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August’s supermoon kicks off four months of lunar spectacles
cape canaveral, florida — The first of four supermoons this year rises next week, providing tantalizing views of Earth’s constant companion.
Stargazers can catch the first act Monday as the full moon inches a little closer than usual, making it appear slightly bigger and brighter in the night sky.
“I like to think of the supermoon as a good excuse to start looking at the moon more regularly,” said Noah Petro, project scientist for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
August’s supermoon kicks off a string of lunar spectacles. September’s supermoon will coincide with a partial lunar eclipse. October’s will be the year’s closest approach, and November’s will round out the year.
What makes a moon so super?
More a popular term than a scientific one, a supermoon occurs when a full lunar phase syncs up with an especially close swing around Earth. This usually happens only three or four times a year and consecutively, given the moon’s constantly shifting, oval-shaped orbit.
A supermoon obviously isn’t bigger, but it can appear that way, although scientists say the difference can be barely perceptible.
“Unless you have looked at a lot of full moons or compare them in images, it is hard to notice the difference, but people should try,” Petro said in an email.
How do supermoons compare?
There’s a quartet of supermoons this year.
The first will be 361,970 kilometers away. The next will be nearly 4,484 kilometers closer the night of September 17 into the following morning.
A partial lunar eclipse will also unfold that night, visible in much of the Americas, Africa and Europe as the Earth’s shadow falls on the moon, resembling a small bite.
October’s supermoon will be the year’s closest at 357,364 kilometers from Earth, followed by November’s supermoon at 361,867 kilometers.
What’s in it for me?
Scientists point out that only the keenest observers can discern the subtle differences. It’s easier to detect the change in brightness — a supermoon can be 30% brighter than average.
With the U.S. and other countries ramping up lunar exploration with landers and eventually astronauts, the moon beckons brighter than ever. As project scientist for the first team of moonwalkers coming up under Apollo’s follow-on program, Artemis, Petro is thrilled by the renewed lunar interest.
“It certainly makes it more fun to stare at,” Petro said.
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Pakistanis frustrated by slowdown in internet service
islamabad — From sharing memes to sealing deals, millions of Pakistanis are struggling to communicate digitally as internet and data services have slowed down across much of the country.
Officials are blaming internet service providers for the slowdown, but media reports indicate the problem may stem from the deployment of a nationwide internet firewall aimed at controlling online content and traffic.
Crippling economy
The problem, which began several weeks ago, has worsened in recent days, frustrating freelancers like Moadood Ahmad, who is seeing a drop in income.
“If I don’t show as available on Upwork or Fiverr, then new clients can’t even approach me. Older clients are also disturbed,” Ahmad told VOA. The Lahore-based digital marketing services provider says he has made virtually no money in the last two weeks.
According to DataReportal.com, 111 million Pakistanis in the nation of more than 240 million have access to internet. The country has nearly 189 million active cellular connections. State Bank of Pakistan put the country’s IT exports at $3.2 billion in the financial year that ended in July 2024.
The spokesperson’s office of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) told VOA it has only heard about issues with internet speed and web access through media. Speaking to VOA in late July, a PTA spokesperson blamed the slowdown at that time on a possible technical glitch.
During a hearing Thursday, the secretary for the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication told a Senate committee that it was gathering data about the situation from mobile operators.
But the slump in services is not limited to mobile data users. In a statement to the media Thursday, an alliance of internet service providers (ISPs) said internet speeds had plummeted by 30% to 40%, “crippling [the] digital economy.”
“Many are leaving the smaller ISPs because they can’t sustain the poor service quality anymore. If this continues, we will see a mass exodus of businesses from Pakistan,” said the Wireless and Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan (WISPAP).
Speaking to VOA, WISPAP Chairman Shahzad Arshad said his alliance members were inundated with customer complaints.
“The authorities should at least tell us a timeframe that we can give to the customer,” Arshad said.
Without mentioning the firewall, WISPAP’s statement blamed increased “security and surveillance” for the decline in service quality.
“While the government remains steadfast in its commitment to enhancing security, the question remains: at what cost to the nation’s digital economy?” the statement asked.
Controlling access
A source familiar with the nationwide firewall told VOA the system — acquired from China and installed through the Ministry of Defense — is based at a cable landing station in Pakistan, the place where the undersea internet data cable meets a country’s internet system.
The firewall, also placed on the systems used by data providers, can give Pakistani authorities information about an individual user’s online activities and where they are operating from, allowing for targeted monitoring, the source said.
Efforts to deploy the firewall on servers that major international companies use to store content close to end users are also underway. This can give authorities deeper access to an individual’s data and control of their online activities.
Digital rights activists reject the government’s claim that the firewall is only a cybersecurity tool.
“To me, this is about political control. This desperation to do whatever they can,” said Farieha Aziz, co-founder of the digital rights group Bolo Bhi, an Urdu name that means “speak up.”
