Posts posted by --Alien--
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ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece’s tourism sector is expected to recover next summer following a dramatic fall in revenues due to the coronavirus pandemic this year, a senior industry official said on Tuesday.
Tourism is the main driver of Greece’s economy, accounting for about 20% of its output and employing one in five workers.
How the sector fares is crucial for the country which emerged from its third international bailout in 2018 after a decade-long debt crisis.
Yannis Retsos, head of the country’s tourism confederation (SETE), said tourism revenues this year had reached 4 billion euros, down from 18 billion in 2019, due to global travel restrictions to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
Greece expects its economy to shrink by about 10 percent this year and is pinning its hopes in the second half of 2021 for an economic recovery.
“We need to wait for the second half of the year to see some sort of action in tourism,” Retsos told a Greek radio station.
“Anything we see from May on would be a very positive surprise,” he said.
Based on the latest official data from the Bank of Greece, tourism arrivals fell 76% in the January-to-October period.
Greece has reported 135,931 infections since it documented its first case in February and 4,672 deaths. The country has been in a nationwide lockdown since early November and allowed only hair salons and bookstores to reopen for the Christmas season.
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There are no mechanical changes to report here, but there are visual, trim and specification alterations with the introduction of this N-Guard Double Cab variant (whose name I can’t say without a French flourish, as if I’m about to referee a fencing match. And now neither can you. Sorry.)
Outside, there are four new colours to pick from, some new decals and, in the loadbay, a new spray-on bed liner, slightly soft to absorb knocks and noises, as befits one of the more civilised pick-ups on the market.
When this generation of Navara entered production in 2014, it did so with five-link suspension and coil springs at the rear, rather than the leaf springs of all of its major rivals, and so set the target as being the most car-like to drive – so much so that Mercedes-Benz based the X-Class on it, although it stopped when nobody bought it.
It still has a solid rear axle, though, a commercial-vehicle-tax-friendly 1100kg payload and a 3500kg towing limit. Its overall cost is £37,250 (on the road, including VAT), which is competitive at this end of the market.
Inside, there’s blue contrast stitching and new footwell lighting that shines on new floor mats. It’s all subtle stuff, but then it doesn’t need too much embellishment, given that the dashboard looks like it has been lifted from any Nissan car.
There have also been upgrades to the infotainment system: an 8.0in touchscreen that is not too complex to navigate and does phone mirroring. It’s the high passenger floor and rake-only steering adjustment that give away that this is no regular SUV.
To drive, the Navara remains as it was, with a distant rumble from its 187bhp 2.3-litre diesel engine. It drives here through a seven-speed automatic gearbox, which is preferable to the long-throw six-speed manual. There’s the odd steering wheel shimmy over bumps and the unladen ride is a little excitable, but remember that this is a double-cab pick-up, and for one of those it’s refined, habitable and a respectable motorway cruiser.
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Trippier was fined £70,000 and will miss at least 14 games for Atletico Madrid following his ban handed out by the Football Association; Simeone criticises FA: "While the FA benefits from this, Atletico is harmed by it and has nothing to do with it"
Kieran Trippier's 10-week worldwide ban from football for breaching betting rules must be reassessed, according to Atletico Madrid manager Diego Simeone, who says the punishment unfairly harms the La Liga club.
Tripper was fined £70,000 by the Football Association and suspended for 10 weeks from all football and football activity for four breaches of a rule which prevents players from providing information to others on their position which is not available in public at the time.
The England international right-back will miss at least 14 matches for Atletico, who are top of La Liga and challenging for their first Spanish title since 2014 and have reached the last 16 of the Champions League, where they will face Chelsea.
Simeone says Atletico have "nothing to do with" the situation regarding Trippier's betting charge
"We think it's unfair and we hope it can be revised because of the damage done to Atletico," Simeone said ahead of Atletico's league clash with Getafe on Wednesday, the first game Trippier will miss.
"Atletico obviously have absolutely nothing to do with this situation so we hope it can be re-assessed in some way, because while the FA benefits from this, Atletico is harmed by it and has nothing to do with it.
"But the circumstances are what they are and we'll have to live with it."
Trippier, who is in his second season with Atletico, has played every minute of their 19 games in La Liga and the Champions League.
Following Trippier's punishment, Atletico look set to launch a bold January bid for Arsenal's Ainsley Maitland-Niles, whose progress they have been monitoring for the past 12 months.
Croatian full-back Sime Vrsaljko is set to take Trippier's place in the team, having only played 14 minutes of first-team football this season as a substitute in a recent Copa del Rey victory over minnows Cardassar.
Diego Costa terminates Atletico Madrid contract
Atletico Madrid have reached a mutual agreement with Diego Costa to terminate the Spain international striker's stay at the club.The former Chelsea forward's deal with the La Liga giants was set to expire in June 2021 but he has asked the club to end his stay prematurely due to personal reasons.
Diego Costa can leave Atletico on a free transfer next month
It means the 32-year-old will now be able to join a new club on a free transfer in the January transfer window."Atlético de Madrid and Diego Costa have reached an agreement for the termination of the striker's contract, which was to end on June 30, 2021," an Atletico statement read on Tuesday.
"The striker asked to leave the club for personal reasons a few days ago and on Tuesday signed the termination of his contract.
"The club thanks Diego Costa for his dedication during these years and wishes him well in the next stage of his professional career."
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The earthquake caused extensive damage in Petrinja and Zagreb
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake has struck central Croatia, with reports of many injuries and at least one death.A 12-year-old girl was killed in Petrinja, the prime minister said as he visited the town.
Further deaths have been reported by local media in a village to the south-west of Petrinja, but are yet to be confirmed.
The mayor of Petrinja said around half the town had been destroyed and people were being pulled from the rubble.
The earthquake could be felt in the Croatian capital Zagreb, in neighbouring Bosnia and Serbia, and as far away as Italy.
One woman was pulled alive from the rubble of the town hall, Croatian media reported.
