United News of Bangladesh

North Korea continued its barrage of weapons tests on Thursday, firing at least three missiles including a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile that forced the Japanese government to issue evacuation alerts and temporarily halt trains. The launches are the latest in a series of North Korean weapons tests in recent months that have raised tensions in the region. They came a day after Pyongyang fired more than 20 missiles, the most it has fired in a single day ever. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the North firing a missile it presumed as an ICBM from an area near its capital Pyongyang around 7:40 a.m. and then firing two short-range missiles an hour later from the nearby city of Kacheon that flew toward its eastern waters. While South Korean officials didn’t immediately release more specific flight details, the longer-range missile may have been fired on a high angle to avoid reaching the territory of the North’s neighbors. Japan’s Defense Minister Yasukazu said one of the North Korean missiles reached a maximum altitude of 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) and flew about 750 kilometers (460 miles). The Japanese government initially said at least one of the missiles flew over its northern territory but later revised its assessment, saying there were no overflies. The office of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida issued warnings to residents in the northern prefectures of Miyagi, Yamagata and Niigata, instructing them to go inside firm buildings or underground. There have been no reports of damage or injuries from areas where the alerts were issued. Bullet train services in those regions were temporarily suspended following the missile alert before resuming shortly. Kishida condemned the North’s launches and said officials were analyzing the details of the weapons. One of the more than 20 missiles North Korea shot on Wednesday flew in the direction of a populated South Korean island and landed near the rivals’ tense sea border, triggering air raid sirens and forcing residents on Ulleung island to evacuate. South Korea quickly responded by launching its own missiles in the same border area. Those launches came hours after North Korea threatened to use nuclear weapons to get the U.S. and South Korea to “pay the most horrible price in history” in protest of ongoing South Korean-U.S. military drills that it views as a rehearsal for a potential invasion. North Korea has been ramping up its weapons demonstrations to a record pace this year. It has fired dozens of missiles, including its first demonstration of intercontinental ballistic missiles since 2017, as it exploits the distraction created by Russia’s war in Ukraine and a pause in diplomacy to push forward arms development and dial up pressure on the United States and its Asian allies. The North has punctuated its tests with an escalatory nuclear doctrine that authorizes preemptive nuclear attacks over a variety of loosely defined crisis situations. U.S. and South Korean officials say North Korea may up the ante in the coming weeks with its first detonation of a nuclear test device since September 2017. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a telephone call with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin over Wednesday’s missile launches, including the one that “recklessly and dangerously” landed near the South Korean coastline, and stressed the “ironclad” U.S. commitment to the security of its ally, according to their offices. State Department spokesperson Ned Price also addressed concerns about possible North Korean preparations for another nuclear test, which would be its seventh overall. Experts say such tests could possibly bring North Korea a step closer to its goal of building a full-fledged arsenal threatening regional U.S. allies and the American mainland. “Should it go forward with a seventh nuclear test there would be additional costs and consequences,” Price said, noting that the test would be a “dangerous, reckless, destabilizing act.” North Korea last flew a missile over Japan in October in what it described as a test of a new intermediate range ballistic missile, which experts say potentially would be capable of reaching Guam, a major U.S. military hub in the Pacific. That launch forced the Japanese government to issue evacuation alerts and pause train services. Experts say North Korea is escalating a brinkmanship aimed at forcing the United States to accept the idea of the North as a nuclear power and negotiating economic and security concessions from a position of strength. Nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang have been stalled since early 2019 over disagreements in exchanging the release of crippling U.S.-led sanctions against the North and the North’s denuclearization steps. The North has so far ignored the Biden administration’s calls for open-ended talks, insisting that Washington should first discard its “hostile” policy, a term North Korea mainly uses to describe sanctions and combined U.S.-South Korea military exercises. White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on Wednesday underscored that the Biden administration has repeatedly sought to reach out to North Korean officials through diplomatic channels and has made clear “we’re willing to sit down with North Korea without precondition to discuss the denuclearization of the peninsula.”

