... Facebook said it has not seen any evidence of Russian assistance to Mr Sanders' campaign...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51582025

Conclusion
The world economy may become very different, simply because of COVID-19. The new virus doesn’t even need to directly affect the rest of the world very much to create a problem. The United States, Europe, and the rest of the world are very much dependent on the continued operation of China. The world economy has effectively put way too many eggs in one basket, and this basket is not now functioning as expected.

If China is barely producing anything for world markets, the rest of the world will suddenly discover that long supply chains weren’t such a good idea. There will be a big scramble to try to fill in the missing pieces of supply chains, but many goods are likely to be less available. We may discover quickly how much we depend upon China for everything from shoes to automobiles to furniture to electronics. World carbon dioxide emissions are likely to fall dramatically because of China’s problems, but will the accompanying issues be ones that the world economy can tolerate?

The thing that is ironic is that it is possible that the West’s fear of the new coronavirus may be overblown–we really won’t know what the impact will be with respect to people of European or of African descent until we have had a better chance to examine how the virus affects different populations. The next few weeks and months are likely to be quite instructive...

https://ourfiniteworld.com/2020/02/18/easily-overlooked-issues-regarding-covid-19/

... The catalyst, made from inexpensive and abundant nickel, magnesium, and molybdenum, initiates and speeds up the rate of reaction that converts carbon dioxide and methane into hydrogen gas. It can work efficiently for more than a month.

This conversion is called "dry reforming," where harmful gases, such as carbon dioxide, are processed to produce more useful chemicals that could be refined for use in fuel, plastics, or even pharmaceuticals. It is an effective process, but it previously required rare and expensive metals such as platinum and rhodium to induce a brief and inefficient chemical reaction.

Other researchers had previously proposed nickel as a more economical solution, but carbon byproducts would build up and the surface nanoparticles would bind together on the cheaper metal, fundamentally changing the composition and geometry of the catalyst and rendering it useless...

... The researchers produced nickel-molybdenum nanoparticles under a reductive environment in the presence of a single crystalline magnesium oxide. As the ingredients were heated under reactive gas, the nanoparticles moved on the pristine crystal surface seeking anchoring points. The resulting activated catalyst sealed its own high-energy active sites and permanently fixed the location of the nanoparticles—meaning that the nickel-based catalyst will not have a carbon build up, nor will the surface particles bind to one another...

https://phys.org/news/2020-02-catalyst-recycles-greenhouse-gases-fuel.html

... Li himself was infected when he operated on a patient with glaucoma, who he did not know was carrying the virus. On 10 January he started to feel sick, and his symptoms worsened over the rest of the month.

Hospitalised with fever and breathing problems, as he fought the illness, he also decided to fight the government, going public with details of how he had been silenced in the name of stability...

... His parents have also been reported as having contracted the virus. The health status of his wife and children is not clear.

After several negative tests, on 30 January he was finally confirmed as one of thousands of coronavirus patients, he said on a social media post, along with an emoji of a dog with its eyes rolled back and tongue hanging out, the BBC reported. “Today nucleic acid testing came back with a positive result, the dust has settled. Finally diagnosed.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/06/li-wenliang-coronavirus-whistleblower-doctor-profile

... Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, my uncle has already passed away, my father is critically ill and my mum and aunt have started showing some symptoms. The CT scans shows their lungs are infected. My brother is coughing too, and has some breathing difficulties.

My dad has a high fever. His temperature was 39.3C (102F) yesterday and he's constantly coughing and having breathing difficulties. We got him an oxygen machine at home and he relies on that machine twenty-four seven. He's taking both Chinese and Western medicines at the moment. There's no hospital for him to go to because his case hasn't been confirmed due to the lack of testing kits.

My mum and aunt walk to the hospital every day in the hope of getting a bed for my dad despite their own health situation. But no hospital will take them...

... If we follow the government's guidelines, the only place we can go now is to those quarantine points. But if we went, what happened to my uncle would then happen to dad.

So we'd rather die at home...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51379088

... 40 years ago, faced with the "stagflation" crisis of economy, Western countries chose neoliberalism. By adopting neoliberalism, financial monopoly capital gradually usurps political, economic and cultural power in Western capitalist countries. Capital does away with social barriers and facilitates production, exchange, distribution and consumption, reshaping the world in keeping with its nature. The last round of global financial and economic crisis is a vehement outbreak of this contradiction.

In fact, the financial crisis in 2008 declared the failure of neoliberalism, and also provided a historic opportunity for Western countries to adjust their policies accordingly. However, financial capital pulled itself out of the crisis in the name of pumping up the market with public funds. As a result, financial capital not only hasn't suffered setback but has grown stronger since the crisis.

In this process, in order to save financial capital, the level of national debt in Western countries rose sharply, which led to the proportion of national debt in GDP of these countries increasing by an average of 30 percentage points. After that, the US and other countries took further tax cuts to stimulate the economy, which aggravated the fiscal crisis. Meanwhile, Western countries generally adopt extremely loose monetary policies. On the one hand, interest rates are rapidly reduced to a very low level. On the other, a huge amount of capital is injected into the market through multiple rounds of monetary easing. The aim of this policy is to make it easier for businesses and households to borrow at a very low cost, and then investment and consumption can be boosted. However, due to the economic downturn and pessimistic expectation for the future, many enterprises and families try to de-leverage and cut debt. And the slow growth of investment and consumption results in a long-term stagnation of the economy...

... What makes matters worse is that the new wealth of many countries flows to the rich on a large scale, and the gap between the rich and poor widens. What’s more, it’s hard to accept that many reform measures urgently needed by Western society that aim to curb financial speculation and fraud and alleviate contradictions of new liberalism cannot be carried out because of resistance from monopoly capital. The financial and economic crisis in Western countries is gradually turning into a serious social and political crisis. What's more, Western mainstream ideology, including neoliberalism, can neither explain nor solve the current systematic and institutional contradictions of capitalism, and the cultural crisis is becoming more and more intense.

The author is associate dean at the School of Marxism, Tsinghua University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1177928.shtml

I am British and European. I was born a European citizen, and I have enjoyed the great benefits of citizenship throughout my life. As things stand, this will sadly end in 2020. Suddenly in 12 months time, Brits will no longer be European citizens. We will be losing part of our international identity. Please sign this petition, urging the European Commission and EU, to maintain European citizenship for those that would like to keep it, but who stand to lose it due to Brexit...

Does the UK government have the legal right unilaterally to remove our EU citizenship? Including those who were born EU citizens and those who were disenfranchised by the 2015 UK Referendum Act? Isn't this for the EU to decide?