Adverum Biotechnologies Announces Publication of Preclinical Long-Term Safety Data on ADVM-022 IVT Gene Therapy – BioSpace

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REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Feb. 02, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Adverum Biotechnologies, Inc.(Nasdaq: ADVM), a clinical-stage gene therapy company targeting unmet medical needs in ocular and rare diseases, today announced the publication of preclinical data on ADVM-022 intravitreal (IVT) gene therapy in Translational Vision Science & Technology (TVST), an official journal of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO). ADVM-022 is in clinical trials for wet AMD and DME, and this preclinical study in NHPs is the longest safety and expression study to date, with measurements out 30 months following a single IVT injection.

There is a growing body of both clinical and preclinical data demonstrating durable efficacy and favorable safety profile following a single IVT injection of ADVM-022, said Laurent Fischer, M.D., chief executive officer at Adverum Biotechnologies. In this preclinical study, we saw long-term, sustained aflibercept expression out to 30 months following ADVM-022. The levels of aflibercept were sustained at therapeutic levels, with no measurable adverse effects on normal retinal structure and function. We are excited to work on developing ADVM-022 as a potential one and done IVT injection therapy that may dramatically reduce the treatment burden for patients living with wet AMD and DME.

Szilrd Kiss, M.D., academic retina specialist, added, Currently, patients with wet AMD are treated with frequent anti-VEGF intravitreal injections to maintain their vision. One of the highest priorities in research today is to develop therapies that extend the duration of efficacy following treatment, enabling patients to preserve sight for months or years following treatment. The preclinical data on ADVM-022 demonstrate long-term safety and aflibercept expression following a single intravitreal injection of this novel IVT injection gene therapy. We are excited to continue to assess ADVM-022 as it demonstrates the potential to improve real-world visual outcomes over intermittent anti-VEGF injections for patients living with wet AMD.

The publication, titled Long-Term Safety Evaluation of Continuous Intraocular Delivery of Aflibercept by the Intravitreal Gene Therapy Candidate ADVM-022 in Nonhuman Primates, reported the following:

The full online publication can be accessed from the TVST website.

About ADVM-022 Gene TherapyADVM-022 utilizes a propriety vector capsid, AAV.7m8, carrying an aflibercept coding sequence under the control of a proprietary expression cassette. ADVM-022 is administered as a one-time intravitreal injection (IVT), designed to deliver long-term efficacy and reduce the burden of frequent anti-VEGF injections, optimize patient compliance and improve vision outcomes for patients with wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD) and diabetic macular edema (DME).

In recognition of the need for new treatment options for wet AMD, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted Fast Track designation for ADVM-022 for the treatment of wet AMD.

Adverum is currently evaluating ADVM-022 in the OPTIC Phase 1 clinical trial in patients with wet AMD and the INFINITY Phase 2 trial in patients with DME at 2 x 10^11 vg/eye and 6 x 10^11 vg/eye doses. The Company plans to begin a pivotal trial in mid-2021 for ADVM-022 in wet AMD.

About Adverum BiotechnologiesAdverum Biotechnologies (Nasdaq: ADVM) is a clinical-stage gene therapy company targeting unmet medical needs in serious ocular and rare diseases. Adverum is advancing the clinical development of its novel gene therapy candidate, ADVM-022, as a one-time, intravitreal injection for the treatment of patients with wet age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema. For more information, please visit http://www.adverum.com.

Forward-looking StatementsStatements contained in this press release regarding the events or results that may occur in the future are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements include but are not limited to statements regarding: the potential for ADVM-022 in treating patients with wet AMD and DME; the potential efficacy and safety of ADVM-022 in wet AMD and DME; Adverums expectations as to its plans to advance ADVM-022 in wet AMD by initiating a pivotal trial mid-2021. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of various risks and uncertainties, which include risks inherent to, without limitation: Adverums novel technology, which makes it difficult to predict the time and cost of product candidate development and obtaining regulatory approval; the results of early clinical trials not always being predictive of future results; the potential for future complications or side effects in connection with use of ADVM-022. Risks and uncertainties facing Adverum are described more fully in Adverums Form 10-Q filed with theSEConNovember 5, 2020under the heading Risk Factors. All forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date on which they were made. Adverum undertakes no obligation to update such statements to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made.

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Adverum Biotechnologies Announces Publication of Preclinical Long-Term Safety Data on ADVM-022 IVT Gene Therapy - BioSpace

Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Development Goals – Analytics Insight

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Artificial Intelligence has immense potential catering to various aspects of the world be it economic, environment related, social or anything for that matter. AI has made taking decisions based on data easier than ever. Machines with deep learning capabilities have changed our lives for better. With this being said, one of the hottest topics that has garnered attention from across the globe is Can Artificial Intelligence aid in achieving Sustainable Development Goals? Yes, it can! Infact, there are sectors that have already been using this advanced technology of AI in meeting their goals. Some areas where this has proven successful are

The importance of education can just not be put into words. Not only does it open door to a plethora of career options to choose from, but also grooms you as a person. Gone are the days when getting educated required the presence of someone to guide you through. But today, education is far more accessible thanks to Artificial Intelligence. Getting educated without human teachers is probably one of the best innovations AI has come up with in the education sector. It cannot have got any better for the visually challenged students for the sole reason that they too can fulfil their desire of being educated with the help of voice assistants.

AI is also capable of monitoring the students performance from time to time. Recommending content based on the students past experience is yet another area that AI focuses on. All in all, the future is set to see more number of students getting trained by AI powered machine tutors rather than human tutors.

No matter which country you live in, this sector has a unique importance. It is just not possible to imagine life without this sector. Artificial intelligence can help in detecting diseases in plants and also target weeds. Farmers are now using AI forecasting models to predict upcoming weather patterns, thus enabling them to make better decisions.

Needless to say, this is that one sector that people can never get tired of praising. And when the world is shook by a pandemic like the 2020 virus, then the efforts put in by this sector needs no special mention. Since the data pertaining to the healthcare sector is insanely huge, Artificial Intelligence has the ability to collect and process this data for faster treatment. Coming up with technologies to check whether the person is cancerous or not, to estimate the probability of a person to develop cancer, to name a few are taking shape because of AI. India is marching towards an AI driven economy with every passing day. It has partnered with Microsoft to eradicate preventable blindness using an AI-enabled portable eye-scanning device that helps detect retinal diseases. In addition to all of this, AI is being used to deal with the cyber-security attacks in this sector as well.

The havoc created by disasters needs no special mention. AI promises to be a saviour here as well. It plays a pivotal role in minimizing the damage caused due to disasters. Artificial intelligence helps improve dam and barrage water release to minimize the risks.

The above are just few of the many areas where AI has worked wonders. AI has huge potential to serve a lot of sectors. If we come together and put Artificial Intelligence into its best use, then a better society awaits all of us in the years to come.

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Artificial Intelligence can predict whether you will die from COVID-19 – Free Press Journal

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Copenhagen: Using patient data, artificial intelligence can make a 90 per cent accurate assessment of whether a person will die from COVID-19 or not, according to new research at the University of Copenhagen.

Body mass index (BMI), gender, and high blood pressure are among the most heavily weighted factors. The research can be used to predict the number of patients in hospitals, who will need a respirator and determine who ought to be first in line for a vaccination. The results of the study were published in the journal Scientific Reports -- Nature.

Artificial intelligence is able to predict who is most likely to die from the coronavirus. In doing so, it can also help decide who should be at the front of the line for the precious vaccines now being administered across Denmark.

The result is from a newly published study by researchers at the University of Copenhagen's Department of Computer Science. Since the COVID pandemic's first wave, researchers have been working to develop computer models that can predict, based on disease history and health data, how badly people will be affected by COVID-19.

Based on patient data from the Capital Region of Denmark and Region Zealand, the results of the study demonstrate that artificial intelligence can, with up to 90 percent certainty, determine whether an uninfected person who is not yet infected will die of COVID-19 or not if they are unfortunate enough to become infected. Once admitted to the hospital with COVID-19, the computer can predict with 80 percent accuracy whether the person will need a respirator.

"We began working on the models to assist hospitals, as, during the first wave, they feared that they did not have enough respirators for intensive care patients. Our new findings could also be used to carefully identify who needs a vaccine," explains Professor Mads Nielsen of the University of Copenhagen's Department of Computer Science.

Older men with high blood pressure are highest at risk The researchers fed a computer program with health data from 3,944 Danish COVID-19 patients. This trained the computer to recognise patterns and correlations in both patients' prior illnesses and in their bouts against COVID-19.

"Our results demonstrate, unsurprisingly, that age and BMI are the most decisive parameters for how severely a person will be affected by COVID-19. But the likelihood of dying or ending up on a respirator is also heightened if you are male, have high blood pressure or neurological disease," explains Mads Nielsen.

The diseases and health factors that, according to the study, have the most influence on whether a patient ends up on a respirator after being infected with COVID-19 are in order of priority: BMI, age, high blood pressure, being male, neurological diseases, COPD, asthma, diabetes and heart disease.

"For those affected by one or more of these parameters, we have found that it may make sense to move them up in the vaccine queue, to avoid any risk of them becoming infected and eventually ending up on a respirator," says Nielsen.

Predicting respiratory needs is a must. Researchers are currently working with the Capital Region of Denmark to take advantage of this fresh batch of results in practice. They hope that artificial intelligence will soon be able to help the country's hospitals by continuously predicting the need for respirators.

"We are working towards a goal that we should be able to predict the need for respirators five days ahead by giving the computer access to health data on all COVID positives in the region," says Mads Nielsen, adding: "The computer will never be able to replace a doctor's assessment, but it can help doctors and hospitals see many COVID-19 infected patients at once and set ongoing priorities."

However, technical work is still pending to make health data from the region available for the computer and thereafter to calculate the risk to the infected patients. The research was carried out in collaboration with Rigshospitalet and Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospital.

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Beyond the Unknown: Applications of Artificial intelligence In Space – Analytics Insight

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly being explored or adopted by many industries for a wide array of applications. Today it is creating a string of opportunities in space industry use-cases too. As artificial intelligence emerges as a popular theme in space exploration,it is also being deployed for many critical tasks too.

For instance scientists have leveraged artificial intelligence, for charting unmarked galaxies, supernovas, stars, blackholes, and studying cosmic events that would otherwise go unnoticed.One of the recent illustration of this application was when CHIRP (Continuous High-Resolution Image Reconstruction using Patch Priors) Algorithm helped in creating first-ever image of a black hole. CHIRP is a Bayesian algorithm used to perform de-convolution on images created in radio astronomy. It used the image data from the Event Horizon Telescopes to carry further image processing. Even images from the Hubble Space Telescope are used to simulate galaxy formation and further classification using deep learning algorithms.

