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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2016
2 Nobel judges step down
World
CHILL. Space crew of the International Space Station (ISS), (left to right) US NASA astronaut Jeffrey Williams, Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka, rest after landing some 150 kilometers to the east of the city of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan on Wednesday. AFP
Venezuela SC voids legislature’s bills
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aracas—Venezuela’s Supreme Court has ruled the opposition-controlled legislature’s bills are “null and void” because it swore in three lawmakers accused of electoral fraud.
The decision, issued last Friday and published Tuesday, is the latest showdown between the National Assembly and the court, which the opposition accuses of blatant bias in favor of leftist President Nicolas Maduro.
The case dates back to legislative elections in December, which the opposition won in a landslide amid an economic crisis marked by severe shortages of food and basic goods. The court barred the three op-
Asteroid named after Queen singer NEW YORK—Rock legend Freddie Mercury’s legacy is living on as an asteroid, named after him on what would have been the Queen singer’s 70th birthday. Brian May, who is best known as Queen’s lead guitarist but also has a doctorate in astrophysics, announced that an asteroid—known until now by the less memorable 17473—was being named in the singer’s honor. The asteroid is far from the British singer’s namesake planet and is instead in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. May showed a video of the asteroid’s movement on his website, accompanied by Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now.” The Minor Planet Center, part of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory based at Harvard University, issued a citation timed for Mercury’s birthday on September 4. “His distinctive sound and large vocal range were hallmarks of his performance style, and he is regarded as one of the greatest rock singers of all time,” it said. The asteroid was discovered in 1991, the year that Mercury died of complications from AIDS. Mercury, born as Farrokh Bulsara in what is now Tanzania, remains one of rock’s most influential singers through his flamboyant stage persona and Queen songs such as “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Are the Champions.” AFP
position lawmakers pending an investigation of fraud allegations. The opposition condemned the case as an excuse to strip it of its powerful two-thirds majority. Ignoring the court, opposition leaders swore in the lawmakers on July 28, saying there had been no signs of progress in the fraud investigation. The court fired back by declaring the legislative majority in contempt.
Its latest ruling goes a step further. “The acts issued by the National Assembly, including any bills passed, are manifestly unconstitutional and absolutely null and void as long as (the opposition bench) is in contempt,” it said. The Supreme Court has blocked most of the legislature’s bills since the opposition took control, ending 17 years of dominance by the left.
Tension has been mounting between Maduro and the opposition, which staged massive protests last week calling for a referendum on removing the unpopular president from power. More protests and counter-demonstrations by Maduro supporters are scheduled for Wednesday. Maduro, who accuses the opposition of plotting a coup, has threatened to lift lawmakers’ legislative immunity. AFP
STOCKHOLM—Two members of the assembly that awards the Nobel prize for medicine are to quit for failing to heed warnings about a major ethics scandal, the panel said Tuesday. The secretary of the Nobel Assembly, Thomas Perlmann, said Harriet Wallberg and Anders Hamsten were being asked to step down. “The crisis of trust is such... that we are going to ask them to leave the Nobel Assembly,” he told the Swedish news agency TT. The two are former rectors of the Karolinska Institute (KI), Sweden’s top medical university, where the scandal coincided with their spells in office. The affair centers on Italian surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, who in 2011 soared to fame for inserting the first synthetic trachea, or windpipe. It was a plastic structure seeded with the patient’s own stem cells—immature cells that grow into specialized cells of the body’s organs. Hired as a visiting professor at Karolinska in 2010, Macchiarini performed three of these operations in Stockholm and five others around the world. His work was initially hailed as a game-changer for transplant medicine. But two patients died and a third was left severely ill. Allegations ensued that the risky procedure had been carried out on at least one individual who had not been life-threateningly ill. Swedish police are carrying out an investigation for manslaughter. Macchiarini is also suspected of lying about his scientific research and his past experience with prestigious medical research centers. KI dismissed Macchiarini on March 23 and announced the break in an exceptionally blunt statement. “It is impossible for KI to continue to have any cooperation with Paolo Macchiarini. He has acted in a way that has had very tragic consequences for the people affected and their families. His conduct has seriously damaged confidence in KI,” it said. An article in the Swedish medical journal Lakartidningen described the case as an “ethical Chernobyl” for KI. Wallberg’s reputation has been tarnished for hiring Macchiarini while Hamsten, her successor as KI’s rector, has been accused of failing to grasp the scale of the problem as it unfolded. AFP
French army radar tracks Pokemonsters THE French army’s list of potential threats just added an unlikely candidate: Pokemon Go. The virtual monsters of Nintendo Co.’s Pokemon Go mobile game could lead to intrusions into army bases and even threaten national security, France’s defense ministry said in an internal memo. The military is enforcing a ban on the game, which mixes augmented reality with digital creatures, to stop staff from unknowingly sharing sensitive data like geographic coordinates or photos.
