The U.S. Department of the Interior will reform its regulations for the development of wind energy facilities on the country’s outer continental shelf to help meet crucial climate goals, it said in a statement on Thursday.

The proposed rule changes would save developers a projected $1 billion over a 20-year period by streamlining burdensome processes, clarifying ambiguous provisions, and lowering compliance costs, , the statement said.

“Updating these regulations will facilitate the safe and efficient development of offshore wind energy resources, provide certainty to developers and help ensure a fair return to the U.S. taxpayers,” U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in the release.

The reforms come days after the department named Elizabeth Klein, a lawyer who worked in the Obama and Clinton administrations, to head its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), overseeing offshore oil, gas and wind development.

As part of its offshore clean energy program, the BOEM has over the past two years approved the first two commercial scale offshore wind projects in the United States, held three lease auctions including the first-ever sale off the coast of California, and explored extending offshore wind to other areas like the Gulf of Mexico.

The department expects to hold as many as four more auctions and review at least 16 new commercial facilities by 2025, adding more than 22 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy.

In September last year, President Joe Biden’s administration set a goal of having 15 GW of floating offshore wind capacity by 2035 to accelerate development of next-generation floating wind farms in line with its target of permitting 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030.
…

England will ban a range of single-use plastic items such as cutlery, plates and bowls starting in October to limit soaring plastic pollution, Britain’s environment department said Saturday. 

The decision follows a public consultation by the government in which 95% of respondents were in favor of the bans, the department said in a statement. 

“We all know the absolutely devastating impacts that plastic can have on our environment and wildlife,” Environment Secretary Therese Coffey said. “These new single-use plastics bans will continue our vital work to protect the environment.” 

Most plastics can remain intact for centuries and damage oceans, rivers and land where millions of tons end up as waste each year. The United Nations says decades of overuse of single-use plastics has caused a “global environmental catastrophe.” 

The government said it is estimated England uses 2.7 billion items of single-use cutlery, most of which are plastic, a year as well as 721 million such plates, but only 10% end up being recycled. 

England’s ban will also include single-use plastic trays, balloon sticks and some types of polystyrene cups and food containers. 

A ban on supplying plastic straws and stirrers and plastic-stemmed cotton buds came into force in England in 2020. 

Anti-plastic campaign group A Plastic Planet welcomed the latest bans but called for further limitations, especially on sachets. 

“The plastic sachet, the ultimate symbol of our grab and go, convenience-addicted lifestyle, should be the next target … 855 billion sachets are used annually, never to be recycled,” Sian Sutherland, the group’s co-founder, said. 

The British government said it was also considering limiting the use of other commonly littered and “problematic” plastic items, including wet wipes, tobacco filters and sachets. 

Governments worldwide are clamping down on the use of single-use plastic to varying degrees, and a global survey last year found three in four people want single-use plastics to be banned as soon as possible. 
…

A Swiss company says it has certifiably extracted CO2 from the air and permanently stored it in the ground — for the first time on behalf of paying customers, including Microsoft.

Climeworks, a startup created in 2009 by two Swiss engineers, said its facility in Iceland had successfully removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and injected it into the ground, where it would very gradually be transformed into rock.

The potential for scaling up remains to be proved.

In its announcement on Thursday, Climeworks said its process had been certified in September by DNV, a Norwegian independent auditor, marking the first time carbon had been permanently captured on behalf of paying corporate clients.

Climeworks counts companies including Microsoft, Stripe and Shopify among the clients who have bought into its future carbon removal services, to compensate for their greenhouse gas emissions.

The startup said it hoped “to lead as an example for peers, customers and policy makers alike that are committed to climate action.”

The Paris Agreement, adopted by nearly all the world’s nations in 2015, called for the rise in the Earth’s average temperature to be limited at 1.5 degrees Celsius, which scientists say would keep the impact of climate change at manageable levels.

Many businesses, including fossil fuel companies, rely heavily on carbon offset schemes based on afforestation to compensate for continuing carbon emissions.

But there has been growing interest in the newest carbon dioxide removal method, of which Climeworks is the industry leader: a chemical process known as direct air carbon capture and storage.

In its report last year, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that regardless of how quickly the world slashes greenhouse gas emissions, it will still need to suck CO2 from the atmosphere to avoid climate catastrophe.

But it remains to be seen whether this can be done at scale.

So far, Climeworks’ direct air capture facility in Iceland, the largest in the world, removes in a year what humanity emits in 3 to 4 seconds.

The company has not divulged how much its clients are paying for the service, and how much CO2 each client wants extracted.
…

It was an anomaly detected in the storm of a nuclear reactor so puzzling that physicists hoped it would shine a light on dark matter, one of the universe’s greatest mysteries. 

However, new research has definitively ruled out that this strange measurement signaled the existence of a “sterile neutrino,” a hypothetical particle that has long eluded scientists.  

Neutrinos are sometimes called “ghost particles” because they barely interact with other matter — around 100 trillion are estimated to pass through our bodies every second. 

Since neutrinos were first theorized in 1930, scientists have been trying to nail down the properties of these shapeshifters, which are one of the most common particles in the universe. 

They appear “when the nature of the nucleus of an atom has been changed,” physicist David Lhuillier of France’s Atomic Energy Commission told AFP. 

That could happen when they come together in the furious fusion in the heart of stars like our sun, or are broken apart in nuclear reactors, he said. 

There are three confirmed flavors of neutrinos: electron, muon and tau. 

However, physicists suspect there could be a fourth neutrino, dubbed “sterile” because it does not interact with ordinary matter at all. 

In theory, it would answer only to gravity and not the fundamental force of weak interactions, which still hold sway over the other neutrinos. 

The sterile neutrino has a place ready for it in theoretical physics, “but there has not yet been a clear demonstration that it exists,” he added. 

Dark matter candidate  

So Lhuillier and the rest of the STEREO collaboration, which brings together French and German scientists, set out to find it. 

Previous nuclear reactor measurements had found fewer neutrinos than the amount expected by theoretical models, a phenomenon dubbed the “reactor antineutrino anomaly.” 

It was suggested that the missing neutrinos had changed into the sterile kind, offering a rare chance to prove their existence. 

To find out, the STEREO collaboration installed a dedicated detector a few meters away from a nuclear reactor used for research at the Laue–Langevin institute in Grenoble, France. 

After four years of observing more than 100,000 neutrinos and two years analyzing the data, the verdict was published in the journal Nature on Wednesday. 

The anomaly “cannot be explained by sterile neutrinos,” Lhuillier said.  

But that “does not mean there are none in the universe,” he added. 

The experiment found that previous predictions about the amount of neutrinos being produced were incorrect. 

