Month: April 2021

The Syrian government and the country’s last rebel-controlled enclave received their first doses of COVID-19 vaccines Thursday.In a joint statement, UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the GAVI vaccine alliance announced the delivery of 200,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Syria’s government and another 53,800 to the opposition-held area in the northwest.“The delivery is a ray of light for the people of Syria,” the statement said. “It will help health workers to continue delivering life-saving services in an already exhausted health system as a result of the decade-long war.”Although fighting has largely subsided since the March 2020 cease-fire, Syria’s civil war has complicated the delivery of the vaccines, forcing most of them to be shipped through Damascus for government-controlled areas while the rest are routed through the border with Turkey.Western non-governmental organizations have said that Syria’s logistical challenges of coordinating vaccinations in combat zones are worsened by the international financial sanctions that have been imposed on the country.The Middle Eastern country experienced a surge in coronavirus infections in February after being hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic last year.The Syrian government reported 51,580 cases of COVID-19 Thursday, but U.N. officials say the number is probably higher due to the limited number of testing kits.  …

As President Biden hosts a virtual climate summit this Earth Day, a report out Thursday adds more fuel to the planet’s growing crisis, showing record-breaking temperatures in Europe and Arctic Siberia last year. It comes as the European Union announced a key climate deal and financing rules — both sharply criticized by green groups. The findings of the European Union’s climate monitoring service, Copernicus, are grim. Europe was hit by record heat and rainfall last year. The Arctic overall saw its second warmest year. Both regions are warming faster than the global average.  “Europe has probably warmed at twice the rate compared to the globe since the pre-industrial [time]. Whereas the rate of warming in the arctic over the last two decades, have been at least five [times] that of the global rate,”  says Freja Vamborg,  a senior scientist at Copernicus, and lead author of the latest Europe climate report.  “Especially Arctic Siberia was by far the warmest on record last year, which had local impacts on sea ice, which in turn had an impact on temperatures.” FILE – An aerial view shows a forest fire in Krasnoyarsk Region, in Siberia, Russia July 17, 2020. (Julia Petrenko/Greenpeace/Handout via Reuters)Thursday’s report brings new impetus for action during the Biden administration’s two-day climate summit — especially for the European Union, long considered a climate leader.  The 27-country bloc reached a tentative deal Wednesday to make its climate goals legally binding. The EU aims to slash greenhouse gasses by at least 55 percent by 2030 …

The U.S space agency NASA says its Perseverance rover has converted carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Martian atmosphere to oxygen, a critical step toward future human exploration of Mars.   NASA on Monday said a toaster-size, experimental instrument on the rover called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE), produced about 5.4 grams of oxygen in an hour — enough to keep an astronaut healthy for about 10 minutes.   NASA says in regular operation, MOXIE is designed to produce up to 10 grams of oxygen in an hour.   The space agency says MOXIE is an “exploration technology investigation,” like the Ingenuity helicopter and other instruments taken to Mars along with the Perseverance rover. In other words, it is designed to test a certain technology that, if successful, will be applied on a larger scale in future missions on the Red Planet.   NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) administrator Jim Reuter says there are still more tests for MOXIE to pass, but the results of the initial demonstration show a lot of promise toward the goal of one day seeing humans on Mars,   Reuter said oxygen is also a key ingredient in rocket propellant and future Mars missions will have to produce it there to make the trip home.   NASA says MOXIE works by separating oxygen atoms from carbon dioxide molecules, which are made up of one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms through a process that involves heating them to 800 degrees Celsius. The …

The Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California, Wednesday issued a statement disavowing a study being circulated online that claims face masks are “worthless” against COVID-19. The report, “Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis,” was published in November in the journal Medical Hypotheses. Its author, Baruch Vainshelboim, claims that “scientific evidence supporting facemasks’ efficacy is lacking” while “adverse physiological, psychological and health effects are established.” Vainshelboim’s credentials are cited as “Cardiology Division, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System/Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, United States.” But Stanford’s statement says that description is inaccurate and has asked for a correction. Stanford says Vainshelboim had no affiliation with the school at the time of the study’s publication and his only affiliation was a one-year term as a visiting scholar “on matters unrelated to this paper.”   The school said it strongly supports the use of masks to control the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Vainshelboim identifies himself in his LinkedIn profile as a clinical exercise physiologist, with a doctorate from the University of Porto in Portugal.   The study has been circulating this week on right wing websites and media, including The Gateway Pundit and The California Globe, and has been shared on social media sites Facebook and Twitter by conservatives, including Ohio Republican U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel. The study has also been debunked by the Associated Press news agency and Politfact, a fact-checking website affiliated with the Florida-based Poynter Institute for Media …