"We are pulling people from the cars, we don't know if we have dead or injured," Darinko Dumbovic, the mayor of Petrinja, told regional broadcaster N1. "There
is general panic, people are looking for their loved ones."
The mayor was speaking to reporters on Tuesday when Petrinja, home to 20,000 people, was hit by another, weaker, tremor.
Croatia's president and prime minister saw for themselves the scale of damage in Petrinja within two hours of the earthquake and were united in their response.
President Zoran Milanovic compared the scene to Grozny, the capital of the the Russian republic of Chechnya, which was largely destroyed during a siege 20 years ago. The prime minister said it was "clear as day" that Petrinja was no longer safe for human habitation.
Petrinja is home to some 20,000 residents and the prime minister said it was now unsafe to live in
It is a bitter blow for the town's people, who faced a significant rebuilding operation after Croatia's war of independence in the 1990s. More recently, they have been tackling economic devastation, with the decline of traditional industries.Croatia's leaders have promised funds for reconstruction. But Petrinja's residents will be seeing in the new year in temporary accommodation - with little prospect of an early return home.
A kindergarten also collapsed in Petrinja, but it was empty at the time of the quake. In a village just outside Petrinja, a worker told N1 that nine of its 10 houses were destroyed.
Slovenia has moved to close the Krsko nuclear power plant it co-owns with Croatia.
The US Geological Survey said it was the largest earthquake to occur in Croatia since the introduction of modern seismic instrumentation. An earthquake of similar size occurred in 1880 near Zagreb.
A magnitude 5.2 earthquake hit central Croatia on Monday and there are fears of more.
Branko Dragicevic of the Serbian seismological institute told the BBC: "We can expect further quakes."
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Alfa Romeo: 33 Stradale (18 built, 1967-1969)
Exclusivity sells cars but sometimes it’s not intentional.
Even mass-market companies like Honda, Toyota and Volkswagen have released cars that remained low-volume models. Some were largely overlooked by their target audience for a multitude of reasons, like BMW's exquisite 507 (pictured). Others were quickly canceled for cost reasons, like Volkswagen’s Australia-bound Beetle-based buggy. Join us for a look at some of the rarest cars made by mainstream brands.For consistency, we’re only including street-legal production models built by the factory. We’re leaving out cars launched as limited-edition models (the Bugatti Centodieci, for example), coachbuilt models, race cars not designed for street use, prototypes and concepts. Let's take a look:
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Liverpool players dominate the side, with Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah included; Kevin De Bruyne, Harry Kane and Bruno Fernandes are among the other Premier League stars to make the team
Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville picked their best Premier League XI of 2020 on Monday Night Football. But who made it in?
The Sky Sports pundits looked back on the past 12 months in their final show of the year and selected the top-flight's best performers over that period.
Unsurprisingly, Liverpool - who sealed their first-ever Premier League crown in the summer - dominated the line-up, with Alisson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk, Andy Robertson, Jordan Henderson, and Mohamed Salah all included.
There were also spots for Tottenham pair Harry Kane and Heung-Min Son, with Manchester City playmaker Kevin De Bruyne and Manchester United star Bruno Fernandes in midfield. Wolves' Conor Coady completed the backline.
Goalkeeper: Alisson is an amazing player
Neville said: "Alisson has been the best by a mile. Ederson had been outstanding for a few seasons but his standards have dropped. When you have an outstanding goalkeeper, the difference it makes is off the scale. The upgrade from a good goalkeeper to a great goalkeeper, points-wise, is unquantifiable.
"He (Alisson) just makes save after save and makes the fewest errors, which is the key. He gives complete assurance to everyone in his team. If you want to win titles, then you need an amazing goalkeeper - and he's an amazing goalkeeper."Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson is the best in the league, according to Nev and Carra
Carragher said: "When Alisson was missing at Aston Villa, Liverpool lost 7-2. Liverpool were as bad against Fulham but the difference was that he was in goal. It's equally important as when Virgil van Dijk came in when Liverpool signed Alisson. Liverpool, without Van Dijk, are still the best team in the league and it's because he's there."Defence: Back four picks itself
Neville said: "The second centre-back was a debatable one. We had Eric Dier, Harry Maguire, Ayermic Laporte, Tyrone Mings and Conor Coady - but Coady's stats but were better than the rest. He's part of a great Wolves defence and has broken into the England team."Robertson is an unbelievable player. To do what he's done for the past three years up and down the line at the intensity he plays at. He's quality and so consistent. Trent Alexander-Arnold mesmerises me with the things he does - I never thought a full-back could do those things. But if he wants to look anywhere at who to become in the next five years, it's the left-back that he's playing with. He needs to get defensively as good as him, as consistent as him, and to be intense as him in every game."
Carragher said: "I went with Coady, not only for his Wolves performances but for his England breakthrough too. There's always a question mark surrounding players who don't play at the top level, whether it would be Champions League or international football. But Coady stepped up for England, impressing everyone with his personality. We can talk about his clean sheets and how many games he plays but his passing out from the back is as good as anyone - possibly only Van Dijk is better than him."
Midfield: All three players standout
Carragher said: "All of them stand out. Jordan Henderson was footballer of the year last year, Kevin De Bruyne pipped him to PFA Player of the Year and if Bruno Fernandes had been signed in the summer rather than January, I think he'd be in the running for player of the year as well. The three of them would have been fighting it out.Jordan Henderson led Liverpool to the Premier League title
"For me, De Bruyne is the best player in the league. I think he's going to be a Premier League great when we look back at his time at Manchester City. The best way to describe Henderson, when you see the Liverpool team and he's not there, the team doesn't feel the same. There's something missing. He just gives that side presence and authority in the middle of the pitch."And Fernandes, I remember having a debate with Roy Keane, talking about how far Manchester United were away. I said sometimes one player can just spark something. At times for us, it was Fernando Torres and his arrival just lifted everyone. Luis Suarez did the same when he came to Liverpool, so you are never as far away as you think, and Fernandes has done that with United. Only Liverpool have won more points than United since Fernandes' debut and that's what just one player can do."