Government officials “are still not transparent and open about the capability [of the firewall], what kind of monitoring is happening,” said Aziz. “What are they attempting?”
The country’s latest efforts to control internet traffic and user activity come as the powerful military frequently complains of rising “digital terrorism,” a term it uses for those who criticize or mock the armed forces on social media.
Digital rights activist Aziz also criticized telecom companies and internet service providers for not being transparent with users about the reasons for service disruptions.
Digital freedom is limited in Pakistan. Global rights watchdog Freedom House describes Pakistan as “not free,” with a low score of only 26 out of 100 on its internet freedom index.
Pakistanis trying to bypass poor connectivity and speed by using VPNs are not faring much better either.
“Even those who use VPNs, and use our internet services, are unable to connect,” WISPAP’s Shahzad confirmed to VOA.
A PTA official told the Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat, earlier this month that the regulator was working on a plan to approve certain virtual private networks. All other VPNs would be blocked.
Senator Palwasha Khan, chairperson of the Senate’s standing committee on IT, told VOA she expected internet speed to normalize in Pakistan within days. She said the committee was not informed if the problem was because of the firewall, but said she supported the censorship tool.
“I do agree that if some security measures are taken to control the chaos on social media, I don’t have any problem with that,” said Khan, a senator from the Pakistan People’s Party, which is part of the ruling alliance.
Struggling to share voice notes and visual content with clients via a popular messaging app, freelancer Moadood Ahmad told VOA he regretted moving back to Pakistan from the United Arab Emirates.
“I am thinking I made a mistake,” Ahmad said. “I should go back.”
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Matthew Perry’s assistant among 5 people charged in ‘Friends’ star’s death
los angeles — A prosecutor says five people have been charged in connection with Matthew Perry’s death from a ketamine overdose last year, including the actor’s assistant and two doctors.
U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada announced the charges Thursday, saying the doctors supplied Perry with a large amount of ketamine and even wondered in a text message how much the former “Friends” star would be willing to pay.
“These defendants took advantage of Mr. Perry’s addiction issues to enrich themselves. They knew what they were doing was wrong,” Estrada said.
Perry died in October due to a ketamine overdose and received several injections of the drug on the day he died from his live-in personal assistant. The assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, is the one who found Perry dead later that day.
The actor went to the two charged doctors in desperation after his regular doctors refused to give him ketamine in the amounts he wanted. DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in one instance the actor paid $2,000 for a vial of ketamine that cost one of the physicians about $12.
Two of the people, including one of the doctors charged, were arrested Thursday, Estrada said. Two of the defendants, including Iwamasa, have pleaded guilty to charges already, and a third person has agreed to plead guilty.
Multiple messages left seeking comment from lawyers or offices for all the defendants have not yet been returned.
Among those arrested Thursday are Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who is charged with seven counts of distribution of ketamine and also two charges related to allegations he falsified records after Perry’s death.
The other person arrested Thursday is Jasveen Sangha, who prosecutors described as a drug dealer known as the “ketamine queen.”
Ketamine supplied by Sangha caused Perry’s death, authorities said.
Sangha and Plasencia could make their first court appearances later Thursday.
Records show Plascencia’s medical license has been in good standing with no records of complaints, though it is set to expire in October.
A San Diego physician, Dr. Mark Chavez, has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine. Prosecutors allege Chavez funneled ketamine to Plasencia, securing some of the drug from a wholesale distributor through a fraudulent prescription.
The prosecutor said the defendants exchanged messages soon after Perry’s death referencing ketamine as the cause of death. Estrada said they tried to cover up their involvement in supplying Perry ketamine, a powerful anesthetic that is sometimes used to treat chronic pain and depression.
Los Angeles police said in May that they were working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service with a probe into why the 54-year-old had so much of the surgical anesthetic in his system.
Iwamasa found the actor face down in his hot tub on Oct. 28, and paramedics who were called immediately declared him dead.
The assistant received the ketamine from Eric Fleming, who has pleaded guilty to obtaining the drug from Sangha and delivering it to Iwamasa. In all, he delivered 50 vials of ketamine for Perry’s use, including 25 handed over four days before the actor’s death.
Perry’s autopsy, released in December, found that the amount of ketamine in his blood was in the range used for general anesthesia during surgery.
Ketamine has seen a huge surge in use in recent years as a treatment for depression, anxiety and pain. People close to Perry told coroner’s investigators that he was undergoing ketamine infusion therapy.
But the medical examiner said Perry’s last treatment 1½ weeks earlier wouldn’t explain the levels of ketamine in his blood. The drug is typically metabolized in a matter of hours. At least two doctors were treating Perry, a psychiatrist and an anesthesiologist who served as his primary care physician, the medical examiner’s report said. No illicit drugs or paraphernalia were found at his house.
Ketamine was listed as the primary cause of death, which was ruled an accident with no foul play suspected, the report said. Drowning and other medical issues were contributing factors, the coroner said.
