Category: General

U.S. intelligence agencies may have ruled out the idea that a rash of mysterious illnesses plaguing American diplomats and other officials is part of a sustained campaign by one of Washington’s adversaries, but they now say that in a small number of cases the only likely explanation is the use of some sort of weapon.

A report released Wednesday by a panel of experts assembled by U.S. intelligence officials finds that the core symptoms in these cases are “distinctly unusual and unreported elsewhere in the medical literature,” making it highly unlikely the cause could be natural.

“Pulsed electromagnetic energy, particularly in the radiofrequency range, plausibly explains the core characteristics,” the report said.

“Sources exist that could generate the required stimulus, are concealable, and have moderate power requirements,” the report added. “Using nonstandard … antennas and techniques, the signals could be propagated with low loss through air for tens to hundreds of meters, and with some loss, through most building materials.”

The mystery illness was first reported in 2016 among diplomats and other employees at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba.

Since then, hundreds of cases have been reported in Russia, China, Poland, Austria and elsewhere, with symptoms ranging from nausea and dizziness to debilitating headaches and memory problems.

The U.S. government has been engaged in a yearlong effort to find the source of the anomalous health incidents, or AHI, commonly called Havana Syndrome.

An interim report issued last month by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), concluded most of the cases “can be reasonably explained by medical conditions or environmental and technical factors, including previously undiagnosed illnesses.”

However, it warned that a smaller number of cases continued to defy explanation and that, in those cases, officials “have not ruled out the involvement of a foreign actor.”

Wednesday’s report appears to support that conclusion, though officials said the latest effort was not focused on assigning responsibility for the possible attacks.

“There are a small number of the cases we looked at that had no other plausible mechanism,” according to one U.S. intelligence official familiar with the expert panel’s work who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity.

Mystery remains

Exactly how the possible attacks were carried out, though, remains a mystery.

“We don’t have a specific device,” said a second official, who like the first was familiar with the panel’s work.

But the official said the idea that some cases of Havana Syndrome are the result of a weapon of some sort is “more than a theory.”

“We had accounts of people that had been around RF [radio frequency] energy inadvertently and describe symptoms like that,” the official added.

The notion that a directed, pulsed radio frequency mechanism was behind key symptoms of Havana Syndrome — the quick onset of pain or problems with the inner ear, including a loss of balance, dizziness and nausea — was first raised in 2020 the National Academy of Sciences, which called such as source “the most plausible mechanism in explaining” the growing number of cases.

Wednesday’s report affirmed that finding, but also left open the possibility that some of the cases could have been caused by a device using ultrasound technology, though it said an ultrasonic device would only be able to produce the right combination of symptoms if deployed in close proximity to the victim.

Making progress

In a statement Wednesday, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and CIA Director William Burns said the effort to determine the cause of Havana Syndrome is making progress.

“We continue to pursue complementary efforts to get to the bottom of Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs) — and to deliver access to world-class care for those affected,” they said in a statement.

“We will stay at it, with continued rigor, for however long it takes,” they added. “Nothing is more important than the wellbeing and safety of our colleagues.”

Officials familiar with the work on Havana Syndrome said Wednesday “it’s frustrating” not being able to get a clear-cut, definitive answer as to what has happened to as many as a couple of dozen of their colleagues and U.S. diplomatic personnel.

But they said that despite the many unknowns, the latest findings do offer hope for those who have been impacted.

“We’ve learned a lot,” one of the officials said. “While we don’t have the specific mechanism for each case, what we do know is if you report quickly and promptly get medical care, most people are getting well.”

The report also recommended the U.S. create a central database to collect information on future reported cases, develop a set of so-called “bio-markers” to better identify new cases, try to develop technology capable of detecting an attack, and improve communications.

The White House Wednesday welcomed the report’s findings.

“The [experts] panel undertook a rigorous, multi-disciplinary study that has identified important findings and recommendations,” a National Security Council spokesperson said in a statement.

The findings “will inform intensive research and investigation moving forward as we continue our government-wide effort to get to the bottom of AHI,” the spokesperson added.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday named a top official to lead the government’s interagency response to Havana Syndrome.

Source: Voice Of America

Africa Weather Hazards

1. Immature desert locust swarms are present in northern Somalia are likely to remain there due to local winds.

2. Tropical cyclone Ana continues moving toward Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Madagascar.

3. Despite favorable rainfall in parts of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Mozambique, abnormal dryness persists.

4. Despite heavy rainfall last week, parts of Tanzania remain abnormally dry.

5. Below normal rainfall over the past six weeks has strengthened dryness and drought in parts of Angola and Namibia.

6. Heavy rainfall triggered flash floods in parts of South Africa last week.

7. Heavy rainfall triggered flash floods in parts of Madagascar last week.

Source: Famine Early Warning System Network

The police chief of Canada’s capital said Wednesday there is likely no policing solution to end a protest against vaccine mandates and other pandemic restrictions that has snarled traffic around Parliament.

