Month: October 2022

Lebanon reported its first case of cholera since 1993, Health Minister Firas Abiad said Thursday.

The case, recorded Wednesday, was from the rural northern province of Akkar, Abiad said, adding the infected person was a Syrian national who was receiving treatment.

Akkar province borders Syria, where a cholera outbreak has infected more than 10,000 people and killed at least 39, according to the Syrian Ministry of Health. The country declared an outbreak on September 10.

Richard Brennan, regional emergency director of the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, said, “Cross-border spread is a concern. We’re taking significant precautions.”

He said the WHO has been talking to officials in countries bordering Syria, including Lebanon, to bring in the supplies necessary to respond to possible cholera cases.

Cholera is caused by consuming water or food contaminated with cholera bacteria, often transmitted through poor sanitation methods, according to the World Health Organization. Symptoms can include severe watery diarrhea, vomiting and muscle cramps, the WHO said. It added that while cholera can kill within hours if untreated, most of those affected have no or mild symptoms.

Lebanon has suffered a series of hardships, starting nearly four years ago with an economic and financial crisis, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and a horrific explosion at the Port of Beirut on August 4, 2020.

The resulting economic collapse has plunged three-quarters of Lebanon’s population into poverty.

Lebanon’s “low-grade infrastructure” includes “a dysfunctional electricity sector, water supply shortages, and inadequate solid waste and wastewater management,” the World Bank reported in October 2021.

Abiad said the health care system would struggle if there was a large-scale cholera outbreak.

“We have a very clear signal that the Lebanese healthcare system needs support to strengthen the system,” he told Reuters. “Otherwise … it won’t be able to hold.” 

The WHO’s Brennan said, “Protecting the most vulnerable will be absolutely vital.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
…

Around 3.9 million people in the United States received updated COVID-19 booster shots over the past week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.

he CDC said a total of 11.5 million Americans had received the shot as of Oct. 5, the first five weeks the booster has been available. This is up from the 7.6 million people who received the shot as of Sept. 28.

The 11.5 million figure represents only 5.3% of the 215.5 million people in the United States aged 12 or older who are eligible to receive the shots because they have completed their primary vaccination series.

The shots are being administered at a slower pace than last year, when the United States initially authorized COVID-19 boosters just for older and immunocompromised people. Around 20 million people received their third shot in the first five weeks of that vaccination campaign.

A survey conducted by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation found that nearly two-thirds of adults in the United States do not plan to get updated COVID-19 booster shots soon.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized Pfizer and Moderna’s Omicron-tailored shots in August in preparation for the country’s ongoing fall revaccination campaign.

The CDC tally includes booster shots from both Pfizer/BioNtech and Moderna.

While the Pfizer/BioNTech updated COVID-19 booster is approved for those aged 12 and above, Moderna’s shot is approved for individuals aged 18 and above.

These Omicron-tailored shots aim to tackle the BA.5 subvariants, which makes up a significant majority of the currently circulating variants in the United States, according to government. These shots are expected to also be effective against the BA.4.6 subvariant.
…

The Biden administration will begin redirecting U.S.-bound travelers who had been to Uganda within the previous 21 days to five major American airports to be screened for Ebola as public health officials sent an alert to health care workers.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday issued an alert to health care workers to raise awareness about the outbreak but said there were currently no suspected or confirmed U.S. Ebola cases from the Sudan strain, which is behind the latest Uganda infections.

According to Uganda’s Health Ministry at least nine people had died of the disease in Uganda by October 3. Authorities in the east African nation announced the outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic fever on September 20. There are 43 total cases, including the deaths.

U.S. screening began Thursday at the airports but the funneling requirements are expected to take effect within the coming week or so, a source told Reuters.

“Out of an abundance of caution (CDC) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will apply new layers of screening at these five U.S. airports in response to the Ebola outbreak in Uganda,” the U.S. Embassy in Uganda said

Travelers from Uganda need to arrive at New York-John F. Kennedy, Newark, Atlanta, Chicago O’Hare or Washington Dulles airports for screening. There is no approved vaccine for the Sudan strain of the disease, triggering fears of a major health crisis in the country of 45 million people.

Two sources said about 140 people who had recently been in Uganda arrive daily in the United States, with 62% landing at one of those five airports. Officials will conduct a temperature screening, ask health questions and report arrivals to local health departments.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, said the CDC’s health alert is an important message to both the public health and the medical community that they should be prepared for possible cases in the United States, as happened in the 2014-2016 Western Africa outbreak.

