Category: General

SAINT-PAUL-LES-DURANCE – Teams working on two continents have marked similar milestones in their respective efforts to tap an energy source key to the fight against climate change: They’ve each produced very impressive magnets.

On Thursday, scientists at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in southern France took delivery of the first part of a massive magnet so strong its American manufacturer claims it can lift an aircraft carrier.

Almost 20 meters (about 60 feet) tall and more than 4 meters (14 feet) in diameter when fully assembled, the magnet is a crucial component in the attempt by 35 nations to master nuclear fusion.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists and a private company announced separately this week that they, too, have hit a milestone with the successful test of the world’s strongest high-temperature superconducting magnet that may allow the team to leapfrog ITER in the race to build a “sun on earth.”

Unlike existing fission reactors that produce radioactive waste and sometimes catastrophic meltdowns, proponents of fusion say it offers a clean and virtually limitless supply of energy. If, that is, scientists and engineers can figure out how to harness it — they have been working on the problem for nearly a century.

Rather than splitting atoms, fusion mimics a process that occurs naturally in stars to meld two hydrogen atoms together and produce a helium atom — as well as a whole lot of energy.

Achieving fusion requires unimaginable amounts of heat and pressure. One approach to achieving that is to turn the hydrogen into an electrically charged gas, or plasma, which is then controlled in a donut-shaped vacuum chamber.

This is done with the help of powerful superconducting magnets such as the “central solenoid” that General Atomics began shipping from San Diego to France this summer.

Scientists say ITER is now 75% complete and they aim to fire up the reactor by early 2026.

“Each completion of a major first-of-a-kind component — such as the central solenoid’s first module — increases our confidence that we can complete the complex engineering of the full machine,” said ITER’s spokesman Laban Coblentz.

The goal is to produce 10 times more energy by 2035 than is required to heat up the plasma, thereby proving that fusion technology is viable.

Among those hoping to beat them to the prize is the team in Massachusetts, which said it has managed to create magnetic field twice that of ITER’s with a magnet about 40 times smaller.

The scientists from MIT and Commonwealth Fusion Systems said they may have a device ready for everyday use in the early 2030s.

“This was designed to be commercial,” said MIT Vice President Maria Zuber, a prominent physicist. “This was not designed to be a science experiment.”

While not designed to produce electricity itself, ITER would also serve as the blueprint for similar but more sophisticated reactors if it is successful.

Proponents of the project argue that even if it fails, the countries involved will have mastered technical skills that can be used in other fields, from particle physics to designing advanced materials capable of withstanding the heat of the sun.

All nations contributing to the project — including the United States, Russia, China, Japan, India, South Korea and much of Europe — share in the $20 billion cost and benefit jointly from the scientific results and intellectual property generated.

The central solenoid is just one of 12 large U.S. contributions to ITER, each of which is built by American companies, with funds allocated by Congress going toward U.S. jobs.

“Having the first module safely delivered to the ITER facility is such a triumph because every part of the manufacturing process had to be designed from the ground up,” said John Smith, director of engineering and projects at General Atomics.

The company spent years developing new technologies and methods to make and move the magnet parts, including coils weighing 250,000 pounds, across their facility and then around the globe.

“The engineering know-how that was established during this period is going to be invaluable for future projects of this scale,” Smith said.

“The goal of ITER is to prove that fusion can be a viable and economically practical source of energy, but we are already looking ahead at what comes next,” he added. “That’s going to be key to making fusion work commercially, and we now have a good idea of what needs to happen to get there.”

Betting on nuclear energy — first fission and then fusion — is still the world’s best chance to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, said Frederick Bordry, who oversaw the design and construction of another fiendishly complex scientific machine, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

“When we speak about the cost of ITER, it’s peanuts in comparison with the impact of climate change,” he said. “We will have to have the money for it.”

Source: Voice of America

Africa is slated to receive 25% fewer COVID-19 vaccines by the end of the year than it was expecting, the director of the World Health Organization’s regional office for Africa said Thursday.

