AFTER NATO RETREATS

'We lack everything': Afghanistan's health system at breaking point

Issued on: 04/10/2021 

A child suffering from malnutrition receives treatment at the Mirwais hospital in Kandahar

 in southern Afghanistan 

Bulent KILIC AFP

Kabul (AFP)

At an overcrowded hospital in Afghanistan, the few remaining doctors and nurses try urgently to treat skeletal babies and malnourished children packed side by side on beds.

The country's healthcare system is on the verge of collapse following the Taliban takeover in August when international funding was frozen, leaving the aid-reliant economy in crisis.

"We lack everything. We need double the equipment, medicine and staff," said Mohammad Sidiq, head of the paediatric department at the Mirwais hospital in the southern city of Kandahar, where there are twice as many patients as beds.


Many staff have quit after not being paid for months, while others have fled abroad fearing Taliban rule, with many women too afraid to return to work under the hardline Islamists.

Sidiq said there had been an influx of patients as access to the hospital improved following the end of Afghanistan's 20-year conflict, straining resources further.

At just 5.5 kilograms (12 pounds), one 11-month-old baby at the hospital weighed just half what the infant should.

A severely malnourished five-year-old with diarrhoea and pneumonia lay motionless and was being fed through a tube. He weighed just 5.3 kilograms.

"I could not bring him to hospital before because there was fighting," the boy's mother said.

At another hospital in the northern town of Balkh, a medic said the number of patients had also shot up.

"In the past, the roads were closed due to the war and people could not come to the hospital, but now their number is much higher than before," Muzhgan Saidzada told AFP.

"Of course, it has become more difficult to handle," the doctor at the Abo Ali Sina Balkhi Regional Hospital said.

- 'Imminent collapse' -

After the Taliban swept to power the World Bank suspended aid to Afghanistan, while Washington denied the Islamist group access to the country's gold and cash reserves, most of which are held overseas.

The International Monetary Fund also said Afghanistan would no longer be able to access the global lender's resources, blocking hundreds of millions of dollars.

Other major donors such as USAID and the European Union have paused funding with no emergency support in place.

Mirwais hospital in Kandahar is struggling with an influx of patients and a lack of resources

 BULENT KILIC AFP

Leading aid agencies now say the health sector, which was primarily run by NGOs with international funding, faces "imminent collapse".

HealthNet TPO, a Dutch aid agency which runs the Afghan Japan Hospital in the capital Kabul, said its 2,700 healthcare workers in Afghanistan would go unpaid and services would stop unless emergency money is provided.

At least 2.6 million people rely on the group for medical services at its 100 health centres and hospitals across the country.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said more than 2,000 health facilities had already been shuttered across the nation.

At least 20,000 health workers are not working, or are doing so without pay, it said, including over 7,000 women.

- Covid woes -

Meanwhile, Covid-19 continues to spread across the country, with few resources to bring it under control.

"Maybe in a month, we will not be able to provide for our Covid-19 patients," said Freba Azizi, a doctor for Kabul's only dedicated coronavirus treatment centre at the Afghan Japan Hospital.

"The death rate of Covid-19 patients will increase," she told AFP. "We will see dead bodies on a daily basis."

More people have been able to access hospitals since the end of fighting in Afghanistan BULENT KILIC AFP

One patient, a 32-year-old man, died during AFP's visit to the hospital. He was suffering from severe pneumonia and went into cardiac arrest.

Noorali Nazarzai, a doctor at the centre, told AFP he and his colleagues -- including fellow medics, nurses, managers and other essential workers -- had not been paid in three months.

According to official data compiled by AFP, Afghanistan has recorded 155,000 Covid-19 infections with around 7,200 deaths. But health experts agree a lack of testing means this is a vast underestimate.

A Johns Hopkins University tracker shows only about 430,000 people have been fully vaccinated -- just one percent of the population.

- Aid hope -

As the healthcare system struggles, the country remains mired in poverty and food prices are rising.

More than 18 million Afghans -- over half the population -- are in dire need of aid, while a third are at risk of famine, according to the United Nations.

More than 18 million Afghans -- over half the population -- are in dire need of aid BULENT KILIC AFP

The international community has pledged $1.2 billion in humanitarian assistance, but it is unclear how and when the money will reach Afghanistan.

UN chief Antonio Guterres said he believed the cash injection could be used as leverage with the Islamist extremists to exact improvements on human rights, amid fears of a return to the brutal rule that characterised the first Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001.

Some lifesaving aid has started to trickle in, with several aircraft carrying UNICEF, Save the Children and World Health Organization supplies arriving since late September.

The WHO said it has airlifted around 185 metric tonnes of essential medical supplies, including Covid-19 and trauma kits, antibiotics, and rehydration salts.

© 2021 AFP

Tensions run high after deadly farmers clash in India

Issued on: 04/10/2021 - 

The incident in Uttar Pradesh state was the deadliest in more than a year of protests by farmers in northern India 

Money SHARMA AFP


New Delhi (AFP)

Demonstrators torched a police vehicle in India on Monday as tensions boiled over after clashes involving protesting farmers killed at least nine people.

