Month: September 2021

China’s COVID-19 Vaccine Diplomacy Reaches 100-Plus Countries  

Despite doubts about the effectiveness of China’s COVID-19 vaccines, the global vaccine shortage is giving China an international soft power boost.  

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced this week via the official Xinhua News Agency that it had delivered 1.1 billion vaccine doses to more than 100 countries during the pandemic. 

This component of Chinese soft power, a tool used to deepen friendships abroad and vie for recognition over its archrival, the United States, despite festering disputes, could help boost China’s image in vaccine-recipient countries that cannot easily source doses from other places, observers said.  

“They work, maybe, less effectively and efficiently and timely than the vaccines that are produced in the Western countries but nonetheless they offer a certain level of immunization that’s always better than no immunization at all,” said Fabrizio Bozzato, senior research fellow at the Tokyo-based Sasakawa Peace Foundation’s Ocean Policy Research Institute.     

“It appears that China’s vaccine diplomacy is working very well, to the detriment of the West, given the impression that it’s keeping the best weapons against COVID-19 to themselves,” Bozzato said. China will enjoy an image as a “reliable partner that’s willing to help,” he said.    

Limited effectiveness, widespread availability    

Of the vaccines developed in China, the World Health Organization calls Sinovac doses 51% effective against symptomatic infections and Sinopharm vaccine 79% effective. Specific data points, especially on the effectiveness against the delta variant, are few, said John Swartzberg, a clinical professor emeritus at the University of California-Berkeley’s School of Public Health. However, Chinese formulas work better than no vaccine, he said.  

Within the year, China plans to offer a cumulative 2 billion vaccine doses abroad “and this can totally be done,” Xinhua says. Southeast Asia alone has received 360 million doses to date, it adds. 

Xinhua says China has established vaccine plants in 15 countries, a boon to low-cost distribution. Sinovac was one of the world’s first pharmaceutical firms to develop a mass-market vaccine last year.  

The United States is accelerating plans to distribute more vaccines. In June, the U.S. purchased 500 million doses to be distributed by COVAX, the WHO-backed initiative for low and middle-income countries. As of August, the U.S. government had donated 110 million doses overseas.  

But that has done little to satisfy critics such as New York-based advocacy group Amnesty international, who say Western countries are “hoarding” vaccines for their own populations. 

In a June statement, the group criticized the bilateral purchase agreements between wealthy countries and pharmaceutical companies, saying “instead of facing up to their international obligations by waiving intellectual property rules for vaccines, tests and treatments, and sharing lifesaving technology, G-7 leaders have opted for more of the same paltry half-measures.” 

Media reports say President Joe Biden is expected to announce plans next week at the U.N. General Assembly for countries to pledge resources to vaccinate 70% of the world by September 2022. According to the World Health Organization, that will require about 11 billion doses.

And that effort could still run into supply bottlenecks.  

Pfizer, a top name in the United States, points to obstacles offshore in vaccine packing, distribution and cold storage, but company CEO Albert Bourla said in an open letter that Pfizer is “continuing to work around the clock so we can bring the vaccine to the world as quickly, efficiently and equitably as possible.”    

Many people in poorer parts of the world where COVID-19 cases continue to multiply are getting the Chinese shots with few side effects and a sense that any breakthrough infections would be mild, according to analysts and people from affected countries.     

“History’s not going to look very kindly on China’s reluctance to be more forthcoming with their data, but history may be pretty kind to China if China just produces a lot of this vaccine and makes it available worldwide,” Swartzberg said.    

Some Indonesians can choose only between a Chinese vaccine or none, said Paramitaningrum, an international relations lecturer at Bina Nusantara University in Jakarta. She and her aging parents got the Chinese vaccines earlier in the year.    

China’s image isn’t getting worse, Paramitaningrum said. “That kind of anti-Chinese sentiment is still there, but I could say it has low percentage – only for some particular reasons – but in general they are OK,” she said.  

Vaccines not expected to cure old disputes  

In some countries, China’s vaccine diplomacy is not enough to erase pre-existing disputes.   

Indonesians and Filipinos resent Chinese expansion in the 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea where maritime sovereignty claims overlap. China, backed by Asia’s strongest military, has built artificial islands on shoals and reefs that Manila claims. Chinese ships also sail through waters that Jakarta says fall within its exclusive economic zone.   

Other countries are embroiled in trade and investment flaps with China while people in much of the world bristle toward China as the coronavirus’s source. 

The widespread availability of low-cost or donated Chinese medical aid won’t neutralize those issues but could temper any new flare-ups, analysts believe.   

Most vaccines introduced in Brazil earlier this year came from Sinovac, and Brazilian researchers said in December after a clinical trial that the vaccine was more than 50% effective.

  

 

Still, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said May 5 that the pandemic could be “chemical warfare” waged by a fast-growing nation widely presumed to mean China.  

But heads of state in the Philippines and Vietnam, another normally outspoken South China Sea claimant, have not engaged in anti-China comments.   

Common Filipinos take a pragmatic through guarded view. Many prefer non-Chinese vaccines but cannot tell clinics which brand to administer, domestic news website Inquirer.net reports.    

“The president, the executive of the country, it’s his decision to bring in Sinovac, but on the ground the people, that’s really their last choice,” said Marivic Arcega, operator of an animal feed distributor in the Manila suburb of Cavite. She got an AstraZeneca shot while her husband got Sinovac.    

In Vietnam, which began accepting Chinese vaccines in June, a lot of people are refusing the shots despite their country’s first major COVID-19 outbreak that began in June, said Jack Nguyen, partner at the business advisory firm Mazars in Ho Chi Minh City.

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Space Tourists Splash Down in Atlantic, End 3-Day Trip

Four space tourists ended their trailblazing trip to orbit Saturday with a splashdown in the Atlantic off the Florida coast.

Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the ocean just before sunset, not far from where their chartered flight began three days earlier. 

The all-amateur crew was the first to circle the world without a professional astronaut. 