He also said there is a “significant element” of the protest’s funding and organization coming from the United States.

Thousands of protesters descended on Ottawa over the weekend, deliberately blocking traffic around Parliament Hill. Police estimate the protest involved 8,000-15,000 people Saturday but has since dwindled to several hundred. But trucks were still blocking traffic.

“We are now aware of a significant element from the United States that have been involved in the funding, the organizing and the demonstrating. They have converged on our city and there are plans for more to come,” Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly said.

Organizers, including one who has espoused white supremacist views, raised millions for the cross-Canada “freedom truck convoy” against vaccine mandates. There was a public GoFundMe page.

The protesting truckers also have received praise from former U.S. President Donald Trump and tweets of support from Tesla billionaire Elon Musk.

Ottawa residents frustrated with the incessant blare of truck horns and traffic gridlock are questioning how police have handled the demonstration.

“There is likely no policing solution to this,” Sloly said.

Many Canadians have been angered by some of the crude behavior of the protesters. Some urinated or parked on the National War Memorial. One danced on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. A number carried signs and flags with swastikas.

The most visible contingent of protesters were truck drivers who parked their big rigs on Parliament Hill. Some of them were protesting a rule that took effect Jan. 15 requiring truckers entering Canada to be fully immunized against the coronavirus. The Canadian Trucking Alliance has estimated that 85% of truckers in Canada are vaccinated.

Meanwhile, officials said there had been some movement toward resolving a protest blockade at the United States border in southern Alberta.

Chad Williamson, a lawyer representing truckers blocking access to the crossing at Coutts, Alberta, said they spoke with police and agreed to open some blocked lanes. Royal Canadian Mounted Police Corporal Curtis Peters said there were indications that the lane openings might only be temporary.

Demonstrators began parking their trucks and other vehicles near the crossing Saturday in solidarity with the protest in Ottawa.

The tie-up stranded travelers and cross-border truckers for days. Police tried to peacefully break up the demonstration Tuesday, but demonstrators breached a nearby checkpoint.

Source: Voice Of America

A single lightning bolt that leapt across three U.S. states has been identified as the longest ever, the U.N. weather agency said Tuesday. Dubbed a megaflash, the rare low-rate horizontal discharge covered 768 kilometers (477 miles) between clouds in Texas and Mississippi in April 2020.

It was detected by scientists using satellite technology and its distance – beating the previous record by 60 kilometer – confirmed by a World Meteorological Organization committee.

“That trip by air[plane] would take a couple of hours and in this case the distance was covered in a matter of seconds,” WMO spokesperson Clare Nullis said.

Another megaflash that occurred above Uruguay and Argentina in June 2020 also set a record, as the longest-lasting at 17.1 seconds, the WMO said.

While these two newly cataloged megaflashes never touched the ground, they serve as a reminder of the dangers of a weather phenomenon that kill hundreds of people a year.

“We reiterate our message: when thunder roars, when you see lightning — go indoors. Don’t seek shelter in a beach hut, don’t stand under a tree,” Nullis said.

Source: Voice of America

The World Health Organization warns of health care risks posed by discarded COVID-19 equipment and is calling on nations to better manage their systems for disposing of the used gear.

Tackling the COVID-19 pandemic requires the use of huge quantities of personal protective equipment or PPE and the use of needles and syringes to administer vaccines, among other essential products.

A new World Health Organization global analysis finds the quantities of health care waste generated by the goods are enormous and potentially dangerous. Maggie Montgomery is the technical officer for water, sanitation and health in the WHO Department of Environment.

She says COVID-19 has increased health care risks in facilities at up to 10 times previous volumes.

“If you consider that two in three health care facilities in the least developed countries did not have systems to segregate or safely treat waste before this pandemic, you can just imagine how much burden this extra waste load has put on health care workers, on communities, especially where waste is burned,” Montgomery said.

The report finds the hazardous disposal of COVID-19 waste potentially exposes health workers to needle stick injuries, burns and pathogenic microorganisms, air pollution and many dangers associated with living near poorly managed landfills and waste disposal sites.

WHO experts analyzed approximately 87,000 tons of PPE that were shipped to needy countries between March 2020 and November 2021 through a joint U.N. emergency initiative. Most of the equipment, they say, was expected to end up as waste.

The report provides an initial indication of the scale of the COVID-19 waste problem that exists only within the health sector, which is enormous. Montgomery says it does not look at the volumes of waste being generated in the wider community.

