Russian ships move to resume Baltic pipeline construction

December 05, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian pipe-laying ship sailed into position Saturday to resume construction of a German-Russian gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea that the United States has vehemently opposed. The Akademik Cherskiy vessel reached the area off the coast of Poland where a section of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline remains uncompleted, according to ship monitoring data. Another Russian pipe-laying ship, Fortuna, sailed off from the German port of Wismar, apparently heading to a different location where another pipeline section is to be built.

The maneuvers followed Russia pledging to complete the pipeline despite the threat of U.S. sanctions. Russia's state-controlled natural gas company Gazprom has moved to finish construction of the multibillion Baltic Sea pipeline with its own resources after a Swiss company doing the building work at sea opted out of the project a year ago under the threat of U.S. sanctions.

Gazprom had to send the Akademik Cherskiy on a long voyage from the port of Nakhodka on Russia's Pacific coast to the Baltics. The vessel has been moving between various Baltic ports since May as the Nord Stream 2 construction plans were thrown into uncertainty by the sanctions threat.

The U.S. has argued that the Nord Stream 2 would erode European energy security at a time when Russia-West relations have sank to post-Cold War lows due to crises such as Moscow's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea.

The Kremlin has countered by accusing Washington of trying to derail the project in a bid to force European customers to purchase U.S. liquefied natural gas instead of the cheaper Russian natural gas.

Moscow opens dozens of coronavirus vaccination centers

December 05, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — Thousands of doctors, teachers and others in high-risk groups have signed up for COVID-19 vaccinations in Moscow starting Saturday, a precursor to a sweeping Russia-wide immunization effort.

The vaccinations come three days after President Vladimir Putin ordered the launch of a “large-scale” COVID-19 immunization campaign even though a Russian-designed vaccine has yet to complete the advanced studies needed to ensure its effectiveness and safety in line with established scientific protocols.

The Russian leader said Wednesday that more than 2 million doses of the Sputnik V jab will be available in the next few days, allowing authorities to offer jabs to medical workers and teachers across the country starting late next week.

Moscow, which currently accounts for about a quarter of the country's new daily infections, moved ahead of the curve, opening 70 vaccination facilities on Saturday. Doctors, teachers and municipal workers were invited to book a time to receive a jab, and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that about 5,000 signed up in a few hours after the system began operating on Friday.

Russia boasted that Sputnik V was the world’s “first registered COVID-19 vaccine” after the government gave it regulatory approval in early August. The move drew criticism from international experts, who pointed out that the vaccine had only been tested on several dozen people at the time.

Putin has shrugged off doubts about it, saying in August that one of his daughters was among the early vaccine recipients. Over the past months, Sputnik V has been offered to medical workers and teachers even as it was still in the middle of advanced trials. Several top officials said they also have received the jabs, and earlier this week the Russian military began vaccinating crews of navy ships scheduled to depart on a mission.

Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said Wednesday that more than 100,000 people in Russia already have received the shots. The free vaccine is offered to people aged 18 to 60 who don’t suffer from chronic illnesses and aren’t pregnant or breastfeeding.

The two-shot Sputnik V was developed by the Moscow-based Gamaleya Institute. An advanced study among 40,000 volunteers was announced two weeks after the vaccine received government approval and that is still ongoing.

Last month, developers of the vaccine said interim analysis of trial data showed it was 91.4% effective. The conclusion was based on 39 infections among 18,794 study participants that received both doses of either the vaccine or a placebo, which is a much lower number of infections than Western drugmakers have looked at when assessing the effectiveness of their vaccines. Two other Russia-designed vaccines are also undergoing tests.

On Wednesday, Britain became the first country in the West to authorize the use of a vaccine against the coronavirus developed by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech. Russia has been swept with a resurgence of the outbreak this fall, with numbers of new infections exceeding the levels recorded early in the pandemic, but the authorities so far have refrained from a tight lockdown imposed in the spring.

On Saturday, Russia reported a new record high of daily infections at 28,782, including 7,993 in Moscow. The government task force has recorded a total of 42,684 virus-related deaths since the start of the outbreak.

Russia’s total of over 2.4 million confirmed cases is currently the fourth-largest caseload in the world behind the United States, India and Brazil.

Russia's health system under strain as the virus surges back

November 22, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — When Yekaterina Kobzeva, a nurse at a preschool in Russia’s Ural Mountains, began having trouble breathing, she called an ambulance. It was four days before she managed to find a free hospital bed.

The ambulance first took her to get a scan — which showed damage from pneumonia to 50% of her lungs, an indication she had coronavirus. The paramedics then drove her around the city of Perm and its surroundings for hours as seven hospitals, one by one, turned her down, saying they didn’t have any beds available. At dawn, she went home.

The journey took her through “circles of hell,” Kobzeva, 60, recalled in an interview with The Associated Press by phone from a hospital, where doctors confirmed she had the virus. She was only admitted there days after her first attempt — and after her story made local headlines.

Russia’s health care system, vast yet underfunded, has been under significant strains in recent weeks, as the pandemic surges again and daily infections and virus death regularly break records. Across the country, 81% of hospital beds that have been set aside for coronavirus patients were full as of Wednesday. Three times last week, the Russian government reported a record number of daily deaths, and the number of daily new infections per 100,000 people has more than doubled since Oct. 1, from 6 to over 15. Overall, Russia has recorded over 2 million cases and over 35,000 deaths, but experts say all numbers worldwide understate the true toll of the pandemic.

Reports in Russian media have painted a bleak picture in recent weeks. Hospital corridors are filled with patients on gurneys and even the floor. Bodies in black plastic bags were seen piling up on the floors of a morgue. Long lines of ambulances wait at hospitals while pharmacies put up signs listing the drugs they no longer have in stock.

Russian authorities have acknowledged problems in the health system. President Vladimir Putin even urged regional officials not to paper over the situation, saying that “feigning the impression that everything is perfectly normal is absolutely unacceptable.”

Yet Russian authorities continue to insist there's no need for a nationwide lockdown or widespread closures of businesses, instead urging people to observe the measures ordered by regional governments.

But in most regions, those measures don’t go beyond mask mandates, limiting the hours of bars and restaurants, ordering the elderly to self-isolate, forbidding mass public events and requiring employers to have some staff work from home. Health experts say the moves are clearly not enough.

Paramedic Dmitry Seryogin says Kobzeva's experience is not unusual. In the southwestern Oryol region where he works, patients can wait for up to 12 hours for an ambulance and then might spend five more in it, looking for a hospital bed. Those who happen to arrive when others are being discharged get lucky, he told the AP, but the rest are sent home.

While the Perm region, where Kobzeva sought treatment, was among the top 20 of more than 80 Russian regions in terms of daily new infections last week, Oryol ranked somewhere in the middle. Still, 95% of hospital beds slated for coronavirus patients there were full last week, reflecting the pressure on a system crippled by widely criticized reforms that sought to cut state spending.

“We’re witnessing simply a collapse of the health care system in the region,” Seryogin said. “It is absolutely not coping.” A partial six-week coronavirus lockdown in March only added to long-brewing public frustrations over Russia's already weakened economy. Soon after that, Putin delegated the powers to impose virus-related restrictions to regional governors. Critics saw the move as an effort to inoculate himself from any more fallout over the pandemic.