But it was not a total loss, because it offered a much clearer picture of neutrinos emitted by nuclear reactors. This could help not just with future research, but also for monitoring nuclear reactors. 

Meanwhile, the search for the sterile neutrino continues. Particle accelerators, which smash atoms, could offer up new leads. 

Despite the setback, interest could remain high because sterile neutrinos have been considered a suspect for dark matter, which makes up more than a quarter of the universe but remains shrouded in mystery.  

Like dark matter, the sterile neutrino does not interact with ordinary matter, making it incredibly difficult to observe. 

“It would be a candidate which would explain why we see the effects of dark matter — and why we cannot see dark matter,” Lhuillier said.
…

The effects of the war in Ukraine are extending beyond Moscow and Kyiv, and may be impacting not only people but also wildlife. VOA’s Bilal Hussain reports from Srinagar, in Indian-administered Kashmir. VOA Mandarin Service contributed to this report.
…

The World Health Organization has issued an alert warning against the use of two Indian cough syrups blamed for the deaths of at least 20 children in Uzbekistan.

WHO said the products, manufactured by India’s Marion Biotech, were “substandard” and that the firm had failed to provide guarantees about their “safety and quality.”

The alert, issued Wednesday, comes after Uzbekistan authorities said last month at least 20 children died after consuming a syrup made by the company under the brand name Doc-1 Max.

India’s health ministry subsequently suspended production at the company and Uzbekistan banned the import and sale of Doc-1 Max.

The WHO alert said an analysis of the syrup samples by the quality control laboratories of Uzbekistan found “unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and /or ethylene glycol as contaminants.”

Diethylene glycol and ethylene are toxic to humans when consumed and can prove fatal.

“Both of these products may have marketing authorizations in other countries in the region. They may also have been distributed, through informal markets, to other countries or regions,” WHO said.

The products were “unsafe and their use, especially in children, may result in serious injury or death,” it said.

Marion Biotech officials could not be reached immediately for comment.

It is the second Indian drugmaker to face a probe by regulators since October, when the WHO linked another firm’s medicines to a spate of child deaths in Gambia.

Maiden Pharmaceuticals was accused of manufacturing several toxic cough and cold remedies that led to the deaths of at least 66 children in the African country.

The victims, mostly between 5 months and 4 years old, died of acute renal failure.

India launched a probe into Maiden Pharmaceuticals but later said the investigation had found the suspect drugs were of “standard quality.”
…

Last year was one of the the warmest on record, according to data released Thursday by two U.S. government agencies, and was marked by numerous instances of severe weather around the globe, many of which are exacerbated by global warming.

The Earth’s average global surface temperature was 0.86 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average in 2022, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This made it the sixth-warmest year on record by NOAA’s reckoning, and the fifth-warmest by NASA’s. (The discrepancy between the two is the result of a measurement difference of a tiny fraction of a degree.)

The high temperatures in 2022 were particularly remarkable because of the presence of a major weather phenomenon over the Pacific Ocean called La Niña, which drove global temperatures down by approximately 0.06 degrees, Gavin A. Schmidt, chief of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in a conference call with journalists.

Russell Vose, chief of the analysis and synthesis branch at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, said the individual rankings of specific years are less important than the overall trend of a warming planet. Each of the past eight years has been among the eight hottest years on record.

“It’s clear that each of the past four decades has been warmer than the decade that preceded it,” said Vose. “There’s really been a steady rise in temperature since at least the 1960s.”

He added, “It’s certainly warmer now than at any time in at least the past 2,000 years, and probably much longer.”

Regional differences

Differences in global surface temperature were not evenly distributed, with some regions experiencing much higher-than-average temperatures, while others had lower temperatures. While Central Europe experienced significantly higher temperatures than normal, for example, the temperatures of the U.S. Midwest were lower than average. The Northern Hemisphere, for example, was 1.1 degrees Celsius above average last year, while the Southern Hemisphere was up only 0.61 degrees.

Asia experienced its second-hottest year on record, as did Europe. In Africa, though, 2022 was only the tenth-hottest year on record. It was the 12th-hottest year recorded in South America, the 15th-hottest in North America and in the top 20 for Oceania.

Much of the increased heat was focused on the polar regions, which led to significant loss of sea ice. In 2022, average sea ice cover in the Antarctic was near record lows, at 10.5 square kilometers. In the Arctic, sea ice covered 10.6 square kilometers, the 11th-lowest total on record.

In addition, average ocean surface temperatures, which are measured up to a depth of 2,000 meters, were the highest on record. The four highest average global ocean temperatures ever recorded have all occurred in the four years since 2019.

Major weather events

Last year also saw a large number of extreme weather events, including crippling droughts in the western U.S., East Africa and much of Europe, while Pakistan, China and Australia all battled devastating floods.

While major storm systems were not more common than average in 2022, North America suffered a series of extremely damaging hurricanes, while East Asia was battered by several destructive typhoons.

The scientists presenting the NOAA/NASA data declined to blame severe weather events specifically on climate change, but they noted that warmer temperatures create conditions that allow storms to become more damaging than they might otherwise be.

‘Flirting’ with 1.5 degrees Celsius

Countries around the world have reached a number of agreements meant to try to keep average global temperature increases limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (a different, lower baseline than the 20th century average cited above).

Vose said the Earth is already “flirting” with a 1.5-degree increase now, adding that it would not be surprising for a single year in the 2020s to top that number. That would not be the same as reaching a multiyear average increase of 1.5 degrees, though.

Schmidt said the Earth’s average temperature currently stands at between 1.1 and 1.2 degrees above the preindustrial average, and is climbing.

He said the current rate of warming is just over 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade. If that rate remains unchanged, within 20 years, the global average will hit 1.5 degrees.

However, he added, continued increases are not inevitable.

“Future warming is a function of future emissions of carbon dioxide. So, we as a society, collectively, we still have agency,” Schmidt said. “So, what we are going to do in the future is going to determine what happens in the future. And so, if we continue to emit at the rate that we are emitting right now, then we are going to continue to warm, and we would be pretty much rushing past 1.5. If we collectively reduce emissions quite quickly, then we can avoid the higher temperatures.”

Climate activists frustrated

Climate activists saw Thursday’s report as further confirmation of the dire effects of global warming and the insufficiency of past efforts to slow it.

“It’s a lot of what we already know — just more confirmation,” said Cherelle Blazer, senior director of the International Climate and Policy Campaign at the Sierra Club. “We’re already at 1.1 degrees warming. All the world’s scientists say that we need to stick to 1.5 in order to not see the worst of the climate catastrophe happen. And no one seems to be willing to do what’s necessary to achieve that. I find it very disheartening.”

