Month: November 2021

The U.S. space agency NASA has launched a spacecraft on a mission to test the ability to knock an asteroid off a potentially harmful collision course with Earth. 

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, will take 10 months to reach the asteroid Dimorphos before slamming into it at 24,000 kilometers per hour. 

Dimorphos does not pose any danger to Earth, but gives scientists a way to examine the concept of moving a potentially harmful object far enough and early enough off its course so that it flies past Earth. 

The DART spacecraft is about the size of a small car and carries a briefcase-sized craft that will be deployed shortly before the impact to record video of the event. 

NASA says the mission costs about $330 million. 

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
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CVS, Walgreens and Walmart pharmacies recklessly distributed massive amounts of pain pills in two Ohio counties, a federal jury said Tuesday in a verdict that could set the tone for U.S. city and county governments that want to hold pharmacies accountable for their roles in the opioid crisis.

Lake and Trumbull counties blamed the three chain pharmacies for not stopping the flood of pills that caused hundreds of overdose deaths and cost each of the two counties about $1 billion, their attorney said.

How much the pharmacies must pay in damages will be decided in the spring by a federal judge.

It was the first time pharmacy companies had completed a trial to defend themselves in a drug crisis that has killed a half-million Americans in the past two decades.

The counties were able to convince the jury that the pharmacies played an outsized role in creating a public nuisance in the way they dispensed pain medication into their communities.

“The law requires pharmacies to be diligent in dealing drugs. This case should be a wake-up call that failure will not be accepted,” said Mark Lanier, an attorney for the counties. “The jury sounded a bell that should be heard through all pharmacies in America,” Lanier said.

Attorneys for the three pharmacy chains maintained they had policies to stem the flow of pills when their pharmacists had any concerns and would notify authorities about suspicious orders from doctors. They also said it was the doctors who controlled how many pills were being prescribed for legitimate medical needs.

Spokespeople for CVSHealth and Walgreen Co. said the companies disagree with the verdict and will appeal.

“As plaintiffs’ own experts testified, many factors have contributed to the opioid abuse issue, and solving this problem will require involvement from all stakeholders in our health care system and all members of our community,” CVS spokesperson Mike DeAngelis said in a statement.

Walgreen spokesperson Fraser Engerman said the company believes the court erred “in allowing the case to go before a jury on a flawed legal theory that is inconsistent with Ohio law.”

“As we have said throughout this process, we never manufactured or marketed opioids nor did we distribute them to the ‘pill mills’ and internet pharmacies that fueled this crisis,” Engerman said in a statement. “The plaintiffs’ attempt to resolve the opioid crisis with an unprecedented expansion of public nuisance law is misguided and unsustainable.”

Two other chains — Rite Aid and Giant Eagle — had settled lawsuits with the two Ohio counties.

Lanier said during the trial that the pharmacies were attempting to blame everyone but themselves.

The opioid crisis has overwhelmed courts, social services agencies and law enforcement in Ohio’s blue-collar corner east of Cleveland, leaving behind heartbroken families and babies born to addicted mothers, Lanier told jurors.

Roughly 80 million prescription painkillers were dispensed in Trumbull County alone between 2012 and 2016 — equivalent to 400 for every resident.

In Lake County, about 61 million pills were distributed during that period.

The rise in physicians prescribing pain medications such as oxycodone and hydrocodone came at a time when medical groups began recognizing that patients have the right to be treated for pain, Kaspar Stoffelmayr, an attorney for Walgreens, said at the opening of the trial.

The problem, he said, was that “pharmaceutical manufacturers tricked doctors into writing way too many pills.”

The counties said pharmacies should be the last line of defense to prevent the pills from getting into the wrong hands.

They didn’t hire enough pharmacists and technicians or train them to stop that from happening and failed to implement systems that could flag suspicious orders, Lanier said.

The trial before U.S. District Judge Dan Polster in Cleveland was part of a broader constellation of federal opioid lawsuits — about 3,000 in all — that have been consolidated under the judge’s supervision. Other cases are moving ahead in state courts.

