COVID-19 Emergency Committee highlights need for response efforts over long term – World Health Organization

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The Emergency Committee on COVID-19, convened by the WHO Director-General under the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR), held its fourth meeting on 31 July. In its statement following the meeting, published today, it expressed appreciation for WHO and partners COVID-19 pandemic response efforts, and highlighted the anticipated lengthy duration of this COVID-19 pandemic, noting the importance of sustained community, national, regional, and global response efforts.

After a full discussion and review of the evidence, the Committee unanimously agreed that the outbreak still constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) and offered this advice toDr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.

Dr Tedros accepted the advice of the Committee and confirmed that the outbreak of COVID-19 continues to constitute a PHEIC. The Director-General declared a PHEICWHOs highest level of alarm under IHRon 30 January at a time when there were fewer than 100 cases and no deaths outside China. He issued the Committees advice to States Parties as Temporary Recommendations under the IHR.

The pandemic is a once-in-a-century health crisis, the effects of which will be felt for decades to come," Dr Tedrostold the Committee in his opening remarks on Friday."Many countries that believed they were past the worst are now grappling with new outbreaks. Some that were less affected in the earliest weeks are now seeing escalating numbers of cases and deaths. And some that had large outbreaks have brought them under control."

The Committee made a range of recommendations to both WHO and State Parties.It advised WHO to continue to mobilize global and regional multilateral organizations and partners for COVID-19 preparedness and response, to support Member States in maintaininghealth services, while accelerating the research and eventual access to diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines.

It advised countries to support these research efforts, including through funding, and to join in efforts to allow equitable allocation of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines by engaging in the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator among other initiatives.

The committee also advised countries to strengthen public health surveillance for case identification andcontact tracing, including in low-resource, vulnerable, or high-risk settings and to maintain essential health services with sufficient funding, supplies, and human resources.

Countries were advised to implement proportionate measures and advice on travel, based on risk assessments, and toreview these measures regularly.

The Committees statement, with further details of the meeting and their recommendations, is available here

A list of the Committee members is available here

The Emergency Committee will be reconvened again within three months or earlier,at the discretion of the Director-General.

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COVID-19 Emergency Committee highlights need for response efforts over long term - World Health Organization

L.A. battles wild mansion parties that could spread COVID-19 – Los Angeles Times

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Television news started showing the images Monday night in prime time: hundreds of people at a mansion on Mullholland Drive, mingling, dancing and showing very little social distancing despite pleas from health officials to avoid social gatherings as COVID-19 continues to spread.

Police responded, but the party kept going. Then, after midnight, shots rang out. One woman died, and four other people were injured.

The Los Angeles Police Department is now investigating what prompted the shooting and is searching for suspects. The incident is the latest in a string of big house parties, many in the Hollywood Hills. Some have turned violent and involved gunfire.

At a time when bars and nightclubs are closed, concern is growing that people are turning to private gatherings, which can heighten the risk of spreading the coronavirus.

Since COVID, theyve moved all the parties to the hills, said Sheila Irani, a member of the Hollywood United Neighborhood Council. The kids are going stir-crazy.

Following the latest party, officials emphasized that the L.A. County Department of Public Health has issued a legally binding health officer order that prohibits gatherings, including parties, during this pandemic in order to protect the health and lives of county residents with violations punishable by fines and/or imprisonment.

And L.A. Councilman David Ryu introduced a motion Wednesday to increase penalties and provide additional enforcement options against property owners who defy city laws or building and safety rules, including the citys 2018 party-house ordinance.

Heres what we know:

What happened with this latest party?

The shooting was reported about 12:45 a.m., hours after Los Angeles police were first called to the home in the 13200 block of Mulholland Drive following numerous complaints from neighbors about the size of the gathering after buses were seen dropping off partygoers.

LAPD Lt. Chris Ramirez said officers found two women and a man suffering from gunshot wounds.

Ramirez said the shooting is considered a gang-related homicide. Social media activity, in part, led detectives to link the shooting to gang activity, he added.

No arrests have been made.

Videos from the mansion posted on social media appear to capture bursts of gunfire.

Arent these types of events dangerous?

Yes. The surge in coronavirus cases that occurred when the state began reopening the economy in May has several causes. But one, officials have said, was people getting back to old routines, such as parties and other social gatherings.

The highest-risk settings are large in-person gatherings where it is difficult for individuals to remain spaced at least 6 feet apart and where face coverings are not worn, L.A. health officials wrote in a statement following the Beverly Crest mansion party.

The consequences of these large parties ripple throughout our entire community because the virus can quickly and easily spread. We must all do our part to slow the spread of this virus so that we may continue on our recovery journey.

With the spike in cases, the state closed bars and indoor dining in many areas.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and others have noted that the age among new infections in California has dropped, and that young people are taking part in risky behavior because they dont think they can get sick.

On Tuesday, California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said the party sounded like a high-risk experience for those who were there and, frankly, for the loved ones that they go home to.

He added that the state depends on its local partners to help ensure compliance with coronavirus-related health orders and that any issues need to be addressed head-on.

I hope that we continue to have our local partners not just saying and reminding people of the message, but enforcing public health orders not just the state public health orders, but the orders at the local level that I know, in L.A. County, are strong as well, Ghaly said.

About 200 people were at the party in the Beverly Crest mansion when police first entered about 7 p.m. Although officers cited and impounded some vehicles that were illegally parked, they did not break up the party even though gatherings of any size are prohibited under Los Angeles Countys coronavirus health order.

When the officers arrived, they did notice large amounts of people on the roadway and vehicles kind of blocking, double-parked and stuff, stacked on the roadway, Ramirez said during a morning media briefing.

At that point, the officers met with the responsible party and security officers at that location. They were able to get their compliance, to help get the people back into the private party, and at the same time, did some enforcement.

What can the city do?

Hollywood Hills parties have been an issue in L.A. for years. Neighbors complain that organizers rent houses for the events and bring in hundreds of paying guests.

In 2018, the Los Angeles City Council approved an ordinance proposed by Ryu, who represents Hollywood Hills, that imposed fines on both party hosts and homeowners.

But the concerns have heightened since the pandemic began.

In May, officers went to a raging house party with more than 100 people that ended when a partygoer accidentally shot himself in the groin.

Rapper Megan Thee Stallion said she suffered gunshot wounds outside a Hollywood Hills mansion in July though an LAPD account of the incident made no mention of her being struck by gunfire and referred only to her suffering a foot injury. The department is continuing to investigate that incident.

And the parties arent confined to the Hollywood Hills.

YouTuber Jake Paul threw a large house party in Calabasas last month. Videos captured from the 23-year-olds July 11 gathering show dozens of young people mixing without masks or social distancing. In the clips, carefree partygoers roll dice and drink, swing from a raised excavator crane and pull a car into the packed lobby of the house.

Mayor Alicia Weintraub criticized the events and said authorities will begin to shut down large gatherings and fine people $100 for not wearing masks.

Its completely unacceptable to be interacting with people like that during this time. People need to be wearing masks, and people need to be keeping their distance. You cant be having parties with over 100 people, she said.

Our numbers are rising, Weintraub added. Younger and younger people in our community are testing positive. Even though a young person might not get really sick, they have the potential to spread it to someone else who could get really sick.

Irani, the Hollywood neighborhood council member, said fines, threats by the city and other sanctions dont seem to deter some property owners.

On Wednesday, Ryu officially proposed implementing additional penalties for scofflaws, such as water and power shutoffs, permit prohibitions or having their certificates of occupancy revoked.

Despite a pandemic that has killed thousands in Los Angeles, some homeowners are choosing to put everyone at risk by renting out their homes to massive house parties, he said in a statement. This is irresponsible bordering on deadly and it must be stopped. Whether it takes shutting off utilities or revoking their permits, we must do what it takes to shut these party houses down.

In a letter to constituents, L.A. Councilman Paul Koretz called on public safety and law enforcement agencies to unequivocally enforce against all illegal house parties.

There is no room for criminal behavior in our neighborhoods or on our streets, he wrote. This isnt politics, people are dying. Neighborhoods are scared. We cannot wait another minute longer.

Koretz, who represents a district stretching from the Westside north to Encino, said he has contacted Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, the LAPD and the city attorney about the dangers of large gatherings at parties.

LAPD Capt. Steve Lurie, who oversees the Hollywood Division, said Garcettis original health directive on social gatherings did not apply to private homes like the Beverly Crest mansion. He said there has been a 25% jump in house party calls in his division in recent months.

The Los Angeles city attorneys office has said homeowners with a history of renting to partygoers could face criminal prosecution and six months in jail.

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L.A. battles wild mansion parties that could spread COVID-19 - Los Angeles Times

Hurricane, Fire, Covid-19: Disasters Expose the Hard Reality of Climate Change – The New York Times

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A low-grade hurricane that is slowly scraping along the East Coast. A wildfire in California that has led to evacuation orders for 8,000 people. And in both places, as well as everywhere between, a pandemic that keeps worsening.

The daily morning briefing from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, usually a dry document full of acronyms and statistics, has begun to resemble the setup for a disaster movie. But rather than a freak occurrence, experts say that the pair of hazards bracketing the country this week offers a preview of life under climate change: a relentless grind of overlapping disasters, major or minor.

The coronavirus pandemic has further exposed flaws in the nations defenses, including weak construction standards in vulnerable areas, underfunded government agencies, and racial and income disparities that put some communities at greater risk. Experts argue that the country must fundamentally rethink how it prepares for similar disasters as the effects of global warming accelerate.

State and local governments already stretched with Covid responses must now stretch even further, said Lisa Anne Hamilton, adaptation program director at the Georgetown Climate Center in Washington. Better planning and preparation are crucial, she added, as the frequency and intensity of disasters increase.

Hurricane Isaias made landfall in the Carolinas on Monday evening, its 75 mile-an-hour winds driving a storm surge as great as five feet. By Tuesday afternoon, downgraded to a tropical storm, Isaias had pushed north to the Mid-Atlantic states and the Northeast. Flash flooding was reported in Pennsylvania, and damaging winds left more than 1.2 million people in New Jersey and New York without power. The storm also spawned tornadoes, including one that killed two people in North Carolina.

Isaias makes nine named storms in the Atlantic so far this year, something that has never before happened this early in the hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. Forecasters had predicted an active season, given warm ocean waters and other conditions, but 2020 is on track to be one of the busiest ever. It follows three years of devastating hurricanes, starting with Hurricane Harvey, Irma and Maria in 2017, then Florence and Michael in 2018 and Dorian in 2019.

Climate change is tough for people to grasp, but attribution studies continue to find its DNA in todays tropical systems, heat waves, droughts and rainstorms, said Marshall Shepherd, a professor of atmospheric sciences and geography at the University of Georgia and director of its atmospheric sciences program.

For hurricanes, warmer oceans provide more energy, making them stronger. And warmer air holds more moisture, so the storms bring more rain.

Updated Aug. 4, 2020

Heres what you need to know about the latest climate change news this week:

Climate change shifts us into an era of sustained elevated risk from extreme weather and climate events, Dr. Shepherd said.

Isaias has captured much of the publics attention, but its far from the only natural disaster facing the country. In Southern California, firefighters were struggling Tuesday to contain a wildfire in the San Bernardino Mountains 80 miles east of Los Angeles. It had spread rapidly in the rugged terrain after first being reported on Friday.

Called the Apple Fire, it has burned 27,000 acres so far, though it remains much smaller than other recent fires in the state. The largest, the Mendocino Complex Fire in 2018, burned nearly half a million acres. The disastrous Camp Fire of 2018, which burned 150,000 acres and killed 85 people, barely makes the Top 20 list.

At a certain point in Californias history, 20,000 acres would have been a pretty big fire, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. However, the warming climate and shifting precipitation patterns have lengthened the states fire season and contributed to an increase in larger fires.

The fires can grow more rapidly in a matter of hours or days as a result of warming that has made vegetation drier and more likely to ignite.

So far there are no reports of casualties from the Apple Fire. But there is concern downwind, in Nevada and other states, as smoke from the wildfire is carried eastward. In Las Vegas, Clark County air-quality officials issued a two-day smoke advisory, urging people with respiratory problems to stay indoors.

