Year: 2021

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Friday the country will end its strict COVID-19 lockdown once 90% of its citizens are fully vaccinated.  The nation of 5 million people has been among the best in the world at containing the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, largely because New Zealand closed its borders for most of the last 18 months to non-residents.  The strategy to eliminate COVID-19 worked for the most part, with the nation reporting only 28 deaths over the course of the pandemic. Earlier this year, much of the country had all but returned to normal.  But in August, the Delta variant of the virus prompted an outbreak in the nation’s largest city, Auckland. The city of 2 million has been locked down for much of the past nine weeks.  At a news conference in the capital, Wellington, Ardern said, while the nation should be proud of all it achieved during the early months of the pandemic, the delta variant has made it very hard to maintain its elimination strategy. She said rather than remain locked down, the way to move forward is through vaccinations.  Ardern said, based on consultations with experts and examination of data, officials established the 90% vaccination criteria for each of the nation’s 20 district health regions. She said, once that target is reached in a given district, people will be free to do what they want, as long as they provide proof of vaccination.  The prime minister said, “Basically, if you want to be guaranteed that no matter the setting that we are in that you can go to bars, restaurants and close-proximity businesses like a hairdresser, you’ll need to be vaccinated.”  The New Zealand Health Ministry says 58 percent of the total population has been fully vaccinated as of Friday.    Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.  …

Uganda has kickstarted a trial for the injectable HIV drugs cabotegravir and rilpivirine. Researchers and those living with HIV say the trial will likely end pill fatigue, fight stigma, improve adherence and ensure patients get the right dosage. The two drugs have been in use as tablets. The World Health Organization last year licensed their use as injectables. While the two injectables already went through trials in Europe and North America, this will be the first time they are tested in an African population for efficacy and safety in an African health care system. Uganda is one of three African countries, along with Kenya and South Africa, which got approval from the WHO to carry out the trials. However, Kenya and South Africa have yet to acquire approvals to start their trials, expected by the end of the year. Uganda and Kenya will both have three trial sites and there will be two in South Africa, with a total of 512 participants — 202 from Uganda, 160 from Kenya and 150 from South Africa. Dr. Ivan Mambule, the lead project researcher at the Joint Clinical Research Center, says participants will need one injection every two months. “We are going to choose participants who are already on ART [anti-retroviral treatment] and are stable on ART. And we will randomize them to either continue on their normal treatment, which is the pill that they’ve been taking, or to switch them to this injectable. The injection is on the buttock,” he expressed. Uganda has 1.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS. Barbara Kemigisa who is living with HIV and founded the Pill Power Foundation working with rural women, says the injectable drugs will increase adherence to treatment and ensure people get the right dosage. …

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thursday recommended booster shots for millions who received the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccines, and said the booster does not necessarily have to match the original shot. Rochelle Walensky, the head of the government agency, OK’d the recommendations by an advisory panel Thursday, putting the CDC on the same page as the Food and Drug Administration. The booster shot for Pfizer vaccine was approved in September. The CDC committee has recommended that people age 18 and older and who were vaccinated two months or more ago with the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine are eligible for a booster shot. Those 65 or older inoculated with two-dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccines are recommended for a booster six months or more after the second dose. The CDC also recommended a booster for those 18 or older in long-term care facilities, have pre-existing medical conditions, as well as those who live or work in high-risk settings. The United States on Thursday marked the successful distribution of 200 million COVID-19 vaccines to more than 100 countries, a move the White House said fulfills President Joe Biden’s promise to become “the world’s arsenal of vaccines.” “Today, Americans have 200 million reasons to be proud,” read a statement from U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power. “USAID is honored to be at the forefront of this global vaccination effort unprecedented in scale, speed, and complexity, to counter the worst pandemic in modern history,” Power said. …