Kevin Roy, chief public policy officer at Shatterproof, an organization that advocates for solutions to addiction, said the verdict could lead pharmacies to follow the path of major distribution companies and some drugmakers that have reached nationwide settlements of opioid cases worth billions.

So far, no pharmacy has reached a nationwide settlement. “It’s a signal that the public, at least in select places, feels that there’s been exposure and needs to be remedied,” Roy said.

Roy noted that courts have not been consistent on whether public nuisance law applies to such cases.

“There’s been a variety of different decisions lately that should give us reason to be cautious about what this really means in the grand scheme,” he said.

It was one of five trials so far this year in the U.S. to test claims brought by governments against parts of the drug industry over the toll of prescription painkillers.

Trials against drugmakers in New York and distribution companies in Washington state are underway now. A trial of claims against distribution companies in West Virginia has wrapped up, but the judge has not yet given a verdict.

Earlier in November, a California judge ruled in favor of top drug manufacturers in a lawsuit with three counties and the city of Oakland. The judge said the governments hadn’t proved that the pharmaceutical companies used deceptive marketing to increase unnecessary opioid prescriptions and create a public nuisance.

Also in November, Oklahoma’s supreme court overturned a 2019 judgment for $465 million in a suit brought by the state against drugmaker Johnson & Johnson.

Other lawsuits have resulted in big settlements or proposed settlements before trials were completed.
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Apple says it is suing Israeli NSO Group, maker of the controversial Pegasus spyware. 

Apple will be the second company to sue NSO after Facebook, now Meta, sued over similar concerns that Pegasus was targeting WhatsApp users. Meta owns WhatsApp. The case is still working its way through the courts. 

Apple says the spyware specifically targeted its users. It also wants to prevent NSO from using any Apple product or service, which would be a massive blow to the company that sells governments the ability to hack iPhones and Android phones in order to gain full access. 

Apple says it has created a software patch to protect devices from Pegasus. 

The Cupertino, California-based company says it is seeking undisclosed damages it says it incurred because of NSO. It says it would donate any award money to organizations that investigate and expose spyware.

One such company, Citizen Lab, was central in uncovering how Pegasus worked. 

“This is Apple saying: If you do this, if you weaponize our software against innocent users, researchers, dissidents, activists or journalists, Apple will give you no quarter,” Ivan Krstic, head of Apple security engineering and architecture, said in an interview Monday with the New York Times. 

Earlier this month, the U.S. put NSO along with three other software companies on a blacklist that places severe restrictions on their ability to do business in the U.S. 

It said the companies “developed and supplied spyware to foreign governments” and that the spyware was used “to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics and embassy workers.” 

NSO did not immediately comment on the lawsuit, but has previously said it takes precautions to prevent the abuse of its products. 

The pressure against NSO appears to be working, as many news outlets reported the company was at risk of defaulting on its loans. 

Some information in this report comes from Reuters. 
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The U.S. space agency, NASA, and its European counterpart, the European Space Agency (ESA), have delayed the long-awaited launch of the James Webb space telescope to no earlier than December 22.

In statements, both agencies say the launch is being held up for additional testing of the orbiting observatory after what appeared to be a minor incident during preparations at the launch facility in Kourou, French Guiana.  

NASA says technicians were preparing to attach the telescope to the launch vehicle adapter, which is used to integrate the observatory with the upper stage of the rocket that will take it into orbit. They say the sudden, unplanned release of a clamp band — which secures the Webb to the launch vehicle adapter — caused a vibration throughout the observatory.

The agency says a NASA-led review board was immediately convened to investigate and perform additional testing to ensure the incident did not damage any of the instrument’s sensitive components. The space agency said it, along with mission partners the ESA and the Canadian space agency will provide an update when the tests are complete late this week.

The Webb telescope, originally scheduled for launch December 18, is designed to replace the aging Hubble telescope. NASA says it is designed to explore every phase of cosmic history — from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies and everything in between.  

When ready, the telescope will be launched from the South American site aboard a French-made Ariane 5 rocket.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press.

