Junior Digest

Oct 27,2021:Scientists are increasingly warning that the melting Arctic could push the planet into a vicious cycle of uncontrolled heating as vast stores of carbon in thawing ground release powerful greenhouse gases.

For thousands of years, permafrost – ground that is frozen for two or more years in a row – has kept dead plant and animal matter locked in the deep-freeze beneath the tundra. These ancient remnants total up to an estimated 1,600 billion tonnes of organic carbon, almost twice as much as currently found in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Covering a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere, this frozen vault is being thawed by rising temperatures, extensive wildfires and unprecedented heatwaves in Siberia and other far-northern regions. In turn, that is transforming the carbon sink of the Arctic into a source of greenhouse gases.

Among those gases is methane, a gas up to 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2) at trapping heat in Earth’s atmosphere during a 100-year period. Across 20 years, it can be 86 times more potent. Then there’s nitrous oxide – its warming potential roughly 300 times more than CO2 across a 100-year timescale.

That is creating a dangerous feedback loop – one in which human activities such as burning fossil fuels and farming livestock heat up the atmosphere, prompting permafrost to thaw and release additional greenhouse gases.

That causes further heating, further thawing and further emissions, threatening to bring about the worst impacts of climate changes far faster than expected.

“This is likely to accelerate because of the scale of the warming we’re seeing in the Arctic,” Rachael Treharne, an Arctic ecologist at Woodwell Climate Research Center, who studies the impact of thawing permafrost and wildfires on climate change, told Al Jazeera.

“Already, we’re looking at irreversible changes.”

The warnings come ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, to be that is seen by many as the last chance to avert a global environmental catastrophe.

Plans to reduce carbon emissions could be thrashed out at the conference, which will be held in Glasgow, Scotland from October 31 until November 12.
‘We cannot control nature’

The Arctic has already heated to more than 2C (3.8F) above its pre-industrial average, with temperatures tipped to rise further.

These northern latitudes are heating at more than twice the rate of the global average due to the rapid loss of sea ice, replacing a highly reflective white surface with the sea’s highly heat-absorbing blue-black.

Scientists have been shocked that higher temperatures conducive to permafrost thawing are occurring roughly 70 years ahead of projections.

Permafrost’s polluting potential begins when the damper, warmer conditions of thawing ground jumpstart microbes to produce carbon dioxide or methane as they feast on decomposing organic matter in boggy, once-hard soil.

Thawing bedrock compounds this problem. As temperatures rise and pressures change, frozen deposits of naturally occurring methane and other hydrocarbons inside the permafrost turn into gas, which may be released through cracks into the atmosphere.

“We can more or less control the burning of fossil fuels through political decisions and economic regulations,” said Dmitry Zastrozhnov, a lecturer and geologist at the Institute of Earth Sciences at St Petersburg State University who is studying the release of methane from Siberian limestone areas.

“But we cannot ask permafrost to stop releasing methane. We cannot control nature.”

Scientists have also detected the accelerated release of these potent greenhouse gases in the Arctic Ocean off northern Russia’s Siberian coast.

Known as hydrates, crystals made of methane gas molecules trapped between solid water molecules collapse as temperatures rise. These then vent into the atmosphere after reaching the surface as bubbles.
‘Abrupt thaw’

The increasing frequency and severity of Arctic and boreal wildfires emit large amounts of carbon – not only from combustion but also by subjecting permafrost to further thaw.

Last year, these unprecedented blazes released 35 percent more CO2 than in 2019, which itself was the previous record high for Arctic wildfire emissions.

Those fires came amid a record-breaking Siberian heatwave as temperatures peaked at 38C (104F) – the highest ever recorded temperature in the Arctic Circle – in a town that, more than a century earlier, had recorded the Northern Hemisphere’s coldest ever temperature. At the same time, Arctic sea ice shrunk to its second-lowest level on record.

These problems are exacerbated by a range of processes known collectively as “abrupt thaw”, causing landscapes to scar the Arctic landscape.

The thawing of ice-dense permafrost can trigger gradual subsidence or even extensive ground collapse, exposing deep permafrost to further thawing and releasing yet more carbon into the atmosphere.

Discovering the rate and amount of permafrost thaw is key to understanding how quickly and substantially it is necessary to cut human-caused emissions. One paper published in 2018 found that abrupt thawing boosts the release of ancient carbon by up to 190 percent compared with gradual thawing.

“We don’t have to wait 200 or 300 years to get these large releases of permafrost carbon,” said Katey Walter Anthony at the University of Alaska who led the study. “Within my lifetime, my children’s lifetime, it should be ramping up.”
‘Humanitarian crisis’

Earlier this year, researchers warned that these gas-emitting processes are not fully accounted for in global projections – meaning that those projections are likely too low, making it harder for the world to curb climate change.