“In terms of the waste generated by the public, in particular masks. For example, in 2020, there were 4.5 trillion additional disposable masks thrown away by the public, which led to six million tons of additional waste,” Montgomery said. “So, certainly, the public is generating the most. At the same time, we feel that the health sector has a really important role and there are many concrete things that can be done to reduce, unnecessary use of PPE.”

WHO recommendations for safer and more environmentally sustainable waste practices include using eco-friendly packaging and shipping, safe and reusable gloves and medical masks, and investing in non-burn waste treatment technologies.

Source: Voice of America

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ((FDA)) Monday gave full approval to U.S. pharmaceutical company Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, which will be marketed under the name Spikevax.

The vaccine has been widely distributed in the United States and around the world under the FDA’s emergency use authorization since December of 2020. It is the second COVID-19 vaccine the agency has fully approved, after Pfizer’s vaccine received the designation in August of 2021.

In a statement, acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said full authorization of the vaccine is an important step in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. She said that while hundreds of millions of doses of the Moderna shot have been administered under the emergency use authorization, she understands “for some individuals, FDA approval of this vaccine may instill additional confidence in making the decision to get vaccinated.”

Woodcock said the public can be assured that the Moderna vaccine “meets the FDA’s high standards for safety, effectiveness and manufacturing quality required of any vaccine approved for use in the United States.”

The Moderna vaccine has been approved for use in more than 70 countries including Britain, Canada, Japan and those in the European Union.

Source: Voice of America

The Australian air force is preparing to deliver 20 tons of emergency supplies to remote communities cut off by flood waters. Traffic has been disrupted on the main highway and railway between Adelaide in South Australia and Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territory.

Heavy rain and storms in recent days have damaged freight routes in South Australia.

A 14-day major emergency was declared Friday by state authorities. It gives the police special powers to ensure food reaches isolated communities.

South Australia has a population of 1.7 million who are already under a major emergency declaration for COVID-19. The state was also badly impacted by the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20, although the floods have occurred away from the areas worst-hit by the fires.

The area is expected to receive yet more rain, with up to 200 millimeters forecast in the coming days.

A military plane is scheduled to land Monday in the outback settlement of Coober Pedy to deliver food and other essentials.

The town is 850 kilometers north of Adelaide on the Stuart Highway and is known as the “opal capital of the world” because of its mining resources. The impact on mining and farming might not be known for days.

Tim Jackson, the administrator of the Coober Pedy Council, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the arrival of supplies would ease community concerns.

“People are pretty relaxed generally speaking, I think, and particularly now that they know there is a significant food drop being made today. It is just a bit frustrating. It is just the unknown about when the highway is going to be opened again. (I) understand that it is the first time both the rail and road have been impacted simultaneously,” Jackson said.

Flooding in South Australia and the disruption to freight routes have led to shortages on supermarket shelves in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Higher-than-average rainfall this summer is associated with a La Niña weather system, which can also produce a higher-than-normal number of tropical cyclones.

The naturally occurring system develops when strong winds move the warm surface waters of the Pacific Ocean from South America towards Indonesia.

In Australia, the La Niña system increases the likelihood of cooler daytime temperatures, reducing the risk of bushfires and heatwaves.

Conservationists are warning that the impact of climate change will increase the incidence and intensity of “extreme rainfall events” in Australia. They have said that the risks of flooding are exacerbated when the atmosphere is “made warmer and wetter by climate change.”

Source: Voice of America

Menongue – The Angolan State lost over 167 billion kwanzas, fraudulently, with the extinct unit of the Security House, in Cuando Cubango province, from 2003 to 2021.

The information was made public Friday in Menongue, capital of Cuando Cubango province, by the Minister of State and head of the Military House of the President of the Republic, Francisco Pereira Furtado, when explaining the deactivation, in 2021, of the unit.

He added that the unit used 1.38 billion kwanzas monthly to pay salaries.

The closure resulted from a study by the Attorney General’s Office, which led to the freezing of accounts and consequent registration of personnel in order to prove who were actually military personnel.

From the 3,007 staff members who earned salaries, only 234 were reinstated, of which 91 are environmental inspectors, who the Military House continues to pay salaries and provide logistics and all the benefits.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

The Tuckers of Virginia, descendants of the first enslaved Africans to come to North America, recently traveled to Angola, the birthplace of their ancestors.

The Tuckers are believed to be descendants of two of the first enslaved Africans to land in English North America at Point Comfort in 1619, which is currently Hampton, Virginia. Those first enslaved Africans came from Angola.

Vincent Tucker and his sister, Wanda, were among the Tucker family that visited Angola last month for five days to have a sense of connection with their forebears in Africa. Vincent and Wanda are the founders of The William Tucker 1624 Society, an organization that researches the life of William Tucker, who “became the first documented African child born in English-occupied North America.” The Society also researches the life of William’s descendants; many still live in Hampton.