 
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The shutdown of internet access via mobile phone networks that began Saturday dragged on for a fourth day Tuesday. The government said in a statement the shutdown is in the interest of national defense and public security and will last until around 10 p.m. tonight.

VOA talked to some Burkinabes on the streets of Ouagadougou to ask how the shutdown was affecting them and what they thought of the government’s decision.

Alexi Sawadogo, a physician, spoke outside a bank on one of the city’s busy boulevards. He said he was there to check his account balance as the shutdown meant he could no longer do so online. 

“It disconnects us from our friends who are outside the country, with whom we communicate regularly,” he says. He notes that he understands that it is because of the French convoy that was blockaded in the north, but says insecurity is not a valid reason and that the government needs to review its strategy. 

The shutdown has come in the wake of protests in recent days that have blocked a French military supply convoy that is attempting to travel from Ivory Coast to Niger. Protesters say they want an end to French military intervention in the regional war against Islamist militants. 

There have also been protests against the government’s handling of security, after a terrorist group believed to be associated with al-Qai da killed more than 50 military police in an assault on a base in northern Burkina Faso on November 14th. 

Ali Dayorgo, a university student, said the shutdown has affected his ability to work and learn the latest news.

He says he doesn’t understand why the shutdown is happening, but he hears the voice of the Burkinabe youth. “I feel the anger of the youth,” he expressed, adding that even if he doesn’t join protests against insecurity, he supports them.

A funeral for some of the victims of the attack is taking place in Ouagadougou today. 

Drabo Mahamadou is the national executive secretary of the “Save Burkina Faso Movement,” one of the protest groups that is calling for President Roch Kabore to resign. He said they have called on the population to attend Tuesday’s funeral and to attend a protest on Saturday.

He says, because the government is insensitive to pain, we are calling on the population to come out en masse on the 27th. We want [protesters] to prove that this government is not helping Burkina Faso. It is the government that is causing harm to the Burkinabé people.

A government spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

Eloise Bertrand is a research fellow at the University of Portsmouth who focuses on Burkina Faso. She thinks the restrictions on the internet are unwise; pointing out that “this shutdown may well backfire against the government. We can see that civil society groups and stakeholders who were not really involved in protests against the French convoy are annoyed and angered by this internet shutdown.”

Reports suggest the French military convoy is now waiting in the town of Zinaire, about 30 kilometers north of the capital. Protests are also said to be taking place in the town.

With the demonstrations continuing, it remains to be seen if the government will lift the internet shutdown tonight. Further protests are scheduled for Saturday.
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A SpaceX rocket was set to blast off from California late Tuesday as NASA seeks to demonstrate a first-of-its-kind planetary defense system, designed to deflect an asteroid from a potential doomsday collision with Earth.

The DART mission will test NASA’s ability to alter an asteroid’s trajectory with kinetic force – crashing a robot spacecraft into it at high speed and nudging the space boulder just enough to keep our planet out of harm’s way.

DART’s target is a tiny fraction of the size of the cataclysmic Chicxulub asteroid that slammed into Earth about 66 million years ago, killing most of the planet’s animal species. It is not on a path that will cause it to hit Earth in the foreseeable future.

But scientists say smaller asteroids are far more common and pose a far greater theoretical threat to Earth in the near term.

NASA has hired Elon Musk’s company SpaceX to launch DART aboard a Falcon 9 rocket at 10:20 p.m. Pacific time on Tuesday (1:20 a.m. Eastern/0620 GMT Wednesday) from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast, about 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

If liftoff is postponed NASA has an 84-day launch window in which to try again.

Once released into space, DART will journey 10 months to its destination, some 6.8 million miles (11 million km) from Earth.

Its target is an asteroid “moonlet” the size of a football stadium that orbits a much larger chunk of rock – about five times bigger – in a binary asteroid system named Didymos, the Greek word for twin.

The moonlet, called Dimorphos, is one of the smallest astronomical objects to receive a permanent name. But at 525 feet (160 km) in diameter, its size is typical among the known asteroids – rubble-like remnants left over from formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago.

