Out of this world:

Shepard put golf on moon 50 years ago

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Fifty years later, it remains the most impressive bunker shot in the history of golf, mainly because of the location.

The moon.

Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard and his crew brought back about 90 pounds of moon rocks on Feb. 6, 1971. Left behind were two golf balls that Shepard, who later described the moon's surface as “one big sand trap,” hit with a makeshift 6-iron to become a footnote in history.


Francis Ouimet put golf on the front page of American newspapers by winning the 1913 U.S. Open. Gene Sarazen put the Masters on the map by holing a 235-yard shot for an albatross in the final round of his 1935 victory.

Shepard outdid them all. He put golf in outer space.

“He might have put golf on the moon map,” Jack Nicklaus said this week. “I thought it was unique for the game of golf that Shepard thought so much about the game that he would take a golf club to the moon and hit a shot.”

Shepard became the first American in space in 1961 as one of NASA's seven original Mercury astronauts. After being sidelined for years by an inner ear problem he became the fifth astronaut to walk on the moon as Apollo 14 commander.

But he did more than just walk the moon.

Shepard waited until the end of the mission before he surprised American viewers and all but a few at NASA who did not know what Shepard had up his sleeve — or in this case, up his socks. That's how he got the golf gear in space.

“Houston, you might recognize what I have in my hand as the contingency sample return; it just so happens to have a genuine 6-iron on the bottom of it,” Shepard said. "In my left hand, I have a little white pellet that’s familiar to millions of Americans.”

He hit more moon than ball on his first two attempts. The third he later referred to as a shank. And he caught the last one flush, or as flush as an astronaut can hit a golf ball while swinging with one hand in a pressurized spacesuit that weighs 180 pounds (on Earth).

“We used to say it was the longest shot in the history of the world because it hasn't come down yet,” famed golf instructor Butch Harmon said with a laugh.

Harmon is loosely connected with the shot through his relationship with Jack Harden Sr., the former head pro at River Oaks Country Club in Houston whom Shepard asked to build him a 6-iron he could take to the moon. Harden managed to attach the head of a Wilson Staff Dyna-Power 6-iron to a collapsible tool used to collect lunar samples.

The shots did come down on the moon. Still up for debate is how far they went.

“Miles and miles and miles,” Shepard said in a light moment that was broadcast in colour to a captive television audience watching from nearly 240,000 miles away.

Not quite. The shot for years has been estimated at 200 yards, remarkable considering how much the bulk of his spacesuit restricted Shepard's movement. He had even practiced in his spacesuit in a bunker in Houston when no one was around.

On occasion of the 50-year anniversary, British-based imaging specialist Andy Saunders provided a more accurate account. Saunders, who is working on a book called, “Apollo Remastered,” worked out through digital enhancing and stacking techniques of video footage that the first shot went 24 yards. The second ball went 40 yards.

Former PGA champion Jimmy Walker hits a 6-iron about 200 yards on Earth. Walker, a space enthusiast with a skill and passion for astrophotography, worked with the USGA and Saunders as the Apollo 14 anniversary neared to see how far he could hit a 6-iron in one-sixth gravity of the moon.

“He was known for saying miles and miles,” Walker said. “They took my launch conditions and said my ball would fly 4,600 yards and it would have just over a minute of hang time.”

That would be a little over 2 1/2 miles.

That also would be a conventional 6-iron while wearing golf shoes and a sweater vest.

What stands out all these years later is Shepard even thinking about taking a golf club to the moon and back. The inspiration came from Bob Hope, who carried a golf club just about everywhere he went. That included a trip to Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston a year before the Apollo 14 mission.

According to USGA historian Michael Trostel, that's what made Shepard realize a golf shot would be the ideal illustration of the moon's gravitational pull. To build a club, he found the right person in Harden at River Oaks.

“He was incessant tinkerer with equipment,” said Brandel Chamblee, a Golf Channel analyst and longtime friend of Harden's son. "I would tease Jack and his father, any club they got had been ‘Hardenized.’ No club off the rack was ever good enough for them. They always changed the lie, the loft, the bounce. They used lead tape. It was apropos he made Shepard's 6-iron.”

Convincing his superiors took some doing. In a 1998 interview with NASA, Shepard said he ran his idea by the director of the Manned Spaceflight Center who told him, “Absolutely no way.” Shepard told him club and two golf balls wouldn't cost the taxpayers anything. And he would only do it if the entire mission was a complete success.

Shepard said he told director Bob Gilruth, “I will not be so frivolous. I want to wait until the very end of the mission, stand in front of the television camera, whack these golf balls with this makeshift club, fold it up, stick it in my pocket, climb up the ladder, and close the door, and we’ve gone.”

The actual club is one of the prize exhibits at the USGA Museum in New Jersey, which came with one awkward moment.

“He donates it at a ceremony at the 1974 U.S. Open,” Trostel said. "NASA called him later and said it was looking at the club for the Smithsonian. He said he already had donated it to the USGA Museum. They said, ‘Mr. Shepard, that’s government property.' We had a replica commissioned and gave it to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.”

For years, no one knew what golf balls he used and Shepard was determined to avoid any commercialism. Chamblee and Harmon unlocked the mystery this week, and it came with a twist.

They were range balls from River Oaks.

“Within the Hardens, the legacy is he gave him golf balls from the range that had ‘Property of Jack Harden’ on them,” Chamblee said. “Technically — if the balls aren't melted — Jack is the only person who owns property on the moon.”

All because of a one-handed swing by Shepard, still the only person to hit a golf ball on the moon.

“It was designed to be a fun thing,” Shepard said in the 1998 interview, five months before his death at age 74. “Fortunately, it is still a fun thing.”

Doug Ferguson, The Associated Press

Pope seeks 'Copernican revolution' for post-COVID economy

COPERNICUS WAS LABELED A HERETIC BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OF HIS DAY, DR JOHN DEE A MONIST DEFENDED COPERNICUS THEORY THOUGH HE TOO DISPUTED IT AS AN ASTROLOGER

ROME — Pope Francis urged governments on Monday to use the coronavirus crisis as a revolutionary opportunity to create a world that is more economically and environmentally just — and where basic health care is guaranteed for all.

Francis made the appeal in his annual foreign policy address to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, an appointment that was postponed for two weeks after he suffered a bout of sciatica nerve pain that made standing and walking difficult.

Francis urged the governments represented in the Apostolic Palace to contribute to global initiatives to provide vaccines to the poor and to use the pandemic to reset what he said was a sick economic model that exploits the poor and the Earth.

“There is need for a kind of new Copernican revolution that can put the economy at the service of men and women, not vice versa,” he said, referring to the 16th-century paradigm shift that stated the sun was at the centre of the universe, not the Earth.

He said such a revolutionary new economy is “one that brings life not death, one that is inclusive and not exclusive, humane and not dehumanizing, one that cares for the environment and does not despoil it.”

Francis has frequently called for the world to use the pandemic as a chance to re-imagine a global economy that values people and the planet over profits, and one where fraternity and solidarity guide human relationships rather than conflict and division.

The 84-year-old Francis hit those themes in his lengthy address, which was delivered in a larger reception hall than usual to provide greater social distancing for the 88 ambassadors who attended. At the end, Francis invited each one up but said he wouldn't shake their hands and urged them to keep their distance. Francis has been vaccinated against the virus.

