The latest International Labor Organization FILE – Travelers request an Uber ride at Los Angeles International Airport’s LAX-it pick up terminal, Aug. 20, 2020.However, there are a number of downsides to this new form of work. For example, Ryder notes workers sometimes have to pay a commission or a fee just to access the digital labor market. “Workers also frequently struggle to find sufficient well-paid work to earn a decent income, and many do not have access to social protection, and this has become a particular point of concern obviously in the course of the current pandemic. Moreover, workers are often unable to engage in collective bargaining that would allow them to have the way to address some of these issues,” he said.The report finds working hours often can be long and unpredictable. It says half of online platform workers earn less than $2 per hour, women earn less than men and workers in developing countries earn about 60 percent less than those doing the same job in developed countries. Since digital labor platforms operate across multiple jurisdictions, the ILO says international labor standards governing digital platform workers must be enacted. Among its recommendations, authors of the report say self-employed platform workers should have the right to bargain collectively. They say all workers, including platform workers, should have access to adequate social security benefits.
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Day: February 23, 2021
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet, publisher, bookseller and activist who helped launch the Beat movement in the 1950s and embody its curious and rebellious spirit well into the 21st century, has died at age 101. Ferlinghetti, a San Francisco institution, died Monday at his home, his son Lorenzo Ferlinghetti said. A month shy of his 102nd birthday, Ferlinghetti died “in his own room,” holding the hands of his son and his son’s girlfriend, “as he took his last breath.” The cause of death was lung disease. Ferlinghetti had received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine last week, his son said Tuesday. Few poets of the past 60 years were so well known, or so influential. His books sold more than 1 million copies worldwide, a fantasy for virtually any of his peers, and he ran one of the world’s most famous and distinctive bookstores, City Lights. Although he never considered himself one of the Beats, he was a patron and soul mate and, for many, a lasting symbol — preaching a nobler and more ecstatic American dream. “Am I the consciousness of a generation or just some old fool sounding off and trying to escape the dominant materialist avaricious consciousness of America?” he asked in “Little Boy,” a stream of consciousness novel published around the time of his 100th birthday. City LightsHe made history. Through the City Lights publishing arm, books by Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs and many others came out and the release of Allen Ginsberg’s landmark poem “Howl” led to a 1957 obscenity case that broke new ground for freedom of expression. He also defied history. The internet, superstore chains and high rents shut down numerous booksellers in the Bay Area and beyond, but City Lights remained a thriving political and cultural outlet, where one section was devoted to books enabling “revolutionary competence,” where employees could get the day off to attend an anti-war protest. “Generally, people seem to get more conservative as they age, but in my case, I seem to have gotten more radical,” Ferlinghetti told Interview magazine in 2013. “Poetry must be capable of answering the challenge of apocalyptic times, even if this means sounding apocalyptic.” The store even endured during the coronavirus outbreak, when it was forced to close and required $300,000 to stay in business. A GoFundMe campaign quickly raised $400,000. His poetryFerlinghetti, tall and bearded, with sharp blue eyes, could be soft-spoken, even introverted and reticent in unfamiliar situations. But he was the most public of poets and his work wasn’t intended for solitary contemplation. It was meant to be recited or chanted out loud, whether in coffee houses, bookstores or at campus gatherings. His 1958 compilation, “A Coney Island of the Mind,” sold hundreds of thousands of copies in the U.S. alone. Long an outsider from the poetry community, Ferlinghetti once joked that he had “committed the sin of too much clarity.” He called his style “wide open” and his work, influenced in part by e.e. cummings, was often lyrical and childlike: “Peacocks walked/under the night trees/in the lost moon/light/when I went out/looking for love,” he wrote in “Coney Island.” Ferlinghetti also was a playwright, novelist, translator