North Korea fires test missile into Japanese airspace

 

A North Korean short-range missile was fired into Japanese airspace during a weapons test early Tuesday morning, representing the latest shot across the bow by Pyongyang against Washington and its allies in the Pacific.

The missile shot that penetrated Japanese airspace was reportedly one of three fired from the peninsula, according to officials in Tokyo and Seoul. While one of the missiles flew over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, it remains unclear whether the other test shots targeted the same area.

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The Pentagon confirmed Monday night U.S. time that officials from the North American Aerospace Defense Command detected a single missile shot fired from inside North Korea.

That test shot, defense officials noted, did pass through Japanese airspace before crash-landing into the Pacific Ocean. Japanese military forces stationed in and around Hokkaido were placed on high alert, in conjunction with U.S. missile defense systems based at Yokota air base.

 

Command officials “determined the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America,” but that they were coordinating closely with their counterparts at U.S. Pacific and Strategic Commands to assess any possible threat to American allies in the region.

“We’ll take utmost efforts to protect the public,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in a statement shortly after the test shots crash landed.

“This reckless act of launching a missile that flies over our country is an unprecedented, serious and important threat,” he said.

 

The last missile launch to violate Japanese airspace took place in 2009.

The missile launch is only the latest instance of North Korea’s continued use of using its nuclear and missile programs for saber rattling, this one during the massive “Ulchi Freedom Guardian” military drills between American and South Korean forces, scheduled for Aug. 21-31.

The exercise is one of the largest joint military drills carried out on the peninsula, involving a number of the 28,000 U.S. troops based near the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea, as well as their counterparts in the South Korean military.

The U.S. and South Korea pressed ahead with the military drills despite both claims by the North that the exercises are a dress rehearsal or cover for an invasion and more gentle suggestions by China that canceling or delaying them might serve as a good-faith gesture and prod the North into broader negotiations on its nuclear and missile programs.

Since command officials opted to go forward with the exercises, the North Korean regime has unveiled images of what are purportedly prototype designs for two new missile systems and threatened new rounds of nuclear weapons tests.

Earlier this month, tensions between the North and the U.S. reached a fever pitch after President Trump’s bellicose threats to rain “fire and fury” on Pyongyang, should it threaten American interests in the region. In response, Pyongyang threatened to fire long-range missiles at U.S military installations on the island of Guam.

Earlier Monday, officials at the United Nations released a letter from North Korea’s U.N. ambassador asking that the Security Council schedule an urgent discussion about the military exercises, which are adding “fuel to open fire.”

The U.S. is staging a “provocative and aggressive joint military exercise at this critical moment of the Korean peninsula, where the situation is just like a time bomb” that nobody is sure “when to blow up,” Ja Song Nam wrote in a letter Friday to the Egyptian delegation.

Egypt currently holds the rotating Security Council presidency and has the power to schedule debates.

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Jailed German nurse may have killed 86 patients – Officials

 

A German nurse serving a life sentence for murdering two of his patients is believed to have killed at least 86 people entrusted to his care, officials said, on Monday, in what they described as an imagination-defying series of crimes.

The nurse, identified as Niels Hoegel, was sentenced to life in prison in February 2015, after he confessed and a court in the northern town of Oldenburg found him guilty of administering overdoses of heart medication to some patients in an intensive care ward in Delmenhorst. He was convicted of two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder and causing bodily harm to patients and is serving his sentence.

During his trial, the former nurse had also confessed to intentionally inducing cardiac crises in 90 of his patients, 30 of whom he said had died. That prompted officials to launch an investigation into the deaths of some 130 of Hoegel’s former patients. The results were presented Monday in Oldenburg.

At least 84 of the convicted killer’s former patients were found to have died after suffering from injections of five different forms of medication, Johan Kuehme, chief of police in Oldenburg, told reporters.

Authorities are waiting for the results of another 41 toxicology reports, the results of which could drive the number of confirmed deaths even higher, he said.

“The realisation of what we were able to learn is horrifying,” Mr Kuehme told reporters. “It defies any scope of the imagination.”

Hoegel, now 40, told the court at the time that he had enjoyed trying to revive the patients. But his efforts did not always succeed, leaving some to become his victims.

