A new cancer treatment drug has been developed by China, and recently began clinical trials, bringing enormous hope for cancer patients in China, Cntv.cn reported on April 28.

Cancer has become the most common cause of death for Chinese people in recent years, and many people have lost their lives due to the high prices and inaccessibility of treatment.

According to China’s National Cancer Center, the number of new cancer cases reached 4.29 million in 2015, with a death toll of 2.81 million. Since 2006, China has been working to introduce a series of supportive policies for the research and development of new cancer drugs, which, being more economical and effective, are expected to replace the extremely expensive imported ones that are currently the only option for countless patients and families.

Innovent Biologics, a leading bio-pharmaceutical company in China, has developed the PD-1 monoclonal antibody-based drug, which has both proven effective in treating cancer and maintained a relatively low price point. The drug is currently undergoing clinical trials.

In 2015, Innovent Biologics also forged a comprehensive strategic cooperation with Eli Lilly and Company, an American drug company with more than 140 years of history in pharmaceutical production. This cooperative agreement indicates that China’s research and development of cancer drugs has earned recognition from U.S. industry experts.

“It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to use the drug in the U.S., which is unaffordable for most Chinese people. So we have to change it. The annual expense of the domestically developed drug is estimated not to surpass 100,000 RMB [$14,500],” noted Yu Dechao, chairman of the board of Innovent Biologics.

A man from Yingshan County, Hubei province has built an amusement park in his rural hometown, providing a unique experience to children in the nearby countryside who could otherwise see nothing like it.

The man, Yu Xing, previously worked in a Shenzhen factory beginning in 2007. His smooth career path elevated him to general manager in only five years. However, his salary was not proportional to his workload, and this problem motivated him to start his own business. He quit his job in 2012, and began looking for opportunities with several of his peers.

Yu soon found that there were many agricultural parks along the coastal areas; one county was home to 40 such parks. However, his own hometown lacked a real amusement park. Together with his fellow investors, he decided to build a park in their hometown of Yingshan.

After a year of operation, the group had made a small profit. However, Yu’s ambitions were much bigger. In addition to expanding the park’s influence, he began holding go-kart races as well as peacock exhibitions to attract more tourists. Currently, a total of 70 employees work in the park, some of who are also local farmers. Yu pays a great deal of attention to the training of his employees, as he hopes to improve their performances as much as possible.

“Though urban-dwellers may not understand the novelty of the park, its facilities are something that children from rural areas have never seen before,” Yu explained.

In addition to rural visitors, Yu is also planning to attract tourists from cities. He predicted that agricultural experiences such as rice-planting, fishing, fruit-picking and home-style cooking demos will gradually become available to guests in the future.

Yu hopes that everyone, no matter from the countryside or the city, can be relaxed and happy in his amusement park.

The two-seat FC-1 Xiaolong trainer, China’s latest model of the FC-1 Xiaolong line, completed its maiden flight in Chengdu, Sichuan province on April 27.

Developed on the basis of the single-seat FC-1 Xiaolong aircraft, the new model is a lightweight multi-role combat jet that can be used in both battle and training. It is also a cost-effective third-generation trainer able to conduct beyond-visual-range battles and precise attacks. Other countries placed advanced orders for the aircraft even before it was developed, based solely on the performance and value of its predecessors.

FC-1 Xiaolong was developed from the platform of J-7, a variant of the former Soviet Union’s Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21. The J-7 was once popular in many third-world countries, but demand for new models gradually rose as the second-generation aircraft became obsolete.

In 1999, China and Pakistan signed an agreement of cooperation, officially embarking on the research and development of FC-1 Xiaolong. Now, after years of good performance, the successful aircraft model has entered rapid development.

American scientists have managed to keep premature baby lambs alive for weeks using an artificial womb that resembles a plastic bag.

The bag, developed by a team at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, contains a mixture of warm water and salts, similar to amniotic fluid, which supports and protects the babies. The eight lambs were able to breathe and swallow like their naturally conceived counterparts after being removed from the “wombs.”

The plastic bags cannot replace real wombs or extend the limits of viability; they were just developed to find a better way to support premature infants, according to the research team.

Experts hope the approach might one day help premature human babies have a better chance of survival. Currently, extremely premature infants, born after around 23 weeks of gestation, are placed in incubators and put on ventilators to help them breathe, but this can damage their lung development.