Vincent and his family said they took the trip to Angola at the invitation of the country’s president, João Lourenco. Lourenco had visited Washington D.C. some months back and toured the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. And that was where he met the Tuckers and invited them to his country to know more about the history of their ancestors.

“My mind began to bring everything together,” Vincent Tucker said of the trip, according to 13 News Now. “The stories I’ve been hearing, they started coming alive.”

The Virginia family said one of the most emotional moments of their trip was dipping their feet in the Kwanza River, which served as an access point for slave ships on their way to the port of Luanda.

“We can just imagine how that journey was for the enslaved — taken down to the river and being hauled away. It was very touching,” said Vincent.

Historical accounts had previously believed that the first Africans came from the Caribbean, but later details showed that they came from the kingdom of Ndongo, in present-day Angola. According to the Hampton History Museum, they were captured there by Portuguese colonists and sent to the port of Luanda on board the slave ship São João Baptista. The ship, in all, carried about 350 enslaved people and was on its way to Veracruz, in present-day Mexico when it was intercepted by the English ship, the White Lion.

“The British crew robbed part of the Portuguese cargo, including a few dozen African captives – among those who had survived the brutal journey thus far. A few days later, it was at Point Comfort that the British vessel finally landed, in the hopes of trading the enslaved Africans for food and supplies,” a report by France 24 said.

According to the Tucker family from Hampton, Virginia, years ago, they used ‘ground-penetrating radar’ to search a piece of their property and found 104 unmarked graves. Members of the Tucker family believe that those graves are the remains of their ancestors, who were among the first enslaved Africans to arrive in 1619.

For the Tuckers, connecting to where they came from means accepting where they are today. Following their five-day visit to Angola, the Tuckers told 13 News Now that since people in both the U.S. and Angola are still learning the history of 1619 and how it has impacted life today, the hope is to build partnerships between the two countries not only educationally but economically.

Source: Nam News Network (NNN)

A chunk of a SpaceX rocket that blasted off seven years ago and was abandoned in space after completing its mission will crash into the moon in March, experts say.

The rocket was deployed in 2015 to put into orbit a NASA satellite called the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR).

Since then, the second stage of the rocket, or booster, has been floating in what mathematicians call a chaotic orbit, astronomer Bill Gray told AFP on Wednesday.

It was Gray who calculated the space junk’s new collision course with the moon.

The booster passed quite close to the moon in January in a rendezvous that altered its orbit, he said.

He is behind Project Pluto, software that allows for calculating the trajectory of asteroids and other objects in space and is used in NASA-financed space observation programs.

A week after the rocket stage whizzed close to the moon, Gray observed it again and concluded it would crash into the moon’s dark side on March 4 at more than 5,500 miles per hour (9,000 kilometers per hour).

Gray appealed to the amateur astronomer community to join him in observing the booster, and his conclusion was confirmed.

The exact time and spot of impact may change slightly from his forecast, but there is widespread agreement that there will be a collision on the moon that day.

“I’ve been tracking junk of this sort for about 15 years, and this is the first unintentional lunar impact that we’ve had,” Gray told Agence France-Presse.

Crater expected

Astronomer Jonathan McDowell told AFP it’s possible that similar impacts have taken place unnoticed.

“There’re at least 50 objects that were left in deep Earth orbit in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s that were just abandoned there. We didn’t track them,” he said.

“Now, we’re picking up a couple of them … but a lot of them, we’re not finding, and so they’re not there anymore,” he added. “Probably at least a few of them hit the moon accidentally and we just didn’t notice.”

The impact of the SpaceX rocket chunk weighing 4 tons on the moon will not be visible from Earth in real time.

But it will leave a crater that scientists will be able to observe with spacecraft and satellites like NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter or India’s Chandrayaan-2, and thus learn more about the geology of the moon.

Spacecraft have been intentionally crashed into the moon before for scientific purposes, such as during the Apollo missions to test seismometers.

In 2009, NASA sent a rocket stage hurling into the moon near its south pole to look for water.

But most rockets do not go so far from Earth. SpaceX brings its rocket boosters back through the Earth’s atmosphere so they disintegrate over the ocean. The first stage is recovered and reused.

‘Time to start regulating’

Gray said there could be more unintentional crashes into the moon in the future as the U.S. and Chinese space programs leave more junk in orbit.

McDowell noted these events “start to be problematic when there’s a lot more traffic.”

“It’s actually no one’s job to keep track of the junk that we leave out in deep Earth orbit,” he added. “I think now’s the time to start regulating it.”

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment from AFP.

Elon Musk’s company is currently developing a lunar lander that should allow NASA to send astronauts back to the moon by 2025 at the earliest.

Source: Voice of America