That greatly reduces the amount of greenhouse gases that humans can emit to limit global warming to 1.5C (2.7F) beyond pre-industrial levels, a key target of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate.

“There is an urgent need to incorporate the latest science on carbon emissions from permafrost thaw and northern wildfires,” the study’s authors said.

The problem is that these are extremely complex processes, occurring in one of the world’s largest and most remote regions. Better scrutiny and collaboration are key.

“We need to invest more in monitoring systems and combine all the efforts from different disciplines to better understand and model it,” said Zastrozhnov, the geologist.

Besides the global impact, four million people live across the Arctic. These local communities are at the sharp end of a changing landscape, facing more landslides, disrupted watercourses and damaged infrastructure.

Mercury leaches from melting permafrost into rivers and accumulates in the food chain. Oil depots leak as the earth gives way. Communities endure displacement while havoc is wrought on traditional food sources – key to the wellbeing of Indigenous people who have co-existed with this unique habitat for thousands of years.

“We are seeing a humanitarian crisis,” said Treharne. “The ground is literally collapsing under their feet. We are underestimating the urgency of what we need to do.”

Despite the promise of carbon-capture facilities that remove emissions from the atmosphere – and even the re-wilding of Ice Age-era ecosystems to slow the thaw – experts said one solution beats all others.

“Thawing permafrost is like a massive truck that’s gaining momentum – and it’s got a braking distance,” Treharne said.

“Even if we reduce warming, permafrost is still going to be responding to that peak temperature and pumping out carbon. If we want to minimise carbon emissions from permafrost, we have to cut global emissions now.”

Oct 26,2021:Australia will commit to a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 but will not improve its goal for 2030 at a crucial United Nations climate summit that begins on Sunday in Scotland, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced.

“Australians want action on climate change. They’re taking action on climate change but they also want to protect their jobs and their livelihoods. They also want to keep the costs of living down,” Morrison said during a news conference on Tuesday.

“And I also want to protect the Australian way of life, especially in rural and regional areas. The Australian way of life is unique.”

Morrison’s conservative Liberal Party-led government has been reluctant to take significant steps on climate despite mounting evidence of the Earth’s heating and catastrophic fires that swept through southeastern Australia in late 2019 and early 2020. The country’s climate forecasters have already warned the country is facing hotter and drier summers.

Earlier on Tuesday, Morrison published an opinion piece in the Australian News Corp newspapers explaining his decision, which will commit to the 2050 net zero goal, but will not improve on an election pledge to reduce emissions between 26 percent and 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

“I said we would meet and beat this target and we will,” Morrison wrote.

The policy shift comes just before Morrison is due to attend the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. He is expected to leave on Thursday to attend the G20 Summit in Rome before he heads to Scotland.

Morrison reportedly made the decision after agreeing on a deal with his coalition government’s junior partner.

Morrison has been under mounting global pressure to take further action to cut carbon emissions in Australia. The country is one of the world’s largest exporters of coal and liquified natural gas, as well as one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases on a per capita basis.

The junior National Party, which has a strong power base in regional parts of the country that are more reliant on agriculture and industries such as mining, has long been a stumbling block to revised climate policies.

However, the party said on Sunday it would support the 2050 target if Morrison’s Cabinet endorsed agreements made in secret negotiations.

The Australian Financial Review reported the deal included an agreement for Morrison to increase spending on regional infrastructure and offer tax benefits for income derived from carbon farming.

While the zero emissions target might ease some international pressure, it is less clear how it will resonate in regional and rural Australia.

Morrison must call an election by May 2022. A widely watched poll on Monday showed his Liberal party is on course to lose to the centre-left Labor party, which adopted the 2050 net zero target in the last election in 2019.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who will host COP26, congratulated Australia on its net zero ambition.

“That was very difficult for Australia because Australia’s very heavily dependent on coal, on lots of carbon-producing industries, and they’ve done a heroic thing,” Johnson said, referring to the 2050 commitment.

COP26 will assess progress since 2015 when nations agreed to limit warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Paris Accord.

The Glasgow meeting is widely seen as the last chance to hold global warming to 1.5 C (2.7 F) above pre-industrial levels.

Oct 22,2021:Barbados has elected its first-ever president to replace the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth as head of state in a decisive step towards shedding the Caribbean island’s colonial past.

Sandra Mason was elected late on Wednesday by a two-thirds vote of a joint session of the country’s House of Assembly and Senate, a milestone, the government said in a statement, on its “road to republic”.

