It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, February 19, 2021
Netizens Photoshop Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders Into First Photos From Perseverance Rover on Mars
NASA’s Perseverance rover successfully landed on Mars on Thursday, marking the end of a seven-month and nearly 300-million-mile journey. The rover, which is said to be the most advanced the agency has ever made, has managed to take two photos of the Martian surface in the first minutes after the touchdown.
Following the now historic NASA mission on Mars, the Perseverance rover’s Twitter account published two photos of the Martian soil as soon as the rover landed, captioning one of them: “Hello, world. My first look at my forever home.”
The landing has apparently inspired netizens to finish Perseverance’s story. What, according to twitterians, did the rover see when it first touched the Red Planet’s surface?
Apparently, Ted Cruz leaving Texas.
The Republican senator caused fury online as he was spotted on a plane heading to a Mexican resort earlier on Thursday – while Texas, the state he represents, is struggling with days-long power outages due to a recent deadly winter storm.
“The images from NASA’s Mars rover landing are breathtaking,” one user jokingly wrote while posting an image with photoshopped Cruz carrying a suitcase.
There was, however, another US senator who appeared on the Red Planet with a little help of editing. Unlike Cruz, Bernie Sanders did not need to make headlines to get mentioned – his super-viral inauguration photo did the job.
And of course, an “encounter” was inevitable. You are late, Ted, this spot is already taken.
RT
Mars’ Gravity Waves Make Red Planet Increasingly Inhospitable to Life, Research Says
Mars is known to be home to powerful dust storms, which can last for months, posing danger to any human missions aiming to land on the cold red planet. New research has attempted to explain what the hazards actually stem from.
Mars has long attracted the attention of both scientists and potential space travellers, but new research data from on board NASA spacecraft shows that gravity waves originating from the planet are making it more and more incompatible with life as time passes, The Academic Times reported, citing research recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Scientists have found that as Mars is home to lengthy dust storms, the latter may play a bad trick on potential settlers, as they could cause the planet to give off gravity waves.
Such a discharge could further lead to Mars’ atmosphere leaking gas into outer space, which doesn’t bode well for human missions.
The research centres on an analysis of carbon dioxide density that attempted to draw a line between gravity waves and atmospheric loss. The study suggests that Mars has been steadily losing carbon dioxide that could otherwise significantly warm up the cold planet, which was found to have once been warm and wet.
Lead researcher, Associate Professor Erdal Yiğit, George Mason University, told The Academic Times that this atmospheric loss “could have had a great impact on climate evolution on Mars over very large time scales ... millions of years, and it could have been responsible for the current dry and cold situation”.
The researchers looked into not only how the planet-blanketing dust storms cause atmospheric loss, based on real-time satellite estimates, but also if they could account for the orange-red colour of Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System.
“In the images, you can see that if there’s a dust storm, the planet is completely orange, very orange”, Yiğit commented, adding:
“If there's no dust storm, you'll see the surface [of Mars] from the space telescopes”.
Apart from answering numerous crucial questions, the research has raised new ones – including on details about the physical process depicted in the research, like how the phenomenon of atmospheric escape occurs or what this could mean for the Martian thermosphere in years to come.
“This paper opened a box of worms”, Yiğit said. “I'm confident there will be new discoveries about this”.
This week was marked by a truly historic event with regard to Mars exploration, as NASA's Perseverance rover touched down on the planet on Thursday, finalising a nearly 300-million-mile journey through space as part of a mission to look for evidence of long-sought extra-terrestrial life.
The 2,260-pound rover, NASA’s most sophisticated robot to ever be sent to the red planet, landed in the Jezero Crater, one of the most dangerous landing sites picked by NASA officials to date, as it’s dotted with numerous sharp rocks, boulders, and hazardous cliffs.
