| Coronavirus chaos: Inside South Africa's 'hospitals of horrors' Posted: 14 Jul 2020 04:26 PM PDT  A BBC investigation exposes chronic failures in the health system in one of the poorest areas.
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| Whether inmate mentally fit for execution could cause delay Posted: 14 Jul 2020 03:33 PM PDT  The man next on the list to be executed by the federal government after a nearly 20-year hiatus ended this week may have a better chance of avoiding lethal injection, legal experts say, because he suffers from dementia and so, his lawyers say, can no longer grasp why he's slated to die. Wesley Ira Purkey, convicted of a gruesome 1998 kidnapping and killing, is scheduled for execution Wednesday at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, where Daniel Lewis Lee was put to death Tuesday after his own 11th-hour legal bids failed. Purkey, 68, of Lansing, Kansas, would be the second, but his lawyers were still expected to press for a ruling from the Supreme Court on his competency.
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| Trump signs bill, order rebuking China, and slams Biden Posted: 14 Jul 2020 02:46 PM PDT  President Donald Trump signed legislation and an executive order on Tuesday that he said will hold China accountable for its oppressive actions against the people of Hong Kong, then quickly shifted his policy speech into a political one, hurling broadsides against Democratic rival Joe Biden. The legislation and order are part of the Trump administration's stepped-up offensive against China for what he calls the rising Asian superpower's exploitation of America and its effort to conceal details about the human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus from the world. The almost daily administration attacks on Beijing come as Trump defends his own response to the virus, with cases surging in parts of the United States, and as he works ahead of the election to portray Biden as soft on China.
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| Justice Ginsburg treated in hospital for possible infection Posted: 14 Jul 2020 02:37 PM PDT  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was being treated for a possible infection and was expected to stay in the hospital for a few days following a medical procedure, the Supreme Court said in a statement Tuesday. The court said that the 87-year-old Ginsburg went to a hospital in Washington on Monday evening after experiencing fever and chills. Ginsburg spent a night in the hospital in May with an infection caused by a gallstone.
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| Iran says it executed accused CIA spy for selling missile programme secrets to the US Posted: 14 Jul 2020 01:28 PM PDT  A former Iran defence ministry staffer was executed after being convicted of spying for the Central Intelligence Agency, the country's judiciary said on Tuesday.Reza Asgari, an Iranian citizen, was executed last week for selling information on Tehran's missile programme, according to the Islamic Republic judiciary's spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili, quoted in the country's official Mizan Online News Agency.
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| Justice 'undermined' in Venezuela: UN rights chief Posted: 14 Jul 2020 12:03 PM PDT  The independence of Venezuela's justice system has been "considerably undermined", fuelling impunity and human rights violations, the UN rights chief charged Tuesday in a report. The 15-page document by Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, was commissioned in September by the UN Human Rights Council and is to be presented before the body on Wednesday. It was released a week after Venezuela's Supreme Court, comprised mainly of judges loyal to President Nicolas Maduro, ordered Juan Guaido to relinquish his position as leader of a main opposition party.
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| Ruptured pipeline in Egypt causes massive blaze, injuring 17 Posted: 14 Jul 2020 11:56 AM PDT  A ruptured crude oil pipeline set off a monstrous blaze on a desert highway in Egypt on Tuesday, injuring at least 17 people, local authorities said. Video circulating on social media showed clouds of dense, black smoke billowing over the desert road that stretches from the capital, Cairo, to the city of Ismailia, on the Suez Canal. Egypt's Health Ministry said 17 people suffering burns and smoke inhalation were rushed to a hospital for treatment, and all hospitals near the site were preparing to receive more injured.
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| Thousands of protesting Israelis call on Netanyahu to resign Posted: 14 Jul 2020 11:23 AM PDT  Thousands of Israelis on Tuesday demonstrated outside the official residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling on the embattled leader to resign as he faces a trial on corruption charges and grapples with a deepening coronavirus crisis. Netanyahu has seen his popularity drop in recent weeks as he comes under criticism from a series of directions. A loose-knit movement has held a number of demonstrations saying that Netanyahu is unfit to lead at a time when he is on trial.
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| Global Wide Format Printers Industry Posted: 14 Jul 2020 11:04 AM PDT |
| Meghan Markle delivers 1st major speech since stepping away from royal duties Posted: 14 Jul 2020 11:01 AM PDT  Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, took the virtual stage at the U.N. Foundation's 2020 Girl Up Leadership Summit Tuesday.
