Animal lovers in Berlin got a shock on Tuesday when it was revealed that the parents of beloved polar bear Hertha are actually brother and sister.
The young Hertha - named after the local football team - was born in the Tierpark zoo in east Berlin in December 2018.
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden will send at least 20 million more COVID-19 vaccine doses abroad by the end of June, marking the first time the United States is sharing vaccines authorized for domestic use.
The move marks a notable pivot from the White House as the administration seeks to use the country's vaccine supply as a diplomatic tool with the pandemic outlook brightening at home.
Biden announced on Monday that his administration will send doses of the Pfizer Inc/BioNTech SE, Moderna Inc and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, on top of 60 million AstraZeneca Plc doses he had already planned to give to other countries.
Unlike the others, AstraZeneca's shot is not yet authorized for use in the United States.
"Just as in World War Two America was the arsenal of democracy, in the battle against COVID-19 pandemic our nation is going to be the arsenal of vaccines," Biden said.
The president has been under pressure to share vaccines to help contain worsening epidemics from India to Brazil, where health experts fear new, more contagious coronavirus variants could undermine the effectiveness of available shots.
Biden noted that no other country will send more vaccines abroad than the United States. So far, the United Stages has sent a few million AstraZeneca doses to Canada and Mexico.
"We want to lead the world with our values with this demonstration of our innovation, ingenuity, and the fundamental decency of American people," Biden said.
China, which has exported hundreds of millions of doses mainly to developing countries and pledged to donate at least nearly 4 million doses, said it welcomed the U.S. move but it would not use vaccines as a tool in diplomatic relations.
"We welcome if the U.S. can implement its commitment to vaccine assistance at an early date and provide tangible help to developing countries in their fight against the epidemic," Zhao Lijian, a spokesman at China's foreign ministry, said.
"Unlike the United States, China will not use vaccine influence to lead the world and will not chant empty slogans without action," he said at a regular briefing on Tuesday.
The White House has not provided any details about what countries will receive the shots. Biden said that Jeff Zients, who heads the U.S. vaccine efforts, will now also lead the global vaccine push.
The United States has administered more than 272 million COVID-19 vaccine doses and distributed more than 340 million, according to federal data updated on Monday morning.
With more and more Americans vaccinated, U.S. deaths from COVID-19 last week fell to their lowest in nearly 14 months, while the number of new cases declined for a fifth consecutive week, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county data.
Biden warned that those who do not get vaccinated "will end up paying the price" as he lamented that "we're still losing too many Americans" despite the significant progress.
(Reporting By Steve Holland, Carl O'Donnell and Jarrett Renshaw; Additional reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Writing by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Trevor Hunnicutt, Bill Berkrot and Andrew Heavens)
As someone who's researched Israeli missile defence systems for several years, the situation initially seemed to me like a repeat of their 2014 conflict, which showcased Israel's advanced defences. But militants in Gaza have enhanced their rocket technology and tactics. That's reminiscent of 2008, when Israel was more vulnerable to rockets and waged a three-week military offensive against Gaza.
Palestinians inspect damaged houses that were hit in early morning Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City.
(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
According to the Israel Defense Forces, roughly 3,100 rockets have been fired from Gaza. That's about as many as during the seven-week battle in 2014. (All rocket numbers in this article were reported by the Israel Defense Forces or Israel Security Agency. There is no way to independently verify most of them.)
Israeli news reports say they've caused 10 civilian deaths and more than 564 injuries, while Israeli countermeasures have killed almost 200 Palestinians and resulted in scenes of carnage and devastation.
Rockets fired per year from Gaza toward Israel, from 2005 to 16 May 2021, according to Israel Defence Forces/Israel Security Agency.
Created by Michael Armstrong from published Israeli data.
The counts have risen so quickly because Gaza militants have improved their rockets and their usage of them.
The most noticeable change this year is larger quantities. Gaza militants fired 470 rockets during the first 24 hours and have averaged 408 per day. Those numbers easily beat the one-day maximums of 316 in 2012 and 192 in 2014.
