Takeaways from AP report on how the search for the coronavirus origins turned toxic – Idaho Press

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Takeaways from AP report on how the search for the coronavirus origins turned toxic - Idaho Press

Toxic: How the search for the origins of COVID-19 turned politically poisonous – El Paso Inc.

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BEIJING (AP) The hunt for the origins of COVID-19 has gone dark in China, the victim of political infighting after a series of stalled and thwarted attempts to find the source of the virus that killed millions and paralyzed the world for months.

The Chinese government froze meaningful domestic and international efforts to trace the virus from the first weeks of the outbreak, despite statements supporting open scientific inquiry, an Associated Press investigation found. That pattern continues to this day, with labs closed, collaborations shattered, foreign scientists forced out and Chinese researchers barred from leaving the country.

The investigation drew on thousands of pages of undisclosed emails and documents and dozens of interviews that showed the freeze began far earlier than previously known and involved political and scientific infighting in China as much as international finger-pointing.

As early as Jan. 6, 2020, health officials in Beijing closed the lab of a Chinese scientist who sequenced the virus and barred researchers from working with him.

Scientists warn the willful blindness over coronavirus origins leaves the world vulnerable to another outbreak, potentially undermining pandemic treaty talks coordinated by the World Health Organization set to culminate in May.

At the heart of the question is whether the virus jumped from an animal or came from a laboratory accident. A U.S. intelligence analysis says there is insufficient evidence to prove either theory, but the debate has further tainted relations between the U.S. and China.

Unlike in the U.S., there is virtually no public debate in China about whether the virus came from nature or from a lab leak. In fact, there is little public discussion at all about the source of the disease, first detected in the central city of Wuhan.

Crucial initial efforts were hampered by bureaucrats in Wuhan trying to avoid blame who misled the central government; the central government, which muzzled Chinese scientists and subjected visiting WHO officials to stage-managed tours; and the U.N. health agency itself, which may have compromised early opportunities to gather critical information in hopes that by placating China, scientists could gain more access, according to internal materials obtained by AP.

In a faxed statement, China's Foreign Ministry defended Chinas handling of research into the origins, saying the country is open and transparent, shared data and research, and made the greatest contribution to global origins research. The National Health Commission, China's top medical authority, said the country invested huge manpower, material and financial resources and has not stopped looking for the origins of the coronavirus.

It could have played out differently, as shown by the outbreak of SARS, a genetic relative of COVID-19, nearly 20 years ago. China initially hid infections then, but WHO complained swiftly and publicly. Ultimately, Beijing fired officials and made reforms. The U.N. agency soon found SARS likely jumped to humans from civet cats in southern China and international scientists later collaborated with their Chinese counterparts to pin down bats as SARS natural reservoir.

But different leaders of both China and WHO, Chinas quest for control of its researchers, and global tensions have all led to silence when it comes to searching for COVID-19s origins. Governments in Asia are pressuring scientists not to look for the virus for fear it could be traced inside their borders.

Even without those complications, experts say identifying how outbreaks begin is incredibly challenging and that its rare to know with certainty how some viruses begin spreading.

Its disturbing how quickly the search for the origins of (COVID-19) escalated into politics, said Mark Woolhouse, a University of Edinburgh outbreak expert. Now this question may never be definitively answered.

Secrecy clouds the beginning of the outbreak. Even the date when Chinese authorities first started searching for the origins is unclear.

The first publicly known search for the virus took place on Dec. 31, 2019, when Chinese Center for Disease Control scientists visited the Wuhan market where many early COVID-19 cases surfaced.

However, WHO officials heard of an earlier inspection of the market on Dec. 25, 2019, according to a recording of a confidential WHO meeting provided to AP by an attendee. Such a probe has never been mentioned publicly by either Chinese authorities or WHO.

In the recording, WHOs top animal virus expert, Peter Ben Embarek, mentioned the earlier date, describing it as an interesting detail. He told colleagues that officials were looking at what was on sale in the market, whether all the vendors have licenses (and) if there was any illegal (wildlife) trade happening in the market.

A colleague asked Ben Embarek, who is no longer with WHO, if that seemed unusual. He responded that it was not routine, and that the Chinese must have had some reason to investigate the market. Well try to figure out what happened and why they did that.

Ben Embarek declined to comment. Another WHO staffer at the Geneva meeting in late January 2020 confirmed Ben Embareks comments.

The Associated Press could not confirm the search independently. It remains a mystery if it took place, what inspectors discovered, or whether they sampled live animals that might point to how COVID-19 emerged.

A Dec. 25, 2019, inspection would have come when Wuhan authorities were aware of the mysterious disease. The day before, a local doctor sent a sample from an ill market vendor to get sequenced that turned out to contain COVID-19. Chatter about the unknown pneumonia was spreading in Wuhans medical circles, according to one doctor and a relative of another who declined to be identified, fearing repercussions.

A scientist in China when the outbreak occurred said they heard of a Dec. 25 inspection from collaborating virologists in the country. They declined to be named out of fear of retribution.

WHO said in an email that it was not aware of the Dec. 25 investigation. It is not included in the U.N. health agencys official COVID-19 timeline.

When health officials from Beijing arrived in Wuhan on Dec. 31, they decided to disinfect the market before collecting samples, destroying critical information about the virus. Gao Fu, head of the China CDC, mentioned it to an American collaborator.

His complaint when I met him was that all the animals were gone, said Columbia University epidemiologist Ian Lipkin.

Robert Garry, who studies viruses at Tulane University, said a Dec. 25 probe would be hugely significant, given what is known about the virus and its spread.

Being able to swab it directly from the animal itself would be pretty convincing and nobody would be arguing about the origins of COVID-19, he said.

But perhaps local officials simply feared for their jobs, with memories of firings after the 2003 SARS outbreak still vivid, said Ray Yip, the founding head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outpost in China.

They were trying to save their skin, hide the evidence, Yip said.

The Wuhan government did not respond to a faxed request for comment.

Another early victim was Zhang Yongzhen, the first scientist to publish a sequence of the virus. A day after he wrote a memo urging health authorities to action, Chinas top health official ordered Zhangs lab closed.

They used their official power against me and our colleagues, Zhang wrote in an email provided to AP by Edward Holmes, an Australian virologist.

On Jan. 20, 2020, a WHO delegation arrived in Wuhan for a two-day mission. China did not approve a visit to the market, but they stopped by a China CDC lab to examine infection prevention and controlprocedures, according to an internal WHO travel report. WHOs then-China representative, Dr. Gauden Galea, told colleagues in a private meeting that inquiries about COVID-19s origins went unanswered.

There are a few cadres who have performed poorly, President Xi Jinping said in unusually harsh comments in February. Some dare not take responsibility, wait timidly for orders from above, and dont move without being pushed.

The government opened investigations into top health officials, according to two former and current China CDC staff and three others familiar with the matter. Health officials were encouraged to report colleagues who mishandled the outbreak to Communist Party disciplinary bodies, according to two of the people.

Some people both inside and outside China speculated about a laboratory leak. Those suspicious included right-wing American politicians, but also researchers close to WHO.

The focus turned to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a high-level lab that experimented with some of the worlds most dangerous viruses.

In early February 2020, some of the Wests leading scientists, headed by Dr. Jeremy Farrar, then at Britains Wellcome Trust, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, then director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, banded together to assess the origins of the virus in calls, a Slack channel and emails.

They drafted a paper suggesting a natural evolution, but even among themselves, they could not agree on the likeliest scenario. Some were alarmed by features they thought might indicate tinkering.

There have (been) suggestions that the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab, Holmes, the Australian virologist, who believed the virus originated in nature, wrote in a Feb. 7, 2020, email. I do a lot of work in China, and I can (assure) you that a lot of people there believe they are being lied to.