Neville said: "There's Paul Pogba, David de Gea and Harry Maguire at Manchester United. They've all been captains and now there's Edinson Cavani with his experience, but Fernandes is the leader in that team. You watch him and he's the leader by example.
"He's a leader in what he does when he gives the ball away, he sprints straight after it. Every time the team is on the ball, he wants the ball and every time he gets the ball, he wants to play a pass that matters. He's transformed the whole club and every time he doesn't play, it's a massive problem. That's a big issue when you are almost reliant on him.
"And of all the midfield players they've got, Donny van de Beek, Pogba, Fred, Nemanja Matic and Scott McTominay, he is just absolutely out there.
"Those three midfield players pick themselves and Fernandes has been an absolute sensation at Manchester United. He is the leader of that team and although he's not wearing the captain's armband, he could be."
Attack: Son just pips Mane
Neville said: "You cannot criticise Son or Mane. There is no negative about them. They are both absolutely world-class. Every club in the world would want Son or Mane playing for them - Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United, every club in the world want those two players.Harry Kane leads the line for the team of the season
"Just plug the actual goals and assists in, and Son's just done better in a team that isn't as good obviously. Son just won it but that is no reflection on Mane. He could've easily been in the team."The reason I've always chosen Salah over Mane is because he's cold-blooded. Mane's a team player, who would always put the team first, but Salah is cold-blooded and that's not a negative. It makes Liverpool vicious as a team and he's the type who will just go for it again and again and again and again, and he won't stop."
Carragher said: "I love Mane but he's just going through a little spell at the moment. He's got just one goal in nine games whereas Son's been off the charts. You couldn't not pick Son.
"But what I would say is, that position, the left-sided attacker is the strongest position in the league and where the best players are. For the last two or three years, you've had Mane and Raheem Sterling who have been as good as anything in the world in that position.
"Eden Hazard just dropped off at Real Madrid and Neymar is obviously a top player, but I think Marcus Rashford and Son have jumped up now as well. Rashford's a super player and Son this season has just edged the others, but they are four probably world-class players. Maybe Rashford is just slightly under trying to get into that next bracket but I do think we've got the best in the world in that position in the Premier League."
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A Chinese scientist at the centre of unsubstantiated claims that the coronavirus leaked from her laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan has told the BBC she is open to "any kind of visit" to rule it out. The surprise statement from Prof Shi Zhengli comes as a World Health Organization (WHO) team prepares to travel to Wuhan next month to begin its investigation into the origins of Covid-19.
The remote district of Tongguan, in China's south-western province of Yunnan, is hard to reach at the best of times. But when a BBC team tried to visit recently, it was impossible.
Plain-clothes police officers and other officials in unmarked cars followed us for miles along the narrow, bumpy roads, stopping when we did, backtracking with us when we were forced to turn around.
We found obstacles in our way, including a "broken-down" lorry, which locals confirmed had been placed across the road a few minutes before we arrived.
And we ran into checkpoints at which unidentified men told us their job was to keep us out.
At first sight, all of this might seem like a disproportionate effort given our intended destination, a nondescript, abandoned copper mine in which, back in 2012, six workers succumbed to a mystery illness that eventually claimed the lives of three of them.
But their tragedy, which would otherwise almost certainly have been largely forgotten, has been given new meaning by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Those three deaths are now at the centre of a major scientific controversy about the origins of the virus and the question of whether it came from nature, or from a laboratory.
And the attempts of Chinese authorities to stop us reaching the site are a sign of how hard they're working to control the narrative.
For more than a decade, the rolling, jungle-covered hills in Yunnan - and the cave systems within - have been the focus of a giant scientific field study.
Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli is seen here inside the laboratory in Wuhan
It has been led by Prof Shi Zhengli from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).Prof Shi won international acclaim for her discovery that the illness known as Sars, which killed more than 700 people in 2003, was caused by a virus that probably came from a species of bat in a Yunnan cave.
Ever since, Prof Shi - often referred to as "China's Batwoman" - has been in the vanguard of a project to try to predict and prevent further such outbreaks.
By trapping bats, taking faecal samples from them, and then carrying those samples back to the lab in Wuhan, 1,600km (1,000 miles) away, the team behind the project has identified hundreds of new bat coronaviruses.
But the fact that Wuhan is now home to the world's leading coronavirus research facility, as well as the first city to be ravaged by a pandemic outbreak of a deadly new one, has fuelled suspicion that the two things are connected.
The Chinese government, the WIV, and Prof Shi have all angrily dismissed the allegation of a virus leak from the Wuhan lab.
But with scientists appointed by the WHO scheduled to visit Wuhan in January for an inquiry into the origin of the pandemic, Prof Shi - who has given few interviews since the pandemic began - answered a number of BBC questions by email.
"I have communicated with the WHO experts twice," she wrote, when asked if an investigation might help rule out a lab leak and end the speculation. "I have personally and clearly expressed that I would welcome them to visit the WIV," she said.
To a follow-up question about whether that would include a formal investigation with access to the WIV's experimental data and laboratory records, Prof Shi said: "I would personally welcome any form of visit based on an open, transparent, trusting, reliable and reasonable dialogue. But the specific plan is not decided by me."
The BBC subsequently received a call from the WIV's press office, saying that Prof Shi was speaking in a personal capacity and her answers had not been approved by the WIV.
The BBC denied a request to send the press office a copy of this article in advance.
Dr Peter Daszak: "I've yet to see any evidence at all of a lab leak or a lab involvement in this outbreak
Many scientists believe that by far the most likely scenario is that Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, jumped naturally from bats to humans, possibly via an intermediary species. And despite Prof Shi's offer, for now there appears to be little chance of the WHO inquiry looking into the lab-leak theory.The terms of reference for the WHO inquiry make no mention of the theory, and some members of the 10-person team have all but ruled it out.
