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Mary Jane Freeman

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Beethoven: Sparks of Joy!

March 31, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Daily Beethoven — Sparks of Joy, General updates, Music updates

Beethoven: Sparks of Joy – Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15

Beethoven’s five piano concerti were written between 1793 and 1809. The first two were quite experimental, intending to fill the palpable void in Vienna for this genre of composition left by the death of Mozart in 1791. By the third concerto in C minor, Beethoven was fully the master of the form. 
Beethoven also personally premiered each concerto, composing the cadenzas for each one himself, making the case for his preeminent virtuosity as a pianist, with the exception of the 5th by which time his loss of hearing had become acute.
Here is Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15, with Fabio Luisi conducting the Staatskapelle Dresden and pianist Margarita Höhenrieder.  [Notes John Scialdone.]

Wang Yi: Five Point Initiative for Security in Southwest Asia

March 29, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, General updates, Space updates

Wang Yi Proposes Five Point Initiative for Security in Southwest Asia

March 28 (EIRNS)- In a March 24 interview with Arabiya newspaper in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi presented a wide-ranging, coordinated Five-Point Initiative on Achieving Security and Stability in the Middle East, better known as Southwest Asia. The March 28 briefing presented the plan’s very important fifth point for economic development of the region. Two other points stand out, as China attempts to shift Southwest Asia from the instability caused by British geo-politics and its plots for war, to a trajectory of peace through development.

On the question of Israel and Palestine, the second point, Wang stated: “Nothing represents equity and justice in the Middle East more than a sound solution to the question of Palestine and earnest implementation of the two-state solution. We support active mediation by the international community toward this objective and holding an authoritative international meeting on this matter when conditions are ripe. In its presidency of the UN Security Council this May, China will encourage the Security Council to fully deliberate on the question of Palestine to reaffirm the two-state solution. China will continue to invite peace advocates from Palestine and Israel to China for dialogue, and also welcome Palestinian and Israeli representatives to China for direct negotiations”

On his fourth point, Wang averred: “In promoting security and stability in the Middle East, the legitimate concerns of all parties should be accommodated. It is important to encourage equal dialogue and consultation, mutual understanding and accommodation and improved relations among Gulf countries. It is imperative to resolutely combat terrorism and advance deradicalization. China proposes holding in China a multilateral dialogue conference for regional security in the Gulf region to explore the establishment of a Middle East trust mechanism, starting with such subjects as ensuring the safety of oil facilities and shipping lanes, and building step by step a framework for collective, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security in the Middle East.”

On March 28, Wang, while on a diplomatic visit to Iran, said about his five-point Mideast plan that it is to call Middle East countries to carry forward the spirit of independence and get rid of the interference of geopolitical competition. While there, Wang and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif discussed the signing of the China-Iran comprehensive cooperation agreement March 27 between Iran and China, which contains a massive development package. Zarif praised China as a friend in hard times

Rosatom To Build More Floating NPPs

August 9, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, General updates, Power & Energy, Russia

Rosatom To Build More Floating NPPs—

Aug. 7 (EIRNS)–Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom is committed to building four new floating nuclear power stations over the next six years, in order to power mining ventures in Siberia’s far northeastern tip. The new waterborne facilities will be similar to the Akademik Lomonosov, the audacious floating nuclear plant that Rosatom connected to Pevek, a remote port in Chukotka in 2019 after spending more than a decade constructing it.

In the new projects, the four plants will be deployed to the nascent Baimsky copper mining project, also in Chukotka, by the end of 2026. Under the $2 billion plan, Rosatom would construct four floating plants at St. Petersburg’s Baltic Shipyard, each centered on a pair of 55 MW RITM-200 reactors, the type featured in Russia’s new generation nuclear icebreakers. 

Three would supply power to the mining sites. The fourth plant would be kept in reserve and rotate in when any of the first three require refueling or maintenance, Rosatom’s CEO Aleskei Likhachev told TASS last week. He also said that this fourth plant could also act as a reserve unit for the Akademik Lomonosov, whose older KLT-40 reactors require refueling every 12 years.

