Project Kylo – Google Search https://t.co/zbqSs2mG2Q https://t.co/nVEbmYFwlI
— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) July 8, 2024
Category: Audio Review – South Caucasus News
Category Added in a WPeMatico Campaign
США выразили Индии обеспокоенность по поводу ее связей с Россией https://t.co/iiCMQtBQiW
— Голос Америки (@GolosAmeriki) July 8, 2024
🇺🇸 | Multiple oil workers injured in an oil rig explosion in Bradley, Oklahoma.
Emergency crews are on the scene after an oil rig caught fire and exploded, likely due to a blowback. Three workers were injured, with two hospitalized for burn injuries. The exact cause is under… pic.twitter.com/CRrzXlW4gR
— Breaking News (@PlanetReportHQ) July 8, 2024
The June Surprise: To be jacked up on the Mountain Dew – News Review In 100 Tweets https://t.co/SRosRoKo7s pic.twitter.com/kzo4DwrSwB
— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) July 8, 2024
Dakar, Senegal — Gambian lawmakers adopted recommendations Monday for the country to maintain its ban on female genital mutilation ahead of a vote later this month on whether to decriminalize the practice.
Female genital mutilation (FGM) has been outlawed in Gambia since 2015, but the deeply rooted cultural practice remains widespread in the West African nation and the first convictions last year fueled a backlash against the law.
After a heated debate Monday, the recommendations contained in a report by the joint health and gender committee passed the full house sitting, with 35 lawmakers voting in favor of adopting the report, 17 against and two abstentions.
A final vote on the bill on whether to decriminalize FGM is currently set for July 24.
If parliament approves it, Gambia would become the first country to reverse a ban on FGM. It passed its second reading in March with only five out of 53 lawmakers voting against it and one abstaining.
After the second reading, the joint committee carried out a national public consultation with religious and traditional leaders, doctors, victims, civil society groups and circumcisers among others.
Its conclusions, presented Monday, described all forms of FGM as a “traumatic form of torture” and “discrimination against women.”
“Repealing the law would be a significant setback for the Gambia,” said Amadou Camara, the lawmaker who read out the report.
The first FGM conviction last August — of three women found guilty of cutting eight infant girls — sparked outrage and prompted independent lawmaker Almaneh Gibba to table the repeal bill in March.
Gibba and his backers, who include influential religious leaders, say the ban violates citizens’ rights to practice their culture and religion in the Muslim-majority country. Many Islamic scholars dispute this argument.
The World Health Organization says FGM has no health benefits and can lead to excessive bleeding, shock, psychological problems and even death.
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden will hold his first face-to-face talks with Britain’s new Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House on Wednesday, the White House said Monday.
Biden also will host an event Thursday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the NATO summit, which is taking place this week in Washington, national security adviser John Kirby told reporters.
Biden plans to “underscore the importance of continuing to strengthen the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom” in his meeting with Starmer, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
She said the two leaders would have the opportunity to discuss U.S.-U.K. cooperation across a range of issues from Ukraine to the Israel-Hamas war, and ensuring that Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons, as well as confronting Iranian-backed Houthi threats to commercial shipping.
The leaders also will discuss furthering cooperation in areas such as protecting advanced technologies and developing climate and clean energy solutions.
An exoplanet infamous for its deadly weather has been hiding another bizarre feature—it reeks of rotten eggs, according to a new Johns Hopkins University study of data from the James Webb Space Telescope.
The atmosphere of HD 189733 b, a Jupiter-sized gas giant, has trace amounts of hydrogen sulfide, a molecule that not only gives off a stench but also offers scientists new clues about how sulfur, a building block of planets, might influence the insides and atmospheres of gas worlds beyond the solar system.
The findings are published in Nature.
“Hydrogen sulfide is a major molecule that we didn’t know was there. We predicted it would be, and we know it’s in Jupiter, but we hadn’t really detected it outside the solar system,” said Guangwei Fu, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins who led the research. “We’re not looking for life on this planet because it’s way too hot, but finding hydrogen sulfide is a stepping stone for finding this molecule on other planets and gaining more understanding of how different types of planets form.”