THE PARASITE CLASS
Florida county commissioner limited COVID-19 vaccine drive to 2 richest zip codes, created 'VIP list' including herself
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis initiated drive; Commissioner Vanessa Baugh admitted she 'wanted to make sure certain people were on the list'
MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. -- A Manatee County, Florida, commissioner broke protocol for equitable vaccine distribution, which she had previously voted in favor of, when planning a vaccine drive initiated by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Vanessa Baugh admitted on Thursday that she "wanted to make sure certain people were on the list" for vaccination after emails revealed that she directed county officials to create a list to let her and others jump the line. In response to criticism that county officials had only permitted residents from the two richest zip codes in the county to get vaccinated at the event, Baugh further admitted that she picked the zip codes herself.
In a public county commissioner meeting on Thursday, Baugh apologized for the criticism regarding the "pop-up" vaccination site, but said that if presented with the opportunity again, "I will do exactly what I did this time." Baugh further explained that she "did exactly what (DeSantis) wanted" in organizing the vaccine drive.
On Tuesday, in another public county commissioner meeting, Baugh said that the vaccine drive was initiated by DeSantis, a Republican, and involved real estate developer Rex Jensen. A news release on the Manatee County website says it aimed to vaccinate 3,000 people over three days.
One of the emails obtained by CNN through a public records request states that Baugh asked county workers to pull a list of potential vaccine recipients from only two zip codes, who would then participate in the state-sponsored vaccine drive.
"Commissioner Baugh has asked we pull a list of those in the vaccine waiting pool that have listed 34202 and 34211 as their residence," Manatee County Public Safety Director Jacob Saur wrote on February 12.
Manatee County commissioners voted on January 6 to create a system that would distribute vaccines through a system that a source in the Manatee County government said was engineered to be more equitable. Instead of people scrambling to sign up for the first available vaccine appointments when they were made available, vaccine appointments are distributed by Manatee County through a random draw to eligible people that signed up to be in the lottery pool.
Although Baugh directed county employees to deviate from the protocol, she and the rest of the commissioners voted in favor of it unanimously on January 6.
In a Tuesday public county commissioner meeting, County Administrator Cheri Coryea confirmed that in the planning for the governor's pop-up drive, she told Baugh that they should use the random pool and not pick and choose people by zip codes. One of the emails obtained by CNN through a public records request indicates that the county is continuing to use the randomized pool.
A separate email, also obtained by CNN through a public records request, shows that Baugh didn't stop there. It shows on February 15 she also directed that she, Jensen and three others be allowed to cut the line.
A source that was briefed on how the planning process was carried out called it a "VIP list." Also, two of the individuals on that VIP list lived outside the two zip codes that Baugh mandated. All five individuals on the list were qualified to get the vaccine but by adding them to the VIP list, Baugh guaranteed they would skip the line by giving them appointments.
The Bradenton Herald was first to report on the emails.
Census records show those two zip codes in Manatee County have the highest median household income and are overwhelmingly White. Florida Department of Health records show those two zip codes also have some of the lowest Covid-19 infection rates in the county.
Although DeSantis said that the choice of zip codes "was a choice about where's a high concentration of seniors," Baugh made it clear that she was behind the decision.
"It was my idea," Baugh said at the Wednesday meeting, but did not offer an explanation for her rationale.
"I think instead of everyone seeming to have an issue, we need to realize it's 3,000 people that are now going to be removed from our registry, which will open it up hopefully sooner to all of those that are left," she said.
Although Baugh utilized county personnel and resources for the drive, fellow county commissioners said in Tuesday's public meeting that they were not consulted or notified about the pop up. They only found out about it through the local newspaper.
CNN reached out to Baugh for comment but did not receive a response.
Lisa Barnott, spokesperson for Jensen and Lakewood Ranch, told CNN in a statement that their involvement in the clinic was only "to help identify a site that could accommodate 1,000 people per day."
"(Baugh) coordinated the use of the site, as well as use of the Manatee County registry of people who had signed up for vaccinations," Barnott went on to say in the statement.
Barnott did not respond to inquiries about Jensen being included on the so-called VIP list.