Artificial intelligence also proves resourceful in classifying heavenly bodies, especially exoplanets. A couple of years ago, a research team developed an artificial neural networks algorithm, to classify planets, based on whether they resemble present-day Earth, early Earth, Mars, Venus or Saturns largest moon, Titan. These five bodies are most potentially habitable objects in our solar system and are therefore associated with acertain probability of life.

In regards to life in outer space, Researchers atNASAs Frontier Development Lab(FDL) employed generative adversarial networks, or GANs, to create 3.5 million possible permutations of alien life based on signals from Kepler and the European Space Agencys Gaia telescope.

Besides, NASA has teamed up with Google to train its artificial intelligence algorithms to sift through the data from the Kepler mission to look for signals from an exoplanet crossing in front of its parent star. With the help of Googles trained model, NASA managed to discover two obscure planets Kepler-90i and Kepler-80g. In 2019, astronomers from the University of Texas at Austin, teamed with Google, to useAI for uncovering two more hidden planets in the Keplerspace telescope archive (Keplers extended mission, called K2).They used an AI algorithm that sifts through Keplers data to ferret out signals that were missed by traditional planet-hunting methods. This helped them discover the planets K2-293b and K2-294b.

Under the Artificial Intelligence Data Analysis (AIDA) project, which is funded under the European Horizons 2020 framework, an intelligent system is being developed that can read and process data from space. The key object of this project is to enable the discovery of new celestial objects, using data from NASA.

AI applications can also found in the field of satellite imagery. Data based on satellite imagery offers insights on several global-scale economic, social and industrial processes, which was previously not possible. Some examples include Earth Observer 1 (EO-1) satellite, SKICAT, ENVISAT. These satellites leverage artificial intelligence to provide actionable insights for agencies, governments and businesses, and help them in making accurate decisions.

While humans are capable ofinterpreting, understanding, and analyzing images collected by satellites, it does cost us time and resources while waiting for a satellite to move back around to the same position to further refine image analysis. Artificial intelligence helps eliminate the necessity for large amounts of communication to and from Earth to analyze photos and helps determine whether a new photo needs to be taken. Moreover, it saves processing power, reduces battery usage, and fast-tracks the image gathering process.

In case of space mining, artificial intelligence will augment mining machinery with intelligence that will empower them to extract minerals and identify any hazards or solve minor issues at hand without the need for immediate support from humans on Earth. Meanwhile, NASA is also developing a companion for astronauts aboard the ISS,called Robonaut, which will work alongside the astronauts or take on tasks that are too risky for them. According to NASAs blog, Robonaut 2 is slowly approaching human dexterity implying tasks like changing out an air filter can be performed without modifications to the existing design.

Artificial intelligence has also helped us develop space humanoids like Kirobo from Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Dextre from Canadian Space Agency, and AILA from German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence to help astronauts in space missions. NASAs free-flying robotic system,Astrobee, uses AI to help astronauts reduce their time on routine duties, leaving them to focus more on the things that only humans can do. We also have CIMON or (Crew Interactive Mobile Companion), an AI powered robot that floats through the zero-gravity environment of the space station to research a database of information about the ISS. In addition to the mechanical tasks assigned, CIMON assesses the moods of its human crewmates at the ISS and interacts accordingly with them.

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Two UWF teams place in top 5 in national artificial intelligence competition – University of West Florida Newsroom – UWF Newsroom

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Hosted by the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific and the Naval Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Coordination Office, 32 teams from public and private institutions across the country participated in the competition. Various research institutions including those from the Ivy League, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and Hispanic Serving Institutes competed in the $200,000-prize challenge.

UWF graduate computer science students Tobias Jacob, Raffaele Galliera and Muddasar Ali placed third, winning $35,000 for the UWF Department of Computer Science. The students participated in the competition as members of UWFs AI and Data Analytics (AIDA) Research Group. Dr. Thomas Reichherzer, chair of computer science, served as the sponsor and Dr. Sikha Bagui, professor in computer science, served as the faculty advisor for the AIDA Research Group. UWF computer science major Zach Mueller, a machine learning intern at Novetta Solutions LLC mentored the students.

When we found out we finished third we couldnt believe it, said Galliera, who, like Ali, is pursuing dual masters degrees from UWF and Ferrara University in Italy. That whole morning, we talked about the things we went through during the challenge. We were so happy and so proud of what we accomplished.

The second UWF team, ArgoTracks, finished fifth and secured $20,000 for the Department of Intelligent Systems & Robotics. The team consisted of Bhavyansh Mishra, a doctoral student in intelligent systems & robotics, and mechanical engineering majors Brendon Ortolano and Luke Fina. Dr. Hakki Erhan Sevil, intelligent systems & robotics assistant professor, served as their sponsor and faculty advisor. The students are members of the Sevil Research Group at UWF. UWF alumnus Carson Wilber, a research associate at Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition, mentored the students.

ArgoTracks formed its team a month after the challenge started. Mishra learned about the challenge from Wilber and then contacted Sevil who assisted him in finding teammates. The students put in long hours to catch up and submitted their entry just a few hours before the deadline.

Computer vision is my bread and butter, so I just hopped onto it as soon as Carson told me, Mishra said. Considering the fact we only had one month compared to most teams that had two months, we felt good about where we placed.

Each team was tasked with developing a computer vision system capable of plotting the tracks of shipping traffic exclusively using the passive sensing capability of a single onboard camera. Current traffic avoidance software relies on an automatic identification system and radar for tracking other craft and avoiding collisions. In a contested environment, emitting radar energy presents a vulnerability to detection by adversaries.

Organizers provided each team a dataset consisting of recorded camera imagery of vessel traffic along with the recorded GPS track of a vessel of interest that was seen in the imagery. Submitted solutions were evaluated against additional camera data correlated to recorded vessel tracks. The same vessel and the same instrumentation were used in both the competition dataset and the judging dataset. Judging criteria was based on track accuracy and overall processing time.

The two UWF teams were among only five that submitted solutions that worked. Ten of the teams submitted solutions that only partially worked or failed to work, and the remaining teams failed to submit solutions.

It was really difficult because the data they gave us wasnt preprocessed, the camera wasnt calibrated and we didnt have a lot of data, said Jacob, who is pursuing a masters degree at UWF after earning his bachelors degree from RWTH Aachen University in Germany. We had many moments where we thought, OK, this isnt going to work, and then we always found a way to make it work.

For more information on the AI Tracks at Sea Challenge, visit challenge.gov/challenge/AI-tracks-at-sea/. For more information on UWFs Department of Computer Science, visit uwf.edu/computerscience. For more information on UWFs Department of Intelligent Systems and Robotics, visit uwf.edu/isr.

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Bingo and AI: The changing relation between entertainment and artificial intelligence – Analytics Insight

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Bingo and AI The changing relation between entertainment and artificial intelligence

Artificial Intelligence has been on the tech agenda for more than two decades now, although its impact on our day-to-day lives is perhaps yet to be fully realized. Perceptions of AIs innovation are broad and have altered over time.

For many, AI is an exciting new tool that will improve the quality of our lives, at home and work, by being able to deliver functions that will save us time and enhance our experiences in the world of leisure and entertainment. But for others, AI is perceived as a threat to our livelihoods. Old-fashioned perceptions push the narrative that technology must be managed and developed slowly or not developed at all to protect our ways of life.

This has contributed to AI receiving only sporadic funding and being dismissed by some as a pipe dream. However, we will discuss the positive impact that AI is having on the world of digital entertainment, and in particular in the world of bingo and online casino gaming.

Although many may not realize AI is already readily utilized as a part of several mainstream digital entertainment experiences. For example, Netflix viewers will receive recommendations of what to watch next based on the technology. AI is used to interpret data and produce an algorithm that displays film and TV suggestions that will likely appeal to the user based on their previous habits. In this instance, AI is helping to deliver a much more bespoke, personalized experience to paying subscribers.

In gaming, AI can be used to set a difficultly level based on the players abilities and can make configuration recommendations to enhance the players experience. Where human guidance is not possible, AI helps to keep new players on track.

Source: Pexels

Other gaming sectors, such as online casino gaming, have contrasting relationships with AI. Some platforms utilize the technology in a similar way to traditional console titles to automatically change personalization. It can also be usedto speed up manualprocesses, such as repeating a previous bet or warning the player against twisting in a game of blackjack when they have a good hand.Others instead use more tried and tested innovations such as random number generators to ensure games are fair.

Some businesses in the casino sector have adopted the technology to try and enhance the experience for players. Sue Dawson from Best New Bingo Sites explains how In real money online gaming, AI can be used for targeting marketing and advertising so that players receive promotional offers that are tailored to their preferences and behavior. For instance, you might receive an offer of free spins for the slot game you play most oftenat the time of day youre most likely to play. The games themselves are strictly regulated, though, and must use verified RNG to ensure that all players have the same chance of winning.

Source: Pexels

As is the case in any area of technology, its fascinating to speculate what the future may hold for AI. Already developers are experimenting with its use in spheres like art and even literature. Art AI Gallery offers images for sale that have been generated by artificial intelligence, while developers have experimented with using AI to write plays, make music, and script films.

Its clear from the evidence that AI is already a major part of many lives, and as the technology behind it advances, its likely that will see further leaps forward taken in the years and decades to come.

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Inside Janet Jackson’s Infamous Super Bowl Wardrobe Malfunction and Its Even More Complicated Aftermath – E! Online

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While CBS was hit with a $550,000 fine for the incidentthe largest ever of its kindby the FCC, the Third Circuit Court would rule in the network's favor in 2008, saying the FCC "acted arbitrarily and capriciously" by levying such a fine for what the Court deemed to be an accidental split-second of nudity. A year later, the Supreme Court would opt not to hear the case, sending it back to the Third Circuit for re-examination. By 2011, the Court had ruled again in CBS' favor.

In January 2014,Powell, who'd left his position as FCC chairman at this point,admitted that the committee acted "unfairly" toward Jackson, telling ESPN that the committee overreacted."I personally thought that was really unfair. It all turned into being about her," he said. "In reality, if you slow the thing down, it's Justin ripping off her breastplace."

While the incident wreaked havoc on Jackson's career for years, there was at least one positive residual development from the whole mess. In the immediate aftermath, a young software programmer at PayPal named Jawed Karim, frustrated over his inability to find any video of the performance on the internet, teamed up with some friends to create a venue where people can easily upload and share video. And in 2005, YouTube was born.

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Neha Kakkar, Jonita Gandhi, And Akriti Kakars Top 5 Hottest Shades Of Lipstick That Are Simply Perfect – IWMBuzz

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Neha Kakkar, Jonita Gandhi, and Akriti Kakar are the internets most loved sensations right now and people have been loving all three of them a lot.

Neha Kakkar, Jonita Gandhi, and Akriti Kakar are also the most fashionable singers and are truly loved by all.

Neha Kakkar, Jonita Gandhi, and Akriti Kakar pull off any piece of clothing they try and have always slain all of their everyday looks. They have the most amazing style, and their makeup is always flawless.