The billionaire who paid undisclosed millions for the trip and his three guests wanted to show that ordinary people could blast into orbit by themselves, and SpaceX founder Elon Musk took them on as the company’s first rocket-riding tourists. 

SpaceX’s fully automated Dragon capsule reached an unusually high altitude of 585 kilometers (363 miles) after Wednesday night’s liftoff. Surpassing the International Space Station by 160 kilometers (100 miles), the passengers savored views of Earth through a big bubble-shaped window added to the top of the capsule. 

Rare return to Atlantic

The four streaked back through the atmosphere early Saturday evening, the first space travelers to end their flight in the Atlantic since Apollo 9 in 1969. SpaceX’s two previous crew splashdowns — carrying astronauts for NASA — were in the Gulf of Mexico.

This time, NASA was little more than an encouraging bystander, its only tie being the Kennedy Space Center launch pad once used for the Apollo moonshots and shuttle crews, but now leased by SpaceX. 

The trip’s sponsor, Jared Isaacman, 38, an entrepreneur and accomplished pilot, aimed to raise $200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Donating $100 million himself, he held a lottery for one of the four seats. He also held a competition for clients of his Allentown, Pennsylvania, payment-processing business, Shift4 Payments. 

Joining him on the flight were Hayley Arceneaux, 29, a St. Jude physician assistant who was treated at the Memphis, Tennessee, hospital nearly two decades ago for bone cancer, and contest winners Chris Sembroski, 42, a data engineer in Everett, Washington, and Sian Proctor, 51, a community college educator, scientist and artist from Tempe, Arizona. 

Strangers until March, they spent six months training and preparing for potential emergencies during the flight, dubbed Inspiration4. Most everything appeared to go well, leaving them time to chat with St. Jude patients, conduct medical tests on themselves, ring the closing bell for the New York Stock Exchange, and do some drawing and ukulele playing.

Arceneaux, the youngest American in space and the first with a prosthesis, assured her patients, “I was a little girl going through cancer treatment just like a lot of you, and if I can do this, you can do this.” 

They also took calls from Tom Cruise, interested in his own SpaceX flight to the space station for filming, and the rock band U2’s Bono. 

Atypical menu

Even their space menu wasn’t typical: cold pizza and sandwiches, but also pasta Bolognese and Mediterranean lamb. 

Nearly 600 people have reached space — a scorecard that began 60 years ago and is expected to soon skyrocket as space tourism heats up. 

Benji Reed, a SpaceX director, anticipates as many as six private flights a year, sandwiched between astronaut launches for NASA. Four SpaceX flights are already booked carry paying customers to the space station, accompanied by former NASA astronauts. The first is targeted for early next year with three businessmen paying $55 million apiece. Russia also plans to take up an actor and film director for filming next month and a Japanese tycoon in December. 

Customers interested in quick space trips are turning to Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. The two rode their own rockets to the fringes of space in July to spur ticket sales; their flights lasted 10 to 15 minutes.

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Media: ‘Quad’ Countries to Agree on Secure Microchip Supply Chains

Leaders of the United States, Japan, India and Australia will agree to take steps to build secure semiconductor supply chains when they meet in Washington next week, the Nikkei business daily said Saturday, citing a draft of the joint statement.

 

U.S. President Joe Biden will host a first in-person summit of leaders of the “Quad” countries, which have sought to boost co-operation to push back against China’s growing assertiveness. The draft says that in order to create robust supply chains, the four countries will ascertain their semiconductor supply capacities and identify vulnerability, the Nikkei said, without unveiling how it had obtained the document.

 

The statement also says the use of advanced technologies should be based on the rule of respecting human rights, the newspaper said on its web site.

 

The draft does not name China, but the move is aimed at preventing China’s way of utilizing technologies for maintaining an authoritarian regime from spreading to the rest of the world, the Nikkei said.

 

The United States and China are at odds over issues across the board, including trade and technology, while Biden said in April his country and Japan, a U.S. ally, will invest together in areas such as 5G and semiconductor supply chains.

 

No officials were immediately available for comment at the Japanese foreign ministry.

 

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Malawi Trial Shows New Typhoid Vaccine Effective in Children

Malawi plans a nationwide rollout of the newest typhoid vaccine after a two-year study, the first in Africa, found it safe and effective in children as young as 9 months. Previously available vaccines were found not effective in children younger than 2 years and even then only provided short-term protection.  

Typhoid is an increasing public health threat in Malawi and across sub-Saharan Africa with an estimated 1.2 million cases and 19,000 deaths each year.

 

Typhoid is a treatable bacterial infection that has become a serious threat in many low- and middle-income countries.

 

In Malawi, the study on the efficacy of the Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine or TCV involved about 28,000 children aged between 9 months and 15 years from three townships in the commercial capital, Blantyre.

 

The University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, the Blantyre Malaria Project, and the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust conducted the study.

 

Professor Melita Gordon, principal investigator for the study at the Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome Trust, says the results, released this week, show an efficacy rate of more than 80% in protecting children against the disease.

   

“The previous vaccines were only 50% effective, and they were never even tested very well in the very youngest children. They were never even usable in the youngest children. So, the fact that this new conjugate vaccine works in pre-school children, right down to 9 months is a really big deal and important to be able to tackle typhoid across the board in all the children who suffer with it,” she said.

 

Gordon also said the vaccine efficacy data provides hope that sub-Saharan Africa can be rid of the multidrug-resistant strain of typhoid that arrived from Asia about a decade ago.

 

“In Malawi, the incidents are something [around] four or five hundred cases per 100,000 per year. Now anything over 200 is considered high incidence, so we are a very high-incidence country. There have been studies in Burkina Faso, in Ghana, in Kenya; we know that many other African countries have an equivalent burden of the disease,” Gordon said.

   

Dr. Queen Dube, chief of health services in Malawi’s Health Ministry, says rollout should begin soon.