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| Global Industrial Dryers Industry Posted: 14 Jul 2020 10:44 AM PDT |
| Trump administration rescinds rule on foreign students Posted: 14 Jul 2020 10:42 AM PDT  Facing eight federal lawsuits and opposition from hundreds of universities, the Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded a rule that would have required international students to transfer or leave the country if their schools held classes entirely online because of the coronavirus pandemic. The decision was announced at the start of a hearing in a federal lawsuit in Boston brought by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A lawyer representing the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said only that the judge's characterization was correct.
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| Iran executes defense ministry staffer as alleged CIA spy Posted: 14 Jul 2020 10:33 AM PDT  Iran has executed a former employee of the defense ministry who was convicted of spying on behalf of the CIA, the country's judiciary said.
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| Wait 'til next year: Giving up on 2020, looking toward 2021 Posted: 14 Jul 2020 10:22 AM PDT  This was supposed to be the year of the comeback for Boysie Dikobe, a South African dancer recovering from his second hip replacement and gearing up to get back on stage when the coronavirus hit. "Every day felt heavier and heavier and heavier," Perkins recalls, saying she had frequent breakdowns and couldn't bring herself to officially cancel the wedding.
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| Philadelphia protesters sue city over tear gas, use of force Posted: 14 Jul 2020 09:30 AM PDT  Three civil rights lawsuits filed in Philadelphia on Tuesday accuse the city of using military-level force that injured protesters and bystanders alike during peaceful protests against racial inequality and police brutality. One lawsuit accuses Philadelphia police of lobbing tear gas and firing rubber bullets at protesters indiscriminately as they marched peacefully on a city highway. Another accuses the police of using tanks, tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets in an African American business and residential district, at times injuring people in or near their own homes.
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| Jewish groups urge US to step up pressure on Jordan Posted: 14 Jul 2020 09:27 AM PDT |
| Timbuktu's jihadist police chief before ICC for war crimes Posted: 14 Jul 2020 09:20 AM PDT  He is charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, rape and making girls marry militants.
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| Meghan Markle delivers 1st major speech since stepping away from royal duties Posted: 14 Jul 2020 09:17 AM PDT  Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, took the virtual stage at the U.N. Foundation's 2020 Girl Up Leadership Summit Tuesday, marking her first major speech since she and husband Prince Harry stepped away from their royal duties earlier this year. The former Meghan Markle addressed "young women around the world who aren't just poised to change the world, but have already begun changing the world," and she informed them that they have even more leverage in that world than they realize. To not only frame the debate but be in charge of the debate — on racial justice, gender, climate change, mental health and well-being, on civic engagement, on public service, on so much more.
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| Meghan Markle Just Gave Her First Public Speech Since Royal Family Exit—& She Did Not Hold Back Posted: 14 Jul 2020 09:06 AM PDT |
| Global Styrene-Butadiene-Styrene (SBS) Block Copolymer Industry Posted: 14 Jul 2020 09:04 AM PDT |
| UN probe urges Burundi to break 'cycle of violence' Posted: 14 Jul 2020 08:50 AM PDT  A UN commission probing Burundi on Monday urged the East African country's new government to "break the cycle of violence" and start cooperating with the United Nations. In a statement, the UN Commission on Inquiry, which publishes its final report in September, urged Burundi's new president, Evariste Ndayishimiye, to "demonstrate his will for change". It urged him to cooperate fully with international human rights mechanisms -- including the commission itself -- and reopen the UN Office for Human Rights in Burundi.
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| Ole Miss moves Confederate statue from prominent campus spot Posted: 14 Jul 2020 08:41 AM PDT |
| Qatar wins air blockade case at top UN court Posted: 14 Jul 2020 08:40 AM PDT  The UN's top court on Tuesday backed Qatar in a bitter row with four Middle East nations that imposed an air blockade against Doha after accusing it of backing radical Islamists and Iran. The decision by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) covers a key part of the acrimonious standoff that erupted three years ago pitting Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates against Qatar. Qatar said after the decision that its rivals would "face justice".
