AFP UK

England had its joint hottest summer on record this year, tied with 2018, the country’s meteorological agency said Thursday as it unveiled provisional mean temperature statistics for the three-month period.

The announcement comes with most of England and Wales gripped by drought after exceptionally high temperatures and several heatwaves alongside minimal rainfall, mirroring conditions seen across northwest Europe.

England also smashed its all-time temperature record in July, when the mercury topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time ever, while July was the driest on record across the south.

“It is too early to speculate on how the year overall will finish, but the persistent warm conditions are certainly notable and have certainly been made more likely by climate change,” Mark McCarthy of the National Climate Information Centre said.

“For many this summer’s record-breaking heat in July… will be the season’s most memorable aspect,” he added in a statement.

“However, for England to achieve its joint warmest summer takes more than extreme heat over a couple of days, so we shouldn’t forget that we experienced some persistently warm and hot spells through June and August too.”

Detailing the seasonal period starting in June, the Met Office — whose records date back to 1884 — confirmed England’s mean temperature of 17.1 degree Celsius was the joint warmest ever, equalling the summer of four years ago.

The hottest and driest areas relative to average were in the east, with East Anglia and parts of northeast England seeing their warmest summer on record. 

– ‘Human-induced climate change’ –

Across the entire UK — which also includes Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — it was provisionally the fourth warmest summer. 

The top British summers, all in the last two decades, were all very close in temperature, with the two hottest ever averaging 15.8 degrees and the two second hottest 15.7 degrees.

“This means that four of the five warmest summers on record for England have occurred since 2003, as the effects of human-induced climate change are felt on England’s summer temperatures,” the Met Office noted.

This year’s parched conditions have had an impact across England, notably with the source of the River Thames drying up and shifting several miles downstream.

Satellite imagery has shown the nation’s traditionally green and lush countryside turning to various shades of yellow and brown, as huge swathes of southern, central and eastern England dried out.

Some water companies have imposed restrictions on water use, including hosepipe bans, with the lack of rainfall and punishing heat depleting rivers, reservoirs and groundwater levels.

Thames Water, which supplies 15 million people in London and some surrounding areas, introduced a hosepipe ban in its area from August 24 in the first such restriction in the British capital in a decade.

Severe heatwaves — made hotter and more frequent by climate change — are already being felt beyond Britain and across the world, threatening human health, wildlife and crop yields. 

Outside western Europe, which has seen devastating wildfires this summer, half of China has been crippled by drought as some regions experience the longest continuous period of high temperatures since records began there more than 60 years ago.

Aerial view of a burnt area in the Amazon rainforest, near the Lago do Cunia Extractive Reserve, on the border of the states of Rondonia and Amazonas, northern Brazil, on August 31, 2022

The Brazilian Amazon recorded its worst month of August for forest fires since 2010, with an 18 percent rise from a year ago, according to official data released Thursday.

The Brazilian INPE space agency said its satellites had recorded 33,116 fires in the rainforest, a key buffer against global warming, in August this year, compared to 28,060 in the same month last year.

At least 3,358 fires were recorded on August 22 alone, the highest number for any 24-hour period since September 2007, it said.

The number was nearly triple that recorded on the so-called “Day of Fire” — August 10, 2019 — when farmers launched a coordinated plan to burn huge amounts of felled rainforest in the northern state of Para.

Then, fires sent thick, gray smoke all the way to Sao Paulo, some 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles) away, and triggered a global outcry over one of Earth’s most vital resources burning.

Between January and August, the INPE recorded 46,022 fires — a 16 percent rise from the same period in 2021.

The Amazon had not burnt more in a month of August — usually the worst for fires in the Brazilian dry season — since 2010, when 45,018 were recorded.

All the worst August figures since then — 30,900 fires in 2019, 29,307 in 2020, 28,060 in 2021 and 33,116 in 2022 — happened during the four-year term of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who will be seeking re-election next month.

“This uncontrolled increase in fires in the last four years is closely related to the increase in deforestation,” said Mariana Napolitano of WWF Brazil.  