The incident on Sunday in Uttar Pradesh state was the deadliest in more than a year of protests by farmers in northern India against new agricultural reforms.

Farmers said that a convoy belonging to a government minister, his son and the state's deputy chief minister ran over and killed four people at a demonstration.

The minister said later that a driver lost control of his vehicle after being pelted by demonstrators.

Angry protesters set fire to several cars and at least five more people, four of them supporters of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), were killed.

On Monday, the protesters kept the bodies of the four dead farmers in glass cases for display around the protest site.

Police banned gatherings, cut off mobile internet services, sent extra forces and detained several opposition figures on their way to the scene including Priyanka Gandhi from the Congress party.

In state capital Lucknow, dozens of police detained local Congress chief Akhilesh Yadav outside his home.

Dozens of opposition supporters staged a protest in the city and set fire to at least one police vehicle, television pictures showed.

Protests organised by opposition parties also took place in New Delhi and Bangalore.

Agriculture has long been a political minefield and employs some two-thirds of India's 1.3 billion population.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government says the reforms will infuse much-needed energy and capital in the sector.

Farmers, many of whom have camped outside New Delhi for over a year, fear the changes will leave them at the mercy of big corporations.

© 2021 AFP

 

Astronomers Look at Super-Earths That had Their Atmospheres Stripped Away by Their Stars

POSTED ONOCTOBER 3, 2021 BY MATT WILLIAMS

As the planets of our Solar System demonstrate, understanding the solar dynamics of a system is a crucial aspect of determining habitability. Because of its protective magnetic field, Earth has maintained a fluffy atmosphere for billions of years, ensuring a stable climate for life to evolve. In contrast, other rocky planets that orbit our Sun are either airless, have super-dense (Venus), or have very thin atmospheres (Mars) due to their interactions with the Sun.

In recent years, astronomers have been on the lookout for this same process when studying extrasolar planets. For instance, an international team of astronomers led by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) recently conducted follow-up observations of two Super-Earths that orbit very closely to their respective stars. These planets, which have no thick primordial atmospheres, represent a chance to investigate the evolution of atmospheres on hot rocky planets.

The study that described their findings, which were recently published in The Astrophysical Journal, was led by Dr. Teruyuki Hirano of the NAOJ and The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI) in Tokyo, Japan. He was joined by researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), the SETI Institute at NASA’s Ames Research Center, the Harvard-Smithson Center for Astrophysics (CfA), the University of Tokyo, and many other institutes.

Artist’s impression of Super-Earths TOI-1634b and TOI-1685b. Credit: NASA Exoplanet Catalog

Dr. Hirano and his team chose two planets originally identified NASA’s Transitting Exoplanet Survey Spacecraft (TESS) – TOI-1634b and TOI-1685b. These two Super-Earth planets that orbit M-type (red dwarf) stars located about 114 and 122 light-years away (respectively) in the constellation Perseus. Using the InfraRed Doppler (IRD) spectrograph mounted on the 8.5 m (~28 ft) Subaru Telescope, the team made multiple confirmations about these two rocky exoplanets.

For starters, Dr. Hirano and his colleagues confirmed that the candidates are rocky super-Earths that measure 1.7 and 1.79 Earth radii and are 4.91 and 3.78 times as massive. They also confirmed that they have ultra-short orbital periods, taking 24 and less than 17 hours to complete a single orbit around their stars. This makes TOI-1634b one of the largest and most massive ultra-short-period rocky exoplanets confirmed to date.

But most importantly, the spectra they obtained provided insight into these planets’ internal and atmospheric structures. What they found was that they were “bare,” meaning that they lacked a primordial hydrogen-helium atmosphere, similar to what Earth had billions of years ago. In all likelihood, this is a result of the planets’ proximity with their host stars, which are prone to flare activity.

In addition, the “bare” nature of these rocky planets raises the possibility of a secondary atmosphere caused by volcanic outgassing. This is also what took place on Earth billions ca. 2.5 billion years ago, which led to Earth transitioning from a hydrogen-helium atmosphere to one composed predominantly of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and other gases that originated inside our planet.

This artist’s impression shows the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Therefore, these planets are a major opportunity for studying how atmospheres evolve on rocky planets, especially ones that orbit red dwarf stars. In addition, the fact that these planets are “bare” means that astronomers will be able to test theories regarding rocky planets that orbit closely to red dwarf stars. Compared to G-type yellow dwarfs (like the Sun), red dwarfs are known for being variable and prone to flare-ups.

Since rocky planets that orbit within a red dwarf’s habitable zone are likely to be tidally locked (with one side constantly facing towards the star), astronomers are naturally curious if they can maintain their atmospheres for long. Red dwarfs make up an estimated 75% of stars in the Milky Way, and many rocky planets have been found in red dwarf systems (including Proxima b, which orbits the closest star to our own).

For all of these reasons, studying these exoplanets could have significant implications in the search for extraterrestrial life. At the same time, it will help astronomers learn more about how this particular class of planet (Super-Earths) form and evolve. “Our project to intensively follow-up planetary candidates identified by TESS with the Subaru Telescope is still in progress, and many unusual planets will be confirmed in the next few years,” said Dr. Hirano.