Simpler than ‘Armageddon’

Scientists chose the Didymos system because its relative proximity to Earth and dual-asteroid configuration make it ideal to observe the results of the impact.

The key to avoiding a killer asteroid is to detect it well in advance and be ready with the means of changing its course, NASA planetary defense officer Lindley Johnson told a media briefing this month.

“We don’t want to be in a situation where an asteroid is headed toward Earth and then have to be testing this kind of capability,” he said.

The team behind DART, short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, has determined that slamming a car-sized projectile into a Dimorphos-sized asteroid at 15,000 miles per hour (24,000 kph) should do the trick.

The DART spacecraft, a cube-shaped box with two rectangular solar arrays, is due to rendezvous with the Didymos-Dimorphos pair in late September 2022.

Cameras mounted on the impactor and on a briefcase-sized mini-spacecraft released from DART about 10 days beforehand will record the collision.

Observations from ground-based telescopes and radar will then measure how much the moonlet’s orbit around Didymos changes.

The DART team is expecting to shorten the orbital track by about 10 minutes but would consider at least 73 seconds a success.

The entire cost of the DART project will run about $330 million, according to Lindley, well below that of many of NASA’s most ambitious science missions. 
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A mission is underway to retrieve scientific data from the rugged ocean floor in the Southern Ocean, formerly known as the Antarctic Ocean, that could explain what triggers underwater earthquakes and tsunamis.   

Some of the world’s most violent underwater earthquakes are unleashed beneath the hostile waters of the Southern Ocean, but researchers don’t know why. Sophisticated noise and motion sensors could help unlock the secrets of how Tectonic plates – or pieces of the Earth’s crust – start to collide, a process known as subduction.   

For the past year, an array of 27 seismometers positioned on the ocean floor has formed a giant telescope pointing to the planet’s core.  The instruments are now being retrieved.    

Professor Hrvoje Tkalčić, a chief scientist from the Australian National University’s Research School of Earth Sciences hopes the study will help to explain how and why earthquakes occur.    

“We cannot predict when exactly they will happen, how large they will be. But we can understand better their physical mechanism and we can also understand better the Earth’s structure in that area, and this is critical to predict the propagation of the seismic waves from the hyper-center of these earthquakes to any other point on the Earth’s surface, including a possible generation of tsunami,” Tkalčić said.      

Scientists hope the study will give them a better understanding of how earthquakes and tsunamis might affect Australia and New Zealand, which lies within the seismically active region known as the “Pacific Ring of Fire.”    

The expedition is scouring some of the world’s steepest underwater mountain ranges to depths of more than 3.5 miles in a remote area known as Macquarie Ridge, halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica. 

Researchers say the techniques could also be applied to other oceans. 

The international study is a collaboration with various Australian institutions, the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology.   

The three-week voyage began in Wellington, New Zealand on November 10. 
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Multiple Sclerosis is a disease of the central nervous system that disrupts communication between the brain and the body. VOA’s Faiza Elmasry talks to a woman diagnosed with the disease about her journey to find a healthier life and learn about the positive changes she made to help relieve the symptoms of MS.  
 
Camera: June Soh 
Produced by: June Soh, Zdenko Novacki
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A Sydney restaurant is using a Chinese-made, multi-lingual hospitality robot to address chronic staff shortages as Australia’s economy begins to recover from COVID-19 lockdowns and border closures. 

The robot waiter is programmed to know the layout of the tables and delivers food from the kitchen. It is also multi-lingual, programmed to communicate in English and Mandarin. The so-called BellaBot is built by the Chinese firm PuduTech. 

Each machine costs about $17,000. They can be leased for $34 per day for each device, or the equivalent of two hours’ wages for restaurant staff. The devices are in use in other Australian restaurants and imports into Australia appear to be unaffected by recent trade tensions between the two countries. 

Liarne Schai, the co-owner of the Matterhorn Restaurant in Sydney, is delighted with her new mechanical staff member. 