Wildfire smoke contains high amounts of soot and other fine particles that can aggravate asthma and other respiratory problems.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, there is heightened concern that the smoke, while not necessarily increasing the rate of infection, can make cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, worse, said Dr. John Balmes, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. There is strong evidence from studies of influenza and other viruses that smoke can increase the risk of deep-lung infections like pneumonia, which occurs in severe cases of Covid-19.

The combination of tropical storms, wildfires and other disasters, coming after months of prior disasters and the struggle to deal with the pandemic, has taken a growing toll on the nations disaster response system. Part of the problem is that more frequent disasters make it harder to recover, according to Samantha Montano, an assistant professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

What makes climate change so insidious is that it alters hazards, like flooding, just enough to turn what otherwise could have been just an emergency into a disaster, and disasters into catastrophes, Dr. Montano said. Not only does this lead to more damage but also traps people in a cycle of recovery.

Coping with that change, she said, means that governments have to spend more money before a storm or wildfire hits, reinforcing homes and infrastructure, rather than just trying to build better afterward. And local emergency departments need increased funding as their jobs expand.

When state and local governments cant keep up with the need, responsibility falls to FEMA. But the agency risks being overwhelmed, according to Brock Long, who was FEMAs administrator during the hurricanes and wildfires of 2017 and 2018.

The current business model for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the expectations placed upon it by the public and Congress, are unrealistic at this point, said Mr. Long, who is now executive chairman of Hagerty Consulting, which advises companies and governments on dealing with disasters.

That toll can be measured in the minutia of FEMAs daily briefings.

Three years ago, before Hurricane Harvey marked the beginning of a string of record natural catastrophes, FEMA was managing 27 major disasters around the country, with a staff of slightly more than 10,000 people. As of Tuesday, the agency was handling about twice as many disasters, not counting its pandemic response in every state and five territories, despite a staff increase of just one-third. And the country has yet to reach peak hurricane season.

In a statement, Lizzie Litzow, FEMAs press secretary, said the agency continues to help states hit by natural disasters.

FEMA is well positioned with thousands of personnel in the field supporting existing operations, thousands more ready to support emergent disaster operations and more personnel joining the agency through virtual onboarding every two weeks, Ms. Litzow said.

But the real solution, Mr. Long said, isnt a bigger FEMA. Rather, local governments have to impose tougher building codes and restrictions in vulnerable areas, which home builders often oppose for fear of increased costs. If cities and towns had better building codes, he said, fewer people would need to evacuate their homes, reducing their exposure to the coronavirus.

Mass evacuation has become a man-made disaster, because we failed to put proper residential codes or building codes in place, Mr. Long said. We have a severe case of hazard amnesia.

Juan Declet-Barreto, a social scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists who works on climate vulnerability, laid part of the blame with President Trump for difficulties in disaster response. The president, he said, has politicized the work of scientific agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Weather Service that Americans rely on to navigate disasters, and has tried to cut their budgets.

They need to be well funded, Dr. Declet-Barreto said. They need to be allowed to do their work.

The twin disasters of climate change and the pandemic have something else in common, he said, in addition to the failures of the Trump administration to respond to them. Both disasters have disproportionately hurt minorities.

We shouldnt be romanticizing some sort of pre-Covid ideal state. We did not live in that, Dr. Declet-Barreto said. These threats that we are living through are going to continue to expose the inequalities that already exist.

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Hurricane, Fire, Covid-19: Disasters Expose the Hard Reality of Climate Change - The New York Times

Americans Fault China for Its Role in the Spread of COVID-19 – Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project

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This analysis focuses on Americans views of China on topics including how the country has handled the coronavirus pandemic, the state of bilateral relations and attitudes about the country more broadly. Pew Research Center has been tracking attitudes toward China since 2005. This report also includes demographic analysis comparing groups with different levels of education, age and political leanings.

For this report, we used data from a nationally representative survey of 1,003 U.S. adults conducted by telephone from June 16 to July 14, 2020.

Here are the questions used for the report, along with responses and survey methodology.

Americans views of China have continued to sour, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Today, 73% of U.S. adults say they have an unfavorable view of the country, up 26 percentage points since 2018. Since March alone, negative views of China have increased 7 points, and there is a widespread sense that China mishandled the initial outbreak and subsequent spread of COVID-19.

Around two-thirds of Americans (64%) say China has done a bad job dealing with the coronavirus outbreak. Around three-quarters (78%) place a great deal or fair amount of the blame for the global spread of the coronavirus on the Chinese governments initial handling of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan.

Faith in President Xi Jinping to do the right thing in world affairs has also deteriorated: 77% have little or no confidence in him, up 6 percentage points since March and 27 points since last year.

More generally, Americans see Sino-U.S. relations in bleak terms. Around seven-in-ten (68%) say current economic ties between the superpowers are in bad shape up 15 percentage points since May 2019, a time in the trade war when tariffs were ramping up. Around one-in-four (26%) also describe China as an enemy of the United States almost double the share who said this when the question was last asked in 2012. Another 57% say China is a competitor of the U.S., while 16% describe it as a partner.

As the U.S. imposes sanctions on Chinese companies and officials over Beijings treatment of Uighurs and other minority groups after originally resisting these actions the American public appears poised to support a tough stance. Around three-quarters (73%) say the U.S. should try to promote human rights in China, even if it harms bilateral economic relations, while 23% say the U.S. should prioritize strengthening economic relations with China at the expense of confronting China on human rights issues.

More Americans also think the U.S. should hold China responsible for the role it played in the outbreak of the coronavirus (50%) than think this should be overlooked in order to maintain strong bilateral economic ties (38%). But, when asked about economic and trade policy toward China, Americans are slightly more likely to prefer pursuing a strong economic relationship (51%) to getting tough on China (46%). Still, more support getting tough on China now than said the same in 2019, when 35% held that view.

While more Americans say the U.S. is the worlds leading economy (52%) than say the same of China (32%), views of U.S. economic superiority declined 7 percentage points over the past four months. And those who see China as economically dominant are less likely to support getting tough on China economically, instead prioritizing building a strong relationship with China on economic issues. They are also less likely to say the U.S. should hold China responsible for its role in the pandemic at the expense of the bilateral economic relationship.

These are among the findings of a new survey by Pew Research Center, conducted June 16 to July 14, 2020, among 1,003 adults in the United States. The survey also finds that while Republicans and Democrats both have negative views of China and are critical of Beijings handling of the coronavirus, this criticism is more prevalent among Republicans. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are significantly more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to have a very unfavorable view of China, to criticize the Chinese governments role in the global pandemic and to want to take a tougher policy approach to the country. (For more on partisan differences in views on China, see Republicans see China more negatively than Democrats, even as criticism rises in both parties.)

Around three-quarters (73%) of Americans have an unfavorable view of China today the most negative reading in the 15 years that Pew Research Center has been measuring these views. This July survey also marks the third survey over the past two years in which unfavorable views of China have reached historic highs. Negative views have increased by 7 percentage points over the last four months alone and have shot up 26 points since 2018.

The percent who say they have a very unfavorable view of China is also at a record high of 42%, having nearly doubled since the spring of 2019, when 23% said the same.

Negative views of China are consistent across education levels. Around seven-in-ten of those who have completed at least a college degree and those who have less schooling voice this opinion. Men and women also differ little in their views of China.

While majorities of every age group now have an unfavorable view of China, Americans ages 50 and older are substantially more negative (81%) than those ages 30 to 49 (71%) or those under 30 (56%). For those ages 50 and older, this represents an increase of 10 percentage points since March.

As has been the case for much of the last 15 years, Republicans continue to hold more unfavorable views of China than Democrats, 83% vs. 68%, respectively. Republicans are also much more likely to say they have a very unfavorable view of China (54%) than Democrats (35%).

In the past four months, negative views toward China among Republicans have increased 11 percentage points. Over the same period of time, unfavorable views among Democrats have increased 6 points, resulting in a 15 point gap between the parties.

Americans are highly critical of the way China has handled the coronavirus outbreak. Around two-thirds (64%) say China has done a bad job, including 43% who say it has done a very bad job. (When a slightly different question was administered online in April and May, 63% of Americans said China was doing only a fair or a poor job dealing with the coronavirus outbreak, including 37% who said it was doing a poor job.)

Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are significantly more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to say China has done a bad job dealing with the coronavirus: 82% vs. 54%, respectively. And they are about twice as likely to think China has done a very bad job (61% vs. 30%). Older people, too, are more critical, with 73% of those ages 50 and older finding fault in Chinas pandemic response, compared with 59% of those 30 to 49 and 54% of those under 30. But education has little relationship to how people think China has handled the novel coronavirus: Around two-thirds of those with and without a college degree say China has not done well in its response.

Around three-quarters of Americans say the Chinese governments initial handling of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan contributed either a great deal (51%) or a fair amount (27%) to the global spread of the virus. Republicans are particularly critical: 73% believe Chinas early handling of the pandemic contributed a great deal to its spread, compared with 38% of Democrats who say the same. Older people, too, are especially likely to lay the blame on China.

Half of Americans think the U.S. should hold China responsible for the role it played in the outbreak of the coronavirus, even if it means worsening economic relations, while 38% think the U.S. should prioritize strong U.S.-China relations, even if it means overlooking any role China played in the outbreak. (The 8% of adults who say the Chinese governments initial handling of the virus is not at all to blame for the global spread of the virus were not asked this foll0w-up question, while 5% expressed no opinion, either to the first or second question.) Republicans and those who lean toward the GOP are about twice as likely (71%) as Democrats and Democratic leaners (37%) to say the U.S. should hold China responsible even at the expense of worse economic relations.

Those who think China has done a poor job handling the outbreak or who fault its role in the viruss global spread are significantly more likely to have negative views of the country. For example, 85% of those who say China had done a poor job handling the COVID-19 pandemic have an unfavorable view of the country, compared with 53% among those who think its doing a good job dealing with the outbreak.

When it comes to the bilateral economic relationship, Americans, by a more than two-to-one margin, say economic ties are bad (68%) rather than good (30%). And a quarter say economic relations are very bad.

While more than half thought economic ties were bad in the spring of 2019, when the question was last posed, this sense has increased by 15 percentage points over the past year. These shifts are visible across the political spectrum. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, who were split nearly evenly last year, a majority (63%) now believe bilateral economic ties are bad, a 15-point increase. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents have also become more negative roughly three-quarters (73%) say ties are bad, up 12 points from a year prior.

And Americans have mixed preferences on how to best shape economic and trade policies with China. Around half say it is more important to build a stronger relationship with China, while 46% place more value on getting tougher with China. In the past year, the share endorsing a tougher stance with China on economic and trade policy has grown by 11 percentage points.

Republicans and Democrats have both shifted their views over the past year in favor of getting tougher on China on economics and trade. Today, roughly two-thirds of Republicans support this position, 12 points higher than in 2019. Democrats, for their part, are 14 points more likely this year to favor getting tough on China, though only a third pick this option over building relations.

In recent months the Chinese government has come under fire on several human rights fronts, including a new national security law in Hong Kong, mass surveillance and detention of ethnic Muslim Uighurs, drastic responses to the coronavirus and mistreatment of Africans in the country.

When asked whether the U.S. should prioritize economic relations with China or promote human rights in China, nearly three-quarters of Americans choose human rights, even if it harms economic relations with China.

Democrats are more likely than Republicans to emphasize human rights over economic gain, though at least seven-in-ten of both groups hold this opinion. Younger and older Americans alike prefer more emphasis on human rights than economic relations when it comes to China. Less than a quarter of all age groups say the U.S. should prioritize economic relations with China, even if it means not addressing human rights issues.

When asked if they see China as a competitor, enemy or partner, a majority of Americans say they see the country as a competitor (57%). This is a significant decline from last time the question was asked in 2012, when 66% said the same. The share of Americans who consider China an enemy has increased by 11 percentage points over the same period, from 15% to 26%. The proportion of Americans who see China as a partner has remained steady at 16%.

The share of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who see China as an enemy has increased 21 percentage points since the question was last asked in 2012. In comparison, there has been an 8 percentage point increase among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, widening the gap between the two parties.