New Zealand scientists have found that microplastics have a direct impact on global warming. They published the first study linking airborne plastic fragments and fibers to climate change Wednesday. They also found that microplastics, which have been widely detected on land and in rivers and oceans, are detrimental to health. This is the first study to investigate the effects of airborne microplastics on climate. The plastic fragments and fibers are carried by the wind. Microplastics are created by the breakdown of carpets, clothing and paint, as well as tires and larger plastics that degrade over time. Researchers in New Zealand have found that for now, their influence on climate change is small. But if the global average concentration of microplastics increases to levels already seen in some cities, the impact “will be significant,” they say.  Laura Revell, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, said the airborne particles do affect the environment. “They are good at scattering solar radiation, or sunlight, back to space, which causes a minor cooling influence on Earth’s climate, and they also are quite good at absorbing the infrared radiation that is emitted by the Earth, which means they also contribute to the greenhouse effect,” she said. “But overall, it is that interaction with sunlight that plays out. So, overall, they have a very, very small cooling influence on Earth’s climate.” Revell said laboratory studies have shown that microplastics can damage lung tissue. Aquatic organisms such as zooplankton can also mistake the …

After a day of high-level talks in Colombia, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Thursday a regional partnership to address deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. “We’ll give much-needed financial assistance to help manage protected areas and Indigenous territories, and we’ll help scale up low-carbon agricultural practices to farmers throughout the Amazon,” he said in the capital, Bogota, after touring its botanical gardens. “This new regional partnership will help prevent up to 19 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere while capturing another 52,000 metric tons of carbon, and we estimate it will save — save — more than 45,000 hectares of forest,” Blinken added. The Amazon spans eight countries in South America, including Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. The Amazon and other rainforests are crucial because they take in carbon dioxide and produce about one-fifth of the world’s oxygen. About a third of Colombia is in the Amazon. Colombian President Ivan Duque has ambitious climate goals, including zero deforestation by 2030. Blinken observed in his remarks that Duque won an International Conservation Award this year from the International Conservation Caucus Foundation. UN conference Blinken’s announcement came a little more than a week before the United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP26, opens in Glasgow, Scotland, where about 100 world leaders will discuss climate change and how to combat it. In Glasgow, “the entire planet is hoping for important announcements — actions,” he said. The secretary was wrapping up a trip to Ecuador and Colombia …

The U.S. state of Texas on Thursday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to leave in place its restrictive law banning most abortions after the administration of President Joe Biden had asked the country’s highest court to block the statute.  In its court filing, Texas, the second most populous U.S. state, defended an order by a three-judge 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel that allowed the anti-abortion law to go back into effect after a lower-court judge put it on hold.   The state contended, “In sum, far from being demonstrably wrong, the Fifth Circuit’s conclusion that Texas is likely to prevail was entirely right.” It told the high court there was no reason to rush into a decision pending further review at the appellate level.  The Biden administration has argued that the law is “clearly unconstitutional” because it bans abortions at roughly six weeks of a pregnancy, long before a fetus can survive outside the womb. In its major abortion rulings, the Supreme Court has made it clear that states can regulate but not prohibit abortions before the point of fetal viability, about 22 to 24 weeks into a pregnancy.  Since the law went into effect, clinics in Texas say abortions in the state are down by about 80%, with women going to clinics in other states to obtain abortions.  The Texas abortion law is unique in that it also gives private citizens the right to sue anyone who performs or assists a woman in getting an abortion. Individual citizens …

More than just altering the environment, climate change is threatening to permanently and dangerously reshape the global security landscape, according to a series of new assessments by U.S. military, intelligence and security officials. The reports, ordered earlier this year by U.S. President Joe Biden as part of an effort to better confront the impact of climate change, warn no country will be spared, and that some parts of the world already may be reaching a tipping point. “As climate change converges with other drivers — especially geostrategic competition, emerging technology and global-demographic trends — it is reshaping the risk landscape,” the Department of Homeland Security said in its climate change strategic framework, released Thursday. “The corrosive impact of these trends will make nations increasingly vulnerable to domestic instability, with sweeping implications for regional and border security and core national security interests,” it added. Preparing for calamities Defense officials said they are already being forced to prepare for worst-case scenarios, from mass migration events to shifts in the balance of power in key regions to the possibility some countries could collapse outright, spawning “instability across the globe.” “Competitive advantage in the future will go to those who can fight and win in this rapidly changing strategic and physical environment,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. The Pentagon’s risk assessment warned climate change is likely to spark instability in at least four regions – the Middle East and South Asia, Africa, Europe, and Central and South America – with three of them likely to see …