A former British colony that gained independence in 1966, the nation of just less than 300,000 had long maintained ties with the British monarchy. But calls for full sovereignty and homegrown leadership have risen in recent years.

Mason, 72, will be sworn in on November 30, the country’s 55th anniversary of independence from the UK. A former jurist who has been governor-general of the island since 2018, she was also the first woman to serve on the Barbados Court of Appeals.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called the election of a president “a seminal moment” in the country’s journey.

“We have just elected from among us a woman who is uniquely and passionately Barbadian, does not pretend to be anything else [and] reflects the values of who we are,” Mottley said after Mason’s election.

Wazim Mowla of the Atlantic Council think-tank told the Reuters news agency the election could benefit Barbados both at home and abroad.

The move makes Barbados, a small developing country, a more legitimate player in global politics, Mowla said, but could also serve as a “unifying and nationalistic move” that may benefit its current leadership at home.

Seoul [South Korea], October 26,2021: Former President of South Korea, Roh Tae-woo died on Tuesday at the age of 88, reported Yonhap News Agency citing Roh’s aides.
According to the News Agency, the former President was recently admitted to a hospital after his health deteriorated. However, he could not recover and died on Tuesday.
Roh Tae-woo, a former General, served as the President of South Korea from 1988 to 1993.

Roh, a former general, succeeded former President Chun Doo-hwan after helping the latter seize power through a 1979 military coup in the wake of a power vacuum created by the death of former authoritarian President Park Chung-hee.
At the beginning of South Korea’s democratisation, Roh accepted calls for a “direct presidential election” and sought to broaden diplomatic ties with socialist nations, according to Yonhap.
With the spread of pro-democracy rallies in the country in 1987, Roh accepted calls for a direct presidential system called as “June 29 Declaration”. He was elected president later that year through a direct vote.
He started his administration under the slogan “an era of ordinary people” in an effort to shed his military image.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated between 80,000 and 180,000 healthcare workers have died worldwide due to COVID-19, warning of the danger of burnout, anxiety and fatigue as the virus continues to spread around the world.

“These deaths are a tragic loss,” the WHO said on Thursday, as it released the data covering the period between January 2020 and May 2021. Total known deaths from COVID-19 stood at 3.45 million over the same period.

“They are also an irreplaceable gap in the world’s pandemic response.”

About 135 million people are thought to work in healthcare worldwide.

Workers in clinics and hospitals have been on the pandemic’s front lines since the first COVID-19 cases emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 and, while many are suffering from exhaustion and anxiety, there is little sign that the disease has run its course.

Healthcare workers have been given priority in many countries’ vaccination programmes, but the unequal distribution of jabs means that on average, across the world, only two in five are fully vaccinated, the WHO said.

“We have a moral obligation to protect all health and care workers, ensure their rights and provide them with decent work in a safe and enabling practice environment. This must include access to vaccines”, said Jim Campbell, Director of the WHO Health Workforce Department.

As of September 2021, available data from 119 countries suggests that less than 1 in 10 healthcare workers have been fully vaccinated in the African and Western Pacific regions, while 22 mostly high-income countries reported that more than 80 percent of their staff had been fully vaccinated. A few large high-income countries have not yet reported data to the WHO, it noted.

Oct 22,2021:President Joe Biden said on Thursday that the United States has a “commitment” to defend Taiwan as the island faces growing military and political pressure from Beijing.

Biden was asked at a town hall event hosted by CNN whether the US would come to the defense of Taiwan, which China claims as its own.

“Yes, we have a commitment to do that,” he replied, in what appeared to be a break with a longstanding US policy on Taiwan.

While Washington is required by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, it has long followed a policy of “strategic ambiguity” on whether it would intervene militarily in the event of a Chinese attack.

“China, Russia, and the rest of the world knows we’re the most powerful military in the history of the world,” Biden said, as he jumped to the defense of the US’ credentials.

“What you do have to worry about is whether or not they’re going to engage in activities that would put them in a position where they may make a serious mistake,” Biden said.

“I don’t want a cold war with China. I just want China to understand that we’re not going to step back, that we’re not going to change any of our views.”
A change in policy?

The White House later clarified there was no change in policy, reiterating a similar statement by a US official in August 2021.

“The US defense relationship with Taiwan is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act,” a White House spokesperson said.

“We will uphold our commitment under the act, we will continue to support Taiwan’s self-defense, and we will continue
to oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo.”

“The president was not announcing any change in our policy and there is no change in our policy.”

ANKARA, Oct 26,2021: Turkey and its Western allies climbed down from a full-blown diplomatic crisis on Monday after foreign embassies said that they abide by diplomatic conventions on non-interference, averting a threatened expulsion of 10 ambassadors.