American scientists close to researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology warned counterparts there to prepare.

James DeLuc, head of a Texas lab, emailed his Wuhan colleague on Feb. 9, 2020, saying hed already been approached by U.S. officials. Clearly addressing this will be essential, with any kind of documentation you might have, he wrote.

The Chinese government was conducting its own secret investigation into the Wuhan Institute. Gao, the head of the China CDC, and another Chinese health expert revealed its existence in interviews months and years later. Both said the investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing, which Holmes, the Australian virologist, also heard from another contact in China. But Gao said even he hadn't seen further details, and some experts suspect they may never be released.

WHO started negotiations with China for a second visit with the virus origins in mind, but it was Chinas Foreign Ministry that decided the terms.

Scientists were sidelined and politicians took control. China refused a visa for Ben Embarek, then WHOs top animal virus expert. The itinerary dropped nearly all items linked to an origins search, according to draft agendas for the trip obtained by the AP. And Gao, the China CDC head who is also a respected scientist tasked with investigating the origins, was left off the schedule.

Instead, Liang Wannian, a politician in the Communist Party hierarchy, took charge of the international delegation. Liang is an epidemiologist close to top Chinese officials and China's Foreign Ministry who is widely seen as pushing the party line, not science-backed policies, according to nine people familiar with the situation who declined to be identified to speak on a sensitive subject.

Most of the WHO delegation was not allowed to go to Wuhan, which was under lockdown. The few who did learned little. They again had no access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology or the wildlife market and obtained only scant details about China CDC efforts to trace the coronavirus there.

On the train, Liang lobbied the visiting WHO scientists to praise Chinas health response in their public report. Dr. Bruce Aylward, a senior adviser to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, saw it as the best way to meet Chinas need for a strong assessment of its response.

The new section was so flattering that colleagues emailed Aylward to suggest he dial it back a bit.

It is remarkable how much knowledge about a new virus has been gained in such a short time, read the final report, which was reviewed by Chinas top health official before it went to Tedros.

As criticism of China grew, the Chinese government deflected blame. Instead of firing health officials, they declared their virus response a success and closed investigations into the officials with few job losses.

There were no real reforms, because doing reforms means admitting fault, said a public health expert in contact with Chinese health officials who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

In late February 2020, the internationally respected doctor Zhong Nanshan appeared at a news conference and said that the epidemic first appeared in China, but it did not necessarily originate in China.

Chinese officials told WHO that blood tests on lab workers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were negative, suggesting they hadnt been previously infected with bat coronaviruses. But when WHO pressed for an independent audit, Chinese officials balked and demanded WHO investigate the U.S. and other countries as well.

By the time WHO led a third visit to Wuhan in January 2021, a year into the pandemic, the atmosphere was toxic.

Liang, the Chinese health official in charge of the first two WHO visits, continued to promote the questionable theory that the virus was shipped into China on frozen food. He suppressed information suggesting it could have come from animals at the Wuhan market, organizing market workers to tell WHO experts no live wildlife was sold and cutting recent photos of wildlife at the market from the final report. There was heavy political scrutiny, with numerous Chinese officials who werent scientists or health officers present at meetings.

Despite a lack of direct access, the WHO team concluded that a lab leak was extremely unlikely. So it came as an infuriating surprise to Chinese officials when, months later, WHO chief Tedros said all origins hypotheses, including the lab leak theory, remained on the table.

China told WHO any future missions to find COVID-19 origins should be elsewhere, according to a letter obtained by AP. Since then, global cooperation on the issue has ground to a halt; an independent group convened by WHO to investigate the origins of COVID-19 in 2021 has been stymied by the lack of cooperation from China and other issues.

Chinese scientists are still under heavy pressure, according to 10 researchers and healthofficials. Researchers who published papers on the coronavirus ran into trouble with Chinese authorities. Others were barred from travel abroad for conferences and WHO meetings. Gao, the China CDC director, was investigated after U.S. President Joe Biden ordered a review of COVID-19 data, and again after giving interviews on the virus origins.

New evidence is treated with suspicion. In March 2023, scientists announced that genetic material collected from the market showed raccoon dog DNA mixed with COVID-19 in early 2020, data that WHO said should have been publicly shared years before. The findings were posted, then removed by Chinese researchers with little explanation.

The head of the China CDC Institute of Viral Disease was forced to retire over the release of the market data, according to a former China CDC official who declined to be named to speak on a sensitive topic.

It has to do with the origins, so theyre still worried, the former official said. If you try and get to the bottom of it, what if it turns out to be from China?

Other scientists note that any animal from which the virus may have originally jumped has long since disappeared.

There was a chance for China to cooperate with WHO and do some animal sampling studies that might have answered the question, said Tulane Universitys Garry. The trail to find the source has now gone cold.

Cheng reported from Geneva.

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Toxic: How the search for the origins of COVID-19 turned politically poisonous - El Paso Inc.

Dozens of COVID Virus Mutations Arose in Man With Longest Known Case – HealthDay

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FRIDAY, April 19, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- An immune-compromised man with a year-and-a-half-long COVID infection served as a breeding ground for dozens of coronavirus mutations, a new study discovered.

Worse, several of the mutations were in the COVID spike protein, indicating that the virus had attempted to evolve around current vaccines, researchers report.

This case underscores the risk of persistent SARS-CoV-2 infections in immunocompromised individuals, as unique SARS-CoV-2 viral variants may emerge, said the research team led by Magda Vergouwe. She's a doctoral candidate with Amsterdam University Medical Center in The Netherlands.

The patient in questioned endured the longest known COVID infection to date, fighting with the virus for 613 days before dying from the blood disease that had compromised his immune system, researchers said.

Immune-compromised patients who suffer persistent infections give the COVID virus an opportunity to adapt and evolve, the investigators explained.

For instance, the Omicron variant is thought to have emerged in an immune-compromised patient initially infected with an earlier form of COVID, researchers said.

In this latest report, the man was admitted to Amsterdam University Medical Center in February 2022 with a COVID infection at age 72, after hed already received multiple vaccinations.

He suffered from myelodysplastic and myeloproliferative overlap syndrome, a disease in which the bone marrow makes too many white blood cells, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

Following a stem cell transplant, the man also had developed lymphoma, a cancer of the white blood cells, researchers said.

A drug he took for lymphoma, rituximab, depleted all the immune cells that normally produce antibodies for COVID, they added.

To clear his COVID, the man received a monoclonal antibody cocktail that ultimately proved ineffective.

In fact, gene sequencing showed that the coronavirus started mutating to evade the antibodies hed received, a step that could have potentially undermined the effectiveness of the treatment in others, researchers said.

Gene sequencing of 27 nasal specimens taken from the man revealed more than 50 mutations in the COVID virus, including variants with changes in the spike protein targeted by vaccines.

The prolonged infection has led to the emergence of a novel immune-evasive variant due to the extensive within-host evolution, researchers said.

Such cases pose a potential public health threat of possibly introducing viral escape variants into the community, they added.

However, they noted that there had been no documented transmission of any COVID variants from the man into other people.

The researchers will present their findings at the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases meeting next week in Barcelona. Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about COVID.

SOURCE: European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, news release, April 19, 2024

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Dozens of COVID Virus Mutations Arose in Man With Longest Known Case - HealthDay

Dutchman had coronavirus for 613 days; Virus mutated over 50 times in his body – NL Times

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A Dutch man was infected with the coronavirus for 613 days, researchers from the Amsterdam UMC report. To the authors' knowledge, it is the longest SARS-CoV-2 infection duration to date. The virus muted over 50 times in his body.