“We can handle Ebola safely in the hospital setting and provide best care to the patient, but you have to be aware that it might even be a possibility,” he said, referring to the 2014 incident in which a traveler from Liberia was evaluated initially at a hospital in Dallas and was turned away.

That patient was not admitted until two days later, when he arrived at the hospital by ambulance, potentially exposing emergency responders to the deadly virus.

The U.S. Embassy in Uganda said Thursday “the risk of Ebola domestically is currently low,” adding “enhanced screening applies to all passengers, including U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and visa holders (to include diplomatic and official visas).”

On Wednesday, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra spoke with Ugandan Health Minister Jane Aceng Ocero to discuss Ebola and U.S. efforts “to support Uganda throughout this challenging period,” HHS said.

On Saturday, a Tanzanian doctor working in Uganda who contracted Ebola has died, the first health worker killed by the disease in the latest outbreak in the country, Uganda’s health minister said.
…

NASA makes history yet again. Plus, why a Mars rover’s doom may signal a new beginning, and a look back at a pioneering spacecraft’s suicide mission to Saturn. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
…

Drought that stretched across three continents this summer — drying out large parts of Europe, the United States and China — was made 20 times more likely by climate change, according to a new study.

Drought dried up major rivers, destroyed crops, sparked wildfire, threatened aquatic species and led to water restrictions in Europe. It struck places already plagued by drying in the U.S., like the West, but also places where drought is more rare, like the Northeast. China also just had its driest summer in 60 years, leaving its famous Yangtze river half its normal width.

Researchers from World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists from around the world who study the link between extreme weather and climate change, say this type of drought would only happen once every 400 years across the Northern Hemisphere if not for human-caused climate change. Now they expect these conditions to repeat every 20 years, given how much the climate has warmed.

Ecological disasters like the widespread drought and then massive flooding in Pakistan, are the “fingerprints of climate change,” Maarten van Aalst, a climate scientist at Columbia University and study co-author, said.

“The impacts are very clear to people and are hitting hard,” he said, “not just in poor countries, like the flooding Pakistan …. but also in some of the richest parts of the world, like western central Europe.”

To figure out the influence of climate change on drying in the Northern Hemisphere, scientists analyzed weather data, computer simulations and soil moisture throughout the regions, excluding tropical areas. They found that climate change made dry soil conditions much more likely over the last several months.

This analysis was done using the warming the climate has already experienced so far, 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit), but climate scientists have warned the climate will get warmer, and the authors of the study accounted for that.

With an additional 0.8 degrees C degrees warming, this type of drought will happen once every 10 years in western Central Europe and every year throughout the Northern Hemisphere, said Dominik Schumacher, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich, a university in Switzerland.

“We’re seeing these compounding and cascading effect across sectors and across regions,” van Aalst said. “One way to reduce those impacts (is) to reduce emissions.”
…

The deaths of dozens of children in Gambia from kidney injuries may be linked to contaminated cough and cold syrups made by an Indian drug manufacturer, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. 

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters that the U.N. agency was investigating along with Indian regulators and the drugmaker, New Delhi-based Maiden Pharmaceuticals.  

Maiden declined to comment on the alert, while calls and Reuters messages to the Drugs Controller General of India went unanswered. India’s health ministry also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.  

The WHO issued a medical product alert asking regulators to remove Maiden Pharmaceuticals goods from the market. The products may have been distributed elsewhere through informal markets but had so far only been identified in Gambia, the WHO said in its alert.  

The alert covers four products: Promethazine Oral Solution, Kofexmalin Baby Cough Syrup, Makoff Baby Cough Syrup and Magrip N Cold Syrup.  

Lab analysis confirmed unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol, which can be toxic when consumed, the WHO said. Gambia’s government said last month that it had also been investigating the deaths, as a spike in cases of acute kidney injury among children younger than 5 was detected in late July.  

Several children in Gambia began falling ill with kidney problems three to five days after taking a locally sold paracetamol syrup. By August, 28 had died, but health authorities said the toll would likely rise. Now 66 are dead, WHO said  Wednesday. 

The deaths have shaken the tiny West African nation, which is also dealing with multiple health emergencies, including measles and malaria. 

