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UK News

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Coronavirus live news: US cases pass 500,000 as Trump faces 'biggest decision' on curbs

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US president says he is 'not determined' to open up the country in May; global death toll passes 100,000

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COVID 19. Scientific Research.

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A drug combo already used against HIV. A malaria treatment first tested during World War II. A new antiviral whose promise against Ebola fizzled last year.

Could any of these drugs hold the key to saving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients from serious harm or death? On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a large global trial, called SOLIDARITY, to find out whether any can treat infections with the new coronavirus for the dangerous respiratory disease. It's an unprecedented effort-an all-out, coordinated push to collect robust scientific data rapidly during a pandemic. The study, which could include many thousands of patients in dozens of countries, has been designed to be as simple as possible so that even hospitals overwhelmed by an onslaught of COVID-19 patients can participate.

With about 15% of COVID-19 patients suffering from severe disease and hospitals being overwhelmed, treatments are desperately needed. So rather than coming up with compounds from scratch that may take years to develop and test, researchers and public health agencies are looking to repurpose drugs already approved for other diseases and known to be largely safe. They're also looking at unapproved drugs that have performed well in animal studies with the other two deadly coronaviruses, which cause severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).

Drugs that slow or kill the novel coronavirus, called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), could save the lives of severely ill patients, but might also be given prophylactically to protect health care workers and others at high risk of infection. Treatments may also reduce the time patients spend in intensive care units, freeing critical hospital beds.

Scientists have suggested dozens of existing compounds for testing, but WHO is focusing on what it says are the four most promising therapies: an experimental antiviral compound called remdesivir; the malaria medications chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine; a combination of two HIV drugs, lopinavir and ritonavir; and that same combination plus interferon-beta, an immune system messenger that can help cripple viruses. Some data on their use in COVID-19 patients have already emerged-the HIV combo failed in a small study in China-but WHO believes a large trial with a greater variety of patients is warranted.

Enrolling subjects in SOLIDARITY will be easy. When a person with a confirmed case of COVID-19 is deemed eligible, the physician can enter the patient's data into a WHO website, including any underlying condition that could change the course of the disease, such as diabetes or HIV infection. The participant has to sign an informed consent form that is scanned and sent to WHO electronically. After the physician states which drugs are available at his or her hospital, the website will randomize the patient to one of the drugs available or to the local standard care for COVID-19.

"After that, no more measurements or documentation are required," says Ana Maria Henao-Restrepo, a medical officer at WHO's Department of Immunization Vaccines and Biologicals. Physicians will record the day the patient left the hospital or died, the duration of the hospital stay, and whether the patient required oxygen or ventilation, she says. "That's all."

The design is not double-blind, the gold standard in medical research, so there could be placebo effects from patients knowing they received a candidate drug. But WHO says it had to balance scientific rigor against speed. The idea for SOLIDARITY came up less than 2 weeks ago, Henao-Restrepo says, and the agency hopes to have supporting documentation and data management centers set up next week. "We are doing this in record time," she says.

It will be important to get answers quickly, to try to find out what works and what doesn't work. We think that randomized evidence is the best way to do that.

Ana Maria Henao-Restrepo, World Health Organization

Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at New York University Langone Medical Center, says he likes the study's design. "No one wants to tax the frontline caregiver who's overwhelmed and taking risks anyway," Caplan says. Hospitals that aren't overburdened might be able to record more data on disease progression, for instance by following the level of virus in the body, Caplan suggests. But for public health, the simple outcomes WHO seeks to measure are the only relevant ones for now, says virologist Christian Drosten of the Charité University Hospital in Berlin: "We don't really know enough about this disease to be sure what it means when the viral load decreases in the throat, for instance."

On Sunday, INSERM, the French biomedical research agency, announced it will coordinate an add-on trial in Europe, named Discovery, that will follow WHO's example and will include 3200 patients from at least seven countries, including 800 from France. That trial will test the same drugs, with the exception of chloroquine. Other countries or groups of hospitals could organize add-on studies as well, Heneo-Restrepo says. They are free to do additional measurements or observations, for instance on virology, blood gases, chemistry, and lung imaging. "While well-organized additional research studies of the natural history of the disease or of the effects of the trial treatments could well be valuable, they are not core requirements," she says.

The list of drugs to test was first put together for WHO by a panel of scientists who have been assessing the evidence for candidate therapies since January, Heneo-Restrepo says. The group of selected drugs that had the highest likelihood of working, had the most safety data from previous use, and are likely to be available in supplies sufficient to treat substantial numbers of patients if the trial shows they work.

Here are the treatments that SOLIDARITY will test:

Remdesivir

The new coronavirus is giving this compound a second chance to shine. Originally developed by Gilead Sciences to combat Ebola and related viruses, remdesivir shuts down viral replication by inhibiting a key viral enzyme, the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase.

Researchers tested remdesivir last year during the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, along with three other treatments. It did not show any effect. (Two others did.) But the enzyme it targets is similar in other viruses, and in 2017 researchers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, showed in test tube and animal studies that the drug can inhibit the coronaviruses that cause SARS and MERS.

The first COVID-19 patient diagnosed in the United States-a young man in Snohomish county in Washington-was given remdesivir when his condition worsened; he improved the next day, according to a case report in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). A Californian patient who received remdesivir-and who doctors thought might not survive- recovered as well.