The special commission, launched in October 2014, after Hoegel’s confession, combed through evidence that included more than 500 patient files. It based its conclusions in part on toxicology tests on the remains of 134 possible victims, who were exhumed to see if they contained traces of the chemicals the nurse had confessed to using.

It found that Hoegel had administered lethal injections to patients at a hospital in Oldenburg, where he worked from 1999 to 2001.

The investigation also found that although the high number of patients dying under Hoegel’s care was noticed by other staff members in Oldenburg, no action was taken to understand why.

As suspicions began to swirl around the nurse, he was later transferred from a ward to a position in an anesthesiology unit, according to the public broadcaster NDR.

There, a doctor who worked with him at the time told Hoegel that his services were no longer wanted, because he was always forcing himself into the spotlight when trying to revive a patient, the broadcaster reported.

Nevertheless, after the nurse quit his job in Oldenburg, he was issued a recommendation that bore no indication of any concerns about his ability to carry out his duties, the broadcaster said.

In December 2002, Hoegel then took up a new job as a nurse at the hospital in Delmenhorst.

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Meningitis outbreak in Nigeria kills more than 300

A new strain of meningitis has emerged, and there are not enough vaccines against it, the Nigeria Center for Disease Control warned.

A meningitis outbreak has killed more than 300 people in Nigeria, the country's Center for Disease Control said.
The agency reported a wide outbreak of cerebrospinal meningitis across 15 states.

A new strain of the disease called "stereotype C" has emerged, and last week the Center for Disease Control warned that there were not enough vaccines against it.
"There is a vaccine available," Chief Executive Chikwe Ihekweazu said, "but it is not commercially available for the stereotype involved in this specific outbreak, and we have to make application to the World Health Organization for the vaccines."
However, in a press release on April 1st, Health Minister, Professor Isaac Adewole, said that up to 1.3 million vaccines have now been acquired.
"We have secured 500,000 doses of the meningococcal vaccines from WHO which will be used in Zamfara and Katsina states," Prof. Adewole said. "While additional 800,000 units from the British government."

Nearly 2,000 suspected cases have been recorded and 109 have been treated since the outbreak began in February. 

An emergency response team has been sent to the five states in the northwest of the country.

As one of the 26 countries on the African "meningitis belt," Nigeria records some of the highest incidences of the disease on the continent.

The outbreaks peak in the dry season in certain states due to the low humidity and dusty conditions and usually end as the rainy season approaches, Ihekweazu added.

"Meningitis is a tough disease, especially during this period, and it is associated with overcrowding, understanding the living conditions in the country, people must keep their building ventilated," he said.

According to the WHO, even when the disease is diagnosed early and adequate treatment begins, 5% to 10% of patients die, typically within 24 to 48 hours of the onset of symptoms.

Some common symptoms are stiff neck, high fever, sensitivity to light, confusion, headaches and vomiting. 

 

 

 

Local and international organizations are working together to manage the epidemic. "We believe that our concerted efforts will bring this outbreak under control, as we also work towards preventing outbreaks of this scale in the future," the Center for Disease Control stated.

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Japanese scientists want to be first to drill into the Earth's mantle

Story highlights

    Scientists say they still need to do further research before drilling can begin
    But they're hopeful they can begin drilling by 2030

Humans have been to the Moon and explored almost every corner of the planet -- but there's one place they have never been.
A group of Japanese scientists said they plan to be the first group to successfully drill into the Earth's mantle, the planet's vast molten-rock interior, which lies just beneath the outer crust.

Researchers at Japan's Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) say they are hoping to discover more about how our planet was formed and what the mantle is composed of. Japanese media first reported on the project earlier this week.
The mantle makes up more than 80% of the entire Earth's mass, lying six miles (10 kilometers) beneath the ocean floor.

A piece of peridotite, the rock believed to make up Earth's mantle.

"We don't know the exact (composition) of the mantle yet. We have only seen some mantle materials -- the rock is very beautiful, it's kind of a yellowish green," researcher Natsue Abe, who works for JAMSTEC, said.
The Japanese government, which is helping fund the expedition, hopes the research could help discover ways to better predict earthquakes, Abe said.
"In Japan we have some volcanoes, earthquakes and such kind of natural hazards. People (want to create) some monitoring or analysis equipment but we don't know ... what kind of factor to use," Abe said.
"So we need to know the natural system more clearly or precisely ... we have to observe the earth more precisely."