In the near future, further observations will be possible using next-generation telescopes, including the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Along with several ground-based observatories, astronomers will have the necessary instruments to detect and characterize the atmospheres of these planets.

Further Reading: Subaru Telescope, The Astronomical Journal

Ebola resurfaced: some viruses are never really gone

What caused the recent ‘resurrection’ of the Ebola virus?


Transmission electron micrograph (TEM) of an Ebola virus virion. 

Credit: Callista Images / Getty images


Seven years after the last Ebola epidemic in Guinea, the virus has once again raised its ugly head, with 23 cases and 12 deaths in a new outbreak. They were caused not by a spillover of the virus from animals to humans, but by latent Ebola hiding inside surviving patients.

What is Ebola?

Ebola virus disease (Zaire ebolavirus) is a rare but deadly virus that causes fever, diarrhea, and severe, uncontrollable bleeding as the blood loses its ability to clot.

The devastating disease kills up to 90% of the people it infects.

Symptoms of Ebola. Credit: Wikimedia commons.

Ebola is a zoonotic virus, a common cause of epidemics. These viruses originate from animals – such as bats and chimpanzees – and are passed to humans when they come in close contact. The exact origin animal of Ebola is unknown.

From there, Ebola is transmitted between humans through contact with bodily fluid, such as blood and semen, either directly or indirectly on clothes, sheets and beds.

People remain infectious for as long as the blood contains the virus, but recovered men can continue to transmit it in semen for up to seven additional weeks.

There is currently no cure for Ebola, and the only two approved vaccines are in limited supply.

Latent Ebola resurgence in Guinea

In a recent study, published in Nature, researchers tracked the genetic lineage of a 2021 Ebola outbreak in Guinea, West Africa. They found that the outbreak was not the result of the disease jumping from animal to human, as normally happens, but originated from latent Ebola.

This ‘resurrected’ virus, transmitting from people who recovered from an Ebola outbreak five years ago, suggests that sometimes survivors still harbour the virus many years later.

“This is very surprising and very shocking,” César Muñoz-Fontela of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Germany told New Scientist. Muñoz-Fontela was in Guinea during the previous Ebola epidemic. “It’s like a relapse.”

Guinea had been Ebola-free since the end of the 2013–2016 outbreak in West Africa, in which 28,000 people were infected and 11,000 died.

The researchers compared the 2013–2016 viral strains to those in 14 individuals from the 2021 outbreak and found there were very few differences between the two.

This suggests it was caused by the same virus that was relatively inactive for five years and had a long period of latency where it didn’t replicate enough to accumulate new mutations.

The alternative option – where the virus independently jumped from animal to human again – doesn’t fit this data, because many more mutations would be expected in a new zoonotic strain.

What is virus latency?

Latency occurs when a virus, bacteria or fungus stops replicating and causing symptoms but remains dormant in the body.

Sometimes, a disease may infect somebody and not cause symptoms until many years later. Other times, a disease may manifest in one way early but have different symptoms later in life.

“Typically when we think of viruses that are latent, its about herpes virus,” says Sanjaya Senanayake, an infectious disease physician and a professor of medicine at the Australian National University.

This group includes genital herpes, cold sores, mono (kissing disease) and chicken pox.

“In that family of herpes viruses, there are eight viruses and they all are latent,” says Senanayake.

“Once you’ve been infected with them, they stick around in different parts of the body and they lie in wait. For a lot of people, they’ll never be heard from again.

“But the most common form of recurrence is when your chickenpox virus, varicella-zoster virus, sitting in the dorsal root ganglia cells in the spinal cord, suddenly has a resurgence.

“It comes back not as chickenpox, but as shingles.”

Why does latency occur?

The main reason virus latency may occur is to keep the virus, bacteria or fungus in the body. When a pathogen enters and is destroyed by the immune system, immunity often prevents that virus from getting a foot in the door again.

However, by hiding within the body, the pathogen has multiple chances of replicating and spreading at a later date. Here, the virus may remain dormant until the body is stressed and has a weaker immune system that the virus could bypass.

It is very hard to avoid the body’s defences, however, which may explain why so few viruses show latency.

How does Ebola evade the immune system?

Herpes virus is a variant made of DNA, which is a stable molecule that can survive for a long time. However, Ebola is a little different to herpes.

“Ebola is interesting because it’s an RNA virus, so you don’t classically expect latency with that,” says Senanayake.

Ordinarily, an RNA virus infects the body and hijacks cell machinery to replicate itself. As new virus builds up, symptoms occur, and the individual becomes infectious.

However, RNA viruses rely on the hijacked cells to replicate. They cannot survive for long, so if a virus stops replicating, the immune system will normally destroy it.

However, latent viruses avoid the immune system in a few ways.

The first involves a stabilised viral RNA that floats around inside the cell. The benefit of this is that the virus doesn’t need to get into the nucleus – which could trigger a whole army of defences – but also means it is susceptible to being digested by cellular enzymes.