Peter Daszak, a British zoologist, has been chosen as part of the team because of his leading role in a multimillion dollar, international project to sample wild viruses.
It has involved close collaboration with Prof Shi Zhengli in her mass sampling of bats in China, and Dr Daszak previously called the lab-leak theory a "conspiracy theory" and "pure baloney".
"I've yet to see any evidence at all of a lab leak or a lab involvement in this outbreak," he said. "I have seen substantial evidence that these are naturally occurring phenomena driven by human encroachment into wildlife habitat, which is clearly on display across south-east Asia."
Asked about seeking access to the Wuhan lab to rule the lab-leak theory out, he said: "That's not my job to do that.
"The WHO negotiated the terms of reference, and they say we're going to follow the evidence, and that's what we've got to do," he added.
The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was linked to early cases of the new coronavirus
One focus of the inquiry will be a market in Wuhan which was known to be trading in wildlife and was linked to a number of early cases, though the Chinese authorities appear to have already discounted it as a source of the virus.Dr Daszak said the WHO team would "look at those clusters of cases, look at the contacts, look at where the animals in the market have come from and see where that takes us".
The deaths of the three Tongguan workers following exposure to a mineshaft full of bats raised suspicions that they'd succumbed to a bat coronavirus.
It was exactly the kind of animal-to-human "spillover" that was driving the WIV to sample and test bats in Yunnan.
It is no surprise then that, following those deaths, the WIV scientists began sampling bats in the Tongguan mineshaft in earnest, making multiple visits over the next three years and detecting 293 coronaviruses.
But apart from one brief paper, very little was published about the viruses they collected on those trips.
In January this year, Prof Shi Zhengli became one of the first people in the world to sequence Sars-Cov-2, which was already spreading rapidly through the streets and homes of her city.
She then compared the long string of letters representing the virus's unique genetic code with the extensive library of other viruses collected and stored over the years.
And she discovered that her database contained the closest known relative of Sars-Cov-2.
RaTG13 is a virus whose name has been derived from the bat it was extracted from (Rhinolophus affinis, Ra), the place it was found (Tongguan, TG), and the year it was identified, 2013.
Seven years after it was found in that mineshaft, RaTG13 was about to become one of the most hotly contested scientific subjects of our time.
China imposed tough restrictions on Wuhan to stop the spread of the virus
There have been many well-documented cases of viruses leaking from labs. The first Sars virus, for example, leaked twice from the National Institute of Virology in Beijing in 2004, long after the outbreak had been brought under control.The practice of genetically mani[CENSORED]ting viruses is also not new, allowing scientists to make them more infectious or more deadly, so they can assess the threat and, perhaps, develop treatments or vaccines.
And from the moment it was isolated and sequenced, scientists have been struck by the remarkable ability of Sars-Cov-2 to infect humans.
The possibility that it acquired that ability as a result of mani[CENSORED]tion in a laboratory was taken seriously enough for an influential group of international scientists to address it head on.
In what has become the definitive paper ruling out the possibility of a lab leak, RaTG13 has a starring role.
Published in March in the magazine Nature Medicine, it suggests that if there had been a leak, Prof Shi Zhengli would have found a much closer match in her database than RaTG13.
While RaTG13 is the closest known relative - at 96.2% similarity - it is still too distant to have been mani[CENSORED]ted and changed into Sars-Cov-2.
Sars-Cov-2, the authors concluded, was likely to have gained its unique efficiency through a long, undetected period of circulation in humans or animals of a natural and milder precursor virus that eventually evolved into the potent, deadly form first detected in Wuhan in 2019.
Medics and scientists in Wuhan battled to control the early stages of the pandemic
Where though, some scientists are beginning to wonder, are those reservoirs of earlier natural infection?Dr Daniel Lucey is a physician and infectious disease professor at the Georgetown Medical Centre in Washington DC and a veteran of many pandemics - Sars in China, Ebola in Africa, Zika in Brazil.
He is certain that China has already conducted thorough searches for evidence of precursor viruses in stored human samples in hospitals and in animal po[CENSORED]tions.
"They have the capability, they have the resources and they have the motivation, so of course they've done the studies in animals and in humans," he said.
Finding the origin of an outbreak was vital, he said, not just for wider scientific understanding, but also to stop it emerging again.
"We should search until we find it. I think it's findable and I think it's quite possible it's already been found," he said. "But then the question arises, why hasn't it been disclosed?"
Dr Lucey still believes that Sars-Cov-2 is most likely to have a natural origin, but he does not want the alternatives to be so readily ruled out.
"So here we are, 12, 13 months out since the first recognised case of Covid-19 and we haven't found the animal source," he said. "So, to me, it's all the more reason to investigate alternative explanations."
Might a Chinese laboratory have had a virus they were working on that was genetically closer to Sars-Cov-2, and would they tell us now if they did? "Not everything that's done is published," Dr Lucey said.
It's a point I put to Peter Daszak, the member of the WHO origins study team.
"You know, I've worked with the WIV for a good decade or more," he said. "I know some of the people there pretty well and I have visited the labs frequently, I've met and had dinner with them over 15 years.
"I'm working in China with eyes wide open, and I'm racking my brain back in time for the slightest hint of something untoward. And I've never seen that."
Asked if those friendships and funding relationships with the WIV presented a conflict of interest with his role on the inquiry, he said: "We file our papers; it's all there for everyone to see."
And his collaboration with the WIV, he said, "makes me one of the people on the planet who knows the most about the origins of these bat coronaviruses in China".
China may have provided only limited data about its hunt for the origin of Sars-Cov-2, but it has begun to promote a theory of its own.
Based on a few inconclusive studies conducted by scientists in Europe that suggest Covid-19 may have been circulating earlier than previously thought, state propaganda is full of stories suggesting the virus didn't start in China at all.