In his speech, he called for basic health care to be provided to all. He noted that those on the margins of society and who work in the informal economy have been among the hardest hit by the pandemic, with the fewest social nets to survive it.

“Driven by desperation, many have sought other forms of income and risk being exploited through illegal or forced labour, prostitution and various criminal activities, including human trafficking,” Francis warned.

He said children have suffered from an “educational catastrophe" with closed schools, women have been victims of domestic abuse, the faithful have been deprived of communal worship and that all of humanity has been restricted from close human contact.

“Along with vaccines, fraternity and hope are, as it were, the medicine we need in today’s world," he said.

In addition to the pandemic, Francis listed other areas of particular concern, starting with the coup in Myanmar, which Francis visited in 2017. He called for political leaders to be “promptly released as a sign of encouragement for a sincere dialogue aimed at the good of the country.”

He called for the war in Syria to finally end, noting that 2021 marks its 10th anniversary, and urging the international community to “address the causes of the conflict with honesty and courage and to seek solutions." He praised the U.N. treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons and the extension of the START treaty between the U.S. and Russia.

He also called for disarmament efforts to extend to conventional and chemical weapons.

Nicole Winfield, The Associated Press

Alberta expected to recognize essential COVID workers; NDP says get them top-up funds

EDMONTON — Premier Jason Kenney is expected to discuss a plan today to recognize Alberta's hundreds of thousands of critical workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Opposition NDP says Kenney needs to recognize it’s time to use hundreds of millions of dollars in available federal funding to top up wages.

NDP Leader Rachel Notley says the United Conservative government has used $30 million out of the $347-million maximum in eligible federal funding for essential workers under a deal brokered last year between Ottawa and the provinces.

The federal government promised to provide up to $3 billion if the provinces contributed $1 billion.

Notley says not only is the pay being denied to workers in high-risk jobs, but Alberta is also missing out on the effect the extra spending would have in stimulating the economy.

Kenney has said the government doesn't plan to leave $317 million on the table.

Last week, the premier said he has been consulting with the federal government and with workers in essential services to determine the best way to go ahead.

“We’re not leaving that money on the table,” said Kenney.

“We’ve made an application to the federal government to proceed with the additional $317 million.

“We’ve consulted broadly with the concerned sectors to determine the best way of framing this. We’ve looked closely at what other provinces are doing.”

It’s up to the provinces to decide which occupations are eligible for funding.

Notley said Kenny’s laggard approach has proven costly.

“This was a three-to-one sure bet on money in Albertans’ pockets and the premier chose to play politics rather than support them,” she said Tuesday.

“Even if Jason Kenney were to finally get to work and allow Alberta workers access to this funding tomorrow, Albertans have lost out on hundreds of millions in economic growth and over a thousand jobs at a time when they needed it most.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 10, 2021.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

Veteran Submariners Explain What Might Have Caused Japanese Submarine Collision

Despite all the technology at their disposal, for a submarine crew, the simple act of surfacing can sometimes be fraught with danger. 

BY THOMAS NEWDICK AND TYLER ROGOWAY FEBRUARY 9, 2021

Since our initial report on the collision between the Japanese submarine Soryu and a cargo ship in the Pacific Ocean yesterday, The War Zone has heard a number of interesting theories as to what happened, including from veteran submariners. To get a better understanding of what might have gone wrong during this routine exercise in the waters off the island of Shikoku, we spoke to a former U.S. Navy officer who served aboard submarines extensively and who also worked as a navigation safety instructor. We also asked the opinion of our friend and contributor, Aaron Amick, a veteran sonarman with two decades of experience aboard U.S. Navy submarines.

For the purpose of this article, our first source prefers to keep their identity anonymous. While we don’t know exactly what happened yet, the scenarios they present provide a fascinating insight into the tricky world of underwater operations from someone whose day-to-day job involved “sub driving.”


JAPAN COAST GUARD
Soryu after the accident.


First, a recap of what we know happened. Yesterday, at 10:58 AM local time, around 25 miles southeast of Cape Ashizuri, off the island of Shikoku, which lies southwest of Japan’s main island of Honshu, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s (JMSDF) diesel-electric submarine Soryu collided with the bulk carrier Ocean Artemis. The cargo vessel had departed the Chinese city of Qingdao last Friday and was bound for Okayama Prefecture in western Japan. With 51,000 gross tons and a length of 750 feet, the Ocean Artemis is registered in Hong Kong and was transporting iron ore. For comparison, the submarine has a surfaced displacement of approximately 2,900 tons and a length of just over 275 feet.

Reports state that the collision resulted in injuries to at least three submariners. Initially, the Japanese Ministry of Defense described the damage to the Soryu as limited to masts housing a periscope and a communication antenna. However, photos that have since emerged reveal more considerable damage, including to its dive planes, the starboard one of which is almost broken in two. There also appears to be rather more severe damage to the top of the sail itself, with a number of anechoic tiles missing.

Our submariner source pointed out that automatic identification system (AIS) data — a tracking system that provides logs of vessels’ movements — shows that the Ocean Artemis was heading in a northerly direction and was making between 7.7 and 11.1 knots when it collided with the Soryu. All this information can be gleaned from open sources, including the Marine Traffic website.

Looking at the available evidence, the same source thinks it plausible that the Soryu was submerged, but at a shallow depth. However, the submarine was far enough below the surface to make it impossible to use the periscope. Had the submarine been at periscope depth, it would have been hard to miss a bulk carrier like the Ocean Artemis visually, unless the periscope operator was completely negligent, since it was broad daylight and the weather was fairly good.


JAPAN COAST GUARD

The submariner notes that it looks like the periscope on Soryu is fully raised, suggesting that it did not directly impact the hull of the container ship. This leads to the assumption that the periscope could have been lowered at the time (or otherwise missed the hull). “Otherwise, it would be bent out of shape or sheered off completely (which may be true, because submarines tend to come with two periscopes for redundancy). Again, it is hard to say for sure, but if they were at periscope depth in broad daylight, they ought to have seen the container ship,” they explained.

In the opinion of our source, Ocean Artemis possibly came up from behind in the baffles — traditionally the sonar “blind spot” behind a submarine made famous during the “Crazy Ivan” set-piece sequence in The Hunt For Red October. Two different factors could have combined to ensure the submarine was not able to see the cargo ship. Firstly, the towed sonar array that could be used to detect the vessel above and behind would have been retracted, which is required in order for the submarine to surface. Second, the submarine has no aft-looking hull-mounted sonar, thus requiring frequent baffle clears — turns to “hear” behind the submarine using forward and side sonar arrays. With the submarine most likely heading in a northerly direction, the forward-looking and flank array sonars would have been biased toward the areas with the highest amount of surface traffic. This means the safety-of-ship sensors prioritize the areas with the most hazards, not out to the open ocean, which would not have helped with the Ocean Artemis probably bearing down on the submarine from the rear.


JAPAN COAST GUARD

Coupled with that, having a big cargo ship like the Ocean Artemis approaching from the rear is also the worst case for hydrodynamic forces — Soryu might simply have been sucked up into the ship’s hull due to the Venturi effect. This is not an unknown phenomenon, by any means, and the same thing happened to the Los Angeles class nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Newport News in the south of the Strait of Hormuz in 2007. On that occasion, the submarine was pulled up and into the hull of the Japanese tanker Mogamigawa. The Newport News sustained damage to its bow and the commanding officer was relieved of their command.