and painter and had many admirers among musicians. In 1976, he recited “The Lord’s Prayer” at the Band’s farewell concert, immortalized in Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Waltz.” The folk-rock band Aztec Two-Step lifted its name from a line in the title poem of Ferlinghetti’s “Coney Island” book: “A couple of Papish cats/is doing an Aztec two-step.” Ferlinghetti also published some of the earliest film reviews by Pauline Kael, who with The New Yorker became one of the country’s most influential critics. Personal lifeHe lived long and well despite a traumatic childhood. His father died five months before Lawrence was born in Yonkers, New York, in 1919, leaving behind a sense of loss that haunted him, yet provided much of the creative tension that drove his art. His mother, unable to cope, had a nervous breakdown two years after his father’s death. She eventually disappeared and died in a state hospital. Ferlinghetti spent years moving among relatives, boarding homes and an orphanage before he was taken in by a wealthy New York family, the Bislands, for whom his mother had worked as a governess. He studied journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, received a master’s in literature from Columbia University, and a doctorate degree from the Sorbonne in Paris. His early influences included Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe and Ezra Pound. Ferlinghetti hated war, because he was in one. In 1945, he was a Navy commander stationed in Japan and remembered visiting Nagasaki a few weeks after the U.S. had dropped an atom bomb. The carnage, he would recall, made him an “instant pacifist.” In the early 1950s, he settled in San Francisco and married Selden Kirby-Smith, whom he divorced in 1976. (They had two children). Ferlinghetti also became a member of the city’s rising literary movement, the so-called San Francisco Renaissance, and soon helped establish a gathering place. Peter D. Martin, a sociologist, had opened a paperback store in the city’s North Beach section and named it after a recent Charlie Chaplin film, “City Lights.” When Ferlinghetti saw the storefront, in 1953, he suggested he and Martin become partners. Each contributed $500. Ferlinghetti later told The New York Times: “City Lights became about the only place around where you could go in, sit down, and read books without being pestered to buy something.” ControversiesThe Beats, who had met in New York in the 1940s, now had a new base. One project was City Lights’ Pocket Poets series, which offered low-cost editions of verse, notably Ginsberg’s “Howl.” Ferlinghetti had heard Ginsberg read a version in 1955 and wrote him: “I greet you at the beginning of a great career. When do I get the manuscript?” a humorous take on the message sent from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Walt Whitman upon reading “Leaves of Grass.” Ferlinghetti published “Howl and Other Poems” in 1956, but customs officials seized copies of the book that were being shipped from London, and Ferlinghetti was arrested on obscenity charges. After a highly publicized court battle, a judge in 1957 ruled that “Howl” was not obscene, despite its sexual themes, citing the poem’s relevance as a criticism of modern society. A 2010 film about the case, “Howl,” starred James Franco as Ginsberg and Andrew Rogers as Ferlinghetti. Ferlinghetti would also release Kerouac’s “Book of Dreams,” prison writings by Timothy Leary and Frank O’Hara’s “Lunch Poems.” Ferlinghetti risked prison for “Howl,” but rejected Burrough’s classic “Naked Lunch,” worrying that publication would lead to “sure premeditated legal lunacy.” RecognitionFerlinghetti’s eyesight was poor in recent years, but he continued to write and to keep regular hours at City Lights. The establishment, meanwhile, warmed to him, even if the affection wasn’t always returned. He was named San Francisco’s first poet laureate, in 1998, and City Lights was granted landmark status three years later. He received an honorary prize from the National Book Critics Circle in 2000 and five years later was given a National Book Award medal for “his tireless work on behalf of poets and the entire literary community.” “The dominant American mercantile culture may globalize the world, but it is not the mainstream culture of our civilization,” Ferlinghetti said upon receiving the award. “The true mainstream is made, not of oil, but of literarians, publishers, bookstores, editors, libraries, writers and readers, universities and all the institutions that support them.” In 2012, Ferlinghetti won the Janus Pannonius International Poetry Prize from the Hungarian PEN Club. When he learned the country’s right-wing government was a sponsor, he turned the award down.