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| The Business of Drugs: inside the economics of America's longest war Posted: 14 Jul 2020 07:54 AM PDT  A half-century into America's 'war on drugs', a new Netflix series uses dollars, cents and economic incentives to ask: is prohibition worth it?As a CIA analyst in Shanghai and Pakistan during America's "war on terror", Amaryllis Fox was familiar with drawn-out, intractable conflict. She'd studied the compounding effects of redoubling on failed policies, of redundant good versus evil arguments peddled into a quagmire, costing billions and an incalculable loss of life. But the situation in America's longest military war, now nearing two decades, paled in comparison to the subject of Fox's post-CIA project for Netflix: America's costly, decades-longer engagement known as the "war on drugs".The Business of Drugs, a six-part series Fox hosts on Netflix, takes a clear-eyed approach to the futility of drug enforcement: what are the incentives, economic and personal, that keeps the market flow of narcotics churning despite a generational trail of violence and waste? Declared in 1971 by Richard Nixon, the "war on drugs" refers broadly to the federal government's campaign to control psychoactive substances through draconian legislation, expansion of enforcement agencies, and military aid and intervention to other countries. Drug enforcement policies have long served as cudgels against minority groups – the first anti-opium laws, in the 1870s, targeted Chinese immigrants; anti-cannabis measures in the 1910s and 20s aimed for Mexican workers – and the current iteration grows from these roots; from mandatory minimum sentences to no-knock warrants, the "war on drugs" has fueled, in part, the mass incarceration of Americans, especially people of color. Nearly 50 years and $1tn in, the business of drug prohibition has "not only not worked, but the problem is worse than it was when the policy began", Fox told the Guardian.The Business of Drugs plays like a condensed, updated version of the popular National Geographic series Drugs, Inc (also on Netflix), moving from America's voracious consumption of illicit substances to the global network of supply evading, or dwarfing, interlocking attempts at enforcement. The series' six segments are delineated by substance – cocaine, synthetics (such as MDMA, also known as ecstasy), heroin, meth, cannabis and opioids – and explore substances of wildly varying levels of addictiveness, use and geography. Together, the chapters form a loose condemnation of prohibition as both policy and moralistic stance.The series is not a matter of admitting defeat in the "war on drugs", Fox said. Instead it demands "looking at the policies themselves rather than the fight to enforce them, and asking ourselves if in fact prohibition has any logical hope of working, or whether it's a residue of a moralistic stance that I think is no longer relevant in our society".Like its title, The Business of Drugs aims to be straightforward, or as clear as possible on the economics – dollars by gram, price increases by mile of transport – in shadowy systems for which transparency is a risk. Each episode visits a different "hotspot" epitomizing the challenges, market and opportunity for positive change for each substance. For cocaine, Fox traces the bloody trail of the west's habit from the plant's cultivation in Colombia (a no-brainer for farmers, given the yield and influence of cartels), through Mexican smuggling routes, over the border to America's draconian incarceration system for possession. Synthetics presents the therapy potential of MDMA, particularly for PTSD, if declassification from schedule 1, the highest classification for drugs of allegedly no medical benefit, would permit serious research. For heroin, Fox visits the ports of Kenya, where the route for smuggling the drug produced largely from opium poppies in Afghanistan has proliferated into an economic boon for some and devastating addiction epidemic for others.In the installments on heroin (in Kenya) and meth (in Myanmar), Fox meets with government or military officials propagating the line of drugs as good versus evil, themselves firmly aligned with good, despite evidence to the contrary. The cost of prohibition inverts to the cost of unwieldy and haphazard legalization in the case of marijuana in some US states, especially California, where above-board business is cutthroat, onerously regulated, and ripe for consolidation by big business interests. And in an episode on opioids, Fox explores a familiar and devastating story of an American epidemic fueled by big pharmaceutical companies and the inertia of inadequate regulation.According to Fox, everyone from individual coca plant growers in Colombia to worldly United Nations economists agreed that there were two ways to stop the exhaustive and unending war on drugs: end demand, or legalize and regulate with fair competition. Demand, largely from the US and western Europe, won't be going away, which leaves policy. "We think that we can go in and stop it at the point of supply," said Fox, "but as long as that demand continues, the reward is high enough that the economic reality is that this is going to continue.""The reality of those economics" – that for many, the choice to participate in the black market drug economy outweighs the cost of abstaining (if there is a choice to abstain at all) – "is critical in understanding how to bring an end to this war."Fox and her team, including partner Zero Point Zero Productions, the company behind Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown, worked for over a year in pre-production to establish sources willing to speak about participation in illicit, violent networks. The interviews, often anonymous – a man who swallowed heroin packets in Kenya to cross into Tanzania, the small-batch cocaine dealer following his father's footsteps in California, the masked dealer who sees a spate of "zombie" overdoses on a bad batch of synthetic marijuana as a business opportunity – were built on both the desire to effect change through lived experience and, said Fox, "the human impulse to share your life, to be meaningful and have the data that you've learned and the expertise that you have spent your professional life gathering be relevant. Maybe it's in a criminal industry, but each of the people we spoke to – from the smallest grower down the line – each of them is a substantive expert in their