“Ah, love the robot. Love the robot, she makes my life a lot easier. It is like a tower that has got four trays. It will carry eight of our dinner plates in one go. She is geo-mapped to the floor (customer names, location of tables, etc.) The robot knows where all our tables are,” Schai said.  

Australia’s hospitality workforce has traditionally relied on international students. They have, however, been restricted from entering after Australia closed its borders to most foreign nationals in March 2020 in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus.  

Labor shortages are affecting not only hospitality in Australia, but a range of industries from construction to information technology.  

Liarne Schai says she has tried for months without success to recruit workers. 

“It is the biggest issue we have at the moment. We have been running ads for chefs, for waiters, for kitchen hands for six months and we have had zero applicants. We are offering above award wages, we are offering bonuses, we are offering everything you can think of to attract appropriate staff and I am not even getting inappropriate staff, or untrained staff. I am just getting nobody.” 

Labor shortages should ease when Australia reopens its borders to foreign nationals, but analysts expect many vacancies will remain unfilled.  

Employer groups have demanded that Australia increase its intake of migrant workers. 

Australia’s official unemployment rate stands at 5.2%.   

But with more than 700,000 Australians without a job, there are calls for the government to boost domestic training programs and wages. 
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Australian mining billionaire Andrew Forrest’s philanthropic organization will help 18 small news publishers in the country to negotiate collectively with Google and Facebook to secure licensing deals for the supply of news content.

Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation on Monday said it would submit an application with the country’s competition regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), allowing the publishers to bargain without breaching competition laws.

Forrest, Australia’s richest man, is the chairman and the largest shareholder of iron ore miner Fortescue Metals Group. He has a net worth of around A$27.2 billion ($19.7 billion), according to the Australian Financial Review.

Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google have been required since March to negotiate with Australian media outlets for content that drives traffic and advertising to their websites. If they don’t, the government may take over the negotiation.

Both companies have since struck licensing deals with most of Australia’s main media companies, but they have not entered into agreements with many small firms. The federal government is scheduled to begin a review of the law’s effectiveness in March.

Frontier Technology, an initiative of Minderoo, said it would assist the publishers.

“Small Australian publishers who produce public interest journalism for their communities should be given the same opportunity as large publishers to negotiate for use of their content for the public benefit,” Emma McDonald, Frontier Technology’s director of policy, said in a statement.

Google and Facebook did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.

The 18 small publishers include online publications that attract multicultural audiences and focus on issues at a local or regional level, McDonald said.

The move comes after ACCC late last month allowed a body representing 261 radio stations to negotiate a content deal.

News organizations, which have been losing advertising revenue to online aggregators, have complained for years about the big technology companies using content in search results or other features without payment.
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The top U.S. infectious disease expert on Sunday urged millions of Americans who already are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to get booster shots “to optimize their status.”

To date, 34.5 million of the 196 million fully vaccinated people in the United States have received booster shots, according to the government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, even as about 60 million people remain unvaccinated against the illness caused by the coronavirus.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Joe Biden’s top medical adviser, told ABC’s “This Week” show, “There is no lack of clarity” about the need for the booster shots because of the waning effectiveness of their first vaccination shots over time.

He said the boosters give people “greater durability,” although it is not clear whether those who have been vaccinated might continue to need booster shots every six months or a year in the future.

“We’re going to look at what it means to be boosted, follow the science, follow the data,” Fauci told CNN’s “State of the Union” show in a separate interview.

A CDC advisory panel Friday voted unanimously to make COVID-19 vaccine booster shots available to those 18 and older.

The number of new cases is on the upswing again in the U.S., with more than 90,000 new cases recorded daily in recent days. Fauci said the increase was not unexpected as temperatures turn colder heading into the winter months and more people are confined inside their homes.

But he said that fully vaccinated families and friends can safely get together for annual Thanksgiving Day dinner celebrations this Thursday and not have to wear face masks.

