Belarus strongman president faces strong election challenge

August 09, 2020

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Belorussians are voting on whether to grant their authoritarian president a sixth term in office, following a campaign marked by unusually strong demonstrations by opposition supporters frustrated with the country’s stumbling economy, political repression and weak response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Incumbent Alexander Lukashenko, in office for 26 years, has made it clear he won’t hesitate to quash any attempt by his opponents to protest the results of Sunday’s election. The head of staff for main opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was detained late Saturday for allegedly participating in authorized protests and is likely to be in jail until at least Monday. Tsikhanouskaya herself reportedly was so concerned about her own security that she left her residence to spend the night elsewhere.

Tsikhanouskaya, the wife of a jailed opposition blogger, became the main opposition candidate after two other prominent aspirants were denied places on the ballot. One of them was jailed and the other, a former ambassador to the United States, fled the country fearing imminent arrest.

As polls opened on Sunday, the country’s central elections commission said more than 40% of the electorate had cast ballots in early voting, a figure likely to heighten concerns about the results’ legitimacy because of the potential for manipulation. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, whose assessments of elections are widely regarded as authoritative, was not invited to send an observer mission.

Tsikhanouskaya had crisscrossed the country, tapping public frustration with Lukashenko’s swaggering response to the pandemic and the country’s stagnating Soviet-style economy. One of her rallies in the capital Minsk attracted an estimated 60,000 people, an enormous turnout in the country where dissent is routinely suppressed.

Belarus, a country of 9.5 million people, has reported more than 68,500 confirmed coronavirus cases and 580 deaths in the pandemic. Critics have accused the authorities of manipulating the figures to downplay the death toll.

Lukashenko announced last month that he had been infected with the virus but had no COVID-19 symptoms and recovered quickly, allegedly thanks to doing sports. He defended his handling of the outbreak, saying that a lockdown would have doomed the nation’s weakened economy.

Belarus has sustained a severe economic blow after its leading exports customer, Russia, went into a pandemic-induced recession and other foreign markets shrank. Before the coronavirus, the country’s state-controlled economy already had been stalled for years, stoking public frustration.

Political observers say the election campaign also exposed divisions among the Belarusian elite as some of its members entered politics for the first time. Belarusian authorities last week arrested 33 Russian military contractors and charged them with plans to stage “mass riots." The political opposition and many independent observers saw the arrests as an attempt to shore up the incumbent’s sagging public support.

The arrest of the Russians marked an unprecedented spike in tensions between Belarus and Russia, which often have acrimonious disputes despite their close ties. When Russia and Belarus signed a union agreement in 1996, Lukashenko aspired to use it as a vehicle to eventually lead a unified state as the successor to Russia’s ailing president, Boris Yeltsin. The tables turned after Vladimir Putin became Russian president in 2000, and the Belarusian leader began resisting what he saw as a Kremlin push for control over Belarus.

Belarus' leader faces toughest challenge yet in Sunday vote

August 08, 2020

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — After 26 years in office, the authoritarian leader of Belarus is facing the toughest challenge yet as he runs for a sixth term. Discontent over a worsening economy and the government's dismissive response to the coronavirus pandemic has helped fuel the country's largest opposition rallies since Alexander Lukashenko became its first and only elected president following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Rumblings among the ruling elite and a bitter rift with Russia, Belarus's main sponsor and ally, compound the reelection challenge facing the 65-year-old former state farm director on Sunday. Lukashenko, who once acquired the nickname “Europe's last dictator” in the West for his relentless crackdowns on dissent, has made it clear he won't hesitate to again, if necessary, use force to quash any attempt by his opponents to protest the results of the presidential election.

Election officials barred the president's two main prospective rivals from what is now a five-person race. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a 37-year-old former teacher and the wife of a jailed opposition blogger, has managed to draw strong support, with tens of thousands flocking to her campaign rallies.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Tsikhanouskaya described herself as a “symbol of change” “It was brewing inside for more than 20 years," Tsikhanouskaya said. "We were afraid all that time and no one dared to say a word. Now people vote for a symbol of change.”

Tsikhanouskaya has crisscrossed the country, tapping public frustration with Lukashenko's swaggering response to the pandemic and the country's stagnating Soviet-style economy. The president has dismissed the coronavirus as “psychosis” and refused to introduce any restrictions to stem the outbreak, suggesting that Belarusians protect themselves against the disease with a daily shot of vodka, visits to sauna and hard work in the fields.

“They were telling us that the virus doesn't exist and dismissed it as ‘psychosis’ while tens of thousands of Belarusians have got sick," said Diana Golubovich, 54, a lawyer who attended Tsikhanouskaya's rally in Brest, a city on the border with Poland. “Suddenly everyone realized that the social-oriented state that Lukashenko was boasting about doesn't exist.”

Belarus, a country of 9.5 million people, has reported more than 68,500 confirmed virus cases and 580 deaths in the pandemic. Critics have accused the authorities of manipulating the figures to downplay the death toll.

Lukashenko announced last month that he had been infected with the virus but had no COVID-19 symptoms and recovered quickly, allegedly thanks to doing sports. He defended his handling of the outbreak, saying that a lockdown would have doomed the nation's weakened economy.

Belarus still has sustained a severe economic blow after its leading exports customer, Russia, went into a pandemic-induced recession and other foreign markets shrank. Before the coronavirus, the country's state-controlled economy already had been stalled for years, stoking public frustration.

“Lukashenko lacks a plan to modernize the country. He has taken political freedoms away, and now he is depriving people of a chance for economic growth,” said Valery Tsepkalo, a former Belarusian ambassador to the United States who planned to challenge Lukashenko for the presidency but fled to Russia with his children last month to avoid imminent arrest. “That is the main reason behind protests.”

When the presidential campaign began, authorities cracked down on the opposition with a renewed vigor. More than 1,300 protest participants have been detained since May, according to the Viasna human rights center. The campaign chief for one of the candidates race was arrested outside a polling station Friday and sentenced to 10 days in jail for allegedly organizing an unauthorized mass gathering.

Standing outside the Minsk Tractor Plant in Belarus's capital, one worker spoke about his low salary, rising prices and “no glimpse of hope” in Belarus. “No one trusts the government's promises any more,” said Anton Rubankevich, 46, who makes the equivalent of $480 a month. “If this president stays, we will continue falling into a pit.”

Political observers say the election campaign also exposed divisions among the Belarusian elite as some of its members entered politics for the first time. Along with former ambassador Tsepkalo, the head of a major Russia-controlled bank contemplated running against Lukashenko. The well-connected potential rival, Viktor Babariko, was jailed in May on money laundering and tax evasion charges that he rejected as politically driven.

In what the political opposition and many independent observers regarded as an attempt to shore up the incumbent's sagging public support, Belarusian authorities last week arrested 33 Russian military contractors and charged them with plans to stage “mass riots.”

The arrest of the Russians marked an unprecedented spike in tensions between neighboring Belarus and Russia, which often have acrimonious disputes despite their close ties. When Russia and Belarus signed a union agreement in 1996, Lukashenko aspired to use it as a vehicle to eventually lead a unified state as the successor to Russia's ailing president, Boris Yeltsin. The tables turned after Vladimir Putin became Russian president in 2000; the Belarusian leader began resisting what he saw as a Kremlin push for control over Belarus.

Alexander Klaskovsky, an independent political expert based in Minsk, said he thinks the Kremlin hopes the stormy election campaign in Belarus will help erode Lukashenko's grip on power and make him more receptive to a closer integration of the two countries.

“Moscow is interested not in Lukashenko's ouster, but his maximal weakening so that he comes out of that campaign with undermined legitimacy, spoiled relations with the West and the economy in a poor shape,” Klaskovsky said. “A weakened and emaciated Lukashenko would be a gift for Moscow."

While election officials are likely to declare Lukashenko the winner by a landslide, his problems will not end with the vote. “It will be about 80% of the vote for Lukashenko, so that his entourage doesn't think that the leader has grown weaker,” he predicted. “The government has enough resources and brute force to keep the power and suppress protests, but it lacks the answer to the main question about the path of Belarus' development. Lukashenko will undoubtedly win, but it will be a Pyrrhic victory.”

Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed.

