Fighting hunger around the globe is uniquely challenging. It’s not just getting the food to those who need it. It includes growing, or in the case of protein, raising the food that will feed the hungry. But a group of California researchers may have an answer to the protein problem. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …
Canada Threatens to Cancel Boeing Order Over Trade Complaint
Canada’s defense minister repeated a threat Wednesday to cancel the purchase of 18 fighter jets from Boeing Co. because of the company’s trade complaint against Canadian plane maker Bombardier. Harjit Sajjan said Boeing’s action against Bombardier is “unfounded” and not the behavior of a “trusted partner.” He said buying the Super Hornet fighter jets “requires a trusted industry partner.” Sajjan urged Boeing to withdraw the complaint. Canada’s foreign minister has also threatened to block the order. “Our government — and I stress this — our government is disappointed in the action of one of our leading industry partners,” he said. Complaint could mean duties Chicago-based Boeing’s trade complaint prompted a U.S. Commerce Department anti-dumping investigation that could result in duties being imposed on Bombardier’s new larger C Series passenger aircraft. Boeing insists the plane receives Canadian government subsidies that give it an advantage internationally. Canada’s threat is coming amid increasing trade disputes with the U.S. Scott Day, a spokesman for Boeing, noted that Sajjan also recognized Boeing as a strong partner in the past and for the future. Day defended the company’s trade action. “This is a commercial matter that Boeing is seeking to address through the normal course for resolving such issues,” Day said in an email. Boeing petitioned the U.S. Commerce Department and the U.S. International Trade Commission to investigate subsidies of Montreal-based Bombardier’s C Series aircraft. Boeing says Bombardier has received more than US $3 billion in government subsidies that …
Attacked for Body Parts, Tanzanian Albino Children Get New Limbs in US
Emmanuel Rutema couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he tested out his new prosthetic arm and promptly knocked himself on the nose. “Be careful with your face!” the hospital prosthetist told the boy whose grin just grew wider. Rutema is one of four Tanzanian children with albinism visiting the United States to get prosthetic limbs to replace those hacked off in brutal superstition-driven attacks in their East African homeland. At Shriners Hospital for Children in Philadelphia on Tuesday, three of them got the new limbs that will help them do everyday tasks most people take for granted. Rutema, the oldest at 15, speaks with difficulty. His attackers chopped off one arm and the fingers of the other hand and tried to pull out his tongue and teeth. Also getting prosthetics were Baraka Lusambo, 7, and Mwigulu Magesa, 14, each of whom lost parts of their arms in attacks. People with albinism live in danger in Tanzania, where their body parts are used in witchcraft and can fetch a high price. Superstition leads many to believe they are ghosts and bad luck. Albinism is a congenital disorder affecting about one in 20,000 people worldwide who lack pigment in their skin, hair and eyes, but it is more common in sub-Saharan Africa and affects about one Tanzanian in 1,400. The Tanzanian children are getting treatment in the United States with support from the Global Medical Relief Fund (GMRF), a New York-based charity that hosts children from around the world who …
Investors Push Exxon on Climate Change, Diverge With Trump
Major investors put U.S. industry on notice Wednesday that climate change matters, even as reports emerged that President Donald Trump plans to withdraw the United States from an international pact to fight global warming. A number of large institutional fund firms including BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, supported a shareholder resolution calling on ExxonMobil to share more information about how new technologies and climate change regulations could impact the business of the world’s largest publicly traded oil company. The proposal won the support of 62.3 percent of votes cast. The victory, on such a wide margin, was hailed by climate activists as a turning point in their decades-long campaign to get oil and gas companies to communicate how they would adapt to a low-carbon economy. Major investors see major risk With major investors now seeing climate change as a major risk, activists said U.S. corporations will have to be more transparent about the impact of a warming planet even if the United States withdraws from the 2015 Paris climate accord, as Trump promised during his presidential campaign. “Economic forces are outrunning any other considerations,” said Anne Simpson, investment director for sustainability at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, one of the sponsors of the resolution. She credited big investors in Exxon for the change, since at least some of them switched their votes after last year when a similar measure won just 38 percent support. “We have seen a sea change in their viewpoint,” she said. Many top investors …