Blazer said she hopes the NOAA/NASA report will spur the new Congress into action, particularly in efforts to fully implement the many carbon-reduction efforts included in the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, to finance the Green Climate Fund, and to take steps to compensate low-income countries for the disproportionate damage they face from global warming.

“I’m hoping that the Biden administration, our new Senate and our new House — our newly elected officials — are ready to roll up their sleeves and stop playing around with people’s lives,” she said.
…

Exxon Mobil’s scientists were remarkably accurate in their predictions about global warming, even as the company made public statements that contradicted its own scientists’ conclusions, a study says. 

The study published Thursday in the journal Science looked at research that Exxon funded that didn’t just confirm what climate scientists were saying but used more than a dozen different computer models that forecast the coming warming with precision equal to or better than government and academic scientists. 

This was during the same time that the oil giant publicly doubted that warming was real and dismissed climate models’ accuracy. Exxon said its understanding of climate change evolved over the years and that critics are misunderstanding its earlier research. 

Scientists, governments, activists and news sites, including Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times, several years ago reported that “Exxon knew” about the science of climate change since about 1977, all while publicly casting doubt. What the new study does is detail how accurate Exxon-funded research was. From 63% to 83% of those projections fit strict standards for accuracy and generally predicted correctly that the globe would warm about .36 degree (.2 degree Celsius) a decade.

‘Astonishing’ hypocrisy 

The Exxon-funded science was “actually astonishing” in its precision and accuracy, said study co-author Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard science history professor. But, she added, so was the “hypocrisy, because so much of the Exxon Mobil disinformation for so many years … was the claim that climate models weren’t reliable.” 

Study lead author Geoffrey Supran, who started the work at Harvard and now is an environmental science professor at the University of Miami, said this is different than what was previously found in documents about the oil company. 

“We’ve dug into not just the language, the rhetoric in these documents, but also the data. And I’d say in that sense, our analysis really seals the deal on ‘Exxon knew,’ ” Supran said. It “gives us airtight evidence that Exxon Mobil accurately predicted global warming years before, then turned around and attacked the science underlying it.” 

The paper quoted then-Exxon CEO Lee Raymond in 1999 as saying future climate “projections are based on completely unproven climate models, or more often, sheer speculation,” while his successor in 2013 called models “not competent.” 

Exxon’s understanding of climate science developed along with that of the broader scientific community, and its four decades of research in climate science resulted in more than 150 papers, including 50 peer-reviewed publications, said company spokesman Todd Spitler. 

Misrepresentation alleged

“This issue has come up several times in recent years, and in each case, our answer is the same: Those who talk about how ‘Exxon knew’ are wrong in their conclusions,” Spitler said in an emailed statement. “Some have sought to misrepresent facts and Exxon Mobil’s position on climate science, and its support for effective policy solutions, by recasting well-intended, internal policy debates as an attempted company disinformation campaign.” 

Exxon, one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, has been the target of numerous lawsuits that claim the company knew about the damage its oil and gas would cause to the climate, but misled the public by sowing doubt about climate change. In the latest such lawsuit, New Jersey accused five oil and gas companies including Exxon of deceiving the public for decades while knowing about the harmful toll fossil fuels take on the climate. 

Similar lawsuits from New York to California have claimed that Exxon and other oil and gas companies launched public relations campaigns to stir doubts about climate change. In one, then-Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said Exxon’s public relations efforts were ” reminiscent of the tobacco industry’s long denial campaign about the dangerous effects of cigarettes.” 

Oreskes acknowledged in the study that she has been a paid consultant in the past for a law firm suing Exxon, while Supran has gotten a grant from the Rockefeller Family Foundation, which has also helped fund groups that were suing Exxon. The Associated Press receives some foundation support from Rockefeller and maintains full control of editorial content. 

Oil giants including Exxon and Shell were accused in congressional hearings in 2021 of spreading misinformation about climate change, but executives from the companies denied the accusations. 

University of Illinois atmospheric scientist professor emeritus Donald Wuebbles told The Associated Press that in the 1980s, he worked with Exxon-funded scientists and wasn’t surprised by what the company knew or the models. It’s what people who examined the issue knew. 

“It was clear that Exxon Mobil knew what was going on,” Wuebbles said. “The problem is at the same time, they were paying people to put out misinformation. That’s the big issue.” 

There’s a difference between the “hype and spin” that companies do to get you to buy a product, or politicians do to get your vote, and an “outright lie … misrepresenting factual information. And that’s what Exxon did,” Oreskes said.

‘Huge’ harm 

Several outside scientists and activists said what the study showed about Exxon actions is serious. 

“The harm caused by Exxon has been huge,” said University of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck. “They knew that fossil fuels, including oil and natural gas, would greatly alter the planet’s climate in ways that would be costly in terms of lives, human suffering and economic impacts. And yet, despite this understanding, they chose to publicly downplay the problem of climate change and the dangers it poses to people and the planet.” 

Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald asked: “How many thousands (or more) of lives have been lost or adversely impacted by Exxon Mobil’s deliberate campaign to obscure the science?” 

Critics say Exxon’s past actions on climate change undermine its claims that it’s committed to reducing emissions. 

After tracking Exxon’s and hundreds of other companies’ corporate lobbying on climate change policies, InfluenceMap, a firm that analyzes data on how companies are impacting the climate crisis, concluded that Exxon is lobbying overall in opposition to the goals of the Paris Agreement and that it is currently among the most negative and influential corporations holding back climate policy. 

“All the research we have suggests that effort to thwart climate action continues to this day, prioritizing the oil and gas industry value chain from the ‘potentially existential’ threat of climate change, rather than the other way around,” said Faye Holder, program manager for InfluenceMap. 

“The messages of denial and delay may look different, but the intention is the same.” 
…

German police Thursday continued efforts to clear hundreds of climate protesters occupying the western village of Luetzerath to prevent the demolition of the town for the expansion of a coal mine.

Police began moving in Tuesday after a regional German court Monday rejected the last legal effort by the protesters to stop the demolition of the town located in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Utility company RWE wants to extract coal beneath Luetzerath, which it says is necessary to ensure energy security in Germany. The company reached a deal with the regional government last year that allows the village to be destroyed in return for ending coal use by 2030, rather than 2038.

But the protesters — some of whom have occupied the town for as long as two years — say bulldozing the village to expand the nearby Garzweiler coal mine would result in huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. The government and the utility company argue that the coal is needed to ensure Germany’s energy security.

Though reports say many protesters have left voluntarily, there were reports of minor clashes with police that include rock throwing and fireworks. The Reuters news agency, quoting a local police spokesman, reported two people were detained and another three are in custody since the operation started.

Removing those who do not want to leave will not be an easy task, as the village has several houses and buildings where the protesters have holed up or have taken positions on rooftops.