Inflation hit a new record in the 19 countries that use the euro currency, fueled by out-of-control prices for natural gas and electricity due to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Economic growth also slowed ahead of what economists fear is a looming recession, largely as a result of those higher prices sapping Europeans’ ability to spend. Annual inflation reached 10.7% in October, the European Union’s statistics agency, Eurostat, reported Monday. That is up from 9.9% in September and the highest since statistics began to be compiled for the eurozone in 1997. Read: Germany postpones decision on mandatory speed limits Natural gas prices skyrocketed in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine as Russia throttled back pipeline supplies to a trickle of what they were before the war. Europe has had to resort to expensive shipments of liquefied gas that come by ship from the U.S. and Qatar to keep generating electricity and heating homes. While liquid gas succeeded in filling Europe’s storage for the winter, the higher prices have made some industrial products such as steel or fertilizer expensive or simply unprofitable to make. Consumer spending power has been drained at shops and elsewhere as more income goes to pay for fuel and utility bills and as basics such as food become more expensive. Natural gas prices for short-term purchases have eased recently but remain high on markets for coming months, suggesting that costly energy may be a persistent drag on the economy. A survey of professional forecasts last week by the European Central Bank showed expectations for inflation next year rose to 5.8% from 3.6% predicted three months ago. Read: Kanye West drops to No. 3 on list of richest hip-hop stars as top brands cut ties The inflation outbreak has been an international phenomenon, sending price increases to near 40-year highs in the U.S. as well. Eurostat figures showed prices for food, alcohol and tobacco have increasingly joined energy prices as a major contributor, rising 13.1%, while energy prices rose an astronomical 41.9% from a year earlier. Inflation figures varied widely by country, from 7.1% in France to 16.8% in the Netherlands among the biggest member economies, while the highest were in the three Baltic countries: Estonia at 22.4%, Latvia at 21.8%, and Lithuania at 22%. The economy, which had been rebounding from the COVID-19 pandemic, showed growth of 0.2% in the July-September period, slowing from 0.8% in the second quarter. Economists say a major reason is higher prices, and many are predicting the economy will shrink over the last months of this year and the first part of next year. Read: Swiss railway company claims record for world’s longest passenger train The growth in gross domestic product was higher than expected because of extensive government support that softened the blow to people’s incomes from inflation as well as pent-up savings that consumers had left over from the worst of the pandemic restrictions, said Joerg Zeuner, chief economist at Union Investment. “However, there’s no cause for celebration,” he said. “The GDP numbers, along with many other indicators, show that the economy has clearly lost steam over the summer.” With more recent data weakening, “it is a matter of how deep the recession will be and not if there will be one,” wrote economists at Oxford Economics. Higher inflation has sent a chain of tremors through the economy and financial markets. It has led the European Central Bank to raise interest rates at the fastest pace in its history with back-to-back three-quarter point increases at its Oct. 27 and Sept. 8 meetings. That has sent market borrowing costs higher for companies and governments and raised concerns that the war on inflation will hurt growth. Higher rates by the ECB and the U.S. Federal Reserve also have roiled markets for stocks and bonds, which had been supported by years of low central bank benchmarks and money-printing stimulus. Meanwhile, higher bond market costs for governments remain a concern for heavily indebted eurozone countries such as Italy. Read more: Soaring inflation threatens to unleash political turmoil across Europe  

Germany is postponing politically sensitive decisions on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector until 2023 amid strong opposition from one governing party to the idea of a universal speed limit, officials said Monday. The libertarian Free Democratic Party, which controls the Transport Ministry, has long blocked the introduction mandatory speed limits seen in most of Germany’s neighbors. Read: UN nuclear agency to probe Russia claim of `dirty bombs' Experts say that limiting speeds on highways to 120 kilometers per hour (74.5 mph) would save 2.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. A limit of 100 kmh (62 mph) would more than double the savings, according to Germany’s Environment Agency. Those annual savings would make a significant contribution to closing the remaining emissions gap in Germany’s transport sector of 118-175 million tons by 2030. Proposals released Monday by the Economy Ministry would close the emissions gap in all other sectors for the country to meet its climate goals. Germany wants to cut emissions by 65% from 1990 levels by 2030, but have acknowledged that this will be a “gigantic” task and the country is lagging. Europe’s biggest economy aims to have ‘net zero’ emissions by 2045. Read: Russia halts grain deal over Ukrainian drone attack To achieve this, Germany will have to double its current rate of emissions cuts by the middle of this decade, then triple them from 2030 onward, the ministry said. It noted that significant measures have already been put in place to increase renewable energy generation and to ramp up the production of hydrogen for industrial use. While Germany plans to introduce a monthly 49-euro ticket to encourage the use of public transit, the ministry said “climate policy failures of the past decades” meant further measures would need to be agreed in 2023.  

