Month: December 2022

The U.S. is closely monitoring Chinese activities that potentially threaten American assets in space as debris rapidly accumulates in low Earth orbit, the head of United States military operations in space said Friday.

Commander of U.S. Space Command Army Gen. James Dickinson also cheered the overwhelming passage in the United Nations of a resolution that countries not conduct direct-ascent antisatellite tests that create vast fields of space debris, which endanger satellites and space stations.

Of the four countries that have conducted such ASAT tests, the United States was the only one that voted in favor, while China and Russia voted no and India abstained.

“We can’t continue to contribute to the debris that we find in the space domain,” Dickinson said in a telephone news conference with reporters in Asia. Most of that debris lies in crucial low Earth orbit, which has become “congested, competitive and contested,” he said.

Even tiny shards of metal can pose a danger and the number of objects is growing rampantly. Space Command is now tracking more than 48,000 in near Earth orbit, including satellites, telescopes, space stations and pieces of debris of all sizes, up from 25,000 just three years ago, Dickinson said.

China in 2003 became the third government to send an astronaut into orbit on its own after the former Soviet Union and the United States. Its program has advanced steadily since.

The Chinese space program drew rare international criticism after it conducted an unannounced test in 2007 in which it used a missile to blow up a defunct Chinese satellite, creating debris that continues to pose a hazard.

Beijing believes that “space is a very important piece to not only their economic or the global economic environment, but also the military environment, so we continue to watch that very closely as they continue to increase capabilities,” Dickinson said.

The secretive Chinese program is run by the ruling Communist Party’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army, precluding it from participating in the International Space Station or engaging in most forms of cooperation with NASA.

Proceeding with little outside help, China last month launched the last of three modules for its own space station, which briefly hosted six Chinese astronauts in space during a turnover of the three-person crew. It also has rovers on the moon and Mars and is planning a crewed lunar mission sometime in the future.

With U.S.-China tensions high over Taiwan, the South China Sea, trade and technology, space is increasingly becoming a potential flash point. In addition, the Pentagon last week released an annual China security report that warned Beijing would likely have 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035, and that it has provided no clarity on how it plans to use them.

China continues to “build capabilities that, really quite frankly, hold most of our assets at risk in the space domain,” Dickinson said.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has further showed space to be a “contested domain that must be protected. It’s a role that we at U.S. Space Command take very seriously,” he said.

“I’m seriously focused on our pacing challenge, China,” Dickinson said, using a description of Beijing that has become standard in the Pentagon. “The unified stance of our allies and partners is critical in countering the coercion and subversion that threatens the international rules-based order here in the Indo-Pacific and beyond,” Dickinson said.
…

A winter storm packing high winds and potentially several feet of snow blew into the Sierra Nevada on Saturday, triggering thousands of power outages in California, closing a mountain highway at Lake Tahoe, and prompting an avalanche warning in the backcountry.

The storm is expected to bring as much as 1.2 meters of snow to the upper elevations around Lake Tahoe by Monday morning, the National Weather Service said.

A 400-kilometer stretch of the Sierra from north of Reno to south of Yosemite National Park was under a winter storm warning at least until Sunday.

“Travel will be very difficult to impossible with whiteout conditions,” the weather service said in Reno, where rain started falling Saturday.

A flood advisory was in effect from Sacramento to the California coast near San Francisco.

The U.S. Forest Service issued an avalanche warning for the backcountry in the mountains west of Lake Tahoe where it said “several feet of new snow and strong winds will result in dangerous avalanche conditions.”

A stretch of California Highway 89 was closed because of heavy snow between Tahoe City and South Lake Tahoe, California, the highway patrol said. Interstate 80 between Reno and Sacramento remained open, but chains were required on tires for most vehicles.

More than 30,000 customers were without power in the Sacramento area at one point Saturday morning. It had been restored to all but about 3,300 by midday. But forecasters warned winds gusting up to 80 kph could bring down tree branches and power lines later in the day.

About 25 centimeters of snow already had fallen at Mammoth Mountain ski resort south of Yosemite where more than 3 meters of snow has been recorded since early November.

