07/20/2021 | UPONSOFT

Floods in Central China Leave Subway Passengers Stranded

By Uponsil | 07/20/2021 | No Comments | Business, Science, Silicon Valley

Heavy rainfall forced the subway system in Zhengzhou, capital of China’s Henan province, to shut down Tuesday, stranding passengers.

Riders posted videos on social media as they awaited rescue in waist-high muddy waters. A passenger named Xiaopei posted on Weibo that “the water in the carriage has reached (their) chest.”

Around 300 people have been rescued so far, and an unknown number remain trapped.

Local media outlets report that train floodwaters were lowering.

Henan province, home to about 94 million people, experienced severe rains through the past week. On Tuesday, the region’s meteorological station issued the highest threat level, a red warning, as rains are expected to continue for the next 24 hours, Reuters reported.

A representative of the city of Xu Liyi, a member of the Standing Committee of Henan Provincial Party Committee, and Secretary of the Zhengzhou Municipal Party Committee said the high levels of rainfall were unusual.

Extreme weather events have surged this summer in China, with recent flooding in Sichuan province killing hundreds of citizens and forcing thousands to evacuate the area. Officials of Greenpeace International, an environmental group, warn that China’s rapid urbanization will increase the frequency of climate disasters.

Speaking to the Chinese media, Liu Junyan of Greenpeace said “because of the highly concentrated population, infrastructure and economic activity, the exposure and vulnerability of climate hazards are higher in urban areas.”

This report contains information from Reuters.
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Billionaire Bezos Back on Earth After Successful Suborbital Trip

By Uponsci | 07/20/2021 | No Comments | Business, Science, Silicon Valley

Billionaire Jeff Bezos was back on earth safely Tuesday after a 10-minute suborbital flight aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft.“Best day ever,” Bezos said after the capsule touched down near Van Horn, Texas. The spacecraft is named after Alan Shepard, the first American launched into space.The world’s richest man blasted off Tuesday from a remote desert launch site in Texas, as he became the second billionaire to self-fund a trip to space this month. This photo provided by Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and space tourism company Blue Origin, exits the Blue Origin’s New Shepard capsule after it parachuted safely down near Van Horn, Texas, July 20, 2021.The fully automated rocket reached an altitude of about 106 kilometers after reaching Mach 3. Once at altitude, the booster separated from the capsule and returned to earth landing upright near the launch site. The crew was able to experience weightlessness for 3 to 4 minutes before a parachute landing back on earthThe altitude surpassed the 85-kilometer mark reached by British billionaire Richard Branson on July 11 when he and five crewmates flew aboard his Virgin Galactic rocket-powered space plane. The 57-year-old founder of e-commerce giant Amazon founded Blue Origin in 2000 with the goal of creating permanent space colonies where people will live and work. This undated family photo shows Oliver Daemen. Blue Origin announced July 15, 2021, that the Dutch teen would be traveling on its July 20 space launch in west Texas.Bezos was joined by his brother, Mark, plus 82-year-old aviation pioneer Mary Wallace “Wally” Funk and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, making them the oldest and youngest persons to fly into space. Funk was one of the so-called Mercury 13, group of women who were part of a privately funded program to train women for space travel. None of them traveled to space.The Dutch-born Daemen was a last-minute addition to the crew after the anonymous winner of a $28 million auction for a seat on New Shepard dropped out, citing a scheduling conflict. Daemen’s father was a runner-up in the auction, which makes the young astronaut Blue Origin’s first paying customer. Bezos, a fervent space enthusiast since watching the Apollo lunar missions in his youth, made his trip on the 52nd anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing. During a television interview Monday, Bezos insisted that his goal was not about competition with Branson, but “about building a road to space so that future generations can do incredible things in space.” Blue Origin’s first manned mission comes after 15 test flights of the New Shepard vehicle. Bob Smith, the company’s chief executive officer, says two more manned missions aboard New Shepard are planned by the end of this year.The company is also building a larger rocket, New Glenn — named after John Glenn, the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth — that will send both manned and unmanned vehicles into space. Some information in this report comes from AP.
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Muslims Mark Eid Al-Adha Holiday in Pandemic’s Shadow