“The Amazon is a humid rainforest and, contrary to what happens in other biomes, fire does not arise spontaneously. Fires are always linked to human action,” she added.

According to experts, fires are mainly caused by farmers who illegally clear land by burning vegetation. 

Deforestation in Brazil is also at an historic high: in the first half of 2022 some 3,988 km2 were lost, a record since INPE’s Deter satellite monitoring system began collecting data in 2016.

Bolsonaro, an agribusiness ally, faces international criticism for a surge in Amazon destruction on his watch.

But he rejects the censure.

“None of those who are attacking us have the right. If they wanted a pretty forest to call their own, they should have preserved the ones in their countries,” he wrote on Twitter last month.

“The Amazon belongs to Brazilians, and always will,” said Bolsonaro.

The skeleton of Africa's oldest dinosaur was found during two expeditions in 2017 and 2019

Scientists in Zimbabwe have discovered the remains of Africa’s oldest dinosaur, which roamed the earth around 230 million years ago. 

The dinosaur, named Mbiresaurus raathi, was only about one metre (3.2 feet) tall, with a long tail, and weighed up to 30 kilograms (66 pounds), according to the international team of palaeontologists that made the discovery. 

“It ran around on two legs and had a fairly small head,” Christopher Griffin, the scientist who unearthed the first bone, told AFP on Thursday.

Probably an omnivore that ate plants, small animals and insects, the dinosaur belongs to the sauropodomorph species, the same linage that would later include giant long-necked dinosaurs, said Griffin, a 31-year-old researcher at Yale University.

The skeleton was found during two expeditions in 2017 and 2019 by a team of researchers from Zimbabwe, Zambia, and the United States. 

“I dug out the entire femur and I knew in that moment, that it was a dinosaur and I was holding Africa’s oldest known dinosaur fossil,” said Griffin, who at the time was a PhD candidate at Virginia Tech University.

His team’s findings were first published in journal Nature on Wednesday.

Dinosaurs’ remains from the same era had previously been found only in South America and India. 

The palaeontologists selected the Zimbabwe site for digging after calculating that when all continents were connected in a single land mass known as Pangea, it laid roughly at the same latitude of earlier findings in modern day South America. 

“Mbiresaurus raathi is remarkably similar to some dinosaurs of the same age found in Brazil and Argentina, reinforcing that South America and Africa were part of continuous landmass during the Late Triassic,” said Max Langer of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. 

The dinosaur is named after the Mbire district, northeast of Zimbabwe, where the skeleton was found, and palaeontologist Michael Raath, who first reported fossils in this region.

“What this (discovery) does is it broadens the range that we knew the very first dinosaurs lived in,” Griffin said.

Other specimens were discovered in the area, and all are reposited in the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe, in the second largest city, Bulawayo. 

“The discovery of the Mbiresaurus is an exciting and special find for Zimbabwe and the entire palaeontological field,” said museum curator Michel Zondo.

“The fact that the Mbiresaurus skeleton is almost complete, makes it a perfect reference material for further finds.”

A long-term drought has made swathes of the US west tinder dry and vulnerable to fast and destructive wildfires; those risks are further elevated by current high temperatures

Hundreds of firefighters endured triple-digit temperatures Thursday battling against a wildfire along a major highway, as the western United States bakes under a fearsome heat dome.

Super Scooper water-spraying aircraft were assisting the attack on the 5,000 acre (2,000 hectare) blaze that took hold of a swath of countryside near Los Angeles in California.

Seven firefighters had to be taken to hospital after suffering heat-related injuries in their bid to contain the Route Fire, which erupted on Wednesday.

All of them have been discharged, and none is seriously hurt, fire chiefs said.

The inferno came as California and parts of Nevada and Arizona broiled under another day of blistering temperatures.

A stubborn bubble of high pressure sitting over the region has sent the mercury soaring, with a temperature of 109 degrees Fahrenheit (43 Celsius) forecast around the fire area Thursday.