In the absence of proper data, speculation is only likely to grow, much of it focused on RaTG13 and its origins in a Tongguan mineshaft. Old academic papers have been dug up online that appear to differ from the WIV's statements about the sick mine workers - among them a thesis by a student at the Kunming Hospital University.
"I've just downloaded the Kunming Hospital University student's masters thesis and read it," Prof Shi told the BBC.
"The narrative doesn't make sense," she said. "The conclusion is neither based on evidence nor logic. But it's used by conspiracy theorists to doubt me. If you were me, what you would do?"
Prof Shi has also faced questions about why the WIV's online public database of viruses was suddenly taken offline.
She told the BBC that the WIV's website and the staff's work emails and personal emails had been attacked, and the database taken offline for security reasons.
"All our research results are published in English journals in the form of papers," she said. "Virus sequences are saved in the [US-run] GenBank database too. It's completely transparent. We have nothing to hide."
There are important questions to be asked in the Yunnan countryside, not just by scientists, but by journalists too.
After a decade of sampling and experimenting on viruses collected from bats, we now know that back in 2013 the closest known ancestor was discovered of a future threat that would claim well over a million lives and devastate the global economy.
Yet the WIV, according to the published information, did nothing with it, except sequence it and enter it into a database.
Ought that to call into question the very premise on which the expensive, and some would say risky, mass sampling of wild viruses is based?
"To say that we didn't do enough is absolutely correct," Peter Daszak told the BBC. "To say that we failed is not fair at all. What we should have been doing is 10 times the amount of work on these viruses."
Both Dr Daszak and Prof Shi are adamant that pandemic prevention research is vital, urgent work.
"Our research is forward-looking, and it's difficult for non-professionals to understand," Prof Shi wrote by email. "In the face of countless micro-organisms that exist in nature, we humans are very small."
New coronavirus variant: What do we know?
Tracking the global pandemic: Where has been hit hardest?
The WHO is promising an "open-minded" inquiry into the origins of the novel coronavirus, but the Chinese government is not keen on questions, at least not from journalists.After leaving Tongguan, the BBC team tried to drive a few hours north to the cave where Prof Shi carried out her ground-breaking research on Sars almost a decade ago.
Still being followed by several unmarked cars, we hit another roadblock, and were told there was no way through.
A few hours later, we discovered that local traffic had been diverted onto a dirt track that skirted the obstruction, but as we attempted to use the same route, we met yet another "broken down" car in our path.
We were trapped in a field for over an hour, before finally being forced to head for the airport.
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- Your Nickname: Vevo
- Your Problem: When i open computer after 5min Closed and get blue Background
- Screenshot:
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DH 2 A calm and beautiful song
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my vote will go to DH 1 nice Music 🙂
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More than 83,000 new cases were reported in the US on Friday
US coronavirus cases have hit a record daily high as states grapple with a renewed wave of infections.Citing data from local state health authorities, the Covid Tracking Project reported 83,010 new cases on Friday.
US Surgeon General Jerome Adams has warned that hospital admission numbers are growing, but mortality rates are falling due to better patient care.
It comes as pharma giants AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson resume US vaccine trials after approval from regulators.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has also warned that countries in the Northern Hemisphere are at a "critical juncture".
What are the latest US figures?
According to the Covid Tracking Project, nearly 8.5 million cases of coronavirus have been reported in America since the pandemic began.The daily increase on Friday surpassed by more than 6,000 cases the tracking project's previous record of 76,842 on 17 July.
Over the last week, the US has tallied 441,541 new infections - its largest seven-day increase since the end of July.
The number of people who've died after contracting coronavirus has also steadily increased during the last six days, but is still significantly below the peak of over 2,000 daily deaths reported in April.
Hospital admission numbers are rising, too. As of Friday, 41,485 people were being treated in hospital, according to Covid Tracking Project data. This was the highest figure since the end of August, but it was also lower than figures reported in April and July.
Data for Friday has not yet been released by the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC). But on Thursday the CDC reported 74,380 new cases, its third-highest number on record.
Which states are worst affected?
America's Midwest continues to be the hardest-hit region of the country, with cases soaring in states like North Dakota, Montana and Wisconsin.What drugs can help treat coronavirus?
In Ohio, a key battleground state for the upcoming presidential election, authorities recorded their worst daily case increase for a third day running.Others in the region, including Illinois and Indiana, also saw daily rises near or at record highs on Friday.
Meanwhile, in the south-west cases reached an all-time high in Utah, where new mandatory mask rules have been introduced in 21 counties.
Governor Gary Herbert warned that the virus's impact had seriously impacted local hospital capacity.
"Up until now, our hospitals have been able to provide good care to all Covid and non-Covid patients who need it. But today we stand on the brink," said Mr Herbert.
"If Utahans do not take serious steps to limit group gatherings and wear masks, our healthcare providers will not have the ability to provide quality care for everyone who needs it."
The former vice-president said that, if elected, he would ask state governors to mandate the use of masks, put a national testing plan in place, and order the production of personal protective equipment.
Mr Biden also pledged to make the Covid-19 vaccine free for every American if one is approved. A similar plan was unveiled by the federal government in September, as part of a White House initiative dubbed Operation Warp Speed.
How close are we to a coronavirus vaccine?
According to the WHO, 44 vaccine candidates are being clinically evaluated, including those by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.AstraZeneca's vaccine, which is being developed with Britain's Oxford University, is considered one of the world's most promising. But the project paused its global phase 3 trials last month after a volunteer in Britain became ill.
US regulators have now given the green light to resume the trial, as has already happened in the UK, Brazil, South Africa and Japan.
Johnson & Johnson suspended its US trial last week after a participant fell ill but now says it has "found no evidence that the vaccine candidate caused the event".
AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson both have contracts to provide their vaccines to the US government if approved by regulators.