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Facebook Inc.’s oversight board has received a “user statement” for the case it is deciding about whether the social media company was right to indefinitely suspend former President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, a board spokeswoman confirmed on Tuesday. Facebook handed the case to its independent board in January after it blocked Trump’s access to his accounts over concerns of further violent unrest following the storming of the U.S. Capitol by the former president’s supporters. The board’s process gave administrators of Trump’s page the option to submit a statement challenging Facebook’s decision. The spokeswoman said the board would have no further comment until it had issued a decision. The appeal was first reported by the UK’s Channel 4 News. Earlier this month, the oversight board said it was extending the public comment period on the case for a week, citing “high levels of interest.” The oversight board spokeswoman said the board had received more than 9,000 comments on the Trump case, the most the board has had for any case. Several academics and civil rights activists have publicly shared their letters urging the board to ban Trump permanently. Republican lawmakers have railed against the ban and demanded Trump’s accounts be reinstated.
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The European Union and the World Health Organization teamed with the international advocacy organization Global Citizen on Tuesday to host a virtual panel discussion on global recovery of the COVID-19 pandemic.The webcast included leaders from the United States and the African Union, as well as actors and musicians seeking to solicit donations from organizations and individuals. The effort aims to set the stage for the world to bounce back from the pandemic, addressing issues such as vaccine equity, world hunger, the climate crisis and international aid.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks during a news conference on COVID-19 vaccination plan at the EU headquarters in Brussels, Jan. 8, 2021.In her comments, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen echoed a call by French President Emmanuel Macron’s to donate vaccines to health care workers in Africa.”Vaccines must reach all corners of the planet as soon as possible,” she said.The EU has contributed an additional $606.3 million to the WHO-backed COVAX vaccine cooperative program to supply COVID-19 shots to emerging economies, doubling the bloc’s contribution. Last week, the Biden administration pledged $4 billion to the program.U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry made comments from his office in Washington, saying the recovery discussion represents a “bold plan of action” to get the world through and beyond the pandemic. He said protecting the planet should be part of that plan.South African President Cyril Ramaphosa receives the Johnson and Johnson coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination at the Khayelitsha Hospital near Cape Town, South Africa, Feb. 17, 2021.South African President and African Union chairman Cyril Ramaphosa urged wealthy countries to donate 5% of their vaccine supplies to needy countries, particularly on the African continent.Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter Billie Eilish said the pandemic forced her to cancel a world tour after just three shows last year. But she said the pandemic has demonstrated how quickly people adapt. She threw her support behind vaccine equity and urged others to do the same.WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also talked about vaccine equity, saying that just two countries account for half of the 210 million doses administered so far in the world.
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U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry urged the U.N. Security Council Tuesday to start treating the climate crisis like the “urgent security threat” that it is.“The climate threat is so massive, so multifaceted, that it is impossible to disentangle it from other challenges that the Security Council faces,” Kerry told a virtual summit on climate and conflict.“We bury our heads in the sand at our peril,” he cautioned.His participation at the summit comes just days after the United States officially rejoined the Paris Agreement, reversing a Trump administration decision to leave the landmark pact. Kerry said that was “an inexcusable absence by our country from this debate.”The main international instrument for mitigating climate change is the 2015 Paris Agreement. Signed by virtually every country in the world, it aims to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and limit the planet’s temperature increase during this century to 2 degrees Celsius, while working to limit the increase even further to 1.5 degrees. Most of the international climate debate focuses on the environmental impact of global warming, but Tuesday’s meeting was intended to highlight the ripple effect that it has on peace and security.UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivers a speech during a meeting of the German federal parliament, Bundestag, at the Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany, Dec. 18, 2020.“Climate disruption is a crisis amplifier and multiplier,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the 15-nation council. “Where climate change dries up rivers, reduces harvests, destroys critical infrastructure and displaces communities, it exacerbates the risks of instability and conflict.”A Swedish study found in 2018 that eight of the 10 countries hosting the largest U.N. peacekeeping operations were in areas highly exposed to climate change. “Whether you like it or not, it is a matter of when, not if, your country and your people will have to deal with the security impacts of climate change,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who chaired the meeting.French President Emmanuel Macron suggested the council name a special envoy for climate security to coordinate its work in this area.“I can only see advantages in having a report from the secretary-general every year to the Security Council on the impact of international security and climate change in order to plan ahead, to warn us, and to make recommendations so we can play our role,” Macron said.But not every member agreed that the council is the right forum for considering climate change.“We agree that climatic changes and environmental problems can exacerbate conflicts,” said Moscow’s Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia. “But are they the root cause? This is rather doubtful.”He said Russia agrees that there is an “urgent need” to respond to climate change, but believes it should be done within specific mechanisms, including the Paris Agreement.