Maiden Pharmaceuticals manufactures medicines at its facilities in India, which it then sells domestically as well as exporting them to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, according to its website. 
…

For the first time in 20 years, a Russian cosmonaut rocketed from the U.S. on Wednesday, launching to the International Space Station alongside NASA and Japanese astronauts despite tensions over the war in Ukraine. 

Their SpaceX flight was delayed by Hurricane Ian, which ripped across the state last week. 

“I hope with this launch we will brighten up the skies over Florida a little bit for everyone,” said the Japan Space Agency’s Koichi Wakata, who is making his fifth spaceflight. 

Joining him on a five-month mission are three new to space: Marine Col. Nicole Mann, the first Native American woman to orbit Earth; Navy Capt. Josh Cassada; and Russia’s lone female cosmonaut, Anna Kikina. 

“Awesome!” said Mann as they reached orbit. “That was a smooth ride uphill. You’ve got three rookies who are pretty happy to be floating in space right now.” 

They’re due to arrive at the space station Thursday, 29 hours after a noon departure from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, and won’t be back on Earth until March. They’re replacing a U.S.-Italian crew that arrived in April. 

Kikina is the Russian Space Agency’s exchange for NASA’s Frank Rubio, who launched to the space station two weeks ago from Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz rocket. He flew up with two cosmonauts. 

The space agencies agreed over the summer to swap seats on their flights in order to ensure a continuous U.S. and Russian presence aboard the 260-mile-high (420-kilometer-high) outpost. The barter was authorized even as global hostilities mounted over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February. The next crew exchange is in the spring. 

Shortly before liftoff, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that the key reason for the seat exchange is safety — in case an emergency forces one capsule’s crew home, there would still be an American and Russian on board. 

In the meantime, Russia remains committed to the space station through at least 2024, Russia space official Sergei Krikalev assured reporters this week. Russia wants to build its own station in orbit later this decade, “but we know that it’s not going to happen very quick and so probably we will keep flying” with NASA until then, he said. 

Beginning with Krikalev in 1994, NASA started flying cosmonauts on its space shuttles, first to Russia’s Mir space station and then to the fledgling space station. The 2003 Columbia reentry disaster put an end to it. But U.S. astronauts continued to hitch rides on Russian rockets for tens of millions of dollars per seat. 

Kakina is only the fifth Russian woman to rocket off the planet. She said she was surprised to be selected for the seat swap after encountering “many tests and obstacles” during her decade of training. “But I did it. I’m lucky maybe. I’m strong,” she said. 

Mann is a member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in California, and taking up her mother’s dream catcher, a small traditional webbed hoop believed to offer protection. Retired NASA astronaut John Herrington of the Chickasaw Nation became the first Native American in space in 2002. 

“I am very proud to represent Native Americans and my heritage,” Mann said before the flight, adding that everyone on her crew has a unique background. “It’s important to celebrate our diversity and also realize how important it is when we collaborate and unite, the incredible accomplishments that we can have.” 

As for the war in Ukraine, Mann said all four have put politics and personal beliefs aside, “and it’s really cool how the common mission of the space station just instantly unites us.” 

Added Cassada: “We have an opportunity to be an example for society on how to work together and live together and explore together.” 

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has now launched eight crews since 2020: six for NASA and two private groups. Boeing, NASA’s other contracted taxi service, plans to make its first astronaut flight early next yea r, after delays to fix software and other issues that cropped up on test flights. 

 
…

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Wednesday three scientists won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for “the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.”

The prize and its $900,000 award went equally to Carolyn Bertozzi and Barry Sharpless of the United States and Morten Meldal of Denmark.

For Sharpless, it is his second Nobel Prize in chemistry after being awarded the honor in 2001.

The academy said Meldal and Sharpless each independently presented a chemical reaction that is now used widely to develop pharmaceuticals and materials, and for mapping DNA.

Bertozzi developed the field further with reactions that function inside living things, the academy said, with applications that include exploring cells and tracking biological processes.

The Nobel Prize for medicine and for physics were awarded earlier this week, with the literature prize and the Nobel Peace Prize due to be announced Thursday and Friday.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

Enzymes found in the saliva of wax worms can degrade one of the most common forms of plastic waste, according to research published Tuesday that could open up new ways of dealing with plastic pollution.

Humans produce some 400 million metric tons of plastic waste each year despite international drives to reduce single-use plastics and to increase recycling.

Around a third is polyethylene, a tough plastic thanks to its structure, which traditionally requires heating or radiation before it starts to break down.