“It just seems like every week or so, another major storm rolls in,” resort spokeswoman Lauren Burke said.

The storm warning stretches into Sunday for most of the Sierra and doesn’t expire until Monday around Tahoe.

As much as 45 to 71 centimeters of snow was forecast through the weekend at lake level, and up to 1.2 meters at elevations above 2,133 meters with 80 kph winds and gusts up to 160 kph.

On the Sierra’s eastern slope, a winter weather advisory runs from 10 p.m. Saturday to 10 a.m. for Reno, Sparks and Carson City, with snow accumulations of 2.5-7.5 cm on valley floors and up to 20 cm above 1,524 meters.
…

The World Health Organization says the arrival of one of three trial Ebola vaccines in Uganda Thursday “marks a historical milestone in the global capacity to respond to outbreaks.”

The 1,200 doses of the Sudan ebolavirus vaccine arrived “just 79 days after the outbreak was declared on 20 September,” the WHO said.

“Uganda is showing that life-saving research can be promptly organized in the midst of an outbreak,” said Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng Acero, Uganda’s minister of health.

In contrast, WHO said that “To start Phase 3 trials in Guinea during the West Africa Ebola outbreak in 2015, it was 7 months from declaration to arrival of vaccines. This was a great achievement and set historical records at the time.”

The vaccine for the Sudan ebolavirus is one of the three candidates recommended for the trial by an independent WHO expert panel. The other two will be added to the trial when the doses arrive.
…

While China is beginning to loosen its COVID-19 restrictions, medical practitioners there are preparing for a possible onslaught of COVID cases, which analysts predict could be just weeks away.

China had one of the toughest anti-COVID policies in the world. Its zero-COVID campaign put anyone with COVID in a hospital or locked them up in their residences.

In a change announced Saturday, officials said truck drivers and ship crews transporting anti-virus goods domestically would no longer be stopped at checkpoints to confirm their COVID-negative status.

The move comes as people in China are stockpiling masks, food and medicine, fearing a next wave of COVID cases as restrictions are loosened.

Demonstrations across China in recent days, protested the government’s handling of the COVID crisis as people tired of lockdowns and constantly changing restrictions.

People watching the World Cup for example, have seen that most of the rest of the world is living with COVID and has avoided the harsh restrictions imposed on Chinese residents.
…

Australian scientists have discovered a deep-ocean sharks’ graveyard containing the fossilized teeth of the ancient ancestor of the megalodon shark. They have also found a new species of shark.

The discoveries were made across two expeditions on the research vessel (RV) Investigator, which is operated by Australia’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or the CSIRO.

It has explored Australia’s newest marine sanctuaries; the Cocos (Keeling) Islands Marine Park in the remote Indian Ocean, and the Gascoyne Marine Park off the coast of Western Australia.

At depths of more than 5 kilometers, researchers have recovered remnants of ancient and modern sharks, including the teeth of a 12-meter-long shark that was the closest known relative to the mighty megalodon.

It’s considered to have been one of the most powerful predators ever, but it died out about 3.5 million years ago.

The voyage’s chief scientist, John Keesing, told VOA that significant discoveries have been made.

“From the greatest depths, so this is around 5,000 meters, we have trawled up recent and fossil sharks’ teeth,” he said. “So, the ones we have found on this trip are from great white sharks and mako sharks. Out of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands they found similar to that but in addition, fossil teeth from a relative of one of the largest-ever sharks, the megalodon. So, that is the ancestor of modern sharks.”

The search areas in the Indian Ocean are known to have some of the world’s most diverse marine life, but researchers believe much of what lies beneath the waves is a mystery.

A new type of small striped shark was also discovered in the Gascoyne Marine Park. Scientists have said it is “unique to Australia.” They have yet to formally describe it or give it a name. The CSIRO has said that about a third of the species of marine life collected on biodiversity survey voyages could well be new to science.

The RV Investigator has a crew of 54, 35 of whom are scientists. The research vessel is operational 24 hours a day.
…

As the global program for distributing COVID-19 vaccinations to low and middle-income countries is set to be phased out after next year, experts are warning of a messy transition to ensure countries with the lowest inoculation rates are protected against the coronavirus and new variants are prevented.