Journey to the mantle 

Three drilling sites are currently under consideration, Abe said, all of them in the Pacific Ocean.
"One is off Hawaii -- we're going to survey there -- another one is off Costa Rica, (and) the last one is off Mexico," she said.
To access the mantle, JAMSTEC wants to use one of the most advanced drilling vessels currently available, the Chikyu.
"It's the biggest drilling ship of our science area, so the drilling capability is three times longer, or deeper, than the previous (vessels)," Abe said.
Japan's deep-sea drilling vessel, Chikyu, anchored at a pier in September 2013. 

Japan's deep-sea drilling vessel, Chikyu, anchored at a pier in September 2013.

The researcher said the Chikyu's drill will drop down through almost 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) of ocean before reaching the ocean floor.
It will then bore through 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) of the sea floor, or the planet's crust, before it reaches the mantle.
"We already drilled and have taken some samples from the ocean floor but (only) from the top," Abe said. "(We want) to dig from the ocean floor to the deep pristine mantle."
Drilling will start by 2030 at the latest, according to Abe. 

Four objectives 

Their project has four primary objectives, only the first of which is to access the planet's mantle by drilling through the sea floor.
"The second aim is we want to investigate the boundary between the oceanic crust and the mantle," Abe said. "The third one is we want to know how the oceanic crust formed." 

The final objective is to further examine how deep microbial life exists inside the planet. "(What is) the limit of the life inside the Earth?" Abe said.
Before any drilling can begin, there's more research that needs to be done to build the right technology, Abe said, but she was convinced the project was "feasible."
"If we dig into the mantle we will know the whole Earth history, that's our motivation to search," she said.

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Breaking News: Earthquake strikes Philippines near Manila

April 8/4/2017.  — A series of earthquakes hit Batangas on Saturday afternoon, being felt in parts of Metro Manila and some areas of south Luzon.

According to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), the first tremor hit 2km northwest of Mabini, Batangas at 3.07 p.m.

As of 4:29 p.m., Phivolcs reported the following earthquake intensities: 

•    Intensity VII - Mabini, Batangas
     Intensity VI - Calatagan, Nasugbu and Tingloy, Batangas
      Intensity V - Batangas City, Sto. Tomas and Lemery Batangas; Tagaytay City
      Intensity IV- Dasmarinas, Cavite: Lucena City; Pateros City
      Intensity III - Makati City; Pasay City; Quezon City; Muntinlupa City; Malabon City; Mandaluyong City; Bacoor, Cavite
      Intensity II - Daet, Camarines Sur  

Phivolcs recorded a second stronger quake at 3:09 p.m. 12 kilometers northwest of Mabini, clocking in at magnitude-6.0.

As of 4:43 p.m., Phivolcs reported the same earthquake intensities as the first one.

A third magnitude-4.1 tremor was recorded at 3:29 p.m. 2 kilometers northwest of San Luis, Batangas.

Meanwhile, the United States Global Survey (USGS) also reported three earthquakes.

A magnitude-5.5 quake in Bagalangit, Mabini, Batangas was recorded at 3:08 p.m., while a stronger magnitude-5.9 tremor was recorded shortly after in Talaga, Tanauan, Batangas.

USGS added a third magnitude 5.0 earthquake hit Taysan, Batangas at 3:29 p.m.

Shortly after the quakes, Batangas Governor Hermilando Mandanas told CNN Philippines there was no electricity in Batangas City, Bauan, and Mabini.

He added so far, only minor damages have been reported and no evacuations have taken place, but they are still closely monitoring the developments for possible action.

Different origins 

Phivolcs Director Renato Solidum Jr. told the media that the USGS report is not entirely accurate.

"Let me correct the estimation, because the USGS, there is a discrepancy on what they will get because they don't have many stations in the Philippines," Solidum said.

He added the origin of the first quake is the local Batangas fault near the Mabini and Tingloy areas.

Solidum clarified that the two consequent tremors originated at the Manila Trench, meaning they are not related to the first one.

The Phivolcs director explained while the second earthquake has a higher magnitude, it is located in a deeper location along with the third one.