Ex-teacher hopes to free Belarus from president's iron fist

August 04, 2020

BREST, Belarus (AP) — A 37-year-old former English teacher without political experience seems an unlikely challenger to the authoritarian president of Belarus who has been the ex-Soviet nation's only leader for more than a quarter-century.

And yet, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has united various opposition factions behind her candidacy and drawn tens of thousands of supporters to her campaign rallies ahead of the presidential election on Sunday.

Tsikhanouskaya says the crowds — the biggest demonstrations Belarus has seen since becoming independent in 1991 — reflect a desperate longing for transformation after President Alexander Lukashenko's 26-year rule.

In an interview with The Associated Press, she described herself as a “symbol of change.” “People see me not as a consummate politician striving for power, but just an average person like themselves — and they like it,” Tsikhanouskaya said. “They understand that I don't want anything for myself."

Her rally a few days ago in Brest on the border with Poland drew over 20,000 people, a massive showing for a city that has never seen big political protests. A few days before that, Tsikhanouskaya's rally in the capital, Minsk, attracted more than 60,000. It was the largest opposition gathering in Belarus since the rallies in the months before the 1991 Soviet collapse.

“I'm tired of being patient and silent, I'm tired of being afraid,” Tsikhanouskaya told the enthusiastic crowd in Brest. On Tuesday, police dispersed two of Tsikhanouskaya's rallies, where hundreds of people had gathered to await the candidate. The Belarusian human rights group Viasna said about 30 people were detained at the planned rallies in Slutsk and Soligorsk.

Lukashenko, 65, was a Soviet state farm director before he became the first Belarusian president in 1994. Since then he has cracked down on dissent and independent media in the nation of 9.5 million, earning the nickname of “Europe's last dictator.”

But this time, Lukashenko appears to have lost his bravado and looks increasingly nervous in the face of the opposition rallies. More than 1,000 people have been detained for taking part in the protests since the campaign began.

Painful economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and the government's botched response to the outbreak has eroded Lukashenko's standing. He had refused to introduce lockdown measures and dismissed the coronavirus as “psychosis” until he acknowledged last month that he had been infected but recovered quickly.

Tsikhanouskaya said Lukashenko's advice that Belarusians protect themselves against the virus with a daily shot of vodka was like “a spit in the face.” She told the AP that the arrest this year of her husband, a popular opposition blogger who aspired to run for president himself, left her no choice but to enter politics.

“It was brewing inside for more than 20 years. We were afraid all that time and no one dared to say a word,” she said. “But if I could overcome my fear, everyone can.” Her husband, Syarhei Tsikhanousky, has remained in jail since his arrest in May on charges of assailing a police officer. He has dismissed the charges as a provocation.

Last week, Belarusian authorities opened a new probe against Tsikhanouskaya's husband on charges of planning to stage “mass riots” with 33 Russian private security contractors arrested on Wednesday. Russia has rejected the charges, saying the men were en route to another country.

Tsikhanouskaya dismissed the accusations against her husband as a sham. “He has no relation to that, and people realize it,” she said. If she wins, Tsikhanouskaya said, she will free all political prisoners, order a constitutional referendum that would limit the number of presidential terms and introduce other democratic changes. She vowed to step down after six months to hold a new, free presidential vote.

She also said she will move to do away with a union treaty envisaging close economic, political and military ties with Russia. Many in the Belarusian opposition see the union as a threat to the country's independence.

Lukashenko has relied on Russian subsidies and loans to keep Belarus' Soviet-era economy afloat. He denounced a hike in Russian energy prices this year as part of the Kremlin's pressure on Belarus to abandon its independence and pointed at the arrest of the 33 Russian security contractors as a sign of Moscow's subversive plans.

Western observers have described previous presidential elections in Belarus as rigged to keep Lukashenko in office. Tsikhanouskaya has emerged as the rallying figure for the opposition after election officials refused to register for the ballot two other potential candidates who were seen as Lukashenko's strongest potential challengers.

One, Viktor Babariko, the head of a major Russia-controlled bank, was jailed in May on money-laundering and tax-evasion charges that he rejected as politically driven. Another, Valery Tsepkalo, fled to Russia with his children last month after receiving a tip that his arrest was imminent and the authorities were prepared to strip him of parental rights.

Tsikhanouskaya has teamed up with Tsepkalo's wife, who stayed in Belarus, and Babariko's campaign manager to run an energetic campaign. Three other contenders on the ballot are widely seen as token candidates.

Tsikhanouskaya said she had to send her 10-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter to a European country she wouldn’t name after receiving threats. “I got a phone call: 'We will put you behind bars and place your children in an orphanage,"" she said. “I was hesitating and on the verge of stepping down.”

She said it was a tormenting decision. “But I made that choice” to keep running, she said. “There must be a symbol of freedom.”

1,000 protest Belarusian president seeking another term

May 24, 2020

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — About 1,000 protesters denouncing authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s seeking of another term in an upcoming election have held the largest opposition demonstration of the year in the capital Minsk.

Many of the demonstrators carried slippers as a symbol of protest leader Sergei Tikhanovsky’s call to “smash the cockroach.” Police, who frequently break up opposition demonstrations, didn't interfere with the protesters on Sunday.

The Aug. 9 election will see Lukashenko, who has suppressed opposition and independent news media during a quarter-century in power, run for a sixth term. Many of the demonstrators wore masks, defying Lukashenko’s dismissal of coronavirus concerns as a “psychosis.” Belarus has recorded more than 36,000 cases of coronavirus infection, about 75% more than in neighboring Ukraine whose population is four times larger.

SpaceX brings NASA astronauts home safe in milestone mission

By Issam Ahmed
Washington (AFP)
Aug 3, 2020

America's first crewed spaceship to fly to the International Space Station in nearly a decade returned safely to Earth on Sunday, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico.

The successful mission, carried out jointly by SpaceX and NASA, demonstrated that the United States has the capacity once more to send its astronauts to space and bring them back.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavor splashed into the water off Pensacola, Florida at 2:48 pm (1848 GMT), trailed by its four main parachutes.

It was the first water landing for a crewed US spaceship since the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission.

"It's truly our honor and privilege," said pilot Doug Hurley, who was joined on the mission by commander Bob Behnken.

"On behalf of the NASA and SpaceX teams, welcome back to planet Earth and thanks for flying SpaceX," replied SpaceX's Mike Heiman, to laughter in the control room.

A flotilla of civilian boats swarmed the landing zone as a recovery ship sped to the scorched capsule and hoisted it aboard with its crane.

The hatch opening was briefly delayed as a team worked to stop a leak of rocket fuel vapor, but around an hour after splashdown, the astronauts exited the capsule and headed for shore on a helicopter.

They were reunited with their families in Houston, where they walked off a plane -- in apparently good physical shape and upbeat spirits -- at a military base.

Addressing a socially distanced welcome ceremony in a hangar, Behnken, a veteran of the Space Shuttle program, praised the SpaceX team behind the successful mission.

"There's something special about having that capability to launch and bring your own astronauts home," he said.

A visibly excited SpaceX founder Elon Musk added the mission heralded a new era.

"We're going to go to the Moon, we're going to have a base on the Moon, we're going to Mars," he said.

"I'm not very religious but I prayed for this one."

- Space autonomy -

President Donald Trump -- who had traveled to Florida for the capsule's launch two months ago -- hailed its safe return.

"Thank you to all!" he tweeted. "Great to have NASA Astronauts return to Earth after very successful two month mission."

The United States has had to rely on Russia for rides to space since the last Space Shuttle flew in 2011.

The mission is also a huge win for Musk's SpaceX, which was founded in only 2002 but has leap-frogged its way past Boeing, its main competitor in the commercial space race.

The US has paid the two companies a total of about $7 billion for their "space taxi" contracts, though aerospace giant Boeing's efforts have badly floundered.

- Atmospheric re-entry -

The Crew Dragon capsule performed several precisely choreographed sequences in order to return home safely.

First, it jettisoned its "trunk" that contains its power, heat and other systems, which burned up in the atmosphere.

Endeavor then fired its thrusters to maneuver itself into the proper orbit and trajectory for splashdown.