The heat dome is expected to last well into next week, with thermometers set to peak at 116F in some densely populated areas around Los Angeles over the upcoming Labor Day holiday weekend.

Angeles National Forest Fire Chief Robert Garcia, who is overseeing the fight against the Route Fire, said the sudden growth of the blaze on Wednesday was “a wake-up call,” with “very rapid fire growth and very, very explosive fire behavior” expected over the next few days.

“The days ahead are going to be very challenging,” he told reporters. 

Fire officials said that while they had a portion of the perimeter contained, they were a long way from out of the woods.

“Excessive heat, low humidity and steep terrain will continue to pose the biggest challenge for firefighters,” an incident statement said.

“This combination has the potential for large plume growth, uphill runs and short-range spotting.”

The blaze, which shuttered the I5 interstate for several hours, came as Californians were being asked again to conserve energy on Thursday.

– Flex Alert –

The California Independent System Operator (ISO), which runs the state’s power grid, issued a second consecutive Flex Alert, calling on households to limit power consumption between 4:00 pm and 9:00 pm, to avoid straining the over-burdened system.

That typically means turning up the thermostat on air conditioning systems, avoiding using major appliances and not charging electric vehicles in this time.

“Reducing energy use during a Flex Alert can help stabilize the power grid during tight supply conditions and prevent further emergency measures, including rotating power outages,” California ISO said.

California has abundant solar installations, including on homes, which typically provide for around a third of the state’s power requirements during daylight.

But when the sun goes down, that supply falls quickly, leaving traditional generation to plug the gap. The problem is particularly acute in the early evening when temperatures are still high, but solar starts dropping out of the power grid mix.

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday declared a state of emergency that temporarily relaxes pollution controls on fossil fuel power plants to allow them to generate more electricity.

The National Weather Service has issued an “excessive heat warning” for most of California, as well as parts of Arizona and Nevada, warning of “dangerously hot conditions” over the next several days.

Nighttime temperatures are not expected to offer much relief, with lows struggling to get below 80 degrees Fahrenheit in many places.

It is not unusual for southern California to experience heat waves in September, but temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit are considered hot even for a place almost perpetually baked by sunshine.

Scientists say global warming, which is being driven chiefly by the unchecked burning of fossil fuels, is making natural weather variations more extreme.

Heat waves are getting hotter and more intense, while storms are getting wetter and, in many cases, more dangerous.

A small study has shown a new treatment has a noticeable improvement in cognition for patients with Down Syndrome

A new hormone treatment improved the cognitive function of six men with Down Syndrome by 10-30 percent, scientists said Thursday, adding the “promising” results may raise hopes of improving patients’ quality of life.

However the scientists emphasised the small study did not point towards a cure for the cognitive disorders of people with Down Syndrome and that far more research is needed.

“The experiment is very satisfactory, even if we remain cautious,” said Nelly Pitteloud of Switzerland’s Lausanne University Hospital and co-author of a new study in the journal Science.

Down Syndrome is the most common genetic form of intellectual disability, occurring in around one in 1,000 people, according to the World Health Organization.

Yet previous research has failed to significantly improve cognition when applied to people with the condition, which is why the latest findings are “particularly important”, the study said.

Recent discoveries have suggested that how the gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) is produced in the brain can affect cognitive functioning such as memory, language and learning.

GnRH hormones regulate how much testosterone and estrogen is produced and increased levels of it help spur puberty.

“We wondered if this hormone could play any role in establishing the symptoms of people with Down Syndrome,” said Vincent Prevot, study co-author and head of neuroscience research at France’s INSERM institute. 

– Mice research –

The team first established that five strands of microRNA regulating the production of GnRH were dysfunctional in mice specifically engineered for Down Syndrome research.

They then demonstrated that cognitive deficiencies — as well as loss of smell, a common symptom of Down Syndrome — were linked to dysfunctioning GnRH secretion in the mice.

The team then gave the mice a GnRH medication used to treat low testosterone and delayed puberty in humans, finding that it restored some cognitive function and sense of smell.

A pilot study was conducted in Switzerland involving seven men with Down Syndrome aged 20 to 50.

