Month: June 2021

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday that the delta variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is spreading rapidly among unvaccinated populations and in nations where COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted.At a briefing from the agency’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Tedros said the delta variant was the most transmissible of the COVID-19 variants identified so far and had been detected in at least 85 countries.He said that while the global number of COVID-19 cases had been declining for eight straight weeks, the rate of decline had slowed. In Africa, the number of cases and deaths increased by almost 40%.Residents leave a vaccination center in Capbreton, southwestern France, June 24, 2021. The delta variant, first identified in India, is estimated to represent 9 to 10% overall in France.As some countries ease public health and social measures, virus transmission has increased around the world, Tedros said.”More cases mean more hospitalizations, further stretching health workers and health systems, which increases the risk of death,” he said.Variants of any widespread virus are to be expected, Tedros said, because it is how viruses evolve. They can be prevented by stopping transmission, he said, which makes it even more urgent for people in areas with low vaccination rates to consistently follow public health measures and take advantage of effective vaccine programs.That is why he has been stressing for the past year the importance of “vaccine equity,” along with protecting health workers and the most vulnerable, he said. The lack of vaccine in the …

Parts of the western United States are seeing record high temperatures in the midst of drought — signaling, experts say, long-term changes in the weather.  With dozens of fires now burning in Western states, President Joe Biden will convene a meeting of Western governors, emergency officials and others to talk about the problem in coming days. …

“Africa is facing a fast-surging third wave of COVID-19 pandemic, with cases spreading more rapidly and projected to soon overtake the peak of the second wave the continent witnessed at the start of 2021,” according to the World Health Organization’s regional office in Africa. WHO said in a statement the pandemic is resurging in 12 African countries. Meanwhile, the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, first identified in India, has been detected in 14 African countries.“The third wave is picking up speed, spreading faster, hitting harder. With rapidly rising case numbers and increasing reports of serious illness, the latest surge threatens to be Africa’s worst yet,” Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa said.The third wave comes as Africa is experiencing a vaccine shortage. WHO says just slightly more than 1% of Africans have been fully vaccinated. While approximately 2.7 billion COVID-19 vaccine shots have been administered globally, WHO says just under 1.5% of those shots have been administered on the African continent.  FILE – Kenyan tour guide, Daniel Ole Kissipan, receives the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine in Nairobi, Kenya, April 27, 2021.The Associated Press reports that its analysis of recent COVID-19 deaths reveals that nearly all the deaths occurred in people who were unvaccinated. The news agency said the results of its assessment are “a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been.” In addition, AP said the deaths per day “could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine.”Workers and residents in several neighborhoods in Sydney, Australia, …

Workers and residents in Sydney were ordered to stay home for a week on Friday, as authorities locked down several central areas of Australia’s largest city to contain an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19.Sixty-five COVID-19 cases have been reported so far in the flare-up linked to a limousine driver infected about two weeks ago when he transported an international flight crew from Sydney airport to a quarantine hotel.But authorities have since identified scores of potential infection sites visited by thousands of people across central Sydney, including the city’s main business district.Authorities have been alarmed by instances of people passing on the virus during fleeting encounters in shops and then quickly infecting close family contacts.Premier Gladys Berejiklian of New South Wales state, which includes Sydney, called it the “scariest period” since the pandemic broke out more than a year ago.On Friday, she ordered anyone who lived or worked in four central Sydney neighborhoods to stay home for at least a week, only venturing out to purchase essential goods, obtain medical care, exercise or if they are unable to work from home.The restrictions included central business district workers over fears that commuters were potentially spreading the virus into other parts of the city, Berejiklian said.”We’ve done better than expected in terms of contact tracing and getting on top of all those links,” she said.”But what this does is make sure that we haven’t missed any chains of community transmission.”An earlier ban on Sydneysiders leaving the city was also …

Fossils from tiny baby dinosaurs discovered in northernmost Alaska offer strong evidence that the prehistoric creatures lived year-round in the Arctic and were likely warm-blooded, according to a study published on Thursday in the journal Current Biology.The fossils are from at least seven types of dinosaurs just hatched or still in their eggs about 70 million years ago. Researchers have never found evidence of dinosaur nests so far north, said lead author Pat Druckenmiller, director of the University of Alaska Museum of the North.The find helps upend past assumptions of dinosaurs as giant cold-blooded reptiles.”If they reproduced, then they over-wintered there. If they overwintered there, they had to deal with conditions that we don’t usually associate with dinosaurs, like freezing conditions and snow,” Druckenmiller said.To survive dark Arctic winters, those dinosaurs could not have basked in the sun to warm their bodies, as lizards do, he said.”At least these groups had endothermy,” he said, using the term for the ability of animals to warm their bodies through internal functions. “They had a degree of warm-bloodedness.”The discovery site is a steep bluff on the Colville River on Alaska’s North Slope, at latitude 70 and about 400 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle. In the Cretaceous period, when North America was positioned differently, it was even farther north, at latitude 80 or 85, Druckenmiller said.The region was much warmer then than Alaska’s North Slope is now but hardly tropical. From remnants of ancient plants, scientists calculate the average annual temperature at about …