The African continent, already struggling with a thin supply of vaccines while many wealthy nations initiate booster shot programs, has fully vaccinated just more than 3% of its residents.

The global vaccine sharing initiative COVAX announced Wednesday that it expects to receive about 1.4 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of the year, as opposed to the projection of 1.9 billion doses it received in June.

Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s Africa director, said during a press conference Thursday that the United States has thrown away three times as many vaccine doses as COVAX has delivered to African countries since March.

COVAX delivered more than 5 million doses to Africa in the past week, but the U.S. Centers for Disease and Prevention said that as of September 1, U.S. pharmacies have thrown away more than 15 million doses since March.

The United States and other wealthy nations have been under increasing pressure to donate their surplus of COVID-19 vaccines to poorer countries as the pandemic wreaks havoc across the globe with the emergence of new and more contagious variants of the coronavirus, which causes COVID-19.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, on Wednesday implored wealthy nations to forgo COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for the rest of the year to ensure that poorer countries have more access to the vaccine. Tedros had previously asked rich countries not to provide boosters until September.

Also on Thursday, Turkey’s health minister said the country is soon likely to approve a locally made vaccine, which began late-stage trials in June, for emergency use. Ankara expects it will start mass producing “Turkovac” this October.

Italy sent teams to the island of Lampedusa to inoculate newly arrived immigrants. Lampedusa is one of the main arrival points for African migrants from Libya and Tunisia. Roughly 40,000 migrants from North Africa have arrived in Italy so far this year, twice as many as in 2020.

In Los Angeles

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Board of Education approved a measure Thursday that would mandate vaccinations against COVID-19 for all students 12 years and older. Students would be required to receive their first dose by November 21 followed by a second dose by December 19 in order to be fully vaccinated by the next semester.

The measure also requires students participating in in-person extracurricular activities to receive both shots by the end of October. The district will allow medical or religious exemptions.

Los Angeles is the largest school district in the U.S. to impose a mandatory vaccination policy. The district is the nation’s second-largest, with just more than 600,000 students.

In Japan

Separately, Japan announced Thursday that it would extend its current coronavirus state of emergency for Tokyo and 18 other areas until Sept. 30. Two prefectures will be shifted from full emergency status to more targeted restrictions.

The state of emergency was first imposed for the city and a handful of other prefectures just weeks before the start of the Tokyo Olympics as Japan struggled under the surge of new infections sparked by the delta variant and a sluggish vaccination campaign.

Japan currently has more than 1.6 million confirmed infections, including 16,600 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, with nearly 50% of its population fully vaccinated.

Source: Voice of America

The crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) Thursday reported that smoke alarms went off in the Russian segment of orbiting laboratory, and the crew reported seeing smoke and smelling burned plastic.

Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, said the incident took place in the Russian-built Zvezda module and occurred as the station’s batteries were being recharged. The smell reportedly wafted from the Russian module into the module operated by the U.S. space agency NASA.

Roscosmos said the crew activated air filters and returned to their normal schedule once the air quality was back to normal. It was unclear what caused the smoke.

Russian Cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov proceeded with their scheduled six-hour spacewalk to continue integrating the Russian-built Nauka science lab that docked with the space station in July.

Shortly after docking, the lab briefly knocked the orbital outpost out of position by accidentally firing its engines — an incident Russian space officials blamed on a software failure.

The space station is also occupied by NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei, Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet.

Source: Voice of America

BLANTYRE, MALAWI – Malawi health authorities fear vaccine hesitancy could lead to tens of thousands of COVID-19 jabs expiring early next month. With just 2% of Malawi’s population vaccinated, authorities hope to increase uptake by deploying mobile vaccination clinics to bring the vaccine closer to people.

Malawi has so far received just over 1.2 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines under the COVAX facility.

But vaccine hesitancy in Malawi is widespread largely because of misperceptions of the jabs’ efficacy and safety.