President Tayyip Erdogan, who said at the weekend he had ordered the envoys to be declared “persona non grata” for seeking the release of a jailed philanthropist, told a news conference they had stepped back and would be more careful.

“Our goal is never to create crises, it is to protect the rights, laws, honour and sovereignty of our country,” Erdogan said in a televised address after chairing a Cabinet meeting.

“With a new statement made by the same embassies today, a step back was taken from this slander against our country and our nation. I believe these ambassadors … will be more careful in their statements regarding Turkey’s sovereign rights.”

Despite his defiant tone, Erdogan’s comments on Monday were a marked change to cool tensions after threats he made at the weekend.

The ambassadors, including the U.S. envoy, had called on authorities last week to free Osman Kavala, a philanthropist detained for four years on charges of financing protests and involvement in an attempted coup. He denies the charges.

The public call infuriated Ankara, which said the diplomats – also from Germany, France, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland – were interfering in Turkey’s internal affairs.

Oct 23,2021:The official Xinhua news agency said on Saturday the new law, which has not been published in full, makes local governments responsible for ensuring that the twin pressures are reduced and asks parents to arrange their children’s time to account for reasonable rest and exercise, thereby reducing pressure and avoiding internet overuse.

Beijing has exercised a more assertive paternal hand this year, from tacking the addiction of youngsters to online games, deemed a form of “spiritual opium”, to clamping down on “blind” worship of internet celebrities.

China’s parliament said on Monday it would consider legislation to punish parents if their young children exhibit “very bad behaviour” or commit crimes.

In recent months, the education ministry has limited gaming hours for minors, allowing them to play online for one hour on Friday, Saturday and Sunday only.

It has also cut back on homework and banned after-school tutoring for major subjects during the weekend and holidays, concerned about the heavy academic burden on overwhelmed children.

At the same time, China is urging young Chinese men to be less “feminine” and more “manly”.

In its “proposal to prevent the feminisation of male adolescents” issued in December, the education ministry urged schools to promote on-campus sports such as football.

Last year, Si Zefu, a member of a top advisory board called the Chinese people’s political consultative conference national committee, won headlines in China by telling delegates that the “feminization” trend among teenagers, if not checked, would harm the development of China.

The backdrop to Beijing’s drive for what could be called more traditional family values is the country’s growing demographic crisis. The latest census data released in May showed that China’s population growth has plunged to its lowest for almost 60 years despite the scrapping of the decades-long one-child policy several years ago.

The number of people of working and child-rearing age is going into decline. There are fewer young adults than there were 10 years ago, for example, something shown by a 31% drop in marriages from 2013 to 2019.

Oct 23,2021:Achieving a global climate deal in Glasgow in the next three weeks will be harder than signing the Paris agreement of 2015, the UK president-designate of the Cop26 talks has said.

Alok Sharma, the cabinet minister in charge of the UK-hosted talks, just over a week away, said the task would be to get nearly 200 countries to implement stringent cuts to their greenhouse gas emissions, in line with holding global temperature increases to within 1.5C of pre-industrial levels – a goal fast receding as global carbon output continues to climb.

“What we’re trying to do here in Glasgow is actually really tough,” he said. “It was brilliant what they did in Paris, it was a framework agreement, [but] a lot of the detailed rules were left for the future.

“It’s like, we’ve got to the end of the exam paper and the most difficult questions are left and you’re running out of time, the exam’s over in half an hour and you go, ‘How are we going to answer this one?’”

Preparations for Cop26, which opens on Sunday 31 October after being postponed by a year, have been hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 120 world leaders and at least 25,000 delegates and are expected to attend, vaccines, testing and quarantine arrangements for which will be a big logistical challenge.

“This is definitely harder than Paris on lots of levels,” said Sharma, who took charge of the summit in February 2020, weeks before the first lockdown. “[But] what we have going for us is that there is an understanding that we need to deal with this [climate crisis].”

In August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of the world’s leading climate scientists, delivered its starkest warning yet of “irreversible” climate disaster. “The IPCC report, while it was very alarming, was quite helpful in helping to focus minds,” said Sharma. “The question is whether or not countries are willing in Glasgow to go forward and commit to consensus on keeping 1.5C alive – that’s where the challenge will be.”

Under the Paris agreement, 197 nations agreed to limit global heating to “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels and to “pursue efforts” to remain within 1.5C. But the commitments they came up with, called nationally determined contributions (NDCs), were inadequate, and would lead to a catastrophic 3C rise, while new scientific advice has strengthened the case for the lower limit of 1.5C.

The accord contains a ratchet mechanism requiring governments to return to the negotiating table every five years with more ambitious plans, a timetable stretched to this year by the Covid-19 postponement of Cop26.