The European Space Agency (ESA) reports that the first recruitment drive for astronauts since 2008 netted 22,000 applications, including an increase in female applicants and the first applications from people with disabilities.The agency put out a call for applicants in February, encouraging more women and people with disabilities to apply to boost diversity among crews. The agency launched the “parastronaut” program to examine what is needed to get disabled astronauts onto the International Space Station.The ESA said the preliminary number of applications this year far exceeded the 8,413 applications received in 2008. More than 200 people applied for the newly established vacancy for astronauts with a physical disability, and about 5,400 women — about 24% of all applicants — applied. The share of women was 15.5% in 2008, the ESA said.The space agency said applications would next be screened through a six-stage process, with finalists expected to be announced in October 2022.The Associated Press contributed to this report.   …

The Northern Hemisphere sees its longest day of the year; astronauts make power moves outside the International Space Station. Plus: do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched?  Details in The Week in Space from VOA’s Arash Arabasadi.Produced by: Arash Arabasadi  …

Amnesty International and 27 groups in southern Africa are calling for a faster pace of vaccinations as a new wave of coronavirus infections sweeps through the region. “A number of countries across southern Africa, including Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, are currently in the midst of what could be the deadliest wave yet,” said Robert Shivambu, spokesman for Amnesty International in Southern Africa, speaking via a messaging app from Johannesburg. “The lack of vaccines in the region with high levels of poverty and inequality means many people feel they are just waiting to die.” Zimbabweans line up for COVID-19 jabs, at Harare Central Hospital, June 24, 2021. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)He said regional bloc SADC (Southern African Development Community) and the international community must work together to accelerate the vaccine rollout and ensure that as many people as possible are given jabs. Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization regional director for Africa, appealed to wealthier countries to donate COVID-19 vaccine to the continent, June 24, 2021. (Photo courtesy of WHO)On Thursday, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the head of the World Health Organization in Africa, asked wealthier countries to start donating vaccine doses to the continent. She said richer countries have vaccinated 60 percent of their populations, while most African countries are at about 1 percent.  She said for Africa to reach 30 percent by the end of the year, it needs at least 700 million doses. “African people have been vaccinated with a first dose of a vaccine that needs a second dose in order to …

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday there is a likely association between two COVID-19 vaccines and a rare heart condition in boys and young men. The federal health agency said more than 1,200 people who had received either the PfizerBioNTech or Moderna vaccines developed myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle. The condition was more prominent in men than women, and was detected more after the second dose than the first.   The CDC said the side effects, which include fatigue and chest pain, have been mild and that the vast majority of those diagnosed with myocarditis have fully recovered.  The agency concluded that despite the “likely association” between the two vaccines and myocarditis, the benefits of receiving the vaccine far outweigh the risks.   FILE – Health care workers prepare doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine before administering them to staffers of Japan’s supermarket group Aeon at the company’s shopping mall in Chiba, Japan, June 21, 2021.Both the Pfizer and Moderna two-shot vaccines were developed using messenger RNA, which is a single-stranded RNA molecule that is complementary to one of the DNA strands of a gene, according to the FILE – Health workers treat a COVID-19 patient at the emergency unit of a field hospital set up to treat COVID patients in Ribeirao Pires, greater Sao Paulo area, Brazil, April 13, 2021.A White House official said “scientific teams and legal and regulatory authorities” from both nations collaborated to secure the arrangement. Brazil has posted 507,109 COVID-19 deaths, second only …