By Uponent | 07/20/2021 | No Comments | Business, Entertainment

Muslims around the world were observing Tuesday yet another major Islamic holiday in the shadow of the pandemic and amid growing concerns about the highly infectious delta variant of the coronavirus.Eid al-Adha, or the “Feast of Sacrifice,” is typically marked by communal prayers, large social gatherings, slaughtering of livestock and giving meat to the needy. This year, the holiday comes as many countries battle the delta variant first identified in India, prompting some to impose new restrictions or appeal for people to avoid congregating and follow safety protocols.The pandemic has already taken a toll for the second year on a sacred mainstay of Islam, the hajj, whose last days coincide with Eid al-Adha. Once drawing some 2.5 million Muslims from across the globe to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, the pilgrimage has been dramatically scaled back due to the virus.This year’s hajj has been limited to 60,000 vaccinated Saudi citizens or residents of Saudi Arabia. On Tuesday, pilgrims wearing masks and maintaining social distancing, performed the symbolic stoning of the devil in the valley area of Mina — using sterilized pebbles they received ahead of time.”This is (a) very, very, very big moment for us, for me especially,” said pilgrim Arya Widyawan Yanto, an Indonesian living in Saudi Arabia. He added that he was happy he had the chance to perform the pilgrimage. “Everything was conducted under very strict precautions.”Yanto said he hoped for the pandemic to end and for all Muslims to be able to perform the pilgrimage in a safe way.Indonesia marked a grim Eid al-Adha amid a devastating new wave of coronavirus cases in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. Vice President Ma’ruf Amin, also an influential Islamic cleric, appealed to people to perform holiday prayers at home with their families.”Don’t do crowds,” Amin said in televised remarks ahead of the start of the holiday. “Protecting oneself from the COVID-19 pandemic is obligatory.”The surge is believed to have been fueled by travel during another holiday — the Eid al-Fitr festival in May — and by the rapid spread of the delta variant.In Malaysia, measures have been tightened after a sharp spike in infections despite a national lockdown since June 1 — people are banned from traveling back to their hometowns or crossing districts to celebrate. House visits and customary trips to graveyards are also banned.Healthy worshippers are allowed to gather for prayers in mosques, with strict social distancing and no physical contact. Ritual animal sacrifice is limited to mosques and other approved areas.Health Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah has urged Malaysians not to “repeat irresponsible behavior,” adding that travel and celebrations during Eid al-Fitr and another festival on the island of Borneo led to new clusters of cases.”Let us not in the excitement of celebrating the Feast of Sacrifice cause us all to perish because of COVID-19,” he said in a statement.Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin urged Muslims to stay home. “I appeal to you all to be patient and abide by the rules because your sacrifice is a great jihad in Allah’s sight and in our effort to save lives,” he said in a televised speech on the eve of the festival.The World Health Organization has reported that globally, COVID-19 deaths had climbed after a period of decline. The reversal has been attributed to low vaccination rates, relaxed mask rules and other precautions, and the delta variant.Lockdowns will severely curtail Eid al-Adha festivities in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s two largest cities.Sydney resident Jihad Dib, a New South Wales state government lawmaker, said the city’s Muslims were sad but understood why they would be confined to their homes with no visitors allowed.
“It’s going to be the first Eid in my life I don’t hug and kiss my mum and dad,” Dib told Australian Broadcasting Corp.Iran on Monday imposed a week-long lockdown on the capital, Tehran, and the surrounding region as the country struggles with another surge in the coronavirus pandemic, state media reported. The lockdown begins on Tuesday.Not everyone is imposing new restrictions. In Bangladesh, authorities have allowed an eight-day pause in the country’s strict lockdown for the holiday that health experts say could be dangerous.In Egypt, Essam Shaban travelled to the southern province of Sohag to spend Eid al-Adha with his family. He said ahead of the start of the holiday that he planned to pray at a mosque there on Tuesday while taking precautions such as bringing his own prayer rug and wearing a mask.”We want this Eid to pass by peacefully without any infections,” he said. “We must follow instructions.”Shaban had been looking forward to pitching in with his brothers to buy a buffalo for slaughtering, going door-to-door to give some of the meat to the poor and to the traditional festive meal later in the day with his extended family.”It’s usually boisterous with laughter and bickering with the kids,” he said. “It’s great.”
But others will be without loved ones.In India, where Eid al-Adha starts Wednesday, Tahir Qureshi would always go with his father for prayers and then to visit family and friends. His father died in June after contracting the virus during a surge that devastated the country, and the thought of having to spend the holiday without him is heartbreaking.”It will be difficult without him,” he said.India’s Muslim scholars have been urging people to exercise restraint and adhere to health protocols. Some states have restricted large gatherings and are asking people to observe the holiday at home.Meanwhile the pandemic’s economic fallout, which threw millions of Indians into financial hardship, has many saying they cannot afford to buy sacrificial livestock.In Indian-controlled Kashmir, a disputed, Muslim-majority region, businessman Ghulam Hassan Wani is among those cutting back.”I used to sacrifice three or four sheep, but this year we can hardly afford one,” Wani said.
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US Urges Citizens to Refrain from Traveling to Britain