Drug-related celebrity deaths have in other cases led authorities to prosecute the people who supplied them.
After rapper Mac Miller died from an overdose of cocaine, alcohol and counterfeit oxycodone that contained fentanyl, two of the men who provided him the fentanyl were convicted of distributing the drug. One was sentenced to more than 17 years in federal prison, the other to 10 years.
And after Michael Jackson died in 2009 from a lethal dose of propofol, a drug intended for use only during surgery and other medical procedures and not for the insomnia the singer sought it for, his doctor, Conrad Murray, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2011. Murray has maintained his innocence.
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Google says Iranian group trying to hack US presidential campaigns
NEW YORK — Google said Wednesday that an Iranian group linked to the country’s Revolutionary Guard had tried to infiltrate the personal email accounts of roughly a dozen people linked to President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump since May.
The tech company’s threat intelligence arm said the group was still actively targeting people associated with Biden, Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, who replaced Biden as the Democratic candidate last month when he dropped out of the presidential race. It said those targeted have included current and former government officials, as well as presidential campaign affiliates.
The new report from Google’s Threat Analysis Group affirmed and expanded upon a Microsoft report released Friday that revealed a suspected Iranian cyber intrusion in this year’s U.S. presidential election. It shed light on how foreign adversaries are increasing their efforts to disrupt the election that is now less than three months away.
Google’s report said its threat researchers detected and disrupted a “small but steady cadence” of the Iranian attackers using email credential phishing, a type of cyberattack where the attacker poses as a trusted sender to try to get an email recipient to share login details. John Hultquist, chief analyst for the company’s threat intelligence arm, said the company sends suspected targets of these attacks a Gmail pop-up that warns them that a government-backed attacker might be trying to steal their passwords.
The report said Google observed the group gaining access to one high-profile political consultant’s personal Gmail account. Google reported the incident to the FBI in July. Microsoft’s Friday report had shared similar information, noting that the email account of a former senior adviser to a presidential campaign had been compromised and weaponized to send a phishing email to a high-ranking campaign official.
The group is familiar to Google’s threat intelligence arm and other researchers, and this isn’t the first time it has tried to interfere in U.S. elections, Hultquist said. The report noted that the same Iranian group targeted both the Biden and Trump campaigns with phishing attacks during the 2020 cycle, as early as June of that year.
The group also has been prolific in other cyber espionage activity, particularly in the Middle East, the report said. In recent months, as the Israel-Hamas war has fueled tension in the region, that activity has included email phishing campaigns targeted at Israeli diplomats, academics, nongovernmental organizations and military affiliates.
Trump’s campaign said Saturday that it had been hacked and that sensitive internal documents had been stolen and distributed. It said Iranian actors were to blame.
The same day, Politico revealed it had received leaked internal Trump campaign documents by email, though it wasn’t clear whether the leaked documents were related to the suspected Iranian cyber activity. The Washington Post and The New York Times also received the documents.
While the Trump campaign hasn’t provided specific evidence linking Iran to the hack, both Trump and his longtime friend and former adviser Roger Stone have said they were contacted by Microsoft related to suspected cyber intrusions. Stone’s email was compromised by hackers targeting Trump’s campaign, a person familiar with the matter said.
Google and Microsoft wouldn’t identify the people targeted in the Iranian intrusion attempts or confirm that Stone was among them. Google did confirm that the Iranian group in its report, which it calls APT42, is the same as the one in Microsoft’s research. Microsoft refers to the group as Mint Sandstorm.
Harris’ campaign has declined to say whether it has identified any state-based intrusion attempts but has said it vigilantly monitors cyber threats and isn’t aware of any security breaches of its systems.
The FBI on Monday confirmed that it’s investigating the intrusion of the Trump campaign. Two people familiar with the matter said the FBI also is investigating attempts to gain access to the Biden-Harris campaign.
The reports of Iranian hacking come as U.S. intelligence officials have warned of persistent and mounting efforts from both Russia and Iran to influence the U.S. election through their online activity. Beyond these hacking incidents, groups linked to the countries have used fake news websites and social media accounts to churn out content that appears intended to sway voters’ opinions.
While neither Microsoft nor Google specified Iran’s intentions in the U.S. presidential race, U.S. officials have previously hinted that Iran particularly opposes Trump. U.S. officials also have expressed alarm about Tehran’s efforts to seek retaliation for a 2020 strike on an Iranian general that was ordered by Trump.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations, when asked about the claim of the Trump campaign, denied being involved.
“We do not accord any credence to such reports,” the mission told The Associated Press. “The Iranian government neither possesses nor harbors any intent or motive to interfere in the United States presidential election.”
The mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday about Google’s report.
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Stonehenge’s ‘altar stone’ came from Scotland, not Wales, new research shows
WASHINGTON — The ancient ritual meaning of Stonehenge is still a mystery, but researchers are one step closer to understanding how the famous stone circle was created.