As it re-entered the atmosphere at a speed of around 17,500 mph (28,000 kph), it experienced temperatures of 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1900 degrees Celsius).

It deployed two sets of parachutes on its descent, bringing its speed down to a mere 15 mph as it hit the Gulf of Mexico.

- Astro dads -

Behnken and Hurley began their day with a surprise wake-up call from their sons.

"Don't worry you can sleep in tomorrow. Hurry home so we can go get my dog!" said Theo, Behnken's six-year-old son.

The astronauts brought a toy dinosaur, which they had used as their zero-g indicator, back to Earth for their boys. The Endeavor's return marks only the beginning for the Crew Dragon as SpaceX and NASA look ahead to future missions.

Endeavor will now undergo a six-week inspection to certify the vessel as worthy of future low-Earth orbit missions.

The next mission -- dubbed "Crew-1" -- will involve a team of four: three NASA astronauts along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency mission specialist Soichi Noguchi.

Take-off is set for late September, and the crew are due to spend six months on the space station.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/SpaceX_brings_NASA_astronauts_home_safe_in_milestone_mission_999.html.

SpaceX completes test flight of Mars rocket prototype

Houston (AFP)
Aug 5, 2020

SpaceX on Tuesday successfully completed a flight of less than a minute of the largest prototype ever tested of the future rocket Starship, which the company hopes to use one day to colonize Mars.

"Mars is looking real," SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted in response to a fan.

The current Starship prototype is fairly crude: it's a large metallic cylinder, built in a few weeks by SpaceX teams on the Texas coast, in Boca Chica -- but it's still smaller than the actual rocket will be.

Several previous prototypes exploded during ground tests, during a learning process of trial and error.

In images shared Tuesday by several space specialists, including the space news website NASASpaceFlight.com, the latest prototype -- dubbed SN5 -- reached an undetermined altitude before descending to land in a cloud of dust, demonstrating good trajectory control.

"And when the smoke cleared, she stood there majestically, after the 150 meter flight!" tweeted NASA's top scientist, Thomas Zurbuchen.

The so-called "hop test" was planned to reach a 150-meter (492-foot) altitude, but SpaceX has not confirmed any details about the test flight.

In 2019, an earlier prototype -- the smaller Starhopper -- flew to 150 meters in altitude and returned to land.

The Starship envisioned by Musk will be 120 meters tall and will be able to land vertically on Mars.

"We are going to the Moon, we are going to have a base on the Moon, we are going to send people to Mars and make life multi-planetary," Musk said Sunday, after welcoming two NASA astronauts back from the International Space Station.

The astronauts had traveled in the Dragon capsule developed by SpaceX.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/SpaceX_completes_test_flight_of_Mars_rocket_prototype_999.html.

Rover mission follows centuries of fascination with Mars

JULY 29, 2020
By Brooks Hays

July 29 (UPI) -- During the last two decades, Mars has captured the imagination of the public and attention of NASA decision makers, just as the moon excited the nation and served as the north star for the agency during the '60s and '70s.

Thursday morning's planned launch of the Mars 2020 mission is the latest, and the most advanced step in exploring the Red Planet, built upon lessons from sending spacecraft to Mars at almost every launch opportunity since the 1990s.

Fascination with the planet, however, predates the first lunar landing or NASA's Mars Exploration Program.

For as long as humans have been looking at the sky and writing stories, Mars has been mythologized. The Romans named the god of war after Mars, and the Red Planet found its way into Greek, Norse, Hindu and Chinese literature.

The 1897 novel War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, which depicts an invasion of England by Martians, was adopted for radio in 1938 -- a broadcast said to have caused panic among some listeners who didn't know it was fictional.

The concept of "little green men" -- often used generically to refer to aliens from any other planet, often as an invading force -- overall started gaining popularity in the late 1800s, and grew exponentially from there.

Popular stories have ranged from Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars in 1912 to the 1996 film Mars Attacks, which was adapted from a trading card series.

"Mars is a special place," Casey Dreier, chief advocate and senior space policy adviser for the Planetary Society, told UPI. "It's deeply embedded in our popular culture, going back hundreds, even thousands, of years -- even before we knew anything about Mars."

As more-capable telescopes arrived, Mars became more than just a red dot that grows larger every two years as its orbit comes closer to that of Earth's.

"You begin to see features that look vaguely like Earth, you have polar caps and you have light and dark features that change over time, and that's what I think inspired people to start imagining an Earth-like world with Earth-like things happening on the surface," Bruce Betts, chief scientist at the Planetary Society, told UPI.

Exploring the Red Planet

As early as the 17th century, astronomers realized that Earth and Mars shared commonalities. But while humans imagined Mars as a kind of alien Earth for decades, it wasn't until the early 2000s that scientists became certain of Mars' Earth-like history.

It was the Mars Exploration Program that revealed the full extent of the Red Planet's Earth-like qualities -- that Mars did once have water, lots of it, and that Red Planet was once habitable.

"That's all stuff we've learned relatively recently," the Planetary Society's Dreier said.

With each new mission to Mars, NASA's landers, rovers and orbiters have made discoveries that raised new scientific questions, exciting researchers and titillating the public's imagination.

And while the long history of human fascination has played an important role in fueling Martian exploration, both Betts and Dreier said NASA's mission planning decisions have been driven largely by science and pragmatism.

Not only do Mars' geologic wonders -- a water world dried and frozen in time -- offer a window into Earth's primordial past, but they're also closer than the interesting features found on any of Earth's planetary neighbors.

Mars is hard to get to, but everywhere else besides the moon is even harder.

"[Because] Mars missions are so much faster than other planetary missions, it allows technology to develop and engineers to push those boundaries on much shorter time scales," Dreier said.

The planning and execution of space missions to more distant targets can stretch a quarter of a century before scientists have their hands on fresh data.

Scientists working on the Mars 2020 mission will have to wait a little more than six months for the Perseverance rover to start returning usable data. That data -- and the insights they provide planetary scientists -- is likely to raise new questions about Mars. Rocks collected on this mission will not be brought back to Earth for a decade.

Beyond Mars missions

For now, NASA is working on plans for more scientific missions to Mars, and hopes to send humans to the Red Planet in the 2030s. But there is nothing concrete. A host of other plans for exploring the solar system exist, as well.

"As NASA's planetary science budget has gone up, we've seen a huge burst of non-Mars missions happening," Dreier said. "That's a consequence of Mars getting a lot of attention for a lot of years, and the rest of the planetary science community making an effort to get greater support and more funds."

NASA is working to once again ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station, as well as finalizing plans for a human return to the moon.

The space agency also has several asteroid visitation missions in the pipeline, in addition to plans for a trip to Jupiter's moon Europa and the outer reaches of the solar system. Under NASA's Discovery program, tentative itineraries have been created for treks to Venus, Jupiter's moon Io and Neptune's moon Triton.

"There's kind of a joke that a human Mars landing has been 20 years away for the last 60 years, but it's not really a joke," the Planetary Society's Betts said.

"There is good science to be done all throughout the solar system, and there's a limited amount of money and resources," he said. "There is always division within the planetary science community about where you put your resources and where you send space missions."

Source: United Press International.
Link: https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2020/07/29/Rover-mission-follows-centuries-of-fascination-with-Mars/4881595987885/.

Texas firm develops adaptable satellites with fast software upgrades

JULY 27, 2020
By Paul Brinkmann

July 27 (UPI) -- The U.S. Air Force and a private technology company in Texas started to develop new satellites this summer that are capable of quick software changes in orbit to respond to threats and to carry out new tasks.

Austin-based Hypergiant, which works on several kinds of artificial intelligence, has a formal but classified agreement to develop technology for the Air Force, with a potential $10 million contract in weapon systems support satellites, founder and CEO Ben Lamm said.

The company, founded in 2018, has about 200 employees and develops artificial intelligence for satellites, surveillance technology and other applications.

For the new military satellites, the goal is to create a new constellation of 24 to 36 satellites, called Chameleon, that could be retasked to avoid debris, counter new weapons and block new cyberattacks or whatever conditions they might encounter, Lamm said.

"We think this could be really helpful to lower the number of devices we have to launch to orbit to accomplish certain tasks," he said. "If you can make them adapt quickly, you don't have to launch as many or as often."