The first two of new floating nuclear plants are due at their working location on Chaunskaya Bay in the East Siberian Sea by 2026. Once there, they will be connected to power lines spanning 400 km to the Baimskaya mine. The third unit is due to be connected at the end of 2027, increasing the total power supply to about 330 MW.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Prepares for Humankind’s First Flight on Mars

March 29, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, General updates, Space updates

NASA, Perseverance Rover Prepare for First Powered Flight of an Aircraft on Another Planet

March 28 (EIRNS)—NASA, and its Perseverance rover, are making preparations for the first attempt at the powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet. This would be the 4 pound (1.8-kilogram) Ingenuity rotor craft, which is presently attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover, which touched down on Mars on Feb. 18.

From the point that Ingenuity is detached from Perseverance and deployed, it will have 30 Martian days, or sols (31 earth days) to conduct its test flight campaign. NASA is setting the test flight campaign at no earlier than April 8, which is less than 2 weeks away.

A NASA news release, “NASA Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Prepares for First Flight,” presents some of the challenging steps ahead:

“Flying in a controlled manner on Mars is far more difficult than flying on Earth. The Red Planet has significant gravity (about one-third that of Earth’s) but its atmosphere is just 1% as dense as Earth’s at the surface. During Martian daytime, the planet’s surface receives only about half the amount of solar energy that reaches Earth during its daytime, and nighttime temperatures can drop as low as minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 90 degrees Celsius), which can freeze and crack unprotected electrical components.

“To fit within the available accommodations provided by the Perseverance rover, the Ingenuity helicopter must be small. To fly in the Mars environment, it must be lightweight. To survive the frigid Martian nights, it must have enough energy to power internal heaters. The system – from the performance of its rotors in rarified air to its solar panels, electrical heaters, and other components – has been tested and retested in the vacuum chambers and test labs of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

“’Every step we have taken since this journey began six years ago has been uncharted territory in the history of aircraft,’ said Bob Balaram, Mars Helicopter chief engineer at JPL. ‘And while getting deployed to the surface will be a big challenge, surviving that first night on Mars alone, without the rover protecting it and keeping it powered, will be an even bigger one.’”

At the same time, the Perseverance’s soulmates at Mars, the United Arab Emirates’ Hope satellite will study Mars’ daily and seasonal weather cycles and weather events in the lower atmosphere, as China’s Tianwen 1 satellite will locate a landing site for its rover, which rover will then carry out a mission that includes studying the morphology and structure of Mars, the current and past presence of water, and Mars’ ionosphere. This is a fun and interesting time for science.

Blinken Attacks China; Wang Yi Says None of the ASEAN Nations Agree

August 9, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in China, General updates, Geopolitics updates, United States

Blinken Attacks China; Wang Yi Says None of the ASEAN Nations Agree—

Aug. 7 (EIRNS)–The final conference of the week of ASEAN meetings this week, the East Asia Summit Ministerial, involved a larger group in the Asia-Pacific region, including the United States, Japan and Australia. U.S. Secretary of State Blinken, like the skunk who came to the picnic, decided to do something of a repeat of Anchorage, going after China’s alleged human rights abuses in Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong. While there was no transcript to the meeting, it seems that Japan and Australia may also have chipped in on this. Wang Yi asked for the floor a second time to respond to the attacks.

Wang Yi said that as expected, the United States and other countries will use the multilateral platform to attack and smear China’s internal affairs. “These clichés are not worth refuting, and none of the ASEAN countries agree with you, but out of the principle of reciprocity, China certainly has the right to refute them. But for such abominable behavior, we will resolutely make refutation each and every time it comes up,” Wang asserted.

Brazil COVID Crisis Careens Out of Control

March 29, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Healthcare

Brazil COVID Crisis Careens Out of Control

March 28 (EIRNS) – Numerous Brazilian medical and other authorities are sounding the alarm that the COVID pandemic in Brazil is careening out of the control, threatening not only the country but the entire planet. At present, one in every four COVID deaths worldwide is occurring in Brazil. “Before, the risk factor to dying from Covid-19 was being older, having some co-morbidity,” said Domingos Alves, a professor of medicine who’s part of a national monitoring group. “Now, the risk is being Brazilian,” Bloomberg reported.

