Month: April 2021

China will discuss building a defense system against near-Earth asteroids, a senior space agency official said Saturday, as the country steps up its longer-term space ambitions.Zhang Kejian, head of the China National Space Administration, did not provide further detail in his opening remarks at a ceremony for China’s Space Day in the eastern city of Nanjing.China has made space exploration a top priority in recent years, aiming to establish a program operating thousands of space flights a year and carrying tens of thousands of tons of cargo and passengers by 2045.The European Space Agency last year signed a deal worth 129 million euros ($156 million) to build a spacecraft for a joint project with NASA examining how to deflect an asteroid heading for Earth.China is pushing forward a mission where one space probe will land on a near-Earth asteroid to collect samples, fly back toward Earth to release a capsule containing the samples, and then orbit another comet, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing Ye Peijian, an academic at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.The mission could take about a decade to complete, Ye said. China and Russia signed a memorandum of understanding last month to set up an international lunar research station. …

Malawi’s government says it will go ahead with plans to destroy thousands of expired COVID-19 vaccine doses, despite calls from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Africa Centre for Disease Control not to destroy them.The WHO and Africa CDC this week urged African countries not to destroy COVID-19 vaccines that may have passed their expiration dates, saying they are still safe to use. However, Malawi’s government says the appeals have come too late to prevent the destruction of thousands of doses of expired COVID vaccines.   Officials said the 16,440 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine that expired April 13 have already been removed from cold storage.   Thursday, the WHO and the Africa CDC had urged African countries not to destroy the vaccine that may have expired, saying it is still usable.     “And it’s also a requirement that every vile manufactured, has an expiry date beyond which it cannot be used,” said Dr. Charles Mwansambo, Malawi’s secretary for health. “In this case, we cannot proceed to use these because the vile clearly states the expiry date. And any doctor, any physician would not be forgiven in the event of anything happening after knowingly used a vile that is clearly having labeled as having expired.”   The expired vaccine is part of the 102,000-dose donation the country received in March from the African Union.      Malawi and South Sudan earlier announced plans to destroy about 70,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that expired last month.   Mwansambo also said …

Israel’s health ministry said Friday that no COVID deaths were recorded on Thursday. It was the first day in 10 months that the ministry did not register any COVID deaths.The last time no new cases were recorded in the Middle Eastern country was June 29.Israel has been a world leader in inoculating its population against the coronavirus.More than 5 million Israelis, a little under 58% of the population, have received both doses of the vaccines.Meanwhile, India said Saturday that it had recorded 346,786 new COVID cases in the previous 24-hour period. The South Asian nation has reported record-breaking tolls of new cases for several days. At the same time, India’s hospitals are scrambling to provide oxygen for the COVID patients who are struggling to breathe.The Biden administration’s top medical adviser on the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Friday the U.S. is attempting to help India contain its coronavirus surge by providing technical support and assistance.“It is a dire situation that we’re trying to help in any way we can,” Fauci said at the regularly held White House coronavirus briefing.The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Saturday that there are 145.6 million global COVID-19 infections. The U.S. remains at the top of the list as the country with the most infections at almost 32 million. India is second on the list with more than 16.6 million cases, followed by Brazil with 14.2 million.A U.S. health panel has recommended ending a pause on the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 …

When police respond to a person gripped by a mental health or drug crisis, the encounter can have tragic results. Now a government insurance program will help communities set up an alternative: mobile teams with mental health practitioners trained in de-escalating such potentially volatile situations.   The effort to reinvent policing after the death of George Floyd in police custody is getting an assist through Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for low-income people and the largest payer for mental health treatment. President Joe Biden’s recent coronavirus relief bill calls for an estimated $1 billion over 10 years for states that set up mobile crisis teams, currently locally operated in a handful of places.   Many 911 calls are due to a person experiencing a mental health or substance abuse crisis. Sometimes, like with Daniel Prude in Rochester, New York, the consequences are shocking. The 41-year-old Black man died after police placed a spit hood over his head and held him to the pavement for about two minutes on a cold night in 2020 until he stopped breathing. He had run naked from his brother’s house after being released from a hospital following a mental health arrest. A grand jury voted down charges against the officers.   Dispatching teams of paramedics and behavioral health practitioners would take mental health crisis calls out of the hands of uniformed and armed officers, whose mere arrival may ratchet up tensions. In Eugene, Oregon, such a strategy has been in place more than 30 …