The former U.S. Navy submariner also identified certain human factors that could have played a contributing role. The crew of the Soryu may have been fatigued or stressed, or there may have been overconfidence in their abilities, leading to complacency. In the demanding operational environment aboard a submarine, one highly stressful event may have led to a reduction in situational awareness. “These three behavioral characteristics are common in crews post-exercise,” the source notes.




JAPAN COAST GUARD


There is also the possibility that the crew reading the sonar returns aboard the Soryu was unfamiliar with shallow-water acoustic propagation paths. Based on where the mishap occurred, the submarine was likely on the continental shelf, where propagation paths are very different compared to in deep water. As our source explains, “raw data between shallow and deep water can look identical, but mean very different things. i.e., they might have been accustomed to bottom-bounce acoustic signals but were in fact receiving direct path, if they had any signal at all. A direct path contact can be mistaken for a bottom bounce contact at 20 miles away… even to an experienced driver.” In this scenario, it’s suggested that a sonar return from the cargo ship was simply mistaken for a return from the seabed. The ex-U.S. Navy submariner does note, however, that the crews of diesel-electric submarines like the Soryu are typically more adept at shallow water operations than their nuclear-powered counterparts.

Lastly, the incident could have involved a simple collision on the surface of the water, despite it being in broad daylight. After all, “dumber things have happened.”


JAPAN COAST GUARD


Aaron Amick had a bit of a different theory on what may have occurred, telling The War Zone:

Japan’s Soryu SSK collision with the Ocean Artemis reminds us how dangerous submarines are to operate at sea. Judging by the photo taken by helicopter after the February 8th collision, it’s clear the strike occurred on the starboard side of the submarine, damaging the sail, dive surfaces, masts, and antennas. The lack of damage topside forward and aft of the sail suggest a broadside impact. If this is the case, the cargo ship was not in the submarine’s baffles and should have been visible on the sonar displays before the crash.

The damage appears to be limited to the top part of the sail and the fairwater plane, indicating the submarine was in a submerged condition at the time of impact. It is clear the Soryu was making preparations for periscope depth and was sucked up into the passing hull of the Ocean Artemis or was at periscope depth and was pushed aside by the mammoth ship.

Amick, who also runs Subbrief, made the following video explaining the rationale behind his thinking:

Two very insightful possible explanations from two experienced submariners.

Whatever turns out to be the cause of the incident, in this case, we can be thankful that no one was more badly hurt. The former U.S. Navy officer we spoke to also provided a note of caution: as behemoth cargo ships continue to proliferate in the world oceans, unfortunately, the likelihood of these sorts of collisions is only going to increase.

Contact the author: thomas@thedrive.com and tyler@thedrive.com

Why French Leclerc Tanks Have Been Seen Fighting in Yemen

UAE tankers have conveyed to their French counterparts their satisfaction with the Leclerc. The armies of the coalition are reportedly “strongly impressed” by its performance.

In January 2016, the Saudi government approached the Leclerc’s manufacturer, Nexter, to express interest in purchasing a few hundred of the French tanks.

The Emirati Leclercs are split in two armored battalions, one of which remains stationed around Aden, while the other patrols Yemen’s mountainous central region.

by Sebastien Roblin
February 9, 2021 

Here's What You Need to Remember: UAE tankers have conveyed to their French counterparts their satisfaction with the Leclerc. The armies of the coalition are reportedly “strongly impressed” by its performance.

“So what do you think of France’s new super tank, the Leclerc?” a retired colonel in the French army’s logistical brigade jokingly asked me in 2002. “You know, the one we paid a fortune for and that we’ll never use in battle.”

So far his prediction has proved true. The French military has deployed light armored vehicles and air power in its combat missions in Afghanistan, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Central African Republic and Mali.

But the French army’s main battle tanks haven’t fired in anger since the Gulf War.

But in the summer of 2015, the United Arab Emirates threw two battalions of Leclercs into the civil war in Yemen — and from the few sketchy reports, it seems the tank has fared better than the American-made M-1 Abrams has done in the same conflict

France, along with England, has been a pioneer of armored warfare since World War I. At the beginning of World War II, it actually fielded more tanks — and better-armed and -armored ones — than the Germans did, but the French army’s poor doctrine and organization doomed the vehicles.

During the Cold War, France produced two major tank designs — the AMX-13 and AMX-30. The AMX-13 was a light tank. Debuting in 1953, it weighed a mere 13 tons and boasted a long-barrel 75-millimeter gun.

Israel and India both deployed the AMX-13 in heavy fighting against Arab and Pakistani opponents, respectively — and the consensus was that the AMX-13’s mobility was useful, but it was too lightly armored for pitched battles against other tanks.

The French army, however, was convinced that anti-armor weapons were becoming so effective that adding thicker armor was pointless. It preferred to emphasize speed and firepower. Thus, when the AMX-30 tank arrived in 1966, it had only 80 millimeters of armor, compared to the 243 millimeters of armor that protected the United States’ contemporary M-47 Patton tank.

But the AMX-30 still had a decent 105-millimeter gun and, despite its light armor, managed to attract significant foreign orders. It also proved readily adaptable into various support vehicles.

By the early 1980s, a new generation of Western tanks emerged, typified by the American M-1 Abrams. These sported composite armor that was highly resistant to the shaped charges on modern anti-tank missiles. During the 1991 Gulf War, the M-1’s armor proved almost completely immune not only to anti-tank missiles but also to the 125-millimeter armor-piercing shells fired by Russian-made T-72 tanks.

Qatar and France deployed AMX-30s in the same conflict. The Qatari tanks saw action at the Battle at Khafji, where they destroyed three 1950s-vintage T-55 tanks. The Iraqis destroyed two AMX-30s.

Fretting over the AMX-30’s thin armor, coalition commanders all but sidelined the French 6th Light Armor Division, deploying it as a rearguard along the flank of the U.S. Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps.

In the mission, the French armor performed well, ultimately destroying 10 Iraqi tanks. But the French tankers probably wished they’d been able to go to war in the new tank that, at the time, was just a year away from entering service. The Leclerc.

By the 1970s, the French army knew its AMX-30s could not reliably defeat the latest Soviet tanks such as the T-72. The independent-minded French didn’t want to simply buy new tanks from the United States or Germany — they wanted a tank as hard-hitting as the Abrams was, but also lighter and better protected than the American vehicle.

The resulting AMX-56 Leclerc — pronounced “le-claire” — took its name from the French general whose armored division liberated Paris in 1944. It was, at the time, the most expensive tank in the world, costing $9.3 million per vehicle in 2011 dollars. By comparison, a new M-1A2 cost $7.56 million and the Russian T-90 carried a price tag of just $4 million.

The French army fields 406 Leclercs, 240 of which are in its four active tank regiments. There are also 20 recovery-vehicle variants in service.

The three principal Western main battle tanks — the Abrams, the German Leopard 2 and the British Challenger 2 — share many design elements such as 120-millimeter guns, four-person crews and composite armor. While similar in its major performance parameters, the Leclerc exhibits a lot of French quirks.

In place of a human loader, it features an auto-loader system with a rate of fire of 12 shells per minute. The auto-loader reduces the crew to just three — a commander, gunner and driver. The Leclerc has a .50-caliber machine gun in the coaxial position next to the main gun, rather than next to the commander’s hatch.