The mortality rate in Brazil has risen from 2% at the end of last year to 3.1% in mid March, according to Fiocruz, one of the country’s leading R&D centers in epidemiology. That is more than a 50% increase in less than three months. Only 7% of the population have received a vaccine shot; 2% are fully vaccinated. More than 300,000 Brazilians have died of Covid to date; some experts expect the half-million mark to be hit by June, and for Brazil to surpass the U.S. in deaths by the end of the year – a grim achievement.

An alarming new trend is a sharp rise in the number and proportion of younger Brazilians who are getting sick and dying from Covid – this in a country that is largely young. According to official statistics, from Jan. 1 to mid March the rate of new cases among those aged 30 to 59 rose by nearly twice the national average of 316%. Deaths in those age groups jumped by at least 317%, compared with 223% for Brazil as a whole.

Scientists are still trying to figure out why that is happening. One theory is that younger patients wait longer to seek health care and are sicker when they arrive at the hospital. Another factor may relate to the new variants appearing in Brazil. Bloomberg cited Jaques Sztajnbok, who helps run the ICU at Sao Paulo’s Emílio Ribas hospital, one of Brazil’s main facilities for infectious diseases, saying that patients are largely getting sick with the variant that first appeared in the Amazonian city of Manaus or the U.K. one, both of which are more contagious than the original strain.

“Fernando Brum, a director at Sorocaba’s Santa Casa hospital [near Sao Paulo], said the mutation of the virus into a much more contagious version with a viral load that makes people sick in a faster and more aggressive way has meant young people have gone from mostly asymptomatic cases to being gravely affected… `The intensive care unit is constantly and uninterruptedly occupied,’ he [Brum] said. Patients in their 30s make up at least half of those beds, and their average time spent in the hospital has tripled from last year. It has come down recently for a grim reason — patients are dying more quickly.”

The country’s health system is on the brink of total collapse. Miguel Nicolelis, professor of Neurobiology at Duke University who advised several Brazilian governors and mayors on pandemic control, told AP: “We have surpassed levels never imagined for a country with a public health care system, a history of efficient immunization campaigns and health workers who are second to none in the world. The next stage is the health system collapse.”

Brazil’s state-run science and technology institute, Fiocruz, on Tuesday called for a 14-day lockdown to reduce transmission by 40%. “We need to open our eyes and understand this is no joke,” Rio’s Mayor Eduardo Paes said in a recorded message on the eve of a 10-day shutdown in that city. “People are dying and, if everything continues as is, nothing is done, God only knows what could happen. No one knows this disease’s limit. No one knows how many variants could emerge.”

Central Asian Heads of State Meet in Turkmenistan on Energy, Transit Corridors and Fighting the Pandemic

August 8, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Kazakhstan, Power & Energy, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

Central Asian Heads of State Meet in Turkmenistan on Energy, Transit Corridors and Fighting the Pandemic –

Aug. 6 (EIRNS)–Today the Third Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asia was held in Turkmenistan, at the Caspian Sea resort town of Avaza, bringing together the presidents of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrghizstan, plus others including Natalia Gherman, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Central Asia. There were many parallel sessions, including the Economic Forum of the Central Asian Nations.

Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov said during his speech, “Based on UN documents, we are moving towards the formation in Central Asia of favorable political-legal and economic conditions for a safe, sustainable energy partnership focused on meeting regional energy demand and on accessing world markets through international transit corridors.” Another focus was collaboration against the COVID-19 pandemic. Including furthering joint research on mutations, as well as methods of treatment and prevention of infectious diseases. The heads of state issued a statement.

