Uniquely Nelson

The US leader of the Nxivm cult has been sentenced to 120 years in prison for an array of crimes, many involving the exploitation of women and children. Former members of Nxivm, Linda Chung (2R), Nicki Clyne (L) and Michelle Hatchette (C) speak outside the court after Keith Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison. Photo: AFP Nxivm founder Keith Raniere was last year convicted of racketeering, sex trafficking, child pornography possession and other crimes. The punishment was handed down on Tuesday by a District Judge in Brooklyn after a sentence hearing where former members of the cult spoke out against him. As leader of the group, Raniere recruited women as slaves and forced them to have sex with him. Prosecutors said the 60-year-old should spend his life behind bars for the "immeasurable damages" he caused to victims of the cult. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis also fined Raniere US$1.75m (NZ$2.6m). Raniere himself never took the stand during the case last year. He was the only member of Nxivm's leadership to face trial as others took plea deals. Keith Raniere. Photo: Keith Raniere Conversations / Youtube His lawyers have maintained his innocence throughout, and have blamed a "media campaign involving witnesses who were motivated to testify falsely" for his conviction. US authorities began investigating Nxivm - pronounced nexium - after the publication of a New York Times investigation in 2017. Based in Albany, New York, and created in 1998, the group described itself as a "community guided by humanitarian principles that seek to empower people". According to its tagline, the organisation is "working to build a better world". It says it has worked with more than 16,000 individuals and operates centres across the US, Canada, Mexico and Central America. But in reality Raniere sat at the top and controlled female members through a slave and master system. Some women were branded in their pelvic areas with Raniere's initials in filmed ceremonies, while members would gather each year to celebrate and pay for his birthday - an event known as "Vanguard Week". One former member testified that she was "groomed" for weeks before she turned 18 so Raniere could take her virginity. Known as Daniela, she told the court that she and her sisters were impregnated by him and forced to have abortions, and that she and one of her sisters - who was underage - were forced to have sex with him a number of times. The cult membership reportedly included Hollywood actresses, heiresses and even the son of a former Mexican president - some of whom testified against Raniere in court. In 2018 FBI agents arrested Raniere in Mexico after he left the US following the New York Times report. - BBC

Europe's daily Covid-19 deaths rose by nearly 40 percent compared with the previous week, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has told the BBC. People wear masks in the city centre of Moscow, Russia. Photo: AFP / Tom Grimbert / Hans Lucas WHO spokeswoman Dr Margaret Harris said France, Spain, the UK, the Netherlands and Russia accounted for the majority of cases which increased by a third. "The concern ... is that intensive care units in hospitals are now beginning to fill with very ill people," she warned. Russia reported a daily record of 320 deaths, pushing the tally to 26,589. There has been a sharp increase in Italy too, with 221 fatalities announced in the past 24 hours. The total number of fatalities in Austria went above 1000 on Tuesday. Russia has the world's fourth highest number of Covid-19 cases after the US, India and Brazil. It recorded another 16,550 infections on Tuesday alone and authorities have now made the wearing of face masks compulsory in all crowded places. While infections surged in Italy too, to almost 22,000 in the past 24 hours, officials said testing had also been ramped up. Protests took place in towns and cities across Italy on Monday evening against a new round of restrictions. What did the WHO say? Speaking to the BBC's World at One programme on Tuesday, Dr Harris said: "Across the European region we're seeing an intense and indeed alarming increase in cases and deaths. She said daily cases rose by a third compared with the previous week, while daily deaths increased by "close to 40 percent". "Despite better management of hospital capacity, hospitals in several countries are filling up fast," she warned. Dr Harris said the effectiveness of new restrictions imposed in a number European nations could only be analysed in two weeks' time because of "the lag". "We will see the reduction in cases, but you don't see it overnight," the WHO spokeswoman said. And asked whether the second wave would be worse than the first one, she replied: "We're going to see a different sort of peak. "The good news is our hospitals are much better at understanding what's going on here, but the reverse of that is in gaining that experience they've been working incredibly hard for a very long time and they also know that what they are going to face is going to be grim. "The other good thing in a sense is that the very large numbers we're seeing are in groups that ideally won't progress to the more severe illness - that's the younger groups. But that's not a guarantee. "Those two factors suggest that we may not see the terrible rise in deaths that we saw in April," Dr Harris said. What are the new rules in Russia? From Wednesday, face masks will be mandatory in all potentially crowded areas including public transport, taxis, car parks and lifts, public health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said. Regional authorities will have responsibility for implementing the new rules. Russia brought in similar measures at the beginning of the initial outbreak in the spring but lifted them in July as the number of cases eased. In addition, Rospotrebnadzor head Anna Popova recommended an overnight curfew for bars, restaurants and other public venues. Other recommendations include increased efforts to disinfect public transport, taxis and public spaces. In total, Russia has recorded more than 1.5 million infections and 26,589 deaths, according to national figures. What's happening elsewhere in Europe? In Italy, a protest against new restrictions in the northern city of Turin ended in police firing tear gas at demonstrators on Monday evening. Clashes were also reported in Milan. People have reacted angrily to the closures of restaurants, bars, gyms and cinemas from 18:00 since last Friday. Researchers at the UK's Imperial College London say immunity against coronavirus may only last a few months after infection. They say the number of people testing positive for antibodies fell by about a quarter between June and September, with the biggest drop in those over 65. Belgium has seen an 88 percent rise in hospital admissions, with officials warning that half of intensive care beds are already filled. Ten hospitals have asked medics who have tested positive - but shown no symptoms - to continue working. In France, the government's health defence council will discuss introducing stricter measures. Extending curfews already in place in Paris and other cities is reportedly among the options. Interior minister Gerald Darmanin warned people to prepare for "difficult decisions". Slovakia is to begin testing its entire population from this weekend to try to avoid harsher anti-coronavirus measures. Prime Minister Igor Matovic hopes to identify tens of thousands of infected people who, together with their families, would then spend the next 10 days in quarantine. "We had only two options, either general testing or complete lockdown," he said. The Czech Republic has introduced a night-time curfew, which came into effect on Tuesday at midnight for a week. No-one is allowed to leave their home between 21:00 and 04:59 except to travel to and from work, for medical reasons or a few other exceptions. All shops will be shut on Sundays and will close at 20:00 on other days. - BBC