Neha Kakkar, Jonita Gandhi, and Akriti Kakar all have the most beautiful skin and every makeup look looks amazing on them. They always rock all of their everyday makeup looks and their glam looks are beyond words.

Their makeup looks are good but the lipsticks they wear stand out the most. They have lipstick shades that make their makeup look very natural and elegant at the same time. Its a good combination of glam and subtle.

Here are some of their best lipsticks that look amazing on them and that you could give a try.

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View On Astronomy: Observing the Winter Circle is quite the seasonal sight – The Independent

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I never tire of observing shooting stars, as long as the activity keeps up so I dont fall asleep. So with exceptionally clear skies and a relatively warm temperature of 42 degrees (not bad for the Geminids), last December I settled down in a lounge chair on my back porch to scan the heavens for meteors blazing across the sky.

I started my observing session on Dec. 13 at 10 p.m. and ended it at 11:30 p.m. During that 90-minute span I counted 20 Geminids. Nothing spectacular. No brilliant fireballs. A few shooting stars rivaled the brightness of Orions Rigel. Many were much dimmer. Regardless, the frequency of these meteors streaking through the Earths atmosphere was sufficient enough to maintain my interest.

As the night progressed, a slight breeze came up. Considering it was December, it was still fairly mild. Ive observed Geminids in the past when temperatures were in the lower 20s, with me snuggled up in a sleeping bag. Some high thin cloudsbegan to encroach the sky just before 11:30 p.m., so I called itquits.

As I sat facing east around 10 p.m., the constellation Gemini was already above my tree line. Orion the mighty hunter was high in the southeast. Soon, seven of the brightest stars we can see from the Earth would be in full view as the star patterns continued to rise higher into the sky.

I looked out at 4:30 a.m. to see if it was clear and if the activity had increased. It was totally overcast.

I hope you took advantage of the optimum observing conditions to observe a few meteors yourself.

Im sure youve heard of the Summer Triangle. This shape is formed by connecting three bright stars Deneb (in Cygnus), Vega (in Lyra), and Altair (in Aquila). This triangle of stars is high overhead during mid-summer.

Well the winter sky has its own special asterism, and this one is huge. Its called the Winter Circle or Winter Hexagon. Ill explain why you can get both shapes from the stars.

Please examine the basic star map accompanying this article. This chart represents the sky for Feb. 1 at 9 p.m., looking from a point directly overhead (zenith) toward the southern horizon. A circle or, actually, an ellipse can be drawn through each of the labeled stars. However, you can also draw a straight line from one star to the next and create a hexagon. Betelgeuse, though inside either pattern, is still considered part of the asterism.

Before we examine each of the stars in the Winter Circle, lets review three important terms. First, the brightness of any celestial object is called its magnitude. The basic idea is that the more negative the magnitude, the brighter the object. The more positive the magnitude, the dimmer the object is. So, the Sun is -26.74, the Full Moon -12.92, Venus -4.89, Saturn approximately 0, well-known Polaris (the North Star) is magnitude +2, and the naked-eye limit with no light pollution is magnitude +6. Pluto is about +13.65. (Usually the plus sign (+) is assumed and not used, but I do so in this column for clarity.)

Second, a stars distance is measured in light years. One light year is equal to just under six trillion miles. Third, the spectral classification of a star is categorized using the following letters: O, B, A, F, G, K, M, and often followed by additional numbers and letters to further refine the classification. O stars are the hottest, while M stars are the coolest.

Lets start our tour of the Winter Circle with the brightest star we can see in the sky (besides the Sun of course) Sirius. Sirius is in Canis Major, the Big Dog. Sirius shines at magnitude -1.44 and it is 8.7 light years away. Do the math and this fairly close neighbor to our Sun is 52.2 trillion miles from us. For you Rhode Islanders, thats much farther than Newport or Westerly! Sirius is a hot, blue-white star (spectral class A0) about 1.7 times the diameter of our Sun.

Next, we move northward and clockwise in the sky to locate Procyon in Canis Minor, the Little Dog. Procyon is a white star (F5) shining at magnitude +0.40 and is 11 light years distant. Its about twice the diameter of our Sun. Moving farther northward we encounter the Gemini twins, Pollux and Castor. Pollux is 34 light years distant, while Castor is 18 light years farther away at 52. Pollux is a cool, orange giant (K0) ten times the Suns diameter, while Castor is a hot, blue-white star (A1) only twice the diameter of the Sun. Pollux and Castor shine at +1.16 and +1.93 magnitude, respectively.

Now we swing up and over to a constellation almost directly overhead Auriga, where we find +1.93 magnitude Capella. While Capella (G6) is a class G-type yellow star like the Sun (G2), it has three times more mass and is just over seven times the Suns diameter. Next, we proceed south to encounter the orange giant (K5) Aldebaran in Taurus. Aldebaran represents the bulls eye in the star pattern known as the Hyades star cluster (shaped like a V). Aldebaran, 65 light years away, is a cool star which has expanded to be just over 44 times the diameter of the Sun with only 2.5 times our Suns mass.

Continue to swing southward in the sky until we arrive at the bottom right star representing Orions left foot. (Please note: Orion is facing us.) This star is +0.18 magnitude Rigel, a blue supergiant (B8) 800 light years away the most distant of the Winter Circle stars. Rigel is 62 times the diameter of our Sun and contains 17 times more mass. We now complete the tour of the Winter Circle by swinging back to Sirius.

But wait. No, I didnt forget about Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse is the red supergiant (M2) star that marks the top right shoulder of Orion. It shines at magnitude +0.45 and resides at a distance of 520 light years. Betelgeuse is also a very large star, measuring in at a conservative 950 solar diameters. If you replaced our Sun with Betelgeuse it would extend out to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

As you can see by this small sampling of stars that comprise the Winter Circle, stars are a lot like people: They are all different, but their differences make them unique and important.

The next time you have an opportunity to observe the Winter Circle, you will have a better understanding and appreciation of the scale and diversity of our stellar neighbors in this region of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Keep your eyes to the skies.

The author has been involved in the field of observational astronomy in Rhode Island for more than 35 years. He serves as historian of Skyscrapers Inc., the second oldest continuously operating amateur astronomical society in the United States.

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Harvard astronomer argues that alien vessel paid us a visit – The Hindu

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We're nothing special, there are lots of other cultures out there, and we just need to find them, says Avi Loeb

Discovering there's intelligent life beyond our planet could be the most transformative event in human history but what if scientists decided to collectively ignore evidence suggesting it already happened?

That's the premise of a new book by a top astronomer, who argues that the simplest and best explanation for the highly unusual characteristics of an interstellar object that sped through our solar system in 2017 is that it was alien technology.

Sound kooky? Avi Loeb says the evidence holds otherwise, and is convinced his peers in the scientific community are so consumed by groupthink they're unwilling to wield Occam's razor.

Loeb's stellar credentials he was the longest-serving chair of astronomy at Harvard, has published hundreds of pioneering papers, and has collaborated with greats like the late Stephen Hawking make him difficult to dismiss outright.

"Thinking that we are unique and special and privileged is arrogant," he told AFP in a video call. "The correct approach is to be modest and say: 'We're nothing special, there are lots of other cultures out there, and we just need to find them.'"

Loeb, 58, lays out the argument for the alien origins of the object named 'Oumuamua "scout" in Hawaiian in "Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth."

The facts are as follows.

In order to explain what happened, astronomers had to come up with novel theories, such as that it was made of hydrogen ice and would therefore not have visible trails, or that it disintegrated into a dust cloud.

"These ideas that came to explain specific properties of 'Oumuamua always involve something that we have never seen before," said Loeb. "If that's the direction we are taking, then why not contemplate an artificial origin?"

'Oumuamua was never photographed close-up during its brief sojourn we only learned of its existence once it was already on its way out of our solar system.

There are two shapes that fit the peculiarities observed long and thin like a cigar, or flat and round like a pancake, almost razor thin.

Abraham (Avi) Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University. Credit: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/

Loeb says simulations favour the latter, and believes the object was deliberately crafted as a light sail propelled by stellar radiation.

Another oddity was the way the object moved compounding the strangeness of its passage.

Before encountering our Sun, 'Oumuamua was "at rest" relative to nearby stars statistically very rare. Rather than think of it as a vessel hurtling through space, from the object's perspective, our solar system slammed into it.

"Perhaps 'Oumuamua was like a buoy resting in the expanse of the universe," writes Loeb. Like a trip wire left by an intelligent lifeform, waiting to be triggered by a star system.

Loeb's ideas have placed him at odds with fellow astronomers.

Writing in Forbes, astrophysicist Ethan Siegel called Loeb a "once-respected scientist" who, having failed to convince his peers of his arguments, had taken to pandering to the public.

Loeb, for his part, protests a "culture of bullying" in the academy that punishes those who question orthodoxy just as Galileo was punished when he proposed the Earth was not the center of the universe.

Compared to speculative yet respected branches of theoretical physics such as looking for dark matter or multiverses the search for alien life is a far more commonsense avenue to pursue, he said.

That's why Loeb's pushing for a new branch of astronomy, "space archaeology," to hunt for the biological and technological signatures of extraterrestrials.

"If we find evidence for technologies that took a million years to develop, then we can get a shortcut into these technologies, we can employ them on Earth," said Loeb, who spent his childhood on an Israeli farm reading philosophy and pondering life's big questions.

Such a discovery could also "give us a sense that we are part of the same team" as humanity confronts threats ranging from climate change to nuclear conflict. "Rather than fight each other like nations do very often, we would perhaps collaborate."

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How Astronomer Anton Pannekoek Planned To Storm the Heavens – The Wire Science

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Dutch astronomer Anton Pannekoek combined the roles of an important socialist thinker and a prominent scientist. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

There has always been a healthy crossover between Marxism and the natural sciences. Frederick Engels kept abreast of the latest scientific knowledge in his own time. In his work Dialectics of Nature, Engels warned that no matter how far humans were able to perfect their forms of social organisation, a time would inevitably come when the Earth could no longer sustain organic life:

And what will happen to our solar system will happen sooner or later to all the other systems of our island universe; it will happen to all the other innumerable island universes, even to those the light of which will never reach the Earth while there is a living human eye to receive it.

From the other side of the intellectual fence, leading twentieth-century scientists like John Desmond Bernal and J.B.S. Haldane had strong Marxist sympathies. In recent decades, figures like Stephen Jay Gould and Mike Davis have continued this dialogue, crossing the bridge between human and natural history in search of insights for both fields of study.

However, there is one figure who stands out for combining the roles of an important socialist thinker and a prominent scientist: Antonie Anton Pannekoek. The Dutch Marxist had two great passions in his life, the emancipation of the working class and the study of the universe. We can find traces of Pannekoeks influence everywhere from the writings of Lenin to the surface of the Moon.