Pushing a software update to traditional satellites can take months, Lamm said, and the industry generally does that once or twice a year. Chameleon's goal is to enable updates in just a few minutes.

Such satellites still would be limited by their hardware to some extent, he said. For example, communications satellites could only be retasked with imaging the Earth if they were built and launched with cameras.

In the future, however, artificial intelligence might enable manufacturing and hardware upgrades in space, as well, Lamm said.

"We don't have to build a Transformer satellite at first that could do anything and add new hardware, but that is the direction we're going," he said, referring to the popular robot movie franchise Transformers.

Lamm calls himself a serial entrepreneur and a provocateur, who learned to seek innovative approaches partly because he traveled the world when he was young and realized how people around the planet live very different lives.

He previously founded an artificial intelligence company that worked on live conversation technology for customer service -- so-called chatbots -- that was acquired in 2018 by the publicly traded firm LivePerson, based in New York.

Whether hardware updates for satellites materialize, speedy, frequent software updates are a goal for the industry, said Shagun Sachdeva, an analyst with Northern Sky Research based in France.

"All manufacturers are going that way now, toward more versatile, software-designed satellites -- Airbus, Lockheed Martin, many others," Sachdeva said. "HyperGiant is adding more artificial intelligence, adding another layer of automation."

With artificial intelligence, satellites even could decide they need repair and fly to a repair satellite on their own, avoiding the path of space debris without instruction, she said.

Eventually, satellite networks will be fully autonomous, said Chris Quilty, founder of Quilty Analytics based in St. Petersburg, Fla.

"Updatable, adaptable satellites will improve resiliency and maximize critical infrastructure for various defense and commercial uses," Quilty said.

Source: United Press International.
Link: https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2020/07/27/Texas-firm-develops-adaptable-satellites-with-fast-software-upgrades/6121595518829/.

U.S., Poland complete enhanced defense agreement

AUG. 3, 2020
By Ed Adamczyk

Aug. 3 (UPI) -- The United States and Poland completed negotiations of an enhanced defense cooperation agreement, or EDCA, the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw announced on Monday.

The EDCA "provides the required legal framework, infrastructure and equitable burden-sharing essential to deepening our defense cooperation," the embassy statement said in part.

The negotiations followed a White House meeting in June between Polish President Andrzej Duda and U.S. President Donald Trump.

As discussed by the presidents, the deal includes the sale of military equipment to Poland, and an increased U.S. troop presence, which the agreement established at 1,000 troops.

In addition to the 4,500 U.S. personnel already in rotation in Poland, the embassy said the deal includes another 1,000 personnel -- including "forward elements" of the U.S. Army's V Corps headquarters and a Division headquarters.

The deal also includes intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, as well as the infrastructure to support an armored brigade combat team and combat aviation brigade.

"A deeper, more collaborative U.S.-Poland security partnership is critical in meeting current security threats and challenges," U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Jessica Meyeraan, deputy director of partnering, security cooperation and missile defense for U.S. European Command, said in a press release.

In July, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced a reduction of about 12,000 U.S. troops currently stationed in Germany, adding that some will be rotated to other NATO countries, including Poland.

It added that the agreement will improve deterrence against Russia, strengthen NATO, reassure U.S. allies and improve strategic and operational flexibility, all points made by Esper in July.

Monday's statement noted the importance of the agreement to Poland's national security, citing Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak's comment that "we'll soon sign [the] final agreement on the endured presence of U.S. troops in Poland."

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2020/08/03/US-Poland-complete-enhanced-defense-agreement/5511596474599/.

Nagasaki urges nuke ban on 75th anniversary of US A-bombing

August 09, 2020

TOKYO (AP) — The Japanese city of Nagasaki on Sunday marked its 75th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing, with the mayor and dwindling survivors urging world leaders including their own to do more for a nuclear weapons ban.

At 11:02 a.m., the moment the B-29 bomber Bockscar dropped a 4.5-ton (10,000-pound) plutonium bomb dubbed “Fat Man,” Nagasaki survivors and other participants stood in a minute of silence to honor more than 70,000 dead.

The Aug. 9, 1945, bombing came three days after the United States dropped its first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the world’s first ever nuclear attack that killed 140,000. On Aug. 15, Japan surrendered, ending World War II.

At the event at Nagasaki Peace Park, scaled down because of the coronavirus pandemic, Mayor Tomihisa Taue read a peace declaration in which he raised concern that nuclear states had in recent years retreated from disarmament efforts.

Instead, they are upgrading and miniaturizing nuclear weapons for easier use, he said. Taue singled out the U.S. and Russia for increasing risks by scrapping the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

“As a result, the threat of nuclear weapons being used is increasingly becoming real,” Taue said. Noting that the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty entered into force 50 years ago, Taue urged the U.S. and Russia to show a 'workable way' towards their nuclear disarmament at the NPT review process next year.

He said that “the true horror of nuclear weapons has not yet been adequately conveyed to the world at large” despite struggle and efforts by hibakusha, or atomic bombing survivors, to make Nagasaki the last place of the tragedy.

He also urged Japan’s government and lawmakers to quickly sign the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. After taking part in the ceremony, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe criticized the treaty for not being realistic. None of the nuclear states has joined, and it is not widely supported even by non-nuclear states, he said.

“The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted without taking into consideration the reality of the harsh national security environment,” Abe said at a news conference. “I must say the treaty is different from Japan's position and approach" even though they share the same goal of abolishing nuclear weapons, he said.

Abe has repeatedly refused to sign the treaty. He reiterated that Japan’s approach is not to take sides but to serve as a bridge between nuclear and non-nuclear states to encourage dialogue to achieve a total nuclear ban. Survivors and pacifist groups say Japan is virtually siding with the U.S. and other nuclear states.

Abe cited “severe national security environment and a wide gap between the two sides on nuclear disarmament.” He also noted Japan faces threats of development and modernization of nuclear weapons from “neighboring countries in the region.”

Taue, who spoke before Abe, disagreed, saying: “Among the nuclear-weapon states and countries under the nuclear umbrella, there have been voices stating that it is too early for such a treaty. That is not so. Nuclear arms reductions are far too late in coming.”

While Tokyo renounces its own possession, production or hosting of nuclear weapons, as a U.S. ally Japan hosts 50,000 American troops and is protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella. The post-WWII security arrangement complicates the push to get Japan to sign the treaty as it beefs up its own military to deal with threats from North Korea and China, among others.

An aging group of survivors have expressed a growing sense of urgency to tell their stories, in hopes of reaching younger generations to continue their effort toward establishing a nuclear-free world.

“There is not much time left for us survivors,” said Shigemi Fukabori, 89. He was a 14-year-old student mobilized to work at a shipyard when Nagasaki was bombed. “I'm determined to keep telling my story so that Nagasaki will be the last place on Earth to have suffered an atomic attack.”

Fukabori, who almost instantly lost four siblings, said he never forgets the pile of charred bodies, bombed-out street cars and the badly injured desperately asking for help and water as he rushed back to his house in the back of the Urakami Cathedral, which was also nearly destroyed.

“We don’t want anyone else to have to go through this," he said. "Nagasaki bears a responsibility as a witness of catastrophic results the nuclear weapon caused to humanity and environment,” Fukabori said in his speech at the ceremony, representing the Nagasaki survivors. “I hope as many people as possible to join us, especially the young generations to inherit our baton of peace and keep running.”

Many peace events, including survivors' talks leading up to the anniversary, were canceled because of the coronavirus, but some survivors have teamed up with students and pacifist groups to speak at online events.

UK lawmakers urge sanctions over Hong Kong police violence

August 04, 2020

LONDON (AP) — British lawmakers urged the U.K. government Tuesday to sanction Hong Kong's leader for allowing “excessive police violence” against humanitarian workers who tried to help people injured during pro-democracy protests.

A report by members of the bipartisan All Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong said first aid workers, doctors and nurses, have been subjected to intimidation, threats, physical violence and arrests during months of clashes between police and protesters that began in the semi-autonomous Chinese city last year.

“The Hong Kong Police Force’s treatment of humanitarian aid workers and their interference within hospitals have resulted in injured protesters not receiving the required medical care in time or at all,” the report said.