They each received the treatment through  their arm every two hours over a period of six months, with the drug delivered in pulses to mimic the hormone’s frequency in people without Down Syndrome.

Cognition and smell tests were carried out during the treatment, as were MRI scans.

Six of the seven men showed improvement in cognition with no significant side effects — however none showed a change in their sense of smell.

“We have seen an improvement of between 10-30 percent in cognitive functions, in particular with visuospatial function, three-dimensional representation, understanding of instructions as well as attention,” Pitteloud said.

The patients were asked to draw a simple 3D bed at several stages throughout the therapy. Many struggled at the beginning but by the end the efforts were noticeably better.

– ‘Improve quality of life’ –

 

The authors acknowledged some limitations of the study, including its size and that the choice of patients was “pushed by their parents”.

“The clinical trial only focused on seven male patients — we still have a lot of work to do to prove the effectiveness of GnRH treatment for Down Syndrome,” Pitteloud said.

A larger study involving a placebo and 50 to 60 patients, a third of them women, is expected to begin in the coming months.

“We are not going to cure the cognitive disorders of people with Down Syndrome, but the improvement seen in our results already seems fundamental enough to hope to improve their quality of life,” Pitteloud said.

Fabian Fernandez, an expert in cognition and Down Syndrome at the University of Arizona who was not involved in the research, hailed the “tour de force study”.

He told AFP that while it is “difficult to envision” how such an intensive treatment could be used for young people, it might be better suited to delay the Alzheimer’s disease-related dementia suffered by many adults with Down Syndrome.

It was also difficult to predict how such an improvement could impact the lives of people with the condition, he said.

“For some, it could be significant, however, as it would enable them to be more independent with daily living activities such as maintaining and enjoying hobbies, finding belongings, using appliances in the home, and travelling alone.”

The skeleton of Africa's oldest dinosaur was found during two expeditions in 2017 and 2019

Scientists in Zimbabwe have discovered the remains of Africa’s oldest dinosaur, which roamed the earth around 230 million years ago. 

The dinosaur, named Mbiresaurus raathi, was only about one metre (3.2 feet) tall, with a long tail, and weighed up to 30 kilograms (66 pounds), according to the international team of palaeontologists that made the discovery. 

“It ran around on two legs and had a fairly small head,” Christopher Griffin, the scientist who unearthed the first bone, told AFP on Thursday.

Probably an omnivore that ate plants, small animals and insects, the dinosaur belongs to the sauropodomorph species, the same linage that would later include giant long-necked dinosaurs, said Griffin, a 31-year-old researcher at Yale University.

The skeleton was found during two expeditions in 2017 and 2019 by a team of researchers from Zimbabwe, Zambia, and the United States. 

“I dug out the entire femur and I knew in that moment, that it was a dinosaur and I was holding Africa’s oldest known dinosaur fossil,” said Griffin, who at the time was a PhD candidate at Virginia Tech University.

His team’s findings were first published in journal Nature on Wednesday.

Dinosaurs’ remains from the same era had previously been found only in South America and India. 

The palaeontologists selected the Zimbabwe site for digging after calculating that when all continents were connected in a single land mass known as Pangea, it laid roughly at the same latitude of earlier findings in modern day South America. 

“Mbiresaurus raathi is remarkably similar to some dinosaurs of the same age found in Brazil and Argentina, reinforcing that South America and Africa were part of continuous landmass during the Late Triassic,” said Max Langer of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. 

The dinosaur is named after the Mbire district, northeast of Zimbabwe, where the skeleton was found, and palaeontologist Michael Raath, who first reported fossils in this region.

“What this (discovery) does is it broadens the range that we knew the very first dinosaurs lived in,” Griffin said.

Other specimens were discovered in the area, and all are reposited in the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe, in the second largest city, Bulawayo. 

“The discovery of the Mbiresaurus is an exciting and special find for Zimbabwe and the entire palaeontological field,” said museum curator Michel Zondo.