Its 120-millimeter smoothbore main gun is slightly longer than the Abrams’ is, meaning it can, in theory, penetrate more armor. It’s also capable of firing programmable air-burst high-explosive shells. But the Leclerc’s principal advantages lie in its defensive properties and mobility.

The comparative effectiveness of modern tank armor is difficult to calculate, but the Leclerc and the M-1 appear to have similar frontal armor, though some critics argue the Leclerc’s frontal plate has more weak points around its sensors. In place of the M-1’s Chobham composite armor, the Leclerc boasts an unusual mix of composite, traditional and reactive armor that is slightly more effective against kinetic penetrators fired by other tanks.

The Leclerc’s side armor, however, is clearly superior to the M-1’s. Newer models also feature titanium armor inserts and explosive-reactive armor bricks on the side — belts of explosives that prematurely detonate incoming missiles and shells.

Finally, a Galix grenade launcher in the turret can discharge a variety of munitions including flashbang grenades, high explosives, multi-spectral screening smoke and infrared decoys that can confuse missiles.

The Leclerc also has a smaller turret profile than the Abrams does— making it harder to hit. However, critics argue the smaller turret affords less space for internal upgrades.

At 60 tons, the Leclerc is 10 tons lighter than most Western main battle tanks are. There are many benefits — a good power-to-weight ratio, lower ground pressure, superb acceleration and a comparatively high maximum speed of 45 miles per hour. The Leclerc is a lot more fuel efficient than many other tanks. It can travel 340 miles before refueling, compared to 260 for the Abrams. This reduces the tank’s logistical burden.

Critics claim the Leclercs are difficult to maintain. Defenders of the French vehicle insist this reflects the teething problems of early production models.

Though they haven’t seen combat, French Leclercs have deployed…on peacekeeping missions in Kosovo and Lebanon, where they performed well. In one dramatic incident in Lebanon in 2006, a platoon of four Leclercs confronted between two and five Israeli Merkava tanks attempting to enter the Lebanese village of Marwahin. After a 20-minute standoff, the two sides disengaged.

The French unveiled a new upgrade, the Leclerc XLR, in June 2016, with the goal of keeping Leclercs relevant until 2040. In addition to new sensors and electronics, the XLR would have modular armor kits, including one kit protecting against IEDs by jamming cellular signals and another optimized for defeating rocket-propelled grenades.

The United Arab Emirates was the only other army to purchase Leclercs. The UAE acquired 390 “tropicalized” versions with V12 engines plus 46 armored recovery vehicles. The UAE Leclercs also deployed on the Kosovo peacekeeping mission, where a contrast was stark. The Emirati Leclercs boasted superior sensors and systems compared to the French tanks.

The Emirati army bought 13 Azure armor kits with slatted bar armor designed to detonate the warheads of rocket-propelled grenades before they impact the hull. The U.S. Army fielded a similar urban-combat upgrade in Iraq. Azure also includes a remotely-operated machine gun.

While the French Leclercs remain unblooded, the Emirati tanks have actually seen combat — in Yemen, where the UAE has deployed between 70 and 80 Leclercs.

When Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh was deposed in 2011, Houthi tribes felt squeezed out of the new government and launched a full-scale rebellion in 2015.

Complicating matters was that Yemen’s military was already engaged in intense counterinsurgency campaign against Al-Qaeda militants who had carved out footholds in the countryside.

By the end of March 2015, the Houthis were close to triumphing, having captured the capital of Sana’a and seized territory in the port city of Aden. Perceiving the Houthis to be Iranian proxies, Saudi Arabia intervened at the head of a coalition of Arab states.

The Saudi-led coalition, benefiting from U.S. logistical and technical support, succeeded in recapturing Aden, but has sustained heavy casualties from the Houthi fighters. The coalition stands accused of indiscriminately bombing civilians.

By July 2015, Saudi ground forces were bogged down attempting to capture the Al Anad air base near Aden. An Emirati armor brigade conducted an amphibious landing — most likely via tank landing craft — at an oil refinery terminal, a major logistical feat for the small country. The armored brigade rolled down the N-1 highway and captured the air base on Aug. 3, allowing coalition forces to break out of Aden.

The Emirati Leclercs are split in two armored battalions, one of which remains stationed around Aden, while the other patrols Yemen’s mountainous central region. The armored brigade also includes a mechanized battalion of Russian BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles equipped with 100-millimeter guns, plus a battery of G6 155-millimeter self-propelled howitzers.

In videos, Leclercs can be seen racing down roads and firing their main guns in urban skirmishes. But how effective are they? It’s unclear whether the Emirati tanks have directly clashed with the Houthis’ own small number of captured tanks. But there is some information to work with.

So far there aren’t videos of Leclercs being destroyed — which can’t be said for the other vehicles of the coalition. Houthi rebels have filmed their destruction, by way of long-range anti-tank missiles, of at least nine Saudi M-1A2S tanks. At least five M-60 Pattons and two AMX-30s have also been destroyed. Additionally, the Houthis devastated a column of Emirati M-ATV mine-resistant vehicles in an ambush.

Sources in the UAE state that Leclercs have been damaged four times by anti-tank weapons. It appears two incidents involved IEDs, a third involved a rocket-propelled grenade that deflected off the target tank’s Azure slat armor and the fourth involved an anti-tank missile.

In all cases, the Leclercs survived, although a missile did kill a tank commander when it struck the commander’s hatch.

One Leclerc may have been knocked out while not in use. On Sept. 4, 2015, an SS-21 Tochka ballistic missile fired by a Yemen army unit allied with the Houthis slammed into an arms depot at Marib Airfield. The ensuing detonation killed 45 people and reportedly damaged a parked Leclerc.

To be clear, other factors may explain the lack of combat losses. To begin with, there are far more Saudi tanks of all varieties in Yemen than there are Emirati Leclercs. Furthermore, the Saudis may be operating in sectors where the Houthi have concentrated more of their anti-tank weapons.

Finally, some of the videos suggest the Saudi tank losses reflect poor tactics and a lack of combined-arms coordination. It’s possible the UAE tanks have deployed more carefully and in coordination with supporting arms.

Nonetheless, there are a few other signs that suggest the Leclerc is performing well.

This first appeared in WarIsBoring here.

Why French Leclerc Tanks Have Been Seen Fighting in Yemen | The National Interest

J.F.C. "Boney" Fuller - Wacko Genius of Armored Warfare

https://www.historynet.com/jfc-boney-fuller-wacko-genius-of-armored...

Major General John Frederick Charles Fuller was, during World War I and through the early 1930s, the British army’s tank warfare go-to guy. He was the man who taught the Wehrmacht how to blitzkrieg, George Patton how to rumble and the Israelis how to kill Syrians.

Machine Warfare: An Enquiry into the Influences of ...

https://archive.org/details/dli.granth.106025

An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine. An illustration of an open book. Books An illustration of two cells of a film strip. ... Machine Warfare: An Enquiry into the Influences of Mechanics on the Art of War Item Preview

Myanmar coup: US, UN condemn violence against protesters

The US and UN's concern followed a raid by the military on the Yangon headquarters of outsted leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party late on Tuesday.


The United Nations expressed "strong concern" over the violence

The US on Tuesday condemned violence against protesters in ongoing protests against a military coup in Myanmar. US State department spokesman, Ned Price said that everyone had a right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

"We repeat our calls for the military to relinquish power, restore democratically elected government, release those detained and lift all telecommunication restrictions and to refrain from violence," said Price.