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The World Health Organization, the global health initiative UNITAID and a consortium of partners Tuesday announced a new task force to secure oxygen supplies for COVID-19 patients in low and middle-income nations.Speaking to reporters at the United Nations’ Geneva headquarters, UNITAID spokesman Herve Verhoosel said low-and-middle-income nations have faced challenges maintaining oxygen supplies since the pandemic started. He said some hospitals have simply run out, resulting in preventable deaths.Verhoosel said more than 500,000 people in low- and middle-income countries currently need more than 1.1 million cylinders of oxygen per day, equal to eight million cubic meters.Based on assessments provided by WHO’s Health Emergencies Program,
task force members are hoping to raise $90 million to address oxygen needs in up to 20 countries, including Malawi, Nigeria and Afghanistan.Verhoosel said UNITAID and another task force member group, the health research foundation WELLCOME, will provide the initial $20 million, and they will determine the most urgent, short-term needs as well overall funding needed for the next year.
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As more Americans are vaccinated, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says new guidelines for vaccinated people will be coming “soon” from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).“I believe you’re going to be hearing more of the recommendations of how you can relax the stringency of some of the things, particularly when you’re dealing with something like your own personal family when people have been vaccinated,” Fauci told CNN.Some changes for those vaccinated have already been published. For example, people who have been vaccinated do not need to quarantine if they come in contact with an infected person.The supply of vaccines is expected to grow as manufacturers say they will increase production, CNBC reported.FILE – Vials labelled ‘COVID-19 Coronavirus Vaccine’ and a syringe are seen in front of the Pfizer logo in this illustration taken Feb. 9, 2021.In written congressional testimony, Pfizer’s Chief Business Officer John Young said the company plans to double its output to 13 million doses per week by mid-March.Moderna hopes to deliver 40 million doses per month by April.The supply could be further bolstered by Johnson & Johnson’s new one-shot vaccine, which is expected to be reviewed Thursday.As the United States races against time and devastating winter weather to vaccinate more than 300 million people against COVID-19, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a new set of guidelines that removes a key requirement for vaccine approval.FILE – A vial of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine is held at a vaccination site, Feb. 19, 2021, in Oklahoma City.The FDA announced Monday that drugmakers would not need to perform a new round of massive clinical trials involving thousands of volunteers to test vaccines that have been adapted to target new variants of the coronavirus. The agency said companies can test the efficacy of the updated vaccines through a similar process used for annual flu shots.The process involves giving the newly adapted vaccine to a small group of volunteers and comparing the strength of its immune response to that of the original version. Researchers can test the newly adapted vaccine as either a first shot or a booster shot for those who have already been inoculated.Drugmakers are already working to revise their vaccines to meet the rapidly evolving strains of the coronavirus that have been identified in Britain, Brazil and South Africa that may reduce the effectiveness of existing vaccines.The FDA’s new guidelines were released on the same day the United States surpassed 500,000 COVID-19 fatalities, first among all nations and the only one to reach such a grim milestone in the 14-month-long global pandemic.But the tragic milestone comes as the nation appears to be turning a corner in the fight against the coronavirus. The average number of new COVID-19 infections and deaths has declined since its peak in early January, while vaccine distribution and inoculation rates are gradually rising, despite an initial shortage of vaccines and the recent snowstorm that struck much of the U.S. this month, which delayed new shipments of vaccines by several days.