The unique stone lying flat at the center of the monument was brought to the site in southern England from near the tip of northeast Scotland, researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Nature. It’s not clear whether the 5-meter (16-foot) stone was carried by boat or over land — a journey of more than 740 kilometers (460 miles).
“It’s a surprise that it’s come from so far away,” said University of Exeter archaeologist Susan Greaney, who was not involved in the study.
For more than a hundred years, scientists believed that Stonehenge’s central sandstone slab — long called the “altar stone” — came from much-closer Wales. But a study last year by some of the same researchers showed that the stone didn’t match the geology of Wales’ sandstone formations. The actual source of the stone remained unknown until now.
For the study, the team was not permitted to chip away rocks at the site, but instead analyzed minerals in bits of rock that had been collected in previous digs, some dating back to the 1840s. They found a match in the sandstone formations of Orcadian Basin in northeast Scotland, a region that includes parts of the tip of the Scottish peninsula as well as the Orkney Islands.
“That geological ‘fingerprint’ isn’t repeated in any other area of sediment in the U.K.,” said Aberystwyth University geologist Nick Pearce, a study co-author.
Greaney said the difficult logistics of moving the stone such a long distance show a high level of coordination and cultural connection between these two regions of ancient Britain.
Stonehenge was constructed around 5,000 years ago, with stones forming different circles brought to the site at different times. The placement of stones allows for the sun to rise through a stone “window” during summer solstice. The ancient purpose of the altar stone — which lies flat at the heart of Stonehenge, now beneath other rocks — remains a mystery.
“Stonehenge isn’t a settlement site, but a place of ceremony or ritual,” said Heather Sebire, senior curator at English Heritage, who was not involved in the study. She said that past archaeological excavations had not uncovered evidence of feasting or daily living at the site.
Previous research has shown cultural connections — such as similarities in pottery styles — between the area around Stonehenge and Scotland’s Orkney Islands. Other stones at Stonehenge came from western Wales.
While Britain is dotted with other Neolithic stone circles, “the thing that’s unique about Stonehenge is the distance from which the stones have been sourced,” said Aberystwyth University’s Richard Bevins, a study co-author.
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Biden strikes $150M blow against cancer in campaign to slash deaths
washington — President Joe Biden on Tuesday visited Louisiana’s infamous “Cancer Alley” to strike at what he identified as a top priority of his dwindling presidency: announcing $150 million in research funding toward the goal of dramatically reducing cancer deaths in the United States.
The Cancer Moonshot is an initiative close to Biden’s heart. Both he and first lady Jill Biden have had brushes with skin cancers. And in 2015, an aggressive brain cancer took the life of their eldest son, Beau.
“We’re moving quickly,” Biden said of the initiative, which has a goal of reducing the U.S. cancer death rate by at least half by 2047. “Because we know that all families touched by cancer are in a race against time.”
Cancer is the second-biggest cause of death worldwide. The National Cancer Institute predicts that 2 million Americans will be diagnosed this year with the immune-mediated disease, which can manifest in organs, bone marrow and blood and which comes in hundreds of different varieties.
“Cancer touches us all,” the first lady said. “When Joe and I lost our son to brain cancer, we decided to turn our pain into purpose. We wanted to help families like ours so that they won’t have to experience this terrible loss, and as president, Joe has brought his own relentless optimism to the Biden Cancer Moonshot to end cancer as we know it. It’s ambitious, but it’s also within our reach – maybe not yet, but one day soon.”
Biden launched the initiative when he was vice president. Since he restored the program as president, the research agency he created has invested more than $400 million in the cause.
Cancer advocates praised the move but stressed the need for long-term engagement.
“We’ve made tremendous strides in how we prevent, detect, treat and survive cancer, but there is still much work to be done to improve the lives of those touched by this disease,” said Dr. Karen E. Knudsen, CEO of the American Cancer Society and the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.
“Cancer cases are estimated to hit an all-time high this year, and we cannot relent in driving forward public policies that will address this,” Knudsen said. “Funding more researchers across the country focused on more effective and innovative treatments will bring us closer to future cancer breakthroughs and ending cancer as we know it, for everyone.”
And cancer is often compounded by environmental causes – such as those in the 140-kilometer (85-mile) stretch of communities between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, home to a string of major fossil fuel and petrochemical operations.
Karl Minges, associate dean in the School of Health Sciences at the University of New Haven, told VOA that while the disease itself doesn’t discriminate, social factors often make it hit harder in lower-income communities.
“Any time that money from the federal government and publicity is put on a topic, I think it’s something that has the ability to actually make a significant difference,” he told VOA.
And, he said, the fact that this federal money is going toward research institutions – and not private pharmaceutical companies – means the lessons learned can be shared well beyond the United States.
“The U.S. is always on sort of the cutting edge with regard to [research and development] of new drugs and treatments and methodologies,” he said.
