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Arctic Sea Ice Second Lowest on Record

Scientists with the U.S. space agency NASA say satellite data show Arctic sea ice cover this year shrank to the second-lowest level since modern record keeping began in the late 1970s.  NASA scientists and researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reported Monday that analysis of satellite data shows the 2020 minimum extent of ocean covered in ice, 3.74 million square kilometers, was likely reached Sept. 15. The data shows the minimum extent of Arctic sea ice in the summer has dropped markedly in the last two decades. The lowest extent on record was set in 2012. Last year’s extent was tied for second — until this year. NASA sea ice scientist Nathan Kurtz said 2020 was “a really warm year in the Arctic.” A Siberian heat wave in spring 2020 began this year’s Arctic sea ice melt season early. With Arctic temperatures being 8 to 10 degrees Celsius warmer than average, the ice extent kept declining. Kurtz said the earlier the melt starts, the more that is generally lost. In addition, NASA says a recent study showed that warmer water from the Atlantic Ocean, which is typically deep below the colder Arctic waters, is creeping closer to the bottom of the sea ice and warming it from below. NSIDC Director Mark Serreze said the amount of summer sea ice in the Arctic can impact local ecosystems, regional and global weather patterns, and ocean circulation. Warmer ocean temperatures eat away at the thicker multiyear ice, and also result in thinner ice to start the spring melt season.  Melt early in the season results in more open water, which absorbs heat from the sun and increases water temperatures. Serreze said this second-lowest extent of sea ice on record is just one of many signs of a warming climate in the north. He also noted that signs of a warming climate include the Siberian heat waves, forest fires, hotter-than-average temperatures over the Central Arctic, and the thawing permafrost that led to a Russian fuel spill earlier this year. 
 

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Beta Weakens to Tropical Depression, Moves Inland

The U.S. National Hurricane Center says the storm system known as Beta has been downgraded to a tropical depression but still threatens to dump heavy rain as it moves inland over Texas. In its latest report Tuesday, the hurricane center says Beta was centered about 177 kilometers south, southwest of the city of Houston and its winds had diminished to about 55 kilometers per hour. It was moving to the northeast at about four kilometers per hour. While tropical storm and surge warnings have been discontinued, forecasters say the system is still likely to drop 10 to 25 centimeters of rain over parts of Texas with isolated areas seeing as much as 50 centimeters. The cities of Houston and Galveston have reported flooding in streets and along coastal areas. The hurricane center says the remnants of the storm are likely to pick up speed as it moves inland over southeastern Texas through Wednesday and then over Louisiana and Mississippi from Wednesday night through Friday. Beta made landfall late Monday just north of Port O’Connor, Texas, becoming the ninth named storm that made landfall in the continental United States this year. That tied a record set in 1916.  Beta was named for the second letter in the Greek alphabet because the hurricane center had run out of conventional names for storms — the first time that has happened in 15 years, and only the second time since the 1950s. 
 

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As Rich Nations Struggle, Africa’s Virus Response Is Praised