The second method involves hiding in plain sight and integrating right into the DNA, where it can never truly be destroyed. However, for this to work, the virus needs to make it all the way into the most well-defended part of the cell – a feat for which HIV is well-known.

Beyond this, some viruses can also evade the immune system by hiding away in specific tissue that isn’t covered by the immune system.

“What we have found with Ebola is that the so-called immune privilege sites,” explains Senanayake.

“Even though it seems to be all-pervasive, there are certain areas that the immune system doesn’t go to, like the testicles, certain areas of the central nervous system, and the eyes.

“Those are areas where the virus could potentially lie later and come back.”

It was already known that latent Ebola could persist in patients – for one man, it persisted in semen for more than 500 days – but the length of this dormancy is unprecedented.

For this reason, few viruses are truly latent because they must possess the ability to cease all replication, hide from immune defences, and reactivate when triggered by an external activator such as stress.

In the case of this Ebola resurgence, further studies are needed to determine the mechanism that caused the virus to remain latent.

Virus latency is different to incubation period, where a person has the virus but hasn’t yet shown symptoms. In this case, the virus is still replicating, but hasn’t accumulated enough to cause symptoms.

The nature of latent the Ebola strain identified in Guinea

For true latency to be achieved, a virus must cease replication altogether.

However, the 2021 Ebola strains had some mutations that differed from the 2013–2016 strain. This means there was some replication during the five-year lull, but not enough to match a normal rate of evolution expected in a zoonotic virus.

Instead of going into complete hibernation, the strain may have instead replicated extremely slowly.

This could give it latency-like properties – it didn’t replicate enough to cause major symptoms and still had a later resurgence, but it didn’t become properly inactive.

However, the rate of evolution is generally relatively consistent and long-phase latency, preceded or followed by enough replication to accumulate a few mutations, may be a more accurate hypothesis, the authors explain in their paper.

Genetic data of previous outbreaks is scarce, however, making it difficult to confirm exactly what happened.

How is latent Ebola managed?

The resurgence of Ebola in 2021 highlights the need for long-term care for Ebola survivors.

“This has really turned our understanding of RNA viruses and latency on its head,” says Senanayake.

“It means we need a very low threshold for considering a diagnosis like Ebola in these cases. We can’t just say, ‘Oh look, there’s no active Ebola at the moment; this person had Ebola before so they are immune and it doesn’t make sense that they could transmit it to anyone.’”

This is especially necessary to consider if some people had previously caught Ebola but were asymptomatic until years later.

A health worker from the Guinean Ministry of Health cleans a suspected contact of an Ebola patient’s arm ahead of administering an anti-Ebola vaccine in Gueckedou, Guinea, on February 23, 2021.

 Credit: CAROL VALADE / AFP/ Getty Images.

With this in mind, the authors of the study say that continued, portable genomic surveillance of survivors may help to catch cases before they become symptomatic and allow for early intervention – such as through use of anti-viral agents.

Local facilities also need to be built in countries that are at high risk of Ebola. This will ensure that virus tracking and vaccine supply are equitable.

Additionally, the researchers assert the need for social considerations of the survivors to ensure that they are safe within their community. In previous epidemics, some survivors were seen as heroes who had endured a great battle, but many were stigmatised as a source of danger and were blocked from housing and jobs.

“The other thing it is that it isn’t happening left right and centre,” says Senanayake.

“These are uncommon cases, but I think people like infectious diseases physicians, public health physicians and epidemiologists have to keep that in mind when these cases arrive, they don’t rise.”

Because of this, Ebola management must consider both the genetics and biology of Ebola as well as the health and social impacts of the disease.


Originally published by Cosmos as Ebola resurfaced: some viruses are never really gone

SHE IS A LIBERTARIAN/ANARCHIST  

Grimes was trolling us all with those Karl Marx pics and isn’t actually a communist

Emma KellyMonday 4 Oct 2021 

Pictured: not a communist (Picture: Theo Wargo/Getty Images)

Grimes really was trolling us all when she was papped reading Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto after her split from multi-billionaire Elon Musk.

Pictures of the singer went viral over the weekend when the 33-year-old was photographed walking through downtown Los Angeles, wearing a brown robe over an outfit perfect for a post-apocalyptic landscape and flipping through a copy of The Communist Manifesto.

Meme-worthy anyway, but even more ironic considering Grimes has just split from the world’s richest man, Elon.

After Page Six published the photos under the headline ‘Grimes seen reading Karl Marx following split with world’s richest man Elon Musk’, Grimes confessed that she staged the pictures in an effort to ‘yield the most onion-ish possible headline’.

However, she stressed she is not a communist, and is still living with her ex, who is worth $199.8billion (£147.5billion).

The Oblivion singer, real name Claire Boucher, wrote on Instagram: ‘I was really stressed when paparazzi wouldn’t stop following me this wk but then I realized it was opportunity to troll .. i swear this headline omg wtf haha im dead [sic].

