'We were lucky' says governor of quake-hit PNG province

13 April 2023
Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific Journalist

Over 800 houses were destroyed after a magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck Papua New Guinea's East Sepik province on April 4. 

Photo: NBC East Sepik / Edward Hagoria

The governor of the Papua New Guinea province worst-hit by last week's earthquake feared the death toll was going to be much higher.

Eight people are confirmed dead after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck East Sepik at around 4am on Monday last week.

The epicentre hit Chambri Lake, about 100km south-west of Wewak at a depth of 60km.

An assessment report from the East Sepik Provincial Disaster and Emergency office said over 800 houses were destroyed.

In the district of Angoram alone 542 houses were lost.

East Sepik's Governor Allan Bird said he initially thought the loss of lives and damage was going to be much greater.

"We felt we were lucky," he said.

"It was eight lives lost which is obviously sad, you don't want to lose anyone, but I guess from a response standpoint we were fairly relieved that it wasn't worse."

Bird said people built their homes in swampy places in the Karawari area of Angoram.

"They actually build their homes on peat and it's not a very stable material," Bird said.

"I think almost 300 homes collapsed in that particular area."

Bird said the government was providing help with basic tools, nails and tarpaulin to support the rebuild. Also being provided was clothing, mosquito nets, water containers and fishing nets.

He estimated the overall cost to rebuild would be about $2 million Kina, or around $US500,000.

"We think we will be spending about 1000 Kina ($US280) to re-equip a family so they can get back to normal.

"Then another 1000 Kina, for logistics to get the help out there, because these places are really far flung and isolated. You need a helicopter to reach them or go by road and then by speedboat."
Too scared to search for food and water

The report from the East Sepik Provincial Disaster and Emergency office said for most people they had never felt an earthquake of such magnitude and would take time to "absorb the realities of such extreme natural hazards".

Luke Baskam, from Wewak, where there was one death, said people in the area normally went out to catch fish and collect sago but were not doing it now out of fear of aftershocks.

"Right now they are scared of the earthquake and they're staying at home," Baskam said.

"They can't move to find food or water. They're scared an earthquake will come and kill them, that's why they're scared of moving."

Baskam said there had been not much support from the government despite hearing on the radio that help was coming.

"They're not doing it fast, they're very slow at moving things."

Photo: NBC East Sepik / Edward Hagoria

Malawi: Health Authorities Fear Maburg Virus Disease Presence in North Malawi

13 APRIL 2023

Nyasa Times (Leeds)

By Naomi Mkwanda

Health authorities say there is another suspected case of the Marburg virus disease at Songwe border in Karonga.

According to Ministry of Health spokesperson Adrian Chikumbe, samples taken from the individual have been sent to South Africa to determine whether or not the symptoms he has shown are of the disease.

Last week, Mzuzu Central Hospital isolated five people who presented symptoms similar to those of the virus but were later cleared.

The five people presented symptoms similar to those of the virus but they all tested negative.

An internal memo signed by the hospital's director Ted Bandawe said out of the five patients, two were being treated for typhoid fever while the other three are being treated for adult measles.

Mzuzu Central Hospital spokesperson Arnold Kayira said all precautionary measures were being taken as the team from the Public Health Institute of Malawi was on the ground investigating the cases.

Marburg virus disease is a rare with severe haemorrhagic fever which affects both people and non-human primates.

But Kayira said the public should not panic following the Marbug scare.

He said there were no no confirmed Marburg virus case at the hospital.

Dr Kayira said the leaked memo was meant to notify members of staff about the five cases and was not meant for the public.

"The five cases are being treated in an isolation unit and are responding well to treatment," said Dr Kayira.

He said samples were being handled by the Public Health Institute of Malawi PHIM and have been sent to South Africa for testing.

Read the original article on Nyasa Times.

Universities and the AUKUS Military-Industrial Complex

BY BINOY KAMPMARK

 APRIL 13, 2023
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Photograph Source: U.S. Secretary of Defense – CC BY 2.0

Here they go.  Vice-chancellors, university managers, and creatures with titles unmentionable and meaningless (deputies, semi-deputies, sub-deputies), a whole cavalcade of parasitic creatures in need of neutering, keen to pursue another daft idea.  Australian universities do not want to miss out on the military-industrial-education complex, whatever its imperilling dangers.  With the war inspired AUKUS security pact, which promises the stripping of the Australian budget to the tune of $AUD 368 billion over the course of three decades, a corrupt establishment promises to get worse.

