China has
sentenced a former lawyer to four years in prison over her posts about the
coronavirus response in Wuhan, a media report said, the first known conviction
of someone who chronicled authorities’ early struggle to manage the outbreak.
Zhang Zhan, 37, was convicted on Monday, according to a tweet from the
Hong Kong Free Press, which cited a lawyer. It didn’t give further details.
The crime carries a maximum sentence of five years. The verdict
represents China’s latest effort to punish those who exposed shortcomings in
the country’s initial response to the virus, which was first discovered a year
ago in the central city of Wuhan before spreading around the globe.
After being accused of covering up the severity of the virus, President
Xi Jinping’s government has sought to recast its response as competent and
compassionate.
Zhang was among several journalists -- professionals and amateurs alike
-- who rushed to cover the outbreak in Wuhan and its aftermath. Her posts
included a video of hospital hallways lined with patients on oxygen and another
suggesting that people had been charged for virus tests they expected to be
free.
The Covid-19 death of Li Wenliang -- a Wuhan doctor admonished by the
local government for warning about the virus -- sparked a rare public outcry
demanding freedom of speech and questioning of the country’s system of
governance. While the government embraced Li’s story, framing him as a martyr
rather than a silenced whistle-blower, authorities also launched investigations
into other critics of Beijing’s response.
Such incidents undercut the official narrative and fanned
speculation that the outbreak could feed discontent with the ruling party. The
revelations have also helped fueled criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump
and others that China played down the outbreak and contributed to its spread
around the world.
Zhang stopped posting in May and authorities later revealed
that she had been detained on allegations of spreading lies. Her lawyer told
Several other citizen journalists have disappeared from
Wuhan, part of what Human Rights Watch said
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-28/china-jails-ex-lawyer-for-four-years-over-virus-reports-in-wuhan?srnd=premium-europe
21st
century adage: Is that true, or did you hear it on the BBC?
Winter
Watch.
From around mid-October, the northern
hemisphere snow cover usually rapidly expands, while the Arctic ice gradually
expands back towards its winter maximum.
Over simplified, a rapid expansion of
both, especially if early, can be a sign of a harsher than normal arriving northern
hemisphere winter. Perhaps more so in 2020-2021 as we’re in the low of the
ending sunspot cycle, which possibly also influenced this year’s record
Atlantic hurricane season.
Update: we seem to have started new sunspot cycle 25 this month,
though it’s unlikely to affect 2020-2021s coming winter.
Northern Eur-Asia turned snowy fast in
mid-October. The Arctic sea ice
expansion was slow, and from a very low level at the end of September, but with
the vastly expanded snow cover, sea ice formation sped up.
The Laptev Sea ice was back to normal
at the end of November. The failure of
the Kara Sea ice still to return to normal, leads me to bet on a warmer western
European winter ahead.
Arctic
and Antarctic Sea Ice.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Covid-19 Corner This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Europe Starts Inoculations;
Singapore Eases Rules: Virus Update Bloomberg News December
27, 2020, 11:05 PM GMT Updated on December 28, 2020, 4:44 AM GMT
U.S. President Donald Trump signed warned
A coordinated vaccination campaign AstraZeneca Plc’s vaccine
Concern about the mutated strain first detected in Britain
grew in Asia, with Japan banning
Why the U.K. ’s Mutated Coronavirus Is Fanning Worries: QuickTake
Key Developments: More
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-27/u-s-cases-slow-in-holiday-amid-warnings-of-worse-virus-update?srnd=coronavirus
Beijing tightens COVID-19 curbs
as cases detected across capital December 27,
2020 8:31 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing has tightened COVID-19 curbs over concerns
that China’s mass travel during the holiday period could cause cases to spike
in the capital, as it reported locally transmitted cases for a fourth straight
day on Sunday.
A meeting led by the capital’s Communist party boss, Cai Qi, urged all
districts in Beijing to enter an “emergency” mode, sealing off residential
compounds and villages where infections are found.
Shunyi district, where all the recent coronavirus cases have been
reported, has declared a wartime mode and testing for all its 800,000 people.
All the cases reported on Saturday were close contacts of previous cases.