The United Nations also expressed "strong concern" over the violence.

"The use of disproportionate force against demonstrators is unacceptable," said Ola Almgren, the UN resident co-ordinator in Myanmar.

Meanwhile, the EU's foreign policy chief said the bloc could impose sanctions on Myanmar's military and was "reviewing" all options.

Watch video 02:22 Myanmar anti-coup protesters remain defiant

Raid on Suu Kyi's offices

The US and UN's concern followed a raid by the military on the Yangon headquarters of outsted leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party late on Tuesday.

"The military dictator raided and destroyed NLD headquarters at around 9.30 p.m.," said the National League for Democracy, Suu Kyi's party.

Watch video 02:15 Myanmar army chief says vote-rigging justifies coup 

Another day of protest

Earlier in the day, security forces in Myanmar used rubber bullets and tear gas against anti-coup protesters who rallied to defy a ban on gatherings.

Demonstrators want power restored to the deposed civilian government and freedom for the nation's elected leader, Suu Kyi, and her allies.

IN PICTURES: PROTESTS SPREAD IN MYANMAR OVER COUP

Doctors and nurses on the frontline

Less than 24 hours after the coup, doctors and nurses from many state hospitals announced that they were going on strike. They also called on others to join a campaign of civil disobedience.  PHOTOS 123456789101112

On February 1, army commander Min Aung Hlaing seized power in Myanmar. Coup leaders cited alleged irregularities in a November election that saw the NLD win in a vote the electoral commission said was fair.

Suu Kyi was detained the same day and has not been seen since.

am/rt (AFP, Reuters)

NOT THE ONION

Myanmar junta leader asks Thai counterpart for help on democracy

APAC
FEBRUARY 10, 2021

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who himself first seized power in a coup, said on Wednesday he had received a letter from Myanmar’s new junta leader asking for help to support democracy.

Prayuth, who overthrew an elected prime minister in 2014 and stayed in office after a 2019 election his rivals said was badly flawed, told reporters in Bangkok that he had always supported democracy in the neighbouring country.

Min Aung Hlaing’s army overthrew elected civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1 and detained her, alleging fraud in an election last year that her party won in a landslide. The electoral commission had dismissed the army’s claims.

“We are supportive of the democratic process in Myanmar but what is most important today is to maintain good relations because it impacts the people, the economy, border trade, particularly now,” Prayuth said.

“Thailand supports the democratic process. The rest is up to him to see how to proceed,” he said.

Since the coup, Myanmar has been convulsed by the biggest protests in more than a decade as Suu Kyi’s supporters challenge the coup that halted a tentative decade-long transition to democracy.

Thailand witnessed its biggest protests in decades last year as Prayuth’s opponents demanded that he step down, accusing him of engineering the last election to continue the domination of Thai politics by the army and monarchy. He denies any interference.

The Thai and Myanmar armies have had close working relationships in recent decades despite a distant history of enmity between the countries.

THEY ARE BOTH BEHOLDEN TO CHINA

Myanmar protests resume, West condemns security response

By Reuters Staff
APAC
FEBRUARY 9, 2021

(Reuters) - Protests spread across Myanmar on Wednesday after the most violent day in demonstrations against a coup that brought to a halt a tentative transition to democracy under elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The United States and United Nations condemned the use of force against protesters who are demanding the reversal of the Feb. 1 coup and the release of Suu Kyi and other detained leaders of her National League for Democracy (NLD) and activists.

“We cannot stay quiet,” youth leader Esther Ze Naw told Reuters. “If there is blood shed during our peaceful protests, then there will be more if we let them take over the country.”

Thousands of people joined demonstrations in the main city of Yangon. In the capital, Naypyitaw, hundreds of government workers marched in support of a growing civil disobedience campaign.

A group of police in Kayah state in the east joined the protesters and marched in uniform with a sign that said “We don’t want dictatorship”, according to pictures published in media.

A clinic that had been treating wounded protesters in Naypyitaw on Tuesday was taken over by soldiers, a doctor there said.

Another doctor said a woman protester was expected to die from a gunshot wound to the head sustained during a confrontation with police in Naypyitaw on Tuesday.

She was wounded when police fired, mostly into the air, to clear the protesters. Three other people were being treated for wounds from suspected rubber bullets, doctors said.

Protesters were also hurt in Mandalay and other cities, where security forces used water cannon and arrested dozens. State media reported injuries to police during their attempts to disperse protesters, who were accused of throwing stones and bricks.

The military has imposed restrictions on gatherings and a night curfew in the biggest cities.

‘DISPROPORTIONATE’ RESPONSE

The protests are the largest in Myanmar in more than a decade, reviving memories of almost half a century of direct army rule and spasms of bloody uprisings until the military began relinquishing some power in 2011.

Western countries have condemned the coup but taken little concrete action to press for the restoration of democracy.

The U.S. State Department said it was reviewing assistance to Myanmar to ensure those responsible for the coup faced “significant consequences”.

“We repeat our calls for the military to relinquish power, restore democratically elected government, release those detained and lift all telecommunication restrictions and to refrain from violence,” spokesman Ned Price said in Washington.

The United Nations called on Myanmar’s security forces to respect people’s right to protest peacefully.

“The use of disproportionate force against demonstrators is unacceptable,” Ola Almgren, the U.N. representative in Myanmar, said.

Avinash Paliwal, a senior lecturer in international relations at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, said Myanmar will not be as isolated now as it was in the past, with China, India, Southeast Asian neighbours and Japan unlikely to cut ties.

“The country is too important geo-strategically for that to happen. The U.S. and other Western countries will put sanctions - but this coup and its ramifications will be an Asian story, not a Western one,” Paliwal said.

CRITICAL CONDITION

A doctor in Naypyitaw said the woman who was shot in the head was in a critical condition and not expected to survive. Social media video verified by Reuters showed her with other protesters some distance from a row of riot police as a water cannon sprayed and several shots could be heard.

The woman, wearing a motorcycle helmet, suddenly collapsed. Pictures of her helmet showed what appeared to be a bullet hole.

“Now we see the military takes brutal action against us,” said Htet Shar Ko, an interpreter. “But we young people will keep fighting against the regime under our motto - military dictatorship must fail.”

The military justified its takeover on the grounds of fraud in a Nov. 8 election that Suu Kyi’s NLD party won by a landslide, as expected. The electoral commission dismissed the army’s complaints.

Late on Tuesday, police raided the NLD’s Yangon headquarters, lawmakers said.

Alongside the protests, a civil disobedience movement has affected hospitals, schools and government offices.

Activist Min Ko Naing called in a Facebook post on all government workers to join the disobedience campaign, and for people to take note of who did not participate.

Protesters are seeking the abolition of a 2008 constitution drawn up under military supervision that gave the generals a veto in parliament and control of several ministries, and for a federal system in ethnically diverse Myanmar.

Suu Kyi, 75, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for campaigning for democracy and spent nearly 15 years under house arrest. She faces charges of illegally importing six walkie-talkies and her lawyer said he has not been allowed to see her.

Suu Kyi remains hugely popular at home despite damage to her international reputation over the plight of theMuslim Rohingya minority.