“You can enjoy a happy Thanksgiving this year,” he said. “Enjoy your holiday season with your family.”
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As coronavirus infections hit Ukraine, a single shift for Dr. Oleksandr Molchanov now stretches to 42 hours — 24 of them in Kakhovka’s hospital, followed by another 18 hours spent visiting tents set up to care for 120 COVID-19 patients.

While vaccination rates in Eastern Europe have generally lagged, Ukraine has one of the lowest in the region. But because of its underfunded and struggling health care system, the situation has turned dire nearly two years since the virus swept into Europe.

The country is setting records almost every day for infections and deaths, most recently on Tuesday, when 838 deaths were reported.

“We are extinguishing the fire again. We are working as at the front, but our strength and capabilities are limited,” said Molchanov, who works at the hospital in the city in southern Ukraine on the Dnieper River. “We are working to the limit.”

After his grueling shift, the 32-year-old doctor goes home to sleep and recover for two days. The next one may be even more challenging.

“The situation is only getting worse,” Molchanov said. “Hospital beds are running out, there are more and more serious patients, and there is a sore lack of doctors and medical personnel.”

The tents beside Kakhovka’s hospital have 120 beds, and 87 of them are occupied, with more patients arriving every day. But Molchanov is one of only three doctors to care for them.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration inherited a health care system that was undermined by reforms launched by his predecessor that closed many small-town hospitals.

In those communities, people have to seek care in large cities. If the problem is severe enough that a patient needs an ambulance, the wait can be as long as eight hours.

“They are bringing patients in extremely difficult condition, with a protracted form” of COVID-19, said Dr. Anatoliy Galachenko, who also works at the tent hospital. “The main reason is the remoteness of settlements and the impossibility of providing assistance at the primary stages of the disease.”

Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister who leads the opposition Batkivshchyna party, said she has traveled to many hospitals in Ukraine and found shortages everywhere.

“The mortality from COVID that is now recorded in Ukraine, is not just mortality; it is the killing of people by this government, which does not have oxygen, antiviral drugs, beds and normally paid medical personnel,” she said in parliament.

“There are no free beds in the country anymore — a new patient immediately comes to the bed of a discharged person,” Tymoshenko added.

Four coronavirus vaccines are available in Ukraine — Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Sinovac — but only 21% of its 41 million people are fully vaccinated. The Ministry of Health reported that 96% of patients with severe COVID-19 weren’t vaccinated.

Zelenskyy has promised every fully vaccinated Ukrainian a payment of 1,000 hryvnia ($38), about 5% of the average monthly wage, but widespread hesitancy persists.

Doctors say the vaccines are highly effective at preventing deaths and hospitalizations, and when infections in vaccinated people do occur, they usually are mild.

Oleksandr Kymanov, who refused to get vaccinated, ended up getting infected and was brought to the tent hospital in Kakhovka from the town of Rozdolne, about 20 kilometers away. Connected to supplemental oxygen, he cited various falsehoods about the vaccine, saying it was “useless” and that “people still get infected and get sick.”

Doctors complain that vaccine falsehoods about containing microchips or that they cause infertility and disease is driving the COVID-19 surge.

“People believe in the most absurd rumors about chips, infertility and the dangers of vaccines, elderly people from risk groups massively refuse to be vaccinated, and this is very harmful and increases the burden on doctors,” Molchanov said. “People trust their neighbors more than doctors.”

The government has required teachers, doctors, government employees and other groups of workers to be fully vaccinated by Dec. 1. It also has also begun to require proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 test results for travel on planes, trains and long-distance buses.

The regulations have spawned a black market for fake vaccination documents, which sell for the equivalent of $100-$300. A phony government digital app for smartphones is reportedly available, complete with fake certificates installed.

“COVID cannot be fooled with a fake certificate, but many Ukrainians learn about it only in intensive care,” Molchanov said.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs said 1,200 groups have been sent throughout Ukraine to verify the authenticity of medical documents. Police already have identified several clandestine printers who were creating fake certificates.

Doctors say the fake certificates make their job harder.

“We are working to the limit, but we are tired of fighting not only with disease, but also with stupidity,” Molchanov said.
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