Such evidence from individual cases doesn't prove a drug is safe and effective. Still, from the drugs in the SOLIDARITY trial, "remdesivir has the best potential to be used in clinics" says Jiang Shibo of Fudan University, who has long worked on coronavirus therapeutics. Jiang particularly likes that high doses of the drug can likely be given without causing toxicities.

However, it may be much more potent if given early in an infection, like most other drugs, says Stanley Perlman, a coronavirus researcher at the University of Iowa. "What you really want to do is give a drug like that to people who walk in with mild symptoms," he says. "And you can't do that because it's an [intravenous] drug, it's expensive and 85 out of 100 people don't need it."

Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine

At a press conference on Friday, President Donald Trump called chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine a "game changer." "I feel good about it," Trump said. His remarks have led to a rush in demand for the decades-old antimalarials. ("It reminds me a little bit of the toilet paper phenomenon and everybody's running to the store," Caplan says.)

The WHO scientific panel designing SOLIDARITY had originally decided to leave the duo out of the trial, but had a change of heart at a meeting in Geneva on 13 March, because the drugs "received significant attention" in many countries, according to the report of a WHO working group that looked into the drugs' potential. The widespread interested prompted "the need to examine emerging evidence to inform a decision on its potential role."

The available data are thin. The drugs work by decreasing the acidity in endosomes, compartments inside cells that they use to ingest outside material and that some viruses can coopt to enter a cell. But the main entryway for SARS-CoV-2 is a different one, using its so-called spike protein to attach to a receptor on the surface of human cells. Studies in cell culture have suggested chloroquines have some activity against SARS-CoV-2, but the doses needed are usually high-and could cause serious toxicities.

Encouraging cell study results with chloroquines against two other viral diseases, dengue and chikungunya, didn't pan out in people in randomized clinical trials. And nonhuman primates infected with chikungunya did worse when given chloroquine. "Researchers have tried this drug on virus after virus, and it never works out in humans. The dose needed is just too high," says Susanne Herold, an expert on pulmonary infections at the University of Giessen.

Results from COVID-19 patients are murky. Chinese researchers who report treating more than 100 patients with chloroquine touted its benefits in a letter in BioScience, but the data underlying the claim have not been published. All in all, more than 20 COVID-19 studies in China used chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine, WHO notes, but their results have been hard to come by. "WHO is engaging with Chinese colleagues at the mission in Geneva and have received assurances of improved collaboration; however, no data has been shared regarding the chloroquine studies."

Researchers in France have published a study in which they treated 20 COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine. They concluded that the drug significantly reduced viral load in nasal swabs. But it was not a randomized controlled trial and it didn't report clinical outcomes such as deaths. In guidance published on Friday, the U.S. Society of Critical Care Medicine said "there is insufficient evidence to issue a recommendation on the use of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine in critically ill adults with COVID-19."

Hydroxychloroquine, in particular, might do more harm than good. The drug has a variety of side effects and can in rare cases harm the heart. Because people with heart conditions are at higher risk of severe COVID-19, that is a concern, says David Smith, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Diego. "This is a warning signal, but we still need to do the trial," he says. What's more, a rush to use the drug for COVID-19 might make it harder for the people who need it to treat their rheumatoid arthritis or malaria.

Ritonavir/lopinavir

This combination drug, sold under the brand name Kaletra, was approved in the United States in 2000 to treat HIV infections. Abbott Laboratories developed lopinavir specifically to inhibit the protease of HIV, an important enzyme that cleaves a long protein chain into peptides during the assembly of new viruses. Because lopinavir is quickly broken down in the human body by our own proteases, it is given with low levels of ritonavir, another protease inhibitor, that lets lopinavir persist longer.

The combination can inhibit the protease of other viruses as well, specifically coronaviruses. It has shown efficacy in marmosets infected with the MERS virus, and has also been tested in SARS and MERS patients, though results from those trials are ambiguous.

The first trial with COVD-19 was not encouraging, however. Doctors in Wuhan, China, gave 199 patients two pills of lopinavir/ritonavir twice a day plus standard care, or standard care alone. There was no significant difference between the groups, they reported in NEJM on 15 March. But the authors caution that patients were very ill-more than one-fifth of them died-and so the treatment may have been given too late to help. Although the drug is generally safe it may interact with drugs usually given to severely ill patients, and doctors have warned it could cause significant liver damage.

Ritonavir/lopinavir and interferon-beta

SOLIDARITY will also have an arm that combines the two antivirals with interferon-beta, a molecule involved in regulating inflammation in the body that has also shown an effect in marmosets infected with MERS. A combination of the three drugs is now being tested in MERS patients in Saudi Arabia in the first randomized controlled trial for that disease.

But the use of interferon-beta on patients with severe COVID-19 might be risky, Herold says. "If it is given late in the disease it could easily lead to worse tissue damage instead of helping patients," she cautions.

Thousands of patients

The design of the SOLIDARITY trial can change at any time. A global data safety monitoring board will look at interim results at regular intervals and decide whether any member of the quartet has a clear effect, or whether one can be dropped because it clearly does not. Several other drugs, including the influenza drug favipiravir, produced by Japan's Toyama Chemical, may be added to the trial.