Manatee County had previously been lauded by DeSantis for their effectiveness at vaccinating people and standing up one of the first drive-thru vaccination programs in the US. Now, the governor threatened to withhold additional doses from the county after the person that he largely put in charge to run it -- Baugh -- was criticized. DeSantis has not criticized Baugh or her methodology in organizing his vaccine drive.
"If Manatee County doesn't like us doing this, then we are totally fine with putting this in counties that want it," DeSantis said.
CNN reached out to DeSantis' press office for comment and has not received a response.
In a statement, Nikki Fried, a Democrat and Florida Agriculture commissioner, said,
"Truth be told, vaccines are a public resource and this is a public health crisis. There's absolutely no excuse for why the governor and his commissioner is using politics in order to give out these vaccines. And this is corruption at its worst. This is why people don't trust the system. And just to give you another statistics: right now in the state of Florida, 3.7% of the black population has been vaccinated, while 9.7% of the white population has been vaccinated. So as the governor is rolling out the red carpet for his donors and political allies, he pulled the rug out from the minorities and communities of color."
The-CNN-Wire & 2021 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.
'She's just perfect,' says scientist who helped clone an endangered ferret
Elizabeth Ann, the black-footed ferret, is the 1st clone of an endangered U.S. species
CBC Radio ·
Elizabeth Ann, the first cloned black-footed ferret and first cloned U.S. endangered species, is pictured when she was 50 days old on Jan. 29, 2021. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/The Associated Press)
Ben Novak will never forget the time he met Elizabeth Ann, the black-footed ferret clone.
The little critter's birth marks the first time scientists have cloned an endangered species in the U.S., and Novak is the lead scientist at the conservation nonprofit that helped make it happen.
So when she was born, he packed up his whole family and drove across the country from North Carolina to Colorado to see her.
Though he only got to spend about 15-20 minutes with Elizabeth Ann, "you know, time stopped. She's just perfect," Novak, the lead biotechnology scientist at Revive & Restore, told As It Happens host Carol Off.
"It was incredible to feel so much work pay off that can have such a huge impact, not only the conservation of her species, but, you know, a turning point in biotechnologies for conservation the world over."
Ben Novak holding Elizabeth Ann soon after she was born. (Submitted by Heather Sparks/Revive & Restore)
Elizabeth Ann was born on Dec. 10, 2020, and resides at a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service black-footed ferret breeding facility in Fort Collins, Colo. The team waited several months to introduce her to the world.
"The first few weeks of their life can be really critical for any ferret, natural-born or clone, and so we wanted to know that she was going to be good," Novak said.
"She is thriving and growing and becoming more and more black-footed ferret-like every day."
From the brink of extinction
Elizabeth Ann is the genetic copy of Willa, a black-footed ferret who died in 1988 and whose cells were frozen using early DNA technology. Using in-vitro fertilization, she was carried by a surrogate mom, a tamed domestic ferret of a different species.
"Although this research is preliminary, it is the first cloning of a native endangered species in North America, and it provides a promising tool for continued efforts to conserve the black-footed ferret," said Noreen Walsh, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service's mountain-prairie region.
Elizabeth Ann with her domestic ferret siblings and surrogate mother. (USFWS National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center)
Black-footed ferrets are an endangered species, but they have come a long way in recent decades.
They were on the verge of extinction in 1981, when scientists in Wyoming gathered the few that remained for a breeding program that has since released thousands of ferrets into the wild in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
All of those ferrets — nearly 25 generations' worth — can trace their lineage back to just seven individuals. Elizabeth Ann brings some genetic diversity to the mix.
"She brings an eighth gene pool, essentially, into this population," Novak said. "This is just a huge paradigm shift in this type of work."
That's because Willa, who was among those captured for breeding in the '80s, has no known living descendants. Willa procreated, but her son, Cody, "didn't do his job," Pete Gober of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told The Associated Press.
Scientists hope the slinky predator and her descendants will improve the genetic diversity of a species once on the verge of extinction. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/The Associated Press)
The ferret will soon be joined by some "sister clones" as well as male clones for them to mate with, Novak said.