Perceptions of Chinas relationship with the U.S. differ by age. While roughly a quarter of those ages 18 to 29 see China as a partner, only 6% of those 50 and older say the same. Conversely, older Americans are nearly three times as likely as their younger counterparts to see China as an enemy (36% vs. 13%). Americans of all age groups are equally likely to see China as a competitor.

Americans who see Chinas initial handling of the coronavirus outbreak as at least somewhat responsible for the global pandemic are more likely to see China as an enemy.

Since the coronavirus outbreak was declared a pandemic in March, the U.S. unemployment rate has skyrocketed, and the International Monetary Fund predicts the U.S. gross domestic product will shrink in 2020, while the Chinese economy will achieve positive growth. The American publics economic confidence has also declined. While 52% of Americans still see their country as the worlds leading economic power, this is down from 59% in March, an unprecedented high in Pew Research Centers surveys on this question.

The share of Americans who see China as the worlds top economy continues to hold steady at about a third (32%). No more than one-in-ten name either Japan or the European Union as the worlds leading economy (5% and 6%, respectively).

American men are significantly more likely than women to see the U.S. as the worlds top economy. But there are few differences in opinion across different age groups or education levels.

While Republicans views on this question have mostly held steady over the past four months, Democrats have become significantly less likely to see the U.S. as the leading global economy: 54% of Democrats held this opinion in March, compared with 44% today.

When asked how much confidence they have in Chinese President Xi Jinping to do the right thing regarding world affairs, about three-quarters of Americans say they have not too much confidence or no confidence at all (77%). And, for the first time since the question was first asked in 2014, a majority (55%) now say they have no confidence at all in the Chinese president. This is a 10-point increase from March and more than double the share who said so last year.

The low confidence in President Xi is tied to concerns over how China has handled the coronavirus pandemic. Americans who say the Chinese government has done a bad job dealing with the coronavirus outbreak are significantly more likely to have no confidence in Xi (64%) than those who say it has done a good job (39%). The same is also true for those who blame China for the global spread of the virus.

As Xi and Trump discuss execution of the Phase 1 trade agreement, signed in January, Americans views of the bilateral economic relationship also are associated with their opinion of Xi. Those who think Sino-U.S. economic relations are bad are significantly more likely to have no confidence in him (61%) than those who think relations are good (44%).

Americans ages 50 and older are about 20 percentage points more likely than their younger counterparts to have no confidence at all in Xi (62% vs. 40%). And a partisan divide in evaluations of Xi has reemerged. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are now 10 points more likely than their Democratic counterparts to have no confidence at all in Xi. In comparison, partisans were equally likely to lack confidence in the Chinese leader in March, as well as in 2019 and 2018.

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Americans Fault China for Its Role in the Spread of COVID-19 - Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project

Something Is Missing from Bronx Zoo’s Apology – Discovery Institute

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Photo: Bronx Zoo, Monkey House, by Antigng / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0).

Better late than never, the Bronx Zoo yesterday apologized for imprisoning an African Pygmy, Ota Benga, as a display in its Monkey House in 1906. They left something out, though. But first, why did they choose this moment? From Fox News:

The chief executive of the [Wildlife Conservation Society], Cristin Samper, told the [New York] Times that the group had started digging into its history because of its 125th anniversary this year. Samper said that process, combined with conversations about racial injustice sweeping the country after the police killing of George Floyd, prompted the apology.

Did the impact of the multiple awards-winning documentary Human Zoos, by Discovery Institutes John West, now with 2.5 million views and powerfully documenting the horrific episode and others like it, play any role? They dont say. Were supposed to believe it was sheer coincidence, the 125th anniversary of the zoos opening combined with Black Lives Matter protests, that prompted them to start digging into the zoos history.

Well, fine. Let them save a bit of face. Its commendable, too, that they admit the role of pseudoscientific racism and eugenics in the story of Ota Benga, his humiliation and dehumanization. From the zoos statement:

Specifically, we denounce the eugenics-based, pseudoscientific racism, writings, and philosophies advanced by many people during that era, including two of our founders, Madison Grant and Henry Fairfield Osborn, Sr. Excerpts from Grants book The Passing of the Great Race (with a preface by Osborn), were included in a defense exhibit for one of the defendants in the Nuremberg trials. Grant and Osborn were likewise among the founders of the American Eugenics Society in 1926.

Whats missing, and its not fine, is any mention of where these evil ideas came from. What was the nature, the content, of the pseudoscientific racism that motivated Ota Bengas treatment? To be accurate, the racism wasnt eugenics-based it was evolution-based. That is left out.

For a candid and shocking treatment, I suggest watching Human Zoos.

Imprisoning and displaying an African man in a zoo was not an experiment in eugenics, although that phony science was in vogue at the time at the institutions of higher learning where today woke students and faculty lecture the country about its systemic racism. One human zoo, at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle, featured a display of supposedly primitive native people from the Philippines, the Igorot. The 1909 Exposition grounds became the campus of the University of Washington, from which professor and white fragility expert Robin DiAngelo now holds forth. Background like this never seems to make the cut.

The truth is that placing a man in the Monkey House was intended as an education for the public in Darwinian evolution. As John West has said, Ota Benga was only one of thousands of indigenous peoples who were put on display in America in the name of Darwinian evolution.

Though its article yesterday forgets to mention it (Racist Incident from Bronx Zoos Past Draws Apology), the New York Times understood that clearly in 1906. Brushing aside protests from black clergymen that the African should be given an education not put in the cage, the newspaper explained:

The suggestion that Benga should be placed in a school instead of a cage ignores the high probability that school would be a place of torture to him and one from which he could draw no advantage whatever. The idea that men are all much alike except as they have had or lacked opportunities for getting an education out of books is now far out of date.

In other words, Listen to the science! In fact, racial hierarchy was hailed as solid science at the time. The Times continued,

[T]he reverend colored brothers should be told that evolution, in one form or another, is now taught in the textbooks of all the schools, that it is no more debatable than the multiplication table.

The New York Times remains as haughty and scolding as it was 114 years ago. But they were right that evolution was (and is) taught in the textbooks of all the schools, as if it were as unquestionable as the multiplication table. The high school textbook at the center of the Scopes Trial in 1925, Civic Biology, informed students about the ranking of the human races, with the Ethiopian or negro type at the bottom, as a straightforward conclusion of evolutionary science.

Facing up to history, not tearing it down or hiding from its lessons, is necessary and healthy. The Bronx Zoo has gone a step in that direction, but not the whole way. They still shy from laying a hand on Darwinian theory. That would be going too far. The New York Times, in examining its own part in the same story, hasnt even taken a step.

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Something Is Missing from Bronx Zoo's Apology - Discovery Institute

‘Tesla’: Release date, plot, cast, and all you need to know about Ethan Hawke-starrer biopic of the visionary – MEAWW

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While Nikola Tesla may not have gotten his due in his lifetime often being overshadowed by Thomas Edison's marketing skills the genius inventor is now being paid homage in many different ways. There's Elon Musk's company, Tesla, there's Christopher Nolan's own version of Tesla in his film, 'The Prestige', and now a new film will feature the futurist at the front and center with Ethan Hawke set to play him in the eponymously named 'Tesla'.

Tesla's antagonism with Edison may be well known but 'Tesla' is set to give you a whole other look at the inventors. There's one detail that's explored in the film that no one else talks about, one that makes Nikola Tesla a less ideal hero. Read on to know more about the film.

'Tesla' will be available to rent on virtual theatres on Friday, August 21, including here.

The official synopsis for the movie states: "Brilliant, visionary Nikola Tesla fights an uphill battle to bring his revolutionary electrical system to fruition, then faces thornier challenges with his new system for worldwide wireless energy. The film tracks Teslas uneasy interactions with his fellow inventor Thomas Edison and his patron George Westinghouse. Another thread traces Teslas sidewinding courtship of financial titan JP Morgan, whose daughter Anne takes a more than casual interest in the inventor. Anne analyzes and presents the story as it unfolds, offering a distinctly modern voice to this scientific period drama which, like its subject, defies convention."

The detail that the film includes is that Nikola Tesla believed in eugenics and wrote in 1935, "The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains." Eugenics grew less popular after the Nazis' interest in it during World War II but has been making a resurgence of late.

Ethan Hawke

Ethan Hawke is an award-winning actor best known for his roles in 'Dead Poets Society', 'Before Sunset', 'Boyhood', 'Training Day', and more. In 'Tesla', he plays the role of Nikola Tesla.

Kyle MacLachlan

Kyle MacLachlan is an actor best known for his roles in 'Twin Peaks', 'Showgirls', 'How I Met Your Mother', and 'Agents of SHIELD'. He plays the role of Thomas Edison.

Eve Hewson

Eve Hewson is an Irish actress known for her roles in 'The Luminaries', 'The Knick', and 'Bridge of Spies'. She plays the role of Anne Morgan.

Jim Gaffigan

Jim Gaffigan is an actor and comedian known for his roles in 'The Jim Gaffigan Show', 'Bob's Burgers', and 'That 70's Show'. He plays the role of Tesla's patron,George Westinghouse.

The movie also stars Donnie Keshawarz as JP Morgan, Blake DeLong as William Kemmler, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Szigeti, and Josh Hamilton as Robert Underwood Johnson.

Michael Almereyda

Michael Almereyda is a director, screenwriter and film producer known for 'Hamlet' (starring Ethan Hawke), 'Experimenter', and 'Cymbeline'. He directed and co-produced 'Tesla'.

'The Prestige'

'The Promised Land'

'The Current War'

'Ford v Ferrari'

'The Imitation Game'

See the article here:

'Tesla': Release date, plot, cast, and all you need to know about Ethan Hawke-starrer biopic of the visionary - MEAWW

Excerpt: From the Translators Note to Rumi; A New Collection Selected and Translated by Farrukh Dh… – Hindustan Times

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Excerpt: From the Translators Note to Rumi; A New Collection Selected and Translated by Farrukh Dh... - Hindustan Times

Chulayarnnon Siriphol on Finding Ways to Express Opinions – Ocula Magazine

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The gaze in Hua-Lam-Pong is inconspicuous. The viewer's perspective takes on Siriphol's crouched view, unseen by his subject. That same angle appears in parts of Sleeping Beauty (2006), a portrait of the artist's elderly grandmother, which Siriphol made as a film student at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, where he started making experimental short films that blurred the boundaries between fiction and documentary.

In these early years, the artist's ability to move from moments of pathos to subversive wit became somewhat of a hallmark. In the comedy Golden Sand House (2005), Siriphol's family reality becomes enmeshed with a popular Thai soap opera, while his thesis film Danger (2008) is a standard murder mystery created in accordance to the dictates of his teachers, which was re-cut after he graduated, interjecting the film with text echoing his teachers' instructions and concluding with a burning self-portrait. To quote Kong Rithdee, 'It was a mockery of himself and of the system.'[1]

Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Danger (2008) (still). Courtesy the artist.

Much of Siriphol's work is reflective of the post-2006 landscape in Thailand, following a military coup that deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Planetarium (2018) is a short film about a cultish military regime run by a dolled-up matron dressed in regimental pink, who controls an army of cadets with a smartphone. The work formed one fourth of the 'Ten Years Thailand' anthology, an official selection at Cannes Film Festival in 2018, which also featured shorts by Aditya Assarat, Wisit Sasanatieng, and 2010 Palme d'Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul, whom Siriphol cites as a key influence in showing him the possibilities of film.

'Ten Years Thailand' was based on the 2015 dystopian science fiction anthology 'Ten Years', which imagined life in Hong Kong in 2025 (and whose ban in China must extend into the city by now). 'Acquiescence and hopelessness prevails' in 'Ten Years Thailand', writes Maggie Lee in Variety, 'exacerbated by an undercurrent of distrust and hostility.'[2]

Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Planetarium (2018) (still). Courtesy the artist.

Motifs in Planetarium link to other Siriphol works. The snail gel that splashes across the faces of the regime is featured in Golden Spiral (2018), which explores the deeper desires behind an anti-aging beauty craze. The planking figures diverging from a public standing to attention first appeared in Planking (2012), a reference to a memetic social media craze in which people basically mimic a plank of wood, with Siriphol and a friend laying prone as the national anthem plays in different public settings.