 

“The exciting news is that we had applied to GAVI that supports us on the vaccination front to add this to the list of vaccines we are administering in the country and GAVI approved our application. And we are looking at introducing this typhoid vaccine and rolling it out next year,” Dube said.

 

However, some fear the new typhoid vaccine would face hesitancy and resistance from people, as has been the case with COVID-19 vaccines, and which led to the incineration of about 20,000 expired doses in Malawi in May.

 

But Dube said this won’t happen with typhoid vaccine because COVID-19 was a new disease.   

   

“We have had typhoid for decades and decades, so people know what typhoid is. Nobody will wake up in the morning saying, oh no, typhoid was manufactured in a laboratory. And so, chances that you will end up with misinformation are on the lower side compared with a new disease which swept across the globe, killing so many people brought a lot of fear and a allowed a lot of false theories,” she said.

   

Still, Dube said Malawi’s government plans to launch a massive sensitization campaign to teach people about the new typhoid vaccine to a reemergence of the myths and misinformation that engulfed the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

 

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WHO: Rich Countries’ Chokehold on COVID Vaccines Prolongs Pandemic in Africa

The World Health Organization is warning that COVID-19 vaccine export bans and hoarding by wealthy countries will prolong the pandemic in Africa, preventing recovery from the disease in the rest of the world.

 

While more than 60% of the U.S., European Union, and British populations have been vaccinated, only 2% of COVID vaccine shots have been given in Africa.

 

The COVAX facility has slashed its planned COVID-19 vaccine deliveries to Africa by 25% this year.  WHO Africa regional director Matshidiso Moeti says the 470 million doses now expected to arrive by the end of December are enough to vaccinate just 17% of Africans on the continent.   

    

“Export bans and vaccine hoarding still have a chokehold on the lifeline of vaccine supplies to Africa.… Even if all planned shipments via COVAX and the African Union arrive, Africa still needs almost 500 million more doses to reach the yearend goal.  At this rate, the continent may only reach the 40% target by the end of March next year,” Moeti said.   

    

The WHO reports more than 8 million cases of COVID-19 in Africa, including more than 200,000 deaths.  Forty-four African countries have reported the alpha variant and 32 countries have reported the more virulent and contagious delta variant.

 

Moeti warns of further waves of infection and loss of life in this pandemic.  Given the short supply of vaccines, she urges strict adherence to preventive measures, such as mask wearing and social distancing.

 

She reiterates WHO’s call for a halt to booster shots in wealthy nations, except for those with compromised immune systems and at risk of severe illness and death.

“I have said many times that it is in everyone’s interest to make sure the most at-risk groups in every country are protected.  As it stands, the huge gaps in vaccine equity are not closing anywhere near fast enough. The quickest way to end this pandemic, is for countries with reserves to release their doses so that other countries can buy them,” she said.

    

Moeti said African countries with low vaccination rates are breeding grounds for vaccine-resistant variants.  She warned this could end up sending the world back to square 1, with the pandemic continuing to ravage communities worldwide if vaccine inequity is allowed to persist.

 

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Space Tourists Call Actor Tom Cruise While Orbiting Earth

While orbiting Earth, four space tourists called U.S. actor Tom Cruise to talk about life aboard the spacecraft.

Representatives for SpaceX’s first privately chartered flight said the crew members spoke Friday with Cruise, who is hoping to take part in a movie made in space.

The Twitter account for the flight mission said, “Maverick, you can be our wingman anytime,” referencing the call sign for Cruise’s character in the movie Top Gun.

No further details were released about the conversation.

Last year, NASA said it was in talks with Cruise about filming a movie at the International Space Station.

In the first space flight without any trained astronauts, the space tourists are orbiting Earth at an altitude of 585 kilometers.

The crew is led by billionaire Jared Isaacman, 38, and includes two contest winners and a hospital worker.

Crew members spoke with mission control Friday in a 10-minute live webcast.

Hayley Arceneaux, a 29-year-old physician assistant at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, showed off her ability to do flips in zero gravity.

Arceneaux, a childhood cancer survivor, had spoken earlier with child cancer patients at St. Jude.

Chris Sembroski a 42-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran, played his ukulele while Sian Proctor, a 51-year-old community college teacher, showed a picture she drew of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule.

The flight, named Inspiration4, took off Wednesday and is due to splash down Saturday in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida.

SpaceX was founded by billionaire Elon Musk, who tweeted Thursday, “Missions like Inspiration4 help advance spaceflight to enable ultimately anyone to go to orbit & beyond.” 

 

 

 

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‘Devious Licks’ Videos of Damage, Thefts Bedevil US Schools 

Kids across the U.S. are posting TikTok videos of themselves vandalizing school bathrooms and stealing soap dispensers and even turf from football fields, bedeviling school administrators seeking to contain the viral internet trend. 

The “devious licks” challenge that swept social media this week is plaguing principals and school district administrators who already must navigate a bitter debate over requiring masks to keep COVID-19 in check. Some schools have had to more closely monitor or even shut down bathrooms, where much of the damage is occurring. 

No section of the nation appears to have been untouched. In northeastern Kansas, Lawrence High School had to close several bathrooms after students pried soap dispensers off the walls. Then, students tried to steal the “closed” signs, so staff is guarding the bathrooms, even the closed ones, said 17-year-old student Cuyler Dunn, relaying Friday what he called “total destruction.” 

“Some of them were to the point where they were borderline unusable,” said Dunn, who is also the co-editor-in-chief of Lawrence High’s student newspaper. “Locks on stalls had been taken off.”

Ice Bucket Challenge

While social media did spawn the Ice Bucket Challenge to raise money for research into the condition known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, it also led to a rash of poisonings several years ago when teenagers swallowed pods of laundry detergent for the “Tide Pods challenge.” The latest trend follows close upon a viral challenge to walk on stacks of milk crates.

Some school officials are reluctant to say much about “devious licks,” which is slang for theft. In Virginia, Fairfax County Public Schools spokesperson Kathleen Miller emailed that officials were aware of several incidents of property damage and that “disciplinary action has and will be taken.” 