Red Moon

Born in the Netherlands in 1873, soon after Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species and Karl Marx published Capital, Pannekoek died in 1960, just as humanity entered the space age. The final sentence of his popular work, A History of Astronomy (1951), captured the two sides of his work:

It is time for mankind to ensure itself of material abundance by establishing a free, self-managed world-society of productive labor, thereby freeing its mental powers for perfecting its knowledge of nature and the universe.

This was an unusual conclusion for a book that became a standard introduction to the field. The 1961 English-language edition omitted it from the text.

When he passed away at the age of eighty-seven, Pannekoek could boast two illustrious careers. As an astronomer, he had received an honorary degree from Harvard and the Gold Medal of the British Royal Astronomical Society. A moon crater and an asteroid bear his name, along with the Anton Pannekoek Astronomical Institute at the University of Amsterdam.

We can find traces of Pannekoeks influence everywhere from the writings of Lenin to the surface of the Moon.

As a Marxist, Pannekoek had been a prominent theoretician in the European socialist movement. In the years before the First World War, he defended Marxist radicalism against the reformist ideas of Eduard Bernstein, and later, along with Rosa Luxemburg, criticised the so-called pope of Marxism, Karl Kautsky.

These arguments earned him the admiration of Lenin, but the Russian revolutionary leader subsequently took issue with Pannekoeks ideas in his famous pamphlet, Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder. Pannekoek became one of the leading thinkers for a dissident current known as council communism that rejected all political parties and states. By the end of his life, he was a marginal figure in the world of politics, even as his scientific reputation grew.

Also read: People Confuse Scientific Objectivity With Ideological Neutrality

Spirit and matter

Pannekoek grew up in a liberal, bourgeois family in the Netherlands. In 1898, after he had completed his studies, the observatory in the Dutch university city of Leiden took him on. Pannekoek felt that his social standing required him to join the bourgeois liberal party: this was his first step into politics.

The turning point in his political development came when he read, more or less by accident, the 1897 novel Equality by US utopian Edward Bellamy. Pannekoek described the experience as if a blindfold had been lifted from his eyes, revealing to me that theories have a social foundation and meaning, from the abstract they became embedded in material, real interests.

Pannekoeks search for the social foundation of ideas led him toward Marxism. The following year, he joined the Sociaal-Democratische Arbeiderspartij (Social-Democratic Workers Party, SDAP) the main Dutch Marxist party, which had just won two parliamentary seats.

In 1919, Pannekoek wrote down his thinking on the development of ideas in the brochure Historical Materialism. Pannekoek started from the basic Marxist insight that history was made by human beings but what drove people in making history? According to Pannekoek, in each society there existed deeper thoughts and emotions, general conceptions of what is good and necessary for the world.

As far as a persons individual consciousness is concerned, such ideas determine their acts, and Marxist materialism

does not deny the importance of spiritual motives, but returns them to their material origin, to the real relations of human society. We call these real relations material in the sense that they can be objectively observed not in the sense of opposing matter to spirit.

People did not freely choose to enter into such relations, as they had been formed by the societies around them. Each society had to constantly reproduce not only its economic organisation but also the relations that fill peoples lives, and hence determine their thoughts, desires and feelings.

Pannekoek differed from many self-described orthodox Marxists of his era in his refusal to counterpose spirit to matter. He saw spirit, the ensemble of a persons knowledge and convictions, as the link between the conditions in which people found themselves and their various attempts to influence those conditions.

Like several of his Dutch comrades, such as the poets Herman Gorter and Henriette Roland Holst, Pannekoek had been deeply influenced by the ideas of Josef Dietzgen (1828-1888), a German socialist thinker who developed a theory similar to that of Marx and Engels in parallel to the founders of Marxism. According to Dietzgen, a tanner and self-taught philosopher, everything that existed in the universe, including thought objects, formed part of material reality.

Pannekoek felt that this insight of Dietzgens offered a necessary corrective to the approach of many socialists who thought that they could reduce material reality to an economic foundation. He insisted that thought objects such as spirit, political convictions and class consciousness had their own role to play in the struggle for socialism.

Science and knowledge are important sources of power, Pannekoek wrote in 1909. To liberate itself, the working class needed to master science and knowledge while developing its class consciousness and a disciplined commitment to the goal of socialism what Pannekoek called socialist spirit.

Pannekoek, Lenin and Kautsky

For Pannekoek, spreading this socialist spirit was a full-time job. In 1906, Karl Kautsky, the leading theoretician of the German Social Democrats (SPD), invited him to become a lecturer at his partys school. Pannekoek also wrote extensively for journals and newspapers published by the SPD, which at the time was considered the flagship of international socialism.

The most radical SPD branches in particular printed his articles and invited Pannekoek to give lectures. He became known as a critic of revisionist socialists such as Eduard Bernstein, who believed in a gradual socialist transformation of society. Increasingly, he also started to criticise the ideas of Karl Kautsky himself.

In a 1912 article, Marxist Theory and Revolutionary Tactics, Pannekoek spelled out the differences between his thinking and that of figures like Bernstein:

Whereas Revisionism seeks to limit our activity to parliamentary and trade-union campaigns, to the achievement of reforms and improvements which will evolve naturally into socialism a perspective which serves as the basis for reformist tactics aimed solely at short-term gains radicalism stresses the inevitability of the revolutionary struggle for the conquest of power that lies before us, and therefore directs its tactics towards raising class consciousness and increasing the power of the proletariat.

Pannekoek explained that he did not consider Kautsky himself to be a revisionist but disagreed with what he called his passive radicalism. He accused Kautsky of seeing revolution as an event in the future, a political apocalypse, with nothing to do in the meantime but prepare for the final showdown and wait on events:

In our view, revolution is a process, the first stages of which we are now experiencing, for it is only by the struggle for power itself that the masses can be assembled, drilled and formed into an organization capable of taking power.

Also read: J. Posadas, the Trotskyist Who Believed in Intergalactic Communism

Lenin later quoted favourably from Pannekoeks polemics against Kautsky in his 1917 work The State and Revolution.

Pannekoek did not reject the struggle for reforms but insisted that they had to form part of the wider struggle for the socialist goal. So long as the bourgeoisie remained in power, reforms would also be under threat of rollback. Hard-won social reforms, Pannekoek wrote in 1909, are steps on the way to the goal in as far as they strengthen our power.

He called on workers to take matters into their own hands and force their leaders to adopt a more radical course:

Everything depends on the masses so long as the masses look up towards their leaders while waiting for them to formulate the watchwords, the movement cannot take the right course. Only when the masses themselves take the initiative is a powerful upsurge of our movement possible.

This was a productive period for Pannekoek, during which he allied with Gorter, Roland Holst and Luxemburg in support of the revolutionary wing in European socialism.

In 1909, he published The Destruction of Nature, a remarkable early ecological critique of capitalism. Pannekoek argued that a rational social order will have to use the available natural resources in such a way that what is consumed is replaced at the same time, so that society does not impoverish itself and can become wealthier. Capitalism, he insisted, was incapable of doing so: it was an economy which does not think of the future but lives only in the immediate present. In todays economic order, nature does not serve humanity, but capital.

However, Pannekoeks writings from these years do betray a tension between the view that historical developments would force working people to become socialists in quasi-automatic fashion, and a conflicting emphasis on the need for socialist ideals and self-organisation. This tension would increase in the years to come.

A new era

The First World War constituted a break in Pannekoeks personal and political lives. When the war began, Pannekoek and his wife were on holiday in the Netherlands, a neutral country, and found themselves unable to return to Germany. From 1915 to 1919, Pannekoek worked as a high school teacher and private tutor.

In 1919, the prospect of an appointment at the Leiden Observatory fell through when newspapers reported that Pannekoek was an honorary member of the leadership of the new Soviet republic declared by revolutionaries in Hungary. The Hungarian revolutionaries had neglected to inform Pannekoek before granting him this honour. The Amsterdam municipality then offered Pannekoek a job with the University of Amsterdam, where he would stay for the rest of his professional life.

By now, Pannekoek had joined the newly formed Communist Party of the Netherlands. In 1919, the Communist International (Comintern) was established, and in the same year, its leaders created a secretariat with the task of organising the West European members of this new body. The base of the secretariat was to be in Berlin, with a bureau in Amsterdam. The Comintern asked Dutch communist S.J. Rutgers, who was living at the time in Moscow, to recruit Dutch radicals like Gorter, Roland Holst and Pannekoek to the Amsterdam bureau.

A highpoint of this bureaus activity was a conference held in 1920. The gathering adopted a resolution, under Pannekoeks influence, that rejected the involvement of communists in trade unions. In an earlier time, according to Pannekoek and his co-thinkers, such organisations had been tools with which the working class had won social improvements, but that era was now over.

With the outbreak of the war and the revolutions in Russia and Germany, they argued, the contradictions of capitalism had become too profound for meaningful reforms to be possible. In this new age, unions had become diversions from the revolutionary struggle.

The conference also called for a clear separation of communists from so-called centrist political parties. This term referred not to centrists in the modern sense, but to socialist forces that wavered between reform and revolution. This orientation contradicted that of many other communists, including Bolshevik leaders such as Lenin and Leon Trotsky. They believed that communists would have to take part in unions and in united fronts with other parties if they wanted to reach the mass of working people.

Barely a year after its launch, the Comintern dissolved the Amsterdam bureau. In the same year, Lenin published Left-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder, directly attacking the ideas of Pannekoek (whom he addressed by his pseudonym, Karl Horner). In 1921, Pannekoek left the Communist Party.

Left communism

He sympathised with a breakaway group from the German communist movement, the Kommunistische Arbeiter-Partei Deutschlands (KAPD, Communist Workers Party of Germany). The KAPD was the most important organisation of the communist left. Pointing to the German experience, where the official trade unions and the SPD, a self-declared socialist party, had presided over the suppression of the revolution, this current rejected involvement in parliaments or trade unions.

The left communists argued that such organisations had become a brake on the revolutionary self-activity that was needed in an era of wars and revolutions that had begun in 1914. Pannekoek became an influential theoretician of this current, which gathered tens of thousands of supporters in its early years. Spirit was as decisive as ever for Pannekoek, but he now believed that this spirit could only develop through revolutionary struggle.

However, Pannekoek differed from many other ultra-lefts by predicting that this revolutionary struggle would be protracted. In a way that was reminiscent of Antonio Gramscis later argument in his Prison Notebooks, Pannekoek contrasted the path followed by the Russian revolution with the likely course of events in West European countries. He expected it to be much slower and more difficult because the bourgeoisie was much more powerful here than in Russia. The roots of that power ran deep, he argued:

They lie in the reign of bourgeois culture over the population as a whole, as well as over the proletariat. Over the span of one hundred years of the bourgeois era, the spiritual life of the bourgeoisie has soaked into all of society, and has created a spiritual structure and discipline which, by way of thousands of channels, penetrated and dominated the masses. This will have to be gradually purged from the proletariat through a long and tenacious struggle.