During the fall resurgence of the virus, the Kremlin has consistently pointed fingers at regional governors. “Colleagues, you have received broad powers for implementing anti-pandemic measures. And nobody has relieved you of personal responsibility for the adopted measures — I really do hope that they were adopted on time,” Putin reminded the governors last week.

But just like the Kremlin, governments in the vast majority of Russian regions have been loath to shut businesses or impose lockdowns. The only exception has been the Siberian republic of Buryatia, where last week the region’s governor ordered cafes, restaurants, bars, malls, cinemas, beauty parlors and saunas to shut down for two weeks.

Regional governors find themselves in an impossible position, explained political analyst Abbas Gallyamov. They face public frustration if they don’t impose tough restrictions and the outbreak continues to rage, and they face it if they do because they don’t have the funds to ease the pain of closures.

“All the finances have been long centralized, and the regions don’t have spare money,” Gallyamov said. “So de jure, a governor’s hands are untied, but de facto they’re still tied because they don’t have the money to impose a lockdown and compensate people for their financial losses.”

In addition, Putin has so thoroughly centralized power that regional governors are not used to acting independently, noted Judy Twigg, a professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, specializing in global health.

In the meantime, many Russian regions are buckling under the growing tide of patients. In Buryatia, the Siberian republic that has imposed the country's strictest measures, Dr. Tatyana Symbelova told the AP that as the number of patients rose, her hospital kept adding beds — “in the corridor, in the outpatient ward next door” — but “the situation, still, grew worse and worse.”

Symbelova, the chief doctor at Republican Infectious Disease Hospital in Ulan-Ude, and her colleagues are now taking patients whose condition was “severe or of moderate severity” and turning down those with milder cases. A new coronavirus ward with 180 beds opened last week in the city, and she hopes that and the shutdown will help.

But in the meantime, she is worried. “Such risks we're taking! Telling patients (with milder cases) they can go and treat themselves at home, when they may come in three days later with their lips blue," Symbelova said. "We’re very seriously choking.”

Moscow office of Navalny's organization searched during raid

November 05, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian bailiffs raided the offices of opposition leader Alexei Navalny's organization Thursday while the politician is still recovering in Germany from a nearly fatal poisoning. Navalny's associates linked the move to a court ruling that obliged his Anti-Corruption Foundation to pay damages to a school catering company reportedly linked to a tycoon with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Navalny, an anti-corruption investigator and Putin’s most visible and determined opponent, fell ill on Aug. 20 during a domestic flight in Russia and was flown to Germany two days later. He is still recovering there.

Tests conducted at labs designated by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed that the poison used on Navalny was a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent. Navalny asserted that his poisoning only could have been ordered by spymasters who wouldn’t have made such decisions without Putin’s personal involvement - claims the Kremlin has vehemently rejected.

The Russian hospital that first treated Navalny said it found no evidence he was poisoned. Russian authorities have said they conducted a preliminary investigation but argued that they needed proof of poisoning to launch a full-fledged criminal inquiry and lamented Germany's refusal to share the materials.

Russia FM: 2,000 Mideast militants fight in Nagorno-Karabakh

November 03, 2020

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Russia's top diplomat said Tuesday that about 2,000 fighters from the Middle East have joined the fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, the worst outbreak of hostilities in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in more than a quarter-century.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's statement came as the warring parties traded accusations over new attacks in the region. “We are certainly worried about the internationalization of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the involvement of militants from the Middle East,” Lavrov said in an interview with the Russian business daily Kommersant. “We have repeatedly asked foreign players to use their potential to stop the transfer of militants, whose number in the conflict zone is approaching 2,000.”

Lavrov added that Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the issue in last week's phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a war there ended in 1994. The latest outburst of hostilities began Sept. 27 and has left hundreds — perhaps thousands — dead, marking the worst escalation of fighting since the war’s end.

Azerbaijan has relied on strong support from its ally Turkey, which has trained Azerbaijani military and provided it with strike drones and long-range rocket systems. Armenian officials accuse Turkey of being directly involved in the conflict and sending mercenaries from Syria to fight on Azerbaijan’s side.

Turkey has denied deploying combatants to the region, but a Syrian war monitor and Syria-based opposition activists have confirmed that Turkey has sent hundreds of Syrian opposition fighters to fight in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The heavy fighting involving heavy artillery, rockets and drones has raged despite repeated international attempts to end hostilities. A U.S.-brokered truce frayed immediately after it took effect last week, just like two previous cease-fires negotiated by Russia, and the latest pledge by Armenia and Azerbaijan not to target residential areas was broken hours after it was made Friday. The warring sides have repeatedly blamed each other for violations.

Artillery fire hit the region's capital Stepanakert on Tuesday night and Nagorno-Karabakh emergencies ministry also said three rockets hit the strategically key city of Shushi. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has insisted that Azerbaijan has the right to reclaim its territory by force after three decades of fruitless international mediation. He said that Armenia must pledge to withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh as a condition for a lasting truce.

Azerbaijani troops have reclaimed control of several regions on the fringes of Nagorno-Karabakh and pressed their offensive into the separatist territory from the south, trying to cut a link between the separatist territory and Armenia.

Lavrov said that Russia was continuing to push for hostilities to end, noting that it's working on a set of verification measures needed to achieve a lasting cease-fire, including the possible deployment of international observers under the aegis of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, and Aida Sultanova in London, contributed to this report.

Russian strikes kill dozens of Turkey-backed rebels in Syria's Idlib

Oct 26, 2020

Dozens of rebel fighters are dead following suspected Russian airstrikes on a training camp in northwest Syria Monday, activists and war monitors said.

As many as 100 others were reportedly injured when warplanes targeted a training base run by Failaq al-Sham, one of the main rebel groups backed by Turkey in the country’s civil war.

Failaq al-Sham operates in Idlib province, one of the last pockets of territory still in the hands of the opposition. Its training camp in the town of Kafr Takharim is about six miles (10 kilometers) from the Turkish border.

Capt. Naji Mustafa, a spokesperson for an umbrella group of Turkey-backed fighters known as the National Liberation Front, condemned what he called a Russian “provocation.”

“The raid is a clear and ongoing violation" of the truce agreed to by Russia, he told Al-Monitor in a statement on Monday, warning the rebels will take “revenge for our martyrs.”

The attack is among the deadliest since a cease-fire came into force last March, bringing an end to an 11-month government offensive on the region that killed more than 1,600 civilians and displaced over 1 million, according to the United Nations. Rights groups accused the regime and its main ally, Russia, of carrying out disproportionate and deliberate attacks against civilians in an effort to retake the rebel territory.

The March 5 truce was brokered by Moscow and Ankara, which back opposing sides in Syria's civil war. The deal managed to stem the flow of displaced civilians rushing to Turkey’s doorstep, but at the same time locked in the territorial gains made by Syrian government forces during their brutal offensive.

The attack on Failaq al-Sham comes on the heels of an American drone strike last week that targeted a meeting of suspected al-Qaeda senior leaders in Idlib.  The northwest enclave is home to a number of moderate rebel groups but is dominated by the hard-line Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. The al-Qaeda-linked group Hurras al-Deen also holds sway in the region.

Source: al-Monitor.

Link: https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/10/idlib-russia-airstrike-failaq-al-sham-rebels-syria-turkey.html.