Pyramids made from light tubes are central to Myth of Modernity (2014), a mockumentary connecting the Buddhist 'three worlds' cosmology that centres around Mount Meru, whose form appears in conical and pyramidal shapes in ancient and modern Thai architecture, with the contemporary Thai politics. What connects all these works is an interrogation of ideological and political doctrines in order to unmask their dangerous absurdities.

Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Golden Spiral (2018). Video installation. Sound, colour. 18 min. Courtesy the artist and Ghost Foundation. Photo: Miti Ruangkritya.

Siriphol's latest exhibition at Bangkok CityCity Gallery, Give Us A Little More Time (21 June9 August 2020), was selected for the Discoveries sector at the cancelled 2020 Art Basel in Hong Kong. Four video screens dramatically installed like a giant scroll that rolls down the gallery's back wall and onto the floor host an intricate web of images: collages the artist created out of Thai newspaper clippings every day since the May 2014 coup, when the military junta seized power (again).

The artist describes Give Us A Little More Time as a virtual war between military, protesters, artists, and cyber warriors'a manifestation of disparate ontologies of media, and how the sense of the worlds is being made through different views.' In this conversation, he discusses the work's construction, connecting its themes with his broader practice.

Exhibition view: Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Give Us A Little More Time, Bangkok CityCity Gallery, Bangkok (21 June9 August 2020). Courtesy the artist and Bangkok CityCity Gallery.

CSOn 22 May 2014, the Thai military took power from the elected government in order to 'solve' the problems and conflicts among Thai people, and started controlling media outlets, including television and newspapers.

As an artist, I thought about how I should respond to this unstable political situation. The day after the coup, I went to protest the military government. When I read the news on social media and in the papers the next day, I found that the newspapers didn't present the news as I experienced it. So I started to create a collage from newspapers in response to the situation and vowed to keep making these collages until national election day. For me, newspapers communicate information in the same top-down manner as the military. By using scissors to create the collages, I positioned myself as a citizen cutting the power of the military, just as the coup represents scissors for the military government.

Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Give Us A Little More Time (2020). Four-channel animation video, sound, colour. 12 min. Edition of 3 + 1AP 2020 Chulayarnnon Siriphol. Courtesy the artist and Bangkok CityCity Gallery.

The title, Give Us A Little More Time, comes from the lyrics of the propaganda song that was created after the coup. The full lyrics are, 'We will keep our promise, give us a little more time', which relates to the military government's promise to restore happiness to the Thai people. Over the years, I have learned that the military government is very powerful, and the power of the people is minimal. Elections were announced every year, but that day was always postponed, until 24 March 2019, when there was finally a national election. In total, I created 1,768 collages, representing 1,768 daysalmost five yearswhen Thailand was under a military government. Sadly, the election was neither free nor fair, and the military government won.

CSNowadays, communication has shifted from print to digital media, and physical presence is not really necessary anymore. It's not only newspapers or magazines that have shifted to digital, but people, too. From the tracking of people's activity on social media and the use of popular hashtags to mobilise political change, digital media is the new battlefield of information between governments, corporations, and people. But how should people respond to the control of this information?

In response to these shifts in the world of communication, I decided to transfer my collages into the digital format. I selected some from my archive of 1,768 collages and re-collaged them as animations, which gave them a new spirit.

Exhibition view: Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Give Us A Little More Time, Bangkok CityCity Gallery, Bangkok (21 June9 August 2020). Courtesy the artist and Bangkok CityCity Gallery.

In the exhibition space, this animation is presented as a four-channel video installation with eight speakers. Each screen shows the same animation, but delayed by five seconds. Audiences can see the past, present, and future at the same time, as if we are in an echo chamber or scrolling through social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram, where there is a repetition of information. Audiences can walk through the installation, so that it feels as if the information is floating in space, overwhelming them like the dust of a great war. The experience of video art in the physical exhibition space is still important, because we cannot appreciate this experience online.

The last part of the animation is a virtual time tunnel, which was created through repetition of the animation itself. The work refers to my previous video series, 'Black Hole' (2015), which consisted of a site-specific video installation presented in many places, including Chulalongkorn University, for the exhibition Through the Place and Image (17 August10 October 2015), and at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre for the 20th Thai Short Film and Video Festival in 2016. In those videos, which were made specifically for those locations, I created fictional spaces resembling endless holes.

Chulayarnnon Siriphol, 'Black Hole' (2015). Courtesy the artist.

CSAfter I finished all 1,768 collages, I looked for certain words and sentences in them and created a poem. The poem presents a narrative that is not directly related to the political situation in those five years, but relates to a pixel that can transform into many characters that fight each other in an ongoing war of media and time. These characters are based on people in the physical world: a 'war veteran', 'proliferating reptile', 'scum-of-the-land artist', 'cyber warrior', and 'idol of light'. The 'proliferating reptile' is a political prisoner whose political ideologies can expand rapidly without control.

For the animation, I invited actors and actresses who have worked with me in previous video works and short films to create the voice-overs for each of these characters, and the text from the newspaper collages are synchronised with the voice-overs in the animation.

Exhibition view: Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Give Us A Little More Time, Bangkok CityCity Gallery, Bangkok (21 June9 August 2020). Courtesy the artist and Bangkok CityCity Gallery.

CSI am interested in religious or ritualistic sounds that can elevate viewers to a feeling of sublimation, as if they are floating in space. The sound elements in many of my works create a spiritual sound, like chanting. I don't use human voices. For Planetarium, I worked with sound designer Viveka, to refer to futuristic electronic sounds of the 1980s. For Give Us A Little More Time, I worked with another sound designer, Marmosets, who creates electronic music for night clubs. These sound designs make connections between the past and future, and human and universal spirit.

Exhibition view: Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Give Us A Little More Time, Bangkok CityCity Gallery, Bangkok (21 June9 August 2020). Courtesy the artist and Bangkok CityCity Gallery.

CSElectricity is a symbol of modernisation. On the other hand, light is a symbol of enlightenment or faith in many religions, including Buddhism. Nowadays, most Thai people are still influenced by Buddhism. For me, Buddhism in Thailand has changed and adapted to fit modernisation and globalisation, so I use electric light to symbolise modern Buddhism.

In my works this light takes a geometric, graphic form. In Myth of Modernity, for example, I transformed traditional forms from Buddhism such as the pagoda, palace, and temple, into a simple, pyramid shape. In Planetarium, I transformed many Buddhist symbols into graphic windmills to create a scientific universe based on ancient Buddhist cosmology.

I am interested in religious or ritualistic sounds that can elevate viewers to a feeling of sublimation, as if they are floating in space.

In Give Us A Little More Time, the 'idol of light' character is represented as a cult figure in Thailand. On the faade of Bangkok CityCity Gallery, I placed a huge windmill from Planetarium, which appears like a huge clock expressing endless time. It has the spiritual power of a big brother figure, floating in space, making an offer that we can't refuse.

These light sculptures create a visual connection between my works, representing cults, supernaturalism, and Buddhist faith in modern Thai society, which holds an invisible and untouchable power. Although it looks colourful, energetic, and fascinating, it is also powerful, harmful, and dangerous. Faith can transform to rancour. In Planetarium, the colourful windmill transforms into a killing machine that cuts humans into pieces.

Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Planetarium (2018) (still). Courtesy the artist.

CSI don't define myself as an activist artist, but as an artist who focuses on politics. For me, art should be presented in public, to enable debate of contemporary issues. Give Us A Little More Time confronts the idea of a utopian democracy. In the digital collage that I put forward, physical media, absolute power, and the physical body have been cut, deconstructed, and decentralised.

I see the political conflict in Thailand as a battle for absolute and centralised power. We had a big debate about democracy for 88 years until the revolution in 1932, when Thailand changed from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. Since then, we have had many political crises, protests, and movements against dictatorships. Many people have died fighting for democracy, yet it has not yet been fully achieved. The coup d'tat on 22 May 2014 marked the 13th since the revolution in 1932, and once more, the voice of the people was silenced.

I don't define myself as an activist artist, but as an artist who focuses on politics.

Totalitarianism has been very present in this country. The military would like to shape Thailand as conservative and nationalist on every level, in order to maintain a concept of authentic 'Thai-ness'. This means that they want to freeze Thailand as a beautiful, peaceful country as pictured in tourist postcards, where there is no conflict, debates, protests, or progress. We have limited freedom of speech under the lse-majest law, with nation, religion, and the monarchy the core values that are being preserved. In the age of the internet, young people represent a new hope to liberate the country from these conditions.

Exhibition view: Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Give Us A Little More Time, Bangkok CityCity Gallery, Bangkok (21 June9 August 2020). Courtesy the artist and Bangkok CityCity Gallery.

CSAlthough my artworks are related to Thailand, the world is now so connected. We cannot say that Thailand is not related to other countries. In my artworks, I talk about conflicts in Thailand, but I also generalise those conflicts for international audiences in order to find the connection between the local and the global.

In Planetarium, I present a dystopic vision of Thailand in the next ten years, but to some maybe it looks like a utopia. The story is set in a school under the Ministry of Communication, where boys are trained to be cyber boy scouts or cyber warriors, and can legally kidnap people who have a radical political attitude. Those who are kidnapped are brainwashed and killed in the virtual universe, and the boy scouts are blessed as good guys despite these killings.

In my artworks, I talk about conflicts in Thailand, but I also generalise those conflicts for international audiences in order to find the connection...

The story of Planetarium can apply to the current and future Thai political situation, yet it can also apply to international themes of propaganda, digital surveillance, and brainwashing through education, revisionist histories, and belief in supernaturalism. We can see these themes in the politics of many countries. Recently, we have seen a movement of shared politics called the Milk Tea Alliance between China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Thailand, expressed through sarcastic memes that speak against authoritarianism on social media.

But in my works, I don't talk about politics in these specific countries directly; I use the political situation in Thailand as a platform to connect with international audiences on these common themes.

Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Planetarium (2018) (still). Courtesy the artist.

CSCentre of the Universe is a video work projected on the floor, which starts by showing Thai people wearing yellow shirts, picnicking and waiting to worship and celebrate on the King's birthday in the centre of Bangkok. The image moves upward, from the ground to the universe, which transforms into an image of modern Buddhist cosmology.

Charles and Ray Eames' Power of Ten shows that we occupy a very small place in the universe, but at the same time, we are the universe. The film reflects on the relationship between human life and cosmology. Centre of the Universe is not only about cosmology, but the relationship between contemporary life and ancient Buddhist beliefs. This is the link between local and global. We are in the same universe, but we share different visions.

Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Centre of the Universe (2017) (still). Courtesy the artist.

One of the biggest problems for me is how international audiences can appreciate my works. Looking back at the history of moving images, there are many filmmakers and artists whose work I admire. When I was in high school, I was inspired by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's early works. His films are very mysterious, sarcastic, and romantic at the same time. I also like the film Talk to Her by Pedro Almodvar. Shji Terayama's film, Pastoral: To Die in the Country, and Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain still inspire me. These are all artists and filmmakers who have created unique visual languages and ideas on an international platform.

I like many of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's films and video worksthey are pioneering of a new film language. Weerasethakul was already a successful artist and filmmaker when I started making films in early the 2000s. Though his films are not popular among the masses, they are famous among film students and film lovers.

This is the link between local and global. We are in the same universe, but we share different visions.

The success of Thai independent filmmakers internationally inspired many groups and movements to produce independent films, and I was one of them. Through analysing their films, I learn how to transform local content into global content through film language. A curator has said that we, as young independent filmmakers, originated in the post-Weerasethakul age, which I agree with, though I have different experiences and come from a different background. I can learn from successful filmmakers, but I also have to create a new film language of my own to talk with international audiences.

Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Myth of Modernity_ (2014) (still). Courtesy the artist.

CSIn the world of moving images, there are many different forms, including fiction, documentary, experimental, animation, advertisement, and music video; materials, including celluloid film, magnetic tape, and digital; and genres, such as romantic, drama, comedy, and thriller. Recently, moving images have expanded to social media. We can see people broadcasting themselves or creating their own content. In recent years, we have also seen virtual and augmented reality.

