An innovative boat that saves energy by rising out of the water on hydrofoil wings underwent testing on the Seine river in Paris on Monday as its backers seek to obtain a license to operate a taxi service on the river.

The SeaBubbles craft is powered by electric motors and its hydrofoil wings reduce the drag on the hull in the water, making it more energy efficient than conventional boats.

SeaBubbles co-founder Alain Thebault said the boat, which carries four passengers and one pilot, has green credentials as it is noise free and produces no pollution.

“It’s the future,” he told Reuters in an interview after the boat had completed its latest tests, running up and down the Seine.

The testing will continue until Sept. 20, after which the project’s backers hope to obtain a commercial license to run taxi services from the east of Paris to the west.

Hydrofoils were invented decades ago but their commercial use is limited because they tend to be unstable. SeaBubbles uses computer processors to adjust the hydrofoil wings constantly in the water, which its designers say gives passengers a smooth ride.

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From: MeNeedIt

More than 450,000 people have signed up for a chance to receive $1,000 per month from U.S. presidential candidate Andrew Yang.

During last week’s debate, the Democrat announced that he will pick 10 families to receive the money for a year from his campaign funds.   

Since he made the announcement last Thursday, Yang’s campaign has raised more than $1 million and collected more than 450,000 email addresses from people who entered the online raffle.

Yang’s surprise announcement was aimed at drawing attention to the main platform of his campaign — to provide a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American adult.

The candidate says the stipend, which he calls Freedom Dividend, would allow Americans to use the money for basic needs while they try to better their lives.

Yang is a newcomer to the American political arena. He is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, who has never run for elected office before.

The 44-year-old is the first Asian-American candidate to have gained significant national attention.

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From: MeNeedIt

Purdue Pharma, the maker of prescription painkiller OxyContin, has filed for bankruptcy protection in a U.S. court.

The company is facing numerous lawsuits from local and state governments and other plaintiffs alleging it aggressively marketed dangerous, addictive painkillers that helped fuel the opioid crisis in the United States.

The bankruptcy filing comes days after Purdue Pharma reached a tentative settlement with about 2,000 entities that have filed lawsuits.  The value of the settlement could reach $12 billion.

But some of the states involved in the suits oppose the settlement, saying the company and the Sackler family that controls it are not offering enough and that the current terms would not produce the $12 billion in estimated relief.

Purdue Pharma Chairman Steve Miller rejected criticism of the settlement and said if instead the lawsuits go forward the only result would be to waste money on the legal fight that could otherwise be part of the agreement.

The Sacklers have offered to pay $3 billion under the settlement, and said they want the company to be utilized for public benefit.  That could include providing communities with free doses of drugs the company has created to combat overdoses and addiction to opioids.

The New York Attorney General’s office alleged in a Friday court filing that members of the Sackler family used hidden accounts to transfer $1 billion to themselves.  The family said the transfers were done decades ago and were legal.

U.S. government data shows the number of drug overdose deaths involving opioids rose from 8,000 in 1999 to 47,600 in 2017.

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From: MeNeedIt

A new large supply transport ship will help the Beijing government ferry supplies to its holdings in the disputed South China Sea, a resource-rich waterway contested by other countries.

China has alarmed the other countries since 2010 by landfilling small islets for military use. Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines contest all or parts of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea with China. China claims about 90% of it.

The Sansha No. 2 transport ship that passed trial in August can “cover the whole South China Sea,” Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency reports. The vessel with a displacement of  over 8,000 metric tons will help civilian and military work, Xinhua says.

The ship will help take equipment to the sea’s Paracel Islands – controlled by China but hotly disputed by Vietnam – and possibly further to the more widely contested Spratly Islands, analysts predict.

“They’re expanding their capabilities in all areas,” said Jay Batongbacal, international maritime affairs professor at University of the Philippines. “Deploying in the disputed areas is even more symbolic. It’s also more important for them, because they’re able to keep ahead of the rest of the region.”

Extra-large ship

China’s second transport ship in its class, and one with an especially large displacement, will probably take ammunition, food, water, and power generation gear to the islets it now controls, said Andrew Yang, secretary-general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies in Taiwan.