“Our nation’s defense isn’t a game,” said Valerie Lecasble, a spokeswoman for the ministry during a phone interview. “There’s no way we’ll allow any form of inappropriate access to points of vital importance or priority installations of France’s defense.” Meanwhile, Russia’s influential Orthodox Church on Tuesday accused a blogger of blasphemy as he faces up to five years in prison for filming himself playing Pokemon Go in a church.
Ruslan Sokolovsky from the Urals city of Yekaterinburg is in detention after being charged with offending religious believers and inciting hatred, over a YouTube video that has been viewed more than one million times. Defense companies with French operations have followed suit. Plane-maker Airbus Group SE issued an internal reminder about forbidden photo or video recordings and highlighted the security risks posed to people, information and installations after it caught employees playing
Pokemon Go at work this summer. Safran SA also banned the game. France isn’t the first country to restrict the Pokemon Go playground, with Indonesia taking one of the tougher stances. Still, the game has been a primary target of the French national police which has tweeted and posted digital road signs on highways to warn citizens not to play while driving. French Education Minister Najat VallaudBelkacem separately said she
will ask the game’s makers to delete the most sought-after characters from inside the country’s 63,600 schools. Since its debut in July, the game created by Nintendo, Niantic Inc. and Pokemon Co. has spurred a global phenomenon, climbing to almost 45 million daily users at its peak, according to researcher Apptopia. Shares of Nintendo have surged and fallen on the back of user data and alliances with partners around the game, including SoftBank Group Corp. Bloomberg
Humpback whales no longer endangered
VOCAL. Dan Smith of Bastille performs on stage at iHeartRadio Theater on Tuesday in Burbank, California. AFP
WASHINGTON—Most populations of humpback whales are no longer on the United States endangered species list thanks to international conservation efforts, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Tuesday. Four decades of national and international initiatives to protect and conserve the marine mammals have helped nine of 14 humpback population segments rebound from historically low levels. “Today’s news is a true ecological success story,” said Eileen Sobeck, assistant NOAA administrator for fisheries. “Whales, including the humpback, serve an important role in our marine environment. Separately managing humpback whale populations that are largely independent of each other allows us to tailor conservation approaches for each population.” After commercial whaling se-
verely reduced populations, the US listed all humpback whales as endangered in 1970. Today, just four whale groups remain on that list, and one is now listed as threatened. The International Whaling Commission’s whaling moratorium imposed in 1982—which remains in effect—played a crucial part in the comeback, NOAA said. The US Marine Mammal Protection Act that protects marine mammals within US waters still applies to all humpback whales, regardless of endangered status. The MMPA prohibits the killing of certain marine mammals in US waters and by US citizens on the high seas, and bans their importation into the United States. Two separate regulatory decisions filed Tuesday maintain protection for whales living off Hawaii and Alaska by “specifying distance limits for approaching vessels.”
Two of the four humpback groups still considered endangered can be found in US waters at some times of the year. The Central American population looks for food in the Pacific Ocean off the US West Coast, while the group in the Pacific Northwest spends time in the Bering Sea and near the Aleutian Islands. The humpback group from Mexico now listed as threatened regularly goes to the West Coast of the continental United States and Alaska. In 2010, NOAA launched an extensive review of the status of humpback whales that resulted in the reclassification of the species into 14 distinct populations. NOAA proposed last year to remove 10 of those 14 groups off the endangered list and gave the public 90 days to comment on the proposed change before finalizing its decision. AFP