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- The captain of a LATAM flight collapsed while flying between Miami, Florida, and Santiago, Chile. The LATAM Boeing 787 was diverted to Panama City, Panama to receive medical assistance. Unfornaturely, the captain was pronounced dead on the plane’s arrival. According to Simple Flying, LATAM Flight 505 was carrying 271 passengers to the Chilean capital on Monday. Three hours into the flight, 56-year-old Captain Ivan Andaur felt unwell and left the flight deck for the bathroom. He collapsed in the bathroom. Andaur would receive emergency assistance from other crew members onboard while the flight’s co-pilots requested to be diverted to Panama City, 28 minutes away.
- Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport has brought more than 10 new defense products, including the Klavesin underwater drone and the Nabat communications complex, to the world market, CEO Alexander Mikheev told Sputnik. “In 2023, over 10 models received export permits. A number of them opened the way for Rosoboronexport to new segments of the world market, where there were no Russian supplies. For example, the Klavesin-1RE autonomous underwater vehicle complex fell into the developing niche of underwater drones capable of operating at depths of up to 6,000 meters [3.7 miles] just in time,” Mikheev said on the sidelines of the Army-2023 international military-technical forum.
- The American Medical Association (AMA) has suggested that US taxpayers should pick up the tab for uterus transplants for trans women. The organization explained that this surgery, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per case, would help improve the health and well-being of biological males identifying as females. In its June edition of the Journal of Ethics published this week, the authors claimed that numerous successful uterus transplantations among women would likely arouse interest among transgender people as well. Yet, there is one significant hurdle in their way, the piece warns – the hefty price tag of anywhere between $100,000 and $300,000. The article argued that such surgery should be at least partly subsidized by the government – the way other transplantations are – since it is “essential to well-being.”
- The United States is engaged in biomilitary activity more than any other country in the world, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Friday, commenting on the Pentagon’s recent report on biological threats. The US Department of Defense (DOD) released on Thursday a review of biological threats. The inaugural DoD Biodefense Posture Review, in particular, labels China as the key long-term threat due to its developments in the field of biological weapons, which allegedly pose a threat to the US’s security. “As we all know, it is the United States that carries out the most biomilitary activities in the world, carries out the most actions that raise doubts,” Wang told reporters. The US often fabricates reports on so-called threats for geopolitical purposes “to deter and suppress other countries, to protect its hegemonic interests,” the diplomat said, adding that thus Washington provokes confrontation and damages the global biosecurity management system. China supports the international community in reviewing how the US is complying with the Biological Weapons Convention, as well as calls on the US to effectively fulfill its international obligations, Wang said.
- While Washington complains that the military takeover in Niger “does not comport with the constitution,” James Carey, host of “The Left is Dead” podcast, noted that the US was behind regime-change efforts across the globe. The US is the driver of political destabilization and insurgent violence around the world, says a media commentator. Podcaster James Carey told Sputnik that the US is “in its last throes,” and is growing “incredibly desperate.” Proof emerged last week that the US was behind the legislative coup and jailing of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in 2022 — for the offense of trying to maintain his country’s neutrality during NATO’s proxy conflict with Russia in Ukraine. “Obviously that’s not acceptable. Obviously, there’s a crucial ally next to India,” Carey said. “We also have it as balance for Afghanistan, where we use it as a base of operations with the Pakistani intelligence services. So it’s essentially a US base and they want to keep it that way.”
- The US and Japan are expected to announce a program to jointly develop a hypersonic missile interceptor as a counter to ultra-fast weapons unveiled by Russia, China, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in recent years. The announcement is expected at a trilateral summit in Maryland to which US President Joe Biden has invited Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida as well as South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, two of Washington’s strongest allies in East Asia. At the summit, Biden is expected to push the two countries to look past their troubled past – in which Korea was a brutally subjugated colony of the Japanese Empire – and join forces in yet another anti-China bloc in the Indo-Pacific region. Retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, said that the program is yet another gift to the military-industrial complex and is a move to strengthen the Pentagon’s presence in the region at a time that it’s increasing its pressure on China across multiple spectra. “What surprises me is the willingness of the Japanese to help fund such a program, over the ten year development forecast of the new missile development, given past history of repeated failures and extensions seen in previous US Ballistics Missile Defense programs in the Pacific,” Kwiatkowski said.