Only a few years ago, a Halloween party, which was variously viewed as a suspiciously pagan foreign holiday or as sinful, unnecessary and weird, meant arrests in Saudi Arabia. Now, a government-sponsored "horror weekend" means sold-out costume shops and scary clowns. This year, it looked like creatures from a haunted house had escaped and taken over parts of the Saudi capital Riyadh. Monsters, witches, and bank robbers were everywhere, according to The New York Times. Saudi Arabia celebrated the festival of Halloween alongside activities of the Riyadh Season 2022 from October 27 to 29, two days before the Americans' Halloween celebrations. Read: Halloween crowd stampede in Seoul leaves at least 151 dead "The atmosphere at the weekend is terrifying," the head of the General Authority for Entertainment, Advisor to the Saudi Royal Court, Turki Al-Sheikh, wrote on social media. However, the government-sponsored event was not, strictly speaking, a Halloween festival. Instead, it was promoted as a horror weekend, conveniently coinciding with the weekend before Halloween. Some of the revellers seemed to have only a vague idea of what Halloween was, and had come simply to enjoy the atmosphere, reported The New York Times.

It happened at a music festival in Houston, a soccer stadium in England, during a hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, in a Chicago nightclub, and countless other gatherings: Large crowds surge toward exits, onto playing fields or press up against a stage with such force that people are literally squeezed to death. And it has happened again, during Halloween festivities in the South Korean capital Seoul, where a crowd pushed forward, the narrow street they were on acting as a vice, leaving more than 140 people dead and 150 more injured. The risk of such tragic accidents, which receded when venues closed and people stayed home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has returned. To be sure, most events where large crowds gather happen without injury or death, with fans coming and going without incident. But those that went horribly wrong shared some common traits. Here is a look at why that happens: HOW DO PEOPLE DIE AT THESE EVENTS? While movies that show crowds desperately try to flee suggest getting trampled might be the cause of most of the deaths, the reality is most people who die in a crowd surge are suffocated. Read: Seoul Halloween stampede: World leaders offer condolences What can’t be seen are forces so strong that they can bend steel. That means something as simple as drawing breath becomes impossible. People die standing up and those who fall die because the bodies on top of them exert such pressure that breathing becomes impossible. “As people struggle to get up, arms and legs get twisted together. Blood supply starts to be reduced to the brain,” G. Keith Still, a visiting professor of crowd science at the University of Suffolk in England, told NPR after the Astroworld crowd surge in Houston last November. “It takes 30 seconds before you lose consciousness, and around about six minutes, you’re into compressive or restrictive asphyxia. That’s a generally the attributed cause of death — not crushing, but suffocation.” WHAT IS THE EXPERIENCE OF BEING SWEPT INTO A CRUSH OF PEOPLE LIKE? Survivors tell stories of gasping for breath, being pushed deeper under what feels like an avalanche of flesh as others, desperate to escape, climb over them. Of being pinned against doors that won’t open and fences that won’t give. “Survivors described being gradually compressed, unable to move, their heads ‘locked between arms and shoulders ... faces gasping in panic,’” according to a report after a human crush in 1989 at the Hillsborough soccer stadium in Sheffield, England, led to the death of nearly 100 Liverpool fans. “They were aware that people were dying and they were helpless to save themselves.” WHAT TRIGGERS SUCH EVENTS? At a Chicago nightclub in 2003, a crowd surge began after security guards used pepper spray to break up a fight. Twenty-one people died in the resulting crowd surge. And this month