He added the first tremor that occurred in Mabini is now part of a series of earthquakes happening in the Mabini-Tingloy area, which includes the magnitude-5.5 tremor that jolted the province on Tuesday night.

Solidum warned of possible aftershocks and smaller quakes, but said a tsunami is unlikely.

He further explained that the recent Batangas earthquakes will not trigger the so-called "Big One," as it lies in the West Valley Fault. 

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The race to destroy space garbage

A visualization of the satellites and other debris around earth

Millions of pieces of man-made trash are now orbiting the Earth. Some are tiny, others are large enough to be seen with a telescope, but all pose a risk to space craft and satellites. 

And according to experts the threat is growing as space becomes more and more crowded.

Some 23,000 pieces of space junk are large enough to be tracked by the US Space Surveillance Network. But most objects are under 10cm (4in) in diameter and can't be monitored. Even something the size of a paper clip can cause catastrophic damage 

''At the moment we're not tracking stuff that small," says Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation, a Washington based organisation dedicated to the sustainable use of space.

"And that's important because something as small as a centimetre can cause problems if it runs into a satellite."

Collisions are rare, but half of all near-misses today are caused by debris from just two incidents. In 2007, China destroyed one of its own satellites with a ballistic missile. In 2009 an American commercial communications satellite collided with a defunct Russian weather satellite.

As recently as 2015, the debris from that collision forced the crew of the International Space Station to evacuate to the Soyuz capsule. No-one was harmed, but the debris will likely remain in the Earth's orbit for hundreds, if not thousands of years. 

Scientists are experimenting with ways to clean up space. So far, there is no space vacuum. And debris have a nasty habit of creating more debris that get exponentially smaller and harder to spot.

More than 7,000 satellites have been put into space but only 1,500 are currently functioning. And within the next decade the number could increase to 18,000 with the planned launch of mega-constellations - large groups of satellites aimed at improving global internet coverage.

"That's going to amplify the problems we have with tracking objects, predicting close approaches and preventing collisions," says Weeden. "The problem is going to become much, much harder in the next several years."

Everything travels at the same speed relative to its altitude in space. That's not a problem if everything moves in the same direction, says Weeden, but objects often follow different orbits and can cross paths - a situation known as a conjunction.

"Think of it like all the cars on a highway are doing a hundred miles an hour. If the car next to you is doing that speed you don't really notice it. But if the car coming at you is doing that speed - you'll collide at 200 miles an hour."

Scientists are experimenting with ways to clean up space. So far, there is no space vacuum. And debris have a nasty habit of creating more debris that get exponentially smaller and harder to spot.
More than 7,000 satellites have been put into space but only 1,500 are currently functioning. And within the next decade the number could increase to 18,000 with the planned launch of mega-constellations - large groups of satellites aimed at improving global internet coverage.
"That's going to amplify the problems we have with tracking objects, predicting close approaches and preventing collisions," says Weeden. "The problem is going to become much, much harder in the next several years."
Everything travels at the same speed relative to its altitude in space. That's not a problem if everything moves in the same direction, says Weeden, but objects often follow different orbits and can cross paths - a situation known as a conjunction.
"Think of it like all the cars on a highway are doing a hundred miles an hour. If the car next to you is doing that speed you don't really notice it. But if the car coming at you is doing that speed - you'll collide at 200 miles an hour."

An impact crater in a window of the International Space Station from debris

Lauri Newman is NASA's traffic cop at Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland. She is responsible for using military data to decide whether the space agency's unmanned craft such as satellites need to be moved to prevent a collision with debris.

"Satellites can protect themselves from things that are smaller than a centimetre by putting up extra shielding," she says. "But the things between one and 10cm - if you can't track it there's nothing you can do."

Satellite technology is essential to almost every modern convenience - from communications to GPS navigation and downloading movies on demand. It's also vital to national security.

"It affects everything," says Lt Col Jeremy Raley a program manager at Darpa, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. "So I need to be able to see everything (in space) all the time and know what it is when I see it."

That's why Darpa is leading military efforts to find better ways of tracking space debris. In October last year it delivered a massive 90-ton telescope to the US Air Force at White Sands, New Mexico.