Chaoyang district, which neighbours Shunyi, has finished testing 234,413
people in three neighbourhoods, with none testing positive. People who have not
received their test results are not allowed to go out, the district government
said.
Some residential compounds in Tongzhou have reimposed temperature checks
upon entry and the number of entrances have been reduced, according to local
media reports.
China has largely brought the coronavirus under control but sporadic
cases are resurfacing in a small number of cities. Authorities plan to
vaccinate 50 million people in high-risk groups before the week-long Lunar New
Year holidays from Feb. 11, said state media Global Times.
More
https://uk.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-beijing/beijing-tightens-covid-19-curbs-as-cases-detected-across-capital-idUKKBN29108E?il=0
South Korea reports 970 new
coronavirus cases - KDCA December 27,
2020 12:51 AM
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea reported 970 new coronavirus cases for
Saturday, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said on
Sunday, bringing the national tally to 56,872 cases, with 808 deaths.
That is the smallest in five days but still not far off from the record
1,241 infections logged on Friday.
The government plans to hold a meeting on Sunday when it may tighten
distancing rules to the toughest level for the greater Seoul area.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-southkorea/south-korea-reports-970-new-coronavirus-cases-kdca-idUKKBN29100S?il=0
Next, some vaccine links
kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada. The links come from a most
informative update from Stanford Hospital in California.
World
Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines . https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines
NY
Times Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker . https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html
Stanford
Website . https://racetoacure.stanford.edu/clinical-trials/132
Regulatory
Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker . https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker
Some other useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus
resource centre
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Rt Covid-19
https://rt.live/
Covid19info.live
https://wuflu.live/
Centers for Disease Control
Coronavirus
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
The Spectator https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/national
Technology Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Updates as they get reported.
Perfect transmission through
barrier using sound Date: December 23, 2020
Source: The University of Hong Kong
Summary: A research team has for the first time
experimentally proved a century old quantum theory that relativistic particles
can pass through a barrier with 100% transmission.
The perfect transmission of sound through a barrier is difficult to
achieve, if not impossible based on our existing knowledge. This is also true
with other energy forms such as light and heat.
A research team led by Professor Xiang Zhang, President of the
University of Hong Kong (HKU) when he was a professor at the University of
California, Berkeley, (UC Berkeley) has for the first time experimentally
proved a century old quantum theory that relativistic particles can pass
through a barrier with 100% transmission. The research findings have been
published in the top academic journal Science .
Just as it would be difficult for us to jump over a thick high wall
without enough energy accumulated. In contrast, it is predicted that a
microscopic particle in the quantum world can pass through a barrier well
beyond its energy regardless of the height or width of the barrier, as if it is
"transparent."
As early as 1929, theoretical physicist Oscar Klein proposed that a
relativistic particle can penetrate a potential barrier with 100% transmission
upon normal incidence on the barrier. Scientists called this exotic and
counterintuitive phenomenon the "Klein tunneling" theory. In the
following 100 odd years, scientists tried various approaches to experimentally
test Klein tunneling, but the attempts were unsuccessful and direct
experimental evidence is still lacking.
Professor Zhang's team conducted the experiment in artificially designed
phononic crystals with triangular lattice. The lattice's linear dispersion
properties make it possible to mimic the relativistic Dirac quasiparticle by
sound excitation, which led to the successful experimental observation of Klein
tunneling.
"This is an exciting discovery. Quantum physicists have always
tried to observe Klein tunneling in elementary particle experiments, but it is
a very difficult task. We designed a phononic crystal similar to graphene that
can excite the relativistic quasiparticles, but unlike natural material of
graphene, the geometry of the human-made phononic crystal can be adjusted
freely to precisely achieve the ideal conditions that made it possible to the
first direct observation of Klein tunneling," said Professor Zhang.
The achievement not only represents a breakthrough in fundamental
physics, but also presents a new platform for exploring emerging macroscale
systems to be used in applications such as on-chip logic devices for sound
manipulation, acoustic signal processing, and sound energy harvesting.
More
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201223125745.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmatter_energy%2Fgraphene+%28Graphene+News+--+ScienceDaily%29
“When it becomes serious, you have to lie.”
Jean-Claude
Juncker. Failed former Luxembourg P.M., serial liar, ex-president of the
European Commission. Scotch
connoisseur.
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