"Until about 2023, we'll just be keeping these clones and their own little population to be able to say, yes, they are healthy, they are fit, they're every bit as wild and savvy as every other black-footed ferret," he said.
"And by 2025, we hope that her kids or grandkids may actually be released to the wild to join the other black-footed ferrets and start enriching the wild gene pools."
Novak says Elizabeth Ann is the product of more than 200 people's labour, including employees at his company, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Wyoming Game & Fish Department, private pet cloning company ViaGen Pets & Equine, San Diego Zoo Global and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
Written by Sheena Goodyear with files from The Associated Press and Reuters. Interview with Ben Novak produced by Niza Lyapa Nondo.
Bacteriophages could potentially help us mitigate the rising threat of antibiotic resistance
CBC Radio · Posted: Feb 19, 2021
Colonies of E. coli bacteria grown in a petri dish. U.S. health officials on May 26, 2016 reported the first case in the country of a patient with E. coli bacteria carrying the mcr-1 gene, an infection resistant to all known antibiotics.
Bacteria-hunting viruses can track down antibiotic resistant bugs where they hide
A team of researchers in the U.S. has identified a way to fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria that take refuge in remote parts of the human gut. These bacteria are particularly problematic because they don't create illness where they hide, but invade other parts of the body from their intestinal refuge, causing a range of troublesome infections.
To fight these bacteria, the scientists found a bacteria-fighting virus — known as a bacteriophage, or "phage" for short — by screening for it in human sewage. The phage has unique properties that allow it to break into the difficult-to-access refuge where the bacteria hide in our intestines.
"There are E. coli [bacteria] that live inside of us and are kind of ticking time bombs waiting for our immune system to be compromised, to infect and eventually get into our blood system," said Sabrina Green, the director of research and development for Tailor Labs at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas.
These particular strains of E. coli live in our gut where, ordinarily, they don't cause us any problems, but can become deadly when they exit the intestine and cause infections in the urinary tract or bloodstream.
They're becoming ever more troublesome as they develop resistance to antibiotics, a major concern in medicine these days. The more we use antibiotics to treat these kinds of infections, the more these bacteria bacteria evolve to find ways around these drugs.
There are E. coli that live inside of us and are kind of ticking time bombs waiting for our immune system to be compromised, to infect and eventually get into our blood system.- Sabrina Green, PhD, Baylor College of Medicine at Tailor Labs
This is why scientists predict that without alternate strategies to fight bacteria, by 2050 our current antibiotics could be largely useless against multidrug-resistant bacteria. It's estimated this could result in 10 million deaths a year.
Green explained to Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald how the complex environment inside the human intestine, where the bacteria hide, makes it challenging for antibiotics to reach them in order to kill them. The bacteria have adapted to inhabit the mucous layer that coats and protects the cells that line our intestines.
"[The bad bacteria] can hide deep within the mucous layer that protects us from most pathogens," she said. Research paper in the journal mBio
This picture shows syringes containing diluted solutions of phages from three different concentrated types of phages prepared at the Croix-Rousse hospital, in Lyon, France. Phages are showing to be a possible alternative to antibiotics as a treatment against multidrug resistant bacteria.(Romain Lafabregue / AFP via Getty Images)
Selecting the right phage for the job
Bacteria-eating phages — one of the most common and diverse organisms in the biosphere — can be found anywhere there are bacteria.
To find just the right phage to seek out and destroy bacteria living in the gut, Green and her colleagues turned to human sewage.
After filtering out what she describes as "all the bacteria and all the gunk," researchers incubate the remaining viruses, and then expose them to the antibiotic-resistant bacteria and gut-like conditions.
"This way, we are selecting for [a] phage that can not only kill that bacteria, but we create these gut culture systems that kind of mimic our gut, so that we can find [a] phage that can kill in this environment as well."
When the research team tested the phage candidate they identified in mice that were infected with antibiotic resistant gut bacteria, it worked incredibly well, Green said.
"We found that this phage could completely eliminate this E. coli that was present."
