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Happy New Year İn Advance To Everyone

The world began  on Friday with the inauguration of 2022 after another turbulent and pandemic-ridden year, limited by new restrictions, a rising number of cases, and a slight glimmer of hope for better times.

 The first Olympic Games without spectators and  the  dreams of democracy from Afghanistan to Myanmar to Hong Kong are being smashed by authoritarian regimes.

But it was the pandemic, now entering its third year, that once again dominated  most people's lives. More than 5.4 million people have died since the coronavirus was first reported in central China in December 2019, and countless more have fallen ill, exposed to outbreaks, bans, bans and an alphabetical spaghetti of PCR testing, LFT and RAT.

The year 2021 began with hope when life-saving vaccines were used in around 60 percent of the world's population, though many of their poor still have limited access and some of the rich believe the coups are part of an unclear plot.

When it came to an end, the appearance of the Omicron variant caused the number of  new cases of Covid-19 to rise to more than a million for the first time, according to an AFP balance sheet.

France became the last country to announce on Friday that Omicron is now its dominant coronavirus strain. In the UK, the US and even Australia, a long-standing haven from the pandemic, the variant's prominence is generating new record cases.

Parts of the Pacific nation of Kiribati were the first to greet the New Year from 1000 GMT.

In San Francisco, the festivities have been canceled or reduced again  as infections increase.

One notable exception, however, was South Africa, which was the first country to report Omicron  in November, where the curfew was lifted to allow the festivities.

Health officials said  a drop in infections over the past week shows the current wave has peaked, crucially without a significant increase in deaths. Sydney, Australia's largest city, has also opted for fireworks that will light up the city, port, despite being one of the fastest growing cases in the world.

The country's Conservative government says its decision to abandon a "Covidzero" approach was based on vaccination rates and increasing evidence that Omicron is less lethal.

Tens of thousands of night owls were expected to populate Sydney Beach, although AFP journalists said the city was quieter than normal at nightfall.

"I'm just trying to focus on the positive things that happened this year instead of thinking about all of the bad things that happened," said Melinda, a 22-year-old medical student.

Howard, part of an enthusiastic but smaller than usual crowd waiting at the Opera House for the show to begin.

Despite numerous infections in the United Arab Emirates, Dubai is planning fireworks at the Burj Khalifa, the  tallest tower in the world.

Meanwhile, the northern Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah is trying to break two world records with  huge fireworks.

"Just a wish" In Rio, the celebrations on Copacabana Beach will take place in a reduced format, although many night owls are still expected.

"People have only one wish to leave their homes, to celebrate life," said a 45-year-old waiter on Copacabana Beach said Francisco Rodrigues.

Some Brazilians are more careful, like Roberta Assis, a 27-year-old lawyer. "This is not the time for big meetings," he said. The authorities in Seoul are showing similar caution and instead prohibit viewers from ringing the traditional midnight bell.

In India, fearing a repetition of the devastating surge in the virus  that overwhelmed the country in April and May, cities and states have imposed assembly restrictions and Delhi put a curfew at 10 p.m. Mumbai police put nighttime bans on people on Friday Enact visiting public places such as city beaches and boardwalks, which are usually popular attractions in the New Year, with two-week restrictions.

The health organization warned of difficult times, saying Omicron could lead to "a tsunami of cases"."This ... will continue to put immense pressure on exhausted health workers and health systems that are on the verge of collapse," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

But the restrictions have again led to frequent, loud and sometimes violent protests against the blockade, vaccinations and the government. Experts and non-experts alike hope that 2022 will be remembered as the new, less deadly phase of the pandemic.

"Be better for everyone," said  Oscar Ramirez, a 31-year-old Sydney night owl. “Everyone in the world needs a big change.

Japan on Tuesday revised the timetable for its space exploration plans  to land a Japanese  on the moon by the second half of the 2020s.

 "Space is not just a border that gives people hope and dreams of economic society in terms of our economic security," Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said at a meeting to finalize the plan.

According to the preliminary schedule of the plan, Japan intends to participate in the Artemis program, one of U.S. led initiative aimed at bringing astronauts back to the moon, bringing the first non-American to the moon.

The plan also outlines Japan's ambitions to launch a probe to explore Mars in 2024 and find ways to generate solar power in space.

Neighboring China is also aiming to become a major space power by 2030 and also plans to land astronauts on the moon, increasing the possibility of an Asian space race.

In May, China became the second country to put a rover on Mars two years later.

After the landing of the first spaceship on the other side of the moon, his space exploration goals were announced a week after Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa returned to Earth after 12 days on board the International Space Station and became the first space tourist to travel to Earth is ISS in more than a decade.

Germany will shut down three of its last six nuclear power plants on Friday, a further step towards  phasing out  nuclear energy by focusing on renewable energies melted in 2011, when an earthquake and a tsunami  in the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl destroyed the coastal power plant 25 years earlier for three and a half decades in operation.