Outside of that statement, Miller noted that the school district was saying little to avoid “encouraging copy-cat behavior.” 

A spokesperson said TikTok was removing “devious licks” content and redirecting hashtags and search results to its guidelines to discourage the behavior and that it doesn’t allow content that “promotes or enables criminal activities.”

While some school officials say they don’t know what caused the “devious licks” challenge to go viral, others chalk it up to a desire for peers’ attention or adolescents’ lack of impulse control. Some incidents have involved smashing things, like bathroom mirrors and sinks.

Tradition of senior pranks

Dunn said that his Kansas high school has a tradition of senior pranks that led someone to set chickens loose inside last year. But he said some students are starting to worry about the repercussions of “devious licks,” not only for kids who get caught but also for big events as the school tries to prevent thefts. His newspaper wrote about “devious licks” this week.

He said a detour sign taken from another school after a football game is in Lawrence High’s parking lot and that students even stole a small section of artificial turf off the school’s football field.

“The general vibe around the student body is that this is just another one of those funny things that high schoolers do,” he said. “But it has started to reach a point where it is starting to get in the way of things.” 

Damage displayed on social media

Northeast of Sacramento, California, the Rocklin school district has seen students destroy soap dispensers, damage faucets, plug toilets with whole rolls of toilet paper and tear mirrors and railings off walls, then share videos and photos on social media.

Spokesperson Sundeep Dosanjh said that the damage can close bathrooms for extended periods, an issue potentially made worse by “national supply chain disruptions” that have arisen amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Police in the central Florida city of Bartow, located about 50 miles east of Tampa, said they arrested a 15-year-old student who vandalized a new building’s bathroom by tearing off soap dispensers and leaving one in a sink. 

“He said he did it because of this TikTok challenge and he wanted to be cool,” police Chief Bryan Dorman said. 

In the Cherry Creek school district serving an affluent Denver neighborhood and nearby trendy suburbs, the district sent parents of middle and high school students a letter warning that kids who are caught face being suspended, could be forced to make restitution and might have their cases forwarded to police.

Warnings sent to parents

Districts in Miami and Scottsdale, Arizona, sent similar warnings to parents.

Cherry Creek spokesperson Abbe Smith said its schools had seen “a handful” of incidents of damage to or theft of soap dispensers, toilet paper dispensers and fire extinguishers. 

In southern Alabama, Robertsdale High School’s principal said a student there is facing criminal charges after he was caught on surveillance cameras swiping a fire extinguisher. He also was suspended from school. 

Punishments aren’t effective

In Wichita, Kansas, the district has found that punishments like suspensions aren’t effective in stopping such behavior, and community service is the more likely response, said Terri Moses, its director of safety services. The district’s middle schools have lost soap dispensers, paper towels and toilet paper. 

And, she said, the district warns students that what they post now could hurt their chances of getting jobs in their early 20s. 

“What they’re putting out on social media is giong to be with them for a long time,” Moses said. “We’re trying very hard to relay that.” 

 

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FDA Panel Rejects Proposal for Widespread COVID Booster Shots

A U.S. government advisory panel rejected a plan for the widespread use of COVID-19 vaccine booster shots, dealing a setback to the Biden administration, which had championed the extra shots for nearly all Americans.

By a vote of 16-2, a U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) vaccine advisory panel rejected the widespread use of the boosters, citing a lack of data on their safety as well as a lack of evidence concerning their value.

The independent panel did endorse extra vaccine doses for people who are 65 and older or at high risk of severe illness.

Drugmaker Pfizer had requested full approval for boosters for people 16 and older, a proposal backed by the Biden administration.

The White House announced last month that Americans who received either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines could get a booster shot eight months after their second dose.

And earlier on Friday, the White House said it was ready to roll out the booster shots if health officials approved them.

Pfizer submitted data to the FDA this week that it says shows that the efficacy of its vaccine diminishes by about 6% every two months following the second dose, making a booster at the six-month mark safe and effective at strengthening protection against the virus that causes COVID-19.

Research has shown that although immunity levels decrease over time in those vaccinated, the Pfizer vaccine still provides strong protection against severe illness and death, even in delta variant cases.

The FDA panel’s recommendation is nonbinding; the FDA is not required to follow the panel’s recommendations, but it generally does.

Next week, an independent advisory panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will weigh in on who should get a booster and when.

Elsewhere, France suspended 3,000 health care workers who had not been inoculated with a COVID-19 vaccine by a government-mandated Sept. 15 deadline.

Tens of thousands of the country’s 2.7 million health workers were unvaccinated in July, when President Emmanuel Macron announced the Sept. 15 deadline to receive at least one shot of a vaccine.

Health Minister Olivier Veran said most suspended employees worked in support services, while few doctors and nurses were among the suspended.

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said Friday that France has reported more than 7 million cases and more than 116,000 deaths from COVID-19.

In India, a record 22.6 million vaccination shots were given Friday as some areas organized special inoculation drives for the birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who turned 71.

 

“Every Indian would be proud of today’s record vaccination numbers,” Modi said on Twitter.

India has provided at least one vaccine dose to more than 62% of its adult population and has fully vaccinated about 21% of adults, according to the Health Ministry.

In Switzerland, officials announced that all travelers entering the country who have neither been vaccinated nor have recovered from the disease will need proof of a negative test.

British officials relaxed restrictions on travel into England, which included ending the requirement that fully vaccinated passengers from low-risk countries take COVID-19 tests on arrival.

In the U.S. state of Idaho, hospitals have begun rationing care “because the massive increase of COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization in all areas of the state has exhausted existing resources,” the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (DHW) said in a statement Thursday.

“The situation is dire — we don’t have enough resources to adequately treat the patients in our hospitals, whether you are there for COVID-19 or a heart attack or because of a car accident,” DHW Director Dave Jeppesen said in a statement.