“But by giving the money to the institutes, it’s sort of available as public funding for researchers to access, and anytime that’s the case, there’s an imperative, whether it’s a clinical trial or it’s a an observational study, that the results are in the public domain, so that can be then subsumed by other countries outside of the United States who face similar issues,” Minges said.
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Australian researchers herald new groundbreaking diabetes drug
SYDNEY — Researchers in Australia have developed a drug that could revolutionize treatment for millions of diabetes patients around the world.
Scientists in the U.S., China and Australia are designing treatments that imitate the body’s natural response to changing blood glucose, or sugar, levels and respond instantly.
The Australian team is handling one of several research projects that have developed different types of so-called ‘smart insulins,’ which sits in the body of a diabetes patient and is activated only when it is needed.
The aim is to keep glucose levels within a safe range, avoiding excessively high blood glucose, which is called hyperglycaemia, and excessively low blood sugar levels, known as hypoglycaemia.
The new treatments are not cures for diabetes but could ease the burden on patients.
Australian researchers say their new insulin delivery method would offer one injection every three days. Patients currently have to administer synthetic insulin up to 10 times a day.
Christoph Hagemeyer, a professor at the Australian Center for Blood Diseases at Monash University and a lead researcher in the study, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. Tuesday how the technology works.
“Smart insulin is responding to sugar levels in the blood,” he said. “In our case we are not actually making the insulin molecule smart, but we are loading the insulin onto a nanoparticle, which has a built-in mechanism that it changes its charge from positive to negative when the sugar levels go up. And that is the trick how we can ensure that there is enough insulin onboard and it is released in a smart manner.”
Insulin is a type of hormone that lowers the level of glucose in the blood. Glucose is a type of sugar from food that gives people energy.
Diabetes affects glucose levels in the blood and is normally split into type 1 and type 2, the most common. Patients have a heightened risk of heart attack, stroke, and kidney failure.
Monash University in Melbourne is part of a global effort to develop different types of smart insulins. It includes teams at Stanford University in the United States and Zhejiang University in China. Each project aims to develop smart insulin to act faster and more accurately to help patients with diabetes and to start trials as soon as possible.
The World Health Organization has estimated that about 422 million people around the world have diabetes and that 1.5 million deaths are directly attributed to the chronic disease each year.
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Banksy unveils new rhino art, animal-themed collection seen across London
london — Street artist Banksy on Monday unveiled a new mural of a rhinoceros that looks like it is climbing on top of a car in London — the eighth animal-themed artwork he has posted in the past week in a collection that includes elephants, a goat, a wolf, pelicans and more.
The elusive graffiti artist, who has never confirmed his full identity, has been posting the new work on his Instagram account every day since last Monday. The latest piece in Charlton, southeast London, features a rhino on a wall and gives the impression the animal is mounting a broken-down car parked in front of the building.
On Sunday, the artist claimed another artwork depicting piranhas that appeared on a police box near the Central Criminal Court, known as the Old Bailey, in London.
A small crowd of people flocked to the fish tank-themed artwork Monday, taking photos and selfies as workmen placed barriers around it. A spokesperson for the City of London Corporation said it was looking at options to preserve it.
Other pieces unveiled last week included pelicans that appeared on the side of a fish shop in Walthamstow, east London, and a silhouette of a howling wolf that was painted on a satellite dish on a garage roof in south London.
The wolf design was seen being taken down by men who carried it off on the same day it was revealed. It was not immediately clear who removed the satellite dish.
Banksy began his career spray-painting buildings in Bristol, England, and has become one of the world’s best-known artists. His work has sold for millions of dollars at auction, and past murals on outdoor sites have often been stolen or removed by building owners soon after going up.
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New Zealand to loosen gene editing regulation, make commercialization easier
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The New Zealand government said Tuesday that it would introduce new legislation to make it easier for companies and researchers to develop and commercialize products using gene technologies such as gene editing.
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins said in a statement that rules and time-consuming processes have made research outside the lab almost impossible.
“These changes will bring New Zealand up to global best practice and ensure we can capitalize on the benefits,” she said.
Current regulations mean that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) cannot be released out of containment without going through a complex and vigorous process and it is difficult to meet the set standard. Furthermore, gene editing is considered the same as genetic modification even when it doesn’t involve the introduction of foreign DNA.
Under the new law, low-risk gene editing techniques that produce changes indistinguishable from conventional breeding will be exempted from regulation, local authorities will no longer be able to prevent the use of GMOs in their regions and there will be a new regulator of the industry.
“This is a major milestone in modernizing gene technology laws to enable us to improve health outcomes, adapt to climate change, deliver massive economic gains and improve the lives of New Zealanders,” Collins said.
The government hopes to have the legislation passed and the regulator in operation by the end of 2025.
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Zimbabwe government declares end to latest cholera outbreak
Harare — Zimbabwean authorities recently declared the end of a cholera outbreak which lasted nearly 18 months, but public health experts say the conditions which caused the waterborne disease still exist and need urgent attention.