The 72-year-old immunocompromised man continuously tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 from his admission to an Amsterdam clinic in February 2022 until he died of an underlying condition in October 2023. He initially became infected with the Omnicron variant of the coronavirus, but the virus mutated over 50 times in his body. As far as the researchers know, he did not infect anyone else with his mutated form of the virus.

Such persistent coronavirus infections are rare, but several cases of infections lasting hundreds of days in immunocompromised patients have been reported. Researchers worry that these persistent infections could lead to more mutations in the coronavirus. For instance, it is thought that the initial emergence of the Omicron variant originated in an immunocompromised individual, highlighting the importance of close genomic surveillance in this patient population. Not all mutations may be as manageable as the Omicron variant.

We emphasize the importance of continuing genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 evolution in immunocompromised individuals with persistent infections given the potential public health threat of possibly introducing viral escape variants into the community, the researchers said. They stressed that there must be a balance between this surveillance and human supportive care for the patients involved.

The researchers also stressed that from the viewpoint of the general public, prolonged infections remain rare as the immunocompromised population is only a very small percentage of the total population.

The Amsterdam researchers will present their findings at the ESCMID medical congress in Barcelona between April 27 and 31.

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Dutchman had coronavirus for 613 days; Virus mutated over 50 times in his body - NL Times

NATIONAL VIEW: Measles is more contagious than the coronavirus, and it’s back – Odessa American

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This year is not yet one-third over, yet measles cases in the United States are on track to be the worst since a massive outbreak in 2019. At the same time, anti-vaccine activists are recklessly sowing doubts and encouraging vaccine hesitancy. Parents who leave their children unvaccinated are risking not only their health but also the well-being of those around them.

Measles is one of the most contagious human viruses more so than the coronavirus and is spread through direct or airborne contact when an infected person breathes, coughs or sneezes. The virus can hang in the air for up to two hours after an infected person has left an area. It can cause serious complications, including pneumonia, encephalitis and death, especially in unvaccinated people. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one person infected with measles can infect 9 out of 10 unvaccinated individuals with whom they come in close contact.

But measles can be prevented with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine; two doses are 97 percent effective. When 95 percent or more of a community is vaccinated, herd immunity protects the whole. Unfortunately, vaccination rates are falling. The global vaccine coverage rate of the first dose, at 83 percent, and second dose, at 74 percent, are well under the 95 percent level. Vaccination coverage among U.S. kindergartners has slipped from 95.2 percent during the 2019-2020 school year to 93.1 percent in the 2022-2023 school year, according to the CDC, leaving approximately 250,000 kindergartners at risk each year over the past three years.

The virus is slipping through the gaps. According to the World Health Organization, in 2022, 37 countries experienced large or disruptive measles outbreaks compared with 22 countries in 2021. In the United States, there have been seven outbreaks so far this year, with 121 cases in 18 jurisdictions. Most are children. Many of the outbreaks in the United States appear to have been triggered by international travel or contact with a traveler. Disturbingly, 82 percent of those infected were unvaccinated or their status unknown.

The largest toll has been in Illinois, followed by Florida. But when an outbreak hit the Manatee Bay Elementary School in Broward County in early March, Floridas top public health official, state Surgeon General Joseph A. Ladapo, did not follow the standard recommendation that parents of unvaccinated children keep them home for 21 days to avoid getting the disease. Instead, Dr. Ladapo said, Florida would be deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance. This means allowing children without protection to go to school. Dr. Ladapos letter was an unnecessarily reckless act of pandering to an anti-vaccine movement with increasing political influence.

Vaccine hesitancy is being encouraged by activists who warn of government coercion, using social media to amplify irresponsible claims. An article published March 20 on the website of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.s Childrens Health Defense organization is headlined, Be Very Afraid? CDC, Big Media Drum Up Fear of Deadly Measles Outbreaks. The author, Alan Cassels, claims that the news media is advancing a a fear-mongering narrative, and adds, Those of us born before 1970 with personal experience pretty much all agree that measles is a big meh. We all had it ourselves and so did our brothers, sisters and school friends. We also had chicken pox and mumps and typically got a few days off school. The only side effect of those diseases was that my mom sighed heavily and called work to say she had to stay home to look after a kid with spots.

Today, he adds, Big media and government overhyping the nature of an illness, which history has shown us can be a precursor to some very bad public health policies such as mandatory vaccination programs and other coercive measures.

This is just wrong. The CDC reports that, in the decade before the measles vaccine became available in 1963, the disease killed 400 to 500 people, hospitalized 48,000 and gave 1,000 people encephalitis in the United States every year and that was just among reported cases.

The elimination of measles in the United States in 2000, driven by a safe and effective vaccine, was a major public health success. Although the elimination status still holds, the U.S. situation has deteriorated. The nation has been below 95 percent two-dose coverage for three consecutive years, and 12 states and the District below 90 percent. At the same time, the rest of the world must also strive to boost childhood vaccination rates, which slid backward during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the WHO, low-income countries with the highest risk of death from measles continue to have the lowest vaccination rates, only 66 percent.

The battle against measles requires a big not a meh effort.

The Washington Post

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NATIONAL VIEW: Measles is more contagious than the coronavirus, and it's back - Odessa American

Measles is more contagious than the coronavirus. And it’s back. – Columbia Missourian

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Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe

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Measles is more contagious than the coronavirus. And it's back. - Columbia Missourian

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek surprised at negative impact of laying off 1500 Spotify employees – Fortune

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When Spotify announced its largest-ever round of layoffs in December, CEO Daniel Ek hailed a new age of efficiency at the streaming giant. But four months on, it seems he and his executives werent prepared for how tough filling in for 1,500 axed workers would be.

The music streamer enjoyed record quarterly profits of 168 million ($179 million) in the first three months of 2024, enjoying double-digit revenue growth to 3.6 billion ($3.8 billion) in the process.

However, the company failed to hit its guidance on profitability and monthly active user growth.

It didnt seem to put off investors, who sent shares in the group soaring more than 8% in New York after markets opened Tuesday morning.

Still, as he addressed those investors following the latest earnings release, Ek didnt shy away from the obstacles that stopped the streamer from hitting some of its targets this year.

In addition to surprisingly successful 2023 growth to compare against and the impacts of falling marketing spend, Ek blamed operational difficulties linked to staffing for the group missing its earnings target to start the year.

In December, Spotify culled 1,500 jobs, equivalent to 17% of employees, as part of an aggressive efficiency drive as the group strived for profitability.

Staff costs for those employees carried a long tail, as most workers received five-month severance packages when they were let go in December.

At the same time, the footprint left behind by those employees was bigger than Ek and his executives anticipated.

Another significant challenge was the impact of December workforce reduction, Ek said on an investors call following Spotifys Q1 earnings release.

Although theres no question that it was the right strategic decision, it did disrupt our day-to-day operations more than we anticipated.

It took us some time to find our footing, but more than four months into this transition, I think were back on track and I expect to continue improving on our execution throughout the year getting us to an even better place than weve ever been.

Ek didnt elaborate on what aspects of operations were most affected by the layoffs.

Back in December as the platform he founded faced persistent losses and a falling share price, Spotify CEO Ek used a well-trodden path by tech giants to steer the ship around: mass layoffs.

We still have too many people dedicated to supporting work and even doing work around the work, rather than contributing to opportunities with real impact, Ek said in a memo as he announced he would be cutting his workforce by 17%.

Investors initially reacted well to the news, though skeptical voices asked whether the move merely put a sticking plaster over harder-to-solve issues at the group, particularly its low margins thanks to the costs of bumper record deals.

However, it appears to have worked so far. In the four months since the layoff announcements, shares in the group have jumped more than 60%.

Spotify has also recently proved it is able to raise prices in some of its key markets without seeing a flight of listeners to rival services like Apple Music.

In the long run, Spotify and Ek also remain convinced the tough round of layoffs has set Spotify up for long-term profitability.