A police press spokesperson told the French news agency AFP the operation “could last several weeks” with another demonstration planned for Saturday. High-profile figures, including Greta Thunberg, and other prominent climate campaigners are expected at the demonstration, lending reinforcements to the protesters.

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

For years, 51-year-old Rodney Stotts says he was living a dead-end life. Today, he is a different person, teaching young people about birds of prey and the importance of protecting the environment. Maxim Moskalkov has the story. Camera: Sergii Dogotar
…

The World Health Organization said Wednesday it is calling on China to provide more information about its surge in COVID-19 cases.

“WHO still believes that deaths are heavily underreported from China, and this is in relation to the definitions that are used but also to the need for doctors and those reporting in the public health system to be encouraged to report these cases and not discouraged,” Michael Ryan, WHO’s emergencies director, told reporters.

Ryan did praise China’s efforts to increase the number of designated beds in intensive care units and in using antivirals early in the course of treatment.

A lack of extensive data from China has led a number of countries to require testing for Chinese travelers.

“In the absence of data, countries have made a decision to take a precautionary approach and (WHO has) said that that is understandable in the circumstances,” Ryan said.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse. 
…

The race is on to save the ecologically crucial wetlands surrounding the final 160 kilometers of the Mississippi River, America’s most iconic waterway.

“We are losing our communities, our culture, our fisheries, and our first line of defense against the hurricanes that threaten us,” said Kim Reyher, executive director of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana.

Adjacent to New Orleans, Plaquemines Parish is disappearing at an alarming rate. In recent decades, nearly 700 square kilometers of land have been consumed by the Gulf of Mexico because of the devastating combination of sinking land and rising sea levels. The parish includes wetlands that are home to thousands of Louisianans and many species of wildlife deemed critical to the ecology — and economy — of the region.

In December, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed off on the state’s ambitious $2.2 billion plan to divert sediment from the Mississippi River and, it is hoped, protect and restore the vanishing region, which contributes to Louisiana’s robust seafood and energy sectors.

“The most fortunate thing about the situation we find ourselves in,” Reyher told VOA, “is that we have the tools necessary to build more land by mimicking what the Mississippi River had done for millennia. We can make ourselves safer moving forward.”

That is what this plan hopes to do. But not everyone is convinced.

“They say this is a 50-year plan, but who of us is going to be around in 50 years?” asked Dean Blanchard, owner of Dean Blanchard Seafood in vulnerable Grand Isle, Louisiana, speaking with VOA. “They’ve been trying to build back land for decades and so far I haven’t seen them build enough for two of us to stand on. It just doesn’t work.”

Choking the muddy Mississippi

It wasn’t long ago in geological terms that what is now south Louisiana didn’t exist at all. The region is known as an alluvial delta, built over thousands of years as the country’s major rivers carried sediment from the Rocky Mountains in the west and deposited them into the Gulf of Mexico.

Over time, that process created land stretching from Gulf-facing Plaquemines Parish in the south to areas as far north as Baton Rouge, the state capital. New Orleans, a world-renowned hub of culture and tourism, also owes its existence to this sediment.

“But land down here sinks back into the Gulf unless it’s replenished with new sediment,” Reyher explained. “In the past, that replenishment would come from the seasonal overflowing of the muddy, sediment-rich Mississippi River. But, of course, no one wants to live in a place with annual flooding, so that’s why we built the levees.”

Those levees — barriers largely built in the 20th century on either bank of the river — have helped keep residents safe from river flooding.

But the levees also block the flow of new sediment, making the region more vulnerable to land loss due to erosion and rising sea levels. Ecologists project another 400 square kilometers of land could disappear by the end of the century.

But with the Army Corps’ approval of what is being called the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, some believe there is hope.

“We have been studying this for a very long time,” said Chip Kline, board chairman of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, which will be responsible for executing the plan.

“The project will mimic the pre-levee natural land building processes of the Mississippi River and strategically reconnect the river to our sediment-starved estuaries,” he said. “It will establish a consistent sediment source to nourish the newly created land in a way that provides a more sustainable solution than other options such as mechanical dredging.”

Doubt and outrage

The architects of the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion believe this is the best available plan. They do, however, concede there will be consequences, particularly for the region’s fishermen, shrimpers and oyster harvesters.

“The water in which our oysters, shrimp and many of our fish thrive is salty,” local shrimper George Barisich told VOA. “So, when you divert all of this fresh Mississippi River water in there, it’s going to kill them. It’s going to destroy those fish populations for years and it’s going to destroy us fishermen.”

Even calling it fresh water, according to Barisich, is misleading.

“This isn’t the same water that traveled down the continent hundreds of years ago,” he said. “This now has pesticides and [feces] from every farm and household along the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) Mississippi River. It’s not going to build our wetlands; it’s going to destroy it.”

Although the project is backed by Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, not everyone in state government is enthusiastic.

“I want what’s best for the people of Louisiana,” Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser told VOA, “and this isn’t it. We’ve tried building land his way before and it doesn’t work. The land gets washed away in six months because the Mississippi River doesn’t carry the same amount of sediment it did thousands of — or even a hundred — years ago.”

Mitigating consequences

Reyher, from the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, said she’s sympathetic to the concerns fishermen in the region have.

“This is going to impact them, we understand that,” she said. “That’s why we are including $360 million in the plan to assist them and mitigate those consequences.”

She continued: “But, if we do nothing, we’re admitting defeat. We’re talking about whole communities and millions of people that would eventually need to be relocated.”

Lieutenant Governor Nungesser said he also hopes to avoid that outcome. But he also says solutions need to be focused on the short term as well.

“We don’t have to sacrifice people now for some plan that we won’t know doesn’t work until 50 years down the road,” he said. “I’ve been a policymaker here for years, and we know what works. We have seen that specifically building up ridges and islands and berms that protect us from storms — that can keep us safe. And it can do it while protecting the culture and communities around Louisiana’s last surviving sacred resource — our seafood.”

Proponents of the project say the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion is the most effective and cost-efficient tool they have — a key component of a 50-year, $50 billion suite of solutions to save south Louisiana.

“Nothing like this has ever been done in the region,” Donald Boesch, professor of marine science at the University of Maryland, told VOA. “This project is designed to capture and distribute sediment during the times of year it is most available. And we can do it in a way that minimizes the water that will kill our fisheries while maximizing the … sediment that will save and re-establish south Louisiana.”

Louisiana must decide by February whether to accept or appeal the Army Corps’ permit conditions. The plan could draw lawsuits from opponents.
…

Russia said Wednesday that it will send an empty spacecraft to the International Space Station next month to bring home three astronauts whose planned return vehicle was damaged by a strike from a tiny meteorite.