The last three nuclear power plants  Isar 2, Emsland and Neckarwestheim II  will be shut down by the end of 2022, the largest economy with ambitious climate targets and is faced with rising energy prices.

"For the energy industry in Germany, the nuclear phase-out is final," said Kerstin Andreae, managing director of the  energy industry association BDEW.
The six nuclear power plants contributed  around 12% to electricity production in Germany in 2021, as preliminary figures from the BDEW show.
The share of renewable energies was just under 41%, with coal generating just under 28% and gas around 15%.
By expanding the wind and solar energy infrastructure, Germany intends to cover 80% of its energy needs from renewable energies by 2030.
Economic and Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck said on Wednesday that he did not see the anti-nuclear consensus  in Germany weakened. the true end of the nuclear age in Germany.
"We have to say that there will continue to be uranium enrichment plants in Germany like the one in Gronau," said Arne Fellermann, managing director of the  environmental association BUND, to Reuters.

"There is also a research reactor in Garching that is still operated with weapons-grade uranium," Fellermann continues.
When asked about possible job losses, the mayor of Gundremmingen, Tobias Bühler, said that the plant employees were busy  dismantling the reactor after the shutdown.
The shutdown will certainly take another decade or two, ”said Bühler. E.ON estimates the total costs for the decommissioning at 1.1 billion euros (1.25 billion US dollars) per plant.

E.ON set up provisions of € 9.4 billion in 2020 for the nuclear aftercare phase, which includes the decommissioning of the facility, packaging and cleaning of radioactive waste.

The shutdown is expected to be completed in 2040.
The Japanese government on Tuesday presented a plan to dump contaminated water from the paralyzed Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea, angering neighboring countries China and South Korea.

 This brings the number of local infections to more than 1,100 since the outbreak began on December 9, forcing authorities to lock down the city of 13 million people. It has been since the 23rd. 

"Xian has entered a brisk phase in its fight against the virus," Zhang Fenghu, a city government official, told Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology, two of the world's largest manufacturers of memory chips, before the blockade could affect its chip manufacturing facilities in the area.

Xian is also a major tourist destination, drawing visitors to its collection of terracotta warriors who were buried with China's first emperor more than 2,000 years ago.

The authorities have launched several rounds of  testing across the city to monitor the transmissions. Round six started on Thursday, a day later. Restrictions have restricted access to everyday necessities and many people cannot go out and shop, leaving them dependent on supplies.

Deliveries and the government are working to resolve the issue, a Xian government official said  Wednesday.

WUHAN ANNIVERSARY

A Xian resident surnamed He told Reuters that she tried to order groceries through the online app from Alibaba-backed supermarket chain Freshippo, but was unable to secure many items such as potatoes and cucumbers.

The app posted a message saying "Delivery staff is not available" under many articles. Based on a screenshot you provided. Several boroughs have organized free grocery deliveries to some residential complexes, state media said.

The total supply of essential items in Xian is sufficient, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce told reporters. Now on its eighth day, it coincides with the second anniversary of the first signs of the coronavirus outbreak in downtown Wuhan. an "unknown cause," according to state media.

In addition, on Thursday, thousands of people left messages on the social media account of the late COVID-19 whistleblower Li Wenliang on the anniversary of the day, also on December 30, 2019, in which he learned of the possibility of a causative virus.

Pneumonia in Wuhan: As of Wednesday, mainland China had reported 101,890 confirmed cases of coronavirus, including  local and imported, with a death toll of 4,636.

İmage Credit: Reuters

Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE's COVID-19 vaccine mainly caused  mild side effects in children ages 5 to 11, according to data published by the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The data showed that some children were affected after the second dose of the vaccine  reported injection site pain and other systemic reactions such as fatigue and headache.

The CDC said it had also received reports of 11 cases of myocarditis, a type of inflammation of the heart, in 511-year-old children  who had received the vaccine. Of these, seven had recovered and four were recovering at the time of reporting.

Myocarditis is a rare side effect after mRNA vaccines.

Notification system for adverse vaccination events  (VAERS).They received 4,249  adverse event reports, of which 97.6% of the cases were not serious, according to the CDC report.

The cases were reported between November 3 and December 19 through VAERS and vsafe, a voluntary smartphone-based security monitoring system for adverse events following COVID19 vaccination, in children in this age group.

The vaccine was approved in the United States  in late October for children ages 5 to 15 and is the only approved vaccine for that age group. 

A separate study by the CDC showed that Pfizer 92's two-dose vaccine was effective against coronavirus infections in teenagers aged 12 to 17 years.

 The observation period for the analysis coincided with the period of dominance of the delta variant  in the United States, the CDC said.

    İmage Credit: AFP Photo

 

Photo: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

You know the old motto: Nobody can hear you screaming in space. Unfortunately, being trapped in our rapidly heated rock, we can hear everyone screaming very well, especially those ironically howling about the specifics of space.

Checked in at our degraded friend Pluto, it was  certainly not a planet, despite a decade and a half of complaints from overly engaged astronomy fans (Welcome to the world of pop culture, astronomy fans).