Lawmaker Alistair Carmichael, who co-chairs the parliamentary group, said the violence was “not the actions of a few rogue officers” but instead was “clearly a systematic and quite deliberate” policy change that aligned more with policing in mainland China.

The report’s authors said they drew their conclusions after receiving over 1,000 pieces of written evidence and hearing many firsthand witness accounts. They called for Britain to urgently impose sanctions on Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam and the city’s police commissioner.

Hong Kong saw violence at anti-government protests in the past year, as demonstrations against a proposed law that would allow suspects to be extradited to China grew into a much wider protest movement for democratic reform and against alleged police brutality.

Although the extradition bill was later withdrawn, the demonstrations continued for months. Police using tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets to disperse protesters became common occurrences. Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong last month, raising widespread concerns that the Chinese government was cracking down on the anti-government protests.

Hong Kong has long enjoyed civil liberties not seen elsewhere in mainland China because it is governed under a “one country, two systems” principle in place since the former British colony reverted to Chinese rule in 1997.

U.S. military trucks land in Israel to be fitted for Iron Dome defense system

AUG. 3, 2020
By Ed Adamczyk & Daniel Uria

Aug. 3 (UPI) -- U.S. military Oshkosh trucks were delivered to Israel on Monday, to be fitted for the Iron Dome defense weapons system, hours after Raytheon Co. and Israel's Rafael announced a joint venture produce the Israeli system in the United States.

The world's largest cargo plane, an Antonov AN-225, landed at Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport Monday afternoon delivering the trucks that will be fitted with the Iron Dome systems.

The U.S. Army purchased several Iron Dome batteries for testing in 2019.

The Iron Dome system, which has been used successfully by Israel since 2011 to identify and destroy missiles aimed at populated areas, has a 90 percent success rate, according to the companies.

"This will be the first Iron Dome all-up-round facility outside of Israel, and it will help the U.S. Department of Defense and allies across the globe obtain the system for defense of their service members and critical infrastructure," Sam Deneke, vice president of land warfare and air defense business execution at Raytheon, said in a press release.

A site location in the United States will be announced by the end of the year, the companies said.

The system works by tracking incoming short-range projectiles by radar, then analyzes data about the likely impact zone and assesses whether to provide co-ordinates to a missile firing unit to intercept.

The portable system then targets incoming rockets and fires an interceptor missile, typically a Skyhunter missile made in the United States by Raytheon, to destroy the incoming projectile in the air.

The companies claim the system has a 90 percent success rate, with over 2,500 intercepts.

The joint venture was announced days after the United States and Israel also signed an agreement to make the U.S.-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, defensive missile system interoperable with Iron Dome.

"After a virtual meeting with the USAFE-AFAFRICA [U.S. military commands in Europe and Africa], the Israeli Air Force & the U.S.A.F. [U.S. Air Force] signed a document defining the interoperability between the American THAAD missile & the Israeli Iron Dome in case of an emergency in Israel," the Israel Defense Forces said on Twitter on July 30.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2020/08/03/US-military-trucks-land-in-Israel-to-be-fitted-for-Iron-Dome-defense-system/5551596471954/.

Rajapaksa sworn in as PM in Sri Lanka, cementing family rule

August 09, 2020

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s former President Mahinda Rajapaksa was sworn in as the prime minister for the fourth time Sunday after his party secured a landslide victory in parliamentary elections that cemented his family's hold on power.

Rajapaksa took oath before his younger brother, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, at a prominent Buddhist temple on the outskirts of the capital Colombo. Mahinda Rajapaksa served as the island nation’s president from 2005 to 2015 and is highly popular among the ethnic majority Sinhalese for ending the country’s 25-year civil war against Tamil rebels in 2009.

He was first elected prime minister in 2004 and again appointed for brief periods in 2018 and 2019. Sri Lanka People’s Front — the party led by the Rajapaksa brothers — won 145 seats in the 225-member Parliament in the election last Wednesday. Its main opponent obtained only 54 seats. A party representing ethnic minority Tamils won 10 seats, and 16 others were split among 12 small parties.

The victory gave the Rajapaksa brothers nearly the two-third majority of seats required to make constitutional changes that could strengthen dynastic rule in the country. This time, five members of the Rajapaksa family have been elected as lawmakers— Rajapaksa, his son Namal, the eldest brother Chamal and his son Sashindra, and a nephew, Nipuna Ranawaka.

The brothers need 150 seats to be able to change the constitution. At least four small parties collaborate with the Rajapaksas’ party, so they appear to have mustered that support. However, analysts say any attempt by Gotabaya Rajapaksa to push for changes that will strengthen presidential powers at the expense of the prime minister may trigger sibling rivalry.

Sri Lanka had been ruled by powerful executive presidents since 1978. But a 2015 constitutional amendment strengthened Parliament and the prime minister and put independent commissions in charge of judiciary appointments, police, public services and the conduct of elections.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected president last November after projecting himself as the only leader who could secure the country after the Islamic State-inspired bombings of churches and hotels on Easter Sunday that killed 269 people. Since being elected, he has said he had to work under many restrictions because of the constitutional changes.

However, Mahinda Rajapaksa is unlikely to cede any of his powers that might shrink his influence as he works on promoting his son Namal as heir. Namal and three other members of the family are likely to control key functions in the new administration.

The landslide victory also raises fears of weakening government institutions such as independent commissions.

India’s residency law in Kashmir amplifies demographic fears

August 04, 2020

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — For almost a century, no outsider was allowed to buy land and property in Indian-controlled Kashmir. That changed Aug. 5 last year when India's Hindu nationalist government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi stripped the Himalayan state’s semi-autonomous powers and downgraded it to a federally governed territory. It also annulled the long-held hereditary special rights its natives had over the disputed region’s land ownership and jobs.

Since then, India has brought in a slew of changes through new laws. They are often drafted by bureaucrats without any democratic bearings and much to the resentment and anger of the region’s people, many of whom want independence from India or unification with Pakistan.

A year later, things are swiftly changing on the ground. Under a new law, authorities have begun issuing “domicile certificates” to Indians and non-residents, entitling them to residency rights and government jobs. Many Kashmiris view the move as the beginning of settler colonialism aimed at engineering a demographic change in India's only Muslim-majority region.

Amid growing fears, experts are likening the new arrangement to the West Bank or Tibet, with settlers — armed or civilian — living in guarded compounds among disenfranchised locals. They say the changes will reduce the region to a colony.

“Given the history of Indian state intervention in Kashmir, there are efforts to destroy the local, distinctive cultural identity of Kashmiris and forcibly assimilate Kashmiri Muslims into a Hindu, Indian polity,” said Saiba Varma, an assistant professor of cultural and medical anthropology at the University of California, San Diego.

Residency rights were introduced in 1927 by Kashmir’s Hindu king, Hari Singh, to stop the influx of outsiders in the former princely state. Historians say the maharaja brought land ownership rights on the insistence of powerful Kashmiri Hindus. They continued under Indian rule after 1947, as part of Kashmir’s special status.

The new law, introduced in May amid the coronavirus lockdown, makes it possible for any Indian national who has lived in the region for at least 15 years or has studied for seven years and taken certain exams to become a permanent resident in Jammu-Kashmir. The Indian government is ensuring the process is fast-tracked and has introduced a fine of 50,000 rupees ($670) to be deducted from the salary of any official in the territory who delays the process.

Those receiving domicile certificates include Hindu refugees from Pakistan following the 1947 bloody partition of the subcontinent, Gurkha soldiers from Nepal who had served in the Indian army, outside bureaucrats working in the region and some marginalized Hindu communities. Even the natives must apply for residency, otherwise they risk losing government jobs and welfare benefits.

About 400,000 people have been given domicile certificates in over a month, Pawan Kotwal, a top Indian official was quoted on Saturday by The Tribune, a north Indian English-daily. Officials have not not said how many of them are locals and have generally been tight-lipped about the process.

Navin Kumar Choudhary, a senior bureaucrat from eastern Bihar state, was the first high-profile outsider to get residency on June 26. While Kashmiris were aghast as Choudhary's picture displaying the certificate went viral on social media, many in Hindu-majority southern Jammu rejoiced.