Dr. Gift Kawalazira, who heads Health and Social Services at the Blantyre Health Office, says there’s yet another reason for the low vaccination rate.

“We have noticed that with the coming of summer, the number of cases has drastically reduced, and also the number of people coming for vaccination have reduced from having over 2,000 people per day to having just about 400 people per day now,” he said.

Kawalazira said deploying mobile vaccination centers will help increase vaccine uptake, noting that when the initiative was launched Saturday over 600 people were vaccinated – and six companies booked the mobile clinic to come and vaccinate their workers.

He predicted the initiative will help Malawi meet its vaccination target of 60% by 2022 and allay fears that more vaccines will expire.

“Johnson & Johnson is actually expiring after December and AstraZeneca has got two different batches, one of which is expiring next month, and the other one is going up until December,” he said.

In May, Malawi incinerated about 20,000 AstraZeneca doses that had expired after many people refused the jab due to concerns about its safety and efficacy.

Malawi health ministry statistics show that currently only about 700,000 people have had one jab, while about 400,000 are fully vaccinated, representing 2.1% of the country’s 18 million population.

Simeon Phiri got his jab Wednesday at a mobile COVID-19 vaccination clinic at Limbe market in Blantyre. He said the convenience with which he could get the jab played an important role for him.

“This has helped me a lot because it has provided me easy access to the vaccine instead of walking a long distance. For example, I came here to Limbe to do some errands, but I also have found an opportunity to get vaccinated,” Phiri said.

To increase uptake in rural areas, the government is currently working with traditional leaders to mobilize and tell their communities about the need to be vaccinated when the mobile clinics visit their villages.

Source: Voice of America

WASHINGTON – The Texas anti-abortion law, which was allowed to go into effect last week despite being in clear conflict with decades-old precedents set by the United States Supreme Court in the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, is a complex piece of legal engineering.

It was intentionally built to avoid initial judicial review and structured to compel people to comply with it, even if they believe it violates their constitutional rights, through fear of being bombarded with excessive legal fees that could bankrupt them.

Attorney General Merrick Garland this week ordered the Justice Department to explore “all options” to challenge Texas’s highly restrictive abortion law and to protect abortion clinics that are under attack. Many Democrats and abortion rights proponents caution, however, that while they believe the law is unconstitutional, it was crafted in a way that makes legal challenges difficult.

Senate Bill 8, as the legislation is called, makes it illegal in Texas for a doctor to perform an abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy — before most women are even aware that they are pregnant. Crucially, however, the law explicitly bans state officials from acting to enforce the law, delegating that responsibility instead to private citizens, who are eligible to recover a $10,000 judgment, plus attorney’s fees, from anyone who they can prove aided or abetted a woman seeking an abortion.

The law casts a broad net, meaning that not only doctors, but clinicians and clinic workers, and even relatives who help pay for an abortion are liable. However, the plain language of the law states that only people who “knowingly” assist someone seeking an abortion are liable, meaning that the commonly cited example of an Uber driver being exposed to a lawsuit under the bill is incorrect, experts say.

The Supreme Court last week, in a 5-4 decision, declined to block the law from coming into effect on procedural grounds, arguing that because there is no specific individual charged with enforcing the law, there is nobody who can be sued over it, and therefore, nobody the court can enjoin from enforcing it.

President Joe Biden sharply criticized the Supreme Court ruling and instructed Garland to explore ways to challenge the Texas law.

Thus far, abortion clinics in Texas have been careful to observe the new law — which makes no exceptions for rape or incest — and avoid drawing fire from self-appointed citizens or groups claiming violations of the new abortion restrictions. However, it is likely that eventually someone will defy the six-week limit on pregnancies before a procedure, leading to a constitutional test case.

Opponents furious

Opponents of the legislation have been scathing in their criticism of the Texas legislature and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott who signed the legislation.

“Texas politicians have succeeded for the moment in making a mockery of the rule of law, upending abortion care in Texas, and forcing patients to leave the state — if they have the means — to get constitutionally protected health care,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “This should send chills down the spine of everyone in this country who cares about the Constitution. We will keep fighting this ban until abortion access is restored in Texas.”