“The fact that the Mbiresaurus skeleton is almost complete, makes it a perfect reference material for further finds.”

Aerial view of a burnt area in the Amazon rainforest, near the Lago do Cunia Extractive Reserve, on the border of the states of Rondonia and Amazonas, northern Brazil, on August 31, 2022

The Brazilian Amazon recorded its worst month of August for forest fires since 2010, with an 18 percent rise from a year ago, according to official data released Thursday.

The Brazilian INPE space agency said its satellites had recorded 33,116 fires in the rainforest, a key buffer against global warming, in August this year, compared to 28,060 in the same month last year.

At least 3,358 fires were recorded on August 22 alone, the highest number for any 24-hour period since September 2007, it said.

The number was nearly triple that recorded on the so-called “Day of Fire” — August 10, 2019 — when farmers launched a coordinated plan to burn huge amounts of felled rainforest in the northern state of Para.

Then, fires sent thick, gray smoke all the way to Sao Paulo, some 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles) away, and triggered a global outcry over one of Earth’s most vital resources burning.

Between January and August, the INPE recorded 46,022 fires — a 16 percent rise from the same period in 2021.

The Amazon had not burnt more in a month of August — usually the worst for fires in the Brazilian dry season — since 2010, when 45,018 were recorded.

All the worst August figures since then — 30,900 fires in 2019, 29,307 in 2020, 28,060 in 2021 and 33,116 in 2022 — happened during the four-year term of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who will be seeking re-election next month.

“This uncontrolled increase in fires in the last four years is closely related to the increase in deforestation,” said Mariana Napolitano of WWF Brazil.  

“The Amazon is a humid rainforest and, contrary to what happens in other biomes, fire does not arise spontaneously. Fires are always linked to human action,” she added.

According to experts, fires are mainly caused by farmers who illegally clear land by burning vegetation. 

Deforestation in Brazil is also at an historic high: in the first half of 2022 some 3,988 km2 were lost, a record since INPE’s Deter satellite monitoring system began collecting data in 2016.

Bolsonaro, an agribusiness ally, faces international criticism for a surge in Amazon destruction on his watch.

But he rejects the censure.

“None of those who are attacking us have the right. If they wanted a pretty forest to call their own, they should have preserved the ones in their countries,” he wrote on Twitter last month.

“The Amazon belongs to Brazilians, and always will,” said Bolsonaro.

England had its joint hottest summer on record this year, tied with 2018, the country’s meteorological agency said Thursday as it unveiled provisional mean temperature statistics for the three-month period.

The announcement comes with most of England and Wales gripped by drought after exceptionally high temperatures and several heatwaves alongside minimal rainfall, mirroring conditions seen across northwest Europe.

England also smashed its all-time temperature record in July, when the mercury topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time ever, while July was the driest on record across the south.

“It is too early to speculate on how the year overall will finish, but the persistent warm conditions are certainly notable and have certainly been made more likely by climate change,” Mark McCarthy of the National Climate Information Centre said.

“For many this summer’s record-breaking heat in July… will be the season’s most memorable aspect,” he added in a statement.

“However, for England to achieve its joint warmest summer takes more than extreme heat over a couple of days, so we shouldn’t forget that we experienced some persistently warm and hot spells through June and August too.”

Detailing the seasonal period starting in June, the Met Office — whose records date back to 1884 — confirmed England’s mean temperature of 17.1 degree Celsius was the joint warmest ever, equalling the summer of four years ago.

The hottest and driest areas relative to average were in the east, with East Anglia and parts of northeast England seeing their warmest summer on record. 

– ‘Human-induced climate change’ –

Across the entire UK — which also includes Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — it was provisionally the fourth warmest summer. 

The top British summers, all in the last two decades, were all very close in temperature, with the two hottest ever averaging 15.8 degrees and the two second hottest 15.7 degrees.

“This means that four of the five warmest summers on record for England have occurred since 2003, as the effects of human-induced climate change are felt on England’s summer temperatures,” the Met Office noted.

This year’s parched conditions have had an impact across England, notably with the source of the River Thames drying up and shifting several miles downstream.