India reported 314,835 new COVID-19 infections Thursday, the highest one-day total posted by any nation during the yearlong global pandemic.By contrast, the United States posted 300,310 single day new cases on Jan. 2, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.India, the world’s second-most populous country, is dealing with a second wave of infections that has pushed the country’s health care system to the brink of collapse, with hospitals near capacity and facing an acute shortage of oxygen canisters. The oxygen shortage is so acute that the high court in the capital, New Delhi, ordered the national government to divert oxygen from industrial use to hospitals.“Beg, borrow or steal,” the judges said in response to a petition by a New Delhi hospital.Thursday is the eighth consecutive day India has posted more than 200,000 new coronavirus cases, pushing the country’s total number of infections to well over 15.9 million, second only behind the 31.8 million in the United States. India’s health ministry also revealed that 2,104 people died Thursday, raising the overall death toll to 184,657, as the current surge has overwhelmed cemeteries and crematories.Experts have blamed the surge on the spread of more contagious variants of the virus, as well as lifting restrictions on large crowds when the outbreak appeared to be under control earlier this year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come under fire for holding packed political rallies and allowing an annual Hindu religious festival that attracted millions of pilgrims.The latest figures from Johns Hopkins puts the total number …

As teenage pregnancies soared during coronavirus lockdowns in Africa’s largest urban slum, Kibera, teachers and parents looked for a way to reduce the problem.  Their idea was to form a women’s football (soccer) club, to direct their energy in a healthy way, and they became so good they are about to join Kenya’s professional women’s soccer league.  Brenda Mulinya reports from Nairobi. Camera: Robert Lutta …

Greta Thunberg turned 18 in January, but she’s already made peace with her future: While most college students will change their concentrations multiple times, the Swedish high school student says climate change activism will be her life’s mission.”In a perfect world, there wouldn’t need to be a climate activist, but unfortunately, there will probably still be a need for climate activists for quite some time,” she said. “I think I will be doing this for as long as there is a need for people to do this.”Thunberg’s activism and message is brought to life in a new docuseries, Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World. The three-part series, a co-production between PBS and BBC Studios premiering Thursday on Earth Day, follows the then-16-year-old as she took a gap year from school in 2019 to meet with scientists around the world and spearhead awareness about climate change.The docuseries shows her visiting people and places that have been distinctly affected by the heating of the Earth, such as Canada’s Athabasca Glacier, a town in California burned by wildfires and the indigenous Sami herders in Sweden where reindeer face starvation. She even sails across the North Atlantic during the ocean’s busiest season to experience how carbon dioxide emissions from ships have altered the chemistry of the ocean.A Year to Change the World also gives a behind-the-scenes look at her speaking at massive rallies, and also reveals how her momentum was significantly slowed by the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. Thunberg, a 2020 Nobel Peace …

Fifty-one years ago, young people planted trees for the first Earth Day.   Today, students are taking part in environmental law, science and other disciplines to heal the planet.  “You don’t have to be an environmental professional to help the environment,” Briana Allison, an environmental science student at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, wrote to VOA. “Everyone should find a way to get involved in preserving the planet we call home.”Briana Allison, an environmental science student at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. (Photo courtesy of Briana Allison)Climate change is a huge issue for younger people. Those under age 30 are so worried about the planet that experts have given their concern a name: eco-anxiety. Stress about climate change affects their daily lives, said nearly half of 2,017 adults polled in 2019 by the Harris Poll on behalf of the Bongekile Kuhlase studies at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. (Photo courtesy of Bongekile Kuhlase)“Mistakes were made, it’s good to acknowledge that, only so that it does not happen again,” she explained. Kuhlase’s studies have allowed her to “effectively plan ways to try restore the ecology that previously used to exist” in an environment.  “I’m literally living my dream right now doing community-based conservation and land restoration,” she wrote to VOA. “I believe humans aren’t separate from nature and for real change, we need to be part of the solutions, teaching the community as well as learning from them and their native ways.”   Allison also touched on the idea that the divide on climate change might not always be specifically related to age. While older generations might be …

New feat to the credit of Perseverance: the NASA rover transformed carbon dioxide from Mars’ atmosphere into oxygen, a first on another planet, the US space agency announced on Wednesday.”This is a crucial first attempt to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen on Mars,” said Jim Reuter, an associate administrator at NASA.The demonstration took place on April 20 and NASA is hoping that future versions of the experimental tool used can pave the way for exploration by humans.Not only could the process produce oxygen for future astronauts to breathe, it could also prevent the large amounts of oxygen needed to propel the rocket on the return trip from Earth.The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (Moxie) is a golden box the size of a car battery, located at the front right of the rover.It uses electricity and chemistry to split CO2 molecules, producing oxygen on one side and carbon monoxide on the other.For his first experiment, Moxie produced 5 grams of oxygen, enough to breathe for 10 minutes for an astronaut with normal activity.The engineers in charge of Moxie will now conduct more tests and try to increase this result. The tool has been developed to be able to generate up to 10 grams of oxygen per hour.Designed at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Moxie was manufactured with heat-resistant materials to tolerate the scorching temperatures of 800 degrees Celsius required for its operation.A thin layer of gold prevents it from radiating this heat and damaging the rover.According to MIT …