The firing is also better co-ordinated. Rather than launching many small attacks spread across the day, they've unleashed larger salvos of up to 137 rockets within five minutes. That's much improved, though still far slower than regular army artillery units.
Accuracy has improved, too. About 50 per cent of the rockets arriving over Israel have threatened populated areas. That's up from 22 per cent in 2012 and 18 per cent in 2014. Fewer rockets land in empty fields after missing their targets.
Larger, longer-range rockets are also more common now. During previous conflicts, Israel's southern cities endured most of the fire. This time, Tel Aviv, in central Israel more than 55 kilometres from Gaza's border, is routinely targeted.
Rocket reliability, however, has dropped. About 15 per cent have failed at launch, versus under 10 per cent during previous conflicts.
The improved technology and tactics make barrages more destructive. My calculations suggest at least 134 rockets have hit populated areas.
During the first four days of this conflict, one Israeli died for every 206 rockets reaching the country. That approaches the one-per-204 rate of 2008, when Israel's defences were weaker. By comparison, it took 270 rockets to kill a civilian in 2012 and 1,429 in 2014.
The injury rate, about one for every three rockets arriving overhead, also resembles 2008. And many buildings have been damaged.
Israeli firefighters works at the site where a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit the central Israeli town of Holon, near Tel Aviv.
(AP Photo/Heidi Levine)
These results imply that shock-and-awe destruction is the 2021 strategy of Gaza militants. By comparison, the 2014 operation mostly featured economic attrition. Israel suffered relatively few civilian casualties but heavy financial costs from the prolonged disruption.
Both then and now, Israel has responded with several countermeasures.
Iron Dome interceptors provide the best-known defence. Israel claims the systems intercepted 1,210 rockets last week, or 90 per cent of the rockets they engaged. That's about the percentage they achieved in 2014, too, though perhaps not in 2012.
In this July 2014 photo, an Iron Dome air defence system fires to intercept a rocket from Gaza Strip in the costal city of Ashkelon, Israel.
(AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
Are they always achieving it now?
With bigger barrages and greater accuracy, more rockets are arriving together above each target. That means there's more risk the interceptors will become overloaded and let some rockets through.
Suppose the systems sometimes block “only" 80 per cent of rockets. That's still impressive. But it means the portion penetrating then doubles from 10 to 20 per cent, causing twice the destruction.
My research seven years ago analyzed this tactic. It showed that high-performing interceptors can seem “fragile" — once their capacity is exceeded, damage on the ground soars.
That research also studied the idea of firing directly at interceptor systems to disable them. Sure enough, one barrage recently made such an attempt. That was likely a waste of ammo, as their rockets aren't accurate enough yet for such small targets.
Ironically, one Iron Dome system was briefly disabled two days earlier by an equipment malfunction. That let some extra rockets through.
Israel also has extensive warning systems and bomb shelters. Those prevent as many casualties as interceptors do, but don't stop property damage.
The Arctic is losing ice as global temperatures rise, and that is directly affecting lives and triggering feedback loops that fuel more warming. But the big wild card for sea level rise is Antarctica. It holds enough land ice to raise global sea levels by more than 200 feet (60 meters) – roughly 10 times the amount in the Greenland ice sheet – and we're already seeing signs of trouble.
Scientists have long known that the Antarctic ice sheet has physical tipping points, beyond which ice loss can accelerate out of control. The new study, published in the journal Nature, finds that the Antarctica ice sheet could reach a critical tipping point in a few decades, when today's elementary school kids are raising their families.
The results mean a common argument for not reduce greenhouse gas emissions now – that future technological advancement can save us later – is likely to fail.
A satellite image shows the long flow lines as a glacier moves ice into Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf, on the right. The red patches mark bedrock.
The new study shows that if emissions continue at their current pace, by about 2060 the Antarctic ice sheet will have crossed a critical threshold and committed the world to sea level rise that is not reversible on human timescales. Pulling carbon dioxide out of the air at that point won't stop the ice loss, it shows, and by 2100, sea level could be rising more than 10 times faster than today.
Antarctica has several protective ice shelves that fan out into the ocean ahead of the continent's constantly flowing glaciers, slowing the land-based glaciers' flow to the sea. But those shelves can thin and break up as warmer water moves in under them.