Prospects for the talks were boosted this week as the UK government produced its long-awaited net zero strategy, aimed at generating $90bn of investment and 440,000 green jobs this decade. While the strategy came under fire from some environmental campaigners for gaps and insufficient funding, the existence of a substantial plan was vital for the hosts’ credibility at the talks.

Measuring all countries’ national climate plans against the 1.5C goal would be a key part of Cop26, said Sharma. “This is going to be a big ask. What we’re potentially saying to countries is that if your NDC isn’t good enough, you’re going to have to come back to the table. This is something we’ve got to try and fix over the next few years.”

He warned that the world would judge harshly any country seen to damage the chances of meeting the 1.5C goal. “What nobody will want at the end of this process is to have the finger pointed at them to say, ‘You, country A, B, C or D, are the ones who ultimately ensured that Glasgow wasn’t seen as producing a credible result.’”

But Glasgow did not represent the last chance of meeting the 1.5C aim, he added. Countries could still strengthen their commitments in future years. “If there is a gap, and there may well be a gap between [NDCs] and where you need to be in terms of 1.5C, we need to find a way of how we address that gap.”

Geopolitics have also changed markedly in the six years since the Paris talks, with relations between the US and China now at a low ebb. “The stars were perhaps differently aligned going into Paris,” concedes Sharma.

Sharma said he was still awaiting an NDC from China, the world’s biggest emitter. “They signed up to the communique in July that we negotiated in Naples, that all the G20 would come up with enhanced NDCs before COP – I reminded them they needed to deliver on that.”

There have been questions over China’s commitment to climate action, as the government signalled it could increase coal production in response to high energy prices.

Chinese experts downplayed these fears, pointing to the country’s increases in renewable energy generation, but doubts remain over whether China will stick to a relatively unambitious goal of causing emissions to peak by 2030, which scientists fear would be too late to allow the world to stick to 1.5C.

China’s president, Xi Jinping, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin are almost certain to miss the talks, though Joe Biden of the US will be there “with bells on”. The UK and the UN have downplayed the significance of the absences, as the countries will still field high-level negotiating teams.

As Cop president, the UK must act as a broker and referee at the talks rather than a leading player. But while remaining neutral, Sharma will insist on the voice of smaller countries being heard. “I see myself as a champion of developing countries and the climate-vulnerable [countries]. Some of them will be under water at 1.5C,” he said.

“All of these people are pretty adamant that what has to emerge from Glasgow is for us to be able to say we’ve kept 1.5 alive.”

In the long term, the direction of travel for the world is clear, he added. “If someone says to me, ‘Do you think we will ever get to the point where we have a net zero global economy?’, my answer is ‘Yes, I’m pretty sure we will.’ The issue is, will it be fast enough to deal with the challenges that we face right now?”

Oct 23,2021:Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri has said that the cost of energy should not be allowed to outstrip the paying capacity of consuming nations. He said, this imperative needs to be configured by the consuming countries in planning their production profiles for future. Mr Puri stated this during his closing remarks at India Energy Forum CERAWEEK. He said, unless the prices of crude oil are maintained at sustainable levels, it will severely impact the green shoots of global economic recovery.

The World Bank had stated that the surge in energy prices poses significant near-term risks to global inflation and, if sustained, could also weigh on growth in energy-importing countries. The Minister added that Indian oil and gas industry has made significant strides in recent years and a number of reforms have been introduced to meet national energy needs. He said, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas is focused on increasing exploration in India to reduce import dependency. He said, currently in India, only 6 out of the 26 sedimentary basins have been explored and the government is looking for international partners to participate in the exploration journey of India. He also invited the global industry and experts to become partners in India’s shared prosperity by enhancing country’s production of all forms of energy. The Minister said that the government is working to promoting low carbon pathways through biofuels and increase Ethanol blending to 20 per cent by 2025.

New Delhi, Oct 21,2021: India on Thursday morning achieved the historic feat of 100 crore vaccination against Covid-19.

Congratulating people on the occasion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said history has been created by India.

“We are witnessing the triumph of Indian science, enterprise and collective spirit of 130 crore Indians. Congrats India on crossing 100 crore vaccinations. Gratitude to our doctors, nurses and all those who worked to achieve this feat,” he congratulated the nation in a Twitter post.

According to the government’s CoWin website, over 70 crore people have been administered the first dose while 29 crores have received the double doses.

The top five states which have administered the highest number of doses are Uttar Pradesh followed by Maharashtra, West Bengal, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.

Congratulating the people and healthcare workers, Dr VK Paul, Member (Health) at NITI Aayog, said it’s remarkable to reach the 100 crore dose mark for any nation, an achievement in just over nine months since the vaccination program started in India.