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Malian linguists and braille experts have translated the most widely spoken African language in Mali, Bambara, to braille for the country’s blind. Bambara is spoken and understood by about 15 million Malians, even more than the colonial language, French, making it an important step for blind people. Annie Risemberg profiles a teacher of the new braille translation in this report from Bamako.
Camera: Annie Risemberg
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Nigeria’s reported rapes tripled during COVID-19 pandemic to a few thousand, but the U.N. Children’s fund says one in four girls have been victims of sexual violence – meaning countless thousands of rapes are going unreported due to stigma. A Nigerian programmer has created an application for rape survivors to report the attacks and seek help while avoiding stigma. Percy Dabang reports from Yola, Nigeria.Camera: Halley Cromwell Produced by: Jon Spier
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Linguists and Braille experts in Mali have translated the country’s most widely spoken African language, Bambara, into Braille for the country’s blind. Bambara is spoken and understood by about 15 million Malians, even more than the colonial French, making it an important step for blind people. Moussa Keita has been at the Malian Union of the Blind (UMAV) since childhood — first, as a student, and now, as a teacher. He is one of six instructors who will soon teach Braille in Bambara, the country’s most widely spoken language. Before now, students learned Braille in Mali’s colonial language, French. In the shade of a tree by his classroom on the UMAV campus, Keita explains his pride in Bambara Braille. “When I think of this project, that thought not just of the visually handicapped, but moreover, that thought of Africans, particularly of Malians, to write Braille in their own language … to try and adapt Braille to Bambara, which isn’t even the official language … really, it’s a feeling of pride and joy for us,” he said. Keita’s student, 15-year-old Abdoulaye Kané, explains the usefulness of Bambara Braille to him in the classroom. “Now, if you don’t understand how to write something in French, you can write and read the word in Bambara. Then, you can understand how to write it in French,” he says. Abdoulaye Diallo is a blind physical therapist and a Braille specialist. Diallo writes prescriptions and patient information on paper with a tool called a slate and stylus. The Braille is then translated into written French by clinic staff. Taking a pause from treating patients, Diallo sits behind his clinic and talks about how teaching Braille in Bambara is a breakthrough for students and for blind adults who never had the chance to go to school. “If I’m an adult, illiterate, and I’m going to learn Bambara, but I can see, I learn Bambara, and I can do whatever I want,” he said. “If I’m an adult, but I’m blind, and I don’t know Bambara, I’m in the margins. So, it’s this Bambara [Braille], he says, which will save, which will give autonomy, to all these people who were in the margins. Issiaka Ballo, a linguist expert at the University of Bamako, was contacted in 2019 by a nonprofit group called Sightsavers to spearhead the project to adapt Braille to Bambara. Bambara has more letters than the French alphabet and more intonation, so new letters had to be created — but only within the six points available in the Braille cell. Speaking from the Braille printing room at UMAV, Ballo says blind students in Mali will now have more access to education. “If they can learn these subjects in their language, I think that will only strengthen the knowledge and mastery of science, the knowledge and mastery of literature, the knowledge about the world around us,” he said. In many schools, instruction is done in the local language rather than in French. Ballo says the next step is to translate Mali’s other national languages like Fulani and Songhay into Braille.