The sunsetting of COVAX was agreed to earlier this week in a meeting of the board of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization known as GAVI. The alliance is the driving force behind the international vaccine-sharing mechanism, along with the World Health Organization and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

GAVI said COVAX has enough capacity to continue through 2024. At that point, it plans to phase out the program to 37 developing countries while continuing to provide COVID vaccine doses and the funds to deliver them to 54 of the world’s poorest countries who still want them up to 2025, alongside other vaccines it provides.

“While COVAX continues to have in place plans for worst-case scenarios, the board agreed, in principle, to explore integrating future COVID-19 vaccinations into GAVI’s core programming,” it said in a statement.

Experts say demand for COVID vaccines has significantly dropped worldwide and GAVI shifting focus away from broad COVID vaccination coverage makes sense. However, they warn of a messy transition from the global emergency coordination mechanisms that were set up quickly at the start of the pandemic toward a longer-term COVID management initiative.

“There will be major questions coming from the transition, including how many low- and middle-income countries will continue to receive the financing and logistics support they need, to the impact on GAVI’s other immunization programs of integrating COVID-19 vaccination,” said Dr. Krishna Udayakumar, founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center.

“There’s lack of consensus among the various operating entities and no one person or organization ‘in charge’ to drive the process,” he told VOA. In addition, routine immunizations usually target children while most COVID-19 vaccinations are for adults, so there isn’t a clear alignment.

Udayakumar said that the COVID-19 pandemic will continue for some time, and future efforts should support continued vaccination of high-risk populations and preparedness for new variants and future pandemic threats.

U.S. efforts

The U.S. remains the world’s largest vaccine donor with a pledge of more than 1.2 billion doses delivered by end of 2022. A significant portion has not been delivered, partly due to reduced demand.

“As of this week, have donated over 670 million doses to 116 countries and economies,” a senior administration official told VOA.

In February the administration adjusted its pandemic response strategy to address hurdles faced by lower-income countries to vaccinate their citizens through Global Vax, a program launched late last year by USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Global VAX is billed as a whole-of-government effort to turn vaccines in vials into vaccinations in arms around the world. It includes bolstering cold chain supply and logistics, service delivery, vaccine confidence and demand, human resources, data and analytics, local planning, and vaccine safety and effectiveness.

The official said the U.S. will continue its efforts. “We are not done fighting COVID. Not at home, and not across the globe. Every country and every organization need to continue their work to fight this virus everywhere.”

However, questions remain on funding for U.S. plans to continue its pandemic response including preventing future threats. The administration is calling on Congress, which has until December 16 to pass a critical government funding bill that includes $10 billion to fight COVID at home.

The $10 billion has been pared down from the original $22.5 billion request submitted earlier this year which included $5 billion for its international response that has gone unfulfilled.
…

Populations of a vulnerable species of marine mammal, numerous species of abalone and a type of Caribbean coral are now threatened with extinction, an international conservation organization said Friday. 

The International Union for Conservation of Nature announced the update during the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP15, conference in Montreal. The union’s hundreds of members include government agencies from around the world, and it’s one of the planet’s widest-reaching environmental networks. 

The IUCN uses its Red List of Threatened Species to categorize animals approaching extinction. This year, the union is sounding the alarm about the dugong — a large and docile marine mammal that lives from the eastern coast of Africa to the western Pacific Ocean. 

The dugong — a relative of the manatee — is vulnerable throughout its range, and now populations in East Africa have entered the red list as critically endangered, IUCN said in a statement. Populations in New Caledonia have entered the list as endangered, the group said. 

The major threats to the animal are unintentional capture in fishing gear in East Africa and poaching in New Caledonia, IUCN said. It also suffers from boat collisions and loss of the seagrasses it eats, said Evan Trotzuk, who led the East Africa red list assessment. 

“Strengthening community-led fisheries governance and expanding work opportunities beyond fishing are key in East Africa, where marine ecosystems are fundamental to people’s food security and livelihoods,” Trotzuk said. 