He, however, pointed out that around 25 per cent of the eligible population are yet to receive their second shot.

“About 10 crore individuals are now overdue, they should have received the second dose. It’s now unfinished work that we must accomplish, and send reminders to those who are yet to take their second dose,” Paul added.

According to the government estimate, 75 per cent of the adult population have received the first dose of Covid-19 vaccines, while 30 per cent of the cohort has been immunized by both doses.

Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia also congratulated India on the occasion.

“This extraordinary feat in a short span was not possible without strong political leadership, inter-sectoral convergence, dedicated efforts of the entire health and frontline workforce, and the people themselves,” she added.

The nationwide Covid-19 vaccination drive was started first with the healthcare workers on January 16. The next phase began with the frontline workers on February 2.

The next phase of Covid-19 vaccination commenced from March 1 for people over 60 years of age and those aged 45 and above with specified co-morbid conditions. The country launched vaccination for all people aged over 45 years from April 1.

From May 1, everyone above 18 years of age were allowed to receive Covid-19 vaccines.

Oct 26,2021:Facebook Inc said on Monday it will start breaking out the financials for its virtual and augmented reality unit, an announcement that comes as its main advertising businesses face “significant uncertainty.”

Facebook warned that Apple Inc’s new privacy rules would weigh on its digital business in the current quarter, after the social media company reported quarterly revenue below market expectations.

Chief Financial Officer David Wehner also said Facebook expected its investment in its hardware division, Facebook Reality Labs, to reduce overall operating profit in 2021 by approximately $10 billion.

The financial commitment by the world’s largest social media company to building the “metaverse” https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-sets-up-new-team-work-metaverse-2021-07-26 comes as the company is swamped by coverage of documents leaked by former Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen which she said showed the company chose profit over user safety. Facebook has said Haugen mischaracterized its work.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has said Facebook in the coming years will be seen as metaverse company rather than a social media company, as it makes a number of investments to expand the technology.

The metaverse, a term first coined in a dystopian novel three decades earlier, has attracted much buzz across Silicon Valley. It refers broadly to a shared virtual environment which can be accessed by people using different devices.

Facebook, which has invested heavily in virtual reality (VR)and augmented reality (AR), including buying companies like Oculus, this year created a product team to work on the metaverse. This month, it said it plans to hire 10,000 employees in Europe over the next five years to work on this initiative.

Khartoum, Oct 25,2021: Unidentified military forces have stormed the house of Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, who is now under house arrest, the Arab News daily reports.

Four of Sudan’s cabinet ministers and one civilian representative of the Sovereign Council were also arrested in the early hours of Monday, the newspaper said citing an Al-Hadath TV report.

According to local media reports, people took to the streets in the capital, Khartoum, in order to protest against the military coup attempt.

Disruptions in internet and phone service were reported by people on social media.

Oct 23,2021l:Union Home Minister Amit Shah has arrived in Srinagar this morning on a three-day visit to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

He was received at the Srinagar International Airport by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and Union Minister of State in PMO Dr. Jitendra Singh.

In Srinagar, Mr Shah is likely to inaugurate the first direct international flight services between Srinagar and Sharjah in the evening today.

The Home Minister Amit Shah is also likely to hold a top-level security meet today in Srinagar which was necessitated in the backdrop of the brutal and barbaric civilian killings perpetuated by terrorists this month that invited a strong denouncement and resentment from all walks of life.

The Home Minister is also scheduled to visit Jammu tomorrow where he is expected to address a public rally and interact with panchayat members and political workers apart from taking a developmental review of various projects in Jammu Division.

The visit assumes significance since this will be the first visit of Home Minister Amit Shah to the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019 that bifurcated the erstwhile state into two Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh.