The newest ship will “increase logistics support” for troops stationed on the islets, Yang said. “They have troops and operations stationed there, so they certainly need some kind of more capable logistical support systems,” he said.

The tropical sea stretches from Hong Kong south to Borneo. The six claimants prize it for fisheries, energy reserves and marine shipping lanes.

Sansha No. 2’s late August trial run took it to Woody Island in the Paracel chain. The ship can go 6,000 kilometers without refueling and carry up to 400 people, Xinhua says. 

China operates a military runway on Woody Island and keeps troops there. A transport that went into use on the island 11 years ago could carry just 2,540 metric tons. 

On three major islets in the Spratly chain, China has built runways and military aircraft hangars, according to an initiative under U.S. think tank Center for Strategic & International Studies.

Unique advance for China

Other countries with South China Sea claims lack China’s military power or technology. The People’s Liberation Army, the world’s third largest, flew bombers to the Spratly Islands last year. China plans to deploy floating nuclear power stations to the sea in 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

The transport ship marks the “latest technology” for China, Batongbacal said. China will probably produce more vessels of the same type to set up a rotation, Yang forecast.

The builder of Sansha No. 2 and its predecessor Sansha No. 1 plans to work on a third transport vessel “to provide better service to personnel stationed on islands”, Xinhua says.

Taiwan sometimes sends a transport to the Spratly chain, Yang said. Taiwan, however, has just one major holding in that archipelago.

Vietnam’s navy operates transport vessels but uses smaller fishing boats for South China Sea transport jobs, said Collin Koh, maritime security research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. China could disrupt resupply missions handled by smaller vessels, he said.

“The issue here is more about whether the other claimants can resupply their garrisons uninterrupted the way the Chinese will enjoy in the South China Sea,” Koh said.

The United States, China’s former Cold War foe and a modern-day economic rival, began increasing the number of ship passages through the South China Sea in 2017 under U.S. President Donald Trump. Washington does not claim the waterway but believes it should be open for international use.

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From: MeNeedIt

Members of the United Auto Workers union began a strike Monday against General Motors as the two sides remain apart on the terms of a new contract.

Talks are set to resume Monday, but plants that makes cars and parts in nine states will be closed with nearly 50,000 workers off the job.

Union Vice President Terry Dittes said the decision to go on strike was a last resort, but necessary. The union wants better wages and health care, as well as job security and profit sharing.

General Motors says it has offered pay raises, profit sharing and good health benefits, along with billions of dollars in investments in manufacturing facilities that would bring more jobs.

The last UAW strike at General Motors came in 2007.

Union contracts with Ford and Fiat Chrysler were also due to expire, but have been extended indefinitely.  Any contract reached with General Motors will serve as a template in negotiations with the other companies.

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From: MeNeedIt

Thirty-six people are missing after a boat sank in the Congo river on the outskirts of Kinshasa, DR Congo police said on Sunday.

The vessel, which was traveling to the capital, went down overnight in Maluku commune, about 100 kilometers from the center of the city.

Seventy-six people survived, police wrote on Twitter.

“The cause of the accident is not yet known,” police spokesperson Colonel Pierrot-Rombaut Mwanamputu told AFP.

Lake and river transport is widely used in Democratic Republic of Congo as the highway system is poor, but accidents are common, often caused by overloading and the unsafe state of vessels.

The boat involved was called a “baleiniere” or “whaler” — a commonly-used flat-bottomed vessel between 15 to 30 meters (50 to 100 feet) long by two to six meters wide.

In the vast majority of accidents, passengers are not equipped with life jackets and many cannot swim.

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From: MeNeedIt

Hong Kong protesters clashed with  police Sunday.

Protesters threw Molotov cocktails and bricks at police near the Legislative Council building.

Police responded by firing water cannons filled with blue jets of water, a practice usually initiated to identify protesters later.

Thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators were on Hong Kong’s streets Sunday.

The weekend demonstrations have continued for three months despite the Hong Kong government’s promise to withdraw extradition legislation that sparked the protests. Dissenters have since broadened their demands for the direct election of their leaders and police accountability.

