Category Archives: Society

Health, Science, Society, United Nations, World Health Organisation

Global cases of cholera are on the rise

CHOLERA

CASES of cholera are increasing, with 22 countries around the world experiencing an outbreak. After many years of decline, incidences rose in 2022 due to vaccine shortages, climate change and escalating conflict. It is a trend that is expected to continue.

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Some 26,000 cholera cases were reported in Africa during the first 29 days of January 2023. This is already 30 per cent of the continent’s total in 2022. At the end of February, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that more than 1 billion people across 43 countries are at risk.

Overall, Malawi appears to be the worst-hit country, with the highest number of deaths. It reported just under 37,000 cholera cases and 1,210 fatalities from 3 March 2022 to 9 February 2023.

This was triggered by a cyclone that hit in March 2022. This led to wastewater contaminating drinking water supplies.

Cholera is spread by the ingestion of food or water that is contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. When it enters the body, some types of V. cholerae release a toxin that interacts with the cells lining the surface of the intestine, leading to diarrhoea.

In some cases, this can result in severe dehydration and death. In Malawi, 3.3 per cent of people with cholera die of the infection. With treatment, this is typically around 1 per cent.

In 2022, Malawi vaccinated millions of people in districts that were facing cholera outbreaks, but the cyclone has allowed the disease to spread to all of its districts, putting unvaccinated people at risk.

Extreme weather, driven by climate change, means many more countries are at risk of wastewater contamination. Cyclone Freddy, which hit Mozambique on 24 February, is expected to exacerbate the country’s cholera outbreak.

Climate change-driven droughts in countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia have also forced people to rely on water sources that may be contaminated with V. cholerae, according to UNICEF. Many people in these regions are malnourished, which affects their immune health, leaving them more vulnerable to severe cholera complications.

Displacement, whether due to conflict in countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo or disasters such as the earthquake that hit part of Syria on 6 February, can also play a role in cholera outbreaks if people are forced to move to less sanitary areas, or if already infected people take the bacteria with them.

The destruction of health facilities and infrastructures [in Syria] that bring water to people could lead to more cases. According to the United Nations, the country reported more than 37,700 suspected cases in the cities of Idlib and Aleppo from 25 August 2022 to 7 January 2023 – 18 per cent of which were in people in displaced camps.

The unprecedented scale of the cholera outbreaks in 2022 – with 30 countries reporting cases, compared with an average of fewer than 20 in the previous five years – has also depleted global vaccine supplies. Only 37 million doses are available.

The International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Provision, which manages the WHO’s global vaccine stockpile, therefore recommends that at-risk people be vaccinated with a single dose of a cholera vaccine rather than the typical two doses. The one-dose regimen gives only about one year of protection, compared with three years with two doses. If the outbreaks continue as they are, this year of protection might not be enough time to get them under control.

Cholera has always been an issue, which prompted the UN to publish a road map in 2017 to cut 90 per cent of cholera deaths globally by 2030.

Several countries have made progress. The fact that Malawi has detected cholera outbreaks so quickly points to the work that officials have done to increase health surveillance.

But with just seven years to go until 2030, many aren’t convinced that the UN’s target will be reached. They say there hasn’t been enough investment in water infrastructure around the world to reach those goals.

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Government, Technology, Britain, United States, National Security, Defence, Society

Menacing spies in the sky

NATIONAL SECURITY

ABOVE our heads – some 80,000 feet up – a high-tech tussle is under way, with our most closely guarded secrets and our national security at stake. The shooting down of a number of intelligence balloons in recent days seems closer to a fictional tale rather than the serious threat they pose.

Four mysterious aircraft have been shot down in just nine days over North America, three by the US Air Force and one by the Royal Canadian Air Force.

The fictional perspective was primed when an American general sparked a storm of speculation when he said that he was not excluding extra-terrestrial origin for these intruders. General Glen VanHerck, commander of North American Aerospace Defence Command, when asked about the possibility of aliens, said: “I haven’t ruled out anything at this point.”

For these are – quite literally – unidentified flying objects. The language used to describe them recalls the unexplained sightings that, for decades, have puzzled even seasoned observers. UFO enthusiasts are enthralled. In 2021, the Pentagon set up the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronisation Group to investigate more than 100 incidents.

One of the aircraft, downed last week over Alaska, was described as “cylindrical and silverish gray”, about the “size of a small car” and with “no identifiable propulsion system”. Another, brought to earth on the US-Canadian border, was a “small, cylindrical object”.

Such intruders may also have crossed British territory. Rishi Sunak, newly enthused by military matters, says we can and will shoot them down if necessary.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has ordered a review. For now, the questions are multiplying. Are they Chinese? The West seems to think so. The regime in Beijing has protested about the downing of two of them – just peaceful weather balloons, it insists.

Security officials in the West say that China’s stratospheric surveillance programme has operated for many years, and over five continents. It is the brainchild of the Strategic Support Force, a secretive component of the People’s Liberation Army. So, why now? Why have we not noticed this before?