The IUCN Red List includes more than 150,000 species. The list sometimes overlaps with the species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, such as in the case of the North Atlantic right whale. More than 42,000 of the species on the red list are threatened with extinction, IUCN says. 

IUCN uses several categories to describe an animal’s status, ranging from “least concern” to “critically endangered.” IUCN typically updates the red list two or three times a year. This week’s update includes more than 3,000 additions to the red list. Of those, 700 are threatened with extinction. 

Jane Smart, head of IUCN’s Center for Science and Data, said it will take political will to save the jeopardized species, and the gravity of the new listings can serve as a clarion call. 

“The news we often give you on this is often gloomy, a little bit depressing, but it sparks the action, which is good,” Smart said. 

Pillar coral, which is found throughout the Caribbean, was moved from vulnerable to critically endangered in this week’s update. The coral is threatened by a tissue loss disease, and its population has shrunk by more than 80% across most of its range since 1990, IUCN said. The IUCN lists more than two dozen corals in the Atlantic Ocean as critically endangered. 

Almost half the corals in the Atlantic are “at elevated risk of extinction due to climate change and other impacts,” said Beth Polidoro, an associate professor at Arizona State University and the red list coordinator for IUCN. 

Unsustainable harvesting and poaching have emerged as threats to abalone, which are used as seafood, IUCN said. Twenty of the 54 abalone species in the world are threatened with extinction according to the red list’s first global assessment of the species. 

Threats to the abalone are compounded by climate change, diseases and pollution, the organization said. 

“This red list update brings to light new evidence of the multiple interacting threats to declining life in the sea,” said Jon Paul Rodríguez, chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. 

 
…

A report released Friday by the World Health Organization indicates high levels — above 50% — of bacterial resistance to treatment around the world, based on data collected from 87 countries since 2020.

The study, called the Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System report, found levels of resistance above 50% were reported in bacteria such as Klebsiella pneumoniae and Acinetobacter spp, which frequently cause bloodstream and surgical wound infections in hospitals, as well as pneumonia.

These life-threatening infections require treatment with powerful, “last resort” antibiotics, such as carbapenems. However, the study also found 8% of bloodstream infections caused by these bacteria were reported to be resistant to carbapenems, increasing the risk of death due to unmanageable infections.  

The study found that while most treatment-resistance trends have remained stable over the past four years, bloodstream infections due to drug-resistant e-coli, salmonella and gonorrhea have increased by at least 15% compared to rates in 2017.

In a statement, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said “antimicrobial resistance undermines modern medicine and puts millions of lives at risk.”

He called for more microbiology testing and higher-quality data across all countries, “not just wealthier ones.”

The study also calls for more research to identify the reasons behind increased antimicrobial resistance and how it might be related to increased hospitalizations and greater use of antibiotic treatments during the COVID-19 pandemic.
…

Chinese boats are decimating West Africa’s fish stocks and fishing communities in the Gulf of Guinea, say environmental groups.

The Institute for Security Studies, a South African think tank, said the communities could be losing more than $2 billion each year to illegal fishing, mainly from Chinese-owned boats.

Beninese fisherman Geoffroy Gbedevi said it’s getting harder to feed his daughter and pregnant wife. He said the community is suffering and the number of fish being caught is much lower than it used to be.

“Nothing is going the way it used to,” he said.

Yaya Toshu Koma Benoit is a community leader in Grand Popo, a small fishing town in Benin close to the border with Togo, where houses are empty as community members have been forced to leave to find work elsewhere.

He blamed the problem in part on techniques that catch fish before the fish are fully developed.

“That’s why there are no more fish,” he said. “If we can ban this practice, that’s good. There are lots of fishermen who use smaller mesh nets, so there are not many fish left.”

The Environmental Justice Foundation said illegal fishing boats in Ghana use Ghanaian flags, but 90 percent were traced to Chinese owners.

Steven Trent of the Environmental Justice Foundation called for “basic measures to introduce transparency.”

“Cars have a number plate as an identifier,” he said. “Put very simply, give each of these vessels what we call a unique vessel identifier to get rid of all these people who in many instances are simply stealing fish from some of the poorest people on our planet.”