The protesters saw the bill that would have allowed some Hong Kong criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial as an example of the erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy since the former British colony was returned to China in 1997.

More than 1,300 people have been arrested since the demonstrations began in early June.

The increasingly violent demonstrations have further damaged Hong Kong’s economy, which had already been weakened by the U.S.-China trade war.

Earlier Sunday, demonstrators gathered outside the British consulate where they sang “God Save the Queen.”

Under an agreement with the former colonial power Britain, China has promised Hong Kong can maintain its free market system and democratic freedoms until 2047. But hundreds of thousands of people have turned out for marches to protest what residents of Hong Kong see as steady encroachment on those freedoms by Beijing.

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From: MeNeedIt

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation will hold an emergency meeting Sunday to discuss Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intent to annex parts of the West Bank. 
 
The 57-member organization tweeted earlier this week that the meeting would be held “at the request of Saudi Arabia” in Jeddah.
 
On Saturday, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said the OIC would meet to discuss “Netanyahu’s statements on the intention to annex Jordan Valley and the illegal settlements in the West Bank by Israel.” 

Jordan Valley, northern Dead Sea
 
Netanyahu said Tuesday that he planned to annex part of the occupied West Bank if he won re-election next week, a move that could significantly alter the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 
 
Netanyahu said in a live televised address that he intended to “apply Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea,” a strategically important area, if he won on Sept. 17. 
 
Palestinian Liberation Organization executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi tweeted that annexation would destroy any chance of reaching an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord: 
 
“Netanyahu’s cheap pandering to his extremist racist base exposes his real political agenda of superimposing ‘greater Israel’ on all of historical Palestine & carrying out an ethnic cleansing agenda. All bets are off! Dangerous aggression. Perpetual conflict.”  

Anticipating Netanyahu’s announcement shortly before it was made, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said the Israeli leader was “a prime destroyer of the peace process.” 
 
Netanyahu’s announcement reaffirmed his pledge to annex all Jewish settlements in the West Bank, but he has said he will not act before publication of a long-awaited U.S. peace proposal and consultations with President Donald Trump. 
 
There has been no comment from the White House, but the Trump administration has been receptive to Israel’s annexation of at least portions of the West Bank. 
 
The Jordan Valley is a 2,400-square-kilometer (927-square-mile) area that accounts for nearly 30 percent of the territory in the West Bank, which Israel captured in a 1967 war. The Palestinians covet the valley for the eastern perimeter of a state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. 

Close race
 
Netanyahu is in the midst of a closely contested re-election bid. Voters will go to the polls Tuesday, five months after the country’s parliament was dissolved in a vote in which Netanyahu failed to assemble a government. Polls show he is even or slightly behind Benny Gantz, a moderate former army chief of staff. 
 
The prime minister is also facing a series of corruption charges. 
 
More than 400,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements considered illegal by international law. About 2.7 million Palestinians live in the territory. 

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From: MeNeedIt

The flag-draped coffin had arrived, followed by black-clad family members, their heads bowed. Several dozen suited dignitaries marched in, chests puffed out. Military members stood rigid and proud. All of the pomp and circumstance one would expect at the memorial for a man hailed as an African icon was in place Saturday for the final public sendoff for Robert Mugabe.

But there was just one thing missing: A crowd.

Final Public Sendoff for Zimbabwe’s Mugabe Draws Light Turnout video player.

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Because, for the man known as the father of his nation, very few of Mugabe’s 16 million “children” showed up for his final public sendoff Saturday at Harare’s National Sports Stadium. The 60,000-capacity stadium was maybe one-third full. It was a poor showing compared to previous events, like the packed-to-the-rafters inauguration of the man who used the military to force Mugabe to resign two years ago.

Mugabe, the first president of independent Zimbabwe, died last week at the age of 95, after ruling for 37 years.

In attendance were a smattering of African heads of state and former heads of state – but no major leaders from outside the continent. Those who came included leaders like Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo – who has ruled Equatorial Guinea with an iron fist since 1979 – and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of independent Kenya’s first president. They praised Mugabe for fighting to liberate his country from the yoke of centuries of colonial rule.