The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, made the announcement after examining the flight worthiness of the Soyuz MS-22 crew capsule at the space station, which sprang a radiator coolant leak in December.

Roscosmos and NASA officials said at a joint press briefing that an uncrewed Soyuz spacecraft, MS-23, would be sent to the station February 20 to bring Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergei Prokopyev and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio back to Earth.

“We’re not calling it a rescue Soyuz,” said Joel Montalbano, the space station program manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “I’m calling it a replacement Soyuz.

“Right now, the crew is safe onboard the space station,” he added.

MS-22 flew Petelin, Prokopyev and Rubio to the space station in September. They were scheduled to return home in the same spacecraft in mid-March.

But MS-22 began leaking coolant on December 14 after being hit by what U.S. and Russian space officials said they believed was a micrometeorite.

“Everything does point to a micrometeorite,” Montalbano said.

Sergei Krikalev, executive director of human space flight programs at Roscosmos, said the “current theory is that this damage was caused by a small particle about 1 millimeter in diameter.”

Krikalev said the decision to use MS-23 to fly the crew home was made because of concern over high temperatures in MS-22 during reentry. 

“The main problem to land the current Soyuz with crew would be thermal conditions because we lost heat rejection capability,” he said. “We may have a high temperature situation on Soyuz in the equipment compartment and in the crew compartment.”

Montalbano said discussions were also underway with SpaceX officials about potentially returning one or more crew members on the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule currently docked with the space station.

Four astronauts were flown to the station by a SpaceX rocket in October for a mission expected to last about six months.

“We could safely secure the crew members in the area that the cargo normally returns on the Dragon,” Montalbano said.

“All that is only for an emergency, only if we have to evacuate ISS,” he stressed. “That’s not the nominal plan or anything like that.”

Krikalev said MS-22 would return to Earth after the two cosmonauts and the NASA astronaut leave on MS-23. It would bring back equipment and experiments that are not “temperature sensitive,” he said.

Soyuz MS-23 had been initially scheduled to fly Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and NASA’s Loral O’Hara to the space station on March 16.

Space has remained a rare venue of cooperation between Moscow and Washington since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine and ensuing Western sanctions on Russia.

The space station was launched in 1998 at a time of increased U.S.-Russia cooperation following the Cold War space race.

Russia has been using the aging but reliable Soyuz capsules to ferry astronauts into space since the 1960s.
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Genomic sequencing allowed the world to track new coronavirus variants throughout the pandemic. Now British researchers plan to use it to better understand a host of other respiratory pathogens, from influenza to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).  

The work is aimed at shedding more light on known threats and, potentially, emerging ones, said the team at the Wellcome Sanger Institute working with the UK Health Security Agency. 

The world has never had access to the kind of real-time information for these viruses that scientists obtained on SARS-CoV-2 through sequencing millions of genomes, Ewan Harrison, head of the new Respiratory Virus and Microbiome Initiative, told reporters Monday. 

That includes granular detail on how they transmit as well as how they evolve in the face of the human immune response.  

“We hope that by expanding our ability to sequence these viruses routinely, we can build upon the work that’s going on COVID, and hopefully supercharge research efforts to understand the transmission of these viruses, but also to help develop new treatments and vaccines,” Harrison said. 

The aim is to make genomic surveillance of this type the norm, to inform public health responses and act as a blueprint for other countries that want to do the same thing, he said. 

The work will begin later this year by using leftover material from swabs taken for COVID-19 diagnostic purposes, sequencing SARS-CoV-2, influenza, RSV and other common respiratory viruses in a combined process.  

While some of the viruses targeted typically cause mild, cold-like symptoms, others can cause serious illness, particularly in vulnerable populations. 

Cases of COVID-19, flu and RSV have all surged this winter in the northern hemisphere in a so-called “tripledemic” that is putting serious pressure on hospitals in a number of countries.  

The team said that, in the future, the initiative could answer questions about outbreaks like this.  

It also aims to sequence everything found in a single nose swab, including the viral, bacterial and fungal species present and how they change during infection. 

The five-year initiative aims to begin work from spring this year and is funded by Wellcome. 

 
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Countries should consider recommending passengers wear masks on long-haul flights to counter the latest Omicron subvariant of COVID-19 given its rapid spread in the United States, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said on Tuesday.

In Europe, the XBB.1.5 subvariant is being detected in small but growing numbers, WHO/Europe officials said at a press briefing.

Passengers should be advised to wear masks in high-risk settings such as long-haul flights, said the WHO’s senior emergency officer for Europe, Catherine Smallwood, adding: “this should be a recommendation issued to passengers arriving from anywhere where there is widespread COVID-19 transmission.”

XBB.1.5 – the most transmissible Omicron subvariant that has been detected so far accounted for 27.6% of COVID-19 cases in the United States for the week ending Jan. 7, U.S. health officials have said.

It remains unclear if XBB.1.5 will cause its own wave of infections around the world. Current vaccines continue to protect against severe symptoms, hospitalization and death, experts say.

“Countries need to look at the evidence base for pre-departure testing”, Smallwood added, saying it was crucial not to focus exclusively on one particular geographic area.

If action is considered, she said, “our opinion is that travel measures should be implemented in a non-discriminatory manner.”

That did not mean the agency recommended testing for passengers coming from the United States at this stage, she added.

Measures that can be taken include genomic surveillance, and targeting passengers arriving from other countries as long as it does not divert resources away from domestic surveillance systems. Others include wastewater monitoring systems around points of entry, such as airports.

XBB.1.5 is yet another descendant of Omicron, the most contagious – and now globally dominant – variant of the virus that causes COVID-19. It is an offshoot of XBB, first detected in October, which is itself a recombinant of two other Omicron subvariants.

Concerns about XBB.1.5 fueling a fresh spate of cases in the United States and beyond are on the rise at the same time as a surge of COVID cases in China, after the country pivoted away from its signature “zero COVID” policy last month.

According to data reported by the WHO earlier this month, an analysis by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention showed a predominance of Omicron sublineages BA.5.2 and BF.7 among locally acquired infections.

Many scientists — including from the WHO — believe China is likely under-reporting the true extent of its outbreak.

More than a dozen countries — including the United States — are demanding COVID tests from travelers from China.
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Space sector bosses on Tuesday said they were disappointed by the failure of the country’s historic first attempt to launch satellites from UK soil but pledged to investigate and try again.

The failure of the mission late on Monday is a blow to the UK’s fledgling space sector.

Had it been successful, it would have made the UK one of only nine countries able to launch rockets into Earth’s orbit.

A Virgin Orbit Boeing 747 carrying the 70-foot (21-meter) rocket took off from a spaceport in Cornwall, southwest England, at 2202 GMT on Monday.