An Indonesian court jailed hardline Islamic cleric Rizieq Shihab on Thursday for four years for spreading false information in a video saying he was healthy despite having tested positive for COVID-19.The verdict comes after an eight-month jail term handed last month to Rizieq, the spiritual leader of the outlawed Islamic Defender’s Front (FPI), for breaching coronavirus curbs over several mass events, including his daughter’s wedding, which was attended by thousands.Prosecutors had called for a six-year sentence in the latest case after Rizieq was charged over the video, posted on the YouTube channel of the hospital where he was being treated for the coronavirus.In a streamed broadcast, Judge Khadwanto said Rizieq was guilty of “announcing false information and purposefully causing confusion for the public.”Indonesia passed the 2 million mark in coronavirus cases on Monday, as authorities announced a tightening of restrictions to contain the spread in the world’s fourth most populous country. Deaths from COVID-19 now total 55,594.Hundreds of Rizieq’s supporters had gathered outside the East Jakarta court amid heavy guard by police and video footage showed some scuffles.Shortly after being sentenced, Rizieq told the court he rejected its ruling and would contest it.Rizieq’s supporters and legal team have said the cases are politically motivated efforts to silence the cleric, who has a large and vocal following in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country.He returned last year from self-imposed exile in Saudi Arabia, where he had fled while facing charges of pornography and insulting the state ideology, both later dropped.The FPI had …

The U.S. space agency NASA aspires to land humans on the moon every year for 12 consecutive years, Administrator Bill Nelson testified to a congressional committee Wednesday in support of a request to boost the agency’s fiscal 2022 budget.Nelson acknowledged to the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology that the agency’s budget for fiscal 2021 included $850 million toward the development of a lunar lander as part of an ambitious, roughly $3 billion Human Landing System program.“But there needs to be a landing each year for a dozen years, so there are many more awards to come if you all decide that it’s in the interest of the United States to appropriate that money,” Nelson said.The Biden administration has proposed a 6.6% increase to NASA’s current budget for 2022, amounting to a $24.8 billion request from Congress. The funding would support sending additional rovers to Mars, continuing International Space Station operations, initiating probes to Venus and sending manned flights to the moon by 2024.Former astronautNelson spent 18 years as a U.S. senator before President Joe Biden appointed him as NASA’s 14th administrator.Members of the Science, Space and Technology Committee asked Nelson how NASA would use the new funding to preserve America’s title as the world’s preeminent space agency through programs focused on space exploration, space technology and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).FILE – A worker monitors screens showing the interior of the Tianhe space station module after Chinese astronauts docked with and entered it, at the Beijing Aerospace …

Images of the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol are seared into many Americans’ minds and remain especially vivid for members of Congress who witnessed the riot. One congressman has been especially forthcoming about the mental trauma he has been experiencing months after the riot. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti spoke with the lawmaker and filed this report. Camera: Saqib Ul Islam   Produced by: Adam Greenbaum     …

What do the Pentagon, the FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies know about UFOs? A report due this week is expected to draw few conclusions and raise many questions — especially about U.S. adversaries. Matt Dibble reports.Producer: Matt Dibble. …

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday the COVID-19 State of Emergency, originally declared in March of 2020, will expire Thursday.Cuomo made the announcement during a news briefing, and from his Twitter account, where he wrote, “New York’s COVID-19 State of Emergency will end tomorrow [Thursday]. Fighting COVID and vaccinating New Yorkers are still top priorities, but the emergency chapter of this fight is over.”The governor had lifted most of the COVID-19-related restrictions for the state on June 15. Lifting the state emergency will allow state and local governments to decide about their own respective public health measures, without being over-ruled by the governor. It also will end the governor’s ability to issue executive orders in areas usually reserved for the state legislature.The governor said more than 71% of all state residents over the age of 18 have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and more than 63% are fully vaccinated.Cuomo did say the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 guidelines would remain in effect, including wearing masks on public transportation, including airplanes, at airports, and train and bus stations.  …

Feeling like you are being watched? It could be from a lot farther away than you think.   Astronomers took a technique used to look for life on other planets and flipped it around — so instead of looking to see what’s out there, they tried to see what places could see us.   There’s a lot. Astronomers calculated that 1,715 stars in our galactic neighborhood — and hundreds of probable Earth-like planets circling those stars — have had an unobstructed view of Earth during human civilization, according to a study Wednesday in the journal Nature. “When I look up at the sky, it looks a little bit friendlier because it’s like, maybe somebody is waving,” said study lead author Lisa Kaltenegger, director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University.   Even though some experts, including the late Stephen Hawking, warn against reaching out to aliens because they could harm us, Kaltenegger said it doesn’t matter. If those planets have advanced life, someone out there could conclude that there is life back here based on oxygen in our atmosphere, or by the radio waves from human sources that have swept over 75 of the closest stars on her list.   “Hiding is not really an option,” she said.   One way humans look for potentially habitable planets is by watching them as they cross in front of the star they are orbiting, which dims the stars’ light slightly. Kaltenegger and astrophysicist Jacqueline Faherty of the American Museum of Natural …

Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders says tens of thousands of people in Cameroon’s western regions have been deprived of lifesaving healthcare since December, when authorities stopped their services. Cameroon accused the aid group of being too close to anglophone separatists, which the group denies.  Doctors Without Borders says over 1.4 million people in Cameroon’s restive western regions need humanitarian support, with access to healthcare extremely limited.The coordinator for the group’s operations in Central Africa, Emmanuel Lampaert, said that’s due to insecurity, lockdowns, and the targeting of health facilities.He said mortality among vulnerable groups, such as women and children, has increased, and the government’s suspension of their support since December has made the situation even worse.”Humanitarian and health needs have surges due to the armed violence and notably for the population and several hundreds of thousands of them who have to flee their houses, and who have barriers to access health care.  Concretely speaking, this means suffering from malaria or diarrhea for children in the bush, women in labor who are unable to reach health facilities, people suffering from acute respiratory infections, women victims of sexual violence and so on,” said Lampaert.Cameroon’s government in 2020 accused Doctors Without Borders of being too close to separatists who are fighting to create an independent English-speaking state in the majority French speaking country.Lampaert denied the accusation and said their only goal is to save lives.”Responding to urgent health needs is our mere and only concern.  Viruses, bullets, and infections do not care which side of …

The Delta COVID-19 variant first identified in India has spread quickly around the world and is now hitting Indonesia. Southeast Asia’s largest country now looks at another peak as it hits the 2 million mark in confirmed cases. VOA’s Ghita Permatasari reports. Ahadian Utama  contributed to this reportCamera: Ahadian Utama …

Organizers of the upcoming Tokyo Olympics have imposed restrictions on the few Japanese spectators who will be allowed inside the venues to prevent the spread of COVID-19.  Under rules announced Wednesday, domestic spectators are forbidden from cheering or waving towels, approaching athletes for autographs, or talking with other spectators, and will be asked to go straight home when the event is over. Foreign spectators have been banned from attending the event. A general view of the National Stadium in preparation for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, June 23, 2021 on the day to mark one month until the opening of the Olympic Games.Alcohol sales have also been banned in the venues during the Games.   The restrictions follow Monday’s decision to cap the number of spectators at 10,000 people, or 50% of a venue’s capacity, despite advice from health experts that banning all spectators was the “least risky” option for holding the Games in light of a surge in new COVID-19 infections in the Japanese capital and across the country. The decision to allow spectators dovetails with authorities changing Tokyo and eight other prefectures from a nearly two-month-long state of emergency to “quasi-emergency” measures that took effect Sunday. The looser restrictions would remain in place until July 11, 12 days before the start of the Olympic Games. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has warned he would not rule out banning all spectators from attending the Olympics if the COVID-19 situation worsens. The initial state of emergency was declared in April and extended in late …

India’s technology driven vaccination initiative has raised concerns the country’s huge digital divide is making it difficult for many people to get inoculated, particularly in the nation’s vast countryside. While tech savvy, digitally aware city dwellers have managed to get shots, millions in rural areas are left behind because of a technology barrier. Anjana Pasricha has a report. Camera: Rakesh Kumar     …

Colombia is home to the world’s largest variety of butterflies, approximately 20% of all known species, according to a study published Tuesday by the Natural History Museum in London.An international team of scientists cataloged 3,642 species and 2,085 subspecies, registering them in a document titled “Checklist of Colombian Butterflies.”More than 200 butterfly species are found only in Colombia, said Blanca Huertas, the senior butterfly collection curator at the museum and a member of the research team.An Alissa de Pteronymia “Crystal wings” butterfly lands on a flower at the Botanic Garden Jose Celestino Mutis during an exhibition in Bogota on Sept. 14, 2011.Project researchers traveled widely in Colombia, analyzed more than 350,000 photographs and studied information collected since the late 18th century, the museum said.”Colombia is a country with a great diversity of natural habitats, a complex and heterogeneous geography and a privileged location in the extreme northeast of South America,” the report reads in part.”These factors, added to the delicate public order in the last century in certain regions, has limited until now, the advancement of field exploration.”Colombia has endured more than a half century of armed conflict, with some areas controlled by leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary groups or drug lords, and with little government presence.Protecting butterflies in Colombia will also help protect its forests as well as other less likeable species, Huertas said.Between 2000 and 2019 Colombia lost nearly 2.8 million hectares of forest, equivalent to the area of Belgium, according to the National Department of Planning.A Siproeta Ephaphus …