The Albinism Association of Nigeria is petitioning the government to resume free cancer treatment for albinos. It was stopped years ago because of a lack of funding. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja. …
Boeing Nails ISS Roundtrip After Setbacks
Two-and-a-half years after its first failed attempt, the world’s largest aerospace manufacturer scores in a roundtrip mission to the International Space Station. Plus, the European Space Agency expects continued diplomacy aboard the ISS. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. …
Five Ways Climate Change Is Making Poor People Poorer
Heat waves like the ones roasting South Asia this year don’t just sap people’s strength. They drain people’s finances in ways that are not always obvious. It’s one of the ways climate change is weighing on the economy and making poor people poorer. “These effects are global, they are pronounced, and they are persistent,” said Teevrat Garg, an economist at the University of California-San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy. South Asia is especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change-driven heat waves. But temperature extremes are becoming more common worldwide as the planet warms. Too hot to work March and April were the hottest or near-hottest months on record across South Asia. Climate change made this heat wave about 100 times more likely, according to the U.K. Met Office. The heat has been brutal for farmers, construction workers and anyone who has to work outside. That’s about half the workforce in South Asia. “Wage laborers like us work despite the heat,” Indian construction worker Kushilal Mandal told Agence France-Presse in April. “We won’t be able to eat if we don’t work.” At these temperatures, heatstroke and even death are real risks. Many work sites shut down early. But that means lost wages. The U.N. International Labor Organization says that in 2030, hours lost to heat worldwide will be the equivalent of losing at least 80 million full-time jobs. Lower earnings for outdoor work It doesn’t take a full work stoppage to hurt workers’ wages. People just can’t do …
Sanctions Frustrating Russian Ransomware Actors
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine appears to be having an unanticipated impact in cyberspace — a decrease in the number of ransomware attacks. “We have seen a recent decline since the Ukrainian invasion,” Rob Joyce, the U.S. National Security Agency’s director of cybersecurity, told a virtual forum Wednesday. Joyce said one reason for the decrease in ransomware attacks since the February 24 invasion is likely improved awareness and defensive measures by U.S. businesses. He also said some of it is tied to measures the United States and its Western allies have taken against Moscow in response to the war in Ukraine. “We’ve definitively seen the criminal actors in Russia complain that the functions of sanctions and the distance of their ability to use credit cards and other payment methods to get Western infrastructure to run these [ransomware] attacks have become much more difficult,” Joyce told The Cipher Brief’s Cyber Initiatives Group. “We’ve seen that have an impact on their [Russia’s] operations,” he added. “It’s driving the trend down a little bit.” Just days after Russian forces entered Ukraine, U.S. cybersecurity officials renewed their “Shields Up” awareness campaign, encouraging companies to take additional security precautions to protect against potential cyberattacks by Russia itself or by criminal hackers working on Moscow’s behalf. And those officials caution Russia still has the capability to inflict more damage in cyberspace. “Russia is continuing to explore options for potential cyberattacks,” the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Matthew Hartman told a meeting of the U.S. Chamber …
Six Ways Climate Change Is Making Poor People Poorer
Heat waves like the ones roasting South Asia this year don’t just sap people’s strength. They drain people’s finances in ways that are not always obvious. It’s one of the ways climate change is weighing on the economy and making poor people poorer. “These effects are global, they are pronounced, and they are persistent,” said Teevrat Garg, an economist at the University of California-San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy. South Asia is especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change-driven heat waves. But temperature extremes are becoming more common worldwide as the planet warms. Too hot to work March and April were the hottest or near-hottest months on record across South Asia. Climate change made this heat wave about 100 times more likely, according to the U.K. Met Office. The heat has been brutal for farmers, construction workers and anyone who has to work outside. That’s about half the workforce in South Asia. “Wage laborers like us work despite the heat,” Indian construction worker Kushilal Mandal told Agence France-Presse in April. “We won’t be able to eat if we don’t work.” At these temperatures, heatstroke and even death are real risks. Many work sites shut down early. But that means lost wages. The U.N. International Labor Organization says that in 2030, hours lost to heat worldwide will be the equivalent of losing at least 80 million full-time jobs. Lower earnings for outdoor work It doesn’t take a full work stoppage to hurt workers’ wages. People just can’t do …