The apparent collective surprise at how that can affect operations in the short run, though, marks a dash of hubris for the newly bullish streaming group.

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Spotify CEO Daniel Ek surprised at negative impact of laying off 1500 Spotify employees - Fortune

Europe’s A.I. ‘Champion’ Sets Sights on Tech Giants in U.S. – The New York Times

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Arthur Mensch, tall and lean with a flop of unkempt hair, arrived for a speech last month at a sprawling tech hub in Paris wearing jeans and carrying a bicycle helmet. He had an unassuming look for a person European officials are counting on to help propel the region into a high-stakes match with the United States and China over artificial intelligence.

Mr. Mensch, 31, is the chief executive and a founder of Mistral, considered by many to be one of the most promising challengers to OpenAI and Google. You have become the poster child for A.I. in France, Matt Clifford, a British investor, told him onstage.

A lot is riding on Mr. Mensch, whose company has shot into the spotlight just a year after he founded it in Paris with two college friends. As Europe scrambles to get a foothold in the A.I. revolution, the French government has singled out Mistral as its best hope to create a standard-bearer, and has lobbied European Union policymakers to help ensure the firms success.

Artificial intelligence will be built rapidly into the global economy in the coming decade, and policymakers and business leaders in Europe fear that growth and competitiveness will suffer if the region does not keep up. Behind their worries is a conviction that A.I. should not be dominated by tech giants, like Microsoft and Google, that might forge global standards at odds with the culture and politics of other countries. At stake is the bigger question of which artificial intelligence models will wind up influencing the world, and how they should be regulated.

The issue with not having a European champion is that the road map gets set by the United States, said Mr. Mensch, who just 18 months ago was working as an engineer at Googles DeepMind lab in Paris, building A.I. models. His co-founders, Timothe Lacroix and Guillaume Lample, also in their 30s, held similar positions at Meta.

In an interview at Mistrals spartan, whitewashed offices facing the Canal Saint-Martin in Paris, Mr. Mensch said it wasnt safe to trust U.S. tech giants to set ground rules for a powerful new technology that would affect millions of lives.

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Europe's A.I. 'Champion' Sets Sights on Tech Giants in U.S. - The New York Times

Neil Young’s Spotify tiff is a reminder that tech giants always win – Euronews

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The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent in any way the editorial position of Euronews.

As a listener, you might not care. But as an artist, it can be a tough pill to swallow to know that an algorithm, as opposed to human preference, might be behind your success or failure, Jonah Prousky writes.

Neil Young and Joni Mitchell begrudgingly returned their music to Spotify last month, two years after leaving the platform in protest of its largest podcaster, Joe Rogan.

According to Young, Rogan was using the platform to spread misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic.

They can have Rogan or Young. Not both, wrote Young to his manager at Warner Music Group.

It turns out, Spotify can have both.

And, no matter what you think of Youngs protest (or boycott, or whatever it was), his clash with Spotify is a reminder that tech giants have a funny way of getting what they want and resistance from artists is usually futile.

Many creators have long been frustrated with platforms like Spotify and YouTube due to the algorithms they employ, which in part drive views and streams, and by extension, pay.

Most creators, however, dont have the clout to issue ultimatums, nor the money to leave these platforms.

While some artists on Spotify make a decent living, there is a far, far greater volume of artists literally millions of them who are struggling to make ends meet from their streaming royalties, according to Rolling Stone.

Also, without an established audience of ones own, artists are pretty much beholden to Spotify and YouTube for views.

According to Forbes, Spotify holds a dominant 30.5% of the music streaming market, more than double its nearest competitor, Apple Music, which has a 13.7% share. YouTube is virtually unrivalled.

Who cares, you might say, Spotify is beloved. And, hasnt the company done a lot to democratise music?

Its true, the company cut out a lot of the red tape associated with the legacy music business by giving new artists a direct line (and business model) for reaching listeners.

That ethos is even enshrined in the companys mission statement, which is to unlock the potential of human creativity by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it.

The company has done much to advance that mission. Its capable of launching music careers in ways that never would have been possible in decades past. An artists streams and by extension, earnings can skyrocket almost overnight if their songs make it onto one of the platform's most-listened-to playlists.

It can quite literally be the difference between driving Uber and making music on the side and earning $200,000 (187,880) in streaming royalties.

So any attempt to criticise the platform ought to be wary of what its done for some musicians. But, in many ways, the platforms algorithm has homogenised music tastes around a small number of top artists, making it harder for new musicians to gain traction.

Algorithms", wrote Scott Timberg in a column for Salon, "are about driving you closer and closer to what you already know. And instead of taking you toward what you want to listen to, they direct you toward slight variations of what youre already consuming.

What people are already consuming is just a small subset of Spotifys artist base, whose tunes gobble up our collective attention.

In 2013, the top 1% of artists accounted for over three-quarters of all revenue from recorded music sales. In that year 20% of songs on Spotify had never been streamed, wrote Ludovic Hunter-Tilney for the Financial Times.

Maybe thats always been the case, youll wonder. I mean, anyone who's seen The X Factor knows that not every artist is worthy of our attention. But the decision of what and who to listen to used to be a human one.

As a listener, you might not care, especially if you think the algorithm has a good handle on your taste. But as an artist, it can be a tough pill to swallow to know that an algorithm, as opposed to human preference, might be behind your success or failure.

So, say youre a musician or content creator who feels the algorithm has treated you unfavourably. What are you going to do, leave? Boycott?

Well, some are. A growing wave of artists and content creators are leaving Spotify and YouTube, often for platforms like Substack and Patreon, where their earnings arent beholden to the algorithm.

Platforms like Substack and Patreon allow creators to own their audience since earnings on these platforms arent tied to views, rather, audience members pay creators directly and the platforms take a small cut.

Still, that move is really only viable for established artists like Young and Mitchell who have audiences.

So, if youre just starting out as a musician or content creator, you really have no choice but to dig in your heels and hope the algorithm likes your stuff.

Jonah Prousky is a Canadian freelance writer based in London. His work has appeared in several leading publications including the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Toronto Star, and Calgary Herald.

At Euronews, we believe all views matter. Contact us at view@euronews.com to send pitches or submissions and be part of the conversation.

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Neil Young's Spotify tiff is a reminder that tech giants always win - Euronews

Tech Giants Promise to Crack Down on AI-Generated Child Porn – The Daily Beast

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Artificial intelligence leaders including OpenAI, Meta, and Google have agreed to install child protection safeguards in response to an alarming rise in AI-generated child porn, The Wall Street Journal reported. Organized by the child-safety group Thorn and the ethical tech nonprofit All Tech Is Human, the agreement asks AI labs to avoid training models off data sets that could include explicit images of children and calls for more vigilance in shutting down back doors that allow that content to be generated. For instance, Thorn wants AI platforms and search engines to cut links to services that generate naked photos of kids, which has caused serious privacy problems at middle and high schools this year. Big tech, which famously moves at a breakneck pace, worries that attempts to install sweeping safeguards could hinder innovation or lead to a less useful modelsbut theres a dire need for self-regulation. In a report released Monday, Stanfords Internet Observatory found the volume of AI-generated child porn is on the brink of overwhelming the single organization that monitors crimes against children.

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Tech Giants Promise to Crack Down on AI-Generated Child Porn - The Daily Beast

Microsoft, AWS & Oracle: Why Big Tech is Investing in Japan – Technology Magazine

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AWS-commissioned research by AlphaBeta shows that cloud and cybersecurity skills will be the top two most sought-after digital skills by Japanese employers by 2025. AWS has trained over 400,000 individuals in Japan with cloud skills since 2017, providing them with in-demand cloud skills and best practices to help learners and organisations innovate in the cloud.