Police detain protesters in Russian city of Khabarovsk

October 10, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — Police in a far eastern Russian city detained several dozen protesters on Saturday, the first such crackdown since rallies against the arrest of the provincial governor started three months ago.

Khabarovsk Gov. Sergei Furgal was arrested on July 9 on suspicion of involvement in murders and taken to jail in Moscow. Furgal, a former businessman, denied the charges, which his supporters say are a vendetta by his rivals.

Since his arrest thousands of demonstrators have regularly rallied in Khabarovsk, a city of 600,000 near the border with China, with attendance peaking on weekends. They protested Furgal's jailing and demanded that his trial is held in the city.

The protests are a strong challenge to the Russian government, which usually doesn't hesitate to disperse unsanctioned demonstrations. The authorities' reluctance to use force appeared to reflect concerns of provoking even wider discontent as well as hopes that the demonstrations will eventually fizzle.

But the regular demonstrations in Khabarovsk have continued, and their participants have increasingly adopted a broader agenda challenging President Vladimir Putin's rule. On Saturday, police didn’t intervene while thousands of protesters marched across the city, but later detained about 30 demonstrators when they set up tents on Khabarovsk’s central square.

For the Russian authorities, any such encampments are a reminder of massive protests that toppled Ukraine’s former Moscow’s friendly leader in 2014. The Kremlin responded by annexing Ukraine’s Crimea and supporting a separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine, the actions that triggered Western sanctions.

As the evening fell Saturday, several hundred protesters again gathered on Khabarovsk’s central square. Police warned them that the demonstration wasn’t authorized and they could be dispersed but didn’t immediately move to break up the rally.

How Erdogan and Putin spectacularly fell out

Ragip Soylu

5 October 2020

"Russia is, of course, a strategic partner. How many hours would it take for you to travel to Washington? How long would it take to go to Moscow?” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked me almost two years ago in a gathering. “We have joint strategic investments, from pipelines to nuclear reactors. We have joint interests in the defense industry, increasing bilateral trade and tourism, so on and so forth.”

Back then marked a high point in relations between Erdogan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. They enjoyed frequent phone calls to shape a strategy for both countries. At one point, they reached a level of trust in which Putin would personally present special reports to Erdogan, for his eyes only.

It wasn’t unusual for Turkey and Russia to enjoy friendly relations, as they had a tendency for decades to “agree to disagree” on many issues. But the burgeoning relationship between Erdogan and Putin was exceptional, especially considering that they had been at each other’s throats in 2015 after Turkey downed a Russian jet.

Erdogan was disillusioned with the West and looking for a more independent foreign policy after the 2016 coup attempt, which he was certain was backed by the West. With Putin, Erdogan had joint interests, such as the Syria crisis, where both countries were leveraging their militaries to restrict the US presence in support of Syrian Kurds. Moscow was working to save the Syrian regime while gradually seizing control of territory, and the US had been an obstacle.

For Ankara, the US-backed Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was an existential threat along its border, and it was clear that Syria’s opposition was no longer in a position to win the civil war. A new strategy was needed to keep the refugee crisis at bay, while preventing the emergence of a “PKK state” along the entire northern border.

Erdogan was enjoying his “friendship” with Putin because he felt that, unlike US presidents and officials, the Russian leader was honoring his promises and delivering in many areas, from the controversial S-400 missile defense system sale to pipeline projects.

Fast forward to today, and Turkey is now embroiled in a regional struggle against Russia in three separate countries, stretching from North Africa to the Middle East and the Caucasus. Turkish armed drones have been destroying Russian-made air defense systems, as exposed in footage ridiculing the Russian technology across all three conflict zones.

The erosion of trust between Erdogan and Putin has played an important role in turning the two countries against each other.

Libya crisis

The first cracks in the bilateral relationship began to surface in January, when Putin failed to deliver a promised ceasefire in Libya. Renegade general Khalifa Haftar abruptly left the summit in Moscow after Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) agreed to a deal, yet Putin continued to militarily support him to protect his own footing in the country.

An angry Erdogan later told the media that Russia was actually leading Haftar’s forces by deploying Wagner Group mercenaries on the ground. As GNA-aligned forces earlier this year ended a siege imposed on Tripoli by Haftar, Putin was busy deploying more warplanes and Syrian mercenaries in an effort to hold onto the oil-rich Sirte.

But the relationship between Putin and Erdogan really went south after the Syria crisis intensified in February. The Syrian regime and its Russian backers ended the fragile ceasefire preserving the last opposition bastion in Idlib, after Putin realized that he had already achieved his aims in Syria last year. The deal he had with Erdogan effectively expired last October, when Turkey launched operations to clear a large chunk of Syrian land of Syrian Kurdish militia fighters.

In response, US President Donald Trump ordered the withdrawal of American forces from northern Syria, effectively ceding the territory to Russian control. With that, Turkey lost its main leverage with Russia. Putin no longer needed Turkey to balance the US presence in Syria, because Washington was already headed out the door.

Idlib escalation

Russia continued to heat things up in Idlib, with occasional attacks aiming to seize additional territory and to remove the last opposition bastion. As Syrian and Russian attacks on Idlib escalated in March, Turkish observation posts began to be reinforced by Ankara's allied forces.

As the fighting progressed, Erdogan phoned Putin, to no avail. As Erdogan pushed for a halt to the offensive, Putin maintained his position that the Syrian military was conducting a counterterrorism operation, as Ankara had failed to kick radical elements, such as Ha'yat Tahrir al-Sham, out of Idlib.

Erdogan threatened a military response to recapture lost territory. The phone calls were tense. Neither side was backing down, and for the first time, Putin wasn’t blinking. A Russian delegation that visited Ankara in the ensuing days even asked Turkish officials to withdraw from Afrin, effectively threatening the control that Turkey established along the northern border. 

The conflict in February and March ultimately led to the deaths of more than 59 Turkish soldiers. In one case, Turkish officials believe that a Russian air force attack was directly responsible for killing dozens of Turkish soldiers.

Erdogan stood his ground, but called off a counteroffensive amid increasing concerns over the Covid-19 pandemic in Turkey. He realized that Putin didn’t care about Ankara’s main concerns over a humanitarian crisis and refugee wave to Turkey. He has since courted Washington, suspending activation of the S-400 systems and issuing special export exemptions to ship much-needed ventilator parts and other medical equipment to the US.

Changing the equilibrium

Now, Erdogan and Putin hardly talk to each other. Russian diplomats and their Turkish counterparts rarely reach an understanding, let alone an agreement, on any issue.

But Erdogan’s adventurism in Syria and Libya has earned the Turkish military a skill set it never had before. The use of armed drones and proxies backed by Turkish military capabilities have changed the equilibrium in Idlib and on the battlefields of Libya.

That’s why Turkey has been more vocal and directly engaged in the latest Armenian and Azerbaijani clashes over occupied Karabakh. This time, Erdogan didn’t back down when Baku asked for help. Ankara appears more confident in its overseas operations as Erdogan grows more agitated by Putin’s moves against Turkish interests.

Erdogan finally saw the Russian bear in Putin, and he is now moving accordingly, worrying Moscow - because he believes Russia doesn’t care about Turkish interests anymore.

Source: Middle East Eye.