Levels of protective antibodies in people wane "quite rapidly" after coronavirus infection, say researchers. Illustration of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes Covid-19. Photo: AFP Antibodies are a key part of our immune defences and stop the virus from getting inside the body's cells. The Imperial College London team found the number of people testing positive for antibodies has fallen by 26 percent between June and September. They say immunity appears to be fading and there is a risk of catching the virus multiple times. The news comes as figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the number of Covid-19 deaths in the UK rose by 60 percent in the week of 16 October. The ONS figures suggest there have now been more than 60,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK. More than 350,000 people in England have taken an antibody test as part of the REACT-2 study so far. In the first round of testing, at the end of June and the beginning of July, about 60 in 1,000 people had detectable antibodies. But in the latest set of tests, in September, only 44 per 1000 people were positive. It suggests the number of people with antibodies fell by more than a quarter between summer and autumn. "Immunity is waning quite rapidly, we're only three months after our first [round of tests] and we're already showing a 26 percent decline in antibodies," said Professor Helen Ward, one of the researchers. The fall was greater in those over 65, compared with younger age groups, and in those without symptoms compared with those with full-blown Covid-19. The number of healthcare workers with antibodies remained relatively high, which the researchers suggest may be due to regular exposure to the virus. Antibodies stick to the surface of the coronavirus to stop it invading our body's cells and attacking the rest of the immune system. Exactly what the antibody drop means for immunity is still uncertain. There are other parts of the immune system, such as T-cells, which may also play a role, directly killing infected host cells and calling to other immune cells to help out. However, the researchers warn antibodies tend to be highly predictive of who is protected. Professor Wendy Barclay said: "We can see the antibodies and we can see them declining and we know antibodies on their own are quite protective. "On the balance of evidence, I would say it would look as if immunity declines away at the same rate as antibodies decline away, and that this is an indication of waning immunity." There are four other human coronaviruses, which we catch multiple times in our lives. They cause common cold symptoms and we can be reinfected every six to 12 months. Many people have mild or asymptomatic coronavirus infections. Two out of every three people who tested positive for coronavirus in a study published today by the Office for National Statistics experienced none of the main symptoms of coronavirus. Separate figures from the ONS today showed that Covid-19 deaths in the UK increased from just under 500 to just over 750 in the week to 16 October, pushing the total number of deaths 6 percent over the level expected for this time of year. The ONS figures suggest that more than 60,000 deaths in the UK have involved coronavirus so far this year. By 16 October, more than 59,000 of these deaths had happened and, since then, a further 1200 people have died within 28 days of a positive test for coronavirus. Ninety percent of these deaths happened before the end of June. There have been very few confirmed cases of people getting Covid twice. However, the researchers warn this may be due to immunity only just starting to fade since the peak infection rates of March and April. The hope is the second infection will be milder than the first, even if immunity does decline, as the body should have an "immune memory" of the first encounter and know how to fight back. The researchers say their findings do not scupper hopes of a vaccine, which may prove more effective than a real infection. One of the researchers, Professor Graham Cooke, said: "The big picture is after the first wave, the great majority of the country didn't have evidence of protective immunity. "The need for a vaccine is still very large, the data doesn't change that." Professor Paul Elliott, director of the REACT-2 study, said it would be wrong to draw firm conclusions from the study about the impact of a vaccine. He said: "The vaccine response may behave differently to the response to natural infection." But he said it was possible that some people might need follow-up booster doses of any vaccine that became available to top up fading immunity over time. -BBC