Others aimed their anger at the Supreme Court for choosing not to block enforcement of the statute.

“The Supreme Court has ignored 50 years of precedent and set back the hands of time, essentially allowing Texas to be a pre-Roe [v. Wade] state,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement. “This is a travesty for the nearly seven million women of reproductive age, and everyone who supports access to safe, legal abortion.”

Supporters claim victory

Supporters of the law, however, see it as a victory over a court system that they believe is rigged against them.

The anti-abortion movement had two main goals in advancing the legislation, said John Seago, legislative director for Texas Right to Life, a group closely involved in drafting the legislation.

“The first one was, how do we have a pro-life policy actually be enforced, when we have lawless district attorneys who are not enforcing pro-life laws,” Seago said. “The second one is these activist federal judges — how do you get around them? [They are] looking for excuses to hold up laws, even though we can win ultimately.”

Genesis of the law

The roots of S.B. 8 can be traced back to an article by a former solicitor general of the state of Texas, Jonathan F. Mitchell, which was published in the Virginia Law Review in 2018. Called The Writ-of-Erasure Fallacy, the article argued that when federal courts block enforcement of state laws, those laws are not, as popularly believed, “struck down.” Rather, they remain on the books and are simply not enforced.

That leaves room for future, and even retroactive, enforcement, if a later Supreme Court overrules a previous opinion enjoining enforcement. And, critically for this case, Mitchell theorized that a bill that provided a private cause of action in state court could continue to be enforced by private citizens, even if a federal court has enjoined state officials from enforcing it. That would remain the case unless a person sued under the law pursued an appeal all the way to the Supreme Court, and won.

“Unless and until the Supreme Court of the United States declares a statute unconstitutional, the States remain free to authorize and entertain private enforcement actions in their own courts — even after a federal district or circuit court has disapproved the statute and enjoined the State’s executive from enforcing it,” Mitchell wrote.

Mitchell was closely involved in the drafting of S.B. 8.

Private cause of action

It may not be clear to a layperson how a private individual with no connection to a person who gets an abortion — and no way to show that they have suffered personal harm because of it — can have the standing to sue in the first place.

If this were a federal law, that objection would have force. But under state law in Texas, the legislature is allowed to specifically confer standing on private individuals in certain kinds of cases if it chooses to do so. In S.B. 8, that is precisely what state legislators did.

Most states have similar rules allowing the legislature to confer standing on private citizens, which is one reason why governors and legislators in at least seven states across the country have said that they are preparing legislation similar to S.B. 8 in their states.

Fear of legal fees

The law is structured to compel compliance — even if a defendant in a potential case believes that their rights are being violated and that they would be vindicated in court — through fear of legal bills.

The law itself does not allow someone sued under it to recover legal fees from their accuser, even if they are able to demonstrate their innocence. However, it does allow the accuser to recover legal fees from the defendant in the case of a guilty verdict.

But the burden of legal fees is potentially even heavier than it seems. If Mitchell’s theory is correct, and enforcement of the law could only ever be truly blocked by a Supreme Court ruling that it is unconstitutional, that means someone who wants to challenge it is going to face years of lawsuits involving huge legal fees.

But in the United States, a defendant in a federal lawsuit who is asserting his or her constitutional rights are being violated is generally not eligible to recover legal fees.

In the law review article, Mitchell lays out the implications plainly.

“Of course, the defendants in these private enforcement actions can reassert the constitutional objections to the statute — and perhaps they will persuade the court to follow the reasoning of the courts that have disapproved the statute,” he wrote. “But a defendant has no entitlement to attorneys’ fees when he asserts his constitutional rights defensively in a private enforcement action, and the need to foot one’s own legal bills may induce statutory compliance even for those who expect to prevail on their constitutional objections.”

Boomerang effect

There has been much speculation that the unique legal structure of the Texas law might just as easily be applied to other areas in which lawmakers want to curtail specific rights that have been guaranteed by court rulings.