The best way to end the rationing “is for more people to get vaccinated,” Jeppesen said. “It dramatically reduces your chances of having to go to the hospital if you do get sick from COVID-19.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 

 

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Leaders to Gather at UN Against COVID-19 Backdrop

New York next week will see one of its first large gatherings since the coronavirus pandemic, when more than a hundred world leaders are expected to return to the United Nations for their annual meetings. VOA U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer reports.

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Study Shows Overwork Can Kill You, Literally 

A new study on work-related causes of deaths finds long working hours to be the biggest occupational risk factor. The joint study by the World Health Organization and International Labor Organization estimates nearly 2 million people a year die from work-related diseases and injuries.

World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it is shocking to see so many people literally being killed by their jobs. He said every single work-related death is preventable with the right health and safety measures in place.

“More than 80% of work-related deaths are due to non-communicable diseases, primarily cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, which are caused by or made worse by factors in the workplace,” Tedros said. “Long working hours are the single deadliest occupational risk factor accounting for 750,000 deaths each year.”

The study considers 19 occupational risk factors, including exposure to long working hours, exposure to air pollution in the workplace, as well as carcinogens and noise. Most of the deaths — 80% — are due to occupational non-communicable diseases, the remaining 20% are due to on-the-job accidents. 

Frank Pega is WHO Technical Officer, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health. He said those most at risk are males and people aged over 54 years. He said a disproportionately large number of work-related deaths occur in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. 

“Within these regions, we can also say that low- and middle-income countries are more affected than high-income countries, and I think … with disadvantaged workers, specifically informal economy workers,” Pega said. “So, informal economy workers probably work in jobs that have less protection and, therefore, are exposed to more occupational risk factors.”

The report cities North Korea as the country with the largest burden of work-related deaths, averaging 79.5 deaths per 100,000 working age population of 15 years or older.It is followed by Indonesia and Nepal. Tied for fourth with 43.7 deaths per 100,000 workers are Bangladesh and India. 

The study does not include data on the impact of COVID-19 work-related deaths. The authors say this information will be captured in future estimates. 

 

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Biden Urges International Leaders to Pursue Strong Climate Change Policy

U.S. President Joe Biden convened six heads of state and three leaders of multilateral organizations on Friday to make his plea: that stronger climate action is not just urgent — it is good for the global economy.

 

The leaders met six weeks ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, an event that aims to chart future global climate efforts.

 

“I wanted to show that we’re at an inflection point and that there’s a real consensus, a real consensus, that while the climate crisis poses an existential threat, there is a silver lining,” Biden told the leaders of Argentina, Bangladesh, Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico and the United Kingdom, who all joined virtually.

 

“The climate crisis also presents real and incredible economic opportunities to create jobs and lift up the standard of living for people around the world.”

 

One of Biden’s first acts in office was to return the United States to the Paris Agreement on climate change, after his predecessor withdrew saying it was a “bad deal” for the country.

 

The legally binding international treaty aims to limit the global temperature increase by 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels. For developed nations like the U.S. and China — the two largest emitters — that would require a substantial reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.

 

For the U.S., that would require reducing emissions by 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030, a move that could require a marked shift from traditional energy sources like coal towards greener sources like solar and wind power.

 

The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres echoed Biden’s sense of urgency on Friday.

 

“The world is on a catastrophic pathway to 2.7 degrees of heating,” he said in a statement, citing a report released Friday by the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. “This is breaking the promise made six years ago to pursue the 1.5-degree Celsius goal of the Paris Agreement. Failure to meet this goal will be measured in the massive loss of lives and livelihoods.”

The U.N. chief directly pinned responsibility on the developed world, noting that 80% of global emissions are caused by the world’s 20 wealthiest nations. He called on all nations to set more ambitious emissions targets, and for developed countries to deliver on their $100 billion commitment to help developing nations deal with climate change.

 

But notable by their absence at Friday’s meeting was any representative from the world’s largest emitter: China.

 

Nikos Tsafos, an analyst working on energy and geopolitics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says there is a lot of subtext to the U.S.-China relationship when it comes to climate change discussions.

 

“The bilateral relationship is more complex and adversarial than it was during the negotiation of the Paris Agreement in 2015, making it hard to disentangle climate from the numerous disputes between the two countries,” he wrote in an opinion piece. “China has also tried to brand itself as a leader on climate and is less willing to do anything that might be seen as kowtowing to U.S. pressure.”

 

But, he noted, China’s perspective has also changed. They now, too, see opportunity to cash in. For years, he said, Chinese firms have been major players in the wind and solar power industries, and the nation is a bigger market for electric vehicles than the U.S.

 

“There is no longer a need to convince China to lean into the energy transition,” he said.

 

The 197 parties to the Paris Agreement — which include individual countries and supranational groupings — will meet in November, in Glasgow, Scotland.

 

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Navalny App Gone from Google, Apple Stores on Russia Vote Day

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny’s Smart Voting app disappeared from Apple and Google stores Friday as Russians began voting in a three-day parliamentary election marked by a historic crackdown on the opposition.

“Removing the Navalny app from stores is a shameful act of political censorship,” top Navalny ally Ivan Zhdanov said on Twitter.

The app promoted an initiative that outlines for Navalny supporters which candidate they should back to unseat Kremlin-aligned politicians.

Russia had accused Google and Apple of election interference, demanding this week that they remove the app from their stores. 

Exiled Navalny ally Leonid Volkov said the companies had “caved in to the Kremlin’s blackmail.”

“We have the whole of the Russian state against us and even big tech companies,” Navalny’s team said on Telegram.

In a message from prison, Navalny had urged supporters to download the app, which aims to help Russians to vote out candidates from President Vladimir Putin’s ruling United Russia party in the upcoming polls. 

On the eve of the vote his team urged Russian voters to back Communist Party candidates. 

Navalny – who was detained in January – has this year seen his organizations declared “extremist” and banned, while all his top aides have fled.

Russia’s media regulator has since barred dozens of websites linked to Navalny including his main website navalny.com. 