Link: https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/erdogan-finally-discovers-russian-bear-putin.

Lack of critical technology restricts India's anti-satellite capabilities: IAF Vice Chief

by Rajesh Kumar

New Delhi (Sputnik)

Sep 08, 2021

In 2019, India successfully carried out an anti-satellite (ASAT) test in which a ballistic missile defense interceptor destroyed a state-owned Microsat-R satellite in a flight that lasted just over half a minute.

Two years after the government dubbed the ASAT test a success, Air Marshal Vivek Ram Chaudhari, Vice Chief of the Indian Air Force (IAF), divulged that the country lacks the indigenous technical capability to observe, track and identify non-allied objects in orbit. He acknowledged that there remains a wide gap in capability development for the nation's military satellite applications.

The vice chief said that space has become a playground for the world's best minds to continue evolving and breaking new ground. He has advised the country's defense research unit and space agency to integrate their existing capabilities into the air surveillance feature.

"The Air Force is aiming to expand its footprint in space exploration, in partnership with ISRO. The Kargil war [against Pakistan in 1999] served as a trigger for having additional satellites to enhance our operations. In recent times, increased focus on military space application has been one of the accelerating key factors," he said on Tuesday in New Delhi. The ISRO will launch five more satellites for the armed forces in the coming months, according to reports. Presently, Indian armed forces are said to have eight dedicated military satellites.

Observing that the ability to use aircraft as launch platforms may well be the future, Chaudhari said that space tech capabilities have become a crucial component for the IAF's military operations. "Our strategy is to fully integrate air and space capabilities to have a common operating picture in the aerospace medium," he emphasized.

India had conducted an ASAT test with a relatively small craft in comparison to communication satellites, with a surface area of some two square meters and at a low velocity. With the test, India joined a short list of countries-China, the United States, and Russia-that have demonstrated the space capability.

Source: Space War.

Link: https://www.spacewar.com/reports/Lack_of_critical_technology_restricts_Indias_anti_satellite_capabilities_IAF_Vice_Chief_999.html.

Egypt establishes largest coronavirus vaccine factory in Middle East

September 10, 2021

Egypt is getting ready to open a large factory to produce coronavirus vaccines, at a time when the country is seeing a modest uptick in cases and inoculation rates remain low.

In cooperation with major international companies in the field of vaccines, Egypt is set to inaugurate the VACSERA factory complex in the 6th of October City, a suburb of Cairo, to produce various types of vaccines, including the seasonal influenza vaccine, pneumococcal vaccine and polio vaccine.

Egypt recorded 368 new cases of the coronavirus on Sept. 6, with the daily average over the preceding seven days standing at 319 cases. While this marks a slight increase from infections in July, it still remains well below the pandemic’s peak in the country in the summer of 2020, when cases were averaging over 1,500 per day.

Meanwhile, Egypt has seen a slow rollout of vaccinations. About 10.4 million doses have been administered so far, enough to inoculate just over 5% of the country’s 100 million plus population.

In July, Egypt started manufacturing the first batch of serum — 1 million doses — at the factory of  VACSERA Holding Company for Biological Products and Vaccines, in the Agouza neighborhood of Cairo, under the name "VACSERA-Sinovac made in Egypt."

On Aug. 30, Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly inspected the factory complex to check on the preparations for the start of the vaccine production in the coming period.

He was accompanied by Minister of Health and Population Hala Zayed, Giza Gov. Ahmed Rashid and a number of leaders and officials of the Ministry of Health and the VACSERA factory complex.

During the tour, Zayed said that a coronavirus vaccine factory has been established on an area of ​​about 6,000 square meters (1.5 acres) to produce vaccines within the VACSERA factory complex, which extends over a total area of ​​60,000 square meters (15 acres). The vaccine factory is expected to start operating later this year.

The minister also explained that the production capacity of the factory will be 24,000 packages per hour. She said it is expected to be the largest vaccine production factory in the Middle East and Africa and a regional center for the manufacture and export of vaccines to African countries, thus localizing the vaccine industry on the African continent.

Asked about the vision of the VACSERA factory complex in the 6th of October City, Zayed said that it aims to produce various types of vaccines in cooperation with major international companies in this field.

On Aug. 23, the VACSERA-Sinovac vaccine obtained an emergency use license from Egypt’s Drug Authority, as it meets the global rules and references followed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to assess the safety, quality and effectiveness of vaccines and to confirm the sustainability of their availability.

Amjad al-Haddad, head of the Allergy and Immunology Department at the Serum and Vaccine Authority, told Al-Monitor over the phone that the main goal behind the local manufacture of the vaccine is to achieve what can be called Egyptian pharmaceutical security in the face of the coronavirus, which is still spreading through mutations.

Khaled Mujahid, assistant minister of health and population for media and awareness, and the official spokesman for the ministry, told Al-Monitor that based on the latest data for Egypt until Sept. 5, the total number of COVID-19 cases was 290,027, including 241,964 cases that have been cured, and 16,789 deaths.

However, he noted that studies and research confirm that this virus requires periodic vaccinations, thus proving the state’s need to secure a strategic stockpile of vaccines to cover the needs of Egyptian citizens.

Haddad said that this step undoubtedly exemplifies the Egyptian state’s keenness to preserve the health of Egyptians by meeting local needs and exporting the surplus.

He stressed that accelerating the pace of vaccinations in Egypt will protect the country against any regression waves as far the virus is concerned, which is the goal that the international community is striving to achieve, especially considering that the virus is mutating.

Ensuring the presence of vaccines, he added that it is also a guarantee that no new variants of the virus will appear if the entire population is vaccinated.

The chairwoman of the Board of Directors of the Holding Company for Biological Products and Vaccines (VACSERA), Heba Wali, told Al-Monitor over the phone that the vaccine factory includes ​​laboratories to monitor the production quality, with eight central laboratories equipped with the latest equipment to measure the stability and test the safety of the final product and the manufacturing inputs according to the standards recommended by the WHO.

The factory, she said, also includes refrigerators for preserving the vaccine in its various stages, starting from the raw materials to the final product, and the storage capacity in these cooling units reaches 150 million doses.

These refrigerators, she noted, are equipped in accordance with the international standards for preserving vaccines, as well as an electronic monitor to ensure safe storage.

Wali said that the two VACSERA factories were equipped and rehabilitated at a cost of 785 million Egyptian pounds ($50 million).

She said that the VACSERA factory in Agouza produces 300,000 doses of vaccine in one work cycle, which is roughly 60 days. The VACSERA factory’s annual production capacity is expected to reach 110 million to 220 million doses.

The factory, she concluded, is scheduled to produce during the next six months about 80 million doses in cooperation with the Chinese Sinovac.

Source: al-Monitor.

Link: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/09/egypt-establishes-largest-coronavirus-vaccine-factory-middle-east.

Citing high shot rates, Danes end COVID-19 restriction

September 10, 2021

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — After 548 days with restrictions to limit the spread of COVID-19, Denmark's high vaccination rate has enabled the Scandinavian country to become one of the first European Union nations to lift all domestic restrictions.

The return to normality has been gradual, but as of Friday, the digital pass — a proof of having been vaccinated — is no longer required when entering night clubs, making it the last virus safeguard to fall.