For over a decade, AWS has been committed to helping our Japanese customers access the latest cutting-edge technology, build digital solutions on highly resilient and secure cloud infrastructure, and adapt their businesses to maintain an edge in todays complex economic environment, said Tadao Nagasaki, President of AWS in Japan. Our investment into cloud infrastructure generates a ripple effect across the Japanese industries including the public and government sectors. It will help more Japanese organisations with the ability to access and adopt new, emerging and transformational digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. We are committed to and excited about the future of Japans digital economy.

Microsoft has also announced plans to invest in Japan over the next two years, aiming to increase hyperscale cloud computing and AI opportunities.

The company aims to do this by expanding its existing digital skills programmes with the goal of providing AI skills to more than three million people over the next three years. This follows a recent similar commitment to teach millions in India about AI by 2025.

Microsoft also plans to open its first Microsoft Research Asia lab and states it seeks to deepen its cybersecurity collaborations with the government of Japan.

The US$2.9bn commitment is Microsofts largest investment into Japan in the 46 years it has been present in the country. With this financial boost, Microsoft will be able to provide more advanced computing resources in Japan, including the latest graphics processing units (GPUs) to speed up AI workloads.

We are honoured to contribute to Japan and its future with our largest investment to date, technology and knowledge, says Miki Tsusaka, President of Microsoft Japan. In collaboration with our partners, Microsoft Japan is fully committed to supporting the people and organisations of Japan to solve social problems and achieve more.

Google Cloud has announced a US$1bn investment in digital connectivity to Japan, including the expansion of the Pacific Connect initiative and delivery of two new subsea cables, aimed at creating new fibre-optic routes between the continental United States and Japan in support of Googles Japan Digitization Initiative, while improving the reliability and resilience of digital connectivity between the US, Japan, and multiple Pacific Island countries and territories.

Subsea cables can bring economic and productivity gains to the places where they land. For example, in Japan, studies estimate Google network infrastructure investments drove an additional US$400m in GDP in the previous decade. With increased access to digital services, more people can take advantage of skill development and career opportunities, while businesses and public sector organisations can better serve their customers and constituents.

Were excited about the long-term benefits that these latest Pacific initiatives will bring to people, our users, and our customers, wrote Brian Quigley VP of Global Network Infrastructure at Google Cloud in an announcement. Well continue to share more as we continue working with partners to reduce the digital divide across the Pacific.

OpenAI meanwhile recently announced its first office in Asia, together with the release of a GPT-4 custom model optimised for the Japanese language.

The AI startup said it is providing local businesses with early access to a GPT-4 custom model specifically optimised for the Japanese language, offering improved performance in translating and summarising Japanese text and operating up to three times faster than its predecessor.

We are committed to collaborating with the Japanese government, local businesses, and research institutions to develop safe AI tools that serve Japans unique needs and to unlock new opportunities, the company said in an announcement blog. We chose Tokyo as our first Asian office for its global leadership in technology, culture of service, and a community that embraces innovation.

OpenAI says it is working with leading businesses like Daikin, Rakuten, and TOYOTA Connected who are using ChatGPT Enterprise to automate complex business processes, assist in data analysis and optimise internal reporting.

Were excited to be in Japan which has a rich history of people and technology coming together to do more, said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. We believe AI will accelerate work by empowering people to be more creative and productive, while also delivering broad value to current and new industries that have yet to be imagined.

In April Oracle Corporation Japan announced that it plans to invest more than US$8bn over the next 10 years to meet the growing demand for cloud computing and AI infrastructure in Japan. The investment will grow Oracle Cloud Infrastructures (OCI) footprint across Japan. In addition, to help customers and partners address the digital sovereignty requirements in Japan, Oracle will significantly expand its operations and support engineering teams with Japan-based personnel.

Oracle plans to increase local customer support of its public cloud regions in Tokyo and Osaka and its local operations teams for Oracle Alloy and OCI Dedicated Region. This will enable governments and businesses across Japan to continue to move their mission-critical workloads to the Oracle Cloud and embrace sovereign AI solutions.

We are dedicated to meeting our customers and partners where they are in their cloud journey, said Toshimitsu Misawa, member of the board, corporate executive officer and President of Oracle Corporation Japan. By growing our cloud footprint and providing a team to support sovereign operations in Japan, we are giving our customers and partners the opportunity to innovate with AI and other cloud services while supporting their regulatory and sovereignty requirements.

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Microsoft, AWS & Oracle: Why Big Tech is Investing in Japan - Technology Magazine

The Linux Foundation and tech giants partner on open-source generative AI enterprise tools – ZDNet

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Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger focused his sales pitch for Gaudi 3 on enterprise customers, telling them a "third phase" of AI will mean automating complex enterprise tasks.

The Linux Foundation and a host of major tech companies are teaming up to build generative AI platforms for enterprise users.

Intel, Red Hat, VMware, Anyscale, Cloudera, KX, MariaDB Foundation, Qdrant, SAS, and several other companies are partnering on the Open Platform for Enterprise AI (OPEA), a Linux Foundation initiative to develop open-source AI solutions for companies worldwide. While the partners stopped short of saying what exactly they will develop, they promised "the development of open, multi-provider, robust, and composable GenAI systems."

The corporate world is abuzz over AI and its potential. While some companies are building their own AI solutions, others are reliant upon third-party providers. Some of the AI services they need are unique to their businesses, but in many cases, AI services that can predict outcomes, autocomplete spreadsheet formulas, and optimize worker time can be used across industries.

Also: AI business is booming: ChatGPT Enterprise now boasts 600,000+ users

OPEA tries to address the latter use case. Because the companies have committed to building open-source AI products, they would conceivably be able to jump between the various products without compatibility or cross-functional operation issues.

The companies also hope to address the increasing adoption of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) solutions, they said. RAG refers to an AI model's ability to access external data to supplement its understanding of user queries and deliver better results.

A view of how OPEA solutions could work, with help from RAG.

For example, if doctors use an AI model to enhance their practice, externally sourced medical journals could make that AI model -- and their outcomes -- even better. The problem, however, is that RAG pipelines haven't been standardized, creating issues for companies wanting to deploy new AI platforms.

"OPEA intends to address this issue by collaborating with the industry to standardize components, including frameworks, architecture blueprints and reference solutions that showcase performance, interoperability, trustworthiness and enterprise-grade readiness," the companies said in a statement.

Although these companies have committed to building cross-compatible AI tools through OPEA, they're still competitors that have a vested interest in generating revenue from their own products. While enterprises could ultimately benefit from open-source AI tools, the companies will still need to play nicely together if the want to achieve OPEA's goals.

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The Linux Foundation and tech giants partner on open-source generative AI enterprise tools - ZDNet

Zoho is the Google Workspace alternative African tech companies are choosing – Rest of World

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When Nigerian edtech startup, Flexisaf, decided to cut costs earlier this year, it realized it needed to reduce its spending on technology.

One of the companys biggest costs was the money it paid Google to use its Workspace a collection of Google products including Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Meet, and Docs. Flexisaf had used Google Workspace since 2010, but with 100 employees now, it was becoming too expensive for the small business.

In March, Flexisaf found a solution to its problem in Zoho, an Indian company that offered similar products as Google, but at a fraction of the price. Flexisaf has started the process of migrating to Zoho once that is completed, it will save the company around 8,000,000 naira ($6,960) a year, Saad Shehu, Flexisafs people and talent manager, told Rest of World.

The approach weve taken is to introduce the mail and meeting tools first, and drive adoption of the other features within the coming months, Shehu said.