‘Full disclosure I’m still living with e and I am not a communist (although there are some very smart ideas in this book -but personally I’m more interested in a radical decentralized ubi that I think could potentially be achieved thru crypto and gaming but I haven’t ironed that idea out enough yet to explain it. Regardless my opinions on politics are difficult to describe because the political systems that inspire me the most have not yet been implemented).

‘Anyway if paparazzi keep chasing me perhaps I will try to think of more ways to meme – suggestions welcome!’

She also explained on Twitter: ‘This whole thing is so funny I think my publicist is stressed, I should probably stop impulsively doing controversial things, my friend just had the book and the photogs were outside. I’ll prob regret this later hahaha.

‘Taught myself to stop checking if other ppl think I’m socially acceptable a long time ago. Worrying about being cringe is the enemy of art, failure tolerance is essential for creativity. Deciding not to be mad at ppl enjoying life is ok.’

Grimes and Elon are semi-separated (Picture: Dia Dipasupil/WireImage)

Grimes and Elon, 50, went public with their unlikely relationship in May 2018 at the Met Gala, and they welcomed their first child together, a baby boy called X Æ A-Xii, in May 2020.

However, Tesla CEO Elon confirmed last month that he and the Canadian musician were ‘semi-separated’ after three years together.

He told Page Six: ‘We are semi-separated but still love each other, see each other frequently and are on great terms.

  

NASA won’t rename James Webb telescope — and astronomers are angry

ByKaren Graham

DIGITAL JOURNAL
PublishedOctober 2, 2021

The James Webb Space Telescope with large infrared 6.5 meter mirror will be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana in 2021. The Webb telescope will be the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. Source - NASA/Space Coders

NASA has decided not to rename its soon-to-be-launched flagship observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), after investigating whether its namesake, former NASA administrator James Webb, was involved in persecuting gay and lesbian people in the 1950s and 1960s. NASA says it found no evidence to support the allegations.

The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope, already about 14 years behind schedule, is set to be launched in December 2021. Interestingly, controversy over the naming of the telescope has been circulating for years among professional and amateur astronomers.

The James Webb telescope is to be the successor to the pioneering and iconic Hubble Space Telescope, and sadly, despite its scientific potential – it has now become a controversial subject because of the connotations associated with its Name.

The full-scale model is assembled on the lawn at Goddard Space Flight Center and displayed during September 19 – 25 2005. The Webb Telescope team took a group photo with it. Seeing the people gathered next to it shows its scale nicely. Source – NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Pat Izzo, Public Domain

James Webb was a NASA administrator during the “Lavender Scare,” an era barring homosexual people from government jobs. More than 1,200 people—mostly astronomers and passionate enthusiasts—have already signed a petition urging NASA to rename the telescope.

The Lavender Scare has been described as a “moral panic: that gripped the public during the mid-20th century about homosexual people in the United States government and their mass dismissal from government service.

It was thought that gay people were more susceptible to being manipulated, which could pose a threat to the country. The term for this persecution was popularized by David K. Johnson‘s 2004 book which studied this anti-homosexual campaign, The Lavender Scare.

According to Smithsonian Magazine, the petition cites the case of NASA employee Clifford Norton, which happened under Webb’s leadership. Norton was arrested for “gay activity,” interrogated by the police, and questioned by NASA about his sexual activities. NASA fired Norton from his position for “immoral conduct” and for possessing personality traits that render him “unsuitable for further Government employment.” 

NASA Administrator James E. Webb (Left side) presents the Group Achievement Award to Kennedy Space Center Director Dr. Kurt Debus, for Kennedy Space Center’s role in the successful launch of the Saturn I rocket. Source – NASA, Public Domain.

There is no evidence that Webb knew this happened, but Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a cosmologist at the University of New Hampshire told NPR.org this does not exonerate him.

“Either he was a wildly incompetent administrator and didn’t know that his head of security was interrogating employees in NASA facilities, or he knew exactly what was going on and he was, in some sense, party to overseeing the interrogation of someone for being gay,” she said.

“And at worst, we’re basically just sending this incredible instrument into the sky with the name of a homophobe on it, in my opinion.”

The thing is – NASA is not a stranger to controversy. They once renamed an asteroid after learning that its original name had Nazi connotations, according to Futurism’s Dan Robitzski.

More recently, the agency promised to stop using racist names for various objects in space, announcing the agency’s commitment to “examining its use of unofficial terminology for cosmic objects as part of its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Bottom line? Everything is still up in the air over this latest controversy. “We’ve done as much as we can do at this point and have exhausted our research efforts,” senior science communications officer Karen Fox said in an email, NPR reported. “Those efforts have not uncovered evidence warranting a name change.”

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-science/nasa-wont-rename-james-webb-telescope-and-astronomers-are-angry/article#ixzz78JjEmQli

Rudy Giuliani admits under oath that he got some of his 'evidence' of alleged election fraud from Facebook


Rudy Giuliani. Jacquelyn Martin/AP


Rudy Giuliani has been sued by former Dominion employee Eric Coomer for promoting election fraud conspiracy theories.

Giuliani admitted under oath that he did not verify the claims about Coomer before naming him in a press conference.