Reporting by Reuters staff; Writing by Matthew Tostevin and Lincoln Feast; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Robert Birsel

Soldiers shoot live rounds at protesters in Myanmar crisis

Woman shot in head as forces clamp down on demonstrations

Resistance: People rally against the military coup and demand the release of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in Yangon, Myanmar. Photo: Reuters

Karla de Wintourz
February 10 2021

A woman was fighting for her life last night after security forces in Myanmar fired live rounds at protesters opposed to last week’s military coup.

The activist was taking part in a demonstration in Naypyitaw, the capital of Myanmar, when she was shot in the head with the bullet penetrating deep into her skull yesterday, medical sources said.

She is being treated at a Naypyitaw hospital. A doctor at the Thingangyun General Hospital in Yangon said she was unlikely to survive.

“The surgeon told me they won’t be [doing] surgery according to her condition. But the bullet is real ammo,” the doctor said.

“She was shot from behind,” the source added, saying that even though she wore a helmet the bullet penetrated her brain and she had been placed on a ventilator.

The crackdown came as mass rallies erupted for the fourth straight day against last week’s military takeover that ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, with demonstrators defying a ban on gatherings of more than five people introduced by the junta on Monday.

Police fired on crowds in major cities with tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets, injuring at least three in Naypyitaw.

A doctor at an emergency clinic said three people with wounds suspected of being from rubber bullets and one with a head injury had been transferred to a main hospital after treatment at the clinic.

The reports were corroborated by witnesses who said police fired rubber bullets at protesters after earlier blasting them with water cannon.


“They fired warning shots to the sky two times, then they fired [at protesters] with rubber bullets,” said one resident, adding that he saw some people injured.

In Yangon, the country’s commercial centre, and Mandalay, the second-largest city, reports emerged of police firing water cannon on protesters and carrying out mass arrests.

The doctor in Naypyitaw said the hospital was “prepared for disaster” amid the widespread demonstrations and growing crackdown by the military.

“My feeling is not scared. I am devoted to fight against military dictatorship. All my colleagues have the same devotion,” they said.

Human rights activists were swift to condemn the government’s heavy-handed tactics against peaceful mass demonstrations, which have gained pace across the country since thousands first took to the streets on Saturday.

“We are facing a potential human rights catastrophe in Myanmar,” said Ismail Wolff, regional director of the Fortify Rights group.

“This excessive use of force in the military junta’s attempt to suppress peaceful demonstrations is unlawful, unjustified and disproportionate. It threatens to escalate tensions across the country.”

General Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the armed forces and chief of the new junta, tried to justify the coup in a televised address, pledging a fresh election that would make the country a “true and disciplined democracy”.

Meanwhile, police carried out a night raid at the headquarters of Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy.


Read More

Police fire water cannon at hundreds of demonstrators in Myanmar’s capital

Myanmar coup leader defends action amid pledge to hold election

Telegraph Media Group Limited 

Myanmar junta cracks down on crowds defying protest ban


YANGON, Myanmar — Police cracked down on demonstrators opposing Myanmar’s military coup, firing warning shots and shooting water cannons to disperse crowds that took to the streets again Tuesday in defiance of new protest bans

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Reports of many injured demonstrators drew strong concern from the U.N.'s office in Myanmar.

“According to reports from Nay Pyi Taw, Mandalay and other cities, numerous demonstrators have been injured, some of them seriously, by security forces in connection with the current protests across the country,” the U.N. said.

“The use of disproportionate force against demonstrators is unacceptable,” said Ola Almgren, the U.N. resident co-ordinator in Myanmar.

Water cannons were used in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-biggest city, where witnesses said at least two warning shots were fired in early attempts to break up the crowd. Gunfire could be heard on videos from the city, some of which showed riot police flailing wildly with their batons at people trying to flee. Reports on social media said police arrested more than two dozen people there.

Police also used water cannons in the capital, Natpyitaw, for a second day and fired shots into the air. Police were reported to have also shot rubber bullets at the crowd in Naypyitaw, wounding several people. Photos on social media showed an alleged shooter — an officer with a short-barrelled gun — and several injured people. Protesters posted photos online of bullet casings they said they found at the scene.

Unconfirmed social media reports circulated of shootings with live rounds and deaths among the protesters, with the potential of sparking violent retaliation against the authorities — an outcome proponents of the country’s civil disobedience movement have warned against. The AP was unable to immediately confirm the reports.

The weekly magazine 7Day News reported on Twitter that a 19-year-old woman was shot by police in Naypyidaw and was undergoing emergency surgery at the city's main hospital. It cited Min Thu, the local chairman of the National League for Democracy party of ousted national leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Security forces on Tuesday night raided the NLD’s national office in Yangon, following raids of regional party offices last week that the party called illegal. NLD spokesman Kyi Toe wrote on his Facebook page that army personnel took documents and computer hardware.

The protesters are demanding that power be restored to the deposed civilian government and are seeking freedom for Suu Kyi and other governing party members detained since the military took over and blocked the new session of Parliament from convening on Feb. 1.

The growing defiance is striking in a country where past demonstrations have been met with deadly force and are a reminder of previous movements in the Southeast Asian country’s long and bloody struggle for democracy. The military used deadly force to quash a massive 1988 uprising against military dictatorship and a 2007 revolt led by Buddhist monks.

The protests were banned by decrees issued Monday night for some areas of Yangon and Mandalay that made illegal rallies and gatherings of more than five people, along with motorized processions, while also imposing a 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. curfew. It was not clear if restrictions were imposed for other areas. Violators could be punished by up to six months in prison or a fine.

Demonstrations were also held in other cities Tuesday, including Bago — where city elders negotiated with police to avoid a violent confrontation — and Dawei, and in northern Shan state.

In Magwe in central Myanmar, where water cannons were also used, unconfirmed reports on social media said several police officers had crossed over to join the protesters’ ranks. Police in Naypyitaw and Pathein, west of Yangon, were also said to have switched sides. The AP was unable to immediately confirm the reports.

Crowds also gathered in Yangon, the country’s biggest city where thousands of people have been demonstrating since Saturday, despite a heightened security presence. No violence was reported.

Police, not soldiers, appeared to have been deployed to stop the demonstrations, a small indicator of restraint by the military government. The army has a record of brutality in crushing past revolts as well as in fighting ethnic minorities in border areas seeking self-determination. It also has been accused of carrying out genocide in its 2017 counterinsurgency campaign that drove more than 700,000 members of the Muslim Rohingya minority across the border to seek safety in Bangladesh.

State media for the first time on Monday referred to the protests, saying they were endangering the country’s stability.

“Democracy can be destroyed if there is no discipline,” declared a statement from the Ministry of Information read on state television station MRTV. “We will have to take legal actions to prevent acts that are violating state stability, public safety and the rule of law.”

However, the military commander who led the coup and is now Myanmar’s leader made no mention of the unrest in a 20-minute televised speech Monday night, his first to the public since the takeover.

Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing instead repeated claims about voting fraud that have been the justification for the military’s takeover, allegations that were refuted by the state election commission. He added that his junta would hold new elections as promised in a year and hand over power to the winners, and explained the junta’s intended policies for COVID-19 control and the economy.

The general's remarks, which included encouragement for foreign investors, did nothing to assuage concern in the international community.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said the U.S. condemned violence against the protesters and reiterated the U.S.'s earlier calls for the military to restore power to the elected government. “The international community is attempting every avenue to ensure that democracy and civilian leadership is restored in Burma," Price said in Washington, using Myanmar's former name.