Zoho, a lesser-known rival of Google and Microsoft in the enterprise software space, has been stepping up in Africa as an affordable alternative to the global giants. The company has hired local staff, introduced payment options in local currencies, and even sponsored a cricket tournament to dig its heels into the market. But even as it has seen some early success, African tech experts say Zoho needs to strengthen its branding and engage with the local tech community to give serious competition to its larger rivals in the future.

There is a tremendous opportunity for digital transformation in African countries, Praval Singh, vice president of marketing and customer experience at Zoho, told Rest of World. A lot of companies are adopting digital, either for the first time or theyre on that path of making their businesses more efficient using technology, he said. Rest of World spoke to seven startups in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa that have ditched Google and switched to Zohos products over the past year or so.

While Zoho launched in India in 1996, it was only in 2019 that it started on-the-ground operations in Africa, with one salesperson each in South Africa and Nigeria. Now, it has about 60 employees across the continent, Zohos regional manager for Africa, Andrew Bourne, told Rest of World. Besides work management tools like the equivalent of Gmail or Google Drive, Zoho sells software for customer relationship management, human resource management, and accounting, among other products.

Globally, Zoho has over 100 million users. Its clients include e-commerce major Amazon, leading carmaker Mercedes-Benz Group AG, Indian airline SpiceJet, and food delivery platform Zomato. Zohos advantage over its bigger rivals is that it does not run ads or sell customers data to third parties, Singh said.

In 2023, Zohos user base in Nigeria grew by 50% year-on-year, while its revenue from South Africa rose by 73%, Bourne said. The company refused to disclose how many users it had in Africa or how much revenue it had made from the continent. A Zoho spokesperson told Rest of World its clients include Kenyan lifestyle app Pesapal, South African fintech Payfast, and events ticketing portal Quicket. The companys combined annual revenue has crossed $1 billion.

But despite its initial success, Zoho doesnt have the same support for the local developer ecosystem as Google does in Africa, according to Prosper Otemuyiwa, a Nigerian software engineer and co-founder of ForLoop, an African nonprofit developer community. They dont have enough goodwill yet, Otemuyiwa said. [Google] has built an ecosystem of tools and support, [and] users are likely going to hesitate before clocking out of [it], just as people would rather pay for an Apple product just to remain within that ecosystem of tools.

In 2021, Zoho started allowing African companies to pay for its software in local currencies. This decision has been a major reason for Zohos success in Africa as it allowed customers and potential clients to avoid regulatory hurdles around dollar spending, Kehinde Ogundare, country director for Nigeria, told Rest of World. We saw the rise in adoption of Zoho technology in Nigeria when we started pricing in local currency and building a local support team.

In comparison, African companies can pay for Google Workspace only in dollars and euros, as verified by Rest of World.

As long as theres a naira equivalent for anything thats coming in dollars, Zoho will win, Adewale Yusuf, co-founder and CEO of edtech startup AltSchool Africa, told Rest of World. They have great products and pricing whats left is to build trust and engage in strong marketing activities to completely shake out the big guys. Yusuf, who has co-founded three startups, said all his companies now use at least one Zoho product.

Google and Microsoft did not respond to Rest of Worlds queries about offering localized solutions in Africa, including adding payment options in local currencies.

Zoho has also been aggressive with its pricing in Africa. Zoho One, a bundle of more than 45 products, sells for just $6.70 per user in Nigeria, compared to $30 in the rest of the world.

Cost is the biggest driver for me, Neto Ikpeme, founder and CEO of Nigerian health-tech startup Wellahealth, told Rest of World. Ikpeme had opted for Zoho over Google when he launched his company in 2016. We know that its difficult enough to access dollars, and if you can, you might want to reserve it for other services that you cant pay for locally, he said. But the low pricing may not be enough for Zoho to dethrone its larger rivals. Users told Rest of World the companys products lack sophistication.

Zoho hasnt done a design upgrade in a while and it is starting to get a little bit stale. They also need to have better mobile apps, said Vijay Anand, an Indian angel investor and founder whose startups use Zoho. When he tested Zohos new Slack-like service, Cliq, Anand was disappointed by the lack of emojis and GIFs. Its the one happy thing the teams have, he said.

ForLoops Otemuyi said Zoho lacks a developer community that can support its products in Africa. Theres no strong community to leverage when you run into a problem, he said. Google has that in abundance and across the continent in terms of developers, startups, and IT professionals generally.

Zoho is partnering with local business communities, incubators, accelerators, and venture capital firms to tackle that challenge, Veerakumar Natarajan, the companys regional manager for East Africa, told Rest of World. In Kenya and South Africa, for instance, it has partnered with startup incubator hubs like J-Hub Africa and Silulo Foundation, respectively, Natarajan said.

Google is a lot bigger than we are in terms of size, Singh said. But our portfolio, with a spread of 55-plus apps, is the most prolific in the industry, owing to our bullish focus on [research and development]. He said some customers might use only Zoho, while others might use it along with Googles products to meet different needs. It takes each of a kind to make a village, said Singh.

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Zoho is the Google Workspace alternative African tech companies are choosing - Rest of World

Letters to the editor: Ignore the populist bait of an uneconomical manufacturing dream – The Australian Financial Review

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We need better performance from our politicians, and that requires us to ignore the populist bait on offer. And to reward the politicians who act against their own interests to benefit the country.

Graeme Bennett, Artarmon, NSW

Ed Shann would have us continue business as usual and go with our strengths (Forget Made in Australia, do what we already do well). But what of energy security, and the need to decarbonise?

We have recently witnessed Australias dependence on imports, whether in the 90 per cent of our imported oil supplies at risk due to conflicts elsewhere or a pandemic that isolated the very industries Mr Shann believes are our strengths: education and tourism.

As for subsidies, the Australia Institute reported that in 2022-23, Australian governments provided fossil fuel industries with $11.1billion in spending and tax breaks: This years figure represents a 5 per cent decline on last years, but subsidies in the forward estimates have increased from $55.3 billion to a record $57.1 billion.

The focus on returns to fossil fuel shareholders needs to shift to a focus on making renewables work for the environment and for an equitable transition to cheaper energy sources. This will require investment.

On a micro level, millions of Australians have worked this out already. New home battery installations rose 21 per cent last year. According to the Climate Council, rooftop solar is now providing 11.2 per cent of our nations total power supply after 314,507 households installed solar panels last year, bringing online 2.9GW of new generation.

Fiona Colin, Malvern East, Vic

It was pleasing to read rational commentary detailing criteria necessary to boost investment (Four ways we can lift investment in local manufacturing).

It was all about fundamentals: approvals; build times; competitive input costs; skilled workforce. The only mention of tax was the sensible suggestion for faster depreciation of manufacturing investments.

Improved depreciation rates can apply across all industries. Developing and purchasing computer software is part of everyday business and necessary to drive productivity and revenue. It is like employing people to achieve outcomes. All software expenditures should be able to be written off as incurred rather than depreciated.

Graeme Troy, Wagstaffe, NSW

I offer a counter to the self-serving views of the Minerals Council of Australia as presented by chief executive Tania Constable (Dont make stuff Australia has no edge in, says MCA).

Ms Constable seems to have no idea there is much more to a manufacturing sector than raw inputs and outputs. For a start, there is the whole can do mindset that a thriving manufacturing sector can engender. Ms Constable probably cant conceive that there might be thousands of young Australians who would much rather spend their work time actually making things and gaining practical skills than answering emails and moving numbers around on a screen all day.

Can I suggest she read Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment by Francis Fukuyama and pause for a moment to consider the lasting damage to society that can occur when considerations of individual dignity and respect are simply cast aside for the narrow economic benefit of the nation?

Fraser Faithfull, Caulfield South, Vic

The AFR View is right to say the tragedy at Bondi Junction at the weekend would be 10 times worse if the perpetrator had a gun (Bondi Junction tragedy brings out the best). The reason Australians rush to help is that we dont think a gun is involved; the first thing Americans do is run away for fear of being shot.