Cargo Ship Soon Headed to Space Station Is Being Recycled
SpaceX is taking recycling to a whole new realm — all the way to orbit. On this week’s supply run to the International Space Station, SpaceX will launch a Dragon capsule that’s already traveled there. The milestone comes just two months after the launch of its first reused rocket booster for a satellite. “This whole notion of reuse is something that’s very, very important to the entire space industry,” NASA’s space station program manager Kirk Shireman said at a news conference Wednesday. While the concept is not new — the space shuttles, for instance, flew multiple times in orbit — it’s important for saving money as well as technical reasons, he noted. New shield, parachutes This particular Dragon flew to the station in 2014. SpaceX refurbished it for Thursday evening’s planned launch, providing a new heat shield and fresh parachutes for re-entry at mission’s end. There were so many X-rays and inspections that savings, if any, were minimal this time, said Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of flight reliability for SpaceX. For this trip, the Dragon is packed with 6,000 pounds of station cargo, including mice and flies for medical research. While the Falcon booster to be used this time is new, SpaceX will attempt to land it at Cape Canaveral following liftoff so it, too, can be reused. So far, first-stage boosters have flown back and landed vertically four times on the designated X at the Air Force station; even more touchdowns have occurred on ocean platforms, all part of …
Journal Letter Written in 1980 Helped Fuel Opioid Epidemic
Nearly 40 years ago, a respected doctor wrote a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine with some very good news: Out of nearly 40,000 patients given powerful pain drugs in a Boston hospital, only four addictions were documented. Doctors had been wary of opioids, fearing patients would get hooked. Reassured by the letter, which called addiction “rare” in those with no history of it, they pulled out their prescription pads and spread the good news in their own published reports. And that is how a one-paragraph letter with no supporting information helped seed a nationwide epidemic of misuse of drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin by convincing doctors that opioids were safer than we now know them to be. On Wednesday, the journal published an editor’s note about the 1980 letter and an analysis from Canadian researchers of how often it has been cited — more than 600 times, often inaccurately. Most used it as evidence that addiction was rare, and most did not say it concerned only hospitalized patients, not outpatient or chronic pain situations such as bad backs and severe arthritis that opioids came to be used for. ‘Key bit of literature’ “This pain population with no abuse history is literally at no risk for addiction,” one citation said. “There have been studies suggesting that addiction rarely evolves in the setting of painful conditions,” said another. “It’s difficult to overstate the role of this letter,” said Dr. David Juurlink of the University of Toronto, who led the …
Activist Seeks Trumps’ Help in Freeing Labor Investigators in China
The head of a New York-based advocacy group has called on President Donald Trump and his older daughter to help secure the release of three men who reported labor violations at a Chinese company that makes shoes bearing the Ivanka Trump brand. “We appeal to President Trump, Ivanka Trump herself, and to her related brand company to advocate and press for the release of our activists,” Li Qiang, executive director of China Labor Watch, the men’s employer, said Wednesday. The Ivanka Trump brand has declined to comment. The White House and Ivanka Trump’s lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Calls to provincial police in China were not answered. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she was unaware of the situation and declined to make further comments. Hua Haifeng and two other labor activists, Li Zhao and Su Heng, had been covertly investigating labor conditions at two Chinese factories that make shoes for Trump and other brands, in the cities of Ganzhou and Dongguan. They disclosed preliminary findings to China Labor Watch, indicating workers at the factories had been subject to extremely long hours. Hua was arrested in Jiangxi province on suspicion of illegally using eavesdropping equipment; he and the other two men disappeared Saturday and were last seen in Ganzhou, in southern Jiangxi province, China Labor Watch reported Tuesday. The arrest and disappearances came amid Chinese President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on the country’s advocacy groups and civil society. In the past year, dozens of human rights …