China should take military action correspondent with the provocation of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea, which is expected to reach combat capability in mid-May, according to Chinese missile expert and quantum defense scientist Yang Chengjun.

On April 26, Yang told the Global Times that the THAAD system is expected to be combat-ready by the middle of next month. In addition to ancillary facilities, point measurements will be taken to confirm the longitude and latitude of its launch point, as well as astronomical parameters such as elevation, gravity, wind power, humidity and rainfall.

Located on the coast, the system calls for high precision and insulation. Yang said THAAD is mainly commanded vertically by U.S.-based organizations and military bases stationed in South Korea, though it needs support for security, calculations and other functions from U.S. allies.

North Korea’s 8,000 guns, and especially its 3,000 ballistic missiles, are the largest threat that South Korea faces. The THAAD system will not be able to neutralize these missiles if Pyongyang launches them at a large scale. Yang believes that the real intention of the U.S. in deploying THAAD is to threaten northern, northeastern and some parts of eastern China, as well as Russia’s far east region.

Yang told the Global Times that China should offer a military response in addition to political and diplomatic measures. He argued that China’s military deployment would unquestionably be a deterrence for the U.S. and South Korea.

Yang’s suggestion is that China make strategic adjustments, such as enhancing its defense through the X-band radar system, infrared system and related satellite systems. He said China should take military action in reconnaissance blind zones, strengthen deployment in northeast China and make full military preparations for various contingencies.

Today, everything can be purchased online, from designer clothes to air guns, knuckledusters, drugs and alcohol. It’s the open sale of these more dangerous categories that worries Swedish police, who admit to being almost completely powerless to clamp down on the accounts that specifically target young people and work around the clock.

While being a popular service for uploading self-made scenic views, Instagram is also a popular tool for peddling stolen goods, drugs, alcohol and assorted weapons. The prohibited articles are being advertised completely in the open, and Swedish police are powerless to stop the black market, Swedish national broadcaster SVT reported. The accounts often follow and promote each other, which further facilitates the purchase of illegal goods.

According to John Lindström, a police officer in Stockholm’s troubled area of Rinkeby, which is known for its propensity for violent crime, there are hundreds of accounts being circulated among Stockholm youth. Lindström noted that this shady business has grown significantly in recent years.

“You can definitely see an increase. Previously, it was more on Facebook, now, it’s on Instagram,” John Lindström told SVT. He also stressed that the awareness among the young people has also risen. “I would say that in every community or gang there is someone who knows about this,” he added.

According to Lindström, one of the foremost reasons why the sale is next to impossible to stop is the dramatic lack of resources. In some cases, however, it was possible to seize and prosecute the vendors, which turned out to be young boys, often under 18 years old.

“If we somehow were to gain access to all of these, we would need huge resources, which we do not have today,” says John Lindström.

In a field experiment, conducted by SVT, high school students tested how fast they could buy liquor on Instagram. It did not take long before the deal was successfully carried out in Solna, another Stockholm suburb.

“I don’t think there’s anyone who wants to buy alcohol and can’t get it,” high school student Erik told SVT.

Sweden’s Instagram liquor vendors seem to deal almost exclusively in vodka. Some accounts offer delivery around the city, whereas others arrange meetings on specific subway lines. When SVT’s “guinea pigs” bought their vodka, they were also informed that ecstasy, cannabis and other drugs were available on “advance order.”

“Instagram prohibits the marketing and sale of illegal content, including illegal drugs. Our team reviews notifications and deletes content that violates our policy, and in some cases, accounts are closed,” Instagram wrote in a commentary to SVT.

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(Source: sputniknews)

A draft resolution has been approved by the Jordanian government which will stop rapists from avoiding prison if they marry the victim.
Campaigners have fought for decades to get the resolution approved and on April 23, the cabinet repealed Article 308 of the Penal Code, in response to recommendations by a royal judiciary committee, according to state news agency, Petra.

The move will now have to be ratified by parliament.
#Daemformedia proud of the team who achieved government decision of cancelling #article308 pic.twitter.com/IgnGjcgm52
— Daem Media Center (@Daemmedia) April 24, 2017
​​Princess Basma, who is the sister to King Hussein of Jordan, has always urged debate around the issue, according to local media.