The rocket then detached from the aircraft and ignited as planned at a height of 35,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean to the south of Ireland at around 2315 GMT.

But as the rocket was due to enter orbit and discharge its nine satellites, scientists reported an “anomaly” that prevented it from reaching orbit.

Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart praised the launch teams but said their task had been complicated by the “first time nature of this mission” which had “added layers of complexity.”

“We will work tirelessly to understand the nature of the failure, make corrective actions and return to orbit as soon as we have completed a full investigation and mission assurance process,” he added.

The UK Space Agency said it would work closely with Virgin Orbit as they “investigate what caused the anomaly.”

“While this result is disappointing… the project has succeeded in creating a horizontal launch capability at Spaceport Cornwall,” said Matt Archer, the agency’s commercial spaceflight director.

Monday’s launch would have been the first from UK soil. UK-produced satellites have previously had to be sent into orbit via foreign spaceports. 

‘Within a year’

The satellites were to have a variety of civil and defense functions, from sea monitoring to help countries detect people smugglers and space weather observation.

Lucy Edge, CEO of Satellite Applications Catapult, said planning would begin immediately for a replacement mission for a client who had a maritime surveillance satellite on board.

But she said the bigger picture was the issue of UK launch capabilities.

“We will keep doing this. We will get a launch capability out of the UK, probably more than one. I think within a year is entirely reasonable,” she told BBC radio.

The number of space bases in Europe has grown in recent years due to the commercialization of space.

For a long time, satellites were primarily used for institutional missions by national space agencies but most of Europe’s spaceport projects are now private-sector initiatives.

The market has exploded with the emergence of small start-ups, modern technology making both rockets and satellites smaller, and the rapidly growing number of applications for satellites.
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It’s been six months since the James Webb Space Telescope began transmitting breathtaking pictures of the cosmos back to Earth, transfixing star gazers and scientists alike.  

The images have led to new discoveries about the universe, including the formation of stars, the evolution of black holes and the composition of planets in other solar systems. 

NASA’s Webb telescope — a collaboration between the United States, Europe and Canada — was launched on Christmas Day 2021. However, it was not until July 12, 2022, when U.S. President Joe Biden officially released the first set of pictures taken by the $10 billion telescope, that its first images were seen by the world.  

Here is a look at some of the best images captured by the telescope over the past six months. 

Galaxy cluster (Webb’s first Deep Field) 

July 12, 2022 

Among the first set of images taken by the telescope and revealed by NASA is a galaxy cluster known as SMACS 0723 that is teeming with thousands of galaxies. NASA called the picture “the deepest, sharpest infrared view of the universe to date” and said it shows the galaxies as they appeared 4.6 billion years ago. Scientists describe the telescope as looking back in time. That is because it can see galaxies that are so far away that it takes light from those galaxies billions of years to reach the telescope.  

The Carina Nebula 

July 12, 2022 

Also part of the first set of images NASA released, this picture shows emerging stellar nurseries in a star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. NASA says the stellar nurseries and individual stars that are seen in the image are completely hidden in visible-light pictures. “Because of Webb’s sensitivity to infrared light, it can peer through cosmic dust to see these objects,” it said. A successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, Webb is able to use the infrared spectrum in capturing its images, while its predecessor used mainly optical and ultraviolet wavelengths.  

Atmosphere of a distant planet   

July 12, 2022

This observation from the Webb telescope captures detailed measurements of a planetary atmosphere 1,150 light-years away. Among the findings from this atmosphere is the distinct signature of water. NASA says such images show “the significant role the telescope will play in the search for potentially habitable planets in coming years.” The planet analyzed here, known as WASP-96 b, is one of more than 5,000 confirmed exoplanets in the Milky Way, according to NASA. It has a mass less than half that of Jupiter, a temperature greater than 500°C, and it orbits its Sun-like star once every 3½ Earth-days. 

Enchanting Jupiter   

August 22, 2022 

The Webb telescope captured new images of Jupiter in August, delighting the internet with its composite picture of the planet from three infrared filters. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot – a storm so big it could contain the entire Earth — is shown in white instead of red, and in sharp detail. NASA says the spot appears white, as do some of the clouds around the planet, because they are reflecting a large amount of light and contain high-altitude hazes.    

Neptune’s rings   

September 21, 2022 

Staying within our solar system, Webb turned its gaze to Neptune, producing an image of the icy planet that captures some of the clearest views of its rings. The photo also shows seven of Neptune’s 14 known moons. While Neptune appears blue at visible wavelengths, caused by small amounts of gaseous methane, Webb’s near-infrared camera does not show the color in this image. “Methane gas so strongly absorbs red and infrared light that the planet is quite dark at these near-infrared wavelengths, except where high-altitude clouds are present,” NASA said.    

The Pillars of Creation   

October 19, 2022 

Webb’s new view of the Pillars of Creation shows a beautifully clear picture of the celestial event, where new stars are forming within dense clouds of gas and dust. The Pillars captured people’s imagination when NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope began sending images of it in 1995, including the picture at left taken in 2014. The image on the right is created from Webb’s near-infrared camera and shows the presence of far more stars, which are formed out of the dusty clouds over millions of years. 
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Children struggling with obesity should be evaluated and treated early and aggressively, including with medications for kids as young as 12 and surgery for those as young as 13, according to new guidelines released Monday.

The long-standing practice of “watchful waiting,” or delaying treatment to see whether children and teens outgrow or overcome obesity on their own, only worsens the problem that affects more than 14.4 million young people in the U.S. Left untreated, obesity can lead to lifelong health problems, including high blood pressure, diabetes and depression.

“Waiting doesn’t work,” said Dr. Ihuoma Eneli, co-author of the first guidance on childhood obesity in 15 years from the American Academy of Pediatrics. “What we see is a continuation of weight gain and the likelihood that they’ll have [obesity] in adulthood.”

For the first time, the group’s guidance sets ages at which kids and teens should be offered medical treatments such as drugs and surgery — in addition to intensive diet, exercise and other behavior and lifestyle interventions, said Eneli, director of the Center for Healthy Weight and Nutrition at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

In general, doctors should offer adolescents 12 and older who have obesity access to appropriate drugs and teens 13 and older with severe obesity referrals for weight-loss surgery, though situations may vary.

The guidelines aim to reset the inaccurate view of obesity as “a personal problem, maybe a failure of the person’s diligence,” said Dr. Sandra Hassink, medical director for the AAP Institute for Healthy Childhood Weight, and a co-author of the guidelines.

“This is not different than you have asthma and now we have an inhaler for you,” Hassink said.

‘Not a lifestyle problem’

Young people who have a body mass index that meets or exceeds the 95th percentile for kids of the same age and gender are considered obese. Kids who reach or exceed that level by 120% are considered to have severe obesity. BMI is a measure of body size based on a calculation of height and weight.