A global giant in technology completes a space launch as it aims to eventually send a probe to the moon. Plus, NASA launches its latest deep-space explorer and a look at a robot that turns humidity into drinking water. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space. …

The largest triceratops skeleton ever found was sold for $7.74 million Thursday at an auction in Paris to a private American collector.  In a statement on its website, the Drouot auction house said the fossilized remains of “Big John,” as the skeleton is known, was expected to go for between $1.4 and $1.7 million. But they said the prehistoric remains aroused the enthusiasm of bidders onsite at the auction house, on the phone and online.  An anonymous U.S. collector finally won the bidding battle. A representative for the buyer told reporters “the individual is absolutely thrilled with the idea of being able to bring a piece like this to his personal use.”  Triceratops, which means “three-horned face” in Latin, was a large plant-eating dinosaur that lived between 66 million and 84 million years ago. It was distinctive for the two large horns on its forehead and a third on its nose. Big John is named after the owner of the parcel of land where the bones were discovered in 2014 in the upper midwestern U.S. state of South Dakota. Experts say Big John is unique and rare among dinosaur fossils because more than 60% of its skeleton and 75% of its skull are complete.  Last year, a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton was sold in New York for a record-breaking $31.8 million. Paleontologists say enthusiasm for dinosaur bones by private collectors is pricing them out of reach of the world’s museums.  Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters, …

Worsening climate change requires that the United States do much more to track, ease and manage flows of refugees fleeing natural disasters, the Biden administration said Thursday in what it billed as the federal government’s first deep look at the problem. The report recommends a range of steps: doing more to monitor for floods or other disasters likely to create climate refugees, targeting U.S. aid that can allow people to ride out droughts or storms in their own countries, and examining legal protections for refugees driven from their countries partly because of worsening climate. It also urges creation of a task force to coordinate U.S. management of climate change and migration across government, from climate scientists to aid and security officials. Each year, hurricanes, the failure of seasonal rains and other sudden natural disasters force an average of 21.5 million people from their homes around the world, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees says. Worsening climate from the burning of coal and gas already is intensifying a range of disasters, from wildfires overrunning towns in California, rising seas overtaking island nations and drought-aggravated conflict in some parts of the world. “Policy and programming efforts made today and in coming years will impact estimates of people moving due to climate-related factors,” the report said. It was ordered by President Joe Biden and compiled recommendations of federal agencies across government. “Tens of millions of people, however, are likely to be displaced over the next two to three decades due in large measure …

With the U.N. Climate Change Conference set to begin in less than two weeks, a vital piece of the Biden administration’s climate agenda is in danger of dying in the U.S. Senate, at the hands of a member of the president’s own party. Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat who represents the state of West Virginia, has said he will not support the most important clean energy provisions in the administration’s “Build Back Better” package of infrastructure and social spending programs. Because the Democrats have only 50 seats in the 100-member Senate, and expect zero votes from Republicans, Manchin can kill the entire bill by withholding his vote. Last week, he indicated he would do just that if the Clean Energy Performance Program, considered the centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s climate plan, were part of the bill. The CEPP would reward electricity producers that begin converting to renewable energy at a rate of 4% per year or greater, and penalize those that do not. The economy of Manchin’s home state is disproportionately reliant on fossil fuel, so oil and gas firms, coal mining operations and natural gas pipeline companies all wield significant political muscle. The coal industry in West Virginia would be particularly hurt by the CEPP, because 90% of the electricity produced in the state comes from coal-fired power plants. This week, Manchin also rejected a different effort to meet the administration’s emission reduction goals, this time by imposing a tax on carbon. To the frustration of many in his party, …