Phage therapy is has been widely used in Eastern Europe, as seen in this 2005 photo taken at the Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, Microbiology and Virology in Tbilissi, Georgia. (Vano Shlamov / AFP via Getty Images)
Phage can keep up with antibiotic resistance
One advantage of using phage therapy is that phage can evolve to keep up with bacteria.
"These antibiotics are fixed chemicals, but phage, however, are viruses and they can change and we can evolve them to overcome this bacterial resistance against it," Green added.
When she and her colleagues tested this phage on a patient with a urinary tract infection who came to the Tailor Service Center — where she prepares phage cocktails for patients with multidrug resistant infections — she said it worked "very well."
She and her colleagues tested this phage on a patient at the Tailor Service Center, where Green prepares phage cocktails for patients with multidrug-resistant infections. The scientist said the phage worked "very well" on the patient's urinary tract infection.
These antibiotics are fixed chemicals, but phage, however, are viruses and they can change and we can evolve them to overcome this bacterial resistance against it.- Sabrina Green, PhD, Baylor College of Medicine at Tailor Labs
Interestingly, she said, while the phage completely cleared the infection in this patient, it didn't entirely clear resistant bacteria in the gut, but it did seem to push it to adapt into something less pathogenic.
"Sometimes, bacteria, they'll change to resist the phage, but those changes could be detrimental to the bacteria so that it's no longer as infectious or can no longer survive in that environment," she said. Green said she hopes to further develop phage therapy options — still considered experimental in the U.S. and Canada — for specific infections, and get them into clinical trials.
Myanmar female protester dies as military crackdown hardens
First death among opponents of the February 1 military coup likely to become a rallying cry for protesters.
Hospital staff carry a body bag bearing the remains of Mya Thwate Thwate Khaing, who was shot in the head on February 9 during an anti-coup protest in Myanmar's capital Naypyidaw [Stringer/AFP]
19 Feb 2021
A young woman protester in Myanmar who was shot in the head last week as police dispersed a crowd has died, her brother said, marking the first death among opponents of the February 1 military coup since they began demonstrating two weeks ago.
News of her death on Friday came as police and soldiers arrested about 50 people in the northern town of Myitkyina, a human rights activist said, after breaking up a procession carrying banners of detained government leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Mya Thwate Thwate Khaing, who had just turned 20, had been on life support since being taken to hospital on February 9, after she was hit by what doctors said was a live bullet at a protest in the capital, Naypyidaw.
“I feel really sad and have nothing to say,” said her brother, Ye Htut Aung, speaking to the Reuters news agency by telephone.
Her death could become a rallying cry for the protesters who were again on the streets on Friday.
“I’m proud of her and I’ll come out until we achieve our goal for her,” protester Nay Lin Htet, 24, told Reuters at a rally in the main city of Yangon.
The news comes as Myanmar’s military coup leaders stepped up its crackdown against protesters that have emerged in smaller towns and cities across the country, indicating a hardened approach against dissent despite growing international pressure and expanded sanctions.
In the northern city of Myitkyina, images on social media showed on Friday the military rounding up protesters and blocking the streets in the northern city near the border with China. Several people in civilian clothes were seen being hauled up a military truck as uniformed personnel march nearby.
One video shared by the Myanmar Civil Disobedience Movement showed government forces breaking up a march and chasing away protesters at a crowded street. One officer was later shown trying to destroy the banner bearing an image of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Another video posted by US-based news website The 74 Media showed several people, among them journalists carrying their cameras, running away as they were being pursued by government forces.
According to reports, among those who joined in the civil disobedience protest in Myitkyina were school teachers, healthcare workers and students.
In Monywa in the Sagaing region, hundreds of protesters also took to the streets, carrying signs which read “Reject the military” as they blocked a street.
In the southern city of Kawthoung, near the border with Thailand, hundreds of Ministry of Education staff blocked a street. Some carried signs saying, “STOP Arresting People Illegally at Midnight. SAVE MYANMAR”.