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my vote will go to DH2 great Sound
I like this kind of songs
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- Game: Cs1.6
- Name requested (if the server will be added in our community): DH
- Slots number: 10
- Game mode: Classic
- Contact address ( Skype / Steam):-
- Link gametracker: https://www.gametracker.com/server_info/185.150.25.90:27218/
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Hmmm this my real account stop making a problems. I already said lets see answer administrators
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Its old problem we already solve it by @SKYFALL and @#PREDATOR
anyway lets see answer administrator
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Real account is from PC, not phone. You joined on phone when Mr.Love banned you for insults.
I was have unban in pc too and now iam use phone bcs iam in vacance
Did u remember when. We was with skyfall on channel skyzm we already solve problm
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the problem was solved by @SKYFALL and this real account i got unban by him then i join in project devil harmony then stop making problmes bcs i dont like it
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Nick: Zeyrox (Vevo)
Ip: 129.45.68.17
Unique ID: https://ibb.co/8MHSmLJ
Who banned: idk
Details: PermanentPhoto: https://ibb.co/rdqW09c
Reason: (Vevo) -
Writing top-quality code may be about to get a whole lot easier thanks to a new release from Amazon Web Services.
AWS has announced the launch of CodeGuru, a programming tool that uses machine learning to squash bugs, fix errors and suggest improvements in lines of code.
The company says that CodeGuru can provide huge savings in terms of productivity and efficiency, freeing up workers from spending hours trawling through individual lines of code or application logs in order to try and spot errors.
Amazon CodeGuru
The platform includes two main tools that AWS says should help developers across a number of industries.As mentioned above Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer can help to improve code quality by scanning for critical issues, identifying bugs, and recommending how best to remediate them. The platform has been trained on several decades of code reviews at Amazon.com and over ten thousand open-source projects on GitHub, giving it extensive knowledge on a large number of common issues.
Amazon CodeGuru Profiler helps developers find an application’s most expensive lines of code, providing specific visualizations and recommendations on how to improve this code to save money and make their processes more efficient. Amazon says it used the system to make previous Prime Day shopping events run smoothly, seeing huge increases in CPU efficiency and lowering costs.
“Our customers develop and run a lot of applications that include millions and millions of lines of code. Ensuring the quality and efficiency of that code is incredibly important, as bugs and inefficiencies in even a few lines of code can be very costly. Today, the methods for identifying code quality issues are time-consuming, manual, and error-prone, especially at scale,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, Vice President, Amazon Machine Learning at AWS.
“CodeGuru combines Amazon’s decades of experience developing and deploying applications at scale with considerable machine learning expertise to give customers a service that improves software quality, delights their customers with better application performance, and eliminates their most expensive lines of code.”
Amazon CodeGuru is available today in a number of AWS regions acros the US, EU and Asia, with availability in additional regions coming soon.
The news comes shortly after the release of Amazon Honeycode, a no-code app development program that lets users create mobile and web apps with no programming required.
Amazon Honeycode provides users with a web-based visual app builder that the company says takes a lot of the complications out of development, with the platform built on the power of AWS.
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We often joke that we “need more RGBs.” Sure, you can have colorful LEDs on your gaming mouse and keyboard and might even have some on your monitor. Your SSD may twinkle with colors, motherboards aren’t left out of the mix, and your best PC case is welcome to hop on the trend. From PC components to the peripherals you can connect to them and even your gaming laptop, there’s a way to RGB it up. But Corsair doesn’t think that’s enough. The company wants the option to RGB your world.
Today, the vendor released the Corsair iCue LT100 Lighting Towers that are basically a set of RGB sticks you can connect to your PC. Corsair’s answer to alternatives like the Philips Hue Play light bar, you can connect 2-4 towers that light up with 11 hardware-stored effects or your own software-made design. At $129.99 for the two-tower starter kit and $59.99 for each additional tower, it’s a hefty overlay for something that’s purely about looks. But if you’re a streamer, want to set your gaming den aglow or are plain addicted to the RGB lifestyle, Corsair’s LT100 Smart Lighting Towers bring new meaning to the idea of RGB everything.
Corsair LT100 Smart Lighting Towers Specs
Corsair LT100 Smart Lighting Towers: Hands-On
Maybe smart lighting towers isn’t the best way to categorize Corsair’s Smart Lighting Towers. I usually associate smart tech as products that are connected to the internet. These sticks are actually connected to your PC. If we could do some rebranding we’d go for LT100 Reactive RGB Towers, but we’re being literal here.The starter kit gives you two towers, and you can go up to four if you buy two expansion kits. I received one starter kit and one expansion kit for three towers total.
Despite being in a very sunny room, the lights never looked washed out. Instead, they always shined brightly and cast a glow on my wall and on my desk. Depending on the effect you choose or customize, you can have the sticks look like RGB is dripping from the top of the tower to the bottom base before moving to the next tower or shine brightly with a static color. Rainbow prisms are a po[CENSORED]r go-to, while spring-themed colors can craft a trippier, cosmic effect. Of course, everything is more fun in the dark. But the towers are bright enough that you don’t have to be a nocturnal gamer to enjoy them.
The LT100 Smart Lighting Towers are as mesmerizing as you’d expect three standing foot-and-half sticks of colorful lights to be, so your use may vary. At worst, these bright lights could distract you from the battlefield. Sadly, only the static color setting has brightness adjustment.
It’s not like you have to have pillars of bright lights staring at you at all times. Some effects flow from one tower to the next, so only a portion of one tower is lit up at a time.
Another setting can tell you your CPU’s overall or individual CPU cores’ temperature range through one of three colors. There’s also text, which the iCue describes as “an abiment white lighting effect that will dim the lighting for optimal on-screen reading of content on your monitor.” The effect wasn’t immediately gratifying, and I don’t see how effective it can be without knowing where the towers are positioned in respect to your screen. If you’re looking to set a mood, I couldn’t resist using the Fireplace preset to bring a cozier feel to my Brooklyn apartment that only gets flames from the stove and candles.