 

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China Gets Serious About Cracking Down on Youth Online Gaming

With China’s new restrictions on minors playing online games, the global gaming industry wonders what’s next. Michelle Quinn reports.

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Chinese Astronauts Return after 90 Days Aboard Space Station

A trio of Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on Friday after a 90-day stay aboard their nation’s first space station in China’s longest mission yet.  

 

Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo landed in the Shenzhou-12 spaceship just after 1:30 p.m. (0530 GMT) after having undocked from the space station Thursday morning.  

 

State broadcaster CCTV showed footage of the spacecraft parachuting to land in the Gobi Desert where it was met by helicopters and off-road vehicles. Minutes later, a crew of technicians began opening the hatch of the capsule, which appeared undamaged.  

 

The three astronauts emerged about 30 minutes later and were seated in reclining chairs just outside the capsule to allow them time to readjust to Earth’s gravity after three months of living in a weightless environment. The three were due to fly to Beijing on Friday.

 

“With China’s growing strength and the rising level of Chinese technology, I firmly believe there will even more astronauts who will set new records,” mission commander Nie told CCTV.  

 

After launching on June 17, the three astronauts went on two spacewalks, deployed a 10-meter (33-foot) mechanical arm, and had a video call with Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.

 

While few details have been made public by China’s military, which runs the space program, astronaut trios are expected to be brought on 90-day missions to the station over the next two years to make it fully functional.  

 

The government has not announced the names of the next set of astronauts nor the launch date of Shenzhou-13.

 

China has sent 14 astronauts into space since 2003, when it became only the third country after the former Soviet Union and the United States to do so on its own.  

 

China’s space program has advanced at a measured pace and has largely avoided many of the problems that marked the U.S. and Russian programs that were locked in intense competition during the heady early days of spaceflight.  

 

That has made it a source of enormous national pride, complementing the country’s rise to economic, technological, military and diplomatic prominence in recent years under the firm rule of the Communist Party and current leader Xi Jinping.  

 

China embarked on its own space station program in the 1990s after being excluded from the International Space Station, largely due to U.S. objections to the Chinese space program’s secrecy and military backing.  

 

China has simultaneously pushed ahead with uncrewed missions, placing a rover on the little-explored far side of the Moon and, in December, the Chang’e 5 probe returned lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since the 1970s.  

 

China this year also landed its Tianwen-1 space probe on Mars, with its accompanying Zhurong rover venturing out to look for evidence of life.

 

Another program calls for collecting samples from an asteroid, an area in which Japan’s rival space program has made progress of late.  

 

China also plans to dispatch another mission in 2024 to bring back lunar samples and is pursuing a possible crewed mission to the moon and eventually building a scientific base there, although no timeline has been proposed for such projects. A highly secretive space plane is also reportedly under development.

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India to Spend $3.5 Billion to Fast-Track Shift to Clean Fuel Cars

Hoping to meet green energy goals and cut down on Indian cities’ air pollution while boosting its flagging auto industry, the Indian government Wednesday announced a $3.5 billion push for electric and hydrogen-fuel powered vehicles.

The plan, which includes incentives for automakers to invest in clean technology cars, will allow India to “leapfrog” to environmentally cleaner vehicles, the cabinet said in a statement while announcing the effort.

“It will herald a new age in higher technology, more efficient and green automotive manufacturing,” the statement said.

Clean fuel vehicles so far make up a fraction of the country’s vehicles, despite ambitious goals announced four years ago for a 100% transition to electric cars by 2030.

This move could, however, give India a head start in an industry that is emerging globally by providing an impetus to manufacturers, according to auto analysts.

“The government is looking more serious and its focus is clearly on green energy. That is why the support it is extending is not for the entire auto industry, but only for those who invest in technological advancement in the sector,” said Awanish Chandra, an auto analyst at Mumbai-based wealth equities firm SMIFS Limited.

The push toward electric vehicles will also contribute significantly to the country’s goal of cutting down carbon emissions — India is the world’s third-biggest carbon emitter.

At the same time, its cities have some of the world’s dirtiest air — India is home to 22 out of 30 cites in the world with the worst air pollution, according to a Greenpeace analysis.

Environmental experts have long said the country’s huge transport sector is a major contributor to the hazardous air in a country where a grossly inadequate public transport infrastructure has increased reliance on private vehicles — Delhi’s roads, for example, are crammed with more than 12 million vehicles.

Along with its big push toward solar energy, the latest initiative will help, according to Amit Kumar, a former senior director with The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi.

“Definitely this is the right direction to go. We have to focus on cutting down vehicle emissions whether with electric or hydrogen-powered vehicles to meet our green energy goals,” he said.

India is on track to achieve its Paris Agreement targets to cut carbon emissions well before the target date of 2030, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said earlier this year.

 

However, auto analyst Chandra said he does not expect the transition to electric vehicles to happen in a big way for several years. 

“Petrol and diesel cars are here to stay for at least 10 years, but the world is moving towards electric vehicles, so we should not be lagging. The support from the government will incentivize companies to make the investment,” he said.

The government says it expects to generate about $5.8 billion in new investment and create 750,000 jobs in a sector that contributes about $100 billion to the country’s gross domestic product.

There have been reports that electric car pioneer Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc. plans to enter India, while domestic manufacturers have also said they plan to make big investments to make the shift to electric cars.

India has emerged as one of the world’s major automobile manufacturing hubs in recent decades but the sector has struggled in recent years as an economy that was faltering even before the pandemic depressed demand.

 

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Fighting Fire with Fire in US to Protect Sequoia Trees

With flames advancing toward the signature grove of ancient massive trees in Sequoia National Park, firefighters on Thursday fought fire with fire.

Using firing operations to burn out flammable vegetation and other matter before the wildfire arrives in the Giant Forest is one of several ways firefighters can use their nemesis as a tool to stop, slow or redirect fires.

The tactic comes with considerable risks if conditions change. But it is routinely used to protect communities, homes or valuable resources now under threat from fires, including the grove of about 2,000 massive sequoias, including the General Sherman Tree, the world’s largest by volume.