Pfizer to Offer Low-Cost Medicines, Vaccines to Poor Nations
Pfizer said Wednesday that it will provide nearly two dozen products, including its top-selling COVID-19 vaccine and treatment, at not-for-profit prices in some of the world’s poorest countries. The drugmaker announced the program at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland, and said it was aimed at improving health equity in 45 lower-income countries. Most of the countries are in Africa, but the list also includes Haiti, Syria, Cambodia and North Korea. The products, which are widely available in the U.S. and the European Union, include 23 medicines and vaccines that treat infectious diseases, some cancers and rare and inflammatory conditions. Company spokeswoman Pam Eisele said only a small number of the medicines and vaccines are currently available in the 45 countries. New York-based Pfizer will charge only manufacturing costs and “minimal” distribution expenses, Eisele said. It will comply with any sanctions and all other applicable laws. The drugmaker also plans to provide help with public education, training for health care providers and drug supply management. “What we discovered through the pandemic was that supply was not enough to resolve the issues that these countries are having,” Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla said Wednesday during a talk at Davos. He noted that billions of doses of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine, Comirnaty, have been offered for free to low-income countries, mainly through the U.S. government, but those doses can’t be used right now. Earlier this month, the head of the World Health Organization called on Pfizer to make …
Climate-Driven Heat Waves Can Increase Inequality
March and April were the hottest or near-hottest months on record across South Asia. Heat waves don’t just sap people’s strength; they can drain people’s finances. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more. …
Climate-Driven Heat Waves Increasing Inequality
March and April were the hottest or near-hottest months on record across South Asia. And climate change made this heat wave 100 times more likely, the U.K. Met Office says. Heat waves like these don’t just sap people’s strength; they drain people’s finances in not always obvious ways —just another example of how climate change is weighing on the economy and making poor people poorer. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more. …
Tedros Re-Elected as Head of World Health Organization
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) members re-elected Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as director general by a strong majority for another five years, the president of the World Health Assembly said on Tuesday. The vote by secret ballot, announced by Ahmed Robleh Abdilleh from Djibouti at a major annual meeting, was seen as a formality since Tedros was the only candidate running. Ministers and delegates took turns to shake hands and hug Tedros, a former health minister from Ethiopia, who has steered the U.N. agency through a turbulent period dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The president had to use a gavel several times to interrupt the applause. German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach tweeted on Tuesday: “Just re-elected as Director General of #WHO: @DrTedros. 155/160 votes, spectacular result. Congratulations, fully deserved.” Germany recently overtook the United States as the U.N. health agency’s top donor. …
Malawi Rolls Out Cholera Vaccine to Contain Outbreak
Malawi has rolled out a vaccination campaign to help stop an outbreak of cholera. Authorities report more than 350 cases and 17 deaths from cholera across eight districts of southern Malawi. Malawi’s Ministry of Health declared the cholera outbreak in early March after the first case was confirmed in the Machinga district in southern Malawi. The disease has so far spread to eight districts including Nsanje, Chikwawa and Blantyre. In its latest report on Monday, the ministry said the country had recorded 367 cholera cases in all with 17 deaths and 19 hospital admissions. Dr. Gertrude Chapotera represented the World Health Organization at the launch of the vaccination campaign Monday in Blantyre. She said the campaign is running with support from various global partners, including the Gavi Vaccine Alliance and the Global Task for Cholera Control. “We are supporting the Ministry of Health with up to 3.9 million doses that will be administered in two rounds,” she said. “So this actually is the beginning of the first round with the campaign starting from today the 23rd of May running up Friday this week the 27th of May.” Cholera is an acute diarrheal infection caused by ingesting food or water contaminated with bacteria. The disease affects both children and adults and, if untreated, can kill within hours. Dr. Gift Kawalazila is director of Health and Social Services in Blantyre. He says the district has so far seen nearly 100 cases of cholera, with five deaths but only three hospital admissions as …