Gharu Bhatti, an activist working for the welfare of lower caste Hindus in Jammu, said the law ended their “slavery.” Bhatti’s parents were among some 270 sanitation workers brought by the government to Jammu from neighboring Punjab state in 1957. Since then, their numbers have grown to nearly 7,000, said Bhatti, who is among the first few dozen from his community to get the region’s residency.

“Now our kids have a future. They can be whatever they want to be. We will have choices to make now,” he said. But even some Hindu groups in Jammu have resented the law, expressing fears of job and business losses to outsiders.

Authorities have called the new residency rights an overdue measure to foster greater economic development by opening up the region for outside investments. Girish Chander Murmu, the region’s top administrative official, in late June told reporters that the law was aimed at bringing economic prosperity and dismissed any fears of demographic change as “propaganda.”

Many natives in Kashmir are skeptical of such clarifications and liken them to assurances Indian authorities made prior to the Aug. 5 decision when they said no constitutional changes were planned. Human rights activists, pro-freedom leaders and Kashmiri residents have long feared that giving outsiders the right to buy land and property could further plunge the region into chaos and set in motion a plan to crush the identity of its people.

“We have always been fed lies and deceived by gimmicks of development and democracy by the Indian state,” said Shafat Ahmed Mir, a university student. “As a people, it is the most critical time in our history and we have never faced such an existential threat before.”

Kashmir’s fury at Indian rule has been long seething. The stunning mountain region has known little but conflict since 1947, when British rule of the subcontinent divided the territory between the newly created India and Pakistan.

After a series of political blunders, broken promises and a crackdown on dissent, Kashmiri separatists launched a full-blown armed revolt in 1989, seeking unification with Pakistan or complete independence. India dubbed the armed rebellion terrorism abetted by Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denies.

Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict in the last three decades. Since the early 1950s, Hindu nationalists, including Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, have been advocating a solution in India’s favor by neutralizing Kashmir's Muslim majority inhabitants through settlement of Hindus from other parts of the country.

“The Indian Hindu right-wing wants a demographic solution to Kashmir, but their policies are sowing seeds for a new conflict, possibly one that will lead to unending bloodshed and lead to destabilization of the entire region,” said Mohamad Junaid, a Kashmiri political anthropologist.

The militarization of the region has increased under Modi, and in July the government eased rules for Indian soldiers to acquire land in Kashmir and construct “strategic areas” seen as settlements by the natives.

Kashmir’s oldest and main pro-India political party, the National Conference, slammed the move as a mission for a "major land grab” that could “turn the entire region into a military establishment.” With India allowing outsiders to become residents, many worry such a move could alter the results of a plebiscite if it were to ever take place, even though it was promised under the 1948 United Nations resolutions that gave Kashmir the choice of joining either Pakistan or India.

Kashmiri lawyer Mirza Saaib Beg said the newly drafted residents will acquire rights over the years that can complicate the resolution. “Historical precedent shows that Kashmiri fears are well founded,” said Varma, the anthropologist. The legal changes, she said, are “about a project to annihilate people.”

US response to the virus is met with incredulity abroad

August 09, 2020

ROME (AP) — The United States’ failure to contain the spread of the coronavirus has been met with astonishment and alarm in Europe, as the world’s most powerful country edges closer to a global record of 5 million confirmed infections.

Perhaps nowhere outside the U.S. is America’s bungled virus response viewed with more consternation than in Italy, which was ground zero of Europe's epidemic. Italians were unprepared when the outbreak exploded in February and the country still has one of the world’s highest official death tolls at 35,000.

But after a strict nationwide 10-week lockdown, vigilant tracing of new clusters and general acceptance of mask mandates and social distancing, Italy has become a model of virus containment. “Don’t they care about their health?” a mask-clad Patrizia Antonini asked about people in the United States as she walked with friends along the banks of Lake Bracciano, north of Rome. “They need to take our precautions ... They need a real lockdown."

Much of the incredulity in Europe stems from the fact that America had the benefit of time, European experience and medical know-how to treat the virus that the continent itself didn’t have when the first COVID-19 patients started filling intensive care units. Yet, more than four months into a sustained outbreak, the U.S. is about to hit an astonishing milestone of 5 million confirmed infections, easily the highest in the world. Health officials believe the actual number is closer to 50 million, given testing limitations and the fact that as many as 40% of all cases are asymptomatic.

“We Italians always saw America as a model," said Massimo Franco, columnist with daily Corriere della Sera. “But with this virus we've discovered a country that is very fragile, with bad infrastructure and a public health system that is nonexistent."

Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza hasn’t shied away from criticizing the U.S., officially condemning as “wrong” Washington’s decision to withhold funding from the World Health Organization and marveling personally at President Donald Trump’s virus response.

After Trump finally donned a protective mask last month, Speranza told La7 television: “I’m not surprised by Trump’s behavior now; I’m profoundly surprised by his behavior before." With America’s list-leading 160,000 dead, politicized resistance to masks and rising caseload, European nations have barred American tourists and visitors from other countries with growing cases from freely traveling to the bloc.

France and Germany are now imposing tests on arrival for travelers from “at risk” countries, the U.S. included. “I am very well aware that this impinges on individual freedoms, but I believe that this is a justifiable intervention,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn said in announcing the tests last week.

Mistakes were made in Europe, too, from delayed lockdowns to insufficient protections for nursing home elderly and critical shortages of tests and protective equipment for medical personnel. The virus is still raging in some Balkan countries and thousands of maskless protesters demanded an end to virus restrictions in Berlin earlier this month. Hard-hit Spain, France and Germany have seen infection rebounds with new cases topping 1,000 a day, and Italy's cases inched up over 500 on Friday. The U.K. is still seeing an estimated 3,700 new infections daily, and some scientists say the country’s beloved pubs might have to close again if schools are to reopen in September without causing a new wave.

In the U.S., new cases run at about 54,000 a day — an immensely higher number even when taking into account its larger population. And while that’s down from a peak of well over 70,000 last month, cases are rising in nearly 20 states, and deaths are climbing in most.

In contrast, at least for now Europe appears to have the virus somewhat under control. “Had the medical professionals been allowed to operate in the States, you would have belatedly gotten to a point of getting to grips with this back in March,” said Scott Lucas, professor of international studies at the University of Birmingham, England. “But of course, the medical and public health professionals were not allowed to proceed unchecked,” he said, referring to Trump’s frequent undercutting of his own experts.

When the virus first appeared in the United States, Trump and his supporters quickly dismissed it as either a “hoax” or a virus that would quickly disappear once warmer weather arrived. At one point, Trump suggested that ultraviolet light or injecting disinfectants would eradicate the virus. (He later said he was being facetious).

Trump’s frequent complaints about Dr. Anthony Fauci have regularly made headlines in Europe, where the U.S. infectious diseases expert is a respected eminence grise. Italy's leading COVID-19 hospital offered Fauci a job if Trump fired him.

Trump has defended the U.S. response, blaming China, where the virus was first detected, for America’s problems and saying the U.S. numbers are so high because there is so much testing. Trump supporters and Americans who have refused to wear masks against all medical advice back that line.

‪“There’s no reason to fear any sickness that’s out there,” said Julia Ferjo, a mother of three in Alpine, Texas, who says she is “vehemently” against wearing a mask. ‪Ferjo, 35, teaches fitness classes in a large gym with open doors, where she doesn’t allow participants to wear masks.

‪“When you’re breathing that hard, I would pass out,” she said. “I do not want people just dropping like flies.” And health officials watched with alarm as thousands of bikers gathered Friday in the small South Dakota city of Sturgis for a 10-day motorcycle rally. The state has no mask mandates and many bikers expressed defiance of measures meant to prevent the virus's spread.

Dr. David Ho, director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, who is leading a team seeking treatments for COVID-19, decried such behavior, as well as the country's handling of the virus.

“There’s no national strategy, no national leadership and there’s no urging for the public to act in unison and carry out the measures together," he said. “That’s what it takes and we have completely abandoned that as a nation.”

When he gets on Zoom calls with counterparts from around the globe, “Everyone cannot believe what they’re seeing in the U.S. and they cannot believe the words coming out of the leadership,’’ he said. Even the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has taken the unusual step of criticizing the U.S. when she urged Washington to reconsider its decision to break ties with the WHO. She also issued veiled criticism of U.S. efforts to buy up stocks of any vaccine that might prove effective, vowing the EU will work to provide access to everyone “irrespective of where they live.”