field."There is the tendency in the media and in everyday life to think of the drug trade as being driven by the low-level growers and dealers and others who are caught up in it," Fox said. But these testimonies revealed rational calculations of risk versus economic and social security. "Many of us, if we found ourselves in the same position, would make the same choices for our family and for our own economic wellbeing," she said.That realization was, to her, hopeful – the continuance of a fight against controlled substances remains frustratingly futile, but an assessment of choices on the ground in favor of drug dealing, growing and trafficking – also known, for many, as economic survival – demonstrated that "it's not a good versus evil battle that is going to go on forever, it's actually a matter of economics and policy. If we make changes to those things, we can see a different outcome."The only way for us to tackle this is to have a very logical, adult conversation as a nation about whether there's any possibility of demand going away," Fox said. "And if not, what do we need to do in terms of legalization and regulation to bring an end to the violence and mass incarceration that this policy has created?" * The Business of Drugs is now available on Netflix
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| Global Palletizing Machinery Industry Posted: 14 Jul 2020 07:04 AM PDT |
| Report: Iran hangs 2 for 2010 parade bombing that killed 12 Posted: 14 Jul 2020 06:50 AM PDT |
| Global Automotive Human Machine Interface (HMI) Solutions Industry Posted: 14 Jul 2020 06:44 AM PDT |
| Global Mobile Phone Accessories Industry Posted: 14 Jul 2020 06:24 AM PDT |
| Israeli investigators: No footage of shooting of Palestinian Posted: 14 Jul 2020 06:20 AM PDT  Israel's Justice Ministry on Tuesday announced there is no footage of the shooting of an autistic Palestinian man who was killed by Israeli police, saying that security cameras in the closely monitored area were not operating properly at the time. It raised concerns about the credibility of the investigation due to the large number of security cameras in Jerusalem's volatile Old City. Eyad Hallaq, who was 32, was fatally shot just inside the Old City's Lion's Gate on May 30 as he was on his way to the special-needs institution that he attended.
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| A restart of nuclear testing offers little scientific value to the US and would benefit other countries Posted: 14 Jul 2020 05:39 AM PDT  July 15, 2020 marks 75 years since the detonation of the first nuclear bomb. The Trinity Test, in New Mexico's Jornada del Muerto desert, proved that the design for the Nagasaki Bomb worked and started the nuclear era.The U.S. tested nuclear bombs for decades. But at the end of the Cold War in 1992, the U.S. government imposed a moratorium on U.S. testing. This was strengthened by the Clinton administration's decision to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Although the Senate never ratified the treaty and it never entered into force, all 184 countries that signed the test ban, including the U.S., have followed its rules. But in recent weeks, the Trump administration and Congress have begun debating whether to restart active testing of nuclear weapons on U.S. soil. Some conservative Republicans have long expressed concerns over the reliability of aging U.S. warheads and believe that testing is a way to address this problem. Additionally, the U.S., Russia and China are producing novel types of nuclear missiles or other delivery systems and replacing existing nuclear weapons – some of which date to the Cold War – with updated ones. Some politicians in the U.S. are concerned over these modern weapons systems and are calling for a resumption of testing as a response.We are two nuclear weapons researchers – a physicist and an arms control expert – and we believe that there is no value, from either the scientific nor diplomatic perspective, to be gained from resuming testing. In fact, all the evidence suggests that such a move would threaten U.S. national security. Why did the US stop testing?Since the Trinity Test in July 1945, the U.S. has detonated 215 warheads above ground and 815 underground. These were done to test new weapon designs and also to ensure the reliability of older ones.When the Cold War ended, the U.S. pledged to stop doing such tests and a group within the United Nations began putting together the CTBT. The goal of the test ban treaty was to hinder new nations from developing nuclear arsenals and limit the capabilities of nations that already had them. Subcritical testing to maintain the arsenalAfter the U.S moratorium went into effect, the U.S. Department of Energy created a massive program called the Stockpile Stewardship Program to maintain the safety and reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons. Instead of crudely blowing up weapons to produce a nuclear explosion, scientists at facilities like U1A in Nevada began conducting what are called subcritical tests.[Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation's newsletter and get expert takes on today's news, every day.]In these tests, the plutonium that drives the nuclear chain reactions is replaced by a similar-acting but non-nuclear explosive material such as tungsten or a modified plutonium shell. There is still a big bang, but no nuclear chain reaction. Rather, these experiments produce data that researchers feed into elaborate supercomputer programs built using the massive amounts of information collected from earlier live tests. Using these subcritical tests and earlier data, scientists can simulate full-scale detonations with incredible accuracy and monitor the current arsenal without blowing up nuclear warheads. What could be going wrong in the bombs?All nuclear weapons currently in the U.S. stockpile are two-stage nuclear weapons called hydrogen bombs. Put simply, hydrogen bombs work by using a smaller nuclear bomb – akin to the bomb dropped on Nagasaki – to detonate a second, much more powerful bomb. Nearly all the components of a nuclear weapon can be replaced and updated except for one piece – the explosive plutonium core known as the pit. These pits are what trigger the second, larger explosion. The weapons in the U.S. arsenal are, on average, about 25 years old. The main concern of people pushing to resume testing is that the plutonium pits may have deteriorated from their own radiation in the 25 