“It is the role of the media to build a unified stand against it and to raise the level of debate to make it a public opinion issue,” Princess Basma is reported to have said.

According to a report in the Independent newspaper, between 2010 and 2013, 159 rapists avoided punishment by marrying their victims in Jordan.

Recently, an installation was held on Beirut’s Corniche, to protest against a similar law in Lebanon.

The Jordanian law says that rape is punishable by up to seven years in prison or capital punishment if the victim is aged 15 or under. However their is a loophole in the statute, which some consider outdated, which would suspend any criminal prosecution if the two people involved get married for a minimum of three years.

In extreme cases, women in Jordan who report rape can be murdered in honor killings.

Suad Abu-Dayyeh, who works for the campaign group Equality Now said that it is shocking that this can still go on in 2017.

“It’s 2017. How can a rapist be allowed to go free and at the same time make a girl or a woman’s life living hell?” Suad Abu-Dayyeh said.
Rape laws are failing women & girls. Sign on to help fix them! https://t.co/NBkN3oUgox … #theworldsshame pic.twitter.com/s5eTdVbHR2
— equalitynow (@equalitynow) April 5, 2017
​Equality Now has worked with Noor — a pseudonym — who at the age of 20 became pregnant after being drugged and raped by her employer, a man in his 50s.

“I couldn’t tell my family what had happened. I cried and cried not knowing what to do… He tried to make me calm by saying I will marry you and he promised to go and ask for my hand. In order to make me more confident, he brought a piece of paper and we both signed on as a marriage contract,” Noor said.

Noor fell pregnant and had no choice but to marry the man who raped her. However this development in legalization could mean countless other women would avoid a similar fate.

(Source: sputniknews)

One of the NSA hacking tools released in the Shadow Brokers leak earlier this month is already being used by hacking groups to infect almost a quarter of a million computers, the Swiss security company Binary Edge reports.
Called Doublepulsar, this malicious implant is a malware downloader used as an intermediary for downloading more potent malware files on infected host computers.

IT security expert Tiago Henriques of Binary Edge told Radio Sputnik that the Shadow Brokers hack consisted of vulnerabilities identified and implants developed by the NSA which are now being exploited by hacking groups.

“The exploits are the vulnerabilities that were released a couple of weeks ago that NSA had, that affected multiple versions of the Windows operating system. Then there are the implants, which is what hackers leave after they have exploited those vulnerabilities,” Henriques explained.

“Doublepulsar, in this case the one we’re scanning for, is an implant that has been deployed on many machines.”

According to Binary Edge, as of April 25 243,894 machines had been infected. If personal computer users are compromised, their system could be used as a botnet to attack other websites, or to get the users’ financial details.

“In the case of organizations, those machines are actually a bit more dangerous because when they get compromised they can be used as a bridge into an internal network to attack other machines internally.”

The most important thing users can do to prevent such an attack is to update their system with the latest version of their software.

“Unfortunately for some companies, (for example) banks that transfer entire GDP’s of countries across their networks in a day, it’s very hard to just update because these are very critical systems and if they go down or something goes wrong with the update, it causes a huge business impact.”

“If you are a home user, upgrade to the latest software and of course properly configure your firewalls. If you are exposing a service to the internet, allow only specific addresses to connect to that service, instead of the entire internet.”

The critical vulnerabilities identified by the NSA and published by the Shadow Brokers were patched by Microsoft in March, so users with up-to-date systems should be protected.

While the systems of home and small-office users were probably updated automatically, larger organizations may be at risk because the updates are tested by administrators for compatibility with intranets and other internal systems.

While the leak of NSA hacking tools raises concerns about hacking by the intelligence services, ordinary people are also at risk of attacks from hackers unconnected to the spy agencies who are using the leaked tools, Henriques said.

“It’s important for the public to understand that it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re being targeted by the NSA. You might be targeted by hacker groups using the tools of the NSA, which would make sense because these tools are beautifully designed from a security perspective.”

“They’re hard to detect, they do their job well, and they’re very much point-and-shoot in the sense that they’re easy to use, so it makes sense that other hacker groups are using them to do mass-scale attacks.”