The Space Surveillance Telescope is designed to penetrate Geosynchronous orbit (GEO) which is becoming increasingly important. Communications and television satellites in GEO can remain in a fixed position above the Earth, offering uninterrupted service.

"The telescope is a big deal because it can see more objects and smaller objects. And rather than having to take time to look at an object and then look at something else, it can keep track of things on a more persistent basis," says Lt Col Raley.  

The Space Surveillance Telescope and the
US defense department

But that level of scrutiny costs money and also raises the question of whether the US should share its data to improve space safety overall.

That was one of the issues discussed at a recent symposium in Washington organised by the Universities Space Research Association and the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. Experts discussed who should manage space, who should be responsible for debris and whether there should be an agreed set of international guidelines for the sustainable use of space.

"There's a classic public policy, economic question here," says Weeden. "It's like pollution. It might not be worth it for you to pick up your garbage and avoid polluting the river, but there are costs to society if you don't. How do you get people to be responsible when the costs may not be borne by them?"

No single nation or entity is responsible for space although in 1959 the UN set up a Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS).

"There are currently 85 countries that are members of this committee and they range from space powers such as the US, Russia and China to countries like Costa Rica that don't even have a satellite in orbit but are an end user of satellite functions," says Weeden. "Getting all of those countries to agree on this stuff is a really difficult challenge."

But with more nations and commercial organisations operating in Earth's orbit and many looking beyond, such issues are becoming increasingly urgent.

Do nothing is no longer an option.

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Breaking News. South China Sea: Duterte orders Philippines military to occupy islands

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said Thursday he has ordered military personnel to occupy all Philippines-claimed islands in the disputed South China Sea.
"We tried to be friends with everybody but we have to maintain our jurisdiction now, at least the areas under our control. And I have ordered the armed forces to occupy all these," he said during a visit to a military camp on the Philippines island of Palawan.

Duterte said he may raise the Philippines flag on Pagasa Island, also known as Thitu Island, on the country's independence day on June 12.
Thitu is in the Spratly island chain, parts of which are claimed by the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam.

Building up 

The Philippines has traditionally been a forceful claimant in the territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
Under Duterte's predecessor, Benigno Aquino, Manila won a landmark case at an international tribunal in the Hague, which ruled China had no legal basis for the bulk of its claims in the waters.
Duterte's administration has been cozying up to Beijing since his election last year, and territorial disputes have been pushed to the background.
In a visit to the Chinese capital in October, Duterte said to Chinese President Xi Jinping that "America has lost now. I've realigned myself in your ideological flow."
Following his visit, Beijing agreed to allow Philippines fishing ships access to China-controlled territory.
"By cozying up to China and trash-talking America, Duterte has achieved something that Washington couldn't deliver: a peaceful resolution to the Scarborough Shoal standoff," Ashley Townsend, a regional expert at the University of Sydney, wrote for CNN Opinion at the time. 

Trump and China: What's at stake? 

Duterte's latest comments seem to mark a departure from his previous policy, and suggests a desire to pursue the type of militarization Beijing has been accused of bringing to the region.
"Even those, those vacant (islands) that are considered ours, let's live there," Duterte said.
"It's like we're all competing to take these islands. And what's ours now at least, let's take it and make a strong point there that this is ours."
He said the Philippines should "fortify" its territory: "(We) must build bunkers or houses there and make provisions for habitation."
Duterte has a history of making wild claims and pronouncements he does not necessarily follow up on. In December, he had to walk back a story he told about throwing someone out of a helicopter.   

High stakes 

While relations between Manila and Beijing may have improved, tensions in the South China Sea -- which is both resource rich and a crucial shipping route -- have remained high.
China has continued militarizing and building up the territories it controls, reclaiming land to turn sandbars into islands, and equipping them with airfields, ports and weapons systems.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has taken a firm line on Beijing's expansionism, saying in his confirmation that the Trump administration would "send China a clear signal."
"Building islands and then putting military assets on those islands is akin to Russia's taking of Crimea. Its taking of territory that others lay claim to," Tillerson said.
During a visit to Beijing however, Tillerson's tone was considerably softer, and he echoed Chinese language on the need to "expand cooperative areas and achieve win-win results."
Trump meets with Xi Thursday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, though it is unclear whether the South China Sea issue will come up.

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