Wind-driven walls of flame have prompted mass evacuations of homes in Southern California and badly injured two firefighters, as hundreds of thousands of residents endured a second day of power shutoffs meant to counter heightened fire risks from gusty, dry weather. Firefighters position in a residential area and monitor flames climbing a ridge toward homes at the Blue Ridge Fire in Yorba Linda, California. Photo: AFP The latest threats came amid what meteorologists called the strongest onslaught of extreme winds - and lowest humidity levels - yet documented during a California wildfire season already ranked as the worst on record in terms of acreage burned. Fires have scorched more than 16,500 square kilometres - equivalent to the land mass of the state of Hawaii - since the start of the year, with thousands of homes destroyed and 31 lives lost. Red flag warnings for incendiary weather conditions remained posted across much of California due to extreme winds producing gusts in excess of 129km/h, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Illustrating the hazards posed by California's latest bout of dry, desert-born winds, a blaze dubbed the Silverado fire erupted early Monday (Tuesday NZT) and spread across 2913 hectares of Orange County by late afternoon, county fire authority spokesman Thanh Nguyen told Reuters. Some 90,800 residents were ordered evacuated from homes in and around the city of Irvine as the fire raged largely unchecked through drought-parched brush in the canyons and foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains south of Los Angeles, officials said. No property losses were immediately reporte, but two firefighters among an estimated 500 personnel battling the flames with bulldozers and hand tools were hospitalized with severe burns, authorities said. A second Orange County blaze, the Blueridge fire, later broke near Yorba Linda and has charred roughly 485 hectares, Nguyen said. Local television news footage showed at least one home gutted by flames. Precautionary outages Utility company Southern California Edison reported shutting off electricity to 21,000 homes and businesses in the region as a precautionary measure in the face of elevated fire risks posed by dangerously high winds. Hundreds of miles away, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) said it had cut off power to more than 350,000 of its customers for the same reason. Wind-damaged electrical lines have been implicated in causing dozens of devastating California wildfires in recent years, and utilities have increasingly resorted to such "public safety power shutoffs" to reduce the risk. Wind gusts were clocked at up to 143km/h in Sonoma County wine country north of San Francisco Bay, and were steadily blowing at more than 80km/h elsewhere through the region. "It's the strongest wind event, and the lowest humidity event, for this fire season," National Weather Service forecaster Jim Mathews told Reuters. By midday Monday, PG&E said it was beginning to restore electrical service to some customers "where it is safe to do so," with most of the shutoffs expected to be ended by Tuesday night (Wednesday NZT) as winds abated, the utility said in a statement. The latest outbreak of fires capped a summer of record California wildfire activity stoked by increasingly frequent and prolonged bouts of extreme heat, drought, wind and dry lightning storms that scientists point to as a consequence of climate change. Further east in drought-stricken Colorado, an Arctic storm sweeping the Rockies over the weekend dumped 15-40cm of snow on the two largest wildfires in that state's history. "The snow has improved our chances of getting them contained, but we're still a way off," said Larry Helmerick, spokesman for the Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center. The two blazes combined have so far blackened well over a quarter-million acres. - Reuters

Six more people have died in French Polynesia's Covid-19 outbreak as about 300 infections a day are being recorded. Photo: AFP The death toll is now 26 and the number of cases has reached 6483. Seventy-eight people with Covid-19 symptoms are in hospital, including 19 in intensive care. According to health authorities, 2315 cases are active. All but 62 cases were detected after the borders were reopened in July and mandatory quarantine requirements were abolished to boost tourism. A seven-hour curfew was reintroduced at the weekend on order from Paris. It applies to only Tahiti and Moorea although the virus has spread across the whole archipelago. Public cultural and sporting events have been called off.