China has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, with one article in the state-affiliated Global Times newspaper last year rejecting what it called “Western media rumors” of China’s illegal fishing and saying Beijing had tightened oversight of deep-sea fishing boats.

Gulf of Guinea nations this year banded together to crack down on illegal fishing. Benin, Ghana and Togo agreed to joint patrols and information-sharing with support from the European Fisheries Control Agency through a center in Accra, Ghana.

But the agency’s executive director, Susan Steele, said more efforts are needed.

“Legislation, operations, training and cooperation,” she said. “One of the key things you want to be looking for is to make sure there are consequences for the people doing illegal fishing.”

Some fishermen VOA spoke to in Benin said the joint patrols seemed to be helping, and fish stocks are showing signs of improvement.

Gbedevi just wants to feed his family. He said he lives in hope that things will get better.
…

The Wall Street Journal reports U.S. smartphone giant Apple Inc. is accelerating plans to move some China-based production lines to other southeastern Asian countries such as India and Vietnam.

That, analysts said, would represent a significant shift in the so-called de-Sinification of global supply chains after manufacturers become aware of risks of concentrating production in China.

China’s zero-COVID policy, which paralyzed some of its supply chains, and its deteriorating business environment would be the major trigger behind the shift, they added.

India: the world’s next factory?

“China’s anti-virus measures have forced many multinationals, including Apple, to hedge against the risk of disrupted supply chains. Though China is set to ease COVID restrictions, uncertainty remains because these multinationals have had experienced much sudden change of policy there – reasons behind Apple’s accelerated relocation of its production lines outward,” Darson Chiu, a research fellow of the economic forecasting center under the Institute of Economic Research (TIER) in Taipei, told VOA over the phone.

He said that many companies, including Apple, have seen the potential in India in competing with China to be “the world’s next factory,” adding that cost of labor and land is “at one-fifth of the level in China.”

“This highlights an evolving trend, where many companies, not just Apple, are concerned about the environment in China, and not just because of COVID. When we look at theft of intellectual property, that’s of technology, cyber-attacks on companies inside China, the onerous restrictions that apply from Chinese government to data flows, there are a number of factors that are making China a much less attractive environment for manufacturers to be,” Stephen Ezell, director of global innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) in Washington told VOA by video.

“And I think it’s possible that Apple represents the tip of the spear for a much greater share of global high-tech production moving outside of China,” he added.

A domino effect?

Ezell said more multinationals might follow suit if Apple succeeds in shipping products from India, as it had produced a small percentage of iPhone 14s there.

Citing people involved in the discussion, The Wall Street Journal reported on December 6 that Apple had asked its suppliers to plan more actively for assembling its products elsewhere in Asia, “particularly India and Vietnam,” to reduce dependence on China-based assemblers, led by Taiwan-headquartered Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant. 

Turmoil over anti-virus measures and wage disputes last month among the plant’s 300,000 workers have made Apple uncomfortable having so much business tied up in the plant, which made about 85% of the iPhone’s pro series, according to the report.

It added that Apple’s long-term goal is to ship 40% to 45% of iPhones from India, compared with a current single-digit percentage, citing Ming-chi Kuo, an analyst at TF International Securities in Hong Kong.

When asked by VOA, Foxconn refused to comment. But the company Thursday announced on its WeChat account that it has lifted closed-loop Covid restrictions at its Zhengzhou plant.

Paul Triolo, senior vice president for China, and technology policy lead at Albright Stonebridge Group in Washington, told VOA that Apple has already done some manufacturing with Foxconn in India, which plans to add 50,000 workers to total at 70,000 there over the next two years.

He warned, though, that it will be hard for Foxconn to duplicate its highly optimized China supply chain in India, where skilled workers and infrastructure including airports, ports and high-speed rail, as well as an ecosystem of component suppliers at a low cost, are lacking.

