Month: March 2022

After almost two years, Western Australia has lifted the nation’s toughest COVID-19 border controls. Double-vaccinated international and domestic travelers are now allowed in, as the so-called hermit state reconnects with the rest of the world. For almost 700 days Western Australia was cut off from the rest of the country and the world. Most international visitors were banned, as Australia’s largest state, which is 10 times the size of the United Kingdom, tried to isolate itself from the pandemic. The state premier, Mark McGowan, said the tough policy had “avoided needless deaths,” but he acknowledged the pain felt by separated families and businesses. The tough measures did keep infections low, but they were unable to stop a recent surge in omicron cases. A total of 1,770 cases were reported Wednesday — a new record for Western Australia — but the number of hospitalizations remains relatively low. With almost 99% of the eligible population double-vaccinated, authorities have insisted that the time is right to end border restrictions. Dr. Mark Duncan-Smith, president of the Australian Medical Association (Western Australia), told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the tough border strategy appears to have worked. “What is happening here in WA [Western Australia] right now, with omicron at 1,000 cases a day, is a social experiment that has never been done in the world, and so what we are hoping for is that we will get a very, very soft landing and hopefully our hospitalization numbers will stay very low and that will be …

The United Nations Environment Assembly, meeting in Nairobi, has adopted a resolution detailing what to do about plastic pollution. It calls for two years of negotiations toward a comprehensive, international treaty on the full life cycle of plastics. Delegates from 175 countries endorsed an agreement Wednesday that addresses plastic waste. The United Nations says 400 million tons of plastic is produced every year, and that figure is set to double by 2040. Rwanda is one of the countries that banned plastic in its territory and is pushing for a plastic-free world. Rwanda’s environment minister, Jeanne Mujawamariya, said her country would benefit a great deal from global regulation of the use of plastics. “If adopted, the creation of a legally binding instrument would be greatly significant for countries like Rwanda, where we have made good progress,” she said. “Systematic global change is needed if we are to clean up the current mess, develop sustainable alternatives and make them affordable.” The debate surrounding plastic pollution has been on the U.N. agenda since 2012. Recycling has remained one of the effective ways of reducing plastics. The Environmental Investigation Agency, an environmental nonprofit organization, said the existing method of managing plastic is not sustainable. Less than 10% of plastic that has been produced is being recycled, 76% is discarded into landfills, and experts warn its production will triple by 2050. Amina Mohammed, the United Nations deputy secretary-general, told the meeting attendees not to fear a future without plastic. “While we have learned to recycle …

A Texas judge on Wednesday blocked the state from investigating the parents of a transgender teenager over gender-confirmation treatments but stopped short of preventing the state from looking into other reports about children receiving similar care. District Judge Amy Clark Meachum issued a temporary order halting the investigation by the Department of Family and Protective Services into the parents of the 16-year-old girl. The parents sued over the investigation and Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s order last week that officials look into reports of such treatments as abuse. Meachum wrote that the parents and the teen “face the imminent and ongoing deprivation of their constitutional rights, the potential loss of necessary medical care, and the stigma attached to being the subject of an unfounded child abuse investigation.” Meachum set a March 11 hearing on whether to issue a broader temporary order blocking enforcement of Abbott’s directive. ‘Unfathomably cruel’ The lawsuit marked the first report of parents being investigated following Abbott’s directive and an earlier nonbinding legal opinion by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton labeling certain gender-confirmation treatments as “child abuse.” The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal sued the state Tuesday on behalf of the teen. “We appreciate the relief granted to our clients, but this should never have happened and is unfathomably cruel,” Brian Klosterboer, ACLU of Texas attorney, said in a statement. “Families should not have to fear being separated because they are providing the best possible health care for their children.” Spokespersons for Abbott’s and Paxton’s offices …

The moon is about to get walloped by nearly 3 metric tons of space junk, a punch that will carve out a crater that could fit several semitrailer trucks. The leftover chunk of a rocket will smash into the far side of the moon at 9,300 kph (5,800 mph) on Friday, away from telescopes’ prying eyes. It may take weeks, even months, to confirm the impact through satellite images. It’s been tumbling haphazardly through space, experts believe, since China launched it nearly a decade ago. But Chinese officials are dubious it’s theirs. No matter whose it is, scientists expect the object to carve out a hole 10 to 20 meters (33 to 66 feet) across and send moon dust flying hundreds of kilometers across the barren, pockmarked surface. Not hard to follow Low-orbiting space junk is relatively easy to track. Objects launching deeper into space are unlikely to hit anything, and these far-flung pieces are usually soon forgotten by everyone except a handful of observers who enjoy playing celestial detective on the side. SpaceX originally took the rap for the upcoming lunar litter after asteroid tracker Bill Gray identified the collision course in January. He corrected himself a month later, saying the “mystery” object was not a SpaceX Falcon rocket upper stage from the 2015 launch of a deep space climate observatory for NASA. Gray said it was likely the third stage of a Chinese rocket that sent a test sample capsule to the moon and back in 2014. But …

A leading cybersecurity firm says it has discovered a “highly sophisticated” piece of malware being used by Chinese hacking teams to attack government and critical infrastructure targets. Symantec, a division of U.S.-based software designer and manufacturer Broadcom, said the earliest known sample of the malware, which has been dubbed Daxin, dates back to 2013, while Microsoft first documented the hacking tool in December 2013. A report by the company’s Threat Hunter Team says Daxin is “without doubt” the most advanced piece of malware it has seen used “by a China-linked actor.” The unit says Daxin was discovered along with other hacking tools previously used by Chinese cyberattackers. The hackers have deployed Daxin against “organizations and governments of strategic interest to China.” The malware permits the attackers to communicate directly with infected computers on highly secured networks where direct internet connectivity is not available, allowing them to extract data without raising suspicions. Vikram Thakur, a technical director with Symantec, told Reuters that Daxin “can be controlled from anywhere in the world once a computer is actually infected.” Thakur said Daxin’s victims included high-level, non-Western government agencies in Asia and Africa, including justice ministries. …