Many Europeans point proudly to their national health care systems that not only test but treat COVID-19 for free, unlike the American system where the virus crisis has only exacerbated income and racial inequalities in accessing health care.

“The coronavirus has brutally stripped bare the vulnerability of a country that has been sliding for years,” wrote Italian author Massimo Gaggi in his new book “Crack America” (Broken America) about U.S. problems that long predated COVID.

Gaggi said he started writing the book last year and thought then that the title would be taken as a provocative wake-up call. Then the virus hit. “By March the title wasn’t a provocation any longer,” he said. “It was obvious.”

Pane reported from Boise, Idaho. AP reporters from around Europe contributed.

France's Saint-Tropez resort makes masks mandatory outdoors

August 08, 2020

SAINT-TROPEZ, France (AP) — The glamorous French Riviera resort of Saint-Tropez began requiring face masks outdoors Saturday, threatening to sober the mood in a place renowned for high-end, free-wheeling summer beach parties.

More French cities and towns, especially in tourist areas, are imposing mask requirements as the country's coronavirus infections creep up again. More than 2,000 new infections were reported on Friday — the country's biggest single-day rise since May.

The uptick corresponds with France’s beloved summer holidays, when vacationers head off in droves, often to the seashore, for festive gatherings with family and friends. As of Saturday, wearing a mask outdoors was also compulsory in some crowded parts of Marseille, France’s second-largest city. Paris is expected to announce similar measures in the coming days. France has already made mask-wearing mandatory in all indoor public spaces nationwide.

In Saint-Tropez's famed resort, a top spot for the international jet set, several restaurants had to reclose for two weeks after some staff tested positive for the virus. Posters warning that masks were mandatory were displayed across the town center on Saturday, including its picturesque port, the open-air farmers market and the narrow streets of the old town lined with chic shops and art galleries.

Georges Giraud, deputy mayor of Saint Tropez, stressed that the order issued by the Var Prefecture will "make it easier because everybody is supposed to wear a mask.” Police were giving masks free to visitors who didn't have one but starting on Monday, those without one risk a fine of 135 euros ($159). The measure does not apply to children under 11.

Marc Rickebuche, a tourist from the northern French city of Lille, said “I think it a good decision to protect yourself and to protect the others to avoid having again a new lockdown at the end of the summer.”

Health authorities on Friday reported 9,330 new infections this week and said the virus is increasingly spreading ‘’especially among young adults.’’ France, which was under a strict two-month lockdown during spring, has reported more than 30,300 deaths from COVID-19 in hospitals and nursing homes. Experts say all reported figures in all countries undercount the true toll of the pandemic due to limited testing, missed mild cases and other factors.

UK medics protest, seeking pay raise after pandemic struggle

August 08, 2020

LONDON (AP) — Hundreds of health care workers rallied in British cities on Saturday, demanding the government acknowledge their hard work during the coronavirus pandemic with a hefty pay increase. In London, demonstrators -- most wearing masks and observing social distancing -- marched to the gates of Downing Street, home to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, chanting, “Boris Johnson, hear us shout. Pay us properly or get out.”

Medics have been hailed as heroes during the pandemic by the government and public. But some say a decade of public spending cuts by Johnson and previous Conservative prime ministers left the state-funded National Health Service struggling to cope.

A placard carried by a protester in Glasgow, Scotland, said “Enough empty praise. (Give us) a fair raise.” Another read: “Who saved you, Boris?” Johnson contracted COVID-19 and spent three nights in intensive care at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London. He later thanked staff there for saving his life.

Nurses, care assistants and junior doctors are angry that they were left out of plans to give an above-inflation pay raise to almost 1 million public sector workers because they have a different contract with the government.

Dave Carr, a critical care nurse at St. Thomas’ Hospital, said working through the outbreak was “the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life and we’re all exhausted.” “We’re on our knees, absolutely on our knees. And on top of it they give 900,000 public sector workers a pay rise — and I haven’t got a problem with that — but they carve us out," he said.

“I’m absolutely fuming. Tired and fuming. We’ve had enough.”

Big jump in Italy's daily new cases driven by travel

August 08, 2020

ROME (AP) — The number of daily new coronavirus infections in Italy jumped 38% higher Friday, with 552 confirmed cases registered compared to the previous day. Italy hadn’t seen a such a high daily new caseload since late May. Barely two weeks ago, Italy had been registering roughly 200 new cases a day.

The northeastern region of Veneto, which performed nearly 16,500 swab tests in a day, registered roughly a third of those new cases — 183. Veneto Gov. Luca Zaia said the new infections were found in residents who recently returned home from Spain, Peru, Malta, Croatia and Greece.

“Vacations are a risk," he said in his daily briefing. “Everyone must decide where they want to go on vacation, but it's also true, that by us, for a couple of weeks now, we're seeing a concentration of patients who were infected on vacation.''

Northern Italy is where Italy's outbreak began in February, and which registered the highest number of cases and deaths throughout the pandemic. But recently, many other clusters of infection have been occurring in central and southern Italy. Most of those cases have been linked to foreigners returning for work at farms or restaurants or hotels or to migrants rescued at sea.

Three more deaths were registered on Friday, raising Italy's confirmed pandemic toll to 35,190. Experts say numbers from all countries are undercounts, due to limited testing, missed cases and other issues.

Italian authorities have also been trying to crack down on night life in tourist spots like the islands of Capri and Ponza or in bar districts in cities including Rome, Milan and Naples. Italy requires masks to be worn outdoors if social distancing can't be maintained. Many outdoor cafes and bars have attracted crowds of young people, most not wearing masks.

The Italian Health Ministry says the average age of infected persons in recent weeks has dropped to 40, compared to about 61 during the early days brunt of the pandemic.

Tests: 2.5% of Italians had COVID-19, far more in the north

August 03, 2020

ROME (AP) — Antibody testing in Italy indicates that nearly 1.5 million people, or about 2.5% of the population, have had the coronavirus. But officials said Monday that huge geographic variations in the results confirmed a nationwide lockdown was “absolutely crucial” to preventing the country's south from getting slammed as badly as its north.

The Health Ministry and the national statistics agency based their assessment on tests performed May 25-July 15 on a sample of nearly 65,000 Italians selected for their location, age and type of work. The government carried out the testing to understand how widely the virus circulated in the first country in the West to be overwhelmed by COVID-19, given that the bulk of confirmed cases and deaths occurred in northern Italy.

The sampling indicated that 1.482 million Italians nationwide had come into contact with the virus and developed an immunological response to it, six times more than Italy’s reported number of confirmed cases, said Linda Laura Sabbadini, a director at the Italian National Institute of Statistics, or ISTAT.

But there were significant geographic disparities: An estimated 7.5% of the Lombardy region's residents had virus antibodies versus 1.9% in neighboring Veneto. Within Lombardy, sharp differences also emerged from province to province: Some 24% of Bergamo residents developed virus antibodies, but only 5.1% of residents did a few provinces over in Pavia.

The variations were even more stark when compared to southern Italy: Only 0.3% of residents in Sicily came into contact with the virus, and less than 1% of residents had virus antibodies in a half-dozen other southern regions.

Dr. Franco Locatelli, a key government adviser on the pandemic, said the geographic variability in the results showed that Italy’s three-month nationwide lockdown was “absolutely crucial to sparing central and southern Italy from the same epidemiological wave that hit the north.”

Italy’s lockdown was among the strictest in Europe, with residents ordered to venture out only for unavoidable work, medical appointments or other necessities such as grocery shopping. The aim was to prevent the health care system in the less-developed south from being overwhelmed, as occurred in prosperous Lombardy. Police checkpoints, fines and cellphone data tracking were used to impress upon Italians the need to stay home.

Locatelli said the results also indicated that 27.3% of the people with the virus experienced no symptoms, demonstrating the need for continued social distancing and mask requirements. He stressed that the tests were not looking at whether the antibodies provided protection against the virus going forward, just the tested individuals had come into contact with the virus.

