Month: May 2019

Billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Bezos unveiled on Thursday a mockup of a lunar lander being built by his Blue Origin rocket company and touted his moon goals in a strategy aimed at capitalizing on the Trump administration’s renewed push to establish a lunar outpost in just five years.

The world’s richest man and Amazon.com Inc’s chief executive waved an arm and a black drape behind him dropped to reveal the two-story-tall mockup of the unmanned lander dubbed Blue Moon during an hour-long presentation at Washington’s convention center, just several blocks from the White House.

The lander will be able to deliver payloads to the lunar surface, deploy up to four smaller rovers and shoot out satellites to orbit the moon, Bezos told the audience, which included NASA officials and potential Blue Moon customers.

His media event followed Vice President Mike Pence’s March 26 announcement that NASA plans to build a space platform in lunar orbit and put American astronauts on the moon’s south pole by 2024 “by any means necessary,” four years earlier than previously planned.

“I love this,” Bezos said of Pence’s timeline. “We can help meet that timeline but only because we started three years ago. It’s time to go back to the moon, this time to stay.”

While Bezos went out of his way to praise Pence’s timeline,   the billionaire has been the target of repeated criticism from President Donald Trump, who has referred to him as Jeff “Bozo.” Bezos also owns the Washington Post, which Trump has frequently targeted in his broadsides against the news media.

In their lunar ambitions, however, Trump and Bezos are very much in harmony. Trump in 2017 made a return to the moon a high priority for the U.S. space program, saying a mission to put astronauts back on the lunar surface would establish a foundation for an eventual journey to put humans on Mars. If re-elected next year, 2024 would be Trump’s final full year in office.

At his presentation, Bezos unveiled a model of one of the proposed rovers, roughly the size of a golf cart, and presented a new rocket engine called BE-7, which can blast 10,000 pounds (4,535 kg) of thrust.

Blue Origin’s ambitions

Privately held Blue Origin, based in Kent, Washington, is developing its New Shepard rocket for short space tourism trips and a heavy-lift launch rocket called New Glenn for satellite launch contracts.

 A Blue Origin executive told Reuters last month New Glenn rocket would be ready by 2021. Bezos on Thursday said launching humans on suborbital flights would take place later this year on New Shepard.

Blue Origin has previously discussed a human outpost on the moon.

During his presentation, which sounded at times more like a professorial lecture than a business plan, Bezos did not address a specific launch schedule for the lander or a specific mission for it.

NASA has set its sights on the moon’s south pole, a region believed to hold enough recoverable ice water for use in synthesizing additional rocket fuel as well as for drinking water to sustain astronauts.

Bezos, intent on moving Blue Origin closer to commercialization, underscored his broader vision of enabling a future in which millions of people live and work in space. He mentioned two important issues: reducing launch costs and using resources already in space.

“One of the most important things we know about the moon today is that there’s water there,” Bezos said. “It’s in the form of ice. It’s in the permanently shadowed craters on the poles of the moon.”

His announcement came about two months before the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, and he began his presentation with video of that event.

Bezos did not address his company’s Twitter post last month teasing the event with a picture of the ship used by explorer Ernest Shackleton on a 1914 expedition to Antarctica. Industry sources said the image was a likely reference to an impact crater on the lunar south pole sharing the man’s name, raising speculation that Blue Origin’s lander was targeting that spot.

His vision is shared by competing billionaire-backed private space ventures like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and aerospace incumbents like United Launch Alliance, a partnership between Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin.
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The European Union’s 28 countries consume the Earth’s resources faster than they can be renewed and none of them has sustainable consumption policies, a report released Thursday said, as EU leaders met to discuss priorities for the next five years.

“All EU countries are living beyond the means of our planet. The EU and its citizens are currently using twice more than the EU ecosystems can renew,”  the report  by the World Wide Fund (WWF) and Global Footprint Network said.

It was issued as leaders met in the Romanian city of Sibiu to set the course for the bloc after Britain’s planned departure from the EU.

Climate change key priority

French President Emmanuel Macron said before the summit that climate change was among his key priorities and it was included in the bloc’s 10 “commitments” for the future until 2024, agreed by all the 27 leaders meeting in Sibiu.