in Indonesia, 131 people were killed when tear gas was fired into a half-locked stadium, triggering a crush at the exits. Read: Halloween crowd stampede in Seoul leaves at least 151 dead In Nepal in 1988, it was a sudden downpour that sent soccer fans rushing toward locked stadium exits, leading to the deaths of 93 fans. In the latest incident in South Korea, some news outlets reported that the crush occurred after a large number of people rushed to a bar after hearing that an unidentified celebrity was there. But Still, the British professor who has testified as an expert witness in court cases involving crowds, pointed to a variation of the age-old example of someone shouting “Fire” in a crowded movie theater. He told the AP last year that what lights the fuse of such a rush for safety in the U.S., more than in any other country, is the sound of someone shouting: “He has a gun!” WHAT ROLE DID THE PANDEMIC PLAY? Stadiums are filling up again. During the pandemic, as games went forward, teams took some creative steps to make things look somewhat normal. Cardboard figures of fans were placed in some of the seats and crowd noise was piped in — a sports version of a comedy show laugh track. Now, though, the crowds are back, and the danger has returned. “As soon as you add people into the mix, there will always be a risk,” Steve Allen of Crowd Safety, a U.K.-based consultancy engaged in major events around the world, told the AP in 2021.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has catalogued the 19 fungi that represent the greatest public health risk today to promote research and strengthen the response to fungal infections and antifungal resistance. People most at risk are those with underlying health problems or a weakened immune system, the UN health agency said. The invasive fungal infections increased significantly among hospitalised patients, often with devastating consequences when the Covid-19 pandemic gathered pace. "New groups at risk of invasive fungal disease are constantly being identified," the WHO said Tuesday. "As the fungi that cause common infections – such as candida oral and vaginal thrush – become increasingly resistant to treatment, risks for the development of more invasive forms of infections in the general population are also growing." There are only four types of antifungal medicine available today, which is a problem, as fungal infections are becoming more common and resistant to treatment. Even more worrying is the fact that most fungal pathogens lack rapid and sensitive diagnostics, and those (medicines) that exist are not widely available or affordable globally, the WHO said. People at greatest risk from invasive fungal infections include those with cancer, HIV or AIDS, organ transplants, chronic respiratory disease and tuberculosis. Latest data shared by the WHO indicates that fungal diseases are expanding in number and reach worldwide. Global warming and the increase in international travel and trade are believed to be responsible, the UN health agency said. To tackle the fungal disease, the WHO urged the strengthening of laboratory and surveillance capacities, to better understand the burden of infection and antifungal resistance. The UN health agency's catalogue focuses on fungal pathogens that can cause invasive acute and subacute systemic fungal infections which have proved resistant to medication. The pathogens are ranked and listed in three priority groups: critical, high and medium. The critical group includes Cryptococcus neoformans, Candida auris, Aspergillus fumigatus and Candida albicans.  

A Swiss railway company claimed the record for the world’s longest passenger train Saturday with a trip on one of the most spectacular tracks through the Alps. The Rhaetian Railway company ran the 1.9-kilometer-long (1.2-mile-long) train composed of 100 coaches along the Albula/Bernina route from Preda to Berguen. The route was designated a UNESCO World Heritage in 2008 and leads through 22 tunnels, some of which spiral through mountains, and across 48 bridges, including the curved Landwasser Viaduct.