To get robust results from the study, several thousands of patients will likely have to be recruited, Henao-Restrepo says. Argentina, Iran, South Africa, and several other non-European countries have already signed up. WHO is also hoping to do a prevention trial to test drugs that might protect health care workers from infection, using the same basic protocol, Henao-Restrepo says.

The trial's European counterpart, Discovery, will recruit patients from France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Benelux countries, according to an INSERM press release today. The trial will be led Florence Ader, an infectious diseases researcher at the University Hospital Center in Lyon.

Doing rigorous clinical research during an outbreak is always a challenge, Henao-Restrepo says, but it's the best way to make headway against the virus: "It will be important to get answers quickly, to try to find out what works and what doesn't work. We think that randomized evidence is the best way to do that."

doi:10.1126/science.abb8497

Kai is a contributing correspondent for Science magazine based in Berlin, Germany. He is writing a book about the color blue, to be published this autumn.

Jon is a staff writer for Science.

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A drug combo already used against HIV. A malaria treatment first tested during World War II. A new antiviral whose promise against Ebola fizzled last year. Could any of these drugs hold the key to saving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients from serious harm or death?

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Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, has tested positive for the new coronavirus, his office said Wednesday.

The 71-year-old is showing mild symptoms of COVID-19 and is self-isolating at a royal estate in Scotland, his Clarence House office said.

It says his wife Camilla, 72, has tested negative.
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"The Prince of Wales has tested positive for Coronavirus," Clarence House said. "He has been displaying mild symptoms but otherwise remains in good health and has been working from home throughout the last few days as usual.''

The tests were carried out by the National Health Service in Scotland.

"It is not possible to ascertain from whom the Prince caught the virus owing to the high number of engagements he carried out in his public role during recent weeks."

Buckingham Palace said Queen Elizabeth II remains at her home in Windsor.

Charles last saw the queen on March 12, according to a BBC report.
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Coronavirus: Britain's Prince Charles tests positive for COVID-19

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Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, has tested positive for the new coronavirus, his office said Wednesday. The 71-year-old is showing mild symptoms of COVID-19 and is self-isolating at a royal estate in Scotland, his Clarence House office said. It says his wife Camilla, 72, has tested negative.

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COVID-19 affects different people in different ways. Most infected people will develop mild to moderate illness and recover without hospitalization.
Most common symptoms: Less common symptoms:

sore throat

headache

aches and pains

diarrhoea

a rash on skin, or discolouration of fingers or toes

red or irritated eyes.

Serious symptoms:

difficulty breathing or shortness of breath

loss of speech or mobility, or confusion

Seek immediate medical attention if you have serious symptoms. Always call before visiting your doctor or health facility.

People with mild symptoms who are otherwise healthy should manage their symptoms at home.

On average it takes 5-6 days from when someone is infected with the virus for symptoms to show, however it can take up to 14 days.

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China has resorted to mass quarantining in response to the coronavirus epidemic, while towns in Italy with high infection rates have been cordoned off and holidaymakers in Tenerife are confined to their rooms. The rest of us can only watch and try not to panic. But this is far from the first time that freedom of movement has been curtailed because of fears of a pandemic.

The modern notion of quarantine dates back to the 15th century, when Venice was grappling with one of the recurrent outbreaks of the Black Death, which had devastated Asia and Europe in the 14th century and continued to reappear for the next 500 years. The idea of isolating potential carriers, usually sailors arriving on ships from Asia, where the plague originated, was common in the 14th century, but it wasn't until 1448 that the Venetian authorities decreed the period of isolation to check for symptoms should be 40 ( quaranta in Italian) days.

Isolating carriers of disease, however, predates the Black Death by thousands of years. The book of Leviticus in the Old Testament has an entire chapter devoted to dealing with people suspected of having leprosy, with instructions to "shut up" those thought to be at risk and get a priest to check on them every seven days to see if the disease has taken hold. The Greek physician Hippocrates, who first defined epidemics, also stressed the need to isolate sufferers.

Urbanisation and the regulation of public health in the late 18th and 19th centuries slowly led to systematic quarantining. During the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, it was left to other towns in the US to quarantine the city by banning its residents and goods from entering. But repeated outbreaks of yellow fever, cholera and smallpox in the 19th century eventually led to the federal government taking responsibility for quarantine.

The influenza epidemic of 1918-20 (the so-called "Spanish flu") was so widespread that in some places it was not the sick who were quarantined, but the healthy - a policy now called "protective sequestration". In 1918, Gunnison in Colorado barricaded all roads into the town and told people arriving by train they would be arrested and quarantined. The policy worked: no one in the town died of Spanish flu.

Quarantine raises human rights issues, with individual freedom having to be balanced against public health. The UN stresses the need for proportionality and evidence-based action in accordance with the Siracusa principles established in 1984, but in the last resort the World Health Organization says "interference with freedom of movement when instituting quarantine or isolation for a communicable disease may be necessary for the public good, and could be considered legitimate under international human rights law".

Now with coronavirus, is it 1918 all over again? That is the terrifying question.
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From the Black Death to coronavirus: a brief history of quarantines

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China has resorted to mass quarantining in response to the coronavirus epidemic, while towns in Italy with high infection rates have been cordoned off and holidaymakers in Tenerife are confined to their rooms. The rest of us can only watch and try not to panic.