More than 80% of people above the age of 12 have had the two shots. “I wouldn’t say it is too early. We have opened the door but we have also said that we can close it if needed,” Soeren Riis Paludan, a professor of virology with the Aarhus University in Denmark’s second largest city, told The Associated Press.

As of midnight, the Danish government no longer considers COVID-19 “a socially critical disease.” Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said Aug. 27 that “the epidemic is under control” but warned: “we are not out of the epidemic” and the government will act as needed if necessary.

Jens Lundgren, a professor of viral diseases at the Copenhagen University Hospital said the government would be “quite willing" to reintroduce restrictions if infections spike again. He pointed at night clubs being the last thing to open because “it is the activity associated with the highest risk of transmission.”

“The world is in the middle of a pandemic and none of us can claim that we are beyond the pandemic,” said Lundgren who described Denmark as being “an isolated island” where the vaccine rollout has worked.

“Nobody should have the illusion that we are over this.” The tipping point in Denmark to start easing restrictions came when a majority in the age group of 50+ had the two shots, Riis Paludan said. Since Aug. 14, a face mask on public transportation is no longer mandatory. On Sept. 1, night clubs reopened, limits on public gatherings were removed and it was no longer mandatory to show the pass when one wanted to be seated inside restaurants, or go to soccer games, fitness centers or hairdresser.

However, the face mask or shield are still mandatory at airports and people are advised to wear one when at the doctor's, test centers or hospitals. Distancing is still recommended and strict entry restrictions still apply for non Danes at the borders. The outbreak is still considered “an ordinary dangerous illness.”

“The ghost of corona sits in the back of our head,” said Frank Oestergaard, a patron in a downtown Copenhagen restaurant. After more than a year, several European countries are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but with caveats. Some have lifted restrictions but will introduce a vaccination passport. Others expect to do so soon. And in some places, there are few restrictions and they are not respected.

On July 19, the British government lifted remaining legal restrictions for England, though it still plans to introduce a vaccination passport for entry into nightclubs and other crowded venues at the end of September.

In Denmark's neighbor Sweden, which has stood out among European nations for its comparatively hands-off response to the pandemic, the government said earlier this month that most restrictions, including the ceiling for private and public gatherings and the advice to work from home, will be removed as of Sept. 29.

The Scandinavian country has not gone into lockdowns or closed businesses, relying instead on citizens’ sense of civic duty to control infection. According to official figures, 70% of people over the age of 15 have gotten both shots and nearly 82 % have received the first shot.

And despite a surge, most of the Balkan countries practically have no restrictions, and those which are in place are not respected. In late May, the Danish government presented the passport app featuring a QR code and a green bar if the person has been vaccinated twice or recently tested negative. A paper version also was available. People either had to scan the code or flash it before entering an airport, a harbor, a train station, a hairdresser or an eatery.

While in many European countries there were pockets of resistance such passes, people used it all the time in Denmark because people trust authorities, Riis Paludan said. Armed with their pass, people were able to get a haircut, have a drink with friends or attend a cultural event. “It was getting one’s freedom back instead of having to sit at home in isolation,” laughed Oestergaard.

“I think it’s very good, so hopefully we can get back to a normal day in the restaurant business without checking people and just no restrictions whatsoever. That’s nice,” said cafe owner Ralph Marker.

N. Macedonia: 12 patients among 14 dead in COVID unit blaze

September 10, 2021

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — Forensic experts have identified the 14 victims of a fire in a COVID-19 field hospital in North Macedonia as 12 patients and two visiting relatives, authorities said Friday.

The fire broke out late Wednesday in the western town of Tetovo, destroying the facility within a few minutes. Twelve people were also injured. The blaze is believed to have started by accident, although an investigation is still under way. Witnesses and officials have said an explosion preceded the fire.

The public prosecutor's office said the dead were eight women and six men who ranged in age between 29 and 78. The head of Tetovo’s COVID-19 center, Gzim Nuredini, said the fire spread very quickly. “It all lasted three to five minutes,” Nuredini said, adding that medical staff and patients' relatives who were outside all tried to help extinguish the flames.

Prosecutors from Tetovo and the capital, Skopje, were gathering video material from inside and around the hospital, and have hired an electrical engineering expert to help determine how the blaze broke out.

Medical staff and witnesses have also been questioned, and prosecutors have ordered the confiscation of all documentation on the construction of the facility to check for potential omissions. Fires in COVID-19 hospitals or wards have cost dozens of lives in other countries, including Iraq and Romania.

Nineteen field hospitals, funded by a World Bank loan, have been set up across North Macedonia over the past year to tackle surging coronavirus hospitalizations and a shortage of hospital beds. Health Minister Venko Filipce has said all 19 were constructed according to the specifications and standards laid out by the World Bank as a condition for the loan.

North Macedonia has said it is accepting an offer from other NATO allies to send fire experts. The government announced that a team from Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office will join the investigation.

President Stevo Pendarovski has said the investigation would be completed within five days, and that indications are the fire was not set deliberately. North Macedonia’s government has declared three days of mourning from Thursday.

France to offer free birth control to all women up to 25

September 09, 2021

PARIS (AP) — France will offer free birth control to all women up to age 25 starting next year, the health minister announced Thursday. The measure will also include free medical visits about contraception, and will start Jan. 1, Health Minister Olivier Veran announced on France-2 television.

All contraceptive methods were already free for girls up to 18 years old, and that is being expanded to all women up to 25. Abortions in France are free for all women and girls. Veran said young women are using contraception less than they used to, and that the main reason is financial. He didn't cite specific data. France’s state health care system covers some birth control costs but not all of them.

“It’s intolerable that women aren’t able to to protect themselves, aren’t able to use contraception if they make that choice, because it would cost too much,” Veran said. The measure will cost the government about 21 million euros (nearly $25 million) per year, he said. He didn't address contraception methods for men.

Contraceptive methods are free in Britain. Spain offers free birth control pills and subsidizes other forms of contraception. Several other European countries offer free or subsidized contraception.

North Macedonia blaze in COVID-19 field hospital kills 14

September 09, 2021

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — North Macedonia's government was holding an emergency meeting Thursday over an overnight fire that ripped through a field hospital set up to treat COVID-19 patients, leaving 14 people dead.

The blaze broke out late Wednesday in the western city of Tetovo, where the hospital had been set up following a recent spike in infections in the region that left local hospitals full. The main prosecutor's office in the capital, Skopje, said 14 people had been killed in the blaze. There were no medical personnel among them.

Tetovo Mayor Teuta Arifi declared three days of mourning for the victims. The prosecutor's office ordered forensic experts to identify the remains, with the process expected to take longer than usual due to special protocols required because the victims were COVID-19 patients.

About a dozen people were injured, though the exact figure wasn't immediately available. “We saw the explosion and when we came here everything was in flames,” said local resident Nexhmedin Haliti. “ Firefighters arrived and started to put the fire out, it lasted for 15- 20 minutes. Everything burnt out.”

Five prosecutors, from Tetovo and Skopje, are working on the investigation into the causes of the fire. Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said in a Facebook post that the blaze followed an explosion at the site. It was unclear what caused the blast, but there was speculation that it was linked to oxygen supplies.

”We are shocked. It is a tragedy that I can’t even explain. Very sad," said local resident Idriz Brahimi. "Those were sick people who couldn’t get out. It is a huge catastrophe.” Health Ministry officials said the bodies of those who died were transferred to hospitals in the capital Skopje, about 45 kilometers (30 miles) to the east.