Two NASA spacecraft at Mars — one on the surface and the other in orbit — have recorded the biggest meteor strikes and impact craters yet. The high-speed barrages last year sent seismic waves rippling thousands of miles across Mars, the first ever detected near the surface of another planet, and carved out craters nearly 500 feet (150 meters) across, scientists reported Thursday in the journal Science. The larger of the two strikes churned out boulder-size slabs of ice, which may help researchers look for ways future astronauts can tap into Mars’ natural resources. The Insight lander measured the seismic shocks, while the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provided stunning pictures of the resulting craters. Imaging the craters “would have been huge already,” but matching it to the seismic ripples was a bonus, said co-author Liliya Posiolova of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego. “We were so lucky.” Mars’ atmosphere is thin unlike on Earth, where the thick atmosphere prevents most space rocks from reaching the ground, instead breaking and incinerating them. A separate study last month linked a recent series of smaller Martian meteoroid impacts with smaller craters closer to InSight, using data from the same lander and orbiter. Read: NASA says spacecraft succeeded in changing asteroid’s orbit The impact observations come as InSight nears the end of its mission because of dwindling power, its solar panels blanketed by dust storms. InSight landed on the equatorial plains of Mars in 2018 and has since recorded more than 1,300 marsquakes. “It’s going to be heartbreaking when we finally lose communication with InSight,” said Bruce Banerdt of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the lander’s chief scientist who took part in the studies. “But the data it has sent us will certainly keep us busy for years to come.” Banerdt estimated the lander had between four to eight more weeks before power runs out. The incoming space rocks were between 16 feet and 40 feet (5 meters and 12 meters) in diameter, said Posiolova. The impacts registered about magnitude 4. The larger of the two struck last December some 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) from InSight, creating a crater roughly 70 feet (21 meters) deep. The orbiter’s cameras showed debris hurled up to 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the impact, as well as white patches of ice around the crater, the most frozen water observed at such low latitudes, Posiolova said. Posiolova spotted the crater earlier this year after taking extra pictures of the region from orbit. The crater was missing from earlier photos, and after poring through the archives, she pinpointed the impact to late December. She remembered a large seismic event recorded by InSight around that time and with help from that team, matched the fresh hole to what was undoubtedly a meteoroid strike. The blast wave was clearly visible. Scientists also learned the lander and orbiter teamed up for an earlier meteoroid strike, more than double the distance of the December one and slightly smaller. “Everybody was just shocked and amazed. Another one? Yep,” she recalled. Read: NASA’s new telescope shows star death, dancing galaxies The seismic readings from the two impacts indicate a denser Martian crust beyond InSight’s location. “We still have a long way to go to understanding the interior structure and dynamics of Mars, which remain largely enigmatic,” said Doyeon Kim of ETH Zurich’s Institute of Geophysics in Switzerland, who was part of the research. Outside scientists said future landers from Europe and China will carry even more advanced seismometers. Future missions will “paint a clearer picture” of how Mars evolved, Yingjie Yang and Xiaofei Chen from China’s Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen wrote in an accompanying editorial.