By Uponsci | 07/20/2021 | No Comments | Business, Science, Silicon Valley

The U.S. State Department is urging Americans not to travel to Britain because of the rising levels of new COVID-19 cases in the country. The State Department raised its travel advisory for Britain to its highest level on Monday, following a similar action taken by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier in the day. A Yeoman Warder, Barney Chandler gestures as he leads the first ‘Beefeater’ tour of the Tower of London in 16 months, at the Tower of London, July 19, 2021.Both agencies said if people must travel to Britain to make sure they are fully vaccinated before their journey. The revised advisories were issued as the British people celebrated “Freedom Day,” the official end of nearly all coronavirus lockdown restrictions, including mandatory mask wearing and social distancing. FILE – People drink shortly after the reopening at The Piano Works in Farringdon, in London, July 19, 20.But Prime Minister Boris Johnson likely cast a pall over the celebration when he announced that proof of vaccination will be required to enter nightclubs and other venues where large crowds gather beginning at the end of September. Johnson spent Freedom Day in quarantine after Britain’s health minister Sajid Javid tested positive for COVID-19. Cases in Britain topped 50,000 per day last week for the first time since January. The surge is largely driven by the delta variant of the virus, first identified in India. US-Canada borderOn the other side of the Atlantic, the Canadian government announced Monday that it would reopen its border to U.S. citizens and permanent residents living in the United States beginning August 9, as long as they show proof they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and tested negative for the virus within 72 hours of arrival. Officials also said it will allow fully vaccinated visitors from other countries beginning September 7. FILE – Two closed Canadian border checkpoints are seen at the US-Canada border crossing at the Thousand Islands Bridge in Lansdowne, Canada, March 19, 2020.Canada and the United States had agreed to ban all nonessential travel across their border in March 2020, with both nations extending the ban on a month-to-month basis. A growing number of U.S. lawmakers and business groups have been calling on Ottawa to lift the ban, which they say has hurt tourism and negatively impacted families with relatives living on either side of the border. Lockdown in AustraliaMeanwhile, more than half of Australia’s 25 million citizens are under coronavirus lockdown measures Tuesday after South Australia state Premier Steven Marshall announced an immediate seven-day lockdown after five new cases were detected there. South Australia joins the neighboring states of Victoria and New South Wales to impose extended lockdowns since late June, when an airport limousine driver in Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, tested positive for the highly contagious delta variant after transporting international air crews. People wait outside a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination centre at Sydney Olympic Park in Sydney, Australia, July 14, 2021.The new lockdown in South Australia came as Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews extended a five-day lockdown imposed just last Thursday for at least another seven days after reporting 13 new local infections.New South Wales, which is in the fourth week of an extended lockdown, reported 78 new cases Tuesday, driving its total number of cases over 1,400 since the outbreak began. Australia has been largely successful in containing the spread of COVID-19 through aggressive lockdown efforts, posting just 32,120 total confirmed cases and 915 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. But it has proved vulnerable to fresh outbreaks due to a slow rollout of its vaccination campaign and confusing requirements involving the two-shot AstraZeneca vaccine, which is the dominant vaccine in its stockpile. Overall, Australia has administered over 10 million doses of vaccine to its population of more than 25 million people, or just over 11%, according to Johns Hopkins. And a new study released Tuesday by the U.S.-based Center for Global Development says India’s total death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic could be as much as 10 times higher than its official tally of 414,482 fatalities, likely making it the worst humanitarian disaster for the South Asian nation since gaining its independence from Britain in 1947. The study says as many as 3 million to 4.7 million people were killed by the virus between January 2020 and June of this year. The world’s second-most populous nation, with an estimated 1.3 billion people, is emerging from a devastating surge between April and May that was partly fueled by the delta variant.
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In Mecca, Women Take Part in Hajj as ‘Guardian’ Rule Dropped