With less than 30% of the country’s roughly 2 million population fully vaccinated, North Macedonia has seen a significant spike in coronavirus infections and deaths since late August.

Zenel Zhinipotoku contributed to this report from Tetovo, North Macedonia.

Bulgaria, EU's least vaccinated nation, faces deadly surge

September 08, 2021

VELIKO TARNOVO, Bulgaria (AP) — Standing outside the rundown public hospital in Bulgaria's northern town of Veliko Tarnovo, the vaccination unit's chief nurse voices a sad reality about her fellow citizens: “They don’t believe in vaccines.”

Bulgaria has one of the highest coronavirus death rates in the 27-nation European Union and is facing a new, rapid surge of infections due to the more infectious delta variant. Despite that, people in this Balkan nation are the most hesitant in the bloc to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Only 20% of adults in Bulgaria, which has a population of 7 million, have so far been fully vaccinated. That puts it last in the EU, which has an average of 69% fully vaccinated. “We are open every day,” Yordanka Minekova, the chief vaccination nurse who has worked at the hospital for 35 years, told The Associated Press. “But people who want to be vaccinated are very few.”

Krasimira Nikolova, a 52-year-old restaurant worker, has chosen not to get vaccinated, saying she has doubts over the vaccines' effectiveness, even though the shots have been shown to be highly effective in preventing serious illness and deaths.

“I don’t believe vaccines work,” she told the AP. “I already had the virus. I don’t believe it’s so dangerous.” But Sibila Marinova, manager of Veliko Tarnovo’s intensive care unit, says the full COVID-19 ICU ward in her hospital shows that's simply not true.

“100% of the ICU patients are unvaccinated,” she told the AP, adding that staff shortages are only piling on more pressure. And she said she's angry that so many Bulgarians are refusing to get jabbed.

Bulgaria has access to all four of the vaccines approved by the EU — Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson. But since the start of the pandemic, more than 19,000 people in Bulgaria have died of COVID-19, the EU’s third-highest death rate, behind only the Czech Republic and Hungary. In the last week, an average of 41 people have died each day.

In response, the government imposed tighter restrictions Tuesday. Restaurants and cafes must close at 11 p.m. and their tables are limited to six people. Nightclubs have been shuttered and cinemas and theaters are limited to half capacity. Outdoors sports arenas are limited to 30% capacity.

“The low vaccination rate forces us to impose these measures,” Health Minister Stoycho Katsarov said. Despite being in a vulnerable age group, 71-year-old retiree Zhelyazko Marinov doesn't want to get vaccinated.

“I think I’m healthy enough and have a good natural immunity,” he said, adding that he could be persuaded to get vaccinated if he couldn't travel without a vaccine certificate. Mariya Sharkova, a public health law specialist, believes that Bulgaria's worryingly low vaccine uptake is the result of residents' low trust in official institutions, along with fake news about the shots, political instability and a weak national vaccination campaign.

“In Bulgaria, we don’t have good health literacy,” she told the AP. “Many people choose to believe conspiracy theories and fake news.” Only vaccines that are mandatory in Bulgaria — such as measles, mumps and rubella — have a high uptake. Sharkova said some blame has to lie with the government's vaccination program.

“They didn’t build any strategy on how to fight vaccine hesitancy,” she said. “We didn’t have any real information campaign for the vaccines. The ministry of health relies mainly on announcements on the ministry’s website, and I don’t think anyone actually goes on and reads it.”

“The best policy for such hesitant countries and populations as ours are mandatory vaccines,” said Sharkova, who is dismayed that national TV channels often invite vaccine-skeptic doctors to be on their programs.

But making COVID-19 vaccines mandatory could risk further polarizing the issue, she said. Hriska Zhelyazkova, a 67-year-old military officer from the coastal city of Burgas, says she distrusts vaccines because "they were created so quickly” -- apparently unaware that years of research laid the groundwork for the vaccine shots, which now have been used in hundreds of millions of people with exceedingly rare serious side effects.

Still, she said she may get vaccinated if authorities slap tougher restrictions on unvaccinated people. Back at the Veliko Tarnovo hospital, pro-vaccination drawings colored by children hang on the walls. “You are our superheroes,” one caption read.

But Minekova, the vaccination nurse, isn't optimistic about the future. “Somehow, I think it’s too late,” she said. “The right moment has been missed. I don’t see a way right now to solve this.”

Valentina Petrova contributed to this report from Burgas.

WHO chief urges halt to booster shots for rest of the year

September 08, 2021

GENEVA (AP) — Rich countries with large supplies of coronavirus vaccines should refrain from offering booster shots through the end of the year and make the doses available for poorer countries, the head of the World Health Organization said Wednesday, doubling down on an earlier appeal for a “moratorium" on boosters that has largely been ignored.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said he was “appalled” after hearing comments Tuesday from a top association of pharmaceutical manufacturers that vaccine supplies are high enough to allow for both booster shots for people in well-supplied countries and first jabs in poorer countries that face shortages. He said that’s already been the case.

“I will not stay silent when companies and countries that control the global supply of vaccines think the world’s poor should be satisfied with leftovers,” he told a news conference. "Because manufacturers have prioritized or been legally obliged to fulfill bilateral deals with rich countries willing to pay top dollar, low income countries have been deprived of the tools to protect their people.”

Tedros had previously called for a moratorium on boosters through the end of September. But wealthy countries — including Britain, Denmark, France, Greece, Germany, and Spain — have begun or are considering plans to offer third shots of two-dose vaccines to their vulnerable people such as the elderly or those with compromised immune systems.

Israel has been providing third doses to a wide swath of people who already received a full two-dose regimen months earlier. And last month, United States health officials recommended that all Americans get boosters to shore up their protection amid evidence that the vaccines’ effectiveness is falling. WHO officials insist the scientific justification for boosters remains unclear.

Tedros acknowledged that third doses might be necessary for at-risk groups, but said: “We do not want to see widespread use of boosters for healthy people who are fully vaccinated." Responding to the WHO calls on booster shots, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the U.S. has donated and shared about 140 million doses with over 90 countries, "more than all other countries combined.”

She added: “From Senegal to South Africa to India, we’ve made significant investments in boosting global productions of COVID vaccines. At the same time, the President and this administration has a responsibility to do everything we can to protect people in the United States.”

U.S. health officials are continuing to assess the science and utility of boosters, and there are growing indications that the U.S. may miss the Biden administration's Sept. 20 target date for a wide rollout of extra shots for vaccinated people.

The WHO chief said he received a message of “clear support” from health ministers at a meeting of the influential Group of 20 countries this week for a commitment to help hit a WHO target that all countries vaccinate at least 40% of their people by year's end.

“A month ago, I called for a global moratorium on booster doses, at least until the end of September to prioritize vaccinating the most at risk people around the world who are yet to receive their first dose,” Tedros said. “There has been little change in the global situation since then.”

“So today, I’m calling for an extension of the moratorium until at least the end of the year to enable every country to vaccinate at least 40% of its population,” he said. The WHO says 5.5 billion coronavirus vaccine doses have been administered so far, but 80% of those have been to upper- and middle-income countries. Rich countries have also offered to donate 1 billion doses to other countries, but fewer than 15% of those doses have “materialized," Tedros said.