Obesity affects nearly 20% of kids and teens in the U.S. and about 42% of adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The group’s guidance takes into consideration that obesity is a biological problem and that the condition is a complex, chronic disease, said Aaron Kelly, co-director of the Center for Pediatric Obesity Medicine at the University of Minnesota.

“Obesity is not a lifestyle problem. It is not a lifestyle disease,” he said. “It predominately emerges from biological factors.”

The guidelines come as new drug treatments for obesity in kids have emerged, including approval late last month of Wegovy, a weekly injection, for use in children ages 12 and older. Different doses of the drug, called semaglutide, are also used under different names to treat diabetes. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that Wegovy, made by Novo Nordisk, helped teens reduce their BMI by about 16% on average, better than the results in adults.

How Wegovy works

The drug affects how the pathways between the brain and the gut regulate energy, said Dr. Justin Ryder, an obesity researcher at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago.

“It works on how your brain and stomach communicate with one another and helps you feel more full than you would be,” he said.

Still, specific doses of semaglutide and other anti-obesity drugs have been hard to get because of recent shortages caused by manufacturing problems and high demand, spurred in part by celebrities on TikTok and other social media platforms boasting about enhanced weight loss.

In addition, many insurers won’t pay for the medication, which costs about $1,300 a month.

One expert in pediatric obesity cautioned that while kids with obesity must be treated early and intensively, he worries that some doctors may turn too quickly to drugs or surgery.

“It’s not that I’m against the medications,” said Dr. Robert Lustig, a longtime specialist in pediatric endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco. “I’m against the willy-nilly use of those medications without addressing the cause of the problem.”

Lustig said children must be evaluated individually to understand all factors that contribute to obesity. He has long blamed too much sugar for the rise in obesity. He urges a sharp focus on diet, particularly ultra-processed foods high in sugar and low in fiber.

Dr. Stephanie Byrne, a pediatrician at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said she’d like more research about the drug’s efficacy in a more diverse group of children and about potential long-term effects before she begins prescribing it regularly.

“I would want to see it be used on a little more consistent basis,” she said. “And I would have to have that patient come in pretty frequently to be monitored.”

At the same time, she welcomed the group’s new emphasis on prompt, intensive treatment for obesity in kids.

“I definitely think this is a realization that diet and exercise is not going to do it for a number of teens who are struggling with this — maybe the majority,” she said.
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A modified jumbo jet carrying a Virgin Orbit rocket took off from southwestern England Monday, marking the first attempt to launch satellites into orbit from Western Europe.

Hundreds gathered for the launch cheered as the repurposed Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 aircraft, named “Cosmic Girl,” took off from Cornwall late Monday. Around an hour into the flight, the plane will release the rocket at 35,000 feet (around 10,000 meters) over the Atlantic Ocean to the south of Ireland.

The rocket will then take nine small satellites for mixed civil and defense use into orbit, while the plane, piloted by a Royal Air Force pilot, returns to Cornwall.

If successful, the mission will mark the first international launch for Virgin Orbit, founded by British billionaire Richard Branson. The company, which is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange, has already completed four similar launches from California.

In the past, satellites produced in the U.K. had to be sent to spaceports in other countries to make their journey into space.

Some of the satellites are meant for U.K. defense monitoring, while others are for businesses such as those working in navigational technology. One Welsh company is looking to manufacture materials such as electronic components in space.

“This is the start of a new era for the U.K. in terms of launch capabilities,” said Ian Annett, deputy chief executive at the U.K. Space Agency. There was strong market demand for small satellite launches, he said, and the U.K. has ambitions to be “the hub of European launches.”

Annett said it was too early to say whether more missions are planned in coming months.

The mission is a collaboration between the U.K. Space Agency, the Royal Air Force, Virgin Orbit and Cornwall Council.

The launch was originally planned for late last year, but it was postponed because of technical and regulatory issues.
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A U.N.-led study released Monday shows a hole in the protective layer of ozone over Antarctica is on track to fully recover in about four decades, thanks to the global phasing out of nearly 99% of banned ozone-depleting substances.

The report, published every four years, was presented Monday at the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society in Denver.

The report indicates that if current policies remain in place, the ozone layer is expected to recover to 1980 values — before the appearance of the ozone hole — by around 2066 over the Antarctic, by 2045 over the Arctic and by 2040 for the rest of the world. It shows the Antarctic ozone hole has been slowly improving in area and depth since the year 2000.

The scientific assessment monitors the progress of the Montreal Protocol, a global agreement reached in 1987 and put into place in 1989, intended to protect the Earth’s ozone layer by phasing out the chemicals that deplete it, often used as propellants in household products or in air conditioning.

In a statement, U.N. Environmental Program Ozone Secretariat Meg Seki said the ozone recovery data in this latest study is “fantastic news.”

“The impact the Montreal Protocol has had on climate change mitigation cannot be overstressed,” she said, calling the treaty “a true champion for the environment.”

The latest assessment has been made based on extensive studies, research and data compiled by experts from the U.N. World Meteorological Organization; the U.N. Environment Program; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; the U.S. space agency, NASA; and the European Commission.
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One year after Australia deported Serbian tennis champion Novak Djokovic for refusing to get vaccinated, Australian Open tournament officials say players this year will not be tested for COVID-19 and would even be allowed to compete even if they had the virus. 

Tournament director Craig Tiley told reporters Monday they are telling players and tournament staff to stay away if they feel ill, but otherwise they will not be tested. If they have already been tested, they will not be required to disclose their status. 

Tiley said the tournament just wanted to “follow what is currently in the community.” 

The new policy is a stark change from the strict protocols of the past two years, when spectators were banned from the tournament, matches were played in a bio-secure “bubble,” and nine-time tournament champion Djokovic was not allowed to play. 

Last week, during a Cricket match in Sydney between South Africa and Australia, Australian Cricketer Matt Renshaw was allowed to play in a five-day test match despite testing positive for COVID. 

Riley said, “It’s a normalized environment for us and, not dissimilar to cricket, there will potentially be players that will compete with COVID.” 

The more relaxed rules for sports reflects Australia’s more relaxed rules regarding COVID-19. At the height of the pandemic, the nation — and Melbourne in particular -— endured some of the longest and strictest lockdowns.   

But in the past year, mandates regarding safeguards such as testing, and mask-wearing have been replaced. 

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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China will not include Pfizer Inc’s Paxlovid in an update to its list of medicines covered by basic medical insurance schemes as the U.S. firm quoted a high price for the COVID-19 drug, China’s Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) said Sunday.   

The COVID-19 antiviral drug is currently covered by the country’s broad health care insurance scheme under temporary measures the regulator introduced in March last year as outbreaks rose.   