Scientists temporarily attached a pig’s kidney to a human body and watched it begin to work, a small step in the decades-long quest to one day use animal organs for lifesaving transplants. Pigs have been the most recent research focus to address the organ shortage, but among the hurdles: A sugar in pig cells, foreign to the human body, causes immediate organ rejection. The kidney for this experiment came from a gene-edited animal, engineered to eliminate that sugar and avoid an immune system attack. Surgeons attached the pig kidney to a pair of large blood vessels outside the body of a deceased recipient so they could observe it for two days. The kidney did what it was supposed to do — filter waste and produce urine — and didn’t trigger rejection. “It had absolutely normal function,” said Dr. Robert Montgomery, who led the surgical team last month at NYU Langone Health in New York. “It didn’t have this immediate rejection that we have worried about.” This research is “a significant step,” said Dr. Andrew Adams of the University of Minnesota Medical School, who was not part of the work. It will reassure patients, researchers and regulators “that we’re moving in the right direction.” The dream of animal-to-human transplants, or xenotransplantation, dates to the 17th century with stumbling attempts to use animal blood for transfusions. By the 20th century, surgeons were attempting transplants of organs from baboons into humans, notably Baby Fae, a dying infant, who lived 21 days with a …

A French woman of African origin is leading a campaign to encourage more members of France’s African diaspora to register as bone marrow donors to potentially save lives. Elhame Lecoeur filed this report for VOA from Paris, narrated by Michael Lipin. Camera: Elhame Lecoeur Produced by: Marcus Harton …

A French woman of African origin is leading a campaign to encourage more members of France’s African diaspora to register as bone marrow donors to potentially save lives. Elhame Lecoeur filed this report for VOA from Paris, narrated by Michael Lipin. …

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a vaccine mandate for city workers Wednesday. The order calls for employees, including police officers and firefighters, to have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by October 29 or else they will be placed on unpaid leave. The mayor’s office said the mandate applies to about 160,500 workers, and that 71% of them have already received one COVID-19 vaccine dose. “There is no greater privilege than serving the people of New York City, and that privilege comes with a responsibility to keep yourself and your community safe,” de Blasio said in a statement. …

Authors of a new report on Africa’s climate warn the continent is heating up more and faster than other regions in the world, and they said Africa needs immediate financial and technological assistance to adapt to the warming environment. The African continent is home to 17% of the global population but is responsible for less than 4% of greenhouse gas emissions, which are leading to climate change. The report finds changing precipitation patterns, rising temperatures and extreme weather triggered by climate change are happening globally, but notes these events are occurring with greater frequency and intensity in Africa.  Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, Petteri Taalas said there were 700 major disasters on the continent last year. He said more than half have been flooding events, and one-sixth have been storming and drought events, respectively.  “We have seen almost 100 million people who have suffered of food insecurity, and they needed humanitarian assistance … and the combined events of conflicts, climate hazards, and especially this COVID-19, they have been contributing to the increase of 40% of food insecurity,” Taalas said This multi-agency report, entitled State of the Climate in Africa 2020, was coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization, with the help of the African Union Commission and various U.N. agencies. The report finds the warming trend over the last three decades in all African subregions was stronger than in the previous 30 years. During this period, it said Africa has warmed faster than the global average temperature over land and ocean combined.  It …

The Israeli Antiquities Authority said Tuesday that a diver swimming in the Mediterranean Sea has recovered a large sword that experts believe to be about 900 years old, dating back to the Crusades. The antiquities authority’s Director of Marine Archaeology, Kobi Sharvit, said the amateur diver was swimming about 150 meters offshore near the Israeli port of Haifa a few days ago when he spotted the sword lying on the ocean floor, four to five meters below the surface. Sharvit said the diver recovered the sword and immediately took it to the antiquities authority. Sharvit said the sword — encrusted with marine organisms when discovered –is the most complete and well preserved he has seen in 31 years. He described the sword as large, heavy and made of iron.   He added that the one-meter-long blade, hilt and handle were distinctive and highly noticeable after undercurrents apparently shifted sands that had concealed it. Sharvit said because the sword was found in a cove, not far from the Crusader castle of Atlit on the northern coast of Israel, it is being assumed the sword belonged to a solder in the Crusades. The Crusades were a series of medieval European Christian-led military expeditions to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries.  Sharvit said that from an historical perspective, the handle of the sword may be the most important part of the weapon as that is where decorations, and perhaps, even names or initials are often …