- Hungary wants the first concrete pouring at the site of new nuclear reactors to be completed before the end of 2024, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto said on Friday. Hungary’s four-reactor Paks Nuclear Power Plant generates about half of electricity consumed by this central European nation. The country is planning to expand the plant by adding two reactors with the help of Russian nuclear giant Rosatom. The 2014 contract is estimated at 12.5 billion euros ($13.6 billion).
- A monument commemorating Italian fascists killed during World War II has been stolen in Russia’s Belgorod Region, according to local media reports. The commemorative stone, which was located near the village of Garbuzovo, was erected by relatives of slain Italian soldiers back in the 1990s. The stone was popularly known as the ‘Monument to Italian fascist invaders’ among the locals, with activists urging its removal for years. The monument was reportedly removed by unknown assailants, who used a bulldozer to take it away. Neither the local authorities nor law enforcement made any official comments on the incident.
- The unique geological patterns found on the Martian surface offers a new perspective on Mars’ past, opening the door to the possibility that these cycles spurred the creation of organic compounds, essential building blocks of life. Unraveling the enigma of ancient mud cracks in the Martian landscape, scientists suggest the polygonal patterns could signify a past environment conducive to extraterrestrial life. Recent investigations into these distinctive shapes, originally thought to be remnants of a wet past, have unveiled the likelihood of recurring wet-dry cycles similar to Earth’s seasons, fostering the emergence of life-friendly conditions on the Red Planet. “These particular mud cracks form when wet-dry conditions occur repeatedly – perhaps seasonally,” said the paper’s lead author, William Rapin of France’s Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie.
- On August 11, Japanese amateur astronomer Hideo Nishimura detected a bright object very close to the Sun. No one had seen it before because the object was lost in the glare of our star. And, exciting news, it turned out to be a brand-new bright comet! On August 15, the Minor Planet Center officially confirmed the discovery and named the comet C/2023 P1 (Nishimura). The newly found Comet Nishimura could be visible to the naked eye at night during Sept. 2023.
- A new type of star may be the solution to a cosmic mystery. After a century of study, astronomers have finally worked out why a star called HD 45166 looks so strange, and it could be the key to understanding where curious stars called magnetars come from. HD 45166 is located in a binary system about 3000 light years away and is a type of object called a Wolf-Rayet star, also known as a helium star because it has blown away its outer layers of hydrogen to reveal the underlying helium. But it has never looked quite like any other Wolf-Rayet star we have ever seen. “This star was known to be weird for about 100 years,” says Tomer Shenar at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. “It didn’t make any sense – it really contradicted theories, so it deserved more scrutiny.” Shenar and his colleagues found that it has an extraordinarily powerful magnetic field, stronger than that of any other star of its size that has been measured.
- Russia’s Luna-25 automatic landing module has corrected its circumlunar trajectory and is preparing to land on the Moon, Russian state space corporation Roscosmos said on Friday. “Today, at 09:20 Moscow time (06:20 GMT), the module’s propulsion system conducted trajectory correction in 40 seconds. It’s aim is to ensure the best possible conditions for the subsequent construction of the landing trajectory,” the space corporation said in a statement, adding that the correction went according to procedure, all the module’s systems are operational and communication with the station is stable. On August 11, the Soyuz 2.1b carrier rocket blasted off from Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome and put the Luna-25 into orbit, the first Russian lunar mission in nearly 50 years and the first in the country’s independent space history. On August 16, the module entered a low orbit about 100 kilometers (62.13 miles) above the lunar surface. On Saturday, Luna-25 is expected to descend into its landing trajectory on the Moon’s elliptical orbit with a minimum altitude of 18 kilometers.
News Burst 19 August 2023
Rose Rambles... 