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Oxford University Press, English Language Teaching - elt.enquiry@oup.com

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Students >Solutions >Advanced >Grammar >Unit 8 - Exercise 2 - Modal verbs

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MODAL VERBS

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modal verbs - can, could, might, must, should game

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Practice modal verbs - can, could, might, must, should using this ESL fun Game.This game is also excellent for classroom teaching. Teachers can engage students in a classroom vocabulary or grammar review. It is suitable for intermediate and advanced esl learners. It can be used to energize a dull class, to review work that was done or simply as a reward for good classroom work. Have fun teaching and learning English!

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Conditional Sentenceshttps://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/conditional-sentences

Conditional Sentences Type I, II und III (Conditional Sentences ...

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Animal Farm 1954   Cartoon George Orwell Educational Full ENGLISH

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Author, Characters, Summary, Themes...

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, Executive committee member

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Mr. Jones the farmer is a drunk and cruel tyrant, and one day the animals on his farm have had enough of him, so they take over the farm and kick him out. They set up a government of their own. It starts out as an egalitarian government, where all animals are equal, but as time progresses it turns into a regime as repressive and totalitarian as that of Mr. Jones. Their new motto is "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." In the end they become a drunk tyrant just like Mr. Jones, so the revolution was not revolution at all.

1. 1. AnimalBy Farm George OrwellAllegory - Satire - Fable Presented by : Mohammed Sabri Bamerni ( Prime_Metin) "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

2. 2. Animal Farm in brief It was written in 1940s. Its an allegory of the Russian revolution, on how communism doesnt work. In the story, a bunch of farm animals overthrow the farmer who treated them badly. They set up an ideal society in which all the animals are equal, and all work for the benefit of each other (basically a communist society). The pigs take a leadership position, even though technically all the animals are equal. One pig, Napoleon, who is power hungry, kicks out his co- leader, Snowball, and then becomes a tyrant. He mistreats the other animals in a similar way as the farmer mistreated them. The animals are back to square one, and no improvement has been made.

3. 3. Why Animals? In explaining how he came to write Animal Farm, Orwell says he once saw a little boy whipping(beating horse by whip) a horse and later he wrote,  "It struck me that if only such animals became aware of their strength we should have no power over them, and that men exploit(use) animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the [worker]."

4. 4. What is Animal Farm? A masterpiece of political satire, Animal Farm is a tale of oppressed individuals who long for freedom but ultimately are corrupted by assuming(arrogant) the very power that had originally oppressed(tyrannized) them. The story traces(sketches, describes) the deplorable(miserable) conditions of mistreated animals who can speak and who exhibit(present) many human characteristics(features). After extreme negligence(carelessness) by their owner, the animals revolt and expel(drive out) Mr. Jones and his wife from the farm. The tale of the society the animals form into a totalitarian(tyranny) regime is generally viewed as Orwells critique(critic review) of the communist system in the former Soviet Union. Interesting Fact: Orwell initially struggled to find a publisher for Animal Farm .

5. 5. Significance(importance) Today But why - now that Soviet Communism has fallen and the Cold War is over -does Animal Farm deserve our attention? The answer lies in the power of allegory. Allegorical fables, because they require us to make comparisons and connections, can be meaningful to any reader in any historical period. The story of Animal Farm will always have lessons to teach us about the ways that people abuse power and manipulate others. Orwells chilling(bitter) story of the betrayal of idealism(utopian) through tyranny and corruption is as fresh and relevant today as when it was first published in 1945.

6. 6. When History and Literature Merge Critics often consider Animal Farm to be an allegory of the Russian Revolution. In the early 1900s, Russia's Czar Nicholas II faced an increasingly discontented populace(offended people). Freed from feudal serfdom(slavery) in 1861, many Russian peasants(farmers) were struggling to survive under an oppressive(unfair, tyrannical) government. By 1917, amidst(among) the tremendous(terrible) suffering of World War I, a revolution began. In Czar Nicholas II two major battles, the Czar's government was Vladimir Lenin overthrown and replaced by the Bolshevik leadership of Vladimir Lenin. When Lenin died in 1924, his former colleagues Leon Trotsky, hero of the early Revolution, and Joseph Stalin, head of the Communist Party, struggled for power. Stalin won the battle, and he deported(banished) Trotsky into permanent exile(banishment). Joseph Stalin Leon Trotsky

7. 7. Animalism = Communism Animalism  Communism  Taught by Old Major  Invented by Karl Marx  No rich, but no poor  All people are equal  Better life for workers  Government owns  All animals are equal everything  Everyone owns the  People own the farm government

8. 8. Animal Farm Revolution = Russian Revolution Animal Farm Revolution  Russian Revolution  Was supposed to make life  Was supposed to fix the better for all, but . . . problems created by the  Life was worse at the end. Czar, but . . .  The leaders became the  Life was even worse after same as, or worse than the the revolution. other farmers (humans) they  Stalin made the Czar look rebelled against. like a nice guy.

9. 9. George Orwell British Author & Journalist  1903-1950  Born in India  At that time India was a part of the British Empire, and Blairs father, Richard, held a post as an agent in the Opium(kind of drugs) Department of the Indian Civil Service.  The Blair family was not very wealthy - Orwell later described them ironically as "lower-upper-middle class". They owned no property, had no extensive investments; they were like many middle-class English families of the time, totally dependent on the British Empire for their livelihood(living) and prospects.  Noted as a novelist and critic, as well as a political and cultural commentator  One of the most widely admired English-language essayists of the 20th century  Best known for two novels critical of totalitarianism in general, and Stalinism in particular:  Animal Farm  Nineteen Eighty-Four"Liberty is telling people what they do not want to hear."