In the deposition, Giuliani said some of his evidence was based on Coomer's Facebook posts.

Rudy Giuliani admitted under oath that his "evidence" of voter fraud in the 2020 election came partly from Facebook and that he did not interview or fact-check his sources, reports say.

Donald Trump's former personal lawyer made the comments in a deposition on August 14 in relation to a defamation lawsuit brought by a former Dominion Voting Systems employee, Eric Coomer, MSNBC reported.

Coomer is suing the Trump campaign and others for promoting baseless conspiracy theories that he helped "rig" the election for Joe Biden.

In the deposition, Giuliani admitted that he got some of his information about Coomer's alleged role in the election fraud from his social media posts but couldn't be sure if it was Facebook or another platform, MSNBC said.

"Those social media posts get all one to me," Giuliani said.

When questioned about whether he saw any other evidence linking Coomer with election fraud, he responded, "Right now, I can't recall anything else that I laid eyes on."

The conspiracy theories about Coomer were sparked by accusations made by right-wing podcast host Joe Oltmann.

Oltmann claimed to have infiltrated an Antifa conference call in which someone who identified themselves as "Eric from Dominion" boasted about preventing Trump from winning the election, The New York Times reported. Oltmann offered no proof of his claims.

The podcast host then found Eric Coomer's Facebook profile, on which he supposedly had written anti-Trump messages.

Giuliani and other Trump allies seized upon Oltmann's allegations, repeating them in a now-infamous November 19 press conference.

" One of the Smartmatic patent holders, Eric Coomer, I believe his name is, is on the web as being recorded in a conversation with ANTIFA members saying that he had the election rigged for Mr. Biden," Giuliani said.

But according to court papers filed by Coomer's lawyers, Giuliani spent "virtually no time" investigating the claims.

The filings said that Giuliani did not speak to Oltmann about the claims and did not reach out to Coomer or Dominion about them.

Giuliani said he was too busy when asked why he repeated Oltmann's accusations without verifying them.

"It's not my job in a fast-moving case to go out and investigate every piece of evidence that's given to me," Giuliani said in the deposition, reported by MSNBC.

"Why wouldn't I believe him? I would have to have been a terrible lawyer… gee, let's go find out it's untrue. I didn't have the time to do that."

After being named by Giuliani and lawyer Sidney Powell in the November press conference, Coomer briefly had to go into hiding.

Trump and his allies have continued to promote baseless conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.

The Justice Department has said it found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the election, and dozens of lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 election have failed.

Read the original article on Business Insider

'Terrifying' Texas Abortion Law Mobilizes 'Vigilantes' To Shred Rights: DOJ Attorney

Mary Papenfuss
Fri, October 1, 2021

An attorney for the Department of Justice on Friday slammed the “terrifying” and “subversive” new Texas abortion law for empowering “vigilante bounty hunters” to shred women’s constitutional rights.

Such an enforcement “ploy,” designed to dodge judicial review, is an “open threat to the rule of law,” attorney Brian Netter argued in the first federal court hearing involving the law in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. He accused the state of launching “an unprecedented attack on the supremacy of the federal government.”

The three-hour virtual hearing was held to consider a request by the Justice Department to block the law, which has been in effect for a month and is the most restrictive in the nation.

The law bars abortions after six weeks, before most women even know they’re pregnant. Enforcement is through citizen vigilantes, who can win $10,000 in civil damages if they successfully sue anyone who “aids and abets” an abortion — from a doctor to a driver.

District Judge Robert Pitman appeared to agree with Netter that the vigilante enforcement mechanism was a strategy designed to shield the Texas government from a legal challenge. He questioned why Texas went “to such great lengths” to create what he characterized as an unusual law aimed at hindering judicial review. “That’s what the whole statute was designed to do,” Pitman said, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Attorney Will Thompson, representing Texas, claimed there was nothing unprecedented about a state empowering private individuals to enforce a state law in state courts, Law & Crime reported.

He also underscored the ploy by telling the judge that it’s not possible to issue an injunction because there’s no one (such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott) whom the court could prohibit from enforcing the law — because no one in government is responsible for enforcing the law.

The judge didn’t seem entirely convinced, the Journal noted, and he asked several questions concerning a possible injunction. Pitman didn’t say when he would issue a ruling.

Netter argued that vigilantes trying to enforce the law were “state actors” proceeding at the behest of the state government and that the state was still accountable.

He warned that if vigilantes are empowered to enforce other questionable laws, a citizen in the future could hypothetically be empowered to sue someone for $1 million for criticizing a president — even though it would violate First Amendment rights.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month voted not to immediately block the controversial anti-abortion law. Countless women have already traveled long distances outside the state to obtain abortions.

The Justice Department filed its lawsuit Sept. 9, arguing that Texas had adopted a near-ban on abortion in open defiance of the Constitution.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

Giant Milky Way Void Could Be Result of Ancient Supernovae

Matthew Hart
Thu, September 30, 2021,

As astronomers continue to scan the Milky Way for answers to cosmic questions, the galaxy’s strangeness continues to unfold. Our home galaxy, for example, hosts everything from “yellow ball” star clusters to “snow clouds” consisting of oxygen. Now, new research reveals a giant void or “cavity” in the Milky Way. And it may be the gaping result of ancient stars exploding ten million years ago.