years since they were made and will not properly trigger the second fusion stage of the explosion.Since most of the previous tests were done on much younger bombs with newer plutonium pits, supporters of testing claim that the subcritical tests cannot accurately test this part of the process.The deterioration of the plutonium pit is a valid concern. To study this, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used a far more radioactive type of plutonium and artificially aged the metal to simulate the effects of what would be equivalent to 150 years of radiation on a normal plutonium pit. They found that the aged plutonium pits "will retain their size, shape, and strength despite increasing damage from self-irradiation," and concluded that "the pits will function as designed up to 150 years after they have been manufactured." This isn't to say that scientists can stop worrying about the aging of U.S. nuclear weapons. It's incredibly important to continue "to assess and, if necessary mitigate threats to primary performance caused by plutonium aging", as the JASON group – a group of elite scientists that advises the U.S. government – says.However, these scientists do not suggest that it is necessary to conduct live nuclear tests. Decades of experimental studies by nuclear weapons laboratories have led experts to believe that the U.S. can maintain the nuclear arsenal without testing. And in fact, as the former director of Los Alamos National Labs, Dr. Sigfried Hecker said recently, many believe that by resuming testing, "we would lose more than we gain." Little to gain, much to loseNuclear weapons are intricately tied to the world of geopolitics. So if there isn't a scientific need to resume testing, is there some political or economic reason?The U.S. has already spent tens of billions of dollars on the infrastructure needed to conduct subcritical tests. Additionally, a new, billion-dollar facility is currently being built in Nevada that will provide even finer detail to the data from subcritical test explosions. Once subcritical test facilities are up and running, it is relatively inexpensive to run experiments. Nuclear testing won't save the U.S. money.So is it politics? Currently, nuclear powers around the world are all improving the missiles that carry nuclear warheads, but not yet the warheads themselves.With little evidence, the Trump administration has sought to sow suspicion that Russia and China may be secretly conducting very low-yield nuclear tests, implying that the countries are trying to build better nuclear warheads. In response, movement towards testing in the U.S. has already begun. The Senate Armed Services Committee recently approved an amendment to spend US$10 million to cut the time it would take to conduct a test if the president ordered one. Some officials seem to believe that a resumption of U.S. testing – or the threat of it – could give Washington an upper hand in future arms control negotiations. But we believe the opposite to be true. Even though the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has not entered into force, nearly every nuclear power on earth has more or less followed its rules. But if the U.S. were to resume nuclear testing, it would be a green light for all other nations to start their own testing. The U.S. already has the ability to perform subcritical tests and data from over 1,000 test detonations that scientists can use to modernize, improve and maintain the current arsenal. No other country, aside from Russia, has as robust a foundation. If the ban were broken, it would give other countries like Iran, India, Pakistan and China a chance to gather huge amounts of information and improve their weapons while the U.S. would gain next to nothing. When it comes to the U.S nuclear testing ban, our view is, if it ain't broke don't fix it.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * SpongeBob's Bikini Bottom is based on a real-life test site for nuclear weapons * Why didn't sanctions stop North Korea's missile program?The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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| An argument for gene drive technology to genetically control insects like mosquitoes and locusts Posted: 14 Jul 2020 05:35 AM PDT  The fate of society rests in part on how humans navigate their complicated relationship with insects – trying to save "good" insects and control "bad" ones. Some insects, like mosquitoes, bite people and make them sick – remember Zika? Now the U.S. mosquito season is already in full swing, with over 10 cases of Dengue fever reported in the Florida Keys this year. Some insects, like bees, are pollinators that help produce our food. Others, like locusts, currently threaten crops in East Africa and Asia, preferring to eat our food instead. Insects have proven themselves extremely capable at evolving strategies to get around control methods, such as chemical insecticides and habitat modification, and current pest control technologies are simply not keeping up.We are both insect scientists. Our research has included engineering a fungus to control malaria mosquitoes, uncovering the reproductive biology of honey bee workers and understanding the health impacts of invasive ticks. We've come to appreciate the potential of emerging technologies like gene drive. This technology can guarantee that a trait will be inherited by the next generation. Such traits include making mosquitoes immune to the malaria parasite so they cannot spread the disease to humans. Recently we contributed to a statement that advocates for continuing gene drive research. In light of calls for a moratorium, this statement recognizes that a ban on gene drive research would hamper a better understanding, and thus mitigation, of risks associated with this technology. Moratoriums on gene drive technology have been called for and rejected at the last two United Nations Conventions on Biological Diversity. But there is a new push for a moratorium. What is gene drive?Gene drive is a technology that could allow society to control insects in a more targeted manner.The general underlying principle of all gene drives is an organism that will produce offspring similar to themselves.Some characteristics are randomly passed on from parents to the next generation. However, gene drive forces a different type of inheritance that ensures a specific characteristic is always present in the next generation. Scientists engineer gene drive using