There have been several studies showing that microorganisms can release enzymes that start the degradation process on polyethylene, but the process has until now taken months each time.

But the enzymes contained in the saliva of the wax worm moth (Galleria mellonella) can act in only a few hours, Tuesday’s research showed.

Researcher Federica Bertocchini, an avid beekeeper, said she originally stumbled on the idea that this small caterpillar had unusual powers when storing honeycombs a few years ago.

“At the end of the season, usually beekeepers put some empty beehives in a storage room, to put them back in the field in the spring,” she told AFP.

“One year I did that, and I found my stored honeycombs plagued with wax worms. In fact, that is their habitat.”

Bertocchini cleaned the honeycombs and put the worms in a plastic bag.

When she returned a short time later, she found the bag “riddled with holes.”

“That raised the question: Is it the result of munching, or is there a chemical modification? We checked that, doing proper lab experiments, and we found that the polyethylene had been oxidized,” she said.

In her latest research, Bertocchini, from Madrid’s Margarita Salas Centre for Biological Studies (CIB) and her colleagues analyzed proteins in the wax worm saliva and identified two enzymes that could break polyethylene down into small polymers in only a few hours at room temperature.

Writing in the journal Nature Communications they explained how they used another worm’s saliva as a control experiment, which produced no degradation compared with the wax worm.

Bertocchini said her team is still trying to figure out precisely how the worms degraded the plastic.

While the study authors stressed that much more research was needed before Tuesday’s findings could be implemented at any meaningful scale, there were a number of possible applications.

“We can imagine a scenario where these enzymes are used in an aqueous solution, and liters of this solution is poured over piles of collected plastic in a waste management facility,” Bertocchini said.

“We can also imagine small amounts that can reach more remote locations, like villages or small islands, where waste facilities are not available.”

She said that further down the line the solution could be used in individual houses, where each family could degrade their own plastic waste.
…

The tumultuous saga of Elon Musk’s on-again, off-again purchase of Twitter took a turn toward a conclusion Tuesday after the mercurial Tesla CEO proposed to buy the company at the originally agreed-on price of $44 billion. 

Musk made the proposal in a letter to Twitter that the company disclosed in a filing Tuesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It came less than two weeks before a trial between the two parties was scheduled to start in Delaware. 

In a statement, Twitter said it intends to close the transaction at $54.20 per share after receiving the letter from Musk. 

Trading in Twitter’s stock, which had been halted for much of the day pending release of the news, resumed late Tuesday and soared 22% to close at $52. 

Musk’s proposal is the latest twist in a high-profile saga involving the world’s richest man and one of the most influential social media platforms. Much of the drama has played out on Twitter itself, with Musk — who has more than 100 million followers — lamenting that the company was failing to live up to its potential as a platform for free speech. 

A letter from Musk’s lawyer dated Monday and disclosed by Twitter in a securities filing said Musk would close the merger signed in April, provided that the Delaware Chancery Court “enter an immediate stay” of Twitter’s lawsuit against him and adjourn the trial scheduled to start October 17. 

By completing the deal, Musk essentially gave Twitter what it was seeking from the court — “specific performance” of the contract with Musk, meaning he would have to go through with the purchase at the original price. The contract Musk signed also has a $1 billion breakup fee. 

Eric Talley, a law professor at Columbia University, said he’s not surprised by Musk’s turnaround, especially ahead of a scheduled deposition of Musk by Twitter attorneys starting Thursday that was “not going to be pleasant.” 

“On the legal merits, his case didn’t look that strong,” Talley said. “It kind of seemed like a pretty simple buyer’s remorse case.” 

If Musk were to lose the trial, the judge could not only force him to close the deal but also impose interest payments that would have increased its cost, Talley said. 

What did surprise Talley is that Musk doesn’t appear to be trying to renegotiate the deal. Even a modest price reduction might have given Musk a “moral victory” and the ability to say he got something out of the protracted dispute, Talley said. 

Neither Twitter nor attorneys for Musk responded to requests for comment Tuesday. 

Musk has been trying to back out of the deal for several months after signing on to buy the San Francisco company in April. Shareholders have already approved the sale, and legal experts say Musk faced a huge challenge to defend against Twitter’s lawsuit, which was filed in July. 

Musk claimed that Twitter undercounted the number of fake accounts on its platform, and Twitter sued when Musk announced the deal was off. 