China Announces Two Billion COVID-19 Vaccines to Be Exported in 2021

August 8, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in China, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Healthcare

China Announces Two Billion COVID-19 Vaccines to Be Exported in 2021—

Aug. 6 (EIRNS)–President Xi Jinping announced today that China will export two billion COVID-19 vaccines in 2021. The massive expansion of production capacity this year has allowed China to export between 600 to 750 million doses so far, while also applying over 1.7 billion doses within China. The track record of Sinovac and Sinopharm so far indicates that they will produce almost 5 billion doses this year, and Tao Lina, a vaccine expert in Shanghai confirms this. Otherwise, China is presently vaccinating their population at the rate of 17.9 million shots a day, which is seven times the rate of the European Union, and 30 times that of the United States.

President Xi sent a written message today to the International Forum on Covid-19 Vaccine Cooperation, hosted by China Central Television and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang-Yi. He described the vaccine as a “global public good,” and stressed common action on world health as part of building a community with a shared future for mankind. He recognized the problem with the resurgences of the coronavirus allowing for the proliferation of mutations and variant strains. Besides exporting vaccines, he described China’s work with countries to develop and produce vaccines, with joint production already begun in the UAE, Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, Brazil, Turkey, Pakistan and Mexico — a new capacity of over 200 million doses, which needs further expansion.

Beethoven: Sparks of Joy!

March 29, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Daily Beethoven — Sparks of Joy, General updates, Music updates

Beethoven: Sparks of Joy – Opus 9, no. 3, string trio: Foreshadows Later Great Works

The third of the Opus 9 string trios is a masterwork in C-minor, the tonality associated with some of Beethoven’s most dramatic works (think of the “Pathétique” and Opus 111 piano sonatas, for example).
This is Beethoven’s farewell to the string trio. After 1798 he would begin working on string quartets, a genre which would bear fruits throughout the rest of his life.
The Opus 9 no. 3 is played with great musicality by the Camerata Pacifica. [Notes by Margaret Scialdone.]

Afghanistan: the Role of the Neighboring Countries in Development

August 6, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Afghanistan, Economic development updates, Finance, General updates, Pakistan, Uzbekistan

Afghanistan: the Role of the Neighboring Countries in Development—

Aug. 5, 2021 (EIRNS) – During a Schiller Institute conference July 31, Prof. Pino Arlacchi, the former head of the United Nations Office of Drug Control who negotiated near-elimination of Afghan opium production with the Taliban 20 years ago, noted that immediately neighboring countries should play a primary role in planning South Asian regional development to include Afghanistan, and in stopping drug traffic from that country. One country clearly taking the point for this kind of development is Uzbekistan, under President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

A July 31 article in EastAsiaForum.org by Nasriddinov Salokhiddin, a researcher at the Institute for International Security of Tokyo International University, calls the February 2021 conference with Pakistan and Afghanistan organized by Mirziyoyev, “the event of the century for Central Asia”, because it will connect landlocked Central Asian countries to the Indian Ocean through Afghanistan and Pakistan. The conference attendees decided on a 600-kilometer Tashkent-Mazar e-Sharif-Kabul-Peshawar railroad and requested $4.8 billion in World Bank funding for it, Apparently the railroad corridor project was planned from the first to include new electricity transmission lines through it.

Noting the criticism that surmounting the Hindu Kush Mountains will make the project very expensive, Salokhiddin wrote: “Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan filed an appeal for investment to international financial institutions, which [appeal] received support from the United States, China and Russia. Representatives of the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Asian Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank also expressed their willingness to assist the project through technical consulting and financing. Such wide support for the project means that the source of investment is no longer a concern.” He did not give dates or details regarding these other nations’ and international institutions’ support. He did add that the route transits Afghanistan through regions and cities which are under relatively secure government control now.

The author wrote that freight traffic in Afghanistan was about 4 million tons for 2020 and had risen by 25%. “Estimates suggest that if implemented, the trans-Afghan railroad will increase annual volume of rail freight by 20 million tons.” Some economists in Uzbekistan have advocated a railroad corridor to Chabahar in Iran instead, as allegedly more secure. But, “To achieve its economic objectives, access to the ports of Karachi and Gwadar is Uzbekistan’s highest priority.” Full article is here.

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