helping animal rescues provide medical care, specialized health care, enrichment, and food (plus countless other things),” FARRM said in a Tuesday Facebook post, “and we couldn’t do it without your support!”

According to Meta, Facebook’s parent company, about 26,000 people contributed nearly $900,000 to various #BettyWhiteChallenge fundraisers across the company’s social media platforms, and as of Friday more than 390,000 people raised $12.7 million for various animal shelters and rescues.

Compared to other fundraising campaigns she’s seen throughout her career, Sunley said the Betty White Challenge is remarkable for its generosity as well as its namesake.

A darling in the public eye, White was a self-proclaimed “zoo nut” connected to several animal welfare initiatives on top of a television and film career that spanned more than 60 years.

Despite the economic hardship caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, White’s name, fame and reputation made it easy to rally the masses and encourage people to donate as little as $5 to local animal serving organizations, Sunley said.

“She was beloved, and I think that’s what’s made this so unique and special,” she said. “Seeing the conversations online, on social media and just the attention that it’s gotten, I think, has really been a nice legacy for her to leave behind.”

— With files from Variety

hissawi@postmedia.com

@hamdiissawi