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The Australian government says Facebook has agreed to allow Australians to resume viewing or sharing news content after the two sides reached an agreement over a proposal to make the digital giants pay domestic news outlets for their content. The two sides announced the deal Tuesday just hours before the Australian Senate was set to begin debate on a set of amendments to a bill that was passed just last week by the lower House of Representatives. The amendments include a two-month mediation period that would give social media giants and news publishers extra time to broker agreements before they are forced to abide by the government’s provisions. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg issued a joint statement with Communications Minister Paul Fletcher saying Facebook will restore Australian news outlets on the social media platform “in the coming days.”An illustration image shows a phone screen with the “Facebook” logo and Australian newspapers in Canberra, Australia, Feb. 18, 2021.Facebook regional director William Easton issued a statement saying the company was “satisfied” the Australian government agreed to the changes and guarantees “that address our core concerns about allowing commercial deals that recognize the value our platform provides to publishers relative to the value we receive from them.” Facebook blocked Australian news content last week despite ongoing negotiations with Canberra. The websites of several public agencies and emergency services were also blocked on Facebook, including pages that include up-to-date information on COVID-19 outbreaks, brushfires and other natural disasters. Australian media companies have seen their advertising revenue increasingly siphoned off by big tech firms like Google and Facebook in recent years. Google had also threatened to block news content if the law were passed, even warning last August that Australians’ personal information could be “at risk” if digital giants had to pay for news content. But the company has already signed a number of separate agreements with such Australian media giants as the Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp, Nine Entertainment and Seven West Media.
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With the Ebola virus flaring in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a new outbreak in Guinea, Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum is worried.“This is a great concern for us, especially since the COVID and Ebola crises are occurring” simultaneously, said Muyembe, who manages DRC’s National Institute of Biomedical Research and is coordinating his country’s responses to both infectious diseases.A renowned expert on the Ebola virus, the 78-year-old microbiologist sees it as a more urgent threat than COVID-19 in his country. Meanwhile, the pandemic’s official Locations of current Ebola virus disease outbreaks in Guinea and DRC as of Feb. 22, 2021In past Ebola outbreaks, anywhere from 25% to 90% of infected people died, the World Health Organization reports. By comparison, the overall mortality risk of COVID-19, a respiratory disease, is 1% or less, but rises with age and risk factors, according toThe Congolese government’s Ebola response coordinator, Jean-Jacques Muyembe, visits a new Doctors Without Borders Ebola treatment center in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, Aug. 6, 2019. (Reuters)New tools to combat EbolaSome positive developments in Ebola prevention and treatment emerged, Muyembe noted, citing vaccines and drug therapies.“We have the tools to vaccinate and to treat the sick. Thus, we break the chain of transmission, and the virus can go back into the forest,” he said.In late 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Ervebo, a one-shot vaccine. Last July, the European Union approved Zabdeno, with a two-dose regimen.Gains also have been made in treatment. Late last year, the FDA approved two therapies for treating Ebola infections: the antibody cocktail Inmazeb and the human monoclonal antibody Ebanga. The DRC institute worked with the U.S. National Institutes of Health to develop the latter, Muyembe said, noting that his team revisited promising research that Western partners had asked them to set aside more than a decade ago.The institute has sent some of the treatment to North Kivu, Muyembe said, and “we will also send some shipments to Guinea to treat the sick. This is something we can do in the framework of African solidarity to help our friends in Guinea.”He added that Congolese health experts also would be sent there.Distribution of the Ebola vaccine is targeted, not widespread, as is planned for COVID-19 vaccines. In part, that is because Ebola spreads through direct contact; COVID can spread from an infected person through droplets that hang in the air and are harder to avoid.