As ice shelves break up, that can expose towering ice cliffs that may not be able to stand on their own.
There are two potential instabilities at this point. Parts of the Antarctic ice sheet are grounded below sea level on bedrock that slopes inward toward the center of the continent, so warming ocean water can eat around their lower edges, destabilizing them and causing them to retreat downslope rapidly. Above the water, surface melting and rain can open fractures in the ice.
When the ice cliffs get too tall to support themselves, they can collapse catastrophically, accelerating the rate of ice flow to the ocean.
The study used computer modeling based on the physics of ice sheets and found that above 2 C (3.6 F) of warming, Antarctica will see a sharp jump in ice loss, triggered by the rapid loss of ice through the massive Thwaites Glacier. This glacier drains an area the size of Florida or Britain and is the focus of intense study by U.S. and U.K. scientists.
To put this in context, the planet is on track to exceed 2 C warming under countries' current policies.
Other projections don't account for ice cliff instability and generally arrive at lower estimates for the rate of sea level rise. While much of the press coverage that followed the new paper's release focused on differences between these two approaches, both reach the same fundamental conclusions: The magnitude of sea level rise can be drastically reduced by meeting the Paris Agreement targets, and physical instabilities in the Antarctic ice sheet can lead to rapid acceleration in sea level rise.
The new study, led by Robert DeConto, David Pollard and Richard Alley, is one of the few that looks beyond this century. One of us is a co-author.
It shows that if today's high emissions continued unabated through 2100, sea level rise would explode, exceeding 2.3 inches (6 cm) per year by 2150. By 2300, sea level would be 10 times higher than it is expected to be if countries meet the Paris Agreement goals. A warmer and softer ice sheet and a warming ocean holding its heat for centuries all prevent refreezing of Antarctica's protective ice shelves, leading to a very different world.
The vast majority of the pathways for meeting the Paris Agreement expect emissions will overshoot its goals of keeping warming under 1.5 C (2.7 F) or 2 C (3.6 F), and then count on future advances in technology to remove enough carbon dioxide from the air later to lower the temperature again. The rest require a 50% cut in emissions globally by 2030.
Although a majority of countries – including the U.S., U.K. and European Union – have set that as a goal, current policies globally would result in just a 1% reduction by 2030.
Some other researchers suggest that ice cliffs in Antarctica might not collapse as quickly as those in Greenland. But given their size and current rates of warming – far faster than in the historic record – what if they instead collapse more quickly?
As countries prepare to increase their Paris Agreement pledges in the runup to a United Nations meeting in November, Antarctica has three important messages that we would like to highlight as polar and ocean scientists.
First, every fraction of a degree matters.
Second, allowing global warming to overshoot 2 C is not a realistic option for coastal communities or the global economy. The comforting prospect of technological fixes allowing a later return to normal is an illusion that will leave coastlines under many feet of water, with devastating economic impacts.
Third, policies today must take the long view, because they can have irreversible impacts for Antarctica's ice and the world. Over the past decades, much of the focus on rapid climate change has been on the Arctic and its rich tapestry of Indigenous cultures and ecosystems that are under threat.
As scientists learn more about Antarctica, it is becoming clear that it is this continent – with no permanent human presence at all – that will determine the state of the planet where today's children and their children will live.
[Understand new developments in science, health and technology, each week. Subscribe to The Conversation's science newsletter.]
Julie Brigham-Grette, Professor of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Andrea Dutton, Professor of Geoscience, University of Wisconsin-Madison
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Floodwaters have reached the centre of Manaus, a metropolis in Brazil's Amazon region, reported news website G1 on Monday, as the Rio Negro river hit a high of 29.72 metres, sending water through the streets.
That's the third-highest level since recording began in 1902 and is near the 2012 high of 29.97 metres.
Brussels (AFP) - The United States' top military officer has warned the conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas is creating instability beyond Gaza, saying it is "in no one's interest to continue fighting".
