Foreign News
China rocket blasts off for far side of Moon
China has launched a probe to collect samples from the far side of the Moon, in what is being billed a world first.
An unmanned rocket carrying the Chang’e-6 probe blasted off from the Wenchang Space Launch Center at about 17:27 local time (10:27 BST).
The 53-day mission aims to bring around two kilograms of lunar samples to Earth for analysis.
It will try to re-launch from the side of the moon facing away from Earth.
This is described as the dark side of the Moon because it is invisible from Earth, not because it does not catch the sun’s rays. It has a thicker, older crust with more craters, which are less covered by ancient lava flows than the near side.
This may make it more possible to collect material that helps shed light on how the Moon was formed, scientists hope.
Ge Ping, vice director of China’s Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center, told reporters ahead of the launch: “Chang’e-6 will collect samples from the far side of the Moon for the first time.”
The probe was named after the Moon goddess and one of the most popular figures in Chinese mythology.
It is expected to land in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, which is some 2,500km (1,553 miles) wide and up to 8km (5 miles) deep.
It then aims to collect lunar soil and rocks, and conduct experiments.
The launch marks the first of three high-wire unmanned missions to the moon planned by China this decade.
Chang’e-7 will search the lunar south pole for water, and Chang’e-8 will attempt to establish the technical feasibility of building a planned base, known as the International Lunar Research Station.
Its predecessor, Chang’e-5, retrieved the youngest ever lavas from the Moon on its return in December 2020.
Friday’s lift off marks the latest stage in China’s space exploration programme that is competing with the US.
Five years ago China became the first country to land a rover on the Moon’s far side.
By 2030, it aims to have put its first astronauts on the Moon, and to have sent probes to collect samples from Mars and Jupiter.
(BBC)
Australian teen Bianca Jones has become the fourth tourist to have died in a suspected mass poisoning in Laos.
The 19-year-old’s family confirmed her death to the media on Thursday. Hours earlier, the US State Department told the media that an American man died in the tourist town of Vang Vieng.
Two Danish women, aged 19 and 20, also died last week in Laos, Danish authorities confirmed, declining to share more due to confidentiality concerns.
The deaths remain under police investigation, but news reports and testimonies online from other tourists suggest they may have consumed drinks laced with methanol, a deadly substance often found in bootleg alcohol.
Jones’s friend Holly Bowles is in hospital on life support, while a British woman is also reportedly in hospital.
New Zealand’s foreign ministry told local media on Thursday that one of its citizens was also unwell from suspected methanol poisoning. It is unclear how many more people have fallen ill.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the department of foreign affairs had confirmed Jones’s death.
“Our first thoughts in this moment are with her family and friends who are grieving a terrible and cruel loss,” Albanese said on Thursday afternoon.
“This is every parent’s very worst fear and a nightmare that no one should have to endure.”
He said he hoped Ms Bowles, who is currently at Bangkok Hospital, would recover well.
The US State Department said it was “closely monitoring” the situation with regards to the American victim, adding that it was up to local authorities to determine the cause of death.
Australian, New Zealand and UK authorities have each warned their citizens to be careful of methanol poisoning when consuming alcohol in Laos.
Nana Backpacker Hostel, where the two Australian women stayed in Vang Vieng, told the BBC that it was closed for police investigation.
The hostel’s manager told the Associated Press that the two women were among more than 100 guests who received free shots of Lao vodka from the hostel. The pair then headed out for the night, he said, adding that no other guests reported health issues.
The manager said he hoped the investigation would clear the hostel’s name, but said they have stopped giving free shots for now.
In a statement to Australian newspaper the Herald Sun, Jones’s family expressed their “deepest gratitude for the overwhelming support, love, and prayers we’ve received from across Australia”.
“We kindly ask for privacy as we navigate through our grief and begin to heal,” the statement said.
Unlike ethanol, the key component of alcoholic beverages, methanol is toxic to humans. Bootleg liquor producers sometimes add it to their drinks, however, as a cheap way to increase alcohol content.
Earlier this year, at least 57 people in India died after consuming methanol-laced liquor. Similar cases of mass poisoning have also been reported across the world, from the Philippines to Peru.
Vang Vieng is a small riverside town in central Laos, and a hub for backpackers in Southeast Asia.
[BBC]
The humanitarian medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has suspended its operations in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, following a violent attack on its staff and the alleged killing of two patients they were treating by Haitian police officers.
The incident took place last week as violence continued to worsen in the country.
An estimated 25 people were killed in Port-au-Prince on Tuesday alone in what police say was a foiled attempt at a gang invasion of a wealthy neighbourhood.
Politically, the situation also remains critical with interim Prime Minister Garry Conille fired this month by the country’s ruling council – less than six months after he took office.
MSF says that on 11 November one of its ambulances carrying three young men with gunshot wounds was stopped by Haitian law enforcement officers.
Apparently supported by a paramilitary self-defence group, the men attacked the vehicle, removed two of the patients, took them outside hospital grounds and executed them.
The humanitarian group denounced the violence in a strongly worded statement last week, saying their personnel had been tear-gassed and held against their will for several hours.
While that incident appears to have been the final straw for MSF in Port-au-Prince, at least for the time being, it was not the only recent example of extreme aggression against their staff.
The announcement comes amid a worsening climate of violence in Haiti with some 25 suspected gang members killed in the capital on Tuesday.
The police say that residents helped officers to fight off an attempted attack on the upscale suburb of Pétion-Ville.
The neighbourhood was cordoned off after residents barricaded streets, some armed with machetes and makeshift weapons, in an apparent effort to prevent a gang invasion.
[BBC]
Winter has come to Delhi and with it, a familiar sense of gloom. The sky here is grey and there is a thick, visible blanket of smog.
If you stay outdoors for more than a few minutes, you can almost taste ash. You will feel breathless within minutes if you try to run or even walk at a brisk pace in the smog.
Newspapers are back to using words like toxic, deadly and poisonous in their main headlines.
Most schools have been shut and people have been advised to stay indoors – though those whose livelihoods depend on working outdoors can’t afford to do so.
Delhi’s air quality score was somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 on Monday and Tuesday, according to different monitoring agencies. The acceptable limit is less than 100.
These scores measure the levels of particulate matter – called PM 2.5 and PM10 – in the air. These tiny particles can enter the lungs and cause a host of diseases.
On social media, people have been expressing shock, disappointment and anguish that it’s all happening again.
Along with the gloom, there is a strong sense of déjà vu – like we have seen this all many times before in the past 15 years.
Covering this story feels like watching (and being in) the same dystopian film every year – following the same characters, plot and script. The outcome is always the same – nothing changes.
The parks are empty again – people, particularly children and the elderly, have been told to stay indoors.
Those who must work – daily-wage labourers, rickshaw pullers, delivery riders – are coughing but still going out.
Hospitals are seeing an increasing number of people coming in with respiratory problems.
And amid all this, we are back to the same question again – why does nothing change?
The simple answer is that solving Delhi’s air problem requires monumental efforts and coordination.
The sources of the problem are many. One of them is the practice of farmers burning crop remains to clear their fields quickly to sow seeds for the next yield.
This mostly happens in the neighbouring states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The smoke from the farm fires engulfs Delhi every winter and hangs low in the atmosphere as wind speeds reduce during winter months.
But farmers can’t be entirely blamed for this because this is the cheapest way of clearing fields.
Different governments have talked about providing machines and financial incentives to stop crop burning, but very little has happened on the ground.
Delhi itself produces a huge chunk of the pollution – emission from vehicles, construction and factories.
Every year, in the winter months, people get angry, journalists write and produce reports, politicians blame each other and courts fume – until we do it all over again the next year.
A public health emergency like this would spark mass protests in most democracies. But the anger in Delhi is mostly limited to social media.
Activists say the reason is that pollution doesn’t cause immediate problems for most people. Ingesting high levels of PM2.5 deteriorates health slowly. A Lancet study found that pollution led to more than 2.3 million premature deaths in India in 2019.
And then there is the class divide. People who can afford to temporarily leave the city do that, those who can buy air purifiers do that, and those who can vent on social media do that.
The rest, who don’t have these options, just go about their lives.
The collective angst has so far not resulted in a massive protest and, as the Supreme Court once observed, politicians just “pass the buck” and wait for the season to get over.
Experts say governments at the federal level and in different states need to leave their party politics behind and work together to solve this problem. They need to focus on long-term solutions.
And citizens need to hold politicians accountable and courts have to pass decisive orders months before the pollution worsens.
This year, we are again in the thick of the season and temporary measures have been announced, like banning construction work.
But can these bring Delhi’s elusive blue skies back? The evidence from the past few years doesn’t give much hope.
[BBC]
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