various molecular tools.Gene drive is not just a human invention; some occur naturally in insects. For example, in stalk-eyed flies, a gene on a sex-related chromosome causes any male fly to die without a certain gene "cargo," including a gene that results in longer eyestalks. This type of genetic phenomenon has been well studied by scientists.To date, gene drive has been discussed in the media primarily in order to eradicate malaria. This may give you the impression that gene drive can be used only to drive mosquitoes to extinction. However, gene drive technologies are highly versatile and can be designed to bring about different outcomes. They can also be applied in most insect species that scientists can study in the laboratory. Why insects?Insects reproduce quickly and produce lots of offspring, which makes them obvious candidates for a technology that relies on inheritance like gene drive. This is why insects are at the leading edge of gene drive research. Gene drive is a new technology that could provide a solution to a variety of insect issues society faces today.For instance, a gene drive has been developed to stop a major crop pest, the spotted-wing Drosophila. Insecticide sensitivity could be spread through populations of this pest species to stop tens of millions of dollars in crop damage every year in the United States.[Get our best science, health and technology stories. Sign up for The Conversation's science newsletter.]Gene drive could also be a more targeted approach to stopping invasive insects, such as the infamous fire ant, from destroying native ecosystems. In the United States, millions of dollars have been spent on removing fire ants using techniques including chemical insecticides, but if these persistent ants are not completely eradicated, they invade again.Aside from how good insects are at circumventing our strategies to control them, another major struggle for controlling insects is finding them. Insects have evolved to quickly find the opposite sex to mate, and gene drives, which are passed on by mating, can take advantage of this fact of insect life. This also means this technology targets only the intended species, which is not the case for chemical insecticides currently in use.Insect scientists, inspired by natural examples of gene drive, have wanted to design gene drive in insects for decades. Only recently have new molecular tools, such as the gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas, made the gene drive dream a reality. For now, gene drive insects live in laboratories and none has been released into the wild. Still, a lot can be learned about how gene drive works while it is safely contained in a laboratory. Criticisms of gene driveUsing gene drive is not a universally popular idea. Criticisms tend to fall into three categories: ethical concerns, mistrust of technology and unintended ecological consequences.Ethical concerns about gene drive are often motivated by larger issues, such as how to stop gene drive from being used in biological weapons by engineering insects that are more dangerous. Then there is the question of who should decide which gene drive projects move forward and what types of insects with gene drive can be released into the environment. These questions can't be answered by scientists alone.Societal mistrust of technology is a hurdle that some powerful, innovative technologies must overcome for public acceptance. The issue of technological mistrust often stems from disagreements about who should be developing technology to control insects and for what purposes.The third common argument against gene drive technologies is that they might cause unintended consequences in the ecosystem because gene drive is designed by humans and unnatural. What will happen to the natural ecosystem if a population, even of mosquitoes that make people sick, is driven to extinction? Will this cause threats to natural biodiversity and the security of food? These questions are ultimately asking the consequences of intervening in the natural order of the world. But who defines what is the natural state of an ecosystem? Ecosystems are already constantly in flux. Preparing for a future that may include gene drive insectsWhen a gene drive is developed, it is tailored to the needs of a particular situation. This means the anticipated risks posed by each gene drive are project-specific and should be considered and regulated on a case-by-case basis. A responsible way to protect society from these risks is to advocate for continued research that enables scientists to describe and find solutions to them. Beyond the science, regulatory and accountability systems are needed so that regulations are adhered to and public safety is protected. Researchers are also still exploring the science underlying the gene drive. Can gene drive be designed to be reversible or more efficient? Can the effect of a gene drive on an ecosystem be predicted? Such important unanswered questions are why even the most ardent supporters of this technology say more research is needed. Society needs new tools to control insect pests and protect ecosystems, and gene drive promises to augment our toolbox.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Using gene drives to control wild mosquito populations and wipe out malaria * Genetically modified mosquitoes may be best weapon for curbing disease transmissionIsobel Ronai received funding from the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the Australian Federal Government. Brian Lovett receives funding from the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