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, speaking to journalists while flying to Brussels for a NATO meeting, urged both sides in the conflict to de-escalate, echoing comments from President Joe Biden, who has said he backs a ceasefire.
(Reuters) - More than 800 people have been killed by Myanmar's security forces since a wave of protests broke out across the country after the military seized power in a coup in February, an activist group said.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army ousted Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government and detained her and officials of her National League for Democracy party.
By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Rami Ayyub
GAZA/TEL AVIV (Reuters) - More than a week of fighting between Israel and Hamas showed few signs of abating on Tuesday despite intense U.S. and global diplomacy to stop the region's fiercest hostilities in years.
The Israeli military said late on Monday that Hamas and other Palestinian groups had fired about 3,350 rockets from Gaza - 200 of them on Monday alone - and that Israeli air and artillery strikes had killed at least 130 militants.
Gaza health officials put the Palestinian death toll at 212, including 61 children and 36 women, since hostilities began last week. Ten people have been killed in Israel, including two children.
Amid seemingly fruitless diplomatic efforts to stop the violence, the top U.S. military officer, Army General Mark Milley, warned that the violence could spread.
"My assessment is that you risk broader destabilization and you risk a whole series of negative consequences if the fighting continues," Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters before landing in Brussels on Monday for talks with NATO allies. "It's in no one's interest to continue fighting."
Around midnight, six shells were fired from Lebanon towards northern Israel, but fell short of crossing the border, the Israeli military said, adding that it fired artillery at "the sources of the launches" in Lebanon.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said that it was intensifying patrols after it detected the firing of rockets from the area of Rashaya Al Foukhar, north of Kfar Choub in southern Lebanon.
UNIFIL added on Twitter that the situation in the area was now calm and that its head of mission remained in contact with all parties to ensure stability.
Israel fought a 2006 war against Hezbollah guerrillas, trading rockets and air strikes, but the border has since been mostly quiet.
DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS
U.S. President Joe Biden expressed his support for a ceasefire during a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, the White House said in a statement.
But Netanyahu told Israelis earlier that strikes against militant sites and leaders in Gaza would carry on.
"The directive is to continue to strike at terror targets," he said in a televised speech, after meeting with military and intelligence chiefs. "We will continue to act as necessary to restore peace and security to all residents of Israel."
The armed wing of Hamas promised more rockets in return: “The criminal Zionist enemy intensified its bombing of homes and residential apartments in the recent hours, and therefore, we warn the enemy that if it did not stop that immediately, we would resume rocketing Tel Aviv,” said spokesman Abu Ubaida.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged all sides to protect civilians.
Although stressing that Israel had the right to defend itself, Blinken said he had not seen any evidence from Israel about its suggestion that Hamas was operating out of a building housing media outlets - including the U.S.-based Associated Press - which was destroyed in an Israeli missile strike at the weekend.
Hamas denied having offices in the building. "These are false allegations and an attempt to justify the crime of targeting a civilian tower," said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum.
Egypt and U.N. mediators also stepped up diplomatic efforts, while the U.N. General Assembly will meet to discuss the violence on Thursday.
The Biden administration approved the potential sale of $735 million in precision-guided weapons to Israel, and congressional sources said on Monday that U.S. lawmakers were not expected to object to the deal.
COMMUNAL VIOLENCE
Hamas began its rocket assault last Monday after weeks of tensions over a court case to evict several Palestinian families in East Jerusalem, and in retaliation for Israeli police clashes with Palestinians near the city's al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third-holiest site, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The hostilities between Israel and Hamas-controlled Gaza have been accompanied by an uptick of violence in the West Bank, where the Palestinians have limited self-rule.
There have also been clashes between Israel's Jewish and Arab communities in mixed areas.
Israel's president has warned that tension between Jewish and Arab Israelis could devolve into "civil war".
General strikes are planned for Tuesday in Arab towns within Israel and Palestinian towns in the West Bank, with posts on social media urging solidarity "from the sea to the river."
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Rami Ayyub and Jeffrey Heller; Additional reporting by Dan Williams, Stephen Farrell, Michelle Nichols, Edmund Blair, Nayera Abdallah and Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Peter Cooney)