(Source: sputniknews)

It has long been acknowledged that death of a loved one can unite people in many different and often unexpected ways – friendships forged, relations reconnected with, etc. Still, the question of how long these bonds last has hitherto remained elusive.
For, while death can strengthen social bonds, once the grieving process is complete, or the event fades from painful emotional prominence, what is there to keep people allied? In instances where death reconnects former pals or alienated kin, there is presumably a risk of subsequent detachment anew as the emotional resonance of an event fades.

Now however, a University of California study of thousands of Facebook friend networks finds a person’s friends and acquaintances remain in tighter contact with each other than before years after someone passes.

Do social networks heal to fill the space left by the death of a friend? Research by William Hobbs & Moira Burke https://t.co/iy5Ke1SPJ5 pic.twitter.com/CkM6Q99YKG
— NatureHumanBehaviour (@NatureHumBehav) April 24, 2017

​The researchers collected anonymized statistics on 15,129 friend networks which had lost someone, and a comparison group of 30,258 networks that hadn’t. To measure interaction, the scientists counted comments, posts, and photo tags.

For each of the deceased, they looked at that person’s “close friends” — defined as individuals they’d interacted with at least once during a 6-month window — and tallied how much those friends interacted with various types of other people. This included close friends of the deceased, less close “acquaintances” — friends whom the deceased had not communicated with in that 6-month window — and “strangers” whom the deceased had no connection to.

In the month immediately after the death, close friends of the deceased interacted with each other about 30 percent more than usual, and with acquaintances of the deceased about 15 percent more than usual. Friend-friend communication died down over the following year, and friend-acquaintance communication died down over a few months. However, even two years later, in both cases interactions per month were still about three percent higher than in the comparison networks. The researchers expressed surprise at the resurged connection enduring so long.

Nonetheless, not all deaths had the same impact. Post-death interactions were more frequent after deaths through cancer and unintentional injuries than other causes, and less frequent after stigmatized causes, such as suicide, sexually transmitted diseases, and liver disease (due to its associations with alcoholism).

Made my kid my Facebook legacy contact. He said that when I pass into the next world,he will update my status to: “Opps.” #proudmom #momlife
— Giovannie Espiritu (@giospirit) April 22, 2017
​The findings come with further caveats. The researchers didn’t analyze what the people in the study wrote to each other, merely measured communication — it could be they engaged in a negative way, with expressions of anger or helplessness, or simply desperate attempts to effectively keep a deceased alive via nostalgia. Moreover, the sample consisted of Californian Facebookers, meaning the results may not be extrapolated to the wider population.
Facebook has a “legacy contact” option?! That’s actually kind of disturbing. Choose who can view your profile and make changes once you pass
— Alyssa Nicole (@alyssapelkey) April 22, 2017
​Still, the research is unique for its focus on entire social networks, rather than individuals or small groups. The researchers believe it important to recognize humans naturally grieve in broader social contexts — understanding collective behaviors could help shape them to further increase resilience to traumatic events.

For instance, this study shows young people are more fluid in forming new bonds. Older mourners, and those grieving over a stigmatized death, may need active encouragement to reach out. Moreover, it may be the case the best way to reconnect with individuals, and maintain that reconnection, is to take relationships offline as much as possible.

(Source: sputniknews)

China is in talks with the European Space Agency regarding the construction of a moon village, Tian Yulong, chief engineer at the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense and secretary general of China National Space Administration (CNSA), disclosed in Xi’an on April 24.

Deep space exploration is key to China’s space development, Tian stated on China Space Day 2017. Tian added that the Chang’E-5 mission, to be carried out by the end of 2017, will achieve the major task of collecting samples from the moon and then returning to Earth. The Chang’e-4 mission in 2018 will land on the far side of the moon and explore the physical environment and mineral resources in that area – an unprecedented accomplishment for humankind.

In addition, Tian said that the next step for China’s space development is to create a safer, more reliable and economical aircraft, making it more convenient to send people into space. Already, China has started developing a heavy-lift launch vehicle and establishing a transportation system to achieve this goal.

“The cost of flying into and out of space must be reduced if we want to achieve this goal. If the price were around 50,000 RMB ($7,261) for one trip, it would be within reach for ordinary people, and we are now trying to make that a reality,” said Bao Weimin, director of the science and technology committee under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.