A recycled SpaceX crew capsule has delivered four astronauts from three countries to the International Space Station.     The SpaceX capsule docked with the orbiting outpost early Saturday, according to the U.S. space agency NASA, after launching Friday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.      Friday’s lift-off was the first time a rocket and crew capsule have been reused in a human mission.  It is the third time SpaceX has sent humans to the space station under its multi-billion-dollar contract with NASA.   The deployment of a reusable rocket helps keep down the cost of the space program.   SpaceX is owned by entrepreneur Elon Musk.   …

Israel’s health ministry said Friday that no COVID deaths were recorded on Thursday. It was the first day in 10 months that the ministry did not register any COVID deaths.The last time no new cases were recorded in the Middle Eastern country was June 29.Israel has been a world leader in inoculating its population against the coronavirus.More than 5 million Israelis, a little under 58% of the population, have received both doses of the vaccines.Meanwhile, India said Saturday that it had recorded 346,786 new COVID cases in the previous 24-hour period. The South Asian nation has reported record-breaking tolls of new cases for several days. At the same time, India’s hospitals are scrambling to provide oxygen for the COVID patients who are struggling to breathe.The Biden administration’s top medical adviser on the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Friday the U.S. is attempting to help India contain its coronavirus surge by providing technical support and assistance.“It is a dire situation that we’re trying to help in any way we can,” Fauci said at the regularly held White House coronavirus briefing.The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Saturday that there are 145.6 million global COVID-19 infections. The U.S. remains at the top of the list as the country with the most infections at almost 32 million. India is second on the list with more than 16.6 million cases, followed by Brazil with 14.2 million.A U.S. health panel has recommended ending a pause on the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 …

Kenyans living with HIV say their lives are in danger due to a shortage of anti-retroviral drugs donated by the United States amid a dispute between the U.S. aid agency and the Kenyan government.The delayed release of the drugs shipped to Kenya late last year is due to the government slapping a $847,902 tax on the donation, and the U.S. aid agency having “trust” issues with the graft-tainted Kenya Medical Supplies Authority, activists and officials said.Activists on Friday dismissed as “public relations” the government’s statement on Thursday that it had resolved the issue and distributed the drugs to 31 of Kenya’s 47, counties. The government said all counties within five days will have the drugs needed for 1.4 million people.”We are assuring the nation that no patient is going to miss drugs. We have adequate stocks,” Kenya Medical Supplies Authority customer service manager Geoffrey Mwagwi said as he flagged off a consignment. He said those drugs would cover two months.The U.S. is by far the largest donor for Kenya’s HIV response.Kenya’s health minister, Mutahi Kagwe, told the Senate’s health committee earlier this week that USAID had released the drug consignment that had been stuck in port. Patients are expected to receive them during the week.He said USAID had proposed using a company called Chemonics International to procure and supply the drugs to Kenyans due to “trust issues” with the national medical supplies body.Bernard Baridi, chief executive officer of Blast, a network of young people living with the disease, said the …

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Saturday that there are 145.2 million global COVID-19 infections. The U.S. remains at the top of the list as the country with the most infections at almost 32 million. India is second on the list with more than 16 million cases, followed by Brazil with 14.2 million.A U.S. health panel has recommended lifting a pause on the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, despite evidence that it is linked to rare cases of blood clots.The advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Friday that use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should be resumed in the U.S. after regulators had paused it last week to review reports of rare but severe blood clots in a handful of Americans who had received the shot.The panel voted 10-4 for the resumption of the vaccine, arguing that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks.Seventy-seven inmates at an Iowa maximum security prison for men received overdoses of the Pfizer COVID vaccine earlier this week.The prisoners at the Iowa State Penitentiary at Fort Madison were reported to have received doses that were six times the amount normally used.“The large majority of inmates continue to have very minor symptoms consistent with those that receive the recommended dose of the vaccine,” Cord Overton, a spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Corrections told the Des Moines Register newspaper in an email.Two members of the prison’s nursing staff, who administered the vaccines, have …