Meta Returns with Africa Day Campaign
Meta, the company that owns Facebook, is hosting its second annual Africa Day campaign to promote Africans who are making a global impact. The content producer for the film project, South African filmmaker Tarryn Crossman, said Meta identified eight innovators, creators and businesspeople on the continent whose stories the company wanted told for the “Made by Africa, Loved by the World” campaign. Crossman’s company, Tia Productions, teamed up with Mashoba Media to find four fellow filmmakers in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Their job was to make two- to three-minute documentaries about the subjects. “So, for example we did Trevor Stuurman here in South Africa,” Crossman said. “He’s a visual artist and his line was, I just loved so much, he says: ‘Africa’s no longer the ghost writer.’ We’re telling our stories and owning our own narratives. That’s kind of the thread amongst all these characters. They all have that in common.” Nairobi-based filmmaker Joan Kabangu made a movie about Black Rhino VR, a Kenyan virtual reality content producing company which has worked with international brands. “They are the pioneers around creating VR content, 360 content, augmented mixed reality kind of content in Kenya, in the wider Africa. And it’s a company which is run by a young person and everybody who is working there is fairly young. And they are really getting into how tech is being used to elevate the way we are creating content in 2022, going forward,” Kabangu said. Of Meta’s Africa …
Facebook, Instagram to Reveal More on How Ads Target Users
Facebook parent Meta said it will start publicly providing more details about how advertisers target people with political ads just months ahead of the U.S. midterm elections. The announcement follows years of criticism that the social media platforms withhold too much information about how campaigns, special interest groups and politicians use the platform to target small pockets of people with polarizing, divisive or misleading messages. Meta, which also owns Instagram, said it will start releasing details in July about the demographics and interests of audiences who are targeted with ads that run on its two primary social networks. The company will also share how much advertisers spent in an effort to target people in certain states. “By making advertiser targeting criteria available for analysis and reporting on ads run about social issues, elections and politics, we hope to help people better understand the practices used to reach potential voters on our technologies,” Jeff King wrote in a statement posted to Meta’s website. The new details could shed more light on how politicians spread misleading or controversial political messages among certain groups of people. Advocacy groups and Democrats, for example, have argued for years that misleading political ads are overwhelming the Facebook feeds of Spanish-speaking populations. The information will be showcased in the Facebook ad library, a public database that already shows how much companies, politicians or campaigns spend on each ad they run across Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp. Currently, anyone can see how much a page has spent running an …
WHO Says No Evidence Monkeypox Virus Has Mutated
The World Health Organization does not have evidence that the monkeypox virus has mutated, a senior executive at the U.N. agency said on Monday, noting the infectious disease that is endemic in west and central Africa has tended not to change. Rosamund Lewis, head of the smallpox secretariat which is part of the WHO Emergencies Program told a briefing that mutations are typically lower with this virus, although genome sequencing of cases will help inform understanding of the current outbreak. The more than 100 suspected and confirmed cases in the recent outbreak in Europe and North America have not been severe, the WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonoses lead and technical lead on COVID-19, Maria van Kerkhove, said. “This is a containable situation,” she said. The outbreaks are atypical, according to the WHO, as they are occurring in countries where the virus does not regularly circulate. Scientists are seeking to understand the origin of the cases and whether anything about the virus has changed. …
COVID Pandemic, Ukraine War Color WHO International Meeting