Moving images are slowly expanding their boundaries; they are present in our daily lives, providing new tools of expression and constructing new realities and languages. In many of my works, I mix different forms and materials to represent this reality, and to show the illusion of moving images at the same time.

Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Myth of Modernity (2014) (still). Courtesy the artist.

When I learned about history in school, I believed it constituted historical facts. Growing up, however, I developed questions on how history is established. I tried to get more information from underground books, through talking with friends, and reading shared comments on the internet. I found out that the history I learned is only one side of history, or so-called propaganda.

In the age of the internet, information has been cracked down on but hidden histories have also been revealed. As an artist, I feel a duty to express personal feelings and opinions on public issues through my works. For example, Myth of Modernity questions the contemporary political ideology of conservative nationalists and Buddhist fundamentalism through the form of documentary and science fiction.

Moving images are slowly expanding their boundaries; they are present in our daily lives, providing new tools of expression and constructing new realities and languages.

In Give Us A Little More Time, I deconstruct traditional media in the age of the internet, and in particular during a time of totalitarian power. Since I cannot present my political ideology directly in the work, due to law and censorship, I have to find ways to express my opinion, and one tool that I always use is parody, which blends truth and fiction together to go beyond censorship. I can hide what I really think behind laughter or colourful visuals. In that sense, many parts of my works are realist, but also uncanny and absurd. Magical realism may be a good term to define the works in this contemporary political situation.

Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Planetarium (2018) (still). Courtesy the artist.

CSTV soap operas are part of Thai popular culture. Sometimes, the characteristics of soap operas come out in real life, and we cannot define the boundary between reality and fiction. In 2005, I asked my family to perform each one of the characters in the famous Thai novel and soap opera, Golden Sand House. I also performed as one of the characters.

Golden Sand House is a novel by Ko Surangkhanang about a new maid who starts working for an elite family. The maid is pressured to work too hard but surprisingly, at the end, she falls in love with the house's owner. I adapted this novel so that every member of my family performed each character, and the maid was performed by my family's maid, who belongs to the Tai Yai ethnic group, from Myanmar. The house's owner was played by my father, and I performed a handicapped boy in a wheelchair. This short film reflects on social classes and the migration of people around Thailand, who transform themselves to be workers in the big city.

Since I cannot present my political ideology directly in the work, due to law and censorship, I have to find ways to express my opinion

Thirteen years later, in 2018, I adapted another novel: a famous tragic love story called Behind the Painting, about a young Thai student, Nopphon, who studies in Japan and encounters an elite Thai lady called Kirati, who is already married to an old man. Their love cannot be realised because of age, class, and political ideology, and Kirati finally dies because her love for Nopphon cannot come true. The novel was written by Sri Burapha in 1937, before World War II and five years after Thailand had changed from an absolute to constitutional monarchy. In Thailand, the novel is represented as a tragic love story, but I wanted to re-present it in the context of political history.

Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Forget Me Not film poster (2017). Watercolour on paper. 111 x 76 cm. Courtesy the artist.

I started remaking Behind the Painting as a film at Aomori Contemporary Art Center in Japan in 2014 as part of the group exhibition, Politics of Humor and Play, where I completed the first half of the novel. Then, in 2015, I completed the second half of the novel in Thailand and presented the two parts as a solo exhibition, Behind the Painting at Silpakorn University in Bangkok.

In 2017, I created a fictional museum at Bangkok CityCity Gallery for the show Museum of Kirati. This 'museum' was founded by Nopphon in honour of Kirati. Although this exhibition was created by me, it appeared as a real museum, composed of a temporary exhibition, permanent collection, museum shop, and library. On the last day of the exhibition, I screened the feature film Forget Me Not, composed of a remake of Behind the Painting, based on the original novel and set in Japan and Thailand in the first half, with an extension of the original story in the second half. This film explored the blurred boundary between visual art and film.

Exhibition view: Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Museum of Kirati, Bangkok CityCity Gallery, Bangkok (11 November 201721 January 2018). Courtesy the artist and Bangkok CityCity Gallery.

CSFor me, visual art is experienced in physical space, whereas film is a time-based experience presented on screen. In Forget Me Not, I used my solo exhibitions at Silpakorn University and Bangkok CityCity Gallery as the locations in the film, to create an expanded cinema where film and physical space are connected with the audience and other art objects.

My physical artworks can be transformed into films, while the physical space can be transformed into time-based space, film, or another physical space, as was the case with the gallery-turned-fictional museum. The physical space can also be transformed into digital space. Moreover, thinking about my body as a container or a kind of hardware, it can also be transformed into a fictional character. The performer in this sense is a kind of worker who transforms invisible energy into a visible artwork.[O]

[1] Kong Rithdee, 'The (sur)real world', Bangkok Post, 11 March 2015, https://www.bangkokpost.com/life/arts-and-entertainment/493988/the-sur-real-world.

[2] Maggie Lee, 'Film Review: "Ten Years Thailand"', Variety, 17 May 2018 https://variety.com/2018/film/asia/ten-years-thailand-review-1202807160/.

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Chulayarnnon Siriphol on Finding Ways to Express Opinions - Ocula Magazine

‘History will judge us’ Have progressive UK rabbis reached end of the road on Israel? – Mondoweiss

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Progressive rabbis in the UK havewritten to the Israeli embassy in Londonto express their concern over the Israeli governments plans to annex parts of the West Bank. The letter has been sent fromBritish Friends of Rabbis for Human Rights, an organisation which supports the work of Rabbis for Human Rights working in Israel and the West Bank. It draws its members from both Progressive (Reform and Liberal) as well as Masorti and Orthodox rabbis. However, the forty signatories to this latest statement are dominated by Reform and Liberal rabbis, including the outgoing Reform senior rabbi, Laura Janner-Klausner, and former Liberal senior rabbi, Danny Rich, whose communities make up around 20% of UK Jewish synagogue membership.

Theanti-annexation letterreads powerfully and asks rhetorically:

If Judaism teaches us not to oppress, not to disenfranchise, not to stand idly by the blood of our neighbour, then where do we all stand?

Its a stronger statement than you would find being made formally by the Reform or Liberal movements themselves, so in practive its an outlet for the rabbis to speak out as individuals rather than representatives of the organisations which employ them. That reflects the hypersensitivity, professional risk, and fraught communal politics generated by Israel.

The wording of the letter is significant in what it reveals about the condition of Progressive rabbinical thought on Israel. But before diving into the exegesis, let me offer some personal history on Reform Judaism.

I grew up in the Reform synagogue movement in the UK and it remains my spiritual home. I use the Reform Judaism prayer book to welcome in the sabbath with my family each Friday night, and during lockdown Ive been following the services conducted via Zoom fromthe shul in which I was raised, Bromley Synagogue in South East London.

In my youth I dont remember support for Israel being the focus of division in synagogue life that its become today. In those days, the main external preoccupation of Bromley synagogue wasthe plight of Soviet Jewsfacing cultural, economic and religious persecution by the Soviet Russian authorities.

Led primarily by women in our synagogue, we campaigned, protested and adopted Jewish families in Moscow, offering what practical and emotional support we could. I remember international phone calls being set up at the synagogue and relayed via loud speaker to the gathered community. We listened to our refuseniks on the crackly telephone line telling their experience of being denied permission to leave Russia for Israel and the consequences for their daily lives.

The motivation for this work fitted well with Progressive Jewish concerns for justice, compassion and for the victims of oppression. Little did we know how this story would play out and how it would influence politics in Israel thirty years later.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 90s, a million former Soviet Jews migrated to the Jewish State welcomed with open arms by a government looking for an influx of Jews to bolster Jewish demography (against rising Israeli Arab population growth). Politically, the Russian Jews making their new home in Israel turned out to be less concerned with universal rights and compassion for the oppressed than we had been in Bromley. The majority of Russian Jews have voted consistently for right-wing Israeli parties opposed to peace deals and enthusiastic for Settlement expansion. Broadly speaking, they are secular and highly nationalistic in behaviour and outlook. Its an ironic consequence of all that Progressive Jewish action that took place on their behalf in the 70s and 80s. Perhaps, its a metaphor for the entire relationship between Israel and Reform Judaism: mismatched visions, conflicting agendas and compromised values.

The co-author of this months anti-annexation letter, Rabbi Sylvia Rothschild, became the rabbi for Bromley Synagogue in the late 1980s while I was completing my undergraduate degree at Manchester University. By that time, I was already on a journey to Palestinian solidarity driven by my roots in Reform Judaism, influenced by the motivations behind the Soviet Jewry campaigns, and bya determination to understandwhat had caused the outbreak of the First Palestinian Intifada.

Ever since those student days, Ive followed the statements made by Reform and Liberal rabbis concerning Israel. Im sorry to say, theyve been consistently disappointing. On each occasion they failed to address the enormity of Palestinian dispossession and the on-going injustices committed against them. They pulled their punches on the moral questions for the State of Israel, and as rabbis, they shied away from publicly examining the ethical consequence for the global Jewish diaspora and for Judaism itself.

I long ago understood that however critical of specific Israeli actions these rabbinic statements might be, Progressive rabbis would avoid the most serious implications of their concerns. Their public letters and press releases would begin with a preamble of fidelity to the Jewish State, intending this to give them permission to speak out. The statements would invariably conclude with expressions of even-handed compassion and desires for peace. No doubt they appeared bold, radical and controversial to some, but to me they were mired in denial about the true power dynamics and immorality at work in Israel/Palestine.

A good example of this rabbinical genre of Israel related handwringing wasa letter sent to The Timesin August 2014 as the Israeli assault on Gaza was taking place. During those summer weeks, 500 Palestinian children were killed by the IDF, mostly by Israeli aerial bombardments using the most sophisticated and precise weaponry available. Meanwhile, one Israeli child was killed by a Hamas rocket. Heres how the Progressive rabbis began their letter:

Sir, We write as passionate and proud supporters of Israel. This past month we have witnessed devastating loss of life on all sides, so many of whom are civilians, as Israel has again been thrown into conflict with her neighbours and tried to deal with the missiles and tunnels used by Hamas. We have watched with great sadness as communities in the region and beyond have become embroiled in anger and hatred towards the other.

The letter concluded with the affirmation that the rabbis remained dedicated to Israels character as a Jewish and democratic state along with the values of social and political equality for all citizens, alongside freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel, and as enshrined in itsDeclaration of Independence.

That appeal to Israels Declaration of Independence as being the true soul of the Jewish State crops up time again in Liberal Zionist discourse, even though the document was never enshrined in constitutional law and contains plenty of historical airbrushing out of diaspora Jewish history whichProgressive rabbis ought to object to.

I like to think that behind the composition of these weak texts (which always ended in both political and ethical failure) there were some spiritual and intellectual struggles that went on in the hearts and minds of those who composed them.

Theres always been a tension at the centre of Reform Judaisms relationship with Zionism. That was bound to be so. Reform Judaism, as it developed in 18thand 19thcentury Germany, was a response to enlightenment thinking, the social emancipation of Jews in Western Europe, and a Jewish theology which looked to emphasise a universalistic mission for Jews and Judaism based on themes of biblical prophetic justice. The Jewish people were understood as being a religious community with a shared historical experience, commissioned by God to build a just society wherever they lived. Religious practices were guided by reason and ethics.While Reform Judaism would speak of a Jewish people or a Jewish nation, this was understood as broad and transnational in character, rather than narrow and territorial.

These ideas continued as the movement spread from Germany to north America (where it became a dominant Jewish denomination) and to the United Kingdom. Before the Second World War, Reform Judaism did not favour Zionism as a response to the issues of Jewish modernity in the early 20thcentury. All that began to change after the Holocaust, as it did for all Jewish institutions.

The universalistic mission of Reform Judaism, with its belief in working towards of messianic age of global justice now had to accommodate an inward looking and less ambitious agenda. The safety and security of the Jewish people became the post-Holocaust preoccupation, and the modern State of Israel became the accepted vehicle for achieving that security.