U.S. President Joe Biden praised world leaders for coming together on climate change and urged them to make good on promises as he closed a virtual climate change summit hosted from the White House.“The commitments we’ve made must become real,” Biden said Friday on the last day of the two-day summit that involved 40 world leaders.Biden pledged during the summit to cut U.S. greenhouse gas pollution by 50-52% by 2030. Japan and Canada also raised climate commitments during the summit while the European Union and Britain announced stronger climate targets earlier this week.John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, said that more than half the world’s economy has now pledged action to stop warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a goal set by the 2015 Paris Agreement.Kerry said Biden’s call for modernizing U.S. infrastructure to operate more cleanly would provide long-term benefits for the U.S. economy. “No one is being asked for a sacrifice,” Kerry said. “This is an opportunity.”Biden’s commitment is the most ambitious U.S. climate goal ever, nearly doubling the cuts the Obama administration pledged to meet in the Paris climate accord.The White House arranged for billionaires, CEOs and union executives to help promote Biden’s plan to reduce the U.S. economy’s reliance on fossil fuels by investing trillions of dollars in clean-energy technology, research and infrastructure while simultaneously saving the planet.Billionaire and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared Friday, “We can’t beat climate change without a historic amount of new investment,” adding “We have to do more, faster …

President Joe Biden aimed to accentuate the positive as he wrapped up his Leaders Summit on Climate Change on Friday. Biden highlighted the economic benefits the fight against climate change offers. But his plans still face an uphill battle at home. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more. …

A potential new malaria vaccine has shown a preliminary efficacy rate of 77% during a trial on infants, in what scientists hope is a breakthrough in developing a highly effective malaria inoculation.Scientists at England’s University of Oxford said that the yearlong trial involved 450 children in the African nation of Burkina Faso and that no serious events were reported during the trial.It is the first candidate vaccine for malaria to surpass a target set for researchers by the World Health Organization: to develop a shot with at least 75% efficacy.Researchers say they now plan to conduct a Stage 3 trial for the vaccine on 4,800 children between the ages of 5 months and 3 years in four African countries — Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali and Tanzania. Those trials will be conducted in collaboration with the Serum Institute of India and the U.S. biotechnology company Novavax.The research is led by Adrian Hill, director of Oxford’s Jenner Institute and one of the lead researchers behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. Hill told VOA in an exclusive interview that the vaccine is showing game-changing results, noting that over many years,140 malaria vaccine candidates have been tried in clinical trials, and none of them has had an efficacy over 75%.“In our first attempt with this vaccine, we see 77%, and we think we can improve on that further. So, it’s real progress. It’s unprecedented,” he said.Malaria, a mosquito-borne disease, infects millions of people each year and kills more than 400,000 — most of them young …

U.S. health officials on Friday ended an 11-day pause on COVID-19 vaccinations using Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose shot, after scientific advisers decided its benefits outweighed the risk of rare blood clots.The government found 15 vaccine recipients who had developed the clots, out of nearly 8 million people given the J&J shot. All were women, most under age 50. Three died; seven are still in hospitals.In the end, however, the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decided that J&J’s vaccine was a key to fighting the pandemic, and that the clot risk could be addressed with warnings to help younger women decide which shot to choose.The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ meeting on Friday followed an emergency meeting last week, the day after the announcement of the pause. At that time, members of the panel said they had too little time to make a recommendation.On Friday, members voted 10-4 for the resumption of the use of the vaccine. The panel debated imposing age restrictions on the vaccine but decided against it.On April 13, the CDC, in a joint statement with the FDA, recommended pausing use of the vaccine “out of an abundance of caution” to give experts an opportunity to examine six cases of blood clots and to see if any additional cases were found.CDC officials later said that “a handful” of other cases were being investigated and that they were encouraged by the relatively small number of them.Earlier this week, Europe’s drug watchdog group, the European Medicines Agency, said that while it …