Due to restrictions, Al Jazeera could not independently verify the reports.
Yangon streets blockaded
In the country’s second-largest city of Mandalay, several police officers were seen joining an anti-government march. According to reports, more than 100 officers from the city have already joined in the civil disobedience movement despite threats of losing their jobs.
In Yangon, the country’s largest city and former capital, three people were reportedly injured during a confrontation with unknown assailants, who are believed to be the same group of people attacking anti-coup marchers earlier on Friday.
In another part of downtown Yangon, security forces were seen blocking a main intersection near commercial buildings, as crowds start to gather in front of the steel barricades set up by the government.
Protesters also gathered in front of several embassies, including at the Chinese Embassy, where hundreds of demonstrators carried signs pleading for Beijing to support the country, and not the military.
A smaller crowd gathered in front of the British Embassy, where a group of musicians played protest hymns as they pleaded for the United Kingdom to take further action against the coup leaders.
At the same time, protesters welcomed new sanctions from the UK and Canada aimed at military officials.
Youth leader and activist Thinzar Shunlei Yi applauded the UK’s asset freezes and travel bans on three generals as well as steps to stop any aid helping the military and to prevent British businesses from working with the army. Canada said it would take action against nine military officials.
“We urge other nations to have such a coordinated and united response,” she wrote on social media.
“We will be waiting for EU sanctions announcement on [February 22],” she said, calling on people to gather at the EU office push for sanctions to include measures against military businesses.
Pro-democracy protests have been taking place across Myanmar for two weeks since the February 1 military coup [Sai Aung Main/AFP]Adding to the diplomatic pressure, Japan said it had agreed with India, the United States and Australia on the need for democracy to be restored quickly.
Myanmar’s military staged a coup on February 1 after making unverified claims of election fraud.
Five days later, tens of thousands of people started taking to the streets of cities across the country to denounce the military’s move, demanding that they release the detained political leaders and activists, as well as restore the country’s duly-elected parliament.
Margaret Mitchell: Google fires AI ethics founder
I
Google said Margaret Mitchell had moved files outside the company
Google has fired the founder and co-head of its artificial intelligence ethics unit, claiming she violated the company's code of conduct.
In a statement, Google said an investigation found Margaret Mitchell had moved files outside the company.
The ethics unit has been under scrutiny since December, following the departure of another senior figure, Timnit Gebru.
Both women had campaigned for more diversity at Google and raised concerns about censorship within the company.
Ms Mitchell announced the news in a tweet, which read "I'm fired".
For the past five weeks she had been locked out of Google's systems, including her emails and calendars.
Ms Mitchell was a fierce critic of Google's and had expressed concern about Dr Gebru's departure from the company.
Dr Gebru, a leading Artificial Intelligence ethics researcher, says she was fired late last year after sending an internal email that accused Google of "silencing marginalised voices". However, Google claims she left the company.
She co-authored a research paper which she says she was asked to retract. The paper had pinpointed flaws in AI language technology, including a system built by Google.
Timnit Gebru left Google last year
Following a meeting on the paper, she sent an email to an internal group called "Brain Women and Allies", criticising the decision.
Dr Gebru had emailed her management laying out some key conditions for removing her name from the paper, and if they were not met, she would "work on a last date" for her employment.
According to Dr Gebru, Google replied: "We respect your decision to leave Google... and we are accepting your resignation."
The fallout caused many within the scientific community to question the ethics of conducting research with big technology companies.
Hundreds of colleagues signed a letter in support of her. In response, the company's chief executive Sundar Pichai apologised for the way she left the firm.
Google has been criticised for a lack of diversity in its workforce, and there are concerns about the AI technology that underpins many of its services.
Central America planning for wave of migrant caravans
Central American countries are preparing for a wave of migrant caravans containing people from as far away as Africa and Asia to cross their territories, a Guatemala official said Friday.
"We've obtained information about the probability that these migratory flows could arrive in Guatemala" as they travel onward to the United States, said the country's migration director Guillermo Diaz.
"That's why migratory authorities in the region are already preparing for them."