But the bloc is divided on how to achieve any ambitious climate goals and it remains far from clear how the Sibiu declaration would be implemented.

Some 100 Greenpeace activists and students from several European countries marched through Sibiu carrying a huge banner saying “Broken Climate Broken Future.”

“We cannot talk about a prosperous future without a healthy climate,” Greenpeace climate activist Alin Tanase told Reuters.

Views on concrete action to be taken to combat climate change differ between EU countries, influenced greatly by their dominant industries, such as carmakers in Germany or the coal industry in Poland.

Tusk sensitive to climate change

The chairman of the summit, President of the European Council Donald Tusk, said there was no future for politicians who were not sensitive to climate change and environment protection issues.

“The young generation is much more united on this than the member states. The truth is that nothing has changed when it comes to this divide and different opinions about this. What is new is this very fresh and energetic pressure,” he told a news conference after the summit.

Climate protection and sustainable development is also an important topic in the election campaign for the May 23-26 European Parliament elections, which will influence the leadership of European institutions and their programs.

The European Commission has been pushing for the EU to become climate neutral by 2050 through reducing carbon emissions that will otherwise boost the Earth’s average temperatures with devastating consequences.

“The EU uses up almost 20 percent of the Earth’s bio-capacity although it comprises only 7 percent of the world population,” the WWF report said.

“In other words, 2.8 planets would be needed if everyone consumed at the rate of the average EU resident,” it said.

Luxembourg smallest but fastest

It said the EU’s smallest and richest country, Luxembourg, was also the one which used up renewable resources the fastest last year. Just 46 days into the year, it had consumed its full share of the Earth’s resources, it said.

The EU’s poorest nation, Romania, took the longest to arrive at that point, on July 12th. But that was still earlier than the world’s average of Aug. 1, called Earth overshoot day.
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Archaeologists say an underground chamber discovered accidentally by road workers may be the site of the earliest Christian royal burial in Britain.

The chamber was uncovered between a road and a railway line in the village of Prittlewell in 2003. It turned out to be a 1,400-year-old burial site containing items that were interred with whoever was buried there.

The contents included a golden belt buckle, remnants of a harp, glassware and an elaborate water vessel.

New details of archaeological findings were announced Thursday.

Researchers say the luxury burial items indicate the chamber’s occupant was of high standing, possibly a prince. Two gold-foil crosses at the head of the coffin suggest a Christian burial.

Sophie Jackson, director of research and engagement at Museum of London Archaeology, called the discovery “our equivalent of Tutankhamun’s tomb.”
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President Donald Trump will begin a push Thursday to fight health care sticker shock by limiting “surprise medical bills,” the unexpected charges faced by insured patients when a member of a health care team that treated them is not in their insurer’s network.

Senior administration officials told The Associated Press the Republican president will outline principles he can support as part of legislation to limit such billing practices. Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been trying to make progress on the topic for months, and White House support improves chances that something will get done.

Patients being treated for medical emergencies often are in no position to check into whether their insurers have contracted with their surgeons or anesthesiologists to provide medical care. Trump wants to make it clear that patients who receive emergency care should not be hit with charges that exceed the amount paid to in-network providers.

“Surprise” bills amounting to tens of thousands of dollars can hit patients and their families when they are most vulnerable — after a medical emergency or following a complex surgical procedure. Often patients are able to negotiate lower charges by working with their insurers and the medical provider. But the process usually takes months, adding stress and anxiety.

The officials said the legislation also should protect patients seeking elective care by ensuring that they are fully informed before scheduling their care about which providers will be considered out of network and what extra costs that will generate.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter before Trump’s announcement. The White House effort is part of a broader push by the Trump administration to increase transparency in the health care system. On Wednesday, the administration finalized regulations requiring drug companies to disclose list prices of medications costing more than $35 for a month’s supply.

The president also will make the case that legislation should not lead to additional costs for taxpayers.

Insurers form networks of doctors and hospitals, in part, to gain some leverage for negotiating reimbursements. Usually patients pay a bigger share of the bill for any care sought outside those networks.

But sometimes, patients don’t know they got care outside of their network until they get their bill.