Pannekoeks ideas went on to play an important role in the development of council communism. As the name suggested, this current favoured the creation of councils (soviets) in which workers would organise themselves, overthrow capitalism, and organise the new, communist society. The council communists rejected not only electoral politics, but trade unions and political parties as well. In their eyes, such organisations stunted the necessary self-activity of the workers.

In his memoirs, written during the German occupation of the Netherlands, Pannekoek recalled that he used to be plagued by doubts about his political views and activism. But these doubts melted away when he suddenly saw the simple answer the workers themselves must decide and take full responsibility. The workers themselves would remake the world if they did not do so, it meant they were not yet ready for the task.

In the Netherlands, a country that lacked a strong revolutionary tradition, council communists were loosely organised in the small Group of International Communists. Strictly adhering to the principle that the workers themselves must be the ones who take action, the group refrained from launching political initiatives and limited itself to hosting discussions and publications.

The view from the observatory

During the earlier debates in the Communist International, the Bolshevik representative Karl Radek had sneered at Pannekoek, describing him as a figure who studied the heavens from his astronomical observatory, not the turmoil of poor, sinful people who are not pure Communists. It was an unfair remark to make about someone who only a few years earlier had been a full-time party worker. However, as time progressed and the revolutionary tide receded, Pannekoeks ideas increasingly became detached from the workers movement.

Radeks criticism of the left communists that their refusal of alliances and compromises would condemn them to empty verbal radicalism proved to be correct. As the 1930s progressed, Pannekoek did not seem to be greatly interested in what workers were actually doing, focusing instead on what he thought they would be forced to do in the future.

Instead of abandoning their supposedly outdated unions and parties, most active workers were still organised through such bodies. Pannekoek expected the working class to unite as the crisis of capitalism deepened after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, but it remained divided along political and national lines.

Pannekoek initially missed the threat of fascism as well and did not take the danger that it posed to left-wing organisations seriously. After all, he considered those parties and unions to be worse than useless brakes on the proletarian struggle.

Three years after the Nazi seizure of power, Pannekoek even claimed that the Nazis had inadvertently aided the workers movement in Germany. Fascism, he wrote had restored the natural class unity of the workers by wiping away unions and left-wing parties outdated things that hinder progress.

He quickly changed his mind and acknowledged that the banning of all workers organisations weakened the working class. However, he could not bring himself to admit what the implications of this point were for his own theories.

Also read: Science as a Cold War Propaganda Tool

Lenins philosophy

In 1938, Pannekoek published one of his best-known books: Lenin as Philosopher. Strictly speaking, it was a critique of one of Lenins own books, 1909s Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. Drawing on his scientific training, Pannekoek demonstrated that Lenin had misrepresented the epistemological views of his philosophical opponent, Ernst Mach.

The conclusions that Pannekoek drew from Lenins interpretation of Marxist materialism in Materialism and Empirio-Criticismwere more important. Pannekoek sought to argue that Lenin had never been a proper Marxist, since Marxism was the theory of the workers struggle against capitalism, but capitalism as such barely existed in Russia.

He insisted that the French and Russian Revolutions were similar processes, brought about by predominantly pre-capitalist socioeconomic conditions. In Pannekoeks view, both were bourgeois revolutions that had paved the way for the development of capitalism.

For Pannekoek, Lenins views were those of bourgeois materialism, and the Bolshevik revolution had nothing to do with Marxism or socialism. Only in the industrially developed West was a revolution along the lines envisaged by Marx possible. The tension between historical determinism and the importance of ideas and action in Pannekoeks ideas now disappeared as determinism became the dominant element.

An unexpected future

In February 1942, two years before he was due to retire, the German occupation regime ousted Pannekoek from his university position in Amsterdam. He spent the war years writing, composing his memoirs in two parts one covered his years in the workers movement, the other described his life as an astronomer.

Pannekoek no longer enjoyed the fame he had once known in the political world, but his renown as an astronomer had grown during the same period. In 1932, he had become a professor at the university. Initially, his work focused on mapping the Milky Way, mapping stars and determining distances. But he was a pioneer in the field of astrophysics as well, applying new insights from physics to the study of the development of stars.

Pannekoek also won recognition for his detailed drawings of the Milky Way, having travelled to Java in 1926 to facilitate this work. He argued that such drawings constituted a superior way of mapping our galaxy when compared to static photographs, as the human mind could synthesise information from a continuous flow of disparate observations.

During the occupation, Pannekoek began writing a book called The Workers Councils, in which he systematised his later political views. Throughout the work, he made claims and predictions that he then quickly played down. Pannekoek held onto his deterministic view of history but admitted that history had not been working out as he predicted so far.

In a conclusion omitted from the English translation of the work, Pannekoek wrote that the working class had essentially ceased to exist as a class during the Second World War. He argued that it no longer had a will to decide whether or not to follow the bourgeoisie, with any sense of class identity having been washed away by the general submission of all classes to the ideology of capital.

What remained was Pannekoeks faith in the unfolding of history. He argued that a new phase of capitalism would wipe away preexisting traditions, opening peoples minds for the direct effects of new realities so that the idea of workers councils could be revived. Again, history was to disappoint Pannekoek. All we have written in these last few years, he lamented shortly before his death in 1960, remained completely unsold and unread.

Pannekoeks Marxism was characterised by a tension between historical determinism and his emphasis on spirit conscious action and commitment. In his later life, he resolved this tension by subordinating the latter to the former, claiming that spirit would inevitably develop in a specific way as the result of economic developments. Pannekoek, who had a tendency to perceive spirit as a thing in its own right, did not recognise that parties and movements could embody the socialist spirit and kept it alive. The real relations that he had written about in 1909 included such organisations.

When workers moved away from socialism, Pannekoek could only explain it as the result of outdated ideas or the influence of bourgeois ideologies. He did not see the ways in which the working class was divided by structures such as imperialism, colonialism and the nation-state. While Pannekoek eventually found himself overtaken by history, his earlier insights into spirit, self-organisation, and the importance of the socialist goal remain valuable contributions to the movement for working-class emancipation.

Alex de Jong is editor of the socialist journal Grenzeloos and an activist in the Netherlands. This article was first published by Jacobin and has been republished here with permission.

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How Astronomer Anton Pannekoek Planned To Storm the Heavens - The Wire Science

Astronomers are Starting to Understand the Quasar Lifecycle – Universe Today

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Supermassive black holes have a complicated lifecycle. Sometimes theyre on, blasting out tremendous amounts of energy, and sometimes theyre off, where they sleep like dragons in their caves. By comparing the proportion of high-energy to low-energy waves emitted by quasars, astronomers are beginning to pin down how many black holes are sleeping, and when theyre likely to wake back up.

Heres how it works. As far as we can tell, every galaxy has a supermassive black hole in its center. When material falls onto this black hole, it compresses and heats up (because the extreme gravity of the black hole is trying to drag a whole bunch of material into a relatively small volume). All that friction drives the release of tons of high-energy radiation, something astronomers call a quasar.

Along with the hard stuff comes radio waves, and we can use radio telescopes like LOFAR (the LOw Frequency ARray) and the WSRT (Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope) to detect them.

But the intense radiation blasts material away from the black hole, and it can no longer feed, so the black hole goes to sleep and the quasar shuts off, along with the radio emission.

Astronomers are trying to understand the overall lifecycle, which can take hundreds of millions of years to play out. They want to know how often quasars light up, how long they burn, and when theyre likely to switch on again.

And using a combination of high-frequency and low-frequency radio waves, theyve got a new tool.

High frequency radio waves quickly lose their energywhile those in the lower frequency do so much more slowly, according to Prof. Dr. Raffaella Morganti, first author of the paperThe best of both worlds: Combining LOFAR and Apertif to derive resolved radio spectral index images.

By using different radio telescopes to observe different frequencies of radio waves, and using the combined data to measure the ratio of high-frequency to low-frequency waves, astronomers can tell how recently a quasar shut off: the less of the high-frequency stuff, the more time has passed since the last feeding event.

From there, astronomers can build up a survey of active quasars, silent ones, and all the rest in between.

While powerful, the technique will require new radio surveys to observe as many galaxies as possible, to build up a proper population census of the black holes in our universe.

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Astronomers are Starting to Understand the Quasar Lifecycle - Universe Today

US Federalism: Definition and Background – The Great Courses Daily News

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By Jennifer Nicoll Victor, Ph.D., George Mason UniversityFederalism was one of the compromises made by the framers of the US Constitution. (Image: Dennis Diatel/Shutterstock)Being an American Citizen

Have you ever noticed that sometimes it seems like youre a citizen of more than one entity? If youre an American citizen, youre a citizen of your state, and you may have a sense of identity, loyalty, or affinity toward the state where you live. And this sense of belonging to a particular state may make it seem distinct from other states, even the neighboring ones with which your state shares a border.

But youre also a citizen of the United States of America and there is a separate set of associations you may make when you think about your identity as an American.

If it seems like there are separate levels of government all around, its because there are. The American system of government is known as federalism.

This is a transcript from the video series Understanding the US Government. Watch it now, on The Great Courses Plus.

Federalism is a system of government where sovereign power is divided between the national government and some other more local governments.

In the case of the United States, this is relatively straightforward. There is the national government made up of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and there are 50 sub-national governments, one in each state.

Sometimes the language used to talk about federalism is confusing because the people use the term federal government when they are referring to components of the national government, like the president or Congress.

However, the term federalism refers to the division of sovereignty between the national government and the sub-governments.

Learn more about the major types of government.

When we say that a unit of government has sovereignty, what is meant is that that unit has the ultimate governing authority.

In a democracy, when we talk about a unit of government having authority, what we often mean is that the people have given their authority to this unit. This may just seem like semantics, but its important for understanding where the source of power comes from in politics.

In a democracy like the United States, the sovereignty comes from the people. There is no god or king who asserts authority by some intrinsic nature and creates laws. Rather, it is the people who develop institutions to which they give power.

In the United States, that power is given to different units. Some authority is given to the states, some to the national or federal government, and some powers are shared between them.

When one thinks about why federalism developed in the United States, it is important to remember the historical context under which the institutions were created.

There was considerable conflict in America at the time the Constitution was written. The framers of the Constitution were arguing over everything from how to select the president, to how to divide representation in Congress, to who would hold the power of taxation.

In almost every instance of conflict, the framers came to a compromise that allowed them to agree on that segment of the Constitution. Federalism was one of these compromises.

Learn more about the concept of civil liberties.

It is important to recognize that the framers did not resolve all of their conflicts. Nor did they come to successful compromises to settle all of their disagreements.

Most notably, the framers did not settle their differences regarding slavery. Instead, the compromises that were put in place to address slavery were done in such a way that the framers could support the Constitution, but without resolving slavery.

For example, to determine how many representatives each state would have in the House of Representatives, they agreed to the 3/5 Compromise which counted each slave as 3/5 of a person for the purposes of counting the population. In this way, this compromise reflects the attitude held by many at the time that slaves were sub-human and deserved no natural rights.