For example, some have suggested that states where a majority of residents disagree with the Supreme Court’s rulings on handgun bans might create a private right of action against gun dealers who sell them. The point would not be to win an argument over the constitutionality of the statute, but to compel compliance with it anyway.

Seago, of Texas Right to Life, said that the “narrow focus” of his organization is such that the broader implications of the use of this novel legal structure are not a great concern, but that the group welcomes the opportunity to resolve any issues in court.

“The question kind of assumes you are headed towards a collision in our federalist principles. But that’s an important legal question that should be answered, not avoided just because it’s a new question,” he said.

Source: Voice of America

The leader of the World Health Organization implored wealthy countries Wednesday to forgo COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for the rest of the year to ensure that poorer countries have more access to the vaccine.

So far, such calls have not been heeded.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “appalled” that vaccine manufacturers have said they have enough supply to provide both demands.

“I will not stay silent when companies and countries that control the global supply of vaccines think the world’s poor should be satisfied with leftovers,” he said.

“Third doses may be necessary for the most at-risk populations, where there is evidence of waning immunity,” Tedros said. “But for now, we do not want to see widespread use of boosters for healthy people.”

Tedros had previously asked rich countries not to provide boosters until September.

Source: Voice of America

LONDON – Coronavirus vaccines offer protection not only against infection and serious illness but may also help prevent so-called “Long COVID,” where symptoms can last for several weeks or months, according to new research from scientists at Kings College London.

There are no official figures, but it’s thought millions of people worldwide who contracted the coronavirus have suffered from so-called “Long COVID,” with reported symptoms including muscle pain, fatigue, shortness of breath and brain fog lasting longer than four weeks.

The condition remains poorly understood, says British campaigner Ondine Sherwood, who founded the ‘Long Covid SOS’ campaign group after suffering from the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“Amongst medical practitioners, there is a bit of variation in terms of recognition. I think people are still getting told that it’s due to anxiety. Some doctors don’t fully understand this condition,” Sherwood told VOA.

“It is a case of treating symptoms. Research is ongoing as to the mechanisms of Long COVID and it’s not fully understood. There are quite a lot of theories, many of which have been backed up with research. But we haven’t reached the stage where we have targeted treatments,” Sherwood added.

The research from Kings College London suggests that coronavirus vaccines halve the risk of suffering from long COVID, for the very low number of people who become infected after vaccination.

The scientists based their research on Britain’s “Zoe” COVID study app, which tracked the self-reported symptoms of 1.2 million people between December 2020 and July of this year.

Zero-point-two percent of vaccinated respondents reported being infected with the coronavirus. Of those, 5% reported suffering from long COVID, compared to 11% of unvaccinated people.

“So, the vaccine will protect you from becoming ill from the virus. It will also protect you if you do get symptoms from becoming long-term ill from this virus,” said Sterghios Moschos, a virologist at the University of Northumbria, who was not involved in the research.

“This means that if you get exposed to the virus and you’ve been vaccinated, the vast chances are that you are not even going to be able to tell if you’ve been infected. That’s how good the vaccines are,” he added.

The findings will fuel the debate over whether to offer vaccines to children, as schools start to reopen. Another recent study in Britain found that one in seven children suffers from Long COVID three months after infection, with headaches and fatigue listed as the most common symptoms.

Britain has yet to approve vaccines for healthy children. In the meantime, measures such as improved ventilation, social distancing and face masks should continue, argues Moschos. “We need to continue preventing transmission. We must not rely only on vaccines,” he told VOA.

Several countries, including the United States, have already begun vaccination programs for those 12 and older.

Source: Voice of America

Indonesian authorities say the nation’s daily coronavirus positivity rate has dropped below 5% for the first time since the pandemic began, a strong indication the nation’s second wave of COVID-19 infections could be easing.