In addition to detecting hydrogen sulfide and measuring overall sulfur in HD 189733 b’s atmosphere, Fu’s team precisely measured the main sources of the planet’s oxygen and carbon—water, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide.
“Sulfur is a vital element for building more complex molecules, and—like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphate—scientists need to study it more to fully understand how planets are made and what they’re made of,” Fu said.
At only 64 light-years from Earth, HD 189733 b is the nearest “hot Jupiter” astronomers can observe passing in front of its star, making it a benchmark planet for detailed studies of exoplanetary atmospheres since its discovery in 2005, Fu said.
The planet is about 13 times closer to its star than Mercury is to the sun and takes only about two Earth days to complete an orbit. It has scorching temperatures of 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit and is notorious for vicious weather, including raining glass that blows sideways on winds of 5,000 mph.
As it did by detecting water, carbon dioxide, methane, and other critical molecules in other exoplanets, Webb gives scientists yet another new tool to track hydrogen sulfide and measure sulfur in gas planets outside the solar system.
“Say we study another 100 hot Jupiters and they’re all sulfur enhanced. What does that mean about how they were born and how they form differently compared to our own Jupiter?” Fu said.
The new data also ruled out the presence of methane in HD 189733 b with unprecedented precision and infrared wavelength observations from the Webb telescope, countering previous claims about that molecule’s abundance in the atmosphere.
“We had been thinking this planet was too hot to have high concentrations of methane, and now we know that it doesn’t,” Fu said.
The team also measured levels of heavy metals like those on Jupiter, a finding that could help scientists answer questions about how a planet’s metallicity correlates to its mass, Fu said.
Less-massive giant icy planets like Neptune and Uranus contain more metals than those found in gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, the largest planets in the solar system. The higher metallicities suggest Neptune and Uranus accumulated more ice, rock, and other heavy elements relativeto gases like hydrogen and helium during early periods of formation. Scientists are testing whether that correlation also holds true for exoplanets, Fu said.
“This Jupiter-mass planet is very close to Earth and has been very well studied. Now we have this new measurement to show that indeed the metal concentrations it has provide a very important anchor point to this study of how a planet’s composition varies with its mass and radius,” Fu said. “The findings support our understanding of how planets form through creating more solid material after initial core formation and then are naturally enhanced with heavy metals.”
In coming months, Fu’s team plans to track sulfur in more exoplanets and figure out how high levels of that compound might influence how close they form near their parent stars.
“We want to know how these kinds of planets got there, and understanding their atmospheric composition will help us answer that question,” Fu said.
On July 8, the Chair of the United National Movement, Tina Bokuchava, announced a new political platform named “Unity – to Save Georgia.” She said it would bring together UNM, Strategy Agmashenebeli – two parties that have been in coalition for a year already – as well as representatives from other parties, civil society, and academia.
The new platform will be using UNM ballot number 5 in the upcoming elections. Its leaders are:
Chair of UNM, Tina Bokuchava; Chair of Strategy Aghmashenebeli, Giorgi Vashadze; Independent MP, Tamar Kordzaia; Independent MP, Armaz Akhvlediani; The representative of the former President, Mikheil Saakashvili, Sopo Japaridze; Political Scientist and a Professor, Gia Japaridze; Writer, literature expert, historian, Lasha Bakradze; Civic activist, Ana Mosadze; Activist and member of UNM, Irakli Pavlenishvili; Activist and the leader of the Strategy Aghmashenebeli youth wing, Lasha Diarovi.
Due to the 5% threshold for political parties to enter Parliament, opposition parties began to unify in political platforms starting in 2023. Exactly a year ago, UNM and Strategy Aghmashenebli announced their unification under the platform “Platform for Victory.” After the reintroduction and later the adoption of the Foreign Agents law, President Salome Zurabishvili called on the opposition parties to unify more quickly to win the elections in October 2024, announcing her plans for future reforms with the “Georgian Charter“. The opposition parties have already signed onto the Charter, and some have promised more unification in the coming months.
белоусов и кадыров – Google Search https://t.co/Y3Z5OyhFWz
— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) July 8, 2024