The framers failure to adequately resolve conflicts over slavery is deeply tied to the creation of the federal system that remains in place today.

Because the economies and legal structures of southern states were developed around the practice of slavery, prohibiting slavery at the national level would have significantly impacted those states. Therefore, in an effort to maintain their way of life, the representatives of slave-owning states argued for the necessity of state sovereignty.

The desire of some southerners to preserve the practice of slaveholding explains a great deal about why federalism was so valued.

In the end, to achieve the larger goal of ratifying the Constitution, the framers accepted compromises on slavery and states rights. This trade-off set in place the conditions of political inequality that would lead to the Civil War, nearly 80 years later.

Learn more about congressional elections.

However, the preservation of slavery was not the only reason the United States became a federal system.

There were two other important reasons why the federal system was adopted. One is that federalism allowed government to more readily protect individual liberties. The other is that federalism created a built-in check on the powers of government.

Since many of the early settlers were drawn to the American colonies in search of greater individual liberties, protecting those liberties was very important to the framers of the Constitution.

To ensure these liberties could not be infringed upon by government, the framers sought to formalize their protection, as outlined in the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. They describe all of the things that government cannot do to individuals.

The framers believed that when power is concentrated in a small group of people, it can threaten the liberties of everyone else. This is what the framers thought of as tyranny.

They believed tyranny could happen when a powerful person or small group of people have all of the control and authority, and they strip the rest of the people of their individual liberties.

In the framers minds, one way to prevent this from happening was to give two levels of government the ability to ensure and protect liberty. By setting up a sovereign authority at both the state and national levels, they created two places where government could act to ensure one was not becoming tyrannical over the other.

Federalism is a system of government where sovereign power is divided between the national government and some other more local governments.

To determine how many representatives each state would have in the House of Representatives, the framers of the US Constitution agreed to the 3/5 Compromise which counted each slave as 3/5 of a person for the purposes of counting the population.

The framers of the US Constitution set up a sovereign authority at both the state and national levels, and so created two places where government could act to ensure one did not become tyrannical over the other.

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Drone Federalism Bil Could Be Added to Budget Bill – DRONELIFE – DroneLife

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The Drone Service Providers Alliance (DSPA) warns that drone federalism the idea that states and local government should share control of the airspace could be added to the budget bill under discussion in Congress today. The group is calling on the industry to contact their representatives about the issue.

Republic Senator Mike Lee of Utah introduced a Drone Integration and Zoning Act in 2019 that would have designated all airspace under 200 feet under the jurisdiction of state law. This proposal, which didnt make it out of the Senate and was widely criticized, followed a proposal by Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, known as the Drone Federalism Act. Feinsteins proposal would also have granted states sweeping powers over the airspace.

Now, says the DSPA, Lee appears to be attempting to add a drone federalism segment to the Budget Bill before voting.

Why Drone Federalism is an Issue

These proposals could cause problems for the drone industry, and for the FAA. The FAA claims pre-emption, which means that they regulate all of the airspace in the United States. Thats all of the airspace, down to the ground. Thats a problematic concept for some homeowners, especially in the age of drones: and as its an issue without clear precedent, its one that is likely to be debated for many years to come.

While the FAA has tried through the UAS Integration Pilot Project (IPP) and its next phase, the BEYOND program, to bring state and local governments into the decision-making process, the issue of whether states should be allowed to regulate drones remains. If states are able to gain control over some of the airspace, that could result in a patchwork quilt of drone regulations across the United States and open the door to different fee structures or taxation for use of the airspace.

Drones have become a new battleground issue for politicians from security and privacy fears to private property rights. Its up to the drone industry to educate lawmakers on the issues and potential unforeseen consequences of any regulation being considered.

Miriam McNabb is the Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of JobForDrones, a professional drone services marketplace, and a fascinated observer of the emerging drone industry and the regulatory environment for drones. Miriam has penned over 3,000 articles focused on the commercial drone space and is an international speaker and recognized figure in the industry. Miriam has a degree from the University of Chicago and over 20 years of experience in high tech sales and marketing for new technologies.For drone industry consulting or writing,Email Miriam.

TWITTER:@spaldingbarker

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Drone Federalism Bil Could Be Added to Budget Bill - DRONELIFE - DroneLife

PM Oli clarifies his stance on monarchy and federalism – MyRepublica

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KP Oli who spent years in prison to overthrow the monarchy cant think of reinstating it

KATHMANDU, Feb 5:

Amid widespread speculations that Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli might make a surprise announcement regarding secularism, federalism and monarchy at the mass gathering organized in Kathmandu on Friday, PM Oli chose not to make any controversial statement. Instead, he said that the country would move forward implementing federalism and republicanism in the country.

PM Oli, while addressing the mass gathering organized by his faction of the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) in front of the Narayanhiti Royal Palace Museum on Friday, assured the public that he was not in favour of reinstating monarchy in the country as rumored in the market.

KP Oli, who spent years in prison to overthrow the monarchy, can't think of reinstating it. Well proceed ahead through the effective implementation of the federal democratic republican system, Oli said.

On the occasion, he took his time to laud the efforts made by the local units in the governments fight against COVID-19 pandemic.

Oli, who has been blamed for taking an unconstitutional move through the dissolution of the House of Representatives on December 20 earlier in the last year, said that forthcoming April-May polls will further strengthen democracy in the country. The government has announced elections for April 30 and May 10 later this year. His move, however, has been objected by various political parties including a rival faction of the NCP led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Madhav Kumar Nepal.

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PM Oli clarifies his stance on monarchy and federalism - MyRepublica

Federalism could make Scotland feel like an independent state without the costs of becoming one Professor Marc Weller – The Scotsman

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NewsOpinionColumnistsThe people of Scotland will be given their voice. A referendum on independence will come.

Tuesday, 2nd February 2021, 7:00 am

However, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed that this will only happen once the health emergency is over.

She also committed to holding a legal referendum, likely requiring agreement with Westminster. Given the present position of the Prime Minister on the issue, achieving such agreement may also take some time.

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A gap of at least a year, or more likely two years, between the May elections and a referendum would in any event be useful.

A referendum squeezes a complex and complicated issue into a simple, binary choice: Yes or no to independence. But what is missing thus far is the other side of the equation. What would the alternative to independence be?

A scramble for solutions

The Westminster parties have only just started the process of articulating their answer. The Cabinet Office under Michael Gove is said to have begun studying alternatives. Labour under Sir Keir Starmer has commissioned noted Scot and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown to head a broad consultation on future constitutional arrangements in the UK.

Already some years back, several members of parliament formed a Constitutional Reform Group. This sustained work has resulted in a Private Members Bill on an Act of Union that has had its first reading in the Lords. More recently, a Commons committee on constitutional issues was announced in the Queens speech, although its remit remains unexplained.

It is not clear how these diverse ventures will yield one single, firm proposal that could be offered as an alternative to independence. Then again, most efforts are led by outspoken unionists. Will they really put forward what best meets the needs of the people of Scotland, or will the exercise be seen as a scheme to blunt the momentum towards independence?

Michael Gove and Sir Keir Starmer have indicated that they are willing to consider significant constitutional change in order to tempt Scotland away from independence. In reality, they seem to be merely heading for further devolution. However, the previous promise of devo-max, made in the so-called Pledge of the principal unionist political parties just days before the 2014 Scotland referendum, has devalued that approach.

Few people in Scotland have experienced significant change after 2014. A promise of further devolution is unlikely to inspire a great deal of public support as an alternative to independence. If the unionists want to make a credible case for Remain, they will have to learn to live with the federal option.

The F-word

The word federal was until fairly recently taboo in the British constitutional dictionary. Federalism appeared to be inconsistent with the British constitutional tradition. It was seen as an alien, continental concept, best left to others. Moreover, federalism was taken to be a slippery stepping-stone, legitimising eventual independence.

This latter concern has little meaning where Scotland is concerned. It is already heading for possible independence. Offering a federal solution does not add further legitimacy to the claim to statehood. This entitlement already exists and is not disputed in principle by Westminster. Hence the referendum of 2014.

In truth, a federal alternative to independence is quite inconvenient for both unionists and for those seeking independence alike. A federal option goes against the sense of unionists that things should stay as they are, having proven their value and worth over centuries.

On the other side, a credible federal option would undermine the case for independence favoured by the SNP. If federalism is possible, could it offer the advantages that independence might bring, without running the risk of going it alone in a rather uncertain global environment?

And there are major uncertainties. Could an independent Scotland sustain the present standard of living of its population? The oil-price has sunk dramatically and oil and gas are running out as we are heading towards a zero-carbon world.

Would Scotland standing alone lose out on trade and security, especially if renewed EU membership is uncertain? What about the ability to draw on a far larger, national infrastructure to tackle emergencies like Covid-19?

Posing a reasoned alternative

These are difficult questions that need answering, calmly, objectively and without prejudice. And unionists and the SNP alike owe it to the people of Scotland to consider the federal option as the alternative, to weigh the respective benefits and risks.

Of course, some in Scotland will go for union or independence whatever the arguments, perhaps driven by sentiment. Sentiment is a legitimate source of political choice when confronted with hundreds of years of contested and, for many, painful history between the two nations.

The 2014 referendum has however shown that most in Scotland want to go beyond emotions and consider the actual facts. While the emotional appeal of independence may be high, the economic and political risks of independence may be too significant to be ignored or replaced by simple hope. At least the trade-off, if there is one, needs to be examined in the cool light of day and with a rational, open mind.

This means that a federal alternative has to be, first of all, defined and expressed.

A unique solution for Scotland and Britain

Form follows function in state design. So, the starting point for the people of Scotland is to achieve clarity about their aims, their needs and interests. What, specifically is independence meant to deliver, and what more is required to meet these needs?

Is it the need to give greater expression to Scottish culture and history? Is it the wish to escape perceived economic marginalisation by Westminster, or perhaps the ambition to construct a more equitable and enlightened society? Is it a more visible and independent role in shaping global affairs?

Once these needs have been articulated, a federal option can be designed to meet them. Clearly, finding a federal formula for Britain will be difficult. This is not a case of copying the Canadian, German or Swiss model. A bespoke solution has to be found that is likely to be as unusual as the circumstances that prevail at present in the UK.

Thus far, the UK has developed through devolution. Powers have been gradually handed down to three of the four constituent units of the union. These powers were granted by acts of the UK parliament, which remains the dominant layer of legislative authority. Controversially, devolution can even be reversed unilaterally by the centre, simply through changing the legislation on each of the devolved entities.

Federalism is different. A federal constitution will define the constituent entities and their powers and institutions, along with the remaining authority of the central bodies of the federation. The shape of the federal units is permanent and cannot be changed without their consent.

Federalism as an exercise of sovereignty for Scotland?