Satellite imagery has shown the nation’s traditionally green and lush countryside turning to various shades of yellow and brown, as huge swathes of southern, central and eastern England dried out.

Some water companies have imposed restrictions on water use, including hosepipe bans, with the lack of rainfall and punishing heat depleting rivers, reservoirs and groundwater levels.

Thames Water, which supplies 15 million people in London and some surrounding areas, introduced a hosepipe ban in its area from August 24 in the first such restriction in the British capital in a decade.

Severe heatwaves — made hotter and more frequent by climate change — are already being felt beyond Britain and across the world, threatening human health, wildlife and crop yields. 

Outside western Europe, which has seen devastating wildfires this summer, half of China has been crippled by drought as some regions experience the longest continuous period of high temperatures since records began there more than 60 years ago.

Just before leaving Zaporizhzhia to visit the plant, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said his team would not stop, despite shelling in the area

UN inspectors will be “staying” at a Russian-held nuclear plant in southern Ukraine, its head said Thursday after their first visit to the facility following a risky journey across the frontline despite early-morning shelling of the area.

Wearing bright blue flak jackets and helmets, the 14-strong team crossed into Russian-held territory, reaching the facility around 1200 GMT with the International Atomic Energy Agency chief describing it as a productive first visit. 

“Today we were able, in these few hours, to gather a lot of information,” Rafael Grossi told reporters outside the plant. 

“The key things I needed to see I saw, and their explanations were very clear.”

After the inspection, in a video released by the Russian RIA Novosti news agency, Grossi said: “We have achieved something very important today and the important thing is the IAEA is staying here.”

Despite a dawn shelling attack on the area that forced the closure of one of its six reactors, the team vowed to press ahead with their risky mission to reach Europe’s biggest nuclear facility which is located on the frontlines of the fighting.

Energoatom, Ukraine’s nuclear agency, said it was “the second time in 10 days” that Russian shelling had forced the closure of a reactor. 

It said the plant’s emergency protection system kicked in shortly before 5:00 am (0200 GMT), shutting reactor five, “due to another (Russian) mortar shelling” and that a backup power supply “was damaged” in the attack. 

The area around the plant, which lies on the southern banks of the Dnipro River, has suffered repeated shelling, with both sides blaming the other, sparking global concern over the risk of an accident.

– ‘Stop playing with fire’ –

“It is high time to stop playing with fire and instead take concrete measures to protect this facility… from any military operations,” ICRC chief Robert Mardini told reporters in Kyiv, warning the consequences of hitting the plant could be “catastrophic”.

“The slightest miscalculation could trigger devastation that we will regret for decades.”

After Russian forces seized the plant on March 4, Energoatom shut two reactors, followed by a third after shelling on August 5. With a fourth in repairs, Thursday’s incident leaves only one of the six reactors working. 

Mardini said it was “encouraging” the IAEA team was inspecting the plant because the stakes were “immense”.

“When hazardous sites become battlegrounds, the consequences for millions of people and the environment can be catastrophic and last many years,” he said.

On leaving Zaporizhzhia, Grossi said his team  would be travelling through areas where “the risks are significant” but had decided to go ahead anyway. 

“We have to proceed with this. We have a very important mission to accomplish.”

– Shelling and saboteurs –

The town of Energodar next to the plant came under sustained attack at dawn, with Russian troops firing “mortars and using automatic weapons and rockets”, its mayor Dmytro Orlov said. 

But Moscow accused Kyiv of smuggling in up to 60 military “saboteurs” who reached the area near the plant at dawn, prompting Russian troops to take “measures to annihilate the enemy”. 

Ukraine has accused Russia of deploying hundreds of soldiers and storing ammunition at the plant. 

Kyiv also suspects Moscow intends to divert power from the plant to the nearby Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014 — a view held by other international figures. 

“Clearly the objective of the Russians… is they want to unplug (the plant) from the Ukrainian grid and plug it into the Russian grid,” said outgoing British premier Boris Johnson, who steps down on September 6.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops pressed ahead with a counter-offensive in the nearby region of Kherson to retake areas seized by Russia at the start of the invasion.