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Immunization Committee is meeting Friday to consider lifting a pause on use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine.   The pause was widely implemented last week following the discovery of six U.S. cases of a rare and severe type of blood clots in people who had received the shot.   On April 13, the CDC, in a joint statement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, recommended a pause on use of the vaccine, “out of an abundance of caution” and to give experts an opportunity to examine the blood clot cases and see if any additional cases were found.   CDC officials have said since that “a handful” of other cases were being investigated, but offered no details, except to say they were encouraged there was a relatively small number of them.   The six cases of blood clots previously identified – out of seven million doses of the vaccine delivered – occurred in women between the ages of 18 and 48. They developed symptoms, most often headaches, six to 13 days after vaccination. One vaccine recipient, a Virginia woman, died in March.   The Washington Post reports authorities are leaning toward lifting the pause. Earlier this week, Europe’s drug watchdog group, the European Medicines Agency, said that while it found a possible link between the vaccine and the rare blood clots, the vaccine’s benefits outweigh its risks.     It said it would recommend its use with an additional warning …

The coronavirus has conquered the world’s highest mountain.   A Norwegian climber became the first to be tested for COVID-19 in Mount Everest base camp and was flown by helicopter to Kathmandu, where he was hospitalized. Erlend Ness told The Associated Press in a message Friday that he tested positive on April 15. He said another test on Thursday was negative and he was now staying with a local family in Nepal. An ace mountain guide, Austrian Lukas Furtenbach, warned that the virus could spread among the hundreds of other climbers, guides and helpers who are now camped on the base of Everest if all of them are not checked immediately and safety measures are taken. Any outbreak could prematurely end the climbing season, just ahead of a window of good weather in May, he said.   “We would need now most urgently mass testing in base camp, with everyone tested and every team being isolated, no contact between teams,” said Furtenbach. “That needs to be done now, otherwise it is too late.” Furtenbach, leading a team of 18 climbers to Mount Everest and its sister peak Mount Lhotse, said there could be more than just one case on the mountain as the Norwegian had lived with several others for weeks.   A Nepalese mountaineering official denied there were any active cases on the mountains at the moment.   Mira Acharya, director at the Department of Mountaineering, said she had no official information about the COVID-19 cases and only reports …

In an exclusive interview with VOA, the director of Oxford University’s Jenner Institute says their new malaria vaccine, tested in Burkina Faso, has shown a preliminary efficacy rate of 77%, which could help prevent over 400,000 deaths a year, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa.  Henry Wilkins looks at the burden of malaria on families in the region and the potential impact of the new vaccine in this report from Kaya, Burkina Faso. …

COVID-19 is surging at an astounding rate in India. The South Asian nation’s health ministry said Friday it had counted a record-breaking 332,730 new infections in the previous 24-hour period. The new tally surpasses Thursday’s record daily toll of 314,835 new infections.At least six hospitals in New Delhi, the capital, have run out of, or are on the verge of running out of, oxygen for their patients.The oxygen shortage is so acute that the high court in the capital ordered the national government to divert oxygen from industrial use to hospitals.In western India on Friday, a fire at the Vijay Vallabh Hospital killed at least 13 COVID patients.Prime Minister Narendra Modi is holding meetings with the country’s chief ministers Friday to determine how best to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reports that India has nearly 16 million COVID-19 cases. Only the U.S., with almost 32 million cases, has more infections than India.Agence France-Presse is reporting that Japan is set to declare a state of emergency because of a surge in COVID infections, just three months before the opening of the Olympic Games in Tokyo.“We have a strong sense of crisis,” Yasutoshi Nishimura, Japan’s minister for virus response, said Friday, according to AFP.Japan has more than 550,000 COVID-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins.Syria’s government and the country’s last opposition-held enclave received their first doses of COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday.UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the GAVI vaccine alliance announced in a joint statement the delivery of 200,000 doses …

Old machines are transformed into new robots in an exhibition that makes viewers think twice about the machines they use. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.  Camera: Roy Kim  Producer: Elizabeth Lee  …

Since coronavirus pandemic began many Americans have gotten more used to make their own meals at home. But that doesn’t mean people do not want a great restaurant meal from time to time. Karina Bafradzhian reports. Camera: Andrey Degtyarev and Artyom Kokhan …