A House panel held a hearing on surprise medical bills last month. Trump also participated in a January meeting with health care advocates and victims of surprise billing. The officials said Trump made clear following the meeting that he wanted his administration to work on finding a fix.

States also have been working to protect consumers from surprise medical bills. A survey of states by Georgetown University found that about half the states have acted to protect consumers, but some, such as California, Connecticut, Florida and a handful of others, have the most comprehensive protections. But states don’t have jurisdiction over most health plans sponsored by large employers, which cover about 100 million people and operate under the umbrella of a federal law.

A coalition that includes major insurers, business groups, and consumer organizations has been pressing Congress for federal legislation. The basic elements would include informing patients when a doctor or service provider is out-of-network, setting a federal standard for what out-of-network clinicians can charge, and guaranteeing that the changes do not lead to premium increases.

But a major hang-up has been agreeing on payment rates for out-of-network services that are mutually acceptable to medical specialists, hospitals and insurers, who have conflicting interests.

Jack Hoadley, a research professor emeritus at Georgetown, told lawmakers last month that unexpected medical bills are a major concern for consumers, with two-thirds of Americans saying they are “very worried” or “somewhat worried” that they or someone in their family will receive a surprise bill.

He said programs like Medicare, Medicaid and veterans care protect consumers from out-of-network bills. But the same protections do not exist for most private insurance.

 
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As the planet heats up, it’s not just extreme weather that’s causing trouble but also the unintended consequences of that heat, in the case of some European forests it’s creating fertile ground for spruce bark beetles. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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The United States will soon require pharmaceutical companies to disclose the price of their drugs during television commercials, a measure which President Donald Trump on Wednesday welcomed as “historic transparency.”

It is part of a US government policy to fight the high price of prescription drugs, which often exceeds those in neighboring Canada and Mexico. 

The price will have to be displayed at the end of the ads, in the same manner as side effects which already must be mentioned. 

United States television prominently features ads for medicines — and not just common cold and similar remedies but treatments for complex conditions.

The requirement will take effect in 60 days.

It covers drugs priced at least $35 for a normal treatment or a month’s supply.

“American patients deserve to know the prices of the healthcare they receive,” said Alex Azar, the Health and Human Services Secretary.

The 10 most viewed drugs on television cost between $488 and $16,938 a month, according to the government. 

About half of Americans have health insurance with a high deductible which can reach thousands of dollars a year, in many cases more than $5,000 or $6,000 anually.

This means they usually have to pay the full displayed drug price until they have spent the their annual deductible amount.

Those with better coverage pay a fraction of the list price, and the situation can vary enormously from one person to another. 

On Twitter, Trump hailed the “big announcement.”

“Drug companies have to come clean about their prices in TV ads,” he said. “If drug companies are ashamed of those prices-lower them!”

Trump has vowed that his Republicans will become “the party of great healthcare.” He is seeking to dismantle “Obamacare,” the Affordable Care Act which brought healthcare coverage for millions more Americans when it took effect under then president Barack Obama.
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VOA U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. 

Officials in Mozambique are scrambling to contain a cholera outbreak in the north of the country after Cyclone Kenneth devastated the area last month.

Kenneth, the second cyclone to hit the country in five weeks, destroyed health clinics and contaminated the water supply. 

The World Health Organization estimates there are “nearly 190,000 people in need of health assistance or are at risk of diseases in Mozambique,” U.N. spokeswoman Stephane Dujarric said. 

Kenneth struck while Mozambique was still struggling to deal with the impact of Cyclone Idai, which hammered the country’s central region just weeks earlier, flattening the port city of Beira and killing more than 1,000 people across Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe.

According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, cholera cases in Cabo Delgado Province have risen almost five-fold to 64 since the outbreak was declared last week. 

Medical relief agencies such as Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, are supporting the Ministry of Health by providing materials such as tents, water and sanitation equipment for a cholera treatment center in Pemba. 

“We have two essential goals now: saving the lives of severely sick patients and containing the outbreak,” said Danielle Borges, MSF project coordinator in Pemba. “We need to isolate and treat sick people so they recover, and so that they do not contaminate others.”