Washington [US], October 22,2021: Older adults who sleep short or long experienced greater cognitive decline than those who sleep a moderate amount, even when the effects of early Alzheimer’s disease were taken into account, according to a new study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
The findings were published in the journal ‘Brain’.
Poor sleep and Alzheimer’s disease are both associated with cognitive decline, and separating out the effects of each has proven challenging.
By tracking cognitive function in a large group of older adults over several years and analyzing it against levels of Alzheimer’s-related proteins and measures of brain activity during sleep, the researchers generated crucial data that help untangle the complicated relationship among sleep, Alzheimer’s, and cognitive function. The findings could aid efforts to help keep people’s minds sharp as they age.
“It’s been challenging to determine how sleep and different stages of Alzheimer’s disease are related, but that’s what you need to know to start designing interventions,” said first author Brendan Lucey, MD, an associate professor of neurology and director of the Washington University Sleep Medicine Center.
Lucey added, “Our study suggests that there is a middle range, or ‘sweet spot,’ for total sleep time where cognitive performance was stable over time. Short and long sleep times were associated with worse cognitive performance, perhaps due to insufficient sleep or poor sleep quality. An unanswered question is if we can intervene to improve sleep, such as increasing sleep time for short sleepers by an hour or so, would that have a positive effect on their cognitive performance so they no longer declining? We need more longitudinal data to answer this question.”
Alzheimer’s is the main cause of the cognitive decline in older adults, contributing to about 70 per cent of dementia cases. Poor sleep is a common symptom of the disease and a driving force that can accelerate the disease’s progression.
Studies have shown that self-reported short and long sleepers are both more likely to perform poorly on cognitive tests, but such sleep studies typically do not include assessments of Alzheimer’s disease.
To tease apart the separate effects of sleep and Alzheimer’s disease on cognition, Lucey and colleagues turned to volunteers who participate in Alzheimer’s studies through the university’s Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center.

Such volunteers undergo annual clinical and cognitive assessments and provide a blood sample to be tested for the high-risk Alzheimer’s genetic variant APOE4.
For this study, the participants also provided samples of cerebrospinal fluid to measure levels of Alzheimer’s proteins, and each slept with a tiny electroencephalogram (EEG) monitor strapped to their foreheads for four to six nights to measure brain activity during sleep.
In total, the researchers obtained sleep and Alzheimer’s data on 100 participants whose cognitive function had been monitored for an average of 4 1/2 years. Most (88) had no cognitive impairments, 11 were very mildly impaired, and one had mild cognitive impairment. The average age was 75 at the time of the sleep study.
The researchers found a U-shaped relationship between sleep and cognitive decline. Overall, cognitive scores declined for the groups that slept less than 4.5 or more than 6.5 hours per night — as measured by EEG — while scores stayed stable for those in the middle of the range. EEG tends to yield estimates of sleep time that are about an hour shorter than self-reported sleep time, so the findings correspond to 5.5 to 7.5 hours of self-reported sleep, Lucey said.
The U-shaped relationship held true for measures of specific sleep phases, including rapid-eye-movement (REM), or dreaming, sleep; and non-REM sleep. Moreover, the relationship held even after adjusting for factors that can affect both sleep and cognition, such as age, sex, levels of Alzheimer’s proteins, and the presence of APOE4.
“It was particularly interesting to see that not only those with short amounts of sleep but also those with long amounts of sleep had more cognitive decline,” said co-senior author David Holtzman, MD, a professor of neurology. “It suggests that sleep quality may be key, as opposed to simply total sleep.”
Each person’s sleep needs are unique, and people who wake up feeling rested on short or long sleep schedules should not feel compelled to change their habits, Lucey said. But those who are not sleeping well should be aware that sleep problems often can be treated.
“I ask many of my patients, ‘How’s your sleep?'” said co-senior author Beau M. Ances, MD, PhD, the Daniel J. Brennan, MD, Professor of Neurology. Ances treats patients with dementia and other neurodegenerative conditions at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
He explained that often patients report that they are not sleeping well. Often once their sleep issues are treated, they may have improvements in cognition.
Physicians who are seeing patients with cognitive complaints should ask them about their quality of sleep. This is potentially a modifiable factor, as suggested by researchers.

Dehradun (Uttarakhand), October 25,2021: The death toll due to rain-related incidents in Uttarakhand has mounted 72 and four people are still missing, said the Uttarakhand government on Sunday.
As per the report, 26 people were injured in the disaster from October 17 to 19.
The rain triggered landslides, house collapses and deluge caused large scale devastation and loss of life and property in the state.

Also, 224 houses were damaged in these incidents.
Amid torrential rains, the hilly state has witnessed flooded roads, landslides, and overflowing rivers leaving people stranded in various places.
Earlier on Friday, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami announced that he would contribute his salary for the month of October 2021 towards the Uttarakhand’s Chief Minister’s Relief Fund (CMRF). His contribution to the CMRF was announced in the wake of the natural calamity that struck the state recently.

Oct 23,2021: Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has said that selection process of Haj pilgrims will be done according to complete vaccination with both the doses and guidelines and criteria will be decided by Indian and Saudi Arabia Governments. Chairing Haj Review Meeting in New Delhi today, Mr Naqvi said, the preparations for Haj 2022 have been started keeping in mind the health and Corona protocol of both the country. He said, the official announcement of Haj 2022 will be made in the first week of November and along with that the process of online application will be started. The entire Haj 2022 process in India will be 100 per cent digital.