“If you’re spending money manufacturing vaccine and getting it into the arms of every person in a given country, that’s money that’s not being spent on something else that’s way more common, like (the) measles vaccine, or even other non-health-related issues,” Tiffany Harris, an epidemiology professor at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, told VOA. Raising awarenessMuyembe made a point of getting a shot in front of news cameras as soon as the Ebola vaccine was available. He will do the same with a COVID-19 vaccine, he said, to bolster public awareness and to allay suspicions of a Western ploy to sterilize or otherwise harm Africans.Misinformation is “amplified here in Africa,” Muyembe said. “It is up to us to convey the true messages of peace and security” to get people “to accept the COVID vaccine. But it’s not easy.”Health authorities have ramped up public awareness campaigns in Ebola-affected areas, joining much broader COVID-19 awareness campaigns on radio, social media and other platforms throughout Africa.“You can end an epidemic, but you cannot end the virus,” Muyembe said of Ebola. “… It can come back, so we have to be vigilant.”Adam Phillips of VOA’s English to Africa Service contributed to this report. Photos uploaded to Voltron:DRCONGO-HEALTH-EBOLA-VACCINATION (AFP 000_1MH6OU)Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum gets inoculated with an Ebola vaccine November 22, 2019, in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo. (AFP) (Ebola-Muyembe-Reuters)Congolese government’s Ebola response coordinator Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum visits the new MSF (Doctors Without Borders) Ebola treatment center in Goma, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, August 6, 2019. REUTERS/Baz Ratner Map:Suggested revised text for caption: – Instead of: Current EVD outbreaks in Guinea and DRC – Suggested revise: Locations of current Ebola virus disease outbreaks in Guinea and DRC as of Feb. 22, 2021 On the map itself, can we replace Katwa either with North Kivu or say Katwa, North Kivu
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NASA on Monday released the first high-quality video of a spacecraft landing on Mars, a three-minute trailer showing the enormous orange and white parachute hurtling open and the red dust kicking up as rocket engines lowered the rover to the surface. The quality was so good — and the images so breathtaking — that members of the rover team said they felt like they were riding along. “It gives me goose bumps every time I see it, just amazing,” said Dave Gruel, head of the entry and descent camera team. The Perseverance rover landed last Thursday near an ancient river delta in Jezero Crater to search for signs of ancient microscopic life. After spending the weekend binge-watching the descent and landing video, the team at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, shared the video at a news conference. The surface of Mars directly below NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover is seen using the Rover Down-Look Camera in a combination of images acquired Feb. 22, 2021. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Handout via Reuters)”These videos and these images are the stuff of our dreams,” said Al Chen, who was in charge of the landing team. Six off-the-shelf cameras were devoted to entry, descent and landing, looking up and down from different perspectives. All but one camera worked. The lone microphone turned on for landing failed, but NASA got some snippets of sound after touchdown: the whirring of the rover’s systems and wind gusts. Flight controllers were thrilled with the thousands of images beamed back — and also with the remarkably good condition of the rover. It will spend the next two years exploring the dry river delta and drilling into rocks that may hold evidence of life 3 billion to 4 billion years ago. The core samples will be set aside for return to Earth in a decade. NASA added 25 cameras to the $3 billion mission — the most ever sent to Mars. The space agency’s previous rover, 2012’s Curiosity, managed only jerky, grainy stop-motion images, mostly of terrain. Curiosity is still working. So is NASA’s InSight lander, although it’s hampered by dusty solar panels. This combination of images from video made available by NASA shows steps in the descent of the Mars Perseverance rover as it approaches the surface of the planet, Feb. 18, 2021. (NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP)Deputy project manager Matt Wallace said he was inspired several years ago to film Perseverance’s harrowing descent when his young gymnast daughter wore a camera while performing a backflip. Watching the video “I think you will feel like you are getting a glimpse into what it would be like to land successfully in Jezero Crater with Perseverance,” he said. Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s science mission chief, said the video and also the panoramic views following touchdown “are the closest you can get to landing on Mars without putting on a pressure suit.” The images will help NASA prepare for astronaut flights to Mars in the decades ahead, according to the engineers. There’s a more immediate benefit. “I know it’s been a tough year for everybody,” said imaging scientist Justin Maki, “and we’re hoping that maybe these images will help brighten people’s days.”
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