After battling a cholera outbreak which began in February of last year, Zimbabwe gave the ‘all clear’ after saying no new cases were recorded in July. The last reported case was in June. During the outbreak, the country recorded 34,549 suspected cases and more than 700 deaths.
Dr. Douglas Mombeshora is Zimbabwe’s health minister.
“What it means really is to say the interventions that we undertook as government have yielded [the] results that we wanted, that is to make sure that we suppress cholera. There are other issues that we have to continue working on. Because the bug is still in the community,” he said.
Itai Rusike, the executive director of Community Working Group on Health in Zimbabwe, said while his organization welcomed the news of a cholera-free country, more work needs to be done.
“We had major concerns about the illness and the unnecessary loss of lives from avoidable and preventable deaths. … As a country that experienced the devastation of the 2008-2009 cholera outbreak, we seem not to have derived learning from that and subsequent ones. The cholera outbreaks of 2008-2009 were a marker of the need for investment in water and sanitation infrastructure,” said Rusike.
The government and World Health Organization say Zimbabwe had 98,592 cases and 4,288 deaths during the 2008-2009 outbreak.
Speaking to VOA, Dr. Desta Tiruneh, the World Health Organization representative for Zimbabwe, said eradication means the country can now concentrate on other health concerns.
But he hastened to add, “The underlying factors that contributed to the transmission of cholera are still prevailing. These include access to safe water supply, sanitation facilities and hygiene, plus some other misconceptions among the communities that also fuel transmission. Therefore, we have to focus our priorities in addressing these issues, like provision of water supply should be prioritized for those communities where there is high risk of cholera transmission. … In addition, the government should prioritize in focusing in these high-risk communities to make sure this outbreak does not happen in near future.”
Separately, Doctors Without Borders noted that while eradicating cholera is a big win for Zimbabwe, it “believes more can be done to prevent future outbreaks.” The doctors’ group said there was a need for balance between having timely access to cholera vaccines and ensuring Zimbabwe invests in its water sanitation and hygiene infrastructure in both urban and rural communities.
The group, known by its acronym MSF, is one of the humanitarian organizations that worked with Zimbabwe’s government and U.N. agencies to control the spread of cholera.
Driving around Harare, people were seen walking through heaps of uncollected, fly-infested garbage, while sewage flowed in the streets in some places due to burst sewer pipes in need of repair. In some areas, people have complained of going for days without safe water for household chores and drinking.
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China test-flies biggest cargo drone as low-altitude economy takes off
beijing — Engineers sent China’s biggest-yet cargo drone on a test run over the weekend while a helicopter taxi took to the skies on a soon-to-open 100-km route to Shanghai, laying new milestones for the country’s expanding low-altitude economy.
Packing a payload capacity of 2 metric tons, the twin-engine aircraft took off on Sunday on an inaugural flight, state media said, citing developer Sichuan Tengden Sci-tech Innovation Co., for a trip of about 20 minutes in southwestern Sichuan province.
China’s civilian drone makers are testing larger payloads as the government pushes to build a low-altitude economy, with the country’s aviation regulator envisioning a $279-billion industry by 2030, for a four-fold expansion from 2023.
The Tengden-built drone, with a wingspan of 16.1 meters and a height of 4.6 meters, is slightly larger than the world’s most popular light aircraft, the four-seat Cessna 172.
The trial run followed the maiden flight in June of a cargo drone developed by state-owned Aviation Industry Corp of China (AVIC), the leading aerospace enterprise.
The AVIC’s HH-100 has a payload capacity of 700 kilograms and a flight radius of 520 km. Next year, AVIC plans to test its biggest cargo drone, the TP2000, which can carry up to 2 tons of cargo and fly four times farther than the HH-100.
China has already begun commercial deliveries by drone.
In May, cargo drone firm Phoenix Wings, part of delivery giant SF Express, started delivering fresh fruit from the island province of Hainan to southern Guangdong, using Fengzhou-90 drones developed by SF, a unit of S.F. Holding 002352.SZ.
Cargo drones promise shorter delivery times and lower transport costs, Chinese industry insiders say, while widening deliveries to sites lacking conventional aviation facilities, such as rooftop spaces in heavily built-up cities.
They could also ferry people on taxi services.
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Reynolds-Lively husband and wife team wins weekend box office
New York — In the Ryan Reynolds-Blake Lively box-office showdown, both husband and wife came out as winners.
Reynolds’ Marvel Studios smash “Deadpool & Wolverine” remained the top movie in North American theaters for the third straight week with $54.2 million in ticket sales according to studio estimates Sunday. Worldwide, it’s now surpassed $1 billion.
“Deadpool & Wolverine,” though, was closely followed by “It Ends With Us,” the romance drama starring Lively, which surpassed expectations with a stellar $50 million debut.