The U.N.’s Human Rights Council, based in Geneva, will meet Friday to consider the human rights implications of the crisis. Britain and the European Union spearheaded the request for the special session, which will amount to a high-profile public debate among diplomats over Myanmar and could lead to a resolution airing concerns or recommendations of international action.

New Zealand suspended all military and high-level political contact with Myanmar, Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced Tuesday in Wellington, adding that any New Zealand aid should not go to or benefit Myanmar’s military government.

“We do not recognize the legitimacy of the military-led government and we call on the military to immediately release all detained political leaders and restore civilian rule,” Mahuta said. New Zealand was also placing a travel ban on the military leaders.

___

Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Nick Perry in Wellington, New Zealand, contributed to this report.

___

This story has been updated with corrected sourcing for the details on the raid on the ruling party's office.

The Associated Press

WHO virus probe seeks answers beyond Wuhan, discounts lab theory

Although they did not reach definite conclusions, they have all but ruled out the possibility that the virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory.
 

Medical team work at Temple Street in Hong Kong. 

Photo: Liau Chung-Ren/dpa.

 
FOREIGNER.FI/DPA
FEBRUARY 10, 2021 

More research is needed to find out whether the novel coronavirus originated in bats in China or in another country, an expert group led by the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday at the end of a month-long investigation in China.

The most likely hypothesis that has emerged is that the virus came from an animal species, moved to a second intermediary species and jumped to humans, WHO animal disease expert Peter Ben Embarek told a press conference in Wuhan, where the Covid-19 disease was first detected in December 2019.

Scientists from China, 10 other countries and UN organizations spent the past weeks examining markets, health facilities and laboratories in and around the city of Wuhan to find the source of the pandemic.

Although they did not reach definite conclusions, they have all but ruled out the possibility that the virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory.

Embarek said that the "laboratory incident hypothesis is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus into the population," given no laboratory in the area had been working with such a virus.

The novel coronavirus, scientifically known as Sars-CoV-2, is most closely related to viruses found in bats and in pangolins.

"However, the viruses identified so far from neither of these species are sufficiently similar to Sars-CoV-2" to determine the winged creatures as the source and the scaled mammals as intermediary hosts, said Chinese investigation team leader Liang Wannian.
Other countries in Asia

Embarek stressed that further investigations should not only focus on China but on other countries in Asia and beyond.

More work is needed to sample bats and other possible host species abroad, he said.

US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that the "jury is still out" on whether China has provided enough transparency regarding the novel coronavirus.

"Broadly speaking we have expressed our concerns regarding the need for full transparency and access from China and the WHO to all information regarding the earliest days of the pandemic," Price added.

The US under former president Donald Trump pushed the theory that the virus originated in a Wuhan lab, while the administration of President Joe Biden has called for more evidence before concluding an origin of the virus.

Embarek also pointed out that the virus may have been introduced to Wuhan by travellers or through frozen wild animal products from other Chinese regions or countries.

Liang highlighted some studies suggesting that the virus was already present abroad in late 2019, in line with theories of a foreign virus origin that have been propagated by Beijing.

The foreign investigation team members did not confirm such theories, but they said that more data from early cases outside China are needed to map the path that the virus took.

While it is clear that the virus can survive on frozen products, there is no proof yet that anyone has been infected in this way, Embarek pointed out.
Huanan market

The WHO-led mission in China focused on Wuhan's Huanan market where the first cluster of Covid-19 infections appeared in late 2019.

The market sells seafood and farmed wild animals, raising the question whether some of the animals carried the virus.

None of the animal samples from the market have tested positive, Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans told the press conference.

However, some of the species, including rabbits, are known to be susceptible to the virus. There are suspicions that ferret-badgers and bamboo rats that were on offer at Huanan market are also able to catch the virus, according to Koopmans.

Some of these animals have been traced back to regions with bat populations, she said, stressing that further investigations on this issue are needed.

The market was not the only place in Wuhan where people started falling ill with Covid-19 in December 2019, according to the WHO team members. However, they did not find evidence of earlier cases in hospital and pharmacy records.

WHO team: Coronavirus unlikely to have leaked from China lab

WUHAN, China — The coronavirus most likely first appeared in humans after jumping from an animal, a team of international and Chinese scientists looking for the origins of COVID-19 said Tuesday, saying an alternate theory that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab was unlikely.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

A closely watched visit by World Health Organization experts to Wuhan — the Chinese city where the first coronavirus cases were discovered — did not dramatically change the current understanding of the early days of the pandemic, said Peter Ben Embarek, the leader of the WHO mission.

But it did “add details to that story,” he said at a news conference as the group wrapped up a four-week visit to the city.

And it allowed the joint Chinese-WHO team to further explore the lab leak theory — which former U.S. President Donald Trump and officials from his administration had put forward without evidence — and decide it was unlikely. The Wuhan Institute of Virology is home to many different virus samples, leading to allegations that it may have been the source of the original outbreak, whether on purpose or accidentally.

Embarek, a WHO food safety and animal disease expert, said experts now consider the possibility of such a leak so improbable that it will not be suggested as an avenue of future study. But another team member, Danish scientist Thea Koelsen Fischer, told reporters that team members could not rule out the possibility of further investigation and new leads.

China had already strongly rejected the possibility of a leak and has promoted other theories. The Chinese and foreign experts considered several ideas for how the disease first ended up in humans, leading to a pandemic that has now killed more than 2.3 million people worldwide.

Embarek said the initial findings suggest the most likely pathway the virus followed was from a bat to another animal and then to humans, adding that would require further research.

“The findings suggest that the laboratory incidents hypothesis is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus to the human population," he said.

Asked why, Embarek said accidental releases are extremely rare and that the team's review of the Wuhan institute's lab operations indicated it would be hard for anything to escape from it.

He also noted that there were no reports of this virus in any lab anywhere before the pandemic. Liang Wannian, the head of the Chinese side, also emphasized that, saying there was no sample of it in the Wuhan institute.

The mission was intended to be an initial step in the process of understanding the origins of the virus, which scientists have posited may have passed to humans through a wild animal, such as a pangolin or bamboo rat. Transmission directly from bats to humans or through the trade in frozen food products are also possibilities, Embarek said.

The WHO team's visit is politically sensitive for Beijing, which is concerned about being blamed for alleged missteps in its early response to the outbreak. An AP investigation has found that the Chinese government put limits on research into the outbreak and ordered scientists not to speak to reporters.

Still, one member of the WHO team, British-born zoologist Peter Daszak, told The Associated Press last week that they enjoyed a greater level of openness than they had anticipated, and that they were granted full access to all sites and personnel they requested.

Koelsen Fischer said she did not get to see the raw data and had to rely on an analysis of the data that was presented to her. But she said that would be true in most countries.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said the U.S. looked forward to seeing the report and the underlying data from the WHO investigation.

The team — which includes experts from 10 countries who arrived on Jan. 14 — visited the Huanan Seafood Market, the site of an early cluster of cases in late 2019.

Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist on the team, said that some animals at the market were susceptible or suspected to be susceptible to the virus, including rabbits and bamboo rats. And some could be traced to farms or traders in regions that are home to the bats that carry the closest related virus to the one that causes COVID-19.

She said the next step would be to look more closely at farms.

Liang, the head of the Chinese team, said the virus also appeared to have been spreading in parts of the city other than the market, so it remains possible that the virus originated elsewhere.