10. 10. 1984  The novel, published in 1949, takes place in 1984 and presents an imaginary future where a totalitarian state controls every aspect of life, even peoples thoughts. The state is called Oceania and is ruled by a group known as the Party; its leader and dictator is Big Brother.

11. 11. George Orwell and His Beliefs Orwell was a person who had a reputation for standing apart and even making a virtue of his detachment(independence in opinion). This "outsider" position often led him to oppose the crowd(people whom work with). Orwell's beliefs about politics were affected by his experiences fighting in the Spanish Civil War. He viewed socialists, communists, and fascists as repressive and self- serving. He was skeptical(doubt) of governments and their willingness to forsake(leave) ideas in favor of power. Interesting Fact: George Orwell's real name was Eric Blair.

12. 12. George Orwell in India He was born in India and spent his early years there since his father held a post there.  He was a lonely boy who liked to make up stories and talk with imaginary companions. As an adult, he worked for the Imperial Police in British occupied India.

13. 13. Work Orwell joined the police in Burma, where he had family connections. In 1924 he was promoted. In 1927 he contracted Dengue fever: in light of this he was allowed to return to England. It was at this time that he resigned from the police force with the intention of focusing on writing. It was this time in Burma that provided the inspiration for Orwell's first novel, Burmese Days, published in 1934. Orwell took a job as a teacher in England, after living in Paris for a short time. It was a small school and allowed Orwell to focus on his writing. He was contributing on a regular basis to the magazine New Adelphi, where his essay "A Hanging" first appeared. Orwell, after suffering with pneumonia, would take a part- time job working in a book shop in Hampstead.

14. 14. War When the Spanish Civil war began, Orwell volunteered to fight for the republicans against the uprising. He was injured after being shot in the neck by a snipers bullet; following this he and his new wife, Eileen O'Shaughnessy, left Spain to return to England. Death Orwell became seriously ill around this time, suffering with tuberculosis. Orwell had been courting Sonia Brownell and married her while in hospital in October 1949. By Christmas Orwell was very weak and in January of 1950, aged 46, he died. In accordance with his wishes, Orwell was buried. He lies in All Saint's Churchyard in Oxford, as it was impossible for him to be buried in London.

15. 15. Characters Old Major  Karl Marx  An old boar whose speech about  The inventor of communism the evils perpetrated(have done)  Wants to unite the working by humans rouses(awakes)the class to overthrow the animals into rebelling. government.  His philosophy concerning the  Dies before the Russian tyranny of Man is named Revolution Animalism.  He teaches the animals the song "Beasts of England"  Dies before revolution

16. 16. Who is Karl Marx? Many of the ideals behind the Soviet revolution were based on the writings and teachings of Karl Marx. A German intellectual who lived in the mid-1800s, Marx believed that societies are divided into two segments, a working class and an owner class. The working class creates all the products, while the owner class enjoys all the benefits of these products. This class division leads to inequality and oppression (tyranny , injustice) of the working class. Marx's objective was to create a classless society in which the work is shared by all for the benefit of all, and he believed revolution was the way to achieve this goal.

17. 17. Napoleon = Joseph Stalin Napoleon  Joseph Stain  Boar who leads the rebellion  The communist dictator of the against Farmer Jones Soviet Union from 1922-1953 who killed all who opposed  After the rebellion's success, him. he systematically begins to control all aspects of the farm  He loved power and used the until he is an undisputed(no KGB (secret police) to enforce one stand against him) tyrant. his ruthless(unmerciful), corrupt antics.

18. 18. Joseph Stalin Once in power, Stalin began, with despotic(tyranny) urgency and exalted(glorified) nationalism, to move the Soviet Union into the modern industrial age. His government seized(captured) land in order to create collective(group) farms. Stalin's Five Year Plan was an attempt(try, effort) to modernize Soviet industry. Many peasants(farmers) refused to give up their land, so to counter resistance Stalin used vicious(evil) military tactics. Rigged trials led to executions of an estimated 20 million government officials and ordinary citizens. The government controlled the flow and Joseph Stalin content of information to the people, and all but outlawed churches.

19. 19. Snowball = Leon Trotsky Snowball  Boar who becomes one of the  Leon Trotsky rebellion's most valuable leaders.  A pure communist leader who was influenced by the  After drawing complicated teachings of Karl Marx. plans for the construction of a  He wanted to improve life windmill, he is chased off of for people in Russia, but the farm forever by was driven away by Lenin's Napoleon's dogs and KGB. thereafter used as a scapegoat for the animals' troubles.