Here’s how it works:

It’s all about the fuel

Three things influence how hot and fast a fire burns: the landscape, with fire burning faster up steep slopes; weather, with winds and dry conditions fanning flames; and fuel, the amount of material that can burn.

The first two can’t be controlled, but there are ways to reduce fuels long before any fire breaks out — or even as one is approaching.

“Of all the things that affect fire behavior, the fuels is really where we can take action,” said Maureen Kennedy, a professor of wildfire ecology at the University of Washington.

Historically, low- to moderate-severity fires every five to 30 years burned out excess brush and timber before deadly fires in the early 20th century led to aggressive firefighting and a U.S. Forest Service policy to suppress all fires by 10 a.m. the day after they were reported.

That led to dense forests of dead trees, fallen logs and overgrown brush that accumulated over the past century, fueling more massive fires.

Slowing fire by creating fire

For centuries, Native Americans have used fire to thin out forests.

Prescribed burns set under favorable weather conditions can help mimic the lower-intensity fires of the past and burn off excess fuels when they are not at risk of getting out of control. If fire eventually burns the area, it will likely do so at lower intensity and with less damage.

 

The idea is the same during a wildfire. Fire chiefs try to take advantage of shifting winds or changing landscapes to burn out an area before the fire gets there, depriving it of the fuel it needs to keep going.

“They’re trying to achieve the same effect,” Kennedy said. “They’re trying to moderate the fire behavior. They’re trying to remove the fuels that make the fire burn so intensely.

Of course, their goal there is to better contain and control the fire and protect the more valuable resources.”

Safely setting mild fires

All wildland firefighters learn about burnout operations in basic training, but it takes a higher level of training to plan and carry out firing operations.

“You need to know how to fight fire before you light fire,” said Paul Broyles, a former chief of fire operations for the National Park Service.

Burning an area between the fire front and a projected point — such as a firebreak or the Giant Forest in Sequoia — requires the right conditions and enough time to complete the burnout before the fire can reach a fire line constructed by firefighters.

 

Often such operations are conducted at night when fires tend to die down or slow their advance as temperatures cool and humidity rises.

The convection of a fire pulls in winds from all direction, which can help. As fires climb steep terrain, burnouts are sometimes set on the other side of a ridge so any embers will land in an area where dry grasses and brush have already burned.

The firing operations require a crew making sure the fire does not spread in the wrong direction. It may also include bulldozers cutting fire lines or air tankers dropping retardant to further slow the flames.

All of it has to work in sync, Broyles said.

“Air tankers by themselves do not put fires out unless you follow up with personnel,” he said. “It’s like the military. You don’t just bomb the hell out of your enemy without ground troops.”

While burnouts are commonly used, they can backfire if winds shift or they aren’t lit early enough.

“When you put more fire on the ground, there is a risk,” said Rebecca Paterson, a spokesperson for Sequoia National Park. “It carries the potential to create more problems than it solves.”

Broyles said there were times he didn’t get a burnout started in time and firefighters had to be evacuated.

“Fortunately, in my case, we didn’t have any losses,” he said.

Small flames to protect giant sequoias

Firefighters on Thursday were conducting burnout operations in the Giant Forest at almost a micro level, moving from tree to tree, Paterson said. Ground cover and organic debris known as duff close to the trees was being set on fire, allowing the flames to creep away from the tree to create a buffer.

The General Sherman and other massive conifers were wrapped in aluminum blankets to protect them from the extreme heat.

The park was the first in the West to use prescribed fire more than 50 years ago and regularly burns some of its groves to remove fuels. Paterson said that was a reason for optimism.

“Hopefully, the Giant Forest will emerge from this unscathed,” she said. 

 

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France Suspends 3,000 Unvaccinated Health Care Workers

France has suspended 3,000 health care workers who were not inoculated with a COVID-19 vaccine by a government-mandated Sept. 15 deadline.

“Several dozens” of the country’s 2.7 million health workers, Health Minister Olivier Veran said Thursday, opted to resign rather than receive the inoculation against the coronavirus.

Tens of thousands health workers were unvaccinated in July when President Emmanuel Macron announced the Sept. 15 deadline to have at least one shot of a vaccine.

Veran said most suspended employees worked in support services, while few doctors and nurses were among the suspended.

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said early Friday that France has reported more than 7 million COVID cases and more than 116,000 COVID deaths.

In the U.S. state of Idaho, hospitals have begun rationing care “because the massive increase of COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization in all areas of the state has exhausted existing resources,” the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare said in a statement Thursday.

“The situation is dire – we don’t have enough resources to adequately treat the patients in our hospitals, whether you are there for COVID-19 or a heart attack or because of a car accident,” DHW Director Dave Jeppesen said in a statement.

The best way to end the rationing “is for more people to get vaccinated,” Jeppesen said.“It dramatically reduces your chances of having to go to the hospital if you do get sick from COVID-19.”

The Intenational Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the World Trade Organization have met with the major COVID vaccine manufacturers to devise strategies to improve vaccine access for low- and middle-income countries.

The goal of the coalition is to vaccinate at least 40% of people in every country by the end of this year and at least 60% by mid-2022.

WHO said the 2021 target is “a critical milestone to end the pandemic and for global economic recovery.” 

 

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Biden Slams Opponents of Vaccine Mandate

A growing number of Republicans, including state governors, have vowed to mount legal challenges against President Joe Biden’s sweeping measures to compel workers and federal employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has the story.

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Clive Sinclair, Computing Pioneer, Dies at 81

Sir Clive Sinclair, the British inventor who pioneered the pocket calculator and affordable home computers, died Thursday at age 81.

He died at his home in London a decade after being diagnosed with cancer, U.K. media said, prompting tributes from many who fondly recalled their first experience of computing in the early 1980s.

He was still working on inventions last week “because that was what he loved doing,” his daughter Belinda Sinclair told the BBC. “He was inventive and imaginative, and for him, it was exciting and an adventure. It was his passion.”