Indonesia’s positivity rate – the proportion of people testing positive – peaked at 33.4% in July when new cases spiked dramatically, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant, making the country Asia’s COVID-19 epicenter.

But the country’s independent COVID-19 data initiative, known as KawalCOVID-19, reported Tuesday the infection rate fell to 4.57%, the lowest since March 2020, when Indonesia’s first cases were reported. The WHO has said that a positivity rate above 5% indicates COVID-19 is out of control.

KawalCOVID-19 co-founder Elina Ciptadi told the Reuters news agency the trend is encouraging, although she cautioned that official data does not cover all cases and deaths.

The initiative reports that since the COVID-19 peak in July, when Indonesia implemented tighter restrictions on public gatherings, the average positivity rate has fallen steadily, from 23.8% in the first week of August, to 11.3% in the final week of that month, to 6.2% on average so far in September.

The Indonesian government lifted coronavirus restrictions that were eased further Monday, with most areas on Java Island downgraded, allowing conditional operation of malls, factories, and restaurants.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo urged Indonesians not to be complacent, though, warning that “COVID is always lurking. When our guards are down, [cases] can increase again.”

Source: Voice of America

New Zealand is easing the coronavirus lockdown for nearly the entire country first imposed last month after the Pacific nation reported its first confirmed COVID-19 case in six months.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday that the nationwide alert level will be lowered to Level 2, allowing schools, businesses and offices to reopen.

The new orders will not apply to Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city and the epicenter of the current outbreak that began when a 58-year-old man tested positive for the delta variant of COVID-19 in mid-August. The nation has posted 821 confirmed COVID-19 cases during the current outbreak, including 20 new cases on Monday.

Auckland will remain under strict stay-at-home orders until September 14, keeping all schools, offices and businesses shut down with only essential services remaining operational.

Prime Minister Ardern has embraced a strategy of totally eliminating COVID-19, saying it was necessary to “go hard” with the strict lockdown in order to prevent a widespread outbreak. New Zealand imposed a strict lockdown in the early days of the pandemic that has led to just 3,814 confirmed infections and just 27 deaths among its five million citizens.

Only 25 to 30 percent of all New Zealanders have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Officials say the government is nearing a final agreement to secure more doses of the two-shot Pfizer vaccine within days.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced Tuesday that beginning September 15, travelers from mainland China and the nearby enclave of Macao will be allowed to enter the semi-autonomous city without a mandatory quarantine. Lam told reporters that it will allow a total of 2,000 travelers from both places on a daily basis, but they will be required to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test prior to arrival.

Lam also said Hong Kong residents will be allowed to return to the city from the mainland without undergoing quarantine, so long as they did not travel to any high-risk areas.

The new changes are part of the government’s new “Come2HK” program aimed at reviving the city’s tourism industry, which sustained major losses during the first year of the pandemic as Hong Kong pursued a “zero-Covid” elimination strategy. But the city will continue to impose travel restrictions on travelers from foreign countries, prompting growing frustration among Hong Kong’s business community.

Source: Voice of America

Luanda- Angolan Government Monday announced the institutionalisation of digital certificate of Covid-19 vaccine.

The minister of State and Head of Security Affairs Office to the Presidency, who made the announcement, stressed the importance of the document (digital certificate) at national immigration check points on international trips.

Framcisco Pereira Furtado said that the measure will include the candidates for public tenders in the education, health sectors as well as defence and security bodies.

To issue the certificate, users must access the website www.vacina.gov.ao, but only for those who have already taken the full dose.

As part of update measure to halt the spreading of Covid-19, the Executive recommended vaccine for all professionals in health, education, defence and security bodies, institutions providing public and private services.

The move is intended, according to the official, to reinforce prevention and combat measures, focusing on preventing the spread of positive cases in the country.

Francisco Pereira Furtado stated that the intention is to immunize all professionals who deal with the public on a daily basis.

The official, who ruled out the vaccination for minors under 18, stressed the need for adults to join the campaign, saying that this is the only effective way to prevent and combat the disease.

Source: Angola Press News Agency