Month: November 2020

Insight Latest News Talking Points

Who do Republicans want to be their candidate in the 2024 US Presidential elections? Donald Trump, or possibly his son, says a national poll.

30 November 2020 By Paul Martin

A super-majority — 68% of Republicans and those who voted independently in the Republican primaries — want President Donald Trump to run again in 2024, according to a new Newsmax/McLaughlin Associates poll. Here are highlights from the Newsmax/McLaughlin poll: In all, 53% of Republican primary voters say they would favor Trump in a field of 13 […]

Corona and Covid Media Blunders or Brilliance

How unwell South African children found their voices — and others around the world. During the pandemic, they’re running their own internet radio station from a Cape Town hospital studio.

28 November 2020 By Paul Martin

RX Radio has given children the opportunity to voice their opinions and understand others By Luzuko Sonkapu. This article was submitted to the Media Monitoring Africa Isu Elihle Awards. I’m an 18-year-old with a chronic illness, spinal muscular atrophy, and at the start of lockdown in March it was better for me to move to […]

Analysis Corona and Covid

Russia will provide a huge ‘guinea-pig’ experiment as it secures its first foreign purchaser for a vaccine against Covid-19.

21 November 2020 By Paul Martin

Russia claims its own vaccine is just as effective as the two American-developed vaccines that Pfizer and Moderna have been testing. No-one outside Russia has taken them seriously — except for a top hospital in, of all places, Israel. The Hadassah Medical Centre in Jerusalem is willing to take a gamble on buying – so […]

Analysis Corona and Covid Insight

After getting Covid, your immunity may last for years. That overcomes a major drawback to effective vaccination.

18 November 2020 By Paul Martin

People who have recovered from Covid-19 may lose their antibodies, but they will usually still have strong protective killer cells to give them continuing immunity. So immunity to the coronavirus could last years, or even decades, according to a new study. That may apply, too to how long a vaccine will remain an effective bar […]

Strange as It Seems

Has the US Air Force gone to the dogs?

15 November 2020 By Paul Martin

Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., this week tested robotic dogs on a security patrol operation. Photo from U.S. Air Force The US Air Force has unveiled an addition to its war effort: computerized, four-legged robot dogs to be used for security patrols. The Philadelphia-based technology company Ghost Robotics worked with the base’s 325th Security Squadron […]

Analysis Latest News Sport

Heavier balls and greater guilt. Two Major changes, one golfing one racial, are underway in American golf.

13 November 2020 By Paul Martin

The controllers of the once-racially-segregated Augusta fairways are leaning over backwards to portray a new image. Once a bastion of racial bigotry, the club that hosts the US Masters is about to give an elderly black golfer a very special honour. And the golfing rule-makers are about to address another ill: they’re upset that most […]

Eyewitness Sport

Playing for high steaks. How two of the world’s greatest golfers got their teeth into the food they really wanted.

12 November 2020 By Paul Martin

As the world of sport resumes its greatest events after the Covid pandemic’s lockdowns, the most prestigious and quirky tournament in the Golfing World is currently underway – seven months later than usual: the US Masters at the Augusta National club in Georgia, USA. In golf, it seems, there’s a lot at steak! Great golfers […]

Analysis Corona and Covid Insight Latest News

Later but warmer. Hot on the heels of Pfizer’s breakthrough in the battle against Covid-19, a German company says it can store its vaccine in a normal fridge.

12 November 2020 By Paul Martin

Franz-Werner Haas, CureVac CEO  Fol­low­ing Pfiz­er’s dra­mat­ic un­veil­ing of a 90%-plus ef­fec­tive­ness rate from its piv­otal Covid-19 vac­cine study ear­li­er this week, less af­flu­ent coun­tries and re­gions around the world have begun to won­der if they will be frozen out of the picture. The vac­cine has to be shipped in temperatures below -70 de­grees cel­sius and then used with­in […]

Analysis Corona and Covid Insight Latest News

Two scientists of Turkish origin are heroes in the battle against Covid-19 via a vaccine. Immigrants seem to have injected new vigour into medicine and research.

10 November 2020 By Paul Martin

Immigrants to various European countries have often been the keenest members of their society to push their offspring towards medicine and science. This may help explain why the number of Asians in Britain who are filling up the country’s medical schools is far beyond their proportion in the population. And, likewise, the number of Asian-origin […]

Latest News Media Blunders or Brilliance

A coup against a coup? Top film gurus argue over allegations of the suppression of a film about MI6’s role in the overthrow of an Iranian leader.

8 November 2020 By Paul Martin

Lord Puttnam has stepped into a row to back an independent film-maker who has accused Brian Lapping and Norma Percy, two top names in British investigative filmed journalism, of “blocking” his documentary —  about Britain’s role in a coup that overthrew the leader of Iran in 1953.  Lapping and Percy vehemently deny the allegation and have […]

Corona and Covid

Denmark is to cull all its farmed minks, after animals caught coronavirus from humans. It fears mutations passed from minks to humans may resist vaccines.

6 November 2020 By Paul Martin

Fears that the Coronavirus causing Covid-19 will mutate and prevent effective antibodies have led to Denmark deciding to cull all farmed mink in the country. Denmark is the world’s largest producer of farmed mink, of which there are 15 million animals located at over a thousand farms. Their fur is mainly used for women’s coats. […]