About half a million cholera vaccines are expected to arrive in the region in the next few days. 
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The United Nations Secretary-General said the world must dramatically change the way it fuels factories, vehicles and homes to limit future warming to a level scientists call nearly impossible.

That’s because the alternative “would mean a catastrophic situation for the whole world,” Antonio Guterres told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview.

Guterres said he’s about to tour Pacific islands to see how climate change is devastating them as part of his renewed push to fight it. He is summoning world leaders to the U.N. in September to tell them “they need to do much more in order for us to be able to reverse the present trends and to defeat the climate change.”

That means, he said, the world has to change, not in small incremental ways but in big “transformative” ways, into a green economy with electric vehicles and “clean cities.”

Guterres said he will ask leaders to stop subsidizing fossil fuels. Burning coal, oil and gas triggers warming by releasing heat-trapping gases.

He said he wants countries to build no new coal power plants after 2020. He wants them to put a price on the use of carbon. And ultimately he wants to make sure that by 2050 the world is no longer putting more greenhouse gases into the air than nature sucks out.

Global temperatures have already risen about 1.8 degrees (1 degree Celsius) since the industrial age began. The issue is how much more the thermometers will rise.

In 2015, the world’s nations set a goal to limit global warming to no more than 0.9 degrees (0.5 degrees Celsius) from now. Most scientists say it is highly unlikely, if not outright undoable, to keep man-made climate change that low, especially since emissions of heat trapping gases are rising, renewable energy growth is plateauing, and some countries’ leaders and voters are balking.A panel of scientists the U.N. asked to look at the issue ran computer models for more than 500 future scenarios, and less than 2% achieved those warming limits.

Guterres said the wholesale economic changes needed to keep the temperature from rising another degree or more may be painful, but there will be more pain if the world fails.

“If you don’t hang on to that goal, what you’ll achieve is a total disaster,” the secretary-general said in his 38th floor conference room.

If countries only do what they promised in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, it would be catastrophic because the world would warm by another 4.5 degrees (2.5 degrees Celsius), Guterres said, adding “that is why we need to dramatically accelerate… what everybody knows needs to be done.”

Yet, globally the trends are going the other way. University of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck said it looks unlikely that the world could prevent another 1.8 degrees (1 Celsius) of warming, let alone 0.9 degrees.

And in an odd way that gives the U.N. chief optimism.

Because as disasters mount and deaths increase, the public, especially youths, will realize that warming is “a dramatic threat to the whole of humankind,” Guterres said.

So the worse it gets, the more people will demand change, he said.

That’s why he’s about to visit the islands of Fiji, Tuvalu and Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean, which he said is hit hardest by climate change.

Guterres said he wants to use the determination and moral authority of the people who live on the threatened islands to convince world leaders to make necessary change.

Here are some excerpts from the 25-minute interview with Guterres, who said he used to love steak houses but now only goes once every three months because livestock contribute significantly to warming. The questions and answers have been edited for clarity and length:

Q: How can you be optimistic?

A: That is the paradox. Things are getting worse. Temperatures are rising faster than expected. We see the Arctic melting. We see glaciers disappearing. We see corals bleaching. We see biodiversity being dramatically threatened. So things are getting worse and worse.But the political will has been slow.We need to reverse this trend. We need to make people understand that this is not sustainable. And the reason why I’m optimistic is that I feel that more and more people are convinced of that. And as more and more people are convinced of that, I believe governments will feel the need to increase their political will which at this present moment is still lagging behind.

You have seen the fantastic attitude of young girls and boys making a strike in favor of climate action. You see more and more business and communities assuming responsibilities.

Q: Can you fight climate change and biodiversity loss at the same time?

A: Climate change is a major threat to biodiversity. It’s because of climate change that species are disappearing. So we need at the same time to be concerned with the climate action… with our oceans… to make sure that we keep the richness of a planet that was created by God. And I don’t believe God would be very happy to see many of his creatures disappearing.”

Q: How do you see the United States and the Trump administration on climate?

A: In the United States I disagree with the policies that the government has implemented. But I see fantastic attitudes and fantastic developments in what is done by large businesses, by cities, by the civil society. I can see the United States a country with an enormous potential to achieve what needs to be achieved for us to be able to defeat climate change.
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