While it is comforting to see all politicians and media condemn this monstrous act and understand the publics need for full and continuous disclosure, this period will soon end. We will then want to see real change, and real action.

This is where our political leaders could easily let us down. Labor is often criticised for being soft on crime, and time will tell if NSW Premier Chris Minns and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese fall into this category.

As The AFR View rightly points out, drugs are pernicious and a scourge; we need tougher action on drug dealers (especially ice, which seems to be in every suburb, and destroys too many lives), greater focus on reducing male violence towards women, reducing domestic violence, and fast action on mental health. We must support the police use of firearms in these situations, look at technology (artificial intelligence and CCTV), the carrying of mace by women made legal, and stab vests and tasers for security guards (with appropriate training and checks).

It is time for our political leaders to realise that laying flowers and sharing updates is important to help unite people and to grieve, but its 1 per cent of the job; taking effective action is the other 99 per cent.

Glen Frost, Darlington, NSW

The news that KIA is marketing a super-sized diesel vehicle specifically for the Australian market says a lot about our mind set. The world is in a climate emergency yet we are partying like there is no tomorrow.

When I drive to the local shopping centre, my little Corolla is dwarfed by a sea of Rams, Rangers and Range Rovers. They are excessive for doing the weekly shopping and school run.

What does it take to shake Australians from their complacency? We are all in this together, folks.

Barry Lizmore, Ocean Grove, Vic

I had no idea CPI was running at 20 per cent until I bought a copy of AFR Weekend in Adelaide on Saturday with a new cover price of $6, up from $5. No doubt Rear Window will shortly do a forensic analysis. After all, the Fins preoccupation with transparency is legendary.

John Bridgland, Adelaide, SA

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Letters to the editor: Ignore the populist bait of an uneconomical manufacturing dream - The Australian Financial Review

Food trucks and concerts: Prinsjesdag to get populist overhaul – DutchNews.nl

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Prinsjesdag, the tradition-laden state opening of the parliamentary year is to get a facelift after declining crowds and an increase in protests directed at the royals, forces officials to rethink their approach.

Every year the king and queen drive through The Hague in a horse-drawn carriage, on their way to perform the opening ceremony. And on their return to their Noordeinde palace, they stand on the balcony for a few minutes and wave at the crowds.

But fewer people have been showing up to watch the procession and the royals have had to face jeers and demonstrations, particularly during the coronavirus era.

Now, officials from the royal household, the upper and lower chambers of parliament, and the government are putting together a new plan to boost the publics involvement in Prinsjesdag, documents which have been leaked to broadcaster NOS show.

Some of the traditional elements, such as the procession of four coaches, the kings reading of a speech outlining government policy, and the balcony scene will be retained. But new elements will be added in, including some sort of walk-about by the royals to meet the public, NOS said.

One suggestion is a public concert on the square next to the parliamentary complex which should be similar in atmosphere to the events hosted by popular classical music conductor Andr Rieu in Maastricht.

Other ideas include encouraging everyone to wear a hat, a performance by an artist who is popular with the young, open days at the various palaces and other royal buildings in The Hague, and a food truck festival.

The first changes should be visible on September 17 when the next Prinsjesdag takes place, but it is unclear as yet what they are likely to be.

The governments spending plans for the following year are always presented on the third Tuesday in September.

According to research published last November, 50% of the general population support the monarchy but 26% would like the Netherlands to become a republic.

Among the under 35s, almost four in 10 support the monarchy but 34% consider themselves republicans. Eleven years ago, when Willem-Alexander was sworn in as king, 80% of the population backed the monarchy.

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Argentina’s populist president meets billionaire Elon Musk in Texas and a bromance is born – PinalCentral

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Argentina’s populist president meets billionaire Elon Musk in Texas and a bromance is born – Idaho Press

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NASA to look for new options to carry out Mars Sample Return program – SpaceNews

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WASHINGTON NASA will seek out of the box ideas in a bid to reduce the costs and shorten the schedule for returning samples from Mars.

In an April 15 briefing, agency officials announced they would solicit proposals from NASA centers and from industry on innovative designs to reshape its Mars Sample Return (MSR) effort after an internal review confirmed the ballooning costs of the overall program.

That review found that the current program would cost between $8 billion and $11 billion, the same range offered by an independent assessment completed last September. To fit that into the overall planetary science budget without affecting other programs would delay the return of samples from the early 2030s to 2040.

The bottom line is that $11 billion is too expensive and not returning samples until 2040 is unacceptably too long, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said at the briefing.

To try to reduce costs and schedule, NASA will issue a request for proposals April 16 seeking ideas on alternative approaches for the overall MSR architecture or specific elements of it, like the sample retrieval lander or Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) rocket that would place the collected samples into orbit. Proposals would be due to NASA May 17, with the agency issuing contracts for 90-day studies shortly thereafter.

Im expecting to get everybody in high gear and that we have the answers to this by this fall, Nelson said.

While NASA is looking for innovative approaches, it is not necessarily looking for new technologies. What were looking for is heritage, said Nicola Fox, NASA associate administrator for science. What were hoping is that well be able to get back to some more traditional, tried-and-true architectures, things that do not require huge technological leaps.

One example she gave is technology that enables a smaller, and presumably less expensive, MAV. The studies, she said, will seek proposals that could return an unspecified number of samples, and not necessarily all the roughly 30 samples that the Perseverance rover will have on board when it completes its work.

NASAs hope is that the studies can significantly reduce the cost and schedule for MSR, but officials did not set a specific goal. Were definitely going to try, Nelson said, adding he was counting on the expertise of NASA personnel and those in industry to find a solution.

The goal is to do better than a revised version of the baseline architecture for MSR that NASA developed in response to the independent report last fall. That architecture would see the launch of the ESA-developed Earth Return Orbiter in 2030, slightly later than currently planned, said Sandra Connelly, NASA deputy associate administrator for science, during a town hall meeting after the briefing. That would be followed by the sample retrieval lander with the MAV in 2035, allowing samples to make it back to Earth in 2040.

One issue is the longevity of Perseverance. Connelly said the new plan would have Perseverance complete its exploration of terrain outside Jezero Crater and return to the crater floor in 2028. Once there, it would go into a quiescent state until the sample retrieval lander arrived.

Fox suggested in the town hall meeting that this baseline concept would not fly given its projected high cost. In the current budget climate that we have, $11 billion, as the administrator said, is too much, she said. I wouldnt say the entire thing is dead on arrival. What were looking at is how we can infuse some innovation and heritage and simplification.

MSR, though, will be on a fiscal diet the next two years. Fox said that NASA plans to spend $310 million on MSR in the current fiscal year, near the low end of the range offered by congressional appropriators in the final omnibus spending bill last month. That is a little less than one third of the $949.3 million that NASA originally requested for MSR in its 2024 budget proposal.

NASAs fiscal year 2025 budget request left funding for MSR as TBD or to be determined. NASA now says it will seek $200 million for the program. Lori Glaze, director of NASAs planetary science division, said at the town hall meeting that the $200 million will come from a line for Planetary Decadal Future in the original budget proposal, avoiding taking money away from existing missions or research programs. It would, though, further delay new missions, like a proposed Uranus mission recommended by the latest planetary science decadal survey.

Nelson said he has had extensive discussions about NASAs MSR plans with members of Congress, including senators and representatives from California worried about the effects of the changes on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which laid off 8% of its workforce in February in response to reductions in spending on MSR. They seem to be quite understanding of the predicament were in.

However, in a statement a few hours after the briefing, Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) criticized the budget reductions. These funding levels are woefully short for a mission that NASA itself identified as its highest priority in planetary science and that has been decades in the making, they stated, asking Nelson to work with Congress to better balance these cuts to protect the JPL workforce.