He noted that manufacturers have pledged to prioritize the U.N.-backed COVAX program, which aims to get vaccines to the neediest people in the world — no matter how wealthy the country. “We don’t want any more promises. We just want the vaccines,” the WHO chief said.

Earlier Wednesday, COVAX managers again scaled back their target to ship doses this year, projecting about 1.4 billion doses will be available through the program by year-end — down from about 1.8 billion previously. They had originally hoped to ship 2 billion doses this year.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which co-runs the program, said COVAX has faced setbacks including export restrictions from hard-hit India — a key producer of vaccines — as well as regulatory hurdles for some vaccine candidates and manufacturing troubles elsewhere. But it also said deliveries are ramping up strongly, and another 1.1 billion doses are expected to be available by year-end through the program, up from 330 million so far. Most of those doses have gone to or are destined for poorer countries.

The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations said Tuesday that about 1.5 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses are now being produced every month, and cited projections that a total of 12 billion will have been produced by year-end.

Dr. Bruce Aylward, a top adviser to Tedros, acknowledged that “some countries may be going ahead with decisions" to widely administer boosters, but that the WHO call for a moratorium “makes a real difference.” He said some countries — which he did not identify — have approached the WHO about whether booster policies could be delayed.

But admittedly, the WHO's first call for a moratorium through September has not fixed the gaping imbalance in access to vaccines. “(O)ur role is to make sure that we put forward the strongest possible arguments and way out of this pandemic — and the way out of that is a moratorium and to extend it," Aylward said. "Because since the last time we called for it, the equity gap has gotten greater, the amount of vaccine available to low-income countries has gone down.”

Aamer Madhani in Washington DC contributed to this report.

It's time for Australia to develop its own guided missiles

by Graeme Dunk | ANU/Shoal Group

Sydney, Australia (The Conversation) 

Sep 09, 2021

Step by step, Australia is inching its way towards more autonomy in defense.

On Wednesday, Defense Minister Peter Dutton was reported to have signaled greater access to US missile technology will be a key test of the US-Australia alliance at a closed meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia.

In March Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the defense department would select an industry partner to develop a A$1 billion guided weapons manufacturing capability.

But, more than in earlier times, it's the details that will matter.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Peter Jennings says a key lesson from the collapse of the US operation in Afghanistan is that its allies can no longer assume it will be just "over the horizon ready to defend our strategic interests".

It was, he said, "a tough message for Australia, which has become habituated to think that defense spending at a little over 2% of gross domestic product and a defense force about two-thirds the size of a Melbourne Cricket Ground crowd is enough to defend the country".

Japan seems to be also rethinking its strategy.

Four options: the best is expensive

There are four options for improving self-reliance in guided weapons.

The first is simply to buy more of what we currently have. It isn't bad as a short-term approach, but we can't guarantee we will have what we need, when we need it. Weapons can date and we can slip down the queue for replenishment - just think of COVID-19 vaccine supply.

The second option is to assemble in Australia, rather than simply import.

This is better than the first option, and would create jobs. But jobs are hardly going to be the most pressing issue when the firing starts. And we are unlikely to get all of the intellectual property (the knowledge about how to build and repair) we might need to upgrade when circumstances change.

The third option is to use Australian industry to improve and replace some capabilities of current weapons with locally-developed alternatives.

Targeting software and counter-counter-measure software could be examples.

This option is better than the previous two options, but still relies on us having access to foreign (often US) intellectual property, which might be problematic.

The best option is to design and build our own guided weapons. This would be expensive, and it would require significant time, but it would actually make us self-reliant. We would own the intellectual property and own the codes.

We would be able to upgrade to take account of developments in technology and to account for changes in the adversary. We wouldn't have to wait in line to be given an upgrade.

We will probably need all four options

This is not to suggest we need to develop every type of guided weapon type we would use. There are some where the integration issues would be profound if not close to impossible (the joint strike fighter is an example).

It isn't that we need sovereignty in guided weapons, what is that we need smart sovereignty - smart in the sense that we focus our efforts and our money where we can get the most useful sovereignty.

In some cases the sensible thing will be to buy and/or fabricate, just as Australia buys foreign cars and in the early days of manufacturing assembled foreign cars.

In others cases it will be to develop additional weapons locally. Each approach will be the best in different circumstances. We will probably need some of each, simultaneously.

But we need to take charge of our own destiny where we can, rather than just rely on a helping hand that may or may not come when we need it, or in the way we will need it.

We certainly can't go toe-to-toe with our most likely regional adversary on our own. We don't have anything like the capability.

But what we can do is target the development of local weapons to those that are likely to be of the most use against that adversary. Deployable, mobile, hypersonic anti-access/area denial guided weapons are among those that would help.

Waiting might leave us unable to choose

Irrespective of the option we choose, we will need to test the guided weapons we use domestically. This means developing in parallel a domestic capability for the modelling, simulation and analysis that will be critical to success.

Australian industry has the capability, but time is running short. The pandemic has shown us that the money can be found where the need is critical.

The future might not be kind to us but at the moment we still have time to choose the path to take. Later, that path might be dictated for us.

Source: Space War.

Link: https://www.spacewar.com/reports/Its_time_for_Australia_to_develop_its_own_guided_missiles_999.html.

Australia voices full support for King Abdullah

05-04-2021

Ammon News - Australia expressed its complete support to His Majesty King Abdullah.

"Australia is a steadfast friend to the people of Jordan and to His Majesty King Abdullah," The Australian Foreign Ministry said in a statement distributed by the Australian embassy in Amman.

Source: Ammon News.

Link: https://en.ammonnews.net/article/48416.

Do tourist boats stress out whales? Researchers find out

By Jeremie Richard

Husavik, Iceland (AFP)

Sept 5, 2021

Just off the northern coast of Iceland, scientists are collecting data from whales' breath to find out if they get stressed by whale-watching boats, an industry that has boomed in recent years.

Researchers from Whale Wise, a marine conservation charity, are studying the whales' stress levels in their hormones.

From their small sailboat, a drone lifts off. After six hours of waiting, the scientists have finally spotted a humpback whale.

Attached to the flying device are two petri dishes -- transparent cylindrical containers -- that will collect water droplets from the whale's spray.

The timeframe to collect the sample is short -- the duration of a whale's breath.

This time, the drone flies over the whale carefully, crossing through the spray coming from the whale's blowhole... and mission accomplished. It returns to the sailboat, delivering its precious cargo to the researchers.

Once wrapped in paraffin and frozen, the samples will be sent to a laboratory for analysis.

The researchers aim to collect samples before a whale watching boat arrives and then afterwards, then compare the two samples to determine the direct impact of that encounter on stress levels.

Tourists have been increasingly flocking to the waters of the North Atlantic off Iceland to admire the majestic creatures, though 2020 was a quiet year due to the pandemic.

More than 360,000 whale watchers were registered in 2019, three times the number a decade ago.

Almost a third of them began their whale watching tour in the Husavik harbor, heading for the chilly waters of Skjalfandi Bay.

- Feeding disruptions -

Previous studies on tourism's impact on whales, which were based on behavioral observations, concluded that tourism caused only minor disruptions to the mammals.