20. 20. Farmer Jones = Czar Nicholas II Farmer Jones  Czar Nicholas II  The irresponsible owner of  Weak Russian leader the farm during the early 1900s  Lets his animals starve(feel  Often cruel and hungry) and beats them brutal(harsh) to his with a whip subjects  Sometimes shows random  Displays kindness isolated(seperated) kindness

21. 21. Squealer & Boxer Squealer  A big mouth pig who becomes Napoleon's mouthpiece. Throughout the novel, he displays his ability to manipulate(treat in proficiency) the animals' thoughts through the use of hollow(tell lies), yet convincing rhetoric.  Represents the propaganda department that worked to support Stalin's image; the members of the department would use lies to convince the people to follow Stalin. Squealer Boxer  A dedicated but dim-witted(stupid) horse who aids(assists) in the building of the windmill but is sold to a glue-boiler after collapsing(crash down) from exhaustion.  Represents the dedicated, but tricked(cheated) communist supporters of Stalin. Many stayed loyal even after it was obvious(clear) Stalin was a tyrant. Eventually(finaly) they were betrayed, ignored, and even killed by him. Boxer

22. 22. Jessie & Moses Jessie  The farms sheepdog, she keeps tabs on the pigs and is among the first to suspect that something is wrong at Animal Farm. Jessie Moses  A tame(domesticated) raven and sometimes- pet of Jones who tells the animals stories about a paradise called Sugar-candy Mountain.  Moses represents religion. Stalin used religious principles to influence(affect on) people to work and to avoid revolt. Moses

23. 23. More Characters PilkingtonJones neighbor, The easygoing gentleman farmer who runs Foxwood, a neighboring farm. Mr. Frederick's bitter enemy, Mr. Pilkington represents the capitalist governments of England and the United States. Mr. Frederick The tough, shrewd operator of Pinchfield, a neighboring farm. Based on Adolf Hitler, the ruler of Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, Mr. Frederick proves an untrustworthy neighbor. Mollie A vain horse who resists the animal rebellion because she doesnt want to give up the petting and treats she receives from humans. Mollie represents vain, selfish people in Russia and throughout the world who ignored the revolution and sought residence in more inviting countries. BenjaminThe most cynical(ironical) of all the animals, the farms donkey doubts the leadership of the pigs but is faithfully devoted to Boxer. Benjamin represents all the skepticalpeople in Russia and elsewhere who weren't sure revolution would change anything. The SheepNot tremendously clever, the sheep remind themselves of the principles of animalism by chanting "four legs good, two legs bad." The DogsNapoleon's private army that used fear to force the animals to work; they killed any opponent of Napoleon. The dogs represent Stalin's loyal KGB (secret police). The KGB were not really police, but mercenaries used to force support for Stalin.

24. 24. Plot Summary The story is set on the Manor Farm, owned and operated by Mr. Jones. One night the prize(something deserves to struggle for it) boar(male pig), Old Major, tells all the other farm animals he has realized that the misery of their daily lives is all due to the tyranny of human beings, and that if they work to overthrow(defeat) the humans their lives will become easy and comfortable.

25. 25. Plot Summary After Old Major dies, the pigs (led by the two boars Snowball and Napoleon) start teaching his ideas (which they develop into a system of thought called Animalism) to the other animals. A few months later, Mr. Jones gets drunk and forgets to feed the animals, who become so hungry that they rebel and drive the human beings off the farm. They rename the farm Animal Farm and write the Seven Commandments of Animalism up on the wall of the barn(fold, store for animals food). Jones comes back with a group of armed men and tries to recapture the farm, but the animals, led by Snowball, defeat the men.

26. 26. Plot Summary Snowball and Napoleon argue constantly(never stopping) over plans for the future of the farm, never able to agree - especially over a windmill which Snowball wants to build to provide the farm with electric power, and which Napoleon ridicules. Napoleon calls in nine dogs whom he has specially trained and they chase Snowball off the farm. Squealer, the very persuasive pig(able to persuade other) who relays(broadcasts) most of Napoleons decisions to the other animals, tells them that Snowball was a traitor in league(union, alliance) with Jones, and that the windmill was really Napoleons idea anyway and will go ahead.

27. 27. Plot Summary The animals work hard - work on the windmill is slow and they rely(depend) heavily on Boxer the cart- horse(strong horse suitable for heavy work), who is very strong and hard- working. Napoleon begins trading with nearby farms, and the pigs move into the farmhouse(Mr.Joness house) and sleep in the beds there - even though sleeping in beds like humans was forbidden by the original principles(rules) of Animalism.

28. 28. Plot Summary The winter is difficult - the animals have little food. Napoleon and Squealer blame Snowball for everything that goes wrong on the farm, from bad crops(harvest, product) to blocked drains(consumes). Then Napoleons dogs attack four pigs, who then confess to plotting(conspiracy) with Snowball and start a series of confessions of various crimes from other animals - all of those who confess are slaughtered(was slaying) by the dogs, leaving the survivors shaken(trembled) and miserable(hopeless).

29. 29. Plot Summary The windmill is finally completed and to get money to buy the machinery for it, Napoleon decides to sell a pile(pack, heap) of timber(wood of trees) - after wavering(hesitation) between the two neighboring farmers Pilkington and Frederick, he sells it to Frederick only to discover that he has been paid with worthless(silly, valueless) forged(fake) banknotes(currency). Frederick and his men then come on to the farm and blow(blast) the windmill to pieces with explosives, although the animals manage to drive them off the farm again after a bloody battle. A few days later the pigs find a case of whisky(alcohol) in the farmhouse cellar(underground store) and get drunk.