US President Joe Biden's administration announced a week ago reforms to dismantle a program his predecessor Donald Trump put in place to force asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while their cases were being resolved.
Biden's immigration policies have stirred hope in those aiming to reach the US that they will not be turned away.
Diaz said the caravan issue will be discussed on Monday with a regional migration commission.
He said the migrants, who also include many Cubans and Haitians, have arrived in Central America after crossing the dangerous Darian Gap jungle that lies on the border between Colombia and Panama.
The migrants are expected to form large caravans of potentially thousands of people with the aim of making their way to Mexico and then onward to the United States.
Similar large caravans began forming in October 2018 and sparked the ire of Trump who was elected on a promise to build a wall along the country's southern border with Mexico to keep out undocumented migrants, whom he described as "rapists" and claimed were bringing drugs and crime.
In mid-January, Guatemalan police and soldiers forcibly dismantled a caravan of thousands of Hondurans, including hundreds of children, that had crossed the border into Guatemala without official papers or proof of a negative Covid-19 test.
Security forces were acting on a decree from President Alejandro Giammattei who ordered the caravan stopped over fears it could spread the coronavirus.
Some 7,000 people managed to enter the country nonetheless, most of whom were repatriated to Honduras.
One week later, the United States, Mexico and Guatemala agreed to bar migrant caravans from passing through their territories due to the Covid pandemic.
In the ruins of an ancient Byzantine church in northern Jordan, local townspeople and Syrian refugees work side-by-side on a project that preserves cultural heritage and fights poverty.
Meticulously operating by hand with tweezers and brushes, workers restore a mosaic floor piece by piece at the St John the Baptist church, built in 619 AD.
It is one of three church mosaic floors under restoration, or recently restored, in the small town of Rihab, adding to an impressive array of such national treasures.
Jordan's most renowned mosaic is one of the oldest maps of the Holy Land, consisting of over two million mosaic stones originally built into the floor of a sixth century Byzantine church in Madaba.
"I don't think there is another country with (as) many floor mosaics for the Byzantine time," said 54-year-old expert Franco Sciorilli, an Italian who is supervising the work.
Rihab, 70 kilometres (around 45 miles) north of the capital Amman and less than half that distance from the Syrian border, has over time been home to around 32 churches, mostly from the Byzantine era, according to Sciorilli.
Mosaic floors have been restored, or are under restoration, at a total of three anicent churches in Rihab Khalil MAZRAAWI, afp/AFP
But nowadays only the ruins of five or six are visible, including the St George cathedral, built in 230 AD and one of the oldest in the world, he said.
The rest remain buried in sand.
Three hundred people, a fifth of them women, are working on the pilot project to restore the sites, run by UN cultural agency UNESCO and financed by Germany.
All of the workers live in Rihab, and around a third are Syrians.
For 45-year-old Walid al-Awad, who lost his home and his livelihood when he fled the city of Daraa in war-torn Syria in 2012, the project is a lifeline.
"I am proud to be part of the restoration and maintenance of historic monuments," the father of six said.
"It's saved me financially and I've gained real experience." - Training and jobs -
Kneeling on thick pieces of foam, workers hunch over a brown, white and black tile mosaic, whose design represents the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers as well as trees, flowers and geometric figures.
The painstaking restoration work has generated employment for locals and for Syrian refugees Khalil MAZRAAWI, afp/AFP
There are no human faces or bodies, in conformity with a ruling by eighth-century Byzantine Emperor Leo III the Isaurian forbidding such depictions.
An ancient Greek inscription reads that the mosaic was financed by residents in honour of St John the Baptist.
"The project has two main aims: preserving heritage... (and) creating job opportunities for local communities," even if the employment is short-term, said Dania Dirani, head of the UNESCO initiative.
She said the workers were trained in the site's history and churches, along with how to work with mosaics and restoration.
Only half of the 600 applicants could be chosen, and those most in need were given priority, she added.