The Japanese government may declare a new state of emergency for the cities of Tokyo and Osaka in response to another surge of COVID-19 infections. The Mainichi newspaper reported Wednesday that Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike is requesting to impose an emergency decree from April 29 to May 9, which coincides with Japan’s annual “Golden Week” public holiday period.   Tokyo and Osaka, along with several other prefectures, are already under a quasi-state of emergency, with restaurants and bars operating under shortened business hours.  Japan as a whole has been under two separate emergency decrees since the start of the pandemic, the last one having just expired on March 21.  The previous decrees stopped short of imposing a legally binding nationwide lockdown, due to Japan’s post-World War II constitution, which weighs heavily in favor of civil liberties.  The new state of emergency, if granted, would leave in place current restrictions on opening hours, and also lead to the closure of theme parks, shopping malls and other facilities. Osaka’s neighboring prefecture of Hyogo is also expected to be covered under the new emergency decree.   Japan has 542,467 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 9,682 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.  The numbers are moderate compared to other nations, but enough to overburden Japan’s healthcare sector and complicate plans for the Tokyo Olympic Games, which are scheduled to begin in July after a one-year delay due to the pandemic.  The Japanese capital posted a record-high 843 confirmed new coronavirus cases on Wednesday.   Also complicating matters …

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said that final rules announced in December took effect on Wednesday allowing for small drones to fly over people and at night, a significant step toward their eventual use for widespread commercial deliveries.The effective date was delayed about a month during the change in administration. The FAA said its long-awaited rules for the drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, will address security concerns by requiring remote identification technology in most cases to enable their identification from the ground.Previously, small drone operations over people were limited to operations over people who were directly participating in the operation, located under a covered structure, or inside a stationary vehicle – unless operators had obtained a waiver from the FAA.U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Wednesday the rules “are an important first step in safely and securely managing the growing use of drones in our airspace, though more work remains on the journey to full integration” of drones.Drone manufacturers have 18 months to begin producing drones with Remote ID, and operators will have an additional year to provide Remote ID.Companies have been racing to create drone fleets to speed deliveries. As of December, the United States had over 1.7 million drone registrations and 203,000 FAA-certificated remote pilots.For at-night operations, the FAA said drones must be equipped with anti-collision lights. The final rules allow operations over moving vehicles in some circumstances.The new rules eliminate requirements that drones be connected to the internet to transmit location data but do require …

The Japanese government may declare a new state of emergency for the cities of Tokyo and Osaka in response to another surge of COVID-19 infections. The Mainichi newspaper reported Wednesday that Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike is requesting to impose an emergency decree from April 29 to May 9, which coincides with Japan’s annual “Golden Week” public holiday period.   Tokyo and Osaka, along with several other prefectures, are already under a quasi-state of emergency, with restaurants and bars operating under shortened business hours.  Japan as a whole has been under two separate emergency decrees since the start of the pandemic, the last one having just expired on March 21.  The previous decrees stopped short of imposing a legally binding nationwide lockdown, due to Japan’s post-World War II constitution, which weighs heavily in favor of civil liberties.  The new state of emergency, if granted, would leave in place current restrictions on opening hours, and also lead to the closure of theme parks, shopping malls and other facilities. Osaka’s neighboring prefecture of Hyogo is also expected to be covered under the new emergency decree.   Japan has 542,467 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 9,682 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.  The numbers are moderate compared to other nations, but enough to overburden Japan’s healthcare sector and complicate plans for the Tokyo Olympic Games, which are scheduled to begin in July after a one-year delay due to the pandemic.  The Japanese capital posted a record-high 843 confirmed new coronavirus cases on Wednesday.   Also complicating matters …