30. 30. Plot Summary Boxer is injured while working on repairs to the windmill, and Benjamin notices that the van(the great leader) Napoleon calls to send him to the vet(veterinary doctor), has Horse Slaughterer painted on the side. After Boxer has died in hospital under care of the vet, the pigs mysteriously(secretly) find money to buy another case of whiskey. After many years, life is just as hard as it ever was. The pigs start walking on two legs. None of the old Commandments(rules) are left on the barn wall. A group of human farmers come to see the farm, they quarrel(fight) with the pigs over a game of cards - and the animals discover they can no longer tell which is human and which is pig.

31. 31. Themes Conflict and resolution : There are many conflicts in Animal Farm and I will write about the two that I look at as the most important. The first is in the beginning of the book - the rebellion. The animals on the farm chase Mr. Jones away and after they have done that, the problem is solved. The second isn't solved at all: In the end of the book the animals see the pigs have a fight with the humans and they can't see any difference between them. I think a new conflict is created at this moment and you, as the reader, must guess what happens next.

32. 32. Themes Utopia/Dystopia - Animal Farm was intended to be a Utopia but it became a dystopia when the pigs changed it into a communist society. Old Majors ideas for the perfect society were well placed but did not work. Not one animal was really equal and most were not cared for as should be.

33. 33. Themes False Allegiance(loyalty) A final noteworthy (and again, satiric) theme is the way in which people proclaim their allegiance to each other, only to betray their true intentions at a later time. Directly related to the idea that the rulers of the rebellion (the pigs) eventually betray the ideals for which they presumably fought, this theme is dramatized in a number of relationships involving the novels human characters. Pilkington and Jones;Frederick, for example, only listen to Jones in the Red Lion because they secretly hope to gain something from their neighbors misery. Similarly, Fredericks buying the firewood from Napoleon seems to form an alliance that is shattered when the pig learns of Fredericks forged banknotes. The novels final scene demonstrates that, despite all the.

34. 34. Allegory (cont'd) Yet there is no reason that allegory must be limited to two levels. It is possible to argue that Animal Farm also has a third and more general level of meaning. For instance, the pigs need not only represent specific tyrannical soviet leaders. They could also be symbols for tyranny more broadly: their qualities are therefore not simply the historical characteristics of a set of Squealer, Snowball, & Napoleon actual men but are the qualities of all leaders who rely on repression and manipulation.

35. 35. Propaganda  The pigs began to spread propaganda to the animals when they told them that they were doing well. The animals, being naive, believed every word of it. Propaganda was spread to other farms, telling them about how Animal Farm was more prosperous. They were urged to rebel. The animals also could beBoxer indoctrinated using propaganda. Ex: The sheep bleating.

36. 36. Satire In a satire , the writer attacks a serious issue by presenting it in a ridiculous light or otherwise poking fun at it. Orwell uses satire to expose what he saw as the myth of Soviet socialism. Thus, the novel tells a story Soviet Coat of Arms that people of all ages can understand, but it also tells us a second story- that of the real-life revolution.

37. 37. Irony Irony results when there is a disparity between what an audience would expect and what really happens. Orwell uses a particular type of irony - dramatic irony. He relies on the difference between what the animals understand and what we, the audience, can conclude about the Snowball below the commandments. situation at Animal Farm. We know just what the animals know, but we can see so much more of its significance than they can. The conclusions we reach that the animals never quite get to - that the pigs are decadent, corrupt, and immoral - are all the more powerful because we arrive at them ourselves, without the narrator pointing these things out directly. Napoleon overindulging himself.

38. 38. Irony (cont'd) Orwell uses dramatic irony to create a particularly subtle satire. Satire stages a critique of an individual, group, or idea by exaggerating faults and revealing hypocrisies. The dramatic irony of Animal Farm achieves this aim indirectly. We see the hypocrisy that the animals dont and therefore understand in this backward fashion that the book is deeply critical of the pigs.

39. 39. Themes Religion and Tyranny Another theme of Orwells novel that also strikes a satiric note is the idea of religion being the "opium of the people" (as Karl Marx famously wrote). Moses the ravens talk of Sugar-candy Mountain originally annoys many of the animals, since Moses, known as a "teller of tales," seems an unreliable(untruthful) source. At this point, the animals are still hopeful for a better future and therefore dismiss Moses stories of a paradise elsewhere. As their lives worsen, however, the animals begin to believe him, because "Their lives now, they reasoned, were hungry and laborious(exhausting); Was it not right and just that a better world should exist somewhere else?" Here, Orwell mocks(ridicules) the futile(useless) dreaming of a better place that clearly does not exist. The pigs allow Moses to stay on the farm - and even encourage his presence by rewarding him with beer - because they know that his stories of Sugar-candy Mountain will keep the animals docile(obedient). Thus Orwell implies that religious devotion( - viewed by many as a noble character trait - can actually distort the ways in which one thinks of his or her life on earth.

40. 40. Some definitions Definition of allegory : Extending a metaphor through an entire speech or passage so that objects, persons, and actions in the text are equated with meanings that lie outside the text.

41. 41. Thank you for share our miserable 

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Executive committee member Published on Mr. Jones the farmer is a drunk and cruel tyrant, and one day the animals on his farm have had enough of him, so they take over the farm and kick him out. They set up a government of their own.