Sinclair’s groundbreaking products included the first portable electronic calculator in 1972.

The Sinclair ZX80, which was launched in 1980 and sold for less than £100 at the time, brought home computing to the masses in Britain and beyond.

Other early home computers such as the Apple II cost far more, and Sinclair’s company was the first in the world to sell more than a million machines.

Follow-up models included the ZX Spectrum in 1982, which boasted superior power and a more user-friendly interface, turbocharging the revolution in gaming and programming at home.

British movie director Edgar Wright, whose latest film, Last Night in Soho, premiered in Venice this month, paid tribute to Sinclair on Twitter.

“For someone whose first glimpses of a brave new world were the terrifying graphics of 3D Monster Maze on the ZX81, I’d like to salute tech pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair,” he said. “He made 21st century dreams feel possible. Will bash away on the rubber keys of a Spectrum in your honour. RIP.”

Tom Watson, former deputy leader of Britain’s opposition Labor Party, tweeted: “This man changed the course of my life.

“And arguably, the digital age for us in the UK started with the Sinclair ZX80, when thousands of kids learnt to code using 1k of RAM. For us, the Spectrum was like a Rolls-Royce with 48k.”

However, not all of Sinclair’s inventions were a runaway success.

The Sinclair C5, a battery-powered tricycle touted as the future of eco-friendly transport, became an expensive flop after it was launched in 1985.

But in retrospect, it was ahead of its time, given today’s attention on climate change and the vogue for electric vehicles.

“You cannot exaggerate Sir Clive Sinclair’s influence on the world,” gaming journalist and presenter Dominik Diamond tweeted. “And if we’d all stopped laughing long enough to buy a C5, he’d probably have saved the environment.”

Born in 1940, Sinclair left school at 17, becoming a technical writer creating specialist manuals.

At 22, he formed his first company, making mail-order radio kits, including what was then the world’s smallest transistor radio.

Other ventures included digital watches and an early version of a flat-screen television.

He was knighted in 1983.

Ironically, in a 2013 interview with the BBC, Sinclair revealed that he did not use computers.

“I don’t like distraction,” he explained. “If I had a computer, I’d start thinking I could change this, I could change that, and I don’t want to. My wife very kindly looks after that for me.” 

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Jane Powell, Hollywood Golden-Age Musicals Star, Dies at 92

Jane Powell, the bright-eyed, operatic-voiced star of Hollywood’s golden age musicals who sang with Howard Keel in “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” and danced with Fred Astaire in “Royal Wedding,” has died. She was 92.

Powell died Thursday at her Wilton, Connecticut, home, longtime friend Susan Granger said. Granger said Powell died of natural causes.

Powell performed virtually her whole life, starting about age 5 as a singing prodigy on radio in Portland, Oregon. She made her first movie at 16 and graduated from teenage roles to co-starring in the lavish musical productions that were a 20th-century Hollywood staple.

Her 1950 casting in “Royal Wedding” came by default. June Allyson was first announced as Astaire’s co-star but withdrew when she became pregnant. Judy Garland was cast but was withdrawn because of personal problems. Powell was next in line.

“They had to give it to me,” she quipped at the time. “Everybody else is pregnant.” Also among the expectant MGM stars: Lana Turner, Esther Williams, Cyd Charisse and Jean Hagen.

Powell had just turned 21 when she got the role. Astaire was 50. She was nervous because she lacked dancing experience, but she found him “very patient and understanding. We got along fine from the start.”

Surprise smash

“Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” proved to be a 1954 “sleeper” hit.

“The studio didn’t think it was going to do anything,” she recalled in 2000. “MGM thought that ‘Brigadoon’ was going to be the big moneymaker that year. It didn’t turn out that way. We were the ones that went to the Radio City Music Hall, which was always such a coup.”

The famed New York venue was a movie theater then.

Audiences were overwhelmed by the lusty singing of Keel and Powell, and especially by the gymnastic choreography of Michael Kidd. “Seven Brides” achieved classic status and resulted in a TV series and a Broadway musical.

“Blonde and small and pretty, Jane Powell had the required amount of grit and spunk that was needed to play the woman who could tame seven backwoodsmen,” John Kobal wrote in his book “Gotta Sing Gotta Dance: A Pictorial History of Film Musicals.”

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All-Tourist Spaceflight, and Beauty Tips from the ISS

Another commercial spaceflight company launches into the space tourism business. Plus, more spacewalks outside the International Space Station, and beauty tips from astronauts on board. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space.

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SpaceX Crew of Amateurs Orbits Earth

The first all-civilian crew of astronauts is now orbiting the Earth after the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched them into space in spectacular fashion late Wednesday.

Video from the launch showed the initial fireball light up the night sky as the rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 8:02 p.m. local time.

The capsule could be seen streaking across the sky as it gained altitude. About 12 minutes into the flight, a bright plume of light appeared as the Dragon capsule separated from the rocket’s second stage and the crew entered orbit, while the reusable first stage made its way back to Earth for a vertical landing on a sea barge. 

The team of four amateur astronauts is led by billionaire e-commerce executive Jared Isaacman, 38, who is paying for the entire trip. 

A SpaceX webcast of the launch showed Isaacman and his crewmates — Sian Proctor, 51, Hayley Arceneaux, 29, and Chris Sembroski, 42 — strapped into the pressurized cabin of the white SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, dubbed Resilience, wearing their flight suits, complete with helmets. 

The spaceship’s trajectory will take it to an altitude of 575 kilometers — deeper into space than the International Space Station. 

After spending three days orbiting the Earth, the Dragon capsule will splash down off the Florida coast. 

In a statement on its website, the U.S. space agency NASA said it was providing some support to SpaceX and the flight of Inspiration4 “on a fully reimbursable, non-interference basis,” including communications, ground control and services through the Kennedy Space Center.

The flight marks the debut of SpaceX owner Elon Musk’s new orbital tourism business. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

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