The team found no evidence that the disease was spreading widely any earlier than the initial outbreak in the second half of December 2019.

“We haven’t been able to fully do the research, but there is no indication there were clusters before what we saw happen in the later part of December in Wuhan,” Liang said.

The visit by the WHO team took months to negotiate. China only agreed to it amid international pressure at the WHO's World Health Assembly meeting last May, and Beijing has continued to resist calls for a strictly independent investigation.

While China has weathered some localized resurgences of infection since getting the outbreak under control last year, life in Wuhan itself has largely returned to normal.

___

Associated Press writers Ken Moritsugu in Beijing and Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed to this report.

Emily Wang Fujiyama, The Associated Press

China seizes on lack of WHO breakthrough in Wuhan to claim coronavirus vindication


Reading Chinese state media coverage, you could be forgiven for thinking the World Health Organization's investigation into the origins of Covid-19 had ruled out Wuhan as the potential source of the pandemic

.

©  Peter Ben Embarek (L) and Marion Koopmans (R) attend a press conference to wrap up a visit by an international team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) in the city of Wuhan, in China's Hubei province on February 9, 2021. 

(Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)

Ahead of their four-week visit to the central Chinese city, which wrapped up this week, the WHO team had warned their research might not turn up anything particularly groundbreaking. They cited the length of time since infections first started spreading in Wuhan, and the degree to which the city has been disinfected and sterilized since, as residents endured a lengthy lockdown and subsequently returned to relative normality.

And so therefore -- while somewhat disappointing -- it was no shock that the team did not reveal any major surprises in presenting their findings Tuesday. The most definitive the investigators could be was in dismissing suggestions that the virus escaped from a Chinese lab dedicated to studying such infections. On most other issues, the WHO experts prevaricated or admitted there was no clear evidence.

"Did we change dramatically the picture we had beforehand? I don't think so," said Peter Ben Embarek, one of the WHO investigators, at a news conference. "Did we add details? Absolutely."

State media's take

Chinese state media used comments from the fiercely apolitical scientists to vindicate various propaganda priorities, chief of which is the suggestion that the virus could have come from outside China.

China Daily, a state-run newspaper targeting international readers, ran the headline "WHO team: Probe of virus' origin should not be 'geographically bound'," while Global Times, a nationalist tabloid, took it a step further, saying WHO was ready to "scrutinize Southeast Asia" as a potential origin of the virus.

Chinese experts who worked alongside the team went further than their WHO colleagues in describing their conclusions, at least when those findings could be spun to clear Wuhan as a potential origin of the pandemic.

Liang Wannian, a lead expert with China's National Health Commission (NHC), told reporters it was still unclear how the virus arrived at the Huanan Seafood Market, previously identified as the site of the earliest outbreak. He said it could have been brought in by infected people, contaminated products, frozen foods, or animals.

Animals have long been seen as the most likely spreader of the virus before it jumped to humans. Previously it has been hypothesized that the virus evolved inside bats, which are prone to coronaviruses, and then passed to humans, potentially via a third species.

"Our initial findings suggest that the introduction through an intermediary host species is the most likely pathway and one way that will require more studies and more specific targeted research," Ben Embarek said, adding there was also the possibility of "direct zoonotic spillover," or point to point transmission from the original species -- most likely a bat -- to humans.

In the WHO news conference, Ben Embarek also addressed two other theories: that the virus had escaped from a Wuhan lab, which he said was unlikely, or that it had been transmitted to humans via frozen foods, which he said had not been ruled out.

China's alternative origin theories

For months, Chinese experts have been pushing the theory that the frozen food supply chain could have brought the virus to Wuhan from another country, a possibility considered unlikely by most outside scientists.

Late last year, the People's Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, claimed that "all available evidence suggests that (the coronavirus) did not start in central China's Wuhan, but may come into China through imported frozen food products and their packaging."

Both WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have previously said there is no evidence of the virus being transmitted via food or food packaging, even after it reached pandemic level and was far more prevalent in warehouses and factories.

WHO team members are painfully aware of how much scrutiny they are under, both from a world desperate to understand how the pandemic started, and the Chinese, who are seeking full vindication for their early missteps in handling the pandemic.

It was those initial errors -- undeniable, and largely unrelated to the ultimate origin of the virus -- which the WHO team's findings have inadvertently helped obfuscate.

For months now, China's propaganda apparatus has been attempting to reverse the public relations disaster of being the country where the pandemic first emerged, and Tuesday's news conference offered considerable ammunition.

Speaking to Chinese media after the WHO news conference, Zeng Guang, head of the country's Centers for Disease Control, also dredged up another (baseless) conspiracy theory -- that the virus started in an American lab.

"American biology laboratories are all over the world. Why should America set up so many laboratories? What is the purpose? he said. "In many things, the United States requires others to be open and transparent, only to find that the most opaque thing is the United States itself."

Zeng said the WHO should "trace the source of the virus on a global scale," and the US should be the focus of the investigation.

Suggestions that the novel coronavirus could have evolved outside of China or been introduced to Wuhan via frozen foods are being used by Chinese state media to imply that the country was helpless to stop the virus before it became unstoppable.

Early mishandling of outbreak

While Chinese officials can't be blamed for not identifying a handful of cases of pneumonia as the start of the next great pandemic, that is not what has been faulted when it comes to the Wuhan outbreak. What was egregious about that response wasn't that the government ignored evidence of a potential pandemic when it was staring officials in the face.

According to documents leaked to CNN by whistleblowers, as well as other reports and publicly available information, Wuhan and national officials downplayed the risk of the virus even when there was clear evidence of transmission from person to person. Action was not taken until it was too late to stop widespread transmission of the virus during the 2020 Lunar New Year travel period, even though officials had been warned it was "likely to develop into a major public health event." In Wuhan, the government even held a mass banquet in an attempt to break a world record.

The first cases in Wuhan occurred between December 12 and December 29, 2019 according to city authorities. The cases weren't reported to WHO until December 31. By the time Wuhan went into lockdown on January 23, 2020, the virus had already spread to Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and the US.

"It was clear they did make mistakes -- and not just mistakes that happen when you're dealing with a novel virus -- also bureaucratic and politically-motivated errors in how they handled it," Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN last year.

Last month, the Switzerland-based Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response said Beijing could have been more vigorous in applying public health measures when cases were first detected in Wuhan.

"What is clear to the panel is that public health measures could have been applied more forcefully by local and national health authorities in China in January (2020)," the panel said in a report.

Ultimately, these are political and historical questions, not scientific ones. The virus may be found to have evolved outside of China, maybe even spread to Wuhan via frozen foods, as the country's health officials have claimed. But this would not alter the fact that Wuhan was the site of the initial major outbreak, or that officials there failed to stop it from spreading.

When it comes to the coronavirus however, there is plenty of blame to go around, and the leaders of other countries that were slow to respond must share some of it.

If Chinese officials should have acted faster when faced by the evidence they had in January 2020, what of authorities elsewhere in the world -- including the US -- who ignored the even greater evidence of an incoming pandemic weeks and months later?

As for how the virus itself evolved and first jumped to humans, that quest continues. Speaking to CNN Tuesday, WHO team member Peter Daszak said that eventually scientists will "get a really clear picture" of how the virus originated but that may take weeks, months or even a "couple of years."

"There is still a lot of work to do," he said.