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| Trump may be no good at leading America – but he's really, really good at lying Posted: 14 Jul 2020 05:25 AM PDT  US credibility has been contorted to protect the feelings of one man-child. No wonder he finds Anthony Fauci so offensiveIt's outrageous to say that Donald Trump is good at nothing.He may be no good at leading the country through a pandemic and recession. He may be no good at healing a nation that is deeply scarred by racist power. He may be no good at diplomacy with his allies, or even recognising America's enemies for what they are.But he is really, really good at lying. An Olympic-standard, Guinness Book of Records fabricator of falsehoods. He regurgitates lies as rapidly and copiously as Joey Chestnut swallows hotdogs.Trump represents the historic high-water mark for verbal cheating, which is surely the only part of his short legacy that will feature in US history exams in 2030.According to the exhausted and exhaustive factchecking team at the Washington Post, Trump's rate of lying is shaped remarkably like the country's exponential rise in Covid-19 cases.It took him 827 days to reach his first 10,000 lies, but just 440 days to reach his second 10,000 lies.The team's forensic book on the subject calls this "his assault on truth". But it's really an assault on our ability to understand what truth looks and sounds like.This is nothing new for Trump, but it is something new for a democratic nation that proudly used to call itself the leader of the free world.Credibility was one of the most potent weapons in America's arsenal of soft power. The kind of potency that allowed Kennedy's secretary of state to convince Charles de Gaulle to support his case against the Soviet Union in the Cuban missile crisis. Based on Kennedy's word, not the photographic evidence.Today America's credibility has been contorted to protect the feelings of one man-child, not the security of a nation. That's why someone like Anthony Fauci is so deeply offensive to the factory of fraud built inside this White House.Fauci is the most senior expert on Trump's coronavirus task force, but he says he hasn't briefed the president in two months. In that time, the daily number of new American cases has tripled to more than 60,000.Rather than deal with the underlying raging wildfire, Trump's team set about attacking the man best placed to quell the inferno. According to multiple news organisations, the White House sprayed out its oppo research about all the times Fauci supposedly got things wrong.It's possible that the captain of the Titanic felt equally aggrieved by the quality of the previous week's shipping forecast. But history has not looked kindly on his care of human souls nonetheless.After three decades in charge of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, Fauci is clearly an expert in at least three things: science, politics and the sophisticated art of not giving a flying flask.Fauci dares to say that America is not, in fact, doing great, even when the red baseball cap claims otherwise. Even when all of the president's minions tell him he looks awesome in a face mask.This is not a fair fight. In the blue corner is a world-renowned scientist whom 67% of Americans trust for accurate information about the coronavirus. In the red corner is a world-renowned grifter whom 26% of Americans trust for the same information.Only one of them suggested injecting disinfectant as a cure for Covid-19, which would obviously disappear like a miracle, after he protected the nation with a travel ban that was clearly perfect. He's the one who paid someone to take the SAT exam on his behalf.It's tempting to blame one sociopathic man for what we're suffering. But it truly takes a village to allow such a spectacular village idiot to thrive.Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary who promised she would never lie to the press, has spent the past two months, well, lying to the press."There is no opposition research being dumped to reporters," she claimed on Monday. "We were asked a very specific question by the Washington Post, and that question was President Trump noted that Dr Fauci had made some mistakes, and we provided a direct answer to what was a direct question."Kayleigh: here's the thing. In another six months, you'll be looking for a new job. One of your predecessors is now trying to sell grills on Instagram. That market is already crowded, and there aren't many other household goods to endorse on social media.In Trumpland, there is no herd immunity to this disease. They have been infected for so long, they are happy to sneeze full viral loads in the hope that everyone succumbs to the same lies.So what if the polls consistently show their boss losing to Joe Biden by such large numbers that they are outside the margin of error? The only margin of error that matters is saying something that might break the mirror that Trump stares at every day.Brad Parscale, Trump's campaign manager, claims that polls are "the biggest joke in politics" and "the fakest thing." This is from the genius behind the mostly empty rally in Tulsa that was more effective as a coronavirus comeback than a political oneIt's that kind of fact-denying brilliance that leads our antihero to sit on the wrong side of precisely every issue of the day.On Monday Trump tried yet again to smear Biden by claiming he was on the side of "radical" and "reckless politicians" who are opposed to what he called "our law enforcement heroes".This was just the first working day after Trump commuted the sentence of a convicted felon who lied to protect him – in opposition to the career prosecutors who might be considered "our law enforcement heroes".Irony may be dead in Trump's America, but the polling isn't.While Trump is trying to whip up opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement, the country has already made up its mind. A clear majority of Americans – 60% – agree with the ideas of Black Lives Matter, and similar numbers support major reforms to policing. As it happens, around the same numbers disapprove of Trump's handling of the protests.Why would anyone campaigning for reelection waste a whole day talking to just 40% of the country?Because Donald Trump has lied so often, to so many people, that he believes his own version of reality. It is just one of the multiple truths that is so familiar to anyone living in Putin's Russia.Restoring sanity and science is impossible inside a White House where Trump's fantasies rule. We will endure six more months of Fauci-bashing before we can turn the tide on this pandemic.Fauci will of course survive. But it will take many more years to restore America's credibility after this confederacy of dunces is swept out.• Richard Wolffe is a Guardian US columnist
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| Global Dental Surgical Equipment Industry Posted: 14 Jul 2020 05:04 AM PDT |
| UN commission warns new Burundi leader needs watching Posted: 14 Jul 2020 04:44 AM PDT |
| Landos Biopharma Announces First Human Dosing in a Phase 1 Study of NX-13, its Novel Candidate for Inflammatory Bowel Disease Posted: 14 Jul 2020 04:00 AM PDT |
| Coronavirus: How fast is it spreading in Africa? Posted: 14 Jul 2020 03:51 AM PDT  There are fears that the number of cases is growing rapidly, so what are the key trends?