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In 2009, nearly 500 miles above Siberia, two satellites collided at some 22,300 mph, bursting into a cloud of thousands of pieces of debris. The culprits of this high-speed accident were the inactive Russian satellite Cosmos 2251 and the active U.S.-based communication satellite Iridium 33. Their catastrophic end was the first known time that two satellites collided in space, and a startling reminder of the growing problem of space junk.

More than 23,000 known man-made fragments larger than about 4 inches, which is a little wider than two golf balls across, zip around our planet. But those are just the pieces large enough to track. An estimated 500,000 pieces between 0.4 inches and 4 inches across join those larger fragments.

Most of that debris sits within 1,250 miles of Earth's surface in what is known as low Earth orbit, home to lots of satellites, such as NASA's Earth Observing System fleet and the International Space Station. And while space is big-so even 23,000 fragments tend to be far from each other-even the tiniest bits of man-made flotsam can be problematic for active earth orbiters because of their breakneck speeds.

Space junk can impact other objects at over 22,300 mph, faster than a speeding bullet. Collisions with those tiny pieces often leave pits and dings in the many satellites, telescopes, and other objects orbiting our planet. In 2006, for example, a tiny piece of space junk collided with the International Space Station, taking a chip out of the heavily reinforced window.

What is all this trash?

Space junk has been amassing since the first human-made satellite, Sputnik 1, escaped Earth's gravitational pull on October 4, 1957. The momentous event heralded the start of the Space Age as humans began to explore ever further away from our home world, a feat that has been repeated in more than 4,700 launches around the globe. But that also means we've left our mark on space in the form of trash.

The junk includes the stages from rockets that jettison satellites into orbit and the satellites themselves once they die. But it also includes smaller bits and pieces lost to space including paint chips that flake away from the outsides of devices, nuts and bolts, garbage bags, a lens cap, screwdriver, and even a spatula.

But the number has increased sharply in recent decades thanks to both the 2009 satellite collision and China's 2007 destruction of the Fengyun-1C weather satellite during an anti-satellite missile test. On March 27, 2019, India announced it also successfully completed an anti-satellite missile test, creating a new cloud of at least 400 pieces of debris, which increased the risk of impacts to the ISS by an estimated 44 percent over a 10-day period. (The ISS can be maneuvered away if it's in danger.)

There are a few positives, however, for that particular cloud of space junk. Unlike China's high-altitude test in 2007, India's missile is thought to have targeted a low-altitude satellite, Microsat-R, which means most of this debris is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere over time. Even so, in a town hall following the event, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine called the debris cloud's creation "unacceptable" and added that "when one country does it, then other countries feel like they have to do it as well."

As the skies become increasingly crowded with scientific and commercial orbiters, all nations need to pitch in to quell the growing problem.

How do we know what's up there?

The United States Department of Defense monitors the debris with the Space Surveillance Network. The group is tasked with detecting, tracking, and cataloging the many human-made items swirling around the planet using a global network of telescopes.

Objects about 4 inches across and larger are cataloged and routinely tracked. Objects as small as 0.12 inches can be identified by ground-based radars, allowing scientists to estimate the population with statistics. Estimates for even smaller material come from examination of the divots and pits on returning spacecraft that operated in low altitudes.

Can we stop launching things to space?

While some of the junk will lose altitude over time and burn up in Earth's atmosphere, there's a lot of stuff up there. Even without new launches or major explosions, the space junk already in low Earth orbit is so abundant that it will likely continue to multiply over the centuries as orbiting pieces collide.

Computer simulations of the next 200 years suggest that during that time debris larger than about 8 inches across will increase by 1.5 times. But the smaller particles will increase even more. Junk between 4 inches and 8 inches is expected to multiply 3.2 times and debris less than 4 inches will grow by a factor of 13 to 20. One review of the state of space junk published in Science notes: "In reality, the situation will undoubtedly be worse because spacecraft and their orbital stages will continue to be launched."

We've become increasingly reliant on the growing constellation of satellites up above. Not only are they invaluable for science but we use them for communication, navigation, weather forecasting, and more. So rather than halting future launches, researchers have been investigating an array of methods to both remove and reduce the space junk.

What is being done?

The cadre of concepts in development to control space junk often sound more like science fiction than reality. JAXA, Japan's space agency, is testing an electronic space whip that stretches six football fields long, known as the electrodynamic tether (EDT). The electrified line, nearly 2,300 feet long, is capped with a 44-pound weight. When deployed, it's intended to knock debris out of orbit, sending it to burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

And that is far from the only option. Other proposals include giant magnets, harpoons, and nets to safely whittle down the growing debris cloud. Many nations are tackling the problem from the other side of the equation, ensuring that any future man-made orbiters sent to soar above Earth's surface have an appropriate end-of-life plan to limit the growing cloud of debris that envelops our home planet.

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Space junk is a huge problem-and it's only getting bigger

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In 2009, nearly 500 miles above Siberia, two satellites collided at some 22,300 mph, bursting into a cloud of thousands of pieces of debris. The culprits of this high-speed accident were the inactive Russian satellite Cosmos 2251 and the active U.S.-based communication satellite Iridium 33.

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The latest stories from our Planet or Plastic? series-a multiyear effort to raise awareness about the global plastic waste crisis.

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The Water Crisis

🎥 Are we heading towards a water crisis? - BBC News - YouTube

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Are we heading towards a water crisis? - BBC News

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https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pride-and-Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice | Summary, Characters, & Facts | Britannica

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