The Minister said, India sends the second largest number of Haj pilgrims after Indonesia. Mr Naqvi said that Digital Health Card, E-MASIHA health facility and E-luggage pre-tagging, providing all information regarding accommodation, transportation in Makkah-Madinah, will be provided to all the Haj pilgrims. He said that more than three thousand women had applied for Haj 2020 and 2021 under without Mehram (male companion) category. He said, their applications will be eligible for Haj 2022 also if they want to go to perform Haj. Mr Naqvi said, other women can also apply for Haj 2022 under without Mehram category. All the women under without Mehram category will be exempted from the lottery system.

Taipei [Taiwan], October 28,2021: Amid the rising tensions between the United States and China, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen on Tuesday (local time) said that the threat from Beijing is growing “every day,” and confirmed the presence of American troops on Taiwanese soil for training purposes.
In an interview with CNN, Tsai said Taiwan, which is located fewer than 200 kilometers (124 miles) away from China’s southeastern coast, was a “beacon” of democracy that needed to be defended to uphold faith worldwide in democratic values.
Beijing claims full sovereignty over Taiwan despite the island’s self-governance for over seven decades. Meanwhile, Taipei continues to counter the Chinese aggression by increasing strategic ties with democracies including the US.
“Here is this island of 23 million people trying hard every day to protect ourselves and protect our democracy and making sure that our people have the kind of freedom they deserve,” she said.
“If we fail, then that means people that believe in these values would doubt whether these are values that they (should) be fighting for.”
Taiwan and mainland China have been separately governed since the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese civil war more than 70 years ago. Taiwan is now a flourishing democracy but the mainland’s ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to view the island as an inseparable part of its territory — despite having never controlled it, CNN reported.
Today, relations between Taipei and Beijing are at their lowest point in decades. Earlier this month, China’s military sent a record number of warplanes into the air around Taiwan while diplomats and state-run media warned of a possible invasion unless the island toes the CCP line.
According to CNN, Tsai became the first Taiwan President in decades to acknowledge the presence of US troops on the island for training purposes. The last official US garrison left in 1979, the year Washington switched formal diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, though last year media reports hinted at small deployments.
Tsai wouldn’t say exactly how many US military personnel are on the island at present but said it was “not as many as people thought.” “We have a wide range of cooperation with the US aiming at increasing our defense capability,” she said.
Earlier in a major speech on 8 October, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged “peaceful reunification” between Taiwan and the mainland. Although he made no mention of an invasion in the speech, Xi has previously refused to rule out military action.
Meanwhile, on Taiwan’s National Day on 10 October, in response to growing Chinese military action, Tsai said Taiwan could not be forced to follow “the path China had laid out for it.”
Speaking to CNN, Tsai also called on regional democratic partners, including Japan, South Korea and Australia, to help support the island.

LONDON,Oct 20,2021: Major economies will produce more than double the amount of coal, oil and gas in 2030 than is consistent with meeting climate goals set in the 2015 Paris accord to curb global warming, the United Nations and researchers said on Wednesday.

The U.N. Environment Programme’s (UNEP) annual production gap report measures the difference between governments’ planned production of fossil fuels and production levels which are consistent with meeting the temperature limits set in Paris.

Under the pact, nations have committed to a long-term goal of limiting average temperature rises to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to attempt to limit them even further to 1.5C.

The report, which analysed 15 major fossil fuel producers, found they plan to produce, in total, around 110% more fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting the degree of warming to 1.5C, and 45% more than is consistent with 2C.

The size of that gap has not declined much since UNEP’s 2020 report, it added.

The countries analysed in the report were Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Representatives from nearly 200 countries will meet in Glasgow, Scotland, from Oct. 31 to Nov. 12 for climate talks to strengthen action to tackle global warming under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Despite efforts to strengthen climate targets, most major oil and gas producers plan to increase production until 2030 or beyond, while several major coal producers plan to continue or even increase output, the report said.

The plans of the 15 countries analysed envisage fossil fuel production increasing until at least 2040.

This would lead to about 240% more coal, 57% more oil, and 71% more gas in 2030 than what is required in order to curb the rate of global warming to 1.5C.

Of the three fuels, gas production is projected to increase the most between 2020 and 2040, based on the governments’ plans.

The International Energy Agency said in May that investors should not fund new oil, gas and coal supply projects if the world is to hit net zero emissions by mid-century.

“The research is clear: global coal, oil, and gas production must start declining immediately and steeply to be consistent with limiting long-term warming to 1.5C,” said Ploy Achakulwisut, a lead author of the new report.

The report was produced by UNEP, as well as experts from the Stockholm Environment Institute, the International Institute for Sustainable Development and think-tanks E3G and ODI.