There are two types of federation, depending on the founding myth that underpins them. Some federations claim that they came about through the voluntary union of entities that are, in principle, sovereign. They have pooled their sovereignty in certain areas to achieve a limited set of common functions through federal organs. But they retain so-called residual authority over all areas of competence not expressly assigned to the centre in the constitutional compact.

In other cases, it is made clear that sovereignty is held collectively by all the nations and people of the overall state, taken as one. Power is then shared out from the centre to the individual federal units. The legal personality of the constituent units is derived from the centre.

In this case, unionists might point to the Treaty of Union of 1706. The Articles of Union promise that the two kingdoms of Scotland and England shall be united forever after into one kingdom. This would have extinguished the legal identity of Scotland as a source of sovereignty, making its re-emergence as a federal entity dependent on a grant of authority from London.

On the other hand, for many Scots a federal solution would presumably only be acceptable if it visibly revives their proud tradition and heritage, re-consecrating Scottish sovereignty. Joining the new federal system would be taken as an exercise of renewed sovereignty, and not as a denial of the claim to sovereignty. This logic may seem like dancing on the head of pin, but the symbolism involved in this kind of question can make or break the chances for a federal settlement.

Forms of federation

The next issue is the basic shape of the federal system. Ordinarily, a federation is characterised by a number of equal federal units, each having the same powers and institutional furniture. Clearly, that will not be the case in the UK a composite of four nations, each of which has a different history and system of governance.

It is also possible to construct a federation as a so-called federacy. This would mean that the rest of the UK remains more or less untouched, while the status of Scotland is upgraded to that of a federal subject enjoying a unique legal identity of its own.

A third option is that of an asymmetrical federation. This would accept that Wales retains powers and institutions different to those held by, say, Northern Ireland. This is partly due to different histories, traditions and needs. It is also due to the Northern Ireland settlement, which involves the Republic of Ireland.

Moreover, the so-called West Lothian question would finally be addressed. England, too, would become a federal subject, enjoying its own distinct competences and institutions, perhaps giving more expression to its own regions or major cities.

Within such an asymmetric set-up, Scotland could express its identity to a very considerably enhanced extent. It would feel like its own state, without incurring the penalties and costs of setting one up.

More power?

The second major issue arising in federations is competences. Inevitably, there will be exclusive competences exercised by the centre. This may concern defence and national security, border and customs, transport and communications, a national framework for economic development, protection of genuine democracy and human rights, etc.

Then there may be competences shared between the centre and federal units. For instance, the centre may establish a joint framework for educational attainment in schools, while the federal entities will adopt legislation to implement this in their own way.

Finally, in accordance with the key principle of subsidiarity, the competences that can be best exercised within the federal units will be exclusively assigned to them.

The present devolved settlements for each region already contain detailed schedules assigning competences to the different levels of government. It would be useful for Scotland, or the SNP, to articulate clearly what additional powers it seeks to gain through independence. It would then be possible to see whether or not a federal model can accommodate such a demand.

Changing institutions and finance

Third, there is the issue of institutions. This poses few problems for the UK as three of the four regions have their own, highly developed institutional architecture. England would, of course, need to decide whether it wishes to establish its own, dedicated layer of legislature, executive and judiciary.

Of course, a federation is not only about powers of the federal units. A number of central functions and federal institutions will remain.

Where powers are retained by, or transferred to, the centre, the question of power-sharing arises. The weighting of seats in the national parliament might need consideration, to ensure that each region can have a significant voice of its own in relation to matters of national policy.

The more significant change would occur in relation to the House of Lords. In addition to its function as a federal revising chamber, it would assume the role of safe-guarding the rights and interests of the federal units in national decision-making. Its composition would therefore need to reflect the identities of the four federated nations.

Happily, the move to the Supreme Court as an institution separate from the House of Lords makes it easier to ensure that legal disputes between the constitutive units, or between them and the central authorities, can be addressed.

There might also be provision for executive power-sharing, ensuring that all nations are fully and meaningfully represented in government and the national civil service, and can shape common decisions on defence, external relations and other central competences.

Finally, the important question of funding arises. At present, Scotland receives most of its budget in the form of a block grant from Westminster. In a federal system, funding follows function. Central funding would be increased according to the additional competences administered by the federal units. More likely, the federal units would be given their own income by shifting the powers of taxation and raising duties, perhaps supplemented by federal funding.

An element of federal funding would not only be needed to cover central services of the federation. It would also be required to meet unexpected needs of a federal unit, say in case of a natural disaster, and to balance out inequities between the units due to geography or economic development. This balancing function, or safety net, would be lost in case of independence likely a significant loss of Scotland.

Overall, it would be possible to construct a federal solution that takes account of the particular history of Britain while significantly enhancing Scotlands sense of identity and powers as a state within a federal union. However, such a vision needs to be developed and expressed in some detail, before it can be judged against the needs articulated by the people of Scotland, and against the alternative of independence.

Marc Weller is professor of international law and international constitutional studies at the University of Cambridge and a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers

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Federalism could make Scotland feel like an independent state without the costs of becoming one Professor Marc Weller - The Scotsman

Federalism without the Guardian: Ethiopia in the Row – Satenaw Ethiopian News/Breaking News | Your right to know!

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Marew Abebe, Lecturer of Federalism Studies at Debark University, Ethiopia; Contact him via marewobu@gmail.com; ID

Introduction

During the last three decades of federalism experiences in Ethiopia, it was the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF)the ruling government since the inception of the federal system political ideology not the constitution that dictates the countrys federalism promises. The EPRDF party composed of four ethic based parties did follow only centralized decision making and ordered member parties of the coalition to channel its political interest within their respective constituencies. Following the coming of new PM Abyi Ahmed and the dissolution of the EPRDFthat claimed itself as patronage of Ethiopian federalismthe government has struggled to hold the country together.

Federalism by constitution and unitary in practice

In December 2019, EPRDF ceased and was rebranded as the new Prosperity Party with three former parties. The Prosperity Party has also dismantled the old age decentralized decision making and the partys ideology have been challenged and forced to change its top down order to local governments. As the result when the local governments, as the independent administration regions of most federal states, trying to exercise their own constitutional granted rights for their own internal matters shakes the long-held federalism practice in Ethiopia. It becomes risky to the very federal system when the federal government still wants to retain its status quobeing the higher government. This conundrum between the federal and local government was evident when the Tigray region, one of the ten members of the Ethiopian federation, unilaterally decided and held regional elections amidst the pandemic that was postponed by the federal government. The Tigray regions decision of holding election on 9 September 2020 for its State Council in explicit defiance of federal government severely exacerbated the situation and has remained one of the greatest litmus tests to the Ethiopian ethnic based federalism. Later this led to the full scale war between the Ethiopian federal and the Tigray regional governments.

Recently, the vertical federalism arrangement between the federal and regional governments becomes fragile due to the federalism culture not being embedded by constitutionalism but has long been guided by political ideologies and considerations. When parties change and ideologies shift, the very states structure (federalism) is, now, without guardian. This is due the Ethiopian federalism has long been handing on the single party willingness and directives. The intergovernmental situation, the horizontal relationships among regional governments themselves, also deteriorates due to, among other things, border conflicts between regional governments, competitions over scarce resources and competing nationalisms. Moreover, the Ethiopian federalism has not any legal frameworks that would have guided the intergovernmental relations and has not set any common mode of communications, although as a matter of fact Amharic has been used.

Wheare in his 1946 seminal work on Federal Government defined federalism as follows: by the federal principle I mean the method of dividing powers so that the general and regional governments are each, within a sphere, co-ordinate and independent. Thus, in federalism state structure, as opposed to unitary one, there exists a compound polity in which two co-equally supreme levels of governments both acted directly on the citizen through their own law, under a written constitution. Federalism, by its very nature, needs a common written law (constitution) and an observance of it, what is called constitutionalism. This is exactly what the Ethiopian federalism lacks, constitutionalism, as neither the federal nor the states act based on the common covenant document, the Ethiopian federal Constitution. It was arbitrary rule and mere political agreements among and between groups, short of political parties at the expense of the constitutional provisions, rules the country.

According to Berihune Adugna (2020), federalism inEthiopia has operated in a single-party system run by the EPRDF with a blatant disregard of theEthiopian Constitution andofficialrejection of liberal democracy. The Constitution has merely been often cited as a justification for the authoritarian and undemocratic actions of the EPRDF, its leading ideology of revolutionary democracy and the party practice of democratic centralism hasplayed the real constitutional function in practice. Since the introduction of federalism, multi-party democracy, respect for human rights, and constitutionalism have been put aside and given way to the emergence of the EPRDF as the only viable political party in the country. The Ethiopian federalism has been submissive to the short lived political ideologies of a single party. And there were not genuine federalism experiences; rather there was more a unitary state in its practices as the real power comes from the center and from the party.

Generally, after three decades of ethnic federalism experiences, the dominant rhetorical figure in Ethiopian politics is that of ethnicity, which has permeated daily life and overtaken democratic decision-making and shared issue-politics. This overshadowed real federalism exercise in Ethiopia. The regional governments had been accorded nominal decentralized power and the government has developed structures of central control and top-down rule that preclude local initiative and autonomy.

The way outs

This highly combustible mixturea divided political center, an ineffective and ambiguous regional elite, ethnic based federalism, competing nationalism and the liberation struggleis at the root of todays unrest. But how these are to be reconciled and what scope they can have still remains unclear. To quell the masses and to heralded genuine federalism, the government in Ethiopia must work hard to respect for political liberties, human rights and economic equality. Recognizing the fundamental unity, rights and solidarity of all Ethiopians requires positive, constructive attitude and should be based on the umpire constitution.

Marew Abebe

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Federalism is the answer, after all – Part 15 | The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World NewsOpinion The Guardian Nigeria News Nigeria and…

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Against this backdrop, Jonathan who chaired the event called on the National Assembly to factor into the amendment process the yearnings and aspirations of the people. He pointed out some of the pathologies of the Nigerian crisis, namely, nepotism, ethnic and religious differences and lack of patriotism as some of the teething challenges plaguing the country.

He stressed the point that in addressing the contradictions besetting the country the expectations of the people must never be undermined. Beyond redrawing the state architecture to meet the quest for federalism, the former president said that restructuring was two-fold and the second aspect is the restructuring of the mind. According to him, if there is no attitudinal change, whatever the shape and content of the state, the many problems confronting the country would still rear their ugly heads. On this, the former president waxed poetic by a quote of the famous lines of William Shakespeare in his Julius Caesar. In his words,As a country, we have our peculiar challenges and we should devise means of solving them, but we should not continue to vent our spleen on the amalgamationAs Shakespeare in Julius Caesar said, the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves My conviction is that discussion on restructuring will not help except we restructure our minds because some of the challenging issues at the national level still exist at the state and local levels. He likened leadership and nation building as multilayered process but the goal is to builda nation that is conducive for all. He sounded off on the establishment trope of the unity and indivisibility of the country.