The short and probable answer is that we weren’t looking. These balloons and drones move incredibly slowly at great heights. Our air-defence radar works at lower altitudes. Our missile defence-systems track fast-moving rockets. US officials are now scouring data collected in previous years for signs of intrusions that they may have missed. So far, the Pentagon says, four previous instances have been identified.

In any case, malevolent intruders can easily be missed amid the thousand of innocent weather balloons launched every day. Gathering meteorological data provides perfect cover for covert missions. China counteracts claiming that the US has repeatedly sent spy balloons into Chinese airspace. The Americans deny this.

THREATENING

THE question looms as to why China would invest so much in these missions when it has more than 260 spy satellites? Being only 15 miles above the earth’s surface – satellites are seven times higher – gives them a clear edge in taking photographs and hoovering up electronic information, such as the ultra-sensitive “friend-or-foe” systems that prevent us shooting down our own warplanes.

These satellites can loiter over sensitive military installations, such as the RAF base at Boscombe Down in Wiltshire, used by American spy planes. Gathering information about the temperature and density of the air at high altitudes could also give a crucial advantage to missile-guidance systems. These spycraft may also be sent to test national defences.

Most worryingly, China published in 2018 a video showing a balloon being used as a platform to launch hypersonic weapons. These can travel vast distances at high speed, evading our defences and delivering either nuclear warheads, or electromagnetic pulse blasts that devastate all electrical and electronic devices.

What keeps these machines aloft and on course, thousands of miles from home, nothing is said.

Some clues, however, may come from here in Britain. We have Stratospheric Platforms, a company that offers internet access from a drone that can stay in the atmosphere for a week at a time, powered by a hydrogen engine. Another British start-up, Avealto, has a solar-powered craft in orbit that targets the same market.

Speculation abounds about even more advanced technologies. Aviation experts are eagerly awaiting news from the wreckage of the recent devices shot down.

Could, for example, the Chinese have cracked the difficulties of “ion propulsion”, which uses blasts of electrically charged air to stay aloft, and requires no combustion or moving parts like propellers or jets?

Prototypes of aircraft using this technology already fly, but they use too much electricity to be viable. Or so we think.

Whatever the case, the wreckage recovered from the recent incidents’ will be eagerly inspected by American military technologists hoping to gain an edge in the battle against spy wars in the sky. The results of their investigations will be classified secret. Why give clues to the enemy?

One thing in this extraordinary story is clear. These balloons are far from innocent and have caught the guardians of our security napping. Vigilance has been poor.

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Arts, Psychology, Society

Why can’t I get a word in edgeways in meetings?

GENDER DIVIDE

Intro: That punch-in-the-gut feeling of being cut off or ignored is something we’ve all experienced – and women suffer it more than men

RESEARCH across cultures shows that men dominate conversations, interrupt more, and have their suggestions taken more seriously by others – even by women. Assertiveness by a woman in a male-dominated workplace is more likely to be viewed as “bossy” and “abrasive”; conversely, men who act identically are more likely to be termed “decisive” and “assertive”.

Many business gurus have said that women’s views are unfairly sidelined because their speech is too “feminine” – punctuated with phrases that are termed “softeners”, such as “sort of”, “just wanted to…”, and “I’m sorry but…”. They say these make the speaker sound hesitant and indecisive to others. Objective research, however, shows that this theory is mostly hot air. Men use this kind of speech just as much as women.

Research does shows just how unbalanced the divide can be. For example, in a mixed-sex discussion group, women tend to get equal airtime only when the group has a ratio of at least four women for every man in the group.

So why are men such verbal bulldozers in the workplace? Male dominance at work has less to do with language and biological authority, and more to do with entrenched, global views of men having authority and taking command, while women are seen as more passive and family-focused. This work divide started around 10,000 years ago, when humans began farming in settlements, and whether we like it or not, these roles have seeped into the world’s psyche: patients feel more assured when their surgeon is a man and air passengers say they are more relaxed when the pilot’s voice they hear has a baritone rather than a soprano pitch.

Despite this, research also shows that the most effective teams are mixed, and that strong female role models (especially in positions of leadership) help to shatter stereotypes. We all have our part to play by being aware of this traditional norm and by striving to find and work with others who see the world differently to us.

Psychology of the Gender Divide

Unconscious prejudices are slow to uproot in societies. Humans are tribal; our unspoken social rules have been key in knitting together fragile communities over tens of thousands of years. Everyone conforms, and everyone is expected to conform. If we humans had not developed social norms then we would have co-operated only haphazardly and not been able to form such stable societies.

Even though the world has been inching towards a more gender-balanced society, primal psychology still remains powerfully at play. Anyone who bucks the trend by acting differently to what has gone before risks a social backlash for defying the expectations of others.

We also suffer “confirmation bias”, valuing those men and women who conform to stereotypes, and dismissing those who don’t as being unusual.

Even when our collective ideals shift, there is still a time lag before it affects how individuals actually live and work. Nevertheless, the choices we make today will have an impact on the accepted rules in our tribe. Each can be one small step in moving towards the world we want to live in tomorrow.

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