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Investigators believe anti-stall system activated in Ethiophia crash: Report

Agencies
March 29, 2019

Washington, Mar 29: Investigators probing the fatal crash of a Boeing 737 Max in Ethiopia have reached a preliminary conclusion that a suspect anti-stall system activated shortly before it nose-dived to the ground, the WSJ reported on Friday citing people familiar with the matter.

The findings were based on flight recorder data and represented the strongest indication yet that the system, known as MCAS, malfunctioned in both the Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10 and the Lion Air crash in Indonesia last year, the Wall Street Journal said.

The two crashes killed a total of 346 people.

US government experts have been analysing details gathered by their Ethiopian counterparts for the past few days, the newspaper added, and the emerging consensus was relayed at a high-level briefing of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Thursday.

It added that the preliminary findings are subject to revision, and Ethiopian authorities are expected to issue their own first report within days.

Embattled aviation giant Boeing pledged on Wednesday to do all it can to prevent future crashes as it unveiled a fix to the flight software of its grounded 737 MAX aircraft.

"We are going to do everything to make sure that accidents like this don't happen again," Mike Sinnett, Boeing's vice president of product strategy, told reporters at a factory in Washington state.

The head of the US air safety agency has meanwhile come under harsh scrutiny from senators over its relationship with Boeing and its oversight of the group.

Dan Elwell, the acting head of the FAA, defended his agency Wednesday but acknowledged that, as systems become more complex, the agency's "oversight approach needs to evolve."

Boeing and the FAA are under investigation by the Transportation Department over how the rollout of the jet was handled, including the anti-stall system.

Reports say that the Department of Justice has also opened a criminal investigation into the 737 MAX's development.

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Agencies
August 7,2020

Washington, Aug 7: US President Donald Trump on Thursday (local time) signed executive orders halting all transactions with Chinese applications TikTok and WeChat within 45 days, citing national security concerns, further escalating the tensions between Beijing and Washington.

"WeChat, a messaging, social media, and electronic payment application owned by the Chinese company Tencent Holdings Ltd., reportedly has over one billion users worldwide, including users in the United States. Like TikTok, WeChat automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users. 

This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) access to Americans' personal and proprietary information," Trump said in a statement.

Citing reasons for the ban on WeChat, the US President said that the application captures the personal and proprietary information of Chinese nationals visiting the US, thereby providing the CCP a mechanism to keep tabs on the Chinese citizens who may be "enjoying the benefits of a free society for the first time in their lives".

"In March 2019, a researcher reportedly discovered a Chinese database containing billions of WeChat messages sent from users in not only China but also the United States, Taiwan, South Korea and Australia. WeChat, like TikTok, also reportedly censors content that the CCP deems politically sensitive and may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the CCP. 

These risks have led other countries, including Australia and India, to begin restricting or banning the use of WeChat. The US must take aggressive action against the owner of WeChat to protect our national security," he added.

Earlier, Trump had issued an order banning TikTok as it "reportedly censors content that the CCP deems politically sensitive, such as content concerning protests in Hong Kong and China's treatment of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities. 

TikTok may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the CCP."
US politicians have repeatedly criticised TikTok, owned by Beijing-based startup ByteDance, of being a threat to national security because of its ties to China.

The development comes as China and the US are at loggerheads on a variety of issues including Hong Kong national security law, the South China Sea, the novel coronavirus and trade.

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News Network
March 4,2020

Beijing/Zurich, Mar 4: China has approved the use of Swiss drugmaker Roche's anti-inflammation drug Actemra for patients who develop severe complications from the coronavirus as it urgently hunts for new ways to combat the deadly infection that is spreading worldwide.

China is hoping that some older drugs could stop severe cytokine release syndrome (CRS), or cytokine storms, an overreaction of the immune system which is considered a major factor behind catastrophic organ failure and death in some coronavirus patients.

Actemra, a biologic drug approved in 2010 in the United States for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), inhibits high Interleukin 6 (IL-6) protein levels that drive some inflammatory diseases.

China's National Health Commission said in treatment guidelines published online on Wednesday that Actemra can now be used to treat coronavirus patients with serious lung damage and high IL-6 levels.

Separately, researchers in the country are testing Actemra, known generically as tocilizumab, in a clinical trial expected to include 188 coronavirus patients and running until May 10.

Roche, which donated 14 million yuan ($2.02 million) worth of Actemra during February, said the trial was initiated independently by a third party with the aim of exploring the efficacy and safety of the drug in coronavirus patients with CRS.

It added that there was currently no published clinical trial data on the drug's safety or efficacy against the virus.

More than 3,000 people have died and 93,000 have been infected by the novel coronavirus thought to have originated in Wuhan, China, before spreading to around 90 countries including the United States, Italy, Switzerland, France and Germany.

The Swiss company, for which China is its No. 2 market behind the United States, also makes diagnostic gear to detect the coronavirus.

Since Actemra's approval a decade ago, it has become a go-to drug against other inflammatory conditions, including cytokine storms in cancer patients receiving cell therapies from Novartis and Gilead Sciences.

In 2012 it helped save the life of a young U.S. girl, the first child to be treated for leukaemia with Novatis' Kymriah, from a post-treatment rush of IL-6.

Priced at between $20-30,000 annually for RA according to SSR Health, Roche's medicine is also used for rare juvenile arthritis and giant cell arteritis, or inflammation of the blood vessels.

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News Network
April 24,2020

Paris, Apr 24: The worldwide death toll from the coronavirus pandemic crossed 190,000 on Friday, with nearly two-thirds of the fatalities in Europe, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources at 0740 GMT.

A total of 190,089 people have died and 2,698,733 been infected since the virus emerged in China in December. The hardest hit continent is Europe, with 116,221 deaths and 1,296,248 cases.

The country with the most deaths is the United States with 49,963, followed by Italy with 25,549, Spain with 22,157, France with 21,856 and Britain 18,738.

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