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| Global Sports Fishing Equipment Industry Posted: 14 Jul 2020 03:44 AM PDT |
| UK, France move to extend rules on face coverings in public Posted: 14 Jul 2020 03:09 AM PDT  Britain and France moved Tuesday to make face coverings compulsory in more places as both countries try to get their economies going while at the same time seeking to prevent further coronavirus outbreaks. Following days of procrastination and mixed messages, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the wearing of face coverings will be mandatory in shops and supermarkets in England from July 24. On the other side of the English Channel, amid signs of a slight virus resurgence in France, President Emmanuel Macron said he also wants to require masks inside all indoor public spaces by Aug. 1.
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| Cenovus releases 2019 environmental, social & governance report Posted: 14 Jul 2020 03:00 AM PDT |
| Iran executes defense ministry staffer as alleged CIA spy Posted: 14 Jul 2020 02:48 AM PDT  Iran has executed a former employee of the defense ministry who was convicted of spying on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency, the country's judiciary said Tuesday. The report said Reza Asgari was executed last week. Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said Asgari had worked in the airspace department of the ministry and retired in 2016.
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| Airstrikes on northwest Syria after blast wounds 3 Russians Posted: 14 Jul 2020 02:46 AM PDT |
| Global Fire Suppression Systems Industry Posted: 14 Jul 2020 02:44 AM PDT |
| To Expedite Resilient Solar in the Caribbean, Collaboration is Key Posted: 14 Jul 2020 02:15 AM PDT |
| Anti-Kremlin protests hit Far Eastern Russia amid crackdown Posted: 14 Jul 2020 02:06 AM PDT  Tens of thousands of people joined protests in Russia's Far East last weekend in an almost unheard of display of opposition to President Vladimir Putin triggered by the arrest of a popular governor. The protests in the city of Khabarovsk on the border with China were as large or bigger than almost any protests seen in Moscow in recent years, where opposition to Putin is normally concentrated. The demonstrations demanding the release of the governor, who was arrested on murder charges, continued on Monday, though they were much smaller, with local media reporting that protesters numbered in the hundreds.
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| Global Medical Laser Systems Industry Posted: 14 Jul 2020 02:04 AM PDT |
| Fremantle Label Naked Hires Channel 4’s Fatima Salaria To Replace The Promoted Simon Andreae Posted: 14 Jul 2020 01:00 AM PDT |
| UAE's Mars orbiter launch from Japan delayed by weather Posted: 14 Jul 2020 12:57 AM PDT  The liftoff of the United Arab Emirates' Mars orbiter was postponed until Friday due to bad weather at the Japanese launch site. The orbiter named Amal, or Hope, is the Arab world's first interplanetary mission. The launch was scheduled for Wednesday from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan, but the UAE mission team announced the rescheduled date on Twitter.
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| What is contact tracing, and how does it work with COVID-19? Posted: 14 Jul 2020 12:34 AM PDT  The goal of contact tracing is to alert people who may have been exposed to someone with the coronavirus, and prevent them from spreading it to others. Health experts say contact tracing is key to containing the virus and allowing places to reopen more safely. Contact tracing is done in a variety of ways around the world.
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| Global vaccine plan may allow rich countries to buy more Posted: 13 Jul 2020 11:31 PM PDT  Politicians and public health leaders have publicly committed to equitably sharing any coronavirus vaccine that works, but the top global initiative to make that happen may allow rich countries to reinforce their own stockpiles while making fewer doses available for poor ones. Activists warn that without stronger attempts to hold political, pharmaceutical and health leaders accountable, vaccines will be hoarded by rich countries in an unseemly race to inoculate their populations first. Dozens of vaccines are being researched, and some countries — including Britain, France, Germany and the U.S. — already have ordered hundreds of millions of doses before the vaccines are even proven to work.
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