Together, the films created a kind of family edition of “Barbenheimer,” in which a pair of very different movies thrived in part due to counterprogramming. Only this time, the opposite movies were fronted by one of Hollywood’s most famous couples. The films’ one-two punch wasn’t entirely unprecedented. In 1990, Bruce Willis’ “Die Hard 2” led the box office while Demi Moore’s “Ghost” came in second.
The weekend also featured a high-priced flop. “Borderlands,” the long-delayed $120-million videogame adaptation directed by Eli Roth, launched with a paltry $8.8 million for Lionsgate. The film, starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart and Jack Black, was shot all the way back in 2021. After delays and reshoots, it finally landed in theaters effectively dead-on-arrival; it scored just 10% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and seems likely to contend for one of the worst movies of the year.
Meanwhile, “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which co-stars Hugh Jackman, continued its march through box-office records. The film, directed by Shawn Levy, is only the second R-rated movie to reach $1 billion, following 2019’s “Joker.” In three weeks, it’s already one of the most lucrative Marvel releases and trails only Disney’s other 2024 smash, “Inside Out” ($1.6 billion worldwide) among movies released this year.
Lively makes a cameo in “Deadpool & Wolverine” but she both stars in and produced “It Ends With Us.” Adapted from the bestselling romance novel by Colleen Hoover, Lively stars as Lily Bloom, a Boston florist torn between two men, one from her present life (Justin Baldoni, who also directed the film) and another who was her first love (Brandon Sklenar).
“It Ends With Us” cost a modest $25 million to produce, so it will turn a significant profit for co-financers Columbia Pictures and Wayfarer Studios. Like another female-skewing summer-release book adaptation from Sony, “Where the Crawdads Sing,” “It Ends With Us” could hold well through the typically slower August box-office period. Audiences gave it an A- CinemaScore.
Reynolds and Lively occasionally played up the convergence of their movies. Earlier this week, Reynolds posted a video of himself posing junket questions to Sklenar. The timing paid off especially for Lively, whose film doubled earlier opening-weekend forecasts.
Neon’s “Cuckoo,” a German Alps-set horror film by filmmaker Tilman Singer, opened with $3 million on 1,503 screen. It stars Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
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“Deadpool & Wolverine,” $54.2 million.
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“It Ends With Us,” $50 million.
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“Twisters,” $15 million.
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“Borderlands,” $8.8 million.
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“Despicable Me 4,” $8 million.
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“Trap,” $6.7 million.
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“Inside Out 2,” $5 million.
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“Harold and the Purple Crayon,” $3.1 million.
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“Cuckoo,” $3 million.
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“Longlegs,” $2 million.
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Addictions on the rise in wartime Israel
Beersheba, Israel — At 19, Yoni, an Israeli man, has to put aside his plans to join the military and instead enter rehab for drug abuse that has worsened since Hamas’ October 7 attack.
Health professionals said Yoni’s case is not an exception in wartime Israel, noting a surge in drug and alcohol abuse as well as other addictive behaviors.
Yoni, who asked to use a pseudonym to protect his privacy, told AFP he had started taking drugs recreationally before, but “after the war it seemed to really get worse.”
“It’s just a way to escape from reality, this whole thing,” said the resident of Beersheba in southern Israel who lost a friend, Nir Beizer, in the Hamas attack that sparked the ongoing Gaza war.
Psychiatrist Shaul Lev-Ran, founder of the Israel Center on Addiction, said that “as a natural reaction to emotional stress and as a search for relief, we’ve seen a spectacular rise in the consumption of various addictive sedative substances.”
A study carried out by his team, based in the central city of Netanya, found “a connection between indirect exposure to the October 7 events and an increase in addictive substances consumption” of about 25%.
Lev-Ran told AFP they have identified a rise in the use of “prescription drugs, illegal drugs, alcohol, or addictive behavior like gambling.”
One in 4 Israelis have increased their addictive substance use, according to the study, which was conducted in November and December on a representative sample of 1,000 Israelis. In 2022, before the war, 1 in 7 struggled with drug addiction.
Contacted by AFP, the Palestinian Authority said there was no equivalent data on addiction and mental health for the Palestinian territories.
‘Shock’
The October 7 attack, when Palestinian militants stormed into southern Israel and attacked towns, communities, army bases and an outdoor rave, caused a real “shock” in Israeli society, Lev-Ran said.
The study found that “the closer individuals were to the trauma on October 7, the higher the risk” of addictive behaviors.
The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still captive in Gaza, including 39 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 39,790 people, according to health ministry of the Hamas-run territory, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.
The Israel Center on Addiction study found an increase in addictive substance consumption among survivors of the October 7 attack, but also among Israelis displaced since then from communities near the Gaza border or in the north, near Lebanon.
“Some who had never consumed addictive substances started using cannabis, some used substances but increased their use, and some were already treated for addiction and relapsed,” said Lev-Ran.
‘Forget’
Lev-Rab said Israel was already “at the outset of an epidemic in which large swathes of the population will develop an addiction to substances.”