NASA officials said at the briefing and town hall that there was no discussion of suspending or even canceling MSR, citing its high ranking in the last two planetary science decadal survey among flagship-class missions. Returning these samples from Mars is such a huge priority for us. That is why were doing all of these things, Fox said.

Returning the samples from Mars remains an important operation, Nelson said.

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NASA to look for new options to carry out Mars Sample Return program - SpaceNews

NASA’s Mars sample return plan is getting a major overhaul: ‘The bottom line is $11 billion is too expensive’ – Space.com

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NASA is looking for a new way to get its precious Mars samples back to Earth.

Those samples are being collected by the Perseverance rover in Mars' Jezero Crater, which hosted a lake and a river delta billions of years ago. Getting ahold of the samplesis one of NASA's top science goals; studying pristine Red Planet material in well-equipped labs around the world could reveal key insights about Mars including, perhaps, whether it has ever hosted life, NASA officials say.

The agency has had a Mars sample-return (MSR) architecture in place for some time now, but repeated delays and cost overruns have rendered the original plan impractical, NASA officials announced today (April 15).

"The bottom line is that $11 billion is too expensive, and not returning samples until 2040 is unacceptably too long," NASA chief Bill Nelson said during a call with reporters this afternoon.

Related:NASA's Mars Sample Return in jeopardy after US Senate questions budget

That price tag is the upper-end estimate calculated by an independent review board, which released its findings last September. For perspective: A study from July 2020 estimated the total cost of MSR to be between $2.5 and $3 billion.

A team from within NASA analyzed those September results, determining that the agency won't be able to get Perseverance's samples back to Earth until 2040 with the established architecture. This conclusion cited reasons such as current budget constraints and the desire not to cannibalize other high-priority science efforts, like the Dragonfly drone mission to Saturn's huge moon Titan.

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The established architecture, by the way, would have sent a NASA-built lander to Jezero Crater. This lander would have brought with it a rocket called the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) and, potentially, several small retrieval helicopters akin to NASA's pioneering Ingenuity rotorcraft.

The idea was for Perseverance to drive its samples over to the lander, then load them into the MAV. The retrieval choppers may have done some of this loading work as well, especially if Perseverance wasn't in great shape by the time the lander arrived. The MAV would then have launched the samples into Mars orbit, where a spacecraft built by the European Space Agency would have snagged the container and hauled it back toward Earth.

NASA is now seeking a new way forward, however, in an attempt to cut costs and get the samples here sooner. Saving money will aid other agency science projects, and speeding up the timeline could help the agency plan out crewed Mars trips down the line.

"That is unacceptable, [to] wait that long," Nelson said today. "It's the decade of the 2040s that we're going to be landing astronauts on Mars."

The wheels on the new plan (which may retain elements of the old) are already turning. NASA is asking the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California its lead facility for robotic planetary exploration and other agency research centers for innovative MSR ideas, Nelson said today.

NASA is also looking to private industry: The agency plans to release a solicitation for new ideas from the commercial sector tomorrow (April 16), Nicky Fox, associate administrator of the agency's Science Mission Directorate, said during today's call.

NASA will hold an industry day on April 22 and accept proposals through May 17, she added. The goal is to have enough information on hand by late fall or early winter to begin charting a new path forward on MSR. "We're opening this up to everyone, because we want to get every new and fresh idea that we can," Nelson said.

It's unclear at this point, of course, what that new path will look like. But Fox previewed some possibilities, such as a smaller and cheaper MAV and a descoped sample-return tally (from 30 of Perseverance's sealed tubes to some unspecified lower number). Fox and Nelson both stressed that MSR remains a high priority for NASA, despite the difficulty of the task humanity has never launched a rocket from the surface of another planet, after all (though three countries have launched from the moon) in addition to the problems the project has experienced so far.

"I think it's fair to say that we are committed to retrieving the samples that are there at least some of those samples," Nelson said. "We are operating from the premise that this is an important national objective."

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NASA's Mars sample return plan is getting a major overhaul: 'The bottom line is $11 billion is too expensive' - Space.com

NASA announces major overhaul of ambitious Mars Sample Return mission – The Washington Post

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NASA announced Monday it is dramatically overhauling its highly anticipated but troubled mission to bring pieces of Mars to Earth, a move that experts say puts the project on life support. The space agency said it continues to support Mars Sample Return, but will operate the program under bare-bones budgets in the near-term while it seeks proposals for a faster and cheaper mission architecture.

The mission is an ambitious attempt to secure pristine chunks of the Red Planet that might help scientists reveal whether it ever hosted life. But the future of the project has been uncertain since last fall, when an independent review board produced a dire report saying the mission needed a management overhaul amid probable cost overruns and delays.

A 2020 report from the board had estimated sample return would cost $3.8 billion to $4.4 billion. Now the estimated cost over the lifetime of the mission is between $8.4 billion and $10.9 billion, with samples arriving on Earth in 2040.

That would put Mars Sample Returns price tag similar to that of the James Webb Space Telescope, a scientific and engineering marvel now observing the universe from a solar orbit about a million miles from Earth. The Webb took decades to get off the ground and gobbled up more of NASAs science dollars than anyone had hoped.

The estimated 2040 return date is unacceptable, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said Monday in a news briefing.

Its the decade of the 2040s that were going to be landing astronauts on Mars. Its also unacceptable that its $11 billion, Nelson said.

The costliness of Mars Sample Return comes at a time when NASAs science budget isnt sufficient to fund all the telescopes and space probes already underway or being planned. With congressional support for the mission unclear, NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory earlier this year laid off about 8 percent of its workforce.

Still, Mars Sample Return has been the top priority of the planetary science communitys decadal survey process, which elevates the most promising missions from the blizzard of proposals. But retrieving pristine scraps of Mars for laboratory analysis on Earth requires unprecedented technological feats. NASA and its partners, including the European Space Agency, cant simply send a spacecraft to the surface of Mars and expect it to blast off again and return to Earth. Instead, the mission calls for a fleet of spaceships operating as a team.

The Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars in 2021, has been collecting and storing samples of Martian rock and soil in Jezero Crater, where scientists believe a river flowed into a lake several billion years ago. The rover has separate funding from the sample return project.

I think its fair to say we are committed to retrieving the samples that are there, Nelson said.

The original plan called for NASA to send another vehicle to land on Mars and collect the samples from Perseverance. That lander will carry an ascent vehicle that will blast off Mars and carry the samples to orbit. There the material will be transferred to yet another spacecraft, a Mars orbiter built by the European Space Agency and charged with the task of hauling the samples back to Earth.

At the briefing, NASA officials called on the scientific community and industry to propose new ideas that use more existing, proven technologies and possibly a simpler process to retrieve the samples.

We are looking at out-of-the-box possibilities that could return the samples earlier and at a lower cost, NASAs head of science Nicola Nicky Fox said during the briefing.

G. Scott Hubbard, a Stanford professor who formerly led NASAs Mars program, said in an email he was pleased by the robust drumbeat of support for the mission expressed by Fox and other officials in a NASA town hall Monday. But he questioned whether a new architecture could bring down costs and speed up the mission.

[A] magic-wand solution that dramatically reduces cost or schedule without substantially increasing risk is hard to imagine, Hubbard said. I would be happy to be proven wrong.

Bethany Ehlmann, a planetary scientist at Caltech and president of the Planetary Society, said NASA needs to find the willpower to finish a job already started by Perseverance.

I am confident that we have the technological pieces to put sample return together. But when we choose to do things that are hard, we need to decide to do them and overcome the challenges together, Ehlmann said. What we need is the leadership and the commitment to do it.

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NASA announces major overhaul of ambitious Mars Sample Return mission - The Washington Post