Eerie wails, explosive trumpets and ghostly moans. The sounds from the underwater recorders had a story to tell, even without a single intelligible word: the whales had stayed put. The recordings gathered during the 2018-2019 winter in the freezing cold Arctic waters off Canada proved that a population of bowhead whales had skipped their usual migration south. Scientists believe this behavior — never previously detected — could be driven by the effects of climate change and be a potential harbinger of shifting dynamics across the region’s ecosystem.   Ordinarily, the approximately 20,000 bowheads that make up the Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort (BCB) population around Canada have a fairly predictable migration pattern spanning 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles). They spend the winter in part of the Bering Sea, which lies between Russia and Alaska, and head north then east to the Beaufort Sea and Canada’s Amundsen Gulf in the summer, before returning in the autumn.   But in winter 2018-2019, something different happened. Residents in the Canadian region reported seeing bowheads long after they would normally have disappeared south. A team of scientists decided to comb through hours of audio recorded by underwater devices that are dotted around the region for regular data collection, listening for unusual sounds.   They found them: the distinctive calls of bowhead whales that should have been in their southern winter grounds but had stayed put.   Assisted by a trained computer program, they even found recordings of bowheads singing, a behavior believed to be associated with mating, which has never been recorded in the summer grounds before. The whale noises appeared in between 0.5 …

Chinese President Xi Jinping will speak Thursday at the global summit on climate change organized by U.S. President Joe Biden. Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman at the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said in a written statement Wednesday that President Xi will deliver an “important speech” during the virtual conference.  Xi is among 40 world leaders invited by President Biden to attend the two-day virtual summit, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and Russian President Vladimir Putin.  His acceptance comes days after John Kerry, Biden’s special envoy on climate change, held talks with his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, in Shanghai.  Xi’s appearance is his first with Biden since the latter took office in January, and comes amid increasing tensions between the two economic superpowers over a host of issues, including Beijing’s tightening control on semi-autonomous Hong Kong and its brutal treatment of ethnic Uyghur Muslims in northwestern Xinjiang province.   But the two countries have apparently found common ground on reducing climate change, as they are the world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gasses, which is directly linked to climate change. The global climate summit is part of Biden’s efforts to restore U.S. leadership after his predecessor Donald Trump’s dismissive attitude towards the issue, including withdrawing from the 2015 Paris Agreement that set a cap on global carbon emissions. Biden rejoined the agreement immediately after taking office.    …

The European Union announced Wednesday a provisional agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the 27-member bloc by 55% by 2030. The 2030 target is part of a larger goal of getting the EU to be carbon-neutral by 2050. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the agreement puts the EU “on a green path for a generation.” “It is our binding pledge to our children and grandchildren,” she added. EU member states must approve the deal before it becomes official. Wednesday’s agreement comes ahead of the start of a two-day virtual summit hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden for world leaders to discuss ways to combat climate change.  …

Carbon dioxide emissions are expected to grow this year after falling dramatically during the pandemic as economies around the globe contracted.In a report issued Tuesday, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said emissions of the greenhouse gas would rise by 1.5 billion metric tons, or 5%. While big, the increase is not likely to eclipse the surge seen following the 2008-09 global financial crisis.After a series of stimulus bills, the U.S. economy is expected to grow rapidly in 2021, with growth forecasts at 6% or higher.The group said coal would be the largest driver of the increase in greenhouse gas emissions. It said demand for coal was expected to grow 4.5% this year. That would be higher than 2019, but below a 2014 peak.“This is a dire warning that the economic recovery from the COVID crisis is currently anything but sustainable for our climate,” Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, said in a prepared statement. “Unless governments around the world move rapidly to start cutting emissions, we are likely to face an even worse situation in 2022.”China is the world’s largest carbon dioxide emitter and user of coal by far. The U.S. is the world’s third-leading user of coal and the second-largest CO2 emitter. Coal demand in the U.S. and European Union is also expected to rise but is seen remaining below pre-pandemic levels.Most of the new demand, more than 80%, will come from China and other Asian countries, the IEA said.The report came just ahead of a global climate summit …

Europe’s drug regulator, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said Tuesday it found a possible link between the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine and rare forms of blood clots, but that the drug’s benefits outweigh its risks. In its statement Tuesday, the EMA said that its drug safety group, the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC), after reviewing all available evidence, concluded that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine’s product information should include a warning about unusual blood clots with low blood platelets. The committee concluded that the events should be listed as very rare side effects of the vaccine. The EMA gave a similar assessment of the AstraZeneca vaccine which also was found to have a possible link to rare blood clots. The EMA reviewed the Johnson & Johnson vaccine following a small number of reports from the United States of serious cases of unusual blood clots associated with low levels of blood platelets among people who had received the vaccine – one of which had a fatal outcome. As of April 13, more than 7 million people in the U.S. had received Johnson and Johnson’s vaccine. All cases occurred in people under 60 years of age within three weeks of vaccination, the majority in women. The reports prompted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration to recommend a “pause” in the use of the vaccine in the United States while further evaluations were carried out.   On Monday, top U.S. immunologist and Chief Presidential Medical …