But his own family described Mugabe, who was forced to resign in 2017, as a bitter man. His widow, Grace, draped head-to-toe in black lace, stood on the dais, her head down. The family’s spokesman, Walter Chidakwa, hailed the leader, but also offered some sharp words.

“Towards the end of his life,” he said, “he was a sad man. A sad, sad, sad man.”

So where was everyone on this sunny Saturday?

Many were in one of Harare’s hours-long petrol queues – a consequence of the shattered economy that many blame Mugabe for.

 Teacher Betty Mukombani told VOA she had no interest in driving to the stadium to bid farewell. At the time, she was staring down a four-hour wait in a petrol queue just a five-minute drive from the stadium.

“He’s the one who ruined the economy of Zimbabwe, so I have no interest in burying such a criminal,” she said.
 
And others in the queue, like archeologist Happy Marufu, say they have real relatives they’d rather be with.

“I should be doing something else or sometimes even relaxing with my family,” he said.

Even those who turned out to see off the father of the nation couldn’t resist making a point about this country’s ruined economy.

They sang, hundreds of them: Before, bread cost $1. Now, it costs $10.

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From: MeNeedIt

Congo’s National Ebola Response Committee says confirmed Ebola deaths in the east of the sprawling African nation are nearing 2,000 and confirmed cases of the virus have exceeded 3,000.

The committee released the latest numbers Friday after a discussion in Goma by the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church about efforts to help stem the spread of Ebola in communities. A mistrust of health workers and widespread security issues still threaten the fight against the second deadliest outbreak of Ebola in history in a region where armed groups have fought for decades over the mineral-rich land.

The committee reported 3,002 confirmed Ebola cases with 1,974 deaths.
 
The World Health Organization said Friday they recorded the lowest weekly incidence of Ebola since March 2019 with 40 new cases, but said it was unclear if this positive trend would continue.

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From: MeNeedIt

While the political and economic crisis worsens in Venezuela, countries in the Western Hemisphere continue to be economically impacted by migrants seeking refuge and asylum. To help alleviate some of the burden, the United States Navy has deployed the Comfort hospital ship to assist countries like Colombia, Ecuador and Costa Rica. VOA’s Cristina Caicedo Smit visited the ship on one of its last stops, Trinidad and Tobago.

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From: MeNeedIt

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Friday that they had arrested a senior intelligence officer for allegedly stealing sensitive documents. 
 
Cameron Ortis faces five charges under Canada’s criminal code and its Security of Information Act, the federal police agency said in a statement. 
 
“The allegations are that he obtained, stored and processed sensitive information, we believe with the intent to communicate it to people that he shouldn’t be communicating it to,” prosecutor John MacFarlane told journalists after Ortis appeared in court Friday. 
 
Canada’s Global News reported that Ortis, who was arrested Thursday, was a top adviser to former RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson and had control over counterintelligence operations. 
 
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is campaigning for a second term in office, told reporters at an election rally, “I can assure you that the authorities are taking this extremely seriously,” without commenting further. 
 
His opponent, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, said it was “extremely concerning that a senior RCMP intelligence officer has been arrested for leaking national security information.” 
 
“This is another reminder of the threats we face from foreign actors,” said Scheer, who is tied in the polls with Trudeau. 
 
The RCMP fears Ortis stole “large quantities of information, which could compromise an untold number of investigations,” according to Global News, which first reported the arrest. 
 
Canada is a member of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance with Australia, New Zealand, Britain and the United States. 
 
The public broadcaster Radio-Canada said Ortis is a specialist in East Asia, critical infrastructure and online “bots.” 
 
On the LinkedIn social network, the account of a person named Cameron Ortis indicates that he has worked for the Canadian government since 2007 after receiving a doctorate in international relations and political science at The University of British Columbia. 
 
The account also says he speaks Mandarin, the main language of China, with which Canada is in an unprecedented diplomatic crisis. 
 
Beijing last December detained two Canadian nationals in apparent retaliation for Canada’s arrest of a Chinese tech executive on a U.S. warrant. 
 
China has also blocked Canadian agricultural shipments worth billions of dollars. 

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From: MeNeedIt