Numerous countries have also conducted tests to try to determine how many people may have been infected with the virus, including Austria, Germany, Spain, France, and the U.K. Most countries have found prevalence levels of about 5% to 15%.

After starting out as the epicenter of the pandemic in Europe, Italy has largely contained the spread of the virus. For the past few weeks, it has registered some 200-300 new confirmed cases each day, many of them imported by returning workers or migrants. On Monday, it added 159 confirmed cases and another 12 deaths.

The antibody test results also suggest that Italy’s COVID-19 death toll, which stood at 35,166 as of Monday, is in line with an estimated 2.3% mortality rate for the virus globally, Locatelli said. The tests were originally supposed to be conducted on some 150,000 Italians in 2,000 cities and towns nationwide. However, the Red Cross ran into resistance from some Italians who declined to participate since a positive test for antibodies required an automatic quarantine and test to see if they still had the virus.

First students resume class in Germany after corona shutdown

August 03, 2020

BERLIN (AP) — Children returned to school Monday in the northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the first in the country to start the new school year following nationwide shutdowns at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in March.

Federal Education Minister Anja Karliczek has advocated mask requirements inside school buildings. But the school system is largely a matter for the 16 state governments in Germany, and as the state's 152,700 pupils returned to class in cities like Rostock and Schwerin, regional officials had not yet implemented such a rule.

The sparsely populated state has been Germany's least-affected by the pandemic, with 877 positive tests for COVID-19 and 20 virus-related deaths among its 1.6 million residents. In Hamburg, where students return on Thursday, and Berlin, where they return next week, state governments have ordered masks be worn. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's education minister, Bettina Martin, has said she was working on a proposal to require them as well.

“I think it's good that we play it safe,” she said. Since schools largely closed down due to the pandemic in mid-March, parents, teachers and children across the country have been eyeing the reopenings warily as states have grappled with the challenge of how to safely resume in-class learning.

At the height of the pandemic, schools across the country offered some exams and limited classes, combining that with distance learning. A very limited, piecemeal return to classrooms started toward the end of the last school year, but officials are keen to return to something closer to normal now.

As the students in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania return from summer holidays, children are being divided into fixed groups for their classes to compartmentalize any possible outbreak, but are allowed to go mask-free and don't have to respect distancing guidelines, the dpa news agency reported.

Many children voluntarily wore masks on Monday as school began, and several schools implemented their own mask rules and handed them out to children who forgot them. “In these hallways, compulsory masks are the rule,” the head teacher of the Reutershagen high school in Rostock, Jan Bonin, told dpa.

Even in states where masks have been made obligatory, like Berlin, Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg, many have questioned how effective they will be as protection. Even though they will be required in hallways, they are not required in classrooms where the plan is to keep students a safe distance apart.

Administrators have also acknowledged that once the students are off school property, there is little they can do to enforce distancing and hygiene rules. Germany is widely seen as a success story in its efforts to stanch the spread of the pandemic, with a total of about 210,000 cases with some 9,150 deaths, according to the country's disease control center, the Robert Koch Institute.

From a peak of more than 6,000 new daily cases reported in March, the daily figure was brought down to the low hundreds by mid-May, even as the country started reopening shops, restaurants and other parts of the economy. It remains relatively low but has started to tick back up recently, raising concerns that people have grown lax in their precautions.

“Tourism, restaurants and even fitness studios have now long been open without any significant problems,” Martin told Die Welt newspaper. “It's high time to push children's interests to the front.”

Outbreak hits Norway cruise ship, could spread along coast

August 03, 2020

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A Norwegian cruise ship line halted all trips and apologized Monday for procedural errors after a coronavirus outbreak on one ship infected at least 5 passengers and 36 crew. Health authorities fear the ship also could have spread the virus to dozens of towns and villages along Norway's western coast.

The confirmed virus cases from the MS Roald Amundsen raise new questions about safety on all cruise ships during a pandemic even as the devastated cruise ship industry is pressing to resume sailings after chaotically shutting down in March. In response to the outbreak, Norway on Monday closed its ports to cruise ships for two weeks.

The Hurtigruten cruise line was one of the first companies to resume sailing during the pandemic, starting cruises to Norway out of northern Germany in June with a single ship, then adding cruises in July to the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.

The 41 people on the MS Roald Amundsen who tested positive have been admitted to the University Hospital of North Norway in Tromsoe, north of the Arctic Circle, where the ship currently is docked. The cruise line said it suspended the ship and two others — the MS Fridtjof Nansen and the MS Spitsbergen — from operating for an indefinite period.

“A preliminary evaluation shows that there has been a failure in several of our internal procedures,” Hurtigruten CEO Daniel Skjeldam said in a statement. He added the company that sails along Norway's picturesque coast between Bergen in the south and Kirkenes in the north is “now in the process of a full review of all procedures."

It has contacted passengers who had been on the MS Roald Amundsen for its July 17-24 and July 25-31 trips from Bergen to Svalbard, which is known for its polar bears. The ship had 209 guests on the first voyage and 178 on the second. All other crew members tested negative.

But since the cruise line often acts like a local ferry, traveling from port to port along Norway's western coast, the virus may not have been contained onboard. Some passengers disembarked along the route and may have spread the virus to their local communities.

A total of 69 municipalities in Norway could have been affected, Norwegian news agency NTB reported. Officials in the northern city of Tromsoe are urging anyone who traveled on the ship or had any contact with it to get in touch with health authorities.

Police in Norway are opening an investigation to find out whether any laws had been broken. It's not yet clear how the MS Roald Amundsen outbreak began. NTB reported that 33 of the infected crew members came from the Philippines and the others were from Norway, France and Germany. The passengers were from all over the world.

Skjeldam said cruise ship officials did not know they should have notified passengers after the first infection was reported Friday, adding that they followed the advice of the ship’s doctors. But Line Vold of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health said its advice was to inform passengers and crew as soon as possible so they could monitor their health and go into quarantine or isolation, if needed.

“We have made mistakes. On behalf of all of us in Hurtigruten, I am sorry for what has happened. We take full responsibility,” Skjeldam said. The Norwegian government announced Monday it was tightening the rules for cruise ships by banning ships with more than 100 passengers from docking in Norwegian harbors and disembarking passengers and crew for two weeks. The ban does not apply to ferries.

Health Minister Bent Hoeie said the situation on the Hurtigruten ship prompted the decision. In Italy, the Costa Crociere cruise ship line said three crew members from two ships in Civitavecchia, near Rome, have tested positive for the coronavirus. The cruise company said two assigned to the Costa Deliziosa were hospitalized and a third, assigned to the Costa Favolosa, was in isolation on the ship.

The Italian cruise company, which is part of Carnival Corp. said the crews of both ships were being screened ‘’in view of the possible relaunch of our cruises, as soon as the government gives the authorization.’’ The Cabinet was to meet on the matter Sunday.

Costa Crociere said that all crew members were tested for the virus before leaving their countries, then undergo a second test once they arrive in Italy, after which they are put under a two-week monitoring period.

In the South Pacific, some 340 passengers and crew were confined on a cruise ship in Tahiti on Monday after one traveler tested positive for the virus. The commissariat for French Polynesia said all those aboard the Paul Gauguin cruise ship are being tested and will be kept in their cabins pending the results.

The South Pacific archipelago started reopening to tourists last month, with a requirement that all visitors get tested before arriving and re-tested four days later. Cruise lines stopped sailing in mid-March after several high-profile coronavirus outbreaks at sea. More than 710 people fell ill aboard Carnival's Diamond Princess cruise ship while it was quarantined off Japan and 13 people died.

The Cruise Lines International Association, which represents more than 50 companies and 95% of global cruise capacity, said the resumption of cruises has been extremely limited so far. The voyages taking place must have approval from and follow the requirements of national governments, it said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control is not allowing cruise ships in U.S. waters at least through September. The industry association said it is still developing COVID-19-control procedures based on advice from governments and medical experts and once they are finalized, member companies will be required to adopt them.

A German cruise ship last week set sail from Hamburg, testing procedures for how cruise ships can operate safely during the pandemic. The ship sailed with less than 50% capacity and only went on a four-day trip at sea with no stops at other ports.

Colleen Barry in Milan, Angela Charlton in Paris and Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit contributed to this report.