 His appointment lately has primarily sought to compensate everyone, the fact of the matter is that  the International Astronomical Union is still very unlikely to step back on its 2006 decision apparently they raised their hands and gave their goforbroke request from "To hell.

 We not only want Pluto to come back, we want  150 more damn planets to be added to the list."

That's the gist of a new article published in the research journal Icarus that argues that the IAUs are the real Jabronis here, dammit. 

As NBC News breaks it down, the team of scientists claims that the current planetary classification system relies more on outdated astrological methods. (read: pseudoscientific) terminology and should be updated to reflect modernity. A "planet" is by definition "any geologically active body" in space that would not only bring Pluto  into its lap, but also moons such as Europa, Enceladus and Titan, as well as the asteroid Ceres.

A total of around 150 new "planets" will be added to the eight existing ones. Unfortunately, as planetary geologist Paul Byrne explained, all of this backlash to taxonomy often overshadows many of the other really fascinating aspects of these celestial bodies of all sizes. 

"Every time I gave a talk and  put up a picture of Pluto, the first question wasn't about the geology of the planet, but why was it degraded?" he told NBC News. "It stuck with people, and that's a real shame.

 

The Food and Drug Administration to authorize booster doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds Monday. (Emily Elconin, Reuters)

The United States Food and Drug Administration should receive a booster injection of the Pfizer vaccine up to five months after a second dose from the current six months, the newspaper reported.

 The increase in cases caused by omicrons can be an important tool for millions of children. According to initial data from laboratory studies, the  variant can bypass some of the protection offered by two doses of the PfizerBioNTech vaccine.

But the booster doses of the PfizerBioNTech and Moderna vaccines appear to protect against Omicron, also based on laboratory studies. 

The rapidly spreading variant has resulted in thousands of new COVID19 hospital admissions for U.S. children in the past few weeks, raising new concerns about  the number of unvaccinated Americans under the age of 18

who will do well with the new surge.

 The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  Rochelle Walensky said in an interview with CNN on Wednesday that the agency could receive a call regarding the third dose of the COVID19 vaccine  for children aged 12-15 The vaccine - The CDC's Advisory Committee plans to meet mid-next week to vote on whether to recommend the changes.

 While officials  said the vaccines protect against serious illness and death from Omicron, some children as young as 12 to 15 are now more than six months away from their previous vaccinations.

 

The original trio from the Wizarding franchise, Harry Potter, are expected to return to the silver screen next New Years Day in the 20th anniversary special when they return to Hogwarts.

 In the reunion special, two of the movie's lead actors, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, spoke about how they were on the verge of leaving the series after season five, responsible for his childhood fame during his adolescence.

 Best known for their characters  Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, Watson and Rupert Grint made the reveal during the  special Harry Potter reunion show for the 20th anniversary.

“You were considering retiring. I never told you about it, ”Rupert joked with Emma about the days before.

 At that time, she revealed how solemnly she  wanted to leave the character: "Yes. I think she was scared." I don't know if you ever felt like it reached a tipping point where you said, 'This is now forever,' "revealed Watson." Fame had finally come home in a big way. 

"At some point there was Grint agrees that he also had his moments of contemplation  where he would insist "what life would be  if I called it a day." Radcliffe, aka Harry Potter, added to the conversation, saying, "Never really.

" He talked about it. I think we had it at our own pace. We were then in the moment. "However, the female lead in Harry Potter believed that" no one had to convince her to stay, "except for the love and appreciation of the fans.

 

The tragedy today hit millions of houses around the world, as one of the most popular online games in the world was offline several hours.

Fortnite, which has more than 350 million players worldwide, was offline for several hours due to an unknown technical issue.
The time for parents, whose play-obsessed offspring is at home during the winter holidays and devoting themselves to their passion for hours, couldn't have been worse.
Developer Epic Games posted on Twitter that their team is investigating an issue with the game's servers: “Fortnite is currently unavailable and players will not be able to log in while we are investigating an issue.
We will provide more information when we have a solution to get the services back. "." The problem has  been fixed and the game is back to working.
"Fortnite game servers are back online and  Winterfest continues! The problem occurred when Players were unable to log into the game. Several reported receiving a warning: "You are not authorized to play Fortnite.

We’re continuing to work on a fix that will bring Fortnite back online and appreciate everyone’s patience.

Fortnite game servers are currently offline while we investigate a solution to stability issues, and we’ll provide another update as more info is available. pic.twitter.com/aRTnawTJgE

— Fortnite Status (@FortniteStatus) December 29, 2021

Epic Games was also having problems.Of course, the large player base had time.
Pro Fortnite player Sypher PK joked that he could potentially run for president since his favorite time has gone.

It's been 10 minutes since Fortnite servers have been down. I now have touched grass, got jacked, made a billion dollars, and will be running for President.

— SypherPK (@SypherPK) December 29, 2021