The number of people infected with tuberculosis, including the kind resistant to drugs, rose globally for the first time in years, according to a report issued Thursday by the World Health Organization. The U.N. health agency said more than 10 million people worldwide were sickened by tuberculosis in 2021, a 4.5% rise from the year before. About 1.6 million people died, it said. WHO said about 450,000 cases involved people infected with drug-resistant TB, 3% more than in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted services for people with TB along with many other health programs. WHO said many people went undiagnosed, noting that the number of people newly identified with TB fell from 7 million in 2019 to 5.8 million in 2020. Dr. Mel Spigelman, president of the non-profit TB Alliance, said more than a decade of progress was lost in 2020. “Despite gains in areas like preventative therapy, we are still behind in just about every pledge and goal regarding TB,” Spigelman said. After COVID-19, TB is the world’s deadliest infectious disease. It is caused by bacteria that typically affects the lungs. The germs are mostly spread from person to person in the air, such as when an infected individual coughs or sneezes. Read: Reporting on tuberculosis: icddr,b-led USAID ACTB announces media fellowship for journalists TB mostly affects adults, particularly those who are malnourished or have other conditions like HIV; more than 95% of cases are in developing countries. According to the WHO report, only one in three people with drug-resistant TB are receiving treatment. “Drug-resistant TB is curable, but alarmingly, cases are on the rise for the first time in years,” Dr. Hannah Spencer, who is with Doctors Without Borders in South Africa, said. “It’s urgent that shorter, safer and more effective treatments are scaled up now.” Spencer called for lowering the prices of TB treatment so a complete treatment course costs no more than $500. WHO said ongoing conflicts in eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East have worsened the options for patients seeking TB diagnosis and treatment. Ukraine had one of the world’s worst TB epidemics even before Russia invaded the country in late February. Health experts fear the inability of patients to get treated could fuel the rise of more drug-resistant TB across the region. While TB patients displaced by the war can seek care anywhere in Ukraine, the country has seen a shortage of key medicines and authorities face challenges in keeping track of patients.

Prince Harry’s memoir, an object of obsessive anticipation worldwide since first announced last year, is coming out Jan. 10. The book will be called “Spare” and is being billed by Penguin Random House, as an account told with “raw, unflinching honesty” and filled with ”insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.” In a statement released Thursday, Penguin Random House summoned memories of the stunning death in 1997 of Prince Harry’s mother, Diana, and of Harry and his brother, William, “walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow — and horror.” “As Diana, Princess of Wales, was laid to rest, billions wondered what the princes must be thinking and feeling — and how their lives would play out from that point on,” the statement reads in part. “For Harry, this is his story at last.” The memoir’s title is an apparent reference to Prince Harry’s being a royal “spare,” not the first in line to succession. William, Prince of Wales, is next in line. The 416-page book will come out in 16 languages, from Dutch to Portuguese, and also will be released in an audio edition read by Prince Harry. Financial terms were not disclosed, but Harry, the Duke of Sussex, will be using proceeds from “Spare” to donate to British charities. He has already given $1.5 million to Sentebale, an organization he co-founded with Prince Seeiso of Lesotho to help children and young people in Lesotho and Botswana affected by HIV/AIDS. Penguin Random House identifies Prince Harry as “a husband, father, humanitarian, military veteran, mental wellness advocate, and environmentalist.” Read: Meghan addresses youth summit on UK visit with Prince Harry Royals watchers and the public at large have speculated endlessly since the book was first announced in July 2021, billed as “intimate and heartfelt” and tentatively scheduled for this year. The Duke of Sussex had already revealed a news-making willingness to discuss his private life when he and his American-born wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, were interviewed for a March 2021 broadcast by their neighbor in Santa Barbara, California, Oprah Winfrey. The couple spoke of Meghan’s deep unhappiness with her new life in England, the alleged racism within the royal family and Harry’s fear that his wife’s life might be endangered had they remained in his native country. In 1992, Diana worked with author Andrew Morton on her explosive memoir “Diana: Her True Story,” in which she described at length her unhappy marriage to the future King Charles, Harry’s father. Harry and Meghan stepped back from their royal duties in 2020 and moved to the U.S. Harry told Winfrey that his family cut him off financially and that he helped pay for his security with money left to him by his mother. They have launched numerous initiatives, including a Netflix production deal and the “impact-driven non-profit” Archewell Foundation. The book’s delay led to rumors that Harry was hesitating to say too much about his family, or was perhaps revising the narrative after his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, died in September. He has spoken of being estranged from his brother, William, although the siblings and their wives appeared in public together during the mourning period following the Queen’s death. “Penguin Random House is honored to be publishing Prince Harry’s candid and emotionally powerful story for readers everywhere,” the global CEO of Penguin Random House, Markus Dohle, said in a statement. “He shares a remarkably moving personal journey from trauma to healing, one that speaks to the power of love and will inspire and encourage millions of people around the world.”