A visualization of the Milky Way galaxy with a slice containing a "cavity" or space void magnified.
Alyssa Goodman/Center for Astrophysics

SYFY WIRE reported on the recently announced Milky Way void. Although it may evoke the idea of a black hole, this cavity is actually a sphere (or “bubble”) of empty space. The cavity, as the astronomers outlined in a study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, spans approximately 500 light-years across. And molecular clouds—which provide the material for nascent star formation—surround the region.

“Hundreds of stars are forming or exist already at the surface of this giant bubble,” Shmuel Bialy, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Astrophysics and study lead, said in a press release. “We have two theories—either one supernova went off at the core of this bubble and pushed gas outward forming what we now call the ‘Perseus-Taurus Supershell,’ or a series of supernovae occurring over millions of years created it over time,” Bialy added.



Bialy and his colleagues were able to spot the space void thanks to their analyzing a 3D map of the Supershell. Researchers made the map using a space-based observatory. It represents the first instance of a map of this kind in three dimensions. In the video above, we get a look at the 3D map of the Supershell and its molecular clouds. This video also demonstrates how people can use their phones to look at an augmented-reality version of the Supershell. (You can grab the QR codes for that here.)

“There are many different theories for how gas rearranges itself to form stars,” Catherine Zucker, the lead creator of the 3D map, said in the press release. “Astronomers have tested these theoretical ideas using simulations in the past, but this is the first time we can use real—not simulated—3D views to compare theory to observation, and evaluate which theories work best.”

A 3D visualization of a spherical "cavity" within the Milky Way Galaxy.
Jasen Lux Chambers / Center for Astrophysics

The findings ultimately suggest that the molecular clouds that make up the Perseus-Taurus Supershell are not independent. On the contrary, a single shockwave from a supernova—i.e. an exploding star—likely formed both together. “This demonstrates that when a star dies, its supernova generates a chain of events that may ultimately lead to the birth of new stars,” Bialy added. Which, again, is just one of the many cosmic events occurring throughout the Milky Way all the time.

The post Giant Milky Way Void Could Be Result of Ancient Supernovae appeared first on Nerdist.

Shipwrecks of World War I are a seabed museum in Turkey

Yesim Dikmen and Mehmet Emin Caliskan
Sat, October 2, 2021, 12:21 PM


SEDDULBAHIR, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkey's newest park is an underwater museum of fourteen shipwrecks that lie beneath the waves of the Dardanelles Strait, a glimpse into the fierce battles between Ottoman and Allied forces in World War I.

Turkish photographer Savas Karakas was one of the first to board a motor boat and then dive to the seabed grave when the park opened on Saturday. There, he says, he was able to reconnect with his grandfather who fought in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915.


"My grandfather's hands were disfigured and burned in action, and I was always scared of them," said Karakas, who lives in Istanbul and whose given name means "war", after the battle.

"But when I come to Gallipoli and dive, the rusted metal and steel of the wrecks reminds me of my grandfather's hands and I hold his hand under the water."

The Gallipoli Historic Underwater Park opened 106 years after Ottoman and allied German forces halted an invasion by British, French, Australian and New Zealand troops.

The Ottoman resistance remains a point of deep pride in modern Turkey. At the time, it thwarted the Allies' plan to control the straits connecting the Aegean to the Black Sea, where their Russian naval allies were penned in.

Heavy British losses included the 120-meter HMS Majestic battleship, which is the first stop for divers at a depth of 24 meters off the coast of Seddulbahir.

It and other vessels are largely intact on the sea floor.

"We are a fortunate generation because we ... can still visit those monuments," said Ali Ethem Keskin, another underwater photographer from Istanbul.

"When I started diving ... I felt the moment that they were sunk, and I felt the stress of war," he said. "I sensed the panic they felt at that moment."

(Writing by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Christina Fincher)

Shipwrecks of World War I are a seabed museum in Turkey

Gallipoli Historical Underwater Park Exhibition in Seddulbahir

GREEN CAPITALI$M

Al Gore puts $600M into UK Green energy-tech startup Octopus Energy Group



Mike Butcher
Fri, October 1, 2021

Former Vice President Al Gore has invested $600 million of equity into U.K. energy startup Octopus Energy Group via his Generation Investment Management vehicle, taking a stake of approximately 13% in the business. The investment means Octopus has attained a valuation of around $4.6 billion.

Octopus has made a name for itself in energy circles largely because of its "Kraken" technology platform, which it claims is able to reroute energy from renewable sources around a network far more efficiently than competitors. Octopus is now managing 17 million energy accounts in 12 countries in this manner.

Generation is a $36 billion fund management business with a specific remit to back sustainable businesses. Octopus will use the proceeds of Generation’s strategic investment to push further into the U.S. market, where it already has a toe-hold in Texas.