Over time, the narrow purpose of tribal physical security has grown from political theory to religious tenet, merging seamlessly with scripture, liturgy and religious festivals so that Zionism appears entirely consistent with centuries of Jewish self-understanding. In truth, it was an abrupt break with past rabbinic understanding of religious exile and spiritual redemption. For Reform Judaism, Israel created a tension between defending the fledgling Jewish State, seen as existential for Jewish survival and future growth, and Reforms previous ideals for the humanistic and ethically grounded role which Jews could and should play in all societies.

But have Progressive rabbis now recognised the ethical cul-de-sac theyve led their communities down over successive decades?

This monthsletter to the Israeli embassyin London starts to look like Progressive rabbis are finally confronting the Jewish implications of the entire Zionist project. Although the layers of denial and ethical dissonance are still on display, its the strongest and most despairing expression of criticism Ive seen.

Once again, the rabbis letter lacks any historical context or political analysis concerning whats brought us to this point. The authors see the prospect of annexation as a pivotal moment, threatening our moral survival as a people of integrity, when in fact its just the latest stage in a long drawn out process of colonisation of Palestinian land. If the problem is this serious today, what made it any less serious yesterday?

But heres the key paragraph, which implicitly acknowledges a collective Jewish (certainly rabbinical) responsibility, which goes far beyond any specific Israeli government or Prime Minister:

The moral integrity of the Jewish people is at stake. History will judge us and ask us: have we been faithful to the prophetic teachings of justice, compassion and peace? Or have we created a mockery of our Jewish tradition and of the founders of the State, by standing on the wrong side of Jewish teachings and our history?

The questions are asked rhetorically but they demand actual answers. The obvious response to the rabbis is: No, you have not been faithful to Jewish teaching through your mild-mannered criticism of Israel. And Yes, you have created a mockery of our Jewish tradition by failing to centre your teaching on Palestinian suffering. I would also caution them against their on-going moral confidence concerning the founders of the State since the greatest single moment of Palestinian dispossession was not the Six Day War of 1967 but the Nakba of 1948.

The rabbis letter once again drags Israels Declaration of Independence into service as evidence of a righteous past that has been lost, but could yet be found again:

And where do we stand in relation to Israels Declaration of Independence? The State of Israel that was created was to be based on the principles of liberty, justice and peace. These plans deny those foundational principles of the Declaration.

But the Declaration of Independence was never enacted, its never been a legal document. There has never been social and political equality for Palestinians in Israel. For the first 20 years of Israels history, its Arab citizens were ruled under military law as a fifth column; internally displaced, their homes and land were confiscated through government legislation; their friends and relatives who had fled their homes in fear and crossed borders, were never allowed to return even when the fighting ended.

Palestinian Israelis remain socially, politically and economically disadvantaged to this day. They are not a small minority, they are 20% of the countrys population. Its not an accident. Its not their fault. Its institutionalised discrimination thats existed since the day David Ben-Gurion read the Declaration out loud in the Tel Aviv Museum more than 70 years ago. Israel as a Jewish and democratic state of all its citizens was always a myth. As all Progressive rabbis will tell you, religious myths serve an important function in the development of morality, this though is a political myth, which serves only to prop up a false narrative that denies another peoples lived experience. The rabbis need to let go of the Declaration rather than continue to use it to obscure the truth.

This letter, even with its failings, is setting up a watershed moment for its Reform and Liberal signatories and the congregations which they lead. Even if annexation is delayed indefinitely, something has changed in Progressive rabbinical thinking on Israel. And if the rabbis are serious about the moral integrity of the Jewish people and how history will judge us, then some big changes are required.

Whats needed is a return to the bolder ambitions of religious purpose that characterised the first century of Reform theology. A Jewish mission of universal justice thats applied to Israel as well as every other nation on earth.

In practice what must that look like?

Any understanding and teaching of Zionism must embrace the experience of Palestinians. Zionism has been a national project of self-determination for Jewsandan act of brutal settler colonialism for Palestinians. Both experiences are true and valid. One cannot be told without the other. In this century, the Jewish and the Palestinian stories have become entwined and interdependent. Our future wellbeing is locked together. This is what we must teach ourselves and our children if we are serious about respecting the heritage of Progressive Judaism.

In making that educational commitment, Reform and Liberal rabbis must abandon their support for politicised definitions of antisemitism which end up silencing Palestinian solidarity and denying Palestinian history. Many of the same rabbis whove signed this months letter on annexation, including Sylvia Rothschild, Danny Rich and Laura Janner-Klausner, also signeda letter to the Guardianin July 2018 supporting thedeeply problematic IHRA definitionof antisemitism.

The rabbis need to understand the damage such documents are doing to the prospects of a genuine Jewish/Palestinian dialogue. Anti-Palestinianism is as bad as antisemitism.

Support for Israel from Reform and Liberal movements must become conditional on equal rights and equal security for all who call the Holy Land their home. How can a Jewish religious movement call for equality and justice for all, while making an exception in the very place where we claim our Jewish origins?

Jewish education about the Holocaust needs expanding and reframing too. Today, we are in danger of merely passing on to future Jewish generations an on-going, unprocessed, collective trauma. Its a trauma that informs our understanding of Israel/Palestine and what constitutes Jewish safety and security. A Sparta State dependent on superpower backing and endlessly suppressing an indigenous population will never deliver Jewish security. Progressive Judaism must reclaim its universal principles and apply them to a Jewish understanding of the Holocaust which recognises that our security will always be dependent on promoting a common humanity, based on justice, equality and mutual responsibility.

And heres my final challenge to the rabbis.

In Judaism there is a tradition of collective responsibility, which the rabbis letter on annexation alludes to. On Yom Kippur, the most solemn and holy day of the Jewish religious calendar, we stand together in the synagogue and ask for forgiveness for the sins we have committed, not just as individuals, but as a community, as a people. When our Reform and Liberal rabbis have the courage to lead us in asking for forgiveness from the Palestinian people and offering them restitution, then we will have finally arrived at a place from which we can move forward with a genuinley progressive Jewish agenda.

This post first appeared on the Patheos site on July 26.

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'History will judge us' Have progressive UK rabbis reached end of the road on Israel? - Mondoweiss

Best Place on Earth to See Stars Where They Can Finally Be Seen Without Their Twinkle – SciTechDaily

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The South Pole Telescope at the US Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, with a bright aurora in July 2020. Credit: Geoff Chen

Stars viewed from a place called Dome A in Antarctica can finally be seen without their twinkle which means in much greater detail.

Have you ever wondered why stars twinkle? Its because turbulence in the Earths atmosphere makes light emitted from the star wobble as it completes its lightyears-long journey to the lenses in our eyes and telescopes.

But now scientists from international research institutions including UNSW Sydney have found the best place on Earth where with the help of technology we can view distant stars as they really appear, without the distorting twinkle.

And it happens to be situated due south of Australias Davis Station in Antarctica, on a plateau 4000 meters above sea-level called Dome A.

A map of Antarctica showing Dome A, which is 900km away from the South Pole. Credit: Xiaoping Pang and Shiyun Wang, Chinese Antarctic Center of Surveying and Mapping

In research published today in the journal Nature, scientists showed that the conditions at the plateau lend themselves perfectly to viewing stars from Earth with greatly reduced interference from atmospheric turbulence.

According to UNSW Sciences Professor Michael Ashley, who was part of Chinese-led research team of scientists that designed, built, and set up a small telescope system at Dome A, the findings represent a fantastic opportunity to obtain better observations of the universe from ground-based telescopes.

After a decade of indirect evidence and theoretical reasoning, we finally have direct observational proof of the extraordinarily good conditions at Dome A, says Prof Ashley, an astronomer with UNSWs School of Physics.

Dome A is the highest point in the central plateau region of Antarctica, and the atmosphere is extremely stable here, much more so than anywhere else on Earth. The result is that the twinkling of the stars is greatly reduced, and the star images are much sharper and brighter.

The KunLun Differential Image Motion Monitors atop the 8-meter high tower. Credit: Zhaohui Shang

The telescope that was installed at Dome A the KunLun Differential Image Motion Monitor was 25cm in aperture and placed on an eight-meter platform. The height of the platform was crucial because it raised the telescope above the steep temperature gradients near the ice.

As Prof Ashley explains, turbulent eddies build-up when wind moves across a changing topography such as mountains, hills, and valleys.

This causes the atmospheric turbulence which bends the starlight around so by the time it hits the ground, its all over the place and you get these blurry images.

But, he says, Dome A in Antarctica is a plateau that is almost dead flat for many hundreds of kilometers in every direction, making its atmosphere very stable. Its also at an altitude of more than 4000 meters much higher than Mount Kosciuszko.

The telescopes were placed on an 8-meter tower which allowed undistorted views of stars when the atmosphere boundary layers dropped to lower than this height about a third of the time. Credit: Zhaohui Shang

There is this very slow wind that blows across the plateau which is so smooth that it doesnt generate much turbulence, Prof Ashley says.

What little turbulence there is we see restricted to a very low boundary layer the area between the ice and the rest of the atmosphere.

We measured the boundary layer thickness at Dome A using a radar technique about a decade ago and its about 14 meters, on average, but it fluctuates it goes down to almost nothing, and it goes up to maybe 30 meters.

The team found that by setting up their telescope on an 8-meter platform, it protruded past the boundary layer about a third of the time. Last year between April 11 and August 4 the telescope took photos every minute, and obtained 45,930 images taken when the boundary layer was lower than the 8-meter platform, it reported in Nature.

Prof Ashley says it was very challenging to finally obtain the readings and images that confirmed Dome A to be the premier location on earth to see into the depths of the cosmos.

It was very difficult because the observations have to be made in mid-winter with no humans present. UNSW played a crucial role in designing and building the infrastructure that was used the power supply system, computers, satellite communications which was managed by remote control.

But if the atmosphere plays such havoc with our instruments on Earth, wouldnt a satellite such as the Hubble Telescope, launched back in 1990 be ideal for such a job?

Prof Ashley says there are a couple of good reasons why a ground telescope set up at Dome A would be the better option. Beyond the obvious savings in dollars, there are also savings in time.

Satellites are a lot more expensive, Prof Ashley says, were talking maybe factors of 10 to 100 times the cost. But another advantage of making Earth-based observations is you can always add the latest technology to your telescope on the ground. Whereas in space, everything is delayed. And you cant easily use a lot of modern integrated circuits because theyre not radiation hardened. So you end up with space lagging the technology on the ground by 10 years or more.

The telescopes and towers were designed and built by Chinese researchers who led the study. Credit: Zhaohui Shang

Another advantage of using a telescope at Dome A rather than anywhere else on the planet is that smaller and fainter stars are suddenly much more observable thanks to the better resolution.

Basically this means that for a given size telescope, youre going to get a lot better images at Dome A. So rather than build a big telescope on a non-Antarctic site, you could build a smaller one and get the same performance, so its cheaper.

There is also a strategic advantage in the location of Dome A which is 900km from the South Pole over other areas on Earth at more hospitable latitudes. Being so far from the equator, polar nights of 24 hours or more of darkness in mid-winter open up a much wider window to view stars.

If you were to observe a star in say, Sydney, from when it rises to when it sets, you can only observe it for maybe eight hours a night, Prof Ashley says.

The South Pole Telescope at the US Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, with a bright aurora in July 2020. Credit: Geoff Chen

Whereas in wintertime at Dome A you can observe a star continuously. And for some projects like searching for planets around other stars, the fact that you can observe them continuously means you can find planets around them much more effectively.

Looking ahead, Prof Ashley says he would like to continue the research with UNSWs Chinese partners, and notes that China has an impressive and growing record in Antarctic scientific research. But he wonders whether Australia recognizes the great potential that Dome A represents in space research.

Dome A is a superb site for astronomical observations, and we should make every effort to participate in an international project to put a large telescope there to take advantage of the conditions.

With Antarctica being so close to Australia, it is a tremendous opportunity, he says.

Reference: Night-time measurements of astronomical seeing at Dome A in Antarctica by Bin Ma, Zhaohui Shang, Yi Hu, Keliang Hu, Yongjiang Wang, Xu Yang, Michael C. B. Ashley, Paul Hickson & Peng Jiang, 29 July 2020, Nature.DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2489-0

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Best Place on Earth to See Stars Where They Can Finally Be Seen Without Their Twinkle - SciTechDaily

Targeted Protein Degradation Represents a Promising Therapeutic Strategy – Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

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Despite enormous efforts to advance traditional pharmacology approaches, more than three quarters of all human proteins remain beyond the reach of therapeutic development, according to scientists from the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. They maintain that targeted protein degradation (TPD) is a novel approach that could overcome this and other limitations, and thus represents a promising therapeutic strategy.