By Uponent | 07/20/2021 | No Comments | Business, Entertainment

Bushra Shah, a 35-year-old Pakistani, says she is realizing a childhood dream by making the great pilgrimage to Mecca, and under new rules she’s doing it without a male guardian.The hajj ministry has officially allowed women of all ages to make the pilgrimage without a male relative, known as a “mehrem,” on the condition that they go in a group.
The decision is part of social reforms rolled out by de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is trying to shake off the kingdom’s austere image and open its oi reliant economy.Since his rise to power, women have been allowed to drive and to travel abroad without a male guardian, even against a backdrop of a relentless crackdown against critics of his rule, including women’s rights activists.”It’s like a dream come true. My childhood dream was to make the hajj,” Shah told AFP, before setting off from her home in Jeddah, the major port city in western Saudi Arabia.The hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, is a must for able-bodied Muslims with the means to do so at least once in their lifetime.For the young mother, making the pilgrimage with her husband and child would have been a distraction that would have prevented her from “concentrating completely on the rites.”Shah is one of 60,000 pilgrims chosen to take part in this year’s hajj, which has been dramatically scaled down for the second year because of the coronavirus pandemic.Only citizens and residents of Saudi Arabia, chosen in a lottery, are taking part. Officials have said that 40% of this year’s pilgrims are women.”Many women will also come with me. I am very proud that we are now independent and do not need a guardian,” Shah said.Her husband, Ali Murtada, said he “strongly encouraged” his wife to make the trip alone, after the government’s decision to ban children from participating in the hajj this year.
He will stay in Jeddah to look after their child.”We decided that one of us should go. Maybe she will be pregnant next year or maybe the children will still not be allowed to participate,” the 38-year-old said.It was unclear when the hajj ministry lifted the restriction, and some women have reported that travel agencies are still reluctant to accept women travelling without a male companion for the hajj.Some even posted advertisements ruling out groups of unaccompanied women, in a sign of how the dizzying social changes are meeting some resistance in the deeply conservative kingdom.Authorities previously required the presence of a male guardian for any woman pilgrim younger than 45, preventing many Muslim women around the world from making the hajj.That was the case for Marwa Shaker, an Egyptian woman living in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.”Hajj without a guardian is a miracle,” the 42-year-old, who works for a civil society organization, told AFP.Now travelling to Mecca with three of her friends, the mother of three had tried several times to make the pilgrimage before the pandemic. But she was unable to because her husband had already been and was not permitted to go again so soon.”I feel enormously joyful. God has called me despite all the obstacles,” she said.For Sadaf Ghafoor, a British-Pakistani doctor, travelling without a male guardian was the “only option.””We couldn’t leave the children alone,” the 40-year-old said of her three youngsters. Her husband decided to stay behind, and Ghafoor headed to Mecca with a neighbor.”It was not easy to take the decision to go alone … but we took this opportunity as a blessing,” she said.
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Billionaire Bezos Ready to Realize Dream of Traveling to Space  