The most recent study, from 2011, found that whale-watching excursions were disrupting minke whales in the Faxa Bay near Reykjavik, in the south of the country.

"We found that the minke whales were disturbed in their feeding, but it was only a short-term disturbance," one of the authors of the study, Marianne Rasmussen, director of the University of Iceland Research Center in Husavik, told AFP.

"It didn't affect their overall fitness."

The method used by Whale Wise this summer has been used elsewhere by biologists but this was a first for researchers in Iceland.

"From the samples, you can look at hormones such as cortisol, which is a stress-related hormone, and then you can determine the physiological stress levels of these whales," said Tom Grove, Whale Wise co-founder and a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh.

Since 2018, 59 samples have been collected. While a minimum of 50 are needed for a proper analysis, he hopes to collect around 100.

This summer, some of the samples were collected together with French environmental group Unu Mondo Expedition, which travelled to Iceland for a month-long expedition to study climate change issues.

"The whales are important to us, for our lives, because they are part of the ecosystem on our planet," said Sophie Simonin, 29, the organization's co-founder.

"They also absorb enormous amounts of carbon dioxide," she added.

According to a December 2019 study by the International Monetary Fund, a large whale captures an average of 33 tons of carbon dioxide.

While whales are a tourist attraction, they are also hunted in Iceland.

The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986, but Iceland, which opposed the moratorium, resumed its hunt in 2003.

Iceland only bans the hunt of blue whales.

But while the country has established an annual quota of 209 fin whales and 217 minke whales until 2023, no whales were hunted this year for the third straight year, as whalers say it is not financially viable.

Source: Terra Daily.

Link: https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Do_tourist_boats_stress_out_whales_Researchers_find_out_999.html.

Earthlike planets in other solar systems? Look for moons

Urbana IL (SPX)

Sep 10, 2021

Finding an exact copy of the Earth somewhere in the universe sounds like a far-fetched notion, but scientists believe that because Earth happened in our solar system, something similar is bound to exist someplace else. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researcher Siegfried Eggl and his colleagues say orbiting moons may play a key role in keeping planets habitable over long periods and identified a method to find them.

"In our solar system, we have an average of 20 moons orbiting around each planet. So, we suspected there are moons around planets in other systems, too. There is really no reason why there shouldn't be any," said Eggl, a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at UIUC.

Eggl said astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array have recently observed what they believe is evidence of a moon forming around the extrasolar planet PDS 70c. The next step is finding moons around planets that have two stars.

Some planets in other solar systems can be seen using very large telescopes like ALMA, the W.M. Keck observatory in Hawaii, or the European Southern Observatory in Chile, but fully formed moons are still too tiny to spot.

"We know they are there. We just need to look harder. But because it is so difficult to see them, we identified a way to detect them through the effect they have on a planet using transit timing variations."

Eggl said they can observe how planets behave in orbit and compare those observations to models with and without moons.

"We know the planets, stars, and moons in our solar system interact gravitationally like a giant board game," Eggl said. "The moon is tidally interacting with the Earth and slowing its own rotation, but the Sun is also there, tugging on both. A second star would act as another external perturber to the system."

When a planet passes in front of a star the star dims a little, Eggl said. A moon tugging on the planet is causing the planet to wobble slightly on its orbit. This wobble makes the darkening of the star occur sometimes earlier and other times later. In a double star system, additional variations in the time of transit are due to the forced, elliptical orbits of the planet and its moon. If detected, those variations can lead to additional insights into the properties of the system.

Much like proving there is wind by observing tree branches bending, Eggl said "This is an indirect proof of a moon because there's nothing else that could tug on the planet in that kind of fashion."

Of course, this assumes that planets did not lose their moons along the way.

"We first had to determine the orbital resonances in the systems we looked at," Eggl said. "When moons and planets have slightly elliptical orbits, they don't always move at the same speed. The more eccentric an orbit, the more frequencies can be excited, and we see these resonances become more and more important. At some point there will be overlapping resonances that can lead to chaos in the system. In our study we have shown, however, that there is enough stable 'real estate' to merit a thorough search for moons around planets in double star systems."

Billy Quarles, lead author of the study, said, "The major difference with binary systems is the companion star acts like the tide at the beach, where it periodically comes in and etches away the beachfront. With a more eccentric binary orbit, a larger portion of the stable 'real estate' is removed. This can help out a lot in our search for moons in other star systems."

The bottom line for Eggl is that our solar system is probably not as special as we'd like to think it is.

"If we can use this method to show there are other moons out there, then there are probably other systems similar to ours," he said. "The moon is also likely critical for the evolution of life on our planet, because without the moon the axis tilt of the Earth wouldn't be as stable, the results of which would be detrimental to climate stability. Other peer-reviewed studies have shown the relationship between moons and the possibility of complex life."

Source: Space Daily.

Link: https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Earthlike_planets_in_other_solar_systems_Look_for_moons_999.html.

Conservation meet mulls plan to protect 80% of Amazon

By Marlowe Hood

Marseille (AFP)

Sept 6, 2021

Should 80 percent of the Amazon be declared a protected area by 2025?

The world's top conservation body is on Sunday poised to decide whether its 1,400 members can vote on this controversial proposal, put forward by indigenous groups.

Submitted under an emergency provision to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the measure calls for a "global action plan" to halt rampant deforestation and the destructive extraction of precious minerals and oil.

Over the last two decades, the Amazon has lost roughly 10,000 square kilometers every year, according to assessments based on satellite data.

"That's the emergency, not just for us but for humanity," Jose Gregorio Diaz Mirabal, a leader of the Curripaco people in Venezuela, told AFP at the Congress venue in Marseille.

For the first time in the IUCN's 70-year history, indigenous groups have a separate status alongside government agencies and national or international NGOs.

Diaz Mirabal submitted the Amazon proposal for the newly admitted organization COICA, which represents more than two million indigenous people in nine Amazon nations.

"We have been neglected, and now we have a voice and will exercise that voting right," he said.

- 'Territory of humanity' -

Recent research has warned that massive destruction of tropical forests combined with climate change are pushing the Amazon towards a disastrous "tipping point" which would see tropical forests give way to savannah-like landscapes.

This would not only drastically change the region's climate, but have an impact on global climate systems as well, scientists say.

Rates of tree loss drop sharply in the forests where native peoples live, especially if they hold some degree of title -- legal or customary -- over land, other research has shown.

IUCN officials are reviewing the COICA measure, along with 20 others proposals submitted after the deadline last year, "to make sure they are both 'new' and 'urgent'," said Enrique Lahmann, a senior administrator.

"Both criteria are required."

A decision will be announced late Sunday or Monday, his office said.

While the vote, which would be held in the coming week, would not have legal weight, it demonstrates the strength of feeling among indigenous groups.

In an emotional press conference, Diaz Mirabal -- flanked by indigenous leaders from French Guiana and Ecuador -- implored world leaders to take head of his message.

"We are asking governments to help us protect our territory, which is also the territory of humanity," he said. "Because if the Amazon rainforest disappears, people will die everywhere, it's that simple."

"It is crucial to stop extracting the oil, the gold, the uranium," he added. "This is wealth for Europe, the United States, Russia, and China, but is poverty for us."

Source: Terra Daily.

Link: https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Conservation_meet_mulls_plan_to_protect_80_of_Amazon_999.html.