TPD is based on small molecules (known as degraders), which can eliminate disease-causing proteins by causing their destabilization. Mechanistically, these degrader drugs repurpose the cellular protein quality control system, tweaking it to recognize and eliminate harmful proteins. In detail, they re-direct members of the protein family of E3 ubiquitin ligases (E3s) towards the disease-causing target protein. This leads to a molecular earmarking of the harmful protein via ubiquitination, says CeMM principal investigator Georg Winter, PhD, who adds that subsequently, the ubiquitinated protein is recognized and degraded by the proteasome, which serves as the cellular garbage disposal system.

Researchers in Europe, led by Winter and his CeMM team, focused on a subset of degraders called molecular glue degraders. This class of small molecules that has been shown to induce the degradation of target proteins that could not be blocked using traditional pharmacology approaches. Consequently, these proteins had been termed undruggable. The best characterized examples are the clinically approved thalidomide analogs, effective for the treatment of different blood cancers. Unfortunately, the discovery of the few described molecular glue degraders has historically been a process entirely driven by serendipity and no rational discovery strategies existed, notes Winter.

To overcome this limitation, Georg Winters group at CeMM set out to innovate a scalable strategy towards the discovery of novel molecular glue degraders via phenotypic chemical screening. To this end, first author and CeMM postdoctoral fellow Cristina Mayor-Ruiz, PhD, and colleagues engineered cellular systems widely impaired in E3 activity. Differential viability between these models and E3-proficient cells was used to identify compounds that depend on active E3s and were potential molecular glue degraders.

Researchers integrated functional genomics with proteomics and drug-interaction strategies, to characterize the most promising compounds. They validated the approach by discovering a new RBM39 molecular glue degrader, structurally similar to others previously described. Importantly, they discovered a set of novel molecular glues that induce the degradation of the protein cyclin K, known to be essential in many different cancer types. These novel cyclin K degraders function via a molecular mechanism of action that involves the E3 CUL4B:DDB1 and that has never been therapeutically explored before.

The researchers published their study Rational discovery of molecular glue degraders via scalable chemical profiling in Nature Chemical Biology.

Targeted protein degradation is a new therapeutic modality based on drugs that destabilize proteins by inducing their proximity to E3 ubiquitin ligases. Of particular interest are molecular glues that can degrade otherwise unligandable proteins by orchestrating direct interactions between target and ligase. However, their discovery has so far been serendipitous, thus hampering broad translational efforts. Here, we describe a scalable strategy toward glue degrader discovery that is based on chemical screening in hyponeddylated cells coupled to a multi-omics target deconvolution campaign. This approach led us to identify compounds that induce ubiquitination and degradation of cyclin K by prompting an interaction of CDK12cyclin K with a CRL4B ligase complex, write the investigators.

Notably, this interaction is independent of a dedicated substrate receptor, thus functionally segregating this mechanism from all described degraders. Collectively, our data outline a versatile and broadly applicable strategy to identify degraders with nonobvious mechanisms and thus empower future drug discovery efforts.

This study provides the first framework towards the discovery of molecular glue degraders that can be highly scaled, but also strongly diversified, says Winter.

I truly believe that we are only scratching the surface of possibilities. This study is chapter one of many chapters to follow. We will see a revolution in the way researchers perceive and execute therapeutic strategies for previously incurable diseases by crafting glue degrader strategies that will enable them to eliminate therapeutic targets that could not be explored with traditional pharmacologic approaches, he explains.

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Breaking News: Todos Medical Appoints Dr. Jorge Leon as Consulting Chief Medical and Scientific Officer of Infectious Disease and Oncology -…

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Todos Medical Ltd. (OTCQB: TOMDF), anin vitrodiagnostics company focused on distributing comprehensive solutions for COVID-19 screening and diagnosis, and developing blood tests for the early detection of cancer and Alzheimers disease, today announced that it has appointed Jorge Leon, Ph.D. as consulting Chief Medical and Scientific Officer (CMSO) for Infectious Disease and Oncology. Dr. Leon has served as Todos medical advisor since July 2019.

As medical advisor I have been able to follow Todos progress over the last year as theyve continued to build their exciting pipeline of diagnostics for cancer and Alzheimers disease, said Dr. Leon. The approach Todos has taken to enter COVID-19 testing has been spot on, by focusing on an accurate, scalable and diverse product portfolio, coupled with reliable access to the key instrumentation needed to equip a large number of labs and supply them with the reagents and consumables needed to make a meaningful increase to PCR testing capacity in the United States.

As we now have a clear framework from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to gain Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for COVID+influenza A/B and COVID pool testing, we believe we are entering the fall with the right portfolio to become a significant player in the space, he added. We intend to begin to establish combined screening and reflex testing strategies using antigen, antibody and PCR pooling testing to screen patients and ultimately confirm the suspected COVID-19 cases with PCR testing. Todos is also developing an innovative saliva-based molecular test that could deliver point-of-care results in under five minutes, using a smartphone camera and software, which would represent a major advancement for the field. We expect to initiate clinical validation of that test in August in Israel with the hopes of gathering sufficient data to submit an EUA.

Dr. Leon is internationally recognized for his pioneering work in molecular diagnostics. He holds a Ph.D. in cellular and molecular biology from New York University, and completed his postdoctoral studies at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg and Columbia University in New York. Dr. Leons subsequent academic research at Columbia University focused on developing monoclonal antibody-based tumor marker assays and radio-immuno imaging devices, which are currently in wide use.

In the early 1990s, Dr. Leon played an integral role in establishing and leading the molecular diagnostics laboratories at Quest Diagnostics. As Director of Molecular Diagnostics, Senior Director of Biotechnology Development and Vice President of Applied Genomics, Dr. Leon spent 12 years developing Quests molecular diagnostics strategy, which is now the worlds largest molecular diagnostics service laboratory. In 2003, Dr. Leon founded Leomics Associates, Inc., a consulting firm committed to helping prestigious, successful companies and academic institutions develop molecular diagnostics and personalized medicine in the United States and globally. Dr. Leon specializes in identifying breakthrough opportunities and industry trends, and helps start-up businesses, academic centers and established companies successfully build and commercialize innovative business strategies, product pipelines and test menus.

Dr. Leon is significantly increasing his day-to-day role with Todosmanagement team, adding significant intellectual capacity to develop the protocols to use available testing tools in combination to solve the testing challenges in the United States, said Gerald E. Commissiong, President & CEO of Todos Medical. We look forward to bringing Jorge into key discussions with our partners to deploy COVID-19 testing nationwide.For information related to Todos Medicals COVID-19 testing capabilities, please visitwww.todoscovid19.com

For testing and PPE inquiries, please emailsales@todosmedical.com.

About Todos Medical Ltd.

Headquartered in Rehovot, Israel, Todos Medical Ltd. (OTCQB: TOMDF) engineers life-saving diagnostic solutions for the early detection of a variety of cancers. The Companys state-of-the-art and patented Todos Biochemical Infrared Analyses (TBIA) is a proprietary cancer-screening technology using peripheral blood analysis that deploys deep examination into cancers influence on the immune system, looking for biochemical changes in blood mononuclear cells and plasma. Todos two internally-developed cancer-screening tests, TMB-1 and TMB-2, have received a CE mark in Europe. Todos recently entered into an exclusive option agreement to acquire U.S.-based medical diagnostics company Provista Diagnostics, Inc. to gain rights to its Alpharetta, Georgia-based CLIA/CAP certified lab and Provistas proprietary commercial-stage Videssa breast cancer blood test. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2020.

Todos is also developing blood tests for the early detection of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimers disease. The Lymphocyte Proliferation Test (LymPro Test) is a diagnostic blood test that determines the ability of peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) and monocytes to withstand an exogenous mitogenic stimulation that induces them to enter the cell cycle. It is believed that certain diseases, most notably Alzheimers disease, are the result of compromised cellular machinery that leads to aberrant cell cycle re-entry by neurons, which then leads to apoptosis. LymPro is unique in the use of peripheral blood lymphocytes as a surrogate for neuronal cell function, suggesting a common relationship between PBLs and neurons in the brain. The Company recently completed the acquisition of Breakthrough Diagnostics, Inc., which owns the rights to LymPro Test in July 2020 from Amarantus Bioscience Holdings, Inc. (OTC: AMBS).

Additionally, Todos has entered into distribution agreements with companies to distribute certain novel coronavirus (COVID-19) test kits. The agreements cover multiple international suppliers of PCR testing kits and related materials and supplies, as well as antibody testing kits from multiple manufacturers after completing validation of said testing kits and supplies in its partner CLIA/CAP certified laboratory in the United States. Todos has formed strategic partnerships withMeridian Health,Moto-Para Foundationto deploy COVID-19 testing in the United States.

For more information, please visit https://www.todosmedical.com/.

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Breaking News: Todos Medical Appoints Dr. Jorge Leon as Consulting Chief Medical and Scientific Officer of Infectious Disease and Oncology -...

They discover that this mineral protects against the coronavirus – Checkersaga

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All experts agree that the coronavirus will not slow down until there is a vaccine, seeing the recklessness that people do and the numerous outbreaks everywhere. But there are other ways to combat it. For example, strengthening our immune system. And scientists have discovered that there is a mineral, present in some foods, that is especially effective for this.

He Covid-19 It is a virus, and as such there are no effective medications to stop the spread. When we catch it, it must be our immune system that defeats it.

As TICbeat tells us, a team of researchers from Sechenov University in Moscow, in collaboration with experts from Germany, Greece, Norway and the United States, has carried out a study published in the International Journal of Molecular Medicine, which shows that Zinc helps to prevent contagion by respiratory viruses, and to reduce inflammation, allowing this contagion to be less severe.

Yuka is an app that analyzes the quality of food and cosmetics. Its popularity is so high that it is starting to put manufacturers and establishments like Mercadona and Carrefour in check.

He zinc is a mineral that acts as catalyst in the operation of more than 300 enzymes, in addition to being essential in metabolic processes and guaranteeing the functioning of the reproductive, cardiovascular and nervous systems.

It also favors the production of white blood cells, which are the ones that generate the antibodies of our immune system, fighting viruses and infections.

The study concludes that zinc strengthens the immune system, and therefore protects against Covid-19. Even after being infected, it has been proven that reduces inflammation when you get pneumonia, thus reducing damage to the lung tissue.

Is it possible to get coronavirus through water? Lets see what the odds are, and the measures to take when we go to the pool or to a beach.

The study also found specific evidence for coronaviruses. Zinc blocks the enzyme responsible for replicating the coronavirus that caused the SARS outbreak in 2002.

Despite this, he acknowledges that there is still insufficient data to conclude that it is effective against Covid-19, and recalls that consuming an excess of zinc is also bad for health.

But since this mineral is present in many foods, it never hurts to include them in our diet. Foods rich in zinc include beef, oysters, chickpeas, beans, prawns, pumpkin seeds, spinach, chicken, mushrooms, or cashews.

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They discover that this mineral protects against the coronavirus - Checkersaga

Myriad to Announce Fiscal Fourth-Quarter and Full Fiscal Year 2020 Financial Results on August 13, 2020 – GlobeNewswire

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SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Myriad Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ: MYGN), a leader in molecular diagnostics and precision medicine, announced that it will hold its fiscal fourth-quarter 2020 sales and earnings conference call with investors and analysts at 4:30 p.m. EDT on Thursday, August 13, 2020. During the call, R. Bryan Riggsbee, interim president and CEO and chief financial officer, and Scott Gleason, senior vice president of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy, will provide an overview of Myriads financial performance for the fiscal fourth-quarter and provide a business update.

To listen to the earnings call, interested parties in the United States may dial 1-800-381-7839 or +1-212-239-2905 for international callers. All callers will be asked to reference reservation number 21966478. The conference call also will be available through a live webcast and a slide presentation pertaining to the earnings call also will be available under the investor section of our website at http://www.myriad.com. A replay of the call will be available two hours after the end of the call for seven days and may be accessed by dialing 800-633-8284 within the United States or +1 402-977-9140 for international callers and entering reservation number 21966478.