By Uponsci | 07/20/2021 | No Comments | Business, Science, Silicon Valley

American businessman Jeff Bezos is set to become the second billionaire to self-fund a trip to space this month when he blasts off Tuesday morning from a remote desert launch site in Texas. The 57-year-old founder of e-commerce giant Amazon and three companions will fly into space aboard the New Shepard rocket built by his company Blue Origin, which he founded in 2000 with the goal of creating permanent space colonies where people will live and work. New Shepard, named after Alan Shepard, America’s first astronaut, is scheduled to blast off shortly after sunrise (300 GMT, 7 a.m. Washington time) and travel at three times the speed of sound before the capsule separates from the rocket and floats above the Earth for three to four minutes, allowing Bezos and his three crewmates to experience weightlessness. The capsule will then re-enter the atmosphere and make a parachute landing near the launch site, while the rocket will make an automated vertical landing several miles away. Bezos will be joined by his brother, Mark, plus 82-year-old aviation pioneer Mary Wallace “Wally” Funk and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, making them the oldest and youngest persons to fly into space. Funk was one of the so-called Mercury 13, the first group of women to train for the U.S. space program in the 1960s but were denied a chance to become astronauts because of the gender. The Dutch-born Daemen was a last-minute addition to the crew after the anonymous winner of a $28 million auction for a seat on New Shepard dropped out, citing a scheduling conflict. Daemen’s father was a runner-up in the auction, which makes the young astronaut Blue Origin’s first paying customer. Bezos hopes New Shepard will reach an altitude of 106 kilometers above the Earth, past the so-called Karman line (100 kilometers above Earth), which is recognized by international aviation and aerospace federations as the threshold of space. It will also surpass the 85 kilometer mark reached by British billionaire Richard Branson on July 11 when he and five crewmates flew aboard his Virgin Galactic rocket-powered space plane. Bezos, a fervent space enthusiast since watching the Apollo lunar missions in his youth, is heading into space on the 52nd anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing. During a television interview Monday, Bezos insisted that his goal was not about competition with Branson, but “about building a road to space so that future generations can do incredible things in space.” Blue Origin’s first manned mission comes after 15 test flights of the New Shepard vehicle. Bob Smith, the company’s chief executive officer, says two more manned missions aboard New Shepard are planned by the end of this year if Tuesday’s flight is successful. The company is also building a larger rocket, New Glenn — named after John Glenn, the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth — that will send both manned and unmanned vehicles into space.
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Dane Who Drew Controversial Muhammad Caricature Dies at 86

By Uponent | 07/20/2021 | No Comments | Business, Entertainment

Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, whose image of the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb as a turban was at the center of widespread anti-Danish anger in the Muslim world in the mid-2000s, has died. He was 86. Westergaard’s family announced his death to Danish media late Sunday and told the newspaper Berlingske that Westergaard died in his sleep after a long period of illness. Danish media reported that he died July 14, a day after his birthday. From the early 1980s, Westergaard worked as a cartoonist for Jyllands-Posten, one of Denmark’s leading newspapers, and was associated with the daily until he turned 75. Westergaard became known worldwide in 2005 for his controversial depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in Jyllands-Posten, which published 12 editorial cartoons of the principal figure of Islam. Muslims consider images of the prophet to be sacrilegious and encouraging idolatry. The images, particularly Westergaard’s, sparked a huge wave of anger in the Muslim world and escalated into violent anti-Denmark protests by Muslims worldwide in 2006. Several newspapers in neighboring Norway also published the controversial cartoons. Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria were burned down by angry crowds during the demonstrations. Political observers in the Nordic countries have described the cartoon incident as one of the most severe foreign policy crises for both Denmark and Norway in their recent histories. In the aftermath of the uproar, Westergaard received several death threats and was forced to have police protection. In 2008, three people were arrested for planning to kill him, and in 2010, a 28-year-old Somali man broke into his home with an ax and knife. The man was later sentenced to 10 years in prison. “I would like to be remembered as the one who struck a blow for the freedom of expression. But there’s no doubt that there are some who will instead remember me as a Satan who insulted the religion of over 1 billion people,” Westergaard said, according to Berlingske. Jyllands-Posten said in an editorial published Monday that with the death of Westergaard “it is more important than ever to emphasize that the struggle for freedom of expression, which became his destiny, is the struggle of all of us for freedom.” Westergaard is survived by his wife and five children, 10 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Funeral arrangements were not immediately known.

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