The study found that the use of sleeping pills and painkillers has also skyrocketed, by 180% and 70% respectively.
The psychiatrist gave the example of one of his patients, a man who demanded “something” to help him cope and be able to sleep while his son was fighting in Gaza.
At a bar in Jerusalem, Matan, a soldier deployed to the Palestinian territory who gave only his first name for privacy concerns, told AFP that using drugs “helps forget” the harsh reality.
Yoni said that in the early months of the war, his friends and him would take “party drugs like ecstasy, MDMA, LSD” recreationally “in order not to be bored and not to be afraid.”
Then, Yoni started taking drugs “alone at home,” which he said eventually led him to realize “that I need to go to rehab.”
Once out, he wants to complete his military service, Yoni said, to “prove to myself, prove to the family, that I am indeed capable of more, and [can] contribute to the community like everyone else.”
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‘Miseries of the Balkhash’: Fears for Kazakhstan’s special lake
Balkhash, Kazakhstan — Seen from the sky, with its turquoise waters stretching out into the desert expanses in the shape of a crescent, you can see why they call Lake Balkhash the “pearl of Kazakhstan.”
But pollution, climate change and its overuse are threatening the existence of one of the most unique stretches of water in the world.
One side of the Balkhash — the biggest lake in Central Asia after the Caspian Sea — has salt water, but on the other it is fresh. In such a strange environment, rare species have abounded. Until now.
“All the miseries of the Balkhash are right under my eyes,” fisherman Alexei Grebennikov told AFP from the deck of his boat on the northern shores, which sometimes has salty water, sometimes fresh.
“There are fewer and fewer fish. It’s catastrophic; the lake is silting up,” warned the 50-year-old.
A dredger to clear the little harbor lay anchored, rusting and unused, off the industrial town of Balkhack, itself seemingly stuck in a Soviet time warp.
“We used to take tourists underwater fishing. Now the place has become a swamp,” said Grebennikov.
In town, scientist Olga Sharipova was studying the changes.
“The Balkhash is the country’s largest fishery. But the quantity of fish goes down when the water level drops, because the conditions for reproduction are disrupted,” she told AFP.
And its level is now only a meter from the critical threshold where it could tilt toward disaster.
There was an unexpected respite this spring when unprecedented floods allowed the Kazakh authorities to divert 3.3 million cubic meters (872 million gallons) of water to the Balkhash.
The Caspian also got a 6-billion-cubic-meter fill-up.
China ‘overusing’ water
But the few extra centimeters have not changed the long-term trend.
“The level of the Balkhash has been falling everywhere since 2019, mainly due to a decrease in the flow of the Ili River” from neighboring China, said Sharipova.
All the great lakes of Central Asia, also known as enclosed seas, share a similar worrying fate.
The Aral Sea has almost disappeared, and the situation is alarming for the Caspian Sea and Lake Issyk-Kul in neighboring Kyrgyzstan.
Located on dry lands isolated from the ocean, they are particularly vulnerable to disturbances “exacerbated by global warming and human activities,” according to leading science journal Nature.
Rising temperatures accelerate evaporation, as water resources dwindle due to the melting of surrounding glaciers.
These issues are compounded by the economic importance of the Balkhash, which is on the path of a Chinese Belt and Road Initiative project, a massive infrastructure undertaking also known as the New Silk Road.
A 2021 study by Oxford University scientists published in the journal Water concluded the lake’s decline resulted from China’s overuse of the Ili River, which feeds it, for its agriculture, including cotton.
“If the hydro-climatic regime of the Ili for 2020-2060 remains unchanged compared to the past 50 years and agriculture continues to expand in China, future water supplies will become increasingly strained,” the study said.
Beijing is a key economic partner for Kazakhstan, but it is less keen to collaborate on water issues.
“The drafting and signing of an agreement with China on the sharing of water in transborder rivers is a key issue,” a spokesperson for the Kazakh Ministry of Water Resources told AFP.
“The main objective is to supply the volumes of water needed to preserve the Balkhash,” it said.
Heavy pollution
The water being syphoned away adds to “pollution from heavy metals, pesticides and other harmful substances,” authorities said, without citing culprits.
The town of Balkhash was founded around Kazakhstan’s largest copper producer, Kazakhmys.
Holiday makers bathing on Balkhash’s municipal beach have a view of the smoking chimneys of its metal plant.
Lung cancer rates here are almost 10 times the regional average, which is already among the highest in the country, health authorities said.
Despite being sanctioned for breaking environmental standards, Kazakhmys denies it is the main polluter of the lake and has vowed to reduce pollution by renewing its equipment.
“Kazakhmys is carrying out protective work to prevent environmental disasters in the Balkhash,” Sherkhan Rustemov, the company’s ecological engineer, told AFP.
In the meantime, the plant continues to discharge industrial waste into another huge body of water, right next to the lake.
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