About Myriad GeneticsMyriad Genetics, Inc. is a leading molecular diagnostic and precision medicine company dedicated to being a trusted advisor transforming patient lives worldwide with pioneering molecular diagnostics. Myriad discovers and commercializes molecular diagnostic tests that determine the risk of developing disease, accurately diagnose disease, assess the risk of disease progression, and guide treatment decisions across six major medical specialties where molecular diagnostics can significantly improve patient care and lower healthcare costs. Myriad is focused on three strategic imperatives: transitioning and expanding its hereditary cancer testing markets, diversifying its product portfolio through the introduction of new products and increasing the revenue contribution from international markets. For more information on how Myriad is making a difference, please visit the Company's website: http://www.myriad.com.

Myriad, the Myriad logo, BART, BRACAnalysis, Colaris, Colaris AP, myPath, myRisk, Myriad myRisk, myRisk Hereditary Cancer, myChoice, myPlan, BRACAnalysis CDx, Tumor BRACAnalysis CDx, myChoice CDx, Vectra, Prequel, Foresight, GeneSight, riskScore and Prolaris are trademarks or registered trademarks of Myriad Genetics, Inc. or its wholly owned subsidiaries in the United States and foreign countries. MYGN-F, MYGN-G.

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Myriad to Announce Fiscal Fourth-Quarter and Full Fiscal Year 2020 Financial Results on August 13, 2020 - GlobeNewswire

Large International Study Pinpoints Impact of TP53 Gene Mutations on Blood Cancer Severity – On Cancer – Memorial Sloan Kettering

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Summary

A large international study led by researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering has immediate clinical relevance for risk assessment and treatment of people with myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia.

Considered the guardian of the genome, TP53 is the most commonly mutated gene in cancer. TP53s normal function is to detect DNA damage and prevent cells from passing this damage on to daughter cells. When TP53 is mutated, the protein made from this gene, called p53, can no longer perform this protective function, and the result can be cancer. Across many cancer types, mutations in TP53 are associated with worse outcomes, like disease recurrence and shorter survival.

As with all our genes, TP53 exists in duplicate in our cells. One copy we get from our mothers, the other we get from our fathers. Up until now, it has not been clear whether a mutation was needed in one or both copies of TP53 to affect cancer outcomes. A new study led by researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering definitively answers this question for a blood cancer called myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a precursor to acute myeloid leukemia.

Our study is the first to assess the impact of having one versus two dysfunctional copies of TP53 on cancer outcomes, says molecular geneticist Elli Papaemmanuil, a member of MSKs Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department and the lead scientist on the study, published August 3 in the journal Nature Medicine. From our results, its clear that you need to lose function of both copies to see evidence of genome instability and a high-risk clinical phenotype in MDS.

The consequences for cancer diagnosis and treatment are immediate and profound, she says.

The study analyzed genetic and clinical data from 4,444 patients with MDS who were being treated at hospitals all over the world. Researchers from 25 centers in 12 countries were involved in the study, which was conducted under the aegis of the International Working Group for the Prognosis of MDS whose goal is to develop new international guidelines for the treatment of this disease. The findings were independently validated using data from the Japanese MDS working group led by Seishi Ogawas team in Kyoto University.

Currently, the existing MDS guidelines do not consider genomic data such as TP53 and other acquired mutationswhen assessing a persons prognosis or determining appropriate treatment for this disease, says Peter Greenberg, Director of Stanford Universitys MDS Center, Chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Practice Guidelines Panel for MDS, and a co-author on the study. That needs to change.

Using new computational methods, the investigators found that about one-third of MDS patients had only one mutated copy of TP53. These patients had similar outcomes as patients who did not have a TP53 mutation a good response to treatment, low rates of disease progression, and better survival rates. On the other hand, the two-thirds of patients who had two mutated copies of TP53 had much worse outcomes, including treatment-resistant disease, rapid disease progression, and low overall survival. In fact, the researchers found that TP53 mutation status zero, one, or two mutated copies of the gene was the most important variable when predicting outcomes.

Our findings are of immediate clinical relevance to MDS patients. Going forward, all MDS patients should have their TP53 status assessed at diagnosis.

Our findings are of immediate clinical relevance to MDS patients, Dr. Papaemmanuil says. Going forward, all MDS patients should have their TP53 status assessed at diagnosis.

As for why it takes two hits to TP53 to see an effect on cancer outcomes, the studys first author Elsa Bernard, a postdoctoral scientist in the Papaemmanuil lab, speculates that one normal copy is enough to provide adequate protection against DNA damage. This would explain why having only one mutated copy was not associated with genome instability or any worse survival rates than having two normal copies.

Given the frequency of TP53 mutations in cancer, these results make a case for examining the impact of one versus two mutations on other cancers as well. They also reveal the need for clinical trials designed specifically with these molecular differences in mind.

With the increasing adoption of molecular profiling at the time of cancer diagnosis, we need large, evidence-based studies to inform how to translate these molecular findings into optimal treatment strategies, Dr. Papaemmanuil says.

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Cannabinoid therapies aim to address unmet medical needs – Health Europa

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Dr Valentino Parravicini, PhD will be joining as Chief Scientific Officer to help with the development of cannabinoid-based prescription medicine for indications in oncology, pain, immunology, and neurology.

Dr Parravicini will oversee OCTs ongoing drug discovery and development studies, including preclinical development of OCT461201, the highly selective and potent CB2 agonist, which could have the potential to effectively treat Irritable Bowel Syndrome and other diseases.

Dr Parravicini will work closely with OCTs lead business and research partners, while developing new research partnerships with other leading academic and commercial institutions around the world. He has a distinguished career in the fields of oncology, inflammation, and immunology, and has led groundbreaking in vitro and in vivo projects, as well as having undertaken award-winning work in pharma and biotech, focussed on small molecule and cell therapy approaches to autoimmunity and haematological malignancies.

He is also an extensively published author on his discoveries and innovations with high impact peer-reviewed publications in the fields of immunology and molecular virology.

Valentino Parravicini said: I am delighted to be joining the team at Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies whose reputation precedes them. OCTs search for transformative therapies to meet currently unmet medical needs is a perfect match with my past professional experience and my unquenchable desire to see how we can best harness cannabinoids to transform the lives of millions of people so that they live longer, more active lives.

John Lucas, Chief Commercial Officer of OCT, said: We are thrilled to have Valentino come on board. He has exactly the right kinds of skillsets that we need to help take OCT on the next stage of its exciting journey. This is a time of extraordinary and dynamic change and innovation in our sector and we are delighted to have him at our side to help us be that change and make it come alive for millions of sufferers around the world.

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Cannabinoid therapies aim to address unmet medical needs - Health Europa

Michael Jordan and Jordan Brand donate $2.5 million to three organizations to combat Black voter suppression – CNN

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One million dollars is being donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. and $1 million to the Formerly Incarcerated and Convicted People and Families Movement. The Black Voters Matter organization will receive $500,000, according to a statement by the Jordan Brand.

The commitment is part of a $100 million, 10-year pledge that Jordan and the Jordan Brand announced on June 5 to "impact the fight against systemic racism." The pledge focuses on three areas: social justice, economic justice, and education and awareness.

"We know it will take time for us to create the change we want to see, but we are working quickly to take action for the Black Community's voice to be heard."

The organizations were chosen based on their ability to create an immediate impact and to "support reformative practices that drive real change in the Black community," the statement said.

"The $100 million commitment was just the start," Jordan Brand president Craig Williams said. "We are moving from commitment to action. Our initial partners can directly impact the social and political well-being of the Black community. We will have a disciplined focus on social justice, economic justice and education, as the most effective ways for us to eliminate the systemic racism that remains in society."

The statement said that the three organizations will focus on cities and states where Black people are, relative to their share of the overall population, underrepresented in voter registration and turnout numbers.

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Michael Jordan and Jordan Brand donate $2.5 million to three organizations to combat Black voter suppression - CNN

How the Upcoming Air Jordan 5 What The Looks On Feet – Yahoo Sports

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An on-foot look at the new Air Jordan 5 What The style has made its way onto social media platforms ahead of its release.

The initial images of the upcoming Air Jordan 5 What The iteration of NBA icon Michael Jordans fifth signature sneaker arrived yesterday courtesy of sneaker leak account @zSneakerheadz along with reports of a Nov. 7 release date.

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The latest pair features a mash-up of the most coveted colorways with a mismatched red and yellow suede uppers inspired by the Raging Bulls and Tokyo makeups, respectively. Other styles will also make a cameo on the shoe like contrasting tongue and sock liners pulled from the Bel-Air and Laser styles. The theme continues on the multicolored Nike Air-cushioned midsole and a translucent outsole.

The Air Jordan 5 was designed by the legendary Tinker Hatfield and made its retail debut in 1990. One of MJs notable accomplishments in the shoe is scoring a career-high of 69 points against one of his rivals, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

At the time of press, the release information surrounding the Air Jordan 5 What The has not yet been confirmed by the brand, however the social media account stated it will launch on Nov. 7 and will retail for $220. The sneakers will likely be available on the SNKRS app and at select Jordan Brand retailers.

In related Jordan Brand news, a new off-White x Air Jordan 5 Sail collaboration is reportedly slated to hit shelves in the holiday 20 season and will come with a $225 price tag.

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How the Upcoming Air Jordan 5 What The Looks On Feet - Yahoo Sports

Jordan CRC Receives Federal Grant To Help Victims Of Human Trafficking – ideastream

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The Jordan Community Resource Center (Jordan CRC)in Cleveland Heights received a $500,000 federal grant to continue its work providing safe housing and services for human trafficking victims.

The Department of Justices Office for Victims of Crime is granting a total of $35 million to 73 organizations nationwide to help offer short-term housing assistance for trafficking victims, as well help locating permanent housing, securing employment and receiving occupational training and counseling.

Ohio received $1 million, which will be split between the Jordan Community Resource Center and Ohio Cincinnati Union in Bethel.

Ohio had the fourth most reported cases of human trafficking in the country in 2018.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump announced the awards at the White House this week, alongside trafficking victims and the organizations that help them, includingTenisha Watson, the founder and CEO of Jordan CRC.

The administration has heard these concerns and is responding by awarding leading nonprofit organizations the necessary funding to ensure that survivors have a stable place to live, Trump saidTuesday.

The nonprofit Jordan CRCprovides supportive housing, workforce training, counseling and other supportive services for Northeast Ohio women transitioning out of incarceration or who have been been impacted by human trafficking and drug addiction.

In a statement, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) applauded the White Houses commitment to ensure human trafficking victims have the resources they need to rebuild their lives.

"These grants will help victims and survivors in Ohio secure safe housing and gain the workplace skills necessary to reach their God-given potential, Portman said.

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Jordan CRC Receives Federal Grant To Help Victims Of Human Trafficking - ideastream

Air Jordan 5 What The – KicksOnFire.com

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Release Date: November 7th, 2020Retail Price: $220Style Code: CZ5725-700

Where To Buy Online? KicksOnFire Shop&KicksOnfire App: Available Now!

It is being reported that the What The Theme will be showcased on the Air Jordan 5 later on this year. Celebrating the Air Jordan 5s 30th Anniversary, the Air Jordan 5 What The will utilize colors and details from the Air Jordan 5 Tokyo,Shanghai,Raging Bull,Bel-Air,Laser and more. Our first look at the shoe shows that the left and right shoe will be completely different from each other. The mismatched motif has one shoe done in Yellow (Tokyo) and another shoe done in Red (Raging Bull). Details include the Japanese character and medallion embroidery from the Tokyo 23 and Shanghai colorways, respectively. The debuting leaked images also showcases graphic lining from the Bel-Air and Laser Air Jordan 5s. You can also see 3M reflective tongues and translucent netting on the sides.

Current reports have the Air Jordan 5 What The releasing on November 7th for $220.

Update (7/13/2020): We get a first look at the Air Jordan 5 What The. The mismatched sneakers are expected to release later on this year.

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