The Ukraine war, with disease and destruction following in its wake, loomed large Sunday as the WHO convened countries to address a still raging pandemic and a vast array of other global health challenges. “Where war goes, hunger and disease follow shortly behind,” World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on the opening day of the U.N. agency’s main annual assembly. The assembly, due to run through Saturday, marks the first time the WHO is convening its 194 member states for their first largely in-person gathering since COVID-19 surfaced in late 2019. Tedros warned that important work at the assembly to address a long line of global health emergencies and challenges, including the COVID-19 crisis, could not succeed “in a divided world.” “We face a formidable convergence of disease, drought, famine and war, fueled by climate change, inequity and geopolitical rivalry,” he warned. The former Ethiopian health minister said he was viewing the ravages in Ukraine through a personal lens: “I am a child of war.” In Ukraine and elsewhere, he said, it is clear peace “is a prerequisite for health. We must choose health for peace, and peace, peace, peace.” But it was war that dominated the high-level speeches on the first day of the assembly. “The consequences of this war are devastating, to health, to populations, to health facilities and to health personnel,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a video address. He called on all member states to support a resolution to be presented by Ukraine …
Solar Crowdfunding Project Benefiting Zimbabwe’s Farmers
A South African company that promotes solar power and uses crowdsourcing to raise capital is financing a solar-powered farm in Zimbabwe that is also benefiting neighboring farmers. The company, The Sun Exchange, raised $1.4 million for the farm. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Marondera, Zimbabwe. …
With Roe in Doubt, Some Fear Tech Surveillance of Pregnancy
When Chandler Jones realized she was pregnant during her junior year of college, she turned to a trusted source for information and advice. Her cellphone. “I couldn’t imagine before the internet, trying to navigate this,” said Jones, 26, who graduated Tuesday from the University of Baltimore School of Law. “I didn’t know if hospitals did abortions. I knew Planned Parenthood did abortions, but there were none near me. So I kind of just Googled.” But with each search, Jones was being surreptitiously followed — by the phone apps and browsers that track us as we click away, capturing even our most sensitive health data. Online searches. Period apps. Fitness trackers. Advice helplines. GPS. The often obscure companies collecting our health history and geolocation data may know more about us than we know ourselves. For now, the information is mostly used to sell us things, like baby products targeted to pregnant women. But in a post-Roe world — if the Supreme Court upends the 1973 decision that legalized abortion, as a draft opinion suggests it may in the coming weeks — the data would become more valuable, and women more vulnerable. Privacy experts fear that pregnancies could be surveilled and the data shared with police or sold to vigilantes. “The value of these tools for law enforcement is for how they really get to peek into the soul,” said Cynthia Conti-Cook, a lawyer and technology fellow at the Ford Foundation. “It gives [them] the mental chatter inside our heads.” HIPAA, hotlines, …
US High Schoolers Design Low-Cost Filter to Remove Lead From Water
When the pandemic forced schools into remote learning, Washington-area science teacher Rebecca Bushway set her students an ambitious task: design and build a low-cost lead filter that attaches to faucets and removes the toxic metal. Using 3D printing and high school-level chemistry, the team now has a working prototype — a 7.5-centimeter-tall filter housing made of biodegradable plastic, which they hope to eventually bring to market for $1 apiece. “The science is straightforward,” Bushway told AFP on a recent visit to the Barrie Middle and Upper School in suburban Maryland, where she demonstrated the filter in action. “I thought, ‘We have these 3D printers. What if we make something like this?’” Bushway has presented the prototype at four conferences, including the prestigious spring meeting of the American Chemistry Society, and plans to move forward with a paper in a peer-reviewed journal. Up to 10 million U.S. homes still receive water through lead pipes, with exposure particularly harmful during childhood. The metal, which evades a key defense of the body known as the blood-brain-barrier, can cause permanent loss of cognitive abilities and contribute to psychological problems that aggravate enduring cycles of poverty. A serious contamination problem uncovered in Flint, Michigan, in 2014 is perhaps the most famous recent disaster — but lead poisoning is widespread and disproportionately impacts African Americans and other minorities, explained Barrie team member Nia Frederick. “And I think that’s something we can help with,” she said. The harms of lead poisoning have been known for decades, but …