But authorities held talks with Pfizer in recent days to decide whether to include it in the latest version of their list, which they update annually.   

Inclusion on the list means a drug is accessible via state insurance schemes, which will boost volumes but comes with the condition that manufacturers lower prices. Past rounds have seen drugmakers cut prices by as much as 62% after negotiations with officials.   

“We will continue to collaborate with the Chinese government and all relevant stakeholders to secure an adequate supply of Paxlovid in China. We remain committed to fulfilling the COVID-19 treatment needs of Chinese patients,” Pfizer said in a statement, without elaborating.   

The NHSA said Paxlovid would continue to be eligible to be paid for by state medical insurance until the current planned end-date to the temporary measures of March 31.   

While the talks on Paxlovid failed, they succeeded with two other COVID-19 treatment drugs — herbal medication Qingfei Paidu granules and Chinese drugmaker Genuine Biotech’s Azvudine — which will be included in the list’s update, the regulator said.   

Three years into the pandemic, China began pivoting away from its signature “zero COVID” policy last month after historic protests of the economically-damaging curbs that had been championed by President Xi Jinping.   

The sudden loosening of restrictions has fueled a giant wave of infections and prompted many to turn to underground channels to procure remedies such as Paxlovid, which a clinical trial has found to have reduced hospitalizations in high-risk patients by around 90%.   

Boxes of Paxlovid are changing hands for as much as 50,000 yuan ($7,313.15), more than 20 times the original price of 2,300 yuan, according to local media reports and social media posts.   

Beijing has been largely resistant to Western vaccines but has greenlighted foreign oral treatments Paxlovid and Merck’s Molnupiravir. It approved Paxlovid in February.   

Reuters reported Saturday, citing sources, that China is in talks with Pfizer to secure a license that will allow domestic drugmakers to manufacture and distribute a generic version of Paxlovid.   

Last month, China Meheco Group Co Ltd said Wednesday it signed an agreement with Pfizer to import and distribute Paxlovid in mainland China.   

Pfizer also signed a deal in August for Chinese drugmaker Zhejiang Huahai to produce Paxlovid in mainland China solely for patients there. 
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Thailand will require international travelers to show proof they are fully vaccinated for COVID before flying to Thailand, according to the country’s aviation regulator, as it prepares for more tourists after China reopened its border on Sunday.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand said in a statement Saturday that starting early Monday, all foreign arrivals starting early on Monday must prove they are vaccinated or provide a letter certifying that they have recovered from COVID within six months.

Unvaccinated travelers must show a medical certificate explaining why they have not received the vaccine.

CAAT said airlines would be responsible for checking documents before passengers board and has released a list of how many doses are required for various types of COVID-19 vaccines on its website.

The new measure will remain in effect at least until the end of January, CAAT said.

The vaccination requirement was scrapped by Thailand last October but has been revived as China reopens its border following the easing of its zero-COVID policy.

The first commercial flight from China to Thailand, Xiamen Airlines flight MF833, will arrive to Bangkok from Xiamen on Monday carrying 286 passengers, government spokeswoman Traisuree Taisaranakul said Sunday.

Foreigners traveling to Thailand from a country where a negative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction test result is a condition for entry are required to show proof of health insurance that covers COVID-19 treatment, the Health Ministry said.

The new entry requirements do not apply to Thai passport holders or passengers transiting through Thailand.
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China lifted quarantine requirements for inbound travelers Sunday, ending almost three years of self-imposed isolation even as the country battles a surge in COVID cases.

The first people to arrive expressed relief at not having to undergo the grueling quarantines that were a fixture of life in zero-COVID China.

And in Hong Kong, where the border with mainland China was reopened after years of closure, more than 400,000 people were set to travel north in the coming eight weeks.

Beijing last month began a dramatic dismantling of a hardline zero-COVID strategy that had enforced mandatory quarantines and punishing lockdowns.

The policy had a huge impact on the world’s second-biggest economy and generated resentment throughout society that led to nationwide protests just before it was eased.

At Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport, a woman surnamed Pang told AFP on Sunday she was thrilled with the ease of travel.

“I think it’s really good that the policy has changed now, it’s really humane,” she told AFP.

“It’s a necessary step, I think. COVID has become normalized now and after this hurdle everything will be smooth,” she said.

Chinese people rushed to plan trips abroad after officials last month announced that quarantine would be dropped, sending inquiries on popular travel websites soaring.

But the expected surge in visitors has led more than a dozen countries to impose mandatory COVID tests on travelers from the world’s most populous nation as it battles its worst-ever outbreak.

China has called travel curbs imposed by other countries “unacceptable,” despite it continuing to largely block foreign tourists and international students from travelling to the country.

China’s COVID outbreak is forecast to worsen as it enters the Lunar New Year holiday this month, during which millions are expected to travel from hard-hit megacities to the countryside to visit vulnerable older relatives.

And Beijing has moved to curb criticism of its chaotic path out of zero-COVID, with its Twitter-like Weibo service saying it had recently banned 1,120 accounts for “offenses against experts and scholars.”

‘We just walked out’

At Beijing airport Sunday, barriers that once kept international and domestic arrivals apart were gone, as were the “big whites” — staff in hazmat suits long a fixture of life in zero-COVID China.

One woman, there to greet a friend arriving from Hong Kong, said the first thing they’d do was grab a meal.

“It’s so great, we haven’t seen each other in so long,” Wu, 20, told AFP.

“They are studying over there, and we can meet each other directly in Beijing … It’s been a year,” she added.

At Shanghai airport, one man surnamed Yang who was arriving from the United States said he had not been aware that the rules had changed.

“I had no idea,” he told AFP.

“I’d consider myself extremely lucky if I only need to do quarantine for two days, turned out I don’t have to do quarantine at all, and no paperwork, we just walked out like that, exactly like in the past,” he added.

“I’m quite happy not needing to be in quarantine,” another woman being picked up by her boyfriend who declined to give her name told AFP.

“Who wants to be in quarantine? Nobody.”

Hong Kong opens

In China’s southern semiautonomous city of Hong Kong, visitors streamed across the border as travel restrictions with the Chinese mainland were eased.

Hong Kong’s recession-hit economy is desperate to reconnect with its biggest source of growth, and families are looking forward to reunions over the Lunar New Year.

Official data showed some 410,000 people in Hong Kong planned to travel north in the next two month, while some 7,000 people in the mainland planned to travel south Sunday.

At the Lok Ma Chau checkpoint near Shenzhen, a postgraduate student from mainland China surnamed Zeng told AFP they were happy to cross with no more restrictions.

“I am happy as long as I don’t have to be quarantined — it was so unbearable,” Zeng told AFP.
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