The Generation investment follows an earlier equity investment from Origin Energy, Tokyo Gas and the acquisition of Upside Energy, specialists in smart grid technology. Octopus’s retail businesses are now in the U.K., U.S., Germany, Spain and New Zealand, plus it has licensing agreements with Good Energy, Hanwha Corporation, Origin Energy, Power and E.ON.

AI-driven energy startup Octopus hits $2B mark after $200M investment from Tokyo Gas

Octopus has also earlier launched Electric Juice, an electric vehicle "roaming network" of 100,000 charge points across Europe that allows users to charge their personal Octopus Energy account when they charge their EVs. It’s also partnered with Tesla to launch Tesla Power in the U.K. and Germany.

Speaking for Octopus Energy, founder and CEO, Greg Jackson said: “Whilst the U.K. energy market is currently in a tough state, it’s highlighted the need for investment in renewables and technologies to end our reliance on fossil fuels. So we are delighted to announce our agreement with Generation Investment Management, created to back sustainable companies changing the world for the better.”

"We run 300 stress tests, twice a week. For us, as a tech company, it’s just algorithmic. For rival companies, they're … doing it on spreadsheets.”

Speaking for Generation Investment Management, Tom Hodges, partner in the long-term equity strategy, said: “Octopus Energy has an extraordinarily good fit with Generation’s mission of investing over the long term to support system and climate-positive companies. The world is at the early stages of an unprecedented energy transition which is essential to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement. This can be done in a way that is better for the environment and consumers.”

In an interview via Zoom, Jackson told me that there are two parts to the current global energy crisis: “One is the energy wholesale price crisis. Global gas prices have trebled or quadrupled in the last year. That's not only causing gas to be expensive but because a lot of electricity comes from gas it’s pushing up electricity prices. I think this is really revealing the extent to which companies have been selling long and buying short. So companies that are currently folding are larger ones which had sold a one-year contract, but only bought six months worth of energy and they were keeping their fingers crossed for the rest of it.”

He said Octopus has “always been 100% hedged. For us, energy retail is just one of our businesses. And we've got 13 businesses in the group. What we've always sought to do is serve an outstanding service and a really, really risk-managed back end. We run 300 stress tests, twice a week on our hedging position. For us, as a tech company, it’s just algorithmic. For rival companies, they're either not doing that or they are doing it on spreadsheets and it just doesn’t work.”

“The reality is this crisis is entirely a fossil-fuel crisis. And if we'd been using renewables as a primary source and then gas as a backup we wouldn't be in this situation,” he added.

He said Octopus is an owner-operator of wind, solar and biomass renewable energy sources, with £3.5 billion in generation assets and plans to 10x that over the next 10 years.

The generation deal consists of a $300 million immediate investment, with $300 million to follow by June 2022, subject to certain further funding conditions.

Octopus has also established the Centre for Net Zero, an independent London-based research facility that is taking the fight against climate change to the government level and also invested £10 million into an R&D and Training Centre for Decarbonisation of Heat.

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M
Binance Hires Ex-U.S. Agent Who Led Probes on Silk Road, Mt. Gox


Joanna Ossinger
Thu, September 30, 2021

(Bloomberg) -- Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, hired a former U.S. Internal Revenue Service special agent who worked on some of the digital-asset world’s most high-profile investigations.

Tigran Gambaryan -- who led several multibillion-dollar cyber-investigations at IRS including on the Silk Road website and the Mt. Gox hack -- joins Binance as vice president of global intelligence and investigations, according to a statement. Another former IRS special agent, Matthew Price, is coming on board as senior director of investigations, Binance said.

Binance is bolstering its ranks as it says it’s focusing strongly on compliance and working with regulators around the globe. The exchange expanded quickly in an environment with few rules, and the cryptocurrency market’s rapid growth has drawn attention from officials who haven’t always liked what they’ve seen. Binance alone has faced a slew of probes and consumer warnings in recent months from regulators in countries including the U.S., U.K., Thailand, Singapore and Japan.

“The Binance investigations team now includes the top investigators in the world,” Binance Chief Executive Officer Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said in the statement. “This level of experience will make Binance a leader in compliance, enhancing trust in Binance and the cryptocurrency ecosystem as a whole.”

Gambaryan, in his decade at the IRS-Criminal Investigations Cyber Crimes Unit, investigated cases involving national security, terrorism financing, identity theft, distribution of child pornography, tax evasion and bank secrecy act violations.

“I led some of the most significant cyber and cryptocurrency investigations in history, including the Silk Road, BTC-e bitcoin exchange and the Mt. Gox hack,” he said in an email. “I look forward to bringing this experience to Binance’s investigations team and cementing Binance’s position as an industry leader in compliance and investigations.”

Price led international cyber-investigations at the IRS targeting bad actors who sought to exploit cryptocurrency for illicit purposes. Those included Helix, the first investigation and successful prosecution of an illicit Bitcoin tumbling service operating on the darknet.

“Compliance is the first line of defense,” Gambaryan said in the statement. “Our goal is to increase trust in cryptocurrency by establishing Binance as the leading contributor in the fight against human trafficking, ransomware and terrorism financing.”