The AUKUS distraction could not have come at a better time.  The tertiary sector in Australia is becoming increasingly cadaverous, marked by cost-cutting, rampant casualisation and heavy teaching and workloads for those battling away in the pedagogical trenches.

In a recent piece by Guardian Australia’s higher education reporter, an academic, who preferred to remain anonymous fearing institutional retribution, likened the modern Australian university to a supermarket.  Students were the customers filing through the self-checkout counters; the staff, increasingly rendered irrelevant, were readily disposable.

The stories have been familiar for years, even as the offending by university management continues unabated: tutors being paid insufficiently to read and grade work adequately; virtually non-existent job security; the suppression of academic freedom and criticism of ghastly management practices.  Given the pathological secrecy under which universities work under, essential data shedding light on class sizes, staff-student ratios, and contracts with private business interests, is virtually impossible to attain.

But despite the Australian university sector proving unsustainable, unprincipled, and ungainly, individuals such as Catriona Jackson, the CEO of Universities Australia, is on the hunt for new frontiers.  Last year, the submission of Universities Australia to the Defence Strategic Review was almost begging to link universities with the defence needs of the country.  All the Defence Department and Australian Defence Forces needed to do was ask.

As the Australian Financial Review reported at the time, “The universities need to be prepared to respond in an adaptable and efficient manner to a clear demand signal from defence in terms of workforce needs – both skills and numbers – as well as technology and hardware needs.”

How fortunate, then, that AUKUS came bumbling along.  For Jackson, principles in education are less important than inflated commercial opportunities or, to use her lingo, commercialisation.  Distant from the process of learning itself, unaware of the delivery of courses and the classroom, she sees this war making security pact as packed with promise.  “It’s workforce, workforce, workforce,” she sloganeered to her Sky News host Kieran Gilbert.  “It’s not just nuclear physicists we need, although we do need some of those and it’s a very specialist profession.  Almost every area of human endeavour we need a capacity uplift, so engineers, doctors, nurses, psychologists, pretty much everyone.”

Evidently hearing the war jingles around the corner, Jackson is journeying to Washington for meetings with national security officials from the US State Department and National Science Foundation.  It is her hope that the number of Australian university partnerships will be expanded, “with more than 10,000 formal partnerships already in place with fellow institutions around the world.”  The message she takes to the US capital will, however, be focused on “developing the capability [of Australian universities] to deliver the project, including through the provision of skilled workers and world-class research and development.”

Certain publications have also exuded jingoistic cheer on the new role of Australia’s tertiary sector.  The Australian, one of Rupert Murdoch’s premier rags of froth and bile, is ever reliable in this respect.  The paper’s higher education editor, Tim Dodd, in a March contribution, posed two questions to those in the university sector: Had Australian universities ever played such a vital role in national defence as they would be likely to do over the next two decades in building nuclear-powered submarines?  Would they even want to be involved?

Throughout his piece, Dodd seems to think that a university system untethered to the defence establishment is a morally questionable thing. In doing so, he betrays his ignorance of those wise words from US Democratic Senator J. William Fulbright, who warned that “in lending itself too much to the purposes of government, a university fails its higher purposes”.

Dodd can merely observe that, “In the post-war period universities were still not critical to defence programs.”  AUKUS and the nuclear submarine program had changed matters.  “Australia is now embarking on an enormous program to build, operate and maintain nuclear-powered submarines and a clear goal is sovereign capability.”  All in all, it was “a critical national priority that universities are right to give their full support to. Their backing is critical.”

Leaving aside such platitudinous nonsense as “sovereign capability” – the technology, expertise, control and guidance over this new promised machinery will always be directed from Washington – the sentiments are clear.  The military-industrial-university complex is a matter to be celebrated.  There are, for instance, “other parts of AUKUS” that will involve “our top universities” in such areas as “advanced research cyber security, artificial intelligence and quantum technologies.”