The former president was not alone on the restructuring question. The immediate past President General ofOhanaezeNdigbo, John Nnia Nwodo argued that the 1999 constitution upended the foundational structure of the country laid by the founding fathers, namely, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello and Obafemi Awolowo. The blame was placed on the door step of the military, which atomised the federal essentiality of the Nigerian state through constitutionality, i. e. arbitrary rule-making process of the military. While underlining the objective manifestation of the contradictions of the polity, namely, the truncation of the sovereignty of the regions over their resources and domestic security with a consequent decay in all facets of the society, he urged that restructuring should hold before 2023 general elections.Chief Ayo Adebanjo, theAfenifere chieftain and elder statesman followed the same path with Nwodo by a call to return to the 1963 Constitution, which to a great deal was federal and preserved the autonomous spheres of the federating region.

On his part, former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega held the view that the call for restructuring was being driven by incompetent and self-serving leadership, at all tiers of government. Also, the professor of political science noted that the failure of governance to satisfy the needs and aspirations of citizens and the corresponding poverty have been drivers of the clamour for restructuring. He went further to suggest incremental amendment of the constitution rather than going through the process in one fell swoop.

The interlocutors at the Daily Trust Dialogue have spoken well. There are, however, matters arising. Mr. Jonathans take on the unity and indivisibility of the country is a play to the gallery, in both theory and practice. Nations are not permanent entities, and they undergo changes in their dialectical entanglement. But certain variables can make nations to endure, such as its ability to ensure justice for all, a platonic requirement for the polis. To blame Nigerias problems on the mind of its people may be partly right but its smacks of idealism as objective realities influence the minds. The devastating impact of nepotism today and the inability of the government to secure lives and property cannot engender a congenial attitude to the presently constituted Nigerian state.

Also we do not agree with Prof. Jegas position that it is mere inept leadership that is driving the call for restructuring, nor do we agree with his call for piecemeal amendment. The policy output of the dominant ruling elite in Nigerian is hegemonic by design, if not, commonsense would have prevailed to note that a multiethnic entity like Nigeria cannot be dominated by what experts on the state have called state-nation mainstreaming its preferences over the rest nationality. This today is the primary contradiction and cannot be resolved by sheer incremental amendment of the constitution that cannot alter the rotten integument of the present Nigerian state. In the main, this newspaper believes that the most viable alternative to the disintegration of the country is total overhaul of the current state structure to meet the governability attractions of federalism for multi-ethnic nations.

On the whole, the Daily Trust Dialogue on clamour for federalism in the nations capital was indeed a veritable colloquium on the inevitability of restoration of organic federalism we lost to the soldiers of fortune in 1966. There should be more of such significant, civic engagements on what has become an idea whose time has indeed come.

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Federalism is the answer, after all - Part 15 | The Guardian Nigeria News - Nigeria and World NewsOpinion The Guardian Nigeria News Nigeria and...

A tale of two federations and their (mis)handling of the pandemic – iPolitics.ca

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On Monday, Canada hit a dark milestone of over 20,000 deaths from COVID-19. One reason for this disturbing statistic is the intergovernmental finger-pointing 10 months into the pandemic; the ability of Canadian federalism to meet this national crisis continues to be tested.

Theres a sharp contrast between Canada and Australia, also a federal state, in how each country has managed the pandemic. Australia crushed the curve, while Canadas approach has been much less successful. Canadians are justified in asking why.

Despite the challenges of heading a coalition government, Australias Liberal prime minister has navigated the rocky shoals between federal and state governments to implement significant measures including lockdowns affecting businesses, minority groups, and those less advantaged. In contrast, Canadas federal-provincial coordination has been mixed, which may have resulted in higher rates of infection and death than in Australia.

A Canadian consensus to act decisively and co-operatively was evident earlier in the pandemic. Last March, premiers were unanimous in their support of lockdowns. They also publicly supported their public health officials, and mobilized health ministries and procurement authorities. Together, the latter snapped into action, acquiring and distributing personal protective equipment, collaborating, and sharing public-health guidance across jurisdictions. Fluid and dynamic conversations were had at a dizzying and productive pace among leaders from all orders of government in the federation: local, provincial/territorial, federal, and Indigenous. Indigenous governments and leaders managed to attract billions of federal dollars, and to get support from the Canadian Armed Forces. Federalism in Canada was indeed working.

However, by summers end, such informal co-operation between governments began to fray. Canadas Constitution provides few formal mechanisms for national coordination. The Peace, Order and Good Government clause in section 91 of the Constitution Act has been interpreted as giving the federal government emergency powers, but its use is controversial. The federal Emergencies Act would seem tailor-made for this situation (a public-welfare emergency being one of four kinds contemplated by the Act), but the Act requires consultation with the provinces. Provinces were unanimous in opposing its invocation as an intrusion in an area squarely within their jurisdiction under the Constitution Act.

Throughout the fall, COVID infections multiplied. At a meeting of first ministers in December, Ottawa briefed them on its vaccine plans, and shared data on national and regional trends. The provinces and territories decided to use their collective voice to ask Ottawa for more health-transfer money. Meanwhile, Australia was locking down again.

That meeting may be remembered as a low point for Canadian federalism. Clearly, an opportunity for the federation to serve Canadians was missed. Was that really the time for provinces and territories to argue for perennial increases in health-care transfers?

Instead, they could have forged a joint plan of action, with coordinated lockdowns, travel restrictions, and bans timed according to vaccine distribution. Australia has shown that, with vaccines in sight, a hard shutdown to crush the curve is not only tolerable, but popular. Canada got its first shipment of vaccine 10 days after that December meeting.

According to a recent Angus Reid Poll, 51 per cent of Canadians say the No. 1 problem the federal government should be dealing with right now is the pandemic. Thats the highest proportion saying so since the pandemic began. Health care is second on the priority list, at 38 per cent, and the economy is third, at 29 per cent.

In the collective best interest of Canadians, maybe premiers could agree to a coordinated 90-day lockdown (excepting schools). Imagine what the federation could achieve: stabilize vaccine supply and distribution; relieve pressure on hospitals intensive-care units; bend the curve; and limit the spread of the virus and its variants.

After 90 days, the federation could be as effective and strong as Australias.

Stephen Van Dine is the senior vice-president at the Institute on Governance.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the authors alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

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With Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon both posing threats to the Union, federalism is now essential to save the UK Menzies Campbell – The Scotsman

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NewsOpinionColumnistsLess than a week from Boris Johnsons first visit to Scotland of the year, the Union of which he has appointed himself minister has rarely looked in such poor shape.

Tuesday, 2nd February 2021, 4:45 pm

If we are to believe SNP minister Mike Russell, there could be a second Scottish independence referendum legal or not before 2021 grinds to a close, while polling suggests that support for Irish unification has risen. Even in previously staunchly unionist Wales, flickers of separatist sentiment have emerged.

It will take more than a few flying visits from a divisive Prime Minister to restore harmony to our house of four nations. It is time to fix the foundations on which this house stands.

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It is a conventional assumption that, in times of trouble, societies are motivated by cooperation and selflessness. But in the medical, social, and financial crisis which envelops Scotland it would seem otherwise.

Referendum fever

Day-after-day the First Minister uses the podium the virus has given her to take pot shots at the Prime Minister. The divisive political issue which continues to rival coronavirus is that of independence.

This is most readily evidenced by the clamour for a referendum by leaders of the SNP, including the logic-defying notion that one is needed soon whatever the state of the health of the nation or the stage of the recovery.

The idea of a referendum while the scars of the virus remain raw finds little support outside the most fevered of nationalists but so long as that fever infects many of the present SNP leadership, it remains a threat.

If the current First Minister and the Prime Minister will not handle the Union with care, others must rise to the challenge.

The Liberal Democrats argue that, for Scotland and the United Kingdom alike, a partnership with proper separation of powers among the four nations is the most fruitful and stabilising of constitutional settlements. That partnership is best served by federalism.

Post-Cold War settlement is over

Never has there been globally such a period of uncertainty both domestically and abroad.

The United States is seeking to recover from the nationalist excesses of the Trump presidency. China, buoyed up by its continuing economic success and the political and military assertiveness which that allows, pursues worldwide influence like a colonial power. Russia, under the seemingly perpetual reign of Mr Putin, tries to assuage unrest at home with meddling abroad.

Make no mistake, the informal post-Cold War settlement is over. The apparent stability which it brought is fractured and nationalism is on the rise. But in these four nations of ours we have more in common with each other than with any other four nations in the world.

This is a strength to be built upon in an increasingly uncertain environment and neither to be undermined nor squandered.

But Liberal Democrat conviction that the four nations of the United Kingdom are best served by partnership needs constitutional reform to match. The structure of the United Kingdom must reflect the aspirations of all of its people and support the demands of a modern democracy, with particular emphasis on fairness and better internal systems to ensure that government at all levels is transparent and responsive.

UKs broad shoulders

Through the pandemic we have seen what federalism could look like and also why it is essential.

With health protection measures devolved, but with the virus a threat to us all, it has been necessary to cooperate across the four nations with practical measures like protective equipment and vaccination, while allowing variation in the restrictions on our freedoms reflecting the state of the virus in each part of the country.

Meanwhile on the economic front, Scotland has benefited from the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom economy, while still having the ability to design business-support packages tailored to Scottish needs.

Yet there have been unnecessary disagreements which could have been resolved by a formal partnership structure. That is the opportunity that reform presents.

I relish the opportunity to refresh the work I led for the Scottish Liberal Democrats a decade ago. That work shaped the successful reforms that were ultimately delivered through the Smith Commission. Now the task is to reform the United Kingdoms governing architecture to make our country more suited to the modern need.

Our objective is a system of government which allows for the expression of different identities and builds additional influence and strength with co-operation and common purpose; which embraces joint action when necessary and enhances effectiveness; decentralisation of power where practicable and desirable; and which is based on proportionality and subsidiarity.

Only a settlement based on these principles will strengthen our ties with the other nations of the United Kingdom and maintain a Union at peace with itself.

A mood for change

While the Prime Minister seems either content or oblivious to the risk of separatism, we see indications that other parties are sympathetic to our approach and that there is momentum building to reform the United Kingdom.

Under the influence of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Labour are exploring reform once more, which presents an opportunity for our two parties to work together and with others of like mind.

In English cities, regional mayors have fought hard for their communities and held the feet of national politicians to the fire. There is a mood for change consistent with our proposals throughout the United Kingdom.

With Liberal Democrat knowledge and expertise in constitutional reform, we are able to join that effort. We reject the idea that the only choice is between independence and the status quo and will be setting out a coherent and modern alternative for the United Kingdom.

Menzies Campbell is former leader of the Liberal Democrats and former MP for North-East Fife

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With Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon both posing threats to the Union, federalism is now essential to save the UK Menzies Campbell - The Scotsman