At a lecture to peers this month, John Nkengasong showed images that once dogged Africa, with a magazine cover declaring it “The Hopeless Continent.” Then he quoted Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah: “It is clear that we must find an African solution to our problems, and that this can only be found in African unity.”
The coronavirus pandemic has fractured global relationships. But as director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Nkengasong has helped to steer Africa’s 54 countries into an alliance praised as responding better than some richer countries, including the United States.
A former U.S. CDC official, he modeled Africa’s version after his ex-employer. Nkengasong is pained to see the U.S. agency struggle. In an interview with The Associated Press, he didn’t name U.S President Donald Trump but cited “factors we all know.”
While the U.S. nears 200,000 COVID-19 deaths and the world approaches 1 million, Africa’s surge  has been leveling off. Its 1.4 million confirmed cases are far from the horrors predicted. Antibody testing is expected to show many more infections, but most cases are asymptomatic. Just over 34,000 deaths are confirmed on the continent of 1.3 billion people.
“Africa is doing a lot of things right the rest of the world isn’t,” said Gayle Smith, a former administrator with the U.S. Agency for International Development. She’s watched in astonishment as Washington looks inward instead of leading the world. But Africa “is a great story and one that needs to be told.”
Nkengasong, whom the Gates Foundation honors Tuesday with its Global Goalkeeper Award as a “relentless proponent of global collaboration,” is the continent’s most visible narrator. The Cameroon-born virologist insists that Africa can stand up to COVID-19 if given a fighting chance.
Early modeling assumed “a large number of Africans would just die,” Nkengasong said. The Africa CDC decided not to issue projections. “When I looked at the data and the assumptions, I wasn’t convinced,” he said.
Health experts point to Africa’s youthful population as a factor in why COVID-19 hasn’t taken a larger toll, along with swift lockdowns and the later arrival of the virus.  
“Be patient,” Nkengasong said. “There’s a lot we still don’t know.”  
He warns against complacency, saying a single case can spark a new surge.
As Africa’s top public health official, leading an agency launched only three years ago, he plunged into the race for medical supplies and now a vaccine. At first, it was a shock.
“The collapse of global cooperation and a failure of international solidarity have shoved Africa out of the diagnostics market,” Nkengasong wrote in the journal Nature in April. “If Africa loses, the world loses.”
Supplies slowly improved, and African countries have conducted 13 million tests, enough to cover 1% of the continent’s population. But the ideal is 13 million tests per month, Nkengasong said.
He and other African leaders are haunted by the memories of 12 million Africans dying during the decade it took for affordable HIV drugs to reach the continent. That must not happen again, he said.
This week, more world leaders than ever are gathering online for the biggest global endeavor since COVID-19 appeared, the United Nations General Assembly. If Nkengasong could address them, he would say this: “We should be very careful that history doesn’t record us on the wrong side of it.”
African leaders are expected to say much the same. “The COVID-19 pandemic has shown we have no option but to depend on each other,” Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, told the gathering on Monday.
Nkengasong urges African countries not to wait for help and rejects the image of the continent holding a begging bowl. The money is there, he said.
Acting on that idea, Africa’s public and private sectors created an online purchasing platform to focus their negotiating power, launched by the African Union to buy directly from manufacturers. Governments can browse and buy rapid testing kits, N95 masks and ventilators, some now manufactured in Africa in another campaign endorsed by heads of state.
Impressed, Caribbean countries have signed on.
“It’s the only part of the world I’m aware of that actually built a supply chain,” said Smith, the former USAID chief.
When the pandemic began, just two African countries could test for the coronavirus. Now all can. Nkengasong was struck by how much information “doesn’t get translated” to member states, so the Africa CDC holds online training on everything from safely handling bodies to genomic surveillance.
“I look at Africa and I look at the U.S., and I’m more optimistic about Africa, to be honest, because of the leadership there and doing their best despite limited resources,” said Sema Sgaier, director of the Surgo Foundation, which produced a COVID-19 vulnerability index for each region. She spoke even as Africa’s cases were surging weeks ago.
With COVID-19 vaccines the next urgent issue, African countries held a conference to insist on equitable access and explore manufacturing to end their almost complete reliance on the outside world. They began securing the late-stage clinical trials that long have been held outside the continent, aiming to land 10 as soon as possible.
Nkengasong said Africa needs at least 1.5 billion vaccine doses, enough to cover 60% of the population for “herd immunity” with the two likely required doses. That will cost about $10 billion.
The World Health Organization says Africa should receive at least 220 million doses through an international effort to develop and distribute a vaccine known as COVAX.  
That’s welcome but not enough, Nkengasong said.
His next hurdle is how to deliver doses throughout the vast continent with the world’s worst infrastructure. Less than half of Africa’s countries have access to modern health care facilities, he said.
COVID-19’s effects are “devastating” for Africa, from education  to economies  to the fight against other diseases. Nkengasong plans a major conference next year to press countries to significantly increase health spending ahead of the next pandemic.
“If we do not,” he said, “something is terribly wrong with us.”

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Flu Season Mixes with Pandemic in the Northern Hemisphere

Doctors and public health experts are telling people in the Northern Hemisphere to prepare for the worst in the coming months, when both the coronavirus and the flu virus will be circulating at the same time. It’s a one-two punch that could cause even more deaths and has the potential to overwhelm health care systems. More from VOA’s Carol Pearson.PRODUCER: Jon Spier 

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130 млрд в мусор: путляндия обновила доску позора самолётом sukhoi superjet new

130 млрд в мусор: путляндия обновила доску позора самолётом sukhoi superjet new.

Мы с нетерпением ждем, когда команда обиженного карлика пукина начнёт рассказывать сказки о подлом Западе, который помешал ей создать обновленный суперджет и заставил чиновников спустить в трубу очередную тонну денег
 

 
 
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Аналогов нет, прорыв. Когда уже холопам обиженного карлика надоест эта пластинка?

Аналогов нет, прорыв. Когда уже холопам обиженного карлика надоест эта пластинка?

В путляндии на 100 процентов подорожали продукты, а обиженный карлик пукин снова несет чушь о прорывах, которым нет аналогов
 

 
 
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В оккупированных Феодосии, Евпатории и Ялте канализация стекает прямо в Черное море

Попердоленный Крым и экология Черного моря.

Читаю очередную новость про Крым. Что в Феодосии канализация стекает прямо в Черное море. И что с канализацией проблемы не только в Феодосии. Такое же случается и в Евпатории, и в Ялте, и в Алуште. И это нормальная ситуация – пришла путляндия, и сырье якутского скульптора начало заполнять окружающее пространство
 

 
 
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Санкции против пропагандонов и членов банды пукина из расследований Навального

Санкции против пропагандонов и членов банды пукина из расследований Навального.

Европарламент принял резолюцию чтобы заморозить активы персонажей расследования Навального. Так же Европарламент предлагает расширить санкции по ситуации с Беларусью на тех пукинцев, кто поддерживает режим маньяка лукашенко. Но это на Западе, а вот в путляндии не смотря на кризис и рост бедности и отсутствие помощи гражданам и бизнесу, на поддержку пропагандонов хотят выделить почти 103 млрд рублей. Они очень не хотят чтобы по всей путляндии было как в Беларуси и Хабаровске
 

 
 
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Зелений карлик підписав закон про надання держгарантій за кредитами коломойського, ахметова та інших крадунів


 
Зелений карлик підписав Закон «Про внесення змін до Закону України «Про Державний бюджет України на 2020 рік» щодо надання державних гарантій на портфельній основі та впровадження фінансово-кредитних механізмів забезпечення громадян України житлом» № 873-ІХ, який слуги зеленого карлика ухвалили третього вересня 2020 року.

Згідно із законом, у поточному році держава може надати портфельні гарантії в обсязі до 5 млрд грн. Для забезпечення часткового виконання боргових зобов’язань за портфелем кредитів банків-кредиторів, що надаються українським мікропідприємствам та МСБ, у розмірі, що не перевищує 80% загальної суми таких боргових зобов’язань за портфелем кредитів та 80% за кожним окремим кредитом, необхідне рішення Кабінету Міністрів, погоджене з Комітетом Верховної Ради з питань бюджету.

У документі зазначається, що порядок відбору банків-кредиторів та умови надання державних гарантій на портфельній основі, розмір і вид забезпечення, що надається такими суб’єктами господарювання, встановлюються урядом. Надання таких гарантій оформлюється у вигляді договору між Міністерством фінансів і банком-кредитором.

Таким чином, банда зеленого карлика дозволяє міжнародному шахраю коломойському ще більше красти гроші усіх українців.
 
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