SpaceX is set to launch its third crew to the International Space Station early Friday, reusing a rocket and crew capsule in a human mission for the first time.The Crew-2 mission blasts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 5:49 a.m. Eastern Time (0949 GMT), after being delayed a day by adverse weather along the flight path.”It seems the weather is cooperating, so looks like we will try to launch tomorrow !!!” tweeted French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who will become the first European to fly on a SpaceX Crew Dragon.”Our friends on the @Space_Station are expecting us to show up and we don’t want to be late. They even installed my bedroom recently and literally made my bed. Such nice hosts!”The extra “bed” is necessary to accommodate an unusually large number of people aboard the ISS: 11 in total, as the Crew-2 team overlaps for a few days with Crew-1 astronauts, in addition to three Russian cosmonauts.Pesquet will be accompanied by Americans Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur and Japan’s Akihiko Hoshide.Crew-1 is set to splash down off the Florida cost on April 28.It is the third time SpaceX will send humans to the ISS as part of its multibillion-dollar contract with NASA under the Commercial Crew Program.The first mission, a test flight called Demo-2, took place last year and ended nine years of American reliance on Russian rockets for rides to the ISS following the end of the space shuttle program.”In terms of getting the …

Cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half is doable but hard, experts say, and some of the biggest barriers are political, not technical.President Joe Biden on Thursday FILE – A wind turbine is pictured, Jan. 13, 2021, near Spearville, Kan.U.S. emissions are declining, but far too slowly to reach Biden’s target. They would have to fall on a scale that has happened only three times since 2005, Rossetti noted, and not for good reasons — during the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2008-09 financial crisis and during an exceptionally mild winter in 2012.The Biden administration has proposed broad areas where it sees opportunities for cuts, without giving much detail. It says there are multiple pathways to get there.But each path faces opposition, experts note. Legislation may struggle to pass in a closely divided Congress. And a conservative Supreme Court may take a dim view of expanding regulations.Several research groups have mapped out ways that the United States could cut emissions in half.”We have the policies to do it, and we have the technologies to do it,” said Robbie Orvis, director of energy policy design at Energy Innovation, a policy research group.For starters, the amount of solar and wind power installed each year needs to be three to four times as much as last year’s record-setting pace.”It is a big leap to do that, but the technology exists,” Orvis said.And the technology is cheaper than ever, and getting cheaper.The FILE – New Lexus automobiles are shown for sale after California Governor Gavin Newsom …

A crew returned from the northernmost islands in the Hawaiian archipelago this week with a boatload of marine plastic and abandoned fishing nets that threaten to entangle endangered Hawaiian monk seals and other animals on the uninhabited beaches stretching nearly 2,100 kilometers north of Honolulu.The cleanup effort in Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument lasted three weeks and the crew picked up more than 43 metric tons of “ghost nets” and other marine plastics such as buoys, crates, bottle caps and cigarette lighters from the shores of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.The monument, the largest protected marine reserve in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world, is in the northern Pacific Ocean and surrounded by what is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — a huge gyre of floating plastic and other debris that circulates in ocean currents. The islands act like a comb that gather debris on its otherwise pristine beaches.The ecosystem in the monument is diverse, unique and one of the most intact marine habitats on Earth. But the beaches are littered with plastic and nets that ensnare endangered Hawaiian monk seals — of which there are only about 1,400 left in the world — and green turtles, among other wildlife.FILE – In this April 11, 2021, photo provided by Matt Saunter, Joao Garriques, left, and Matthew Chauvin load fishing nets onto a ship near Kure Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.The crew removed line from a monk seal on the expedition’s first day.With virtually no predators, …

NASA makes history with its flying robot on Mars, a new commander takes the helm of the International Space Station, and the European Space Agency looks for solutions to the problem of space junk.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. …

As the world observes Earth Day later this week, Israeli environmentalists worry that the Dead Sea, the lowest place on Earth, is disappearing. That is posing environmental dangers and also could affect the Dead Sea’s unique salutary effects.  For VOA, Linda Gradstein reports from the Dead Sea.   Camera:   Ricki Rosen     Produced by:  Bronwyn Benito       …

President Joe Biden has kicked off a two-day virtual global Summit on Climate with a pledge to substantially reduce U.S. carbon emissions by 2030 and double annual climate change funding to developing countries by 2024.  Forty world leaders as well as climate activists and representatives of international organizations are attending the summit, as VOA’s White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports. …