Musk’s argument largely rested on the allegation that Twitter misrepresented how it measures the magnitude of “spam bot” accounts that are useless to advertisers. Most legal experts believe he faced an uphill battle to convince Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick, the court’s head judge, that something changed since the April merger agreement that justifies terminating the deal. 

Legal experts said Musk may have anticipated that he would lose. Things haven’t been going well for him in court recently, with the judge ruling more frequently in Twitter’s favor on evidentiary matters, said Ann Lipton, an associate law professor at Tulane University. The judge denied several of Musk’s discovery requests, Lipton said. 

It’s also possible that Musk’s co-investors in the deal were starting to get nervous about how the case was proceeding, she said. 

Musk’s main argument for terminating the deal – that Twitter was misrepresenting how it measured its “spam bot” problem – also didn’t appear to be going well as Twitter had been working to pick apart Musk’s attempts to get third-party data scientists to bolster his concerns. 

Mysteriously, neither Musk nor Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal have written anything about the deal on Twitter. 

If the deal does go through, Musk may be stuck with a company he damaged with repeated statements denouncing fake accounts, Susannah Streeter, senior markets analyst for Hargreaves Lansdown in the United Kingdom, wrote in an investor note. 

“This is an important metric considered to be key for future revenue streams via paid advertising or for subscriptions on the site, and his relentless scrutiny of Twitter’s figures over the last few months is likely to prompt questions from potential advertising partners,” she wrote. 

 
…

South African conservationists are on high alert after an outbreak of bird flu killed close to 30 penguins at one of the country’s most stable colonies and a popular tourist attraction.

The disease, formally known as avian influenza, is untreatable and has already killed more than 20,000 Cape cormorant birds since last year.

Boulders Penguin Colony, about a 40-minute drive from Cape Town’s city center, is home to about 3,000 African penguins — a significant number given there are only about 14,000 breeding pairs left on the planet.

Bird flu was identified in the colony in August.

Dr. David Roberts is a clinical veterinarian who works for the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds, an NGO which advises South African National Parks, the government entity that manages the colony. He said that, for now, tourists and beachgoers are still allowed.

“We don’t think there’s any extra threat caused by people visiting,” he said. “If there’s more of an outbreak, then other measures might be put in place.”

The disease is typically spread between birds by feces. Roberts said rangers are on the lookout for sick birds.

“Because this is an untreatable disease, we don’t take them in and give them medication, we’d rather euthanize them,” he said.

There are concerns that the bird flu could spread to ostriches and chickens, which would have dire economic implications.

As far as spreading to humans, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s website said illness in humans from bird flu virus infections are rare and have ranged in severity from no symptoms or mild illness to severe disease that resulted in death.

Roberts said the H5N1 strain present in South Africa has a low probability of being transmitted to mammals.

“It is a threat that we know is real and we’re concerned about that possibility but it’s a very low probability at the moment,” he said. “But we still encourage people not to interact with sick animals, sick birds or to interact with dead birds either.”

Roberts said if people do find sick, injured or dead birds they should find somebody who is trained to respond appropriately.

Azwianewi Makhado, the seabird specialist scientist at the Department of Fisheries, Forestry and the Environment, said the department has a bird security policy for any staff handling penguins in the colonies.

“Clothes that you wear when you enter the colony should be taken off as soon as you come out and should not be worn again,” Makhado said.

Authorities said they will post regular updates about the outbreak.
…

Google has ended its Google Translate service in mainland China, citing “low usage” of one of its flagship products by mainland China users.

The move surprised users, who said they first noticed not being able to access the function over the weekend.

“The Google Translate mobile app was also discontinued a year ago in 2021,” a Google spokesperson told VOA on Monday in response to a request for further details on the company’s decision.

The translation service had been available to mainland Chinese users since 2017.

While The Associated Press reported Monday that “it is not clear how many users were using Google Translate in China,” the South China Morning Post cited an international data tracking company’s figure of 53.5 million visits to the platform in the month of August alone.

AP noted that “the translation feature built into the Google Chrome browser also no longer functions for users in China.”

Wei Jingsheng, a leading Chinese dissident living in exile in the United States, told VOA in a phone interview Monday that in his view, Google has been trying to put on a “balancing act” — maintaining its reputation and credibility as a global internet giant operating around the world while finding a space to operate in the highly restrictive environment in China.