In its morning update, the presidency said “heavy explosions continued for the last 24 hours” across Kherson, while five people were killed and 12 others wounded in the eastern Donetsk region. 

– Back-to-school with gunfire soundtrack –

Despite the conflict, now in its seventh month, September 1 marked the start of a new school year for children across Ukraine.

In the southern Mykolaiv region, that meant children were back in front of screens for online classes as all school attendance was cancelled due to the ongoing fighting.

On her first day back, nine-year-old Antonina Sidorenko, who lives in a hamlet near the frontline, was doing her online lessons with the distant crackle of gunfire in the background. 

“I’m happy to be back at school but I would be even happier if there was no war because I miss my teacher and my friends,” she told AFP, saying her best friend had fled to Poland. 

Updated figures from Ukraine’s education ministry show more than 2,400 educational institutions have been damaged in the fighting, with 270 completely destroyed.

Just over half of the 23,000 institutions surveyed by the ministry are equipped with bomb shelters, meaning they can physically reopen, while those without will only offer online learning. 

But in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, all learning will be online due to constant shelling, the mayor said last month, with a British charity charging Thursday that dozens of its schools had been “targeted”. 

An investigation by the Centre for Information Resilience found 41 institutions had been “partially or completely destroyed” with the shelling “targeted, rather than a by-product of indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure”.

The jabs target both the original virus and the BA.1 subvariant of Omicron

The EU’s drug regulator on Thursday approved Covid-19 vaccines by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna adapted for the Omicron variant, paving the way for a booster campaign this winter.

The so-called “bivalent” jabs target both the original virus that emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in 2019 and the BA.1 subvariant of Omicron, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said.

The vaccines are not updated for the newer and more infectious BA.4 and BA.5 types that have become dominant worldwide, with a decision on a jab to counter those variants expected within weeks.

The Amsterdam-based EMA said that the two jabs backed for people aged 12 and above on Thursday were the “first adapted Covid-19 booster vaccines recommended for approval in the EU”.

“These vaccines are adapted versions of the original vaccines Comirnaty (Pfizer/BioNTech) and Spikevax (Moderna) to target the Omicron BA.1 subvariant in addition to the original strain of SARS-CoV-2,” it said.

European nations have been keen to rush through the new generation of jabs so they can start booster campaigns ahead of a feared Covid surge in the latter part of this year.

EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides hailed the decision as “important to protect Europeans against the likely risk of autumn and winter waves of infections.”

“We need to be ready to face another winter with Covid-19,” she said in a statement.

The EMA said that studies showed that the new jabs could “trigger strong immune responses” against Covid. 

It said that “in particular, they were more effective at triggering immune responses against the BA.1 subvariant than the original vaccines.”

– New strains –

The EU’s Kyriakides said she expected the EMA to rule on vaccines adapted for the now-dominant BA.4 and 5 strains “in the coming weeks.”

Pfizer recently applied for authorisation for a vaccine adapted against the two newer types.

The United States authorised its first anti-Omicron vaccines on Wednesday, approving Pfizer and Moderna jabs for the BA.4 and BA.5 strains.

Britain authorised the Moderna vaccine for the BA.1 type in mid-August.

The 27-nation EU is currently still using the same coronavirus vaccines that were approved nearly two years ago for use against the original strain.

While they offer some protection against newer variants, the race has been on to produce jabs that also target the milder but more infectious Omicron strains.

While previous “variants of concern” like Alpha and Delta eventually petered out, Omicron and its sublineages have dominated throughout 2022.

The BA.4 and BA.5 types have in particular helped to drive a wave of new cases of the disease in Europe and the United States in recent months.

Health authorities have therefore been keen to get updated vaccines as soon as possible ahead of a feared new wave of the disease later this year.

All Omicron variants tend to have a milder disease course as they settle less in the lungs and more in the upper nasal passages, causing symptoms like fever, tiredness and loss of smell.