WHO Expects More Cases of Monkeypox to Emerge Globally
The World Health Organization said it expects to identify more cases of monkeypox as it expands surveillance in countries where the disease is not typically found. As of Saturday, 92 confirmed cases and 28 suspected cases of monkeypox have been reported from 12 member states that are not endemic for the virus, the U.N. agency said, adding it will provide further guidance and recommendations in the coming days for countries on how to mitigate the spread of monkeypox. “Available information suggests that human-to-human transmission is occurring among people in close physical contact with cases who are symptomatic,” the agency added. Monkeypox is an infectious disease that is usually mild and is endemic in parts of west and central Africa. It is spread by close contact, so it can be relatively easily contained through such measures as self-isolation and hygiene. “What seems to be happening now is that it has got into the population as a sexual form, as a genital form, and is being spread as are sexually transmitted infections, which has amplified its transmission around the world,” WHO official David Heymann, an infectious disease specialist, told Reuters. Heymann said an international committee of experts met via video conference to look at what needed to be studied about the outbreak and communicated to the public, including whether there is any asymptomatic spread, who are at most risk, and the various routes of transmission. He said the meeting was convened “because of the urgency of the situation.” The committee is not …
China’s COVID Lockdowns May Affect iPhone Shipments
The Apple Store at Union Square, the heart of San Francisco’s upscale tourist district, had drawn more than 30 customers within a few minutes of opening Friday morning. Visitors, couples and even a preschool-age boy browsed the atrium packed with iPhone 13s and watches to try out. A sign urged people to trade in old phones to save money on the 13s. But a staff member could not say when the iPhone 14 would come out — presumably sometime this year — or what it would cost. Some shoppers wondered whether it would be delayed or cost more than expected given the months of supply chain disruptions in China, where the phones are made. “This stuff has got to hit hard at some point,” said Bill Kimberlin, an Apple Store shopper from San Francisco. Apple, based in the Silicon Valley, just 50 miles south of San Francisco, outsources iPhone parts from around East Asia, and its handsets are assembled in China. Apple had to delay product rollouts first in 2020, when new gear was held up for a month because of China’s first COVID-19 wave, said Rachel Liao, senior industry analyst with the Taipei-based Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute. In the first quarter this year, she said, lockdowns in China suspended assembly plants, including at least one operated by Pegatron. Pegatron is the No. 2 iPhone assembler, with 25% of orders, after Foxconn. Both companies are based in Taiwan but manufacture in China. Since 2020, the costs of making the …
North Korea Reports More Fevers as Kim Claims Virus Progress
North Korea said Saturday it found nearly 220,000 more people with feverish symptoms even as leader Kim Jong Un claimed progress in slowing a largely undiagnosed spread of COVID-19 across an unvaccinated population of 26 million. The outbreak has caused concern about serious tragedies in the poor, isolated country with one of the world’s worst health care systems and a high tolerance for civilian suffering. Experts say North Korea is almost certainly downplaying the true scale of the viral spread, including a strangely small death toll, to soften the political blow on Kim as he navigates the toughest moment in his decade of rule. Around 219,030 North Koreans with fevers were identified in the 24 hours through 6 p.m. Friday, the fifth straight daily increase of around 200,000, according to the North’s Korean Central News Agency, which attributed the information to the government’s anti-virus headquarters. North Korea said more than 2.4 million people have fallen ill and 66 people have died since an unidentified fever began quickly spreading in late April, although the country has only been able to identify a handful of those cases as COVID-19 due to a lack of testing supplies. After maintaining a dubious claim for 2 1/2 years that it had perfectly blocked the virus from entering its territory, the North admitted to omicron infections last week. Amid a paucity of public health tools, the North has mobilized more than a million health workers to find people with fevers and isolate them at quarantine facilities. …
Musk Visits Brazil’s Bolsonaro to Discuss Amazon Rainforest Plans