Corsair LT100 Smart Lighting Towers’ reactive audio lighting (Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
One of the standout features of the LT100 Smart Lighting Towers is the ability to react to audio levels from your PC’s speakers or microphone. This worked well out of the box. The tower turned pink, but a light blue bit jumped out of the base to accompany a song’s vocals. That light blue light got taller and greener as the singer got louder.Corsair LT100 Smart Lighting Towers can match colors on your screen. (Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
The lights can also match colors on the screen. Corsair software lets you map out a portion of the screen to focus on (Philips Ambilight style). However, this feature’s hard to appreciate. Usually, a game scene, movie or website will have plenty of colors on display at a time. Even if the LT100 towers match the specified section of the image perfectly, chances are there are plenty more colors at play on your monitor.As mentioned, Corsair isn’t the only vendor in the RGB lighting game. And while Corsair delivers with robust enough software that allows for ample customization and effects, we’re disappointed the gaming brand didn’t bring more features that work with games. There’s the reactive Video Lighting and Audio Lighting settings, but we’d love for the lights to be able to communicate in-game statuses. Perhaps, the LEDs could flash blue when you’re running out of ammo or flicker a dramatic red when you’re dying. A corsair rep told me in-game integrations “should be added in the near future.”
Reacting to games is something rivals, like Philips Hue Play and Nanoleaf, offer in their LED products. And neither of those brands are known for their gaming prowess like Corsair is.
I didn’t have any other Corsair products in its iCue RGB lighting ecosystem. If I did, I could’ve synced the products with the LT100 towers for ultimate RGB harmony.
Corsair’s LT100 Smart Lighting Towers are available as a starter kit with two towers, and you can buy up to two additional towers separately. That means for about $250, you can have four RGB pillars hooked up to your PC. For humble RGB enthusiasts who think they could make do with just one RGB tower (what sacrifice!), that isn’t an option. You must buy the starter kit in order to get a tower with the necessary ports and control.
Each tower is like a stack of 46 RGB LEDs. The light show is contained to a concentrated strip as well as the border around each tower’s base. The lights running up the tower shine through a soft, white silicone material that acts like a diffuser. Each tower must sit in its base, which has a touch of aluminum, but you can pop the tower out of its base in order to make it face the back of the base. Do you want colorful lights shining directly in your field of view or creating a subtle gaming-ready aura on your walls? The choice is yours.
But while reversible sticks increase versatility, I’d like to see more. Allowing the sticks to face four directions instead of two would be a good start. With up to four towers and 184 RGB LEDs, you could get a vibe started with Corsair’s lighting system. The three towers I received to review weren’t bright enough to dominate or dramatically change the lighting in my bedroom, but they definitely grabbed attention and shined brilliantly, even when the room was flooded with bright sunrays.
Without any mounting mechanisms, setup options are limited. As a cool high schooler, my room was decked out in blacklights that had holes in the base for anchoring them into walls. It’d be great if I could mimic this effect with Corsair’s sticks and have RGB showering down from my walls’ highest crevice. But this would result in many cables crawling down my walls.
The required controller tower has three cables coming from it -- a power cable, a USB cable and RGB cable, and each expansion tower will have an RGB cable connected to it, too. You could ditch the USB connection and just use the hardware button toggle through 11 different preset effects and one customized in Corsair’s free iCue software, which offers a greater range of effects.
If you get the starter kit, you could set up a single tower, although you’ll be wasting half of your investment. The towers each stand 16.6 inches high, but take a miniscule amount of space on the desktop, with the base measuring 3.7 x 3.7 inches. Your wireless Qi charger for your phone might take up more space. But keep in mind that with two bases you’re eating up 27.38 square-inches of desk space, and with four bases, that’s 54.76 square-inches.
The towers don’t have to live on a desk though. You get 4.9 feet of breathing room between the tower and your best gaming PC, courtesy of the MicroUSB to USB Type-A cable. In addition to being connected to your PC, you’ll have to connect the control tower (the one with the button and all the ports) to the second tower via the 4.9-foot RGB cable. If you buy an additional tower (an LT100 Expansion Kit), you’ll connect that to the control tower via the included 4.9 foot RGB splitter cable You’ll also have to have the control tower plugged into an outlet, and that cable’s the longest out of the bunch, measuring 5.9 feet.
With just the starter kit, you’ll have 15.7 feet feet of cables to deal with total, and at the max tower count of four, that’s 25.5 feet. Anyone buying this product is after admirable aesthetics, so this is something to keep in mind. There’s little point in beautifying with RGB if it results in ugly cable clutter. I also worried about the RGB cable that’s sticking out of each base. The clustered wires have some protection, but I can see it tearing if you’re not careful. Thankfully, you shouldn’t be moving these around much.
There are sure to be a lot of people who hear about Corsair’s latest and think their purpose isn’t great enough. The LT100 Smart Lighting Towers have a tiny extra trick up their RGB sleeve. A removable plastic piece serves as a hook for your best gaming headset. This isn’t a game-changer, but it’s a helpful additional function, especially if you’re going to keep a tower on your desk.
Final Thoughts
Corsair’s LT100 Smart Lighting Towers are a shameless splurge. We could see streamers wowing with their highly controllable, amply bright and reactive tech. And any RGB enthusiast would be happy to get Corsair’s colorful sticks as a gift. But this is all a visual play, serving only to indulge the already-indulgent trend that is RGB lighting. Some will be horrified to see this product debut. Others will see their imagination run wild with new ideas of customizing their gaming den.There’s further reason to consider the LT100 Smart Lighting towers if you have other Corsair RGB products for syncing. However, the pillars will always be erect and don’t allow for any mounting. And we were disappointed by the lack of gaming-related features at launch, although this is allegedly coming soon via a software update.
Corsair fans and those who can appreciate the company’s premium design will lean toward the LT100 and get plenty of different effects and enough brightness to entertain night or day. If you literally need all the RGB, then the LT100 Smart Lighting towers are a smart consideration.