“It is safe to anticipate that the company is constantly under pressure from the Chinese government to meet its demands,” Wei told VOA.

“We don’t know what exactly lay behind Google’s decision to pull its translation service from China. Fifty-three-point-five million is not a small number,” he said, referring to the figured quoted by South China Morning Post.

Difficult foothold

Google said its mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” But as various media have reported, the California-based internet giant’s path to spreading its wings in mainland China over the past two decades has not been smooth.

The company pulled its search engine from the Chinese market in 2010 after the company became unwilling to abide by China’s censorship rules, AP reported on Monday.

Chinese platforms must “strictly” abide by Chinese authorities’ censorship rules and “censor keywords and topics the authorities deem politically sensitive,” AP said.

AP added that China later moved to block other Google services such as Gmail and Google Maps and noted that Google was not alone in being blocked or otherwise restricted. Chinese users are also not allowed to have Facebook accounts.

Media outlets including TechCrunch — which was the first to report Google’s shutdown of the translation platform — noted that Google’s decision came two weeks before the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, scheduled to begin on October 16.

“The Chinese government has previously blocked Google services around major political events and politically sensitive anniversaries like that of the Tiananmen Square massacre,” the online publication of high-tech news said.

Google did not respond to VOA’s question about any potential connection between the translation service being discontinued and the Communist Party Congress.

Although China boasts the world’s largest internet market, when it comes to political topics, Chinese authorities are known to impose strict limitations as to what information Chinese citizens can access or have the freedom to discuss.

Official versions of political events like the upcoming Communist Party Congress are routinely disseminated from national media down to provincial, city, county, township and village levels through a vast network of state media.

Wei explained that Chinese citizens often turn to foreign sources to get a fuller picture of what goes on behind the scenes at the Congress and other news about their own country, due to a lack of trust in official media.

“They can just copy and paste foreign-language text” and get it translated into their native language with Google Translate, he said.

“People often feel that there’s better privacy protection when they use Google and other foreign companies’ products,” Wei added, since Chinese domestic companies are uniformly obligated to comply with government requests for user information.

State institutions taking notice

Although Google Maps and now Google Translate are not accessible to ordinary Chinese users, Chinese state institutions, including state media, have been paying attention to Google’s capacity.

On April 18, two months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, People’s Daily Online, one of China’s leading state media, posted on Weibo — a Twitter- and Instagram-like social platform — a China Central Television report that Google Maps provided satellite imaging of “all of Russia’s military and strategic assets with the highest definition.”

That post received 123,000 “likes,” and was reposted more than 5,200 times. A commentator under the name of “boyfriend of the nation” wrote, “Look everyone, this is what we will encounter later on.”
…

Australian scientists are harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence in the fight against wildlife trafficking.  

The technique uses 3-Dimensional X-rays at airports and post offices to detect animals being smuggled in luggage or the mail, and algorithms then alert customs officers.  

This technology uses artificial intelligence to identify the shapes of animals being trafficked.

Australia has a rich diversity of flora and fauna, which has fueled an illegal trade in wildlife.

The number of live animals seized by the Australian Border Force has tripled since 2017, according to official data.   Australian reptiles and birds are highly prized overseas.  

Exotic species, including snakes and turtles, are also brought into the country potentially bringing pests and diseases that could threaten farming industries and fragile native ecosystems.

“We are teaching computers to look for trafficked wildlife in both mail and traveler luggage pathways, said Vanessa Pirotta, a wildlife scientist at Macquarie University in Sydney. “The way in which we do that is we scan animals – dead animals in this case – and what we do is we scan that using 3D X-rays and then we produce a reference library.  So, lots of images with the animals presented in different ways so the computer can go, oh, okay, I have seen this animal before.  Oh, it looks slightly different, but I think that is a lizard.”

Australia is aiming to protect its biodiversity with a new plan announced Tuesday that aims to prevent future extinctions, updating an existing environmental policy. 

Among other things, the plan includes adding fifteen animals and plants to the endangered species list due in part to the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20 and land clearing. The government intends to curb the impact of feral species, such as foxes and cats, that inflict untold damage on native wildlife, along with invasive weeds. The strategy also includes reserving almost a third of Australia for conservation to improve biodiversity. Dozens of countries, including France and Britain, have already set similar targets.

Australia is “the mammal-extinction capital of the world,” according to Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, who says previous strategies to protect biodiversity have failed.
…