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk met with Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday to discuss connectivity and other projects in the Amazon rainforest. The meeting, held in a luxurious resort in Sao Paulo state, was organized by Communications Minister Fabio Faria, who has said he is seeking partnerships with the world’s richest man to bring or improve internet in schools and health facilities in rural areas using technology developed by SpaceX and Starlink, and also to preserve the rainforest. “Super excited to be in Brazil for launch of Starlink for 19,000 unconnected schools in rural areas & environmental monitoring of Amazon,” Musk tweeted Friday morning. Illegal activities in the vast Amazon rainforest are monitored by several institutions, such as the national space agency, federal police and environmental regulator Ibama. But deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has surged under Bolsonaro, reaching its highest annual rate in more than a decade, according to official data from the national space agency. Bolsonaro’s critics say he is largely to blame, having emboldened loggers and land grabbers with his fervent support for development of the region. During the event, Bolsonaro said the region was “really important” to Brazil. “We count on Elon Musk so that the Amazon is known by everyone in Brazil and in the world, to show the exuberance of this region, how we are preserving it, and how much harm those who spread lies about this region are doing to us,” he said. Bolsonaro and Musk appeared in a video transmitted …
Scanning the Corpse’s Face: Ukrainians Using Facial Recognition Technology to Identify Russian Soldiers
The Ukrainian government is using facial recognition software to identify Russian soldiers captured and dead. VOA’s Julie Taboh spoke with one software company CEO and an official with the Ukrainian national police about how the technology is contributing to the war effort …
African Scientists Baffled by Monkeypox Cases in Europe, US
Scientists who have monitored numerous outbreaks of monkeypox in Africa say they are baffled by the disease’s recent spread in Europe and North America. Cases of the smallpox-related disease have previously been seen only among people with links to central and West Africa. But in the past week, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, U.S., Sweden and Canada all reported infections, mostly in young men who hadn’t previously traveled to Africa. France, Germany, Belgium and Australia confirmed their first cases Friday. “I’m stunned by this. Every day I wake up and there are more countries infected,” said Oyewale Tomori, a virologist who formerly headed the Nigerian Academy of Science and who sits on several World Health Organization advisory boards. “This is not the kind of spread we’ve seen in West Africa, so there may be something new happening in the West,” he said. To date, no one has died in the outbreak. Monkeypox typically causes fever, chills, a rash and lesions on the face, hands or genitals. WHO estimates the disease is fatal for up to 1 in 10 people, but smallpox vaccines are protective, and some antiviral drugs are being developed. British health officials are exploring whether the disease is being sexually transmitted. Health officials have asked doctors and nurses to be on alert for potential cases but said the risk to the general population is low. The European Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommended all suspected cases be isolated and that high-risk contacts be offered smallpox vaccine. Nigeria reports …
In Paris, Green Forum Traces More Durable Footprint for the Planet
People suffering from eco-anxiety — the fear of environmental catastrophe — may get a boost from a green forum in Paris this week. Gathering hundreds of eco-entrepreneurs, companies and activists, ChangeNOW aims to trace a sustainable blueprint for the future. From food to fashion, technology to transport, a raft of green solutions for our resource-sucking society is parked through Saturday inside a massive events venue — made of sustainable materials — in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. “It’s 35 days to reach Madagascar from Marseille. Going through the Suez Canal. And we are using the wind. It helps us to save up to 60 percent energy,” says Louise Chopinet who heads a Brittany-based shipping startup called Windcoop. Its wind-powered sailing vessels carry about 14,000 tons of cargo per trip. For now, that means spices from Madagascar farmers. With the shipping industry challenged to become carbon neutral by 2050, sailing is taking off. “It’s really a growing interest now. Everyone is getting into sails and wind,” she noted. Berlin-based Noa Climate also works in Africa. It sells systems that recycle organic waste into energy in places far from power grids. Noa’s Janine Gadke says the company works with financial partners so poor communities can buy products on credit. “In Kenya, we have a project in an orphanage, they have a system on location … they can get electricity and everything. And they feed the system with kitchen waste,” Gadke expressed. ChangeNOW is considered one of the biggest global green events …