Franco Sciorilli, an Italian expert, supervises workers employed under the UNESCO pilot project Khalil MAZRAAWI, afp/AFP
The workers earn between 12.5 and 15 Jordanian dinars (just under $18 and up to $21) a day, depending on their skills and qualifications.
Meals and transport costs are part of the package, in a country where the unemployment rate is 23 percent.
For Taha al-Khazaleh, who has a diploma in restoring mosaics, it was a perfect fit.
"I was happy to be part of this project because it's my speciality -- and because it gives me a monthly income of 300 dinars," said the 32-year-old Jordanian, who is from Rihab. - 'Let the world know' -
Abandoned in the ninth century, the town's ruined churches were rediscovered from 1999.
At the church of Procopius and Sergius, built in 590 AD, stonemasons working on the UN project restore pilasters and plinths.
Restoration of the mosaic flooring at the St Mary church, built in 543 AD, was completed last month.
Restoration of mosaic flooring at the St Mary church, built in 543 AD, has now been completed Khalil MAZRAAWI, afp/AFP
UNESCO official Giorgia Cesaro said the project represented "a change in the approach to heritage conservation", one that took into consideration the communities living near the archaeological sites.
"The idea is that they are the ones who can take care of their heritage, not necessarily international" experts, she said.
She said the pilot programme had "paved the way to a much larger project which is targeting six sites in the north of Jordan and funded by the European Union".
Meanwhile the Rihab work, which began in October last year, is expected to be completed by the end of May.
Italian Sciorilli, who said he had trained around 500 people in restoring mosaics since coming to Jordan in 1994, expressed enthusiasm about the site's restoration.
"The mosaics we have here are very simple, but the technique is very unique -- it is completely different than what you see" elsewhere, he said.
"We should let the rest of the world know about it."
Cleaning robot Franzi makes sure floors are spotless at the Munich hospital where she works, and has taken on a new role during the pandemic: cheering up patients and staff.
"Can you move out the way, please? I need to clean," trills the robot in German when people block her pre-programmed cleaning route.
"You need to move! I really want to clean!" she squeaks at those who still don't get out of the way. And if that doesn't work, digital tears begin to stream from her LED-light eyes.
"Visitors are not allowed in the pandemic, so Franzi entertains the patients a bit," says Constance Rettler of Dr. Rettler, the company in charge of cleaning the Neuperlach hospital that provided the robot.
The cleaning robot named Franzi has made friends at the Neuperlach hospital where she works Christof STACHE, AFP/File
Three times a day, Franzi bustles through the clinic's entrance hall, her feet automatically mopping the floors. Amused patients take photos of her, and some even stop to chat to the metre-high robot.
"Ah, there you are my friend," cries one elderly lady with a drip on her arm upon catching sight of Franzi.
"One of our recent patients came down three times a day to talk to her," smiles Tanja Zacherl, who oversees hospital maintenance.
- Extra employee -
Created by a company in Singapore, Franzi was originally named Ella and spoke English before coming to Munich early this year.
Franzi cleans the hospital's entrance area on a pre-programmed route
Christof STACHE, AFP/File
Yet her German is perfect as she tells her interviewers that she "never wants to grow up" and that cleaning is her passion.
When prompted, she can also sing classic German pop songs and even rap.
Rettler is adamant that the robot is not taking jobs away from real human beings but instead is supposed to "support" her flesh-and-blood colleagues, who have become harder to come by during the coronavirus pandemic.
Franzi can express frustration by emitting tears from her LED eyes Christof STACHE, AFP/File
"With the pandemic, there is lots of extra disinfecting work to be done in hospitals," says Rettler.
"While Franzi is cleaning the floors, our employees can concentrate on doing that."
A robot has its limits however. It is still unable to get into tight corners, and if it hits an obstacle, it bursts into tears and remains stuck until rescued by a human.
Yet Franzi also has a reason to be cheerful. After a test phase of several weeks, she appears to have settled in at the Neuperlach hospital.
Rettler's company has therefore decided to keep her there permanently rather than deploy her elsewhere.
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