The US Senate has voted 52-48 to confirm candidate Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, a major win for US President Donald Trump and the Republicans. Judge Amy Coney Barrett Photo: AFP / Getty Trump's fellow Republicans voted to approve the judge, overcoming the unified opposition of Democrats. Barrett, 48, is expected to take the oath of office at the White House on Monday night. Her appointment seals for the foreseeable future a 6-3 conservative majority on the top US judicial body. Only one Republican - Senator Susan Collins, who faces a tough re-election battle in Maine - voted against the president's nominee in Monday evening's vote. Judge Barrett is the third justice appointed by the Republican president, after Neil Gorsuch in 2017 and Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. The federal appeals court judge from Indiana fills the vacancy left by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon who died last month. Democrats had argued for weeks that it should be up to the winner of the 3 November election to pick the nominee. The vote tilts the court further to the right in a victory for conservatives, reshaping the Court's ideological balance for years. Barrett fills the seat left vacant after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. - BBC

Having dropped tantalising hints days ago about an "exciting new discovery about the Moon", Nasa has revealed conclusive evidence of water on our only natural satellite. This illustration highlights the Moon's Clavius Crater with an illustration depicting water trapped in the lunar soil there. Photo: NASA This "unambiguous detection of molecular water" will boost Nasa's hopes of establishing a lunar base. The aim is to sustain that base by tapping into the Moon's natural resources. The findings have been published as two papers in the journal Nature Astronomy. While there have previously been signs of water on the lunar surface, these new discoveries suggest it is more abundant than previously thought. "It gives us more options for potential water sources on the Moon," said Hannah Sargeant, a planetary scientist from the Open University in Milton Keynes, told BBC News. Where to put a Moon base is largely focused on where the water is." The US space agency has said it will send the first woman and next man to the lunar surface in 2024 to prepare for the "next giant leap" - human exploration of Mars as early as the 2030s. However, space scientist Dr Duncan Steel, who has worked for both NASA and the European Space Agency, said the discovery doesn't mean there is life on the moon. "For sometime we've suspected there is water on the moon in the form of ice, there will never be liquid water on the Moon, it would either be frozen or in a vapor form. "In the vacuum of space water would go from the solid, so ice into vapor if it was heated at all, it wouldn't look like liquid water as we know here on Earth," he said. The water is like a frost in craters near the Moon's poles which are always shaded from sunlight, he said. "This is a big deal because if we know there is water on the Moon we can use it when we set up a scientific outpost on the moon, it can be used for astronauts to drink, to shower and we can even split it to get the oxygen out for people to use it to breathe. "We can even get the hydrogen out which can be used as rocket fuel - it sounds like science fiction but we are getting close to being able to have scientists stationed on the Moon," Steel said. There are estimates that there could be as much as a litre of water per cubic metre of soil on the Moon's surface. NASA plane SOFIA Photo: AFP "That's a substantial amount and is a lot more than what's been suspected to be there in the past, so this is a very interesting discovery." "It will be a great day when we can get on the Moon and dig deeper into the surface to see what is below, certainly the target of future missions is to go closer to the poles in order to look at this craters in greater detail," he said. Professor of Physics at Auckland University Richard Easther said scientists could make the discovery by looking at infra red light which is reflected off the Moon's surface. Prof Easther said with so much water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere, the only way to read the Moon's surface is to do tests in space or from an aircraft which is flying at a sufficient altitude so that it doesn't pick up what's in the Earth's atmosphere. "This discovery tells us a lot about he mineralogy of the Moon, but it also brings up a lot of questions which need to be answered like how it got there, how long its been there and so on." Easther said the discovery and announcement has had many in the science world rolling their eyes, because it's not the first time water has been discovered on the Moon. "It is big news, it's not necessarily a big breakthrough like what it's been touted as, there's been a lot of talk on social media about NASA's announcement. "It's been a little hyped up, how many times can we claim that we've found water on the Moon this is at least the second if not third time its been discovered." -BBC / RNZ

Unemployed tourism workers in the Pacific have enjoyed a reconnection with their culture during the pandemic shutdown and are hoping this continues when life returns to normal. Thousands of workers across the Pacific have lost their jobs amid the global shutdown and turned to traditional farming and fishing practices. Dr Api Movono Photo: Massey University Research by Massey University showed their experiences had shown an upside to a very difficult year. Senior lecturer in development studies, Dr Api Movono, said Pacific Islanders had a long history of being innovative and resourceful and having this embedded in their way of life had provided the safety net to "allow them to sustain their families, relearn the skills of food production, gardening, farming, fishing. "We have actually noticed that people have gained in terms of their well-being, with participants in our studies and those who were interviewed really coming out and saying , 'this is what we miss. This is what we want more of.'" Movono said people were asked if they re-imagined their working life after Covid-19 ends. "People are saying, yes, we will have to return to our jobs, because we need the money to pay for our bills, school fees etcetera, but at the same time they are reflecting on how this should be done, with one particular group of respondents saying that tourism must complement their way of life and not overtake everything else."