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NVIDIA's AIB partners are silently adding a new GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card to their inventory known as the GeForce GTX 1650 Ultra. The new graphics card is based on the Turing architecture & features the TU106 core along with increased memory capacity which may be one of the reasons it is referred to as the Ultra edition.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ultra Graphics Card With TU106 GPU Core & 6 GB GDDR6 Memory Spotted
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card has seen so many variants that its literally insane just mentioning all of them again. We got to see the original GeForce GTX 1650 with the TU117 GPU, the GeForce GTX 1650 D6 with TU117 GPU, GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER with the TU116 GPU, & we're now getting a fourth variant, the GeForce GTX 1650 Ultra with TU106 GPU. The GeForce GTX 1650 Ti and the mobility lineup are also made up of various revisions and refreshes but the main focus is here is the desktop GeForce GTX 1650 discrete graphics card.
Coming to the specifications of the graphics card, GALAX (via Momomo_US) has so far been the first to list down the GeForce GTX 1650 Ultra along with its technical specs. The card features the TU106-125 GPU so its making use of the same chip that's featured on the GeForce RTX 2060 and the GeForce RTX 2070, except, the 125 SKU is cut-down significantly. The GPU houses 896 CUDA cores so that's a 14 SM unit design. The core clock for the chip is maintained at 1410 MHz base and 1590 MHz boost clock.The major upgrade on the card is its increased VRAM size which has been extended to 6 GB from the standard 4 GB cards. The 6 GB memory comes in GDDR6 flavor and is featured along a 128-bit bus interface at 12 Gbps. So that's a total bandwidth of 192 GB/s which should be enough to keep the card running with further room for memory overclock as the GDDR6 chips tend to overclock to around 14 Gbps with relative ease.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX "Turing" Family:
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A host of different services will now let you put a website online, quickly and easily, no coding skills required – but if you're looking for something to show off your talents as a musician then you need a more specific set of features.
Primarily, a way of uploading and sharing your tunes in a simple and secure way, even if it's just snippets of songs rather than whole tracks or indeed albums.
If you're a musician for hire then it can be useful to have some kind of booking system in place as well, or at least a contact form. On top of that, there are all the extras you might be interested in, like support for your own domain name or gallery pages to show just how many people came to your last gig.
Here are our picks for the best website builder for musicians to create a presence online.
We’ve also picked out the best website builder for photographers
1. Bandzoogle
Designed specifically for musician- Sell music, tickets and merch : BandZoogle Lite $8.29/mth
- Plug in all your social accounts : BandZoogle Standard $12.46/mth
- Not the most flexible theme editor : BandZoogle Pro $16.63/mth
You won't find too many website builder services aimed specifically at musicians, but Bandzoogle gleefully jumps in to provide a bespoke service specifically for bands and artists. While it lacks some of the polish of the big names, because it focuses on the musician niche in particular, it has everything you should need.
That includes, of course, the ability to upload your own tracks and let visitors stream them from your website. You can get tracks organized into entire albums if you really want to go to town, or just share (or even sell) single tracks. And then, as well as that, you've got simple ways to post gig dates, blog updates, and so on.
Whether you need to build a contact form or a video diary, Bandzoogle makes it easy, no coding required – you can really make a site that's as simple or as complex as you like, and the end result is something that looks like you hired a specialist.
You've got over 100 themes to choose from (there is even one for crowdfunding), they're all straightforward to edit and tweak, and connecting up social accounts (including the likes of SoundCloud and Bandcamp) only takes a few clicks as well. As an added bonus, you can sell fan subscription, merchandise and tickets right through Bandzoogle as well.
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Welcome To SKYZM Hope you stay here ?
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The latest update for Windows 10 brings good news for power browser users.
Microsoft Edge Principal Product Manager Kim Denny announced this week that Windows 10 memory management procedures have been modernized and that browser users should see improved browsing immediately. Google Chrome browsers, in particular, are notorious RAM hogs
Microsoft introduced SegmentHeap, an improved management system that handles allocation of memory space. Its efficiency means lower memory usage and faster browsing results.
Microsoft tests show RAM usage under the new segment heap system can be reduced up to 27 percent.
Microsoft plans to update its new Chromium-based Edge browser to accommodate the new memory system and will build the revised browser into Windows 10 later this year.
Google Chrome is also expected to see similar boosts. Google announced it has been testing Chrome with SegmentHeap. Test results show several hundred megabytes of memory can be freed with the new implementation.
Researchers caution, however, that results may vary widely. They explain that systems benefiting the most from the new memory-allocation system will be those with multiple-core processors.
Chrome is by far the most po[CENSORED]r browser in use today, with roughly seven out of 10 people using it for daily surfing activity. Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox are far behind, each capturing only about 7 percent of users.
Despite its po[CENSORED]rity, a common complaint for years about Google Chrome is its tendency to hog memory assets. This is especially so for users who maintain several active browser tabs and visit sites with increasingly heavy RAM demands.
Bruce Dawson, a Google Chrome programmer, says an updated version of Chrome is expected soon. But he noted that "mysterious" bugs have pushed back plans for release.
"We could enable it now but that would cause build warnings," a Google post said. "Therefore enabling it is blocked on a switch to the Windows 10.0.19041.0 software development kit, which is currently blocked on some mysterious build failures."
Microsoft's web browser for years relied on its own engine, EdgeHTML, and the Chakra JavaScript engine, but redesigned the browser in 2019 using the Google Chromium system. The first public release was this January.
Google Chromium is a free and open source project. In addition to Microsoft Edge, Google's own Chrome browser, as well as Opera, are based on Chromium infrastructure.
The Windows 10 May 2020 update containing the new memory management system update is the operating system's first major upgrade this year. It is already appearing on some new PCs.
Report The Queen [ Rejected ]
in Rejected Report
Posted · Edited by Anomaly
¤ Your name: Anomaly
¤ Claimed Admin name: The Queen
¤ Date and time: 15min
¤ Reason of complaint: Banned Without Reason if you have screenShot you post it here
¤ Proof (screenshot or console or demo): https://ibb.co/5MNpy1Y