Painful transition

“India has some advantages … it does tend to crank out a lot of engineers but you’re talking about a sort of different cultural issues and expectations and labor practices, and all these things. So it’s not as easy as just picking up something and dropping it into another country. You have to learn the local situation. You have to work with local governments. That can be painful,” Triolo told VOA by video.

He added that, even though companies like Foxconn are good at managing production, the cost structures will be different in India.

Hence, he noted that some of Apple’s diversification of supply chains may happen inside China, as Foxconn is reportedly looking to expand at its Taiyuan plant in China’s northern Shanxi province.

The biggest challenge of all lies in India’s ability to strengthen its depth of supplier base for Apple at an optimal cost, Ezell said.

“The production ecosystem, that’s what’s the key driver in decreasing the cost, not just low labor costs. So, the challenge for India is going to be several folds. One, building a localized base of suppliers that can support production at lower cost. And then more broadly, ensuring that India does have the highly skilled trained workforce and individuals that had experience and building what are truly very complex electronics with iPads or phones,” Ezell said.

Negative impact on China’s jobless rate

Arthur Guo, a senior analyst at the market intelligence firm International Data Corp in Beijing, said he would not be surprised to see Apple diversify the production of its iPhone 15 next year after the lockdown at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant has seriously affected the supply of the iPhone 14.

That will hurr China’s economic growth and unemployment rate, Guo said in a written reply to VOA.

“However, this relocating process will last for a period and will not be implemented immediately. In the future, we believe China still will be an important production country for Apple and will find a better solution to this problem,” Guo added.

Earlier estimates by TF’s Kuo showed that the total shipment of iPhone 14 pro and pro max in the fourth quarter would be 15 million to 20 million units less than expected due to labor protests at the Zhengzhou plant.
…

COVAX, the global program for distributing COVID-19 vaccines to poorer countries, will soon be integrated into more routine vaccination programs, Gavi said Thursday.

Gavi, the nonprofit vaccine alliance that provides an array of vaccines to developing countries, said its board agreed during a meeting in Geneva to phase out COVAX after 2023, stressing that the COVID-19 vaccine would still be made available to less well-off countries, alongside other vaccines.

“While COVAX continues to have in place plans for worst-case scenarios, the board agreed, in principle, to explore integrating future COVID-19 vaccinations into Gavi’s core programming,” it said in a statement.

The aim, it said, is “to improve synergies, be more responsive to countries’ needs,” and to reduce the current burden on countries of having a specialized emergency response in place.

It has taken the lead on the COVAX initiative, alongside the World Health Organization and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

The global scheme has so far shipped more than 1.86 billion COVID-19 vaccinations doses to 146 territories, with the focus on providing donor-funded jabs to the 92 weakest economies.

“The support is continuing in 2023,” Gavi’s head of resource mobilization, Marie-Ange Saraka-Yao, told AFP.

“Then, of course, depending on how the pandemic evolves, the plan will be to really bring it into the more regular program,” she said, adding that this was what countries were asking for.

“It doesn’t disappear, but it is really integrated.”

Acute pandemic phase ‘fading’

This would allow people to combine getting a COVID-19 vaccine with receiving other vaccines, helping to counter the “backsliding” in routine vaccination since the start of the pandemic.

It could also drive up demand for COVID-19 vaccinations, Saraka-Yao said.

“We think that’s actually the best way to improve and to accelerate the demand,” she said.

COVAX was launched in June 2020, when few could have imagined that several highly effective vaccines would emerge within nine months.

The program was created to help counter the stark disparity in access to the vaccines that arose as wealthy countries scrambled to secure large stashes of various vaccines being developed.

While massive efforts have been made through the program, a yawning gap remains in vaccination rates between the richest and poorest countries.

Three-quarters of people in high-income countries have received at least one COVID vaccine dose, but fewer than a third of people in low-income countries have, according to the United Nations.

Nine countries still have COVID-19 vaccine coverage below 10%.

Despite the remaining coverage gaps, the decision to begin phasing out COVAX was not completely unexpected.

“It is acknowledging that the acute phase [of the pandemic] seems to be fading,” Saraka-Yao said, stressing that the focus was on “flexibility,” and that there was enough “capacity to continue fully in 2024.”
…

…