A lockdown of Australia's second-biggest city will be eased after the country's coronavirus epicentre went 24 hours without any new infections for the first time in four months, Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews said. Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews. Photo: AFP Melbourne - home to 5 million people - has been in lockdown since early July after a spike of novel coronavirus infections that began in hotels where people were in quarantine after arriving from abroad. But with infections now under control, Andrews said most restrictions would be eased in two phases from Tuesday, which should give Australia's ailing economy a boost. "Now is the time to open up," Andrews told reporters in Melbourne. "We've have been able to bring this under control, a day of zero cases is an amazing achievement." Andrews said people would be free to leave their homes from Tuesday while restaurants, cafes, shops, bars and hotels would be allowed to reopen. Capacities at those businesses, however, will be capped at 40 indoors and 70 outside. The size of religious services would also be expanded, Andrews said. Andrews said people would be allowed to travel from Melbourne to the state's rural areas from 9 November, when a curb limiting people to no more than 25 km from their homes will be dropped. The easing of restrictions will boost hopes of a quick economic rebound from Australia's first recession in three decades, triggered after large swathes the economy were shut to slow the spread of the virus. The economy shrank 7 percent in the three months to the end of June, the biggest quarterly contraction since records began in 1959. Unemployment hit a 22-year high of 7.5 percent in July as businesses and borders closed. Most restrictions in other parts of Australia have been eased with just a handful of locally acquired infections being found on most days. Australia has recorded just over 27,500 novel coronavirus infections, far fewer than many other developed countries. Victoria, which accounts for more than 90 percent of the 905 deaths nationally, did not record any new deaths from the virus in the past 24 hours. -Reuters

Chileans poured into the country's main squares on Sunday night after voters gave a ringing endorsement to a plan to tear up the country's Pinochet-era constitution in favour of a new charter drafted by citizens. Demonstrators supporting the reform of the Chilean constitution celebrate the referendum official results at Plaza Italia square in Santiago. Photo: AFP In Santiago's Plaza Italia, the focus of the massive and often violent social protests last year which sparked the demand for a new magna carta, fireworks rose above a crowd of tens of thousands of jubilant people singing in unison as the word "rebirth" was beamed onto a tower above. With more than three quarters of the votes counted, 78.12 percent of voters had opted for a new charter. Many have expressed hopes that a new text will temper an unabashedly capitalist ethos with guarantees of more equal rights to healthcare, pensions and education. "This triumph belongs to the people, it's thanks to everyone's efforts that we are at this moment of celebration," Daniel, 37, told Reuters in Santiago's Plaza Nunoa. "What makes me happiest is the participation of the youth, young people wanting to make changes." Chile's President Sebastian Pinera said if the country had been divided by the protests and debate over whether to approve or reject plans for a new charter, from now on they should unite behind a new text that provided "a home for everyone." The centre-right leader, whose popularity ratings plummeted to record lows during the unrest and have remained in the doldrums, spoke to those who wanted to keep the present constitution credited with making Chile one of Latin America's economic success stories. Any new draft must incorporate "the legacy of past generations, the will of present generations and the hopes of generations to come," he said. He gave a nod to fears that the high expectations placed in a new charter cannot be met, saying: "This referendum is not the end, it is the start of a road we must walk towards a new constitution." Chile's President Sebastian Pinera speaks at La Moneda presidential palace following the results of the constitutional referendum voting. Photo: AFP As votes were counted on live television around the country, spontaneous parties broke out on street corners and in squares around the country. Drivers honked car horns, some as revellers danced on their roofs, and others banged pots and pans. The flag of the country's indigenous Mapuche people, who will seek greater recognition in the new charter, was ubiquitous. Four fifths of voters said they wanted the new charter to be drafted by a specially-elected body of citizens - made up of half women and half men - over a mixed convention of lawmakers and citizens, highlighting general mistrust in Chile's political class. Members of a 155-seat constitutional convention will be voted in by April 2021 and have up to a year to agree a draft text, with proposals approved by a two-thirds majority. Among issues likely to be at the fore are recognition of Chile's Mapuche indigenous population, powers of collective bargaining, water and land rights and privatised systems providing healthcare, education and pensions. Chileans will then vote again on whether they accept the text or want to revert to the previous constitution. The National Mining Society (Sonami), which groups the companies in the sector into the world's largest copper producer, said it hoped for "broad agreement on the principles and norms" that determine the sector's coexistence with Chilean citizens and that the regulatory certainty that have allowed the sector to flourish would continue. -Reuters