Bizarrely, Dodd gets the question about academic freedom the wrong way around: that expressing a choice in favour of the blatant war drumming of AUKUS is something that should be one for academics.  If he had any idea about despotic university environments, he would be aware that academics, whatever they agree with, will have little say in the matter.  Distant, estranged managements, unaccountably enthroned in administrative towers, will be making such decisions for them; the only real free expression will be exercised by those opposing the measure.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

Google staring at another round of layoffs: Here's why 

Google staring at another round of layoffs: Here's why 

Written byAthik Saleh

Apr 13, 2023, 11:23 am

Google CEO Sundar Pichai hinted at more layoffs

The last few months have seen mass layoffs becoming a common occurrence. Some of the biggest tech companies in the world have been hit by the layoff season.A few, including Amazon and Meta, announced two rounds of layoffs. Now, Google might join the club.The possibility was hinted at by CEO Sundar Pichai during an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

Why does this story matter?

• Tech companies have been struggling for a while. After a fruitful run during the pandemic, most are searching for a sustainable way to continue their growth.
• Google, one of the biggest companies in the world, is also looking for a way to drive its growth efficiently. However, it is a tough ask in an economy with several uncertainties.

Pichai did not rule out more layoffs

Is Google going to fire more employees? When asked whether the company has similar plans to that of Amazon and Meta, Pichai said the company is "prioritizing and moving people" to important areas.He did not explicitly say the company would fire more people. Neither did he say it will not.He, however, admitted there is "a lot of work left."

Google knows what it needs to do: Pichai

When asked under what scenario will Google consider more layoffs, Pichai said, "We are comfortable with our approach.""We have a clear view of what we need to work toward, both in terms of innovating and making sure we are able to build the things we need to, as well as making sure we are being more efficient as a company," he added.

The company plans to re-engineer its costs durably

Mark Zuckerberg announced 2023 will be the "year of efficiency." Google also plans to improve its efficiency.Speaking about making the company more efficient, the CEO said, "We're thinking about how to re-engineer our cost base in a durable way. We are definitely being focused on creating durable savings.""We are pleased with the progress, but there's more work left to do," he added.

Microsoft and OpenAI pose a significant challenge to Google's dominance

Pichai's comments come after Google parent Alphabet laid off 12,000 employees in January this year. It happened around the time when Bard, the company's AI chatbot, made its underwhelming debut.Questions are being raised about the longevity of Google's dominance in search, with Microsoft and OpenAI breathing down its neck.How will the company manage to be innovative in AI research while being efficient?

Google might need to save costs elsewhere

With its dominance in search at stake, Google will have to go lights out on AI research. For that, it must put significant resources into developing competitive alternatives to ChatGPT and GPT-4.However, that might make being efficient tough. The only solution is to save costs elsewhere, which could lead to another round of layoffs.

SCI FI TECH

Fusion Reactor: $65 Billion and Still No Electricity

BY LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

 APRIL 13, 2023

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Aerial view of the ITER site in France. (Photo: Oak Ridge National Laboratory/Wikimedia Commons)

As defined by World Nuclear News, the international fusion project known as ITER, exists “to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy. The goal of ITER is to operate at 500 MW (for at least 400 seconds continuously) with 50 MW of plasma heating power input. It appears that an additional 300 MWe of electricity input may be required in operation. No electricity will be generated at ITER.”

Four hundred seconds. No electricity.

ITER, which stands for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, is a collaboration between 35 countries that was first conceived in 1985 and formally agreed to on November 21, 2006. Construction began in 2010 at the Cadarache nuclear complex in southern France.

The  official seven group founding members of ITER are China, the European Union (then including the UK, which remains in the project), India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States.

By the time ITER is actually operational — if it ever is — it will have gobbled up billions of dollars. Currently, those cost estimates range wildly between the official ITER figure of $19-23 billion (likely a gross under-estimate) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) current estimate of $65 billion.

The starting price when the project began was around $6.3 billion.

If the DOE numbers are right, then those 400 seconds will cost $16.25 million a second. Just to prove that fusion power is possible. Without actually delivering anything practical at all to anyone.

Whatever the costs, they are too high to be remotely justifiable, given the end product and the far more compelling and essential competing needs of the world right now.

This first appeared in Beyond Nuclear International.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the editor and curator of BeyondNuclearInternational.org and the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear.