Author: Web Desk

PARIS – After a slow start, the European Union has now overtaken the United States in vaccinating its citizens against COVID-19. Anti-vaccine resistance remains, including in France, where officials estimate more than 200,000 people joined demonstrations this weekend to protest a mandatory health pass.

Brandishing banners proclaiming “freedom” and “pass of shame,” tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Paris and other French cities Saturday against government measures to fight the coronavirus pandemic, and the disease it causes, COVID-19.

While many of the protests were peaceful, several police officers were wounded trying to keep order in Paris. In the southern city of Marseille, demonstrators destroyed a coronavirus testing tent, shouting “assassins” and “collaborators.”

The demonstrations marked the third straight weekend of protests and were the biggest so far. Some protesters have worn yellow Stars of David similar to those Jews were forced to wear in the former Nazi Germany — a move slammed by Holocaust survivors. The protesters included members of the far left and far right, and those representing the yellow vest economic justice movement born a few years ago.

“We’re protesting the government system that’s been in place for decades,” one protester told French radio, calling new coronavirus measures another example of bad government.

 

The new policies aim to fight the sharply rising tide of infections, driven by the highly contagious delta variant. Among them: making COVID vaccines mandatory for health workers and requiring health passes showing people have been vaccinated or tested negative for the infection, to gain access to restaurants, movie theaters, trains and tourist venues.

President Emmanuel Macron has said he respects the right to protest, but that vaccinations are an essential arm to fight the coronavirus — and that French also have responsibilities along with rights, and civic duties.

Unvaccinated people now comprise about 85% of hospitalizations in France, and 78% of COVID-19 linked deaths. But some here are still skeptical or worried about the shot.

While supporting the new health pass, conservative lawmaker Philippe Bas told French radio Sunday the government must strengthen public confidence.

Like France, Italy has seen protests against vaccines and other measures to curb the pandemic. The public response, however, has been more positive elsewhere in Europe, including in Denmark and Spain.

And despite demonstrations here, polls show the majority of French back the health pass. More than half are now fully vaccinated. Macron, who faces reelection next year, has also seen his approval rating rise in recent months over his handling of the pandemic.

 

 

Source: Voice of America

 

TOKYO – The Italian high jumper leaped into his rival’s arms, then belly-flopped onto the hard track, rolled around a few times and screamed.

Gianmarco Tamberi was just getting warmed up, too.

It’s not every day you tie your good friend for gold.

Tamberi and Mutaz Barshim of Qatar agreed to the tie Sunday at the Tokyo Games in a competition settled not by clearing the top height but through a subtle nod.

Edge definitely to Tamberi, though, for the degree of difficulty in celebrations. That’s not even counting all the hugs and kisses he delivered — or all of the people he jumped into the arms of.

He was just that excited. This was that crazy of an ending.

“I still can’t believe it happened,” Tamberi said. “Sharing with a friend is even more beautiful. … It was just magical.”

In a huddle with track officials, the athletes were given the option to settle the tie with a jump-off.

Barshim had a better idea: How about two golds?

The official said that was possible.

Barshim nodded and Tamberi instantly accepted, slapping Barshim’s hand and jumping into his arms. It would be far from his last celebration.

“For me, coming here, I know for a fact that for the performance I did, I deserve that gold,” Barshim said. “He did the same thing, so I know he deserved that gold.”

It stressed sportsmanship, too — or so they hope. It also adds to Barshim’s Olympic medal collection, pairing nicely with silver in Rio and another medal at the 2012 London Games.

“This is beyond sport,” Barshim said. “This is the message we deliver to the young generation.”

Both high jumpers were perfect until the bar was set to the Olympic-record height of 2.39 meters (7 feet, 10 inches). Each missed three times.

Funny, they actually talked about this sort of situation before. Not in great detail, though.

“We just said, ‘Imagine,'” Barshim recalled. “Today, it happened.”

When Italian sprinter Marcell Jacobs surprisingly won the 100 meters a few minutes later, there was Tamberi to greet him. Not so much as greet him as celebrate by jumping into the sprinter’s arms and curling his own arm around Jacobs’ bald head.

“I was in ecstasy. My heart was exploding,” Tamberi said. “I was just full of emotions and I just screamed at him before he got in the blocks, and I just supported him. I’m the captain of the national team so I just felt to do something.”

Tamberi has kept a cast for five years — a reminder of his broken ankle just before Rio. He was in his best shape, too, which forced him to watch the Rio Games. When it came off, he wrote on it “Road to Tokyo 2020.” Then, he crossed out 2020 after the pandemic led to a postponement and wrote in red, “2021.”

“I said to myself that day, ‘I want to be back in Tokyo and I want to fight for the gold medal,'” Tamberi said.

They appeared to have all sorts of fun during a competition in which Maksim Nedasekau of Belarus earned bronze. Tamberi launched an imaginary jump shot after clearing a height.

Swish.

Barshim was the epitome of cool in shades that kept falling off after his jumps. One time, he even swatted them away after a successful leap.

They broke.

“I’ve got 50 pairs,” Barshim said.

Now, one gold.

Another for his buddy, too.

“He’s one of my best friends. Not only on the track but outside of the track,” Barshim said. “We’re always together almost. True spirit, sportsmen spirit, coming here and delivering this message.

“Appreciate what he’s done, he appreciates what I’ve done. This is amazing.”

 

 

Source: Voice of America

 

PARIS – Thousands of people protested France’s special virus pass by marching through Paris and other French cities on Saturday. Most demonstrations were peaceful but some in Paris clashed with riot police, who fired tear gas.

About 3,000 security forces deployed around the French capital for a third weekend of protests against the pass that will be needed soon to enter restaurants and other places. Paris police took up posts along the Champs-Elysees to guard the famed avenue.

With virus infections spiking and hospitalizations rising, French lawmakers have passed a bill requiring the pass in most places as of August 9. Polls show a majority of French support the pass, but some are adamantly opposed. The pass requires a vaccination or a quick negative test or proof of a recent recovery from COVID-19 and mandates vaccine shots for all health care workers by mid-September.

For anti-pass demonstrators, liberty was the slogan of the day.

Hager Ameur, a 37-year-old nurse, said she resigned from her job, accusing the government of using a form of blackmail.

“I think that we mustn’t be told what to do,” she told The Associated Press, adding that French medical workers during the first wave of COVID-19 were quite mistreated. “And now, suddenly we are told that if we don’t get vaccinated it is our fault that people are contaminated. I think it is sickening.”

Tensions flared in front of the famed Moulin Rouge nightclub in northern Paris during what appeared to be the largest demonstration. Lines of police faced down protesters in up-close confrontations during the march. Police used their fists on several occasions.

 

Tear gas, water cannon, injuries

As marchers headed eastward and some pelted police with objects, police fired tear gas into the crowds, and plumes of smoke filled the sky. A male protester was seen with a bleeding head and a police officer was carried away by colleagues. Three officers were injured, the French press quoted police as saying. Police, again responding to rowdy crowds, also turned a water cannon on protesters as the march ended at the Bastille.

A calmer march was led by the former top lieutenant of far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who left to form his own small anti-EU party. But Florian Philippot’s new cause, against the virus pass, seems far more popular. His contingent of hundreds marched Saturday to the Health Ministry.

Among those not present this week was Francois Asselineau, leader of another tiny anti-EU party, the Popular Republican Union, and an ardent campaigner against the health pass, who came down with COVID-19. In a video on his party’s website, Asselineau, who was not hospitalized, called on people to denounce the “absurd, unjust and totally liberty-killing” health pass.

French authorities are implementing the health pass because the highly contagious delta variant is making strong inroads. More than 24,000 new daily cases were confirmed Friday night, compared with just a few thousand cases a day at the start of the month.

The government announcement that the health pass would take effect August 9 has driven many unvaccinated French to sign up for inoculations so their social lives won’t be shut down during the summer holiday season. Vaccinations are now available at a wide variety of places, including some beaches. More than 52% of the French population has been vaccinated.

About 112,000 people have died of the virus in France since the start of the pandemic.

 

 

Source: Voice of America

 

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK – Greenland’s ice sheet has experienced a “massive melting event” during a heat wave that has seen temperatures more than 10 degrees above seasonal norms, according to Danish researchers.

Since Wednesday, the ice sheet covering the vast Arctic territory has melted by about 8 billion tons a day, twice its normal average rate during summer, reported the Polar Portal website, which is run by Danish researchers.

The Danish Meteorological Institute reported temperatures of more than 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit), more than twice the normal average summer temperature, in northern Greenland.

And Nerlerit Inaat airport in the northeast of the territory recorded 23.4 degrees C (74.1 F) on Thursday — the highest recorded there since records began.

With the heat wave affecting most of Greenland that day, the Polar Portal website reported a “massive melting event” involving enough water “to cover Florida with two inches of water” (five centimeters).

The largest melt of the Greenland ice sheet still dates to the summer of 2019.

The area where the melting took place this time, though, is larger than two years ago, the website added.

The Greenland ice sheet is the second-largest mass of freshwater ice on the planet with nearly 1.8 million square kilometers (695,000 square miles), second only to Antarctica.

The melting of the ice sheets started in 1990 and has accelerated since 2000. The mass loss in recent years is approximately four times greater than it was before 2000, according to the researchers at Polar Portal.

One European study published in January said ocean levels would rise between 10 and 18 centimeters by 2100 — or 60 percent faster than previously estimated — at the rate at which the Greenland ice sheet was now melting.

The Greenland ice sheet, if completely melted, would raise the ocean levels by six to seven meters.

But with a relatively cool start to the Greenland summer, with snowfalls and rains, the retreat of the ice sheet so far for 2021 remains within the historical norm, according to Polar Portal. The melting period extends from June to early September.

 

 

Source: Voice of America

Russian space officials said Friday that a software malfunction had caused the unexpected firing of thrusters on a newly arrived module, moving the International Space Station out of its intended attitude.

The incident occurred Thursday, hours after the long-delayed Russian laboratory module, known as Nauka, docked with the ISS.  It took mission controllers nearly an hour to reposition the ISS, which had been bumped 45 degrees out of alignment.  Ground controllers fired Russian thrusters on other Russian elements at the station to fix the positioning.

In a statement Friday, ISS Russian segment flight director Vladimir Solovyov said the software failure had prompted a direct command to turn on the module’s engines.

Communications between the ground and the crew went out twice for several minutes, but in a statement, the U.S. space agency NASA said the ISS crew was never in danger.

On Twitter Friday, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky said not to worry and the work to integrate the new module into the ISS was continuing as scheduled.

The Russian unmanned, 20-ton, nearly 13-meter-long Nauka module — also known as the Multipurpose Laboratory Module — docked with the ISS following a long and, at times, uncertain journey.

Nauka is now the first new module in the Russian segment of the station since 2010.

The troubled trip to the orbiting space station followed years of problems getting the module off the ground. Nauka — designed to provide more room for scientific experiments and space for the crew — was initially scheduled to launch in 2007 but was repeatedly delayed because of technical problems.

 

 

 

Source: Voice of America

The WHO said Friday that Japan was doing its best to minimize the risk of Covid-19 spreading during the Tokyo Olympics but stressed there was no such thing as zero risk.

The World Health Organization’s warning came as Japan extended a virus state of emergency in Tokyo and expanded the measure to four more regions as it battles a record surge in infections a week into the pandemic-postponed Games.

“There is no zero risk. There could be less or more risk. And then, for things to happen with low risk, you try your best,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference from the UN health agency’s Geneva headquarters.

Japan and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) “did their best to minimise risk, because nobody should expect zero risk”, he said.

 

“I know that they have done their best, and we have supported them all along.”

Across Japan, new virus cases topped 10,000 for the first time on Thursday, and a string of government officials and health experts have warned that the more contagious Delta variant is fuelling a dangerous surge.

Tedros went to the Olympics opening ceremony and also addressed the IOC in Tokyo.

On Friday he called on the world to draw on the Olympic spirit of unity to bring the pandemic to an end, and said his IOC speech was aimed at using the Games as the biggest platform to spread the message.

Morally ‘wrong path’

“Do you really accept 1.5% vaccination in Africa while in some countries it’s already 70%?” he said.

“Don’t we need a platform like the Olympics to go and tell the truth that the world is actually morally, epidemiologically and economically doing the wrong things?

“We are taking the wrong path and we need to use the spirit of the Olympics to correct it.”

He said the image of an Olympic torchbearer wearing a mask would remind the world of the pandemic for generations to come.

“It shows that we are doing this in very difficult conditions when we are taken hostage by a dangerous virus. But at the same time, it shows me the determination to fight back.”

WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan said the Games organisers and the IOC had comprehensive risk management measures in place, with strong surveillance, regular testing of athletes and delegates, and the use of quarantine and isolation.

“The true drivers of this pandemic are not within the Olympic Games; they’re really related to the deep inequities we have in the distribution and availability of vaccines,” Ryan said.

He said the Olympics were founded on fair play and Tedros’s trip to Tokyo was to urge the world to do likewise with regard to the distribution of vaccines to combat Covid-19, which is hitting some countries “very unjustly and very unfairly”.

 

Source: Voice of America